true English man will not easily be induc'd to swerve from a Doctrine delivered him so Authentically by his famous Ancestours I hope by this time your Curiosity is at an end I am sure my patience is for I am quite tired with talking so long of a matter which seems to me to afford little more advantage than to know which of those Authors who treat this Subject is the best Schollar and talks most rationally For as I said before the Church has no waies interpos'd in the business and possibly it is a thing not very proper for her to meddle with She has receiv'd from Christ and delivers to us That Obedience to our Princes is commanded by God and to be performed not only for Fear but for Conscience And this being agreed by all and acknowledged for unquestioned and unquestionable Truth The rest of the speculations may serve for entertainment of those who delight in them and for the rest seem of little concern till people speculate themselves into opposition to that so certain and so certainly known Doctrine and then they turn not only bad Schollars but bad men if they see what they do however dangerous and as such are to be treated For my part I cannot guess what use you would make of this Immediate Power of which you are so curious unless perhaps you think the security of Kings not sufficiently provided for without it and that they may otherwise be oblig'd to render an account of their actions not only to God but to those by whose mediation they have receiv'd their Power and so a principal and necessary Prerogative taken from them But this is so positively and expresly setled by unquestionable Authority that 't is very needless and rather prejudicial to have recourse to a ground which some question when the thing it self is so unanimously agreed that none questions it Witness S. Cyril Alex. in Joan. L. 12. C. 56. None offend the laws of Kings without punishment but Kings themselves in whom this crime of prevarication has no place for it was wisely said that he is an impious man who saies to the King You do wickedly S. Ambrose Apolog. David c. 10. To Thee only have I sinned for he was a King subject himself to no Laws because Kings are free from the bonds of delinquency For no Laws punish them who are safe by the power of their Empire and he sinned not to Man to whom he was not accountable And Cap. 4. They who are subject to Laws dare to deny their sin and scorn to ask pardon which he ask'd who was subject to no humane Laws Again L. 2. Ep. 7. For supported by his regal dignity as Lord of the Laws he was not guilty to the Law he was accountable to God alone because he is Lord of Power Again upon Psal 118. Serm. 16. He who had not man to fear saies I have sinned to Thee alone c. A King though he have Laws in his power and may sin without punishment is nevertheless subject to God S. Hierom Ep. 46. ad Rustic I was a King and feared no other man for he had no other above him V. Bede upon Psal 50. To Thee alone have I sinned For a King if he sin sins only to God for none else shall punish him for his sin Agapet ad Justinian in Paraenet Impose upon your self a necessity to keep the Laws since you have not on earth who may correct you Isidor Hispal Sent. L. 3. C. 50. People that sin fear the Judge and are by the Laws restrained from their own harm Kings unless they be restrain'd by the only fear of God and Hell run headlong on and from the precipice of Licentious liberty fall into all sorts of Vice Arnob. in Psal 50. Whoever lives under the Law when he offends sins against God and also against the Laws of the World But this King being under none but God alone and only fearing him above his own power sinned to God alone Didymus Cat. Aurea in Psal 50. As he was a King he was not subject to humane Laws wherefore he sinned not against them who made the Laws nor committed this evil against any of them but as to his Regal dignity if he would be Vertuous he was subject to the Divine Law and therefore sinned to God alone Lactantius de Justit L. 5. C. 24. Let not bad Princes and unjust Persecutors who scorn and scoff at the Name of God think they shall scape without Punishment for they shall be punisht by the Judgment of God He commands us patiently to expect that day of Divine Judgment in which he will honour or punish every one according to his deserts Gregory of Tours L. 5. Hist c. 17. If any of us O King will stray from the path of Justice he may be punisht by you But if you leave it your self who shall reprehend you We speak to you and if you please you hear us if you will not who shall condemn you but He who has declar'd himself to be Justice Hincmarus apud Bochell Decret Eccles Gallic L. 2. Tit. 16. c. 2. goes farther and I know not whether not too far Wise men say this Prince is subject to the Laws and Judgment of none but God who made him King in that Kingdom which his Father allotted him And if he will for this or any other cause he may at his pleasure go to the Synod and if he will not he may freely dismiss it And as he ought not whatever he do be excommunicated by his own Bishops so by other Bishops he cannot be judged since he ought be subject to the principality of God alone by whom alone he could be placed in his own principality For my part I cannot agree to the denyal of the power of Excommunicating in Bishops and yet St. Austin is cited Gloss in 13. Math. to say That the multitude is not to be Excommunicated nor the Prince of the people Euthimius in Psal 50. Being a King and having you alone for Judge of the sins I commit I seem to have sinn'd to you alone that is I am subject to you alone as my Judge of all the rest I my self am Lord and in respect of my power it seems I may do whatever I list Haymo in Psal 50. I have sinned to Thee alone because being a King none is to punish my sin but you alone St. Thomas 1 2. Q. 96. Art 5. making this Conclusion That all are subject to the Laws and this Objection from the Law That the Prince is free from the Law Answers That the Prince is free from the Law for as much as concerns the Co-active power because none can pronounce sentence of Condemnation against him Wherefore the Gloss upon Psal 50. saies That the King has no man who can judge his actions But is subject to the Law as to the directive power by his own proper will c. And so without doubt good Princes are and will observe what themselves command
But if they will not and become bad there is none according to S. Thomas who has power to condemn them Alex. Alensis in Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone because there is no other above me who can punish me For I am a King and none is above me but you alone And Part. 3. A King is above all and therefore to be judged by God alone since he has not any man who can judge his actions nor is to be punisht by man But if any of the People sin they sin both against God and the King Nicholaus de Lyra. I have sinn'd to Thee alone as my Judge and who has power to punish for he had sinned against Vrias and others slain upon this occasion Yet because he was a King he had no superiour Judge to punish him but God Otho Frisingens Ep. ad Frederic before his Chronic. Whilst no person is found in the world who is not subject to the Laws of the world and by that subjection kept in awe Kings alone as being above Laws and reserved to the Divine Judgment are not aw'd by the Laws of the world Witness that both King and Prophet I have sinned to Thee alone Joan. de Turrenm in Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone as my Judge and who has power to punish me because Thou alone art above me who canst judge my Crimes Dio Vega in conc Vespert super Psal 50. con 2. Wherefore leaving them we must go the common way with the Fathers of the Church Hierom Austin Ambrose Chrysostome and Cassiodorus who say that David therefore us'd these words because being a Soveraign King he was subject to none but God accountable to the Laws of none and none but God could punish his sin For a King though he be subject to the Directive power of the Law yet is not to the Coactive Joan. de Pineda upon 34. Job For if a King or Prince will not willingly obey the Law who can oblige or by force constrain him Yet let Princes understand at last that if they do not of their own will keep the Law they shall render an account to the Supream King and be punisht for the Violation of Justice I conclude with a Jesuite Lorinus upon Psal 50. I have sinn'd to Thee alone viz. as alone knowing or having power to punish his sin who was a King and had no Superior None can say Apostate to a King or call Judges wicked unless he will be thought wicked himself as Chrysostom and Nicetas and Cyril in this place note I hope by this time you will acknowledge it was a superfluous care of yours for the security of Princes if that were your reason which made you so sollicitous for the immediate power For whatever become of that this is universally fixt That Kings are accountable to none but God And I think you need not much care what people say in a question disputed amongst Learned men when that for whose sake you desire it should be resolv'd is it self so fully resolv'd to your hand To deal with sincerity I should acquaint you what shifts they make to escape the weight of this Authority who undertake to abett a Power paramount in the Pope But they are such plain shifts that in truth I have not patience to insist upon them Some say this held among the Jewish Kings who were above the Priesthood but holds not among Christians who are subject to it as if Christian Princes were less absolute than those of the Jews or Christianity took away the Right of any body much less Princes I alwaies thought that much good had come to the world by Christian Religion and the concerns of Mankind went on more sweetly and more strongly but that it should be guilty of so great a mischief as to shake the foundations of Government so beneficial and necessary to humane Nature is a scandal which methinks a Christian ear should not hear with patience And Bellarmin give him his due as much a favourer of the Pope as he is in this yet is more a friend to Truth and tells us De Rom. Pont. L. 1. c. 29. That the Gospel deprives no man of his Right and Dominion but gets him a new right to an eternal Kingdom Nor have Kings less power in the New Testament than they had in the old And yet He with his distinctions betwixt Fact and Right Power direct and indirect with one whereof he still endeavours to ward all blows makes as mad work and reduces things to as much confusion I shall say nothing to them more than to entreat you to be Judge your self and consider whether in what I have alledged there be any room for those Inventions and whether the Doctrine be not delivered too plainly to be put off with such evasions And so I come to your Second Point and for the fear you have of Bellarmin's Argument peradventure it were Answer enough to say That S. Bernard understood what was meant by the word Feed as well at least as Bellarmin and he notwithstanding all the Cardinals acuteness tells Pope Eugenius L. 4. c. 3. that to Feed is to Evangelize Perform saies he the work of an Evangelist and you have fulfilled the duty of a Pastour Again Serm. de Resurrect Feed with your Mind with your Mouth with your Actions feed with prayer of the Mind exhortation of the Word proposal of Example I suppose no good Catholic but will side with S. Bernard rather than Bellarmin for as great a Schollar as Bellarmin was he is not yet thought a match for S. Bernard But neither is he alone of this mind Petrus Blesensis saies almost in the same words Ep. 148. What is to Feed the Sheep but to Evangelize to render the People acceptable to God by Word by Work by Example And thus Innocent III. and a great many more are cited by Caron to interpret this word Feed so that all the Cardinal 's subtle speculations upon the metaphor us'd in the Gospel hinder not the Argument from being as insignificant as you and more besides you to my knowledge think it And if I have not yet said enough to it hearken a little to S. Chrysost de Sacerd. L. 2. It is not lawful for a man to cure a Man with the same Authority with which a Shepheard cures his Sheep For here it is free to bind and restrain from pasture and burn and cut There the Medicine and power of the cure is not in him who Administers but in him who is Sick But we shall hear more of him anon Mean time since the Point you have propos'd besides your recommendation deserves in it self more consideration than this Argument Let me tell you for your satisfaction That those who treat these things put many differences betwixt the Spiritual and Civil power from the manner of Institution the ends at which they aim the means they use to their several ends c. That which I conceive most to your purpose is
in the case Whether an Opinion imputed to a Prince be Heresie or no and Whether he hold it or no and would introduce it among his Subjects If both these depend on the Popes Judgment and his Judgment be irrafragable the safety of all Princes lies in his breast and no Prince can be longer secure of his Crown than he is of the Popes favour For the Pope may proceed to Judgment when he pleases and if he be to be obey'd let him Judge how he pleases No Prince can be a Prince longer than he pleases For put the case say they To deny in the Pope a Power to Depose Princes is an opinion which may by this Rule be declared Heresie whenever the Pope thinks convenient The King of France for Example himself holds that Opinion and endeavours his Subjects should do so to This King therefore and I believe it will go as hard with all the rest is Deposable if for no other reason yet for thinking himself not Deposable And so all Kings are without more adoe at the Mercy of the Pope If they acknowledge themselves Deposable they grant the Power and are beholding to him that he puts it not in Execution if they deny it for that very reason they are to be Deposed and are again more to thank him that he does not Depose them when they deserve it To this particular then of the Popes Judgment If it be understood of a Natural Judgment others say they may Judge as well as the Pope whether the Prince deserve to be Depos'd or no and those who live upon the place better as having better information from their Eyes and Ears than he can have from the Report of others But if it be understood of an Authoritative Judgment such whose Sentence obliges People to the Execution of it they deny the Pope or any else has any Authority to Judge in that manner of the Behaviour of Princes For say they the Authority of every Judge is confined to his proper Tribunal a Judge of Assize is no Judge in the Spiritual Court nor is a Bishop a Judge of Assize Now the Pope's is a Spiritual Tribunal and in that he may in fit circumstances judge even of Princes and condemn them if they be faulty and award Spiritual Penalties against them But if he proceed to Temporal Punishments he passes to a Tribunal in which he is no Judge nor his Sentence so given more to be obey'd than that of a Court Marshal in the Common Pleas And to say otherwise were to take all Judges and all Tribunals out of the vvorld besides his own For there is no Action but if well done belongs to Vertue if ill to Vice And He being as much Judge of Vertue as Vice as of Heresie and Faith there is no Action nor can be which by this account does not belong to his Tribunal and so all other Judges are useless For the rest they flatly deny the first Proposition and affirm Subjects are so far from being obliged not to endure an Infidel or Heretic Prince that they are oblig'd to Endure and Obey him too not so far indeed as to turn Infidels or Heretics for his sake nor so far as not to represent his Errours or Miscarriages to him in that dutiful manner which is allowed by the Law and their Allegiance but for the rest let him be never so much an Infidel or Heretic He is still their Prince and as such to be obey'd Bellarmin proves he may not from Deuteron where the Jews are forbid to choose a King who is not a Jew And this seems a little far off For if in Poland for Example the Law were to choose only a Polander or in Germany a German this might very well be true and withal be little to purpose But yet he brings it nearer The Reason of this Law saies he was least by choosing a Stranger they might be brought into Idolatry But there is the same danger and the same mischief in choosing a Prince who is not a Christian and remaining subject to one who becomes no Christian therefore Christians are bound to Depose a Prince who deserts Christianity and endeavours to pervert his Subjects after him This Argument saies the other side makes nothing for the Pope It may seem to countenance the pretensions which Rebellious People make to a Power over their Kings for those are they who Choose and by Consequence are to Depose if this Argument hold but the Pope has no more to do with the one than the other or if he have he has as much right to Choose as Depose For the Law then they acknowledge the Reason assigned by Bellarmin is in likelyhood true but when he assumes that the case of not Choosing and not Obeying a Prince already chosen or otherwise in Lawful possession of the Principality is equally mischievous they think him wonderfully out Before he is Chosen he is no Prince nor have the People any tye to him and while they are at their Liberty they will not do well to Choose ill and subject themselves to a Bad Man But when he is once Chosen or otherwise establisht they are no longer Free but Subject and that for Conscience neither have they any other part in the disposition of the Commonwelth but Obedience This Prince though Election were the means by which he got his Principality yet has it now and that by Divine Right and is truly the Vicar of God whose particular Commission for his Deposition unless it can be produced those who resist him resist the Ordinance of God and acquire Damnation to themselves A Man does ill who chooses a Bad Wife and is bound by the law of Reason to choose a Good one But can he therefore cast her off when he has her and because he did amiss in taking a Scold do worse in leaving her The Cardinals are bound to Choose a Good Man for Pope if they choose a Bad one or he become Bad after his Election Bellarmin will not therefore allow them to Choose another And yet his Argument is every jot as efficacious in that case as in that of Bad Princes A Bad Pope may do as much mischief as a Bad Prince and if the danger and mischief be equal to Choose him and Obey him the Pope is as fully confuted as the Prince But that Bellarmin should impose upon them that the mischief of Choosing and not Deposing is equal and make it a kind of known Principle too and such as needs no proof they take very unkindly at his hands For if they refuse to choose a Bad Man there is no mischief at all nor injury so much as to him who is refused But if a Prince once lawfully Establisht be afterwards cast out there follows Bloodshed and War the Hazard perhaps the Ruine of the Commonwealth So that his equal Cases put the greatest mischiefs that can be on one side and none at all on the other which is a very partial and something unequal
prepared to lose an Earthly Kingdom But 't is ridiculous to say I am ready to be depriv'd of my Kingdom if I renounce my Faith but not by any Sentence of Man but will have Sentence pronounct against me by the Angels in Heaven The Church would be very imprudent to receive into her bosom a Man who would without controul afflict the Members of the Church and not suffer the Faithful to be freed from his Tyranny by any Authority on Earth Thus Bellarmin more zealously than wisely say his Adversaries Such fine discourses never vvere nor are ever likely to be made but by the King of Vtopia Kings vvho receive Christianity think not of such subtleties nor imagine they are to treat with their Spiritual Instructors vvith those nice Cautions which they use in making Leagues and Treaties of War and Peace with their fellow Kings To make Protestations and other provisions of Security against Chances they never do and none but a man cunning in Chican ever would think of as if Baptism were a bargain made in Law wherein if by misfortune the Writings be not exactly drawn a man forfeits his Title to his Purchase or a man becomes liable to Eternal damnation for the fault of a Scrivener is a conceit of a more subtle reach than is like to proceed from the simplicity with which men deal in the concerns of Eternity However if Bellarmin do put such thoughts into the head of a Pagan he may very justly protest I desire to be made a Christian and intend to live like one and submit to the Discipline of that Law which I am going to imbrace but I mean to keep my Regal dignity and Prorogatives inviolate and do not intend to be put by Baptism into a worse condition than now I am in My Subjects are now my Subjects and I intend they alwaies shall be so For my self if I deserve it I refuse not to be expell'd from that Society of which I shall have made my self unworthy But as I had my Subjects before Baptism I will not that Baptism shall take them from me I am a King while I am no Christian and if I cease to be a Christian will not therefore cease to be a King God not Baptism gave me a Crown and none but God shall take it away A Pagan say they may warrantably declare thus much and warrantably even according to Bellarmin himself who teaches that the Law of Christ deprives no man of any right and when a King becomes Christian he loses no Right or Dominion but gets a new right to the Kingdom of Heaven for else the Benefit of Christ would be a prejudice to Kings and Grace destroy Nature As for the Comparison betwixt him who pretends to the Freedom of a City and him who pretends to Baptism the Protest which Bellarmin enters in his behalf is indeed ridiculous and overthrown by his very pretence for a Member of a City must by his very being a Member be subject to the Laws and Magistrates of that City And so a King if he become a Member of the Spiritual Commonwealth becomes subject to the Laws and Magistrates and Punishments of that Commonwealth which are Spiritual and may be inflicted on a King as well as other men considering their own Natures purely and abstracting from Circumstances which in the case of Kings are generally such that if it be lawful it is seldom expedient to use them but for Temporal punishments He is himself the Head of that Commonwealth which should inflict them and must either punish himself or cannot be punisht but by God So that to say by his becoming a Member of the Spiritual Commonwealth he makes Himself liable to Temporal punishments is to say in the Case of him who pretends to be made a Citizen That by making himself a Member of that Corporation he subjects himself to the Laws of another But to leave these speculations to them who Write of New Atlantis and the Isle of Pines The Argument say they is doubly faulty for it assumes what is not true and concludes what does not follow though the Antecedent were true First they deny any such bargains are made in Baptism There is indeed an express whether Promise or Purpose to Renounce Satan and his Pomps but of Renouncing the Right of Kings there is not any expression vvhich sounds like it and for secret bargains they are so secret if there be any that they are known to none but Bellarmin They have lain hid for many Ages and do so still for any credit they give this Argument He would infer it out of the disposition which our Saviour in S. Luke requires in him who vvill be his Disciple And this disposition of preferring his Love and Service before all things they acknowledge is necessary in Baptism and that Man unfit for it vvho does not firmly purpose so to do But the Question is If the King chance to break his good Purpose is He therefore liable to this particular punishment of being Depos'd This particular Condition must enter into the bargain or nothing will come of it Otherwise our God-fathers and God-mothers have undertaken for all of us that vve shall do all that the greatest King Promises in Baptism And we all forfeit the Surety they have given and break the Promise solemnly made in our behalf and sin daily and grievously Can we therefore without injury be turn'd out of our Estates We must be prepar'd as vvell as any King to lay down our lives for the Faith of Christ if for Fear or other frailty we fall even to Idolatry is it therefore lawful to knock us on the head or if it vvere Can the Church or Priest before whom vve made this Promise which vve have broken give Sentence of bloud against us How justly soever we deserve to be punisht yet this punishment is not just because we never submitted to it in Baptism or any other way and if we did the Church of all the vvorld can the least inflict it But the truth is no such punishment vvas ever thought of either by the Givers or Receivers of Baptism If vve do not continue constant to our Renouncing of Satan Satan vvill take possession of us again to whom the Church may vvhen there is just occasion by her Power deliver us And if Satan be not punishment enough even for a King and the Wickedest King that ever was or will be I am mightily mistaken Bellarmin therefore vvas less considerative than vvould be expected when he talks every where as if Kings unless they were liable to be Depos'd would be vvithout punishment Methinks Excommunication might serve turn Excommunication vvhich as himself saies L. 3. de Laic C. 2. is a punishment greater than Temporal death It being more horrible as himself Cites S. Austin to be delivered to Satan by Excommunication than to endure the Sword or Fire or be devoured by Wild Beasts Death is the last of punishments with us of the Temporal
the Fire burns de Facto but only warms de Jure That Bellarmin is a great Scholler de Facto but de Jure none at all I know I speak impertinently but I meant to do so and yet think I speak as pertinently as he who saies Duty is only duty de Facto but de Jure not duty He might ee'n as well have made use of his Indirect here too and said the Pope was subject only Indirectly but was not subject Directly or contrariwise for 't is all one Young Sophisters sometimes when they are put to it and know not how to shift off an Argument find something or other which sounds like a distinction no matter what it signifies and whether any thing or nothing so it serve turn for the present And I doubt he remembred the trick a little too long But Subjection to Princes being prov'd by Examples and Commands This is the Reserve for Examples when they are ill-natur'd and will not be turn'd off otherwise For Commands there is another common place which now 't is known is nothing but he was a very subtle man lure that first discovered it It consists in distinguishing the same man into a Prince and a not-Prince and then interpreting all obedience we find commanded belongs to the Prince only the not-Prince has no share in it This distinction because it is indeed a little hard they attribute to the Omnipotent power of the Pope and say that the Prince till he be deposed is a Prince but afterwards no Prince and because it still falls short for the man governs and lives like a Prince still they etch it out with its fellow distinction and say he is no Prince de Jure though he be de Facto And now bring 'em as many and as plain places for obedience as you will 't is the easiest thing in the world to get cleer of them Bring Scripture bring Fathers that a Prince is to be obey'd True say they while he is a Prince but now he is no longer a Prince Princes in my opinion have hard luck to stand in the Popes way and become the first sad examples of his Omnipotence otherwise there is no Law of God or Man which may not be overturn'd as easily by the same engine For he may as soon and as well declare That Wife to be no Wife That Man to be no Man and make Adultery and Murther lawful as that King to be no King and make Rebellion innocent There would not want as likely pretences for the one as the other if people would but look after them For Example A Man is a rational Creature who acts unreasonably disclaims his nature and may be dispatch't without contradicting the Divine Law which forbids men to be kill'd while they are men but he by the Popes declaration is no man As much may be found out for the Wife as much for Estates as much for every thing For there neither is nor can be any stronger title to any thing then the Law of God and that the King has to his Kingdom and if that will not do nothing will This is just Montalto Sin but enough and you trapan the Devil and become vertuous even by being wicked To refuse obedience to a King is with them a crime and a crime which deserves damnation marry to un-Un-king him and deny there is any obedience due to him is an innocent thing As if taking his Power quite away were not a greater disobedience then to resist it A particular disobedience may have a particular and sometimes excusable cause but a general disobedience such as leaves them no longer any Power to command is of all disobedience the greatest most inexcusable in it self and most contrary to the Divine Law And yet he would perswade us we sin if we obey not a particular perhaps trifling Command but if we take away Power and all we are very honest men Whereas in truth when I disobey a Power which I acknowledge perhaps I wrong my self most for I do not my duty but when I no longer acknowledge my Princes Power I do him as well as my self the greatest wrong I can and yet this greatest wrong with Bellarmine is no wrong These are the healing Distinctions which Bellarmine applies to his Doctrine and by which the sound Deposing is to be distinguisht from the unsound Deposing If you find any such soveraign vertue in them I shall be glad to learn it But for our part we think Deposing an uncurable disease a poyson for which there is no Antidote Disguise it how you will while it remains Deposing 't is alike intolerable alike inconsistent wâ—th the safety of Princes and duty of Subjects Call the Power indirect call it in Temporals not temporal as long as 't is Power and can do the feat no honest ear can hear it Tell us of admonition and space of repentance tell us of Synods and Consistories of disposing the prey according to Justice of not feigning necessities tell us what you will while you tell us Deposing is good Doctrine we cannot believe you good Subjects Bring a thousand Schoolmen and ten thousand subtilties against them all we will stand by our honest Parliament Doctrine That the Crown of England is and alwayes has been free and subject immediately to God and none other and who refuses his Fellowship in that Doctrine I know not with what face he can pretend to a Fellowship in any thing else But the truth is I do not see that Bellarmine with all his art does so much as guild the bitter Pill or make it a jot less nauseous For what is the very worst the Canonists say Take their opinion in his own expressions and he says all they say and in terms as positive and as comprehensive Take Carerius or whoever is the highest flyer among those I sent you at first and the worst is but this That the Pope has jurisdiction over all things both spiritual and temporal throughout the world that he may absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegeance Depose Kings and transfer their Dominions from one line to another And which of this worst does Bellarmine with his proper Distinctions and cautious Buts deny 'T is true they call his Power Direct and Bellarmine Indirect but what matter is it how they are called if one can do as much as the other And I would fain know what they can do with their Direct which be cannot with his Indirect 'T is true they make but one absolute Monarch of the world and all the rest but arbitrary Lieutenants and Bellarmine cals them true Kings but makes them as much subject as if they were but Lieutenants Were Kings perswaded once it were their duty to resign at the Popes command they would themselves make no difficulty to call and think him their supreme Lord. 'T is only in consideration of the scurvy consequence which would follow viz. that being supreme and absolute Lord he might dispose of his own as he
trouble and confusion would happen in the Common-wealth On the other side that the obligation which the Clergy have to observe the Civil Laws is directive only not co-active and that only in defect of an Ecclesiastical Law For should an Ecclesiastical Law dispose otherwise even of the temporal things ordered by the Civil Law the Clergy are to stick to the Ecclesiastical and not observe the Civil so much as directively Again that they cannot be judged by the Civil Magistrate if they do not keep the Civil Law and that their Goods whether Ecclesiastical or Secular are not liable to the Tributes of Secular Princes To my apprehension now the Clergy according to one half of this Doctrine are very good Subjects according to the other none at all If they be parts of the Common-wealth they must of necessity be Subjects unless they be Princes For a Common-wealth holds none but Prince and Subjects If they be oblig'd to the observation of the Civil Laws they are Subjects again that obligation being the very thing we call subjection But if their Actions when they break the Laws are not liable to the cognizance of the Civil Magistrate nor their Goods in their share in the common burthens if they obey the Laws only out of good nature and to do as others do and no longer than till they have order to the contrary I should think they are not Subjects unless in respect of him whose orders they are to obey For there can be no Subjects without a Prince nor Prince without Power nor Power without something on which it may be exercised If the Secular Prince can exercise no power over their persons nor what they have nor what they do there remains nothing that I see on which his Power can work and consequently neither Power nor Prince nor Subject Wherefore to my apprehension all this is Handy Dandy the Clergy are Subjects or not Subjects according to the hand you chuse or Bellarmin will open I could be content to understand by the way if I might hope to understand any thing of Bellarmin what meaning there is in his distinction betwixt Directive and Co-active obligation What Directive means and what Co-active I think I understand He who shews me a way I know not is said to Direct and who draws me along in it whether I will or no to Force me So Laws are properly called Directive because they inform us what we are to do and Co-active because they constrain us by fear of punishment to follow their direction According to this it may be said with sence whether with Truth or no is another Question That the Clergy are directed by the Laws to what is fit for them to do but not obliged to do it But it passes my capacity how Obligation should be divided into Directive and Co-active or Co-active and not Co-active when all obligation to my thinking is Co-active For since he who is obliged to any thing is not at liberty to do or leave it undone but constrained to do it in force of the obligation upon him methinks obligation imports Co-action in its Notion and that to say there can be an obligation which is not Co-active is to say there can be an obligation which is not an obligation I fancy Bellarmin took his hint from Princes who being free from the Co-action of their Laws yet observe their Direction because they will and see it fit But then for this very reason because they are not subject to their co-action we say Princes are absolutely not obliged by their Laws and if Bellarmin had a mind to make the case equal betwixt them and the Clergy he should put no obligation in the Clergy as the Language of the World puts none in Princes Yet to say the truth I conceive by his not co-active obligation he intended not to exempt the Clergy from constraint and punishment so the Secular Magistrate have nothing to do with it which whether he have or no I enquire not now Whoever has to do with it if the thing be to be done if the Clergy be punishable in the Ecclesiastical Court only if you will co-action still is inseparable from obligation and not co-active obligation pure riddle Again since the reason he gives of his Directive obligation of the Clergy is to avoid confusion in the Common-wealth I would gladly know how much less confusion there would be if they broke the Laws not by a restiness of their own but by command from another Both ways the Laws would be broken and so the thing be done it matters not much which way If there be any difference I should think disobedience from private Capricios less inconvenient than from publick commands Capricios are seldom either universal or lasting Those who remain'd sober would help to reclaim the rest and a hundred remedies might be applied with hopes of success But where the disobedience is universal and countenanc'd by Authority the disease is little better than desperate One had as good say the Clergy are bound to keep the Laws as long as they can do but a little harm by breaking them and to break them when they can do a great deal Let us put the case in his own Examples If the Secular Power impose such a rate on vendible things or forbid carrying of Arms in the night or transportation of Corn out of the Country or the like the Clergy are to obey as well as the rest till an Ecclesiastical Law dispose otherwise very well Let us suppose then that the Secular Power by the Authority which it has in these things has rated a pot of Ale at a penny should the Clergy out of Thrift or stubbornness pay but a half-penny others would either grumble they should have their drink cheaper or perhaps sell them none To avoid this inconvenience they are directively obliged to pay a whole penny provided the Ecclesiastical Law interpose not but let that come and set another rate a half penny for Example then they are Co-actively obliged to pay no more Now I would fain know of Bellarmin how much less inconvenience there is now the Clergy must pay but a half penny out of conscience than before when they would pay no more out of stubbornness Will other people grumble less at the inequality or will they get any more drink For my part I suspect the Ale-house-keepers will turn stubborn in their turns and not afford them for their half penny what they can have a penny for of the Lay-good-fellows who both directively and co-actively pay still according to the Secular rate I doubt they will be forc'd to strain a point of Conscience and for all the Ecclesiastical Law and their obligation to stick to it be even co-actively obliged to pay as others do or remain thirsty Go on if you please to the rest with the imagination for I will stay no longer here and when you have considered the difference betwixt breaking the Prohibitions of weapons or
Transporting Corn c. by private Capricios and publick and obligatory commands tell me whether Bellarmin were not in a pleasant humour and had great care of the Commonwealth when he made a little inconvenience reason enough to oblige the Clergy to keep the Civil Laws and permits and makes it their duty to break them with twenty times a greater I say nothing of the greatest inconvenience of all the acknowledging a Forreign Authority which can oblige so great a number of persons living within the bounds and taken for members of the Common-wealth as belong to the Clergy to break all Laws even in Temporal things because at present I mind only how pat the reason is which he gives for his Directive obligation of the Clergy Otherwise that Doctrine brings not only confusion and trouble but ruin to the common-wealth and is absolutely intolerable But this is not a place for it To return into our Road Bellarmin tells us at last that the Clergy and Laity have even in Temporals different Laws a different Prince and different Tribunals and that the Common-wealth which holds them is in truth and formally two Common-wealths though because they all live in the same place and under protection of the same Prince it be materially one Also that in respect of the Clergy Princes are not superiour Powers and therefore the Clergy are not bound to obey them neither by Divine nor so much as Human right unless Directively in certain cases as was said before This is full and home for Bellarmin can speak plain enough when he has a mind to it But the Question and my Curiosity are now at an end For I do not mean to be laught at by persisting to enquire whether the Clergy be subject to him who is not their Prince nor in respect of them a superiour power It is something strange though By this account the Clergy are no more subjects to the Prince in whose Dominions they live than Aliens who live in his Country under his protection They are as much a new and strange kind of Aliens bred and born and unmoveably setled in a Common-wealth and yet Aliens still However it be I have no more to say to the Holland Deputys Bellarmin has acquitted them It remains that he acquit himself for as great a man as he is so unexpected and so important a Doctrine will hardly pass upon his bare word He proves it both from Human and Divine Right And I commend him for leaving nothing out but think nevertheless I may deduct the one half and confine my inquiry to Divine Right For Human Right being either by Civil or Ecclesiastical Laws what the Clergy have by Civil Laws is so far from prejudicing their subjection that it rather confirms it For Receiving is an acknowledgment of the power from which they receive Besides Princes whether they can or no yet use not to grant any thing derogatory from their own Soveraignty or if they do recal it on better consideration What in particular it is which the Clergy have this way we must enquire of those who know the Laws whatever it be much good may it do them Were all men of my mind peradventure it should be more than it is for I am of opinion they cannot be respected too much and whatever serves whether to preserve or increase that respect is the Laitys good as much as theirs and perhaps more As for Ecclesiastical Laws I conceive they need no place of their own at present but may come in either with Civil or Divine For if the stress be put only there so that before the Ecclesiastical Laws were made the Clergy were Subjects and had been so still if those Laws had not exempted them from subjection Princes I suppose will expect their consent should be askt Ecclesiastical Laws of this nature not binding without the concurrence of the Civil Power And then the Question will be to what and how far the Civil power is engaged which plainly belongs to Civil Right But if the Ecclesiastical Law be supposed not originally to give but declare and press that exemption as due to the Clergy by an antecedent Law of God or nature the exemption is then refunded into that antecedent Law and there as I conceive it only pinches Wherefore leaving Bellarmin's proofs from Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws to those who are skil'd and concern'd in them I am only curious to know what kind of proofs he will bring from the Divine Law which if it do command such things as he affirms of the Clergy truly I have hitherto been very ill instructed in it He divides them into the two branches of Positive and Natural Divine Law either of which would have serv'd his turn but he will needs undertake for both Beginning with the Positive he desires us first to observe That by the Positive Law of God he means not any command of God properly so called which expresly appears in Holy Writ but what may by some similitude be deduced from the Examples or Testimonys of the Old or New Testament Now this seems to me a very inauspicious beginning and as much as to say that by the Positive Law of God he means the not-Positive Law of God For pray what does Positive signifie It is used in contradistinction to Natural and Natural signifies the Law or Rule of Actions imprinted in us by Reason which inasmuch as it is our nature gives it the Title of Natural inasmuch as that nature proceeds from God the Title of Divine But because it happens from the shortness or corruption of nature that what appears reasonable to one appears unreasonable to another this Rule becomes a kind of Lesbian Rule bent by our passions several waies To remedy which mischief and not leave us altogether to the uncertain conduct of our erring Judgements God in his mercy has expresly declared his pleasure about what we are to do or avoid in the matters so declared This express declaration is called his Positive Law which supplys the defects of nature and freeing us from groping blindly in the dark and wrangling fruitlesly and endlesly about what is or is not our duty sets it in a clear light before us and leaves us nothing to do but perform it This being so I would fain learn of Bellarmin what pretence there can be for the Positive Law of God where there is no express command of his and we are left to our uncertain Deductions What difference betwixt this and the case of pure nature and what shall hinder us from wrangling as long and to as little purpose as if there were no such thing as his Positive Law in the World Nay though we could come to an end since this end is to be made at last by the force of prevailing Reason which can satisfie us of the Truth of the deductions it makes why is not that end to be refunded rather into Reason than the Law of God We may possibly have some assistance from it towards
Vicar I understand now the reason St. Peter commands Christians to be obedient to the Authority of Heathen Princes and Governours because he knew very well how they came by it For though all their power before was usurp'd and tyrannical yet after they had deriv'd it from him it became a lawful Authority If our wicked Politicians be not confounded with this I know not what will do it I am sure I am to meet with such stuff in a Church which boasts of purity of her doctrine and which cherishes the Authors not only as good Christians but learned men and Masters of Christianity Lael Zecch Tract Theol. P. 81. Laelius Zecchius tells us that the Pope by the Law of God hath power and temporal dominion over the whole world That the same is prov'd by the words Luk. 22. Behold here are two swords which signifie the power spiritual and temporal and because Christ whose Vicar the Pope is hath both powers according to the words Matt. ult All power is given me in heaven and in earth that thence it may be deduced that the Pope is absolutely Lord of all the Christian world and Kings and Christian Princes are to acknowledge that they hold of him their Empires and Kingdoms and all that are faithful ought to be subject unto him and that as oft as such Princes do any great hurt in the Church the Pope may deprive them of their Kingdoms and transfer their right to others Franciscus Bozius Fran. Boz de temp Eccle. Monarch l. 1. c. 3. p. 52. C. 7. p. 98. That the supreme temporal Jurisdiction throughout all the world doth belong to S. Peter's Successors so as one and the same is the Hierarch and Monarch in all things That Christ left the Church to be govern'd by the best form of government but the best form of government is absolute Monarchy even in all temporal things therefore Christ left his Church to be so govern'd That the Keys of Heaven were given to Peter L. 2. c. 14. L. 3. c. 1. p. 894. therefore of all the earth That the right of dominion and relation of Infidels may justly by the sentence and ordination of the Church be taken away because Infidels by reason of their infidelity deserve to lose their power over the faithful C. 14. p. 530. c. 14. p. 530. That the Church hath receiv'd that power over Nations which Christ according to his humane nature reciev'd of his Father but Christ receiv'd absolutely of his Father all power in temporalibus therefore the Church likewise receiv'd it by participation of his fulness c. 16. p. 537. That the supreme coactive power in all temporal things belongeth to Ecclesiastical persons by divine Law revealed and expressed in the Scriptures That Kings P. 676. annointed with holy Oil are called as Vassals of the Church That by reason of the supreme Monarchy in all things L. 5. p. 823. temporal laws may be made and Kingdoms taken away for just causes Henricus Gandavensis if Carrerius cite him truly Car. p. 28. That by the Law of God and nature the Priesthood doth over-top the Empire and both Jurisdiction over Spiritualties and Temporalties and the immediate execution likewise of them both depend upon the Priesthood both by the Law of God and Nature Carr. p. 130. Antoninus That they who say the Pope hath dominion over all the world in Spirituals but not in Temporals are like the Counsellors of the King of Syria who said the Gods of the Mountains are their Gods and therefore they have overcome 〈◊〉 let us fight with them in the Plains and Valleys where their Gods dwell not and we shall prevail against them Carr. p. 130. 3 Reg. 20. Augustinus Triumphus That the Son of God hath declar'd the altitude of the Ecclesiastical power being as it were founded upon a Rock to be above all principality and power that unto it all knees should bend of things in heaven in earth and under the earth or in hell 'T is come at last this infernal power 't was only long of a bad memory we had it not before P. 131. That Secular Powers were not necessary but that Princes might perform that through terror of discipline which the Priest cannot effect by power of doctrine and that therefore if the Church could punish evil men Imperial and Secular principality were not necessary the same being included potentially in the principality Apostolical And why cannot the Church punish evil men if both Jurisdictions and the immediate execution of both be in her But we understand him well enough when time serves the conclusion shall be that Princes are unnecessary because the Church by her double power can do the business of the world without them And so farewel useless Princes Aug. de Anc. de Potest Ecc. Q. 39. a. 2. Farther he tells us that Imperial or Regal power is borrowed from the Papal or Sacerdotal for as much as concerneth the formality of dignity and recieving the authority Pretty formalities those Q. 45. a. 2. That the Pope hath Jurisdiction over all things as will temporal as spiritual through the world That he may absolve Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance Q. 46. a. 3. That upon just cause he may set up a King in every Kingdom L. Conr. in templ om judic l. 2 c. 1. S 4. for he is the Overseer of all Kingdoms in Gods stead as God is the Supervisor and maker of all Kingdoms Lancecelot Conradus That He may appoint Guardians and Assistants to Kings and Emperors when they are insufficient and unfit for government That he may depose them and transfer their Empires and Dominions from one line to another Celsus Mancinus Cel. Manc l c. 1. That in the highest Bishop both the Powers and Jurisdictions are spiritual and temporal and that as he is the most eminent person of all men in spiritual power Th. Boz de jur stat l. 1. c. 6. p. 37. P. 52. so he is in temporal Thomas Bozius That Kings and principal Seculars are not immediately of God but by the Interposition of Holy Church and her chief Bishops That warlike and military compulsive power is given to the Church over Kings and Princes That if it be found sometimes that certain Emperors have given some temporalities to the highest Bishops as Constantine gave to Silvester this is not to be understood that they gave any thing which was their own but restor'd that which was unjustly and tyrannically taken from the said Bishops Ap. Carrer P. 132. Rodoricus Sancius That there is one Principlity and one supreme-Prince over all the world who is Christ's Vicar according to that of Dan. c 8. He hath given him power and honour and rule and all people and tongues shall serve him and that in him therefore is the fountain and spring of all principality and from him all other powers do flow P. 131. 132 That
should place the Emperor by himself in respect of his temporalities he should grant two beginnings which were Heresie In good Faith Sir I cannot think otherwise but if these men say true your Catholic Princes let them keep as fair as they will with the Pope are all Heretics in their hearts And then what follows Hark what a Cardinal and which I grieve an English man hath publisht to the World Card. Allen against the execution of justice p. 87. The Cannon Laws says he being authentical in the lawful Tribunals of the Christian World do make all Heretics not only after they be namely and particularly denounced but by the Law it self ipso facto as soon as they be Heretics are de jure excommunicated for the same to be depriv'd of their Dominions Philopater p. 154. Another tells us The whole School of Divines and Canonists do hold and that 't is certain and of Faith that any Christian Prince whatsoever if he shall manifestly deflect from the Catholic Religion and endeavour to draw others from the same does presently fall from all power and dignity by the very force of human and divine Law and that also before any Sentence of the supreme Pastor or Judge denounced against him and that his Subjects whatsoever are free from all Obligation of that Oath which they had taken for their Allegeance to him as their lawful Prince and that they may and ought if they have forces drive out such a man as an Apostate or Heretic and a Backslider from the Lord and Christ and an enemy to the Commonwealth from all Dominion over Christians lest he infect others or by his example or command avert others from the faith and that this certain definite and undoubted opinion of the best learned men is wholly agreeable and consonant to the Apostolical doctrine Upon these grounds it was publickly maintain'd that Henry the third of France was lawfully murthered before any sentence of excommunication past against him because though in hidden crimes formalities be requir'd yet evidens notitia facti sententiae locum tenet non percipit formam publicus dolor And that he had long liv'd as an excommunicate person de facto de justa abdic Hen. 3. l 4. c. 2 though the law had not past sentence upon him for favouring Heretics for Simony for entring into league with Hereticks the Queen of England and King of Navar for seizing the goods of the Church without the Popes privity and other offences against the Bulla Caenae Upon these grounds I have seen that execrable Villain Chastel who attempted upon Henry the Fourth what Ravillac after performed defended by a public Apology and I see no attempt can be so barbarous and inhumane which may not be defended by them So that by your favour your Catholic Princes are not secure Quiet they may be but never safe and for their quietness they may thank the lucky conjuncture of those stars which have influence upon the times of their government and restrain the malignity of these Doctrines Otherwise if they be not very cunning in school subtilties they may chance forfeit their Kingdoms and all their power per triccum de lege without ever knowing when or how live all their life time in the erroneous belief that they are very Kings and those who obey them their very Subjects and be deceiv'd all the while But be it as it will this answer which would justifie the innocence of these doctrines by the security of Catholic Princes comes pitifully off when instead of securing it takes them quite away which is a fine kind of security for it is plainly a much easier task to maintain by these doctrines that there is never a true Prince in the Christian world no not in those whom you call Catholics than it is to maintain the doctrines And yet when all is done 't is nothing to purpose neither For our Prince and People are of the number of those whom your Church takes for Heretics and can expect no other treatment from you than what you maintain belongs to Heresie Wherefore however your Catholic Princes satisfie themselves I neither see how he can be satisfied of the fidelity of such of his Subjects as approve of these opinions nor with what face they can pretend security and protection from him Pray think of this while I pass to what I put for a second answer and what I have sometimes heard alledged These opinions will you say are moot-cases probably disputed amongst private men in which the Church is neither engaged nor concerned Pray God this Church be not as slippery a word as either Heresie or Popery These men who thus magnifie the Pope certainly are not of our Church and I believe Presbyterians and Fanaticks of all sorts will disown them too so that even for pitty and not to make Infidels of them you must needs take them into yours But they who speak so kindly of the Pope need not fear disowning We see they are both acknowledged and esteemed and are all Capita alta ferentes Now 't is strange your Church should be unconcern'd in men whom you account Orthodox and learned and whose books come out with the approbation of those whom your Church commissionates for that purpose Me-things the Act of her Officers acting by her Authority should be taken for the Act of the Church Unless you will have the Pope pass for one of those careless Princes who deserve to be deposed for negligence and be ignorant that his Officers abuse their trust and licence unsound doctrines and this at Rome it self where a body would think sufficient care is taken that nothing pass which is not esteemed Orthodox Bring me a Book printed at Rome wherein the contrary doctrine is maintain'd and I will acknowledge there is some sense in this answer In the mean time let me give you a few instances and those at home by which it may appear the Pope is so far from ignorant and unconcern'd in these positions that he approves and countenances them and that both â—hotly and constantly In the reign of King James upon the occasion of the execrable Powder Treason the Oath of Allegeance was enacted by the pious wisdom of the Parliament to secure his Majesty and Successors from the like attempts for the future The Superior of the Catholic Clergy at that time was one Blackwell He after much and long debate of the matter with his fellow Priests at last resolved the Oath according to the plain and common sense of the words might with a safe conscience be taken by the Catholics and afterwards both took it himself and by his admonitions to Clergy and Laity recommended it to them as a thing both lawful and fitting The greatest part of the Clergy who repair'd to London upon that occasion followed the resolution of their Superior and had the Pope been either a little more ignorant or a little more negligent I think it had been better for you
to satifie them all And as the Schools go now it is not hard to say almost any thing As men are of several tempers I will not deny but some may be truly perswaded of your Doctrines and defend them with an upright conscience thinking that to exalt the Pope is truly advantageous to Religion and beneficial to the World But I believe you will not find many so qualified Those you have named are some the Popes own Subjects most Italians or Spaniards upon whom He is known to have particular influence and if we judge that in this exalting the Pope they might have an eye to the preferment of themselves I think it will be no rash judgment Of latter times those have appeared the chief sticklers in this quarrel who are thought to have the greatest dependance upon Rome So that of all produced and produceable in behalf of those opinions I deceive my self if the number be not shamefully inconsiderable against whom there lies not a just suspicion of interest and of whom it may not reasonably be judged that Hopes or Fears or something besides pure Conscience swayed their judgments And Interest you know is a just exception against a Witness in all Courts As for private men what would you have them do Consider that all Catholics look upon the Pope as the chief Bishop in God's Church and supreme Pastor of the whole Flock If they hear any thing said over-lashingly of him can it be expected they should be forward to speak what they think til a due occasion urges them Or have less respect for him than common civilitie uses to every body For when any thing is said advantageous to a person with whom we converse if we believe it not we keep our thoughts to our selves and think it rudeness to oppose it to their faces Besides as I said at first this medling of private men with the concern of Princes is the Flies playing with the Candle Withrington quite burnt his wings Walsh has fairly sing'd them and if people learn wariness by the harms of other men I conceive they are not blameable As frightful and threatning as the Idea is which you have made of this danger no Prince that I know thinks it great enough to deserve that they should interpose and I think the man very foolishly wise who will pretend to understand their concerns better than themselves or better know what is fit to be done People of our private Sphere see but one thing Princes see that one thing in likelihood better than we and a hundred more of which we never dream and till they stir themselves for private men to obtrude their politic Ignorance upon them is so far from laudable that it is well if it be pardonable neither will their forwardness signifie more than an over busie diligence and peradventure saucy unquietness The old Monks wise counsel Sinere res vadere ut vadunt is as necesiary in the world as a Cloyster Besides for English Catholics in particular they have somewhat more reason to keep silence while their speaking is sure to be discountenanced on the one side and not sure to be protected on the other You may perceive by Caron's Collection that Catholicks are so much mealy mouthed men towards the Pope when there is fit occasion to speak what they think and God forbid that Forreiners should be better Subjects than English men I am sure they were Catholics who declared in Parliament that the imperial Crown of England is and at all times has been free from all subjection to the Pope And provided the Statute of Praemunire against such abuses as were then found inconvenient And they were Catholicks who refused to repeal this Statute in the days of Queen Mary when other Laws made against the Popes Authority were taken away But if you will have a touchstone of the fidelity of English Catholics look a little upon the year 88. The Pope had stretched his Authority as far as it would go and proceeded to Excommunication Deposition and Absolution of his Subjects from Obedience to her down right Commands to assist her Enemies and this Authority was backt by the Power of a great Prince in their thought and language invincible Besides the Title of the Queen born in time of a Marriage declared lawfull by the Pope was not free from dispute which carried the inclination of Catholics to the Title of Scotland since happily introduced and which I hope will long happily continue and this was if I mistake not the true reason of the jealousie and severity of those times against them Notwithstanding the unusual concurrence of so many and so great temptations They stood firm in their Allegeance and both our own and forrein Writers testifie that neither the subtil Arts of the Politic Spaniard or the enforcement of the Popes Authority could prevail to make any Party here but that the most learned and esteemed of the Priests by a solemn and authentic Writing acknowledged the Queen notwithstanding she was excommunicated and deposed by name to have still the same Authority and power as before and as much as any of her Predecessors and the Layty chearfully and universally offered to hazard their lives in defence of their Prince and Country and that as private Souldiers ther being too much suspicion in the jealousie of those times to pretend to commands In fine the Spaniards were so ill satisfied with them that the Duke of Medina Admiral in that expedition at his return plainly told the Dutchess of Feria an English Woman of the Family of the Dormirs that had he prevailed no difference had been made betwixt Catholics and others more than what the Sword could have found Of later times the whole Nation is obliged to bless God for the happy fidelity of some of them and we had still been groaning under our late miseries if this traiterous Religion had not principled even poor men into a fidelity stronger than the temptation of Gold And 't is not like the men who act thus would refuse to speak in fit occasion Things have been written even since the return of his Sacred Majesty which have been peradventure more zealous than seasonable but however which sufficiently discover the inclination of Catholics to say all that can be expected with reason from them when the conjuncture is proper In the mean time to consider the Dilemma you so earnestly recommend to me I must tell you it concludes not We are inexcusable say you if we renounce not those Positions when without injury to the Churches Authority or our own conscience we may Why so F A is there no excuse for an action but this that 't is unlawful People before they do any thing use to consider the Why as well as the What and examine not only whether the action be allowable but whether it be convenient But not to insist on this I will offer you a fair bargain Do you your part and I will do mine make it reasonable make
very pleasant Reformation into the World But I forget that I am to say nothing of my self I must therefore undertake a needless labour and shew from other men that Princes are the Vicars of God and though the unanimous consent of every body might well excuse me for none that I ever heard of either doubts they are so or boggles to call them so when the phrase comes in their way yet I must not break my bargain Let us then consider what this word Vicar signifies and in such plenty or rather such a multitude for I wish the plenty were as great as the number as we have amongst us we cannot sure be ignorant what a Vicar is We see he is one who supplys the place of another who not able for other respects to attend to his proper employment delivers it over to be executed by him whom we call his Vicar Kings we see govern the World and the Government of the World being the proper work of Providence they do the business which properly belongs to God But the nature of God being of that unsociable excellence that we are not able to bear the immediate Rays of divine brightness and converse with him whose Face none can see and live our nature requires he should do this by such substitutes to whom we may address our selves and have recourse for what we need Since Kings then supply the place of God or do that which he should do and which he truly does by them they want nothing to the perfect notion of his Vicars but this that they be appointed and impowr'd by God for that end With this difference notwithstanding that Vicars are necessary for other men from the imperfection of their natures who make them because they cannot attend to two employments at once but are necessary for God from the superexcelling perfection of his nature and imperfection of ours which cannot bear an immediate converse with him Now that they are immediately substituted by God to govern the World under him or in his place since t is not likewise to be deny'd I hope a few Authorities will serve to prove And yet I cannot tell whether that hasty word Immediately will down with all For some Divines put this difference betwixt the Spiritual and Temporal Power that the first is immediately from God the second by mediation of the People subjecting themselves by way of Election Succession or such other means by which Governments are either introduc'd or establisht And for my part though I were not ty'd from dogmatizing irritare crabrones is a thing from which I have much aversion especially in a question which I conceive of an extraordinary importance For whether the power be from God immediately or mediately so it be from God I conceive it extends as far and is as much to be obey'd Saul and David were immediately appointed by God and yet I think as much obedience was due to Solomon as either of them and that St. Peters Successour whether Clemens or whoever else was as much Pope as he And if election made the power mediate we see Popes are not Popes till they be elected There are indeed who by this mediation understand a reserve in the people to reassume in certain cases the power which they have given But this I must needs think very abominable and shall not stick to say whoever reproves me for it is himself more reprovable St. Paul has taught there is no power but from God so I believe and if any think they have found better Masters of Faith I for my part mean to stick to those which Christ has given me But let us see what is said by those whom no Catholick I suppose will reprove The Council of Paris speaks methinks to purpose when it says L. 2. c. 5. No King must think his Kingdom left him by his Progenitors but truly and humbly believe 't was given him by God And that earthly Kingdoms are not given by men but God the Prophet Daniel testifies Dan. 4.14 5.25 Hierom. 27.5 But to them who think their Kingdoms given them by Succession from their Ancestors and not rather by God agrees that which God reproves by the Prophet They have reigned but not by me Osee 8.4 they have been Princes and I knew them not Wherefore whoever Reigns temporally over other men L. 5. l. 21. let him believe his Kingdom was given him not by men but by God St. Austin de Civit. Dei Let us not attribute the power of giving Kingdoms and Empires to any but the true God Tertullian They Empeperours know who gave them the Empire Apoleget adv Gent. c. 30. They know 't was he who made them men and gave them souls They are sensible 't was God alone under whose power alone they are second to him and after him first before all men Again From thence is the Emperour from whence the man before he was Emperour from thence the power from whence the spirit or breath I am not good at subtletys but methinks 't is hard to make that power mediate which is not from Ancestors and Succession not from men but from God alone More refin'd wits perhaps may make it hang together that Kings have their power from God alone and from something else too and that their power is mediate in which none interposes but himself and prove a gift from the people of that which God himself gives as if his power were under Age and could not make a valid donation without them and when they have done such fine things we are still just where we were for 't is acknowledg'd of all hands even by those who least favour the temporal power that it is from God and if it be so those who have it from him are his Vicars But yet you shall not take my word even for so much He was a Vicar of Christ himself who speaks thus to the Emperour Anast 2. Ep. un The brest of your clemency is Sacrarium the sacred depository of publick felicity that by you whom God has commanded to preside as his Vicar on Earth And before him Eleutherius in an Epistle to King Lucius our and I think the Worlds first Christian King preserved in our Antiquities tells him 't was needless to send him the Roman Laws which the King desir'd but wishes him to take the Law of God and the advice of his own Nation and frame such as were proper for his Country as being himself the Vicar of God After him another uses these terms to the Emperour Steph. 6. ap Baron an 885. n. 11. Although you similitudinem geras which I know not how otherwise to English then represent the person or are the Vicar of the Emperour Christ himself The same phrase is found in Pope Hermisda In Ep. ad Rom. c. 13. St. Ambrose speaks plainly Let them know they are not free but under the power which is from God for they are subject to
nor governed as Worldly Kingdomes are by Treasuries and Officers and Armies To omit that a Kingdom of this World though received and governed another way then usually Kingdomes are is still a Kingdome of this World for the World is the World let it be governed how 't wil this seems to me to say that the Kingdom of Christ is no Temporal Kingdom For temporal Kingdoms can not subsist nor go on without such things and he that says his Kingdom had them not says plainly his Kingdom was such a Kingdom which needed none of those things Which in other words I think is to say it was not a Temporal Kingdom Again say they the Kingdom of Christ is therefore said not to be of this world because at that time most worldly Kingdomes were got by injustice and governed by wicked and idolatrous Laws and such the Kingdom of Christ was not But pray the Kingdomes now a days establisht with Justice and governed with equity are they not Kingdomes of this World Or did Constantine forfeit his worldly Empire by abolishing those Idolatrous Laws and making better in their places Strange Interpretors of Scripture Who would make worldly Kingdoms inconsistent with vertue and Kings cease to be Kings when they turn good men and most deserve to be so Besides if the world were divided into Kingdomes however unjustly got and wickedly governed t' was yet divided into Kingdomes and what Room was then left for Christ Would they have him a King and give him no Kingdome or a Kingdom no where Farther what can be said why he did not establish his just Kingdom in the place of those wicked ones and take so much injustice out of the World I think nothing but only this that his Kingdom was of another nature made to take away injustice from all Dominion from none I say nothing of the impertinence of alledging injustice in the beginning of Empires a position which would shake the Foundations of the most setled Governments and leave few Princes secure of their Titles A third answer is that his Kingdom is not of this World because not onely of this World but of Heaven and Earth and all Creatures as if this World and more were not this World Besides it mistakes the question too which is not of the extent of his Power to which every Body knows that every thing is subject but of the manner whether besides the omnipotence of his divine nature and the spiritual Regality of his humane there were in him a Temporal power and he were appointed by his Father as Saul to judge the People and go before them 1 Reg. 21.8 and fight their battles This is what the Scripture tells us People expect from their Kings and who speaks not to this speaks not to the question Farther they say that Christs Kingdom is not of this world because worldly Kingdomes are over Bodies his over Souls worldly Kingdomes require obedience to a Temporal Prince his knowledge of and obedience to the Prince of Heaven worldly Kingdomes are extinguisht by death or War c. his is perpetual and immortal c. And this is to say as plain as can be said that 't is spiritual and not temporal For Temporal Kingdoms are over Bodies and if Christs Kingdom be only over Souls 't is not temporal again 't is not temporal if it can not be extinguisht for no temporal thing is immortal Farther to contra-distinguish the temporal Prince from the Prince of Heaven is directly to yield the question and change sides That prejudice should be so strange a blindness and men think to answer by saying the very same with their Adversaries To that of the division of the Inheritance they answer that what Christ refus'd was to be made Arbitrator betwixt the two Brethren But besides that to understand the place of Arbitration seems a little violent for Arbitration requires the Consent of both Parties and there appears nothing but the complaint of one against the injustice of the other His answer imports that medling with Inheritances was a thing with which he had nothing to do and that whether he thought fit or no to become an Arbitrator temporal Matters belonged not to him Again they say his signify'd he was no Ordinary Judge whose Duty and Obligation it was to determine civil Controversies but that his Jurisdiction was Voluntary and Arbitrary And if this be not to say he was not a temporal King I understand nothing for a temporal King is oblig'd by his Office to do Justice and determine civil Controversies and his power is not Voluntary and Arbitrary but Coactive and Obligatory Thirdly They answer that Christ meant his judicial power was not by humane concession as if he could not have done the business as well by Authority from Heaven as from Earth and had not been that way more empowered and more oblig'd to perform his duty Fourthly That Christ came not into the World to judge temporal things though he had full power so to do which is just what the other side says that he was not sent or empower'd by his Father for that purpose though as God he might do what he pleas'd What a pleasant folly this unresolvedness to maintain a thing is which makes people bring for answer the very position they oppose Lastly He is said to have refus'd dividing the Inheritance because Division is the work of the Devil Division of hearts indeed is so but division of possessions is a work of peace and a necessary means to Union of hearts 't is a command from God and a duty in Kings This is chiefly what is said on both sides you will judge as you see cause I for my part believe none better acquainted with the truth then Christ himself and I mean to take his word and believe his Kingdom is not of this World and I care not who knows it If I mistake his meaning and that the Kingdom which he says is not of this World prove yet to be a worldly Kingdom I shall at least have the comfort to err in very good Company and good Company you know is a thing I love sufficiently St. Cyril of Alexan. speaking of the Hyacinth in the Mytre of Aaron The Hyacinth says he De ador in spir l. 11. signifies Heaven remember therefore Christ saying my Kingdom is not of this World for Christ is not an Earthly but a Heavenly King and has all creatures under his feet St. John Chrysostom Christ says he Hom. 87. in Mat. acknowledges himself a King but a Heavenly King ' which elsewhere answering Pilate he says more clearly my Kingdom is not of this World And in another place Hom. 39. in 1 Cor. 15. Stripture knows two Kingdoms one of Adoption and Familiarity another of Creation by the Law of Making and Creating he is King of all Jews Pagans Devils Adversaries by familiarity and care he is King of the Faithful and those who willingly commit and subject themselves to him
Tract 12. in Mat. Jesus taking occasion from the two Brothers who sought to be advanc'd above the other Apostles with indignation of the rest settles the Rule of justice to the faithfull how a man may obtain the first place with God The Princes of the Gentiles not content only to Rule their Subjects seek violently to Command them But with you who are mine this shall not be Least they perhaps who seem to have Principality in the Church should domineer over their Brethren or exercise power upon them For as all Carnal things are by necessity not willingness and Spiritual by willingness not necessity so the principality of Spiritual Princes ought to be placed in the Love not Corporal fear of their Subjects And after he had spoken much of the Humility befitting Prelates least he should be thought an enemy to their true Power he so Answers that Objection that withal he explicates wherein that Power consists Adding This I say not to debase the Ecclesiastical Principality For it is sometimes fit according to the Apostolical Instruction publickly to rebuke sinners that the rest may be afraid It is sometimes fit he should use his Power What is that and deliver the Sinner over to Satan to the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ Yet this is seldome to be done For the Vnquiet are to be reprehended the Pusillanimous to be comforted the Weak to be sustained Magnanimity shew'd to all Reprehension then and Excommunication are the things in which Origen thought the Spiritual Power consisted S. Ambrose Orat. in Auxent Against Weapons and Souldiers of the Goths I may grieve I may weep I may sigh My Weapons are my Fears for such are the defence of a Priest To resist in any other manner I neither ought nor can S. Bernard de Consid L. 2. S. Peter could not give what he had not what he had that he gave the care as I said over the Churches Did he give Dominion too Hear himself Not domineering saies he in the Clergy but being made the Example of the flock And that you may not think this was said only for humility not for truth it is the saying of our Lord in the Gospel The Kings of Gentiles have dominion over them and who have Power upon them are called beneficial and infers but you not so 'T is plain Dominion is forbid to Apostles Go you now and dare to usurp either with Dominion the Apostleship or with the Apostleship Dominion Aut Dominans Apostolatum aut Apostolicus Dominatum You are plainly forbid the one If you will have both together you will lose both Otherwise think not your self exempted from the number of those of whom God complains so they have reigned but not by me They have been Princes and I knew them not Now if you will reign without God you have glory but not with God Dominion is forbidden Ministry is commanded Again Girt your sword to you the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God And L.4 Set upon them with the Word not the sword S. Anselm in 26 Mat. Note that there are two swords in the Church one material the other spiritual but the spiritual constrains only the willing the material the unwilling too And note withall that the Saint by Church means materially not formally that is that amongst Christians and the faithfull as well as Infidels there is the power of life and death and they are of the Church who have it not that it belongs to them as they are of the Church Pet. de Aliaco de Resumpt Concl. 1. answering some Arguments brought to prove that the spiritual Power extends it self to Temporals To all these things may be said that they are to be understood not of the judgement of Coaction but the judgement of Discretion nor that they belong to the Clergy not by natural and divine Right but humane Laws and concession of Kings or Emperors And Concl. 4. To those who teach the Clergy may make Laws in Civil matters and Rules according to which Princes are obliged to judge and govern I insist not upon it because they say it purely voluntarily and without alledging Authentical Scripture Again C. de Reform Laic Princ. Consi 6. The Church cannot temporally constrain Princes to reform these things Gul. Oâ—hum Dial. Par. 1. L. 6. C. 9. The Pope as Vicar of Christ has Power of Excommunication but not to inflict any greater punishment Joan. Ferus L. 3. Comment in Mat. 16. I will give Thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven These are not material Keys but signifie metaphorically Power Peter therefore receiv'd Power not any earthly Power that he could give or take away or alienate Kingdoms c. but the Power to bind and loose to remit and retain sins to open and shut and this not arbitrarily neither but as a Minister to execute the will of God This Ferus by the way is in the Index of prohibited Books but these Commentaries printed at Rome are excepted out of the prohibition which because I have not I thought convenient to tell you so Anton. de Rosell de Potest Imp. Pap. Par. 1. C. 38. Whence is gathered that Secular Power never was in Christ nor his Successors which is confirm'd by the Authority of Bede when upon that of St. Mat. he says Amongst you who are mine violent dominion shall not be For as all carnal things are placed in necessity spirituals in voluntariness so spiritual Princes have their principalities in love not fear But those who have carnal Coercion should fear that of the Apostle Rom. 13. If you do ill fear namely the Secular Power because their weapons are wars The sword therefore is not permitted to the Pope This Rosellis is got into the Index too Donec expurgetur of which if I had reflected when I writ my last I had told you so much But because he cites V. Bede who it seems had learnt his Doctrine from Origen and St. Ambrose I put him in I see these Authors freely cited by Catholicks and while they speak conformably to the Fathers and Popes themselves know not why they should be rejected You have in the former Letter from Leo 4 that corporal punishments belong to Kings spiritual to Priests From Nicol. 2. That the Church of God hath no sword but the spiritual I add Joan. 8. Cap. Porro 16. Q. 3. The Church unacquainted with corporal Arms patiently expects mercy from her only Lord and Defender when he pleases And Calestin 3. C. cum ab homine Extrav de Judiciis teaches us that if a Clergy-man remain after Deposition and Excommunication still incorrigible since the Church has not Power to do more he is to be restrained by the Secular Power and banishment or some other lawfull punishment inflicted And this seems to me very evident from the Custom of the Church even at this day when if a Clergy-man be found guilty of a
Violent but having to do with a Prince both Resolute and Prudent he found but bad success The Pope perswades the King to an expedition into the Holy Land to promote vvhich business He exacts the Tithes of Church Livings in France and reserves the Collation of all Benefices there to himself The King excuses the one and plainly denies the other The hot Pope sends the Bishop of Apamea to threaten him with Censures and Deposition unless he yielded to him The King calls the States and upon Consultation with them resolves the Legat deserv'd to be imprisoned but for reverence to the See Apostolic banishes him and for his Threats contemns them The Legat not content to scape scot-free falls a new to Threats which the King resenting commits him to custody to the Metropolitan The Pope complains of the breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity and commands his Legat should be immediately return'd These Letters being read in an Assembly of the States the Count of Arras as hot every jot as the Pope throws them into the fire This put the Pope quite out of patience Wherefore he Cites both King and Bishops to Rome where he had appointed a Synod and in the mean time declares the Kingdom of France for Contumacy Felony and Violating the Law of Nations devolved to the Apostolic See writing thus peremptorily to the King We would have you to know that you are subject to us both in Spirituals and Temporals and who thinks otherwise we repute Heretics The King upon the receipt of these Letters calls the States again and by their Advice frames an Answer every jot as smart and something more homely We would have your foolishness know we are subject to none in Temporals and who thinks otherwise we take for mad men And withal appeals to a future General Councel and objects several Crimes to the Pope to be made good when the Councel should sit and in the mean time forbids all intercourse vvith Rome This Answer being brought to Rome by three Bishops deputed for that purpose the Pope began to be startled and at last confesses That to usurp the Kings Jurisdiction belonged not to him nevertheless that in respect of Sin the King could not deny but he was subject to the Pope This put them to examine how far and in what manner he was subject to him and one of the Cardinals in a Consistory in which the French Embassadours were present resolves the case in this manner That Supream Dominion belong'd properly to the Pope but the Administration to Kings and therefore all Christian Kings vvere subject to the judgment of the Pope even in Temporals in regard of his Supream Dominion But this satisfi'd not the Embassadours at Rome and the States in France resuming the Debate declar'd positively the King in Temporals vvas subject to God alone and ow'd his Crown and Power only to him Nevertheless this Subjection on the account of Sin seems to be the ground of the distinction betwixt Direct and Indirect Power though I conceive it borrowed from Innocent the IVth some time before upon occasion of a Contest betwixt John King of England and Philip Augustus of France vvho prosecuting the King of England for default of Homage for some Dukedoms in France c. King John appeals to the Pope Philip maintained that being a Temporal business he had nothing to do vvith it The Pope was vvilling to favour the English and therefore assumes cognisance of the Cause upon pretence that there was an Oath in the case the violation of vvhich being Sin belong'd properly to his Tribunal And this Resolution having been put into a Decree and that Decree into the Canon-Law seems the principal foundation of Indirect Power I must confess I do not well understand how either this Canon which is in the Decretals C. Novit Ille de Judiciis or the other C. per Venerabilem Qui filii sint legitimi which are the two usually cited both of Innocent III. make to the purpose The former was made upon the occasion now mentioned and in it the Pope speaks thus We intend not to Judge of the Fee whereof the cognisance belongs to him the King but to decree of the Sin whereof the Censure without doubt pertains to us which we may and ought to exercise on every one None of sound Judgment is ignorant that it belongs to our Office to correct every Christian for any mortal Sin and if he despise Correction to constrain him by Ecclesiastical punishment c. Where the Pope saies Correct the Gloss adds Indirectly which single word and that not explicated is the main Authority for the distinction of Direct and Indirect Power now in question The other Canon per Venerabilem was made upon this occasion Philip Augustus of France had put away his Wife and taken as I remember the Countess of Anjou and had Children by her These Children at his request the Pope Legitimates while the suit yet depended of the validity of his former Marriage For the King alledged it was invalid But as the Example of Kings is apt to be follow'd Some body leaves his Wife too and has Children by another Woman and then sollicites the Pope to Legitimate them as he had done the King's The Pope refuses to yield his Request but withal owns a Power to have granted it if he had found it reasonable and proves it by several Arguments and amongst other passages has these words We exercise temporal Jurisdiction not only in the Patrimony of the Church where we have full power in Temporals but in other Countries also casually upon inspection of certain Causes These certain Causes the Gloss interprets to be when He is required Now both these Cases seem to me far enough from the inferring the Deposing Power which was not at all in question but Legitimation in the one and Cognisance of a Temporal business in the other And though the Pope assume both yet he is very sollicitous to prove they are within his Sphere as both may be and yet nothing follow in behalf of his Indirect disposing For he may Legitimate Children in order to Spiritual capacities and leave them in the same condition in which they were before as to Inheritance and other Temporal concerns Again He may Judge of Sin and punish it in his own Court with Spiritual punishments and let Temporal punishments alone to whom they belong the Temporal Magistrate And since he expresly limits himself to Ecclesiastical punishments methinks it is to strain Logic a little to far to infer out of them a right to Punish by Deposition However in my opinion this difference in the manner of Explicating this Power sometimes Casualiter sometimes Indirecte sometimes Ratione peccati which differ sufficiently though they Cite the Authorities indifferently as if they were all one is a sign they were at first not very cleer in this business in Explicating which they hit it no better Notwithstanding the Indirect Power has at last got the Vogue and most
By the Judges then mentioned by the Apostle they understand Vmpires chosen among themselves to prevent the Scandal of Public Suits but without any Authority derogatory to the Public Magistrate and alledge from S. Thomas That if the Faithful had been forbidden to appear upon Summons before the Tribunals of Infidels it had been against the subjection due to Princes and contrary to the Command of S. Peter Be subject to every humane Creature to the King as precelling and to the Rulers as sent by him Bellarmin cannot digest this Vmpirage but persists against Barklay to maintain they were True Judges yet withal confesses they had no Coactive Power as to the External Court and that Christians were obliged when ever Cited at the Suit either of Infidel or Christian to answer before the Legal Magistrate because saies he they were not Chosen by consent of the Contending Parties alone but appointed by the Church But this I think makes them no other than bare Umpires for such they are and are so esteemed among us who are often appointed by our Court to decide particular Differences And all the obligation to stand to their Award was for ought appears the obligation of doing what became Christians whom S. Paul in that place and our Saviour before him had instructed Not to contend in Judgment but part with the Cloak too to him who would take away the Coat And this Obligation for ought I know continues still and Law Suits are a blemish to the perfection of Christianity even at this day where men should do a great deal better to decide their differences by a Friendly Composition than lose so much time and undergo so much Trouble as is required to follow the Law But if either We now or They then are not so perfect as we ought but will have recourse to Magistrates there is nothing in S. Paul which hinders their Jurisdiction Mean time I conceive the difference betwixt a Judge and an Umpire is that one has Power to execute his Sentence the other not wherefore Bellarmin may call them what he pleases but if they had no Coactive Power as he confesses they had not they were not what our and I think all Languages properly call Judges This Argument then seems to come off lamely enough while it supposes the Primitive Christians wanted Force against the plain testimony of Primitive Christians themselves and would prove a right to set up New Kings by setting up New Judges vvhich Judges had not that Power vvhich is necessary to a Judge and makes his proper distinction from an Umpire however vvhich did not prejudice the Authority of the Legal Magistrate In short it amounts to this Christians are now free from Subjection to their Princes because S. Paul advised them heretofore to do something which did not take away their Subjection to Inferiour Magistrates Peradventure a second Proof may be more lucky which Bellarmin makes in this manner To tolerate an Heretical Prince is to expose Religion to most evident danger For such as the Ruler of a City is such will be the Inhabitants Ecclesiastic 10. But Christians ought not to tolerate an Infidel Prince with evident peril of Religion because where Divine and Human Laws are opposite we must obey the Divine Law And the Divine Law obliges us to preserve the true Religion Human Law only to have this or that Man for King And to say truth Bellarmin is a little more lucky than ordinary for his Adversaries besides vvhat he Cites from Scripture grant him at least one Proposition namely That the Law of God is to be prefer'd before the Law of Man and they hit it so seldom that 't is well they agree in any thing But then they deny all the rest and affirm that to tolerate an Infidel King is not to expose Religion to evident danger That Christians ought be subject to the Prince God has set over him whatever he be That there is no Contrariety betwixt the Law of God and the Law of Man in this case and lastly That our Subjection to Princes is not only by Human Law And while they are in such an humour of Contradicting 't was great luck that Bellarmin could get any thing granted For the first they say Bellarmin forgets himself and his Doctrine elsewhere When 't was for his purpose he could acknowledge that The safety of the Church depends not on Human Industry but the Divine Protection and that he will be sure to take care of her and provide Remedies against all mischances which may befall her And they think if Bellarmin be forgetful there is no great fear that God will be so too or danger that any Wickedness will prevail against the Power of Omnipotent Goodness For what greater danger is there in these later daies more than in the former when for Three hundred years together Princes not only were Infidels but employ'd all their Power and all their Industry to root out Springing Christianity out of the World Notwithstanding which the Church continued and increased and prevail'd at last So that if a King happen to persecute the Church to think as Bellarmin seems to do that all is presently lost is to rely on the Arm of Flesh a little more than becomes a good Christian and to distrust either the Power or Goodness of God and besides manifestly to contradict the Evidence of History And for the second That People may not tolerate an Infidel Prince because that would expose Religion to evident Danger This Tolerating of a Prince seems something an unmannerly phrase for Subjects A Prince may when he sees fit Tolerate the unwaywardness of his Subjects and not punish all the faults he sees But for Subjects to Tolerate their Prince is an expression hardly tolerable They are to obey him not in his Infidelity which 't is permitted them even to oppose by all the dutiful means consistent with the Fidelity of good Subjects but in the rest to refuse Subjection is no less than to acquire damnation However Tolerating say they signifies not Acting Exposing signifies Acting and that not-doing should be thought Doing they apprehend very strange Yet if any Inconvenience follow from not Acting it is then only imputable to him who Acts not when He is otherwise obliged to Act. And no man can be oblig'd to Act but where the Action is Just and Lawful Now Rebellion and Tumults and Murther and such Actions as those of necessity must be by which a Lawful Prince is resisted by his Subjects till Bellarmin have prov'd Just and Lawful Actions they think they may safely deny any apprehended danger of Religion will justifie those who do them If any harm come they are all accountable to God who do it the People who do Nothing have nothing to Answer for unless it be blamable to trust Gods Providence and not to intermeddle without sufficient Cause a sufficient cause of Condemnation If the Laws of God did warrant the Interposing of the People something might be
said for them but since they do not their part is to do their Duty in what concerns them to do and rely upon God for the rest Then for the Contradiction between the two Laws The Divine Law saies Bellarmin obliges us to preserve the True Religion Human only to have this or that Man for King Where is the Contradiction say they Cannot I keep this Man for my King and keep my Religion too A body would â—kink that this is very possible to be done The contrary to that Divine Law is You shall not preserve the True Religion and if any Human Law command this Disobey freely in God's name for Aequum est obedire Deo magis quam Hominibus But while you disobey this Law which you cannot without offending God obey do not refuse to acknowledge your Prince and obey him there where you offend God if you do not obey Again the contrary to vvhat he calls the Human Law is You shall not have this or that Man for Prince or which is all one You shall not obey him in just Commands Bellarmin has not yet produc'd any Command of the Divine Law which saies this nor vvill till Rebellion become a part of Gods Law In fine Whoever persists to put a contradiction betwixt Fearing God and Honouring the King will be Confuted by all the Bells in the Parish Lastly Whereas he makes it only by Human Law that this or that Man is King they Reply vvhat you have more at large in a former Letter That He becomes King as the Pope becomes Pope by Human means but when he once is so Obedience to him is by Divine Right and so if there be any contradiction betwixt Preserving our Religion and Obeying our Prince the Divine Law contradicts it self For as Preservation of Religion is Divine Law so Obedience to Princes is Divine Law too If Bellarmin be not pleas'd vvith these Answers they leave him to make better himself retorting as they are very good at Reparty his Argument against a scandalous Pope for he say they exposes Vertue to evident danger For such as the Ruler such will be the Inhabitants And Gods Law is to be observ'd when 't is contrary to Human Law and Gods Law obliges us to preserve Vertue and 't is by Human Law only that this or that Man is Pope c. And so we come to another Argument from the parity betwixt an Infidel Prince and an Infidel Husband whom the Apostle allows the Faithful Wife to leave and therefore Why are not the Faithful People as free in respect of an Infidel Prince In Answer to this they Dispute several things with exactness enough and examining the particular Cases where and how far and why Divorce is lawful find several Disparities and several Reasons why the Argument concludes not But to leave those Considerations which are not without their perplexity this Reply of theirs seems very plain Bring say they a Permission from the Apostle for a Subject to desert his Prince as plain as this is for a Woman to leave her Husband and we vvill acknowledge the case is equal The Apostle plainly derogates from the general Rule and brings an Exception wherein the Law of Marriage binds not He that was so careful of Private concerns cannot be imagined unmindful of Public and greater Had he known any Exception from the general Rule of Obeying Princes it is not to be suspected he would conceal it and testifie more care for Private Families than Commonwealths So that the Argument amounts to this We are free from the Law in cases where the Law is dispenst with therefore we are free likewise where 't is not dispenst with Again say they the Woman is only then free when the Man refuses to live vvith her for if he stay S. Paul wishes her to stay vvith him Now if any Prince refuses to Govern his People unless they vvill become Infidels like himself I think they will allow the People are not obliged to turn Infidels for his sake but may get them another in case he leave them But if the King will stay with his People since the Woman is to stay with her Husband who vvill be with her they think the very parity concludes the People oblig'd to stay vvith their Prince Otherwise the parity stands in this manner Even as the Faithful Woman is not to leave her Unbelieving Husband who vvill continue vvith her even so the Believing People are to leave their Unbelieving King who vvill stay vvith them Or even as the Believing Woman is free from an Unbelieving Husband who casts her off even so the Beleiving People are free from an Unbelieving King vvho does not cast them off Which methinks are something unlike for Parities The next Argument is of great esteem with Bellarmin He made it in his Book De Rom. Pont. and repeats it in Tortus and urges it largely against Barklay This it is Princes are receiv'd into the Church with this either express or tacit bargain to submit their Scepters to Christ and preserve and defend their Religion and this under penalty of forfeiting their Kingdoms if they fail Wherefore if they become Heretics or an obstacle to Religion they may without injury be Judged and Deposed by the Church For he is not fit to receive the Sacrament of Baptism who is not disposed to serve Christ and lose all he has for his sake according to S. Luke 14. If any one comes to me and hates not Father and Mother c. he cannot be my Disciple And the Church would err too grievously if She admitted a King who without Controul would cherish Heresie and overthrow Religion C. 24. Thus Argues Bellarmin in Rom. Pont. But against Barklay more largely Let us imagine saies he an Infidel Prince desirous to be receiv'd into the Church should speak in this manner I desire to become a fellow Citizen with the Saints by Baptism and promiss to submit my Scepter to Christ and defend his Church to my power and never to break my holy purpose Nevertheless If I happen to break my Word and become an Heretic or Apostate or Pagan I will not be punisht with Temporal Punishments either by the Church or its President or any but Christ and if the Chief Governour of the Church separate me from the Communion of the Faithful I will nevertheless that the Faithful Sons of the Church continue Faithful Subjects to me and may not be absolved from the bond of their Obedience by any Such a King saies he if Barklay think fit for Baptism wise men would laugh at him For if a man should desire to be incorporated into any City and should protest that if he had a mind to betray that City he would not be judged by the Magistrates of it but by the King who dwells far off every body would laugh at him And truly He that according to the Gospel ought be prepar'd to lose his life for the Faith of Christ ought more to be
seldom running in the School Phrase of all Four The Metaphor is generally and more fitly understood so that by Wolves are meant Persecutors by Rams the Prelates of the Church and by Sheep the rest of the Faithful But allowing him to use the Similitude as he pleases and apply it after his own fashion to talk vvith him in his own language they observe many differences betwixt a figurative and real Wolf a figurative and real Sheep and many defects in the Similitude and Reasons vvhy the Argument concludes not even keeping vvithin the terms of the Metaphor But to consider the Thing Here say they the Church is compar'd to a Flock as it vvas before to a Commonwealth and may to be a City or Family or Ship or Army or twenty things more All these several Comparisons make no difference in the things compared For whether you consider the Pope as Prince of a Spiritual Commonwealth or Shepheard of a Spiritual Flock his Power as Prince is not different from his Power as Shepheard but the same and if you consider it according to all the Comparisons of which it is capable 't is still one and the same and that a Spiritual Power Wherefore all the Similitudes that are or can be will never make it other than it is and the Pope whether he be lookt upon as a Prince or a Shepheard or a Pilot or however he be considered can do no more than a Spiritual Prince and a Spiritual Shepheard c. Now when Bellarmin Argues the Pope is a Shepheard and a Shepheard may drive away or kill a Wolf and an Infidel Prince is a Wolf all this say they even allowing the Comparison is to be understood of Spiritual driving away and Spiritual killing But when he infers Therefore he may Depose him he passes from Spirituals to Temporals and leaves his Allegory and the truth too The Pope may Admonish and Command the Flock not to follow the Wolf in what he is a Wolf but in what he is not a Wolf but a Shepheard himself what ever the Pope say to the contrary they are bound to obey the Power which God has set over them It is by Divine Law that Subjects obey their Prince and Princes cease not to be Princes by turning Infidels nor Subjects to be Subjects by becoming or remaining Faithful And that all the Similitudes in the World should dispense with the Law of God Bellarmin may talk as long as he will but they will not believe him For the rest these kind of Arguments if too much credit were given to them would make mad work Every Bishop and every Curate is as truly a Shepheard as the Pope Their Flocks indeed are not so large but they are truly Flocks and suffice to denominate their Governours with propriety Shepheards If this quality enable him who has it to Depose a Prince there is no remedy but every Bishop has Power to Depose the King who is of his Diocess and every Curate him who belongs to his Parish And since Private men have something less Title to their Estates than the King to his Kingdom if Kings be subject to this Power Private men are much more and so because the Argument with a little more stretching would reach to every Sin within a little while every Sinner might be dispossest of his Estate at the pleasure of his Bishop or Curate which in time would make such work that People would go near to hate all Arguments and all Scholars for Bellarmins sake and as the Turks do Forbid all Learning that they may live in Peace and Security Besides if the fancy should take a man to apply this very Allegory to Princes for if it were said to S. Peter Feed my Sheep it was of Cyrus I say to Cyrus Thou art my Shepheard Isay 44. and of David Thou shalt feed my People Israel 1 Paral. 11. and then apply this Notion of the Wolf and furious Ram to a wicked scandalous Pope over whom he must have Power if he cannot otherwise preserve his own Flock Bellarmin must either unravel all he has weav'd here or Princes will have more Power over Bad Popes than he will think fit to allow them In the mean time of the two waies by which he saies in Rom. Pont. his Doctrine may be prov'd Reasons and Examples These are all he produces of the first kind You will judge of them while I pass to the other He brings in all Twelve Two in the Old Law and Ten in the New Those of the Old are Ozias depos'd for Leprosie by Azarias and Athalia by Joiada for Idolatry Of these two one was never Deposed and the other never a Queen but by Usurpation Ozias for his Presumption was miraculously struck with Leprosie and by the Priests according to their duty and the command of the Law put out of the Temple and separated from the People but for the rest continued King till his dying day his Son supplying his place in what his Disease permitted him not to interpose himself Athalia endeavoured to settle her self in the Kingdom by the Murther of all the Children of Ochozias but was mistaken Joas was saved by his Aunt Jeboseth and by the honesty and credit of her Husband Joiada put in Possession of the Regal Dignity whereof the Right had been in him all the while So that the Argument from this Instance stands thus The High Priest amongst the Jews was instrumental in placing his true Soveraign in his Throne therefore the High Priest among the Christians may tumble a lawful Soveraign out of his Throne which for a man of Bellarmins Vogue is something odly Argued His Third Example and First from the New Law is the dealing of S. Ambrose with the Emperour Theodosius whom after a Cruelty commanded by him in a transport of Anger he admitted not into the Church till he had Repented and make satisfaction I know not but methinks he makes the most unpromising entry into his business that may be In the former Instances one had no Deposition the other no Lawful Prince to be Depos'd and in this there is neither Deposition nor Pope to make it S. Ambrose was Bishop of Milan not of Rome and I hope he will not extend this Deposing Power to every Bishop However what he did not only every Bishop but every Ghostly Father may do both lawfully and laudably It is the Office of Churchmen to induce Sinners to Repentance if they can and perswade them to those Remedies which may hinder them from relapsing into the same faults And they have here the Zeal of an excellent Prelate successful with an excellent Emperour for their encouragement and this is all I can perceive in this passage The Fourth is a Priviledge of S. Gregory the Great to a certain Monastery in which there is this Clause If any King Bishop Judge c. violate this Decree of what Dignity or Degree soever he be let him be depriv'd of his Honour This they take to be
one and giving to another being not to take away Power it self but to translate it because there is no vvay by vvhich Civil Power can be taken away but only by translating nevertheless if he did as this is not the first time he has said vvhat he had no great reason to say I must tell him that this translating is every jot as unsatisfactory to us because 't is every jot as unsafe to our Soveraign as plain taking away For if it be taken away from him vvhoever has it next 't is taken away from him And vvhoever holds this may be done let Bellarmin speak never so subtly I must hold is no good Subject There is another distinction or two or explication or vvhat you vvill call them vvhich stick in my stomach To understand them the better it vvill be convenient to mention the occasion he had to make them Barclay in his 12th Chapter objected against his opinion that it makes Christian Princes Vassals to the Pope and hold their Kingdoms only at pleasure or precariously And this he proves by this Argument The Pope if it be necessary for the good of Souls may take away a Kingdom from one Prince and give it to another but to Judge and decree whether it be necessary or no belongs to the Pope and none must judge whether his Sentence be right or wrong Therefore he may at pleasure Dethrone the one and Crown the other Bellarmin Answers that Christian Princes must by no means be call'd the Popes Vassals and much less be said to hold their Kingdoms at pleasure But are true Kings and true Princes This goes well but yet if his opinion make them Vassals I hope they may without offence to it be call'd so But however Princes are to thank him for this confession that they are true Kings and Princes and may hope so much may for his sake pass for true doctrine Which if it once do there is so much true fidelity due to those true Kings that what takes it but indirectly away will be found directly false Coming then to speak to Barclay's Argument he says 't is faulty every where major and minor and all Still there is no medling with Schollers These two premises of Barclay are two Propositions which he has borrowed from Bellarmin himself and were very good Propositions as long as he had the handling of them but as soon as ever another but breaths on them they fade and wither to non-sence and yet I perceive no alteration in them but that before they came out of Bellarmins mouth and now out of Barclays However he tells us This Proposition The Pope may if it be necessary for the good of Souls take away a Kingdom from one and give it to another needs explication for it may be well and ill understood it may be true and it may be false I make no question but it may be and is false but I would fain see the Explication by which it may be true This it is The Pope indeed may if it be necessary for the good of Souls take the Kingdom from one but if he admonish him before if he give him time to repent if he find him pernicious and incorrigible May he so Why then your opinion for all your Buts and Ifs is pernicious and you incorrigible good Bellarmin What 's this to say but that he cannot steal his Kingdom in the dark but may rob him of it in broad day light This Admonition and Space of Repentance is in other words The Pope must first say to the King look you I deal fairly above-board and give you notice before hand that if you do not do as I would have you within such a time it may be a month or two it may be so many hours for this space of Bellarmin's is for ought I see at the Popes appointing too I will turn you a grazing and provide my good people another King I see no such matter of substance in these formalities but that they might be well enough spar'd if conveniently they could But they are a sort of impudent things which will thrust in whether the Pope will or no. For Kingdoms are no such inconsiderable trifles that they can be pass'd away in private and none know when or how Except King Phys and King Vsh none ever yet stept into another mans Throne without warning and I believe none ever will Does Bellarmine think it can happen in the world that there should be a King so tame that without more knowledge of the matter as soon as a sentence of Deposition is brought should quietly submit and turn private man and enquire no farther Kings are more inquisitive then so and stand more upon their terms and look to be better satisfi'd And though they did not Subjects who have sworn Fealty have a little curiosity in them and will be asking why and by what necessity they must change Lords and obey Peter who have sworn to Paul There goes time to all this for nothing will come of it till all parties be agreed Now Bellarmine requires no more to make his sentence just nor so much as nature will force upon him let it be never so unjust Of necessity there must intervene more time in the change of Kings then he requires to his admonition and space of repentance So that his Explication amounts in short to this The sentence were unjust if it requir'd things should pass in such a manner in which 't is impossible they should pass but very just if things be so done as they must be done in spite of sentence or whatever else to the contrary which is certainly a very trim Explication and alters the Proposition wonderfully for the better We cannot put so much as a Tenant out without warning and he would perswade us we are much beholding to his Explication for requiring as much Ceremony in the change of a Kingdom as a Farm And yet when all is done I cannot tell whether he be in earnest or no and think these Formalities so indispensably necessary that a King cannot be depos'd without them It is hard to say what Plenitude of Power may do and I doubt he would not be well look't on who should go about to fix its bounds But besides that a Case may happen where a King cannot repent though he would or at least make amends by repentance A Case may happen where he will not repent nor believe he hath reason so to do Bellarmine would perswade us Ozias in the Old Law was depos'd for Leprosie What! did the High Priest admonish him to repent of his Leprosie and not proceed to Deposition till after convenient patience with him he found him incorrigible in his Leprosie Ozias might and 't is likely did repent the fault for which he was struck with Leprosie but unless his repentance could make him clean again as to the matter of Deposition he had as good ne'r repented at all for he vvas according to Bellarmine
the Pope to feign necessities and yet it may be said as truly as that Deposing belongs to him If Bellarmin could give good security the Pope should never do more then belong'd to him there might be something in it but if that were so we should not have heard so much of this Deposing power for that does not belong to him neither But belong or not belong he may feign a necessity by passion or he may judge that necessary which is not so by mistake and if he does so 't is all one as if he did not feign and not mistake when neither Prince nor any body else is allow'd to judge whether he feign or no. Unless the Pope be supposed infallible in sincerity too and that he will alwaies declare This man I depose upon a true and that upon a feigned necessity But if we must take all he saies is necessary to be truly necessary Kings may be depos'd at pleasure for he may say so when he pleases Marry if other people must see this necessity as well as himself all good subjects will tell him there neither is nor can be any necessity why a King should be depos'd I but saies Bellarmin because this is a matter of great importance and the necessity must be manifest and seen therefore Popes ordinarily do these things in Synods of Bishops or Consistories of Cardinals shewing his reasons and taking their consents Yes sure 't is a matter of great importance too great to be thus trifled with Manifest quotha I beseech you to whom must this necessity be manifest If to any besides himself why 't is manifest to all good Subjects that there neither is nor ever was nor ever shall or can be any such necessity and 't is manifest they are not good Subjects who think otherwise But if He alone be Judge of the manifest as well as the necessary his command without more ado is evidence enough that 't is manifest to Him it ought be commanded And I hope he can as easily and as soon say 'T is manifest as 'T is necessary Then for his Synods and Consistories I wonder what they are for Does he consult with them tro whether that be to be done of which there is a necessity and this necessity seen and manifest He may consult the How but the Whether is a wise point of consultation if it be already manifest Or is it perhaps to be made manifest by the consultation If so the case is not so clear as Bellarmin pretends and other persons more concern'd then his Synods and Consistories have reason to expect it should be made manifest to them too as well as the other Besides He who makes what Bishops and Cardinals he pleases and of such as he makes consults with whom he pleases has wit enough sure to chuse such of whom he may be certain before-hand they will oppose nothing which he shall propose Indeed if by his Synods he meant General Councels there might be more difficulty The Bishops of The Prince concern'd and of those Princes who were leagu'd with him would go neer to speak in his behalf Else Synod in his language imports no more then a company of Bishops perhaps not so much chosen according to the Popes pleasure And yet even thus much is more then he thinks necessary too He saies the Pope ordinarily does thus but if he will do otherwise He may for any thing Bellarmin saies to the contrary And the truth is 't is not to be expected but he will To depose a King is not every daies work 'T is an extraordinary case and in extraordinary cases there may be extraordinary proceedings However the Pope is still Judge of this as of all the rest and so when all is done we are purely at the Popes pleasure for all There is a brace more of Volunteers which though they be resolute enough and venture on any thing let it be never so desperate and let them have never so little to do with it yet Bellarmin spares them as much as he can and keeps them in reserve for dead-lifts and then which often happens they never fail him One is De Facto and De Jure This is a distinction good enough in it self but as he uses it only at a pinch and when he has nothing else to say it looks still like a piece of good stuff hung in a place which it will not fit For example Gregory the Great writing of a certain Law which for his own part he dislik't and thought unjust but yet publisht as he was commanded by the Emperour speaks thus I being subject to your command have caused the Law to be sent into several parts and because the Law agrees not with God Omnipotent I have by my Letter informed my Serene Lords Wherefore I have in both done what I ought obey'd the Emperour and not conceal'd what I thought for God Now I should think that to publish an unjust Law and where the Injustice concern'd the service of God and liberty of the Church as was here the case without the excuse which bears out a Subject who is not to examine but obey the commands of his Superiour is to do an unjust thing and for which now adaies Force would hardly pass for an excuse If any encroachment be thought made upon the Church in our times the language is presently I will die first I will suffer Martyrdom before the Cause of God and Ecclesiastical immunity shall suffer by my means I take this Pope to have been a man of as much zeal as those who use this language and acknowledg'd to be so and since he submitted to a bare command he either thought that command had power to oblige him or he acted against his Conscience without obligation Wherefore plainly he thought himself De Jure subject or De facto he did very ill For all that I says Bellarmin say this obedience was forc't de Facto not de Jure Why then I think you may say any thing Pray consider again good Bellarmin Does not he say he did but what he ought Vtrobique quod debui exolvi Does not what I ought signifie what is my duty and does Duty signifie Force with you Sure as can be a Cardinal may do what he pleases If he will have words signifie otherwise then they do there is no contesting Otherwise if the Pope were subject de Facto only not de Jure the Emperour had no Right to command him and if the Emperour had no Right to command the Pope had no obligation to obey and then he ought have done quite the contrary for Force is no excuse for injustice and what I ought signifies what I ought not which we dull men should never have suspected Allow us but the same liberty though and it shall be shamfully hard for which we will not make a shift to say some thing That Chalk is blew for example which we will say is white only de Facto but blew de Jure That
difference in Principles the Government should make a difference because the reason of the Law is the danger of those Principles which if some heartily renounce there seems to be no ground that they should suffer equally with those who will not Dr. Stillingfleet Answer to S. C. Ep. Apologet p. 476. By Protection I mean such an Exemption from the Rigour of our laws which were never designed against Persons of their moderate Principles as might encourage them to speak their minds freely and to Proselyte others of their own Communion and may make a manifest distinction betwixt the good and ill-principled persons of their Church That it is Fit as well as Just and charitable That it is as much for our Interest as it is Reasonable in it self to allow them this Protection besides the considerations intimated in the beginning of this discourse § II. Several others might have been suggested c. Considerat of pres Concernment p. 400. If these Seminaries c. would imploy their travails in the works of light and Doctrine according to the usage of their Schools and content themselves with their Profession and Devotion c. There is no doubt by Gods grace but all colour and occasion of shedding the blood of any more of her natural Subjects of this land should utterly cease Execution for Justice p. 38. not only the most moderate but in my opinion the most learned and most wise among us who wish some indulgence to such as you are But these are but wishes your fate depends upon a a greater and more efficacious wisdom Whatsoever it be my speaking plainly I conceive will do you no prejudice For besides that it gives you the opportunity of clearing your self if you can every body thinks and any body may say as much as I do And I think you will not take it amiss if that be said which you know may At least I hope you will hear it with least offence from Your Friend and Servant FRIEND I did not expect to be importun'd again at a time when you may very well think I am but ill dispos'd to write When I see the well meaning of such as I am interpreted for a piece of dangerous craft dreams of bold undertakers and men of speculation when any kindness or Indulgence to a Roman Votary of whatever Principle or subdivision he pretend to be is concluded to be stilling a Tempest by whispering to it or reclaiming a Viper by receiving him into the bosom while the unsheath'd Sword of the Law hangs over my head and may fall for ought I know even while I am at it I suppose you will easily believe I have no more stomach to writing then the flattering fool had to his meat Truly did not the question concern the duty of a good Subject from which I believe no cross accident a sufficient dispensation silence or excuse should have been all my answer For as the world goes I foresee no fruit of my writing but to make the Author pass for a scribling Emperick who makes the disease worse then it would be by stirring humours unseasonably I know not why it is not as wise to go on endlesly with Mercury and Coals as continue to sow the seeds as simple I think of good intelligence and mutual love and reap nothing but heightned jealousies and Animosities To set me a writing what purchases me the reputation of a Fool and a Knave to boot and still to urge me to write is to stretch the power you have over me with the farthest Notwithstanding the Subject being of the nature it is I shall overcome the repugnance I have to meddle more with the consideration of my duty and let you and the world see that Jealousy and Scorn and Severity and whatever you please to lay on despicable Papists shall not hinder them from being affected as they ought to the Honour and security of their Prince and Country Use me as you please I shall continue to desire and as much as you will let me contribute to the service of both If the success be not answerable to all the hopes with which my simplicity has sometimes flatter'd me One better grounded I am sure will not deceive me I hope receive from the Grace of God a constancy in my duty whatever the face of things be and from his goodness a recompence above what man can give and reposita est haec spes mea in sinu meo To come to your Letter I must acknowledge I have seen the Considerations to which you refer me Whatever I think of the Book I think very well of the Author And that for more then one Reason There is in him great Reading and great Judgment and great Candor and care to speak strong sence in unoffensive language so that he disobliges not even when he confutes In short He is one such as when I think my self able to hold up a side I would wish for an Adversary I wish him one as learned and as candid as himself and then we may hope to see the Truth fairly try'd out between them and let her carry it on Gods name on which side soever she be For what concerns my self I shall defend what I have said against his exceptions as well as I can when you require it which I hope you will not do till you find me something better dispos'd Notwithstanding I wish he had spared his two first Topicks which I believe less digested then any thing he says besides They are framed against the supposition of a forcible settlement of Popery May they be hang'd without more ado for grand Traytors as they are who think such a thought if there be any which because I firmly believe there are not I complain of a supposition too injurious There needs no casting about for Topicks to shew the inconveniences of such a supposition if it could be made Force cannot be without mischiefs too obvious to need proof but likewise too exorbitant to asperse people with them on suppositions and those so unreasonable and impossible The Papist is not the hundredth I am confident not the thousandth man in this nation When he does any thing by force the old miracles must return one chase a thousand and two ten thousand I say nothing to the first Topick because it has nothing to do with my present argument and for another reason which I think not so convenient to express Besides I doubt not but the Authors zeal for Religion will move him to consider it over again and give a solution to his own argument The second is what you make the principal part of your letter to which being to speak more at large hereafter I only observe for the present that it seems ill suited to his purpose It is fear of the Popes pretences on England upon Human Right in case the return of Popery should give him opportunity to set them on foot Now I conceive the return of Popery neither makes nor mars in the
If the Laws would take into their protection such only as should give you the satisfaction which your selves should judge reasonable perhaps their number may prove great enough to deserve their care and then you would have what you desir'd however it is not unworthy the care of Laws to provide that no man should suffer without demerit Now I am upon this Subject pardon a little freedom and a little Tautology You complain I am single and conceal'd and will not take notice that 't is your dealing which makes me so What reason has any body to joyn with me what reason have I to discover my self when doing so will make us worse then we are already which I refer me to your self if it be not bad enough You will not be fatisfy'd but with what you know will cause dissatisfaction among our selves A man that had any jealousy in his nature would startle at this but yet while your pretences for thus much are at least specious those whose conscience will allow them are willing to do as you would have them satisfy you your own way and upon your own Terms When this is done you are as little satisfy'd as before And out come harsh suspitions of I know not what craft and danger cover'd under these specious Condescendencies out come harsher things then bare suspitions the Sword of the Law hanging naked over our heads and threatning us with all the sharpness of its unavoydable edge You will not let us pass for good Subjects till we have done what no Nation in Christendom besides your selves thinks necessary for the trial of good Subjects Sure the English are not the only good Subjects nor the only wise men of the world However when a man has past the test of your uttermost scrupulosity and may be call'd a good Subject even in your nice language then has this good Subject to expect for his comfort which will be taken his twenty pound a month or his two Thirds Shall I venture to say what has by some less credulous been long thought As Princes resolv'd to make War would yet be thought inclin'd to Peace and seek to perswade the World they draw not their Swords but forc't by Justice and necessity so deal you with us no answer that is or can be made to their Reasons shall keep the Ratio ultima from thundring at last nor no return we make to your Objections shall hinder you from what you have determin'd concerning us Whether we stand on our justification or yield to you whether innocent or guilty They are perswaded we shall with all our several Principles and subdivisions Wheat and Tares indifferently be bound up together into one condemned bundle and thrown into the fire at last This they gather partly from your objections which in truth are wonderful cross urging now Danger and then Craft now Number and presently after Fewness and when one is taken taken off you never fail of another nor shew any disposition that you ever will They gather it more apparently from your Actions more certain signs of the mind by far than words and think it a foolish thing to guess at what you mean by what you say when they see what you do When a Prince fills the Frontiers with Magazines and Souldiers and Weapons they think his intentions plain enough and judge not of them by his manifests If this be what we must trust to which truly I shall be the last man who believes if the good Subject must be condemned that the Papist may not escape and no hopes of living with comfort in this world but by forfeiting our hopes of the next It is not for us to think of any thing but the next World and those comforts which will not fail us of good Christians and a good Conscience And I very earnestly entreat you to leave me in quiet as long as the Law will let me to study what only becomes me Patience For to study longer how to satisfy those who will not be satisfy'd and with a great deal of pains purchase the reputation of one more dangerous than those who will not perhaps cannot answer you is not more uncomfortable than irrational Is not your next Objection a kind of secret Declaration to use the Figure call'd a Bull of your mind in this point You would have it impossible so much as for a single person to give you satisfaction because one may prevaricate even while he renounces prevarication I cannot tell how far you are in earnest but this to my eye looks like a reserve in store when other pretences fail to maintain a resolution of admitting no satisfaction Otherwise can you seriously believe there is no trusting no taking one anothers word because the Doctrine of Aequivocation has been taught in the world If this were true Cities and Societies had been left off by this time and we had in Deserts been experiencing the comforts of the returned Golden Age. For there is no living in society without mutual trust Those doctrines do not hinder us from keeping up society still and dealing together with security enough and if we can give security to one another such as serves the turn and enables us to converse and treat with confidence what should hinder but we may give it to you too But let us look upon the Objection Some of our Communion have thought Aequivocation lawful therefore none may be trusted Do you think this Inference concluding Will you have every one of our Communion answerable for what is said by any one Pray consider whether Positions have not been maintain'd by some of your Communion with which if others should be charged they would think themselves not fairly dealt with it is no more reasonable to impute these doctrines to our Communion in which if there be who hold there are too who contradict them The Yea's and the No's should not be confounded and which is more unjust the No's condemn'd for the fault of the Yea's For my own particular I could produce if that would satisfie you sufficient Compurgators for my innocence in this particular and sufficient witnesses that I never believ'd Aequivocation lawful nor was ever taught it was nor ever heard of it without a scurvy character But then if the fancy should take you to except against my Compurgators you would leave me no means to make out my Innocence and yet I am very sure I am innocent Yet let me tell you if you go this way to work you may chance be caught in your own Trap. For this is no point of Religion It belongs purely to Learning and may be held by men of different Communions You read our Authors as well as your own and I suppose assent to as much as you think true in them Pray who shall be your Compurgator that you do not your self hold this doctrine which you object to me And why may not I as well suspect you of Prevarication as you me For 't is nothing to purpose
good or no is a dispute in which I am not concern'd it not importing much to our times to know what was just in those For whether his Title were just that of his present Successors is not a jot the better nor a jot the worse if it were stark naught Wherefore I positively deny the Inference imply'd in our Author's discourse the Conqueror did arbitrarily dispose of the Kingdom therefore K. John justly might because that Arbitrariness of his does not conclude he had Right so much as to the Crown and much less to dispose as he pleas'd of it 'T is farther urged That the very granting of Magna Charta from the Prince to the People is a plain Argument that at least the power of our Norman Princes was originally arbitrary and unconfin'd till themselves were pleas'd to restrain it by voluntary compacts and concessions And this as the former is true of Power but I cannot grant it of Right The Fact is interpretable both ways and may as well argue Right in the People to the things granted as in Princes to grant them And if Justice required that such things should be granted the Power which till the grants were past hindred the People from what it was fit they should have can hardly be thought just The Truth is this difficulty would ask rather a Treatise than a Letter The Notions of Power and Right would be explained and setled It would be shewn how Right is acquired and how lost How the Freedom of Nature is changed into subjection why and how far some command others obey and in vertue of what with twenty other Considerations necessary enough to clear the difficulty as it ought but too long for a Packet To say briefly as much as may serve turn I observe that we use these words Just or Right as all others in different senses We call him a Just man who gives to every one what the Law makes his due in which sense the Law is the Rule of Just and Vnjust Just meaning as much as agreeable Vnjust the same as contrary to Law But sometimes we apply the same Terms to Laws themselves and say some are Just others Unjust As if Marriage or the propagation of posterity were universally forbidden or every body commanded to cut off their Legs or Arms such Laws would be thought and called Unjust In this case the notion of those words is very different from what it was before Unjustice now signifying opposition not to Law which cannot be opposite to it self but to something else which the Law-makers had in their eye when they made a just Law and which was their Rule and directed them to order what they did and not the contrary If we reflect what this is we shall find that Just and Vnjust are said with reference to the nature of man For other things being made for his use are not alwayes to be dealt with as is most fitting for them but as they may best serve him But man must be used as his nature requires and if he be not we say he is wronged I conceive therefore that the Root of Justice lyes in the nature of man and that the consideration of what is fitting or unfit for it is the original Rule of Just and Unjust To descend to more particulars and dispute how far one man may justly be hindred from his particular good for the greater good of the society in which he lives with the rest of the Considerations which belong to Law-makers is not to my purpose It is enough if I observe that Just signifies radically Commensurate or Fit generally implies Agreement which Agreement is supposed to be made on sight of what is fit for both parties agreeing So that antecedently to Laws which are and ought to be in practice at least betwixt members of the same common-wealth look't on as the only Rules of Justice there is a proportion or exigence of Nature with respect to which some things are Just others Unjust and to which when Laws have not an eye they themselves are thought not Just And this explication I take to be not only true but universally acknowledged For if positive agreements be thought absolutely necessary to the notion of Justice I know not how that notion can be found in the Laws of Nature and Nations which are the highest and most binding of all others and yet are before and manifestly without agreements To apply this to our case I consider that Government has been embrac'd for the good of the world to avoid the mischief of lawless humors destructive to society and that the Good of the Commonwealth is or ought to be the Princes Rule from which when he swerves his Action is not Just because unproportioned and not suited to that exigence of Nature which is the root of Justice yet it does not follow that a Prince every time he does unjustly may be resisted That is another and at present unconcerning Question I consider farther that nothing can more import the good of the Commonwealth than the Governors themselves For they are the main hinges on which the common good turns and the Fountains from which all goods flow to particulars If these be such as may endanger long setled Laws and Customs and render the properties of subjects uncertain and unsecure the Commonwealth alwaies totters and often falls But all this will unavoidably follow if the nomination of supream Governors be left to arbitrary pleasure They may be strangers and through ignorance unable to preserve national Laws They may be enemies and through ill affection studious to break them In fine to fancy that any thing can be more against the common good than to want known rules of succession and that a Nation should be bound to obey whoever is named by chance or humor is to fancy there may be some member more considerable to the Body than the Head If this discourse be good it may be understood how the Arbitrary power even of Conquerors may be bounded otherwise than by their voluntary Compacts and Concessions namely by nature and by the proportion of their Actions to the subject on which they Act. It is true that antecedently to compacts their Actions cannot be called Vnjust as unjust signifies breach of agreements but as Vnjust signifies breach of proportion and the violation of what nature requires They may be unjust even before they bind themselves by compact to observe this proportion This now I concieve is our Case and that since the good of the Commonwealth is the Rule of the Princes Action and that 't is plainly against that good that their supream Governors should be appointed arbitrarily the arbitrary dispositions of the Crown mentioned by our Author were effects more of Power than Right I think himself will grant if those Norman Princes were unconfin'd till they voluntarily confin'd themselves that 't was at least reasonable and fit they should be confin'd in this point and sure a Power to act unreasonably and
unfitly is not what the world means by Right Right to do ill sounds very like Right to do wrong and is in this case neither better nor worse For if arbitrary placing of Governors be against the good of the Commonwealth and Right or Just signify as much as Fit or Good and that as at present it must with respect to the Commonwealth there is a Right in the Commonwealth which requires their Princes should not be set over them arbitrarily and those arbitrary dispositions of the Crown were manifestly against Right And yet perhaps it is enough that they were unreasonable and unfit For unreasonable Actions are no more to be drawn into consequence than unjust ones and peradventure bind no more where collateral considerations do not give them a strength which they have not of themselves I have alledged these considerations more to hint what may be said than because I think nothing else can For after all it may with truth be maintained that the power of the first Norman Princes and of the Conqueror himself as well as the rest was actually confined and in the manner our Author would have it by voluntary Concessions long before Magna Charta and the establishment of those liberties to the subject which he supposes confine it now They all took Oaths at their Coronation and bound themselves to the observation of Justice If an Oath do not bind a Prince an Oath deliberately and solemnly made in the face of God and Man in a matter too mainly concerning the good of the Commonwealth for whose security he gives that Oath and which she accepts as full security there is no talking of Confinement upon him of security to a Commonwealth of Laws and Obligations and Compacts but all must be left to the arbitrary unconfin'd pleasure of one man a Position which is the Freedom of this part of the world I suppose will not find much entertainment However it is the strength even of Magna Charta it self which cannot confine a Prince if his Oath do not first confine him to observe it Now who swears to render Justice undoubtedly swears to render Justice to the Kingdom in the first place For the concern of the whole is the concern of all particulars every one being as much and perhaps more interested in the Rights of the Kingdom than in his private pretensions If any man doubt of this I suppose no Englishman at least will doubt but that he is to acquiesce to the Judgment of Parliament And it is positively declared by Parliament 40 Ed. 3 that the Fact of K. John was contrary to his Coronation Oath in which nevertheless for ought I can find there is nothing more than general expressions of rendring Justice However it be since it is a judged case that K. John broke his Oath in his arbitrary disposition of the Kingdom it is a judged case that his Power was confined in that particular and this independently of Magna Charta and all subsequent Compacts And if his then sure of all the rest for they all swear as much as He. But if any man will continue stiff in this opinion and believe nothing able to confine the arbitrary power of Conquerors but their own Concessions I would entreat him to direct me to that Concession which has confin'd their power in this point besides their Coronation Oath I do not find either in Mag. Charta or any where else any Article concerning the disposition of the Crown Learneder men may know more but my Ignorance perswades me that if the Norman Princes had such a Right and that Right can only be restrained by voluntary Concessions and those direct to the point their Successors have it still And 't is not easie to be perswaded otherwise till the Concession appear But this no Englishman can either say or think nothing being more notorious than that it cannot be done now Whoever will take the pains to examin how it comes to pass that this original power is now restrained will not easily be satisfi'd if nothing else will satisfie him but a direct Concession I believe he will be forc'd to confess at last that such a Concession is neither extant nor needful and acknowledg that Power is bounded as truly and as strongly by Nature as Grants Upon the whole I conceive there may in the first Norman Princes be considered the Power of Conquerors and Right of Kings That their Power was unconfin'd enough but ought not be drawn into Precedent although it be against all Reason and Justice to question now those effects of their Power which remain among us even to this day For these have strength not from their Power but from what is able to turn Unjust into Just as Titles originally bad become good in process of Time That even their Right was confined the very notion of Right implying limitation For right signifies proportion of the Action to the subject so that an unconfined Right is not Right That their Right was confined in this particular by the good of the Kingdom as has been discours'd before and though it had not Right to what they did is very far from inferring Right to what K. John did the two remarkable precedents mentioned by our Author being so remarkably different from this case that they can be no Precedents nor warrant for it William Rufus reigned after his Father and excluded his Brother in truth by the favour of the Kingdom yet claiming by his Fathers Testament That claim may be allow'd without allowing King Johns resignation For in the Conquerors fact there was no more then of two sons both fit both equal to the Kingdom to prefer whom he thought fittest The Laws and Liberties and condition of the Kingdom was the same under either so that apprehending in likelyhood no greater interest in the business than whether their King should be called William or Robert They approved the Fathers choice and willingly obey'd whom he appointed But King John's Fact was quite of another strain A Stranger and such an one who could never become a denizen one taken up with other cares and dwelling too far off to be ever able to act as was fitting for the good of England was made the supream Lord and which was worse the Tenure of the Kingdom altered and of free turn'd into subject The Kingdom was sensible of their Interest in the business and disclaim'd the fact both then and ever since I am mistaken if Reception of Laws be not generally held a very material consideration to their validity But the cases are otherwise so apparently different that a Right in the Conqueror to dispose of the Crown as he did may safely be granted without any necessity or colour of allowing in consequence a Right to King John to dispose of it as he did If Henry 1. succeeded in vertue of the same Testament his case is the same with the former But this Gentlemans information was better than mine if he had other Title than
the Children of his elder Brother who were Heirs not to John but Richard and by John wrongfully excluded This Lady never married but liv'd to a good Age M. Paris ad an 1241. Y podig. Neustriae p. 59. one example of many of the little comfort there is in unsupported greatness She dy'd in the year 1241 and was buried among the Nuns of Amesbury to whom by permission of Henry III. She gave the Mannor of Molsham Her Right was buried with her but while she lived it cannot be said K. John had no Competitor This being so all pretence from K. Johns Fact is cut up by the roots there being not so much to be said for it as that himself had right to what he gave away And yet for my part I think if he had had a Right as unquestionable as our Author supposes it is equally unquestionable that his gift was no more valid than if he had had none Whether I have acquitted my self of what I undertook and shewn the three material points of our Authors discourse viz Consent of the Barons undoubted Right and unconfin'd power in K. John are all mistakes I am not to be my own Judge It is the readers right and to him I leave it To pass farther and examine what else is urged seems needless When the Root is dig'd up the Branches may be let alone and I am far from taking pleasure in contradicting especially a man whose Learning and Candor I esteem Yet because peradventure to neglect what he says may shew more unhandsom than to dissent from it I shall briefly deliver my opinion of the rest In the next point viz. That the Popes Title was the more confirm'd by his uninterrupted Practice I think He is mistaken too 'T is true that Henry III. did at his Coronation take an Oath of Fealty to the Pope the same which his Father had taken before And there was a very pressing necessity which oblig'd him so to do Lewis Son to the King of France was in the Bowels of the Kingdom with a strong Army and many of the Nobility took his part The King was a Child unable to do any thing for himself and forc'd to depend entirely on those who would assist him Among these the Pope was the most considerable whose Legat was with him and with unweari'd earnestness laboured for his Interest It was not for him in such a conjuncture to break with the Pope For it was evidently to ruin himself So that 't was wisely done of his Councel to provide for the greater danger first and leave the rest to time It is true also that King John made use of this subjection to annul his concession to the Barons But it does not therefore follow there was no Interruption The Archbishop of Canterbury protested at very first and in the name of the whole Kingdom the Barons refus'd to submit to the Popes sentence and stood to their obtain'd Concessions notwithstanding his Excommunications the French rejected his claim with great ardor solemn opposition was made in the Council of Lions both by King and Kingdom in the reign of Henry III. succeeding Kings positively deni'd all marks of subjection and were abetted by unanimous consent of Parliament A Practice so much opposed I think cannot be called uninterrupted Opposition sure is Interruption or at least as good For the the act of one part can never confirm a practice The Pope may do what he pleases but unless the Kingdom do something too his Title will never be confirmed It may be said that the Tribute was paid by Henry III. suppose it were what is this to the Kingdom Henry III. could not be hindred from disposing of his own and paying what and to whom he pleased But his Act cannot be thought binding to the Kingdom unless the Kingdom consented And the Kingdom was so far from consenting that it positively dissented Wherefore the practice being urged as a Title to the Kingdom it seems very plain that this Title was so far from being more confirm'd that it was not confirm'd at all nor could be by any practice of the Popes unless the Kingdom had concurred to it The next point that the Pope never solemnly devested himself I conceive not to purpose For if his Title were never good 't is no matter whether he ever disclaimed it or no. And yet if the Author of the Eulogium said to be in the Cotton Library be of any credit this too may be deny'd For he expresly says that in a Parliament at London 1214 where the Clergy cum tota laicali secta were present the obligation was by the Popes command wholy releast For my own part I must confess I know not how far this Author may be trusted not finding any mention of so remarkable a passage any where else But though his credit be obscure this is clear that if K. Johns Act were invalid of it self there needed no Act of the Popes to make it so And I take it to be no less clear that it was invalid and that we may spare the labour of inquiring whether the Pope ever gave away what he truly never had The last thing urged is that the Pope admits of no Prescription which if it be true the less reason have we to put our selves upon that trial But I think it is not true For the Canon Law allows Prescription and that against the Church of Rome as well as any other Only by way of Priviledge more time is required to bear her Plea than others But I have already declared I like not to enter into that dispute It depends on Law a study which the Interests and Passions of men have embroyl'd with so many intricate perplexities that 't is little better than a labyrinth without a Clew Nothing in my opinion is more fruitless nor perhaps more dangerous than to submit the Rights of Princes to disputes where there will be alwayes something to say and not half of what is said understood but by men of the Trade Besides there is another Consideration which to my Judgment absolutely excludes this Topick Prescription is a Plea establish't by the Civil and Canon Laws which appoint the cases the persons the times and all conditions of it Who has a Suit depending in a Court where sentence is pronounc't according to those Laws may be concern'd to study the nature of it but with us where neither Law is in force it seems wonderfully from the purpose to amuse our selves with it What have we to do to examin whether our Possession have all the conditions required to Prescription by those Laws which themselves signifie nothing If they pronounce sentence for us we are not a jot the better and if against us not a jot the worse England is a Country Independent of Forreigners and govern'd by Laws and Customs of her own What Emperours and Popes think fit to establish among their Subjects concerns us no more than what we do concerns them By our
Interest of every Commonwealth that all the members be heartily concern'd for the maintenance of Law because it is the main security of Liberty and Property and all worldly goods But in our case the Law instead of securing threatens our Liberties and Properties and Lives nor can we be concerned in the preservation of it without being unconcerned in the preservation of our selves For my life I cannot imagin by what Policy you are guided to lay upon never so inconsiderable a party a necessity so strong as that of self-preservation to wish an alteration of Law The sword of Justice should be the Protection and comfort of Good men and a terrour only to the bad and certainly you do not think us all such I believe our greatest fault is that you apprehend us desirous of innovation But pray can you with reason blame us if we desire to live less uneasily I am very certain there are none in the Nation more heartily affected to the liberty and all advantages of it than we are by inclination and should more appear by all justifiable actions if you would let us live with any comfort in it Again can it be for your interest to force part of the Subjects of England alwayes to depend on Forreigners by their interposition to seek relief from their pressures and in return be affected to them and inclined by way of gratitude to promote their desires Can it be your interest to oblige us to send our Children beyond Sea to be bred up to forreign customs and inclinations and suck in principles which you dislike To have so much money as they and so many religious of both sexes require carried out of the Land and spent in other Countreys To complain of Seminaries and increase their number For if we cannot maintain our Children at home we must send them abroad and they are not now to begin to live on Alms if we cannot send money with them and that more plentifully than we perhaps should allow them But to let these things alone do you think it for your credit not to do as you would be done by to gain the imputation of persecuters persecuters of a Religion profest by most of your neighbours and of a Church from which you derive your selves For I hope you do not think to avoid that imputation because what you do you do by Law The primitive Christians suffered all by Law and by Authority and yet are thought persecuted and Martyrs even by your selves Nor were Q. Mary's proceedings without Law and Law not made by her for the present occasion but in force before she came to the Crown You have reason to reproach her times but then sure you have the same reason not to bring the same reproach on your own for burning is not much worse than hanging and quartering If you are perswaded Persecution or if that word dislike you Punishment for Religion advisable at least consider that our case is different from that of other dissenters We changed not from the Law but the Law from us We are to the Reformation as Judaism and Paganism to the Gospel before it The Primitive Christians when Authority came to be on their side never made use of it to work upon the conscience of those whose perswasions in Religion were more antient than their own They imploy'd instruction and example and added the allurement of worldly preferment disposing of places of Trust and Profit only to Christians But they came not to force Me thinks you should not condemn the practice of the Primitive times and use us worse than they thought fit and I think lawful to use Pagans and Jews You might too in my opinion consider whether it be for your advantage to let fall the plea you have so long and so universally maintained that you punish not for Religion but Treason When we ask where this Treason lies the answer alwaies is that it lies in our perswasions concerning the Pope in whom we believe a power inconsistent with the safety of Princes or fidelity of Subjects This the person of Honour against S. C. makes the only cause of jealousy or suspition of our Fidelity which may prove dangerous to the Kingdom and against which the laws are provided This the Execution of Justice This every body assigns for the Treason laid to our charge When this is taken away there remains nothing that I know but Religion for which we are to be punish't I hope I have declared my mind sufficiently in this point and cleared my self and those of the same judgment with me from all guilt of this Treason If you will notwithstanding punish us you may if you please but I am sure you cannot say you punish us for Treason The laws being as they are it may shew very strange to pretend favour from them but yet confiding in the authority of this Honourable Person who says they were provided against Opinions which I have disclaimed and considering the laws themselves mention withdrawing Subjects from their natural Obedience 23. Eliz. 3. Jac. as the ground of their severity I hope it will not misbecome me to wish you would be more guided by their intention than Letter The intention of laws I think is acknowledged their best Interpreter were the judgment of this Person of Honour of value with you I should not doubt you would allow some equity in my wishes for I am sure I am not within the compass of that intention But I am not so vain as to appeal to any thing but mercy As nothing more becomes me to ask so nothing more becomes you to shew though truly I think it not more for your Honour than interest in this case Certainly you would not have these Principles gain strength against which you testify so much aversion Why then do you do all you can to make them pass for Principles of Religion For while you treat equally those who disclaim and those who hold them and put no difference betwixt them and points of Faith you bid fairly to perswade people that there is none and that they ought to suffer as much for the one as the other Methinks your own experience should instruct you that 't is no easy thing to pluck up any perswasions which are thought to spring from the root of Religion let them be never so false or wicked and that it concerns you sufficiently not to let more than are be thought incorporated with it If this import you not can it at least be for your advantage that those who would comply with you should be in a much worse condition than those who will not and this purely for their compliance The equality which you shew hinders not the cases of the one and the other from being very unequal and the disadvantage of the inequality lies on that side which is inclin'd to you These are in the worst case of any of our communion For the rest suffer only from you these from you and us too Pray reflect
alwaies talking and waking even when you are ready to die for want of silence and sleep For yourself to do you right I think you well in your wits and an honest man the only honest man of your party FRIEND YOU have the pleasant'st Fancys To hear you talk a man would think Princes could not Rule nor People live in quiet and the World in danger of being turn'd Topsy Turvy and all for a Page or two in Bellarmin The Book has been out a pretty while and twenty more perhaps have since said as much perhaps more than he and yet we make a shift thanks be to God to live still and the World staggers on the usual reeling pace What is it alarms you thus Your Clergy pretend to none of those things which disquiet you and let ours pretend what they will you know well enough how to deal with them While you order them as you think fit 't is no great matter how they think of themselves To see the different Judgments of men This Question which to you appears so important and so necessary to me seems not so much as seasonable There is no time wherein people should not be wary what they say of those whose office it is to keep alive the Sacred fire rain'd down from Heaven on the day of Pentecost and press upon us the concerns of the next life without which all the advantages of this are not only useless but harmful But in an Age not at all favourable and hardly just to them when all the weight we can throw into their scale will scarce keep the ballance even methinks 't is very improper to take any out All your mighty concern and all your importunity should never move me to do it But I consider that Falshood weighs not or if it do 't is on the contrary side For the advantages sought from Untruth turn to disadvantage at last The Clergy have Prerogatives establish'd by the wisdom and goodness of God which raise them as 't is fit they should be above the rest of mankind Who seeks to increase them by ungrounded fancys is not their Friend 'T is as if a man should go about to enlarge his houses with new buildings on a bad foundation which will certainly fall themselves and besides endanger to pull down part of the old with them Who grasps at what is not his hazards to lose what is For such is the malice of the World when we have once found a hole in our Neighbours Coat within a while he may chance to have never a whole piece If reason warrant us to except against any one our perverseness will tempt us to except against every thing And so we actually see there is Confidence I was about to say Impudence enough in the World to make even Preaching and the Administration of the Sacraments common to the Laity I know not whether this be not the true at least original Reason of the complaints of this Age. However it be I am perswaded that to discover what is unsound in the Prerogatives whether pretended by or obtruded upon the Clergy is to deserve well at their hands and the best and perhaps only way to make what is sound more stable and lasting This perswasion more than your earnestness prevails with me to do as you would have me and tell you what I think of the business with all the sincerity and plainness I can In the first place I think whatever be of the conclusion Bellarmin's Arguments are not good and prove not Divine Right either Positive or Natural in which we being all agreed of Human Right the only difficulty lies It would save me some pains if I shifted them off as you do with quarrelling at the Topicks But I consider that though an Argument à Simili be none of the surest and often fail yet it may hit and the Topick is allow'd among the rest in Logick Besides to reject an Argument and not say particularly why is not altogether so fair play But pray expect not I should be as smart as you Bellarmin never comes in your way but you must have a Bout at sharps with him I must confess he has given you some cause to bear him no great good will but none to fall still into your Burlesque fits For ought I perceive you would be as much at a loss for sport without Bellarmin as some Pulpits for matter without the Pope They are a pair of Gentlemen without whom as hardly as you treat them it seems you would not know what to do Why cannot you follow the example of his sober stile and my Lord Falkland's advice to treat controversie with the softness of Love Letters I have told you of this before and cannot help it if you will not out of your way But you shall go alone for me I like it not so well to keep you company in it To come to the matter in proof of Divine Positive Law there are in all four places alledged by Bellarmin The two first are Gen. 47. where Joseph exempted the Aegyptian Priests and 1 Esdr 7. where Artaxerxes exempted the Priests of the Jews These two indeed he touches but gently and he has reason The Aegyptian Priests avoided the necessity of selling their Lands by the allowances of Corn they had out of the Publick Granaries Artaxerxes took from his Officers the power of imposing Tributes upon the Jewish Priests and Ministers and these things are recorded in Scripture This is the whole matter of fact which Bellarmin barely hints but says nothing to apply it to his purpose I for my part see not how it can be apply'd unless it be first supposed that every thing contained in Scripture even in the Historical parts is positively commanded by God And that is so far from true that we see there are blameable and vicious actions inserted in the Sacred History as well as good Not to go out of our present matter who will make these examples equivalent to a positive Law of God must likewise say it is the positive Law of God that care be taken for the subsistence and priviledges of Idolatrous Priests for so were the Aegyptians and that Ministers of state turn all Subjects into Slaves as soon as they get opportunity These places are indeed against Bellarmin For 't is plain that both Aegyptians and Jews had what they had from their several Princes And this I think is not proof of Divine Right for Exemptions but Divine Testimony that they proceeded from Human. To these two places borrowed from the Gloss upon the Canon Law out of deference I suppose more than needed to the Authority of the Glossator Bellarmin adds two more of his own The first from Numb 3. where the Levites are by Gods appointment given to Aaron and his Successors and God says several times expresly of them They are mine Were no body wiser than I this place would prove no more than what need no Scripture to prove it it is
heretofore were of Right subject to Emperours and answers that the Emperours sometimes meddle with what they have nothing to do and therefore those Laws must needs be said to proceed De Facto not De Jure and to have been tolerated sometimes but never approved by Popes This to my ear sounds very strangely What has the Popes approbation to do with the Laws of Emperours Cannot They make Laws without asking him leave Cannot They do so much as a kindness to the Clergy but by authority derived from him Again if his approbation were of any consideration how could it appear more plainly than in that which Bellarmin calls his Toleration in taking advantage of them and taking care they should be every where kept and the Clergy enjoy what They had by them Of which there are instances enough to be produced if there were need For I cannot think that Bellarmin is of opinion in earnest that the Pope did not like them and was not heartily glad of them too On the contrary I am apt to believe that had the World remained in the same state in which it was when those Laws were made subject to the Roman Empire He lik'd them so well that he would never have look'd for more nor we heard any news of Divine Right But the state of things altering and municipal Laws prevailing over those Laws in a great part of Christendom it became necessary to preserve those priviledges to find out a Title to them which might do what those Laws no longer could carry them through every where Divine Right peradventure had otherwise never been thought of But to let this pass to say the Laws proceeded not de Jure or were unjust has so presumptuous a found that he had need be very sure of what he says who ventures to say it Now Bellarmin when he was upon the point and had undertaken the proof of Divine Right could find nothing beyond probable even to himself But because Probability makes a man sure of nothing I doubt he was something too bold with Emperours and their Laws to Tax them of Injustice For if they have any it is more than he knows even by his own confession But let us consider a little and ask whether the Clergy of those times when those Laws were made did know that without and independently of them They had right to the same priviledges by other Laws those of God and Nature If they did not They were manifestly ignorant in a point of Gods Law if it be as Bellarmin says Gods Law Who can imagine this of those Lights the greatest since the Apostles days that ever shined in the Church And how comes Bellarmin to know that of which they were ignorant If they did They were manifestly deficient in their duty For they ought to have instructed the Emperours in this point of Gods Law as well as the rest otherwise They were unfaithful dispensers of the Word and subtracted part of what was intrusted to them That They did not teach the Emperours any such Doctrine is plain because the Emperours learnt it not who yet learned all Christianity from them and must have learnt this if it had been any part of the Lesson I hope it will not be put off upon their restiness to admit a point derogatory to their Authority Besides that this conceit traduces Christianity with holding Doctrines derogatory to the Authority of Princes and justifies that calumny of the Pagans which the Apostles were sollicitous to take away 't is an aspersion unsufferably injurious to the piety of those Emperours and manifestly impossible besides For those Exemptions were not granted all at one time or by one Emperour Between the first grant by Constantine and the last in the Law there intervened several hundreds of years During this time these Priviledges for so they are expresly termed came forth now one now another as the piety of the Prince the sollicitation of the Clergy and reason of the thing prevailed Can it be imagined among so many Emperours all Christian there was no one of vertue enough to admit a Right establish'd by God and who favoured the Clergy enough not to keep from them what was their due Were there but one such in all the number as it cannot be deny'd but that there were many and He made sensible that the Law of God was as Bellarmin says of which it was both the duty and duty and interest of the Clergy to make him sensible the business could not possibly pass as it did For he would certainly have acknowledged this Right of theirs and instead of so many grants one after another once for all confirm'd that right by his Authority and this with reference to the Law of God and as their right not by way of Priviledge as the stile of their Laws runs 'T is therefore as plain as can be that the Clergy who were as Bellarmin says de Facto subject thought they ought to be subject 'T is plain the Emperours thought so too and were not otherwise instructed by the Masters of Christianity in those times Wherefore 't is plain the sence of the Christian World then was quite different from what is Bellarmin's now and I think there needs something more than unconcluding Arguments to perswade a man that the whole Christian World was in an Error As for the quarrel he has to the Laws for disposing of things plainly Ecclesiastical and Spiritual I know not what to say to it unless he would explain himself a little more Princes I think may make Laws in matters plainly Ecclesiastical and Spiritual without asking Bellarmin leave or giving him cause of offence When they enact Reverence to be born the Clergy Tithes to be paid them the Christian Law they teach to be observed and a hundred things more He does not sure believe They do the Clergy wrong or exceed their own bounds In general let a thing be never so Spiritual and never so much commanded by God if you will have the Transgressors aw'd by the fear of Temporal punishment the concurrence of Temporal Authority is necessary to engage the Temporal Sword Otherwise who is wicked enough to slight the Spiritual and stand out an Excommunication may break all the Laws of God at pleasure Wherefore this Exception to the Justness of a Temporal Law That it meddles with a matter plainly Spiritual is plainly no just exception What Bellarmin means by it we shall know when he tells us what his meaning is And yet though it were true that those Princes had sometimes past their bounds it is nothing to purpose unless it be proved They did so in this particular To take first for granted that Princes did amiss elsewhere and then require we should therefore believe They did amiss here too is to impose upon us a little too grosly After all as learned a shew as he makes of confuting some body we think all parties are agreed The Clergy were heretofore subject and this appears by the
Laws says the objection By the way this can mean nothing but that as to the matters indulged them by Priviledges They were subject in the same manner as the Laity till those priviledges put a difference between them Otherwise that notwithstanding their priviledges They always were and still are truly subjects is the sence of all the World To this what says Bellarmin That those Laws proceeded de Facto not de Jure This is to say that de Facto They were subject as well as the Laity heretofore and that this appears by these Laws which proceeded de Facto to favour them in some things And this is the very thing which the objection says That they did not proceed de Jure he perhaps may be allowed to say because he would otherwise have nothing to say but reason will not allow any man to believe him unless he could prove it which when he went about to do we see how ill he succeeded In the mean time I see these priviledges were granted at several and long distant times I see that the Clergy when they had the former had not the later and before They had the first had none at all Wherefore I must needs think that as They were de Facto subject before the Laws so they would be de Facto still but for the Laws This way They have a clear undoubted right to their priviledges as much and as strong as any body has to any worldly thing No other Right was ever thought of in those Ages and yet in those Ages lived all the Doctors of the Church both Greek and Latin men who had at least as much insight into the Laws of God and Nature as Bellarmin and as much Zeal for the good and honour of the Church He does not make out so much as plausibly the Right which he pretends from those Laws I conceive therefore I may conclude upon the whole the Exemptions or priviledges which the Clergy have are all from Human not Divine Law which though it alwaies guided the Church and was peradventure better understood and more reverenc'd in former times was never pretended till lately That They neither have nor can have any Exemptions which free them absolutely from subjection that being a thing which neither a Prince can grant nor Nature bear And that whatever Bellarmin says this is acknowledg'd both by the Clergy themselves and all the World besides by the universal consent of all people and places that notwithstanding all their Exemptions They are still truly Subjects and by being so obliged to all that subjection obliges with that difference betwixt them and others in the performance of their subjection which their priviledges import Possibly out of this universality may be excepted some of those who live as Bellarmin did in the Popes Territories and so have but one Prince both in Spirituals and Temporals These are too apt to think it is or ought to be with the rest of the World as it is with them And who knows whether that conceit be not the original source of the whole stream But elsewhere I think the General Rule has no exception And so I had done but that I remember we live in times in which notice is publickly taken of the contempt of the Clergy and Reasons given for it They indeed miss the mark nor do I think it fit to give the true ones But I would not have the bad humour of the Age fed by any thing of mine As Bellarmin has gone too far on the one side ill will may go much farther on the other and possibly take occasion from what I have said against him to do so I conceive it therefore fit before I close my Letter to resume some considerations which I forbore to mention when they occurred for fear of straying from the matter in hand Bellarmin tells us the Clergy and their Goods are Sacred things and the pceuliar Lot of God This if rightly understood is a great and even to the Laity beneficial Truth Yet 't is to be suspected He did not penetrate it enough because he concludes wrong that they are therefore both quite out of the reach of Secular power One might take a fancy to argue them out of the reach of the Ecclesiastical too For what has any man to do with what properly belongs to God If you say the Ecclesiastical power is from God so likewise is the Secular And so people might with fruitless Conceits and Repartee's go on in endless wrangling Let us therefore reflect a little on what every body knows that God neither stands in need of any created good nor is capable of receiving either good or harm from Creatures For that essential and overflowing fulness of his own perfection can neither get nor lose That overflow of goodness has created man for the good of man not God and all material nature besides not for its self or for God but purely for the use of man Likewise what he commands or requires of man is only for the benefit of man who by obeying or disobeying does himself good or harm but none to God Those Phrases therefore of serving God being his and the like are expressions introduc'd by his mercy in condescendence to our weakness to raise us up by the aw of his interposing more steadily to perform those actions which in truth are profitable only to our selves We have the whole benefit of the service we are said to do him and in reality serve our selves when we are said to serve him So likewise the things which are called his are neither taken from us nor spent in any use of his to whom nothing can be useful but ordered by him to be employed in a way most beneficial to us in which they would either not at all or not so well and readily be employ'd if we were not assisted by an apprehension of a particular concern or propriety of his in them Applying this to the Clergy when They or their Goods are called the Lot of God given or consecrated to him peculiarly his and what else is said of this kind 't is not that He is subject to the Meum and Tuum found in the World nor can his property have the same Notion which ours has in respect of our Goods or Servants who are wrong'd when they are taken away or disposed of without our consent But the meaning is that They are establisht in a way of life in which by actions proper to it they are to employ Themselves and their Goods to the greatest advantage of themselves and their Neighbour From which that they be not diverted by humour or interest or violence to ends less beneficial to mankind He is intitled to them that who neither cares nor fears to wrong another man may be checkt by the fear of wronging God against whose Anger there is no Shelter And very requisite it is it should be so A Christian Common-wealth can no more be without Clergy than Christianity Because they are
Churches I cannot tell but the Bishop and inferiour Clergy disposed absolutely and independently without any account of their own An opinion being set on foot which does not relish with every body even at this day that they are true Proprietors of their Goods However it be had They no more than is requisite to maintain them in the way in which 't is fit they should be maintained or the over-plus were spent in the uses before mentioned and for which at first 't was given there is great reason to look upon their Goods as the Lot of God and upon taking them away as Sacriledge Neither could the Common-wealth require any thing of them without employing it in uses less beneficial to It than those in which it is employ'd already neither could there be any pretence to do it For a Common-wealth in her greatest exigencys never takes from any so much as not to leave them wherewith to subsist And 't would be contrary to the end of Taxes if they should For Taxes are to preserve what people have from Enemys And no Enemy could take away more than All. So that the Common-wealth by so unjust a Tax would become the Enemy But it never does Tax those who have nothing to spare and had the Clergy no over-plus They would be in the condition of poor men untaxable But when They have not only sufficient but abundance and excess it is extravagant to fancy the Common-wealth cannot take what is not needed to employ it where it is We see their excess instead of preserving sometimes diminishes their reputation and exposes them to the envy and murmurs of people who grumble to see the liberality perhaps of their own Ancestors abused it may be to vanity To intitle God to goods so employ'd is to intitle him to the abuse of things and to Vanity Nor can any thing be more ridiculous than because what is necessary for his Service ought be esteemed Sacred and his to think that must be so too which is employ'd not in his Service sometimes against it and his Laws too In short if the Common-wealth need it and They can spare it It is injurious to God to fancy he would have any thing employ'd less usefully for man than it might be Upon the whole I conceive They have from God the Prerogative of the Keys They have Commission to go and teach and Baptize all Nations They have assurance of his perpetual assistance in the execution of their Commission and of a Wo if they execute it not and whatever else appears in the Sacred Books or Tradition The Piety of Men superadded the rest some more necessary all convenient and which as many as they are I wish were more And so I take my leave both of Them and You remaining Yours c. YOUR Postscript makes me a very strange Complement For why should you think me the only honest man Had you addrest your self to others as you might to divers who would have told you the same tale They it seems would have been the honest men and I for want of luck in your black Roll. And yet I think it more possible for thousands of my Religion to get through the grace of God an intire Mastery over the corruption of Nature in all particulars than that any wisdom of Laws should make all the Subjects of a Nation honest men In short we inherit the Doctrines and we inherit the Innocence of our Ancestors the Primitive Christians and while you will have it fo must inherit their hard fate too and bear the burthen of other Folks folly But I should think Gal. 6.5 Ezech. 18.4 if you would let every one bear his own burthen and that Soul only die which sins you would find by experience it were the best Policy as well as Piety For God's Law is the best way both to prosperity in this World and happiness in the next For the rest I assure you faithfully I know nothing of the matter you mention I know that bad effects are not incredible of bad causes and I know those bad causes have nothing to do at least with my Religion In every thing else I am as ignorant as those in China FINIS
by making them believe They should have obedience from All to cajole them into the Church there to be taught a new lesson and find there was no such matter Is it not to say They did not dispence the Gospel with that Fidelity which they profess For they included every one within the command of obedience and yet meant a good part should not be included They taught that Kings and Magistrates were Higher powers in respect of all and that it is the Will of God that all be subject to them and know for all that it is not the Will of God and that They are not higher Powers in respect of the Clergy In short it is to make them speak plain non-sence For if this Comment pass their discourse will be this People have no reason to think any Christian disobedient to Civil Authority For we tell you some must obey it and the rest Ecclesiastical Then for St Chrysostome he contradicts not him he says The Saint says That All the Clergy as well as the rest and the highest degrees of them are subject to those Higher Powers of which St. Paul speaks Bellarmin says Princes can meddle neither with their Persons nor Goods Is not this to say They are not subject and is not subject and not-subject contradiction How can he avoid contradicting St. Chrysostome and the rest who speak as he does Why though he make the Pope alone the proper Judge yet he allows the Prince to be King of the Clergy c. What is this but a new contradiction For how can a King be a King and not a proper Judge To determine differences is one and an essential part of a Kings Office 'T is true between a Judge by Commission and a King there is a difference And yet even such a one represents the King But to be a proper Judge without Commission by an inherent right of his own is inseparable from a King The truth is 't is all contradiction from first to last Secular Princes are not lawful Superiours and yet Kings of the Clergy is contradiction They have Kingly that is Supreme Power and yet the Ecclesiastical is to be obeyed in case of contrary commands is contradiction They are Kings in respect of those who are not Subjects nor formally parts of the Common-wealth is contradiction c. And yet this happens not by Bellarmin's fault He has but one fixing on the wrong side which whoever does let him be never so learned can no more avoid contradiction than He can falling let him be never so dextrous under whom the ground founders But to return to our Road People may speculate themselves out of Common sence if they will and do more often than every body thinks The truth is whoever takes a wrong Principle and will pursue it must come thither at last Yet though he may so disguise the matter with learned subtilties that he perceive not where he is himself Nature will be too strong for Artifice and shew it self through all disguises Arguments have been made against the possibility of Motion and whiteness of Snow but the World could never be perswaded they could not go about their business or that Snow look'd like Jet We have found the point in question rooted in Nature and cultivated by the great Labourers in the field of Grace the Apostles Either way it must needs grow and appear in the hearts whether of men oâ— Faithful And so it evidently does Let a man go to a Bishop or Priest in any Country of Christendom and ask him seriously Do you belong to the Common-wealth in which you live Are you a subject of the Prince He would not be thought well in his wits Such they own such they call and write themselves for such the Prince and People and every body takes them nor is it more known that there are Clergy very where than that where-ever they are They are Subjects of the Prince of the place both in the esteem of all besides and their own constant profession Take for a curiosity For the clearness of the thing does not endure proof the Oath which the Bishops in France make to their King I swear and promise to your Majesty Sire that as long I live I will be to you a Faithful Subject and Servant that with all my power I will procure the good of your Service and Estate that I will never be present at any Council or Assembly held to the prejudice of them and that if any thing come to my knowledge I will presently give advice to your Majesty So help me God and his Holy Gospels It is so palpable a Truth that Bellarmin as contradictory as it is to his Doctrine cannot but acknowledge it For this reason he is forc'd to confess that Kings are Kings in respect of the Clergy as well as Laity that the Clergy besides their Spiritual capacity are also parts of the Common-wealth and in that quality oblig'd to obedience c. For the light of Nature however it may be obscured in particulars cannot be put out generally and we for our parts you know think as much of what is written in our hearts by the Apostles But to let that pass This is in truth the whole business To your Question whether the Clergy are Subjects or no all Christendom answers they are Now 't is evident that Subjects remaining Subjects can have nothing inconsistent with subjection And 't is as evident that the Exemptions in question in the latitude in which Bellarmin proposâ—s and you understand them are inconsistent with subjection 'T is therefore evident They belong not to the Clergy by Divine or any Right Neither can those whâ—ch they have be Exemptions from subjection but in the manner of subjection as Priviledges put a difference between Subjects requiring either different duties or the same duties in a different manner from some and others And since the difference betwixt them and the Laity as to subjection is not from their state and where the Laws put no difference all are alike subject there can be no Title nor Pretence to the difference which is but from the Laws and the pleasure of the Power which made them What Reason tells us must be unquestionable Records assure us actually was For the Laws are still extant among the rest which make up the Body of the Civil Law by which the Clergy obtained now one now another Priviledge till the whole number was compleated by many Emperours and in a long time I had once resolved to set them down but my Letter being long and that Book common I thought it not convenient to increase it with copying what who has the curiosity may as well see in the Original Besides that our Country not being subject to the Imperial Laws the priviledges of the Clergy here are to be regulated not by them but our own Yet 't is not amiss to set what Bellarmin says to them He objects them against himself as a proof that the Clergy