Selected quad for the lemma: order_n
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A67445
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Some few questions concerning the Oath of allegiance propos'd by a Catholick gentleman in a letter to a person of learning and honour.
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Walsh, Peter, 1618?-1688.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing W641; ESTC R38929
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23,740
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40
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or Mental Evasion or secret Reservation whatsoever And I do make this Recognition and Acknowledgment heartily willingly and truly upon the true Faith of a Christian So help me God THE LETTER SIR AS your Civility has taught me I may have any thing of you for asking so my own Experience teaches me nothing is more easy than to ask Unless it be to doubt or to be ignorant two qualities so common and so little implying any conceit of sufficiency in their Owner that I hope you will neither accuse me of Presumption while I only seek what I profess not to know nor of Imprudence while I seek where I know I am most like to find Your peircing Eye has both read what others say and penetrated what they maintain Your generous mind neither hopes nor fears can corrupt and if they could your happy Condition secures you from both To you therefore I confidently come and without any farther Compliments which you are too wise to expect and I too uncourtly to give I humbly desire your free and speedy judgment in these few Seasonable and Important Questions Some say the Pope by direct and immediate sentence can depose Princes Others he can only Excommunicate directly and depose by Consequence Some say he can depose only Princes Subject to the Church Others Infidels too Some say he has power to do this only in order to Spirituals Others absolutely without that Restriction Some say the Crime must be Heresy or Apostacy Others extend his Jurisdiction to more and even all Cases And there are who say He cannot depose at all neither any of these ways nor for any of these Persons nor for any of these Causes In favour of which last Position not to speak of particular Authors 't was my fortune lately to meet with a Censure of the Faculty of Paris and some publick and solemn Decrees made by that and divers other Universities of France Of which the better to entitle my self to beg your Judgment I here send you a shott Extract On purpose omitting the French King and Parliaments Prohibition and Arrests as Lay-arguments of little and perhaps too little weight with some that dispute this point A Decree of the University of Paris made by the Rector Deans Proctors and Batchelers of the said University in a General Assembly had on the 20th of April 1626. at the Matutinâ— IT having been represented by the Rector that the sacred Faculty of Theology moved as well by their ardent zeal and fidelity towards the Church his most Christian Majesty and his Kingdomes as also by the true and perfect love which they bear to Right and Justice and following therein the illustrious Examples left by their Predecessors in like Cases upon mature Examination of a certain Latine book intituled A Treatise of Heresy Schism Apostacy c. and of the Popes power in order to the punishment of those Crimes Printed at Rome 1625. had in the 30. and 31. Chapters of Heresy found these Propositions That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastize Kings and Princes despose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdomes for the Crime of Heresy and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them and that this custome has been always practis'd in the Church c. and thereupon had by a publick just and legal Sentence on the 4th of April Censured these Propositions of that pernicious book and condemn'd the Doctrine therein contain'd as New False Erronious contrary to the Law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schism derogative to the Soveraign Authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the Conversion of Infidels and heretical Princes disturbing the publick Peace tending to the ruine of Kingdomes and Republicks diverting Subjects from the obedience due to their Soveraigns and precipitating them into Faction Rebellion Sedition and even to commit Paricides on the sacred Persons of their Princes The Rector Deans Proctors Batchelers and whole University have made this Decree That the sacred Faculty of Theology ought highly to be commended for having given a judgment so Pious so Religious so Wholesome against so wicked and dangerous a Doctrine For having so opportunely held forth to the whole Church but especially to all France the clear light of Antient and Orthodox Doctrine For having so gloriously follow'd the Illustrious generosity of their Predecessors and performed a task not only becoming their particular Profession to defend the truth but deserving the Imitation even of the whole University it self And to obstruct altogether the very entrance of this new and pernicious Doctrine and cause all those who now are or hereafter shall be Members of this University or merit promotion to any Degree therein to remember for ever to form and regulate their Opinions according to the judgment pronounced by that sacred Faculty and keep at utmost distance from the Doctrine so justly proscrib'd and that every one in particular may fly detest abhor it and as well in publick as private Combate Confute and Convince its falsity They do decree that in the next solemn Procession as also annually in the Assembly for the Procession general immediately after opening the Schools in the month of October this Censure shall publickly be read by the Proctor of the University the first business nothing to intervene and recorded in the Registers of each Faculty and Nation and that two Copies hereof written and signed by the hand of the Clerk of the sacred Faculty of Theology shall be kept in the Common Records of the University and the like number be sent as soon as may be to all Superiours of Colleges and Houses to the end all possible care and diligence be us'd to secure all those who frequent or reside in the said Colleges from the corruption and poyson of this pernicious Doctrine and that they never give way that any Person whatsoever presume to say or do any thing contrary to what has so wisely been determined and ordain'd by that sacred Faculty If any Doctor Professor Master of Arts or Scholar resist and disobey or go about in any sort by word or writing on any cause or pretence whatsoever to offer at the least attempt or make the least opposition against this so laudable and legal a Censure let him for a note of Infamy and Ignominy be expel'd depriv'd of his Degree Faculty Rank by a sentence that may for ever cut off all hope of admittance Quintaine Scribe of the University The Censure of the Faculty of Sorbonne dated 4th April 1626. I omit because recited at large in this of the University The like Decrees on the same occasion and against the same Doctrine That the Pope can punish Kings with temporal punishments depose them and deprive them of their Kingdomes and Estates c. were made by these several Universities following All which have lately been printed at Paris in a Collection of divers Acts Censures and Decrees as well of the University as of
that in what method it pleases Is not the Sun compleatly endued with power to shine unless it can level mountains and overturn for rests that intercept its light or which is nearer our Case has not a King sufficient power to govern unless he can punish his neighbour King nay even the Pope himself and that with spiritual penalties In regular and ordinary Occurrences the regular and ordinary power both of Pope and Prince is sufficient in irregular and extraordinary the very word signifies they are out of Rule and must be govern'd by occasional reason which allows both to Pope and Prince a just and equal title to provide that Neither prejudice the Other and this without the Popes being Superiour to the Prince in Temporals any more than the Prince is to the Pope in Spirituals But as absolute Soveraigns when there 's no other remedy may lawfully make war so I conceive may these each managing his proper weapon and pretend only Reason not Jurisdiction to justify their proceedings Thirdly I suspect this plausible argument the spiritual power is furnish'd with all means necessary to its end may so largely be understood that it will flatly be deny'd for is not Execution of the Magistrates Commands necessary to the end of Government and is not a competent Force necessary to that Execution why then did our all-foreseeing Saviour not provide for this why did he not furnish his Supreme Lieutenant with twelve Legions of Angels to overcome the Princes of the Earth that will not obey his Decrees As to this I know no better reason than that the Churches Hymn is true Non eripit Mortalia Qui Regna dat Caelestia He does not Earthly Kings deprive Who came the Crown of Heaven to give Besides may we not as well say the Church is furnish'd by Christ with all Offices at least all considerable Ones as with all Power necessary to its Government yet every one knows neither Patriarks Primates nor Arch-Bishops are of divine Institution however their very being so canonically establish'd in the Church sufficiently declares their usefulness and necessity and their being no otherwise establish'd sufficiently convinces the weaknesse of the argument I am endeavouring to disable If my expectations happen to fail in all these Questions permit me yet to offer this short Consideration The Position we are commanded to renounce as Impious and Heretical is this Princes who are Excommunicated or Depriv'd by the Pope may be depos'd or murther'd by their Subjects or any other whatsoever Since 't is clear that where the Subject of a Proposition is in the disjunctive unless the Predicate be verefiable of both Members the whole Proposition may absolutely be deny'd it plainly follows if to say a Prince Excommunicated only not depriv'd may be depos'd by his Subjects be Impious and Heretical at least in the large and usual sense of that word that the whole Proposition is safely abjurable as Impious and Heretical In which discourse this only seems to need proof that 't is Heretical to say a Prince Excommunicated may be depos'd by his Subjects And first I hope it will quickly appear to be False by the very definition of Excommunication Excommunication being a Church-Censure that separates from the Ecclesiastical Communion of the Faithful And though by a general rule we are commanded to avoid all Hereticks and Excommunicated Persons yet besides that of it self it reaches only to spiritual things unless the Civil Law extend it farther the Canonists give many exceptions one is which nearliest concerns our Case that of Relation shall Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants be bound in case of Excommunication to abandon one another what Confusion would so rash a Doctrine bring into the world and is it not far worse if Subjects shall think it lawful to forsake their King nay unlawful not to forsake him Thus I conceive 't is evidently False and if once admitted for such it s own weight will soon sink it down into Impious And what is Impious especially drawing after it such mischievous effects will easily be prov'd against the very Essence of the Christian Law and by Consequence intrinsecally Heretical If yet you think this opinion not so highly censurable I beseech you inform me X. Whether any of these Positions deserve the Condemnation of Heretical That the Pope has a direct Dominion both in Spirituals and Temporals over all the World Or that He can deprive Kings of their lives and pass sentence of death against them Or against the lives or goods of any other Person that is whether He can make it lawful to do those Acts which were they not Authoriz'd by him would be plain Murther Theft or Rebellion ALL these every one I meet is ready to cry out on as Impious Hereticial and what you will And is the Deposing a King a slighter work than the Sequestring a private Gentleman Or has he a weaker Title to his Crown than a Merchant to his Shop Either I am deceiv'd by some Equivocation which I intreat you to discover or else the Question I propose is as clear as the Sun at Noon 'T is true some Cases are mixt but then me thinks it is not so hard a task to give each Authority its due Can we not easily discern what belongs to Marriage as a Sacrament from what belongs to it as a Civil Contract Or distinguish between the Churches power to make a Bastard incapable of Orders and that of the Common-wealth to make him incapable of Inheriting Nor has the Question any greater difficulty when the Tribunals Successively assist one another as when the Ecclesiastics having proceeded to the utmost of their Jurisdiction deliver the Criminal to the Lay Court there to receive such further punishment as his Crime deserves which they could not have needed had their own power reach'd so far not would they have practis'd had they not needed it To conclude this point with some Authority as well as Reason I have read that not only the Position of killing Kings was condemn'd as Impious Heretical and Damnable by 141. Divines of the Faculty of Paris in the year 1413. But since in the year 1610. the same Faculty Decreed That it was Seditious Impious and Heretical for any Subject Vassal or Stranger on what occasion or pretence soever Sacris Regum personis vim inferre to offer violence to the sacred persons of Kings Behold the very word Heretical directly and formally applyed to a Position that in substance exceeds not Ours unless we imagine a King so tame that we may Depose him without offering him any Violence or find some witty Casuist who has invented a new way of creeping out of the words no matter for the plain and honest sense and by his grave Opinion secure our Consciences that though it be Impious indeed and Heretical to offer any force to the sacred Persons of Kings yet to intercept their meat till they be starv'd to death as 't is said of one