Adversary saying that he has not seriously examined the Point under debate and that had he seriously pondered it he would have been of the contrary persuasion 93. Consider Fifthly that Mr. Preston who writ those Books concerning this matter published under the name of Withrington and the principal Champion for the Lawfulness of this Oath as I am informed by a person worthy of all Credit and one who was well acquainted with him never took the Oath himself nor advised any other to take it but onely writ those Books to shew for the comfort of Catholicks what might be said in favour thereof The same Authour grants that the Pope has Authority to order and direct the Temporal affairs of Princes and to impose upon them Temporal punishments by way of a Precept or Prohibition or a Direction in order to their Spiritual good and he inveighs against Skulchenius for accusing him as if he had denied the Pope such a Power over the Temporalls of Princes and he saies that there is no controversy in the present Point concerning the Pope's Power to command or prohibit Princes even in Temporal affairs with reference to the Spiritual good of themselves or their Kingdoms Neque de potestate Ecclesiastica praecipiendi sed tantùm coercendi ulla in praesenti controversia est Now this Authority which Withrington admits in the Pope over the Temporalls of Princes seems obnoxious to the same difficulties which he objects against the coercive Power of the Pope and is contrary to the Authority of the Faculty of Paris alledged above by our Adversaries Non esse Doctrinam Facultatis quod Summus Pontifex aliquam in Temporalia Regis Christianissimi Authoritatem habeat And certainly if he has a directive or preceptive Authority over the Temporals of Princes he must have some Authority over their Temporals 94. Now consider whether since Withrington and his Associates will not grant the Pope as Supreme Pastour of the Church any Power or Authority which is not evidently deduced out of the Precedents which Christ and his Apostles have left in Scripture whether I say this preceptive prohibitive and directive Power over the Temporalls of Princes which Withrington grants the Pope can be better declared out of the Precedents left in Scripture by Christ and his Apostles for when did any of them exercise such a Power over Temporal Princes in Civil matters then the coercive power which he denies the Pope And consider farther whether the forementioned Power be not in effect the same with the coercive Power For if the Pope may justly in some cases and in order to the Spiritual good of a Nation command a King to desist from persecuting his Subjects upon the score of Religion or otherwise to lay down his Government and prohibit his Subjects in case he goes on in persecuting them upon that account to bear him Civil Allegeance how can they swear that notwithstanding any Sentence made or granted or to be made and granted by the Pope or his Authority against their Prince they will bear him true Allegeance For certainly all just Precepts are to be obeyed and doubtless Kings will be as unwilling to grant this prohibitive or preceptive Power to the Pope over their Temporalls as the coercive Power For they do not so much fear what the Pope can doe against them by force of Arms as by force of Precepts and Prohibitions 95. Besides the Authour of the Questions concerning the Oath seems to grant that the Pope may in some extravagant case of absolute necessity to defend the Spirituall welfare of those who are committed to his charge and acting onely by a Commission derived from necessity depose Princes as one may justly take away his neighbour's life when unjustly attacqued by him he cannot otherwise defend his own life Now this is all that Bellarmine affirms For he does not grant the Pope Authority to depose Princes but in case of an absolute necessity of defending his Flock from being infected by their Prince with Heresie And if they grant this Power to the Pope how do they affirm that we may swear that the Pope has not any Power or Authority in any case possible to depose Princes So that if what the chief Maintainers of the Oath teach concerning the Deposing power be duely sifted we shall find that in effect they grant what they seem to deny or at least that they grant enough to render the taking of this Oath unlawfull 96. Consider Lastly whether when it manifestly appears that the ground whereon an Authour proceeds is false or inconclusive any account is to be made of the Opinion or Judgment of such an Authour And if not then let us briefly consider the main Reasons whereon the Defenders of the Oath bottome their Sentiment It is far from my intention to defend that the Pope has Authority to depose Princes my design onely is to examine the Reasons whereby some Authours do endeavour to shew that the Pope has no such Authority For let an Opinion be never so good yet some may ground it ill 97. The common Reason therefore whereon most of those Authours who impugn the Pope's Deposing power do ground themselves in this Point is That a meer Spirituall Power such as is onely granted the Pope over all Christendome in no case possible does extend it self to any Temporall thing This Reason does not shew that the Pope as Temporall Prince of Rome has not an indirect Right and Power to depose Kings in some cases such a Power being inherent to every Sovereign Prince and yet if one takes this Oath he must swear that the Pope neither by himself nor otherwise has any Power whatsoever to depose Kings So that whoever takes this Oath does according to the common sense of the words and he swears he takes them so implicitly deny the Pope to be Sovereign Temporall Prince of Rome because he denies him something inherent and proper to all Sovereign Princes 98. Moreover a meer Spirituall Power may extend it self in some cases to Temporall things and the contrary is manifestly false And even our Adversaries confess as has been seen above that the Pope's meer Spirituall Power may extend it self to Temporall things per modum directionis aut praecepti Christ and his Apostles either had no Temporall Power whiles they lived or at least did not exercise it but onely a meer Spirituall Power Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo and yet he saies Non veni pacem mittere sed gladium I did not come to bring peace but the sword and to cause a separation between the nearest relations as between Mother and Daughter Brother and Sister and such like who are tied one to the other by the Law of Nature as Subjects are tied to their Sovereign which is to be understood when a reciprocall communication between them is prejudiciall to their eternall Salvation Our Saviour also used a Temporall Power and force to cast out those who with
Princes there had been no Religion left in many Countries And he finds great fault with the Catholicks in England that they suffered Heretical Princes to live and saith that they deserved to endure the miseries they did undergo because of it that there is no juster cause of War then Religion is that the Prince and People make a solemn League and Covenant together to serve God and if the Prince fail of his part the People ought to compell him to it And he accounts this a sufficient Answer to all Objections out of Scripture If he will not hear the Church how much more if he persecutes it let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican And he brings all the Examples he could think of to justify Rebellion on the account of Religion Rossaeus proves that Hereticks being Excommunicated lose all Right and Authority of Government and therefore it is lawfull for their Subjects to rise up against them and that no War is more just or holy then this Which he endeavours at large to defend and to answer all Objections against it And the contrary Opinion he saith was first broached by the Calvinists in France when they had the expectation of the Succession of Henry IV. which Doctrine he calls Punick Divinity and Atheism and the New Gospel The truth is he doth sufficiently prove the Lawfulness of resisting Princes on the account of Religion to have obtained together with the Pope's Power of deposing Princes And there can be no other way to justifie the Wars and Rebellions against Henry IV. of Germany and France and other Princes after their Excommunications by the Pope but by stifly maintaining this Principle of the Lawfulness of resisting Authority on the account of Religion And therefore this cannot be looked on as the Opinion of a few factious spirits but as the just consequence of the other Opinion For the Pope's Deposing power would signifie very little unless the People were to follow home the blow and to make the Pope's Thunder effectual by actual Rebellion And the Popes understand this so well that they seldom denounce their Sentence of Excommunication against Princes but when all things are in readiness to pursue the design as might be made appear by a particular History of the several Excommunications of Princes from the Emperour Henry IV. to our own times If they do forbear doing the same things in our Age we are not to impute it to any alteration of their minds or greater Kindness to Princes then formerly but onely to the not finding a fit opportunity or a Party strong and great enough to compass their ends For they have learnt by experience that it is onely loss of Powder and Ammunition to give fire at too great a distance and that the noise onely awakens others to look to themselves but when they meet with a People ready prepared for so good a Work as the Nuntio in Ireland did then they will set up again for this Good Old Cause of Rebellion on the account of Religion And it is observable that Cardinal Bellarmin among other notable Reasons to prove the Pope's Deposing power brings this for one Because it is not lawfull for Christians to suffer an Heretical Prince if he seeks to draw his Subjects to his Belief And what Prince that believes his own Religion doth it not And what then is this but to raise Rebellion against a Prince whenever he and they happen to be of different Religions But that which I bring this for is to shew that the Pope's Deposing power doth carry along with it that mischievous Principle to Government of the Lawfulness of resisting Authority on the account of Religion And from this Discourse I infer that there can be no real Security given to the Government without renouncing this Deposing power in the Pope But that which is the present pretence among them is that it is not this they stick at but the quarrel they have at the Oath of Allegeance as it is now framed I shall therefore proceed to the Second thing viz. II. That if they do renounce the Pope's Deposing power in good earnest they have no reason to refuse the Oath of Allegeance And now Gentlemen I must again make my Address to you with great thanks for the satisfaction you have given me in this particular I have seriously read and considered your Treatises and I find by them all that if you durst heartily renounce this Doctrine all the other parts of the Oath might go down well enough The Authour of the First Treatise is so ingenuous as to make the following Proposition the whole Foundation of his Discourse viz. That it is not lawfull to take any Oath or Protestation renouncing the Pope's Power in any case whatsoever to Depose a Christian Prince or Absolve his Subjects from their Allegeance And in my mind he gives a very substantial Reason for it Because the holding that he hath no such Power is Erroneous in Faith Temerarious and Impious What would a man wish for more against any Doctrine Whatever P. W. and his Brethren think of this Deposing power this Piece doth charge them home and tells them their own and that they are so far from being sound Catholicks that deny it that in one word they are Hereticks damnable Henrician Hereticks What would they be thought Catholicks that charge the Church for so many Ages with holding a damnable Errour and practising mortal Sin as their Church hath done if the Pope hath no Deposing power For this honest Gentleman confesseth That it is a Doctrine enormously injurious to the Rights of Princes and the cause of much deadly Feud betwixt the Church and Secular States of many bloudy Wars of Princes one against another and wicked Rebellions of Subjects against their Princes O the irresistible power of Truth How vain is it for men to go about to Masquerade the Sun His light will break through and discover all It is very true this hath been the effect of this blessed Doctrine in the Christian world Seditions Wars Bloudshed Rebellions what not But how do you prove this to have been the Doctrine of the Church of Rome How say you by all the ways we can prove any Doctrine Catholick Popes have taught it from Scripture and Tradition and condemned the contrary as Erroneous in faith Pernicious to salvation wicked Folly and Madness and inflicted Censures on them that held it Have they so in good sooth Nay then it must be as good Catholick Doctrine as Transubstantiation its own self if it hath been declared in Councils and received by the Church Yes say you that I prove by the very same Popes the same Councils the same Church and in the same manner that Transubstantiation was And for my part I think you have done it and I thank you for it I am very well satisfied with your Proofs they are very solid and much to the purpose But above
will likewise have Power to Depose Princes and what a fine case are Princes in if their Power lies at the mercy of every insolent or peevish Bishop If it be not by the Power of Excommunication by what Power is it that the Prince is Deposed by the Pope Is it by virtue of Pasce oves and Dabo tibi Claves That Prince's case is extremely to be pitied that hath no better Security for his Power then what the Pope hath for his from those places in the judgment of the most ingenuous persons of the Roman Communion And it seems a very hard case that Princes should lose their unquestionable Rights for the sake of so doubtfull an Authority at best as that of the Popes especially over Princes is And it is so much the more hard with them because no private person loses his Estate by Excommunication and yet Princes must lose their Kingdoms by it This is indeed no Court Holy-water nor a design to flatter Princes but such horrible Injustice and Partiality that it is a wonder to me the Princes of Christendom have not long since combined together to dethrone him who thinks it in his power to depose them thereby making himself the Caliph of the Western Babylon And so no doubt they would have done had it not been for the difference of Interests among Christian Princes that have made some therefore side with and uphold the Papal Monarchy because others opposed it and every one hopes at one time or other to make use of it for his own turn But yet methinks it is their common Interest to secure themselves against the prevalency of this dangerous Doctrine on their own Subjects for all those who believe it are but Conditional Subjects to their Princes for their Obedience depends on the Will and Pleasure of another whom they think themselves bound absolutely to obey and yet not bound to believe he did right in Excommunicating and Deposing their Prince For they dare not say he is Infallible in his Proceedings against Princes so that right or wrong they must obey the Pope and disobey their lawfull Sovereign If the Pope through Pride or Passion or Interest or Misinformation thunder out Excommunication against a Christian Prince all which they say he is capable of in pronouncing this dreadfull Sentence then all his Subjects are presently free from their Allegeance and they may doe what they please against him And what a miserable condition were Sovereign Princes in if all Christians were such Fools to think themselves bound to obey an unjust Sentence of the Bishop of Rome against their just and lawfull Prince For upon these Principles though the Popes be never so much Parties they must be the onely Iudges in this case And what redress is to be expected there where it is so much the Interest of the person concerned to have it believed he cannot erre If these were really the terms of Princes being admitted to Christianity it would make the most considerable Argument to perswade them to Infidelity For what have they to doe to judge them that are without But Princes have no cause to be afraid of being Christians for the sake of this Doctrine For if Christ and his Apostles were the best Teachers of Christianity this is certainly no part of it For the Religion they taught never meddled with Crowns and Scepters but left to Caesar the things that were Caesar's and never gave the least intimation to Princes of any Forfeiture of their Authority if they did not render to God the things that are God's The Christian Religion left mankind under those Forms and Rules of Civil Government in which it found them it onely requires all men of what rank or order soever to be subject to the Higher Powers because they are the Ordinance of God and bids all Christians pray for them in Authority that under them they may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty Thus far the Christian Religion goes in these matters and thus the Primitive Christians believed and practised when their Religion was pure and free from the Corruptions and Usurpations which the Interests and Passions of men introduced in the following Ages And how then come Princes in these latter times to be Christians upon worse and harder terms then in the best Ages of it But how doth it appear that Princes do become Christians upon such Conditions that if the Pope Excommunicate them they lose their Crowns What Office of Baptism is this contained in Did their Godfathers and Godmothers undertake this for them No that is not said but that it is implied in the nature of the thing How so Is it because Dominion is founded in Grace No not that neither But in my mind there is very little difference between Dominion being founded in Grace and being forfeited for want of it And so we are come about to the Fanatick Principles of Government again which this Deposing power in the Pope doth naturally lead men to But this is not all the Mischief of this Doctrine For 2. It breaks all Bonds and Oaths of Obedience how sacred and solemn soever they have been That we may the better apprehend the pernicious consequence of this Doctrine we are to consider 1. That there is a mutual Duty owing between Princes and Subjects on the account of the Relation between them such as doth naturally arise from it and antecedently to their embracing the Christian Religion For without an obligation to Obedience on the Subjects part the Authority of a Prince is an insignificant thing and the publick good of the Society cannot be obtained 2. That when Subjects are Absolved from their Oaths of Allegeance by the Pope they are thereby declared free from that natural Duty they were obliged to before For Allegeance to Princes doth not flow from the Relation between them and the People as Christians but as Members of a Civil Society and therefore the Absolving Subjects from that is in plain terms nulling the Obligation to a natural Duty and taking away the force of Oaths and Promises 3. That all mankind are agreed that it is a Sin to break a lawfull Oath and the more solemn and weighty the Oath is the greater the Perjury but in case of the Pope's Absolving Subjects from their Oath of Allegeance it must be said that that which otherwise would be a Sin becomes none and a notorious Crime becomes a Duty because done by virtue of the Pope's Authority This is that now we are to understand if possible what Authority that is in the Pope which can turn Evil into Good and Good into Evil that can make Civil Obedience to Princes to be a Crime and Perjury to be none This is an admirable Power and greater then the Schoolmen will allow to God himself where there is intrinsick Goodness in the nature of the thing and inseparable Evil from the contrary to it For say they Divine Providence being supposed God cannot but forbid those
grant after all this that Cajetan and Soto both yield to the common Doctrine of their Church about Dispensing with Oaths made to Excommunicated persons by way of punishment to them but they do not answer their own Arguments And Cajetan saith that caution is to be used lest prejudice be done to another by it i. e. they durst not oppose the common Opinion although they saw sufficient Reason against it Cardinal Tolet seems to speak home to our case when he saith that an Oath made to the benefit of a third person cannot be dispensed with no not by the Pope himself without the consent of that person as the Pope cannot take away another man's goods One would have thought this had been as full to our purpose as possible and so it is as to the Reason of the thing But he brings in after it a scurvy exception of the case of Excommunicated persons without offering the least shew of Reason why the common Rules of Iustice and Honesty ought not to be observed towards persons censured by the Church Nor doth he attempt to shew how the Pope comes by that Power of Dispensing with Oaths in that case which he freely declares he hath not in any other Gregory Sayr thinks he hath nicked the matter when with wonderfull subtilty he distinguisheth between the free act of the will in obliging it self by an Oath and the Obligation following upon it to perform what is sworn Now saith he the Pope in Dispensing doth not take away the second viz. the Obligation to perform the Oath the Bond remaining for that were to go against the Law of God and Nature but because every Oath doth suppose a Consent of the will the Dispensation falls upon that and takes away the force of the Oath from it If this Subtilty will hold for all that I can see the Pope may dispense with all the Oaths in the world and justify himself upon this Distinction for as Azorius well observes if the Reason of Dispensing be drawn from the Consent of the will which is said to be subject to the Pope he may at his pleasure dispense with any Oath whatsoever Sayr takes notice of Azorius his dissatisfaction at this Answer but he tells him to his teeth that he could bring no better yea that he could find out no Answer at all Azorius indeed acknowledges the great difficulty of explaining this Dispensing power of the Pope as to Oaths and concludes at last that the Bond of an Oath cannot be loosed by the Pope but for some Reason drawn from the Law of Nature which is in effect to deny his Authority for if there be a Reason from the Law of Nature against the obligation of an Oath the Bond is loosed of it self Others therefore go the plainest way to work who say that all Oaths have that tacit Condition in them If the Pope please But Sayr thinks this a little too broad because then it follows evidently that the Pope may dispense as he pleases without cause which he saith is false Others again have found out a notable device of distinguishing between the Obligation of Iustice and of Religion in an Oath and say that the Pope can take away the Religious Obligation of an Oath though not that of Iustice. This Widdrington saith was the Opinion of several grave and learned Catholicks in England and therefore they said they could not renounce the Pope's Power of absolving persons from the Oath of Allegeance But he well shews this to be a vain and impertinent Distinction because the intention of the Oath of Allegeance is to secure the Obligation of Iustice and the intention of the Pope in Absolving from that Oath is to take it away as he proves from the famous Canons Nos Sanctorum and Iuratos So that this Subtilty helps not the matter at all Paul Layman confesseth that a promissory Oath made to a man cannot ordinarily be relaxed without the consent of the person to whom it is made because by such an Oath a man to whom it is made doth acquire as just a right to the performance as he hath to any of his Goods of which he cannot be deprived But from this plain and just Rule he excepts as the rest do the publick Good of the Church as though Evil might be done for the Good of the Church although not for the Good of any private person whereas the Churche's Honour ought more to be preserved by the ways of Iustice and Honesty Wo be to them that make good evil and evil good when it serves their turn for this is plainly setting up a particular Interest under the name of the Good of the Church and violating the Laws of Righteousness to advance it If men break through Oaths and the most solemn Engagements and Promises and regard no Bonds of Iustice and Honesty to compass their ends let them call them by what specious names they please the Good Old Cause or the Good of the Church it matters not which there can be no greater sign of Hypocrisy and real Wickedness then this For the main part of true Religion doth not lie in Canting phrases or Mystical notions neither in Specious shews of Devotion nor in Zeal for the true Church but in Faith as it implies the performance of our Promises as well as belief of the Christian Doctrine and in Obedience or a carefull observance of the Laws of Christ among which Obedience to the King as Supreme is one Which they can never pretend to be an inviolable Duty who make it in the power of another person to Absolve them from the most solemn Oaths of Allegeance and consequently suppose that to keep their Oaths in such case would be a Sin and to violate them may become a Duty which is in effect to overturn the natural differences of Good and Evil to set up a Controlling Sovereign Power above that of their Prince and to lay a perpetual Foundation for Faction and Rebellion which nothing can keep men from if Conscience and their solemn Oaths cannot 3. Therefore the third Mischief common to this Deposing power of the Pope and Commonwealth-Principles is the Justifying Rebellion on the account of Religion This is done to purpose in Boucher and Reynolds the fierce Disputers for the Pope's and the People's Power Boucher saith that it is not onely lawfull to resist Authority on the account of Religion but that it is folly and impiety not to doe it when there is any probability of success And the Martyrs were onely to be commended for Suffering because they wanted Power to resist Most Catholick and Primitive Doctrine And that the Life of a Wicked Prince ought not to be valued at that rate as the Service of God ought to be That when Christ paid tribute to Caesar he did it as a private man and not meddling with the Rights of the People That if the People had not exercised their Power over the lives of bad
some Points And yet the Dominicans swear to maintain S. Thomas his Doctrine What think you of the Immaculate Conception which so many Vniversities have sworn to maintain as Luc. Wadding hath shewed at large and yet all these Oaths were made before any authoritative Decision of the Church One of you hath found out an evasion for this by saying that it is one thing to swear to maintain a Doctrine as true and another to swear to it as true I cry you mercy Gentlemen I had thought no persons would have sworn to maintain a falshood or to defend that as true which at the same time they believed or suspected not to be true Why may not you then swear that you will maintain the Pope hath no Power to depose Princes when your Prince requires it as well as swear to maintain the Immaculate Conception when the Vniversity requires it whatever your private Opinion be But to prevent this subterfuge Wadding saith from Surius that the Vniversity of Mentz would admit none to any degree in Divinity without swearing that he would neither approve nor hold in his mind any other Opinion What think you now of swearing to the truth of an Opinion not decided by the Church upon the best probable reasons that can be given for it And therefore all this outcry about Perjury was onely to frighten and amuse and not to convince or satisfy The rest of that Treatise consists of impertinent Cavills against several Expressions in the Oath of Allegeance which ought to be understood according to the intention of the Law-givers the reason and design of the Law and the natural sense of the words and if they will but allow these as the most reasonable ways of interpreting Laws all those Exceptions will be found too light to weigh down the balance of any tolerable judgment and have been answered over and over from the days of Widdrington to the Authour of the Questions and therefore I pass them over and leave them to any who shall think it worth their pains to make a just Answer to them The Third Treatise is written by a very Considering man as any one may find in every Page of it He bids his Readers consider so much as though he had a mind to have them spend their days in considering the Oath without ever taking it As he had that desired time to consider the Solemn League and Covenant and when he was asked how long time he would take for it he told them but a little time for he was an old man and not likely to live long But what is it which this person offers which is so considerable His main Argument is from the Pope's Authority prohibiting the taking this Oath expressly at several and distant times and after the most ample information and the Writings on both sides it being a thing belonging to the Pope's Authority as Spiritual Governour and not to the Civil Power to determine This is an Argument I must leave to those to answer who think themselves obliged to justify the Pope's Authority and to disobey it at the same time To this some answer That the Pope's Prohibition proceeding on a false Supposition and a private Opinion of his own viz. that there are some things in the Oath repugnant to Faith they are not bound to obey it because it belongs not to the Pope without a Council to determine matters of Faith That the Popes have sometimes required very unjust and unreasonable things of which Warmington gives some notable instances of his own knowledge That Obedience to all Superiours is limited within certain bounds which if they exceed men are not bound to obey them That the very Canonists and Schoolmen do set bounds to the Pope's Authority as 1. when great mischief is like to ensue by his Commands so Francisc. Zabarell Panormitan Sylvester and others 2. when injury comes to a third person by it so Card. Tolet Panormitan Soto c. 3. when there is just cause to doubt the Lawfulness of the thing commanded so Pope Adrian Vasquez Navarr and others cited by Widdrington 4. when he commands about those things wherein he is not Superiour so Tolet determins A man is onely obliged in those things to obey his Superiour wherein he hath Authority over him Now say they we having just cause to doubt whether the Pope may command us in things relating to our Allegeance and apparent Injury coming to Princes by owning this Doctrine and much Mischief having been done by it and more designed as the Gunpowder-Treason the true Occasion of this Oath it is no culpable Disobedience to take the Oath of Allegeance notwithstanding the Pope's Prohibition And upon the very same Grounds and Reasons which made the King's Royal Ancestours with their Parliaments to limit the Pope's Authority in England in the ancient Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire His Majestie 's Grandfather might with his Parliament enact that Law which requires the taking of the Oath of Allegeance and how comes such Disobedience in Temporals say they to be now more repugnant to Catholick Religion then it was in those days Nay in those times it was good Doctrine that when a Dispute arose whether a thing did belong to the Civil or Ecclesiastical Power to judge the Civil Power hath made Laws and determined it and the Subjects did submit to the Civil Authority This and much more might be said to shew the inconsequence of this Argument upon which the stress of the Third Treatise lies but I leave the full Answer to those that are concerned The plainest shortest and truest Answer is That the Pope hath no Jurisdiction over us either in Spirituals or Temporals But this is sufficient to my purpose to shew that if they would renounce the Pope's Deposing power there is nothing else according to the Principles of their own Religion could hinder them from taking the Oath of Allegeance Which is in effect acknowledged at last by this Authour of the Third Treatise when he offers a new Form of an Oath rather more expressive of Civil Obedience then the Oath of Allegeance Are not Princes mightily obliged to you Gentlemen that take such wonderfull care to have a more express Oath then this already required by Law How comes this extraordinary fit of Kindness upon you Do you really think the Oath of Allegeance defective in this point No no. We know what you would have If we can get but this Oath out of the way the same interest which can remove this will prevent another as some argue about other matters at this time Well but what Security is this which you do so freely offer First You are ready to swear without any Mental reservation that you acknowledge our Sovereign Lord CHARLES the Second to be lawfull King of this Realm and of all other His Majestie 's Dominions A wonderfull Kindness While the old Gentleman at Rome pleases you will doe this but suppose he should
declare otherwise what think you then Will you then own him to be lawfull King in spite of the Pope's Excommunication and Sentence of Deposing Speak out Gentlemen why do you draw in your breath and mutter to your selves will you or will you not If you will why do ye stick at the Oath of Allegeance If you will not is not His Majesty much obliged to you that you will own Him to be lawfull King as long as the Pope pleases But you go on That you renounce all Power whatsoever Ecclesiastical or Civil domestick or forein repugnant to the same What doth this same relate to to his being lawfull King or to your acknowledgment of it If you meant honestly without reservation why could ye not speak plainly in saying that ye renounce all Power of the Pope as to the Deposing the King and Absolving His Subjects from their Allegeance If this be not your meaning it is a falsity to say you swear without any Mental reservation when in the mean time you reserve the Pope's Power to depose the King and then he is no longer a lawfull King to you So that till you in plain terms renounce this Power of the Pope all other Forms are mere shuffling and full of tricks and equivocations on purpose to amuse the unwary Reader But you would have us think you come home to the point in the last Clause wherein you declare that Doctrine to be impious seditious and abominable which maintains that any private Subject may lawfully kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince Now say you let any one judge Protestant or Catholick whether these foremention'd Clauses are not more at least as expressive of Civil Allegeance as the ordinary Oath is Not too fast good Sir the world is not so easily cheated as it hath been Would you indeed have us believe this to be as good Security as the Oath of Allegeance when some of the greatest Defenders of the Deposing power would say as much as this comes to that it is impious and abominable for a private Subject to kill or murther his Prince But when the Pope hath Deposed a Prince those that were Subjects before according to your Opinion cease to be so and the same person may lawfully kill or murther his Prince although not the same Subject because the relation is alter'd by virtue of the Pope's Sentence Besides this reaches onely to the case of a private Subject and not to the Power of the People or the Pope That may be thought unlawfull to be done by a private person without power and commission which may be thought lawfull when he doth it by Authority derived from others So that this Form can give satisfaction to none but such as will be satisfied with any thing For it doth not at all touch upon the main business but is in truth an equivocal deceitfull and sophistical Form For as the Authour of the Reflections saith very well Princes are little advantaged by such an Oath wherein the Swearers say Princes may not be murthered or killed by their Subjects unless they say withall they may not be Deposed by the Pope For whosoever hath a Supreme just Right upon any pretence whatsoever to Depose Princes hath thereby Right to cause them to be killed in case they by arms oppose the execution of the Sentence And can it be imagined that any Prince judged an Heretick or otherwise guilty by the Pope and by him sentenced to be Deposed will thereupon quietly descend out of his Throne and yield up his Scepter to one of a contrary Religion Or rather is it not most certain that they will not but on the contrary bring with them many thousands of their armed Subjects to resist the execution of such a Sentence all which together with them must be killed or murthered before it can have its full effect But this is not the onely thing wherein you design to put tricks upon your Readers it would take up too much time for a Preface to lay them all open yet some of them are too gross to be passed by As when the Authour of the First Treatise would have his Reader believe the Publisher of the Fasciculus rerum expetendarum fugiendarum to have been a Protestant when any one that looks into the Book may find it was set forth by Ortwinus Gratius a known and fierce Papist and when the Authours of the two other Treatises both assert that Sanctarellus his Book was condemned at Rome before it was condemned at Paris I stood amazed at the impudence of this assertion when I read it in the Second Treatise but much more when I saw it confirmed in the Third I looked once and again on the Roman Index Expurgatorius and examined the Decrees of the Congregation but I could find no Sanctarellus ever condemned there But looking into Sanctarellus himself I found the Book so far from being condemned that it came forth with the Approbation and special Licence of Mutius Vittelescus then General of the Iesuits Order bearing date at Rome May 25. 1624. I pray mark it Gentlemen the General of the Iesuits at that time gave this Licence to a Book written by one of that Order wherein he shews that Princes may be Deposed not onely for Heresie but for other Faults for Negligence if it be Expedient if they be thought Insufficient if Vnusefull or the like And yet you would bear us down that your Order many years before was prohibited writing or teaching any thing about this matter Some such temporary Order is talked of in the time of Claudius Aquaviva when the clamours were so great against the Iesuits for asserting this Doctrine Yet that Prohibition extended no farther then to teaching it to be lawfull for any person to kill Princes under a pretence of Tyranny What is this but meer artifice and collusion It is not to be taught but they may think as they please not lawfull for any person but it doth not deny it to be lawfull to persons authorized by the Pope after he hath Deposed them So that there never was any Prohibition of teaching the Pope's Deposing power as to Princes But suppose there were you very well know of how little force such an Order is when that General is dead and another succeeds as appears by this very Licence of Mutius Vittelescus Have a little pity upon us Gentlemen and tell somewhat more probable Untruths then this that your Order is forbidden to meddle with these Points So it seems indeed by the Authour of the First Treatise who was under some very strict Prohibition without doubt which made him out of the crosseness of humane nature so free to vent his opinion But to give you a little more satisfaction about this Book of Sanctarellus It was not onely approved by the General of the Iesuits but by Alexander Victricius and Vincentius Candidus and printed by Order of the Master of the Pope's Palace Call you this