Chapter 16

Your discourse on this head is not reducible by logic itself to any method or rules of argument. For it is in general, 1. So loose, ambiguous and metaphorically expressed: 2. So sophistical and inclusive; 3. So inconsistent in sundry instances with the principles and practices of your Church, if you speak intelligibly; 4. So false and untrue in many particulars, that it is scarcely for these excellent qualifications to be paralleled with any thing either in your Fiat or your Epistola. First, it is loose and ambiguous: 1. Not stating what you intend by the Head of the Church, which you discourse about: 2. Not determining whether the King be such a head of execution in matter of religion, as may use the liberty of his own judgment as to what he puts in execution, or whether he be not bound to execute your Pope's determinations on the penalty of the forfeiture of his Christianity; which I doubt we shall find to be your opinion; 3. Not declaring wherein the power which you assign to him is founded; whether in God's immediate institution, or the concession of the Pope, whereon it should solely depend, to whom it is in all things to be made subservient. Secondly, sophistical. (1.) In playing with the ambiguity of that expression Head of the Church, and by the advantage thereof imposing on Protestants contradictions between their profession and practice, as though in the one they acknowledged the King to be head of the Church, and not in the other: (whereas there is a perfect consonancy between them in the sense wherein they understand that expression) shrouding your own sense and opinion in the mean time under the same ambiguity. (2.) In supposing an absolute universal Head of the whole Catholic Church, and then giving reasons why no King can be that Head; when you know that the whole question is whether there be any such head of the Catholic Church on earth or no. (3.) In supposing the principles and practices of the Primitive Church to have been the same with those of the present Roman, and those of the present Roman to have been all known and allowed of old, which begs all that is in controversy between us; and sundry other instances of the like nature may be observed in it. Thirdly, inconsistent with the principles and practices of your own Church, both 1. In what you ascribe to Kings, and 2. In your stating of the power and jurisdiction of your Pope, if the ambiguity of your words and expressions will allow us to conclude what you intend or aim at. Fourthly, false. (1.) In matter of fact, as to what you relate of the obedience of your Church to Kings. (2.) In the principles and opinions which you impose on your adversaries; (3.) In the declaration that you make of your own; and (4.) In many particular assertions whose consideration will afterwards occur.

This is a business I could have been glad you had not necessitated me to the consideration of; for it cannot be truly and distinctly handled, [illegible] such reflections upon your Church and way, as may without extraordinary indulgence redound to your disadvantage. You have by your own voluntary choice called me to the discussion of those principles which have created you much trouble in these nations, and put you oftentimes upon attempting their disquiet. Now these are things which I desire not. I am but a private man, and am very well contented you should enjoy all that peace and liberty which you think not meet in other nations where the power is at your disposal, to grant to them that dissent from you. Lex talionis should be far from influencing the minds of Christians in this matter: however the equity of it may at any time be pleaded or urged to relieve others in other places, under bondage and persecution. But I am sure, if I judge your proceedings against other men dissenting from you in conscience, to be unjustifiable by the Scripture or light of nature, or suffrage of the ancient Church, as I do, I have no reason to desire that they should be drawn into president against their selves, in any place in the world. And therefore Sir, had you provided the best color you could for your own principles, and palliated them to the [illegible], so to hide them from the eyes of those, who it may be are ready to seek their disturbance and trouble from an apprehension of the evil that may ensue upon them, and had not set them up in comparison with the principles of Protestants of all sorts, and for the setting off your own with the better grace and luster, untruly and invidiously reported theirs, to expose them to those thoughts, and that severity from supreme powers which you seek yourselves to wave, I should have wholly passed by this discourse, to which no occasion was administered in the Animadversions; but now as you have handled the matter, unless I would have it taken for granted that the principles of the Roman Church, are more suited to the establishment and promotion of the interest and sovereignty of Kings and other supreme magistrates, and in particular the Kings of these nations, than those of Protestants, which in truth I do not believe, I must of necessity make a little further enquiry into your discourse. And I desire your pardon, if in my so doing, any thing be spoken that suits not so well your interest and designs, neither expecting nor desiring any, if ought be delivered by me not according to truth.

To make our way the more clear, some of the ambiguous expressions which you make use of to cloud and hide your intention in your enquiry after the Head of the Church, must be explained.

By the Church, you understand, not this, or that particular Church, not the Church of this of that Nation, Kingdom, or Country, but the whole Catholic Church throughout the world. And when you have explained yourself to this purpose you endeavour by six Arguments, (no less, p. 67, 68.) to prove that no King ever was or can be Head of it. He said well of old, In causa facili quemvis licet esse disertum. I wonder you contented yourself to give us six Reasons only, and that you proceeded not at least to the high hills of eighteenthly and nineteenthly, that you talk of in your Fiat Lux where you scoff at the preaching of Presbyterians; it may be you will scarely ever obtain such another opportunity of shewing the fertility of your invention. So did he flourish who thought himself secure from adversaries. Caput altum in praelia tollit, Ostenditque humeros latos, alternaque jactat Brachia protendens, & verberat ictibus auras. But you do like him, you only beat the air; do you think any man was ever so distempered as to dream that any King whatever could be the absolute Head of the whole Catholic Church of Christ? We no more think any King in any sense to be the Head of the Catholic Church, than we think the Pope so to be. The Roman Empire was at its height and glory when first Christianity set forth in the world, and had extended its bounds beyond those of any Kingdom that arose before it, or that has since succeeded to it. And yet within a very few years, after the Resurrection of Christ, the Gospel had diffused itself beyond the limits of that Empire, among the Parthians, and Indians, and to Britannorum Romanis inaccessa loca, as Tertullian calls them. Now none ever supposed that any King had power or authority of any sort in reference to the Church, or any members of it, without or beyond the precise limits of his own dominions. The inquiry we have under consideration about the power of Kings, and the obedience due to them in ecclesiastical things, is limited absolutely to their own Kingdoms, and to those of their subjects which are Christians in them. And this Hi motus animorum atque haec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu concussa quiescunt. A little observation of this one known and granted principle, renders not only your six Reasons altogether useless, but supersedes also a great part of your rhetoric, which under the ambiguity of that expression you display in your whole discourse.

Secondly, you pleasantly lead about your unwary reader with the ambiguity of the other term, the Head. Hence p. 58. you fall into a great exclamation against Protestants, that acknowledging the King to be the Head of the Church, they do not supplicate to him, and acquiesce in his judgement in religious affairs, as if ever any Protestant acknowledged any King or any mortal man to be such a Head of the Church as you fancy to yourselves, in whose determinations in Religion all men are bound spiritually and as to their eternal concernments to acquiesce; and that not because they are true according to the Scripture, but because they are his. Such a Head you make the Pope; such a one on earth all Protestants deny, which evacuates your whole discourse to that purpose, p. 58, 59. It is true in opposition to your Papal claim of authority and jurisdiction over the subjects of this Kingdom, Protestants do assert the King to be so Head of the Church within his own Realms and Dominions, as that he is by God's appointment the sole fountain and spring among men of all authority and power to be exercised over the persons of his subjects in matters of external cognizance and order; being no way obnoxious to the direction, supervisorship and superintendency of any other, in particular not of the Pope. He is not only the only striker as you phrase it, in his Kingdoms, but the only Protector under God of all his subjects, and the only Distributor of Justice in rewards and punishments to them, not depending in the administration of the one or other on the determinations or orders of your Pope or Church. Not that any of them do use absolutely that expression of Head of the Church, but that they ascribe to him, all authority that ought or can be exercised in his dominions over any of his subjects whether in things civil or ecclesiastical, that are not merely spiritual, and to be ministerially ordered in obedience to Christ Jesus: and that you may the better see what it is that Protestants ascribe to the King, and to every King that is absolutely supreme, as his Majesty is, in his own dominions, and withal, how exceeding vain your unreasonable reproach is, which you cast upon them for not giving themselves up to an absolute acquiescency in humane determinations as merely such, on pretence that they proceed from the Head of the Church; I shall give you a brief account of their thoughts in this whole matter.

First, They say, that the King is the supreme Governor over all persons whatever, within his Realms and Dominions, none being exempted on any account from subjection to his Regal Authority. How well you approve of this Proposition in the great assignations you pretend to Kingly power we shall afterwards enquire. Protestants found their persuasion in this matter, on the authority of the Scripture both Old Testament and New, and the very principles constituting sovereign power among men. You speak fair to Kings, but at first dash exempt a considerable number of their born subjects owing them indispensable natural allegiance, from their jurisdiction. Of this sort are the Clergy. But the Kings of Judah of old were not of your mind. Solomon certainly thought Abiathar though High Priest subject to his Royal Authority, when he denounced against him a sentence of death, and actually deposed him from the Priesthood. The like course did his successors proceed in. For neither had God in the first provision he made for a King among his people (Deuteronomy 18), nor in that prescription of the manner of the Kingdom which he gave them by Samuel, once intimated an exemption of any persons, Priests or others from the Rule or Authority of the Prince, which he would set over them. In the New Testament we have the Rule, as the practice in the Old (Romans 13): Let every soul be subject to the Higher Powers, the power that bears the sword, the striker. And we think that your Clergy men have souls (at least pro sale) and so come within the circumference of this Command and Rule. Chrysostome in his Comment on that place is of our mind, and prevents your pretence of an exception from the Rule by special Privilege, giving us a distribution of the universality of the persons here intended into their several kinds. He shows that these things are commanded to all, to Priests and Monks, and not to secular persons only, which he declares in the very entrance of his Discourse, saying Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers; whether you be an Apostle, or an Evangelist, or a Prophet, or whatever you be. For subjection overthrows not Piety. And he says not simply, Let him obey, but let him be subject. The very same instances are given by Theodoret, Oecumenius, and Theophilact. Bernard, Epistle 42, to the Archbishop of Sens, meets with your exception which in his days began to be broached in the world, and tells you expressly that it is a delusion. In conformity to this Rule of Saint Paul, Peter exhorts all Christians, none excepted, to submit themselves to the King as Supreme (1 Peter ch. 2:13). And whatever we conclude from these words in reference to the King, I fear that if instead of the King, he had said the Pope, you would have thought us very impudent, if we had persisted in the denial of your monstrous imaginary Headship. But in this Principle, on these and the like grounds do all Protestants concur. And indeed to fancy a sovereign Monarch with so great a number of men as your Clergy consists of in many Kingdoms exempted from his Regal Authority, is to lay such an ax to the root of his Government, as whereby with one stroke you may hew it down at your pleasure.

2. Protestants affirm, that Rex in regno suo, every King in his own Kingdom is the Supreme dispenser of Justice and Judgement to all Persons, in all Causes that belong to, or are determinable in foro exteriori in any Court of Judicature, whither the matter which they concern be Civil or Ecclesiastical. No Cause, no difference determinable by any Law of man, and to be determined by Coercive Vmpirage or Authority, is exempted from his cognizance. Neither can any man, on any pretence, claim any Jurisdiction over any of his Subjects not directly and immediately derived from him. Neither can any King, who is a Soveraign Monarch, like the Kings of this Land, yield or grant a power in any other to judge of any Ecclesiastical Causes among his Subjects, as arising from any other Spring, or growing on any other root but that of his own Authority, without an impeachment and irreparable prejudice to his Crown and Dignity: neither does any such Concession, grant or supposition make it indeed so to be, but is a meer fiction and mistake, all that is done upon it, being ipso facto null, and of none effect. Neither if a King should make a pretended legal grant of such power to any, would any right accrew to them thereby; the making of such a Grant being a matter absolutely out of his power, as are all things whereby his regal Authority, wherein the Majesty of his Kingdom is enwrapped, may be diminished. For that King, who has a power to diminish his Kingly Authority, never was intrusted with absolute Kingly Power. Neither is this Power granted to our Kings by the Acts of Parliament, which you mention made in the beginning of the Reformation; but was alwayes inherent in them, and exercised in innumerable instances, and often vindicated with an high hand from Papal encroachments, even during the hour and power of your darkness, as has been sufficiently proved by many, both Divines and Lawyers. Things of meer spiritual order as preaching the word, Administration of the Sacraments and the like, we ascribe not to Kings, nor the communicating of power to any for their performance. The Soveraign Power of these things, is vested in Christ alone, and by him committed to his Ministers. But Religion has many concernments that attend it, which must be desposed of by forensical, juridical process and determinations. All these with the Persons of them, that are interested in them, are subject immediately to the power and Authority of the King, and none other; and to exempt them, or any of them, or any of the like nature, which may emerge among men in things relating to Conscience and Religion, whose Catalogue may be endlesly extended, from Royal Cognizance, is to make meer properties of Kings in things which in a very special manner concern the peace and wellfare of their subjects, and the distribution of rewards and punishments among them. Of this sort are all things that concern the authoritative public Conventions of Church Officers, and differences among them about their interests, practices, and public profession of Doctrines, Collations of Legal Dignities and Benefices, by and with investitures legal and valid, all Ecclesiastical revenews with their incidencies, the Courts and Jurisdictions of Ecclesiastical Persons for the reig[•]ement of the outward man by Censures and Sentences of Law, with the like. And as this whole matter is sufficiently confirmed by what was spoken before of the Power of Kings over the Persons or all their Subjects, and (for to what end should they have such a power, if in respect of many of them, and that in the chief concernments of their rule and Government, it may never be exerted?) so I should tire your patience, if I should report one half of the Laws, Instances and Pleas, made, given and used, by the Antient Christian Kings and Emperours in the persuit, and for the Confirmation of this their just power. The Decrees and Edicts of Constantine the Great, commanding, ruling and disposing of Bishops in Cases Ecclesiastical, the Laws of Justinian, Charls the Great, Ludovicus his Son, and Lotharius his Successor, with more innumerable to the same purpose are extant and known to all. So also are the Pleas, Protestations and Vindications of most of the Kingdoms of Europe after once the pretensions of Papacy began to be broached to their prejudice. And in particular, notable instances you might have, of the exercise of this royal power in the first Christian Magistrate invested with supreme Authority, both in the case of Athanasius (Socrat. Lib. 1. cap. 28. & cap. 34. Athan. Apol. 2.) as also of the Donatists (Euseb. lib. 10. cap. 5. August. Epist. 162, 166. and advers. Crescon. lib. 3. c. 17.) whereunto innumerable instances in his Successors may be added.

3. Protestants teach unanimously, that it is incumbent on Kings to find out, receive, embrace and promote the Truth of the Gospel, and the Worship of God appointed therein, confirming, protecting and defending of it, by their Regal Power and Authority: as also that in their so doing, they are to use the Liberty of their own judgements informed by the wayes that God has appointed for that end, independently on the dictates, determinations and orders of any other Person or Persons in the world, to whose Authority they should be obnoxious. Heathen Kings made Laws for God (Daniel 3, chap. 6, Jonah 3). And the great thing that we find any of the Good Kings of Judah commended for is, that they commanded the worship of God to be observed and performed, according to his own appointment. For this end were they then bound to write out a Copy of the Law with their own hands (Deuteronomy 14:18), and to study in it continually. To this purpose were they warned, charged, exhorted and excited by the Prophets; that is, that they should serve God as Kings. And to this purpose are there innumerable Laws of the best Christian Kings and Emperours still extant in the world.

In these things consists that Supremacy or Headship of Kings which Protestants unanimously ascribe to them; especially those in England, to his Royal Majesty. And from hence you may see the frivolousness of sundry things you object to them.

As first of the Scheme or Series of Ecclesiastical Power which you ascribe to Prelate Protestants, and the Laws of the Land, from which you say, the Presbyterians dissent, which you thus express; By the Laws of our Land, our Series of Government Ecclesiastical stands thus, God, Christ, King, Bishop, Ministers, People. The Presbyterian Predicament is thus, God, Christ, Minister, People. So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian Predicament toucheth Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes. You Pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ; but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes. For Christ is but where he was, but the Minister indeed is exalted, being now set in the Kings place one degree higher then the Bishops, who by Law is under King and Bishops too.

If I mistake not in my guess, you greatly pleased your self with your Scheme, wherein you pretend to make forsooth an ocular demonstration of what you undertook to prove; whereas indeed it is as trivial a fancy as a man can ordinarily meet withal. For 1. Neither the Law, nor Prelates, nor Presbyterians ascribe any place at all to the Kings Majesty in the series of spiritual order; he is neither Bishop, nor Minister, nor Deacon, or any way authorized by Christ to convey or communicate power merely spiritual to any others. No such thing is claimed by our Kings, or declared in Law, or asserted by Protestants of any sort. But in the series of exterior government, both Prelate Protestants and Presbyterians assign a Supremacy over all persons in his Dominions, and that in all causes that are inquirable and determinable by, or in any Court exercising jurisdiction and authority, to his Majesty. All sorts assign to him the supreme place under Christ in external government and jurisdiction. None assign him any place in spiritual order and merely spiritual power. Secondly, If you place Bishops on the series of exterior government as appointed by the King and confirmed by the Law of the Land, there is yet no difference with respect to them. 3. The question then is solely about the series of spiritual order, and thereabout it is confessed there are various apprehensions of Protestants, which is all you prove, and so do, magno conatu nugas agere: who knows it not? I wish there were any need to prove it. But Sir, this difference about the superiority of Bishops to Presbyters, or their equality, or identity, was agitated in the Church many and many a hundred year before you or I were born, and will be so probably when we are both dead and forgotten. So that what it makes in this dispute, is very hard for a sober man to conjecture. 4. Who they are that pretend to exalt Christ, by a mere asserting ministers, not to be by his institution subject to Bishops, which you call a cheat, I know not, nor shall be their advocate; they exalt Christ who love him and keep his commandments, and no other.

You may also as easily discern the frivolousness of your exclamation against Protestants for not giving up their differences in Religion to the umperage of Kings upon the assignment of that Supremacy to them which has been declared. When we make the King such a Head of the Catholick Church as you make the Pope, we shall seek to him as the fountain of our faith, as you pretend to do to the Pope. For the present we give that honor to none but Christ himself; and for what we assign in profession to the King, we answer it wholly in our practical submission. Protestants never thought, nor said that any King was appointed by Christ to be supreme infallible Proposer of all things to be believed and done in the worship of God; no King ever assumed that power to himself. It is Jesus Christ alone who is the Supreme and absolute Lawgiver of his Church, the Author and finisher of our Faith; and it is the honor of Kings to serve him in the promotion of his interest, by the exercise of that authority and duty which we have before declared. What to the dethroning and dishonor as much as in you lies of Christ himself, and of Kings also, you assign to the Pope, in making him the supreme head and fountain of their faith, has been already considered. This is the substance of what you except against Protestants either as to opinion or practice in this matter of deference to kingly authority in things ecclesiastical. What is the sense of your Church which you prefer to your sentiments herein, I shall after I have a little examined your present pretensions manifest to you, (seeing you will have it so,) from those who are full well able to inform us of it; Fas mihi Pontificum sacrata resolvere jura, —atque omnia ferre sub auras, [illegible] Siqua tegunt; tenear Romaenec ligebus ullis. For your own part you have expressed yourself in this matter so loosely, generally and ambiguously, that it is very hard for any man to collect from your words, what it is that you assert, or what you deny. I shall endeavour to draw out your sense by a few enquiries. As 1. Do you think the King has any authority vested in him as King in ecclesiastical affairs, and over ecclesiastical persons? You tell us, that Catholicks observe the King in all things as well ecclesiastick as civil, pag. 59, that in the line of corporal power and authority the King is immediately under God, p. 61, with other words to the same purpose, if they are to any purpose at all. I desire to know whether you grant in him an authority derived immediately from God in and over ecclesiastical affairs, as to convene Synods or Councils, to reform things amiss in the Church, as to the outward administration of them? Or do you think that he has such power and authority to make, constitute or appoint laws with penal sanctions in and about things ecclesiastical? And secondly, do you think that in the work which he has to do for the Church, be it what it will, he may use the liberty of his own judgement directed by the light of the Scripture, or that he is precisely to follow the declarations and determinations of the Pope? If he have not this authority, if he may not use this liberty, the good words you speak of Catholicks, and give to him, signify indeed nothing at all. If then he has, and may, you openly rise up against the Bulls, Briefs and Interdicts of your Popes themselves and the universal practice of your Church for many ages. And therefore I desire you to inform me thirdly, whether you do not judge him absolutely to be subject and accountable to the Pope for whatever he does in ecclesiastical affairs in his own kingdoms and dominions? If you answer suitably to the principles, maxims and practice of your Church, you must say he is; and if so, I must tell you that whatever you ascribe to him in things ecclesiastical, he acts not about them as King, but in some other capacity. For to do a thing as a King, and to be accountable for what he does therein to the Pope, implies a contradiction. Fourthly, has not the Pope a power over his subjects, many of them at least, to convene, censure, judge and punish them, and to exempt them in criminal cases from his jurisdiction? And is not this a fair supremacy that it is meet he should be contented withal, when you put it into the power of another to exempt as many of his subjects as he pleases and are willing, from his regal authority? 5. When you say, that in matters of faith, Kings for their own ease remit their subjects to their Papal Pastor, pag. 57, whether you do not collude with us, or indeed do at all think as you speak? Do you think that Kings have real power in, and about those things wherein you depend on the Pope, and only remit their subjects to him for their own ease? You cannot but know that this one concession would ruin the whole Papacy, as being expressly destructive of all the foundations on which it is built. Nor did ever any Pope proceed on this ground in his interposures in the world about matters of faith; that such things indeed belonged to others, and were only by them remitted to him for their ease. 6. Whether you do not include Kings themselves in your general assertion, pag. 55, that they who after Papal decisions remain contumacious forfeit their Christianity? And if so, whether you do not at once overthrow all your other splendid concessions, and make Kings absolute dependents on the Pope for all the privileges of their Christianity, and whether you account not among them, their very regal dignity itself? Whereby it may easily appear how much Protestant Kings and Potentates are beholding to you, seeing it is manifest that they live and rule in a neglect of many Papal decisions and determinations. 7. Whether you do not very fondly pretend to prove your Roman Catholicks' acknowledgement of the power of Princes to make laws in cases ecclesiastical, from the laws of Justinian, p. 59, whereas they are instances of regal power in such cases plainly destructive of your present Hildebrandine faith and authority: and whether you suppose such laws to have any force or authority of law, without the Papal sanction and confirmation? 8. Whether you think indeed that confession to priests is such an effectual means of securing the peace and interest of Kings as you pretend, p. 59, and whether Queen Elizabeth, King James, Henry the third and fourth of France had cause to believe it; and whether you learned this notion from Parry, Raviliac, Mariana, Clement, Parsons, Allen, Garnet, Gerard, Oldcome, with their associates? 9. Whether you forgot not yourself when you place Aaron and Joshua in government together, p. 64. 10. Whether you really believe, that the Pope has power only to persuade in matters of Religion as you pretend, p. 65, and if so, from what topics he takes the whips, wires and racks that he makes use of in his Inquisition? And whether he has not a right even to destroy Kings themselves, who will not be his executioners in destroying of others? I wish you would come out of the clouds, and speak your mind freely and plainly to some of these enquiries. Your present ambiguous discourse, in the face of it fainted to your interest, gives no satisfaction, while these snakes lie in the grass of it. Therefore leaving you a little to your second thoughts, I shall enquire of your Masters and Fathers themselves, what is the true sense of your Church in this matter, and we shall find them speaking it out plainly and roundly: For they tell us,

That the government of the whole Catholick Church is Monarchical: a state wherein all power is derived from one fountain, one and the same Person. This is the first principle that is laid down by all your writers, in treating of the Church and its power; and that which your great Cardinal Baronius lays as the foundation on which he builds the huge structure of his Ecclesiastical Annals.

That the Pope is this Monarch of the Church: the Person in whom alone the sovereign rule of it is originally vested: so that it is absolutely impossible that any other Person should have, enjoy, or use any ecclesiastical authority, but what is derived from him. I believe you suppose this sufficiently proved by Bellarmine or others. Your self own it, nor can deny it without a disclaimure of your present Papacy. And this one principle perfectly discovers the vanity of your pretended attributions of power in ecclesiastical things to Kings and Princes. For to suppose a Monarchical estate, and not to suppose all power and authority in that state to be derived from the Monarch in it and of it alone, is to suppose a perfect contradiction, or a state Monarchical that is not Monarchical. Protestants place the Monarchical state of the Catholick Church in its relation to Christ alone: and therefore it is incumbent on them to assert that no man has, or can have a power in the Church as such, but what is derived from and communicated to him by him. And you placing it in reference to the Pope, must of necessity deny that any power can be exercised in it, but what is derived from him, so that whatever you pretend in this kind to grant to kings, you allow it to them only by concession or delegation from the Pope. They must hold it from him in chief, or he cannot be the chief only, and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholick Church which you would persuade us to believe that he is: Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him; be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure; but authority from God immediately in and about them they have none, nor can have any while your imaginary Monarchy takes place. This one fundamental principle of your religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your flourish about kingly authority in ecclesiastical things, seeing upon a supposition of it, they can have none at all. But you stay not here; for

You ascribe to your Popes an universal dominion even in civil things over all Christian Kings and their subjects. In the explanation of this dominion, I confess you somewhat vary among your selves; but the thing itself is generally asserted by you, and made a foundation of practice. Some of you maintain that the Pope by divine right and constitution has an absolute supreme dominion over the whole world. This opinion, Bellarmine (Lib. 5. de Pont. cap. 1.) confesses to be maintained by Augustinus Triumphus, Alvarus, Pelagius, Hostiensis, and Panoruitanus. And himself in the next words condemns the opinion of them who deny the Pope to have any such temporal power, as that he may command secular Princes, and deprive them of the Kingdoms and Principalities, not only as false but as downright heresy. And why does he name the first opinion as that of four or five Doctors, when it is the common opinion of your Church, as Baronius sufficiently manifests in the life of Gregory the seventh? That great preserver of your Pontifical omnipotency in his Bull against Henry the German Emperor, affirms that he has power to take away Empires, Kingdoms and Principalities, or whatever a mortal man may have, as Platina records it in his life. As also Pope Nicholas the second in his Epistle ad Mediolanens asserts, that the rights both of the heavenly and earthly Empires are committed to him. And he that has but looked on the Dictates of the forenamed Gregory confirmed in a Council at Rome, and defended by Baronius, or into their Decretals, knows that you give both swords to the Pope, and that over and over. From where Carerius (Lib. 1. c. 9.) affirms that it is the common opinion of the school divines that the Pope has plenissimam Potestatem, plenary power over the whole world, both in ecclesiastical and temporal matters; and you know the old comparison made by the Canonists cap. de Major. & Obed. between the Pope and the Emperor, namely that he is as the Sun, the Emperor as the Moon, which borrows all its light from the other. Bellarmine and those few whom he follows, or that follow him, maintain that the Pope has this power only indirectly and in order to spiritual things; the meaning of which assertion as he explains himself, is, that besides that direct power, which he has over those countries and kingdoms which on one pretence or other he claims to be Feudatory to the Roman See, which are no small number of the chiefest Kingdoms of Europe, he has a power over them all, to dispose of them, their Kings and Rulers, according as he judges it to conduce to the good and interest of the Church: which as it really differs very little from the former opinion, so Barclay tells us that Pope Sixtus was very little pleased with that seeming depression of the Papal power, which his words intimate. But the stated doctrine of your Church in this matter is so declared by Bozius, Augustinus Triumphus, Carerius, Schioppius, Marta and others, all approved by her authority, that there can be no question of it. Moreover to make way for the putting of this indirect power into direct execution, you declare,

4. That the Pope is the supreme judge of faith, and his declarations and determinations so far the rule of it, as that they are to be received, and finally submitted to: not to do so, is that which you express heresy, or schism, or apostasy. About this principle also of your profession there have been, as about most other things among you, great disputes and wranglings between the doctors and props of your Church. Much debate there has been whether this power be to be attributed to the Pope without a Council, or above a Council, or against one. About these chimeras are whole volumes filled with keen and subtle argumentations. But the Pope's personal, or at least cathedral determination has at length prevailed. For whatever some few of you may whisper to your own trouble and disadvantage, to the impeachment of his personal infallibility, you are easily decried by the general voice of your doctors; and besides those very persons themselves, wherever they would place the infallibility of the Church that they fancy, are forced to put it so far into the Pope's hand and management, as that whatever he determines with the necessary solemnities in matters of faith, is ultimately at least to be acquiesced in. So your self assure us, averring that he who does not so, forfeits his Christianity, and consequently all the privileges which thereby he enjoys; and we have reason sufficient from former experience to believe that the Pope have he ability to his will, is ready enough to take the forfeiture. Whether upon a prince's falling into heresy, in not acquiescing in your papal determinations, his subjects are discharged ipso facto from all obedience to him, as Dominicus Bannes and others maintain, or whether there needs the denunciation of a sentence against him by the Pope for their absolution, you are not agreed. But yet

5. You affirm that in case of such disobedience to the Pope, he is armed with power to depose kings and princes, and to give away, and bestow their kingdoms and dominions on others; innumerable are the instances whereby the Popes themselves have justified their claim of this power in the face of the world, and it were endless to recount the emperors, kings, and free princes that they have attempted to ruin and destroy, (in the pursuit of some whereof they actually succeeded) with the desolations of nations that have ensued thereon. I shall mention but one and that given us in the days of our fathers, and it may be in the memory of some yet alive. Pope Pius V takes upon him contrary to the advice and entreaties of the Emperor of Germany and others, to depose Queen Elizabeth, and to devote her to destruction. To this end he absolved all her subjects from their allegiance, and gave away her kingdoms and dominions to the Spaniard, assisting him to his utmost in his attempt to take possession of his grant: and all for refusing obedience to the See of Rome. You cannot I presume be offended with my mention of that which is known to all, for these things were not done in a corner. And is it not hence evident that all the power which you grant to kings, is merely precarious, which they hold of your Pope as tenants at will? And should they not appear to do so, were his force, wit and courage answerable to his will and pretence of authority? But be it that because you cannot help it, you suffer them to live at peace and quietness in the main of their rule, yet you still curb them in their own dominions; for

6. You exempt all the clergy from under their rule and power. See your Bellarmine sweating to prove that they are not bound to their laws, so as to be judged by them, without their leave, if they transgress; or to pay any tribute (De Cleric. Lib. 1. Cap. 28). They are all reserved to the power and jurisdiction of the Pope. And he that shall consider into what a vast and boundless multitude by reason of the several disorderly orders of your city monks and friars, your clergy is swelled into in most places of Europe, will easily perceive what your interest is in every kingdom of it. I am persuaded there is scarce a considerable nation wherein the profession of your religion is enthroned, in which the Pope has not 100,000 able fighting men, that are his peculiar subjects, exempted from the power and jurisdiction of kings themselves; which you must needs conceive to be a blessed interpretation of that of the Apostle, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. And

7. You extend the papal power to things as well as persons in the dominions of all kings and commonwealths. For the lands and possessions that are given to any of the Pope's especial subjects, you will have to be exempted from tributes and public burdens of the state. And you farther contend that it is not in the power of any kings or rulers, to hinder such alienations of lands and possessions from their dominions. By this means no small part of the territories of many princes is subduced from under their power. The dreadful consequences of which principles so startled the wise state of Venice, that you know they disputed it to the utmost with your vice-god Paul the V. In dealing with them, as I remember, their attempt was successless: for notwithstanding the defence made of the papal process against them by Baronius, Bellarmine and others, yet the actings of that sober state in forbidding such alienation of lands and fees from their rule and power without their consent, with their plea for the subjection of ecclesiastics to them in their own dominions, was so vindicated by Doctor Paul Suave, Marsilius of Padua, and others, that the horns of the bull which had been thrust forth against them into so great a length, were pulled in again.

I told you in the entrance of this discourse, how unwilling I should have been to have given you the least disquietment in your way, had you only attempted to set off your own respects to royal power to the best advantage you could; but your setting up your principles and practices in competition with those of Protestants of any sort whatever, and preferring them before and above them as to your deference to kings, and that in matters ecclesiastical, has made these few instances expressive of the real sense of your Church in this matter, as I suppose necessary and equal.