where the price of the several dispensations, even in causâ turpi,' in base and filthy causes,' are set down.

Intranti nummo, quasi quodam principe summo,
Exsiliunt valvæ, nihil auditur nisi salve m

6

Nay, the pope can dispense supra jus, contra jus,' 'above law, and against law and right,' said Mosconius, in his books of The Majesty of the Militant Church:' for the pope's tribunal and God's is but one; and, therefore, every reasonable creature is subject to the pope's empire,' said the same author". And what dispensations he usually gives, we are best informed by a gloss of their own, upon the canon law, "Nota mirabile, quod cum eo qui peccat dispensatur; cum illo autem qui non peccat, non dispensatur:" "It is a wonderful thing that they should dispense with a fornicator, but not with him who marries after the death of his first wife." They give divorces for marriages in the fourth degree, and give dispensation to marry in the second. These things are a sufficient charge, and yet evidently so, and publicly owned.

We need not aggravate this matter, by what Panormitan and others do say, that the pope hath power to dispense in all the laws of God, except the articles of faith; and how much of this they own and practise, needs no greater instance, than that which Volaterran tells of Pope Innocent VIII., that he gave the Norwegians a dispensation, not only to communicate, but to consecrate in bread only.

As the pope, by his dispensations, undertakes to dissolve the ordinances of God, so also the most solemn contracts of men of which a very great instance was given by Pope Clement VII., who dispensed with the oath which Francis I. of France solemnly swore to Charles V., emperor, after the battle of Pavy, and gave him leave to be perjured. And one of the late popes dispensed with the bastard son of the conde D'Olivarez, or rather, plainly dissolved his marriage, which he made and consummated with Isabella D'Azueta, whom he had publicly married when he was but a mean

m Deferunt aurum et argentum, et reportant chartas. Card. Cusan.

n Lib. 1. de Summo Pontif. vide etiam Jacobum de Terano: et Ravis. de Concil. du Trent. cap. Quia circa Extra. de Bigamis.

o Cap. Proposui, de Concess. Præbend. n. 20.

person, the son of Donna Marguerita Spinola, and under the name of Julian Valeasar. But when the conde had declared him son and heir, the pope dissolved the first marriage, and him leave, under the name of Henry Philip de Guzman, to marry D. Juana de Valesco, daughter to the constable of Castile.

gave

And now if it be considered, what influence these doctrines have upon societies and communities of men, they will need no further reproof than a mere enumeration of the mischiefs they produce. They, by this means, legitimate adulterous and incestuous marriages, and disannul lawful contracts: they give leave to a spouse to break his or her vow and promise; and to children to disobey their parents, and, perhaps, to break their mother's heart, or to undo a family. No words can bind your faith, because you can be dispensed with; and if you swear you will not procure a dispensation, you can as well be dispensed with for that perjury as the other; and you cannot be tied so fast, but the pope can unloose you. So that there is no certainty in your promise to God, or faith to men; in judicatories to magistrates, or in contracts with merchants; in the duty of children to their parents, of husbands to their wives, or wives to their contracted husbands; of a catholic to a heretic; and last of all, a subject to his prince cannot be bound so strictly, but if the prince be not of the pope's persuasion, or be by him judged a tyrant, his subjects shall owe him no obedience. But this is of particular consideration, and reserved for Sect. III.

SECTION II.

THERE is yet another instance, by which the church of Rome does intolerable prejudice to governments and societies: in which, although the impiety is not so apparent, yet the evil is more owned, and notorious, and defended; and that is, the exemption of their clergy from the jurisdiction of secular princes and magistrates, both in their estates and persons: not only in the matters of simony, heresy, and apostasy, but in matters of theft, perjury, murder, adultery, blasphemy, and treason; in which cases they suffer not a

clergyman to be adjudged by the secular power until the church hath quit him, and turned him over, and given them leave to proceed. This was verified in the synod of Dalmatia, held by the legates of pope Innocent III., and is now, in the church of Rome, pretended to be by Divine right; "For it cannot be proved, that secular princes are the lawful superiors and judges of clergymen, unless it can be proved, that the sheep are better than the shepherd, or sons than their fathers, or temporals than spirituals," said Bellarmine": and, therefore, it is a shame, says he, to see princes contending with bishops for precedency or for lands. For the truth is this, whatever the custom be, the prince is the bishop's subject, not the bishop the prince's: for no man can serve two masters; the pope is their own superior, and, therefore the secular prince cannot be. So both Bellarmine and Suarez conclude this doctrine out of Scripture.

And although in this, as in all things else, when he finds it for the advantage of the church, the pope can dispense; and divers popes of Rome did give power to the commonwealth of Venice to judge clergymen, and punish them for great offences; yet how ill this was taken by Paulus V. at their hands, and what stirs he made in Christendom concerning it, the world was witness; and it is to be read in the History of the Venetian Interdict; and not without great difficulty defended by Marcus Antonius Peregrinus, M. Antonius Othelius, and Joachim Scaymus of Padua, beside the doctors of Venice.

Now if it be considered, how great a part of mankind, in the Roman communion, are clergymen, and how great a portion of the lands and revenues, in each kingdom, they have; to pretend a Divine right of exemption of their persons from secular judicatories, and their lands from secular burdens and charges of the commonwealth, is to make religion a very little friend to the public; and causes that by how much there is more of religion, by so much there is the less of piety and public duty. Princes have many times felt the evil, and are always subject to it, when so many thou

a Si Imperator, dist. 96, &c. Ecclesia S. M. de Constitut. A. D. 1199. b Can. 5. de Clericis, lib. i. c. 30. sect. Quarto objiciunt,.-De Offic. Christiani Prin. lib. i. c. 5.

c Suarez, Defens, contra sect. Anglic. lib. iv. c. 17. sect. 15, 16, et 18.

sand persons are in their kingdoms, and yet subjects to a foreign power. But we need not trouble ourselves to reckon the evils consequent to this procedure; themselves have owned them, even the very worst of things, "The rebellion of a clergyman against his prince is not treason, because he is not his prince's subject:" It is expressly taught by Emanuel Sà; and because the Frenchmen, in zeal to their own king, could not endure this doctrine, these words were left out of the edition of Paris, but still remain in the editions of Antwerp and Cologne. But the thing is a general rule, "That all ecclesiastical persons are free from secular jurisdiction in causes criminal, whether civil or ecclesiastical: and this rule is so general, that it admits no exception: and so certain that it cannot be denied, unless you will contradict the principles of faith :" so father Suareze. And this is pretended to be allowed by councils, sacred canons, and all the doctors of laws, human and Divine; for so Bellarmine affirms. Against which, since it is a matter of faith and doctrine which we now charge upon the church of Rome, as an enemy to public government, we shall think it sufficient to oppose against their pretension, the plain and easy words of St. Paul, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers:"every soul,' that is, saith St. Chrysostom", whether he be a monk or an evangelist, a prophet or an apostle.

Of the like iniquity, when it is extended to its utmost commentary, which the commenters of the church of Rome put upon it, is, the Divine right of the seal of confession; which they make so sacred, to serve such ends as they have chosen, that it may not be broken up to save the lives of princes, or of the whole republic, saith Tolet';-No, not to save all the world, said Henriequez:-Not to save an innocent, not to keep the world from burning, or religion from perversion, or all the sacraments from demolition. Indeed it is lawful, saith Bellarmine, if a treason be known to a priest in confession, he may, in general words, give notice to a pious and catholic prince, but not to a heretic; and that

d Aphor. verb. Clericus.
f Apolog. p. 57.

h In hunc locum.

k De Pœnit. lib. ii. c. 19. n. 5.

e Defens. Fid. lib. iv. c. 15. sect. 1.
g Rom. xiii. 1.

i Instruct. Sacerd. lib. iii. c. 16.
L'Apol. cont. Reg. M. Brit. c. 13.

was acutely and prudently said by him, said father Suarez ". Father Binet is not so kind even to the catholic princes; for he says, that it is better that all the kings of the world should perish, than that the seal of confession should be so much as once broken; and this is the catholic doctrine, said Eudæmon Johannes", in his apology for Garnet; and for it he also quotes Suarez. But it is enough to have named this. How little care these men take of the lives of princes, and the public interest, which they so greatly undervalue to every trifling fancy of their own, is but too evident by these doctrines.

SECTION III.

THE last thing we shall remark for the instruction and caution of our charges, is not the least. The doctrines of the church of Rome are great enemies to the dignity and security, to the powers and lives of princes: and this we shall briefly prove by setting down the doctrines themselves, and their consequent practices.

And here we observe, that not only the whole order of jesuits is a great enemy to monarchy, by subjecting the dignity of princes to the pope, by making the pope the supreme monarch of Christians; but they also teach, that it is a catholic doctrine, the doctrine of the church.

The pope hath a supreme power of disposing the temporal things of all Christians in order to a spiritual good; saith Bellarmine. And Becanus discourses of this very largely in his book of the English controversy, printed by Albin at Mentz, 1612. But because this book was ordered to be purged (una litura potest'), we shall not insist upon it; but there is as bad, which was never censured. Bellarmine says, that the ecclesiastic republic can command and compel the temporal, which is indeed its subject, to change the administration, and to depose princes, and to appoint others, when it cannot otherwise defend the spiritual good: