His sixth argument is this, if bishops have their jurisdiction de jure divino, that is, immediately from God, they that maintain it, should bring some word of God to prove it: but they can bring none. The argument is good; I have therefore nothing to say against it. But it is an argument no less good, to prove the Pope himself to have no jurisdiction in the dominion of any other prince.
Lastly, he bringeth for argument the testimony of two popes, Innocent and Leo; and I doubt not he might have alleged, with as good reason, the testimonies of all the popes almost since St. Peter. For considering the love of power naturally implanted in mankind, whosoever were made Pope, he would be tempted to uphold the same opinion. Nevertheless, they should therein but do, as Innocent and Leo did, bear witness of themselves, and therefore their witness should not be good.
Of the Pope’s temporal power.
In the fifth book he hath four conclusions. The first is, that the Pope is not lord of all the world: the second, that the Pope is not the lord of all the Christian world: the third, that the Pope, without his own territory, has not any temporal jurisdiction DIRECTLY. These three conclusions are easily granted. The fourth is, that the Pope has, in the dominions of other princes, the supreme temporal power INDIRECTLY: which is denied; unless he mean by indirectly, that he has gotten it by indirect means, then is that also granted. But I understand, that when he saith he hath it indirectly, he means, that such temporal jurisdiction belongeth to him of right, but that this right is but a consequence of his pastoral authority, the which he could not exercise unless he have the other with it: and therefore to the pastoral power, which he calls spiritual, the supreme power civil is necessarily annexed; and that thereby he hath a right to change kingdoms, giving them to one and taking them from another, when he shall think it conduces to the salvation of souls.
Before I come to consider the arguments by which he would prove this doctrine, it will not be amiss to lay open the consequences of it; that princes and states, that have the civil sovereignty in their several commonwealths, may bethink themselves, whether it be convenient for them, and conducing to the good of their subjects, of whom they are to give an account at the day of judgment, to admit the same.
When it is said, the Pope hath not, in the territories of other states, the supreme civil power directly; we are to understand, he doth not challenge it, as other civil sovereigns do, from the original submission thereto of those that are to be governed. For it is evident, and has already been sufficiently in this treatise demonstrated, that the right of all sovereigns is derived originally from the consent of every one of those that are to be governed; whether they that choose him, do it for their common defence against an enemy, as when they agree amongst themselves to appoint a man or an assembly of men to protect them; or whether they do it, to save their lives, by submission to a conquering enemy. The Pope therefore, when he disclaimeth the supreme civil power over other states directly, denieth no more, but that his right cometh to him by that way; he ceaseth not for all that, to claim it another way; and that is, without the consent of them that are to be governed, by a right given him by God, which he calleth indirectly, in his assumption to the papacy. But by what way soever he pretend, the power is the same; and he may, if it be granted to be his right, depose princes and states, as often as it is for the salvation of souls, that is, as often as he will; for he claimeth also the sole power to judge whether it be to the salvation of men’s souls or not. And this is the doctrine, not only that Bellarmine here, and many other doctors, teach in their sermons and books, but also that some councils have decreed, and the Popes have accordingly, when the occasion hath served them, put in practice. For the fourth council of Lateran, held under Pope Innocent the Third, in the third chapter De Hæreticis, hath this canon: If a king, at the Pope’s admonition, do not purge his kingdom of heretics, and being excommunicate for the same, make not satisfaction within a year, his subjects are absolved of their obedience. And the practice hereof hath been seen on divers occasions; as in the deposing of Chilperic, king of France; in the translation of the Roman empire to Charlemagne; in the oppression of John, king of England; in transferring the kingdom of Navarre; and of late years, in the league against Henry the Third of France, and in many more occurrences. I think there be few princes that consider not this as unjust, and inconvenient; but I wish they would all resolve to be kings or subjects. Men cannot serve two masters. They ought therefore to ease them, either by holding the reins of government wholly in their own hands; or by wholly delivering them into the hands of the Pope; that such men as are willing to be obedient, may be protected in their obedience. For this distinction of temporal and spiritual power is but words. Power is as really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another indirect power, as with a direct one. But to come now to his arguments.
The first is this, The civil power is subject to the spiritual: therefore he that hath the supreme power spiritual, hath right to command temporal princes, and dispose of their temporals in order to the spiritual. As for the distinction of temporal and spiritual, let us consider in what sense it may be said intelligibly, that the temporal or civil power is subject to the spiritual. There be but two ways that those words can be made sense. For when we say, one power is subject to another power, the meaning either is, that he which hath the one, is subject to him that hath the other; or that the one power is to the other, as the means to the end. For we cannot understand, that one power hath power over another power; or that one power can have right or command over another. For subjection, command, right, and power, are accidents, not of powers, but of persons. One power may be subordinate to another, as the art of a saddler to the art of a rider. If then it be granted, that the civil government be ordained as a means to bring us to a spiritual felicity; yet it does not follow, that if a king have the civil power, and the Pope the spiritual, that therefore the king is bound to obey the Pope, more than every saddler is bound to obey every rider. Therefore as from subordination of an art, cannot be inferred the subjection of the professor; so from the subordination of a government, cannot be inferred the subjection of the governor. When therefore he saith, the civil power is subject to the spiritual, his meaning is, that the civil sovereign is subject to the spiritual sovereign. And the argument stands thus, The civil sovereign is subject to the spiritual; therefore the spiritual prince may command temporal princes. Where the conclusion is the same with the antecedent he should have proved. But to prove it, he allegeth first, this reason: Kings and popes, clergy and laity, make but one commonwealth; that is to say, but one Church: and in all bodies the members depend one upon another: but things spiritual depend not of things temporal: therefore temporal depend on spiritual, and therefore are subject to them. In which argumentation there be two gross errors: one is, that all Christian kings, popes, clergy, and all other Christian men, make but one commonwealth. For it is evident that France is one commonwealth, Spain another, and Venice a third, &c. And these consist of Christians; and therefore also are several bodies of Christians; that is to say, several Churches: and their several sovereigns represent them, whereby they are capable of commanding and obeying, of doing and suffering, as a natural man; which no general or universal Church is, till it have a representant; which it hath not on earth: for if it had, there is no doubt but that all Christendom were one commonwealth, whose sovereign were that representant, both in things spiritual and temporal. And the Pope, to make himself this representant, wanteth three things that our Saviour hath not given him, to command, and to judge, and to punish, otherwise than, by excommunication, to run from those that will not learn of him. For though the Pope were Christ’s only vicar, yet he cannot exercise his government, till our Saviour’s second coming: and then also it is not the Pope, but St. Peter himself with the other apostles, that are to be judges of the world.
The other error in this his first argument is, that he says, the members of every commonwealth, as of a natural body, depend one of another. It is true, they cohere together; but they depend only on the sovereign, which is the soul of the commonwealth; which failing, the commonwealth is dissolved into a civil war, no one man so much as cohering to another, for want of a common dependance on a known sovereign; just as the members of the natural body dissolve into earth, for want of a soul to hold them together. Therefore there is nothing in this similitude, from whence to infer a dependance of the laity on the clergy, or of the temporal officers on the spiritual; but of both on the civil sovereign; which ought indeed to direct his civil commands to the salvation of souls; but is not therefore subject to any but God himself. And thus you see the laboured fallacy of the first argument, to deceive such men as distinguish not between the subordination of actions in the way to the end; and the subjection of persons one to another in the administration of the means. For to every end, the means are determined by nature, or by God himself supernaturally: but the power to make men use the means, is in every nation resigned, by the law of nature, which forbiddeth men to violate their faith given, to the civil sovereign.
His second argument is this; Every commonwealth, because it is supposed to be perfect and sufficient in itself, may command any other commonwealth not subject to it, and force it to change the administration of the government; nay, depose the prince, and set another in his room, if it cannot otherwise defend itself against the injuries he goes about to do them: much more may a spiritual commonwealth command a temporal one to change the administration of their government, and may depose princes, and institute others, when they cannot otherwise defend the spiritual good.
That a commonwealth, to defend itself against injuries, may lawfully do all that he hath here said, is very true; and hath already in that which hath gone before been sufficiently demonstrated. And if it were also true, that there is now in this world a spiritual commonwealth, distinct from a civil commonwealth, then might the prince thereof, upon injury done him, or upon want of caution that injury be not done him in time to come, repair and secure himself by war; which is, in sum, deposing, killing, or subduing, or doing any act of hostility. But by the same reason, it would be no less lawful for a civil sovereign, upon the like injuries done, or feared, to make war upon the spiritual sovereign; which I believe is more than Cardinal Bellarmine would have inferred from his own proposition.