IV.

"XVII. Whether temporal lords or any others have en- CHAP. "dowed the Church with temporalties, it is lawful for "them, on occasion, to take away the temporalties medi"cinally for the prevention or avoiding of sins, notwith"standing excommunication or any other ecclesiastical "censure, since they were not given but on a condition im"plied. It is proved from hence; that the condition by "itself consequent to the donation of the goods of the "Church is, that God may be honoured and the Church " edified. Which condition, if it be wanting, and the op"posite to it be in its room, is a proof that the title of "the donation is lost, and by consequence, that the lord "who is the giver of the alms ought to rectify the error. "And excommunication ought not to hinder the doing "justice; because so the Clerk, by excommunication by "way of reparation, might get the whole world.

"XVIII. An ecclesiastic or churchman, even the Pope "of Rome, may lawfully be corrected for the benefit of the "Church, and be accused by the Clergy as well as by the

Laity: the first part is proved hence; that every such "churchman is our peccable brother, or our brother liable "to sin, and by consequence may be corrected by the law " of brotherly correction. Whence Matth. xviii. If any "one sin in any thing, the stander-by ought to correct him "when he has an opportunity. And by the same it ap"pears that if there be an obstinate defence of heretical "pravity, or any other sin tending to the spiritual damage " of the Church, it ought on occasion to be complained of "to the superiors, to the end that by the correction of it "the danger of the Church may be prevented. For so "Peter was reproved by Paul, Gal. ii. and many irregular "Popes have been deposed by the Emperors, as Cestrensis "tells us in his Polycratica, lib. v. for the Church is " above that Pontiff. To say therefore that he ought not "to be corrected by man, but by the Lord, or that the "Pope is accountable to God only, let him sin how he will,

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seems to me to imply that he is above the Church, the "Spouse of Christ, and like Antichrist, figured or repre

IV.

CHAP. sented as lifting himself up above Christ. For Christ, "though he be without sin, would yet be subject to " princes, even in the taking away his temporalties, as is " proved Matth. xvii.d

This," the Doctor concludes," is a sort of Answer to the "Bull sent to the University. Those conclusions," adds he, "I had delivered as a grain of faith separated from the "chaff with which the unkindly tares are set on fire, "which after the red blossom of stinking revenge provides "fodder for Antichrist against the Scriptures of faith: an " infallible sign of which is, that there reigns in the Clergy "the Luciferian venom, pride, consisting in the lust of "bearing rule, whose wife, covetousness of earthly things, "breeds with it children of the Devil, the children of evan"gelical poverty being extinct. But a judgment of the "fruitfulness of this issue may be made from hence, that " many of even the children of poverty degenerating do

by either their talking or silence take Lucifer's part, not " being able or not daring, because of the seed of the Man "of Sin sown in their hearts, or out of a servile fear of "losing their temporalties, to stand up for the evangelical " poverty."

It is intimated as if the reason of the Doctor's drawing up this protestation was, because his conclusions had been reported and transmitted to the Court of Rome in different forms, and so in many things were not so well charged on him. But as he has here explained their true sense and meaning, he resolves to defend them even with his blood, that by this means he might reform the manners of the Church. (1

Exceptions have been made to several of these conclusions, by others besides professed Papists. Thus it is Collier, Ec- objected to the fourth conclusion, that "by it is required cles. Hist. "an exact probity to give a man a title to property and "power." But besides that Dr. Wiclif here follows that great Father of the Latin Church, St. Austin, in the manDial. lib. iv. ner of his expressing himself, he elsewhere says, "that " a man may have temporal things by a twofold title, a

IV.

"title of original righteousness, and a title of worldly CHAP "righteousness. By a title of original righteousness," saith he, "Christ had all the good things of the world, as "Austin often declares, that by that title, or the title of "grace, fall things are the right of the (godly, but that " civil possession is widely different from that titleThe sixth, sixteenth, and seventeenth conclusions are Dial. lib. iv. represented as " shaking the patrimony of the Church, and 6. 17. " not so much as leaving one branch of her revenue un"questioned." But it ought to be remembered, that the Doctor confines this taking away the Church's temporalties to cases limited by the law, and to the Clergy's being "notorious and habitual offenders, trespassinge for "failinge openli or customabli in their ghostly office, as in "them that ben openly fornicators, or lecherous, or simo"niacs, proud men, gluttons, or hardened in other open "sins," as he elsewhere expresses himself....... to guem

ود

To the sixteenth conclusion it is particularly objected, Ibid. that the Doctor has "overstrained the power of the "Prince, and depressed the sauthority of the Church; as Casaubon if secular men were no part of holy Church, and eccle- de Libertat. siastics were exempted from all subjection to the civil 189.

powers!MI

Ecclesiæ, p.

The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth conclusions are represented as "remarkably indulgent upon the subject of "penance," because the Doctor taught that unlucky thing, as Baronius calls it, that "confession of sins is to be made " to God alone, and that to him only it appertains to forn "give sins." Whereas, it seems, he ought to have said, that Christ delegated to his Apostles and to their successors an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth, with a promise, that the proceedings in the court of heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs upon earthả Địa)

- dicunt, Nos sic sentimus, et Ecclesia (id est nos ipsi) sic determinavit. Adeo homines reprobi circa fidem et incredibiles, nobis sua phantasmata, autoritate Ecclesie, pro articulis fidei audent proponere. Lither de Captivitate Ba bylonica,

1

CHAP. and that these real powers and real gifts of the Holy IV. Ghost are given unto men by the laying on of hands when Dr. Thomas they are ordained priests! Rants which become the mouth mons on the of no sober minded Christian!

Biss's Ser

Common

Prayer.

The eighteenth conclusion is charged with "giving the Collier, Ec- "flock an authority to pronounce judicially upon the procles. Hist. " bity and conduct of their pastor:" as if evil ministers

vol. i.

Articles of
Religion,
No. 26.

* mixtim theologus.

could ever be found guilty, and punished according to their demerits, without being accused by those who have knowledge of their offences.

About the same time Dr. Wiclif wrote an answer in Latin under a feigned name, to a certain Doctor, whom he calls * a medley Divine, who had defended the Papal supremacy and infallibility, and maintained, that "if any one be "Pope, he is then incapable of sinning, at least mortally, " and by consequence, if he wills or ordains any thing, it is "therefore just." From whence Dr. Wiclif observes, it follows, that "the Pope may take away any book from the "canon of Scripture, and add any new one, and alter the " whole Bible, and so make all the Scripture heresy, and " establish as catholic a Scripture that is opposite to the "faith." For opposing this extravagant opinion, Dr. Wiclif, or one of his friends, tells us, "he was complained of "at Rome to the Pope, who dispersed his Bulls for the "taking of him, and sent other Bulls for condemning him

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as an heretic, and others again to the Prince not to hinder "the execution of these Bulls, but to assist the Prelates, "that this professor of the Gospel may quickly be dis"patched." He then mentions the seventh, tenth, eleventh, thirteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth of the conclusions as they are numbered in his two Defences and Explanations of them; the "two last of which especially," he tells us, "being reported to the Court of Rome were condemned

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as heretical; viz. that it is lawful for kings to take away "the temporalties from ecclesiastical persons who habi"tually abuse them: and that an ecclesiastic, even the "Pope of Rome, may lawfully be corrected, and even ac"cused by their subjects and the laity." He proceeds to

vindicate the other four, and shews that it is blasphemous CHAP. to assert that "neither the Pope nor any one else can

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err in pretending that they can on all occasions bind and " loose, from whence it follows that they can as certainly "bind and loose as God himself." From whence he infers, that "Christians ought not to suffer so noted a heretic and "blasphemer to live upon the earth, and especially not to " maintain such an one as their captain, since he will lead "his company with their consent over a precipice: that " secular lords ought to resist him, not only on account of "the heresy he imposes on them with respect to the exer"cise of a power which they have to withdraw their alms " from a delinquent Church; nor only because he condemns "it as heretical to assert that he can only ministerially "distribute the goods of the Church; but because he im

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poses an Egyptian bondage on them, and takes from "them the liberty of the law of Christ." He proceeds to exhort the " soldiers of Christ, as well Seculars as Clergy, "to stand for the law of God, even unto blood, and not to "suffer themselves to be overpowered with the fear of "pain, or the love of company and worldly profit." And shews, that "whether the judges or delegates, by the " Pope's permission, proceed to condemn his conclusions;

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IV.

or the Lord Pope himself, by the instigation of * Surgius * Sic MS. " or Julian the Apostate, or of his own motion accom"panied with the ignorance of Scripture, or the instigation " of the Devil; or an angel from heaven should promulge "that blasphemous opinion, the faithful who hear the "honour peculiar to their Lord unfaithfully usurped, are " unanimously, for the saving the faith, to make opposition "to it. For," says he, "if it were once established, that if "the Pope or his Vicar pretends that if he on any occasion "looses or binds, he does really loose or bind, how will "the world stand? For then if the Pope pretends that he " binds with the pain of eternal damnation whomsoever op" poses him in his acquisition of temporal things, whether "moveable or immoveable, or whatever he does, he is ac"tually bound; and by consequence it would be the easiest