The Church is of course

from a different standpoint. the most perfect form of government in Gerson's view, for it unites all the three. Papalis imitatur regalem. Collegialis Dominorum Cardinalium imitatur aristocraticam. Synodalis generalis imitatur politiam seu timocratiam. Vel potius est perfecta politia quae resultat ex omnibus (Ibid. 1404). Further we find utilitarianism in the writer's theory of obedience; he not only declares Finis autem Papatus est utilitas ecclesiae (De Statibus Ecclesiasticis, Goldast, 11. 1432), but also (De Auferibilitate Papae, c. XIV) he declares that obedience may cease as soon as it becomes inconvenient. Unlike the supporters of popular rights, Gerson seems to allow private acts of violence against the Pope, although he is the Lord's anointed (Ibid. c. x). He describes civil government as a consequence of the fall, and argues thence the possibility of changing it. The constitution of the Church is of course unalterable. Civile dominium seu politicum est dominium peccati occasione introductum, non competens pluribus ex aequo retinibile aut abdicabile, servata vel non servata charitate, fundatum in legibus civilibus et politica; secundum quas potest abdicari vendendo, donando, negligendo, permutando (De Pot. Eccles. Goldast, II. 1403).

Here, then, is a political theory, the acceptance of which if the Popes can secure, their supremacy in the Church may readily be made a weapon against secular monarchs. For it (1) places civil government on a purely human, utilitarian and changeable foundation, (2) advocates a mixed form of government as the most perfect, (3) asserts that resistance is sometimes justifiable, and that the head of the State may be deposed. It is not surprising that Barclay should have met the argument which Boucher culled

274 GERSON AND THE THEORY OF POPULAR RIGHTS.

from Gerson with the retort that Gerson held Et concilium supra Papam esse, eumque judicare ac deponere posse, quod itidem falsum esse saniore Catholicorum Doctorum judicio convincitur. Ut mirum non sit eumdem Gersonem pari opinionis errore, Principem populo subjicere voluisse, quo Papam concilio (De Regno, 512). It is the irony of fate that the conciliar movement, which failed in its object of putting limits on the Papal sovereignty, should have assisted to familiarise men's minds with those notions of popular sovereignty and mixed government, which were to be not the least effective of Papal weapons against the recalcitrant Kings. Not only did the conciliar movement fail, but it nearly resulted in adding to the spiritual supremacy of the Pope a universal political sovereignty.

APPENDIX C.

EXTRACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF POINTS DISCUSSED IN CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.

1. Popery, as involving a belief in the deposing power, a disloyal doctrine.

"I will not say (though it has been said) the Romanists' faith is faction and their religion rebellion; but this I must say, that they teach and broach such doctrines as are very scandalous to Christian religion, and very dangerous and destructive to Kingdoms and States; as having a direct and natural tendency to sedition, rebellion, and treason.”-Duport, Sermon on the Fifth of November, 64.

"I do not, I will not, say All our Romanists are enclined to rebellion; I doubt not but there are many faithful and loyal subjects among 'em; but this I must say, As long as they own a foreign jurisdiction, either spiritual or temporal, which they must do if they are thorough-paced; and as long as the Pope usurps the power to depose and dispose, to depose Kings, and dispose of their Kingdoms, and to absolve subjects from their oaths of supremacy and allegiance; so long the Romish religion must needs have a natural tendency to disloyalty; and therefore, if Papists be good subjects,

no thanks to their Popery; and I fear, 'twill be hard for 'em to be good Catholics at Rome, and good subjects at home; for if they be so, it must be only durante bene placito, as long as the Pope is well-pleas'd, but if once he be angry with Kings and call 'em heretics, then have at 'em fowlers, let 'em look to themselves.”—Ibid. 68.

"The Reformation of our Church was laid upon the subversion of one of the most fatal and pernicious principles to government, that any religion can maintain, namely the precarious conditions of allegiance to the true and lawful sovereign, upon the falsehood and ruin whereof our constitution both civil and ecclesiastical was founded and established."-Sacheverell, The Political Union, 54.

The following passage shews how the whole controversy between the temporal and spiritual authority must be viewed from the standpoint of an age, when the enforcement of uniformity in religious practice was regarded by all parties as the duty of the State.

"No king or prince by their [the Romanists'] doctrine can truly be accounted a freeman or denizen in the State wherein he lives, seeing no king can have so much as a voice or suffrage in making those ecclesiastical canons, unto which he, his people, all his laws temporal and spiritual are subordinate and subject. For no man could think him to be a freeman in any corporation, that has no voice in making the temporal laws by which he is to be governed or at least in choosing such of them as have interest in the making of Public Laws.”Jackson, Treatise of Christian Obedience (Works, 111. 909).

"The Jesuits the principal authors of resistance to all higher powers."-Ibid. 971.

"The deposing doctrine and placing the power in the people is but the spittle of the Jesuits which our

Whigs and Dissenters have picked up."-Leslie, The Wolf stripped of his Shepherd's Clothing, 4.

"Your mobs are all papists, they are for the deposing power, which is perfect popery."-Leslie, A Battle Royal, 174.

Papal supremacy divests the prince of his absolute sovereignty, of his legislative power and renders monarchy insecure of possession or succession, by bereaving it of the guard of the laws, of the strength of alliances, of the fidelity of their people. Papal supremacy destructive of the people's liberty and property.-The Common Interest of King and People, Chap. vII.

"These men cry out against Popery, and yet profess, what all good Protestants esteem the most malignant part of Jesuitism.”—Dudley Diggs, The Unlawfulness of Subjects Taking up Arms, 64.

2. Identification of Papists and Dissenters.

"It is most manifest, that all our late horrid civil wars, rapines, bloodshed and the execrable and solemn murder of His Late Majesty, and the banishment of our present sovereign were effected according to the fore-contrivance of the Papists, by the assistance which the Dissenters gave them and the opportunities they had to preach them into rebellion under the pretence of a thorough Reformation, that all late commotions and rebellions in Scotland sprung from the same counsel and conduct."-Foxes and Firebrands, 32.

"Let us now come to take a view of the younger antagonists of monarchy, the popular supremacy of Presbytery, that Lerna Malorum, that revived hydra of the Lake of Geneva, with its many-headed progeny, Anabaptists, Quakers, Levellers &c., all which unnatural offspring are as kind to their dam as vipers, and as