Page 173
SECT. VII.
Rights of Kings acknowledged and confirmed by Councils. The Testimony out of Balsamon on Conc. Carth. Can. 16. The grievous mistake, whose it is. The Kings Ca∣nonicall power, and liberties. Destruction of our Hie∣rarchy no way imputable to the asserting of them.
[ 1] WHat now follows for a leaf together, p. 147. by way of answer to my second observation, and to the same pur∣pose in another leaf, p. 149. in answer to my second testimony, doth somewhat surpasse in its kind, all that hitherto hath been afforded us. The breviate of it is this; when I undertake that Kings have power to erect or translate Metropoles, Primacies, and Patriarchates, and to prove it, produce (beside known and allowed practises) the decrees and Canons of the Church in Council, that so it shall be, presently he concludes, that the Doctor disputes against himself, he is, saith he, to prove that it is the Kings proper right, independent of the Church, or her Canons, and he brings for proof a Canon of a Council, and calls that a more expresse attributing this power to the Prince, which is indeed not attribuere, but tribuere, not an acknowledgement, but a be∣stowing and conferring it;] And on he runs a very fair loose in this chase, and clearly carries all before him.
[ 2] Of this I have already spoken to the Catholick Gentleman, Repl. p. 112. and I shall need adde but this, that the rights of Kings have been ever since the Apostles times preserved invio∣late by all good Christians, that what without and before Ʋni∣versall Councils, reasonably belonged to them, hath by Ʋniver∣sall Councils been yielded to them. And this I deemed a fit way of judging of any particular right, whether it belonged to them or no, by inquiring what the Christian Church hath still yiel∣ded to them, meaning thereby not the Decrees of the Pope, S. W. his pretended head of the Church, but the Canons of the Oecumenical Councils, truly so called, and the avowed Doctrine