Paraeus asserts the bishops, the civil magistrate, CHAP. VI., performance of their duty as prescribed by the Word of God and by the laws; and, should they prove contumacious, by exrights of the communicating them, the consent of the Church being given, until they shew themselves amenable to reason'. Among other instances in support of their position, he adduced the classical one of Ambrose excommunicating the emperor Theodosius for the massacre at Thessalonica. He further maintained (Prop. II) that even magistrates of inferior rank would be justified in defending themselves, the State, and the Church, against the higher civil power, whenever that power became a tyranny, or obedience to it involved idolatry. And finally, Paraeus laid it down as a conclusion, that even private subjects, menaced by a tyrant with loss of life or of chastity, would be justified, when the protection of the law itself failed, in repelling such injury, just as they would when it was offered by a private citizen. and the private citizen. Dislike which James evinced to such limita tions. Moderate and reasonable as such conceptions of the had already limitations of the royal power must now appear, they jarred sensibly on the feelings of the English monarch. The allusion to Theodosius and St Ambrose was one at which he had evinced his dislike on the occasion of his first visit to Cambridge. The master of Peterhouse, as opponent in the divinity act, had then ventured to bring forward that classical instance in contravention of the respondent's position, and the royal voice had been heard to declare, with something like a growl, that Ambrose had acted in a very arrogant fashion. It is by no means improbable that the treatment 1 'Episcopi et pastores magistratibus suis impiis aut iniustis possunt ac debent resistere, non vi aut gladio, sed verbo Dei; arguendo eorum notoriam impietatem aut iniustitiam et ad officium iuxta verbum Dei et iuxta leges faciendum, eos cohortando: contumaces vero de consensu Ecclesiae etiam Satanae tradendo, donec resipiscant.' In divinam ad Romanos S. Pauli Apostoli Epistolam Commentarius, coll. 1380-1. Francofurti, 4to. 1608 [St John's Coll. Lib. Pp. 8. 2]. See also Mr Gardiner's History of England, Iv 297-9. 2 Commentarius, u. s. coll. 1384-5. 3 Nichols, Progresses etc. I 57. In 1610 there was printed at Cambridge a volume by David Owen, fellow of Clare College, entitled: Herod and Pilate reconciled: or, the Concord of Papist and Puritan (against Scripture, Fathers, Councils, and other Orthodoxal Writers) for the Coercion, Deposition, and Killing of Kings. Ralph Brownrigg, fellow of Pembroke, afterwards bishop of Exeter, narrowly escaped signal punishment for having in January, 1618, ventured to propound to Owen, in the privacy of a college chamber, the question, Whether a king breaking · Knight's Oxford: of the question of the civil power in Paraeus's recently pub- CHAP. VI. lished volume had suggested to Davenant the propounding of his quaestio. At Oxford, however, we are able to trace the influence of his treatise much more distinctly. The volume had there found its way into the hands of a young Oxford divine, a master of arts of Pembroke College, named William Knight. He was struck by the justice of the sentiments William above cited; so much so, indeed, that having, shortly after- sermon at wards, been selected by the head of his house to preach 14 Apr. 1623 before the university at St Mary's, he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to reproduce with much clearness, and greatly to his own satisfaction, the doctrines taught by the eminent professor at Heidelberg. Nor was he content He maintains with adducing the precedent set by Ambrose; he brought forward also the story told by Dion Chrysostom (for which with force he was probably likewise indebted to Paraeus) of the dictum of the emperor Trajan, on the occasion of presenting the captain of his guard with a sword: Use it in my behalf, as long as my edicts are just,—but, if unjust, against me3. Admirably judicious discourse indeed! especially when, but a year or two before, Acquaviva had found it necessary to issue injunctions forbidding the Jesuits to teach the lawfulness of the murder of tyrants! The vice-chancellor of fundamental laws may be opposed?' See Cooper, Annals, III 118. The jealousy with which the theory of the kingly power was at this time being guarded shews how, on the other hand, opinion was gradually shaping itself, both at the universities and elsewhere, for that counter theory which found such terrible expression in January, 1649. The treatise of Richer, On Ecclesiastical and Political Power (condemned by cardinal Du Perron, see Hallam, Lit. of Europe, 11 400) added fuel to the whole controversy. 1 Nulla est temporalis Papae potestas supra reges, in ordine ad bonum spirituale.' Nichols, Progresses of James the First, 111 56; FullerNuttall, 1 238. It is by no means difficult to perceive that the questions put forward on these special occasions were far from being mere 2 Denique Trajanus laudatur apud 3 Wood-Gutch, II 341-2. 4 Santarelli, the Jesuit, in his de Potestate summi Pontificis, re-affirmed the doctrine, by maintaining that the Pope may lawfully command the execution of a King. Luther and Melanchthon, again, maintained that tyrant-murder was justifiable; so also, the extreme Puritans, and here, that tyrants are to be resisted even of arms. university his two friends are arrested. His naïve defence. CHAP. VI. Oxford was horror-struck, and at first unable to believe but Alarm of the that the sermon was designed as a direct incentive to sedition, authorities. if not to the royal assassination; that it had been composed at the covert instigation of some influential malcontents, he Knight and felt no doubt whatever. Knight's defence, on being summoned before the authorities, seems almost touching in its simplicity. In the first place, he confessed that he had appeared in borrowed plumes, for his teaching was but a reproduction of that of the great Paraeus. But then, he urged, he had also the royal sanction itself for the teaching he had put forward, for was not king James at that very time encouraging the citizens of Rochelle in their armed resistance to their King? As for having been instigated to write his discourse, he protested that only two other persons had ever even seen the manuscript,-namely two fellow masters of arts, John Herbert, vicar of Radley, and one John Code1. His confinement at and subse His artless pleading proved of no avail. All three of the Westminster Pembroke collegians were forthwith committed to prison; quent death. and Knight, having subsequently been brought to London and examined by Laud, was sent to the Gate House at Westminster. There he languished for two years; and when eventually he was set at liberty, at the intercession of the compassionate lord-keeper, Williams, the act of mercy came too late, and he died within a few months from the effects of his rigorous imprisonment2. James thanks the 24 Apr. 1622. A royal letter, endorsed by Laud, conveyed to the uniUniversity of versity the 'princely thanks' for its prompt action; at the same time the Heads were desired to recall to remembrance 'that which we have heretofore so seriously recommended to both the universities concerning the studie of divinity; which was that the students in that profession should apply themselves in the first place to the reading of the Scriptures, next the Councells and ancient Fathers, and then the Schoolmen, as David Owen maintained, the Jesuit 14 80. 1 Wood-Gutch, I 342. excluding those neotericks, both Jesuits and Puritans, who are CHAP. VI. knowne to be medlers in matters of State and monarchy1. sions of formally demnation the senate at 17 July, 1622. Stimulated by this commendation and advice, the univer- The conclusity proceeded forthwith to enact a formal condemnation of PARARUS the conclusions of Paraeus (which were cited in a somewhat censured at garbled form),—affirming in the most explicit terms the 25 June, 1622. doctrine of passive obedience. However much a prince might place in jeopardy the safety, the honour, the religion, or even the lives of his subjects, it could never be lawful, it was declared, to resist him by actual force. At Cambridge, Similar conthough somewhat more tardily, a like condemnation was approved in passed in full senate; the kingly power was declared to be Cambridge: subject to none save God, all resistance to the same was pronounced infamous, and the writings of Paraeus were branded as infamous and forbidden to be read3. The archbishop and Report of the bishops having in the mean time reported to the Privy and bishops Council that the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 22 May 1622. embodied 'most dangerous and seditious doctrine", orders were given that the works of Paraeus should be publicly The works burnt; and in St Mary's Churchyard at Oxford, in the burned at Regent Walk at Cambridge, and at Paul's Cross in London (6 June) at (where Dr Montaigne preached the sermon) this crowning act (22 June) and of condemnation was duly carried into effects. archbishop to the Privy of Paraeus Oxford Cambridge Paul's Cross (23 June). Paracus: 1622. Almost at the very time that the flames were consuming Death of his volumes in this country, Paraeus himself died at Heidel- 15-25 June, berg,—taken, it might well seem, from the evil to come. He passed peacefully away in the midst of the university which he had so long and ably served, unconscious of the obloquy that had overtaken his well-earned fame in England', and spared 1 State Papers (Dom.) James the First, xxxix no. 58; Wood-Gutch, II 342. 2 Wood-Gutch, 11 345-7. 3 State Papers, u. s. cxxxII no. 48. 4 Ibid. cxxx no. 106. 5 Wood-Gutch, II 345; Cooper, Annals, III 144. 6 ut eodem in loco corpore desineret esse PARAEUS, quo in et quo ex loco fama ac ingenio cepit esse PARAEUS.' Epig. Rectoris Academiae, de Vita, etc. u. s. 7'Some have said that these matters, coming to the knowledge of Paraeus, broke his heart; but how it could be I cannot perceive, forasmuch that he died 15 of June this year, when then (as 'tis probable) he had heard nothing of what was done in England against his works.' WoodGutch, II 348. As the 15 of June at Heidelberg would be, at that time, the 25th in England, there is no reason why the Report of the bishops (drawn up more than a month before CHAP. VI. from beholding the horrors in which, a few months later, the palatine city became involved and the dark cloud that for some years rested on its schools. William Arminian ment It was a significant circumstance that, but a few days before the burning of Paraeus's volumes in the Regent Walk, one of Buckingham's chaplains, William Lucy of Caius College, ventured to preach at St Mary's a sermon strongly Commence- tinctured with Arminian views. Not less than a dozen Sunday, 1622. Jesuits were said to have been noted among his audience, and Lucy himself narrowly escaped being non-placeted for his degree of B.D.'. The Calvinistic party in the university could not however but be aware that a strong counter current of theological feeling was rising around them, and the Puritan section began to take measures for providing against a coming storm. At the two colleges where their strength chiefly lay, various circumstances combined to render their position one of no little anxiety. At Retirement Queens', the retirement of Davenant, on his acceptance of from the the bishopric of Salisbury, appears to have involved that of Preston. It was probably partly from a consciousness that this would be the case, that Davenant was himself desirous of retaining his office as president, remote as would be the sphere of his new duties. Of merely selfish motives he may fairly be acquitted, for his interest in the welfare of the society was warm and genuine, and he was consequently especially anxious that Preston's connexion with it should not be severed. His wishes, however, were overruled; and on the 29th April 1622, John Mansel was elected by the fellows of Davenant presidency of Queens'. Election of JOHN MANSEL, president, 1622-1631. |