The charge of destroying the church’s privileges; God cannot take away without recompense

From these things can be gathered the solution both of the popular objections and of the scholastic ones which certain people sow when effective arguments fail them. For thus certain people decline to the fictions of falsehood, saying that we are striving to destroy the privilegesprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging of holy mother churchecclesia: church; and hence they also stir up knightsmilicia; milites: knighthood; knights and others whom they believe, from hope of gain, to be intent on the defence of the said privilege, [as to] how they should defend it, by destroying its adversaries, under pretext of an eternal reward for works of piety.¹ 251But such people should attend to the school and the fruit of falsehood. For in C. 22 q. 5 [the last question], on the authority of blessed Ambrose, it is had thus: "Beware of falsehood, brethren, for all who love it are sons of the devil. Nor is there falsehood only in false words, but also in feigned works. For it is a falsehood to call oneself a Christian and not to do the works of Christ. It is a falsehood to profess oneself a bishop, priest or cleric and to work things contrary to this order."² And such laws of the church ought to be preached both to the greater clerics and to the lesser, since they are their chief law, and also to the laity, since the father of lies with his sophists has infected a great part of the so-calledvocatus (vocata bona, vocata ecclesia): so-called church with falsehoods. For those who pretend to be priests or clerics and do not do what belongs to that office deceive the people of God by a false name, by falsehood and by hypocrisy. For they ought to live without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property, as humble and useful proctorsprocurator; procuratrix: proctor of the poor, whose goods they keep. Hence blessed Isidore, in book 3 of De summo bono, chapter 42: "Let the bishop recognize," he says, "that he is the servant of the people, not the lord. But charitycaritas: charity, not status, requires this."³ And in C. 16 q. 1, under the authority of Jerome, it is written to Pope Damasus that whatever clerics have belongs to the poor. To claim, then, secular exercise of lordshipdominacio: exercise of lordship, even more than the laity, over goods so much another’s, the goods of the poor, is a horrible falsehood.⁴ Therefore the faithful man ought not, because of such falsehoods, to fail to preach to the people the danger from turning aside 252from the law of the Lord; because, as is said in C. 11 q. 3 [c. 55], Inter verba: "It is enough for a Christian to call a cleansed conscience and God to witness of his work. 'We have,' says Gregory, 'Paul saying: For our glory is this, the testimony of our conscience. Job also says: Behold my witness is in heaven. If,' he says, 'we have a witness in heaven, a witness in the heart, let us leave the foolish to say outside what they will. For what else do detractors do but blow into the dust and raise earth into their own eyes, so that the more they blow out detraction, the more they see nothing of the truth?'"⁵ If, I say, I published this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence which I preach chiefly for the world’s gain or the praise of men, I should be more foolish than myself, washing a brick; for I know that the fame or favour of the people is very pliable and changeable, through fear, favour or hatred, like the wind.⁶ But since the truth of the Lord remains for ever, the commotion of the unbeliever does not move the faithful servant of Christ to be wholly silent about what has been said; for in Acts 17 and 19 it is read how the synagogue of the Jews and the chief priests stirred up the crowd, [and] Demetrius and the craftsmen who made silver temples for Diana, from which they sought no small gain, stirred up the people to cry out steadily, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"; but afterwards, converted, they recognized that the apostle’s doctrinedoctrina: doctrine was more useful to them.⁷

But we detest the killing of men, not only at Westminster but elsewhere, between kingdoms; but we distinguish between dragging out for the safeguard of the kingdom and for the wholesome chastisement of men, liege men, about which a question was put to us, and the killing which was done beyond the command or will of the king or of his council.⁸ Hence we wish men-at-arms prosperity 253and rest more than [do] their adversaries, from whose false disinheriting and blind stirring-up so many battles arise. Hence God be my witness: I would wish, if it pleased God, that not only that church but every church in England had full liberty for all fugitives through a precinct of twenty miles; hence I thirst, in my own way, for the full liberty of holy mother church.⁹

Second, it is argued principally, by appeal toarguitur per: it is argued by appeal to this: that what was said about the power of privileging not only sounds to the blasphemy of God but derogates from the power of the popepapa: pope and the regalityregalia: regality of the kings of the world. For it has been said that God cannot take anything away from a man while his right stands, unless he makes satisfaction from elsewhere, which conflicts with the power of annihilating; and much more, that the lord pope cannot lawfully take a benefice away from a worthy man unless he has offended; nor does the king have full lordshipdominium: lordship over all the goods of his kingdom: things which seem to sound of blasphemy and sacrilege.¹⁰ To this the conclusionconclusio: conclusion is denied, since God, absolutely necessarily, has the highest power of privileging, and it is infinitely greater than any created power. As to the first objectioninstancia; objectum: objection, the conclusion ought to be granted: for if God takes anything away from a man while his right stands, without recompensing from elsewhere, then he does injury to that man, which he cannot do. For it is just that he should have what was taken away, since the first right stands, as is supposed; now no one is the cause why that right is taken away except God, as is supposed; therefore God alone is the cause of that injury.¹¹ And consequently, since justice is the constant and perpetual divine will that gives to each what is his, it is clear that it followssequitur: it follows together with truths that God is contrary to himself, because at the same time he wills that they have the good given, since it is just, and wills that he now not have it, since he takes it away. For we are speaking of having as opposed to the taking away 254by which God takes away, and of the right to have so, for the same measure [of time].¹² Likewise: either the one deprived is content with God’s taking away, or he murmurs against it, or he is neither. Now if content, he merits from God merit or an increase of merit, which is of more worth than the loss of what was taken away would be; and consequently God, by exchangecommutacio; commutare: exchange; to exchange or recompense, over-rewards. If the one deprived murmurs, his right of having perishes through his sin, and we are outside the case of the conclusion: as the Egyptians, committing forfeitureforisfacere: commit forfeiture against the chief lordcapitalis dominus; tenere de: chief lord; to hold of, fell from the right to the goods of which, by command of the Lord who had them in his treasury, they had been despoiled. To whom, I say, ought the just judge to have given the goods thus confiscated but to his servants, who had earlier earned them?¹³ But if the one deprived is neither, as regards an explicit act, he bears the event itself with equanimity, and whatever God has decreed is to be done; and consequently he grows in merit; for such an act or indistinctconfuse / confusus (fides, noticia): indistinct(ly) habit must be present in every just man; and the conclusion is clear. Hence this faith concerning the absolutely necessary justice and mercy of God makes Christians suffer joyfully and accept thankfully whatever prosperity or pain befalls them, because they know demonstratively that God cannot fail them when they suffer humbly, without giving things of greater worth in place of what was taken away.¹⁴