Every grant implies a condition of worthiness; third objection: privileges to be read mercifully

Hence the cases are vain in which God is supposed to take grace away from a just man, or to annihilate a man, without his demerit; for this would derogate from the omnipotence and the supreme lordshipdominium: lordship of our God. Therefore, since it is known that God, if he did so, would do it justly, nothing remains but to wait in the aforesaid faith until it has been proved, if it can be, that God can do so; and so nothing conflicts with the power of annihilating, since that [unjust taking away] cannot be; and this exemplary justice in God ought to be an exemplar to every vicar of his, pope as well as king, that he do no 255injury to anyone.¹ Hence certain people blaspheme, sophistically exalting the popepapa: pope above all that is called God, who say that it is lawful for him to take a benefice away from a subject who has not deserved it, without due recompense being made from elsewhere; for this is not lawful for God; and if Antichrist should presume it, then Christ would make recompense for the injury to the one who suffers it humbly.² And the same is said of temporal lordstemporales domini: temporal lords; for it is not lawful for them to despoil holy mother churchecclesia: church unless she has first offended by abusing the almselemosina: alms given to the poor; and much more is it not lawful for a king to grant to membersmembrum: member of the devil licence to withhold unjustly, in perpetuity, from holy mother church what has been offered [to her], since this would be a greater injury.³ Hence an impartial man can note how I am a more special proctorprocurator; procuratrix: proctor for preserving the privilegesprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging and goods of holy church than those who say that it is lawful for temporal lords to grant to robbers that they keep, without restitution, any goods whatever of holy church. And if it is objectedinstatur; obicitur: it is objected that no injury is done to one who is willing; now the whole kingdomregnum: kingdom is virtually assembled in parliament; therefore, when parliament consents to anything, no injury is done to the kingdom, even though criminals have had the aforesaid privilege in the church: it is clear that the inferenceconsequencia: inference does not hold.⁴ For it can be that, to point out [a case], a manifest injury is done to one who is willing: as, supposing that someone wills to sin and has an inciter and abettor of the crime, hence, first, injury is done to the willing sinner by his neighbour who culpably incites him. Indeed, whenever a superiorprepositi: superiors omits due correction out of false piety toward one who wills to grow filthy, he does him injury, as Eli damnably did injury to his sons Hophni and Phinehas, an injury which they themselves damnably willed.⁵ And much more does one who fosters a man in sin for money do injury 256to him; and so, generally, whenever someone culpably consents to a tempter. Nor is there place here for the sophismsophisma: sophism: "Peter wills that which in fact is a sin, or formally antecedent to it, but does not will the sin"; as the sophists say that [someone] formally wills to strike Peter, knows that he is a priest, and yet does not will to strike a priest.⁶ For that sophism is impossible (as I have shown elsewhere); for then there would be no implicit willing or grantingconcessio: grant; because if a man wills a particular that is implied accidentally in a universal willed per se and primarily, much more does he implicitly will what follows formally, the consequentconsequens / antecedens: consequent / antecedent of what is willed per se: as, if the king wills that Peter the clericclerus; clericus: the clergy; cleric have the said privilege because he wills that every cleric of his kingdom have the said privilege, and Peter is some such cleric, much more does he will everything that follows formally from that.⁷ Hence necessity forces even the avaricious to grant this logic, since otherwise they would not share in the privileges or alms of princes, unless in the general grant or willing recorded in those charters a share in the general alms were implicitly granted. And in this way catholics grant that in Peter, the proctor of the church, the power of order was granted by Christ generally, in a kind of wrapping, to every priest who follows.⁸ Since, then, sin plainly followssequitur: it follows from acts that are willed, with their circumstances, it seems that one who wills that antecedent wills, at least implicitly, the consequent sin. For so Augustine says that every sin is voluntary; and the faith of scripture often says that man wills and loves many evils; and yet it is known that he does not will them explicitly under the aspect by which they are evils.⁹ And this is the reason why temporal lords, in any grant whatever of a general privilege or of perpetual alms, must understand as impliedsubintelligere: understand as implied 257the condition of the worthiness of a capable person (as was said in chapter 20 of the preceding book, and often elsewhere).¹⁰ Hence (as I have said here) God cannot omit the implied understanding of such a condition; and the Roman curiacuria romana: the Roman curia declares that in every grant of its concerning privilege the condition must be understood as implied (as the pope’s decree in C. 25 q. 1 [c. 16], Ideo permittente, is allegedallegare / allegacio: allege / allegation in the preceding chapter).¹¹ Far be it, therefore, that we should impute to temporal lords so great a blasphemy as that they are not subject to God, understanding as implied the condition: if it please God; since in James 4:15 the whole Christian religion is taught, concerning all future works, to express, or at least to understand as implied: if God will. For otherwise a frowarddiscoli: froward man could claim the alms of princes while the greatest frowardness persisted; and so the alms would be infected (as was said in chapter 24 of the preceding book). Hence the Archdeacon says that "such froward men are not those to whom the alms have been granted".¹² We should attend, then, to the word of God in 1 Samuel 2:30, when he granted Eli and his line a perpetual priesthood: "I said indeed," he says, "that thy house, and the house of thy father, should minister in my sight, for ever. But now saith the Lord: Far be this from me: but whosoever shall honour me, him will I glorify: but they that despise me, shall be despised." It cannot be understood, except blasphemously, that God is contrary to himself, since according to the Apostle "he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13); but because he understood as implied a condition concerning Eli and his line as to the perpetual priesthood, a condition which they had broken by sinning, it was necessary, by the just judgment of truth, that it be transferred from him to another by the gift of God. For otherwise God would be the author of injury.¹³ Therefore I have often given our clerics 258the counsel that they should honour holy scripture, in word as well as in deed; because without the keeping of this charter it is impossible that worthiness should remain for receiving a privilege or any gratuitous good. But other charters are sometimes of use accidentally; but never except in virtue of the testament of the Lord, kept as the principal [charter].¹⁴

The third main objection is by appeal toobicitur per: it is objected, by appeal to this: that the privilege of kings is to be interpreted piously and mercifully; indeed, when a case forces [one] into some ill consequenceinconveniencia; inconveniens: CONTEXTUAL: an absurdity (in argument) · troubles, ill consequences (in affairs), the greater ill consequence is to be fled and the lesser ill consequence tolerated.¹⁵ It does not follow, therefore: "Given the privilege, an ill consequence follows; therefore it is impious or to be done away with"; since then the gospel, the passion of Christ and every good would have to be done away with, since, by occasion wrongly taken, evil comes from it. And both the schoolmen and the common peoplevulgares: the common people cry up this objectioninstancia; objectum: objection, so much so that a certain jurist told me that there is no universal human law from which it is not often necessary, in a [particular] case, that injustice follow in judging. Therefore, attending to the greater good of the fruit rather than to the evil of the defect, evil ought not only to be permitted but to be done for the sake of good.¹⁶