Note 31 — Chapter XI · ILL CONSE­QUENCES OF NON-TOL­ER­A­TION.

The Jesuit Busembaum, and his commentator, the Jesuit La Croix, tell us, that it “is lawful to kill any prince excommunicated by the Pope, of whatsoever country, because the whole world belongs to the Pope; and that whoever accepts of or executes such commission does a meritorious and charitable act.” It is this maxim which seems to have been invented in the madhouses of hell, that has almost stirred up all France against the Jesuits, who are now more than ever reproached for this doctrine, which they have so often preached, and as often disavowed. They have endeavored to justify themselves by producing nearly the same maxims in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and several Dominicans.* It is true, indeed, that this St. Thomas, the angelic Doctor and Interpreter of the Divine Will, advances that an apostate prince loses his right to the crown, and forfeits the obedience due to him from his subjects;† that the Church may condemn him to death; that the Emperor Julian was permitted to reign only because he was too powerful to be resisted: that we ought to kill every heretic:‡ that those who deliver a people from the government of a tyrannical prince, etc., etc. We have, * Peruse, if you can get it, the let­ter of a lay­man to a di­vine on the sub­ject of St. Thom­as, a Jes­uit­ical pamph­let pub­lished in 1762. † Lib. ii. part ii. ques­tion 12. ‡ Ibid. Ques­tions 11 and 12. doubt­less, a great res­pect for the an­gel of the schools; but if he had preached up such maxims in France at the time of his brother James Cle­ment, and the men­di­cant Rav­aillac, his an­gel­i­cal doc­tor­ship would have met with but a scurvy reception. It must be confessed that John Ger­son, chanc­ellor of the Un­i­vers­ity, car­ried the mat­ter yet furth­er than St. Thom­as; and John Petit, the Fran­ciscan, still fur­ther than Ger­son. Sev­eral of the or­der openly maintained the detestable maxims of their brother Petit. It must be acknowledged that this hellish doctrine of king-killing proceeds wholly from the ridiculous notion which has so long prevailed amongst all orders of monks, that the Pope is a God upon earth, and can dispose of the crowns and lives of sovereigns at his pleasure. In this respect, we are inferior even to those Tartarian idolaters who held the Grand Lama to be immortal; greedily gather the contents of his close-stool, dry these precious relics with great care, enclose them in rich cases, and kiss them with the warmest devotion. For my part, I confess that I had rather, for the good of my country, and the sake of public tranquillity, carry those relics constantly about my neck, than to give my assent to the Pope’s having in any case whatsoever an authority over the temporals of kings, or even those of a private person.