A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

1. That the Government of the whole Catholic Church is Monarchical: A State wherein all Power, is derived from one fountain, one and the same Person. This is the first Principle that is laid down by all your Writers, in treating of the Church and its power; and that which your great Cardinal Baronius lays as the foundation on which he builds the huge Structure of his Ecclesiastical Annals.

1. That the Government of the whole Catholick Church is Monarchical: A State wherein all Power, is derived from one fountain, one and the same Person. This is the first Principle that is laid down by all your Writers, in treating of the Church and its power; and that which your great Cardinal Baronius layes as the foundation on whirh he builds the huge Structure of his Ecclesiastical Annals.

2. That the Pope is this Monarch of the Church: the Person in whom alone the Sovereign Rule of it is originally vested: so that it is absolutely impossible that any other Person should have, enjoy, or use any Ecclesiastical Authority, but what is derived from him. I believe you suppose this sufficiently proved by Bellarmine or others. Your self own it, nor can deny it without a disclaimure of your present Papacy. And this one Principle perfectly discovers the vanity of your pretended attributions of Power in Ecclesiastical things to Kings and Princes. For to suppose a Monarchical estate, and not to suppose all Power and Authority in that state to be de•ived from the Monarch in it and of it alone, is to suppose a perfect contradiction, or a State Monarchical that is not Monarchical. Protestants place the Monarchical State of the Catholic Church in its relation unto Christ alone: and therefore it is incumbent on them to assert that no man hath, or can have a power in the Church as such, but what is ⟨p. 417⟩derived from and communicated unto him by him. And you placing it in reference unto the Pope, must of necessity deny that any power can be exercised in it, but what is derived from him, so that whatever you pretend in this kind to grant unto kings, you allow it unto them only by concession or delegation from the Pope. They must hold it from him in chief, or he cannot be the chief only, and absolute head and Monarch of the Catholic Church which you would persuade us to believe that he is: Kings then may even in Church affairs be strikers under him; be the servants and executioners of his will and pleasure; but Authority from God immediately in and about them they have none, nor can have any whilst your Imaginary Monarchy takes place. This one fundamental Principle of your Religion sufficiently discovers the insignificancy of your flourish about Kingly Authority in Ecclesiastical things, seeing upon a supposition of it, they can have none at all. But you stay not here; for