"
"Yet tell me, I pray thee, Paolo mio, and be not displeased by mine
insistence,--perchance it may help me to comprehend this mystery,--how
knowest thou the limit beyond which one may without sin, judge that the
Holy Father shall not command obedience of the sons of the Church?"
"I do not say, when it conflicts with that which is in itself against
the law of God," Fra Paolo answered him, "this limitation thou also
would'st admit; yet it may well-nigh seem to thee a blasphemy to suppose
so strange a case, though many of the early fathers do provide against
it. But, to take another case, when a command of the Sovereign Pontiff
doth conflict with the rule of the Prince in his realm, see'st thou not
what confusion should come if the Pope may revoke the laws of princes
and replace them by his own in the temporal affairs of their dominions?
And if it belong to his Holiness to judge which laws shall be revoked
and what may be legislated to replace the old laws, ultimately but one
power should everywhere reign--and that an ecclesiastical power.
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