Question I: What obedience is, and what kind of virtue

OBEDIENCE is a special virtue, whereby inferiors obey their superiors commanding: hence its object is the command of the superior. So D. Thom. quaest. 104. art. 1. D. Bonavent. in the places cited, quaest. praeced. See him 3. part. Centil. sect. 44. citing many other definitions of obedience.

IT IS PROVED, because it has a special object, namely to obey the command of superiors, which according to the order of nature is right, just as in natural things the lower are governed by the higher. Obedience is indeed found in every act of virtue; as disobedience in every sin. But no wonder, as D. Thom. says art. 1. ad 1. for nothing prevents several material objective aspects from being contained in one act, just as a soldier, defending the King's castle, exercises acts of fortitude, undergoing the perils of death, and acts of Justice, rendering due service to his Lord. Nevertheless obedience has for its formal object the very command, and therefore it is a virtue distinct from the others.

I ASSERT first, that Obedience is a moral, not a Theological virtue. So S. Bonavent. in the places cited, especially in the declarat. of the Theological termini and 2. p. Brevil. cap. 11. where he also explains bare obedience, which is, when the command binds of itself alone, not from any cause; and such a command is called a command of discipline, because by it is learned how great is the virtue of obedience. Such a command was given to Adam.

THE REASON is, because it does not regard God immediately, but the command of a superior. And although it has no mean, yet it is itself the mean between excess and diminution.

BEST obedience the Saintly Doctor expounds in eight conferences, collat. 3. and de profectu, loc. cit. and in the Mirror of Novices, cap. 4. and de Instit. Novit. 12. and in the rule of novices, cap. 13. and in the Dieta, tit. 3. cap. 2.

I ASSERT second, that obedience, among the moral virtues (except Religion), is the most excellent.

THE REASON is that of D. Thomae art. 3. D. Bonavent. in the exposition of the Rule. Among the moral virtues that one is more excellent which despises better things in order to adhere to God: But obedience despises one's own will, which is the most excellent good: Therefore. For the good of the soul is more excellent than the goods of fortune and of the body, and in the soul the will excels.

EXAMPLES of obedience from scripture the Saintly Doctor reports in the Bibliis pauperum, cap. 25. Its praises indeed in the Pharetra, lib. 2. cap. 43. and in the acceptae vitis, cap. 44.

I ASSERT third, that obedience is owed to God in all things. See the excellent passages in D. Bonavent. de profectu Relig. from cap. 38.

THE REASON of the SS. DD. is; because God, just as He is the first mover of all natural things, so also of all wills: But as first mover of natural things all natural things owe Him obedience: Therefore, etc.

THE DEGREES of obedience see in S. Bonavent. in the Dieta, tit. 3. cap. 2. and de profectu Religiosi, cap. 41.

I ASSERT fourth, that inferiors must obey their superiors in all things in which they are subject to them, and in which it does not conflict with higher powers. See D. Bonavent. on cap. 1. and 10. of our Rule.

THE REASON, D. Bonavent. de profectu Religiosi, cap. 19. gives, is, because God governs the lowest through means, and the middle through the highest, as is evident.

THEREFORE on a double ground they are not bound to obey: First, because of the command of a higher power, according to that of Act. 5. We must obey God rather than men. Second, if he command something to which the subject is not subject, as D. Thom. notes, quaest. 104. art. 5.

HENCE if a Prelate command against the rule, they are not bound to obey, as S. P. Francis rightly teaches cap. 10. of the Rule, and there S. Bonavent. and commonly the DD. as found in Tannerus d. 6. quaest. 1. dub. 2. The reason of the SS. DD. is, because we are bound rather to the universal rule than to the particular. Nay rather, the Minors are bound to obey in all things in which manifest sin does not appear, as our Expositors of the Rule commonly teach. The same concerning the Society of Jesus Lessius teaches lib. 2. cap. 41. dub. 9. num. 75. Of this I treated in the Tract. de Votis.

I ASSERT fifth, that Christians are bound to obey secular Princes. So D. Bonavent. 2. d. 44. art. 3. quaest. 1. D. Thom. quaest. 104. art. 5. It is proved by the Saintly Doctor from Rom. 13. Tit. 3. 1. Petri 2. Heb. 13. Of which I treated sufficiently in the Tract. de legibus, disp. 5. wherein I also showed that the laws of Princes sometimes bind conscience; and whether Clerics are bound by the laws of Princes; And to what tributes and taxes they are bound.

BUT I warned Dynasts to beware of casting the sickle into another's harvest, but according to the decree of Christ, Matth. 22. to distinguish the things that are Caesar's; and the things that are God's.

BUT ONE MUST BEWARE of the pestilent Beza, who interprets that passage of Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, asserting that Chrysostom in serm. 23. there, expounds it wickedly indeed, as commanding every soul, and Priests too, to be subject to secular Princes in all things. Doubtless this most wicked flatterer, the plague of the Kingdom of France, grinds the Ecclesiastical dignity wholly under the secular power.

TRULY, if this exposition is true, the subjects of the King of England will now be subjected to the Emperor. And the subjects of any Duke to any King, as Fagundez notes, in 4. praeceptum, lib. 4. cap. 15. num. 9. and D. Bonav. de profectu Religiosi, cap. 39. and in 2. loc. cit. rightly expounds. The genuine sense therefore is: Let every soul be subject respectively to its own powers. For so we are subject to Bishops, as is said Actor. 20. 1. Timot. 5. and in other places; and this is the sense of D. Chrysost. l. 1; see the Council of Arelat. II. cap. 2. I do not deny that they are subject in some respect, as I said in the Tract. de Legibus, disp. 6.

NAY MORE, Kings are subject to Bishops in causes of faith, which the Emperor Valentinian confessed, as reported by Theodoret, lib. 4. hist. Eccl. cap. 5. for when the Bishops had been summoned, he said: Place Him upon the Pontifical throne, to whom we too, as moderators of empire, sincerely subject our heads, and whose reproaches we gladly admit. These things we pursued at length in the Tract. de Legibus.