6.

 If therefore after an interdict of a general council it was lawful for the supreme Pontiffs to confirm orders [that] had not been confirmed, and for their successors to dissolve completely [those which] had been so confirmed, is it not wonderful, if, what only the supreme Pontiff may declare or ordain concerning the rules of [religious] orders, it is lawful for his sucessors to declare or to change to other things. Moreover it is clear that neither the confirmation of the aforesiad [Popes], Honorius, Gregory, Alexander, and Nicholas[III], was accomplished in general council, since no general council was celebrated by any of these. Granted that Innocent IV celebrated a general council, nevertheless during that [council] the above said declaration of his was not accomplished with the authority of any council. Nicholas IV, however, neither celebrated a general council, nor declared anything concerning the said rule. The aforesaid Gregory IX, however, neither confirmed nor delcared the said rule, but in a general council, where there had been not a few orders of mendicants abolished, he did not abolish the orders of the said Friars Minor and [Friar] Preachers, but asserted them to be approved, saying thus: "To these [orders], which the resulting utility of the universal church, evident from these things, demonstrates as approved, We do not permit the present constitution to be extended."

Besides they tell us, where they read assertions of this kind, hat it pertains to faith and morals, that Christ and the Apostles did not have as regards these things, which they did have, [anything] but the simplex usus facti? Indeed this does not pertain directly to faith, since concerning this [matter] there is not any article, neither [any] under which it is meant to be understood, as is clear in the creeds, in which the articles of the faith are contained, nor even remotely, unless this be contained in sacred scripture, by which having been denied all sacred scripture is reduced to doubts, and by consequence the articles of faith, which have been proven by means of sacred scripture, are redduced to doubts and uncertainties. For this cannot be in regard to sacred scripture, but the contrary is discovered [to be the case]. Moreover concerning the aforesaid Friars Minor what the supreme Pontiff kept, or could have kept, for himself and to the Roman Church concerning their poverty and simplex usus facti, or concerning the dominion of those things which are offered to them, is well known. Nor in the aforesaid creeds, the Gospel, or the Acts of the Apostles and [their] letters is there had any mention that it is not lawful for their successor to rid himself of that [which] was reserved, if this seemed expedient, nor that a sucessor did not have the force [of authority] to revoke the procurators constituted by the authority of the supreme Pontiff for the transactions of the aforesaid order. Whence they cannot conclude from the aforesaid things, except falsely, but that a successor has the force [of authority] to ordain something against those things [which] have been ordained by the supreme Pontiffs concerning such things, because the aforementioned Nicholas expressly includes [this] in his declaration, as is contained more fully above.