Church A motion was made of Marrying the Queen who was already forty years old and three Matches were proposed Cardinal Pool who was of the Bloud Royal the Lord Courtenay Cozin to Henry VIII and Philip Prince of Spain Mary chose Philip and the Emperour fearing lest Cardinal Pool who had been his Son's Competitor might by his presence cross his Marriage with Mary did all he could not make him delay his Journey and not being able to perswade him sent Don Diego de Mendoza to stop him in the Palatinate by Force and Authority The Cardinal complained of this as of an action that did violate the Majesty of the holy See and an affront done to the Pope and his Legates So that Charles having detained him sometime was forced to give him his liberty and sent him to Brussels But he found a means to amuse him in Brabant under colour of engaging him in a negotiation of Peace betwixt the King of France and himself untill the Marriage was accomplished In the beginning of the year 1554. The Emperour sent four Ambassadours into England for concluding the Treaty betwixt the Queen of England his Son and himself Mary in the mean while who with much prudence went gradually on in the re-establishment of Religion made new Proclamations restored the use of the Latin Tongue in Divine Service renounced the Supremacy in the Church gave it back to the Pope and so annulled the Acts of her Father The matter was brought before the Parliament where it met with opposition amongst the Lords because of the Church Lands possessed by the Nobles which they must be obliged to give back again So that the Pope's Supremacy past not at that time Prince Philip that he might not seem inferiour to Mary in Dignity took the Title of King of Naples and consummated his Marriage at London the twenty fifth of July being St. James his day the Patron of Spain The Parliament met again in the month of November following and Cardinal Pool was therein restored to all his rights and honours Two Members of Parliament were sent to bring him over into England and he arrived at London the twenty third of November with the Silver Cross carried before him Being brought into the House of Lords where the King and Queen were present he made a Speech to that Illustrious Assembly thanking them for the favour they had done him in restoring him to his Honours and Countrey He earnestly exhorted them to return again to the obedience of the holy See wherein he prevailed and the Ceremony of Reconciliation was performed the last day of November for the Authority of the King and Queen had obliged all the dissatisfied Members to silence which silence was taken as a consent The Queen caused a Petition to be framed wherein the Parliament begg'd Pardon of the Pope for having withdrawn themselves from under his obedience This Petition was presented to the King and Queen who rising immediately from their Chairs of State went to the Legate and besought him to grant the Parliament the Pardon which they begg'd The Legate standing up and all the Members of Parliament kneeling before him made a Speech concerning the Joy that the repentance of sinners causes in Heaven and then having prayed over them he gave them absolution The Members rose up and the whole Parliament went in body to the Church where Te Deum was Sung Next day three Ambassadours were named to goe render homage to the Pope in name of the whole Nation and this success caused so great Joy at Rome that the Pope proclaimed a Jubile the twenty fourth of December to render thanks to God for so great a blessing The Parliament of England sitting till the middle of the next year Philip and Mary got all the Ancient Laws against Here-ticks to be revived All Acts to the contrary year 1554 made in the time of Henry and his Son Edward were Repealed and afterward the rigour of the Laws that were now again in force was put in execution against the Protestants One hundred threescore and sixteen persons of Quality besides inferiour people were by Mary's Order that year put to death amongst whom Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops who had been the Authors of the Reformation were burnt It was put to their choice either to dye or to recant but none of them would save their Lives by a Recantation This persecution extended to the very Graves and the ashes of the dead the bodies of Bucer and Paulus Fagius who had been dead some four years were taken up and burnt So that the Protestants went to pot in all places for at the same time Henry the II. caused a great many of the reformed Religion to be burnt in France not so much out of Zeal as to satisfie the insatiable avarice of Diana of Poictiers Dutchess of Valentinois his Mistress to whom he had given the forfeitures of all that should be condemned for Heresie On the other hand Ferdinand King of the Romans published an Edict whereby he strictly charged all his Subjects not to make any innovation in matters of Religion and banished above two hundred Ministers out of Bohemia Several of his most considerable Nobility prayed him that he would at least permit the use of the Cup but he refused it and caused a Catechism to be made according to which all School masters should instruct their Scholars But this Edict did not altogether please the Pope who complained that a Prince should have undertaken to make a Formulary of Faith year 1555 The same year being 1555. a Diet was called at Ausbourg for composing the troubles of Religion Ferdinand made a long Speech in it 1555. A Diet at Ausbourg during which the Pope dies wherein he reckoned up the mischiefs that had been occasioned in Germany by those controversies in Religion and the horrid corruption of manners that these debates had drawn after them Divers means were proposed for taking up these differences and amongst others a conference of the learned of both sides but the Pope who had an aversion to any thing that bore the name of conference approved not that expedient he caused Cardinal Morone his Legate in Germany to represent to the Diet that all conferences ought to be avoided and that the onely way to put an end to controversies was that which was taken in England to wit to return again to the obedience of the holy See But Cardinal Morone was not long at Ausbourg before he heard of the death of Julius which happened in February 1555. He therefore returned to Rome to assist at the Election of a new Pope and found the business done before he came MARCEL II. Marcello Cervino Cardinal of Santa Croce was created Pope on the eighth of April 1555. It is observed as a thing singular in him that he would not change his name as others do This custome of changing of names upon promotion to the Papacy came from the Germans whose names
his Legate at Ausbourg to make but a slight opposition to it and then to depart that he might not be present at the publication of the Interim giving him instructions in the mean time to sow Seeds of Jealousie betwixt the German Prelates and the Emperour and to alarm the Protestants by insinuating to them that it was onely an invention to oppress their Liberty and Conscience and that it was no snare laid for the Catholicks of whose faith the Emperour could not make himself Judge The fifteenth of May that Book was read in presence of the Assembly and no body durst contradict it though all were displeased None but the Electour of Mentz spoke and thanked the Emperour of his own head without any Commission from the rest and the Emperour seemed to accept of those thanks as a general approbation Farthermore on the fourteenth of June following Charles caused a Decree of Reformation to be published containing two and twenty Chapters and about one hundred and thirty Ordinances for the Reformation of the Clergy against the Plurality of Benefices concerning the Duty of Preachers the Ceremonies of the Sacraments and their Administration concerning Discipline the Clergy Schools Universities Councils Excommunication c. and very good Regulations were made in all these particulars but that Piece was as ill taken at Rome as the Interim not onely because these Regulations did in no wise jump with the interest of that Court but also because it is a fundamental Law at Rome that no Secular has any right of giving Laws to Church-men Nevertheless that Piece of Tyranny was born with because it could not be helped At the same time an Act past in the Diet commanding Provincial and Diocesan Synods to be held yearly for settling the Decree of Reformation The Diet ended the last day of June and the Edict was published wherein the Emperour engaged himself to procure the Council to be continued at Trent Much opposition made to the Establishment of the Interim After that Charles set about the Execution of the Interim but was almost every where opposed by the Protestants Frederick Duke of Saxony though a Prisoner refused to submit to it and a little Town in Germany made upon that occasion a Remonstrance which deserves to be transmitted to Posterity If our Lives and Fortunes belong to you said they suffer our Conscience at least to be God's If you were perswaded of the truth of this form of faith it would be a powerfull Motive to make us embrace it But seeing you your self look upon it as false why would you have us receive it as true For the truth is the Emperour had no design to perswade the World that he himself had renounced the Doctrines of the Church of Rome which he had either impaired or qualified in his Interim On the contrary in the Preface he prohibited all those who had till then continued in the Roman Communion to make any alteration in Doctrine or Ceremonies Though this opposition was pretty general yet some consented to admit of that Interim or at least pretended to do so But the City of Magdebourg did formally reject it and in such a slighting way too as obliged the Emperour to declare them Rebels and make War against them They maintained that War a long time and obstinately refused to surrender The Emperour had likewise expresly commanded that no man should write against the Interim and nevertheless a whole swarm of writings came forth against that Book both from Protestants and Roman Catholicks Francisco Romeo General of the Jacobins by command of the Pope assembled the most Learned of his Order and caused a smart Refutation of it to be made It had the ill luck also to stir up division amongst the Protestants of Germany that is to say betwixt those who had admitted of it and those who would not and divided them into two Sects for they who in compliance with the Emperour had allowed the re-establishment of the ancient Ceremonies in that justified their own Proceedings maintaining Ceremonies to be things indifferent But the rest objected that weakness to them as a great Crime and separated themselves from them calling them the Indifferent or Adiaphorists The Execution of the Edict of Reformation which the Emperour had made caused as great troubles for the German Prelates who stuck fastest to the Pope desired that at least he might have some hand in the business and therefore the Emperour at their Solicitation acquainted the Pope with all that he had done and prayed him to send Legates to joyn with him in his design of Reforming the Church of Germany The Pope had it least in his thoughts to become the Executor of the Orders of an Emperour whom he looked upon as an Usurper of his Rights Nevertheless that he might not absolutely break with the Germans who he feared might make a general revolt and lest in imitation of Henry the Eighth King of England Charles might declare himself Head of the Church he resolved to send two Legates not for executing the Edict of Reformation but to give Absolution to the. Lutherans who should return into the Bosome of the Church with power to grant all manner of Dispensations even as far as to allow the Communion in both kinds to those who would confess that the Church doth not err in prohibiting it He gave them likewise Authority to abrogate some of the Ceremonies of the Church and to remit somewhat of the ancient Discipline He empowred them not onely to absolve Seculars Princes and Towns but also Apostate Monks who had left their Monasteries allowing them to live abroad in the World provided that under the habit of Secular Priests they should wear that of Regulars This last seemed a pretty odd kind of an Order and a Mystery that no body could tell what to make of He caused Copies of this Bull to be dispersed that so he might thwart the Edict of Charles and retreive the possession of the power of Reforming Manners and Doctrine which the Emperour would have invaded In execution of the Emperour's Edict some Provincial Synods were held in Germany The Archbishop of Cologne called one wherein some good Acts were made concerning Discipline which were approved by Charles the Fifth but no mention at all of matters of Faith The Electour of Mentz observed not the same measures for in his Synod he made eight and forty Decrees about matters of Faith and fifty six concerning the Reformation of Discipline In things that had been decided he followed the Council of Trent and in the rest the most received opinions of the School-men except in the point of Images where he declared that Images are onely appointed for bare Commemoration and not for objects of Devotion and in that of Saints where he asserts that the honour due to Saints is an honour of Society and Dilection and not a Religious Worship The Nuncio's who were named in the year 1548. set not forward on their Journey to Germany
ever done it but that of Basil the least action whereof they scrupled to imitate they added that the coming of the Lutherans to the Council would onely serve to seduce people because they would not forbear their Dogmatical Cant that on the whole if they refused to submit that safe conduct would be dishonourable to the Council from which they required a compliance which ought never to be granted to Hereticks To remove all these difficulties they thought of giving a safe Conduct in general terms wherein the Protestants should not be named but onely designed under the Title of Church-men and Seculars of the German Nation that so if at any other time necessity did require they might say that by these terms none were meant but Catholicks Whilst they were consulting at Rome about the safe Conduct at Trent points of Doctrine were under examination and that inquiry was not so calm and peaceable as the other about the Anathema's and Canons against Protestants for it was impossible to keep the Jacobins and Cordeliers from going together by tho ears about the matter of Transubstantiation The Jacobins pretended that the body of our Saviour is made present in the Eucharist by way of Production because the Body of Jesus Christ without coming down from Heaven where it is in its natural being is rendered present in the Bread by a reproduction of the same substance according to which Doctrine the substance according to which Doctrine the substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of our Lord's Body The Cordeliers on the other hand defended that Transubstantiation which is called Adductive they alledged that our Lord's Body is brought down from Heaven not by a successive but momentany change and that the substance of Bread is not changed into the substance of the Body of Jesus Christ but that the Flesh and Bloud of Jesus Christ succeeds into the place of the substance of the Bread being conveyed thither from another place Each Party maintained their opinions with wonderfull heat branding one anothers with absurdities and contradictions The Electour of Cologne who had had the patience to hear these wretched janglings said very pleasantly that both Parties were in the right when they refuted and charged one another with absurdities but that they seemed all of them to be out of the way when they asserted their opinions because they spoke nothing that was Sense or Intelligible at length seeing there was no declaring for one Party without offending the other they satisfied them both by couching the Decree in very general terms In the same Congregation they discoursed of many abuses that concerned the Eucharist which ought to be reformed such as are the failings in reverence and respect to the holy Sacrament It was complained of that they did not kneel before it that they let it mould in the Pixes that it was administred with little reverence and that they took money from Communicants This last abuse was committed particularly at Rome where the Communicants carried in one hand a hollow Taper and a piece of money in the Taper which was the Priests see It was resolved that Canons should be made against that abuse and many more of the like nature The original of the Jurisdiction of the Tribunals of the Church with their progress At the same time other Congregations were held consisting onely of Doctors of the Canon Law for handling the matter of Discipline the Head that was examined was that of the Jurisdiction of Bishops The end the Bishops proposed to themselves was not the rectifying of the abuses of that Jurisdiction by restraining it to the just and lawfull bounds whereby it was limited in the Apostles time and in the primitive Ages of the Church on the contrary they would have enlarged it by exempting it from the power and attempts of the Court of Rome That Jurisdiction in the first Ages was onely grounded on the sixth Chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians wherein St. Paul exhorts believers not to bring their Causes before Infidels but to chuse out amongst themselves fit persons to compose their differences but because the Tribunal which St. Paul establishes in that place was merely a tribunal of Charity which had no coercive power so the Sentences that past there were onely Verdicts of Arbitration which men stood by if they thought fit by the six and fiftieth Chapter of the second Book of the Constitutions attributed to St. Clement it appears that the Bishop and Priests met every Munday for determining the affairs of their Flock And it rarely happened that any one appealed from these Decisions because of the great respect that men in those days had for the Church But after the times of persecution were over the Bishops supported by the Emperours who were become Christians erected Real Tribunals the Decrees and Sentences whereof were put in execution by the Authority of the Magistrate It is said that Constantine ordained that the Sentences of Bishops should be without appeal and be put in execution by the Secular Judges and that if one of the Parties should desire that a Process commenced before a Secular Judge might be referred to the Tribunal of the Bishop the reference should be granted in spight of all opposition either from the Judge or the adverse Party In the year three hundred sixty five the Emperour Valens enlarged that Jurisdiction and Possidius reports that St. Austin was taken up in those trials of Civil matters many times even till night which troubled him much because it took him off from the true functions of his Ministery That Law of Constantine in favour of this Tribunal of Bishops was revoked or at least limited by the Emperours Arcadius and Honorius for they ordained that Bishops should decide in no Causes but those of Religion and in Civil matters when both Parties consented to it In the year four hundred and fifty two the Emperour Valentinian confirmed that Law which restrained the power of Bishops Justinian restored to them part of what they had been deprived of allowing them besides the Causes of Conscience power to take cognizance of the Crimes of the Clergy and to perform several other acts of Jurisdiction over Laics And thus by the indiscreet favour of Emperours the power of the Church which is all Spiritual became a Carnal Dominion In the following Ages the Jurisdiction and Authority of the Bishops got ground apace and especially in the Western Church because the chief of the Clergy were the ablest Statesmen they were commonly of Princes Councils and managed and Civil matters That was the reason that in a short time they grew to be sole Judges of all Causes Civil and Criminal of the Clergy and that they extended their Jurisdiction over Laicks under various pretexts for instance they took upon them to Judge of the Validity of last Will and Testaments to make Inventories and apply Seals under pretext that Widows and Orphans are recommended to the care of the Church
the Emperour and all his Court. At length in August following the peace was concluded at Passau the Landgrave of Hesse was enlarged liberty of Conscience granted to all the banished Ministers recalled and the Interim was abolished THE HISTORY OF THE Council of TRENT BOOK V. JULIUS III. THE Pope finding himself eased of a Burthen that had lain heavy upon him by the breaking up of the Council resolved with himself to keep out of the Briars The Pope has enough of Councils neither does the Emperour care for them and not to run into such straits again Nevertheless to perswade the world that he was concerned at that Rupture or rather to convince them what a useless thing a Council was he himself undertook the Reformation of the Church and for that end appointed a numerous Congregation of Cardinals but this as all the other designs of Reformation presently vanished it produced nothing but a great many Debates so that within a few Months it was wholly laid aside Nor was there any more talk of reassembling the Council which was at this time interrupted for almost ten Years Charles the V. who had been the great stickler for the Convocation of the Council had not now the same interests to prompt him his main design was the greatness of his Family and he had made it his business to render the Empire hereditary as the Kingdom of Spain and his other Dominions were He thought to have accomplished his ends by depressing the Protestant Princes and the Pope and that the Council of Trent was the fittest instrument for that purpose And indeed this Emperour had got so great an Ascendant over the minds of all of his Family that he could perswade them to any thing even contrary to their own interests his Brother Ferdinand was King of the Romans and by consequence apparent Emperour and he had prevailed with him that the Empire should be shared betwixt him and his Son Philip as the Antonins had done heretofore Mary Queen of Hungary their Sister who was wholly at Charles his Devotion for reasons perhaps not fit to be named had perswaded Ferdinand to admit of that partnership but Maximilian Ferdinand's Son perceiving that by that design he was like to be frustrated of the hopes of succeeding his Father in the Empire defeated all the intrigues So that the Prospects of Charles being at an end with his hopes the Council was no more in his thoughts and Julius cared far less for it than he It is true the Rupture of the Council and the peace of Passau had quite exstinguished the Pope's hopes of ever seeing the revolted Germans reduced again to the obedience of the holy See But to comfort himself for the loss of the Germans he drew from a remote Corner of the World I know not what a kind of subjects who submitted themselves to the Authority of his See Sultacan who call'd himself Patriarch of the People which inhabit betwixt Euphrates and the Indies comes to Rome to render homage to the Pope The same course had been taken by Pope Eugenius IV. who whilst they were undermining the Foundations of his Dominions in the Council of Basil on the other hand fed his vanity and underpropt his tottering Dignity by the vain homages of the Greeks who in the Council of Florence came to submit to him and by a counterfeit Pomp of pretended Armenians who desired instruction from him this is a kind of Comedy that takes mightily at Rome Paul III. during his Pontificate had also with great Solemnity and Ceremonies received the homages of one Stephen who had taken the name of Patriarch of Armenia the greater and who came to Rome attended by an Archbishop and two Bishops upon design of recognising the Pope for head of the Church and now under Julius a certain man named Simon Sultacan who called himself Patriarch of all the People that inhabit betwixt the River Euphrates and the Indies came to demand the Confirmation of his Patriarchship from the Pope as from the Vicar of Jesus Christ The Pope made him a Bishop and then gave him the Patriarchal Pall that happy accident was loudly proclaimed abroad and the great encrease that the holy See received by the submission of so many People who owned its Authority was made a matter of great triumph but to these Apparitions of Grandure there succeeded somewhat more substantial for the Glory of the See of Rome year 1553 Edward VI. King of England died the sixth of July 1553. His Father Henry VIII had shaken off the Yoke of the Pope's Power without any innovation in Religion Edward King of England dies his Sister Mary succeeds to him and restores the Catholick Religion 1553. And Edward under the Regence of the Duke of Sommerset had compleated what his Father began and introduced a Reformation into the Church of England But he lived not long enough to establish and confirm that great Work by his last Will he had disinherited his two Sisters Mary and Elizabeth the Daughters of his Father Henry the former Daughter of Catharine of Aragon who was divorced and the second Daughter of Anne Bullen whom Henry had caused to be beheaded He had appointed the Lady Jane Gray his Cosin and Daughter to a Sister of Henry to be Heir of the Crown Jane was proclaimed Queen but her Reign was of short continuance and cost her her Life Mary was advanced to the Crown both by the Privilege of her Birth and by the Will of her Father who had appointed that if Edward should die without Children Mary should succeed and that Elizabeth should succeed to Mary Mary being in the Throne pretended at first that she would alter nothing in Religion though she professed herself to be a Catholick but great hopes were conceived at Rome that this Queen might be usefull in reducing that Kingdom to its ancient Obedience And therefore Julius presently named Cardinal Pool for the Legation of England But the Cardinal durst not undertake the Journey without great Circumspection because he had been banished the Kingdom and degraded of his honour and therefore he wrote to the Queen and negotiated his return by Giovanni Francisco Commendone and having received a favourable answer he set out on his Journey The Parliament of England being called declared the Marriage of Henry VIII with Catharine of Aragon the Queens Mother valid and by consequence pronounced the Divorce unlawfull And the Acts made in the Reign of Edward were Repealed and Religion reinstated in the same condition it was in when Henry died The confirmation of the Marriage of Henry was a great step towards an accommodation with Rome seeing the Marriage of Henry and Catharine could not be declared lawfull without admitting the Dispensation of Julius II. who had dispensed with Henry to Marry his Brother's Widow So that the Parliament by that procedure owned that the Pope has Power to dispence with the Laws of God and by consequence acknowledged him Head of the