all the Municipal Laws and Oecumenical Canons too summon'd to Rome by His Holiness and are bound in Conscience to obey yea notwithstanding any command of the King or supreme temporal Magistrate to the contrary That not only the Commands of His Holiness but those also of His Delegates for example the Generals of Orders are to be in the same manner punctually obey'd by their respective Inferiours notwithstanding any contradiction of the Laws or King or any other onely the Pope excepted still who countermands all both men and Laws at His pleasure That He can suspend correct alter and utterly abolish any Imperial Royal or Municipal Constitution Custom or Law whatsoever in any State or Kingdom of the World as He shall think expedient That even so He may all Church-Canons of Discipline or Reformation whether they were made by a Diocesan or Provincial or National or even Oecumenical Synod truly such That neither the very Canons of Faith agreed upon by the most truly Oecumenical Council that ever was or can be are of any force if He alone dissent though otherwise all the Bishops Priests Doctors and People too of the Christian World every one had unanimously consented to them That His Papal Decretals Constitutions or Bulls from the instant that they are publish'd or fix'd up in acie Campi Florae or wherever else He ordains do according to their tenour presently oblige in Conscience all the Faithful throughout the whole Earth or such as are respectively concerned That He alone hath the absolute power of bestowing all Ecclesiastical Titles Benefices Offices Jurisdictions Cures from the Patriarchical to the Parochial and that being otherwise given than from Him or assumed otherwise than by His Authority they are Nullites before God and ought to be so reputed by all men and that whosoever denies this to be so is an Heretick That He alone hath likewise the absolute power not of translating only but of suspending excommunicating deposing and degrading all of them even the very Patriarchs themselves without being tyed in such procedure to the formality of Laws or Canons That He alone hath power to erect New Bishopricks unite and divide the Old give the Pall priviledge Vniversities create new Religious Orders multiplies them to what number He please extinguish them when He will c. exempt them and whom He please besides from the jurisdiction of Bishops Ordinaries and all other Persons and Powers except from Himself and His Authority That finally He alone is the Vicar of Christ on Earth And therefore in the first place He must have not a Paternal power only but a Despotical Princely and absolute Lordly power in and over the Church Militant and consequently over all General Councils to do therein what seems fit to Him in the second place His jurisdictional Authority must extend to Heaven and Hell and Purgatory thirdly without any question He hath a never-failing assistance of the Holy Ghost so that all His definitions at least in matters of Faith (a) The Colledge of the French Jesuites a Clermont in their printed Theses of the 12th of December 1662 held That the Pope is Infallible also in matters of Faith XIX Christum nos ita caput agnoscimus ut illius Regimen dum in Coelos abiit primum Petro tum deinde Successoribus commiserit eamdem quam habuit Ipse Insallibilitatem concesserit quoties ex Cathedra loquerentur XX. Datur ergo in Ecclesia Romana Controversiarum Fidei Judex Infallibilis etiam extra Concilium Generale tum in Questionibus Juris tum Facti c. Propagnabuntur Deo Duce auspice Virgine in Aula Claromontani Collegii Societatis Jesu die xii Decembris 1661. are and must be universally and perpetually true and Himself an infallible Judge in them in the fourth place which is consequent to the other He hath owing to Him from all Mortals such a perfect nay such a blind obedience That if He define Virtue to be Vice and Vice to be Virtue they ought to believe Him and if they do not they cannot be saved unless peradventure invincible ignorance excuse them and lastly to sum all in a word He is Dominus Deus noster Papa our Lord God the Pope as the Glossator (b) Zenzelinus de Cassanis in fine Glossae extravag Cum inter de verb. signif of His own Canon Law stiles Him * Aâ—stimant Papam esse unum Deum qui habet potestatem omnem in Coelo in Terra Johan Gerson Tom. ii circa materiam Excommunicationum Irregularitat Consider 11. V. That notwithstanding the incredibility of these and some other such vain Positions and of all and every of their necessary antecedents and consequents yet they all and especially the Monarchical or Despotical or rather indeed Tyrannical I am sure unreasonable and very destructive Powers ascribed in them to the Pope are every one with no lower pretence than of Divine Right and Immediate Institution of Christ maintain'd either in formal or virtual terms nay in formal the chiefest of them and such as infer the rest not only by too many of our most Famous and most Classical Authors (c) For Authors at this time Cardinal Peter Bertrand onely who lived 300 years ago may suffice whom a numberless number have ever since followed in his pernicious Doctrine which you may read Addit ad Gloss Extr. unam Sanctum de Major Obed. of all sorts Canonists Historians and Divines since the Schools began but also by the far greater authority of the Roman Bishops (d) For Popes also in this place let Boniface VIII alone suffice both in his said Extravag unam Sanctam and in many other Decretals but especially in his famed Letter to Philip Le Bel of France themselves since Pope Hildebrand's time And three only but wretchedly abused Texts of the Gospel viz. Ecce duo gladii Luc. 22.38 and Quodcunque ligaveris c. Mat. 16.19 and Pasce Oves meas Joan. 21.17 must serve the turn however against the plain design of the whole Gospel it self to drive directly by such Positions at the proper scope of the Alcoran and establish in the Church of Christ a worser Tyranny than that of Mahumetans and Mamalukes VI. That Cardinal Caesar Baronius the famous Ecclesiastical Annalist who seems in truth to have had no other end so much to heart in writing his twelve laborious Tomes as to heap together how well or ill soever all the Topicks he could imagine for asserting to the Bishops of Rome the foresaid universal Monarchy both in Spirituals and Temporals over the whole Earth yet fearing his Arguments driving at and deriving from or grounding it on a Jus Divinum or Divine Right and immediate institution of Christ would not convince any labours at last exceedingly though all in vain in several of his said Tomes of Annals to entitle His Holiness at least by Humane Right or Humane Title as for Example by Donation or Oblation or Submission or Prescription
either have recourse to the diffusive Church that is to the Faith of incomparably the farre greater body or number of Bishops and learned Fathers and Doctors of the several particular Churches of all ages dispersed throughout the world whereof those gathered at Nice were in comparison but a small portion or certainly in such case suffer themselves to be mislead out of their old way or belief and for and by the authority of such a Council embrace the new fancies of Arrius â—ading withal that out of one impossibility another must follow And I further demand of our Objectors whether the Catholicks answering so then to the Arrian Hereticks must have been therefore taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or which is the same thing with holding absolutely or with averring or confessing absolutely and by such answer that the Council to be convened so generally at Nice could erre in that Faith of one substance If our Objectors will say that those Consubstantialists would or did think so then it is evident our Objectors will be forced by consequence to allow the Procurator to think so to and think it also lawfully and Catholickly For neither he nor they can pretend to be Catholicks otherwise in any point then as those old Consubstantialists were But if our Objectors will say as indeed they must say these old Consubstantialists must not therefore think absolutely that Council of Nice could erre it must by the same reason follow that neither the Procurator by or for the like answer to the like caprichious interogatory must absolutely or positively think a general Council truly such can erre The second case is of a new Heresie that may without any miracle yet arise in the Church about the Divine processions As for example that as there is a Father and Son in the God-head or Divine nature or amongst the Divine persons so there must be a Mother and a Daughter And put the case too as it may be that both East and West and South and North of the universal Church or in all Countreys of the World are as much devided upon this new Heresie as they have been formerly upon that of Arrius at such time as St. Hierom said after the Council of Ariminum that the whole earth groaned under Arianisme seeing it self suddenly become Arian And therefore that by the true believers and let these be the very objectors themselves a Protestation is drawn and signed against this new Heresie to hinder a further progress of it or the corruption by it of the remaining Catholick party And then suppose further that a follower of this new Heresie would put the like caprichious interrogation to our objectors this for example what if a future general Council truly such define against your opinion adding withal that the objectors themselves knew very well this new controversie was never yet in terminis decided by a general Council In this case I demand what could our objectors answer to this Querie insisted upon or could they answer otherwise then as the Procurator did to Father Brodin And yet would they allow that by or for such answer from themselves they should be justly taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or with holding absolutely that a general Council truly such might erre I am sure whatever they answer to these Interrogatories I put them in this case will be but to confound themselves and make them an object of laughter and scorn for having so ignorantly or so malitiously amongst the people calumniated me or that my book or that passage of it as if I had therefore undervalued the authority of General Councils or as if I had positively or absolutely held they could erre or as if I had taught a new way of disclaiming in a general Council and of having recourse from such Council to the Diffusive Church whereas I have been truly in that very passage as farre as from East to West from any such matters being my answer was onely conditional and to a conditional Querie and the condition too according to what I delivered there absolutely impossible in the order I mean of moral impossibilities or of such as are said only to be such by reason of Gods special providence and special promises made to the Church for preserving it for ever in all saving truths Whereof to convince yet further these very objectors I must beg thy patience and pardon good Reader that I give here intirely the whole discourse from first to last and word by word which I made on this subject in my More Ample Account or which I made therein to both those Metaphysical contingencies or Queries which the foresaid Father Brodin insisted on The first being What if the Pope should hereafter define the contrary in terminis And the second What if a general Council did c By occasion of which Queries and in answer to them both I writt thus in that little book page 59. 60. 61. and 62. The answer to both these Metaphisical contingencies for indeed they can be hardly thought greater being first That in case the Pope alone condemn the Protestation as involving even heresie they would reflect on his fallibility in defining and would rather hold with France Spain Germany Venice while these Countries change no other of their present tenets and with all the ancient and modern times of the universal Church then with the Pope in that case Secondly that if even a general Representative of the Church or which is the same thing a general Council of Bishops truly such define it they would then either have a recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians do tell us it is certain Nor can it therefore be rationally objected that our signatures to the Protestation or other engagement to maintain the doctrine of it and keep religiously our faith therein pledged must be unlawful or unconscientious or must not be a duty incumbent on us at least if required and such a duty moreover as we can not decline without sinning against all the laws of God and man It is manifest there are opinions and such as are confessedly such and only such which yet famous Catholick Vniversities end even whole Kingdoms engage themselves by Oath and vow to maintain I instance in that of the B. Virgins Conception and could alledg several others sworn to at least by men graduated in Schooles And there are hundreds of opinions even in matters of conscience which the Dissenters themselves I am certain very often practice and they think safely too and with a good conscience yea although they hold not seldome the contrary to be no less probable and sometime more and more safe also or which what ever they do there is no doubt but ten thousand learned and pious men do practice And yet they know all these opinions even that of the conception must be
inconsideratione aliqua violent sed una cum ipsis Principibus debitam sacris summorum Pontificum et Conciliorum constitutionibus observ antiam praestent Decernit itaque c. 2. It is also clear enough these words ordinatione divina or the Councils saying that Ecclesiastical Immunity was constituted by divine ordination imports no more of necessity then that it was Gods good pleasure and special providence and care of the Church and Churchmen that disposed affairs so and moved the hearts of Princes and people to give such exemptions to the Church and Churchmen as they indeed have For so we say that by Gods ordination or divine ordination this or that is as it is Which yet argues no positive law of God nor any law at all of God for it to be as it is As for that of Colen besides that it is but a smale Provincial Synod never yet canonized by any general Synod nor even by any Pope and therefore in Bellarmine's own principles of no authority out of that Province not even were the Decree in a matter of Faith as it is not certainly it is manifest enough the Fathers there or in that ch par 9. quoted by him speake not a word pro or â—â—n of our present dispute or if they do any way indirectly or by consequence that all is against Bellarmine forasmuch as they determine Ecclesiastical Immunity to consist chiefly in two things The one that Clerks and their possessions are free of all imports tributs and other lay duties The other that criminals flying to Churches be not forced thence Now where is a word here of Clerks being exempt even from the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes and even the most haynous crimes imaginable and committed too in meer temporal things These Fathers of Colen did not as much as dream of any such matter At least no rational Divine is to judge or conclude out of their words or expression here that they did For the onely word here whence any such thing might be any way pretended are these aliisque maneribus laicis But who sees not there are other lay duties besides customs oâ— taxes from which by the civil constitutions of the Roman Emperours at first and after by that of other Kings who succeeded them Clerks are and have been exempted nay that their exemption from other lay duties was the first exemption they had and even that which above all other was most convenient they should have as for example from all civil offices of Collectors Bayliffs Constables from the Militia c. Why then should any Divine be so unreasonable as to derive from a position so general so proper and so true of those Fathers of Colen a conclusion so particular so improper and so false as Bellarmine doth in our present case As for those other words of this of Colen jure pariter divino humano I have already said what we must rationally think they understood by jus divinum though only applied here to other exemptions then that from the supream civil power For both the Lateran Councils I confess Bellarmine and some others with him give them both equally the name of General But I am sure withal that according to all truth the latter which he considers first or that under Leo the X. does not merit as much as the name of a General Council truly such nor even of an Occidental Council truly such and that Bellarmine himselâ— elsewhere confesses it is not esteemed as such by many great Catholicks and that moreover whatsoever he thinks the whole Gallican Church many others reject it as not esteeming it such for many reasons which I shall give hereafter in this book upon another occasion As I am sure also that all the Canons of discipline reported to be of the IV. Council of Lateran or of that under Innocent the Third which Bellarmine quotes here in the next place are doubtful though for the present it matters not much whether these Canons be or be not genuine or whether this which is called the great Council of Lateran Concilium Magnum Laterananse was or was not a general Council truly such or whether only a very great Occidental Council but not for all that a Council oecumenical or General properly and truly such of the universal Church As the same for the point of being truly oecumenical or General of the whole Church is disputed by some concerning the Tridentine Synod albeit now of greatest authority with us of all General Councils truly and unconvertedly such Neither doth it matter any more one jot whether the other Lateran under Leo the X. be admitted or not for a General Council truly such For albeit this latter in the IX Session and decreeing somewhat of Ecclesiastical Discipline sayes in general and by way of supposition that by divine and humane law there is no power attributed to Lay-men over Clerks c. and the former under Innocent cap. 24. say that some Laicks endeavour to usurp too much of divine right when they compel Church-men that receive no temporal benefit from them to swear Allegiance or take oathes of fidelity to them yet no understanding person no good Divine or Canonist may therefore conclude that certainly these Councils intended thereby to signifie as much as it to be their own bare opinion much less to declare it as the Catholick Faith which indeed is not pretended of them by Bellarmine himself or any other That Clerks are by a pâ—sitive law of God exempt even in all criminal causes whatsoever from the supream civil coercive power of temporal Princes And my reasons are 1. Because it is a maxime of both Divines and Canonists that priviledges and laws that speak of priviledges are stricti juris or strictae interpretationis when the priviledges are to the prejudice of any third's right as also when out of any other kind of more ample interpretation some either absurdity or falsity or any great inconvenience or any errour and gross mistake attributed to the laws or Law-makers or givers of such priviledge must follow 2. Because it is a maxime too very well known and granted that where a Law or Canon dwells in Generals only we must not understand particulars or such specialties as are not specially express'd and whereof there is or may be a grand controversie whether the power of the Canon-makers could reach unto them and which moreover are such that it is not likely the Law or Canon-makers would comprehend them if expresly thought upon and specially debated 3. Because it is manifest this position of Bellarmine concerning the exemption of Clergy-men in all criminal causes whatsoever c. is such a specialty and such a priviledge And therefore it must follow that whereas these Councils of Lateran do not in specifical express terms discend to it no Divine or Canonist may in reason conclude they mean'd it But on the contrary ought rather to expound them in any other probable and rational
matters For the Canons of this Council as the Faith of this Council had the approbation and joynt concurrence and the authority of the supream civil power of the Emperour himself there in person to give them force and virtue where-ever the sole authority spiritual of the Fathers was not sufficient or might peradventure be said by any not to have been sufficient And what I have said above was that no canon of the Church or of any Council approved or allowed in so much by the Church can be produced out of which it may appear that the Fathers of the Church the Bishops did ever by their own proper Episcopal Authority exempt Clergiemen from the Jurisdiction of as much as the inferiour lay Magistrates or declare them exempted so 4. That Iustinians foresaid 83. Novel which was made by him near 200. years after this Canon of Chalcedon and notwithstanding this Canon of Chalcedon was still in force and Iustinian himself a great reverencer and observer of all was concluded in that great Council shews the word prius in this Canon must be interpreted so as I have above of the first Instance or with relation to a posteriour judgment which might be before the secular Judges in case the parties could not agree For so the said Novel of Iustinianus made in favour of the Clergy expresly decrees that Clergymen should first be convened before their own Bishops and afterwards before the civil Judges And therefore being it is just for us to suppose the word prius in this Canon of Chalcedon was not idlely or superfluously set down by so many learned and worthy men as were those 630. Bishops who composed or enacted it we must also from hence rationally conclude that the civil Jurisdiction of even secular subordinat Judges over the Clergy is not weakned by this Canon but rather confirmed The third Council in order of those alledged by Bellarmine is that of Agatha or as others call it Agde Concilium Agathense held in the year 506. where the Fathers convened there made this Canon of Discipline which is the two and thirtieth of this Council Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Judicem Episcopo non permittente pulsare Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio saeulari proponere Si quis vero secularium per calumniam Ecclesiam vel Clerum fatigare tentaverit convictus fuerit ab Ecclesia liminibus catholicorum communione nisi digne paenituerit coerceatur Let no Clerk presume without the Bishops leave to sue any in a secular Judicatory And if he be sued let him not answer nor propose nor dare to propose a criminal matter in a secular Judgement But if any secular shall attempt by calumny to vex the Church or Clergy and shall be convicted hereof let him be driven out of the Church and from the communion of Catholicks unless he repent worthily And this is what this Council ordained and the whole tenour of this Canon Concerning which the Reader is to observe first that Gratian changed the letter and sense of it in his Decretum 11. q. 1. Can. Clericum whether of purpose and willingly or whether ignorantly or perhaps that he had another but false copy of this Council different from that of all others I know not But sure I am that instead of the Councils words which are these I give here Clericus nec quenquam praesumat Gratian abuses his Reader with those other words which quite alter the sense Clericum nullus praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare to the end the prohibition may comprehend Laicks also or that not even Laicks may sue a Clerk before a secular Judge whereas in truth or according as the canon is set down in the Council it self or all copies published in the Tomes of Councils it is only for Clerks without any mention at all of Laicks in that first part of this Canon Nay the last part of this very Canon it self shews the Fathers intended not to forbid Laicks not to sue Clerks before a secular Judge but only not to vex them by lies or calumnies before any Judge Which indeed the Fathers might justly do and justly also punish by Ecclesiastical Censures all such as would otherwise behave themselves towards Church-men either in a Secular or Ecclesiastical Judicatory if convicted to have willingly sued them so or falsely charged them Nor is it this canon only as to our business that Gratian corrupted but also that passage commonly alledged out of Pope Marcellinus's Epistle ad Faelicem in eadem causa quest can 3. where also instead of Clericus nullum Gratian foists in Clericum nullus So that for such Canonists as for what belongs to Councils have onely read the Collections of Gratian and consequently were deceived by his false reading or quotations of them we must not wonder if they have fallen into this errour of the general exemption of Clerks by Councils or Popes which I here impugne Though for all that I cannot my self but somewhat wonder that Bellarmine would in his controversies l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. follow this corrupt Reading of Gratianus and follow it alike both as to that Canon of Agatha and that Epistle of Marcellinus and not rather follow the true and genuin text in the Tomes of Councils and even in the very animadversions or castigations added to Gratian himself And the Reader is to observe secondly this Council of Agatha was but a Provincial Council or at most but a little National of such Catholick Bishops as lived in that part of Gaule or France which was then subject to King Alaricus the Arian Goth. For the number of the subscribers of this Council was only 24. Bishops 9. Priests Deacons who had proxy from such other Bishops as were absent That consequently the Canons of this Council may not be said to be canons of the Church but onely of such particular Churches as were govern'd by those few Bishops in that Kingdom of Alarick unless it may be shewed that these canons were approved of received or as they speak canonized again by the authority of some General Council of the universal Church as we know that divers not onely national but provincial Synods for example the third of Carthage and those of Gangra Laodicea Antioch c have been That it is not yet as much as pretended by any that this Council of Agatha was so received of or authorized by any General Council nor as much as confirmed by the Popes themselves or by any one Pope That if the Popes approbation or confirmation had been desired by the Fathers of it and granted to it which yet appears not to have been no more could be concluded thence but his bare approbation and confirmation of the acts for that Nation or that Kingdom onely for which they were made unless the Pope had moreover by his Patriachal or Papal power
ut cumque summus sit non poterit huic immunitati aut exemptioni propriis legibus propriaque authoritate derogare So farr the learned Cardinal hath helped us on in this matter by giving us to our hand the authors and places quoted albeit only to shew against William Barclay that himself was not single in asserting such a power to the Pope But for these natural reasons or theological if you please to call them so which to solve is my business at present he hath left his Reader to seek Which makes me say that he hath not at all removed the cause of Barclay's admiration as he ought to have done Barclay admired that so learned and so judicious a man as Cardinal Bellarmine should maintain that the Pope could exempt the Subjects of Kings from all subjection to Kings and this without any consent from the Kings themselves adding as a further cause of his admiration how it was confess'd that before such exemption by the Pope those very persons so exempted by him or attempted to be so exempted to wit the whole Ecclesiastical Order of Clerks and even as well Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs and the very Pope himself as other the most inferiour Clerks were all of them primitively originally and even by the very law of God subject to the secular Princes in all politick or civil and temporal matters and yet as a further cause adding also that the law of Christ submitted unto in Baptisme deprives no man of the temporal rights he had before baptisme and consequently deprived not for example Constantine the Great when baptized of the lawful power he had before he was baptized over the Christian Clergy Now that Bellarmine should go about to disswade Barclay from his admiration because forsooth he quotes five School-men that is four Divines and one Canonist who taught the same thing and produces only the bare words of the Assertion of two of them on the point but no reason at all of theirs or of any others or of his own for such assertion may seem to men of reason a strange way of perswading another man and master too of much reason As if Barclay should cease therefore any whit the less to admire so gross an errour in Bellarmine that some others also had fallen into the same errour before or after or together with him Nay if Bellarmine had not preposterously fixed on those very men for his companions or patrons who contradict themselves so necessarily that is at least virtually and consequentially in this matter or if he had only fixed on such Divines and Canonists who speak consequently however ungroundedly of the exemption of Clergymen as of divine right which I confess the generality of Canonists do then peradventure he might have seemed to have alledged somewhat though indeed very little to allay Barclays wonderment For truly those he alledges betray themselves and his cause manifestly whereas they hold also manifestly and at the same time that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino Which being once granted who sees not the main difficulties which lye so in their way as not possible to be removed for asserting a power in the Pope to make laws for that exemption independently of Princes Who sees not that the Pope cannot make or impose what laws he please to bereave either Prince or People of their temporal rights or of what part soever of such rights he thinks expedient or convenient And who sees not otherwise that he alone must de jure be ot least may de jure make himself to be the sole supream Prince on earth in all temporal things at least amongst Christians And therefore consequently who sees not that being the Pope is not so nor can be so nor can lessen the Princes temporal authority over his own Subjects where-ever the law of God doth not lessen it and what I say of the Pope I say too of the whole Church who sees not consequently therefore I say that neither Pope nor Council nor other authority of the Church if any other be imaginable can or could so exempt Clerks from the power of Princes being that before such exemption all Clerks were subject to Princes and by the laws of God and nature subject to them But for as much as it appears undoubtedly that Bellarmine was one that did not or at least would not see these either Antecedents or Consequents being he sayes in plain terms and in his own name also de Potestate Papae in temporalibus supra cap. 38. That whether the supream temporal Princes themselves have or have not or could or could not exempt ecclesiastical while in their Dominion from their own supream temporal power potuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex istos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare yet the supream Pontiff could exempt them so and hath exempted them so or at least could declare and hath declared them antecedently exempted so by divine right that is by God himself in holy Scripture or at least in his revealed word either written or unwritten Neque possunt Principes etiam supremi hanc exemptionem impedire That neither can the Princes even supream hinder this exemption and That all this is the common doctrine of the Divines and Canonists cui hactenus non nisi Heretiei restiterunt which none hetherto but heretick's have resisted and forasmuch also as not onely Franciscus Victoria Dominicus Soto Martinus Ledesma Dominicus Bannes and Didacus Covarruvias above particularly quoted but even the generality of Canonists and late School Divine Writers seem to be of the number of those that with Bellarmine did not or would see the same Antecedents and consequents and lastly forasmuch as we have already solved all they could say for their contrary assertions either out of Scripture or out of the laws and canons nay and out of not onely some other extrinsick authorities of other authors Philosophers and Historians I mean for what concerns matter of fact or the point of Clergiemens having been already exempted so by any whomsoever but also all the arguments grounded on or pretended from natural reason or which Bellarmine framed above for his law of Nature or Nations for the Clergie's being already so exempted now therefore to fall to that which onely is the proper subject of this present Section let us consider those other arguments pretended to be of natural reason or even of Theological reason if you please to call it so as it may perhaps be justly called because suppoâ—eing some principle of Faith which we find in other Authors as in Dominicus Soto and in Franciscus Victoria for the being of such a power in the Pope or Church or in either or in both together as purely such or as purely acting by a true proper certain or undoubted power of the Church as the Church or as a Church onely For thus it is they must state the question and that they do questionless suppose it stated Though I confess
supream temporal Prince in any of the Citties or territories which he either actually possesses or challengeth to himself as such an absolute or supream independent temporal Prince To enquire into any such intrigue is not material nor any part of my purpose And all I say of it because I mention'd it accidentally is that if the Pope be not so I could heartily wish he were so provided all Popes made that good use of it and onely that good use which some blessed Popes have For I am farre enough for envying the Apostolical See or even present Roman or Papal Court any even worldly greatness which may be to the glory of God and general good of Christian people was verily such even worldly greatness not onely of the Popes of Rome but of other Bishops and of other Priests too may be without any peradventure if regulated and applyed well And I am also farre enough from perswading my self that no Christian Priest can be found who may for natural parts and gifts of God be among Christians and if it please the Christians themselves such an other as Hermes Trismegistâ—s was among Heathens a great Priest great Prophet and great King withall Nay I confess that many Clergiemen have many excellencies and advantages for government above most Laymen Yet I say withall that if in elective Kingdoms or States they were by the people put at the Helme of supream temporal government or if in hereditary Kingdoms any of them came by succession to it their being Priests Bishops or even Popes would not could not enlarge their temporal power in any kind of respect nor give them any more temporal exemption as from any pure law of God or Christian Religion then they had before they were Priests c. It is not therefore against any power Ecclesiastical or even Papal as such I dispute here but onely against the unwarrantable extension of such and as onely such by those two most eminent writers Cardinal Baronius and Cardinal Bellarmine Yet I will say this much for Cardinal Bellarmine albeit shewing 〈◊〉 this also his contradiction of himself that in his great work of controversies de Concil Eccles l. 1. 〈◊〉 13. I know lot how but by the too great power of truth he confesses in very express worth that even the very Popes themselves have been subject and even too subjected themselves in temporal affairs to the Emperours and consequently that their Pontifical or Papal office or dignity did not exempt them from subjection to the lay supream power For considering there how the foâ—â— first general Councils of the vniversal Church had been convoked by the Emperours and fearing least such convocation might prejudice that authority which he ascribes to the great Pontiff and consequently bringing four causes or reasons why the Popes then were necessitated to make use of the power Imperial as he sayes for the convocation of those four first general Councils he delivers thâ—â— his fourth Reason Quarta ratio est sayes he quia to tempore Poâ—â—tyex eâ—si in spirituâ—libus essex caput omnium etiam Imperatorum tamen in temporalibus subâ—â—citbus se Imperatoribus ideo non peterat invito Imperatore aliquid agere cum tantum â—â—bâ—isset petere ab Imperatore auxilium ad convocandum Synodum vel ut permitteret Synodum convocari tamen quia Dominum suum temporalem cum agnoscebal supplicabat ut jubereâ— Synodum convoâ—â—i At post illa tempora ista omnes causae mutata sunt Nam neo illa lex viget he means that old Imperial constitution which prohibited all Colleges and frequent or numerous Assemblies without the Emperours licence to prevent seditions designs Vide l. 1. ff de Collegiis illicitis l. Conventicula ff de Episcopis Clericis noc Imperatores in â—oto orbe dominantur nec sumptibus publicis fiunt Concilia nec sunt Gentiles qui impedire possint Pontifex qui est caput in spiritualibus cum etiam ipse in suis Provinoiis sit Princeps supremus temporalis sicut sunt Reges Principes alij id quod divina providentia factum est ut Pontifex libere manus suum exequi possit So Bellarmine cleerly and expresly to a word Therefore by this ingenuous confession of Bellarmine himself the Pope hath no freedom no exemption at all in temporal matters from the civil power of the Emperour by virtue I mean of his Pontificat or Papal office But hath all his exemption in such matters by vertue onely of the supream temporal Principality which he acquired after as Bellarmine's sayes and which he possesses yet And consequently Bellarmine confesses also that this temporal Principality being removed or lost as by a just conquest and many other legal wayes it may be the Pope will be no more exempt in temporals from the Emperour or King of Rome but subject to him wholly in such Which is that onely I contend all along in this dispute of the Pope And therefore it must also follow evidently out of this doctrine and confession of Bellarmine himself that all other Priests Bishops and Clerks whatsoever even Cardâ—nals who have no supream earthly power and Principality of their own must be throughly and entirely subject in temporal matters to those supream lay Princes in whose dominions they live and whom they acknowledge to be their own very true Soveraign Lords Which is that moreover which I contend for in all the Sections of this whole and long dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity against the Divines of Lovain And I am extremely deceaved if Bellarmine yeeld it not fairely and freely in this place however he coyned a new faith for himself after in his old age and in his little books against Barclay Widdrington and some others But forasmuch as nothing more confirmes the rightfull power and authority of Kings in all humane things over also their subjects even all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever then the most ancient custome and perpetual practise in the Christian Catholick Church this very Church her self not onely not resisting but consenting also and approving such custome and practise therefore it is that to those particular Instances already given of such practise or matter of fact in the persons of those two most holy Bishops Athanasius and Eusebius and in the persons also of those other two and not onely most holy but even the very Head Bishops of the whole Earth in their own time as being the great Pontiffs then of the Roman See to witt Gregory and Constantine I must now moreover add those other particular Instances in such matter of fact which I promised of Princes Wherein if I be somewhat prolix in bringing not a few examples down along throughout almost all ages of Christianity from the days of Constantine the great and first Christian Emperour the profit will yours good Reader and the labour mine For you may cull out and pause on such as you find the most illustrious the rest you may read over cursority on pass by
vincti sumus Where you see a General Council and a Council truely General with their armes or hands wide spread bowing down humbling themselves touching as their phrase is the knees of the Emperour and beseeching him to set free to them out of prison the Patriarchal Praesident of their whole Council And you may see them in some passages going before complaine indeed but with all modesty to the Emperour that his Majesty was deceaved by sinister information But that he oppress'd or infring'd Ecclesiastical Immunity they neither complaine of there nor elsewhere so farr were they from any thoughts of proceeding to excommunications Interdicts or monitories or minatories of either and consequently so farr from the practise of some later Ages The same Theodosius and by the Ministers of his Pretorian Presect exiled Nestorius Patriarch of Constantinople who was by the said great Ephesme Council condemned of heresie as may be read in the Acts of that Council And truly Cyril of Alexandria epist 6. writing to Iuvenal Bishop of Ierusalem advises that the extermination of Nestorius should be desired and expected from this Emperour only and from his subordinate civil Magistrates Necessarium autem erit sayes he ut Christi amanti ac religiosissimo Regi universis Magistratibus scribamus consulamusque ne pietati in Christum hominem praeponant sed largiatur orbi rectae fidei firmitudinem ac greges Domini à malo pastore liberent nisi universorum consiliis obtemperaverit Pursuant to which desire this very Theodosius afflicted most grievously several other Bishops for being only suspected of Nestorianism Amongst whom let Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus albeit in himself otherwise a very true and sure Catholick tell how the Emperour punish'd him upon suspicion only let us observe whether he complain that a Laick should take cognizance of judge and sentence and confine a Bishop or whether only be complain of the injustice of the proceeding against him as having no crime at all whereof he was convicted or which he had confessed or that was objected to him at least upon any kind of even but a probable ground Cum enim sayes he himself Theodoretus epist 81. apud Paron tom 6. an 440. num 11. ad Nomum consulem semel iterum scripserim litteras nondum accepi Imperatoris decreto Cyrenssum regionis terminos praeterire prohibeor Nulla vero alia causa hujus damnationis videtur praeterquam quod Synodos Episcoporum congrego licet neque accusatio ostenderetur neque actor appareret neque reus convictus decretum tamen editum fuit c. And then adducing the example of Festus with Paul Act. 25. he adds Et haec quidem dicebat homo qui Christo non credebat sed idolorum erroribus serviebat Ego vero neque interrogatus An Synodes congregem nec ne quorum causa congregem quid mali afferam vel rebus Ecclesiae vel publicis ac si in maximis deliquissem ab aliis arceor civitatibus Quin immo aliis quidem omnibus omnis aperta est civitas non solum Arrii Evnâ—mii sectateribus sed Marcionistis illis qui Valentini Montani morbo laborant nec non Ethnicis Iudaeis Ego vero qui pro dogmatibus Evangelicis pugno ab omni excluder civitate Moreover it was Theodosius commanded Irenaeus Bishop of Tyrus to be not only deposed from his Episcopal See but also degraded of Sacerdotal Order as was actually done in obedience to his command Acta Concil Ephes edit Pelt tom 5. c. 29. And further yet it was this Emperour Theodosius that notwithstanding the foresaid great General Synod of Ephesus deposed the before mentioned Iohn from his Patriarchal See of Antioch as appears in the Acts by his own imperial authority interceded and hindered the execution of that sentence nay commanded it should not be executed and who also by his own self same and onely imperial authority though for a very just end or least otherwise great troubles should arise licenced the said Iohn to return to his former See of Antioch And finally it was this Emperour Theodosius that called both Iohn and Cyril to himself to Nicomedia and forced them to agree among themselves and Iohn also to agree with the Catholick Church wherever by renouncing Nostorius Martianus a no less Catholick Emperour even he who together with Pulcheria the good Empress convoked the fourth General Council or that great one indeed of Chalâ—dâ—n this very Martianus I say was he that by his own Imperial authority removed from the Patriarch of Antioch the cause of â—â—as and brought it to his own cognizance and this too at the Instance of the Priests of the Diocess of Edessa Subjects to and accusers of the said Ibas their own Bishop and because they alleadged that the Patriarch of Antioch to whom the cognizance of their accusation against Ibas immediatly belong'd in the Church was suspected of partiality and committed it to other Bishops to be judg'd by them joyning also to these other Bishops for an assistent Damasium Tribunum Nâ—tarium a meer lay officer Concil Chalced. Act. 9. But that which herein or in this cause of Ibas and in this Imperial cognizance and commission of it is more notable yet is that the complaint of the said Priests his accusers was purely Ecclesiastical as wholly concerning an excommunication which he had pronounced against them But I have elsewhere noted that the Prince hath an external superintendence over and power of the external regiment of even meer Church affairs especially in two cases viz. 1. when manifest injustice is committed or innocency oppressed or whether it be so or no in rei veritate when complaints are made to the Prince that matters are so carried in the Church or by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governours of it 2. when he sees that by the carriage however this be of Churchmen or of the spiritual superiours of other Churchmen or laymen the publick peace or tranquillity of either Church or State politick is any way disturbed or hazarded or that any other publick spiritual or even temporal good which implyes no sin is hindered Pursuant to which it was also that Leo Magnus Primus the first and great Pope of that name writ to an other Leo the Emperour and writ in his 81. epist to coerce the Clerks of the Constantinopolitan Church as favourers of hereticks In quibus sayes this holy Pope deturbandis si frater meus Anatolius cum nimis benigne parcit segnior invenitur dignamini prâ—fide vestra etiam istam Ecclesiae praestare medicinam ut tales non solùm ab craine Clericatus sed etiam ab urbis habitatione pellantur Where this Pope desires the Emperour to exercise his own Imperial power not delegats any Ecclesiastical to him though he desires the Emperour not onely to banish those Clerks from the City but also to have them degraded from their order And pursuant to the same
such other excellent Casuists for the lawfulness of murthering or assassinating not only your declared known enemy or inveterate or even any way profess'd or not profess'd Adversary but also any other even your own Consort or Companion that either affronts you never so little or but reveals nay or but threatens to reveal hereafter nay also or but whom you only suspect or fear may reveal although only out of lightness or vanity and not out of any malice to you some or any one even true imperfection or fault or fact of yours which being known may either defame or lessen or hinder you or your Society Order or Colledge from that power authority dignity esteem or advantages and emoluments you or they aspire unto provided only that you conceive the death of such a person to be necessary or behoveful either for the recovery or preservation of your name fame or of that which is or is called your worldly honour credit or esteem or even but your utility or profit temporary and earthly Finally you shall see the said most Reverend Prelate proving effectually by his carriage towards those Remonstrants for three or four years past That notwithstanding his formal Ejection or Dismiss out of the Society and he knows for what and knows moreover that I am not ignorant nor have been since 1659. either of that very true cause or of the very great person that procured his said Ejection yet he hath continued still a pragmatical constant close Disciple in the worst of Maxims to those very worst of Moralists Equivocatists Probablists Academists Scepticks nay and Assassins too retaining so whatsoever evil could be learn'd of them but relinquishing all that was good or just the more Christian precepts and practices he might have seen in some others even Writers of that very Society which threw him out Whether it was therefore that when he was created Archbishop by the Pope some Three years since his then Father General Oliva did complement him so high in a Letter which I my self have read from Rome promising himself and his Society in Ireland c. I know not what even certainly all that was great and wonderful now that he the foresaid Prelate was made Archbishop of the Head City or Metropolis of that Kingdom I am sure it argued what otherwise I my self did and could not but observe 1. That notwithstanding his ejection by the Fathers of purpose that they might please or rather not too much and too openly displease him whose affairs and hopes he the very same Prelate or person though not then a Prelate endeavoured to betray and utterly ruine Anno 1659. and by whose application therefore to the General of the Order his ejection was urged home yet the same General and ruling Cabal of that Society understood him and he them very well all along both before and after his ejection or dismiss given to him And how therefore and notwithstanding it and continually after it he observed a no less intimate correspondence with them and promoted their interests no less wheresoever he might than he had before 2. That in a very special and particular manner he did so by undermining covertly in all occasions and opposing also publickly in some all he could the Subscription of the Remonstrance As if indeed by that Formulary or advance of it his whole Ignatian Order's Reputation in these Kingdoms lay at stake His Letter out of England ann 1666. to Father Barton the English Jesuit then in Ireland persuading him to hinder all he could the National Congregation from Subscribing the Remonstrance may testifie this abundantly Which Letter the said Barton shewed and read then to my self Or if he had seriously considered what was most certainly true how well nigh a whole Century of years albeit more especially since the Powder-plot Treason and Oath of Allegiance made by King James the Professors of that Society of the Ignatian Order have labour'd so mightily both by word deed and writing to impose on the World and above all other parts or people of it upon His MAJESTIES of Great Britains Roman-Catholick Subjects That the power or authority and the doctrine or positions renounc'd disclaimed and abjured by the Oath of Allegiance made by King James and consequently as Internuncio de Vecchiis sayes those also protested against by that our late Remonstrance are positive and affirmative points of the Christian Religion And that all sincere Catholicks ought rather to suffer not only loss of goods and liberty but of life also even death it self than take any Oath declaring against such matters And moreover That such a death questionless should would and ought to be reputed Christian Martyrdom in a proper and strict sense of these words and consequently also reputed that very Baptism of blood which of its own nature without any Sacrament not only washes away clean all kind of sins both as to guilt and even temporary punishment but further purchaseth that extraordinary even accidental glorious Garland in Heaven which the Divines call Aureola Martyrii 3. That his foresaid promotion whether Legal or Illegal or whether as much as Canonical or Uncanonical nay whether absolutely void invalid or null by the Canons of the Universal Church I question not here was upon such and the like consequential accounts further'd in an high measure by the above General Oliva and other Jesuits of the Cabal as a matter conducing mightily to their interest the principles and genius of the man and consequently that he was the fittest instrument they could pitch upon being considered And certainly whoever knows that Societies power in the Court of Rome and how ignominious a punishment note and blot Ejection out of any Religious Order is or is esteem'd to be when it is after so many years profession and continuance in such Order and is moreover pretended to be for criminal causes and withall how when there is no intrigue in the matter there must also by consequence be or certainly and commonly is rather some extraordinary hatred or at least a very great strangeness and distance 'twixt the Ejectors and Ejected than any kindness and besides without peradventure how easie it is for the General or even Procurator of any Order at Rome to obstruct the like promotion of any that hath ever at any time before professed their Institute and after deserted it whereas if the Canons of the Church or even those of the Tridentin Council nay or the very Papal constitutions and ordinary practice of scrutiny at Rome it self de vita moribus and other qualities of such Episcopal candidates be observed or not rather wilfully and extraordinarily omitted a very small Objection made by men of Authority will serve to that end but much more questionless the infamous note of having been ejected for criminal matters who ever I say considers all this will certainly out of the above Letter of Oliva infer That the foresaid late promotion was on those very same or like consequential
all ignorance malice and other preoccupation whatsoever nay and from their subscription too the Fathers will find it a very hard taske to shew I say not impertinency for this I am sure they can not after what is said before with any colour insist on any longer but any such danger in the consequence of this Proposition It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council or of this simply The Pope is not above a general Council or of this other as simple which yet is the same in effect A general Council is above the Pope That such Divines of either Greek or Latin Church either Catholick or not as affirm the Papacie or Papal authority as such or as allowed either by those Canons which in opposition to others or by way of excellency are commonly stiled Canones Vniversalis Ecclesiae or as approved even by those other Canons which are properly and onely Papal Canons and are those of the western-Western-Church whether all or how many of them received generally in the western-Western-Church or not it matters not at this time that such Divines I say of either Church Greek or Latin as affirm this Papal authority over all other Churches in the world to be onely at the utmost and immediatly such by ecclesiastical and human institution of the Church not by any of Christ otherwise then by his approbation and ratification above in Heaven of what the Church long after his Ascension had here on earth ordained will find no kind of difficulty to shew the inconsequence of the Parliament's being above the King if a general Council be above the Pope First Because the power of a general Council truely such representing the Catholick diffusive Church is by all sides confessed to be originally and immediatly de jure divino or by the immediat institution of Iesus Christ himself whether in that passage of the Gospel dic Ecclesiae or in some other Secondly Because this power is unalterable undiminishable unsubjectable even by the Council it self to any other without a new revealed command from God himself which hath not been hitherto And therefore and out of that very passage of Mathew Dic Ecclesiae must be above the Pope being the Pope can not deny himself to be one of the faithful brethren and being all faithful brethren without exception of any are commanded by Christ himself in that passage of Mathew to be under pain of Excommunication obedient to the sentence of the Church in case they be accused or charged with any guilt before it Thirdly Because on the other side the power of Parliaments is by them not onely denied to be originally or immediatly either jure divino or humano over all persons whatsoever of the respective hereditary Kingdoms if we include the Prince amongst such persons but as such denied also to have been as much as in after times introduced by any allowance or Custom approved either by God or man Prince or people themselves Fourthly Because the very same divines assert constantly the power of supream or soveraign temporal Princes or Kings at least hereditary such as our King is and of which consequently the present dispute is to be jure divino or to be given them from God himself immediatly not from or by the people Or if these divines or any of them allow it has been originally and immediatly from the people at first even as from an efficient cause yet withal maintain that the people also did originally and immediatly so transferr the whole supream power from themselves even in all contingencies whatsoever that it must be ever after irrevocable by them Alleaging for proof that the Scriptures are so clear for the Subjection and obedience of the people even to had tyrannical Kings and not for fear alone but for conscience And further alleaging that there is no tribunal of the people and consequently there is no Parliament appointed by the law of God as neither by the laws of man or nature not even in the most extraordinary cases against their Prince or against any other offending besides that erected by the Princes power Whereunto certainly he never subjects himself so as to give the people or Parliament a supream power above his ownself or a power of superiority or jurisdiction over himself and coercion of himself though he some times bind himself and limit in some cases his own power but by his own power and will alone not by any inherent in the people And who sees not in this doctrine the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of this argument The Pope is not above a general Council Therefore the King is 〈◊〉 above his Parliament Or therefore whoever subscribes that antecedent gives an overture to those late horrid disputes Would not these divines rationally say upon their own grounds this were not to argue à simili but à dissimili Would not they tell you presently what the six hundred Catholick Bishops convened in the 4th general Council that of Calcedon I mean declared in their 27th Canon albeit some great and even holy Bishops of Rome complained of it grieviously that it was the Fathers that gave the priviledges to the Bishop of ancient Rome and that it was therefore they gave such priviledges to him because ancient Rome was then the Seat of the Empire That by consequence the Papacie and power thereof as such must be acknowledged to be as instituted by the Church onely at first so till the last to be dependent subordinate and under the power of the same Church because this power of the Church is for ever unchangeable while the world continues as having been given to it by Christ himself when upon earth And therefore the Pope cannot be above but under a general Council being it is either of all sides confessed the whole power of the Church is in a general Council truely such of it must be so at least in their grounds whether any els confess or oppose it And would not they further tell you the case is quite contrary in that of King and Parliament That first there is no such thing by divine immediate institution or by that of Christ or God immediatly as a Parliament or a power thereof That neither by the mediat institution of God that is by the laws of man there is any such thing or power at least in hereditary Kingdoms which may stand in opposition to the power of Kings Nor any at all in or without such opposition but what they derive originally immediatly and solely from the pleasure of Kings at least and as I mean still in hereditary Kingdoms That secondly or in the next place the power of Kings at least hereditary Soveraign and Supream is immediatly originally and onely from God himself Or if at first any way from the people yet so from them that after their institution translation and submission hoc ipso they must be so absolute and independent that they do not acknowledge nor any way have
dangerous consequence or overture of such horrid disputes cannot follow the subscription of this fifth For to make good this consecution or to prove those consequents to follow the only medium must be this other proposition The Parliament or people in such an Hereditary Kingdom have the same power respectively in temporals over all persons even that of the Prince himself and even to deprivation or deposition too which the universal Church or general Council hath in spirituals over all faithful brethren amongst whom the Pope must be Which proposition doubtless the congregation might see if they pleased that neither Bellarmine nor Suarez nor any other Divine of their way ever yet evicted or sufficiently proved And from those Divines of either of both the other wayes there could be no reason to expect a proof thereof since those made it their work to disprove it by laying quite contrary principles which they abundantly evidence as I also my self have in my little Book on the Remonstrance of 61. Where I have by two clear Demonstrations More ample Account pag. 67 c one a priâ—ri and the other â posteriori and by Scriptures and Fathers and practice of the primitive Church by answers also to all material objections proved the Soveraignty or as Bodin speaks the Majesty to be in the Prince in all cases not in the Parliament or people not even in any extraordinary case or contingency whatsoever speaking at least as I do here of Hereditary Kingdoms So that the Fathers of the congregation would have dealed more ingenuously if they had omitted the second reason and in lieu thereof only said they conceived it their interest or it was their pleasure to adhere to Bellarmines doctrine as to this point rather then follow the example of Sorbon or doctrine of the Gallican and other national Churches or even that in those two General Councils above rehearsed And yet I confess they would have said this inconsequently withal forasmuch as they had already relinquished Bellarmine in the three former propositions if understood without vain distinctions and yet had not such clear authorities of General Councils therein for themselves albeit they had enough besides Scripture and Reason the Faculty of Sorbon directly on those very controverted points And further they would have said it against the chief purpose which must have been Sorbons and should be theirs to obstruct those other indeed no less certain evident natural then bad sad and dismal consequences of the Popes being asserted to be above General Councils I am come at last to their two last last paragraphs Which I give together because they are of one subject the sixth and last also of those propositions of Sorbon You have it above rendred in English by the Congregation and in these words That it is not the doctrine or dogme of the Faculty that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible Why the said congregation would not subscribe this proposition mutatis mutandis or taking it thus It is not our doctrine c. they give their reasons such as they are in these two paragraphs here following in their own words The sixth regards the Popes infallibility in matters of Faith whether the Pope not as a private Doctor but with an especial congregation of Doctors Prelats and Divines deputed can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie The Iansenists already condemned of Heresie by three Popes and all the Bishops of France to vindicate themselves from the censure contest the first way they write in their own defence and many more against them on which subject is debated the questio facti whether the propositions condemned as Herefie by the Pope be in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in his book or no as may appear by such as we can produce if necessary The Vniversities of France say That it is not their doctrine that the Pope c. Whether this touched our scope or no we leave it to all prudent men to judge If they think it doth let them know that we should not hold the Popes Infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience we owe our Prince if they speak of any other infallibility as matter of Religion and Faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign so we are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question in a Country where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under-hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Country Where I observe the sum of what they would say after mistating the question and after so many disguises and windings to be that this sixth Proposition is impertinent odious unprofitable unfit to be disputed in this Country relates to Jansenisme is suspected to be under-hand furthered by some of that way and finally tends to the disturbance of both King and Country And therefore they thought it fit not to subscribe to it But the contriver of these reasons will now give me leave to clear this fogg which as Sorcerers use to do he hath raised before the eyes of the Reader Whom therefore I must tell That Father N. N. hath first mis-stated the question That the question was not is not whether the Pope either as a private Doctor or as a publick of the whole Church or which is the same thing as Pope either without or with a special congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie Or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie But the qustion was and is whether the Pope even as such or even as the publick Master Doctor Director and Superiour in spiritual matters of all the faithful and even as joyntly taken with or sitting in such a special Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can so decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie that without the joynt consent or concurrence antecedent concommitant or subsequent of the universal Church at least in its Representative a General Council such decision definition censure or condemnation must be in it self infallibly true or must be as such only without any kind of even internal contradiction opposition or doubt received and believed by all the faithful or accounted infallibly true or de fide divina Catholica of divine and Catholick faith and I say accounted such or of Divine Catholick Faith hoc ipso that the Pope hath defined it so That no Catholick Writer hath ever yet questioned or denied a power and lawful authority in or to even a particular Bishop much less in or to a
the Tridentine Fathers but also quite contrary to those Doctrines and Practises which are manifestly recommended in the letter sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ in the writings of his blessed Apostles in the Commentaries of their holy Successors in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature it self whether Christianity be supposed or not IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary Doctrines in the most general terms without descending to particular applications of them to any one Kingdom or People c the grand Positions are as followeth viz. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ the Bishop of Rome is Vniversal Monarch and Governour of the World even with sovereign independent both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches Nations Empires Kingdoms States Principalities and over all persons Emperours Kings Princes Prelates Governours Priests and People both Orthodox and Heterodox Christian and Infidel and in all things and causes whatsoever as well Temporal and Civil as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual That He hath the absolute power of both Swords given Him That He is the Fountain of all Jurisdiction of either kind on Earth and that whoever derives not from Him hath none at all not even any the least Civil or Temporal Jurisdiction That He is the onely Supreme Judge of all Persons and Powers even collectively taken and in all manner of things divine and humane That all humane Creatures are bound under forfeiture of Eternal Salvation to be subject to Him i. e. to both His Swords That He is empowred with lawful Authority not only to Excommunicate but to deprive depose and dethrone both sententially and effectually all Princes Kings and Emperours to translate their Royal Rights and dispose of their Kingdoms to others when and how He shall think fit especially in case either of Apostasie or Heresie or Schism or breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or any publick oppression of the Church or People in their respective civil or religious Rights or even in case of any other enormous publick Sins nay in case of only unfitness to govern That to this purpose He hath full Authority and Plenitude of Apostolical Power to dispense with Subjects in and absolve them from all Oaths of Allegiance and from the antecedent tyes also of the Laws of God or man and to set them at full liberty nay to command them under Excommunication and what other Penalties He please to raise Arms against their so deposed or so excommunicated or otherwise ill-meriting Princes and to pursue them with Fire and Sword to death if they resist or continue their administration or their claim thereunto against His will That He hath likewise power to dispense not only in all Vows whatsoever made either immediately or mediately to God himself nor only as hath been now said in the Oath of Allegiance sworn to the King but in all other Oaths or Promises under Oath made even to any other man whatsoever the subject or thing sworn be That besides Oaths and Vows He can dispense in other matters also even against the Apostles against the Old Testament against the Four Evangelists and consequently against the Law of God That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him or by others deriving power from Him kills not a lawful Prince but an usurping Tyrant a Tyrant at least by Title if not by Administration too and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God or even to kill his own Prince That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman-Church ventures himself and dyes in a War against such a Tyrant i.e. against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince dyes a true Martyr of Christ and his Soul flies to Heaven immediately That His Holiness may give and doth well to give plenary Indulgence of all their sins a culpa poena to all Subjects rebelling and fighting against their Princes when He approves of the War That antecedently to any special Judgment Declaration or declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope or any other subordinate Judge against any particular person Heresie does ipso jure both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown and all other not only royal but real and personal Rights whatsoever That an Heretick possessor is a manifest Vsurper and a Tyrant also if the possession be a Kingdom State or Principality and therefore is ipso jure out-law'd and that all his People i. e. all his otherwise reputed Vassals Tenants or Subjects are likewise ipso jure absolved from all Oaths and all other tyes whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him That he is truly and certainly and properly an Heretick who misbelieves calls in question or even doubts of any one definition of the Tridentine Council or of any one that is of meer Papal Constitution or of any one of those Articles profess'd in Pius Quartus 's Creed That not only the Pope but any Patriarch nay any inferiour Bishop acknowledging His Holiness may if need be both excommunicate and depose their own respective Princes Kings or Emperours and may also without their leave or knowledge reverse the Decrees of their Vice-Roys or Lieutenants and even censure depose from and restore again such Lieutenants to their former dignity and charge That all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever both Men and Women Secular and Regular Patriarchs Primaâ—s Archbishops Bishops Abbots Abbesses Priests Fryars Monks Nuâ—s to the very Porter or Portress of a Cloyster inclusively nay to the very Scullion of the Kitchin and all their Churches Houses Lands Revenues Goods and much more all their persons are exempt by the Law of Nature and Laws of Nations and those of God in Holy Scripture both Old and New Testament and those of men i. e. of Christian Emperours Councils and Popes in their respective Institutions and Canons and are indeed universally perpetually and irrevocably so exempt from all secular civil and temporal Authority on Earth whether of States or of Princes of Kings or of Emperours and from all their Laws and all their Commands that is from both the directive and coercive virtue of either or which is the same thing in effect from sin against God and from punishment by God or man for only transgressing them That consequently if any Church-man should murder his lawful and rightful King blow up the Parliament fire burn and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore guilty of Treason or truly called a Traytor against the King or against the Kingdom or People or Laws thereof no nor could justly be punish'd at all by the secular Magistrate or Laws of the Land without special permission from the Pope or those deriving Authority from Him That nevertheless all Clergy-men regular and secular in the World from the meanest either Accolits or Converts to the highest Generals of Orders and greatest Patriarchs of Nations inclusively may be out of all Kingdoms and even contrary to
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
immediately before the foresaid Mauritius Aemulator sayes that Roman Pontiff (b) Agatio was chosen Pope or rather Bishop of Rome an 678. Agatho verae Apostolicae fidei piae memoriae Augustus Justinianus cujus fidei rectitudo quantum pro sincera confessione Deo placuit tantum Rempublicam Christianam exaltavit Et ubique ab omnibus gentibus ejus religiosa memoria veneratione digna censetur cujus fidei rectitudo per augustissima ejus Edicta in toto orbe diffusa laudatur Would Agatho have said so of an Heretick * To Agatho I might add Gregory II. in several Epistles nay and a far greater Authority too viz. the Fathers of the Sixth Oecumanical Sâ—nod besides many others after them See Baâ—â—â—s himself and his Epitomizer Spâ—â—danus confessing so much ad an 565. 3. That if the Truth were known it would be found that Baronius and the rest following him were willing to make use of any malicious ungrounded Fictions whatsoever against Justinian not that they believed him to have either lived at any time or dyed at last in any wilful or imputable Errour or in any at all otherwise than St. Cyprian of Carthage did but that his Laws in Ecclesiastical matters even those of Faith are a perpetual eye-sore to them because these Laws are a Precedent to all other good Princes to govern their own respective Churches in the like manner without any regard of Bulla Coenae or of so many other vain Allegations of those men that would make the World believe it unlawful for Secular Princes to make Ecclesiastical Laws by their own sole Authority for the government of the Church and all orders and degrees of Church men under them even to the very Patriarchs inclusively as Justinian did and you may see in his very many Constitutions to that purpose he did X. Although I do ingenuously confess I had on the Subject of Ecclesiastical either Exemption or Subjection very much light and help from those excellent Authors that writ before me so well on that Subject I mean both the Barclayes the Father and Son yet the learned Reader may see I have been very far from borrowing all from them or any other who treated before or after on Ecclesiastical Immunity Wherever I make use of them I have commonly added everywhere i. e. in every Section to their Answers Animadversions and Proofs my own both reasoning and reading elsewhere I have also raised against my self the strongest Objections I could imagine which they had not nor consequently the Solutions Nay Canons also viz. those Paâ—al ones which the Barclayes do not mention I have both objected and answered at large because I observed our later Casuists or Moralists Azorius and Bonacina c or chiefly or onely or at least partly to quote them though they do no more but barely quote the Chapters not the words or Text for their false Positions about Ecclesiastical Immunity as you may see in my whole LXXI Section from pag. 230. to pag. 241. Besides the whole Affirmative or Positive way against Bellarmine and his Disciples the Louain Divines in five intire long Sections from pag. 243 to pag. 374 where I assume the person of the Opponent to prove the Subjection of all Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate and prove it by Scripture Tradition Fathers Councils and as well by Ecclesiastical yea very Papal Canons as Imperial Constitutions and by Practice also and Reason is wholly from other Collections of my own neither of both the Barclayes nor Withrington nor any other seen by me having so much proceeded in this Affirmative or Positive way but mostly in that which I call Negative as it which hath for principal scope to deny and solve the Arguments of Bellarmine c. XI As for the two grand Objections framed by me against my self the one from the condemnation of Marsilius de Padua and Joan. de Janduno the other from the Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury or rather for my Answers and long material Discourses Sect. LXXVI from pag. 374 to pag. 436. nay to 462. upon and by occasion of each or either of the said two Objections I must no less ingenuously acknowledge that I was necessitated to be my self alone my own guide all along without either light or help from any Authour that handled either Subject For I never saw nor heard of any such Authour Which was the reason that I took more than ordinary pains to clear whatsoever might be alledged or pretended from either that Condemnation or this Martyrdom against the soundness of that Doctrine which maintains the Subjection of all Clergy-men whatsoever to the Supreme Temporal both directive and coercive authority even of meer Lay-Princes and States but more especially to clear the whole Intrigue of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry II and the Cause for which he suffered and to shew it was no Divine right nor even other Humane save only that of the Civil Secular and Municipal Saxon Danish and Norman Laws of England which he grounded himself on when he refused to deliver at the Kings pleasure the Criminal Clerks to be punish'd or judg'd by the Secular Judges and Officers XII The veneration I have as I am bound to the Roman-Catholick Church or that Communion in general wheresoever diffused throughout the World and my knowledge of their having in all their Calendars on the 29th of December the Festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury made me the First also that for any thing I know ventures in a singular and long Discourse by way of Appendix after my four several Answers given to the grand Objection against c. from the Martyrdom of that holy Bishop of set purpose to vindicate him from having been a Traytor to the King whether or no he was a Martyr in the Church through the merits of his Cause and according to the more proper and stricter Ecclesiastical sense of the word Martyr Three hundred years indeed after his death he was under Henry VIII in a very unusual manner both judicially summon'd to appear and formally condemn'd for a Traytor Then which judgment if woâ—â— grounded nothing can be more prejudicial to the practice of all Roman-Catholicks in the World in keeping his Festivity and honouring his Memory and begging his intercession for them to our Lord and Saviour Christ That it hath been in-grounded I do my devoir to shew and prove from pag. 439 to pag. 462. where I answer first all that hath been or could be alledged against him and then produce eight several Arguments even very strong Presumptions both in Law and Reason for him I mean as to this controverted Point Whether he could be justly said to have either dyed or even at any time lived or been a Traytor against the King People or Laws of England XIII Where I seem pag. 438. somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker the First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth you must not persuade your self I do at all
that they might be free from all tyes of Duty Faith Obedience and Acknowledgment or Recognition of His Majesties Authority over them c. 1. This general Exception proved manifoldly viz. 1. By four several Instances of such Variation 2. By two notable Observations added to those Instances 3. By examining all and every of the several parts periods or clauses of their said Remonstrance and what their meaning in each must be and consequently by discovering all their subtlety of Ampliations Restrictions Abstractions Constractions Modifications Equivocations Reservations in fine all their Evasions and Subterfuges yea their beloved distinctions as well of Fact and Right as of the reduplicative and specificative sense 4. By Eighteen special Exceptions All from pag. 1. to 20 or last of this Second Treatise First special Instance of such variation and most material change 2. Second special Instance thereof 3. Third special Instance 13. Fourth and last Instance 14. These Instances back'd with two notable Observations more First Observation 16. Second Observation 17. One passage of their Remonstrance examined 2 3 5. Another 4. Two more 6. A Fifth 7. Sixth passage 8. Seventh 9. Their Conclusion 10. And after all the very beginning of their Remonstrance however it be in these words We Your Majesties Subjects the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland together assembled do hereby declare and solemnly protest before God and his Holy Angels That we own and acknowledge Your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supreme Lord and undoubted Sovereign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other His Majesties Dominions This very specious beginning and these very words I say as proceeding from the said National Congregation and as relating to all as well the Clauses inserted after as those purposely omitted is and are evidently proved to signifie a meer nothing 10 11. Eighteen special Exceptions against the said Remonstrance of the National Congregation 18 19 20. In the Third Treatise Which considers the Three first Sorbon Propositions as applied and published by the Dublin Congregation THere can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational Subscribers from their Subscriptions to the said three Propositions added to their Remonstrance than was before intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according to or in that sense of theirs declared and proved to be theirs in the former Treatise Pag. 21. The unreasonable obstinacy of the Congregation as well in framing their said Remonstrance as in applying their said three Propositions both manifestly and manifoldly appears 23. First and second Argument to prove this ib. Third Argument which is ab intrinseco 24. The said three Sorbon Propositions applied c. 25. Four several Explications of the first of those three Sorbon Propositions and all those Explications own'd by the chief Divines of that Congregation ib. First Exposition 25. Second and Third 26. The Fourth and last 29. Expositions questionless even each or every of them able to â—â—ict from any man this confession that for neither of both parâ—s or both together the first Proposition adds nothing at all to their Remonstrance Pag. 30. Their second Proposition lyable to the same Exceptions Abstractions Reservations Equivocations and even Distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense ib. Their third Proposition also how specious soever yet as from them is wholly insignificant as being subject especially to the distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense of fact and of right of humane or temporal and divine or spiritual yea of ordinary and extraordinary c. 31. Third Argument in form 30. Proofs that the three Sorbon Propositions both in themselves and as applyed by the foresaid Congregation are lyable rationally to such Constructions 33. Fourth and Fifth Argument 34. An Evasion obviated 35. The Parisian Censure of Sanctarellus at length 35 36. Confirm'd by the seven other Vniversities of France 38. In the Fourth Treatise Containing Answers to the Reasons why the Congregation would not Sign any of the three latter of the Six Sorbon Declarations c. THeir Title might not ungroundedly be turn'd to this other The Jesuits Reasons unreasonable Pag. 39. The three rejected Propositions or Declarations 40. The first Paragraph of their Paper of Reasons c. contains the first or rather onely general Reason alledg'd by the Congregation for rejecting them ib. That general Reason is in effect either the Impertinency of all and each of the said Fourth Fifth and Sixth of the Six late Sorbon Declarations to assure His Majesty of Great Britain of the future Allegiance of the Irish or is the insignificancy of the same three later Propositions to assure Him any more or better of the Irish Clergies Fidelity than His Majesty might have been by their two former Instruments viz. their Remonstrance and their three first of the said six Sorbon Propositions ib. The end which the Author hath in answering as well that first or rather onely indeed but no less false than general Reason as all the rest following I confess pretended but in truth likewise very false specifical Reasons or rather pretended specifical Proofs of the foresaid general one viz. by Induction of particulars ib. The second Paragraph of their Paper i. e. the first of their specifical Reasons or Proofs viz. That they look'd upon the Fourth Proposition of Sorbon as not material in their debate For c answer'd by demonstrating the contrary as to every point of their Allegations 41 42 43 44. Particularly their speaking these words We conceive not c. in their general Reason and in their said first specifical these other words We look'd upon it c. so much in truth against their own certain knowledge and therefore Conscience answered 40 41. And their horned Argument or Dilemma answer'd 42. And their saying that they conceive not what more they might have said thaâ— hath been touch't already positively in their Remonstrance answer'd 43. They might in terminis applying the said Fourth to themselves have said That we do not approve nor ever shall any Propositions contrary unto our Kings Authority or true Liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom for example That the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons 41. And more at large discoursed upon Pag. 43. And their saying That they admit not any Power derogatory to His Majesties Authority answered 44 45. Third Paragraph of their Paper containing their next two specifical Reasons or Proofs and Arguments for their general one and for what particularly I mean concerns the Fifth Sorbon Declaration viz. their alledging first That whether the Pope or a General Council be above or not above c. is a School Question of Divinity which they thought not material to their affairs to talk of secondly That they conceive it not only impertinent but dangerous c. in the consequence to deny the Pope to be above a General Council for then it would follow that they must
sinful obedience to the will of others Because the Procurator had out of a particular regard of such honest men of their Society in Ireland as joyn'd with him formerly in the differences with the Nuntio and out of an esteem and affection also for their Society in it self as considered in its primitive foundation institution and observance and in its labours for the training up of youth laying aside the latter prejudices brought upon it by those inconsiderat works of some though too many of their chief writers because I say the Procurator had for those reasons ventur'd so fairly and earnestly both in his More Ample Account and in his private discourses lately and earnestly with some persons of highest rank in both Kingdoms to vindicate as much as in him lay the Irish Jesuits though not every individual of them from those aspersions the generality of that Order lyes under amongst Protestants at least in England and from such aspersions indeed against their practises and against their principles or doctrine not of deposition only but of equivocation mental reservation and of the lawfulness of changing opinions resolutions and practices too at pleasure according to their other maximes of extrinsick probability and in all matters whatsoever and because he had done so much herein that whereas before those great persons had no inclination at all to receive any kind of declaration of Allegiance or faithfulness from men of such principles as the foresaid printed Authors argue in their opinions the Society in general to be yet he prevailed so far with them as not to involve the Fathers in Ireland in the same esteem with such others of the same Order in some other Countries as had so justly deserved their blame and censure 9. To that other excuse common to the three late Orders as well Capuchins and Carmelits as Jesuits the answer was That the Princes or States permission of or connivence with them should more be regarded then that either of Ordinaries or pre-existent Regulars or of the Court of Rome it self And this they could not expect in reason if they they appeared not zealous of His Majesties lawful rights and prerogatives in all temporal matters and for the peace and safety of his People and Kingdoms at least if they shewed themselves perverse and peevish against either or against so lawful and necessary a duty as is a bare naked Remonstrance or Declaration of their loyal principles and affections where and when so justly expected from them by and to assure His Majesty of their better carriage hereafter then Himself or his Father of glorious memory had found in the late wars of their Countrey And if by their cheerful hearty concurrence to such demonstrations of duty they merited a better opinion hereafter to be had of them by His Majesty and great Ministers of State and such as would really deserve protection they needed not fear the opposition of others whatsoever whiles they behaved themselves as men of discretion and their profession should 10. To that Bugbear which those of the Secular Clergy alledged to excuse themselves it was said That they very well knew it was a meer pretence That the Shoo did not really pinch them there That albeit the Regulars were numerous and of esteem yet not of so great or prevalent as in such a matter or any at all which had reason for it and for the Secular Clergy could any way bear them down even in case the Regulars did not concur with them That they were the Pastors and Leaders of the Flock by power command and law of the Church and their authority and jurisdiction established by the Canons from the very beginning That the Regulars had no such authoritative commanding power nor subjection due unto them from the people but was voluntary in the internal Court of Conscience in foro paenitentiali or only in the private auricular confessional seat That besides it had no kind of colour but their example would be immediatly followed by all Regulars by some freely and heartily who were otherwise themselves our of judgment and affection too so principled and so affected and only expected their authority to back them by others out of shame and fear to see by any further opposition themselves reduced to a streight of giving other reasons then such as they could not own or maintain and of discovering so the true cause rebellious principles and affections and consequently of seeing themselves houted at by all sober and good people even of their own religion and communion And as for the false aspersion and scandal raised against that Remonstrance amongst some of the Commons as if it signified in effect as much as the Oath of Supremacy it was themselves suffered that of meer purpose to go oâ— and they might with one single declaration as easily disabuse all pâ—ssessed therewith as it was raised without any ground That no Church-man even the most malicious would before any understanding man own the raising or forwarding of it however it was known that some few of them in private corners did whisper it to the illiterate as I could name a certain Prior of the Dominicans Order Father Michael Fullam to have done most unconscientiously that I may say no more though chiefly of purpose to excuse by such diabolical forgeries their own opposition when upbraided therewith by good honest wel-meaning people as some few others of them had the impudence and I could instance Father W. L. of the Society and Father D. D. of the Franciscans for a long time to say and aver too that the King as being a Protestant should not be prayed for at all by Catholicks either publickly or privatly though some few others also and somwhat more warily though erroneously enough too and against plain Scriptures both in the Old and new Testament and the continued practice of the primitive Church distinguish'd the manner of praying for him and a long time held and indoctrinated others that he should not be prayed for so as to desire the temporal safety of his Crown or Person victory over his enemies or any prosperous earthly success unto him at all but his conversion only and repentance in this life and salvation in the next without any further addition That as this heretical doctrine was soon and quite beaten down by the contrary practice of the whole Clergy both Secular and Regular which now we see and hear at all Chappels and Altars so that calumny and scandal would throughout the Kingdom cease in one fortnight if they pleased to declare it such as they are bound in conscience truth and honesty to do 11. As for the pick of some to the Procurator whom they falsely suppose to be the Author of the Remonstrance though had he been so he would rather glory therein then be ashamed thereof or of the Declaration of loyalty inserted in that Remonstrance if not peradventure for being any way or in part defective or not home enough in some things
which were it his draught it had not been albeit in the main dispute it be fully sufficient the answer waâ— That it became not Priests nor Christians nor even moral or rational honest men although neither Priests nor Christians to obstruct the common good out of private animosities much less to obstruct it to the prejudice of the Religion and Worship of God and obstruct all too by sinister wayes by calumnies and forgeries and a false pretence of Religion where there was nothing less then Religion intended but rather the quite contrary That in relation to his former actings in the controversies with the Nuntio if they had considered things rightly they would rather acknowledge admire with thankfulness adore the Providence of God which had inspired him then to do as he did and as became a good Patriot Subject religious Man Christian Priest and Catholick Divine to the end he might be after so many revolutions some way instrumental to save them again That they have found his endeavours even in forwarding that Remonstrance and in many other Instances very useful and very advantagious and profitable too for all both Catholick People and Clergy of Ireland And therefore he might in some measure and sense though with infinit disproportion answer such of them as traduce or maligne him as Christ did the Jews when at the instigation of some both of the envious Priests and wicked Scribes and Pharisees too that religious but hypocritical Sect of those ancient people of God the multitude taking stones to throw at their Saviour of purpose to kill him he told and demanded of them as the Gospel relates multa opera bona ostendi vobis Ioh. â— 32. c. propter quod eorum opus lapidatis me That for his exposition of the said Remonstrance in his More Ample Account if it did not convince them as he believed it did or whether it did or no yet were not they desired to subscribe it nor was it ever intended by him or any other they or any else should either subscribe or approve otherwise of it but as they pleased to read or lay it by That he alone was to answer for that Book if there was any thing amiss in it And from them no more was expected but to sign the Remonstrance in it self barely considered according to the true obvious and sincere meaning of all the several passages And if they taking it so could otherwise rationally expound it than the Procurator did in his said little book themselves were to satisfie their own consciences in that behalf and leave his book to stand or fall to the Authors cost or profit That however he found it a tye of duty on himself for many respects and particularly for that of acting by special Commission for the Catholicks both Clergy and Lay-people of Ireland and to obtain for them some liberty ease or connivence in the exercise of Catholick Religion To let them know they could not by other expositions answer or arrive at the ends of that exposition nor shew themselves to be truly sincerely loyal or faithful to the King in those contingencies wherein their allegiance might be for their former actions prudently suspected 12. And for the general objection of all their allegation of the laws still in force c. they were desired to consider 1. How happy they would have thought themselves immediatly before the Kings Restauration and for so many other foregoing sad years under usurping Tyrants if they had found a suspension only of those laws and that connivence at the exercise of their Religion they now enjoyed under His most Sacred Majesty and ever since or immediatly after the Remonstrance presented in their names or behalf to Him That they had far more assurance than they yet deserved being they demurr'd so long on professing under their hands a dutiful subjection and no other certainly than without any such profession they were bound to by all the laws of God under pain of Hell or Damnation and by all the laws of the Land under the severest punishments of Treason That they were not to expect capitulations from the King for their being Subjects but neverthess had cause enough to see if they were not wilfully blind He was and would be to them all a good merciful gracious compassionat and indulgent King blotting all their former iniquities or those of so many of them as had been unjust to Him and his Father and Lieutenant and other protestant People quite out of His remembrance evermore if they did shew themselves true penitents and converts and sincere performers of their duty hereafter That they were no indifferent no competent Judges of those Articles they pleaded whether they were broken or no by the King or his Ministers or if broke in any part or to any person whether such breach was lawful and necessary or no in the present conjuncture of affairs after so great a change or alteration of the case That reason might tell them considering the condition of their Country and Inhabitants thereof which requires other laws and other proceedings and another kind of use of laws at least in matter of Religion than England does at present they could have no ground to fear any forcing of them to other Countreys for want of protection at home if and whiles they demeaned themselves peaceably provided they gave generally and cheerfully that assurance expected from them of such peaceable demeanour hereafter That in case of the very worst imaginable of evils the comfort of a good conscience were to be preferred by them to any earthly emolument and the conscience of having done their duty by washing the scandal of unholy tenets from their Religion would be a portable theatre to them whethersoever they should be forced and the assurance of suffering only in such case for a pure holy and undefiled Religion and Communion for justice and the Catholick faith only not for suspicion or conviction of treasonable maximes and practices condemn'd in all other Kingdoms and States in their own cases as impious uncatholick unchristian and even I say condemn'd by the professors of their own Church every where out of the small temporal Principality of the Pope And therefore they needed not apprehend any such attempt scorn prejudice or persecution abroad for having performed such a christian duty at home but on the contrary to be praised and cherished if not perhaps such as through vanity and folly would esteem no other refuge but where they might withal expect titles and miters which they very little deserved if not by such deserts as would untitle and unmitre them wholy if they were sifted narrowly according to the Gospel of Christ or Canons of the Catholick Church though perhaps they would hold them fast enough according to those other late ones made by Papal authority alone But that if the very saddest they could by Chymeraes frame to themselves did happen in such case as well abroad as at home it became
inflicted other then what ought to be understood by those other words directed prescribed enjoyned commanded or mean other means or wayes of execution than those are purely spiritual or ecclesiastical censures only Fifthly and lastly They would find their allegations false where they say that when any is excommunicated he is forbidden all civil commerce conversation with the Faithful this according to the doctrine of the diffusive Church For albeit the Casuists or Summists have this rule Os orare vale communio mensa negatur to be observed by the faithful towards excommunicated persons that are nominatim denunciati or declared by their own proper names and by the authority and special sentence of an Ecclesiastical Judge to have fallen into the censure of excommunication and therefore to be shunn'd yet even those very Casuists and by the doctrine and practice of both Diffusive and Representative Church and even out of the very Canons of Pope Gregory the Seventh himself against his own former against all other former later censures of all other Ecclesiastical Canons or Judges whether Popes or not Popes have this special exception Vtile lex humile res ignorata necesse Which special Exception exempts from that general rule the Wife and Children and Servants and Subjects and all such as by a superiour law of God or Man are bound to obedience duty service or charity salutation reverence respect or even to any commerce or conversation meerly civil and so exempts them that nothing is more certain then that the Church as purely such hath no power from Iesus Christ or from the nature of Excommunication as it is purely Ecclesiastical much less as it is Evangelical or grounded in the Gospel not to exempt them For the Church's power of excommunication is no more no greater nor the nature or essence of this censure as from the Church no other then what can be derived from that passage Si Ecclesiam non audierit sit tibi tanquam Ethnious publicanus Mat. 18. And it is plain that one may be treated as a Heathen or Publican by bare exclusion from a religious or sacred communion or from that which is only in such things paying him notwithstanding all both natural and civil observances enjoyned otherwise by the laws of God and man As we know the Synagogue of the Jews did pay to the Roman though heathen Governours and People and as we know they observed towards others even the very worst of Publicans So that other effects of excommunication or those annexed unto it by Papal Canons which disenable any to any kind of civil rights or take away any such or hinder any duty are meerly accidental meerly temporal not spiritual and consequently not binding at all out of the Popes own temporal Principality but in as much as and where they are approved of and received by the other temporal Princes States and Laws nor even binding in his own temporal Principality as proceeding from the Pope as Pope or as the Supream Bishop or as having any power from Christ or the Church as a Church but as enacted by him as a temporal Prince and by that meer temporal power the Emperours or People or both have conferr'd upon or continue or suffer in Him by tacit consent or connivence or submission or otherwise soever Of all which I have treated more at large in my Latin Theological Work of Answers c. Out of which though yet not published in print I give this Latin Animadversion as at present wanting time to translate it Alii effectus hujusce majoris excommunicationis partim sunt ex jure naturae ut quisque sibi à mâ—â—bidis caveat ne eundem morbum contrabat partim ex Scripturae monitis ac institutis cum talibus neque cibum suntere 1 Cor. 5.11 neque ave ei dixeritis 2. Ioh. 1.10 Vbi advertas licet haec non posse dici praeceptu vel Dei vel Apostolorum in stricto seu proprio sensu praeceptorum uti nimirum distinguuntur á consiliis seu uti praecepta dicuutur ad peccatum saltim quod mortale sit obligare imo vel equidem ad veniale Neque solum non esse â—alia praecepta obligationis praecisa nimirum circumstantia legis naturae in aliquibus casibus personis aliquibus sed ne quidem consilia perfectionis data omnibus singulis atque in quibuscunque eventibus indiscriminatim sed aliquibus tantum qui nempe non sunt ex alio capite seu lege Dei vel naturae alià s obligati ad recipiendum excommunicatos in domum cibumque cum illis manducandum salutemque apprecandam ejusmodi salutatione Et quo ad praeceptum res est clara primò quoad priorem locum qui ex Paulo est ut legenti caput illud totum manifestè patet Vitandi enim periculi scandali gratia corruptionisque a fermento malitiae ut v. 7 admonet Paulus v. 10. ac 11. non commisceri hominibus ejusmodi querum vetat ibi consortium Ergo ubi non est periculum scandali neque erit vetatio coâ—â—ortii Praeterea ex ipsa ratione Pauli data v. 10. quod nolit Christianis prohibitum commisceri cum fornicariis quos ibi vocat hujus mundi aut avaris aut rapacibus aut idolis servientibus manifestum est neque mentis ejus fuisse modò ubi regna integra sunt Christiana ac mundus penè prohibere commercium v. 11. cum iis aliis qui fratres nominantur id est Christiani similiter etiamsi fornicatores aut avari aut idolis servientes aut maledici aut ebriosi aut rapaces Ratio enim a Paulo data priori versu ac pro licentia ibidem concessa est Quoniam oporteret christianos ex mundo exire si nollent cum istis Ethnicis commisceri Atqui haec aeqnè nunc militat in mundo Christiano pro commercio cum aljis Christianis licito etsi hâ— alii sint ejusmodi vitiis inquinati Si enim non liceret cuiquam Christiano communicare cum alio qui frater nominatur estque nihilominus aut avarus aut rapax aut ebriosus aut maledicus primùm sanè foret necessum plantato jam Evangelio et refrigescente in omnibus penè etiam Catholicis charitate primâ exire de mundo Denique tota praxis ac doctrina Ecclesiae Catholicae virorumque timoratissimorum nâ—n patitur aliam Pauli interpretationem Ecquis enim putat modo illicitum peccatumve esse cibum sumere cum avaro Catholico aut ebriosa aut maledico c Et sanè perquam notum est post Extravagantem Martini Quinti in Concilio Constantiensi etiamsi constet ejusmodi vel pessimos quosque fratres in Excommunicationem expressam incidisse licere nihilominus iisdem communicare etiam in divinis antequam denuntientur nominatim a Judice Ecclesiastico nisi forte sint notorii Clericorum percussores Quod tamen non liceret per Concilium vel Pontificem
pray therefore that all proceedings in this matter be charitable religious deliberate and mature to the end scandals and greater dangers may be prevented protesting that we are most ready according to the Canons of the Church and light of reason to give Cesar what is Cesars due and to God what is due to Him and that both duties observed entirely your Paternity shall find us the children of obedience who are Your most Reverend Paternitie's most humble Servants Redmond Caron And the rest of the Subscribers now at London XLIX Immediatly after and in pursuance of his answer he sent a copy thereof and of the citation to Father Peter Walsh the Procurator then in Ireland Whereof the Procurator thought fit to take so much notice out of that respect due for himself also to the said Commissary General as to return both in his own name and in that of all other Subscribers of his Order at home in Ireland this long letter that follows rendred into English out of the Latin copie To the most Reverend Father James de Riddere Commissary General of St. Franci's Order in the Belgick Brittish and other annexed Provinces at Mechlin Most Reverend Father I have some twenty dayes past seen a copy of the letter which your Paternity gave the 18th of April from Brula to Father Caron at London and his answer both sent hether by the same Father And though it may not be certainly gathered either out of that your most Reverend Paternities letter or any other argument that I am my self any way concern'd therein yet because that Reverend Fathers conjecture in his foresaid answer seems not improbable to some that your Paternity intended by that very letter to summon to Rome or Brussels the Fathers of our Order and Province of Ireland who lately made to the King in a certain form or publick Instrument a profession of their Allegiance and subscribed the same and yet notwithstanding forasmuch as there are on the other side many considerations of no little force to perswade it can be no way likely that most prudent and most learned men such as without any question it is fit we should esteem the Minister General of the whole Order of St. Francis throughout the world and his most worthy General Commissary of the Northern Provinces should attempt or intend any thing against their own Sons upon the onely account of having complyed with all divine and humane laws by professing to their lawful King that fidelity in all temporals which they are otherwise bound unto and professing it also at such a time when doubtless it was both necessary and profitable to and the very interest of the Roman Catholick Church and no kind of disadvantage but a very great and known advantage to the true Orthodox Faith therefore and not in my own name onely or from my self alone but in all theirs too and from all of our Institute living now at home in the Province and these indeed are many both grave and sound men besides some Bishops and a considerable number of others amongst the inferiour Clergie not onely secular but regular also of other Orders learned conscientious and very zealous too for the Roman Faith and Papal Dignity who have subscribed that late Protestation of our Allegiance in temporals the rumour of which profession and subscription peradventure came to your hearing I very earnestly beseech your most Reverend Paternity may be pleased to signify out of hand whether you meaned them perhaps in that citatory letter sent Father Caron or whether you mean'd not rather some others accused peradventure of some kind of real faults defects or which God forbid of crimes And if the former that is the Subscribers whether such onely of them as yet are in England or live at London or even all those too residing at home dispersed in all parts of Ireland of all whose names or subscriptions the most Excellent Vice-Râ—y the Duke of Ormond hath at present the Original Catalogue as of such who have since my last arrival here subscribed the foresaid Instrument or profession of Allegiance Which about a year and a half since was first presented to His Majesty at London read and favourably accepted by him albeit then signed but by a very few hands in respect of the numbers that since have subscribed here And your most your most Reverend Paternity may be further pleased to certifie these living so at home as I have said now dispersed throughout all Provinces and parts of this Kingdom and certifie them by me or whom els you please what you think of the Reverend Father Carons exceptions given in his answer to the summons contained in that your Epistle supposing I mean that he hath so much as by guess understood aright your meaning whether they ought to be reputed probable lawful or Canonical To me indeed reading in Gratianus the Pontifical Canons or Decrees of the Provincial Councels of Carthage and Tarragona it appears manifestly out of cap. Placuit cap. Si Episcopus cap. Si quis Episcoporum d. 18. That notwithstanding any summons even I say the most legal and formal the parties summoned are excused when either by age or sickness or the Kings command to the contrary or any other corporal necessity of moment they are hindered from appearing I speak nothing at present of other Constitutions either of even the very Pontiffs of Rome or of the greatest Councels too of the Catholick Church those Canons to witt established by the authority of Synods not Provincial onely but National of the whole Affrican Church and Oecumenical of the whole earth and by that also of the consent and acceptation or submission of all the faithful of both Churches Greek and Latin even then I mean when That was reputed Orthodox and by that likewise of the concurrence of the chiefest and greatest Fathers amongst whom St. Augustine that light of Doctors was one Which Canons prescribe the judgment or tryal of causes to be held where no danger can be of wanting witnesses of either side or only where the witnesses may conveniently appear And therefore that judicial causes or the parties accused be not drawen or summond to any place where they may not come within a very few days not summond at all to appear without the bounds of the Province where they live nor forced likewise beyond the Seas whether commonly neither the accusers themselves nor the accused much less the witnesses either will or can goe For say the Fathers of that Synod of Affrick which is called Vniversal in their Synodical epistle to Pope Celestine speaking of the Fathers of former times specially of those who made the Canons of the great and first Councel of Nice it was most prudently and justly determined by them that all judicial causes should have their decision where they had their rise And verely whoever is of an other judgment and will rather fix on a judicatory beyond the Seas will scarce or not even scarce be able to
once made nor consequently lawful ever after to convert it to prophane uses that is to any other uses but those intended by vow for the more especial service of God Whence further it must no less plainly appear that were that very same law of Leviticus binding Christians now under the new Testament no more can be concluded to Bellarmines purpose and as to our dispute concerning the exemption of Clergymen from the civil power but that which should as well restrain the Pope as the Prince Because no more but that neither temporal nor spiritual Magistrate could secularize Churchmen or Church-lands or Church-beasts once they had been consecrated Church men or Church-lands or Church-beasts Which yet neither Bellarmine himself nor even any of his Defenders will allow as indeed both reason and so many thousands and even daily un-reproved instances tell us it cannot be allowed So that our learned Cardinal alledgeth in this point a law which is no more a law at all to us that are Christians and yet a law which were it a law for us hath not one word to his purpose For who sees not the consistency of these two 1. A right or a power from God in the supream civil Magistrate to force consecrated persons to behave themselves as becomes such consecrated persons 2. No right or power from God in such Magistrate to prophane those consecrated persons or to apply them to any other calling or profession which is or must be inconsistent with the ends of their consecration And who sees not consequently the vain flourish of this Querie wherewith this eminent person concludes his fourth argument Quis autem dicere audeat jus esse profano homini en ea quae sancta sanctorum id est sanctissima dici meruerunt who dares be so bold as to say that a profane man hath right to those things which have deserved the name of holy of holies that is most holy And then adds as a final conclusion of all Qua ratione bona etiam temporalia Clericorum bona Dominica proprie dicuntur in can 4. Apostolico ideo tanquam Deo sacra jucisdictioni laicorum subjecta esse non possunt Upon which account sayes he temporal goods of Clergymen are in the fourth Apostolical Canon properly said to be Dominica or the Lords goods and therefore as being consecrated to God cannot be subject to the jurisdiction of Laymen But he needed not make this so vain flourish of a querie or corrollary following which himself could not but know to have been ten thousand times over and over answered by Catholick Divines and Catholick Bishops and even by some very learned and very holy Popes too who in all ages both acknowledged and asserted a right in Emperours Kings and other supream temporal or civil lay Magistrates to govern command and even force by the sword if necessary all in their Territories even the most eminently consecrated to do their several duties to God and to the Commonwealth and to all their neighbours respectively As likewise they acknowledged and asserted in the same supream civil Magistrate a right to provide by good wholsome laws and otherwise that the temporal goods of Churchmen should be rightly used by them and not abused at all against those holy ends for which only either Princes or People or both had questionless devoted such goods to God Therefore to answer his question directly and briefly I will my self be one of those who dare say that such profane men as these supream civil Magistrates are since Bellarmine must needs have all kind of Laicks how Christian soever esteemed profane men have such a right as I have here declared over such holy of holies or most holy persons and things And that his allegation not out of the fourth Apostolical Canon as he quotes it but out of the 40. were those Canons authentick or indubitable Canons of the Apostles as this learned man himself knew very well they are not makes very much less for his exemption of the Goods of Ecclesiasticks c. from such a right in such profane persons For as this Canon attributes not the title of res Dominicae to all the goods whatsoever possessed by Clerks being it doth not to the Bishops own proper goods but to those only which being in common to all the Church or as well to other Priests and Ministers as to the Bishop whereof the text it self which I give here is proof sint autem manifestae res propriae Episcopi si tamen habet proprias et manifestae Dominicae ut potestatem habeat de propriis moriens Episcopus ficut voluerit de relinquere c. so it is clear enough out of what is said hitherto that no more can be concluded out of this denomination precisely against such a supream right as I have now declared in the supream civil Magistrate then may be out of any other epithet or word signifying only a pious or godly use of such goods And therefore no such matter as Bellarmine concludes which is to be in all senses and to all purposes exempt from even the very supream jurisdiction of all kind of lay Princes Doth natural reason teach us any inconsistency 'twixt some right or some power in the lay Prince or Parliament in some cases to tax the lauds or goods of the Church and the being nevertheless of those very lands or goods still designed for pious and holy uses or that even such taxation made by such a lay supream power and the execution and use of it may it not be of absolute necessity to preserve both the State and Church and the very continuance of these goods or lands hereafter in the immediate possession and property and use of the very Church and Church-men And is it not clear that as the meer lay Subjects property in their own hands must not cease at all by their being subject to necessary contributions or taxes when the supream legislative power layes such taxes on them for the maintainance of the publick even so those goods or lands whichh are for some special ordinary use called Dominicae must not therefore cease to be Dominicae or in the property of the Church because they may according to natural reason be in certain cases lyable to the like taxes imposed by the same supream lay power and by virtue of a true right in this very supream lay power to impose by its own authority alone such taxes on Church-lands albeit the Church-men themselves should unreasonably deny their own consent nay hath not the practice of the Christian world for many ages under great and good and most religious Christian Princes shewed us that the lands of the Church were often taxed so by them and by virtue of their own proper authority alone without being once ever told by the Church that they did amiss therein or at all against the ends or use of Dominicae Did not St. Ambrose himself confess in the difference he had with the young Emperour
godliness piety zeal what they believed to be their own proper goods how much more would they have abstained from usurping on those of the Church and to which they had known themselves to have no kind of right Secondly forasmuch as depends of the testimony or authority of the civil Law it self it is clear enough that Clergiemen have not only been originally or sometime but have continued alwayes or at all times since the very first of christianity are at present stil subject to the supream civil Power therefore not exempt from it For being it appears by these laws that Clergiemen were so first indistinctly in all kind of politick matters subject or not exempt in any either from the supream civil or subordinate civil and being further that none of these laws nor altogether exempt them but in some politick things or some such causes from the subordinat only and in none at all from the supream in any such cause and being moreover that it was from and by virtue of or by a power derived from those very civil laws and consequently from the supream civil Magistrate Prince Emperour that Ecclesiastical Judges were so appointed for other Clerks in any civil or criminal cause whatsoever or in those we call meer lay crimes it must follow that forasmuch as concerns the testimony of those civil laws which Bellarmine quotes here Clerks are still subject to the supream civil power though not in some cases or not even in very many cases to the subordinat civil but in such have other Judges that is Ecclesiastical ones appointed them by the same laws For by the testimony of these laws they are not exempt wherein they were not exempted by those very laws And those laws do not exempt them in any case at all from the Legislator Himself or from the supream civil power nor even from the subordinate indistinctly and universally in all cases but in some only Thirdly it is clear enough also by the testimony authority and warranty of these civil Laws and forasmuch I say as depends of such warranty if joyn'd together with the allowed doctrine of all christian both Lawyers and Divines generally that in such Christian Kingdoms as never have been govern'd by those laws of Roman Emperours or which in after-times did legally shake off the yoke both of the Empire and imperial laws generally and are govern'd only by municipal laws of their own Clerks are not exempt at all in politick matters from either supream or subordinate lay Courts or Judges no further then such municipal peculiar civil laws do exempt them And being that in no such Countrey at all for any thing we know yet or is alledged yet by Bellarmine or by our Divines of Lovaine Clerks are not exempt by such laws from the supream civil power and being at least that whatever may be imagined of some one or other Countrey with or without ground we know certainly there is no such law in England or Ireland nor hath yet ever been it is no less clear that Clerks are not at all exempt in England or Ireland in politick matters from the supream civil power of the Prince or of his Laws forasmuch I say still as depends of the testimony of the civil laws or even of the doctrine of either Christian Lawyers or Catholick Divines Which doctrine is that laws of men when meer laws of men and in politick matters depend not only of public tiâ—â—â— but also of legal reception and hereof also that they be not abrogated again by a contrary establishment or by a general opposition abrogation or disuse in any particular Kingdom or State especially if such as have the supream civil Legislative Power approve of or concurr to such abrogation or disuse Fourthly and Lastly and as a corrollary out of all it is perspicuous that as the very civil laws of Roman Emperours and such other municipal laws of other Christian Princes giving such or some certain and special exemptions and other priviledges to Clergiemen and giving them freely and out of devotion only for the greater decency and reverence of the Church do convince any rational person that secular Princes are still continually as they have been originally Superiours in temporal power to the Clergy even to all Priests and Bishops whatsoever living within their Dominions so they also convince that not even the great Priest and Bishop the very chief and spiritual Prince both of all Priests and of all Bishops too the Pope himself not even this so Oecumenical Vicar of Christ in all spiritual matters throughout the whole earth can be truly said to be at present upon any other account exempted from secular Powers in temporal matters but on this only that he also himself is now as he hath been for some ages though not from the beginning a temporal or secular Prince too and that now he represents a double Person that of the Successor of St. Peter at Rome which undoubtedly he hath from Christ and from the Church purely taken as a Church and that also of a secular Prince with independent secular civil or temporal power which latter he hath no less undoubtedly and even only and solely from the meer devotion benevolence bounty and gift of other Princes and people even I mean of meer lay Princes People But to the end learned men shall not say I take advantage of Bellarmine's not having so throughly examined this matter in his great work of Controversies nor even in his very last edition of that work which yet is the edition I have hitherto answered and shall not object at any time that Bellarmine sifted yet more narrowly the question of the civil laws in a latter book of his when he was in his old age forced to it by Doctor William Barelay's answers and solutions of all the Church-canons whereon chiefly or rather indeed only Bellarmine relyed till then as we have seen and we shall further see yet in the next Section for his so general exemption of Clergiemen from even the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes whatsoever least I say any should object this I will give at large and in Bellarmines own words but Englished all that he replies in that his very last piece on this subject we have now in hand of the civil laws against the same William Barclay and my own rejoynder also though in effect and for the most part made before I confess by another that is by Iohn Barclay the Son in his Pietas and to justifie the quarrel of his then dead Father LXIX Bellarmine therefore seeing by the said William Barclay's work De Potestate Papae in Temporalibus against him that all his former pretences of what law soever civil or ecclesiastical for the exemption of Clergiemen from the supream civil Power could not perswade any judicious Reader of that book of William Barclay regards no more what he had granted before in his great Works of Controversies and even in the very
extended them to other Kingdoms and that besides they were after approved of and received by the Bishops of such other Kingdoms That neither Gratian's insertion of them into the body of his Decretum nor the publication of his Decretum as such by the approbation authority or command of Popes makes them hoc ipso to be extended or of more binding authority in the nature of laws then they were before such insertion publication or approbation command or authority or makes them hoc ipso to be laws for the Catholick Church but onely to be more authentick whereas we know there are a thousand authorities alleadged by Gratian which are not therefore binding laws to the Church Thirdly that whatever may be said of Inferiour lay Judicatories judgments or Judges nothing at all can be with any kind of colour inferr'd hence against the supream of the Emperour himself in any matters whatsoever laws or canons whereby his power may be conceived whether right or wrong to be any way limited Because the supream extraordinary and absolute judgment of the Prince is never understood never signified by or comprised under the general notion or common use of these words secularia judicia as the Prince himself is not understood by the general or common name of a Judge or of a secular Iudge being these words or the like according to the common use or meaning signifie onely such as are such by special office and not him at all who by a supereminent power creats both these and all other even much higher Officials For it is a rule among both Civilians and Canonists That the words of any Canons Institutions or other laws whatsoever though Canons or laws of priviledg must be stâ—â—cti juris and strictae interpretati nis where otherwise a very great inconvenience must follow or where they derogate to a former uncontroverted right of any third person and much more when by any other interpretation they derogate to the supream authority either spiritual in the Pope or temporal in the Emperour and most of all when they ruine and quite destroy either in relation to their subjects being that in so much they are purely odious though in other points where no such prejudice is they are purely favourable And Odia restringi favores autem convenit ampliari is a rule of the very Canon law in Sexto Now who sees not there can be nothing more inconvenient in it self and more odious to Princes then that so vast a number of both men and women living within their Kingdoms and going under the name and title of their Subjects should yet be exempted wholly from their even supream royal power and in all cases whatsoever civil or criminal Pursuant to the former rule is that other which Felinus hath cap. uit de sanâ—nia Quoties species a â—â—â—it aliquid generi numquam appellatione generis venit species Now Iu â—ex secularis and judicium seculare is a genus Rex Imperator c. and judicium supremum Regium or judicium supremum imperiale is a species And pursuant also to both rules is the doctrine of that celebrious late Doctor of Paris Andreas Duuallius de suprema Rom. Pontif. in Ecclesiam potestate part 2. q. 4. p. 264. where notwithstanding his being so great and known a stickler against the ancient School of Paris for the Pope in too many things yet he writeth thus Notum est nomine Cleric rum c. It is manifest that in any odious matter Bishops are not comprehended under the name of Clerks nor sometimes in the same matter â—ther Religious men under the name of Mâ—nks neque similiter nomine Dominorum Reges nor likewise Kings under the name of Landlords Govern us or Lords in regard of the height and Majesty of the Royal dignity c. And finally pursuant to the said rules and their meaning or scope it is that we read the same or the like other exceptions and of several other particulars from a comprehension under general notions in Armilla verb. Abbas n. XI verb. Clericus n. 2. verb. sacerdos n. 1. Sayrus tom 1. l. 3. c. 33. Navarr tom 2. commentar in cap. Finali de simâ—nia n. 5. Silvester verb. excommunicatio 19. n. 82. Parag. Quadragesima tertia Innâ—centius in can sedes Apostolica de Rescriptis Moreover as it is a general maxime That in a general concession or priviledge how general soever the words be such things are not to be understood as granted which evident reason tell us that in all probability the Prince or Pope or other Legislator or graunter of such concession or priviledge would not grant by any means if he had reflected or thought on it in particular so it must be as general a rule That in a general prohibition of any law or Canon and how general soever the words be such things are not prohibited which if reflected on in particular right reason tells us that in all probability it could not have been the intention of the makers of such a law or Canon to prohibit them Out of all which it is evident enough that no Divine or Canonist may conclude from the prohibition of this Council of Agde or of this Canon of it or of this second part of the said Canon that the Fathers comprehended or intended to comprehend the supream absolute and extraordinary judgment of Kings or Emperours under the general notions of secularia judicia but onely such as were commonly understood by such those I mean of subordinate inferiour Iudicatories and from which there might be upon rational grounds and by the concession or permission of their Prince or custom of the Country even at that very time wherein these Fathers lived an exemption of Clerks For who is so bereaved of common sense as to say that the Councils of Christian Bishops in those days would be so high or unreasonable or rather so mad as to prohibit Clerks not to appear at all before the King Emperour or other supream Magistrate though called upon and expresly commanded to appear before them which yet these Fathers must be said to have decreed in this Canon or second part of it if Bellarmines allegation of it be to his main purpose here of Exemption of the Clerks by this Canon from even the supream civil coercive power or if it be against mine here also which is that no Canon hath ever yet so exempted them not even this of Agde or which is the same the same thing if secularia judicia in this Canon reach even to the very supream of the Emperour or other King and in all cases and causes temporal civil or criminal whatsoever But if Bellarmine or any other for him see no absurdity in granting this to have been the meaning of this ancient though onely Provincial Synod of a few Bishops of Guien onely he must pardon me for not joyning with him in so hard a censure or opinion of such scandalous consequence of any Catholick Coucil especially so
Pontifice suo ad judicia publica pertrahant Proinde statuimus ut hoc de caetero non praesumatur Si quis hoc praesumpserit facere causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus Out of both these Councils that is out of that eight canon of that first Matisconensian Council and this 13. canon of the third Toletan our learned Cardinal endeavours again to impose on his unlearned Readers But not so much in his great work of controversies l. 1. de Cler. c. 28. where he onely or at least commonly cited the bare chapters and not as much as the material words of Councils so farre he was from composing arguments but in that other book he writ long after against D. W. Barclay and in defence of his foresaid Controversies and particularly of what he taught therein or in his often quoted first book de Cleric c. 28. It is therefore in this reply of his which he also entitles as Barclay did his own book against him De potestate Papae in Temporalibus and it is in the 24. chapter of it and after so many other arguments weak enough as I have already shewn them to be framed and replyes made against William Barclay on pretence of those other councils and in behalf of his own allegation of them it is I say in this little and last beloved piece of his old age he argues thus interrogatively or Socratically out of both these last Councils Si Laici Magistratus c. If sayes he Lay Magistrats were legal Judges of Clergiemen by what right law or title could the above Matisconensian Council decree that all causes of clerks should be determined in the presence of the Bishop or Presbiter or Archdeacon And how could this Toletan Council also with so great asperity of words tearm it praesumption and unlawful attempts in Clergiemen to have recourse to secular Iudicatories And how lastly would this same Council dare to rescind or annull the sentence of the secular Judg and besides to excommunicate the Clerk that procured such sentence or sued any other Clerk in a secular Court or Iudicatory For so much do these words import Causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus let him loose his cause and be made a stranger to communion But the answer is facile enough and clear 1. That neither of both Councils or canons determins any thing against the secular Judge himself or against his having still a power of Iurisdiction to judg the causes of Clerks when called or come before him but onely prohibits Clerks themselves to have recourse of themselves or freely of themselves to sue one an other in secular Courts as hath been said before to the canon of Carthage And for prohibiting such voluntary recourse of Clerks that these Fathers of Matiscon and Toledo had respectively the same rights or authority which those of Carthage or even those of Chalcedon had even that very same which St. Paul had when he either commanded or advised his Corinthians not to sue one an other before Heathen judges c. And therefore that these Councils do rather confirm then any way infirm the jurisdiction at that time yet of lay Judges 2. That Bellarmine is much out of the way in thinking if ever he thought so indeed that by these words causam perdat the Fathers of Toledo rescind or annul the sentence of the secular judg by their own proper Episcopal or spiritual authority For and for what belong'd and was necessary to such rescission or annullation strictly taken the Fathers in making this canon as likewise in making any other such or that would or should require a politick civil power properly such in the canon-makers derived their authority from King Recaredus himself at whose command this third Council of Toledo was called and therefore sate in it himself and made the first speech to open it and several speeches after and finally confirmed it with his own subscription in these words Flavius Recaredus Rex hanc deliberationem quam cum sancta definivimus Synodo confirmans subscripsi Having also before his said subscription premised this declaration or admonition to all concern'd Praecedente autem diligenti cauta deliberatione sive quae ad fidem conveniunt sue quae ad morum correctionem respiciunt sensus maruritate intelligentiae gravitate constant esse digesta Nostra proinde authoritas hoc omnibus hominibus ad regnum nostrum pertinentibus jubet ut si qua definita sunt in hoc Concilio acto in urbe Toletana anno Regni nostri faeliciter quarto nulli contemnere liceat nullus praeterire praesumat For so it hath been usual that where the civil and Ecclesiastical power agree well together in making laws each or both do make such use of one an others authority that as to the words the Church sometimes doth seem to speak as having civil jurisdiction and the Politick or secular civil power also to make such laws as are of Ecclesiastical Notion Neither indeed doing so or seeming so by vertue of its own proper innate authority but by that borrowed from the other or as being certain of the others approbation and ratihabition Which was the cause that Recaredus the foresaid King of Spain though a meer layman ordained in his confirmation of this Toletan Council in his own name too that if any person Concilii observator esse noluerit superba fronte majorum statutis repugnans si Episcopus Praesbiter Diaconus aut Clericus fuerit ab omni Concilio excommunicationi subjaceat What is the power of excommunication in a lay Kings hands Or did Recaredus the very first Catholick King after those Arian Gothish Kings of Spain a King so truly Catholick and pious as he is confessed to have been did he usurp the rights and proper powers of the Church and even in that very Edict unto which the Fathers of this Toletan Council did themselves subscribe themselves Nothing less What he did in this respect or by such words was by consent of the Fathers nor in so much did he assume peradventure as much the person of a law maker as of a publisher of that law which in this particular of excommunication was onely made by the Fathers Though withal I confess that a secular Prince may by his own proper supream and even still meer civil power make a law commanding or enjoyning the Bishops to excommunicate in certain cases and a law besides ordaining some temporal punishment for such as without any just cause or against the known canons of the Church should excommunicate For to say so we are not onely warranted by natural reason or consideration of the proper office of the supream civil Magistrate which consists in taking care that all degrees either civil or Ecclesiastical under his charge do justly and religiously discharge themselves but also by the canon De illicita 24. q. 3. taken out of a Paris Council where the Fathers speak thus De illicita excommunicatione Lex
onely that what he sayes of canon law in the point is perspicuous out of the Epistle of Pope Caius to Bishop Felix out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and out of the XI book of the Register of S. Gregory ep 54. ad Ioannem Defensorem and lastly to compleat this his second argument assumes this other Proposition as a maxime That the civil law must yield to the canon law whereas sayes he still consequently the Pope may command the Emperour especially in such matters as concern the Church This strange way of argueing in a matter of such consequence out of authorities or quotations of books or chapters the words not given to the Reader which yet is familiar with this great Clerk especially where he finds the authorities or words of the text if seen at length not to be much to his purpose hath put me to more trouble then I would be and then I knew the argument deserved However I took the pains as I have also in all other material quotations of his to turn to the canons books or places quoted and see the words of those three Popes Which indeed concerning the two former as they are alleadg'd by Gratian XI q. 1. c. 1. I find to be these of Caius first Nemo unquam Episcopum apud Iudicem secularem aut alios Clericos accusare praesumat And these too ead Caus. and quest cap. 2. Nullas Iudicum neque Praesbiterum neque Diaconum aut Clericum ullum aut juniores Ecclesia sine licentia Pontificis per se distringat aut condemnare praesumat Quod si fecerit ab Ecclesia cui injuriam irrogare dignoscitur tamdiu sit sequestratus quousque reotum suum agnoscat mendet And next I find the words of Marcellinus to be these other ead caus quest cap. 3. Clericum eujuslibet or dinis absque Pontificiâ— sui permissu nullus praefumat ad seculdâ—am Indicem attâ—here neâ— Lâ—â— qâ—â—â— libet Clericum liceat accusare To which my answers are 1. That Caius having suffered Martyrdom in the year of our Lord 296. and Marcellinus being chosen the same year nay within eleven days after the passion of Caius they are both consequently of the number of those Popes whose Decretal Epistles or such as go in their names are not by learned men even of the Roman communion esteemed other then meerly supposititious or at least corrupted and therefore such as cannot be alleadged for good or certain proof in any matter 2. That these two Popes having lived and dyed before the first liberty of Christian Religion under Constantine were it certain they had really prohibited the lay Judges to proceed in any causes of Churchmen nay which is more expresly declared that such lay Judges had no kind of Iurisdiction over any Clerk in any matter soever and were it also granted that such their sole prohibition or sole Declaration were hoc ipso a canon of the Catholick Church or obliging it in general as much as any canon of even a general Council each of which particulars is so farre from being certain or being granted as in the opinion of great Divines none of all three is any way probable yet any judicious man will see plainly that by secular judges here we must not understand such Judges as were truly such by the publick authority of Emperours Princes and laws but onely such as were by a compromise onely or submission of the Christian Litigants and by the private authority of the Churches or Congregations according to that of St. Paul 1. Cor. 6. appointed to determine amongst themselves the differences of those of their own Religion and consequently such as were rather voluntary arbiters then Judges simply or properly such with coercive power For who sees not it had been most imprudently or rather indeed madly done to have prescrib'd meer humane and also unnecessary laws to those heathen Imperial Judges that put all to death whom they knew to observe as much as the very most necessary most divine law of God himself Or shall we attribute such madness to men farre less prudent then we must suppose the wisest men in the world those holy and great Pontiffs of Rome And being we cannot how then doth Bellarmine alleadg this prohibition of Caius and Marcelline Or must it follow that because these Popes commanded that none of the secular Christian Judges appointed by the several private Christian Congregations should presume to judg of Clerks without the Bishops leave therefore the same was intended or given as a rule to the publick heathen Judges commission'd by the supream absolute civil and coerecive power of Emperours The general persecutions against all Christians generally both Clerks and Laicks were continued long after the days of Caius and Marcelline throughout the Roman Empire which till Dioclesians surrender was heathen And so long the Popes could not make laws of Discipline for the Judges appointed by that Empire Nihil ad nos de iis qui soris sunt judicare sayes the Apostle himself who certainly had no less power then any Pope 3. That for the former quotation of that either pretended or true Epistle of Caius it is not material The jurisdiction of civil or Imperial heathen Judges over Christian Clerks and Bishops too might be very well acknowledged by Caius notwithstanding he had thought it convenient for avoiding scandal to forbid all Christians not to presume to accuse any Clerk before heathen judges St. Paul forbade all Christians generally and consequently the very Laicks not to accuse even other Laicks before such heathen Judges yet no man sayes that St. Paul thereby meant that Christian Laicks were exempt from the jurisdiction of those Judges And that for the later quotation also out of the same Epistle of Caius which Gratian gives in the second place or second chapter of his foresaid eleventh cause and first Question it is mark'd with a Palea in Gratian himself and therefore also is of no authority no valew at all according to the doctrine of many Canonists which doctrine must be disproved before any such allegation can be urged 4. That for Marcelline's canon whether false or true I have before observed how Gratian hath if not corrupted at least misquoted the text which is not as he hath it Clericum cujuslibet ordinis nullus praesumat accusare c. but as it is in Concil 3. Aurel. in Panormia Clericus nullum praesumat accusare And that being so read it concludes nothing to Bellarmine's purpose if not a generâ—l exemption of all persons generally as well Laicks as Clerks from secular Judges and for what onely would concern a suit commenced by a Clerk Which yet is not to Bellarmines purpose at all nor at all for any exemption of either Laicks or Clerks from the jurisdiction of secular Judges but onely for a restriction of Clerks from scandalous litigiousness as I have also before in other cases or in my answers to the canons of Carthage Chalcedon
the City and Palace beholds all persons whatsoever Laicks and Ecclesiasticks both Priests and Bishops observing himself with all demonstrations of submissive reverence and with bare heads and bended knees approaching the kisses of his hand should nevertheless presently after being gone to Church lay himself bare headed and bare kneed too at the feet of the Priest in the confessional seat the Priest in the mean time covered still and fitting and as a Judge of another quality and in that holy place and function determining of him as a criminal And as this is not dishonourable nor undecent to be done by the very Pope himself for even the Pope too must behave himself so to an inferiour Priest if he will be forgiven his sins by God notwithstanding that Soto will confess there can be no kind of undecency that the Pope in another quality should before or after judge that very Priest who presently was or shall be his Pastour in that and even judge him in the very external Court and judge him too as a lay criminal or as guilty of lay crimes so it must not be dishonourable nor undecent on the other fide for the Priests to be bound to appear when there is cause though in another Quality then that of Priests before those very Lay penitents of whom they were before Judges or to whom they shall be hereafter Pastors in discharging towards them the office of Priests To the Fourth reason of Soto in reference to the persons which was That whereas the civil power Ecclesiastical are wholly different or distinct it must be necessary that as each of them hath its proper Ministers so the Ministers of either have their own proper superiours The answer is that I grant all Neither do I nor will I at any time deny that Clerks as Clerks have the Pope for their chief Superiour according to that power which the canons of the universal Church do allow him over all Clerks as such But forasmuch as Clerks besides that of their being Clerks have also the being quality essence of Citizens or of natural or politick men or of members of a civil society of other men what is it in point of reason can hinder them from having an other Superiour to wit the King to govern them in this other consideration as men or Cittizens or such members And certainly otherwise it must be said to be necessary that neither Pope nor Church may ever judg of Laicks in any quality or in any cause whereas it is granted of all fides that Laymen have their own proper lay Superiours and are under the civil power which Soto confesses to be wholly altogether distinct from the Ecclesiastical But since we know that cannot be said and that on the contrary the truth is that laymen as they are christians or sons of the Church by Faith and Baptisme are also in that quality subject to the Ecclesiastical Superiours of the Church in matters belonging properly to their cognizance even so we must by consequence of reason assert this also as a truth That Clerks as they are men or cittizens or members of a civil or politick Society are subject also to the civil or politick Head of that Society in all matters belonging to his politick or civil headship and government In which sense or way it is true and it is we say That distinct powers must argue distinct superiours Which yet we have now seen to conclude nothing against us for the necessity of Ecclesiastical exemption or exemption of the persons of Clerks in temporal causes from the secular Magistrats To answer the fift and last argument of Soto we must remember that as it is peculiarly for the exemption of Church mens Goods from the civil Magistrat or which is the same thing from all publick or private assesments contributions taxes oâ— burthens whatsoever to be laid on such goods by the authority of any men civil Magistrat Prince King or Emperour so this Author pleads this exemption also of their goods to be not onely congruent but necessary and therefore concludes it power in the Church as a Church to make a law for it whether Princes will or not And we must know that his ground he borrows from St. Thomas out certainly makes use of it or derives a conclusion from it against the mind of St. Thomas That St. Thomas in his commentary on the 13. of the Romans where he hath it intends no more by it but to prove the natural equity of Clerks being free by the priviledge of Princes from paying tributs but expresly denies a necessity for such freedom That this to be the mind and words of St. Thomas appears plainly out of the testimony of Franciscus Victoria Relect. 1. de Potest Eccles. sect 7. Prop. 2. where he writes thus Clerici sunt exempti a tributis non jure divino sed Priâ—vlegio Principuâ— Hoc expresse dicit D. Thomas super illum locum Roman 13. Ideo enim tributa praestatis Et dicit hanc exemptionem habere equitatem quamâ—â—â— non autem necessitatem That Finally however this be certainly true yet Soto inferrs out of that reason of St. Thomas not a congruency but a necessity For as we have seen before thus he discourseth Whereas tributs customs and other publick taxes are paid to Kings for their maintenance and as a reward or satisfaction for the labours they undergo in the administration of the commonwealth and whereas Clergiemen take no less pains in discharging their own Ecclesiastical duties it is but an equal recompensation of such pains to be exempt from all tributs taxes c. Now to answer this argument where is any thing here to conclude a necessity were it even true that Clergiemen take no less pains for the common-wealth and were it also true that t is onely as a reward of labours that Kings receive tribute For the Commonwealth might as to its temporals very well subsist in this life and even as to its spiritual hopes be saved in the other without any such exemption of the goods of Clergiemen as it could no less without any exemption of their persons But whereas also indeed both the one and the other are absolutely false how can Soto as much as pretend from either to inferre his purpose For the truth is that it is not onely as a reward or satisfaction that publick taxes are paid to Kings but also as necessary enablements to them for the protection of the commonwealth Nor is the care trouble sollicitude pains or vexation of Clerks any way neer that which is of Kings Nor also can the pains of any them be whatever it be of any and we know many or most take but little pains respectively be undertaken commonly and so directly and properly for the commonwealth as the labours of Kings are and ought to be and as natural reason it self requires and shews they must be Besides doth not even St. Thomas himself expresly teach above on the 13. to
the Romans that by the law of God Clerks are bound in conscience to pay tribute understand you if not dispensed with by the Princes Therefore in his doctrine it is not necessary that they do not pay tribute And consequently in his doctrine t is not necessary that the Church have power to exempt Clerks from tribute whether Princes will or not Moreover and for the natural equity or congruity it self which we confess may be for the exemption of Clerks from tribute alleadged out of St. Thomas and with due restrictions pleaded also from natural reason doth either tell us of Soto's even sole congruency for such exemption to be made by the sole power of the Church and not rather by the Princes themselves Or will not this allegation of natural equity or congruitâ— be satisfied if Clergiemen be freed by the secular Princes themselves and onely too in such cases as these Princes shall not upon rational and evident grounds find it necessary for the defence of other good of both Clerks and Laicks to sess the Clerks for some time again and for what they can well spare without any hinderance to divine service Finally have not Clerks in regard or lieu of their labours received so many other great and rich and excellent and superabundant compensations as well by lands and revenues as by other priviledges or will nothing els serve them but a total exemption from the royalty of Princes and of those very goods and lands too which the same Princes gave them and which the same Princes continue and protect them in all ways Behold as from or for what concerns those arguments of Soto how farr it is from necessary that either the goods or persons of Clergiemen should be exempt by the power of the Church nay indeed or by any other from the supream civil Magistrat But as an addition to all I have allready said I demand yet when it began to be necessary that either goods or persons should be so exempt For it is manifest that neither hath been allways or in all ages of Christianity from the beginning nor even from the beginning of those very ages or that very time wherein Christian Religion was by law established publickly neither so exempt I say by either Pope or Prince And I demand also whether before they were exempted any thing necessary was wanting to the Church or after this time any thing at all times necessary accrued to the Church And as Soto must answer affirmatively to both these last demands whether he can answer or no to the first so I must out of his affirmations conclude presently That neither in the days of the Apostles nor during five hundred years after and more the Church had all necessaries to attain her own proper end which is no other but salvation Then which nothing can be said more impious and horrible by Soto or any other To the first reason of Franciscus Victoria wherein he discourseth thus that because the Republick Ecclesiastical is perfect and sufficient for it self that is sufficiently empowr'd to attain its own ends therefore it hath power to make such laws as are convenient for the administration of the Church and therefore also consequently if the exemption of Clerks be so convenient this Republick may enact laws for such exemption I answer 1. That for this which is a Republick to be perfect and sufficient or simply to the perfection and sufficiency of a Republick is not required that it may enact all such laws as make for its greater splendour and glory but onely such as are necessary for its being safety and condition And that I have shewed already heer in this section That laws of Ecclesiastical exemption are not such that is are not necessary for its being c. nay or either for its well being safety and condition as it drives to its own proper ends 2. And that if this be not admitted which I say in this my first answer it must follow out of this reason of Victoria which himself too a little after it confesses to follow That the politick temporal or civil commonwealth whereas it is also perfect and self sufficient vz. in its own nature of such a commonwealth may also make laws to the prejudice of the spiritual if such laws do seem convenient to the decor and Majesty of the civil Nay this conveniency doth wholly ruine their purpose For I demand whether is most convenient that secular Princes and for the security of their secular principalities and greater splendour and Majesty of them still retain that civil power over Clerks which the laws of God and nations give them over Clerks or that the Church to the end her self may seem or be more adorned and more dignified bereave Princes of that power even against their known will and maugre all their opposition by laws and arms What if the Church shall find it sometime convenient also to subtract from the yoake or obedience of Princes even a great part of the very meerest Laicks to be as emancipated persons or freemen evermore at the pleasure of the Church ready to serve her as the Patroness of their freedom and serve her too against their former Lords That convenient is of too great and too too dangerous extension To the second reason of the same Francis Victoria which was that the Pope might by his own proper authority choose Ecclesiastical Ministers notwithstanding any contradiction of the civil power And therefore may upon the same ground exempt such Ministers from secular iudicatories The answer is that the reason is vain First because we know that no man is bound to be a Clerk not even albeit the Pope should elect or appoint him for Clerkship Or which is that I mean that it is not in the Popes power to fix on this or that meer Layman and force or command him to Clerkship at least to such Clerkship as hath so many burdens annexed to it by the positive canons of the Church onely Although I confess it is in the Popes power as belonging properly to his office to choose out of the whole number of such as freely offer themselves whom he shall think fittest and have these ordered and appointed Ministers of the Church Secondly because we know and that in the primitive Ages of Christianity when established by law as the religion of the Empire such have not been admitted to Clerkship whom the Emperours prohibited or by their laws incapacitated as much as they could from that course of life For hence it is we read so many laws in the Code of Theodosius and Justinian concerning such as ought not to be admitted to Clerkship and commanding such to be degraded and secularized again who were admitted contrary to such laws even laws made by most Christian and most Orthodox Princes the Roman Emperours Constantine the Great Valentinian the elder Arcadius and Honorius Theodosius the younger Leo and Iustinian T is a clear case ex C. Theodos. Tit. de Episcop
Cler. l. 3. l. 6. l. 19. passim illo titulo and in the Code of Iustinian Tit. de Episcop Cler. l. 4. l. 12. l. 16. l. 27. in authenticis Iustiniani collat 9. Tit. 6. novel 123. de sanctissim Episcopis Nay do not we read how Gregory the Great himself that no less holy then learned Pope and zealous Defender of all the true liberties of the Church and canons of the Fathers admitted in the year 592. nay promulged the law of Mauritius wherein this Emperour enacted that no persons obnoxious to accounts or debts nor souldiers also who had not served their full time in the Warrs that is so many years as by law they ought before they could sue for a dismiss should be received to a Monastical life in Monasteries nay that notwithstanding this holy Pope himself conceived this law to be unjust in it self that is taken strictly and generally in all cases and to all such persons and souldiers yet in his letter on this subject to the same Emperour which is 16. Epistle l. 2. Registri cap. 100. he signifies his own obedience in receiving or publishing it in divers parts of the world vz. throughout the Occidental parts of the Empire though withall to satisfie his own conscience he in the same letter expostulate the injustice of this law with the Emperour concluding nevertheless all that very letter with these words of perfect submission and obedience Ego quidem jussioni subjectus eamdem legeni per diversos terrarum partes transmitti feci quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minime concordat ecce per suggestionis meae paginam serenissimis Dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolici qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quod sensi minimè tacui Which import as much as that having declared to his Imperial Majesty his own judgment of the injustice of that law and consequently paid to God what was from himself in that business due to God and yet having at the same time sent that very law according to the Emperours command into divers parts of the world to be published and observed he had also paid to Cesar what was herein due to Cesar Therefore I have sayes he on both sides done what I ought who have done my obedience to the Emperour and yet have not past in silence what I thought was for the service of God Thirdly and lastly because he concludes nothing at all For did we grant that the Pope may at his own pleasure fix on persons and command and force them to be ordered Clerks against their own will yet will it not follow that he may therefore or indeed upon any other ground subtract or exempt them from the secular power either supream or subordinat unless it be first supposed that whoever is once a Clerk is also exempt from the civil power But here we dispute not whether Clerks de facto now are so exempted by any law or power but whether the Pope or Church might de jure at any time exempt them so even against the contradictory will of all civil laws and and powers Which that the Pope or Church might or may do that argument will never prove Because such exemption is not of the essence of Clerk-ship nor at all necessarily annexed thereunto and Clerks might have been chosen by the Pope and other Bishops of the Church nay and have been so actually chosen for many hundreds of years and even for some hundreds too after the Emperours were themselves Christians when as yet the same Clerks enjoyed no such exemption by the laws or otherwise but were and by the very laws too of Christian Emperours expresly obnoxious even to inferiour civil or lay Judicatories Now the Reader may judge whether I grounded well that last part also of my defiance made to the Divines of Lovaine That is whether I had not reason to defye them as I have Sect. LXII to shew as much as any one convincing or even probable argument of natural reason to prove a power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream civil Prince or laws under wich they live as Citizens or Subjects or live at least as reputed Citizens and Subjects LXXI To cleer all whatever I intended either principally or incidentally in the former Section LXX it remains that I tell the Reader briefly that Bellarmine was too too confident also where and when he said against Barcley as we have seen above in the said last LXX Section immediatly going before this That not only the Pope could exempt all Clergymen from the supream civil power or could declare them formerly exempted so by the law of God but also that he hath de facto already exempted them or declared them exempted so by the law of God from all Princes and States on earth even in all politick civil criminal and other causes whatsoever mixt of both Petuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex illos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare sayes he adversus Guliel Barcl c. 38. For although it be not my task nor any part of my defiance or undertaking in my above LXII Section or any other place in this book nay though it be unnecessary as well in it self as for me to shew here that no meer and sole Papal Canon hath any such thing for we know that meer papal Canons or such as are made only by the Pope are not hoc ipso canons of the Church nor also hoc ipso that they are inserted in the Decrees of Gratian or Decretals of Gregory or Sixt of Boniface or Clementines of Clemens or Extravagants of Iohn the XXII not to speak of those other late canons of other Popes whereof Petrus Maffeus comprised a seventh book of Decretals and my defiance was concerning those canons which are truly and properly or simply called canons of the Church videlicet such as are made by General Councils or if at first by National or Provincial Councils or if by the Pope alone yet after have been canonized by General Councils or at least generally received by the Churches and my assertion of other canons how otherwise Papal soever is what is too of many Catholick Divines and Churches that they are not simply the canons of the Church but canons of such or such particular Churches as made or received them yea notwithstanding any extension soever of such by his Holiness and consequently that no concluding or convincing argument of general right in the whole Church as no infallible truth can be derived from them as such yet I would here advertise such Readers as are carried away and hurried into a belief of any thing which hath right or wrong the papal Authority or that of a meer and sole papal Constitutions for it not examining any further the truth of justice of it or whether the Pope could determine any such thing or upon what grounds or in what sense and by
his lawful Procurator to answer such crimes as were objected to him by the said Clergy and Academy and in the mean time to innovate nothing but to restore all things were innovated into their former state And therefore that they will find in Spondanus that this Emperour summon'd this Archbishop even as an Archbishop and consequently did not only summon and proceed against him as a Prince of the Empire but as a very Archiepiscopal Clerk and even too in a meer cause of Religion For this last particular also of the being of the cause for which the Emperour summon'd him a cause of Religion and Faith the same Spondanus hath expresly in the same place where he tells us that it was therefore the Pope Paul the III. who then sate in the See Apostolick thought fit by his own Letters of the 18. of Iuly immediatly following in the same year to summon to Rome the same Hermannus giving him sixty dayes for appearance before himself to wit least otherwise his Holiness might be thought to let go his own challenge of peculiar right in the See Apostolick only to proceed against so great a Clerk especially being the cause was properly Clerical and properly too a cause of Faith and reformation of the Church in religious tenets and rites and least consequently he might seem wholly to quit the quarrel of external coercion of either Clerks or Laicks where the crime was Heresie and by his own want or neglect of proceeding by his own proper Apostolical Authority against Herman whereas the Emperour had begun and proceeded already upon account or by virtue also of his own pure or sole imperial civil and lay power might be esteemed to acknowledge in lay Princes that supream external coercive right of even all sorts of very Clerks and even too of such in the very meerest and purest causes of Faith and Religion The testimony of Spondanus to this purpose is in these words Quod ut Pontifex audivit he means the summons sent by Charles from the Dyet of Worms for the Archbishop parum prohare visus quod Cesar in causa Fidei reformationis Ecclesiarum Iudicis authoritatem sibi sumeret die decima octava Iulii eundem Coloniensem ad sexagesimum diem citavit ut per seipsum vel per legittimum procuratorem coram ipso Romae se sisteret To that also which Bellarmine hath of crimina privilegiata and for as much as he sayes that in France those are call'd priviledg'd crimes whereof that Clerks may be accused before a lay Judge in the secular Court the Pope hath indulged I say it is farr otherwise And that Bellarmine could not shew nor any other can for him any Sanction or Law nay or any other authentick writing wherein it is recorded to posterity that such a priviledge was given by the Pope to Kings or Republicks Though I confess many Popes have been free enough of granting priviledges where they had no right to grant any and where only the ignorance or injustice of pretenders gave them some kind of bad excuse for attempting to give any and would willingly have all both Princes and people to desire of them priviledges for all they could themselves do before of themselves nay and were often bound to do without any priviledge Whence also it may be sufficiently evicted that it is no way probable this ordinary jurisdiction supream of Kings over Clerks was granted to them by the Pope but on the contrary certain that whereas anciently the very most Christian Kings and Emperours made use of all their both directive and coercive power to govern Clerks in all civil matters whatsoever nay and in spiritual matters too for what I mean concerns the external regiment of the Church by external direction of laws and by external coercion too of the material sword and to govern them also either immediatly by themselves or mediatly by their subordinat lay Judges and whereas the civil laws wherein and whereby afterwards the same Emperors and Kings exempted Clerks in many causes or most or if you please to say or think so in all whatsoever from the ordinary subordinate lay Judges have not a word of any exemption from the Prince himself the supream civil Judge of all both lay and Ecclesiastical Judge of his own Kingdom in the external coactive regiment therefore it must be concludent it was only from and by the free will of the Princes themselves that ordinary jurisdiction supream temporal or civil over Clerks was reserved still to themselves who remitted or bestowed away of their own right all whatever they pleased as they did that in the present case of deputing lay men for the ordinary subordinat Judges of those causes of Clerks which are not common but priviledged and retained also what they would Of all which the late and most learned Milletus may be read who in that choice and elegant Tract of his which he inscribed de delicto communi casis privilegiato shews very learnedly and clearly 1. That all such priviledges of Clergiemen had their whole and sole origen from Kings 2. And therefore that such crimes as Clerks are accused of and judged in foro civili in the ordinary civil or lay Courts are properly to be called delicta communia because to be tryed by the common law and before the common or lay Magistrate and those only which are remitted to the Bishop are by a contrary reason to be tearmed privilegiata to wit because it is by a priviledge granted by Kings or indulged by them to Bishops that bishops may take cognizance of and judge them As for Clarus and Ausrerius whom Bellarmine alledges for that his own sense of what is a priviledged crime of Clerks or for any other Canonists soever I regard not much what they say or not say in this matter Because they all commonly and without any ground not only bereave Princes of this supream right of either coeâ—cing or directing Clerks but also teach that all kind of meer temporal Principality flows and depends from the Papacy As that Legat did who in a Diet of the German Princes had the confidence to ask or querie thus A quo habet Imperator Imperium nisi habet a Domine Papa For so Radevicus hath related this Legats folly And so having throughly destroyed all the replies of Bellarmine to the grounds or any part of the grounds of my second grand argument and of the proof of it which second argument and proof of its Minor I derived partly from and built upon his own principles of Clergiemens being Cittizens and parts of the politick commonwealth I am now come to My third argument of pure natural reason which shall end this present Section Though I withal confess the grounds of this third argument are already given in my illustration of the former second But however for the clearer methods sake because too the medium is somewhat different from that in the form of my foregoing second I would give
wholly The first Prince therefore I bring to my purpose is that very same first and greatest of all Christian Emperours Constantine himself A Prince who as by the confession of all sides and all writers he was most pious and of all Princes deserved most and best of the Christian Catholick Churches so no man I think of all our Hieromonarchical sticklers will have the confidence to accuse him of having usurped any kind of authority over Churchmen or practised any at all over them but that was allowed him by the laws of God and nature and approved also by the State civil and Ecclesiastical But if any would be so impudent as to charge him in this matter I am sure he hath the general vote and patronage of all the ancient holy Church to clear him in it Theodoret. Histar l. 1. c. XI Sozom. l. 1. c. 16. And yet this very great and pious Constantine is he who in the Council of Nice or when it sate himself being present with them at Nice and often in the very Session Hall amidst the Council which was in his own Pallace there commanded the libels or petitions of accusations and criminations offered to him by Priests and Bishops against other Priests and other Bishops and as a Judge of them all of both sides and in such criminal matters commanded the said libels to be brought before him and receaved them albeit immediately thereupon having first brought all parties to a friendly attonement by his Princely wisedome and piety and by checking and rebuking severely both the accusers and accused for criminating and recriminating one an other with personal failings he cast before their faces all those libels into a fire as thinking it more expedient and pious that such humane imperfections or frailties of Bishops and Priests should be altogether hid and for ever unknown least otherwise or if their vices were known or publish'd the vulgar the lay people universally might be scandalized and corrupted as takeing from such examples a greater liberty for themselves to commit sin without remorse or shame Indeed Sozomen tells that Constantine said in this occasion It was not lawfull for him as being a man to take upon or unto himself the cognizance of such causes where the accusers and the accused were Priests But if Constantine said so at all without any kind of doubt he must be supposed to have said so partly out of some excess of reverence and piety to their Order which he would not have then and in the face of the world to be blemish'd publickly with such foule aspersions and partly must be understood to mean that part of the accusations which contained meer Ecclesiastical and not lay crimes to witt heresy and the like whereof he was not so competent a judg and above all said so that he might the more easily bring them to concord and for the more quick dispatch of the grand controversy that of Arrius's pestilent heresy in the Faith the debate of which was the great end of gathering that Council to which dispatch or even debate that of privat criminations of one another was a great delay and might be a farre greater if Constantine had not carried himself in this matter so prudently and piously For if Constantine had said so indeed and withall meand to be understood of even meer lay crimes or strictly or in a strict sense of the word fas or lawfull in order to such crimes of Priests or even also to signifie that himself was not a competent judge nor the sole Iudge for the punishing of heresy in them by external coercion as by corporal or pecuniary mulcts by imprisonment exile death he had never receaved the petitions either of the accusers or accused but remitted them on both sides to their own proper judges and judicatories the tribunals of Bishops Nay the Bishops themselves at least such of them as were not particularly concern'd in such criminations had likely admonish'd him not to give eare or audience to the accusers of Bishops or at all receave their libels as not being their competent judge in any cause whatsoever at least to punish or coerce them And yet for any thing out of History none of them ever admonish'd much less reprehended him in this matter And do not we know it was that very Constantine who soon after and by his own Imperial authority proceeded with just coercive rigour against Arrius the Priest and for his most pestilent and most turbulent heresy sent him to banishment For although it was the said Council of Bishops at Nice that by their own episcopal censure condemned him for an heretick and separated him from the communion of the faithfull yet his corporal punishment was from the Tole imperial power of Constantine As when the question was again of his restitution it was neither that Council nor any other Bishops that revoked him from exile but Constantine alone and by his own Imperial power alone Athanasius de Synod Socrat. l. 1. c. 25. Sozom. l. 2. c. 28. And we know also that the same Constantine and by his own sole and proper imperial power banish'd many Bishops too that were accused to be complices in that heresy with Arrius the Priest as Constantine himself confesses of Eusebius Theognides and several others in his letter to the Nicomedians Theodoretus l. â— c. 20. Sed isti sayes Constantine honesti bonique scilicet Episcopi qui vera Concilij dividicatione ad paenitentiam agendam reservati sunt non solum eos admiserunt ad se secum in tuto collocarunt verum etiam illorum depravatis moribus communicarunt Quam â—â—rem erga istos ingratos aliquod supplicium censui statuendum propterea mandatum dedi ut asuis abrepti sedibus quà m longissimè religarentur So Constantine himself Where he expresly sayes that himself ordained their punishment and himself had given order for their being forced from their Episcopal Sees and carried exiles to the very remotest parts of the whole Empire But Cradinal Baronius cannot endure this Imperial stile And therefore in his tome 3. an 329. n. 13. endeavours to make us beleeve it was by the authority of the Nicene Council that Constantine sent these Bishops to banishment Caeterum sayes Baronius quod spectat ad Constantinum non novam in Episcopos depositionis exilij sententiam protulii sed quam sciebat olim latam a Niceno Concilio suis vero precibus revocatam voluit iterum val dari Depositos hos namo in Niceno Concilio constat tum ex ijs quae superius suo loco dicta sunt tum etiam ex ijs quae habentur in Epistola Synodali Concilij Alexandrini apud Athanasium in Apologia secunda ubi haec leguntur Postquam de Eusebio Theognide Arianis Episcopis depositis in Niceno Concilio plura Patres lâ—qunti fuerant c. So our great Annalist knows not how to distinguish or rather will not distinguish twixt a meer Ecclesiastical or meerly
in it self purely or as abstracting from matter of fact we say two things here to clear all the fog which many of our late School Divines do raise without any cause at all to loose themselves and others in it The one is that in this cause of Caecilian and such others of Church-men wherein Constantine or other Christian Emperours interposed their imperial authority and carried themselves properly as Judges that wherein they did so was pure matter of fact whereof questionless the lay Emperours when judicious and just were secundum allegata probata as competent Judges as any Ecclesiastick And the other is that whereas the Emperour and the same we must say of every other supream or Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is of supream absolute independent power within his Empire he must consequently have sufficient authority from God himself to promote all that may be for the publick good peace or safety of his people in this life and of their happiness too in the other according as he is directed by the law of God and therefore also must have sufficient power from God himself to see and take effectual care and such effectual course as is necessary that the very Ecclesiastical affairs within his Empire be duely carried on Therefore albeit he be not the competent Judge in a doubtfull case what was or was not the Faith delivered once in such or such a point controverted yet he is a competent Judge to see and determine as to matter of Fact whether the Ecclesiasticks of his Kingdom duely observe the uncontroverted Faith or that part of Faith which all men which even themselves confess acknowledge to be that which was once so delivered or whether they duely observe the known and holy canons of the Church made for preservation of that Faith And he is a competent Judge also or hath a competent sufficient absolute independent power to force the very Ecclesiasticks themselves to keep that Faith entire and sound even also I mean as to the very Theory of it and to all questions of divine right especially where and when he sees that by reason of controversies arising about such very questions or Theory the publick external peace of either Church or State may be endangered or that the publick tranquillity depends of the unity of his people in such matters according to what was from the beginning taught By which very consideration that Constantine himself was very much induâ—ced â—o interess himself in these matters of Faith even himself also writes apud â—arrâ—nium tom 3. an 313. n. 37. least otherwise he should have seen dangeâ—ous troubles and commotions in his Empire and thence have suffered also very much in his reputation as not governing well or prudently or also as haveing imprudently embraced that religion whose professours he could not keep in peace or unity amongst themselves Of which consideration and judgement of Constantine or rather of which power and authority of Constantine or indeed of both the one and the other St. Augustine speaks ep 162. where he writes thus Quasi verò ipse sibi he means Felix Aptungitanus â—â—c comparavit ac non Imperator ita quasi jusserit ad cujus curam de qua rationem Deo redditurus esset res illa maximè pertinebat But of this authority and superintendency in general of Emperours Kings Princes and other supream temporal or politick States in and over the Church or the spiritual or Ecclesiastical both Superiours and Inferiours of the same Christian Catholick Church this is not the proper place to treat at large It sufficeth at present to say that forasmuch as Constantine did so and so often too interess himself in this cause of Caecilian and deputed Judges to hear and determine it he did all this by the true proper genuine authority of an Emperour and even of a Christian Emperour whose duty it is when the Ecclesiasticks themselves alone cannot end or compose their own dissentions that he by his own supream authority assist and promote their agreement and even force them to a just and equitable agreement Which the Milevitan Council approves in effect canone 19 and ponitur xi q. 1. c. 11. and in these tearms Placuit ut quicumque ab Imperatore cognitionem judiciorum publicorum petierit honore proprio privetur Si autem Episcopale judicium ab Imperatore postulaverit nihil ei obsit But that Constantine did in aftertimes adorn and magnifie the Church or Churchmen with most singular and most ample priviledges concerning civil judgments or judgments in civil affairs this he did not as Baronius tom 3. an 314. n. 37. would make us believe he did to correct or by way of correction of those former judgments of his own in the said or like affairs of Ecclesiastical persons which judgments our great Annalist sayes were unduly and unjustly usurped by the Emperour but did so or gave such priviledges out of his meer liberality and piety alway nevertheless reserving his own proper supream and general and imperial authority to provide upon emergencies by himself or by such others as he should think fit to depute for the necessities of the Church and Churchmen as often as he saw need However let us proceed in the matter of fact which is our proper subject here For notwithstanding the aforesaid judgment also of the Council of Orleance the Donatists yet appeal even from it and the second time to the Emperour himself against and in that cause of Cecilian and the Emperour admits again their appeal judges the matter himself absolves Cecilian and condemns the Donatists St. Augustine is my author and witness ep 48. and epist 162. where yet he neither accuses nor reprehends the Emperour Nor doth Cecilian except but obeyes and freely presents himself to be judged by the Emperour For it was a criminal judgment that is the matter debated was a crime charged upon him Nay St. Augustine openly sayes and avers that neither the accusing or appealing Bishops themselves were to be reprehended on this account that they drew or brought the affairs or causes of or accusations against other Bishops to a lay secular Judicatory For thus he writes ep 48. Si autem sicut falso arbitramini vere criminosum Caecilianum judicandum terrenis potestatibus tradiderant quid objicitis quod vâ—strorum praesumptio primitus fecit he speaks to the later Donatists quod eos non arguerimus sayes he quia fecerunt si non animo inuido noxio sed emendandi corrigendi voluntate fecissent Therefore St. Augustine sayes that where and when the dispute concerns the correction and amendment of Ecclesiasticks to demand the judgment or sentence and to appeal to the power of earthly Princes is not reprehensible if the accusers proceed not in such or indeed any other application out of envie or malice Concerning this second admission of Constantine or indeed rather concerning his whole procedure in this affair by admitting any appeal at all or
and this barely too crimen Ecclesiasticum it is declared that if any charge a Clerk with the former sort of crime the secular judges shall determine the cause but if with the later that the Bishop onely shall have power to judg it Quod si de criminali causa litigium emerserit tunc competentes judices in hac civitate scilicet Constantinopolitana vel in Provinciis interpellati consentaneum legibus terminum imponant c Sin autem crimen Ecclesiasticum est tunc secundum canones ab Episcopo suo causae examinatio paena procedat nullam communionem aliis judicibus in hujusmodi causis habentibus Which although it was first or originally a meer civil constitution or Novel of Iustinian yet was after made a canon of the Church by being inserted in and received by the Church amongst her canons in corpore Iuris canonici or in Gratian. Sixt canon as to pure Ecclesiastical crimes and to their punishment in case of disobedience to the Bishops was long before and not a Papal canon onely but a canon of the third Council of Carthage which was that is called the Vniversal Council understand you of Affrick and is that also in Gratian XI q. 1. c. Petimus where it is declared that intruded Bishops contemning the admonitions of the Church belong in such case to the lay judicatory Seaventh canon distinguishing likewise in effect sufficiently and clearly enough as the above fift hath done betwixt lay crimes or at least some lay crimes that is crimes which are common as well to lay-men as to Clergie-men and both Ecclesiastical crimes or such as are proper onely to Ecclesiastical persons and other crimes too which are strictly civil but not criminal is that of the first Council of Matiscon held in the year 582. under King Gunteramnus and Pope Pelagius II. wherein and in the 7. chap. the Fathers decree Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex cujuscumque Clericum absque causa criminali id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum suerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Whence appears evidently these Fathers held it no breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity that Clerks accused of murder theft or maleficium what ever they understood by this word or whether witchcraft onely according the special acception and restriction of this word or sense of it by some authors or generally all kind of lay evils or wickedness according to the general or etymological sense thereof should be subject to the meer lay coercive power of even inferiour lay judges whereof I have said more at large before And therefore by this canon Princes were to the end of the fift age of Christianity in possession of their own proper supream civil power of punishing Clerks in their own lay and princely Iudicatories tribunals or courts and even by their own inferiour proper and meer lay delegated or commission'd judges when I say the cause or accusation was purely criminal and of such crimes in specie as are murder theft or witchcraft Eight canon is that still in Gratian 23. q. 5. cap. Principes For though Isidorus de sum bon c. 35. be the original Author of it yet as in Gratian it is now allowed and accounted amongst the canons of the Church And that indeed not unworthily For thus it speaks Principes seculi non numquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eamdem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesâ—asticam muniant Caeterum intra Ecclisiam petesta es necessariae non essent nisi ut quod non fraevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem potestat hoc impleat per disciplinae terrâ—rem Saepe per regnum terrenum caeleste regnum proficit ut qui intra Ecclesiam positi contra fidem disciplinam Ecclesiae agunt rigore Principum conterantur ipsamque disciplinam quam Ecclesiae humilitas exercere non praevalet corvicibus superborum potestas principalis imponat ut venerationem mereatur virtutem potestatis impertiat Cognoscant Principes saeculi Deo debere se rationem reddere propter Ecclesiam quam a Christo tuendam accipiunt Nam sive augeatur pax displina Ecclesiae per fideles Principes sive soluatur ille ab eis rationem exiget qui corum potestati suam Ecclesiam credidit Here you see that not out of or by vertue of any commission or delegation from Bishops or Popes Princes do exercise the distriction of their power even within the Church that is against Churchmen and even too in Church affairs but out and by vertue of their own proper authority which they received from God And you see also that the Church as such by reason of its humble and essential constitution may not exercise or make use of any penal discipline as belonging to her self but for such coercion must have recourse to the power of Princes Nor let any think to evade by saying that Princes are in so much or as punishing such persons or as determining correcting or amending such affairs but Ministers of the Church and executors of the sentence or power of the Church pursuant to that which Innocent III. and the Glosse upon him say or determine cap. ut famae de sent Excom extracted out of the said Innocent's answer to the Bishop of London For I have before already in several Sections proved by reason Scripture tradition of the Fathers and practise too both general and particular and of both Fathers and Princes and Pontiffs and people that Princes have hethertoo proceeded and de jure proceeded against such persons and even too in such matters by their own proper authority without any commission had from the Church As likewise that they received from God himself such their own proper universal authority and right to proceed so against all persons whatsoever laymen or Clergiemen guilty of any crimes and in all causes too whatsoever temporal or spiritual forasmuch or wherein they relate to the external peace of the Commonwealth and to the meer external government of the Church by the power of the material sword And we have seen too already that the power of inflicting corporal punishment by way of coaction and force is absolutely denyed to the Church as a Church Which being so who will be so unreasonable as to attribute a power to Her of deputing commissioning or delegating Ministers or executors to inflict them so But what this canon or Gratian or rather Isidore who was the original Author sayes here is very observable I mean where it sayes that Princes have the height of their power within the Church and that God himself hath committed his Church to their power even as Leo Magnus the Pope writing to Leo the Emperour ep 81. sayes Debes incunctanter advertere Regiam potestatem tibi non
solum ad mundi regimen sed maxime ad Ecclesiae praesidiuâ— esse collatum At most therefore what is in this matter granted to the Church is that Ecclesiasticks be not by Princes proceeded against coercively to punishment if their transgression be onely or meerly Ecclesiastical and the punishment be corporal I say be not so and in such case punished corporally unless or until the Church do her own duty first by depositions or censures or both Except you always still such extraordinary cases wherein the Superiours of the Church should or would themselves also peradventure be too refractory or too contumacious against reason as guilty of the same crimes or for any causes whatsoever countenancing or favouring the criminal Clerks and therefore refusing to proceed at all or at least onely against them For when a degraded Clerk is given over to the secular Court he is not delivered so by the Church to the secular Magistrats as if the Church did mean or intend these Magistrats should proceed by vertue of a power derived from her or be the Ministers or executioners of her own sentence which if capital she hath no power no authority at all from God or man to pronounce or decree as if any other way it be purely civil or forcible at all corporally for example to corporal restraint or imprisonment she hath for so much all her power from man and from the civil laws onely but he is given over so by the Church as meaning and intending onely that such a criminal Clerk be thenceforward under the ordinary power of even the inferiour lay Magistrats and Judges and by such delivery or giving over signifying unto them that they may now proceed if they please and think fit either to absolve or condemn him For even Caelestinus III. himself a Pope of the later times confesses c. Non ab homine de judic that Ecclesiastical punishment is of a quite other nature then that which is lay and that the Church hath no kind of power or authority to inflict such punishments as are in their own nature lay punishments or which is the same thing that she hath no power no authority at all of her self as a Church to inflict any punishment but purely Ecclesiastical but suspension deposition excommunication the lesser and greater and finally degradation when the criminal Clerk is delivered over or left under the secular power let the crimes of such a Clerk be ever so great and ever too such pure lay crimes even perjury theft and murder c and even heightned also by incorrigibleness A nobis fuit ex parte tua quaesitum sayes the above Caelestine utrum liceat Regi vel alicut seculari personae judicare Clericos cujuscumque ordinis sive in furto sive homicidio vel periurio seu quibus cumque fuerint criminibus deprehensi Consultationi tuae taliter respondentus quod si Clericus in quocumque ordine constitutus in furto vel homicidio vel periurio seu alio crimine fuerit deprehensus legittime atque convictus ab Ecclesiastico Iudice deponendus est Qui si depositus incorrigibilis fuerit excommunicari debet deinde contumacia crescente anathematis mucrone feriri postmedum verò si in profundum malorum veniens contempserit cum Ecclesia non habeat ultra quid faciat ne possit esse ultra perditio plurimorâ—m per secularem comprimendus est potestatem ita quod ei deputetur exilium vel alia legittima paena Where you are to observe singularly as to our present purpose of distinction betwixt Ecclesiastical and secular punishment and of no power at all in the Church to inflict corporal secular civil or lay punishments what Caelestinus sayes in these words Cum Ecclesia non habeat ultra quid faciat As you are also to note that he answers not directly or rather indeed not at all to the main question whether the King or other secular powers could punish Clerks guilty of or manifestly deprehended in perjury theft or murder but declines that of the authority of Kings or of other secular powers acting of themselveâ— in such cases without relation to the desires of the Church that they should act so and onely prescribes to the Ecclesiastical superiours how they themselves are to proceed by degrees aâ— becomes them against such criminal Clerks For otherwise it hath been seen before and in the very laws of Iustinian submitted unto by the Church that in such criminal causes the civil Praetors proceeded immediately against Churchmen though execution of the sentence was suspended until degradation was by the Bishop And it hath been seen that in a very auncient Council of Bishops long before this Calestine the first of Matisconum I mean the cases of theft murder and malefice were still expresly and particularly supposed or rather declared to have no Ecclesiastical exemption but to be still under the cognizance of even the inferiour lay judges And reason it self and the necessary preservation of both State and Church tell us that Caelestine's answer here cannot be otherwise understood in all the formalities of it and as relateing to the power supream of Kings who acknowledg none but God above them in temporals and who recieve not or incorporat not by their own proper power and into their own civil law this canon of Caelestine in any other sense or any other Church canon at all either like or unlike to it exempting Clerks in such crimes and in the first Instance from their supream legal cognizance or even from that of their subordinat ordinary secular and lay judges For I confess that in such Kingdoms or temporal States if any such be wherein the Princes or people or civil Governours and civil laws or customs have recieved such Ecclesiastical canons for the exemption of Clerks in such crimes until such Ecclesiastical formalities had preceeded it is fitting they be obserued and ought to be observed while the civil laws which onely gave them force or a binding virtue remain unrepealed and if the litteral observation of them strike not at the very being or at least peaceable and well being of the Commonwealth But observed so that is by virtue of the civil reception and incorporation of them into the civil laws and by the civil power they make nothing at all against my main purpose or against that of those other canons I alledg for the power of Kings from God to punish delinquent Clergiemen with civil and corporal punishments where and when they shall upon rational grounds judg it necessary and expedient for the publick good of either Church or State and where and when it is not against the laws of the land that they punish them so either by themselves immediately or by their subordinat lay judges either extraordinary or ordinary The Bishops of Affrick acknowledging this power in temporal Princes write in this manner and stile to the Emperour Vt novellae praesumptionis scandalum quod adversus fidem nostram attentatum
Ex his omnibus datur intelligi his own conclusion is in general tearms only importing that a Clerk is not either in a civil or criminal cause to be convented in publick that is in lay or secular Judicatories Quod Clericus sayes he ad publica judicia nec in civili nec in criminali causa est producendus not descending to the particular or specifical case of the regal power and regal cognizance intervening by special commission or special warrant or in a special emergency nor descending also to or considering the special case of times or Countryes when or where no such canon of the Church or Pope no such priviledge imperial at least in that latitude is in use or perhaps hath ever yet been received or if once received hath been again repealed Therefore Gratian may be rationally expounded to mean by his judicia publica in this Paragraph those ordinary Judicatories only which are of inferiour lay Judges and those too but only where such Canons are received or such priviledges allowed by the supream civil powers and laws But if any must needs press further yet or in any other sense the conclusion of Gratianus then I must say three things The first is that as I have proved already elsewhere in this work if a Clerk sue a Layman for any temporal matter or in a meer civil cause that is not criminal he must sue him in a lay Court and before a lay Judge and this lay Judge albeit only a subordinate inferiour and ordinary Judge shall give a binding sentence against this Clerk if the law be in the case for the Layman So that neither is it generally true not even by the very Canons I mean that Clerks in all civil causes are totally exempt from the jurisdiction of as much as the very inferiour lay Judges For the very Canons not to speak of the civil laws now in force throughout the world have ordered so Quod Actor sequatur forum Rei let the Actor be ever so much a Clerk or Ecclesiastick The second is that generally for criminal causes of Clerks Gratianus hath not produced as much as any one either imperial constitution or even any one Church Canon sufficiently either in particular or in general revoking or anulling or sufficiently declaring that revocation of the 74. Constitution of Iustinianus whereby this Emperour appoints and impowers the lay Judges for those within Constantinople and for those abroad in the Provinces the lay Pretors in the same Provinces to iudge the criminal causes of Clerks nay nor hath at all as much as attempted to answer or gain-say it albeit this very 74. Constitution was the very last chapter saving one which himself produced immediatly as a canon before the foresaid last paragraph Ex â—is omnibus Thirdly that for those Church Canons or those more likely authorities or passages true or false of some Popes or some Councils alledged by Gratianus in that his eleventh cause and first question or those in him which may seem most of any he hath to ground another sense then that I have said to be his sense I have before sufficiently nay and abundantly too cleared and answered them at large in my LXIX Section of in my answer to Bellarmine's aâ—legations of the Canons for himself and for the exemption of criminal Clerks from the supream royal coercive power of Kings where I have also noted some of Gratian's either voluntary or unvoluntary corruptions of the Canons Fourthly and consequently that whether Gratian was or was not of a contrary opinion it matters not a pin It is not his opinion and let us suppose he had truly and sincerely declared his own inward opinion for I am sure many as good and as great and far greater then he dared not declare their own when he writ his Decretum or declare any at all but in the language of the Papal Court It it is not I say his opinion but his reason we must value for sin he did not himself nor any for him does pretend to infallibility And I am sure he neither brings nor as much as pretends to bring any Scripture at all or any Tradition of the Fathers or even as much as any argument of natural reason for the warranty of any other sense And I am certain also that my judicious and impartial Readers will themselves clearly see and confess that he brings not for himself or for such a sense as much as any one Canon true or false to confront these I have alledg'd for my self and for that sense I intend all along or any one Canon true or false that denyes that which I have given for the coercive power of secular Princes to have been and to be the sense of Paul the Apostle Rom 13. or to have been and be the general and unanimous sense of the holy Fathers in their commentaries and expositions of it or finally any one Canon true or false that particularly and either formally or virtually descends to the specifical debate 'twixt the most eminent Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius or their followers the present Divines of Lovaine and me concerning the supream royal and external Jurisdiction of Kings to punish criminal Clerks by their own immediate authority royal and by virtue of their own royal commissions and delegations extraordinary in all cases and contingencies wherein the preservation of the publick peace and safety of either Church or State require it and by their mediat authority also in their inferiour Judges and by vertue of their ordinary commissions or delegations to such Judges or of the ordinary power which the civil laws of the land give to these Judges in all cases I mean wherein the same civil laws or the makers of such laws have not received or admitted of the more or less ancient constitutions of Roman Emperours or of the more or less ancient Canons of the great Pontiffs or of other Bishops in their Ecclesiastical Councils for what concerns the exemption of Clergie-men in criminal causes from the meer civil and ordinary Courts and lay inferiour or subordinate Judges and their subjection to Ecclesiastical Judges only and the Prince himself who must be without any peradventure and even in such causes too of Clerks above all Iudges in his own Kingdom whether lay or Ecclesiastical Judges For I have before sufficiently demonstrated that all Ecclesiastical Exemption in temporal matters or in all both civil and criminal causes is only from the supream civil Power as from the only proper and total efficient cause and I have also before demonstrated that no exemption to any persons or person whatsoever could be given by that Power from it self or at least for the matter of coercion and when the publick good required it unless at the same time it freed such persons or person from all kind of subjection to it self and I have likewise demonstrated before that such exemption from it self in any case at all whatsoever cannot be rationally supposed as given by
and therefore say also by consequence that he lay under some constraint and some necessity and some bond tye or obligation to pay that didrachma yet is it not consequent that I say he wanted that freedom or any such freedom which is simply such or lay under any constrrint or necessity which are simply such or even under any bond tye or obligation at least of justice simply such or which might oblige him under sin or the penalty of sin or by vertue of the tribute law it self to pay any tribute for the rest of my discourse most evidently shews I mean thereby no other constraint necessity or obligation but such as are secundum quid or diminutively such even such as Iohn the XXII himself allows even such as our Saviour himself means by saying ut non scandalizemus eos da c. and even such finally as arise only from the law of love and of that divine love which told him it was not fitting for him to give cause of scandal to the weak ones by his own refusal or denial or failer and which made him at last to give his life for them that took it from him And therefore also 't is not consequent that by any thing or word said in that passage of mine page 239 I joyn or concur with Marsilius or Jandunus in this first article of theirs not even as much as in the words much less in the sense of that article condemn'd by Pope Iohn the XXII Besides it is clear enough that for the defence of my thesis against Bellarmine's argument grounded by him on the texts of Matthew Mat. 17. Ergo liberi sunt filii and ut nâ—â— scandalizemus eos c. I needed not give as I did not give in my LXIII Section page 150 151 153. where I handled these words of our Saviour at large and of purpose any such answer but solved the argument fairly and clearly there without any such or as much as reflecting on any such answer that is on any such necessity or any such obligation of justice or obedience due arising from the tribute law or other command of presumed superiour Powers And it is no less clear that I was not in my 239. page nor am here now at present nor will be elsewhere any further concern'd for Marsilius or Jandunus then they held close to the general thesis only that is to the general doctrine only of the Catholick Church and that whereever they swerve from that I do from them and where that Church condemns them I also condemn them nay and that I am content likewise to condemn them where ever Iohn the XXII himself alone or in this Bull of his condemns them and yet hold still constantly to my thesis For and forasmuch as concerns their second complex article viz. Quod B. Petrus Apostolus non plus authoritatis habuit quam alii Apostoli habuerint nec aliorum Apostolorum fuit caput Item quod Christus nullum caput dimisit Ecclesiae nec aliquem Vicarium suum fecit 't is plain it concerns not our present controversie of the exemption of Clergiemen or that even of the very Apostles themselves or that even sayl also of S. Peter himselâ— from the temporal powers and in temporal matters For that Peter should have had that is actually and immediatly from Christ himself had more authority then the other Apostles had and that he should have been made or was actually made the head of them all and that Christ should have or had left some one Head to the Church and made left some one his own Vicar which is the contradictory of this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus argues nothing at all for the exemption from temporal Princes in temporal matters of as much as Peter himself or of him that had that greater authority or of that head or of that Vicar Because the doctrine of the Catholick Church teacheth us that that greater authority of Peter whatever it was and that Headship of his over the rest of the Apostles and that one Headship and one Vicarship under Christ in the Church and over the Church was meerly and purely spiritual and because not only that very doctrine but reason also and experience tells us that such greater authority spiritual and even such one Headship and one Vicarship spiritual consist well very with a lesser authority temporal in the same Head or Vicar and even with none such at all in Him and yet with another Headship and another Vicarship temporal in another person and with a full entire subjection in temporal matters to this other person or other head and other Vicar whose authority and power is only and purely temporal as on the other side the temporal Headship or temporal Vicarship consists very well with its own subjection in spiritual matters to that Headship and Vicarship which is only spiritual And more or other then what is here said Iohn the XXII arguments in his discourse against this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus do not conclude or indeed as much as pretend to being all his reasons here are only and wholly bent against a parity of power in the Apostles amongst themselves without any exception of Peter or preheminence given to him over them How strong or how weak his reasons are I need not care at least for the present being that for the present I allow all in general both his definitions and reasons in this Bull and in particular what he reasons and defines against this second Article as not as much as in the least touching me or my thesis of the subjection of all Clergiem whether Apostles or not Apostles and even of the very spiritual Prince of the Apostles Peter himself in temporal matters to the supream temporal respective Princes within whose dominions they live For likewise as for the third of those Articles or this Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam instituere destituere ac punire as the said Iohn the XXII relates it in the beginning of his Bull or this other form of it Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam corrigere punire ac instituere destituere 't is clear enough it may be allowed as I also do allow it to be false erroneous and heretical for one part and in one sense or even for both parts in a certain sense whatever is in the mean while thought of the other part or even of either in another different sense and yet my grand Thesis and all my doctrine hitherto even where it descends or rather ascends to the Pope himself be untouch'd by any such censure That one part I allow to be so is that which sayes it belongs to the Emperour to institute and destitute the Pope and the sense wherein I allow this part to be so or to be false erroneous and heretical is that whereby any should conceive that the Emperor could at any time and by his own proper imperial authority as such
Synodum cum Hadriano Papa in Patriarchio Lateranensi in Ecclesia Sancti Salvatoris quae Synodus celebrata est à CLIII Episcopis religiosis Abbatibus Hadrianus autem Papa cum universa Synodo tradiderunt Carolo jus potestatem eligendi Pontificem ordinandi Apostolicam sedem dignitatem quoque patriciatus eis concesserunt In super Archiepiscopos Episcopos per singulas provincias ab eo investituram accipere diffinivit ut nisi à Rege laudetur investiatur Episcopus à nemine consecretur quicumque contra hoc decretum ageret anathematis vinculo eum innodavit nisi resipisceret bona ejus publicari praecepit Item Leo Papa ut habetur distinct 63. cap. In Synodo In Synodo Congregata Romae in Ecclesia Sancti Salvatoris Ad exemplum B. Hadriani Apostolicae sedis antistitis qui domino Carolo victoriosissimo regi Francorum Longobardorum Patriciatus dignitatem ac ordinationem Apostolicae sedis investituram Episcoporum concessit ego quoque Leo Episcopus servus servorum Dei cum toto clero ac Romano populo constituimus confirmanus et corroboramus et per nostram apostolicam auctoritatem concedimus atque largimur domino Othoni primo regi Tentonicorum ejusque Successoribus hujus regni Italiae in perpetuum facultatem eligendi Successorem atque summae sedis Apostolicae Pontificem ordinandi ac per hoc Archiepiscopos seu Episcopos ut ipsi ab eo investituram accipiant et consecrationem unde debent exceptis his quos Imperator Pontificibus et Archiepiscopis concessit et ut nemo deinceps cujusque dignitatis vel religiositatis eligendi vel patricium vel Pontificem summae sedis Apostolicae aut quemcumque Episcopum ordinandi habeat facultatem absque consensu ipsius Imperatoris quod tamen fiat absque omni pecunia et ut ipse sic Patricius et Rex Quod si à clero et populo quis eligatur Episcopus nisi à supradicto Rege laudetur et investiatur non consecretur Si quis contra hanc regulam et Apostolicam autoritatem aliquid molietur hunc excommunicationi subiacere decernimus et nisi resipuer it irrevocabili exilio puniri vel ultimis suppliciis affici Now to consider the fourth Article of Marfilius and Iandunus viz. this Omnes sarcerdotes sive sit Papa five Archiepiscopus sive sacerdos simplex sunt ex institutione Christi authoritatis jurisdictionis aequalis quod autem unus plus alio habeat hoc est secundum quod Imperator concedit uni vel alii plus minus sicut concessit alicui sic potest illud etiam revocare albeit I confess this Article and as to all the several parts of it be most justly censurable as false and erroneous in these tearms wherein this Pope Iohn the XXII relates it for whether Christ himself immediatly from his own mouth instituted this diversity of degrees amongst Priests that one should be a simple Priest only another should be an Episcopal Priest a third an Archbishop a fourth a Primat a fifth a Patriarch and the sixt the chief of all Patriarchs whom we now call the Pope or whether Christ did not so immediatly by his own mouth institute any such or other kind of diversity of degrees inferiour and superiour among Priests but only mediatly by the mouths or decrees of his Apostles or even only by the mouths decrees or mutual consent of the Priests them selves who immediatly or mediatly after the dayes of the Apostles did govern the several Churches yet it is plain that by the institution of Christ they are not after such decree made who ever made it of equal authority or jurisdiction because it is plain that for any thing we read Christ our Lord made no such particular institution or such particular provision for parity or equality of jurisdiction amongst them not even I mean in case the diversity of degrees were made by the Priests themselves and not by Christ himself immediatly as it is too plain that if the immediat institution of this diversity of decrees be attributed to him the immediat institution also of a disparity or inequality of jurisdiction amongst them must be likewise attributed to him and therefore the first part of this fourth Article which sayes the contrary and if it do say the contrary must be most justly censurable as false and erroneous and as renewing the old Heresie of Aerius and as deriving or handing it down to Calvin and his godly gang of Presbyterians because we know that by the general and even immediat institution of Christ himself the first Apostolical Priests and all their lawful successors in the priestly function both immediat and mediate until the consummation of the world were and are and shall be impowered to govern the Church and make laws of discipline for the better government of it and consequently to make laws for the diversity of degrees of inferiours and superiours and by consequence also for a disparity and inequality of jurisdiction and because we know he said immediatly by his own mouth Qui vos audit me audit and Quaecunque alligaveritis super terram erunt alligata in coelo and immediatly by the mouth of his Apostle Obedite Praepositis vestris subiacete eis ipsi enim pervigilant quasi rationem pro animabus vestris reddituri and therefore also the second part of this same fourth Article for as much as it sayes that That one Priest hath more authority or jurisdiction purely spiritual then another Priest it is meerly and only from the imperial power as such that gives more to one and less to another of such spiritual power if this be it it sayes is no less justly censurable as false erroneous and heretical as is consequently the third and last part for the supposition it also involves of such a spiritual power greater and lesser given so by the Emperour to this and that Priest albeit I say my judgment of this fourth Article and of all the several parts of it be such and consequently be in all respects conformable to the censure of Iohn the XXII of it in this Bull yet I say withal what every one sees in this Article or condemnation of it there is not a word in it reflecting either directly or indirectly or at all touching the doctrine of a supream civil coercive power in secular Princes to judge the criminal causes and punish by secular means the crimes of all Clerks whatsoever living within their Dominions or such Clerks as are not themselves also for the time supream temporal Princes as well as Clerks Priests Bishops Archbishops Primats Patriarchs or Popes For the disparity or inequality of spiritual authority and jurisdiction betwixt them and the several degrees of superiority and inferiority in such spiritual power by whomsoever immediatly instituted hinders not their parity and equality of temporal subjection to the secular Prince and to his coercive power in temporal matters
and criminal causes all alike all from from the Pope himself to the most inferiour Clerk in the Church without any other distinction in such temporal subjection and consequents of it but what the supream Prince himself and his own proper civil laws do make being that by the law of God declared by the Apostle ad Rom. 13. for as much as concerns or depends only of it the precept is in general as well to the Pope as to the meanest Acolyt Omnis anima potentatibus sublimioribus subdita sit Even as the disparity or inequality of temporal authority and civil jurisdiction between the temporal estates of a Kingdom and the civil diversity of degrees of superiority amongst them by whomsoever instituted hinder not their parity and equality and unity also of subjection in meer spiritual things to the spiritual Prince or Bishop and to his supream spiritual corrective power as purely such and wherein it is purely such Whereby you may clearly see I am not any way concern'd in John the XXII's condemnation of this fourth Article though I also condemn'd it in his sense and in the very words too he gives it us yea notwithstanding I do not approve at all either his allegations or supposititions or the strength of his arguments where he disputes against it And for the last article of all the five which only remains yet unconsidered and is this Quod tota Ecclesia simul juncta nullum hominem punire possit punitione coactiva nisi concedat hoc Imperator as it is related in the beginning of the said Bull or this other form of it as in the repetition about the end of the same Bull where 't is censured Quod Papa vel tota Ecclesia simul sumpta nullum hominem quantumcunque sceleratum potest punire punitione coactiva nisi Imperator daret eis authoritatem I say the very same I did of all the rest Although I confess this Article at first appearance seems to come nearest home of all the five to that part of my doctrine or suppositions explications answers in so many passages hitherto and hereafter in some other parts of this Book where I say the Church as a Church hath neither sword nor territory nor any civil or corporal force coercion or penalty to be inflicted by her self immediatly or even by her mediatly that is executed indeed immediatly by any other but by vertue only of her authority derived to him or injunction laid upon him For this Article seems to say the very same thing in asmuch as it sayes that neither Pope nor universal Church joyn'd together in one can punish any person how wicked soever with a coactive punishment unless the Emperour give them authority to do so Notwithstanding both which it will be facil enough to shew out of this very Bull and out of a great part of Iohn the XXII's own proper discourse therein against this fifth Article in specie that he would understand a quite other thing by coactive punishment here then I do any where consequently it will be also facil enough to shew that this Article of Marsilius and Iandunus taken so or in any bad or heretical sense and my said doctrine which denyes coactive punition or civil and corporal punishments to the Church as a Church or to be inflicted by her and by virtue of her own proper native authority are in the reality of things as wide from one another as from East to West albeit according to the equivocation or rather clear mistake of these two words punitione coactiva or of this one single word coactive or of its proper strict signification they may seem the same thing but to him only that is willing to be deceived or to such a one as Iohn the XXII himself either censuring this fift Article or disputing against it or at least in some part of his disputes against it in this Bull seems to be For immediatly after this learned Pope had given the said fift Article and even in this form Adbuc isti blasphemi dicunt quod tota Ecclesia simul juncta nullum hominem puniâ—e possit punitione coactiva nisi concedat hoc Imperator he proceeds immediatly to disprove it thus Quod utique doctrinae Evangelicae noscitur obviare Constat enim quod à Christo Petro in persona Petri Ecclesiae potestas coactiva concessa vel saltim promissa extitit quae quidem promissio fuit postea adimpleta cum Simoni Christus dixit quodcumque ligaueris super terram c. Ligantur enim non solum voluntarii sed inuiti Adhuc constat sicut ibi legitur in Mattheo quod si aliquis damnum alii indebite dederit illeque ad mandatum Ecclesiae noluerit emendare quod Ecclesia per potestatem à Christo sibi concessam ipsum ad hoc per excommunicationis sententiam compellere potest quae quidem potestas est utique coactiva Circa quod est advertendum quod cum excommunicatio major nedum excommunicatum à perceptione sacramentâ—rum removeat sed etiam à communione fidelium ipsum excommunicatum excludit quod corporalis etiam à Christo coactio Ecclesiae est permissa cum etiam secundum Imperiales leges gravius reputetur inter homines conversari ipsorumque privari suffragio quam ab hominibus separari Ex quo sequitur potestatem câ—activam non ab Imperatore terreno sed ab ipso Christo fuisse originaliter Ecclesiam consequutam Where it is clear enough out of all his arguments here that by coaction punition and coactive power to punish so or to use such coaction and which he attibutes to the Church as a Church and as given her originally by Christ he understands no other kind of coaction coactive punishment or coactive power but that which is only and purely spiritual because none other but that which is of excommunication or to punish by excommunication and by that kind of excommunication too which is certainly properly and purely Evangelical or grounded in the Gospel And consequently it is clear enough that albeit this kind of coaction be called by him here a corporal coaction also yet as I must say that he somewhat improperly calls it so or corporal coaction or even indeed coaction at all being there is no corporal force used or which may be used by the judge that pronounceth it to put it in execution I mean which may be used by vertue of the same spiritual Church-power out of which or by vertue of which it was pronounced so I must say that whether he call it so improperly or no or whether or no he may not properly call it both coaction and corporal coaction too for asmuch as it brings some kind of necessity on the excommunicated to submit and that this necessity relates also in some degree to the very corps or body of the excommunicated by reason that all others do shun even his corporal communion company or conversation excepting only such as are by
some superiour tye â—ound and in such wordly matters only wherein they are bound to observe or converse with him however this of proper or improper wording be it is most certain that I allow the very self same thing all along in my writings every where the very self same power of correction to the Pope and Church and the very self same actual coercion and punition which Iohn the XXII vindicates here to both by his arguments and which he calls here not only coactive power and coaction but also corporal coaction saying in plain terms Qâ—ud corporalis etiam à Christo coactio Ecclesiae sit peâ—missa The difference is that I call it spiritual only because inflicted or pronounced only by a meer spiritual power which hath no use nor as such caâ— have any use at all of corporal force as for example by taking the criminal by the neck clapping him to the Jayl or Stocks calling him into banishment or putting him to death or asmuch as to any other corporal torment whatsoever against his own will and that besides I must call it spiritual because it per se directly regards and falls on the spirit as it ought to be intended only for the good of the spirit and he calls it also corporal for the reason presently above given in the parenthesis or perhaps in imitation of St. Pauls manner of speaking and meaning 1 Cor. 5.5 tradere hujusmodi Sathanae in interitum carnis ut spiritus salvus fir in dit Domini nostri Iesu Christi as some do understand Paul there to speak of excommunication and of the effects of it by the ordinary power of the Church albeit others as Chrysostome ibid. hom 15. St. Augustine cont ep Parmon l. 3. c. 1. and St. Ambrose de Paenit l. 1. c. 17. understand him there far more probably to speak not of excommunication at all not of the ordinary power of the Church but of a miraculous power and miraculous punishment of the incestuous Corinthian of whom he speaks as meaning that he by the operation of such miraculous power should be corporally delivered to Sathan and both miraculously and corporally possessed and scourged by Sathan in this world and by some strange corporal infirmity Datus est Sathanae tamquam paedagogo sayes Chrysostome ut eum flagellet malo ulcere aut morbo alio Even as Iob was though not for any sin and as Paul himself was buffeted by Sathan 1 Cor. 14. but for his tryal only and for his humiliation But however this of the reason why this Pope Iohn the XXII call'd that kind of coaction which is by excommunication or why he attributed to it the epithet of corporal or even why at all he would have the power of excommunicating said to be a coactive power or excommunication it self to pass under the name of coaction it matters not being his dispute and definition against this or any other Article of Marsilius and Iandunus was not against words but against their sense or that meaning which as he would have beleeved was theirs and so different from his own and being that neither my meaning nor words taken altogether contain or signifie any thing against his meaning either in his dispute or in his definition if we take the sense of his definition as we ought in reason to do from his dispute or to be that which his arguments fight against Yet because it becomes not me as neither any conscientious Divine in the like case to dissemble what I know or what others may apprehend if they had known it to seem much more convincing that Iohn the XXII drove in this Bull at another kind of coactive power in the Church and another kind of coaction and of corporal coaction too then I have proved he drove by the former arguments I confess ingenuously his second sort of arguments or those other he gives immediatly after the former do fully convince my own self that he drove at another kind of coaction and of corporal coaction too in his meaning then that of excommunication But withal I maintain still that he drives at no coactive power at all or coaction at all which I ever yet denyed or shall at any time deny or at any coaction at all which Marsilius himself or Iandunus denyed in that manner his even second or last sort of arguments require either to be acknowledged because not at any at all inflicted by corporal force or means or by other means of man then by pure prophesie or pure prayer of some prophetical or miraculous man in the Church and consequently drives at no such other coactive power at all which we are bound to beleeve to be essential or proper to the Church as a Church or to be at all times in the Church or at all times in any individual person of the Church Inferiour or Superiour Priest Bishop or Pope as such or at all times in them altogether or at all times in all the both Clergy and Layety or in the universal Chuch taken also together in one collection and so by any of his arguments or by his second or last sort of arguments drives at none at all which is to our present purpose or which overthrows my said doctrine or any part or explication hitherto given by me of the doctrine of no coercive power in the Church as a Church to make use of any corporal force of her own or of others and as by her own proper genuine authority to make use thereof for to punish corporally the crimes of any how criminal or wicked soever and to punish him so I mean still whether he will or no. For thus Iohn the XXII proceeds immediatly after what I gave before of his first sort and thus he frames his second and last sort of arguments Preterea Beatus Petrus post ascensionem Domini in personam Ananiae Saphirae uxoris suae sine Imperiali concessione aliqua hac usus est potestate in quos quia de pretio agri Deo oblati fraudaverant mortis sententiam promulgavit quae quidem sententia non processit de ipsorum conjugum voluntate Item Beatus Paulus Elymam Magum Sergium Paulum à fide quaerentem avertere ad tempus luce corporali privavit Illum quoque fornicatorem Corinthium in carnis interitum tradidit Sathanae ut ejus spiritus salvus esset Item Corinthiis serâ—â—ns dixit idem Apostolus Quid vultis in virga veniam ad vos an in charitate in spiritu mansuetudinis In quo saetis expresse coactivam potestatem supposuit se habere Item scribens eisdem alibi dixit Arma inquit militiae nostrae non sunt carnalia sed potentia Deo id est à Deo concessa ad destructionem munitionum consilia destruentes omnem altitudinem extollentem se aduersus scientiam Dei. Et sequitur In promptu habentes ulcisci omnem inobedientiam Ex quibus patet Paulum non ab Imperatore sed à Deo habuisse
Canterbury as relating to our present purpose and put all that into this special form of argument Syllogisme and objection against my own grand Thesis Whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's cause quarrel or contest with Henry the second must be false But my grand Theirs of a power in secular supream Princes to coerce all criminal Clergiemen whatsoever living within their dominions is such or is a doctrine which condemns or opposes that very cause quarrel or contest of St. Thomas of Canterbury Ergo my grand Thests must be false The Minor will be proved thus and must be proved thus or not at all Such doctrine must necessarily suppose an errour both in the solemn canonization of him at least for a martyr properly such and yet he was solemnly canonized for a martyr properly such by Alexander the Third Pope of that name his own contemporary and must further necessarily suppose an errour too that both in the belief and practise of the universal Church of Christ forasmuch as they believe him to be a martyr properly such and both venerat and invocate him as such For that such doctrine as condems or opposes the justice of his quarrel against Henry the Second must also necessarily suppose such an errour in his canonization veneration and invocation as a martyr properly such appears hence manifestly that it is therefore he was canonized for such and is venerated and invocated as such because that quarrel of his was and is believed to have been just and that it was for maintaining the justice of it he suffered death and suffered death patiently and Christianly as became a true martyr without any resistance at all Now it is plain that such doctrine as must necessarily suppose such an errour in such canonization veneration and invocation of any must be false nay erroneous and schismatical nay and heretical too in Christian belief because it must consequently suppose that not onely the Pope nay not onely this or that particular orthodox nation but even the universality of all true Christian nations even the Catholick Church her self taken in her whole latitude not onely may sometime erre in matters which they she accounts to be part of her holy belief holy practise but hath already and continually err'd and almost for five hundred years compleat that is since the year of our Lord 1173. wherein Alexander Tertius canonized him solemnly for a martyr and she no less solemnly invocated him as such Then which consequent supposition what Roman Catholick can say that any may be more even fundamentally heretical For it must be granted as an article nay and also at least among Divines as a fundamental article of Christian Catholick religion that the true Christian Catholick Church is infallible in credendis agendis both in her belief and in her practise I mean such as she her self accounts divine or holy or certainly it must be granted that we have nothing at all infallible in her or in our religion delivered by her but what may without any special revelation from God or any either particular or universal tradition from her be demonstrated by pure natural reason and consequently that our belief of even the very whole mistery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of that other no less above our natural reason of the Trinity of persons in one God which are purely credenda as likewise those of Baptisme and the Lords Supper quatenus inter agenda as they are practised are fallible and unreasonable practises being we have nothing to render us absolutely certain of the contrary if the universal Church be fallible in her belief and practise But for the Minor as I confess that I see no other proof possible but by instancing the particulars of the difference 'twixt King Henry the Second and this holy Praelat so I confess also that if in any of those particulars or in altogether my grand Thesis or any part of my doctrine hetherto in pursuance of that my Thesis may be found and that it be clear also that St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death therefore and was therefore canonized a martyr by the Pope and as such was therefore venerated and invocated ever since or at any time by the Catholick Church then I must consequently grant the objection to be very well or at least very probably grounded as no man can deny it to be syllogistically formed or deny the conclusion to follow of necessity if both the Premisses be certainly true And for the first of them we have already seen it pretty well driven home at least by a very specious discourse and one concluding such an inconvenience as no Roman Catholick will dare allow I mean the infallibility of the whole Catholick Church either in religious belief or practise whatever in the mean time be held or thought of the Pope alone or of his particular Roman Diocess as taken a part from the rest or of any one or moe even National Churches whatsoever of Catholick communion so they amount not to that which we call and is truly the Catholick or universal Church or the general congregation of all particular or National Churches or of the more considerable parts of them or the General Representative of such more considerable parts of them which are now in Ecclesiastical communion with the Roman Bishop his particular Diocess of Rome For this general Congregation of all such particular Churches or of all the more considerable parts of them and this general Representative also whenever it is of all such more considerable parts is it I call now here and elsewhere still understand to be the Catholick Church Whereof I desire my good Readers to take special notice not that I see any special need of it to solve this objection but that I may no where seem either to equivocat or to be unwilling to be understood when there is occasion to distinguish between the sense of the Pope and that of the Church or between the authority of a particular Church or some one of ro moe peradventure and that which is properly of the universal Church Therefore now not onely to shew what may be said or not said and that even out of the very Ecclesiastical History or Annals of Baronius himself of the particulars of the said difference or quarrel and for the proof of the said Minor being it is onely from History all that can be said for the proof of it must be had and that Baronius can not be presumed to relate such matter of fact with any kind of partiality or favour to me or my Thesis or my doctrine against his own pretended Immunity of all Clergiemen or be presumed to omit any material thing which might any way advance his own pretence of such Immunity upon the contradictory question confirmed by the sense by the life and death of so great a Saint and even sealed by the bloud of so glorious a martyr
the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and by the Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along till Henry the Second himself 's own raigne and until after this controversie happen'd criminal Clerks even guilty of murder were to be judg'd and punish'd only by the Court Ecclesiastical â—ay that not only by the same laws all Clergiemen 〈…〉 all crimes whatsoever to be judg'd only by the Bishops but that all the very 〈◊〉 of the Church were â—â—all causes whatsoever to be adjudg'd only in the Church of Ecclesiastical Tribunals nor should have recourse to those were by way of distinction commonly called the Kings Courts but only in default of justice done according to law in the Courts of the Church Which being in or as to both differences the law of England contrary to which iâ— both differences oâ— cases Henry the Second would have forced St. Thomas and no other law of God or Man commanding St. Thomas to submit to the King in either as the case stood not even that of St. Paul 13. to the Romans because St. Thomas had in both as in all his other differences the sublimer â—oâ—â—ers in the law of the land for himself who sees not that St. Thomas needed not for his own justification in either differences pretend either the positive law of God or the natural law of God or the law of Nations or the Imperial law or even any Church law or Papal law or Canon for the exemption of criminal Clergiemen from the secular Courts when he denyed to deliver up the two criminal Clerks or when he refused to sign or seal that second Head of Henry the Second's customes which second head was such as subjected all Clergie-men in all kind of causes civil criminal mixt spiritual and temporal to the cognizance of the Kings even ordinary lay Judges and Courts as you may see by turning to and reading over again in my fourth Observation that second Head of those 16 And who seeâ— not but he might at the same time without any contradiction inconsequence oâ— contrariety maintain that still it was true that abstracting from the laws of England then as yet 〈◊〉 because not legally repealed all Clerks in England were by the laws of â—eason and laws of God and doctrine of the Fathers and many Canons too of Popes and Councils subject in all temporal causes both civil and criminal to the lay civil Courts and Judges of Henry the Second Nay who sees not but for any thing alledg'd or known out of the Histories of either his life or death or martyrdome or canonization or miracles or invocation of him after as a glorious martyrized Saint and even martyrized only too if you please in meer defence of the Church liberties and immunities who sees not I say but that notwithstanding any thing hitherto so alledg'd out of all or any of those Histories he not only might be but was rigidly and constantly of this judgement and opinion especially being these Histories tell us in one instance that when he was so much pressed to sign to those 16. Heads as the royal customes of Henry the First he doubted they were no such customes of Henry the First or were no customes at all and therefore chiefly and only fell off after swearing them and would not sign or seal them at all as was desired and expected from him albeit his Cross-bearer's check did forward his repentance for having sworn Sed cum descriptas consuetudines sayes Parker himself in the life of our Saint perlegisset Thomas for when he swore to observe them he did not see them in writing nor were they digested at all into heads and therefore he only swore in general to observe those customes which Henry the Second called â—nitas consâ—â— tudines his Grandfathers customes and royal customes â—ulâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 an ill â—um quaedam inter consuetudines essent habendae itâ—â— diem deliâ—â—◠〈…〉 sigillum chirographum adhiberet petiit and whereas also he could not be ignorant of the laws both Imperial which he had studied and of the laws of England where he lived and judged so long as Chancellor Or who sees not briefly that that there is no contradiction that a most rigid 〈◊〉 Bishop should dye for the rights of the Clergie and be therefore a Marâ—â—◠〈◊〉 yet acknowledge all those rights or at least many or some of them 〈◊〉 â—â—â—ch he dyed as for example that of exemption came to the Clergie from the meer civil or municipal and politick just laws of the land and only from such laws of the land and not by any means immediatly from any other law divine or humane of nature or Nations or of the Church Pope or Emperour if not in so much only as the laws of God and nature approve all just laws of every land 〈◊〉 they be repealed by an equal authority no that which made them Finally who sees not also that notwithstanding all this or notwithstanding the municipal laws of England were for St. Thomas in every particular of his said manifold opposition to his King or that by the same laws the English Clergie had such exemptions from secular Courts yet St. Thomas might have been of this opinion also and perswasion at the same time and was so too most rigidly and constantly for ought appears to the contrary out of the Acts of his life or other Historians that as by no other laws of God or man or reason so neither by those very laws of England either himself or any other Clergieman was exempt from the supream civil coercive power or even could be exempt during their being subjects or their acknowledging to be so or their living in the quality of subjects 1. Because the very name and nature of subjection draws along with it and either essentially or at least necessary implyes this which is to be subject to the supream coercive power at least in some cases and some contingencies 2. Because that if both himself and all other Ecclesiastical Judges and Bishops taking the Pope himself too in the number did fail in their duty of punishing Clerks notoriously scandalously and dangerously criminal or that if the criminal Clerks themselves would not according to the law of the land submit to the sentence and punishment prescribed into them by the Bishops or if even also the Bishops themselves were altogether guilty of the same crimes or patronizers of the criminals and would not amend or satisfie of themselves without any peradventure t is evident that the supream civil coercive power might and ought in such cases to proceed against them by plain force and corporal coâ—rcion cuia salus populi suâ—rema lex esto 3. Because the power whereby S. Thomas himself and all other Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judges proceeded in a compulsory way to any civil or corporal coercion of criminal Clerks against the will of the same Clerks as to seizing their persons imprisoning them whiping them taking away their temporal goods confining them
receive in order to the Ceremonial or significative and whatever other additional complement of it from the Church For thus he discourseth a little before in the same speech at Chinun speaking to his King Nosse debetis vos Dei gratia Regem esse primò quia vos ipsum or ipsos regere debetis vitamque vestram optimis informare moribus ut vestri exemplo caeteri provocentur ad melius juxta illud sapientis Componitur orbis regis ad exemplum Secundariò alios demulcendâ— alios puniendo potestatis authoritate quam accepistis ab Ecclesia cum sacramento unctionis tum gladii officio quem gestatis ad malefactores Ecclesiae conterendos Injunguntur enim Reges in tribus locis in capite in pectore brachiis quod significat gloriam scientiam fortitudinem And thus also after he discourseth in that Letter to the Bishop of London and about the end of that Letter Sciat ergo intelligat te intimante Dominus meus to wit the King quod qui dominatur in regno hominum sed Angelorum duâ—ts sub se potestates ordinavit Principes Sacerdotes unam terrenam alteram spiritualem unam ministrantem alteram praeeminentem unam cui potentiam concessit alteram cui reverentiam exhiberi voluit Out of both which passages and not only jointly but severally taken and much more if jointly as they ought the more fully to undestand the Saints meaning I am very much deceived if it appear not sufficiently 1. That he acknowledges the Royal Power as such in Kings to be no less from God than the Sacerdotal in Priests 2. That to Kings he gave the Temporal power of this World and Carnal power of the material Sword To Priests a spiritual Authority and no more in order to the Temporal power and Carnal sword but a Mandat only from him to such as have that Power and Sword to revere those who onely have the Word 3. That where he intimates they received or do receive the Authority of power from the Church he declares plainly enough that he means no more by this phrase but that they received or do receive it Ceremoniously and significatively and in some-wise completively from the Church when they were or are anointed by Sacred Oyle by Her in three places in their Head Breast and Shoulders which sayes he signifies Glory Knowledge and Fortitude qualities necessary to a King and of right flowing from the power which he had antecedently to their unction but now signified both to the King himself and to others and signified by such unction that they ought to flow from it and qualities also not seldome by the prayers of the Church at that time impetrated from God to flow from it thenceforth more abundantly and conspicuously Or that if besides this ceremonious and significative reception of power from the Church he mean any other real reception it must be of another Authority than that which is essential and proper in all times and all places to the Supreme Civil or Politick Magistrate as such and must be onely of some kind of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical capacity power authority or enablement for some spiritual Functions either within the Church and in order to the very mystical Sacrifice or Preparatories or Antecedents or Concomitants of it or certainly without and over the Church and in relation to its proper Government Ecclesiastical and to its Benefices and Offices For such a double Authority given by the Church to Christian Emperours and Kings especially in and by or together with their Unction and Consecration at least as Church affairs stood a long time before that of St. Thomas of Canterbury and long after too he might have very well averr'd and rationally have objected to Henry the Second whereby to move him not to be so ungrateful to the Church which had so obliged him And such a double Authority given by her to them is apparent 1. In their Clerical Offices performed sometime within the very Churches and at the very Altars For so we find that Sigismund that good and zealous Emperour who was the chief Instrument for gathering the General Council of Constance to end the great Schism of Three Anti-Popes and assisted at it when it sate and the Pope John the XXIII celebrated the solemn Mass on Christmas day in the Cathedral of the City did serve at the high Altar clad in the Vest of a Deacon and doing the Office did read also and sing publickly the Gospel Exiit Edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur universus c. which was the Gospel of that Mass which the Pope then celebrated 2. In the Canonical and positive right of Patronage and Nomination of Church Officers and Beneficiaries as of Bishops Abbots Priors c. which they have and which at least many or most or they all had at least in most parts before the dayes of Thomas of Canterbury and had verily either from the express Donation made to them by the Church as that of naming the very Pope himself and all Archbishops and Bishops in the West made to Carolus Magnus and his Successors or by the tacite permission and approbation of the same Church partly for their Merits and partly for the bindring of Schisms amongst the Clergy or Lay-people or both which happen'd before in popular or Clerical or joint Elections or in such as were made by the Communities I say Canonical and positive Right or Patronage or Nomination c. because I confess That all Supreme Lawful Princes and States whatsoever as well Heretick as Catholick as well not Christian as Christian have a natural right of Patronage over the very Christian Church and a negative Suffrage in the Election of such Christian Church Officers as live within their Dominions forasmuch as the safety of their people may be concern'd in such that is have a right from the Law of Nature and a right essential to their Kingly Office not to suffer any Disturber of the publick Peace to be nominated or to enjoy any Church Livings or Church Office within their own Dominions And that such natural Right and negative Suffrage is not derived or given to them by the Church But the former double Authority is by or together with their Sacred Unction And that St. Thomas of Canterbury meant only this by the Authority which he sayes they received from the Church if indeed at all he meant any more by this saying of his than their receiving their politick Kingly power either significatively and completively as to the outward Ceremonies before the people or at most in some measure and degree and as to the perfect establishment of it instrumentally and by their mediation or at least by their making no opposition sufficiently appears First out of his manner of speaking or couching these words Secundario alios demulcendo alios puniendo potestatis authoritate quam accepistis ab Ecclesia tum gladii officio quem gestatis ad malefactores
Ecclesiae conterendos Where though he insinuate some Authority of power received also from the Church to allure some by fair and sweet means others by sowr severity yet after he tells the King That besides that Authority he hath the Office of the Sword also gladii officio and carries it for the crushing and cutting off Malefactors but sayes not that he received this Sword or the Office or Power or Authority of it from the Church nay sufficiently insinuates by the placing of his words That Kings receive not this at all from the Church And therefore also insinuates clearly enough that they receive not at all at least otherwise than I said their true civil or politick Royal power or the true Essentials or necessary Appendages of it from the Church for this is the same with the office of the Sword And secondly out of that whole passage of his to the Bishop of London where he makes the whole Regal power to be the immediate institution of God and derived from Him alone and no less immediately than the Sacerdotal is and in the perclose most significantly shews the difference 'twixt them by saying That God ordained the one Authority to which he gave the power but the other to which he would have reverence done Vnam cui potentiam concessit alteram cui reverentiam exhiberi voluit as meaning earthly power and signifying that no such was given by God to the Church and consequently that the Church could not give it to any other for nemo dat quod non habet but onely and wholly to earthly Princes Therefore from first to last the natural and genuine meaning of St. Thomas of Canterbury in that passage of his at Chinun which I alledgd against my self out of Hoveden must be that whereas it is certain it was from the Church your Majesty received that extraordinary power you have in some Church affairs and that she hath her own proper supreme purely spiritual and properly Ecclesiastical from Christ alone and not from you or any other Prince and whereas either she hath never given you that power you challenge in so many other Church affairs or if she hath to any of your Predecessors she hath again upon rational grounds revoked it therefore pace vestra loquor you ought not to command Bishops to absolve whom you will and when you will or to excommunicate whom and when you please or draw or send Clerks to Secular Courts both against the Laws of the Land and her Canons nor ought you to interdict Bishops or command them that in their own Ecclesiastical Courts and Ecclesiastick manner they handle not the breach of Oath or transgressions against Faith c. For albeit that in some other matters which St. Thomas objected here to the King the Church peradventure had nothing to do with the cognizance of them as to the determination of Right but what she had from humane Laws and the very municipal Laws of the Land I mean yet once she had that Right given her by such Law there is no question but that until such Law were legally again Repealed by an Authority equal to that which made it she might proceed by her own spiritual Authority Supreme and Independent from any but Christ alone and in a pure spiritual way proceed against any Prince whatsoever that invaded even such her Rights however acquired humanely or by humane Laws as all other Temporal Rights are by all sorts of people acquired For even to preserve the only humane Rights of meer Lay-men to their Goods or Lands c She may use her spiritual power when it is necessary and seasonable against any Invader or Usurper And consequently St. Thomas having the Law of the Land on his side where there was nothing positively determined pro or con in the Laws of God or Nature he might even as to such matters very justly have said to Henry the second Pace vestra loquor non haberetis Episcopis praecipere c. And might have said so and all the rest either consequent or antecedent of the Authority received from the Church and said all without any kind not only not of Treason but of as much as the least Treasonable principle in pure speculation abstracting from all fact and intention of fact which could entrench upon the Majesty of the Prince or safety of the people And I am sure there can be neither Treason in fact nor in habitude either by the nature of things or interpretation of Laws but against either As I confess that all Treason properly such as Treason is taken here i. e. Legally and not Etymologically or as it is taken for that which we call in Latin Crimen laesae Majestatis must be only against the person or persons in which or in whom only the Supreme civil power is or in which only or whom that we call Majesty is And therefore that in an absolute Monarchy where we know that Majestas non est in populo there can be no such crime as this Treason committed against the people but only against the Prince Whereof Bodinus may be read in his Books de Republica 3. Because it is no Treasonable principle by it's own Nature or by Law at least in Speculation or Theory That such Authority as is not essential or necessarily annexed to the Supreme civil or temporal power but accidental and accidentally annexed or permitted to it by or at the pleasure of another or others not subject at all to such Supreme power civil or at least not subject in such matters especially if such Authority be not in its own Nature purely politick or civil at all that I say such Authority so hitherto accidentally annexed or permitted may even at least in some cases be either suspended or prohibited or lessened or altered or even totally revoked and even also totally transferred by those which so annexed or permitted it formerly to the Supreme civil Magistrate And the reason is because it can be no Treasonable principle which dictates not nor inclines not to actual Treason that is to an unlawful or injurious hurting or lessening or endangering of Majesty or of that which is the essential or necessary Appendages of Majesty in this one or in these more persons wherein it is placed according to the several Forms of Government And this principle neither dictates nor enclines to any such unlawful or injurious hurting lessening c. Now if this principle be not Treasonable which sayes That such Authority so given by the Church to the King may be again Revoked from the King at least in some cases how can that other be Treasonable which only sayes That he received sometime such Authority from the Church Nay and I add now or how can that be Treasonable which only sayes That Christian Kings originally or some-time past received whatever Authority you please or even their whole very politick or civil and temporal Authority from the Church in whatever wise the Church was able to
give and they to receive it from Her But sayes not That the Church may by her own power or at her pleasure or in any case Revoke that Authority again or hurt lessen or endanger it but wholly abstracts from this whether it be so or not according to the truth of things in themselves 4. Because the Querie made after the Objection or that which ask't thus Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings is soon and rationally answer'd in the affirmative For so do very famous Catholick Doctors both Divines Civilians and Canonists and they all of strict communion with the Roman Church and Pope maintain and maintain also I mean too concerning such authority and power as without any question they had at first originally from the Church and could not have but from her but hath been time out of mind annexed to their Crowns or hath been originally or at some time granted them per modum contractus vel concordati vel transitionis And that you may not have my saying so for proof you may be pleased to run over this Latin insertion extracted out of that very learned School Divine and English Father and Doctor of St. Francis's Order who was lately and three several times Minister Provincial of his said Order in England and for ought I know lives yet Father Francis Davenport alias a Sancta Clara. And I give it wholly in his own words as it lies in his Paraphrase on the XXXVII Article of those XXXIX of the Protestant Church of England And give it so at length not only that you may see in it Catholick Doctors and Writers enough confirming what I have so answerâ—d in the Affirmative to this Query but for to clear your judgment in some other matters also relating to the Subject in hand here or at least to that of my whole Discourse of Ecclesiastical Exemption if not to some other questions in this my present Book And yet give it not as meaning to tye my self in all things to his judgment or at least to his too fearful or scrupulous expressing and tying of himself in meer words to some other late Schoolmen especially where he rather follows their opinion or their expression who deny Jurisdiction to Kings ex jure Regio de jure Divino naturali over the persons and in the causes of Ecclesiasticks and only attribute to them nudam potestatem civilem temporalem c. over such persons and in such causes than theirs who on the contrary attribute to Kings the thing and word Jurisdiction over the same persons and things and this too per se and by the Law of God and Nature Hic articulus sayes he meaning the foresaid XXXVII Article of the Protestant Church of England subministrat materiam examinandi Quaestionem longe gravissimam An scil laici sint capaces jurisdictionis spiritualis Primo advertendum ex omnium sententia illos non esse capaces clavium quia tunc etiam remissionis seu absolutionis a peccatis Secundo advertendum jurisdictionem spiritualem seu potestatem jurisdictionis non esse immediate ipsam potestatem clavium immo separabiles nec actu semper conjungi vel jure divino vel positivo Tertio supponendum summum Pontificem in omni sententia secundum absolutam potentiam suam posse jurisdictionem talem laicis concedere quia non expresse contra jus divinum ut recte Soto 4. dist 20. quaest 1. art 4. Scot. 4. d. 20 q 1. a. 4. Mirand in Manual q. 3. a. 2. D. Alvin c. 3. c. sic etiam Miranda in Manuali quaest 3. art 2. hoc non solum respectu virorum sed foeminarum Addit tamen Miranda hoc respectu foeminarum nusquam adhuc concessum Quod tamen negat D. Alvin c. 3. de Episcopis Abbatibus Abbatissis c. 22. citat multa jura ex quibus actu conceditur Abbatissis potestas jurisdictionis non quidem excommunicandi per se sed praecipiendi suis subditis Sacerdotibus ut excommunicent rebelles contumaces moniales hoc valere vel ex jure communi vel consuetudine vel saltem ex privilegio vel strictius loquendo dicendum cum Laimanno lib. 1. Laiman l. 1. tract 5. p. 1. c. 3. n. 3. 4. tract 5. p. 1. cap. 3. num 3. 4. quod non habent jurisdictionem spiritualem proprie sed usuram quandam jurisdictionis Et hinc conferre possunt beneficia instituere clericos in Ecclesiis ad Monasterium suum pertinentibus c. Vt sensum meum in re tam gravi aperiam Dicendum putem nullo quidem jure ut praetactum est eis competere potestatem seu jus spirituale ut loquitur Joannes de Parisiis de potestate Papae c. 21. quo gratia spiritualis causatur id est Joan. de Paris c. 21. de potest Papae potestas administrandi Sacramenta Et idem est judicium de potestate quae consequitur ex priori ut est inflictio poenae spiritualis scripturarum expositio Ministrorum Ecclesiae institutio confirmatio vel examen alia id genus multa Quodvis enim horum de jure divino restringitur praecise ad homines spirituales sen Deo sacros ut olim definitum est a Joan. 22. contra Marsilium de Padua ut videre est apud Turrecrem l. 4. Summae sub finem Joan. 22. contra Mars de Padua Turrecr l. 4. summae Caeterum quoad potestatem seu jus antecedens non de per se necessario annexum spiritualibus officiis bene potest in laicis subinde residere sicut praesentatio collatio beneficiorum punitio temporalis clericorum alia id genus multa ut dixi de Abbatissis praecipue ex concessione Ecclesia vel longa consuetudine praescripta convenientibus Praelatis Ecclesiae Dixi merito etiam ex consuetudine quia non solum concessio Innoc. in c. novit c. Salgado p. 1. c. Prael 3. nu 120. sed consuetudo ipsa tribuit jurisdictionem etiam in spiritualibus ut docet Innocent in cap. Novit de judic multi praesertion quando consuetudinis exercitium a tempore immemoriali probatur ut declarant Juristae de quare vide Salgado p. 1. c. 1. Praelud 3. n. 122 deinceps Dices hic non solum concedi Principibus nostris potestatem ex consuetudine seu concessione sed supremam ut ibi asseritur quod noâ— potest eis competere in spiritualibus ut omnes Doctores tenent Respondeo quod Doctores praedicti asserant Papaâ— non posse auferre jurisdictionem Principum ex consuâ—tudine vel concessione firma valide licite introductam Nav. c. 27. in Enchir. n 70. Salz sch Ber. Diaz cap. 55. Sect. Apud Gall. Duvall de disc Eccl. p. 3 fol. 405. sicut satis insinuat Navar. c. 27. in
here I gave it not purposely for any such end unto which I know it both improper and forreign but gave it occasionally and only to shew the Reader that neither am I single in some other matters particularly or signally in that of the Oath of Supremacy wheresoever in this Work or elsewhere I reflect thereon mildly and interpret or expound it more benignly though withall more truly and groundedly than furious Zealots would But to strengthen S. Clara's Testimony and elucidate my own foresaid Answer in my fourth Reason the learned Reader may be pleased to consult Bruno Chaissaing a French Recollect of the same Franciscan Order Penitentiary to and under Gregory the XV and Vrban the VIII in the First or chief Church of Europe St. John Laterane at Rome and consult and read him in his Work intituled Privilegia Regularium printed at Paris with approbation Anno M.DC.LIII In which Work besides this Proposition Bruâ—o Chaissaing de Privil Reg. Tract 1. cap. 1. prop 9. 10. Possunt Reges Supremi Senatus licite retinere Bullas Apostolicas in casu vel magni scandali aut perturbationis aut praejudicii tertii aut aliorum similium which is his Tenth Proposition in order Tract 1. cap. 1. You may also find his former Ninth Proposition to be this other viz. Potest legitime appellari de abusu ad Principem Saecularem seu Senatum Supremum quotiescunque potestas Ecclesiastica pronunciat aut agit contra Canones Privilegia potestque Princeps Senatus Supremus appellationem suscipere appellantes a violenta suorum Praelatorum vexatione eripere And you may see him there purposely and at large by several Arguments proving this Ninth Proposition But you shall no where see him mincing or using any kind of nicety about the word or term Appeal nor quitting it for that other of Recourse but a fair and clear Assertion in express terms That it 's lawful for all sorts of Ecclesiasticks even the strictest Regulars to Appeal to the Secular and Supreme Lay-Power from the unjust or uncanonical Pressures of their own Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates and this also as often as the said Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates pronounce or do any thing contrary to the Canons of the Church or Priviledges of their Order And consequently you shall not in this Author Bruno Chassaing meet with Franciscus a Sancta Claras Nudam potestatem civilem but with Jurisdictionem proprie dictam in the Majesties or Persons of Kings and other Lay Supreme States over all Clergy men whatsoever living under them Otherwise how might it according to the said Bruno's Doctrine in the place above quoted be lawful for Clergymen to Appeal I mean in the proper and strict sense of this word Appeal from their own Ecclesiastick Superiors to the King or State Or how might it be lawful for the King or State to receive such Appeals For Appeals properly or simply such argue Jurisdiction no less properly and simply such in the Judge of such Appeals Further and although it be not so much to my present purpose yet if to what St. Clare hath of the power of meer Lay Princes or States in general and in particular of that of our Kings of England to collate or to nominate and present for Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices I add also the Doctrine of another very late Roman Catholick Writer and Doctor of Divinity Joannes Baptista Verius in his Book intituled Pastorale Missionariorum Tract 4. Art xi Joannes Baptista Verius S. Theologiae Doctor in Pastorali Missionar Tract 4. ar xi I hold it not amiss For in the place thereof now quoted this Doctor Verius not only teaches with Lessius and Sanchez Two Jesuits whom he quotes but out of the Extravagant Ad evitandum c. of Martin the V. in the Council of Constance expresly proveth That even all Heretick Lay Patrons whatsoever not yet by name denounced enjoy still their former right of Canonical Patronage and that consequently all such do notwithstanding their Heresie both validly and as to all effects bindingly nominate or present fit persons to all kind of Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices whereof they or their legal Predecessors at any former time were the acknowledged Patrons Now from such whether necessary or unnecessary digressions to return to the series of my proofs for my main purpose here viz. that of St. Thomas of Canterbury's not having at any time for ought appears been guilty as much as of any Treasonable Principles or Doctrines My fifth Reason is 5. Because that a pure speculative judgment of either the probability or certainty of such or such a power to be or to remain as yet or to be naturally still inherent in the Church not only to give Royal Authority at first to these or these persons but also to take it away again from them or others deriving from them in some extraordinary case of grand demerit or grand incapacity must not infer a practical dictate or any at all for the lawfulness of taking it so away And because both Reason and Experience tell us That no such pure Speculation while it remains such and comes not to be practical or to have a practical or other dictate flowing from or annex'd to it either assuring us of the lawfulness of putting such power in execution or prompting us accordingly to execute can at all annoy hurt or in any wise lessen either in fact or intention the Majesty of Temporal Princes or States as it is clear enough to any rational man without further Discourse But that such a pure speculative judgment of such a power in actu primo in the Church doth not infer a practical judgment prompting so or any other judgment practical or speculative of the lawfulness of such execution in actu secundo of such a power we have also Theological reason and Humane Experience Theological Reason which approves that Maxim of both Civilians and Canonists and of natural Reason too where the Plea is not clear against the Defendant who is in possession Melior est conditio possidentis And which tells us also Quod ubi partium jura sunt obscura favendum sit Reo magis quam Actori And tells us moreover That none is by a probable Title only to be deprived of that which he holds by as probable a Title Have not Kings at least as probable a Title for their own civil and temporal Power to be even originally independent from the Church as the Church or any Churchman Divine Civilian or Canonist hath ever yet alledged That it is dependent from the Church either in the first Institution or after Conservation of it Or is it possible That any knowing man or at least such a great and excellently and Divinely knowing Church Prelate and Lawyer as Thomas of Canterbury was suppose him never so much prepossessed with the opinion or practice of the Roman Court then growing or already grown over-mightily should but know and confess this
Supremacy of the Pope whatever this be which the Catholick Church allows him For a pure Supreme Temporal in one and a pure Supreme Spiritual in another and over the same persons and causes are very truly certainly and evidently consistent The second Period or Clause being this And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of Sin to obey Your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs as much as any other of Your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands and consequently being only and wholly of the obedience due by Catholick Subjects to Hâ—s Majesty and being it doth in formal express words determine this obedience to all Civil and Temporal Affairs as you see it doth there can be therefore no dispute of this Period The third Period also containing only in effect an acknowledgment of their resolution to acknowledge evermore and perform their Loyalty and true Allegiance to the King notwithstanding any contradiction by or from the Pope or by or from any other deriving power from the Pope or See of Rome for the words are these And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against Your Majesty or Royal Authority we will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our Abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty I say that being the third Period hath no other words or matter it 's very evident that the whole entire Subject of it is nought else but obedience in Temporals because the Loyalty and true Allegiance of Catholicks to their at least Protestant Prince can be no other but obedience and fidelity towards Him in all Temporal matters and because that by these words Our Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty neither His Majesty Himself nor other Protestant nor any indifferent and judicious Catholick ever yet understood nor indeed ought to understand any other Loyalty or Allegiance but that which is in meer Temporals Nor can it be said upon any rational ground that because the Remonstrants do here acknowledge That notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope c. or any sentence c. or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal c. it must follow That they either deny the true spiritual Authority of the Pope over any Christians or any part of the world or even his Temporal within his own temporal Territories or within those Territories I mean which are His uncontroverredly even also as to the temporal Government or that they are resolved or that they promise or declare that they will disobey or oppose any just sentence or declaration of his obliging themselves or any other Nothing less then either doth follow by any kind of consequence whereas indeed no more but that they are persuaded that the Pope hath neither any true Spiritual nor any true Temporal power from God or man to devest the King of his Temporals or to hinder them from being His loyal liege men in such Temporals and that if he pronounced any sentence or gave any command to the contrary though it were even by Excommunication such sentence and such command and even such Excommunication would be as to all effects and purposes null and void because against the Laws of God and man and nature and not proceeding from any true power he had from God or from the Church of God but only from a vain and false presumption of power or authority in the case and a clave errante from a Key errant or which is the same in effect at most and at best from such an abuse of his authority as invalidates and annulls his sentence in all respects whatsoever They do not therefore at all hereby or in this Clause as neither in any other not even as much as virtually or consequentially in any manner soever deny or oppose his true and pure spiritual power of judging or binding or that which truly and really is in him to judge and bind spiritually or in a spiritual manner both King and Subjects or to pronounce even Excommunication against either themselves or the King if or when there shall happen any just cause thereof But they only deny 1. That he hath no kind of Temporal power acquired either by divine or humane Right that reaches to the King or his Crown People or Dominions 2. That the spiritual power which he truly and really hath either from God immediately or from the Church and which the same Catholick Church acknowledges to be so in him or which the Subscribers admit to be in him can have no such effect by Excommunication or other sentence or means as is the bereaving the King of his Temporals or as is the hindering the Subjects to obey or making it lawful for them in point of Conscience and Religion not to perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to His Majesty And that this third Period or Clause or words or meaning of them import no more but this or that such Clause or Subscribers of it cannot be rationally said to deny or declare against any true power of the Pope or any true or just or legal or even as much as only valid sentence of his I shew evidently thus by two several examples of the like expression used in another matter For without denying or opposing the Popes true power or any true just or valid or binding sentence of his his Sons may declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against their natural Father or his Fatherly Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their natural duty and filial obedience to their said Father And without denying or opposing the Kings true power or any true just or even any valid or binding sentence of his the very Subscribers themselves may declare as I for my part do here declare and I am sure all the rest are ready to declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the King or of His Crown or Kingdom or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by His Majesty His Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from Him or His Kingdoms against their spiritual Father the Pope or his true Papal Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their Canonical fidelity and all that true obedience they are bound unto by
there is betwixt the power of a Bishop and that of the Magistrate However you have stated the case in your Letter to my self concerning your obligation of coming home with hazard and you have stated it so as I need not answer or advise you unless it be to deny your supposition yet I will advise your Lordship not to venture any further then Paris or Louaine or some near place on that side the Sea until I send to you again after you have altered your stile on the above Subject And must tell you there is no command of God on you in the case nor any necessity incumbent on you of Preaching or looking here Personally to your flock until you mend what is amiss of your own part Yet I do withal confess there is a necessity on you to do this And therefore that if or as soon as you shall do this there can be no excuse or plea against a command of God and a necessity on you to come home and look personally to your flock as well as you may and Evangelize to them It is only therefore I said now there was no command nor necessity because I suppose your failing hitherto so long in not making use of the Lawful and Evangelical means to be without danger to your self or others at liberty here to obey God in your charge proceeded only from want of due reflection on the lawfulness of the means and consequently suppose that in so good a man it was no depravation of will But hereafter I know not how you may answer God since you may come without such danger to your self or others or hinderance I mean of a greater or lesser good if you please to do what by the Law of Christ you may and ought to do viz. confess you have done ill crave His Majesties pardon and assure him under your hand by the same Instrument we have of your future and certainly otherwise bounden fidelity towards him It becomes a Bishop of Jesus Christ to shew this good example to others And it more particularly becomes him that lead others into Errour to shew them by his own example whether they are to return And indeed whom doth Obedience Humility Faith Justice and Repentance too become more then a Preacher of them and a chief Preacher too by his Episcopal Function As for the rest my Lord Know the Duke hath a good opinion of your will or intentions all along and is satisfied for any thing done at Paris but is sorry to observe your intellect so Principled yet even in relation to the very essential duty of Subjects And I am for my part more sorry because 't is point blank against the Principles of Christianity and all those arguments I make use of to help in Religion again Would your Lordship had Mr. Carons late Latin Work in Folio against those of Louain and Cardinal Barberins â—s Letter An other Work in Latin I have of my own which I will not publish yet for some reasons nor till I expect some farther time to see whether any one will undertake for Louaine to answer that of Mr. Carons Both he and I take notice of your Objections in some of your former papers to me I have besides a Remonstrance and a Petition too in Latin of Thirty sheets and in my own name and of matter of Fact all to his Holiness which also for some other reasons I do not Publish yet Your Lordship gave me occasion to think of it and it shall serve for an Apology such as you desired me to write I have all your Papers against Ferral still lying by me as likewise Mr. Lynche's Alithinologias Again I returne to your self and the Duke He thinks you a good Man This I writ to comfort the good Bishop in his affliction And think I writ but what in effect I supposed the Duke had on some occasion and by some words signified to me although peradventure not in those nor in so many other formal and express words especially at any one time good Priest and good Bishop And thinks you Candid and without cheat But sees withal that notwithstanding all your goodness you have still most dangerous Errours in your understanding and wonders at your weakness that cannot see them after so many occasions and causes and reasons to discover them to you And he knows you would if your understanding in that one matter were once rightly principled be of more use both as to piety and policy then many others of your calling or dignity There is a general Congregation of the Roman Clergy to be here at Dublin the XI of June next You may be there if you leave Spain in time and return in time to this such other Letters as become you For then I shall send you the Duke's License otherwise not Excuse this unmethodical scribling for I have no leasure now to do otherwise This goes to you by the way of Paris and my Lord of Ardmagh I am with all my Soul My Lord Your most Affectionate and Humble Servant P. Walsh Dublin March 16. 1665. S. V. His Letter of May 10. 1666. from St. Sebastian to my self again Reverend Father Walsh St. Sebastian May 10. 1666. YOurs of March 10th 1666. came yesterday to hand and though I have not obtained what I demanded I had thereby a great consent and satisfaction of mind that the Duke thinketh me a good man good Priest good Bishop candid and without all cheat That being so what danger can be feared from me but you say my Intellect ill principled may be feared Sir my Principles even about the main question between us and subject of the Protestation are those held by many eminent Divines and classical Authors Bishops Cardinals and some of them Saints and St. Thomas Prince of Divines one of those holding what they held will you say my Principles are dangerous and my Intellect erroneously instructed Were we together likely by wording we should better understand one another than by writing at this distance You may believe me my inclination is totally to follow the safest Principles for my Conscience and I am as much for those great Rules and Laws of Christianity taught by our Saviour Reddite puae sunt Caesaris Caesari c. and delivered by St. Paul to the Romans Omnis anima subdita sit c. as any whatsoever And I understand them rightly as I conceive as the greatest Divines understand them and as the Church doth explain them What more can be demanded from me following so many learned Masters Classical Authors Saints Bishops Cardinals who can blame me the Authority of all those is great their learning great their sanctity great the light they had from God great their number great being if I well remember Seventy one Authors as I found them in the answer of Cardinal Bellarmine to Barclaius Give me so many for your opinion so learned so holy and of so great credit and fame and I will subscribe to all
cloud of Neotericks or of all the very most ancient Fathers and holy Doctors Doctors of Christianity all along for a Thousand years till Gregory the VII Pontificat Nor any thing at all either of holy Scripture or natural Reason both plain enough in the case For I have already in my First Part abundantly given all such Arguments And yet I will observe here that no where have I made use of Protestant Authors albeit many of them have most learnedly refuted all such petty and whatsoever other Objections but above others Joannes Roffensis most diffusely and excellently Nay nor made use not even of Marcus Antonius a Dominis the learned Archbishop of Spalato not even of him there I say where in his Ostensio errorum Francisci Suarez he canvasses the Allegation made of those 70 or 72 Authors and even reduces that number to 20. A small number God wot as to that of bare extrinsick authority of Writers if that I mean should be of any value as indeed it should not to persuade any Nay let us suppose that not only Marcus Antonius but even Joannes Barclaius in his Pietas had come short in their arguments or examination of those 70 or 72 Writers alledged by Bellarmine in his little Book de temporali potestate Papae against William Barclay for himself and that Eudaemon Joannes against John Barclay had got the better of him and not been throughly confuted by his more learned Answerer and consequently that in very deed Bellarmines whole number of 70 or 72 had been rightly and to his purpose alledged by the Bishop what proportion or rather what weight I pray could 72 late Writers have to persuade any in comparison of 72000 I am sure the most learned and holy Fathers Pastors Doctors of the University of Christians throughout the earth in all Ages from Christ and even Christ himself and his Apostles Peter and Paul in the head of them What to the belief and practice also of at least 72 millions or rather 72 hundred millions indoctrinated by them Nay or speaking even of those who writ on or as to the very point in specie and after I mean the subtle distinctions invented either by Schoolmen or others in the later and worser Ages since Gregory the Seventh's dayes what proportion can there be between those 72 Writers or Authors alledg'd by Bellarmine and those other more than 272 Writers quoted by Caron to the contrary but that of one to four So that from first to last if we regard even but the extrinsick authority onely of the number of Teachers and Writers and Writers I say on the very point and distinction the Bishop will find he relies on a weak Reed that will break and pierce and bore through his hand Nor can he pretend that St. Thomas of Aquin or S. Bonaventure have been holier than Chrysostom Austin Gregory the Great and so many other ancient Fathers whose doctrine in the controverted question so contrary to that of those late Scholastick canonized Saints I have before produced Sect. Lxxiii Lxxiv But the truth is that no extrinsick authority either of number or sanctity not even of the greatest Saints how numerous soever can be of any moment either against holy Scripture or Catholick Tradition that I may say nothing now of plain demonstration from the principles of natural reason Otherwise Cyprian of Africk and Firmilian of Cappadocia and Dionysius of Alexandria had born down the scale against other Doctors in the question of Re-baptization And for Holiness I demand who was holier than Cyprian himself alone Therefore neither did St. Thomas of Aquin nor St. Bonaventure's holiness render them infallible in their Scholastical disputes Nay do not our own Schoolmen every day reject both Thomas and Bonaventure even in a hundred points and even also where we have neither evident Scripture nor manifest tradition nor clear demonstration of reason but only stronger probabilities against them Do not all Scotists in the world laugh to scorn the Arguments in particular of Thomas of Aquin and maintain a Thousand contradictory Positions to the very Conclusions or Positions and Thesis's of Thomas and all his School of Thomists So much I could not forbear to say here occasionally though it be not my business now to dispute or confute What is more proper at present is to tell the Reader That my Lord of Ferns having received my Letter at St. Sebastian and seeing he could not prudently venture against my advice thought fit to send his letter of Proxy to his own Vicar-general N Redmond living then at home in his Diocess of Ferns and County of Wexford to supply his place in the National Congregation to be held at Dublin and vote pro or con for or against the Remonstrance according as he should see the major and sanior part do For those were the words of that Letter of Proxy if my memory fail me not for I saw and read it Whether any private instructions were contrary I know not And however we see no opposition at all no endeavours I mean from this Bishop to hinder the Fathers from meeting Which is the scope of all hitherto said as in this place said VI. AS for the Bishop of Kilfinuran Andrew Lynch the third and last of those Irish Bishops then abroad I have nothing to say that might relate to any opposition or contrivance of his to hinder the meeting of the Fathers in the National Congregation Nor indeed besides what you have already seen Part I. Sect. v. pag. 12. have I any thing else to remark here of him save only 1. That he was one of those 12 persons which the Nuncio immediately after the rejection of the Peace of 1646. recommended to Rome by his Dean Dionysius Massarius to be made Bishops and who by the same Dean received next Spring their Bulls and accordingly soon after both Consecration and Installation 2. That nevertheless in the controversie about the cessation of Arms with Inchiquin and censures of the Nuncio he seem'd to be for the Supreme Council 3. That he cunningly declined appearing either one side or other in the business of Jamestown 4. That I for my own part alwayes until I discovered him upon his landing at Dublin and by his carriage in the Congregation took him to have been rightly and honestly principled and therefore as on the same account for the Bishop of Ardagh so I had also on the same been in all occasions an earnest sollicitor of my Lord Lieutenant to suffer him to return out of France and come home to his charge of Kilfinuran 5. That notwithstanding several invitations by letters and otherwise from me to him since the year 1661. to the present 65. assuring him also that he might safely return and reside in his own Diocess yet he neither would nor it seems had any mind to return Whereof we shall see hereafter the causes 6. That concerning him and more closely in order to his affection or disaffection to our
Ludovicus Pius both very Christian Catholick Emperours deserve to be particularly remembred being they made so many good Laws for the Government of meer Ecclesiastical or Church affairs and persons as may be read in their own Capitularies though not in any of those Books which make up that now commonly called Corpus Juris Civilis That for what concerns the Testimony of others i. e. of those we justly call our Holy Fathers as whom in the next degree after the Apostles we look upon as our best Masters of Christianity St. Augustin alone may at present serve for them all the rather that no man in his right senses did ever honestly or conscienciously dispute this matter Let the Disciples of Bellarmine and admirers of Baronius think what they please In hoc Reges Deo servire in quantum Reges sunt si in suo Regno bona jubeant mala prohibeant non solum quae pertinent ad humanam societatem verumetiam quae ad divinam Religionem is the sentence of this great Doctor in several places of his Works (f) Aug contra Crosse Gram l. 3. cap. 51. Ep. 50. super Psal 2. That reason alone might perswade the truth thereof being reason alone without other help teaches all both Kings and Subjects there is a God whom all must worship and glorifie and reason alone shews that when they i. e. both Kings and People are once perswaded though but by Revelation only of the true way to worship God and Kings do moreover know themselves to be the Vice-gerents of God with the power of the Sword in order to the Government of the People entrusted to their charge and the People also believe the same of them it must consequently and even from the nature of Royal Authority follow That of one side Kings are empowred to command the People to worship glorifie and praise God for his mercy render him thanks for his bounty beg assistance in dangers his deliverance from the power of enemies c and therefore also to set apart some days and observe religiously those days already set apart for such holy duties as Preaching and Praying and Fasting and invokeing God even in publick Assemblies at Church humbling themselves before him relieving the poor and doing all other works of mercy corporal and spiritual and of the other side the people are bound to obey their Kings and other Supream Civil Governours in such commands how spiritual soever the matter or things enjoyned be Nay That reason alone yea without any help or illustration either of the more ancient holy Fathers or later Expositors must teach us That if all Subjects are by the general and positive Law of God in St. Paul 13 Rom. commanded under pain of Damnation or Hell to be subject to the Supream Civil Powers without any distinguishing note of the matter enjoyn'd unless that note which makes clearly for the matter of good works to be commanded by such Rulers it must necessarily follow That since according to the Confession of every side all Subjects are obliged by that very Law in St. Paul 13 Rom. to obey their Kings in all Commands at least which are not contrary to the Laws of the Land and which concern temporary or worldly things alone much more must they be obliged to obey them in all those other more excellent and holy commands which relate either immediately and principally or mediately and consequently to their eternal happiness in another life and therefore to the most excellent of Spiritual matters For all the Laws and Precepts of God either those delivered immediately by Christ or by the mouthes and pens of his Apostles regard if not only at least principally first as the due means a Spiritual life of Grace in this World and next as the final end of such means a Spiritual life of Glory in the other Lastly That such Authority in Kings of commanding Spirituals being not derived from the Keys of the Church given to Peter and rest of the Apostles but flowing naturally originally and necessarily too from the Supream Royal or Civil Power of Kings can be no more lost or forfeited by Heresie or other Infidelity nay nor by any kind of sin or misdemeanour whatsoever than their authority for commanding in meer Temporals especially being it is manifest enough That the Authority of commanding such Spiritual duties and Religious worship of God is often too too necessary in Kings for attaining even the very true politick Temporal or earthly and natural ends of a Common-wealth securing the Temporal Peace or happiness of the People and obtaining it of God from whom alone all both Spiritual and Temporal both Supernatural and Natural blessings come So much did the Procurator let the Fathers of the Congregation know i. e. to such purpose did he speak to them on the Subject of the first of those three heads before mentioned And they did seem in truth to have been fully perswaded by his discourse For they all assented and consented That all both Feasts and Fasts all days either of Humiliation or Thanksgiving commanded by the King should be accordingly observed in their way both by themselves and rest of the Roman-Catholick Clergy and people of Ireland XXI ON the second of those Three Heads or that concerning Father James O Fienachtuy the famed wonder-working Priest he spoke in the next place giving a large and very particular account of all he had either heard from others or by his own experience known of that good Father i. e. an account of those arguments which of one side cryed him up for a Wonderful curer of all Diseases and of the other discovered him at last to have never had any such gift of healing or at least to have lost it lately if ever at any time or in any instance formerly he had it But forasmuch as the Reader may be desirous to know more particularly such matters relating to the said Fathers James O Fienachtuy who made for some years so great a noise both in Ireland and England not only amongst Roman-Catholicks but even Protestants I think it worth my labour to give here to my best remembrance the very speech or at least substance of it containing that account given so by the Procurator i. e. my self to this National Congregation as followeth viz Account of the famed Wonder-working Priest c. MY Lords and Fathers it is no disaffection to nor prejudice against the person of Father Fienachtuy but the general concern of all our Church in the truth or falshood of Miracles reported these many years to have been wrought by him puts me now in the second place upon a large discourse and very particular account of him especially as to some later passages which cannot be known to you otherwise then from me or my relation to others The first place and time I heard of this Miraculous Priest was at London in the year 1657 or thereabouts under the late Usurping Power of Cromwel Then and there I
this present Work immediately after the Fourth Treatise See there pag. 80. For albeit this Part or Treatise and Section of the Book where I am at present were the more proper place to give the said Propositions of Allegiance yet forasmuch as they are already Printed where I now told I having thought fit for some Reasons to give them in that place when some five or six years since I Printed the three next following Treatises viz. the Second Third and Fourth before this present First which I am now ending and that to Reprint them here again were needless and but increase of Charge in the Printing-house therefore I direct the Reader to the said Treatise 4. pag. 80. where he may see those Propositions and under this Title The Fourteen Propositions of F. P. W. or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that only which can secure His Majesty of them as much as hand or subscription can and that only too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 7. That in this Title may be seen what end I had both in writing those Propositions and having them so debated even the same end which the controverted Remonstrance it self and all my Books written and Persecutions too suffered in defence thereof had hitherto and shall have hereafter 8. That in the same Title I attributed these Propositions to F. P. W. viz. to my self not so much because they were wholly my own draught and had not a word either added to or detracted from them by the said Divines save only in one or two places at most where to satisfie some of the Fathers I mollified the expression of my own Copy in a word or two or rather indeed left out and wholly blotted those words but chiefly because the Franciscan Provincial Chapter having come on and sate before the Divines had run over and throughly debated any of the three last Propositions or Paragraphs and the same Divines being consequently forc'd to adjourn for that time and such new distractions too having hapned in that Provincial Chapter as occasioned the departure of several of those very Divines who debated the former eleven Propositions there was no further meeting held either about the examination of the other remaining three last or subscription of any of all the Fourteen by these Divines as was at first intended Which want of subscription by them to those even eleven Propositions albeit otherwise throughly debated and approved by them all unanimously in the very terms even to a syllable wherein I give them printed Treat 4. pag. 80. 81 and 82. and want also of through examination by them i. e. by the said Divines of any of the three last although otherwise read publickly by them and not at all excepted against in that reading by any of their Colledge made me not to venture on publishing the said even so much as the first eleven Propositions in their name but only in my own all the Fourteen until they were or happen'd I mean to be hereafter actually subscribed by others Because if I had done otherwise I was not sure but some would peradventure say I had no authority for doing so being I had no actual subscription yet and consequently was not sure but such Title involving others and consequently the Propositions themselves would be disown'd at least by some of them But I was certain of my self to own both my own Title and whole Work even every individual of the Fourteen Propositions to the least word and syllable 9. That for my change of stile in the Thirteenth Paragraph or Complex Proposition which contains the three last of the six Sorbon Declarations made by that Faculty in the year 1663. or change thereof I mean from assertory of the outward object to promissory or rather only declaratory of an inward unalterable resolution of mind whereas in the eleven former it is assertory but in the said thirteenth only promissory i. e. or declaratory as now said containing only a promise or rather declaring our unalterable resolution never to approve or practise according to any Doctrine or Positions which in particular or general assert the contrary of any one even of the very three last of those six late Sorbon Declarations made against the extravagant and uncanonical pretences of the Pope the reason inducing me to this kind of change and to an abstaining also therein from any kind of Censure against those contrary Doctrines or Positions how otherwise false and wicked soever in themselves was That I feared several of the said Divines would hardly be drawn to concur unto approve of and least of all subscribe an assertory expression viz. upon the matter of the said three last Sorbon Declarations but doubted not they would easily be persuaded to come off to such a promissory or such a declaratory one without any Censure of the contrary Doctrines For otherwise had I in the Copy or Draught proposed to them express'd fully my own sense and what I would my self dare maintain publickly even under my own hand I had done it as to the outward object i. e. in plain terms categorically either asserting or denying the outward object or subject which you please to be so or so And therefore 1. as to the Fourth of those Sorbon Propositions I would have spoken thus The Pope hath no authority which is repugnant to the Supreme Royal Jurisdiction of our King no nor any which is so much as contrary to the true liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom and by consequence it ought not nor cannot be maintain'd for example That the Pope hath any authority at all to depose Bishops against the said Canons And 2. as to the Fifth I would have express'd my self in this manner The Pope is not only not above the General Council but is under every Oecumenical Council truly such As likewise 3. and as to the Sixth I would have no less plainly thus The Pope is not infallible not even in questions of Right arising about the Articles of divine Faith but certainly fallible in all even such points if or wherein he hath not the consent of the Catholick or Vniversal Church Nay further I had to such my Assertions added as smart Censures of the contrary doctrines as any of those are which you find in any of the former eleven Paragraphs or Propositions But my business or design in drawing those 14 Propositions and consequently the Thirteenth of them having been partly to draw them so as I might rationally expect to prevail with the Colledge of Divines for their concurrence I judg'd it necessary to alter my stile from assertory to promissory and make use of no Censure at all when I came to the said
immediately succeeding Internuntius's of Brussels Hieronimus de Vecchys and Jacobus Rospigliosi determined the case as well in this particular point as in all others of the like nature against the former protestation of 61. and so reserved to themselves a latitude or liberty of telling all others and practising themselves accordingly That indeed although it be not their own particular Doctrine sense or Judgement yet for as much as it is Romes or at least the Courts there and for as much as they owe obedience to that See and must submit their Judgements to and receive commands from it specially whensoever his Holiness shall declare or if he hath so al-ready on the point declared an obligation of Conscience or that it is of necessity or that it is a command to them which cannot be transgressed Salvâ veritate fidei Catholicae or sine dispendio salutis aeternae they must for these reasons obey and conform themselves to the contrary Doctrine and practice flowing from it To pass by at present I say all this and that for these causes or motives besides divers others which I likewise pass over this time they would no way censure the contrary doctrine nor as much as seem to dis-allow it as they do not as much as simply averr what their own judgment on the point is or shall be hereafter at any time Who cannot but see out of all said already that by Subjects in this passage they understand only such as are and must or ought to continue Subjects alwayes De Jure and even De Jure Divino not such as are de facto only Subjects such as are onely Subjects by force or out of prudence onely that is until they see they prudently may in some cases of deposition deprivation Excommunication or without any such sentences in some cases of Apostacy heresy schysme or of publick oppression or tyrannical administration and that the people themselves by virtue of their own pretended inherent Civil and supream right in some cases declare themselves exempt and their king or the person until then their King now devested of that power and themselves freed of all kind of tye of subjection to him For even in such cases or contingencies they will say and may truely say according to their present sense opinion and general negative abstraction here That it is not their Doctrine that Subjects may be discharged absolved or freed from their obligation of performing their duty And yet they will and may say then according to their present meaning and that meaning too which their Remonstrance in the words contexture all other present circumstances affecting it necessarily imports that such as were until then Subjects are no more Subjects And if they be still in fact or by force or out of prudence till they find their time they are not so by right Or if by right of the lawes of the Land yet not by a right derived from the lawes of God nature And therefore that although this proposition of theirs be alwayes true then too shall be according to this their present meaning or explication which understands by Subjects none but such as are and ought by the lawes of God nature to continue such and according as they understand the said lawes yet in the cases or emergencies above such persons owe no more any duty of obedience or allegiance and consequently need no further discharge absolution or freedom by the sentence or declaration of any man or men from such duty which hath not nor can have a being or existence in such cases but they are discharged absolved and freed from any such duty on them by the very nature and contingencie of things and by the very consequent ceasing of the obligation of duty of it self I mean and without any further ceremonie They will also and may truely say without giving cause by this passage or any other in their Remonstrance to be up-braided with untruth herein breach of promise or falsity that however or whatever they or any of them may themselves or shall otherwise peradventure think of this matter or whatever their own private Judgement or Doctrine be or be not yet if the Pope shall declare or hath already unto them his or that of his Courts to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and with all command them by his Apostolical authority to follow it they must accordingly practise And that it is therefore they formed this Declaration as all the other several clauses of their remonstrance with so much caution and reservation as withal they framed them so that they might not seem to denie the common principle of Christian faith allowed by both sides as too evident in Holy Scripture though for my own part I believe those other they decline to be no less evident there That Jure Divino or by the law of God Princes are to be obeyed by their Subjects and yet by so many abstractions distinctions and explications render that very principle unsignificant and unbinding if and when they shall think fit Whence the ingenious Reader may also perfectly understand the causes or motives of the subtilty and fineness used in placing the words that compose the Proposition or Declaration immediatly following or which directly relates to and seems to condemn the doctrine of the lawfulness not of deposing or depriving Kings but of murthering or killing them by the hands of their Subjects Wherein it might be expected by vulgar judgments that if in any passage the Assembly would be more clear and ingenuous although to such as are fully versed in the controversie and positions of Suarez Bellarmine and such others whose doctrine as to this point or whole matter the Assembly would not by any means condemn it will not seem strange they be no more since the lawfulness of killing or murthering of Kings even I say by the hands of their own Subjects must be equal to that of a sentence of deposition or deprivation of them by Pope or People or of a Censure of Excommunication or other commanding the people to rebel or take Arms against them or to put any such sentence in execution As indeed Bellarmine in his answer to William Barclay and Suarez in his to King James and all others of that way on this subject plainly confess and averr as a consequence unavoidable So many experiences where and as often as any such attempt of deposition hath been made and the nature of man to preserve himself to his power shewing the moral impossibility or at least the very rare contingency of an effectual deposition of a King by his Subjects but withal he was murthered by them Whence it is necessarily consequent that whoever licences the one must the other And yet these late Remonstrants or Subscribers to this Protestation of 66. would by their dexterity seem but to such only as are not conversant in the dispute or do not strictly examine the placing of their words to condemn a doctrine of so
truely declare it is not their or it is not our Doctrine though in an other sense they cannot nor intended so to do And for to justifie this declaration distinction or equivocation they will according to the principles of equivocating Divines readily make use of that passage or words of our Saviour in the Gospel mea doctrina non est mea sed ejus qui mifit me Patris And yet when they shall find it for their advantage they will no less readily acknowledge that their intention also was to declare by those words that what follows is not the doctrine of even those very Doctors or Popes nor consequently of the Church And yet will acknowledge too this much without any prejudice to their own opinion or judgment in the points controverted and without holding themselves obliged by this Declaration understood as it ought or may not to practice accordingly For all they say in this first part of that first Proposition is We the under-named do hereby declare that it is not our doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second They will here presently when they please and shall think fit have recourse to the several meanings of the word Authority And without any necessity of using the distinction which yet is obvious enough and frequent with them of authority in fact and authority of right they will say although not with the Doctors of Lovaine in their censure of the Remonstrance of 61. that they declare it is not the doctrine of the Romae Church that the Pope hath any authority which is purely or meerly temporal or even humane at all or by humane right ways or title acquired over the King in his temporal Affairs And that neither hath he any Divine or Spiritual which is ordinary over him in such or which at his pleasure may at all times and in all cases dispose of the Kings Temporals And after this or notwithstanding any thing here declared they will say with Bellarmine that all the most supream right or authority challenged by Popes to depose Princes and dispose of their Temporals is entire and safe enough For this grand Authority indeed they have or challenge thereunto universally is not in the rank of temporals nor in the order of humane Authorities but in that of wholy spiritual and purely divine and supernatural Is not ordinary but extraordinary or as Innocent the 3d. speaks casual only that is in some particular great and extraordinary cases or emergencies and this too ratione peccati alone as the same Innocent further saith And consequently they will say that by any such general though negative Declaration or by a Declaration in such general words only or against any Authority in general to be in the Pope this very specifical this extraordinary casual spiritual celestial divine Authority in such great unusual contingencies must never be thought to be declared against according to the maxime of Lawyers and Law before given in my Exceptions to their Remonstrance For which saying they will further yield this reason That without any such specifical meaning intended their said Declaration or Proposition may be useful to shut out of doors the Popes humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right said to have been acquired and by the present Faculty of Lovaine maintained to continue still in force to these Kingdoms by donation submission prescription feudatary title and forfeiture And that such Declaration or one against such humane pretences in particular to his Majesties Kingdoms of England or Ireland nay and Scotland too was enough to be expected from them by his Majesty without putting them to the stress of resolving on that other supereminent divine pretence and which really is to all other at least christian Kingdoms in the world or all those of other Kings and in such extraordinary cases as well as to his Majestie 's They have yet in store a third explication equivocation distinction but as fallacious as if not more than any of these two already given And I call it a third way of evasion though as to the first part of it and as to the matter in it self of that first part however the words be different it varyes not or but very little from what is already said in effect It does in indeed in the second Part as will be seen They will as occasion requires or they find it expedient say nothing of the first on the words our doctrine nor of the second on the words authority in temporal affairs But when they come to Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will instantly tell you as Logicians or Sophisters of their specificative and reduplicative sense And that these words bear it And that the cause it self and the conjuncture of circumstances make their recourse to this kind of distinction very lawful They will therefore when they please to proceed a third way allow it is not the doctrine not even of the Catholick Church that the Pope hath any authority not even spiritual or divine in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will I say allow this Proposition or this part of that first complex Proposition but allow it only in sensu reduplicative in the reduplicative sense or as the reduplication falls on these last words Our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second In the specificative they will deny it and withal deny it was their meaning what ever the Sorbonists meaned by the like to their own King to declare at any time or by that Proposition that the Pope had not some authority in temporal affairs over our King considered as a Criminal or Sinner though in such not any over him considered only as our Soveraign Lord and King Charles the Second They will further say that while the Pope himself or people or both joyntly suffer or tollerat Charles the Second as King the Pope hath no authority in temporal affairs over him But yet when he finds it convenient and necessary in any of those great extraordinary emergencies not to tollerat him any longer he may by his divine authority in such cases depose and deprive him of all his temporals together and transfer the right of them to another and this by way of Jurisdiction over his person as a criminal and sinner not over his person as a King not criminal or sinful They will further say and though I meaned it hitherto as the second part of this third way yet it may be also and is a fourth way of explication or evasion that allowing it not to be the doctrine of the Church that the Pope hath any Authority of Jurisdiction Power or Superiority properly such in temporal affairs over the King considered either in the reduplicative or specificative sense and allowing too that themselves intended to declare so much by the said former part of their first Proposition yet the last refuge is alwayes open A Power and Authority in the
vary about the many particulars to which his Royal Authority could extend it self and out of error attribute some such particulars to the Pope That besides notwithstanding our being right in our judgment or doctrine of the Kings supream power in Temporals and his independency in all kind of cases from any but God alone as to his said Temporals we might erre about the Temporals themselves and think many of them spirituals that are not such at all and consequently out of that error deny the Kings Authority where we should not That of this kind are all benefices Ecclesiastical as to the Lands and Revenues and all other earthly Goods any way belonging to the Church Nay and of this kind too the very bodies of ecclesiastical Persons how spiritual soever by denomination That we might also and out of errour notwithstanding our attributing sincerely the supream independent power to the King in all Temporals think or teach peradventure against the native liberties of the Irish Church such an unlimitted spiritual power in the Pope over the spiritual things or spiritual persons in this Kingdom as might be not only against the ancient spiritual Canons received in the said kingdom but against equity and reason and Religion too and very enormously also though indirectly or by consequence only but that an infallible one against the King and Kingdom even in their Temporals purely such As for example a power of election to all kind of benefices even Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Sees as well as Parochial Churches and to all these as well as those And a power of translation at his pleasure And a hundred others which may be read at large in Monsieur Pierre Pithou's great and most accurat work intituled Les Liberties de l'Eglise Gallicane and more briefly in Father Redmond Carons second Appendix to his Remonstrantia Hibernorum that last and most learned work of his and all without the Kings consent nay contrary to his express will and the fundamental Laws of the Land That it was therefore the Sorbon-Faculty who are men understand very well what is superfluous and what not and whether the matter of this fourth Proposition contained or not any thing different from the three former or from any other consisting of a general acknowledgment of their Kings most absolute independent Supremacy in Temporals it was I say therefore they would give immediatly after the three former this fourth as specifically declaring against those injuries might be otherwise done by the Pope to their Church Kingdom or King under pretence of such a spiritual power and right only which could not be said to be of its own nature either ordinarily or extraordinarily inconsistent with the supream absolute and independent power of their King in all contingencies whatsoever and yet per se would be unquestionably most injurious and grievous to them and per accidens might prove their utter bane and even as fatal to them as Bellarmine's indirect power in temporals which they protested against in their first proposition That Finally an ordinary person may understand it is one thing and much less to declare our indispensable Allegiance to the King and his independent power in all temporals and an other and much more to declare we understand that Allegiance so as we ought to hold it an incroachment on the Kings said temporal rights and authority and on the both temporal and spiritual rights also of his Catholick Subjects that the Pope should attempt in many or any particular within his Kingdoms to dispose for example sake of goods or persons though by title otherwise Ecclesiastical or Spiritual against the Canons by them received or which is the example of Sorbone to depose a Bishop within his Dominions against the said Canons And therefore it must be clear that by Subscribing the said fourth proposition duely applied mutatis nominibus the Congregation might very well and truly and rightly too have conceived they had said more than they had already or before by subscribing the former three Propositions and Remonstrance even in case I say their said Remonstrance and three Propositions had a full cleer and sufficient expression as from them to obviat all reservations abstractions distinctions equivocations c much more when it is apparent out of my two former Tracts there is no expression at all sufficient as from them to obviat such delusions So much for their first allegation or proof Though as I have before noted if it be intended a proof of the applicableness of their first general reason to the particular of this fourth Proposition it be no new medium but idem per idem and a petitio principij To their second which is that they admit not any power derogatory to His Majesties authority the answers are That I could wish 't were so indeed That they have given as yet no sufficient proof they do not if we understand what they here say as plain honest sincere men would understand these words That understanding by His Majestie 's authority what they do indeed which in effect is a very pittiful authority an authority at best and at most subordinat to that of the Pope Church and People when either please to declare against it in any of those extraordinary cases of Schisme Heresie Apostacie Tiranny c. and an authority also which even out of such cases hath no power to hinder the Pope's absolute disposition of all Ecclesiastical benefices and persons at his pleasure understanding I say this kind of authority their medium is new indeed but vain and inconclusive For how doth it follow we admit no power derogatory to such His Majesties authority Therefore we have already by saying so attributed to our Gracious King whatever the Sorbone Doctors in truth and reallity have to their own in this fourth proposition Or therefore we shall never approve any propositions contrary to His Majesties authority meaning such as it is indeed not such as by fiction curtayled nor approve any propositions contrary to the genuine liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom as for example that the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons Or therefore our second general reason for not subscribing the three last Propositions is specifically applicable to the first of them being in order the fourth of the six Which reason was that we thought we had already sufficiently cleared all Scruples If any of these consequences follow then hath Aristotle failed much in his Topicks As for their third allegation to prove this applicableness and consequently their subscription to this fourth to be not necessary but Superfluous which allegation is in effect as I understand it that they had already more positively declared themselves for the Kings authority rights c. and they should add too or at least mean if they would alledge any thing here to purpose that they had so declared themselves also for the true or genuin liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in
of so many former abroad in other parts of Europe since Gregory the 7th so manifest in History force not a confession of all this from F. N. N or if the very nature of the positions in themselves and the judgment of all judicious and ingenuous men of the world prevail not with him to confess that a general decision and resolve of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Ireland as well against the Popes pretence of infallibility as against his other of a power for deposing the King and raising at pleasure his Subjects in rebellion and against both absolutely and positively be not one of the most rational wayes to hinder the disturbance of King and Countrey as from such Clergie-men and others of their Communion and Nation and if the denyal of such decision and resolve against either pretence especially against this of infallibility since it is plain that if the Pope be admitted infallible his deposing power must necessarily and instantly follow because already and manifoldly declared by several Popes if I say this denyal convince not the denyers and such denyers as the said Congregation in this Country and Conjuncture of a design or desire or pleasure or contentedness to leave still the roots or seeds of new disturbances of both King and Countrey in the hearts of their beleevers and if I say also F. N. N. himself will not upon more serious reflection acknowledge all this to be true and â—â—ident I am sure all other judicious and knowing men even such as are â—iâ—interested wholy in the quarrel and not his partisans will That finally what I have to say is That whosoever is designed by him to be per stringed in or by this last pretence of furthering this dispute to the disturbance of both King and country may answer F. N. N. what the Prophet Elias did Achab on the like occasion Non ego turbavi Israel sic 〈◊〉 demâ—â— Patris tui 3 Reg. 18.18 qui â—ereliquistis mandata Domini secuti estis Bealim And 〈◊〉 that nâ—â— such person alone who ever chiefly perhaps intended nor his few other associates only perstringed likewise by F. N. N. and congregation in this perclose of their Paper but the poor afflicted Church of Ireland generally as it compriseth all beleevers of both sorts and sexes Ecclesiastical and Lay-persons of the Roman Communion nay but the Catholick Church of Christ universally throughout the world hath cause enough already and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all such other preposterous defenders of her interests what Iacob said to Simeon and Levi Gen. 34.30 upon the sack of Sichem Turbastis me â—diosum fecistis me Chananaeis Pherezaeis habitatoribus terrae hujus And more I have not to say here on this subject of infallibility But leave the Reader that expects more on that question or this dispute in it self directly and as it abstracts from the present indirect consideration to turn over to the last Treatise of this Book Where he shall find more at large and directly to that purpose what I held not so proper for this place Though I confess it was the paper of those unreasonable reasons the answers to which I now conclude here that gave me the first occasion to add that sixth and last piece as upon the same occasion I have the fifth also immediately following this fourth Only I must add by way of good advice to F. N. N That if he or the Congregation or both or any for them will reply to these answers or to what I have before said in my second or third Treatise on their Remonstrance and three first Propositions or even in my first though a bare Narrative only and matter of notorious fact related and if they will have such reply to be home indeed it cannot be better so than by their signing the 15. following Propositions Which to that purpose I have my self drawn and had publickly debated for about a moneth together in another but more special Congregation of the most learned men of this Kingdom and their own Religion held even in that very house where the former sate and immediatly after they were dissolved The Fourteen PROPOSITIONS of F. P. W. Or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that onely which can secure His Majestie of them as much as hand or subscription can and that onely too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 1. Prop. HIS Majestie CHARLES the Second King of England is true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Dominions and all the Subjects or people as well Ecclesiastick as Lay of His Majesties said Kingdoms or Dominions are obliged under pain of sin to obey His Majestie in all Civil and Temporal affairs 2. His said Majestie hath none but God alone for Superiour or who hath any power over him Divine or Human Spiritual or Temporal Direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary de facto or de jure in his temporal rights throughout all or any of his Kingdoms of England Ireland Scotland and other Dominions annexed to the Crown of England 3. Neither the Pope hath nor other Bishops of the Church joyntly or severally have any right or power or authority that is warrantable by the Catholick Faith or Church not even in case of Schisme Heresie or other Apostacy nor even in that of any private or publick oppression whatsoever to deprive depose or dethrone His said Majestie or to raise his Subjects whatsoever of His Majesties foresaid Kingdoms or Dominions in Warr Rebellion or Sedition against him or to dispense with them in or absolve them from the tye of their sworn Allegiance or from that of their otherwise natural or legal duty of obedient faithful Subjects to His Majestie whether they be sworn or not 4. Nor can any sentence of deprivation excommunication or other censure already given or hereafter to be given nor any kind of Declaration dispensation or even command whatsoever proceeding even from the Pope or other spiritual authority of the Church warrant His Subjects or any of them in conscience to rebel or to lessen any way His said Majesties said Supream Temporal and Royal rights in any of his said Kingdoms or Dominions or over any of his people 5. It is against the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the primitive Church to pretend that there is a natural or inhere at right in the people themselves as Subjects or members of the civil common-wealth or of a civil Society to take arms against their Prince in their own vindication or by such means to redress their own either pretended or true grievances
power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against His or Their Crown and Dignity and do my best endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors or to the Lord Deputy or other His Majesties Chief Governour or Governours for the time being all Treasons or Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear to be intended against His Majesty or any of them and I do make this Recognition and Acknowledgment heartily willingly and truly upon the true Faith of a Christian So help me God Nevertheless the said Lord Lieutenant doth not hereby intend that any thing in these Concessions contained shall extend or be construed to extend to the granting of Churches Church-livings or the exercise of Jurisdiction the Authority of the said Lord Lieutenant not extending so far Yet the said Lord Lieutenant is Authorized to give the said Roman Catholicks full assurance as hereby the said Lord Lieutenant doth give unto the said Roman Catholicks full assurance That they or any of them shall not be molested in the possession which they have at present of the Churches and Church-livings or of the exercise of their respective Jurisdictions as they now exercise the same until such time as His Majesty upon a full consideration of the desires of the said Roman Catholicks in a Free Parliament to be held in this Kingdom shall declare his further pleasure II. Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That a Free Parliament shall be held in this Kingdom within Six months after the date of these Articles of Peace or as soon after as Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Castelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunrie Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghne Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or the major part of them will desire the same so that by possibility it may be held and that in the mean time and until the Articles in these presents agreed to be passed in Parliament be accordingly passed the same shall be as inviolably observed as to the matters therein contained as if they were Enacted in Parliament and that in case a Parliament be not called and held in this Kingdom within two years next after the date of these Articles of Peace then His Majesties Lord Lieutenant or other His Majesties chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being will at the request of the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunrie Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or the major part of them call a GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Lords and Commons of this Kingdom to attend upon the said Lord Lieutenant or other His Majesties chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being in some convenient place for the better setling of the Affairs of the Kingdom And it is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties That all matters that by these Articles are agreed upon to be passed in Parliament shall be transmitted into England according to the usual form to be passed in the said Parliament And that the said Acts so agreed upon and so to be passed shall receive no diminution or alteration here or in England Provided that nothing shall be concluded by both or either of the said Houses of Parliament which may bring prejudice to any of His Majesties Protestant party or their Adherents or to any of His Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects party or their Adherents other than such things as upon this Treaty are concluded to be done or such things as may be proper for the Committee of Priviledges of either or both Houses to take cognizance of as in such cases heretofore hath been accustomed and other than such matters as His Majesty will be graciously pleased to declare his further pleasure in to be passed in Parliament for the satisfaction of His Subjects and other than such things as shall be propounded to either or both Houses by His Majesties Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being during the said Parliament for the advancement of His Majesties service and the peace of the Kingdom which Clause is to admit no Construction which may trench upon these Articles of Peace or any of them and that both Houses of Parliament may consider what they shall think convenient touching the Repeal or suspension of the Statute commonly called Poynings Act intituled An Act that no Parliament be holden in this Land until the Acts be certified into England III. Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That all Acts Ordinances and Orders made by both or either Houses of Parliament to the blemish dishonour or prejudice of His Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects of this Kingdom or any of them sithence the 7th of August 1641. shall be vacated and that the same and all Exemplifications and other Acts which contain the memory of them be made void by Act to be past in the next Parliament to be held in this Kingdom and that in the mean time the said Acts or Ordinances or any of them shall be no prejudice to the said Roman Catholicks or any of them IV. Item It is also concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is likewise graciously pleased That all Indictments Attainders Outlawries in this Kingdom and all the Processes and other proceedings thereupon and all Letters Patents Grants Leases Custodiums Bonds Recognizances and all Records Act or Acts Office or Offices Inquisitions and all other things depending upon or taken by reason of the said Indictments Attainders or Outlawries sithence the 7th day of August 1641. in prejudice of the said Catholicks their Heirs Executors Administrators or Assigns or any of them or the Widows of them or any of them shall be vacated and made void in such sort as no memory shall remain thereof to the blemish dishonour or prejudice of the said Catholicks their Heirs Executors Administrators or Assigns or any of them or the Widows of them or any of them and that to be done when the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or the major part of them shall desire the same so that by possibility it may be done and in
will not agree with the Parliament for not having it We are of opinion the best remedy the King 's Authority being taken away as was said of meeting this inconvenience of the Peoples closing with the Parliament is returning to the Confederacy as was intended by the Nation in case of breach of the Peace of His Majesties part This will keep an union amongst us if men will not be precipitantly guilty of breach of their Oath of Association which Oath by two solemn Orders of two several Assemblies is to continue binding if any breach of the Articles should happen of His Majesties part The King 's Authority and the Lord Lieutenants Commission being recalled by the Declaration abovesaid we are of opinion the Lord Lieutenant hath no such Authority to leave If we must expose Lives and Fortunes to the hazard of fighting for making good that Peace seeing the danger and prejudice is alike to defend that or get a better Peace why should we bound our selves within the limits of those Articles so disavowed Answer To this VVe answer That if they were alwayes of opinion all their endeavours should be employed to keep the King's Authority over them their Declaration and Excommunication is a strange way of manifesting that opinion which Declaration and Excommunication bears date before His Majesties Declaration wherein they say He throweth away the Nation as Rebels So that whatever His Majesty hath done in withdrawing His Authority it is apparent their endeavour to drive it away was first in time In their advice of returning to the Confederacy appears the scope of their dilemma's and arguments against the continuance of the King's Authority over them which that they may be sure to be rid of they say VVe have not Authority to leave Their Reasons why in Conscience they cannot consent to the revocation of their Declaration and Excommunication follow Vpon consideration of the whole matter we may not consent with safety of Conscience to the Provisoes of revoking our Declaration and Excommunication demanded by his Excellency or granting any assurance to him or the Commissioners of Trust for not attempting the like in the future and that for many Reasons especially for First Reason That the King's Authority is not in the Lord Lieutenant nor power in us to confer a new Authority on him being also destructive to the Nation to continue it in him and preservative if in another And that was our sense when we declared against the King's Authority in his person Answer The King's Authority was to Us when the Declaration and Excommunication was framed by them they acknowledge And that it is still in Us notwithstanding His Majesties said Declaration VVe are able to make good if We could find it of advantage to His service or the safety of His good Subjects But that they confess It is not in them to confer a new Authority upon us is one of the few Truths they have set down Yet why they may not pretend to give as well as take away Authority and why they may not to Us as well as to others We know not They further say It is destructive to the Nation if continued in Vs and preservative if in another and this they say was their sense when they declared against the King's Authority in Our person We would gladly know what We have done to change their sense since the time that by their many professions formerly recited they seemed to be of another opinion If it be for doing little or nothing We believe We have made it appear they are principally guilty of Our being out of action That it will be preservative to the Nation to have Authority to govern it in another We shall be glad to be convinced in the event Second Reason We much fear we should lose the few Churches remaining under his Government as we lost under him all the Churches of the Cities of Waterford and Kilkenny and the Towns of Wexford Rosse Clonmel Cashel Fethard Kilmallock c. In this agreeing with the Maccabees Maximus vero primus pro sactitate timâ—r exat templi Answer The loss of the places mentioned here is answered elsewhere We shall only add That as Cashel was lately deserted by some of those these men esteem obedient Children of Holy Church so the same men could neither be persuaded nor forced into Kilkenny when they had orders for it and by that means both places were lost Third Reason His Excellency having declared at Cork That he will maintain during his life the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches which may be the same in substance with the Oath of Covenant for ought we know we may not expect from him defence of the Catholick Religion Answer Whatever We declared at Cork in this particular was before the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and was published in Print and then well known to many of these Bishops So that they ought then to have been aware how they had concluded a Peace with one that had made such a Declaration rather than now after almost Two years to make it a ground of breaking the Peace What Our opinion is of the Covenant or the best Reformed Churches We hold not Our Self obliged to declare Resolved We were to defend the Peace concluded by Us in all the parts of it Which We have faithfully endeavoured to do and should still have endeavoured it if We had not been interrupted affronted and wholly disabled therein by the contrivement of those very Bishops their Brethren and Instruments Fourth Reason The scandal over all the world to make choice of one of a different Religion especially in Rome where His Holiness in His Agreement or Articles with the Queen of England had a Catholick Governour granted though not performed And we do fear the scourges of War and Plague that have fallen so heavy upon us are some evidences of Gods anger against us for putting Gods Causes and Churches under such a hand whereas that Trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the King's authority Answer Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to Us which they have endeavoured all the while to disguise under the personal scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of scandal at Rome for making choice as they call it as if they might choose their Governours of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they may not next pretend to the same fear of scandal for having a King of a different Religion and to the power of choosing one of their own Religion We know not Touching any agreement made between the Queen of England and His Holiness for a Governour for this Kingdom We have never heard of any such and We are most confident That in the agreement and consequently in the want of performance Her Majesty is falsely aspersed by the framers of this Paper Fifth Reason That we shall
and grace and above all of his Holinesse's they were certain for their opposition to the Remonstrance as the Promoters of it should be certain of all kind of disfavour and so certain thereof that they could hardly ever expect any promotion or preferment in the Church or in their own Orders and that the Dissenters not only had that great advantage as to Church preferments and with the Distributers of such but no less certainly perswaded themselves to be equal in time at home even with the first Subscribers and even I say as to all protection and liberty from the King and State if they should be forced at last to subscribe such however compelled subscription sufficing the King of one side and excusing them on the other with the Pope and others beyond Seas and albeit the Procurator saw as clearly as consequently that the rest of the Romish Clergy throughout all other parts of the Countrey in the several Provinces received their punctual directions from those at Dublin some from one Order and some from another and others from the Parish-priests and accordingly guided themselves and therefore saw the necessity of prevailing first with those of Dublin notwithstanding and though he laboured much and often with every Order of them severally and Parish-Priests also yet he made it his chief work and for the reasons before given to perswade the Fathers of the Society Which alone was almost his only care for many weeks together XXV The progress and issue of all which was That by their own acknowledgment he cleared all the pretended conscientious scruples of those of them that treated with him That after this Father Iohn â—albot assured him that neither himself nor others of that Society who had past their last vows or fourth profession and consequently could not be ejected at the pleasure of the General or upon other less accounts then other Regulars would any longer delay their subscription then the Procurator had got the positive answer of their Superiour Father Shelton what ever his answer were And further that they would justifie by Letters to Rome and to their General and own publickly to him such their proceedings or subscription That having several times discoursed with the said Father Shelton and by Letter at last urged him to a resolution he before he would resolve sent these two or three Queries in â—â—iâ—ing to the Procurator desiring an answer to them in writing also Whether the Pope hath a perswasive and directive power over temporal Princes in temporal matters pro bono Ecclesiae And whether temporal Princes in such cases may lawfully obey him or are bound to obey him according to that of St. Bernard Converte gladium tuum in vaginam Tuus ergo ipse tuo forsitan nutu si non tua manu evaginandus Uterque ergo Ecclesiae spiritualis scilicet gladius materialis Sed is quidem pro Ecclesiâ ille vero ab Ecclesiâ exerendus est Ille Sacerdotis is militis manu sed sane ad nutum Sacerdotis XXVI That the Procurator answered this paper of Quaeries by another of Resolves And to the first Quaerie That not only the Pope but inferiour Bishops nay Ghostly Fathers have a perswasive and directive power of temporal Princes even in temporal matters and not only pro bono Ecclesiae but for the particular spiritual advantage of such Princes even such a perswasive or directive power as his Holiness and other Bishops Curats and Ghostly Fathers have respectively in temporal matters life death war peace estates inheritances c. of all Christians respectively subject to them for spiritual direction And therefore no such directive power of Princes in such matters even pro bono Ecclesiae as carries along with it a coercive power in the strict and proper sense of coercive but only a coercive power secundum quid that is by inflicting spiritual punishments and inflicting them only in a spiritual way or by spiritual means although it be confessed that sometimes or in some cases corporal punishments or temporal may be prescribed Yet inasmuch as these cannot be inflicted on the delinquent by the Church or which is the same thing that the Church hath no power from Christ to make use of corporal strength external force coaction or the material sword to execute on the Delinquent such punishments if himself do not freely consent therefore it is that we cannot allow even his Holiness as he is Vicar of Christ or Successor of St. Peter any coercive power properly or strictly such over any man much less in the temporal affairs of temporal Princes but only a coercive power by means or wayes that are purely spiritual that is by precepts and censures and these too only when they are ad edificationem non ad destructionem For it is manifest that although the particular Bishops of Diocesses have a perswasive and directive power of their respective temporal Diocesans what ever you say of Parish-priests and Ghostly Fathers in foro paenitentiae even I say in temporal things in that sense the Pope hath of the universal body of the faithful yet such particular Bishops cannot use external coaction force or the material sword by virtue I mean of their power from Christ or from the Church too as such to give any mans possessions and actually really transfer them to another although peradventure or in some contingency they may ex vi persuasiva and directiva even enjoyn any to a voluntary translation of all his rights as in case of necessary restitution In which case the Bishop notwithstanding would have as much power of coercion which would be necessary or essential to the directive as his Holiness And yet no coercive power simply such that is to force restitution by the material sword but secundum quid to wit by spiritual commands and prohibition or exclusion by such commands only from the Sacraments and from the Communion of the faithful Where indeed the directive and coercive power of the Church if you must needs use the word coercive so and attribute it to the Church doth and must end To the second Quaerie or the first part of the next disjunctive question the answer was affirmative whensoever Princes find not apparently oâ— clearly a contradiction in their commands perswasions or directions to the Commandements of God or Canons of the Church or find them evidently hazardous or destructive of their Kingdoms or People or of any other against the law of nature and reason or conscience And hence To the third Quaerie or second part of the complex or disjunctive question the Resolve was negative specially in all those excepted cases of a contradiction to the Commands of God or Canons of the Church or hazzards of their Crowns Kingdom or people or manifest wrong to any other against the law of nature and reason All which Princes are not bound to judge of according to the temporal interests or pretences of either his Holiness or other Bishop To
the authority or passage alledg'd out of St. Bernard the answer is 1. That it is curtail'd by the Quoter the words immediatly following part of the same sentence and last period of that passage being purposely omitted That period being thus concluded by the Saint Séd sanè ad nutum sacerdotis jussum imperatoris Where he manifestly shews the difference betwixt the direction of the Priest and command in the Emperour over the temporal or material sword 2. That St. Bernard never mean'd to impose any any necessity of conscience on the Prince to draw his sword whensoever and as often soever as the Priest or Bishop would becken or nod or which is the same thing would advise counsel or endeavour to perswade him But mean'd only that the material sword should indeed be drawn by the Emperours command in such controversies or quarrels as the Priest might and ought in conscience to justifie according to the laws of God And that temporal Princes in undertaking war or in matter of publick or private justice where they must use the sword or force should if their be any doubt whether the undertaking or execution be according to the law of God or no and if themselves cannot resolve themselves should I say in such cases advise with or consult the Priest in that which belongs to conscience The Saint without any question supposing what the Prophet Malachy speaks That the lips of the Priest shall preserve knowledge and others shall demand of him the law of truth 3. That were St. Bernard speaking to the Bishops of Milan Constantinople Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem or to him of Paris London Toledo or Triers or to any other particular Bishop in the world that had a temporal Prince or General of War within his Diocess he might and would have said so much to him nay to the Priests that are no Bishops at all I mean the Ghostly Fathers or Spiritual Directors of Princes 4. That this very Saint himself doth abundantly clear all scruples in this matter For not to take notice of those words tuo forsitan nutu to quit the advantage of these other jussum Imperatoris both in this very passage quoted against me that other in his first book of Considerations to the same Pope Eugenius c. 5. is abundantly sufficient Non monstrabunt puto sayes he ubi aliquando quispiam Apostolorum Iudex sederit hominum aut divisor terminorum aut distributor tèrrà rum stetisse denique ego Apostolos judicandos sedisse judicantes non lego c. Ergo in criminibus non in possessionibus potestas vestra quoniam propter illa non propter has accepistis claves regni caelorum praevaricatores utique exclusuri non possessores Quaenam tihi major videtur dignitas potestas dimittendi peccata an praedia dividendi sed non est comparatio Habent haec infima terrena judices suos Reges Principes terrae Quid fines alienos invaditis After all which he gave in the same paper of his answers that is in the skirt of it this Advertisement The Reader may be pleased to take notice That however this be or whatever may be thought of this doctrine yet the Subscribers to the Protestation are not any way engaged either in the affirmative or Negative it being manifest that the protestation in it self abstracts from either part and consequently both from these Answers and the Queries too XXVII That besides and after sending the foresaid two or three Quaeries to the Procurator the Jesuits now I remember not which of them or by whom sent him this other of one single Quaerie and reasons for the Affirmative Which because it and the former were the only papers and indeed only Quaeries and Reasons either by paper or without paper insisted on seriously by them or any others in Ireland ever since this dispute concerning the Remonstrance began And none else but those Fathers of the Society and in this manner only insisted on them so I give wholly and exactly as in the original given me without any subscription Whether a temporal or corporal punishment may be inflicted by virtue of a spiritual power Some reasons offered for the Affirmative First it is a maxime of Aristotle and allowed of by all Statists Doctors of the Civil and Canon Law and by all Divines that frustra datur potestas directiva sine coerciva The spiritual power is directiva Therefore in all reason we must allow potestas coerciva or a coactive power I know the answer of such as hold the negative is that potestas directiva hath a coactive power intra eandem sphaeram that is to say when the potestas directiva is spiritual it must have potestas coerciva or a coactive power ejusdem generis of the same kind and therefore spiritual punishments are allowed to the potestas directiva spiritually as Excommunications interdicts c. but no temporal punishments To this I reply that they can scarce produce one Classick Author of any note that giveth this exposition and they that hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter for the contrary teste Basilio Pontio one of the most eminent men of this age who expressis verbis saith haec est communis omnium Catholicorum opinio Secondly omitting many other proofs it is the opinion of two General Councils that of Lyons and that of Lateran though perhaps not enacted per modum decreti But because General Councils are undervalued by some that believe that only the diffusive Church is infallible I will stand to the general practice of the diffusive Church which is the surest way to know its opinion When any person is nominatim Excommunicatus he is not only put from Mass and deprived of the suffrages of the faithful but also he is forbidden any civil commerce and conversation with the faithful he must not eat or drink with them he must not discourse nor be saluted by them besides they are whipped and commanded to undergo austere penances But all these are corporal punishments Therefore the opinion of the Diffusive Church is that a spiritual power can inflict corporal punishments And this being once granted it must be also allowed that the corporal punishment may be the greater pro qualitate delicti and consequently when the crimes are great it is in the power of the Church to inflict great punishments corporal and temporal Thirdly It is recounted 2. Machab. cap. 2. that Antiochus being King of the Jews the Priest Mathathias seeing a Jew by the Kings command ready to offer sacrifice to the Idols killed both the Jew and him who by the Kings command did compel the Jews to sacrifice Is it found in Scripture that this act is reprehended or doth any of the holy Fathers condemn Mathathias of unlawful murther in this case The same Mathathias being ready to depart this world and give an account to God of all his actions exhorteth his Sons to take arms