testimonies of all Ages from the first of Christianity I say that being it is therefore plain and clear enough to any dis-interessed judicious and conscientious Divine that neither these Councils or Popes could upon rational grounds pretend any positive law of God properly or truly such either out of Scripture or out of Tradition at least for such exemption of the persons of Clergymen and in temporal affairs too from the supream civil coercive power it must consequently be confessed that unless we mean to charge an errour on these Councils and Popes we must allow the answer of such Divines as with Dominicus Soto 4. dist 25. q. 2. art 2. hold against Bellarmine in this matter to be not only full of respect but of reason also viz. that by jus divinum ordinatio divina voluntas omnipotentis cura a Deo commissa these Councils and Popes understand that right or law Divine that ordination Divine that will of God that care by God committed which is such only in as much as it is immediatly from or by the Canons or laws of the Church and that by jus humanum they understand the civil laws or institutions of meer Lay-Princes And indeed that of respect in this answer will be allowed without contradiction And that that of reason also cannot be any more denyed I am sure will appear likewise to any that please to consider how it is very usual with Popes and Councils to stile their own meer Ecclesiastical Canons Divine and such Canons I mean which by the confession of all sides never had any positive law of God in Scripture or Tradition for them For amongst innumerable proofs hereof which I could give that of the 27. Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon and that other in the third action of the VII General Synod will be sufficient proofs For in the former it is plain that meer Ecclesiastical Rules though concerning only the district jurisdiction and preheminence of the Constantinopolitane Patriarch and some other Bishops and Metrapolitans are called divine Canons and that in the latter too the title of divine constitutions or divinely inspired constitutions is attributed to the laws or Canons in general of the Church So that jus divinum ordinatio Dei c. must not be opposed in these places quoted by Bellarmine or any other such to all that which is properly strictly immediatly or only from men however taken for Lay-men or Church-men but to that which is from men acting by a meer lay natural civil temporal and politick power and not at all acting or enacting laws as the Church enacts by a pure spiritual supernatural and therefore by way excellency called a divine power and their laws therefore too in that sense or for so much called divine though not divine at all in the strict proper sense of a divine law as by this we ought to understand that which was immediatly made or delivered by God himself and by the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles or by Scripture or Tradition 3. That however this be or however it may be said by Bellarmine or by any other to be well or ill grounded or to be truly according to the sense or mind of these Councils and Popes he alleadges yet even Bellarmine himself and all others of his way will and must grant that although we did suppose and freely admit his sense of these places to have been that indeed of these Councils and Popes yet the argument is no way concluding any other not even I say for as much as it is grounded on the authority or manner of speaking used by these very Councils which are accounted General as Trent and both these Laterans 1. Because the canons or places alleadged are at best and even at most even the very best and most material of them but canons of Reformation or canons of meer Ecclesiastical Discipline which are worded so And no man that as much as pretends learning is now so ignorant as not to know that even entire Catholick Nations and many such too oppose very many such canons even of those very Councils which themselves esteem or allow as truly General and oppose not the bare words or epithets onely as our dispute now is of such words or even of bare epithets but the whole matter and sense and purpose nay and the very end too uncontrovertedly admitted to have been that of such General Councils And the reason is obvious enough vz That in canons of Reformation Discipline or manners as it is generally allowed and certain the Fathers deliver not nor intend nor pretend to deliver or declare the Catholick Faith and that in all other things they are as fallible and as subject to errour as so many other men of equal knowledge though without any of their authority or spiritual superiority 2. Because that in the very Decrees or Canons of Faith General Councils even the most truly such may erre in such words as are not of absolute necessity for declaring that which is the onely purpose of such Canon For so even Bellarmine himself teaches l. 2. de Concilior Authoritate c. 12. expresly and purposely and in these very words Denique in ipsis Decretis de fide non verba sed sensuâ— tantum ad fidem pertinet Non enim est haereticum dicere in canonibus Conciliorum aliquod verbum esse supervacaneum aut non rectè positum nisi forte de ipso verbo sit decretum formatum ut cum in Concilio Niceno decreverunt recipiendam vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et in Ephesino vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where you see that he exempts onely from this general rule the case wherein a Council should of purpose frame a Decree or Canon of Faith concerning the very use of such or such a word or epithet as the first of Nice-did for the word bâ—mousion or consubstantial against Arrius and the Council of Ephesus did for the word Deotocon or Godbearing against Nestorius Which cannot be said by Bellarmine or any other in his behalf or that either any Council or Pope have ever yet done so as to or concerning the use of the words jus divinum ordinatio divina c or of the single word or Epithet Divine in our case 3. Because and according also to not onely truth but eveâ— Bellarmine himself again in the same book and chapter in the Acts of General Councils even those Acts which concern Faith neither the disputes which are premised nor the reasons which are added nor those things or words which are inserted for explication or illustration are of Faith or intended by the Fathers to be submitted unto without contradiction as a matter certain and infallible but the bare decrees onely and not all even those very decrees but such of them onely as are defined expresly to be the Faith delivered that is as even Bellarmine himself elswhere and all the Schools now teach with him such as are said in such Council to have
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
earthly Princes and in all criminal causes whatsoever LXIV And let the Reader be also himself Judge betwixt me and this most eminent Cardinal or his defenders the Divines of Lovaine of the strength or weakness of his second proof which is the only remaining of his arguments for a Position so temerarious I say so temerarious in as much as it exempts by any law whatsoever and specially by the positive law of God all Clerks from the supream civil coactive power of supream temporal Magistrates Princes or States and that too in meer temporal matters What I would therefore say further is 4. That the case is still clear enough on my side as to any such positive law of God in holy Scripture notwithstanding all or any of his allegations of Councils or Canons for himself in his said second proof and whereof only that proof consists I admit that the Council of Trent Ses 25 cap. 20. de Reformat speaks thus Eccelesia et personarum Ecclesiasticarum Immunitas Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus instituta est That the Council of Colen held a little before the Tridentine Synod speaks also thus par 9. c. 20. Immunitas Ecclesiastica vetustissima res est jure pariter divino et humano introducta quae in duobus potissimum sita est Primum ut Clerici eorumque possessiones à vectigalibus et tributis aliis que muneribus laicis libera sint Deinde ne rei criminis ad Ecclesiam confugientes inde extrahantur That the Council of Lateran held under Leo the X. and but a little too before that of Trent speaks further thus in the 9. Ses Cum a jure tam divino quam humani Laicis potestas nulla in Ecclesiasticas personas attributa sit innovamus omnes et singulas constitutiones c. That another of Lateran also under Innocent the III. hath this language cap. 43. Nimis de jure divino quidam Laici usurpare conantur viros Ecclesisiasticos nihil temporale obtinentes ab eis ad praestanda sibi fidelitatis juramenta compellunt That Boniface the VIII in cap. Quanquam de censibus in 6. speaks of Ecclesiastical Immunity as if it had been certainly granted to be of divine right That John the VIII also hath these words or expression can si Imperator dist 96. Non a legibus publicis non a potestatibus siculi sed a Pontificibus et sacerdotibus omnipotens Deus Christianae Religionis Clericos et sacerdotes voluit ordinari et discuti That Symmachus with his whole third Roman Synod long before John the VIII affirmed That solis sacerdotibus disponendi de rebus Ecclesiae indiscusse a Deo cura commissa est That finally Innocent the IV. though as Bellarmine himself confesses here not as Pope but as a particular Doctor in his Commentaries upon cap. 2. de majoritate et obedientia after he had taught that Clerks were by the Pope with the Emperours consent exempted from the Lay-power adds moreover that forasmuch as this kind of exemption seems not to be a plenary or full exemption therefore it must be said that Clerks have been exempted so by God himself I admit I say these Councils either Provincial or General as they are or as they are called such respectively and these Popes likewise have in the places quoted these expressions or this manner of speech where they have somewhat to enact or treat of concerning the exemption of Clerks and that consequently in these places they dog in general terms speak of that exemption in general so as to attribute it in part to Gods ordination as the Fathers of Trent or to the Divine right or law as those of Colen of both Laterans Boniface the VIII or to the will of God as Iohn the VIII and for what concerns to particular the disposing of the Goods of the Church Symmachus too in that his Roman Synod As for Innocent the IV. it matters not at all what he sayes on this subject in the place quoted being its confessed by Bellarmine himself that he writ these Commentaries before he was Pope and therefore in so much is but as another private Canonist of whom we are not bound to take notice where he brings no proof For we confess there is a number of such Canonists and some Divines too that without any ground in holy Scripture or Tradition hold with him in this point but whom therefore all other sound and great Divines who examine the matter throughly and strictly charge with errour both against express Scripture and Tradition But for these Councils either General or Provincial and for these Popes also who being Popes did speak so so all and every of whom we must observe that reverence due respectively to them the answers are 1. That none at all of these places or authorities alledged out of them are home enough to our present case or dispute of the exemption of Clergy-men by the positive law of God in holy Scripture from the supream civil co-active power of Kings or States Nor as much as one word hereof And therefore did we grant as we do not nor can by any means that these Councils or Popes intended by such expressions or by these or such other words Dei ordinatione jure divino omnipotens Deus voluit a Deo cura commissa est to signifie that such exemption of Clerks even in the whole height and latitude or sense of it in Bellarmines way had been ordained immediatly and expresly by God himself or by some express immediat positive law of his delivered unto us by Revelation and by the tenets of Catholick Faith to be by us believed yet should it not follow that therefore these Councils or Popes did signifie this positive law of God for it was or is in holy Scripture Because there may be positive laws of God come to us by Tradition though not a word of them in Scripture And because it is evident these authorities alledged have no distinction at all nor any intimation of Scripture 2. That being it is plain enough out of what is said before to Bellarmines arguments out of Scripture that these Councils or Popes could not pretend to any such positive law of God in holy Scripture and no less plain out of Bellarmine himself and others of his way that they could as little pretend to any such as delivered us by Tradition for himself doth not in all this matter as much as once pretend the least Tradition unless peradventure some body will misconster him or his second proof here and say he mean'd it as a proof of Tradition in the point which cannot be laid to his charge at all for he could not be so grosly overseen as to give us only such sayings of these late Councils of Trent Cullen Lateran or of these three Popes for a Catholick Tradition and we know very well and confess he makes other kind of arguments for any particular tenets being of Tradition arguments composed of
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
what power he determined it I would I say advertise here such of my Readers that not only not Bellarmine himself but no other whom I could hitherto meet or read hath brought us yet any proof even of this very latter part of his said confident assertion for his voluit that is I mean for as much aâ— any one Popes having by his own papal Power or pretence of such power de facto already whether right or wrong exempted so all Clergiemen from the supream temporal Magistrats in all civil and criminal causes whatsoever or as much as declared them exempted so by any law of God and for any Popes having done or willed so expresly or clearly and indubitably on the very question either by decretal Epistle or by Bull or other Constitution whatsoever defining the case and commanding all Christians or Catholick Churches to believe this Exemption in Bellarmines latitude as given so nay or even as granted by any power or law whatsoever ecclesiastical or civil That Bellarmine hath brought no such proof the matter is clear enough being he alledgeth no more to this purpose for either part but those sayings or decrees of Cajus Marcelline Gregory the Great Symmachus Iohn the VIII and both the Innocents all and every of which I have already answered as they occurr'd in their proper places and shewed that none of them is home enough to this purpose Beside that I have proved some of them either suppositicious or corrupt and others to no purpose at all either this we have here or that for which they were brought there where I treated them And that no other Doctors Canonists or Divines of Bellarmine's way have better arguments for his said voluit or that imported by it any one may perswade himself that please to read them where they of purpose treat the matter of Ecclesiastical liberty and yet more especially where they dispute of the several Excommunications in Bulla caenae pronounced at Rome yearly and with so much solemnity by the Popes against all infringers whatsoever even Princes Kings and Emperours of the said Ecclesiastical liberty Wherein yet the Reader will find no other of any Pope's having so by himself and by his own power exempted Clerks or having declared them so exempted by the law of God but either some of those I have already answered or some other as little pertinent if not far yet more impertinent some of them then some of these I have already given Ioannes Azorius's Martinus Bonacina's collections of such arguments or canons of Popes alledged by them and others to this purpose may serve to judge by of all For I have diligently observed all the chapters of the canon law whereunto they remit us for proof that by the canon law Clerks are so exempted Azor hath them in his fifth book of his moral Institutions cap. 12. And Bonacina who was a professed Canonist a Doctor V. I. as well as of Divinity and who seeks no other rule of truth or justice in any matter but some kind of meer papal determination hath also quoted them in several parts of his moral Theology as de Legibus d. 1. q. 1. pu 6. n. 29. and in oct decalog praeceptum and de Restit disp 2. q. 9. pu 2. and de contrac d. 4. q. 2. pu 1. Parag. 1. finally Bullae caenae d. 1. q. 19. pu 2. And yet besides those texts I have treated already I find no other but cap. non minus de Immunitate Ecclesiae cap. Adversus cod tit cap. Clericis de Immunîtate Ecclesiarum in Sexto cap. Ecclesia sanctae mariae de constitutionibus and cap. seculares de foro competenti in Sexto But none of all these canons have any such matter at all as a clear express and formal nay or as much as a virtual diffinition of the Popes in the point or as to the case of the persons of Clerks being so exempted by the Pope himself or being so declared by him to have been formerly exempted by the law of God from all even supream civil power in all cases or even in any temporal cause whatsoever criminal or civil For besides that some of these canons are not sole and meeâ— papal canons out of General Councils also or of Councils at least reputed General and consequently no proofs of the Popes having by his own sole authority willed so or exempted so the Clerks or declared them formerly exempted so by the law of God it is clear enough 1. That cap. Non minus de Immunitate Ecelesia which is taken out of the nineteenth Chapter of the third General Council of Laterâ—n held under Alexander the Third Pope of that name and Frederick the Second Emperour and as such inserted by Gregory the Ninth into his Decretals speaks only against such particular Consuls and Rectors of Cities as contrary to both the civil laws and customs received amongst Christians oppressed the Church-lands and Church-men by laying more grievous taxes on them then Pharaoh did on the Children of Israel and besides did wholy evacuat the jurisdiction of Bishops and only decrees by this canon as by a canon of Discipline for such only it was that such oppressors should be excommunicated Where you see there is not a word to our purpose For who doubts but the Fathers of this Lateran Council or even the Pope alone might justly complain of and decree against such oppressors notwithstanding the perfect entire subjection of all both Clerks and Bishops in all criminal causes and even of the Church-lands too in other matters to the supream civil Power They might have excommunicated such Consuls and Rectors for oppressing only the Laicks against the civil laws and customs or otherwise against justice 2. That cap. Adversus eod tit which is also not a meer or only papal Constitution but according to the Decretals of another General Council that is of the Fourth of Lateran under Innocent the Third and the 46. constitution of those of this Council if indeed the printed Acts or Canons of this Council be true ones or be the canons of this Council or if indeed this Council made any canons at all and how ever it be is but as the former a canon of Discipline only That I say this cap. Adversus as inserted by Gregory the Ninth in his Decretals and under the above title de Immunitam Ecclesiarum l. 3. tit 49. declares no more but that the said Fourth Lateran Council prohibited likewise the particular Consuls and Rectors of Citties as the former did not to oppress the Church or Church persons with tallies collections and other exactions And besides this nothing else from the Pope himself but that neither should the Churchmen themselves of themselvs freely consent to any taxes imposed or desired by such consuls rectors without the Roman Pontiffs leave and that if any constitutions were made or sentences given to the contrary all should be void Where you see nothing yet is said to our
est auferatur fratremque nostrum Paulum Constantinopolitanae Ecclesiae Episcopum Regali authoritate vt nobiscum id est cum omni generalitate orthodoxé sapere debeat coarctare degnemini Concil Lateran consult 2. sub Martino 1. they desire the Emperour that by his legal authority and by corporal coercion he force him who not onely was a Priest not onely a Bishop but in the highest degree of the Hierarchy ordained by humane constitution or by the canons of the Church even the very Patriarch of Constantinople For a ninth canon that which is in the Ninth Council of Toledo cap. 1. may very well and properly serve where the Fathers acknowledging this supream coercive power of Clerks in Princes ordain thus against Clerks that defraud the community or the Church of the oblations intended in common for the Church Vt si sacerdotem seu ministrum aliquid ex collatis rebus praeviderint defraudare aut commonitionis honestae conventione compescant aut Episcopo vel Iudici corrigenda denuntient Quod si talia Episcopus agere tentet Metropolitano ejus haec insinuare procurent Si autem Metropolitanus talia gerat Regis haec auribus intimare non differant Where you see this ancient Council of Spanish and very orthodox Bishops ordaining that the excesses of Ecclesiastical persons of Priests Bishops and Metrapolitanes be in the last place or when no remedy is applyed by the Bishops or Metropolitanes themselves complained of to the King to be questionless by him and by his regal authority corrected and coerced Tenth and last of those canons I pitch upon and restraine my self unto here is a canon of the Synod of Ravenna convoked by Iohn the ninth Pope of that name about the nine hundredth year of Christ For in this Council Lambertus the Emperour being himself there in person and at some variance with that Pope who who was likewise present in his own person amongst his Capitula or heads which he proposed to the Council and as to be admitted by the Pope and Council proposed in the first place of all this Si quis Romanus cujuscumque sit ordinis sive de clero sive de Senatu seu de quocumque ordine gratis ad nostram Imperialem Majestatem venire voluerit aut necessitate compulsus ad nos voluerit proclamare nullus ei contradicere praesumat Donec liceat Imperatoriae Potestati eorum causas aut personas aut per Missos nostros deliberare Which capitulum was assented unto and ratified by the Fathers and made a conciliary Act and therefore too a Canon of that Council and all this done so solemnly and even in the sight and with the approbation also and consent of the very Roman Pontiff himself there in person present to the end it might appear to the world that after the more directly spiritual or purely Ecclesiastical Canons had been ended by the Fathers the Emperour would by this particular Canon of another nature have it declared that he preserved still entire his own right of judging the very Clergy of Rome it self as an Emperour and in all matters whatsoever belonging to his imperial cognizance and consequently still preserved intire his own imperial coercive power of criminal Clerks or that of punishing them civilly corporally if or when their delinquencies or crimes or the preventing of such crimes for the future in others required such punishments To conclude this Section of Canons I must give some few and brief advertisements to the Reader concerning them and my purpose in alledging them 1. That I alledge them not as causes or as grounds or springs of such authority in secular Princes but only as testimonies of the sense of the Fathers who made them and for those ages wherein they were made that there was by and from a superiour power such a previous original proper essential independent right in supream secular Princes and that for the more certain more demonstrative proofs of such a right in Princes I relye not somuch on any express Canons of either Popes or Councils as upon those plain texts of holy Scripture and those other so plain and so express of all the holy Fathers generally who in their other writings that are not Papal or conciliary Canons commented upon the same Scriptures and besides these two arguments of Scripture and Tradition which I have before given at length in three Sections for I make that of my Instances of practise part of the argument of Tradition that I do also very much relye upon those other evidences of natural reason which you may turn to Sect. LXXII 2. That although for these Canons which are only Papal that is those which are made or issued by the sole authority of one or more Popes without a Council I pretend them not to be of equal authority with such as had the consent of a Council nor hold those meer Papal Canons or any other in Gratian to be properly and strictly the Canons of the Church being these are such as were made at first or approved at last by a general Council or otherwise introduced by universal consent or custome albeit others too may be Canons for the occidental Church apart or apart for the oriental yet as to my present purpose meer Papal Canons may be justly presumed to be most sufficient testimonies because against the Popes themselves or against the present exemption of Popes by divine right and their pretended power also by any right whatsoever to exempt others I mean still out of their own dominions or those wherein they are themselves at present supream temporal Princes 3. That in my interpretations of those Canons or in my conclusions derived or intended from them I do not tye my self either to Gratian whom I confess to have seen many or most or perhaps all of them or to any of his Glossatours if indeed Gratian himself how otherwise great and earnest soever a Hiero Monarchist or Zealot for and assertor of the Roman and Papal Hieromonarchy interpret conclude or say any thing at all point blanck either directly or indirectly or consequentially or virtually against my interpretations or conclusions here out of these Canons or against my assertions all along of the supream royal coercive power of criminal Clerks For truly he may be very well understood without any such meaning xi q. 1. where he had most occasion to deliver himself as of purpose treating there of the proper Judicatory of Clerks Because that forasmuch as of this matter he treats only according to the Canons of the Church and priviledges given by Emperours and that I have shewed and proved already elsewhere in my LXIX Section â—e brings neither an Imperial constitution nor allowed Church canon nor as much as any true or certain though meer Papal Canon which maâ—y be home enough against my assertion of such an absolute independent supream coercive power in Kings and that also in his last Paragraph which begins thus as even his former doth
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
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-Church whether all or how many of them received generally in the 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
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
upon his known virtues and great merits Whether the said Father Talbot now that he is in France will in plain express words glory there amongst his Privadoes That himself alone was the principal Author of the forementioned Libel I know not certainly But hereof I am very certain that could those good Fathers so much injured by that lying Libel attributed commonly by all men to him have any indifferent I mean Ecclesiastical Judges of their own Communion before whom they might be allow'd to prosecute him throughly according to the Canons they would produce such and so many strong at least presumptions of matter both of Fact and Right or Law as would compel him no less than his Complices to Canonical Purgation In order to which Purgation I believe he would hardly find even the very smallest number of Compurgatoâ—s which is prescribed by the Canons i. e. by Pope Innocent in cap. Quotiens de Purgat Canon And if not What then would become of his Titular Archbishoprick Deficientem in Purgatione omni officio beneficio Ecclesiastico privare procures sayes Pope Alexander III (a) Cap. Cum P. Manconella de Purgat Cano. Besides let him see what other even incapacities too he must lie under still for the special note of Infamy viz. that he cannot be either Advocate or Procurator (b) 3. q. 7. Infamis or an Accuser or a Witness (c) 3. q. 4. Nulli q. 5. Omnes 4. q. 1. Diffinimus 6. q. 1. Beatus c. sequeâ—t But I suppose that for his good service to the Court of Rome in Libelling against the Remonstrants and me above all and now that out of my Writings he knows the penalties of the Canons he may by way of prevention de plenitudine potestatis Apostolica be easily and perhaps thankfully too not only absolved from all both spiritual Censures and corporal Punishments but dispens'd with in all incapacities and restored in integrum even as to both Tribunals viz. the internal of Conscience as far as they can and external of the Church And yet I see not how after all he can clear his Accounts with God until he truly repent before Him and consequently before men repair the injuries done me and my Friends not only by his foresaid lying Libel but even by several lying Letters and other both malicious and disloyal endeavours of his Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum is a known and infallible Maxim even of the very Canon Law * 14. q. 6. Si ves it self as taken from St. Augustine Ep. 54. ad Macedonium Farewell Reader London Nov. 3. 1673. An Abridgment OF CONTENTS IN THE Four Treatises of this Book In the First Part of the First Treatise PRocuration to Father Peter Walsh Page 5. Irish Remonstrance 7 8 9. Names of the first Ecclesiastick Subscribers thereof at London 9. When where by whom and upon what occasion made 7. Signed by Ninety Seven of the Irish Nobility and Gentry at London 11. Approved by the Bishop of Kilfinuragh 12. by the Bishop of Cork 13. by the Bishop of Ferns how far 14. The Little Book called The More Ample Account by whom and upon what occasion made 11. The other called Loyalty Asserted why written 12. Remonstrance opposed and in what terms by the Apostolick Internancio Hierom de Vecchiis in his several Letters from Brussels whereof one dated 21 July 1662 you have 16. And by Cardinal Francis Barberin by his Letters of the eighth of July 1662 written to the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland ad Praestantes Viros Hiberniae 17. Confederacy amongst the Clergy both Secular and Regular in Ireland against the Remonstrance 19. The Procurator dealt with by fair offers to relinquish or at least decline the promoting of the Remonstrance 19. Father Peter Ailmer stickles against the Remonstrance 20. Of the Lords Aubigny and Montague as likewise of the rest of the English and Irish Chaplains to either Queen and the grand mistake i. e. omission at first in passing them by and the great use made of that omission 20 21. Sixteen several reasons causes or pretences thereof and all and each of them regarding onely temporal ends or worldly interest and this too mistaken 22. from thence to 27. As many several Answers which were given by the Procurator to those Reasons 27. and from thence to 41. Neither uncatholickness nor other unlawfulness in subscribing all the while so much as pretended by any in Ireland not even of those that alledged so many other excuses 42. The More Ample Account Translated at Rome in order to be Censur'd yet not Censured 43. The general Argument insisted on still by the Procurator but never answer'd by them 44. Father Macedo a Portuguez Divine pitched on at Rome to write against the Remonstrance and to answer Father Caron and Father Walsh but nothing published if he hath written Pag. 43. Father Bonaventure Bruodin an unconstant man and a great Intriguer against the Remonstrance even after he had on his knees asked pardon for his unconstancy of the Procurator 42. The Pope viz. Alexander VII refuses to meddle by Censures with the Remonstrance if the Primat 's Letters from Rome be true * But understand you that His Holiness would not by Himself or any Censure immediately from Himself meddle For certainly he did meddle by others or his Interâ—uncio De Vecciâ—â—is and Cardinal Bâ—riâ—â—ia belâ—ed him under their own proper hands 43. Names of those Ecclesiasticks who subscribed to the Remonstrance in Ireland 47. The Procurator attempts to break the Confederacy against the Remonstrance 46. Writes to the Provincial Assemblies of the Franciscans and Dominicans 48. What ensued upon these Letters 48 49. Dominicans debate the Remonstrance in a Provincial Assembly with what success 49. Treat ill the Subscribers of their Order 52. Franciscans refuse to treat of the Remonstrance in their Provincial Assembly 49. Letter of the Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in the name of his Body to the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant with an enclosed Form of Fidelity 50. His Letter to the Bishop of Dromore 52. Augustinians universally oppose the Remonstrance 54. Letter from the Dean of the Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Clergy of England as from himself and them approving the Remonstrance 55. William Burgat then Vicar-General of Imly but now Titular Archbishop of Cashel refuses to subscribe the Remonstrance and why 57. John Burk Archbishop of Tuam excuses himself at Dublin from Signing the Remonstrance upon what pretences 57 58. Jesuits treated with by the Procurator to subscribe the Remonstrance with what success 59. Queries and Reasons given to him by them against the Remonstrance 60 c. Answers to their said Papers and their first Allegation proved false 64. Their second Allegation concerning the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III and Council of Lyons under Innocent IV likewise proved false 65 c. Their third also concerning the Authority of General Councils to be undervalued by the
sententia regnandi authoritate re quidem vera excidere quod tamen continuae praxi qua Papa in deponendis Principibus vtitur communi hominum intelligentiae apertè adversatur Tertio tametsi concederemus Canones illos Supremos etiam Principes includere ad eos tamen eodem modo responderi posset quo Card. Bellarminus lib. 4. de Ro. Pont. cap. 14. lib. 1. de haeres cap. 4. Can Laudabilem de convers conjugat decreto Caelestini Papae tertij respondit cujus Canonis Alphonsus de Castro meminit simulque affirmat se illum in antiquis Decretalibus vidisse in quo Pontifex sancivit ut idem Alphonsus asserit definivit per haeresim ita matrimonium solvi ut liceat ei aliud conjugium inire cujus prior conjunx in haeresim lapsus sit quae tamen doctrina jam haeretica est in Concilio Tridentino damnata Respondeo ait Card. Bellarminus Caelestinum nihil de ea re certi staruisse sed respondisse quod sibi probabilius videbatur Sess 24. can 5. Quod vero Alphonsus ait epistolam Caelestini fuisse aliquando inter epistolas decretales verum quidem est sed non potest inde colligi factum esse a Caelestino decretum planè Apostolicum ex Cathedra cum constet multa esse alia in epistolis Decretalibus quae non faciunt rem aliquam esse de fide sed solùm opiniones Pontificum de ea re nobis declarant Similiter etiam nos respondere possumus praedicta tria Summorum Pontificum decreta vel opiniones Pontificum declarare vel in opinionibus Pontificum duntaxat fundari Et certè nisi istud asseramus oportet cum Philopatro concedere Principes supremos quamprimùm a fide desciscunt suis dominijs pâ—iâ—â—ri statim exâ—idere omni dignitate potestate ante omnem sententiam supremi pastoris contra ipsos prolatam subditos quoscunque ex vi juris divini ab omni juramenti aut fidelitatis obligatione eo ipso absolutos esse ut ex secundo illo Urbani decreto evidenti consecutione deduci potest quod tamen isti nostrates qui hos Canones urgent non facilè ni fallor admittent Neque mirandum est quòd Gregorius septimus qui primus omnium Romanorum Pontificum Imperatorem deposuit ut Godefridus Otho Frisingensis Trithemius Onufrius scribunt In Chronico parte 17. ad aâ—rum 1047. Lib. 6. cap. 35 In Chronico Mâ—nst Hiâ—sgâ—â—g ad anrum 1106. Lib. 4. de varia creat Rom. Pant. etiam existimaverit eum Subditos a fidelitatis vinculo absolvere potuisse Nihilominus ex hoc Gregorij facto aut decrete sicut etiam ex alijs duobus illius Successorum qui ejus exempliim sequati sunt decretis cerâ—o colligi non potest eos talem habuisse Subditos ab eorum fidelitate absolvendi potestatem sed solùm eos existimasse ut probabile saltem supposuisse talem absol vendi authoritatem sibi a Christo communicatam esse Sicut etiam tamelsi aliqui hujus Seculi Pontifices suorum predecessorum immo ipsius Sancti Gregorij magni vestigijs inhaerentes suis decretis Brevibus seu literis Apostolicis in corpore etiam Iuris Canonici consignatis statuerent quòd quidam Sacerdotes insignes qui Episcopi non essent Sacramentum Confirmationis authoritate Apostolica conficere possent ut quidam tales hisce diebus ex concessione Pontificum illud administrant nihilominùs non posset hinc certò concludi Summum Pontificem tales licentias concedendi authoritatem habere Lib. 3. epist 26. habetur in can pervenit dist 95. cum plures Theologi eruditi non obstantibus hujusmodi Pontificum sanctionibus arbitrentur talem authoritatem non esse a Christo Summo Pontifici concessam 17. Pari ratione quantùmvis quidam Pontifices suorum Praedecessorum exempla sequuti in solenni castitatis voto dispensaverint non tamen hinc firmiter deduci potest talem authoritatem Summo Pontifici ex Christi institutione veré tributam esse sed ad summum hinc colligitur Pontifices sibi persuadere saltem ut probabile supponere talem authoritatem sibi a Christo donatam esse quod tamen nihil impedit quo minùs alij Theologi qui rationibus probabilibus permoti contrarium sentiunt has Pontificum opiniones licitè reijcere possint tutâ conscientiâ jurare si of us fuerit se profiteri testificari credere declacare atque in conscientijs suis resolvi quòd talis authoritas non sit Summo Pontifici a Christo communicata Et propterea non obstante hac objectione quam quidam nostratium tam vehementer urgent possum etiam cum omni reverentia sacris Canonibus debita liciâ—é jurare me ulterius credere in conscientia mea resolvi quòd Papa potestatem non habeat me ab hoc juramento aut aliqua ejus parte absolvendi Wriddingt Disp Theolog. c. 6. 8. To the Jesuits who though very few in the whole Kingdom only four or five and twenty in the next degree in paucity to the Cappuchins and Excalceat Carmelits neither of which two last make twenty in all nor both together above thirty as for Caleeat Carmelits there is but one only that I can hear of it was replyed That above all the rest of the Clergy Regular or Secular they would lye under hardest censures if they shewed any reluctance Because the doctrine of a King-deposing and King-murthering or King-killing power in the Pope was of late dayes and especially since the Oath of Allegiance was enacted by King Iames maintained by so many celebrious Writers of their Society in so many printed works of theirs ex professo on that subject by Mariana and Sanctarel and Becan and Lessius and Suarez and Greizer and Parsons and Fitzherbert and Bellarmine himself the chief champion of all and many others also whom I pass over Because of the invasion of 88. and the Powder-plot treason both whether right or wrong imputed to them Because of the generall and horrible aversion from and jealousies of their Society upon the said and other like grounds in the minds of at least English Protestants Because of their own extraction here generally the few they were in Ireland which was almost for every individual of them of the ancient conquerours of English blood and their formerly consequent and affectionat siding with the supream Council and the cessation and peace in the great differences of the Confederats or Nuncius's quarrel both which would be made use of now as strong arguments that it could be nothing else but the awing Authority of their General at Rome and the Court there and the doctrine of the Society it self prevailing now with them in the case more then their own reason or inclination that would so even against christianity it self estrange them from their own nature as men and christians and make them submit with a blind and
amongst all those 72. Canons pretended for any such opinion of those Fathers How graunting even this very Canon particularly assented too and enacted by those Fathers unanimously which yet cannot according to truth be graunted no more can follow hence but that this Canon and for as much as it contains any temporal punishment or penalty of confiscation deprivation forfeiture c of estate was made by the Pope not as Pope but as a temporal Prince and made so by him for the temporal patrimony of St. Peter and other territories of the Roman See and for other Kingdoms or States made such not by the Bishops or their authority but by the authority of other temporal Princes of Christendom who all assisted in that Council by themselves in person or by Embassadours How therefore and for many other reasons which may be seen at large in Widdringtons last Rejoynder chap. 9.10.11 c. that Canon comprehends not in word or sense at all any Supream or Soveraign Princes or States but inferiour Lords or inferiour Magistrates onely according to the Doctrine and maximes even of very many of the very best Canonists themselves How onely too it is at most but a Canon of Discipline not even for that part of it which was proper to Bishops or to the Spiritual power purely such and consequently as to its vertue depending even herein of reception by those concerned and of not being abrogated after by contrary use where it was once received in what ever sense it was received or if ever indeed in any place received How finally Cardinal Bellarmine himself moved questionless by the strength and cleerness of all or at least of many of these reasons given hitherto concerning either the nullity or insignificancy of this Canon or of the rest alleadged so vainly as Canons of the 4th Lateran Council in his great Works of controversie and Books therein de Romano Pontifice where he amassed together all his strength and all the Councils he then saw might be with any colour alleadged by him to prove the Popes pretence of power for deposing Princes or inflicting on them temporal punishments omitted notwithstanding any kind of mention of this Lateran Council or Canon so little did he value it then Nor had after at any time recourse thereunto before he saw himself baffled and beaten out of all his former arguments either of Scriptures Canons or other his pittiful congrueties of reason by Doctor William Barclay or Barclay the Father in his learned Work de Potestate Papae An et quatenus in Reges et Principes Seculares ius et imperium habeat And how then for saving his own credit all he could in his reply to the said William Barclay though dead long before this reply he thought fitt to impose on the world by this unsignificant if not plainly forged Canon of that Lateran Council as Lessius another of his own Society and some time a famous Professor of Divinity in their House at Lovain had done before him to render the English Oath of Allegiance that I mean which is in the Statute of King Iames odious and uncatholick upon this account But withal how this most eminent Cardinal was no less shamefully the second time foiled in all his allegations and arguments or in those of the said Reply and amongst the rest very notably in his allegation of this Council and Canon and foiled so I say by Iohn Barclay or Barclay the Sonn in his Pietas Ioannis Barclay or his Publicae pro Regibus ac Principibus et private pro Guilielmo Barclay Parente Vindiciae Adversus Roberti S. R. E. Cardinalis Bellarmini Tractatum de Potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus Temporalibus and particularly for what concerns this Council and this third Canon of it in his Examen in Prolegomena Rob. Bellar num 76. How for what concerns that other Council of Lyons there is not one word in History or in the Acts of that Council nay nor in the very Sentence or Bull of Innocentius the Fourth who there deposed Frederick that may warrant this part of their allegation or of their saying it is or was the opinion of that Council of Lyons How on the contrary the very title or beginning of the Bull it self of Deposition sufficiently insinuats the contrary where it is said only Sacro praesente not Sacro approbante Concilio That the Acts and History which may be read briefly in M. L. Baïl that Parisian Doctors late Sum of General Councils witness the suddain horrour and amazement of that Council when they heard so unexpectedly a sentence of Deposition pronounced first by the Pope himself that is by his own mouth and after immediatly a formal one read out of paper by his command That Albertus Stadensis (a) Papa in jam dicto Coâ—cilio scilicet in die S Jacobi contra Imperatorem excommunicationis sententiam renovavit eum ab Imperiali Culmine authoritate propria deposuit hanc depositionem per totam Ecclesiam promulgavit praecipiens sub interminatione excommunicationis ut nullus eum Imperatorem de cetero nominaret Albertus Stadensis in Chronico in his Chronicle ad annum 1245. most particularly and expresly tells this Sentence was pronounced not by the authority of the Council but by the only proper authority of Innocent alone That in case that Council of Lyons had approved of it as the truth is they did not yet nothing thence could be concluded for that Councils opinion of a power in the Pope or themselves or in the Church however taken purely as the Church to depose any other or any supream temporal Prince Because that Frederick as Innocent that very same fourth Pope of that name who deposed him so alledgeth in his Bull of Deposition That the said Frederick I say had bound himself by an Oath of Allegiance to him Innocent the 3d. formerly to wit when he had illegally usurped the Empire in pursuance of another sentence of Deposition given by the self same Innocent the Third against Otho the former Emperour And because the Empire is not Hereditary nor hath been for many ages And consequently may be such or might have been such in the dayes of the said Innocent the Fourth as might have admitted the Popes negative voice in the election and further too his provision in case of a Tyrant or Usurper But whether it was then so or no I am not concerned at all nor is our present Controversie concerned in it For in other Princes especially Soveraign and Hereditary the case is different As hath been well observed by the Author of the Latin Treatise which begins Rex Pacificus de Potestate Papae And for the Emperour how elective soever I am sure he hath Lawyers both Civilians and Canonists nay and great Divines too enough to defend his rights from any kind of subjection to the Pope in temporals as even Frederick himself had For sayes the foresaid Albertius Stadensis Quidam Principum cum
multis aliis reclamabant dicentes ad Papam non pertinere Imperatorem instituero vel destituere Out of all which I think I may conclude that the Objectors themselves will if they lay aside prejudice and passion and compare all I have answered here to their objection of the opinion of two General Councils that of Lateran and that of Lyons will I say confess this allegation of theirs not only vain but absolutely false XXXI Thirdly they will find their allegations false where they say That General Councils are undervalued by some that believe only the diffusive Church is infallible I say they will particularly find this transient animadversion of theirs to be very false if they mean here the Procurator as they do undoubtedly but withal either stupidly or maliciously grounding themselves on what he hath in The Mare Ample Account pag. 60. Where indeed there is no ground at all for this calumny nor any man but a meer blockhead will say there is whatever may be said upon serious consideration of the controversie in it self about the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils debated throughly of purpose For his discourse there is no other then this That in case of such a metaphisical or morally impossible contingency as was caprichiously proposed to him by Father Bonaventure Brudin a little before one of those Franciscan Professors of Divinity at Prague in Bohemia and insisted on mightily and by way of interrogation What would the Subscribers do or think of their Remonstrance if a general Representative of the Church or a General Council truly such did hereafter condemn it His discourse I say upon this occasion as in answer to this wilde interrogatory was That in such case should it happen which yet the Procurator seemed clearly there to hold it was impossible it should happen the Subscribers would either have recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible said he that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logitians tell us it is certain Where it is evident he is so farr from undervaluing General Councils That according to at least some very learned Catholick Divines he rather overvalues them in seeming here to hold it absolutely impossible they should erre against any doctrine of Faith once delivered plainly in Scripture and by Tradition For that he seems to say so here if he say any thing at all of the question of either side or of the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils is most clear and manifest by or in that reason he giveth for his said disjunctive answer and for either the first or second or both parts of it it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow c. Where any rational man will confess he holds it impossible That a General Council truly such should define the contrary And why so but because he supposed two things 1. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance was and is a doctrine of Catholick Faith clearly delivered as such by Scripture and by Tradition 2. That it was and is impossible That a General Council truly such should define against any such doctrine or any doctrine so delivered And is not this as much as in plain terms to hold absolutely That a General Council truly such is infallible in all definitions of Faith or at least so infallible as never to define against Faith and consequently rather to overvalue than undervalue the authority of General Councils if I say we regard what some other eminent Catholick Writers teach or what in particular may be read in Franciscus à Sancta Clara's learned work of Councils that I mean which he calls Systema And any rational man will further confess That that disjunctive resolution of the Subscribers and only for such a case expressed so by the Procurator was purely conditional and the condition such too as for any thing known there of the Procurators judgment was and is absolutely impossible considering the special providence of God his promises to the Church but possible only in the fond imagination of the Proposer or of such a case which wil never be nor can ever be according to all that may be gathered out of that book or passage of the Procurators opinion For what else can his reason signifie which he gives for that disjunctive conditional answer or what these words it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians tell us it is certain Which is that one impossibility that must be here the antecedent which is it I say if not this That a General Council should define the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be false and which is the other impossibility that must be the consequent if not the recourse of the Subscribers to the diffusive Church or suffering themselves to be mislead c Now therefore it is clear first that he holds both that Antecedent and this Consequent to be impossibilities for so he sayes expresly they are And next it is no less clear that he holds the Antecedent absolutely impossible upon this ground only that he also holds the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be delivered plainly by Scripture and by Tradition and withal holds it an absolute moral impossibility that a general Council truly such should define any thing against plain Scripture or Tradition For otherwise how could he call that imaginary supposition or case an impossibility or as he speaks there one impossibility There is no man of reason would say deliberatly it were impossible that a General Council should define against any controverted doctrine unless he held as well and as firmly that a General Council might not erre as he holds well and firmly either part of that controverted doctrine it self Which is so plain that it needs no further illustration being there is no other ground imaginable for maintaining or asserting an impossibility of a General Councils defining so No other ground therefore is given here by the Procurator for being taxed with undervaluing the authority of General Councils but only this conditional proposition which he confesses implied virtually in his discourse If a General Council shall define the contrary doctrine to be true such General Council will erre But that this conditional proposition which yet was forced from him by that chimaerical Interrogation doth not amount unto an assertion of any real true moral possibility of a General Councils erring himself hath further demonstrated by several unanswerable arguments in the prosecution of his said discourse or answer pag. 62. as by that of St. Paul to the Galathians chap. 1. ver 8. Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed And by that of our Saviour Christ himself to the mis-believing Jews Ioh. 8.55 If I shall say that I do not know him meaning his Father I shall be like unto you a lyar 'T
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
been delivered and declared unanimously by the Fathers therein from the beginning as of divine Faith or as the doctrine of Christ or of the Apostles as received from Christ or that the contrary is heretical c. Non enim sunt de fide sayes Bellarmine ubi supra disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum et illustrandum adferuntur sed tantum ipsa nuda Decreta et ea non omnia sed tontum quae proponuntur tamquam de fide Interdum enim concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile c Quando autem decretum proponatur tamquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilij semper enim dicere solent se explicare fidem Catholicam vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt Quando autem nihil borum dicunt non est certum rem esse de fide Whence it must follow evidently and even by an argument a majori ad minus that neither the words or epithets used even by the most general Council may be in their decrees of Discipline Reformation or manners nor the suppositions or praevious or concomitant bare opinions which occasion'd the use of such words or epithets in such decrees bind any at all to beleeve such words or epithets were rightly used or fitly applyed or that those opinions were well grounded or certain truths at all Whereof the reason too is no less evident and obvious To wit that the Fathers or Council had not examined or discussed this matter it was not at all their business to determine it nor did they determine it And that we know laws of Reformation and even the very most substantial parts of such Canons are grounded often on or do proceed from meer probable perswasions or such as onely seem probable nay sometimes from the meer pleasure of such law makers All which being uncontrovertedly true where is the strength of Bellarmines grand or second argument framed of such bare words or epithets did we grant his sense even in the whole latitude of it were that of these Popes and Councils Or how will he seek to establish a maxime of such consequence or of so much prejudice to all supream civil Governours and even to the peace of the world to all mankind it self and a maxime for so much or for what hath reference to the exemption of Clerks as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power so clearly as will be seen hereafter in some of the following Sections against express and clear passages of holy Scripture and against the universal Tradition for a 1000. years at least how will he I say have the confidence to endeavour the establishing of such a maxime upon so weak a foundation which every man can overthrow at pleasure or deny with reason to be a foundation at all for that or any other maxime as I mean asserted to be declared such in the positive law of God either in holy Scripture or in undoubted Tradition For the positive law of God appears not to us but by either of these two wayes of the written or unwritten word of God himself 4. And lastly that besides all said in these three answers to this second argument of Bellarmine if we please to examine further what the places alleadg'd import we shall find that whatever the private or peculiar but indiscussed opinion of these Popes or Councils was or was not concerning our present dispute of the exemption of Clerks and that by the positive law of God as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil or temporal coercive power nay or whatever such words as jus diuinum ordinatio Dei voluntas omnipotentis c. abstractedly taken may import yet the places alleadged or these words or epithets used in them by these Fathers must not by any means be thought therefore to have comprehended our present case or extended to it at all And the reason is 1. That all Divines and Canonists agree that all expressions words or epithets in any law whatsoever must be understood secundum subjectam materiam or must be expounded by and according as the matter which is in debate or is intended requires and further so as no errour inconvenience or mischief follow and yet the law and words thereof maintain'd still in a good sense and to some good use especially according to former wholesome laws 2. That the matter unto which there was any reference in these places or authorities quoted so by Bellarmine was either Ecclesiastical Immunity in the most generical sense abstracting from the several underkinds true or false or pretended onely of it or was it in a less generical sense taken for that of their persons but still abstracting for any thing appears out of these places quoted from that pretended species of exemption of Clerks as to their persons from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes especially when the crimes are high and so high too as they are subversive of the very State it self and are besides in meer temporal matters and no remedy at all from the spiritual superiours And in truth for what concerns the Council of Trent which as of greatest authority amongst us as being the very last celebrated of those we esteem general Councils Bellarmine places in the front 1. it is clear enough to any that will please to read the whole tenour of that twentieth chapter Ses. 25. de Reformatione which he quotes That that Council did even there so much abstract from this matter or so little intended it that on the contrary the Fathers much rather seem to speak onely there of the Ecclesiastical exemption of Clerks as to their persons from onely inferiour secular Judicatories or onely from the inferiour Courts Judges and Officers of Princes but not at all from the Princes themselves or from their supream civil power or that of their laws Which I am very much deceived if this entire passage whereof Bellarmine gives us but a few words do not sufficiently demonstrate Cupient sancta synodus Ecclesiasticam disciplinam in Christiano populo non solum restitui sed etiam perpetuo sartam tectam a quibuscumque impedimentis conservari praeter ea quae de Ecclesiasticis personis constituit saeculares quoque Principes officij sui admonendes esse censuit confidens eos ut Catholicos quos Deus sanctae fidei Ecclesiaeque protectres esse voluit jus suum Ecclesiae restitui non tantum esse concessuros sed etiam suâ— ditos suos omnes ad debitam erga Clerum Parcchos et superiores ordines reverentiam revecaturos neâ— permâ—ssuros ut officiales aut inferiores magistratus Ecclesiae et personarum Ecclesiastisarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu
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
an ordinance in such general or rather indefinit terms for the exemption of Clerks in a criminal question from the civil-Judicatory or being it is but a command or law That none should presume to call or draw an Ecclesiastical person in a criminal question or even civil to a secular judgment against the Imperial Constitutions and Canonical Functions and whereas there was never yet any Imperial Constitution or Canonical Sanction either made before his time or in his time or after his time that exempted Clergymen in either of both sorts of questions civil or criminal from the supream civil and absolute power of the Emperour themselves or of other Kings that acknowledge neither Emperour nor Pope nor any other above themselves in their temporal government who sees not that out of this Constitution of Frederick nothing can be concluded for such exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power but only from that of subordinat inferiour and ordinary civil or secular Judicatories Besides we know Fredericks laws were only for those few Cities or Provinces that remain'd in his time which was about the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twenty and therefore could not pretend nor did pretend to prescribe laws to other Kingdoms or Kings for the exemption of Clerks either in civil or criminal causes or even to the inferiour Iudicatories of other Kings And that we know also that that law of Frederick was not imitated by the like in other Principalities not subject to him not imitated I say generally as to the exemption of Clerks in all either civil or criminal causes whatsoever from the very subordinat inferiour civil Iudicatories nor even in prima instantia So that I must conclude that Bellarmine was put to a very narrow strait for an imperial or civil law wh◠〈◊〉 pitch't on this of Frederick which was not known nor as much as 〈◊〉 of in other parts of even Europe it self as owning no subjection to Frederick And yet a law not to the purpose were it of the same authority those Imperial Constitutions were when the Orient and the Occident South and North as far as the Roman Empire was ever spread at any time or even in great Constantins days were under one Lord. An imperial or civil law in those days or of such others for some ages after which wâ—e received in the wide christian world consequently generally retained might have been to purpose if it had clearly expresly on particularly enacted any thing to our present purpose But conceived in such terms as this of Frederick coâ—lâ— not be to such purpose For it is one thing to be exempted from the subjection due to Emperours or Kings and another to be exempted a forâ— secuilâ—i from a secâ—â—â—â— Iudicatory The Emperours had under themselves and established by themselves and by their own civil laws two sorts of Iudicatories The one termâ—â—â—g meer civil or meer secular Iudicatory where peculars onely or meer â—ay men were Judges And the other termed 〈◊〉 Ecclesiastical Iudicatory where Ecclesiastical Persons only or persons depâ—â—â—â— by them were Iudgeâ— whatever the cause or question was civil or criâ—â—nal temporal or spiritual or mixt of both And both had their power which as coercive or a 〈…〉 with any coerciâ—â—â— from the Emperours and from their civil law 〈◊〉 So that the Emperours exempting any from the secular Iudicatory 〈…〉 leave or put such under the subordinat pâ—â—er of the Ecclesiastical Judges deputed by the same Emperours or by their laws Which they might have done in favour of meer lay men 〈◊〉 some lay-men and in some or many or all case whatsoever made had it been their Imperial pleasure as often they did by instances grant Epise 〈◊〉 And entiam to meer lay men and in meer lay crimes or lay causes 〈◊〉 civil and criminal at leaâ— in civil Would Bellarmine conclude therefore that those were exempted or should be in such a case and by the Emperours themselves or their laws exempted from their own supream civil coercive power in criminal causes or indeed in any whatsoever Or must it follow that because by the law of England a Lord for example 〈◊〉 be condemned or tryed in a criminal cause but by his Peers that therefore in England a Lord is exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the King himself Or that it is not by a power derived from the King thâ—â— Peer 〈…〉 condemn or free another Peer Or even that by the supream power of the King which formerly established such a law of priviledge for Peers the same law may not be justly again or upon just grounds repealed and a contrary law made in Parliament if at any time it were found by manifest experience that the Peers did manifestly and manifoldly and even to the ruine of the King and Kingdom and against the very primary intention of all priviledges and laws make use of or rather abuse such a former law or former priviledge Or finally and consequently that whatever priviledge of exemption though only from Inferiour lay Judges was so granted as before to Clerks by the supream civil power of Emperours Kings and other States was such that in case of manifest and manifold abuse even to the ruine of the publick and without any hope of amendment it could not be revoked again or moderated by another law and equal power to that which gave it before Therefore from first to last I think it is now clear enough that by the civil law no Clerks are exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of such temporal Princes or States under whom they live LXIX That neither by the Canons of the Church I am now to prove Wherein I find so little difficulty that notwithstanding the general errour so wide spread or supposed amongst as well Divines as Canonists to the contrary but introduced at first and continued after out of some passages of Councils very ill understood considered or examined I dare say boldly that not onely none of all those Councils or Canons of Councils alledged for such exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power but not even any of them alledged for their exemption from as much as the subordinat civil power of inferiour Judicatories hath any such matter at all Though my purpose here be not other then to prove this truth for what concerns the supream power only To which purpose I affirm that no where in any Council is it found that the Fathers attributed such authority to themselves as by their own sole power to exempt Clerks from lay Tribunals â— or which is the same thing to deprive secular Judges or Magistrates of power empire command judgment coercion or Iurisdiction over Clerks or which also imports the very same to prohibit the secular Judges not to take cognizance of or give sentence in the causes either civil or criminal of Clerks brought unto their tribunals or finally and it is still in effect the same
not to summon Clerks to their tribunals and judge their causes whensoever such causes were meerly temporal and not properly or strictly spiritual or of a purely spiritual nature And I affirm also that before Iustinians Empire which was from the year of Christ 527. wherein it was begun to the year 565. wherein he dyed no Council nor canon of Council did ever as much as declare or even as much as only suppose that Clerks were by any other authority or by that I mean'd of the very Emperours themselves exempted generally from lay tribunals not even I mean still from those of inferiour Judges And O God of Truth how can any knowing Divine any conscientious Historian Canonist or Civilian be so preoccupated as not to acknowledge or so blind as not to see it cannot be any way probable that the Fathers of those primitive and purer ages should attribute any such power to themselves as by their own proper authority to exempt others or even themselves from that subjection to which as well themselves as all other Clerks were antecedently bound by the positive law of God himself as not only St. Augustine teaches in his exposition of the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul to the Romans but all other Fathers generally who treat of this subject or expound that chapter But to clear this matter throughly we must observe Those ancient Fathers with whom Ecclesiastical Discipline whereof now there is so great neglect did sincerely and severely nourish used their utmost endeavours that Ecclesiasticks should not onely by their doctrine instruct the people but also by their probity of manners and innocency of carriage in all things And therefore admonish'd all Clerks nay enjoyned them in their own conciliary Canons and sometimes also under heavy Ecclesiastical Sanctions or Censures That none of them should presume to convene or charge an other Clerk in any cause either criminal or civil before a secular judge but either by the intervention of friends should compose all their own differences or certainly if they would not or could not do so that they should at least suffer all to be determined by Episcopal Iudgment acquiescing therein And both advised and ordained so in imitation of St. Paul himself and for the very self-same reason or certainly not unlike to it this great Apostle had when writing to the Corinthians 1. Cor. 6. and forbidding them to sue one an other before heathen Iudges he gave therein a rule to all Christians generally for that time as well Laicks as Clerks Which reason appropriated to our present purpose of Clerks onely is That if or when it should happen that Clerks should fall out of human frailty into such imperfections or sins as other men are subject to and yet are scandalized at mightily when committed by Clergie-men they might be with farre more secrecy and much less scandal corrected by their own proper Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Superiours and consequently that such deviations of Clergiemen should not come to the knowledge of the vulgar which commonly judges of the doctrine by the life or conversation of the Doctors and is apt enough upon such occasions to laugh and scorn the persons themselves and not seldome too their very sacred function it self Besides that Clergiemen who by their calling should be in a very special manner above others careful to cherish peace and concord and be themselves by word and deed paterns of charity and patience to others should not by their own example or by their own sueing of others or of one an other in the secular and publick Courts rather shew the way to contention and strife then lead to christian peace and patience Whereby as it may be easily understood the Fathers did not by such admonitions or by such decrees lessen or intend to lessen as indeed they could not if any of them would and certainly none of them have willed so to lessen the proper civil power of the secular Iudges to heare and determine the temporal either civil or criminal causes of Clerks when brought to their tribunals and brought so either by the free access of the Clerks themselves or by their constrained or commanded appearance when called or summoned by the same Iudges For to have done so or intended so would have been to take from Princes and Magistrats that right and authority which the law of Christ doth not permit any admonitions or any decrees of the Fathers not even in or by their most solemn Councils whatsoever to take from the said Princes or Magistrats The Fathers therefore by such decrees did partly forbid that Clerks should not sue one an other and partly too that neither should they sue a meer layman before a secular Iudg. For this also of not sueing laymen some Canons have And the Fathers by those decrees ordained Episcopal punishments against all Clerks that would not observe those decrees And this is all that may be gathered out of any or all the Canons of Councils alleadged by our adversaries Now who sees not that all this might be justly and lawfully ordained by the spiritual Fathers of the Church by their Ecclesiastical Councils and Canons without any the least diminution of the former civil power of the lay Iudges over Clerks For so a good natural Father in the civil commonwealth that hath many children may command them all and also forbid them under a private domestick punishment nay even under that of disinheriting them that they contend not or sue one an other before a publick Judg about any quarrel amongst themselves but leave all such differences to himself their Father or to the private domestick judgment of their other Bretheren And may command this without any prejudice at all to the publick authority of the publick or legal Judges And therefore so too may the spiritual Fathers of the Church command those who are in a special manner and by a special tye and calling their spiritual children such as all Clerks are and may command them too under such punishments or penalties as are proper to their said spiritual Fatherhood not to the one an other or even any at all before a secular Judg. And yet by no means thereby lessen or intend to lessen the power of such Judges over Clerks or their causes whensoever convened or brought either by election or coaction before them but onely to abridgâ— the Clerks themselves of their former liberty of going so freely unto them as they used to do Which any rational person may easily judg not to be an Exemption of Clerks from secular Judges but a provident course to keep them in better order and as well as may be to avoid scandal And that my bare assertion may not be given for this my interpretation I thought it worth my labour to set down here and at length distinctly those very Decrees of Councils which Bellarmine l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. Prop. 3. pleads against us though he gives there some few words onely of some of them and
bounty how much more in reason must we not deny the Church a power to deprive such of her own favours as will not perform the conditions enjoyn'd by her for the continuance of such favours Thirdly against that which is said by Barclay and which I too have said above that this canon was made by the Fathers to restrain the giddiness and rashness of such Clergiemen as would appeal from the Church to a secular Judge after the cause had been begun to be discussed in the Church against this I say of a provision made here for such a case only of a judgment already begun in the Court Ecclesiastical and nevertheless before any judgement given transferr'd by a caprichious Clerk Bellarmine argues by objecting the Council of Milevi Concilium Melevitanum and it must be the second of Milevi under Arcadius and Honorius where it is prohibited in the ninth canon not that Clerks transfer to secular Courts a cause begun already in the Church but absolutely prohibited that by no means they go to the Emperour to demand of him secular Judges But the answer is obvious 1. That divers canons may be made by divers Councils And that it is most evident that whatever the Fathers of Milevi ordained in the case those of Carthage ordained no other then what William Barclay said and what I too have after him said without any kind of interpretation or paraprase of the Council but in the very words of the Council or Canon it self For these are the words precisely of that Canon Cum in Ecclesia ei crimen fuerit intentatum vel civilis causa fuerit commâ—ta Let any one say now for Bellarmine that ought else is decreed by the Canon then what is against such Clerks as transfer a cause already begun in the Church 2. That for that Council of Milevi albeit the Fathers prohibit in the Canon cited out of it that Clerks desire no secular judgment of the Emperour yet they prohibit not the Emperour himself to assign lay Judges to a Clerk if his Imperial Wisdom think it fit to assign such Nor even prohibit Clerks to answer if called upon by such lay Judges and obey their sentence as binding them So that both Councils that of Carthage and this of Milevi say the very same thing in this matter without any other difference but only that this of Milevi extends the prohibition further that is not only to the transferring of causes already begun before or in the presence of an Ecclesiastical Judge but even to causes not so begun For it simply or absolutely prohibits Clerks to transferr as much as in them lyes any civil or criminal cause whatsoever whether so begun or not so begun to secular Judges Where yet it is apparent there is nothing at all for the Immunity of Clerks from secular Judges being the command is only to Clerks not to demand such lay judges and no command to no restriction at all of the lay Judges to proceed ex offiâ—iâ— when the causes of Clerks are brought before them The second Council that prescribed any thing in this matter was that truly Oecumenical or General of Chalcedon for the former of Carthage though of very great authority was but a National Council of Affrick however canonized after by approbation of truly General Councils held in the year 451 under Martianus the Emperour and Pulcheria the Empress who were both present and often sate in it Wherein the ninth canon made for discipline and regulation of Church affairs or those of Clergymen was this Si quis Clericus adversus Clericum habeat negotium non derelinquat preprium Episcopum ad secularia judicia non concurrat sed prius negotium agitetur apud proprium Episcâ—pum vel certe si fuerit negotium ipsius Episcopi apud arbitros ex utraque parte electos audiatur negotium Si quis vero contra ipsius Provinciae Metropolitanum Episcopum Episcopus sive Clericus habeat controversiam pergant ad ipsius Diaecesis Primatem aut certeâ—ad Constantinopolitanae Regiae civitatis sedem ut eorum ibi negotium terminetur If any Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk let him not leave his proper Bishop nor run to secular Iudicatories But first let the matter be agitated before his proper Bishop or certainly if the controversie be with this Bishop himself let it be heard by arbiters chosen by both sides But if any Bishop or Clerk have a controversie with or against the Metrapolitan of the Province let them go to the Primate of the Diocess or certainly to the See of the Constantinopolitan Royal City that the business may be ended there And this is all this canon sayes Where it is plain enough 1. That the Fathers direct their speech to Clergiemen only prescribe a rule to them only but none at all to lay Magistrats or Iudges not even to the subordinat inferiour Iudges so little do they meddle with or ever as much as thought to meddle with the supream That although they bid Clerks not to go first to secular Iudgments yet they do not bid them not to go at last or in the next or second instance to such if they cannot agree That even to the Clerks themselves they prescribe only in such cases as a Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk but not in case a Clerk have a quarrel with a Laick or a Laick to him 2. That they declare not here enjoyn or prescribe that it was not is not of shall not be in the power of a lay Judge to determine of the causes of Clerks one against another or of that of a Clerk against a Lay-man or of a Lay-man against a Clerk when either voluntarily and by the parties themselves brought before him or when by his own authority or by due course of law or by summons from him to either or both parties they appear in his Court. So that this Canon meddles not at all with the power authority or jurisdiction of the lay Magistrates or Judges but only prescribes a rule to the Clerks themselves that themselves should not freely or voluntarily sue one another at least in prima instantia in secular Judicatories and as we may justly presume upon the same grounds and for the same ends we have before noted the Fathers of Affrick did in imitation of St. Paul or of his advice or command as you please to all Christians in general to abstain from suing one another in heathen Judicatories least otherwise they would questionless betray their religion and belye it before the haters and persecutors of it 3. That in case there were as there is not any word or matter in this canon of Chalcedon restraining any way the Jurisdiction of even inferiour lay Magistrates or Judges yet it would be to no more purpose alledged against me or against any thing I have said before in this Section concerning even the very same inferiour lay Magistrates and their Jurisdiction over Clerks in politick or temporal
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
ancient and where according to our own very common doctrine in Schools they give no sufficient ground at all to derive such unreasonable conclusions from their decrees nor ever I am confident as much as once imagined any would be so extravagant as to derive such Fourthly That although we admitted as we neither do nor can that the Fathers of Agde in the second part of this canon and by these words sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio seculari proponere were intended absolutely and generally to forbid their own Clerks in any case to answer in the publick lay Courts and in criminal causes notwithstanding the Judges themselves should expresly and particularly summon and command them to appear and answer yet nothing could be concluded hence against either of my above affirmations First nothing to prove as I will presently shew that which indeed is the only thing to be proved against my main or rather only purpose that is nothing to prove that the Fathers therefore intended that Clerks should not appear and answer if by the supream secular Judge himself or by a warrant come immediatly from the King himself or from his special Delegate in such a matter they were commanded to appear and answer before him Secondly nor any thing to prove that by the pure and sole authority of the Church or of any Councils or Bishops Cergiemen were warranted as much as in point of conscience not to appear and answer even before the subordinat inferiour lay Judges Nor thirdly yet any thing at all to prove that these Fathers of Agde or other Council declared by that other canon that Clerks were generally in all Countreys and in all causes or all matters even the most criminal and horrid soever at that time which was indeed before Iustinians time exempt as much as by the civil authority of Emperours or even of other Kings from all inferiour lay Judicatories and so exempt that if in any case these inferiour Judges themselves did ex officio proceed against them yet they were not bound to answer or obey or observe their judgement or that if those same inferiour Judges gave sentence for or against them in any temporal cause whatsoever or in any cause not purely spiritual such sentence would not hold when pronounc'd according to the civil or municipal either Imperial or Royal Laws inforce in the respective Countreys Such forbidding of their own Clerks might have been grounded on a particular custom introduced by the people in that Province of Guien and by the consent or permission or connivence or tacit approbation of the former civil Magistrats themselves or of King Alaricus himself or his Predecessors And in such case the Bishops there might have justly forbid their own Clerks to appear even at the summons of inferiour lay Iudges because the peculiar civil custom of that place not any spiritual power or canons of their own did so priviledg them albeit in all the rest of the world where the imperial written laws were still in force and strict observance no law or custom did so priviledge them or other Clerks at that time which was before Iustinians time and his law Novel 83. not to appear before the subordinat Magistrats or civil Iudges when summoned by them in a criminal cause nor priviledge the Bishops at all for holding coercive Courts either in civil or criminal causes but only by consent of both parties in difference And that it was introduced so or that such custom had been so in Guien and that only pursuant to the humane civil right or priviledge or exemption derived only from such custom and to maintain it until it had been legally revoked again by the supream civil power the Fathers of Agde made that canon or second part of it we have all the reasons to perswade us which perswade us also and clearly convince us that Ecclesiasticks are by the law of God as well as Laicks under the coercion of the lawful supream lay Magistrate and of his inferiour lay Iudges too if not or where not particularly exempted by him and those reasons besides which tell us we must have that reverence to all such Catholick ancient Fathers and especially in Council together as those of Agde are confessed to have been St. Cesarius the Archbishop of Arles and Primate of all France having been their President and so venerable an opinion of them as not to fix or give such a sense or interpretation to any of their canons however only canons of Discipline as would argue the canon-makers of ignorance or rashness or of any perversness at all or even such their canons of containing any thing either formally virtually or consequentially against the only infallible divine canons of the law of God and I mean still not to give or fix such interpretation to such canons where we can choose that is where the words are not so specifical and particular as to require it Now it is plain enough the words above-rehearsed are not so specifical or so particular as to require a contrary interpretation to that of them I have given here And yet that it was so or that in pursuance and by virtue of such a peculiar custom only of that Province or that little Kingdom there of Guien and of the supream civil Magistrats pleasure permission approbation and consent the Fathers of Agde made this canon or second part of it forbidding Clerks to answer in a criminal cause before lay Judges to wit before inferiour lay Judges we have secondly a sufficient other argument out of the first part of the same canon or out of the sense and natural consequences of it if compared with the practice of the Christian world in all other parts both at that time and at this For the first part being that no Clerk shall presume to sue a lay man before a lay Iudge without the Bishops licence and this importing as much as that an Ecclesiastical Plaintiff shall not without his Bishops leave conveâ—e a lay Defendent before his own proper lay Judge even I say in a meer lay cause or crime and this consequently being against the general rule Quâ—d Actor sequitur Forum Dei it is plain enough that if any will maintain those Fathers intended else here then only to prescribe to Clerks the first peaceable way they should take for righting themselves by letting the Bishop know the wrong done them to the end he might call the lay pretended injurer and try whether he could induce him fairly or by fatherly admonitions if first he had found a real injury done by him to the Clerk which also was christianly ordained as a rule by the Council of Tribur can 20. a German Council of two and twenty Bishops held in the year 895 under Arnulphus the Emperour and indistinctly ordained by this Council for lay men also to observe in case they pretended injuries done themselves by any Clerks I say it
is plain enough that if any pretend the Fathers of Agatha intended ought else it must consequently be granted this canon of theirs was not formed by them as of any matter in their opinion belonging to Catholick Faith or Laws of God or in their opinion also as much as enacted formerly in other parts by any civil or imperial or general institution or constitution made by the Christian Emperours of Rome or Constantinople but only formed by them that is by these Fathers of Agatha in pursuance and by virtue only of a local custom of Guien introduced by the command or connivence of the politick Magistrates of that little Kingdom or Countrey as regarding only the external politick administration direction or government of Churchmen which external politick government of the Church varies not seldom according to the variety of Times Kingdoms and Provinces And my reasons for saying so or for saying this to be plain enough are I. That at that very time it was otherwise by law and practice of the great Roman world or Empire in all other places generally being we know out of the imperial laws then in force and out of Ecclesiastical History that Clerks being summon'd to the civil Courts did generally in other Provinces both answer and appear without any reluctance or prohibition from Councils For this Council of Agatha was not held within the bounds at that time of the Roman Empire but under Alarick the Gothish King who at that time held Guien by hereditary and as formerly by concession too of Roman Emperours dismembred from the Empire and conferr'd on his Predecessors without any supremacy reserved to the Empire Which was the reason that in the beginning of the acts of this Council we find no mention at all of the Emperour but of the King Cum Dei nomine ex permissu Regis in Agathenscm civitatem sancta Synodus convenisset c. Ibique flexis genibus in terra pro regno ejus pro longaevitate populi Deum deprecaremur c. 2. That the above first part of this 32. canon of Agatha as likewise that whole one and twentieth canon of Tribur if construed to put a stop to Clergymen from following or acting in the forum of the lay Defendant is now at this time and hath been these many ages past abrogated by the common consent or custom of all people and nations Whereas the common law is now and hath been so long that a Clerk at difference with a Lay-man if he will be righted by law must commence his suit in the lay or civil Judicatory As we may see expresly declared to have been still the law cap. si Clericus 5. de Foro competenti where the Pope Alexander the Third hath thus decreed Si Clericus Laicum de rebus suis vel Ecclesiae impetierit Laicus res ipsas non Ecclesiae esse aut Clerici sed suas proprias asseverat debet de rigore juris ad forensem Iudicem trahi Cum Actor forum Rei sequi debeat licet in plerisque partibus aliter de consuetudine habeatur Therefore if these words or first part of the canon of Agatha Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare are neither according to the common law ciuil or canonical of the christian world nor otherwise ever yet have been observed but out of custom only in so me or even many places as at that time of the Council of Agatha it was in Guien how can we esteem otherwise of the following words or second part of the same canon Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat c. being there is no difference made in this canon it self Or who can affirm this second part was more firmly enacted by this Council or more generally observed by the Faithful Or otherwise then out of a civil custom and in pursuance and by virtue only of the supream civil power authority approbation permission or connivence in that Countrey And consequently who can rationally make it an argument of the exemption of Clergymen by the sole pure Episcopal Authority from as much as the subordinat civil Iudges Nay or an argument of their general exemption by the civil authority it self in other parts of the world at that time which was before Iustinians So little doth any part of this canon argue the exemption at any time of Clerks either in other parts of the world or in Guien it self from the supream civil Magistrate by any kind of authority imperial or Episcopal The fourth Council alledged for this exemption is that which they call Concilium primum Matisconense held in the year 576. as Barclay thinks or 581. as Spondanus or certainly 532. as the printed Acts. A Provincial Council it was of one and twenty Bishops Priscus Archbishop of Lyons presiding And as the Acts do shew called it was at the desire of King Guntheramnus who was one of the three brother Kings grand children to Clodoveus that devided France amongst themselves and left Orleance to him for his seat And all the Canons of it were in matter only of Discipline Amongst which the eight is in these words Ut nullus Clericus ad Judicem secularem quemcumque alium fratrem de clericis accusare aut ad causam dicendam trahere quocumqu loco praesumat sed omne negotium Clericorum aut in Episcopi sui aut in praesbyteri aut Archidiaconi praesentia finiatur And the fift and last Council alleadged in this matter by Cardinal Bellarmine l. 1. de cleric c. 28. ut supra is that which in order is the third of the Councils of Toledo and was held in Aera 627. being the year of our Lord Saviour Christ not 589. according to William Barclays computation but 593. according to Baronius and his continuator Spondanus Bishop of Apamia It is the 13. canon of those of Discipline or external reformation of the Clergie and people made in this Council which is pretended by the Cardinal as to his purpose And I confess this Council is of as great authority as an universal of all Spain and not of Spain alone but of the Bishops also of the Province of Narbon in France subject at that time to the Goths must be which therefore in Spain and as to Spain was stiled Concilium Vniversale having also had 70. Bishops that subscribed although not therefore a General Universal or Oecumenical Council simply such or at all such even for Discipline as to other Catholick Churches but in as much as received by them however several of its canons be inserted in Gratian this particularly whereof our present controversy is related 11. q. 1. cap. Inolita praesumptio And I confess too that Gratian hath truly related word by word this 13th canon as it is in the Council it self being this which I give here at length Inolita praesumptio usque adeo illicitis ausibus aditum patefecit ut Clerici Conclericos suos relicto
Iustiniani Imperatoris Catholici quam probat servat Catholica Ecclesia constitutione c. XXIV cap. eccl 1. decrevit ut nemo Episcopus nemo praesbiter excommunicet aliquem antequam causa probetur c. In which law of Iustinian it is also very observable that he prescribes meer ecclesiastical punishments to be undergone by the transgressors of it Is autem qui non legittime excommunicaverit in tantum abstineat a sacra communione tempus quantum majori sacerdoti visum fuerit c. On the other side it hath been often seen that the Fathers themselves assembled in Councils made ordinances or canons in matters belonging properly to the politick administration as to wit being certain the Prince would by his own proper authority approve of such canons and consequently give them that force which the onely spiritual power could not or as knowing that by the civil laws or customs of countries such matters ought to be observed but wanted nevertheless for their more conscientious and careful observance the admonition of the Fathers and the severity also of Ecclesiastical censures threatned against the infringers Which to have been so indeed may truly and clearly appear even out of this very Council of Toledo where annuente consentiente Rege some politick canons were made by the Fathers and may appear also out of that former of Matiscon wherein the 14 canon is Vt Iudaeis a caena Domini usque ad primum diem pâ—st Pascha secundum edictum bonae Recordationis Domini Childeberti Regis per plateas aut fâ—rum quasi insultationis causa deambulandi licentia denegetur 3. That if we did absolutely grant without reserve that by the royal authority of King Guntramnus in this first Council of Matisconum and of King Recaredus in that of Toledo the jurisdiction of subordinate inferiour lay Judges over Clerks had been totally extinct in the respective Kingdoms of those two Kings yet nothing hence for the exemption of Clerks from the very supream royal power in it self and in all cases or causes Nor any thing to prove such exemption from inferiour tribunals whatever it was to have proceeded from any power of the Church or even from any temporal power of Kings before Iustinians time and Novels in favour of Clergiemen for both these Councils were held after Iustinians Raign 4. And lastly that Bellarmine was not wary enough in alleadging that first Council of Matisconum For besides that what he alleadgeth out of it hath not as much as any seeming argument for his purpose but that simple Quere which every novice could answer he hath moreover given his Readers occasion to tell him that of all Councils he should ever beware to touch on this of Matisconum being the seventh canon of it is so clear and express against his pretence of divine right or divine law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Magistrate or indeed rather of any law at all even meerly humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for their exemption in all crimes or in all those which are in the canons stiled lay crimes crimina laica that murther theft and witchcraft are by name excepted by this very Council and in the seventh canon from any such priviledge of Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption from the lay Judges however the criminal be a Clerk as may appear to any that is not wilfully blind out of this VII canon it self being as to the tenor of it word by word at leingth what I give here Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque judex absque causa criminali id est homicidis furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur So at that time the Fathers of this Matisconensâ—â—â— Council thought it not against any law divine or humane civil or Ecclesiastical to acknowledg the jurisdiction of even inferiour Judges over Clerks accused of or as much as accused of murder theft or witchcraft and consequently nor to leave them in such causes to the punishment prescribed by the law And what think you then would these Fathers have any more priviledged such Clerks as should perchance be found guilty of or charg'd with sedition rebellion hostility or any other undenyable treason against the King State or People Or did these Fathers think you harbour at any time the least thought of a priviledge from God or Church or Prince or people to Clergiemen guilty of moveing subjects to take arms against the King himself and his laws And these being all the Councils alleadged by the learned Cardinal in his controversies de Cleric l. 1. c. 28. and those other Councils after added by him in his foresaid other last peculiar little book de potestate Papae in temporalibus against William Barclay undoubtedly because upon after thoughts he found the former in his controversies not convincing at all as no more will you those his additional ones being also already and at large both in my general Answers to them all together and in my particular answers to each a part cleared by me abundantly in my LXIV and LXIX Section where the Reader may turn to them back again if he please for those additional Councils are no other then Lateranense magnum sub Innoc. III. cap. 43. Constantiense Sess 31. Lateranense ultimum sub Leone X. finally the Council of Trent Sess 25. c. 20. de Reformat All which I have though upon another occasion considered in my said former LXIV LXIX Section therefore to perclose this present Section I find my self obliged onely further to take notice of what the Cardinal sayes nay indeed gives for the second main proof of his third Proposition l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. which third Proposition is as I have before noted in general tearms this Non possunt Cerici a judice seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent For after the Cardinal had briefly quoted the Councils of Chalcedon Agatha Carthage Toledo and Matisconum and of these five Councils had framed his first argument for that his so general third Proposition and then for a second argument pretended first the constitutions of Emperours Novel 79. 83. and 123. but immediatly after acknowledging these Imperial constitutions did not reach the exemption of Clerks at least in criminal causes from some even Inferiour or subordinate lay judges but expresly subjects them still in such causes to the Praetors and Presidents he at last for a second proof of his said Proposition to wit as it relates to criminal causes relyes wholly and onely on the authority of the canon law and for canon law in the point brings no other proof then a general and bare allegation of three Popes Caius Marcellinus and S. Gregory the Great without as much as giving us their words but telling us
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
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
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
esset iniquitatis vinculum fuerit institutum 2. That other passage also of the same Pope in cap. Venientes eod tit to the Consuls and People of Tudertum where he declares and gives a leading Rule That no Oath binds to the prejudice of a superiour Power especially that of His own Papal See and that this of the Apostolical See must be alwayes understood to be excepted in every kind of Oath made to any others whatsoever this being the meaning as appears in that whole Chapter of these words of that Pope to them cum praedictum â—â—ramentum vos excusare non possit in quo debet intelligi jus Superiorit exceptum 3. This also of the very same Innocent writing to the Archbishop of Naplos cap. Ad nostram eod tit Nec tu quando sub praemisso tenore jurastiâ— habebas in mente ut propteren venires contrae canonicas sanctiones alioquin non juramentum sed perjurium potius extitisset nec esset aliqua ratione fervandum 4. Moreover yet this other of the same great Pontiff writing to a certain Judge Judici Carolitano cap. Ea. eod tit Cum igitur nobis Ecclesiae Romanae fidelitatem facere tenearis si praestitum juramentum ei quod a tè nobis tamquam debitum est praestandum contrarium reputes illudillicitum judicabis illicito non obstante quod licite immo ex debito petitur exhibebis 5. Further yet this also of the very same Innocent to another Bishop Episcopo Ameliensi as you find it in cap. Sicut eod tit Quia non juramenta sed perjuria potius sunt dicenda quae contra utilitatem Ecclesiasticam attentantur Because sayes he they are not to be called Oaths but rather Perjuries which are taken against the utility or profit Ecclesiastical 6. And lastly what you read in cap. Nimis eod tit attributed by Gregory the IX to his Uncle the foresaid Innocent as Decreed by Him in the Fourth and great Council of Lateran and by the joint authority also of the same Council Decreed which yet is very false as you have before seen in this work Nimis de jure divino quidam Laici usurpare nituntur cum viros Ecclesiasticos nihil temporale obtinentes ab eis ad praestandum sibi fidelitatis juramenta compellunt Quia vero secundum Apostolum servus suo Domino stat aut cadit Sacri authoritate Concilii prohibemus ne tales Clerici personis saecularibus praestare cogantur hujusmodi juramenta Of which Canon see more at large Sect. Lxiv pag. 154. and pag. 159. c. As also of all other Canons of Discipline attributed to the said Fourth Council of Latoran see Sect. Xxx. pag. 65 66 67 68 and 69. So many specious arguments or pretences besides many others out of the known Papal Canons would and could the Anti-Remonstrants have ready at hand such of them I mean as are conversant in the Canons to justifie even the practice of that before said very wickedest Paradox in the world But however this matter be or I mean whatever those very worst of the Anti-Remonstrants would or could alledge for a Paradox or Position and practice thereof so nefariously dangerous those seven preceding considerations together with the five omissions given also before the same considerations wrought so powerfully on his foresaid Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland that all the other reasons and importunities either of Father Patrick or Father Walsh the Procurator could not move his Grace to accept of the said Franciscan Formulary as any way sufficient to assure His Majesty or His Majesties Protestant Subjects either of the true Loyalty or candid Ingenuity of those Franciscan framers or contrivers and offerers of it nor could persuade his Grace of as much as the reasonableness of either accepting or seeming to accept it not even I say for any other ends or of presenting much less recommending it in any manner to His Majesty Which his Graces judgment and unalterably fix'd resolution himself did in plain terms at his own foresaid house of Moor-Park after some few dayes thoughts in the month of July 1665. declare to both the said Irish Ecclesiasticks Patrick Maginn and Peter Walsh to the end they should give him no further trouble on that Subject About this time the Court being removed to Salisbury and his said Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant being immediately after the said Answer given parted thither and from thence soon after but carrying the new Explanatory Bill with him and having likewise amongst others the said Father Patrick in his Train pass'd through Wales and shipâ—d for Waterford in Ireland and Father Walsh the Procurator having taken his way back to London thence to Holy-Head and so to Dublin what moreover ensued or what I mean the further Consultations and those not of the Franciscan Order onely but of the very whole body in general of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland both Regular and Secular of all Orders Dignities and Degrees were and were I say upon that Subject of Remonstrating by Instrument and Subscriptions their Allegiance or Faithfulness and Obedience to the King you shall now see in the Second Part of this same First Treatise For here at last I end the former Part thereof Which former or First Part my necessary Disputes therein against the Four main grounds of the Louain Censure have made so prolix albeit I hope not more prolix than useful THâ— SECOND PART OF THE First Treatise THE ARGUMENT Indiction of the National Assembly Scheme of the Irish Clergy then Why so great numbers of them formerly opposed the Nuncio and so few now appeared for the Remonstrance Endeavours to hinder that National Assembly from meeting Archbishop of Tuam's Letters to that purpose What Kilmore did An Account of Primate Reilly and his Letters Bishop of Ferns and his Letters also Kilfinuran What John Burgat signified from Rome Cardinal Barberin and Internuncio Rospigliosi their several Letters by an Express Notwithstanding all which nay and Ardagh's very strange contrivance too the Fathers although with extreme prejudice and prepossession meet and sit on the day appointed being June the xi 1666. Speaker and Secretary chosen Ardagh and Kilfinuran admitted to and admonishâ—d by the Lord Lieutenant Tumult on the xiii ditto happen'd about Precedency or the Chair The Lord Lieutenant's first Message delivered the same xiii day Procurator's Speech c. What the Primate and Father Nettervil replied The Primate introduced to the Lord Lieutenant c. Second Message on the xv The Procurator withdraws and why Committees sent unto him from the Congregation but prevail not with him Yet of himself returns to the Congregation on the xvi and at their desires signs their new insignificant Recognition Three first Sorbon Declarations as applied to His Majesty c. signed by the Fathers in a different Paper Both together with a Petition presented to the Lord Lieutenant on the xvi at Night by Ardagh and
Petition to his Grace wherein after they had in general terms expressed not only their ingenuous and sorrowful acknowledgment of too too much having been acted contrary to Law and Reason by the generality of the Irish Clergy of the Roman Communion since Octob. 23. 1641. nor only their humble acknowledgement of the obnoxiousness of the Clergy therefore to the Laws but also their hearty Repentance for and detestation of all such no more unhappy and fatal than wicked and criminal actings of either the whole or greater or lesser part or even of any individual persons or person whatsoever living or dead of that Clergy And after they had further in the most humble and moving expressions could be implored His Majesties gracious and general pardon to all and singular the surviving Irish Ecclesiasticks any way guilty during the late Civil Wars they should in the perclose of all both declare and humbly offer their readiness to give whatever arguments of their future obedience and faithfulness to His Majesty which not intrenching on Catholick Religion should be desired of them What arguments I used then to perswade the Bishop of the necessity of such a Petition shall be seen hereafter Sect. XI Where I tell how I repeated and urged the same thing again to the Congregation it self when sate At present 't is sufficient to see and know that as I gave no other ground to that contrivance that ridiculous though withal malicious surmise of the Bishop so I can and do call God sincerely to witness that both my words and my intention in giving that occasion were pure and good and only tending to the general good i. e. to a general pardon for that whole Clergy without any either distinction or exception of or any reflection at all upon any Faction or as much as any one particular Person of all Ireland How much more think you without design to get the Fathers of the Assembly accuse themselves every one under their own proper hands And yet men that otherwise of themselves and for other ends of their own were ready to catch at any occasion which might be a colour to hinder the intended Assembly did hug this lying story that I doubt very much whether even after I my self had disabused them and upbraided too the Bishop to his face with his ungrounded distorted that I may not say malignant interpretation of my both innocent words and meaning and that he had nothing to reply but that he had thought my end was such and having given this short answer flung away in anger they had not pretending that lying story as a just cause withdrawn out of town before or at least by Monday morning the day prefix'd for sitting if Providence had not otherwise disposed and prepared the arrival of the Packet that very Saturday early in the evening and the news thereby of his Royal Highnesses the Duke of York's great Victory in the first Sea-fight against the Hollanders and the great joy thereupon amongst all the Loyal Party and all the Streets in Town immediatly full of Bonefires to testifie both the certainty of that news and greatness of their joy This if I be not much mistaken was the most powerful aagument to deter the most factious of the members from running away before Monday as was intended But that they had not laid by not even then all thoughts at least of breaking and dissolving the Assembly in the very beginning thereof or before it could come to any issue on the matters expected from them will appear hereafter In the mean while and before I close this present Section the Reader may be pleased to take notice that I omitted nothing I could do by visiting and reasoning with those leading men to rectifie them especially the two Bishops viz. Ardach and Kalfinuran For I must confess I was singularly concern'd in these two not being then certain of any other Bishop to come in person and because also I had formerly given but too often for several years my opinion to the Lord Lieutenant of their honest Principles and good Affections to the Royal Cause nay and of their Judgments and hands too in France to the very Remonstrance when it first came out in the year 1662. S. N. and was sent them to France before either of them left that Countrey I remembred how often I had sollicited the Duke in the year 1661. for his savour to these very two Bishops in particular above any other and his special permission of or at least connivance at their return home if they were minded to return And remembred well I to that end often repeated these two Arguments to his Grace viz. 1. That each of them had sided with the Supream Council against the Nuncio in the difference of the Cessation and Censures 2. That neither of them had subscribed the Acts or been present at the Congregations of Jamestown and Galway made and held against the Peace of 1648. and the Royal Authority in his person then And my third Argument for them was the Bishop of Ardach's Letter from Seez to his Brother Sir Nicholas Plunket see pag. 13. of the First Part and the Bishop of Kilfinuran's getting subscriptions at St. Malos whereof see also pag. ibid p. 12. Now it was no little grief to me to see my self wholly deceived in my former good opinion and partly also in my Relation of them I had truly some weeks before Kilfinuran's Landing entertained some little jealousie of him for several reasons but particularly for his being so lately and long Incognito at Paris and with the Popes Nuncio there and yet signifying not a word to me by Letter or Messenger And when I knew that Ardagh had received the Letters of Rome and Bruxels from Ferral and kept and made use of them without giving me one word of notice or advice so much contrary to his former custome I could not choose but entertain at least the like jealousie of him also But after I had a little more sounded them and considered how when they were pleased to dine with me some few days before the Congregation sate Kilfinuran not only declared to my self that he came in cuerpo out of France not having brought any kind of thing with him that he had left behind him a Thousand pounds worth of Books Church-stuff and Plate of his own and that he was to return immediatly and hold to his 300. Pistols a year which he enjoyed in France but upon some other occasion of discourse plainly also to my self That he had never opposed the Nuncio nor done any thing in the former differences without sufficient permission from Him and how Ardagh likewise even to my self declared that his only reason for not sitting in or going to Jamestown-Congregation that of the Bishops in the year 1650. was their presumptuous uncanonical coming into and holding a Synod however Nationally within his Diocess without his own Licence first demanded for that Jamestown is within the Diocess of Ardagh
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
propositions of this paper at large and with all clearness discharged our duty as to the three first of those fiâ— of Sorbon and that now remain only the three last 13. We declare further it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the perswasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practice according to any doctrine or positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives or those of his Crown annexed thereunto by such Laws of England or Ireland as were in force before the change under Henry the 8th And never consequently to approve of or practice by teaching or otherwise any doctrine or position that maintains any thing against the genuine liberties of the Irish Church of the Roman Communion as for example that the Pope can depose a Bishop against the Canons of the said Church Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever that is either of him as of a private person or Doctor or of him as of a publick Teacher and Superiour of the universal Church or as Pope is infallible in his definitions made without the consent approbation and reception of the said Church even we mean in his definitions made either in matters of discipline or in matters of faith whether by Briefs Bulls Decretal Epistles or otherwise 14. Lastly we declare it is our unalterable resolution and shall be alwayes by Gods grace That if the Pope should or shall peradventure be at any time hereafter perswaded by any persons or motives to declare in any wise out of a General Council or before the definition of a future General Council on the point or points against the doctrine of this or any other the above propositions in whole or in part or against our selves or any others for owning or subscribing them We though with all humble submission to his Holiness in other things or in all spiritual matters purely such wherein he hath power over us by spiritual commands according to the Canons received universally in the several Roman Catholick Churches of the world shall notwithstanding continue alwayes true and faithful to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all temporal things and contingencies whatsoever according to the true plain sincere and obvious meaning and doctrine of all and every the fourteen propositions of this paper and of every part or clause of them without any equivocation mental reservation or other evasion or distinction whatsoever and in particular without that kind of distinction which is made of a reduplicative and specificative sense wherein any such may be against the said obvious and sincere meaning and consequently vain and unconscionable in this matter QUERIES CONCERNING The LAWFULNESSE of the Present CESSATION AND OF THE CENSURES AGAINST ALL CONFEDERATES ADHERING unto it PROPOUNDED By the RIGHT HONOVRABLE the SUPREME COUNCIL to the most Reverend and most Illustrious DAVID Lord Bishop of OSSORY and unto other DIVINES WITH ANSWERS GIVEN and SIGNED by the said most Reverend PRELATE and DIVINES Printed at KILKENNY Anno 1648. And Re-printed Anno 1673. The Censure and Approbation of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Thomas Deasse Doctor of Divinity of the University of Paris and Lord Bishop of Meath I The undernamed having seriously perused and exactly examined the Answers made to the QUERIES by the Right Reverend Father in God David Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines thereunto subscribing do esteem the same worthy to be published in Print to the view of the world as containing nothing either against God or against Caesar but rather as I conceive the Answerers in the first place do prove home and evidently convince the Excommunication and other Censures of the Lord Nuncio c. to have been groundless and void even of their own nature and before the Appeal and besides do manifestly convince that in case the Censures had not been such of their own nature yet the Appeal interposed suspends them wholly with their effects consequences and jurisdiction of the Judge or Judges c. And withal do solidly and learnedly vindicate from all blame the fidelity integrity and prudence of the Supreme Council in all their proceedings concerning the Cessation made with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin notwithstanding the daily increasing obloquies and calumnies of their malignant opposers In the second place the Answerers do sufficiently instruct the scrupulous and ignorant misled People exhorting them to continue in their obedience to Supreme Authority as they do in like manner confute and convince efficaciously the opposition of such obstinate and refractory persons as do presume to vilifie and tread under foot the Authority established in the Kingdom by the Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks And finally the Answerers dutifully and loyally do invite all true hearted Subjects to yield all due obedience to their Sovereign and to any other Supreme Civil Magistrate subordinate and representing the Sovereigns Supreme Authority according to the Law of God the Law of the Church and the Law of the Land Thomas Medensis Given at Kâ—lkenny Aug. 17. 1648. Another Approbation BY the perusal of this Treatise intituled Queries and Answers I am induced to concur with other eminent Surveyors thereof That it contains nothing contrary to approved Doctrine sound Faith or good Manners and therefore that behooveful use may be made thereof by such as love truth and sincerity 7. August 1648. Thomas Rothe Dean of St. Canie And Protonotary Apostolick c. Another Approbation HAving perused by Order of the Supreme Council the Queries propounded by the Supreme Council c. with Answers given them by the Right Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and other Divines and being required to deliver my sense of this work I do signifie That I find moving in the said Queries of Answers against Catholick Religion good Life or Manners but much for their advancement and great lights for the discovery of Truth I find by evident proofs declared that the Council in this affair of Cessation Appeal interposed against and other proceedings had with the Lord â—uncio and his adherents 〈◊〉 themselves with a due resentment of the general destruction of the Kingdom and with is true and knowing zeal of Loyalty for the maintenance of the Catholick Religion Justice lawful Authority the lives estates and rights of the Confedâ—ranâ—s I find by uncontroulable reasons proved That the Confederates cannot without worldly ignomity and Divine indignation fâ—ll from the said Cessation while the condition are performed and time expired I find lastly hence and by other irrefragable arguments That all and every of the Censures pronounced either by the Nuncio or any else against the Council or other Confederates upon this ground of concluding or adhering to the Cessation are unreasonable unconscionable invalid void and against Divine and Humane Laws
of Nature Scripture Nations and Canons of Holy Church This is the sense of James Talbot Doctor of Divinity Kilkenny Aug. 4. 1648. The Approbation of the Fathers of the Society of JESUS THE ensuing Answers to the Queries being learnedly and laboriously performed replenished with variety of both Moral and Divine Doctrine as the many Authors Canons and places of holy Scripture therein cited do abundantly manifest containing nothing contrary to Catholick Faith and Religion we judge most worthy to be published as an efficacious mean to remove scruples to satisfie each one and to settle the Consciences of all sorts Hen Plunket Superior of the Society of Jesus at Kilkenny Robert Bath of the same Society Christoph Maurice of the same Society Will St. Leger of the same Society Will Dillon of the same Society John Usher of the same Society Another Approbation BY Order from the Supreme Council I have perused these Queries with their Answers and do find nothing contrary to the Catholick Religion or good Manners nay rather that they contain very solid Doctrine well grounded upon the Holy Scriptures and authorized by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church and are most worthy the Press whereby the World may be satisfied and the most tender Consciences resolved in their groundless Scruples and many dangers removed the which unsatisfied might threaten ruine on a Catholick Commonwealth James Talbot Professor of Divinity Sometimes Visitator of St. Augustin's Order in Ireland c. Another Approbation HAving perused this Book of Queries and Answers made unto them by the most Reverend Father David Lord Bishop of Ossory and several Divines of most Religious and exemplar Life and eminent Learning I see nothing contrary to Faith or good Manners nay rather judge it a very solid and profitable work grounded on the Laws of Nature of God and of Nations confirmed by Councils taught and preached by the Holy Doctors and Fathers of the Church and most worthy to be Printed forthwith That to the world may appear the just and most conscionable carriage of the Supreme Council and their adherents in this Controversie about the Cessation and the unwarrantable and illegal proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and others of the Clergy and Laity who for ends repugnant to their Oath of Association seem disaffected to the English Government as it was even in Catholick times and wholly averse from any Peace or Settlement whereby our dread Sovereign Lord and King might be relieved from his present saâ—l condition Kilkenny 12. Aug. Fr Thomas Talbot One of Her Majesties Chaplains The Approbation of Divines of Saint Francis's Order VVE have diligently read this Work and seen in all pages and parts thereof Truth enfranchiz'd Ignirance enlightned the Councils present proceedings for the Cessation and against the Censures vindicated from injustice as the opposers of their Authority are convinced of sinful Disobedience and Perjury Kilkenny the 10th of August Sebastianus Fleming Thesaurarius Ecclesiae St. Patricii Dublin Fr Thomas Babe Fr Ludovick Fitz-Gerrald Fr Paul Synot Fr James De la Mare The Supreme Councils Letter to the most Illustrious and Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory concerning the Assembling of Divines and returning his and their Result on the QVERIES FInding that to the great hinderance of the Publick quiet and the benefit of the Common Enemy the Lord Nuncio hath issued his Excommunication and thereby so far as in him lay distracted the Kingdom and divided the Nation notwithstanding that by our Appeal presented unto him the 4th of this Month his Graces further proceedings according to the Law are to be suspended Yet because it concerns the duty we owe the Kingdom to omit nothing that may remove the least scruple in any of the Confederate Catholicks by which he might avoid the visible breach of his Oath of Association by declining the Authority intrusted with us we have thought fit to let your Lordship know it is our pleasure and accordingly we pray your Lordship to assemble forthwith all the Secular and Regular Clergy and all other the able Divines now in this City together before you and to get their present Result upon the enclosed Propositions to be transmitted to us with all speed We know your Lordship so zealous a Patriot and so desirous of setling the Consciences of such few of your Flock as may haply be yet unsatisfied as you will use all possible expedition herein which is earnestly recommended to your Lordship by Kilkenny Castle 14. June 1648. Your Lordships very loving Friends Athenry Luk Dillon Rich Belling Patâ— Brian Joh Walsh Rob Devereux Gerald Fenell The QUERIES I. WHether any and if any what part of the Articles of the Cessation with the Lord of Inchiquin is against the Catholick Religion or just ground for an Excommunication II. Whether you hold the Appeal by uâ— made and interposed within the time limited by the Canon Law and Apostles being granted thereupon be a suspension of the Monitory Excommunication and Interdict and of the effects and consequences thereof and of any other proceedings or Censures in pursuance of the same III. Considering that the Propositions of the Lord Nuncio now Printed were offered by his Lordship as a mean whereby to make the Cessation conscionable whether our Answers thereunto likewise Printed are so short or unsatisfactory and wherein as they might afford just grounds for an Excommunication IV. Whether the opposing of the Cessation against the positive Order of the Council by one who hath sworn the Oath of Association be Perjury V. Whether if it shall be found That the said Excommunication and Interdict is against the Law of the Land as in Catholick time it was practised and which Laws by the Oath of Association all the Prelates of this Land are bound to maintain Can their Lordships notwithstanding and contrary to the positive Orders of the Supreme Council to the contrary countenance or publish the said Excommunication or Interdict VI. Whether a Dispensation may be given unto any Person or Parties of the Confederates to break the Oath of Association without the consent of the General Assembly who framed it as the Bond and Ligament of the Catholick Confederacy and Union in this Kingdom the alteration or dissolution whereof being by their Orders reserved only unto themselves VII Whether any persons of the Confederates upon pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio may disobey the Order of the Supreme Council ANSWERS Made to the foresaid QUERIES BY THE Most Reverend Father in GOD DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines The Preface in form of Letter directed to the Right Honourable the Supreme Council AS well in obedience to your Honours Commands as for satisfaction of our Consciences and guiding Souls committed to our Charge or clearing their Scruples and resolving such from Perplexities who come to us for their spiritual instruction We have seriously considered the Questions delivered us from your Lordships And having first proposed God before our eyes with firm resolutions
the said Oath making any such declaration or persuasion of or concerning the said Oath shall be taken and deemed as perjured and accordingly for that offence punished And it is likewise ordered That if any particular man have heretofore delivered or uttered or hereafter shall deliver or utter any opinion contrary to this Declaration that such party or parties being discovered shall be severely punished And all Superiors of the Secular and Regular Clergy are to cause all those under their power and rule to take the said Oath of Association within Three months next ensuing and thereof make Certificate to this House or the Assembly being adjourned or dissolved into the Supreme Council The Names as well of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal now present as the Names of the Lords of the Catholick Confederacy now absent by reason of impediments together with the Names of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses now members of the General Assembly aforesaid Hugo Ardmachan Fr Tho Dublin Tho Arch. Cassell Tho Midensis David Episcop Ossorens Boetius Episcop Elphin Patr Episcop Waterford Lysmorens Joan Episcop Laonens Malachias Arch. Tuamens Guliel Episcop Corke Cloine Joan Episcop Clonfartensis Edm. Episcop Laghlin Emer Episcop Down Connor Castlehaven Audley Antrym Mountgarrett Gormanstown Fingall Nettervill Mau de Rupe Fermay Muskery Ikereyn Trimlestone Glanmaliera Slane Donboyne Arthure Jueagh Cahir Boy Upper Ossory Castle Connel Lowth Brittas Edmund Butler Robert Grace Robert Shee James Duffe James Couly Edward Comerford Theo Butler Peter Dobbyn George Greene. Pierce Butler Edmund Kealy Rich Lawless Nich Halliwood Geo Blackny Edward Dowd Andrew Pallice Tho Preston James Cusack Martin Scurlock George King Christo Veldon N Plunkett Rich Berford Lawrence Hamon Tho Darcy Lawrence Dowdall Alexander Warren Pat Beetagh Walter Cruice Pat Nettervill Rob Talbott Morice Fitz-gerrald John Allyn Gerrald Fitz-gerrald Edward Dungan Nich Wogan Nich Sutton John Stanly Barnaby Bealing John Bellew Pat Plunkett Rich Barnewall Tho Fleming Pat Brian Rich Nettervil Tho Esmond Mich Barnewall James Bath Gerald Talbott Teig O Connor Stephen Fallon Francis Ferraill Rich Ferraill Brian Birne or Brine James Butler Walt Bagnall Edward Wall Tho Fitz-gerrald James Stafford William Stafford Walter Lacy. James Forlong John Cheevers Nich Halliwood Rich Wadding James Lewis Hugh Rochford Paul Duffe Terence Coghlane John Carroll Hubert Fox Owen Molloy William Birmingham John Carroll Pierce Crosby Florence Fitz-Patrick Arthure Cheevers George Cheevers Roger Moore Pierce Fitz-gerrald Terence Doyne James Daniel John Power Pat Goagh Rob Lumbard John Walsh Pierce Sherlock Matth Hoare Tho Walsh John Linch Thorlogh O Briane John Hoare Edmund Fitz-gerrald Donogh O Callaghan Dermott Mac Charty Daniel O Swyllevan Teig Mac Carty Morice Fitz-gerrald David Power Cormuck Mac Carty Donogh Mac Carty Donnel O Leary Henry Slensby John Gould Dermott Mac Carty Callaghan Mac Cahir Charles Mac Carty Tho Henes Daniel O Donevan Garrett Fitz-Morice Florence Mac Carty Rich Butler Tho Butler Rich Haly. William Young John Walsh Geoffery Barron Gerald Fennell R. Everard Lewis Walsh John Lacy. Pierce Creagh Tho Arthure Nich Halye John Halye Daniel O Brian Dermot O Brian Turlogh O Brian Rob Linch Dermot O Shaghnussy Rich Martyn Geoffry Brown Dominick Bodkin John Garvy Christoph French Theob Bodkyn John Brown James Callon Theob Burk John Brown James Callon Theob Burk Ambrose Plunkett Pat Goagh James Butler John Wise John Cantwell Pierce Butler Pierce Rowth Daniel Higgin Connor O Callaghan Artoge O Neill Rich Belling George Commin James mac Collo mac Daniel George St. Leger David Power Tho Ryan Phelim O Neill Turlogh O Neill Dominick Fanning Philip Purcell James Fleming Lawrence Fleming Edmund Power Tho Coce Tho Wadding Mulmore mac Philip O Reilly Turlogh O Boyle Henry Barnawall Mulmore mac Edmond O Reilly Philip mac Mulmore O Reilly Turlogh O Neill Gerratt Talbott James Preston James Purcell Robert Harpole Pat Brian John Baggott James mac Donnell Patrick Darcy Printed at Waterford by Tho Burke Printer to the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland An Oath in pursuance of the Oath of Association taken by the LORDS and Gentlemen met at KILKENNY the 20th of June 1648. and by the Supreme Council directed to be taken by all the CONFEDERATE CATHOLICKS I A. B. do swear and protest before God and his Saints and Angels That I will to the utmost of my power observe the Oath of Association maintain the Authority of the Supreme Council and the Government established by the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom notwithstanding the present Excommunication issued forth by the Lord Nuncio and four Bishops against the Concluders Maintainers and Adherents of and unto the Cessation concluded with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin and notwithstanding any other Excommunication to be issued upon the same ground against which Excommunication and for those who issued it I do appeal unto His Holiness as the indifferent Judge And I do further swear That to the hazard of my life I will suppress and oppose any person or party that shall stand in Arms in opposition of the said Association So help me God To prevent any scruple to be made upon the branch of the Oath by us of late directed to be administred viz. notwithstanding the present Excommunication issued forth by the Lord Nuncio and four Bishops against the Concluders Maintainers and Adherents of and unto the Cessation concluded with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin and notwithstanding any other Excommunication to be issued upon the same ground although we hold it unnecessary to make any further explanation of our intentions than the words of the said Oath contain yet for the satisfaction of all men and to the intent no way may be left to carp at our actions nor any excuse of refusing it unto such as may take exceptions thereunto We do hereby declare That by the general word Excommunication we intend no other Excommunication than such as have been or shall be issued or inflicted by the Lord Nuncio or by the Clergy of this Land or any of them for or touching the said Cessation or grounded thereupon during or pending our Appeal Kilkenny Castle the 27th of June 1648. Westmeath Fingall Mountgarrett Nettervil Lew Glanmaliry Galmoy Athenry Tremelstown Donboyne Vpper Ossory Lucas Dillon Robuck Lynch Richard Barnawell Tho Nugent Richard Everard Patrick Nettervill Luke Fitz-Gerrald Richard Belling Patrick Goagh John Walsh Patrick Brian Gerratt Fennell Jefferie Browne Robert Devereux George Commin James Cusack Lawrence Dowdall William Hoare Maurice Fitz-Gerrald Robert Shee Marcus Cheevers Michael Dormer Thomas Rancâ—or Francis Dormer Michael Bolan Robert Meade Pierce Creagh Thomas Henes Walter Walsh Richard Strange Peter Sherlock Edmund Bryan Thomas Cantwell Walter Archer Printed at KILKENNY in the year of our LORD GOD 1648. The Lord Nuncio 's Excommunication c. Anno 1648. Nos Joannes Baptista Rinuccinus Dei Apostolicae sedis Gratia Archiepiscopus Princeps Firmanus ac in Regno Hiberniae Nuncius Apostolicus extraordinarius Nos Episcopi ad effectum de quo