though somewhat more particularly to the Fifth That besides the facilitating all I could the Repeal of penal Statutes by overthrowing the grand Objection against it I had no other extrinsick end hitherto in any of the Controversies wherein I am engaged nor shall God willing have at any time hereafter save onely that which must have been consequential nay that which is very well becoming not only a Roman-Catholick Priest and Votary of St. Francis's Order but any Christian of whatever Church or Profession viz. the breaking down of so much of that middle wall of partition between us which hath separated first the Orient from the Occident and then again in the Occident it self hath divided from one another so numerous flourishing and conspicuous both Nations and Churches holding them so long involved in a direful Schism to the great hurt of Christianity and to the destruction of so many Souls This so great and so desirable a blessing of Peace and reconciliation of one to another in God by the Cross and by the breaking down the wall of partition all enmity being slain on both sides between the Churches i. e. between the Sons of the Church of England on this side and those of the Roman-Church on the other as many at least as are subject to His Majesty I must confess I have these many years regarded as my chief and ultimate end howsoever unlikely it seem'd in this world To this most desirable end all my Studies Writings Elucubrations and Books have been principally directed At this my Remonstrances Professions Protestations Renunciations have perpetually aimed For this I took so much pains devoured so many labours underwent so many hazards and suffered those well nigh innumerable Evils whereof I see not even yet either period or measure And finally this happy end is it that hath made me as elsewhere in some other of my Writings so now in this Epistle declare so plainly and openly against so many embroiling Positions notwithstanding they be the Doctrines of a very powerful Faction amongst Roman-Catholick Professors nay the beloved Maxims of the Roman Court and its Minion-writers Whose soever they be it 's clear enough that of them is built one entire side at least of that middle wall of partition (a) Ephes 2.14 which to the unspeakable reproach and further unvaluable hurt of the Christian Church in general hath so often both formerly and lately engaged yea and doth at present engage People Nations Principalities Republicks Kingdoms Empires not only unhappily but damnably in mortal feuds one against another but which therefore ought and must for the great end of Peace amongst the Children of God be broken down of every side by Him who is our Peace by Him who not onely in former times as you read in the Prophet and Apostle in Isaiah (b) Isa 57.19 and in (c) Ephes 2.14 17. Paul hath evangelized Peace Peace the fruit of the lips to them that were far off and to them that were nigh but now also at this present to the now divided Parties Preaches the same Peace to the end that the Sons of Peace on each side co-operating He may again make in himself of twain one new man so making peace and reconciling both unto God in one body by the Cross having stain again the enmity in his own flesh Oh that we might live to see once that day That day so fervently so anxiously beg'd of God by all his Saints That day so long desired by Princes expected by Prophets wished for so passionately by all the Children of God! That day in which there will be neither Jew (d) Coloss 3.12 Galat. 3.28 nor Gentile nor Barbarian nor Scythian nor Protestant nor Papist I mean nor Reformist nor Romanist nor any other names or symbols of Discord That day wherein once more Christ himself will be all (e) Coloss 1.18 24. Ephes 5.23 and in all both head and body and consequently there shall be one fold (f) John 10.16 and one shepherd Oh blessed day and blessed eyes that shall behold it And oh how willingly how heartily with all my Soul would I to see that most happy day run into the arms kiss the hands embrace the knees lie down at the feet of those who have bereft me of all things else and fought my life How freely how gladly for that end would I moreover if they pleased even appear before them as a Criminal even in the habit of a publick Penitent my head covered with Ashes and my body with Sackcloth my eyes running down with tears and my flesh pined away with fasting How lastly to see that greatest bliss in this life would I prostrate my self before them on the earth even without the door and porch of the Church and with humblest prayer beg admittance and not only reconciliation but pardon where even I mean according to my own proper judgment there was no need of it no fault committed by me to require it These have been the wishes God knows and this the constant disposition of my Soul these many years And therefore as an universal condemnation of the new Doctrines to eternal night and silence hath continually appear'd to me no less than necessary of one side for breaking down the middle wall of separation so amongst the Christian Churches that blessed that heavenly reconciliation union coalition in the Spirit of God and Peace of Christ which is above all sense hath alwayes been the very ultimate end in this world that I have propos'd to all my Labours and Sufferings As for the rest I know that how Divine soever the Wishes be how proper and pure and holy and excellent soever the Means that we employ for attaining them yet the Success must be in the hand of the Almighty alone who (g) Wisd 8. reaching from end to end strongly and disposing all things sweetly makes the morning star to arise in his appointed time and the evening star on the sons of the earth who (h) 2 Cor. 4.6 commands light to shine out of darkness and who alone with one word of his pleasure determines the roughest Tempest in the gentlest Calm Hatred in Love Schism in Unity and the bloodiest War in the most blessed Peace when (i) Coloss 1.20 he will and as he will reconciling all things whether Terrestrial or Celestial by the blood of his Cross Fifth Appendage relating also to all the Queries That notwithstanding any whatsoever excellence of all and every the ends both intrinsick and extrinsick which I had proposed to my self in the Controversies yet I have continually shun'd as I would a rock or a shelve in a Tempest that other late Doctrine of those Schoolmen of ours who are called Probablists which teacheth the sanctifying forsooth of all wicked means by good intentions And therefore that as far as I know my own heart and actions and the Laws of God or man I have at no time hitherto been wanting nor shall hereafter with the grace
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
distinction of Countrey or Degree or Sex or Age Men Women Children from the most illustrious Peer to the most obscure Plebeian wheresoever in any of His Majesties Kingdoms or Dominions even at this present lie under all the rigorous Sanctions and all the severe Penalties of so many incapacitating so many mulctative Laws nay and so many sanguinary which reach even to life in several cases And your Predecessors before you have well nigh a whole Century of years been continually under the smart or apprehension of the severity of them And so may your Successors and your Children and Posterity after you for so long more if the true causes of Enacting at first those Laws and continuing them ever since be no better considered i.e. no more narrowly search'd into nor more effectually regarded by you than they have been by your Fathers for you or themselves But whatever Gods providential care of or goodness to your Posterity after you may be I am sure it cannot be denied but all Roman-Catholicks universally now living any where in England Ireland or Scotland must upon due reflection find themselves highly concern'd in having the Sword-point of those penal Constitutions hanging continually and even perpendicularly over their heads Do not we all manifestly perceive they are with-held at present from execution by a very small and weak Thred not only of one life that is mortal but even of one will alone that yet may be alter'd of a sudden upon many occasions which may happen when least expected Now seeing you are all every one thus concern'd in those Laws surely so you must all be in the causes of them i.e. in those genuine true proper and onely causes which continued must necessarily continue those very Laws and which removed will naturally remove them But if in those causes your concernment be such how can it be other or indeed how can it be any way less in the Subject of this Book All the several Treatises and Parts thereof and all the several Relations Discourses Disputes Animadversions therein occasion'd by either of the two Formularies drive ultimately at a plain and full discovery of those very causes and of their continual dependance on your own proper will alone and how lawfully and justly you may or rather how strictly you are even by all the known Maxims of Christian Religion Catholick Faith and Natural Reason bound in Conscience to remove them Your Concern therefore above all others in the Subject being thus at last clearly manifested I need no further Apology for the Dedication A Consecratory Address to you appears now evidently enough to have been required by the Nature of the Work it self as a necessary Appendage of that real duty which I have endeavoured to the best of my understanding all along in this Book to pay the most sacred name of Catholicks And in truth to whom other than to your selves ought or could I upon any sufficient ground dedicate a Book of so universal and weighty a Concern of yours Yet after all I must acknowledge that besides your propriety in the Subject I had the current of my own desires and my own Ideas to exact this Duty I have in truth these many years had continually even passionate desires of some fair opportunity to offer unto you but with all due submission still some farther and more particular thoughts relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of all your foresaid evils And have at last entertain'd the pleasing Idea of a Dedicatory as the fairest occasion I could wish to speak directly and immediately to your selves all whatever I think to be for your advantage on that Subject and sutable to the measures of a Letter and what I moreover know some others think who yet have not the courage to speak or to inform you And therefore to pursue my old method I call it old having held these 26 years of delivering my thoughts fully and throughly in all Points which I conceive to be material though at the same time expecting from some contradiction and from others worse but comforting myself nevertheless with the conscience of very great Truth with the zeal of your highest advantage and with the certain expectation that all judicious good men will approve what I shall say and lay all to heart as they ought I must now tell you that if we please to examine things calmly with unprejudiced reading and unbyass'd reason we may find without any peradventure I. That the rigour of so many Laws the severity of so many Edicts and the cruel execution of both many times against even harmless People of the Roman Communion have not intentionally or designedly from the beginning aim'd nor do at present aim so much at the renunciation of any avowed or uncontroverted Articles of that Christian or Catholick Religion you profess as at the suppression of those Doctrines which many of your selves condemn as Anti-catholick and for the prevention of those practises which you all say you abhor as Antichristian II. That it is neither the number of Sacraments nor the divine excellency of the Eucharist above the rest either by the real presence in or Transubstantiation of the Consecrated Host nor the communion thereof in one kind onely nor the more holy and strict observance of Confession nor the ancient practice of Extreme Vnction nor the needless Controversies 'twixt Vs and the Protestants if we understood one another about Faith Justification Good Works or those termed Supererogatorie or about the Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques Worshipping of Images Purgatory and Pardons nor is it the Canon of the Bible or a Learned Liturgy or Continency of Priests and obligation of certain Vows or holiness of either a Monastick or Cloystered life in a well-ordered Community of devout Regulars nor is it either a Patriarchical power in the Bishop of Rome over the Western Church according to the ancient Canons and Customs or which is yet somewhat more an universal Pastorship purely spiritual acknowledg'd in Him such I mean as properly flows from the Celestial power of the two Keyes of Peter as far as ever it was acknowledged by all or any of the ancient Councils I say it is not any of all these Articles or Practises nor all together not even join'd with some others whether of lesser or greater note that is the grand Rock of scandal or that hath been these last Hundred years the cause of so many Penalties Mulcts Incapacities of shameful Deaths inflicted and more ignominious Characters given us III. That of our side the original source of all those evils and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman-Catholicks in England Ireland Scotland at any time since the first change under Henry VIII hath been a System of Doctrines and Practises not only quite other than your selves do believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture or delivered by Catholick Tradition or evidenced by Natural Reason or so much as defined by
on the other side or even calling for them by Summons or otherwise at any time before such prejudgment given or made This I say is it that both obliges and warrants me in all reason to except against them as incompetent Judges of me or my writings in that Cause i. e. to except against their individual persons but not against their Authority placed in other men of less interested or byass'd judgment Nor certainly will this Exception appear strange or ill-grounded to such as shall be pleased to turn over in this Book not only to the many divers Letters of Roman Cardinals and Bruxel Internuncio's written at several times and upon several occasions since the year 1661 to Ireland against the same Cause and me and the rest of the Remonstrants but also to the Louain Theological Faculty's Censure * Dated at Louain 1662 Dec. 29. against it i. e. against the Loyal Irish Remonstrance and Subscribers of iâ— I pass oâ—er wholly in silence at this time the Bull of Pope Alexander VII * Dated at Rome 1665 Aug. 27. in the former cause of the Appeal made anno 1648 to Innocent X by the then Supreme Council of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland from those wicked Censures of Interdict and Excommunication fulminated that year and in that Kingdom against them and all other Irish joining with or obeying them in the Cessation of Arms concluded with the Royal Party of Protestants I say fulminated therefore against them by the Archbishop and Prince of Fermo Joannes Baptista Rinuccinus Nuncio there from the foresaid Innocent X. though a very partial inconsiderate Bull grounded falsely and given directly against all the more Loyal Irish Catholicks and given so of meer purpose to make them receive absolution in forma Ecclesiae consueta and consequently to do publick Pennance for having return'd but onely so nigh their obedience to the late King of ever blessed Memory as a meer or bare Cessation of Arms in order to the preservation of His Majesties interest when their own could not subsist without it in that Kingdom And these being the Six Appendages of so many Questions going before concerning my own constancy or inconstancy in Religion you are now at liberty to determine as to that matter what you think fit So having by this time inlarged my self I hope sufficiently enough for the information of some conviction of others and satisfaction of all ingenuous lovers of Truth having discharged my Conscience and spoken my Mind touching all the three Motives that induced me to this Dedicatory Preface to you it remains that howsoever or whatsoever you judge of me or my carriage or my writings I nevertheless continue my due regard to your Benefit and conclude this Discourse as it almost begun and for the matter proceeded all along with re-minding you most affectionately of your own and your Posterities and your Religions great Concern both in the Loyal Cause I contend for and in those happy ends at which I drive Therefore in the Apostles words Before God and our Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom by all the desires you have of your own and your Posterities living comfortably in this world as free-born Subjects in your Native Countrey and by all the hopes you have conceiv'd of enjoying that better Countrey with eternal life and rest in the world to come by all your zeal not only for the vindicating of your Religion from the scandal of Disloyalty Perjury Cruelty Inhumanity Tyranny c. both in Principles and Practices but of inviting also by taking away the grand Rock of scandal those of other Churches to save their Souls in the communion of yours or of the Roman-Catholick Church if indeed you believe there is no salvation for them otherwise and by all your godly wishes of a true understanding reconciliation union peace between all Churches professing the Name of Christ and more especially between His Majesties Protestant Subjects and your selves en fine by all that is Sacred and by all that is according to reason and grace desirable I conjure you that your selves mind as you ought that great Concern of your own and mind it both effectually and speedily without further delayes I beseech you as Christians and as Catholicks by the onely adorable name of the Holy Jesus whose Doctrine you should desire to follow above all things consider That his Kingdom was not of this world (a) John 18.36 That surely he gave neither to St. Peter himself nor to any other of his eleven or twelve Apostles separately nor even to all the same twelve or thirteen with Peter and Paul collectively taken any other sort of Kingdom or the Lieutenancy of any other Kingdom than what himself had in the dayes of his abode in flesh or as he was a mortal man before his Resurrection (b) See â—â—lâ—â—â—ius himself lib. 5. de Rom. Poâ—â—tiâ— c. 4 â—itt D. That the Keyes of Heaven and the Crowns of earthly Kingdoms import very different things That as his Father sent him (c) John 20.21 22 23. so he sent all the twelve with equal and with onely Commission to remit and retain sins viz. by his Power and by his Word and by his Sacraments but not to give or to take away Scepters or Crowns (d) Non eriâ—â—â— mortalia 〈◊〉 regna dat â—â—â—lestia by any means whatsoever That he commanded what is due to Caesar to be paid to Caesar as well as to God what is due to God (e) Matth. 22 23. That Paul the thirteenth Apostle and Vessel of Election in his Epistle to the Romans * Rom. 13.1 5. plainly declares That subjection to the supereminent secular powers which carry the Sword of Justice and receive Tributes is due from every Soul and that not onely out of fear of their Sword but for Conscience sake and for fear of hell and damnation it is due from every Soul among you even from those who are the most spiritual in profession even from those who are the most high in Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Function Priests Monks Bishops Archbishops nay were they Apostles were they Evangelists were they Prophets whosoever they were as Chrysostom spake * Chrysostom Hom. 23. in Epist Paul on this Text Rom. 1â— Omnis anima c. near Thirteen hundred years since on this very Text of the Apostle and in effect with Chrysostom all the Holy Fathers of the Christian Church before and after him for a Thousand years from the Apostles time until Gregory VII That Exemption from and much more Dominion over the said Powers ate inconsistent with Subjection to them in the same Temporal matters That other Divine right of Dominion either direct or indirect His present Holiness of Rome cannot justly pretend than what He derives from Christ by or through St. Peter nor other Humane right to any Kingdom than what the free consent of the Princes People and Municipal Laws
could moreover with the Apostle (i) Rom. 9.3 wish himself were accursed from Christ and with Moses pray to be blotted out of the Book (k) Exod. 32.32 My Lords Fathers and Gentlemen Your most humble and most devoted Servant in Christ Peter Walsh London Octob. 28. 1673. TO THE READER READER I Have but now amongst so many other Heads in my Epistle given the ends both intrinsick and extrinsick of all my Writings on the Subject of this Book And I suppose you also have already there observed those intrinsick ends to be no other than 1. A necessary defence of some important yea Evangelical Christian Truths and 2. A just vindication of some few honest men who are strangely persecuted for declaring signing and not retracting those very Truths Neither do I question but you have likewise there i. e. in the said Epistle seen and observ'd at large my onely chief extrinsick ends to be the Ease of Roman-Catholicks and the Peace of both Churches I say now with some remark my onely chief c. because I cannot deny but that whil'st I chiefly or finally aimed so far off at those greater ends of Ease and Peace I intended nevertheless to drive more immediately at the nearer and necessary either means or dispositions to attain them That is I would not onely in the first place drive at the convincing of the Roman-Catholick Clergy in general of Ireland how unreasonably their Representatives viz. the Fathers or Members of the National Congregation held at Dublin anno 1666 determin'd in their general concerns and how mightily if not even irrecoverably in our dayes the very name of Roman-Catholick is prejudiced in these Nations by that Irish Synod but I would also drive at the consequential preparing of them all with better principles affections and resolutions against their next Ecclesiastical and National Meeting if peradventure God in his great mercy shall vouchsafe to give them once more such an opportunity of doing themselves and others directed by them and their Religion above all that greatest right which they ought to do by correcting throughly what the former Dublin Congregation did amiss And this in truth of convincing and preparing so as I have now said the Roman-Catholick Clergy in general of Ireland was I must confess one of the more immediate ends of my writing this Book albeit still with due subordination to those other no less excellent than remote or even ultimate which I proposed to my self in this life As for the more immediate Contingencies also which in their kind really and properly occasion'd it I mean this present Work I can assure you on the word of an honest man they were no inclinations in me to scribling or publishing my own private sentiments nor were they any effects at all of prejudice or passion much less of malice on my side to any man or number party or faction of men But the unhappy counsels of the foresaid National Irish Congregation held at Dublin and the just demands of those who had lawful Authority to command me and the peculiar obligations on me as being Procurator of the whole Clergy both Secular and Regular of Ireland to satisfie in what I could all such demands were the immediate and concurring Contingencies that not only gave me occasion but even put me under a very great necessity of writing the Publick Transactions as well of as relating to and necessary for understanding fully the Intrigues of that Ecclesiastical Irish Synod But neither the Contingencies that occasioned nor the Ends that induced me to write are to my purpose now The design of this different Preface to thee Reader is to give briefly such other Advertisements as I think necessary and you will not I hope think superflubus concerning 1. The several Treatises of this Book their number method and some particular matters either examined throughly or but incidentally reflected on in them and 2. concerning also the several Appendixes annexed to the said Treatises Know therefore now that I. Immediately after the foresaid National Synod of Dublin was ended without having done any thing answerable to the end for which they were permitted to convene and sit with all freedom for fifteen dayes and after also the Provincial Chapter of the Franciscan Order was within another moneth both held for six or seven dayes together in the same place and with the same freedom and dissolved in the same manner without giving the State any satisfaction I took pen in hand and as it was expected from me writ those three small Treatises which make the Second Third and Fourth of this Book I writ them if not in answer at least to consider the vanity and shew the insignificancy of so many i. e. of three several Papers presented from the foresaid National Congregation to the then Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom His Grace the Duke of Ormond Of which Papers two were subscribed by many hands but the third by none at all II. As in these Three later Treatises I related to a former although not then written viz. the First which you have now here in its due place so I did also to a Fifth and Sixth as following in the same Book These two last I intended should be on the Fifth and Sixth of the Six Sorbon Declarations of the year 1663. Because the foresaid Irish National Congregation refused to subscribe them applied c. albeit they had subscribed the first Three of the said Six of Sorbon and promised to subscribe all the Six 'T is true they declined also the signature of the Fourth of them But having by me then upon the subject of the same Fourth a Latin Treatise which I intended to publish separately by it it self least otherwise the Book should swell bigger than I would have it and considering also that for what concerned these Sorbon Declarations the grand Contest in that Dublin Synod was not concerning the Fourth but concerning only the Fifth and Sixth of them I confined my thoughts to the Design of Six Treatises only for this Book without farther addition III. I had no thoughts of lessening this number of Six Treatises until by writing the First Treatise I found that contrary to my expectation the bulk would swell too much if I should annex the said Fifth and Sixth because these alone would contain about Sixty sheets and that however I thought it necessary to add some other Appendixes IV. For these Considerations beside other I have abridg'd here the said first intended number of Six Treatises and do remit the Fifth and Sixth of them to another Tome Whereof I thought fit particularly to advertise thee good Reader because in the Second Third and Fourth Treatise or in some of them I am sure printed before I took this resolution I remit thee to the said Fifth and Sixth as if they did follow in this present Book V. Albeit the design of the First Treatise was onely to give a Narrative of matter of Fact c as you may see
reflect upon his Ordination as if indeed that had been not only uncanonical or unlawful but really void and null or as the Schoolmen speak invalid Were I to deliver my opinion of that matter or were it to my purpose to speak thereof I would certainly hold my self obliged in Conscience for any thing I know yet to concur with them who doubt not the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Protestant Church of England to be at least valid And yet I have read all whatever hath been to the contrary objected by the Roman-Catholick Writers whether against the matter or form or want of power in the first Consecrators by reason of their Schism or Heresie or of their being deposed formerly from their Sees c. But I have withal observed nothing of Truth alledg'd by the Objectors which might in the least persuade any man who is acquainted with the known Divinity or Doctrine of our present Schools besides what Richardus Armachanus long since writ and with the Annals of our own Roman Church unless peradventure he would turn so frantick at the same time as to question even the validity of our own Ordination also in the said Roman Church on pretence forsooth either of the Form of the Sacrament altered at the pleasure of men or Succession of Bishops interrupted by so many Schisms or of Stephen VII (a) 〈◊〉 ad an Christi 893. condemning all the Ordinations of his Predecessor Formosus and John IX (b) ad an 904. rescinding all the Acts of that Stephen and then Sergius III (c) ad an 908. rescinding likewise all the Acts of the said John IX and the former Ordinations of Formosus Upon occasion of which horrible Hurly Burly of Ordinations Exordinations and Superordinations an Author of that time called Auxilius (d) cod anno 908. writ an excellent Book intituled De Ordinationibus Exordinationibus Superordinationibus Romanorum Pontificum Ordinatorum ab eis Exordinationibus Superordinationibus XIV Notwithstanding this Book have so many Treatises and be so bulky yet it brings the History of the Loyal Remonstrance and its Vindication against all Censures but to the end of the year 1666 or rather to the end or breaking up of the Irish National Congregation which was held at Dublin in the said year from the 11th of June when it convened to the 25th of the same Month when it dissolved The prosecution of the History and Vindication of the Subscribers of the said Loyal Formulary against all other sorts of Censures and illegal proceedings wherewith they have been ever since the year 1666 to this present 1673 more violently than before persecuted belongs to the Second Tome If you think this other Tome in English will be long a coming and it may be it will you may see in the mean time enough to satisfie you partly in my Latin three several Pieces intituled Hibernica and partly in my First and long Latin Epistle to Haroldus which hath been already published in Print XV. And yet however as I have now said it be not the scope or design of this Volume to give any part of the Sufferings of the Remonstrants since the year 1666 from their Antagonists and Persecuters much less to give instances of what in former times i. e. before the King's Restauration the Loyal Party of the Irish Clergy suffered from the Nuncio Party all along at least from the year 1646 to the year 1660 upon meer account of their having opposed and not observed the said Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict nevertheless such i. e. so malicious hath been the indefatigable industry of Father Peter Talbot the Titular Archbishop of Dublin and Ring-leader of the Irish Anti-remonstrants all along these five or six years past in persecuting the said Remonstrants to death as far as in him lay that in the LXXXIV Section of the First Part First Treatise and contrary or at least much beside my former purpose he extorted from me some few reflections in general on his very Archiepiscopal but withal very disloyal unconscientious and unâ—hriâ—â—ian endeavours in that matter if not withal somewhat though but obscurely on his former actings in other matters at London in the year 1659. And such also that is so manifestly untrue have his Answers been at Dublin some 2 or 3 years since to a Petition of mine presented here at London in behalf of the foresaid persecuted Remonstrants and Loyal Party of Irish Clergy-men who had likewise in former times on the other account of opposing the Nuncio suffered that for disproving him where amongst many other untruths in his said Answers he would insinuate there had not been any such former suffering of any of the Remonstrants from the Nuncio Party I judged it expedient to take likewise in this very Book or Second Part of the First Treatise thereof an occasion of Treating incidentally and giving all those many and manifold notorious instances you may see there Sect. II. from pag. 579 to pag. 601. of the grievous Persecutions which the said Loyal Irish Ecclesiasticks that opposed the Nuncio suffered therefore continually from 1646 to 1660 both at home in Ireland and abroad in all other Catholick Countries of Europe wheresoever they lived or whether they were driven after the Parliament Arms had prevailed in their own Countrey XVI Nothing less than nor yet any such thing as a design to undervalue the miracles reported on any sufficient ground to be wrought either in former or later times by any Saint or person of the Roman Church induced me to give that large Account of the famed wonder-working Irish Priest James Fienachty which you may read likewise in the said Second Part c Sect. XXI from pag. 710 to pag. 735. Beside the duty of an Historian which even alone might require that Narrative in that very place I had all the reason in the world to invite me to give it that Protestants may be convinced there are yet remaining of the Roman Church at least some even Irish Ecclesiasticks that desire not to maintain the truths of Christianity or Catholicism by Cheats or Tricks and Lyes and Mountebankries XVII I was mistaken in my Third Treatise of this Book pag. 29 where I supposed Father Nicholas Nettervil the Jesuit Doctor of Divinity had amongst others sign'd the Three first of the Six late Sorbon Propositions or Declarations applied c. For now looking by chance on the original Instrument of the said Three first Propositions c Sign'd by the General Congregation at Dublin and comparing the number and names of the Subscribers there to those who Sign'd their First Paper or Remonstrance I find Nine of those Remonstrators not to have subscribed to the foresaid later Instrument of their Three Propositions and that amongst these Nine N. N or the said Father Nicholas Nettervil of the Society of Jesus is one Which may seem as strange as it is true he having been the first man that offered to Sign even all
the foresaid Six of Sorbon applied c. Whereof you may see more in the Second Part of the First Treatise pag. 687. XVIII I can give no other excuse for the meanness or rather badness of my stile all along this Book but either my own inability to make it better or certainly my want of leasure to review or mend it having been necessitated to send my very first rough draughts sheet by sheet as I writ them to the Press Which was the reason that I took no care nor could of the language though I took enough of the matter I knew even when I was writing that I enlarged often and repeated the same things not seldom where I needed not were it my design to write onely for the Learned or those of quick apprehension But seeing those I intended chiefly to speak unto were the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland whereof very few are great Clerks I chose that manner of writing for their sake that the meanest of them might understand whatever I would be at XIX My reasons for annexing those three several Appendixes which after the Fourth Treatise you find in the end of the Book were chiefly 1. To convince thee good Reader with the greater clearness and evidence how necessary it was for the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland either to approve of and subscribe the foresaid Loyal Formulary of the year 1661 or certainly some other containing at least the substance thereof in point of indispensable Faith and Obedience to His Majesty being as it appears in the said Appendixes they had been formerly as to the generality or at least greater part of them so obnoxious to the Laws even after and in other instances than either the First Rebellion in 1641 or the continuance of the War till 1646 or even the breach of the First Peace or of that Peace I mean concluded published and received the same year 1646 both at Dublin Kilkenny and some other places and yet after all since His Majesties happy Restauration would be thought good Subjects and have expected as to matters of Religion the benefit of the Second Peace viz. of that of the year 1648 or at least a connivence at their free and publick exercise of Religion and respective Functions 2. To convince thee also how unreasonably the Fathers in particular of the foresaid National Synod or Congregation at Dublin in the year 1666 refused not only to subscribe or approve the above Loyal Formulary of 16661 nor only to give any other of their own framing which could signifie any thing more than a plain resolution of their side against being bound by Subscription or any other kind of profession to continue Loyal but even so much as to petition His Majesty for pardon nay so much as to acknowledge any Errour committed by them or any others of the Irish Clergy in the late Wars of that Kingdom 3. Besides I consider'd that in several places of this Book I related to the matters contain'd in those Appendixes And I thought it not amiss for that very reason to annex them at length were it but for satisfying the Reader 's curiosity XX. For what concerns particularly the First Appendix viz. the Kilkenny little Book of Queries c I had this further motive to re-print and annex it here that I might thereby shew the Reader I have not even in this present Work taught other Doctrine than such as might be consequential to and grounded upon those general Maxims of Truth and Faith and Duty and Obedience owing to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate notwithstanding any decision of the Pope to the contrary which I had so long before laid down and asserted even Four and twenty years since in that little Piece of mine * How much I suffered 〈◊〉 particularly for having been the genuine onely Author of that Kilkenny Book of Queries and how Emerus Mac Mahon the Bishop of Clogher threatning me therefore to my own face before at least Twenty Religious men swore a bloody Oath That if or although all Ireland were or should happen to be forgiven for their opposing the Nuncio yet I should never be forgiven especially for having written that Book See Pag. 584 in the Second Part First Tome at Kilkenny and asserted also therein even with the joint approbation and concurrence of One and thirty zealous Roman-Catholick Divines under their own proper hands whereof two were Bishops and the Bishops then of most repute for Learning and Piety in Ireland viz. David Roth Bishop of Ossory and Thomas Desse Bishop of Meath the former a Doway Doctor of Divinity and the latter a Parisian Doctor in the same Faculty Besides I had this other motive also viz. That I think what is there said to shew the Nullity of Rinuccini's Censures of Excommunication and Interdict against the Supreme Council c. and to shew it as well ex natura rei i. e. for want of any sufficient cause or mortal sin or contumacy against which they should have been fulminated as by vertue also of the Appeal interposed even the very same Discourse the same Reasons and Canons and other Authorities alledged there in answer to the Second Querie do no less manifestly in all points evince the Nullity of the several late Censures of Excommunication against me Indeed amongst those who understand my Latin Vindication * Hibernica Tert. Part. Epist I. ad Haroldum I need no such help but amongst others who understand English onely I thought it not amiss for this very end to cause a Re-impression here of that Book XXI It is true I do my self subscribe to that Book not as the onely Author but as one of the Colledge or of the Sixteen Answerers to the Queries propounded by the then Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland to David Lord Bishop of Ossory and the Colledge of Divines convened by him at the desire of the Council of purpose to answer those Queries Nor would I nor could I otherwise do for two Reasons 1. That I was desired by that Colledge of Divines to write in their name that Book of Queries and Answers c so as they all might jointly Sign it as their common and unanimous Resolves on the Queries proposed to them 2. That the immediate end of writing it was to undeceive the generality of the Irish Nation at that time divided in all Provinces Counties Baronies Parishes Cities Towns Villages and almost Houses throughout the Kingdom about the Cessation with Inchiquin of one hand and the Censures of Excommunication and Interdict of Rinuccini on the other It was to persuade them of the injustice and nullity of the said Censures and of the consequent obligations of all Church-men to open all their Churches and both Church-men and Lay-men to frequent their said Churches as they did before and not to regard but plainly to slight the Censures of the Nuncio enjoining the contrary Now the duller sort of the Commonalty was more like to be persuaded by
Three thousand pounds to build a Colledge I had no sooner put these two questions to them but they took Pen in hand and Signed that very Approbation of theirs which you see amongst those of others prefix'd to that little Book * Some years after but not before the Kingdom had been quite over-run by the Parliament I was told that one of the Society had reported I had in my Printing of this Book added much which was not in my Original written Copy and consequently which they had not approved To which the Answer is 1. That I was by the Colledge authorized to add in the Printing of it what I further pleased for strengthning or confirming by Law and Reasons their Resolves 2. That I added not a word in the Printing but onely out of the very Canons and Classick Authors what every one judged necessary I should add viz. very brief and very clear Solutions of some few Objections or rather Quotations brought me in two several Papers as from the Nuncio's Canonists or Learned Council the one Paper from Waterford the other from Galway and both against the validity of the Appeal and both also brought me just then when the Press was employed on that very point 3. That the general satisfaction which even all as well the Answerers as the Approvers of it yea those very Fathers of the Society found in it as soon as it came out in Print and continually after without objecting for so many years any such matter is a sufficient Argument that I dealt both fairly and conscientiously as I ought in Printing of this little Work with their Approbation XXV To understand more clearly what these other instances were besides those of the Insurrection in 1641 and continuation of the War till 1646 and breach of the First Peace made that same year 1646 and opposition after not only to the Cessation but to the Second Peace and both concluded in the year 1648 in which and for which other instances and I mean those hinted in general but not specified by me before the generality or any considerable part of the Roman-Catholick Irish Clergy of those dayes were obnoxious to the Laws there is very much to enlighten you in the Appendix of Instruments but much more in the Duke of ORMOND's long and excellent Letter which makes the last Appendix And therefore I would advise you to read that Letter in the first place i. e. before you read any other Part or Treatise of this Book although it be in order the very last Piece or Appendix of it XXVI Certainly it was no design that made me not give in the Appendix of Instruments as well the publick Acts of the Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Waterford under the Nuncio in the year 1646 against the Peace of that year as I gave those against both the following Cessation and other Peace concluded in the year 1648. The onely reason why I did not give them is That I had them not by me nor could have them from any other when I was Printing that Appendix Wherefore I must remit thee for them partly to honest Doctor Callaghan alias Philopater Irenaeus his Latin Vindiciae and partly to the English and both complete and accurate History of the whole last unhappy Wars of Ireland which is now preparing and you will suddenly see I hope XXVII This present Book not only as it now contains Four Treatises besides the Appendixes but as it was intended first to have also the Fifth and Sixth Treatise had been published at Dublin and in Easter Term there 1669 but that I was before viz. in September 1667 admonish'd for some prudential reasons to hold my hand for a time at least from going on with the Second Part of the First Treatise which is altogether of matters of Fact What those reasons were it 's needless to mention It sufficeth to tell here 1. That they related not to my self and consequently that they were no apprehensions of my side or of any other of my Friends that I had written or maintained any Doctrine or Proposition in this Book which might not very well abide the light and publick Censure of any Roman-Catholick Schools or Doctors proceeding on the grounds of Christianity or undoubted Catholick Truths 2. That soon after the foresaid Admonition I desisted from prosecuting any further study of this Book and suspended the Press when I came to pag. 442 which is in the First Part of the First Treatise having before that seen the Second Third and Fourth Treatises Printed there also at Dublin 3. That when after four years more the cause of that Admonition and those Reasons were wholly over I at the importunity of some judicious worthy Friends last year 1672. much about this time Twelve-month resumed here at London my intermitted-study of this Book to finish it as you see and so have added and Printed here what follows from the foresaid pag. 442 to the end of the Second Part of the First Treatise or to pag. 765 for some Fourscore sheets 4. That for this cause or the different places where this Book was Printed so by Parts you must not wonder at the difference of the Paper Ink and Character in those same Parts thereof The Dublin Printing-house was not furnish'd well with any of them but very ill at least with Paper and Letter when I Printed there and as ill with a Corrector too Albeit I must confess the London either Corrector or Printer which my Copies here lighted on hath also not seldom partly overseen and partly mistaken horribly And yet I think there are not any such over-sights or mistakes of either Correctors or Printers in any Part of this Book which alter the sense in any material thing though perhaps there may be some few that may a little retard some Readers 5. That to help this matter as well as I can at present I have in the preceding Leaf of the Body of the Book given those Errata or at least the most considerable of them which I have my self upon my own review observed leaving to thy discretion many lesser And perhaps too I leave some as great as any other but leave these onely because they escaped my observation as they easily might the Author For certainly as to literal faults nay and as to some verbal too any Author commonly speaking must be not the best Corrector of his own Work because he lightly runs over what he hath already in his head And yet after all I must confess I have been forc'd commonly all along to be my own Corrector such mean ones they were I lighted on in the Printing-houses and withal so ill written and blotted and crossed my own Copies i.e. my rough draughts were The greatest mischief was the Composers were sometimes pragmatical and sometimes impatient Which made them not to stay my reading of their amendments i.e. my seeing whether they had precisely observed my Corrections of every word and letter They often struck
day of the Congregation the Fathers being assembled to hear from their Commissioners Kilfinuragh and Ardagh an account of their last Address on Saturday night to the Lord Lieutenant the Procurator gives them His Grace's positive Commands to dissolve that morning Ardagh on the other side endeavours to make them believe I know not what and misrepresents His Grace's words He is by the Procurator immediately and publickly to his face opposed in his relation 704. That matter being over the Primat seconded by Father Oliver Deesse Vicar-General of Meath and others stands up and in behalf of the House offers the second time to the Procurator Two thousand pounds sterl to bear his Charges for the next three years to come And when the Procurator had on such account refused to receive any money from them the Primat with the rest desires him to receive the said Sum at least for his re-imbursement of what he had already expended in their service the five years past He offers besides all kind of commendatory Letters from the Congregation to the Court of Rome in behalf of the said Procurator All which the Procurator thanking them first refuses and why 705. Three several matters of importance moved then by the Procurator to the Congregation 706. On the First viz. concerning not only Publick Prayers for both the Spiritual and Temporal prosperity of the King but moreover a due observance amongst them and their respective Flocks the Roman-Catholick People of the Publick dayes of Humiliation or Fasts and Prayers which the King or His subordinate chief Governours of Ireland should thenceforth command all His Subjects to observe the Procurator discourses at large 706 707 708 709. On the Second viz. concerning the famed wonder-working Priest Father James Fienachty he discourses far more largely in the Account given by him then of the said Father Fienachty to the Congregation 710. and from thence to 735. On the third viz. concerning two Books written by two Irish Churchmen the one a Jesuit the other a Cappuccin against the Rights of the Crown of England in or to Ireland he discourses 736. and from thence to 742. What the Fathers determined on the first of those three matters 709. What on the second 739. What on the third and last of them 741. The Secretary of the Congregation his Letter to the Procurator from Rosse of the 7th of July viz. a Fortnight after the Congregation had been dissolved 742. The Congregation dissolved ib. Lord Lieutenant's Declaration of the experience he had for twenty years of the Roman-Catholick Irish Prelates made to Ronan Magin Vicar-General of Dromore and to the Procurator the very same morning the Congregation dissolved 743. His Grace commands the Procurator to tell the Bishops of Ardagh and Kilfinuragh He would speak to them before they departed the Town and why 744. Kilfinuragh removes his Lodging flies out of Town and privily out of the whole Kingdom though he might have stayed without any hazard there having been no harm intended to him 744 747 748. The Lord Lieutenant understanding that Kilfinuragh could not be found sent William Sommers to leave an Order at the Lodgings both of the Primat and Ardagh in case he could meet neither at home enjoining them not to part out of Town without His Grace's leave 744. Within a few dayes more He sends the Procurator to tell the Primat of some dangerous Intelligence come against him from beyond Sea Soon after the said Primat is put under a Guard but within a very little time more according to his own election sent safely away through England from Dover to Callice in France 746. Ardagh freed from all Confinement ib. Both he and all the rest of the Members of the Congregation even after 't was ended and however they carried themselves in it were free to depart whithersoever they pleased and live where they would in Ireland onely the Primat excepted and he also excepted onely because of the positive information come against him out of Spain from the English Ambassador there Pag. 747 749. The Procurator's judgment of the said National Congregation leading Members thereof and of their several interests and ends 749 750 751. How presently after that National Congregation had dissolved the Doctrine of Allegiance in those Fifteen several Propositions or Paragraphs which you find in this Book immediately after the end of the Fourth Treatise pag. 80 81 82 83. was debated for a Month by a number of Divines convening daily at Dublin and in the same place where the foresaid National Congregation sate 752 753 754 755. The Names of the Divines that debated so the said Fourteen Propositions 755. Animadversions on and Answers to two passages of a late Letter viz. of the 6th of Octob. 1669. from the Bishop of Ferns at Gaunt to the Procurator at London The former passage this Father Peter Walsh is said to have used fraud and force in the Congregation of the Clergy at Dublin anno 1666 and that he kept an Anti-Congregation of his own Faction I saw a Relation sent over of that I saw also severe Lines of a great Cardinal to that purpose The latter this viz. It was ill taken by all That after Cardinal Franciscus Barberinus 's Letter in His Holinesse's Name to the Clergy he viz. Father Peter Walsh no way lowr'd his Sail but remained obstinate and insolent I likewise saw a great mans Letter I mean a Roman termed him and Caron Apostates 756 757 758 759 760 761. The Death-bed Declaration of the said Reverend Learned and Pious Father Redmund Caron ib. Another likewise but of the Right Reverend Father in God that excellent man Judicious Prelate and Loyal Subject Thomas Desse Lord Bishop of Meath who dyed at Galway in the year 1651. 670. A Paper of Animadversions on the insignificant Remonstrance of the foresaid National Congregation written by the Right Honourable the Earl of Anglesey now Lord Privy Seal and by himself given to the Lord Lieutenant 762. The Lord Lieutenant's commands on that occasion to the Procurator These and some remembrances also of other matters relating to the said Earl of Anglesey i. e. of some kind indulgent words upon a certain occasion spoken by his Lordship of the former and Loyal even Ecclesiastical Remonstrators and of his further intentions relating to them declared to His Grace the Duke of ORMOND then Lord Lieutenant were at least one moyety of the most immediate inducements the Author i. e. the said Procurator had to write this Book 763 764 c. In the Second Treatise Which contains Exceptions against the Remonstrance of the National Congregation c. THE National Irish Congregation varied in their Remonstrance of the year 1666 not only as to single words but as to entire clauses and their sense in the most material parts from the former Protestation subscribed by those others of the Irish Clergy and of the Nobility also and Gentry at London in the year 1661 S. V. And varied so of set purpose
thereof in Ireland was too well known and how he had been one of the Delegats made by or in pursuance of that subreptitious Bull procured from Alexander the VII for absolving from the Nuntio's censures as if Innocent the X. had determined the controversy and appeal against the Appellants adherers to the Cessation made with the Baron of Inchiquin which yet never appeared to have been so determined by Innocent and therefore consequently and for many other notorious false informations it is very certain that according to the Canons this Bull of Alexander the VII must be void in it self yet even this very Bishop sent to the said Sir Nicholas Plunket that he for his part approved of the Protestation And for Cluanfert albeit the most earnest of all when at home in Ireland for the Nuncio he was as farr off as Hungary if then alive and nothing could be heard from him No more did any thing in a pretty while after from Nicholas French the Bishop of Ferns officiating at St. Diego in Gallicia for the Arch-bishop of that See but what he writ to the Procuratour himself with whom ever since the Kings Restauration he kept frequent correspondence and gave him evident arguments of his falling off from the Nuncio's party ever since he had a sight some two years before His Majesty was restored of that wicked feditious book delivered in hand-writing by Richard Ferral the Cappucin to the Congregation of Cardinals De Propaganda Fide at Rome The contents of which booke and particularly because the Authors of it fell fouly and generally therein upon all the Catholicks of Brittish extraction in Ireland and would have none such ever preferred by the Pope to any ecclesiastical dignity in Ireland and yet very particularly taxed the said Bishop of Ferns himself notwithstanding all his former zeal and Sir Nicholas Plunket also with him though joynt Embassadours to Rome of having betrayed the cause of the Nuncio and holy See to their Adversaries these contents I say and the Proceedings consequent thereunto of that Congregation de propaganda did so estrange Ferns that he sent to London several papers and books of his own study written against that Book though not yet come to publick view from the print As Father Iohn Lynch a priest of Galway at St. Malâ—s hath already published in print his Alithinologia dedicated to the same Congregation de propaganda against it From Ferns therefore they had nothing at all to countenance them at that time if his many and frequent letters under his own hand to the Procurator can be testimonies of his judgment as I am sure they are for he is candid man In which letters he signified at first his own approbation of it so far that he maintained in Spain privately against such Irish as he heard speak against it to himself the lawfulness of it though withal confessing he was not provided of such books as could enable him sufficiently having not before then studied that question but gone along heretofore in practice and theory with that common opinion which was taught in the Schools where he had been conversant formerly Only that after this Remonstrance came forth he lighted by chance on a little book called Strena Catholica written by an English Catholick Divine some fifty years since for the catholickness and lawfulnes of the English Oath of Allegiance in the Statute of King Iames enacted by occasion of the Powder-plot Treason And that out of this little book he reason'd for the Remonstrance against those Irish that opposed it in Spain Where yet he added it was not fit for him to declare himself more at that time and this was when the Queen was come from Portugal when for many reasons it was feared there would not be twixt that Country where he was exiled and England such fair correspondence kept And on the other side he was not sure of protection at home in Ireland Yet withal he advised the Procurator to write an Apology for himself and the cause in hand to his Holiness being he had so many opposers of his country-men at Rome And this was all that Ferns declared of his own judgment or inclinations in that matter until the Congregation of 66. was passed For the Archbishop of Ardmagh Primate Reilly he was indeed recalled to Rome and was there soon after the said Remonstrance was published and for three whole years after but wary enough not to appear in any thing against it but by such Letters to the Procurator as told him that his Holiness however displeased yet would not meddle in any censures against it that his little book entituled The more ample Account published in English on that Remonstrance being translated at Rome into Italian and Latine in order to be censured if they could pick out of it any colourable pretence lay dormant at last in the Colledge de propaganda without any censure at all and was like to continue so for ever notwithstanding all the endeavours used to get it burned or censured at least The good old sickly Archbishop of Tuam remains of all those Irish Bishops were abroad then Nor did he as yet then contribute to any more opposition although wholy in the hands and power of some Fathers of the Society but what you have to this letter which he gave in answer to the Bishop of Dromores to him from London To the most Reverend my Lord Bishop of Dromore c. London My Lord YOur Letter of the 9th of January and received on Monday last could have no speedier answer by reason of my distance from the Post This only to let your Lordship know it is come to hand and that I am making ready copies of the paragraph thereof that concerns your inclosed paper and of the paper it self to send to the respective places where any of our brethren reside in France that being in my opinion a better course to comply with your Lordships desire of the speedy return thereof then to send one about which would require more time I do not think but the subscription of the said paper may have some difficulty not through any dis-affection to our Soveraigns service but through the mis-constructions its stile resembling somewhat the Oath of Allegiance is subject unto and the occasion some unsettled spirits will take to gloss upon it and wrest out of our good intentions venome to spue in our faces as your Lordship knows they do with less grounds The proof that was made of loyalty to our Soveraign by what we have suffered at home and even yet suffer abroad rather then we should flinch from our duty to his Majesty when we had some power might be very sufficient satisfaction to any indifferent man that we forget not nor can forget our obligations to our natural Prince We rather daily pray for his Majesties prosperity and cause those that depend upon us so to do then think of any other forrein power or Prince for to deprive our own
controversie is in whose time Ptolomey likewise surnamed Epiphanes King of Egypt dyed and his young Son called Ptolomey Philometor was crowned after him King of Egypt and by consequence had the dominion of Ierusalem and Iewry That Antiochus Epiphanes that wicked ambitious and most cruell King of Asia and Syria taking advantage of the minority of this young Ptolomey Philometor without any just cause or provocation or any other but his own ambitious desires entred Egypt with a huge army and with intention to seize the young King and possess himself of all his Kingdom of Egypt and of his other dominions and wel-nigh effected his designs having after his taking of Memphis besieged Alexandria it self and the young King therein but was on a suddain forced to break up his siege and relinquish all again and retire immediatly out of all Egypt upon summons sent him by the Romans to do so or abide a sharp war from them That in his forced return to his own Kingdom some few wicked Jews having out of desire to be revenged of others even by the loss of their Countrey animated him to camp before Ierusalem and the riches of that City and treasures of the Temple there having set him all on fire with covetousness he marched directly towards it and the Gates being treacherously set open to him by those within of that wicked faction he surprized it in the hundred fourty and third year of the raign of Seleucus the year of the world 3796. and before Christ 168. years That as this was done without any consent of the people generally or of their Governours so he behaving himself immediatly after as the most cruel tyrant that even surprized any place and having broke all kind of conditions either concerning Religion Estate or life even with those very traytors of their own City and Countrey and having spoiled both the City and Temple and carried all the spoils with him to Antioch but two years after he surprized them so and having left most cruel Edicts after him for the future and those put in execution with unparelled cruelty it is evident enough that as he had no just title for that was nor any permission from the lawful hereditary King Ptolomey Philometor to seize Ierusalem or Iewry so he had none from the people of Ierusalem or Iewry either first or last to entitle him to the rights of a lawful King not even I say from them in case they could justly give any such their own hereditary King being still alive and still too in possession of the greatest part of his dominions nor could two years such forcible and cruel possession entitle him to any right at all That in fine as all this is manifest in History in that of Iosephus I mean and in his twelfth Book of the Antiquities of the Jews and in his eleventh for what concerns Alexander the Great himself and being further it is no less manifest in the same History of Iosephus and in the seventh and eight chapters of the said twelfth Book and in the marginal Chronology That Mattathias took arms against the said Antiochus Epiphanes immediatly after the said second year of his unlawful possession kept of Iewry 〈…〉 is immediatly â—ften the 〈◊〉 and general and cruel 〈…〉 it is no less evident 〈◊〉 foâ— that he did so that is 〈…〉 his 〈…〉 King but against 〈…〉 unjust Usurper and Tyâ—â—â— also no less 〈◊〉 And consequently that no warlike actions nor exhortations of Mattathias nor any other of that Machabâ—â—â— ar◠〈◊〉 of his Sons or of that whole Nation of the Jews against Antiochus that faithless impious inhumane King of Asia â—â—e to any purpose alledged to maintain the pretended inherent power of any Subjects whatsoever to rebell against their own true â—egal undoubted rightful hereditary King however oppressing them either in their religious or civil rights or both And this is the second answer I intended in my More Ample Account And which I give here not that it is any way necessary or directly at all to that which our present Adversaries the Authors of this second paper dispute of principally at this present or in this paper I now answer but because they have given me by their indirect reflections and by their impertinencius therein a just occasion for which I thank them to give it here for a further illustration of what I said formerly on this subject XXXV As for their Latin Postscript because I guess it was only added as an answer to an argument I press'd them with ad hominem as we speak as also with the conclusion of it in English two of their own general principles or doctrine of Probability to convince them of the lawfulness in point of conscience of subscribing the Remonstrance notwithstanding the pretence of some not only extrinsick authority 〈◊〉 even intrinsick probability appearing still in their very souls though I never did nor do believe there was any such against some position or supposition wherein that Remonstrance is grounded or which is therein contained I allow them till the advantage they can derive from these Câ—suists even as themselves quote them here For I am sure they will accordingly find the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be at least both extrinsecally and intrinsecally most probable and consequently the signing of it lawful in point of conscience But abstracting 〈◊〉 these rules and authority of Casuists which at least in 〈◊〉 matter of probability and as I have most clearly shown in my More Ample Account pag. 16. c. ought to be not only abstracted from but quite rejected as most unsafe and false and erroneous as likewise and by consequence the final English perclose as a corollary thence derived of this paper I now consider I am no less certain they will find themselves obliged in point of conscience to approve of all the doctrine positions and suppositions too of the said Remonstrance and reject and condemn the contrary as very false eroneous and scandalous too and consequently very sinful if not manifestly heretical in Christian Faith If I say they have studied or shall as they ought to do the arguments on both sides or but consulted with the Catholick Authors that have so lately handled them at large against the sophismes of Bellarmine and others of 〈◊〉 way For I fear they will not take the paâ—ts to sougth 〈…〉 â—â—â—ancie famous great and Classick Authors and 〈◊〉 in them their own ignorance and errour so long since reproach'd in the very Schools For as concerning the Scriptures and Fathers and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church and practice of Primitive Christians and that also of all ensuing ages till the Eleventh of Christianity under Gregory the Seventh they themselves cannot â—â—ny all to be against them Whereof and â—s with other both arguments and objections 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 I could heartily wish they would to satisfie yet more fully themselves take but so much pains as to read over the Barclays and Wriddringâ—â—n Father
answer that Affrican Synod where those Fathers reprove the injustice of Celestine's demand of such transmarine judgments in the case of Apiarius requiring it to be transmitted out of Affrick to Rome and reprove I say that injustice in these very words which you may read in the now mentiond Synodical Epistle a few lines after the former words Or how can that kind of transmarine judgment be rational or legal whereunto the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought because either of their sex or infirmities of old age or of many other intervening impediments But that neither within the limits of the same Province nor even where the crossing of the Sea is unnecessary the parties accused be drawn too farre from their dwelling places and so molested too much by the Judges on pretence of a judicatory Innocent the Third has enacted even in a Councel Oecomenical of the whole earth cap. Nâ—nnulli Extra de Rescriptis But all this and very many other passages to this purpose I pass over at present as I have said before I pass over likewise that exception which the Canons allow against the unsafety of the place to which the summons are the unsafety of it I say if the nature of the controversy and present circumstances be considered Especially if we call to mind what several Religious men and of several Orders too that to clear themselves from calumnies in a Controversy not altogether unlike this and being not even summond in that or any other cause whatsoever nor convicted of any kind of crime the Judges themselves confessing both did venture hence to goe and appear at Rome or Madrit have suffered in our own days in our own late memory and suffered too without so much as any kind of even the very external formality of law or canons observed towards them and suffered so too most plainly against all the laws of God and nature And if we call moreover to mind those inhumane plots contrived in forraign Countries against the very lives of some even of our secular Nobility that having been formerly engaged with us in the same controversy were after in the ruine forced to shift abroad plots layd by some of those very men that now again endeavour to embroyle all anew commixe heaven and earth put all things out of frame the second time into the most horrid confusion they can of purpose partly to asperse and be revenged of us In fine I pass over the greatest exception of all The quarrel against us and the controversy in all parts to be such as concerns the temporal rights of all supream lawful Magistrates or Governours Kings and States Kingdoms and Common-wealths that acknowledge no dependency in temporals but from God alone whether they be Christians or Pagans Orthodox or Heterodox believers And consequently such whereof the Minister general or Commissary National of St. Francis's Order is so farre wide from being judge I mean as to any effect of being able and I speake onely here of ability in point of conscience to oblige their Inferiours to determine in any part against the right of Princes or silence the truth of the Gospel of Christ in this matter chiefly where the declaration of such truth is needful amongst Sectaries that are partly for want of such declaration made to them by Catholicks known to continue their separation walke in darkness and have a most strange aversion from the Church of Rome that neither is the great and most blessed Pontiff himself alone reputed a competent much less infallible Judge in this controversy not I say reputed so even by most celebrious and most excellent Catholick Divines though earnest renowned Champions for the Roman Faith in all its tenets and latitude Which manifestly abundantly appears not onely out of the late Decree of the Theological Faculty of Paris of the 8. of May this present year 1663. and many other decisions not of that Faculty of Paris alone but of all other Vniversities of the Kingdom of France and of the Gallicane Church too in general since the horrid murthers of Henry the Third and Fourth even of National Councels of the Bishops of the same Church against the several attempts of Boniface the Eight and Julius the Second but also out of the carriadge books actions of the Divines and Prelats of the Venetian Republick and Church against Paul the Fift in the year 1606. out of the sense and sentence of the Archbishops Bishops and Abbots of the Catholick Church of England in the Raigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second above 300. years since Gregory the Eleventh and Martin the Fift strugling to the contrary but to no purpose as you may read even in Polydore Virgil in his life of Edward the Third out of the German Italian and other Churches truly Orthodox of several Nations of Europe their Prelats and Clergie who adhered to the Roman Emperours where the temporal rights were concernd against Gregory the Seventh and some other great Bishops of the Roman Sea lastly and yet more particularly our of our own William Occam in the cause of Lewis of Bauier and out of Iâ—â—nnes Parisiensis Gerson Major Almain Cardinal Cusan c. most famous writers and Doctors too both Catholick and Classick nay if any credit be given to Aventinus in his Seventh book of his Boiarian Annals where he relates the Decree of the foresaid Emperour Lewis of Bauier out of that General and celebrated Chapter of the whole very Order of St. Francis held at Perusia in Italy or out I mean of the famous Appeal they all that is their General Provincials and Doctors of Divinity made therein from Iohn the two and twentieth Pope of that name to a future Oecumenical Council of Christendom although I do not deny but the most immediate occasion of their appearing so as is related in that History against the Pope and appealing from him was his condemning the Franciscans for teaching That neither Christ nor his Apostles had any temporal right or property in earthly goods but onely simplicem usum facti Whom therefore in shew but really for an other cause that is for their siding against him with the Emperour and maintaining by their pens and Sermons the Emperours temporal rights he tearmed foolish animals pernicious foxes that by a seeming strictness of religion and hypocrisy abused the world and seduced the people having first set forth those Extravagants which you may read in the Canon law against the Order it self All which I say and very much more of this kind I pass over at present Nor least I exceed the measure of an epistle do I at this time alledge either those other arguments derived from the intrinsick nature or as they speak commonly from the very bowels of the cause it self or those which may be brought from or out of Canonical Scriptures or the monuments of holy Fathers who in a continual succession for nine hundred years compleat nay till the eleventh age of Christianity delivered
Accounts I have said before further'd in a high manner by the same Padre Oliva and others of that Society as a matter conducing mightily to their interest c. And yet withall I am not wholly ignorant how by whom to whom when and for what other ends quite different or disparate that promotion was here at London so lately as the year 1668 or 1669. earnestly recommended to be at Rome effectually and speedily granted Much less am I so forgetful as not to remember the manifest Arguments given to my self by the said Prelate himself about four or five years before he was made Prelate i. e. in the year 1664. that he was not called by God as Aaron was but by his own Ambition being he could not then however too early and unseasonably abstain from coming of purpose to my Chamber to importune my self as he did to take off a certain Nobleman from hindering his said promotion So early to my own knowledge did he for himself sollicite that dignity And consequently so Vn-Aaron-like was he called to it if not peradventure to melt the Ear-rings and frame the Golden Calf and lead the people back to Egypt But of this good Prelates engaging so violently and maliciously against the Remonstrants more at large and of purpose elsewhere in due time and place And so I have done my occasional Animadversions upon as well this late Letter of Oliva as upon those former of Internuncio de Vecchiis Whereupon as I have questionless by Anticipation said some things here so you good Reader are to take notice that I write this present Section now in the year 1672. when I resumed the continuation of this Work or First Treatise thereof from page 442. where at the command of others I stopt the Printer in the year 1668. And therefore you are not to wonder if in some passages of this Book you are given to understand it had been written and printed four or five years sooner than by matters here or elsewhere related you find it has That indeed of finishing and publishing it in 1668. was my design nor was it my fault that it was not compassed But for your further satisfaction herein you may turn back to my Preface LXXXV NOW if you please I will give what was consequential to Internuncio de Vecchiis message to Caron and Walsh by Gearnon For there viz. in the perclose of my Lxxxiii Section I broke off the Thread of my Discourse to insert those matters you have now immediately read in my last or Lxxxiv Section De Vecchiis not content with his said verbal message by Gearnon suddenly after writes to my Lord Aubigny the Queens grand Almoner entreating him to work at least with Caron to go to Bruxels and withall enclosing another Letter to Caron himself This to Caron you have here Reverende in Christo Pater INtelliget Paternitas Vestra ex Patre Gearnono causas propter quas confirmatio vestra in Commissarium Visitatorem Hiberniae redditur difficilis Ego tamen qui multum defero officiis Illustrissimi Domini de Aubigni voluntati Excellentissimi Pro-Regis Hiberniae optarem difficultates supradictas amovere Ad quod faciendum puto esse unicum medium si scilicet Reverentia Vestra vellet huc ad me venire tunc enim possetis conferre cum Superioribus vestri Ordinis cum aliis Theologis super vestra illa Formula quae est lapis scandali amicabiliter convenire ac in gratiam Superiorum vestrorum redire Contribuam ad haec omnem operam meam cum fructu ut spero dummodo Reverentia vestra ex parte sua velit ad eumdem finem collimare Intelligetis plura super hoc proposito a Praefato Patre Gearnono ad quem me refero unum hoc addens Reverentiam vestram posse absque timore alicujus molestiae aut ex parte Ordinis aut cujusvis alterius huc accedere prout vobis fide publica polliceor in praesenti ac spondebo etiam Dominis de Aubigni Duci Ormoniae Precabor interim Deus ut vobis inspiret illud consilium quod ad salutem vestram incrementum Orthodoxae fidei magis conduit Bruxellis 9. Januar. 1665. Paternitatis Vestrae Ama nâ—ssimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis POSTSCRIPT Cum in Martio proximo hinc Romam versus discessurus sim optarem quantocius adventum vestrum The Letter Superscribed thus Reverendo in Christo Patri Patri Red nundo Caronio Ordinis S. Francisci Londini In English thus Reverend Father in Christ FRom Father Gearnon your Paternity will understand the causes wherefore your confirmation as to the office of Commissary and Visitator of Ireland is rendred difficult Yet I who have a griat regard both unto the good offices of the most illustrious Lord Aubigny and pleasure of the most excellent Vice-Roy of Ireland could wish those difficulties removed To the compassing of which I think the only medium is that your Reverence would come hither to me For then you might confer with the Sureriours of your Order and other Divines upon that Formulary which is the Rock of Scandal and you might agree amicably and so return to the good grace or favour of your Superiours Hereunto I shall contribute all my endeavours to good purpose I hope provided that your Reverence do of your side aim at the same end Of these matters you shall understand more from the foresaid Gearnon to whom I refer my self adding only this That your Reverence may without fear of any trouble either in behalf of or from the Order or of or from any other come hither as I do on publick Faith promise you at present and will also promise to my Lords Aubigny and Duke of Ormond In the mean time I shall pray that God may inspire that counsel to you which most conduces to your salvation and increase of the Orthodox Faith Bruxels the 9th of January 1665. Your Paternities Most Loving Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal. POSTCRIPT Whereas I am next March to go hence towards Rome I could wish your speedy Arrival here The Superscription thus To the Reverend Father in Christ Father Redmund Caron of St. Francis's Order at London To both i. e. to that verbal message by Gearnon and this Letter by Aubigny however Caron demurred yet he answered civilly by Letter excusing himself to the Internuncio The truth is he was at that time not only employ'd in writing and near finishing his Latin Folio Work bearing Title Remonstrantia Hibernorum contra Louanienses but was also unwealdy and very unable for a Winter journey over Seas And yet withall I confess he declared positively several times then to my self that had he been as healthy and strong as ever yet he would not go upon any such invitation because he foresaw very well and certainly there was nothing intended but deceit and circumvention and that the Court of Rome whose slavish servants not only the Internuncio Minister Apostolick and Commissary General of
stile onely of the address changed for the Province of Ardmagh was to the foresaid Dr. Patrick Daly himself as exercising the exiled Archbishop and Primate Edmund Reilly's Jurisdiction over the whole Province of Ardmagh containing in all ten Diocesses to wit Ardmagh Clogher Dune Conâ—er Derry Raphoe Kilmore Ardagh Meath and Cluaâ—macnoise Fourth Letter to the foresaid James Dempsy as likewise during the vacancy exercising Metropolitical Jurisdiction in the whole Province of Leinster i.e. the five several Diocesses of Dublin Kildare Leighlin Ferns and Ossory all those Sees being then vacant except onely Ferns the Bishop whereof Nicholas French having retired in the War-time about the year 1650. and as yet in 1665. living in S. Jago of Galicia in Spain thought not fit to return home to his charge in Ireland without first having obtained His Majesties or the Lord Lieutenants Licence to that purpose Fifth Letter was to another John Burk then Vicar-Apostolick of the Archiepiscopal See of Cashil in Munster to be in the same manner as the other Letters were to be to those of other Provinces respectively communicated to the several Vicars-General of all the vacant Sees under the Jurisdiction of Cashil which are Imly Waterford and Lismore Cork Rosse Cluan Limmerick Acadensis in Kerry Killaloe and Finiborensis or Kilfinuran in Tomond For albeit the Bishop of this last See was then as he is still alive yet being in France and so in effect vacant his Vicar-General was to have particular intimation As for all and every of the other Sees of the Province they were absolutely vacant their Bishops being all dead before that time whereof the last was Robert Barry of Cork who also however in former times an earnest zealous Nuntiotist upon receipt of Letters and Books from London in the year 1662. giving an account of the Remonstrance approved it as you have seen before Sect. V. page 13. of the First Part of this Treatise Sixth Letter was to Antony Docharty Minister Provincial of the Franciscans the most numerous Order in Ireland as being even at that time so soon after the Tyranny of the late Usurping powers at least 400 at home besides those not only in their own Irish Collegiate Convents at Rome Prague and Louain but dispersed in other Convents amongst the Native Italians French Spaniards Germans c. in the several Kingdoms States and Nations of Europe Seventh Letter to John O Hairt Prior Provincial of the Dominicans the Order for number in that Kingdom next to the Franciscans even at that time being near 200. Eighth Letter to Stephen Lynch Prior Provincial of the Augustinians or those called Hermits of St. Augustine in all about an Hundred Ninth Letter to _____ Sall Superiour Provincial of the Jesuits some 25 or thereabouts in number Tenth Letter to Thomas Dillon Prior Provincial of the Discalceat Carmelites much about the number of the Jesuits or rather not so many Eleventh Letter to Gregory Mulchonry Commissary or Superiour of the Mission of Cappuccins making in all about some Twenty or near Twelfth Letter to _____ Abbot of _____ Superintendent of the Monks of St. Bernard's Order in all a few Titular Abbots Nine or Ten perhaps or thereabouts who served in some Parishes as Curates or Parish-Priests But who that Superiour of theirs was I do not remember now yet remember notwithstanding that one Father Bartholomew Fitz-Gerrald titular Abbot of Baltinglass appeared in the Congregation and none other of them As for the Calceat Carmelites there was but one onely of them in the Kingdom as of the Chanons Regular of St. Austin but peradventure three or four Titular Priors and then officiating as Parish-Priests tyed to the Cure of Souls in one Parish onely for those others then at home in Ireland called Titular Priors of some of the anciently great and rich Monasteries of the Order of Chanons Regular we know to have been onely such by Commendam as not otherwise professed Chanons but onely Priests of the Secular Clergy who had got Bulls from the Pope to be Priors of such or such of those rich Cloysters hoping one day or other to enjoy the Revenues of them Of this sort I knew one and but one yet withal such an one as truly was unworthy the name not only of Prior but even of either Chanon-Priest or Clerk Others said they knew two or three more such in other remote parts of the Kingdom I mean such as to the Title of Commendatory Priors though not as to the indignity of their persons or qualities however otherwise for parts obscure enough And in the last place for what concerns the Benedictin Monks who if I had ranked the Orders according to their Antiquity should be together with those Chanons-Regular Treated of before any of the Mendicant Orders they were not known to be above two or three in the whole Kingdom if so many Which paucity and withal obscurity there and then of these three Orders lastly Treated of viz. Calceat Carmelites Chanons Regular of St. Augustin and Monks of St. Benedict's Institute was the reason there was no particular Letter of intimation to them or any of them But for the Bishop of Ardagh himself who sign'd the Letters being he was to reside constantly in Dublin where the Congregation was to meet and that he pretended no Jurisdiction over any other Diocess but his own of Ardagh he would have none to himself but excused that needless trouble of having a Copy written and sign'd for himself promising nevertheless to acquaint his own Vicar-General and Clergy with the tenour and purpose of such Letter And for the other Bishops then surviving and remaining in forreign Parts viz. Edmund Reilly Archbishop of Ardmagh and Primat of all Ireland Nicholas French Bishop of Ferns and Andrew Lynch Bishop of Kilfinuran they were only by the Procurator's own Letters or perhaps moreover by some Duplicats of that to Tuam to be acquainted with the whole design and transaction of it and to be so invited home to that National meeting if themselves should think fit to venture coming and the Procurator promise them protection or a safe connivence from the Lord Lieutenant Those Twelve Letters and some Duplicats also of that to Tuam being at last sign'd by all four and by their own proper hands and consequently even by James Dempsy himself the most reluctant of all and so reluctant verily that after expressing his consent as being over-rul'd yet he declined signing all he could and therefore chang'd his Lodging and writ a Letter excusing himself as necessitated to depart suddenly out of Town but withal pretending that he would Cemmission some other to sign in his name although being found out and the originals sign'd by the other three brought to him he could not for shame but sign also with his own hand as he did then presently those original Letters and Duplicats I say being so sign'd and endorsed and by the said Bishop of Ardagh sealed with a flying Seal being also ordered by
any kind of Peace with the Protestant Royal Party nay where all the whole Diffinitory consisting then of nine Vocals was only of those called by way of distinction the meer or more ancient Irish not as much as one of those other of the old English blood or name being elected or admitted but by a wicked Conspiracy and for the ends of the Nuncio and Owen O Neill laid by the Nuncio himself having stayed Three months at Galway i. e. near Rosserial of purpose to see all this done as himself gloried to Thomas Dese then Bishop of Meath and yet a Conspiracy never before hapned not even since the Franciscan Order was introduced into Ireland in St. Francis's own dayes by an English Nobleman Morris Fitz-Gerrald near 500 years since Nor 2. The great storm immediately after that Chapter and that same year 1647. raised at Kilkenny against Peter Walsh i. e. my self at that time one of the two actual Professors or Readers of Divinity in the Franciscan Monastery there a storm which continued against him even in that very place for seven Months which suspended him first from Preaching then prepared a Domus Disciplinae for him and this not only after a formal Appeal made to the Commissary General but also both by an express command of the Nuncio himself and by a formal sentence too of the above Diffinitory with their Provincial Makiernan come of purpose thither next dissolved the Philosophy School and presently after even also the other of Divinity then seemingly dispersed the very Professors in all six to try whether that would make him they aimed at retire at last and when he would not otherwise forc'd him by a formal Precept and under Excommunication to depart within Twenty four hours as a banishâ—d man and not enter any Sea-town or other place that had a Library yea never more to return without special Licence There having been no other true cause no nor as much as pretence or colour of all that not only severe and violent prosecution of me but utter confusion and total cessation also even of the publick Studies of the Province but that in a Sermon preached by me at a publick Exposition of the Sacrament I preached in general terms against those more publick Sins of all degrees of people and more especially the Sins of Perjury against the Oath of Association and consequently those of Disobedience and Rebellion against the Supreme Authority and that to my purpose of shewing the Judgments of God inflicted even on Christian and Catholick Nations in former times I produced some examples out of ancient History particularly out of Gildas Sapiens in his Book de Excidio Britannico which were thought to have reflected on the Nuncio and his party of Irish Ecclesiasticks and that I refused to retract that Sermon or reflection and retract it I mean in such form as they would have me do but rather when they forced me again into the Pulpit confirm'd all again though only in general terms as in the former Sermon against all such of whatever degree as found themselves guilty Behold the onely true cause or as much as pretence though somewhat strengthned as they would make themselves believe by objecting further to me but most falsly on the very moment wherein my sentence of Banishment was pronounced that they were informed I was then writing a Book for the Press And yet I confess it was a Cause which the Nuncio took so much to heart that himself in person accompanied with the Bishop of Ferns not being able to press in to the Chappel through the croud endeavoured nevertheless to send in through them to silence me in the very Pulpit and then also when I was in the heat of my exaggerations and applications And that besides when Sermon was done and his Lordship retired to his own house in great trouble and that I was by a Messenger call'd and appear'd that very Evening his Lordship gave me this short applause and entertainment Pater Valesi hodie infecisti totam Nobilitatem Hiberniae perdidisti rem nostram nimium pupugisti nos And so turn'd his back withdrawing from me Nor 3. Constantinus Mahony alias Cornelius a Sancto Patricio the Irish Jesuits Book dispersed privily that same year or precedent in all parts of that Kingdom against any Right in the Kings of England in or to Ireland whereof more hereafter in its due place Nor 4. The surprisal of the Castle of Athlone that same very year too by the Nuncio's Party and his Lordships refusing to give any effectual commands for the restoring it as he refused also to give up to secular justice Joh-Bane Parish-Priest then of Athlone in whose hands the foresaid Book against then King was found Nor 5. in the year 1649. the popular Sedition and both furious dangerous and memorable Tumult at Kilkenny of a rascal plebeian multitude of some Hundreds if not Thousands of men and women in the dusk of an Evening called together and wrought upon by the circumvention and manifest lyes of seven or eight Franciscans of the Nuncio's declared party to attempt by plain force and this even within the Franciscan Monastery there the murdering of the Reverend Commissary Caron and other Fathers with him viz. John Barnwall Reader of Divinity Antony Gearnon Guardian of Dundalk James Fitz-Simon Guardian of Montifernan Patrick Plunket Confessor to the poor Clares of Athlone and Peter Walsh actual Reader of Divinity then in that very Convent and one who so lately before viz. in the year 1646. sav'd both Mayor and Aldermen from being hang'd and the City from being plunder'd by Owen O Neill All these five several and notable matters with many other such I pass over as I have said for the same reason I had not to insist on the Nuncio's own uncanonical procedure at Galway against Brown and Dillon viz. because that after all such the Royal Party i. e. the loyal Ecclesiasticks had clearly got the better of all their Adversaries and that too in all respects and kept it until the disastrous fate of Rathmines Camp put all things again into confusion What therefore must be more proper to my present purpose is to let the Reader know 10. That if all things went so ill and cross and sadly with the loyal Ecclesiasticks at home in Ireland and worse and worse every day since the fatal chance at Rathmines in August 1649. until the whole Kingdom was utterly subdued through their own division by the Parliament Armies in 1652. even Limmerick and Galway having then yielded and the Regiments and Legions Horse and Foot of the several Provinces upon capitulation to be Transported for Spain having also then though but in several parties laid down their Arms and accordingly been Transported and with them all such Ecclesiasticks survivers of the dead and of either party as could go or had the courage to go except a few ancient men and very few others that either chose to run all hazards at home
its Clients in Ireland or elsewhere 12. That further in or about the year 1658. Richard Ferral an Irish Capuccin did present at Rome to the Congregation of Cardinals de propaganda Fide the wicked Book attributed to him The Book of Lyes of Malice and of the very grand mystery of all mischief and of the very original inveterate and fatal division no less unhappily than cursedly renewed so often these 500 years and last of all by this Firebrand 'twixt those of the meer or more ancient Irish extraction and those of the latter or as they are called of the ancient English Conquerours of that Kingdom under Henry the II. or after in the following Ages And the Book presented of purpose to be as a standing Rule or Module to the said Congregation for governing thenceforward the affairs of Ireland as shewing them in effect and plainly enough 1. That no Families not even of the very eldest English extraction in Ireland how Catholick soever in their formal profession were to be trusted with any Prelacies or other at least chief offices in governing the Clergy either Secular or Regular 2. Declaring in express terms all such to be wicked Politicians addicted wholly to the Protestant Kings and State of England 3. On that account falling also fouly even both upon the Right Reverend Nicholas French Bishop of Ferns and Sir Nicholas Plunket although formerly both of them in such esteem with and so beloved of the Nuncio that they were his Darlings and the two Embassadors recommended so specially by him as by his approbation sent from the Irish Confederates to Rome in the year 1646. And 4. suggesting further That none of those either Bishops or others Secular or Regular who had at any time opposed the Nuncio or Owen O Neill and his Army the onely Catholick Army with this Author ought to have permission from Rome to return home lest they should again corrupt the People and hinder them from the new Catholick Confederacy which the Author so expresly drives at therein Now that such a Book so plainly discovering to the world what the ultimate designs of the Irish Nuncio Party had been still from the beginning and continued yet so to be even in the general desolation of Ireland should be so received and countenanced by that Congregation of Cardinals at Rome as it was then and so indeed that it seem'd in effect to have been their Rule both some years before it was heard of publickly and after too for some other years could not but make the small remainder of the Appellant or peaceable Irish Clergy to despair utterly It is true indeed that now since the years 1668. the Court of Rome seems not so much to regard that National distinction which hath been the old bane of Ireland these 500 years But to their own purpose the Romans have nevertheless effectually regarded even so lately and do still and will evermore while they can a far more advantagious to themselves and much more underminingly dangerous to the rights of the Crown of England and peace of the People not only of Ireland but of other Nations subject to the Imperial Crown of England They have lately made some of English and other Forreign Extraction such as Ferral counts them to be even some of those very Families whom this Author expresly and specifically maligns in the highest degree and have lately I say made some of them even Bishops and Archbishops but nevertheless upon full assurance that they have been alwayes and would hereafter unalterably continue fixâ—d even in all respects to all the very temporal interests and pretences of the great Pontiff And they have thereby impos'd on the generality of those who consider no more but bare names and know not the Romans have only seem'd at present for a time only and some few persons only to have quitted that so odious and invidious charge of that national and fatal distinction and this onely too because it was of no more use to them at least not of so much universal use in the present conjuncture The Romans far more politick than Ferral had seen by experience of how great use a few Prelates of that extraction which he decryes had been to them in Ireland even upon the very first insurrection in Octob. 1641. and much more both in forming the Confederacy at Kilkenny _____ in 1642 and in rejecting the first peace at Waterford in 1646. and in opposing the Cessation first and second peace after in 1648 and finally in the fatal meetings of the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks at Jamestown and Galway in 1650 to overthrow again the said second Peace The Romans knew full well the argument was derived from the conjunction of some few eminent Ecclesiasticks of that extraction with those others albeit the only Catholicks in the said Ferral's Book and the great and effectual use indeed was made in Ireland of that argument to persuade the men of Arms and other Laicks Noblemen Gentlemen and all sorts of that same English or other Forreign extraction For the argument was this in short If said those onely Catholicks it had been lawful in point of Religion or Conscience to oppose the first taking of Arms or the following Confederacy or the rejection of the first Peace or the Censures against the Cessation following or Owen O Neill's holding out so long even against this second Peace or at last the Declaration and Excommunication of the Bishops against that very second Peace or if these matters look'd finally upon the setting up a native of the more ancient Irish extraction or bringing in a Forreign Prince or quitting any due Allegiance to the King of Great Britain then surely Thomas Flemming Archbishop of Dublin Thomas Walsh of Cashel Robert Barry Bishop of Cork Comerford of Waterford Nicholas French of Ferns c. and so many other good men also even of the inferiour Clergy Regular and Secular of that extraction whose name or relations cannot pretend to a foot of Land or House to inhabit in Ireland but by or from the Crown and Laws of England had never join'd with those others And this was the argument that in Ireland was more useful to the ends both of the Romans and first Irish either Insurrecters or Opposers of the following Cessation or Peace than any other than even the very unjust designs of the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlacy yea also than any strength after of those very first or grand designers of the meer or more ancient Irish extraction For it is well known that these had never signified any thing considerable in any of the foresaid undertakings but had been crush'd presently if the English Colonies persuaded by that argument had not join'd with and supported them As even it is no less and even consequentially known by experience that any one Prelate or Churchman at least of parts and repute extracted from the old English stock both hath been heretofore and is at present more able to work
Parliament Commander at Dublin was formed and his i. e. Owen O Neils Letter to the said Jones's Brother all written by the proper Hand or Pen of our Edmund though signed only by Owen O Neil himself was intercepted and the spy hang'd at Kilkenny until then I say our said Father Edmund Reilly continued still as formerly Vicar General But this Letter being so intercepted by the Supream Council and sent by me from the great Castle of Kilkenny where they sate to the said Archbishop of Dublin remaining still in the Franciscan Convent of Kilkenny which Convent together with the Dominicans then observed the Nuncio's censures and the Archbishop acknowledging presently even to my self that he could not deny the whole Character or any part of it to be his Vicar Generals a necessary sequel hereof was that the Archbishop must have both for fear and shame chosen another Vicar General as he did one Father Laurence Archbold who amongst others had a little before sign'd my Book of Queries and so for a time Father Reilly was deposed from his Vicar Generalship Thenceforth until General Owen O Neils Army came in upon special capitulation about the end of the year 1649. he was the chief Messenger Minister and Agent that passed too and fro twixt the said General and the foresaid Parliament Commander in chief Michael Jones at Dublin albeit often with the hazard of his life being way-laid by Scurlog Restored then to his Vicargeneralship in the year 1650. joyning with those of Jamestown and continuing always an earnest promoter of their designes against the Royal Government although now in Clanrickard he made one of and sate in that Provincial Synod of Dublin or Leinster held Anno 1652. in the woods of Clanmalira which declared me Excommunicated c. as before was said Although I withal confess he was much about that time or certainly at least in the precedent year 1650. far more humane and good naturâ—d to me then others when in the self same woods Collonel Luke alias Fiacha O Tool understanding where I was and preparing a party of Horse and Foot to Seize and Murder me he the said Vicar General was the only man that disswaded him In the year 1653. being come with some Creights to live within the Parliaments Line of Communication and both indiscreetly and unhappily appearing in the Courts of Justice at Dublin and in a case of Felony against a Roman Catholick Gentleman by name Tool of his own Diocess and making party against him before the Bench and Judge one that knew him starts up presently and desires the Judge to seize him as being Edmund Reilly the Irish Priest and Vicar General that was the chief Author of seizing and burning in Cessation time the black Castle of Wicklo and consequently too of Murdering all those were in it Now whether this accusation was in it self true or false for I know not he was presently hurried away to Prison pass'd after through much trouble and tryal but after all and for his former services to the Parliament especially that of betraying the Royal Camp at Rathmines to Jones he having also pleaded this for himself as all persons then at Dublin did talk he was at last either quitted or pardoned and withal either banished or with License departed to Flanders but with the hatred and exclamations of all sorts of Royallists not only Protestants but Roman Catholicks even of his own Diocess Yet soon after and although he went himself no further then the Irish Colledge at Lile in Flanders he puts in at Rome for the Archbishoprick of Ardmagh and for his former services to Owen O Neil against Ormond and by the mediation of Dionisius Massarius Secretary then to the Congregation de Propaganda the Dean of Fermo that formerly lived in Ireland with the Nuncio obtains it immediately without noise or the knowledge of others Being Consecrated no less suddenly but yet privately in the Jesuits Sacristy or Vestry at Bruxels he makes no long stay in Flanders but having Father T.T. and N.B. in his Company goes to Callice is introduced by the Bishop of Dromore to Cardinal Mazarine obtains some money and Letters of the Cardinal comes for London in the year 1658. I being then at London Father T.T. one of his foresaid Companions plyed me six weeks continually to perswade me to give the Primat a meeting To which end also he assured and swore to me at last that by his own Mediation the King at Bruxels admitted him the said Primat to kiss his hand Whereupon I yeilded albeit they understood not my end in doing so and after for some weeks did the Primat several kindnesses of importance to him at that time and amongst the rest obtain'd leave for him of the Arch Priest or Dean of the English Chapter my Friend Mr. Knightly to use his Episcopal function here in England which the said Knightly had before in plain terms refused him He pretending to requite my kindness attempted many times after to perswade me by promises of future favour at Rome to receive an absolution of the Nuncio's censures from himself When he saw nothing could move me at last upon a day after he had celebrated and confirmed several in my own Chamber and at my own Altar and after all had also himself heard out my own Mass as he often did in the same place before and when I had done and was upon my knees turned to the Altar giving thanks as the manner is after celebration he suddenly stands up by my side lays his hand on me and pronounces the words of a formal Absolution from all censures sive a Jure sine ab homine sed specialiter a censuris Illustrissimi Joannis Baptistae Rinuccini latis in causa Interstitii armorum c. adding presently to my self in English that he did so of purpose that he might have it to say and assure others he had absolved me I could not but smile replying only that it seem'd he understood well the Doctrin that says a man may be even against his own will both validly and lawfully absolved from Ecclesiastical Censures but more especially when they signified nothing and that however he seemed not by his extraordinary faculties to be tyed to the formalities of the Bull of Alexander the VII for the four Delegates Not long after this a bone of division was thrown twixt him and his Companion T. T. for it seems or at least it was said that he had faithfully promised this Gentleman to recommend him to Rome for the Archbishoprick of Dublin before any else should be by him recommended for any other See in Ireland Now a discovery being made to T.T. that the Primat had then from London in most special manner and upon consideration too recommended two several Persons or two other Sees and not him for Dublin they fell to pieces and all their other designs and projects with Secretary Thurlo and others came from either of them to be made known to me Then
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
on ill terms that very year 1663 as it was likewise most certainly known That the University of Paris headed by the Archbishop of the same City went in body and May 8. 1663 presented to his said Majesty the foresaid Six Declarations against the pretended Authority of Popes Which was in Substance what I then answered the Primat who had not a word more to reply but sate down and was silent To Father Nettervil whose confidence or rather want of ingenuity and candor in making in such a Consistory in Publick an objection so notoriously false and even to all Divines who had been any way conversant in the question or in Histories or in other Authors that treated of it at any time in the succession of so many Ages since Gregory the VII commonly known to be notoriously false I much more admired than the Primats because this Father I knew to be not only a Noblemans Son but also as he was for Elocution truly one of the best Speakers in that whole Congregation so he had amongst his own Society the repute of a great Divine as having been both by Title a Doctor and by Office too for some years an actual Professor i. e. Teacher of Divinity in one of their Colledges in France I answered 1. That I could not sufficiently admire his little regard not only of truth but of himself or his own credit when in such an Assembly where there could not be wanting some at least indifferently Knowing Learned and Ingenuous men he durst venture to take an exception so notoriously false against my discourse 2. That he needed not go far to see himself manifestly convinced but open the Books there in that very Room prepared for the conjunction of all such and whatever other false exceptions obiections allegations or arguments of any Dissenters 3. That he might see there in Father Carons both English Loyalty Asserted and Latin Remonstrantia Hibernorum above 250 Roman Catholick Authors who had never been either Schysmaticks or Poets and might see them declaring constantly for that Doctrin which he said was Patronized only by one Schysmatick Historian and one Italian Poet and might see amongst them many even Classical Schoolmen Doctors and Divines of the very first rank and greatest Fame 4. That although he mentioned not the names of those Authors he spoke of so unjustly with contempt yet for as much as I doubted not he mean'd only Sigebertus Gemblacencis and Dante 's Aligherius I must tell the Fathers that not even Bellarmin himself dared once to charge Sigebert with having been a Schysmatick Bellarm. de Scriptor Eccles in Sigeberto although he the said Bellarmin charged this Sigebert to have been for the Emperous sake iniquior Gregorio Septimo and that Dante 's Aligherius notwithstanding his being a great Poet had shewed himself withal to be a great Philosopher Divine Historian Civilian c. in that work he writ against the vain pretences of the Pope in Temporal matters above the Emperour where he gives such arguments as are unanswerable by any would undervalue him for being a Poet. Nay That St. Gregory Nazianzen might be undervalued upon the same account being he was so great and excellent a Poet yea so much addicted to Poetry as his Divine Works do shew 5. That if any doubted of the truth of Father Caron's quotations of Authors or would besides enter into and dispute of the Merits of the main Cause viz. of the Doctrin of the Remonstrance I was ready to justifie all there in publick before the whole Assembly and to that end to bring out of my own partly and partly out of the Dublin Colledg Library all those other Books whatsoever they demanded besides Holy Scriptures viz. Councils Fathers Ecclesiastical Historians the Bodies of the Canon and Civil Laws Scholastick Divines and even the late Expositors of Scripture c. 6. And Lastly That there was nothing I desired more than such a serious and Publick debate if any pretended yet unsatisfaction being it was chiefly for that end I drew the Letters of Indiction or invitation of them to this National Assembly in such form as obliged the Superiours to bring along with them a competent number of professed Divines who should and might be able as well to find out all errors of the Formulary if any were as to declare there was none in case they should be convinced of no Error at all therein And such indeed as to the substance was my answer to Father Nettervil Against which neither he nor any other replyed a word Wherefore I returned back to the prosecution of my former discourse beginning where I was interrupted and continuing to the end as I have shewn before Having done I took leave of the Fathers that day giving them so the more freedom to debate in my absence For I will not trouble the Reader now with the Chairmans complements acknowledgments thanks given me after I had ended and before I went forth Nor will I mention how I had that morning taken care to lay on the publick Table before the Fathers as many Printed Copies both of the Remonstrance it self and of not only my own little book entituled The More Ample Account which gives a full account thereof and answers all the first Objections or Exceptions made at London by the First Dissentors but also of Father Carons Loyalty Asserted as there were Members of the Congregation besides some few Copies more of Carons Latin Folio Book against the Louain Censure dispersed amongst them and one to remain still in a publick place for them to consult and besides also a Copy for every one of them of all other Printed Papers and little Books of my own which came forth for their good since the Kings most happy Restitution But that which is more material to give at length here is a true exact Copy of those Six Sorbon Declarations in the year 1663. and of the most Christian Kings Royal Publick and Printed Declaration in pursuance of the said Academical ones Of both I have by me still the Printed Copy brought to Ireland in the year 1664. out of France by the R. Father Thomas Harold of the Franciscan Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity Out of which genuin Printed French Copy take this other following as agreeing word by word with that very individual Copy of Father Harolds DECLARATION DU ROY Pour faire enregistrer au Parlement de Bretagne celle contre les Maximes des Vltramontains Verifiee audit Parlement le 21. d' Aoust 1663. LOUIS par la grace de Dieu Roy de France de Navarre A tous ceux qui ces presentes Lettres verront Salut La Faculte de Theologie de notre bonne Ville de Paris qui depuis son establissement a este le plus ferme apuy de la Religion de la saine doctrine dans nostre Royaume qui a toujours fait profession des opposer fortement a ceux qui ont voulu en alterer la purete
their own flesh and blood their very next Neighbours yea dearest Friends Cousins and Brethren too by the same Fathers and Mothers who should continue faithful to their Protestant King or would oppose this advice of choosing and creating another King of Ireland c he moreover hath by manifold arguments all along in his foresaid Apologetical Disputation as much as in him lay sowed the seeds of a civil cruel and perpetual War amongst the Roman-Catholick Irish Nation in general yea amongst even such of those very Confederates who peradventure might be drawn to approve jointly the choosing a Roman-Catholick either Native or Forreigner to be their King and consequently the renouncing and deposing of their Protestant King For by the said arguments which take up his said whole Apology hath not he evinced clearly if we believe himself That the Kings of England have been all along these 500 years meer Usurpers of Ireland And consequently That all at least those of either old or new English or other Forreign extraction living in Ireland and deriving originally and only their Titles or Rights from those Kings to the Lands possessed by them in that Countrey must be likewise unjust Possessors And therefore also That the more ancient Natives of Ireland otherwise called the old and meer Irish retain still fully all the ancient Right which their Predecessors enjoy'd before the Conquest of Henry II. in the year 1167 or thereabouts And by a farther and as clear a consequence at least in his Doctrine That by vertue of that old Title they might lawfully take Arms and by plain force recover all the Lands and Goods of Ireland any where possessed hitherto at any time by such usurping and unjust detainers originally of English or other Forreign Extraction however of late Confederated with them to choose a new King Now who is ignorant that the far greater part of the Roman-Catholick Nobility Gentry and other Proprietors inhabiting and possessing quietly great Estates when the War begun in 1641 and before even time out of mind and most of them for some hundreds of years derive their Extraction from those old English or other Forreign Conquerors under Henry II. of England and His Successors in the Conquest of Ireland And we have already seen That an honest Author C. M. hath warranted his Kindred of the more ancient and meer Irish as they are commonly called of the lawfulness and justice and equity also of their forcing out of all possession those unjust Inheriters and putting them all to the Sword if they did resist And therefore it is plain he hath as much as in him lay sown the seeds of a civil cruel and perpetual War amongst even the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland themselves and even those amongst them who would otherwise peradventure freely enough follow his advice in choosing another King 11. That of this wicked Book many Copies had been in the Nuncio's time privately dispersed up and down amongst trusty men throughout Ireland but not discovered or known by the contrary side i. e. by those Confederates that were known to be for returning to their Duty to the King until about the year 1647 or 1648 when it was found or seen by some of them with John Bane the then Parish-Priest of Athlone which Priest the Nuncio refused to deliver to Secular justice i. e. to the Supreme Council of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland for keeping such a Trayterous Book and not revealing it or from whence he had it to the Supreme Council or others concern'd 12. That however the same Supreme Council had it publickly burnt by the hand of the Hangman at Kilkenny the said year 1648. 13. That I my self soon after had five Sundayes and Holydayes one immediately after another Preach'd nine Sermons in St. Kenny's Church the Cathedral of that Diocess chiefly against the wicked positions and designs of this damnable Book upon this one Text or Theme out of the Prophet Jeremy Quis est vir sapicus qui intelligat hoc ad quem verbum oris Domini fiat ut annuntiet istud quare perierit terra Hierem. 9.12 Wherein after I had shewn the insignificancy of the Solutions given in that Book to the three main arguments proving the lawful Right and just Title of the Crown of England to the Kingdom of Ireland viz. Conquest Submission and Prescription for that of Pope Adrian's Donation I valued not and consequently had confirmed those arguments I enlarged my self further on another even a fourth late and indeed insoluble argument proving against that vain Babler and wicked Scribler That in case all his Solutions were admitted yet he had nothing to say nor could find any possible way to evade the perfect full and free both acknowledgment and obligation of the late Oath of Association made and taken yea so often renewed by the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by their Archbishops Bishops Earls Viscounts Barons Knights Gentry Commonalty and Burgesses even by all their Three Estates Spiritual and Temporal in their National Assemblies nay even principally and in the first place by all the chief men of the meer or most ancient Irish those very and only Authors indeed of the Insurrection in October 1641 and consequently of all the Civil Wars that followed being they were the men that drew if not in a great measure forced the Descendents of the old English Conquerors to rebel or join with them in that unhappy War and to that end of themselves freely and voluntarily first in the said year 1641. framed that Oath of Association to persuade not only those other Natives but all the World They notwithstanding their taking Arms against oppression did religiously acknowledge Charles I. of England to be their lawful King and holily swear true Allegiance to him and his lawful Heirs and Successors the Kings of England as the undoubted just and lawful Kings of Ireland too however otherwise known Protestants This was the argument that in the last place I insisted on as absolutely unanswerable though we did which yet we could not freely grant that all other were avoidable Wherein the Reader will manifestly see I had reason of my side when he shall turn in this present work of mine Append. of Instrum pag. 31. to that very Oath according as it was renewed at Kilkenny 26 July 1644. in and by the General Assembly of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland held then there For here was at least a free and voluntary both acknowledgment and submission even of the very meer Irish to a known Protestant King of England and both also by a sacred Oath freely and voluntarily framed first then taken and lastly retaken and renewed by themselves without any compulsion at all from the King or his Protestant people to that same Oath nay so far from any such that these were all against it mightily though not for our acknowledgment or submission contained therein but for other undue branches thereof And therefore were it granted That
before the said Oath in 1641 or in 1642 there had never been any full and free submission or consent of the old Irish Natives yet C. M. was in this very point perversly and wickedly out in his foresaid Book because first published and printed by him in the year 1645 that is even after he had manifestly and manifoldly known of that very Oath of Association which was the only essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Irish Confederates as such as I think out of that his own very Book pag. 101. may appear he had where he tells us of the first though he there call it the last General or National Assembly of the Confederates begun at Kilkenny Oct. 24. ann 1642. and continued there above two Months i. e. to the Ninth of January next following whereon it was dissolv'd nay tells and gives some of the very Laws Enacted there in their Module of Government if I be not mistaken though Laws in truth contradicting his unjust erroneous bloody cruel both principles and designs yea consequentially overthrowing both his Disputation and Exhortation in all their parts 14. And lastly That being all these things were notoriously known it became the Fathers of this National Congregation by a publick Act of their own to condemn immediately to the fire so damnable a Book As to and of the other Book or that of Richard Ferral the Irish Cappucin for to him only the common vogue attributes it because what I spoke to the Fathers was the same in substance which upon another occasion I have before related pag. 504 I remit the Reader back again to that place And being I have said much already there of the subject and design of this Book of Ferrals as in effect concurring to the same end with the former of Mahony I will only add here 1. That this of Ferrals though presented to the Cardinals not before but much about the year 1658. I am sure not heard of till then by others most concern'd particularly drives at restoring the former late Confederacy of the then surviving Roman-Catholicks of Ireland but principally if not only of those of the more ancient or as they are call'd meer Irish Septs the Author having represented at large all those other Irish or as they are by him and his party nick-nam'd by way of contempt English-Irish Gauls Forreigners Saxons c. and rendred them as unworthy to be trusted in so holy a League because descended from the old English Conquerors 2. That in this so particular and indeed principal design of his it would seem he had an Eye to the Declaration and Excommunication of the Roman-Catholick Irish Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates at Jamestown in Connaught 12 of August 1650. not only against the then King's Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland the then Marquess now Duke of ORMOND by devesting Him of all power but for the former Confederacy by restoring it as much as in them lay and commanding others that it should be effectually restored And would seem likewise he knew well enough and related to what the Committee of the said Congregation I mean the Committee of Bishops sitting at Galway even after that Congregation was dissolv'd thought fit to answer the Proposals made by the Commissioners of Trust on the 29 of October the same year 1650 wherein the said Committee insisted chiefly upon the Nations returning to the Confederacy See in the end of this Tome in the Appendix of Instrum pag. 65 c. the said Declaration and pag. 70. the annexed Excommunication Item in the second Appendix or in that other of the Marquess of ORMOND's long and excellent Letter pag. 128 and 129 the said Answer of that Committee of Bishops 3. That both the Address and Title of this Book of Ferrals is this and no other Ad Sacram Congregationem de Propaganda Fide Hic Authores modus eversionis Catholicae Religionis in Hibernia recensentur aliquot remedia pro conservandis reliquiis Catholicae Religionis Gentis proponuntur After which immediately he begins his Book of indeed very false information and as wicked advice in too too many particulars to the said Congregation of Cardinals thus Hibernia quae olim Scotia Insula Sanctorum dicebatur c. 4. That although as I have also in this present Work elsewhere noted the Reverend Father John Lynch i. e. the Author of Cambrensis Eversus had learnedly and fully under the name of Eudoxius Alithinologus answerâ—d that perverse writing first in his Alithinologia printed anno 1664 and under this Title viz. Alithinologia sive Veridica Responsio ad Invectivam mendaciis fallaciis calumniis imposturis faetam in plurimos Antistites Proceres omnis ordinis Hibernos a R. P. R. F. C. Congregationi de propaganda fide Anno Domini 1659. exhibitam and then again in his Supplementum Alithinologiae yet nevertheless or rather the more I thought it became me to move their Paternities to the same condemnation from them this Piece also which I had already desired of the former of Mahony's Having to such purpose as hitherto discoursed to the Fathers on both these Books and so concluded not only what I had to say on the third and last Head but whatever I intended to say of all the three Heads or Articles They decreed unanimously i. e. nemine contradicente the burning of both Books And I remember that one of the Cappuccins related if not there I am sure elsewhere even to my self for I do not exactly or certainly now remember the day or place That the very General Chapter of the Cappuccins themselves beyond Seas had condemn'd both Ferral's said Book and himself too But whether any one either in that Congregation then or at any other time declared That the Clergy at or of Galway i. e. any General or National nay or Provincial Diocesan or Local Assembly of Irish Clergymen had formerly at Galway or even elsewhere condemn'd Mahony's Book I do not remember at all General or National I am sure held at Galway I am sure none did because I know there was no kind of National Assembly held there in my dayes for the National Synod which the Nuncio had summon'd thither when he was in opposition to the Supreme Council was hinder'd by the same Council Whereof I thought fit to advertise the Reader because I am now to give the Congregation's Secretary's Father Nicholas Redmond the Vicar General of Fern's account by Letter to my self of the Acts of the said Congregation For when the Congregation was dissolved or at least upon dissolving I desir'd him to give me or at least send me soon a perfect Copy of their Acts. And I confess I desired this chiefly to see whether what I desired in point of each of the last three Heads whereof I gave now for substance the same account I gave the Fathers on that last day if not hour of their sitting had been inserted in their publick Acts according
this present Work immediately after the Fourth Treatise See there pag. 80. For albeit this Part or Treatise and Section of the Book where I am at present were the more proper place to give the said Propositions of Allegiance yet forasmuch as they are already Printed where I now told I having thought fit for some Reasons to give them in that place when some five or six years since I Printed the three next following Treatises viz. the Second Third and Fourth before this present First which I am now ending and that to Reprint them here again were needless and but increase of Charge in the Printing-house therefore I direct the Reader to the said Treatise 4. pag. 80. where he may see those Propositions and under this Title The Fourteen Propositions of F. P. W. or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that only which can secure His Majesty of them as much as hand or subscription can and that only too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 7. That in this Title may be seen what end I had both in writing those Propositions and having them so debated even the same end which the controverted Remonstrance it self and all my Books written and Persecutions too suffered in defence thereof had hitherto and shall have hereafter 8. That in the same Title I attributed these Propositions to F. P. W. viz. to my self not so much because they were wholly my own draught and had not a word either added to or detracted from them by the said Divines save only in one or two places at most where to satisfie some of the Fathers I mollified the expression of my own Copy in a word or two or rather indeed left out and wholly blotted those words but chiefly because the Franciscan Provincial Chapter having come on and sate before the Divines had run over and throughly debated any of the three last Propositions or Paragraphs and the same Divines being consequently forc'd to adjourn for that time and such new distractions too having hapned in that Provincial Chapter as occasioned the departure of several of those very Divines who debated the former eleven Propositions there was no further meeting held either about the examination of the other remaining three last or subscription of any of all the Fourteen by these Divines as was at first intended Which want of subscription by them to those even eleven Propositions albeit otherwise throughly debated and approved by them all unanimously in the very terms even to a syllable wherein I give them printed Treat 4. pag. 80. 81 and 82. and want also of through examination by them i. e. by the said Divines of any of the three last although otherwise read publickly by them and not at all excepted against in that reading by any of their Colledge made me not to venture on publishing the said even so much as the first eleven Propositions in their name but only in my own all the Fourteen until they were or happen'd I mean to be hereafter actually subscribed by others Because if I had done otherwise I was not sure but some would peradventure say I had no authority for doing so being I had no actual subscription yet and consequently was not sure but such Title involving others and consequently the Propositions themselves would be disown'd at least by some of them But I was certain of my self to own both my own Title and whole Work even every individual of the Fourteen Propositions to the least word and syllable 9. That for my change of stile in the Thirteenth Paragraph or Complex Proposition which contains the three last of the six Sorbon Declarations made by that Faculty in the year 1663. or change thereof I mean from assertory of the outward object to promissory or rather only declaratory of an inward unalterable resolution of mind whereas in the eleven former it is assertory but in the said thirteenth only promissory i. e. or declaratory as now said containing only a promise or rather declaring our unalterable resolution never to approve or practise according to any Doctrine or Positions which in particular or general assert the contrary of any one even of the very three last of those six late Sorbon Declarations made against the extravagant and uncanonical pretences of the Pope the reason inducing me to this kind of change and to an abstaining also therein from any kind of Censure against those contrary Doctrines or Positions how otherwise false and wicked soever in themselves was That I feared several of the said Divines would hardly be drawn to concur unto approve of and least of all subscribe an assertory expression viz. upon the matter of the said three last Sorbon Declarations but doubted not they would easily be persuaded to come off to such a promissory or such a declaratory one without any Censure of the contrary Doctrines For otherwise had I in the Copy or Draught proposed to them express'd fully my own sense and what I would my self dare maintain publickly even under my own hand I had done it as to the outward object i. e. in plain terms categorically either asserting or denying the outward object or subject which you please to be so or so And therefore 1. as to the Fourth of those Sorbon Propositions I would have spoken thus The Pope hath no authority which is repugnant to the Supreme Royal Jurisdiction of our King no nor any which is so much as contrary to the true liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom and by consequence it ought not nor cannot be maintain'd for example That the Pope hath any authority at all to depose Bishops against the said Canons And 2. as to the Fifth I would have express'd my self in this manner The Pope is not only not above the General Council but is under every Oecumenical Council truly such As likewise 3. and as to the Sixth I would have no less plainly thus The Pope is not infallible not even in questions of Right arising about the Articles of divine Faith but certainly fallible in all even such points if or wherein he hath not the consent of the Catholick or Vniversal Church Nay further I had to such my Assertions added as smart Censures of the contrary doctrines as any of those are which you find in any of the former eleven Paragraphs or Propositions But my business or design in drawing those 14 Propositions and consequently the Thirteenth of them having been partly to draw them so as I might rationally expect to prevail with the Colledge of Divines for their concurrence I judg'd it necessary to alter my stile from assertory to promissory and make use of no Censure at all when I came to the said
protestation and promoters of any other short and unsignificant one as to the points controverted and the chief speakers for and interpreters of this in their congregation and Committees have declared themselves very conversant should serve them in such cases to shew there would be no kind of tye on them And those last words too That comes to our knowledge or the single word comes importing only in rigor and strictness of speech and sense such conspiracies only as came at that present time for it is a verb of the then present time as they would perhaps interpret it would help to free them of further scruple being they as it may be well thought and rationally suspected of equivocators of purpose omitted or changed the words of the former protestation of 61. relating to this point which were in the future tense and thus which shall come to our hearing into these of the present which comes c. To what more or better purpose then is their final addition and conclusion of all their specious promises which they give thus Finally as we hold the premises to be agreeable to a good conscience so we religiously swear the due observance thereof to our utmost and will teach and preach the same to our respective flocks in testimony whereof we have hereunto subscribed c. There would be no other observance due but that which remains after so many distinctions and evasions And if that secures the King of them let any rational indifferent man be judge And even that if it signifie any kind of thing at all would not be due if the Pope declared against the duty thereof for they were dissolved for their peremptory refusal to give under their hands that they would stand to their Remonstrance in case the Pope should declare against it All which rightly considered makes me in the conclusion of the second instance reflect a little back on the very first beginning of their Remonstrance their owning or acknowledging of the King in these words We your Majesties Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland together assembled do hereby declare and Solemnly protest before God and his holy Angels that we own and acknowledge your Majestie to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other your Majesties Dominions From well meaning men sincere and plain or from such as intend heartily to shutt their eyes and thoughts to all subtle interpretations reservations abstractions school-distinctions and equivocations or in an age time Country and circumstances wherein and by very many of those very Remonstrants and upon the contradictory question the Popes pretences as well by Divine as by humane right to the very temporal supream power of the Crowns of England and Ireland had not been by reason of their own either publick or private discontents or interests so stiffely maintained though in private only these four years past and is to this very day from such well-meaning men I say and in another age that form of Recognition might perhaps be sufficient But as the case stands at present not at all The Divines on whose explication they chiefly relie are so conversant in Bellarmine and Suarez and their distinctions and meanings and sophistry that as I have already above observed as the word undoubted is not home enough from them to the point so neither are those other our true and lawful King They will say first when they find it convenient That one may be their true and lawful King though an Usurper Yet as Richard the Third was he may be in fact and possession only or by presumption or provision only of the temporary Law of the Land their true and lawful King but not so according to the rules of right-reason and Justice prescribed by the eternal Laws of God and Nature which are above all the laws of man And they will yet further â—ay That although they now admit or would in their conscience admit Charles the Second to be their true and lawful King according to all kind of Laws both of God and man yet he might or may in these cases they exempt from the general rule cease hereafter to be any more their true and lawful King and cease I mean to be so without and against his own consent and himself yet living and even still possessing his Fathers Throne to wit in the cases of the sentences of Deposition or of Excommunication of the people for obeying or acknowledging him the right being transferred to another And they will moreover say that he may be their true and lawful King in actu primo or as to the habit or essence of regal rights but not in actu secundo not as to the exercise of any Jurisdiction over them of which exercise he may as Bellarmine and Suarez and such other Patrons of that way both Divines and Canonists affirm be deprived by a bare Excommunication of him or injunction laid on his people not to obey him being in such a case absolved from all tyes even of sworn Allegiance according to the express Canons of several Popes in the very body of the Canon Law Can. Nos sanctorum and Can. Juratos 15. q. 6. and Can. Absolutos Extra De Haereticis by Gregory the Seventh and Gregory the Ninth as the foresaid Patrons of that way interpret or understand these Canons As for their owning him their Supream Lord which indeed amongst men of the golden age were enough to shew their denial of his Majesties sub-ordination in his Temporals to any other besides God alone even in any case imaginable yet now in this age and this conjuncture and after so many Books written by Roman Catholicks on both sides pro con for and against the Oath of Allegiance that I mean enacted by law under King James some fifty years since and after so much contradiction of late and these four years past all along of the Remonstrance of 61. and by reason of the Letters and Censures procured from Bruxels Rome and Lovain from both the Inter-nuncius's at Bruxels from Cardinal Francis Barbarin both now of late at Rome in the moneths of April and May 66. as before in the moneth of July 62. and from the Faculty Theological at Lovain in the moneth of December the same year 62. in the procurement of which Letters and Censures some of the Members of this very Congregation had been chief Actors and Agents and because this very Congregation by the great influence of some of them on the rest would choose rather to run any hazzard loose all their hopes of prevailing with his Majesty for the greatest good their Country and Religion expected from him that which they and their Predecessors so mightily longed for these hundred years would rather I say loose all the present fair hopes thereof then not conform to such Letters and Censures which yet are in substance and effect against that plain obvious meaning amongst honest men of
declaration and meaning to be always with this reserve that whatever this their second proposition or constant doctrine signifie or be intended or conceived by any to signifie or this their resolution so expressed never to recede from it yet all must be with perfect submission to the Pope and so that if it sufficiently appear the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time hereafter declare by Brief Bull or other letters against such doctrine as uncatholick or against such resolution as unsafe they will quit both for these causes I say there can be no rational indifferent person but will be convinced that out of this second proposition as from them there can acrue no more assurance to the King of their future fidelitie than out of the first and consequently than out of their Remonstrance alone without any such additional proposition or propositions That is as I have a little above said just none at all Nor will their third or last Proposition mend the matter They give it indeed as the two former in words specious enough to plain well-meaning men to the simple and ignorant Nay specious enough to very understanding persons but yet such persons only as are not acquainted with their explications borrowed from late School-men and particularly from Bellarmine against Barclay and from other impugners with him of the Oath of Allegiance against the most learned Father Green and Preston of St. Beâ—ns Order as well under Widringtons name at first in several works as their own at last in their Apology to Gregory the Fourteenth and against the rest of the Roman Clergy of England that so learnedly conscientiously modestly nay and patiently too maintain'd that oath in King James's dayes especially the Secular Clergy maâ—gre Cardinal Bellarmines Letter to the Arch-Priest Blackwel and maugre likewise all his other several books under his own or fictitious names and maugre also even that either true or pretended brief of Paul the Fifth in the year 1606. against the said Oath procured by Father Parsons upon the mis-representation and most false suggestion of Cardinal Bellarmine and his seven or eight other fellow Divines to whom joyntly the examination of the said Oath of Allegiance was committed by the same holy Father Paul the Fifth and finally notwithstanding the best and worst endeavours of besides Lessius Gretzer Fitzherbert Becan Parsons himself and several others Franciscus Suarez the Spanish learned Jesuite at the instigation of the English Fathers of the same Society and in pursuance of the said Brief and for the unlawful advancement of his own great Masters no less unlawful interest This third Proposition therefore I say notwithstanding its words or tenor so specious at first to such as are not acquainted with the familiar explication or meaning of the chief proposers a meaning or explication learned from these late Sophisters that writ so ill and so erroneously too against King Iames's said Oath of Allegiance being reviewed being duly pondred as from them or as from those Congregational men will be found to be of as little weight as any of the two former and will be so found I mean as to the resolution justly expected from so venerable so grave and so withal justly suspected an Assembly But not to delay the Reader my longer I repeat again here that Proposition in it self barely or as they have given it in their own words We the undernamed do hereby declare that it is our doctrine that we Subjects oâ—e so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can either dispense with or free us of the same Now mark the Sophistry In the first place the reduplicative sense must be allowed in these two words We Subjects that is in as much or while we are Subjects Which will be no longer than it shall please the Pope not to denounce the King by name excommunicated or deprived of or deposed from his kingdoms by a judicial process or bull on pretence of his apostasie heresie schisme oppression of the Church or People against that which the Pope shall determine to be justice or faith Next the same reduplication must be allowed to fall on the word King And thirdly at the word power all the former distinctions of fact and of right of humane or temporal and divine or spiritual and of ordinary and extraordinary must be ushered in And in the last place from these general words under any pretext soever there must be alwaies understood an exception of those extraordinary cases or contingencies above so often repeated of destroying the Church or People tyrannically by endeavouring to make them Apostats Hereticks Schismaticks or by tyrannising over them even in their temporal or civil rights alone And the judgment hereof must be the Pope's only or the people's when they please to take it Nor will the Doctrine of the Apostles even in the cases of tyrannical heathen Emperours as of Nero and Domitian much less of the Fathers even in the cases of manifest notorious Apostats and Hereticks as of Iulian Constantius Valens Anastasius c. move the Divines of our congregation any whit at all They say with Bellarmine the Apostles and Fathers and other primitive Christians dissembled in this point because they had not strength enough of men and arms to oppose though besides that this answer is impious it be also most manifestly false in the case of Iulian the Apostat and of the succeeding Heretick Emperours Having thus with all sincerity considered all and every of their three Propositions both nakedly and abstractedly as they are in themselves and also as given by that Congregation and having layd open most sincerely too the meaning or sense these Divines or at least the chief and most leading of them have conceive or intend others should upon fit occasions understand by those Propositions and by their several clauses and words it only now remains that I briefly put in form my third Argument grounded on such abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations And I frame it thus Syllogistically because I have to deal with some caprichious Logicians or Sophisters No Propositions are sufficient in this age for giving assurance to the King of the future loyalty of a Roman Catholick people and as from such a Roman Catholick people too whom he hath already by experience and his Father before him found in several publick Instances manifestly disloyal and even perfidious in the highest nature could be but such Propositions as by clear express words from which there can be no exception or evasion and of which there can be no distinction according to the present School-divinity of Bellarmine or Suarez or such others descend to the specifical cases about which the controversie is if the Proposers be expresly desired by the King or the Lieutenant in his Name or by his Authority to descend so in their Remonstrance or Propositions to such cases and if they expresly and obstinatly too refuse to descend so or
inclination to nor any the least tincture of a Iansenist And if what I have said here conclude me to be a Iansenist I profess my self one But if it do not as I am sure it doth not then I am none at all it not such a one as Father N. N. and the Congregation should and ought and must profess themselves in life and death if they will not live and dye out of the Catholick Church Whence it appears evidently that whatever Father N. N. intended by his few Iansenists that furthered this dispute I cannot be comprehended amongst such And I have shewed already there is none remaining to be rightly or justly intended by such But for as much as whether he really meaned any or no or entertained in his own breast with or without ground that suspition of any or no but onely intended this jealousie as a meer trick to abuse the unlearned Roman Catholicks in the reading of his paper with some kind of specious preâ—ence for not signing and consequently fixed on this of Iansenisme as the most proper to strike the greatest horrour into them of a doctrine furthered by such men as Iansenists so lately and solemnly condemned by three Popes of Heresie as he sayes I thought also fit but by no trick at all further yet a little to disabuse the readers of that unreasonable writing of his by giving here exactly and sincerely all those very doctrines which imputed to Iansenius whether found in his book or no and whether in his sense or no have been so condemned by three Popes already and are those onely which gave the name of Iansenists to such as before that condemnation maintained them in the sease they conceived them written first by Iansenius himself for such of these doctrines I mean as they allow to be in Iansenius and still maintain that neither all are found in him nor any of all condemned in his sense In giving of which I have no further end than that such readers by comparing those doctrines to this dispute may themselves be judges of this truth also that our present dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church hath no kind of relation to them nor they to it And of this other too that F. N. N. hath indeed no less impertinently than invidiously brought this to question The doctrines therefore of Iansenius or imputed to him in whatever sense are these following here commonly called the five condemned Propositions 1. Aliqua Dei praecepts hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus secundum praesentes quas habent vires sunt impossibilia deest quoque illis gratia qua possibilia fiant 2. Interiori gratiae in statu naturae lapsae nunquam contradicitur 3. Aâ— merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas â necessitate sed sufficit libertas â coactione 4. Semipelagiani admittebant praevenientis gratiae interioris necessitatem ad singulos actus etiam ad initium Fidei et in hoc erant haeretici quod vellent gratiam esse â—alem cui posset humana voluntas vel resisterevel obtemperare 5. Semipelagianum est dicere Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortuum faisse et sanguinem fudisse Now let any man that understands reason be judge whether the dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church and the decision of it in the negative against the Pope cannot be furthered by any either privatly or publickly under-hand or overboard but he must fall under the suspicion of maintaining those five so condemned propositions or some â—ne of them For my own part I protest again in the presence of God I neither have maintained nor do nor will any of them unless first determined by the known consent of the Church or that of a General Council And yet I have done already and will hereafter do what becomes me to further this dispute now in hand and the decision of it already by the Catholick Universities of France against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Catholick Church And I know others have done so before I or Iansenius was born And that all the world can do so without either formal or virtual or consequential relation to them or any of them whether they be true or false heretical or not found or not in the Book or Works of Iansenius or by those three Popes or any of them condemned or not in his meaning To his last pretence or the disturbance of both King and Countrey which he hath kept for his Triarii for his very last and strongest and surest reserve and therefore gives it in these very last words of his Paper I need not say more in this place having said so much already before to falsifie this supposition of his side and verifie it of my own against him but that were it true as he alleages it he had indeed behaved himself for so much like an Orator or Sophister of repute reserving his best argument of all to conclude all In fine triumphat Orator That being it is so manifestly false in his sense and to his purpose I wonder with what confidence he alleages it That he could not give his cause a more deadly wound than by rubbing up again our memory of this consideration That I have shewed already it is not this dispute of that sixth Proposition against the Popes infallibility and resolve of it in the negative which only was the dispute and the resolve intended all along by those that furthered it in their Congregation that can be said to be to the disturbance of either King or Countrey but the contrary dispute and resolve for that pretended infallibility must be that in this matter which ever yet since it first began hath been accompanied infallibly in several parts of the world with the disturbance of both and not with the disturbance only but with ruine also of King and Countrey together nay and of the Church too no less than of the State Politick or Civil That this latter kind of dispute and resolve for which F. N. N. and his Congregation or at least very many of them would fain be if they knew well how are already and too notoriously known to be the very first grand and necessary fundamental of the superstructure of that other so false dangerous and destructive pretence of the power direct or indirect or whatever else you call it in the Pope for deposing Kings and licencing Subjects to rebel against them That whether so or no yet no man can deny this latter pretence of power from God to depose Kings and raise their Subjects against them to be altogether insignificant where it comes to the test of reason or even of Scripture or Traditional dispute amongst rational knowing men without that other of infallibility concomitant and unseparably annexed That if so many late and sad experiences at home within this last century of years or
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
hisce subscripsimus Kilkenniae 28 Januarii 1648. Jo Archiepiscopus Tuamen Fran Aladen Ed Limericensis THE ARTICLES OF PEACE Made and Concluded by his Excellency JAMES LORD Marquess of Ormond LORD LIEUTENANT GENERAL AND General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland on the behalf of His Majesty WITH THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Roman-Catholicks of the said Kingdom on the behalf of His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of the same Re-printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII BY THE LORD LIEVTENANT GENERAL AND General Governour Of the Kingdom of IRELAND ORMONDE VVHEREAS Articles of Peace are made concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between Vs JAMES Lord Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland by vertue of the Authority wherewith We are entrusted for and on the behalf of His Most Excellent Majesty of the one part and the General Assembly of the Roman-Catholicks of the said Kingdom for and on the behalf of His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of the same on the other part A true Copy of which Articles of Peace is hereunto annexed We the Lord Lieutenant do by this Proclamation in His Majesties Name publish the same and do in His Majesties Name strictly charge and command all His Majesties Subjects and all others inhabiting or residing within His Majesties said Kingdom of Ireland to take notice thereof and to render due Obedience to the same in all the parts thereof And as His Majesty hath been induced to this Peace out of a deep sense of the miseries and calamities brought upon this His Kingdom and People and out of a hope conceived by His Majesty that it may prevent the further effusion of His Subjects Blood redeem them out of all the miseries and calamities under which they now suffer restore them to all quietness and happiness under His Majesties most gracious Government deliver the Kingdom in general from those Slaughters Depredations Rapines and Spoils which alwayes accompany a War encourage the Subjects and others with comfort to betake themselves to Trade Traffick Commerce Manufacture and all other things which uninterrupted may increase the wealth and strength of the Kingdom beget in all His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom a perfect unity amongst themselves after the too long continued division amongst them So His Majesty assures Himself that all His Subjects of this His Kingdom duly considering the great and inestimable benefits which they may find in this Peace will with all duty render due Obedience thereunto And We in His Majesties Name do hereby declare That all persons so rendring due Obedience to the said Peace shall be protected cherished countenanced and supported by His Majesty and His Royal Authority according to the true intent and meaning of the said Articles of Peace Given at Our Castle of Kilkenny the Seventeenth day of January 1648. GOD SAVE THE KING ARTICLES of Peace made concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between his Excellency JAMES Lord Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland for and on the behalf of His Most Excellent Majesty by vertue of the Authority wherewith the said Lord Lieutenant is intrusted on the one part And the GEMERAL ASSEMBLY of the Roman Catholicks of the said Kingdom for and on the behalf of His Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects of the same on the other part HIS Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects as thereunto bound by Allegiance Duty and Nature do most humbly and freely acknowledge and recognize their Sovereign Lord King Charles to be lawful and undoubted King of this Kingdom of Ireland and other His Highness Realms and Dominions And His Majesties said Roman Catholick Subjects apprehending with a deep sense the sad condition whereunto His Majesty is reduced as a further humble Testimony of their Loyalty do declare That they and their Posterity for ever to the uttermost of their power even to the expence of their blood and fortunes will maintain and uphold His Majesty His Heirs and lawful Successors their Rights Prerogatives Government and Authority and thereunto freely and heartily will render all due obedience OF which faithful and loyal Recognition and Declaration so seasonably made by the said Roman Catholicks His Majesty is graciously pleased to accept and accordingly to own them his loyal and dutiful Subjects and is further graciously pleased to extend unto them the following graces and securities I. IMprimis It is concluded accorded and agreed upon by and betweeen the said Lord Lieutenant for and on the behalf of His most Excellent Majesty and the said General Assembly for and on the behalf of the said Roman Catholick Subjects And His Majesty is graciously pleased that it shall be Enacted by Act to be past in the next Parliament to be held in this Kingdom That all and every the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion within the said Kingdom shall be free and exempt from all Mulcts Penalties Restraints and Inhibitions that are or may be imposed upon them by any Law Statute Usage or Custom whatsoever for or concerning the free exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion And that it shall be likewise Enacted That the said Roman Catholicks or any of them shall not be questioned or molested in their Persons Goods or Estates for any matter or cause whatsoever for concerning or by reason of the free exercise of their Religion by vertue of any Power Authority Statute Law or Usage whatsoever And that it shall be further Enacted That no Roman Catholick in this Kingdom shall be compelled to exercise any Religion Form of Devotion or Divine Service other than such as shall be agreeable to their Conscience and that they shall not be prejudiced or molested in their Persons Goods or Estates for not observing using or hearing the Book of Common Prayer or any other Form of Devotion or Divine Service by vertue or colour of any Statute made in the second year of Queen Elizabeth or by vertue or colour of any other Law Declaration of Law Statute Custom or Usage whatsoever made or declared to be made or declared And that it shall be further Enacted That the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion or any of them be not bound or obliged to take the Oath commonly called the Oath of Supremacy expressed in the Statute of Secundo Eliz. cap. 10. or in any other Statute or Statutes and that the said Oath shall not be tendred to them and that the refusal of the said Oath shall not redound to the prejudice of them or any of them they taking the Oath of Allegiance in haec verba viz. I A. B. do truly acknowledge profess testifie and declare in my Conscience before God and the World That our Sovereign Lord King CHARLES is lawful and rightful King of this Realm and of other His Majesties Dominions and Countries and I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them will defend to the uttermost of my