to be a Sacrament as St. Cyprian and St. Bernard Others as St. Austin had called all the Ceremonies of the Church Sacraments and sometimes had restrained the Name of Sacrament to Baptism and the Lord's Supper they therefore concluded that they ought to retain the number of seven Sacraments but not determine it by a Decree nor second that with Anathema's But others who were resolved to shew no favour to the Lutherans maintained that the boldness of Hereticks ought to be taken down who assum'd the liberty to make sometimes three Sacraments sometimes four and sometimes more And here it was that divers pretty reasons were started for proving the number of seven Sacraments some taken from the seven Cardinal vertues others from the seven Deadly sins many from the seven Days of the Creation the seven principal Plagues of Egypt and the seven Planets though these reasons of the Divines were diverting enough yet because the deduction of them was long they were somewhat tedious to the Prelates They likewise proposed that the seven Sacraments should be named lest some rash Heretick keeping still the number of seven might strike out one of the true and clap a false one into the place they resolved in like manner to determine that the Sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ but some were of opinion that it would be better not to decide that point that they might spare the reputation of some Catholick Doctours who had maintained a different opinion as the Master of the Sentences who holds that St. James instituted Extreme Unction Bonaventure and Alexander de Hale who maintain'd that Confirmation began after the time of the Apostles nay and the same Bonaventure was of opinion that the Apostles had instituted the Sacrament of Penance The second Article of the abstracts related to the necessity of the Sacraments which the Lutherans were accused of denying some were of opinion that it ought not to be pronounced absolutely and without reserve that the Sacraments are necessary because some there are that may be let alone nay and some that are inconsistent together as Orders and Marriage The Carmelite Marinier reasoned strongly against the absolute Necessity of the Sacraments he proved that there could be no use of the distinction of Actus and Voto and Proposito in the Point of the Necessity of the Sacraments for receiving of Grace as if it were absolutely necessary to receive the Sacraments at least in purpose and intention because some have received Grace even before they knew that there was any such thing as a Sacrament he produced the Example of Cornelius and his whole Family and of the Thief that was converted who had all received the Holy Ghost before they knew that there was a Baptism whence it is clear that they had neither received it actually nor in intention and nevertheless they had received Grace This strong Reason was evaded by a distinction of a confused knowledge and a distinct knowledge saying that these People had at least a confused knowledge and implicite intention of receiving this Sacrament The third Article of these abstracts related to the dignity of the Sacraments because this opinion was imputed to the Lutherans that all the Sacraments are equal in dignity This being a matter of less importance it took up but little time and the proposition that admits of an equality in the Sacraments was adjudged to be false because every Sacrament hath its particular Excellency Concerning the fourth Article which related to the manner how the Sacraments operate they pretended that according to the opinion of Zuinglius they are but Emblemes and at most but signs of the Grace which one has already received and not means of receiving it All unanimously condemned that errour and concurred in Judgment That the Sacraments are the Causes of Grace But here arose a great Debate betwixt the Schools of Thomas and Scotus that is to say betwixt the Jacobins and the Cordeliers the Thomists maintained that the Sacraments are physical and instrumental Causes of Grace on the contrary the Cordeliers according to the Sentiments of Scotus and Bonaventure their chief Divines said that God produces not Grace which is spiritual by a thing that is corporeal and that therefore all the Efficacy of the Sacraments depends on the Gospel Covenant whereby God has engaged himself to confer inward Grace as often as the outward Sacrament is administred so that they maintained the Sacraments to be onely moral Causes The Jacobins accused the Cordeliers of approaching near the opinion of the Lutherans And the Cordeliers twitted the Thomists for asserting an absurdity that gave the Hereticks advantage over the Church And it was impossible to make them friends The Legates complained to the Generals of the Orders of the Vehemence of their Religious and even wrote to Rome that it was necessary to repress them There happened also another quarel betwixt the Jacobins and Cordeliers about the difference of the Sacraments of the Old and New Testament upon occasion of the sixth Article of the Abstracts That Article imported that according to the Doctrine of the Lutherans the Sacraments of the Old Testament had the virtue of conferring Grace and this gave an opportunity of handling the question concerning the Efficacy of the ancient Sacraments The Jacobins maintained that those of the Old Law did not justifie ex opere operato but ex opere operantis that is to say in their Language that they did not justifie by virtue of the Ceremony but according to the dispositions of the heart of those that received them Scotus and Bonaventure were of opinion that Circumcision justified ex opere operato and to this the Cordeliers adhered they proved it by the Infants who under the Law were saved by Circumcision if Circumcision justified Infants said they that could not be by virtue of Faith nor Charity nor any other Disposition because Infants could have no actual vertue And because St. Thomas had answered to that that in those days Infants were saved by the Faith of their Parents the Cordeliers loaded that answer with this great absurdity that now-a-days the Condition of Christians would be worse than that of the Jews seeing at present no Infant is saved in Baptism by the sole Faith of its Parents The fifth sixth seventh and eighth Articles were past over the fifth because it had been sufficiently decided already in the preceding Session that Article set forth that according to the Lutherans Faith alone without the Sacraments confers Grace And the Council in the foregoing Session had defined that Faith alone does not justifie The sixth was laid aside because of the Debate we just now mentioned betwixt the Jacobins and Cordeliers about the Efficacy of the Sacraments of the Old Testament The seventh and eighth it was thought might be taken in an Orthodox sense because these Articles affirmed that Grace is not given to all who receive the Sacraments But upon account of the ninth Article which denied according to the
Convention by themselves in Thrace but others on the contrary do affirm that the whole Assembly was Orthodox However there was at least three hundred of them Orthodox that were met together from all Parts The holy Confessour Hosius Bishop of Cordoua did preside in it St. Athanasius was re-established in his See by it and the Nicene Creed was also by it explained according to truth Nevertheless this very Council has not been able to obtain to pass for legitimate St. Austin formally rejects it nor is it reckoned among the first six De. Conciliis l. 1. c 7. Bellarmine indeed so far favours it as to account it among those that are in part rejected and in part approved If the Ancients had believed that General Councils were infallible I cannot see why they should reject this it having all the marks of Universality Gratus Bishop of Carthage was present at it with five and thirty African Bishops more and yet the African Church never received it she took so little notice of it that sixty or eighty years after she had no manner of knowledge of its Canons which appears by the History of the great Contest between the Church of Africk and the Bishops of Rome in the Affair of Pelagius upon the right of Appealls Celestius a Pelagian who had been condemned by the Councils of Africk obtained of Pope Zosimus to be acquitted of all the Censures that had been given against him The Africans opposed it affirming that the Canons permitted not that one accused of Heresie should be tried out of his own Province or but by his own Synod and that the Bishop of Rome had no authority to receive the Appeals of such as stood condemned by the Bishops of Africk Zozimus produced a Canon as of the Council of Nice which permitted Appeals to Rome Tho it was not really a Canon of that Council but of the Council of Sardica The Africans were surprized at it and knew not on the sudden what to reply for in their Copies of the Canons of the Council of Nice there was no such Canon to be found so that not knowing from whence it might be taken because they knew nothing of the Council of Sardica or its Canons there was need of time to clear the mystery The fifth General Council upon the Cause of Arius was the Council of Milan held about the year 354. Ruffinus plainly says that many of the Orthodox fell into the snares of Heresie Hist l. 1. c. 20. And indeed the Bishops that held for Athanasius and the term Consubstantial were in fine banished by the Emperour Constantius Could there be a more famous Council than was that of Ariminum in Italy There were present and assisting in it no fewer than six hundred Bishops of which four hundred of the Eastern Church and two hundred of the West If we may believe Socrates Hist l. 2. c. 29. there was nothing done in this Council repugnant to the Faith of the Church But he is not in this to be credited He thought perhaps it would be a mighty service to the Church to prevaricate in her behalf and deny that this Great Council was of the number of those that favoured Arianism But it is undeniable that this Synod sunk under the violence of the Emperour Constantius and was over reached by the cunning and artifice of Vrsacius Bishop of Singidunum and of Valens Bishop of Mursa The testimony of Athanasius in the Book by him written concerning the Council of Ariminum puts the matter beyond all doubt especially when we consider the concurrent evidence of S. Austin in the fourteenth Chapter of his third Book against Maximin and of St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis adversus Arianos where we find the Letters of Liberius Bishop of Rome to the Eastern Bishops wherein he avers that the Fathers of the Council of Ariminum overcome by the Emperour and by the cheats of Valence and Vrsacius had pronounced contrary to the Faith of the Church but were again perfectly returned from their error and had each of them pronounced Anathema against the Confession of Faith made by the Council of Ariminuw We have thus already five General Councils that have erred about the same matter In the Cause of Eutiches who confounded the two Natures of Christ there were two General Councils assembled The first was at Ephesus in the year 449. convened by Theodosius the younger a Prince truly Catholick All the Patriarchs were present at it Juvenal Patriarch of Jerusalem Dioscorus of Alexandria Domnus of Antioch Flavian of Constantinople and by his Legats Leo Bishop of Rome Nothing was wanting to the Legality or Universality of this Council For to say that this Council was Illegal because not convened by the Pope and that the Patriarch of Alexandria and not the Popes Legates did preside therein is a very vain Allegation the weakness of which however in this place we are not concerned to shew For we oppose not such as make the Pope Superiour to Councils and all the Authority of Councils to depend upon the Popes Pleasure We oppose such as make the Council Superiour to the Pope and hold a Council to be nothing the less legal or less infallible for not being under the Popes direction such as look upon the Councils of Constance and of Basil as most holy Councils tho the Popes did not preside in them and such in fine as require us to submit to the Council of Trent upon its own Authority This General Council of Ephesus tho legally assembled and according to the Canons is notwithstanding a detestable Convention that justified the Heretick Eutiches confirmed his Doctrine and deposed Flavian Patriarch of Constantinople a most holy and Orthodox person About nineteen years before there had been held another General Council at the same City of Ephesus in the Cause of Nestorius who affirmed there was to Persons in Christ This Heresie was there condemned and Truth triumphed This certainly makes an essential difference between these two Councils tho otherwise there be none that I can see as to Form and Externals unless that Error was victorious in the second Council with less scandal than truth overcame in the first For it is true indeed that Dioscorus President of the second Council of Ephesus did with much facility cause the Heresie of Eutiches to prevail the Popes Legats and some few others having been only a little roughly treated whilst in the first Council of Ephesus which is the third received General Council there was a horrible Schism occasioned by Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch who made Parties and deposed each other Socrat. l. 7. c. 33. Evagrius l. 1. c. 4. The Emperour was forced to interpose in the matter and to make use of his Authority to appease so dreadful a Sedition It is apparent from all these Considerations that tho the Council of Trent could be considered as a General Council that would not bind us to believe it infallible nor
all the Divines within their Jurisdiction the Bishop of Constance sent thither James le Fevre his great Vicar who was after Bishop of Vienna This man did what lay in his Power to break up the Assembly and to obstruct all Debates about matters of Religion Zuinglius persisted and in fine the Assembly being dissolved the Senate made an order that the Doctrine of the reformed Religion should be preached with full liberty This so sudden and violent growth of the Distemper made all People wish for a general Council as the onely remedy for restoring peace and tranquillity to the Church The Princes desired it in hopes by that means to provide against the Usurpations of the Priests and Bishops who daily invaded the Estates of Seculars the People longed for it for the reformation of the manners of the Clergy which were horribly corrupted the See of Rome seemed to desire it to support its tottering Authority but Luther and his Adherents protested from the beginning that they would not submit to it unless it were free and the Controversies decided onely by the word of God The Pope dreaded this remedy worse than the Disease he apprehended an Assembly where his Authority might be struck at and those Abuses reformed from which the Court of Rome reaped so much profit besides all this he was at a stand about the choice of the place he would with all his heart have held the Council either at Rome or in any other Town of the Ecclesiastick state where he might have been absolute Master but he foresaw that this design must meet with great opposition however his death which happened about the latter end of the year 1521 put an end to all his perplexities ADRIAN VI. After the death of Leo X. Adaian VI. is chosen in his place On the Ninth of January 1522 Adrian born in Utrecht was chosen in his place this Election was somewhat rare because Adrian at that time was absent from Rome and himself not so much as known there he was then in Biscaye and at Victoria received the News of his promotion but arrived in Rome about the end of August the same year Adrian was reckoned an honest and well meaning man P. Adrian desires to reform the Church that did not approve the disorders year 1522 of the Court of Rome he looked upon the Doctrine of Luther as foolish and stupid not thinking it capable to make any great progress but that those who had embraced that party had onely done it to be revenged of the Clergy for the oppression they suffered from them and for the aversion they had to the manners of the Church-men so that purposing by all means to pacifie these troubles he took a resolution of reforming the Court of Rome As for the Doctrine he was onely of opinion to give some Explanations concerning the Efficacy of Indulgences declaring that that Efficacy depends upon the works of those that receive the Indulgences so that they who neglect or perform amiss the works imposed upon them receive no benefit from the Indulgences but in proportion to their works Cardinal Cajetan a man consummated in School Divinity was at the bottom of the same Judgment with Adrian but he told him however that that Doctrine was not to be divulged because it would extinguish the Zeal that People had for Indulgences and lessen the Authority of the Pope for said he if once the People be perswaded that the Efficacy of Indulgences depends upon their own good works they will look upon themselves as the cause of the benefit they reap from them and set light by the Pope and the present that he makes them and farther they will easily be induced to believe that their good works alone are sufficient to procure them a full remission if they be allowed to think that the Efficacy of Indulgences depends upon their good works These reasons did preponderate with Adrian insomuch that he joyned in opinion with the Cardinal who thought fit that the rigour of the ancient penitential Canons should be revived that thereby the Necessity of Indulgences might appear because when Sinners should see themselves obnoxious to twenty or thirty years Penance according to the Canons they would then easily acknowledge the absolute Necessity of Indulgences to ease them from such severe pains but the Congregation appointed by the Pope to enquire into that affair could not digest that resolution and Laurence Pucci Cardinal of Santiquatro powerfully withstood it But he could not succeed in the design of that Reformation Adrian in the mean while did not wholly lay aside the design of reformation he sent for John Peter Caraffa Archbishop of Chieti and Marcel Cazel Bishop of Cajeta that he might have the assistance of their Councils because both were held in great reputation for probity and knowledge in the Discipline of the Church He was minded to have abolished the use of Dispensations and to have cut off every thing that looked like Simony but when he came to cast about for the means of effecting this he found himself in great Perplexity At length Francis Soderin Cardinal of Volterre put a stop to all these specious designs of reformation He told the Pope that that was the way to puff up the Lutheran party that it would be a great blow to the Authority of the Church by a reformation to confess her possibility of erring that Hereticks would from thence draw great advantages and that the holy See would by that means lose all its credit in the minds of the People he concluded that Croisades were the onely expedient to root out growing Heresies which he confirmed by the Instance of that great success obtained by Innocent III. in the ruine of the Albigenses by the way of force Adrian yeilded to his reasons seeing he could doe no more but sigh in secret for the Disorders which he could not remedy publickly In the mean while he sent Francis Cherigat Bishop of Fabriano to the Diet at Nuremberg he wrote to the Princes Adrian sends a Letter into Germany confessing that the Church and Court of Rome are corrupted and particularly to the Duke of Saxony exhorting them to extirpate the Lutherans by Fire and Sword He confessed to them that there were great abused in the Court of Rome and that the original of all the Mischief came from thence promising to remedy it and in the first Place to reform the holy See in imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ who in reforming of Jerusalem began at the Temple out of which he drove the Merchants and Money-changers but he excused himself that that was not the business of one day at the same time he complained of the disorders of the Regular and Secular Priests of Germany of which the one forsook their Monasteries to live again in the World and the others married to the great Scandal of the Church The Diet made answer in a kind of ambiguous manner but which did insinuate to the
satisfied with Anathema's and that opinion prevailed the rather because the contrary was very judiciously opposed by Giovanni Baptista Cigale Bishop of Albinga who told them that never any man had forsaken his opinion because it had been condemned and that though all Catholicks do profess that they will refer themselves to the judgment of the Church nevertheless they do not do so but more obstinately defend their opinion when once it is condemned The Protestations said he that the Doctors make of submitting to the judgment of the Church are but Complements and terms of Civility which are not so to be abused as to be taken literally they are to be answered by a civil conduct and charitable deportment Every one was convinced of the truth of this in their own Consciences and therefore they yielded to that reason So that there was no decision made touching the questions in controversie amongst the Catholicks themselves that they might not condemn any nor give occasion to a spirit of Defection The Legates acquainted the Pope with all these difficulties and whilst they expected an answer they fell to treat of other matters In the Congregation of the twenty fifth of January the business of Reformation was proposed they came to speak of the remisness of Bishops in the discharge of their Duties and the Legates who were not vexed to see the blame laid at the Bishops doors and that they were look'd upon as the cause of all the disorders opposed nothing that was moved upon that Subject so the Prelates sported themselves with an imaginary liberty in declaming against themselves Giovanni Salazar Bishop of Lanciano was not so patiently heard because he attributed the source of all the evils to the abuses of the Court of Rome however he was suffered to speak But Cornelius Muis Bishop of Bitonto that spoke next refuted him and made it appear that the disorders proceeded from Kings who had the nomination to Bishopricks The abuse of the Plurality of Benefices and its various sources From this they went on to that thorny matter about Plurality of Benefices which was a hinderance to Residence because a Prelate who had two Bishopricks could not be in two places This Plurality of Benefices was introduced three manner of ways First under pretext that one Benefice alone was not enough for the maintainance of a Minister at the Altar more were given him and Benefices were distinguished into Compatible and Incompatible The Compatible are such as do not oblige to Residence and have not the cure of Souls the Incompatible are those that bind to Residence Though in the beginning they might make some scruple of annexing Incompatible Benefices yet they made none in joyning those that were called Compatible Now the sufficiency of a Benefice was reckoned according to the quality of the Incumbent for as a Gentleman or a Lord could not subsist at so easie a rate as an ordinary man so they allotted him more Compatible Benefices according to the Character he bore of Abbot Bishop or Cardinal The second cause of the multiplication of Benefices are Commendums Heretofore when a Benefice was vacant and for some reason as of Plague or War it was not possible to proceed so soon to the Election of a Successour he that had the right of Patronage recommended the care of the Benefice to some Person with whose prudence he was well satisfied during the time of the vacancy this Commendatary received the Fruits and was accountable for them But in progress of time it came to pass that under divers pretexts the Commendataries disposed of the Revenues of the Benefice and retarded as much as lay in their power the Election of him who ought to possess the Benefice in Title To put a stop to these disorders it was ordained that these Commendums should not continue above six Months But the Popes began quickly to grant them for much longer time and at length granted them for Life giving liberty to the Commendataries to enjoy the Profits during Life By this means a man could enjoy but one Benefice in Title but he might possess several in Commendum and even Bishopricks and smaller Cures were thus bestowed This was a very great abuse at which the Adherents of Luther complained much but the Court of Rome were so far from being ashamed of this abuse that they shew'd a prodigious instance of it at the very same time when the Lutherans most fiercely declamed against the corruptions of the Church and that was in the year 1534. when Clement VII gave all the Benefices in Christendom in Commendum to his Nephew Hippolito de Medicis for six Months to count from the day that he took possession of them with Power to take up all the Rents and to apply them to his proper use In a word the last way of evading the Canons which prohibited Plurality of Benefices was the Annexing of Benefices The Pope was wont to cast together forty or fifty Benefices and though they were in several Kingdoms yet that was reckoned but the enjoying of one Benefice according to the Canons because of many Benefices they had made but one But lest this Union of Benefices might in progress of time lessen the number of Livings it was appointed to last no longer than the Life of the Incumbent in whose favour it had been granted and that by his Death the Benefices should be reputed ipso facto disunited There was a necessity of abolishing these three abuses for hindring the Plurality of Benefices and the Prelates as to that gave their opinions with a great deal of liberty They spared not the Cardinals who possessed several Bishopricks nor the Court of Rome that by Dispensations favoured that corruption The Legates who feared that the matter might be pusht on too far seconded the overture that was made by the Bishop of Albinga of referring it to the Pope They said that it was a matter that principally concerned the Court of Rome and that it would be a disgrace to the Pope to be thought incapable of Reforming his own Court The Legates wrote immediately to Rome about it and the Pope gladly received the proposition He removed to Rome the whole affair of that Reformation by a Bull but the Legates durst not shew it because it was too ample the Pope therein taking too much Authority to himself and because the Bishops also who seemed to consent to that Reference opposed it The Spanish Bishops were so far from the opinion of referring the matter to Rome The Spanish Bishops vigorously bestir themselves for a Reformation but without success that they themselves undertook to give a model of that Reformation They drew up a censure in writing which contained eleven Articles for a very strict Reformation as for regulating the exactness that ought to be had in the examination of Bishops and Curates when they were to be preferred to Churches for obliging Cardinal Bishops to reside at least six Months in their Bishopricks for declaring
Pope and yet give some satisfaction to those who so urgently demanded Reformation The Legates are willing to satisfie the Bishops by passing the Decree of the Reformation of Princes but that causes great noise The chief Design of the Legates was to please the Bishops because without them there was no concluding of the Council The principal Aim of the Bishops was to enlarge their Power and for accomplishing of that design they demanded three things First that they should have the absolute Collation of all Benefices that had Cure of Souls that so the Curats might depend on them Secondly that the Council would abolish all the Exemptions of Chapters of privileged Churches and of Monks or Regulars who by certain Privileges obtained from the Court of Rome had found a way to decline the Power of their Bishops And thirdly that all those hinderances might be removed which Princes and Secular Magistrates bring to Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction calling that an invasion of Princes when they strive what they can to hinder the Clergy from challenging and taking to themselves the Trials of civil Causes and temporal Jurisdiction The Legates were very well disposed to satisfie the Bishops as to the third Point of their Demand because none but Princes must pay for that whose interest they did not at all consider And therefore in the Articles which they proposed they failed not to insert every thing that could contribute to the retrieving of the Jurisdiction of Bishops to the same State that the Invasions of the Clergy had formerly brought it to And upon these three heads chiefly the Articles of Reformation run for the satisfaction of the Bishops But as to the second Point which concerns the Exemptions of the Regulars or Monks the Legates had no mind to comply too much with the Bishops because that could not be done without Diminution of the Authority and Profits of the Court of Rome of which all the Monks hold immediately And if the Bishops made instances on their side for obtaining that Demand the Generals of Orders who were present in the Council on the other hand vehemently opposed it The Legates had appointed a particular Congregation for the Reformation of Monks and in that Congregation divers good Regulations were made to which the Generals of Orders had submitted because that Monks are pretty well satisfied that the Rules to which they are oblig'd should be severe and hard that being the thing that appears outwardly to the World and which gains them a great Reputation of Sanctity and Austerity But after all since they are the Masters of the Monasteries within doors and of the manner how these Rules are observed the Severity of Orders incommodes them no more than they please themselves But for the matter of Exemptions they would by no means have that medled with They liked it much better to depend on a Master that lived at a distance who could not watch over their Conduct than on a Bishop who would always have his Eyes upon them Nevertheless the reason that they alledged for their refusal was the remisness and relaxation that Bishops allowed themselves in their Conduct and Conversation and franckly said that when Prelates were Masters of Monasteries Bishops lived under a far more severe Discipline than they did at present and that times were changed The Ambassadours also favoured the Monks for the interest sake of Princes who desire not that Bishops should have too much power because they many times abuse it Martin Royas Pontal Rouge Ambassadour from the Great Master and Knights of Malta was received in Congregation the seventh of September Seeing every one minded their Interests his chief demand was that the Council would Ordain that the Possessions and Commendaries which had been taken from them should be restored The Legates acquainted the Pope with the demand of the Ambassadours of Malta and the Pope answered that it was the business of the Council who ought not to neglect it In that and the following Congregations the Articles of Reformation were again treated of which had been so many times altered and corrected by the Legates and they afforded no important Debates The third Article regarded the Authority of Metropolitans or Archbishops Those of that Character and such of them as were present were for having the Ancient Canons reestablished according to which Bishops were subject to visitation correction and to the Government of Metropolitans as Curates are subject to the Bishops Particularly Giovanni Trevisano Patriarch of Venice was mightily for the restitution of those privileges but the Archbishops were not strong enough to gain their Cause The Bishops who were far the Sedition of the Bishops they were forced to propose in Congregation the Decree of the Reformation of Princes which was sometime before laid aside and referred to another Session Abstract of the Decree of the Reformation of Princes It will not be amiss to give an Abstract of it that it may appear what the temper of the Bishops was and how far the Clergy would have carried on their Usurpations upon the Temporal Right of Princes and Magistrates That Decree contained a Preface thirteen Chapters and a Conclusion The Preface mentioned that the Council had a design to prevent the enterprises of Seculars upon the Immunities of the Church and that for that end it revived the Decrees and Holy Canons which were to be observed under pain of Anathema It ordained then that the persons of Churchmen should not be Judged by a Secular Court upon any pretext whatsoever though they should even consent to it that Secular Judges should not offer to meddle with Matrimonial Causes Causes of Heresie Tithes Rights of Patronage Benefices nor with other Causes wherein any thing of the Spirituality is concerned whether they be Civil or Criminal that Secular Princes cannot Establish Judges in Ecclesiastick affairs that Secular Magistrates must not prohibit an Ecclesiastick Judge to proceed against any by Excommunication that neither Emperour Kings nor Princes can make any Edicts or Ordinances concerning the Affairs Goods and Possessions of Churchmen that Churchmen should be maintained in their Temporal Right of high middle and low Jurisdiction that Ecclesasticks should not be obliged to pay any Taxes Imposts Tenths or Subsidies that Princes and Magistrates should not have Power to quarter their Officers Soldiers or Horses in the Houses of Churchmen There were a great many more Articles of the same force and that tended to the same end So the Clergy shook off the lawfull Yoke of Obedience which they owed to their Sovereigns and erected to themselves within their States a temporal Jurisdiction over Christians parallel to that of Kings and wholly independent of their Authority The Conclusion contained an earnest Exhortation to the Observation of these Decrees under the pain of Anathema This was the Piece against which the Ambassadours of France had orders to protest if they intended to pass it which they failed not to doe The Emperour wrote also to Cardinal Morone that
he would never suffer neither as Emperour nor Archduke that the Council should offer to make such a Reformation to the prejudice of the Jurisdiction of Princes But the Conduct of the French upon that occasion was much more vigorous In the Congregation of the two and twentieth of November they had the patience to hear a long Harangue wherein one of the Prelates strove to prove that the disorders of the Church proceeded from Princes and that Care must be taken to reform them Du Ferrier protests against that Decree and makes a Speech that cuts the Prelates to the quick that since the Acts concerning that were ready there was no more to be done but to produce them The President Du Ferrier started up and made his Protestation by word of mouth in a long and witty discourse delivered briskly in words that cut to the heart He laughed at all the petty Reformations which the Council had made for the Clergy made a Comparison betwixt the Canons of the Council and the Ancient Canons of the Discipline of the Primitive Church wherein it was not permitted to Bishops to be absent from their Flocks three months of the year as the present Council allowed wherein Beneficiaries had not the liberty which the Council granted to dispose of the Revenues of their Benefices to the prejudice of the Poor to whom properly they belong And so went over all the Abuses authorised by the Council of Trent comparing them with the Severity of the Ancient Discipline He alledged that the Reformation of Princes which was proposed tended directly to the Ruine of the Liberties of the Gallican Church but that the King knew very well how to maintain them that he would make use of his Right in laying hold on the goods of the Church when his occasions did require it that it was an intolerable Attempt to excommunicate Kings even without a hearing as that Decree ordained that they should concern themselves with spiritual matters and not with the Affairs of Princes with which they had nothing to doe that the Kings of France had made Ordinances in Ecclesiastick matters and that the Church of France had been governed according to its Laws above four hundred years before the Compilation of the Decretals that Kings held their Power onely of God and that it belongs not to Churchmen to reform them that if they had a mind to reform Princes they should first think of reforming themselves and become like St. Ambrose St. Austin and St. Chrysostome and that that would be the way to make Princes imitate the Examples of the Theodosius's of Honorius Arcadius and the Valentinians This Harangue put the Council out of all patience and even the French Prelates themselves there arose a murmuring and confused Noise amongst them which was like to have broken out into some scandalous Transport had not the Legates to prevent it dismissed the Assembly The Bishops spoke all the Evil they could devise against his Speech to make it pass for Heretical and Nicolas Pelue Archbishop of Sens and Jerome de la Souchieres Abbot of Clervaux had big words with Du Ferrier about it They reported every where that that Protestation was made without Orders from the King that Du Ferrier was a Creature of the King of Navarre that he was suspected of Heresie and that he ought to be put into the Inquisition Others had scraped together some Notes of that Harangue but because Du Ferrier found them false he published it himself and sent a copy of it to the Cardinal of Lorrain with a Letter wherein he told him that he could not abandon the Royal Authority which for the space of four hundred years had been attempted upon by the Court of Rome that as a Frenchman and a Member of Parliament he was obliged to assert the Rights of his King and the opinions of his Faculty And that it was not just that the Council made up of the slaves of the Court of Rome should be Judge in its own Cause So soon as Du Ferrier's Speech appeared in publick the Council caused it to be refuted by a nameless Authour Du Ferrier made his defence and instead of recanting he confirmed all that he had said or written These Writings encreased the Provocation and the Bishops revenged themselves by reviling not so much the Ambassadours as the Court of France They accused the Queen Mother of openly favouring the Hereticks They affirmed that she was governed by the Chatillons who were declared Hereticks by the Chancellour de l'Hopital and the Bishop of Valence who were suspected of Heresie After that Protestation the Ambassadours of France The French Ambassadours goe to Venice having staid a Fourtnight longer at Trent retired to Venice according to the Orders they had from Court. Before they went away they declared to the few French Prelates that remained that it was the King's Intention they should oppose the fifth and sixth Articles of Reformation which were proposed because these Articles drew the Causes and Persons of Bishops out of the Kingdom whereas according to the Liberties of the Gallican Church the Members of the Clergy ought to be judged primâ instantiâ upon the place and by their immediate Superiours When the news of the French Ambassadour's Protestation came to Rome it caused great heart-burnings in the Pope's Court. No man was so much afflicted as the Cardinal of Lorrain because it was an unlucky accident that brought great Prejudice to the Negotiation that he was a managing with the Pope for the Grandeur of himself and Family He pacified the Pope the best he could blaming the Ambassadours and promising to write to the King that he might procure reparation of that Scandal He did indeed write and in such terms as well discovered that he had sacrificed the Interests of his King and the opinions of his Countrey to the design of pleasing the Pope whom he would engage in his private concerns The Pope wrote also to Trent that they should still goe on and that if the French Ambassadours had a mind to be gone they should not hinder them but withall give them no occasion of withdrawing that after all they should prepare to hold the Session immediately upon the return of the Cardinal of Lorrain and put an end to the Council that now he had got the better of the Germans and French and that none but the Spaniards remained to be overcome The truth is the Count de Luna not onely crossed the Pope's design of shortning the Council but also made it his business to obtain an Alteration of the Clause proponentibus legatis He continually charged a fresh and never left off soliciting Cardinal Morone even amidst the troubles that were occasioned by the Protestation of the French till at length the Cardinal was fain to promise that they should endeavour to give him satisfaction in the ensuing Session what this satisfaction was we shall see hereafter The Legates being pressed by the Bishops who were not baulked