the Tridentine Fathers but also quite contrary to those Doctrines and Practises which are manifestly recommended in the letter sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ in the writings of his blessed Apostles in the Commentaries of their holy Successors in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature it self whether Christianity be supposed or not IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary Doctrines in the most general terms without descending to particular applications of them to any one Kingdom or People c the grand Positions are as followeth viz. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ the Bishop of Rome is Vniversal Monarch and Governour of the World even with sovereign independent both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches Nations Empires Kingdoms States Principalities and over all persons Emperours Kings Princes Prelates Governours Priests and People both Orthodox and Heterodox Christian and Infidel and in all things and causes whatsoever as well Temporal and Civil as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual That He hath the absolute power of both Swords given Him That He is the Fountain of all Jurisdiction of either kind on Earth and that whoever derives not from Him hath none at all not even any the least Civil or Temporal Jurisdiction That He is the onely Supreme Judge of all Persons and Powers even collectively taken and in all manner of things divine and humane That all humane Creatures are bound under forfeiture of Eternal Salvation to be subject to Him i. e. to both His Swords That He is empowred with lawful Authority not only to Excommunicate but to deprive depose and dethrone both sententially and effectually all Princes Kings and Emperours to translate their Royal Rights and dispose of their Kingdoms to others when and how He shall think fit especially in case either of Apostasie or Heresie or Schism or breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or any publick oppression of the Church or People in their respective civil or religious Rights or even in case of any other enormous publick Sins nay in case of only unfitness to govern That to this purpose He hath full Authority and Plenitude of Apostolical Power to dispense with Subjects in and absolve them from all Oaths of Allegiance and from the antecedent tyes also of the Laws of God or man and to set them at full liberty nay to command them under Excommunication and what other Penalties He please to raise Arms against their so deposed or so excommunicated or otherwise ill-meriting Princes and to pursue them with Fire and Sword to death if they resist or continue their administration or their claim thereunto against His will That He hath likewise power to dispense not only in all Vows whatsoever made either immediately or mediately to God himself nor only as hath been now said in the Oath of Allegiance sworn to the King but in all other Oaths or Promises under Oath made even to any other man whatsoever the subject or thing sworn be That besides Oaths and Vows He can dispense in other matters also even against the Apostles against the Old Testament against the Four Evangelists and consequently against the Law of God That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him or by others deriving power from Him kills not a lawful Prince but an usurping Tyrant a Tyrant at least by Title if not by Administration too and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God or even to kill his own Prince That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman-Church ventures himself and dyes in a War against such a Tyrant i.e. against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince dyes a true Martyr of Christ and his Soul flies to Heaven immediately That His Holiness may give and doth well to give plenary Indulgence of all their sins a culpa poena to all Subjects rebelling and fighting against their Princes when He approves of the War That antecedently to any special Judgment Declaration or declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope or any other subordinate Judge against any particular person Heresie does ipso jure both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown and all other not only royal but real and personal Rights whatsoever That an Heretick possessor is a manifest Vsurper and a Tyrant also if the possession be a Kingdom State or Principality and therefore is ipso jure out-law'd and that all his People i. e. all his otherwise reputed Vassals Tenants or Subjects are likewise ipso jure absolved from all Oaths and all other tyes whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him That he is truly and certainly and properly an Heretick who misbelieves calls in question or even doubts of any one definition of the Tridentine Council or of any one that is of meer Papal Constitution or of any one of those Articles profess'd in Pius Quartus 's Creed That not only the Pope but any Patriarch nay any inferiour Bishop acknowledging His Holiness may if need be both excommunicate and depose their own respective Princes Kings or Emperours and may also without their leave or knowledge reverse the Decrees of their Vice-Roys or Lieutenants and even censure depose from and restore again such Lieutenants to their former dignity and charge That all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever both Men and Women Secular and Regular Patriarchs Primaâ—s Archbishops Bishops Abbots Abbesses Priests Fryars Monks Nuâ—s to the very Porter or Portress of a Cloyster inclusively nay to the very Scullion of the Kitchin and all their Churches Houses Lands Revenues Goods and much more all their persons are exempt by the Law of Nature and Laws of Nations and those of God in Holy Scripture both Old and New Testament and those of men i. e. of Christian Emperours Councils and Popes in their respective Institutions and Canons and are indeed universally perpetually and irrevocably so exempt from all secular civil and temporal Authority on Earth whether of States or of Princes of Kings or of Emperours and from all their Laws and all their Commands that is from both the directive and coercive virtue of either or which is the same thing in effect from sin against God and from punishment by God or man for only transgressing them That consequently if any Church-man should murder his lawful and rightful King blow up the Parliament fire burn and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore guilty of Treason or truly called a Traytor against the King or against the Kingdom or People or Laws thereof no nor could justly be punish'd at all by the secular Magistrate or Laws of the Land without special permission from the Pope or those deriving Authority from Him That nevertheless all Clergy-men regular and secular in the World from the meanest either Accolits or Converts to the highest Generals of Orders and greatest Patriarchs of Nations inclusively may be out of all Kingdoms and even contrary to
otherwise at all noxious to humane Society and then also and there to Enact those penal Laws where at the same time the Lawmakers could not but have continually before their eyes all those beforemention'd Positions and Practises which they could not but judge to be indeed of the greatest Danger Insolence Pride Injustice Usurpation Tyranny and Cruelty imaginable even those very Positions and Practises which they knew to threaten themselves above others most particularly and which they saw themselves Ten thousand times more concern'd to persecute than any pure Religious Rites or Articles nay which they also knew to be such as even according to the judgment of the greater and sounder part of the Roman-Catholicks themselves abroad in other parts of the World did of their own nature require all the severity of Laws and all the anger of Men to prosecute them I am sure the Third Estate of the Roman Catholicks of France anno 1514 1â— did think so when they desired it should be made a fundamental Law of FRANCE to be kept and known by all men That the King being acknowledged Head in his Dominions holding his Crown and his Authority only from God there is no power on earth whatever Spiritual or Temporal that hath any right over his Kingdom either to depose our Kings or dispense with or absolve their Subjects from the fidelity and obedience which they owe to their Soveraign for any cause or pretence whatsoever That all his Subjects of what quality or condition soever shall keep this Law as holy true and agreeable to God's Word without any distinction equivocation or limitation whatsoever which shall be sworn and signed by all the Deputies of Estates and henceforward by all who have any Benefice or Office in the Kingdom before they enter upon such Benefice or Office and that all Tutors Masters Regents Doctors and Preachers shall teach and publish that the contrary Opinion viz. That it is lawful to kill and depose our Kings to rebel and rise up against them and shake off our Obedience to them upon any occasion whatever is impious detestable quite contrary to Truth and the establishment of the State of France which immediately depends upon God only That all Books teaching these false and wicked Opinions shall be held as seditious and damnable All Strangers who write and publish them shall be look'd upon as sworn enemies to the Crown and that all Subjects of His Majesty of what quality and condition soever who favour them shall be accounted as Rebels Violators of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and Traytors against the King c. And I am sure also That all the Parliaments and Universities of the same Kingdom did likewise think and believe so when at several times they proceeded with so much severity in their censures against so many inconsiderate Writers that maintain'd the Papal vain pretences of Authority to depose Kings and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them But to say nothing at present of the many several Arrests of the French Parliaments on this subject and speak only of their University Censures how smart these were in general the Universities of Paris (z) 1626 4. April and Caen (a) 7. May. and Rheims (b) 18. May. and Tholouze (c) 23. May. and Poitiers (d) 26. June and Valence (e) 14. July and Burdeaux (f) 16. July and Bourges (g) 25. November sufficiently tell us in their special Censures anno 1626. against the Jesuit Sanctarellus in particular i. e. against the Doctrine of such a power in the Pope asserted by him the said Sanctarellus in his Treatise of Heresie Schism Apostasie c. The first of them viz. the University of Paris finding in the said Book this Assertion That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastise Kings and Princes depose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdoms for the crime of Heresie c. condemn'd it in formal words as new false erroneous contrary to the Law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schism derogative to the Soveraign Authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the conversion of Infidels and Heretical Princes disturbing the publick peace tending to the ruine of Kingdoms and Republicks diverting Subjects from the obedience due to their Soveraigns and precipitating them into faction rebellion sedition and even to commit Particides on the sacred Persons of their Princes And the other seven Universities were not much behind for they also every one condemn'd it as false erroneous contrary to the Word of God pernicious seditious and detestable XI That if any shall object those penal Statutes which may perhaps be thought by some to have all their quarrel and bend all their force and level all the rigor of their Sanctions against some harmless Doctrines and practises whether in themselves otherwise true or false good or bad I say against the meer spiritual meer sacramental rites of our Religious worship of God and our Belief of meer supernatural operations following as for example against our Doctrines of the Consecration and Transubstantiation and our practice withall of the adoration of the Host which this present Parliament at Westminster in their late Act against Popish Recusants may be thought by some to make the principal mark whereat all the arrows of disfavour must now be shot the answer is both consequential and clear viz. That the Law-makers perswading themselves 1. that the Roman Catholicks in general of these Kingdoms both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks had alwayes hitherto since the schism either out of ignorance and blind zeal or a mistaken interest or irrational fear refused or at least declined to disown by any sufficient publick instrument the foresaid Anti-catholick Positions and Practises which maintain the Popes pretences of all Supreme both Spiritual and Temporal Dominion Jurisdiction Authority Power Monarchy and Tyranny c 2. That their Missionaries i e. their Priests not only day and night labour to make new Proselytes but also to infuse into as many of them and of their other Penitents as they think fit all their own Principles of Equivocation and mental Reservation in swearing any Oath even of Allegiance or Supremacy to the King and forswearing any thing or doctrine whatsoever except only those Articles which by the indispensable condition of their communion they may not dissemble upon Oath 3. That the Tenet of Transubstantiation is one of those Articles therefore to discover by this however otherwise in it self a very harmless Criterium the mischief which they conceive to go along with it thorough the folly of Roman Catholicks in these Dominions they make it the test of discriminating the Loyally principled Protestant from the disloyal and dissembling Papist Which otherwise they would not have done if the Romanists themselves in general who are Subjects to our Gracious King had by any sufficient Test distinguished amongst themselves and thereby convinced the Parliament and all other Protestant people
is Ecclesiastical Judges given them in such exempted causes both criminal and civil but given them so by the supream authority civil and proceeding in so much against them to a meer civil determination execution and coaction by vertue onely of the power derived from the civil laws and supream civil Magistrate and not by vertue of any spiritual power or other whatsoever derived from the Church as purely a Church Because the Church as such hath neither territory nor sword consequently no external criminal or civil Judicatory with any external or temporal power of coaction or coercion properly such but onely a spiritual power of meer spiritual censures which is but secundum quid or diminutively and improperly called coercion or coaction for what belongs to our purpose here But however this be or be not it is clear enough First that by no civil law of the Roman Emperours Clerks have been ever yet at any time exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat or from the supream civil coercive power of his laws Which I take to be so absolutely certain That Bellarmine himself for proof of his third Proposition which he hath cap. 28. l. 1. de Cler. in these general words Non possunt Clericiâ—a Judicâ— seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent had not the confidence to alleadg any other imperial or civil constitution but onely those of the Emperour Justinian's Novells 79. 83. and 123. where yet Bellarmine confesses this Emperour decreed no more but the exemption of Clerks and Monks from secular that is laye judicatories in civil causes onely and not in criminal Nay confesses that for criminal causes the same Justinian particularly and expresly decrees in these very Novels that Clergiemen be subject still to the lay or civil Pretors Jurisdiction with this caution only that judgment of death be not pronounced in the Pretors Court against a Clerk before he be degraded by the Bishop So that by the very concession and confession of Bellarmine himself it is not only clear enough that no civil constitution can be produced for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream lay power but also clear enough that no such can be pleaded for their exemption in such causes from all subordinate inferiour lay Courts being the Pretors Court was a subordinate one at least unto the Princes own supream Tribunal and being that Bellarmine having confessed this much of this law of Iustinians finds no other civil Institution for his purpose in criminal causes to alledge but flyes presently to his Ecclesiastical Institutions in that point saying that albeit the civil law did not so exempt Clerks in criminal causes from the civil Judicatories yet the Canons of the Church did as sayes he appears clearly out of the Epistle of Cains the Pope to Felix and out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and also out of the XI book of Gregory the Greats Register epist 54. ad Joannem Defensorem and saying further that the civil law must yield to the Canon Law cum possit summus Pontifex Imperatori praecipere in iis praesertim quae ad Ecclesiam pertinent whereas sayes he the supream Pontiff or Pope may command the Emperour especially in such things as concern the Church Where it is evident that Bellarmine confesses plainly there is no civil Institution or Law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the civil or lay Courts For the Reader is to take notice here that by the civil law in this matter no other civil law is understood but that only of Emperours From which indeed originally and only all the exemption of Clerks proceeded even in those Christian Countreys which have shaken off the yoke and even in those too which never yet were under that of the Imperial Power or Laws but have made themselves peculiar municipal laws Which yet albeit they be meerly and properly civil laws yet are they not the civil laws whereof Bellarmine treats and his other Associats contend as we are sure they give more exemption to Clerks either in criminal or civil causes then those of the Roman Emperour did But forasmuch as many of our Clerks are ignorant of that spring of their exemption whatever this exemption truly groundedly be as others are no less ungrateful for not acknowledging it I will oblige those and check these by laying here before their eyes the very first laws the several degrees of them whereby they came by the meer favour of the Roman Emperours to that exemption from Secular Courts which they have truly ever since enjoyed more or less in Christendome according as these laws were continued practised or even by other Princes not subject any more or at all to the Roman Emperours and Laws enacted a new or allowed of Therefore and that we may not erre hereafter in this point the Reader is to know that all these several priviledges liberties or exemptions either of persons lands or other goods which the Clergy hath now in Christian Kingdoms and States have not been granted at first by any one Emperour or at any one time The very first exemption ever yet granted to Clerks was that of Constantine the Great whereby after this good Emperour had formerly published his edicts of liberty for Christian Religon in general he particularly gave this priviledge by law to those of that religion were called Clerks that they should not be obnoxious to nominations or susceptions that is that if they were named or elected for any civil office of Magistracy or Wardship or of gathering of Taxes Tributes c. yet they should not be bound to undergo any such whereas before that law or priviledge Christian Clerks being named or elected were bound to undergo all such offices without any such excuse at all But eight years after this law so made the same Câ—nstantine made another whereby he gave a general exemption to such Clerks from all kind of civil offices l. 1. 2. Cod. Theod. de Episcop Cleric l. 16. wherein he gives the reason of this priviledge least sayes he Clerks sacrilego livâ—re quorundam a divinis obsequiis avocentur may out of the sacrilegious envy of some be called away or diverted from their divine imployments And indeed it is very observable against the ungrateful temerity of some Clerks who are loath to acknowledge the spring of their Immunity to be from the secular power that the same most Christian Prince calls those exemptions priviledges For so he calls them in express tearms Haereticorum factiâ—ne comperimus Ecclesiae Catholicae Clericos ita vexari ut nominationibus seu suceptionibus aliquibus quas publicus mos exposcit centra indulta sibi privilegia pregraventur we have found sayes he that by the faction of Hereticks the Clerks of the Catholick Church are so vexed that they are forced to submit to nominations and susceptions which publick use requires against the priviledges granted them In reference to and
only such causes as are meerly Ecclesiastical That Peter Martyr in cap. 13. ad Roman not only teaches the very same but further adds that Princes could not give Clerks the priviledge to be exempt from or not to be subject to the politick Magistrats because sayes Martyr this would be against the law of God and therefore that notwithstanding any concessions of Princes Clerks ought alwayes to be subject to the secular Magistrats And that Ioannes Brentius in Prologamâ—nis and Melanchthon in locis cap. de Magistrat subject Ecclesiasticks to the secular Tribunals even in matters and causes Ecclesiastical But who is so weak as to be frighted from any truth because maintained also or asserted by some lyars Or who knows not that all both Hereticks and Arch-hereticks too joyn with the most orthodox in many both Philosophical and Theological Natural and Moral Divine and Humane positions and even in very many of the most precise uncontroverted revelations of Christian Faith Must it be suspected to be a Christian Truth that Jesus Christ is the Messias promised that he is the Son of God that there are three persons in the Godhead that there are some Sacraments of the new Testament that Christ was born of a Virgin that he suffered for Mankind that he shall come to judge the quick and the dead c. must I say any of these be suspected not to say rejected because Melanchthon or Brentius or Martyr or even Calvin himself or Luther beleeve and maintain them against other Hereticks If therefore they or any other such as they taught also this truth of Clergiemens not being exempt from but subject to the supream civil coercive power of Princes which only is it I undertake here to maintain must Bellarmine therefore think to fright us from saying the same thing although we say it not at all because they did And yet I must further tell the Readers and Admirers of Bellarmine although my task here require it not 1. That our Saviour himself by his non scandalizemus eos in Mat. 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether so free but that as the fulfiller of the old Law and Prophets and as the giver of a yet more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the di-drachma And that Marsilius de Padua or Ioannes de Ianduno were not condemned nor censured at all for saying that any pure man who was not together both God and man as our Saviour Christ was by the wonderful union of both natures or that any other besides our Lord or even for saying that Peter himself was not exempt from the supream temporal power in temporal matters 2. That if Calvin pretend no more but that Clerks ought to be subject in politick matters to the supream temporal Magistrate and where the same temporal doth not exempt them insomuch he speaks not his own sense but the sense he was formerly taught in the Catholick Church which yet in so many other points he unhappily deserted Thirdly That although if Martyr be understood also of inferiour Magistrats as I doubt not much he ought to be his addition be absolutely and simply false yet if understood of the supream onely as perhaps others may understand him and of Clerks living still as Subjects under any such temporal power supream and acknowledging and owning it for such and themselves for Subjects Martyr was not out by saying in this Hypothesis that Princes could not in secular matters exempt Clerks from the secular Magistrat vz. from the supream secular Fourthly That although also if Brentius and Melanchthon understood by causes Ecclesiastical those which are purely and originally such and not those which by custome onely or concession of Princes or because onely permitted or delegated by Princes or their laws to the cognizance of Ecclesiastical Judges are now and have been a long time called Ecclesiastical vz. per denominationem extrinsecam by an extrinsick denomination from such Ecclesiastical Judges not by any intrinsick assumed from the nature of the causes which in themselves otherwise are meerly civil or temporal as for example usury adultery theft committed in Sacred places or of Sacred things c I say that although if not this latter kind of Ecclesiastical causes but the former be understood by Melanchthon and Brentius and if they further mean'd that Clerks are to acquiesce finally in the judgment or determination of the temporal Magistrat in all such pure Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes it must be confessed their doctrine or this meaning of it is very false and heretical yet if they understood onely the second sort of Ecclesiastical causes and by secular Magistrats intended onely the supream secular it must be also confess'd that in so much they spoke orthodoxly Besides that none may upon rational grounds deny to Kings and other supream temporal Governours a certain kind of external and temporal or politick and civil superintendency even of the very truest and purest Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes of the Church such as are those of believing this or that to have been revealed by God of Ministring the Sacraments in this or that manner and with convenient or decent rites c. Provided they do not use nor attempt to use immediately by themselves or even mediately by others and by vertue of their own proper authority other means or execution of such superintendency but such means and execution as are meerly temporal and corporal or such as are answerable to the civil power and sword Which kind of superintendency and supream civil coercive judicatory power annexed and I mean also annexed in order to such spiritual causes no man will deny to Kings that will consider it is onely from their supream coercive power the Ministers of justice derive authority to put any man to death for Apostacy Infidelity or Heresy in Faith or doctrine or Sacriledg in the administration of Sacraments For it is not the Bishop or Church that by any power Episcopal or Church power adjudgeth any Clerk to death for denying or renouncing Christianity or any Priest for poysoning his communicant at the Sacred Altar or with a Sacred or unsacred hoast but the King and State and their laws and power So that these onely are still the supream Judges for temporal and corporal and civil punishment or coercion whether by death or otherwise and let the cause be never so spiritual or let the crime be committed in matters or things never so purely strictly or solely Ecclesiastical And therefore if Brentius and Melanchthon intend no more but this by saying that Ecclesiasticks were not exempt but subject even in causes Ecclesiastical to the supream civil power they both meand and sayed in so much but what the Catholick Church had taught them As if they meand any more that is if they meand to say that Ecclesiasticks
and this barely too crimen Ecclesiasticum it is declared that if any charge a Clerk with the former sort of crime the secular judges shall determine the cause but if with the later that the Bishop onely shall have power to judg it Quod si de criminali causa litigium emerserit tunc competentes judices in hac civitate scilicet Constantinopolitana vel in Provinciis interpellati consentaneum legibus terminum imponant c Sin autem crimen Ecclesiasticum est tunc secundum canones ab Episcopo suo causae examinatio paena procedat nullam communionem aliis judicibus in hujusmodi causis habentibus Which although it was first or originally a meer civil constitution or Novel of Iustinian yet was after made a canon of the Church by being inserted in and received by the Church amongst her canons in corpore Iuris canonici or in Gratian. Sixt canon as to pure Ecclesiastical crimes and to their punishment in case of disobedience to the Bishops was long before and not a Papal canon onely but a canon of the third Council of Carthage which was that is called the Vniversal Council understand you of Affrick and is that also in Gratian XI q. 1. c. Petimus where it is declared that intruded Bishops contemning the admonitions of the Church belong in such case to the lay judicatory Seaventh canon distinguishing likewise in effect sufficiently and clearly enough as the above fift hath done betwixt lay crimes or at least some lay crimes that is crimes which are common as well to lay-men as to Clergie-men and both Ecclesiastical crimes or such as are proper onely to Ecclesiastical persons and other crimes too which are strictly civil but not criminal is that of the first Council of Matiscon held in the year 582. under King Gunteramnus and Pope Pelagius II. wherein and in the 7. chap. the Fathers decree Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex cujuscumque Clericum absque causa criminali id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum suerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Whence appears evidently these Fathers held it no breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity that Clerks accused of murder theft or maleficium what ever they understood by this word or whether witchcraft onely according the special acception and restriction of this word or sense of it by some authors or generally all kind of lay evils or wickedness according to the general or etymological sense thereof should be subject to the meer lay coercive power of even inferiour lay judges whereof I have said more at large before And therefore by this canon Princes were to the end of the fift age of Christianity in possession of their own proper supream civil power of punishing Clerks in their own lay and princely Iudicatories tribunals or courts and even by their own inferiour proper and meer lay delegated or commission'd judges when I say the cause or accusation was purely criminal and of such crimes in specie as are murder theft or witchcraft Eight canon is that still in Gratian 23. q. 5. cap. Principes For though Isidorus de sum bon c. 35. be the original Author of it yet as in Gratian it is now allowed and accounted amongst the canons of the Church And that indeed not unworthily For thus it speaks Principes seculi non numquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eamdem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesâ—asticam muniant Caeterum intra Ecclisiam petesta es necessariae non essent nisi ut quod non fraevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem potestat hoc impleat per disciplinae terrâ—rem Saepe per regnum terrenum caeleste regnum proficit ut qui intra Ecclesiam positi contra fidem disciplinam Ecclesiae agunt rigore Principum conterantur ipsamque disciplinam quam Ecclesiae humilitas exercere non praevalet corvicibus superborum potestas principalis imponat ut venerationem mereatur virtutem potestatis impertiat Cognoscant Principes saeculi Deo debere se rationem reddere propter Ecclesiam quam a Christo tuendam accipiunt Nam sive augeatur pax displina Ecclesiae per fideles Principes sive soluatur ille ab eis rationem exiget qui corum potestati suam Ecclesiam credidit Here you see that not out of or by vertue of any commission or delegation from Bishops or Popes Princes do exercise the distriction of their power even within the Church that is against Churchmen and even too in Church affairs but out and by vertue of their own proper authority which they received from God And you see also that the Church as such by reason of its humble and essential constitution may not exercise or make use of any penal discipline as belonging to her self but for such coercion must have recourse to the power of Princes Nor let any think to evade by saying that Princes are in so much or as punishing such persons or as determining correcting or amending such affairs but Ministers of the Church and executors of the sentence or power of the Church pursuant to that which Innocent III. and the Glosse upon him say or determine cap. ut famae de sent Excom extracted out of the said Innocent's answer to the Bishop of London For I have before already in several Sections proved by reason Scripture tradition of the Fathers and practise too both general and particular and of both Fathers and Princes and Pontiffs and people that Princes have hethertoo proceeded and de jure proceeded against such persons and even too in such matters by their own proper authority without any commission had from the Church As likewise that they received from God himself such their own proper universal authority and right to proceed so against all persons whatsoever laymen or Clergiemen guilty of any crimes and in all causes too whatsoever temporal or spiritual forasmuch or wherein they relate to the external peace of the Commonwealth and to the meer external government of the Church by the power of the material sword And we have seen too already that the power of inflicting corporal punishment by way of coaction and force is absolutely denyed to the Church as a Church Which being so who will be so unreasonable as to attribute a power to Her of deputing commissioning or delegating Ministers or executors to inflict them so But what this canon or Gratian or rather Isidore who was the original Author sayes here is very observable I mean where it sayes that Princes have the height of their power within the Church and that God himself hath committed his Church to their power even as Leo Magnus the Pope writing to Leo the Emperour ep 81. sayes Debes incunctanter advertere Regiam potestatem tibi non
Synodum cum Hadriano Papa in Patriarchio Lateranensi in Ecclesia Sancti Salvatoris quae Synodus celebrata est à CLIII Episcopis religiosis Abbatibus Hadrianus autem Papa cum universa Synodo tradiderunt Carolo jus potestatem eligendi Pontificem ordinandi Apostolicam sedem dignitatem quoque patriciatus eis concesserunt In super Archiepiscopos Episcopos per singulas provincias ab eo investituram accipere diffinivit ut nisi à Rege laudetur investiatur Episcopus à nemine consecretur quicumque contra hoc decretum ageret anathematis vinculo eum innodavit nisi resipisceret bona ejus publicari praecepit Item Leo Papa ut habetur distinct 63. cap. In Synodo In Synodo Congregata Romae in Ecclesia Sancti Salvatoris Ad exemplum B. Hadriani Apostolicae sedis antistitis qui domino Carolo victoriosissimo regi Francorum Longobardorum Patriciatus dignitatem ac ordinationem Apostolicae sedis investituram Episcoporum concessit ego quoque Leo Episcopus servus servorum Dei cum toto clero ac Romano populo constituimus confirmanus et corroboramus et per nostram apostolicam auctoritatem concedimus atque largimur domino Othoni primo regi Tentonicorum ejusque Successoribus hujus regni Italiae in perpetuum facultatem eligendi Successorem atque summae sedis Apostolicae Pontificem ordinandi ac per hoc Archiepiscopos seu Episcopos ut ipsi ab eo investituram accipiant et consecrationem unde debent exceptis his quos Imperator Pontificibus et Archiepiscopis concessit et ut nemo deinceps cujusque dignitatis vel religiositatis eligendi vel patricium vel Pontificem summae sedis Apostolicae aut quemcumque Episcopum ordinandi habeat facultatem absque consensu ipsius Imperatoris quod tamen fiat absque omni pecunia et ut ipse sic Patricius et Rex Quod si à clero et populo quis eligatur Episcopus nisi à supradicto Rege laudetur et investiatur non consecretur Si quis contra hanc regulam et Apostolicam autoritatem aliquid molietur hunc excommunicationi subiacere decernimus et nisi resipuer it irrevocabili exilio puniri vel ultimis suppliciis affici Now to consider the fourth Article of Marfilius and Iandunus viz. this Omnes sarcerdotes sive sit Papa five Archiepiscopus sive sacerdos simplex sunt ex institutione Christi authoritatis jurisdictionis aequalis quod autem unus plus alio habeat hoc est secundum quod Imperator concedit uni vel alii plus minus sicut concessit alicui sic potest illud etiam revocare albeit I confess this Article and as to all the several parts of it be most justly censurable as false and erroneous in these tearms wherein this Pope Iohn the XXII relates it for whether Christ himself immediatly from his own mouth instituted this diversity of degrees amongst Priests that one should be a simple Priest only another should be an Episcopal Priest a third an Archbishop a fourth a Primat a fifth a Patriarch and the sixt the chief of all Patriarchs whom we now call the Pope or whether Christ did not so immediatly by his own mouth institute any such or other kind of diversity of degrees inferiour and superiour among Priests but only mediatly by the mouths or decrees of his Apostles or even only by the mouths decrees or mutual consent of the Priests them selves who immediatly or mediatly after the dayes of the Apostles did govern the several Churches yet it is plain that by the institution of Christ they are not after such decree made who ever made it of equal authority or jurisdiction because it is plain that for any thing we read Christ our Lord made no such particular institution or such particular provision for parity or equality of jurisdiction amongst them not even I mean in case the diversity of degrees were made by the Priests themselves and not by Christ himself immediatly as it is too plain that if the immediat institution of this diversity of decrees be attributed to him the immediat institution also of a disparity or inequality of jurisdiction amongst them must be likewise attributed to him and therefore the first part of this fourth Article which sayes the contrary and if it do say the contrary must be most justly censurable as false and erroneous and as renewing the old Heresie of Aerius and as deriving or handing it down to Calvin and his godly gang of Presbyterians because we know that by the general and even immediat institution of Christ himself the first Apostolical Priests and all their lawful successors in the priestly function both immediat and mediate until the consummation of the world were and are and shall be impowered to govern the Church and make laws of discipline for the better government of it and consequently to make laws for the diversity of degrees of inferiours and superiours and by consequence also for a disparity and inequality of jurisdiction and because we know he said immediatly by his own mouth Qui vos audit me audit and Quaecunque alligaveritis super terram erunt alligata in coelo and immediatly by the mouth of his Apostle Obedite Praepositis vestris subiacete eis ipsi enim pervigilant quasi rationem pro animabus vestris reddituri and therefore also the second part of this same fourth Article for as much as it sayes that That one Priest hath more authority or jurisdiction purely spiritual then another Priest it is meerly and only from the imperial power as such that gives more to one and less to another of such spiritual power if this be it it sayes is no less justly censurable as false erroneous and heretical as is consequently the third and last part for the supposition it also involves of such a spiritual power greater and lesser given so by the Emperour to this and that Priest albeit I say my judgment of this fourth Article and of all the several parts of it be such and consequently be in all respects conformable to the censure of Iohn the XXII of it in this Bull yet I say withal what every one sees in this Article or condemnation of it there is not a word in it reflecting either directly or indirectly or at all touching the doctrine of a supream civil coercive power in secular Princes to judge the criminal causes and punish by secular means the crimes of all Clerks whatsoever living within their Dominions or such Clerks as are not themselves also for the time supream temporal Princes as well as Clerks Priests Bishops Archbishops Primats Patriarchs or Popes For the disparity or inequality of spiritual authority and jurisdiction betwixt them and the several degrees of superiority and inferiority in such spiritual power by whomsoever immediatly instituted hinders not their parity and equality of temporal subjection to the secular Prince and to his coercive power in temporal matters and criminal causes all
persuaded or dissuaded by any of these men It is not really your salvation they promote by dissuading or diverting you from such a profession of your Allegiance to the King as would in part formally and for the rest virtually and consequentially renounce abjure condemn abhor detest and even in formal terms protest against all those uncatholick Positions and unchristian Practises before related It is indeed their own worldly gain and greatness that the leading men aim at They drive at all and if they thrive they will have all If they fail in their great and bold attempt an attempt forsooth pro bono Ecclesiae Dei yet they know where to live as well for the conveniencies of this World as they do at present with you and many of them much better But when that happens you may starve many of you in a Jayle and your Posterity after you be for ever miserable not knowing where to find relief And by losing on such an account all the lawful comforts of this life to say no worse you cannot with any certainty or even the least intrinsick probability expect to be therefore crown'd as Martyrs or Confessors in the next However they may glorifie you to incite others to do as you have done you cannot amidst your Sufferings have the comfort of believing them or account your selves Martyrs of Christ or of the Christian or Catholick Religion unless you are silly enough to be persuaded That such Positions and Practises as the whole Christian Church from the beginning and even for Ten whole Ages after condemned in effect as erroneous and wicked be that Righteousness or part of that Righteousness whereof our Saviour speaks in St. Matthew declaring there unto us That (b) Mat. 5. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for Righteousness sake because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven XVII That no less a man yea no less a Saint a Holy Doctor and Pope too than Gregory the Great Himself writing above a Thousand years ago to all the Bishops of Ireland (c) Whether of Hibernia as in the common Editions or of Iberia as in Rom. Correctan Gratian. de Consecrat dist 4. c 144. Ab Antiqua it matters not for either way it serves to my purpose on the subject of their being then under a grievous persecution for a less improbable less reprovable and I am sure less interested cause viz That of the Tria Capitula relating to the great Council of Chalcedon hath spoken as plainly to them as I do here to you For in his Epistle (d) L. 2. Regist Indict x. Ep. 36. Which Indiction fell into the year of Christ 592. superscribed Ad universos Episcopos per Hiberniam constitutos in causa Trium Capitulorum He told those Irish Bishops in plain terms That they were not to expect in the other life any rewards for their suffering in this for the cause of the Tria Capitula or for any other unreasonable cause whatsoever i. e. for any at all which was not of divine Cathloick Religion but of humane uncatholick Opinion or Faction not even for suffering so grievous a Persecution as they complain'd of nay seem'd also by their Letter to glory in Prima itaque sayes he Epistolae vestrae frons gravem vos pati persecutionem innotuit Quae quidem persecutio dum non rationabiliter sutinetur nequaquam proficit ad salutem Nam nulli fas est retributionem praemiorum expectare pro culpa Debetis enim scire sicut Beatus Cyprianus dixit quia Martyrem non facit poena sed causa Dum igitur ita sit incongruum nimis est de ea vos quam dicitis persecutione gloriari per quam vos constat ad aeterna pramia minime provehi And yet we know that cause of the Tria Capitula for which those ancient Bishops of Ireland did then suffer was in it self far more specious than yours can be in the Case proposed Nay we know it was indeed so specious and probable that they of Ireland then had not only the Bishops of many other Provinces even of the Roman Empire concurring with them in opinion but the chief of all Bishops in his time that was a little before St. Gregory the Great 's Pontificat even Pope Vigilius of Rome and Him also extreamly persecuted for the same cause yea buffeted drag'd imprisoned at Constantinople c. by command of the Catholick Emperor Justinian * Baron ad ann Christ 552. Nay we know it was so specious a Cause as not only to have in the bottom of it nothing of worldly Interest Dominion Power Riches nothing of Supremacy or Primacy even Spiritual much less any thing at all of Rebellion or Blood or Wickedness under any pretence whatsoever For these Sufferers both pretended and intended the sole honor of Christ against Nestorianism And yet we see how severely and positively they i. e. those ancient Bishops of Ireland or Iberia were by Gregory the Great dealt with on the point of their suffering persecution for that cause how specious or probable soever which a greater body of Christians did condemn and which all Christians might be sure was no part of those undoubted verities of Religion for which if occasion were they were bound to suffer and suffering and dying so were also to expect certainly and confidently the reward of the blessed a Crown of Glory in Heaven Whence you may judge what he would say to you at this present for being led by men who would persuade you still to suffer persecution for a Cause which hath nothing of that speciousness in it a Cause which hath nothing to make the sufferance for it appear in any wise rational to sober men a Cause that hath not the ancient nor even the modern Bishops of any one other Kingdom or Province in the World to make it seem the less improbable no nor any one of those ancient Bishops of Old Rome alone and yet a Cause that in the very outward Superficies hath nothing clearer than worldly Pomp Power Vanity Pride Usurpation Rebellion Treason Blood and all kind of Injustice and Vice to brand it and finally by very evident consequence a Cause that in its own nature conduces to nothing not according to reason can promote any thing less than the honour of either the Divinity or Humanity of our Saviour Christ against any Sect whatsoever XVIII That in the last place having your eyes thus prepared all these things being consider'd you may clearly see thorough that other sly artifice of those self same interested men whereby they would perswade you at least to so much filial Reverence to the great Father of Christendom as to acquaint Him first with your present condition send him a Copy of the publick Instrument you intend to fix upon with the Reasons also inducing you thereunto pray His approbation thereof in order to your signing it and then expect a while his Paternal Advice and Benediction before you make any further progress
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
excuse their great dependence from the Ordinaries and Secular Clergy as to their future admission to the respective Districts or Diocesses and their establishment for houses in the Countrey Besides that they were but a very few and inconsiderable in respect of others That however their judgment affection or extraction lead them yet this cause alone might be sufficient for their excuse not to subscribe without encouragment by example from the Ordinaries And yet it is very well known that several of them as likewise of the other more ancient Orders laboured earnestly and mightily that there should be no such encouragment or example at all from Ordinaries or any other Whereof the reason is very obvious Because the later any religious Institution is and the newer in any Catholick Countrey the greater dependence it must have and the more support it wants from Rome Which those three last Orders amongst us were so far from putting to any hazard to be lost by subscription that they would assure themselves of it more and more by the greatest opposition they could make in favour of all pretences for the holy See and thereby also be sure to continue their yearly pensions of Missionaries such of them I mean as are pensionaries upon the account of mission as several are 9. That above all the Jesuits yet more particularly found themselves concern'd on this particular account that so many great and famous Writers of their Society and by consequence the whole Society it self had been all along these fourscore years at least throughly engaged to maintain the contrary doctrine and practises 10. That on the other side the Secular Clergy pretended there was no signing for themselves before the Regulars concurr'd who as being commonly the best Divines and Preachers and many in number and changeable from County to County and from one Diocess and Province to another at their Superiours will and in most parts in greater esteem with the lay people then the Secular Clergy would if not concurring with them cast such an aspersion on them as would be able to render them infamous and contemptible amongst their own Parishioners upon account of so specious a pretence amongst ignorant people as the renouncing the Papal power and acknowledging the King to be Supream Head of the Church would amount unto For so many and very many too of both Secular and Regular Clergy gave out to the common sort against their own knowledge and conscience the Subscribers mean'd and did by that Remonstrance of 61. representing it as the same thing with the Oath of Supremacy which Roman Catholicks generally have refused this hundred years and therefore lay under so many incapacities and other penalties Nay some of those Clergy-men did not stick to say and swear too they would sooner take the Oath of Supremacy than subscribe that Remonstrance And yet it is very clear those Gentlemen understand neither or if they do either that certainly they are out as to both in their explications of them as far as from East to West For in the sense wherein the sons of the Protestant Churches of England and Ireland take the Oath of Supremacy they acknowledge no spiritual Supremacy purely such or any such spiritual Headship or supream Government-ship in the King in any causes or things what soever even temporal so far are they from acknowledging such in causes or things Ecclesiastical or Spiritual not even in those which are by extrinsecal denomination only called Ecclesiastical or Spiritual but only a Supream Politick Civil or Temporal Head-ship or Government-ship in all things whatsoever by the power of the material Sword and this of this Sword over all persons generally as well Church-men as others Which sense is very Catholick and owned in relation to their Kings and 〈…〉 temporal Governours by all Catholicks in France Spain Germany Poland Italy 〈◊〉 wheresoever in the world Nor do they intend to deny by the 〈◊〉 Oath in the negative â—â—me any power purely spiritual to the Pope or other even 〈◊〉 Prelate 〈◊〉 that power only which 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—ugnant to that supâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 temporal or politick Government-ship be not said to be such as indeed it cannot justly And on the other side it is plain the Remonstrance o◠〈…〉 not a word or clause either defectâ—â—◠〈◊〉 directly or by any kind of consequence importing the 〈◊〉 wherein the Roman Catholicke have refused â—â—therto the â—â—nd Oath of Supremacy 〈◊〉 this sense is no other than 〈…〉 by the universality of the words or signs 〈◊〉 the affirmative and negative 〈◊〉 the Roman Catholick Vulgar understands ever also a spiritual Privacy or Supremacy purely such to be attributed to the King and denied to the Pope and other Bishops in those Dominions albeit this sense be plainly repugnant to the very Confession of Faith in the 〈◊〉 articles of the Prâ—â—estâ—â—â— Church England and Ireland and to those others of Queen Elizabeth in her Injuctions authorized and owned even by Parliament Now it is no less manifest and out of all controversie amongst such as do but even lead singly over the Protestation of 61. that there us not a word in it 〈◊〉 â—biâ—â—ting any such to the King or denying it to the Pope or intending at all any such thing nor indeed any thing else but what is allowed and approved by the doctrine and practice of all the Catholick world abroad iâ— peradventure the present Roman Court not the Roman Church be not excepted and the few sticklers for it although against the sense and inclination of all the wise and moderate Popes even I mean too such as governed that See in these latter times But however this be or be not such was the pretence of many for not concurring by their subscriptions albeit they confess'd withal the Remonstrance very catholick in it self And for this pretence or the scandal raised against the Remonstrance of renouncing the Pope or importing the same with the Oath of Supremacy besides the malicious or wilful stumbling of some at one word in it not construed or taken with the words immediatly following restraining that word as all men of never so little reason or sense must allow it ought to be I know not but the reprinting of the single sheet of that Remonstrance at London by some of purpose to gain by selling it when all the first Edition was immediately bought and the reprinting of it with a false Title cryed and sold so up and down the Streets which false Title imported the renouncing of the Pope by the Popish Clergy of Ireland whether I say this occasioned not at first that aspersion amongst some ignorant people I know not though I am sure it could not amongst the Clergy on Layety either that read the paper it self or what was therein contained 11. That some also of the leading men had a special pick to it only because advanced by the Procurator by whose means they would not even desire the freest exercise of their Religion because he had been all
or body at pleasure according to the end this rational commandress hath prefixed to her self and on the other side we see that the flesh hath no empire no command over the spirit nor can direct or judge or restrain it in any thing Ergo sayes Bellarmine a paritate it must follow or be That in the same wise the Ecclesiastical power which is spiritual and therefore naturally superiour to the secular may when it is necessary direct judge and restrain or use coercion towards the civil power but never be it self directed judged or restrained by the secular Third argument thus As well in holy Scripture and other writings of holy Fathers as by the common custom of Christians Priests are adorned with the names or titles of Fathers and Pastors But nature teacheth that children are bound to obey their parents and willingly abide correction from them but never to think that they on the other side may themselves command correct or judge their parents And much more doth the same nature teach that sheep are directed and govern'd by their Pastours and when they straye are by the whistle or stick of their Pastors reduced again into their right way and pasture Which is so true that it would be plainly against nature that a sheep should direct or govern her Pastour Fourth argument thus Ecclesiastical persons are the Ministers of God consecrated for his onely service and for this very purpose offered by all the people to God Whence it is that they are called Clerici or Clerks from the greek word Cleros that signifies a lot as if by that name of theirs it were given us to understand that they belong specially to the lot of our Lord Which St. Hierom teacheth in his Epistle to Nepotianus But certainly in such things as are offered and consecrated to God and so in some wise made as if they were the property or peculiar of God no secular Princes can have any right Which both the light of reason doth shew and God himself delivers not obscurely in holy Scripture where he sayes in the last of Leviticus Quicquid semel Deo fuerit consecratum sanctum sanctorum erit Domino Fift and last argument thus God hath not seldom punished miraculously the prophaners of Churches and such as presumed to violate the immunities or privileges granted to sacred places Whereof much may be read with Tilmannus Bredenbachius l. 5. sacrarum collationum But that is a very notable testimony which is read of Basilius Porphyrogenitus Emperour of the Greek apud Balsamonem in Nomōca-none Photij in commentario canonis primi Synodi Constantinopolitanae primae secundae quam nos Latini Octavam appellamus For the said Basilius attributs the cause of the calamities of those days to a certain law made by his predecessour Nicephoras Phocas against the liberty of the Church Ex quo inquit lex ista robur habuit nihil boni penitus in hodiernum usque diem vitae nostrae contigit sed potius ê contrario nullum omninò genus calamitatis defuit From the time sayes Basilius that law of Nicepherus was observed no kind of good fortune happened in our life but rather on the contrary no sort of calamity was wanting And therefore this Emperour Basilius did with much reason abrogat wholly that law And these are the five arguments of Bellarmine The first grounded on his pretended custom of all Nations second on his similitude betwixt the Ecclesiastical power and lay and that of the soul and body third on the titles or names of Father and children and sheepheards and sheep fourth on the title or name of Clerks derived from the greek word Cleros and on the signification thereof and the fift on signs and prodigies as he speaks or calamities which pursued the infringers of Ecclesiastical Immunity liberty or Exemption And these arguments I have given all of them as neer as I could in his own words and form that the Reader may the more clearly judge of my answers and of the controversy in it self for what concerns my present purpose in this Section which is onely as I have often advertised the Exemption or not exemption rather by the law divine natural or law of nations of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream lay civil and coercive power in criminal causes And consequently also judge whether I wrong this most eminent Cardinal if I say as I do say That he hath by his doctrine here or in and as to this particular of such exemption and of such laws extreamly abused his Readers and not his Readers onely but his Religion and reason and Layety and Clergie and Church and State and even all mankind And that for this he pretends a custom of all Nations which never hath been yet of as much as any one Nation in the world both holy and prophane Scriptures neither of which have one word to the purpose a similitude that is lame titles or names latin and greek that to conclude his purpose are no less vain and finally the justice of God and saying of an Emperour that never executed nor this at all pronounced in our present case or dispute LXVII For and for what concerns his first argument and I mean still as he intends it to conclude not some kind of exemption Immunity or priviledge either local or personal given to Churches or Churchmen but even that plenary Exemption of his own or which he pretends of all their lands goods houses and persons too and in all kind of causes spiritual and temporal civil criminal mixt and this also not from the inferiour lay or civil Judges onely but also from all the very supreamest civil both directive and coercive powers on earth it is plain enough That his Assumption or Antecedent is false because he hath not yet nor any other can for him hereafter instance as much as any one single Nation in the world wherein they ever yet had or have at present such Exemption That for all those nations known to us we see dayly the quite contrary both taught and practised amongst them in relation to the supream civil power and as well to the persons of Clergiemen in some cases for what concerns judgement and punishment as to their goods and lands for that of taxes when the Commonwealth is necessitated to laye taxes on them That not one of those places he quotes either out of holy Scripture or other books or Histories prove that Antecedent of his or his Allegation of the custom of all nations in the point or even which is less of any one nation Though if he did or could prove it for some one nation yet he could not therefore be thought to have said any thing for the proof of that antecedent or of his grand position unless he did withal instance it generally That therefore likely it was that he onely quoted the books and chapters without giving the words or contents of those books or chapters whereby the Reader might be
an ordinance in such general or rather indefinit terms for the exemption of Clerks in a criminal question from the civil-Judicatory or being it is but a command or law That none should presume to call or draw an Ecclesiastical person in a criminal question or even civil to a secular judgment against the Imperial Constitutions and Canonical Functions and whereas there was never yet any Imperial Constitution or Canonical Sanction either made before his time or in his time or after his time that exempted Clergymen in either of both sorts of questions civil or criminal from the supream civil and absolute power of the Emperour themselves or of other Kings that acknowledge neither Emperour nor Pope nor any other above themselves in their temporal government who sees not that out of this Constitution of Frederick nothing can be concluded for such exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power but only from that of subordinat inferiour and ordinary civil or secular Judicatories Besides we know Fredericks laws were only for those few Cities or Provinces that remain'd in his time which was about the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twenty and therefore could not pretend nor did pretend to prescribe laws to other Kingdoms or Kings for the exemption of Clerks either in civil or criminal causes or even to the inferiour Iudicatories of other Kings And that we know also that that law of Frederick was not imitated by the like in other Principalities not subject to him not imitated I say generally as to the exemption of Clerks in all either civil or criminal causes whatsoever from the very subordinat inferiour civil Iudicatories nor even in prima instantia So that I must conclude that Bellarmine was put to a very narrow strait for an imperial or civil law wh◠〈◊〉 pitch't on this of Frederick which was not known nor as much as 〈◊〉 of in other parts of even Europe it self as owning no subjection to Frederick And yet a law not to the purpose were it of the same authority those Imperial Constitutions were when the Orient and the Occident South and North as far as the Roman Empire was ever spread at any time or even in great Constantins days were under one Lord. An imperial or civil law in those days or of such others for some ages after which wâ—e received in the wide christian world consequently generally retained might have been to purpose if it had clearly expresly on particularly enacted any thing to our present purpose But conceived in such terms as this of Frederick coâ—lâ— not be to such purpose For it is one thing to be exempted from the subjection due to Emperours or Kings and another to be exempted a forâ— secuilâ—i from a secâ—â—â—â— Iudicatory The Emperours had under themselves and established by themselves and by their own civil laws two sorts of Iudicatories The one termâ—â—â—g meer civil or meer secular Iudicatory where peculars onely or meer â—ay men were Judges And the other termed 〈◊〉 Ecclesiastical Iudicatory where Ecclesiastical Persons only or persons depâ—â—â—â— by them were Iudgeâ— whatever the cause or question was civil or criâ—â—nal temporal or spiritual or mixt of both And both had their power which as coercive or a 〈…〉 with any coerciâ—â—â— from the Emperours and from their civil law 〈◊〉 So that the Emperours exempting any from the secular Iudicatory 〈…〉 leave or put such under the subordinat pâ—â—er of the Ecclesiastical Judges deputed by the same Emperours or by their laws Which they might have done in favour of meer lay men 〈◊〉 some lay-men and in some or many or all case whatsoever made had it been their Imperial pleasure as often they did by instances grant Epise 〈◊〉 And entiam to meer lay men and in meer lay crimes or lay causes 〈◊〉 civil and criminal at leaâ— in civil Would Bellarmine conclude therefore that those were exempted or should be in such a case and by the Emperours themselves or their laws exempted from their own supream civil coercive power in criminal causes or indeed in any whatsoever Or must it follow that because by the law of England a Lord for example 〈◊〉 be condemned or tryed in a criminal cause but by his Peers that therefore in England a Lord is exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the King himself Or that it is not by a power derived from the King thâ—â— Peer 〈…〉 condemn or free another Peer Or even that by the supream power of the King which formerly established such a law of priviledge for Peers the same law may not be justly again or upon just grounds repealed and a contrary law made in Parliament if at any time it were found by manifest experience that the Peers did manifestly and manifoldly and even to the ruine of the King and Kingdom and against the very primary intention of all priviledges and laws make use of or rather abuse such a former law or former priviledge Or finally and consequently that whatever priviledge of exemption though only from Inferiour lay Judges was so granted as before to Clerks by the supream civil power of Emperours Kings and other States was such that in case of manifest and manifold abuse even to the ruine of the publick and without any hope of amendment it could not be revoked again or moderated by another law and equal power to that which gave it before Therefore from first to last I think it is now clear enough that by the civil law no Clerks are exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of such temporal Princes or States under whom they live LXIX That neither by the Canons of the Church I am now to prove Wherein I find so little difficulty that notwithstanding the general errour so wide spread or supposed amongst as well Divines as Canonists to the contrary but introduced at first and continued after out of some passages of Councils very ill understood considered or examined I dare say boldly that not onely none of all those Councils or Canons of Councils alledged for such exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power but not even any of them alledged for their exemption from as much as the subordinat civil power of inferiour Judicatories hath any such matter at all Though my purpose here be not other then to prove this truth for what concerns the supream power only To which purpose I affirm that no where in any Council is it found that the Fathers attributed such authority to themselves as by their own sole power to exempt Clerks from lay Tribunals â— or which is the same thing to deprive secular Judges or Magistrates of power empire command judgment coercion or Iurisdiction over Clerks or which also imports the very same to prohibit the secular Judges not to take cognizance of or give sentence in the causes either civil or criminal of Clerks brought unto their tribunals or finally and it is still in effect the same
Pontifice suo ad judicia publica pertrahant Proinde statuimus ut hoc de caetero non praesumatur Si quis hoc praesumpserit facere causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus Out of both these Councils that is out of that eight canon of that first Matisconensian Council and this 13. canon of the third Toletan our learned Cardinal endeavours again to impose on his unlearned Readers But not so much in his great work of controversies l. 1. de Cler. c. 28. where he onely or at least commonly cited the bare chapters and not as much as the material words of Councils so farre he was from composing arguments but in that other book he writ long after against D. W. Barclay and in defence of his foresaid Controversies and particularly of what he taught therein or in his often quoted first book de Cleric c. 28. It is therefore in this reply of his which he also entitles as Barclay did his own book against him De potestate Papae in Temporalibus and it is in the 24. chapter of it and after so many other arguments weak enough as I have already shewn them to be framed and replyes made against William Barclay on pretence of those other councils and in behalf of his own allegation of them it is I say in this little and last beloved piece of his old age he argues thus interrogatively or Socratically out of both these last Councils Si Laici Magistratus c. If sayes he Lay Magistrats were legal Judges of Clergiemen by what right law or title could the above Matisconensian Council decree that all causes of clerks should be determined in the presence of the Bishop or Presbiter or Archdeacon And how could this Toletan Council also with so great asperity of words tearm it praesumption and unlawful attempts in Clergiemen to have recourse to secular Iudicatories And how lastly would this same Council dare to rescind or annull the sentence of the secular Judg and besides to excommunicate the Clerk that procured such sentence or sued any other Clerk in a secular Court or Iudicatory For so much do these words import Causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus let him loose his cause and be made a stranger to communion But the answer is facile enough and clear 1. That neither of both Councils or canons determins any thing against the secular Judge himself or against his having still a power of Iurisdiction to judg the causes of Clerks when called or come before him but onely prohibits Clerks themselves to have recourse of themselves or freely of themselves to sue one an other in secular Courts as hath been said before to the canon of Carthage And for prohibiting such voluntary recourse of Clerks that these Fathers of Matiscon and Toledo had respectively the same rights or authority which those of Carthage or even those of Chalcedon had even that very same which St. Paul had when he either commanded or advised his Corinthians not to sue one an other before Heathen judges c. And therefore that these Councils do rather confirm then any way infirm the jurisdiction at that time yet of lay Judges 2. That Bellarmine is much out of the way in thinking if ever he thought so indeed that by these words causam perdat the Fathers of Toledo rescind or annul the sentence of the secular judg by their own proper Episcopal or spiritual authority For and for what belong'd and was necessary to such rescission or annullation strictly taken the Fathers in making this canon as likewise in making any other such or that would or should require a politick civil power properly such in the canon-makers derived their authority from King Recaredus himself at whose command this third Council of Toledo was called and therefore sate in it himself and made the first speech to open it and several speeches after and finally confirmed it with his own subscription in these words Flavius Recaredus Rex hanc deliberationem quam cum sancta definivimus Synodo confirmans subscripsi Having also before his said subscription premised this declaration or admonition to all concern'd Praecedente autem diligenti cauta deliberatione sive quae ad fidem conveniunt sue quae ad morum correctionem respiciunt sensus maruritate intelligentiae gravitate constant esse digesta Nostra proinde authoritas hoc omnibus hominibus ad regnum nostrum pertinentibus jubet ut si qua definita sunt in hoc Concilio acto in urbe Toletana anno Regni nostri faeliciter quarto nulli contemnere liceat nullus praeterire praesumat For so it hath been usual that where the civil and Ecclesiastical power agree well together in making laws each or both do make such use of one an others authority that as to the words the Church sometimes doth seem to speak as having civil jurisdiction and the Politick or secular civil power also to make such laws as are of Ecclesiastical Notion Neither indeed doing so or seeming so by vertue of its own proper innate authority but by that borrowed from the other or as being certain of the others approbation and ratihabition Which was the cause that Recaredus the foresaid King of Spain though a meer layman ordained in his confirmation of this Toletan Council in his own name too that if any person Concilii observator esse noluerit superba fronte majorum statutis repugnans si Episcopus Praesbiter Diaconus aut Clericus fuerit ab omni Concilio excommunicationi subjaceat What is the power of excommunication in a lay Kings hands Or did Recaredus the very first Catholick King after those Arian Gothish Kings of Spain a King so truly Catholick and pious as he is confessed to have been did he usurp the rights and proper powers of the Church and even in that very Edict unto which the Fathers of this Toletan Council did themselves subscribe themselves Nothing less What he did in this respect or by such words was by consent of the Fathers nor in so much did he assume peradventure as much the person of a law maker as of a publisher of that law which in this particular of excommunication was onely made by the Fathers Though withal I confess that a secular Prince may by his own proper supream and even still meer civil power make a law commanding or enjoyning the Bishops to excommunicate in certain cases and a law besides ordaining some temporal punishment for such as without any just cause or against the known canons of the Church should excommunicate For to say so we are not onely warranted by natural reason or consideration of the proper office of the supream civil Magistrate which consists in taking care that all degrees either civil or Ecclesiastical under his charge do justly and religiously discharge themselves but also by the canon De illicita 24. q. 3. taken out of a Paris Council where the Fathers speak thus De illicita excommunicatione Lex
Iustiniani Imperatoris Catholici quam probat servat Catholica Ecclesia constitutione c. XXIV cap. eccl 1. decrevit ut nemo Episcopus nemo praesbiter excommunicet aliquem antequam causa probetur c. In which law of Iustinian it is also very observable that he prescribes meer ecclesiastical punishments to be undergone by the transgressors of it Is autem qui non legittime excommunicaverit in tantum abstineat a sacra communione tempus quantum majori sacerdoti visum fuerit c. On the other side it hath been often seen that the Fathers themselves assembled in Councils made ordinances or canons in matters belonging properly to the politick administration as to wit being certain the Prince would by his own proper authority approve of such canons and consequently give them that force which the onely spiritual power could not or as knowing that by the civil laws or customs of countries such matters ought to be observed but wanted nevertheless for their more conscientious and careful observance the admonition of the Fathers and the severity also of Ecclesiastical censures threatned against the infringers Which to have been so indeed may truly and clearly appear even out of this very Council of Toledo where annuente consentiente Rege some politick canons were made by the Fathers and may appear also out of that former of Matiscon wherein the 14 canon is Vt Iudaeis a caena Domini usque ad primum diem pâ—st Pascha secundum edictum bonae Recordationis Domini Childeberti Regis per plateas aut fâ—rum quasi insultationis causa deambulandi licentia denegetur 3. That if we did absolutely grant without reserve that by the royal authority of King Guntramnus in this first Council of Matisconum and of King Recaredus in that of Toledo the jurisdiction of subordinate inferiour lay Judges over Clerks had been totally extinct in the respective Kingdoms of those two Kings yet nothing hence for the exemption of Clerks from the very supream royal power in it self and in all cases or causes Nor any thing to prove such exemption from inferiour tribunals whatever it was to have proceeded from any power of the Church or even from any temporal power of Kings before Iustinians time and Novels in favour of Clergiemen for both these Councils were held after Iustinians Raign 4. And lastly that Bellarmine was not wary enough in alleadging that first Council of Matisconum For besides that what he alleadgeth out of it hath not as much as any seeming argument for his purpose but that simple Quere which every novice could answer he hath moreover given his Readers occasion to tell him that of all Councils he should ever beware to touch on this of Matisconum being the seventh canon of it is so clear and express against his pretence of divine right or divine law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Magistrate or indeed rather of any law at all even meerly humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for their exemption in all crimes or in all those which are in the canons stiled lay crimes crimina laica that murther theft and witchcraft are by name excepted by this very Council and in the seventh canon from any such priviledge of Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption from the lay Judges however the criminal be a Clerk as may appear to any that is not wilfully blind out of this VII canon it self being as to the tenor of it word by word at leingth what I give here Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque judex absque causa criminali id est homicidis furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur So at that time the Fathers of this Matisconensâ—â—â— Council thought it not against any law divine or humane civil or Ecclesiastical to acknowledg the jurisdiction of even inferiour Judges over Clerks accused of or as much as accused of murder theft or witchcraft and consequently nor to leave them in such causes to the punishment prescribed by the law And what think you then would these Fathers have any more priviledged such Clerks as should perchance be found guilty of or charg'd with sedition rebellion hostility or any other undenyable treason against the King State or People Or did these Fathers think you harbour at any time the least thought of a priviledge from God or Church or Prince or people to Clergiemen guilty of moveing subjects to take arms against the King himself and his laws And these being all the Councils alleadged by the learned Cardinal in his controversies de Cleric l. 1. c. 28. and those other Councils after added by him in his foresaid other last peculiar little book de potestate Papae in temporalibus against William Barclay undoubtedly because upon after thoughts he found the former in his controversies not convincing at all as no more will you those his additional ones being also already and at large both in my general Answers to them all together and in my particular answers to each a part cleared by me abundantly in my LXIV and LXIX Section where the Reader may turn to them back again if he please for those additional Councils are no other then Lateranense magnum sub Innoc. III. cap. 43. Constantiense Sess 31. Lateranense ultimum sub Leone X. finally the Council of Trent Sess 25. c. 20. de Reformat All which I have though upon another occasion considered in my said former LXIV LXIX Section therefore to perclose this present Section I find my self obliged onely further to take notice of what the Cardinal sayes nay indeed gives for the second main proof of his third Proposition l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. which third Proposition is as I have before noted in general tearms this Non possunt Cerici a judice seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent For after the Cardinal had briefly quoted the Councils of Chalcedon Agatha Carthage Toledo and Matisconum and of these five Councils had framed his first argument for that his so general third Proposition and then for a second argument pretended first the constitutions of Emperours Novel 79. 83. and 123. but immediatly after acknowledging these Imperial constitutions did not reach the exemption of Clerks at least in criminal causes from some even Inferiour or subordinate lay judges but expresly subjects them still in such causes to the Praetors and Presidents he at last for a second proof of his said Proposition to wit as it relates to criminal causes relyes wholly and onely on the authority of the canon law and for canon law in the point brings no other proof then a general and bare allegation of three Popes Caius Marcellinus and S. Gregory the Great without as much as giving us their words but telling us
purpose Nothing but against oppressive taxes contrary to law and former customs and taxes too imposed by the Consuls only and Rectors of particular Cities Nothing in specie against even any such oppressive taxe tallies exactions collections laid or made by an absolute order law or constitution of the supream civil power or of Kings Emperours States who certainly are not understood by the names of Consuls and Rectors of Cities And however this of taxes of Clerks be nothing at all for the exemption of the persons of Clerks from the supream civil power in all other civil and criminal causes whatsoever which only is it we dispute of here Nothing besides but what was convenient for the Government of the people within the Popes own temporal Patrimony for which only the additions of Gregory were unless it pleased other Countreys and of themselves to receive his said additions Finally nothing but what the Pope Innocent might as justly have decreed in case he believed certainly that Clerks had their exemption whatever it be from the sole civil power as if he had believed they had it only from the Church or from himself or some other of his Predecessors in the See of Rome 3. For although cap. Ecclesia sanctae Mariae de constitutionibus be a meer papal constitution of Innocent the Third only and hath indeed an expression which imports some such thing as the exemption of Churches and of the persons too of Churchmen from the power of Laicks yet forasmuch as this expression is not specifical or not in specie relating to or comprising the very supream lay power it self but so generical only as these words which are the words there concerning this matter Nos attendentes quod laicis etiam religiosis super Ecclesiis personis Ecclesiasticis nulla sit attributa potestas and consequently forasmuch as these words may have a very true and rational sense notwithstanding the subjection still of the persons of Clerkes to the supream lay power because the civil laws or customs which prevailed at that time under Innocent the Third or which is the same thing because the Emperours themselves had given or permitted under themselves to the Church and Churchmen proper Ecclesiastical Judges for all their own both civil and criminal causes how ever still subordinat Judges in such causes to the Emperours and the same must be said of other Kings who had granted the like Ecclesiastical Judges and moreover forasmuch as this canon or chapter of Innocent is only a decision of a particular controversie in matter of a possession controverted betwixt a certain Church called here the Church of S. Mary and a certain Convent termed likewise in this canon the Convent of St. Sylvester which possession was adjudged by a certain lay judge called Senator against the said Convent without previous confession conviction or examination of the same Convent and those words above or meaning of them no part of that which was intended or decided by the Pope in this canon but assumed only and that also transiently as in part importing his reason or motive to remand that possession back to the said Convent and that we know the reasons motives or suppositions expressed in a sentence or canon are not therefore defined by the Pronouncer of the sentence or maker of the canon and further yet because those words neither distinguish nor determine by what authority or law that is whether by divine or humane civil or ecclesiastical authority or law it was so enacted that lay-men could have no power in the causes of Church-lands or Church-men and because too they say nothing at all of any Pope's having made such a law whether by a true or only pretended power as did incapacitat all kind of Laicks even the very supream civil Magistrate himself or indeed as much as the very subordinate inferiour lay Judges from having any judicial authority over Churchmen finally because those words of themselves take away no such authority from Laicks but only at most signifie the not being of such authority attributed to Laicks whatever those Laicks were and by what means soever it came to pass not to be attributed to them therefore it is plain enough this canon Ecclesia sanctae Mariae is to no purpose alledged for Bellarmin's voluit that is for the matter of Fact of any Pope's having done so or having exempted so by his own Power all Clerks from the jurisdiction of even supream lay Princes or even of having declared them so exempted by the law of God himself 4. That albeit also cap. seculares de foro competenti in Sexto and cap. Clericis de Immunitate Ecclesiar be two meer Papal canons as made by the sole authority of Boniface the VIII and although it be confessed this Pope did challenge all the both spiritual temporal power on earth in Church and State to himself alone as likewise consequently to his Predecessours and Successours in the See of Rome which his extravagant Vnam sanctam De Majoritate obedientia and his other proceedings against a King of France besides the later of these two canons here quoted the said cap. Clericis can prove abundantly yet I dare confidently averre that neither of these canons of his however otherwise too too exorbitant at least the later of them comes home enough to prove that any Pope hath de facto by his own meer Papal authority exempted Clerks in all civil and criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of Lay Princes or hath de facto as much as declared or defined that Clerks have been so or are so exempted by the law of God in such causes from the said supream power of temporal Princes That for the former canon seculares de foro competenti the case is clear enough out of the very words and whole tenour of it Which being but short I give here altogether not omitting one word Seenlares judices qui licet ipsis nulla competat jurisdicto in hac parte personas Ecclesiasticas ad soluendum debita super quibus coram eis contra ipsas earum exhibentur litterae vel probationes aliae indueuntur damnabili praesumptione compellunt a temeritate hujusmodi per locorum Ordinarios censura Ecclesiastica decerninus compescendos where you see first there is not one word directly or indirectly of criminal causes but only of a civil in matter of debt Nor secondly any specifical comprehension no nor any comprehension at all of Kings States or Princes but onely of those inferiour persons whose peculiar office it is to be judge twixt party and party Nor thirdly is there any word here declaring by whose law or authority that is whether by that of the Pope or that of the Church c. it came to pass that these very inferiour Lay Judges have no jurisdiction in hac parte in a civil cause of debt challenged on a Clerk or declaring how it came to pass that the proceeding judgment or determination
Scripture teacheth the truth of that maxime as I have taken it Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo For if there be a latitude or liberty once given to mince these temporal rights without an express or certain warrant in that law it self of Christ it must be consequent that according to the caprichiousness or wilfulness of any either ignorant or interessed person the beleevers may be deprived now of one and then of another and at last of all kinds of civil rights under pretext forsooth of their submitting all to the pleasure of the Church by their profession of Christianity being that without such express warrant caution or provision there can be no reason given why of one more then of another or even why of one more then of all Having thus laid and demonstrated my first proposition or major of this my first argument I assume this other proposition for my minor But there was a natural or meer civil temporal or politick jurisdiction power authority or dominion which amounted to a coercive power in all temporal causes in every supream temporal Prince for example in Constantine the Great over all Christians whatsoever Laicks or Clerks living within his or their dominions before he or they became Christian in re vel in voto or by a perfect entire submission to the laws of Christianity and there is no such formal or virtual caution or provision in the law of Christ for the exemption of Clerks and after his or their such entire submission neither he nor they did expresly or tacitly and equivalently of their own accord devest themselves of or quit that power not even I mean in order to any Clerks whatsoever so living still within his or their dominions Ergo The same natural and meer civil temporal or politick jurisdiction power authority and dominion which amounts to a coercive power in all temporal causes over the same Christians whatsoever Laicks and Clerks living within his or their dominions remained in them and him after he or they were so become Christians The conclusion follows evidently the premisses being once admitted And of the premisses the minor only remains to be proved Which yet although having three parts into the first of Clerks to have been subject in politick matters to the supream coercive power of heathen Princes appears already and sufficiently demonstrated in my former Sections where I solved all the arguments of Bellarmine to the contrary from the laws divine either positive or natural and from the laws of Nations too and shall yet more positively and abundantly appear out of my very next immediatly following LXIII and LXIV Sections where by authorities of Scriptures and expositions of those very Scripture places by holy Fathers and by examples or practice according to such expositions I treat this matter and prove this first part of this Minor at large Nay and shall appear too most positively and abundantly out of my second and third arguments of reason either Theological or Natural either ad hominem or not ad hominem but abstracting from all concessions ab homine which follow in this very present Section And therefore to save my self the trouble of too much repetition I remit the Reader to those other Sections and arguments the rather that Bellarmine himself never scrupled in his first editions of his controversies nor ever until he saw himself in his old age beaten from all his other retreats by the writings of other Catholick Divines Canonists against him and consequently the rather that this matter of this first part of my foresaid Minor is now so little controverted that scarce any can be found of such impudence as to deny it notwithstanding Bellarmine's illgrounded chang◠or opposition in his old age whereof more presently And as to the second part of no such formal or virtual caution or provision in the law of Christ for the exemption of Clerks the very self same Sections which demonstrate the first part do also this But for the third or last part of this Minor which was that after their conversion to Christianity Princes did not quit or devest themselves of this supream coercive power of or over Clerks c I need not say more here or elswhere then I have before in answering Bellarmine's arguments out of the civil laws of Emperours Section LX. And nothing els but alleadg the known general and continual challenge of all Christian supream civil Magistrats Emperours Kings Princes and States to this very day of that supream coercive power of Clerks in all politick matters and their actual practice accordingly at their pleasure and when occasion requireth Notwithstanding all this evidence Bellarmine strugles like a bird in a cage For though he had not this argument framed against him dilated upon at full as I have heer but onely pressed by that bare maxime Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo objected to him by William Barclay he answers thus contra Barclaium cap. XXXIIII It is true sayes he the law of Christ deprives no man of his right and dominion proprié perise quasi hoo ipsum intendat nisi aliquis culpa sua privari mereatur properly and intentionally or that of it self or of its own nature it deprives no man so as intending to deprive him so if not in case of demerit when a man through his own fault deserves to be deprived of his right or dominion Yet when it raises laymen to a higher order such as that is of Clerks we must not wonder that consequently it deprives Princes of the right or dominion they had over such men whiles in a condition much inferiour Nor are there examples wanting in other things as well prophane as sacred 1◠The King rayses a private man till then subject to an Earl and rayses him I say to a Principality It must be confess'd this Earl is consequently deprived of his Lordship or dominion which till then he had over this man nay perhaps further even subjected consequently to this very man whose Lord he was so late The Pope rayses an ordinary or simple Priest to a Metropolitane a Priest subject otherwise to a Suffragan Bishop and by such creation without any injury to this Bishop or Suffragan places consequently such a Priest in a Metropolitical power of command over even the very Ordinary under whom he was immediately before A unbelieving heathen or infidel husband had the right of a her band to and dominion over his infidel wife she is converted to the Christian Faith he remaining still an unbeliever And the law of Christ doth without injury deprive him of all right evermore too that woman if she please Even so by a marriage done or contracted by words of the present time a Christian husband acquires a right to such a Christian wife and yet if she before consummation please to ascend to or embrace a higher and holier state of life or that of a Votress in a Cloyster within the tearm of
maximes of other concessions of Bellarmine himself and partly of pure and clear dictats of natural reason and such as reduce all Adversaries to plain contradiction not onely of their own concessions but of the very notions of Superiority and Inferiority Prefection and Subjection Obedience and Government nay and of the very ends and essence of a commonwealth nay and also of the very nature of Relatives and Correlatives which require that both be at least together understood or neither be as a Father cannot be understood without a Son be also understood LXXIII My fourth grand argument shall take up this whole Section because it is my grand argument indeed as that on which as a Christian I relye more then upon any other however seeming otherwise the clearest demonstration may be in natural reason or the most convincing proof from either Theological maximes of Schools or other concessions of Adversaries For this fourth is wholly and purely grounded on the revealed word of God himself in holy Scripture taken in that sense the holy Fathers delivered it unanimously from hand to hand all along down at least eleven ages of Christianity until the days of Gregory the Seventh Then which it is very sure there can be no surer argument in Christianity for theory or practise of any tenet Therefore upon this ground also I confidently affirm that Clergiemen are by the very positive law of God so farre from being exempt from supream secular Princes in whose Dominions they live that they are universally and absolutely subject to them that is even to their coercive power in all temporal matters To prove which assertion I shall not make any use of either of the Barclayes the Father or Son as I have sometimes made some use of them hetherto nay often too in some or perhaps in most of the former Sections which treat of Ecclesiastical exemption although not in all nor even in any for all parts But I will take an other method and from my own reading elswhere treat this argument at leingth as likewise what shall be given in the following two or three Sections more which end this whole dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity pretended to be quitted and renounced by the Remonstrance of 61. or at least by the Clergiemen subscribers of it And yet I will neither to prove my assertion make use of that no less true then common doctrine of France and of all other the very best Divines and Catholick Churches vz. That earthly Principalities are immediately instituted by God himself and the supream civil power of Kings as immediately from him as from the sole efficient cause and from the people onely even when they elect their Kings tamquam a conditione sine qua non and no less immediately from him then the spiritual power of Popes can or is by any said to be Nor will I for the same end insist upon that command of our Saviour in St. Matthew 22.21 Reddite quae sum Caesaris Caesari quae sunt Dei Deo or on that precept of St. Paul to Titus 3.1 Admone illos Principibus potestatibus subditos esse or on that other of Peter 1. Pet. 2.13 Subjecti estote omni humanae creaturae propter Deum sive Regi quasi praecellenti sive Ducibus tamquam ab eo missis or finally on the 8. verse of Judas in his general Epistle where he recounts it amongst the most enormous crimes of some wicked persons that they despise Dominion And I will as little insist on what is repeated concerning this in the Apostolical Constitutions l. 4. cap. 12. lib. 7. cap. 17. whoever was Author of the said Constitutions As also I will pass by for this time without insisting on That supream earthly Princes are within their own Principalities and in all earthly or temporal things the very onely true and proper Vicars of God even by as true at least and well grounded title as the very Popes themselves are said to be the Vicars of God or Christ in all heavenly or purely spiritual matters throughout all Principalities and States of the Earth Albebeit there is no man of reason but sees that this very true title of supream temporal Princes would be enough to evict my purpose However because I would take the shortest way Therefore what I insist upon solely now is that of St. Paul in his epistle to the very Romans themselves Rom. 13.1 Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit Let every soul be subject to the more sublime powers And besides what I insist upon is the whole discourse following of the same Apostle in the same chapter along consequently to the eight verse if not further For sayes he giving the reason of his former precept in the former words let every soul be subject c. there is no power but of God The powers that be are ordained by or of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation For Rulers are not a terror of good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise for the same For he is the Minister of God to thee for good for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake For for this cause pay you tribute also for they are Gods Ministers attending continually on this very thing Render therefore to all their dues tribute to whom tribute custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour Owe no man any thing but c. And finally what I insist upon is the necessary sense of these very passages of St. Paul and of the like or to the same purpose and is that very sense I mean as delivered to us in the doctrine and practice of the most holy and most eminent Fathers of Christianity all along as I have said before until the enemy of man oversowed tares among the wheat in the dayes and Popedom of Gregory the VII And yet without any peradventure those very Scripture-passages alone that is the very and only letter of them would be sufficient to perswade the general power of Princes over all men both Laicks and Clerks without further help or addition of the sense and practice of holy Fathers if some late Divines or Schoolmen were not far more pervicacious then became either Christians or even any sort of rational men not to speak at all of Christian Divines Which is the cause that being this sort of men that is some late Scholasticks among whom Cardinal Bellarmine is at least one of the chief have strangely endeavoured to distort the said Scripture passages as rudely to the end they might deprive all even the most Christian and Catholick Princes of this power or that the
supream temporal Prince in any of the Citties or territories which he either actually possesses or challengeth to himself as such an absolute or supream independent temporal Prince To enquire into any such intrigue is not material nor any part of my purpose And all I say of it because I mention'd it accidentally is that if the Pope be not so I could heartily wish he were so provided all Popes made that good use of it and onely that good use which some blessed Popes have For I am farre enough for envying the Apostolical See or even present Roman or Papal Court any even worldly greatness which may be to the glory of God and general good of Christian people was verily such even worldly greatness not onely of the Popes of Rome but of other Bishops and of other Priests too may be without any peradventure if regulated and applyed well And I am also farre enough from perswading my self that no Christian Priest can be found who may for natural parts and gifts of God be among Christians and if it please the Christians themselves such an other as Hermes Trismegistâ—s was among Heathens a great Priest great Prophet and great King withall Nay I confess that many Clergiemen have many excellencies and advantages for government above most Laymen Yet I say withall that if in elective Kingdoms or States they were by the people put at the Helme of supream temporal government or if in hereditary Kingdoms any of them came by succession to it their being Priests Bishops or even Popes would not could not enlarge their temporal power in any kind of respect nor give them any more temporal exemption as from any pure law of God or Christian Religion then they had before they were Priests c. It is not therefore against any power Ecclesiastical or even Papal as such I dispute here but onely against the unwarrantable extension of such and as onely such by those two most eminent writers Cardinal Baronius and Cardinal Bellarmine Yet I will say this much for Cardinal Bellarmine albeit shewing 〈◊〉 this also his contradiction of himself that in his great work of controversies de Concil Eccles l. 1. 〈◊〉 13. I know lot how but by the too great power of truth he confesses in very express worth that even the very Popes themselves have been subject and even too subjected themselves in temporal affairs to the Emperours and consequently that their Pontifical or Papal office or dignity did not exempt them from subjection to the lay supream power For considering there how the foâ—â— first general Councils of the vniversal Church had been convoked by the Emperours and fearing least such convocation might prejudice that authority which he ascribes to the great Pontiff and consequently bringing four causes or reasons why the Popes then were necessitated to make use of the power Imperial as he sayes for the convocation of those four first general Councils he delivers thâ—â— his fourth Reason Quarta ratio est sayes he quia to tempore Poâ—â—tyex eâ—si in spirituâ—libus essex caput omnium etiam Imperatorum tamen in temporalibus subâ—â—citbus se Imperatoribus ideo non peterat invito Imperatore aliquid agere cum tantum â—â—bâ—isset petere ab Imperatore auxilium ad convocandum Synodum vel ut permitteret Synodum convocari tamen quia Dominum suum temporalem cum agnoscebal supplicabat ut jubereâ— Synodum convoâ—â—i At post illa tempora ista omnes causae mutata sunt Nam neo illa lex viget he means that old Imperial constitution which prohibited all Colleges and frequent or numerous Assemblies without the Emperours licence to prevent seditions designs Vide l. 1. ff de Collegiis illicitis l. Conventicula ff de Episcopis Clericis noc Imperatores in â—oto orbe dominantur nec sumptibus publicis fiunt Concilia nec sunt Gentiles qui impedire possint Pontifex qui est caput in spiritualibus cum etiam ipse in suis Provinoiis sit Princeps supremus temporalis sicut sunt Reges Principes alij id quod divina providentia factum est ut Pontifex libere manus suum exequi possit So Bellarmine cleerly and expresly to a word Therefore by this ingenuous confession of Bellarmine himself the Pope hath no freedom no exemption at all in temporal matters from the civil power of the Emperour by virtue I mean of his Pontificat or Papal office But hath all his exemption in such matters by vertue onely of the supream temporal Principality which he acquired after as Bellarmine's sayes and which he possesses yet And consequently Bellarmine confesses also that this temporal Principality being removed or lost as by a just conquest and many other legal wayes it may be the Pope will be no more exempt in temporals from the Emperour or King of Rome but subject to him wholly in such Which is that onely I contend all along in this dispute of the Pope And therefore it must also follow evidently out of this doctrine and confession of Bellarmine himself that all other Priests Bishops and Clerks whatsoever even Cardâ—nals who have no supream earthly power and Principality of their own must be throughly and entirely subject in temporal matters to those supream lay Princes in whose dominions they live and whom they acknowledge to be their own very true Soveraign Lords Which is that moreover which I contend for in all the Sections of this whole and long dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity against the Divines of Lovain And I am extremely deceaved if Bellarmine yeeld it not fairely and freely in this place however he coyned a new faith for himself after in his old age and in his little books against Barclay Widdrington and some others But forasmuch as nothing more confirmes the rightfull power and authority of Kings in all humane things over also their subjects even all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever then the most ancient custome and perpetual practise in the Christian Catholick Church this very Church her self not onely not resisting but consenting also and approving such custome and practise therefore it is that to those particular Instances already given of such practise or matter of fact in the persons of those two most holy Bishops Athanasius and Eusebius and in the persons also of those other two and not onely most holy but even the very Head Bishops of the whole Earth in their own time as being the great Pontiffs then of the Roman See to witt Gregory and Constantine I must now moreover add those other particular Instances in such matter of fact which I promised of Princes Wherein if I be somewhat prolix in bringing not a few examples down along throughout almost all ages of Christianity from the days of Constantine the great and first Christian Emperour the profit will yours good Reader and the labour mine For you may cull out and pause on such as you find the most illustrious the rest you may read over cursority on pass by
restored them back Severus hystor l. 2. in fine Nor doth Baronius himself tom 4. an 381. n. 110. reprehend him in this matter or at all upon account of usurping on Ecclesiastical persons rights or judgments but onely upon account of having favoured hereticks to wit forasmuch as he restored those three Bishops whom himself had before so lately banish'd Ex quo quidem facinore sayes Baronius sibi necem comparavit But this is a most vain judgment of Baronius For the said Instantius and Priscillianus soon after appealing to Maximus the tyrant Emperour Vsurper and murderer of Gratianus were by him as being or at least pretending to be an earnest Catholick called to his own presence to be judged again by his Imperial authority the Catholick Bishops who accused them desiring this of him most earnestly and were at last condemned by him the one to have his head cut off and the other to be carried to a place of perpetual banishment Several other Bishops also the very same great Catholick Hypocritical Zelot Maximus punish'd in the self same manner some by death and some by banishment Prosper in Chron. Severus l. 2. observing still the Catholick Praelats with much respect and above all St. Ambrose himself notwithstanding he saw very well that Ambrose could not be drawn to approve of his treacherous usurpation but stood still firm to young Valentinian the lawfull Emperour though an Arrian profess'd and consequently an Haeretick Emperour Against whom on that specious pretext of heresy Maximus rebelled and usurped the Empire as being himself a Catholick and pretending onely or at least chiefly to maintain Catholick religion against Arrianisme which infected the young Emperour Valentinian and his mother And yet Baronius might know that this very Maximus who so put even those very heretick or Schismatick Bishops to exile and death whom Gratian restored a little before and was himself therefore and by Gods special ordinance or just permission most cruelly murthered by Maximus if we may believe Baronius for what concern'd the cause of Gods permission of the untimely death of Gratian I say Baronius might know that this very Maximus saw suddenly after as violent and fatal an end of his own Empire and life together by the victorious arms of Theodosius Now to observe that heer which is more to our purpose I confess that Severus reproves the inconstancy of those Catholick Bishops who charg'd Priscillian in that they sufferd him to provoke that is to appeal to the Emperour or that they sufferd the causes of the Church to be judged or determined by a Secular Iudg. But to me it seems plainly that the cause of Priscillian and of the rest was not purely Ecclesiastical For that Priscillian himself was charg'd also with meer lay crimes and that having confess'd his own obscenities he was condemned the same Severus tells And that of such crimes nay indeed of all crimes whatsoever so they were found to be real crimes much more when they disturbed the publick peace or endanger'd it the more sublime the meer Secular powers were the Judges and avengers by strict coercion and corporal punishment or by the material sword and pure force S. Paul teacheth and the perpetual custome in all Christian Kingdoms and States confirmeth Arcadius an Emperour also very orthodox received the accusations against John Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople and thereupon having first ordered a judicial procedure against this great and holy Bishop at last condemned and sent him with a guard of Souldiers farr off to exile Socrates l. 6. c. 16. Pallaâ— in Dialâ—g And certainly Pope Innocent the first of that name who then govern'd the See of Rome where he inveighs bitterly against Arcadius and against Eudoxia his Empress as against most grievous persecuters of so great and so holy a man doth not at all object that Arcadius being a meer lay man usurped a judiciary power in Ecclesiastical matters or so against his own proper Bishop nor that he proceeded so against him out of or by a tyrannical power and not by any legal authority over him in the case but onely reprehends Arcadius in that he had not proceeded justly against Chrisostome or in that he had not made right use of the power which he had in the case and in a word in that he expelled Chrisostome from his Episcopal throne before his cause had been legally and throughly sifted or judged as it ought and consequently without observing the due formalities or even substantial or essential procedure in such case required by the law Ejecisti sayes he ê throno suo rerum judicata magnum totius orbis Doctorem Nicephor l. 13. c. 34. Nor doth Chrisostome himself any where complaine of the Emperour as having usurped a power of judging condemning or banishing him And yet we know he writt to several especially to Pope Innocent many letters fraught with complaints of the Emperours unjust judgment and proceedings against him acknowledging Arcadius or at least supposing him still a legal Judg though unjust as to the sentence in the case Theodosius the younger Emperour known likewise to have been still a most zealous and pious Catholick Prince clap'd in prison Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria Praesident of the General Council of Ephesus and together with him Memnon an other Catholick Bishop albeit this good Prince was in the merit of the cause abused by the false informations of John Patriarch of Antioch and of those other Bishops of his faction who met in a private Council amongst themselves at Ephesus too and separated or absented themselves from the rest or from the publick session house where the said Praesident and generality sate And though after by the great Council of Ephesus to wit when all the Bishops met there the second time the cause of Cyril having been examined he was and all of his way declared innocent and John and his complices condemn'd by their Ecclesiastical sentence yet or notwithstanding all this could not the said great Catholick prisoners Cyril Memnon c be set at liberty out of prison not even I say by the authority of this very great and true Oecumenical Council All this great Council did and all they could do as to this of the liberty of these prisoners was to write and petition to the Emperour by their Legats sent of purpose and in this behalf to his Majesty and petition him by this very tenour and forme of words Nunc verò his scriptis per hos Legatos â—ientissimos Episcopos vestra pia genua pretensia manibus attingimus ut quae â—i lenter acta sunt cum sanctissimis pientissimis Episcopis Cyrillo Memnone nullumque canonibus robur habentia prorsus irrita sint c. Relat. Syn. Ephes. apud Cyril in Apologetico And then soon after conclude thus Oramus igitur Vestram Majestatem soluite nos illos a vinculis vinctis enim fratribus ac Praesidibus sancte nostrae synodi etiam nos quodammodo
opinion or rather certain and true judgment of such a power in the Emperour as properly and essentially belonging to his Imperial office it was that the orthodox Bishops of Syria writ also to the same Emperour Leo for punishing by his own Imperial power according to the laws of the civil Commonwealth Timotheus Elucus Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria as by the same laws and against both the same laws and Princes too being guilty of various crimes but in particular of adultery and murder De delictis autem say they post Câ—ncil Chalced. praesumptionibus quas nefandê commisit Reipublicae legibus corum praesulibus judicio competenti subdetur Where you see a meer secular judgment called or said to be a competent judgment of criminal Bishops And indeed that the banishment of the said Timotheus which soon after followed by the decree of this Emperour Liberat. Brevi c. 13. proceeded onely from his own proper Imperial power not from any Church power or from any commission or delegation from the Church we may gather sufficiently out of the 100. epist of the above S. Leo the Pope wherein he writes thus to Gennadius Dilectio tua eniti elaborare debit ne redeundi integram capiat libertatem de quo jam Edictis suis Princeps Christianissimus judicavit Finally pursuant to the same knowledg of the Imperial power and authority from God for judging and sentencing the criminal causes and inflicting corporal punishments in such criminal causes and on such Clergymen as were found guilty Pope Simplicius epist 9. 11. beseecheth the Emperour Zeno Vt quod per nos sayes he Ecclesia seriò postulat imô quod ipsi specialiùs supplicamus Petrum Alexandrinae Ecclesiae pervasorem ad exteriora transferri piissima praeceptione jubeatis But to leave this judgment of Popes or other Bishops of the power and authority Royal in the case which Judgment as such of the power is not the proper and primary subject of this section or at least of this part of it and to return to matter of fact onely and this of the Princes themselves acting by particular Instances The next Prince I offer to the Readers consideration is Theodoricus King of Italy For this Prince albeit an Arrian as to his beleef of the Trinity of persons or Divinity of Jesus Christ yet in all other points of Christian religion and in his veneration and observance of the Church and Churchmen and of their priviledges and exemptions in general and this without any distinction of Arrians or not Arrians he was precise wary and strict enough nor is there any reprehension or complaint of him in History as not being so And yet he is recorded to have admitted of and discussed the accusations drawn and presented to him by the very Catholicks themselves both Layety and Clergye against Pope Symmachus Of which matter Anastasius Bibliothecarius writes thus in Symmacho Post annos vero quattuor aliqui ex clero zelo ducti aliqui ex Senatu maximè Festus Prâ—binus insimulaverunt Symmachum subornarunt falsos testes quos miserunt Ravennam ad Regem Theodoricum accusantes beatum Symmachum occultè revocarunt Laurentium post libellum Romae factum fecerunt Schysma divisus est iterum Clerus nam alij communicaverunt Symmacho alij Laurentio Tunc Festus Probinus Senatores miserunt relationem Regi caeperunt agere ut visitatorem daret Rex Sedi Apostolieae quod canones prohibent And albeit upon debate this King at last remitted this cause of Symmachus to a Council of Bishops and that by the same King's licence several Councils of Bishops convened at Rome to sift it throughly which Councils I have amongst others and upon an other occasion quoted in the marginal note of my introduction to this first Treatise pag. 1. yet no man can deny that he admitted the accusations and thereupon and as judg of them and of the whole cause exercised several judiciary acts as having a legal power or Christian authority to do so Nor did Symmachus except or resist nor did any for him or in his behalf or in behalf of the Church or of Ecclesiastical Immunity reprehend Theodorick for doing so Nay we have seen before in this Treatise Sec ... this very Symmachus himself openly professing that he himself would yield to God in the Emperour's person to wit by obeying him in humane things as we saw him desiring on the other side that the Emperour should likewise revere God in the person of the Pontiff doubtless for what concern'd spiritual or divine matters The Catholick Emperour Justinus proceeded yet more imperially in the criminal cause of Dorotheus Bishop of Thessalonica For this Bishop being accused of sedition and of several murders too and particularly of the murder of Iohn who was one of the Legats of the See Apostolick and the rest of the Apostolick Legats being his accusers before the Emperour and being so also by express command from Hormisda the Pope whose Legats they were and he too that was murdered and this Pope himself pressing hard that the said Bishop Dorotheus the supposed murderer of his Legat should either be deposed by the Emperour from his Bishoprick and sent to banishment farr from his place or See and Church or certainly be sent to Rome with all fit prosecution of his cause Iustin indeed proceeded to a judicial tryal and sentence of the criminal Bishop but with so much regard of his own imperial power in the case that he neither did the one nor the other which Hormisda so earnestly pressed for Of all which the Suggestions amongst and after the epistles of Hormisda and these epistles themselves particularly the Suggestion which is after the 56. epist and the second Suggestion after the 64. epist and the 57. epistle in it self may be read Promittit say the Legats writing to the Pope Sancta Clementia for so they stile the Emperour vindicare citare Dorotheum quia nos contestati sumus pietatem ejus c. And Hormisda himself the Pope epist 57. writing to the said Legats Nam eumdem Dorotheum sayes he Constantinopolim jussu Principis didicimus evocatum adversus quem Domino filio nostro Clementissimo Principi debetis insistere ne ad eamdem civitatem denuo revertâ—tur sed Episcopatus quem numquam bene gessit honore deposito ab eodem loco ac Ecclesia longius relegetur vel certè huc ad urbem sub prosecutione congrua dirigatur But wherefore doth not this Pope command his Legats to insist upon the delivering of such a criminal a criminal Bishop into their own proper custody hands and power to proceed against him to judg and punish him as they shall find cause being they alone and not the Emperour were his competent Judges in the case if we believe our Bellarminians and Baronius wherefore do not these Legats wherefore doth not this Pope himself being denied what he desired fulminat excommunications against Iustine
potestatem etiam coactivam Cur contrarium Blasphemi praesumut dicere supradicti Rursus advertant isti nequam homines quomodo audent dicere quod ab Imperatore terreno Ecclesiarum Praelati coactivam vel aliam receperint originaliter potestatem cum ut supra dictum est Imperatores usque ad Constantinum Magnum fere omnes Pagani fuerint ac Idololatrae persecutores imo exterminatores quantum fuit in eis Ecclesiae sanctae Dei. Quomodo ergo illi talibus coactivam vel aliam potestatem concederent Vtique nullus sapiens hoc credere debet Where albeit the last argument which speaks of heathen and persecuting Emperours be not as much as in any kind of appearance or seeming or with any kind of colour framed against Marsilius and Iandunus or indeed against any other real Adversary it being credible enough that none hath ever yet been so mad as to say that heathen persecuting and exterminating Emperours had given either coactive or other power whatsoever to those whom they did so persecute and exterminat and albeit these three several passages which he brings out of Paul Arma militiae nostrae non sunt carnalia c and Quid vultis in virga c and In promptu habentes c be all of them three and not they alone but all whatsoever other passages or even Instances or examples either out of holy Scripture or not out of holy Scripture sufficiently convinced by the very first of them that none of them can be justly alleadged for any true corporal coaction or any true coaction by corporal means or by corporal force or by carnal armes or for any carnal or corporal coactive power in the Church or in Paul himself which is that onely coaction and coactive power I deny all along to the Church as a Church for the very first of them sayes expresly that the armes of our militia are not carnal yet forasmuch as Iohn the XXII brings before them three several Instances of corporal punishment inflicted by the power of Peter and Paul as he supposes of all three and that none of all three at least neither of the two former were effects of excommunication or of the power of excommunication it is plain be by his arguments here drives at an other kind of corporal coaction and coactive power in the Church then that of excommunication And yet it is no less plain out of those very instances he brings that he concludes no such corporal coaction nor any such coactive power of such corporal coaction as is denyed by me or by any Catholick at all or even denyed as much as by any Heretick whatsoever not to speak now of Marsilius and Iandunus onely whether they were certainly or were not properly Hereticks and were such or were not such either formally or materially in any true sense and for any tenet which they held and in the sense they held it For the first of those Instances is of Ananias and Saphira Act. 5. strucken dead corporally in the place for having defrauded of the price of the land which they had formerly offered to God and for their lye and hypocrisy in that matter And the second is of Elymas the Magitian who was struck with corporal blindness Act. 13.8 for having resisted Paul by hindering Sergius the Proconsul at Salamina in Cyprus to believe in Christ and the third is of that Corinthian who for his incestuous copulation with his own Fathers Wife was corporally delivered over to Sathan 1. Cor. 5.5 for Paul sayes there he should be in interitum carnis delivered to Sathan And therefore no such corporal coaction nor any such coactive power of such corporal coaction is concluded or could be concluded or driven at hence by this Pope as that is which is denyed by me or by any other Christian to be always proper to and necessarily resident in the Church First because albeit the death of Ananias and Saphira was in it self properly and strictly corporal and the blindness of Elymas was such too in it self and the punishment likewise of that Corinthian was according to the sense of Augustine Ambrose and Chrysostom no less corporal in it self yet they were also purely spiritual and purely miraculous too in the cause means or instruments and inflicted by a pure spiritual onely by a pure extraordinary spiritual miraculous power of those blessed Apostles and by no humane corporal force or coaction or coactive power of such force if at all inflicted by them at least as to the two first of the instances and not rather only impetrated of God by their wonder-working prayer or only prophecied or foretold by their prophecying spirit and by the revelation made to them of things that were to come or to happen and to be done by God himself immediatly for the propagation of the Faith For and as for the two former instances which by the confession of all sides depended not of nor concern'd the power of excommunication nor were any effects of it there is not a word in the Acts or in either of both places of the Acts where they are related that signifies more then that the present or imminent death of Saphira was revealed to and foretold by Peter and the present or imminent blindness of Elymas foretold also to him by Paul in a prophetical spirit of divine zeal there being not so much it self that is not so much as a prediction or threat of death too Ananias much less a prayer made by Peter to God for his death so little ground is there to say or to think that Peter by his proper ordinary Apostolical and judicial power and by his own proper ordinary and corporally coactive power or by a power coactive by humane and corporal force or means or by any that was to be transmitted in ordinary by him to his successors or was promised by Christ to be transmitted in ordinary or to the Church at all pronounced sentence of death against Ananias and Saphira or that Paul by the like ordinary coactive power of his Apostleship to be transmitted by him likewise in ordinary to the Church did judicially sentence Elymas and punish him with blindness Secondly because that as neither Clerk Priest Bishop Patriarch Pope nor universal Church in one collection of Layety and Clergy together do as much as pretend to this miraculous power in themselves always or at all times and that none sayes that this kind of spiritual extraordinary miraculous power is that which is said which is beleeved to be truly the coactive power of the Church being that which is truly the coactive power of the Church is alwayes in her or her Superiours and alwayes in the Pope how ever it be with other Superiours and yet most commonly without miraculous power in them so do not I intend to say nor have said any where nor will say at any time that sometimes past there was not or that sometimes hereafter yet there may not be such a
absolutely or actually yet establish'd Or doth not the very nature of a Parliament and the necessary and plenary freedom of the members thereof evince this 3. T is likewise true that in the great Council or Parliament held at Norththampton and when he saw some of the very Bishops violently bent against him to ingratiat and endear themselves more and more to the King and the rest through fear yielding and saw them all generally conspiring with the lay Peers and joyntly with such Peers condemning and deposing him by their sentence from his Bishoprick he appealed to the Pope from such a sentence and such Judges and such a Judicatory and in such a cause But what then Or was it treason by the nature of the thing in it self or of such an Appeale of such a man and in such a case and from such Judges or was there any law then in England making such appeal to be treason certainly it was not by either Not by the nature of such an appeal as abstractedly considered in it self because neither appeals in a spiritual cause to the Pope nor decisions in a spiritual way of such Appeals by the Pope do of their own nature draw along with them any lessening of the Majesty or supream power of the Prince or of any part of it which is proper to him nor of the safety of the people though by accident that is by abuse only sometimes of the Appellants themselves or of such Appeals or of the decision of them by some Popes and by the neglect of either Prince or Parliament giving way to frivolous appeals or admitting of notoriously corrupt decisions they may prove hurtful Nor was there any law of England as yet then establish'd when the when the Saint appealed so which made it treason or which indeed at all prohibited him or any other Clerk to appeal to Rome in any pure ecclesiastical cause whatsoever or from the judgment of either spiritual or secular Judges or even of both together in any pure spiritual or Ecclesiastical cause such as that judgement was which was pronounced in that Council or Parliament of Northamton against this holy Archbishop even a sentence of his deposition from the See Nay the continual practice of England till then for so many hundred years before and for some time after too warranted by the very municipal laws or municipal Customs or both to appeal to the Pope in such causes which practice in many Instances of even great Bishops and Archbishops both of Canterbury and York and of the Kings also of England sending sometimes their own Embassadours to plead against such Bishops and Archbishops and sometimes to help or plead for them you may see at large everâ— in Matthew Parkers own Antiquitates Britannicae evicts manifestly it was neither treason by law or by reason or by the nature of such Appeals And the practice of other Kingdoms of Christendome till this day continued shews no less that it might have been and may be duly circumstantiated without any lessening of the Majesty of the Crown danger to the safety of the people or without prejudice to any Besides who sees not that it is against the very law of God as delivered to us from the beginnings of Christianity that Lay-men as such may fit in judgment on or give sentence for the taking away the Spirituals of a Bishop As such they can neither give nor take away any spiritual Power Jurisdiction or Authority purely such from the very meanest Clerk whatsoever Indeed if a King be made the Popes Legat in his own Kingdomes as Henry the first of England was you may read it in Houeden in whom also you may see that Henry the Second wrought all he could to get the same power from Rome for himself then such a lay person but not as a meer lay person may give sentence in such causes according to the extent of his commission And who sees not moreover that the Bishops of England who sate in the Council and as sitting there proceeded most uncanonically against their own Primat If they would proceed canonically against him with any colour as much as of the ancient canons of the Church it should have been in a canonical Convocation or Council of Bishops alone and of such other Clergymen as by the canons ought to vote and the Primat should have a fair tryal and be tryed by the canons only Those Bishops failed in all this And therefore Thomas had reason to appeal to the Pope from their sentence For ever since the general Council of Sardica there was at least in the Occidental Church an appeal allowed Bishops even from their equals and even too from their superiours to the supream Bishop or him of Rome as the Fathers of Sardica at the desire of Hâ—sius their President to honour the memory of St. Peter ordained by an an express Canon Though I confess that for what concern'd the temporals of his Archbishoprick which he held only from the King and municipal laws of the land he could not appeal to the Pope understand you otherwise then as to an honourable Arbiter by consent by vertue of any canon only or at all against the said municipal Laws or Customs of the Land if they had been against him in the case of his said Temporals as I have shewed they were not or at least I am sure were not so against him not even I mean in such an appeal concerning his meer Temporals as to render him guilty of treason for appealing so oâ— in such the meer temporal concerns of his Bishoprick And yet I add that Histories make no mention of any such kind of Appeal as this last made by him then when he appealed from the Council of Noâ—thampton though he had reason after to labour in all just meer and pure Ecclesiastical ways to recover the very temporals also of his Church to the same Church T is true moreover that immediatly after his appeal he departed the Council or Parliament the Court and Kingdom and departed the Kingdom incognito in a secular weed But neither was this any treason nor even disobedience or mis-demeanour in him There was no writ of ne exeat Regno against him There was no law of God or man prohibiting him to depart so nor any reason indeed as the case stood with him The King had stabled his own horses in his lodgings to affront him He challeng'd him for thirty thousand pounds which he had administred formerly during his Chancellorship and challeng'd him of so great a sum of purpose to pick a quarrel to him for the Saint had given him an account of all when he was Chancellor and was by the Barons of the Exchequer and Richardus de Luci Lord chief Justice and by the young King himself acquit of all these and whatsoever other accounts before he was consecrated He was notwithstanding his Appeal sentenc'd by the Barons at the Kings desire to be seized on and put in prison The Archbishops of
Supremacy of the Pope whatever this be which the Catholick Church allows him For a pure Supreme Temporal in one and a pure Supreme Spiritual in another and over the same persons and causes are very truly certainly and evidently consistent The second Period or Clause being this And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of Sin to obey Your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs as much as any other of Your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands and consequently being only and wholly of the obedience due by Catholick Subjects to Hâ—s Majesty and being it doth in formal express words determine this obedience to all Civil and Temporal Affairs as you see it doth there can be therefore no dispute of this Period The third Period also containing only in effect an acknowledgment of their resolution to acknowledge evermore and perform their Loyalty and true Allegiance to the King notwithstanding any contradiction by or from the Pope or by or from any other deriving power from the Pope or See of Rome for the words are these And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against Your Majesty or Royal Authority we will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our Abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty I say that being the third Period hath no other words or matter it 's very evident that the whole entire Subject of it is nought else but obedience in Temporals because the Loyalty and true Allegiance of Catholicks to their at least Protestant Prince can be no other but obedience and fidelity towards Him in all Temporal matters and because that by these words Our Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty neither His Majesty Himself nor other Protestant nor any indifferent and judicious Catholick ever yet understood nor indeed ought to understand any other Loyalty or Allegiance but that which is in meer Temporals Nor can it be said upon any rational ground that because the Remonstrants do here acknowledge That notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope c. or any sentence c. or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal c. it must follow That they either deny the true spiritual Authority of the Pope over any Christians or any part of the world or even his Temporal within his own temporal Territories or within those Territories I mean which are His uncontroverredly even also as to the temporal Government or that they are resolved or that they promise or declare that they will disobey or oppose any just sentence or declaration of his obliging themselves or any other Nothing less then either doth follow by any kind of consequence whereas indeed no more but that they are persuaded that the Pope hath neither any true Spiritual nor any true Temporal power from God or man to devest the King of his Temporals or to hinder them from being His loyal liege men in such Temporals and that if he pronounced any sentence or gave any command to the contrary though it were even by Excommunication such sentence and such command and even such Excommunication would be as to all effects and purposes null and void because against the Laws of God and man and nature and not proceeding from any true power he had from God or from the Church of God but only from a vain and false presumption of power or authority in the case and a clave errante from a Key errant or which is the same in effect at most and at best from such an abuse of his authority as invalidates and annulls his sentence in all respects whatsoever They do not therefore at all hereby or in this Clause as neither in any other not even as much as virtually or consequentially in any manner soever deny or oppose his true and pure spiritual power of judging or binding or that which truly and really is in him to judge and bind spiritually or in a spiritual manner both King and Subjects or to pronounce even Excommunication against either themselves or the King if or when there shall happen any just cause thereof But they only deny 1. That he hath no kind of Temporal power acquired either by divine or humane Right that reaches to the King or his Crown People or Dominions 2. That the spiritual power which he truly and really hath either from God immediately or from the Church and which the same Catholick Church acknowledges to be so in him or which the Subscribers admit to be in him can have no such effect by Excommunication or other sentence or means as is the bereaving the King of his Temporals or as is the hindering the Subjects to obey or making it lawful for them in point of Conscience and Religion not to perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to His Majesty And that this third Period or Clause or words or meaning of them import no more but this or that such Clause or Subscribers of it cannot be rationally said to deny or declare against any true power of the Pope or any true or just or legal or even as much as only valid sentence of his I shew evidently thus by two several examples of the like expression used in another matter For without denying or opposing the Popes true power or any true just or valid or binding sentence of his his Sons may declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against their natural Father or his Fatherly Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their natural duty and filial obedience to their said Father And without denying or opposing the Kings true power or any true just or even any valid or binding sentence of his the very Subscribers themselves may declare as I for my part do here declare and I am sure all the rest are ready to declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the King or of His Crown or Kingdom or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by His Majesty His Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from Him or His Kingdoms against their spiritual Father the Pope or his true Papal Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their Canonical fidelity and all that true obedience they are bound unto by
truely declare it is not their or it is not our Doctrine though in an other sense they cannot nor intended so to do And for to justifie this declaration distinction or equivocation they will according to the principles of equivocating Divines readily make use of that passage or words of our Saviour in the Gospel mea doctrina non est mea sed ejus qui mifit me Patris And yet when they shall find it for their advantage they will no less readily acknowledge that their intention also was to declare by those words that what follows is not the doctrine of even those very Doctors or Popes nor consequently of the Church And yet will acknowledge too this much without any prejudice to their own opinion or judgment in the points controverted and without holding themselves obliged by this Declaration understood as it ought or may not to practice accordingly For all they say in this first part of that first Proposition is We the under-named do hereby declare that it is not our doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second They will here presently when they please and shall think fit have recourse to the several meanings of the word Authority And without any necessity of using the distinction which yet is obvious enough and frequent with them of authority in fact and authority of right they will say although not with the Doctors of Lovaine in their censure of the Remonstrance of 61. that they declare it is not the doctrine of the Romae Church that the Pope hath any authority which is purely or meerly temporal or even humane at all or by humane right ways or title acquired over the King in his temporal Affairs And that neither hath he any Divine or Spiritual which is ordinary over him in such or which at his pleasure may at all times and in all cases dispose of the Kings Temporals And after this or notwithstanding any thing here declared they will say with Bellarmine that all the most supream right or authority challenged by Popes to depose Princes and dispose of their Temporals is entire and safe enough For this grand Authority indeed they have or challenge thereunto universally is not in the rank of temporals nor in the order of humane Authorities but in that of wholy spiritual and purely divine and supernatural Is not ordinary but extraordinary or as Innocent the 3d. speaks casual only that is in some particular great and extraordinary cases or emergencies and this too ratione peccati alone as the same Innocent further saith And consequently they will say that by any such general though negative Declaration or by a Declaration in such general words only or against any Authority in general to be in the Pope this very specifical this extraordinary casual spiritual celestial divine Authority in such great unusual contingencies must never be thought to be declared against according to the maxime of Lawyers and Law before given in my Exceptions to their Remonstrance For which saying they will further yield this reason That without any such specifical meaning intended their said Declaration or Proposition may be useful to shut out of doors the Popes humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right said to have been acquired and by the present Faculty of Lovaine maintained to continue still in force to these Kingdoms by donation submission prescription feudatary title and forfeiture And that such Declaration or one against such humane pretences in particular to his Majesties Kingdoms of England or Ireland nay and Scotland too was enough to be expected from them by his Majesty without putting them to the stress of resolving on that other supereminent divine pretence and which really is to all other at least christian Kingdoms in the world or all those of other Kings and in such extraordinary cases as well as to his Majestie 's They have yet in store a third explication equivocation distinction but as fallacious as if not more than any of these two already given And I call it a third way of evasion though as to the first part of it and as to the matter in it self of that first part however the words be different it varyes not or but very little from what is already said in effect It does in indeed in the second Part as will be seen They will as occasion requires or they find it expedient say nothing of the first on the words our doctrine nor of the second on the words authority in temporal affairs But when they come to Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will instantly tell you as Logicians or Sophisters of their specificative and reduplicative sense And that these words bear it And that the cause it self and the conjuncture of circumstances make their recourse to this kind of distinction very lawful They will therefore when they please to proceed a third way allow it is not the doctrine not even of the Catholick Church that the Pope hath any authority not even spiritual or divine in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will I say allow this Proposition or this part of that first complex Proposition but allow it only in sensu reduplicative in the reduplicative sense or as the reduplication falls on these last words Our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second In the specificative they will deny it and withal deny it was their meaning what ever the Sorbonists meaned by the like to their own King to declare at any time or by that Proposition that the Pope had not some authority in temporal affairs over our King considered as a Criminal or Sinner though in such not any over him considered only as our Soveraign Lord and King Charles the Second They will further say that while the Pope himself or people or both joyntly suffer or tollerat Charles the Second as King the Pope hath no authority in temporal affairs over him But yet when he finds it convenient and necessary in any of those great extraordinary emergencies not to tollerat him any longer he may by his divine authority in such cases depose and deprive him of all his temporals together and transfer the right of them to another and this by way of Jurisdiction over his person as a criminal and sinner not over his person as a King not criminal or sinful They will further say and though I meaned it hitherto as the second part of this third way yet it may be also and is a fourth way of explication or evasion that allowing it not to be the doctrine of the Church that the Pope hath any Authority of Jurisdiction Power or Superiority properly such in temporal affairs over the King considered either in the reduplicative or specificative sense and allowing too that themselves intended to declare so much by the said former part of their first Proposition yet the last refuge is alwayes open A Power and Authority in the
immediately before the foresaid Mauritius Aemulator sayes that Roman Pontiff (b) Agatio was chosen Pope or rather Bishop of Rome an 678. Agatho verae Apostolicae fidei piae memoriae Augustus Justinianus cujus fidei rectitudo quantum pro sincera confessione Deo placuit tantum Rempublicam Christianam exaltavit Et ubique ab omnibus gentibus ejus religiosa memoria veneratione digna censetur cujus fidei rectitudo per augustissima ejus Edicta in toto orbe diffusa laudatur Would Agatho have said so of an Heretick * To Agatho I might add Gregory II. in several Epistles nay and a far greater Authority too viz. the Fathers of the Sixth Oecumanical Sâ—nod besides many others after them See Baâ—â—â—s himself and his Epitomizer Spâ—â—danus confessing so much ad an 565. 3. That if the Truth were known it would be found that Baronius and the rest following him were willing to make use of any malicious ungrounded Fictions whatsoever against Justinian not that they believed him to have either lived at any time or dyed at last in any wilful or imputable Errour or in any at all otherwise than St. Cyprian of Carthage did but that his Laws in Ecclesiastical matters even those of Faith are a perpetual eye-sore to them because these Laws are a Precedent to all other good Princes to govern their own respective Churches in the like manner without any regard of Bulla Coenae or of so many other vain Allegations of those men that would make the World believe it unlawful for Secular Princes to make Ecclesiastical Laws by their own sole Authority for the government of the Church and all orders and degrees of Church men under them even to the very Patriarchs inclusively as Justinian did and you may see in his very many Constitutions to that purpose he did X. Although I do ingenuously confess I had on the Subject of Ecclesiastical either Exemption or Subjection very much light and help from those excellent Authors that writ before me so well on that Subject I mean both the Barclayes the Father and Son yet the learned Reader may see I have been very far from borrowing all from them or any other who treated before or after on Ecclesiastical Immunity Wherever I make use of them I have commonly added everywhere i. e. in every Section to their Answers Animadversions and Proofs my own both reasoning and reading elsewhere I have also raised against my self the strongest Objections I could imagine which they had not nor consequently the Solutions Nay Canons also viz. those Paâ—al ones which the Barclayes do not mention I have both objected and answered at large because I observed our later Casuists or Moralists Azorius and Bonacina c or chiefly or onely or at least partly to quote them though they do no more but barely quote the Chapters not the words or Text for their false Positions about Ecclesiastical Immunity as you may see in my whole LXXI Section from pag. 230. to pag. 241. Besides the whole Affirmative or Positive way against Bellarmine and his Disciples the Louain Divines in five intire long Sections from pag. 243 to pag. 374 where I assume the person of the Opponent to prove the Subjection of all Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate and prove it by Scripture Tradition Fathers Councils and as well by Ecclesiastical yea very Papal Canons as Imperial Constitutions and by Practice also and Reason is wholly from other Collections of my own neither of both the Barclayes nor Withrington nor any other seen by me having so much proceeded in this Affirmative or Positive way but mostly in that which I call Negative as it which hath for principal scope to deny and solve the Arguments of Bellarmine c. XI As for the two grand Objections framed by me against my self the one from the condemnation of Marsilius de Padua and Joan. de Janduno the other from the Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury or rather for my Answers and long material Discourses Sect. LXXVI from pag. 374 to pag. 436. nay to 462. upon and by occasion of each or either of the said two Objections I must no less ingenuously acknowledge that I was necessitated to be my self alone my own guide all along without either light or help from any Authour that handled either Subject For I never saw nor heard of any such Authour Which was the reason that I took more than ordinary pains to clear whatsoever might be alledged or pretended from either that Condemnation or this Martyrdom against the soundness of that Doctrine which maintains the Subjection of all Clergy-men whatsoever to the Supreme Temporal both directive and coercive authority even of meer Lay-Princes and States but more especially to clear the whole Intrigue of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry II and the Cause for which he suffered and to shew it was no Divine right nor even other Humane save only that of the Civil Secular and Municipal Saxon Danish and Norman Laws of England which he grounded himself on when he refused to deliver at the Kings pleasure the Criminal Clerks to be punish'd or judg'd by the Secular Judges and Officers XII The veneration I have as I am bound to the Roman-Catholick Church or that Communion in general wheresoever diffused throughout the World and my knowledge of their having in all their Calendars on the 29th of December the Festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury made me the First also that for any thing I know ventures in a singular and long Discourse by way of Appendix after my four several Answers given to the grand Objection against c. from the Martyrdom of that holy Bishop of set purpose to vindicate him from having been a Traytor to the King whether or no he was a Martyr in the Church through the merits of his Cause and according to the more proper and stricter Ecclesiastical sense of the word Martyr Three hundred years indeed after his death he was under Henry VIII in a very unusual manner both judicially summon'd to appear and formally condemn'd for a Traytor Then which judgment if woâ—â— grounded nothing can be more prejudicial to the practice of all Roman-Catholicks in the World in keeping his Festivity and honouring his Memory and begging his intercession for them to our Lord and Saviour Christ That it hath been in-grounded I do my devoir to shew and prove from pag. 439 to pag. 462. where I answer first all that hath been or could be alledged against him and then produce eight several Arguments even very strong Presumptions both in Law and Reason for him I mean as to this controverted Point Whether he could be justly said to have either dyed or even at any time lived or been a Traytor against the King People or Laws of England XIII Where I seem pag. 438. somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker the First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth you must not persuade your self I do at all
liberty or that ease from the penal laws which they so vehemently desired might be so sollicited and obtained by him That my Lord Aubigny himself though expecting the Cardinal Dignity was so farre from disapproveing that Remonstrance or their concurrence to it when first it came forth in Print That he sayed plainly and often to the Procuratour when complaining to him of his said Confessour Father Peter Aylmer at that time with his Lordship at London If the King would be advised by him there should not be a Priest in any of the three Kingdoms but such as would freely sign it That although a while after when he hearkned to the Jesuits he relented somewhat on consideration of their furtherance of his pretensions at Rome or of removeing the obstacles they might perhaps otherwise put in his waye yet on better consideration again return'd to his former and fix'd principles and therefore advised the said Father Aylmer either to sign or withdraw himself out of England Which was the immediate cause of Mr. Aylmers comming then for Ireland though with design also to do all the mischief he could to cross that business as truly he did by manifest untruths although he protested so lately before and so publickly in the presence of 30. Catholicks Priests and Catholick Bishops too at London when the rest signed it that he singled not himself for point of conscience and that he would with his blood sign the lawfulness and Catholickness of it yet pretending after that he had not sufficiently studied nor understood the point as indeed he never seemed to have before or after That for the rest of the Queens Chaplains ordinary or extraordinary I mean the English Irish who were concern'd and to whom it was proper I must confess the grand mistake was in not offering it them by authority at first when it came forth as to my knowledge it was intended to be offered at Hampton-Court and at Council upon a certain Sunday but none of the copies being at hand that day and other things intervening after they were neglected Which gave so much encouragement to all other dissentors ever since albeit the case of those Chaplains and that of the rest of the Irish Clergie be very different and that none of the rest who have been so expresly particularly and positively desired their own concurrence should on that pretence denye or excuse it That finally for what concerns my Lord Abbot Montague what ever his own peculiar interest was or is in relation to that Remonstrance or to an approbation of it if demanded I am sure that being as well as my Lord Aubigny acquainted with the Divinity of France having his title and so great a benefice there and being so conversant in that Court and Church his judgement must have been for the Catholickness and lawfulness of it And a person of so great both reason and experiance in the affairs of these Nations could not but conceive it was both expedient and necessary for such of the Romish Clergie natives as would live at home in any of them to sign it and for such as were abroad or would be not to hinder those at home by disswasion from the good they might expect thereby And could not but conceive it was both expedient and necessary even for His Majesties greater assurance of them that they should do so That besides nothing more in particular being known of my Lord Abbot Mountague's affection or disaffection to that matter nay were even his positive perswasion to the contrary known of certain as it was never for any thing I could here and I have listened after it sufficiently carefully enough yet his Lordships even such demeanour could be no rational pretence for them his forraign dependency his special priviledge by serving the Queen Mother in so great a capacity as he is known to serve Her exempting him from a rule concerning others that had no such arguments to excuse them To say nothing here of his being an English man and Priest of that Clergie who were not so neerly concern'd not to be backward as the Irish Clergie were and who nevertheless did then for the generality of them most heartily desire as they do at this present His Majestie were pleased to favour them so much albeit not lying under those great suspicions the Irish Clergie do at least not having in our dayes given such cause as to demand their subscriptions to such an Instrument and be content therewith in lieu of those other demonstrations the laws they lye under expect from them IX However such as made it their interest to oppose any further subscription made use of these and many other such pittiful and too too weak pretences to excuse their nonconcurrence when they saw no further probability in those no less weak pretences of Theological arguments borrowed from Suarez Bellarmine and others of their way that writ on the Subject of the Popes ill-grounded pretences to and over the Scepters and Royal Diadems or temporal authority of Kings and in particular of the Kings of England But indeed the true causes of their backwardness and reluctancy and which even themselves almost all generally upon occasion acknowledg'd were 1. That most of their leading men and such as not onely were in office over others but very many also that bore no such offices at all as then were pretendents and candidats either abroad at Rome for titulary Archbishopricks Bishopricks Vicar-generalships Deanries Parishes Provincialships Commissaryships c. or at home amongst their own Brethren for votes to be chosen presented or preferred to such offices either amongst the secular or regu-Clergie as they aspired unto albeit as poor and inconsiderable amongst the Clergie as little Cures in Parishes without other advantage than the bare benevolence of the laye people and even as poor and inconsiderable as a Guardianship Priorship or some such other now very vain title in Ireland amongst the Regulars For because at Rome and for what depended of that Court immediately they perswaded themselves that to subscribe would be a perpetual obstruction to all their hopes as the case stands in Ireland the King being of a different communion and even at home also they could expect no more favour from their own Brethren or their own actual superiours Bishops Vicars-general Provincials c. that were adverse to the Remonstrance as most of them certainly were even such as both in their judgements for point of conscience and in their natural inclinations also to the English Crown and interests of it in Ireland were truly in their Soules for the Remonstrance would not by any means be induced to declare themselves publickly such either in word or writing 2. That such as in the late Warrs had engaged themselves against both Peaces or either of them and against the foregoing Cessation and consequently for the Censures of the Nuncio apprehended it for want of Christian humility or a true sense of piety as the worst of evils
sinful obedience to the will of others Because the Procurator had out of a particular regard of such honest men of their Society in Ireland as joyn'd with him formerly in the differences with the Nuntio and out of an esteem and affection also for their Society in it self as considered in its primitive foundation institution and observance and in its labours for the training up of youth laying aside the latter prejudices brought upon it by those inconsiderat works of some though too many of their chief writers because I say the Procurator had for those reasons ventur'd so fairly and earnestly both in his More Ample Account and in his private discourses lately and earnestly with some persons of highest rank in both Kingdoms to vindicate as much as in him lay the Irish Jesuits though not every individual of them from those aspersions the generality of that Order lyes under amongst Protestants at least in England and from such aspersions indeed against their practises and against their principles or doctrine not of deposition only but of equivocation mental reservation and of the lawfulness of changing opinions resolutions and practices too at pleasure according to their other maximes of extrinsick probability and in all matters whatsoever and because he had done so much herein that whereas before those great persons had no inclination at all to receive any kind of declaration of Allegiance or faithfulness from men of such principles as the foresaid printed Authors argue in their opinions the Society in general to be yet he prevailed so far with them as not to involve the Fathers in Ireland in the same esteem with such others of the same Order in some other Countries as had so justly deserved their blame and censure 9. To that other excuse common to the three late Orders as well Capuchins and Carmelits as Jesuits the answer was That the Princes or States permission of or connivence with them should more be regarded then that either of Ordinaries or pre-existent Regulars or of the Court of Rome it self And this they could not expect in reason if they they appeared not zealous of His Majesties lawful rights and prerogatives in all temporal matters and for the peace and safety of his People and Kingdoms at least if they shewed themselves perverse and peevish against either or against so lawful and necessary a duty as is a bare naked Remonstrance or Declaration of their loyal principles and affections where and when so justly expected from them by and to assure His Majesty of their better carriage hereafter then Himself or his Father of glorious memory had found in the late wars of their Countrey And if by their cheerful hearty concurrence to such demonstrations of duty they merited a better opinion hereafter to be had of them by His Majesty and great Ministers of State and such as would really deserve protection they needed not fear the opposition of others whatsoever whiles they behaved themselves as men of discretion and their profession should 10. To that Bugbear which those of the Secular Clergy alledged to excuse themselves it was said That they very well knew it was a meer pretence That the Shoo did not really pinch them there That albeit the Regulars were numerous and of esteem yet not of so great or prevalent as in such a matter or any at all which had reason for it and for the Secular Clergy could any way bear them down even in case the Regulars did not concur with them That they were the Pastors and Leaders of the Flock by power command and law of the Church and their authority and jurisdiction established by the Canons from the very beginning That the Regulars had no such authoritative commanding power nor subjection due unto them from the people but was voluntary in the internal Court of Conscience in foro paenitentiali or only in the private auricular confessional seat That besides it had no kind of colour but their example would be immediatly followed by all Regulars by some freely and heartily who were otherwise themselves our of judgment and affection too so principled and so affected and only expected their authority to back them by others out of shame and fear to see by any further opposition themselves reduced to a streight of giving other reasons then such as they could not own or maintain and of discovering so the true cause rebellious principles and affections and consequently of seeing themselves houted at by all sober and good people even of their own religion and communion And as for the false aspersion and scandal raised against that Remonstrance amongst some of the Commons as if it signified in effect as much as the Oath of Supremacy it was themselves suffered that of meer purpose to go oâ— and they might with one single declaration as easily disabuse all pâ—ssessed therewith as it was raised without any ground That no Church-man even the most malicious would before any understanding man own the raising or forwarding of it however it was known that some few of them in private corners did whisper it to the illiterate as I could name a certain Prior of the Dominicans Order Father Michael Fullam to have done most unconscientiously that I may say no more though chiefly of purpose to excuse by such diabolical forgeries their own opposition when upbraided therewith by good honest wel-meaning people as some few others of them had the impudence and I could instance Father W. L. of the Society and Father D. D. of the Franciscans for a long time to say and aver too that the King as being a Protestant should not be prayed for at all by Catholicks either publickly or privatly though some few others also and somwhat more warily though erroneously enough too and against plain Scriptures both in the Old and new Testament and the continued practice of the primitive Church distinguish'd the manner of praying for him and a long time held and indoctrinated others that he should not be prayed for so as to desire the temporal safety of his Crown or Person victory over his enemies or any prosperous earthly success unto him at all but his conversion only and repentance in this life and salvation in the next without any further addition That as this heretical doctrine was soon and quite beaten down by the contrary practice of the whole Clergy both Secular and Regular which now we see and hear at all Chappels and Altars so that calumny and scandal would throughout the Kingdom cease in one fortnight if they pleased to declare it such as they are bound in conscience truth and honesty to do 11. As for the pick of some to the Procurator whom they falsely suppose to be the Author of the Remonstrance though had he been so he would rather glory therein then be ashamed thereof or of the Declaration of loyalty inserted in that Remonstrance if not peradventure for being any way or in part defective or not home enough in some things
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
your Majesty our natural and lawful Soveraign we humbly beg prostrate at your Majesties feet that you would be pleased to protect us from the severe persecution we suffer meerly for our profession in Religion leaving those that are or hereafter shall be guilty of other crimes and there have been such in all times as well by their pens as by their actions to the punishment prescribed by the law Against these very last lines of this Petition or against this final perclose of of all leaving those that are or hereafter shall be guilty of other crimes c. to the punishment prescribed by the law our Adversaries labour so mightily to except as unlawful to be owned or subscribed at least by Catholick Priests or as acknowledging Clergy-men subject to the Secular Court and consequently as either disacknowledging or at least renouncing the priviledge of their Order whereby they are for their persons especially in criminal causes wholy exempt from the jurisdiction of Lay Judges let the crimes be never so hainous until they be first judged in the Ecclesiastick Court before their own proper competent Ecclesiastick Superiours or spiritual Judges and before they be further condemned by such and after all degraded or at least delivered over also by such to the Secular Court or Lay Judges But who sees not the vanity and nullity of this objection or of this consecution Who sees not the Objectors were resolved to seek here a knot in the bul-rush Clergy-men of the Romish Communion living in a Country where all the laws are against their very profession where all the prejudices imaginable were and with much ground too against the very persons of many as enemies to the Crown and State and where as yet no endeauours had been used by them to secure the State of as much as their Allegiance only for the very future and in a Countrey also where no such priviledge at least as to them is or hath been owned by the Kings Laws Magistrates or Judges for a whole century of years such Clergy-men I say and such of them too I mean as find themselves not guilty of other crime then that which according to the law of God is no crime at all addressing themselves to a just and merciful Prince but a Prince nevertheless that is not of their communion nor doth acknowledge or admit of such their Exemption and attempting by a declaration and promise of their future Allegiance to free themselves from a severe persecution raised against them cannot such Clergy-men as observe strictly and religiously that precept in particular of St. Peter to all Christians in general whether Lay-men or Clergy-men Nemo autem vestrum patiatur ut homicida aut fur aut maledicus aut alienorum appetitor let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as a rayler or as a coveter of other mens Goods 1 Pet. 4. Cannot such Clergy-men I say and cannot they too according to all the rules of prudence and conscience intreat and implore the Princes compassionat regard of their innocent profession and harmless behaviour in the pure exercise of a holy Religion and humbly beg his protection of them from suffering on that account only and for a further inducement of such Princes favouring them on that account remonstrate also unto him what should and ought to be consequent in the case that they are not Supplyants for any of their function who is or shall be hereafter guilty of any true crimes as theft murder sedition rebellion c. but only for such as are or shall be charged with such matters as only in the presumption of the present laws of the Land are crimes and only too even by such presumption religious crimes Or cannot they in such a Countrey and circumstances prudently and lawfully too for what concerns conscience do so and remonstrate so especially in such discreet wary general terms as these leaving those that are or shall be hereafter guilty of other crimes c. to the punishment prescribed by the law without dis-acknowledging or even renouncing even as much as to themselves alone where they can choose the priviledge or pretence of priviledge of Clergy-men for being exempt Or must it follow that they acknowledge that priviledge whatever it be or how ever expounded or extended by some not due to them by any law divine or humane civil or ecclesiastical Or must it follow that they do absolutely renounce it either for themselves or others if it be probable or possible they may to any real purpose challenge the benefit thereof Or rather is it not manifest and as clear as the Sun that no such consequence follows out of such Remonstrance or such words or such leaving in the circumstances or cases but at most and at worst a conditional resignation of their own souls or conditional renuntiation of such priviledge or pretence thereof and as to themselves alone and in such circumstances only or while the laws of the Land are such and the Prince and People observant of such laws and that Romish Clergy-men must will they nill they be judged by and according to such laws And consequently too as clear as the Sun that those words above leaving c. which end that petition and whole paper of that of 61. and which are the only pretended ground of that objection cannot be justly taxed at least in the case or circumstances with other meaning or sense then can be justly derived from this other expression which might be of it in these other words we do not beg your Majesty to protect us from any persecution can be against us upon account of Theft Murder Treason Rebellion or any other of those true crimes crimes which are otherwise stiled in the Canons lay-crimes nor we intercede or supplicate for any persons guilty of or in as much as they shall be charged with any such true crime but for what concerns us resolve to let all such answer for themselves and stand or fall according to law Now it is plain that all this imports no more then a greater detestation of such crimes in Clergiemen and of the persons of Clergiemen as guilty of such And further and at most and worst but a resolution not to be concern'd in such nor to petition the King in their behalf nor to interpose at all twixt them and the law though meaning without any peradventure that which is by His Majesty understood the law For they exclude above expresly all equivocation And yet the Divines of Lovaine and sticklers for them in Ireland must needs censure so harmless so prudent and so necessary a petition or expression and censure it as renouncing or declaring against Ecclesiastical Immunity and further censure it as even sacrilegious and containing somewhat against the sincerity of Catholick Faith Certainly if so or if they be not abused by misinformation or misrepresentation of their grounds of censure I cannot otherwise judge of them but that they have been
been delivered and declared unanimously by the Fathers therein from the beginning as of divine Faith or as the doctrine of Christ or of the Apostles as received from Christ or that the contrary is heretical c. Non enim sunt de fide sayes Bellarmine ubi supra disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum et illustrandum adferuntur sed tantum ipsa nuda Decreta et ea non omnia sed tontum quae proponuntur tamquam de fide Interdum enim concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile c Quando autem decretum proponatur tamquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilij semper enim dicere solent se explicare fidem Catholicam vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt Quando autem nihil borum dicunt non est certum rem esse de fide Whence it must follow evidently and even by an argument a majori ad minus that neither the words or epithets used even by the most general Council may be in their decrees of Discipline Reformation or manners nor the suppositions or praevious or concomitant bare opinions which occasion'd the use of such words or epithets in such decrees bind any at all to beleeve such words or epithets were rightly used or fitly applyed or that those opinions were well grounded or certain truths at all Whereof the reason too is no less evident and obvious To wit that the Fathers or Council had not examined or discussed this matter it was not at all their business to determine it nor did they determine it And that we know laws of Reformation and even the very most substantial parts of such Canons are grounded often on or do proceed from meer probable perswasions or such as onely seem probable nay sometimes from the meer pleasure of such law makers All which being uncontrovertedly true where is the strength of Bellarmines grand or second argument framed of such bare words or epithets did we grant his sense even in the whole latitude of it were that of these Popes and Councils Or how will he seek to establish a maxime of such consequence or of so much prejudice to all supream civil Governours and even to the peace of the world to all mankind it self and a maxime for so much or for what hath reference to the exemption of Clerks as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power so clearly as will be seen hereafter in some of the following Sections against express and clear passages of holy Scripture and against the universal Tradition for a 1000. years at least how will he I say have the confidence to endeavour the establishing of such a maxime upon so weak a foundation which every man can overthrow at pleasure or deny with reason to be a foundation at all for that or any other maxime as I mean asserted to be declared such in the positive law of God either in holy Scripture or in undoubted Tradition For the positive law of God appears not to us but by either of these two wayes of the written or unwritten word of God himself 4. And lastly that besides all said in these three answers to this second argument of Bellarmine if we please to examine further what the places alleadg'd import we shall find that whatever the private or peculiar but indiscussed opinion of these Popes or Councils was or was not concerning our present dispute of the exemption of Clerks and that by the positive law of God as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil or temporal coercive power nay or whatever such words as jus diuinum ordinatio Dei voluntas omnipotentis c. abstractedly taken may import yet the places alleadged or these words or epithets used in them by these Fathers must not by any means be thought therefore to have comprehended our present case or extended to it at all And the reason is 1. That all Divines and Canonists agree that all expressions words or epithets in any law whatsoever must be understood secundum subjectam materiam or must be expounded by and according as the matter which is in debate or is intended requires and further so as no errour inconvenience or mischief follow and yet the law and words thereof maintain'd still in a good sense and to some good use especially according to former wholesome laws 2. That the matter unto which there was any reference in these places or authorities quoted so by Bellarmine was either Ecclesiastical Immunity in the most generical sense abstracting from the several underkinds true or false or pretended onely of it or was it in a less generical sense taken for that of their persons but still abstracting for any thing appears out of these places quoted from that pretended species of exemption of Clerks as to their persons from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes especially when the crimes are high and so high too as they are subversive of the very State it self and are besides in meer temporal matters and no remedy at all from the spiritual superiours And in truth for what concerns the Council of Trent which as of greatest authority amongst us as being the very last celebrated of those we esteem general Councils Bellarmine places in the front 1. it is clear enough to any that will please to read the whole tenour of that twentieth chapter Ses. 25. de Reformatione which he quotes That that Council did even there so much abstract from this matter or so little intended it that on the contrary the Fathers much rather seem to speak onely there of the Ecclesiastical exemption of Clerks as to their persons from onely inferiour secular Judicatories or onely from the inferiour Courts Judges and Officers of Princes but not at all from the Princes themselves or from their supream civil power or that of their laws Which I am very much deceived if this entire passage whereof Bellarmine gives us but a few words do not sufficiently demonstrate Cupient sancta synodus Ecclesiasticam disciplinam in Christiano populo non solum restitui sed etiam perpetuo sartam tectam a quibuscumque impedimentis conservari praeter ea quae de Ecclesiasticis personis constituit saeculares quoque Principes officij sui admonendes esse censuit confidens eos ut Catholicos quos Deus sanctae fidei Ecclesiaeque protectres esse voluit jus suum Ecclesiae restitui non tantum esse concessuros sed etiam suâ— ditos suos omnes ad debitam erga Clerum Parcchos et superiores ordines reverentiam revecaturos neâ— permâ—ssuros ut officiales aut inferiores magistratus Ecclesiae et personarum Ecclesiastisarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu
not to summon Clerks to their tribunals and judge their causes whensoever such causes were meerly temporal and not properly or strictly spiritual or of a purely spiritual nature And I affirm also that before Iustinians Empire which was from the year of Christ 527. wherein it was begun to the year 565. wherein he dyed no Council nor canon of Council did ever as much as declare or even as much as only suppose that Clerks were by any other authority or by that I mean'd of the very Emperours themselves exempted generally from lay tribunals not even I mean still from those of inferiour Judges And O God of Truth how can any knowing Divine any conscientious Historian Canonist or Civilian be so preoccupated as not to acknowledge or so blind as not to see it cannot be any way probable that the Fathers of those primitive and purer ages should attribute any such power to themselves as by their own proper authority to exempt others or even themselves from that subjection to which as well themselves as all other Clerks were antecedently bound by the positive law of God himself as not only St. Augustine teaches in his exposition of the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul to the Romans but all other Fathers generally who treat of this subject or expound that chapter But to clear this matter throughly we must observe Those ancient Fathers with whom Ecclesiastical Discipline whereof now there is so great neglect did sincerely and severely nourish used their utmost endeavours that Ecclesiasticks should not onely by their doctrine instruct the people but also by their probity of manners and innocency of carriage in all things And therefore admonish'd all Clerks nay enjoyned them in their own conciliary Canons and sometimes also under heavy Ecclesiastical Sanctions or Censures That none of them should presume to convene or charge an other Clerk in any cause either criminal or civil before a secular judge but either by the intervention of friends should compose all their own differences or certainly if they would not or could not do so that they should at least suffer all to be determined by Episcopal Iudgment acquiescing therein And both advised and ordained so in imitation of St. Paul himself and for the very self-same reason or certainly not unlike to it this great Apostle had when writing to the Corinthians 1. Cor. 6. and forbidding them to sue one an other before heathen Iudges he gave therein a rule to all Christians generally for that time as well Laicks as Clerks Which reason appropriated to our present purpose of Clerks onely is That if or when it should happen that Clerks should fall out of human frailty into such imperfections or sins as other men are subject to and yet are scandalized at mightily when committed by Clergie-men they might be with farre more secrecy and much less scandal corrected by their own proper Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Superiours and consequently that such deviations of Clergiemen should not come to the knowledge of the vulgar which commonly judges of the doctrine by the life or conversation of the Doctors and is apt enough upon such occasions to laugh and scorn the persons themselves and not seldome too their very sacred function it self Besides that Clergiemen who by their calling should be in a very special manner above others careful to cherish peace and concord and be themselves by word and deed paterns of charity and patience to others should not by their own example or by their own sueing of others or of one an other in the secular and publick Courts rather shew the way to contention and strife then lead to christian peace and patience Whereby as it may be easily understood the Fathers did not by such admonitions or by such decrees lessen or intend to lessen as indeed they could not if any of them would and certainly none of them have willed so to lessen the proper civil power of the secular Iudges to heare and determine the temporal either civil or criminal causes of Clerks when brought to their tribunals and brought so either by the free access of the Clerks themselves or by their constrained or commanded appearance when called or summoned by the same Iudges For to have done so or intended so would have been to take from Princes and Magistrats that right and authority which the law of Christ doth not permit any admonitions or any decrees of the Fathers not even in or by their most solemn Councils whatsoever to take from the said Princes or Magistrats The Fathers therefore by such decrees did partly forbid that Clerks should not sue one an other and partly too that neither should they sue a meer layman before a secular Iudg. For this also of not sueing laymen some Canons have And the Fathers by those decrees ordained Episcopal punishments against all Clerks that would not observe those decrees And this is all that may be gathered out of any or all the Canons of Councils alleadged by our adversaries Now who sees not that all this might be justly and lawfully ordained by the spiritual Fathers of the Church by their Ecclesiastical Councils and Canons without any the least diminution of the former civil power of the lay Iudges over Clerks For so a good natural Father in the civil commonwealth that hath many children may command them all and also forbid them under a private domestick punishment nay even under that of disinheriting them that they contend not or sue one an other before a publick Judg about any quarrel amongst themselves but leave all such differences to himself their Father or to the private domestick judgment of their other Bretheren And may command this without any prejudice at all to the publick authority of the publick or legal Judges And therefore so too may the spiritual Fathers of the Church command those who are in a special manner and by a special tye and calling their spiritual children such as all Clerks are and may command them too under such punishments or penalties as are proper to their said spiritual Fatherhood not to the one an other or even any at all before a secular Judg. And yet by no means thereby lessen or intend to lessen the power of such Judges over Clerks or their causes whensoever convened or brought either by election or coaction before them but onely to abridgâ— the Clerks themselves of their former liberty of going so freely unto them as they used to do Which any rational person may easily judg not to be an Exemption of Clerks from secular Judges but a provident course to keep them in better order and as well as may be to avoid scandal And that my bare assertion may not be given for this my interpretation I thought it worth my labour to set down here and at length distinctly those very Decrees of Councils which Bellarmine l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. Prop. 3. pleads against us though he gives there some few words onely of some of them and
ancient and where according to our own very common doctrine in Schools they give no sufficient ground at all to derive such unreasonable conclusions from their decrees nor ever I am confident as much as once imagined any would be so extravagant as to derive such Fourthly That although we admitted as we neither do nor can that the Fathers of Agde in the second part of this canon and by these words sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio seculari proponere were intended absolutely and generally to forbid their own Clerks in any case to answer in the publick lay Courts and in criminal causes notwithstanding the Judges themselves should expresly and particularly summon and command them to appear and answer yet nothing could be concluded hence against either of my above affirmations First nothing to prove as I will presently shew that which indeed is the only thing to be proved against my main or rather only purpose that is nothing to prove that the Fathers therefore intended that Clerks should not appear and answer if by the supream secular Judge himself or by a warrant come immediatly from the King himself or from his special Delegate in such a matter they were commanded to appear and answer before him Secondly nor any thing to prove that by the pure and sole authority of the Church or of any Councils or Bishops Cergiemen were warranted as much as in point of conscience not to appear and answer even before the subordinat inferiour lay Judges Nor thirdly yet any thing at all to prove that these Fathers of Agde or other Council declared by that other canon that Clerks were generally in all Countreys and in all causes or all matters even the most criminal and horrid soever at that time which was indeed before Iustinians time exempt as much as by the civil authority of Emperours or even of other Kings from all inferiour lay Judicatories and so exempt that if in any case these inferiour Judges themselves did ex officio proceed against them yet they were not bound to answer or obey or observe their judgement or that if those same inferiour Judges gave sentence for or against them in any temporal cause whatsoever or in any cause not purely spiritual such sentence would not hold when pronounc'd according to the civil or municipal either Imperial or Royal Laws inforce in the respective Countreys Such forbidding of their own Clerks might have been grounded on a particular custom introduced by the people in that Province of Guien and by the consent or permission or connivence or tacit approbation of the former civil Magistrats themselves or of King Alaricus himself or his Predecessors And in such case the Bishops there might have justly forbid their own Clerks to appear even at the summons of inferiour lay Iudges because the peculiar civil custom of that place not any spiritual power or canons of their own did so priviledg them albeit in all the rest of the world where the imperial written laws were still in force and strict observance no law or custom did so priviledge them or other Clerks at that time which was before Iustinians time and his law Novel 83. not to appear before the subordinat Magistrats or civil Iudges when summoned by them in a criminal cause nor priviledge the Bishops at all for holding coercive Courts either in civil or criminal causes but only by consent of both parties in difference And that it was introduced so or that such custom had been so in Guien and that only pursuant to the humane civil right or priviledge or exemption derived only from such custom and to maintain it until it had been legally revoked again by the supream civil power the Fathers of Agde made that canon or second part of it we have all the reasons to perswade us which perswade us also and clearly convince us that Ecclesiasticks are by the law of God as well as Laicks under the coercion of the lawful supream lay Magistrate and of his inferiour lay Iudges too if not or where not particularly exempted by him and those reasons besides which tell us we must have that reverence to all such Catholick ancient Fathers and especially in Council together as those of Agde are confessed to have been St. Cesarius the Archbishop of Arles and Primate of all France having been their President and so venerable an opinion of them as not to fix or give such a sense or interpretation to any of their canons however only canons of Discipline as would argue the canon-makers of ignorance or rashness or of any perversness at all or even such their canons of containing any thing either formally virtually or consequentially against the only infallible divine canons of the law of God and I mean still not to give or fix such interpretation to such canons where we can choose that is where the words are not so specifical and particular as to require it Now it is plain enough the words above-rehearsed are not so specifical or so particular as to require a contrary interpretation to that of them I have given here And yet that it was so or that in pursuance and by virtue of such a peculiar custom only of that Province or that little Kingdom there of Guien and of the supream civil Magistrats pleasure permission approbation and consent the Fathers of Agde made this canon or second part of it forbidding Clerks to answer in a criminal cause before lay Judges to wit before inferiour lay Judges we have secondly a sufficient other argument out of the first part of the same canon or out of the sense and natural consequences of it if compared with the practice of the Christian world in all other parts both at that time and at this For the first part being that no Clerk shall presume to sue a lay man before a lay Iudge without the Bishops licence and this importing as much as that an Ecclesiastical Plaintiff shall not without his Bishops leave conveâ—e a lay Defendent before his own proper lay Judge even I say in a meer lay cause or crime and this consequently being against the general rule Quâ—d Actor sequitur Forum Dei it is plain enough that if any will maintain those Fathers intended else here then only to prescribe to Clerks the first peaceable way they should take for righting themselves by letting the Bishop know the wrong done them to the end he might call the lay pretended injurer and try whether he could induce him fairly or by fatherly admonitions if first he had found a real injury done by him to the Clerk which also was christianly ordained as a rule by the Council of Tribur can 20. a German Council of two and twenty Bishops held in the year 895 under Arnulphus the Emperour and indistinctly ordained by this Council for lay men also to observe in case they pretended injuries done themselves by any Clerks I say it
first are to prove it necessary in reference to the persons of Clergymen as the last is to prove it necessary in reference also to their goods Soto's first medium or assumption to prove Ecclesiastical Exemption necessary in reference to the persons of Clergymen Whereas Churchmen are divino jure by the law divine ordained Ministers of the Church eidem juri proximum esse videtur vt nequeant a Judicibus secularibus evocari it seems in the very next degree to that law that secular Judges have no power to summon or proceed against them And this he further proves out of that saying of St. Paul Nemo militans Deo implicat se negotiis secularibus No man warring to God intrigues himself to secular businesses 2. ad Timoth. 2. But Soto will give me leave here first to distinguish necessaries that we may understand one another then I will answer directly to his proposition For of necessaries as to our present purpose some are per se et ex rei natura of themselves and of their own nature and at all times such to attain the end of such Ecclesiastical Power and all that are necessary in this sense are likewise de jure divino warranted by the law of God For all such necessaries or all power means rules necessary of themselves or of their own nature for that end the Church hath received from God himself not from any sanctions of Popes or Councils And others are now and then for a time or only by accident occasion or supposition necessary that is are to be necessarily observed because they happen to be commanded by the Church and freely submitted unto by the people as for example Fasting-dayes Holydayes c. Now if Soto mean the exemption of Clerks and I mean too here any kind of exemption of them in temporal matters or of their persons goods lands or houses nay or of even the very sacred Churches to be necessary in the former sense he contradicts himself for he holds Ecclesiastical Exemption to be not of divine but of humane institution If in the latter he touches not the question For at present we dispute not whether now that Clergymen have by either the Sanctions of Princes or Canons of the Fathers or both many Exemptions and if from the Princes only whether now when the Church also layes heavy injunctions on us to observe the laws of Princes in this matter it be necessary for salvation and only during such laws not to violate the true priviledges or exemptions whatever they be of Clerks given them by such laws But the question we dispute here is whether it be necessary or whether it hath been alwayes necessary for salvation that Clerks should have been so exempted at any time or by any law at all either of God or man of Prince or Church for that exemption which is pretended to be now from even the supream civil power or even for that exemption which is from inferiour lay Judges Which distinction and animadversion premised I answer directly to his proposition and absolutely deny that it seems so as he sayes or that the exemption of the persons of Clerks from the civil power seems to be eidem juri divino proximum in the next degree of proximity to that divine law whereby Clergimen are appointed by God to be Ministers of the Church For I demand how that proximity appears by this argument which yet must be the only argument to prove it Clerks are de jure divino by the law of God Ministers of the Church Ergo by the same or other law of God they cannot in civil causes be accused before or judged by the civil Judges For even so will I argue for a proximity of divine law in behalf of the civil Magistrats exemption from the Church in spiritual matters The civil Magistrats are divino jure by the law of God appointed Ministers of temporal things Ergo in Ecclesiastical or Spiritual things they cannot be judged by Ecclesiasticks Besides we have sufficiently shewed before that neither can the Pope himself or Church lay binding commands in all matters which have such or as much proximity or affinity as this of Ecclesiastical exemption hath to the law divine For his allegation of St. Paul's saying That none warring to God intrigues himself in worldly affairs who sees not the impertinency of it Did Paul speak or mean this of Clerks meerly It 's plain he mean'd it of all Christians generally If then to any purpose of Exemption alledg'd it must be necessary that all Christian Laicks be exempted as well as Clerks from the civil power Much different God knows was this divine Apostles sense exhorting that in as much as lyes in us we estrange our selves from worldly cares to the end we may the more simply and perfectly attend the will of God Besides it s also clear enough that by these words he no more interdicted the Clergy from civil Judicatories then from honours possessions moneys all which do no less highly and extreamly involve the lovers or earnest pursuers of them in secular businesses And yet amongst all Clerks in the world who will be found that will believe St. Paul did ever mean it as necessary to salvation that Clerks should not in any circumstances and observing all other commandments modestly and moderatly endeavour to attain honours possessions riches intending still to make good use of them To Soto's second argument in reference to the persons which is that it may happen that amongst some ecclesiastical causes whereof lay-men cannot be Judges some civil causes be mixed and therefore if Clerks be not exempt from the secular power it must follow that in such cases they must remain perplexed as called upon by both tribunals the civil and ecclesiastical not knowing which to obey the answer is facile enough and clear That hence no necessity of their being so exempted follows but only some greater vexation or trouble in such cases of Clerks whose fortune it is to be involved in them For we see Laicks also and not seldom contending about such matters as are partly of spiritual cognizance and partly of civil so that they are forced to appear before both the Judges Ecclesiastical and the temporal Magistrats And yet no man will therefore say it to be necessary that Laicks be exempt either from the one Court or other To Soto's third medium in reference to the persons Quod non esset decorum ut Ministri Ecclesiae qui pastores sunt etiam Iudicum Regum tanduam rei coram ipsis sisterentur That it would not be honourable that the Ministers of the Church who are Pastors even of those lay Judges even of the very Kings should be obliged to appear before them as criminals or guilty persons I answer first that to be honourable or decent is one thing and to be necessary is another Secondly that neither is it undecent As on the contrary it is neither dishonourable nor undecent that the King who in
would be not to exempt them but in effect to make them to be no members at all As for that reason of diversity which Bellarmine hath given As it is unnecessary that all the Citizens pay tribute or that all bear arms to defend the Republick who sees not also that it argues no diversity no difference at all in the simile For in the natural body it is not necessary that all the members walke that all see that all hear c. But it is sufficient both in the natural body and in the civil that every member so attend perform that duty unto which it is ordained or applyed that all in common do still in the same body and under the same head what they are enjoyned or destined to Let Bellarmine therefore let his disciples abstain hereafter from such absurd Paradoxes What man of found reason hath ever yet in his own soul inwardly perswaded himself that a King may not de jure King it over that is govern by direction and coercion those of whom he is King nor a head the members of its own body But our Cardinal denye here that from the contrary position and practice any perturbations of the common-wealth should arise because that albeit the King may not coerce transgressing Clerks yet the Bishops may and will To this because I have said enough already I onely saâ— now that to assent this power of coercion of Clerks to Bishops for lay crimes or those committed in meer temporal or civil matters and deny it to King were nothing els in effect but to rayse Bishops from their Office Ministry Episcopal to the power and Dignity Royal of Kings and then consequently to make but meer Ciphers of the Kings themselves For I demand of Bellarmine or of his Schollars why were Kings instituted or to what end their power if it was not to govern the Republick to provide for the peace and safety of all the people of what condition or profession soever Lay or Ecclesiastick and to provide for the security and tranquility of all by punishing and rewarding indifferently according to the respective merits or demerits of every individual But our Cardinal snatches away from Kings this proper function of Kings and gives it to Bishops whereas it is notwithstanding certain that neither can the common-wealth be quiet if Clerks do violate the laws resign themselves over to sedition and yet may not be de jure therefore punished curbed or any way restrained by Kings For who sees not consequently that neither de jure can the King contain his Provinces in peace nor compel his people to live together within the bounds of honesty equity or justice And who sees not consequently also but that the very politick peace nay the very politick being of the common-wealth must depend of the will of the Bishops to whom onely the light of governing of licencing or restraining Clerks our good Cardinal will have to belong that by the severity of their Episcopal censures or other judgments they may as they will coerce the nocent and thereby and in so much pacifie the troubles of the Republick or as they please too permit all wickedness and all the most enormours horrid crimes of Sedition and Rebellion to extinguish quite the face and being of a Republick How farre more piously Christianly and rationally too had Bellarmine taught and writt that by the favour and priviledg given by Kings the Clergie are not subject to any other Judicatory but to one composed of Ecclesiastical judges yet so that as well those very Judges as the criminal Clerks be subject still to and not exempt from the supream Royal power of the King who gave subordinate power to those very Ecclesiastical Judicatories in temporal things nay and in spiritual too for what belongs to corporal or civil coercion and who as the supream temporal Prince may command prohibit and provide that no person of what condition or profession soever breake the peace of his Kingdom and who also may when there is just cause take cognizance of and judg as well what ever delinquent Clerks as the very Ecclesiastical judges of those Clerks To that of Hermannus the Colen Archbishop I will say that Bellarmine writes so of this matter as he may be refuted with that jeer wherewith a certain Boor pleasantly checked a great Bishop as he rode by with a splendid pompous train The story is that a country clown having first admired and said this pomp was very unlike that of the Apostles to whom Bishops did succeed and some of the Bishops train answering that this Bishop was not only a successor of the Apostles but also Heir to a rich Lordship and that moreover he was a Duke and a Prince too the clown replied but if God sayes he condemn the Duke and Prince to eternal fire what will become of the Bishop Even so doth Bellarmine write as that servant spoke that this Hermannus whom Charles the V. summon'd to appear was not only an Archbishop but a Prince also of the Empire And even so do I say and replye with the country swain when the Emperour judged this Prince of the Empire did he not I pray judge the Archbishop too But you will say that though indeed he judged the Archbishop yet not as an Archbishop but as a Prince of the Empire Let it be so For neither do I nor other Catholick Opposers of Bellarmine in this matter intend or mean or at least urge or press now that Clerks as Clerks are subject to the coercion or direction of Kings but as men but as Citizens and politick parts of the body Politick which kind of authority as Bellarmine confesses Charles the V. both acknowledg'd in and vindicated to the Emperour Of whose piety what Bellarmine adds is to no purpose For it is not denyed that it becomes good Princes to leave that is to commit the causes of Clerks how great and weighty or criminal soever to Ecclesiastical Judges if it stand with the safety or good hic nunc of the Commonwealth that such causes be discussed before such Judges And yet I must tell the Defenders of Bellarmine that if they please to consult the Continuator of Baronius the most reverend and most Catholick Bishop Henricus Spondenus ad an Christi 1545. they will find that upon complaint of the Catholick Clergy and University also of Colen to as well the Emperour Charles the V. as the Pope Pavl the III. against the said Archbishop as by the advice of Bueer introducing Heresie and licenceing the Preachers of it in that City and Diocess and that at their instance petitioning for help redress in that matter against the said Hermannus it was that the said Emperour Charles the V. did in the Diet of Wormes the said year and about the end of Iune by his Letters or Warrant signed and sealed summon the said Archbishop to appear before him within thirty dayes either by himself in his own proper person or by
arguments for it from the positive express law of God in holy Scripture might be rendred at last so farr unsignificant as not to conclude all men nor all affairs though otherwise temporal under it but on the contrary to exempt from it even the very most considerable part of men and affairs and a vast number too of both and consequently to lessen extreamly if they could not totally extinguish it as for any thing at least to be said for it from Scripture I must crave your pardon Reader if I be as prolix in this argument as in any or perhaps more then in any of the former or even in all three together being I am resolved to give long entire passages out of the doctrine of the most eminent of the holy Fathers and out of Ecclesiastical History too the practice of the Fathers to evict that sense of those Scripture passages which is so obvious of it self to have also been that all along handed to us by our said great fore-fathers and consequently that sense to be certain also by Tradition But first or before I come to the doctrine or which is the same thing to the exposition or sense of the Fathers or that which they delivered to us of those Scripture places in their own proper genuine and uncontroverted books I frame my fourth argument thus Whoever are expresly and clearly commanded by the mouth or pen of Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. to be subject to the higher Powers and are further told by the same Apostle and in the same place that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God that therefore whoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall acquire damnation to themselves that earthly Princes are the Ministers of God that as the Ministers of God they bear the sword and not in vain and finally that for all these reasons every soul must needs be subject to these higher Powers I say that whoever are commanded so and told so are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently threin declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes But all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are commanded so and told so by Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. Ergo all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The Major is evident because that as no man ever yet doubted of any of these passages of St. Paul in the said thirteenth Chapter to the Romans to be of holy Scripture and for so much to contain the very positive law of God that although it may be said also they for so much contain the very natural law of God so it can neither be denied honestly or christianly or even at all rationally that by Higher Powers c. in the text of Paul secular Princes only are understood being those Powers only are there understood who only bear the sword and to whom only tribute and custom is paid c. Nor can it be denied that by the text of Paul all souls are commanded to be subject in some things or some causes and therefore if not in spiritual certainly in temporal whereas all things or causes are either spiritual or temporal Nor besides can it be denied they are said here to be subject in such temporal causes only which are called meerly civil as civil are opposed to criminal because by the text they are subject even in such causes wherein use is to be made of the sword against malefactors and it is plain that such are also criminal and not civil only Nor finally and consequently can it be denied they are commanded here to be subject to the coercive part or virtue of the Princes temporal power whereas the directive as such only doth not cannot make use of the sword to punish evil doers The Minor also is evident because all Christians all men and women universally without exception or distinction of any state or profession or character are so commanded and so told and consequently Clerks being they are Christians and men For so doth the very interlineary Gloss understand it Omnis anima id est omnis homo sayes this Gloss potestatibus sublimiâ—ribus subdita sit And because the end of the precept could not be attained if all Clerks universally as well as Laicks were not so commanded and so told And because too the express doctrine and known practise of the holy Fathers for many ages after the Apostles time do teach us clearly expresly and particularly that in this text of Paul and others like it or of the same nature in the Bible all Clerks indistinctly are understood no less then Laicks As for the conclusion our Adversaries I am sure will not except against the necessity or evidence of it if the premisses be once granted or if they otherwise be in themselves true and certain To the premisses therefore to the Major and Minor it is that several frame several Answers some denying that for some part of it and others this for the whole but all of them equally spurning against truth and even rebelling against the light of their own consciences as those in Iob qui rebelles sunt lumini qui dicunt Deo recede a nobis scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus The first answer then is that by higher Powers in St. Pauls text those only are understood which are truly the higher to wit the powers Ecclesiastical or Spiritual For at least comparatively speaking these are the higher and temporal Powers the lower because the spiritual is of a more excellent nature as more directly tending to God then the temporal And consequently this answer sayes that by the Sword in the same text the material sword of Iron is not understood but the spiritual of Excommunication c. The old Authors of this answer albeit as old as St. Augustine himself for he refutes them as will be seen hereafter and other late readers and embracers of it though without sufficient patronage from its antiquity being there have been heresies confessed of all sides for heresies as old as the dayes of Austin and long before the dayes of Austin even in those of the very blessed Apostles must be obliged to deny the Major or that last part which is the only affirmation of it where I say that whoever are commanded sâ— and told so are by the positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The second Answer is of a newer stamp indeed but of no lesser both absurdity and heresie in it self and contradiction also to the
under Titus and Vesâ—asâ—an some forty years after the death of Christ Now therefore that of danger that Christians might easily perswade themselves that they were all set free from the laws and power of men by the grace and liberty of the Gospel and that of the consequent danger also of too much scandal to be cast upon them as originally Gallicans and teaching Christian liberty which yet was not rightly understood by some and not of scandal only but of grievous persecutions from Gentil Princes against the religion in general and faith of Christ I say that these dangers fore-seen by the blessed Apostle and his desire of removing such dangers and obstructing also other consequent inconveniencies having been the only cause motive end of that general Edict of his omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit who sees not it was not to his purpose here as not to treat of the spiritual Superiority of Bishops or Pastors or of their spiritual sword or of the obedience or awe beleivers should stand in to either so neither to command or intend that Laicks onely should obey the Lay powers and Clerks the spiritual For if he had intended either those spiritual powers onely or that spiritual sword onely or if he had exempted any at all of the Christians especially so great and considerable a body of them as all their Apostles Evangelists Doctors Prophets Bishops Priests Deacons c. and as all these would prove in time to be who sees not that the secular heathen Princes would think themselves to have a most just cause to rage against them as everting all humane government and power We know and see daily that even Christian Princes even now a days nay even ever since the very first Christian Princes were nor even the most pious and godly of them did ever yet abide that as much as any one individual person how high and holy a Clerk soever should be in their Kingdom and not subject in temporals Therefore the very true primary and proper end of this general edict of Paul concludes against all and every of the above answers no less evidently then the letter or text it self in that whole discourse of Paul Thirdly and yet more particularly and singly as to Bellarmine's own so strange and new and proper invention as I have noted before that some take that answer to be which I have placed as a third answer but certainly his whether it be different or not I am no less certainly perswaded that all disinteressed judicious men will confess that both his reasons for it are convinced again by the very letter of the text or whole context of the Apostles discourse there not onely to be vain pittifull subtilities or rather childish unsignificant captions of words but also to inferre manifest contradiction in that very whole context For though Bellarmine above de Translat Imperij l. 1. c. 2. n. 7. after he had answered Illyricus that S. Paul said not Let every soul be subject to the politick powers but Let every soul be subject potestatibus sublimioribus to the more sublime or higher powers and after he had consequently told Illyricus that before he went about to exalt the politick powers above all souls and by consequence above the Pope himself of whom sayes Bellarmine the chief question is he ought to demonstrate first that the power of the politick Magistrate is more sublime then that of the Ecclesiastical although I say after this Bellarmine interrogates whether S. Paul himself did not openly subject all the faithfull not even the Magistrate excepted to the Bishops where he sayes Obedite prepositis vestris subiacete eis Ipsi enim pervigilant quasi rationem pro animabus vestris reddituri c. Heb. 13.17 And then produces Nazianzâ—n Ambrose Chrysostome and Bernard who all subject Princes to the Church yet I say withall it is plain enough he brings nothing here to purpose or to prove the reasonableness of or any kind of seeming colour in his answer but those two very bad childish arguments which he most unreasonably grounds on the word powers and on the word higher or words more sublime For no man disputes but grants that all the faithfull including the very Magistrate Prince King or Emperour are bound in spiritual matters purely such or as such to obey the spiritual Superiours of the Church clave non errante which is all can be derived or was intended by St. Paul in that passage to the Hebrews or by those Fathers So that so much of Bellarmines allegations here was impertinent What therefore he relyes upon as material is 1. that as he pretends the word potestatibus powers in that general edict of St. Paul may and ought to be understood in the abstract as Logicians speak vz. as importing onely the authority which Princes have and not the concrete of that power or not the Princes themselves as having that power or authority 2. that as he pretends also the word sublimioribus in that same general command of Paul was intended by Paul comparatively not positively and that comparison also intended by Paul to be betwixt the Ecclesiastical power as more sublime in its own nature and the secular as less sublime Behold his two and onely reasons for an answer so inconsistent not onely with that motive and end we have seen before the Apostle had but so contradictory also to the very letter and all kind too of any litteral sense in the letter For who sees not that by the very letter and litteral sense of that whole context it is evidently seen that St. Paul took the word potestatibus powers in the concrete or which is the same thing that by the word powers he mean'd the very secular Princes themselves who had that power which made them higher or sublimer then others For he sayes that whosoever resist that power acquire damnation to themselves And then presently for Princes are not a terrour of good works but of the evil And soon after will you sayes he not fear the power do well and you shall have praise And then immediatly For he is the Minister of God Whence if it be not evident that by the word powers the Apostle intends the Princes themselves and not their authority in the abstract but in the concrete as affecting and acting in and by the Princes or rather the Princes as acting by it I must confess I understand not how any thing at all can be proved out of any text For besides that the powers or the power in the abstract are not is not resisted or feared but in the concrete it is at least evident that Princes who are a terrour and the Minister of God are powers and power in the concrete And yet nothing is more evident nor can be out of any text then that those which are or that which is called the higher or more sublime powers in the first verse omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit are in the
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
18. these Bishops had been precondemned in the Council I must again advertise the Reader that the Council never condemned any otherwise then by declaring him an Heretick and excommunicate or at most to be deprived of or deposed from his See That besides that pre-damnation especially to exile no where appears in Councils Nay that St. Hierom in Chron. ubi de Maximino Treuerensi not acknowledgeing these pre-damnations affirms expresly Constantinum quaesivisse ad paenam Athanasium that Constantine sought for Athanasius to punishment And certainly Felix the Aptungitan Bishop who was the Orderer that is the Consecrator of Cecilian about whom the great contest was was by the command or warrant of the same Constantine sent to his Proconsul in Affrick Helianus to be judged by him Augustinus post collat ep 33 ep 152. Opt. And Photinus condemned in the general Council of Sardica obtained new Judges from the very self same Constantine as Epiphan heres 71. tells The before often mentioned St. Athanasius was to the said pious and great Emperour Constantine accused as a homicide or of having murthered Arsenius And Constantine committed the cognizance hereof as we have toâ—ched before to Delmatiuâ—s the Censor of Antioch a meer lay Officer of the Empire that he might proceed therein as a Judge Delegat For verily so doth St. Athanasius himself in Apol. and for to defend his own innocency in that matter tell us And yet he doth not upbraid the Emperour nor at all object to him that his Majesty had herein usurped a power which he had not by the laws of God or canons of the Church or â—ules of natural reason over a Churchman From which objection he was so far as himself tells that his submission to Constantin's delegation in that and more to his own immediat imperial and personal cognizance in all such matters was ready and voluntary Behold hitherto Good Reader arguments enough of the practise to our main purpose of that very Constantine who notwithstanding all hitherto given is said to have said to the Bishops in the Nicene Council accusing one another to him Deus constituit vos sacerdotes potestatem dedit de nobis quoque judicandi ideo nos à vobis recte judicamur vos autem non potestis ab hominibus judicari propter quod Dei solius inter vos expectate judicium Ruffin l. 1. c. 2. But but if it be true that Constantine said so at all as it is very true and certain that this saying whosoever's it be must either be expounded not rigorously or strictly according to the bare words but very benignly and gently or questionless must be rejected and condemned even by those who alledge it for themselves as appears at least out of the two later clauses viz. that Vos autem non potestis ab hominibus judicari and that other Propter quod Dei solius inter vos expectate judicium yet I say if it be true that Constantine said so at all and even I say did say so also in any good sense whatsoever wherefore did not his following deeds agree with his words as much as in that very sense our Adversaries pretend Therefore if Constantine said any such thing or expressed himself in such words according to reason it must be said by us and by all whoever examine and weigh that expression or those bare words rightly that either he spoke them out of some excess of piety and reverence to the Bishops or certainly that for what concern'd the denying or not acknowledging a power in men to judge the Bishops and saying that they were reserved or rather desiring that they should be left to the judgment of God alone and in saying before that they received power from God to judge of himself the Emperour he must be understood to mean First that Priests had a spiritual power from God to judge even himself spiritually or in a spiritual way and by a meer kind of spiritual judgment or in relation only to his spirit to wit by declaring to him wherein he had sinned and by remitting or retaining his sins by their judicial absolution or censure in the confessional seat or penitential Court of conscience but not that they had a power external and temporal or coercive of him in his meer temporals or by any sentence at all transferring his temporal or civil rights or jurisdiction or able to bereave him of any such or obliging him to submit his said temporal rights to them Secondly That meer Lay-men could not judge of them in causes properly Ecclesiastical and Spiritual such as those of Faith and Heresie and religious rites are as to the questions of right Or if he mean'd any matter of pure fact especially of those are called lay crimes that then he understood nothing else by non potestis ab hominibus judicari but the same we do our selves commonly or in ordinary speech when we say we cannot do a thing this or that whatever it it be we have no mind to do or think not expedient to do We signifie therefore by such words not alwayes an absolute defect of either natural or legal power in us to do that we are desired but our own unwillingness to do it and our resolution not to do it for some unexpediency we conceive in doing it Constantine therefore cannot be concluded to have otherwise mean'd when he said to the Bishops and of their personal failings non potestis ab hominibus judicari but that it was so unexpedient to bring their private failings to the publick hearing of the world before the lay people by a judicial procedure that it should not be done nor would he suffer it especially in that conjuncture when a good repute of all and peace and charity amongst them all was so necessary to carry the matters of Faith in the Council against the growing heresie of Arrius For verily otherwise or if you take non potestis philosophically and rigourously or strictly as denying a natural or legal power and a power too either temporal or spiritual and take hominibus universally or even indistinctly for what this word of it self may import as not determined of it self nor by any other word here to lay-men more then to churchmen you must consequently fix that sense to these words of Constantine which neither Baronius himself nor Bellarmine will allow For so they will also signifie no legal canonical or spiritual power in the Pope himself nor even in a general Council of Bishops where the Pope himself presides to judge and censure condemn or punish not even in a spiritual way I mean the very most scandalous sailings of other Bishops And therefore thirdly Constantine must be understood where he sayes sed Dei sâ—lius judicium expectate that as he mean'd not thereby to deny a canonical power in a general Council of Bishops to censure and condemn other Bishops when their failings deserved it but only that he thought it more expedient as the case
sayes Theodorecus l. 2. c. 9. 10. maximè omnium caepit clamare orare Imperatorem ut de iniquo indignoque ejus facinore non Episcoporum Concilio sed pro tribunali judicium quaeratur seque pollicetus primum Episcoporum Clericos qui facinoris conscij erant supplicioÌ„ coercendos traditurum Stephani quoque ministros ait eodem medo puniendos esse At cum Stephanus petulanti ore illis contradiceret affirmaretque plagas non infligendas esse Clericis placuit Imperatori Magistratibus ut quaestio de facto in Regia haberetur Ad hunc modum ergo intellecta Stephani improbitate primum Episcopis qui tum aderant mandatum dant Judices ut hominem abdicent Episcopatu deinde illi ipsi eum Ecclesia penitus expellant Where you are to observe that not onely not the judgment of the fact of Murder but not even the judgment of this question of right whether the said Patriarch or Bishop Stephen of Antioch should be deposed or no is remitted to the Ecclesiastical court or to the Church or Council of Bishops but peremptory command sent by the lay Judges to the Bishops to depose him actually and by their spiritual judgment whom they the same lay Judges had already and by a civil judgment sentenced to be so deposed albeit these lay judges reserved to themselves still or to the civil power the real execution of both sentences that is the actual and corporal expulsion of Stephen from Antioch Nor is it material to object here that Constantius was an Arrian for the Arrian Bishops stood as much for the immunities of the Church and Churchmen and so did the Arrian Princes advised by them as any Catholick Bishops or Princes did when the crime objected was not diversity in religion And this crime of Stephanus was a meer lay crime and consequently a crime that by the very laws of even Constantine the great himself nay and of all other Catholick Princes after him and after Constantius his Arrian Son for many hundreds of years and even too by the very express laws of Justinian himself so long after Constantine and Constantins was even when committed by any Ecclesiastick whosoever to be tryed and judged by the civil Judg that is by the Praetor of the Province But however this matter be of Constantius whether he was then a down right Arrian or not albeit this be not material as I have now proved I am sure his brother Emperour Constans who ruled in the west was ever a zealous Consubstantialist and orthodox in all preciseness And yet our often mentioned Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople being deposed from their Sees by other Bishops and having their refuge to him that is to this Emperour Constance in the West he at their instance and earnest petition and even in a cause meerly Ecclesiastical but for the relief of innocency oppress'd wrongfully sends letters to his said brother Constantius wherein as Socrates writes l. 2. c. 12. and Sozom. l. 3. c. 9. he signifies his pleasure that three Bishops be sent from the East to give him an account of the causes why Athanasius and Paulus had been deposed nay and threatens otherwise or if the said Athanasius and Paulus upon account given were found to have been unjustly deposed and should not be restored again to make warr on Constantius Which to avoid Constantius sent him Narcissus the Cilician Theodorus the Thracian Maris the Chalcedonian and Marcus the Syrian four Bishops as after also when Constans was not satisfied with the causes which these four Bishops alleadged he actually restored Paulus and Athanasius though for a time onely for he again banished them In which procedure of Constance I believe our very Antagonists will not have the confidence to say there was any vsurpation being that such religious orthodox Bishops as this Paul and Athanasius and so rigidly observant as they of Ecclesiastical Discipline were his Authors and Petitioners to reassume the judgment of themselves albeit in a cause purely Ecclesiastical or which onely or at least chiefly concern'd a spiritual sentence of deposition of two Bishops from their Episcopal Sees pronounced against them by a Council of other Bishops But whether our said Antagonists will or no pretend therein any vsurpation I am sure the matter of fact is true as I am sure also that even natural reason it self will force them to confess there was a supream right in Constans to relieve by all due means oppressed innocy and that there was no other way so ready just and equitable as this which he took Valentinianus a Catholick Emperour also shall make up the fourth of those Instances of Princes to our purpose For he condemned by his own Imperial sentence Bishop Chronopius to the silver mines for having appealed from an Ecclesiastical sentence of 70 other Bishops L. 2. Quorum Appel C. Theodâ—s and forced him accordingly to suffer it by going to and labouring in the said mines The very same Valentinian punished by diverse banishments the Bishops Vrsicinus Gaudentius Vrsus Ruffus and several other Bishops too because their Schysmes troubled the publick peace and tranquillity Iure mansuetudinis nostrae sensibus sayes he vel divinitus damnarum est vel tranquillitate naturae ne cum delinquentium facinore legum severitate certemus ac speâ—emendationis futurae mitiorem esse vellemus correctionis injuriam quam provocat meritum nostrum Ampeli Pater charissime Augustorum Dudum Vrsicini inquietudine provocati faventes concordiae populi Christiani quâ—eti etiam Vrbis sacratissimae providentes uno interim loco intra Gallias dumtaxat perturbatorem tranquillitatis publicae statueramus jure cohiberi scilicet ne applicatione morum latae dissensionis incommodum spargeretur Verum naturae nostrae mansuâ—tudine levigati ita memorato abscedendi copiam dedimus ne ad Vrbem Romam vel certè suburbicarias regiones pedem inferat neque nequitiae suae cogitationem canetur infundere Idetiam de caeteris ervoris consortibus Gaudentio videlicet Vrso Ruffo Auxanone Auxanio Adiedo Ruffino sancimus c. Apud Baronium tom 4. an 371. n. 1. Therefore also by this instance and by this law too of Valentinian as it ought to be the chief care of Princes as incumbent on them by their publick office and duty and by the very nature of Principality or Government that the publick peace and tranquillity be preserved entire in and amongst their Citties Cittizens and other people subject to them so it must be consequently their charge to coerce the very Ecclesiasticks themselves if they disturb that peace or tranquillity Gratianus the Emperour likewise in all points Orthodox as the dareling of S. Ambrose however onely a Catechumen banish'd on the same account the Bishops Instantius Salvianus and Priscillianus and banish'd them not onely out of their episcopal Sees or Citties wherein and whereof they were Bishops but out of all countries subject to him Though after being ill advised he
vincti sumus Where you see a General Council and a Council truely General with their armes or hands wide spread bowing down humbling themselves touching as their phrase is the knees of the Emperour and beseeching him to set free to them out of prison the Patriarchal Praesident of their whole Council And you may see them in some passages going before complaine indeed but with all modesty to the Emperour that his Majesty was deceaved by sinister information But that he oppress'd or infring'd Ecclesiastical Immunity they neither complaine of there nor elsewhere so farr were they from any thoughts of proceeding to excommunications Interdicts or monitories or minatories of either and consequently so farr from the practise of some later Ages The same Theodosius and by the Ministers of his Pretorian Presect exiled Nestorius Patriarch of Constantinople who was by the said great Ephesme Council condemned of heresie as may be read in the Acts of that Council And truly Cyril of Alexandria epist 6. writing to Iuvenal Bishop of Ierusalem advises that the extermination of Nestorius should be desired and expected from this Emperour only and from his subordinate civil Magistrates Necessarium autem erit sayes he ut Christi amanti ac religiosissimo Regi universis Magistratibus scribamus consulamusque ne pietati in Christum hominem praeponant sed largiatur orbi rectae fidei firmitudinem ac greges Domini à malo pastore liberent nisi universorum consiliis obtemperaverit Pursuant to which desire this very Theodosius afflicted most grievously several other Bishops for being only suspected of Nestorianism Amongst whom let Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus albeit in himself otherwise a very true and sure Catholick tell how the Emperour punish'd him upon suspicion only let us observe whether he complain that a Laick should take cognizance of judge and sentence and confine a Bishop or whether only be complain of the injustice of the proceeding against him as having no crime at all whereof he was convicted or which he had confessed or that was objected to him at least upon any kind of even but a probable ground Cum enim sayes he himself Theodoretus epist 81. apud Paron tom 6. an 440. num 11. ad Nomum consulem semel iterum scripserim litteras nondum accepi Imperatoris decreto Cyrenssum regionis terminos praeterire prohibeor Nulla vero alia causa hujus damnationis videtur praeterquam quod Synodos Episcoporum congrego licet neque accusatio ostenderetur neque actor appareret neque reus convictus decretum tamen editum fuit c. And then adducing the example of Festus with Paul Act. 25. he adds Et haec quidem dicebat homo qui Christo non credebat sed idolorum erroribus serviebat Ego vero neque interrogatus An Synodes congregem nec ne quorum causa congregem quid mali afferam vel rebus Ecclesiae vel publicis ac si in maximis deliquissem ab aliis arceor civitatibus Quin immo aliis quidem omnibus omnis aperta est civitas non solum Arrii Evnâ—mii sectateribus sed Marcionistis illis qui Valentini Montani morbo laborant nec non Ethnicis Iudaeis Ego vero qui pro dogmatibus Evangelicis pugno ab omni excluder civitate Moreover it was Theodosius commanded Irenaeus Bishop of Tyrus to be not only deposed from his Episcopal See but also degraded of Sacerdotal Order as was actually done in obedience to his command Acta Concil Ephes edit Pelt tom 5. c. 29. And further yet it was this Emperour Theodosius that notwithstanding the foresaid great General Synod of Ephesus deposed the before mentioned Iohn from his Patriarchal See of Antioch as appears in the Acts by his own imperial authority interceded and hindered the execution of that sentence nay commanded it should not be executed and who also by his own self same and onely imperial authority though for a very just end or least otherwise great troubles should arise licenced the said Iohn to return to his former See of Antioch And finally it was this Emperour Theodosius that called both Iohn and Cyril to himself to Nicomedia and forced them to agree among themselves and Iohn also to agree with the Catholick Church wherever by renouncing Nostorius Martianus a no less Catholick Emperour even he who together with Pulcheria the good Empress convoked the fourth General Council or that great one indeed of Chalâ—dâ—n this very Martianus I say was he that by his own Imperial authority removed from the Patriarch of Antioch the cause of â—â—as and brought it to his own cognizance and this too at the Instance of the Priests of the Diocess of Edessa Subjects to and accusers of the said Ibas their own Bishop and because they alleadged that the Patriarch of Antioch to whom the cognizance of their accusation against Ibas immediatly belong'd in the Church was suspected of partiality and committed it to other Bishops to be judg'd by them joyning also to these other Bishops for an assistent Damasium Tribunum Nâ—tarium a meer lay officer Concil Chalced. Act. 9. But that which herein or in this cause of Ibas and in this Imperial cognizance and commission of it is more notable yet is that the complaint of the said Priests his accusers was purely Ecclesiastical as wholly concerning an excommunication which he had pronounced against them But I have elsewhere noted that the Prince hath an external superintendence over and power of the external regiment of even meer Church affairs especially in two cases viz. 1. when manifest injustice is committed or innocency oppressed or whether it be so or no in rei veritate when complaints are made to the Prince that matters are so carried in the Church or by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governours of it 2. when he sees that by the carriage however this be of Churchmen or of the spiritual superiours of other Churchmen or laymen the publick peace or tranquillity of either Church or State politick is any way disturbed or hazarded or that any other publick spiritual or even temporal good which implyes no sin is hindered Pursuant to which it was also that Leo Magnus Primus the first and great Pope of that name writ to an other Leo the Emperour and writ in his 81. epist to coerce the Clerks of the Constantinopolitan Church as favourers of hereticks In quibus sayes this holy Pope deturbandis si frater meus Anatolius cum nimis benigne parcit segnior invenitur dignamini prâ—fide vestra etiam istam Ecclesiae praestare medicinam ut tales non solùm ab craine Clericatus sed etiam ab urbis habitatione pellantur Where this Pope desires the Emperour to exercise his own Imperial power not delegats any Ecclesiastical to him though he desires the Emperour not onely to banish those Clerks from the City but also to have them degraded from their order And pursuant to the same
Ex his omnibus datur intelligi his own conclusion is in general tearms only importing that a Clerk is not either in a civil or criminal cause to be convented in publick that is in lay or secular Judicatories Quod Clericus sayes he ad publica judicia nec in civili nec in criminali causa est producendus not descending to the particular or specifical case of the regal power and regal cognizance intervening by special commission or special warrant or in a special emergency nor descending also to or considering the special case of times or Countryes when or where no such canon of the Church or Pope no such priviledge imperial at least in that latitude is in use or perhaps hath ever yet been received or if once received hath been again repealed Therefore Gratian may be rationally expounded to mean by his judicia publica in this Paragraph those ordinary Judicatories only which are of inferiour lay Judges and those too but only where such Canons are received or such priviledges allowed by the supream civil powers and laws But if any must needs press further yet or in any other sense the conclusion of Gratianus then I must say three things The first is that as I have proved already elsewhere in this work if a Clerk sue a Layman for any temporal matter or in a meer civil cause that is not criminal he must sue him in a lay Court and before a lay Judge and this lay Judge albeit only a subordinate inferiour and ordinary Judge shall give a binding sentence against this Clerk if the law be in the case for the Layman So that neither is it generally true not even by the very Canons I mean that Clerks in all civil causes are totally exempt from the jurisdiction of as much as the very inferiour lay Judges For the very Canons not to speak of the civil laws now in force throughout the world have ordered so Quod Actor sequatur forum Rei let the Actor be ever so much a Clerk or Ecclesiastick The second is that generally for criminal causes of Clerks Gratianus hath not produced as much as any one either imperial constitution or even any one Church Canon sufficiently either in particular or in general revoking or anulling or sufficiently declaring that revocation of the 74. Constitution of Iustinianus whereby this Emperour appoints and impowers the lay Judges for those within Constantinople and for those abroad in the Provinces the lay Pretors in the same Provinces to iudge the criminal causes of Clerks nay nor hath at all as much as attempted to answer or gain-say it albeit this very 74. Constitution was the very last chapter saving one which himself produced immediatly as a canon before the foresaid last paragraph Ex â—is omnibus Thirdly that for those Church Canons or those more likely authorities or passages true or false of some Popes or some Councils alledged by Gratianus in that his eleventh cause and first question or those in him which may seem most of any he hath to ground another sense then that I have said to be his sense I have before sufficiently nay and abundantly too cleared and answered them at large in my LXIX Section of in my answer to Bellarmine's aâ—legations of the Canons for himself and for the exemption of criminal Clerks from the supream royal coercive power of Kings where I have also noted some of Gratian's either voluntary or unvoluntary corruptions of the Canons Fourthly and consequently that whether Gratian was or was not of a contrary opinion it matters not a pin It is not his opinion and let us suppose he had truly and sincerely declared his own inward opinion for I am sure many as good and as great and far greater then he dared not declare their own when he writ his Decretum or declare any at all but in the language of the Papal Court It it is not I say his opinion but his reason we must value for sin he did not himself nor any for him does pretend to infallibility And I am sure he neither brings nor as much as pretends to bring any Scripture at all or any Tradition of the Fathers or even as much as any argument of natural reason for the warranty of any other sense And I am certain also that my judicious and impartial Readers will themselves clearly see and confess that he brings not for himself or for such a sense as much as any one Canon true or false to confront these I have alledg'd for my self and for that sense I intend all along or any one Canon true or false that denyes that which I have given for the coercive power of secular Princes to have been and to be the sense of Paul the Apostle Rom 13. or to have been and be the general and unanimous sense of the holy Fathers in their commentaries and expositions of it or finally any one Canon true or false that particularly and either formally or virtually descends to the specifical debate 'twixt the most eminent Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius or their followers the present Divines of Lovaine and me concerning the supream royal and external Jurisdiction of Kings to punish criminal Clerks by their own immediate authority royal and by virtue of their own royal commissions and delegations extraordinary in all cases and contingencies wherein the preservation of the publick peace and safety of either Church or State require it and by their mediat authority also in their inferiour Judges and by vertue of their ordinary commissions or delegations to such Judges or of the ordinary power which the civil laws of the land give to these Judges in all cases I mean wherein the same civil laws or the makers of such laws have not received or admitted of the more or less ancient constitutions of Roman Emperours or of the more or less ancient Canons of the great Pontiffs or of other Bishops in their Ecclesiastical Councils for what concerns the exemption of Clergie-men in criminal causes from the meer civil and ordinary Courts and lay inferiour or subordinate Judges and their subjection to Ecclesiastical Judges only and the Prince himself who must be without any peradventure and even in such causes too of Clerks above all Iudges in his own Kingdom whether lay or Ecclesiastical Judges For I have before sufficiently demonstrated that all Ecclesiastical Exemption in temporal matters or in all both civil and criminal causes is only from the supream civil Power as from the only proper and total efficient cause and I have also before demonstrated that no exemption to any persons or person whatsoever could be given by that Power from it self or at least for the matter of coercion and when the publick good required it unless at the same time it freed such persons or person from all kind of subjection to it self and I have likewise demonstrated before that such exemption from it self in any case at all whatsoever cannot be rationally supposed as given by
the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and by the Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along till Henry the Second himself 's own raigne and until after this controversie happen'd criminal Clerks even guilty of murder were to be judg'd and punish'd only by the Court Ecclesiastical â—ay that not only by the same laws all Clergiemen 〈…〉 all crimes whatsoever to be judg'd only by the Bishops but that all the very 〈◊〉 of the Church were â—â—all causes whatsoever to be adjudg'd only in the Church of Ecclesiastical Tribunals nor should have recourse to those were by way of distinction commonly called the Kings Courts but only in default of justice done according to law in the Courts of the Church Which being in or as to both differences the law of England contrary to which iâ— both differences oâ— cases Henry the Second would have forced St. Thomas and no other law of God or Man commanding St. Thomas to submit to the King in either as the case stood not even that of St. Paul 13. to the Romans because St. Thomas had in both as in all his other differences the sublimer â—oâ—â—ers in the law of the land for himself who sees not that St. Thomas needed not for his own justification in either differences pretend either the positive law of God or the natural law of God or the law of Nations or the Imperial law or even any Church law or Papal law or Canon for the exemption of criminal Clergiemen from the secular Courts when he denyed to deliver up the two criminal Clerks or when he refused to sign or seal that second Head of Henry the Second's customes which second head was such as subjected all Clergie-men in all kind of causes civil criminal mixt spiritual and temporal to the cognizance of the Kings even ordinary lay Judges and Courts as you may see by turning to and reading over again in my fourth Observation that second Head of those 16 And who seeâ— not but he might at the same time without any contradiction inconsequence oâ— contrariety maintain that still it was true that abstracting from the laws of England then as yet 〈◊〉 because not legally repealed all Clerks in England were by the laws of â—eason and laws of God and doctrine of the Fathers and many Canons too of Popes and Councils subject in all temporal causes both civil and criminal to the lay civil Courts and Judges of Henry the Second Nay who sees not but for any thing alledg'd or known out of the Histories of either his life or death or martyrdome or canonization or miracles or invocation of him after as a glorious martyrized Saint and even martyrized only too if you please in meer defence of the Church liberties and immunities who sees not I say but that notwithstanding any thing hitherto so alledg'd out of all or any of those Histories he not only might be but was rigidly and constantly of this judgement and opinion especially being these Histories tell us in one instance that when he was so much pressed to sign to those 16. Heads as the royal customes of Henry the First he doubted they were no such customes of Henry the First or were no customes at all and therefore chiefly and only fell off after swearing them and would not sign or seal them at all as was desired and expected from him albeit his Cross-bearer's check did forward his repentance for having sworn Sed cum descriptas consuetudines sayes Parker himself in the life of our Saint perlegisset Thomas for when he swore to observe them he did not see them in writing nor were they digested at all into heads and therefore he only swore in general to observe those customes which Henry the Second called â—nitas consâ—â— tudines his Grandfathers customes and royal customes â—ulâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 an ill â—um quaedam inter consuetudines essent habendae itâ—â— diem deliâ—â—◠〈…〉 sigillum chirographum adhiberet petiit and whereas also he could not be ignorant of the laws both Imperial which he had studied and of the laws of England where he lived and judged so long as Chancellor Or who sees not briefly that that there is no contradiction that a most rigid 〈◊〉 Bishop should dye for the rights of the Clergie and be therefore a Marâ—â—◠〈◊〉 yet acknowledge all those rights or at least many or some of them 〈◊〉 â—â—â—ch he dyed as for example that of exemption came to the Clergie from the meer civil or municipal and politick just laws of the land and only from such laws of the land and not by any means immediatly from any other law divine or humane of nature or Nations or of the Church Pope or Emperour if not in so much only as the laws of God and nature approve all just laws of every land 〈◊〉 they be repealed by an equal authority no that which made them Finally who sees not also that notwithstanding all this or notwithstanding the municipal laws of England were for St. Thomas in every particular of his said manifold opposition to his King or that by the same laws the English Clergie had such exemptions from secular Courts yet St. Thomas might have been of this opinion also and perswasion at the same time and was so too most rigidly and constantly for ought appears to the contrary out of the Acts of his life or other Historians that as by no other laws of God or man or reason so neither by those very laws of England either himself or any other Clergieman was exempt from the supream civil coercive power or even could be exempt during their being subjects or their acknowledging to be so or their living in the quality of subjects 1. Because the very name and nature of subjection draws along with it and either essentially or at least necessary implyes this which is to be subject to the supream coercive power at least in some cases and some contingencies 2. Because that if both himself and all other Ecclesiastical Judges and Bishops taking the Pope himself too in the number did fail in their duty of punishing Clerks notoriously scandalously and dangerously criminal or that if the criminal Clerks themselves would not according to the law of the land submit to the sentence and punishment prescribed into them by the Bishops or if even also the Bishops themselves were altogether guilty of the same crimes or patronizers of the criminals and would not amend or satisfie of themselves without any peradventure t is evident that the supream civil coercive power might and ought in such cases to proceed against them by plain force and corporal coâ—rcion cuia salus populi suâ—rema lex esto 3. Because the power whereby S. Thomas himself and all other Bishops and Ecclesiastical Judges proceeded in a compulsory way to any civil or corporal coercion of criminal Clerks against the will of the same Clerks as to seizing their persons imprisoning them whiping them taking away their temporal goods confining them
insist ultimately without any change did Henry the second quit all other branches that such doctrine I say is false concedo But that whatever doctrine condemns or opposes such other branches of his quarrel whereon he would not so insist ultimately to the effusion of his bloud if the rest were quitted by the King that such doctrine I say is false nego Or even thus that the doctrine is false which condemns or opposes the Saints quarrel above the 16. Heads collectively taken concedo But that doctrine to be false which condemns or opposes the justice of his quarrel if he had any such as 〈◊〉 he had not for every one a part or for every head not onely collectively taken or joyntly with all the rest but even severally or separately taken nego Or thus also if you please yet more neer home to our purpose whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of his quarrel as in relation to the second Head of the sixteen and as it was proposed in terminis is false concedo but as in relation onely to the punishment of criminal Clerks by the supream civil coercive power or even by the subordinat when the laws of the land are for the civil Judges nego Or finally thus Whatever doctrine condemns or opposes so the quarrels or even any part of the quarrels of St. Thomas of Canterbury with Henry the Second that it also condemns or opposes his Sanctity or martyrdom in all the several and Ecclesiastical acceptions or uses or senses of the word martyrdom or opposes at all his canonization veneration invocation c is false concedo that condemns or opposes otherwise that contest only is false nego And conformably the Minor being distinguish'd I am sure the consequent inferr'd in the Syllogisme will appear to any and be in it self a meer non sequitur And further yet a fourth answer may be to the matter of this objection and a third to the Syllogisme by denying that there is any necessity to admit the Saints quarrel or controversy with Henry the Second to have been objectively just in all respects for any part of it whether original intermediat or ultimat or by denying that it was objectively prudential for the Saint to have been so rigid or so stiff in his own way and in such matters or any part of them against that King all circumstances duly considered Conformable to which answer to the matter the major and minor of the Syllogisme may be again distinguish'd and the consequence denyed absolutely as a non sequitur Which two last Answers the third and fourth I add to the former two not that I find those former two first any way defective or unsatisfactory or that I do not my self insist on those former as the answers which I own and which chiefly I would have reputed to be my own or those onely upon which I do most rely or that I do at all give this last of all or the fourth answer as my own but that I observe several reasons why it is not amiss to give them for the solution of the argument one way or an other in all sorts of judgments of Catholick writers and even also contemporary writers to St. Thomas himself who gave their judgment severally though briefly on those contests of his with Henry the Second Whereof The first reason is that St. Thomas of Canterbury doubtless might without any sin have complyed with Henry the Second that is might have had permitted him to have his will in all the several Instances or branches of the whole contro either of the first original complex of the five first or of the intermediat grand and long of the 16. customs or even of the final which was the onely proper and immediat cause or occasion of his death For to lay aside that which Parker sayes but sayes onely by guess might have been the very first of all originals in this controversy the Saint's changing his former way of living vainly and changing it into the strictness and holyness of a Saint I say that leaving this onely a side as not being to be or even indeed that was not quarreld at by the King nor quitted nor to be quitted at any mans pleasure by the Saint without sin he might cease from such earnest pursuance of those laymen who till his time held those lands alienated to them by his predecessours from the Church of Canterbury and without sin retayn his office of Chancellorship without sin abstain from hindering the temporal revenews of vacant Churches to be payed into the Kings Treasury or Exchequer and abstain also from speaking against the collection of hyde money without sin deliver over to secular justice the two criminal Clerks I say that he might without sinning have yielded in all those five instances which make the complex of the first original causes of the following evils to such earnest desires of such a King and that moreover he might without sin have yielded to him also in signing sealing the 16. customs especially when he knew all the other Estates both spiritual and temporal to have approved of them and to have entreated him so earnestly and passionatly to concurr that likewise he might without sin have abstained from appealing to the Pope and from his flight to Flanders incognito and against the Kings will and from incensing so much as he did in his voluntary exiâ—e the Papal Court against his King and from procuring or accepting a Legantine power to proceed joyntly by such an extraordinary power of Legat a latere by special commission and of his own ordinary Archiepiscopal Jurisdiction against even the King himself and from threatning and preparing himself to publish an Interdict against all the Kings dominions and from excommunicating by name and during his exile so many Bishops and others who had sided against him in the controversy of the 16. customs and from falling a new upon others at his return from exile in the temporal concerns of his Church of Canterbury lastly that he might without any sin have not only absolved the excommunicated Bishops without any condition being he very well knew they were excommunicated by the Pope at his own instance and that himself had all the Papal power might be delegated and that the injury was not such as lay not in his own power to remit without such a condition tying them to stand to what the Pope should enjoyn to or determine of them but also have permitted his Clerks to swear the oath proposed or to be proposed to them viz. that of maintaining the Kings laws and his said 16. customs for it could be no other oath I say that without sin St. Thomas of Canterbury might have so behaved himself as to have let the King have his desire in all and each of these branches and therefore in his whole controversy with Henry the Second being these instances or branches I have now repeated make up the whole series of his controversies and
great strictness in his own way I mean according to the judgment of the Prelats and Nobles of that Assembly at Paris But for a judgment also given of purpose on that whole controversie and given by a contemporary Historian a Catholick by religion a Monk by profession and writer of very good repute Gulielmus Neubrigensis and a judgment given by him of this matter even after Thomas had been both martyrized and canonized you have it in his third Book cap. 16. and in these words Sane cum plerique soleant in iis quos amant laudant affectu quidem propensiori sed prudentia parciori quicquid ab iis geritur approbaâ—e planè ego in viro illo venerabili ea quae ita ab ipso acta sunt ut nulla exinde proveniret utilitas sed feruor tantum accenderetur Regius ex quo tot mala post modum pullulasse noscuntur laudanda nequaquam censuerim licet ex laudabili zelo processerint sicut nec in Beatissimo Apostolorum Principe arcem jam Apostolicae perfectionis tenente quod geâ—tes suo exemplo Judaizare coegit in quo eum Doctor gentium reprehensibilem deciatat fuisse licet eum constat laudabili hoc pietate fecisse Third reason That he might possibly be imbued with the doctrine which was growing then of the exemption of Clergiemen either by divine immediate right of the positive or even natural law of God or by that which is pretended to be mediatly divine and immediatly canonical or humane from the Canons of the Church or at least from the bad or false interpretation of those Canons or by some prescription and will and power of those Popes who so mightily in his dayes and for almost a whole age before his dayes immediatly and continually contested with the very Emperours themselves and all other Bishops for both the spiritual and temporal soveraignty of the world and this too by a pretence of divine right And that we must not wonder that even on so great a Saint as Saint Thomas of Canterbury himself the authority of the first Apostolick See and the numbers of her admirers adorers and followers then in what quarrel soever and the specious pretence of piety in the cause and education in such principles or amongst such people should work a strong pre-possession of zeale as for the cause of God being it was reputed the cause of the Church however that according to the veritie of things or true laws divine or humane as in themselves nakedly or abstractedly it might peradventure not have either the cause of God or the cause of the Church Fourth reason and it is a confirmation that is a very probable argument though nor perhaps throughly or rigidly demonstrative of the truth of the Third That in the speech or words of St Thomas of Canterbury in the time of his banishment to his King Henry the Second at Chinun which Honeden ad an 1165. calls Verba Beati Thomae Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun we find this sentence of his Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere c. Wherein I am certain this holy Bishop was point blanck contrary to the sense of ten thousand other holy Bishops before him in the more primitive ages of the Church and contrary to plain Scripture and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for at least the ten first and best ages of Christianity Fift reason That it is not so clear in all respects that those sixteen heads of customs passed not legally and long before the Saints death into a just municipal law of the land or of England notwithstanding that St. Thomas denyed and even justly too denyed his own hand and seale or even justly also retracted his own former consent by oath yea and notwithstanding that it was meerly out of fear that the rest of the Bishop did at first consent or gave their own consent by oath likewise For it may be said first and said also upon very probable grounds out of the several ancient Catholick and even Ecclesiastick Historians who writ of purpose of those dayes and matters that they all freely after consented And secondly it may be said that the greater vote enacts a law in Parliament having the consent royal whether one Bishop or moe peradventure or even all the Bishops dissent And thirdly yet iâ— may be said that all laws most commonly or at least too often may be called in question upon that ground of fear of the Prince Sixt and last reason That we must rather give any answer that involves not heresie or manifest errour in the Catholick Faith or natural reason obvious to every man then allow or justifie the particular actions or contests or doctrine of any one Bishop or Pope how great or holy soever otherwise or even of many such or of all their partakers in such against both holy Scriptures plain enough in the case and the holy Fathers generally for the ten first ages in their explications of such Scriptures and consequently against that universal Tradition which must of necessity be allowed Nihil enim innovandum sed quod traditum est observandum Behold here six reasons which taken at least altogether may justifie my giving the two last Answers or my adding them to the other two former As for the rest I leave it to the Readers choice which of all four he will fix on though I my self and for my own part and out of a greater reverence to the Saint himself and to the Pope that canonized him or to that Pope I mean in as much as he canonized him for a martyr in such a cause if he did so or intended so taking the name of martyr properly and strictly whereof what we read in our very Breviary of the cause for which the Pope sayes he suffered may perhaps give some occasion of scruple being it is there said of those Laws of Henry the Second and only said that they were leges utilitati ac dignitati Ordinis Ecclesiastici repugnantes but not said that they were laws against the laws of God though I say I could wish for these reasons that all my Readers did fix as I do my self rather on the first and second Answer then on the two last But on which soever of all four they six I am confident none may infer that they or I question Thomas of Canterbury's sanctity in this world either in his life or at his death or his glory in heaven after his death or question the Bull of of his canonization or question the holy practice of the Catholick Church in her veneration or invocation or finally question as much as those miracles which I suppose were sufficiently proved in the process form'd for his canonization or even those which as wrought after that time at his Tomb or elsewhere are alledg'd upon sufficient grounds if any such be so alledg'd Though I cannot here
own King sent Embassadors both to Lewis of France and to the Pope to accuse him and pray them especially the King of France not to harbour him at all and partly also to be recommended by them or either of them to some pious refuge where he might serve God in a retired life and in safety from the power of his own incensed King and might not want necessary sustenance being he had nothing left him of his own to live upon Was there or could there be any treason in this He represented the quarrel so and those 16 Heads or customes controverted 'twixt his King and himself so that the Pope and Cardinals with one voyce condemnd them and consequently his King for contriving and forcing them on him and on the rest of England for municipal Laws and Customes But so did Henry also by his own Letters and Embassadours to the same Pope and Cardinals endeavour to get those Customes approved and Thomas in the same manner indirectly condemned for opposing them And as such application to the Pope and Cardinals by the Kings of England at that time was not unlawful not even I mean by the very Laws of England so neither was it as much as by the same Laws unlawful much less treasonable for the Archbishop of Canterbury to declare his Conscience before the Pope and in matter of such or other whatsoever pretended or intruded or forced Laws or Customes whatsoever or either treasonable or unlawful for him to be with the Pope and his Cardinals the cause or primary Instrument of such a condemnation as is proper to the Pope and Cardinals by a meer spiritual sentence or judgment or reprobation or not allowance for as much as belong'd to them or as their such opinion or sentence was desired of such Laws Besides we know that Histories make no mention at all of any Brief or Bull or other authentick Declaration set out by that Pope of his Cardinals or by any other Pope either procured by Thomas or not procured by him against those pretended Customes or against that King for them only and meerly Moreover we know it is no treason for any Bishop Subject to any Prince whatsoever to declare his own Conscience against whatsoever Laws which are desired by the Prince to be establisht for Laws and received especially when the Bishop sees there were no former Laws of the Land obliging him under pain of treason not to oppose such other Laws or Customes or pretended Customes as the Prince would establish for Laws Nay it is plain there could be nor can be in any Common-wealth or Kingdome such former Laws so obliging Bishops or indeed any other Subjects because such would be against the Law of God and Nature and would oblige men to consent to the making even of the most wicked and impious Laws imaginable or at least would oblige those who are in Parliament concern'd to oppose wicked Laws not to oppose them 5. He took a Legatine power from the Pope over England and the Kings person too even in the time of his exile or proscription We find no proscription of him but a voluntary yet for himself necessary exile though we find Edicts and Sanctions against those in England who would receive any Mandats from him or even from the Pope in his cause during that time of his exile And we know it was neither treasonable nor otherwise unlawful by any even Law of England at that time for an English Bishop especially the Archbishop of Canterbury to receive a Legatine power from the Pope over England The Archbishops of Canterbury were both before St. Thomas and after him some of them Legati nati and others Legati dati and other Bishops too in England were sometimes Legati dati and both those and these sometimes at the Kings desire made or with his knowledge and consent and sometimes also without the Kings previous knowledge or desire at all The Laws indeed of Provisors or Premunire obstructed the Custome of procuring or receiving such Legatine Commissions without the Kings permission and approbation But these Laws were made long after i. e. in the Reigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second We know also the Legatine power was not of its own nature but in meer Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or in such as the Law and Customes of the Land then did allow it to be and to be without any derogation to the Kings Majesty or Peoples safety And that if at any time otherwise exercised it was the fault of the Legat and neglect of the Prince to suffer such exercise For so the very ordinary Episcopal power of even inferiour English Bishops might be abused by the Bishops Yet the Law did allow their power though not the abuse of it Nor was it treasonable nor otherwise unlawful not even by the laws of England then that a Commission of meer Spiritual or Ecclesiastical power and cognizance extending to the Kings own very Person should be received without his consent nay or against his consent from Rome however perhaps it might be imprudential in a subject to receive it so For the very ordinary power of a Bishop where-ever the King resides in his Diocess extends so also to the Kings own Person that laying aside some particular priviledge or exemption given by a superiour Church-power to the King from the spiritual cognizance or jurisdiction of such a Bishop he may if just cause be proceed spiritually against the King himself by name and so proceed that in case of necessity and expediency he may either interdict him from the Church or even also excommunicate him Evangelically that is declare him separated from the spiritual Communion of all the Faithful and may do all this without any treason at all For a pure Evangelical excommunication or such I mean as is grounded in the Gospel whatever be said of Papal excommunication or of excommunication taken with all its rigour extention or effects according to some Papal Canons or Constitutions entrenches not upon the temporal rights of any nor separates any from such civil Communion of the faithful as the same faithful or any or some of them are otherwise bound by the law of God or man or nature to pay to another And consequently pronounced by a Bishop against his Kings own Person by name cannot be any way a diminution of Royal Majesty being this requires not to be exempt from the power or even effect of such an excommunication which hath no temporal effect nor bereaves of any temporal power at all nor consequently can by any just law amongst Christians be made treasonable not even in an Ordinary Bishop who is the Ordinary of the Diocess and hath not his Episcopal power restrained by any Cannon or any command of a superiour Bishop But whether it can or no I am sure there was no Law then in England making it treason in a Bishop as I have stated the case much less in a Canterbury Archbishop Legat. 6. He
people and that obedience also in Temporals which is in all other Subjects to their own respective Princes and States or an obedience which tyes them not to raise Tumults bear Arms c. against the Princes Person Royal Authority c Lastly Who sees not there was very much both expediency and necessity in these Kingdoms of England Ireland and Scotland but more especially in Ireland for Catholick Priests amongst such a world of Sectaries and under a Protestant King and State to make such a Remonstrance or one in such even formal words of disclaiming and renouncing in so much any Forreign power being the generality of Romish Priests in these Kingdoms or at least in Ireland have been these many Years and are as yet upon so many sufficient grounds suspected to own such a Forreign power both Papal and Princely Spiritual and Temporal as in their opinion at least may seem nay is able and may even justly pretend to free discharge and absolve them from all obligation of Loyalty even in the most Civil and Temporal Affairs whatsoever and give them leave and licence to raise Tumults bear Arms and offer violence to His Majesties Person Royal Authority and to the State and Government of both Ireland Scotland and England So that from first to last you see by this Discourse even the very grand Block of stumbling and chief Rock of scandal quite removed or rather see there hath never been any such at all in the Remonstrance being this fourth Clause or Period of it is free of any such and hath neither Block nor Rock in it self at all the Block and Rock being onely in false and even wilfully and maliciously false Representations of it by perverse Interpreters Fifth Period or Clause follows Being all of us ready not only to discover and make known to Your Majesty and to Your Ministers all the Treasons made against Your Majesty or them which shall come to our hearing but also to lose our Lives in the defence of Your Majesties Person and Royal Authority and to resist with our best endeavours all Conspiracies and Attempts against Your Majesty be they framed or sent under what pretence or patronized by what Forreign Power or Authority whatsoever But certainly here is nothing else Remonstrated but their being ready to perform their Duty in meer Civil or Temporal Affairs or which is the same thing I mean to perform a meer Civil and Temporal Duty and to perform it in a meer Civil way as all Subjects ought to their meer Civil or Temporal Prince To reveal Treason and defend the Kings Person Royal Authority and State even with the hazard of their Lives Are not both meer Civil and Temporal Duties As for that which some either too grosly stupid or too ridiculously malicious object 1. That Confessors who subscribe this Period or Clause of the Remonstrance declare they are ready and oblige themselves thereby to reveal in some case Sacramental Confessions and break the Sacred Seal of such Confessions made to them forasmuch as they say here They are ready to reveal all Treasons which shall come to their hearing And 2. That all sorts of Catholicks both Laymen and Clergymen subscribing this Clause bind themselves thereby to reveal that also which they cannot in Conscience reveal forasmuch as this Clause binds them to reveal all Treasons and we know 't is Treason by the Law at least in England 't is so to Reconcile any man to the Pope or to be Reconciled so to be made a Priest beyond the Seas by the Popes Authority and afterwards to return to the Kingdom of England as it is also Treason to deny that the King's Majesty of England is Supreme Governor in His Kingdom even in Ecclesiastical Causes and yet 't is plain they cannot nor ought not by any Law of Conscience as it stands not with the Laws of their Communion or Religion to reveal such matters To the first or that of Confessors I have already of purpose and at large answered in my LV Section where I Treated this Subject against the Third ground of the Louain Censure And to the Second or that of all Catholicks generally I say in brief here That Widdrington hath in his Theological Disputation Cap. 4. Sect. 3. upon the Oath of Allegiance most learnedly clearly and even diffusely answered this very Objection made in his time by some especially by Antonius Capellus Controvers 1. Cap. 2. pag. 30 seq against which or in answer to which the learned Widdrington or whoever was Author of those Works which go under his name in effect sayes That neither King James himself nor His Oath of Allegiance nor the Statute thereupon by the Clause of that Oath which tyes to the discovery of Treason did intend to bind or does indeed any way bind to the discovery of other Treason or Trayterous Conspiracy than that which is truly such by the Laws of God Nature and Nations even that which is truly such in all Catholick Nations against Catholick Princes but by no means to the discovery of such matters as are only of late by the peculiar Law of England called or made Treasons Treasonable or Trayterous Conspiracies and are not otherwise in their own nature against the natural Allegiance Truth Fidelity and Obedience of Subjects to their Prince And I say besides that neither any indifferent Catholick or even Protestant ever yet understood by the word Treason in such a Clause whereby Catholicks in an Oath or Declaration especially made by themselves oblige themselves to discover all Treasons any other kind of Treason but that which is such of it 's own nature or by all the Laws of God Nature and Nations or that which is such in all Catholick States and Kingdoms not that which is such by the positive Law of only this or that Kingdom or is only such by Laws made against even the very profession of the Roman Catholick Religion for such might be made Treasonable by an unjust Law of men were it left to the greater vote at least in some Contingencies and in some Countries And I say in the last place That words bind not against or besides the intention of such as speak or subscribe them not are by any Rule of Reason or Law to be construed so to bind whensoever the obvious and common sense of such words in all Nations or in the generality of Nations and Religions require no other intention but may subsist very well without any other intention and the Speakers and Subscribers of such words be thought to deal honestly and conscientiously and to be without fraud equivocation or mental reservation in such their speaking and subscribing Out of all which jointly taken with what I have said before on the other Clauses it is apparent enough That notwithstanding such capricious and foolish Objections the fifth Period contains no other than a promise or purpose of the Subscribers of being faithful in performing their natural Duty in Temporal matters without any kind
of obligation to reveal any thing or to stand by the Prince in any matter which is or may be against any spiritual Duty incumbent on them or against their Religion or Communion or against either Justice or Charity For certainly to reveal such Treason as is such by all the Laws of God and Man of Nature and Nations is a Temporal Duty and to defend the King's Person Royal Authority and State and Government under which we live and which are acknowledged by our selves to be Legal or not Usurped is no less a Temporal Duty or both I mean are Duties we owe to God and to the King and to the Laws and such Duties as are discharged in meer Temporal things and in a meer Temporal way too Sixth Period And further we profess That all Absolute Princes and Supreme Governors of what Religion soever they be are God's Lieutenants on Earth and that Obedience is due to them according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal Affairs That no other power is acknowledged here to be even in such Absolute Princes and Supreme Governors nor other obedience due to them by Subjects but in Civil and Temporal things there needs no further proof than what you see in the very express Letter of this self-same Period in the latter part or that of Obedience which also and by all consequence determines the former part of Power and consequently and most expresly determines both to Civil and Temporal Affairs As for the Title of Gods Lieutenants on Earth What Catholick can except against it on other ground but that of Ignorance or Malice or both Our great Nicholaus de Lyra of the Franciscan Order that most Famous and most Learned and also most Catholick Interpreter of the whole Scripture hath above 300 Years since in Sapient 6. called Emperors and Kings Vicarios Dei inâ—â—terra And Thomas of Aquin or whosoever under his name set out the work de Regim Princip l. 2. calls them so nay delivers this Maxim or Position of Kings and Princes Regem Principem toto conatu sayes he sollicitudine divino cultus incumbere teneri non solum quia homo sed etiam quia Dominus Rex est Dei vices gerit a quo maxime pendet St. Ambrose also well nigh a Thousand Years before Lyranus and Aquinas writ thus in Epist ad Roman c. 13. Sciant non se esse liberos sed sub potestate degere quae ex Deo est Principi enim suo qui vicem Dei agit sicut Deo subjiciuntur Nay and a Roman Pontiff Anastasius the Second but a few Ages after Ambrose's Ep. vii writ thus to Anastasius then Emperor of Rome Pectus Clementiae vestrae Sacrarium est publicae faelicitatis ut per instantiam vestram quam velut Vicarian Deus praesidere jussit in terris c. Seventh Period being purely Relative either only to the foresaid six or certainly to that and all the other foregoing Periods taking all together for it is in these words And therefore we do here protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary it is plain this Protestation must be Catholick and just if the Declaration maâ—e in that sixth Period and in the other several foregoing be such But I have now sufficiently demonstrated that all and each of these Declarations are such And 't is like no man will be so mad as to gather out of this Protestation in this seventh Period That the Subscribers protest simply absolutely abstractedly or specificatively against the Authority of any whosoever that declares or holds the contrary but only secundum quid or reduplicatively as holding the contrary not at all as holding declaring or commanding other just matters For the words to the contrary and what else goes before and follows after sufficently declare that Protestation to have only such reduplicative sense So that no other matter can be said to be in this Period or this Period to relate to other than to the Supreme Civil power of Princes in pure Temporal affairs and obedience of Subjects to them in the same Temporal affairs though I otherwise do my self and all the Subscribers also do confess passive obedience due to Princes from their Subjects even in all kinds too of pure spiritual affairs But what this passive is as also what active is I have before explicated and the judicious Reader cannot but easily understand what both are without any explication of mine Eighth Period And we do hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain That any private Subject may kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince though of a different belief and judgment from his Sure there is no professed Christian but Mariana Sanctarellus or some other few impious Scholars of theirs and those of Calvin's Crue who before lead the way or after followed them will quarrel with the Subscribers on this Period especially when the several determinations of the general Council of Constance relating to this matter are duly considered Nor even those in this more Pagan Philosophers of some Graecian Republick than Christian Divines of an establish'd Monarchy can justly say whatever they otherwise say the Subscribers attribute other or even relate to or suppose here in this Period any other power in the Prince than a pure Supreme Temporal or any other obedience in the Subject but in meer Civil or Temporal affairs For the corporal life or death of the Prince as of every other man is such Nor certainly upon any ground whatsoever can say at all the Subscribers attribute here any kind of spiritual power nay nor even a Temporal power in spiritual causes to Princes or consequently exact here from Subjects an active obedience in spiritual causes For if any did subscribe this other Proposition relating not to Princes but private Subjects We hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain That any private Subject may kill or murther another private Subject though of a different Religion from his whatever Construction or Exposition this Proposition would or must be subject unto yet no man certainly could averr on any rational ground That the Subscribers of it attributed a spiritual power to every such private Subject whom he so exempts from being lawfully killed or murthered by another private Subject or that obedience were therefore in spiritual things due to him who could not be so murthered Ninth and last Period And we abhor and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked Which because it is Relative only to the eighth as the word thereof proves I need say no more than is already said on the said eighth immediately preceding And these Nine Periods which I have so given and considered apart being the onely Periods Clauses or parts of the said Act of Recognition and no other at all being therein nor as much as a word more who sees not but that the said Act considered even separately as to the several Clauses
was admonished and cited by name but the rest in general who had medled with that business for these are the very words of the Letter to appear at Bruxels or Rome to render an account of their actions That Father Caron and some other Fathers of those who had subscribed the Protestation and were then at London guessing neither could it be other than pure guess that they were the persons meant immediately by another Letter answered the Commissary General and in it gave their Canonical Exceptions against such a Citation and alledged very just Reasons why they could not obey it by going beyond Sea in case I say they were the persons whom he meant in his Citation which nevertheless was neither peremptory nor one for three neither did it contain a precept nor commination of Ecclesiastical Censure That after this Father Caron sent to Walsh in Ireland and the rest of the Subscribers there the same Citatory Letter of the Commissary General and withall a Copy of his Answer to it That Walsh upon the Receipt of them advising with the rest who were thought concerned if nevertheless we did not think amiss for to this very day we know not writ at large both in his own and the name of all the rest in Ireland to the said Commissary alledging very clear Exceptions both of Law and Fact Copies of all which Letters I have here annexed Lastly That Father James de Riddere Commissary aforesaid upon the Receipt of both our mentioned Answers sate quietly down and transmitted and devolved the whole business to the Minister General of the whole Order For so he answered me in a short Letter and so it appears by his perpetual silence in that matter to this very hour Where now is the disobedience here No man was Cited but only Caron and he but once and that neither under Precept nor Censure Caron answered once and alledged rational Exceptions and Reasons not only probable but necessary why he could not obey And the Superiours desisted from any farther trouble of Citations not replying the least word or shewing they were not satisfied In like manner Walsh and the other Subscribers answered too though neither named nor certain by any circumstance of words or things they had been Cited Where then is the disobedience Shall we say perhaps that those Prelates of the Church and other Ecclesiastical Judges and Subjects and even Lay-men are disobedient to the commands of the Pope who refuse to execute the orders even of the Pope himself though propos'd under penalty of the most grievous censures even Excommunication latae sententiae which intermination of Hell and eternal malediction with a formal precept of most strict obedience nay by the authority of the Holy Apostles St. Peter and Paul and in vertue of the Holy Ghost himself in case they see some cause I do not say every way necessary but only reasonable of not obeying before they declare this cause to his Holiness Plainly whoever say this are wonderful unskilful in the Canons in Divinity and all Law both Divine and Humane and Equity and Justice too Or perhaps are not our Superiours to be judged according to the Rule of the Law to consent in our case where they are silent Where then is the disobedience But my Lord be it supposed which can never be proved that we have in this point been guilty of some disobedience and if you will of such a disobedience as is properly called Contumacy and is a mortal sin and in our Seraphick Order a most grievous crime and in our Statutes of that kind which is reserved by Clement VIII which only then according to the said Statutes has place when after three Admonitions a man for a whole natural day resists the command understand a lawful one are we therefore to be termed Apostates or Schismaticks Those who desire and endeavour to persuade your Lordship this are to be esteemed not only ignorant but mad and full of malice and diabolical fury For who has ever read the Summist's Canonists or Divines where they treat of Schism or Apostacy cannot but see these spiteful Calumniators are blinded by the highest degree of malice nay if he have but attended to the common acception of words even of the most ignorant vulgar For no disobedience how obstinate soever it be makes a Schismatick to wipe first off the infamy of this Reproach unless accompanied with denial and denial too with a kind of Rebellion to be subject to the Pope or Church or acknowledge Her or Him for Superiour Which that learned Cardinal of Cajeta Thomas de Vio following other Canonists and Divines has expresly taught 2. 2. q. 39. ar 1. ad 2. These are properly called Schismaticks sayes St. Thomas in the same place who of their own free will and by design separate themselves from the Vnity of the Church and refuse to be subject to the Pope and communicate with the members of the Church subject to him It is not Schism sayes Cajetan here to refuse even pertinaciously to obey the Pope but to refuse to be subject to him as Head of the whole Church is Schism For mark diligently that to refuse the command or iudgment of the Pope may happen three wayes First on the part of the thing judged or commanded Secondly on the part of the person judging Thirdly on the part of the office of the judge himself If any one pertinaciously contemn the sentence of the Pope because he will not put in execution what the other has commanded for Example to abstain from such a War restore such an estate c. although he err most grievously nevertheless he is not for this a Schismatick For it happens and that often that a man will not do what his Superiour commands and yet retains this Acknowledgment that he is his Superiour But if any one do reasonably hold the person of the Pope for suspected and therefore refuse not only his presence but even immediate judgment and be ready to receive from him Judges not suspected he neither incurs the crime of Schism nor any other fault For it is natural to provide against harms and beware of dangers And the person of the Pope may govern Tyrannically and so much the more easily by how much he is more powerful and stands in fear of none to punish him on earth But when a man refuses the command or judgment of the Pope upon the account of his office not acknowledging him for his Superiour although he believe him to be so he is then principally a Schismatick And according to this sense are the words of this Text viz. of St. Thomas supra to be understood For disobedience how pertinacious soever it be does not make Schism unless there be Rebellion against the office of the Pope or Church so that one refuse to be subject to him to acknowledge him for our Superior c. Thus far Cajetan and with him all Divines Canonists and Summists If I say we look upon
of grateful minds towards him had concluded these two things The one to applot and raise a considerable summe of money for him i. e. every Priest in the Kingdom to pay for his use to a Receiver five Shillings yearly during the next three years to come every Vicar General proportionably more and every Bishop likewise more yet according to his Bishoprick I for my self says He although my Bishoprick of Ardagh as to me at present you all know be none of the best but rather one of the poorest do freely offer and shall willingly pay Thirteen pounds sterling of this applotment The other to give him the said Procurator all the best Testimonials and even the most special Commendatory Letters too signed by the whole Congregation in his behalf and superscribed to the Court of Rome Papal Ministers Cardinals and even to His Holiness The Procurator seeing himself now the second time and even also thus in publick either courted or tempted with such obliging offers yet considering how their carriage of themselves in the material points expected from them had wholly disenabled him to assure them of any certainty at all of reaping for the future those advantages they expected from his endeavours answered That although he could not indeed but thankfully acknowledge their proffers as he did with all his heart nevertheless he would not accept of either at present Not of the later of their testimonial and recommendatory Letters to Rome because such Letters would render him suspected at home and consequently lessen his credit and ability to serve them where they needed his service most Nor of the former of money because by reason of their own final Resolves and Answers to the Lord Lieutenant he could by no means assure them for the future of the continuance of those favours to them which might be answerable to their expectation or such expence and he thought it not expedient to receive their money when he was not sure to be able to continue their liberty This was his answer in short Whereupon the Primat seconded by Father Oliver Desse Vicar General of Meath and some others pray'd him that at least in recompence of his former labours and reimbursement of expences past for so many years since 1660 he would accept of their so willing Contribution of money adding withal that whatever issue his future endeavours for them should have they would neither blame him nor suspect his integrity or good will But he replyed That although he had already in their service spent Eleven hundred Pounds either acquired by his own industry or else freely bestowed on him by other friends then any of their Clergy or People nay and besides that considerable sum already spent were at present even also indebted for some other small summs which he had and must have borrowed and likewise spent in their service and was not yet able to pay he thought it his best course rather to rely on the Providence of God benevolence of friends and his own industry in other ways for money then to receive any of theirs not even for reimbursement of his expences past unless or until they would first receive and comply with some at least of those more sober counsels given them for their own and the Nations further good And therefore pray'd them to excuse him from receiving either Letters or money from them on any account whatsoever until then For he was resolved to be also for the future as he had been always to that hour free of any kind of such obligations laid upon him by men of either judgments or inclinations and affections so different from his in matters relating to the King and Government and that he would not of one side be upbraided with their money if his future endeavours for them had not answerable success nor of the other suspected for having yielded to the receiving of any at all whether money or Letters from them Adding withal that indeed they themselves upon cool reflections might see it was even for their own interest also that he should carry himself so uprightly and honestly if they expected any good hereafter by his Negotiation And in the last place assuring them he would always to his power as faithfully and willingly serve the Roman-Catholick Clergy and People of Ireland and consequently also the very present Congregation and every Member thereof yea notwithstanding the Cabals of some of them of purpose to cross him as if he had accepted of their money and Letters both though he could not at the same time but profess his grief openly that themselves by their inconsiderate Resolves had in effect bereaved him of much of that Power which he believed he might otherwise have to answer even the very greatest expectations any of them could justly have of their success Which being replyed by the Procurator they ceased from tempting him any further on that or other subject But he had not so ended what he had to speak this last day of the Congregation albeit no more on the former subject For that being over by his positive refusal and rational excuse and the Fathers well pleased with his so publick and sincere promise to do for them to his utmost power as much as he would or or could have done in case he had accepted of their proffers he told them in the next place That being this was the last time of their meeting in the present Congregation he had Three things of consequence to move and recommend to their serious consideration but such things withal as could not in reason or any likelihood raise such animosities or divisions of minds amongst them as the Remonstrance or Parisian Declarations had done because they intrench'd not so much on their dependency of the Roman Court and Ministers The first concern'd not only publick prayers for both the Spiritual and Temporal prosperity of the King but moreover due observance amongst them and their respective flocks the Roman-Catholick People of the publick days of Humiliation or Fasts and Prayers which the King or his Subjects subordinate chief Governours of Ireland should thenceforth command all his Subjects to observe The Second was concerning the famed Wonder-working Priest Father James Finachty And the last related to two wicked Books lately written by two Irish Churchmen viz Mahony the Jesuit and Ferral the Cappuccin On each of these three heads he dilated himself to perswade the Fathers to a Congregational Act on each And First as to the former part of the first of those Three Heads he let them know had he sufficient causes to move it and pray their positive Decree in it 1. That he knew many Church-men omitted to pray in publick at their Altars for the King i. e. at all so much as for his Spiritual welfare yea some for example Father Dominick Dempsy a Franciscan esteemed a very grave and holy man and therefore a leading Person and Father .................. Long the Jesuit who had the confidence or rather impudence and
dangerous consequence or overture of such horrid disputes cannot follow the subscription of this fifth For to make good this consecution or to prove those consequents to follow the only medium must be this other proposition The Parliament or people in such an Hereditary Kingdom have the same power respectively in temporals over all persons even that of the Prince himself and even to deprivation or deposition too which the universal Church or general Council hath in spirituals over all faithful brethren amongst whom the Pope must be Which proposition doubtless the congregation might see if they pleased that neither Bellarmine nor Suarez nor any other Divine of their way ever yet evicted or sufficiently proved And from those Divines of either of both the other wayes there could be no reason to expect a proof thereof since those made it their work to disprove it by laying quite contrary principles which they abundantly evidence as I also my self have in my little Book on the Remonstrance of 61. Where I have by two clear Demonstrations More ample Account pag. 67 c one a priâ—ri and the other â posteriori and by Scriptures and Fathers and practice of the primitive Church by answers also to all material objections proved the Soveraignty or as Bodin speaks the Majesty to be in the Prince in all cases not in the Parliament or people not even in any extraordinary case or contingency whatsoever speaking at least as I do here of Hereditary Kingdoms So that the Fathers of the congregation would have dealed more ingenuously if they had omitted the second reason and in lieu thereof only said they conceived it their interest or it was their pleasure to adhere to Bellarmines doctrine as to this point rather then follow the example of Sorbon or doctrine of the Gallican and other national Churches or even that in those two General Councils above rehearsed And yet I confess they would have said this inconsequently withal forasmuch as they had already relinquished Bellarmine in the three former propositions if understood without vain distinctions and yet had not such clear authorities of General Councils therein for themselves albeit they had enough besides Scripture and Reason the Faculty of Sorbon directly on those very controverted points And further they would have said it against the chief purpose which must have been Sorbons and should be theirs to obstruct those other indeed no less certain evident natural then bad sad and dismal consequences of the Popes being asserted to be above General Councils I am come at last to their two last last paragraphs Which I give together because they are of one subject the sixth and last also of those propositions of Sorbon You have it above rendred in English by the Congregation and in these words That it is not the doctrine or dogme of the Faculty that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible Why the said congregation would not subscribe this proposition mutatis mutandis or taking it thus It is not our doctrine c. they give their reasons such as they are in these two paragraphs here following in their own words The sixth regards the Popes infallibility in matters of Faith whether the Pope not as a private Doctor but with an especial congregation of Doctors Prelats and Divines deputed can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie The Iansenists already condemned of Heresie by three Popes and all the Bishops of France to vindicate themselves from the censure contest the first way they write in their own defence and many more against them on which subject is debated the questio facti whether the propositions condemned as Herefie by the Pope be in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in his book or no as may appear by such as we can produce if necessary The Vniversities of France say That it is not their doctrine that the Pope c. Whether this touched our scope or no we leave it to all prudent men to judge If they think it doth let them know that we should not hold the Popes Infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience we owe our Prince if they speak of any other infallibility as matter of Religion and Faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign so we are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question in a Country where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under-hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Country Where I observe the sum of what they would say after mistating the question and after so many disguises and windings to be that this sixth Proposition is impertinent odious unprofitable unfit to be disputed in this Country relates to Jansenisme is suspected to be under-hand furthered by some of that way and finally tends to the disturbance of both King and Country And therefore they thought it fit not to subscribe to it But the contriver of these reasons will now give me leave to clear this fogg which as Sorcerers use to do he hath raised before the eyes of the Reader Whom therefore I must tell That Father N. N. hath first mis-stated the question That the question was not is not whether the Pope either as a private Doctor or as a publick of the whole Church or which is the same thing as Pope either without or with a special congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie Or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie But the qustion was and is whether the Pope even as such or even as the publick Master Doctor Director and Superiour in spiritual matters of all the faithful and even as joyntly taken with or sitting in such a special Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can so decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie that without the joynt consent or concurrence antecedent concommitant or subsequent of the universal Church at least in its Representative a General Council such decision definition censure or condemnation must be in it self infallibly true or must be as such only without any kind of even internal contradiction opposition or doubt received and believed by all the faithful or accounted infallibly true or de fide divina Catholica of divine and Catholick faith and I say accounted such or of Divine Catholick Faith hoc ipso that the Pope hath defined it so That no Catholick Writer hath ever yet questioned or denied a power and lawful authority in or to even a particular Bishop much less in or to a
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
Law and Appeal had not been interposed yet must we hold that your Honours Appeal in your own behalf and in the name of all the Confederate Catholicks who did or do adhere unto your Honours having been so made within due time and after the form of Law tender'd with expression of reasonable causes therein for provoking to His Holiness and Apostles being demanded and granted though these Apostles are no other than Refutatories must notwithstanding suspend the Monitory or conditional Excommunication and Interdict with all their effects and consequences and all other proceedings of the Censurers in pursuance of the same It s plain by the Sacred Canons undoubted by the Doctrine of Divines and Canonists and clear by the very light of Reason which God hath given intelligent Souls Read cap. Praeterea 40. ext de appellatione cap. Si a Judic de appellat in 6. that we may pass over to shun tediousness many such places and you shall find nothing more plainly resolved in the Canons We have (a) Praeterea requisiti suimus si quis Judex ita protulerit sententiam Nisi empronio infra viginti dies satisfeceris te excommunicatum vel suspensum aut interdictum cognoscas Ille in quem fertur sententia medio tempore appellans ad diem statutum minime satisfecerit utrum ille taâ—i sententia ligetur aut interpositione Appellationis tutus existat Videtur autem nobis quod hujusmodi sententiam Appellationis obstaculum debeat impedire been demanded sayes Celestine the III. in cap. Praeterea in case a Judge pronounce sentence thus If you do not satisfie Sempronius within twenty dayes know that you are excommunicated suspended or interdicted and he against whom the sentence is given appealing in the mean time that is sometime within the twenty dayes makes no satisfaction to Sempronius at or before the day prefixed whether he to wit the party against whom the sentence was pronounced hath incurred the Censures as bound by the sentence or hath his Appeal interposed saved him harmless We think that the interposing of the Appeal hinders and takes away the force of the said sentence And thus sayes Glossa (b) Glossâ— in verb. impedire ita suspenditur sententia quae non dum tenet non enim tenet nisi extante conditione Ex quo autem reneret non suspenderetur ejus affectus c. on the word Impedire the sentence is suspended which doth yet bind or which is not yet of force he means until the time prefixed for admonition be expired and other conditions if any be as that was in this case of not satisfying performed for it is not binding until the condition be extant But if it were once binding its effect could not be suspended by an Appeal coming after c. Behold here our very case Our Judge or Judges the Lord Nuncio and his four Delegates as they are called though really it be much doubted whether the Congregation held last at Kilkenny gave them any such delegation to proceed with so much rigour against the whole body of the Kingdom to bring so much danger upon it and throw so much confusion sedition and wickedness into every corner and into the very intrals of the Confederates and this by abuse of Ecclesiastical Censures to bring scandal on the Church notwithstanding the Lord Nuncio with his four Delegates commanded the Supreme Council and their Adherents who embraced the Cessation to reject the said Cessation within or before nine dayes after the intimation of their command and likewise enjoined all others of the Confederates not to join with or consent to this Cessation otherwise declared the former excommunicated and interdicted if they fell not from it within that term prefixed and the later likewise in case they transgressed after they had got sufficient notice of their Lordships determination and Censures in this behalf The Supreme Council interposed an Appeal to His Holiness for themselves and for all the rest unto whom the Censures might be extended and tender'd it according to the form of and within the time prescribed by the Canons Is it not then consequent that these monitory and conditional Censures were by such an Appeal suspended It followeth manifestly if the judgment of Celestine was just or the Law doth not err In both monitory and conditional Censures In both an Appeal made before the dayes of admonition or allowed for deliberation were expired or before the condition was in being that is before a new transgression of the precept after sufficient notice had thereof no Appeal being interposed and after the dayes allowed for appearance were once past therefore in both cases the Appeal must have the like effect Videtur autem nobis quod hujusmodi sententiam Appellationis obstaculum debeat impedire Non enim tenet sayes (c) Celestinus in Praeterea supra Glossa ibid. Glossa nisi extante conditione c. ut supra The first branch of this second Querie and of our assertion in answering it being thus declared the next branch that is whether the effects and consequences of the Censures be likewise suspended is of easie resolution and the resolution of as easie proof For it is a known Maxim in the Canons That accessories do follow the principal cap. (d) Accessorium sequitur principale Dilectis filiis de appellat and it is certain That the Censures we speak of are the principal and that the effects and consequences are but accessories Wherefore the Censures being in themselves suspended by the Appeal the effects and consequences must be of necessity suspended And verily there is no difficulty may be moved in this point What effects and consequences of excommunication and interdict See at full in Tolet. l. 1. Bonifac. 8. in c. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. But some controversie perhaps may arise about the third part of this Querie where it 's demanded Whether all other Censures or proceedings of the Lord Nuncio Delegates or others in pursuance of the former on the same ground are likewise suspended or hindered by the said Appeal yet even this branch is so cleared by cap. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. that nothing more can be desired For in this Chapter Boniface the VIII both determines and declares That an Appeal once made the Judge from whom is no more Judge over the Appellant and that his Jurisdiction is suspended understand in the case and others thence following wherein the Appeal is made and that therefore the Appellant is not bound to appear before him If the Judge from whom be no more Judge if his Jurisdiction be suspended the Appeal being interposed if therefore the Appellant be not to appear before him what is more evident then That the said Appeal is a suspension of all other proceedings or Censures issued or to be issued in pursuance of the former or on the same ground from the Lord Nuncio and his Delegates or any other deriving Authority from them
for such proceedings and Censures cannot be either justly or validly but from persons who are Judges in the case and whose Jurisdiction is not suspended in the same cause Hence is manifest That the Lord Nuncio â—s renovation and confirmation in his Apostles refutatories of his former sentence his execution of the Interdict and all other his proceedings against any of the Confederates on this ground and since the Appeal are unjust and invalid for what either concerns Conscience or the Canons do determine Which is further proved out of cap. Dilectis filiis 55. de Appellat § Quia vero Where Innocent the III. decreed against the Dean of Altisiodorum for having proceeded to the execution of an Interdict notwithstanding and after an Appeal made to Rome The reason of which Decree the Pope gives in these words Cum Appellatione ad fidem Apostolicam interposit a nihil debuerit innovari Where likewise he declares for the same reason That the Excommunication pronounced by the Archbishop of Sein or Senonensis against the same Dean and denunciation made to have been of no force from the beginning and that the said Archbishops Canons did without guilt notwithstanding the denunciation communicate with the Dean so censured and lastly that all proceedings attempted after the Appeal were in themselves void as he does by his Decree disannul them yielding for reason that the accessory is of the same nature with the principal which we have before touched Can we desire any more Canons more pertinent or fitting our purpose it's needless we alledge them though many more we have But because peradventure besides these Tears of Law the sense of Doctors may yet be expected let the Authors seen in the opposit margin (e) Candidus disq 22. art 39. dub 4. ubi citat Lopez par 2. tr de clavibus cap. 12. Pal. in 4. d. S. q. 1. art 4. con 2. Sayrum lib. 1. de Censur cap. 16. n. â—3 Bonac too 1. tract de Censur d. 1. q. 2. punc 2. numer 3. Diana P. 5. T. 3. R. 30. Silvester verb. Appellat Hieron Rodriq ibi Porte eod verb. be read and it will be found that the common Doctrine of Summists Divines and Canonists hath hitherto been That a just Appeal of it self and presently when 't is made devolves the cause to a higher Tribunal suspends the sentence given and withal hinders the inferiour Judge from proceeding any further All which the Doctors comprehend in the double effect which they say is necessarily annexed to a just Appeal to wit devolving and suspending Now for a just Appeal (f) Cand. supr disq 3. reliqui apud ipsum Candidus Boâ—acina Sayrus and others commonly affirm two only conditions are necessary The first that it be made with expression of sufficient probable or likely causes or such as the Appellant thinks bona fide are just probable likely or sufficient motives for appealing but that no other expression or of any other causes is acquired And truly with the Doctors herein the very Canons and Glosses do concur cap. ut debitus (g) Cap. Bonae memoriae §. Praemissâ—s extr de Appel Praemissis igitur diligenter inspectis praedictoâ— Aâ—batem Monachos in eum statum in quo tempore Appellationis lactae ex versimilibus probabilibus ad nos legitime interpositae nostuntur proprietatis parti uttilibet salvo Jure decernimus reducendos ac fructus mediâ— temporis perceptos câ—nsuimus parâ—â—r assignandos eisdem verb. ex rationabili ext de Appellat cap. Dilectis filiis 55. verb. Legitime eod tit cap. Cordi nobis eod tit in 6. often in the case of the Glos and c. Bona memoria § Praemissis ext eod tit where Innocentius III. clearly determines the Appeal to be just and the causes of the Appeal to be sufficient when it is made ex probabilibus aut verisimilibus that is when they are probable or seeming true though indeed they be not in themselves true It sufficeth therefore sayes the Glosse (h) Glossa ibid. Sufficit ergo quod sit probabilis causa Appellationis licet non sit vera vel necessaria Talis videlicet debet esse quod si esset probata legitima esset tunc valet Appellatiâ— further declaring this matter that the cause of Appeal seem probable though it be not certain or true It is enough it be such as being proved may seem lawful for then the Appeal is valid The very same in effect is affirmed by Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis (i) Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis de Appellat in 6. Causa rationabilis ad appellandum aâ— interloquutoria vel gravamine aliquo illa est quae si esset vera deberet legitima reputari aut quae si esset vera necessario inferret appellantem fuisse gravatum de Appellat in 6. as may be read in the margin The second condition necessary and which accomplisheth a just Appeal is that it be made and tendered to the Judge from whom before the dayes prefixed for admonishment or the condition be fulfilled when the Appeal is from a conditional Excommunication Censure or sentence as that against the adherents to the Cessation was or at least within the time limited for entring Appeals That both conditions have been observed punctually in the Appeal made by the Council in their own and in the name of all the rest of the Confederates is apparent to all have read it who have weighed the motives therein expressed and noted the dates both of it and of the sentence against which it was interposed this having been of the 27th of May 1648. and that of the last of the same month dispatch'd away presently to their Lordships the Nuncio and his Delegates But of the second condition there is no controversie All the question is of the first that is Whether the causes or motives of the Appeal were sufficient Yet even herein we see no difficulty Doubtless the Council and many Thousands more of the Confederates were persuaded bona fide that the Nuncio proceeded with due observation of his Lordship may it be said unjustly and that they had expressed before his Lordship most just motives to appeal from his Censures and complain to his Holiness of such proceeding Which bona fides alone would suffice us for securing our own Consciences in opposing his sentence and in hindring to our power the execution of his Censures and all his other proceedings on the same ground yea though the motives were only just in the opinion of the Appellants Which is the doctrine of Authors now cited and must be of all Divines who generally teach and it is in it self most certain and taught us by natural reason That the immediate and next Rule according to which we must square our actions in matters of Fact and cases of Conscience is our own proper bona fides and opinion However this be of our bona fides whether we had it or