last edition and after so many recognitions l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. but retracts that and puts on a new face and amasses together all his reading ever since that Edition and all his veteran strength and wit to prove that not only by other arguments but also by the very civil laws of Roman Emperours all Clergiemen are wholly and generally exempt and in all causes both civil and criminal from all even the very supreamest civil coercive power on earth even from that of those very Emperours who made those laws To the fourth proposition sayes he Tractatu de Potestate Papae in rebus temporalibus cap. 35. which was that no writer hath recorded to posterity that Princes have exempted Clerks from their own power but only from the power of inferiour Magistrates I answer that whoever sayes so doth seem either to have read nothing or to have purposed to abuse his Reader For Ruffians writen l. 10. Hist c. 2. That Constantine the Emperour pronounced in express words It was not lawful for him to judge Priests but rather to be judged by them Whereby he declared openly enough that Priests were exempted not only from the power of inferiour Judges but also from that of the very supream To which declaration that law of the same Constantine which is the seventh in Theedosius's Code de Episcopis Clericis is consentaneous where it is said that the Readers of the holy Bible and the Sub-deacons and other Clerks qui per injuriaâ— Hereticorum ad curiam devocati sunt who by the injustice of Hereticks are called to Court shall be absolved and henceforth as in the East shall not be called to Courts minime ad curias devocentur sed immunitate plenissima petiantur but enjoy a most plenary freedom So he Whence being it is clear enough that he absolutely prohibits that Clerks be called to Courts and will have them to enjoy a most plenary freedom and that he excepts nothing at all it must be also manifest his mind was that neither shall they be called upon to the very Princes own supream Courts for it would not be a most plenary exemption if they were obnoxious as much as to the very principal Power it self Such an other is that law of Theodosius and Valentinian Cod. Theodos. l. ultima de Episc Clericis where we read thus Clerks whom without any distinction the unhappy presumer commanded to be lead to the secular Judges we reserve to Episcopal Audience For it is not lawful that Ministers of divine duties be subjected to they pleasure of temporal powers In which law where nothing is excepted all things do seem to be comprehended unless peradventure the Princes power may not be said to be temporal And even Iustinian himself in his 83. Novella so often quoted by our Adversaries as if therein Clerks did not seem to be exempted in criminal causes from the secular Court hath these words That he must be first degraded from his sacerdotal dignity by the Bishop and so be put under the punishment of the law Where we see Clerks as long as they remain Clerks not to be under the power of the laws but onely after they are by the Bishop deprived of their Clerical honour and therefore while they remain Clerks to be not onely exempt from the power of inferiour judges but even from the very laws of Princes for what belongs to coaction And this is it which the Council of Constance did say in the 31. Session That laymen have no jurisdiction or power on Clerks And certainly under the name of Laicks it comprehends even supream Princes whereas these are Laicks Finally that I may pass over many other arguments the Emperour Frederick the second speaks generally in his first constitution where he sayes We also enact that none presume to draw any Ecclesiastical person to a secular judgment either in a criminal or civil question against the imperial constitutions and canonical sanctions So much there But by secular judgment are not onely understood the judgments of inferiour judges but also those of the supream whereas all are equally secular And we see it so observed indeed where the reverence of sacred canons bears the sway Behold here good Reader the very last essaye of a dying cause Our great Cardinal having been unwilling but to say somewhat however himself so knowing a man as we must presume he was could not but know he said nothing at all in all this discourse to perswade any other even but meanly knowing or judicious Adversary That any Roman Emperour did ever yet by any of these laws or other whatsoever exempt or intend to exempt or that otherwise they or any els understood Clerks to be exempt by any other law from their own supream imperial power in temporal matters either criminal or civil though I dispute not at present of civil causes but onely of criminal For 1. who sees not That were the testimony of Ruffinus's being home in any point a convincing argument yet this which is here alleadged is not in any wise to the point or question Ruffinus tells indeed that Constantine said it was not lawful for himself to judge the Priests but tells not that Constantine ever said himself had exempted them so from himself or that they were so by any law of man Albeit therefore Constantine said so to the Bishops of the first general Council of Nice yet is it plain enough out of the very series of that History in Ruffine when they offered 〈◊〉 petitions to him one against an other that as this was said by an ordinary manner of speech onely and by way of complement so the words must not be taken strictly or scrupulously at all but onely as extolling the dignity of Bishops and as intending to deterre them from litigiousness and chieftly 〈…〉 purpose to free himself from the trouble of judging their hateful differences That this was the mind of Constantine appears by these manifold and manifest arguments 1. That for that his saying he gave this reason that Bishops were Gods and received power from God to judge of him de nobis qâ—â—que pudicandi But neither can relate to human constitutions Nor even to those are divine least otherwise it must follow that Constantine farre better understood the law of God when he so refused to judge the Bishops then those very Bishops themselves who in that holy Oecumenical Synod of Nice did repaire and complain to him as to their Soveraign Judg as may be seen in that very History of Ruffinus 2. That otherwise no Clerks Priests Bishops themselves can be Judges of other Clerks sed ille solus de quo scriptum est Deus stetit in Synagoga Deorum in mediò autem Deos dijudicat For so said Constantine to the Bishops on that occasion and consequently if you take his words strictly or scrupulously he said that Clerks were not onely exempted from his own tribunal or that of Princes but from that of Pontiffs
submission most heartily and freely appeal That you may determine for what concerns you of the truth or falsity likelihood or unlikelihood of that worst of Scandals viz. Desertion of my Order and Religion wherewith I have been frequently asperst on several occasions as in former times even Twenty years ago by some of the Nuncio's Faction so of late during all these four last years by others of the Anti-remonstrants especially by some Church-men who so little consider their holy Function that they seem to have lost all regard to Truth and Honesty and do not boggle at the shame of being daily found in manifest Forgeries so they may but do their work to serve themselves by it or to rid out of their way any person who they fear may obstruct their ambition i. e. their design of confounding all again if they alone cannot otherwise command all Onely I shall further beg as to this matter that before you determine of it you would be pleased to read over these following Appendages First Appendage relating to the Fourth Querie That in regard of the times places and occasions I lived in and employments I had and Books and persons I conversed with of every side and my own both curiosity and concern to understand matters aright and to see into their genuine causes I may without vanity say of my self That I have had more than common opportunities to know the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Court what they are and how hurtful how pernicious to these Kingdoms and to the Roman-Catholick Religion And that ever since I came to see into these things at least ever since I gave my self to a serious and full consideration of those principles and wayes which was about Twenty seven years since upon occasion given me by that Faction I have most heartily abhor'd and at all times and upon all occasions protested against them and the more I have known of them still the more I have seen cause to detest and to protest against them as I do at this day Second Appendage relating to the Fifth Querie That I can and do appeal to God Himelf That next after the regard of not wounding mortally my own Conscience by a manifest desertion of Truth and equivalent profession of such Errours as I know certainly to be against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and Gospel of Christ the chiefest motive I had for bearing up constantly so long a time against all Censures Precepts Monitories Denunciations Affixions Decrees and other grievous concomitant Persecutions in the often mention'd Cause of the Loyal Formulary was the regard of not doing you all the Roman-Catholicks of His Majesties Three Kingdoms the greatest injury that I could possibly do you or perhaps any man of my degree by confessing the grand Objection against you to be insoluble For I saw clearly That if either the temptation of preferment to Offices and Dignities or the tryal of punishment by Censures and Calumnies and all their Consequents at the pleasure of some Grandees at Rome should have had that influence on me as to make me in effect absolutely to renounce my Allegiance to the King by retracting the Subscription of my hand to that Instrument professing it in meer Temporal things onely the Argument thence derivable must have been obvious to any judicious knowing Protestant inclin'd to do you a prejudice as soon and as often as the Parliament sate and were moved in your Concerns Such an Argument I mean as urged home by a good Orator would even before indifferent Judges give much colour to that grand Objection viz. The inconsistence in these Nations 'twixt the safety of a Protestant Government and the giving of Liberty to Roman-Catholicks by repealing the penal Laws yet in force against them In substance it would have been alledg'd That the Roman-Catholicks at least for the generality of them would be alwayes right or wrong directed by their Priests That their Priests are most of them on the Popes side in this Controversie And if any of them be so hardy to oppose his usurpations there is no trusting of them for there is no reason to expect that any of them will stand to his principles and hold out For Example they might have instanced in unworthy me if I had fallen off after so long and such manifold tryals of my constancy for Twenty years past and after so many and so great obligations to persevere until the end of my life This and much more would in all probability I am sure might in all reason be alledg'd to make that great Objection hold against you had I hitherto submitted to the dictates or pleasure of the Roman Court in either Cause But it is not my business here to open more at large or press more home this Argument with all the aggravating circumstances both such as are fresh in memory and such as might be derived from the memory of former times My purpose was to hint it onely as believing this enough to shew you the reasonableness of that second Motive I had for holding out so constantly in such a Cause and in the very manner I did all along against so numerous and so dangerous Adversaries especially seeing that very manner of my holding out so or of defending my self the best I could against them was and is authorized not only by the Divine Laws of Nature and Christianity but also most expresly and clearly by the positive Constitutions of men even of Roman-Catholicks viz. the fundamental Laws of England and Ireland not to speak now of other Catholick Nations of Europe so many Hundred years since Enacted by the Roman-Catholick Princes and Parliaments of these Kingdoms against all Forreign Citations or Summons from a Forreign Power beyond the Seas and also the Ecclesiastical Canons of the Catholick Church throughout the World nay of the very Papal Canons themselves forbidding in express terms Judicia Vltramarina (a) Vid. S. Cyprian Epist 55. ibi Statutum esse omnibus nobis c. Concil Affrican Episcop 217. inter quos Divus Augustinus erat Can. 92. relatum pariter in Cad Can. Eccles Affric Can. 125. Synod ad Coelest Item 3. q. 6. haecce capita viz. Ibi. Vltra Si quis Clericus Peregrina Qui crimen q. 9. cap. Nec extra Item cap. Nonnulli de Rescrip Item Stat. General Barchinonensia Ord. Min. cap. 6. §. 1. num 1. 2. ubi Patres rationem habent illius naturalis Canonum aequitatis and expresly decreeing against many other special Injustices and Nullities on other grounds in the late procedure against me (b) If you would see more Quotations both of the Canon and Civil Law against every particular Injustice committed in Summoning me to appear beyond Seas and which do justifie in all respects my procedure in not obeying such Summons you may consult my Latin Epistle to Harold pag. 6 7. besides my Latin Hibernica Third Part and you will find a very great abundance of the
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
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
all the power of the Emperour Frederick accompanied with such numerous and formidable legions and with all the Princes of Empire and Kings also of Denmark and Bohemia at Avignon whether this Emperour of purpose to entrap Lewis in a conference and force him to quit Alexander and 2. when immediatly after this he also personally visited this Pope Alexander apud Bobiense Monasterium where he was then retired presented him richly and did him so much honour and reverence that after kissing his toe he excused himself from sitting in the chayre prepared for him and with all his Barons sate on the bare ground at his feet and 3. That together with the said King Lewis of France at their meeting upon the River Loyre where this Pope mediated and concluded a peace betwixt them he out of exceeding reverence towards him and to countenance him the more against the Antipope Victor and Frederick the Emperour and for example to his own Subjects and those of France too and all others performed the office of a yeoman of the stirrop upon one side as the King of France did on the other leading his horse by the reyns both of them a foot on the right and left hand till they left him at his lodging as he after continued constant in his observance of this same Pope Alexander all along during the whole Schysme of three Antipopes created against him at such time and such a conjuncture as this Thomas Becket having been so elected by this Henry the Second as we have seen and so confirmed by this Pope Alexander the Third nay and immediatly upon his election and before any word sent to or received from Alexander though so neer him then as Mons Pessulanus in France having received investiture as the custom then yet was in England from a lay hand from that King 's own hand by receiveing from him a staff and a ring the first occasion spring or motive of all their following great long and fatal differences was very soon after unluckily happen'd even the very second year of his Archbishoprick that is immediatly after his return from that great Council of 17 Cardinals a hundred and four and twenty Bishops four hundred and fourteen Abbots and of an infinit number of other Priests and Clerks held in the month of May 1163. by Alexander at Tours in France concerning the Schysme where Alexander did such extraordinary honour to this our Canterbury Archbishop Thomas Becket as to send all his Cardinals two onely excepted who assisted himself out of town to receive him as he came to the Council But that which you are specially to observe here and first of all in order to our main purpose is what the particulars were of this first occasion spring or motives And indeed I confess that as Gulielmus Neuhrigensis tells us in the 16. Chapter of his History that at this Council of Tours though not publickly in the Council but privatly this our St. Thomas of Canterbury resigned his Archbishoprick to Alexander as not being able otherwise to bear the stinging pricks of his own conscience for having received the investiture of it from a lay hand and that Alexander again with his own hand invested him so he also tells us that the sole original cause of all the following fatal differences 'twixt St. Thomas and his King Henry the Second was that he would not suffer the King to proceed by law against criminal Priests that is would not suffer him to have them tryed sentenced and punish'd in the civil Courts or by the civil Judges according to that law which the King said was the law of the land the law and custom of his Predecessours But Cesars Baronius ad an Christi 11â—3 corrects Neubrigensis in both particulars And yet he or his Epitomizer Henricus Spondanus ad an Christi 1163 sayes that Neubrigensis was an Author of that time and both a faithful and accurat Writer Willelmus Neubrigensis sayes he hujus temporis scriptur fidelis aâ—â—enatus However Baronius corrects him in both the said particulars and sayes that as the first of Thomas of Canterburie's resignation happen'd in the year 1164. when being fled out of England he the second time accoasted the same Pope Alexander and presented the heads of those laws about which the consequent main contest was 'twixt the King and him so it appears out of the Acts of our Saints Life written by the before named four Authors of the said Acts that besides that of not suffering the King to proceed by law against criminal Priests which he confesses interceded yet several other causes preceded and most just causes too which imposed a necessity on the Saint to reprehend the King For sayes he these Acts relate how the King came to be incensed against him viz. because he endeavoured to recover from the hands or possession of Lay-men some lands which formerly belong'd to the Church of Canterbury and were unduly alienated by his Predecessors and because he endeavoured likewise to abolish the bad custom which had long prevailed in England that the revenues of vacant Churches should be payed in to and challenged by the Kings Exchequer whereby it came to pass that the Churches were too long of purpose kept vacant and yet because that being Archbishop he quitted his former office of Chancellorship against the Kings will who desired he should keep it still together with his Episcopacy which yet he would not reflecting on that of St. Paul Nemo militans Deo implicat se negotiis secularibus and because moreover he prohibited the exaction of an unjust assessement laid on the subjects and further also because he delivered not to the secular court a certain Priest condemn'd of murther but only degraded him and shut him up in a Monastery for his pennance nor delivered to secular punishment as the King desired another certain criminal Chanon but only laid him under Ecclesiastical Censures And these were the causes or springs of the great contest which followed as Baronius sayes out of the said Acts. And yet I must say that as he doth not as yet out of the same Acts or any thing here said by him out of them disprove what Neubrigensis said to be the only that is the first or sole first cause motive or spring for all these four or five did not happen altogether and that of not delivering the criminal Priest and Chanon to the secular court might have been the first of all for any thing related by him out of those Acts being they distinguish not or declare not particularly as he relates them which was first or last in time so it is clear by Baronius's own prosecution of the history of this Saints troubles and the Kings quarrel to him that this of not delivering those criminal Ecclesiasticks was that onely which occasion'd all the ensueing differences or that onely at least which the King took as the immediat pretence of his first publick quarrel with him and rest of the Bishops
and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
not only by priority of place or honour of dignity or only vocation or age or sanctity but I speak with the generality of Divines by priority of an ordinary Pastor and Prelate that is of spiritual Jurisdiction received from Christ over the Rams as well as sheep of the flock as well over the Apostles universally as all the rest of the faithful And yet St. Paul reprehended St. Peter not with less but far greater liberty though in a case if I mistake not of less moment and this in a Publick meeting of the Disciples and not only reprehended but resisted him to his face reproov'd accus'd him of Judaism among the Jews Gentilism among Gentiles dissembling amongst both and that he walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel And this passage betwixt St. Peter and himself St. Paul would have testified to the Christian world in the Epistle which he writ to the Galatians although this dissembling of St. Peter was afterwards defended from sin by St. Austin against the Writings of the learned and holy St. Hierom. 'T is superfluous to rehearse what others have done in process of time and almost all ages of Christian Religion in imitation of St. Paul and with like liberty reprehending even Popes themselves the Successors of St. Peter what the holiest Bishops the most Religious Abbots most austere Monks the best Priests and the devontest Laity and Clergy almost of all degrees and all these united to the Roman Church and Bishop in the strictest tye of Ecclesiastical communion For the present and for a Letter let that one example of St. Paul suffice and let it suffice to excuse Walsh from too great a freedom in writing to an Internuncio of an Internuncio whom he does not acknowledge for his Superiour and to an Internuncio of a Cardinal whom he does acknowledge I complain or reproach or object nothing but that in the present Controversie you walk not according to the truth of the Gospel but that by that dissembling or flattery or at least wicked errour of yours you strive to put a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples the Christian world beyond comparison worse than that of the Mosaick Law and strive to impose this yoke of a kind of Papal Tyranny by arts truly bad A yoke which neither we nor our Fathers could bear a yoke plainly contrary to the yoke of Christ My yoke is sweet sayes our good Saviour and my burthen light That of yours is full of thorns and your burthens more than insupportable driving both body and soul even to Hell And shall it be thought a fault in Walsh after he has been provoked with much injury and urged with reproaches and slanders and that only for this cause That he writes more freely than becomes him not against the Pope himself Alexander the VII whom God long preserve to the good of his whole Church who for his own part is said to be so innocent in this matter that he has severely reprehended both Cardinal and Abbot not against those of his Court or Ministers universally but onely one inferiour though a commendatory Abbot and one Bishop though a Cardinal but two of the whole number of his Ministers Will they say That though the matter require freedom yet 't is not allowable in Walsh nor fit in an Inferior to and of a Superior¿ What then was not Paul inferiour to Peter and Bernard to Eugenius and Robert that holy Bishop of Lincoln to Innocentius So many other famous holy Catholick Writers were they not inferiour to Popes I say themselves to whom or of whom many even in this very Controversie have written and written with a liberty at least not less If you object again That Walsh is tyed by a particular vow of his Rule to render obedience to his Superiours Walsh will reply again That to this very day he never was commanded by any Superiour either under obedience as the custom is or censure nor in vertue of the Holy Ghost or by any formal so much as simple command not so much as by a single admonition either not to hold as he does or not to write or speak And Walsh will reply That the obedience he has vow'd is Canonical not Political and to be understood of spiritual not civil matters And he will reply besides That a Vow neither is nor can be a bond of iniquity as from the Canons themselves of the Popes even the very dullest of the Canonists teach Lastly he will reply too That a man is not less obliged by a precept of Divine or even Ecclesiastical Law receiv'd I mean and not repugnant to the Divine Law than by the tye of a Vow how solemn soever And that St. Paul St. Bernard Robert of Lincoln and the rest of whose greater at least equal freedom in expostulating with the greatest and holiest Popes I have spoken above were tyed to Canonical obedience by a precept of the Divine I speak according to the opinion of your Lordship without doubt and the most common amongst Divines or Ecclesiastical Law or both and that many of them had also upon them the tye of a religious Vow Why then should not that be lawful to Walsh which was lawful to them and many of them in this very Controversie or some other wholly like it If your Lordship say our Holy Father Alexander the VII who now sits in the Throne of St. Peter has written Letters to you by which it appears it is the judgment of His Holiness That this Form of ours contains Propositions which are all one with those condemn'd long since by Paul the V. and lately again by Innocont the X. If I say you object thus Walsh will answer First As for what concerns our Holy Father Alexander the VII that where a thing makes to the prejudice of a third person and this manifestly makes to the prejudice not only of one single third person but of a great Kingdom of many such Kingdoms nay of the whole World credit by the Canons is not to be given either to your Lordship or any other Minister whatsoever and howsoever dignified with Cardinalship or other Title unless he produce the Original or at least authentick Copy thereof You have yet produced none you have shew'd none either to the parties concerned or to any other as far as we can understand Besides that private Letters even of our Holy Father Alexander himself are not of force to oblige the faithful to a conformity of judgment or opinion much less of Faith which is Catholick and Divine unless some Rescript or Decretal Epistle some Bull or Brief which kind of writings you do not so much as alledge come out with due solemnity be publish't and promulgated and this not directed to any particular person or persons neither to one Clergy People or Kingdom or even more than one but to all the faithful of Christ wherever they be Otherwise that according to many eminent Divines even of those who are for the
D.V.J. Vicar-General of Ardmagh James Dempsy Vicar-Apostolical of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare and Oliver Dese Vicar-General or Capitulary of Meath It being further and upon the motion of the said Dr. Daly agreed betwixt them before the Signature that all the Letters should be by one express Messenger delivered into the proper hands of each and every Prelate or person respectively concern'd and that the said Messenger should appear at and on the first day of the National Congregation to make affidavit there in publick against any that should perhaps fail to appear in his own person or by his lawful proxy As for the Vicars-General or Capitulary of other vacant Sees besides the Metropolitical or Archiepiscopal the summoning of them was left to the Metropolitans and Apostolical Vicars of such Metropolitical Sees as had no Bishops living or residing in that Kingdom And so was the fixing or naming of the Divines who were to assist and vote also in Congregation left to the discretion of the respective Ordinaries and Provincial Superiours All which and whatever else belongs to this matter will be better understood out of the tenour of the Indiction or letter of Intimation To which purpose I give here a true Copy of that was sent to John Burk Archbishop of Tuam who was the onely Archbishop then at home in Ireland though decrepid if not bedrid I am sure when he landed at Dublin from S. Malâ—'s in the year 1662. he was not able to go otherwise to Connaught but in a Litter An original Duplicat of the Letter inviting him and by him the Vicars-General Apostolical or Capitulary of the vacant Sees of his Province viz. Cluanfert Elphin Killala and Killmaduaoh for Mayo is of late by prescription annexed to Tuam I have with me still and word by word as followetth Most Reverend and our very good Lord HAving met here though accidentally and upon other occasions some being in before and others of late come to this Town we thought it nevertheless our greatest Concern to consult together think upon and find out some expedient the best we could and as far as in us lies to procure some ease and some peace or liberty to the Catholicks in general of this Nation and more especially to the Ecclesiasticks for what relates to the publick and free exercise or toleration of Catholick Religion to all and use of their functions to the Clergy And when we had seriously considered all the causes of both our fears and hopes in the present conjuncture and what passed in relation to us since our good Kings happy Restauration and what is continually ever since and even at present expected from us as withal the suspitions we lie under still especially the greater part if not the generality of our Ecclesiasticks and what causes we or many or some at least of us have or are thought to have given for such prejudicial Opinions as yet harboured by those in power against us and how we conceive our selves and all other Pastors of their respective Flocks bound in Conscience to do what they or we may with a safe Conscience to wash away all evil stains or scandals from our communion and profession and that this is pleasing to God and by consequence must be to his Church in general and therefore how we further conceive our selves and all the rest of the Irish Clergy bound to remove by all just wayes the jealousies entertained of us out of His Majesties and my Lord Lieutenants breasts We resolved at last to write to the respective Lords-Bishops Vicars-Apostolick and General as likewise to all the Provincial Superiours of Regular Orders humbly and earnestly intimating unto all as we do by these presents to your Lordship in particular our sense of the expediency and necessty of a general meeting of the said Lords-Bishops Vicars-Apostolick and General and of the said Provincial Superiours all by themselves personally such as may or such as may not by their Proctors sufficiently instructed and authorized to conclude what the major part shall agree upon for giving His Majesty those rational assurances of our future fidelity to Him in all Temporal causes and contingencies whatsoever which we may And our further sense of ten such persons only out of each Province whether Prelates or Proctors or Divines Commissioned by the respective Prelates and Vicars-Apostolick or General So that the whole number of the Convocation exceed not Forty only the Superiours Provincial added to that number and two Divines more with each of these Provincials Intimating further our sense of the place and day we have found necessary to fix upon which is Dublin and the 11th of June next year of our Lord being 1666. desiring all most earnestly and in particular and above all others your Lordship to concur with our sense in all these porticulars and that your Lordship and all the rest will believe we had sufficient grounds for each As also assuring all that shall there and then meet of the above Prelates Vicars Superiours Proctors or other Divines that they shall be free to come and return again to their respective places And that we have no other end herein but the general good And therefore that we for our own parts shall not fail with Gods good pleasure to meet at the said place and day and at the residence of the Parish-Priest of St. Owens Church Which being all we have to say in writing on this Subject we pray your Lordship may be pleased to communicate this Letter to your own Suffragants or Vicars-Apostolick and General of your Province to whom in particular we thought it needless to write otherwise than by this to your Lordship and them all Yet earnestly entreat them and every one of them hereby and by your Lordships power with and influence upon them to concur with us and bring their number for that Province to the said place and at the said day And so we heartily commend your Lordship and them all to the protection of God and most holy direction of his Spirit in all things Dublin Nov. 18. 1665. Your Lordships Most humble and most affectionate Servants Patrick Ardagh Pat Daly Vic Ardmachanus ac Totius Provinciae Judex delegatus Oliverus Desse Vic Ger. Miden Claun Ja Dempsy Vic Applicus Dub Capitularis Kild Such another was subscribed and endorsed to Dr. Owen O Swiny Bishop of Kilmore who had been questionless for many years before bedrid and unable to exercise very scarce any part of his Function And yet besides Tuam and Ardagh was the onely Bishop of the Roman Communion then at home in Ireland For Antony MaGeoghegan the late Bishop of Meath who was the first that in his several Letters to the Procurator in the year 1662. pretended as his onely excuse for not signing the Remonstrance and gave his earnest desires of a National Congregation to be held first viz. to consult of the lawfulness or expediency of such signing was now dead A third Letter also the
of giving the foresaid protestation of fidelity in more pleasing words was not wanting which yet are no way able or fit to remove the mischief But to those who having past the bounds of modesty after so many vain endeavours peradventure glory to have had this last success of the designed Assembly His Holiness doth threaten sore divine revenge if they turning from wicked thoughts do not abstain from such enterprises In the mean while I in the name of the whole Congregation set over your affairs do exhort you that the opinion of your fortitude and faith and the concern of your Salvation be above all things taken by you to heart and that you pay a grateful return of good offices to the Roman Church which hath begot you in Christ The rest is that you all hold for certain you are singularly beloved by our most Holy Lord who by prayers all set on fire with duty and Charity most earnestly begs of the most High God that you may from those unhappy thickets of briars and wild Forrests of danger be brought to the pastures of the Lord. Rome April 24. 1666. Your most loving in the Lord Francis Cardinal Barberin The second Letter or that which was from Rospigliosi dated at Brussels May 13. same year 1666. to the Clergy alone superscribed thus Reverendissimis ac Venerabilibus Dominis Episcopis Vicariis Sedium Vacantium reliquo Clero Hiberniae And proceeding thus Reverendissimi ac Venerabiles Domini PUritas Fidei Catholicae quae inter tot pericula aerumnas illaesa permansit in Regno Hiberniae efficit ut omnes Apostolici Administri merito habeant fideles illos pro dilectissimis Sanctae Sedis filiis tenerrimo effusoque studio erga res eorum afficiantur Ego qui non ex merito sed ex mera Sanctissimi Domini Nostri beneficentia eumdem characterem sustineo meaeque curae commissam habeo directionem negotiorum Vestri Regni sentio mihi adeo acriter praecordia convelli ut lachrymas continere nequeam dum perpendo Nationem illam quae caeteris hactenus illustre constantiae exemplum fuit cuivis temporali commodo praetulit semper conservationem orthodoxae Religionis divini cultus augmentum majorem gloriam Dei nunc versari in periculo ob insidias quorumdam a Patre Iniquitatis humani generis hoste seductorum contaminandi illam eamdem Fidem cujus splendorem per totum Orbem tot tam praeclare gestis hactenus conata est conservare augere Eo quidem tendit Juramentum ad quod subscribendum Valesius Caronus per varias technas satagunt persuadere Ecclesiasticos sicque illos facere Instrumenta causam Damnationis caeterorum Iste est finis ob quem tanto nisu promovent congressum Dubliniensem Et quamvis fingant se moveri zelo fidelitatis debitae Regi satis patet esse merum fucum ad bonos decipiendos quoniam abunde notvm est compertum omnibus quam firmiter radicatum in animo affectum reverentiam obedientiam habeant erga Serenissimam Majestatem suam ac ne optari quidem posse documenta ampliora iis quae hactenus exhibuerunt Et si quid praeterea tentant Valesius Caronus spectat non ad augendam fidelitatem Populorum erga Principem sed ad exterminandam puritatem Catholicae Religionis cujus destructivum est praefatum Juramentum consequenter ad cunctos fideles Hibernos in lachrymosam ac perpetuo deflendam erniciem detrudendos Quanto gravius est periculum tanto amplius meritum acquiret penes Omnipotentem Deum quicumque animo zeloso constanti suavique ac prudenti moderamine remedium opportunum attulerit imminenti periculo Neque possunt oves alio quam vestro praesidio defendi a morsu laetali pravae suggestionis quoniam ob eruditionem dignitatem Sacerdotalem vos praecipue venerantur suspiciunt eademque ratione tenemini earum saluti enixe sedulo consulere Igitur vos in visceribus Christi rogo obtestorque ut tot praesentes tot posteros vestros Conterraneos ab interitu ac casu irreparabili revocetis ne Christus Dominus in durissimo judicio iis qui praesunt faciendo districtam a vobis rationem indiligenter peractae villicationis exigat Nec plura addere operae praetium duco cum causa ipsa quae Dei Cultum Salutem Patriae honorem Generis vestri inseparabiliter attinet zelum vestrum per se incendat excitet adhortetur Finio igitur Altissimum orans ut vos gratia sua praeveniat sequatur ac bonis consiliis jugiter praestet esse intentos Bruxellis 13 May 1666. Reverendissimi ac Venerabiles Domini Vester Devotissimus Servus ad omnia officia paratissimus Jacobus Rospigliosi Abbas S. Mariae Internuncius Apostolicus The Superscription was Reverendissimis ac Veneralibus Dominis D. Episcopis Vicariis Sedium Vacantium reliquo Clero Hiberniae Rendered into English the Superscription in these words To the most Reverend Lords Bishops and the Venerable the Vicars of the vacant Sees and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland And the inner Contents as here Most Reverend Lords and Venerable Sirs THE purity of Catholick Faith which amongst so many dangers and tribulations remain'd without stain or spot in the Kingdom of Ireland makes all Apostolick Ministers to esteem those faithful deservedly the most beloved sons of the Holy See and to have a most tender and affectionate regard of all their Concerns I who through no merit of my own but out of the meer beneficence of our most Holy Lord bear the character of such a Minister and have the direction of the affairs of your Kingdom committed to my charge feel my bowels so grievously pull'd and torn in pieces that I cannot forbear weeping when I consider that Nation which to all other Nations hath been hitherto an illustrious example of constancy and which before all temporal advantages hath alwayes preferr'd the conservation of Orthodox Religion increase of Divine Worship and greater glory of God to be now in danger through the wiles of some seduced by the Father of iniquity the Foe of humane kind of contaminating that very Faith the splendor of which throughout the whole earth by so many and such glorious deeds it hath hitherto endeavoured to preserve and increase To that indeed tends the Oath to the subscribing of which Walsh and Caron by so many subtle arts labour to persuade the Churchmen and so make them Instruments and causes of the damnation of others That is the end for which they use such great endeavours to promote the Dublin Assembly And albeit they feign themselves moved out of zeal of fidelity due to the King yet this appears sufficiently to be but meer false dye to deceive the good because it is abundantly known and manifest to all what affection reverence and obedience and how firmly rooted in their very Souls towards His most Serene Majesty
or whoever else indoctrinated Him there have been of the other side and of the same Church as there are even at this present day many Thousands or the most Learned most Zealous most Godly Prelates and Priests and Doctors besides Laicks who have cryed them down as not only false wicked impious heretical unchristian but as absolutely tyrannical and as plainly destructive of all Government and Laws and of all Property and Peace and of all whatsoever is or can be the felicity or comfort or even freedom of the children of men This hath sufficiently appear'd in the mighty oppositions made as well from the Pulpit and by Writing as by Arms in all Countries of Europe to so many fulminating so many King-deposing pretended universal Monarchs of the World in all things both Spiritual and Temporal to these only Vicars of Christ on earth to these onely infallible Judges of his Faith Witness the Concordates of Germany the Sicilian Monarchy the Pragmatical Sanction of France the Laws of Provisors and Premunire in England and Ireland and the two Oecumenical or at least Occidental Councils of Constance and Basil and many more National Synods both before and after them held some in Italy others in Germany and others in France and held in plain contradiction to those high claims and usurpations Witness also of very late dayes the Third Estate of France in the General Assembly (t) Jan. 1614 5. of the Three Estates held under Lewis XIII Jan. 1614 3 yea notwithstanding Cardinal Perron's Oratory and of later yet all the eight Universities of that Kingdom in their sentence of Sanctarellus (u) 1626. ann 1626. and of others too before and after besides the known practice all along of their Parliaments and â—â—st of all the Theological Faculty of Sorbon and the rest of the Paris (x) 1663. Divines in the year 1663 May 8. headed by the Archbishop of that See and presenting their siâ— Declaration against the Pope to the present French Monarch Lewis XIII All which are certainly manifold clear undeniable demonstrations of what I said immediately before viz. How of the fame Roman-Catholick Church or Faith and Communion there have been all alone as there are at this present many Thousands of the most Learned Zealous 〈◊〉 Godly 〈◊〉 Priests and Doctors as well as Laicks who never approved of the foresaid either Practices or Principles but alwayes reproved condemned abhorred detested and protested against them both as not only heretical but tyrannical c. IX That consequently since the owning of such intollerable Maximes and wicked Actions or the not disowning of them cannot be justly said to be any of the peculiar Notes or characteristical Marks of a Roman-Catholick in general but only of a certain Sect or 〈◊〉 or Party amongst them whom some call Papalins others Puritan Papists and others Popish-Recusanta and since none of all the undoubted either Articles or Riâ—â—â— which all Roman-Catholicks universally without any distinction of Party or Faction do and must espouse have been hitherto reputed accused or suspected of being in themselves abstractedly and purely taken in any manner dangerous to any Government Temporal or Spiritual or to any persons either of Princes or Subjects or to the property or liberty of any Man or Woman or to the peace or quieâ— or security or conteâ—â—â—f any humane Creature however in the mean 〈…〉 â—â—al or some of them do or may seem erroneous to the learned 〈…〉 Protestants and further since King Henry VIII and the Protestant 〈…〉 Parliament of England Ireland and Scotland after him a◠〈◊〉 one 〈◊〉 could not 〈◊〉 throughly understand both these things which I have now mention'd so on the other hand they could not but observe how ever since the Oath of Supremacy though framed only by Roman-Catholick Bishops Abbots and Doctors of the English Nation and defended by the Principal (y) Bishop Gardiâ—er in his Book de â—eâ—a Obedienâ—â—â— and Bishop â—oâ—â—â—r in his Preface before it of the same occasioned the first Separation or Schism amongst the Subjects of England and Ireland the far greater part of such as continued in the Communion of the Roman Church did seem also to adhere to the foresaid dangerous Doctrines and Practises i. e. to all the pretenses and actings of the Roman Court forasmuch as they generally refus'd to disown them either by that Oath of Supremacy or by any other and moreover by consequence since the same Princes and Parliaments could not but manifestly discern all their own very being as also that of all the People under their Government to be singularly marked out and even devoted to utter extirpation by a party of men so madly principled and furiously bent living amongst them out of all that has been said it must follow That the onely original and the onely true principal causes which moved them to proceed with so much severity of Laws Proclamations and Executions against all Roman-Catholicks in general of these Dominions could be no other of our side than our Fathers and our own very great neglect and folly or contempt and wilfulness not to disown and renounce for ever publickly as we ought all such whatsoever wicked Positions and Practises nor any other indeed of their side than their firm persuations of our being therefore so desperately both principled and inclined nay resolved also and ready to give the greatest possible evidences of fiery Zeal whensoever the Commands of His Holiness from abroad shall meet with a fair opportunity at home X. That it is unreasonable to think and incredible to believe That so many judicious Princes Parliaments and Convocations who had themselves gone so far and ventured so much as they did only because they would not suffer themselves or the Protestant people govern'd by them to be imposed on against their own reason in matters of Divine Belief Rites c should at the same time be so concerned to impose on others in the like i. e. in Spiritual matters purely such in those I mean of Religion and Rites no way intrenching on the Jurisdiction or other Temporal or Spiritual Concern either of King or Bishop or other Subject whatsoever as to Enact Laws of so many grievous punishments yea of Death it self in some cases of meer purpose to extort from them a complyance or submission in such matters It is no to be believed that they would Enact those Laws against their own flesh and blood and some their nearest Relations too only for not renouncing such harmless and meer Religious Tenets or Rites which all their Predecessors before them had for so many Ages held without disturbance to the Publick or inconvenience to private Persons or hindrance to Virtue or countenance to Vice if the testimony of all Christendome for so long time be of any weight and to Enact those Laws intentionally or designedly against those things which at the very worst in all possible and conditional Contingencies are but erroneous Tenets and insignificant unprofitable Rites not
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
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
Emperour and even that of Ariminum which was a very General Council of both Greeks and Latins and for number of Bishops well nigh as great as any ever yet assembled in the Church and although consequently we must not wonder to see the Romish Clergy of this Kingdom permitted by His MAJESTY and by His Grace the LORD LIEUTENANT to meet together in Dublin at this time for an end so nearly and highly concerning the Publick Peace and Safety as a Declaration to be Subscribed by the said Clergy of their indispensable faithful real true and sincere Allegiance to His MAJESTY in all Temporal matters and in all cases of contingencies whatsoever against all Forreign or Domestick pretensions or designs should amount unto yet I am persuaded no prudent man not even of the Roman Religion either of this or any after Ages when throughly acquainted with the strange carriage of the late National Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin will scruple much to ascribe it to those fatal Influences of 1666. However I have thought it worth my Labour whil'st my remembrance is fresh of those Transactions wherein I have my self been all along not an Observer onely but an Actor to give all the material particulars to Posterity as they hapned without adding or diminshing excusing or condemning in this Relation or Narrative any thing or person For that of my own Judgment at least for what concerns the Congregation it self I reserve for a more proper place the following Treatises wherein as acting of purpose the part of a Divine I must declare that which I intend not in this first Treatise where I assume only or principally the parts of an Historian I mean still for what concerns that Congregation But to give the Reader a full and clear prospect into all I find it necessary to begin where the first occasion of that meeting began And further and because that occasion brought forth a great variety of disputes and some troubles too amongst that Clergy those few years past the knowledge of which may be useful not only to understand the intrigues happened in the foresaid General Congregation and the causes of such intrigues but also to other just and lawful ends and because also a satisfactory Narration of these disputes and troubles must needs take up near a hundred sheets if not more I have moreover thought it not amiss but much to the Readers greater facility of readily finding out or turning to that what ever he would be at to divide this first Treatise into two Parts Whereof the first part followeth The First Part OF THE FIRST TREATISE The ARGUMENT THe Procuratorium sent to Father Peter Walsh The persons that sent and sign'd it The causes of their sending or signing and first use made by him thereof The Remonstrance of 61. and occasion of it The signing at London of this Remonstrance The first Exceptions against it of its unexpediency occasioned The more ample Account The next of uncatholickness Loyalty asserted How the Bishops stood affected Bishop of Ardaghs Letter approving it Archbishop of Tuams answer to Dromore Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarin and of the Internuncio of Bruxels condemning it The Procuratour come to Ireland finds out all the intrigues and general conspiracy against it What Peter Aylmer did Use made of the Queens Chaplains not having signed Sixteen several pretences for not signing As many heads of answers which the Procurator made to their excusatory pretences No uncatholickness pretended amongst the objections The Procurators charging them continually with unconscientiousness He perswades some to sign To the rest he writes The names of the Subscribers in Ireland A General Congregation desired by the Bishop of Meath and others The Dominican Chapters Letter and Remonstrance and other matters relating to them especially to their Provincial Augustinians English Chapâ—â—â— Letter from London approving the Remonstrance of 61. William Burgat Vicar General of Imly Iohn Burk Archbishop of Tuam landed at Dublin preached unto by the Procurator The Jesuits The Queries mad by them and Resolves of the Procurator Their several Remonstrances They as all the rest decline alwayes the question of right The Procutator meets the Franciscans at Multifernan Their resolution there Their Provincials concurrence to and approbation of the Remonstrance of 61. His latter to the Duke The Dukes Letter to Mr. Walsh The Nobility and Gentry subscribing at Dublin Their Letter to the Coâ—â—ityes It s â—â—op Wexfordians signing the Remonstrance Cenâ—â—e of Lovaine solliciâ—ed by Father John Brady and procured by the Internâ—â—â—tio The first considerable effect of this Censure or the Franciscan Subscribers sâ—â—â—â—â—d Their answers to the summons Four grounds of the said Censure and answers to theâ— More Remonstrances Proclamation issued against some Regular The Procurator being return'd to England the Bruxels Internuncius arrived aâ—â— at London â—â—cognite discourses with him and Father Chron for three â—â—â—tre and offers â—â—de them by him His desires after from Bruxels by worn of â—â—â—th and by 〈◊〉 The Procurators Answers to him in two several Papers The Franciscans Remonstrance from Killihy I. THe first winter following the Kings most happy Restauration in the year 1660. the chief Persons and Prelates of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland then at home in that Countrey being from London and by Letters from F.P.W. put in mind of their duty and of the many causes the generality of that Irish Clergy had above all other Subjects of their Church in any of the three Kingdoms to make their timely and both gratulatory and supplicatory addresses to His Majesty least otherwise their former carriage in the late unfortunate Rebellion of that Kingdom in 41. and both in the rejection of the Peace of 46. and transgression by many of them also of that other of 48. might argue their silence and non-addresses did not so much proceed from want of civility and humanity or even of confidence either in themselves to make such addresses or in the most accessible exorable and merciful of Princes for what concern'd his taking such in good part as from that would be suspected by others infallibly their want of true joy for his Majesties return or of good wishes for his establishment Edmond Relly Archbishop of Ardmagh or the Primate of that Church in Ireland made by Innocent the 10th some nine years since and Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath being the only Bishops of their Religion then in Ireland excepting only one more that was many years before and is still bed-rid and was not then accessible by reason of the times and place wherein he was D. Owen Swiny Bishop of Killmore together with Iames Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare Oliver Dese Vicar General of Meath Cornelius Gaffney Vicar General of Ardagh Barnaby Barnwal Superiour of the Capucins Father Browne Superiour of the Carmelits and Father Iohn Scurlog Prior of the Dominicans at Dublin signed an Instrument of Procuration and sealed it with the Seals of their respective
certain that ever since the chief leading men of that Order conforming themselves further to all such directions as they receive from their Colledg or Convent of Irish Dominicans at Lovain as those of that Colledg to what they themselves procure from Rome and transmit to Ireland have been in all parts of this Kingdom very insolent and violent all of them in private discourse amongst all sorts of men decrying the Remonstrance and Subscribers of it if not as unlawful and heretical yet certainly against the Interest of the Pope Country and Religion and some of them preaching publickly at altars against both in the vilest and impudentest manner telling the people they should rather abide all evils suffer death it self then approve of such a form pursuant to the late Priour of Dublin but now of Naas Father M. Fullam's attestation under his own hands writing in a letter to one of his own Order Father John Scurlog that he would for his own part sooner take the Oath of Supremacy To such a degree of folly and frenzy their malice to the Subscribers drove them Which was the cause that especially in Connaght and Vlster they spared not to asperse the whole Order of Franciscans as well those had not yet subscribed as those did amongst the common people with defection from the See Apostolick because the Procuratour and greatest number of Subscribers and maintainers of that form are Franciscans and those tollerated by and countenanced or at least not proceeded against by their chief Superiours and to the end they might by such scandals raised of the Franciscans be themselves esteemed the Champions of the Great Pontiff in Ireland and both lessen the credit of others and gain to boot their benefactors Which was next that of pretensions at Rome and distractions at home against the peace of the Country and establishment of the King the only marke they shott at XX. Wherein they had the Augustinian Order who are twixt threescore and fourscore in this Kingdom but most of them in Connaght their unalterable and no less in so much unconscionable Associats I mean as to the generality of them For I do not involue every individual of them in such unworthy intrigues though I can say that not as much as one of this Augustinian Order hath for so many years since 61. though several of them very home reason'd with by the Procuratour himself any way declared his or their moderation in this matter so farre they were all from subscription excepting only that one Gentleman of theirs Father Gibbon who subscribed at London amongst the other 25. there And can say this much too of them that Father Martin French their late Priour at Dublin hath acknowledg'd there some 3. or 4. years since they were the Order of all others that ledd the Van of opposition by common consent or decree in a chapter held by them in 62. and in Connaght a little before those others of the Dominicans or Franciscans were held which was to them as it proved since like the laws of Medes and Persians irrevocable untransgressable without any regard of any other laws either of man or God positive or natural XXI About the same time the Procuratour had the above answers of the Dominican and Franciscan Chapters or Provincials he received from England by letter from the Bishop of Dromore bearing date the 18th of October the said year 62. another letter therein enclosed which was to the said Bishop from the Dean and in behalf of the Chapter of the English secular Clergie For those have a certain select number how many they are I do not exactly remember but I think about 28. composing their Chapter which represents and gives orders to all that Clergie wherever dispersed in England and Wales making a farre greater number for they were about 600. in Cromwels time sufficient learned and loyally affected all of them to the King Which enclosed letter of the English Dean and Chapter the Bishop sent the Procuratour as it was of purpose written to answer without place of reply an other pretended scruple of some of the Irish Clergie that they had not seen any approbation of the Remonstrance or concurrence from the Clergie of England though specially and by name invited to it by the Procuratours printed Advertisement annexed to the Remonstrance and by his book or The More Ample Account which he soon after publish'd amongst them at London The original being shewed by the Procuratour convinced all that would be convinced by reason for it was that you have here in the copy For the Right Reverend Father in God Oliver Lord Bishop of Dromore Right Reverend Father in God c. ALthough it be a chief point of Christian duty to be passive even in injustices without reply yet is that patience scarce profitable though with the gaine of private vertue where the publique receives prejudice And for this reason do I give your Lordship this trouble for understanding from persons of Quality that I and the rest of my Brethren of the Chapter are reported to obstruct the subscriptions of the Irish Clergie to the Declaration of Allegiance here exhibited to His Majestie as upon this score that being desired to joyn with you in it we refused it as both imprudent and unjust and by that refusal of our concurrence gave occasion to divers of the Irish Clergie to do the like by which we seem to be a block in the way to that freedom of Conscience which we would gladly purchase with our blood We humbly begg this favour of your Lordship that as you are best able to cleer us in this point that our concurrence was never required nor were we privy to your business the circumstances of our conditions being different from yours so your Lordship being assured of our judgment would please to signifie it where it may undeceive the over-credulous My Lord I have spoke with our Brethren concerning this business and find them so farre from censuring your draught or proceed in that protestation that as we know it destructive to Soveraign Majestie to be dependent in Regalities so we take it derogative to good Subjects to deny him the power Absolute in Temporalities And therefore being taught by the law of God to give him obedience indispensable we cannot but judge in that you runn along with your duty As for the expressions passing a censure upon the contrary tenets as some peradventure may think them too severe we could wish the circumstances of affairs in these His Majesties Kingdoms could have declared them impertinent but considering this age overrun with disloyaltie and even amongst those of our Holy Catholique Faith some to our great grief have been too active under colour of bad principles it cannot but be necessary to declare those principles no other then the Cockle of wicked doctrine sowed by the Enemy of mankind to the prejudice of Christianity which being a law of an absolute Rectitude in setting right our duties to God and
had no power in any contingency whatsoever to excommunicate him for continuing so in his loyalty Because that otherwise he binds himself against his own conscience to oppose a lawful power lawfully acting in some case which may possibly happen That on the other side if they did not mean really and conscientiously and sufficiently too as to the form of words to declare and oblige themselves as to matter of fact or in all contingencies whatsoever to to be loyal to the King notwithstanding any sentence of deposition excommunication or other declaration whatsoever c. then it was to no kind of purpose for the King or his Lieutenant to receive any Form at all from them That it should be argument enough to any States-men or other persons whatsoever of even but ordinary understanding that their meaning was not good just or honest if they pursued their design of leaving some starting holes for themselves or others as they had hitherto in in their several forms That finally no man that knew any thing of their School-divinity especially concerning the Popes infallibility and their maximes of extrinsecal probability was so blind as not to see their purpose in declining a declaration and protestation against the matter of right and that it was to no other then to have a sufficient reserve for themselves before the world in case his Holiness should point-blanck determine definitively for himself that question of right and upon that account condemn the printed Remonstrance of 61. and to no other at all then that they might be able then to speak confidently they had therefore even upon the contradictory question denied to declare against any such pretended power in his Holiness and to say consequently that now his Holiness having defined that power to be in himself and pursuant thereunto deposed the King or excommunicated his people for obeying him they also were quit of all obligation by any Remonstrance of their own which therefore they framed so as not to oblige them by its tenour in such a case But all these reasons were lost on the Fathers nay even on him that had as the Procurator thought very sincerely and faithfully promised so often to subscribe even the Remonstrance of 61. in terminis nay and after he had not only heard from the Duke 's own mouth so much of His Graces earnestness in that business but seen moreover within a while after His Graces Letter written all by his own hand to the Procurator on that subject which Letter I shall give presently upon another occasion XXXVIII This ill advised carriadge and strange obstinacy of those Fathers did not a little perplex and grieve the Procuratour both in respect of themselves and himself and the cause too For he had a particular kindness to some of them nay to their whole Order generally in Ireland for the great communication intimacy and frendship formerly betwixt their leading men and him at Kilkenny in the controversies of the Confederats and Lord Nuncio Which he manifested sufficiently in his panegyrick of St. Ignatius their Founder delivered by him in their Chappel in that town and at their own instance in the year 48. And therefore he was now so much concern'd in them for their own sakes because he foresaw that if they would pursue this obstinate resolution it would in time reflect heavily upon them all in Ireland and confirm those that managed the State there in as great prejudices as those were held generally in England these fourscore years against the Fathers of the Society in particular For his own too he was so much concern'd because when the Remonstrance was first at London graciously received by His Majesty and consequently not doubted of to prove in time by the subscription of it very instrumental to prevaile with His Majestie for some ease and some quiet and protection to the subscribers and when notwithstanding some talke was there about some Jesuits opposeing a great Minister of State bid the Procuratour not to trouble himself at all with any thoughts of perswading the Jesuits to it because said he of the wicked and perfidious principles of that Order generally in their Morals being such as they elude all tyes and duties and so elude such that there is no faith to be given to their subscriptions and because that notwithstanding so great prejudices against them yet the Procuratour singled out the carriadge and represented it of those in Ireland whereof he told the experiences he had from that was said to be of the Fathers of that Society in England in former or later times and hereby perswaded that Illustrious person to hope better of the Irish Fathers and lay all prejudices aside for some time against them until he had seen the issue For the cause in hand also because he foresaw what influence this example of their however unreasonable obstinate carriadge would have on the rest of the Dublin both Regular and Secular Clergiemen and these and those both joyntly and severally on all the rest of the Kingdom not that the Iesuits in Ireland have any thing singular in them either for number or learning being in both inferiour at present to several other Orders even of the Irish Religious men but for the repute of wariness had of them and for their more frequent correspondencies with their General at Rome to which they are tyed above all other Religions and for the great power their General is supposed to have with His Holines and consequently for the dependence many of the Irish Clergie who pretend at Rome have of the Fathers here who transmit their letters and recommend their pretensions XXXIX In January following 42. or 43. according the several stiles of England and Rome the Procuratour together with Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and Father Anthony Gearnâ—n of the same Order went to Multifernan in Westmeath and mett there with the very principal heads of the whole intrigue against the Remonstrance who came thether also from several parts of purpose to meet him These were Father Anthony Docharty then actually Minister Provincial of the Franciscans throughout the Kingdom Thomas Makiernan Brian Mac Egan Bonaventure Mellaghlin all three formerly since the troubles of Ireland begun haveing by succession borne at several times the same Office and Peter Gennor then Guardian of that place and Definitor Father Francis Ferral who was of late also Provincial of that Order and most earnest against the Remonstrance and as leading as any they had if not more and their chief Divine and should have been of that meeting came not because of a fit of the gout sorely upon him But as being within 8 miles to them they had his advice and mind These having been the men that lead all the dance and not of late in this matter only but many years before in all other affairs who had sent an express Agent over Seas to get the Remonstrance condemn'd at Rome and by forreign Vniversities
dissolution be accounted any prevarication but an amendmendment of rashness Thus have we after mature and frequent deliberation determined and decided at Lovaine in a full Congregation of the Faculty summon'd under Oath and held the 29th of December consecrated to the Martyrdome of the most glorious Bishop Thomas of Canterbury sometime Primate of England in the year of our Lords Incarnation 1662. Subscribed By the Deane and Faculty of Louaine The place of the Seale And after George Lipsius Bedel and sworn Notary to the said Theological Faculty XLVIII The first considerable effect this Lovaine Censure had was a citatory letter from the most reverend Father the Commissary General of the Franciscan order and Belgick Nation James de Riddere a Brabantine sent from Brula in Germany to Father Caron then at London The said Commissary being Ordinary Superior of all the Franciscan Order in the Belgick Nation and consequently of the Irish Franciscans as belonging to the same Belgick Nation according to the division and Statutes of that Order which divide all the Provinces thereof where-ever in the world into six Nations three Tramontaries three Cismontaines of which Cismontane the Belgick Nation is one comprehends not only at the several Provinces of lower Germany most of those of the higher but also those of Denmarke Scotland England and Ireland which four last Kingdoms or the Convents of Franciscans therein before the change of Religion though very numerous made but four Provinces of that Order So that by vertue of his Ordinary Superiour-ship General over the Franciscans in that Belgick Nation though otherwise subject himself to the Minister General of the whole Order throughout the world the said Commissary General Iames de Riddere cited Father Caron and those others mean'd by him as involved in the business to appear at Rome or Bruxels Yet having not particularly expressed the business or cause and for some other essential defects in that manner of citation Father Caron return'd the answer you have here after that citatory Letter which I give first A Letter written by the Commissary General of St. Francis Order in the Belgick German and Brittish Nation and over those of the same Order in Ireland and Denmark Father Iames de Riddere a Brabantine to Father Redmond Caron Reverend Father YOurs of the 15th of March were sent me by Father Augustine Niffo and I received them on the 17th of April at Brule in the Province of Cullen being imployed in visiting And wondred such great difficulties and dangers in obeying the commands of Superiours alledged by you who have so easily ingaged in a business full of difficulties and dangers not only to your selves in particular but the whole Order Therefore be it known to your Reverence be it known to all that have engaged themselves in the same affair That our most holy Lord whom by a special â—ye of our Rule we ought to obey doth justly expect an account from you satisfaction from your Superiors Whence it is that by iterated commands from the most Reverend Father General I admonish your Reverences and summon you to appear either before him at Rome or me at Bruxels to yield a more ample account of that act of yours to the end we may satisfie the See Apostolick be careful of the honour of the Order and of your own particular honour safety and comfort which out of a fatherly affection is desired by Your reverend Paternities most addicted Brother and Servant Fr. Iames de Riddere Superscribed To the very reverend Father Father Redmond Caron of the Order of the Friars Minors and Province of Ireland Reader Iubilate of sacred Theology As soon as Father Caron received this Letter he called together such of the Irish Franciscan Subscribers as he could meet with at London and with their consent and in all their names return'd in Latin this answer you have here translated Father Carons Reply signed by him and the rest of the Subscribers of his Order and Province of Ireland then at London Most Reverend Father YOurs of the 18th of April given at Brule we have seen whereby you summon us that have engaged in that affair to Rome or Bruxels We have sent a Copy thereof into Ireland that your summons may be known to the rest without whose answer we cannot in a Cause common to us all give that full satisfaction we intend However such as are here wonder that in your letter of Summons the cause of summoning them is not otherwise specified then by these words who have engaged themselves in that affair What affair Nay how so great a multitude being at least of the very Franciscans forty in number who with many others of the Secular and Regular Clergy and some Bishops too have signed that Remonstrance or Protestation if it or those of your Order that signed it be meaned by you may be summoned to Rome or Bruxels without any regard or consideration of either the old age of some the sickness of many and the poverty all wanting means to bear their charges for so long a journey And again how are they cited to Rome or Bruxels who by another mandate of the Right Reverend Father General which mandat is now here at London are commanded home to Ireland Whatever may be said in answer to these expostulations your most reverend Paternity may be pleased to understand the Laws of England are and of three hundred years standing that no Subject may under pain of death without the Kings licence depart the Kingdom in obedience to or compliance with any citation from forreign parts not even from Rome And that whoever doth otherwise summon or if subject to the King serues any such summons or even obeys them is in this Kingdom declared guilty of High Treason All which His sacred Majesty that now raigns hath confirmed of late and under the same penalties commanded us to observe We do not believe that your most Reverend Paternity is of opinion that we ought with so great a hazzard of our selves transgress those Laws and that command of our King to whom our bodies are subject by divine right Yet if it shall please your most Reverend Paternity to do in this case what the Canons of the Church do appoint in any such that is to appoint here or from elsewhere send unto us a Commissary or Delegate to take cognizance of our fact whatever it be where it was done to hear examine determine of and judge it we shall be very glad and most willingly submit to correction if we have swerved in any thing from the doctrine of all Antiquity Scripture or Fathers Or if peradventure you be not pleased with this submissive offer the Custos of our Province who by command of the late Middle Chapter in Ireland prepares for his journey to the General Chapter at Rome will more fully inform the Right Reverend Father General and your Paternity More we cannot say for your satisfaction until we hear from Ireland We
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
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
way as by saying they understood not by divine that which is properly and strictly divine but that only which is in a large though somewhat improper acception such and by lay-persons understand only such inferior Lay-persons Judges or Governours as in certain cases haue not from the supream power and civil laws any cognizance of Church-men Which indeed is the only rational and natural exposition of these authorities without any erroneous absurdity falsity inconvenience or prejudice as the very Canon alledged above by me at large out of the Tridentine Synod seems expresly to intimate for as much as it expresly and signally desires or confides for so it speaks that Emperours Kings and Princes will not suffer that their Officials or inferior Magistrats or Judges violat the Immunities of the Church or Church-men out of any covetousness or inconsiderancy confidens c. nec permissuros ut officiales aut inferiores Magistratus Ecclesiae personarum Ecclesiasticarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione canâ—nicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu inconsideratione aliqua violent Besides the Reader is to observe two things for that of the fourth Lateran 1. That where 't is said there that Laicks usurp too much of divine right c. by divine right here we ought not nor indeed can if we will not make the Fathers to speak improperly understand the law of God but only the right belonging to God whether that right be derived immediatly from the law of God or law of man 2. That it cannot be truly said that any Clerks receive no temporal thing or benefit from the supream civil Magistrate whereas all Clerks receive from them temporal protection at least And therefore in reason owe Allegiance to such their protectors For Boniface the VIII although his authority or judgment alone without a Council be amongst very Catholick Nations or Universities of no great value or esteem in this or any other which concerns the difference or controversie For we know well enough how his extravagant unam sanctam de Majorit obed is reputed in the Gallican Church and what his Letter Brief or Bull was to a King of France where he declared them all Hereticks that would not acknowledge himself to be supream in that Kingdom and as well in all temporals as in spirituals and that the same esteem indeed and as to our main purpose may be and also truly and groundedly may be entertain'd of Innocent the Third no judicious Divine that will read in Spondaâ—uâ—s Contin his proceedings against most of all the Christian Kings not in Europe only but in Asia will deny I say neverthess that for what concerns only our present purpose of the exemption of Clergymens persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coactive power under which they live and are protected our learned Cardinal alledges this very Boniface to no purpose albeit he alledge him in cap. Quamquam de Censibus in 6. Where indeed there is no such thing For in that place as it is manifest enough out of the whole chapter and purpose or matter treated therein which was only of and against Guidagia that is a kind of toll custome or exaction to be paid for the safeguard of High-wayes and out of the very words which Bellarmine would not quote because not to his general purpose or to that of proving generally all the parts of his Fifth Proposition Cum igitur Ecclesiae Ecclesiasticaeque persâ—nae ac res ipsarum non solum jure humano quin etiam divino à saecularium personarum exactionibus sint immunes it is I say very manifest hence that Boniface in that place and no other is alledged out of him doth not as much as touch upon our controversie or say as Bellarmine imposes on him that Clerks and their goods are exempt from the secular power For be it well or ill said of Boniface here that as well by divine right or law as by humane Churches and Churchmen are free or exempt from all publick exactions of secular persons whereas by such exactions all Divines and Canonists understand only tributes tolls customes or taxes whatsoever of money or other things imposed as payable to the publick and whereas the very matter treated of and determined by Boniface in that Chapter is only that of guidagia or pedagia which was a duty as it seems payable then in Italy by all travellers and for their safe convoy or safe travelling whereas he commands only there that in prosecution of a certain decree made by Alexander the IV. his Predecessor Church-men pay no such guidagia or pedagia for their own Persons or Goods which they carry along or cause to be carried or sent non causa negotiandi who sees not it is a very great inconsequence and meer abuse of the Reader to conclude that therefore Boniface the VIII supposed generally nay says it to be de jure divino positivo taking this jus divinum strictly and properly that Clerks are wholy exempt in all criminal causes and all matters whatsoever from the supream civil coercive power of Lay-Princes Certainly neither doth Boniface teach any such matter there nor must any such follow out of what he either supposes or dedetermines there Because it is clear enough that certain persons even meer lay-persons may have a priviledge from all kind of taxes and yet be subject in other causes and other matters both criminal and civil to such as impose taxes For Iohn the VIII That who ever please to consider that whole chapter Si Imperator quoted by Bellarmine will be convinced this Pope intends no more but that as it is fitting the Emperour himself should for what concerns Religion learn from and not teach the Church so in Ecclesiastical matters it was Gods pleasure that Clerks should be ordered and examined and if they chanced to fall into an errour should be also reconciled on their return not by the Lay-powers but by the Pontiffs and Priests Which these words omitted by the Cardinal recipique de errore remeantes do sufficiently insinuat Besides that any man knows it is a very weak and sensless argument of a positive law of God for any thing or any duty or any priviledge that either Iohn the VIII or any other even a whole General Council should speak in this manner Omnipotens Deus voluit it was the will of God unless they had withal and on the debate or controversie it self made of purpose an express Canon declaring that thereby or by such manner or by these words it is or it was the will of the omnipotent God they mean'd to signifie not the general or special providence of God or his good will or pleasure known only to us for example in the present matter of Exemption because we see the Clerks as to many things are exempted so by the laws of Princes and that we know this could never have been done by Princes if God had not moved their hearts to do so For
bounty how much more in reason must we not deny the Church a power to deprive such of her own favours as will not perform the conditions enjoyn'd by her for the continuance of such favours Thirdly against that which is said by Barclay and which I too have said above that this canon was made by the Fathers to restrain the giddiness and rashness of such Clergiemen as would appeal from the Church to a secular Judge after the cause had been begun to be discussed in the Church against this I say of a provision made here for such a case only of a judgment already begun in the Court Ecclesiastical and nevertheless before any judgement given transferr'd by a caprichious Clerk Bellarmine argues by objecting the Council of Milevi Concilium Melevitanum and it must be the second of Milevi under Arcadius and Honorius where it is prohibited in the ninth canon not that Clerks transfer to secular Courts a cause begun already in the Church but absolutely prohibited that by no means they go to the Emperour to demand of him secular Judges But the answer is obvious 1. That divers canons may be made by divers Councils And that it is most evident that whatever the Fathers of Milevi ordained in the case those of Carthage ordained no other then what William Barclay said and what I too have after him said without any kind of interpretation or paraprase of the Council but in the very words of the Council or Canon it self For these are the words precisely of that Canon Cum in Ecclesia ei crimen fuerit intentatum vel civilis causa fuerit commâ—ta Let any one say now for Bellarmine that ought else is decreed by the Canon then what is against such Clerks as transfer a cause already begun in the Church 2. That for that Council of Milevi albeit the Fathers prohibit in the Canon cited out of it that Clerks desire no secular judgment of the Emperour yet they prohibit not the Emperour himself to assign lay Judges to a Clerk if his Imperial Wisdom think it fit to assign such Nor even prohibit Clerks to answer if called upon by such lay Judges and obey their sentence as binding them So that both Councils that of Carthage and this of Milevi say the very same thing in this matter without any other difference but only that this of Milevi extends the prohibition further that is not only to the transferring of causes already begun before or in the presence of an Ecclesiastical Judge but even to causes not so begun For it simply or absolutely prohibits Clerks to transferr as much as in them lyes any civil or criminal cause whatsoever whether so begun or not so begun to secular Judges Where yet it is apparent there is nothing at all for the Immunity of Clerks from secular Judges being the command is only to Clerks not to demand such lay judges and no command to no restriction at all of the lay Judges to proceed ex offiâ—iâ— when the causes of Clerks are brought before them The second Council that prescribed any thing in this matter was that truly Oecumenical or General of Chalcedon for the former of Carthage though of very great authority was but a National Council of Affrick however canonized after by approbation of truly General Councils held in the year 451 under Martianus the Emperour and Pulcheria the Empress who were both present and often sate in it Wherein the ninth canon made for discipline and regulation of Church affairs or those of Clergymen was this Si quis Clericus adversus Clericum habeat negotium non derelinquat preprium Episcopum ad secularia judicia non concurrat sed prius negotium agitetur apud proprium Episcâ—pum vel certe si fuerit negotium ipsius Episcopi apud arbitros ex utraque parte electos audiatur negotium Si quis vero contra ipsius Provinciae Metropolitanum Episcopum Episcopus sive Clericus habeat controversiam pergant ad ipsius Diaecesis Primatem aut certeâ—ad Constantinopolitanae Regiae civitatis sedem ut eorum ibi negotium terminetur If any Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk let him not leave his proper Bishop nor run to secular Iudicatories But first let the matter be agitated before his proper Bishop or certainly if the controversie be with this Bishop himself let it be heard by arbiters chosen by both sides But if any Bishop or Clerk have a controversie with or against the Metrapolitan of the Province let them go to the Primate of the Diocess or certainly to the See of the Constantinopolitan Royal City that the business may be ended there And this is all this canon sayes Where it is plain enough 1. That the Fathers direct their speech to Clergiemen only prescribe a rule to them only but none at all to lay Magistrats or Iudges not even to the subordinat inferiour Iudges so little do they meddle with or ever as much as thought to meddle with the supream That although they bid Clerks not to go first to secular Iudgments yet they do not bid them not to go at last or in the next or second instance to such if they cannot agree That even to the Clerks themselves they prescribe only in such cases as a Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk but not in case a Clerk have a quarrel with a Laick or a Laick to him 2. That they declare not here enjoyn or prescribe that it was not is not of shall not be in the power of a lay Judge to determine of the causes of Clerks one against another or of that of a Clerk against a Lay-man or of a Lay-man against a Clerk when either voluntarily and by the parties themselves brought before him or when by his own authority or by due course of law or by summons from him to either or both parties they appear in his Court. So that this Canon meddles not at all with the power authority or jurisdiction of the lay Magistrates or Judges but only prescribes a rule to the Clerks themselves that themselves should not freely or voluntarily sue one another at least in prima instantia in secular Judicatories and as we may justly presume upon the same grounds and for the same ends we have before noted the Fathers of Affrick did in imitation of St. Paul or of his advice or command as you please to all Christians in general to abstain from suing one another in heathen Judicatories least otherwise they would questionless betray their religion and belye it before the haters and persecutors of it 3. That in case there were as there is not any word or matter in this canon of Chalcedon restraining any way the Jurisdiction of even inferiour lay Magistrates or Judges yet it would be to no more purpose alledged against me or against any thing I have said before in this Section concerning even the very same inferiour lay Magistrates and their Jurisdiction over Clerks in politick or temporal
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
Matiscon c observed Besides that however it be read the last passage of it or this Nec Laico quemlibet Clericum liceat accusare shews plainly it cannot be a true canon but a manifest corruption and contradiction of all canons if without any gloss understood as the bare words require For who ever yet asserted it unlawful for a Laick to accuse a Clerk at least before the Bishop when there is just cause 5. That for the text of St. Gregory the Great in his 54. Epistle ad Ioan. Defens and l. XI Registri I have consulted that too and read the whole Epistle through and have been for all my pains so farre from finding as much as one word of any such matter as Bellarmine quotes it for the exemption of Clerks â—â—â—m all civil power both subordinate and supream by the canons of the Church that I must perswade my self our learned Cardinal never once turned to that Epistle or read it with his own eyes when he remitted us to it For I will not charge him with imposture Which yet any must do that will grant or suppose he had read this Epistle himself and not taken that sense of it he gives us upon credit Whereas it is plain in the whole tenour of this Epistle that although St. Gregory prescribe to this Iohn the Defender whoever he was going to Spain that he should relieve a certain Presbiter whom he names not otherwise who had been wronged and a certain Bishop whom he names Ianuarius who had been violently drawn out of a Church by some inferior civil Magistrats and another Bishop also called Stephanus who had been likewise violently forced to judgment either to a secular judg or to other Bishops that were not of his own Province or rather both in some civil or criminal case and without the permission of the Emperour yet St. Gregory pleads onely in all these three cases for the said Iohn's warrant to relieve them so the civil laws of the Emperours Leo Augustus Iustinian Arcadius Honorius and Theodosius which laws the Saint quotes expresly and at large all a long that Epistle and disputes out of them onely there to prove the foresaid Praesbiter and foresaid Bishops Ianuarius and Stephanus wronged being these Imperial laws expresly ordain 1. That the causes of Presbiters be first decided or brought before the Bishops 2. That none be drawn by violence out of any Church by the secular Magistrats for any crime whatsoever except onely that of treason against Majesty and except also the Churches of the Royal City of Constantinople where the Prince himself resided and when it pleased him to give orders for pulling any criminal out of them and moreover ordains that it be treason to break these laws of Sanctuary 3. That no Bishop could be forced to a civil or military Judg in either a pecuniary or criminal cause or to appear even before other Bishops then his own Metropolitan But alleadges not as much as a syllable of any canon or institution made by the Church it self or by Ecclesiastical power in any of these cases not even from the first word of that Epistle to the last The very beginning of it being this De persona praesbiteri boc attendendum est quia si quam caeusam habuit non ab alio teneri sed Episcopus ipsus adiri debuit sicut novella constitutio manifesta quae loquitur de sanctissimis Deo amabilibus ac reverendissimis Episcopis Clericis Monachis Iustinianus Augustius Petro gloriosissimo Praesecto Praetorio Si quis contra aliquem Clericuni aut monachum aut Diaconissam aut monastriam aut assistriam habeat aliquam actionem adeat prius sanctissimum Episcopum c. And some what after and concerning the case of Ianuarius in particular proceeding thus De persona Ianuarii Episcopi sciendum est graviter omnius contra leges esse actum ut violenter de Ecclesia traheretur dum si quamlibet aliam injuriam a quccum Episcopo in Ecclesia passus fuerit injuriantem lex capitali poena percutiat sicut Majestatis reum omnibus det accusandi illum licentiam ut hujus serie loquitur Codieis libro primo titulo sexto constitutione decima Imperatores Arcadius Honorius Augusti Theodoro Praefecto Praetor Si quis in hoc genus sacrilegii proruperit ut in Ecclesias Catholicas irruens sacerdotibus ministris vel cultoribus ipsis locoque aliquid importet injuriae quod geritur a Provinciae Rectoribus animadvertatur atque ita Provinciae moderator sacerdotum Clericorum Catholicae Ecclesiae ministrorum loci quoque ipsius divini cultus injuriam capitali in convictis seu confessos reos sententia noverit vindicandum Et post pauca sitque cunctis laudabile factas atroces sacerdotibus aut ministris injurias veluti publicum crimen insequi atque de talibus reis ultionem mereri c. Data VI. Kalend. May Mediolani Honorio Augusto quater Eutychiano ter consulibus Libri suprascripti titu XV. Constitut III. Imperator Honorius Theodosius Augusti Ionio Praefecto Praetor Fideli ac devota preceptione sancimus nemini licere ad sacre-sanctas Ecclesias confugientes abducere sub hac videlicet definitione ut si quisquam contra hanc legem â—â—nire tentaverit sciat se majestatis crimine esse retinendum Data Kalend. Aprilis Honorio Septies Theodosio tertio consulibus Item ejusdem titul constit V. Imperator Leo Augustus Eurithrio Praefecto Praetor Praesenti lege decernimus per omnia loca valitura excepta hac urbe regia in qua nos divinitate propitia degentes quoties usus exegerit convocati singulis causis atque personis praesentanea constituta praestamus nullos penitus cujuscumque conditionis de sacre-sanctis Ecclesiis orthodoxae fidei expelli aut trahi vel portrahi confugas Et post pauca Qui hoc moliri aut facere aut nuda cogitatione saltem atque tractatu ausi fuerint tentare capitali ultima supplicii animadversione plectendi sunt Ex his ergo locis eorumque finibus quos anteriorum legum praescripta sanxerunt nullos eiici aut expelli aliquando patimur nec in ipsis Ecclesiis reverendis ita quemquam detineri atque restringi ut ei aliquid aut victualium rerum aut vestis negetur aut requies c. Data pridie Calend Martii Constantinopoli Leâ—ne Augusto tertium Consule And after this again and concerning the other Bishop Stephanus and his case proceeding further thus De persona Stephani Episcopi ad hoc attendendum est quia nec invitus ad judicium trahi nec ab Episcopis alieni Concilii debuit judicari sicut novella quaedam traditio quae de Episcopis loquitur continet Ait enim sed neque pro qualicumque pecuniaria vel criminali causa ad judicem civilem sive militarem invitum Episcopum producere vel exhibere citra imperialem jussionem permittimus sed judicem qui
ut cumque summus sit non poterit huic immunitati aut exemptioni propriis legibus propriaque authoritate derogare So farr the learned Cardinal hath helped us on in this matter by giving us to our hand the authors and places quoted albeit only to shew against William Barclay that himself was not single in asserting such a power to the Pope But for these natural reasons or theological if you please to call them so which to solve is my business at present he hath left his Reader to seek Which makes me say that he hath not at all removed the cause of Barclay's admiration as he ought to have done Barclay admired that so learned and so judicious a man as Cardinal Bellarmine should maintain that the Pope could exempt the Subjects of Kings from all subjection to Kings and this without any consent from the Kings themselves adding as a further cause of his admiration how it was confess'd that before such exemption by the Pope those very persons so exempted by him or attempted to be so exempted to wit the whole Ecclesiastical Order of Clerks and even as well Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs and the very Pope himself as other the most inferiour Clerks were all of them primitively originally and even by the very law of God subject to the secular Princes in all politick or civil and temporal matters and yet as a further cause adding also that the law of Christ submitted unto in Baptisme deprives no man of the temporal rights he had before baptisme and consequently deprived not for example Constantine the Great when baptized of the lawful power he had before he was baptized over the Christian Clergy Now that Bellarmine should go about to disswade Barclay from his admiration because forsooth he quotes five School-men that is four Divines and one Canonist who taught the same thing and produces only the bare words of the Assertion of two of them on the point but no reason at all of theirs or of any others or of his own for such assertion may seem to men of reason a strange way of perswading another man and master too of much reason As if Barclay should cease therefore any whit the less to admire so gross an errour in Bellarmine that some others also had fallen into the same errour before or after or together with him Nay if Bellarmine had not preposterously fixed on those very men for his companions or patrons who contradict themselves so necessarily that is at least virtually and consequentially in this matter or if he had only fixed on such Divines and Canonists who speak consequently however ungroundedly of the exemption of Clergymen as of divine right which I confess the generality of Canonists do then peradventure he might have seemed to have alledged somewhat though indeed very little to allay Barclays wonderment For truly those he alledges betray themselves and his cause manifestly whereas they hold also manifestly and at the same time that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino Which being once granted who sees not the main difficulties which lye so in their way as not possible to be removed for asserting a power in the Pope to make laws for that exemption independently of Princes Who sees not that the Pope cannot make or impose what laws he please to bereave either Prince or People of their temporal rights or of what part soever of such rights he thinks expedient or convenient And who sees not otherwise that he alone must de jure be ot least may de jure make himself to be the sole supream Prince on earth in all temporal things at least amongst Christians And therefore consequently who sees not that being the Pope is not so nor can be so nor can lessen the Princes temporal authority over his own Subjects where-ever the law of God doth not lessen it and what I say of the Pope I say too of the whole Church who sees not consequently therefore I say that neither Pope nor Council nor other authority of the Church if any other be imaginable can or could so exempt Clerks from the power of Princes being that before such exemption all Clerks were subject to Princes and by the laws of God and nature subject to them But for as much as it appears undoubtedly that Bellarmine was one that did not or at least would not see these either Antecedents or Consequents being he sayes in plain terms and in his own name also de Potestate Papae in temporalibus supra cap. 38. That whether the supream temporal Princes themselves have or have not or could or could not exempt ecclesiastical while in their Dominion from their own supream temporal power potuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex istos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare yet the supream Pontiff could exempt them so and hath exempted them so or at least could declare and hath declared them antecedently exempted so by divine right that is by God himself in holy Scripture or at least in his revealed word either written or unwritten Neque possunt Principes etiam supremi hanc exemptionem impedire That neither can the Princes even supream hinder this exemption and That all this is the common doctrine of the Divines and Canonists cui hactenus non nisi Heretiei restiterunt which none hetherto but heretick's have resisted and forasmuch also as not onely Franciscus Victoria Dominicus Soto Martinus Ledesma Dominicus Bannes and Didacus Covarruvias above particularly quoted but even the generality of Canonists and late School Divine Writers seem to be of the number of those that with Bellarmine did not or would see the same Antecedents and consequents and lastly forasmuch as we have already solved all they could say for their contrary assertions either out of Scripture or out of the laws and canons nay and out of not onely some other extrinsick authorities of other authors Philosophers and Historians I mean for what concerns matter of fact or the point of Clergiemens having been already exempted so by any whomsoever but also all the arguments grounded on or pretended from natural reason or which Bellarmine framed above for his law of Nature or Nations for the Clergie's being already so exempted now therefore to fall to that which onely is the proper subject of this present Section let us consider those other arguments pretended to be of natural reason or even of Theological reason if you please to call it so as it may perhaps be justly called because suppoâ—eing some principle of Faith which we find in other Authors as in Dominicus Soto and in Franciscus Victoria for the being of such a power in the Pope or Church or in either or in both together as purely such or as purely acting by a true proper certain or undoubted power of the Church as the Church or as a Church onely For thus it is they must state the question and that they do questionless suppose it stated Though I confess
other to be repugnant to a sincere profession of the Catholick Faith For the Censure of Lovaine sayes our Remonstrance contains somewhat repugnant to the sincere profession of the Catholick Faith and consequently sayes too the Subscribers are bound under pain or guilt of sacriledge to refix their Subscriptions And shall further conclude not only out of these last XIII Sections treating particularly of Ecclesiastical Exemption nor only out of the LXI Section immediatly going before them all shewing that Remonstrance disclaims not quits not renounceth not nor as much as touches upon Ecclesiastical Exemption but also out of those other eight yet more precedent Sections from LIII to LX. both incusively taken which dispute against the three first grounds of the said Lovaine Censure I say that my LXXVI following Section shall further conclude finally and generally against this Censure of sacriledge and of containing any thing against the sincere profession of the Catholick Faith And then I will return immediatly to matter of Fact which I have so long interrupted by these intervening disputes and will in a few Sections more three or four at most end this first part which the necessity of relating such material disputes have made so prolix LXXII Therefore to begin and give in this present LXXII Section those my first three arguments to prove with much evidence as I have undertaken that no Clergiemen whatsoever living within the Dominions of any supream temporal Prince or State are exempt from but subject to the same Prince's or State 's supream civil coercive power in all meer civil temporal or politick matters and causes whatsoever My first of them is briefly formed thus Whatever natural and meer civil temporal jurisdiction or politick power authority or dominion was in any supream temporal Prince as for example in Constantine the Great over any Christians whatsoever Laicks or Clerks before he became Christian by baptisme in re vel in vâ—to or by a perfect entire submission to the laws of Christianity the same natural and meer civil temporal or politick jurisdiction power authority and dominion over all the same Christians Laicks and Clerks remained in him after he was so become Christian unless he did expresly and of his own accord devest himself of it and excepting the case wherein the law of Christ hath some formal or virtual caution or provision for the exemption of some of those Christians from that power if any such case be Behold the major of this my first argument Whereof yet the further proof is Quia lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo Because the law of Christ or true profession of Christianity deprives no man of his right or dominion nor consequently of his natural or of his meer temporal civil or politick jurisdiction power authority or dominion whatsoever at least unless in such case only or in relation to such persons only who are so exempted by special provision in this very law if any such case or persons be Non eripit mortalia qui regna dat calestia is in this point the profession of the Catholick Church as may be read in the sacred Hymne Hostes Herodes impie which is part of the publick divine Office of the same Church in the Breviary on the Feast of the Epiphany And Homo quis me constituit Iudicem aut divisorem super vos was the answer of the holy Iesus himself to the man that would have had him command one brother to share the inheritance with another Luke 12.24 And to Pilate also more clearly yet Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo Si ex hoc mundo esset regnum meum ministri mei utique decertarent ut non traderer Iudaeis nunc autem regnum meum non est-hinc Ioan. 18.36 And Nonne manens munebat tibi venumdatum in tua erat potestate was the argument of St. Peter to reprove Ananias for his lye and hypocrisie in seeming to have offered at the feet of the Apostles for the common stock the whole price for which he sold a piece of ground of his own Actor 5.4 Out of all which 't is manifest enough that even for what depends of Scripture we must admit this reason I gave for my proposition or this maxime and concession also of even Bellarmine himself and of others of his way Quia lex Christi neminem privat sure dominioque suo as I have expounded it in English and both modified determined the genetical notion of right to that which is meerly temporal and this temporal again with that particular exception But that quieting all advantage from those Scriptures right reason it self even supposing still all the uncontroverted or certain truths of Christian Religion concludes the necessity of admitting this maxime lex Christi nominem privat jure dominioque suo as I have given it I demand of the denyers or distinguishers of it otherwise First whether Christianity leaves any pure temporal right of any beleever untoucht or unaltered or unalterable in any case or whether it leaves the Subjects or the Kings property in any of their respective goods lands houses unchangable undiminishable without their own consent And being no Divine or Canonist in the world can be so impudent or so ignorant as to answer these queries negatively because it is as clear as the Sun that all both the essence and necessary appendages of Christianity that is of Christs Kingdom or law and all the blessings and rewards and also the very true proper genuine and only ends of it which are the grace of God in this life and the glory of God in the next acquired by poor mortals being purely spiritual have no inconsistency at all with the temporal civil or politick rights continuing and remaining still not only unchang'd but also unchangeable in the beleevers without their own free consent for changing or depriving themselves of such rights I demand secondly wherefore the law of Christ is said by any or how can it upon rational grounds be said by any Divine or Canonist not to alter change deprive or touch any one or moe sorts or kinds of temporal rights and yet to alter change or deprive or have the power to deprive the beleevers of some other sorts or kinds or even of any one such at all unless there be an express caution or provision in the very law it self of Christ that this particular civil right or property may be transferred from the former proprietours and no other but this And being it is evident enough this last querie cannot be answered but by confessing that there can be no rational ground for saying so and being that to this day neither Bellarmine nor any other could shew or produce any passage of the law of Christ wherein there is any such caution or provision that is to say any other but that only one in the case of a misbeleeving husband it is also evident enough that right reason it self without any help from
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
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
they were shut up they were beaten they were racked burn'd killed tormented and yet they were multiplied They knew no other fight for safety but to contemne safety for safety Besides these let all other Fathers nay all Historians both sacred and profane both Christian and Heathen of those dayes that are extant speak their knowledg of this matter Let the raignes of Constantius Valens and even Julian the Apostat speak theirs And verily Mr. Prinn or Mr. Goodwin either or any else how industrious soever to except against the Rhetorick of Tertullian will find themselves mâ—te as to any colour against the number of Christians and ability according humane wayes of strength to carry on a design would their conscience permit them to entertain any against these persecuting Emperors Nor can it be denied that in their dayes the Catholicks and Christian Subjects had the greatest provocations and best opportunities could be thought on to carry it The orient and the occident the Nobility army Prelates and people were all Catholicks if you except a very few which in comparison made no number â—hen first Constance would have and really endeavoured with all his Authority to establish Arrianisme They were so for the matter when Valens thundered And upon Iulians entry on the Empire the world at least whereever the Roman Eagles spread their wings was altogether Christian unless peradventure you bring in competition a small inconsiderable number of Iewes and Pagans who had no command no force Yet we know they all suffered patiently with armes across all that which the fury of those heretick Emperours or the malicious cunning of even that Idolatrous Apostat could inflict on them and suffered the foundations to be laid again of Salomons temple to restore Judaisme and all the rites of Numa and sacrifices of heathen Gods to be reestablished rather then they would draw a sword against the Soveraign power Their Bishops and Clergie were more divinely principled then to infuse other maximes or lead them to any other practice then that which they read in the Apostles and Evangelists and which all the Christians ever since their dayes recommended to them by their lives and by their deaths Now to my before said purpose in this present Section or to that of my onely intended particular Instances here of some Bishops Patriarchs Popes and Princes after the first 300. years those Ages of the ten general persecutions wherein questionless all Christians almost every where had occasion and provocation enough to practice whatever they thought was lawfull for them to practise Of which particular Instances The first Instance shall be that of S. Athanasius one of the Fathers of the very first general Council was ever held soon after Patriarch of Alexandria I must confess I have already given this in my former Section but in latin onely and not so directly to my purpose there as to that of this present Section And therefore I repeat it here in English out of his Apology to the Emperour Constantius I have by no means resisted the commands of your Piety Farr be that from me For I am not hee that will resist as much as the City Questor and not onely not the Emperour Truly I prepared my self for going away For of this matter too Montanus is conscious that upon receiving your letters if he had vouchafed to write I had presently departed and by my promptitude in obeying had forerun your commandement For I am not so mad as to have thought such commands were to be contradicted Out of the Decree of your Majesty I studied to know your will But neither did I then receive what by right I postulated and yet now at this present I am not accused of any other cause For I have not resisted the Decree of your Piety Nor will I endeavour to enter Alexandria as long as it shall not by your Piety be lawfull for me And yet the matter in agitation here was the unjust exile of this great and holy Catholick Patriarch Athanasius and his just restitution to his own See as I noted before And yet he acknowledges that himself had been mad if he had not obeyed an Arrian that is a manifest Heretick Emperour by a bare decree or letter onely exiling him from his own proper Episcopal See And declares moreover plainly that he would never as much as endeavour to return to his said See without the same Emperours command or licence to return So conformable was his practise to the doctrine of all the holy Fathers as the doctrine of the Apostle in that precept Rom. 13. omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit The second Instance is of Eusebius Bishop of Samâ—sata that most holy and most laudable man of whom Theodoret Hyst l. 4. c. 15. tells and writes in these very words Cum edictum Imperatorium quo jubebatur in Thraciam proficisci c. When sayes Theodoret the Imperial Edict whereby he was commanded to go to banishment in Thracia was brought to him I think it very necessary to be known to such as are yet ignorant how he carried himself For the Messenger that brought this Edict arrived at twylight Whom Eusebius commanded to be silent and to conceal the cause of his coming For sayes he if the people educated in studies of piety shall understand of it they will drawn you in the river and I must answer for your death Having said this and according to custome done his office in the ministery of evening prayers then when sleep scizeth all men this good old man having trusted his secret to onely one servant departs the City His servant follows bringing onely a pillow and a book with him But when he came to the banks of the river for Euphrates runs by the walls of the City having entered a ship he bids the watermen steer directly to Zeugma where he arrives by morning Samosata is all in plaints and tears For his departure being discovered by means of that Servant's giving some necessary directions to some frends and who went in his company and what books were carried for him all the Cittizens universally lamented themselves as now being Orphanlike bereaved of their Father and Pastour Therefore in multitudes and vessels pursueing and searching for him up and down the river they overtake him at last And when first they mett and saw their desired Pastor nothing was to be heard or seen but plaints and sighs and a huge power of tears whereby to perswade him to remain with them and not suffer his sheep to be delivered to Wolves But when they could not perswade and had heard him reciting the precept of the Apostle wherein we are perspicuâ—â—sly enjoyned to obey the Magistrats and Powers some offer him Gold sâ—me Silver others Garments and others Servants being he was departing to a strange country and so farre distant from theirs But he having received some few things from such as were more intimately familiar with him and after he had by doctrine and by
as holy a Pope as Gregotius Magnus torments our Adversaries extreamly And therefore they leave no stone unremoved to elude it though with ridiculous answers Wherein as in a matter of so much gravity Cardinal Baronius took more pains then any other Which is the cause that I insert this great Annalist'e whole dispute of this matter Sed amabo te hic pie lector sayes he in his 8. tome ad an 593. n. 16. siste gradum Etenim ni fallor dum haec audisti te admiratum vidi subiudignatum obduxisse supercilia eo quòd abiectè nimis visus sit tibi loquutus S. Gregorius dum praeter alia tum in epistola ad Mauritium tum in ista ad Theodorum data quodammodo professus appareat sacerdotes a Deo subjectos esse Imperatori verbis illis imprimis cum ait ex persona Christi sacerdotes meâ—s tuae manui commisi de Imperatore ad Theodorum Ei omnia tribuit deminari cum non solum militibus sed etiam sacerdotibus concessit But I for my own part here desire Baronius himself to hold himself a little and consider well whether he that reading those passages of Gregory's humility subjection and obedience to the Emperour would be troubled at them and angry with him should not rather be angry with Paul nay and troubled at the very words and deeds too of Christ himself In earnest according to my judgment there is no rational pious and learned Catholick but should be rather troubled at and angry with Baronius himself for his interpretation so remote from all piety so frivolous and unskilfull too where he draws and wrests and forces S. Gregory to vain and we l-nigh impious senses But let us heare the rest of his Praeltidium At haec Novatores non vt tu maerentes accipiunt sed hilari vultu exultantes inâ—o insultantes quasi irrefragabile nacti sint testimonium viri Sanctissimi atque doctissimi cui nefas sit contradici qui docentis Cathedram cum ascenderit tum apertis verbis videatur esse testatus subjectum a Deo Imperatori Sacerdotium esse ut non nisi contumelia tanti Patris id negari astrui contrarium videri possit nempe ipsum hallucinatum non vera loquutum vel saltem Imperatori turpitee idulatum But verily in this part of his praeludium our eminent Annalist is much deceived where he most improperly and inconsiderately sayes that Gregory seems to admit the Priesthood it self to have been subjected by God to the Emperour For Gregory sayes not that the Priesthood was committed granted or subjected to the Emperour but the Priests Which are different things being that must have been very falsely and this no less truly and without any kind of flattery said And yet Baronius goes on to trifle thus Sed larvis istis absterreant Novatores ipsi infantes clamoribus istijusm di fueris pavorem incutiant non tibi Lector si bene nostivim Sanctionum Ecclesiasticarum atque traditionum robur fortitudinem doctrinae Patrum sed ridâ—bis nobiscum insultantium impudentiam imprudentiam What those Novators and Usurpers who have departed from us and whom he perstringeth here do say as I valew not so is it not to my present purpose to disprove or approve as such but what some Veterators that is some old cunning deceivers amongst our selves have without sufficient reason or authority imposed on the world is that I ought in this place and do take notice of T is truth I love and enquire after Nor will I suffer my self to be startled with those childish bugbears of Baronius For I have without any peradventure shewd already and shall yet further not onely out of Ecclesiastical Sanctions and doctrine of the Fathers abundantly given in the very last Section but also out of plain Canonical Scripture and natural Reason as you have also already seen shall yet further as to some particulars that in Baronius as to our present matter and in this very passage of his no less then in many others dispersed throughout his Annals there is much either of knowledg or certainly of candour nay and of prudence and modesty desired For thus he writes ibid. num 17. Dum nulla habetur ratio rerum gestarum temporum id efficitur ut frustica isti insultent vel timeant pavidè At cum accuratè cuncta perspêcta habuerint planè intelligent S. Gregorium acerrimum fuisse vindicem Pontificiae aestimationis assertorem immunitatis Ecclesiasticae And then he goes on adding Haec ut omnes percipiant inprimis meminisse oportet quae superius dicta sunt quantum idem Gregorius deploravit hoec infaelicissima tempora quibus licet sub Imperatore Catholico ipsa tamen Ecclesia fuerit non secus ac sub Nerone Dioclesiano captiva To the former I say I could heartily wish that many Roman Pontiffs after Gregory's most holy Pontificat had more regarded the glory of Christ and propagation of his Church then the vain oftentation of worldly power and pompe in the Papacy and Ecclesiastical Immunity And to the later that he exaggerats the matter very little piously and less prudently devesting himself as t is his manner often of all modesty nay and of all conscience too whereas it is certain that Mauritius never as much as attempted or intended any persecution of the Faith or of the Faithfull nay and that he had deserved very well both of the Faith and of the Faithfull Evagr. l. 6. c. 20.21 Gregor l. 2. indic XI ep 64. l. 9. ep 40. indic 4. l. 8. ep 2. indic 3. Nicephor l. 18. c. 42. being therefore as was supposed protected by God in many occasions especially in his expedition against the Persians Nor could the most eminent Baronius though indeed too too audacious a censor or rather a very Scourge in his writings of so many otherwise no less famous and glorious then Catholick and pious Emperours bring any thing which might so denigrate the same and esteeme of so great and to Catholick an Emperour as might deserve to have him compaâ—ed to Nero and Dioclesian albeit I confess he was reprehensible and but in that onely without any excuse or good or just pretence that he would not by a sum of Gold redeem some thousands of his own souldiers whom Chaianus the Avar whose prisoners of warr they were did therefore kill every man Theoâ—hanes in Miscella apud Baron tom 8. an 600. num 8. But let us heare this mosr eminent Cardinal Annalist himself proceed Revâ—canda sayes he hic tibi sunt in memoriam quod rerum sic exigat argumentum quae idem S. Gregorius de his habeat jam a nobis anno primo ejus Pontificatus superius recitata Vbi inter alia Gregor in Psalm paenit 5. Concitavit enim Diabolus scilicet aduersus Ecclesiam Dei nâ—n sâ—lum innumerabilem populi multitudinem verùm etiam regiam si fas est
dicere potestatem nulla enim ratio sinit ut inter Reges habeatur qui destruit potiùs quà m regâ—â— imâ—erium Et paulo pâ—st Ecclesiam quippe quam suo sanguinis praecio redemptam Salâ—ater noster vâ—luit esse liberam hanc iste potestatis Regiae jura transcendens facere conatur ancillam Haec alia fusiùs a nobis superius recitata Here I cannot choose but wish Baronius had been more candid and conscientious For certainly against his own knowledge and conscience in this passage he asperseth Mauritius with the foulest and most horrid stain could be forasmuch as he affirms or supposes this sharp complaint of Gregory was against Mauritius having nevertheless so little ground in Gregory himself for affirming or supposing so that Gregory doth not as much as once name him and forasmuch as a little before he himself had writt thus Cum tamen sive de Mauritio sive eo qui successit Phoca vel Tiberie vel Iustine qui hunc praecesserunt Augustis in whosoever's Empire of all these you will say that Gregory writt those Commentaries on the Penitential Psalmes omnes reperiantur fuisse fide Catholica Orthodoxi c. Baronius tom 8. an 590. n. 6. Therefore being it is certain that in the days of Gregory wherein he might have written these Commentaries at least Iustinus and Tiberius were Emperours altltough before his Pontificaâ— and that in the time of his Pontificat Mauritius and Phocas ruled the same Roman Empire wherefore doth Baronius apply this complaint of Gregory to Mauritius Nay being it appears out of the above quoted epistle about which our chief controversy is here that Gregory speaks to Mauritius with the greatest reverence and submission may be and that elsewhere also he doth most egregiously praise him as even Baronius himself observes tom 8. an 599. n. 18. 19. an 602. n. 33. wherefore doth not Baronius not rather justly conjecture and perswade himself as he ought in reason or by reason of those other places of Gregory that in this place on the Psalms Gregory means not Mauritius at all Besides who sees not it stood not with Gregory's sanctity and zeal or the duty of his Pastoral office that if he had conceaved so ill an opinion of Mauritius he should be so much wanting to himself that is to his own Sacerdotal and Episcopal charge as not to do that which was the part of a pious Bishop though withall a most humble subject or as not rather too and without any disguise to reprehend Mauritius sincerely and modestly then by flattering epistles to praise him and sooth him and consequently to pour oyl of assentation on the sinners head For he certainly that so freely told Mauritius of the injustice of his law as we have seen was not like to spare him for Simony and much less for Tyranny if there had been cause Ensine to him that will read Joannes Diacon in vita Gregorij l. 1. c. 10. Nauclerus Generat 20. the Epistle of Pope Pelagius apud Ioan. Diac. l. 1. c. 32. and cap. 27. and compare altogether and with that also I have said already out of St. Gregory himself to him that shall yet particularly consider both the difference which Iustinus the Emperour had before Mauritius came to the helme with Pelagius who was Pope immediately before St. Gregory for not paying the ordinary tribute when he was chosen Pope as was customarily payed then and long before by all Popes to the Emperour and might be lawfully exacted by the Princes Gloss in cap. Agatha dist 63. to witt for the Regalities and temporal possessions given to the Popes until the Princes and Emperours themselves remitted absolutely for ever the said tribute which was done first by the Emperour Constantinus Pogonatus in the Papacy of Agatho after the sixt General Synod had been ended Agatho's Legat to the said Synod Ioannes Partuensis having obtained that whoever chanced to be elected Pope should pay no more any such tribute no mony at all for his confirmation or admission by the Emperour yet provided stil that whoever were chosen Pope should by all means expect the Emperour's confirmation dist 63. cap. Agatho to him I say that shall compare all the above passages yet particularly consider this difference which the Emperour Justinus had with Pope Pelagius because this Pelagius had without expecting the said Iustinian's confirmation both accepted of the Papacy and suffered himself to be consecrated and in all things else also carried himself by actual execution as Pope to him that shall moreover particularly consider how the same Pelagius the II. sent this very Gregory being then his Deacon to Constantinople to appease the Emperour's anger by laying the necessities open which made him not expect His Majestie 's confirmation and to him finally that shall consider the friendship contracted then twixt Mauritius and Gregorius being yet both of them private persons how Gregorius receaved as Gossip or Godfather the Son of Mauritius from the Sacred Font and how constant Mauritius being made Emperour continued in his friendship to Gregory not onely approveing of Gregory's election after to the Papacy but forcing him to accept of it when he by all means declined and fled from his own election and Electors to him I say again that will consider all this and withall too or rather above all that as it is not certain under whose Empire of the four that raign'd in his days Iustinus Tiberius Mauritius and Phocas Gregory writt those commentaries on the Penitential Psalms so it is more likely that he writt them together with his Morals on Iob when he was Legat or Agent at Constantinople to appease the wrath of Iustinus against Pelagius being this anger was so great that Pelagius feared he would give directions to his General and Army then designed for Italy against the Longobards to fall upon himself c as Nauclerus writes consequently also that it is not onely not certain that he writt them in the time of his own Pontificat but most likely to such as will consider all from first to last that before it will appear manifestly that Baronius hath no ground at all to say that Gregory perstringed Mauritius in that passage of his commentaries on the Penitential Psalms but rather certainly Iustinus and consequently too it will appear that this pittifull illgrounded evasion of Baronius more and more betrayes the weakness of his cause Therefore and that we may not ground certain constant and such important explications especially where the honour of so great and Catholick Princes is concern'd upon most uncertain and most doubtfull if not plainly false assertions it must be granted that Gregory notwithstanding this passage alleadg'd out of his said Commentaries obeyed Mauritius not forced thereunto by any fear of violence or tyranny which was none at all and whereof we see not as much as a shadow but freely and voluntarily and as moved onely by that which he conceaved and was
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
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
He desires and prays that Iustine would banish Dorotheus and he cannot prevaile with Iustine forasmuch as to send Dorotheus to Rome But let us here Iustine himself answering this last demand of the Legats Inter haec say the same Legats suggestio 2. post epist Hormisd 64. giving an account to the Pope secundum ea quae praecepistis authoritatem Apostolatus vestri Principi insinuare curavimus ut ad percipiendam doctrinam Catholicae puritatis Romam praefatus Dorotheus una cum Aristide mitteraetar Qui respondit causam non esse pro qua Romam delegarentur audiendi ubi sine accusatorum controversia sese possent liberiùs excusare Where that is to be observed which in the prosecution of this account as it is Suggest 2. post epist Hormis 64. the same Legats further signifie how Dorotheus was carried to the Citty of Heraclea to stay there until his cause were adjudged but that he was presently dismiss'd thence And in the little Index which follows there they seem to signifie moreover that the judgment or Court Imperial was in this cause of Dorotheus corrupted with gold But however this of corruption be certain it is that neither did those Legats themselves nor Hormiâ—da himself at any time complain of any usurpation in or of this judgment by Iustine to which themselves did so often consent although peradventure they might have had some cause to complain of the injustice or corruption of it Iustinianus also the Emperour albeit so great a Catholick and so well deserving of the Catholick Church universally and of Catholick Church-men singularly as he was and as appears too for this of Catholick Church-men particularly out of the special priviledges he gave by his laws to the same Catholick Curchmen over and above what his Praedecessours did this very Iustinianus I say reserved still notwithstanding all his zeal for religion and all his said priviledges given his own Imperial judiciary power and would and did exercise it by proceeding and punishing in very many Instances delinquent or criminal Clerks Priests Bishops Patriarchs nay and so reserved that power still or a power of proceeding against criminal Clerks that by an express law he reserved it also to his lay Praetors of Provinces and to the lay Judges at Constantinople as I have shewed already and at large in my LXIX Section But to give here some of the particular Instances of his punishing Clerks by that his own Imperial coercive power 〈◊〉 know first it was this very Iustinianus who by his own proper and role power and authority Imperial decreed the banishment and who actually forc'd into banishment Anthimus the Patriarch of Constantinople Severus the Patriarch of Antioch Peter Bishop of Apamea and Zoaras the Praesbiter albeit they had been first deposed by an Ecclesiastical sentence Novell 42. ponitur in Concil general 5. Act. 1. where Iustinian speaks thus Interdicimus ei videlicet Anthimo commorari in hac faelici Civitate ejus districtu ac in quacumque alia insigni civitate For this Anthimus was first condemned and deposed by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical sentence of Agapetus the Roman Pontiff and after also by that of the general Synod as an intruder or as intruded into the See of Constantinople and as thinking amiss of some dogmats of Faith Ibid. Act. 1. Severus having been convicted of the same or like crimes had the like sentence of banishment pronounced against him by Iustinian similiter autem sayes this Emperour huic interdicimus omnio Regiam civitatem ingredi aut districtum ejus aut aliquam aliam de insignibus c. And enacted the same punishment against the other two Peter and Zoaras But least any should think or pretend him a meer executor of the sacerdotal sentence against these criminal Clergiemen it is to be considered first that this cannot be alleadged with any kind of colour or upon any kind of ground being that neither Pope nor Council pronounced any thing of banishment against the said criminals as indeed it was never at least in those ancient times the stile of Popes or Councils nor was after of the very Popes themselves until they became temporal Princes For since I confess the Popes do banish and may banish but out onely of their own temporal Principality The sentence therefore which Pope Agapetus and that Council which condemned those Ecclesiasticks gave or pronounced was purely and solely of Ecclesiastical Deposition and excommunication But that of Iustinian was of an other kind and much more grievous even a corporal extermination or banishment not onely from the whole citties wherein before they exercised jurisdiction but also out of all great citties of the Roman Empire And therefore Iustinian was not a meer executor of the Decree of either Pope or Council or of both but an inflicter of a new and much greater punishment and such as was proper to his own power and to which the power of the Church as a Church did neither in truth extend nor at all then as much as pretend Secondly it is to be considered that the words expression and stile which Iustinian uses in the said Novel are such are so absolute and Imperial as they cannot by any means become a meer executor Ad praesentem sayes he venimus legem nostrum Imperium contra istum praesentem scribit legem nec vtique extra Imperialem confirmationem relinquimus sententiam justè contra Severum ab Episcopis latam falsa dogmata ut publicentur nullo modo fieri in Christiano ovili Dei orthodoxo populo justum est neque ab Imperio nostro permissum est Sacram sententiam quam propriam ipsam in seipsa existentem ad huc magis firmiorem Imperium facit interdicimus omnibus â—â—tos suscipere abijci ergo ipsos sancimus de civitatibus Haec pro communi pace sanctissimarum Ecclesiarum statuimus Haec sententiavimus sequentes sanctorum Patrum dogmata ut omne sacerdotium imperturbatum de â—aetero nobis permaneat quo in pace servato reliqua nobis exuherabit politia desuper pacem habens What could be more efficaciously said to signifie that what he decrees here he decrees by his own proper Imperial authority And yet he further and expresly and particularly declares in this very Novel 42. that the judgment Ecclesiastical which proceeded was concerned onely in the bare deposition of these Churchmen from their Sees and cures and in the excommunication of them but that himself and by his own proper Imperial authority does add this decree of banishment For thus he speaks decreeing against Zoaras Et hunc de hac regia vrbe ejus districtu abijoit Imperium habitationem in alijs civitatibus ipsi omnino interdicit Itaque cum illis solis habitet consulat qui a nobis ante memorati sunt qui similia quidem blasphemant similia patiuntur similiter in exilio ponuntur si quid verò aliud in sententia sanctissimorum Episcorum quae
their own civil power both executed and decreed such corporal or civil punishment and consequently who were the sole authoritative Judges of both Priests Bishops and Popes I mean as to inflict or not inflict such corporal or civil punishments on them be the crime whatsoever you please Lay or Ecclesiastical But if you would see yet some instance or some example in particular fact of the continued possession of that authority in Princes even after I mean the tenth century of Christian Religion was compleat You may reflect on Conradus the Emperour who in presence of Benedict the ninth Roman Pontiff of that name sharply arose against and roughly laid hands that is with his own hands seized on Heribertus Archbishop of Millan as guilty of treasonable practices against the Empire albeit this Heribeâ—t saved himself after by flight and in the presence too of the same Pope Benedict in his hearing and seeing all was done decreed banishment from their Sees against three other Bishops and effectually cast them to exile the Bishop of Cremona Vercellis and Placentia Hermannus in Chron. an 1037. and Baronius eod an tom 11. Where this great Annalist Baronius divines after his own manner that surely Conradus did not this or that without consulting first and obtaining the good leave of the Roman Pontiff dreaming so what the Historians of that age were ignorant of did wholy pass over in silence without question because there was no such consultation held with the Pope no such leave asked from him for it is not likely that if any such had been they had given us no kind of hint of it And so too this prophetical or conjectural Annalist gives us his own very vain imagination for a record where he sayes that a suddain pestilence followed to revenge this fact or this usurpation of Conradus But if Conradus with licence of the Pope proceeded so against these criminal Bishops wherefore doth Baronius invent this revenge of an usurpation that was not in the case if his dream be true So little is our great interpreter of God's judgments and scourges consistent or constant to himself And if any should say for him that he meaned not that God reveng'd by such a plague any usurpation of Conrade being the Pope gave his consent also but only mean'd that God thereby reveng'd some other injustice in the proceedings albeit authorized by the Imperial and Papal powers joyntly or both together then I say that such meaning or interpretation of Baronius were it infallibly true in such meaning is nothing to his purpose here or against mine at all as the judicious Reader may himself easily see without any further illustration or observation by me And you may also reflect on Henry King of the Romans afterwards Emperour and the second of this name who continuing and persevering in the possession of the right or authority of coercing and punishing Clergiemen in imitation of his Predecessors wel-nigh a thousand years deprived of his dignity Widgerus Archbishop of Ravenna nay and the Pope himself of his Papacy Gregory the Fifth of that name Hermannus in Chron. Of other Henry's Emperours of Rome I say nothing Because in their time and by the occasion of the too great abuse by Clergiemen of the reverence to and patience of Princes with the Roman See in particular and Ecclesiastical Order in general nay and peradventure also by the occasion of the neglect and sluggishness of the Princes themselves that I may not here enlarge on or give other most certainly true causes as likewise by occasion of the many great priviledges formerly granted by Emperours and other Kings to all Priests and Bishops albeit amongst all such priviledges there was never any such to them in general as an exemption in temporal matters from the supream civil power and moreover by occasion of some special priviledges granted to the Roman See alone and to the Bishops thereof and finally by occasion of the vast both spiritual and temporal Revenues which these Roman Pontiffs were in the dayes of the other Henries possessors of they I mean the Roman Pontiffs were then arrived to such a height of worldly greatness and strength that seeing the former and indeed formidable power of the Roman Empire divided and subdivided in to so many different unsubordinate Kingdoms and seeing themselves could hardly ever want some one or other Prince amongst all to embrace their Papal quarrel against any other either Prince King or Emperour and considering also the great ignorance or blind zeal of many then who as their affections lead them or as their Preachers told them in some or many Provinces of Europe took all the Dictates of Roman Pontiffs for so many infallible or divine oracles pursuant to the doctrine hereof also first invented soon after vented by Gregory the VII I say that by these occasions and by their own improvements of them the Popes were in the times of the other succeeding Henries come to such a height of glory and greatness that they dared resist as they did Kings and Emperours in what quarrels soever and particularly in this of the pretended exemption not of themselves only but of all Bishops of the world nay and of all Priests too nay and also of all other Clerks of whatsoever lower degree from all earthly power add in all criminal causes of what nature soever pretending that such persons as being dedicated to God had no other truly proper and supream Governour or Prince on earth but themselves alone the Popes of Rome And therefore being it was then or much about that time this controversie begun which I have disputed on hitherto I have resolved to bring no instances of other Princes or Bishops since that time or of that time but content my self with these of more antiquity as best sorting with my purpose which only is and was along in this Section to shew the former doctrine of the holy Fathers and their Exposition of St. Paul 13. Rom. confirmed by the practice and in so many particular instances of both Ecclesiastical Prelats and Christian Princes in the more ancient Ages of the Church and for so many ages together all along quite contrary to both the doctrine and practice of some few or many if you please Ecclesiasticks in the later and worser and in this by little and little degenerated ages of Christianity And yet I would have my Readers take notice that I could furnish them were it necessary with a cloud of witnesses and a cloud of such particular instances both in the very said time and after the very said time of even the self same other Henries also and even also all along in every age of these very latter and worser until this present wherein we live and in this present year of it 1667. and could furnish them with these witnesses and produce to them these other such particular instances in matter of fact of Bishops and of Princes and of Roman Catholick Princes too for such only
at the meeting at London which was before that of Clarendon or Northampton So that as Baronius or Spondanus out of him or both say it was to excuse his own King that Neubrigensis fixes on this of our holy Archbishops denyal to deliver to legal punishment those criminal Clerks as on the onely cause of the following tragedy being it was so specious a cause on the Kings side to quarrel with the Archbishop even so I cannot but say that I think these two great Annalists have of purpose albeit without sufficient ground contradicted Neubrigensis to excuse the Saint even also in this very particular instance as well as in all other of the difference being such a demand must appear to most men on first sight to be but very just on the Kings side and consequently that the denyal of it must on the Archbishops side appear to the same men at least too too rigid if not unjust as to the matter in it self though I for my own part verely believe the Saint apprehended it farr otherwise nay am certain he did as I am also at least very probably perswaded that he apprehended it so upon very just grounds and very true even in themselves objectively But however this matter be of the sole cause and because it is not much material to my main purpose whether of the two Neubrigensis or Baronius out of those other Authors speaks most exactly of that or if it be any way or in any degree material that surely Baronius's observation of others causes to have proceeded must be for me and though to help Neubrigensis as likewise to illustrate the matter in it self a little more I can add Hoveden ad an 1163. where he writes thus Eodem anno gravis discordia orta est inter Regem Angliae Thomam Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum de Ecclesiasticis dignitatibus quas idem Rex Anglorum tuebare minuere conâ—batur Archiepiscopus ille leges dignitates Ecclesiasticas modis omnibus illibatas conservare nitebatur Rex enim volebat praesbyteros diaconos subdiaconos alios Ecclesiae Rectores si comprehensi fuissent in latrocinio vel muâ—dra vel felonia vel iniqua combustione vel in his similibus ducere ad secuâ—ariâ— examina punire sicut laicum Contra quod Archiepiscopus dicebat quod si clericus insacris ordinibus constitutus vel quilibet alius Rector Ecclesiae calumniatus fuerit de aliqua re per viros Ecclesiasticos in curia Ecclesiastica debet judicari si convictus fuerit ordines suos amittere sic alienatus ab efficio Beneficio Ecclesiastico si postea fâ—ris fecerit secundum voluntatem Regis Bailivorum suorum judicetur therefore now Secondly you are to observe the progress of this great jealousy of the Kings whatever the sole first cause of it was and you are to observe it also out of Baronius who takes it from Robertus or Heribertus one of the said four Authors of the Acts viz that in the same year of Christ 1163. the same King Henry the Second being mightily incensed against our holy Archbishop of Canterbury and convening at London both him and rest of the Bishops of England and urging vehemently that such criminal Clerks as those before mentioned should after canonical punishment inflicted on them in the Ecclesiastical Court be delivered nevertheless to the secular Court our said holy Archbishop and not he alone but all the other Bishops unanimously and flatly refused to do so That hereupon the King being wholly enraged as seeing them all to a man so unanimous against him in that point demanding of them whether they would observe his royal customs consuetudines suas Regias they all having first consulted together and every one apart being demanded so apart answered they would with this caution Salvo ordine suo That when the King urged them to promise absolutely that they would without any such caution onely Thomas answered that when they had formerly sworn allegiance and fidelity to him Vitam scilicet membrum honorem terrenum salvo ordine suo in this earthly Honour the Royal customs were comprehended and that they would not oblige themselves in any other form to their observance then in that wherein they had formerly sworn That although Hilary Bishop of Chester seeing the King more and more incensed vehemently by reason of such their unanimous answer did without advising with the rest change that contentious caution into these other two words bona fide promising that himself would observe the Royal customs bona fide yet the King was nothing at all appeased but rejected him also with contumely and after many altercations departed full of anger and indignation from London without saluting any one of all the Bishops That matters continueing thus for some time next year after which was 1164. Thomas of Canterbury being much importuned by the reasons and desires of many Bishops and Abbots to conform himself in the controverted point to the Kings pleasure one of the Abbots having also told him that Pope Alexander himself when he had heard of these altercations had given way to and licenced such their conformity Thomas I say being perswaded at last by such arguments accoasted the King and promised him that he would alter the word or the caution which gave so much offence to His Majesty in that which related to his Royal customs or to the form of their oath for observing those customs That the King being hereby somewhat appeased and withal desirous that such alteration should be made publickly in Parliament or in a general Assembly of all the three Estates summon'd the same three Estates Lords spiritual Temporal and Commons or Magistrates as Baronius calls them to meet at Clarendon this very year 1164. and upon the thirtyth of Jan. That this great Assembly being sate and the King urging the performance of what was so promised Thomas apprehending again mightily that such performance might prejudice Ecclesiastical Immunity fell back from his promise nor could ever be brought on to it again or to acquiesce to the King either by any threatnings or by any blandishments of his untill at last moved by the continual intreaties prayers geniculations tears of as well the Bishops as of others of the Clergie and Nobility and by the present danger of prison banishment death represented by them to him he chose rather sayes Baronius to obey them then him that is he chose rather to be perswaded by them then by him and however this be acquiesced at last and first of all and in the presence of all the Bishops and whole Parliament swore to observe the Royal customs bona fide omitting and suppressing the contentious caution or words Salvo ordine and that immediatly after him all and singular the other Bishops every one a part for himself took the same oath and in the very self same tearms or form And you are to observe here how Roger Hoveden a
to a perpetual cloyster'd life c was derived unto them and wholly depending of the supream temporal or civil coercive power residing originally and independently in the Prince and in his laws for the very Papal canons even Pope Caelestine the III. himself cap. 〈◊〉 homine de judicijs as I have quoted him in the former section confesseth that after and besides suspension excommunication and deposition or degradation the Church hath no other nor any more punishment for any 4. Because the very self same supream civil coercive power which as Legislative authorized the Bishops to be the onely ordinary Judges of criminal Ecclesiasticks and did also both prescribe and warrant that kind of punishment which they inflict on such Clerks and did ordain there should be no other punishment but that for such persons and the very self same supream civil power that made those municipal laws for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Judges may again unmake them upon just occasion or may lessen or moderat that exemption as there shall be cause and consequently criminal Clerks are still in so much under the supream civil coercive power as de facto de â—ure they are indeed and were indeed always for so many other respects and in so many other cases and contingencies notwithstanding the most ample municipal laws for exemption that are or have been 5. And lastly because there is no contradiction inconsistence or contrariety betwixt S. Thomas his being of this opinion and perswasion and the being of the laws of England such as I said they were then Which yet we may easily understand by the example of the priviledge of Peers For certainly the Peers of a Kingdom will not pretend themselves exempt from the supream coercive power of the Prince albeit they cannot by the laws of the land be judg'd or condemned but by their own Peers Therefore an exemption from one sort of Judges doth not argue an exemption from the supream power that is above all sorts of Judges And therefore nothing can be alleadg'd out of the life or death or sanctity or martyrdom or canonization or invocation or even miracles of S. Thomas of Canterbury nor out of all these joyntly taken with the laws of the land for which he stood to prove that he was of a contrary judgment or perswasion to my doctrine All that is alleadged of any such matters do onely evidence the purity of his Soul and justice of his cause neither of which my doctrine doth at all oppose but allow approve and confirm But if any should replye that the laws of the land as to our controversy were chang'd by the swearing of those 16. Heads of customes by all the Archbishops Bishops Earls Barons Abbots Priors and whole Clergie and even by St. Thomas of Canterbury himself first of all as Matthew Paris tels us in these tearms Hanc recognitionem consuetudinum libertatum Deo deâ—estabilium Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates Priores Clerus cum Comitibus Baronibus Proctribus cunctis juraverunt se observaturos Domino Regi heredibus ejus bona fide absque malo ingenio in perpetuum Inter alios etiam his omnibus Thomas Cantuariensis consensit and should replye that after such change by such swearing S. Thomas of Canterbury did fall into his own former opposition of or differences with Henry the second even as to the second head of those customes and in prosecution of his former refusal to deliver up to secular justice those two criminal Clerks and should therefore conclude that S. Thomas must have pretended for himself at such time not the former laws of the land which were so repealed by a contrary law of Henry the second but either the laws of God Nature or Nations or the Canons of the Church or Pope c if I say any should make this objection here the Answer is at hand very facile and clear out of my former observations viz that such swearing alone was not enough without further signing and sealing as it seems the custom then was of the Bishops and Peers in making of laws nor all three together whether signing and sealing was necessary or not without a free consent in those or of those who swore so or sign'd or sealed so and that there was no free consent but a forc'd one by threats of imprisonment banishment death appears out of my said observations and all the several Historians especially Hoveden who treat exactly of this contest Now it is plain that such laws are no true laws or have not at all as much as the essence of laws which are not freely made without such coaction And therefore consequently it is plain that such repealing was no true legal repealing of the former laws Whereof also this was a further argument that Henry the second himself did in the end of the contest wholly quit his challenge to those controverted customs which he did so for a time constrain the Bishops Clergie and people to submit to against their own will and their own true laws Yet as it must be granted by such as are versed in the antiquities of England that there was a time and some ages too of the Christian Church in England even after the conversion of the Saxons before such municipal laws were enacted for such favourable and ample immunities to Clergiemen and before also the Clergie did as much as pretend by custom or otherwise to any exemption in criminal causes from the lay courts so I confess there have passed several ages of the very Roman Religion professed by law in England after the same great immunities and exemptions in criminal causes were in some part or for the greatest part legally repealed by law or custom or both and free consent or submission of the very Bishops and Clergie themselves upon new occasions and grounds being weary of contesting with the lay judges and Kings and that immediatly too or very soon after the days of Henry the second himself the very Popes also themselves at least many of them either consenting or certainly conniving at this change in the laws customs and practice of England in order to Clergiemen Whereat we are not much to wonder being that Roger Hoveden so faithfull an Historian as he was as he was also contemporary to Alexander the third and St. Thomas of Canterbury and was moreover so extraordinary an admirer of this Saint as may be seen by reading his Annals of him being I say this Roger Hoveden tels us in plain tearms ad an 1164. that the said Pope Alexander the third himself before his going to Rome out of France sent express directions to Thomas of Canterbury when the great difference began about the 16. Heads to submit himself in all things to his King and to promise to receive observe and obey without any exception those very customs or laws controverted Deinde sayes our Annalist Hoveden venit in Angliam vir quidam Religiosus dictus
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
may be undoubted members of the Gregorian Sect and furious promoters of the Hildebrandine Heresie Which is somewhat worse I am sure than to be reputed one of the late Scholastick Sects i. e. either Thomists or Scotists or Occamists or Molinists c. and reputed so I mean in the sense these men themselves repute themselves or others to be ofsuch or such a Scholastick Sect. Or if it be not yet I am very certain it is incomparably far worse than to be reputed such a Sect as the Adherers to the justice of St. John Chrysostom's cause and maintainers of his Patriarchal authority against the illegal sentence of Deposition pronounced against him even by a great Council of Catholick Bishops and Archbishops too under the Presidency of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria were by their opposers both reputed and entituled For these were by those and by way of reproach and scorn Nicknamed Joannitae Baron ad an Christi 403. num x. vide licet from his Christian name John or Joannes for whose defence they stood constantly albeit under great persecutions and even banish'd from all their own Churches until at last Heaven and Justice and God and the good Emperor thought fit to regard them and take notice of the malicious Contrivements of their Adversaries And I am no less certain that they whom the said de Vecchiis doth himself and would have others to call Valesiani have yet a more excellent cause for which they are so miscalled and stand and suffer still together with Valesius than those Joannitae had albeit in a very good cause suffering for and with that golden Mouth and divine Prelate of Constantinople St. John Chrysostom himself Wherefore the Remonstrants have no reason to fear that the malice of their Adversaries by Nicknaming them Valesians may be able to work a persuasion of their being a Sect in any bad sense either of this word Sect or of that of Valesiani no more than those inveterate Enemies of Chrysostom and of his followers or friends were able to fix the opinion of Heresie or Schism on them by terming them contemptibly and in scorn Joannitae no not although these very Joannitae themselves would not communicate in Sacred or Divine Rites Offices or Sacraments with their said Enemies but held separate Congregations in private houses until the name and fame of Chrysostom and consequently their Churches were restored As for the likeness or even community of Peter Walsh's Latin sirname with his other name or sirname who near the primitive Age of Christianity gave both beginning and name to the old condemn'd Sect of Valesians otherwise called the Sect of Eunuchi but from Valesius their Arabian Founder â—â—â—oâ— ad 〈◊〉 Christi 230. termed Valesii or Secta Valesiorum as may be read in Epiphanius Haeres 58. and Augustine de Haeres c. 37. if the Internuncio or any other would derive thence any reflection who sees not the folly herein It is a likeness or community either of doctrine or practice that must ground any such or other injurious or opprobrious reflection There was a Simon the Apostle as well as a Simon the Magician There was a Wonder-worker St. Patrick Converter of Ireland as well as that erroneous wicked Patrick who about the year 203. under Severus the Emperour was perverter of many And there was a Franciscan Martin of Valentia that with his Twelve Franciscan Apostles reconciled to Christian Religion more than Seventeen millions in the new World when the Augustinian Martin of Germany withdrew no fewer in the old World from any veneration of or communication with the See of Rome And consequently there have been Patritiani Simoniani Martiniani alias Lùtherani and are to day without any reflectirn upon or prejudice to a Thousand others of the same name because not of the same common principles or practices Nay and there have been Gregory's too in the very See of Rome sometimes that were unblemish'd by the Gregorian alias Hildebrandinian either doctrine or practice of after and worser times Third Observation is That without any true or real ground this Internuncio sayes partly in the Letter you have seen here to Father Duff and partly in that other before Sect. 7. page 16. That our Remonstrance agrees in effect with the Professions heretofore condemn'd by Pope Paul the V and lately again by Innocent the X. And therefore needs no new condemnation being it hath been so already condemn'd in those former Professions For albeit I confess that our Formulary hath some Propositions coincident with some of those which are contain'd in King James's Oath of Allegiance yet forasmuch as in others both Formularies are not coincident and that Paul the V. hath neither condemn'd every Proposition generally nor any one or more determinate propositions clauses or parts of that of King James it cannot be either groundedly or any way truly said That by vertue of Paul the V's condemnation thereof our's also must be condemn'd As for Innocent the X I dare boldly say he hath not condemn'd that profession which this Internuncio means here or if he have in the Consistory or otherwise privately yet neither at Rome it self nor Paris nor elsewhere hath that condemnation of his been ever yet at any time published or promulgated nor judicially or authentickly shewn to any that was concern'd to see it So that his condemnation if any kind of such had been is in effect no condemnation at all And peradventure the same as to any legal publication might be said of that famed Brief of Paulus V. against the Oath of Allegiance though we see it Printed in Suarez his work contra Regem Angliae and in other Authors too We know well enough that the Printing of Instruments especially Papal Bulls or Briefs is no legal publication of them and know also that without or before legal publication or reception they signifie nothing to bind any in Conscience or otherwise Of this Subject of Paul the V's now mention'd Brief I have some Ten years since Treated somewhat in my More Ample Account pag. 51 52 53 and 54. and there consequentially and evidently shewed out of the very Papal Canon Law and even out of Innocent the III's own Decree or Answer to the Archbishop of Ravenna cap. super literis Extra de Rescriptis That without any disobedience or even irreverence to the Pope even to that very Pope Paul the V. himself any and every Ordinary of a Diocess might and may oppose both the reception and publication of his said Brief against the Oath of Allegiance and this even also I mean in case it had been clear and certain that the said Brief had been true not forged Si quando sayes Innocent in the forecited place aliqua tuae fraternitati dirigimus quae animum exasperare videntur turbari non debes Qualitatem negotii pro quo tibi scribitur diligenter considerans aut mandatum nostrum reverenter adimpleas aut per literas tuas quare adimplere non
such other excellent Casuists for the lawfulness of murthering or assassinating not only your declared known enemy or inveterate or even any way profess'd or not profess'd Adversary but also any other even your own Consort or Companion that either affronts you never so little or but reveals nay or but threatens to reveal hereafter nay also or but whom you only suspect or fear may reveal although only out of lightness or vanity and not out of any malice to you some or any one even true imperfection or fault or fact of yours which being known may either defame or lessen or hinder you or your Society Order or Colledge from that power authority dignity esteem or advantages and emoluments you or they aspire unto provided only that you conceive the death of such a person to be necessary or behoveful either for the recovery or preservation of your name fame or of that which is or is called your worldly honour credit or esteem or even but your utility or profit temporary and earthly Finally you shall see the said most Reverend Prelate proving effectually by his carriage towards those Remonstrants for three or four years past That notwithstanding his formal Ejection or Dismiss out of the Society and he knows for what and knows moreover that I am not ignorant nor have been since 1659. either of that very true cause or of the very great person that procured his said Ejection yet he hath continued still a pragmatical constant close Disciple in the worst of Maxims to those very worst of Moralists Equivocatists Probablists Academists Scepticks nay and Assassins too retaining so whatsoever evil could be learn'd of them but relinquishing all that was good or just the more Christian precepts and practices he might have seen in some others even Writers of that very Society which threw him out Whether it was therefore that when he was created Archbishop by the Pope some Three years since his then Father General Oliva did complement him so high in a Letter which I my self have read from Rome promising himself and his Society in Ireland c. I know not what even certainly all that was great and wonderful now that he the foresaid Prelate was made Archbishop of the Head City or Metropolis of that Kingdom I am sure it argued what otherwise I my self did and could not but observe 1. That notwithstanding his ejection by the Fathers of purpose that they might please or rather not too much and too openly displease him whose affairs and hopes he the very same Prelate or person though not then a Prelate endeavoured to betray and utterly ruine Anno 1659. and by whose application therefore to the General of the Order his ejection was urged home yet the same General and ruling Cabal of that Society understood him and he them very well all along both before and after his ejection or dismiss given to him And how therefore and notwithstanding it and continually after it he observed a no less intimate correspondence with them and promoted their interests no less wheresoever he might than he had before 2. That in a very special and particular manner he did so by undermining covertly in all occasions and opposing also publickly in some all he could the Subscription of the Remonstrance As if indeed by that Formulary or advance of it his whole Ignatian Order's Reputation in these Kingdoms lay at stake His Letter out of England ann 1666. to Father Barton the English Jesuit then in Ireland persuading him to hinder all he could the National Congregation from Subscribing the Remonstrance may testifie this abundantly Which Letter the said Barton shewed and read then to my self Or if he had seriously considered what was most certainly true how well nigh a whole Century of years albeit more especially since the Powder-plot Treason and Oath of Allegiance made by King James the Professors of that Society of the Ignatian Order have labour'd so mightily both by word deed and writing to impose on the World and above all other parts or people of it upon His MAJESTIES of Great Britains Roman-Catholick Subjects That the power or authority and the doctrine or positions renounc'd disclaimed and abjured by the Oath of Allegiance made by King James and consequently as Internuncio de Vecchiis sayes those also protested against by that our late Remonstrance are positive and affirmative points of the Christian Religion And that all sincere Catholicks ought rather to suffer not only loss of goods and liberty but of life also even death it self than take any Oath declaring against such matters And moreover That such a death questionless should would and ought to be reputed Christian Martyrdom in a proper and strict sense of these words and consequently also reputed that very Baptism of blood which of its own nature without any Sacrament not only washes away clean all kind of sins both as to guilt and even temporary punishment but further purchaseth that extraordinary even accidental glorious Garland in Heaven which the Divines call Aureola Martyrii 3. That his foresaid promotion whether Legal or Illegal or whether as much as Canonical or Uncanonical nay whether absolutely void invalid or null by the Canons of the Universal Church I question not here was upon such and the like consequential accounts further'd in an high measure by the above General Oliva and other Jesuits of the Cabal as a matter conducing mightily to their interest the principles and genius of the man and consequently that he was the fittest instrument they could pitch upon being considered And certainly whoever knows that Societies power in the Court of Rome and how ignominious a punishment note and blot Ejection out of any Religious Order is or is esteem'd to be when it is after so many years profession and continuance in such Order and is moreover pretended to be for criminal causes and withall how when there is no intrigue in the matter there must also by consequence be or certainly and commonly is rather some extraordinary hatred or at least a very great strangeness and distance 'twixt the Ejectors and Ejected than any kindness and besides without peradventure how easie it is for the General or even Procurator of any Order at Rome to obstruct the like promotion of any that hath ever at any time before professed their Institute and after deserted it whereas if the Canons of the Church or even those of the Tridentin Council nay or the very Papal constitutions and ordinary practice of scrutiny at Rome it self de vita moribus and other qualities of such Episcopal candidates be observed or not rather wilfully and extraordinarily omitted a very small Objection made by men of Authority will serve to that end but much more questionless the infamous note of having been ejected for criminal matters who ever I say considers all this will certainly out of the above Letter of Oliva infer That the foresaid late promotion was on those very same or like consequential
amongst their miserable Relations or were actual Prisoners to the Parliament or peradventure expected at least some of them a better opportunity to go if they could not stay That if I say for so long time at home after Rathmines Fate matters went so ill with all those were against the Nuncio and his censures and Owen O Neil and were for the Cessation Appeal Peace Ormond and consequently for the King much more ill must all things have gone after and accordingly did go with them abroad in all Forraign Countries of the Roman Communion and in all places and amongst all people wheresoever the Roman Court had any jurisdiction power authority or influence Their fellow exiles of the Nuncio party however Countrey-men and many of them also neighbours and kinsfolks having their hearts hardned against any commiseration and their understandings not at all as it would seem enlightned by so many and such prodigious calamities so lately befallen their common Countrey and themselves proved even in those Forraign Parts as cruel foes to them as when at home or rather yet far more cruel even in very deed as cruel as Tygers In Spain Portugal France Flanders Germany Italy nay as far as Hungary wheresoever any of the Appellants those peaceable but unfortunate Irishmen were retired to live and die in Peace if they could the Nuntiotist's who were in far greater numbers every where dispersed and well entertained yea and of far more credit also as having the speciousness of a Papal Nuntio's cause against Hereticks and recommendations of Rome and consequently of all other both Forraign Bishops and General Superiours of Orders to gain them credit informing the Natives and possessing them with sundry abominable wicked lies not only to hinder those more then afflicted men from any kind of harbour entertainment relief or even Almes given to the miserablest of beggars but also to perswade all the said Natives even to persecute them as Ormonians enemes of their own Countrey Antinuntiotists Antipapists Anticatholicks excommunicat persons favourers of Hereticks and in plain terms at last both Schismaticks and Hereticks too themselves The great plotters furtherers encouragers actors of all such evil and inhuman designs against them next after some of the Nuntiotist exiled Bishops and Paul King at Rome and Dionisius Masarius Dean of Firmo but at that time Secretary also at Rome to the Congregation of Cardinals de propaganda Fide as he had formerly been the chief man with his Lord the Nuncio in Ireland were in general the three Irish Franciscan Cloysters and Colledges the first in Louain second at Prague in Bohemia third in Rome and the Dominican Irish Colledge at Louain too and besides these all other the several Seminaries of the Irish Secular Priests and Students in Flanders France Spain and Portugal In all which as the exiled Nuntiotists had good reception so the other side had none at all both the natural inclination and worldly interests of such persons as even all along the time of the War in Ireland and much more after possessed these Colledges and Seminaries rendring the very name of Antinuntiotists odious to them Besides that the Divinity Principles commonly taught in their Schools entituled the Pope to the temporals of all the World and not only to Ireland or England c. though more especially to these and such other Countries whose Kings or chief Governours fell off from acknowledging the Holy See and consequently that the very intellect of such possessors of those Houses at least generally taking them was wholly prepossest against that name rendred so odious To descend to particular instances of those Antinuntiotists that found by sad experience in their own persons how cruel their foresaid opposite brethren were abroad and made others also be were it my design here I could manifoldly For to pass over now so may young Fathers and Students Nicholas Archbold Christopher Plunket Thomas Shortal John Shortal c. at Louain and so many others elsewhere albeit the ornament of their Colledges yet about the Year 1650 turned out of the Colledges only because they had either a little before studied under Father Walsh at Kilkenny or for some other cause or jealousie had been but suspected to be Ormonians I could name but too too many even of the more ancient known and esteemed honest men against whom being exiled to Forraign Parts the greatest malice of the Nuntiotists displayed it self though in several places and Countries openly professedly and only on account of their having approved by signature under their hands my Book of Queries Printed at Kilkenny in 1648. though only a Book against the Nuncio's censures and for the Appeal of the Supreme Council to Pope Innocent the Tenth and amongst them particularly Father John Barnwal of St. Francis's Order Reader of Divinity denyed even so little as one nights lodging in the Count of Louain and Father _____ Brown the Carmelit sufficiently vexed by those of his own Order Laurence Archbold lately before Vicar General of the Archbishoprick of Dublin and Doctor _____ Taylor two secular Priests so much malign'd in France of purpose to hinder them even from any kind of livelihood or charity of strangers and Father Laurence Tankard shut up in the Prison of Ara caeli at Rome I could also name Redmund Caron Reader of Divinity the late Commissary of his Order in Ireland Anthony Gearnon Matthias Barnwal Anthony Conmeus Reader of Divinity Morice Fitz Gerrald Francis Dillon all of them qualified and good men of the Franciscan Order all of them living religiously in their several Convents in the Low-countries except only Francis Dillon who continued still in France and Anthony Gearnon that was at all adventures return'd to his mission in Ireland by permission of his General Superiour and I could tell how all these were used in the Year 1653. that is how by a notoriously and manifoldly both false and wicked information sent expresly and purposely from Rome by two furios Zealots the one an Irishman the other an Italian against them to the Spanish General of the Franciscans Fray Pedro Manero at Madrid in Spain they were all immediately thereupon by a special Letter even from his Catholick Majesty himself to the Archduke Leopoldo at Brussels ordered to be Banished presently and perpetually out of all and every of the Dominions of the Spanish Monarchy the true and only cause indeed though not represented to his Catholick Majesty nor perhaps to Manero being that they also either maintain'd or were known to be for the Doctrine and cause which that Book asserted Nor doth it lessen the malice of their Adversaries that the information being found in all particulars very false that sentence was suspended I could moreover and without any question name the Author of that Book i. e. my self as who partly on that very occasion I mean of that Letter for Banishing sent to Leopoldo signified to me being returned from Ireland to London by Father Caron from Flanders and partly to justifie
Lordship's answer I expect with that anxiety which you may easily believe possesseth me both as an Apostolick Minister on whom the affairs of Ireland are incumbent and as a Catholick by which name alone we are bound to watch for the Salvation of our Neighbours Vpon this occasion addicting reverence to your merits and inclination to my own observance of you I wish your most Reverend Lordship the longest health Bruxels May 13. 1666. Your most Reverend Lordship's Most devoted Servant James Rospigliosi Abbot of St. Mary Internunce Apostol Besides these three Letters which you have now read you shall further have in the next Section three more from this very Internunce Rospigliosi to others on the same Subject as you have also had before in the First Part of this Treatise Sect VII pag. 16 17. some former Letters both from the foresaid Cardinal Barberin and from Internuncio Hierominus de Vecchys the Predecessour of this Rospigliosi in the Belgick Internunciature But before I perclose this present Section I think it not amiss to give some brief animadversions 1. That Cardinal Barberin here or in the above Letter of this year 1666. relates to the former of his dated July 8. 1662. which you have pag. 17. of the First Part. 2. That you must look on both these Letters as not Cardinal Barberins alone but as the Letters of all the whole Congregation de propaganda side nay and as written also even by his Holiness's command as you may see by the express tenour of them for that de propaganda Fide is the Congregation of Cardinals set over the affairs of Ireland 3. That both Cardinals and Internuncius's write and censured so that harmless Formalary as if it had been the very Oath of Abjuration it I mean Abjuring the five Roman Catholick Tenets viz. those of Invocation of Saints Worship of Jmages Merit of good Works Purgatory and Transubstantiation And verily if it had been a formal real and total abjuration not only of the Roman Catholick Religion and Communion but of all kind of Christianity what could these both supercilious and erroneous Roman Censours have said more or worse in generals than they have to condemn it and to make all Irish Catholicks abhor it That nevertheless and because they build only on fals suppositions and dwell only in generals according to the Maxim in generalibus verfatur dolosus nay because also they seem either not to have at any time perused at all that Instrument which they so briskly censure or if they have then certainly in writing so as you see they do against true Christian and Catholick Doctrine to have been themselves guilty of damnable both Hypocrisie and Heresie unless you will peradventure say they were meer Ignoramus â—s in the point and might be allowed therein some grains even of invincible ignorance because of their worldly interest blinding them irrecoverably and even to stupidity their censures were not otherwise regarded by the Subscribers of that Instrument or indeed any other knowing men than those of the University of Louain in the year 1662. against the same Instrument were i. e. no otherwise then meer inventions Delusions Impostures Cheats fixed upon of purpose to maintain the worst cause in the world even damnable Usurpation and diabolical Pride and maintain these even by the most impudent lying pretences of any which the very greatest Hypocrites and Hereticks do or can use 5. That all whatever I have said already in the First Part of this Treatise any where against Dissentors but more especially and so diffusely from page 118. to page 587. against the four chief grounds of the Censures of Louain have in effect answered also and refuted as fully all whatever grounds the writers of these Letters could as much as pretend albeit I confess they alledge none at all 6. That both Barbarin and Rospigliosi as you see have also made somewhat too bold even with that incommunicable priviledge of God I mean his Divine searching and seeing throughly the hearts and all the most inward designs of Men. Otherwise how could they presume to Censure and judge of the very most unrevealed unsignified unappearing thoughts or designs of Caron and Walsh But God the only true searcher and seer of hearts be praised they as in all other points most supercilious and erroneous Censors so in this particular have most certainly and evidently been not only as uncharitable temerarious Judges but as false seers as any have ever yet pretended to judge or see any thing of those inward thoughts or designs of others which had no being or existence at all but in the lying malicious imagination of calumny For 1. And as for what concern'd Father Caron as there are yet alive witnesses enough who can swear truly that he was no nearer then my Lord Powes's house in Wales when the Remonstrance was first come from Ireland was debated and subscribed at London upon the 11. and 15. of February 1661. S.V. albeit before it was Printed he came to London and subscribed so I can swear no less truly that he neither knew nor was once consulted with about either the Indiction before it was done or about the furthering or promoting at any time after the effect of that Indiction i. e. the meeting it self nay that he was not concern'd at all whether it should be held or not because he was brought low by sickness for all the time i. e. for many moneths before it was held and a great sickness indeed which laid him in his Grave before those Letters which occasion this discourse were brought to Ireland by Ferral Besides who read either his English or Latin works defending the Remonstrance but hath withal seen him driving perpetually at Temporalia omnia Regi Spiritualia omnia Pontifici Is this to design the overthrow ruine or extirpation of the Catholick Faith And 2. and for what concerns my self I can and do religiously call not him who is the Dominus Deus noster Papa of Zenzelinus the Glossator but the truly and only all-seeing God to witness That to my remembrance or knowledge of my self my own designs in forwarding either the Remonstrance it self at any time or in any way or the National Congregation for to sit or to sign it were as far from the false surmise of Cardinal Barberin and Rospigliosi as Tertullian or Justin the Martyr were from designing the suppression or corruption of Christianity when they writ their Apologies for that Religion to the Senate and Emperours of Pagan Rome 7. That 't is pleasant to see Barberin tell us he had a command from his Holiness to write to the Clergy and Catholicks of Ireland they should beware of the danger from false brethren viz. Caron Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers and even such danger as threatned their eternal Salvation nay such as certainly precipitated them into Eternal Damnation says Rospigliosi So erroneously wicked Anti-Catholick nay Anti-Christian it is if we believe these men
Petition to his Grace wherein after they had in general terms expressed not only their ingenuous and sorrowful acknowledgment of too too much having been acted contrary to Law and Reason by the generality of the Irish Clergy of the Roman Communion since Octob. 23. 1641. nor only their humble acknowledgement of the obnoxiousness of the Clergy therefore to the Laws but also their hearty Repentance for and detestation of all such no more unhappy and fatal than wicked and criminal actings of either the whole or greater or lesser part or even of any individual persons or person whatsoever living or dead of that Clergy And after they had further in the most humble and moving expressions could be implored His Majesties gracious and general pardon to all and singular the surviving Irish Ecclesiasticks any way guilty during the late Civil Wars they should in the perclose of all both declare and humbly offer their readiness to give whatever arguments of their future obedience and faithfulness to His Majesty which not intrenching on Catholick Religion should be desired of them What arguments I used then to perswade the Bishop of the necessity of such a Petition shall be seen hereafter Sect. XI Where I tell how I repeated and urged the same thing again to the Congregation it self when sate At present 't is sufficient to see and know that as I gave no other ground to that contrivance that ridiculous though withal malicious surmise of the Bishop so I can and do call God sincerely to witness that both my words and my intention in giving that occasion were pure and good and only tending to the general good i. e. to a general pardon for that whole Clergy without any either distinction or exception of or any reflection at all upon any Faction or as much as any one particular Person of all Ireland How much more think you without design to get the Fathers of the Assembly accuse themselves every one under their own proper hands And yet men that otherwise of themselves and for other ends of their own were ready to catch at any occasion which might be a colour to hinder the intended Assembly did hug this lying story that I doubt very much whether even after I my self had disabused them and upbraided too the Bishop to his face with his ungrounded distorted that I may not say malignant interpretation of my both innocent words and meaning and that he had nothing to reply but that he had thought my end was such and having given this short answer flung away in anger they had not pretending that lying story as a just cause withdrawn out of town before or at least by Monday morning the day prefix'd for sitting if Providence had not otherwise disposed and prepared the arrival of the Packet that very Saturday early in the evening and the news thereby of his Royal Highnesses the Duke of York's great Victory in the first Sea-fight against the Hollanders and the great joy thereupon amongst all the Loyal Party and all the Streets in Town immediatly full of Bonefires to testifie both the certainty of that news and greatness of their joy This if I be not much mistaken was the most powerful aagument to deter the most factious of the members from running away before Monday as was intended But that they had not laid by not even then all thoughts at least of breaking and dissolving the Assembly in the very beginning thereof or before it could come to any issue on the matters expected from them will appear hereafter In the mean while and before I close this present Section the Reader may be pleased to take notice that I omitted nothing I could do by visiting and reasoning with those leading men to rectifie them especially the two Bishops viz. Ardach and Kalfinuran For I must confess I was singularly concern'd in these two not being then certain of any other Bishop to come in person and because also I had formerly given but too often for several years my opinion to the Lord Lieutenant of their honest Principles and good Affections to the Royal Cause nay and of their Judgments and hands too in France to the very Remonstrance when it first came out in the year 1662. S. N. and was sent them to France before either of them left that Countrey I remembred how often I had sollicited the Duke in the year 1661. for his savour to these very two Bishops in particular above any other and his special permission of or at least connivance at their return home if they were minded to return And remembred well I to that end often repeated these two Arguments to his Grace viz. 1. That each of them had sided with the Supream Council against the Nuncio in the difference of the Cessation and Censures 2. That neither of them had subscribed the Acts or been present at the Congregations of Jamestown and Galway made and held against the Peace of 1648. and the Royal Authority in his person then And my third Argument for them was the Bishop of Ardach's Letter from Seez to his Brother Sir Nicholas Plunket see pag. 13. of the First Part and the Bishop of Kilfinuran's getting subscriptions at St. Malos whereof see also pag. ibid p. 12. Now it was no little grief to me to see my self wholly deceived in my former good opinion and partly also in my Relation of them I had truly some weeks before Kilfinuran's Landing entertained some little jealousie of him for several reasons but particularly for his being so lately and long Incognito at Paris and with the Popes Nuncio there and yet signifying not a word to me by Letter or Messenger And when I knew that Ardagh had received the Letters of Rome and Bruxels from Ferral and kept and made use of them without giving me one word of notice or advice so much contrary to his former custome I could not choose but entertain at least the like jealousie of him also But after I had a little more sounded them and considered how when they were pleased to dine with me some few days before the Congregation sate Kilfinuran not only declared to my self that he came in cuerpo out of France not having brought any kind of thing with him that he had left behind him a Thousand pounds worth of Books Church-stuff and Plate of his own and that he was to return immediatly and hold to his 300. Pistols a year which he enjoyed in France but upon some other occasion of discourse plainly also to my self That he had never opposed the Nuncio nor done any thing in the former differences without sufficient permission from Him and how Ardagh likewise even to my self declared that his only reason for not sitting in or going to Jamestown-Congregation that of the Bishops in the year 1650. was their presumptuous uncanonical coming into and holding a Synod however Nationally within his Diocess without his own Licence first demanded for that Jamestown is within the Diocess of Ardagh
the other as I told before under an easie confinement i. e. to that of the whole City of Dublin till further orders if the Reader will know what I have to answer and first as to Kilfinuragh is 1. That as Kilfinuragh when he was told of the Lord Lieutenant's desire to speak to him departed suddenly and privately out of Dublin so he likewise soon after no less privately in some remote Harbour some said Cork ship'd away for France 2. That for my own part I could not imagine any other cause of his flight if not either the check of his own Conscience for his carriage in the Congregation or his great hopes of both a Home Insurrection and Forreign Invasion or his little care of his own peculiar little Flock or Diocess being also as pitifully poor and ungainful to him as it is indeed little in extent i. e. eight Parishes onely or finally his far more gainful pretence abroad of banishment or of being forced to flie for Catholick Religion forsooth a pretence yielding him at least 300 Pistols a year in France ever since that year 1666 as it did also before since the year 1652 or thereabouts 3. That I am sure he had no cause given him by the Lord Lieutenant and as sure that His Excellency intended not to give him other than only to speak and expostulate with Ardagh and him together in presence of five or six others as I have before related 4. That if the fear of such bare speaking and expostulation could be a sufficient cause or motive for a Bishop to flie away from his Flock and never look after them since any thing may be 5. That besides he knew very well that of all the Bishops of the whole Province of Munster or Archiepiscopal Province of Cashil he alone was alive that there were nine Diocesses vacant in that Province that for so many years before since Cromwel's Arms and Intrigues of the Bishops forced the Kingdom to submit to the Parliament of England there was no Episcopal Confirmation administred in that whole Province and that as consequently the whole Episcopal care of the whole Province and every Diocess therein viz. the charge of Confirming the Baptized of Ordaining Priests of Consecrating Altars c. yea of calling Provincial Synods was devolved upon him until other Pastors were provided so it must have followed that doing his duty therein he could not come short by staying at home in any respect of whatever even Temporal emoluments he reaped by his flight into France 6. That I may therefore here rationally ask What made or moved him then to go away nay and to go so as if he had been forc'd to flie for his life 7. That his continual stay in France for so many years after the Kings Restauration until 1666 yea notwithstanding my own several Letters and Messages to him during those very years both from London and Dublin praying him to return home to his Diocess and look to his Flock as others did in other parts of the Kingdom to theirs and assuring him of all permission to do so and now again since the Duke of ORMOND's removal from the Government of Ireland i. e. since the year 1669 to this present 1673. during which latter time even Thirteen or fourteen new Bishops and amongst them four Archbishops all created by the Pope do publickly and freely live and exercize their Functions at home in Ireland must plainly evince it was no true fear of the Duke of ORMOND the KING's Lieutenant in 1666. nor of any persecution from His GRACE then made him the said Bishop of Kilfinuragh flie away so as he did immediately after the foresaid Congregation of 1666. 8. That nevertheless I will not here deny but I have known of late how 't was possible the same Bishop might have had then some remembrance of his own having formerly been one of or amongst the Jamestown Committee of Bishops at Galway in the year 1650 who on the fifth of November the same year delivered unto the Commissioners of Trust the disloyal Answer to the rational Proposals for accommodation made to them by the same Commissioners of Trust I say of late because then or in the year 1666 I knew not so much as having not then nor indeed at any time after until this very last Month of May 1673 perused throughly and seriously the Marquess of Ormond's long and excellent Letter in the year 1650 to the General Assembly at Loghreogh By which Letter it appears as you may see hereafter pag. 135. of the Second Appendix to this present Work Kilfinuragh alias Kilfenora had been one of those very Jamestown Committee Bishops at Galway yea one of the very six Bishops that delivered the aforesaid Answer For these six Bishops were Killala Ferns Kilmacduogh Clonfert Kilfenora and Dromore as appears by the attestation of the above Commissioners of Trust who also were six viz. Lucas Dillon Richard Barnwall Richard Everard Gerald Fennel Richard Belings and Geoffry Browne who received the said Answer from them 9. But withall I do affirm he might have very well and clearly seen That none of all those old matters or transgressions how high soever did reflect on any even of the chief Authors i. e. were not so much as thought of by the Duke of Ormond the King's Lieutenant in order to any such purpose as the taking away any one 's either life or liberty or to hinder his free living where he pleased in the Kingdom Witness not only the Bishop of Dromore who was one of the above six Bishops and yet when he return'd to Ireland in 1663 was by the Duke both civilly received and with much respect also treated alwayes after until he dyed in 1664 but even the Bishop of Ferns another of those six and one also that soon after the year 1650 had even abroad in France and particularly by his Printed relations and I think unjustly both reflected on and exasperated the Marquess of Ormond and yet in the above year 64 was by the Duke of Ormond the King's Lieutenant heartily forgiven all and with His Grace's express permission invited home to Ireland by me yea and assured both of protection and favour though Ferns himself would not make use thereof because he would not correct the error of his late Letter in justifying anew the old proceedings of Jamestown Witness moreover the Archbishop of Tuam John Burk living then i. e. an 1666. at home in Connaught with all freedom notwithstanding he had formerly sign'd the very Declaration and Excommunication too of Jamestown and never made by Retractation or otherwise any satisfaction therefore Nay witness several other persons in particular whom I could name were it necessary as I my self introduced them to His Grace in the years 1663 1664 1665 and 1666. some of them Subscribers of those disloyal Acts of Jamestown and the rest known violent Nuntiotists all along formerly against Him yet received civilly by Him without seeming once to remember
one at least in exchange of his own so little poor and contemptible See amidst the Rocks of Burrin that he never desired to visit or see it And James Dempsy the Vicar-General Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare no less had long'd for a new Creation i. e. the Episcopal Title and Mitre of either See And John Burk the Apostolical Vicar of Cashil had been likewise a daily Expectant of a new Bull whereby to be created Archbishop of that See by the sollicitation of his Agent in the Court of Rome Father William Burgat who yet it seems was more successful for himself than for the said Burk that employ'd and maintain'd him there for so many years And the Provincials of the Dominicans and Franciscans John O Hart and Antony O Docharty had been vying one another a long time who should for the like ends i. e. a Bull and Mitre or Episcopal Title ingratiate himself most at Rome by what arts soever even by denigrating each one the other And the Augustinian Provincial Stephen Lynch had likewise not been without hopes of the like preferment or at least continuation in his office of Provincialship being he kept his own Order so entire from signing the controverted Remonstrance that not one of them did sign it save only Father John Skirret the Prior of Galway and who therefore hath been ever since under persecution And again the foresaid Bishop of Ardagh had surely promised himself if by others too he had not been assured of such matters indeed as had no motive of Religion or Catholick Faith in them when about the beginning of the Session as he and I on some occasion walked together in the street near the Convention house and to his question viz. Whether if they did not sign the controverted Remonstrance His Grace the Lord Lieutenant would suffer the Bishops depart for France I had answer'd Yes without any doubt he presently and over-passionately replyed Then it shall never be sign'd I have a sure and safe and commodious harbour in France even 300 Pistols a year besides a House and Garden expecting me there and therefore I will not sign nay will be glad to be turn'd away for not signing And lastly That Father Nicholas Nettervil the Jesuite Doctor of Divinity could not but seem to me as far transported as any other with downright earthly considerations without any mixture at all of heavenly or spiritual regards yea and peradventure somewhat higher flown that way than most others even of the more Leading Members when after he had in full Congregation refused to submit to the decisions of the House for what concern'd the Jesuits continuing or abstaining from further use of the pretended priviledges of exempted Regulars wherein they prejudice the Secular Clergy on this accompt That he was no member of the Irish Province of his Order but of that which is called the Province of France and yet would be and continue a member of this National Congregation he withall soon after but whether also after his and Kilfinuragh's publick Speeches magnifying so speciously and vehemently the French King yea expresly endeavouring to shew as of one side the necessity or at least equity of making even all the six late Sorbon Declarations as they were in terminis meant only of and directed to that King so of the other to prove even manifest iniquity in the application of them although mutatis mutandis or at least of the three latter of them to our English King or whether before this occasion And whether in the House when all the members were present or not I do not remember now determinately and certainly But yet remember very well it was during the Session and in the presence of many of the Fathers amongst whom I was my self one hearing his words and observing his gesture and no less admiring his boldness at such a time when we were in open War with both Holland and France That he should dare then I say to carry himself so rashly in publick before company as first laying hand on the hilt of his Sword for he commonly wore one and certainly that day did then presently and in a braving manner to say I will never lay this Sword of my side till I go to France and see the Most Christian King 4. That if the Reader will be further satisfied as to the point of the several interests and ends not only of these more leading men but of all other the Members in general whether leading or not leading of that Congregation he may be pleased to look back to the First Part Sect. ix x. from pag. 21. to pag. 41. where they are at large both delivered and answer'd 5. And lastly That notwithstanding all or any thing hitherto said any where in this Book of the true genuine apparent either general or specifical causes or even of some one particular and individual such cause or motive as proper to any one person and I mean said as if such cause or causes had been the only true original Spring whence the final inflexible and fatal obstinacy of the Congregation did proceed yet I must after all acknowledge That I am my self now as I have been still from the very time of that Congregation more than sufficiently convinced There was truly one other but indeed latent cause or end and that both peculiar to one only of those leading Members and peradventure wholly unknown to any of the rest which had at least as great an influence on the original contrivement and fierce management of the Resolves of the said National Congregation as any of the former apparent causes if not rather much greater though wholly hidden or secret influence than they altogether had And yet being this hath been so latent a cause or end that I my self could not so much as once suspect or guess at it until by meer chance a few dayes ere the Congregation dissolved relating to a certain person somewhat of my trouble to see one of those leading men so violently declaring himself and furiously hurrying others on against all reason I had the secret told me with such clear circumstances and that too by one who had all the best means to know them that I was convinced and being it is still nevertheless I hope as to others a secret for me I am sure it is I cannot give my Reader any other knowledge of it not even in general not even without reflecting so much as indirectly on any particular person than what he may understand by my assuring him That if he please to read the ΑÎΕΚΔΟΤΑ or Historia Arcana of Procopius Caesariensis whether Alemannus or Eichelius be in the right concerning that History and therein consider well what kind of thing that was to which this Author attributes not only the original influencing of Justinian in all those wicked counsels and prodigious evils related of or ascribed unto him whether truly or falsely * Though I think them very unjustly
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
causa Barthol Lancello Specul Menoch march Scâ—c plures alii cum communi Doctorum apud August Barbos in coll ad decretal in dictâ— cap. Pastoral n. 2. and as the Canonists commonly maintain Furthermore we say That if His Holiness ex plenitudine potestatis would give or hath given his Lordship a power above the Canon Law and such extraordinary faculties as that he should not be bound to admit even just Appeals yet hereby His Holiness never intended nor could lawfully or conscionably intend to hinder the Appellants from opposing the execution of an unjust sentence given against them much less from opposing a sentence or censures of their own nature invalid when their own Consciences tells them that his Lordship grounds himself upon ill information or that the obeying of the sentence may prove disadvantagious either to the Publick or Particulars against Equity and Right For in this and such like cases the Law of Nature takes place and allows the Appellant or Party aggrieved to preserve his own Right even by force if no other means be at hand against the unjust proceedings of a corrupt ignorant malicious or ill informed Judge specially if this Party aggrieved be a Prince State Council or Commonwealth which hath a Supreme Civil power as our case is Nay if His Holiness who is the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge on earth and from whom there is no Appeal in matters belonging to his judicature otherwise than from himself to himself did upon ill information or for any other cause whatsoever give judgment or pronounce Censures contrary to justice and conscience or which would be disadvantagious to our Publick cause or destructive of our Commonwealth or of the lives liberties or fortunes of the Confederates or of the Council and that part of the Confederates who adhere to them and to the Cessation being incomparably the greater part of the Kingdom there is no Catholick Divine in the World but must confess it would be lawful to resist and oppose His Holiness in this case and to hinder the execution of such a sentence yea that such as are in Publick Authority would be bound in Conscience and under pain of a most grievous mortal sin to use their uttermost endeavours for opposing the said execution even vi armis if it were necessary and no other means left of reconciliation or for preservation of the Publick Yet certainly we do not fear that any such evil shall ever come immediately from the Sacred Throne of our most Blessed Father Innocentius Lastly What is objected by some out of cap. Ad nostram and cap. Reprehensibilis de Appellat That no Appeal is allowed from a sentence given in a controversie of Faith and consequently that your Honours Appeal is against the Law since the adhering to the Cessation to be unlawful is an Article of Faith and the sentence of Excommunication and other Censures were pronounced by the Nuncio to make the Confederates religiously observe the said Article that is not to adhere to or observe the said Cessation We say all and every branch of what 's here objected is so false and so absurd as it cannot be sufficiently admired with what face can any broach such ignorant Positions What is more clearly and without controversie decreed in Sacred Canons than that all weighty causes and questions happening about Articles of Faith which are the most weighty of all causes are to be referred unto the See Apostolick and even frivolous Appeals in such Controversies be admitted that is though the causes of appealing in these matters appear not to be so just or reasonable as are required by the Canons to be in Appeals interposed from grievances in other matters See this expresly defined in the Canons placed in the Margent (s) Alexander III. in cap. majores de Baptismo majores Ecclesiae causas praesertim articulâ—s fidei contingentes ad Petri sedem referendas intelliget qui eum quaerenti domino quem discipuli dicerent ipsum esse respondisse nâ—tabit Tu es Christus filius dei vivi pro eo dominum exorasse ne deficiat fides ejus c. See cap. Ut debitus § ultim juncta Gloss in verb. causis de appellat cap. Translationem de officio Legatâ— Bellarm. l. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. â— See Bellarm. l. 4. de Rom. Pont. l. â— de Concil authorit where he teacheth and with him the Catholick Doctors commonly that only His Holiness is infallible in definâ—ng or declaring matters of Faith and that even General Councils much more National are of no such infallibility but may err until or before His Holiness confirm them Nay some Catholick Doctors as Bellarm l. 2. de Concil cap. 5. hath affirm that National Synods though so confirmed are not infallible and so constantly taught by Canonists as our opposites cannot produce one Author for themselves And what is more out of all doubt with both Heretick and Catholick Divines than that even His Holiness as Pope and Vicar of Christ yea and together with his Consistory of Cardinals and which is more sitting in a General Synod of the Universal Church on earth might err in Controversies of Fact which principally depend on informations and testimonies of men Read Bellarmine 4. de Romano Pontifice cap. 2. And consequently what is more certain and evident than that it is impossible the adhering to the Cessation concluded with Inchiquyn to be unlawful can be a matter or article of Faith or as such declared by any power on earth not to speak of the Lord Nuncio who hath no power no not together with his National Synod to define or declare such Articles even in capable matters or in questionibus juris otherwise then as a particular Doctor since it is plain that the question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it is a meer question of Fact and principally depending on the informations and testimonies of men Finally What is more plain to any knowing Reader of the two Chapters alledged against us out of the Canons by some of our opposites than that neither of them hath a word to that purpose or which by a Scholar may be understood in the sense they are produced against us For cap. ad nostram speaks only of just corrections of persons who are by profession Regulars as if a Religious man transgresseth manifestly his Rule or Institutions of his Order in this case and very justly no Appeal is admitted nisi tamen modus excedatur sayes Gloss ibid. verb. minus if a certain punishment be prescribed by the Canons for such a transgression and no other inflicted for if the punishment be arbitrary then according to Panormitan even a Regular might appeal in case of correction yea though his crime were notorious And as for cap. Reprehensibilis it makes the same sense though it be not restrained solely to the correction of Regulars but is more generally understood de disciplina Ecclesiastica of the correction of all Ecclesiasticks
strong motives and moral certainties produced before in our Answer to the second Querie and which we may have to persuade us that the Supreme Council who are chiefly aimed at in this business had no such evil intentions Which together with all hitherto said being duly pondered by them who now seem so adverse to us in opinion but by them discharged a little of passion retyring into their Souls and looking with an eye of indifferency upon this difference we doubt not but they will acknowledge before God the truth of our Assertions and with how little reason but great hazard of eternal salvation they disobey the Commands of the Supreme Council on pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and we hope as we most heartily desire with all our Souls that they or at least such of them as have an affection to Loyalty and a true zeal of Gods cause will by their unfeigned and repentant submission to the Supreme Authority established by the Kingdom make happy these Answers labour'd as the shortness of time did permit for their conversion and satisfaction of all good Patriots by DAVID Bishop of OSSORY F John Roe Provincial of the Excal Carmelites Nicholas Taylor Doctor of Divinity William Shergoli Professor of Divinity Prebend of Houth and Vic. For. of Fingal Fr John Barnwall Lector of Divinity Fa Simon Wafer Lector of Divinity F Peter Walsh Lector of Divinity Luke Cowley Archdeacon of Ossory and Protonotary Apostolick Laurence Archbold Vic. For. in the Deaneries of Brea Tawney and Glandalagh F Christopher Plunket Guardian of St. Francis Convent in Dublin Fa John Dormer Guardian of St. Francis 's Order at Castle-dermot Fr Bonaventure Fitz-Gerald Guardian of Kildare F Laurence Matthews Preses of Carmel Kilken F Laur. a sancto Bernardo Paul Nash Prebend John Shee Prebend of Main James Sedgrave FINIS THE FIRST APPENDIX CONTAINING Some of those PUBLICK Instruments related unto PARTLY IN THE QUERIES AND PARTLY In several places of the precedent WORK or in the Four Treatises of this FIRST TO ME. VIZ. I. The Oath of Association or that which was the essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland as such according to that Form wherein it was taken or renewed in the year 1644. II. The Lord Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict by him and his Fellow Delegates or Sub-Delegates fulminated on the 27th of May 1648. against the Adherers to the Cessation made with Inchiquin III. The Supreme Councils Appeal interposed on the 31 of May the same year to His Holiness Pope Innocent X. from the said Censures Nuncio and His Fellow Delegates c. IV. The Articles of the Second Peace or of that on the 27th of the following January same year 1648. according to the old English computation but the 7th of February 1649. according to the new Roman stile concluded betwixt His Majesty CHARLES I. and the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by James Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Special Commissioner for His Majesty in treating and concluding that Peace V. The Declaration of the Archbishops Bishops and other Irish Prelates at Jamestown 12 Aug. 1650. against the said Marquess Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland wherein they assume to themselves the Regal Power restore again the Confederacy declare the said Marquess devested of all power c. VI. The Excommunication of the same date fulminated by the same Irish Archbishops Bishops and others against all persons whatsoever obeying any more or at any time thenceforth the said Marquess however the King 's Lieutenant Printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII The Preamble to the Oath of Association WHEREAS the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom of Ireland have been enforced to take Arms for the necessary defence and preservation as well of their Religion plotted and by many foul practices endeavoured to be quite suppressed by the Puritan Faction as likewise of their Lives Liberties and Estates and also for the defence and safeguard of His Majesties Regal Power just Prerogatives Honour State and Rights invaded upon and for that it is requisite That there should be an unanimous Consent and real Union between all the Catholicks of this Realm to maintain the Premisses and strengthen them against their Adversaries It is thought fit by them That they and whosoever shall adhere unto their Party as a Confederate should for the better assurance of their adhering fidelity and constancy to the Publick Cause take the ensuing Oath The Oath of Association I A. B. do profess swear and protest before God and his Saints and Holy Angels That I will during life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to His Heirs and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all His and their just Prerogatives Estates and Rights the power and priviledge of the Parliament of this Realm the fundamental Laws of Ireland the free exercise of the Roman-Catholick Faith and Religion throughout all this Land and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estates and Rights of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof And that I will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said Publick Cause And that I will not seek directly or indirectly any Pardon or Protection for any Act done or to be done touching the General Cause without the consent of the major part of the said Council And that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my Life and Estate assist prosecute and maintain the same So help me God and his Holy Gospel By the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland Kilkenny July 26. 1644. Upon full debate this day in open Court Assembly it is unanimously declared by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Knights and Burgesses of this House That the Oath of Association as it is already penned of Record in this House and taken by the Confederate Catholicks is full and binding without addition of any other words thereunto And it is ordered That any person or persons whatsoever who have taken or hereafter shall take the said Oath of Association and hath or shall declare by word or actions or by persuasions of others That the said Oath or any Branch thereof doth or may admit any equivocation or mental reservation if any such person or persons be shall be deemed a breaker of his and their Oath respectively and adverse to the General Cause and as a Delinquent or Delinquents for such offence shall be punished And it is further ordered That the several Ordinaries shall take special care that the Parish-Priests within their respective Diocesses shall publish and declare That any person or persons who hath or shall take
not to be hoped that We could do any thing considerable against the Rebels and We desired them if they had a mistrust of Us or dislike of Our Government that they would clearly let us know it telling them That such was Our desire of the Peoples preservation that there was nothing within Our power consistent with Our duty to the KING and sutable to Our Honour that We would not do at their desire for that end Withall letting them see that Our continuance with the name and not the power of Lord Lieutenant could bring nothing but ruine upon the Nation and dishonour upon Us so that in effect we propounded either that they would procure Us due obedience or propose some other way by Our quitting the Kingdom how it might be preserved In answer whereunto they gave Us many expressions of respect and affection and promised to endeavour the procuring of the obedience We desired then also giving Us a Paper containing some Advices or Propositions for the future conduct of Affairs All which seemed to Us to imply their desire of Our continuance in the Government and their compliance with Us though in that particular of erecting a Privy Council their itch to have a hand in the Civil and Martial Affairs was and is apparent by the ensuing Copy thereof 13th of March 1649. Remedies proposed to His EXCELLENCY for removing the Discontents and Distrusts of the People and for advancing His MAJESTIES Service presented by such of the Clergy as met at Lymerick the 8th of March 1649 and the Commissioners of Trust I. HAving joined our selves in this meeting upon Your EXCELLENCIES Summons and in compliance with Your pleasure in delivering our Sense how any life might be conserved in this gasping Kingdom The following Considerations we thought fit to be represented to Your Excellency II. It is generally thought That most of the present Distresses of the Kingdom did proceed from the want of a Privy Council as ever it was accustomed heretofore to assist the Government of this Land in War and Peace We conceive it essentially necessary That such a Council be framed of the Peers and others Natives of the Kingdom as well Spiritual as Temporal to fit with Your Excellency daily and determine all weighty Affairs of the Countrey by their counsel The Commissioners of Trust being onely entrusted for the due observation of the Articles of Peace had not the authority of Counsellors and the affairs that intrench most upon the matters of State of the Kingdom were not their study or charge III. That there be an exact Establishment of the Forces forthwith setled and agreed on directing what numbers the Army of the Kingdom shall consist of Horse and Foot what each Province shall bear what number each Regiment Troop and Company shall consist of and laying down such Rules that no payments be made but according to the number of Forces that shall be visible and extant for service and the said Establishment to be forthwith put in Execution and the said Army once established and made certain not to be multiplied or exceeded other than by solemn further establishment to be made with the consent and concurrence of the Commissioners of Trust if there be cause for it And in that Establishment a certain and sure course be taken That all the Forces have the same assurance and the like equality of payment for all the Army And in that Establishment all preventions possible to be be set down for avoiding the burthening of the People with Thorough-fare Delinquency or Free-quarter or any other Forces than those continued in the Establishment and none to have Command but in one capacity and to serve in the head of that Command otherwise not to be in Command And in the said Establishment considering the necessity the Kingdom it reduced unto the burthen of General Officers or other burthens that may be spared or not found necessary to be put by and the Kingdom at present eased thereof IV. That on the composure of that Army and on Garrisoning of places necessary to be Garrisoned exact wariness be used That none against whom just exception may be taken or who by any probability considering all circumstances cannot so well be confided in as others of this Nation be either of the number whereof those established Forces shall consist or be put or continued in Garrison V. That several places are Garrison'd without the consent or concurrence of the Commissioners of Trust It is proposed That the Forces placed in such Garrisons be forthwith removed and withdrawn and not Garrison'd but by consent of the Commissioners of Trust and that none be placed in such Garrisons but such as the Commissioners of Trust will consent to be placed therein And for particular instance of this Grievance the Castle of Clare Clonraud Ballingary and Bunratty are instanced and what else are of that nature the Commissioners of Trust are to represent and instance forthwith and see redress afforded therein to the Peoples satisfaction if any such be of that nature VI. That it is a great cause of jealousie and mistrust among the People That where Catholicks were setled or understood to be setled in some of the greatest employments of Trust in the Army they have been notwithstanding removed and put by for avoiding of those causes and grounds of mistrust the Catholicks so setled or understood to be setled in such employments are desired to be forthwith restored VII That for satisfaction of the People who in the many disorders of these times see no face of justice exercised among them a Judicature be erected according to the Articles of Peace wherein all Causes without limit between Party and Party may be heard and determined and that Judges of Assize go Circuit twice each year at least and over and besides this that some persons as Justices of Peace in Quarter-Sessions or otherwise be entrusted in each County to whom the Inhabitants of each such County may have their applications for Redress against Oppressions and Extortions hapning within that County and for Debts and other Complaints not exceeding Ten pounds This will free Your Excellency from the trouble of those multitudes of Complaints that come before You for want of other Judicatures and will leave Your Lordship the time entire to be disposed in the Consults of the State Affairs for the better management of the War and other the great Affairs that may concern the better Government of the Kingdom these being of so high a nature and so much tending to the Peoples preservation as no other matter or causes should be interposed that might give any interruption thereunto VIII That to the very great grievance and dissatisfaction of the People the Receiver General hath failed to altar his Accompts concerning the â—â—st Sums of Money levied from the People since the 17th of January 1648. though the same hath been long expected and the grievances from the Agents of Counties long foreslowed in expectation of those accompts It is
the People should be deprived of the King's authority and the benefit of the Articles of Peace is apparent by this Declaration and Excommunication wherein they direct the People to return to their Association which is inconsistent with both and by the Answer of the Bishops at Galway to the Commissioners whereof We shall have occasion to speak hereafter And where they charge Us with Envy to the Nation for doing Our Duty to the King VVe hope to have given such proof of the contrary as hath satisfied the most interested men in the Nation And VVe conceive We could not have manifested Our affection to it by a more signal instance than by offering to leave His Majesties authority in the person of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard and to withdraw Our Self to sollicite for Supplies when it was most probable they might be got finding that Our being a Protestant gave these Declarers some advantage to withdraw the People from their obedience to Us. Twelfth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency and the Lord Inchiquin when Enemies to the Catholicks being very active in unnatural execution against us and shedding the blood of poor Priests and Churchmen have shewed little of action since this Peace but for many months kept themselves in Connaught and Thomond where no danger or the Enemy appeared spending â—heir time as most men observed in Play Pleasure and great merriment while the other parts of the Kingdom were bleeding under the Sword of the Enemy This was no great argument of sense or grief in them to see a Kingdom lost to His Majesty ANSWER We are not willing to look back so far as to the time when by His Majesties Command and Commission We bore Arms in the War against the Confederates but must justifie Our Self That We were never active in unnatural execution against them but have many times suffered much Calumny for Our desire of preserving many of them that fell into Our hands as some in that Assembly can witness who were by Our means preserved and if they think fit may testifie as much But if the Declarers oppose Our being active then to Our unactivity this last Summer as an argument of Our want of desire to oppose the Enemy We answer That in the time they mention We had free Election of Officers the absolute power of Dublin and other Garrisons where We caused the Souldiers to be continually exercised their Arms kept in order and could in a short time when We pleased have drawn the Army together and marched with it where We pleased Advantages which rendred the Victories We gained full as easie as those gotten by the Enemy against Us have been upon the like advantage on their part It is true That all this last Summer We and the Lord Inchiquin have continued in Connaught and Thomond where there was no Enemy But it is also true That We were not suffered to have the means of preparing an Army fit to seek or oppose an Enemy as We have set down in Our Letter of the second of August to the Bishops at Jamestown recited formerly upon another occasion And since they here mention the Lord Inchiquin with Us We think fit to mind divers in that Assembly to whom it is well known that many of the Bishops did long since upon several occasions declare That all their suspition and the suspition the People held of Us was by reason of the power the Lord Inchiquin had with Us. And that during his continuance in employment or the continuance of any of his Party in the Army it was not possible for them to remove that suspition out of the minds of the People But that if his Lordship were once out of Command and his Party removed they doubted not full and chearful obedience would be given Us. Hereupon his Lordship voluntarily withdrew himself from having to do with the conduct of the Army yet is he by these men charged for want of activity When his Lordship had thus waved his employment and his Party were gone off and that they had wrought the like distrust of the remainder of the Party that came off to Us from Dublin and other parts so that now We were forced likewise to send them away then they judged it a fit time for them to declare also against Us. Then divers Bishops and other Churchmen changed their note and dealt underhand with the Lord Inchiquin to stay in the Kingdom though We should go saying That the distrust and dislike of the People was only against Vs and not against him Then they fell first to call their meeting at Jamestown and then to publish this Declaration from which they were with-held for fear all the time the foresaid Parties were with Us. This We suspected would be the issue of their working away the Protestant Party and of all their promises Yet to leave them wholly without excuse and to satisfie some that believed better of them We consented to part with those men of whose courage and fidelity to His Majesty and affection to Us We had good experience and cast Our Self wholly upon the assurances these Bishops and others had so often and so solemnly made to Us of giving Us and procuring for Us all possible compliance and obedience the result whereof appears in their Declaration Yet it is very well known That whenever the Enemy drew towards the Shannon side We drew together all the men We could to the defence of the passages which otherwise the Enemy had gained And whatever Our play and merriment was We had certainly as great cause to grieve at the loss of a Kingdom to His Majesty as these Declarers who have not carried themselves so towards him as to expect a greater proportion of His favour than We. Thirteenth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency when prospering put no trust of places taken in into the hands of Catholicks as that of Drogheda Dundalk Trym c. and by this his diffidence in Catholicks and by other his actions and expressions the Catholick Army had no heart to fight or to be under his Command and feared greatly if he had mastered the Enemy and with them the Commissioners of Trust or the greater part of them and many Thousands of the Kingdom also feared he would have brought the Catholick Subjects and their Religion to the old slavery ANSWER In answer to this Article VVe say that Drogheda was put into the hands and trust of Sir Arthur Ashton a Roman-Catholick and that of the Souldiers and Officers of that Garrison the greater part were of that Religion That for Trym it was governed by Mr. Daniel O Neil who though a Protestant was yet a Native of this Kingdom and one that had manifested great affection to the Nation That the greater part of the Officers and Souldiers with him were Roman-Catholicks and that the Lord Viscount Dillon a Roman-Catholick had Command over the said Daniel O Neil For Dundalk it is known that place was given up