were bound to stand or conform always or in all causes Ecclesiastical or even in any at all purely such to the sole decision made by the secular power of what was to be believed in point of Divine Faith or of what was to be acted in point of a good conscience they erre most grossely in this as they did in so many other tenets in other matters And yet all sides must confess that in such causes or in such manner Ecclesiasticks are no more exempt from the civil power then meer laymen For both equally have the same Doctors and Judges of their Faith and of their conscientious or lawful actings in relation to the laws of God or Christianity as both have the same supream civil Judges of temporal corporal and civil coercion LXXI Behold Reader in these eight last Sections which are from LXIII to LXX both inclusively taken the particular proofs or particular reasons of the Procurator's defiance to the Divines of Lovaine by his first general reason for his second answer given LXII Section to the fourth ground of the Lovaine censure For albeit as he noted before in that LXII Section he needed not have given that second answer to the said fourth ground of the Lovaine Divines the first answer which he created at length in the LXI Section immediately foregoing having sufficiently destroyed this fourth pretence of the Lovanians to witt their charging the Remonstrance of 61. and consequently all Clergiemen subscribers of it with renouncing or disclayming in Ecclesiastical exemption yet he would ex superabundanti give that very second answer you have seen in the said LXII Section videlicet That granting the Remonstrance had c. even formally and by express words declared against all pretences whatsoever of any such thing as Ecclesiastical Immunity on exemption of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream civil or temporal coercive power of the Prince or Magistrat provided still it did not declare as verely it does not against that which is indeed the real true and well grounded exemption of Clergiemen from inferiour civil Judicatories according to the respective civil laws or customs of several Kingdoms and as farre as the respective laws or customs do allow such exemption from such inferiour Judicatories yet neither the Divines of Lovaine nor any other could justly censure it therefore And the Procuratour would also give this second answer of meer purpose to dilate himself at large and at full on this subject of Ecclesiastical exemption and to ravel the whole intrigue of such tenets and arguments in this matter which have so often occasion so much trouble confusion in Christendom Which was the reason too that of meer sett purpose also he gave those two general reasons in the above LXII for this second answer of which two general reasons the first was that he defied those of Lovaine or any other Divine or Canonist in the world to shew any law divine either positive or natural or any law humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for such exemption or which is the same thing to shew any one text of holy Scripture or any one tenet of Apostolical tradition or any canon at all of the Catholick Church or even as much as any kind of passage out of the civil laws of Emperours nay as much as any one convinting or even probable argument of natural reason to prove power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream evil Prince or laws under which they live as Citizens or Subjects or literal at least reputed Citizens or Subjects And the self-same purpose of ravelling that whole intrigue was the cause he spent so much time and took so much paâ—â—â—â—â—ther too in eight long Sections to descend to and give so many particular proofs of the reasonableness of this defiance by answering for fully and clearly as he thinks he did all sorts of arguments hetherto alleadged by Bellarmine or any other against that second answer or against the subjection of Clerks to the supream civil coercive power of Princes or which is the same thing alleadged for the exemption of Clerks from this power But forasmuch as the Procuratour not onely so defied the Divines of Lovaine by that his first general reason for his second answer to their fourth ground but also by his second general reason for the same second answer confidently said writ LXII Section that on the contrary he durst undertake against the Divines of Lovaine to prove there is no such exemption nor can be and with much evidence to prove this even by clear express texts of holy Scripture in that sense the holy Fathers generally understood such texts even for a whole thousand of years I therefore now proceed to those particular proofs also of this second part or of this so confident undertaking whereby the Procuratour in his discourses of that Remonstrance more directly assumed when occasion required the person of an Assailant as in the former he did that chiefly of a Defendant And because these particular proofs or reasons given by him for this second part and the confutations of Bellarmine's replyes to some of them for some also there are which either Bellarmine saw not or if he saw them did neither well or ill replye unto will take up some few sheets more I will observe the same method I have hetherto in answering Bellarmine's arguments for his own assertions that is will treat them in several Sections apart for the Readers more easy finding and understanding what I would be at For my next Section which is in order the LXXII shall give my first three arguments whereof two are out of Bellarmine's own concessions as I shew also by further argument that in point of either Theological or Philosophical reason such concessions and even as inferring my conclusions must be made by him and all other men that will speak according to natural reason or Christian Religion And the third argument I take to be a general maxime granted by all Statists Canonists Philosophers Divines nay by all men on earth though Bellarmine hath not a word of it but tranfiently answering it as ridiculously My LXXIII Section gives at large the fourth argument which is purely Theological and is that grounded on the 13. to the Romans according to the general and unanimous exposition of that passage by the holy Fathers until the age of Gregory the Seventh My LXXIV immediatly following shall give some instances of their practices according to this their doctrine and some canons too of Popes and Councils And my LXXV some few remaining objections and answers to them But my LXXVI and last of all on this subject of Ecclesiastical Exemption or as relating to it or to the fourth ground of the Lovaine Censure shall inferr my finall conclusion out of all that is out of these next following five and out of the former eight Sections shall withal consider the meaning of the word Sacriledge of these
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
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
on the other side or even calling for them by Summons or otherwise at any time before such prejudgment given or made This I say is it that both obliges and warrants me in all reason to except against them as incompetent Judges of me or my writings in that Cause i. e. to except against their individual persons but not against their Authority placed in other men of less interested or byass'd judgment Nor certainly will this Exception appear strange or ill-grounded to such as shall be pleased to turn over in this Book not only to the many divers Letters of Roman Cardinals and Bruxel Internuncio's written at several times and upon several occasions since the year 1661 to Ireland against the same Cause and me and the rest of the Remonstrants but also to the Louain Theological Faculty's Censure * Dated at Louain 1662 Dec. 29. against it i. e. against the Loyal Irish Remonstrance and Subscribers of iâ— I pass oâ—er wholly in silence at this time the Bull of Pope Alexander VII * Dated at Rome 1665 Aug. 27. in the former cause of the Appeal made anno 1648 to Innocent X by the then Supreme Council of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland from those wicked Censures of Interdict and Excommunication fulminated that year and in that Kingdom against them and all other Irish joining with or obeying them in the Cessation of Arms concluded with the Royal Party of Protestants I say fulminated therefore against them by the Archbishop and Prince of Fermo Joannes Baptista Rinuccinus Nuncio there from the foresaid Innocent X. though a very partial inconsiderate Bull grounded falsely and given directly against all the more Loyal Irish Catholicks and given so of meer purpose to make them receive absolution in forma Ecclesiae consueta and consequently to do publick Pennance for having return'd but onely so nigh their obedience to the late King of ever blessed Memory as a meer or bare Cessation of Arms in order to the preservation of His Majesties interest when their own could not subsist without it in that Kingdom And these being the Six Appendages of so many Questions going before concerning my own constancy or inconstancy in Religion you are now at liberty to determine as to that matter what you think fit So having by this time inlarged my self I hope sufficiently enough for the information of some conviction of others and satisfaction of all ingenuous lovers of Truth having discharged my Conscience and spoken my Mind touching all the three Motives that induced me to this Dedicatory Preface to you it remains that howsoever or whatsoever you judge of me or my carriage or my writings I nevertheless continue my due regard to your Benefit and conclude this Discourse as it almost begun and for the matter proceeded all along with re-minding you most affectionately of your own and your Posterities and your Religions great Concern both in the Loyal Cause I contend for and in those happy ends at which I drive Therefore in the Apostles words Before God and our Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom by all the desires you have of your own and your Posterities living comfortably in this world as free-born Subjects in your Native Countrey and by all the hopes you have conceiv'd of enjoying that better Countrey with eternal life and rest in the world to come by all your zeal not only for the vindicating of your Religion from the scandal of Disloyalty Perjury Cruelty Inhumanity Tyranny c. both in Principles and Practices but of inviting also by taking away the grand Rock of scandal those of other Churches to save their Souls in the communion of yours or of the Roman-Catholick Church if indeed you believe there is no salvation for them otherwise and by all your godly wishes of a true understanding reconciliation union peace between all Churches professing the Name of Christ and more especially between His Majesties Protestant Subjects and your selves en fine by all that is Sacred and by all that is according to reason and grace desirable I conjure you that your selves mind as you ought that great Concern of your own and mind it both effectually and speedily without further delayes I beseech you as Christians and as Catholicks by the onely adorable name of the Holy Jesus whose Doctrine you should desire to follow above all things consider That his Kingdom was not of this world (a) John 18.36 That surely he gave neither to St. Peter himself nor to any other of his eleven or twelve Apostles separately nor even to all the same twelve or thirteen with Peter and Paul collectively taken any other sort of Kingdom or the Lieutenancy of any other Kingdom than what himself had in the dayes of his abode in flesh or as he was a mortal man before his Resurrection (b) See â—â—lâ—â—â—ius himself lib. 5. de Rom. Poâ—â—tiâ— c. 4 â—itt D. That the Keyes of Heaven and the Crowns of earthly Kingdoms import very different things That as his Father sent him (c) John 20.21 22 23. so he sent all the twelve with equal and with onely Commission to remit and retain sins viz. by his Power and by his Word and by his Sacraments but not to give or to take away Scepters or Crowns (d) Non eriâ—â—â— mortalia 〈◊〉 regna dat â—â—â—lestia by any means whatsoever That he commanded what is due to Caesar to be paid to Caesar as well as to God what is due to God (e) Matth. 22 23. That Paul the thirteenth Apostle and Vessel of Election in his Epistle to the Romans * Rom. 13.1 5. plainly declares That subjection to the supereminent secular powers which carry the Sword of Justice and receive Tributes is due from every Soul and that not onely out of fear of their Sword but for Conscience sake and for fear of hell and damnation it is due from every Soul among you even from those who are the most spiritual in profession even from those who are the most high in Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Function Priests Monks Bishops Archbishops nay were they Apostles were they Evangelists were they Prophets whosoever they were as Chrysostom spake * Chrysostom Hom. 23. in Epist Paul on this Text Rom. 1â— Omnis anima c. near Thirteen hundred years since on this very Text of the Apostle and in effect with Chrysostom all the Holy Fathers of the Christian Church before and after him for a Thousand years from the Apostles time until Gregory VII That Exemption from and much more Dominion over the said Powers ate inconsistent with Subjection to them in the same Temporal matters That other Divine right of Dominion either direct or indirect His present Holiness of Rome cannot justly pretend than what He derives from Christ by or through St. Peter nor other Humane right to any Kingdom than what the free consent of the Princes People and Municipal Laws
as well with His Grace as with His Majestie and His Majesties other great Ministers and for the rest of the Catholick people of Ireland that ease and connivence he could for what concerned the exercise of their Religion Nor onely that but as occasion offered by writing and printing and exhibiting to His Majestie Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Chancellour of England and other great Ministers of State several papers and books in Print and otherwise of his own labours to move the performance of the Peace of 48. to the Catholicks of Ireland and to mind His Majestie of his justice to Innocents and of His mercy to Nocents But in the first place laboured opportunely and importunely till he prevailed at last to get all the great number of Priests released which had been in several places and Provinces of Ireland in restraint about six-score of them and a great many for several years before His Majesties happy Restauration Wherein he was so impartial to all that although he was offered several times the release of such of those Priests as he would pass his word for that they had been honest all along in the Royal cause during the late difference betwixt the Confederats of Ireland yet he modestly and patiently declined that savour and let those his own special friends suffer with the rest until His Majesties Gracious condescension and my Lord Lieutenants goodness looked indifferently upon them all with an eye of compassion and mercy upon hopes given His Majesty that they would all prove faithful Subjects evermore II. The year 60. and 61. being passed over till the winter came and the hopes of Roman Catholicks for what was moved in their behalf in the House of Lords at Westminster concerning the repeal of laws against them at least and in the first place of those are called Sanguinary being blasted in the bud and the example of the late Irish Rebellion and breach of both peaces in 46. and 48. by some or many of those of that Religion and Nation having besides other arguments and intrigues being made use of against such as moved for such repeal and the Parliament of England being adjourned or prorogued and that of Ireland then under the Lords Justices the Chancellour the Earls of Orrery and Montrath sitting and a great plott amongst the Irish Catholicks so falsly imposed upon them grounded on the no less false and vain pretence of a letter sent by one Priest to an other but contrived onely by a perfidious fanatick impostour as appeared soon after and that Parliament of Ireland however and Lords Justices upon this ground proceeding with strange and new severity against both Clergie and Layety of that Religion and some few of the Catholick Gentry and Clergie consulting together at Dublin of a remedy Sir Richard Barnewal Richard Beling Esq Thomas Tyrrel Esq Oliver Dese Vicar general of Meath Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and others it was resolved upon at last to Remonstrate their condition to His Majestie and Petition his just and merciful regard of them that suffered so unjustly Which accordingly the said Mr. Beling drew in the name of the Catholick Clergie of Ireland Because the design was chiefly imposed on them and upon their account the Layety suffered But forasmuch as he considered that a bare Remonstrance of their sufferings or a bare Petition of redress could not much avail a people that lately had acted as they had done in obedience to the Nuncio both he and the rest of those gentlemen with whom he consulted found it necessary by a Solemn Declaration of their principles in point of obedience in temporal things to obstruct the grand objection of The inconsistency of Catholick Religion and of a tolleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State Which was the reason that one of those Gentlemen remembring they had lately seen a printed Declaration of the Catholicks of England in their name exhibited in a long Petition to the Parliament at Westminster a little before or in the beginning of the commotions of those Kingdoms about the year 1640. and lighting on the book after diligent search wherein they had read it which is that of Father Cressy an English man and a Benedictine Monke sometime before Protestant Dean of Leighlin in Ireland entituled his Exomologesis or the motives of his conversion to the Catholick Church and having brought it to Mr. Beling he judging it very proper for the present matter and purpose of the Catholicks and Clergy of Ireland and much pleased to have such a precedent as that of men so learned and wary as the Catholicks of England for a business or Declaration of that kind extracted it word by word out of the said book pag 76. 77. and 78. Paris impression without any other change but of the Application to the King instead of the Parliament and of Ireland instead of England and inserted it in that Remonstrance which he then drew for his own Countrymen Which although it hath been often already and in several pieces of mine published in Print yet forasmuch as it was that which occasioned this general Congregation at Dublin of the said Irish Clergie in 66. five years after it was in their names exhibited to His Majestie at London and because peradventure many would consider the tenour of it when they come to read this present Treatise and other Treatises following to free them of a trouble to looke after those other pieces wherein it is I have thought fit to give them it here again to their hand To the KINGS most Excellent Majesty The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgement Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergy of your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland do most humbly Represent this their present state and deplorable Condition That being intrusted by the undispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the cure of Souls and the care of their Flocks in order to the Administration of Sacraments and Teaching the People that perfect obedience which for Conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands they are loaden with Calumnies and persecuted with Severity That being obliged by the Allegiance they owe and ought to swear unto your Majesty To reveal all conspiracies and practices against your Person and Royal Authority that come to their knowledge they are themselves clamour'd against as Conspirators plotting the destruction of the English among them without any ground that may give the least colour to so foul a crime to pass for probable in the judgment of any indifferent person That their Crimes are as numerous and divers as are the Inventions of their Adversaries and because they cannot with freedom appear to justifie their Innocency all the fictions and allegations against them are received as undoubted verities and which is yet more mischievous the Laity upon whose Consciences the character of Priesthood gives them an influence suffer
compassing as yet any of his designs XXIII Likewise about the same time the R. R. Father in God Iohn Burk the Catholick Archbishop of Tuam very aged infirm and sickly and looked upon as not able to live one year longer came unexpectedly from St. Maloes and in my Lord Lieutenants absence arrived at Dublin privatly accompanied with father Thomas Quin the Jesuit and another of that Society in whose power and under whose directions this aged venerable Prelate wholy was The Procurator having done his first respects of visit to his Lordship desired to know his cause of venturing so confidently without acqainting first and having by some way addressed himself to my Lord Lieutenant and understood of some connivence for his return Minded him of the carriage and proceedings all along of the Clergy and especially of the Bishops of Waterford and Iames-stown That although his Lordship carried himself fairly and loyally in opposing the Nuncio even to his face at Galway and forced open the Church there which the Nuncio would have to observe his Interdict other Censures that he had sided all along with the Cessation supream Council at Kilkenny in that business and further too in concluding the second Peace yet he could not forget how he sullied all his former glory by his after unfortunate sitting and concurring at Iames-stown with other Bishops to those disloyal Declarations made there That he had not since by any publick or private application to His Majesty or Lord Lieutenant or by submission and repentance declared to either washed of the stain of that scandalous horrid transgression nor given any assurance of his more loyal carriage hereafter That yet both were of absolute necessity from a Prelate of highest rank such too as for example and for the satisfaction of God and men should be publick That he should therefore petition for himself and by his example induce the rest of the Irish Clergy to do the like and most humbly beg pardon for the time past and for the future sign that Remonstrance whereof to that end he had in France from London a sufficient account All which and much more to this purpose the Procurator humbly and earnestly minded him of even sometime in the presence of the above Father William Burgat Vicar General of Imly The good Archbishop heard him all out both attentively and patiently enough without sign of displeasure but return'd no other answer then That he was now so broken with age and many diseases of body that his mind also or understanding was no more of any kind of strength or capable to discern what he was to do in that or other things That he was for the matter dead already That he ventured this journey from France by Sea all along for otherwise he could not of purpose only to die and lye down at rest in his grave native soil That he would not have been to bold as to land at Dublin but that he supposed my Lord Lieutenant away thence in the Countrey at that time as it happened and that he might be carried away privatly to his own Province of Connaght without any further noise of his arrival or knowledge thereof given to my Lord Lieutenant And that being his Grace the Lord Lieutenant was now returned to Town he desired the Procurator should most humbly present his most submissive respects and make that true Apology for him of the design of his coming and desire of being connived at for so short a time as he had to drag a miserable life and end it by a death more welcome which he daily expected But the Procurator saw well enough that how infirm soever this good Archbishop was in body yet he had still sufficient apprehension and this excuse proceeded from the Fathers by whom he was led of late in all things perswading themselves his behaving himself so would give both countenance and authority enough amongst Catholicks not to themselves alone but to all others of the Clergy in denying or opposing a subscription which he had so declined That his name or extraction and his known affection sometimes formerly to the King and English Interest we 〈…〉 himself sufficiently of entertaining other scruples in that matter then those of religion and reverence to the See Apostolick And his quality of Archbishop and the only then of that Nation and Religion at home and the only moreover known to have formerly declared against the Nuncio would be a strong confirmation thereof at least might be a very probable excuse for all others of inferior degree until he had declared himself on the point All which and the use thereof notwithstanding the Procurator did well enough perceive and foresee yet he could not help having done his own duty But however advised this good Archbishop to retire as he did immediatly in a litter to Connaght where he remains ever since guided still by the same Fathers as wholly in their power The sequel whereof shall be seen hereafter in its proper place or second Part of this Narrative XXIV The Procurator therefore and by several other arguments seeing now certainly where the first obstruction to a further progress lay which should be removed and seeing that albeit the Fathers of the Society were but a very few in Ireland and most of them in or near Dublin yet their correspondency both at home and abroad especially at Rome was look't upon by most of the Pretendents in or Dependents of that Court and their own confidence withall in themselves was great partly because they had so dexterously behaved themselves in the Nuncio's quarrel that as they were perswaded much could not be objected to them on that account and partly for other causes and for that in particular of their extraction generally as for that also of some powerful Relations of some of them and albeit he saw well enough at the same time what influence the example of the Dublin Clergy in general both Parish-priests and Religious Orders of which Orders there he had only yet won the Franciscans and two of the Dominicans but none at all of the Augustinians Carmelits Cappuccins or Jesuits no more then he had none of the Parish-priests who were four or five and together with the said Regulars made fifty Priests or there abouts in that City albeit I say the Procurator saw well enough what influence the example of the Dublin Clergy in general would have upon the rest abroad in other parts of the Kingdom and that it would be to no great purpose but altogether vain to expect a concurrence from these if those had refused even there where the Lord Lieutenant and Council and Parliament sate and where notwithstanding the Dissenters had as much favour or freedom tolleration or connivence or whatever else you call it as the Subscribers and that on the other side the Dissenters had the advantage of the Subscribers at Rome and with the Generals of Orders beyond Seas of whose special favour
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
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
it is ordinary with all kind of people to speak so of all things happened to themselves or others sin only excepted God will have it so or God hath ordained so And yet no man will be so foolish as to gather out of such expressions that people mean to say there was a positive law of God or law of his known to us for the doing or being of things so or so Otherwise what a numberless infinity of positive laws of God must we assert which the world never yet heard of and such as never any one of all have been yet in Scripture or Tradition For Symmachus finally that which is alledged out of him or his Roman Synod concerns not the present dispute and at most and at best signifies no more then the sense of that Provincial Council speaking to Symmachus and their sense too delivered only in an ordinary way of speech not in any Canon and even this very speech against only the pretence of the Praetorian Praefect of Odoacer to make a law yet without the consent of the Church-men or of the Bishops and other Priests though with a good intention for the preservation of the Church-lands and Revenues and Goods or to hinder any Sale or Mortage of them by the very Bishops of Rome it self even for what concern'd them or their own peculiar See in that City In this case it was the Fathers of that Council spoke thus after they had caused the Instrument or Law of the said Praetorian Praefect or of Basilius to be read by Hormisda the Deacon Licet secundum prosecutionem venetabilium fratrum nostrorum Laurentii Eulalii Cresconii Maximi vel Stephani nec apud nos incertum habetur hanc ipsam scripturam nullius esse momenti verum tamen etiamsi aliqua posset ratione subsistere modis omnibus in Sindali Conventu provida Beatudinis Vestrae sententia enervari conveniebat in irritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret praesumendi quibuslibet Laicis quamvis religiosis vel pâ—tentibus in quacunque ciuitate quolibet modo aliquid decernere de Ecclesiasticis facultatibus quarum solis sacerdotibus disponendi indiscusse a Deo cura commissa decetur Where it is plain 1. That nothing is said or mean'd of the exemption of the persons of Church-men from the supream temporal power 2. That they neither signifie as much as their Goods or Lands to be exempt from that same power supream but only secundum subjectam materiam to be exempt so far from the subordinat Magistrate that no disposition could be made of the Church-lands or Goods or no provision either for the Church by such inferiour Magistrates how powerful or even religious and well meaning soever without the consent of the Bishops and Priests themselves 3. That much less do the Fathers of this Council signifie their lands or goods not to be subject to any publick taxes or which is it I mean do not signifie that God hath appointed their lands or goods should be exempt from all publick taxes tributes customs c. For the disposing of the Revenues or other goods of the Church to be indistinctly committed by God to Priests and that Priests should be notwithstanding lyable to publick contributions out of such Revenues or Goods for the publick necessities of the common-wealth are things very compatible in reason And here is nothing said by these Fathers to the contrary Besides we know that whatever may be said of that law so published by Basilius the Pretor or whether by the express command of Odoacer no man will deny that both the Pope and other Italian Bishops had reasons sufficient to move them not to regard it much as being made either by an Usurper or an enemy to the Emperour and who yet dared not take on himself the name of Emperour and moreover forasmuch as at that time that very same Usurper or Enemy Odoacer with whose authority it was made or published by Basilius was devested by Theodorick nay dead when the Fathers held that Synod and forasmuch too as in the same law that same Odâ—acer would have usurped also the election of the Pope to himself as Baronius and Spondanus have ad annum Christi 457. But however this be or be not it is evident here is not a sâ—llable for the exemption of Church-men or Clerks as to their persons and in criminal cause and that too by the positive law of God from the supream civil or coercive power And it is no less evident although my present purpose require not my animadaversion hereof That meer Lay-men Kings and Lords and Knights and Burgesses and Squires and Boores and even all masters of Families whatsoever in such contreys as have the laws of property might in a like or unlike controversie 'twixt themselves and the Clergy if the Clergy alone should attempt to make laws for disposing of their estates without their own consent might I say with very much right truth answer the Clergy as the Fathers did the Layety here or thus I mean mutatis mutandis verum tamen etiamsi aliqua c. provida Majestatis vestrae sententia eneruari conveniebat in iâ—ritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret quibuslibet Ecclesiasticis c. aliquid decernere de laicis facultatibus quarum solis laicis disponendi indiscussè a Deâ— cura commissa dâ—cetur And yet none of them would be therefore constrained or necessitated in point of reason to prove or to suppose a positive law of God for their own exemption as much as to their goods from the Clergy The civil or municipal laws or customs of men and which indeed are those only that make meum and tuum in the world in such a case would be ground enough for them to say that God committed the disposing of their own estates to themselves alone and not to the Clergy To wit for as much as by his general or special providence he had such or such civil laws made and for as much as he commands generally in holy Scripture as natural reason also tells us we must observe all kind of humane Ordinances of the supream civil Power and States we live in which imply no sin Therefore Symmachus and his Council are as vainly alledged by Bellarmine for a positive law of God for the exemption of Clergymen c. as any of those other Popes or Councils And therefore too from first to last I conclude against this most eminent Cardinal that indeed there is not any such positive law of God at least in our case that is for the exemption of the persons of Clergymen in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of supream temporal Princes no such positive I say as yet revealed unto us either by holy Scripture or by any Tradition For these arguments which I now have so answered are all he doth or can pretend for such a positive law of God from either albeit I confess he speaks not expresly of Tradition nor also
an ordinance in such general or rather indefinit terms for the exemption of Clerks in a criminal question from the civil-Judicatory or being it is but a command or law That none should presume to call or draw an Ecclesiastical person in a criminal question or even civil to a secular judgment against the Imperial Constitutions and Canonical Functions and whereas there was never yet any Imperial Constitution or Canonical Sanction either made before his time or in his time or after his time that exempted Clergymen in either of both sorts of questions civil or criminal from the supream civil and absolute power of the Emperour themselves or of other Kings that acknowledge neither Emperour nor Pope nor any other above themselves in their temporal government who sees not that out of this Constitution of Frederick nothing can be concluded for such exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power but only from that of subordinat inferiour and ordinary civil or secular Judicatories Besides we know Fredericks laws were only for those few Cities or Provinces that remain'd in his time which was about the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twenty and therefore could not pretend nor did pretend to prescribe laws to other Kingdoms or Kings for the exemption of Clerks either in civil or criminal causes or even to the inferiour Iudicatories of other Kings And that we know also that that law of Frederick was not imitated by the like in other Principalities not subject to him not imitated I say generally as to the exemption of Clerks in all either civil or criminal causes whatsoever from the very subordinat inferiour civil Iudicatories nor even in prima instantia So that I must conclude that Bellarmine was put to a very narrow strait for an imperial or civil law wh◠〈◊〉 pitch't on this of Frederick which was not known nor as much as 〈◊〉 of in other parts of even Europe it self as owning no subjection to Frederick And yet a law not to the purpose were it of the same authority those Imperial Constitutions were when the Orient and the Occident South and North as far as the Roman Empire was ever spread at any time or even in great Constantins days were under one Lord. An imperial or civil law in those days or of such others for some ages after which wâ—e received in the wide christian world consequently generally retained might have been to purpose if it had clearly expresly on particularly enacted any thing to our present purpose But conceived in such terms as this of Frederick coâ—lâ— not be to such purpose For it is one thing to be exempted from the subjection due to Emperours or Kings and another to be exempted a forâ— secuilâ—i from a secâ—â—â—â— Iudicatory The Emperours had under themselves and established by themselves and by their own civil laws two sorts of Iudicatories The one termâ—â—â—g meer civil or meer secular Iudicatory where peculars onely or meer â—ay men were Judges And the other termed 〈◊〉 Ecclesiastical Iudicatory where Ecclesiastical Persons only or persons depâ—â—â—â— by them were Iudgeâ— whatever the cause or question was civil or criâ—â—nal temporal or spiritual or mixt of both And both had their power which as coercive or a 〈…〉 with any coerciâ—â—â— from the Emperours and from their civil law 〈◊〉 So that the Emperours exempting any from the secular Iudicatory 〈…〉 leave or put such under the subordinat pâ—â—er of the Ecclesiastical Judges deputed by the same Emperours or by their laws Which they might have done in favour of meer lay men 〈◊〉 some lay-men and in some or many or all case whatsoever made had it been their Imperial pleasure as often they did by instances grant Epise 〈◊〉 And entiam to meer lay men and in meer lay crimes or lay causes 〈◊〉 civil and criminal at leaâ— in civil Would Bellarmine conclude therefore that those were exempted or should be in such a case and by the Emperours themselves or their laws exempted from their own supream civil coercive power in criminal causes or indeed in any whatsoever Or must it follow that because by the law of England a Lord for example 〈◊〉 be condemned or tryed in a criminal cause but by his Peers that therefore in England a Lord is exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the King himself Or that it is not by a power derived from the King thâ—â— Peer 〈…〉 condemn or free another Peer Or even that by the supream power of the King which formerly established such a law of priviledge for Peers the same law may not be justly again or upon just grounds repealed and a contrary law made in Parliament if at any time it were found by manifest experience that the Peers did manifestly and manifoldly and even to the ruine of the King and Kingdom and against the very primary intention of all priviledges and laws make use of or rather abuse such a former law or former priviledge Or finally and consequently that whatever priviledge of exemption though only from Inferiour lay Judges was so granted as before to Clerks by the supream civil power of Emperours Kings and other States was such that in case of manifest and manifold abuse even to the ruine of the publick and without any hope of amendment it could not be revoked again or moderated by another law and equal power to that which gave it before Therefore from first to last I think it is now clear enough that by the civil law no Clerks are exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of such temporal Princes or States under whom they live LXIX That neither by the Canons of the Church I am now to prove Wherein I find so little difficulty that notwithstanding the general errour so wide spread or supposed amongst as well Divines as Canonists to the contrary but introduced at first and continued after out of some passages of Councils very ill understood considered or examined I dare say boldly that not onely none of all those Councils or Canons of Councils alledged for such exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power but not even any of them alledged for their exemption from as much as the subordinat civil power of inferiour Judicatories hath any such matter at all Though my purpose here be not other then to prove this truth for what concerns the supream power only To which purpose I affirm that no where in any Council is it found that the Fathers attributed such authority to themselves as by their own sole power to exempt Clerks from lay Tribunals â— or which is the same thing to deprive secular Judges or Magistrates of power empire command judgment coercion or Iurisdiction over Clerks or which also imports the very same to prohibit the secular Judges not to take cognizance of or give sentence in the causes either civil or criminal of Clerks brought unto their tribunals or finally and it is still in effect the same
of the rest none at all The first Council then which decreed any thing concerning this point was the third Council of Carthage held Anno Domini 307. St. Augustine being one of the Fathers and subscribers of it Whereof the 9. Canon is of this tenour and very words Item placuit ut quisquis Episcoporum Praesbyterorum Diaconorum seu Clericorum cum in Ecclesia ei crimen fuerit intentatum vel civilis causa fuerit commota si relicto Ecclesiastico judioiâ— publicis judiciis purgari â—â—luerit etiamsi pro ipso fuerit prolata sententia locum suum amittat hoc in criminali judicio In civili vero perdat quod evicit si locum suum obtinere voluerit Cui enim ad eligendos judices undique patet authoritas ipse se indignum fraterno câ—nsortiâ— judicat qui de universa Ecclesia male sentiendo de judicio seculari poscit auxilium cum privatorum Christianorum causas Apostolus ad Ecclesiam deferri atque ibi determinari praecipiat Also we have ordained that if any Bishop Priest Deacon or other Clerk being charged in or before the Church with a crime or having but even a civil suit commenced against him shall decline Ecclesiastical Judgment and choose rather to have his cause tryed in publick Courts or Judicatories though he have sentence given for him yet he shall loose his place and this in a criminal judgment But in a civil that he forgo what he hath wonn if he desire to hold his place For he that is at full liberty to choose his Judges where he will shews himself unworthy of the fellowship of his bretheren when judging ill of the whole Church he sueth to secular judicatories for help whereas the Apostle commandeth that the causes of private Christians be brought to the Church and there determined Is there I beseech you any word here out of which may be gathered by any probable consequence That this Council intended to exempt Clergie-men from the jurisdiction of secular Magistrats or to declare that no Laicks are lawful Judges in any causes of the Clergie So little of any such matter that on the contrary the whole tenour shews plainly enough those Affrican Fathers beleeved that Laicks were always very legal and competent Judges in the politick or temporal causes of Clerks And shews plainly enough those Fathers endeavoured onely by this Canon to bridle the stubborness and restrain the giddiness of such Clerks as when their causes were already begun to be debated in the Church before Ecclesiastical Arbiters did nevertheless without any cause and before sentence renounce them and run to the secular Judges for a determination In which case yet this Council disallows not the sentence given by the secular Judge nor pronounceth him to be no competent Judge but onely for punishment of the levity and improbity of such a Clerk prescribes him to quit the benefit of such a sentence or els to loose his place But that those Fathers at the same time acknowledg'd the civil Magistrats to be lawful Judges of Clerks may hence be sufficiently evicted that they restrained this decree to that case onely wherein a crime is in the Church that is before an Ecclesiastical Judge charg'd on a Clergieman or a civil suit commenced against him in the Church quo crimen Clerico in Ecclesia fuerit intentatum aut civilis causa commota Out of these two cases therefore it was lawful for a Clerk notwithstanding this Canon to have recourse to lay Judicatories and secular publick Judges How clear soever this matter be yet Bellarmine would needs argue against it in his book against William Barclay cap. 34. where he tels us that himself sees in this canon many things for the exemption of Clerks Primum enim sayes he aperâ—è damnant Patres recursum ad judicia secularium Magistratuum quod certe non facerent si seculares Magistratus omni ex parte legittimi judices Ecclesiasticorum fuissent c. For first sayes he the Fathers openly condemn a recourse to secular Magistrats which truly they would not have done if the secular Magistrates were in all respects lawful judges of Ecclesiasticks For what sin or fault had it been to appeal from the judgment of the Bishop to the judgment of the President of the Province or of the Prince himself if the President or Prince were a lawful Judge not onely of the Clerk but also of the Bishop Next this Council rescinds the sentence of the secular Judg pronounced against a Clerk forasmuch as the canon decrees that a Clerk absolved in a criminal cause by a secular Judg shall loose his place and in a civil cause shall loose that which was adjudged to him and so shall in neither of both causes reap any benefit by a sentence pronounced in his behalf by a secular Judg. For albeit the Fathers decree so by way of punishment yet the punishment had been unjust if it had not been a crime for and in a Clerk to acknowledg any secular judgment Lastly because Barclay sayes this Council doth reprehend onely those Clerks that after a cause begun to be discussed before an Ecclesiastical judg transferre it to a secular which may seem to be injurious to Ecclesiastical judges let him see what the Council of Milevi of the same age and celebrated in the same Affrick sayes For thus it speaks in the Nineteenth canon Placuit ut quicumque ab Imperatore cognitinem judiciorum publicorum petierit Honore proprio privetur si autem Episcâ—pale judicium ab Imperatâ—re postulaverit nihil ei obsit It hath been our will that whoever shall of the Emperour demand the cognizance of publick judgments shall be deprived of his proper Honour but if from the Emperour any demand Episcopal Audience that such demand shall not disadvantage him Where we see the Fathers do not treat of a judgment already begun in the Court Ecclesiastical but absolutely prohibit Clerks under a most grievous penalty that they shall not have recourse to the Emperour to demand any secular discussion and yet do licence the recourse of Clerks to demand Episcopal Audience to wit for avoiding secular judgments Hetherto Bellarmine Notwithstanding all which it is always clear enough that not onely nothing at all is decreed in this canon of Carthage for the exemption of Clergiemen from secular Iudicatories but even very much against it if the canon be considered without prejudice For if it had not been lawful even I mean in point of conscience for the secular Magistrate or judg to here the causes of Clerks wherefore did not the Fathers in this Council of Carthage forbid under censures the secular Iudges themselves not to admit Clerks to their Courts or not to give judgment in their causes But here is not a word against the judges that do so Besides when the Fathers give the reason of their said decree forbidding Clerks to go spontaneously of themselves to try their causes in secular Iudicatories they
said not they decreed so because Laicks were not lawful judges in the controversies of Clerks but quod ipse se indignum fraterno consortio iudicat cui cum possit per Ecclesiastices judicari de universa Ecclesia male senâ—iendâ— de judicio seculari poscit auxilium because he renders himself unworthy of fraternal society who whereas he might be judged or have his case determined by Ecclesiastical judges men of his own fraternity entertains an ill opinion of the whole Church when he desires help of the secular judges I say therefore it is clear enough these Fathers believed that the secular Magistrate or judge might without sin and for what concern'd himself or his own person lawfully determine of the causes of Clerks whereas condemning Clerks who leaving their Bishop go to the lay Court or Bench they do not therefore or at all for any other reason condemn the secular judg himself admitting such Clerks nor condemn the Clerks themselves upon account of having recourse ad judices nonsuos to judges that were not their judges but on this other account onely that whereas they might be judg'd by Ecclesiasticks yet would not they did thereby render themselves unworthy of Ecclesiastical Society For it was by the laws in the power of a Clerk in controversy with an other Clerk to sue him before the Bishop or before the judg which was it these words of this canon did mean Cui enim ad eligendos judices undique patet authoritas c. And Clerks might be convented before the judg Ecclesiastical but yet so as a Laick Plaintiff was not bound to make use of the Court Ecclesiastical Which is it we read enacted also by Martianus the most Catholick Emperour some few years after the date of this Carthage Council in his law Cum Clericis 25. Cod. de Episcop Cleric where it is said that if the Actor will not convent a Clerk before the Bishop he may convent him before the Prefect of the Praetorium And yet the Fathers of Carthage had reasons enough to forbid Clerks to choose spontaneously this way of secular Iudicatories videlicet that they should not be thereby made rocks of scandal to seculars who as the manner is would from the pleas and contestations of Clerks take occasion often to fall into vile detraction of the very order of Clerks and that such as should be exemplars of charity to others should not fall into such contentions as they would not suffer to be taken up or composed amicably or peaceably and without noyse by their own Ecclesiastical brothers or superiours Which were the very genuine reasons moved the Apostle when he either commanded or advised the Corinthians 1. Cor. 6. to forbear sueing one an other in the publick Iudicatories of Heathens In imitation of which these Carthaginian Fathers themselves declare they made this canon Cum say they privatorum Christianorum causas Apostolus ad Ecclesiam deferri atque ibi determinari praecipiat But it is very certain the Apostle did not forbid the Corinthians to appear in publick Courts and before the lay Heathen Imperial Judges when summond by these judges or called before them by any other nor did either command or advise the Christians not to obey the sentence of these very Heathen judges in any temporal cause whatsoever civil or criminal Which not onely St. Thomas and Lyranus do expresly teach in their Commentaries on that passage to the Corinthians but our most eminent Cardinal himself is forced also expresly to confess in his foresaid Book against Barclay cap. 20. Therefore neither do the Fathers of Carthage forbid Clerks when so called upon to appear before and stand to the sentence of the lay Judges albeit they forbid Clerks to go of themselves freely or spontaneously to secular Iudicatories or to sue one an other in such Courts But let us examine yet more particularly what the Cardinal objects He sayes first that these Fathers openly condemn the recourse of Clerks to the judgments of secular Magistrats They do indeed but then onely when a Clerk may without any such recourse have his cause decided by an Ecclesiastijudg And in such case they condemn the contumacy of such a Clerk in relinquishing and contemning also thereby all his own brethren collegues and Fathers but in no case condemn the lay Plaintiff or Actor that draws a Clerk to the forum seculare or lay Court nor in any case at all condemn the lay Magistrat or Judg that pronounceth judgment either against or for a Clerk As for the sin or fault which Bellarmine desires to know what it should be committed by a Clerk who relinquishing his own Bishop goes freely of himself to the secular President for Justice if the President be a lawful judg of the Clerk or of his cause I have already said it was the sin of contempt of the Church and of scandal to others c. That I may pass over in silence the sin of disobedience and contumacy against this very Council whom other Clerks should observe as their Fathers and consequently their canons too as the most religious commands of their Fathers In the second place he sayes The Fathers rescind the sentence of a secular judg pronounced against or in the cause of a Clerk Nothing less But onely punish Clerks transgressing their canon and punish them onely too in wayes or by means or penalties sutable to their own jurisdiction For it is proper to the jurisdiction Ecclesiastical to judg whether a Clerk be worthy of that place he holdeth in the Church This canon therefore punisheth the disobedient Clerks but rescinds no sentence of the secular Judg. For it sayes onely thus Si pro ipso fuerit prolata sententia locum suum amittat hoc in criminali judicio If he have the sentence for him let him loose his place and this in a criminal judgment Behold how they call not in question the sentence of the Iudge nor command that it should be retracted or revised or that it should be discussed again in the Court Ecclesiastical whether the crime was justly charged or no after it was determined by the secular Court But only depose the Clerk that in contempt of this Canon made choice to be tryed and purged rather in the secular Court then in the Ecclesiastical In civili vero perdat quod evicerit si locum suum obtinere voluerit But if it be a civil action let him loose what he hath wâ—n by such a sentence if he will hold his place Is this to rescind the sentence of the secular Iudge Certainly even the most privat lay person may to his gifts or legacies add the like conditions as for example that the Legatee or Heir shall not sue before a Iudg for the legacy or inheritance Can such a private man therefore be said to have rescinded the sentence of the judg¿ If to private men it be lawful to bereave such as they think fit of the benefit of their own free
that exemption be indeed or truly amounts to I pass over the little value many Countries of the Pope's even very strict communion and both many great and Catholick and Classick Authors too even very great sticklers for the Papacy it self as de jure divino have for this Bull or obligation of it yea notwithstanding all the solemnity used at Rome every year in renewing it How yet they will not receive nor publish it nor suffer it to be published amongst themselves nor hold themselves obliged at all by the publication of it either at Rome or in other places Whereof as enough may be seen in Suarez and Salas de Legibus where they treat of this subject so that was a notable instance which happen'd at Brussels in Albert and Isabels Principality over the Low Countreys resigned to them for ever by the King of Spain Philip the Second when the Nuncio Apostolick there at that time an Italian Archbishop thought he had met with such a conjuncture as therein he might introduce that Bull and therefore caused it to be affixed to the gates of the great Church of St. Gudula yet by commands from the Council of Brabant and Archbishop of Mechlin it was presently torn and pulled down quia non accessit placitum Principis and therefore too any further publication or observation of it prohibited ever since Which relation I had my self from the reverend Fathers de Young and Derkennis two famous professors of Divinity in the Colledge of the Jesuits at Lovaine when I studied in that University But whether this be so or no or whether the great number of those very famous Catholick Divines quoted by Suarez and Salas and by others too who maintain stiffely that Bulla caenae obliges no man in any Diocess out of the temporal Patrimony of the Roman Bishop as neither any other Bull of the Pope at least in matters of Discipline where not legally both published and received by the particular Churches Bishops Princes Clergy and People whether I say that great number of Divines be well grounded or no in maintaining so the invalidity of this Bull of the Supper without a special publication and reception in every particular Diocess neither the one viz. of that relation of the Fathers nor the other to wit of these Divines matters one pinn For I have shewed already that whether so or no whether without such particular publication and reception obliging or not obliging according to its tenour it hath not one word or clause to prove Bellarmin's voluit if by voluit he understand what he ought to our present purpose that is if the Pope's having actually or de facto as much as in him exempted Clerks by a Decretal Epistle Bull or Brief or other Declaration whatsoever sufficient for such purpose as much as according to the doctrine of the very Roman Divines and exempted them too even from the very supream civil power it self of temporal Princes or States For I confess that if any will understand by Bellarmine's voluit a meer inclination affection or good will of Popes to do so if they had found it feasible or according to the rules of prudence to do so that is if they feared not to loose all by doing so it may be granted and ought to be granted that within this last five hundred years many Popes have been spirited so whereof that conroversie in particular of Paul the V. with the Venetians in the year 1606. is for that one Pope a very notable instance But withal it must be granted on the other side that either this is not it which Bellarmine intended by his voluit or at least that he intended nothing to even his own purpose For such a will signifies nothing because not executed The contests therefore of several Popes with several Princes or States about jurisdiction as relating to Clerks argues no more but that such Popes did suppose or at least would have others believe they did suppose Clerks already or by some former law of God or Man or by humane custom in some places left in all causes whatsoever to the Court Ecclesiastical But argues not that any of themselves or other former or latter Popes whosoever did so exempt or attempted to exempt them so And for their suppositions or euen admonitions and comminations of censures nay or actual and manifold censures fulminated in such controversies against their opposers it is apparent in Ecclesiastical History they were little regarded by Princes or States or by other particular Churches of the papal communion or by their Divines Whereof also besides the State of Venice and several other Kingdoms and Principalities we have a most singular argument in the proceedings of Philip the Second that most religious and Catholick King of Spain when after the Usurpation of the Crown of Portugal by Anthony the Bastard Prior of Crati who by the faction and countenance chiefly of the Churchmen of Portugal got himself crown'd he reduced and subdued Portugal to himself as the more lawful Heir of that Kingdom For Spondanus ad Annum Christi 1581. tells how this great Catholick King expresly refused to extend to the religious of Portugal his Act of general Indemnity which in the general Assembly of Estates held by himself at Lisbone the said year he granted all those other Portugueses had opposed his title or the Duke of Alva his General or who had submitted to the said Anthony Nay excluded positively in the same Act and from the benefit of it all the Regulars or Monks of Portugal and besides them none at all but the said Prior Anthony himself the Bastard Usurper illegitimate Sou to Prince Lodovicus Franciscus Portugallus Count Vimiosi Iohn his brother Bishop of Guardia fifty other principal ring-leaders of Anthonie's faction And tells moreover that notwithstanding the general discontent arising from such exclusion or exception and notwithstanding all the frequent expostulations and supplications to his Catholick Majesty to mitigate this rigour he could never be wrought upon until at least two thousand Priests and Monks had by several kinds of violent deaths in several places partly within Portugal it self and partly abroad in the Islands of Azoras been destroyed in the prosecution of the warr against the relicks of Anthoni's Faction whereof also many were said to have been privatly dispatch'd It is true indeed that Thuanus L. 74. quoted by Spondanus ad annum Christi 1583. relates how it was rumour'd that Philip by his Embassadours at Rome obtained a Bull wherein the Pope pardoned him the killing of two thousand persons consecrated to God by a sacred and religious life But it is also true that neither Spondanus himself though a very precise religious Catholick Bishop and a great defender of all just laws of Popes and priviledges of the Clergy nor any other Historian or Writer I have yet seen reprehends nor tells that any other Divine or Clerk or even the Pope himself did reprehend King Philip as having violated
sayes Theodorecus l. 2. c. 9. 10. maximè omnium caepit clamare orare Imperatorem ut de iniquo indignoque ejus facinore non Episcoporum Concilio sed pro tribunali judicium quaeratur seque pollicetus primum Episcoporum Clericos qui facinoris conscij erant supplicioÌ„ coercendos traditurum Stephani quoque ministros ait eodem medo puniendos esse At cum Stephanus petulanti ore illis contradiceret affirmaretque plagas non infligendas esse Clericis placuit Imperatori Magistratibus ut quaestio de facto in Regia haberetur Ad hunc modum ergo intellecta Stephani improbitate primum Episcopis qui tum aderant mandatum dant Judices ut hominem abdicent Episcopatu deinde illi ipsi eum Ecclesia penitus expellant Where you are to observe that not onely not the judgment of the fact of Murder but not even the judgment of this question of right whether the said Patriarch or Bishop Stephen of Antioch should be deposed or no is remitted to the Ecclesiastical court or to the Church or Council of Bishops but peremptory command sent by the lay Judges to the Bishops to depose him actually and by their spiritual judgment whom they the same lay Judges had already and by a civil judgment sentenced to be so deposed albeit these lay judges reserved to themselves still or to the civil power the real execution of both sentences that is the actual and corporal expulsion of Stephen from Antioch Nor is it material to object here that Constantius was an Arrian for the Arrian Bishops stood as much for the immunities of the Church and Churchmen and so did the Arrian Princes advised by them as any Catholick Bishops or Princes did when the crime objected was not diversity in religion And this crime of Stephanus was a meer lay crime and consequently a crime that by the very laws of even Constantine the great himself nay and of all other Catholick Princes after him and after Constantius his Arrian Son for many hundreds of years and even too by the very express laws of Justinian himself so long after Constantine and Constantins was even when committed by any Ecclesiastick whosoever to be tryed and judged by the civil Judg that is by the Praetor of the Province But however this matter be of Constantius whether he was then a down right Arrian or not albeit this be not material as I have now proved I am sure his brother Emperour Constans who ruled in the west was ever a zealous Consubstantialist and orthodox in all preciseness And yet our often mentioned Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople being deposed from their Sees by other Bishops and having their refuge to him that is to this Emperour Constance in the West he at their instance and earnest petition and even in a cause meerly Ecclesiastical but for the relief of innocency oppress'd wrongfully sends letters to his said brother Constantius wherein as Socrates writes l. 2. c. 12. and Sozom. l. 3. c. 9. he signifies his pleasure that three Bishops be sent from the East to give him an account of the causes why Athanasius and Paulus had been deposed nay and threatens otherwise or if the said Athanasius and Paulus upon account given were found to have been unjustly deposed and should not be restored again to make warr on Constantius Which to avoid Constantius sent him Narcissus the Cilician Theodorus the Thracian Maris the Chalcedonian and Marcus the Syrian four Bishops as after also when Constans was not satisfied with the causes which these four Bishops alleadged he actually restored Paulus and Athanasius though for a time onely for he again banished them In which procedure of Constance I believe our very Antagonists will not have the confidence to say there was any vsurpation being that such religious orthodox Bishops as this Paul and Athanasius and so rigidly observant as they of Ecclesiastical Discipline were his Authors and Petitioners to reassume the judgment of themselves albeit in a cause purely Ecclesiastical or which onely or at least chiefly concern'd a spiritual sentence of deposition of two Bishops from their Episcopal Sees pronounced against them by a Council of other Bishops But whether our said Antagonists will or no pretend therein any vsurpation I am sure the matter of fact is true as I am sure also that even natural reason it self will force them to confess there was a supream right in Constans to relieve by all due means oppressed innocy and that there was no other way so ready just and equitable as this which he took Valentinianus a Catholick Emperour also shall make up the fourth of those Instances of Princes to our purpose For he condemned by his own Imperial sentence Bishop Chronopius to the silver mines for having appealed from an Ecclesiastical sentence of 70 other Bishops L. 2. Quorum Appel C. Theodâ—s and forced him accordingly to suffer it by going to and labouring in the said mines The very same Valentinian punished by diverse banishments the Bishops Vrsicinus Gaudentius Vrsus Ruffus and several other Bishops too because their Schysmes troubled the publick peace and tranquillity Iure mansuetudinis nostrae sensibus sayes he vel divinitus damnarum est vel tranquillitate naturae ne cum delinquentium facinore legum severitate certemus ac speâ—emendationis futurae mitiorem esse vellemus correctionis injuriam quam provocat meritum nostrum Ampeli Pater charissime Augustorum Dudum Vrsicini inquietudine provocati faventes concordiae populi Christiani quâ—eti etiam Vrbis sacratissimae providentes uno interim loco intra Gallias dumtaxat perturbatorem tranquillitatis publicae statueramus jure cohiberi scilicet ne applicatione morum latae dissensionis incommodum spargeretur Verum naturae nostrae mansuâ—tudine levigati ita memorato abscedendi copiam dedimus ne ad Vrbem Romam vel certè suburbicarias regiones pedem inferat neque nequitiae suae cogitationem canetur infundere Idetiam de caeteris ervoris consortibus Gaudentio videlicet Vrso Ruffo Auxanone Auxanio Adiedo Ruffino sancimus c. Apud Baronium tom 4. an 371. n. 1. Therefore also by this instance and by this law too of Valentinian as it ought to be the chief care of Princes as incumbent on them by their publick office and duty and by the very nature of Principality or Government that the publick peace and tranquillity be preserved entire in and amongst their Citties Cittizens and other people subject to them so it must be consequently their charge to coerce the very Ecclesiasticks themselves if they disturb that peace or tranquillity Gratianus the Emperour likewise in all points Orthodox as the dareling of S. Ambrose however onely a Catechumen banish'd on the same account the Bishops Instantius Salvianus and Priscillianus and banish'd them not onely out of their episcopal Sees or Citties wherein and whereof they were Bishops but out of all countries subject to him Though after being ill advised he
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
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
the guilt of Sacriledge to refix their signatures which can be no less even formally than to say That the Remonstrance in it self is sacrilegious But that virtually and consequentially they judge it also to be either Heretical or Schismatical no other proof is requisite besides that where they say That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of the Catholick Religion For whoever sayes so of any form must virtually and consequentially say the same form is either Heretical or Schismatical or both because all judicious learned persons know very well That no things are repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion but such things as imply Heresie or Schism or both Secondly You are to consider That in their first and long original unpublish'd Censure the Louain Divines gave these four chief grounds which I have hitherto impugned in well nigh a Hundred sheets and gave them I say for their own grounds of alledging those two pretended Causes or Reasons and of their consequent Censure so as above of our Remonstrance as unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. And consequently you are to consider That being those four chief grounds of theirs are so clearly and utterly and universally ruined by me hitherto their said two pretended Causes or Reasons which had no subsistence but in those grounds must also be no less universally clearly and utterly ruined and by further consequence so likewise no less universally clearly and utterly must their said Censure be being this depends wholly on those two Reasons or Causes and these on the four grounds Thirdly You are to consider yet more particularly the grand Temerity against Prudence Falsity against Truth Injury against Justice and Scandal against Charity of this Censure by reflecting first on those Reasons or Causes given in and for it and secondly on the sense of each of those words adjectives or epithets of it and by comparing both these epithets and those causes to the several parts clauses or propositions of the Remonstrance it self analyzed into propositions or even to the whole Remonstrance as comprising all together without any such Analysts understanding now by the Remonstrance that part of it which only is in dispute the Act of Recognition with the Declarations Renunciations c. therein contained and the Petitionary address thereunto annexed To which purpose I desire the judicious learned Reader to look back to the 7 8 and 9th page of this First Part and read there once more attentively that our Remonstrance from first to last and then analyse or resolve it I mean resolve those Recognitions Declarations Renunciations Promises c. and Petitionary addresses all therein contained and analyse or resolve all into so many particular distinct propositions as they are fit or may be resolved into and after this to apply those two Reasons or Causes and each and all those adjectives or epithets of the above Louain Censure to each proposition severally nay and to all at last jointly taken And to the same purpose I desire him to consider that in no part of the Remonstrance nor in the whole taken together any obedience is promised or acknowledged or confessed to be due to our Sovereign Charles the Second or any other Temporal Prince but that which is in Civil and Temporal Affairs only and none at all in spiritual things nor in any kind of spiritual thing For so is the obedience it promises acknowledges or confesseth as due to our gracious King in His own Dominions by all his own Subjects whether Protestants or Catholicks and as due to all other absolute Princes and Supreme Governors within their own respective Dominions also and by their own respective Subjects so I say is that obedience most signally expressed and determined in formal words and in two several passages of this Remonstrance to all Civil and Temporal Affairs adding further yet and in signal formal words too that it be in such meer Civil and Temporal Affairs not universally or absolutely in all cases according to the arbitrary will or pleasure of the Prince Charles the Second but as the Laws and Rules of Government in such things in this Kingdom do require at our hands and to other such Supreme independent Princes or Magistrates according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively Whence any judicious Reader may conclude at least if he have read what I have hitherto so diffusely writ of the subjection of all even Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate in Temporal things That the Divines of Louain did most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously suppose their first Cause or Reason of their Censure viz. That our Remonstrance contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make unto them For I have demonstrated at large before that by the Law of God and Nature and by the Laws of man as well these are Ecclesiastical as Civil all men are bound to pay such obedience to their respective Kings or Supreme Magistrates And if they are so bound to pay it sure the Prince may especially when he sees Reason for it require a promise or an acknowledgment or confession or declaration of it from them and they make such promise acknowledgment c. And I am sure too that our Prince had much Reason then when that Remonstrance was made and hath yet still to expect such even a most formal promise and declaration from the Romish Clergy of Ireland and they no less to make it to Him To the same purpose yet of seeing further into the Temerity Falsity Injury and Scandal of the said Louain Censure the Reader may be pleased to reflect again once more and no less particularly on their abovesaid second Supposition Cause or Reason of it as you have seen that Louain Faculty in this their short Censure which we now handle express that second Cause viz. That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion and I desire the good Reader to apply this and compare it either to all the propositions jointly taken or to every one severally of our Remonstrance and then judge whether I have not just Reason to complain of them and tax them as I do that this which they suppose in the second place is most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously supposed or alledged by them as a Cause or Reason of their Censure For what can be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to condemn or censure a pure and meer Acknowledgment Confession Declaration or promise of Loyalty or of Allegiance Fidelity and Obedience to our Rightful and Supreme Lord and Sovereign and a promise of such in meer Temporal things made to Him by His own natural Catholick Subjects and made in a publick Remonstrance wherein those of England as well nay antecedently to as those of Ireland joyn'd than I say to condemn or censure such a publick Instrument of such a great Body containing of the
Dispensation Absolution or any other pretence or cause shall alter or make us recede from the same Fourth Paper and it given the DUKE by James Dempsy late Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare April 1. and same Year also 1664. present Lord Dillon and Milo Power FOrasmuch as we cannot own any Authority whatsoever that may be pretended in any wayes neither Spiritual nor Temporal derogatory from the right Power and Authority of His now Majesty CHARLES the Second and His lawful Successors we do therefore engage our selves to expose our Lives if and as often as occasion shall require in defence of His Majesty and His lawful Successors their Persons Crown Authority and Dignity against any Prince Potentate or power Spiritual or Temporal whatsoever who shall by force of Arms or any other way invade any of His Majesties Rights or Authority or Dignity in any of His Dominions and particularly we shall oppose to the utmost of our power all Attempts whatsoever tending to the depriving of His Majesty of any of His Rights Kingdoms or Dominions or the lessning of His Dignity Right or Authority in the Government thereof A fifth Paper yet and far more formal and material too than any of those four was given the DUKE in the month of May the same Year and given his GRACE as from or to be Subscribed by the Clergy both Secular and Regular of the City and Diocess of Dublin as in order also to and with promise of their endeavors and hopes it should be Subscribed by all the rest of Ireland so his GRACE would prevail with His MAJESTY to accept of it and be content with it in lieu of that subscribed and presented at London in 1661. But forasmuch as this Paper was not sign'd by any as neither was any of those other four only Daly's excepted but in that form wherein it was given the DUKE was disown'd generally even by the very Dublin Clergy and no man at all of them would own it as to the most material passages I say no more of it nor will trouble the Reader with a Copy here Yet this much I will advertise the Reader That if he be taken with the first perusal of any of the said Papers or Formularies he may be pleased to suspend his judgment till he first read also not only my observations on the Franciscan Formulary which he shall find in the last Section of this First Part of the First Treatise but also the Second Part of this same First Treatise which Second Part is of bare matter of Fact in the general Congregation held in 66. and read moreover my Second and Third brief Treatises following which declare the meaning of the Remonstrance framed and exhibited by that Congregation and likewise the meaning of the three first Sorbon late Propositions as applyed subscribed and presented by them also and lastly read the fifteen Propositions of the Doctrine of Allegiance which follow immediately the Fourth Treatise in this same Book And then let him judge in Gods Name according to Reason and Conscience and circumstances too of the place and persons whether any such Formulary as you see here be sufficient as from such a Clergy LXXX ABout this time being June 1664. the chief opposers of the Remonstrance of 1661. were grown too too insolent and not insolent only but extremely injurious to those who had subscribed and constantly maintain'd it as both expedient and necessary To such insolency and injuries they were encouraged by several Accidents of the last six or seven Months 1. That when the DUKE was to send with a Guard of Horse a certain Churchman of their Religion and Combination Prisoner from Dublin to Carrigfergus and for an Example to the rest albeit he was not made Prisoner upon account of not subscribing his GRACE upon Letters from the QUEEN or others at Court in behalf of the said Churchman did not command him so away as was intended but permitted him to enjoy all freedom at Dublin 2. That much about the same time another certain person whom I will not here name and a Churchman too by his calling as a Gentleman by his birth and one moreover who not only had some interest in several persons of Quality at Court and a power to persuade them but was ingenious and inventive enough to find out new pretences for any intrigue upon and for a promise made to him by some other Irish Churchmen of Five hundred pounds for his pains wrought so at Court and by his specious pretences that having to this purpose gone thither from Ireland he procured a Letter from one of the Secretaries of State to his Grace the Duke of ORMOND LORD LIEUTENANT of Ireland to suspend his farther prosecution of any endeavours for getting that Remonstrance of 1661. sign'd or pressing any other such on the Irish Clergy Albeit I confess the DUKE soon after receiving this Letter having replyed got it revoked again And that the Gentleman who procured it came so short of his expectations of the Five hundred pounds promised him that being return'd those who promised him that Sum finding all his endeavours were suddenly thwarted by a later Letter did not give him as much as Five pounds nor Five pence of it For so himself told me as he told me the particulars of his own Acting to procure the foresaid Letter but told me then only when he failed of the money and not before 3. That notwithstanding the Jesuites Dr. Daly and James Dempsy were sent for appeared and refused to sign that Remonstrance of 1661. or come home in other words to it yet they were dismissed again and both they and all other even the most violent opposers of it were as free or had as much liberty to exercise their Functions both in Countrey and City as any of the most Religious and most Affectionate Subscribers of it 4. That some of the Catholick Lawyers their own Countreymen and Friends assured them They could not by Law suffer either Banishment Imprisonment or other penalty for not subscribing it because it was a Declaration which was not yet Enacted by any Law and therefore they could not by any kind of penalty be forced to it 5. And lastly That my LORD LIEUTENANT was then forced to go for England and consequently none to look much after that business till his return besides that his return at any time in the former capacity was uncertain These five several Accidents of the last six or seven Months taken all together jointly with the general persuasion grounded on former experience that if any of the opposers of that Remonstrance of 1661. should peradventure on that pretence or other whatsoever warranted by the Laws chance to be restrain'd or imprison'd the rest abroad at liberty would get and send them for such their opposition and constancy or rather obstinacy therein sufficient contributions to maintain them in Prison and that too much better than if they were at liberty and cry them up
Accounts I have said before further'd in a high manner by the same Padre Oliva and others of that Society as a matter conducing mightily to their interest c. And yet withall I am not wholly ignorant how by whom to whom when and for what other ends quite different or disparate that promotion was here at London so lately as the year 1668 or 1669. earnestly recommended to be at Rome effectually and speedily granted Much less am I so forgetful as not to remember the manifest Arguments given to my self by the said Prelate himself about four or five years before he was made Prelate i. e. in the year 1664. that he was not called by God as Aaron was but by his own Ambition being he could not then however too early and unseasonably abstain from coming of purpose to my Chamber to importune my self as he did to take off a certain Nobleman from hindering his said promotion So early to my own knowledge did he for himself sollicite that dignity And consequently so Vn-Aaron-like was he called to it if not peradventure to melt the Ear-rings and frame the Golden Calf and lead the people back to Egypt But of this good Prelates engaging so violently and maliciously against the Remonstrants more at large and of purpose elsewhere in due time and place And so I have done my occasional Animadversions upon as well this late Letter of Oliva as upon those former of Internuncio de Vecchiis Whereupon as I have questionless by Anticipation said some things here so you good Reader are to take notice that I write this present Section now in the year 1672. when I resumed the continuation of this Work or First Treatise thereof from page 442. where at the command of others I stopt the Printer in the year 1668. And therefore you are not to wonder if in some passages of this Book you are given to understand it had been written and printed four or five years sooner than by matters here or elsewhere related you find it has That indeed of finishing and publishing it in 1668. was my design nor was it my fault that it was not compassed But for your further satisfaction herein you may turn back to my Preface LXXXV NOW if you please I will give what was consequential to Internuncio de Vecchiis message to Caron and Walsh by Gearnon For there viz. in the perclose of my Lxxxiii Section I broke off the Thread of my Discourse to insert those matters you have now immediately read in my last or Lxxxiv Section De Vecchiis not content with his said verbal message by Gearnon suddenly after writes to my Lord Aubigny the Queens grand Almoner entreating him to work at least with Caron to go to Bruxels and withall enclosing another Letter to Caron himself This to Caron you have here Reverende in Christo Pater INtelliget Paternitas Vestra ex Patre Gearnono causas propter quas confirmatio vestra in Commissarium Visitatorem Hiberniae redditur difficilis Ego tamen qui multum defero officiis Illustrissimi Domini de Aubigni voluntati Excellentissimi Pro-Regis Hiberniae optarem difficultates supradictas amovere Ad quod faciendum puto esse unicum medium si scilicet Reverentia Vestra vellet huc ad me venire tunc enim possetis conferre cum Superioribus vestri Ordinis cum aliis Theologis super vestra illa Formula quae est lapis scandali amicabiliter convenire ac in gratiam Superiorum vestrorum redire Contribuam ad haec omnem operam meam cum fructu ut spero dummodo Reverentia vestra ex parte sua velit ad eumdem finem collimare Intelligetis plura super hoc proposito a Praefato Patre Gearnono ad quem me refero unum hoc addens Reverentiam vestram posse absque timore alicujus molestiae aut ex parte Ordinis aut cujusvis alterius huc accedere prout vobis fide publica polliceor in praesenti ac spondebo etiam Dominis de Aubigni Duci Ormoniae Precabor interim Deus ut vobis inspiret illud consilium quod ad salutem vestram incrementum Orthodoxae fidei magis conduit Bruxellis 9. Januar. 1665. Paternitatis Vestrae Ama nâ—ssimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis POSTSCRIPT Cum in Martio proximo hinc Romam versus discessurus sim optarem quantocius adventum vestrum The Letter Superscribed thus Reverendo in Christo Patri Patri Red nundo Caronio Ordinis S. Francisci Londini In English thus Reverend Father in Christ FRom Father Gearnon your Paternity will understand the causes wherefore your confirmation as to the office of Commissary and Visitator of Ireland is rendred difficult Yet I who have a griat regard both unto the good offices of the most illustrious Lord Aubigny and pleasure of the most excellent Vice-Roy of Ireland could wish those difficulties removed To the compassing of which I think the only medium is that your Reverence would come hither to me For then you might confer with the Sureriours of your Order and other Divines upon that Formulary which is the Rock of Scandal and you might agree amicably and so return to the good grace or favour of your Superiours Hereunto I shall contribute all my endeavours to good purpose I hope provided that your Reverence do of your side aim at the same end Of these matters you shall understand more from the foresaid Gearnon to whom I refer my self adding only this That your Reverence may without fear of any trouble either in behalf of or from the Order or of or from any other come hither as I do on publick Faith promise you at present and will also promise to my Lords Aubigny and Duke of Ormond In the mean time I shall pray that God may inspire that counsel to you which most conduces to your salvation and increase of the Orthodox Faith Bruxels the 9th of January 1665. Your Paternities Most Loving Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal. POSTCRIPT Whereas I am next March to go hence towards Rome I could wish your speedy Arrival here The Superscription thus To the Reverend Father in Christ Father Redmund Caron of St. Francis's Order at London To both i. e. to that verbal message by Gearnon and this Letter by Aubigny however Caron demurred yet he answered civilly by Letter excusing himself to the Internuncio The truth is he was at that time not only employ'd in writing and near finishing his Latin Folio Work bearing Title Remonstrantia Hibernorum contra Louanienses but was also unwealdy and very unable for a Winter journey over Seas And yet withall I confess he declared positively several times then to my self that had he been as healthy and strong as ever yet he would not go upon any such invitation because he foresaw very well and certainly there was nothing intended but deceit and circumvention and that the Court of Rome whose slavish servants not only the Internuncio Minister Apostolick and Commissary General of
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
any kind of Peace with the Protestant Royal Party nay where all the whole Diffinitory consisting then of nine Vocals was only of those called by way of distinction the meer or more ancient Irish not as much as one of those other of the old English blood or name being elected or admitted but by a wicked Conspiracy and for the ends of the Nuncio and Owen O Neill laid by the Nuncio himself having stayed Three months at Galway i. e. near Rosserial of purpose to see all this done as himself gloried to Thomas Dese then Bishop of Meath and yet a Conspiracy never before hapned not even since the Franciscan Order was introduced into Ireland in St. Francis's own dayes by an English Nobleman Morris Fitz-Gerrald near 500 years since Nor 2. The great storm immediately after that Chapter and that same year 1647. raised at Kilkenny against Peter Walsh i. e. my self at that time one of the two actual Professors or Readers of Divinity in the Franciscan Monastery there a storm which continued against him even in that very place for seven Months which suspended him first from Preaching then prepared a Domus Disciplinae for him and this not only after a formal Appeal made to the Commissary General but also both by an express command of the Nuncio himself and by a formal sentence too of the above Diffinitory with their Provincial Makiernan come of purpose thither next dissolved the Philosophy School and presently after even also the other of Divinity then seemingly dispersed the very Professors in all six to try whether that would make him they aimed at retire at last and when he would not otherwise forc'd him by a formal Precept and under Excommunication to depart within Twenty four hours as a banishâ—d man and not enter any Sea-town or other place that had a Library yea never more to return without special Licence There having been no other true cause no nor as much as pretence or colour of all that not only severe and violent prosecution of me but utter confusion and total cessation also even of the publick Studies of the Province but that in a Sermon preached by me at a publick Exposition of the Sacrament I preached in general terms against those more publick Sins of all degrees of people and more especially the Sins of Perjury against the Oath of Association and consequently those of Disobedience and Rebellion against the Supreme Authority and that to my purpose of shewing the Judgments of God inflicted even on Christian and Catholick Nations in former times I produced some examples out of ancient History particularly out of Gildas Sapiens in his Book de Excidio Britannico which were thought to have reflected on the Nuncio and his party of Irish Ecclesiasticks and that I refused to retract that Sermon or reflection and retract it I mean in such form as they would have me do but rather when they forced me again into the Pulpit confirm'd all again though only in general terms as in the former Sermon against all such of whatever degree as found themselves guilty Behold the onely true cause or as much as pretence though somewhat strengthned as they would make themselves believe by objecting further to me but most falsly on the very moment wherein my sentence of Banishment was pronounced that they were informed I was then writing a Book for the Press And yet I confess it was a Cause which the Nuncio took so much to heart that himself in person accompanied with the Bishop of Ferns not being able to press in to the Chappel through the croud endeavoured nevertheless to send in through them to silence me in the very Pulpit and then also when I was in the heat of my exaggerations and applications And that besides when Sermon was done and his Lordship retired to his own house in great trouble and that I was by a Messenger call'd and appear'd that very Evening his Lordship gave me this short applause and entertainment Pater Valesi hodie infecisti totam Nobilitatem Hiberniae perdidisti rem nostram nimium pupugisti nos And so turn'd his back withdrawing from me Nor 3. Constantinus Mahony alias Cornelius a Sancto Patricio the Irish Jesuits Book dispersed privily that same year or precedent in all parts of that Kingdom against any Right in the Kings of England in or to Ireland whereof more hereafter in its due place Nor 4. The surprisal of the Castle of Athlone that same very year too by the Nuncio's Party and his Lordships refusing to give any effectual commands for the restoring it as he refused also to give up to secular justice Joh-Bane Parish-Priest then of Athlone in whose hands the foresaid Book against then King was found Nor 5. in the year 1649. the popular Sedition and both furious dangerous and memorable Tumult at Kilkenny of a rascal plebeian multitude of some Hundreds if not Thousands of men and women in the dusk of an Evening called together and wrought upon by the circumvention and manifest lyes of seven or eight Franciscans of the Nuncio's declared party to attempt by plain force and this even within the Franciscan Monastery there the murdering of the Reverend Commissary Caron and other Fathers with him viz. John Barnwall Reader of Divinity Antony Gearnon Guardian of Dundalk James Fitz-Simon Guardian of Montifernan Patrick Plunket Confessor to the poor Clares of Athlone and Peter Walsh actual Reader of Divinity then in that very Convent and one who so lately before viz. in the year 1646. sav'd both Mayor and Aldermen from being hang'd and the City from being plunder'd by Owen O Neill All these five several and notable matters with many other such I pass over as I have said for the same reason I had not to insist on the Nuncio's own uncanonical procedure at Galway against Brown and Dillon viz. because that after all such the Royal Party i. e. the loyal Ecclesiasticks had clearly got the better of all their Adversaries and that too in all respects and kept it until the disastrous fate of Rathmines Camp put all things again into confusion What therefore must be more proper to my present purpose is to let the Reader know 10. That if all things went so ill and cross and sadly with the loyal Ecclesiasticks at home in Ireland and worse and worse every day since the fatal chance at Rathmines in August 1649. until the whole Kingdom was utterly subdued through their own division by the Parliament Armies in 1652. even Limmerick and Galway having then yielded and the Regiments and Legions Horse and Foot of the several Provinces upon capitulation to be Transported for Spain having also then though but in several parties laid down their Arms and accordingly been Transported and with them all such Ecclesiasticks survivers of the dead and of either party as could go or had the courage to go except a few ancient men and very few others that either chose to run all hazards at home
in the late Rebellion or civil War which you please to call it or even to speak one word for so much as a general Petition to be exhibited to his Majesty imploring His Majesties gracious Pardon No there was no crime at all committed by all or any of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland not even at any time nor in any occasion or matter happened since Octob. 23. 1641 if we must believe the Bishop of Ardagh Patrick Plunker pleading for them so in express terms and the tacit approbation of his words by the Universal silence of that Assembly nam qui tacet consentire videtur according to the rule of the Canon Law But who can believe either and not rather be hence convinced that God in his just indignation had suffered those Fathers to be for their punishment so strangely infatuated against all reason common sense the knowledge of all People and their own interest too For certainly and too too notoriously so they were all along in all their affairs during the fifteen days they sate but in this particular above any other even to astonishment However the Congregation being that evening adjourned to the next morning as soon as it was late and dusky having first prepared his way I went along with the Primat to the Kings Castle where my Lord Lieutenant received him privately in his Closet none being present besides me After salutes his Grace having first placed this greatest Roman Catholick Preâ—â—â—t of Ireland by him on a seat using him also with all other civil respect which the difference of Religion and reason of State could allow entertain'd him with a short but pithy material excellent Speech or rather lesson indeed It continued about a quarter of an hour And I must confess that in my life to my remembrance I never heard so much to the purpose said either so short or so well with so much weight and gravity not only not from any Lay-person to a Church-man but not even from an Ecclesiastick to any even Laick Nor was my judgement herein single The Primat himself confessed so much even openly too next morning before the whole Congregation as soon as they were sate and some occasion was offered him to speak before them of what the Lord Lieutenants Grace had recommended to them Nay he confessâ—d it also in these very Latin words Tanquam Angelus Del loquutus est mihi rendred in English Like an Angel of God he spake unto me What the heads were may be easily guessed out of what is said before both of the Primat himself and other matters hitherto in this Second part And the words I have lost because the Paper which contain'd them Yet I remember 1. They began exactly thus You know very well it was not for your good deeds the Pope created you titular Primat of Ardmagh 2. That all the while the Lord Lieutenants Grace continued speaking the Primat never as much as once lifted up his eyes but bare headed as the Lord Lieutenant also was held them still immoveably cast down and in truth behav'd himself because so conscious to himself as like a guilty penitent Transgressor admitted to the presence of his Lord as any could 3. That when His Grace the Lord Lieutenant either asked or minded him of what conditions I had proposed for his safe return and writ to himself to France he denied again that he had received that Letter 4. That I repeated thereupon in that presence of both the same Arguments I had the day before to the Primat alone to shew the unlikelihood of this excuse or at least my extream wonder at such a chance having nevertheless let fall some other words of purpose to lessen all I could before his Grace the Lord Lieutenant this weakness of the Primats answer 5. That his said Grace notwithstanding he saw clearly enough it was a meer story yet seemed not once in the least moved not as much as to reply one word on that or other subject to contristate or afflict him more but with much civility and obliging kindness recommended to him to improve the present opportunity in the Congregation for his own and Clergies and Countries best advantage and endeavour not only to rectifie but in some measure to satisfie for whatever had been not well done at any time before and so dismissed this Prelat very much satisfied with his gracious reception These are the heads of what I remember occurred or passed betwixt His Grace and this Primat then being the only time they conferred or saw one another And yet I must here take notice to the Reader That soon after the Congregation had been dissolved the Primats own Vicar General Doctor Patrick O Daly together with an other Priest of his Diocess lately then come from Paris told my self each of them at the same time with me at Dublin they had themselves severally heard from the said Primats own mouth That indeed he had in Paris before he came away thence received that Letter of mine which he so lately denyed both to me and to the Lord Lieutenant to have received but that he dared not acknowledge it either to the Duke or me or any other should tell because he then might be justly called in question for other matters if he signed not the controverted Remonstrance which yet partly through fear of the Court of Rome and partly too for other causes he neither dared nor would sign XV. THE next day being the fifteenth of June and fifth of the Congregations sitting the Lord Lieutenant having sufficiently understood their little sense of the only end for which he permitted them to meet and further how some of them had endeavoured to highten a false report of his intentions to depart suddenly out of Town of purpose to pretend they wanted time to consult or deliberate and so excuse themselves if they gave not full satisfaction it being consequently alledged they could not with safety continue their sitting when his Grace were so departed and for this reason they were better immediately sign the Instrument prepared to their hands viz. the insignificant one of which before and which you shall see in the next Section and then without further hazard of themselves Dissolve his Grace therefore thought fit to send them by Richard Bellings Esq a second Message to be read as it was this day read to them out of a written paper publickly and exactly word by word as here followeth after the Title The LORD LIEUTENANT's Second Message to the Congregation THat I understand it is reported I intend in a few days to leave this City and that it is thence apprehended by those of the Romish Clergy now met here that they may not have time to consider of and conclude upon the business for which their meeting is permitted namely for Subscribing to the Remonstrance and Protestation subscribed and presented to His Majesty in January and February 1661 by divers of the Nobility Gentry and Romish Clergy Whereupon I think
only or at least chiefly for the confirmation of the only true Church the Roman and conviction of all Dissenters 6. That as he at London desired my Lord Aubigny the Queens great Almoner he would be pleased to make in his behalf to the Court this offer viz. That the Protestants should pitch upon such a number as they pleased of all sorts of sick persons the places and Parishes where such infirm persons lived then bring them to the most expert Physitians to have their judgments of the truth and certainty of their being without question truly sick and of the quality and inverateness of their several Diseases then carry the same diseased persons to the Protestant Clergy Ministers and Bishops to be cured by their Prayers and when these had failed of doing those any good to bring them to him publickly before as many or such as they pleased to be present and they should see that by the invocation of God and for confirmation or evidence of the Roman-Catholick Church to be the only true Church and Religion of Christ he would cure them all the same saith he which I offered at London to my Lord Aubigny and by him to the Court but was not accepted there from me I do now here again offer to you and by you to the Lord Lieutenant and Council When he had so confidently and positively answered I was much troubled at the three last Articles For I believed my Lord Clancarty told me truth And I had much cause to believe those who related his having been servant in his youth to Father Moor and from him learned the manner of Exorcizing Nor did I want the fresh memory of many other Arguments to perswade me that what ever he had done of good to any though few was by Exorcism only and only where somewhat of Possession obsession or Witchcraft intervened Besides that I could hardly doubt he did but little to any of so many as came to him sick of natural diseases only I begun therefore now inwardly in my own mind to scruple both his veracity and humility vertues I think to be expected in a worker of wonders by the pure invocation of Christ And both I scrupled the more that I observed him to blush when I objected his learning from and being a servant to Father Moor and his gifts to be confined to the only effects of bare Exorcism Then besides I considered how I had never read of any Saint in former days that put himself so freely and purposely in all places and occasions upon working of Miracles by Exorcism or otherwise much less of any that undertook so boldly at least where so little need was But again remembring that in Matt. 7.22 23. * * Multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo in nomine â—â—o damonia ejecimus in nomine tuo daemonia ejecimus in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus Et tunc confiteborillis Quia nunquam novi ves and withal considering the confidence of his offer I check'd my self However I desired him to consider well once more what he offer'd so and the consequence of his failure adding thus Father Finachty I am upon consideration of all I have from first to last heard of you inclined to think that in some occasions and to some few persons you have done some good that is that either your gift or their own Faith or at least their own strong imagination with some other natural helps hath been in some measure available to them when they came to you and you Exorcized or Crossed or Prayed over them or upon that occasion of your doing so but I am withal inclined to think you have failed the expectations of a thousand for one you have not Nay and moreover that the gift whatever it be is for Exorcizing only and not at all for curing natural Diseases I am sure Says he replying I have not failed one for a thousand I have cured and cured even of all sorts of pure Natural Diseases and what I offer I know and fear no tryal This reply made me fear the flattery or folly of some half sighted or half witted if not worse men had somewhat turn'd his brain for I dared not yet for all this entertain any determinat judgment or even scarce the least passing imagination of his being a willful Impostor Mr. Browns Relation besides the late reports and Letters from London and several other things told me for his advantage remaining still fix'd in my mind and making me rather shut my own eyes then see or freely entertain any such thought of him Which was the reason I would not any further at that time question what he had so positively averr'd himself But leaving that Subject prayed him nevertheless if not rather indeed the more to tell me when or how long since he first had found by real experience that God had bestowed these gracious gifts upon him was it then first in the Protector 's time when the reports came to us to London or was it before and what year After a little demurr he answered That long before that time when I further pressed to know was it in the time of the Confederat's and if said I so long ago it is strange I that lived constantly where the chief seat of the Confederate Assemblies and Councils and their Supream Power was even at Kilkenny whether all the Kingdom did resort did never hear one word of any such wonder-working man Notwithstanding says he it hath been so long since Pray said I hath it been as early as your being consecrated Priest Before I received any Orders at all greater or lesser Sacred or not answered he I am sorry for that said I and will give you my reason why For till now I was in good hopes your extraordinary gift in Exorcizing so effectually as you say you do might be in some measure attributed to or might be some Argument of the Authority and Power given to all Priests though given to them before they receive the Order of Priesthood or any of those called the Greater Orders even as soon as amongst the four former and lesser Orders they are ordained Exorcists But now I perceive you were a meer Lay-man and not so much as any sort of Clergy-man or Ecclesiastical person at all when first so gifted by God I was no other says he You will not be offended said I at one question more and then Iâ—le have done for this time What was I pray the very first particular whereby you assured your self experimentally then during your being a Lay-man That God had bestowed that extraordinary gift upon you Here again he demurred a little and then answered I had a brother of my own says he whose breeches the Devil stole away at night Whereupon I took a Book of Exorcisms and thence read a Prayer over him which was so effectual that the Devil restored his breeches And this was the first
conveniently be However bid him be ready and let him know we shall be ready for him within two or three days Thus my Lord Lieutenant Much about that same time Father Finachty sent and came also himself to let me know he had now stayed six whole weeks in town expecting that Licence and occasion adding that he could stay no longer for it but would depart to Connaught if not suddenly granted He withal soon after and early in the morning sends me word that he would say Mass privately in my lodging and accordingly comes and says in a private Oratory I had there my self serving him at Mass When he had done and was come down and sate at a fire for 't was Winter and cold weather ready to drink his mornings draught with a toast which was a preparing for him there he complaining of weakness and drowth by reason of the continual sweat every night whereunto he had been for some days before and then subject in comes to that same room unexpectedly Sir William Petit Knight a learned acute Physitian and great Traveller and with him an other ingenious young Gentleman Mr. Robert Southwel * * He is now Sir Robert Southwel Knight and one of the Clerks of the Council at White-Hall hath been moreover lately Envoy Extraordinary both to Portugal Castile as last of all to Flanders likewise for some years a Traveller in other parts of Europe both of them Protestants and both of my acquaintance I having known nothing of their coming or cause thereof did think they only came to see my self as at least Mr. Southwel used sometimes to do But it appeared after that Sr. William Petit was commanded by the Lord Lieutenant to go together with one Doctor Yarner an other Protestant Physitian and find me out and tell me how the sick persons were now in town and all other matters ready of their side and bid me therefore give notice thereof to Father Finachty that he might fix his day his place and company he would have present of his side Now because Sr. William could not meet then with Doctor Yarner he brought along with him Mr. Southwel who both could shew him the way to my Lodgings and was willing enough to come upon such an occasion which suspended the thoughts of many This was the cause of their coming as my Lord Lieutenant himself told me after at night for they did not as being surprized with a suddain curiosity when they saw one with me and that to their question asking me aside who it was I answered he was a person they would perhaps desire to be acquainted with even the famed Wonder-working Priest Father James Finachty For I had no sooner told them so then without any further reply or Ceremony they both go to the fire where he sate and sitting down by him who seemed at first to take no great notice of them Sir William Petty being next him begins to speaks to him in this manner or at least I am sure to this purpose Father I have of a long time heard much of you and lately much more than formerly For my own part I am on this occasion and for what concerns Religion as a piece of white Paper You may write in my Soul what you please as to the way of worshipping God if you attest that way by plain Miracle And therefore if you do by your Prayer remove this Wart which you see on my finger and thereupon shewed that finger of his hand and the Wart thereon I will presently declare my self of your Religion So soon as I had heard Sir William out I thought it high time for me to interpose as knowing his acuteness in Philosophy and Father Finachty's dulness even in matters of Divinity And therefore I desired Sir William to consider better of what he proposed and how unsutable it was to the ordinary custom we read of Saints invoking God and applying themselves immediately to him for a favour above nature to such as desired their intercession This was or only or doubtless customarily to ease them and cure them of some disease or evil which was an affliction to them and could otherwise have no help for it in their own power That this Wart could not be said to be such because either he could easily remove it by many sorts of natural applications known well to himself or if he could not that yet it brought neither pain nor deformity nor other inconveniency with it And therefore such demand of his side and such attempt of Father Finachty could be no less in either than a manifest temptation of God even that kind of sin which Divines with much reason teach to be very mortal in it self and abominable to God Besides let me tell you Sir William said I adding to what I now immediately related that unless you bring along with you a great Faith in God and very pious disposition of your Soul you can expect no Wonders to be done for your sake not even there where otherwise the subject matter could not be denyed to be fit enough Read St. Mark the Evangelist * * Et non polerat ibi virtutem ullam facere nisi paucos infirmos impositis manibus curavit mirabatur propter incredulitatem eorum Marc. 6. vers 5. 6. c. 6. and you shall find that not even our Saviour Christ himself could work Wonders in his own Country where the people were incredulous and that he therefore admired their incredulity to be such as hindred him This I added purposely because I would forestall his further tempting of that weak man Father Finachty and obviate his consecutions to be drawn from any failure he should peradventure see And it indeed together with what I said before made Sir William so considerative that he not only quitted insisting on the removal of his Wart but desired to read that Chapter and passage in Mark which I alledged and accordingly did presently read it even in the Protestant English Bible which I called for of purpose to satisfie him Which being over he recollects himself again and attacks anew Father Finachty telling him That he had in truth an infirmity was very troublesome to him I am purblind Father says he I can read at such or such a distance very near my eyes but cannot a word at any other wherein others do If you will cure me of this troublesome infirmity I shall humbly and religiously acknowledge as I ought Gods both merciful and wonderful hand therein I had by chance walked over towards the Window on the other side of the room when and as soon as Sir William had ended these few words of his later proposal But sooner then I was half way returned back I saw Father Finachey first standing up then saying to Sir William Let us try and then also immediately advancing a few steps and kneeling his back being turned to them and his face to the wall and consequently by private prayer to
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
determining at all whether the King or his inferior Courts or Judges may or may not justly and by their own proper supream or subordinat civil authority and expresly against the Popes decrees proceed against such criminals according to the present municipal lawes of the land nor determining whether such Ecclesiastick criminals may in conscience where they may or can choose subject themselves in such cases as wherein by the Canons of the Roman Church they are exempt from the power and punishment of the secular Magistrat and his lawes unless or until they be delivered over to him by the Church albeit the subscribers of that Remonstrance of 61. were then are now and will so continue principled in conscience and doctrine that by the lawes of God no Canons of the Church may exempt any Church-men of what rank or degree soever no more then they can meer Lay-men from either the directive or coercive supream temporal power of such Kings as have not any other superior in their temporals but God alone nor against their wills or lawes from their courts or subordinat Judges though it be most conformable to the law of God and nature that Princes should for the reverence of the sacred function exempt them generally from the power of inferior or subordinat judicatures and leave them to be punished by their own Ecclesiastical superiors if not in such cases or contingencies as they shall find their said Ecclesiastical superiors to be unwilling or unfitting or to be involved themselves in the same crimes or the chief Patrons of them But however this be in truth and whatever the subscribers of 61. think or think not of this matter and whether the foresaid two lines which finally conclude their said sequel petition and resignation imply formally or virtually or any way at all such renunciation of Ecclesiastical immunity or implye it not in any kind of manner yet for as much as upon many occasions great use has been made as I have said before of the above objections though as often cleerly and throughly solved as made against the Remonstrance of 61. and that in this other of 66. the contrivers and promoters of it have intirely omitted that passage both as to the words and sense and I mean that sense which they themselves conceive or certainly would have others conceive of purpose to render that passage and by and for it the whole foresaid Remonstrance of 61. odious and scandalous and for as much also as from persons so principled in that point of Clergie mens exemption there can be no assurance to the King by general words and notions or by such too too general acknowledgements protestations declarations and promises of any real true and significant subjection intended or promised by them but such only as leaves them alwayes at liberty that is free from the supream temporal Coercive power of the King and his laws and leaves them not so much as under an inward obligation of sin to conform outwardly or submit as much as to the direction or directive part virtue or power of any kind of Temporal or civil Magistrat or laws but only under such an unsignificant obligation as these words ex aequo et bono import and for as much further as until they declare sufficiently that is cleerly expresly and particularly against this dangerous false and scandalous doctrine it must in reason be to no purpose for them to offer or for His Majestie to receive any kind of Protestation of Allegiance from them therefore I found this alteration and omission of the said two lines nothing equivalent as to that sense how injuriously or invidiously soever conceived by them being in their own Remonstrance given in lieu thereof I say I found that change a most material exception and if not a greater at least as great as any of all the former Leaving to the judicious Reader to be considered soberly and coolely what according to such doctrine of the exemption or immunity of Clergy-men signifies any word acknowledgment protestation declaration or promise as from such Clergy-men in their Remonstrance even in case there had been no other Exception to it What those words which are their very first beginning of it We your Majesties Subjects the Roman Catholtck Clergy of Ireland c Or whether from such men so principled in this matter these words must be construed or understood to import any more then that they profess themselves verbally not really equivocally not univocally Subjects Or do not they withal and at the same time perswade themselves and stiffely maintain that however in word they complement yet in deed they are not Subjects either in soul or body not even in any kind of case to any civil or temporal power or law on earth as barely such Or doth the Kings Majesty pretend his own to be other then barely and only such that is temporal and civil And so I conclude all my four Instances Which especially the second and fourth or this last I confess might be comprized in a fewer Lines But I chose this method of purpose to make the weaker sort of capacities to understand at large the causes of dissatisfaction my Lord Lieutenant and Council have in this Remonstrance of the foresaid late Assembly how specious soever it may appear at first reading to such as are not throughly acquainted with the intrigues And now to those Instances and Exceptions will only add in brief two Observations more Which especially the first of them confirm evidently enough to any indifferent man that is not a fool how little how weak and frail and false the assurance is the King can derive from such a Remonstrance of such men and in such a country and time as this First Observation That upon the sole account of their express refusal on the contradictory publick debate in the Assembly to petition his Majesty as you have seen at large in the Narrative whlch goes before the Exceptions for pardon of those crimes or offences chargable on them as committed by them or any of them or any else of the Irish Clergie by reason or occasion of the first Insurrection 23. Octob. in 41. or of the after conjunction of the rest of the Irish Catholicks the same or following year in a social war with the first Insurrectors or by reason or occasion in particular of the Clergies general Congregation at Waterford under the Nuncios Authority and their Declaration therein and those other actings afterwards in pursuance thereof in the next general Assembly of the three Estates in Kilkenny against the peace of 46. or of the total breach and publick rejection of it in all parts of the Kingdom or by reason or occasion also of the Declarations of the Bishops at Jamesstown against the second Peace or that which followed in 48. and of the consequent breaches thereof by so many other persons and parties and in so many other Provinces and Counties of the Kingdom I say that upon the sole account of
that We know what Innocent the Tenth and his Congregation have decreed against the three Negative propositions of the Catholicks of England We know moreover the brief of Paul the Fifth against the Oath of Allegiance Finally we know many other decrees and Canons made by several former Popes against all kind of Oathes and obligations of Allegiance to Schismaticks Hereticks or excommunicated Princes and even I say to all such as they deem such whether they be such or no indeed I could add that we know also what the Doctrine or Maximes of the Court of Rome is in particular concerning Clergie-mens exemption from the secular power and how they hold it unlawful for such men to Swear any Allegiance contrary to their own Canons or their own interpretation of the Canons And yet the Congregation would make the world believe they have by those their three additional propositions supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance But let fooles and ignorant persons believe them I am sure no wise man acquainted with the business will No nor would be induced to think that although they had come throughly home in express words as they did not at all nor any way neer and came home so as to all particulars and to the very points both in their Remonstrance and propositions added yet that only denying at the same time and with so little reason and so much passion preoccupation and obstinacy to sign those other three of Sorbon applyed to His Majesty and themselves in the case would be argument enough to evict even from themselves a confession of this certain truth that they were obstinatly resolved to give no real assurance to His Majesty of their future obedience or faith to him either by their Remonstrance or propositions or both or any other sufficient manner and that accordingly they gave none The third argument is ab intrinseco properly or from and grounded on the significancy or rather unsignificancy of the very propositions in themselves as such and without relation to the two former arguments which are though otherwise convincing enough derived from and grounded on circumstances more extrinsecal It is from the bare words and sense or meaning the leading persons or chief Divines of the congregation have conceive or would or intend only to express by these words It is from and on their distinctions of and specifical exceptions from the too too great generality of what the words may to some import though not to others And in a word it is further derived from and grounded on their abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations in these very three propositions no less then in their Remonstrance Albeit they would impose on such as they thought fit and whilst they thought it fit that by these additional propositions they supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance as at the same time they would let others know and shew them cleerly too they signified nothing at all as to the points controverted that is signified nothing or brought no obligation on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free by force of Arms to maintain any quarrel or cause against him Which to evince I will here again repeat the propositions or declarations as they are subscribed by them 1. Wee the undernamed 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 yea we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in civil and temporal affairs 2. That it is our Doctrin that our Gracious King Charles the Second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil or temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be our constant Doctrine from which we shall never recede 3. That it is our Doctrine that we Subjects owe so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can ever dispense with or free us of the same Now to pass by that Negative manner of expression in the former part of their first proposition and how unsignificant such must be from them who sees not their obvious equivocation in these words It is not our Doctrine on such as they list they will thereby impose and to others they tell that it is not indeed their Doctrine but the Doctrine of so many great and holy Pontiffs of the See of Rome and very expresly too and in many instances these five or six hundred years the Doctrine of Gregories the Seventh and Ninth and of Pascehals and Urbans and Innocents and of Boniface the Eight even in that publick extravagant Vnam Sanctam inserted in the body of the Canon law and of Sixtus's and Pius's yea and of Alexander the Seventh that now governs that See the Doctrine of all their Courts for so many ages and of so many Bishops Cardinals and other Prelats and Doctors of Nuncius's Internuncius's and other Ministers and messengers of Popes that in several Countries and in several occasions taught and maintained it by word and writing amongst whom as Bellarmine and Baronius and Peron and Lessius and Becan and Gretzer Fitzherbert Weston and Parsons have in their own dayes after those Seventy two other writers whom Bellarmine quotes against Barclay some sixty years agoe been very eminent so in ours and very lately nay and continually too any time these four years past Cardinal Francis Barberine at Rome and the two immediatly succeeding Internuncius's at Bruxels De Vecohys and Rospigliosi and the Divines of Lovayn have shewed themselves no less vehement by censuring as much as in them the protestation of 61. of the Catholick Bishop of Dromore of Fa. Peter Walsh and other Irish Divines and after them of others the Nobility and Gentry of that Nation So that our Gentlemen of the Congregation of 66. will by this gloss or explication of their word Our where they say it is not our Doctrine or by that equivocation or distinction elude at pleasure this Declaration as to any honest meaning They will say they have declared it is not our Doctrine that is It is not a Doctrine whereof we are the Authors or it is not a Doctrine proper particular and peculiar to us alone or which only we do teach or maintain or which we have broached or set on foot And will say nevertheless nay rather the more that for as much as it is the Doctrine of so many great men nay and of so many great and Holy Bishops of Rome at least these full six hundred years and that expresly and clearly too even in their very Canons it is consequently the Doctrine of the Church for they account the Pope and Church the same thing And therefore must not be disavowed or opposed by the faithful when there is occasion to follow or practice it So that they will say that in one sense they may
this Kingdom and in that particular too that the Pope could not depose Bishops in Ireland against the same Canons for that their third allegation I say it appears already out of all hiterto said to be even as to both branches of this fourth proposition or in relation to the said branches more than positively more than abundantly false especially if we understand by the Kings authority rights c. what honest men without Sophistry understand For if we do not the allegation must be to no purpose though it should relate only to the first branch as appears manifestly out of what is before said to their first and second allegation And for the second branch or part of the said fourth proposition they have not as much as any kind of colour to say that in their Remonstrance or three first Propositions they have as much as glanced at it Which the Reader may see with his own eyes and of himself without any further proof of mine conclude evidently by comparing together this fourth Proposition and their said three former Propositions and Remonstrance What ground then had they for this third Sophistical allegation of a more positiveness I confess that notwithstanding I have read and read again ten times over and over their said Remonstrance and three Propositions signed by them and compared both to this fourth I see none at all but that very vnsignificant and sorry one which is by a little inconsiderable change of the first Proposition which the Congregation was absolutly necessitated unto if they would not be convinced by every Soul that knew their former actions of a manifest untruth and lye For the first Proposition of Sorbone declaring in the second part that the said Faculty had always or at all times thitherto resisted or opposed even such as attributed to the Pope as much as an indirect authority or an indirect authority alone over the temporals of the most Christian King it is manifest our Congregation could not imitate Sorbone as to that part or I mean for what concerned the time past or could not have said as those of that Faculty did in these words immo semper obstitisse Pacultatem eriant ijs qui indirectam tantummodo voluerunt esse illum authoritatem Which was the reason that forced them to change the Precerpâ—â— perfect tense of the infinitive moode which tense the Sorbonists did and justy could make use of as they framed that first Proposition and change it to the future tense of the Indicative moode and put it into this form we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in Civil and temporal affairs Now what more positiveness hath this of the future tense argued I would fain know of any man And other argument than this sorry though necessary change I see none if not peradventure the words natural and just added to obedience in the third Proposition Epithets not made use of here by Sorbone be not thought by Father N. N. to be arguments of more positiveness But if he do and shew himself herein less than a Sophister every understanding man can tell him presently that where Sorbone sayes and declares in the said third Proposition their doctrine to be quod Subditi fidem et obedientiam Regi Chriâ—â—tae nissim it a debent ut ab ijs nullo praetextu dispensari possint it was needless to add those or any other Epithets to that faith and obedience which they profess there to be so due from his own Subjects to the most Christian King that under no pretext soever they may be dispensed with therein For certainly every man knowes there is no faith or obedience due from them to him but natural and just as neither can be from us to our own King So that albeit those Epithets be good yet they and nothing to the French proposition much less more positiveness in the declaration And whither the word faith which the Sorboniâ—â— have in this their third Proposition and yet is omitted in the same by our Congregation whither purposely or not I know not certainly do argue a less positiveness of less â—ye or obligation I leave it to others to determine Having done with their second Paragraph we are now come to their third Which I give likewise at length and in then own words As to the 5th they mean the 5th Sorbone Proposition as here in terminis that it is noe the doctrine of the Faculty but applied to the Congregation That it is not our doctrine that the Pope is above the general Couneâ— We thought it likewise not material to our affaire to talke of a School-question of Divinity controverted in all Catholick Vniversities of the world whether the Pope be above general Councils or no whether he can annul the Acts of a general Council or no dissolve the general Council or whither contrary-wise the Council can depose the Pope c. Secondly we conceive it not onely impertinent but dangerous in its consequence and unseasonable to talke of a question which without any profit either to the King or his Subjects may breed jealousy between the King and his Subjects or may give the least overture to such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late sad experience hath taught us Where I observe two Specifical reasons and no more given by them for the applicableness to their present purpose here of their above first general pretence The first is that whether the Pope be above a general Council or no is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities The second that their subscription to the fifth Proposition of Paris or to their resolve on this question would give others to understand it must consequently follow it is not their doctrine that the King is above the Parliament It seems they were put to very narrow shifts when they stuffed their Paper with such weak arguments But the illness of the cause afforded them no better and their resolution not to subscibe having been so unalterable as it was they must have pretended the most specious they could not certainly out of any hope to render by such pretences their obstinacie excusable with any judicious knowing men much less to impose on the Lord Lieutenant for whose immediat satisfaction they would have others believe these reasons and arguments were so digested but for a quite other design which was to abuse the multitude or vulgar by pretences of reasons and arguments whereof the common People could not understand the weakness whom therefore I have thought paines-worthy to disabuse by these following answers And first to their first argument which sayeth it is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities whether the Pope be above a general Council or not and therefore concludes the immaterialness and impertinency of their subscription to that 5th of Paris or to this It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council it is answered That those of
think the adhering to such Agreements were a sin Landorpius 1598. And though at the commencement of the Peace 'twixt Matthias Caesar and the Protestants there was some opposition at first made by Melinus the Nuncio Apostolick and by the Bishop of Vienna yet publish'd they no Excommunication nor other Censures which notwithstanding they should if none could in Conscience adhere to a Peace giving so much power and liberty to Protestants Whereas therefore the Supreme Council and Confederate Catholicks have in a miserable condition articled more honourably and securely for the Faith even in a Cessation than Caesars and Monarchs who commanded Mines of Gold and had vast Armies at their beck have done concluding either Cessations or Peace and whereas great utility arising thence to the Catholick cause besides the extream necessity of the affairs of the Kingdom pressed your Honours to it either of which to wit profit or necessity is sufficient to make conscionable a Cessation Peace or League with Hereticks as the Lord Nuncio himself admitteth in some of his Letters to your Lordships and no man of Learning hath ever yet denied nor can deny with reason and whereas likewise the Articles contain nothing evil of its own nature or present circumstances but rather much to the advancement of Religion and Virtue how can the said Cessation for the whole or any part be against Religion unless peradventure we admit a truth of contradictories in point of Cessation and Religion How in it any just ground for Excommunication since this ground is not but where sin is and these Articles are so far from being sinful as no Confederate Catholick can reject the Cessation without mortal sin both that of disobedience against the Supreme Civil power in a civil business of so great weight and of perjury against his Oath which binds him to obey their orders nay nor these who embraced it can without a third mortal sin which is that of breach of fidelity even with Sectaries in a matter of moment and where the object implies no evil Shall they then be excommunicated for not committing so many mortal sins for practising the acts of virtues opposite It is an untollerable Errour to think it Neither do they weaken these our grounds who object the Declaration made by the Lord Nuncio and Congregation against the Cessation and before it was concluded as though it were unlawful after that Declaration which before was conscionable for who sees not but the said Declaration as is manifest in the words of it did presuppose unlawfulness in the nature of that agreement which was then to be made and that therefore it was issued to admonish the people and divert them from it which was in it self thought evil not evil by reason of any protestation or manifestation made thereof by the Clergy who certainly by no means would confess it was their own Declaration that made it unlawful Whence further is consequent That since we have proved it implieth no evil in it self or before the Declaration issued so it cannot by vertue of the Declaration Besides this Declaration was no command and therefore in case the Prelates had a just ground for it could not make that unlawful which before was lawful Moreover it shall appear in our answer to the next Querie That the Cessation concluded was not the same against which the Declaration issued and consequently could not be made unlawful by it Neither likewise is it worth the regarding what is unreasonably objected of two Counties given by the Council and by vertue of this Cessation to Inchiquin namely Waterford and Kierry It is manifest to all Ireland there was nothing left him but far less by two whole Counties than he commanded or had under contribution before this agreement was made For the Confederates have gotten from him the Counties of Limerick and Tipperary both which were wholly over-run at his pleasure and contributed lower Ormond only excepted The Second Querie answered THat by what we hitherto said is proved That your Honours for disannulling the said monitory Excommunication and Interdict needed not at least in foro poli to have made any appeal since they were altogether groundless and hence not only unjust but also invalid even of their own nature and in themselves before any appeal Which briefly may be declared out of the two plain Errors contained in the sentence of these Censures and in the proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and Delegates as we humbly conceive and with reverence to their Lordships One is that in the sentence of Excommunication and Interdict there is relation to the former Articles against which the Declaration was made at first but were after mended with better in their place as we have already touched and yet as if the Cessation had been concluded on such rejected Articles the Censures proceed against it Which is an Error in the substance of the matter prohibited or commanded And consequently disannulling it if there had been no other cause forasmuch as it might be said to concern the Cessation actually now in being The second is an Error properly called intollerable though not juris but facti not patenter expressus according to the phrase of the Law in words but too too evident in effect and in that which the sentence both commands and prohibits which by the consent of Canons (z) c. Venerabilibus §. potest quoque de sentent excom in 6. cap. Per tuas §. Nos igitur ext cod tit Tol. l. 1. c. x. Candidus disq 22. a. 24. de Cens dub 3. ubi citat Sotum in 4. d. 12. q. 1. a. 2. Sua. in tom 5. de Cen disp 4. sect 7. n. 32. Ubi etiam habet quod quando Censura est sic nulla in utroque foro now est necessarjuin petere absolutionem ad cautciam hic etium Heniq l. 13. de excom c. 15. Sayrus l. 1. de Cens cap. 16 c. and Doctors renders the sentence of no force yea in case it were only an intollerable Error of fact specially when it enjoins the commission of sin 'T is That the said Sentence and Censures prohibit in effect and against the Laws of God Fidelity in lawful Promises Religion in Sacred Oaths and Obedience to the Supreme Civil power in matters concerning the Temporal government and of their own nature and by all right depending of Civil Jurisdiction and in which as we have sufficiently manifested in the first Querie no sin is implied That likewise they commanded breach of Faith Perjury and Disobedience yea we may boldly say it as we wofully feel it Sedition and Rebellion against the Kingdom and Confederacy Whence it is manifestly consequent that the Censures were invalid even before the Appeal But in case we admitted these Censures to have been valid until the Appeal or that they would be valid and binding after the ninth day which was the last of the dayes given for admonishment and deliberation if within the term prefixed by the
for such proceedings and Censures cannot be either justly or validly but from persons who are Judges in the case and whose Jurisdiction is not suspended in the same cause Hence is manifest That the Lord Nuncio â—s renovation and confirmation in his Apostles refutatories of his former sentence his execution of the Interdict and all other his proceedings against any of the Confederates on this ground and since the Appeal are unjust and invalid for what either concerns Conscience or the Canons do determine Which is further proved out of cap. Dilectis filiis 55. de Appellat § Quia vero Where Innocent the III. decreed against the Dean of Altisiodorum for having proceeded to the execution of an Interdict notwithstanding and after an Appeal made to Rome The reason of which Decree the Pope gives in these words Cum Appellatione ad fidem Apostolicam interposit a nihil debuerit innovari Where likewise he declares for the same reason That the Excommunication pronounced by the Archbishop of Sein or Senonensis against the same Dean and denunciation made to have been of no force from the beginning and that the said Archbishops Canons did without guilt notwithstanding the denunciation communicate with the Dean so censured and lastly that all proceedings attempted after the Appeal were in themselves void as he does by his Decree disannul them yielding for reason that the accessory is of the same nature with the principal which we have before touched Can we desire any more Canons more pertinent or fitting our purpose it's needless we alledge them though many more we have But because peradventure besides these Tears of Law the sense of Doctors may yet be expected let the Authors seen in the opposit margin (e) Candidus disq 22. art 39. dub 4. ubi citat Lopez par 2. tr de clavibus cap. 12. Pal. in 4. d. S. q. 1. art 4. con 2. Sayrum lib. 1. de Censur cap. 16. n. â—3 Bonac too 1. tract de Censur d. 1. q. 2. punc 2. numer 3. Diana P. 5. T. 3. R. 30. Silvester verb. Appellat Hieron Rodriq ibi Porte eod verb. be read and it will be found that the common Doctrine of Summists Divines and Canonists hath hitherto been That a just Appeal of it self and presently when 't is made devolves the cause to a higher Tribunal suspends the sentence given and withal hinders the inferiour Judge from proceeding any further All which the Doctors comprehend in the double effect which they say is necessarily annexed to a just Appeal to wit devolving and suspending Now for a just Appeal (f) Cand. supr disq 3. reliqui apud ipsum Candidus Boâ—acina Sayrus and others commonly affirm two only conditions are necessary The first that it be made with expression of sufficient probable or likely causes or such as the Appellant thinks bona fide are just probable likely or sufficient motives for appealing but that no other expression or of any other causes is acquired And truly with the Doctors herein the very Canons and Glosses do concur cap. ut debitus (g) Cap. Bonae memoriae §. Praemissâ—s extr de Appel Praemissis igitur diligenter inspectis praedictoâ— Aâ—batem Monachos in eum statum in quo tempore Appellationis lactae ex versimilibus probabilibus ad nos legitime interpositae nostuntur proprietatis parti uttilibet salvo Jure decernimus reducendos ac fructus mediâ— temporis perceptos câ—nsuimus parâ—â—r assignandos eisdem verb. ex rationabili ext de Appellat cap. Dilectis filiis 55. verb. Legitime eod tit cap. Cordi nobis eod tit in 6. often in the case of the Glos and c. Bona memoria § Praemissis ext eod tit where Innocentius III. clearly determines the Appeal to be just and the causes of the Appeal to be sufficient when it is made ex probabilibus aut verisimilibus that is when they are probable or seeming true though indeed they be not in themselves true It sufficeth therefore sayes the Glosse (h) Glossa ibid. Sufficit ergo quod sit probabilis causa Appellationis licet non sit vera vel necessaria Talis videlicet debet esse quod si esset probata legitima esset tunc valet Appellatiâ— further declaring this matter that the cause of Appeal seem probable though it be not certain or true It is enough it be such as being proved may seem lawful for then the Appeal is valid The very same in effect is affirmed by Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis (i) Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis de Appellat in 6. Causa rationabilis ad appellandum aâ— interloquutoria vel gravamine aliquo illa est quae si esset vera deberet legitima reputari aut quae si esset vera necessario inferret appellantem fuisse gravatum de Appellat in 6. as may be read in the margin The second condition necessary and which accomplisheth a just Appeal is that it be made and tendered to the Judge from whom before the dayes prefixed for admonishment or the condition be fulfilled when the Appeal is from a conditional Excommunication Censure or sentence as that against the adherents to the Cessation was or at least within the time limited for entring Appeals That both conditions have been observed punctually in the Appeal made by the Council in their own and in the name of all the rest of the Confederates is apparent to all have read it who have weighed the motives therein expressed and noted the dates both of it and of the sentence against which it was interposed this having been of the 27th of May 1648. and that of the last of the same month dispatch'd away presently to their Lordships the Nuncio and his Delegates But of the second condition there is no controversie All the question is of the first that is Whether the causes or motives of the Appeal were sufficient Yet even herein we see no difficulty Doubtless the Council and many Thousands more of the Confederates were persuaded bona fide that the Nuncio proceeded with due observation of his Lordship may it be said unjustly and that they had expressed before his Lordship most just motives to appeal from his Censures and complain to his Holiness of such proceeding Which bona fides alone would suffice us for securing our own Consciences in opposing his sentence and in hindring to our power the execution of his Censures and all his other proceedings on the same ground yea though the motives were only just in the opinion of the Appellants Which is the doctrine of Authors now cited and must be of all Divines who generally teach and it is in it self most certain and taught us by natural reason That the immediate and next Rule according to which we must square our actions in matters of Fact and cases of Conscience is our own proper bona fides and opinion However this be of our bona fides whether we had it or
are to be alledged (o) This only and no more for what concerns this matter can be deduced out of c. Pastoralis §. verum de appellat cap. Legitima eod Gloss § Legitima in 6. c. Romana eod §. quod si objiciatur Glossa ibid. §. Vera Nota insuper c. cum appellat eod See all this confirmed by c. Interposra de appellationibus extr where it appears sufficiently though it be for the contrary opinion produced that the validity of an Appeal is to be proved before the Judge ad quem For the case of the said Chapter is One appealed who expressed only a probable cause in his appeal The question was whether it were sufficient for the Appellant to prove before the Judge to whom that his cause was probable although perhaps not true And it was resolved That he ought to prove it to be both probable and true unless he offered of his own accord to prove this truth before the Judge from whom and yet was not heard for in this case it is enough he prove before the Judge ad quera that the cause of his Appeal was probable though not true In which question and answer made by the Pope there is not a word for the adversaries but much to our purpose as appears by the Glosse partly and partly by these words nisi hoc se offerens probaturem c. Whence is gathered that he had no obligation to prove it before the Judge a quo but what was done by him was of his own accord not by any tye of the Law At least we may confidently say that nothing may be inferred against us out of this Chapter Nay this Text speaks in case the Appellant even before he enters his Appeal do offer to prove his allegations to be true and not after the Appeal is made as appears in the Glosse there and by the Glossa of cap. Si a Judic verb. teneris de appellat in 6. ibi per Dominic which the common pâ—actice proveth Whence further is manifest that there is no obligation by this Chapter to prove before the Judge a quo the truth of the appeal since questionless before in given in there can be no such obligation therein and before the Judge from whom though not their truth to be proved before him or that when the Judge is refused or excepted against or to speak the terms of the Law when there is a recusation of him not an Appeal that then the recusatorie exceptions are to be proved before Arbiters given by the Judge and chosen by common consent of the Plaintiff and Defendant It is in this case of recusation that cap. cum speciali de appellat extra and cap. Legitima eod tit in 6. speak and not in case of Appeal which is far different from the former It is true that the Judge a quo hath so many dayes allowed him by the Canons to consider what kind of apostles he is to give and that in admitting or rejecting the Appeal he doth in so much ex animi sui opinione out of his own private opinion judge of its probability or improbability yet followeth it not hence that he giveth any juridical or binding sentence or judgment of the Causes obliging either before God or the World the Conscience of the Appellant For the giving of the apostles is nothing else but a bare answer to the Appeal which the Law permits him to give either dimissory or refutatory that is either admitting or rejecting the Appeal either right or wrong but at his own peril if he give not a right answer and admit the Appeal when it is from a just and probable grievance and hath in it expressed probable Causes the Law providing likewise for the liberty and safety of the Appellant that whatsoever answer this be he is not bound to conform himself to it if it be to his disadvantage since he hath once lawfully appealed or with expression of reasonable Causes and since this Judge from whom hath no power to summon him nor to examine Witnesses nor to form any Process concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the Causes expressed which power notwithstanding for to summon examine form a Process must be supposed in him that is the proper Judge and can give a binding sentence of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the Appeal Whence followeth that they say nothing to purpose who object That the Lord Nuncio and Bishops did not conceive such pressing necessity for concluding the Cessation or such great profit to arise thence which are the prime reasons alledged in the Appeal for excepting against the Censures but rather that it was fixed on with intention to bring in the late rejected Peace and for other consequences following that business and consequently that they conceived no truth in the Causes alledged For in case we did grant their suspitions to be true before God as they are not yet nothing hence may be inferr'd for disproving the lawfulness of the Appeal in foro exteriori wherein only they proceed since they cannot deny but the Causes alledged are such as if they can be proved they ought to be thought lawful and since they are not to be Judges herein as hath been now seen by so many Canons Glosses and Reasons and lastly since we are bona fide persuaded of the probability if not evidence of our motives nay though we had no bona fides interiourly but only seemed exteriourly to have it And verily this Answer satisfieth (p) This great opposition and seeming alteration of judgment in the Lord Nuncio must be very strange to such as know that it appears out of Letters and Messages from his Lordship to the Council which are on Record how his Lordship about the first of March when there was but a bare report of a Cessation to be made with the Parliamentary Scots desired the Council that business to wit the Cessation with the Scots should go on for that he expected a blessing thence not only to this but also to other Kingdoms Nay a little before Inchiquyn was declared for His Majesty did not he approve a Cessation to be made even with him What is the reason of so much desire expressed for making a Cessation with the Parliamentary Scots rather than with Inchiquyn or others or why with I chiquyn himself when he was for the Parliament and not much more now when he is for the King Neither doth the Lord Nuncio's answer seem in any wise to satisfie where he sayes in another of his Letters to excuse this that his intention in his former Letters or Messages was to have an accomodation or league made with him not a Cessation For who is it conceives not that a Cessation of Arms with Sectaries must be conscionable even by the Lord Nuncio's own concession and no just ground for Excommunication if an Accomodation or League be lawful since the Cessation of its own nature brings along withâ—t less communication with
never to do an act of charity c. would be plain disobedience to the Commands of God would be damnation to their Souls Or will they deny but their foolish excuse of blind obedience to their earthly Superiours injunctions would not in this case justifie them either before God or men nor likewise that other senseless evasion That it is not their parts to examine the justice of the Commands imposed upon them by their Prelates but simply to do what they are bid Will not they also confess if we reason with them a little further that it is therefore they should not obey and these excuses would not serve them in such a case because such Commands would be against the Law of God And will not they admit their knowledge hereof to be derived hence that they see it so expressed in Scriptures Fathers Doctors of the Catholick Roman Church in all Ages let it now be supposed that their Superiours should tell them the contrary in the same case How therefore do they on such mad pretences obey the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them to substract Civil obedience from the Supreme Civil power in a matter concerning the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth and in a matter wherein their Superiours cannot shew nor themselves can see any evil implied Do not they see it is against the express Law of God to substract obedience from the Civil power in this case Do not the Scriptures Councils * Concil Tol. x. c. 2. Si quis religiosorum ab Episcopo usque ad extremi ordiâ—is Clericum sive Monachum generalia juramenta in saluteâ— Regium gentisque aut Patriae data reperiatur violasse voluntate profana mox propria dignitate privatum loco honore habeatur exclusus Becanus in Sum. Theol. de bonit act in t c. 4. q. 7. con 4. alii apud ipsum Fathers Doctors the practice of the Church of Christ in all Ages proclaim it They cannot be ignorant hereof and if any of them hath been hitherto certainly their ignorance can be no longer invincible that is such as might not be overcome by humane industry nor probable that is which hath probable reasons to maintain their disobedience to the Council For what reasons can be probable against the plain sense of Holy Scriptures and the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church in all Ages As for affected ignorance gross vincible or improbable none of them excuse from damnation according to the sense of all Catholick Writers But alas Ignorance is not the cause of sinful Obstinacy Malice and a natural inclination occasioneth it in very many a rash engagement in others hopes of preferment to Benefices and Superiority in others in others a stupid fear of losing what they had being persuaded by experience of the former revolution that an Excommunication the most unjust would alter the whole frame of Government and that there should be no living in Ireland for any would oppose the Lord Nuncio's design herein or the power of Owen O Neill Behold the true causes of their Obstinacy In others an apprehension of shame and disgrace in reclaiming an error and falling from this way they once resolved on and no sense of Conscience Behold the reason why even the best and most learned amongst them being demanded the ground of their opposition do say commonly That they will neither give reason nor take reason and when they speak their mind at full do now at last only censure the intention which the Council and their Adherents had in the concluding the Cessation because they find no other cause and yet would seem not without some cause to reject it which they are engaged for so many unworthy causes to oppose But who sees not in our Answers to the first and second Querie the false imposture of this last refuge Yet by reason they make hereof more use than of any other we briefly propose the ensuing considerations First That the Declaration and Censures of the Lord Nuncio Congregation and Delegates in obedience to which they disobey the Council were not against such evil intentions but against the very substance of the Articles of Cessation as in themselves evil and unconscionable 'T is manifest to any that please to read and peruse the tenour of both Decrees which contain not a word importing other sense Bâ—n tract de Legib. disp 1. q. 1. punct 8. prop. 2. alii apud ipsuâ— ibid. and therefore cannot be extended to evil intentions though we granted such intentions to have been in regard a penal Decree or Law is to be restrained not extended according to the Maxim of Canonists Wherefore this recourse of theirs to evil intentions and their not shewing any other evil in the object that is in the Cessation it self or in the conclusion and observation of it concludes an Errour in the decree or sentence of Excommunication and consequently disannuls it and leaves them no reasonable pretence for disobeying the Council since their pretence is the supposed obligation of the Censures which even their own Answer takes away The second is Though it were granted that the Council or others who negotiated the affair of Cessation had such intentions at first or upon the perfection of it yet might they have changed such evil intentions into good during the Nine dayes given in the monitory Decree for deliberation and consequently if there be no other evil but of their intentions how could the Nuncio proceed to execute his Censures since they protested in their Appeal before the Ninth day and in other Printed Declarations that they had no such intention Nay how could he proceed to this execution though they never had made any such exteriour Protestation whereas without it they might have taken away the ground of the Excommunication to wit the supposed evil intentions The third That questionless our opposites will not deny but Thousands are of the Confederates who desired and embraced the Cessation not out of any such evil intention but for a just end and for their own preservation How then could such be Excommunicated since the ground of this Excommunication to wit evil intention is not to be found in them And if these be not Excommunicated is it not plain That none is Excommunicated whose Conscience tells him That he did not adhere to the Cessation with any evil intention How then doth the Nuncio proceed indifferently against them all as Excommunicated persons Nay how can he proceed against any of them as such but only against him or them whose naughty intentions are apparent and whose intentions can be apparent to him but either out of confession or secundum allegata probata by exteriour proofs for God alone is Judge of the interiour not the Church And who is it that was so convicted or confessed before him such intentions Nay who is it was summon'd to his Tribunal for such a business The fourth Consideration is of the
said Articles and before the said Publication shall not be accompted taken or construed or be Treason Felony or other offence to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion Provided likewise That the said Act of Oblivion shall not extend unto any person or persons that will not obey and submit unto the Peace concluded and agreed on by these Articles Provided further That the said Act of Oblivion or any in this Article contained shall not hinder or interrupt the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to call to an account and proceed against the Council and Congregation and the respective Supreme Councils Commissioners General appointed hitherto from time to time by the Confederate Catholicks to manage their affairs or any other person or persons accomptable to an account for their respective Receipts and disbursments since the beginning of their respective employments under the said Confederate Catholicks or to acquit or release any arrears of Excises Customs or Publick Taxes to be accompted for since the Three and Twentieth of October 1641. and not disposed of hitherto to the Publick use but that the Parties therein concerned may be called to an account for the same as aforesaid by the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them the said Act or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding XIX Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act be passed in the next Parliament prohibiting That neither the Lord Deputy or other chief Governour or Governours Lord Chancellor Lord High Treasurer Vice-Treasurer Chancellor or any of the Barons of the Exchequer Privy Council or Judges of the Four Courts be Farmers of His Majesties Customs within this Kingdom XX. Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act of Parliament pass in this Kingdom against Monopolies such as was Enacted in England 21 Jacobi Regis with a further Clause of Repealing of all Grants of Monopolies in this Kingdom and that Commissioners be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to set down the Rates for the custom and imposition to be laid on Aquavitae Wine Oyl Yearn and Tobacco XXI Item It is concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That such persons as shall be agreed on by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them shall be as soon as may be authorized by Commission under the Great Seal to regulate the Court of Castle-Chamber and such causes as shall be brought into and censured in the said Court XXII Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is graciously pleased That Two Acts lately passed in this Kingdom the one prohibiting the plowing with Horses by the Tail and the other prohibiting the burning of Oats in the straw be Repealed XXIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased For as much as upon application of Agents from this Kingdom unto His Majesty in the Fourth year of His Reign and lately upon humble suit made unto His Majesty by a Committee of both Houses of the Parliament of this Kingdom some order was given by His Majesty for redress of several Grievances and for so many of those as are not expressed in the Articles whereof both Houses in the next ensuing Parliament shall desire the benefit of His Majesties said former directions for redresses therein that the same be afforded them yet so as for prevention of inconveniencies to His Majesties service that the warning mentioned in the Four and twentieth Article of the Graces in the Fourth year of His Majesties Reign be so understood that the warning being left at the persons Dwelling-houses be held sufficient warning and that as to the Two and twentieth Article of the said Graces the Process hitherto used in the Court of Wards do still continue as hitherto it hath done in that and hath been used in our English Courts But the Court of Wards being compounded for so much of the aforesaid Answer as concern warning and process shall be omitted XXIV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That Maritime Causes may be determined in this Kingdom without driving of Merchants or others to appeal and seek Justice elsewhere and if it shall fall out that there be cause of an Appeal the Party grieved is to appeal to His Majesty in the Chancery of Ireland and the Sentence thereupon to be given by the Delegates to be definitive and not to be questioned upon any further Appeal except it be in the Parliament of this Kingdom if the Parliament then shall be sitting otherwise not This to be by Act of Parliament And until the said Parliament the Admiralty and Maritime Causes shall be ordered and setled by the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being by and with the advice and consent of the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them XXV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom be eased of all Rents and increase of Rents lately
considering also their promise in their said Letter recited that the Bishop and Dr. Charles Kelly should clearly deliver unto Us their thoughts and good intentions and the declaration of their sincere hearts By all VVe have written VVe desire to let you see how unhandsomly to say no more VVe have been dealt withal by those Bishops that when upon Our observation of the backwardness of the Towns to give Us obedience VVe applied Our Self with so much freedom to them who VVe and VVe believe by this time you are satisfied obstructed it instead of dealing plainly with Us as VVe so often desired them they would have held Us on with promises of great endeavours on their part to procure Us obedience and so continued seemingly well satisfied with Us till unprovoked by any thing from Us they break forth with their dreadful Excommunication when both in the County of Lymerick and Athlone the Rebels were endeavouring to force a passage VVhat an invasion these proceedings of theirs is upon the Regal power is not now to the purpose to declare But whether in them there be any usurpation upon the freedom of the Nobility and Commons is fit for you to consider The injustice of this kind of dealing VVe suppose is by this time plain enough to you It remains to shew you even by their own actions That supposing them to have proceeded by full warrant and upon just ground yet their rashness is not excusable as appears in that as they hastily denounced their Excommunication on the 15th of September so was it more wisely suspended by the same men on the 16th following in the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard's Camp VVhether so dreadful a weapon as they make that sentence be thus to be play'd with to make Rebels sport VVe leave to the examination of those that are in some respects more concerned than VVe are But that their allegation of the Peoples aversion to Our government is but a Cloak to cover their own fond Ambition to govern them or rather to bring them to confusion is manifest For as by their Excommunication they are forced to confess against all their Protestations That indeed they labour to bring them to such an aversion so by being forced immediately unsought by Us to suspend it they acknowledge they have not fully compleated their work As is more evident by these following Letters from the Bishop of Clonfert and Dr. Charles Kelly to the Officers of the Army under the command of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard and from the Bishops of Raphoe Killala and Fearnes to the Earl of Westmeath and other Officers Sirs YEsterday We have received an Express from the rest of our Congregation at Galway bearing their sense to suspend the effects of the Excommunication proclaimed by their Orders till the service of Athlone be performed fearing on the one side the dispersion of the Army and on the other having received most certain intelligence of the Enemies approach unto that place with their full force and number of fighting men and thereupon would have us concur with them in suspending the said Excommunication As for our part we do judge that suspension unnecessary and full of inconveniencies which we apprehend may ensue because the Excommunication may be obeyed and the service not neglected if People were pleased to undertake the service in the Clergies name without relation to the Lord of Ormond or any that may take his part yet fearing the censure of singularity in matters of so high a strain against us or to be deemed more forward in excommunicating than others also fearing the weakness of some which we believe the Congregation feared we are pleased to follow the major vote and against our own opinion concur with them and do hereby suspend the said Censure as above Provided alwayes That after that service performed or the service be thought unnecessary by the Clergy or when the said Clergy will renew it it shall be presently incurred as if the said Suspension had never been interposed And so we remain Your affectionate loving Friends in Christ Jesus Walter B. Clonfert Charles Kelly Corbeg Sept. 16. 1650. Our very good Lords and Sirs THE Colonels Mr. Alexander Mac Donnel Bryen O Neill and Randal Mac Donnel like obedient Children of Holy Church have offered themselves to put up for the Clergy and that before Publication of the Declaration and Excommunication God will bless their good intentions They go now to join with you on this side of the Shannon and by making one Body to put forward our cause This is the best way we can think of to encourage the well-affected and curb the malignant and obstinate The Lord Bishop of Killaloe being taken Prisoner by the Lord Lieutenant the Cavaliers would have had him forthwith hanged if his Excellency had given way thereunto His Excellency is giving Patents to as many Catholicks as are Excommunication-proof Ireland is an accursed Countrey that hath so many rotten members Though things go hard with us God will bring the work to a good end When you meet with those Colonels confer of what service to take in hand Est periculum in mora Praying to God to protect you in your wayes we remain Your very loving Friends Joan Rapotensis Fran Alâ—â—â—usis Nich Fernensis Galway Sept. 21. 1650. To our very good Lords the Earl of Westmeath the Lords Bishops of Leghlin Cloanmacnoise and Dromore Sir James Preston Knight Colonel Bryen Mac Phelim Colonel Lewis Moore Colonel Arthur Fox and the rest of the Commanders of the Leinster Forces By which expressions it appears That however their practises found Subjects fit to be wrought upon in the Cities and Towns and some loose people in the Countrey addicted to Rebellion and Rapine for such are all those they have still esteemed obedient Children of Holy Church yet had they not power to draw together any considerable Party to set up their new Government only they were able to hinder the established Government from opposing the Enemy To conclude this Head Would any man that had never so little care of a Peoples welfare or foresight of what tended plainly to their destruction have set them loose from all Government Civil and Martial at such a time when a potent Enemy was in the Field and never tell them when they should follow or obey If it be said they made provision for it in their Declaration it will readily be answered That they are only thereby directed to return to their Association and until a General Assembly of the Nation can be conveniently called together unanimously to serve against the Common Enemy But under what conduct they are to seek from a Congregation In the mean time if those with Us in the County of Clare and under the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard had obeyed this wild direction or taken occasion to disperse the Rebels had passed the River of Shannon at both ends and spoiled both Assembly and Congregation The grounds of their proceeding to an Excommunicating of
Navigation the great support of Ireland quite beaten down his Excellency disheartning the Adventurers Vndertakers and Owners as Captain Antonio and others favouring Hollanders and other Aliens by reversing Judgments legally given and indefinitely concluded before his coming to Authority By which depressing of maritime affairs and not providing for an orderly and good Tribunal of Admiralty we have hardly a Bottom left to transmit a Letter to His Majesty or any other Prince ANSWER Here again VVe are charged in general with disheartning Adventurers Undertakers and Owners and no man named but Captain Antonio nor the particular wherein he was disheartned set down We are further charged with reversing of Judgments legally given and definitively concluded before Our coming to Authority but no particular Judgment so reversed is or indeed can be instanced So that all VVe can answer to this part is That it is not true and for what remains That VVe placed the power of Admiralty in this Kingdom according to the Assemblies instance and from time to time gave Commissions to such persons as the Commissioners desired in several parts to hear and determine maritime causes Sixth Article of the Declaration The Church of Cloine in our possession at the time of making the Peace violently taken from Vs by the Lord Inchiquin contrary to the Articles of Peace no Justice or Redress was made upon Application or Complaint ANSWER For Answer to this VVe refer you to Our Answer to the first Article of the pretended Grievances which Article and Answer are as followeth Article viz. The first of those called the Grievances First They have not been suffered to enjoy the Churches and Church-livings which in the time of the perfection of the Articles of Peace they possessed but were after the said Articles made and perfected put forth expelled and still kept out of possession of divers Parish-Churches and their Tythes and Livings and even of some of the Cathedral Churches and many of the Prelates and Pastors hindred from exercising of their respective Jurisdictions and Functions amongst their Flocks and Grants made of some of their Bishopricks and their Livings which sithence the War or the greatest part of it hath been and yet is in the possession of the Catholick Bishops to Protestant Bishops and notwithstanding the Prelates and Clergy in the Counties of Cork and Waterford where chiefly those Grievances happened have made suit for remedy yet have they obtained no redress in their suits nor have they say the Commissioners of Trust in whom the last General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of this Nation which concluded the said Peace put their confidence for procuring an effectual compliance with the said Articles and seeing in no point they should be violated or broken in this so important a point concerning the Church given effectual furtherance for recovering their right to the said Prelates and Clergy Answer viz. To that first Article of those called the Grievances First We deny that they if thereby be meant the Roman-Catholick Clergy were not suffered to enjoy the Churches and Church-livings which at the time of perfecting the Articles of Peace they possessed or that by the Articles of Peace they ought to possess And as to the instances made in the Margent the composers of this Article do very well know That their possession of those Churches and Church-livings were flatly denied by the Protestant Clergy And it is very well known to the Commissioners who followed that business with diligence and earnestness enough That We never refused nor delayed to afford them any just means of bringing that Controversie to a final end till at length by Treachery and the Rebels power the Things controverted were lost to both Parties Nor was there any Complaint made unto Us since the conclusion of the Peace till now that the Romish Prelates or Pastors or any of them have been hindred from exercising their respective Jurisdictions and Functions amongst their Flocks except one Complaint made of the Governour of Dungarvan wherein We were ready to have given such Redress upon hearing all Parties as should have been found fit if the said Complaint had been prosecuted We know of no Grant made by His Majesty of any Bishoprick whatsoever since the conclusion of the Peace nor can We find any Article of the Peace that restrains His Majesty from making such Grants so the Roman-Catholick Bishops be not thereby dispossessed of what they were possessed of upon conclusion of the Peace until His Majesty declare His pleasure in a Free Parliament in this Kingdom And whatever His Majesty might intend to declare the making of Protestant Bishops could be no anticipation thereof to the prejudice of the Roman-Catholicks since Bishops are held essentially necessary to the exercise of the Religion of the Church of England Seventh Article of the Declaration That Oblations Book-monies Interments and other Obventions in the Counties of Cork Waterford and Kerry were taken from the Roman-Catholick Priests and Pastors by the Ministers without any redress or restitution ANSWER For this We answer That it was conceived by the Ministers herein mentioned that where they had possession of the Church-livings the Obventions here mentioned were also due to them But whether it were or not sure We are there was never any Complaint made to Us in this particular till Our coming to Tecroghan after the loss of Droghedagh and that within a very little time after before the truth of the Allegation could be examined the Towns of Munster revolted and the business was so decided at least if any difference of this kind continued in the County of Kerry which was longer held We never after Our being at Tecroghan heard of it that We remember Eighth Article of the Declaration That the Catholick Subjects of Munster lived in a slavery under the Presidency of the Lord Inchiquin those being their Judges that before were their Enemies and none of the Catholicks Nobility or Gentry admitted to that Tribunal ANSWER To this VVe answer That no complaint of any such slavery imposed by the said Lord President or Presidency was made to Us but on the contrary That upon his Lordships instance VVe directed Our Letters to him to swear and admit of the Council of that Province the Lord Viscount Roch of Fermoy the Lord Viscount Muskery Major General Patrick Purcell Lieutenant Colonel Gerard fitz Morrice and others all which were written unto by the Lord President to come to him to be sworn accordingly whereof the Lord Muskery Major General Patrick Purcell and Lieutenant Colonel Fitz Morrice were sworn but the rest not coming according to the Letters could not be sworn Ninth Article of the Declaration The conduct of the Army was improvident and unfortunate nothing happened in the Christianity more shameful than the disaster at Rathmines near Dublin where his Excellency as it seemed to ancient Travellers and men of Experience who view'd all kept rather a Mart of Wares a Tribunal of Pleadings or a great Inne of
Drogheda We therefore applied Our uttermost industry to supply that place with what it wanted placed in it Sir Arthur Aston as expert and gallant a Governour as We could wish for gave him the same men and the same number of men Horse and Foot that he desired and furnished him with the full proportion of Ammunition and other provisions he demanded judging that if Cromwel could be there foyled or kept before it but for a time it would much advantage Us that had so lately received so great a blow as required time to recover and the Rebels in the neck of it having received so great a countenance and strength as Cromwel brought with him being the best of the Rebels old Army in England But it pleased God in a few dayes to give that Town into their hands and all the Officers and Souldiers that were within it to the cruelty of their Swords where there were lost 2000 of Our best Souldiers with all their Officers who were chosen as the likeliest men by giving a check to Cromwell in his first attempt to recover the Kingdom Now that after the defeat at Rathmines and that great loss at Drogheda for so it was so powerful and so prevailing an Army as Cromwels marched without interruption from Us that had not above 700 Horse and 1500 Foot and of those some not to be trusted others newly raised and all discouraged from Dublin to Rosse is not much to be wondred at For all the men We could make were not sufficient to man Wexford which being taken as We have before said there were lost in it others of Our best men to a considerable number That the Rebels might have been prevented in building over their Bridge at Rosse considering the scituation of the place and the power their Ordnance had from the Key to and upon the other side of the River We believe they are very ignorant or malicious that will affirm But if it had been a thing as easie as they would have it believed We were so far from being able to attempt any thing that We never all that time had either 24 hours Pay or Provision before hand to keep the men We had together where they were upon no duty much less to bring them near an Enemy where they must be held to hard duty close together It should here also be considered That during Cromwels march from Dublin to Wexford and those parts began the revolt of the Towns and Army in Munster which occasioned very much of jealousie distraction and other interruptions and gave the Rebels leisure to prosecute their Victories When they marched over their Bridge at Rosse towards Carrick it was believed they meant to march to Kilkenny and if VVe had not been diverted by a false Alarum which coming as it did VVe had cause to credit of their being gone as far as Bennets Bridge towards Kilkenny whil'st VVe lay at Thomas-town and thereby drawn thither for the defence of that City We had as Our purpose was engaged them to fight before their getting to Carrick In what miserable condition Our Army was when VVe came to Carrick which VVe were forced to leave meerly for want of provision to keep it there and so much money as to make necessary materials to gain that place is so generally known that it must argue the contrivers of this Article guilty of a strange degree of malice to object to Us as an omission That the Rebels Army whil'st it lay before Waterford was not attempted or once faced by Us. And sure VVe are it is as openly known That in Person VVe twice conducted men for the defence of Waterford and that the last Supply VVe brought was that which occasioned the Rebels raising their Siege as the refusing a Garrison and other disobediences of that City were the inducements moving them to come before it When by this means the Rebels were removed and retired to their Winter-quarters so harassed as that their speedy marching forth was not to be feared VVe designed the regaining of Carrick and Passage first and then of Rosse and Wexford and to that effect brought with Us a Party of Horse and Foot but were so far from gaining any admittance for them into the City * i. e. Waterford or to lie under the walls though they brought their means with them and were to receive their constant Pay out of the Countrey That for those Our good intentions and former pains taken for the relief of that City when Cromwel was before it it was there brought in question at a Council held amongst some of the City Whether We and the men We brought should not be fallen upon as Enemies VVe were then for Our safety forced to retire thence leaving those indeed easie works VVe had designed undone there being no means of doing them but by and out of that City whereunto as to the first visible cause and to the example thereby taken by Limerick may be attributed all the following success of the Rebels this last Summer What ancient Travellers or men of Experience they were that informed the Declarers That VVe kept a Mart of Wares a Tribunal of Pleadings or an Inne of Play Drinking and Pleasure rather than a well-ordered Camp of Souldiers We know not but do believe these Declarers themselves want not the malicious intention to forge it in their own heads Which VVe the rather believe they have done by the ignorance appearing in charging it as a fault and want of order that in a Camp there should be a Mart of Wares or a Tribunal of Pleadings which to have in the most peaceful time and place are amongst the greatest Arguments of good Government But if they intend the Tribunal of Pleadings as that wherein VVe more busied Our Self than consisted with the duty of a General that meaning is known to be maliciously false And so it is if it be meant by Us That VVe kept an Inne of Play Drinking and Pleasure being content to have all the Lyes in this Declaration taken for Truth if it can be proved That during Three months time VVe were in the Field VVe drank Twice betwixt meals or at meals more than was fit That VVe play'd Thrice at any Game though at fit times VVe account Recreation no fault or unusual in well-governed Camps or in all that time We ever took the pleasure of sleeping otherwise than in our Cloaths And of this We have better Testimony than the Declarers though they had been upon the place But they being to justifie with some colourable pretences so high a Treason as the usurpation of the Regal power We wonder not they should make their way to it thorough any Calumny they can defame Us withall Touching Drogheda Wexford Rosse Carrick and the not fighting the Enemy near Thomas-town We refer you to part of Our foresaid Answer to the pretended Grievances with this addition to that of Carrick That as it is more then hath or can be proved that Carrick