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
Caesar we are tyed to clear if from imputation and professing it also a Rule that we will follow in our affections it seems altogether inexcusable if we startle at any engagement within the verge of Regality wherein our Allegiance is payable And therefore in the Circumstances you seemed to stand in to free the Holy Catholique Faith on one side from obloquies and redeem your selves from calumnies and on the other to relieve the Layety under your charge from heavy pressures and further to open a dore to your liberty of Religion we must needs judge you have performed the Office of good Pastours both in framing and subscribing your Allegiance to the Prince to hold forth to the whole whole world your Religion pure and spotless your Allegiance built on a basis immoveable and your selves well resolved Subjects For our parts we would be glad to runn into those occasions even with the hazard of our lives or the loss of our last drop of blood to worke out our freedom from the severity of our penal laws much more would we think it happy to gain it with the renounce of an Opinion which justly brings a jealousie upon us from our Prince and fellow Subjects and in the judgement of the chief Assertours of it of no greater note then to bring along with it the pains of Damnation to those of their party that speak preach or print it as appears by a written paper have published by themselves Wherefore that you may see how we stand affected were this Declaration of yours tendred us by Authority in lieù of what otherwise we lye under we should willingly embrace it considering it as well singles out the loyal Subject from those of the bad Principle as reduces the erroneous into the number of penitents My Lord The Apostolical advice to give none the least offence in our Ministry but to preserve our selves blameless to all sorts of people and the Church of God is the sole pardon I can plead for this entrench upon your patience well knowing your imployments speak you a follower of the Apostles by being a Servant to all persons in all things not seeking your own but the Countryes profit that they may be saved in which common concerne I shall be ever ready to runn your Lordships ways being subject to the laws of the same holy Church and Dread Soveraign whom God long preserve whose most loyal Subject I will ever remain and My Lord Your Lordships most humble servant in Christ Iesu Humphry Ellice Dean of the Chapter London October 18th 1662. XXII Much about this time also William Burgat Vicar General of Imly and Custos as they call him of the Diocess of Limerick came from the Province of Munster to Dublin of purpose to speak to the Procuratour about his own and the common affairs of all the Clergie both of that and the Province of Connaght For this Gentleman hearing in August before that the Procuratour was arrived from London writt him presently a very civil letter expressing much loyalty to the King and affection to the Lord Lieutenant And his letter was seconded with a good character given of him then to the Procuratour by persons of Interest and knowledg in that Province of Munster the Earl of Clancarty and Iohn Walsh Esq By that letter the said Father Burgat let the Procuratour know himself had been deputed some three or four years past in the Protectors tyranny and by the Clergie of that Province as entire Agent for themselves to Rome about their Ecclesiastical affairs and by those of the Province of Connaght also joyned in commission with an other one Doctor Cegan for themselves That money to bear his charges could not be had until about that time of His Majesties most fortunat Restauration That seeing the great and happy change he demurr'd on the matter until the Earl of Clancarty's first comming to Ireland That having communicated unto his Lordship what he intended he was advised by the said Earl not to stirr till he had seen and been advised by Father Walsh the Procuratour And that therefore he vehemently now desired to meet him about Kilkenny or where else he would appoint But the Procuratour having answer'd with desires of his comming to Dublin and meeting there Father Burgat came at last along to Dublin Where notwithstanding the Procuratour spent much time informing him for 6. dayes consequently of the causes and ends of the Remonstrance and that the said Father Burgat averred constantly that he neither found any thing in it could not be justly owned nor heard any in his own Province hitherto speaking otherwise or one word against it yet whether perverted by such obstinate persons of the Dublin Clergie as he conversed with daily then or whether byass'd by his own former intrigues and principles received at first and retayned still after from his Bishop when alive Terlagh O Brien a Prelate of too much violent zeal for the Nuncius's quarrel and further yet by his pretensions at Rome and his entended journey thither he would not sign at all then or there at Dublin pretending for excuse that being he came from the whole Province of Munster to be informed he would have the greater power to perswade them all generally if he returned back without preingagement and the less if otherwise Desiring nevertheless the Procuratour to write by him to the chief Vicar General or Apostolical as they call him Iohn Burk of Cashil to be communicated to the rest concerning that matter of the Remonstrance and their subscription Which the Procuratour did but never had answer from either For it seems Mr. Burgat who by all means declined nay expresly refused to be presented to my Lord Lieutenant though invited often to it by the Procuratour because my Lord so lately had seen his letter and heard that good character of him given by my Lord Clancarty and Mr. Iohn Walsh and was commission'd as above by two Provinces judg'd it better for his own private ends to have nothing to do in that business at least not to appear for it Which was the reason also he did not acquiesce to so many pregnant reasons given him by the Procuratour against his undertaking such a journey to Rome at least as an Agent or publick person representing both or either of those Provinces Albeit he was so farre convinced by such reasons as to promise the Procuratour he would only go as farre as Paris to leave there some youths at School and thence return immediately with purpose to alleadg new and probable difficulties met with and so excuse himself to the Clergie that had employed and given him money which otherwise he must have restored back and yet not so neither or by only restoring their money without going over Seas excused himself with any colour being they so long depended of him But in this promise also he failed For he went along to Rome and there sollicited ever since and lost both his money and time without
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
otherwise at all noxious to humane Society and then also and there to Enact those penal Laws where at the same time the Lawmakers could not but have continually before their eyes all those beforemention'd Positions and Practises which they could not but judge to be indeed of the greatest Danger Insolence Pride Injustice Usurpation Tyranny and Cruelty imaginable even those very Positions and Practises which they knew to threaten themselves above others most particularly and which they saw themselves Ten thousand times more concern'd to persecute than any pure Religious Rites or Articles nay which they also knew to be such as even according to the judgment of the greater and sounder part of the Roman-Catholicks themselves abroad in other parts of the World did of their own nature require all the severity of Laws and all the anger of Men to prosecute them I am sure the Third Estate of the Roman Catholicks of France anno 1514 1â— did think so when they desired it should be made a fundamental Law of FRANCE to be kept and known by all men That the King being acknowledged Head in his Dominions holding his Crown and his Authority only from God there is no power on earth whatever Spiritual or Temporal that hath any right over his Kingdom either to depose our Kings or dispense with or absolve their Subjects from the fidelity and obedience which they owe to their Soveraign for any cause or pretence whatsoever That all his Subjects of what quality or condition soever shall keep this Law as holy true and agreeable to God's Word without any distinction equivocation or limitation whatsoever which shall be sworn and signed by all the Deputies of Estates and henceforward by all who have any Benefice or Office in the Kingdom before they enter upon such Benefice or Office and that all Tutors Masters Regents Doctors and Preachers shall teach and publish that the contrary Opinion viz. That it is lawful to kill and depose our Kings to rebel and rise up against them and shake off our Obedience to them upon any occasion whatever is impious detestable quite contrary to Truth and the establishment of the State of France which immediately depends upon God only That all Books teaching these false and wicked Opinions shall be held as seditious and damnable All Strangers who write and publish them shall be look'd upon as sworn enemies to the Crown and that all Subjects of His Majesty of what quality and condition soever who favour them shall be accounted as Rebels Violators of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and Traytors against the King c. And I am sure also That all the Parliaments and Universities of the same Kingdom did likewise think and believe so when at several times they proceeded with so much severity in their censures against so many inconsiderate Writers that maintain'd the Papal vain pretences of Authority to depose Kings and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them But to say nothing at present of the many several Arrests of the French Parliaments on this subject and speak only of their University Censures how smart these were in general the Universities of Paris (z) 1626 4. April and Caen (a) 7. May. and Rheims (b) 18. May. and Tholouze (c) 23. May. and Poitiers (d) 26. June and Valence (e) 14. July and Burdeaux (f) 16. July and Bourges (g) 25. November sufficiently tell us in their special Censures anno 1626. against the Jesuit Sanctarellus in particular i. e. against the Doctrine of such a power in the Pope asserted by him the said Sanctarellus in his Treatise of Heresie Schism Apostasie c. The first of them viz. the University of Paris finding in the said Book this Assertion That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastise Kings and Princes depose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdoms for the crime of Heresie c. condemn'd it in formal words as new false erroneous contrary to the Law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schism derogative to the Soveraign Authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the conversion of Infidels and Heretical Princes disturbing the publick peace tending to the ruine of Kingdoms and Republicks diverting Subjects from the obedience due to their Soveraigns and precipitating them into faction rebellion sedition and even to commit Particides on the sacred Persons of their Princes And the other seven Universities were not much behind for they also every one condemn'd it as false erroneous contrary to the Word of God pernicious seditious and detestable XI That if any shall object those penal Statutes which may perhaps be thought by some to have all their quarrel and bend all their force and level all the rigor of their Sanctions against some harmless Doctrines and practises whether in themselves otherwise true or false good or bad I say against the meer spiritual meer sacramental rites of our Religious worship of God and our Belief of meer supernatural operations following as for example against our Doctrines of the Consecration and Transubstantiation and our practice withall of the adoration of the Host which this present Parliament at Westminster in their late Act against Popish Recusants may be thought by some to make the principal mark whereat all the arrows of disfavour must now be shot the answer is both consequential and clear viz. That the Law-makers perswading themselves 1. that the Roman Catholicks in general of these Kingdoms both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks had alwayes hitherto since the schism either out of ignorance and blind zeal or a mistaken interest or irrational fear refused or at least declined to disown by any sufficient publick instrument the foresaid Anti-catholick Positions and Practises which maintain the Popes pretences of all Supreme both Spiritual and Temporal Dominion Jurisdiction Authority Power Monarchy and Tyranny c 2. That their Missionaries i e. their Priests not only day and night labour to make new Proselytes but also to infuse into as many of them and of their other Penitents as they think fit all their own Principles of Equivocation and mental Reservation in swearing any Oath even of Allegiance or Supremacy to the King and forswearing any thing or doctrine whatsoever except only those Articles which by the indispensable condition of their communion they may not dissemble upon Oath 3. That the Tenet of Transubstantiation is one of those Articles therefore to discover by this however otherwise in it self a very harmless Criterium the mischief which they conceive to go along with it thorough the folly of Roman Catholicks in these Dominions they make it the test of discriminating the Loyally principled Protestant from the disloyal and dissembling Papist Which otherwise they would not have done if the Romanists themselves in general who are Subjects to our Gracious King had by any sufficient Test distinguished amongst themselves and thereby convinced the Parliament and all other Protestant people
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
immediately before the foresaid Mauritius Aemulator sayes that Roman Pontiff (b) Agatio was chosen Pope or rather Bishop of Rome an 678. Agatho verae Apostolicae fidei piae memoriae Augustus Justinianus cujus fidei rectitudo quantum pro sincera confessione Deo placuit tantum Rempublicam Christianam exaltavit Et ubique ab omnibus gentibus ejus religiosa memoria veneratione digna censetur cujus fidei rectitudo per augustissima ejus Edicta in toto orbe diffusa laudatur Would Agatho have said so of an Heretick * To Agatho I might add Gregory II. in several Epistles nay and a far greater Authority too viz. the Fathers of the Sixth Oecumanical Sâ—nod besides many others after them See Baâ—â—â—s himself and his Epitomizer Spâ—â—danus confessing so much ad an 565. 3. That if the Truth were known it would be found that Baronius and the rest following him were willing to make use of any malicious ungrounded Fictions whatsoever against Justinian not that they believed him to have either lived at any time or dyed at last in any wilful or imputable Errour or in any at all otherwise than St. Cyprian of Carthage did but that his Laws in Ecclesiastical matters even those of Faith are a perpetual eye-sore to them because these Laws are a Precedent to all other good Princes to govern their own respective Churches in the like manner without any regard of Bulla Coenae or of so many other vain Allegations of those men that would make the World believe it unlawful for Secular Princes to make Ecclesiastical Laws by their own sole Authority for the government of the Church and all orders and degrees of Church men under them even to the very Patriarchs inclusively as Justinian did and you may see in his very many Constitutions to that purpose he did X. Although I do ingenuously confess I had on the Subject of Ecclesiastical either Exemption or Subjection very much light and help from those excellent Authors that writ before me so well on that Subject I mean both the Barclayes the Father and Son yet the learned Reader may see I have been very far from borrowing all from them or any other who treated before or after on Ecclesiastical Immunity Wherever I make use of them I have commonly added everywhere i. e. in every Section to their Answers Animadversions and Proofs my own both reasoning and reading elsewhere I have also raised against my self the strongest Objections I could imagine which they had not nor consequently the Solutions Nay Canons also viz. those Paâ—al ones which the Barclayes do not mention I have both objected and answered at large because I observed our later Casuists or Moralists Azorius and Bonacina c or chiefly or onely or at least partly to quote them though they do no more but barely quote the Chapters not the words or Text for their false Positions about Ecclesiastical Immunity as you may see in my whole LXXI Section from pag. 230. to pag. 241. Besides the whole Affirmative or Positive way against Bellarmine and his Disciples the Louain Divines in five intire long Sections from pag. 243 to pag. 374 where I assume the person of the Opponent to prove the Subjection of all Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate and prove it by Scripture Tradition Fathers Councils and as well by Ecclesiastical yea very Papal Canons as Imperial Constitutions and by Practice also and Reason is wholly from other Collections of my own neither of both the Barclayes nor Withrington nor any other seen by me having so much proceeded in this Affirmative or Positive way but mostly in that which I call Negative as it which hath for principal scope to deny and solve the Arguments of Bellarmine c. XI As for the two grand Objections framed by me against my self the one from the condemnation of Marsilius de Padua and Joan. de Janduno the other from the Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury or rather for my Answers and long material Discourses Sect. LXXVI from pag. 374 to pag. 436. nay to 462. upon and by occasion of each or either of the said two Objections I must no less ingenuously acknowledge that I was necessitated to be my self alone my own guide all along without either light or help from any Authour that handled either Subject For I never saw nor heard of any such Authour Which was the reason that I took more than ordinary pains to clear whatsoever might be alledged or pretended from either that Condemnation or this Martyrdom against the soundness of that Doctrine which maintains the Subjection of all Clergy-men whatsoever to the Supreme Temporal both directive and coercive authority even of meer Lay-Princes and States but more especially to clear the whole Intrigue of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry II and the Cause for which he suffered and to shew it was no Divine right nor even other Humane save only that of the Civil Secular and Municipal Saxon Danish and Norman Laws of England which he grounded himself on when he refused to deliver at the Kings pleasure the Criminal Clerks to be punish'd or judg'd by the Secular Judges and Officers XII The veneration I have as I am bound to the Roman-Catholick Church or that Communion in general wheresoever diffused throughout the World and my knowledge of their having in all their Calendars on the 29th of December the Festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury made me the First also that for any thing I know ventures in a singular and long Discourse by way of Appendix after my four several Answers given to the grand Objection against c. from the Martyrdom of that holy Bishop of set purpose to vindicate him from having been a Traytor to the King whether or no he was a Martyr in the Church through the merits of his Cause and according to the more proper and stricter Ecclesiastical sense of the word Martyr Three hundred years indeed after his death he was under Henry VIII in a very unusual manner both judicially summon'd to appear and formally condemn'd for a Traytor Then which judgment if woâ—â— grounded nothing can be more prejudicial to the practice of all Roman-Catholicks in the World in keeping his Festivity and honouring his Memory and begging his intercession for them to our Lord and Saviour Christ That it hath been in-grounded I do my devoir to shew and prove from pag. 439 to pag. 462. where I answer first all that hath been or could be alledged against him and then produce eight several Arguments even very strong Presumptions both in Law and Reason for him I mean as to this controverted Point Whether he could be justly said to have either dyed or even at any time lived or been a Traytor against the King People or Laws of England XIII Where I seem pag. 438. somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker the First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth you must not persuade your self I do at all
off the sheets before I had the second reading of them And this was the chief cause of so many literal faults nay and mistake of some few words too 6. That I have not given any Errata for the Appendixes except one onely in the Latin Appeal which is in the Appendix of Instruments The reason is because I presume these Appendixes are all without mistakes exactly Printed For I took a more special care of them than I had done of the former Treatises and in my own perusing of them I have observed no faults i. e. no variation from the Copies which were fair enough some printed some written Those pieces in them not before Printed either in Latin or English or indeed as far as I know in any other Language are 1. The Supreme Councils Appeal from Rinuccini and his Censures to Innocent X. 2. The Marquess of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant of Ireland his Long and Excellent Letter c. All the other publick Instruments contained either in the Appendix of Instruments or in that which follows it as well as the Book of Queries and Answers have been heretofore Printed either in English or Latin some in Ireland and the rest in France either by Father Ponce in his Latin Vindiciae Eversae or by Richard Belings Esq likewise in his Latin Book of Annotations return'd for Answer to that Work of Ponce's 7. That nevertheless I cannot warrant the Articles of the Peace of 1648 to be exactly as to every word according to the Original Had I had this or indeed any perfect either written or printed Copy of them I had surely taken the greatest care imaginable to Re-print them here as exactly But having had onely one of those printed Copies of the late Re-impression of them since His Majesties happy Restauration I was forc'd to be content with that although in my opinion Printed with several faults and yet not very material ones as to the main purpose of any of the Articles However I have Corrected here as many as I could of those faults whatever they were XXVIII Because the First Treatise in Two Parts is very long contains a great variety of matters and yet in both Parts is divided onely into Sections and these marked onely by Capital and Numerical Letters before them immediately in the middle of the space by which Capital and Numerical Letters all along I understand the number of Sections though the word Section be not added to them in the space and because those very Sections notwithstanding they also be commonly very long yet they have no Argument of the Contents following prefixed to them and the general Argument prefix'd to each of the above Two Parts gives not light enough to the Reader where he may easily find the several Heads of matters forasmuch as in those Arguments the Page or Section is not added therefore I have for thy ease in this point given after this Preface a short Table of the more general Heads of the Contents throughout all the foresaid Two Parts of the First Treatise marking the Page where such more general Heads and sometime also the less general or more especial matters begin as likewise sometimes where they end But for the Second Third and Fourth Treatise they are so short and the matters treated in them are so singular that I think the Title prefixâ—d to each of them may serve to incite thee to read them through and to see by thy own reading in a few hours what all Three contain And the same I say of the Three Appendixes which follow immediately after all the Four Treatises As for a general Index Rerum Verborum or a general Table of special words and matters contained in the whole Book or even of those contained onely in the Four Treatises nay or in any one of them if I thought it worth the while to give it yet I have no leasure now to attend it And therefore I must pray to be excused for so much XXIX I have elsewhere at large and of purpose answered the ignorant Objection of some against my Printing or Publishing either this present Book or any other on the Subject thereof without the Licence of the Ordinary of the Diocess or of the Censor of Books or of my own either General or Provincial Superiour nay without so much as the Approbation of any two Divines of my own Order yea or of any one Divine whatsoever Printed therein or prefix'd to it in the Frontispiece or Beginning thereof as if I had therefore in a heinous manner transgress'd not only against the Canons of the Lateran (a) Sub Leon. X. Sess Decret de Impress Libror and Tridentine (b) Sess 4. Decret de Edit us Sac. Lib. Councils but even the very Statutes (c) De Autor Libror of my own Franciscan Order In my Latin Work intituled Hibernica viz. in the Third Part thereof as well in my Second Preface which is to Francis Maria Rhini a Polizzo the present Minister General of the whole Franciscan Order throughout the World as in the Body of that Third Part where I refute not only in general the General Decree I mean the Decree issued and Printed at Madrid against me July 28. an 1670 but in particular that Paragraph wherein both I and Father Caron long after his death are on such account declared Transgressors of the General Statutes and the Survivor i. e. my self to be even also upon that account ipso jure (d) i. e. By vertue of a general Statute lately made at Victoria in Spain as they alledge But suppose there had been any such Statute made there i. e. at Victoria What was Caron or I concern'd We were and are onely subject to the General Statutes applied unto and received in the Belgick Provinces Amongst which Statutes there is none tying or even so much as directing us to have a Licence for Printing from any General Superiour No nor is any Statute there tying us to have a Licence from any other Superiour either Local or Provincial under pain of any Ecclesiastical Censure much less of Excommunication See this your self in the printed Book of those General Statutes applied unto and received in the Belgick Provinces amongst which Provinces England Ireland and Scotland are See I say Statuta Generalia Barchinonensia Provinciis Belgiis accomodata Cap. 7. §. 6. de Auctoribus Librorum Cap. 8. §. 4. de Nat. German by the same Statutes Excommunicated for having Printed Books without Licence from the General Superiour himself I have clearly solved all the Branches of this Objection And I have consequently vindicated both Father Caron and my self from having transgressed any either binding or so much as received Canon of the Roman-Catholick Church or Statute of the Franciscan Order or otherwise sinned against any Law Divine or Humane by Printing any of our Books even as we have caused them to be Printed in such manner i. e. without any such Licence or Approbation c.
dissolution be accounted any prevarication but an amendmendment of rashness Thus have we after mature and frequent deliberation determined and decided at Lovaine in a full Congregation of the Faculty summon'd under Oath and held the 29th of December consecrated to the Martyrdome of the most glorious Bishop Thomas of Canterbury sometime Primate of England in the year of our Lords Incarnation 1662. Subscribed By the Deane and Faculty of Louaine The place of the Seale And after George Lipsius Bedel and sworn Notary to the said Theological Faculty XLVIII The first considerable effect this Lovaine Censure had was a citatory letter from the most reverend Father the Commissary General of the Franciscan order and Belgick Nation James de Riddere a Brabantine sent from Brula in Germany to Father Caron then at London The said Commissary being Ordinary Superior of all the Franciscan Order in the Belgick Nation and consequently of the Irish Franciscans as belonging to the same Belgick Nation according to the division and Statutes of that Order which divide all the Provinces thereof where-ever in the world into six Nations three Tramontaries three Cismontaines of which Cismontane the Belgick Nation is one comprehends not only at the several Provinces of lower Germany most of those of the higher but also those of Denmarke Scotland England and Ireland which four last Kingdoms or the Convents of Franciscans therein before the change of Religion though very numerous made but four Provinces of that Order So that by vertue of his Ordinary Superiour-ship General over the Franciscans in that Belgick Nation though otherwise subject himself to the Minister General of the whole Order throughout the world the said Commissary General Iames de Riddere cited Father Caron and those others mean'd by him as involved in the business to appear at Rome or Bruxels Yet having not particularly expressed the business or cause and for some other essential defects in that manner of citation Father Caron return'd the answer you have here after that citatory Letter which I give first A Letter written by the Commissary General of St. Francis Order in the Belgick German and Brittish Nation and over those of the same Order in Ireland and Denmark Father Iames de Riddere a Brabantine to Father Redmond Caron Reverend Father YOurs of the 15th of March were sent me by Father Augustine Niffo and I received them on the 17th of April at Brule in the Province of Cullen being imployed in visiting And wondred such great difficulties and dangers in obeying the commands of Superiours alledged by you who have so easily ingaged in a business full of difficulties and dangers not only to your selves in particular but the whole Order Therefore be it known to your Reverence be it known to all that have engaged themselves in the same affair That our most holy Lord whom by a special â—ye of our Rule we ought to obey doth justly expect an account from you satisfaction from your Superiors Whence it is that by iterated commands from the most Reverend Father General I admonish your Reverences and summon you to appear either before him at Rome or me at Bruxels to yield a more ample account of that act of yours to the end we may satisfie the See Apostolick be careful of the honour of the Order and of your own particular honour safety and comfort which out of a fatherly affection is desired by Your reverend Paternities most addicted Brother and Servant Fr. Iames de Riddere Superscribed To the very reverend Father Father Redmond Caron of the Order of the Friars Minors and Province of Ireland Reader Iubilate of sacred Theology As soon as Father Caron received this Letter he called together such of the Irish Franciscan Subscribers as he could meet with at London and with their consent and in all their names return'd in Latin this answer you have here translated Father Carons Reply signed by him and the rest of the Subscribers of his Order and Province of Ireland then at London Most Reverend Father YOurs of the 18th of April given at Brule we have seen whereby you summon us that have engaged in that affair to Rome or Bruxels We have sent a Copy thereof into Ireland that your summons may be known to the rest without whose answer we cannot in a Cause common to us all give that full satisfaction we intend However such as are here wonder that in your letter of Summons the cause of summoning them is not otherwise specified then by these words who have engaged themselves in that affair What affair Nay how so great a multitude being at least of the very Franciscans forty in number who with many others of the Secular and Regular Clergy and some Bishops too have signed that Remonstrance or Protestation if it or those of your Order that signed it be meaned by you may be summoned to Rome or Bruxels without any regard or consideration of either the old age of some the sickness of many and the poverty all wanting means to bear their charges for so long a journey And again how are they cited to Rome or Bruxels who by another mandate of the Right Reverend Father General which mandat is now here at London are commanded home to Ireland Whatever may be said in answer to these expostulations your most reverend Paternity may be pleased to understand the Laws of England are and of three hundred years standing that no Subject may under pain of death without the Kings licence depart the Kingdom in obedience to or compliance with any citation from forreign parts not even from Rome And that whoever doth otherwise summon or if subject to the King serues any such summons or even obeys them is in this Kingdom declared guilty of High Treason All which His sacred Majesty that now raigns hath confirmed of late and under the same penalties commanded us to observe We do not believe that your most Reverend Paternity is of opinion that we ought with so great a hazzard of our selves transgress those Laws and that command of our King to whom our bodies are subject by divine right Yet if it shall please your most Reverend Paternity to do in this case what the Canons of the Church do appoint in any such that is to appoint here or from elsewhere send unto us a Commissary or Delegate to take cognizance of our fact whatever it be where it was done to hear examine determine of and judge it we shall be very glad and most willingly submit to correction if we have swerved in any thing from the doctrine of all Antiquity Scripture or Fathers Or if peradventure you be not pleased with this submissive offer the Custos of our Province who by command of the late Middle Chapter in Ireland prepares for his journey to the General Chapter at Rome will more fully inform the Right Reverend Father General and your Paternity More we cannot say for your satisfaction until we hear from Ireland We
nay and meritoriously too abide the sentence of death even in prima instantia from a Judge of Assize according to the laws of England or Ireland or both and the Execution of it and even at the same time acknowledge himself bound under pain of sin to abide this sentence and this execution patiently and christianly without resistance and yet at the same time also challenge the priviledge of the Canons or at least not renounce the priviledge of the Canons and even of such as he really conceives to be obliging Canons whether groundedly or ungroundedly he conceives or alledges such Canons it matters not to our purpose or that he may at the same time also alledge and the case may be such that he may truly too alleadge that he is proceeded against unjustly both by the Inferiour supream Judge both against the legally established received unrepealed obliging Canons of the Church and the uncontroverted clear just and wholsome laws of the State And therefore it is no less evident that there can be no inconsistency no contradiction at all betwixt a Priests acknowledging the duty of such an obedience and his challenging alwaye nevertheless a right not to be proceeded against by such a sentence That our further declaring in the said Remonstrance That notwithstanding any sentence of excommunication deposition c. we will alwayes be true obedient faithful Subjects to the King that we renounce all forreign power spiritual or temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to absolve us from us Allegiance or dispense with us therein or give us leave to raise tumults bear arms c. against his Majesty or Laws That we bold the doctrine impious and renounce â—t as such which teacheth that any Subject may murder the anointed of God his Prince though of a different Religion from his That we acknowledge all supream temporal Princes to be Gods Lieutenants on earth or in their Dominions and obedience due to them respectively in all civil and temporal affairs by their own Subjects That finally we protest against all contrary doctrines and practices That I say our further declaring any or all these particulars together doth not either formally or virtually or expresly or tacitly draw with it our declaring against or our disacknowledging renouncing declining or quitting the Exemption or Ecclesiastical immunity of Clerks either as to their Persons or as much as to their Goods if by this Exemption or Immunity that be understood as it ought certainly which all Catholick States Kingdoms Nations Councils Parliaments People Divines Universities Bishops Clerks and consequently Churches do understand in France Spain Germany Italy Venice Poland c. For the truth of all and every such declaration and obligation consequent may and doth very well stand in their opinion and according to their practice with such Exemption being they all hold this Exemption to be not independently from the soveraign power of the Princes or States or of their Laws but with dependance alway in relation to that soveraignty or supream Majesty from the inferiour Judicatures and in such cases only whether civil or criminal as are priviledged and only too in prima instantia or at most in so many other instances as will not require manifestly or by manifest necessity an appeal or recourse to the Prince or State civil or pollitick â gravamine or the interposition of the Prince's or States supream power in the case without any such appeal or recourse of either Plantiff or Defendant but ex officio where the Prince or State see a manifest necessity of such interposition as the case may be very well as it hath often been that the Ecclesiastical Judges are themselves involved in the same crime for example in treason or sedition and therefore will not punish the criminals accused before them but rather encourage them as much as they dare That moreover as it appears manifestly out of all the foresaid passages either separatly or collectively taken there is not from the first word to the last of the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance not I say any passage at all any word or syllable in that whole Declaration being these I have given are all it contains of any matter soever that may be formally or virtually expresly or tacitly directly or indirectly understood by any rational impartial man to dis-acknowledge or declare against Immunity Ecclesiastical or the Exemption of Clergy-mens either Persons or Goods as this Exemption is allowed or approved by the Catholick World or Church or as by either understood so it appears no less manifestly that in the petitionary address which immediatly follows the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance and of principles belonging to such Allegiance there is neither as much as one word which may import to an impartial understanding Reader or to any that is not clouded by ignorance or byassed by malice any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such immunity or exemption And that if in this petitionary address there be nothing to this purpose or any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption it must be and is confess'd by the very most scrupulous or most invidious Adversaries there can be none at all in all or any part of that Remonstrance or in that whole Instrument entituled The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland To prove this last conditional assertion I need not add any thing more to what I have said already or observed in considering all the several distinct parts of the Act of Recognition in it self and other declarations following therein and to what moreover I have presently hinted of the confession of our most carping Adversaries but only this one advertisement more to the Reader whereof himself by reading only over that whole Instrument can be Judge that nothing else is contained in the paper but a bare Remonstrance of grievances persecution odium c. which no man ever yet quarrel'd against as pretending therein a ground for this fourth Exception or any other whatsoever What remains therefore to be cleared is the petitionary address of that paper as that indeed against which for ought I heard from the Dissentors themselves or any of them all their quarrel is on this pretence of quitting Ecclesiastical Immunity and subjecting Clergy-men to Lay Judicatories or to Secular Courts in criminal causes But how justly or unjustly be you Judge good Reader when you have considered the words sense and scope of that Petition so often returned for answer to this invidious Exception The words and whole tenor of that perclosing Address are these and no other These being the tenets of our Religion in point of Loyalty and submission to your Majesties commands and our dependance of the See of Rome no way intrenching on that perfect obedience which by our birth by all laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to
cognizance of the Priests alone As appears sufficiently by the contrary practice of their being taxed and punished by their civil Magistrats all along from that time forward while their Commonwealth State or Kingdom was in being So that none of all these examples out of the old Testament alleadged by Bellarmine prove as much as per quamdam similitudinem by some kind of similitude as he speaks that Christian Clerks are by the positive law of God or should be exempt from either the supream or not supream coercive power of the civil Magistrate in criminal causes or any causes whatsoever nay nor that they are exempt by such as much as from taxes if the supream Magistrate shall find it necessary to impose taxes on them which is a farre less priviledge Nor yet as much as prove that any Priests or Clerks whatsoever in any age or amongst any people have ever yet been so exempt by any kind of meer human law from such supream coercive power in criminal causes And as for that onely place which he produces out of the new Testament Mat. 17. these words of our Saviour Then are the Children free and least we scandalize them c give it them for thee and me who sees not further that it is as impertinent as any of those of the old Testament and yet more impertinent then some of them to inferre our present controversy or to inferre that as much as per quandam similitudinem by the positive law of God Clerks are exempt from the cognizance and punishment of the supream civil Magistrate or even to inferre their exemption from the very most inferiour civil Judicatories in any civil or temporal cause whatsoever though it were not criminal any way Our Saviour according to the exposition of St. Hilary intimats onely his own freedom or exemption as he was the natural Son of God from that imposition laid by his Father in Exodus 30. on all the children of Israel of a sicle to the holy Temple or Tabernacle which was yearly paid by the Israelits none at all excepted not as much as those very Levits or Priests What hath this to do with the exemption of others that were not the natural Sons of God or what to do with the exemption of such others from the civil Judicatories in other causes or from the supream coercive power of the Prince in criminal causes Or if we admit the exposition of those who say this Didrachma was a tribute layd by Caesar to be payed to himself not that sicle which by the law of Moyses was to be payed to the Temple or tabernacle how doth our Saviour intimating that himself was Son to a King infinitely above all Caesars and therefore in that respect not bound to pay it if he pleased and that onely to avoyd scandal he would pay it for as much as he was not yet known to others to be the natural Son of that onely supream King of all Kings and Caesars and for that he came on earth in that form he appeared in not to break the laws of God or man but to fulfil the former in all points and to observe the later too wherein they were not against the former how I say doth such intimation made by our Saviour in that passage of Matthew any way or even as much as per quandam similitudinem inferre this conclusion Therefore by the positive law of God all Christian Clerks are in criminal causes exempt from the supream civil coercive power of Princes or Magistrats Yes very well sayes Bellarmine Because all such are of the peculiar family of Christ they are his special servants and Ministers And we know that the children of Kings being exempt from tribute and taxes it is not their own persons onely are so exempt but all their servants and Domestick family Excellent But are not all Catholicks or at least are not all holy and truly vertuous and sanctified Catholicks both men and women and as well those of them as are meer laye persons and have no other relation to Churchmen but that of the Catholick communion or Faith are not I say such of the special family of Christ his especial servants and Ministers as well at least as some Clergiemen or as at least the laye servants of some Clergiemen or as their maid-servants and men-servants their Porters Gardners Brewers Cooks and Scullions And doth not Bellarmine all those of his way extend Ecclesiastical Immunity even that very self-same Immunity which he would per quandam similitudinem as he speaks maintain to be de jure divino positivo doth not he I say at least for some part extend that even to all such laye servants even Landresses Cooks and Scullions of Clergiemen Certainly himself elswhere confesses de Concil Author l. 2. c. 17. avers also as much to his purpose That all Christian Catholicks men and women as well of the Layety as Clergie of the whole earth are of one and self-same family of Christ and fellow servants of the same house under the great Steward and Major domo of Christ the Bishop of Rome And to prove that all are of the same family and house of Christ under the same Steward brings that quaerie of Christ himself in St. Luke 12. chap. Quis est fidelis dispensator et prudens quem constituit Dominis super familiam suam c. But whether he will confess or no that they are equally of Christs household it matters not being it is evident of it self the principles of Christian Religion being supposed that such vertuous holy and sanctified laye persons who are no way obliged to Churchmen nor their domestical servants at all are more truly and properly and excellently of the family of Christ and more truly properly and excellently his servants and Ministers too in general though not by particular designation to that is the special Ministery or function of Clerks then even very many Clerks themselves not to speak of the domestick laye servants of any Clerks whatsoever Besides I demand of any that will answer for this eminent Cardinal whether all that believe in Christ as they should by a living Faith are not not onely called children of light in several places of Scripture are not not onely called servants of Christ and Domesticks of God but also have not the power given them to be the very Sons of God as Iohn the Evangelist sayes Jo. 1. dedit eis potestatem filius Dei fieri and not onely to be called so but really to be so as Paul in an other place ut filij Denominemur et simus to wit by adoption and sanctification And being it must be answered they are so called they have such power given them they are so indeed and not by name onely I farther demand then where is the strength of Bellarmine's argument grounded on our Saviour's intimating in this place of Mat. that himself was free and on the example of Earthly Princes and of their children freed by
been delivered and declared unanimously by the Fathers therein from the beginning as of divine Faith or as the doctrine of Christ or of the Apostles as received from Christ or that the contrary is heretical c. Non enim sunt de fide sayes Bellarmine ubi supra disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum et illustrandum adferuntur sed tantum ipsa nuda Decreta et ea non omnia sed tontum quae proponuntur tamquam de fide Interdum enim concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile c Quando autem decretum proponatur tamquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilij semper enim dicere solent se explicare fidem Catholicam vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt Quando autem nihil borum dicunt non est certum rem esse de fide Whence it must follow evidently and even by an argument a majori ad minus that neither the words or epithets used even by the most general Council may be in their decrees of Discipline Reformation or manners nor the suppositions or praevious or concomitant bare opinions which occasion'd the use of such words or epithets in such decrees bind any at all to beleeve such words or epithets were rightly used or fitly applyed or that those opinions were well grounded or certain truths at all Whereof the reason too is no less evident and obvious To wit that the Fathers or Council had not examined or discussed this matter it was not at all their business to determine it nor did they determine it And that we know laws of Reformation and even the very most substantial parts of such Canons are grounded often on or do proceed from meer probable perswasions or such as onely seem probable nay sometimes from the meer pleasure of such law makers All which being uncontrovertedly true where is the strength of Bellarmines grand or second argument framed of such bare words or epithets did we grant his sense even in the whole latitude of it were that of these Popes and Councils Or how will he seek to establish a maxime of such consequence or of so much prejudice to all supream civil Governours and even to the peace of the world to all mankind it self and a maxime for so much or for what hath reference to the exemption of Clerks as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power so clearly as will be seen hereafter in some of the following Sections against express and clear passages of holy Scripture and against the universal Tradition for a 1000. years at least how will he I say have the confidence to endeavour the establishing of such a maxime upon so weak a foundation which every man can overthrow at pleasure or deny with reason to be a foundation at all for that or any other maxime as I mean asserted to be declared such in the positive law of God either in holy Scripture or in undoubted Tradition For the positive law of God appears not to us but by either of these two wayes of the written or unwritten word of God himself 4. And lastly that besides all said in these three answers to this second argument of Bellarmine if we please to examine further what the places alleadg'd import we shall find that whatever the private or peculiar but indiscussed opinion of these Popes or Councils was or was not concerning our present dispute of the exemption of Clerks and that by the positive law of God as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil or temporal coercive power nay or whatever such words as jus diuinum ordinatio Dei voluntas omnipotentis c. abstractedly taken may import yet the places alleadged or these words or epithets used in them by these Fathers must not by any means be thought therefore to have comprehended our present case or extended to it at all And the reason is 1. That all Divines and Canonists agree that all expressions words or epithets in any law whatsoever must be understood secundum subjectam materiam or must be expounded by and according as the matter which is in debate or is intended requires and further so as no errour inconvenience or mischief follow and yet the law and words thereof maintain'd still in a good sense and to some good use especially according to former wholesome laws 2. That the matter unto which there was any reference in these places or authorities quoted so by Bellarmine was either Ecclesiastical Immunity in the most generical sense abstracting from the several underkinds true or false or pretended onely of it or was it in a less generical sense taken for that of their persons but still abstracting for any thing appears out of these places quoted from that pretended species of exemption of Clerks as to their persons from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes especially when the crimes are high and so high too as they are subversive of the very State it self and are besides in meer temporal matters and no remedy at all from the spiritual superiours And in truth for what concerns the Council of Trent which as of greatest authority amongst us as being the very last celebrated of those we esteem general Councils Bellarmine places in the front 1. it is clear enough to any that will please to read the whole tenour of that twentieth chapter Ses. 25. de Reformatione which he quotes That that Council did even there so much abstract from this matter or so little intended it that on the contrary the Fathers much rather seem to speak onely there of the Ecclesiastical exemption of Clerks as to their persons from onely inferiour secular Judicatories or onely from the inferiour Courts Judges and Officers of Princes but not at all from the Princes themselves or from their supream civil power or that of their laws Which I am very much deceived if this entire passage whereof Bellarmine gives us but a few words do not sufficiently demonstrate Cupient sancta synodus Ecclesiasticam disciplinam in Christiano populo non solum restitui sed etiam perpetuo sartam tectam a quibuscumque impedimentis conservari praeter ea quae de Ecclesiasticis personis constituit saeculares quoque Principes officij sui admonendes esse censuit confidens eos ut Catholicos quos Deus sanctae fidei Ecclesiaeque protectres esse voluit jus suum Ecclesiae restitui non tantum esse concessuros sed etiam suâ— ditos suos omnes ad debitam erga Clerum Parcchos et superiores ordines reverentiam revecaturos neâ— permâ—ssuros ut officiales aut inferiores magistratus Ecclesiae et personarum Ecclesiastisarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu
inconsideratione aliqua violent sed una cum ipsis Principibus debitam sacris summorum Pontificum et Conciliorum constitutionibus observ antiam praestent Decernit itaque c. 2. It is also clear enough these words ordinatione divina or the Councils saying that Ecclesiastical Immunity was constituted by divine ordination imports no more of necessity then that it was Gods good pleasure and special providence and care of the Church and Churchmen that disposed affairs so and moved the hearts of Princes and people to give such exemptions to the Church and Churchmen as they indeed have For so we say that by Gods ordination or divine ordination this or that is as it is Which yet argues no positive law of God nor any law at all of God for it to be as it is As for that of Colen besides that it is but a smale Provincial Synod never yet canonized by any general Synod nor even by any Pope and therefore in Bellarmine's own principles of no authority out of that Province not even were the Decree in a matter of Faith as it is not certainly it is manifest enough the Fathers there or in that ch par 9. quoted by him speake not a word pro or â—â—n of our present dispute or if they do any way indirectly or by consequence that all is against Bellarmine forasmuch as they determine Ecclesiastical Immunity to consist chiefly in two things The one that Clerks and their possessions are free of all imports tributs and other lay duties The other that criminals flying to Churches be not forced thence Now where is a word here of Clerks being exempt even from the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes and even the most haynous crimes imaginable and committed too in meer temporal things These Fathers of Colen did not as much as dream of any such matter At least no rational Divine is to judge or conclude out of their words or expression here that they did For the onely word here whence any such thing might be any way pretended are these aliisque maneribus laicis But who sees not there are other lay duties besides customs oâ— taxes from which by the civil constitutions of the Roman Emperours at first and after by that of other Kings who succeeded them Clerks are and have been exempted nay that their exemption from other lay duties was the first exemption they had and even that which above all other was most convenient they should have as for example from all civil offices of Collectors Bayliffs Constables from the Militia c. Why then should any Divine be so unreasonable as to derive from a position so general so proper and so true of those Fathers of Colen a conclusion so particular so improper and so false as Bellarmine doth in our present case As for those other words of this of Colen jure pariter divino humano I have already said what we must rationally think they understood by jus divinum though only applied here to other exemptions then that from the supream civil power For both the Lateran Councils I confess Bellarmine and some others with him give them both equally the name of General But I am sure withal that according to all truth the latter which he considers first or that under Leo the X. does not merit as much as the name of a General Council truly such nor even of an Occidental Council truly such and that Bellarmine himselâ— elsewhere confesses it is not esteemed as such by many great Catholicks and that moreover whatsoever he thinks the whole Gallican Church many others reject it as not esteeming it such for many reasons which I shall give hereafter in this book upon another occasion As I am sure also that all the Canons of discipline reported to be of the IV. Council of Lateran or of that under Innocent the Third which Bellarmine quotes here in the next place are doubtful though for the present it matters not much whether these Canons be or be not genuine or whether this which is called the great Council of Lateran Concilium Magnum Laterananse was or was not a general Council truly such or whether only a very great Occidental Council but not for all that a Council oecumenical or General properly and truly such of the universal Church As the same for the point of being truly oecumenical or General of the whole Church is disputed by some concerning the Tridentine Synod albeit now of greatest authority with us of all General Councils truly and unconvertedly such Neither doth it matter any more one jot whether the other Lateran under Leo the X. be admitted or not for a General Council truly such For albeit this latter in the IX Session and decreeing somewhat of Ecclesiastical Discipline sayes in general and by way of supposition that by divine and humane law there is no power attributed to Lay-men over Clerks c. and the former under Innocent cap. 24. say that some Laicks endeavour to usurp too much of divine right when they compel Church-men that receive no temporal benefit from them to swear Allegiance or take oathes of fidelity to them yet no understanding person no good Divine or Canonist may therefore conclude that certainly these Councils intended thereby to signifie as much as it to be their own bare opinion much less to declare it as the Catholick Faith which indeed is not pretended of them by Bellarmine himself or any other That Clerks are by a pâ—sitive law of God exempt even in all criminal causes whatsoever from the supream civil coercive power of temporal Princes And my reasons are 1. Because it is a maxime of both Divines and Canonists that priviledges and laws that speak of priviledges are stricti juris or strictae interpretationis when the priviledges are to the prejudice of any third's right as also when out of any other kind of more ample interpretation some either absurdity or falsity or any great inconvenience or any errour and gross mistake attributed to the laws or Law-makers or givers of such priviledge must follow 2. Because it is a maxime too very well known and granted that where a Law or Canon dwells in Generals only we must not understand particulars or such specialties as are not specially express'd and whereof there is or may be a grand controversie whether the power of the Canon-makers could reach unto them and which moreover are such that it is not likely the Law or Canon-makers would comprehend them if expresly thought upon and specially debated 3. Because it is manifest this position of Bellarmine concerning the exemption of Clergy-men in all criminal causes whatsoever c. is such a specialty and such a priviledge And therefore it must follow that whereas these Councils of Lateran do not in specifical express terms discend to it no Divine or Canonist may in reason conclude they mean'd it But on the contrary ought rather to expound them in any other probable and rational
judge of all without further trouble to turn those monuments either sacred or prophane That in the former Section I have already shewen at large the impertinency or unsufficiency as to his general Assertion of his quoting the 47. of Gen. and 1. of Esdras 7. for what concerns the Hebrew Priests under Artaxerxes and therefore need not say any more of these two Scripture places here That for his other two Scripture places the first out of the thirtieth of Exodus and second out of the first chapter of the book of Numbers neither of both has a word importing as much as a bare exemption of the Levits from all kind of tributs or from any at all but onely from the half ficle which was to be payed for the use of the Tabernacles by all the children of other tribes who came to 20. years So that I cannot but be somewhat troubled when I see this great man alleadge Scriptures after this rate 1. Because this very exemption of the Levits from paying that half ficle is by consequence onely concluded out of the second of these places or both together forasmuch as in the late or in that 1. chap. of Numbers verse 48. God commanded Moyses not to muster the Tribe of Levi and that in the former place or 30. of Exodus 12. v. we find that each one mustered was to pay to the Lord or for the use of the Tabernacle half a sicle ten of our pence 2. Because these very places tell that all the children boys and youths of what ever tribe who were under twenty were as well exempt from that payment because from the muster as the Levit were not to speak besides of the female Sex 3. Because it were certainly most ridiculous to conclude hence that all those young men besides all the women young and old were in all things whatsoever exempt from the supream civil Magistrate from the supream lay Judges and Kings that succeeded those Judges Nay and extreamly ridiculous to conclude from even a general exemption of the Levits from all kind of tribute did such appear as it doth not to conclude I say their personal exemption and in all kind of causes civil criminal mixt from those supream lay Captains Judges Kings whom yet God himself appointed to rule all the Tribes aswell of Levi as others That for his other citations out of Aristotle Caesar and Plutarch for what concerns other nations and Priests of Gentils either Greeks Romans or other soever I took the pains to find these Authors and turn the places quoted and read those whole books quoted by him that is that whole second book of Aristotles Oeconomicks and that whole 6. book of Caesars Gallick warr and that whole life too of Plutarchs Camillus but found all against our learned Cardinals exemption or his latitude of it That Aristotle hath not a word of Priests either in that second book or in his first which are all the books he hath of Oeconomicks or de Cura Rei familiaris as the Latins entitle them but onely in one place of the second where he tells that when on a time Taos King of Egypt was to march his Army and wanted money Chabrias the Athenian gave him Council to tell the Priests of both Sexes that for the charges of the warr he found it necessary to lessen their number That hereupon the Priests every one for himself to be continued gave the King money And that again after this money so received the same Chabrias the second time advised the King to command the same Priests to spend thenceforth but the tenth part on themselves and sacrifices of that they had till then and give him the other nine until he had ended the Persian warr If this import any thing out of Aristotle for Bellarmine's purpose or not rather directly against his purpose of a law of nature or nations for the exemption of either as much as Priestly Clerks or Gentil Priests from the supream Civil power it imports all things els he please That Caesar indeed hath somewhat more likely of the Druides of Gaul Druides à bello abesse consueverant neque tributa unà cum reliquis pendunt militiae vacationem omniumque rerum habent immunitatem And yet here is no more but vacation from warr exemption from tributs and immunity for all their goods Not a word of their being exempt from the supream Civil Magistrat generally in all kind of things or causes or indeed in any thing at all from his supream power And still whatever is said here is said onely of the Druides of Gaul Not a word in all that book of Caesars of the Priests or customs of all other nations or of any in exempting so generally their Priests if peradventure Caesars telling That the Druides of Gaul had their discipline from the Druides of Brittain be not a testimony of such Custom of other nations which cannot be said That for Plutarch in Camillus he tells there I confess how after the Gauls had possessed Rome for seaven months the Capitol onely excepted which the holy Geese of Iuno's Temple by their gagling preserved and after the violence of a great plague and the power of Camillus had beat them away and forced them back to their own territories the Romans nevertheless were in such fear of their return that they made a law for the exemption of Priests from warr so it were not against the Gauls For these are the very words of Plutarch there and all the words he hath in that whole life of Camillus of any such matter or of Priests at all 'T is improbable therefore that Bellarmine ever troubled himself to read Plutarch when he quoted him for his purpose here of a law or custom amongst the Romans for the general exemption of as much as their own Priests in all things or even too in any thing from the supream civil power of their State Here they are not exempted in some cases as much as from the duties of warr That for what concerns that priviledg of Constantine and for what appears out of that his Epistle to Anulinus recorded in Euseb l. 10. cap. 7. I elswhere shew as I bring that Epistle at length in the next Section that Constantine was farre enough from granting thereby any such exemption as Bellarmine pretends either of the persons of Clergiemen from asmuch as the most subordinate inferiour lay-Judges or of their goods from taxes but onely an immunity or freedom from publick offices as those of Sheriffs Mayors Bayliffs Constables Collectors c. That finally for those words of Iustinians law who sees not they are to no kind of purpose alleadged certainly how subject soever any Divine or other person on earth will say Clerks are to either supream or subordinate civil Magistrats in all kind of temporal causes yet will the same Divines and all other persons and at the same time freely acknowledg with Iustinian the equity of making a difference twixt divine and human things
is Ecclesiastical Judges given them in such exempted causes both criminal and civil but given them so by the supream authority civil and proceeding in so much against them to a meer civil determination execution and coaction by vertue onely of the power derived from the civil laws and supream civil Magistrate and not by vertue of any spiritual power or other whatsoever derived from the Church as purely a Church Because the Church as such hath neither territory nor sword consequently no external criminal or civil Judicatory with any external or temporal power of coaction or coercion properly such but onely a spiritual power of meer spiritual censures which is but secundum quid or diminutively and improperly called coercion or coaction for what belongs to our purpose here But however this be or be not it is clear enough First that by no civil law of the Roman Emperours Clerks have been ever yet at any time exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat or from the supream civil coercive power of his laws Which I take to be so absolutely certain That Bellarmine himself for proof of his third Proposition which he hath cap. 28. l. 1. de Cler. in these general words Non possunt Clericiâ—a Judicâ— seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent had not the confidence to alleadg any other imperial or civil constitution but onely those of the Emperour Justinian's Novells 79. 83. and 123. where yet Bellarmine confesses this Emperour decreed no more but the exemption of Clerks and Monks from secular that is laye judicatories in civil causes onely and not in criminal Nay confesses that for criminal causes the same Justinian particularly and expresly decrees in these very Novels that Clergiemen be subject still to the lay or civil Pretors Jurisdiction with this caution only that judgment of death be not pronounced in the Pretors Court against a Clerk before he be degraded by the Bishop So that by the very concession and confession of Bellarmine himself it is not only clear enough that no civil constitution can be produced for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream lay power but also clear enough that no such can be pleaded for their exemption in such causes from all subordinate inferiour lay Courts being the Pretors Court was a subordinate one at least unto the Princes own supream Tribunal and being that Bellarmine having confessed this much of this law of Iustinians finds no other civil Institution for his purpose in criminal causes to alledge but flyes presently to his Ecclesiastical Institutions in that point saying that albeit the civil law did not so exempt Clerks in criminal causes from the civil Judicatories yet the Canons of the Church did as sayes he appears clearly out of the Epistle of Cains the Pope to Felix and out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and also out of the XI book of Gregory the Greats Register epist 54. ad Joannem Defensorem and saying further that the civil law must yield to the Canon Law cum possit summus Pontifex Imperatori praecipere in iis praesertim quae ad Ecclesiam pertinent whereas sayes he the supream Pontiff or Pope may command the Emperour especially in such things as concern the Church Where it is evident that Bellarmine confesses plainly there is no civil Institution or Law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the civil or lay Courts For the Reader is to take notice here that by the civil law in this matter no other civil law is understood but that only of Emperours From which indeed originally and only all the exemption of Clerks proceeded even in those Christian Countreys which have shaken off the yoke and even in those too which never yet were under that of the Imperial Power or Laws but have made themselves peculiar municipal laws Which yet albeit they be meerly and properly civil laws yet are they not the civil laws whereof Bellarmine treats and his other Associats contend as we are sure they give more exemption to Clerks either in criminal or civil causes then those of the Roman Emperour did But forasmuch as many of our Clerks are ignorant of that spring of their exemption whatever this exemption truly groundedly be as others are no less ungrateful for not acknowledging it I will oblige those and check these by laying here before their eyes the very first laws the several degrees of them whereby they came by the meer favour of the Roman Emperours to that exemption from Secular Courts which they have truly ever since enjoyed more or less in Christendome according as these laws were continued practised or even by other Princes not subject any more or at all to the Roman Emperours and Laws enacted a new or allowed of Therefore and that we may not erre hereafter in this point the Reader is to know that all these several priviledges liberties or exemptions either of persons lands or other goods which the Clergy hath now in Christian Kingdoms and States have not been granted at first by any one Emperour or at any one time The very first exemption ever yet granted to Clerks was that of Constantine the Great whereby after this good Emperour had formerly published his edicts of liberty for Christian Religon in general he particularly gave this priviledge by law to those of that religion were called Clerks that they should not be obnoxious to nominations or susceptions that is that if they were named or elected for any civil office of Magistracy or Wardship or of gathering of Taxes Tributes c. yet they should not be bound to undergo any such whereas before that law or priviledge Christian Clerks being named or elected were bound to undergo all such offices without any such excuse at all But eight years after this law so made the same Câ—nstantine made another whereby he gave a general exemption to such Clerks from all kind of civil offices l. 1. 2. Cod. Theod. de Episcop Cleric l. 16. wherein he gives the reason of this priviledge least sayes he Clerks sacrilego livâ—re quorundam a divinis obsequiis avocentur may out of the sacrilegious envy of some be called away or diverted from their divine imployments And indeed it is very observable against the ungrateful temerity of some Clerks who are loath to acknowledge the spring of their Immunity to be from the secular power that the same most Christian Prince calls those exemptions priviledges For so he calls them in express tearms Haereticorum factiâ—ne comperimus Ecclesiae Catholicae Clericos ita vexari ut nominationibus seu suceptionibus aliquibus quas publicus mos exposcit centra indulta sibi privilegia pregraventur we have found sayes he that by the faction of Hereticks the Clerks of the Catholick Church are so vexed that they are forced to submit to nominations and susceptions which publick use requires against the priviledges granted them In reference to and
godliness piety zeal what they believed to be their own proper goods how much more would they have abstained from usurping on those of the Church and to which they had known themselves to have no kind of right Secondly forasmuch as depends of the testimony or authority of the civil Law it self it is clear enough that Clergiemen have not only been originally or sometime but have continued alwayes or at all times since the very first of christianity are at present stil subject to the supream civil Power therefore not exempt from it For being it appears by these laws that Clergiemen were so first indistinctly in all kind of politick matters subject or not exempt in any either from the supream civil or subordinate civil and being further that none of these laws nor altogether exempt them but in some politick things or some such causes from the subordinat only and in none at all from the supream in any such cause and being moreover that it was from and by virtue of or by a power derived from those very civil laws and consequently from the supream civil Magistrate Prince Emperour that Ecclesiastical Judges were so appointed for other Clerks in any civil or criminal cause whatsoever or in those we call meer lay crimes it must follow that forasmuch as concerns the testimony of those civil laws which Bellarmine quotes here Clerks are still subject to the supream civil power though not in some cases or not even in very many cases to the subordinat civil but in such have other Judges that is Ecclesiastical ones appointed them by the same laws For by the testimony of these laws they are not exempt wherein they were not exempted by those very laws And those laws do not exempt them in any case at all from the Legislator Himself or from the supream civil power nor even from the subordinate indistinctly and universally in all cases but in some only Thirdly it is clear enough also by the testimony authority and warranty of these civil Laws and forasmuch I say as depends of such warranty if joyn'd together with the allowed doctrine of all christian both Lawyers and Divines generally that in such Christian Kingdoms as never have been govern'd by those laws of Roman Emperours or which in after-times did legally shake off the yoke both of the Empire and imperial laws generally and are govern'd only by municipal laws of their own Clerks are not exempt at all in politick matters from either supream or subordinate lay Courts or Judges no further then such municipal peculiar civil laws do exempt them And being that in no such Countrey at all for any thing we know yet or is alledged yet by Bellarmine or by our Divines of Lovaine Clerks are not exempt by such laws from the supream civil power and being at least that whatever may be imagined of some one or other Countrey with or without ground we know certainly there is no such law in England or Ireland nor hath yet ever been it is no less clear that Clerks are not at all exempt in England or Ireland in politick matters from the supream civil power of the Prince or of his Laws forasmuch I say still as depends of the testimony of the civil laws or even of the doctrine of either Christian Lawyers or Catholick Divines Which doctrine is that laws of men when meer laws of men and in politick matters depend not only of public tiâ—â—â— but also of legal reception and hereof also that they be not abrogated again by a contrary establishment or by a general opposition abrogation or disuse in any particular Kingdom or State especially if such as have the supream civil Legislative Power approve of or concurr to such abrogation or disuse Fourthly and Lastly and as a corrollary out of all it is perspicuous that as the very civil laws of Roman Emperours and such other municipal laws of other Christian Princes giving such or some certain and special exemptions and other priviledges to Clergiemen and giving them freely and out of devotion only for the greater decency and reverence of the Church do convince any rational person that secular Princes are still continually as they have been originally Superiours in temporal power to the Clergy even to all Priests and Bishops whatsoever living within their Dominions so they also convince that not even the great Priest and Bishop the very chief and spiritual Prince both of all Priests and of all Bishops too the Pope himself not even this so Oecumenical Vicar of Christ in all spiritual matters throughout the whole earth can be truly said to be at present upon any other account exempted from secular Powers in temporal matters but on this only that he also himself is now as he hath been for some ages though not from the beginning a temporal or secular Prince too and that now he represents a double Person that of the Successor of St. Peter at Rome which undoubtedly he hath from Christ and from the Church purely taken as a Church and that also of a secular Prince with independent secular civil or temporal power which latter he hath no less undoubtedly and even only and solely from the meer devotion benevolence bounty and gift of other Princes and people even I mean of meer lay Princes People But to the end learned men shall not say I take advantage of Bellarmine's not having so throughly examined this matter in his great work of Controversies nor even in his very last edition of that work which yet is the edition I have hitherto answered and shall not object at any time that Bellarmine sifted yet more narrowly the question of the civil laws in a latter book of his when he was in his old age forced to it by Doctor William Barelay's answers and solutions of all the Church-canons whereon chiefly or rather indeed only Bellarmine relyed till then as we have seen and we shall further see yet in the next Section for his so general exemption of Clergiemen from even the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes whatsoever least I say any should object this I will give at large and in Bellarmines own words but Englished all that he replies in that his very last piece on this subject we have now in hand of the civil laws against the same William Barclay and my own rejoynder also though in effect and for the most part made before I confess by another that is by Iohn Barclay the Son in his Pietas and to justifie the quarrel of his then dead Father LXIX Bellarmine therefore seeing by the said William Barclay's work De Potestate Papae in Temporalibus against him that all his former pretences of what law soever civil or ecclesiastical for the exemption of Clergiemen from the supream civil Power could not perswade any judicious Reader of that book of William Barclay regards no more what he had granted before in his great Works of Controversies and even in the very
last edition and after so many recognitions l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. but retracts that and puts on a new face and amasses together all his reading ever since that Edition and all his veteran strength and wit to prove that not only by other arguments but also by the very civil laws of Roman Emperours all Clergiemen are wholly and generally exempt and in all causes both civil and criminal from all even the very supreamest civil coercive power on earth even from that of those very Emperours who made those laws To the fourth proposition sayes he Tractatu de Potestate Papae in rebus temporalibus cap. 35. which was that no writer hath recorded to posterity that Princes have exempted Clerks from their own power but only from the power of inferiour Magistrates I answer that whoever sayes so doth seem either to have read nothing or to have purposed to abuse his Reader For Ruffians writen l. 10. Hist c. 2. That Constantine the Emperour pronounced in express words It was not lawful for him to judge Priests but rather to be judged by them Whereby he declared openly enough that Priests were exempted not only from the power of inferiour Judges but also from that of the very supream To which declaration that law of the same Constantine which is the seventh in Theedosius's Code de Episcopis Clericis is consentaneous where it is said that the Readers of the holy Bible and the Sub-deacons and other Clerks qui per injuriaâ— Hereticorum ad curiam devocati sunt who by the injustice of Hereticks are called to Court shall be absolved and henceforth as in the East shall not be called to Courts minime ad curias devocentur sed immunitate plenissima petiantur but enjoy a most plenary freedom So he Whence being it is clear enough that he absolutely prohibits that Clerks be called to Courts and will have them to enjoy a most plenary freedom and that he excepts nothing at all it must be also manifest his mind was that neither shall they be called upon to the very Princes own supream Courts for it would not be a most plenary exemption if they were obnoxious as much as to the very principal Power it self Such an other is that law of Theodosius and Valentinian Cod. Theodos. l. ultima de Episc Clericis where we read thus Clerks whom without any distinction the unhappy presumer commanded to be lead to the secular Judges we reserve to Episcopal Audience For it is not lawful that Ministers of divine duties be subjected to they pleasure of temporal powers In which law where nothing is excepted all things do seem to be comprehended unless peradventure the Princes power may not be said to be temporal And even Iustinian himself in his 83. Novella so often quoted by our Adversaries as if therein Clerks did not seem to be exempted in criminal causes from the secular Court hath these words That he must be first degraded from his sacerdotal dignity by the Bishop and so be put under the punishment of the law Where we see Clerks as long as they remain Clerks not to be under the power of the laws but onely after they are by the Bishop deprived of their Clerical honour and therefore while they remain Clerks to be not onely exempt from the power of inferiour judges but even from the very laws of Princes for what belongs to coaction And this is it which the Council of Constance did say in the 31. Session That laymen have no jurisdiction or power on Clerks And certainly under the name of Laicks it comprehends even supream Princes whereas these are Laicks Finally that I may pass over many other arguments the Emperour Frederick the second speaks generally in his first constitution where he sayes We also enact that none presume to draw any Ecclesiastical person to a secular judgment either in a criminal or civil question against the imperial constitutions and canonical sanctions So much there But by secular judgment are not onely understood the judgments of inferiour judges but also those of the supream whereas all are equally secular And we see it so observed indeed where the reverence of sacred canons bears the sway Behold here good Reader the very last essaye of a dying cause Our great Cardinal having been unwilling but to say somewhat however himself so knowing a man as we must presume he was could not but know he said nothing at all in all this discourse to perswade any other even but meanly knowing or judicious Adversary That any Roman Emperour did ever yet by any of these laws or other whatsoever exempt or intend to exempt or that otherwise they or any els understood Clerks to be exempt by any other law from their own supream imperial power in temporal matters either criminal or civil though I dispute not at present of civil causes but onely of criminal For 1. who sees not That were the testimony of Ruffinus's being home in any point a convincing argument yet this which is here alleadged is not in any wise to the point or question Ruffinus tells indeed that Constantine said it was not lawful for himself to judge the Priests but tells not that Constantine ever said himself had exempted them so from himself or that they were so by any law of man Albeit therefore Constantine said so to the Bishops of the first general Council of Nice yet is it plain enough out of the very series of that History in Ruffine when they offered 〈◊〉 petitions to him one against an other that as this was said by an ordinary manner of speech onely and by way of complement so the words must not be taken strictly or scrupulously at all but onely as extolling the dignity of Bishops and as intending to deterre them from litigiousness and chieftly 〈…〉 purpose to free himself from the trouble of judging their hateful differences That this was the mind of Constantine appears by these manifold and manifest arguments 1. That for that his saying he gave this reason that Bishops were Gods and received power from God to judge of him de nobis qâ—â—que pudicandi But neither can relate to human constitutions Nor even to those are divine least otherwise it must follow that Constantine farre better understood the law of God when he so refused to judge the Bishops then those very Bishops themselves who in that holy Oecumenical Synod of Nice did repaire and complain to him as to their Soveraign Judg as may be seen in that very History of Ruffinus 2. That otherwise no Clerks Priests Bishops themselves can be Judges of other Clerks sed ille solus de quo scriptum est Deus stetit in Synagoga Deorum in mediò autem Deos dijudicat For so said Constantine to the Bishops on that occasion and consequently if you take his words strictly or scrupulously he said that Clerks were not onely exempted from his own tribunal or that of Princes but from that of Pontiffs
also 3. That the very same Constantine had in many other places and many other much more authoritative speeches even in his own very imperial laws expresly declared how much he would have Clerks exempt and how much remain still subject to the common law As in Cod. Theodos. Tit. de Episcop l. 3. l. 6. Cod. Iustinian Tit. de Episc Cleric l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. Therefore neither did Constantine mean or intend by that saying That Clerks were exempt from his own immediate tribunal not even by the law divine nor in that History of Ruffinus is there as much as a word whereby it may be gathered That Clerks were set free of or exempted from the supream imperial power As for that seaventh law de Episc Cleric in the Code of Theodosian where it is said thus Lectores divinorum apicum Hypodiaconi caeteri Clerici qui per injuriam Haereticorum ad curiam devocati sunt absoluantur de caetero ad similitudinem orientis minimé ad Curias devocentur sed immunitate plenissima potiantur how sees not also Bellarmines intollerable errour in his understanding of the word Curia and of those other Devocari ad Curiam as if curia imported a judgment judgment seat Judicatory Tribunal or Court of Justice and as if Devocari ad Curiam the same with to be called or convened or summond to a Court of Justice or before a Judge whereas indeed Curia signifies precisely and onely especially in these laws either the place where the Tribes Wards or publick Officers as Collectors Constables tribute gatherers Mayors Bayliffs c. did meet or those very offices of publick care for from the word eura in Latin which imports care in English curia is said as it is derived And Devocari ad Curiam signifies properly and onely to be called upon to undergoe these publick offices of care which relate to the Commonwealth to Villages and Burroughs and Citties c whence it was that such as were appointed for such employments were called Curiones and Decuriones and were commonly rich able sufficient men and were not suffered at all to refuse or quit those employments not even under pretence of Clerk-ship or of their being Ecclesiastical persons or Church-men nor even under pretence or by vertue of their being priviledged persons of the very Emperours own house or family For Constantine himself commanded by law eod tit de Episc leg 3. nullum decurienem vel ex decurione progenitum vel etiam instructum idoneis facultatibus atque obeundum publicis muneribus opportunum ad Clericorum nomen obsequiumque confugere c. sed illos qui post legem latam obsequia publica declinantes ad Clericorum numerum confugiunt procul ab eo corpore segregatos curiae ordinibusque restitui civilibus obsequiis inservire That no Decurion nor any begott by a Decurion nor also any of sufficient riches and fit to undergo publick charges should flye to the name and service of Clerks c. But that all such as after the law was made to decline publick charges or offices had fled to or put themselves in the number or calling of Clerks that is of Churchmen should be wholly segregated again from that body and restored to their curia wardships orders and civil employments And after him the Emperour Valentinian l. 21. eod tit ordained That Hi qui Ecclesiae juge obsequium deputarunt curiis habeantur immunes si tamen eos ante ortum Imperij nostri ad cultum se legis nostrae contulisse constiterit caeteri revocentur qui se post id tempus Ecclesiasticis congregarunt That such as had deputed themselves for ever o the Church should be free from the curia that is from publick charges or offices of publick care Provided they have done so or been so deputed before the beginning of our Empire And let them be revoked that have after that time aggregated themselves to Ecclesiasticks Gratian also and Theodosius l. 39. C. de Decur decreed that Curiales qui sesâ— privilegio domus nostrae defendi posse crediderint ad curiam revocentur propriis sunctionibus mancipentur That Curials that is men in the law capable and lyable to undergo publick cares charges or offices as in a City rich able freemen Aldermen c. who believe they can defend themselves by the priviledg of our house be revoked notwithstanding ad curiam to the Assembly house or place where publick offices are imposed and there constrained to undergo such offices And yet the degree of Curials hath no title or name of Honour l. 1. C. de Decur and some immunities are bestowed on them l. 21. ibidem Quoniam sayes that law satis est si civitatum munera per eos congruè compleantur Because sayes it it is enough for them to discharge well the offices which they undergo in the Citties But frighted by the labour and as it were continual servitude of such employments they fled away from them a curia refugiebant For being employed in such it was unlawful for them to relinquish the Town Corporation City and go to the Prince's Court or elswhere to take their pleasure or even to go to the warrs or turn souldiers They must have continually kept their station at home to attend their publick charge or when they should be called thereunto Whence it is that the title of that law was thus conceived in the Code De Decurionibus filiis eorum qui Decuriales habentur quibus modis a fâ—rtuna curiae liberentur And that Princes beleeved they had highly priviledg'd the Clergie when they had freed them from wardships guardianships collectorships and all other such publick civil offices or which is the same thing from all nominations and susceptions from all curial employments whatsoever Behold here that most plenary exemption immunitatem plenissimam which Constantine would have the Clerks enjoy And who sees not moreover that Theodâ—sius and Valentinian or that law of theirs alleadg'd by Bellarmine out of Theodosians Code l. ultima de Episc Cleric where the words are these Clericos quos indiscretion ad seculares Iudices debere deduci infansius praesumptor dixerat Episcopali audientiae reservamus Fas enim non est ut divini muneris Ministri temporalium potestatum subdantur arbitriâ— who sees not I say that Bellarmine labours in vain in quoting these Emperours or this law of theirs For if even our learned Cardinal himself did but consider That that law was onely for confirming and asserting those priviledges which the Emperours themselves gave the Churches as is evident out of this other passage and those other genuin words of that very law ut quiâ—quid a Divis Principibus constitutum est vel quae singuli quique Antistites pro causes Ecclesiasticis impetrarunt sub paena sacrilegii jugi solidata aeternitate serventur himself also could not but be perswaded that those former words fas non est spoken
criminal causes while or during their being Clerks or before degradation For as for that other passage or those other words which Bellarmine takes hold of to abuse his Reader prius hunc spoliari a Deo amabili Episcopo sacerdotali dignitate ita sub legum manu fieri in English these this Clerk to be spoiled first of his sacerdâ—â—al dignity by the beloved Bishop of God and so to be put under the hand of laws who sees not that please to read that Novel nay that please to read what Bellarmine himself before and elswhere l. de Cler. c. 28. most expresly and particularly taught of the contents of that Novel who sees not I say that these words prius hunc spoliari c. ita sub legum manu fieri do not signifie in that law that Clerks were not before the Bishop degraded them subject in such criminal causes to the lay Presidents of Provinces or to the laws but onely after such degradation It is expresly provided in that very law as Bellarmine himself in the book of his now quoted confesses That the lay judg is in the very first place of all and before any such degradation to take cognizance of such criminal causes of Clerks and that in the next place if this lay judge find him guilty the Bishop is to degrade him before the execution or judgment of execution be given by the judge Is it not plain enough that by this very law or Novel of Iustinian Clerks were in such causes subject to such lay Judges and laws before any degradation by the Bishop could such lay Judges take cognizance of any cause or person that were not by law subject to them Therefore it is evident that the words prius spoliari c. in that passage quoted by Bellarmine and words ita sub legum manu fieri must as there be onely understood in relation to a publick definitive sentence of punishment and execution of such Which that Novel ordains for the honour of the sacred function of Priests not to be pronounced before the Judge give notice to the Bishop to degrade such a Priest as is by the same lay Judge upon examination and full discussion of the cause found to have deserved some infamous punishment as for example to be condemned to death or to the mines or perpetual banishment That so it may not be said that a Priest but a man despoiled first of the dignity of a Priest and of the very order it self as much as could be and of all kind of priviledges of the Clerical order was legally condemn'd and suffer'd such an ignominious punishment And by consequence the priority signified by that word prius relates to the posteriority of a definitive publick sentence of such infamy and to the execution of it not at all to a posteriority of power in such lay Judge over such a Clerk in such a cause which power we have now seen by that very Novel to have been anteriour to and wholly independent of the Bishops degradation being that the power of judicial cognizance of the crime was such And by the same consequence that being under the power of the civil laws imported by those other words ita sub legum manu fieri signifies onely a certain kind of being under and that too in order onely to such a subordinate Judge in such a cause but not all kinds of being under nor any kind at all in order to the supream civil Judge As for Bellarmines Allegation here of the Council of Constance Ses 31. it s not to the purpose because whatever may be said to have been meaned by the Fathers in those or any other such words or whether they intended only an exemption from the subordinat ciuil or lay Judges or even from the supream yet they say not here or elsewhere that such exemption whâ—tever was given by the civil laws Besides it is evident that the Fathers of Constance made no Canon at all in this point of exemption and that albeit they have these words alledged here by the Cardinal yet they only have them or make use of them in a particular case decreeing the liberty of the Bishop of Aste from an unjust imprisonment wherein he was by force kept by Philip the Count of Virtues a Philippo Comite virtutum who was not the said Bishop's supream temporal Prince or Lord but a subordinate and who without any warrant from the Supream had by usurpation imprisoned the said Bishop So that the Fathers of Constance alledging in the particular sentence they gave for this Bishop and against this Counâ— and in such a particular that laici nullam in Clericos potestatem aut jurisdictionem habent and alledging this only too by way of supposition or as a reason of their said particular sentence in favour of the said Bishop must not be presumed to have supposed more then was necessary for the justification of their said sentence especially where to have supposed so must have been point blanck without any former canon of the Church or law of the Empire or custom of the world and consequently against plain Scripture Rom. 13. as I will shew hereafter But to be exempt from the jurisdiction or coercive power of subordinat civil or subordinat lay Judges Lords or Princes according to the late civil laws of the Empire and to the custom that by little and little was introduced and then in force in the Christian world was enough for that purpose or justification of that sentence notwithstanding a plenary subjection still of even Bishops to the supream lay coercive power The Fathers of Constance therefore being justly exasperated against the said Earl did rationally and pertinently secundum subjectam materiam make use of these words in the sentence they gave against him attendentes quod subditi in eorum Praelatos Laici in Clericos nullam habent jurisdictionem potestatem For it is a rule in both the canon and civil Law that the sense of words how indefinit soever in any instrument writing or speech whatsoever must not be what they import in a strict Gramatical or Logical sense but what they do ex intentione loquentis according to the intention of the speaker or writer and that this intention must be gathered not only out of the beginning middle and conclusion or end of any such instrument writing or speech and out of the collation of altogether Cum utriusque Juris argumenta nos doceant ea quae in medio ad finem atque principium ea quae in fine ad utrumque vel corum alterum recte referri sayes Nicholas III. in his Decretal Exiit de verbor significatione in Sexto but also as natural reason tells us ex subjecta materia out of the very matter whereof or concerning which the law instrument writing or discourse is What last of all is alledged out of Frederick the Second's Constitution being it is no more but a general ordinance or
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
Pontifice suo ad judicia publica pertrahant Proinde statuimus ut hoc de caetero non praesumatur Si quis hoc praesumpserit facere causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus Out of both these Councils that is out of that eight canon of that first Matisconensian Council and this 13. canon of the third Toletan our learned Cardinal endeavours again to impose on his unlearned Readers But not so much in his great work of controversies l. 1. de Cler. c. 28. where he onely or at least commonly cited the bare chapters and not as much as the material words of Councils so farre he was from composing arguments but in that other book he writ long after against D. W. Barclay and in defence of his foresaid Controversies and particularly of what he taught therein or in his often quoted first book de Cleric c. 28. It is therefore in this reply of his which he also entitles as Barclay did his own book against him De potestate Papae in Temporalibus and it is in the 24. chapter of it and after so many other arguments weak enough as I have already shewn them to be framed and replyes made against William Barclay on pretence of those other councils and in behalf of his own allegation of them it is I say in this little and last beloved piece of his old age he argues thus interrogatively or Socratically out of both these last Councils Si Laici Magistratus c. If sayes he Lay Magistrats were legal Judges of Clergiemen by what right law or title could the above Matisconensian Council decree that all causes of clerks should be determined in the presence of the Bishop or Presbiter or Archdeacon And how could this Toletan Council also with so great asperity of words tearm it praesumption and unlawful attempts in Clergiemen to have recourse to secular Iudicatories And how lastly would this same Council dare to rescind or annull the sentence of the secular Judg and besides to excommunicate the Clerk that procured such sentence or sued any other Clerk in a secular Court or Iudicatory For so much do these words import Causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus let him loose his cause and be made a stranger to communion But the answer is facile enough and clear 1. That neither of both Councils or canons determins any thing against the secular Judge himself or against his having still a power of Iurisdiction to judg the causes of Clerks when called or come before him but onely prohibits Clerks themselves to have recourse of themselves or freely of themselves to sue one an other in secular Courts as hath been said before to the canon of Carthage And for prohibiting such voluntary recourse of Clerks that these Fathers of Matiscon and Toledo had respectively the same rights or authority which those of Carthage or even those of Chalcedon had even that very same which St. Paul had when he either commanded or advised his Corinthians not to sue one an other before Heathen judges c. And therefore that these Councils do rather confirm then any way infirm the jurisdiction at that time yet of lay Judges 2. That Bellarmine is much out of the way in thinking if ever he thought so indeed that by these words causam perdat the Fathers of Toledo rescind or annul the sentence of the secular judg by their own proper Episcopal or spiritual authority For and for what belong'd and was necessary to such rescission or annullation strictly taken the Fathers in making this canon as likewise in making any other such or that would or should require a politick civil power properly such in the canon-makers derived their authority from King Recaredus himself at whose command this third Council of Toledo was called and therefore sate in it himself and made the first speech to open it and several speeches after and finally confirmed it with his own subscription in these words Flavius Recaredus Rex hanc deliberationem quam cum sancta definivimus Synodo confirmans subscripsi Having also before his said subscription premised this declaration or admonition to all concern'd Praecedente autem diligenti cauta deliberatione sive quae ad fidem conveniunt sue quae ad morum correctionem respiciunt sensus maruritate intelligentiae gravitate constant esse digesta Nostra proinde authoritas hoc omnibus hominibus ad regnum nostrum pertinentibus jubet ut si qua definita sunt in hoc Concilio acto in urbe Toletana anno Regni nostri faeliciter quarto nulli contemnere liceat nullus praeterire praesumat For so it hath been usual that where the civil and Ecclesiastical power agree well together in making laws each or both do make such use of one an others authority that as to the words the Church sometimes doth seem to speak as having civil jurisdiction and the Politick or secular civil power also to make such laws as are of Ecclesiastical Notion Neither indeed doing so or seeming so by vertue of its own proper innate authority but by that borrowed from the other or as being certain of the others approbation and ratihabition Which was the cause that Recaredus the foresaid King of Spain though a meer layman ordained in his confirmation of this Toletan Council in his own name too that if any person Concilii observator esse noluerit superba fronte majorum statutis repugnans si Episcopus Praesbiter Diaconus aut Clericus fuerit ab omni Concilio excommunicationi subjaceat What is the power of excommunication in a lay Kings hands Or did Recaredus the very first Catholick King after those Arian Gothish Kings of Spain a King so truly Catholick and pious as he is confessed to have been did he usurp the rights and proper powers of the Church and even in that very Edict unto which the Fathers of this Toletan Council did themselves subscribe themselves Nothing less What he did in this respect or by such words was by consent of the Fathers nor in so much did he assume peradventure as much the person of a law maker as of a publisher of that law which in this particular of excommunication was onely made by the Fathers Though withal I confess that a secular Prince may by his own proper supream and even still meer civil power make a law commanding or enjoyning the Bishops to excommunicate in certain cases and a law besides ordaining some temporal punishment for such as without any just cause or against the known canons of the Church should excommunicate For to say so we are not onely warranted by natural reason or consideration of the proper office of the supream civil Magistrate which consists in taking care that all degrees either civil or Ecclesiastical under his charge do justly and religiously discharge themselves but also by the canon De illicita 24. q. 3. taken out of a Paris Council where the Fathers speak thus De illicita excommunicatione Lex
Iustiniani Imperatoris Catholici quam probat servat Catholica Ecclesia constitutione c. XXIV cap. eccl 1. decrevit ut nemo Episcopus nemo praesbiter excommunicet aliquem antequam causa probetur c. In which law of Iustinian it is also very observable that he prescribes meer ecclesiastical punishments to be undergone by the transgressors of it Is autem qui non legittime excommunicaverit in tantum abstineat a sacra communione tempus quantum majori sacerdoti visum fuerit c. On the other side it hath been often seen that the Fathers themselves assembled in Councils made ordinances or canons in matters belonging properly to the politick administration as to wit being certain the Prince would by his own proper authority approve of such canons and consequently give them that force which the onely spiritual power could not or as knowing that by the civil laws or customs of countries such matters ought to be observed but wanted nevertheless for their more conscientious and careful observance the admonition of the Fathers and the severity also of Ecclesiastical censures threatned against the infringers Which to have been so indeed may truly and clearly appear even out of this very Council of Toledo where annuente consentiente Rege some politick canons were made by the Fathers and may appear also out of that former of Matiscon wherein the 14 canon is Vt Iudaeis a caena Domini usque ad primum diem pâ—st Pascha secundum edictum bonae Recordationis Domini Childeberti Regis per plateas aut fâ—rum quasi insultationis causa deambulandi licentia denegetur 3. That if we did absolutely grant without reserve that by the royal authority of King Guntramnus in this first Council of Matisconum and of King Recaredus in that of Toledo the jurisdiction of subordinate inferiour lay Judges over Clerks had been totally extinct in the respective Kingdoms of those two Kings yet nothing hence for the exemption of Clerks from the very supream royal power in it self and in all cases or causes Nor any thing to prove such exemption from inferiour tribunals whatever it was to have proceeded from any power of the Church or even from any temporal power of Kings before Iustinians time and Novels in favour of Clergiemen for both these Councils were held after Iustinians Raign 4. And lastly that Bellarmine was not wary enough in alleadging that first Council of Matisconum For besides that what he alleadgeth out of it hath not as much as any seeming argument for his purpose but that simple Quere which every novice could answer he hath moreover given his Readers occasion to tell him that of all Councils he should ever beware to touch on this of Matisconum being the seventh canon of it is so clear and express against his pretence of divine right or divine law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Magistrate or indeed rather of any law at all even meerly humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for their exemption in all crimes or in all those which are in the canons stiled lay crimes crimina laica that murther theft and witchcraft are by name excepted by this very Council and in the seventh canon from any such priviledge of Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption from the lay Judges however the criminal be a Clerk as may appear to any that is not wilfully blind out of this VII canon it self being as to the tenor of it word by word at leingth what I give here Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque judex absque causa criminali id est homicidis furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur So at that time the Fathers of this Matisconensâ—â—â— Council thought it not against any law divine or humane civil or Ecclesiastical to acknowledg the jurisdiction of even inferiour Judges over Clerks accused of or as much as accused of murder theft or witchcraft and consequently nor to leave them in such causes to the punishment prescribed by the law And what think you then would these Fathers have any more priviledged such Clerks as should perchance be found guilty of or charg'd with sedition rebellion hostility or any other undenyable treason against the King State or People Or did these Fathers think you harbour at any time the least thought of a priviledge from God or Church or Prince or people to Clergiemen guilty of moveing subjects to take arms against the King himself and his laws And these being all the Councils alleadged by the learned Cardinal in his controversies de Cleric l. 1. c. 28. and those other Councils after added by him in his foresaid other last peculiar little book de potestate Papae in temporalibus against William Barclay undoubtedly because upon after thoughts he found the former in his controversies not convincing at all as no more will you those his additional ones being also already and at large both in my general Answers to them all together and in my particular answers to each a part cleared by me abundantly in my LXIV and LXIX Section where the Reader may turn to them back again if he please for those additional Councils are no other then Lateranense magnum sub Innoc. III. cap. 43. Constantiense Sess 31. Lateranense ultimum sub Leone X. finally the Council of Trent Sess 25. c. 20. de Reformat All which I have though upon another occasion considered in my said former LXIV LXIX Section therefore to perclose this present Section I find my self obliged onely further to take notice of what the Cardinal sayes nay indeed gives for the second main proof of his third Proposition l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. which third Proposition is as I have before noted in general tearms this Non possunt Cerici a judice seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent For after the Cardinal had briefly quoted the Councils of Chalcedon Agatha Carthage Toledo and Matisconum and of these five Councils had framed his first argument for that his so general third Proposition and then for a second argument pretended first the constitutions of Emperours Novel 79. 83. and 123. but immediatly after acknowledging these Imperial constitutions did not reach the exemption of Clerks at least in criminal causes from some even Inferiour or subordinate lay judges but expresly subjects them still in such causes to the Praetors and Presidents he at last for a second proof of his said Proposition to wit as it relates to criminal causes relyes wholly and onely on the authority of the canon law and for canon law in the point brings no other proof then a general and bare allegation of three Popes Caius Marcellinus and S. Gregory the Great without as much as giving us their words but telling us
Matiscon c observed Besides that however it be read the last passage of it or this Nec Laico quemlibet Clericum liceat accusare shews plainly it cannot be a true canon but a manifest corruption and contradiction of all canons if without any gloss understood as the bare words require For who ever yet asserted it unlawful for a Laick to accuse a Clerk at least before the Bishop when there is just cause 5. That for the text of St. Gregory the Great in his 54. Epistle ad Ioan. Defens and l. XI Registri I have consulted that too and read the whole Epistle through and have been for all my pains so farre from finding as much as one word of any such matter as Bellarmine quotes it for the exemption of Clerks â—â—â—m all civil power both subordinate and supream by the canons of the Church that I must perswade my self our learned Cardinal never once turned to that Epistle or read it with his own eyes when he remitted us to it For I will not charge him with imposture Which yet any must do that will grant or suppose he had read this Epistle himself and not taken that sense of it he gives us upon credit Whereas it is plain in the whole tenour of this Epistle that although St. Gregory prescribe to this Iohn the Defender whoever he was going to Spain that he should relieve a certain Presbiter whom he names not otherwise who had been wronged and a certain Bishop whom he names Ianuarius who had been violently drawn out of a Church by some inferior civil Magistrats and another Bishop also called Stephanus who had been likewise violently forced to judgment either to a secular judg or to other Bishops that were not of his own Province or rather both in some civil or criminal case and without the permission of the Emperour yet St. Gregory pleads onely in all these three cases for the said Iohn's warrant to relieve them so the civil laws of the Emperours Leo Augustus Iustinian Arcadius Honorius and Theodosius which laws the Saint quotes expresly and at large all a long that Epistle and disputes out of them onely there to prove the foresaid Praesbiter and foresaid Bishops Ianuarius and Stephanus wronged being these Imperial laws expresly ordain 1. That the causes of Presbiters be first decided or brought before the Bishops 2. That none be drawn by violence out of any Church by the secular Magistrats for any crime whatsoever except onely that of treason against Majesty and except also the Churches of the Royal City of Constantinople where the Prince himself resided and when it pleased him to give orders for pulling any criminal out of them and moreover ordains that it be treason to break these laws of Sanctuary 3. That no Bishop could be forced to a civil or military Judg in either a pecuniary or criminal cause or to appear even before other Bishops then his own Metropolitan But alleadges not as much as a syllable of any canon or institution made by the Church it self or by Ecclesiastical power in any of these cases not even from the first word of that Epistle to the last The very beginning of it being this De persona praesbiteri boc attendendum est quia si quam caeusam habuit non ab alio teneri sed Episcopus ipsus adiri debuit sicut novella constitutio manifesta quae loquitur de sanctissimis Deo amabilibus ac reverendissimis Episcopis Clericis Monachis Iustinianus Augustius Petro gloriosissimo Praesecto Praetorio Si quis contra aliquem Clericuni aut monachum aut Diaconissam aut monastriam aut assistriam habeat aliquam actionem adeat prius sanctissimum Episcopum c. And some what after and concerning the case of Ianuarius in particular proceeding thus De persona Ianuarii Episcopi sciendum est graviter omnius contra leges esse actum ut violenter de Ecclesia traheretur dum si quamlibet aliam injuriam a quccum Episcopo in Ecclesia passus fuerit injuriantem lex capitali poena percutiat sicut Majestatis reum omnibus det accusandi illum licentiam ut hujus serie loquitur Codieis libro primo titulo sexto constitutione decima Imperatores Arcadius Honorius Augusti Theodoro Praefecto Praetor Si quis in hoc genus sacrilegii proruperit ut in Ecclesias Catholicas irruens sacerdotibus ministris vel cultoribus ipsis locoque aliquid importet injuriae quod geritur a Provinciae Rectoribus animadvertatur atque ita Provinciae moderator sacerdotum Clericorum Catholicae Ecclesiae ministrorum loci quoque ipsius divini cultus injuriam capitali in convictis seu confessos reos sententia noverit vindicandum Et post pauca sitque cunctis laudabile factas atroces sacerdotibus aut ministris injurias veluti publicum crimen insequi atque de talibus reis ultionem mereri c. Data VI. Kalend. May Mediolani Honorio Augusto quater Eutychiano ter consulibus Libri suprascripti titu XV. Constitut III. Imperator Honorius Theodosius Augusti Ionio Praefecto Praetor Fideli ac devota preceptione sancimus nemini licere ad sacre-sanctas Ecclesias confugientes abducere sub hac videlicet definitione ut si quisquam contra hanc legem â—â—nire tentaverit sciat se majestatis crimine esse retinendum Data Kalend. Aprilis Honorio Septies Theodosio tertio consulibus Item ejusdem titul constit V. Imperator Leo Augustus Eurithrio Praefecto Praetor Praesenti lege decernimus per omnia loca valitura excepta hac urbe regia in qua nos divinitate propitia degentes quoties usus exegerit convocati singulis causis atque personis praesentanea constituta praestamus nullos penitus cujuscumque conditionis de sacre-sanctis Ecclesiis orthodoxae fidei expelli aut trahi vel portrahi confugas Et post pauca Qui hoc moliri aut facere aut nuda cogitatione saltem atque tractatu ausi fuerint tentare capitali ultima supplicii animadversione plectendi sunt Ex his ergo locis eorumque finibus quos anteriorum legum praescripta sanxerunt nullos eiici aut expelli aliquando patimur nec in ipsis Ecclesiis reverendis ita quemquam detineri atque restringi ut ei aliquid aut victualium rerum aut vestis negetur aut requies c. Data pridie Calend Martii Constantinopoli Leâ—ne Augusto tertium Consule And after this again and concerning the other Bishop Stephanus and his case proceeding further thus De persona Stephani Episcopi ad hoc attendendum est quia nec invitus ad judicium trahi nec ab Episcopis alieni Concilii debuit judicari sicut novella quaedam traditio quae de Episcopis loquitur continet Ait enim sed neque pro qualicumque pecuniaria vel criminali causa ad judicem civilem sive militarem invitum Episcopum producere vel exhibere citra imperialem jussionem permittimus sed judicem qui
purpose Nothing but against oppressive taxes contrary to law and former customs and taxes too imposed by the Consuls only and Rectors of particular Cities Nothing in specie against even any such oppressive taxe tallies exactions collections laid or made by an absolute order law or constitution of the supream civil power or of Kings Emperours States who certainly are not understood by the names of Consuls and Rectors of Cities And however this of taxes of Clerks be nothing at all for the exemption of the persons of Clerks from the supream civil power in all other civil and criminal causes whatsoever which only is it we dispute of here Nothing besides but what was convenient for the Government of the people within the Popes own temporal Patrimony for which only the additions of Gregory were unless it pleased other Countreys and of themselves to receive his said additions Finally nothing but what the Pope Innocent might as justly have decreed in case he believed certainly that Clerks had their exemption whatever it be from the sole civil power as if he had believed they had it only from the Church or from himself or some other of his Predecessors in the See of Rome 3. For although cap. Ecclesia sanctae Mariae de constitutionibus be a meer papal constitution of Innocent the Third only and hath indeed an expression which imports some such thing as the exemption of Churches and of the persons too of Churchmen from the power of Laicks yet forasmuch as this expression is not specifical or not in specie relating to or comprising the very supream lay power it self but so generical only as these words which are the words there concerning this matter Nos attendentes quod laicis etiam religiosis super Ecclesiis personis Ecclesiasticis nulla sit attributa potestas and consequently forasmuch as these words may have a very true and rational sense notwithstanding the subjection still of the persons of Clerkes to the supream lay power because the civil laws or customs which prevailed at that time under Innocent the Third or which is the same thing because the Emperours themselves had given or permitted under themselves to the Church and Churchmen proper Ecclesiastical Judges for all their own both civil and criminal causes how ever still subordinat Judges in such causes to the Emperours and the same must be said of other Kings who had granted the like Ecclesiastical Judges and moreover forasmuch as this canon or chapter of Innocent is only a decision of a particular controversie in matter of a possession controverted betwixt a certain Church called here the Church of S. Mary and a certain Convent termed likewise in this canon the Convent of St. Sylvester which possession was adjudged by a certain lay judge called Senator against the said Convent without previous confession conviction or examination of the same Convent and those words above or meaning of them no part of that which was intended or decided by the Pope in this canon but assumed only and that also transiently as in part importing his reason or motive to remand that possession back to the said Convent and that we know the reasons motives or suppositions expressed in a sentence or canon are not therefore defined by the Pronouncer of the sentence or maker of the canon and further yet because those words neither distinguish nor determine by what authority or law that is whether by divine or humane civil or ecclesiastical authority or law it was so enacted that lay-men could have no power in the causes of Church-lands or Church-men and because too they say nothing at all of any Pope's having made such a law whether by a true or only pretended power as did incapacitat all kind of Laicks even the very supream civil Magistrate himself or indeed as much as the very subordinate inferiour lay Judges from having any judicial authority over Churchmen finally because those words of themselves take away no such authority from Laicks but only at most signifie the not being of such authority attributed to Laicks whatever those Laicks were and by what means soever it came to pass not to be attributed to them therefore it is plain enough this canon Ecclesia sanctae Mariae is to no purpose alledged for Bellarmin's voluit that is for the matter of Fact of any Pope's having done so or having exempted so by his own Power all Clerks from the jurisdiction of even supream lay Princes or even of having declared them so exempted by the law of God himself 4. That albeit also cap. seculares de foro competenti in Sexto and cap. Clericis de Immunitate Ecclesiar be two meer Papal canons as made by the sole authority of Boniface the VIII and although it be confessed this Pope did challenge all the both spiritual temporal power on earth in Church and State to himself alone as likewise consequently to his Predecessours and Successours in the See of Rome which his extravagant Vnam sanctam De Majoritate obedientia and his other proceedings against a King of France besides the later of these two canons here quoted the said cap. Clericis can prove abundantly yet I dare confidently averre that neither of these canons of his however otherwise too too exorbitant at least the later of them comes home enough to prove that any Pope hath de facto by his own meer Papal authority exempted Clerks in all civil and criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of Lay Princes or hath de facto as much as declared or defined that Clerks have been so or are so exempted by the law of God in such causes from the said supream power of temporal Princes That for the former canon seculares de foro competenti the case is clear enough out of the very words and whole tenour of it Which being but short I give here altogether not omitting one word Seenlares judices qui licet ipsis nulla competat jurisdicto in hac parte personas Ecclesiasticas ad soluendum debita super quibus coram eis contra ipsas earum exhibentur litterae vel probationes aliae indueuntur damnabili praesumptione compellunt a temeritate hujusmodi per locorum Ordinarios censura Ecclesiastica decerninus compescendos where you see first there is not one word directly or indirectly of criminal causes but only of a civil in matter of debt Nor secondly any specifical comprehension no nor any comprehension at all of Kings States or Princes but onely of those inferiour persons whose peculiar office it is to be judge twixt party and party Nor thirdly is there any word here declaring by whose law or authority that is whether by that of the Pope or that of the Church c. it came to pass that these very inferiour Lay Judges have no jurisdiction in hac parte in a civil cause of debt challenged on a Clerk or declaring how it came to pass that the proceeding judgment or determination
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
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
his lawful Procurator to answer such crimes as were objected to him by the said Clergy and Academy and in the mean time to innovate nothing but to restore all things were innovated into their former state And therefore that they will find in Spondanus that this Emperour summon'd this Archbishop even as an Archbishop and consequently did not only summon and proceed against him as a Prince of the Empire but as a very Archiepiscopal Clerk and even too in a meer cause of Religion For this last particular also of the being of the cause for which the Emperour summon'd him a cause of Religion and Faith the same Spondanus hath expresly in the same place where he tells us that it was therefore the Pope Paul the III. who then sate in the See Apostolick thought fit by his own Letters of the 18. of Iuly immediatly following in the same year to summon to Rome the same Hermannus giving him sixty dayes for appearance before himself to wit least otherwise his Holiness might be thought to let go his own challenge of peculiar right in the See Apostolick only to proceed against so great a Clerk especially being the cause was properly Clerical and properly too a cause of Faith and reformation of the Church in religious tenets and rites and least consequently he might seem wholly to quit the quarrel of external coercion of either Clerks or Laicks where the crime was Heresie and by his own want or neglect of proceeding by his own proper Apostolical Authority against Herman whereas the Emperour had begun and proceeded already upon account or by virtue also of his own pure or sole imperial civil and lay power might be esteemed to acknowledge in lay Princes that supream external coercive right of even all sorts of very Clerks and even too of such in the very meerest and purest causes of Faith and Religion The testimony of Spondanus to this purpose is in these words Quod ut Pontifex audivit he means the summons sent by Charles from the Dyet of Worms for the Archbishop parum prohare visus quod Cesar in causa Fidei reformationis Ecclesiarum Iudicis authoritatem sibi sumeret die decima octava Iulii eundem Coloniensem ad sexagesimum diem citavit ut per seipsum vel per legittimum procuratorem coram ipso Romae se sisteret To that also which Bellarmine hath of crimina privilegiata and for as much as he sayes that in France those are call'd priviledg'd crimes whereof that Clerks may be accused before a lay Judge in the secular Court the Pope hath indulged I say it is farr otherwise And that Bellarmine could not shew nor any other can for him any Sanction or Law nay or any other authentick writing wherein it is recorded to posterity that such a priviledge was given by the Pope to Kings or Republicks Though I confess many Popes have been free enough of granting priviledges where they had no right to grant any and where only the ignorance or injustice of pretenders gave them some kind of bad excuse for attempting to give any and would willingly have all both Princes and people to desire of them priviledges for all they could themselves do before of themselves nay and were often bound to do without any priviledge Whence also it may be sufficiently evicted that it is no way probable this ordinary jurisdiction supream of Kings over Clerks was granted to them by the Pope but on the contrary certain that whereas anciently the very most Christian Kings and Emperours made use of all their both directive and coercive power to govern Clerks in all civil matters whatsoever nay and in spiritual matters too for what I mean concerns the external regiment of the Church by external direction of laws and by external coercion too of the material sword and to govern them also either immediatly by themselves or mediatly by their subordinat lay Judges and whereas the civil laws wherein and whereby afterwards the same Emperors and Kings exempted Clerks in many causes or most or if you please to say or think so in all whatsoever from the ordinary subordinate lay Judges have not a word of any exemption from the Prince himself the supream civil Judge of all both lay and Ecclesiastical Judge of his own Kingdom in the external coactive regiment therefore it must be concludent it was only from and by the free will of the Princes themselves that ordinary jurisdiction supream temporal or civil over Clerks was reserved still to themselves who remitted or bestowed away of their own right all whatever they pleased as they did that in the present case of deputing lay men for the ordinary subordinat Judges of those causes of Clerks which are not common but priviledged and retained also what they would Of all which the late and most learned Milletus may be read who in that choice and elegant Tract of his which he inscribed de delicto communi casis privilegiato shews very learnedly and clearly 1. That all such priviledges of Clergiemen had their whole and sole origen from Kings 2. And therefore that such crimes as Clerks are accused of and judged in foro civili in the ordinary civil or lay Courts are properly to be called delicta communia because to be tryed by the common law and before the common or lay Magistrate and those only which are remitted to the Bishop are by a contrary reason to be tearmed privilegiata to wit because it is by a priviledge granted by Kings or indulged by them to Bishops that bishops may take cognizance of and judge them As for Clarus and Ausrerius whom Bellarmine alledges for that his own sense of what is a priviledged crime of Clerks or for any other Canonists soever I regard not much what they say or not say in this matter Because they all commonly and without any ground not only bereave Princes of this supream right of either coeâ—cing or directing Clerks but also teach that all kind of meer temporal Principality flows and depends from the Papacy As that Legat did who in a Diet of the German Princes had the confidence to ask or querie thus A quo habet Imperator Imperium nisi habet a Domine Papa For so Radevicus hath related this Legats folly And so having throughly destroyed all the replies of Bellarmine to the grounds or any part of the grounds of my second grand argument and of the proof of it which second argument and proof of its Minor I derived partly from and built upon his own principles of Clergiemens being Cittizens and parts of the politick commonwealth I am now come to My third argument of pure natural reason which shall end this present Section Though I withal confess the grounds of this third argument are already given in my illustration of the former second But however for the clearer methods sake because too the medium is somewhat different from that in the form of my foregoing second I would give
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
this to do or wherein doth this condemnation or judgment reflect on the doctrine which teacheth not of Christ but of the Disciples of Christ and only teacheth that all men who are only men and not Gods or that all mortal and sinful men whether Laymen or Clergiemen who are members of any commonwealth and not the heads thereof do lye under a proper and strict obligation not only of charity for the avoiding of scandal but of justice also to be humbly subject in criminal causes to the supream coercive power of the supream politick head Nay and under an obligation of justice also even to pay him tribute if he himself exempt them not from tribute I mean were it necessary for me to urge that of tribute as it is not And only teacheth moreover that such obligation of Justice ariseth from the very law divine it self both natural and positive or which is the same thing is evidently commanded by reason and by revelation by plain Scripture and Catholick Tradition by the doctrine and practice of the Christian Bishops themselves and of even their very best Christian Princes and people all along from the beginning of Christianity until this present day Certainly there is no man so blind as not to see that that first article of Marsilius and Iandunus or condemnation of it hath nothing to do with this doctrine Nor yet so blind as not to see that my elucidation of this doctrine all along or any where in this Tract hath nothing to do with that first Article taken I mean in that sense wherein as I have declared already and in no other the said Iohn the XXII condemn'd it I confess I have before that is in the 239. page of this first Part by occasion too of speaking somewhat against Bellarmine concerning the doctrine of Marsilius and Iandunus or that part of their doctrine which is in this first article said That our Saviour himself by his non scandalizemus eos in Mat. 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether to free but that as the fulfiller of the old Law and Prophets and as the giver of yet a more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the didrachma And that Marsilius de Padua or Ioannes de Ianduno were not condem'd nor censur'd at all for saying that any pure man who was not together both God and man as our Saviour Christ was by the wonderful union of both natures or that any other besides our Lord or even for saying that Peter himself was not exempt from the supream temporal power in temporal matters I have said so there I confess But what then or doth it follow that by such answer to Bellarmine I maintain this first article of Marsilius and Iandunus or that I fall under the condemnation of this first article nothing less This first article is as the Pope himself relates it in these words and only in these words Illud quod de Christo legitur in Evangelio B. Matthei quod ipse soluit tributum Caesari quando staterem sumptum ex ore piscis illis qui petebant didrachma jussit dari hoc fecit non condescensive liberalitate suae pietatis sed necessitate coactus And the condemnation of this article or the sense wherein this article was condemned is that which imposes a constraint of necessity on our Saviour for paying the didrachma and which denyes that he paid it not condescensively that is not out of his meer condescension and out of the liberality of his piety Now who sees not first that I do not by any means deny it was out of his meer condescension to the infirmities of weak men and of his liberality and piety that our Saviour commanded the didrachma to be paid nay who sees not that I do rather expresly enough say it was meerly out of his liberality piety and condescension he commanded it to be paid so for himself Do not I say most expresly or at least insinuat most sufficiently that he paid it only to avoid scandal and that he was bound by no other law to pay it but by the law of love and charity or which is the same thing and to repeat here again my own former determinate words that as the fulfiller of the old law and Prophets and as the giver of a more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the didrachma And secondly and indeed consequently who sees not that in that discourse of mine or whole passage quoted above out of my 239. page I have not a word importing any constraint of necessity or any either constraint or necessity for in effect they are both the same or import the same thing taking these words properly or absolutely and simply that is without any dimunitive adjection addition restriction or taking them not any way at all for that which is secundum quid tale as they ought not to be taken but for that which is simpliciter tale as they ought to be taken where other words or the subject restrains them not For to aver such constraint or such necessity incumbent on our Saviour in paying the didrachma were as much as to aver that either he had an inward constraint or necessity on his will or soul for want of that inward essential indifferency which makes the will and soul free in it self inwardly to volitions and nollitions or had an outward compulsion or coaction of his executive faculty for want of outward means as for example twelve legions of Angels at his command to free him from the power of those that would force him to payment whether he would or no if he had denyed it or certainly had the constraint or necessity of an obligation or tye of justice and obedience on him arising from the tribute law it self obliging him as other men under the guilt of sin and other penalties of such law to pay tribute Which last kind of necessity is that which the arguments of Iohn the XXII against the first article of Marsilius do seem to fasten upon it and condemns in it and the whole article for seeming to say that out of such necessity our Saviour paid the didrachma But whether so or no I am not concern'd because I remove all three kinds of necessity from our Saviour and all other kinds too of necessity if there be any other simply such For though I say in the beginning of the said passage page 239. that our Saviour himself by his own non scandalizemus eos Mat 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether so free c but that he was bound c and consequently say that our Saviour wanted some kind of freedom
and therefore say also by consequence that he lay under some constraint and some necessity and some bond tye or obligation to pay that didrachma yet is it not consequent that I say he wanted that freedom or any such freedom which is simply such or lay under any constrrint or necessity which are simply such or even under any bond tye or obligation at least of justice simply such or which might oblige him under sin or the penalty of sin or by vertue of the tribute law it self to pay any tribute for the rest of my discourse most evidently shews I mean thereby no other constraint necessity or obligation but such as are secundum quid or diminutively such even such as Iohn the XXII himself allows even such as our Saviour himself means by saying ut non scandalizemus eos da c. and even such finally as arise only from the law of love and of that divine love which told him it was not fitting for him to give cause of scandal to the weak ones by his own refusal or denial or failer and which made him at last to give his life for them that took it from him And therefore also 't is not consequent that by any thing or word said in that passage of mine page 239 I joyn or concur with Marsilius or Jandunus in this first article of theirs not even as much as in the words much less in the sense of that article condemn'd by Pope Iohn the XXII Besides it is clear enough that for the defence of my thesis against Bellarmine's argument grounded by him on the texts of Matthew Mat. 17. Ergo liberi sunt filii and ut nâ—â— scandalizemus eos c. I needed not give as I did not give in my LXIII Section page 150 151 153. where I handled these words of our Saviour at large and of purpose any such answer but solved the argument fairly and clearly there without any such or as much as reflecting on any such answer that is on any such necessity or any such obligation of justice or obedience due arising from the tribute law or other command of presumed superiour Powers And it is no less clear that I was not in my 239. page nor am here now at present nor will be elsewhere any further concern'd for Marsilius or Jandunus then they held close to the general thesis only that is to the general doctrine only of the Catholick Church and that whereever they swerve from that I do from them and where that Church condemns them I also condemn them nay and that I am content likewise to condemn them where ever Iohn the XXII himself alone or in this Bull of his condemns them and yet hold still constantly to my thesis For and forasmuch as concerns their second complex article viz. Quod B. Petrus Apostolus non plus authoritatis habuit quam alii Apostoli habuerint nec aliorum Apostolorum fuit caput Item quod Christus nullum caput dimisit Ecclesiae nec aliquem Vicarium suum fecit 't is plain it concerns not our present controversie of the exemption of Clergiemen or that even of the very Apostles themselves or that even sayl also of S. Peter himselâ— from the temporal powers and in temporal matters For that Peter should have had that is actually and immediatly from Christ himself had more authority then the other Apostles had and that he should have been made or was actually made the head of them all and that Christ should have or had left some one Head to the Church and made left some one his own Vicar which is the contradictory of this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus argues nothing at all for the exemption from temporal Princes in temporal matters of as much as Peter himself or of him that had that greater authority or of that head or of that Vicar Because the doctrine of the Catholick Church teacheth us that that greater authority of Peter whatever it was and that Headship of his over the rest of the Apostles and that one Headship and one Vicarship under Christ in the Church and over the Church was meerly and purely spiritual and because not only that very doctrine but reason also and experience tells us that such greater authority spiritual and even such one Headship and one Vicarship spiritual consist well very with a lesser authority temporal in the same Head or Vicar and even with none such at all in Him and yet with another Headship and another Vicarship temporal in another person and with a full entire subjection in temporal matters to this other person or other head and other Vicar whose authority and power is only and purely temporal as on the other side the temporal Headship or temporal Vicarship consists very well with its own subjection in spiritual matters to that Headship and Vicarship which is only spiritual And more or other then what is here said Iohn the XXII arguments in his discourse against this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus do not conclude or indeed as much as pretend to being all his reasons here are only and wholly bent against a parity of power in the Apostles amongst themselves without any exception of Peter or preheminence given to him over them How strong or how weak his reasons are I need not care at least for the present being that for the present I allow all in general both his definitions and reasons in this Bull and in particular what he reasons and defines against this second Article as not as much as in the least touching me or my thesis of the subjection of all Clergiem whether Apostles or not Apostles and even of the very spiritual Prince of the Apostles Peter himself in temporal matters to the supream temporal respective Princes within whose dominions they live For likewise as for the third of those Articles or this Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam instituere destituere ac punire as the said Iohn the XXII relates it in the beginning of his Bull or this other form of it Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam corrigere punire ac instituere destituere 't is clear enough it may be allowed as I also do allow it to be false erroneous and heretical for one part and in one sense or even for both parts in a certain sense whatever is in the mean while thought of the other part or even of either in another different sense and yet my grand Thesis and all my doctrine hitherto even where it descends or rather ascends to the Pope himself be untouch'd by any such censure That one part I allow to be so is that which sayes it belongs to the Emperour to institute and destitute the Pope and the sense wherein I allow this part to be so or to be false erroneous and heretical is that whereby any should conceive that the Emperor could at any time and by his own proper imperial authority as such
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
quarrel and though his body likewise had been subservient and obedient in all things to the most holy dictats of his Soul For we know that invincible or inculpable prejudice ignorance or inadvertisement against the truth of things in the course of a mans life in his actions or in his contests or even some time in his doctrine which strikes not at the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so his Soul be ever piously and charitably and Christianly and resignedly disposed to embrace truth when known either by evidence of reason or from such an authority as it is bound to submit unto doth not hinder either Sanctity or martyrdom or miracles or due canonization or a fit veneration or answerable invocation of him as even a martyrized and miraculous Saint The example of S. Cyprian that great holy martyrized Saint and Patriarch of Affrick who both lived and dyed in a wrongfull contest with even the Popes of Rome themselves and even also in a very material point of Christian doctrine is evidence enough for this And S Paul's contest with S. Peter at Antioch about the observation of the Jewish laws is evidence enough And very many other examples of great holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church who lived and dyed in material errours and material heresies too especially if the doctrine of Bellarmine in many places nay or that of even of many or rather most other School Divines be true may be produced ex superabundanti to make good this evidence 4. That the infallibility of Pope Alexander the third in canonizing S. Thomas of Canterbury and I speak now to them who suppose the Pope so infallible in all his Definitions or Bulls concerning any doctrine or fact or matter of Piety that he is so too in his canonization of Saints implyed or inferr'd of necessity that all his quarrels or at least the substantial part of that quarrel which occasion'd his death principally immediatly ultimatly not onely was just but must have been just according to the very objective truth of things in themselves and that otherwise there could be no infallibility in the said Alexander's canonization of him for a Saint and a martyr and that likewise the pursuant veneration and invocation of him for such by the Church and the miracles wrought at his hearse before he was interr'd as for example the candles lighting of themselves about his hearse after they had been quenched and his lifting up his hand after the office of the dead was ended and blessing the people c and so many other miracles wrought at several times at his Tomb after he had been long enterred that I say neither that veneration or invocation could be in truth practised without impiety or at least very much temerity not those miracles alleadg'd without forgery and fallacy nor he called a martyr in any true sense if his quarrels or quarrel as now is said with Henry the Second had not been just according to the objective truth of things in themselves For as I denyed the former three suppositions so I do this fourth also or at least I say that I am not bound to admit it First because that even allowing or if I did allow Bellarmine's or any other's doctrine of the infallibility of Popes in their Bulls of canonization and other Bulls whatsoever yet is it plain enough and even admitted by such Divines that possibly there may be an errour in some particular allegations or suppositions entertained by the Popes in the process formed for such canonization and even expressed also or insinuated in the very letters of the canonization and that no such allegations or suppositions reasons or motives are defined in any Bull of canonization or even in any other whatsoever but the principal design onely and that this in Bulls of canonization is onely that such or such a holy man is in the joyes of the blessed seeing God in the face and therefore he may be invocated as such and consequently that the infallibility which they do attribute to the Popes in their Bulls of canonization may subsist notwithstanding that some of those motives or inducements were in themselves false according at least to the objective truth of things For all which these Divines pretend to in this matter is the infallible assistance of Gods holy spirit or of his external Providence promised infallibly as they suppose to the Pope in not proposing any by such a solemn declaration to be invoked as a Saint who is not so indeed but not in supposing this or that which is said of some passage of his life nor by consequence in supposing what was the true cause of his violent death when he dyed so or that the cause was such as would make him a martyr in the stricktest sense of this word Martyr as used in the Church by way of distinction not onely from a Confessour but from such holy men who suffered violent deaths unjustly that is not by the prescript of the laws but by the power onely of wicked men or women and that too sometimes not for any cause they maintayn'd but out of hatred to their persons or to arrive at some worldly end which their life observed whereof St. Edward the Second a Saxon King of England Son to the good King Edgar is a very sufficient example who was and is invoked as a martyr and a very miraculous martyr too notwithstanding he was murthred onely by a servant and at the command of his Stepmother Alfreda as he was drinking on horseback and this too for no other cause but that her own Son Ethelredus should come to be King as presently he was made Polydore Virgil Anglicae Historiae l. VII as sometimes also for a cause which though not so clear on either side in the judgment I mean of some other indifferent men nay perhaps unrighteous on the side of the holy sufferers according to the objective truth of things in themselves yet invincibly appearing just or the more just and the more holy and pious unto them and to others also who had their life otherwise and justly too or according also even to the certain objective truth of other things in due veneration For Martyr in Greek is a witness in English and martyrdom in the Ecclesiastical use of the word is variously applyed sometime strictly to import a violent death suffered without any reluctance and suffered meerly and onely for professing or for not denying a known certain evident or notorious Catholick Evangelical truth or which is the same thing to import a witnessing or a bearing testimony to such a truth by such a death sometime largely or not so strictly however properly still to import by such a death a witnessing or a bearing testimony to a good zeal and great piety and excellent conscience in being constant to a cause which one esteems the more just and generally seems the more pious for all he knows though it be not an evangelical truth and though perhaps
great strictness in his own way I mean according to the judgment of the Prelats and Nobles of that Assembly at Paris But for a judgment also given of purpose on that whole controversie and given by a contemporary Historian a Catholick by religion a Monk by profession and writer of very good repute Gulielmus Neubrigensis and a judgment given by him of this matter even after Thomas had been both martyrized and canonized you have it in his third Book cap. 16. and in these words Sane cum plerique soleant in iis quos amant laudant affectu quidem propensiori sed prudentia parciori quicquid ab iis geritur approbaâ—e planè ego in viro illo venerabili ea quae ita ab ipso acta sunt ut nulla exinde proveniret utilitas sed feruor tantum accenderetur Regius ex quo tot mala post modum pullulasse noscuntur laudanda nequaquam censuerim licet ex laudabili zelo processerint sicut nec in Beatissimo Apostolorum Principe arcem jam Apostolicae perfectionis tenente quod geâ—tes suo exemplo Judaizare coegit in quo eum Doctor gentium reprehensibilem deciatat fuisse licet eum constat laudabili hoc pietate fecisse Third reason That he might possibly be imbued with the doctrine which was growing then of the exemption of Clergiemen either by divine immediate right of the positive or even natural law of God or by that which is pretended to be mediatly divine and immediatly canonical or humane from the Canons of the Church or at least from the bad or false interpretation of those Canons or by some prescription and will and power of those Popes who so mightily in his dayes and for almost a whole age before his dayes immediatly and continually contested with the very Emperours themselves and all other Bishops for both the spiritual and temporal soveraignty of the world and this too by a pretence of divine right And that we must not wonder that even on so great a Saint as Saint Thomas of Canterbury himself the authority of the first Apostolick See and the numbers of her admirers adorers and followers then in what quarrel soever and the specious pretence of piety in the cause and education in such principles or amongst such people should work a strong pre-possession of zeale as for the cause of God being it was reputed the cause of the Church however that according to the veritie of things or true laws divine or humane as in themselves nakedly or abstractedly it might peradventure not have either the cause of God or the cause of the Church Fourth reason and it is a confirmation that is a very probable argument though nor perhaps throughly or rigidly demonstrative of the truth of the Third That in the speech or words of St Thomas of Canterbury in the time of his banishment to his King Henry the Second at Chinun which Honeden ad an 1165. calls Verba Beati Thomae Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun we find this sentence of his Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere c. Wherein I am certain this holy Bishop was point blanck contrary to the sense of ten thousand other holy Bishops before him in the more primitive ages of the Church and contrary to plain Scripture and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for at least the ten first and best ages of Christianity Fift reason That it is not so clear in all respects that those sixteen heads of customs passed not legally and long before the Saints death into a just municipal law of the land or of England notwithstanding that St. Thomas denyed and even justly too denyed his own hand and seale or even justly also retracted his own former consent by oath yea and notwithstanding that it was meerly out of fear that the rest of the Bishop did at first consent or gave their own consent by oath likewise For it may be said first and said also upon very probable grounds out of the several ancient Catholick and even Ecclesiastick Historians who writ of purpose of those dayes and matters that they all freely after consented And secondly it may be said that the greater vote enacts a law in Parliament having the consent royal whether one Bishop or moe peradventure or even all the Bishops dissent And thirdly yet iâ— may be said that all laws most commonly or at least too often may be called in question upon that ground of fear of the Prince Sixt and last reason That we must rather give any answer that involves not heresie or manifest errour in the Catholick Faith or natural reason obvious to every man then allow or justifie the particular actions or contests or doctrine of any one Bishop or Pope how great or holy soever otherwise or even of many such or of all their partakers in such against both holy Scriptures plain enough in the case and the holy Fathers generally for the ten first ages in their explications of such Scriptures and consequently against that universal Tradition which must of necessity be allowed Nihil enim innovandum sed quod traditum est observandum Behold here six reasons which taken at least altogether may justifie my giving the two last Answers or my adding them to the other two former As for the rest I leave it to the Readers choice which of all four he will fix on though I my self and for my own part and out of a greater reverence to the Saint himself and to the Pope that canonized him or to that Pope I mean in as much as he canonized him for a martyr in such a cause if he did so or intended so taking the name of martyr properly and strictly whereof what we read in our very Breviary of the cause for which the Pope sayes he suffered may perhaps give some occasion of scruple being it is there said of those Laws of Henry the Second and only said that they were leges utilitati ac dignitati Ordinis Ecclesiastici repugnantes but not said that they were laws against the laws of God though I say I could wish for these reasons that all my Readers did fix as I do my self rather on the first and second Answer then on the two last But on which soever of all four they six I am confident none may infer that they or I question Thomas of Canterbury's sanctity in this world either in his life or at his death or his glory in heaven after his death or question the Bull of of his canonization or question the holy practice of the Catholick Church in her veneration or invocation or finally question as much as those miracles which I suppose were sufficiently proved in the process form'd for his canonization or even those which as wrought after that time at his Tomb or elsewhere are alledg'd upon sufficient grounds if any such be so alledg'd Though I cannot here
give and they to receive it from Her But sayes not That the Church may by her own power or at her pleasure or in any case Revoke that Authority again or hurt lessen or endanger it but wholly abstracts from this whether it be so or not according to the truth of things in themselves 4. Because the Querie made after the Objection or that which ask't thus Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings is soon and rationally answer'd in the affirmative For so do very famous Catholick Doctors both Divines Civilians and Canonists and they all of strict communion with the Roman Church and Pope maintain and maintain also I mean too concerning such authority and power as without any question they had at first originally from the Church and could not have but from her but hath been time out of mind annexed to their Crowns or hath been originally or at some time granted them per modum contractus vel concordati vel transitionis And that you may not have my saying so for proof you may be pleased to run over this Latin insertion extracted out of that very learned School Divine and English Father and Doctor of St. Francis's Order who was lately and three several times Minister Provincial of his said Order in England and for ought I know lives yet Father Francis Davenport alias a Sancta Clara. And I give it wholly in his own words as it lies in his Paraphrase on the XXXVII Article of those XXXIX of the Protestant Church of England And give it so at length not only that you may see in it Catholick Doctors and Writers enough confirming what I have so answerâ—d in the Affirmative to this Query but for to clear your judgment in some other matters also relating to the Subject in hand here or at least to that of my whole Discourse of Ecclesiastical Exemption if not to some other questions in this my present Book And yet give it not as meaning to tye my self in all things to his judgment or at least to his too fearful or scrupulous expressing and tying of himself in meer words to some other late Schoolmen especially where he rather follows their opinion or their expression who deny Jurisdiction to Kings ex jure Regio de jure Divino naturali over the persons and in the causes of Ecclesiasticks and only attribute to them nudam potestatem civilem temporalem c. over such persons and in such causes than theirs who on the contrary attribute to Kings the thing and word Jurisdiction over the same persons and things and this too per se and by the Law of God and Nature Hic articulus sayes he meaning the foresaid XXXVII Article of the Protestant Church of England subministrat materiam examinandi Quaestionem longe gravissimam An scil laici sint capaces jurisdictionis spiritualis Primo advertendum ex omnium sententia illos non esse capaces clavium quia tunc etiam remissionis seu absolutionis a peccatis Secundo advertendum jurisdictionem spiritualem seu potestatem jurisdictionis non esse immediate ipsam potestatem clavium immo separabiles nec actu semper conjungi vel jure divino vel positivo Tertio supponendum summum Pontificem in omni sententia secundum absolutam potentiam suam posse jurisdictionem talem laicis concedere quia non expresse contra jus divinum ut recte Soto 4. dist 20. quaest 1. art 4. Scot. 4. d. 20 q 1. a. 4. Mirand in Manual q. 3. a. 2. D. Alvin c. 3. c. sic etiam Miranda in Manuali quaest 3. art 2. hoc non solum respectu virorum sed foeminarum Addit tamen Miranda hoc respectu foeminarum nusquam adhuc concessum Quod tamen negat D. Alvin c. 3. de Episcopis Abbatibus Abbatissis c. 22. citat multa jura ex quibus actu conceditur Abbatissis potestas jurisdictionis non quidem excommunicandi per se sed praecipiendi suis subditis Sacerdotibus ut excommunicent rebelles contumaces moniales hoc valere vel ex jure communi vel consuetudine vel saltem ex privilegio vel strictius loquendo dicendum cum Laimanno lib. 1. Laiman l. 1. tract 5. p. 1. c. 3. n. 3. 4. tract 5. p. 1. cap. 3. num 3. 4. quod non habent jurisdictionem spiritualem proprie sed usuram quandam jurisdictionis Et hinc conferre possunt beneficia instituere clericos in Ecclesiis ad Monasterium suum pertinentibus c. Vt sensum meum in re tam gravi aperiam Dicendum putem nullo quidem jure ut praetactum est eis competere potestatem seu jus spirituale ut loquitur Joannes de Parisiis de potestate Papae c. 21. quo gratia spiritualis causatur id est Joan. de Paris c. 21. de potest Papae potestas administrandi Sacramenta Et idem est judicium de potestate quae consequitur ex priori ut est inflictio poenae spiritualis scripturarum expositio Ministrorum Ecclesiae institutio confirmatio vel examen alia id genus multa Quodvis enim horum de jure divino restringitur praecise ad homines spirituales sen Deo sacros ut olim definitum est a Joan. 22. contra Marsilium de Padua ut videre est apud Turrecrem l. 4. Summae sub finem Joan. 22. contra Mars de Padua Turrecr l. 4. summae Caeterum quoad potestatem seu jus antecedens non de per se necessario annexum spiritualibus officiis bene potest in laicis subinde residere sicut praesentatio collatio beneficiorum punitio temporalis clericorum alia id genus multa ut dixi de Abbatissis praecipue ex concessione Ecclesia vel longa consuetudine praescripta convenientibus Praelatis Ecclesiae Dixi merito etiam ex consuetudine quia non solum concessio Innoc. in c. novit c. Salgado p. 1. c. Prael 3. nu 120. sed consuetudo ipsa tribuit jurisdictionem etiam in spiritualibus ut docet Innocent in cap. Novit de judic multi praesertion quando consuetudinis exercitium a tempore immemoriali probatur ut declarant Juristae de quare vide Salgado p. 1. c. 1. Praelud 3. n. 122 deinceps Dices hic non solum concedi Principibus nostris potestatem ex consuetudine seu concessione sed supremam ut ibi asseritur quod noâ— potest eis competere in spiritualibus ut omnes Doctores tenent Respondeo quod Doctores praedicti asserant Papaâ— non posse auferre jurisdictionem Principum ex consuâ—tudine vel concessione firma valide licite introductam Nav. c. 27. in Enchir. n 70. Salz sch Ber. Diaz cap. 55. Sect. Apud Gall. Duvall de disc Eccl. p. 3 fol. 405. sicut satis insinuat Navar. c. 27. in
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
of obligation to reveal any thing or to stand by the Prince in any matter which is or may be against any spiritual Duty incumbent on them or against their Religion or Communion or against either Justice or Charity For certainly to reveal such Treason as is such by all the Laws of God and Man of Nature and Nations is a Temporal Duty and to defend the King's Person Royal Authority and State and Government under which we live and which are acknowledged by our selves to be Legal or not Usurped is no less a Temporal Duty or both I mean are Duties we owe to God and to the King and to the Laws and such Duties as are discharged in meer Temporal things and in a meer Temporal way too Sixth Period And further we profess That all Absolute Princes and Supreme Governors of what Religion soever they be are God's Lieutenants on Earth and that Obedience is due to them according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal Affairs That no other power is acknowledged here to be even in such Absolute Princes and Supreme Governors nor other obedience due to them by Subjects but in Civil and Temporal things there needs no further proof than what you see in the very express Letter of this self-same Period in the latter part or that of Obedience which also and by all consequence determines the former part of Power and consequently and most expresly determines both to Civil and Temporal Affairs As for the Title of Gods Lieutenants on Earth What Catholick can except against it on other ground but that of Ignorance or Malice or both Our great Nicholaus de Lyra of the Franciscan Order that most Famous and most Learned and also most Catholick Interpreter of the whole Scripture hath above 300 Years since in Sapient 6. called Emperors and Kings Vicarios Dei inâ—â—terra And Thomas of Aquin or whosoever under his name set out the work de Regim Princip l. 2. calls them so nay delivers this Maxim or Position of Kings and Princes Regem Principem toto conatu sayes he sollicitudine divino cultus incumbere teneri non solum quia homo sed etiam quia Dominus Rex est Dei vices gerit a quo maxime pendet St. Ambrose also well nigh a Thousand Years before Lyranus and Aquinas writ thus in Epist ad Roman c. 13. Sciant non se esse liberos sed sub potestate degere quae ex Deo est Principi enim suo qui vicem Dei agit sicut Deo subjiciuntur Nay and a Roman Pontiff Anastasius the Second but a few Ages after Ambrose's Ep. vii writ thus to Anastasius then Emperor of Rome Pectus Clementiae vestrae Sacrarium est publicae faelicitatis ut per instantiam vestram quam velut Vicarian Deus praesidere jussit in terris c. Seventh Period being purely Relative either only to the foresaid six or certainly to that and all the other foregoing Periods taking all together for it is in these words And therefore we do here protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary it is plain this Protestation must be Catholick and just if the Declaration maâ—e in that sixth Period and in the other several foregoing be such But I have now sufficiently demonstrated that all and each of these Declarations are such And 't is like no man will be so mad as to gather out of this Protestation in this seventh Period That the Subscribers protest simply absolutely abstractedly or specificatively against the Authority of any whosoever that declares or holds the contrary but only secundum quid or reduplicatively as holding the contrary not at all as holding declaring or commanding other just matters For the words to the contrary and what else goes before and follows after sufficently declare that Protestation to have only such reduplicative sense So that no other matter can be said to be in this Period or this Period to relate to other than to the Supreme Civil power of Princes in pure Temporal affairs and obedience of Subjects to them in the same Temporal affairs though I otherwise do my self and all the Subscribers also do confess passive obedience due to Princes from their Subjects even in all kinds too of pure spiritual affairs But what this passive is as also what active is I have before explicated and the judicious Reader cannot but easily understand what both are without any explication of mine Eighth Period And we do hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain That any private Subject may kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince though of a different belief and judgment from his Sure there is no professed Christian but Mariana Sanctarellus or some other few impious Scholars of theirs and those of Calvin's Crue who before lead the way or after followed them will quarrel with the Subscribers on this Period especially when the several determinations of the general Council of Constance relating to this matter are duly considered Nor even those in this more Pagan Philosophers of some Graecian Republick than Christian Divines of an establish'd Monarchy can justly say whatever they otherwise say the Subscribers attribute other or even relate to or suppose here in this Period any other power in the Prince than a pure Supreme Temporal or any other obedience in the Subject but in meer Civil or Temporal affairs For the corporal life or death of the Prince as of every other man is such Nor certainly upon any ground whatsoever can say at all the Subscribers attribute here any kind of spiritual power nay nor even a Temporal power in spiritual causes to Princes or consequently exact here from Subjects an active obedience in spiritual causes For if any did subscribe this other Proposition relating not to Princes but private Subjects We hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain That any private Subject may kill or murther another private Subject though of a different Religion from his whatever Construction or Exposition this Proposition would or must be subject unto yet no man certainly could averr on any rational ground That the Subscribers of it attributed a spiritual power to every such private Subject whom he so exempts from being lawfully killed or murthered by another private Subject or that obedience were therefore in spiritual things due to him who could not be so murthered Ninth and last Period And we abhor and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked Which because it is Relative only to the eighth as the word thereof proves I need say no more than is already said on the said eighth immediately preceding And these Nine Periods which I have so given and considered apart being the onely Periods Clauses or parts of the said Act of Recognition and no other at all being therein nor as much as a word more who sees not but that the said Act considered even separately as to the several Clauses
in general against the said Censure or on the account only or by occasion only of those two Suppositions or two Causes or Reasons expressed therein wherefore the Louain Doctors did so Censure our Remonstrance as you have seen or in formal words did declare it to be unlawful detestable sacrilegious and wherefore they did also virtually or consequentially as you have likewise seen before Censure and Declare it further to be Heretical or Schismatical or both and forasmuch as I find it at least no less behoveful to speak yet more directly and particularly against those very Essentials both formal and virtual or consequential of that Censure I form these following Arguments against all I. No Remonstrance Declaration Paper or Form of Allegiance to the Prince is unlawful or can be Censur'd to be unlawful which contains not some Clause or some Proposition against some Law divine or humane For therefore only any thing can be said to be unlawful forasmuch as it can be justly said to be against some such true and undoubted Law But that Remonstrance c. of ours contains no Clause or Proposition against any Law divine or humane Ergo 't is not unlawful nor can be Censur'd to be unlawful The Conclusion evidently follows out of the premises And the Minor which is the only Proposition wants proof you have already seen proved partly in this very Section and partly throughout those many other long and large Sections before wherein I have first proceeded in a negative way answering all the Laws alledg'd by either Bellarmine or any other for the Exemption of Clergymen from the Supreme Civil Coercive power of Lay Princes and next have also proceeded in a positive or affirmative way alledging on the contrary all those Laws divine and humane which you may see there for the subjection of even all kind of Clergymen to the said Supreme Civil power II. No Remonstrance can be justly Censur'd to be detestable but that which can be justly said to contain some Clause or some Proposition that is execrable or worthy to be abhorr'd for only that which is justly reputed such can be justly said to be detestable Ours contains no Clause or Proposition that is execrable or worthy to be abhorr'd because it contains nothing against any Law divine or humane and the Remonstrance which contains no such thing contains no Clause or Proposition that is execrable or worthy to be abhorr'd Ergo our Remonstrance cannot be justly Censur'd to be detestable III. No Remonstrance can be according to any true Theology Censur'd to be sacrilegious or the Subscribers of it declared to be tyed under the guilt of Sacriledge to refix or revoke their Subscriptions which contains not some Clause or some Proposition warranting Sacriledge either taken in the true proper and strict sense of this word Sacriledge or in that at least which is the improper and larger sense of it But ours is a Remonstrance which contains no such Clause or Proposition c. Ergo c. The conclusion follows evidently according to the rules of Logick and the Major is evident ex terminis to any that is not a Beetle-head The Minor which only of all the Propositions of this Syllogism requires proof I prove thus no less evidently Sacriledge properly and strictly taken and according to the Etymology of the word sayes Azorius Instit Moral l. 9. cap. 27. is the stealing of a Sacred thing Vnde Sacrilegi dicuntur sayes he speaking in this proper and strict sense qui res Sacras surripiunt aut qui rem non Sacram in loco tamen Sacro depositam aut commendatam furantur And Sacriledge in the improper and larger sense sayes the same Author and with him other Divines and Canonists as it is often also now or even more commonly taken is a sin whereby a Sacred thing is polluted or unworthily and impiously handled used or treated that is not with that honour veneration and respect which the Laws of God or man commands us under sin to use or treat Sacred things Appellatione autem rei sacrae sayes the same Azor accipitur ea quae sanctitatem aliquam habet aut Christi institutione aut Ecclesia consecratione unctione benedictione ut vocatur quae est precatio qua Ecclesiae Minister certis ritibus ceremoniis Ecclesiasticis adhibitis bona precatur rei quam sacrat Ea item quam Ecclesia ad sacros usus ministeria destinavit But who sees not that there is not in our said Remonstrance any proposition or clause or passage warranting either the stealth of any Sacred thing according to the first sense or in the latter the pollution violation injurious force done to irreverence or dishonour or any unworthy or impious usage handling or treating of any Sacred thing whatsoever Religion or Faith Sacrament or Sacramental Place Goods Lands Rite Ceremony c For what I have already said at large in this very present Section and what I have before Treated yet far more largely in so many other preceding Sections against the four grounds of the Louain Theological Faculty do without any possible contradiction which may as much as seem rational most evidently demonstrate That there is not in our said Remonstrance any such proposition clause or passage warranting c. First Because what is so said in both does most evidently demonstrate That in the Remonstrance there is no power attributed to the King nor obedience acknowledg'd or promised as due from the Subjects but meerly Temporal and Civil or rather in meer Temporal and Civil things and according to the Laws of God and Nature and Canons also of the Church nor any denied to the Pope or Church not even any I mean out of the Popes or Churches own peculiar temporal Territories but only such power and such obedience as are not spiritual or in spiritual things nay this very present Section besides other matters demonstrates also That there is nothing else in the Remonstrance Secondly and particularly because the attributing such Temporal power to the Prince and requiring or warranting such obedience in Temporal or Civil things from or in the Subjects cannot be Sacriledge in either sense nor the denying of the same Supreme Royal politick power in Temporal matters to the Church or Pope in other Territories than such as are acknowledged or indeed are their own peculiarly and independently as to the Supreme politick power can be any more Sacriledge in either sense For who sees not that here is no violation of any kind of Right due by any Law to either Sacred persons or other Sacred things whatsoever And who knows not it is confessedly true That Sacriledge in either sense must be a violation of some such Right Lastly Because I have most particularly and professedly demonstrated before these four things 1. In so many different long Sections That the Pope hath not either de facto or de jure any either divine or humane Right to the temporal or politick Supremacy of
England or Ireland in temporal things as indeed I confess our said Remonstrance denies him to have any such 2. That albeit our Remonstrance denies the Pope any kind of power to dispense in our temporal or civil Allegiance yet it no way therefore or even for any cause or in any other clause whatsoever denies the Pope that binding or loosing power which is proper to the Church or which is any way given the Pope either by Christ himself immediately or immediately by the Church 3. That albeit our Remonstrance also tye even the Priestly Subscribers to reveal all Treasons which come to their knowledge as to be perpetrated hereafter yet it touches not on nor binds to the breach of the Sacramental Seal of Confession 4. That should it as indeed it ought not be expounded so as to renounce all Ecclesiastical both liberty and immunity of Church persons and places wherein either is contrary to the Supreme politick power of Princes in temporal matters over all persons and places whatsoever within their own respective Dominions and inasmuch as such power is necessary for the preservation of the Commonwealth either spiritual or temporal and is own'd by the municipal Laws yet it would not therefore nor doth for any cause or in any clause whatsoever disclaim in or quit in any wise the true Ecclesiastical Liberty or true Ecclesiastical Immunity And these being all the specifical grounds of charging our Remonstrance with Sacriledge in either sense of the word it must be consequential that these being overthrown as they are already and most clearly and most diffusely too the Censure of Sacriledge must be also overthrown as having no subsistence but in these four grounds or in some one of them For to ground a Censure of Sacriledge on the bare naming or mentioning at all the special Title of the great Bishop or on the word Pope expressed in our Remonstrance or on the words We disclaim and renounce all Forreign Jurisdiction be it Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal inasmuch as it may seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from our faithful Loyalty and due Allegiance or to ground it I say on those two former words disclaim renounce of this clause as not Reverential enough or less Reverential than other words expressing the same sense is the greatest vanity and folly and nonsence can be Because Sacriledge either properly or improperly strictly or largely taken must be a sin and therefore against some true binding Law divine or humane and therefore also must be a violation of some Right belonging to divine persons or things and belonging to them by some Law divine or humane positive or natural and consequently too must be an injurious breach of their priviledge or right by some such Law But herein or in these bare words and sense of them as explained by the other following words is no sin because no such violation or breach being there is no Law to the contrary in the case nay being all Laws divine and humane positive and natural are for those words and senses of them as explain'd by the other words following Besides there was either an absolute necessity or at least very much expediency to use those very words Pope renounce disclaim as I have shewed before Now doth it matter at all that other words might be found more Reverential For as magis minus non variant speciâ—m or do not make that which is Reverential in the positive to be Irreverential in the negative So I am sure no rational man will say that we are under the sin of Sacriledge or other whatsoever bound to use at least in a doctrinal declaration and speaking of a third person the most or even the more Reverential words or even also any words at all of Reverence so we use none of Irreverence being there is no Law binding us in such a case to use such words but only words expressing truly and plainly such meaning as is lawful for us to express Lastly who sees not but that we commit no Irreverence if speaking of the King as a third person we call him barely the King Nor also any Irreverence if upon a just occasion we should say that we disclaim and renounce his Royal power as certainly we do inasmuch as it might seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from that obligation which we have on us by the general Canons or consent of the whole Catholick Church or at least of the Occidental or Western part of it to acknowledge and obey them in meer spiritual things and according to the true undoubted Canons of the same Church and in that sense wherein the universal Church understands the same Canons Or if upon a just occasion and being required we should renounce and disclaim in the King or in His Royal power inasmuch as he or it might seem able or should pretend to the preaching of the Word Ministration of Sacraments or to that spiritual power of binding and loosing sinners or of shutting and opening the gates of Heaven or of the Church which Christ gave to his Apostles and by his Apostles to the same Church that is to the meer spiritual Rectors and other meer spiritual Ministers of it And as I am sure this expression could not be at least in such case Irreverential much less Sacrilegious against the Sacred person of the King or His Sacred power Royal or against His Sacred unction so neither could that of ours in our Remonstrance and in that case which was really ours be any way Irreverential much less Sacrilegious or any way at all sinful or unlawful IV. My fourth and last Argument and Syllogism is against the virtual affixion of Schism or Heresie or both to our said Remonstrance by the often mention'd Louain Theological Faculty and Censure And I frame it thus No Remonstrance is either Schismatical or Heretical and much less both which contains not some proposition or some clause either formally or virtually Schismatical or Heretical for if it be both as it must contain both so consequently it must contain either Our said Remonstrance is a Remonstrance which contains neither that is which contains no such proposition or clause c. Ergo c. And because the Major of this last Syllogism is evident and even per se nota ex terminis amongst Divines and all men of Reason who understand the terms and withall consider that I take here Schismatical and Heretical or Schism and Heresie in the proper sense of the words or as they import a special sin distinct from all other sorts of sins and consequently because it needs no further evidence it s own native light abundantly sufficing I proceed to the proof of the Minor And first as to the first branch of it which is that of our said Remonstrances not being Schismatical In the deduction of which proof I will make even St. Thomas of Aquin himself 2. 2. q. 39. ar 1. ad 2. and
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
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
Thirteenth especially considering that the promise and declaration thereof made in that Thirteenth is delivered in such words as must of necessity argue though not a formal yet a virtual assertion because a supposition of each of these three last Sorbon Propositions in that very maâ—ner I have now presently express'd or of the truth of them and by consequence also a virtual censure and condemnation of the contrary Tenets For otherwise how could We declare truly honestly and conscientiously That it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the persuasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practise according to any Positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives c. and consequently never to approve of or practise any thing contrary to the genuine Liberties of the Irish Church c Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever c. is infallible in his definitions made without the consent c as at large in the said Thirteenth complex Proposition or Paragraph How I say could We or any persons whatsoever declare truly honestly and conscientiously in such terms such a resolution as to such matters unless we or they were at the same time inwardly and throughly persuaded of the verity of those three assertory single Propositions which I say are previously and at least virtually supposed and by consequence also of the falsity of the opposite doctrines For no man at least no Divine Preacher Confessor Leader and Guide of others by his Calling and Function may or can honestly profess in publick to the World such an unalterable resolution unless he be inwardly persuaded that doctrine he disclaims in is false and the contrary true because the Apostle and reason too assures us That whatever proceeds not from Conscience is a sin and consequently that it is unlawful for any man at least who is bound to be the spiritual guide of others to profess especially in such manner such a resolution against doctrines pretended to be Religious and Evangelical of the falsity of which he is not throughly convinced being it is clear enough that want of such conviction would argue his Soul to be either habitually or actually depraved i. e. resolved to run wilfully the hazard of opposing an Evangelical Truth and therefore to be in a wicked state 10. That the foresaid Colledge of Divines consisted partly of graduated or licensed and instituted Professors of Divinity and partly of other qualified Fathers but who were also Divines although not as the former instituted Professors to teach in the Schools and that the names and qualities too or titles of all both these and those I mean as many of them as I can exactly now remember to have ordinarily come to that meeting were as followeth viz. Fr Antony O Docharty Minister Provincial of St. Francis's Order in Ireland Fr Thomas Dillon Vicar Provincial of the Discalceat Carmelits in Ireland Laurence Archbold a Secular and Parish-Priest formerly Vicar General of Dublin George Plunket a Secular Parish-Priest and Archdeacon of Meath Fr Antony Gearnon of St. Francis's Order several times formerly Guardian viz. of the Convents of Dundalk Dublin c. Fr John Reynolds of St. Dominick's Order Protonotary Apostolical c. Fr Thomas Talbot of St. Francis's Order one of Her late Maiesty the Queen Mother's Chaplains Fr Valentin Brown of St. Francis's Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity and formerly Minister Provincial of Ireland Angel Goulding a Secular Parish-Priest of St. Owens in Dublin and Doctor of Divinity Fr Bernardinus Barry of St. Francis's Order and Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Thomas Harold of the same Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Simon Wafer of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr John Grady of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr Peter Walsh of the same Order Reader of Divinity and Procurator c. In all Fourteen whereof Nine Franciscans three of the Secular Clergy one of the Carmelits and one of St. Dominick's Order and this last viz. Father John Reynolds was also their Secretary or he that writ down what they had agreed upon and kept the Papers This is a true account of the occasion end time and manner also of debating as likewise of the persons who debated the said Fifteen Propositions or Doctrine of Allegiance contain'd in them And now there remains but a few other particulars I would have here briefly advertised 1. That several other Churchmen at several times came to that little meeting as it was free and open for any that pleased to come and go when he would and object whatever he thought fit but that I do not remember any of those others that came so to have objected any thing 2. That Father Harold was he as he is a very able man that disputed most and press't hard against me on the controverted points or arising difficulties though he concurr'd at last with my sense on every point 3. That where I speak of a select number of Divines by that word select I would signifie only those who of the foresaid whole number of Fourteen were School-professors of Divinity who were indeed but seven whereof I am sure that five were as select as any our Countrey could then afford 4. That amongst the same foresaid number of Fourteen there were three who had been actual Members of the late National Congregation viz. Antony Docharty Provincial of the Franciscans Thomas Dillon Provincial of the Carmelits and Angel Goulding Doctor of Divinity 5. That six of the whole number had neither before nor after sign'd the controverted Remonstrance viz. Antony Docharty Thomas Dillon Bernardinus Barry John Grady Angel Goulding George Plunket 6. And lastly That I have been by so much the more exact in giving the particulars of this Colledge of Divines held after the National Congregation was dissolved and of the matters debated therein by how much I found it and my self also even for it traduced by false relations thereof sent over Seas For my Lord Bishop of Ferns out of his own candid nature and some kindness also to me was pleased to let me know so much though not before the year 1669. The words of his Letter dated the 6th of October said year 1669 to the present purpose are these Father Peter Walsh is said to have used fraud and force in the Congregation of the Clergy at Dublin anno 1666 and that he kept an Anti-Congregation of his own faction to vex them I saw a relation sent over of that I saw also severe lines of a great Cardinal to that purpose Whereunto he further adds kindly some further notice viz. of the late cause of their anger against me at Rome in these other words It was ill taken by all That after Cardinal Franciscus Barberinus 's Letter in His Holinesse
immediately succeeding Internuntius's of Brussels Hieronimus de Vecchys and Jacobus Rospigliosi determined the case as well in this particular point as in all others of the like nature against the former protestation of 61. and so reserved to themselves a latitude or liberty of telling all others and practising themselves accordingly That indeed although it be not their own particular Doctrine sense or Judgement yet for as much as it is Romes or at least the Courts there and for as much as they owe obedience to that See and must submit their Judgements to and receive commands from it specially whensoever his Holiness shall declare or if he hath so al-ready on the point declared an obligation of Conscience or that it is of necessity or that it is a command to them which cannot be transgressed Salvâ veritate fidei Catholicae or sine dispendio salutis aeternae they must for these reasons obey and conform themselves to the contrary Doctrine and practice flowing from it To pass by at present I say all this and that for these causes or motives besides divers others which I likewise pass over this time they would no way censure the contrary doctrine nor as much as seem to dis-allow it as they do not as much as simply averr what their own judgment on the point is or shall be hereafter at any time Who cannot but see out of all said already that by Subjects in this passage they understand only such as are and must or ought to continue Subjects alwayes De Jure and even De Jure Divino not such as are de facto only Subjects such as are onely Subjects by force or out of prudence onely that is until they see they prudently may in some cases of deposition deprivation Excommunication or without any such sentences in some cases of Apostacy heresy schysme or of publick oppression or tyrannical administration and that the people themselves by virtue of their own pretended inherent Civil and supream right in some cases declare themselves exempt and their king or the person until then their King now devested of that power and themselves freed of all kind of tye of subjection to him For even in such cases or contingencies they will say and may truely say according to their present sense opinion and general negative abstraction here That it is not their Doctrine that Subjects may be discharged absolved or freed from their obligation of performing their duty And yet they will and may say then according to their present meaning and that meaning too which their Remonstrance in the words contexture all other present circumstances affecting it necessarily imports that such as were until then Subjects are no more Subjects And if they be still in fact or by force or out of prudence till they find their time they are not so by right Or if by right of the lawes of the Land yet not by a right derived from the lawes of God nature And therefore that although this proposition of theirs be alwayes true then too shall be according to this their present meaning or explication which understands by Subjects none but such as are and ought by the lawes of God nature to continue such and according as they understand the said lawes yet in the cases or emergencies above such persons owe no more any duty of obedience or allegiance and consequently need no further discharge absolution or freedom by the sentence or declaration of any man or men from such duty which hath not nor can have a being or existence in such cases but they are discharged absolved and freed from any such duty on them by the very nature and contingencie of things and by the very consequent ceasing of the obligation of duty of it self I mean and without any further ceremonie They will also and may truely say without giving cause by this passage or any other in their Remonstrance to be up-braided with untruth herein breach of promise or falsity that however or whatever they or any of them may themselves or shall otherwise peradventure think of this matter or whatever their own private Judgement or Doctrine be or be not yet if the Pope shall declare or hath already unto them his or that of his Courts to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and with all command them by his Apostolical authority to follow it they must accordingly practise And that it is therefore they formed this Declaration as all the other several clauses of their remonstrance with so much caution and reservation as withal they framed them so that they might not seem to denie the common principle of Christian faith allowed by both sides as too evident in Holy Scripture though for my own part I believe those other they decline to be no less evident there That Jure Divino or by the law of God Princes are to be obeyed by their Subjects and yet by so many abstractions distinctions and explications render that very principle unsignificant and unbinding if and when they shall think fit Whence the ingenious Reader may also perfectly understand the causes or motives of the subtilty and fineness used in placing the words that compose the Proposition or Declaration immediatly following or which directly relates to and seems to condemn the doctrine of the lawfulness not of deposing or depriving Kings but of murthering or killing them by the hands of their Subjects Wherein it might be expected by vulgar judgments that if in any passage the Assembly would be more clear and ingenuous although to such as are fully versed in the controversie and positions of Suarez Bellarmine and such others whose doctrine as to this point or whole matter the Assembly would not by any means condemn it will not seem strange they be no more since the lawfulness of killing or murthering of Kings even I say by the hands of their own Subjects must be equal to that of a sentence of deposition or deprivation of them by Pope or People or of a Censure of Excommunication or other commanding the people to rebel or take Arms against them or to put any such sentence in execution As indeed Bellarmine in his answer to William Barclay and Suarez in his to King James and all others of that way on this subject plainly confess and averr as a consequence unavoidable So many experiences where and as often as any such attempt of deposition hath been made and the nature of man to preserve himself to his power shewing the moral impossibility or at least the very rare contingency of an effectual deposition of a King by his Subjects but withal he was murthered by them Whence it is necessarily consequent that whoever licences the one must the other And yet these late Remonstrants or Subscribers to this Protestation of 66. would by their dexterity seem but to such only as are not conversant in the dispute or do not strictly examine the placing of their words to condemn a doctrine of so
those words our Supream Lord and further because of the genius and temper and so many several interests of the men that composed that Congregation and Interests also though in some or many respects divided yet all through pre-occupation ignorance and a perverse obstinacy conspiring together in the main of not speaking their conscience plainly either pro or con for these reasons I say this acknowledgment from them and in these words alone of the Kings Supremacy in Temporals or to speak more properly as I would fain to the purpose of the Kings temporal Supremacy or supream politick and civil Power with the Sword corporal or carnal if I may so speak over all persons subject to him and in all causes indifferently wherein corporal force or co-action is used is lyable to as many deceitful evasions and interpretations as any of the former in that recognition or of those that follow after in their confessions or promises And yet herein they need not find out any way that hath not been chalked before them by some of their sophistical Predecessors these sixty years It is but to pursue their steps and tell the people as several of their chief Speakers and Interpreters have already by clear expressions given sufficient cause to expect they will when they find it convenient that he is acknowledged Supream for the present but not so for the future That both for the present and future he may be acknowledged Supream but their meaning may be and is That he is and may be so de facto not de jure in fact only in actual possession and by force only not by right That he may be so by right also but by such right only as the laws of the Land can or do give him not by such right as the laws of the Church may much less by that right which the laws of God and nature have not given him in those contingencies above Finally as they leave themselves a latitude by the former answers notwithstanding this recognition of Supream in those bare words only or any thing else in this Remonstrance to maintain alwayes the saâ—rilegiousness of the Remonstrance of 61. I speak according to the Censure of the Lovaine Divines of that Remonstrance of 61. and even upon their grounds of humane right which the Popes pretend to the kingdoms of England and Ireland and which those Divines of Lovaine assert unto the See of Rome viz. Those of a pretended submission donation prescription feudatary title given and forfeiture made so they retain the like notwithstanding this acknowledgement here notwithstanding all said before and after To maintain no less stiffely when they shall think fit the other pretended but divine Supream both Temporal and Spiritual right of Popes as well to the Realms of England and Ireland as to all and over all at least Christian Kingdoms and Kings in the world For they will and may say according to their principles which they flatly denied to quit by any sufficient expression or indeed rather denied to meddle with at all or declare themselves in any manner on the point according to such I say they will plead when they shall think it may be done prudently That they do not here acknowledge the King their Supream Lord but in relation only to or in rank and order only of such Lords as are meerly temporal not by any means absolutely or without such relation not at all in relation to such Lords as have a power absolutely divine or supernatural and is composed by God himself both of temporal and spiritual natural and supernatural and is immediatly given by Him to them over the whole earth at least the parts of it that are Christian and also at least in some extraordinary cases Of the emergencie of which cases that they themselves alone I mean such Lords are Judges appointed by Him and that such Lords are the Popes only and certainly they will say And consequently that by no general acknowledgement of a meer temporal â—upremacy in a King by a Catholick it can be presumed he any way intended to relate to that divine spiritual supernatural extraordinary Attribute Power or Supremacy of the Popes even in temporal matters or intended any way to deny it For it is a maxim with Canonists that in a general expression is not to be understood that which the Expressor would not specifically grant were it demanded of him in specie much less that which being demanded of him specifically he of set purpose refuses to express it so though he write not under his hand that specifical demand or denial but passes both by I will say nothing at present of the relative or comparative form of this recognition which they choose rather then that positive and absolute one of the former Remonstrance of 61. Though I be sure that that of 61. being absolute and positive for it is worded thus We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions puts us not to an inquiry after the manner or measure of the truth lawfulness rightfulness or supremacy of his Titles of his Kingship Lordship or Soveraignty over or to all his other Dominions or those are called his besides Ireland as this of the Congregation must them that please to understand it by the rules of Sophistry or Subtilty Whereby they gave cause to suspect they would have their own relative or comparative form understood by such as listed to understand or interpret it so when they found it could be done prudently For they would have their 's not to be positive at all but relative as you see in their own words which say only thus We acknowledge your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other your Majesties Dâ—minions Now the Querie is how well they acknowledge or would have others to acknowledge him True and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign of all other his Majesties Dominions How well of Tangier Jamaica or France c And if his Majesties title to these or either of them be uncertain with them or by many or some of them not accounted good or just at all whether by this relative form they choose of purpose they declare or acknowledge his title to Ireland to be any better The liberty they leave themselves by their manner of expression here to have recourse for interpretation when they please to their logical Sophistry and make this acknowledgement sometimes and to some persons a modal Proposition at other times and to other persons a Proposition not modal but only de extremo modificato gives them the trouble to answer these Queries As in the impartial understanding Reader it and what is here said thereupon may work this perswasion That notwithstanding this their kind of owning and acknowledging his Majesty they are still
in question it was I say to avoid the grossness and odiousness and the danger withal of the consequences of that third explication or gloss in this second part they chose rather to have their more ordinary recourse to the two former and yet more plausibly to the second than first And indeed the said Father N. N. who as I have told in my Narrative was the chief man at first to offer to my self and draw the Congregation to a Subscription of them though not for any real end that might be to assure the King of their Loyaltie but for that only in my Narrative expressed and for no other besides but for a meer blindation and though after his first heat and upon a more serious reflection he was the chief man also to keep them back from subscribing the last three of those six of Sorbon I say the said wel-spoken Father when I dealed with him freely and to make himself to my self in plain tearms declare his own distinctions and evasions when I asked him familiarly how could he that was so great a stickler for Bellarmine and so great an opposer of the Remonstrance of 61. where it was against Bellarmine how could he holding still to that stickling and opposition subscribe that clause or second part of the first proposition so plainly or seemingly against Bellarmin's Doctrine of the indirect power Or how consequently would he choose rather to subscribe those propositions of Sorbon applyed to our King than the said Remonstrance of 61 or would he indeed by the promise in the first proposition to oppose the assertors of even the indirect power have it understood that he promised so in case of Excommunication Deposition Deprivation issued or pronounced by the Pope for the crimes of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people c when I put these queries to the said Reverend and both eloquent and learned Gentleman of the Society his answer was plain and positive That as the propositions reached not descended not expressed not such cases so the Congregation would not subscribe them as comprehending any such himself would not the words imported no such meaning And therefore he excepted alwayes those cases And questionless his meaning was as I know his principles are that the Pope alone is the only Judge of those cases that is can determine whether and when the King is or shall be guilty of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people or finally of any other hainous crime which may merit Excommunication or Denunciation and what is consequent deprivation deposition c. And yet notwithstanding all this Father N. N. would subscribe and hath subscribed that he shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over the King in civil and temporal affairs And yet maintains as all the rest do this subscription is not any way prejudicial to that explication of his and of theirs all in general The fourth and last explication of this second part of the said first proposition is both of the learned and unlearned of those Gentlemen of the Congregation and of their adherents or beleivers That indeed the promise must be understood with this tacit condition virtually implyed or supposed to be implyed in or annexed to all kind of lawful promises provided it appear not to us hereafter that the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time henceforth declare this our promise to be unlawful unconscionable or against the safety of our Soules or which is the same thing to be of a matter unlawful of it self to be promised or of a thing which either in it self or by consequence is against the sinceritie of Catholick Faith and Religion For say they it must be supposed alwayes and by all men that we will submit and conform to such a declaration being we have on the contradictory question expresly refused to disown the Popes infallibility Behold here four several expositions given by themselves that is by their chiefest Divines of each of both parts of this first proposition Expositions questionless even each or every of them able to evict from any man this confession that for neither of both parts nor both together this first proposition adds any thing to their Remonstrance or gives the King in the cases doubted any more assurance of their Loyaltie than their unsignificant acknowledgments declarations promises engagements oathes in the said Remonstrance do That is even just nothing at all No kind of obligation thereby on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free to maintain by force of Arms any quarrel or cause against his Majestie And for as much as their next which is their second proposition in order is liable to the very self same or the like expositions to the very self same exceptions reservations equivocations and even distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense and that it hath not a word able or significant enough I mean in this age and amongst Sophisters to obstruct these evasions learn'd at last in the later and worser ages of the Church from a few deceiptful or deceived Schoolmen and for as much as Father N. N. and the other chief Divines of the Congregation those interpreters of their mind and sense do in very deed and self same way and no other to whom and where and when they think fit expound the second also and for as much as though they declare positively in this second It is their doctrine that our gracious King Charles the second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede yet they understand first those three words our gracious King and every of them in a reduplicative sense only not in the specificative that is while he is suffered to be King and is theirs and gracious withal unto them or until he be deprived or deposed by the Popes sentence or otherwise or even cease to be any more truly our King by the very nature of his pretended misgovernment and secondly understand by that clause nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God I say they understand in that clause by the word power an ordinary power only not that extraordinary power which as before they still reserved to the Pope in those extraordinary cases of Apostacie Heresie c. and when they please too a power meerly and solely temporal such as never is the ordinary power which they attribute the Pope over Kings and thirdly tell us on those other words under God that the power of the Pope is the same which God hath and fourthly where in the end of the said proposition they declare that to witt the former parts of the same proposition to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede expound their
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
their dear Countrey with so many other bordering Kingdoms of Christianity lest open as a prey to the fury of Barbarians what reproach and what confusion to see a Turk obtain a victory from Christ against Christians when Amuâ—â—th in the heat of that Battel observing his own army put to the worst by the valour of Vladislaus drew forth out of his bosome the scroll of the articles of Cessation signed by the Christian King and casting his eyes to Heaven challenged Christs Divinity if he did not presently shew himself a revenging God for that dishonour done his Name by this perfidiousness of Christians What some would fain here say yet it is only to say somewhat not because they conceive it hath any colour of reason that it belongs to the Judge from whom not to the Appellant or others to know whether the causes of the Appeal be probably or evidently just is answered by Glossa in cap. Cum Appellationibus de Appellat in 6. where these express words are That it belongs to the Judge Superiour to whom the Appeal is made to examine and judge of the lawfulness of the Appeal and by Glossa in cap. ut debitus extr de Appellat That this depends not of the Judge from whom but of the truth it self Whence may be inferred That the Appellant as he really sees probability or evidence in the Causes alledged may accordingly address himself to the superiour Judge and obey no more the inferiour to whom it no way belongs to judge of the Causes when they are such as being proved they would be thought reasonable otherwise than by giving a bare answer or apostles And this is it the Glosse intends For doubtless he intends not to exclude the power of the superiour Judge in examining and giving sentence for or against the Appeal Yet certain it is That if the Appellant sees the very superiour Judge not to sentence aright either in the matter of the Appeal or any other it is lawful to appeal further even from him to his superiour if any be Gloss cap. Romana verb. Minus legitima de Appellat in 6. Lastly and most directly to the purpose by Gloss in cap. Sollicitudinem extr verb. Episcopus posset (l) 〈…〉 in 〈…〉 ext 〈◊〉 Appell verb. â—â—icopus pâ—ssâ—â—bâ—d quare judâ—x non pâ—â—est cognâ—scâ—râ—e Appellatione ab ipso facta sicut cognoscit an sua sit jurisdictio Ideo non potest cognoscere de Appellatione quia cum probabilis causa exp sita est in Appellatione jam exemptus est a Jurisdictione illius est illi suspectus praesumptio est pro ipso quod semper vellet judicare pro sua Jurisdictione c. Where 't is demanded Wherefore cannot the Judge from whom an Appeal is made know that is call in question examine juridically and judge or give sentence of the same Appeal And 't is answered That therefore he cannot be a Judge of the Appeal made from him because that a probable cause being alledged in the Appeal the Appellant is exempted from his Jurisdiction â—e me suspected to him and because it may be presumed that the Judge in this case wouâ—â— give sentence in favour of his own Jurisdiction c. Nay the very Text of cap. ut debitus § Cum autem puts this business out of all debate where it is said (m) Cum autem ex rationabili causa putâ—verit appellandom coram eodem Judice causa Appellationis exposita tali viz. quae si soret probata deberet legitima reputari Superior de Appellatione cognoscat c. That it belongs to the superiour Judge to examine and give sentence whether the causes were in themselves reasonable or no As for the inferiour Judge the Appellant is bound only to expose or alledge before him probable or reasonable causes to wit such causes which being proved ought to be reputed lawful And therefore the Judge from whom hath no right to examine juridically the truth of them since the Appellant is only bound to expose or alledge them before him and not to prove them for who sees not that to be bound to alledge and to be bound to prove are far different And consequently he cannot hinder a just Appeal by saying it belongs to him to know and judge whether it be a just Appeal or no or whether the Causes expressed be reasonable or no Which is yet more plainly and indeed throughly cleared without any place left for expositions or distinctions by cap. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. where its expresly decreed by Boniface the VIII (n) Si a Judice a quo propter gravamen quod tibi proponis illatum appellas ad docendum resore gravatum ad audiendam revocationem ejusdem gravaminis si de ipso docuerâ—s nam supponit quod ad hoc non teneris ut infâ—a statim tibi terminus praefigatur Nec corameo cum ipse per se id videre habeat docere nec etiam tanquam coram Judice cum per appellationem sit suspensa ipsius Jurisdictio comparere teneris nisi ad hoc solum ut revocationem ipsam audias si eam duxcrit faciendam That for to prove you had just or probable causes to appeal you are not bound to appear or answer before the Judge from whom you appealed in regard sayes Boniface that he is no more your Judge whereas by your Appeal especially when it is from an extrajudicial or a gravamine as our Appeal is his Jurisdiction is suspended Only one case excepted which is not to our purpose yet that is when the Judge from whom saniori ductus consilio being better advised would recall his past sentence whereby the Appellant was grieved for only in this case he is bound being called to appear before the Judge a quo to the end he may hear the sentence of his grievance recalled What can be desired more manifestly convincing If the Judge from whom once the Appeal is interposed from a grievance and probable Causes therein expressed that is such as being proved ought to be accounted probable if he be no more Judge if he have no more jurisdiction over the Appellant but only in that one case if the Appellant be not bound to appear before him for to prove the truth or justice of his motives of Appeal how doth it belong to him to examine juridically the truth of these Causes or to sentence the Appeal to be good or bad or on pretext hereof to hinder the Appellant from the prosecution of the Appeal or getting the benefit of an Appeal Certainly it cannot be unless we admit a plain contradiction And certainly as yet we have not seen one Chapter Passage or Glosse of the Law could be produced to the contrary by such as seem to maintain the invalidity of the Appeal though they have laboured much in heaping together Citations But all to no other purpose then either that as we grant and never denied probable causes of the Appeal
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
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