THE COUNCIL of TRENT The Representation of the Fathers assembled in the Council of Trent begun about the end of the year 1545. Concluded towards the end of 1563. under the Pontisicate of Paul III. Tulius III. Marcel II. Paul IV. and Pius IV. There were XXV Sessions in which were present VII Cardinals V. whereof were the Popes Legates XVI Ambassadours from Kings Princes Republicks CCL Patriarchs Arch bishops Bishops Abbots and Generals of Orders All Divines and Doctours of the Civil and Canon Law THE HISTORY OF THE Council of TRENT In Eight Books Whereunto is prefixt A Discourse containing Historical Reflexions on Councils and particularly on the Conduct of the Council of Trent proving that the Protestants are not oblig'd to submit thereto Written in French by Peter Jurieu Doctour and Professour of Divinity And now done into English LONDON Printed by J. Heptinstall for Edward Evets at the Green Dragon and Henry Faithorne and John Kersey at the Rose in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXIV Historical Reflections ON COUNCILS And particularly on the Council of TRENT PROVING That Protestants are not Obliged to submit thereto I Believe it will by all men readily be granted that since the first appearance of Christianity there hath not hapned an Affair of greater moment than was the separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome which fell out in the beginning of the last Century It was a mighty rupture that took whole States and Kingdoms from the Roman See Schism is indeed one of the greatest mischiefs which can befall the Church it is an enemy to Charity nay ruinous to it and since Charity is no less necessary to Salvation than Faith Schism that destroys Charity is no less to be feared than Heresie that overthrows the Faith In our present subject we find both Heresie and Schism The mischief is great on either part Those of the separation are Schismaticks if they have not done it upon solid grounds But if the Church from which they separate hath given occasion for such separation and by her own errors made it absolutely necessary the guilt of the Schism falls then upon her From hence arises a great contest to know who it is that must one day answer before the Tribunal of God for this scandalous breach that puts a stop to the progress of Chtistianity sowing among Christians the seeds of variance and contention The Roman Church pretends it to be a Cause already adjudged and determined that famous Assembly the General Council of Trent who could not err having pronounced definitively upon it By this Judgment say they men ought to abide for there will else be no end of Controversie Disputes should not be everlasting but when the Judges have given their final Sentence there can be no further proceeding The Protestants are very far from thinking thus of the matter they pretend a right to review the Cause they cry out against the incompetence of the Judge they complain of undue and irregular proceedings and will admit no other Decision of the truth and antiquity of their Religion than the Holy Scripture as for Tradition Councils and Schools by which they are condemned they look upon them as things doubtful falsified false and apt to occasion illusion and error This Controversie is most certainly of the greatest importance no less than eternal Salvation depends upon it so that it is the interest of all men to examine it to the bottom It were a thing to be wished that we might plead our cause before a disinteressed Judge but it cannot be For all the sincere and worthy persons of Europe have already taken part on one side or the other and those that can still ballance between the two Religions are too ill Christians to have the honour of being Judges in a Cause which properly speaking is the Cause of God But we entreat the Reader that at least for a few hours he will lay aside all manner of prepossession that he may so make the better Judgment of the force of our Arguments My intention is not to enter into the depth of this vast matter for that were to descend to particulars and to examine the right and wrong of every dispute I will only shew that the Protestants are not to be blamed for refusing to submit to the Decisions of the Council of Trent and that from reasons taken from the Council it self I will prove that it is not from giddiness nor from perverseness but from a just and solid resolution that they refuse to submit For it seems reasonable that giving the History of this Council we do also give an account why we conceive our selves not obliged to receive it reason 1 1. First reason of not owning the Council of Trent because it is a Party in the Controversie In the first place the Reformed decline the jurisdiction of this Council as a Judge incompetent because a Party I easily foresee I shall be stop'd short here and that it will be returned upon me that the Churches being a Party is the ordinary refuge of Hereticks Had not the Arians as much right to tell the Council of Nice you are a Party and therefore can be no Judge in the Cause What! is not the Church obliged to maintain the rights of truth against Hereticks and shall this shadow of a pretence be able to deprive her of the power to Judge It is fit however that we be heard in the matter to see if there be not a mighty difference between what we alledge for our selves and what they are pleased to make the Hereticks say The Church is certainly the prop and the pillar of truth as St. Paul speaks that is she is obliged to support it But yet Hereticks must not for that reason look upon the Church as a Party and reject her as unfit to judge of religious Controversies For Legislators and the Garrantees of Laws cannot justly be considered as Parties when they have no other interest in a matter in question but the conservation of the Laws Were it reasonable for a Murderer to harangue his Judges thus Gentlemen you cannot be my Judges you have an interest in the prosecution inasmuch as you have forbidden to commit murder It is an easie thing to foresee what Judgment you will give thus prejudiced as you are by your own Principles and Maximes I demand therefore a fair and equal trial by Judges wholly free from all prepossession There could be nothing so senseless as such kind of talk yet such would be that of Hereticks who should reject the judgment of the Church in Contests of this kind Had the Council of Trent been the Council of the Church and without other interest than to defend the truth we might have appealed from its Judgment had it determined of any thing contrary to truth but we could not have refused to own it as a Council But we affirm that the Council of Trent is not a Council of the Church but of the Pope and of
that for the sake of peace he might well remit them to be examined and setled by a free Council and that by consequence upon his refusing to do it the Protestants have reason to consider as a Party and an Adversary in the Controversie that Council that the Pope hath convened wherein he presided and over which he reigned with absolute Dominion That the Church of Rome having once given Judgment upon the Controversie and an Appeal being brought she could not proceed to a second Judgment But to evince more plainly this truth That the Protestants have reason to consider the Council of Trent as their Adverse Party it is to be remarked that the matters in question were not novel but for the greater part had been already decided either by Councils or by Papal Constitutions or by a Custom universally approved by the Roman Church The second Council of Nice had decreed the adoration of Images Transubstantiation the Real Presence adoration of the Sacrament Auricular Confession had been passed into Laws by Innocent III. in the fourth Council of Lateran held in the year 1215. The Cup in the Sacrament was taken from the Laity by Decree of the Council of Constance held in the year 1414. Purgatory and the seven Sacraments were made Articles of Faith by the Council of Florence in the years 1438 and 1439. In a word there was scarce any of the controverted Points that had not been decided All that the Protestants did amounted to no other than an endeavour to be relieved from the hardships of Judgments already given Truly and properly speaking they were Appellants from the Decisions of the Roman Church to the Holy Scripture How great was then the injustice to set up that Church for Judge of a Cause against which she had already given Judgment and from which Judgment the Protestants had appealed When there arise new and doubtful matters in a Church there is no doubt but that Church hath a right to Judge of them and to assemble her Councils to that end For instance in the time of Berengarius the dispute about the Real Presence was revived which had lain buried in forgetfulness since Bertrand and Paschasius The Church of Rome having not as then decided the matter Berengarius had no reason but to hear the Judgment of the Church having first done all in him in order to the prevalence of truth Had the Church decreed unjustly in the matter he might then have refused to acquiesce in the Judgment for that the Conscience cannot submit but where it is fully convinced that the Decision is in conformity to the Word of God But when a Church hath once pronounced upon a matter and an Appeal be rightly made she hath then certainly no power to give a second Sentence in the same Cause or if she doth no consequence as of a new Condemnation can be justly drawn from it Since therefore the Church of Rome had already passed her Decree upon the Points in question before the Council of Trent we must look upon her as a Judge become a Party as having long before declared against the truth But can it in conscience be thought that the Prelates assembled at Trent came thither with intent to deliberate whether the natural Body of Christ be in the Eucharist whether the Sacrament shall have the Worship of Latria Were they not resolved already ere they came to Trent Came they not meerly to condemn the Lutherans and not upon any inquisition after truth Had they not almost all an implacable hatred to the Protestants Did they not solicit Princes to destroy them with Fire and Sword And are these qualifications to be desired in Judges If it be asked how then the Assembly should have been composed to have given content to the Protestants I answer it should have been as the Lutherans of Germany desired it The Bishops should have been absolved from their Oaths of fidelity to the Pope The Council of Basil did it in a time when there was less need than when the Council of Trent sate The Protestant Divines should have been called the more moderate persons of each party should have been chosen the Bishops should have been prevailed with to lay aside all passion and prejudice the truth should have been sought with a sincere mind and the Word of God been only consulted for it The one might have hoped that persons so qualified by such a conduct might have reached the truth reason 2 But tho we should renounce all that I have yet said tho we should own the Council of Trent for a lawful and natural Judge of our Controversies with the Roman Church 2. Second cause of rejecting the Council of Trent tho it were duly assembled in could not be infallible yet were we in no sort obliged to receive and comply with all her Decisions with an absolute resignation and a blind credulity to which nothing can move one but the fond supposition of the infallibility of Councils Not to descend to an Examen of the particular faults of the Council of Trent it is impossible to persuade ones self that a Council that is to say an Assembly in which there is no Prophet nor any man inspired of the Holy Ghost is not liable to err and for my part I very much question whether there be in the world any one person that seriously thinks so I will admit that to have recourse to an infallible living Judge would be of high importance to the World The Church of Rome strongly supports her self by the artifice of possessing the People with the belief of her infallibility But when it comes to be enquired where it is that this infallibility doth reside one knows not where to find it Some place it in the Pope alone others in the Council alone and a third sort in Pope and Council united Those that place it in the Councils seem to have greater reason than such as would fix it to the person of the Pope For Councils are indeed the undoubted Judges of controversies in the Church So that if there be any infallible Judge in the Church it should be them As it certainly is most probable that the wisdom of many in conjunction should be of greater prevalence and purity than that of any single person The Pope whose Authority is meer Usurpation cannot be an infallible Judge nor hath God given to the Bishop of Rome any power to judge of controversies in the name of the Catholick Church Yet after all that appears so much to favour the Councils it must be confessed that the opinion that fixes the infallibility of the Roman Church upon the Pope is much easier to defend than that which ascribes it to the Council For this latter opinion that makes Councils to be infallible is perhaps the most vain and empty Notion that was ever started I pass the proofs brought from Scripture for each opinion they are much of an equal weight The Text I have prayed for thee
Convention by themselves in Thrace but others on the contrary do affirm that the whole Assembly was Orthodox However there was at least three hundred of them Orthodox that were met together from all Parts The holy Confessour Hosius Bishop of Cordoua did preside in it St. Athanasius was re-established in his See by it and the Nicene Creed was also by it explained according to truth Nevertheless this very Council has not been able to obtain to pass for legitimate St. Austin formally rejects it nor is it reckoned among the first six De. Conciliis l. 1. c 7. Bellarmine indeed so far favours it as to account it among those that are in part rejected and in part approved If the Ancients had believed that General Councils were infallible I cannot see why they should reject this it having all the marks of Universality Gratus Bishop of Carthage was present at it with five and thirty African Bishops more and yet the African Church never received it she took so little notice of it that sixty or eighty years after she had no manner of knowledge of its Canons which appears by the History of the great Contest between the Church of Africk and the Bishops of Rome in the Affair of Pelagius upon the right of Appealls Celestius a Pelagian who had been condemned by the Councils of Africk obtained of Pope Zosimus to be acquitted of all the Censures that had been given against him The Africans opposed it affirming that the Canons permitted not that one accused of Heresie should be tried out of his own Province or but by his own Synod and that the Bishop of Rome had no authority to receive the Appeals of such as stood condemned by the Bishops of Africk Zozimus produced a Canon as of the Council of Nice which permitted Appeals to Rome Tho it was not really a Canon of that Council but of the Council of Sardica The Africans were surprized at it and knew not on the sudden what to reply for in their Copies of the Canons of the Council of Nice there was no such Canon to be found so that not knowing from whence it might be taken because they knew nothing of the Council of Sardica or its Canons there was need of time to clear the mystery The fifth General Council upon the Cause of Arius was the Council of Milan held about the year 354. Ruffinus plainly says that many of the Orthodox fell into the snares of Heresie Hist l. 1. c. 20. And indeed the Bishops that held for Athanasius and the term Consubstantial were in fine banished by the Emperour Constantius Could there be a more famous Council than was that of Ariminum in Italy There were present and assisting in it no fewer than six hundred Bishops of which four hundred of the Eastern Church and two hundred of the West If we may believe Socrates Hist l. 2. c. 29. there was nothing done in this Council repugnant to the Faith of the Church But he is not in this to be credited He thought perhaps it would be a mighty service to the Church to prevaricate in her behalf and deny that this Great Council was of the number of those that favoured Arianism But it is undeniable that this Synod sunk under the violence of the Emperour Constantius and was over reached by the cunning and artifice of Vrsacius Bishop of Singidunum and of Valens Bishop of Mursa The testimony of Athanasius in the Book by him written concerning the Council of Ariminum puts the matter beyond all doubt especially when we consider the concurrent evidence of S. Austin in the fourteenth Chapter of his third Book against Maximin and of St. Hilary in his Book de Synodis adversus Arianos where we find the Letters of Liberius Bishop of Rome to the Eastern Bishops wherein he avers that the Fathers of the Council of Ariminum overcome by the Emperour and by the cheats of Valence and Vrsacius had pronounced contrary to the Faith of the Church but were again perfectly returned from their error and had each of them pronounced Anathema against the Confession of Faith made by the Council of Ariminuw We have thus already five General Councils that have erred about the same matter In the Cause of Eutiches who confounded the two Natures of Christ there were two General Councils assembled The first was at Ephesus in the year 449. convened by Theodosius the younger a Prince truly Catholick All the Patriarchs were present at it Juvenal Patriarch of Jerusalem Dioscorus of Alexandria Domnus of Antioch Flavian of Constantinople and by his Legats Leo Bishop of Rome Nothing was wanting to the Legality or Universality of this Council For to say that this Council was Illegal because not convened by the Pope and that the Patriarch of Alexandria and not the Popes Legates did preside therein is a very vain Allegation the weakness of which however in this place we are not concerned to shew For we oppose not such as make the Pope Superiour to Councils and all the Authority of Councils to depend upon the Popes Pleasure We oppose such as make the Council Superiour to the Pope and hold a Council to be nothing the less legal or less infallible for not being under the Popes direction such as look upon the Councils of Constance and of Basil as most holy Councils tho the Popes did not preside in them and such in fine as require us to submit to the Council of Trent upon its own Authority This General Council of Ephesus tho legally assembled and according to the Canons is notwithstanding a detestable Convention that justified the Heretick Eutiches confirmed his Doctrine and deposed Flavian Patriarch of Constantinople a most holy and Orthodox person About nineteen years before there had been held another General Council at the same City of Ephesus in the Cause of Nestorius who affirmed there was to Persons in Christ This Heresie was there condemned and Truth triumphed This certainly makes an essential difference between these two Councils tho otherwise there be none that I can see as to Form and Externals unless that Error was victorious in the second Council with less scandal than truth overcame in the first For it is true indeed that Dioscorus President of the second Council of Ephesus did with much facility cause the Heresie of Eutiches to prevail the Popes Legats and some few others having been only a little roughly treated whilst in the first Council of Ephesus which is the third received General Council there was a horrible Schism occasioned by Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch who made Parties and deposed each other Socrat. l. 7. c. 33. Evagrius l. 1. c. 4. The Emperour was forced to interpose in the matter and to make use of his Authority to appease so dreadful a Sedition It is apparent from all these Considerations that tho the Council of Trent could be considered as a General Council that would not bind us to believe it infallible nor
Heretofore all contracts were confirmed and ratified by Oath and because an Oath is a matter of Conscience they made themselves Judges of all Causes that related to Contracts and Promises Besides these Jurisdictions they established a Court which they called the Mixt Court wherein they Judged of all civil Causes belonging to the Magistrate if the Court of the Church had by anticipation taken cognizance of the Cause but on the other side if the Magistrate had anticipated them then the Ecclesiastick-Court had no more Power They likewise laid down for a Maxim which brought a great many Causes before them that when the Magistrate neglected or refused to doe Justice then the Cause devolved to the Ecclesiastick-Court And in fine to fill up the measure of corruption in the eleventh Century they laboured to lay down this for a Maxim that Bishops did not derive this great Power from the Concessions of Princes but immediately from Jesus Christ Otherwise if the Bishops had acknowledged that they held these Privileges from Princes Sovereigns would have always had power to punish them and rectifie the abuses committed by them in their Jurisdiction But that they might put themselves out of reach of Animadversion they perswaded People that their Jurisdiction was independent of the Power of Princes At last that they might frame an Empire Paramount over all the States of Christendom the Pope was made Head of that Jurisdiction which the Bishops had usurped and reared up within the space of thirteen hundred years For after that the Bishops had taken from Magistrates a great part of their Jurisdicton the Pope found a way to strip the Ordinaries of the greatest part of their Power by Evocations Appeals and Exemptions So that if on the one hand the Secular Judges complained of the usurpations of the Bishops on the other hand the Bishops complained of the encroachments of the holy See This in general was the matter that then was handled in the Congregations of the Canonists whilst in the others matters of Faith were examined Gropper votes for the abolishing of Episcopal Jurisdiction and Ecclesiastick Tribunals Gropper who was in the Council both as a Lawyer and a Divine reasoned accurately about these abuses of Jurisdiction and shew'd that in the beginning the sentences of Bishops were sentences of Charity that these sentences were rendered not by Officials as now a-days but by the Bishop and Priests assembled in a kind of Consistory or Synod That moreover there was no such thing known as Appeals from those sentences to the Pope that if any Appeal was made it was to their next immediate Superiours which are Synods And therefore he was of opinion that these Synodal Judgments should be restored that the Courts and Judgments of Officials should be abolished and that all Appeals to the Pope immediately without passing through subordinate Superiours should be discharged The Legate Nuncio's and Italians slaves to the Court of Rome listened to this discourse with a great deal of impatience and having consulted together they set on the Promooter of the Council Giovanni Baptista Castello a Bolonian who in a long harangue maintained that it was lawfull to Appeal immediately to the Pope Baptista Castello Promooter of the Council refutes Gropper about the subject of immediate Appeals to the Pope and to bring Actions before the holy See without passing through the Intermedial Judges The Bishops were not satisfied with Gropper's Discourse but far less with that of Castello For he raised the Authority of the Pope to such a pitch that the Italians themselves murmured at it because according to Castello's Maxims the Pope was all in all and the Bishops signified nothing at all and that made the Italians recoyl and talk of accommodation In effect they came to an accommodation and adjusted matters in this manner That there should be no Appeals from the definitive Sentences of Bishops and Officials but in causes criminal and that even in criminal matters it should not be lawfull to Appeal from Interlocutory Sentences untill Definitive Sentence were pronounced But they would not re-establish Synodal Judgments by ruining the Officials The Bishops urged not to be re-established in their ancient right of being Judged by their Synods that is to say by the Metropolitan and their Comprovincials because men are not commonly inclined to facilitate Judgments against themselves and Processes against Bishops are much more difficult when one must go to Rome or procure a Commission from thence than if they could be accused upon the place before their proper Judges which are Synods The power was therefore left to the Pope of Judging them by Commissaries delegated in partibus Onely the Council made some Regulations that none inferiour to the Bishop in Dignity should be chosen as a Commissary of the Pope to Judge him It is one of the Grievances against the Council of Trent and one of the reasons why it is not received in France that contrary to the ancient Canons it deprives Bishops of the right of being Judged by the Metropolitan and their Comprovincials Of Degradations their Original and Progress There was also another great abuse in the Jurisdiction of Bishops of which a Reformation was demanded and that was the manner of Degradations According to the Privileges that have been granted to the Clergy or which they have usurped this Maxim has been long received that the Magistrate has no power over Clerks so long as they remain Clerks So that a Member of the Clergy must be degraded before he can be delivered over to the Secular Power for capital and enormous Crimes where sentence of death is to be pronounced which cannot be given by an Ecclesiastick Court because it imbrues not the hand in Bloud and this custome was confirmed by the Laws of Justinian It was even the custome in preceding Ages that is in the fourth and fifth Century when a Member of the Clergy returned into the World to degrade him by the same Ceremonies whereby he had been installed but in a manner inverse and retrograde that is to say that they clothed him in all his Priestly Habits and then stript him of the same one after another applying words quite contrary to those of Ordination But since about the year six hundred these Degradations were abolished and those who had taken high Orders were prohibited from returning again into the World so that the custome of Degradations is onely retained in Criminal matters when a Member of the Clergy is to be delivered over to the Secular Power to be punished But these Degradations of Clerks convicted must be done according to the new Canons with so many Ceremonies as rendered the punishment of the Members of the Clergy almost impossible That was their Scope and they onely clogg'd Degradations with so many difficulties that they might live in impunity For Degrading a Bishop thirteen Degrading Bishops were required besides twelve Assistants For Degrading a Priest there must be six Bishops for Degrading a
Reformation having first twitted them with the absence of the German Prelates who of all others stood most in need of being reformed they resolved to give them some satisfaction And therefore on the Eleventh of March the Legates called a General Congregation wherein they proposed twelve or thirteen Articles relating to Reformation as concerning Residence The Legates propose twelve Articles tending to Reformation Promoâ—ions to Holy Orders Priests without a Title the Plurality of Titles and of Priests in great Parishes the annexing of Benefices that had Cure of Souls Unions made under pretext that the Benefices are two small if taken separately for the maintenance of a Curate daily Distributions the Validity of Clandestine Marriages concerning the abuses committed by Collectours or Alms-gatherers and some other matters of the like nature which shall be mentioned hereafter but a Rumour began now to be spread abroad that the Germans stirred again and levied Soldiers which alarmed the Council and for some time put a stop to all Deliberations and interrupted the Congregations so that the fourteenth of March the day appointed for the Session past without any thing done and Easter-holy-days coming on afterwards was the cause of another delay The sixteenth of March the Council gave Audience to Ferdinando d' Avalos Marquess of Pescara Ambassadour from the King of Spain and Governour of Milan wherein the usual Complements were mutually interchanged In the Congregation of the Eighteenth the Ambassadour of the Duke of Tuscany was also received in that of the twentieth of March the Ambassadours of the Catholick Cantons of Switzerland had Audience And in the Congregation of the sixth of April the Council admitted Andrea Dudicio Bishop of Tinâ—â— and Giovanni Colosvarino Bishop of Canadia the Deputies of the Clergy of Hungary The first of those two Andrea Dudicio is famous not onely for Learning but also because he turned Protestant afterward declaring that nothing had more inclined him to that change than what he had seen in the Council of Trent After the Easter-holy-days the Congregations were held without interruption from the seventh of April untill the eighteenth and therein the matters which had been proposed in the Congregation of the Eleventh of March were brought under Debate In the first place the point of Residence was argued with strange heats They enter upon the Point of the Residence of Bishops the Pope's faction essayed to put a stop to that deliberation alledging that it was a matter concluded under Paul III and that the care of putting in execution what had been decreed should be left to the People But the Archbishop of Granada and the rest of the Spaniards were for bringing the matter under examination again saying that a more effectual means had been proposed to oblige to Residence And the question if it be of Divine right is again started This Point is argued with extraordinary heat than those that were pitcht upon in the first Convocation and that was to declare it to be of Divine Right which presently put the Council into a Fermentation Paulus Jovius Bishop of Nocera who made himself remarkable by the singularity of his reasons was against the having it declared either necessary or of Divine Right He alledged that the Churches wherein Bishops resided were not a whit better governed than those wherein Bishops made no Residence and was so plain as to urge the Church of Rome it self for an instance which was full of Corruptions notwithstanding that for many ages the Pope had continually resided there He added that if Residence were declared to be of Divine Right it would prove a Source of Rebellion because when an heretical or scandalous Bishop was got into possession of a Church the Pope could never be able to punish him seeing under pretext that Residence is of Divine Right he might refuse to leave his See to come to an appearance that upon the same Principle the Curates also would find a means to decline the Jurisdiction of their Bishops alledging that by the Law of God they are placed immediate Pastours of their Flocks Giovanni Baptista Bernardo Bishop of Aiace stood up for the Divine Right of Residence nevertheless he was not of opinion that that question should be debated in the Council because that since the Council had no other aim but to oblige all to Residence it would be enough to make a Decree prohibiting all Bishops to discharge any secular office or employment in the Courts of Princes and that then he was pretty sure that few Bishops would be seen abroad out of their own Churches The Bishop of the five Churches a Hungarian vigorously opposed this overture and in a long Discourse made it out that for the space of eight hundred years Prelates had been employed in secular Affairs not onely with great Success but much Honour also to the Church and profit and advantage to States and that a custome of so long continuance ought not to be condemned Here the Bishops who were for the Divine Right of Residence made it visibly appear that their own hearts deceived them if they thought themselves prompted on by the Zeal that a good Pastour ought to have for the conduct of his Flock for they listened to the opinion of the Bishop of the five Churches with extraordinary delight and gave it great applause Nevertheless nothing could be more opposite to the design they had of asserting the necessity of Residence for it is manifest that worldly Business and Employments wherein Bishops are entangled are the greatest obstruction of Residence But both they and the Bishop of the five Churches jumpt in one and the same design to wit the Advancement of Episcopal dignity And therefore they liked any thing that made for that though it were by quite opposite courses all maintained their opinions in this cause with inconceivable heat and it was no easie matter to gather the Votes that the result might be known Cardinal Simoneta Legate held Residence to be of Positive Right and the Cardinal of Mantua thought it to be of Divine Right but durst not declare himself openly because of the Court of Rome which could not endure that opinion all that he ventured to doe was to affirm that the Plurality of Votes was on that side He had two Legates who joyned with him to wit the Cardinals of Warmia and Seripando But Altemps the Pope's Nephew was for Cardinal Simoneta who both maintained that the Plurality of Votes was for the Positive Right for determining this difference a General Congregation was held on the twentieth of April wherein the Presidents prayed the Fathers to give their Judgments upon the point of the Divine Right of Residence by a placet or non placet that that Article might speedily be decided When the Votes were gathered there were sixty eight who said absolutely placet for the Divine Right thirty three who voted absolutely non placet thirteen who said placet consulto prius sanctissimo Domino nostro and
the Court of Rome who are our determined Adversaries in the Controversie It is against the Pope that the Protestants contend they dispute his quality of Vicar of Jesus Christ of supreme Head of the Church of infallible Judge of Controversies By the dictates of common sense there is nothing so unjust as to establish him for Judge of a Cause against whom the Suit is directly brought But that the Council of Trent was a Council of the Popes not of the Church is most apparent For it was convened by him he presided in it it consisted only of persons who had taken an oath of fidelity to him and were for the greater part his Pensioners And indeed he was so much Master of the Assembly that it acted nothing but as inspired or commanded by him But it will be replied that the Pope being the natural Head of the Church and having the sole right of convening Councils and presiding in them he was not bound to lay aside his Character in favour of the Protestants who unjustly attaqued him Were a King whose Sovereign Power should by some persons be disputed obliged to divest himself of his Royal Dignity submit it to the fantastick humours of men The misfortune is that we are always pester'd with similies that have no manner of similitude A lawful Prince whose rights are clear and indisputable I confess were not obliged to renounce his Royal State But a King whose rights were doubtful false and contested by a Prince of the Royal blond and by the greatest part of his Subjects were obliged for the interests of peace to be content to sit down as a private person and suffer a Judgment of the validity of his Title Is the Pope a Sovereign whose rights are unquestionable Is it acknowledged genenerally that he hath the sole right of convening Councils and presiding in them without whose Authority no Act passed therein should be valid So far from it that the greatest part of the Christian world denies it It is not believed by the Eastern Church nor by the Churches of the North and South or of the Greeks Ethiopians Cophties or Russians that their Councils are unlawful because the Pope doth neither convene them nor preside in them The Protestants may be also reckoned for something not for their number only but chiefly for their reasons For they bring a cloud of Witnesses to demonstrate that the right of convening Councils belongs to the Emperours and that the Bishops of Rome have not always presided in them The first Council of Nice was called by Constantine the Great and Alexander the then Bishop of Constantinople did preside in it The second General Council was called by Theodosius at Constantinople at which neither the Pope nor any of his Legates were present and therefore cannot be said to have presided therein There is nothing farther from truth Râ—pi l. I. ch â—5 34. than what the Cardinal du Perron is pleased to affirm that the first Council of Constantinople besought the Pope to confirm its Decrees On the contrary the Church of Rome opposed her self in all that she was able to what the Council had done She disapproved the Election of Flavius whom the Council had established in the See of Antioch in the place of Meletius who died at Constantinople while the Council sate She favoured Paulinus who had been elected Bishop by a party in the Church of Antioch in separation from the rest She could never relish the Canon of this Council that ordains That the Bishop of Constantinople should have the Prerogatives of honour next to the Bishop of Rome because Constantinople was new Rome And even in the time of Gregory I. L. Ind. 15. Ep. 131. which was in the beginning of the seventh Century the Church of Rome was not as yet reconciled with this Council For Gregory affirms that this Council was not acknowledged in the West Yet after all the opposition of the Roman Church it passes still for a lawful and General Council To this I might add the third General Council assembled at Ephesus the fourth at Calcedon the fifth and sixth at Constantinople all convened by the Emperours and not by the Popes I might add to all these many other proofs of equal weight but being fallen but by accident upon this Dispute I have no intention to enlarge farther upon the proofs Yet I cannot but take notice that Pope Vigilius being at Constantinople in the year 553. when the fifth General Council was there held he would not assist in it nor did preside therein either in Person or by his Legates and yet the Council is received both for lawful and General There is then already just cause to doubt that the Pope hath such a right of convening Councils and presiding in them as to render them unlawful if called or managed by others But this is not all for a considerable part of the Roman Church it self hold this opinion to be most false That the Pope hath the sole right of convening General Councils and presiding in them All the Gallican Church and generally all that own the Councils of Constance and Basil that is to say at least France and Germany are of this Judgment The Council of Constance could not be convened by a lawful Pope for it assembled it self at the solicitation of the Christian Princes and by the authority of the College of Cardinals for the deposing of three Popes who were then sitting the one at Rome being Gregory XII another at Bologna being John XXIII the third at Avignon being Benedict XIII Not one of these Popes could preside in this Council being all thither cited and there condemned as false Popes The Cardinal of Cambray did preside in the third Session Cardinal Vrsini in the fifth John Bishop of Ostia Cardinal and Vice-Chancellour of the Roman Church presided in the seventh and in all the rest till the Election of Martin V. John XXIII being deposed and retired the Council declared in the third Session That by the departure of the Pope the Council was not dissolved but did still continue in its full authority In the Council of Basil Pope Eugenius IV. could not possibly preside for he was there condemned and deposed and Amadeus Duke of Savoy elected in his stead In the seventeenth Session the same Council declares that during the absence of the Presidents the first Prelate shall have the right of presiding without waiting for the Popes Commission This one would imagine doth not seem to import that a Council must be only under the direction of a Pope or of those that are Commissioned by him I am not Ignorant that the Decrees of the Councils both of Basil and of Constance are had in extreme horror by the Court of Rome But I know also that that doth not hinder but that the Gallican Church and divers others do receive and approve them And that suffices to shew that the rights of the Pope were not so clear and uncontested but
to submit blindly to its Decisions reason 3 3. Third reason of rejecting the Council of Trent That it is a Council of the Church of Rome not of the Universal Church But to leave these general Arguments and come up closer to the Council of Trent We say it is a Council of the Roman not of the Catholick or Universal Church and that we can look on it as no other So that were it true that Occumenical Councils were infallible yet the Council of Trent nor any of those held in the Church of Rome since the Schism of the Eastern and Western Churches would have no right to pretend to this priviledg of Infallibility The Schism of those two Churches fell out in the tenth Century beginning indeed toward the end of the ninth since that time the Greek Church hath had no Communion with the Latin It is true there have been several attempts to re-unite them but without success So that the Greeks have had no Voice in the Latin Councils nor the Latins in the Greek Councils for six or seven hundred years The Church of the Latins is not near half of the Christian Church yet she will needs have it that hers are General Councils whilest the Councils of the Southern and Eastern Churches must pass forsooth but for little Consults or a sort of Conventicles It is a prodigious temerity for a Church scarce more than a fourth of the Christian World to set up it self for the Universal Church and to count the rest for nothing All the Churches of the East North and South the Greek Church the Church of the Abyssins who possess all Ethiopia which is a large share of Africa and the Church of the Russians are say they Schismatical Assemblies they have broken the bands of Union with the Head which is the Pope and are no longer worthy of the name of Churches for there are no true Christians but those that are subject to the Holy See which is the band of Unity This indeed is an excellent Principle According to this Hypothesis all the Christians in the East in the South and in the North are condemned to everlasting Perdition What can be imagined so cruel as this Tenet I cannot for my part believe that there is any reasonable Man of the Romish Communion that dares seriously affirm that an innumerable multitude of Christians believing in Jesus Christ and receiving the Canons of the Ancient Councils are yet in a state of Reprobation only for not acknowledging the Papal Supremacy I know very well that this Doctrine is taught but I appeal to the Conscience of those that teach it and am fully perswaded that they cannot but inwardly grant that such Persons may be saved out of the Pope's Communion And were but that Point as openly confessed as it is secretly owned they must then be constrained to acknowledg that the Councils of the Church of Rome are no General Councils For if the Greeks may be saved it is because the Church of which they are Members is a true Church since all Men acknowledg that out of the Church there is no Salvation If then the Greek Church be still a part of the true Church it must necessarily follow that those Councils wherein she has no part cannot be called General Councils nor can have the priviledges of them reason 4 4. Fourth Cause of Rejection The Council of Trent was but a part even of the Latin Church The nearer approaches we make to the Council of Trent the more plainly we discover the imperfections that ruine its Authority with the Protestants We have already seen that this Council is their adverse Party in the Cause that granting it a General Council it could not be infallible that yet it is not a General Council for that three parts of the Christian Church have no part in it it follows that it is then at most but a Council of the Roman Church But alas it is not so much as a General Council even of the Roman Church It is a Council of Italy and of the Italians it is a Council of some sixty odd Bishops whereof many were the Pope's Pensioners This Council was assembled three several times the first time under Paul III. the second time under Julius the 3d. the third time under Pius IV. In the two first there were not above sixty Bishops present almost all Spaniards or Italians Where then is the Universality of a Council consisting of so few Persons Yet have these few adventured to decide the most important Matters There were sixteen Sessions held during the two first Convocations wherein were decided the Controversies of the Scripture Tradition Original Sin Grace Justification Baptism the Eucharist Penance Extream Vnction Sixty Persons undertake to give Laws to all the Consciences of the Christian World and in things not understood by them They must needs be very blind whose Faith can truckle to the Decisions of so small a number of Men of so little Understanding Paul the 4th was very much in the right to say as he often did that it was great folly to send sixty trifling Bishops to the Mountains and imagine that they must presently have the advantage of discerning the Truth rather than the See of Rome where there is always so great a number of excellent Persons who make the Study of Divinity the sole business of their Life I must confess indeed that there were above two hundred Prelats present at the third Convocation of the Council But how There came some fifteen or twenty from France and not till about the end neither There was yet a few more Spaniards But no Germans no Polonians no Hungarians or if there were it was so very few as could never be thought to represent the Nations For it was one of the Policies of the Court of Rome not to permit to Vote by Nations nor that the absent Bishops might Vote by Proxy and that each Bishop spake only for himself There might be about fifty or sixty or some few more French Spanish and German Bishops the rest were Italians and that rest were three parts of four for there was more than one hundred and fifty Not the Lutherans only but all Europe agreed in it that the Council of Trent was purely an Italian a Papal Council reason 5 5. Fifth Reason to reject it The hatred of the Council of Trent to the Protestants If we regard the conduct of this Council we find from thence another reason to reject it Already we have taken notice with what heat and violence that Council acted against those over whom it pretended to be Judg. It hath frequently quitted the quality of Judge to assume that of being the adverse Party and such a Party as cared not to exceed all the bounds of honour and good Faith The Design of making odious the Doctrine of the Lutherans was apparently the reigning Passion of the Council For it countenanced the false extracts made of the Lutheran books and
and Tyranny could make use of What then had been done or rather what had not been done if as the Protestants desired the Pope's Authority had been directly struck at and the subversion of his Grandeur openly attempted If the Council of Trent had but only offered at what was actually done by the Council of Constance that is the declaring of the Pope to be subject to the Council the Court of Rome would rather have set all Christendom in confusion that have suffer'd it The Presidents had express Orders if that Point came at all into question immediately to break up the Council and return to Rome reason 7 7. Seventh cause of Rejection The Council of Trent hath erred even by the Confession oâ— those that would have us submit to it But I would very fain know why we should be obliged to receive the Decisions of the Council of Trent since the Roman Church her self does not receive them Why should it be expected from us that we should look upon this Council as Infallible when thousands of the Roman Communion do believe that the Council hath de facto erred and in consequence of that Belief do refuse to submit to it and daily reject its Canons This last reason for our rejecting that Council is indeed of high importance we shall therefore enlarge a little upon it and evidently make it appear that those that would exact of us a Submission to this Council have themselves no regard to its Authority and that upon the score of its having erred I shall not press upon the Council for having forbid Non-Residence under grievous Penalties which yet is now universally connived at for having forbidden Pluralities and yet there are now no Eminent Prelats but are guilty of it for having forbidden to give Dispensations but in Cases of great moment and yet now at Rome they are denied to none but to such as want Mony that matter of mighty moment for which only they are granted For I very well know that to these and to a hundred other particulars in which I could instance it will presently be replyed that they are Corruptions indeed but that those Corruptions indeed but that those Corruptions do not hinder the Decrees of the Council from being just and good And the Popes Flatterers will add that he is not bound by the Decrees of the Council but has Power to dispence with the Canons when he thinks fit But I speak of Decrees made by this Council and rejected by an infinite number of People Decrees that never were suffered to take place in France after all the endeavors of the Court of Rome The French Kings their Parliaments and Bishops dislike several things in the Decrees of this Council Reasons why the Council of Trent is not received in France 1. That the Council hath done and suffered many things that suppose and confirm a Superiority of the Pope over Councils 2. That it hath confirmed the Papal Encroachments upon Ordinaries Ses 2. Res. c. 8. by Exemption of Chapters and Privileges of Regulars who are both withdrawn from Episcopal Jurisdiction 3. That it hath not restored to the Bishops certain Functions appertaining to their Office and taken from them otherwise than to execute them as Delegates of the See of Rome 4. That it hath infringed the Privileges of Bishops of being judged by their Metropolitan and the Bishops of the Province by permitting a Removal of great Causes to Rome and giving Power to the Pope to name Commissioners to judg the Accused Bishop 5. That it hath declared that neither Princes Magistrates nor People are to be consulted in the placing and setling of Bishops 6. That it hath empowered Bishops to proceed in their Jurisdictions by Civil Pains by Imprisonment and by Seisure of Temporalties 7. That it hath made Bishops the Executors of all Donations for Pious Uses 8. That it hath given them a superintendency over Hospitals Colleges and Fraternities with Power of disposing their Goods and Revenues notwithstanding that those matters had been always managed by Lay-men 9. That it hath ordained that Bishops shall have the examining of all Notaries Royal and Imperial with Power to deprive or suspend notwithstanding any Opposition or Appeal 10. That it hath given Power to Bishops with consent of two Members of their Chapter and of two of their Clergy to take and retrench part of the Revenue of Hospitals nay to take away Feodal Tithes belonging to Lay-men 11. That it hath made Bishops the Masters of Foundations of Piety as Churches Chappels and Hospitals so as that those that have the care and Government of them are obliged to be accomptable to the Bishops 12. That in confirming Ecclesiastical Exemptions it hath wholly ascribed to the Pope and the Spiritual Judges all Power of judging the Causes of accused Bishops as if Sovereign Princes had lost the Right they have over their Subjects as soon as they became Ecclesiasticks 13. That it hath empowered the Ordinaries and Judges Ecclesiastical in quality of Delegates of the Holy See to enquire of the Right and Possession of Lay-Patronages and to quash and annul them if they were not of great necessity and well founded 14. That in prohibiting Duels it had declared that such Emperor King or Prince as should shew favour to Duelling should therefore be Excommunicated and deprived of the Seignory of the Place holding of the Church where the Duel was sought 15. That it hath permitted the Mendicant Fryars to possess Immoveables 16. That it hath ordained an Establishment of Judges it calls Apostolick in all Dioceses with Power to judg of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical matters in prejudice of the Ordinaries 17. That it hath declared that Matrimonial Causes are of the Churches Jurisdiction 18. That it hath enjoyned Kings and Princes to leave Ecclesiasticks the free and intire Possession of the Jurisdiction granted them by the Holy Canons and General Councils that is to say Usurped by the Clergy over the Civil Power These are the principal Points disputed in France Those that tend to the diminution of the Authority and Privileges of Bishops to enlarge the Roman Power are rejected by the Bishops and those that would extend the Power of Bishops to the prejudice of the Civil Authority are rejected by the Parliaments Between both this Council as enacting contrary to the Rights and Liberties of the Gallican Church was never at all received in France so as to obtain the force of a Law Why then should that Assembly give Law to us Protestants that is rejected by so great a part of the Church of Rome If it hath not erred why do Roman Catholicks as they will be termed refuse to receive it And if it hath erred what reason is there to press us to receive it I know what is answered to this that matters of Faith and of Discipline must be distinguished that the Council did not nor could not err in matters of Faith and Doctrine and that it was only mistaken in points
Residence to be of Divine right for preventing that intolerable abuse that one man should enjoy several Cathedral Churches for obliging the Cardinals themselves to resign all they had but one which they might enjoy for prohibiting those Unions of Benefices for Life for rescinding and annulling all Dispensations obtained or to be obtained from the Court of Rome without lawfull cause and for giving the Ordinaries power of judging the Validity of the cause for which the Dispensation had been obtained This was signed by twenty Bishops and by Cardinal Pacieco The attempt surprized the Legates because of the boldness of the propositions and that the Bishops had adventured to assemble themselves without their permission These Articles were sent to Rome and at the same time the Cardinal di Monte wrote that it was his advice that that Enterprize ought to be withstood without the least condescension adding withall that it would be convenient to make some Reformation at Rome to stop the Mouth of the Council But above all things the Legates urged that the Italian Bishops who were retired to keep Lent at home in their own Churches should forthwith be sent back to Trent The Pope followed that advice and gave order to his Nuncio at Venice to oblige the Italian Bishops who passed by Venice or who were there still to return with all speed to Trent that they might make head against the Spaniards At the same time he called a Congregation of the Deputies at Rome for examining the Writing That Congregation was not wholly of Cardinal di Monte's opinion they thought it not fit to break with the Spanish Prelates nor peremptorily to refuse all that they demanded They thought it sufficient by answering every Article to elude all their demands and in effect they made a project of answers to be made to them wherein to speak the truth they shewed an Address becoming the Court of Rome the Memoires of it were sent to the Cardinal di Monte the Pope committed the management of that Affair to the Prudence of the Legates and of those who were stiled the well affected whom the Protestants named the slaves of the See of Rome he gave them power either absolutely to reject the demands of the Spaniards or to make use of the qualifications which he sent them according as occasion proved more or less favourable The Pope fearing the Spaniards resolves to remove the Council to Bologna The Court of Rome made great reflexions upon that attempt of the Spaniards and the Pope began to dread a Combination betwixt them and the Germans so that not thinking his Authority safe enough in the Zeal of the Legates and the Recruit of the Italians whom he had sent to the Council he resolved to remove the Council unto a Town where he might neither stand in awe of the Emperour nor of the Bishops of Spain and to that purpose cast his eyes upon the City of Bologna But he was not willing to do it of himself but thought it more proper to have it done by his Legates to the end that if the matter succeeded not all the disgrace might fall upon them and that he himself might onely divide with them the trouble of the disappointment for that end he sent them a Bull bearing date the fifteenth of February 1547. but which was very well known to have been made two years before by that Bull he gave them full power to remove the Council whithersoever they should think fit but at the same time sent orders that they should not mention the Translation till the ensuing Session were over Whilst these resolutions were on foot at Rome the Cardinal di Monte plaid his part he sounded the tempers gained some by promises and drew others over by divers ways that so he might defeat the designs of the Spaniards and indeed it cost him not much pains to accomplish his aim So that in the following Congregations the Spaniards were baulked and could not obtain the handling of the point which they chiefly desired that is the Divine right of Residence They spoke to it indeed with great freedom and a Spanish Monk called Bartholomè di Carranza who was afterwards Bishop of Toledo took the boldness to say that the opinion which held that Residence was onely of Papal right was Diabolical The Cardinal di Santa Croce was of the mind that according to the Memoires sent from the Congregation of Rome something should be granted them but the Legate di Monte stood his ground and carried it that no satisfaction should be given them At length the Legates framed the Decree of Reformation containing fifteen Chapters and proposed it to a general Congregation It should have seemed that by that Decree there had been a design of indulging somewhat to those who demanded a Reformation and especially as to the Plurality of Benefices but in the main there was nothing less because to that Article and to all the rest it was always added saving in all things the Authority of the holy See which rendred all the promises of Reformation useless because the Pope continued still absolute Master of all The Spaniards and particularly the Bishop of Badajox found fault with it would have had that clause left out and that the Pope should not have the power to dispense against the Canons But it was to no purpose for them to protest and declare against it it must needs go so They urged that the Cardinals might be expresly named in the prohibition of possessing several Benefices but that as all the rest was refused them These Decrees which seemed to rectifie the abuse concerning the Plurality of Benefices approved nevertheless a certain constitution of Innocent III. called de Multa which condemning the Plurality of Benefices does notwithstanding permit it provided one have a Dispensation from Rome This to speak properly is to do nothing at all for what is prohibited in shew is in effect permitted by the benefit of Dispensations The Spaniards withstood this desiring that the Pope might not have power to give Dispensations for possessing several Benefices But the Plurality of Votes gained by the Legates were for approving of the Decrees The Reformation of abuses about the administration of the Sacraments was put off to another Session because the matter had not been sufficiently examined session 7 All things being in readiness the seventh Session was held on the third of March. Cariolano Martirano Bishop of St. Mark was to have made the Sermon but he would not because being one of those who had pressed the Reformation and the point of the Divine right of Residence he had been sharply taken up in the Congregation and therefore would not appear at the Session to say a Placet to a thing that did not at all please him nor indeed was it safe for him publickly to oppose the Decrees in a Session He therefore pretended sickness but none of all those learned men that made up the Council was in a
ever done it but that of Basil the least action whereof they scrupled to imitate they added that the coming of the Lutherans to the Council would onely serve to seduce people because they would not forbear their Dogmatical Cant that on the whole if they refused to submit that safe conduct would be dishonourable to the Council from which they required a compliance which ought never to be granted to Hereticks To remove all these difficulties they thought of giving a safe Conduct in general terms wherein the Protestants should not be named but onely designed under the Title of Church-men and Seculars of the German Nation that so if at any other time necessity did require they might say that by these terms none were meant but Catholicks Whilst they were consulting at Rome about the safe Conduct at Trent points of Doctrine were under examination and that inquiry was not so calm and peaceable as the other about the Anathema's and Canons against Protestants for it was impossible to keep the Jacobins and Cordeliers from going together by tho ears about the matter of Transubstantiation The Jacobins pretended that the body of our Saviour is made present in the Eucharist by way of Production because the Body of Jesus Christ without coming down from Heaven where it is in its natural being is rendered present in the Bread by a reproduction of the same substance according to which Doctrine the substance according to which Doctrine the substance of the Bread is changed into the substance of our Lord's Body The Cordeliers on the other hand defended that Transubstantiation which is called Adductive they alledged that our Lord's Body is brought down from Heaven not by a successive but momentany change and that the substance of Bread is not changed into the substance of the Body of Jesus Christ but that the Flesh and Bloud of Jesus Christ succeeds into the place of the substance of the Bread being conveyed thither from another place Each Party maintained their opinions with wonderfull heat branding one anothers with absurdities and contradictions The Electour of Cologne who had had the patience to hear these wretched janglings said very pleasantly that both Parties were in the right when they refuted and charged one another with absurdities but that they seemed all of them to be out of the way when they asserted their opinions because they spoke nothing that was Sense or Intelligible at length seeing there was no declaring for one Party without offending the other they satisfied them both by couching the Decree in very general terms In the same Congregation they discoursed of many abuses that concerned the Eucharist which ought to be reformed such as are the failings in reverence and respect to the holy Sacrament It was complained of that they did not kneel before it that they let it mould in the Pixes that it was administred with little reverence and that they took money from Communicants This last abuse was committed particularly at Rome where the Communicants carried in one hand a hollow Taper and a piece of money in the Taper which was the Priests see It was resolved that Canons should be made against that abuse and many more of the like nature The original of the Jurisdiction of the Tribunals of the Church with their progress At the same time other Congregations were held consisting onely of Doctors of the Canon Law for handling the matter of Discipline the Head that was examined was that of the Jurisdiction of Bishops The end the Bishops proposed to themselves was not the rectifying of the abuses of that Jurisdiction by restraining it to the just and lawfull bounds whereby it was limited in the Apostles time and in the primitive Ages of the Church on the contrary they would have enlarged it by exempting it from the power and attempts of the Court of Rome That Jurisdiction in the first Ages was onely grounded on the sixth Chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians wherein St. Paul exhorts believers not to bring their Causes before Infidels but to chuse out amongst themselves fit persons to compose their differences but because the Tribunal which St. Paul establishes in that place was merely a tribunal of Charity which had no coercive power so the Sentences that past there were onely Verdicts of Arbitration which men stood by if they thought fit by the six and fiftieth Chapter of the second Book of the Constitutions attributed to St. Clement it appears that the Bishop and Priests met every Munday for determining the affairs of their Flock And it rarely happened that any one appealed from these Decisions because of the great respect that men in those days had for the Church But after the times of persecution were over the Bishops supported by the Emperours who were become Christians erected Real Tribunals the Decrees and Sentences whereof were put in execution by the Authority of the Magistrate It is said that Constantine ordained that the Sentences of Bishops should be without appeal and be put in execution by the Secular Judges and that if one of the Parties should desire that a Process commenced before a Secular Judge might be referred to the Tribunal of the Bishop the reference should be granted in spight of all opposition either from the Judge or the adverse Party In the year three hundred sixty five the Emperour Valens enlarged that Jurisdiction and Possidius reports that St. Austin was taken up in those trials of Civil matters many times even till night which troubled him much because it took him off from the true functions of his Ministery That Law of Constantine in favour of this Tribunal of Bishops was revoked or at least limited by the Emperours Arcadius and Honorius for they ordained that Bishops should decide in no Causes but those of Religion and in Civil matters when both Parties consented to it In the year four hundred and fifty two the Emperour Valentinian confirmed that Law which restrained the power of Bishops Justinian restored to them part of what they had been deprived of allowing them besides the Causes of Conscience power to take cognizance of the Crimes of the Clergy and to perform several other acts of Jurisdiction over Laics And thus by the indiscreet favour of Emperours the power of the Church which is all Spiritual became a Carnal Dominion In the following Ages the Jurisdiction and Authority of the Bishops got ground apace and especially in the Western Church because the chief of the Clergy were the ablest Statesmen they were commonly of Princes Councils and managed and Civil matters That was the reason that in a short time they grew to be sole Judges of all Causes Civil and Criminal of the Clergy and that they extended their Jurisdiction over Laicks under various pretexts for instance they took upon them to Judge of the Validity of last Will and Testaments to make Inventories and apply Seals under pretext that Widows and Orphans are recommended to the care of the Church
Duke knowing that they had not been prompted to that by a Spirit of Rebellion resolved to try fair means with them But at Rome the proposal was rejected with indignation they counsel'd him to use force which he followed and for eighteen Months waged War against these Wretches In the beginning of the same year a great Conspiracy was hatcht in France The Conspiracy of Amboise they who were engaged in the Plot were put upon it as much through interest of State as of Religion The House of Guise were absolute Masters both of the King's person and mind and this being a grievance to many they formed a Party and entered into a Confederacy for putting a stop to the fury of the Persecution and at the same time for rescuing the person of Francis the Second out of the hands of the Princes of Guise But the Plot was discovered the Court went from Blois to Amboise where there is a Citadel part of the Conspirators were taken and put to Death and so that Conspiracy of which one Renaudé was the chief was quickly dispersed and brought to naught The Protestants in the mean while encreased amidst all these Persecutions and that made the King's Council look out for other means of composing the troubles than what had been employed hitherto it was concluded that a Council of the whole Nation must be called but Cardinal d' Armagnac who was wholly for the interest of the Court of Rome and was as good as any Inquisitor against the Protestants withstood that resolution Monluc Bishop of Valence was of opinion for calling a national Synod and that prevailed This resolution was signified to the Pope but he approved not of it On the contrary he complained publickly at Rome against the King's proceedings who by a Declaration of the eighteenth of March had pardoned all who upon account of Religion had taken up Arms against him The Pope said it was the cause of God and that no Prince has power to pardon such Crimes that besides national Councils were good for nothing but to breed Schisms that there was need of a General Council and that he intended to convene it without delay The Pope solicites the King of France to take Geneva He sent into France the Bishop of Viterbo to represent the same things and that he might employ the King and take him off from thinking of that national Synod he essayed to perswade him to bend his forces against the City of Geneva He also solicited the Duke of Savoy and the King of Spain to the same Enterprise the King of Spain being a Neighbour to Geneva by the Franche Comte The Savoyard would have been very willing provided he could have kept Geneva for himself nor perhaps would the King of Spain have been against that but he knew very well that the King of France would never allow it to be in any other Prince's Possession and therefore he chose rather to suffer the new Religion to reign there than to see it in the hands of the French who were already too near Neighbours to the County of Burgundy which then belonged to the King of Spain so that that matter went no farther The King of Spain who thought it not proper to unite with the King of France for the Ruine of Geneva as he had been solicited by the Pope thought himself obliged at least to comply with the Pope's inclinations in disswading the French from holding a national Council For that effect he sent into France Antiono de Toledo Prior of Leon with instructions to offer France forces and assistance for the destruction of the Hereticks and it is certain that he could not doe more than what he did to satisfie the Pope by the Ruine of the Protestants The Court of France did not much listen to these Proposals they would indeed have been willing to have had Geneva but they feared the Switsers and the stirs that the Huguenots might raise in France during that War As to the matter of the Council they were stedfast in their design of calling a national one in France giving the Pope in the mean time assurance that nothing should be attempted in it contrary to his Authority But he could not trust too much to that he was very apprehensive of the French Prelates who were accused to be infected with Heresie and were at least prepossest with some Tenets which they call the Privileges of the Gallican Church and with Maximes that sute not with that Supremacy which is challenged by the Court of Rome The apprehension of this made the Pope absolutely resolve to call the General Council The Pope resolves to call a General Council But he was at a stand as to the place he would have been very willing to have held it at Bologna but he did not expect that the Prelates would come thither Milan was offered him but he would not accept of it unless the Citadel were put into his hands during the sitting of the Council The King of Spain for all he was so good a Catholick could not be brought to condescend to that for as to the point of worldly affairs and interests the Pope and other Princes are trusted much alike At length he concluded upon the City of Trent where it had been already assembled There happened two considerable matters which confirmed him in his resolution of hastening the Convocation of the Council the one was the Revolt of Scotland which banished Mary the Queen regent and fell off from the Church of Rome the other was the Jealousie that they had of Maximilian King of Bohemia Son to the Emperour Ferdinand Maximilian King of Bohemia and the Romans is suspected of Lutheranism who was always thought too favourable to the Protestants Paul IV. had accused him as an Abbetter of Heresie and one day he made an answer to the Pope's Ambassadours that much encreased the suspicion that they had of him The Pope's Nephew Maroo Altemps exhorting Maximilian in behalf of Pius IV. to continue a good Catholick promising him on the one hand that if he did the Pope would corroborate the pretentions he had to the Empire and on the other hand threatning that if he persisted to give Causes of Suspicion he would never confirm him King of the Romans but would deprive him of all his Territories Maximilian made answer to the promises that were made him of favour and assistance that he was very much obliged to his Holiness but that the Salvation of his Soul was much dearer to him than all worldly Enjoyments Now at Rome this kind of style was lookt upon as an infallible sign of Lutheranism and as the badge of those who were Enemies to the holy See All these reasons made the Pope on the third of June call together the Ambassadours of Princes and told them more plainly than hitherto he had done his design of re-establishing the Council at Trent ordering them to acquaint their Masters with the same He himself wrote to
not sensible of these Consequences and therefore they could not devise from whence sprung that eagerness of the Spaniards upon this Point but they soon smelt it out and vigorously withstood it So then the Spaniards according to their project put their Divines upon the breaking of the Ice and beginning the Dispute Michael Oroncuspe Divine to the Bishop of Pampelona was the first that proposed the matter he alledged that in the design of condemning the Lutherans the question moved properly upon this hinge by what Right Bishops were Superior to Priests that as to the Superiority the Lutherans could not deny it but yet maintained it to be a mere Humane Constitution that if then it were true that that Superiority was a Humane Establishment it would be unreasonable to make it Heresie in the Lutherans that they abolished an Order which was not appointed immediately by God that for his own part he lookt upon it as a most certain truth that a Bishop is Superiour to a Priest by Divine Right but that he could proceed no farther because he was prohibited by the Legates John Fonseca a Divine of the Archbishop of Granada observed not so strict measures He said in the beginning of his discourse that he did not conceive why that question was not allowed to be spoken to and for what reason it could be prohibited He laid open the importance of the matter and proved by Reason by the Fathers and by the Scriptures that Bishops are the Successours of the Apostles as the Pope is of St. Peter that both the one and the other have immediately received their Authority from Jesus Christ as Supreme Courts and Inferiour Judicatures have been alike established by the Prince whence it is that Supreme Courts cannot encroach upon the Authority of Inferiour Judges because the Authority of both flows from the Prince who hath set proper Limits to those several Tribunals Cardinal Simoneta with extreme impatience listened to this discourse which was delivered with as great earnestness He turned several times about to his Collegues and was ready to have interrupted the Divine but he durst not because he saw that all the Prelates heard him with extraordinary attention Anthony Grassâ—t a Jacobin Monk enforced this truth with new Arguments and carried it farther on He affirmed that Bishops were not obliged to give an account of their Administration but to Jesus Christ alone He urged the exhortation of St. Paul to the Bishops of Ephesus that they should feed the Flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them Overseers If it be by the Holy Ghost said he it is not by the Pope He could not forbear to lash out against those who in former Conferences had said that the Pope divides the Flock among the Bishops and said it was to open a door to a kind of Schism which St. Paul found fault with in the Church of Corinth where they said I am of Peter and I am of Paul affirming that all Bishops had right to say with St. Paul for me I am of Jesus Christ He said that the Pope was onely the Minister and Instrument of Jesus Christ and therefore what is done in the Church ought not to be attributed to him but to Jesus Christ who is the Principal Efficient Cause He perceived that his Discourse had been a little too bold and fearing that the Legates might enjoyn him silence and bring him into trouble he therefore made a kind of Apology and said that he had gone farther than he thought to have done and that he had forgot that it had been prohibited to speak to that Point But the Legates saw into the Intrigue and knew it to be a design laid by the Spaniards and particularly the Archbishop of Granada but finding that the discourses that were made had left a deep Impression upon the minds of those that were concerned they thought it necessary to refute reasons by reasons since matters were gone so far Therefore they enjoyned the four Divines who were still to speak to refute the Spaniards and to prove that Bishops hold all their Authority from the Pope and not from Jesus Christ that the onely Episcopacy of Divine Right is that of the Pope who hath received Orders to place Bishops in several Churches and who hath also power to enlarge or restrain their Authority and to depose suspend or translate them to other places When the Disputes of the Divines were over the Legates had a mind to propose the matter of Reformation but they knew not how to set about it They durst not offer at Trifles as had been done in former Sessions and it was very difficult for them to propose important Points there being none wherewith some body would not be displeased The Reformation of the Bishops and Clergy exceedingly pleased the Ambassadours but that displeased the Bishops that which pleased the Bishops and Clergy could not give content to the Ambassadours for that tended to lessen the Power that Princes had acquired over the Clergy by the abolishing of Canonical Elections and by the Right of Nomination to great Benefices And in fine that which might please the Ambassadours and Bishops at the same time displeased the Pope for that tended to the Diminution of the Greatness of the Court of Rome So that being overwhelm'd by these Perplexities they wrote to the Pope giving him notice at the same time that the Spaniards pressed hard to have Episcopacy to be declared of Divine Right They put the Pope also in mind that this was the place where they had promised to state again the Point of the Divine Right of Residence to wit when they treated of the Sacrament of Orders They acquainted him that having sounded the Prelates they found threescore stedfast for the Divine Right of Residence and that there was nothing to be got of them that the Marquess of Pescara had done all that lay in his Power to perswade the Spanish Bishops but without any effect that the Spaniards murmured that there should be a design of referring that Article of Residence to his Holiness as the Point of the Cup had been and said if they intended to go on in that manner it was very needless to call a Council at a great charge for deciding matters of small importance and refer the great affairs to the Pope This advice that came to the Pope from Trent with the news which he received from other places gave him great disturbance For he had certain intelligence from several parts that the Cardinal of Lorrain was coming to the Council with design to have the Election of the Popes so regulated The Cardinal of Lorrain prepares to goe to the Council and the Pope is allarmed at it that the Prelates beyond the Alpes might have a share in that Dignity and be chosen in their turn He was allarmed at this news wrote of it to all the Italian Princes and laid before them what a prejudice it would be to suffer other Nations to share in
that number comes far short of most part of the Ancient Councils None of the French spoke neither in this nor in the following Congregation because they waited for the Cardinal of Lorrain The Party of the Court of Rome looked upon these new-comers as a powerfull reinforcement come to the assistance of their Enemies and therefore they doubled their vigilance and thought it best to fortifie themselves by new Councils The Archbishop of Otranto was one of the leading men of that Party and one of the most zealous sticklers for the Grandure of the Pope He had a mind to assemble all those who were linked with him in the same Interests but so as it might not appear to be done with intention to treat of business and for that purpose on the nineteenth of November he made a great Entertainment for the Prelates who were called the well affected He that invited them told them that for the sake and service of the Holy See they should not fail to come It was not doubted but that design was laid for making a League against the French and they had certain notice given them that there had been long Conferences about the Subject in that Assembly An action that M. de l'Isle the French Ambassadour had done at Rome encreased these Umbrages against the French for during an indisposition which by some accident had happened to the Pope that had almost cost him his life he began to tamper and carry on a kind of Negotiation that if the Pope should chance to die the next Pope might be chosen at Trent by Nations and that the See might remain Vacant untill the Reformation should be completed that so the Council might be free and that the Pope Elect might accept of that Reformation according as he should find it setled This vexed the Pope to purpose for besides that these designs did not at all please him men do not like that way of counting before the Host and framing of Designs in prospect of their death All these things together allarmed him mightily so that he held several Congregations of Cardinals wherein he desired them to find out some sure means to secure him from the Enterprises of the Council which as he said he considered as his greatest Enemy He was certainly very faithfully served by his Pensioners and yet it was not altogether to his mind for he complained that all the Bishops whom he entertained were against him and that he sed an Army of Enemies at Trent Notwithstanding he continued still to multiply these Enemies for he sent away all the Italian Bishops that were at Rome even to the Bishop of Aosta Ambassadour there from the Duke of Savoy But he discharged the Archbishop of Torre from going thither because in the time of Paul III. he had maintained the Divine Right of Residence with some Zeal and Fervour He made the same prohibition to the Bishop of Cesana because he was the intimate friend of the Cardinal of Naples whose two Uncles the Carraffa's the Pope had put to death by the hand of the common Executioner besides the Persecutions wherewith he had afflicted himself and so had reason to consider him as an Enemy About the same time he dispatched into France Sebastiano Gualtero Bishop of Viterbo a thorough pac'd Zealot for the Interests of the Court of Rome The pretext of this Embassie was the carrying of forty thousand Crowns to the King being part of an hundred thousand which the Pope had promised him for the War against the Huguenots but the true reason was that he might be a Spie over the Actions of the Council of France The Cardinal of Lorrain is received in Congregation he speaks and after him du Ferrier who offends the Council At length the Cardinal of Lorrain resolved to appear in Congregation the twenty third of November The French and he had agreed that he should first make a Speech and then the Ambassadour Du Ferrier At first the Legates opposed this Resolution saying that in this Council neither under Paul nor Julius it had been allowed that Ambassadours should speak publickly in Congregation but onely on the day of their Reception But at length they suffered themselves to be over perswaded by the Cardinal of Lorrain and permitted Du Ferrier to speak The King's Letters to the Council were then read which contained onely Prayers and general Exhortations to set about a Reformation of the Church The Letters being read the Cardinal spoke and began with a long and pathetick description of the miseries which the Wars about Religion caused in France and prayed the Council to remedy them He insisted upon what he had already said to the Legates that they should avoid all unnecessary questions and then demanded two things in the name of the King of France first that they might have some respect to those who were separated from the Church in granting them all that might be allowed without doing prejudice to the Faith and that they would consider them as Brethren as far as might be Next he demanded in name of the King a Reformation in the Church whereof he laid open the extraordinary Corruptions and there took an occasion to make an ingenious Application to the Clergy of the History of Jonas We we are the cause of the Storm said he throw us into the Sea and the Tempest will cease The Cardinal of Mantua made a civil answer to that Harangue protesting that the Council had always been extremely concerned for the miseries of France and would doe all that was possible to clear the truth confirm the true Service of God and rectifie the manners and the disorders in Discipline The Ambassadour Du Ferrier had leave to speak next and spoke very smartly He told them that his Master demanded that the Church might be restored to its Ancient Lustre and that the good and holy Laws which the Devil had stole away and hid might be brought back from Bondage into the City of God He made use of an Allusion that prickt to the quick the Adorers of the Court of Rome If you ask me said he why France is not in peace and whence proceed those horrible divisions that rend it in pieces I shall answer as Jehu did to Joram when he asked is it peace Jehu What peace so long as c. answered he here he stopt saying ye know the rest And indeed they all supplied what was wanting in the Citation by the rest of the Text What peace so long as the Whoredoms of thy Mother Jezebel and her Witchcrafts are so many He concluded that if they endeavoured not that Reformation all the Bloud that should be spilt would be demanded at their hands This Liberty did exceedingly displease the Pope's Party but they Legates dissembled their discontent because they were afraid of the French The Cardinal of Lorrain holds private Congregations in his house which allarms the Legates and Court of Rome It was the Cardinal of Lorrain's custom afterwards to
came to the turn of the Spaniards and French speak many difficulties were started against the Decrees as they had been conceived by the Cardinals First this Clause was objected against that Bishops hold a chief rank depending on the Bishop of Rome that was thought to be an ambiguous expression but after some debate they who made the objection consented to have it said a chief rank under the Pope Some also did not like that it should be said that Bishops are admitted by the Pope in partem solicitudinis because that signified clearly enough that Bishops are appointed by the Pope and not by our Lord Jesus Christ but above all they stumbled at the Article of the Pope's Authority and that the Canon gave him the Pope to govern the Church Universal The French thought that by these words the Pope had a design to establish a Superiority over the Council They were nevertheless willing it should be said that he hath the power to rule all the Churches ecclesias universas but not the Church Universal ecclesiam universalem Most part fansied that to be a very nice distinction and of little solidity But the rest maintained that by giving the Pope power to govern the Church Universal they exalted his Tribunal above the Church whereas the Tribunal of the Church is exalted above that of the Pope They alledged that there was a great difference betwixt being exalted above all Churches that is to say above every Particular Church and being exalted above the Church Universal that is whole Church taken together and assembled in a Council This occasioned great debate the Pope's Party alledged the Authority of the Council of Florence which had made use of these terms and that did a little puzzle the Spaniards because their Countrey own the Council of Florence for a General Council But the French set light by that Authority and opposed to it the Councils of Constance and Basil which have defined the Superiority of a Council over the Pope Upon this occasion there arose a great contest betwixt the Italians and French for the Italians maintained that the Council of Florence was a General Council that that of Basil was Schismatical and the other of Constance partly approved and partly rejected But the French on the contrary denied the Council of Florence to have been a lawfull Council and said that the others of Constance and Basil were lawfull and General The Legates well perceived that no good would come of these contests and therefore that they might have time to sent to Rome the Censures which the Bishops on the other side of the Alpes had made upon the Decree composed by the Pope touching the Institution of Bishops and the Authority of the Holy See they employed the Congregations about the Point of Residence The Cardinals of Lorrain and Madruccio the day before had mode a Project of Decision concerning the Controversie of Residence which displeased not the Legates But the Presidents having had time to reflect upon it observed a Clause that gave them Umbrage which was that Bishops are obliged by the Command of God to guide their Flocks and to watch in Person over them They knew very well that the Pope would make a sinister interpretation of these words and think that they favoured the opinion of the Divine Right of Residence and therefore they left it out of their own heads and presented in the Congregation the Minute corrected after their own way That action choaked the Cardinals of Lorrain and Madruccio Lorrain protested that for the future he would not meddle in any thing and Cardinal Madruccio said that in the Council there was another secret Council which took all the Authority to it self The Legates finding that they gained no ground put a stop to the Congregations in expectation of an answer from Rome and the Pope's Party began to make Factions that they might break up the Council for good and all At this the Cardinal of Lorrain broke out and acted with less reserve than he had formerly done He complained that there was a design of breaking up the Council he spoke to the Ambassadours of Princes that their Masters might intercede with the Pope not onely for the Continuation of the Council but especially that it might be left to its liberty saying that nothing could be proposed or resolved upon but what pleased the Legates that the Legates did nothing but what the Pope thought fit and that Decisions even about the smallest matters must be expected from Rome that if matters went on still in that manner they would make a pacification in France whereby all should have liberty to live as they thought good untill the holding of a free Council that for his own part he would have patience untill the next Session but that if affairs went no better he would protest and withdraw and carry all the French along with him that they might celebrate a National Council at Home The French Ambassadour residing at Rome made the same Expostulations and Menaces that the Cardinal did at Trent But the Pope began to be accustomed to that noise and was not a whit startled at these Bugbears of National Synods He made answer that the Council was more than free that it was even licentious that if the Italians made any Factions and Cabals he knew nothing of it but that yet they were forced upon it if they did so by the violence of the Bishops beyond the Alpes who endeavoured to trample under foot the Authority of the Holy See The Bishop of the five Churches the Emperour's Ambassadour for the Kingdom of Hungary went about the same time to wait on his Master and to inform him of the Factions and Conduct of the Italians The Archbishop of Granada and those of his Party entreated him to procure from the Emperour a Letter to the King of Spain praying him to solicite a Reformation The Legates were informed of this and looked upon all that Conduct as an effect of the Councils of the Cardinal of Lorrain and to Countermine that League they deputed John Francisco Commendone Bishop of Zante to the Emperour under pretext of Justifying the Council in that they had not as yet proposed the Articles of Reformation which his Imperial Majesty had presented b his Ambassadours Seeing these misunderstandings grew dayly greater and greater the Legates sufficiently perplexed sent a writing to all the Ambassadours begging the Assistance of their Councils in the present Junctures The French slipt not that occasion to tell their minds freely and therefore said that the Council was made use of to encrease corruptions instead of lessening them that a stop ought to be put to those shamefull underhand dealings which were continually practised that they ought not to labour to raise the Pope above the Church Universal that the best way was to follow the Decrees of the Council of Constance And farther added that one cause of disagreement was that the Clark of the Council did not faithfully set
Emperour and his Son Maximilian now all these Princes desired that the Cup might be rendered to the People February the ninth the Legates held the first Congregation about the Doctrine of Marriage The Divines of the first Chamber examined the first two Articles and Father Salmeron a Jesuit spoke with much Pomp and for all that said but very ordinary things Having concluded that Marriage is a true Sacrament he past to the second Article that relates to Clandestine Marriages and alledged in favour of them the Authority of the Council of Florence which declares that the Validity of Marriages depends solely upon the Consent of the Parties who contract and this Oratour concluded that the opinion of those who assert that Fathers and Mothers may annull them ought to be condemned as an Heresie but allowed the Church the Power of rescinding such Marriages because she is the Mistress of the Sacraments and that it is expedient to annull them to prevent the disorders which those unfortunate Marriages cause in Families Next day Maillard Dean of the Faculty of Paris made a long discourse and concluded with Salmeron that Marriage is a true Sacrament but as to Clandestine Marriages he was not of Salmeron's opinion For he maintained that the Church had not that Power over the Sacraments as to make a Sacrament that was lawfull at one time to become unlawfull at another He alledged for proof the Consecration of the Eucharist saying that the Church could not make a Consecrated Wafer cease to be a Real Sacrament after that it had been some time kept since it was so at first He went through all the Sacraments proving that the Church hath not power to invalidate a Sacrament lawfully administred He shew'd that in all times private Marriages had been valid and that no man ever thought of annulling them His opinion took extremely well but especially the Pope's Party took great pleasure to hear the French Doctour speaking of the Pope call him the Directour and Moderatour of the Roman that is to say the Universal Church They drew great advantage from that Confession and said that it ought to be observed against the Cavils which the Prelates of the same Nation made upon occasion of the Canon about the Authority of the Pope wherein they would not suffer it to be said that he hath Power to rule the Church Universal The French said that there was a great difference betwixt these expressions rule the Universal Church absolutely and rule the Roman that is to say the Universal Church because the term Universal is onely employed to explain that of Roman and that so it ought to extend no farther It cannot be denied but that the distinction is very nice and fine spun and that the difference betwixt those two expressions is not very sensible it had been as well perhaps if Maillard had frankly confest that it dropt from him before he was aware In the Congregation of the Eleventh of February the French presented a Letter from their King wherein he acquainted the Council with the Victory that he had obtained over the Enemies of the Catholick Religion and at the same time demanded Reformation After the Letters were read the Ambassadour Du Ferrier made a Speech The King of France his Letter to the Council followed by a Speech of du Ferrier and having represented the Calamities of the Kingdom of France and the necessity of doing somewhat to remedy them he said that the proper remedy depended on the Council and that the Council in endeavouring that ought to turn their Eyes towards the Holy Scripture that Christians now-a-days were like the Samaritanes of the Town of Sichar who would believe because they saw and not barely upon the report of a Woman that every body at present studied the Scriptures That they should not think it strange if in their Proposition they had omitted the most necessary Points that they had begun with the smallest but that they had more important matters to propose that if they intended to set about the Work of Reformation they must do it in good earnest and that the Fathers who were assembled ought to consider what was the Success of those slight and weak Reformations of the Council of Constance and that which came after which he was not willing to name for fear of offending their ears He meant the Council of Basil whereof the name is odious to all the Favourers of the Court of Rome He laid before them also that the Councils of Florence Lateran and the first of Trent had done nothing for the Church and in that they did nothing they had done a great deal of hurt and given occasion to a Schism of so many People as are separated from it They gave the French Ambassadour a civil answer though in his Speech he had given several nips which touch'd the Pope's Party to the quick He said that he presented the Articles of Reformation principally to the Council These words offended them extremely because they did insinuate that the Ambassadour made far less reckoning of the Pope than he did of the Council Besides they found that by that expression he designed to have a lash at the Clause proponentibus Legatis as intending to intimate that in Quality of Ambassadour he pretended to propose his Articles to the Council himself and not by the Lagates and this perswaded them that France entertained terrible intentions against the Authority of the Pope and they were the more allarmed because Du Ferrier had said that the French had still far more important Proposals to make and that they ought to make greater advances in the work of Reformation than the Councils of Constance and Basil had done The day following the Cardinal of Lorrain parted for Inspruck taking with him nine Prelates and four Divides but he got a promise from the Legates that during his absence they should not treat of the Marriage of Priests In the mean time they continued the Congregations about the matter of Doctrine The first Chamber of Divines which we have already mentioned having heard Salmeron and Maillard unanimously condemned as Heretical the opinion that denies Marriage to be a Sacrament and in like manner declared Clandestine Marriages to be true Sacraments and lawfull Marriages But there was some diversity of opinion about the Sentiments of Salmeron and Maillard in relation to the Power of the Church in annulling secret Marriages some were of Salmeron's opinion and others with Maillard thought that the Power of the Church did not reach so far as to make a Marriage become unlawfull which was lawfull a very little before Amongst those who maintained that the Church had Power to annull Clandestine Marriages some disputed another Point to wit whether it be convenient and profitable to make use of that Power in the present time But most part thought it best that all secret Marriages should be invalidated and some went farther still and were for declaring null and void all Marriages
two Brothers the Duke and Grand Prior. He dealt earnestly with him also to employ his credit with the French Prelates that they would desist from pressing that the Institution of Bishops and their Residence should be declared of Divine Right But the Cardinal would not hear of it he continued stedfast in his design of staying at the Council and as he said of having matters concluded according to truth and reason Upon his return to Trent he bragg'd much how he had resisted the solicitations of the Cardinal of Ferrara but that was the last act of constancy and vigour that came from him for after that time he made so visible and considerable a compliance that he became the chief instrument which the Court of Rome employed for shaking and baffling the vigour of others However he seemed still to retain a little stedfastness in a Conference that he had with Cardinal Morone after his return from Hostia Cardinal Morone to sooth and flatter him told him that he wished he were at the helm of affairs and that he had the same Authority as the Legates had that farther more the Pope desired a Reformation and would set about it that none of the Articles which had been proposed by the several Nations were desired to be left out but those which related to the Court of Rome because the Pope would have the honour of Reforming himself The Cardinal was not catcht in that trap but made answer that saving the respect which was due to the Holy See what concerned the Reformation of the Cardinals and of the Court of Rome might be very well proposed in the Council But he continued not long in that style for the Cardinal received Letters from the Queen informing him that his presence would be far more necessary in France than at Trent she told him that there was no more good to be expected from the Council for France that all that could have been obtained from it would onely have been in order to reunite the French Protestants to the Church but that that was a thing not to be hoped for now since the peace with the Huguenots held good and that therefore the Pope was to be contented She wrote also to the Pope that she would order the French Prelates to concur in any thing that might tend to the speedy Conclusion of the Council and not to dispute his Authority any more From that time forward the Cardinal thought of nothing but of returning to France he was troubled to understand that the peace with the Protestants was like to hold for he mortally hated the Huguenots and feared the growth of the Party not so much out of Zeal for Religion as because he knew that that Party could not be Established but upon the ruines of his Family by reason of the irreconcilable hatred that was betwixt the Princes of the House of Guise and the Great men that were engaged in the interests of the Protestants He considered with himself that to support him against a Party which was like to gather new strength by a Peace he stood in need of the favour of the Pope and therefore he bent all his thoughts for the future to incline him to espouse his Interests by appearing to be wholly at his devotion A new Ambassadour from France comes About the same time the President de Birague the new French Ambassadour arrived and was received in the Congregation of the second of June But because in his Credentials he was not called Ambassadour all the Ambassadours of Princes who commonly come after those of France did not appear that they might not be obliged to take their places after him Birague presented to the Council a Letter from the King wherein he gave once more reasons for the Peace which he had concluded with the Huguenots still protesting that it was done in prospect of reclaiming to the Church those that were gone astray by a surer way than that of Arms that farther he expected that they would aid and assist him in that design by the Reformation which he had demanded and still did demand from the Council Birague's Harangue contained onely the same things somewhat more amplified and seeing the Legates knew what Birague was to say before they had heard him in the Council they were prepared to make an answer to his Speech by complements of condoleing that the King had been in a manner forced to make Peace with the Huguenots They farther added that they disapproved not what he had done exhorting him nevertheless that so soon as his Kingdom were in Peace he would endeavour all he could to cure the wound that Heresie had made in his Territories This answer was communicated to the Cardinal of Lorrain before it was given but he opposed it objecting that the Council ought not to approve the Peace which the King had made with the Huguenots seeing it was so prejudicial to the Church and that therefore they ought to take time to answer This advice was taken and the Legates made answer to Birague that the matters which he had proposed were so weighty that the Council desired time to give an answer to them but the French Ambassadours were extremely vexed with the Cardinal for this action They were about to have written to the Court concerning it but because Lansac was speedily to return they gave it him in Commission to make a report thereof to the King In the mean time the Congregations continued for Examining matters touching the Sacrament of Orders and the Prelates did not stick so closely to the point but that many times they purposely flew out into digressions In one of these Congregations the Bishop of Nimes discoursed freely enough against Annats and against several abuses of the Court of Rome amongst the rest against the Ordination of Priests who were admitted without examination or capacity In another Congregation the Bishop of Cadix a Spaniard shew'd the needlesness of Titulary Bishops whom he called figmenta humana an invention of the Court of Rome and what disorders these Bishops without Bishopricks caused in the exercise of the Discipline of the Church But seeing all the abuses introduced by Papal Authority found instantly Protectors among the Italians the Bishop of Sarzana a Tuscan rose up and defended the Cause of those Titular Bishops Another Spaniard Bishop of Lugo in Gallicia spoke against Dispensations and affirmed that it was not necessary to set Bounds to the Court of Rome as to that matter and to declare the invalidity of those Dispensations or rather that it is impossible to give Dispensations about most things that are so freely dispensed with About this time Angelo Massarelo Bishop of Tilesio in Abruzzo Clark of the Council being grievously tormented with the Stone resolved to be cut of it and desisted from officiating in Person as Clark and this removed one of the difficulties that have been mentioned which was that the Ambassadours of France and Spain having made great instances that he should
the People demanded but rather the Pope's Yoke upon the Clergy and the Clergy's upon the People was made heavier In the fifth Chapter of the General Reformation the Pope reserves to himself the Cognisance of all Criminal Causes of Bishops which are called the greater taking them from the Metropolitans and Provincial Synods The Decree ordains that when the Pope shall give any one a Commission in partibus that Commission shall onely extend to the taking of Informations In the twelfth Canon about Marriage the Council pronounces Anathema against those who shall deny that the Tryal of Matrimonial Causes belongs to the Church Some who pretend to a little skill in Antiquity could not but observe that from the beginning it was not so that all Laws concerning Marriage had been made by Emperours and that the Causes which did arise from those Laws were tryed by the secular Magistrates Nay more it s known that some Gothick Kings gave Dispensations for forbidden Degrees and in the Formularies of Cassiodorus the style of these Dispensations is still to be seen There were some who expected some good from the fourteenth Chapter of the General Reformation which revokes cancells and annuls and Constitutions or Customes of paying any thing for the purchase of Titles and the possession of Benefices they were in hopes that that Article if rightly interpreted would overthrow the Annats which are pay'd to the Pope for the taking possession of Benefices but experience hath evinced that that was the wrong way of interpreting the Decree The Eighth Chapter ordains that they who have sinned publickly should make publick repentance and it was hoped that that would be an advance towards the ancient Discipline But there is a Clause rarely well put in ni aliter Episcopo videatur for it hath not as yet seemed good to the Bishops to doe any thing in Execution of that Decree They who are jealous of the rights of Princes and secular Magistrates besides what we have already observed did not take it well that the Council in the sixth Chapter of the Reformation of Marriage should ordain that he who deflowers a Woman shall give her a Portion whether he Marry her or not for they looked upon that as a mere civil Constitution that cannot come under the Cognisance of an Ecclesiastick Judge Those who had no great kindness for the Council and sought to make themselves merry at its cost laughed a little at the Canon which prohibits Clandestine Marriages because it pronounceth an Anathema against those who deny that these Marriages are true Sacraments and yet subjoins that the Church hath always detested them This seemed to be an odd Clinch that the Church should declare she detested true Sacraments The one and twentieth Chapter about the Clause proponentibus legatis made sport also for a great many The Chapter declared that by that Clause there was no design of changing any thing in the manner that had been observed in ancient Councils nor of giving or taking from any one any right contrary to ancient Constitutions When all was done the Council at a conclusion and that the Legates had drawn all the advantage from this Clause that they could expect they come in at last with a Declaration that it was not their intention forsooth to doe prejudice to any body This could not pass without a remark that it looked very like the man's excuse who having given another a box on the Ear said that he had not done it with an intention to offend him It was observed that for the future the Pope had found out an excellent way to keep Councils in Bondage that there was no more to be done but in the beginning to make such a Clause as this let the Members quarrel about it during the whole sitting of the Council and then declare in the end when the business is done that it was not thereby designed to restrain any man's Liberty The Council precipitates to its end the Count de Luna and the Spaniards oppose it We are now at length come to the actions which immediately went before the last Session The countenance of affairs is now much to be altered no more of those long delays that held all Europe in suspence the Council joggs not on fair and soft to its end it runs post precipitates and all conspire to a conclusion The Pope stoops under the Burthen of the Council he intends upon any terms to shake it off the French who expect no more from that Assembly follow the Cardinal of Lorrain that hath struck in with the Pope The Germans abandon the Council as a Patient past hopes of recovery and none remain but the Spaniards who would march on gravely and step by step in the rest as they had done all along till then But they are not able of themselves alone not resist that torrent of impatience which hurried the Council to its end There remained still to be handled the matters of Indulgences Worship of Saints Purgatory Images and Fasts and that was enough to have employed the Council for several years after the rate that the former Points were managed The matter of Indulgences alone would have taken up the Council for several Months if it had been examined as the Point of Justification was but all was dispatched in a fortnights time That they might attain to this speedy Expedition the Legates and Cardinal of Lorrain agreed together that all which remained should be dispatched in one Session The Cardinal of Lorrain and Imperial Ambassadours undertook to prepare the Members for it by spreading of Reports that the Emperour desired that it might be concluded before Christmass and that the French were to depart in the Month of December that therefore matters ought to be so ordered that all things should be expeded before their departure They who were weary of their stay at Trent received the news with all imaginable Joy and on the fifteenth of November Cardinal Morone assembled at his house a Cabal of the Council and desired the Prelates to give their opinions as to the Conclusion of it that was so wished for All consented to it except the Count de Luna Ambassadour of Spain but the Legates were resolved to step over all difficulties The Decree which was minuted by the Clergy for the Reformation of Princes and against which the French Ambassadours had protested was one of the most ticklish Points The Legates therefore resolved to let that alone and yet to doe somewhat for the satisfaction of the Clergy which was that reviving the ancient Canons without specifying them they should put in an exhortation to Princes to preserve the Church in her privileges and even to make restitution of the rights which had been usurped upon the Clergy by secular Judges But no Anathema's nor threatnings were added they onely made use of terms full of respect to Sovereigns The Pope having well consulted the matter of Rome ordered it to pass so The Council held dayly two Congregations
good Laws and Ordinances which were made in it After the Ceremonies were over they read the Decrees concerning Purgatory the Intercession and Invocation of Saints Images and their Worship They also read the Decree for Reformation of Monks containing twenty Chapters to which they added an one and twentieth for a shield to the Pope's Authority lest by inadvertency it might be wounded in some of the Canons of Reformation and to leave him in full liberty to dispense with all the Canons The Council therefore declares in it that all the Decrees have been made with intention that the Authority of the Holy See should remain safe and inviolate without the least encroachment upon it When this was done because it was very late the rest was deferred till next day In this second day they read the Decrees concerning Indulgences the Choice of Meats Fasts and Holy days They made and Act of Reference to the Pope about the Index Expurgatorius Missals Breviaries Ceremonials and the Care of making a Catechism At length the Council caused and Act to be read which declared that the Places that had been assigned to Ambassadours ought not to be any ways prejudicial to the Rights and Privileges of Kings Princes and States whom the Council pretended to leave in the same condition as they were before The Assembly was concluded with Volleys of Acclamations to the Praise of the Pope Emperour Kings Legates and the Fathers Heretofore in Ancient Councils these Acclamations or Benedictions were made in a humming confused manner with a low Voice But at Trent they would have the matter performed in its Formalities It was written down read and sung after the manner of Antiphones The Cardinal of Lorrain pronounced the Acclamations and the Prelates answered This action of the Cardinal was extremely played upon It could not be imagined that he with all his Dignities A mean Action of the Cardinal of Lorrain and large Characters would have condescended to discharge the Office of a Deacon or Chanter It was lookt upon as a low and mean Carriage but the French had a worse opinion of it for besides the baseness of the action they lookt upon it as a Crime of State because in the Acclamations there was no express mention made of the King of France for which the Cardinal was severely checkt upon his return At length all was summ'd up with an Anathema pronounced against Hereticks in General The Council consulted whether they should not expresly Anathematise Luther Zuinglius and the other Heads of Parties as had heretofore been practised in the Case of Nestorius and other Hereticks But the Spanish and Imperial Ambassadours opposed that representing that the Princes were rather the Heads of the Parties in that affair than the Teachers that it would offend them and oblige them to make Leagues together against the Catholick Religion The Council acquiesced to that reason and rested satisfied with a General Anathema All the Prelates were commanded under pain of Excommunication to sign the Decrees before they went away which was done on Sunday They were signed by two hundred fifty and five Hands four Legates two Cardinals three Patriarchs five and twenty Archbishops an hundred fifty and eight Bishops seven Abbots thirty nine Proxies for Absents and seven Generals of Orders The Ambassadours had been enjoined to sign also but because those of France were not there and their Hands not being amongst the rest it would have been a Declaration that they refused to acknowledge the Council all the rest were therefore dispensed with no to sign upon Pretext that it had not been the Custome of Ancient Councils This last Session of the Council gave as little satisfaction as the rest hand done for after all the fair promises of setting about a Reformation there was nothing found that could answer the Expectations of People The nineteenth Chapter of General Reformation contained a very Christian Decree against Duels which were prohibited under very severe Penalties Nevertheless it was observed that the Council herein encroached upon the Right of Kings for it declared the Emperour all Kings Princes and Lords who should countenance Duels to be excommunicated and deprived of the Dominion of the Place holding of the Church wherein Duels should be fought It was not thought in the Power of a mere Ecclesiastick Judicature to deprive Sovereign Princes of their Territories and Temporal Possessions nor to lay Commands upon them under pain of Excommunication The Permission which the Council granted to Mendicants to enjoy Lands and Real Estates was so far from passing for an Article of Reformation that it was lookt upon as a great Corruption and as a fair means put into the hands of Monks to hook in the remainder of the Estates of Christendom whereof they already enjoyed the largest share In general few were satisfied with the Acts of the Council The Spaniards were displeased at the precipitant manner and hurry of concluding it without acquainting their King and expecting his answer But France more than all others because they found therein many things which overthrew the Liberties of the Gallican Church President Du Ferrier during his stay at Venice made it his business to make a Collection of them and upon the return of the Cardinal of Lorrain into France the Cardinal was severely censured for having suffered so many things to pass contrary to the Sentiments and Customs of the Church of France It was objected to him that after he had vigorously asserted the Superiority of a Council over the Pope yet at length he had basely betrayed the Cause seeing he had subscribed to the first Chapter of the General Reformation which grants the Pope Administrationem Ecclesiae the Administration of the Church Universal It was also thought that the opinion of the Pope's Superiority over a Council was sufficiently established by the last Chapter which declares that all things have been decreed without prejudice to the Authority of the Pope which is an evident raising of the Authority of the Holy See above that of the Decrees And above all it was thought that by demanding from the Pope the Confirmation of the Council they had placed his Holiness above a Council It was likewise objected as a fault to the Cardinal of Lorrain that in the one and twentieth Chapter of the General Reformation he had suffered the present Council to be declared the same with that which was held under Julius and Paul III. after that France had taken so much pains to have that Assembly called a new Council But the Parliament of Paris in a particular manner complained that he had suffered the Authority of the King's Judges to be trampled under foot seeing the Council had so far enlarged the Power of Churchmen as made a considerable breach in the Civil Jurisdiction As for instance it allows Bishops to proceed against Laicks by Pecuniary Fines and Imprisonments These oppositions that the Council met with in France were every delightfull to those who were separated