that We know what Innocent the Tenth and his Congregation have decreed against the three Negative propositions of the Catholicks of England We know moreover the brief of Paul the Fifth against the Oath of Allegiance Finally we know many other decrees and Canons made by several former Popes against all kind of Oathes and obligations of Allegiance to Schismaticks Hereticks or excommunicated Princes and even I say to all such as they deem such whether they be such or no indeed I could add that we know also what the Doctrine or Maximes of the Court of Rome is in particular concerning Clergie-mens exemption from the secular power and how they hold it unlawful for such men to Swear any Allegiance contrary to their own Canons or their own interpretation of the Canons And yet the Congregation would make the world believe they have by those their three additional propositions supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance But let fooles and ignorant persons believe them I am sure no wise man acquainted with the business will No nor would be induced to think that although they had come throughly home in express words as they did not at all nor any way neer and came home so as to all particulars and to the very points both in their Remonstrance and propositions added yet that only denying at the same time and with so little reason and so much passion preoccupation and obstinacy to sign those other three of Sorbon applyed to His Majesty and themselves in the case would be argument enough to evict even from themselves a confession of this certain truth that they were obstinatly resolved to give no real assurance to His Majesty of their future obedience or faith to him either by their Remonstrance or propositions or both or any other sufficient manner and that accordingly they gave none The third argument is ab intrinseco properly or from and grounded on the significancy or rather unsignificancy of the very propositions in themselves as such and without relation to the two former arguments which are though otherwise convincing enough derived from and grounded on circumstances more extrinsecal It is from the bare words and sense or meaning the leading persons or chief Divines of the congregation have conceive or would or intend only to express by these words It is from and on their distinctions of and specifical exceptions from the too too great generality of what the words may to some import though not to others And in a word it is further derived from and grounded on their abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations in these very three propositions no less then in their Remonstrance Albeit they would impose on such as they thought fit and whilst they thought it fit that by these additional propositions they supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance as at the same time they would let others know and shew them cleerly too they signified nothing at all as to the points controverted that is signified nothing or brought no obligation on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free by force of Arms to maintain any quarrel or cause against him Which to evince I will here again repeat the propositions or declarations as they are subscribed by them 1. Wee the undernamed do hereby declare that it is not our Doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in Temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second yea we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in civil and temporal affairs 2. That it is our Doctrin that our Gracious King Charles the Second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil or temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be our constant Doctrine from which we shall never recede 3. That it is our Doctrine that we Subjects owe so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can ever dispense with or free us of the same Now to pass by that Negative manner of expression in the former part of their first proposition and how unsignificant such must be from them who sees not their obvious equivocation in these words It is not our Doctrine on such as they list they will thereby impose and to others they tell that it is not indeed their Doctrine but the Doctrine of so many great and holy Pontiffs of the See of Rome and very expresly too and in many instances these five or six hundred years the Doctrine of Gregories the Seventh and Ninth and of Pascehals and Urbans and Innocents and of Boniface the Eight even in that publick extravagant Vnam Sanctam inserted in the body of the Canon law and of Sixtus's and Pius's yea and of Alexander the Seventh that now governs that See the Doctrine of all their Courts for so many ages and of so many Bishops Cardinals and other Prelats and Doctors of Nuncius's Internuncius's and other Ministers and messengers of Popes that in several Countries and in several occasions taught and maintained it by word and writing amongst whom as Bellarmine and Baronius and Peron and Lessius and Becan and Gretzer Fitzherbert Weston and Parsons have in their own dayes after those Seventy two other writers whom Bellarmine quotes against Barclay some sixty years agoe been very eminent so in ours and very lately nay and continually too any time these four years past Cardinal Francis Barberine at Rome and the two immediatly succeeding Internuncius's at Bruxels De Vecohys and Rospigliosi and the Divines of Lovayn have shewed themselves no less vehement by censuring as much as in them the protestation of 61. of the Catholick Bishop of Dromore of Fa. Peter Walsh and other Irish Divines and after them of others the Nobility and Gentry of that Nation So that our Gentlemen of the Congregation of 66. will by this gloss or explication of their word Our where they say it is not our Doctrine or by that equivocation or distinction elude at pleasure this Declaration as to any honest meaning They will say they have declared it is not our Doctrine that is It is not a Doctrine whereof we are the Authors or it is not a Doctrine proper particular and peculiar to us alone or which only we do teach or maintain or which we have broached or set on foot And will say nevertheless nay rather the more that for as much as it is the Doctrine of so many great men nay and of so many great and Holy Bishops of Rome at least these full six hundred years and that expresly and clearly too even in their very Canons it is consequently the Doctrine of the Church for they account the Pope and Church the same thing And therefore must not be disavowed or opposed by the faithful when there is occasion to follow or practice it So that they will say that in one sense they may
as well with His Grace as with His Majestie and His Majesties other great Ministers and for the rest of the Catholick people of Ireland that ease and connivence he could for what concerned the exercise of their Religion Nor onely that but as occasion offered by writing and printing and exhibiting to His Majestie Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Chancellour of England and other great Ministers of State several papers and books in Print and otherwise of his own labours to move the performance of the Peace of 48. to the Catholicks of Ireland and to mind His Majestie of his justice to Innocents and of His mercy to Nocents But in the first place laboured opportunely and importunely till he prevailed at last to get all the great number of Priests released which had been in several places and Provinces of Ireland in restraint about six-score of them and a great many for several years before His Majesties happy Restauration Wherein he was so impartial to all that although he was offered several times the release of such of those Priests as he would pass his word for that they had been honest all along in the Royal cause during the late difference betwixt the Confederats of Ireland yet he modestly and patiently declined that savour and let those his own special friends suffer with the rest until His Majesties Gracious condescension and my Lord Lieutenants goodness looked indifferently upon them all with an eye of compassion and mercy upon hopes given His Majesty that they would all prove faithful Subjects evermore II. The year 60. and 61. being passed over till the winter came and the hopes of Roman Catholicks for what was moved in their behalf in the House of Lords at Westminster concerning the repeal of laws against them at least and in the first place of those are called Sanguinary being blasted in the bud and the example of the late Irish Rebellion and breach of both peaces in 46. and 48. by some or many of those of that Religion and Nation having besides other arguments and intrigues being made use of against such as moved for such repeal and the Parliament of England being adjourned or prorogued and that of Ireland then under the Lords Justices the Chancellour the Earls of Orrery and Montrath sitting and a great plott amongst the Irish Catholicks so falsly imposed upon them grounded on the no less false and vain pretence of a letter sent by one Priest to an other but contrived onely by a perfidious fanatick impostour as appeared soon after and that Parliament of Ireland however and Lords Justices upon this ground proceeding with strange and new severity against both Clergie and Layety of that Religion and some few of the Catholick Gentry and Clergie consulting together at Dublin of a remedy Sir Richard Barnewal Richard Beling Esq Thomas Tyrrel Esq Oliver Dese Vicar general of Meath Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and others it was resolved upon at last to Remonstrate their condition to His Majestie and Petition his just and merciful regard of them that suffered so unjustly Which accordingly the said Mr. Beling drew in the name of the Catholick Clergie of Ireland Because the design was chiefly imposed on them and upon their account the Layety suffered But forasmuch as he considered that a bare Remonstrance of their sufferings or a bare Petition of redress could not much avail a people that lately had acted as they had done in obedience to the Nuncio both he and the rest of those gentlemen with whom he consulted found it necessary by a Solemn Declaration of their principles in point of obedience in temporal things to obstruct the grand objection of The inconsistency of Catholick Religion and of a tolleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State Which was the reason that one of those Gentlemen remembring they had lately seen a printed Declaration of the Catholicks of England in their name exhibited in a long Petition to the Parliament at Westminster a little before or in the beginning of the commotions of those Kingdoms about the year 1640. and lighting on the book after diligent search wherein they had read it which is that of Father Cressy an English man and a Benedictine Monke sometime before Protestant Dean of Leighlin in Ireland entituled his Exomologesis or the motives of his conversion to the Catholick Church and having brought it to Mr. Beling he judging it very proper for the present matter and purpose of the Catholicks and Clergy of Ireland and much pleased to have such a precedent as that of men so learned and wary as the Catholicks of England for a business or Declaration of that kind extracted it word by word out of the said book pag 76. 77. and 78. Paris impression without any other change but of the Application to the King instead of the Parliament and of Ireland instead of England and inserted it in that Remonstrance which he then drew for his own Countrymen Which although it hath been often already and in several pieces of mine published in Print yet forasmuch as it was that which occasioned this general Congregation at Dublin of the said Irish Clergie in 66. five years after it was in their names exhibited to His Majestie at London and because peradventure many would consider the tenour of it when they come to read this present Treatise and other Treatises following to free them of a trouble to looke after those other pieces wherein it is I have thought fit to give them it here again to their hand To the KINGS most Excellent Majesty The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgement Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergy of your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland do most humbly Represent this their present state and deplorable Condition That being intrusted by the undispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the cure of Souls and the care of their Flocks in order to the Administration of Sacraments and Teaching the People that perfect obedience which for Conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands they are loaden with Calumnies and persecuted with Severity That being obliged by the Allegiance they owe and ought to swear unto your Majesty To reveal all conspiracies and practices against your Person and Royal Authority that come to their knowledge they are themselves clamour'd against as Conspirators plotting the destruction of the English among them without any ground that may give the least colour to so foul a crime to pass for probable in the judgment of any indifferent person That their Crimes are as numerous and divers as are the Inventions of their Adversaries and because they cannot with freedom appear to justifie their Innocency all the fictions and allegations against them are received as undoubted verities and which is yet more mischievous the Laity upon whose Consciences the character of Priesthood gives them an influence suffer
compassing as yet any of his designs XXIII Likewise about the same time the R. R. Father in God Iohn Burk the Catholick Archbishop of Tuam very aged infirm and sickly and looked upon as not able to live one year longer came unexpectedly from St. Maloes and in my Lord Lieutenants absence arrived at Dublin privatly accompanied with father Thomas Quin the Jesuit and another of that Society in whose power and under whose directions this aged venerable Prelate wholy was The Procurator having done his first respects of visit to his Lordship desired to know his cause of venturing so confidently without acqainting first and having by some way addressed himself to my Lord Lieutenant and understood of some connivence for his return Minded him of the carriage and proceedings all along of the Clergy and especially of the Bishops of Waterford and Iames-stown That although his Lordship carried himself fairly and loyally in opposing the Nuncio even to his face at Galway and forced open the Church there which the Nuncio would have to observe his Interdict other Censures that he had sided all along with the Cessation supream Council at Kilkenny in that business and further too in concluding the second Peace yet he could not forget how he sullied all his former glory by his after unfortunate sitting and concurring at Iames-stown with other Bishops to those disloyal Declarations made there That he had not since by any publick or private application to His Majesty or Lord Lieutenant or by submission and repentance declared to either washed of the stain of that scandalous horrid transgression nor given any assurance of his more loyal carriage hereafter That yet both were of absolute necessity from a Prelate of highest rank such too as for example and for the satisfaction of God and men should be publick That he should therefore petition for himself and by his example induce the rest of the Irish Clergy to do the like and most humbly beg pardon for the time past and for the future sign that Remonstrance whereof to that end he had in France from London a sufficient account All which and much more to this purpose the Procurator humbly and earnestly minded him of even sometime in the presence of the above Father William Burgat Vicar General of Imly The good Archbishop heard him all out both attentively and patiently enough without sign of displeasure but return'd no other answer then That he was now so broken with age and many diseases of body that his mind also or understanding was no more of any kind of strength or capable to discern what he was to do in that or other things That he was for the matter dead already That he ventured this journey from France by Sea all along for otherwise he could not of purpose only to die and lye down at rest in his grave native soil That he would not have been to bold as to land at Dublin but that he supposed my Lord Lieutenant away thence in the Countrey at that time as it happened and that he might be carried away privatly to his own Province of Connaght without any further noise of his arrival or knowledge thereof given to my Lord Lieutenant And that being his Grace the Lord Lieutenant was now returned to Town he desired the Procurator should most humbly present his most submissive respects and make that true Apology for him of the design of his coming and desire of being connived at for so short a time as he had to drag a miserable life and end it by a death more welcome which he daily expected But the Procurator saw well enough that how infirm soever this good Archbishop was in body yet he had still sufficient apprehension and this excuse proceeded from the Fathers by whom he was led of late in all things perswading themselves his behaving himself so would give both countenance and authority enough amongst Catholicks not to themselves alone but to all others of the Clergy in denying or opposing a subscription which he had so declined That his name or extraction and his known affection sometimes formerly to the King and English Interest we 〈…〉 himself sufficiently of entertaining other scruples in that matter then those of religion and reverence to the See Apostolick And his quality of Archbishop and the only then of that Nation and Religion at home and the only moreover known to have formerly declared against the Nuncio would be a strong confirmation thereof at least might be a very probable excuse for all others of inferior degree until he had declared himself on the point All which and the use thereof notwithstanding the Procurator did well enough perceive and foresee yet he could not help having done his own duty But however advised this good Archbishop to retire as he did immediatly in a litter to Connaght where he remains ever since guided still by the same Fathers as wholly in their power The sequel whereof shall be seen hereafter in its proper place or second Part of this Narrative XXIV The Procurator therefore and by several other arguments seeing now certainly where the first obstruction to a further progress lay which should be removed and seeing that albeit the Fathers of the Society were but a very few in Ireland and most of them in or near Dublin yet their correspondency both at home and abroad especially at Rome was look't upon by most of the Pretendents in or Dependents of that Court and their own confidence withall in themselves was great partly because they had so dexterously behaved themselves in the Nuncio's quarrel that as they were perswaded much could not be objected to them on that account and partly for other causes and for that in particular of their extraction generally as for that also of some powerful Relations of some of them and albeit he saw well enough at the same time what influence the example of the Dublin Clergy in general both Parish-priests and Religious Orders of which Orders there he had only yet won the Franciscans and two of the Dominicans but none at all of the Augustinians Carmelits Cappuccins or Jesuits no more then he had none of the Parish-priests who were four or five and together with the said Regulars made fifty Priests or there abouts in that City albeit I say the Procurator saw well enough what influence the example of the Dublin Clergy in general would have upon the rest abroad in other parts of the Kingdom and that it would be to no great purpose but altogether vain to expect a concurrence from these if those had refused even there where the Lord Lieutenant and Council and Parliament sate and where notwithstanding the Dissenters had as much favour or freedom tolleration or connivence or whatever else you call it as the Subscribers and that on the other side the Dissenters had the advantage of the Subscribers at Rome and with the Generals of Orders beyond Seas of whose special favour
an ordinance in such general or rather indefinit terms for the exemption of Clerks in a criminal question from the civil-Judicatory or being it is but a command or law That none should presume to call or draw an Ecclesiastical person in a criminal question or even civil to a secular judgment against the Imperial Constitutions and Canonical Functions and whereas there was never yet any Imperial Constitution or Canonical Sanction either made before his time or in his time or after his time that exempted Clergymen in either of both sorts of questions civil or criminal from the supream civil and absolute power of the Emperour themselves or of other Kings that acknowledge neither Emperour nor Pope nor any other above themselves in their temporal government who sees not that out of this Constitution of Frederick nothing can be concluded for such exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power but only from that of subordinat inferiour and ordinary civil or secular Judicatories Besides we know Fredericks laws were only for those few Cities or Provinces that remain'd in his time which was about the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twenty and therefore could not pretend nor did pretend to prescribe laws to other Kingdoms or Kings for the exemption of Clerks either in civil or criminal causes or even to the inferiour Iudicatories of other Kings And that we know also that that law of Frederick was not imitated by the like in other Principalities not subject to him not imitated I say generally as to the exemption of Clerks in all either civil or criminal causes whatsoever from the very subordinat inferiour civil Iudicatories nor even in prima instantia So that I must conclude that Bellarmine was put to a very narrow strait for an imperial or civil law wh◠〈◊〉 pitch't on this of Frederick which was not known nor as much as 〈◊〉 of in other parts of even Europe it self as owning no subjection to Frederick And yet a law not to the purpose were it of the same authority those Imperial Constitutions were when the Orient and the Occident South and North as far as the Roman Empire was ever spread at any time or even in great Constantins days were under one Lord. An imperial or civil law in those days or of such others for some ages after which wâ—e received in the wide christian world consequently generally retained might have been to purpose if it had clearly expresly on particularly enacted any thing to our present purpose But conceived in such terms as this of Frederick coâ—lâ— not be to such purpose For it is one thing to be exempted from the subjection due to Emperours or Kings and another to be exempted a forâ— secuilâ—i from a secâ—â—â—â— Iudicatory The Emperours had under themselves and established by themselves and by their own civil laws two sorts of Iudicatories The one termâ—â—â—g meer civil or meer secular Iudicatory where peculars onely or meer â—ay men were Judges And the other termed 〈◊〉 Ecclesiastical Iudicatory where Ecclesiastical Persons only or persons depâ—â—â—â— by them were Iudgeâ— whatever the cause or question was civil or criâ—â—nal temporal or spiritual or mixt of both And both had their power which as coercive or a 〈…〉 with any coerciâ—â—â— from the Emperours and from their civil law 〈◊〉 So that the Emperours exempting any from the secular Iudicatory 〈…〉 leave or put such under the subordinat pâ—â—er of the Ecclesiastical Judges deputed by the same Emperours or by their laws Which they might have done in favour of meer lay men 〈◊〉 some lay-men and in some or many or all case whatsoever made had it been their Imperial pleasure as often they did by instances grant Epise 〈◊〉 And entiam to meer lay men and in meer lay crimes or lay causes 〈◊〉 civil and criminal at leaâ— in civil Would Bellarmine conclude therefore that those were exempted or should be in such a case and by the Emperours themselves or their laws exempted from their own supream civil coercive power in criminal causes or indeed in any whatsoever Or must it follow that because by the law of England a Lord for example 〈◊〉 be condemned or tryed in a criminal cause but by his Peers that therefore in England a Lord is exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the King himself Or that it is not by a power derived from the King thâ—â— Peer 〈…〉 condemn or free another Peer Or even that by the supream power of the King which formerly established such a law of priviledge for Peers the same law may not be justly again or upon just grounds repealed and a contrary law made in Parliament if at any time it were found by manifest experience that the Peers did manifestly and manifoldly and even to the ruine of the King and Kingdom and against the very primary intention of all priviledges and laws make use of or rather abuse such a former law or former priviledge Or finally and consequently that whatever priviledge of exemption though only from Inferiour lay Judges was so granted as before to Clerks by the supream civil power of Emperours Kings and other States was such that in case of manifest and manifold abuse even to the ruine of the publick and without any hope of amendment it could not be revoked again or moderated by another law and equal power to that which gave it before Therefore from first to last I think it is now clear enough that by the civil law no Clerks are exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of such temporal Princes or States under whom they live LXIX That neither by the Canons of the Church I am now to prove Wherein I find so little difficulty that notwithstanding the general errour so wide spread or supposed amongst as well Divines as Canonists to the contrary but introduced at first and continued after out of some passages of Councils very ill understood considered or examined I dare say boldly that not onely none of all those Councils or Canons of Councils alledged for such exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power but not even any of them alledged for their exemption from as much as the subordinat civil power of inferiour Judicatories hath any such matter at all Though my purpose here be not other then to prove this truth for what concerns the supream power only To which purpose I affirm that no where in any Council is it found that the Fathers attributed such authority to themselves as by their own sole power to exempt Clerks from lay Tribunals â— or which is the same thing to deprive secular Judges or Magistrates of power empire command judgment coercion or Iurisdiction over Clerks or which also imports the very same to prohibit the secular Judges not to take cognizance of or give sentence in the causes either civil or criminal of Clerks brought unto their tribunals or finally and it is still in effect the same
under spiritual temporal or mixt of both is not so much disputed amongst learned men as that other far different question drawn especially from the 27th Canon of the great Council of Chalcedon as also from some others of his purely spiritual or at least Ecclesiastical power which has no respect at all to Temporals either directly or indirectly whether this power be truly by Divine right immediately over all the faithful through the whole world or onely by Humane and Ecclesiastical right or else from both at least in that latitude to which they commonly extend it that is over all the faithful everywhere none exempted either in any district of any of the other Patriarchs or in any cause With which most difficult question though I have no intention ever to meddle as however I am fully resolved to follow in this point the common doctrine and to stand unmoveably fixt to the decision of General Councils nevertheless because all men are not of the same mind that is do not judge or understand every way alike many things which may be alledged on both sides nor have the same inclinations or that forward strong and constant affection to his Holiness and the See of Rome which I have notwithstanding the injuries which I cannot deny many and as many as since the beginning of the last War in Ireland took part with the King have suffered with me I thought fit to intreat your Lordship and do with all earnestness beseech you that you will let the Subscribers live in peace not move them to impatience or anger nor reject them from Ecclesiastical charges without other demerit than this pretended one of Subscription and that you will not put a bar to the publick good of undoubted Religion for the maintenance of an assertion so far at least doubtful that in the judgment of many and those Catholick Writers and even entire Universities it deserves the name not so much as of an Opinion but of Error and Heresie and also yet so doubtful that the reason is plain why 't is call'd Heresie Understand my Lord material Heresie as they call it For I conceive no Orthodox Censurers and least of all I ever thought of charging formal Heresie upon the Pope or Church of old Rome or its particular Diocese so much as in this matter controverted betwixt us formal Heresie not being found without obstinacy against the Faith of the Universal Church undoubtedly known But as for material Heresie many orthodox learned and pious men have not doubted to fix it openly upon the Patrons of your opinion mov'd by this amongst other reasons namely that Heresie is no less in excess of than recess from the due mean in points to be believed or that 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith that is assert preach teach impose upon the Faithful to be believed as necessary to salvation or as revealed by God taught by the Apostles preserved by perpetual succession in the Church and as a part of the depositum delivered by Fathers in every age of Christian Religion to their Children That of whose necessity revelation and tradition there is no undoubted and certain evidence but opinion at most or likelihood and this only to somefew of the Faithful the rest which make a greater or as great or at least a considerable part of the Catholick Church denying disclaiming condemning abjuring it I say that according to those Doctors 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith in such manner as it is to substract from it i. e. as it is to deny any thing to be of Catholick Faith of which nevertheless t is truly undoubtedly certainly universally evident that it was revealed by Christ and deposited by the Apostles as much as any other Article of Faith Now who does not see that these who teach that Assertion of the Popes right over the Temporals of Princes as a point of Catholick Faith without the belief of which or with the witting denial of which none can be saved or entirely profess the Christian Catholick Faith relie upon Arguments at best but probable and grounding only opinion against the greater or equal or indeed the far greater remaining part of the Catholick Church which in all ages of Christianity have denied and still persevere to deny disclaim abjure that Position as impious and contrary to the doctrine received by Tradition and without difficulty solve such Arguments which they look upon as Spiders webs as ridiculous Sophisms as Trifles and pure Toyes And indeed some orthodox Doctors moved by this discourse not to mention other Reasons fear not to brand your Position with the note of Heresie But if your Lordship desire my own opinion in the case I must confess ingenuously I see not why it is not as much truly an intollerable error to assert in Popes Bishops Priests or any of the Clergy or even Laity a power to be believed as of divine Catholick Faith which does not certainly and evidently appear from the Rule of Faith that is either from Scripture or Tradition or both as it is to deny a power which does so appear * * See Bellarmine himself de Conc. l. 4. c. 4. where he teaches Errorem esse intollerabilem proponere aliquid credendum tamquam articulum fidei de quo non constet an sit verum vel falsum At last my Lord I conclude this long Letter and yet I neither repent my labour nor ask pardon for my prolixity since it no way more concerns Walsh to write Truth than it does an Internuncio to read it And if your Lordship be of the same judgment it will be well if otherwise I must bear it with patience Let it suffice me to have done what became an honest man videlicet to have refuted slanders reproaches revilings to have proved Caron and Walsh were causelesly term'd by your Lordship either Schismaticks or Apostates or which is less yet any way disobedient causelesly by contempt men of dirt causelesly also raisers of I know not what troubles to the Church of God lastly that without cause it was said to Gearnon's face he had better have been in his grave than subscribed Let it suffice to have defended the freedom of expostulating in a cause most just to have shewn it reasonable and answered those things which with most apparence are alledged to the contrary Lastly let it suffice that for a conclusion I have made you a hearty Prayer and a Petition no less earnest adding at the end and for a complement of the whole discourse that reason of so urgent a Petition which swayes with those Divines who censure with freedom your doctrine Neither have I more to add but onely my wishes that for the future the Internuncio's of Bruxels may be more men of heavenly spirit at least when they have to do with men of earthly dirt Which humbly saluting your Lordship and kissing your hands with all due respect and affection truly and from his soul wishes My LORD
of grateful minds towards him had concluded these two things The one to applot and raise a considerable summe of money for him i. e. every Priest in the Kingdom to pay for his use to a Receiver five Shillings yearly during the next three years to come every Vicar General proportionably more and every Bishop likewise more yet according to his Bishoprick I for my self says He although my Bishoprick of Ardagh as to me at present you all know be none of the best but rather one of the poorest do freely offer and shall willingly pay Thirteen pounds sterling of this applotment The other to give him the said Procurator all the best Testimonials and even the most special Commendatory Letters too signed by the whole Congregation in his behalf and superscribed to the Court of Rome Papal Ministers Cardinals and even to His Holiness The Procurator seeing himself now the second time and even also thus in publick either courted or tempted with such obliging offers yet considering how their carriage of themselves in the material points expected from them had wholly disenabled him to assure them of any certainty at all of reaping for the future those advantages they expected from his endeavours answered That although he could not indeed but thankfully acknowledge their proffers as he did with all his heart nevertheless he would not accept of either at present Not of the later of their testimonial and recommendatory Letters to Rome because such Letters would render him suspected at home and consequently lessen his credit and ability to serve them where they needed his service most Nor of the former of money because by reason of their own final Resolves and Answers to the Lord Lieutenant he could by no means assure them for the future of the continuance of those favours to them which might be answerable to their expectation or such expence and he thought it not expedient to receive their money when he was not sure to be able to continue their liberty This was his answer in short Whereupon the Primat seconded by Father Oliver Desse Vicar General of Meath and some others pray'd him that at least in recompence of his former labours and reimbursement of expences past for so many years since 1660 he would accept of their so willing Contribution of money adding withal that whatever issue his future endeavours for them should have they would neither blame him nor suspect his integrity or good will But he replyed That although he had already in their service spent Eleven hundred Pounds either acquired by his own industry or else freely bestowed on him by other friends then any of their Clergy or People nay and besides that considerable sum already spent were at present even also indebted for some other small summs which he had and must have borrowed and likewise spent in their service and was not yet able to pay he thought it his best course rather to rely on the Providence of God benevolence of friends and his own industry in other ways for money then to receive any of theirs not even for reimbursement of his expences past unless or until they would first receive and comply with some at least of those more sober counsels given them for their own and the Nations further good And therefore pray'd them to excuse him from receiving either Letters or money from them on any account whatsoever until then For he was resolved to be also for the future as he had been always to that hour free of any kind of such obligations laid upon him by men of either judgments or inclinations and affections so different from his in matters relating to the King and Government and that he would not of one side be upbraided with their money if his future endeavours for them had not answerable success nor of the other suspected for having yielded to the receiving of any at all whether money or Letters from them Adding withal that indeed they themselves upon cool reflections might see it was even for their own interest also that he should carry himself so uprightly and honestly if they expected any good hereafter by his Negotiation And in the last place assuring them he would always to his power as faithfully and willingly serve the Roman-Catholick Clergy and People of Ireland and consequently also the very present Congregation and every Member thereof yea notwithstanding the Cabals of some of them of purpose to cross him as if he had accepted of their money and Letters both though he could not at the same time but profess his grief openly that themselves by their inconsiderate Resolves had in effect bereaved him of much of that Power which he believed he might otherwise have to answer even the very greatest expectations any of them could justly have of their success Which being replyed by the Procurator they ceased from tempting him any further on that or other subject But he had not so ended what he had to speak this last day of the Congregation albeit no more on the former subject For that being over by his positive refusal and rational excuse and the Fathers well pleased with his so publick and sincere promise to do for them to his utmost power as much as he would or or could have done in case he had accepted of their proffers he told them in the next place That being this was the last time of their meeting in the present Congregation he had Three things of consequence to move and recommend to their serious consideration but such things withal as could not in reason or any likelihood raise such animosities or divisions of minds amongst them as the Remonstrance or Parisian Declarations had done because they intrench'd not so much on their dependency of the Roman Court and Ministers The first concern'd not only publick prayers for both the Spiritual and Temporal prosperity of the King but moreover due observance amongst them and their respective flocks the Roman-Catholick People of the publick days of Humiliation or Fasts and Prayers which the King or his Subjects subordinate chief Governours of Ireland should thenceforth command all his Subjects to observe The Second was concerning the famed Wonder-working Priest Father James Finachty And the last related to two wicked Books lately written by two Irish Churchmen viz Mahony the Jesuit and Ferral the Cappuccin On each of these three heads he dilated himself to perswade the Fathers to a Congregational Act on each And First as to the former part of the first of those Three Heads he let them know had he sufficient causes to move it and pray their positive Decree in it 1. That he knew many Church-men omitted to pray in publick at their Altars for the King i. e. at all so much as for his Spiritual welfare yea some for example Father Dominick Dempsy a Franciscan esteemed a very grave and holy man and therefore a leading Person and Father .................. Long the Jesuit who had the confidence or rather impudence and
conveniently be However bid him be ready and let him know we shall be ready for him within two or three days Thus my Lord Lieutenant Much about that same time Father Finachty sent and came also himself to let me know he had now stayed six whole weeks in town expecting that Licence and occasion adding that he could stay no longer for it but would depart to Connaught if not suddenly granted He withal soon after and early in the morning sends me word that he would say Mass privately in my lodging and accordingly comes and says in a private Oratory I had there my self serving him at Mass When he had done and was come down and sate at a fire for 't was Winter and cold weather ready to drink his mornings draught with a toast which was a preparing for him there he complaining of weakness and drowth by reason of the continual sweat every night whereunto he had been for some days before and then subject in comes to that same room unexpectedly Sir William Petit Knight a learned acute Physitian and great Traveller and with him an other ingenious young Gentleman Mr. Robert Southwel * * He is now Sir Robert Southwel Knight and one of the Clerks of the Council at White-Hall hath been moreover lately Envoy Extraordinary both to Portugal Castile as last of all to Flanders likewise for some years a Traveller in other parts of Europe both of them Protestants and both of my acquaintance I having known nothing of their coming or cause thereof did think they only came to see my self as at least Mr. Southwel used sometimes to do But it appeared after that Sr. William Petit was commanded by the Lord Lieutenant to go together with one Doctor Yarner an other Protestant Physitian and find me out and tell me how the sick persons were now in town and all other matters ready of their side and bid me therefore give notice thereof to Father Finachty that he might fix his day his place and company he would have present of his side Now because Sr. William could not meet then with Doctor Yarner he brought along with him Mr. Southwel who both could shew him the way to my Lodgings and was willing enough to come upon such an occasion which suspended the thoughts of many This was the cause of their coming as my Lord Lieutenant himself told me after at night for they did not as being surprized with a suddain curiosity when they saw one with me and that to their question asking me aside who it was I answered he was a person they would perhaps desire to be acquainted with even the famed Wonder-working Priest Father James Finachty For I had no sooner told them so then without any further reply or Ceremony they both go to the fire where he sate and sitting down by him who seemed at first to take no great notice of them Sir William Petty being next him begins to speaks to him in this manner or at least I am sure to this purpose Father I have of a long time heard much of you and lately much more than formerly For my own part I am on this occasion and for what concerns Religion as a piece of white Paper You may write in my Soul what you please as to the way of worshipping God if you attest that way by plain Miracle And therefore if you do by your Prayer remove this Wart which you see on my finger and thereupon shewed that finger of his hand and the Wart thereon I will presently declare my self of your Religion So soon as I had heard Sir William out I thought it high time for me to interpose as knowing his acuteness in Philosophy and Father Finachty's dulness even in matters of Divinity And therefore I desired Sir William to consider better of what he proposed and how unsutable it was to the ordinary custom we read of Saints invoking God and applying themselves immediately to him for a favour above nature to such as desired their intercession This was or only or doubtless customarily to ease them and cure them of some disease or evil which was an affliction to them and could otherwise have no help for it in their own power That this Wart could not be said to be such because either he could easily remove it by many sorts of natural applications known well to himself or if he could not that yet it brought neither pain nor deformity nor other inconveniency with it And therefore such demand of his side and such attempt of Father Finachty could be no less in either than a manifest temptation of God even that kind of sin which Divines with much reason teach to be very mortal in it self and abominable to God Besides let me tell you Sir William said I adding to what I now immediately related that unless you bring along with you a great Faith in God and very pious disposition of your Soul you can expect no Wonders to be done for your sake not even there where otherwise the subject matter could not be denyed to be fit enough Read St. Mark the Evangelist * * Et non polerat ibi virtutem ullam facere nisi paucos infirmos impositis manibus curavit mirabatur propter incredulitatem eorum Marc. 6. vers 5. 6. c. 6. and you shall find that not even our Saviour Christ himself could work Wonders in his own Country where the people were incredulous and that he therefore admired their incredulity to be such as hindred him This I added purposely because I would forestall his further tempting of that weak man Father Finachty and obviate his consecutions to be drawn from any failure he should peradventure see And it indeed together with what I said before made Sir William so considerative that he not only quitted insisting on the removal of his Wart but desired to read that Chapter and passage in Mark which I alledged and accordingly did presently read it even in the Protestant English Bible which I called for of purpose to satisfie him Which being over he recollects himself again and attacks anew Father Finachty telling him That he had in truth an infirmity was very troublesome to him I am purblind Father says he I can read at such or such a distance very near my eyes but cannot a word at any other wherein others do If you will cure me of this troublesome infirmity I shall humbly and religiously acknowledge as I ought Gods both merciful and wonderful hand therein I had by chance walked over towards the Window on the other side of the room when and as soon as Sir William had ended these few words of his later proposal But sooner then I was half way returned back I saw Father Finachey first standing up then saying to Sir William Let us try and then also immediately advancing a few steps and kneeling his back being turned to them and his face to the wall and consequently by private prayer to
persuaded or dissuaded by any of these men It is not really your salvation they promote by dissuading or diverting you from such a profession of your Allegiance to the King as would in part formally and for the rest virtually and consequentially renounce abjure condemn abhor detest and even in formal terms protest against all those uncatholick Positions and unchristian Practises before related It is indeed their own worldly gain and greatness that the leading men aim at They drive at all and if they thrive they will have all If they fail in their great and bold attempt an attempt forsooth pro bono Ecclesiae Dei yet they know where to live as well for the conveniencies of this World as they do at present with you and many of them much better But when that happens you may starve many of you in a Jayle and your Posterity after you be for ever miserable not knowing where to find relief And by losing on such an account all the lawful comforts of this life to say no worse you cannot with any certainty or even the least intrinsick probability expect to be therefore crown'd as Martyrs or Confessors in the next However they may glorifie you to incite others to do as you have done you cannot amidst your Sufferings have the comfort of believing them or account your selves Martyrs of Christ or of the Christian or Catholick Religion unless you are silly enough to be persuaded That such Positions and Practises as the whole Christian Church from the beginning and even for Ten whole Ages after condemned in effect as erroneous and wicked be that Righteousness or part of that Righteousness whereof our Saviour speaks in St. Matthew declaring there unto us That (b) Mat. 5. Blessed are they who suffer persecution for Righteousness sake because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven XVII That no less a man yea no less a Saint a Holy Doctor and Pope too than Gregory the Great Himself writing above a Thousand years ago to all the Bishops of Ireland (c) Whether of Hibernia as in the common Editions or of Iberia as in Rom. Correctan Gratian. de Consecrat dist 4. c 144. Ab Antiqua it matters not for either way it serves to my purpose on the subject of their being then under a grievous persecution for a less improbable less reprovable and I am sure less interested cause viz That of the Tria Capitula relating to the great Council of Chalcedon hath spoken as plainly to them as I do here to you For in his Epistle (d) L. 2. Regist Indict x. Ep. 36. Which Indiction fell into the year of Christ 592. superscribed Ad universos Episcopos per Hiberniam constitutos in causa Trium Capitulorum He told those Irish Bishops in plain terms That they were not to expect in the other life any rewards for their suffering in this for the cause of the Tria Capitula or for any other unreasonable cause whatsoever i. e. for any at all which was not of divine Cathloick Religion but of humane uncatholick Opinion or Faction not even for suffering so grievous a Persecution as they complain'd of nay seem'd also by their Letter to glory in Prima itaque sayes he Epistolae vestrae frons gravem vos pati persecutionem innotuit Quae quidem persecutio dum non rationabiliter sutinetur nequaquam proficit ad salutem Nam nulli fas est retributionem praemiorum expectare pro culpa Debetis enim scire sicut Beatus Cyprianus dixit quia Martyrem non facit poena sed causa Dum igitur ita sit incongruum nimis est de ea vos quam dicitis persecutione gloriari per quam vos constat ad aeterna pramia minime provehi And yet we know that cause of the Tria Capitula for which those ancient Bishops of Ireland did then suffer was in it self far more specious than yours can be in the Case proposed Nay we know it was indeed so specious and probable that they of Ireland then had not only the Bishops of many other Provinces even of the Roman Empire concurring with them in opinion but the chief of all Bishops in his time that was a little before St. Gregory the Great 's Pontificat even Pope Vigilius of Rome and Him also extreamly persecuted for the same cause yea buffeted drag'd imprisoned at Constantinople c. by command of the Catholick Emperor Justinian * Baron ad ann Christ 552. Nay we know it was so specious a Cause as not only to have in the bottom of it nothing of worldly Interest Dominion Power Riches nothing of Supremacy or Primacy even Spiritual much less any thing at all of Rebellion or Blood or Wickedness under any pretence whatsoever For these Sufferers both pretended and intended the sole honor of Christ against Nestorianism And yet we see how severely and positively they i. e. those ancient Bishops of Ireland or Iberia were by Gregory the Great dealt with on the point of their suffering persecution for that cause how specious or probable soever which a greater body of Christians did condemn and which all Christians might be sure was no part of those undoubted verities of Religion for which if occasion were they were bound to suffer and suffering and dying so were also to expect certainly and confidently the reward of the blessed a Crown of Glory in Heaven Whence you may judge what he would say to you at this present for being led by men who would persuade you still to suffer persecution for a Cause which hath nothing of that speciousness in it a Cause which hath nothing to make the sufferance for it appear in any wise rational to sober men a Cause that hath not the ancient nor even the modern Bishops of any one other Kingdom or Province in the World to make it seem the less improbable no nor any one of those ancient Bishops of Old Rome alone and yet a Cause that in the very outward Superficies hath nothing clearer than worldly Pomp Power Vanity Pride Usurpation Rebellion Treason Blood and all kind of Injustice and Vice to brand it and finally by very evident consequence a Cause that in its own nature conduces to nothing not according to reason can promote any thing less than the honour of either the Divinity or Humanity of our Saviour Christ against any Sect whatsoever XVIII That in the last place having your eyes thus prepared all these things being consider'd you may clearly see thorough that other sly artifice of those self same interested men whereby they would perswade you at least to so much filial Reverence to the great Father of Christendom as to acquaint Him first with your present condition send him a Copy of the publick Instrument you intend to fix upon with the Reasons also inducing you thereunto pray His approbation thereof in order to your signing it and then expect a while his Paternal Advice and Benediction before you make any further progress
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
submission most heartily and freely appeal That you may determine for what concerns you of the truth or falsity likelihood or unlikelihood of that worst of Scandals viz. Desertion of my Order and Religion wherewith I have been frequently asperst on several occasions as in former times even Twenty years ago by some of the Nuncio's Faction so of late during all these four last years by others of the Anti-remonstrants especially by some Church-men who so little consider their holy Function that they seem to have lost all regard to Truth and Honesty and do not boggle at the shame of being daily found in manifest Forgeries so they may but do their work to serve themselves by it or to rid out of their way any person who they fear may obstruct their ambition i. e. their design of confounding all again if they alone cannot otherwise command all Onely I shall further beg as to this matter that before you determine of it you would be pleased to read over these following Appendages First Appendage relating to the Fourth Querie That in regard of the times places and occasions I lived in and employments I had and Books and persons I conversed with of every side and my own both curiosity and concern to understand matters aright and to see into their genuine causes I may without vanity say of my self That I have had more than common opportunities to know the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Court what they are and how hurtful how pernicious to these Kingdoms and to the Roman-Catholick Religion And that ever since I came to see into these things at least ever since I gave my self to a serious and full consideration of those principles and wayes which was about Twenty seven years since upon occasion given me by that Faction I have most heartily abhor'd and at all times and upon all occasions protested against them and the more I have known of them still the more I have seen cause to detest and to protest against them as I do at this day Second Appendage relating to the Fifth Querie That I can and do appeal to God Himelf That next after the regard of not wounding mortally my own Conscience by a manifest desertion of Truth and equivalent profession of such Errours as I know certainly to be against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and Gospel of Christ the chiefest motive I had for bearing up constantly so long a time against all Censures Precepts Monitories Denunciations Affixions Decrees and other grievous concomitant Persecutions in the often mention'd Cause of the Loyal Formulary was the regard of not doing you all the Roman-Catholicks of His Majesties Three Kingdoms the greatest injury that I could possibly do you or perhaps any man of my degree by confessing the grand Objection against you to be insoluble For I saw clearly That if either the temptation of preferment to Offices and Dignities or the tryal of punishment by Censures and Calumnies and all their Consequents at the pleasure of some Grandees at Rome should have had that influence on me as to make me in effect absolutely to renounce my Allegiance to the King by retracting the Subscription of my hand to that Instrument professing it in meer Temporal things onely the Argument thence derivable must have been obvious to any judicious knowing Protestant inclin'd to do you a prejudice as soon and as often as the Parliament sate and were moved in your Concerns Such an Argument I mean as urged home by a good Orator would even before indifferent Judges give much colour to that grand Objection viz. The inconsistence in these Nations 'twixt the safety of a Protestant Government and the giving of Liberty to Roman-Catholicks by repealing the penal Laws yet in force against them In substance it would have been alledg'd That the Roman-Catholicks at least for the generality of them would be alwayes right or wrong directed by their Priests That their Priests are most of them on the Popes side in this Controversie And if any of them be so hardy to oppose his usurpations there is no trusting of them for there is no reason to expect that any of them will stand to his principles and hold out For Example they might have instanced in unworthy me if I had fallen off after so long and such manifold tryals of my constancy for Twenty years past and after so many and so great obligations to persevere until the end of my life This and much more would in all probability I am sure might in all reason be alledg'd to make that great Objection hold against you had I hitherto submitted to the dictates or pleasure of the Roman Court in either Cause But it is not my business here to open more at large or press more home this Argument with all the aggravating circumstances both such as are fresh in memory and such as might be derived from the memory of former times My purpose was to hint it onely as believing this enough to shew you the reasonableness of that second Motive I had for holding out so constantly in such a Cause and in the very manner I did all along against so numerous and so dangerous Adversaries especially seeing that very manner of my holding out so or of defending my self the best I could against them was and is authorized not only by the Divine Laws of Nature and Christianity but also most expresly and clearly by the positive Constitutions of men even of Roman-Catholicks viz. the fundamental Laws of England and Ireland not to speak now of other Catholick Nations of Europe so many Hundred years since Enacted by the Roman-Catholick Princes and Parliaments of these Kingdoms against all Forreign Citations or Summons from a Forreign Power beyond the Seas and also the Ecclesiastical Canons of the Catholick Church throughout the World nay of the very Papal Canons themselves forbidding in express terms Judicia Vltramarina (a) Vid. S. Cyprian Epist 55. ibi Statutum esse omnibus nobis c. Concil Affrican Episcop 217. inter quos Divus Augustinus erat Can. 92. relatum pariter in Cad Can. Eccles Affric Can. 125. Synod ad Coelest Item 3. q. 6. haecce capita viz. Ibi. Vltra Si quis Clericus Peregrina Qui crimen q. 9. cap. Nec extra Item cap. Nonnulli de Rescrip Item Stat. General Barchinonensia Ord. Min. cap. 6. §. 1. num 1. 2. ubi Patres rationem habent illius naturalis Canonum aequitatis and expresly decreeing against many other special Injustices and Nullities on other grounds in the late procedure against me (b) If you would see more Quotations both of the Canon and Civil Law against every particular Injustice committed in Summoning me to appear beyond Seas and which do justifie in all respects my procedure in not obeying such Summons you may consult my Latin Epistle to Harold pag. 6 7. besides my Latin Hibernica Third Part and you will find a very great abundance of the
on the other side or even calling for them by Summons or otherwise at any time before such prejudgment given or made This I say is it that both obliges and warrants me in all reason to except against them as incompetent Judges of me or my writings in that Cause i. e. to except against their individual persons but not against their Authority placed in other men of less interested or byass'd judgment Nor certainly will this Exception appear strange or ill-grounded to such as shall be pleased to turn over in this Book not only to the many divers Letters of Roman Cardinals and Bruxel Internuncio's written at several times and upon several occasions since the year 1661 to Ireland against the same Cause and me and the rest of the Remonstrants but also to the Louain Theological Faculty's Censure * Dated at Louain 1662 Dec. 29. against it i. e. against the Loyal Irish Remonstrance and Subscribers of iâ— I pass oâ—er wholly in silence at this time the Bull of Pope Alexander VII * Dated at Rome 1665 Aug. 27. in the former cause of the Appeal made anno 1648 to Innocent X by the then Supreme Council of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland from those wicked Censures of Interdict and Excommunication fulminated that year and in that Kingdom against them and all other Irish joining with or obeying them in the Cessation of Arms concluded with the Royal Party of Protestants I say fulminated therefore against them by the Archbishop and Prince of Fermo Joannes Baptista Rinuccinus Nuncio there from the foresaid Innocent X. though a very partial inconsiderate Bull grounded falsely and given directly against all the more Loyal Irish Catholicks and given so of meer purpose to make them receive absolution in forma Ecclesiae consueta and consequently to do publick Pennance for having return'd but onely so nigh their obedience to the late King of ever blessed Memory as a meer or bare Cessation of Arms in order to the preservation of His Majesties interest when their own could not subsist without it in that Kingdom And these being the Six Appendages of so many Questions going before concerning my own constancy or inconstancy in Religion you are now at liberty to determine as to that matter what you think fit So having by this time inlarged my self I hope sufficiently enough for the information of some conviction of others and satisfaction of all ingenuous lovers of Truth having discharged my Conscience and spoken my Mind touching all the three Motives that induced me to this Dedicatory Preface to you it remains that howsoever or whatsoever you judge of me or my carriage or my writings I nevertheless continue my due regard to your Benefit and conclude this Discourse as it almost begun and for the matter proceeded all along with re-minding you most affectionately of your own and your Posterities and your Religions great Concern both in the Loyal Cause I contend for and in those happy ends at which I drive Therefore in the Apostles words Before God and our Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom by all the desires you have of your own and your Posterities living comfortably in this world as free-born Subjects in your Native Countrey and by all the hopes you have conceiv'd of enjoying that better Countrey with eternal life and rest in the world to come by all your zeal not only for the vindicating of your Religion from the scandal of Disloyalty Perjury Cruelty Inhumanity Tyranny c. both in Principles and Practices but of inviting also by taking away the grand Rock of scandal those of other Churches to save their Souls in the communion of yours or of the Roman-Catholick Church if indeed you believe there is no salvation for them otherwise and by all your godly wishes of a true understanding reconciliation union peace between all Churches professing the Name of Christ and more especially between His Majesties Protestant Subjects and your selves en fine by all that is Sacred and by all that is according to reason and grace desirable I conjure you that your selves mind as you ought that great Concern of your own and mind it both effectually and speedily without further delayes I beseech you as Christians and as Catholicks by the onely adorable name of the Holy Jesus whose Doctrine you should desire to follow above all things consider That his Kingdom was not of this world (a) John 18.36 That surely he gave neither to St. Peter himself nor to any other of his eleven or twelve Apostles separately nor even to all the same twelve or thirteen with Peter and Paul collectively taken any other sort of Kingdom or the Lieutenancy of any other Kingdom than what himself had in the dayes of his abode in flesh or as he was a mortal man before his Resurrection (b) See â—â—lâ—â—â—ius himself lib. 5. de Rom. Poâ—â—tiâ— c. 4 â—itt D. That the Keyes of Heaven and the Crowns of earthly Kingdoms import very different things That as his Father sent him (c) John 20.21 22 23. so he sent all the twelve with equal and with onely Commission to remit and retain sins viz. by his Power and by his Word and by his Sacraments but not to give or to take away Scepters or Crowns (d) Non eriâ—â—â— mortalia 〈◊〉 regna dat â—â—â—lestia by any means whatsoever That he commanded what is due to Caesar to be paid to Caesar as well as to God what is due to God (e) Matth. 22 23. That Paul the thirteenth Apostle and Vessel of Election in his Epistle to the Romans * Rom. 13.1 5. plainly declares That subjection to the supereminent secular powers which carry the Sword of Justice and receive Tributes is due from every Soul and that not onely out of fear of their Sword but for Conscience sake and for fear of hell and damnation it is due from every Soul among you even from those who are the most spiritual in profession even from those who are the most high in Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Function Priests Monks Bishops Archbishops nay were they Apostles were they Evangelists were they Prophets whosoever they were as Chrysostom spake * Chrysostom Hom. 23. in Epist Paul on this Text Rom. 1â— Omnis anima c. near Thirteen hundred years since on this very Text of the Apostle and in effect with Chrysostom all the Holy Fathers of the Christian Church before and after him for a Thousand years from the Apostles time until Gregory VII That Exemption from and much more Dominion over the said Powers ate inconsistent with Subjection to them in the same Temporal matters That other Divine right of Dominion either direct or indirect His present Holiness of Rome cannot justly pretend than what He derives from Christ by or through St. Peter nor other Humane right to any Kingdom than what the free consent of the Princes People and Municipal Laws
had no power in any contingency whatsoever to excommunicate him for continuing so in his loyalty Because that otherwise he binds himself against his own conscience to oppose a lawful power lawfully acting in some case which may possibly happen That on the other side if they did not mean really and conscientiously and sufficiently too as to the form of words to declare and oblige themselves as to matter of fact or in all contingencies whatsoever to to be loyal to the King notwithstanding any sentence of deposition excommunication or other declaration whatsoever c. then it was to no kind of purpose for the King or his Lieutenant to receive any Form at all from them That it should be argument enough to any States-men or other persons whatsoever of even but ordinary understanding that their meaning was not good just or honest if they pursued their design of leaving some starting holes for themselves or others as they had hitherto in in their several forms That finally no man that knew any thing of their School-divinity especially concerning the Popes infallibility and their maximes of extrinsecal probability was so blind as not to see their purpose in declining a declaration and protestation against the matter of right and that it was to no other then to have a sufficient reserve for themselves before the world in case his Holiness should point-blanck determine definitively for himself that question of right and upon that account condemn the printed Remonstrance of 61. and to no other at all then that they might be able then to speak confidently they had therefore even upon the contradictory question denied to declare against any such pretended power in his Holiness and to say consequently that now his Holiness having defined that power to be in himself and pursuant thereunto deposed the King or excommunicated his people for obeying him they also were quit of all obligation by any Remonstrance of their own which therefore they framed so as not to oblige them by its tenour in such a case But all these reasons were lost on the Fathers nay even on him that had as the Procurator thought very sincerely and faithfully promised so often to subscribe even the Remonstrance of 61. in terminis nay and after he had not only heard from the Duke 's own mouth so much of His Graces earnestness in that business but seen moreover within a while after His Graces Letter written all by his own hand to the Procurator on that subject which Letter I shall give presently upon another occasion XXXVIII This ill advised carriadge and strange obstinacy of those Fathers did not a little perplex and grieve the Procuratour both in respect of themselves and himself and the cause too For he had a particular kindness to some of them nay to their whole Order generally in Ireland for the great communication intimacy and frendship formerly betwixt their leading men and him at Kilkenny in the controversies of the Confederats and Lord Nuncio Which he manifested sufficiently in his panegyrick of St. Ignatius their Founder delivered by him in their Chappel in that town and at their own instance in the year 48. And therefore he was now so much concern'd in them for their own sakes because he foresaw that if they would pursue this obstinate resolution it would in time reflect heavily upon them all in Ireland and confirm those that managed the State there in as great prejudices as those were held generally in England these fourscore years against the Fathers of the Society in particular For his own too he was so much concern'd because when the Remonstrance was first at London graciously received by His Majesty and consequently not doubted of to prove in time by the subscription of it very instrumental to prevaile with His Majestie for some ease and some quiet and protection to the subscribers and when notwithstanding some talke was there about some Jesuits opposeing a great Minister of State bid the Procuratour not to trouble himself at all with any thoughts of perswading the Jesuits to it because said he of the wicked and perfidious principles of that Order generally in their Morals being such as they elude all tyes and duties and so elude such that there is no faith to be given to their subscriptions and because that notwithstanding so great prejudices against them yet the Procuratour singled out the carriadge and represented it of those in Ireland whereof he told the experiences he had from that was said to be of the Fathers of that Society in England in former or later times and hereby perswaded that Illustrious person to hope better of the Irish Fathers and lay all prejudices aside for some time against them until he had seen the issue For the cause in hand also because he foresaw what influence this example of their however unreasonable obstinate carriadge would have on the rest of the Dublin both Regular and Secular Clergiemen and these and those both joyntly and severally on all the rest of the Kingdom not that the Iesuits in Ireland have any thing singular in them either for number or learning being in both inferiour at present to several other Orders even of the Irish Religious men but for the repute of wariness had of them and for their more frequent correspondencies with their General at Rome to which they are tyed above all other Religions and for the great power their General is supposed to have with His Holines and consequently for the dependence many of the Irish Clergie who pretend at Rome have of the Fathers here who transmit their letters and recommend their pretensions XXXIX In January following 42. or 43. according the several stiles of England and Rome the Procuratour together with Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and Father Anthony Gearnâ—n of the same Order went to Multifernan in Westmeath and mett there with the very principal heads of the whole intrigue against the Remonstrance who came thether also from several parts of purpose to meet him These were Father Anthony Docharty then actually Minister Provincial of the Franciscans throughout the Kingdom Thomas Makiernan Brian Mac Egan Bonaventure Mellaghlin all three formerly since the troubles of Ireland begun haveing by succession borne at several times the same Office and Peter Gennor then Guardian of that place and Definitor Father Francis Ferral who was of late also Provincial of that Order and most earnest against the Remonstrance and as leading as any they had if not more and their chief Divine and should have been of that meeting came not because of a fit of the gout sorely upon him But as being within 8 miles to them they had his advice and mind These having been the men that lead all the dance and not of late in this matter only but many years before in all other affairs who had sent an express Agent over Seas to get the Remonstrance condemn'd at Rome and by forreign Vniversities
dissolution be accounted any prevarication but an amendmendment of rashness Thus have we after mature and frequent deliberation determined and decided at Lovaine in a full Congregation of the Faculty summon'd under Oath and held the 29th of December consecrated to the Martyrdome of the most glorious Bishop Thomas of Canterbury sometime Primate of England in the year of our Lords Incarnation 1662. Subscribed By the Deane and Faculty of Louaine The place of the Seale And after George Lipsius Bedel and sworn Notary to the said Theological Faculty XLVIII The first considerable effect this Lovaine Censure had was a citatory letter from the most reverend Father the Commissary General of the Franciscan order and Belgick Nation James de Riddere a Brabantine sent from Brula in Germany to Father Caron then at London The said Commissary being Ordinary Superior of all the Franciscan Order in the Belgick Nation and consequently of the Irish Franciscans as belonging to the same Belgick Nation according to the division and Statutes of that Order which divide all the Provinces thereof where-ever in the world into six Nations three Tramontaries three Cismontaines of which Cismontane the Belgick Nation is one comprehends not only at the several Provinces of lower Germany most of those of the higher but also those of Denmarke Scotland England and Ireland which four last Kingdoms or the Convents of Franciscans therein before the change of Religion though very numerous made but four Provinces of that Order So that by vertue of his Ordinary Superiour-ship General over the Franciscans in that Belgick Nation though otherwise subject himself to the Minister General of the whole Order throughout the world the said Commissary General Iames de Riddere cited Father Caron and those others mean'd by him as involved in the business to appear at Rome or Bruxels Yet having not particularly expressed the business or cause and for some other essential defects in that manner of citation Father Caron return'd the answer you have here after that citatory Letter which I give first A Letter written by the Commissary General of St. Francis Order in the Belgick German and Brittish Nation and over those of the same Order in Ireland and Denmark Father Iames de Riddere a Brabantine to Father Redmond Caron Reverend Father YOurs of the 15th of March were sent me by Father Augustine Niffo and I received them on the 17th of April at Brule in the Province of Cullen being imployed in visiting And wondred such great difficulties and dangers in obeying the commands of Superiours alledged by you who have so easily ingaged in a business full of difficulties and dangers not only to your selves in particular but the whole Order Therefore be it known to your Reverence be it known to all that have engaged themselves in the same affair That our most holy Lord whom by a special â—ye of our Rule we ought to obey doth justly expect an account from you satisfaction from your Superiors Whence it is that by iterated commands from the most Reverend Father General I admonish your Reverences and summon you to appear either before him at Rome or me at Bruxels to yield a more ample account of that act of yours to the end we may satisfie the See Apostolick be careful of the honour of the Order and of your own particular honour safety and comfort which out of a fatherly affection is desired by Your reverend Paternities most addicted Brother and Servant Fr. Iames de Riddere Superscribed To the very reverend Father Father Redmond Caron of the Order of the Friars Minors and Province of Ireland Reader Iubilate of sacred Theology As soon as Father Caron received this Letter he called together such of the Irish Franciscan Subscribers as he could meet with at London and with their consent and in all their names return'd in Latin this answer you have here translated Father Carons Reply signed by him and the rest of the Subscribers of his Order and Province of Ireland then at London Most Reverend Father YOurs of the 18th of April given at Brule we have seen whereby you summon us that have engaged in that affair to Rome or Bruxels We have sent a Copy thereof into Ireland that your summons may be known to the rest without whose answer we cannot in a Cause common to us all give that full satisfaction we intend However such as are here wonder that in your letter of Summons the cause of summoning them is not otherwise specified then by these words who have engaged themselves in that affair What affair Nay how so great a multitude being at least of the very Franciscans forty in number who with many others of the Secular and Regular Clergy and some Bishops too have signed that Remonstrance or Protestation if it or those of your Order that signed it be meaned by you may be summoned to Rome or Bruxels without any regard or consideration of either the old age of some the sickness of many and the poverty all wanting means to bear their charges for so long a journey And again how are they cited to Rome or Bruxels who by another mandate of the Right Reverend Father General which mandat is now here at London are commanded home to Ireland Whatever may be said in answer to these expostulations your most reverend Paternity may be pleased to understand the Laws of England are and of three hundred years standing that no Subject may under pain of death without the Kings licence depart the Kingdom in obedience to or compliance with any citation from forreign parts not even from Rome And that whoever doth otherwise summon or if subject to the King serues any such summons or even obeys them is in this Kingdom declared guilty of High Treason All which His sacred Majesty that now raigns hath confirmed of late and under the same penalties commanded us to observe We do not believe that your most Reverend Paternity is of opinion that we ought with so great a hazzard of our selves transgress those Laws and that command of our King to whom our bodies are subject by divine right Yet if it shall please your most Reverend Paternity to do in this case what the Canons of the Church do appoint in any such that is to appoint here or from elsewhere send unto us a Commissary or Delegate to take cognizance of our fact whatever it be where it was done to hear examine determine of and judge it we shall be very glad and most willingly submit to correction if we have swerved in any thing from the doctrine of all Antiquity Scripture or Fathers Or if peradventure you be not pleased with this submissive offer the Custos of our Province who by command of the late Middle Chapter in Ireland prepares for his journey to the General Chapter at Rome will more fully inform the Right Reverend Father General and your Paternity More we cannot say for your satisfaction until we hear from Ireland We
as much as a thought of pardoning him or offering him his life on condition he would renounce the contrary opinion some man can aver certainly or truly or as much as probably that what he alledged for himself of having only known the plot in confession either sacramental or not sacramental was true 2. That in case it had been true his own very Order that is all the Writers of his own Society if we may believe Suarez condemn his opinion of the seal for as much as he pretended it was therefore he would not reveal the plot because he had only heard it in confession and consequently seal'd up from any discovery by him For Suarez defies the King of Great Brittain ' gainst whom he writ even King Iames himself to produce as much as one Jesuit Writer that ever held it to be against the seal of confession oâ— any way unlawful to reveal the treason so as the Penitent or Confitent himself were neither directly or indirectly revealed And yet it is very certain that Father Garnet not only not did so whereas he might safely have done so even without any kind of danger to himself and might have done so by a hundred wayes and without as much as discovering himself but also pretended that he ought not to have done so or to have revealed the treason albeit there could be no danger thereby of revealing either directly or indirectly him that told it in confession 3. That hence it appears this objection whatever it be good or bad is not properly or peculiarly against the doctrine of this sixt consideration but more directly against that of the third and fourth where the Doctors of Lovaine and their ignorant sticklers may see other Catholick and Classick Doctors crying shame on them condemning it To which Doctors there quoted I now add Alexander Hales part 4. q. 78. memb 2. art 2. S. Thomas 4. distinct 21. q. 3. ar 1. ad 1. Scotus in 4. dist 21. q. 2. Hadrianus Papa 4. dist ubi de Sacram. Câ—nf edit Paris 1530. pag. 289. Navar. in Enchirid. c. 8. Ioseph Angles in Florib part 1. pag. 247. edit Antuerp Petrus Soto Lect. 11. de Confess Suarez Tom. 4. in 3. part D. Thomae disp 33. paragraph 3. Greg. de Valentia Tom. 4. disp 7. q. 13. punct 3. who all teach what I have in my said third and fourth consideration the lawfulness of disclosing the treason without disclosing the Penitent 4. That it s no way probable that a man so versed in at least not so ignorant of the doctrine of his own School or wherein he was bred with Father Suarez his old companion in Spain the doctrine of extrinsick probability as we must suppose a Provincial of the Society to have been should have made conscience of revealing the treason without revealing the Confitent being we cannot by any means presume that he was so extreamly ignorant as not to know this kind of revealing was taught by so many famous and pious even Classick Divines 5. That we may rather certainly and groundedly perswade our selves That being himself in other Instances confessed he knew of that wicked plott by other means also or out of confession as well from Father Greenwell as from Mr. Catesby it was no pretence of a Confessional Seal or any such opinion of the being of such a Seal in the case that hindered him from discovering either the treason it self or the traytors but that other more damnable opinion which he learned of so many other in this licentious and impious writers That no faith no allegiance is due from any Catholick Subjects to an excommunicate heretick Prince nor sinful treason can be committed against him or his laws or his people who support him 6. That be it so or be it otherwise nay granting all the objection pretends to or that it were true certain and notoriously known that Father Garnet had suffered only and meerly and when he could otherwise choose for that opinion of the unlawfulness for such a Confessor to reveal the very individual person of such a Conficent as we have supposed in our case and had suffered death for refusing to retract when he might have had life pardon for retracting yet all this amounts to no more then to an argument of the inward opinion of one single man or of his not pretending outwardly in word what he had not inwardly in thought But perswades no rational man therefore that his opinion was true or his perswasion right or his zeal according to knowledg much less that his martyrdom was Christian or glorious We know there are martyrs of errour as well as of truth and these to be the martyrs of Christ and those the martyrs of the Adversary of Christ We know what death and how willingly the Donatists and Circumcellions Gregor l. 2. Regist. op 36. ad Vniversos Episcopos Hibernia and twenty other sorts of Sectaries in all ages to this present suffered often for their false opinions And we know whose saying it is that Non paena sed causa martyrem facit And we know moreover how pertinently that indeed great and holy Pope St. Gregory the Great applyed this passage of Cyprian with so many other excellent sentences of his own reproving those ancient Bishops of Ireland a 1000 years since for their sufferance of persecution in so bad a cause and upon account only of so bad a cause as their opinion was of the Tria Capitula 7. And lastly that being it is on the contrary certain that Father Garnet approved not so his at any time inward perswasion by such outward testimony of his blood spilt or life lost to confirm it much less his constancy in it and being therefore that all can be concluded from his allegation or his suffering amounts to no more than to a bare outward pretence of his own having followed once such an opinion in such an unhappy and unholy matter of fact and this pretence also taken only or made use of that unconstantly contradictorily too for to excuse himself in part that is to lessen his guilt of that horrid conspiracy nay being in very deed and by Father Garnets own confession that he had other knowledg of that plott then what he had onely in confession and consequently being that he could pretend no more truly to excuse himself then a meer natural secrecy without any kind of relation to a sacramental secrecy Iohn de Serres in Henry the Fourth Pag. 865. Translat Grimstone The objectors will give me leave to mind them of as pious and religious a Father that Millanese Father Honorio of the Cappucchins Institute who farre more fortunately discreetly piously and conscientiously practised according to the quite contrary even home or at least as home upon one side as Father Garnet may be justly said to have done on t'other to our case by discovering to Henry le Grand of France the very individual person that was to assassinat
them from tribute and of the Domestick family of such Princes or their children free also from paying tribute and lastly on our Saviours bidding Peter to pay for them both least people should be scandalized as if sayes Bellarmine our Saviour himself had thereby declared or said that both himself and his family whose Prefect Peter was should be free from all tribute quasi diceret et se et familiam suam cujus Prefectus erat Petrus liberos esse debere where I say now is the strength of this argument to prove that by the positive law of God as much as per quandam similitudinem all Clergiemen of the world are exempt more then others both as to their goods and persons from the supream civil power or even to prove they are by such law exempt more then others as much as from tribute All Christians are of the family and as such Peter is Prefect of them all And certainly Bellarmine himself hath strugled much in his books de Rom. Pont. and more singularly yet in his others against Barelay and Widdrington to prove that Peter was so in his own days and after his days that other succeeding Bishops of Rome are so likewise even over all the goods and lands and bodies too of Christians and not onely over those of Christians but over all those of the Heathen also For so at last Bellarmine found himself constrain'd to say by the arguments of Widdrington and Barclay to which he could find no other answer But however this be or whether by any kind of similitude it may be concluded out of this passage of Matthew that Clergiemen as being in one certaine sense more especially of the Household or Domestick family of Christ either as he was the natural Son of God or as he was a man should be more exempt from paying tribute or taxes then others of his even holy believers and sanctified family who are not in that certain sense or in that special manner that is by such a special function of his family whether I say this follow or no pâ—â— quamdam similitudinem out of that passage of Matthew yet no man of never so little reason can alleadge for Bellarmine That our Saviour's instance there in his Querie to Peter about the Kings of the Earth and his pronouncing and concluding out of Peters answer Ergo liberi sunt fily must inferre that Clerks should therefore be exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of the civil Magistrate or of any supream earthly King For it is well known that earthly Kings do not exempt not even the most special domesticks of their children from their own Royal supream coercive power or from that of their laws in criminal causes albeit they give them exemption from tributs or taxes and many other priviledges And no less known too That they exempt not from that power and in such causes not even their very children themselves Nay nor in civil causes either so but that they may be sued even before the subordinate inferiour Judges in the Kings Courts of Justice And for criminal causes the Cronicles of England and Histories of Spain can shew us Instances These of a Prince of Spain put to death by his Father King Phillip the Second for some intelligence as some do say with the Turk And those of a Prince of England proceeded against even by an Inferiour Judge for some misdemeanour committed or authorized by him and even proceeded so against without any special warrant from the King but that which the Judge had in the laws of the Kingdom All which being so how can it follow out of that our Saviour's illation from the answer of Peter concerning the practice of Earthly Kings in the case of not exacting tribute or taxes from their own children That by the positive law of God in this place of Matthew Clerks are absolutely exempt from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes Or how indeed I say doth that consequence follow as much as per quandam similitudinem And follow yet upon this account that Clerks are in such a special manner of the family of the Prince or even of the Kings Heir apparant If he shall answer by quitting our Saviours illation implied in the word Erge and that of the similitude from the practice of earthly Kings as to the matter of coercion and by insisting only on these words liberi sunt filii as upon a positive declaration made by our Saviour of the exemption of Clergy-men from all Kings of the Earth and in all matters whatsoever and consequently also by appropriating so the word filii here to Clergy-men alone that not only all other Christians because Lay-persons but even our Saviour himself be not thereby understood in the quality of the natural Son of God I say that if any shall answer by such a systeme of suppositions the Reply is clear and convincing enough 1. That they are all either very false or at least very vain because without any proof or colour of proof 2. That such a positive Declaration by these words Ergo liberi sunt filii is contradicted by Bellarmine himself who expresly acknowledges no divine precept properly such of the positive law of God either in this place or any other of holy Scripture for the exemption of Clergymen either from taxes or judicial proceedings of the civil Magistrate And I am sure both he and all other Divines will confess that a positive Declaration made by Christ in holy Scripture is to all Christians a divine precept and properly such of the positive law of God 3. That if these words were such a positive Declaration neither Bellarmine nor others needed their per quandam similitudinem nor any further going about the bush 4. And lastly that if they were such then certainly St. Paul had been much out of the way when he declared the contrary Rom. 13. and all the holy Fathers expounding him there even for a whole thousand years and all the Christian Church consequently until our new Interpreters and Sophisters came in these latter ages to tell us what Christ declared as will appear evidently in one of the following Sections where I treat of that command of St. Paul or of God rather by St. Paul 13 Rom. Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit c. Let the judicious Reader himself be now judge whether the case for what concerns any positive law of God in holy Scripture be not clear enough on my side what ever Bellarmine say or whether he confess that there is no precept properly such of God or of such law in holy Scripture being our Adversaries alledge no other places either out of the old or new Testament but these I have now considered as the only of all which together Bellarmine frames but to no purpose his first argument to prove that Clergymen are even by the positive law of God free or exempt from even the supream civil coercive power of all
it is ordinary with all kind of people to speak so of all things happened to themselves or others sin only excepted God will have it so or God hath ordained so And yet no man will be so foolish as to gather out of such expressions that people mean to say there was a positive law of God or law of his known to us for the doing or being of things so or so Otherwise what a numberless infinity of positive laws of God must we assert which the world never yet heard of and such as never any one of all have been yet in Scripture or Tradition For Symmachus finally that which is alledged out of him or his Roman Synod concerns not the present dispute and at most and at best signifies no more then the sense of that Provincial Council speaking to Symmachus and their sense too delivered only in an ordinary way of speech not in any Canon and even this very speech against only the pretence of the Praetorian Praefect of Odoacer to make a law yet without the consent of the Church-men or of the Bishops and other Priests though with a good intention for the preservation of the Church-lands and Revenues and Goods or to hinder any Sale or Mortage of them by the very Bishops of Rome it self even for what concern'd them or their own peculiar See in that City In this case it was the Fathers of that Council spoke thus after they had caused the Instrument or Law of the said Praetorian Praefect or of Basilius to be read by Hormisda the Deacon Licet secundum prosecutionem venetabilium fratrum nostrorum Laurentii Eulalii Cresconii Maximi vel Stephani nec apud nos incertum habetur hanc ipsam scripturam nullius esse momenti verum tamen etiamsi aliqua posset ratione subsistere modis omnibus in Sindali Conventu provida Beatudinis Vestrae sententia enervari conveniebat in irritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret praesumendi quibuslibet Laicis quamvis religiosis vel pâ—tentibus in quacunque ciuitate quolibet modo aliquid decernere de Ecclesiasticis facultatibus quarum solis sacerdotibus disponendi indiscusse a Deo cura commissa decetur Where it is plain 1. That nothing is said or mean'd of the exemption of the persons of Church-men from the supream temporal power 2. That they neither signifie as much as their Goods or Lands to be exempt from that same power supream but only secundum subjectam materiam to be exempt so far from the subordinat Magistrate that no disposition could be made of the Church-lands or Goods or no provision either for the Church by such inferiour Magistrates how powerful or even religious and well meaning soever without the consent of the Bishops and Priests themselves 3. That much less do the Fathers of this Council signifie their lands or goods not to be subject to any publick taxes or which is it I mean do not signifie that God hath appointed their lands or goods should be exempt from all publick taxes tributes customs c. For the disposing of the Revenues or other goods of the Church to be indistinctly committed by God to Priests and that Priests should be notwithstanding lyable to publick contributions out of such Revenues or Goods for the publick necessities of the common-wealth are things very compatible in reason And here is nothing said by these Fathers to the contrary Besides we know that whatever may be said of that law so published by Basilius the Pretor or whether by the express command of Odoacer no man will deny that both the Pope and other Italian Bishops had reasons sufficient to move them not to regard it much as being made either by an Usurper or an enemy to the Emperour and who yet dared not take on himself the name of Emperour and moreover forasmuch as at that time that very same Usurper or Enemy Odoacer with whose authority it was made or published by Basilius was devested by Theodorick nay dead when the Fathers held that Synod and forasmuch too as in the same law that same Odâ—acer would have usurped also the election of the Pope to himself as Baronius and Spondanus have ad annum Christi 457. But however this be or be not it is evident here is not a sâ—llable for the exemption of Church-men or Clerks as to their persons and in criminal cause and that too by the positive law of God from the supream civil or coercive power And it is no less evident although my present purpose require not my animadaversion hereof That meer Lay-men Kings and Lords and Knights and Burgesses and Squires and Boores and even all masters of Families whatsoever in such contreys as have the laws of property might in a like or unlike controversie 'twixt themselves and the Clergy if the Clergy alone should attempt to make laws for disposing of their estates without their own consent might I say with very much right truth answer the Clergy as the Fathers did the Layety here or thus I mean mutatis mutandis verum tamen etiamsi aliqua c. provida Majestatis vestrae sententia eneruari conveniebat in iâ—ritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret quibuslibet Ecclesiasticis c. aliquid decernere de laicis facultatibus quarum solis laicis disponendi indiscussè a Deâ— cura commissa dâ—cetur And yet none of them would be therefore constrained or necessitated in point of reason to prove or to suppose a positive law of God for their own exemption as much as to their goods from the Clergy The civil or municipal laws or customs of men and which indeed are those only that make meum and tuum in the world in such a case would be ground enough for them to say that God committed the disposing of their own estates to themselves alone and not to the Clergy To wit for as much as by his general or special providence he had such or such civil laws made and for as much as he commands generally in holy Scripture as natural reason also tells us we must observe all kind of humane Ordinances of the supream civil Power and States we live in which imply no sin Therefore Symmachus and his Council are as vainly alledged by Bellarmine for a positive law of God for the exemption of Clergymen c. as any of those other Popes or Councils And therefore too from first to last I conclude against this most eminent Cardinal that indeed there is not any such positive law of God at least in our case that is for the exemption of the persons of Clergymen in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of supream temporal Princes no such positive I say as yet revealed unto us either by holy Scripture or by any Tradition For these arguments which I now have so answered are all he doth or can pretend for such a positive law of God from either albeit I confess he speaks not expresly of Tradition nor also
and of allowing a competent prerogative to celestial favors that is to persons or places which by extrinsecal denomination are divine or which have that Celestial favor to be specially dedicated to the service of God But is there no other difference to be made no other prerogative to be given but an exemption so general from the supream civil power Besides our Cardinal himself confesses that Iustinian spake these words of the material Churches as he made that law for them onely not at all for the persons of Churchmen but as long as they were in those Churches albeit he made several other laws in favour of their persons also whether in or out of the most sacred Churches Of which last sort of laws more presently in the next Section So that any right collection either out of the former priviledg of Constantine or out of these later words of Iustinian signifies nothing at all to prove a custom amongst Christians forsuch exemption as Bellarmine would have amongst them as flowing from nature 2. For his second argument or similitude who sees not that as Divines and Philosophers too confess as the argument which is à simili is the very worst and most unconcluding sort of argument if it run not upon all four as they speak so this here of this great Cardinal is very lame in that respect For the difference is so wide and so great 'twixt both that we know evidently and by daily experience that the body can act nothing at all not as to natural sensation or vegetation but as a meer dead trunk a carkass without the soul nor act any thing at all rationally or freely without the direction of that superiour portion of the soul which is by some called the spirit and we know no less evidently that the lay civil Magistrate both supream and subordinat can act both rationally freely and honestly too without nay and often also against the direction of those we call the meer spiritual Magistrates or of any kind of ecclesiastical persons That the one may be and hath not seldom been without the other that is the former without the latter and yet compleat and perfect as to its own proper functions And the latter may erre and hath often err'd involving it self in politick matters out of its own sphere when the former did not But we see the natural body cannot as much as be without the soul So that for Bellarmine to assume this simile is to argue from a very lame similitude and expect this ordinary answer to the like similitudo non currit quattuor pedibus Besides I must advertise the Reader that he abuses him again by taking it in the abstract of one side Whereas if it did or could signifie any thing he should have taken it in the concrete of both sides that is made the simile 'twixt the soul and body of one side and the lay Magistrate or lay Judges and the spiritual persons of Clerks or Ecclesiastical Superiours on the other and not have assumed on this side the civil power and spiritual power only in the abstract For it is very well known these as such act not at all either of them And moreover that this argument or simile did it prove any thing as we have seen it doth not proves not only the exemption of Clergy-men from all lay-power and in all causes and matters whatsoever nor a co-ordination only in temporal matters but also and in all imaginable even the most worldly matters of any kind a super-ordination or an absolute dominion of Church-men over all the lay-persons even the most supream Monarchs on Earth To which purpose although Bellarmine presses this very same argument elsewhere dei Roman Pontif. l. 5. cap. 6. however against his other main purpose which is to give the Pope alone a power to dethrone Kings and this simile would give this very power to every Diocesan Bishop nay to the inferiour Ghostly Fathers or Parish-priests of every King yet no man I hope will be any more so foolish as to believe him or be perswaded by so lame a simile having both evidence of Reason Scripture and Tradition to the contrary as will appear hereafter in some of the following Sections on this very point we now handle Lastly I must advertise the Reader that he is not to be amused with a greater excellency of the spiritual power in it self or in its own nature or even in the end for which it was given this end being wholy supernatural such as must be that which is to a life of grace in this world and of glory in the next and which the meer lay civil or temporal power as such only hath not nor can pretend The greater excellency of one calling or profession cannot warrant the professors of it to subject to their own commands all or any other persons that profess a calling of less excellency as may be seen by daily experience in all the several professions or trades in the world Nor is it consequent by any discourse of natural reason that because one sort of men are of greater dignity as to their callings they cannot be subjected in many things or matters by the King to the command of others who are otherwise of much inferiour dignity or perhaps of none at all Nay we see daily and by ten thousand practices that Lords Marquesses Dukes must in many things obey and receive commands from very poor mean persons of no kind of titles otherwise but that of their present office and that too of the very meanest offices not seldom And must it be against natural reason that because the King of all Kings the Lord of life and death of all creatures hath out of his mercy and for the eternal ends of his mercy to all people given a certain ministery or even dignity the greatest that can be to some sort of men and this also for the service of other men in a certain calling which belongs to their spirits or souls onely they might not have been or they have not actually been subjected to other men though not so dignified in that special ministery and subjected I mean to such in other matters onely which concern their natural and civil being onely as a civil society of men living in this world We see by a thousand experiences daily that many who are very fit for one sort of command or calling are very unfit for the other And we know that the spiritual function alone to be discharged well requires the whole man And we know also that spiritual men or Clerks must notwithstanding their Clerk-ship remain always men that is involved by a thousand occasions in affairs which belong directly and properly to the temporal government of things belonging to the body alone Must it be against natural reason that God should not have exempted them in such matters from the Governours that are proper for such matters Or must it not be rather according to natural reason that in such
with marrying Theophanes Augusta or the widdow Empress notwithstanding his own former legitimate wife was still alive and no other cause to divorce from her and that besides he had received her or the said Theophanes's Son as a Godfather out of the Sacred Font and with too much liberty given to his army to oppress against all right and reason as well the Layety as the Clergie indulging them whatever they fancied and without any punishment and with robbing the very Churches of their donaries and with laying grievous excessive tributs on both Churchmen and Layemen against the law and with assuming to himself entirely the elections of Bishops and taking to himself also all the spoils of the dead Bishops and finally with endeavouring to have all the Souldiers killed under him in his warr against the Sarracens to be accounted and invoked as martyrs Do not the Greek Historians charge this Nicephorus with all these particulars and not with that law onely And if so as questionless it is so how could Basilius Porphyrogenitus or Bellarmine or we out of either perswade our selves with any certitude it was for a bare law revoking some former priviledges of the Clergie in case I say that law was such that Empire suffered in after days and not rather for some of those other undoubted exorbitancies against undoubted either divine or humane laws or suffered not for that law in it self but for the evil end or evil execution or use of it For a law may be good in it self and yet the intention of the law maker and his use of it very wicked And after all whether it was so or no what proof I beseech you is that bare saving conjecture opinion or judgement of Porphyrogenitus That Bellarmines pretended Exemption of Clerks in all both civil and criminal causes whatsoever from the supream civil power hath been established either by the law divine natural or by the law of Nations That saying of Basilius Porphyrogenitus doth not touch this matter at all So that from first to last I dare conclude That for such Exemption and by such law of Nature and Nations Bellarmine hath not brought as much as any one argument which may seem to have the least colour of even probability itself nay nor even of that very worst sort of probability or that which our late Schoolmen call extrinsick onely Which himself did know so well that after having laboured so much to impose on us such exemption by such laws in a whole chapter yet in the chapter immediately following which is his 30. chap. l. 1. de Cleric he dares not give this doctrine of his own any better title or any better assurance not even for the being of it as much as by the divine positive law but onely the title or assurance of a bare probability of consequence And which further yet he knew so well that as he never once thought of the least Exemption of Clerks either as to their goods or as to their persons in politick or temporal affairs criminal or civil causes from any civil power whatsoever supream or not supream not even from the most inferiour civil Courts or Judges or of any kind of Exemption at all established for them in temporal matters by any law divine either natural or positive that I say as he never thought of any such Exemption by such laws in all or any the former editions of his Controversies or not until the very last edition of them by his own commands so it must be confessed he was in this point a very great changling to wit after he had seen all his other arguments out of human law or out of the civil and Canon law for his exorbitant exemption answered home by Doctor William Barclay in his accurate though little book de Potestate Papae particularly in the 15. and 32. chapters of the said book For in those former editions himself taught in express tearms against the Canonists Exemptionem Clericorum in rebus politicis tam quoad personas quam quoad bona jure humano introductam esse non divino That the exemption of Clerks in politick matters as well concerning their persons as their goods was introduced by humane law not by divine Nay also as Barclay well notes de Potestate Papae c. 15. made it his business to wit in those former editions besides which the foresaid Barclay the Father knew of none to prove the truth hereof by three several sorts of arguments 1. by that of Paul Rom. 13. omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit according to St. Chrysostome's exposition and understanding of it to be a command as well for Clerks as for Laycks 2. by other testimonies of holy Fathers in the point 3. because sayes he nullum prâ—ferri potest Dei verbum quo ista exemptio confirmetur there cannot be any word of God alleadg'd for this exemption From which doctrine he was so farre in his last edition that seeing he was left no other argument undissolved no other way unblocked for maintayning or carrying on his Exemption or that of Clerks in his exorbitant latitude of it and yet would not yield to victorious Truth he would needs in his old age trouble himself and others with a new invention or pretension rather nay rather too a meer aequivocation in effect of not onely a positive law divine per quandam similitudinem but even of a natural law divine and further confound the law of nature with that of nations and yet in the end of all pretend no more cap. 30. in solutione primae objectionis but a meer probability of consequence for his positive law of God nor for his natural but such a third degree c 29. as by his own explication of the third degree is no kind of degree at all of any true law of nature Whether this be not to abuse both Clerks and Layicks Princes and Subjects the State and Church being the controversy is of so high concern to all for the peace of the world I leave the indifferent Reader to judge For I have done my part and proceed now to shew by the solution of his other arguments LXVIII That for what concerns human laws too either civil or Ecclesiastical the case is also clear enough of my side both against him and our late Doctors of Lovaine That by neither law Clerks have ever yet been exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power nay nor in any kind of meer temporal cause whatsoever criminal or civil from that supream civil power were it necessary for my present purpose to add this as it is not Though I confess they have been exempted and very justly too by several both imperial and other municipal and Royal laws from inferiour civil Judicatories in many civil causes and in some Countries by the peculiar municipal laws of such Countries exempted also in some criminal causes in prima instantia from the inferiour subordinate civil Judges and other Judges that
said not they decreed so because Laicks were not lawful judges in the controversies of Clerks but quod ipse se indignum fraterno consortio iudicat cui cum possit per Ecclesiastices judicari de universa Ecclesia male senâ—iendâ— de judicio seculari poscit auxilium because he renders himself unworthy of fraternal society who whereas he might be judged or have his case determined by Ecclesiastical judges men of his own fraternity entertains an ill opinion of the whole Church when he desires help of the secular judges I say therefore it is clear enough these Fathers believed that the secular Magistrate or judge might without sin and for what concern'd himself or his own person lawfully determine of the causes of Clerks whereas condemning Clerks who leaving their Bishop go to the lay Court or Bench they do not therefore or at all for any other reason condemn the secular judg himself admitting such Clerks nor condemn the Clerks themselves upon account of having recourse ad judices nonsuos to judges that were not their judges but on this other account onely that whereas they might be judg'd by Ecclesiasticks yet would not they did thereby render themselves unworthy of Ecclesiastical Society For it was by the laws in the power of a Clerk in controversy with an other Clerk to sue him before the Bishop or before the judg which was it these words of this canon did mean Cui enim ad eligendos judices undique patet authoritas c. And Clerks might be convented before the judg Ecclesiastical but yet so as a Laick Plaintiff was not bound to make use of the Court Ecclesiastical Which is it we read enacted also by Martianus the most Catholick Emperour some few years after the date of this Carthage Council in his law Cum Clericis 25. Cod. de Episcop Cleric where it is said that if the Actor will not convent a Clerk before the Bishop he may convent him before the Prefect of the Praetorium And yet the Fathers of Carthage had reasons enough to forbid Clerks to choose spontaneously this way of secular Iudicatories videlicet that they should not be thereby made rocks of scandal to seculars who as the manner is would from the pleas and contestations of Clerks take occasion often to fall into vile detraction of the very order of Clerks and that such as should be exemplars of charity to others should not fall into such contentions as they would not suffer to be taken up or composed amicably or peaceably and without noyse by their own Ecclesiastical brothers or superiours Which were the very genuine reasons moved the Apostle when he either commanded or advised the Corinthians 1. Cor. 6. to forbear sueing one an other in the publick Iudicatories of Heathens In imitation of which these Carthaginian Fathers themselves declare they made this canon Cum say they privatorum Christianorum causas Apostolus ad Ecclesiam deferri atque ibi determinari praecipiat But it is very certain the Apostle did not forbid the Corinthians to appear in publick Courts and before the lay Heathen Imperial Judges when summond by these judges or called before them by any other nor did either command or advise the Christians not to obey the sentence of these very Heathen judges in any temporal cause whatsoever civil or criminal Which not onely St. Thomas and Lyranus do expresly teach in their Commentaries on that passage to the Corinthians but our most eminent Cardinal himself is forced also expresly to confess in his foresaid Book against Barclay cap. 20. Therefore neither do the Fathers of Carthage forbid Clerks when so called upon to appear before and stand to the sentence of the lay Judges albeit they forbid Clerks to go of themselves freely or spontaneously to secular Iudicatories or to sue one an other in such Courts But let us examine yet more particularly what the Cardinal objects He sayes first that these Fathers openly condemn the recourse of Clerks to the judgments of secular Magistrats They do indeed but then onely when a Clerk may without any such recourse have his cause decided by an Ecclesiastijudg And in such case they condemn the contumacy of such a Clerk in relinquishing and contemning also thereby all his own brethren collegues and Fathers but in no case condemn the lay Plaintiff or Actor that draws a Clerk to the forum seculare or lay Court nor in any case at all condemn the lay Magistrat or Judg that pronounceth judgment either against or for a Clerk As for the sin or fault which Bellarmine desires to know what it should be committed by a Clerk who relinquishing his own Bishop goes freely of himself to the secular President for Justice if the President be a lawful judg of the Clerk or of his cause I have already said it was the sin of contempt of the Church and of scandal to others c. That I may pass over in silence the sin of disobedience and contumacy against this very Council whom other Clerks should observe as their Fathers and consequently their canons too as the most religious commands of their Fathers In the second place he sayes The Fathers rescind the sentence of a secular judg pronounced against or in the cause of a Clerk Nothing less But onely punish Clerks transgressing their canon and punish them onely too in wayes or by means or penalties sutable to their own jurisdiction For it is proper to the jurisdiction Ecclesiastical to judg whether a Clerk be worthy of that place he holdeth in the Church This canon therefore punisheth the disobedient Clerks but rescinds no sentence of the secular Judg. For it sayes onely thus Si pro ipso fuerit prolata sententia locum suum amittat hoc in criminali judicio If he have the sentence for him let him loose his place and this in a criminal judgment Behold how they call not in question the sentence of the Iudge nor command that it should be retracted or revised or that it should be discussed again in the Court Ecclesiastical whether the crime was justly charged or no after it was determined by the secular Court But only depose the Clerk that in contempt of this Canon made choice to be tryed and purged rather in the secular Court then in the Ecclesiastical In civili vero perdat quod evicerit si locum suum obtinere voluerit But if it be a civil action let him loose what he hath wâ—n by such a sentence if he will hold his place Is this to rescind the sentence of the secular Iudge Certainly even the most privat lay person may to his gifts or legacies add the like conditions as for example that the Legatee or Heir shall not sue before a Iudg for the legacy or inheritance Can such a private man therefore be said to have rescinded the sentence of the judg¿ If to private men it be lawful to bereave such as they think fit of the benefit of their own free
there was not as much as a coercive power in the politick or civil Head for correcting punishing or any way restraining the Ringleaders of such fatal dances and where the Clergie themselves both Priests and Bishops and Popes too themselves were these Ringleaders But suppose the Popes had never had a hand in such matters yet if Princes could not at home with themselves and without application to the Pope consequently without too too long delayes while the difference twixt them and their own Clergie were debated at Rome if I say in the mean time the Princes these politick Heads of the civil common-wealth might not in conscience make use of all their strength to coerce the Factious and Rebellious Clergiemen and if such Clergiemen lay under no kind of tye to submit to their coercion how could it be possible in nature that either the one were enabled with a sufficient power of politick Heads or the other had incumbent on them sufficient tyes of Citizens parts or members to attain the ends of their politick common-wealth which they are supposed to compose joyntly Before such debate were ended nay before the beginning of it could be or as much as the news of any such matter could arrive at Rome the evil would often be incurable if it could not be cured at home by the coercive power of the Politick Head and material sword Avant therefore such unsatisfactory answers of Bellarmine answers which himself must have very well known to have been voyd even of all truth and conscience and yet would give them because he could give no better in so bad a cause and that his worldly interest did not suffer him to yield to the victorious cause But although I have so now sufficiently illustrated and abundantly proved my last Minor proposition or that of my last proof and thereby evidently concluded my former whole second argument yet for the satisfaction of the more curious Reader and as an appendix of that either my last proof or of that my former second argument whereof it was the proof I will give here in Bellarmine's own words what he answered to the simile of the natural Head and members of the natural body and to some other particulars objected to him on this occasion by William Barclay You say sayes Bellarmine to Barclay that all the members must be so under the Head and all the Citizens so under the Rector of the Citty that the Head and Rector may correct and punish all the members and Citizens and that Clerks are members of the body politick and as to temporal thing Cittizens of the earthly Citty I answer In the natural body its necessary that all the members be under and obedient to the Head because in such a body exemption hath no place But in the body politick wherein exemption hath place it is unnecessary that all the members that is all the Cittizens be properly under or subject to the power of the Head that is to that of the Rector And therefore it is unnecessary that the Prince may coerce or punish all the Cittizens as it is unnecessary that all the Cittizens pay tribute or that all bear arms or turn souldiers to defend the Republick but it may suffice that by counsel or exhortations or prayers to God they help the temporal common-wealth But the Republick will be troubled or disturbed if Clerks may without fear of coercion or punishment transgress the laws of Princes I answer that they shall not without punishment transgress for they shall be coerced by their own immediate Bishop or by the chief or Great Bishop But Charles the V. called Hermannus the Archbishop of Colen to his own secular tribunal 'T is true but he called him as a Prince of the Empire for the Pope Paul III. called before himself too the same Hermannus as an Archbishop witness the same Surius in the same place which very Surius a little after writes an 1547. that by the Pope's and Emperours command Hermannus was deposed but that the sentence of deposition was given by the Pope But how diligent an observer of Ecclesiastical Immunity Charles the V. was may be hence understood that in the year 1520. a most horrid conspiracy against the said Charles being detected wherein there were some Ecclesiasticks Charles did punish the Laicks but remitted the Clerks to their own Ecclesiastical Situations to be punished Witness Malin â—4 c. 21 de Hispan priâ—og Barclay added that there are some grievous transgressions or crimes which in France go under the name of privilegâ—â—ta priâ—iledged as reserved to the Princes But this argument may be retorted against the Author For such are not called priviledged because the Prince had reserved them to himself or to his own cognizance when he gave the priviledg of exemption to Clerks as Barclay sayes they are but are called such or crimina privilegiâ—â—a because that by the priviledg of the See Apostolick it is indulged to the Kings of the French that they may take cognizance of such crimes when committed by Clerks which Clarusq 36. Parag. finn vâ— sicul ultariâ—◠〈◊〉 and Auâ—â—â—rius in Clementina Vit Clericorum de offic Jâ—d Ord â—iâ—uâ—â— do explicate Bellarmine therefore sayes here the difference in the similed or which to our purpose must be in the similitude twixt the natural body and politick body is that in the politick exemption hath no place and that hence it is unnecessary that all the members politick that is all the Citizens be properly under or subject to the power of the politick Head that is of the Rector and therefore also that it is unnecessary that Princes may coerca or punish all the Cittizens as it as unnecessary that all the Cittizens pay tribute c. But who sees not that there is no exemption can be in the body politick oâ— of the members of it which may not by similitude be applyed to and found in the natural body For the respective members of natural Bâ—dyes may be qualified with those exemptions which are not against the nature or essence of such members in the same body and under the same Head For example the hand may have this exemption bestowed on it that it be not bound to labour daily and the feet this exemption that by a man's lyeing down a bed they may rest from going And yet will it not follow that either the natural hands or natural feet are not under the power of the natural Head Even so in the body politick may it very well be and is it de fact that some part of the Cittizens be exempted from tributs and from Judicial courts or those of subordinate and ordinary Judges and yet be still under the power of the politick Head to witt of the King or Prince or other supream Governour But neither in the politick body nor in the natural body can the members be so exempted that they be no more under the Head because this would be against the definition and essence of members and
they were shut up they were beaten they were racked burn'd killed tormented and yet they were multiplied They knew no other fight for safety but to contemne safety for safety Besides these let all other Fathers nay all Historians both sacred and profane both Christian and Heathen of those dayes that are extant speak their knowledg of this matter Let the raignes of Constantius Valens and even Julian the Apostat speak theirs And verily Mr. Prinn or Mr. Goodwin either or any else how industrious soever to except against the Rhetorick of Tertullian will find themselves mâ—te as to any colour against the number of Christians and ability according humane wayes of strength to carry on a design would their conscience permit them to entertain any against these persecuting Emperors Nor can it be denied that in their dayes the Catholicks and Christian Subjects had the greatest provocations and best opportunities could be thought on to carry it The orient and the occident the Nobility army Prelates and people were all Catholicks if you except a very few which in comparison made no number â—hen first Constance would have and really endeavoured with all his Authority to establish Arrianisme They were so for the matter when Valens thundered And upon Iulians entry on the Empire the world at least whereever the Roman Eagles spread their wings was altogether Christian unless peradventure you bring in competition a small inconsiderable number of Iewes and Pagans who had no command no force Yet we know they all suffered patiently with armes across all that which the fury of those heretick Emperours or the malicious cunning of even that Idolatrous Apostat could inflict on them and suffered the foundations to be laid again of Salomons temple to restore Judaisme and all the rites of Numa and sacrifices of heathen Gods to be reestablished rather then they would draw a sword against the Soveraign power Their Bishops and Clergie were more divinely principled then to infuse other maximes or lead them to any other practice then that which they read in the Apostles and Evangelists and which all the Christians ever since their dayes recommended to them by their lives and by their deaths Now to my before said purpose in this present Section or to that of my onely intended particular Instances here of some Bishops Patriarchs Popes and Princes after the first 300. years those Ages of the ten general persecutions wherein questionless all Christians almost every where had occasion and provocation enough to practice whatever they thought was lawfull for them to practise Of which particular Instances The first Instance shall be that of S. Athanasius one of the Fathers of the very first general Council was ever held soon after Patriarch of Alexandria I must confess I have already given this in my former Section but in latin onely and not so directly to my purpose there as to that of this present Section And therefore I repeat it here in English out of his Apology to the Emperour Constantius I have by no means resisted the commands of your Piety Farr be that from me For I am not hee that will resist as much as the City Questor and not onely not the Emperour Truly I prepared my self for going away For of this matter too Montanus is conscious that upon receiving your letters if he had vouchafed to write I had presently departed and by my promptitude in obeying had forerun your commandement For I am not so mad as to have thought such commands were to be contradicted Out of the Decree of your Majesty I studied to know your will But neither did I then receive what by right I postulated and yet now at this present I am not accused of any other cause For I have not resisted the Decree of your Piety Nor will I endeavour to enter Alexandria as long as it shall not by your Piety be lawfull for me And yet the matter in agitation here was the unjust exile of this great and holy Catholick Patriarch Athanasius and his just restitution to his own See as I noted before And yet he acknowledges that himself had been mad if he had not obeyed an Arrian that is a manifest Heretick Emperour by a bare decree or letter onely exiling him from his own proper Episcopal See And declares moreover plainly that he would never as much as endeavour to return to his said See without the same Emperours command or licence to return So conformable was his practise to the doctrine of all the holy Fathers as the doctrine of the Apostle in that precept Rom. 13. omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit The second Instance is of Eusebius Bishop of Samâ—sata that most holy and most laudable man of whom Theodoret Hyst l. 4. c. 15. tells and writes in these very words Cum edictum Imperatorium quo jubebatur in Thraciam proficisci c. When sayes Theodoret the Imperial Edict whereby he was commanded to go to banishment in Thracia was brought to him I think it very necessary to be known to such as are yet ignorant how he carried himself For the Messenger that brought this Edict arrived at twylight Whom Eusebius commanded to be silent and to conceal the cause of his coming For sayes he if the people educated in studies of piety shall understand of it they will drawn you in the river and I must answer for your death Having said this and according to custome done his office in the ministery of evening prayers then when sleep scizeth all men this good old man having trusted his secret to onely one servant departs the City His servant follows bringing onely a pillow and a book with him But when he came to the banks of the river for Euphrates runs by the walls of the City having entered a ship he bids the watermen steer directly to Zeugma where he arrives by morning Samosata is all in plaints and tears For his departure being discovered by means of that Servant's giving some necessary directions to some frends and who went in his company and what books were carried for him all the Cittizens universally lamented themselves as now being Orphanlike bereaved of their Father and Pastour Therefore in multitudes and vessels pursueing and searching for him up and down the river they overtake him at last And when first they mett and saw their desired Pastor nothing was to be heard or seen but plaints and sighs and a huge power of tears whereby to perswade him to remain with them and not suffer his sheep to be delivered to Wolves But when they could not perswade and had heard him reciting the precept of the Apostle wherein we are perspicuâ—â—sly enjoyned to obey the Magistrats and Powers some offer him Gold sâ—me Silver others Garments and others Servants being he was departing to a strange country and so farre distant from theirs But he having received some few things from such as were more intimately familiar with him and after he had by doctrine and by
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
restored them back Severus hystor l. 2. in fine Nor doth Baronius himself tom 4. an 381. n. 110. reprehend him in this matter or at all upon account of usurping on Ecclesiastical persons rights or judgments but onely upon account of having favoured hereticks to wit forasmuch as he restored those three Bishops whom himself had before so lately banish'd Ex quo quidem facinore sayes Baronius sibi necem comparavit But this is a most vain judgment of Baronius For the said Instantius and Priscillianus soon after appealing to Maximus the tyrant Emperour Vsurper and murderer of Gratianus were by him as being or at least pretending to be an earnest Catholick called to his own presence to be judged again by his Imperial authority the Catholick Bishops who accused them desiring this of him most earnestly and were at last condemned by him the one to have his head cut off and the other to be carried to a place of perpetual banishment Several other Bishops also the very same great Catholick Hypocritical Zelot Maximus punish'd in the self same manner some by death and some by banishment Prosper in Chron. Severus l. 2. observing still the Catholick Praelats with much respect and above all St. Ambrose himself notwithstanding he saw very well that Ambrose could not be drawn to approve of his treacherous usurpation but stood still firm to young Valentinian the lawfull Emperour though an Arrian profess'd and consequently an Haeretick Emperour Against whom on that specious pretext of heresy Maximus rebelled and usurped the Empire as being himself a Catholick and pretending onely or at least chiefly to maintain Catholick religion against Arrianisme which infected the young Emperour Valentinian and his mother And yet Baronius might know that this very Maximus who so put even those very heretick or Schismatick Bishops to exile and death whom Gratian restored a little before and was himself therefore and by Gods special ordinance or just permission most cruelly murthered by Maximus if we may believe Baronius for what concern'd the cause of Gods permission of the untimely death of Gratian I say Baronius might know that this very Maximus saw suddenly after as violent and fatal an end of his own Empire and life together by the victorious arms of Theodosius Now to observe that heer which is more to our purpose I confess that Severus reproves the inconstancy of those Catholick Bishops who charg'd Priscillian in that they sufferd him to provoke that is to appeal to the Emperour or that they sufferd the causes of the Church to be judged or determined by a Secular Iudg. But to me it seems plainly that the cause of Priscillian and of the rest was not purely Ecclesiastical For that Priscillian himself was charg'd also with meer lay crimes and that having confess'd his own obscenities he was condemned the same Severus tells And that of such crimes nay indeed of all crimes whatsoever so they were found to be real crimes much more when they disturbed the publick peace or endanger'd it the more sublime the meer Secular powers were the Judges and avengers by strict coercion and corporal punishment or by the material sword and pure force S. Paul teacheth and the perpetual custome in all Christian Kingdoms and States confirmeth Arcadius an Emperour also very orthodox received the accusations against John Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople and thereupon having first ordered a judicial procedure against this great and holy Bishop at last condemned and sent him with a guard of Souldiers farr off to exile Socrates l. 6. c. 16. Pallaâ— in Dialâ—g And certainly Pope Innocent the first of that name who then govern'd the See of Rome where he inveighs bitterly against Arcadius and against Eudoxia his Empress as against most grievous persecuters of so great and so holy a man doth not at all object that Arcadius being a meer lay man usurped a judiciary power in Ecclesiastical matters or so against his own proper Bishop nor that he proceeded so against him out of or by a tyrannical power and not by any legal authority over him in the case but onely reprehends Arcadius in that he had not proceeded justly against Chrisostome or in that he had not made right use of the power which he had in the case and in a word in that he expelled Chrisostome from his Episcopal throne before his cause had been legally and throughly sifted or judged as it ought and consequently without observing the due formalities or even substantial or essential procedure in such case required by the law Ejecisti sayes he ê throno suo rerum judicata magnum totius orbis Doctorem Nicephor l. 13. c. 34. Nor doth Chrisostome himself any where complaine of the Emperour as having usurped a power of judging condemning or banishing him And yet we know he writt to several especially to Pope Innocent many letters fraught with complaints of the Emperours unjust judgment and proceedings against him acknowledging Arcadius or at least supposing him still a legal Judg though unjust as to the sentence in the case Theodosius the younger Emperour known likewise to have been still a most zealous and pious Catholick Prince clap'd in prison Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria Praesident of the General Council of Ephesus and together with him Memnon an other Catholick Bishop albeit this good Prince was in the merit of the cause abused by the false informations of John Patriarch of Antioch and of those other Bishops of his faction who met in a private Council amongst themselves at Ephesus too and separated or absented themselves from the rest or from the publick session house where the said Praesident and generality sate And though after by the great Council of Ephesus to wit when all the Bishops met there the second time the cause of Cyril having been examined he was and all of his way declared innocent and John and his complices condemn'd by their Ecclesiastical sentence yet or notwithstanding all this could not the said great Catholick prisoners Cyril Memnon c be set at liberty out of prison not even I say by the authority of this very great and true Oecumenical Council All this great Council did and all they could do as to this of the liberty of these prisoners was to write and petition to the Emperour by their Legats sent of purpose and in this behalf to his Majesty and petition him by this very tenour and forme of words Nunc verò his scriptis per hos Legatos â—ientissimos Episcopos vestra pia genua pretensia manibus attingimus ut quae â—i lenter acta sunt cum sanctissimis pientissimis Episcopis Cyrillo Memnone nullumque canonibus robur habentia prorsus irrita sint c. Relat. Syn. Ephes. apud Cyril in Apologetico And then soon after conclude thus Oramus igitur Vestram Majestatem soluite nos illos a vinculis vinctis enim fratribus ac Praesidibus sancte nostrae synodi etiam nos quodammodo
this definition of Iohn the XXII against this last article of Marsilius and Jandunus doth not gainsay or contradict at all my main purpose or Thesis of a coercive power supream in Christian Princes over all Clerks and in all their criminal causes whatsoever For these two positions have no contradiction 1. There is a coactive power humane and corporal and civil too if you please in the Christian Church as a pure Christian Church 2. This coactive power humane corporal and civil too or not civil as you please is not altogether independent in it self but is subordinat to the higher humane and corporal powers of supream temporal Princes That they are not contradictory or inconsistent we see by the example of both civil and Ecclesiastical tribunals For the inferiour tribunals notwithstanding they have a true proper innate coactive power civil or spiritual respectively are subordinat to the superiour And so I have done at last with this long discourse occasion'd by the fourth objection or that of the conincidency of my doctrine with the condemn'd doctrine of Marsilius and Jandunus Which by a strict examen of all their five Articles and comparison of all and of each of them all to my own doctrine all along and to that which is the doctrine of the Catholick Church I have proved to be very false as I declared also that I hold no part of even their very true uncondemn'd doctrine as it was their doctrine but as it was and is the doctrine of the Catholick Church Which Catholick doctrine or doctrine of mine because it is that of the Catholick Church I am sure without any peradventure I have sufficiently nay abundantly demonstrated by reason Scripture and Tradition Therefore now to The fift and last of all these objections which I call'd remaining for the reason before given that objection I mean built upon the contrary judgment or opinion as t is pretended of St. Thomas of Canterbury and upon his Martyrdom or death suffered therefore and of his canonization also therefore and consequent veneration and invocation of him throughout and by the universal Church as of a most glorious martyrized Saint therefore This objection I confess is very specious at first as it makes the very greatest noyse and the very last essay of a dying cause But it is onely amongst the unlearned inconsiderat and vulgar sort of Divine or Canonists or both it appears to and works so T is onely amongst those who know no more of the true history of this holy mans contests and sufferings or of the particulars of the difference twixt him and his King or of the precise cause of his suffering either death at last or exile at first for a long time or many years before his death but what they read in their Breviary which yet is not enough to ground any rational objection against me though peradventure enough to solve any T is onely amongst those who do not consider duely nor indeed have the knowledg or at least have not the judgment discretion or reflection to consider duely what it amounts to in point of Christian Faith as to others or to the perswasion of others against me or my doctrine hetherto that any one Bishop how otherwise holy soever in his own life should have especially in these days of King Henry the second of England and of Pope Alexander the third of Rome suffer'd even death it self for the defence of true Ecclesiastical Immunities in general or of this or that Immunity in particular or for having opposed some particular laws either just or unjust I care not which made by a secular Prince against some certain Ecclesiastical Immunitie and whether made against those which are or were certainly true Immunities or those were onely pretended I care not also which T is onely amongst those who do not besides consider duely that not even the greatest Saints and greatest Martyrs have been always universally freed not even at their death for any thing we know from some prepossession of some one or other ilgrounded even Theological opinion or of moe perhaps and that such weakness of their understanding Faculty in such matters did not at all prejudice their Sanctity or Martyrdom because the disposition of their Souls or of that Faculty of their Souls which is called the Will was evermore perfectly obedient humble had the truth of such very matters been sufficiently represented to them because they had other sufficient manifold causes and Instances of their true Sanctity and true Martyrdom according to that knowledg which is saving though I do not averr any such prepossession here nor am forced by the objection to averr any such prepossession of St. Thomas of Canterbury in any thing which is material T is onely among such inconsiderat Divines I say that the objection grounded on his opposition to Henry the Secon'd laws concerning Clergiemen and on his exile death miracles canonization invocation appears so strong against the doctrine of a supream inherent power in secular Princes who are supream themselves to coerce by temporal punishments all criminal Clerks whosoever living within their dominions Whether the Divines of Lovain who censured our Remonstrance as you have that Censure of theirs page 120. of this first Part be to be ranked amongst such inconsiderat Divines I leave to the Reader 's own better consideration when reflecting once more both on it and all the four grounds of it he observes moreover particularly the day of the date of it so signally express'd by them in these tearms Ita post maturam deliberationem aliquoties iteratam censuimus ac decidimus Lovanii in plenu Facultatis Congregatione sub juramento indicta ac servata die â—9 Decembris gloriosi Pontificis Thomae Cantuariensis Angliae quondam Primatis mortyrio consecratae Anno Dominae Incarnationis 1662. And whether they did of purpose fix on this day of S. Thomas of Canterbury as most proper for such a censure I know not certainly but suppose undoubtedly it was not without special design they mention'd him and his primacy glory martyrdom and how that 29. day of December of their censure was consecrated to his martyrdom as I profess also ingenuously it was the reading of this so formal signal date of theirs made me ever since now and then reflect on the specious argument which peradventure some weak Divines might alleadg for their fourth ground Though to confess all the truth I never met any that fram'd it methodically or put it into any due or undue form of argument for them or of objection against me but onely in general objected that S. Thomas of Canterbury suffered for maintayning the liberties of the Church and of Clergiemen against Henry the second Which is the reason and that I may leave nothing which may seem to any to be material unsaid or unobjected cleerly and fully by my self against my self I put all which my adversaries would be at in this concern of St. Thomas of
are so many strong confirmations of that which is and which I gave already as in effect my first Answer in general to the fourth the grand and last of all the remaining objections as it is made in general For if I be not very much deceived they strongly confirm not onely the rational probability but the moral certainty of what I have answered so that is that Thomas of Canterbury was not of a contrary judgment or opinion to my doctrine concerning the exemption of Clergiemen from inferiour lay tribunals and their subjection to the supream civil coercive power notwithstanding any true or pretended exemption but that he held as I do that all true Ecclesiastical exemption of either Churchmen or Churches and of the lands or goods of the Church is meerly and onely proceeding from the civil power of the municipal laws of the land not from any other law divine or human and held that by no such even municipal law Churchmen either have been or might be universally in criminal causes exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the supream Magistrat while otherwise they acknowledg themselves or indeed remained subjects And yet for exemplifying this I do not insist on that out of Parker concerning the Asyla because though he sayes 't was made a law yet I do not find it clear in him it was so by authority of Parliament but of a Synod in pursuance of the Popes Bull though for any thing I know it might have been so also by Parliament or otherwise by custom without any relation either to that Synod or that Bull. My Second answer to this grand fourth last objection is more particular cause it is to it as it is framed into a Syllogisme against me and is to each of the particular premisses a part Therefore to the Major which in effect is in these tearms whatever doctrine condemns of opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry the Second c is false I answer that for my own part and for any thing may be deduced thence I admit it or this Major and admit it simply and absolutely without any distinction and even admit it so not onely as to the immediat cause for which he suffered but as to the intermediat or grand and long quarrel concerning the 16. customs and also as to the very original or that other complex of those antecedent five differences and as to a sixt original too if you please to add a fixt whereof hereafter and which might have been the very first spring or occasion of all that followed if we believe Parker For I confess it is my own judgment whatever judgment some contemporary Catholick Authors though otherwise both true Historians and good Ecclesiastical regular Monastical persons were of to the contrary on the whole matter and for what I can judg of matter of fact in relation to those dayes of St. Thomas and to the laws were as yet then legally unrepealed in England and to that King Henry the Second I confess I say that takeing all these relations together it is my own judgment plainly that Thomas of Canterbury had justice of his side in all these several following instances 1. In changing the pomp and vanity and pleasures and delicacies of his former life while he was high Chancellour of England and how splendidly pleasantly and delicatly he lived before in that office and in his other high employments of warr and peace and embassies abroad may be seen in Parker though Parker tax him not even for that time with any injustice sinfulness or viciousness but with a courtly and wordly pleasant and pompous life to the height and to humour the King and Court and in changing all I say into a life devoted wholly to God above all humane esteem and yet also unto the austerities of a most rigid Monk and Hermit as to his own body Which if Parker guess aright was the first cause or rise of the Kings alienation ever after from him before any other difference happen'd Quod he means the Archiepiscopal Pallium simul atque Thomas accepisset sayes Parker in the life of Thomas of Canterbury tam dissimili atque immutato genere vitae a priori illa curiali fuit ut Monachalem superstitionem so Parker cals it sub vestitu Clericalitexerit Nam ut scribit Trivetus and he quotes also in his Margin Roff. Hystor Arch. Nich. Trivetus Will Canter all of them ancient Catholick Historians post susceptum Pastoris officium supra humanam aestimationem factus est Deo devotus Consecratus enim cilicium clam induit femoralibus usus est usque ad poplites alicinis sub vestis Clericalis honestate habitum colens monachalem Et Wil. Cant. Paucis consciis sub lorica fidei militabat gaudens quia in triplici veste triplicem personam gereret exteriori clericum exhiberet interiori monachum occultaret intima Eremitae molestias sustineret Ex quo quidem existimare facile est quamvis Monachorum sibi studia hac dissimulatione this of dissimulation is Parkers own addition and not what he read in his Authors adjunxerit quantum tamen Regis Praesulum atque Procerum animos abalienaverit si quis ea quae de communi omnium voto de Monachis ab Episcopali dignitate deinceps repellendis in Rodolphi vita antea scripsimus animadverterit Atque haec prima esse poterat offensionis dissensionis Regiae causa quod cum antea politius urbaniusque vixisset jam odiosam illam Monachalem institutionem susceperit sive sponte sua sive quod illam obsoletam Papalis excommunicationis sententiam in Elphegi vita antea descriptum timuerit 2. In discharging himself of the Chancellours place especially being that he had no command from the King to the contrary 3. In recovering to his Church of Canterbury and by due course of law those lands which some of his Predecessors had against law alienated to lay persons and secular uses 4. In using his best endeavours that the fruits or temporal revenews of vacant Churches should not be swallowed by the Kings Exchequer 5. In declaring his judgment frankly and compassionatly for the ease of the people according to law in that case wherein the Kings Officers against law extorted from them Hyde money or accridg money and extorted it as a duty whereas it was or should be but a free benevolence at the pleasure of the people and this too but in certain cases whereof none was then 6. In not delivering the two criminal Clerks to secular justice 7. In not swearing first at the Kings demand to receive and observe the 16. customes and when he had through too much importunity and fearfull apprehensions of others and at the entreaty and perswasion and tears also of the Bishops of Salisbury and Norwich and of the Earls of Lester and Cornwal and of those two Templars Richardus de Hastings and Tâ—stes de St. Homero all
the guilt of Sacriledge to refix their signatures which can be no less even formally than to say That the Remonstrance in it self is sacrilegious But that virtually and consequentially they judge it also to be either Heretical or Schismatical no other proof is requisite besides that where they say That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of the Catholick Religion For whoever sayes so of any form must virtually and consequentially say the same form is either Heretical or Schismatical or both because all judicious learned persons know very well That no things are repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion but such things as imply Heresie or Schism or both Secondly You are to consider That in their first and long original unpublish'd Censure the Louain Divines gave these four chief grounds which I have hitherto impugned in well nigh a Hundred sheets and gave them I say for their own grounds of alledging those two pretended Causes or Reasons and of their consequent Censure so as above of our Remonstrance as unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. And consequently you are to consider That being those four chief grounds of theirs are so clearly and utterly and universally ruined by me hitherto their said two pretended Causes or Reasons which had no subsistence but in those grounds must also be no less universally clearly and utterly ruined and by further consequence so likewise no less universally clearly and utterly must their said Censure be being this depends wholly on those two Reasons or Causes and these on the four grounds Thirdly You are to consider yet more particularly the grand Temerity against Prudence Falsity against Truth Injury against Justice and Scandal against Charity of this Censure by reflecting first on those Reasons or Causes given in and for it and secondly on the sense of each of those words adjectives or epithets of it and by comparing both these epithets and those causes to the several parts clauses or propositions of the Remonstrance it self analyzed into propositions or even to the whole Remonstrance as comprising all together without any such Analysts understanding now by the Remonstrance that part of it which only is in dispute the Act of Recognition with the Declarations Renunciations c. therein contained and the Petitionary address thereunto annexed To which purpose I desire the judicious learned Reader to look back to the 7 8 and 9th page of this First Part and read there once more attentively that our Remonstrance from first to last and then analyse or resolve it I mean resolve those Recognitions Declarations Renunciations Promises c. and Petitionary addresses all therein contained and analyse or resolve all into so many particular distinct propositions as they are fit or may be resolved into and after this to apply those two Reasons or Causes and each and all those adjectives or epithets of the above Louain Censure to each proposition severally nay and to all at last jointly taken And to the same purpose I desire him to consider that in no part of the Remonstrance nor in the whole taken together any obedience is promised or acknowledged or confessed to be due to our Sovereign Charles the Second or any other Temporal Prince but that which is in Civil and Temporal Affairs only and none at all in spiritual things nor in any kind of spiritual thing For so is the obedience it promises acknowledges or confesseth as due to our gracious King in His own Dominions by all his own Subjects whether Protestants or Catholicks and as due to all other absolute Princes and Supreme Governors within their own respective Dominions also and by their own respective Subjects so I say is that obedience most signally expressed and determined in formal words and in two several passages of this Remonstrance to all Civil and Temporal Affairs adding further yet and in signal formal words too that it be in such meer Civil and Temporal Affairs not universally or absolutely in all cases according to the arbitrary will or pleasure of the Prince Charles the Second but as the Laws and Rules of Government in such things in this Kingdom do require at our hands and to other such Supreme independent Princes or Magistrates according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively Whence any judicious Reader may conclude at least if he have read what I have hitherto so diffusely writ of the subjection of all even Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate in Temporal things That the Divines of Louain did most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously suppose their first Cause or Reason of their Censure viz. That our Remonstrance contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make unto them For I have demonstrated at large before that by the Law of God and Nature and by the Laws of man as well these are Ecclesiastical as Civil all men are bound to pay such obedience to their respective Kings or Supreme Magistrates And if they are so bound to pay it sure the Prince may especially when he sees Reason for it require a promise or an acknowledgment or confession or declaration of it from them and they make such promise acknowledgment c. And I am sure too that our Prince had much Reason then when that Remonstrance was made and hath yet still to expect such even a most formal promise and declaration from the Romish Clergy of Ireland and they no less to make it to Him To the same purpose yet of seeing further into the Temerity Falsity Injury and Scandal of the said Louain Censure the Reader may be pleased to reflect again once more and no less particularly on their abovesaid second Supposition Cause or Reason of it as you have seen that Louain Faculty in this their short Censure which we now handle express that second Cause viz. That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion and I desire the good Reader to apply this and compare it either to all the propositions jointly taken or to every one severally of our Remonstrance and then judge whether I have not just Reason to complain of them and tax them as I do that this which they suppose in the second place is most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously supposed or alledged by them as a Cause or Reason of their Censure For what can be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to condemn or censure a pure and meer Acknowledgment Confession Declaration or promise of Loyalty or of Allegiance Fidelity and Obedience to our Rightful and Supreme Lord and Sovereign and a promise of such in meer Temporal things made to Him by His own natural Catholick Subjects and made in a publick Remonstrance wherein those of England as well nay antecedently to as those of Ireland joyn'd than I say to condemn or censure such a publick Instrument of such a great Body containing of the
Dispensation Absolution or any other pretence or cause shall alter or make us recede from the same Fourth Paper and it given the DUKE by James Dempsy late Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare April 1. and same Year also 1664. present Lord Dillon and Milo Power FOrasmuch as we cannot own any Authority whatsoever that may be pretended in any wayes neither Spiritual nor Temporal derogatory from the right Power and Authority of His now Majesty CHARLES the Second and His lawful Successors we do therefore engage our selves to expose our Lives if and as often as occasion shall require in defence of His Majesty and His lawful Successors their Persons Crown Authority and Dignity against any Prince Potentate or power Spiritual or Temporal whatsoever who shall by force of Arms or any other way invade any of His Majesties Rights or Authority or Dignity in any of His Dominions and particularly we shall oppose to the utmost of our power all Attempts whatsoever tending to the depriving of His Majesty of any of His Rights Kingdoms or Dominions or the lessning of His Dignity Right or Authority in the Government thereof A fifth Paper yet and far more formal and material too than any of those four was given the DUKE in the month of May the same Year and given his GRACE as from or to be Subscribed by the Clergy both Secular and Regular of the City and Diocess of Dublin as in order also to and with promise of their endeavors and hopes it should be Subscribed by all the rest of Ireland so his GRACE would prevail with His MAJESTY to accept of it and be content with it in lieu of that subscribed and presented at London in 1661. But forasmuch as this Paper was not sign'd by any as neither was any of those other four only Daly's excepted but in that form wherein it was given the DUKE was disown'd generally even by the very Dublin Clergy and no man at all of them would own it as to the most material passages I say no more of it nor will trouble the Reader with a Copy here Yet this much I will advertise the Reader That if he be taken with the first perusal of any of the said Papers or Formularies he may be pleased to suspend his judgment till he first read also not only my observations on the Franciscan Formulary which he shall find in the last Section of this First Part of the First Treatise but also the Second Part of this same First Treatise which Second Part is of bare matter of Fact in the general Congregation held in 66. and read moreover my Second and Third brief Treatises following which declare the meaning of the Remonstrance framed and exhibited by that Congregation and likewise the meaning of the three first Sorbon late Propositions as applyed subscribed and presented by them also and lastly read the fifteen Propositions of the Doctrine of Allegiance which follow immediately the Fourth Treatise in this same Book And then let him judge in Gods Name according to Reason and Conscience and circumstances too of the place and persons whether any such Formulary as you see here be sufficient as from such a Clergy LXXX ABout this time being June 1664. the chief opposers of the Remonstrance of 1661. were grown too too insolent and not insolent only but extremely injurious to those who had subscribed and constantly maintain'd it as both expedient and necessary To such insolency and injuries they were encouraged by several Accidents of the last six or seven Months 1. That when the DUKE was to send with a Guard of Horse a certain Churchman of their Religion and Combination Prisoner from Dublin to Carrigfergus and for an Example to the rest albeit he was not made Prisoner upon account of not subscribing his GRACE upon Letters from the QUEEN or others at Court in behalf of the said Churchman did not command him so away as was intended but permitted him to enjoy all freedom at Dublin 2. That much about the same time another certain person whom I will not here name and a Churchman too by his calling as a Gentleman by his birth and one moreover who not only had some interest in several persons of Quality at Court and a power to persuade them but was ingenious and inventive enough to find out new pretences for any intrigue upon and for a promise made to him by some other Irish Churchmen of Five hundred pounds for his pains wrought so at Court and by his specious pretences that having to this purpose gone thither from Ireland he procured a Letter from one of the Secretaries of State to his Grace the Duke of ORMOND LORD LIEUTENANT of Ireland to suspend his farther prosecution of any endeavours for getting that Remonstrance of 1661. sign'd or pressing any other such on the Irish Clergy Albeit I confess the DUKE soon after receiving this Letter having replyed got it revoked again And that the Gentleman who procured it came so short of his expectations of the Five hundred pounds promised him that being return'd those who promised him that Sum finding all his endeavours were suddenly thwarted by a later Letter did not give him as much as Five pounds nor Five pence of it For so himself told me as he told me the particulars of his own Acting to procure the foresaid Letter but told me then only when he failed of the money and not before 3. That notwithstanding the Jesuites Dr. Daly and James Dempsy were sent for appeared and refused to sign that Remonstrance of 1661. or come home in other words to it yet they were dismissed again and both they and all other even the most violent opposers of it were as free or had as much liberty to exercise their Functions both in Countrey and City as any of the most Religious and most Affectionate Subscribers of it 4. That some of the Catholick Lawyers their own Countreymen and Friends assured them They could not by Law suffer either Banishment Imprisonment or other penalty for not subscribing it because it was a Declaration which was not yet Enacted by any Law and therefore they could not by any kind of penalty be forced to it 5. And lastly That my LORD LIEUTENANT was then forced to go for England and consequently none to look much after that business till his return besides that his return at any time in the former capacity was uncertain These five several Accidents of the last six or seven Months taken all together jointly with the general persuasion grounded on former experience that if any of the opposers of that Remonstrance of 1661. should peradventure on that pretence or other whatsoever warranted by the Laws chance to be restrain'd or imprison'd the rest abroad at liberty would get and send them for such their opposition and constancy or rather obstinacy therein sufficient contributions to maintain them in Prison and that too much better than if they were at liberty and cry them up
Ecclesiasticos quam Saeculares praesertim Nobiles congruis admonitionibus sedulo continere satagat in sincera perfecta erga Sanctam Apostolicam Sedem observantia rejectis commentis novae formulae fidelitatis Valesianorum Illud enim est quod Ecclesiam Dei majori damno ac pernicie afficere potest quam quaevis anteacta Haereticorum persecutio In eo autem munere obeundo non est quod Paternitati Vestrae suggeram utpote ubertim in hujusmodi materiis instructae ex propria eruditione ac prudentia praeter ea quae nuper ipsi viva voce insmuavi signanter ut sic refutetur arguatur illud Juramentum ne tamen Regii Ministri ansam accipiant in Catholicos saeviendi eosque tanquam Regiae Dominationi quia ab Ecclesia defecerit infestos persequendi De omnibus porro quae in causa fidei at statu Ecclesiae digna notatu compererit gratissimum mihi erit Paternitatis Vestrae Litteris identidem edoceri Illas autem inscribat absque operculo A Monsieur Monsieur Francois Rossi-Bruxelles ita enim secure ad me perferentur Denique Paternitatis Vestrae Sacrificiis me animitus commendo Bruxellis 7. Octobris 1663. Paternitatis Vestrae Studiofissimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis In English thus Reverend Father in Christ YOur Paternities most friendly Letters dated at Paris the 20th of the last month I have received wherein you signifie that you are now again upon thoughts of your Journey to Ireland Wherefore I wish you a most happy Journey and send you the Faculties of an Apostolical Missionarie As for that which you mention of danger of Confusion in that Kingdom by occasion of the Visitor now suddenly to be Commission'd he meant the Visitator of the Franciscan Order in Ireland who was then to be sent or at least Commission'd from beyond Seas I could wish you did particularly inform me on that Subject that understanding fully the whole Affair I might timely take my measures Nothing occurs to me which at present I may recommend But the sum of all consists herein That rejecting the Comments Lyes or false Device of the new form of Fidelity of the Valesians you labour diligently by congruous Admonitions to contain your Countreymen especially the Nobility and Gentry in a sincere and perfect observance of the See Apostolick For that Formulary is it which can do more harm unto and bring more ruine upon the Church of God than all the forepast persecution of Hereticks In order to the discharging of that Duty incumbent on you its needless that I suggest any other thing to your Paternity being a man throughly and abundantly instructed in such matters by your own eradition and prudence besides those which I have lately by word of mouth insinuated to you signally That the said Oath be refuted and reproved so as that notwithstanding the Royal Ministers may not thence take occasion of severity against Catholicks or of persecuting them as people studiously and maliciously undermining the Royal Dominion on account of its having fallen from the Church As for the rest know it will be most grateful unto me that by your Letters I be frequently advertised of all Note-worthy matters concerning the cause of Faith or State of the Church which shall occur to you Your Letters without cover you may superscribe A Monsieur Monsieur Rossi-Bruxelles for so they will securely be brought to me To conclude I commend my self heartily to your Paternities sacrifices Bruxels 7. Octob. 1663. Your Paternities Most Affectionate Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal On either Letter though you need no Animadversions because they are of themselves plain enough as it is also plain that as well by these as other you have Sect. vii this Internuncio begun that which his Successors ever since more vigorously pursued viz. to have the Remonstrants esteemed both Schismaticks and Hereticks yet I cannot here but give some few Observations First Observation is How these men would pull out our eyes and make us believe the Pope would have all kind of Duty Faith and Obedience paid by us to our King to be exemplars of these vertues even to Hereticks and in a place of darkness the lights of the world in such matters and yet at the same time and by the same Letters to condemn us in effect as Schismaticks and Hereticks for any way acknowledging our King to be King and promising to obey Him as such and at the same time also to procure a publick University Censure of the Louain Divines to condemn our Subscription of such acknowledgment and promise and no less solemnly than formally or in express words to judge both to be unlawful detestable and sacrilegious yea and consequentially or virtually to be also Schismatical and Heretical For that our very such bare acknowledgment and promise c. were so condemn'd by them is manifest because our said Remonstrance and Subscription neither contain'd nor imported any more than such bare acknowledgment and promise c. being they contain'd and imported only this much That we acknowledge the King to be Supreme in all Temporal and Civil Affairs and that we promised to be faithfully and unchangeably obedient to him in such that is only in all Temporal and Civil things leaving out of purpose all mention of any kind of Spiritual things or causes Now who sees not that if we be condemn'd for only acknowledging the King to be Supreme in Temporals we are consequently condemn'd for the bare acknowledgment of his being at all or in any way or sense our King For there are but two or at most three wayes or senses wherein any can be truly said to be King The one that he be Supreme both in Temporals and Spirituals The other that he be in Temporals only and the last that only in Spirituals either purely and essentially or only by extrinsick denomination such But we have not Remonstrated nor have we Subscribed our acknowledgment of the King 's being our King either in the first or last sense but have been as to the words of our Formulary as far from either of both these two senses as Heaven is from Earth And therefore have only in the second Whence is further most evidently consequent That being we are condemn'd for Remonstrating or Subscribing in that sense we are also for the very barest acknowledgment can be of the Kings being any way King For how can we acknowledge him King if ever also as to very Temporals we deny his Kingship And therefore it is not only a meer Cheat and Imposture but Folly Non-sense and even plain contradiction to say That his Holiness would have us to be and continue still in our duty faith and observance to any person as to our King and yet at the same time to tell us That our profession of fidelity and obedience in Temporal things is unlawful detestable and sacrilegious nay Schismatical and Heretical upon this account that by such profession we both promise a more ample obedience to
such other excellent Casuists for the lawfulness of murthering or assassinating not only your declared known enemy or inveterate or even any way profess'd or not profess'd Adversary but also any other even your own Consort or Companion that either affronts you never so little or but reveals nay or but threatens to reveal hereafter nay also or but whom you only suspect or fear may reveal although only out of lightness or vanity and not out of any malice to you some or any one even true imperfection or fault or fact of yours which being known may either defame or lessen or hinder you or your Society Order or Colledge from that power authority dignity esteem or advantages and emoluments you or they aspire unto provided only that you conceive the death of such a person to be necessary or behoveful either for the recovery or preservation of your name fame or of that which is or is called your worldly honour credit or esteem or even but your utility or profit temporary and earthly Finally you shall see the said most Reverend Prelate proving effectually by his carriage towards those Remonstrants for three or four years past That notwithstanding his formal Ejection or Dismiss out of the Society and he knows for what and knows moreover that I am not ignorant nor have been since 1659. either of that very true cause or of the very great person that procured his said Ejection yet he hath continued still a pragmatical constant close Disciple in the worst of Maxims to those very worst of Moralists Equivocatists Probablists Academists Scepticks nay and Assassins too retaining so whatsoever evil could be learn'd of them but relinquishing all that was good or just the more Christian precepts and practices he might have seen in some others even Writers of that very Society which threw him out Whether it was therefore that when he was created Archbishop by the Pope some Three years since his then Father General Oliva did complement him so high in a Letter which I my self have read from Rome promising himself and his Society in Ireland c. I know not what even certainly all that was great and wonderful now that he the foresaid Prelate was made Archbishop of the Head City or Metropolis of that Kingdom I am sure it argued what otherwise I my self did and could not but observe 1. That notwithstanding his ejection by the Fathers of purpose that they might please or rather not too much and too openly displease him whose affairs and hopes he the very same Prelate or person though not then a Prelate endeavoured to betray and utterly ruine Anno 1659. and by whose application therefore to the General of the Order his ejection was urged home yet the same General and ruling Cabal of that Society understood him and he them very well all along both before and after his ejection or dismiss given to him And how therefore and notwithstanding it and continually after it he observed a no less intimate correspondence with them and promoted their interests no less wheresoever he might than he had before 2. That in a very special and particular manner he did so by undermining covertly in all occasions and opposing also publickly in some all he could the Subscription of the Remonstrance As if indeed by that Formulary or advance of it his whole Ignatian Order's Reputation in these Kingdoms lay at stake His Letter out of England ann 1666. to Father Barton the English Jesuit then in Ireland persuading him to hinder all he could the National Congregation from Subscribing the Remonstrance may testifie this abundantly Which Letter the said Barton shewed and read then to my self Or if he had seriously considered what was most certainly true how well nigh a whole Century of years albeit more especially since the Powder-plot Treason and Oath of Allegiance made by King James the Professors of that Society of the Ignatian Order have labour'd so mightily both by word deed and writing to impose on the World and above all other parts or people of it upon His MAJESTIES of Great Britains Roman-Catholick Subjects That the power or authority and the doctrine or positions renounc'd disclaimed and abjured by the Oath of Allegiance made by King James and consequently as Internuncio de Vecchiis sayes those also protested against by that our late Remonstrance are positive and affirmative points of the Christian Religion And that all sincere Catholicks ought rather to suffer not only loss of goods and liberty but of life also even death it self than take any Oath declaring against such matters And moreover That such a death questionless should would and ought to be reputed Christian Martyrdom in a proper and strict sense of these words and consequently also reputed that very Baptism of blood which of its own nature without any Sacrament not only washes away clean all kind of sins both as to guilt and even temporary punishment but further purchaseth that extraordinary even accidental glorious Garland in Heaven which the Divines call Aureola Martyrii 3. That his foresaid promotion whether Legal or Illegal or whether as much as Canonical or Uncanonical nay whether absolutely void invalid or null by the Canons of the Universal Church I question not here was upon such and the like consequential accounts further'd in an high measure by the above General Oliva and other Jesuits of the Cabal as a matter conducing mightily to their interest the principles and genius of the man and consequently that he was the fittest instrument they could pitch upon being considered And certainly whoever knows that Societies power in the Court of Rome and how ignominious a punishment note and blot Ejection out of any Religious Order is or is esteem'd to be when it is after so many years profession and continuance in such Order and is moreover pretended to be for criminal causes and withall how when there is no intrigue in the matter there must also by consequence be or certainly and commonly is rather some extraordinary hatred or at least a very great strangeness and distance 'twixt the Ejectors and Ejected than any kindness and besides without peradventure how easie it is for the General or even Procurator of any Order at Rome to obstruct the like promotion of any that hath ever at any time before professed their Institute and after deserted it whereas if the Canons of the Church or even those of the Tridentin Council nay or the very Papal constitutions and ordinary practice of scrutiny at Rome it self de vita moribus and other qualities of such Episcopal candidates be observed or not rather wilfully and extraordinarily omitted a very small Objection made by men of Authority will serve to that end but much more questionless the infamous note of having been ejected for criminal matters who ever I say considers all this will certainly out of the above Letter of Oliva infer That the foresaid late promotion was on those very same or like consequential
Accounts I have said before further'd in a high manner by the same Padre Oliva and others of that Society as a matter conducing mightily to their interest c. And yet withall I am not wholly ignorant how by whom to whom when and for what other ends quite different or disparate that promotion was here at London so lately as the year 1668 or 1669. earnestly recommended to be at Rome effectually and speedily granted Much less am I so forgetful as not to remember the manifest Arguments given to my self by the said Prelate himself about four or five years before he was made Prelate i. e. in the year 1664. that he was not called by God as Aaron was but by his own Ambition being he could not then however too early and unseasonably abstain from coming of purpose to my Chamber to importune my self as he did to take off a certain Nobleman from hindering his said promotion So early to my own knowledge did he for himself sollicite that dignity And consequently so Vn-Aaron-like was he called to it if not peradventure to melt the Ear-rings and frame the Golden Calf and lead the people back to Egypt But of this good Prelates engaging so violently and maliciously against the Remonstrants more at large and of purpose elsewhere in due time and place And so I have done my occasional Animadversions upon as well this late Letter of Oliva as upon those former of Internuncio de Vecchiis Whereupon as I have questionless by Anticipation said some things here so you good Reader are to take notice that I write this present Section now in the year 1672. when I resumed the continuation of this Work or First Treatise thereof from page 442. where at the command of others I stopt the Printer in the year 1668. And therefore you are not to wonder if in some passages of this Book you are given to understand it had been written and printed four or five years sooner than by matters here or elsewhere related you find it has That indeed of finishing and publishing it in 1668. was my design nor was it my fault that it was not compassed But for your further satisfaction herein you may turn back to my Preface LXXXV NOW if you please I will give what was consequential to Internuncio de Vecchiis message to Caron and Walsh by Gearnon For there viz. in the perclose of my Lxxxiii Section I broke off the Thread of my Discourse to insert those matters you have now immediately read in my last or Lxxxiv Section De Vecchiis not content with his said verbal message by Gearnon suddenly after writes to my Lord Aubigny the Queens grand Almoner entreating him to work at least with Caron to go to Bruxels and withall enclosing another Letter to Caron himself This to Caron you have here Reverende in Christo Pater INtelliget Paternitas Vestra ex Patre Gearnono causas propter quas confirmatio vestra in Commissarium Visitatorem Hiberniae redditur difficilis Ego tamen qui multum defero officiis Illustrissimi Domini de Aubigni voluntati Excellentissimi Pro-Regis Hiberniae optarem difficultates supradictas amovere Ad quod faciendum puto esse unicum medium si scilicet Reverentia Vestra vellet huc ad me venire tunc enim possetis conferre cum Superioribus vestri Ordinis cum aliis Theologis super vestra illa Formula quae est lapis scandali amicabiliter convenire ac in gratiam Superiorum vestrorum redire Contribuam ad haec omnem operam meam cum fructu ut spero dummodo Reverentia vestra ex parte sua velit ad eumdem finem collimare Intelligetis plura super hoc proposito a Praefato Patre Gearnono ad quem me refero unum hoc addens Reverentiam vestram posse absque timore alicujus molestiae aut ex parte Ordinis aut cujusvis alterius huc accedere prout vobis fide publica polliceor in praesenti ac spondebo etiam Dominis de Aubigni Duci Ormoniae Precabor interim Deus ut vobis inspiret illud consilium quod ad salutem vestram incrementum Orthodoxae fidei magis conduit Bruxellis 9. Januar. 1665. Paternitatis Vestrae Ama nâ—ssimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis POSTSCRIPT Cum in Martio proximo hinc Romam versus discessurus sim optarem quantocius adventum vestrum The Letter Superscribed thus Reverendo in Christo Patri Patri Red nundo Caronio Ordinis S. Francisci Londini In English thus Reverend Father in Christ FRom Father Gearnon your Paternity will understand the causes wherefore your confirmation as to the office of Commissary and Visitator of Ireland is rendred difficult Yet I who have a griat regard both unto the good offices of the most illustrious Lord Aubigny and pleasure of the most excellent Vice-Roy of Ireland could wish those difficulties removed To the compassing of which I think the only medium is that your Reverence would come hither to me For then you might confer with the Sureriours of your Order and other Divines upon that Formulary which is the Rock of Scandal and you might agree amicably and so return to the good grace or favour of your Superiours Hereunto I shall contribute all my endeavours to good purpose I hope provided that your Reverence do of your side aim at the same end Of these matters you shall understand more from the foresaid Gearnon to whom I refer my self adding only this That your Reverence may without fear of any trouble either in behalf of or from the Order or of or from any other come hither as I do on publick Faith promise you at present and will also promise to my Lords Aubigny and Duke of Ormond In the mean time I shall pray that God may inspire that counsel to you which most conduces to your salvation and increase of the Orthodox Faith Bruxels the 9th of January 1665. Your Paternities Most Loving Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal. POSTCRIPT Whereas I am next March to go hence towards Rome I could wish your speedy Arrival here The Superscription thus To the Reverend Father in Christ Father Redmund Caron of St. Francis's Order at London To both i. e. to that verbal message by Gearnon and this Letter by Aubigny however Caron demurred yet he answered civilly by Letter excusing himself to the Internuncio The truth is he was at that time not only employ'd in writing and near finishing his Latin Folio Work bearing Title Remonstrantia Hibernorum contra Louanienses but was also unwealdy and very unable for a Winter journey over Seas And yet withall I confess he declared positively several times then to my self that had he been as healthy and strong as ever yet he would not go upon any such invitation because he foresaw very well and certainly there was nothing intended but deceit and circumvention and that the Court of Rome whose slavish servants not only the Internuncio Minister Apostolick and Commissary General of
and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
amongst their miserable Relations or were actual Prisoners to the Parliament or peradventure expected at least some of them a better opportunity to go if they could not stay That if I say for so long time at home after Rathmines Fate matters went so ill with all those were against the Nuncio and his censures and Owen O Neil and were for the Cessation Appeal Peace Ormond and consequently for the King much more ill must all things have gone after and accordingly did go with them abroad in all Forraign Countries of the Roman Communion and in all places and amongst all people wheresoever the Roman Court had any jurisdiction power authority or influence Their fellow exiles of the Nuncio party however Countrey-men and many of them also neighbours and kinsfolks having their hearts hardned against any commiseration and their understandings not at all as it would seem enlightned by so many and such prodigious calamities so lately befallen their common Countrey and themselves proved even in those Forraign Parts as cruel foes to them as when at home or rather yet far more cruel even in very deed as cruel as Tygers In Spain Portugal France Flanders Germany Italy nay as far as Hungary wheresoever any of the Appellants those peaceable but unfortunate Irishmen were retired to live and die in Peace if they could the Nuntiotist's who were in far greater numbers every where dispersed and well entertained yea and of far more credit also as having the speciousness of a Papal Nuntio's cause against Hereticks and recommendations of Rome and consequently of all other both Forraign Bishops and General Superiours of Orders to gain them credit informing the Natives and possessing them with sundry abominable wicked lies not only to hinder those more then afflicted men from any kind of harbour entertainment relief or even Almes given to the miserablest of beggars but also to perswade all the said Natives even to persecute them as Ormonians enemes of their own Countrey Antinuntiotists Antipapists Anticatholicks excommunicat persons favourers of Hereticks and in plain terms at last both Schismaticks and Hereticks too themselves The great plotters furtherers encouragers actors of all such evil and inhuman designs against them next after some of the Nuntiotist exiled Bishops and Paul King at Rome and Dionisius Masarius Dean of Firmo but at that time Secretary also at Rome to the Congregation of Cardinals de propaganda Fide as he had formerly been the chief man with his Lord the Nuncio in Ireland were in general the three Irish Franciscan Cloysters and Colledges the first in Louain second at Prague in Bohemia third in Rome and the Dominican Irish Colledge at Louain too and besides these all other the several Seminaries of the Irish Secular Priests and Students in Flanders France Spain and Portugal In all which as the exiled Nuntiotists had good reception so the other side had none at all both the natural inclination and worldly interests of such persons as even all along the time of the War in Ireland and much more after possessed these Colledges and Seminaries rendring the very name of Antinuntiotists odious to them Besides that the Divinity Principles commonly taught in their Schools entituled the Pope to the temporals of all the World and not only to Ireland or England c. though more especially to these and such other Countries whose Kings or chief Governours fell off from acknowledging the Holy See and consequently that the very intellect of such possessors of those Houses at least generally taking them was wholly prepossest against that name rendred so odious To descend to particular instances of those Antinuntiotists that found by sad experience in their own persons how cruel their foresaid opposite brethren were abroad and made others also be were it my design here I could manifoldly For to pass over now so may young Fathers and Students Nicholas Archbold Christopher Plunket Thomas Shortal John Shortal c. at Louain and so many others elsewhere albeit the ornament of their Colledges yet about the Year 1650 turned out of the Colledges only because they had either a little before studied under Father Walsh at Kilkenny or for some other cause or jealousie had been but suspected to be Ormonians I could name but too too many even of the more ancient known and esteemed honest men against whom being exiled to Forraign Parts the greatest malice of the Nuntiotists displayed it self though in several places and Countries openly professedly and only on account of their having approved by signature under their hands my Book of Queries Printed at Kilkenny in 1648. though only a Book against the Nuncio's censures and for the Appeal of the Supreme Council to Pope Innocent the Tenth and amongst them particularly Father John Barnwal of St. Francis's Order Reader of Divinity denyed even so little as one nights lodging in the Count of Louain and Father _____ Brown the Carmelit sufficiently vexed by those of his own Order Laurence Archbold lately before Vicar General of the Archbishoprick of Dublin and Doctor _____ Taylor two secular Priests so much malign'd in France of purpose to hinder them even from any kind of livelihood or charity of strangers and Father Laurence Tankard shut up in the Prison of Ara caeli at Rome I could also name Redmund Caron Reader of Divinity the late Commissary of his Order in Ireland Anthony Gearnon Matthias Barnwal Anthony Conmeus Reader of Divinity Morice Fitz Gerrald Francis Dillon all of them qualified and good men of the Franciscan Order all of them living religiously in their several Convents in the Low-countries except only Francis Dillon who continued still in France and Anthony Gearnon that was at all adventures return'd to his mission in Ireland by permission of his General Superiour and I could tell how all these were used in the Year 1653. that is how by a notoriously and manifoldly both false and wicked information sent expresly and purposely from Rome by two furios Zealots the one an Irishman the other an Italian against them to the Spanish General of the Franciscans Fray Pedro Manero at Madrid in Spain they were all immediately thereupon by a special Letter even from his Catholick Majesty himself to the Archduke Leopoldo at Brussels ordered to be Banished presently and perpetually out of all and every of the Dominions of the Spanish Monarchy the true and only cause indeed though not represented to his Catholick Majesty nor perhaps to Manero being that they also either maintain'd or were known to be for the Doctrine and cause which that Book asserted Nor doth it lessen the malice of their Adversaries that the information being found in all particulars very false that sentence was suspended I could moreover and without any question name the Author of that Book i. e. my self as who partly on that very occasion I mean of that Letter for Banishing sent to Leopoldo signified to me being returned from Ireland to London by Father Caron from Flanders and partly to justifie
Bishop that a little before or after for I remember not exactly which at a set meeting in Galway with the then new pretended Provincial Francis Suillevan whom I acknowledg'd not canonically nor validly chosen as neither did I the Provincial Chapter of Kilconel whereby he was chosen to have been legal or canonical or at all of force and a meeting held also in presence of the Archbishop of Dublin Thomas Flemming and the Bishop of Cluanmacnoise Antony Mageoghegan besides himself the said Imly and after his demanding of me whether I had not written in my Book of Queries That even in case the Pope had given sentence against the Appeal of the Supreme Council yet it might and should be lawful and just for them to oppose such a sentence and proceed as if it never had been given and after I had acknowledg'd this passage to be in my Book rose up presently and retorting only in a furious manner That surely the Devil was in me when I writ those lines departed immediately without staying for answer though I often pray'd him to stay and hear patiently what I could say for answer nay without coming any more to that meeting But now to return to my discourse of the sufferings abroad and to conclude it for the present with one instance more I could in the last place very particularly and singularly name Edmund O Duyr Bishop of Limmerick who not even after his death at Brussels no not even for the point of Christian burial there could be secured against the eternal malice of those no less ignorant than inhumane Nuntiotist zealots They would have hinder'd his dead Corps and labour'd mightily for hindring it from being buried in Church or Church-yard or any consecrated ground at all pretending forsooth he had formerly fallen into the Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict fulminated in Ireland in the year 1648. against all those adhered to the Cessation of Arms concluded with the Baron of Inchiquin and that he had never been in his life absolved from those Censures Whereby you see 1. That neither quick nor dead could scape their malice 2. That no other expiation of so great a crime as they pretended in that opposition though in it self both Loyal and Christian made to the Nuncio could prevail to asswage their malice but onely such expiation as they themselves would prescribe viz. to acknowledge at the Bar and to be absolved in forma Ecclesia consueta And what this would amount unto few are so ignorant as not to know For if any other expiation might surely that should which the Bishops formerly adhering to the Supreme Council in that opposition gave sufficient testimonies of in concurring at Jamestown in the year 1650. with the other Bishops that had been alwayes of the Nuncio party and concurring with them both in their Declaration against the Kings Lieutenant and their Excommunication too against all Roman-Catholicks obeying him any longer And it was and is manifest That the foresaid Bishop of Limmerick had been one of the five Bishops remaining or continuing at or come to Galway when or after the Congregation of the rest at Jamestown was held who in that very Town of Galway and on August 23. 1650 sign'd both Instruments dated before by the rest at Jamestown on the 12 of the same Month. 3. How ignorant also in the Canons of the very Pope those fiery Zealots were in this matter against the said Bishop For by those Canons no Ecclesiastical censure of either Excommunication or Interdict generally fulminated comprehends or touches any Bishop unless Bishops be in the sentence specifically expressâ—d as concern'd and commanded in such censure or sentence and under it to observe it But it is manifest out of the very form of that sentence of the Nuncio and of his few associate pretended Delegates of Irish Bishops there was no such specifical extension therein Nor can it be alledged That participatio in crimine criminoso as the Canonists and Summists speak not even I say albeit such participation were granted in the case could excuse their said enormous fact against the dead Bishop Because it is too well known that neither he nor indeed any other at least any other of all the Bishops had ever been nominatim denounced excommunicate and because that with any whether living or dead not so denounc'd nominatim it is lawful ever since the extravagant of Martin the V. in the Council of Constance that which begins Ad evitanda scandala to communicate even in all divine Things Rites and the very Sacraments too So that of necessity it must follow That those fiery Zealots have been in that barbarous inhumane Act either shamefully ignorant of the very known Laws of their own Church or which is yet far worse even to a prodigious excess superlatively both malicious and impudent in pretending Conscience though a cruel hideous savage one where themselves knew there was no cause at all to pretend any I could further add one memorable instance more of the enraged malice of those hypocritical Irish Nuntiotist Zealots at Rome against even Father Luke Wadding himself Even I say against that very Wadding who had been for so many years before continually at Rome and both for his writings and prudence besides other Books he writ eight Tomes in fol. of the Franciscan Orders History which are call'd Annales Minorum the most famous the most esteem'd and honour'd Ecclesiastick of the Irish Nation and that both by Cardinals Embassadors of Princes and States and by the Popes themselves Who had been so long the onely chief man that above any other in the Affairs of Ireland was consulted by them Who had so often even in former times excused himself from accepting not only any titular Bishoprick or Archbishoprick of those in his own Countrey Ireland but not even any of those other really and richly beneficed and endowed which were offered him elsewhere Who at least for Thirty years had been in the vogue of the Papal Courtiers as having both highly merited and been designed for a Cardinalship And which is above all who in his own dayes and at least continually for Thirty years of them had seen and heard his own Annals with so much esteem daily read during that long extent of time in the publick Refectory Pulpits of above Forty thousand Franciscan Monasteries throughout all Parts of the Christian world Good God! that the hoary hairs of so venerable so great and good a man should be led to the Grave in grief aspersed even with the blackest of Calumnies which the malice of those ungrateful Nuntiotists even of those also I mean who had otherwise been educated by himself bred in his own bosome and lived by his industry care and study and labours could invent Yet so it was Witness the wicked Troop of some Irish Franciscans of his own Colledge of St. Isidore others young others old but all headed by Francis MaGruairck who placing themselves on their knees in a publick way
where Pope Innocent the X. was to pass cryed to His Holiness against him Justitia Pater Sancte and together exhibited a Memorial accusing him not only in general of being a Correspondent of the English Hereticks Patron of Apostates Enemy to the Catholick King but in particular also of other several even the most infamous personal Crimes For albeit his own true innocency and strong belief thereof amongst the generality even of the great Ministers at Rome as also the inward guilt of those Calumniators and other the Diabolical contrivers of their malice soon dispersed both the raisers and contrivers and the cloud it self of infamy which they had so gathered and raised against him yet he took this procedure of his Countreymen so to heart that he carried the grief thereof with him not long after to his Grave And yet I must here tell my Reader that the onely true original motive of so vile an enterprize against him was no other but a Letter they understood to have been written out of Ireland to him in the year 1649. by the Marquess of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom wherein he was desired That in pursuance of his other good offices for His King and Court he would take also special care thenceforth to see the abuses both of the Irish Clergy in general and particularly of those of his own Order rectified by more religious and loyal Superiours than those were that of late times had by their unchristian doctrine and bad example well nigh utterly ruin'd their Countrey and mightily scandal'd their Church And so having done with those Heads of some few particular instances which out of a far greater nay indeed prodigious number if all were known of those of persecution abroad I thought fit to give here as they occurr'd to remembrance now I proceed to the remainder of the more general causes of that paucity enquired after Wherefore you are now to observe 11. That in the year 1655. the said Nuntiotist party having as to the affairs of their own Countrey all power at Rome prevail'd at last with His Holiness then sitting in the Chair Alexander the VII to grant a Bull of extraordinary Delegation dated at Rome Aug. 27. 1655. directed to and for the most vehement and thorow-paced of all the Irish Bishops of the Nuncio's party then surviving except peradventure Antony Mageoghan the Franciscan Bishop formerly of Cluanmacnoise but now about this time Translated to Meath But it was supposed his own act to be left out of that Bull because not only that he foresaw the employment might prove in time if not invidious at least very odious but also that himself living then at Rome and indeed the onely Irish Bishop at that time there was the chief procurer of it However to these four viz. one of each either Temporal or Ecclesiastical Province of Ireland John sirnamed Cullenan if I be not mistaken Bishop of Raphoe in Vlster Walter Lynch Bishop of Cluanfert in Connaught Edmund Dempsy alias Deemusvy Bishop of Leghlin in Leinster and Robert Barry Bishop of Cork in Munster though all four even that very time as alwayes after till they all every one dyed living abroad in Banishment and wide enough dispersed and separated the first in Brussels second in Hungary third in Galicia or elsewhere in Spain and fourth at St. Malos in France to these four I say a plenary Apostolical power was delegated and given by the said Bull to reconcile and absolve in forma Ecclesiae consueta all Irish whatsoever that appearing penitent for having opposed the Nuncio in Ireland or consequently incurr'd his Censures would come to any of them humbly submit crave absolution and perform what the Delegate should impose This Bull although granted through several false Informations besides many more false suppositions as out of the very tenour thereof was and is manifest to such as knew the Transactions either of the grand Controversie at home in Ireland or of the prosecution of the Appeal at Rome but more especially granted through that of those two notoriously false informations 1. That the Nuncio had to his Excommunication and Interdict the concurrence of the lawful Delegates and Sub-delegates then of the other Irish Archbishops and Bishops in general 2. That Innocent the X. had rejected or condemned the Appeal as frivolous both which material falsities rendred that whole Bull void yet the foresaid John Bishop of Raphoe living then at Bruxels and entituling himself Vice-Primate of all Ireland by the advice of his factious Party in Flanders caused to be immediately Printed with a Preface or Admonition prefixed to it Ad populares Hibernos excommunicatos both in his own name and in that also of his other Three fellow Delegates but a Preface much yet more injurious false injurious and malicious too than the Bull it self as either in it self or as proceeding from the Informers Procurers or Framers of it considered For as for the Pope himself that granted it we must suppose neither injury nor falsity nor malice in him as to his grant but that injury only of granting any such Bull at the instance or upon the information of one side But for the admonishing Delegates or rather perhaps the onely one of them that in the name of all the rest prefixâ—d the said Preface or Admonition you may judge of their justice and charity and somewhat also of the whole of that excellent piece of theirs and may judge of all I say out of this one passage of it paraphrasing on the words in forma Ecclesiae consueta inserted in that Bull. Upon which words they speak thus Quinto denique ut alia omittam in eodem Brevi habetur poenitentes debere absolvi in forma Ecclesiae consueta ut scilicet denudatis scapulis virgas excipiant pro offensa admissa satisfaciant aliasque subeant poenas quae in Rituali Romano exprimuntur And yet that Bull although so plainly subreptitious and void and although moreover so paraphrased all along as tamquam ex ungue Leonem you may judge out of that one passage yet being Printed published and dispersed amongst all the Irish in all parts of Europe and not only in Flanders or at home in Ireland amongst the miserable but still divided both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks and in such a time and conjuncture of things when there was no hopes of better dayes for those against whom it was procured we must not wonder much if it and the other endeavours of the Publishers join'd with it made them but too too many Proselytes though rather for fear and out of despair than love or inward persuasion nor wonder if those Proselytes having purchased some little quiet though but little credit or trust thereby not even amongst their Adversaries were loth even after the Kings Restauration or by signing the Remonstrance to hazard that quiet any more until they were sure to be protected by the King and his Laws against the insulting power of Rome and malice of
Lordship's answer I expect with that anxiety which you may easily believe possesseth me both as an Apostolick Minister on whom the affairs of Ireland are incumbent and as a Catholick by which name alone we are bound to watch for the Salvation of our Neighbours Vpon this occasion addicting reverence to your merits and inclination to my own observance of you I wish your most Reverend Lordship the longest health Bruxels May 13. 1666. Your most Reverend Lordship's Most devoted Servant James Rospigliosi Abbot of St. Mary Internunce Apostol Besides these three Letters which you have now read you shall further have in the next Section three more from this very Internunce Rospigliosi to others on the same Subject as you have also had before in the First Part of this Treatise Sect VII pag. 16 17. some former Letters both from the foresaid Cardinal Barberin and from Internuncio Hierominus de Vecchys the Predecessour of this Rospigliosi in the Belgick Internunciature But before I perclose this present Section I think it not amiss to give some brief animadversions 1. That Cardinal Barberin here or in the above Letter of this year 1666. relates to the former of his dated July 8. 1662. which you have pag. 17. of the First Part. 2. That you must look on both these Letters as not Cardinal Barberins alone but as the Letters of all the whole Congregation de propaganda side nay and as written also even by his Holiness's command as you may see by the express tenour of them for that de propaganda Fide is the Congregation of Cardinals set over the affairs of Ireland 3. That both Cardinals and Internuncius's write and censured so that harmless Formalary as if it had been the very Oath of Abjuration it I mean Abjuring the five Roman Catholick Tenets viz. those of Invocation of Saints Worship of Jmages Merit of good Works Purgatory and Transubstantiation And verily if it had been a formal real and total abjuration not only of the Roman Catholick Religion and Communion but of all kind of Christianity what could these both supercilious and erroneous Roman Censours have said more or worse in generals than they have to condemn it and to make all Irish Catholicks abhor it That nevertheless and because they build only on fals suppositions and dwell only in generals according to the Maxim in generalibus verfatur dolosus nay because also they seem either not to have at any time perused at all that Instrument which they so briskly censure or if they have then certainly in writing so as you see they do against true Christian and Catholick Doctrine to have been themselves guilty of damnable both Hypocrisie and Heresie unless you will peradventure say they were meer Ignoramus â—s in the point and might be allowed therein some grains even of invincible ignorance because of their worldly interest blinding them irrecoverably and even to stupidity their censures were not otherwise regarded by the Subscribers of that Instrument or indeed any other knowing men than those of the University of Louain in the year 1662. against the same Instrument were i. e. no otherwise then meer inventions Delusions Impostures Cheats fixed upon of purpose to maintain the worst cause in the world even damnable Usurpation and diabolical Pride and maintain these even by the most impudent lying pretences of any which the very greatest Hypocrites and Hereticks do or can use 5. That all whatever I have said already in the First Part of this Treatise any where against Dissentors but more especially and so diffusely from page 118. to page 587. against the four chief grounds of the Censures of Louain have in effect answered also and refuted as fully all whatever grounds the writers of these Letters could as much as pretend albeit I confess they alledge none at all 6. That both Barbarin and Rospigliosi as you see have also made somewhat too bold even with that incommunicable priviledge of God I mean his Divine searching and seeing throughly the hearts and all the most inward designs of Men. Otherwise how could they presume to Censure and judge of the very most unrevealed unsignified unappearing thoughts or designs of Caron and Walsh But God the only true searcher and seer of hearts be praised they as in all other points most supercilious and erroneous Censors so in this particular have most certainly and evidently been not only as uncharitable temerarious Judges but as false seers as any have ever yet pretended to judge or see any thing of those inward thoughts or designs of others which had no being or existence at all but in the lying malicious imagination of calumny For 1. And as for what concern'd Father Caron as there are yet alive witnesses enough who can swear truly that he was no nearer then my Lord Powes's house in Wales when the Remonstrance was first come from Ireland was debated and subscribed at London upon the 11. and 15. of February 1661. S.V. albeit before it was Printed he came to London and subscribed so I can swear no less truly that he neither knew nor was once consulted with about either the Indiction before it was done or about the furthering or promoting at any time after the effect of that Indiction i. e. the meeting it self nay that he was not concern'd at all whether it should be held or not because he was brought low by sickness for all the time i. e. for many moneths before it was held and a great sickness indeed which laid him in his Grave before those Letters which occasion this discourse were brought to Ireland by Ferral Besides who read either his English or Latin works defending the Remonstrance but hath withal seen him driving perpetually at Temporalia omnia Regi Spiritualia omnia Pontifici Is this to design the overthrow ruine or extirpation of the Catholick Faith And 2. and for what concerns my self I can and do religiously call not him who is the Dominus Deus noster Papa of Zenzelinus the Glossator but the truly and only all-seeing God to witness That to my remembrance or knowledge of my self my own designs in forwarding either the Remonstrance it self at any time or in any way or the National Congregation for to sit or to sign it were as far from the false surmise of Cardinal Barberin and Rospigliosi as Tertullian or Justin the Martyr were from designing the suppression or corruption of Christianity when they writ their Apologies for that Religion to the Senate and Emperours of Pagan Rome 7. That 't is pleasant to see Barberin tell us he had a command from his Holiness to write to the Clergy and Catholicks of Ireland they should beware of the danger from false brethren viz. Caron Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers and even such danger as threatned their eternal Salvation nay such as certainly precipitated them into Eternal Damnation says Rospigliosi So erroneously wicked Anti-Catholick nay Anti-Christian it is if we believe these men
whereas indeed I had formerly thought and related also of him that only because he knew their design was evil he refused to come to them and not these only but the further certain intelligence brought me that Ardach and some others had fully resolved to decline the former Remonstrance and to that end had some weeks before contrived a new but very short and altogether unsignificant Formulary of Recognition for the Fathers when or if assembled to sign after I say I had seriously considered all these discoveries I could not but absolutely conclude either my own former grand mistake or their latter no less grand inconstancy or rather both And therefore having first acquainted my Lord Lieutenant with all such particulars as he that was most concern'd of any not to be deceived nor imposed upon by those men I minded however these two Bishops of their duty to present themselves to his Grace before the Congregation sate or at least before they proceeded in any matters therein and the rather that they might no longer rely on my bare word of his permission of such an Assembly but hear it from his own mouth whereby to remove all pretended scruples whatsoever as to that point if peradventure any of the Fathers did yet doubt thereof Accordingly their way being prepared I my self with his Graces leave introduced them at night to His Grace who received them privately in His Closet and withal the obliging respect and Civility indeed which the Laws Religion and reason of State could allow him to shew After salutes and some other few words of course having placed them in seats by him for I and none else was present all the while and saw and heard all His Grace was pleased in short to let them know 1. Why he permitted their Assembly 2. That they i.e. their Irish Clergy lately before since the Kings Restauration had lost even a very great and good opportunity to redeem themselves from the consequences of those just and perpetual jealousies of them which the carriage of their Clergy in the late unhappy Wars of that Nation had deeply planted in the hearts of all Protestants 3. That now again Providence had in the present conjuncture of publick affairs i.e. of the War with Holland and France and of all other circumstances even those also at home in Ireland given them the second even great likewise and good opportunity to do themselves and their Country Communion and Religion that right and Justice at last which might prevail with His Majestie 's Clemency Mercy and Goodness not only to blot out of his remembrance all their former failings but thenceforth think them fit objects of his further gracious commiseration and Indulgence 4. That if they would lose this occasion also or not improve it as they ought they might after wish indeed but possibly never in their days meet the like again 5. And Lastly that after they had considered of and resolved upon that which was the principal end of their meeting it became them also to consider seriously whether it might not be rationally expected from them that instead of so many instances of ill use and ends too of their Excommunications in the late Wars especially at Waterford against the Peace of 1646. at Kilkenny against the Cessation of 1648. and at Jamestown against the very Peace also of the same year 1648. they would now at last once in their lives and in the present circumstances especially of so many Out-laws Tories and Woodkerns of their Roman Catholick Countrey-men stealing robbing harrazing burning and laying waste whole Villages Parishes and larger districts too make that good use of their Ecclesiastical censures which they ought by publishing them against such enormous transgressors of all Laws both Divine and Human and against all their abettors and concealers And these indeed in substance as far as I can remember were the heads of my Lord Lieutenants candid speech and excellent admonition to those two Bishops that very first time he saw them immediately before the Congregation sate albeit as to words much more elegantly and finely delivered by Him as he is indeed a most pertinent and excellent speaker whensoever and wheresoever he speaks but in those Irish affairs incomparably also knowing as having had more causes and helps and more opportunities and occasions than any man alive or dead to know throughly the general affairs interests inclinations byasses of every Party and People whether Protestant or Catholick of that Kingdom of Ireland What use those two Bishops made or whether they made any good use at all of so much condescention and so fit a lesson we shall see in the following Sections where you shall find how they carried themselves when the Fathers were Assembled together As for any material thing said by either of them well or ill and by way of answer or otherwise to his Grace while they were with Him that first time I remember nothing but what I was then mightily troubled at to hear viz. Ardach's blundering out some few words in answer to or by occasion of what the Duke admonish'd them concerning a better use to be made of Ecclesiastical Censures against Out-law'd Incendiaries Thieves Robbers Woodkerns Murderers Rebels than formerly had been made of the like against Loyal Subjects and honest Men only and onely too because they would not be wicked For to this point I remember that Ardach spoke indeed somewhat but both bluntly and confusedly enough and yet if my memory fail me not but a few words only importing the general discontents of the old Roman Catholick Proprietors and further signifying that Church Censures could not restrain or have any effect upon such men Hereof I am very certain that neither he nor Kilfinuran nor others of the Congregation took this matter either to heart or as much as once to debate as neither did they scarce if scarce any other point recommended to them either at that or any other time after by His Grace and whether by word or writing recommended so X. BUT however those two Bishops carried themselves I must now tell thee good Reader That all both Domestick and Forraign Oppositions all contrivances whatsoever to hinder even the very meeting it self of the Fathers being in such manner as hath been said totally frustrated we are now at last on the 11 of June and consequently at the actual Session or convention of the Fathers in the house which I my self hired and prepared for them of purpose albeit I confess the generality of them after conferring notes together those two former nights of Saturday and Sunday they had been in Town came to that Assembly-house wholly prepossessed and prejudiced most of them by inclination some by education and both these and those nay and others too that were of neither sort by forraign correspondency or Intelligence They met therefore on that day and sate all together in one Room which manner of sitting because their Assembly was not a Formal Synod according to
in the late Rebellion or civil War which you please to call it or even to speak one word for so much as a general Petition to be exhibited to his Majesty imploring His Majesties gracious Pardon No there was no crime at all committed by all or any of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland not even at any time nor in any occasion or matter happened since Octob. 23. 1641 if we must believe the Bishop of Ardagh Patrick Plunker pleading for them so in express terms and the tacit approbation of his words by the Universal silence of that Assembly nam qui tacet consentire videtur according to the rule of the Canon Law But who can believe either and not rather be hence convinced that God in his just indignation had suffered those Fathers to be for their punishment so strangely infatuated against all reason common sense the knowledge of all People and their own interest too For certainly and too too notoriously so they were all along in all their affairs during the fifteen days they sate but in this particular above any other even to astonishment However the Congregation being that evening adjourned to the next morning as soon as it was late and dusky having first prepared his way I went along with the Primat to the Kings Castle where my Lord Lieutenant received him privately in his Closet none being present besides me After salutes his Grace having first placed this greatest Roman Catholick Preâ—â—â—t of Ireland by him on a seat using him also with all other civil respect which the difference of Religion and reason of State could allow entertain'd him with a short but pithy material excellent Speech or rather lesson indeed It continued about a quarter of an hour And I must confess that in my life to my remembrance I never heard so much to the purpose said either so short or so well with so much weight and gravity not only not from any Lay-person to a Church-man but not even from an Ecclesiastick to any even Laick Nor was my judgement herein single The Primat himself confessed so much even openly too next morning before the whole Congregation as soon as they were sate and some occasion was offered him to speak before them of what the Lord Lieutenants Grace had recommended to them Nay he confessâ—d it also in these very Latin words Tanquam Angelus Del loquutus est mihi rendred in English Like an Angel of God he spake unto me What the heads were may be easily guessed out of what is said before both of the Primat himself and other matters hitherto in this Second part And the words I have lost because the Paper which contain'd them Yet I remember 1. They began exactly thus You know very well it was not for your good deeds the Pope created you titular Primat of Ardmagh 2. That all the while the Lord Lieutenants Grace continued speaking the Primat never as much as once lifted up his eyes but bare headed as the Lord Lieutenant also was held them still immoveably cast down and in truth behav'd himself because so conscious to himself as like a guilty penitent Transgressor admitted to the presence of his Lord as any could 3. That when His Grace the Lord Lieutenant either asked or minded him of what conditions I had proposed for his safe return and writ to himself to France he denied again that he had received that Letter 4. That I repeated thereupon in that presence of both the same Arguments I had the day before to the Primat alone to shew the unlikelihood of this excuse or at least my extream wonder at such a chance having nevertheless let fall some other words of purpose to lessen all I could before his Grace the Lord Lieutenant this weakness of the Primats answer 5. That his said Grace notwithstanding he saw clearly enough it was a meer story yet seemed not once in the least moved not as much as to reply one word on that or other subject to contristate or afflict him more but with much civility and obliging kindness recommended to him to improve the present opportunity in the Congregation for his own and Clergies and Countries best advantage and endeavour not only to rectifie but in some measure to satisfie for whatever had been not well done at any time before and so dismissed this Prelat very much satisfied with his gracious reception These are the heads of what I remember occurred or passed betwixt His Grace and this Primat then being the only time they conferred or saw one another And yet I must here take notice to the Reader That soon after the Congregation had been dissolved the Primats own Vicar General Doctor Patrick O Daly together with an other Priest of his Diocess lately then come from Paris told my self each of them at the same time with me at Dublin they had themselves severally heard from the said Primats own mouth That indeed he had in Paris before he came away thence received that Letter of mine which he so lately denyed both to me and to the Lord Lieutenant to have received but that he dared not acknowledge it either to the Duke or me or any other should tell because he then might be justly called in question for other matters if he signed not the controverted Remonstrance which yet partly through fear of the Court of Rome and partly too for other causes he neither dared nor would sign XV. THE next day being the fifteenth of June and fifth of the Congregations sitting the Lord Lieutenant having sufficiently understood their little sense of the only end for which he permitted them to meet and further how some of them had endeavoured to highten a false report of his intentions to depart suddenly out of Town of purpose to pretend they wanted time to consult or deliberate and so excuse themselves if they gave not full satisfaction it being consequently alledged they could not with safety continue their sitting when his Grace were so departed and for this reason they were better immediately sign the Instrument prepared to their hands viz. the insignificant one of which before and which you shall see in the next Section and then without further hazard of themselves Dissolve his Grace therefore thought fit to send them by Richard Bellings Esq a second Message to be read as it was this day read to them out of a written paper publickly and exactly word by word as here followeth after the Title The LORD LIEUTENANT's Second Message to the Congregation THat I understand it is reported I intend in a few days to leave this City and that it is thence apprehended by those of the Romish Clergy now met here that they may not have time to consider of and conclude upon the business for which their meeting is permitted namely for Subscribing to the Remonstrance and Protestation subscribed and presented to His Majesty in January and February 1661 by divers of the Nobility Gentry and Romish Clergy Whereupon I think
that I my self had been much against the trouble of either presenting or writing it because I had clearly seen all along the stubborn unflexible resolution of the Demagogues and most of the inferiour Multitude who would hear no reason and consequently that it would have no effect upon such men of byass And yet after all that pressed by the reasons and importunities of many of those Loyal Subscribers of the former Remonstrance I drew that Letter for them and subscribed it too as one of them which I now give you here The Expostulatory Letter directed to the Chairman of the Congregation by such of the Ecclesiastical Subscribers of the former Remonstrance or of that of 1661 as were at Dublin and not Members of the Congregation delivered and read publickly a little before that National Meeting Dissolved Right Reverend and our very good Lord IT is notoriously known to the whole Kingdom That the present National Representative of the Irish Roman-Catholick Clergy is now convened in this Capital City of Ireland in order to their Signing a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise of their future Loyal fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land to our Dread Soveraign Charles the Second to the end That not only His Majesty nor only His Councils of State and Parliaments but also all other His Majesties Protestant Subjects of whatever different Religion Perswasion or Opinion as to the way of truly and rightly worshipping God may be throughly satisfied That the Roman Catholicks of Ireland even the most Reverend and Sacred Representative of all their Ecclesiasticks do now at last freely and conscientiously under their own proper hands in a publick Instrument profess themselves to be and even according to their divine Faith or true infallible Principles of right Christianity and of the Catholick Church to be as much obliged if not more in point of conscience to continue evermore faithfully subject and obedient in all such Temporal matters and according to all such Laws of the Land to His Majesty and lawful Successors in all contingencies that may happen as any other even of whatever Church or Sects either hold themselves bound or indeed by the Laws of God are otherwise bound to His Majesty or to any other their respective Soveraign Princes or States on Earth Nor is it less manifestly known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise or Protestation from this present Ecclesiastical Assembly For who is he can be ignorant of those just suspitions of an inclination to return again to disloyal both Principles and Practices under which the generality of Irish Catholicks Clergy and People do lye yet continually amongst their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion Or who indeed but knows the true source of those very great and not to be wondred at jealousies especially that which cannot be dried up in our days even the fresh memory of all that hath been so lately acted in Ireland against the Protestant Church and People by the Confederate Roman Catholicks of that Nation in the last unhappy Wars Nay who is not sensible of the miserable condition even at present of so many Thousands of our unfortunate Countreymen Or who sees not this condition is one fatal effect of that suspicion or rather as I should say of that firm perswasion amongst Protestants of the Disloyaltie of the Roman-Catholick Irish in general besides is it not as generally known How that to allay for the future that very suspicion lessen hereafter that very perswasion which hath even so lately i. e. since His Majesties happy Restauration blasted the hopes of so many thousands of our ancient Proprietors and so to vindicate their holy Religion from bearing any share in the blame of those unholy irreligious Practices of some however too too many Professors of it and consequently to obtain the ceasing of that severe Persecution commanded and effectually for some time continued by the Triumvirat in Ireland Anno 1660 a considerable number of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks then at London headed by a Bishop of the same Religion and Nation had in the same year thought it becoming their duty to God Allegiance to their Natural Prince Piety to their Countrey and the Character also of those who as the Sons of Peace desire Christian Peace and a fair friendly and faithful correspondence betwixt all His Majesties Subjects of whatever Church or Nation yea and not only thought it so becoming but after a serious debate conceived it both expedient and necessary To sign as accordingly they did sign a Remonstrance and Protestation of indispensable fidelity and obedience in all temporal matters whatsoever c or a Declaration and Promise of Loyalty indeed so full as might answer in all respects the end above mentioned And is it not likewise known That with the same Irish Ecclesiastick Subscribers of that Remonstrance the greatest and most considerable part by much of the Nobility and Gentry of our Nation at that time in London did joyn themselves and concurr even by the like subscription then or soon after in that very place besides many more also of the rest of the Nobility and Gentry at home in Ireland who next Winter and since have followed the same good example given first at London And to pass over at present how not only several more of the Irish as well Bishops as other learned Clergymen then abroad have much about the same time approved of that very Formulary of professing our Allegiance even some of them by their manual Subscriptions to it and how not only the English Noblemen advised and consulted with by the Irish Nobility at London concerning it have professed publickly in a great Assembly of the aforesaid Irish both Nobility and Gentry That were the case of the Irish theirs they and all the rest of the English Nobility and Gentry of the Roman Communion would willingly sign that Remonstrance in terminis and even sign it with their blood were this necessary but also how the English Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Secular Eeclesiasticks have in a Letter written on purpose by their command signed by their Dean Humphrey Ellice alias Doctor Waring and superscribed to the Bishop of Dromore signified clearly so much in effect of their own approving likewise the same Formulary or that very individual Remonstrance of ours We say that to pass at present all this over Is it not further as manifestly apparent how graciously that Instrument after the signature of it was received by His Majesty How immediately the Persecution in this Kingdom ceased by His Majesties express Command Nay how ever since both People and Clergy of our Communion have enjoyed the great tranquility and freedom in point of exercising our Religion and Functions which we have so gladly seen and which we so thankfully acknowledge to be still continued to us yea in a higher measure enjoyed by us at
this present then we could almost have not long since either believed or hoped we should live to see But notwithstanding such great and good effects of the signature of that Loyal Formulary Remonstrance by those few Ecclesiasticks that gave the first Example at London and soon after by the Nobility and Gentry there at that time is it not equally apparent That too too many Irish Ecclesiasticks of the same Church-communion proving ever since for so many years ungrateful for so great benefits received from His Majesty and His Majesties Lieutenant General governing this Kingdom and received too by the means of that Remonstrance and of the Subscription thereof by those who had no other end in either than to redeem their Nation from the severe execution of Penal Laws yea proving to the King himself as ungrateful truly as those barbarous People were who darted Arrows at the Sun for his comfortable beams of light and heat afforded to them either not rightly understanding or not well considering the Doctrinal points of the said Remonstrance or indeed rather out of their willful byass of proper and private interest partly and partly out of meer envy and malice have used their utmost endeavours to obtain and accordingly in Forraign Parts have obtained not only judicial or Scholastical Censures both from the Roman Ministers of State and the Faculty Theological of Louain but other vexatious and Penal proceedings against some at least of the chief Ecclesiastical Subscribers and Defenders thereof nay before and after have both Preached and Prayed at home in this Kingdom every where against the Formulary it self and Subscribers thereof representing that amongst the Vulgar People who cannot discern as undoubtedly unlawful sinful scandalous sacrilegious yea schismatical and heretical too and these consequently no better who have subscribed and yet not retracted their subscription Now being the Resolves of all and each of these Queries hitherto must be in the affirmative the consequence if we be not much mistaken must also be That it is no less notoriously known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a full and satisfactory Declaration c as above from this present Ecclesiastical Meeting than it is That the end of their being by his Grace the Kings Lieutenant permitted to meet and sit and deliberate so freely as they can desire and do now here in the Capital City of the Kingdom is no other All which being so it will easily be believed our affliction must be very great when of one side we certainly understand The whole procedure of the Congregations debates and resolves hitherto these Eleven days of their Session makes it appear evidently That the chief Leaders thereof mind nothing less than that end for which they and the rest of the Members have been convened or permitted to meet yea That they are obstinately possessed with and set upon quite contrary designs of their own and when at the same time of the other side we seriously consider That the issue of such Counsels if persisted in till the Fathers be dissolved must at long running of necessity prove extreamly fatal even to the generality of all both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks of the whole Irish Nation because either represented or guided by this Congregation For being we see plainly before our eyes that since the designes of those leading Demagogues are as contrary to the just peaceable and Loyal designes which we and other Subscribers of the former Remonstrance we mean that of the year 1661 had from the beginning have at present and shall God willing hereafter always continue as even darkness and light errour and truth or Hell and Heaven are or can be one to another it must naturally follow That we must consequently and no less clearly behold all our former hopes of the Irish Catholicks welfare by this National Assembly's Convention dashed to nothing and even not only despair of any good but very justly fear great and irrecoverable evils to the Nation from this very Meeting to succeed those fair and pleasing hopes if we say the Fathers end as they have begun and proceeded hitherto suffering themselves to be misled by their passionately and blindly interested Demagogues and even hurried on furiously into a cross and effectual thwarting for the future all those very publick ends which for the good of their Nation and Religion the said former Remonstrance and both Ecclesiastick and Lay Subscribers thereof drove at And surely 't is not probable that any will not easily believe that such considerations which ought to afflict all good Patriots bring upon us by so much the greater affliction by how much we think our selves the more nearly concern'd than others who have not ventured as far as we under sufferances from our own Church of purpose to do that very Church and Professors thereof in the British Empire and particularly in Ireland all the good offices we could even also by subscribing presenting defending and promoting hitherto in all just ways That Formulary of 1661 and both Doctrine and Practice thereof as the only means or at least very first of all due means for His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects wherever in His Dominions to win upon and to ingratiate themselves with their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion So much of our Melancholy thoughts and hearty resentments we thought fit to represent to the Congregation by your Lordship their Chairman to the end that since it continues yet and may some days farther and several of the Members thereof are lately more and more disposed to give the Lord Lieutenant all kind of full and real satisfaction and therefore some hopes remain still that matters are not absolutely past all recovery or remedy we may further represent as we do by this address and by your Lordship to the rest of the the Right Reverend Prelats and all other the Venerable Fathers our additional and humble both desire and Petition That they will be pleased to appoint a Committee of their best or most Select Divines to debate with us their reasons if any indeed they have whether Theological or Prudential why the Signature either of the Three last of the Six Sorbon Declarations or even of the former Remonstrance hath been hitherto excepted against And wherefore on the contradictory Question such a Formulary of their own framing hath been Signed and presented by them as hath nothing material in it not any thing truly either in the same or other words of all or any the material Points of the former Remonstrance What errour against Christian Religion or Catholick Faith or sound Doctrine they found or could alledge against all or any of those Points or Clauses of the former Remonstrance which they have so of meer design omitted in their own Lastly being they profess in words They have not excepted against their own signing of the said former Remonstrance out of any prejudice against it or the Subscribers of it why they do notwithstanding refuse
the other as I told before under an easie confinement i. e. to that of the whole City of Dublin till further orders if the Reader will know what I have to answer and first as to Kilfinuragh is 1. That as Kilfinuragh when he was told of the Lord Lieutenant's desire to speak to him departed suddenly and privately out of Dublin so he likewise soon after no less privately in some remote Harbour some said Cork ship'd away for France 2. That for my own part I could not imagine any other cause of his flight if not either the check of his own Conscience for his carriage in the Congregation or his great hopes of both a Home Insurrection and Forreign Invasion or his little care of his own peculiar little Flock or Diocess being also as pitifully poor and ungainful to him as it is indeed little in extent i. e. eight Parishes onely or finally his far more gainful pretence abroad of banishment or of being forced to flie for Catholick Religion forsooth a pretence yielding him at least 300 Pistols a year in France ever since that year 1666 as it did also before since the year 1652 or thereabouts 3. That I am sure he had no cause given him by the Lord Lieutenant and as sure that His Excellency intended not to give him other than only to speak and expostulate with Ardagh and him together in presence of five or six others as I have before related 4. That if the fear of such bare speaking and expostulation could be a sufficient cause or motive for a Bishop to flie away from his Flock and never look after them since any thing may be 5. That besides he knew very well that of all the Bishops of the whole Province of Munster or Archiepiscopal Province of Cashil he alone was alive that there were nine Diocesses vacant in that Province that for so many years before since Cromwel's Arms and Intrigues of the Bishops forced the Kingdom to submit to the Parliament of England there was no Episcopal Confirmation administred in that whole Province and that as consequently the whole Episcopal care of the whole Province and every Diocess therein viz. the charge of Confirming the Baptized of Ordaining Priests of Consecrating Altars c. yea of calling Provincial Synods was devolved upon him until other Pastors were provided so it must have followed that doing his duty therein he could not come short by staying at home in any respect of whatever even Temporal emoluments he reaped by his flight into France 6. That I may therefore here rationally ask What made or moved him then to go away nay and to go so as if he had been forc'd to flie for his life 7. That his continual stay in France for so many years after the Kings Restauration until 1666 yea notwithstanding my own several Letters and Messages to him during those very years both from London and Dublin praying him to return home to his Diocess and look to his Flock as others did in other parts of the Kingdom to theirs and assuring him of all permission to do so and now again since the Duke of ORMOND's removal from the Government of Ireland i. e. since the year 1669 to this present 1673. during which latter time even Thirteen or fourteen new Bishops and amongst them four Archbishops all created by the Pope do publickly and freely live and exercize their Functions at home in Ireland must plainly evince it was no true fear of the Duke of ORMOND the KING's Lieutenant in 1666. nor of any persecution from His GRACE then made him the said Bishop of Kilfinuragh flie away so as he did immediately after the foresaid Congregation of 1666. 8. That nevertheless I will not here deny but I have known of late how 't was possible the same Bishop might have had then some remembrance of his own having formerly been one of or amongst the Jamestown Committee of Bishops at Galway in the year 1650 who on the fifth of November the same year delivered unto the Commissioners of Trust the disloyal Answer to the rational Proposals for accommodation made to them by the same Commissioners of Trust I say of late because then or in the year 1666 I knew not so much as having not then nor indeed at any time after until this very last Month of May 1673 perused throughly and seriously the Marquess of Ormond's long and excellent Letter in the year 1650 to the General Assembly at Loghreogh By which Letter it appears as you may see hereafter pag. 135. of the Second Appendix to this present Work Kilfinuragh alias Kilfenora had been one of those very Jamestown Committee Bishops at Galway yea one of the very six Bishops that delivered the aforesaid Answer For these six Bishops were Killala Ferns Kilmacduogh Clonfert Kilfenora and Dromore as appears by the attestation of the above Commissioners of Trust who also were six viz. Lucas Dillon Richard Barnwall Richard Everard Gerald Fennel Richard Belings and Geoffry Browne who received the said Answer from them 9. But withall I do affirm he might have very well and clearly seen That none of all those old matters or transgressions how high soever did reflect on any even of the chief Authors i. e. were not so much as thought of by the Duke of Ormond the King's Lieutenant in order to any such purpose as the taking away any one 's either life or liberty or to hinder his free living where he pleased in the Kingdom Witness not only the Bishop of Dromore who was one of the above six Bishops and yet when he return'd to Ireland in 1663 was by the Duke both civilly received and with much respect also treated alwayes after until he dyed in 1664 but even the Bishop of Ferns another of those six and one also that soon after the year 1650 had even abroad in France and particularly by his Printed relations and I think unjustly both reflected on and exasperated the Marquess of Ormond and yet in the above year 64 was by the Duke of Ormond the King's Lieutenant heartily forgiven all and with His Grace's express permission invited home to Ireland by me yea and assured both of protection and favour though Ferns himself would not make use thereof because he would not correct the error of his late Letter in justifying anew the old proceedings of Jamestown Witness moreover the Archbishop of Tuam John Burk living then i. e. an 1666. at home in Connaught with all freedom notwithstanding he had formerly sign'd the very Declaration and Excommunication too of Jamestown and never made by Retractation or otherwise any satisfaction therefore Nay witness several other persons in particular whom I could name were it necessary as I my self introduced them to His Grace in the years 1663 1664 1665 and 1666. some of them Subscribers of those disloyal Acts of Jamestown and the rest known violent Nuntiotists all along formerly against Him yet received civilly by Him without seeming once to remember
determining at all whether the King or his inferior Courts or Judges may or may not justly and by their own proper supream or subordinat civil authority and expresly against the Popes decrees proceed against such criminals according to the present municipal lawes of the land nor determining whether such Ecclesiastick criminals may in conscience where they may or can choose subject themselves in such cases as wherein by the Canons of the Roman Church they are exempt from the power and punishment of the secular Magistrat and his lawes unless or until they be delivered over to him by the Church albeit the subscribers of that Remonstrance of 61. were then are now and will so continue principled in conscience and doctrine that by the lawes of God no Canons of the Church may exempt any Church-men of what rank or degree soever no more then they can meer Lay-men from either the directive or coercive supream temporal power of such Kings as have not any other superior in their temporals but God alone nor against their wills or lawes from their courts or subordinat Judges though it be most conformable to the law of God and nature that Princes should for the reverence of the sacred function exempt them generally from the power of inferior or subordinat judicatures and leave them to be punished by their own Ecclesiastical superiors if not in such cases or contingencies as they shall find their said Ecclesiastical superiors to be unwilling or unfitting or to be involved themselves in the same crimes or the chief Patrons of them But however this be in truth and whatever the subscribers of 61. think or think not of this matter and whether the foresaid two lines which finally conclude their said sequel petition and resignation imply formally or virtually or any way at all such renunciation of Ecclesiastical immunity or implye it not in any kind of manner yet for as much as upon many occasions great use has been made as I have said before of the above objections though as often cleerly and throughly solved as made against the Remonstrance of 61. and that in this other of 66. the contrivers and promoters of it have intirely omitted that passage both as to the words and sense and I mean that sense which they themselves conceive or certainly would have others conceive of purpose to render that passage and by and for it the whole foresaid Remonstrance of 61. odious and scandalous and for as much also as from persons so principled in that point of Clergie mens exemption there can be no assurance to the King by general words and notions or by such too too general acknowledgements protestations declarations and promises of any real true and significant subjection intended or promised by them but such only as leaves them alwayes at liberty that is free from the supream temporal Coercive power of the King and his laws and leaves them not so much as under an inward obligation of sin to conform outwardly or submit as much as to the direction or directive part virtue or power of any kind of Temporal or civil Magistrat or laws but only under such an unsignificant obligation as these words ex aequo et bono import and for as much further as until they declare sufficiently that is cleerly expresly and particularly against this dangerous false and scandalous doctrine it must in reason be to no purpose for them to offer or for His Majestie to receive any kind of Protestation of Allegiance from them therefore I found this alteration and omission of the said two lines nothing equivalent as to that sense how injuriously or invidiously soever conceived by them being in their own Remonstrance given in lieu thereof I say I found that change a most material exception and if not a greater at least as great as any of all the former Leaving to the judicious Reader to be considered soberly and coolely what according to such doctrine of the exemption or immunity of Clergy-men signifies any word acknowledgment protestation declaration or promise as from such Clergy-men in their Remonstrance even in case there had been no other Exception to it What those words which are their very first beginning of it We your Majesties Subjects the Roman Catholtck Clergy of Ireland c Or whether from such men so principled in this matter these words must be construed or understood to import any more then that they profess themselves verbally not really equivocally not univocally Subjects Or do not they withal and at the same time perswade themselves and stiffely maintain that however in word they complement yet in deed they are not Subjects either in soul or body not even in any kind of case to any civil or temporal power or law on earth as barely such Or doth the Kings Majesty pretend his own to be other then barely and only such that is temporal and civil And so I conclude all my four Instances Which especially the second and fourth or this last I confess might be comprized in a fewer Lines But I chose this method of purpose to make the weaker sort of capacities to understand at large the causes of dissatisfaction my Lord Lieutenant and Council have in this Remonstrance of the foresaid late Assembly how specious soever it may appear at first reading to such as are not throughly acquainted with the intrigues And now to those Instances and Exceptions will only add in brief two Observations more Which especially the first of them confirm evidently enough to any indifferent man that is not a fool how little how weak and frail and false the assurance is the King can derive from such a Remonstrance of such men and in such a country and time as this First Observation That upon the sole account of their express refusal on the contradictory publick debate in the Assembly to petition his Majesty as you have seen at large in the Narrative whlch goes before the Exceptions for pardon of those crimes or offences chargable on them as committed by them or any of them or any else of the Irish Clergie by reason or occasion of the first Insurrection 23. Octob. in 41. or of the after conjunction of the rest of the Irish Catholicks the same or following year in a social war with the first Insurrectors or by reason or occasion in particular of the Clergies general Congregation at Waterford under the Nuncios Authority and their Declaration therein and those other actings afterwards in pursuance thereof in the next general Assembly of the three Estates in Kilkenny against the peace of 46. or of the total breach and publick rejection of it in all parts of the Kingdom or by reason or occasion also of the Declarations of the Bishops at Jamesstown against the second Peace or that which followed in 48. and of the consequent breaches thereof by so many other persons and parties and in so many other Provinces and Counties of the Kingdom I say that upon the sole account of
this Kingdom and in that particular too that the Pope could not depose Bishops in Ireland against the same Canons for that their third allegation I say it appears already out of all hiterto said to be even as to both branches of this fourth proposition or in relation to the said branches more than positively more than abundantly false especially if we understand by the Kings authority rights c. what honest men without Sophistry understand For if we do not the allegation must be to no purpose though it should relate only to the first branch as appears manifestly out of what is before said to their first and second allegation And for the second branch or part of the said fourth proposition they have not as much as any kind of colour to say that in their Remonstrance or three first Propositions they have as much as glanced at it Which the Reader may see with his own eyes and of himself without any further proof of mine conclude evidently by comparing together this fourth Proposition and their said three former Propositions and Remonstrance What ground then had they for this third Sophistical allegation of a more positiveness I confess that notwithstanding I have read and read again ten times over and over their said Remonstrance and three Propositions signed by them and compared both to this fourth I see none at all but that very vnsignificant and sorry one which is by a little inconsiderable change of the first Proposition which the Congregation was absolutly necessitated unto if they would not be convinced by every Soul that knew their former actions of a manifest untruth and lye For the first Proposition of Sorbone declaring in the second part that the said Faculty had always or at all times thitherto resisted or opposed even such as attributed to the Pope as much as an indirect authority or an indirect authority alone over the temporals of the most Christian King it is manifest our Congregation could not imitate Sorbone as to that part or I mean for what concerned the time past or could not have said as those of that Faculty did in these words immo semper obstitisse Pacultatem eriant ijs qui indirectam tantummodo voluerunt esse illum authoritatem Which was the reason that forced them to change the Precerpâ—â— perfect tense of the infinitive moode which tense the Sorbonists did and justy could make use of as they framed that first Proposition and change it to the future tense of the Indicative moode and put it into this form we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in Civil and temporal affairs Now what more positiveness hath this of the future tense argued I would fain know of any man And other argument than this sorry though necessary change I see none if not peradventure the words natural and just added to obedience in the third Proposition Epithets not made use of here by Sorbone be not thought by Father N. N. to be arguments of more positiveness But if he do and shew himself herein less than a Sophister every understanding man can tell him presently that where Sorbone sayes and declares in the said third Proposition their doctrine to be quod Subditi fidem et obedientiam Regi Chriâ—â—tae nissim it a debent ut ab ijs nullo praetextu dispensari possint it was needless to add those or any other Epithets to that faith and obedience which they profess there to be so due from his own Subjects to the most Christian King that under no pretext soever they may be dispensed with therein For certainly every man knowes there is no faith or obedience due from them to him but natural and just as neither can be from us to our own King So that albeit those Epithets be good yet they and nothing to the French proposition much less more positiveness in the declaration And whither the word faith which the Sorboniâ—â— have in this their third Proposition and yet is omitted in the same by our Congregation whither purposely or not I know not certainly do argue a less positiveness of less â—ye or obligation I leave it to others to determine Having done with their second Paragraph we are now come to their third Which I give likewise at length and in then own words As to the 5th they mean the 5th Sorbone Proposition as here in terminis that it is noe the doctrine of the Faculty but applied to the Congregation That it is not our doctrine that the Pope is above the general Couneâ— We thought it likewise not material to our affaire to talke of a School-question of Divinity controverted in all Catholick Vniversities of the world whether the Pope be above general Councils or no whether he can annul the Acts of a general Council or no dissolve the general Council or whither contrary-wise the Council can depose the Pope c. Secondly we conceive it not onely impertinent but dangerous in its consequence and unseasonable to talke of a question which without any profit either to the King or his Subjects may breed jealousy between the King and his Subjects or may give the least overture to such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late sad experience hath taught us Where I observe two Specifical reasons and no more given by them for the applicableness to their present purpose here of their above first general pretence The first is that whether the Pope be above a general Council or no is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities The second that their subscription to the fifth Proposition of Paris or to their resolve on this question would give others to understand it must consequently follow it is not their doctrine that the King is above the Parliament It seems they were put to very narrow shifts when they stuffed their Paper with such weak arguments But the illness of the cause afforded them no better and their resolution not to subscibe having been so unalterable as it was they must have pretended the most specious they could not certainly out of any hope to render by such pretences their obstinacie excusable with any judicious knowing men much less to impose on the Lord Lieutenant for whose immediat satisfaction they would have others believe these reasons and arguments were so digested but for a quite other design which was to abuse the multitude or vulgar by pretences of reasons and arguments whereof the common People could not understand the weakness whom therefore I have thought paines-worthy to disabuse by these following answers And first to their first argument which sayeth it is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities whether the Pope be above a general Council or not and therefore concludes the immaterialness and impertinency of their subscription to that 5th of Paris or to this It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council it is answered That those of
as to this world or life Whether I say all this being true as I am sure it is and Father N. N. or the congregation will not or can not deny it must follow that such a question and resolve or to treat of such a question and resolve it so as Sorbon did could not in right reason be esteemed by them unprofitable even as to this world and life but on the contrary and without contradiction be reputed by them too very profitable whatever the success would or should be For wise men are not to judge of the unprofitableness or profitableness of the means by the successfulness of the end Careat successibus opto quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putet But alas the reports and predictions of I know not what and the strange impressions and expectations of 66. made those good Fathers quench all these lights of reason and others whatsoever leading them to their own good at home and further made them look for their own profit in both worlds and lives from abroad To their fifth pretence That of a Countrey where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us I answer that both parts make against Father N. N. and the Congregation That because we have not any Catholick University or any of the Roman Communion amongst us in Ireland whose resolves in a case of controversie or necessary debate might be asked and should or would be followed by the rest of that Communion Clergy and Laytie in the Kingdom it was expedient and necessary as well to this question as to those others concerning the five foregoing propositions or to any other such whatsoever upon either the like or unlike but necessary or good occasion for the superiours and chief men of the Clergy their Prelats and Divines convened together in a sufficient Representative or number to debate and resolve it according to conscience truth and religion That they cannot pretend themselves unable or insufficient for such debate or such resolve unless they withal confess themselves uncapable of their function and that consequently they ought to quit or suspend themselves presently from the execution of it until they study more and better Besides that they have already and by their former debates and resolves of and subscription to the three first propositions of Sorbon and of their own Remonstrance contradicted this allegation That had they an University at home one or moe they could not presume more conscientious or catholick resolves on this point or any other than that which they know and confess to have been already of Paris and of all the other seven of France on this now controverted here That finally had wean University one or more at home yet the resolve and subscription would be nothing the less expedient and necessary from them Because even in such a case they would be notwithstanding being what they are now the men upon whose authority themselves would then too say their several respective flocks inferiour Clergy and Lay-people should and ought to depend as being the Pastors And because they would be yet the men rationally suspected for actions past and consequently the men that should give for themselves and others too the grand resolve as for the satisfaction of His Majesty and people So much for the former part of this pretence That for the latter of our not having any Iansenist amongst us it is also no less against Father N.N. and the Congregation Because that as I have shewed before at large the question in it self abstracting from Iansenisme and having been controverted much long before Iansenisme or Iansenius himself was heard of in the world and without any kind of relation to any of those opinions or propositions after imputed to him and condemned either in his sense or in that of any others whether he held them at all or withal held them in such or such sense or no I care not at present nor doth it any way concern me nor the present controversie and those Fathers of the Congregation plainly confessing here that we have no Iansenist amongst us in this Country if not perhaps some few that under-hand c. by which expression they allow none certainly nor doubtfully either affirm any to be such that is known such I say that because of the being so of both these particulars the first already and at large deduced by me and otherwise too notoriously known to all knowing men and the second by the Congregation themselves confessed here It must follow that since we have so pressing a cause proper to our selves and in it self too abstracting wholy from the disputes of Iansenius and yet accompanied with all those other general reasons I have hitherto given even in the now present point we may the more unsuspectedly as to Iansenisme and by consequence the more easily readily and rationally debate and determine amongst us here in Ireland of that 6th proposition as we have of the three first and herein also follow the resolve of Sorbon and other Universities of France Yet for as much as it is apparent now that Father N. N. can in an instant at his pleasure change his form like another Protheus that no wood comes amiss to him to frame his arrows and that he can blow hot and cold with the same breath because in the same period nay line without the interposition of one word he assumes for a new medium the very contradictory of that pretence he last alledged nay the bare suspicion only of such a contradictory and such a bare suspicion too that is only conditional and this too raised without any ground at all by himself alone though he put it after into the Congregations mouth or paper which yet they could not in their own Souls but know to be very false and very groundless therefore I must here also even to the last word of his paper pursue him and tell his Reader that for his If not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under hand to further this dispute his own Soul and certain knowledge of the contrary will condemn him before God and his own mouth or words spoken to my self and Committee nay and whole Congregation together publickly must needs also condemn him before men For he cannot deny that for any thing known to him or any other of the Congregation there was never as much as a thought of proposing to or desiring from the said Congregation any thing at all concerning the subscription or other approbation of those six resolves of Sorbon or even of any one of them other than what some passages of their own Remonstrance or of that other of 61. might or may be construed to relate to the matter only of some of those propositions that is of the three first only of them but still without any thought of those propositions in themselves as such and consequently neither of this last of Sorbon against the Popes infallibility before he and others with him of the said Congregation
think the adhering to such Agreements were a sin Landorpius 1598. And though at the commencement of the Peace 'twixt Matthias Caesar and the Protestants there was some opposition at first made by Melinus the Nuncio Apostolick and by the Bishop of Vienna yet publish'd they no Excommunication nor other Censures which notwithstanding they should if none could in Conscience adhere to a Peace giving so much power and liberty to Protestants Whereas therefore the Supreme Council and Confederate Catholicks have in a miserable condition articled more honourably and securely for the Faith even in a Cessation than Caesars and Monarchs who commanded Mines of Gold and had vast Armies at their beck have done concluding either Cessations or Peace and whereas great utility arising thence to the Catholick cause besides the extream necessity of the affairs of the Kingdom pressed your Honours to it either of which to wit profit or necessity is sufficient to make conscionable a Cessation Peace or League with Hereticks as the Lord Nuncio himself admitteth in some of his Letters to your Lordships and no man of Learning hath ever yet denied nor can deny with reason and whereas likewise the Articles contain nothing evil of its own nature or present circumstances but rather much to the advancement of Religion and Virtue how can the said Cessation for the whole or any part be against Religion unless peradventure we admit a truth of contradictories in point of Cessation and Religion How in it any just ground for Excommunication since this ground is not but where sin is and these Articles are so far from being sinful as no Confederate Catholick can reject the Cessation without mortal sin both that of disobedience against the Supreme Civil power in a civil business of so great weight and of perjury against his Oath which binds him to obey their orders nay nor these who embraced it can without a third mortal sin which is that of breach of fidelity even with Sectaries in a matter of moment and where the object implies no evil Shall they then be excommunicated for not committing so many mortal sins for practising the acts of virtues opposite It is an untollerable Errour to think it Neither do they weaken these our grounds who object the Declaration made by the Lord Nuncio and Congregation against the Cessation and before it was concluded as though it were unlawful after that Declaration which before was conscionable for who sees not but the said Declaration as is manifest in the words of it did presuppose unlawfulness in the nature of that agreement which was then to be made and that therefore it was issued to admonish the people and divert them from it which was in it self thought evil not evil by reason of any protestation or manifestation made thereof by the Clergy who certainly by no means would confess it was their own Declaration that made it unlawful Whence further is consequent That since we have proved it implieth no evil in it self or before the Declaration issued so it cannot by vertue of the Declaration Besides this Declaration was no command and therefore in case the Prelates had a just ground for it could not make that unlawful which before was lawful Moreover it shall appear in our answer to the next Querie That the Cessation concluded was not the same against which the Declaration issued and consequently could not be made unlawful by it Neither likewise is it worth the regarding what is unreasonably objected of two Counties given by the Council and by vertue of this Cessation to Inchiquin namely Waterford and Kierry It is manifest to all Ireland there was nothing left him but far less by two whole Counties than he commanded or had under contribution before this agreement was made For the Confederates have gotten from him the Counties of Limerick and Tipperary both which were wholly over-run at his pleasure and contributed lower Ormond only excepted The Second Querie answered THat by what we hitherto said is proved That your Honours for disannulling the said monitory Excommunication and Interdict needed not at least in foro poli to have made any appeal since they were altogether groundless and hence not only unjust but also invalid even of their own nature and in themselves before any appeal Which briefly may be declared out of the two plain Errors contained in the sentence of these Censures and in the proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and Delegates as we humbly conceive and with reverence to their Lordships One is that in the sentence of Excommunication and Interdict there is relation to the former Articles against which the Declaration was made at first but were after mended with better in their place as we have already touched and yet as if the Cessation had been concluded on such rejected Articles the Censures proceed against it Which is an Error in the substance of the matter prohibited or commanded And consequently disannulling it if there had been no other cause forasmuch as it might be said to concern the Cessation actually now in being The second is an Error properly called intollerable though not juris but facti not patenter expressus according to the phrase of the Law in words but too too evident in effect and in that which the sentence both commands and prohibits which by the consent of Canons (z) c. Venerabilibus §. potest quoque de sentent excom in 6. cap. Per tuas §. Nos igitur ext cod tit Tol. l. 1. c. x. Candidus disq 22. a. 24. de Cens dub 3. ubi citat Sotum in 4. d. 12. q. 1. a. 2. Sua. in tom 5. de Cen disp 4. sect 7. n. 32. Ubi etiam habet quod quando Censura est sic nulla in utroque foro now est necessarjuin petere absolutionem ad cautciam hic etium Heniq l. 13. de excom c. 15. Sayrus l. 1. de Cens cap. 16 c. and Doctors renders the sentence of no force yea in case it were only an intollerable Error of fact specially when it enjoins the commission of sin 'T is That the said Sentence and Censures prohibit in effect and against the Laws of God Fidelity in lawful Promises Religion in Sacred Oaths and Obedience to the Supreme Civil power in matters concerning the Temporal government and of their own nature and by all right depending of Civil Jurisdiction and in which as we have sufficiently manifested in the first Querie no sin is implied That likewise they commanded breach of Faith Perjury and Disobedience yea we may boldly say it as we wofully feel it Sedition and Rebellion against the Kingdom and Confederacy Whence it is manifestly consequent that the Censures were invalid even before the Appeal But in case we admitted these Censures to have been valid until the Appeal or that they would be valid and binding after the ninth day which was the last of the dayes given for admonishment and deliberation if within the term prefixed by the
for such proceedings and Censures cannot be either justly or validly but from persons who are Judges in the case and whose Jurisdiction is not suspended in the same cause Hence is manifest That the Lord Nuncio â—s renovation and confirmation in his Apostles refutatories of his former sentence his execution of the Interdict and all other his proceedings against any of the Confederates on this ground and since the Appeal are unjust and invalid for what either concerns Conscience or the Canons do determine Which is further proved out of cap. Dilectis filiis 55. de Appellat § Quia vero Where Innocent the III. decreed against the Dean of Altisiodorum for having proceeded to the execution of an Interdict notwithstanding and after an Appeal made to Rome The reason of which Decree the Pope gives in these words Cum Appellatione ad fidem Apostolicam interposit a nihil debuerit innovari Where likewise he declares for the same reason That the Excommunication pronounced by the Archbishop of Sein or Senonensis against the same Dean and denunciation made to have been of no force from the beginning and that the said Archbishops Canons did without guilt notwithstanding the denunciation communicate with the Dean so censured and lastly that all proceedings attempted after the Appeal were in themselves void as he does by his Decree disannul them yielding for reason that the accessory is of the same nature with the principal which we have before touched Can we desire any more Canons more pertinent or fitting our purpose it's needless we alledge them though many more we have But because peradventure besides these Tears of Law the sense of Doctors may yet be expected let the Authors seen in the opposit margin (e) Candidus disq 22. art 39. dub 4. ubi citat Lopez par 2. tr de clavibus cap. 12. Pal. in 4. d. S. q. 1. art 4. con 2. Sayrum lib. 1. de Censur cap. 16. n. â—3 Bonac too 1. tract de Censur d. 1. q. 2. punc 2. numer 3. Diana P. 5. T. 3. R. 30. Silvester verb. Appellat Hieron Rodriq ibi Porte eod verb. be read and it will be found that the common Doctrine of Summists Divines and Canonists hath hitherto been That a just Appeal of it self and presently when 't is made devolves the cause to a higher Tribunal suspends the sentence given and withal hinders the inferiour Judge from proceeding any further All which the Doctors comprehend in the double effect which they say is necessarily annexed to a just Appeal to wit devolving and suspending Now for a just Appeal (f) Cand. supr disq 3. reliqui apud ipsum Candidus Boâ—acina Sayrus and others commonly affirm two only conditions are necessary The first that it be made with expression of sufficient probable or likely causes or such as the Appellant thinks bona fide are just probable likely or sufficient motives for appealing but that no other expression or of any other causes is acquired And truly with the Doctors herein the very Canons and Glosses do concur cap. ut debitus (g) Cap. Bonae memoriae §. Praemissâ—s extr de Appel Praemissis igitur diligenter inspectis praedictoâ— Aâ—batem Monachos in eum statum in quo tempore Appellationis lactae ex versimilibus probabilibus ad nos legitime interpositae nostuntur proprietatis parti uttilibet salvo Jure decernimus reducendos ac fructus mediâ— temporis perceptos câ—nsuimus parâ—â—r assignandos eisdem verb. ex rationabili ext de Appellat cap. Dilectis filiis 55. verb. Legitime eod tit cap. Cordi nobis eod tit in 6. often in the case of the Glos and c. Bona memoria § Praemissis ext eod tit where Innocentius III. clearly determines the Appeal to be just and the causes of the Appeal to be sufficient when it is made ex probabilibus aut verisimilibus that is when they are probable or seeming true though indeed they be not in themselves true It sufficeth therefore sayes the Glosse (h) Glossa ibid. Sufficit ergo quod sit probabilis causa Appellationis licet non sit vera vel necessaria Talis videlicet debet esse quod si esset probata legitima esset tunc valet Appellatiâ— further declaring this matter that the cause of Appeal seem probable though it be not certain or true It is enough it be such as being proved may seem lawful for then the Appeal is valid The very same in effect is affirmed by Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis (i) Glossa in cap. Cordi nobis de Appellat in 6. Causa rationabilis ad appellandum aâ— interloquutoria vel gravamine aliquo illa est quae si esset vera deberet legitima reputari aut quae si esset vera necessario inferret appellantem fuisse gravatum de Appellat in 6. as may be read in the margin The second condition necessary and which accomplisheth a just Appeal is that it be made and tendered to the Judge from whom before the dayes prefixed for admonishment or the condition be fulfilled when the Appeal is from a conditional Excommunication Censure or sentence as that against the adherents to the Cessation was or at least within the time limited for entring Appeals That both conditions have been observed punctually in the Appeal made by the Council in their own and in the name of all the rest of the Confederates is apparent to all have read it who have weighed the motives therein expressed and noted the dates both of it and of the sentence against which it was interposed this having been of the 27th of May 1648. and that of the last of the same month dispatch'd away presently to their Lordships the Nuncio and his Delegates But of the second condition there is no controversie All the question is of the first that is Whether the causes or motives of the Appeal were sufficient Yet even herein we see no difficulty Doubtless the Council and many Thousands more of the Confederates were persuaded bona fide that the Nuncio proceeded with due observation of his Lordship may it be said unjustly and that they had expressed before his Lordship most just motives to appeal from his Censures and complain to his Holiness of such proceeding Which bona fides alone would suffice us for securing our own Consciences in opposing his sentence and in hindring to our power the execution of his Censures and all his other proceedings on the same ground yea though the motives were only just in the opinion of the Appellants Which is the doctrine of Authors now cited and must be of all Divines who generally teach and it is in it self most certain and taught us by natural reason That the immediate and next Rule according to which we must square our actions in matters of Fact and cases of Conscience is our own proper bona fides and opinion However this be of our bona fides whether we had it or
their dear Countrey with so many other bordering Kingdoms of Christianity lest open as a prey to the fury of Barbarians what reproach and what confusion to see a Turk obtain a victory from Christ against Christians when Amuâ—â—th in the heat of that Battel observing his own army put to the worst by the valour of Vladislaus drew forth out of his bosome the scroll of the articles of Cessation signed by the Christian King and casting his eyes to Heaven challenged Christs Divinity if he did not presently shew himself a revenging God for that dishonour done his Name by this perfidiousness of Christians What some would fain here say yet it is only to say somewhat not because they conceive it hath any colour of reason that it belongs to the Judge from whom not to the Appellant or others to know whether the causes of the Appeal be probably or evidently just is answered by Glossa in cap. Cum Appellationibus de Appellat in 6. where these express words are That it belongs to the Judge Superiour to whom the Appeal is made to examine and judge of the lawfulness of the Appeal and by Glossa in cap. ut debitus extr de Appellat That this depends not of the Judge from whom but of the truth it self Whence may be inferred That the Appellant as he really sees probability or evidence in the Causes alledged may accordingly address himself to the superiour Judge and obey no more the inferiour to whom it no way belongs to judge of the Causes when they are such as being proved they would be thought reasonable otherwise than by giving a bare answer or apostles And this is it the Glosse intends For doubtless he intends not to exclude the power of the superiour Judge in examining and giving sentence for or against the Appeal Yet certain it is That if the Appellant sees the very superiour Judge not to sentence aright either in the matter of the Appeal or any other it is lawful to appeal further even from him to his superiour if any be Gloss cap. Romana verb. Minus legitima de Appellat in 6. Lastly and most directly to the purpose by Gloss in cap. Sollicitudinem extr verb. Episcopus posset (l) 〈…〉 in 〈…〉 ext 〈◊〉 Appell verb. â—â—icopus pâ—ssâ—â—bâ—d quare judâ—x non pâ—â—est cognâ—scâ—râ—e Appellatione ab ipso facta sicut cognoscit an sua sit jurisdictio Ideo non potest cognoscere de Appellatione quia cum probabilis causa exp sita est in Appellatione jam exemptus est a Jurisdictione illius est illi suspectus praesumptio est pro ipso quod semper vellet judicare pro sua Jurisdictione c. Where 't is demanded Wherefore cannot the Judge from whom an Appeal is made know that is call in question examine juridically and judge or give sentence of the same Appeal And 't is answered That therefore he cannot be a Judge of the Appeal made from him because that a probable cause being alledged in the Appeal the Appellant is exempted from his Jurisdiction â—e me suspected to him and because it may be presumed that the Judge in this case wouâ—â— give sentence in favour of his own Jurisdiction c. Nay the very Text of cap. ut debitus § Cum autem puts this business out of all debate where it is said (m) Cum autem ex rationabili causa putâ—verit appellandom coram eodem Judice causa Appellationis exposita tali viz. quae si soret probata deberet legitima reputari Superior de Appellatione cognoscat c. That it belongs to the superiour Judge to examine and give sentence whether the causes were in themselves reasonable or no As for the inferiour Judge the Appellant is bound only to expose or alledge before him probable or reasonable causes to wit such causes which being proved ought to be reputed lawful And therefore the Judge from whom hath no right to examine juridically the truth of them since the Appellant is only bound to expose or alledge them before him and not to prove them for who sees not that to be bound to alledge and to be bound to prove are far different And consequently he cannot hinder a just Appeal by saying it belongs to him to know and judge whether it be a just Appeal or no or whether the Causes expressed be reasonable or no Which is yet more plainly and indeed throughly cleared without any place left for expositions or distinctions by cap. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. where its expresly decreed by Boniface the VIII (n) Si a Judice a quo propter gravamen quod tibi proponis illatum appellas ad docendum resore gravatum ad audiendam revocationem ejusdem gravaminis si de ipso docuerâ—s nam supponit quod ad hoc non teneris ut infâ—a statim tibi terminus praefigatur Nec corameo cum ipse per se id videre habeat docere nec etiam tanquam coram Judice cum per appellationem sit suspensa ipsius Jurisdictio comparere teneris nisi ad hoc solum ut revocationem ipsam audias si eam duxcrit faciendam That for to prove you had just or probable causes to appeal you are not bound to appear or answer before the Judge from whom you appealed in regard sayes Boniface that he is no more your Judge whereas by your Appeal especially when it is from an extrajudicial or a gravamine as our Appeal is his Jurisdiction is suspended Only one case excepted which is not to our purpose yet that is when the Judge from whom saniori ductus consilio being better advised would recall his past sentence whereby the Appellant was grieved for only in this case he is bound being called to appear before the Judge a quo to the end he may hear the sentence of his grievance recalled What can be desired more manifestly convincing If the Judge from whom once the Appeal is interposed from a grievance and probable Causes therein expressed that is such as being proved ought to be accounted probable if he be no more Judge if he have no more jurisdiction over the Appellant but only in that one case if the Appellant be not bound to appear before him for to prove the truth or justice of his motives of Appeal how doth it belong to him to examine juridically the truth of these Causes or to sentence the Appeal to be good or bad or on pretext hereof to hinder the Appellant from the prosecution of the Appeal or getting the benefit of an Appeal Certainly it cannot be unless we admit a plain contradiction And certainly as yet we have not seen one Chapter Passage or Glosse of the Law could be produced to the contrary by such as seem to maintain the invalidity of the Appeal though they have laboured much in heaping together Citations But all to no other purpose then either that as we grant and never denied probable causes of the Appeal
are to be alledged (o) This only and no more for what concerns this matter can be deduced out of c. Pastoralis §. verum de appellat cap. Legitima eod Gloss § Legitima in 6. c. Romana eod §. quod si objiciatur Glossa ibid. §. Vera Nota insuper c. cum appellat eod See all this confirmed by c. Interposra de appellationibus extr where it appears sufficiently though it be for the contrary opinion produced that the validity of an Appeal is to be proved before the Judge ad quem For the case of the said Chapter is One appealed who expressed only a probable cause in his appeal The question was whether it were sufficient for the Appellant to prove before the Judge to whom that his cause was probable although perhaps not true And it was resolved That he ought to prove it to be both probable and true unless he offered of his own accord to prove this truth before the Judge from whom and yet was not heard for in this case it is enough he prove before the Judge ad quera that the cause of his Appeal was probable though not true In which question and answer made by the Pope there is not a word for the adversaries but much to our purpose as appears by the Glosse partly and partly by these words nisi hoc se offerens probaturem c. Whence is gathered that he had no obligation to prove it before the Judge a quo but what was done by him was of his own accord not by any tye of the Law At least we may confidently say that nothing may be inferred against us out of this Chapter Nay this Text speaks in case the Appellant even before he enters his Appeal do offer to prove his allegations to be true and not after the Appeal is made as appears in the Glosse there and by the Glossa of cap. Si a Judic verb. teneris de appellat in 6. ibi per Dominic which the common pâ—actice proveth Whence further is manifest that there is no obligation by this Chapter to prove before the Judge a quo the truth of the appeal since questionless before in given in there can be no such obligation therein and before the Judge from whom though not their truth to be proved before him or that when the Judge is refused or excepted against or to speak the terms of the Law when there is a recusation of him not an Appeal that then the recusatorie exceptions are to be proved before Arbiters given by the Judge and chosen by common consent of the Plaintiff and Defendant It is in this case of recusation that cap. cum speciali de appellat extra and cap. Legitima eod tit in 6. speak and not in case of Appeal which is far different from the former It is true that the Judge a quo hath so many dayes allowed him by the Canons to consider what kind of apostles he is to give and that in admitting or rejecting the Appeal he doth in so much ex animi sui opinione out of his own private opinion judge of its probability or improbability yet followeth it not hence that he giveth any juridical or binding sentence or judgment of the Causes obliging either before God or the World the Conscience of the Appellant For the giving of the apostles is nothing else but a bare answer to the Appeal which the Law permits him to give either dimissory or refutatory that is either admitting or rejecting the Appeal either right or wrong but at his own peril if he give not a right answer and admit the Appeal when it is from a just and probable grievance and hath in it expressed probable Causes the Law providing likewise for the liberty and safety of the Appellant that whatsoever answer this be he is not bound to conform himself to it if it be to his disadvantage since he hath once lawfully appealed or with expression of reasonable Causes and since this Judge from whom hath no power to summon him nor to examine Witnesses nor to form any Process concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the Causes expressed which power notwithstanding for to summon examine form a Process must be supposed in him that is the proper Judge and can give a binding sentence of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the Appeal Whence followeth that they say nothing to purpose who object That the Lord Nuncio and Bishops did not conceive such pressing necessity for concluding the Cessation or such great profit to arise thence which are the prime reasons alledged in the Appeal for excepting against the Censures but rather that it was fixed on with intention to bring in the late rejected Peace and for other consequences following that business and consequently that they conceived no truth in the Causes alledged For in case we did grant their suspitions to be true before God as they are not yet nothing hence may be inferr'd for disproving the lawfulness of the Appeal in foro exteriori wherein only they proceed since they cannot deny but the Causes alledged are such as if they can be proved they ought to be thought lawful and since they are not to be Judges herein as hath been now seen by so many Canons Glosses and Reasons and lastly since we are bona fide persuaded of the probability if not evidence of our motives nay though we had no bona fides interiourly but only seemed exteriourly to have it And verily this Answer satisfieth (p) This great opposition and seeming alteration of judgment in the Lord Nuncio must be very strange to such as know that it appears out of Letters and Messages from his Lordship to the Council which are on Record how his Lordship about the first of March when there was but a bare report of a Cessation to be made with the Parliamentary Scots desired the Council that business to wit the Cessation with the Scots should go on for that he expected a blessing thence not only to this but also to other Kingdoms Nay a little before Inchiquyn was declared for His Majesty did not he approve a Cessation to be made even with him What is the reason of so much desire expressed for making a Cessation with the Parliamentary Scots rather than with Inchiquyn or others or why with I chiquyn himself when he was for the Parliament and not much more now when he is for the King Neither doth the Lord Nuncio's answer seem in any wise to satisfie where he sayes in another of his Letters to excuse this that his intention in his former Letters or Messages was to have an accomodation or league made with him not a Cessation For who is it conceives not that a Cessation of Arms with Sectaries must be conscionable even by the Lord Nuncio's own concession and no just ground for Excommunication if an Accomodation or League be lawful since the Cessation of its own nature brings along withâ—t less communication with
never to do an act of charity c. would be plain disobedience to the Commands of God would be damnation to their Souls Or will they deny but their foolish excuse of blind obedience to their earthly Superiours injunctions would not in this case justifie them either before God or men nor likewise that other senseless evasion That it is not their parts to examine the justice of the Commands imposed upon them by their Prelates but simply to do what they are bid Will not they also confess if we reason with them a little further that it is therefore they should not obey and these excuses would not serve them in such a case because such Commands would be against the Law of God And will not they admit their knowledge hereof to be derived hence that they see it so expressed in Scriptures Fathers Doctors of the Catholick Roman Church in all Ages let it now be supposed that their Superiours should tell them the contrary in the same case How therefore do they on such mad pretences obey the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them to substract Civil obedience from the Supreme Civil power in a matter concerning the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth and in a matter wherein their Superiours cannot shew nor themselves can see any evil implied Do not they see it is against the express Law of God to substract obedience from the Civil power in this case Do not the Scriptures Councils * Concil Tol. x. c. 2. Si quis religiosorum ab Episcopo usque ad extremi ordiâ—is Clericum sive Monachum generalia juramenta in saluteâ— Regium gentisque aut Patriae data reperiatur violasse voluntate profana mox propria dignitate privatum loco honore habeatur exclusus Becanus in Sum. Theol. de bonit act in t c. 4. q. 7. con 4. alii apud ipsum Fathers Doctors the practice of the Church of Christ in all Ages proclaim it They cannot be ignorant hereof and if any of them hath been hitherto certainly their ignorance can be no longer invincible that is such as might not be overcome by humane industry nor probable that is which hath probable reasons to maintain their disobedience to the Council For what reasons can be probable against the plain sense of Holy Scriptures and the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church in all Ages As for affected ignorance gross vincible or improbable none of them excuse from damnation according to the sense of all Catholick Writers But alas Ignorance is not the cause of sinful Obstinacy Malice and a natural inclination occasioneth it in very many a rash engagement in others hopes of preferment to Benefices and Superiority in others in others a stupid fear of losing what they had being persuaded by experience of the former revolution that an Excommunication the most unjust would alter the whole frame of Government and that there should be no living in Ireland for any would oppose the Lord Nuncio's design herein or the power of Owen O Neill Behold the true causes of their Obstinacy In others an apprehension of shame and disgrace in reclaiming an error and falling from this way they once resolved on and no sense of Conscience Behold the reason why even the best and most learned amongst them being demanded the ground of their opposition do say commonly That they will neither give reason nor take reason and when they speak their mind at full do now at last only censure the intention which the Council and their Adherents had in the concluding the Cessation because they find no other cause and yet would seem not without some cause to reject it which they are engaged for so many unworthy causes to oppose But who sees not in our Answers to the first and second Querie the false imposture of this last refuge Yet by reason they make hereof more use than of any other we briefly propose the ensuing considerations First That the Declaration and Censures of the Lord Nuncio Congregation and Delegates in obedience to which they disobey the Council were not against such evil intentions but against the very substance of the Articles of Cessation as in themselves evil and unconscionable 'T is manifest to any that please to read and peruse the tenour of both Decrees which contain not a word importing other sense Bâ—n tract de Legib. disp 1. q. 1. punct 8. prop. 2. alii apud ipsuâ— ibid. and therefore cannot be extended to evil intentions though we granted such intentions to have been in regard a penal Decree or Law is to be restrained not extended according to the Maxim of Canonists Wherefore this recourse of theirs to evil intentions and their not shewing any other evil in the object that is in the Cessation it self or in the conclusion and observation of it concludes an Errour in the decree or sentence of Excommunication and consequently disannuls it and leaves them no reasonable pretence for disobeying the Council since their pretence is the supposed obligation of the Censures which even their own Answer takes away The second is Though it were granted that the Council or others who negotiated the affair of Cessation had such intentions at first or upon the perfection of it yet might they have changed such evil intentions into good during the Nine dayes given in the monitory Decree for deliberation and consequently if there be no other evil but of their intentions how could the Nuncio proceed to execute his Censures since they protested in their Appeal before the Ninth day and in other Printed Declarations that they had no such intention Nay how could he proceed to this execution though they never had made any such exteriour Protestation whereas without it they might have taken away the ground of the Excommunication to wit the supposed evil intentions The third That questionless our opposites will not deny but Thousands are of the Confederates who desired and embraced the Cessation not out of any such evil intention but for a just end and for their own preservation How then could such be Excommunicated since the ground of this Excommunication to wit evil intention is not to be found in them And if these be not Excommunicated is it not plain That none is Excommunicated whose Conscience tells him That he did not adhere to the Cessation with any evil intention How then doth the Nuncio proceed indifferently against them all as Excommunicated persons Nay how can he proceed against any of them as such but only against him or them whose naughty intentions are apparent and whose intentions can be apparent to him but either out of confession or secundum allegata probata by exteriour proofs for God alone is Judge of the interiour not the Church And who is it that was so convicted or confessed before him such intentions Nay who is it was summon'd to his Tribunal for such a business The fourth Consideration is of the
strong motives and moral certainties produced before in our Answer to the second Querie and which we may have to persuade us that the Supreme Council who are chiefly aimed at in this business had no such evil intentions Which together with all hitherto said being duly pondered by them who now seem so adverse to us in opinion but by them discharged a little of passion retyring into their Souls and looking with an eye of indifferency upon this difference we doubt not but they will acknowledge before God the truth of our Assertions and with how little reason but great hazard of eternal salvation they disobey the Commands of the Supreme Council on pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and we hope as we most heartily desire with all our Souls that they or at least such of them as have an affection to Loyalty and a true zeal of Gods cause will by their unfeigned and repentant submission to the Supreme Authority established by the Kingdom make happy these Answers labour'd as the shortness of time did permit for their conversion and satisfaction of all good Patriots by DAVID Bishop of OSSORY F John Roe Provincial of the Excal Carmelites Nicholas Taylor Doctor of Divinity William Shergoli Professor of Divinity Prebend of Houth and Vic. For. of Fingal Fr John Barnwall Lector of Divinity Fa Simon Wafer Lector of Divinity F Peter Walsh Lector of Divinity Luke Cowley Archdeacon of Ossory and Protonotary Apostolick Laurence Archbold Vic. For. in the Deaneries of Brea Tawney and Glandalagh F Christopher Plunket Guardian of St. Francis Convent in Dublin Fa John Dormer Guardian of St. Francis 's Order at Castle-dermot Fr Bonaventure Fitz-Gerald Guardian of Kildare F Laurence Matthews Preses of Carmel Kilken F Laur. a sancto Bernardo Paul Nash Prebend John Shee Prebend of Main James Sedgrave FINIS THE FIRST APPENDIX CONTAINING Some of those PUBLICK Instruments related unto PARTLY IN THE QUERIES AND PARTLY In several places of the precedent WORK or in the Four Treatises of this FIRST TO ME. VIZ. I. The Oath of Association or that which was the essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland as such according to that Form wherein it was taken or renewed in the year 1644. II. The Lord Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict by him and his Fellow Delegates or Sub-Delegates fulminated on the 27th of May 1648. against the Adherers to the Cessation made with Inchiquin III. The Supreme Councils Appeal interposed on the 31 of May the same year to His Holiness Pope Innocent X. from the said Censures Nuncio and His Fellow Delegates c. IV. The Articles of the Second Peace or of that on the 27th of the following January same year 1648. according to the old English computation but the 7th of February 1649. according to the new Roman stile concluded betwixt His Majesty CHARLES I. and the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by James Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Special Commissioner for His Majesty in treating and concluding that Peace V. The Declaration of the Archbishops Bishops and other Irish Prelates at Jamestown 12 Aug. 1650. against the said Marquess Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland wherein they assume to themselves the Regal Power restore again the Confederacy declare the said Marquess devested of all power c. VI. The Excommunication of the same date fulminated by the same Irish Archbishops Bishops and others against all persons whatsoever obeying any more or at any time thenceforth the said Marquess however the King 's Lieutenant Printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII The Preamble to the Oath of Association WHEREAS the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom of Ireland have been enforced to take Arms for the necessary defence and preservation as well of their Religion plotted and by many foul practices endeavoured to be quite suppressed by the Puritan Faction as likewise of their Lives Liberties and Estates and also for the defence and safeguard of His Majesties Regal Power just Prerogatives Honour State and Rights invaded upon and for that it is requisite That there should be an unanimous Consent and real Union between all the Catholicks of this Realm to maintain the Premisses and strengthen them against their Adversaries It is thought fit by them That they and whosoever shall adhere unto their Party as a Confederate should for the better assurance of their adhering fidelity and constancy to the Publick Cause take the ensuing Oath The Oath of Association I A. B. do profess swear and protest before God and his Saints and Holy Angels That I will during life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to His Heirs and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all His and their just Prerogatives Estates and Rights the power and priviledge of the Parliament of this Realm the fundamental Laws of Ireland the free exercise of the Roman-Catholick Faith and Religion throughout all this Land and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estates and Rights of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof And that I will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said Publick Cause And that I will not seek directly or indirectly any Pardon or Protection for any Act done or to be done touching the General Cause without the consent of the major part of the said Council And that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my Life and Estate assist prosecute and maintain the same So help me God and his Holy Gospel By the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland Kilkenny July 26. 1644. Upon full debate this day in open Court Assembly it is unanimously declared by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Knights and Burgesses of this House That the Oath of Association as it is already penned of Record in this House and taken by the Confederate Catholicks is full and binding without addition of any other words thereunto And it is ordered That any person or persons whatsoever who have taken or hereafter shall take the said Oath of Association and hath or shall declare by word or actions or by persuasions of others That the said Oath or any Branch thereof doth or may admit any equivocation or mental reservation if any such person or persons be shall be deemed a breaker of his and their Oath respectively and adverse to the General Cause and as a Delinquent or Delinquents for such offence shall be punished And it is further ordered That the several Ordinaries shall take special care that the Parish-Priests within their respective Diocesses shall publish and declare That any person or persons who hath or shall take
said Articles and before the said Publication shall not be accompted taken or construed or be Treason Felony or other offence to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion Provided likewise That the said Act of Oblivion shall not extend unto any person or persons that will not obey and submit unto the Peace concluded and agreed on by these Articles Provided further That the said Act of Oblivion or any in this Article contained shall not hinder or interrupt the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to call to an account and proceed against the Council and Congregation and the respective Supreme Councils Commissioners General appointed hitherto from time to time by the Confederate Catholicks to manage their affairs or any other person or persons accomptable to an account for their respective Receipts and disbursments since the beginning of their respective employments under the said Confederate Catholicks or to acquit or release any arrears of Excises Customs or Publick Taxes to be accompted for since the Three and Twentieth of October 1641. and not disposed of hitherto to the Publick use but that the Parties therein concerned may be called to an account for the same as aforesaid by the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them the said Act or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding XIX Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act be passed in the next Parliament prohibiting That neither the Lord Deputy or other chief Governour or Governours Lord Chancellor Lord High Treasurer Vice-Treasurer Chancellor or any of the Barons of the Exchequer Privy Council or Judges of the Four Courts be Farmers of His Majesties Customs within this Kingdom XX. Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act of Parliament pass in this Kingdom against Monopolies such as was Enacted in England 21 Jacobi Regis with a further Clause of Repealing of all Grants of Monopolies in this Kingdom and that Commissioners be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to set down the Rates for the custom and imposition to be laid on Aquavitae Wine Oyl Yearn and Tobacco XXI Item It is concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That such persons as shall be agreed on by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them shall be as soon as may be authorized by Commission under the Great Seal to regulate the Court of Castle-Chamber and such causes as shall be brought into and censured in the said Court XXII Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is graciously pleased That Two Acts lately passed in this Kingdom the one prohibiting the plowing with Horses by the Tail and the other prohibiting the burning of Oats in the straw be Repealed XXIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased For as much as upon application of Agents from this Kingdom unto His Majesty in the Fourth year of His Reign and lately upon humble suit made unto His Majesty by a Committee of both Houses of the Parliament of this Kingdom some order was given by His Majesty for redress of several Grievances and for so many of those as are not expressed in the Articles whereof both Houses in the next ensuing Parliament shall desire the benefit of His Majesties said former directions for redresses therein that the same be afforded them yet so as for prevention of inconveniencies to His Majesties service that the warning mentioned in the Four and twentieth Article of the Graces in the Fourth year of His Majesties Reign be so understood that the warning being left at the persons Dwelling-houses be held sufficient warning and that as to the Two and twentieth Article of the said Graces the Process hitherto used in the Court of Wards do still continue as hitherto it hath done in that and hath been used in our English Courts But the Court of Wards being compounded for so much of the aforesaid Answer as concern warning and process shall be omitted XXIV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That Maritime Causes may be determined in this Kingdom without driving of Merchants or others to appeal and seek Justice elsewhere and if it shall fall out that there be cause of an Appeal the Party grieved is to appeal to His Majesty in the Chancery of Ireland and the Sentence thereupon to be given by the Delegates to be definitive and not to be questioned upon any further Appeal except it be in the Parliament of this Kingdom if the Parliament then shall be sitting otherwise not This to be by Act of Parliament And until the said Parliament the Admiralty and Maritime Causes shall be ordered and setled by the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being by and with the advice and consent of the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them XXV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom be eased of all Rents and increase of Rents lately
considering also their promise in their said Letter recited that the Bishop and Dr. Charles Kelly should clearly deliver unto Us their thoughts and good intentions and the declaration of their sincere hearts By all VVe have written VVe desire to let you see how unhandsomly to say no more VVe have been dealt withal by those Bishops that when upon Our observation of the backwardness of the Towns to give Us obedience VVe applied Our Self with so much freedom to them who VVe and VVe believe by this time you are satisfied obstructed it instead of dealing plainly with Us as VVe so often desired them they would have held Us on with promises of great endeavours on their part to procure Us obedience and so continued seemingly well satisfied with Us till unprovoked by any thing from Us they break forth with their dreadful Excommunication when both in the County of Lymerick and Athlone the Rebels were endeavouring to force a passage VVhat an invasion these proceedings of theirs is upon the Regal power is not now to the purpose to declare But whether in them there be any usurpation upon the freedom of the Nobility and Commons is fit for you to consider The injustice of this kind of dealing VVe suppose is by this time plain enough to you It remains to shew you even by their own actions That supposing them to have proceeded by full warrant and upon just ground yet their rashness is not excusable as appears in that as they hastily denounced their Excommunication on the 15th of September so was it more wisely suspended by the same men on the 16th following in the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard's Camp VVhether so dreadful a weapon as they make that sentence be thus to be play'd with to make Rebels sport VVe leave to the examination of those that are in some respects more concerned than VVe are But that their allegation of the Peoples aversion to Our government is but a Cloak to cover their own fond Ambition to govern them or rather to bring them to confusion is manifest For as by their Excommunication they are forced to confess against all their Protestations That indeed they labour to bring them to such an aversion so by being forced immediately unsought by Us to suspend it they acknowledge they have not fully compleated their work As is more evident by these following Letters from the Bishop of Clonfert and Dr. Charles Kelly to the Officers of the Army under the command of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard and from the Bishops of Raphoe Killala and Fearnes to the Earl of Westmeath and other Officers Sirs YEsterday We have received an Express from the rest of our Congregation at Galway bearing their sense to suspend the effects of the Excommunication proclaimed by their Orders till the service of Athlone be performed fearing on the one side the dispersion of the Army and on the other having received most certain intelligence of the Enemies approach unto that place with their full force and number of fighting men and thereupon would have us concur with them in suspending the said Excommunication As for our part we do judge that suspension unnecessary and full of inconveniencies which we apprehend may ensue because the Excommunication may be obeyed and the service not neglected if People were pleased to undertake the service in the Clergies name without relation to the Lord of Ormond or any that may take his part yet fearing the censure of singularity in matters of so high a strain against us or to be deemed more forward in excommunicating than others also fearing the weakness of some which we believe the Congregation feared we are pleased to follow the major vote and against our own opinion concur with them and do hereby suspend the said Censure as above Provided alwayes That after that service performed or the service be thought unnecessary by the Clergy or when the said Clergy will renew it it shall be presently incurred as if the said Suspension had never been interposed And so we remain Your affectionate loving Friends in Christ Jesus Walter B. Clonfert Charles Kelly Corbeg Sept. 16. 1650. Our very good Lords and Sirs THE Colonels Mr. Alexander Mac Donnel Bryen O Neill and Randal Mac Donnel like obedient Children of Holy Church have offered themselves to put up for the Clergy and that before Publication of the Declaration and Excommunication God will bless their good intentions They go now to join with you on this side of the Shannon and by making one Body to put forward our cause This is the best way we can think of to encourage the well-affected and curb the malignant and obstinate The Lord Bishop of Killaloe being taken Prisoner by the Lord Lieutenant the Cavaliers would have had him forthwith hanged if his Excellency had given way thereunto His Excellency is giving Patents to as many Catholicks as are Excommunication-proof Ireland is an accursed Countrey that hath so many rotten members Though things go hard with us God will bring the work to a good end When you meet with those Colonels confer of what service to take in hand Est periculum in mora Praying to God to protect you in your wayes we remain Your very loving Friends Joan Rapotensis Fran Alâ—â—â—usis Nich Fernensis Galway Sept. 21. 1650. To our very good Lords the Earl of Westmeath the Lords Bishops of Leghlin Cloanmacnoise and Dromore Sir James Preston Knight Colonel Bryen Mac Phelim Colonel Lewis Moore Colonel Arthur Fox and the rest of the Commanders of the Leinster Forces By which expressions it appears That however their practises found Subjects fit to be wrought upon in the Cities and Towns and some loose people in the Countrey addicted to Rebellion and Rapine for such are all those they have still esteemed obedient Children of Holy Church yet had they not power to draw together any considerable Party to set up their new Government only they were able to hinder the established Government from opposing the Enemy To conclude this Head Would any man that had never so little care of a Peoples welfare or foresight of what tended plainly to their destruction have set them loose from all Government Civil and Martial at such a time when a potent Enemy was in the Field and never tell them when they should follow or obey If it be said they made provision for it in their Declaration it will readily be answered That they are only thereby directed to return to their Association and until a General Assembly of the Nation can be conveniently called together unanimously to serve against the Common Enemy But under what conduct they are to seek from a Congregation In the mean time if those with Us in the County of Clare and under the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard had obeyed this wild direction or taken occasion to disperse the Rebels had passed the River of Shannon at both ends and spoiled both Assembly and Congregation The grounds of their proceeding to an Excommunicating of
Navigation the great support of Ireland quite beaten down his Excellency disheartning the Adventurers Vndertakers and Owners as Captain Antonio and others favouring Hollanders and other Aliens by reversing Judgments legally given and indefinitely concluded before his coming to Authority By which depressing of maritime affairs and not providing for an orderly and good Tribunal of Admiralty we have hardly a Bottom left to transmit a Letter to His Majesty or any other Prince ANSWER Here again VVe are charged in general with disheartning Adventurers Undertakers and Owners and no man named but Captain Antonio nor the particular wherein he was disheartned set down We are further charged with reversing of Judgments legally given and definitively concluded before Our coming to Authority but no particular Judgment so reversed is or indeed can be instanced So that all VVe can answer to this part is That it is not true and for what remains That VVe placed the power of Admiralty in this Kingdom according to the Assemblies instance and from time to time gave Commissions to such persons as the Commissioners desired in several parts to hear and determine maritime causes Sixth Article of the Declaration The Church of Cloine in our possession at the time of making the Peace violently taken from Vs by the Lord Inchiquin contrary to the Articles of Peace no Justice or Redress was made upon Application or Complaint ANSWER For Answer to this VVe refer you to Our Answer to the first Article of the pretended Grievances which Article and Answer are as followeth Article viz. The first of those called the Grievances First They have not been suffered to enjoy the Churches and Church-livings which in the time of the perfection of the Articles of Peace they possessed but were after the said Articles made and perfected put forth expelled and still kept out of possession of divers Parish-Churches and their Tythes and Livings and even of some of the Cathedral Churches and many of the Prelates and Pastors hindred from exercising of their respective Jurisdictions and Functions amongst their Flocks and Grants made of some of their Bishopricks and their Livings which sithence the War or the greatest part of it hath been and yet is in the possession of the Catholick Bishops to Protestant Bishops and notwithstanding the Prelates and Clergy in the Counties of Cork and Waterford where chiefly those Grievances happened have made suit for remedy yet have they obtained no redress in their suits nor have they say the Commissioners of Trust in whom the last General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of this Nation which concluded the said Peace put their confidence for procuring an effectual compliance with the said Articles and seeing in no point they should be violated or broken in this so important a point concerning the Church given effectual furtherance for recovering their right to the said Prelates and Clergy Answer viz. To that first Article of those called the Grievances First We deny that they if thereby be meant the Roman-Catholick Clergy were not suffered to enjoy the Churches and Church-livings which at the time of perfecting the Articles of Peace they possessed or that by the Articles of Peace they ought to possess And as to the instances made in the Margent the composers of this Article do very well know That their possession of those Churches and Church-livings were flatly denied by the Protestant Clergy And it is very well known to the Commissioners who followed that business with diligence and earnestness enough That We never refused nor delayed to afford them any just means of bringing that Controversie to a final end till at length by Treachery and the Rebels power the Things controverted were lost to both Parties Nor was there any Complaint made unto Us since the conclusion of the Peace till now that the Romish Prelates or Pastors or any of them have been hindred from exercising their respective Jurisdictions and Functions amongst their Flocks except one Complaint made of the Governour of Dungarvan wherein We were ready to have given such Redress upon hearing all Parties as should have been found fit if the said Complaint had been prosecuted We know of no Grant made by His Majesty of any Bishoprick whatsoever since the conclusion of the Peace nor can We find any Article of the Peace that restrains His Majesty from making such Grants so the Roman-Catholick Bishops be not thereby dispossessed of what they were possessed of upon conclusion of the Peace until His Majesty declare His pleasure in a Free Parliament in this Kingdom And whatever His Majesty might intend to declare the making of Protestant Bishops could be no anticipation thereof to the prejudice of the Roman-Catholicks since Bishops are held essentially necessary to the exercise of the Religion of the Church of England Seventh Article of the Declaration That Oblations Book-monies Interments and other Obventions in the Counties of Cork Waterford and Kerry were taken from the Roman-Catholick Priests and Pastors by the Ministers without any redress or restitution ANSWER For this We answer That it was conceived by the Ministers herein mentioned that where they had possession of the Church-livings the Obventions here mentioned were also due to them But whether it were or not sure We are there was never any Complaint made to Us in this particular till Our coming to Tecroghan after the loss of Droghedagh and that within a very little time after before the truth of the Allegation could be examined the Towns of Munster revolted and the business was so decided at least if any difference of this kind continued in the County of Kerry which was longer held We never after Our being at Tecroghan heard of it that We remember Eighth Article of the Declaration That the Catholick Subjects of Munster lived in a slavery under the Presidency of the Lord Inchiquin those being their Judges that before were their Enemies and none of the Catholicks Nobility or Gentry admitted to that Tribunal ANSWER To this VVe answer That no complaint of any such slavery imposed by the said Lord President or Presidency was made to Us but on the contrary That upon his Lordships instance VVe directed Our Letters to him to swear and admit of the Council of that Province the Lord Viscount Roch of Fermoy the Lord Viscount Muskery Major General Patrick Purcell Lieutenant Colonel Gerard fitz Morrice and others all which were written unto by the Lord President to come to him to be sworn accordingly whereof the Lord Muskery Major General Patrick Purcell and Lieutenant Colonel Fitz Morrice were sworn but the rest not coming according to the Letters could not be sworn Ninth Article of the Declaration The conduct of the Army was improvident and unfortunate nothing happened in the Christianity more shameful than the disaster at Rathmines near Dublin where his Excellency as it seemed to ancient Travellers and men of Experience who view'd all kept rather a Mart of Wares a Tribunal of Pleadings or a great Inne of
the People should be deprived of the King's authority and the benefit of the Articles of Peace is apparent by this Declaration and Excommunication wherein they direct the People to return to their Association which is inconsistent with both and by the Answer of the Bishops at Galway to the Commissioners whereof We shall have occasion to speak hereafter And where they charge Us with Envy to the Nation for doing Our Duty to the King VVe hope to have given such proof of the contrary as hath satisfied the most interested men in the Nation And VVe conceive We could not have manifested Our affection to it by a more signal instance than by offering to leave His Majesties authority in the person of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard and to withdraw Our Self to sollicite for Supplies when it was most probable they might be got finding that Our being a Protestant gave these Declarers some advantage to withdraw the People from their obedience to Us. Twelfth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency and the Lord Inchiquin when Enemies to the Catholicks being very active in unnatural execution against us and shedding the blood of poor Priests and Churchmen have shewed little of action since this Peace but for many months kept themselves in Connaught and Thomond where no danger or the Enemy appeared spending â—heir time as most men observed in Play Pleasure and great merriment while the other parts of the Kingdom were bleeding under the Sword of the Enemy This was no great argument of sense or grief in them to see a Kingdom lost to His Majesty ANSWER We are not willing to look back so far as to the time when by His Majesties Command and Commission We bore Arms in the War against the Confederates but must justifie Our Self That We were never active in unnatural execution against them but have many times suffered much Calumny for Our desire of preserving many of them that fell into Our hands as some in that Assembly can witness who were by Our means preserved and if they think fit may testifie as much But if the Declarers oppose Our being active then to Our unactivity this last Summer as an argument of Our want of desire to oppose the Enemy We answer That in the time they mention We had free Election of Officers the absolute power of Dublin and other Garrisons where We caused the Souldiers to be continually exercised their Arms kept in order and could in a short time when We pleased have drawn the Army together and marched with it where We pleased Advantages which rendred the Victories We gained full as easie as those gotten by the Enemy against Us have been upon the like advantage on their part It is true That all this last Summer We and the Lord Inchiquin have continued in Connaught and Thomond where there was no Enemy But it is also true That We were not suffered to have the means of preparing an Army fit to seek or oppose an Enemy as We have set down in Our Letter of the second of August to the Bishops at Jamestown recited formerly upon another occasion And since they here mention the Lord Inchiquin with Us We think fit to mind divers in that Assembly to whom it is well known that many of the Bishops did long since upon several occasions declare That all their suspition and the suspition the People held of Us was by reason of the power the Lord Inchiquin had with Us. And that during his continuance in employment or the continuance of any of his Party in the Army it was not possible for them to remove that suspition out of the minds of the People But that if his Lordship were once out of Command and his Party removed they doubted not full and chearful obedience would be given Us. Hereupon his Lordship voluntarily withdrew himself from having to do with the conduct of the Army yet is he by these men charged for want of activity When his Lordship had thus waved his employment and his Party were gone off and that they had wrought the like distrust of the remainder of the Party that came off to Us from Dublin and other parts so that now We were forced likewise to send them away then they judged it a fit time for them to declare also against Us. Then divers Bishops and other Churchmen changed their note and dealt underhand with the Lord Inchiquin to stay in the Kingdom though We should go saying That the distrust and dislike of the People was only against Vs and not against him Then they fell first to call their meeting at Jamestown and then to publish this Declaration from which they were with-held for fear all the time the foresaid Parties were with Us. This We suspected would be the issue of their working away the Protestant Party and of all their promises Yet to leave them wholly without excuse and to satisfie some that believed better of them We consented to part with those men of whose courage and fidelity to His Majesty and affection to Us We had good experience and cast Our Self wholly upon the assurances these Bishops and others had so often and so solemnly made to Us of giving Us and procuring for Us all possible compliance and obedience the result whereof appears in their Declaration Yet it is very well known That whenever the Enemy drew towards the Shannon side We drew together all the men We could to the defence of the passages which otherwise the Enemy had gained And whatever Our play and merriment was We had certainly as great cause to grieve at the loss of a Kingdom to His Majesty as these Declarers who have not carried themselves so towards him as to expect a greater proportion of His favour than We. Thirteenth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency when prospering put no trust of places taken in into the hands of Catholicks as that of Drogheda Dundalk Trym c. and by this his diffidence in Catholicks and by other his actions and expressions the Catholick Army had no heart to fight or to be under his Command and feared greatly if he had mastered the Enemy and with them the Commissioners of Trust or the greater part of them and many Thousands of the Kingdom also feared he would have brought the Catholick Subjects and their Religion to the old slavery ANSWER In answer to this Article VVe say that Drogheda was put into the hands and trust of Sir Arthur Ashton a Roman-Catholick and that of the Souldiers and Officers of that Garrison the greater part were of that Religion That for Trym it was governed by Mr. Daniel O Neil who though a Protestant was yet a Native of this Kingdom and one that had manifested great affection to the Nation That the greater part of the Officers and Souldiers with him were Roman-Catholicks and that the Lord Viscount Dillon a Roman-Catholick had Command over the said Daniel O Neil For Dundalk it is known that place was given up
quarrel and though his body likewise had been subservient and obedient in all things to the most holy dictats of his Soul For we know that invincible or inculpable prejudice ignorance or inadvertisement against the truth of things in the course of a mans life in his actions or in his contests or even some time in his doctrine which strikes not at the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so his Soul be ever piously and charitably and Christianly and resignedly disposed to embrace truth when known either by evidence of reason or from such an authority as it is bound to submit unto doth not hinder either Sanctity or martyrdom or miracles or due canonization or a fit veneration or answerable invocation of him as even a martyrized and miraculous Saint The example of S. Cyprian that great holy martyrized Saint and Patriarch of Affrick who both lived and dyed in a wrongfull contest with even the Popes of Rome themselves and even also in a very material point of Christian doctrine is evidence enough for this And S Paul's contest with S. Peter at Antioch about the observation of the Jewish laws is evidence enough And very many other examples of great holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church who lived and dyed in material errours and material heresies too especially if the doctrine of Bellarmine in many places nay or that of even of many or rather most other School Divines be true may be produced ex superabundanti to make good this evidence 4. That the infallibility of Pope Alexander the third in canonizing S. Thomas of Canterbury and I speak now to them who suppose the Pope so infallible in all his Definitions or Bulls concerning any doctrine or fact or matter of Piety that he is so too in his canonization of Saints implyed or inferr'd of necessity that all his quarrels or at least the substantial part of that quarrel which occasion'd his death principally immediatly ultimatly not onely was just but must have been just according to the very objective truth of things in themselves and that otherwise there could be no infallibility in the said Alexander's canonization of him for a Saint and a martyr and that likewise the pursuant veneration and invocation of him for such by the Church and the miracles wrought at his hearse before he was interr'd as for example the candles lighting of themselves about his hearse after they had been quenched and his lifting up his hand after the office of the dead was ended and blessing the people c and so many other miracles wrought at several times at his Tomb after he had been long enterred that I say neither that veneration or invocation could be in truth practised without impiety or at least very much temerity not those miracles alleadg'd without forgery and fallacy nor he called a martyr in any true sense if his quarrels or quarrel as now is said with Henry the Second had not been just according to the objective truth of things in themselves For as I denyed the former three suppositions so I do this fourth also or at least I say that I am not bound to admit it First because that even allowing or if I did allow Bellarmine's or any other's doctrine of the infallibility of Popes in their Bulls of canonization and other Bulls whatsoever yet is it plain enough and even admitted by such Divines that possibly there may be an errour in some particular allegations or suppositions entertained by the Popes in the process formed for such canonization and even expressed also or insinuated in the very letters of the canonization and that no such allegations or suppositions reasons or motives are defined in any Bull of canonization or even in any other whatsoever but the principal design onely and that this in Bulls of canonization is onely that such or such a holy man is in the joyes of the blessed seeing God in the face and therefore he may be invocated as such and consequently that the infallibility which they do attribute to the Popes in their Bulls of canonization may subsist notwithstanding that some of those motives or inducements were in themselves false according at least to the objective truth of things For all which these Divines pretend to in this matter is the infallible assistance of Gods holy spirit or of his external Providence promised infallibly as they suppose to the Pope in not proposing any by such a solemn declaration to be invoked as a Saint who is not so indeed but not in supposing this or that which is said of some passage of his life nor by consequence in supposing what was the true cause of his violent death when he dyed so or that the cause was such as would make him a martyr in the stricktest sense of this word Martyr as used in the Church by way of distinction not onely from a Confessour but from such holy men who suffered violent deaths unjustly that is not by the prescript of the laws but by the power onely of wicked men or women and that too sometimes not for any cause they maintayn'd but out of hatred to their persons or to arrive at some worldly end which their life observed whereof St. Edward the Second a Saxon King of England Son to the good King Edgar is a very sufficient example who was and is invoked as a martyr and a very miraculous martyr too notwithstanding he was murthred onely by a servant and at the command of his Stepmother Alfreda as he was drinking on horseback and this too for no other cause but that her own Son Ethelredus should come to be King as presently he was made Polydore Virgil Anglicae Historiae l. VII as sometimes also for a cause which though not so clear on either side in the judgment I mean of some other indifferent men nay perhaps unrighteous on the side of the holy sufferers according to the objective truth of things in themselves yet invincibly appearing just or the more just and the more holy and pious unto them and to others also who had their life otherwise and justly too or according also even to the certain objective truth of other things in due veneration For Martyr in Greek is a witness in English and martyrdom in the Ecclesiastical use of the word is variously applyed sometime strictly to import a violent death suffered without any reluctance and suffered meerly and onely for professing or for not denying a known certain evident or notorious Catholick Evangelical truth or which is the same thing to import a witnessing or a bearing testimony to such a truth by such a death sometime largely or not so strictly however properly still to import by such a death a witnessing or a bearing testimony to a good zeal and great piety and excellent conscience in being constant to a cause which one esteems the more just and generally seems the more pious for all he knows though it be not an evangelical truth and though perhaps
too he may be deceived in the objective truth of things and sometime to import onely a witnessing by bloud so spilt or a testimony of innocent and holy bloud against those cruel men who spil'd it for no other cause but that themselves might reap some worldly advantage thereby though otherwise they had no quarrel at all with such a Saint nor he with them or with any other for defence of which his life should be taken away Secondly this fourth supposition is denyed by me because neither the diffusive nor representative Church was ever concern'd I mean their pursuant veneration or invocation of any canonized for a Saint and under the title of a martyr was never concern'd in such an intrigue as this viz whether in the more strict or large sense of the word Martyr he were a Martyr nor concern'd whether his whole or even any substantial part of his quarrel as in his Legend or in the process of his canonization was true or no or such as might entitle to martyrdom strictly taken according to the objective truth of things nor truly concern'd any further in him or in his life or death but that he was a great extraordinary servant of God in both or at least at the time of his death and that now he was in the glory of God For this onely being certain though all other matters reported of him were uncertain their veneration and invocation of him must be not onely void of all impiety but acts of true religion and true piety and for the rest they are free to believe or not by humane faith according as they see those humane proofs alleadg'd to be strong or weak Thirdly that fourth supposition is denyed because the miracles wrought cannot be said upon rational grounds to have been wrought in confirmation of the at least objective truth or justice of this or that controversy whatsoever not certainly Evangelical which such a Saint or Martyr sometimes had in his life being they were not wrought at the invocation of God by the Saint himself or by any other that God might be pleased by working such miracles to evidence the justice of such a cause For if they had been wrought so the case would be clear enough as to such who saw those miracles or to whose knowledg authentick proofs of them did sufficiently come that even the obedience truth and justice of things in such a controversy had been on such a Saints or Martyr's side But otherwise wrought they can be no more but divine testimonies of his having wonderfully or extraordinarily served God either in his life or death or both whether he was deceived or no in some things and whether he had some times and in some occasions or controversies some failings or no at least out of want of true knowledg or sound reflection for the very greatest Saints might have been deceived sometimes nay and failed too sometimes in their duty and besides they can be no more or at least on any rational ground cannot be said to be any more then divine testimonies of his being now with God in glory Out of all which I think 't is evident enough there are several suppositions in the proof of the Major which I am not bound to allow not even in their principles or doctrine who teach the infallibility of the Pope in his Bulls of canonization and several suppositions which yet I am not bound to allow notwithstanding I do my self as I confess I am bound most religiously allow the canonization veneration and invocation of St. Thomas of Canterbury and all three of him as of a glorious martyr too and notwithstanding I allow also all the miracles reported of him And consequently I think 't is evident enough that it is not necessary to admit the Major to wit this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel against Henry the Second is false for any such suppositions or for any such inconvenience as that proof of it which I have given before would inferr or deduce out of the denyal of it Therefore my reason in and for admitting that Major in this my second answer is no such matter nor is that I could not maintain St. Thomas of Canterburie's extraordinary great sanctity in his life and in or at his death and his consequent canonization veneration invocation miracles not that I could not I say maintain all without admitting that Major and granting that of necessity the quarrels causes or controversies of such a Saint with such a King and in such matters as those of Thomas of Canterbury were in must have been just from first to last of the Saints side and just I mean according to the objective truth of things in themselves But my reason for admitting it so simply and absolutely without any distinction in this second answer is that I see no reason to call in question the credit of those Historians who relate the matter of fact in that controversy so and so circumstantiated or the credit of other Historians or Antiquaries who relate those ancient Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along unrepealed in our case till Henry the Second did so repeal or attempted to repeal them so and that on the other side all right reason shewes that S. Thomas of Canterbury having so the very municipal laws of the land of his side he had justice also arising immediatly from such laws of his side and consequently that the same right reason shews that whatever doctrine condemns or opposes such known justice in the quarrel of any man whatsoever Saint or not Saint Martyr or not Martyr must be false in the case And this and this onely is my reason for admitting so that Major But what then Must I admit the Minor subsumed thus But my doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c with Henry the Second Must I admit this Minor I say nothing less For I deny it plainly and flatly and that too without any kind of distinction And that I may deny it so deny it without any contradiction contrariety inconsistence or falsity you have had already in my first answer and in my precedent observations enough to convince you Therefore consequently it must be said that the conclusion does not follow or that of the Syllogisme which pretends my doctrine of a supream civil coercive power of Clerks in criminal causes to be false for it is ill inferr'd the Minor being false or being denyed upon such rational grounds as I have formerly given An other Answer yet may be as a second to the Syllogisme though a third in order to the matter in it self or to the judgment of St. Thomas of Canterbury For the Major may be distinguish'd thus whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of such part of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel which was all along and until the very last of his life that whereon he did and would