or whoever else indoctrinated Him there have been of the other side and of the same Church as there are even at this present day many Thousands or the most Learned most Zealous most Godly Prelates and Priests and Doctors besides Laicks who have cryed them down as not only false wicked impious heretical unchristian but as absolutely tyrannical and as plainly destructive of all Government and Laws and of all Property and Peace and of all whatsoever is or can be the felicity or comfort or even freedom of the children of men This hath sufficiently appear'd in the mighty oppositions made as well from the Pulpit and by Writing as by Arms in all Countries of Europe to so many fulminating so many King-deposing pretended universal Monarchs of the World in all things both Spiritual and Temporal to these only Vicars of Christ on earth to these onely infallible Judges of his Faith Witness the Concordates of Germany the Sicilian Monarchy the Pragmatical Sanction of France the Laws of Provisors and Premunire in England and Ireland and the two Oecumenical or at least Occidental Councils of Constance and Basil and many more National Synods both before and after them held some in Italy others in Germany and others in France and held in plain contradiction to those high claims and usurpations Witness also of very late dayes the Third Estate of France in the General Assembly (t) Jan. 1614 5. of the Three Estates held under Lewis XIII Jan. 1614 3 yea notwithstanding Cardinal Perron's Oratory and of later yet all the eight Universities of that Kingdom in their sentence of Sanctarellus (u) 1626. ann 1626. and of others too before and after besides the known practice all along of their Parliaments and â—â—st of all the Theological Faculty of Sorbon and the rest of the Paris (x) 1663. Divines in the year 1663 May 8. headed by the Archbishop of that See and presenting their siâ— Declaration against the Pope to the present French Monarch Lewis XIII All which are certainly manifold clear undeniable demonstrations of what I said immediately before viz. How of the fame Roman-Catholick Church or Faith and Communion there have been all alone as there are at this present many Thousands of the most Learned Zealous 〈◊〉 Godly 〈◊〉 Priests and Doctors as well as Laicks who never approved of the foresaid either Practices or Principles but alwayes reproved condemned abhorred detested and protested against them both as not only heretical but tyrannical c. IX That consequently since the owning of such intollerable Maximes and wicked Actions or the not disowning of them cannot be justly said to be any of the peculiar Notes or characteristical Marks of a Roman-Catholick in general but only of a certain Sect or 〈◊〉 or Party amongst them whom some call Papalins others Puritan Papists and others Popish-Recusanta and since none of all the undoubted either Articles or Riâ—â—â— which all Roman-Catholicks universally without any distinction of Party or Faction do and must espouse have been hitherto reputed accused or suspected of being in themselves abstractedly and purely taken in any manner dangerous to any Government Temporal or Spiritual or to any persons either of Princes or Subjects or to the property or liberty of any Man or Woman or to the peace or quieâ— or security or conteâ—â—â—f any humane Creature however in the mean 〈…〉 â—â—al or some of them do or may seem erroneous to the learned 〈…〉 Protestants and further since King Henry VIII and the Protestant 〈…〉 Parliament of England Ireland and Scotland after him a◠〈◊〉 one 〈◊〉 could not 〈◊〉 throughly understand both these things which I have now mention'd so on the other hand they could not but observe how ever since the Oath of Supremacy though framed only by Roman-Catholick Bishops Abbots and Doctors of the English Nation and defended by the Principal (y) Bishop Gardiâ—er in his Book de â—eâ—a Obedienâ—â—â— and Bishop â—oâ—â—â—r in his Preface before it of the same occasioned the first Separation or Schism amongst the Subjects of England and Ireland the far greater part of such as continued in the Communion of the Roman Church did seem also to adhere to the foresaid dangerous Doctrines and Practises i. e. to all the pretenses and actings of the Roman Court forasmuch as they generally refus'd to disown them either by that Oath of Supremacy or by any other and moreover by consequence since the same Princes and Parliaments could not but manifestly discern all their own very being as also that of all the People under their Government to be singularly marked out and even devoted to utter extirpation by a party of men so madly principled and furiously bent living amongst them out of all that has been said it must follow That the onely original and the onely true principal causes which moved them to proceed with so much severity of Laws Proclamations and Executions against all Roman-Catholicks in general of these Dominions could be no other of our side than our Fathers and our own very great neglect and folly or contempt and wilfulness not to disown and renounce for ever publickly as we ought all such whatsoever wicked Positions and Practises nor any other indeed of their side than their firm persuations of our being therefore so desperately both principled and inclined nay resolved also and ready to give the greatest possible evidences of fiery Zeal whensoever the Commands of His Holiness from abroad shall meet with a fair opportunity at home X. That it is unreasonable to think and incredible to believe That so many judicious Princes Parliaments and Convocations who had themselves gone so far and ventured so much as they did only because they would not suffer themselves or the Protestant people govern'd by them to be imposed on against their own reason in matters of Divine Belief Rites c should at the same time be so concerned to impose on others in the like i. e. in Spiritual matters purely such in those I mean of Religion and Rites no way intrenching on the Jurisdiction or other Temporal or Spiritual Concern either of King or Bishop or other Subject whatsoever as to Enact Laws of so many grievous punishments yea of Death it self in some cases of meer purpose to extort from them a complyance or submission in such matters It is no to be believed that they would Enact those Laws against their own flesh and blood and some their nearest Relations too only for not renouncing such harmless and meer Religious Tenets or Rites which all their Predecessors before them had for so many Ages held without disturbance to the Publick or inconvenience to private Persons or hindrance to Virtue or countenance to Vice if the testimony of all Christendome for so long time be of any weight and to Enact those Laws intentionally or designedly against those things which at the very worst in all possible and conditional Contingencies are but erroneous Tenets and insignificant unprofitable Rites not
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
which were it his draught it had not been albeit in the main dispute it be fully sufficient the answer waâ— That it became not Priests nor Christians nor even moral or rational honest men although neither Priests nor Christians to obstruct the common good out of private animosities much less to obstruct it to the prejudice of the Religion and Worship of God and obstruct all too by sinister wayes by calumnies and forgeries and a false pretence of Religion where there was nothing less then Religion intended but rather the quite contrary That in relation to his former actings in the controversies with the Nuntio if they had considered things rightly they would rather acknowledge admire with thankfulness adore the Providence of God which had inspired him then to do as he did and as became a good Patriot Subject religious Man Christian Priest and Catholick Divine to the end he might be after so many revolutions some way instrumental to save them again That they have found his endeavours even in forwarding that Remonstrance and in many other Instances very useful and very advantagious and profitable too for all both Catholick People and Clergy of Ireland And therefore he might in some measure and sense though with infinit disproportion answer such of them as traduce or maligne him as Christ did the Jews when at the instigation of some both of the envious Priests and wicked Scribes and Pharisees too that religious but hypocritical Sect of those ancient people of God the multitude taking stones to throw at their Saviour of purpose to kill him he told and demanded of them as the Gospel relates multa opera bona ostendi vobis Ioh. â— 32. c. propter quod eorum opus lapidatis me That for his exposition of the said Remonstrance in his More Ample Account if it did not convince them as he believed it did or whether it did or no yet were not they desired to subscribe it nor was it ever intended by him or any other they or any else should either subscribe or approve otherwise of it but as they pleased to read or lay it by That he alone was to answer for that Book if there was any thing amiss in it And from them no more was expected but to sign the Remonstrance in it self barely considered according to the true obvious and sincere meaning of all the several passages And if they taking it so could otherwise rationally expound it than the Procurator did in his said little book themselves were to satisfie their own consciences in that behalf and leave his book to stand or fall to the Authors cost or profit That however he found it a tye of duty on himself for many respects and particularly for that of acting by special Commission for the Catholicks both Clergy and Lay-people of Ireland and to obtain for them some liberty ease or connivence in the exercise of Catholick Religion To let them know they could not by other expositions answer or arrive at the ends of that exposition nor shew themselves to be truly sincerely loyal or faithful to the King in those contingencies wherein their allegiance might be for their former actions prudently suspected 12. And for the general objection of all their allegation of the laws still in force c. they were desired to consider 1. How happy they would have thought themselves immediatly before the Kings Restauration and for so many other foregoing sad years under usurping Tyrants if they had found a suspension only of those laws and that connivence at the exercise of their Religion they now enjoyed under His most Sacred Majesty and ever since or immediatly after the Remonstrance presented in their names or behalf to Him That they had far more assurance than they yet deserved being they demurr'd so long on professing under their hands a dutiful subjection and no other certainly than without any such profession they were bound to by all the laws of God under pain of Hell or Damnation and by all the laws of the Land under the severest punishments of Treason That they were not to expect capitulations from the King for their being Subjects but neverthess had cause enough to see if they were not wilfully blind He was and would be to them all a good merciful gracious compassionat and indulgent King blotting all their former iniquities or those of so many of them as had been unjust to Him and his Father and Lieutenant and other protestant People quite out of His remembrance evermore if they did shew themselves true penitents and converts and sincere performers of their duty hereafter That they were no indifferent no competent Judges of those Articles they pleaded whether they were broken or no by the King or his Ministers or if broke in any part or to any person whether such breach was lawful and necessary or no in the present conjuncture of affairs after so great a change or alteration of the case That reason might tell them considering the condition of their Country and Inhabitants thereof which requires other laws and other proceedings and another kind of use of laws at least in matter of Religion than England does at present they could have no ground to fear any forcing of them to other Countreys for want of protection at home if and whiles they demeaned themselves peaceably provided they gave generally and cheerfully that assurance expected from them of such peaceable demeanour hereafter That in case of the very worst imaginable of evils the comfort of a good conscience were to be preferred by them to any earthly emolument and the conscience of having done their duty by washing the scandal of unholy tenets from their Religion would be a portable theatre to them whethersoever they should be forced and the assurance of suffering only in such case for a pure holy and undefiled Religion and Communion for justice and the Catholick faith only not for suspicion or conviction of treasonable maximes and practices condemn'd in all other Kingdoms and States in their own cases as impious uncatholick unchristian and even I say condemn'd by the professors of their own Church every where out of the small temporal Principality of the Pope And therefore they needed not apprehend any such attempt scorn prejudice or persecution abroad for having performed such a christian duty at home but on the contrary to be praised and cherished if not perhaps such as through vanity and folly would esteem no other refuge but where they might withal expect titles and miters which they very little deserved if not by such deserts as would untitle and unmitre them wholy if they were sifted narrowly according to the Gospel of Christ or Canons of the Catholick Church though perhaps they would hold them fast enough according to those other late ones made by Papal authority alone But that if the very saddest they could by Chymeraes frame to themselves did happen in such case as well abroad as at home it became
and grace and above all of his Holinesse's they were certain for their opposition to the Remonstrance as the Promoters of it should be certain of all kind of disfavour and so certain thereof that they could hardly ever expect any promotion or preferment in the Church or in their own Orders and that the Dissenters not only had that great advantage as to Church preferments and with the Distributers of such but no less certainly perswaded themselves to be equal in time at home even with the first Subscribers and even I say as to all protection and liberty from the King and State if they should be forced at last to subscribe such however compelled subscription sufficing the King of one side and excusing them on the other with the Pope and others beyond Seas and albeit the Procurator saw as clearly as consequently that the rest of the Romish Clergy throughout all other parts of the Countrey in the several Provinces received their punctual directions from those at Dublin some from one Order and some from another and others from the Parish-priests and accordingly guided themselves and therefore saw the necessity of prevailing first with those of Dublin notwithstanding and though he laboured much and often with every Order of them severally and Parish-Priests also yet he made it his chief work and for the reasons before given to perswade the Fathers of the Society Which alone was almost his only care for many weeks together XXV The progress and issue of all which was That by their own acknowledgment he cleared all the pretended conscientious scruples of those of them that treated with him That after this Father Iohn â—albot assured him that neither himself nor others of that Society who had past their last vows or fourth profession and consequently could not be ejected at the pleasure of the General or upon other less accounts then other Regulars would any longer delay their subscription then the Procurator had got the positive answer of their Superiour Father Shelton what ever his answer were And further that they would justifie by Letters to Rome and to their General and own publickly to him such their proceedings or subscription That having several times discoursed with the said Father Shelton and by Letter at last urged him to a resolution he before he would resolve sent these two or three Queries in â—â—iâ—ing to the Procurator desiring an answer to them in writing also Whether the Pope hath a perswasive and directive power over temporal Princes in temporal matters pro bono Ecclesiae And whether temporal Princes in such cases may lawfully obey him or are bound to obey him according to that of St. Bernard Converte gladium tuum in vaginam Tuus ergo ipse tuo forsitan nutu si non tua manu evaginandus Uterque ergo Ecclesiae spiritualis scilicet gladius materialis Sed is quidem pro Ecclesiâ ille vero ab Ecclesiâ exerendus est Ille Sacerdotis is militis manu sed sane ad nutum Sacerdotis XXVI That the Procurator answered this paper of Quaeries by another of Resolves And to the first Quaerie That not only the Pope but inferiour Bishops nay Ghostly Fathers have a perswasive and directive power of temporal Princes even in temporal matters and not only pro bono Ecclesiae but for the particular spiritual advantage of such Princes even such a perswasive or directive power as his Holiness and other Bishops Curats and Ghostly Fathers have respectively in temporal matters life death war peace estates inheritances c. of all Christians respectively subject to them for spiritual direction And therefore no such directive power of Princes in such matters even pro bono Ecclesiae as carries along with it a coercive power in the strict and proper sense of coercive but only a coercive power secundum quid that is by inflicting spiritual punishments and inflicting them only in a spiritual way or by spiritual means although it be confessed that sometimes or in some cases corporal punishments or temporal may be prescribed Yet inasmuch as these cannot be inflicted on the delinquent by the Church or which is the same thing that the Church hath no power from Christ to make use of corporal strength external force coaction or the material sword to execute on the Delinquent such punishments if himself do not freely consent therefore it is that we cannot allow even his Holiness as he is Vicar of Christ or Successor of St. Peter any coercive power properly or strictly such over any man much less in the temporal affairs of temporal Princes but only a coercive power by means or wayes that are purely spiritual that is by precepts and censures and these too only when they are ad edificationem non ad destructionem For it is manifest that although the particular Bishops of Diocesses have a perswasive and directive power of their respective temporal Diocesans what ever you say of Parish-priests and Ghostly Fathers in foro paenitentiae even I say in temporal things in that sense the Pope hath of the universal body of the faithful yet such particular Bishops cannot use external coaction force or the material sword by virtue I mean of their power from Christ or from the Church too as such to give any mans possessions and actually really transfer them to another although peradventure or in some contingency they may ex vi persuasiva and directiva even enjoyn any to a voluntary translation of all his rights as in case of necessary restitution In which case the Bishop notwithstanding would have as much power of coercion which would be necessary or essential to the directive as his Holiness And yet no coercive power simply such that is to force restitution by the material sword but secundum quid to wit by spiritual commands and prohibition or exclusion by such commands only from the Sacraments and from the Communion of the faithful Where indeed the directive and coercive power of the Church if you must needs use the word coercive so and attribute it to the Church doth and must end To the second Quaerie or the first part of the next disjunctive question the answer was affirmative whensoever Princes find not apparently oâ— clearly a contradiction in their commands perswasions or directions to the Commandements of God or Canons of the Church or find them evidently hazardous or destructive of their Kingdoms or People or of any other against the law of nature and reason or conscience And hence To the third Quaerie or second part of the complex or disjunctive question the Resolve was negative specially in all those excepted cases of a contradiction to the Commands of God or Canons of the Church or hazzards of their Crowns Kingdom or people or manifest wrong to any other against the law of nature and reason All which Princes are not bound to judge of according to the temporal interests or pretences of either his Holiness or other Bishop To
Res ignorata Necesse Mihi tamen multo firmior ac tutior regula videtur esse ut ubi jus naturae certat cum jure positivo Ecclesiastico hoc illi cedat Fr. Petrus Valesius in Opero Theologico seu Responsionibus ad Quaesita Ministri Provincialis Respons ad Quaes Tertium XXXIII In so many instances they could find their Allegations to be false if they did but a little seriously consider them Now for their unconcluding ones I take in the first place their allegation of the Faithful's being whipped by the Church and commanded to undergoe austere pennances But to conclude hence that therefore a corporal punishment may be inflicted by virtue of a spiritual power so as this spiritual power be properly or truly coercive or inflictive and not directive onely or meerly of such corporal punishments whether the patient will or not or so that it is authorized by God or by it self in its own nature of a spiritual power to proceed in a meer compulsory way to the actual execution of such punishments or to use corporal force compulsion or coaction to inflict such on him that otherwise refuses to undergoe them is a strange way of argueing Every ghostly Father may in some cases enjoyn his penitent such punishments and by virtue of his meer spiritual power may do so but can inflict none either by himself or by an other if the penitent will be refractory And not onely the Pope not only the Bishop but every inferiour Priest may in foro confessionali enjoyn his penitent even how great soever otherwise even a King or Emperour what ever is judg'd necessary for his eternal Salvation and consequently in some cases a deposition of themselves even from their whole temporal estates Kingdoms or Empires as in that of tyrannical and manifest usurpation and of necessary restitution the true and legal heire surviving and known and possible to be admitted without subversion of the State or people much more where it may be availeable to the support of both Yet I hope the Author of this Querie and reasons for the affirmative will not say that every such ghostly Father can proceed to execution whether their penitents will or no or can by force of Arms or other corporal means devest them respectively of their ill-gotten goods estates Kingdoms Empires though only to put the lawfull proprietors in possession thereof And yet the power in every such Confessour to enjoyn such temporal restitutions dispositions or even depositions and deprivations respectively to be undergone and executed by the penitents themselves and by virtue also of such injunction cannot be denied to be both truly spiritual and very legal too in the nature of a spiritual power Therefore spiritual directions injunctions prescriptions or commands of corporal punishments or of disposing so or so of our temporal estates allowed of or granted to be proper to a spiritual power is a very unconcluding argument That a real execution either immediate or mediate by corporal compulsory means coaction or force belongs to the same power And yet it is granted still that the spiritual power considered as directive hath a proportionable coercive power to witt meerly spiritual annexed inseparably and therefore no other execution but by meer spiritual wayes or means that is by denying of communion in meer spiritual matters For it is a most certain Christian and Catholick maxime That the Church of Christ as such meerly hath neither territory nor sword understanding those which are properly such or the material carnal civil or temporal sword XXXIV In the next place who sees not the inconsequence of his example out of 1. Mac. 2 Mattathias the Priest under the dispensations of the old Testament killed the Jew that offered Sacrifice to Idols and took arms against Antiochus and is not reproved therefore but rather renowned Therefore now under the new Testament corporal and mortal punishments may be forcibly inflicted and rebellion raysed against a lawful Prince by vertue only of the spiritual power of Christian Priests How many gross mistakes in this application and conclusion The Testaments are different and so are the means of planting establishing propagating or observing them no less different The former had promises of temporal blessings the later of purely spiritual The former had by special warrant of the God of Hosts a carnal sword to maintain it the later a spiritual word only Besides it appears no where that Mattathias killed that Sacrificeing Jew or took arms against Antiochus by vertue of his religious Priestly function or that he did either but in a meer natural or civil capacity as a chief member of the temporal common-wealth of the Jews albeit his motive was mixed with religious considerations And if it did as certainly it does not we know the law whereby he was to govern himself in point of conscience was that of Moyses which as to the express letter did warrant both his killing the Idolatrous Jew and his rebelling against that heathen and Alien tyrannizing usurper Therefore to conclude hence That when there is an other Testament Law Priesthood of a quite other nature each and those old ones of Moyses quite abolished by an equal power with that authorized them that now under the new testament law and priesthood of Christ no more a God of Hosts but suffering Saviour and now under that Ghospel which directs it self to be planted preserved restored not by the sword but by the word not by fighting but by suffering which gives no temporal power but meerly spiritual nor contains any promises of earthly rewards but celestial alone therefore I say to conclude from that example of the Macchabees that now this spiritual power of Christian Priests can warrant killing and rebelling by its own proper authority is nothing less absurd then what the most unconcluding argument would conclude All which I doubt not the authors of this Querie and reasons for the affirmative would have had understood more easily if they had had reflected on them a little more coolely But their interest or passion or both shut all the avenues to a serious recollection or which is worse made then guilty of horrible not only dissimulation but opposition of such known truths in matter of conscience and Christian Faith and consequently of that sin against the Holy Ghost which shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come And if they had had understood or reflected so they needed not to have been driven to such a pitiful and shameful shift as to quote so falsely or imperfectly the Author of The More Ample Account's answer to that objection of the Macchabees warre Which answer yet how satisfactory soever in the judgment of others or unsatisfactory in theirs was not by me in that place or book to any such weak argument as they frame here on the Macchabaean warre not at all to invalidate their now pretence of a power in either Christian or Moysaycal Priest to kill and rebell
Church for these are the very words of Gerson that such a Prelate in such proceedings be resisted to his face provided it be done with that moderation which an unblameable defence requires as Paul resisted Peter For as Origen sayes on Joshua Hom. 22. where no sin is we cannot eject any out of the Church least peradventure endeavouring to root out the cockle we root up also the very wheat Which eradication of the wheat St. Augustine in his 3d. book 2 chap. against Parmenian post Collator c. 20. so desired the Prelates of the Church to beware that he teaches there expresly the very cockle must be often let lye still as often to wit as he that otherwise deserves to be so eradicated hath a great multitude that go along with him in his delinquency And teaches consequently that to attempt the separation of such a person or in this case when the Prelates cannot without the loss or destruction of the wheat also would be most grievous sacriledge Whence it is that many Catholick Writers and those too most religious and learned have thought according to this rule of St. Augustine that upon such account Gregory the VIII Boniface the VII Innocent the IV. Iulius the II. and many other great Pontiffs who govern'd the See of Rome after and betwixt their several Popedomes have been guilty of most horrid sacriledge as such that by their excommunications of Kings and Princes their Interdicts of Kingdoms and Republicks have done nothing else but rend the Church into fatal Schismes The blame and sin whereof those writers also think ought to be charged upon those very Popes abusing so their power by unjust excommunications and other censures not on the Princes defending justly themselves and their people But as for my self and for all other true Catholick and knowing Patriots of Ireland and not of Ireland only but England too it must seem to us without doubt very certain that the greatest evils of both Nations and greatest miseries under which the professors of the Catholick Faith amongst them have so long groaned to this present had first their very fatal origin from the sentences censures and depositions pronounced by Clement the VII Pius the V. Sixtus the V. and some other great Pontiffs of the Roman See now again at last their very prodigious encrease from the more then temerarious Interdict and Excommunication of Iohannes Baptista Rinuccini late Nuncius Apostolick extraordinary from Innocent the X. in our our own dayes to the Catholicks of Ireland And these passages I give here so many and so at large on this subject of caution thaâ— your most Reverend Paternity may the better perswade your self throughly that Father Carons either advice to you or desire from you hath been very prudent For when your Paternity shall consider that to condemn a Protestation Declaration or promise of Allegiance in temporal affairs to the King must be an intollerable errour because expresly repugnant to the Gospel of Christ Matt. 22. and to the clear precepts also of the most blessed Apostles Peter and Paul Rom. 13. and 1. of Peter 2.3 and 4. chap. when you must consequently judge there can be no sin at all to be proceeded against in such a necessary subscription or if there should according to the sentence of some few seem to be any kind of transgression therein yet in the judgment of others even the greatest Doctors of the Catholick Church there can be none but rather a degree of merit as the necessary concomitant of a laudable vertuous action so farre is that Protestation from implying in the judgment of moderate Divines any kind or even smack of heresy or schysme when however your Paternity think of this I said last you must undoubtedly acknowledg the cause of those subscribers of your Order to be such as has a multitude involved therein nor of those onely of the Seraphical Order nor of others too of the secular and regular Clergie alone but of the lay people also of the Gentry and Nobility the most honourable and most remarkable of the Kingdom and those likewise in very great numbers who questionless will assert that Doctrine or the Sanctity equity and justice of that Protestation or of that our Form to which they also by a particular Instrument of their own have subscribed and will assert it with their blood and life as their predecessors have before them done these 500. years under the Kings of England when lastly whatever be the crime or cause which is either objected to or presumed of those the Subscribers of your Order if indeed your Paternities quarrel be to them at all or to that their subscription or to that Form of theirs when I say your Paternity shall understand or consider that they are not as yet contumacious and I hope they will never be against the Church or against their Prelats being they have not been ever yet called unto or summond to appear for ought appears to them not once twice thrice nor peremptorily or by any one peremptory citation sufficing for three nay not as much as once barely admonish'd in any wise and when you therefore consider that a sentence pronounced against them the case so standing with them must be extreamly unjust even for want of due procedure according to the substantial or essential form of law and reason albeit no intollerable errour as to matter of right or fact could be alleaged when I say your most Reverend Paternity shall consider seriously all these particulars I doubt not you will entertain a very serious thought also of the prudence and reasonableness of that of Father Carons either advice or desire That you take good heed to carry your self with deliberation matureness and charity in this debate which our emulous Antagonists have raised against us least otherwise more scandals and evils and such as will draw long repentance after them do follow then may be hindered taken away or ended at any time by your Paternity or by the Minister General and his perswaders or indeed by any other And so most Reverend Father I conclude this Epistle which the shortness objected by your most Reverend Paternity to Father Carons former letters which I have not yet seen hath made thus prolix For I am not without some apprehension that you will take the like exceptions to his later also which I have seen As for other passages which concern a yet more perfect account to be given by the Subscribers specially by Father Caron me and the rest of our Institution to the great Pontiff to whom next to God according to the Canons of the Catholick Church and the rule moreover of our Seraphical Father St. Francis which God willing we shall endeavour alwayes to observe we profess all reverence and even absolute obedience in spiritual affairs due from us or as to passages yet wanting if there be any such that relate to the satisfaction expected from us by as your Paternity sayes and to be given to
Sir James Ware hath of an Irish King long before the English conquest whether the story be true or false to have gone to Rome out of devotion and layd down or offered up his Crown at St. Peters shrine Which if it had given a real title to the Pope or that See it must follow that the Bishop and See of Winchester hath as much great just certain and lawful to the Kingdoms of England Denmarke and all those others by inheritance or conquest belonging sometimes to Canutus For this devout King did no less there after he had checked the vain flattery of his Courtiers when upon a day sitting on the shore and the tyde coming in and they calling him Lord of Lands and Seas he commanding the floud not to advance and being not obeyed by the Waves but wett to some purpose presently and directly went to the Cathedral of Winchester and there offered up to God his Crown laying it on the high altar with resolution never more to put it on his head but acknowledg him the only Soveraign King of Sea and Land who commanded that little Wave to wet him And the only Original pretence of the Popes or See Apostolique's human right to England was the donation or submission of King Iohn to Innocent the thirds Legat at Dover Cardinal Pandulphus But who is so ignorant in Divinity as to pretend a right acquired by such a donation or submission were it absolutely certain as yet even Polidore Virgil himself seems to think it not to be forasmuch as he writes of it upon report onely Both law and reason tell us that a King cannot without consent of His Kingdom alien at the title thereof And Histories tell us that King Iohn who was an Usurper too for a long time at least made that donation or submission or whatever you call it directly against the Kingdom so farre he was from having the consent of his Peers people or Parliament That Henry the 3d. the Kingdom of England soon after the troubles were appeased expresly protested against it protested so even by their express Embassadour to that purpose the Archbishop of Canterbury even before in the presence of the General Councel of Lyons See Walsingame ad an 1245. and Harpsfield ad Sec. 14. c. 5. That so many laws made by all the three estates in Parliament under Edward the third and Richard the second which declare England to be an Empire and the King thereof to acknowledg no other on Earth above him but God alone did protest against it And the prescriptions of five entire ages confirm without all controule these protestations So that the Lovain Divines could not on coole and sober reflection but Judge this first ground either as to the first Original or continuance of it to be all composed of sand either as to England or Ireland or both For the same arguments are equally of force against that pretended gift of the Irish Monarch being that if we declined the likeness of it in all points or as to his intention of a reverential true acknowledgment of Gods power only or of a tye of himself and his Crown to be alwayes militant for the faith and confession of St. Peter or of a donary only of his bare Crown as to the materials of it not of the politick rights and power signified thereby to the Church of that holy Apostle or if we granted as we do not by any means That this Irish Monarch intended absolutely as much as in him to give up all the temporal Soveraignty of Ireland to that holy See yet whereas it appears not by any kind of Allegation History or Scroll that he was commission'd by the Provincial Kings or by the States of the Kingdom to do so such intention of his or such oblation donation or subjection as proceeding thence or made by him amounts to a meer nothing For no man gives that so as thereby to transferre a right which he is not empower'd by the laws to give As for the Bull or Bulls granted by Adrian the IV. to Henry the second for either the Lordship or Kingship for both were granted or at least are pretended to have been granted as may be seen in those copies extant in Baronius they are to no purpose at all in this matter Because if those we read in that great Annalist be true and not subreptitious or counter fit it is manifest out of the very tenour of them they are wholly grounded upon errour because the only ground alleadg'd in them for the Popes right to dispose of Ireland is That al Ilands on which the Sun of Justice that is Christian Religion did shine belonged to the See of Peter But whence this title came to the Ilands a lone more then to the continent nothing at all is pretended in those Bulls nor by any for them other then a meer forged imposture of donation by Constantine the great who yet is known to have never had the least footing in Ireland * As it is known that c. Constantinus d. 96. in Gratian. is not onely a meer Palea but speaks as well of the whole continent of Europe as of the Ilands For to pretend as a ground of them or of such donation or the right to make it Bellarmines indirect power in the Pope over the temporals of all Kings in ordine ad spiritualia besides that the restriction in the said Bulls to the Ilands alone and no extension to the Continent ruines this pretence or allegation it cannot be made use of by the Lovain Divines to justifie this first ground of their censure which is only meer humane right and that of Bellarmine is Divine as derived or pretended to be derived from Christ himself immediately But I confess the Lovain Divines were wary enough to decline this least they should bring on themselves a more dangerous censure from their own King and raise the power and just indignation of all Kings States and people even of their own communion to punish their temerity LIV. Nor can their next ground any whit more justifie their Censure The power of binding and loosing which the Catholick Churches of the Roman communion throughout the world acknowledge in the Pope or Church is that only which binds sinners in their sins or in just Ecclesiastical and meerly spiritual censures by denying them absolution from either clave non errante and that besides which enables them to lay binding commands or make binding laws Ecclesiastical and purely spiritual not against the laws of God and Canons of the Vniversal Church but conformable to both for the suppression of vice and furtherance of virtue And is that only which looseth sinners by absolving them in due circumstances from both sins and censures and further by dispensing with them sine prejudicio tertii in vowes or Oathes made to God alone or in other Obligations arising from the Canons of the Church only where a third person is not concern'd in point of
Canterbury as relating to our present purpose and put all that into this special form of argument Syllogisme and objection against my own grand Thesis Whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's cause quarrel or contest with Henry the second must be false But my grand Theirs of a power in secular supream Princes to coerce all criminal Clergiemen whatsoever living within their dominions is such or is a doctrine which condemns or opposes that very cause quarrel or contest of St. Thomas of Canterbury Ergo my grand Thests must be false The Minor will be proved thus and must be proved thus or not at all Such doctrine must necessarily suppose an errour both in the solemn canonization of him at least for a martyr properly such and yet he was solemnly canonized for a martyr properly such by Alexander the Third Pope of that name his own contemporary and must further necessarily suppose an errour too that both in the belief and practise of the universal Church of Christ forasmuch as they believe him to be a martyr properly such and both venerat and invocate him as such For that such doctrine as condems or opposes the justice of his quarrel against Henry the Second must also necessarily suppose such an errour in his canonization veneration and invocation as a martyr properly such appears hence manifestly that it is therefore he was canonized for such and is venerated and invocated as such because that quarrel of his was and is believed to have been just and that it was for maintaining the justice of it he suffered death and suffered death patiently and Christianly as became a true martyr without any resistance at all Now it is plain that such doctrine as must necessarily suppose such an errour in such canonization veneration and invocation of any must be false nay erroneous and schismatical nay and heretical too in Christian belief because it must consequently suppose that not onely the Pope nay not onely this or that particular orthodox nation but even the universality of all true Christian nations even the Catholick Church her self taken in her whole latitude not onely may sometime erre in matters which they she accounts to be part of her holy belief holy practise but hath already and continually err'd and almost for five hundred years compleat that is since the year of our Lord 1173. wherein Alexander Tertius canonized him solemnly for a martyr and she no less solemnly invocated him as such Then which consequent supposition what Roman Catholick can say that any may be more even fundamentally heretical For it must be granted as an article nay and also at least among Divines as a fundamental article of Christian Catholick religion that the true Christian Catholick Church is infallible in credendis agendis both in her belief and in her practise I mean such as she her self accounts divine or holy or certainly it must be granted that we have nothing at all infallible in her or in our religion delivered by her but what may without any special revelation from God or any either particular or universal tradition from her be demonstrated by pure natural reason and consequently that our belief of even the very whole mistery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of that other no less above our natural reason of the Trinity of persons in one God which are purely credenda as likewise those of Baptisme and the Lords Supper quatenus inter agenda as they are practised are fallible and unreasonable practises being we have nothing to render us absolutely certain of the contrary if the universal Church be fallible in her belief and practise But for the Minor as I confess that I see no other proof possible but by instancing the particulars of the difference 'twixt King Henry the Second and this holy Praelat so I confess also that if in any of those particulars or in altogether my grand Thesis or any part of my doctrine hetherto in pursuance of that my Thesis may be found and that it be clear also that St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death therefore and was therefore canonized a martyr by the Pope and as such was therefore venerated and invocated ever since or at any time by the Catholick Church then I must consequently grant the objection to be very well or at least very probably grounded as no man can deny it to be syllogistically formed or deny the conclusion to follow of necessity if both the Premisses be certainly true And for the first of them we have already seen it pretty well driven home at least by a very specious discourse and one concluding such an inconvenience as no Roman Catholick will dare allow I mean the infallibility of the whole Catholick Church either in religious belief or practise whatever in the mean time be held or thought of the Pope alone or of his particular Roman Diocess as taken a part from the rest or of any one or moe even National Churches whatsoever of Catholick communion so they amount not to that which we call and is truly the Catholick or universal Church or the general congregation of all particular or National Churches or of the more considerable parts of them or the General Representative of such more considerable parts of them which are now in Ecclesiastical communion with the Roman Bishop his particular Diocess of Rome For this general Congregation of all such particular Churches or of all the more considerable parts of them and this general Representative also whenever it is of all such more considerable parts is it I call now here and elsewhere still understand to be the Catholick Church Whereof I desire my good Readers to take special notice not that I see any special need of it to solve this objection but that I may no where seem either to equivocat or to be unwilling to be understood when there is occasion to distinguish between the sense of the Pope and that of the Church or between the authority of a particular Church or some one of ro moe peradventure and that which is properly of the universal Church Therefore now not onely to shew what may be said or not said and that even out of the very Ecclesiastical History or Annals of Baronius himself of the particulars of the said difference or quarrel and for the proof of the said Minor being it is onely from History all that can be said for the proof of it must be had and that Baronius can not be presumed to relate such matter of fact with any kind of partiality or favour to me or my Thesis or my doctrine against his own pretended Immunity of all Clergiemen or be presumed to omit any material thing which might any way advance his own pretence of such Immunity upon the contradictory question confirmed by the sense by the life and death of so great a Saint and even sealed by the bloud of so glorious a martyr
Leges quas Edovardus tertius utendas dederat in pristinum usum revocat quae tamen sensim absoluerunt Normaâ—â—s pro commâ—do Principis ad incommodum Anglorum leges a Gulielmo primo conditas constantissime usurpantibus And again about the end of his life Tulit initio sui Principatus aliquot leges quas nec ipse nec Reges qui secuti sunt hine servaruaâ— However those I have given were his laws not repealed after by himself in Parment for he began Parliaments in England or otherwise by any publick Instrument declared as a law to the people albeit I deny not but those 16. heads controverted after twixt Thomas of Canterbury and King Henry the Second were first conceived in writing by this very Henry the first but never as a law published by him To all which I will add those further laws yet which were to our purpose also made by King Stephen Henry the First 's immediat or next Successour in two several Parliaments one at Oxford and t'other at London in that of Oxford abolishing quite that kind of tribute or assessment which other Kings had formerly often exacted from every hyde or acre of ground and promising too that neither Episcopacies nor other Ecclesiastical Benefices or Sacerdotal Prefectships should be kept vacant as much as for any the least time and in this of London or Westminster enacting for the Clergy's sake because they had liberally contributed for the warr in hand that whoever should strike any Churchman in holy orders or should without licence from the Court Ecclesiastical or Bishops lay hands upon or seize any criminal Clergymen whatever his crime were should be held excommunicat impious and accursed and should not be restored at all to the communion of the Church or absolved but by the Roman Pontiff onely Of which laws of King Stephen albeit there be no Parliament Records preserved of them as neither indeed are of all or any of those held before King John's days Polydore Virgil tels us expresly and particularly in his 12. book of Histories and life of the said Stephen For these are his words concerning the first Stephanus autem ex sententia summum consecutus imperium Oxonium proficiscitur atque ibi Principum conventum facit quo in Conventu inter caetera ut suorum animos sibi devinciret illud tributi genus quod alij Reges per singula jugera terrae saepe exigere a populo solebant prorsus sustulit atque promisit se curaturum ut deinceps Episcopatus aliae Prefecturae sacerdotales ne puncto quidem temporis vacarent c. And concerning the second these Interea Rex Londinum venit ubi celebrem Principum ac Antistitum conventum peregit in quo talia verba fecit Cum Principes fidelissimi c His dictis cuncti praesidium salutis ac libertatis defendendae se laturos pollicentur At Episcopi cum suis sacerdotibus quia pugnare fas non est pecuniam conferre promittunt quibus ut aliquid gratiae referretur in eodem Conventu constitutum est ut quicumque deinceps sacris initiatos percuterent aut alicujus criminis reos Episcoporum injussu caperent impii importunique haberentur nec ab aliquo praeterquam a Romano Pontifice in piorum caetum restitui possent quemadmodum jure Pontificio iampridem sancitum esset sed apud Anglos ante id tempus minus servatum And so I have given at large whatever I would have the Reader observe in this Seventh place of the proper civil or municipal laws of England before Henry the seconds time concerning our purpose especially the exemption of criminal Clerks even in case of murder from the lay Judges Eightly and in the last place you are to observe but onely out of this present book of my own which you you read now that is out of all said by me formerly in so many Sections from that place where I first began to dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity what my doctrine is against which the objection is made for and to come to the answering of which I have premised so long a discourse in so many observations And you are to observe well that my said doctrine is no other in effect but what I now repeat heer briefly viz. 1. That neither by the law divine positive or natural nor by the canons of the Catholick Church which are properly those are and are called Canones universalis Ecclesiae nor even by those other canons which are more properly and onely stiled Papal Canons Clergiemen living within the dominions of any Supream lay or secular Prince are exempt in criminal and temporal causes from his supream civil even coercive power 2. That not onely they are not so already exempted by any such law of God or man but also that they cannot be hereafter by any pure law of man not even of Pope or Council exempted from the said supream civil even coercive power without the consent of the Princes themselves 3. That neither can the supream secular Princes themselves grant any such exemption to Clerks living still within their dominions and remaining Subjects to them because this implyes a plain contradiction or to any Clerks at all but to such as are at the same time wholly set free from all kind of subjection or acknowledgment of their Principalities 4. That on the other side both by the natural and positive law of God and especially by the 13 of the Romans by the letter and meaning and scope or end of that whole text of St. Paul there all Christian Clerks not even the Popes not even the Apostles themselves exempted are subject in temporal matters and criminal causes even to the coercive power of the supream secular Magistrat 5. That by the doctrine also of the holy Fathers generally until Gregory the VII and by their exposition or understanding of that text of Paul all Churchmen whatsoever were and are so in the dominions of the respective supream temporal Princes whom these Clerks own to be their own legal Princes 6. That by the practise also of so many Christian Bishops Popes and Princes they were and are so 7. That even by the testimony of clear even Papal canons they were and are so that by no argument hithertoo alleadged out of reason scripture tradition Fathers Councils Papal Canons Histories by any of our adversaries the contrary is as much as any way convincingly deduced 9. And finally and in a word that all their true exemptions from either inferiour or supream secular judicatories in any temporal or criminal cause whatsoever as to the coercive punishment of them by the civil power force and sword is originally from and wholly still depending of the supream civil power In all which or in any discourse or clause said thereupon by me you are also to observe that I never said or say or intend to say that Clerks have not a true right to those exemptions from lay judicatories which the
Act passed in Parliament whereby it was made capital for any either to keep holy-day for him or to pray unto him or to call him a Saint at all or even to suffer his name to be in their Calanders c. if Sanderus de Schismat Angl. l. 1. in Henric. speak truth of such matter of fact in Henry the Eights raign nay moreover perswaded this King to have him disinterred or dis-entombed and his Relicks body or bones burn'd and the very ashes scattered into the four winds if Pope Paul the Third was rightly inform'd for thus he speaks of this matter in his Bull of the year 1538. against the said Henry Postquam ipsum Divum Thomam ad majerem religionis contemptum in judicium vocari tanquam contumacem damnari ac proditorem declarari feeerat exhumari combuâ—i cineres in ventum spargi jussit omnium plaâ—è cunctaram gentium crudelitatem superans cum ne in bello quidem holles victores saevire in mortuorum cadavera soleant All which this King was perswaded unto by such wicked Councellors as had no other God but gain For if Sanderus tell truth in this matter there was so great a treasure of gold silver and pretious stones and so much most costly stuffs hangings c. in and belonging to that only Tomb of St. Thomas of Canterbury as loaded six and twenty Waines of the greatest and largest by the confession of that Kings own Treasurer who received them Ut occasionem quaeri oportuerit unde expilaretur And histories tell us that Henry the Eight did not so or give any such command out of any such principle of religion or irreligion as that is which sayes that no Saints are to be venerated or invocated or even honoured by such pretious donaries bestowed on their Tombs for he never altered from the saith of the Roman Church in this as neither did he in any other except that only of the Popes Supremacy if in this very point of Supremacy understood rightly he altered at all otherwise then schismatically And reason tells us that for maintaining or forwarding his schysm it was unnecessary that he should spoil this holy mans Tomb or indeed any other Shrine or Church or Chappel For a separation from the power of the Pope or even renunciation of both his pretended and true power of primacy whatever this be may be very well conceived to be and to have been both in its own nature and all the then circumstances wholy independent from any such proceedings against St. Thomas of Canterbury or indeed any other Saint especially being that as I have demonstrated heretofore St. Thomas of Canterbury never either formally or virtually or consequentially in any of his contests with Henry the Second denied the Kings of England's supream temporal independent power or any which was in him according to the laws of the Land which were then unrepealed So that I may here to that impious Councellor whoever he was of Henry the Eight apply that of St. Augustine in Psal 63. v. 7. Sed avaritia illa quae captivavit discipulum comitem Christi captivavit militem custodem Jepulchri Yet Matthew Parker very like himself in other things would fain justifie these proceedings of Henry the Eight For in the end of that life which he writes of Thomas Becket amongst his other lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury though he write that exactly enough laying aside his own censorious terms of against the Saint in some passages yet in the perclose of all he writes thus Thomas etsi celebri testimonio Martyrii à Papali Clero pro Ecclesiae suae Cantuariensis privilegiis candidatus in Ecclesia Christi humili primum in cripto positus deinde sublimiori excelso ac sumptuoso delubro conditur fuerit in quo caput ejus seorsim à cadavere situm Thomae Martyris corona appellabatur ad quod peregrinantes undique confluerent muneraque praetiosa deferrent stupendaque edita miracula quae ab Anglicis Latinisque scriptoribus ejus laudes celebrantibas commemorantur utque perenni gloria nulla oblivione interitura floreret horis matutinis atque vespertinis preces ab acutissimo Theologo Thoma Aquinate elegantiori style tamquam rythmo compositae atquae concinnatae quibus auditorum aures mulcerent in ejusque stuporem raperentur quotidie ei fusae fuerint tandem tamen saeculis aliquot labentibus diligenti ac sedula indagatione adhibitis totius regni Praesulibus ac Proceribus Rex qualis Thomas fuerit certo comperit quam nefanda gesserat quantasque turbas tragaedias in regno concitaverat Ideoque nomen ejus in publicarum precum libris ut Sanctum ubivis decantatum deleri penitus abradi praecepit Intollerabili enim arrogantia supra Regiam authoritatem juraque publica magisque quam Christianae aut Ecclesiasticae libertatis immunitas divino jure postulat se extulerat Tanta autem fama celebritate adumbratae sanctitatis suae nomen percrebuerat ut Cantuariensis Ecclesia in qua delubrum ejus situm erat quae ut diximus Christi servatoris Ecclesia ex prima institutione dicebatur id nomen amiserat in sancti Thomae Ecclesiae nomen fere transierat Sed hic semper est adulterinarum fucatarum rerum exitus ut veritate tempore probata hypocrisis patestat in nihilum concidat And with these last words of his own il-grounded il-affected censure this otherwise good Antiquary but first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury made by Queen Elizeabeth shuts up his whole life of his so great holy Catholick Predecessour in that See Which entire passage out of him I give here that the Protestant Readers of this work of mine who have a prejudice against any thing related by Sanderus or exaggerated by Paulus Tertius and perhaps they have reason to be so against Sanders in many things and this Paul too in some things and yet perhaps also against neither for what relates to the present subject may see the said usage against St. Thomas of Canterbury attested for the most weighty part by Parker himself and for no part denyed by him and that my both Catholick and Protestant Readers may see in this relation of Parker himself very much to confirm us in our opinion and belief of St Thomas of Canterburye's undoubted sanctity in his life or death or rather both whether he was a martyr or no in the rigid sense of the word being that he I mean Matthew Parker acknowledges here in such express words that there were stupendious miracles wrought at his tomb and that he neither here nor elsewhere contradicts those miracles by saying they were either forgeries or delusions And besides I give this passage all along in Parkers own words that the candid Reader may see I have reason to wish that Parker had not been so little candid himself in this very passage as neither to name that King or fix on that time
give and they to receive it from Her But sayes not That the Church may by her own power or at her pleasure or in any case Revoke that Authority again or hurt lessen or endanger it but wholly abstracts from this whether it be so or not according to the truth of things in themselves 4. Because the Querie made after the Objection or that which ask't thus Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings is soon and rationally answer'd in the affirmative For so do very famous Catholick Doctors both Divines Civilians and Canonists and they all of strict communion with the Roman Church and Pope maintain and maintain also I mean too concerning such authority and power as without any question they had at first originally from the Church and could not have but from her but hath been time out of mind annexed to their Crowns or hath been originally or at some time granted them per modum contractus vel concordati vel transitionis And that you may not have my saying so for proof you may be pleased to run over this Latin insertion extracted out of that very learned School Divine and English Father and Doctor of St. Francis's Order who was lately and three several times Minister Provincial of his said Order in England and for ought I know lives yet Father Francis Davenport alias a Sancta Clara. And I give it wholly in his own words as it lies in his Paraphrase on the XXXVII Article of those XXXIX of the Protestant Church of England And give it so at length not only that you may see in it Catholick Doctors and Writers enough confirming what I have so answerâ—d in the Affirmative to this Query but for to clear your judgment in some other matters also relating to the Subject in hand here or at least to that of my whole Discourse of Ecclesiastical Exemption if not to some other questions in this my present Book And yet give it not as meaning to tye my self in all things to his judgment or at least to his too fearful or scrupulous expressing and tying of himself in meer words to some other late Schoolmen especially where he rather follows their opinion or their expression who deny Jurisdiction to Kings ex jure Regio de jure Divino naturali over the persons and in the causes of Ecclesiasticks and only attribute to them nudam potestatem civilem temporalem c. over such persons and in such causes than theirs who on the contrary attribute to Kings the thing and word Jurisdiction over the same persons and things and this too per se and by the Law of God and Nature Hic articulus sayes he meaning the foresaid XXXVII Article of the Protestant Church of England subministrat materiam examinandi Quaestionem longe gravissimam An scil laici sint capaces jurisdictionis spiritualis Primo advertendum ex omnium sententia illos non esse capaces clavium quia tunc etiam remissionis seu absolutionis a peccatis Secundo advertendum jurisdictionem spiritualem seu potestatem jurisdictionis non esse immediate ipsam potestatem clavium immo separabiles nec actu semper conjungi vel jure divino vel positivo Tertio supponendum summum Pontificem in omni sententia secundum absolutam potentiam suam posse jurisdictionem talem laicis concedere quia non expresse contra jus divinum ut recte Soto 4. dist 20. quaest 1. art 4. Scot. 4. d. 20 q 1. a. 4. Mirand in Manual q. 3. a. 2. D. Alvin c. 3. c. sic etiam Miranda in Manuali quaest 3. art 2. hoc non solum respectu virorum sed foeminarum Addit tamen Miranda hoc respectu foeminarum nusquam adhuc concessum Quod tamen negat D. Alvin c. 3. de Episcopis Abbatibus Abbatissis c. 22. citat multa jura ex quibus actu conceditur Abbatissis potestas jurisdictionis non quidem excommunicandi per se sed praecipiendi suis subditis Sacerdotibus ut excommunicent rebelles contumaces moniales hoc valere vel ex jure communi vel consuetudine vel saltem ex privilegio vel strictius loquendo dicendum cum Laimanno lib. 1. Laiman l. 1. tract 5. p. 1. c. 3. n. 3. 4. tract 5. p. 1. cap. 3. num 3. 4. quod non habent jurisdictionem spiritualem proprie sed usuram quandam jurisdictionis Et hinc conferre possunt beneficia instituere clericos in Ecclesiis ad Monasterium suum pertinentibus c. Vt sensum meum in re tam gravi aperiam Dicendum putem nullo quidem jure ut praetactum est eis competere potestatem seu jus spirituale ut loquitur Joannes de Parisiis de potestate Papae c. 21. quo gratia spiritualis causatur id est Joan. de Paris c. 21. de potest Papae potestas administrandi Sacramenta Et idem est judicium de potestate quae consequitur ex priori ut est inflictio poenae spiritualis scripturarum expositio Ministrorum Ecclesiae institutio confirmatio vel examen alia id genus multa Quodvis enim horum de jure divino restringitur praecise ad homines spirituales sen Deo sacros ut olim definitum est a Joan. 22. contra Marsilium de Padua ut videre est apud Turrecrem l. 4. Summae sub finem Joan. 22. contra Mars de Padua Turrecr l. 4. summae Caeterum quoad potestatem seu jus antecedens non de per se necessario annexum spiritualibus officiis bene potest in laicis subinde residere sicut praesentatio collatio beneficiorum punitio temporalis clericorum alia id genus multa ut dixi de Abbatissis praecipue ex concessione Ecclesia vel longa consuetudine praescripta convenientibus Praelatis Ecclesiae Dixi merito etiam ex consuetudine quia non solum concessio Innoc. in c. novit c. Salgado p. 1. c. Prael 3. nu 120. sed consuetudo ipsa tribuit jurisdictionem etiam in spiritualibus ut docet Innocent in cap. Novit de judic multi praesertion quando consuetudinis exercitium a tempore immemoriali probatur ut declarant Juristae de quare vide Salgado p. 1. c. 1. Praelud 3. n. 122 deinceps Dices hic non solum concedi Principibus nostris potestatem ex consuetudine seu concessione sed supremam ut ibi asseritur quod noâ— potest eis competere in spiritualibus ut omnes Doctores tenent Respondeo quod Doctores praedicti asserant Papaâ— non posse auferre jurisdictionem Principum ex consuâ—tudine vel concessione firma valide licite introductam Nav. c. 27. in Enchir. n 70. Salz sch Ber. Diaz cap. 55. Sect. Apud Gall. Duvall de disc Eccl. p. 3 fol. 405. sicut satis insinuat Navar. c. 27. in
whether I say those very illustrious and eminent persons be not under guilt of most grievous and manifold sins obliged to refix i. e. to retract and recall what they have in that behalf so inconsiderately erroniously scandalously and also injuriously written And whether I may not here with very much Justice Reason and Religion exhort them all to as publick a Refixion and Satisfaction as the wrong so done by them to the Catholick Religion and Communion in general but in particular to those of that Church in Ireland and yet more particularly to the Subscribers was and is not only publick but most scandalously publick And lastly yea also most consequently Whether as I may here pertinently mind them of that common saying borrowed from St. Augustine Ep. 54. ad Macedonium and out of him inserted into the very Papal Canons Cap. si res aliena 14. q. 6. Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum So I may not also here with much reason and not only to persuade them to that certainly due reparation by a just Refixion and Recantation of their Errors i. e. of their foresaid Censures and Letters but also to put a final period as well to this present Section as to all the foregoing Sections of this long intervening Controversie occasioned by the Censure of Louain and its four grounds before rehearsed and hitherto refuted nay whether I may not even with far more reason conclude my last Querie of exhortation to those Roman Censures than the Divines of Louain did their own second short Censure of Decestation to the Subscribers with that I mean other common place of theirs borrowed likewise out of the Canons 22. q. 4. cap. Diffinitio ex Eliberit Conc. cap. 1. though not as such or as borrowed so or at all mention'd by those Divines Injusta definitio salubriter dissolvenda est nec ea reputanda est praevaricatio sed temeritatis emendatio That unjust definitions are to be justly dissolved by contrary Declarations and that such Revocation is not to be reputed any kind of prevaricating unholiness but a due correction of ungodly rashness All and every of which Queries I leave good Reader to your impartial judgment to be answer'd But then to be answer'd by you when and after you have seriously and with an eye of indifferency perused all I have said hitherto not only in this present Section but in all those other preceding it especially in all from the lxiii nay in all from the xlvii where I gave you verbatim the Censure of Louain and after you have also perused the vii the lxxxii and lxxxiii Sections of this First Part in which Sections you find some of those Letters of the late Internuncio Hieronymus de Vecchiis from Bruxels and of Cardinal Francis Barberin from Rome and lastly after you have likewise perused in the Second Part of this First Treatise that whole Section of it which contains other later Letters of the same Cardinal from Rome and three or four several more from Bruxels written and sent by Jacobus Rospigliosi the present Internuncio of Flanders LXXVIII AND so I have done at last with my long disputes against the no less erronious than unlucky Censure of the Theological Faculty of Louain In the deduction of which disputes I confess I have been much more diffuse than I intended when I writ and printed the Introduction to this First Treatise In which Introduction I remember to have warn'd the Reader only of some Twenty or Thirty sheets of disputes intervening and inserted in my Relation of matter of Fact Which yet I think are by this time amounted to well nigh an Hundred taking those few I gave before in answer to the two papers of the Jesuites together with these many others after and which I have now ended against the Louain Censure and four grounds of it Which is the reason that if I were to Reprint this First Treatise I would alter the Title given it of matter of fact relating to and in the Dublin Congregation Albeit I may still say That how prolix soever those Sections of my disputes against the four grounds and against the arguments of Bellarmine and others have been yet as here inserted they make up the matter of fact also for all these very Disputes have by occasion of the said Remonstrance and Censure in effect happen'd as to the substantial parts of them and happen'd 'twixt the Procurator and others though not altogether at any one place or time nay and all those very Objections and Answers as to the most material parts of them have been upon the same occasion made and given some at one time and some at another and the Objections indeed made partly by others against the said Procurator and partly by himself against himself but of purpose to clear the matter as the Answers to them all were likewise given by him though not in this method you find them here But however this matter be or whether these disputes of mine as inserted here or in any other respect come under the notion of that matter of fact which should according to the Title of this Treatise be principally handled in it LXXIX I Return now to and proceed with such matter of pure Fact which no man shall deny to be purely such intending to insert no more disputes not only not until I end this First Part but not even until I put a final period to this First Treatise or to the Second Part also which ends it wholly I am therefore now to tell thee good Reader That as I have before observed in the beginning of my Lii Section after which immediately or in the next which is my Liii Section I fell off from the Relation of that bare matter of fact and fell into these long Scholastical disputes which continued ever since to this present lxxviii Section that as I say I have in that Lii Section observed How the last and worst of all the effects or productions of the Louain Censure as likewise of the Letters of Hieronymus de Vecchiis and Cardinal Francis Barberin was a kind of specious pretence for those more unlearned and more ignorant of the Irish Clergy in all places both at home in Ireland and abroad in other Countries and not for such only but also for the more knowing of the Dissenters or Opposers to heighten their Animosities and strengthen their Opposition and even to except amongst the vulgar thenceforward against the Remonstrance not as unexpedient only or unnecessary but as unlawful detestable sacrilegious schismatical and heretical being it was partly in formal words and partly in equivalent or in effect declared such by the Louain Divines so you shall now see by what follows That notwithstanding any or all the most convincing arguments offered them either from Authority or Reason to the contrary yet their own unpolitick politicks and mistaken interest and blind zeal and unhappy fate never suffered the generality of them to yield no not to
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
D.V.J. Vicar-General of Ardmagh James Dempsy Vicar-Apostolical of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare and Oliver Dese Vicar-General or Capitulary of Meath It being further and upon the motion of the said Dr. Daly agreed betwixt them before the Signature that all the Letters should be by one express Messenger delivered into the proper hands of each and every Prelate or person respectively concern'd and that the said Messenger should appear at and on the first day of the National Congregation to make affidavit there in publick against any that should perhaps fail to appear in his own person or by his lawful proxy As for the Vicars-General or Capitulary of other vacant Sees besides the Metropolitical or Archiepiscopal the summoning of them was left to the Metropolitans and Apostolical Vicars of such Metropolitical Sees as had no Bishops living or residing in that Kingdom And so was the fixing or naming of the Divines who were to assist and vote also in Congregation left to the discretion of the respective Ordinaries and Provincial Superiours All which and whatever else belongs to this matter will be better understood out of the tenour of the Indiction or letter of Intimation To which purpose I give here a true Copy of that was sent to John Burk Archbishop of Tuam who was the onely Archbishop then at home in Ireland though decrepid if not bedrid I am sure when he landed at Dublin from S. Malâ—'s in the year 1662. he was not able to go otherwise to Connaught but in a Litter An original Duplicat of the Letter inviting him and by him the Vicars-General Apostolical or Capitulary of the vacant Sees of his Province viz. Cluanfert Elphin Killala and Killmaduaoh for Mayo is of late by prescription annexed to Tuam I have with me still and word by word as followetth Most Reverend and our very good Lord HAving met here though accidentally and upon other occasions some being in before and others of late come to this Town we thought it nevertheless our greatest Concern to consult together think upon and find out some expedient the best we could and as far as in us lies to procure some ease and some peace or liberty to the Catholicks in general of this Nation and more especially to the Ecclesiasticks for what relates to the publick and free exercise or toleration of Catholick Religion to all and use of their functions to the Clergy And when we had seriously considered all the causes of both our fears and hopes in the present conjuncture and what passed in relation to us since our good Kings happy Restauration and what is continually ever since and even at present expected from us as withal the suspitions we lie under still especially the greater part if not the generality of our Ecclesiasticks and what causes we or many or some at least of us have or are thought to have given for such prejudicial Opinions as yet harboured by those in power against us and how we conceive our selves and all other Pastors of their respective Flocks bound in Conscience to do what they or we may with a safe Conscience to wash away all evil stains or scandals from our communion and profession and that this is pleasing to God and by consequence must be to his Church in general and therefore how we further conceive our selves and all the rest of the Irish Clergy bound to remove by all just wayes the jealousies entertained of us out of His Majesties and my Lord Lieutenants breasts We resolved at last to write to the respective Lords-Bishops Vicars-Apostolick and General as likewise to all the Provincial Superiours of Regular Orders humbly and earnestly intimating unto all as we do by these presents to your Lordship in particular our sense of the expediency and necessty of a general meeting of the said Lords-Bishops Vicars-Apostolick and General and of the said Provincial Superiours all by themselves personally such as may or such as may not by their Proctors sufficiently instructed and authorized to conclude what the major part shall agree upon for giving His Majesty those rational assurances of our future fidelity to Him in all Temporal causes and contingencies whatsoever which we may And our further sense of ten such persons only out of each Province whether Prelates or Proctors or Divines Commissioned by the respective Prelates and Vicars-Apostolick or General So that the whole number of the Convocation exceed not Forty only the Superiours Provincial added to that number and two Divines more with each of these Provincials Intimating further our sense of the place and day we have found necessary to fix upon which is Dublin and the 11th of June next year of our Lord being 1666. desiring all most earnestly and in particular and above all others your Lordship to concur with our sense in all these porticulars and that your Lordship and all the rest will believe we had sufficient grounds for each As also assuring all that shall there and then meet of the above Prelates Vicars Superiours Proctors or other Divines that they shall be free to come and return again to their respective places And that we have no other end herein but the general good And therefore that we for our own parts shall not fail with Gods good pleasure to meet at the said place and day and at the residence of the Parish-Priest of St. Owens Church Which being all we have to say in writing on this Subject we pray your Lordship may be pleased to communicate this Letter to your own Suffragants or Vicars-Apostolick and General of your Province to whom in particular we thought it needless to write otherwise than by this to your Lordship and them all Yet earnestly entreat them and every one of them hereby and by your Lordships power with and influence upon them to concur with us and bring their number for that Province to the said place and at the said day And so we heartily commend your Lordship and them all to the protection of God and most holy direction of his Spirit in all things Dublin Nov. 18. 1665. Your Lordships Most humble and most affectionate Servants Patrick Ardagh Pat Daly Vic Ardmachanus ac Totius Provinciae Judex delegatus Oliverus Desse Vic Ger. Miden Claun Ja Dempsy Vic Applicus Dub Capitularis Kild Such another was subscribed and endorsed to Dr. Owen O Swiny Bishop of Kilmore who had been questionless for many years before bedrid and unable to exercise very scarce any part of his Function And yet besides Tuam and Ardagh was the onely Bishop of the Roman Communion then at home in Ireland For Antony MaGeoghegan the late Bishop of Meath who was the first that in his several Letters to the Procurator in the year 1662. pretended as his onely excuse for not signing the Remonstrance and gave his earnest desires of a National Congregation to be held first viz. to consult of the lawfulness or expediency of such signing was now dead A third Letter also the
both examin what he means by his In hac where immediatly after his said excellent arguments he advises the Irish in these terms In hac igitur constantes estote nec vestri animi robur tentet aut labefactet jactatus timor c. but also retort on himself his decipulae hostis humani generis c. and tell that as he meanâ— not the true Catholick Law but that of the Court of Rome only so it is himself and his Associats that have been catch'd in the decipulae of and prompted by the inimicus homo qui superseminavit Zizania in agrotritici when he and they for maintaining their own Usurpation and Pride writ so many uncatholick and unchristian Letters to lead Captive again the miserable Irish and praecipitate them indeed to both Temporal and Eternal Destruction 10. That by his following threats of Divine Vengeance from the most Holy Father against those he says were past the bounds of modesty as also by so many other expressions not only both in this Letter and former too in the year 1662. of the Cardinals but in those also of the three Bruxels Internuncios one after another De Veccii Rospigliosi and the present Airoldi originally and truly indeed may be seen whence the great storm at last of Citations Excommunications Denunciations Depositions c. against me and my friends have proceeded especially since the year 1669. to this present 1673. But it is well they have not at Rome that true Divine Vengeance at their will And well that in such matters I owe them no obedience not even by vow or otherwise And best of all that I can be both in foro Dei in foro Ecclesia of the Faith and Communion of the true Catholick and Apostolick Church even Roman also if this new Epithet must come in to the Creed without being in such matters of the pretended Catholick either Communion or Faith of the Roman Court 11. And Lastly that Rospigliosi's Convulsion fitts and commiserating tears his either true or counterfeit weeping and all his flattering Oratory that follows must of necessity make even the most serious and sober man to smile when he considers an Apostolick Minister seeking to impose on the World endeavouring by such lying Arts and notoriously false suppositions finely worded to perswade more knowing men then himself to continue in errour For the truth is that neither he nor Barberin nor Congregation nor Pope himself could have with all their Letters or Arguments or Prayers or Tears perswaded any one of the very most seeming Bigots of the Irish Clergy to such vain and fals and pernicious Opinions as the Remonstrance renounceth if the Irish proprietors had been restored and the penal Laws against Catholicks in general repealed and no access visible for the said Ecclesiasticks to any Church-preferment Benefice or even titular Office or Dignity but as in former Catholicks times when the Laws of Praemunire were universally and strictly observed But those things not being so we must not wonder much if the less consciencious and more ambitious leading men joyn'd with others amongst them naturally desirous of a total change made use of those Letters both to fright the honester and lesser party of the otherwise well-affected well-principled and to amuse the Populace too of their communion with the Authority of the Court of Rome and great Pontiff himself as if the Catholick Religion and Faith had been really and truly invaded by the Remonstrance and the Anti-remonstrants therefore ought to be excused for their opposition of it IX AND yet they saw well enough that all they could say of that nature was not sufficient to excuse them from meeting together in the National Congregation Besides their Intelligencers at Dublin had not after Ferrals landing time enough to send Coppies of the Cardinals and Internuncius's Letter to all parts of the Kingdom where the persons concern'd were all of them at that very time preparing for their journey to Dublin Therefore on the 9th of June being Saturday and most of the Fathers come from several parts and the Bishop of Ardagh though very much contrary to my former expectation of him fallen on a sudden from his former Professions and the Bishop of Kilfinuran who a few days before was landed out of France and he with some others having conferr'd notes together behold a strange contrivance of the same Ardagh to prevent and hinder that i. e. the Meeting which those Letters could not For on that evening he accosts several of the Fathers come to town and tells them my chief design in giving way first unto and next in promoting so much the National Meeting was only or at least partly to get them all to sign a Petition to the King or Lord Lieutenant acknowledging themselves and all the rest of the Roman Catholick Clergy Regular and Secular of Ireland to be Traytors and Rebels Which proceeding from a Bishop that always till then was reputed my friend and the only Bishop too that sign'd the Letters of Indiction could not chuse but startle such as knew me not throughly however in it self otherwise incredible But so it was notwithstanding and so upon a sudden the false report like a watch word pass'd from one to another and the Motion both and Exhortation was no less sudden and rash like that in the Book of Kings ad tentoria tua O Israel every one to his own home and not as much as to stay in Town for Monday the 11th of June and consequently not as much as to meet at all in any such National Congregrtion While some were running to and fro relating that imposture and many encouraging one another to depart others that believed it not came to me and told me thereof and of the design And then it was that I first concluded absolutely that Ardagh had sold himself to Rome for a new Translation which by Oliver Plunket his Kinsman he had sollicited in that Court for some years And yet I could not but wonder that a Bishop should have so little Conscience before God or so little care of himself before men as to be the Author of such a Calumny though a calumny more ridiculous in it self than injurious to me For as soon as I heard it and gave a true account of what pass d twixt the Bishop and me which might have given occasion to that forgery it vanish'd and no man believed a word of it In short the occasion was this and no other but this Either the very morning of that Ninth of June or a day or two before visiting this Bishop of Ardagh and falling into a discourse with his Lordship of the method fit to be taken by the Fathers when assembled I said that in my opinion the Fathers should in the first place depute some of their body to acquaint His Grace with their being Assembled then to render humble thanks for His Majesties permission of or connivence at their meeting and together also to present a
been certainly informed that all Ireland were absolutely resolved to bid an eternal adieu to all or any Communion with the Roman Church and great Pontiff So much and so nearly to heart did they take that harmless that innocent profession of Allegiance though but in temporal things only made to a Protestant King of England by some and those too but a few respectively of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland As for any thing more of the said Primat Reilly to be observed in this present Section I remember no more but only 1 That as soon as the news of his arrival was bruted both Protestants and Roman Catholicks admired very much how he especially at such a time not only of War twixt England of one side and Holland and France of the other but also of all the three Estates of Ireland in Parliament at Dublin dared to venture home and appear even in that Capital City 2. That some few days before the then Lord Chancellour of England having intelligence of the said Primats landing secretly in England from Flanders and passing through England incognito to Ireland advertised the Lord Lieutenant thereof by that very Packet-boat by which Reilly landed to the end he should be taken the permission of his return having not been signified by his Grace to the said Lord Chancellour but by the next Packet after 3. That for the two Bishops Ardagh and Kilfinuran who till the Primats landing were the only chief in the Congregation and the former of them the only Bishop of the Province of Ardmagh the other the only of the Province of Cashil having withal the Bishop of Tuam's proxy they seemed not any way at all pleased with his arrival as neither did he seem to have much correspondence with or any great esteem for either of them 4. That as far as I could observe all along after during the other Thirteen days of their Session both he of them and they of him stood in some awe I mean as to any clearer declaration of their sentiments or inclinations either to satisfie the King or dissatisfie the Pope in that for which they were permitted to Convene Though withal I did then and do also at present firmly perswade my self out of what I did then my self both see and hear done in the publick Session That the said Ardmagh seemâ—d much more strongly inclin'd to give even full satisfaction as to the point of any Declaration which might concern either his future fidelity or Petition of Pardon for any matters whatsoever past then either Ardach or Kilfinuran whereof you shall have the true reason according to my best conjecture where I give my own judgment of the Congregation and leading Members thereof XI WHat we are now to consider is what happen'd or was done next day being the 13 of June and 3 of their Session but the very first day indeed wherein any material thing was spoke or said or delivered by any in order to the ends for which the Fathers were convened But an unlucky sudden and unexpected accident was like that very day without any further progress in the intended or at least pretended scope of this meeting to have utterly dissolved it and put a final but shameful period to all their designes For the House being sate and Speaker placed in his Chair the Primat last of all coming in bid the Chair-man viz. the Bishop of Kilfinuran leave the Chair as being due to him the said Primat saying withal that none should in his presence besides himself possess that seat The Chair-man refuses and contradicts and with him also not only the Bishop of Ardagh and the Vicar General or Apostolical of Dublin but many more nay most of all the House Whereupon arises a vehement hurry clamour tumult The Primat presently withdraws And all the Members of his Province of Ardmagh except one or two depart likewise following their Archbishop No sooner was he the said Primat gone with his followers then Ardagh Kilfinuran the Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and all their fast Partizans bale out vehemently for a Dissolution a departure every one to his own home There was nothing to be heard or seen but a loud din and some running to the door to keep it open others to shut it some encouraging taking and haleing one another by the hands to depart others crying Dissolve Dissolve and some on the other side praying intreating conjureing them to stay a little and think better of the scandalous Sequel I that found my self as much concern'd as any if not more than any one used all my utmost endeavours to hinder so sad a resolution At last converting my self to the two Bishops in the hearing of all the rest I took the liberty even also of sharp reproof but after I had seen that intreaties would not do with them who together with James Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin were the ringleaders of that so Scandalous and factious resolve And amongst or besides many other things I spoke out openly and plainly to them both That without comparison It had been less hurt they had both drop'd down dead in that very place than that the whole Irish Clergy yea and Laity also their whole Nation their Religion and Communion in general should be on such an occasion exposed to that eternal shame reproach and scorn amongst all Protestants which they must certainly have expected by continuing so mad so furious and desperate a resolution That sure they should have considered their meeting was not nor could be unknown as not unto the Protestant Councel of State so neither to the Parliament of all the three Protestant Estates of the Kingdom both of them at that very time sitting in that very Citty where a National Congregation of the Roman Catholick Clergy did so behave themselves That further they should also have considered how during all that very time that very hour of their so phrantick a transport Three Lay persons both of Quality and their own Nation and Religion also employed to them by his Grace the Lord Lieutenant of the Kingdom and sent by him on a special message to them were hard by expecting to be introduced And Lastly therefore that neither amongst Protestants nor Catholicks they could ever at any time wipe off the ignominious and even also barbarous stain if they persisted to say nothing of all other inconveniences and evils which must have been the consequence of so much not only rashness but also unmannerliness Netled at my freedom the Bishop of Ardach replies in a troubled angry mood and in these very words Quid tu Fratercule ita ad Episcopos But my return was obvious enough That the Case required it And that had there been no other reason as indeed many more were to oblige me thereunto but the very Contents of the publick Instrument signed even by him as well as by others whereby I was the general Procurator empowred with all Power Authority and even Jurisdiction too for the ends of the
indeed any but God alone above them in temporal affairs as the very Fathers too of the Congregation avow by their own subscription of the 2d of those Propositions of Sorbone if they will have that subscription and Proposition taken in the plain obvious and honest sense and further yet is such and by reason too and Scriptures plain and cleer enough demonstrated to be such that every person in their respective kingdoms is subject to them And consequently all Parliament men however convened together as being not in any consideration or quallity soever exempt from that general command of God by the Apostle Paul 13th Romans Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditasit And now if in this doctrine and pursuant to it of those Divines whether Greek or Latin the Fathers of the Congregation such of them at least as are understanding and knowing men see not the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of that argument of theirs which is their second specifical reason for not signing the 5th Proposition or if they see not they argue not here à simili but à dissimili and therefore conclude very ill or if they see not the cases are quite contrary or hugely differing that of the Pope and Council on one side and that of the King and Parliament of the other as to the purpose here I am extreamly mistaken But whether they do or not others I am sure do very cleerly That for such other Catholick Divines as are great sticklers for the Papacie to be Jure Divino immediatly or immediatly ordained by Christ himself during his aboad on earth in that sense at least wherein it is allowed and approved by those Canons are learned Canones Ecclesiae Vniversalis and by the several Catholick Churches Kingdoms and States which have continued in perpetual communion with the Bishop and particular Church or Diocess of Rome though not in that sense and height of latitude of jurisdiction attributed thereunto by the Popes themselves in their own peculiar Canons for such Divines I say as maintain so the Papacie to be De jure Divino immediatly and nevertheless withal do constantly maintain the authority of general Councils above it by the same ius divinum or immediat institution of Christ delivered to us in that passage of Math. 18. Dic Ecclesiae or in any other of the new Testament whether in writing or not or not otherwise known evidently or sufficiently but by unwritten tradition onely the Fathers of the Congregation may see these Divines also declaring and very cleerly and consequently too without any kind of stress in their own principles against the said consequence For they will undoubly say and with very much reason also this to be a meer non sequitur The General Council which hath its power not from the Pope but originally immediatly only and perpetually from Iesus Christ over all the faithfull being declared in the 18. of St. Mathew the very last and supream Tribunal to which an offending Brother must be accused and to whose sentence he must be lyable and being so declared by Christs own mouth even to Peter himself present as may be seen in the foresaid place of Mathew taken together with St. Luke in ch the 17. must consequently be above the Pope albeit the Pope must be above every individual of them separatly taken out of the Council or when there is not any Council in being Therefore the Parliament which originally immediatly and only had its power from the King and yet none from the King or his Laws much less from the Law of God above the King Himself must nevertheless be above him even as yet remaining King and so above him too that they may deprive depose and put him even to death if they shall judge it expedient yea notwithstanding his Royal Power is given him originally immediatly and only from or by God himself and notwithstanding also the express Law of God commands all his people without any distinction of being sate in Parliament or not and commands them all even under pain of damnation to be subject to him and notwithstanding too the very Parliament themselves even sitting in Parliament confess themselves to be of the number of his People or Subjects Yet this must be the very argument which the Fathers of the Congregation must frame here to their purpose if they would pin their foresaid consequence upon even these other Catholick Divines who maintain the Papacy de jure Divino And therefore it must also be that in the opinion too or doctrine of this very class of Divines who are all admitted by Bellarmine himself as undoubtedly Catholick and no way Schismatical who maintain or admit as I have presently said the Papacie it self to be jure Divino from this proposition The Pope is not above a General Council no such dangerous consequence can be drawn no overture of any such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Commonwealths as our late sad experience hath taught us That finally if in the opinion or according to the principles or doctrine of any other Catholick Divines that dangerous consequence follow as I know it does in Bellarmine's and such others of his way who to subject the Crowns of Kings the more easily to the Popes disposal reduce all earthly temporal civil power and resolve it ultimatly into their supream pretended inherent right in the people whom as they say withal and consequently to their other principles the Pope may at his pleasure or when he shall judge it expedient command by excommunication and other ecclesiastical Censures to resume it or that their pretended inherent power for the punishment of an Apostat Heretick Schismatick or otherwise contumacious refractory or disobedient Prince if I say according to this doctrine of this third and last class of Divines how Catholick soever in other matters that dangerous consequent and overture of such odious and horrid disputes follow the above proposition or the not being of the Pope above the General Council yet for as much as their other principles which must be first admitted before any such consequent may be deduced are in themselves very false and in the case of Hereditary Kingdoms evidently such amongst Christians that please to understand the Scriptures plainly and sincerely as the primitive Believers did especially that passage omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and what follows afterwards to the same purpose in the 13. of the Romans and not go about to elude these and such other express and clear places by distinctions whereof some are apparently ridiculous and some very blasphemous too as I can instance the Fathers of the congregation might notwithstanding with much reason and even abstracting too I mean as well from all precedents as from all ignorance malice or other pre-occupation nay and from their own subscription also of the second or any other of the three first propositions though not from the doctrine of them observe how that
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
the doctrine or Theses of those that maintained the same pretended infallibility of the Pope to be not onely matter of Religion and faith that is to be fide divina believed but also to be so believed to extend it self to all kind of matters questions disputes or controversies of or concerning what is delivered in the Depositum of faith and what is not or concerning what is lawful and what is not even as much as the undoubted infallibility of the Catholick Church either representative or diffusive can be any way extended to such And consequently could not but know the doctrine of infallibility in all such matters disputes or controversies must of necessity regard or concern this very particular matter dispute and controversy of the obedience due or not due by Subjects in all cases or in such and such special ones to their King or to him that is reputed King being it is one of the particulars included in that Vniversal Thirdly That although it be confessed the said infallibility either pretended or true for it matters not which for our purpose now as falling upon any other matter distinct from that obedience we owe our Prince doth not per se directly and immediately regard or concern that obedience yet mediately indirectly and per accidens it may and even directly often us and the Prince himself nay and the quiet and peace too of his Kingdoms For besides the general concernment of salvation or of having or not having errors in Christian Religion obtruded on us at the Popes pleasure or fancy or out of his ignorance as it may happen or of that of his few Roman Divines only when he defines without a General Council what ever the matter be there are very many particulars wherein Popes may usurp and have usurped already a power of definition which against the universal Canons and Reason and Justice too incroach on the rights both of Prince Clergy and other Catholick People or Subjects though such particulars do not immediatly directly or per se regard this particular question of our Allegiance to the Prince in temporals or though notwithstanding such definitions we were suffered still to acknowledge and obey him as our supream Lord in meeâ— temporals without any definition against that how ever with many disturbances withal on spiritual pretences tending often though per accidens only to the both temporal and spiritual ruine of both Prince Clergy and people Whereof sufficient and manifold instances may be given out of those we call the Liberties of the Gallican Church and such as are common also to other national Churches especially in the matter of Investitures Nominations Presentations Collations Resignations Unions Translations and of Legats and Nuncius's c. That as I have said before to this of impertinency the Sorbon Divines or University or Clergy or Archbishop of Paris in 63. were not of our Congregations judgment in this point or of Father N. N's but perswaded that the Popes pretended infallibility even I say as matter of Faith and Religion and even I say too as not particularly or only relating to their Allegiance concerned notwithstanding both their Prince and themselves and that obedience too for they declared against it in general And so might and ought both Father N. N. and our Congregation but that they would seem more wise and less sincere than Sorbon and the University Clergy and Archbishop of Paris In the third place I must answer his pretence of odium where he sayes in Congregations name We are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question c. That he imposeth mightily and injuriously on forrein Catholick Nations That there is not one such in all Europe and of the rest you may judge by Europe where this question is odious at all in the negative resolve to all indeed it is in the affirmative or in the assertion of such an infallibility in the Pope as matter of faith and religion unquestionably though to all also very indifferent for both sides as it is only disputed scholastically speculatively or problematically without intending it as matter of faith and religion in the affirmative or of any further design either by the affirmative or negative than of opposing truth to error and certainty of divine belief to the uncertainty of humane opinion or collection though seemingly or probably deduced out of Scripture-places or some others of great esteem amongst us That neither some few Divines at Rome nor that whole City or Clergy therein if all were of that opinion of the Popes infallibility as matter of faith and religion not even taking along with them the most blessed Pope himself the Cardinals and whole Court do make one little Nation no nor if you further aggregate unto them all those other few Divines and few I call such comparatively or in relation to all Catholick Divines of the contrary side who in several other Countreys of Europe either privately or publickly in their Schools or Writings maintain either dogmatically or problematically that assertion of the Popes infallibility or maintain it any way at all either as matter of religion and faith or as matter only of meer uncertain but yet probable opinion That by their own confession the Universities of France and these are eight in all have concurred in the negative which denyes any such infallibility to the Pope and by consequence this question as to the negative answer must not be odious in that Country That whatever France or the Gallican Church maintains in relation to faith and religion is not odious nor can be in any other Catholick Nation of Christendome because they are all of the same faith religion and communion with France and the Gallican Church That the controversie of the Venetians in 1606. with Paulus V. and all the consequents of it show manifestly that all the Catholick Countreys subject to that Commonwealth reject the Popes infallibility and hold it not odious to determine against it That for the German Hungar and Polish Nation the General Councils of Constance and Basil which for a very great part consisted of them and their general esteem and veneration to this day of those Councils and amongst other Canons made by those Councils of that particularly which altogether subjects the Pope to a General Council sufficiently prove this question and resolution of it in the negative cannot be odious to them as neither to any other Nation that maintains the Supremacy of a General Council above the Pope which all Catholick Nations and people do generally with the said Council For it must be an infallible consequence that if a General Council be above the Pope the infallibility cannot be in the Pope alone without a General Council That for Spain and other Kingdoms subject to it in the dayes of Philip the Second it may be seen out of his Edict published and observed by them against the eleventh tome of Baronius concerning the Monarchy and I mean
possible or imaginable they have both inconsequently and imprudently refused for any such odium of the Court of Rome to subscribe the said 6th proposition whereas they had before signed the three first There could be no greater odium of that Court incurred than had been so already And I am sure no forreigner they or any of them could expect or suppose but would have them incurr that odium what ever it be or if any be which they pretend here amongst their reasons Sixthly That Father N. N. and the Congregation should consider that whatever they think of that odium of the Court of Rome against the negative resolve of that question it is not comparable in greatness in it self or in the evil of its consequents to that other grand odium indeed that is generally of all other Courts and Princes Nations and Prelats Clergie and lay people that understand any thing of what ever Religion or Communion they be Catholick or uncatholick against the affirmative resolve asserting this infallibility of the Pope alone without the Church or a general Council That not onely the odium hereof is truely so great and so general but the consequents of it so fatal that it alone estranged at first so many Christian Churches and Nations and rent them in pieces from one another and ever since that fatal breach that it alone principally with-holds so many millions without the pale of the Catholick Church and until it be silenced wholy wholy bid adieu for ever and for ever exterminated out of the Church as cockle which the inimicus homo sowed in the field of Wheat when men did sleep securely there can be little hopes of reunion And it alone hath been the chief original occasion of making in these Northern Countries so many severe lawes against Papists and further yet is at this very present the grand obstacle to their repeal And consequently it alone the very head-spring of all those miseries under which both as well the members of that Congregation as all other Catholicks in this Country have groaned these hundred years and do more than ever now at this very present groan Wherefore Father N. N. and the Congregation have been much overseen to start this animadversion against themselves by alleadging the odiousness of the question For all prudent men will tell them they ought to look on that Scale which instantly weighed down right to the ground Seventhly And lastly that neither of the most blessed Pope himself nor of his Court or Courtiers they needed fear the odium nor the consequents of any such a hinderance or obstacle to their pretensions which indeed alone is the bugbear that imaginarily frighted them I say they needed fear no such if they pleased themselves as they could easily to sign generally and unanimously a Proposition so Catholick For by their good and hearty example all the rest of the Clergie would have done the same And who then would have opened his mouth against them at Rome at least to their hinderance or to put obstacle to the pretensions of any on that account questionless none at all when his Holiness or Ministers could not find any other to be preferred but such to those however inconsiderable titulary places And so much his present Holinesse's late Internuncius of Bruxels Hieronimus de Vecehijs being come to London about two years and a half since and remaining some five or six dayes incognito told my self in a conference I had with him at Sommerset-house for about three hours together in presence of two Gentlemen that were along with me Father Redmond Caron and Father Patrick Magin alive yet one of Her Majesties Chaplins where he told us all that if the Irish Clergie were of one mind and had all of them generally signed the Remonstrance of 61. His Holyness or Court of Rome would not speak against us or it notwithstanding whatever Propositions contained therein And I am sure the Propositions therein formally or virtually contained may be rationally said and are indeed in themselves more odious to that Court than this last of Sorbone So that from hence partly and partly too from several knowledges and several other arguments which I pass over now it is cleer enough the Congregation had no other kind of odium to apprehend or fear against any for signing that Proposition as neither for signing any of the rest but that which themselves or some of them or their own Irish Agents in the several Countryes or Colleges abroad particularly at Rome have raised or would hereafter at their own desire or solicitation And I am sure every one of them could forbear if they pleased not to be so buisy against themselves or any others As I am also very sure that such of them as formerly have imployed some three or four years past Father John Brady of Saint Francis's order to Lovain of purpose to solicit and obtain by the power and influence of the then Internuncius of Bruxels the foresaid Hieronimus de Vechijs and by their own misrepresentations the censure of the Theological Faculty there against the Remonstrance of 61. which the said Father did obtain though it be a very sorry and ill grounded one and so ill and unreasonable I mean that which contains their grounds and reasons at length in seaven or eight sheets of paper that it would never abide the publick view nor a copie thereof ever since to be had from those Divines had done much better to themselves and others if they had not over-buisied themselves in that matter And therefore I conclude from first to last It aboundantly appears out of so many answers their pretence here of a question so odious did no way serve their turn sufficiently to excuse them from signing the Sorbone declaration or sixth Proposition in such modest tearms applyed to themselves against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church To that other of unprofitableness for they say that it is not onely odious but withal unprofitable I can say first with St. Paul that piety is a great gain That there is no greater piety amongst good Christians especially Apostolical men Priests of God and Bishops appointed by the holy Spirit to govern their respective flocks in all matters appertaining to the Spirit than to declare the truths of God uncorruptedly to them and oppose all innovation and all rules of doctrine besides that which was unquestionably once delivered and is from the beginning handed all along for so many ages to the present without any contradiction amongst Catholicks That such is not this new rule of the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council but such as exposeth all the certainty of Christian Religion to uncertainty and Heresie That for any temporal or earthly gaine how great soever nay were the whole world as to the carnal or temporal commodities thereof to be gained infallibly should any man much less any Christian and least of all any Bishop or
of so many former abroad in other parts of Europe since Gregory the 7th so manifest in History force not a confession of all this from F. N. N or if the very nature of the positions in themselves and the judgment of all judicious and ingenuous men of the world prevail not with him to confess that a general decision and resolve of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Ireland as well against the Popes pretence of infallibility as against his other of a power for deposing the King and raising at pleasure his Subjects in rebellion and against both absolutely and positively be not one of the most rational wayes to hinder the disturbance of King and Countrey as from such Clergie-men and others of their Communion and Nation and if the denyal of such decision and resolve against either pretence especially against this of infallibility since it is plain that if the Pope be admitted infallible his deposing power must necessarily and instantly follow because already and manifoldly declared by several Popes if I say this denyal convince not the denyers and such denyers as the said Congregation in this Country and Conjuncture of a design or desire or pleasure or contentedness to leave still the roots or seeds of new disturbances of both King and Countrey in the hearts of their beleevers and if I say also F. N. N. himself will not upon more serious reflection acknowledge all this to be true and â—â—ident I am sure all other judicious and knowing men even such as are â—iâ—interested wholy in the quarrel and not his partisans will That finally what I have to say is That whosoever is designed by him to be per stringed in or by this last pretence of furthering this dispute to the disturbance of both King and country may answer F. N. N. what the Prophet Elias did Achab on the like occasion Non ego turbavi Israel sic 〈◊〉 demâ—â— Patris tui 3 Reg. 18.18 qui â—ereliquistis mandata Domini secuti estis Bealim And 〈◊〉 that nâ—â— such person alone who ever chiefly perhaps intended nor his few other associates only perstringed likewise by F. N. N. and congregation in this perclose of their Paper but the poor afflicted Church of Ireland generally as it compriseth all beleevers of both sorts and sexes Ecclesiastical and Lay-persons of the Roman Communion nay but the Catholick Church of Christ universally throughout the world hath cause enough already and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all such other preposterous defenders of her interests what Iacob said to Simeon and Levi Gen. 34.30 upon the sack of Sichem Turbastis me â—diosum fecistis me Chananaeis Pherezaeis habitatoribus terrae hujus And more I have not to say here on this subject of infallibility But leave the Reader that expects more on that question or this dispute in it self directly and as it abstracts from the present indirect consideration to turn over to the last Treatise of this Book Where he shall find more at large and directly to that purpose what I held not so proper for this place Though I confess it was the paper of those unreasonable reasons the answers to which I now conclude here that gave me the first occasion to add that sixth and last piece as upon the same occasion I have the fifth also immediately following this fourth Only I must add by way of good advice to F. N. N That if he or the Congregation or both or any for them will reply to these answers or to what I have before said in my second or third Treatise on their Remonstrance and three first Propositions or even in my first though a bare Narrative only and matter of notorious fact related and if they will have such reply to be home indeed it cannot be better so than by their signing the 15. following Propositions Which to that purpose I have my self drawn and had publickly debated for about a moneth together in another but more special Congregation of the most learned men of this Kingdom and their own Religion held even in that very house where the former sate and immediatly after they were dissolved The Fourteen PROPOSITIONS of F. P. W. Or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that onely which can secure His Majestie of them as much as hand or subscription can and that onely too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 1. Prop. HIS Majestie CHARLES the Second King of England is true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Dominions and all the Subjects or people as well Ecclesiastick as Lay of His Majesties said Kingdoms or Dominions are obliged under pain of sin to obey His Majestie in all Civil and Temporal affairs 2. His said Majestie hath none but God alone for Superiour or who hath any power over him Divine or Human Spiritual or Temporal Direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary de facto or de jure in his temporal rights throughout all or any of his Kingdoms of England Ireland Scotland and other Dominions annexed to the Crown of England 3. Neither the Pope hath nor other Bishops of the Church joyntly or severally have any right or power or authority that is warrantable by the Catholick Faith or Church not even in case of Schisme Heresie or other Apostacy nor even in that of any private or publick oppression whatsoever to deprive depose or dethrone His said Majestie or to raise his Subjects whatsoever of His Majesties foresaid Kingdoms or Dominions in Warr Rebellion or Sedition against him or to dispense with them in or absolve them from the tye of their sworn Allegiance or from that of their otherwise natural or legal duty of obedient faithful Subjects to His Majestie whether they be sworn or not 4. Nor can any sentence of deprivation excommunication or other censure already given or hereafter to be given nor any kind of Declaration dispensation or even command whatsoever proceeding even from the Pope or other spiritual authority of the Church warrant His Subjects or any of them in conscience to rebel or to lessen any way His said Majesties said Supream Temporal and Royal rights in any of his said Kingdoms or Dominions or over any of his people 5. It is against the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the primitive Church to pretend that there is a natural or inhere at right in the people themselves as Subjects or members of the civil common-wealth or of a civil Society to take arms against their Prince in their own vindication or by such means to redress their own either pretended or true grievances
propositions of this paper at large and with all clearness discharged our duty as to the three first of those fiâ— of Sorbon and that now remain only the three last 13. We declare further it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the perswasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practice according to any doctrine or positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives or those of his Crown annexed thereunto by such Laws of England or Ireland as were in force before the change under Henry the 8th And never consequently to approve of or practice by teaching or otherwise any doctrine or position that maintains any thing against the genuine liberties of the Irish Church of the Roman Communion as for example that the Pope can depose a Bishop against the Canons of the said Church Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever that is either of him as of a private person or Doctor or of him as of a publick Teacher and Superiour of the universal Church or as Pope is infallible in his definitions made without the consent approbation and reception of the said Church even we mean in his definitions made either in matters of discipline or in matters of faith whether by Briefs Bulls Decretal Epistles or otherwise 14. Lastly we declare it is our unalterable resolution and shall be alwayes by Gods grace That if the Pope should or shall peradventure be at any time hereafter perswaded by any persons or motives to declare in any wise out of a General Council or before the definition of a future General Council on the point or points against the doctrine of this or any other the above propositions in whole or in part or against our selves or any others for owning or subscribing them We though with all humble submission to his Holiness in other things or in all spiritual matters purely such wherein he hath power over us by spiritual commands according to the Canons received universally in the several Roman Catholick Churches of the world shall notwithstanding continue alwayes true and faithful to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all temporal things and contingencies whatsoever according to the true plain sincere and obvious meaning and doctrine of all and every the fourteen propositions of this paper and of every part or clause of them without any equivocation mental reservation or other evasion or distinction whatsoever and in particular without that kind of distinction which is made of a reduplicative and specificative sense wherein any such may be against the said obvious and sincere meaning and consequently vain and unconscionable in this matter QUERIES CONCERNING The LAWFULNESSE of the Present CESSATION AND OF THE CENSURES AGAINST ALL CONFEDERATES ADHERING unto it PROPOUNDED By the RIGHT HONOVRABLE the SUPREME COUNCIL to the most Reverend and most Illustrious DAVID Lord Bishop of OSSORY and unto other DIVINES WITH ANSWERS GIVEN and SIGNED by the said most Reverend PRELATE and DIVINES Printed at KILKENNY Anno 1648. And Re-printed Anno 1673. The Censure and Approbation of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Thomas Deasse Doctor of Divinity of the University of Paris and Lord Bishop of Meath I The undernamed having seriously perused and exactly examined the Answers made to the QUERIES by the Right Reverend Father in God David Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines thereunto subscribing do esteem the same worthy to be published in Print to the view of the world as containing nothing either against God or against Caesar but rather as I conceive the Answerers in the first place do prove home and evidently convince the Excommunication and other Censures of the Lord Nuncio c. to have been groundless and void even of their own nature and before the Appeal and besides do manifestly convince that in case the Censures had not been such of their own nature yet the Appeal interposed suspends them wholly with their effects consequences and jurisdiction of the Judge or Judges c. And withal do solidly and learnedly vindicate from all blame the fidelity integrity and prudence of the Supreme Council in all their proceedings concerning the Cessation made with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin notwithstanding the daily increasing obloquies and calumnies of their malignant opposers In the second place the Answerers do sufficiently instruct the scrupulous and ignorant misled People exhorting them to continue in their obedience to Supreme Authority as they do in like manner confute and convince efficaciously the opposition of such obstinate and refractory persons as do presume to vilifie and tread under foot the Authority established in the Kingdom by the Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks And finally the Answerers dutifully and loyally do invite all true hearted Subjects to yield all due obedience to their Sovereign and to any other Supreme Civil Magistrate subordinate and representing the Sovereigns Supreme Authority according to the Law of God the Law of the Church and the Law of the Land Thomas Medensis Given at Kâ—lkenny Aug. 17. 1648. Another Approbation BY the perusal of this Treatise intituled Queries and Answers I am induced to concur with other eminent Surveyors thereof That it contains nothing contrary to approved Doctrine sound Faith or good Manners and therefore that behooveful use may be made thereof by such as love truth and sincerity 7. August 1648. Thomas Rothe Dean of St. Canie And Protonotary Apostolick c. Another Approbation HAving perused by Order of the Supreme Council the Queries propounded by the Supreme Council c. with Answers given them by the Right Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and other Divines and being required to deliver my sense of this work I do signifie That I find moving in the said Queries of Answers against Catholick Religion good Life or Manners but much for their advancement and great lights for the discovery of Truth I find by evident proofs declared that the Council in this affair of Cessation Appeal interposed against and other proceedings had with the Lord â—uncio and his adherents 〈◊〉 themselves with a due resentment of the general destruction of the Kingdom and with is true and knowing zeal of Loyalty for the maintenance of the Catholick Religion Justice lawful Authority the lives estates and rights of the Confedâ—ranâ—s I find by uncontroulable reasons proved That the Confederates cannot without worldly ignomity and Divine indignation fâ—ll from the said Cessation while the condition are performed and time expired I find lastly hence and by other irrefragable arguments That all and every of the Censures pronounced either by the Nuncio or any else against the Council or other Confederates upon this ground of concluding or adhering to the Cessation are unreasonable unconscionable invalid void and against Divine and Humane Laws