the Synod by the Archbishop of Tarentum and the Bishop of Cervina on the second of February they were after a strict Examination declared by the whole Synod to be satisfactory Eugenius having therein comply'd with every thing the Council had required of him declaring them to be and since they met to have always been a General Council lawfully assembled revoking his Bull of Dissolution and other two Bulls denying the third of the 18th of the Calends of January to have been his he also with this named Legats to preside in the Synod in his Name The Legats with the Cardinal Julianus were Nicolaus Cardinal of the Holy Cross John Archbishop of Tarentum Peter Bishop of Padua and Luis Abbot of St. Justin who having on the 24th of April taken an Oath to act faithfully for the Honour of the Council and to defend all its Decrees but especially the Decree of the Council of Constance of the Subjection of the Pope to the Coercive Power of General Councils in all things belonging to the Faith the Extirpation of Schism and the general Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members as also to give wholsome Counsel according to God and their Consciences and not to reveal to any Person how the Prelats voted nor to depart from the Place of the Synod without its Leave they were admitted Presidents but without being allowed any Coercive Power all Decrees and other Acts of the Council being to be expedited as formerly under its own Seal Here we are told a very odd thing if it is true which is that tho these Prelats were admitted Presidents of the Council as the Pope's Legats and did take the forementioned Oaths as Presidents nevertheless that they took them not in the Pope's but in their own Name a thing naturally so absurd and considering how high the Spirit of the Synod was at this time so incredible that it had need to be very well attested to be believed by any indifferent Person it seems much more probable that those who had the Acts of this Synod for near an Age intirely in their Hands might be tempted to foist such a Passage as this into them especially considering that so great a Point as that of the Pope's having acknowledged a General Council to be superiour to him depends thereon than that such an Assembly should admit Men their Presidents as the Embassadors of a Prince and at the same time allow them to take an Oath of Fidelity to the Assembly in their own and not in their Prince's Name But in whose Name soever these Oaths were taken never were Oaths worse observed than they were the Presidents from the first minute they took their Place in the Synod studying nothing but how to blow it up by creating Factions in it and gaining Prelats to the Pope by Promises of great Preferments Eugenius having been driven out of Rome at this time by the Colonna's and other Citizens to whom he had rendred himself extreamly odious the whole City crying after him Let new Taxes and the Inventors of them perish when he came to Florence writ a very kind Letter to the Council thanking them therein for having so affectionately admitted his Legats Presidents promising faithfully for the future to love them as Sons observe them as Brethren and to be bound up with them in the Blessings of the same Sweetness by a fervent Love But the Synod knowing the Man too well to rely much on any Professions or Promises he could make them now it had brought him to its own Terms would not be diverted by a few good Words from doing what was necessary to the holding of him and all his Successors to them and whereas there were some who pretended that the Pope had never given his Consent to the Decree of the Synod of Constance which declared a General Council to be superior to him they resolved either to remove that Objection or to break with the Pope again and accordingly on the 26th of June they made a Decree declaring that a General Council derived its Authority immediately from Christ and that all Christians of whatsoever State or Dignity the Papal not excepted were bound in Conscience to obey all its Determinations in all matters appertaining to the Faith the Extirpation of Schism and the general Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members To which Decree coming upon them before they were well warm in their Chairs and while their Master was in very bad Circumstances the Presidents gave their Consent so that howsoever it was before the Supremacy of a General Council had now the Pope's Consent to it The Council vainly imagining that it had by this Decree secured its own Supream Authority and that of all future General Councils since none hereafter could without denying the Infallibility of the Church call the Truth thereof in question begun to act as the Supream Church-Authority sending two Cardinals into Italy as the Legats of the Universal Church to reconcile the Princes and People thereof to Eugenius The thing that made the Synod the more forward to send this Embassy into Italy was Eugenius's Adversaries making his being an Enemy to the Council of Basil one of their chief Objections against him which the Synod now he had so affectionately and thorowly adhered to it thought it self bound in Justice to remove The Legats sent by the Synod on this Errand were the Cardinal of the Holy Cross who was one of its Presidents and John Cervantes Cardinal Sancti Petri ad Vincula the former of which is said not to have consented to the forementioned Decree which is just as likely as that of his having taken the Oath of President in his own Name and not in the Pope's it being a very incredible thing that the Synod if the Cardinal had not consented to that their darling Decree would have employ'd him so soon after as their Legat and especially in an Embassy which was to be a Precedent to all future Ages of a General Council's having Authority to send Legats in the Name of the Universal Church But howsoever that were the Cardinal with his Colleague having gone with that Character to Rome after having treated there with the Colonna's who had the chief hand in driving Eugenius out of that City he went to Florence where having caballed with Eugenius how to destroy the Council he was sent back to it again with Instructions that in a short time did its business effectually for as he was reckoned to be one of the most dextrous Statesmen of his time so his main business at Basil was to gain the Cardinals and great Prelats over to Eugenius by Promises of higher Preferments so the Cardinal Capronicus whom Eugenius had pronounced not to be a Cardinal because tho he was named to that Dignity by Martin he had not been publickly declared by him before his Death and the Cardinal Julianus the President and the Cardinal Cervantes who were the Pillars the Council chiefly stood
Lateran convocated in the Year 1123 by Calixtus the second against the Saracens of which Synod tho neither the Letters Convocatory nor the Acts are extant that we know of nevertheless there is no doubt to be made of its having been both called and absolutely governed by the Pope but it is not so clear how or when it came to be first stiled a General Council for it does not appear that it ever look'd upon it self as such unless it was that the late Canonists would right or wrong stile it so to have as early a Precedent as might be for the Pope's having an Absolute Authority over such Assemblies The same is applicable to the second and third Lateran Synods none of which can be called General Councils but by the same Bull that the Roman is called the Catholick Church The fourth Lateran Synod convocated by Innocent the Third in the Year 1215 against the Waldenses was call'd it 's true as a General Council Innocent having in his Letters Convocatory commanded all the Bishops of the East and West to repair to it but when it met tho very numerous there was no Assembly that it was less like than a General Council for besides that it was in a manner made up of Italians the Abbots and Priors that sat and had Votes in it were above double the number of the Bishops who being all jumbled together had not one grain of Authority among them The first Council of Lions called by Innocent the Fourth in the Year 1245 against Frederick the Emperor and the second of the same place call'd by Gregory the Tenth in the Year 1274 and the Council of Vien called by Clement the 5th in the Year 1311 which are all reckoned by the Roman Canonists to have been General Councils were all but motley Assemblies of Bishops Priors and Abbots without any thing of Authority being called for no other end but to give some Countenance to such things as the Popes had a mind to have done But the Latin Church tho it was for some Ages under this Bondage had not it seems so far lost all sense of Liberty as not to strive when it had an Opportunity put into its Hands to recover it again The Story of the Struggle betwixt the Popes and Councils which lasted several Years as it is a thing not improper to my purpose so I hope it will not be ungrateful to the Reader who therein on the Popes Side will meet with such a train of Falshood and Dissimulations as is not that I know of to be met with any where else in History Gregory the 11th who had brought back the Papal Court from Avignion where it had been 70 Years to Rome again dying in the Year 1378 the Nobles and People of Rome knowing the Majority of the Cardinals at that time to be French and fearing that if they should chuse a Pope of their own Nation he might go back to Avignion did by force of Arms oblige all the Cardinals before they came to an Election to take an Oath to chuse a Pope who was a Roman or at least an Italian Which the Cardinals having taken they chose Bartholomew Arch-Bishop of Bar who was by birth a Neopolitan but had lived most of his time in France and who took the Name of Vrban The Cardinals at least the major part of them as soon as they were at liberty leaving Rome retired first to Anagnia and afterwards to Fundi from whence they writ to Bartholomew conjuring him by all that was Sacred since he could not but be sensible that his Election being a forced Act was null not to pretend to be Pope But Bartholomew was not to be perswaded out of the Papal Chair now he was in it which way soever he got into it The Cardinals proceeded to a new Election at Fundi and chose Robert Brother to the Earl of Savennes and Cardinal Presbyter of the 12 Apostles Pope who took the Name of Clement Which two Popes insisting on their several Rights and not without great shew of Reason both of them having had their Titles to the Papacy made good by innumerable and undeniable Miracles wrought by the Saints under their several Obediences they thereby begun a Schism which lasted at least 40 Years and which in the End gave the Western Church an opportunity to recover her Liberty in a great measure again tho when she had it she was not able to keep it long For the Christian Princes who were near equally divided betwixt the two Popes growing weary of the Quarrels of so long a Schism did all agree to have a Council assembled at Pisa to find out some way to put an end to it That Council consisted of a great number of Cardinals and Bishops and there were present in it the Embassadors of the King of the Romans and of England France Poland Jerusalem Sicily Cyprus and divers other Princes They being assembled in the Year 1409 after having summoned both the Popes who were at that time Angelus Corarius called Gregory the 12th and Peter de Luna called Benedict the 14th deposed them both upon their not appearing neither in Person nor by their Procurators as incorrigible Schismaticks Hereticks and as guilty of Collusion and Perjury each of them having sworn to resign the Papacy when the other should do it They having thus declared the Roman See vacant obliged every Cardinal before they would give way to their filling of it again to give it under his Hand that in case he should be chosen Pope he should not dissolve the Council until the Church was reformed both in its Head and Members making a Decree likewise that in case any Cardinal that was then absent should be chosen by them his Election should not be published until he had given the Synod the same Security After which the Cardinals who were 24 in number proceeded to an Election and chose Peter Philargi a Greek the Cardinal of the 12 Apostles and who had studied Philosophy at Oxford who took the Name of Alexander the 5th After whose Coronation the Council passed a Decree that another General Synod should meet in the Year 1412 in some City to be named a Year before and that in the mean time Provincial Councils should be assembled in all Countries Alexander the 5th dying in ten Months after he was chosen was succeeded by Cardinal Tassa an Italian who took the Name of John the 23d and who when two Years were expired did in obedience to the Council of Pisa call a Synod at Rome which upon a pretence that there was not a sufficient Number of Prelats for the celebrating of a General Council he dissolved presently after it met But the Council of Pisa having instead of extinguishing increased the Schism by adding a third Pope to the two that were before the Christian Princes after having obliged every one of the Three to take an Oath to resign their Claim to the Papacy whenever the other two did it forced John the
23d who was owned as Pope by most of them to call a Council to meet at Constance in the Year 1415 and to promise to assist at it in Person Which Council being met at the time appointed and having presently discovered that John notwithstanding all his Promises and Oaths to the contrary was at that time caballing with Princes to maintain him in the Papacy the first thing it did was to require John immediately to bind himself by Bulls to observe the following Orders 1. That the present Synod should not be dissolved until the Union was perfected 2. That it should not be removed from Constance 3. That he himself should not depart from thence till it was done 4. That he should constitute a Procurator with full Powers to resign the Papacy in his Name And lastly That it should not be lawful for any Prelat to leave the Council or not to repair to it but in case of Poverty or Sickness To which Demands John the next Day after they were made returned the following Answers 1. That the Council should not be dissolved until it had finished the Union 2. That it was nevertheless his Opinion that it would be convenient to have it translated to Nice in Provence and for him to go thither to it in Person And lastly That he was resolved to make his Cession in Person which he reckoned would be more honourable both for himself and the Synod than to do it by Proxy But the Fathers not being satisfy'd with this shuffling Answer and insisting upon having his Cession immediately under his Hand he promised them faithfully that they should have it next Morning but before that came he stole out of Constance by Night in a Woman's Apparel and was got to Schafhousen a Town then belonging to the Duke of Austria now one of the Cantons who had promised to protect him if he were once in his Territories From which Place he immediately wrote to the Council to assure them that the Reason of his having retired from Constance was not to avoid the being obliged to make a Cession but on the contrary that he might do it with the more Liberty and Security which he reckoned he might do at Schafhousen where he now was But his Letters to the King of Poland and all the other Princes under his Obedience tho writ at the same time were in a quite contrary Strain in which he endeavoured to justify his having left the Council because he and it were both robbed of their Liberty his Life having been likewise in great danger by a Conspiracy which he had discovered complaining likewise of the Bishop of Salisbury who had said publickly and in the Emperor's hearing that the Emperor was superior both to him and the Council none daring to reprove him for such scandalous Doctrine The Council when it came to hear next Morning that John had given them the slip was in great disorder and continued under a great Consternation till the Emperor came amongst them and assured them that he would protect them against the Duke of Austria and all the Enemies John was able to raise up against them The Fathers were likewise much confirmed by a Sermon preached to them at that time by the Learned John Gerson Chancellor of the University of Paris who demonstrated to them that being a General Council they were superior to the Pope and might sit and act without him Pope John who had too many Spies in the Council not to be acquainted with every Word that was said in it reckoning he was too near the Emperor at Schafhousen which is but four Leagues from Constance removed from thence to the Castle of Loufemberg which tho he did in great haste yet before he begun his Journey he declared by a Publick Instrument that he was under no Obligation to observe the Oaths and Promises he had taken and made at Constance having been forced to take and make them by a Fear that was sufficient to make any Act that it caused to be involuntary pretending to justify his having left Schafhousen by having discovered that he was there in danger of his Life which he was willing to preserve because should he be murdered before the two Pretenders to the Papacy had made their Cessions they in all probability would never be perswaded to it When John left Schafhousen the Cardinals who had been sent thither by the Council to perswade him to come back returned to Constance and six of them at the following Session declared therein that the Council now the Pope had left it was dissolved Which bold Declaration gave occasion to the Fathers to lay the Ax to the Root of the Tree all of them but particularly the Cardinal Peter de Aliaco and John Gerson maintaining thereupon That the Pope being inferior to a General Council which the present Synod was he could not dissolve it without its own Consent and accordingly in the next Session at which with the Emperor there assisted nine Cardinals and two hundred Fathers the Embassadors of the Kings of England France Poland Norway Cyprus and Navar with several German Princes being present the following Constitutions being read and unanimously agreed to were published by the Cardinal of Florence which Constitutions being as the Magna Charta of General Councils I shall here set down at length In the Name of the Holy and Vndivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen THIS Holy Synod of Constance being a General Council lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit to the Praise of Almighty God for the Extirpation of a Schism and the Union and Reformation of the Church of God both in its Head and Members doth for the easier and safer obtaining of the said Union and Reformation of God's Church ordain define decree and declare as followeth In the first place it declareth That it being lawfully congregated in the Holy Spirit is a General Council and represents the Catholick Church and that having its Authority immediately from God all Persons of whatsoever State or Dignity the Papal not excepted are bound to obey it in all things appertaining to the Faith and the Extirpation of Schism and the Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members It furthermore declareth That whosoever of what State Condition or Dignity soever the Papal not excepted shall obstinately contemn and deny to yield Obedience to the Commands Statutes Ordinances and Precepts of this Sacred Synod in any of the foresaid Matters or in any thing that has or shall be done relating to them if he does not repent thereof shall be subjected to condign Penances and if it be found necessary recourse shall be had against him to other legal Remedies The said Holy Synod doth furthermore declare and ordain That Pope John the 23d shall not remove or translate the Roman Court or any of its Publick Offices to any other Place from this City of Constance nor shall directly or indirectly compel the Officers of the said Courts to follow him to any
many Friends abroad did set about establishing their own Authority by passing the following Decrees 1. That the Sacred Synod of Basil in having been assembled according to the Decrees of the Councils of Constance and Siena and with the Concurrence of the Pope was a lawful General Council 2. That being a lawful General Council all Christians of whatsoever State or Dignity the Papal not excepted were bound to yield Obedience to it in all Matters of Faith the Extirpation of Schism and the general Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members 3. That whosoever of whatsoever State or Dignity the Papal not excepted should deny to yield Obedience to the Statutes of any General Council relating to any of the forementioned Matters deserve to be punished 4. That it should not be lawful for any Member of the Council to absent himself from it or to depart from the City of Basil without leave of the Council From which Decrees they inferred That the Papal nor no other Authority on Earth had Power to prorogue translate or dissolve the General Council of Basil without its own Consent or to hinder any Prelats from repairing to it or to oblige any that assisted at it to withdraw In virtue whereof they admonished Eugenius within the space of three Months by a publick Bull to revoke his pretended Dissolution of them and to come in Person to the Council or being lawfully hindred by his Legats in default whereof they threatned to proceed against him as the Holy Ghost should direct them for the Good of the Church Cardinal Julianus perceiving what a Storm Eugenius was like to raise against himself and the Papacy notwithstanding his Hoarsness called upon him once more telling him in a very loud Note That if he went on opposing the Council he would bring the Indignation of all Europe upon his Back it being plain to every body that the Assembly of Basil was a General Council by the same Authority that he was Pope that is by the Authority of the Synod of Constance concluding his Letter to him thus I have often declared and protested and I do it now again in the sight of God and Men That if your Holiness do not change your Measures you will infallibly be the Cause of a most pernicious Schism Eugenius being taken dangerously sick at this time the Basileans when they heard of it passed a Decree presently That in case of a Vacancy of the Roman See it should not be lawful for the Cardinals to chuse a Pope any where but in the Place where the Council was sitting and fearing lest Eugenius might if he died before his Death have named some Cardinals they decreed likewise That since the multiplying of Cardinals was both prejudicial and chargeable to the Church it should not be lawful for the Pope to create any during the Session of the Council ordering at the same time a Leaden Seal to be made for the Use of the Synod which on the one side was to have the Holy Ghost in the figure of a Dove and on the other The Sacred General Council of Basil and having constituted the Cardinal St. Eustathia Governour and Vicar of the City of Avignion and named Judges and Prosecutors in Matters of Faith and all the other Officers of a Court of Judicature they passed a Decree That no Person belonging to the Council could be called from it to the Court of Rome or to any other Place Eugenius beginning to fear lest the Council which grew every Day stronger and stouter might if he did not do something to mollify them serve him as that of Constance had done John the 23d did much against the grain of his own Nature and the haughty Spirit of his See submit so far as to send three Nuncios to them who having in a publick Audience made long Harangues of the Mischiefs of a Schism and of the great Power Christ had committed to the Pope were answered by the Fathers and dismissed with this Message to their Master that the Sacred Synod could not treat with him until by a publick Bull he had revoked his pretended Dissolution of it and did either come in Person or send his Legats to preside in it And the Prosecutors of the Causes of the Synod after that the Term in the Citation was expired having demanded that Eugenius should be pronounced Contumacious in order to their proceeding farther against him the said Nuncios humbly beseeched the Synod to suspend the passing of that Sentence upon their Master which at the Request of Sigismund was granted and sixty Days more were allowed to him to comply with what was required During which Term Eugenius sent other Nuncios with some Propositions of Accommodation the revoking his late Bull publickly which the Synod insisted on being a thing of so hard digestion that he did not know how to swallow it The Propositions offered by the new Nuncios to the Synod were That Eugenius if they would revoke all the Decrees they had made against him was ready to revoke all in general he had said or done against them and that if they would consent to his having called a Council at Bononia if the Bohemians should refuse to come to that City he was content to allow the Fathers some time to treat with them at Basil on condition that when the Term he had set them was expired they should immediately repair to Bononia Against which City if the Fathers had any just Exception they might name any other City in Italy and if they would not agree to that neither that they should then name twelve of the most moderate Prelats of their own Body in conjunction with the Embassadors to be Judges of the whole Matter who if they should judg it to be most convenient that the Council should sit in Germany should name any City therein for it except Basil The Fathers being extreamly offended with these shuffling Propositions told the Nuncios That they could not sufficiently admire at their Proposals being so involved and clogged with Reservations as if the Matters they came to treat with them were not of a religious Nature and to be handled with Integrity but were Matters of Trade or Commerce and fit only to be treated about by Hucksters A most true Character of all that the Popes did to destroy the Supremacy of Councils Adding That since Eugenius had not by any thing that they had proposed intimated his being ready to revoke his Bull of Dissolution but on the contrary seemed rather to seek to have it confirmed they could not therefore take any notice of their Propositions but must go on with their Proceedings against him as a Contemner of the Authority of General Councils For the farther Security whereof they passed a Decree That no Person should hereafter be capable of being chosen Pope who had not given his Consent and Assent upon Oath to the Doctrine of the Synod of Constance concerning the Supremacy of General Councils and their being
upon were all three gained over to Eugenius by such Promises the first being afterwards created a Cardinal by him and the second made Cardinal Presbyter of St. Sabina and the third Cardinal Bishop of Ostium Which tampering of Eugenius with the chief Supporters of the Council made it to be in every body's Mouth that Eugenius would certainly at last be too hard for the Council he having more Bishopricks and other great Preferments in his Gift than the Council had But as it was plain to every body that Eugenius notwithstanding all his solemn Professions to the contrary still hated the Council mortally in his Heart so it was visible that he was continually hunting after some plausible Pretence or other to dissolve it or which would be the same to his purpose to translate it into Italy And whereas the Greek Emperor had promised and swore by his Embassadors whom he had sent to Basil to come in Person with his Patriarch and Clergy into the West to join with that Council in order to the reuniting of the two Churches Eugenius being sensible that the Greeks if they should meet the Basileans any where in a Free Assembly would unanimously concur with them in establishing the Supremacy of General Councils that being a Doctrine the Greek Church had not at any time ever in the least doubted of he spared for no Pains nor Cost under-hand to divert that Emperor from being as good as his Oath representing the Synod of Basil secretly by his Agents at Constantinople as a factious and divided Body of Men that agreed in nothing but in an Intention of destroying all Order and Government and having entered into a close Negotiation with the Emperor and Patriarch about that Affair at the same time he pretended to join with the Basileans in perswading them to come to a Council in the West he urged them to insist upon having that Healing Synod assembled at Constantinople to which Place he knew no great Number of the Basileans could repair promising whenever it should be called to send Legats to assist at it Eugenius so he could but keep the Greeks and Basileans asunder having no Concern where that Council were held or whether there were ever any such Council or not The Synod being informed by its Legats at Constantinople of this secret Negotiation of Eugenius and of his labouring all he could under-hand by his Agents who had much more Money to sprinkle among the Greeks than they had to keep the Emperor and his Clergy from coming to them they resolved both for their own Security and that of all future General Councils to set about the retrenching the great Riches of the Papacy it being plain to every body that till that was done it was not possible by Paper-Laws and Constitutions to keep it long under the Government of an Assembly that as it was a Body had not one Farthing to lay out for Publick Services And accordingly in its 13th Session held on the 9th of June 1435 it passed a Decree That for the future no Fees should be paid to the Court of Rome for any Ecclesiastical Collations Institutions Provisions Confirmations Elections Admissions Investitures c. nor for Holy Orders or any Offices Benefices Benedictions Palls c. And that no Annats or First-Fruits should be any longer paid to the said Court any Custom Privilege or Statute to the contrary notwithstanding Ordaining further That whosoever should hereafter receive any such Fees should incur all the Penalties of Simony and in case the Pope who of all others was under the strictest Obligation to observe the Decrees of General Councils should be guilty thereof that complaint should be made of him to such Assemblies This Decree was violently opposed by the Papalins who began now to appear as a Party in the Council as a Retrenchment that would disable the Papacy from doing the Duties that were incumbent on it To obviate that the Fathers in answer to it promised That if the Popes would but observe the Decrees of General Councils themselves and exhort all other Christians to do the same they would by some other ways which were less burdensome provide a sufficient Revenue for all the Occasions of the Papacy They gave Eugenius likewise the same Assurance of a sufficient Maintenance upon the same Condition by the Nuncios they sent to him to satisfy him of the Justice and Necessity there was of the Retrenchments they had made We are not told what Answer Eugenius returned to this Message but whatever it was the Synod was so ill satisfied with it that in its next Session held on the 22d of March 1436 after having made several Regulations in the Election of the Pope it drew up the Form of an Oath to be taken by him so soon as he was chosen and to be repeated constantly at the High Mass of the Anniversary of his Election the main Article whereof was That he should observe the Decrees of all General Councils and particularly those of the General Councils of Constance and Basil Ordaining farther That it should not be lawful for the Pope to advance any that were near akin to him to any Dignities or Honours either in the Church or State or to encrease the Number of Cardinals above 24 among whom for the Ease of the Church one half of the Revenues of the Papacy should be equally divided Eugenius tho terribly enraged by these Decrees yet had so much wit in his Anger as not to break with the Synod upon Points he knew to be popular but chose rather to do it upon the Point where the Reconciling Council was to be held And in order thereunto he dispatched the Cardinals St. Crucis and St. Petri ad Vincula to Basil with Instructions about it Who being arrived there after having declamed against the forementioned Retrenchments and Regulations they mustered all their Pensioners together to try if they could carry it to have the Reconciling Synod assembled in some City of Italy But when it came to be put to the Vote in what Country the said Synod was to meet it was carried by a great Majority that it should be at Basil or if that could not be conveniently at Avignion and if that could not be neither in some City not far from the Sea in the Dutchy of Savoy By which Majority tho a very great one the Papalins who now appeared in their own Colours were so far from being determined according to the Custom of all such Assemblies that they voted either Florence or Vtinum two Cities in Italy to be the Place where the said Synod was to assemble And having done that after a tumultuous manner they afterwards passed it clandestinly into a Decree which right or wrong they would call a Decree of the Universal Council of Basil to which Sham Decree not being able to get the Seal of the Synod they clapt that of Cardinal St. Petri. And having thus expedited it they dispatched it immediately by two Nuncios to the
little else all the time he was Pope than to struggle against the Establishment of the Supremacy of General Councils yet had never the Courage absolutely to condemn that Doctrine so his Successor Nicolaus tho no great Friend to it no more than Eugenius did never once offer to attack it on the contrary by the Composition he was obliged to come to with Felix he seemed rather to confirm than condemn the main of what had been done at Basil Pius the Second the most zealous Basilean while he was Aeneas Sylvius who succeeded Nicolaus seemed to have given a Blow to that Supremacy by a Bull prohibiting all Christians upon pain of Excommunication to appeal to a future General Council and which to make it the more formidable he inserted into the Bulla Coenae Domini the Absolution from whose Censures is reserved to the Pope so natural it is for Apostates to outdo all others in Zeal against the Party they have forsaken But this Bull tho designed every way to lessen the Authority of General Councils in the Minds of People yet since only future General Councils but not General Councils in being were named in it the Constance or Basil Doctrine was not reckoned to be condemned thereby the Cardinals themselves not being so much prejudiced against those Assemblies as not to desire to see any more of them for they being congregated in the Conclave upon Pius's Death drew up several Statutes which every one of them in case he should be chosen Pope swore to observe The Statutes were 1. That he should continue the War against the Turks 2. That within three Years after his Election he should assemble a General Council 3. That he should never increase the Number of Cardinals above that of twenty four nor prefer above one of his own Kindred to that Dignity 4. That he should dispose of no great Preferments but in Consistory c. All which Statutes tho they were sworn to at the Altar by Paul the Second who was chosen Pope at that time both before and after his Election yet he was so far from observing them that presently after he was crowned he made a publick Declaration and forced all the Cardinals save one to sign it that he was not obliged by the Oaths he had taken to keep the said Statutes it being the Popes Prerogative to make Laws for others and not to have Laws imposed upon them And as to the Statute of calling a General Council he was so far from any thoughts of doint it that he made it one of his chief Articles against Platina and the other Criticks of Rome that they had threatned upon his having persecuted them so barbarously for their Learning to solicite all the Princes of Christendom to have such an Assembly called to keep the Papal Power within some Bounds Sixtus the 4th who had probably taken the same Oath before and after his Election that his Predecessor had done seemed to be in haste to comply with it for in the first Year of his Pontificate he called a Council to meet at Rome but being solicited by the Emperor Frederick to assemble it at Vtinum where it would have more freedom he was so little fond of having it any where that he dropt it reckoning it is like that he had abundantly satisfy'd his Oath by having called such an Assembly tho it never met After which tho Sixtus had nothing farther from his Thoughts than to call a General Council his Heart being entirely set on advancing his obscure Family to Principalities to the promoting whereof he was very certain such an Assembly would no ways contribute nevertheless the insufferable Effects of that Ambition and particularly that of his having had his Hand so deep in the barbarous Assassination of Julianus de Medicis in the Church at High Mass made the Florentines and others to wish for such a Synod to curb and punish him for such enormous Violences The Florentines having upon Sixtus's putting their Common-Wealth under an Interdict and following that with an Army on the account of their having hanged the Arch-Bishop of Pisa for being concerned in that Murder and their having imprisoned the Cardinal of Florence upon suspicion of his having been privy to it assembled a Synod of all their Prelats they after having charged Sixtus with that Murder and commanded the Ecclesiasticks not to regard his Interdict appealed to a General Council to have Justice done upon him The French King likewise being solicited for Succours by Lawrence de Medicis who had narrowly escaped being murdered at the same time and in the same place with his Brother Julianus called an Assembly of his Ecclesiasticks and Nobles at Orleance In which it being agreed that the Pragmatick Sanction should be restored and Annats abolished and a General Council called the King sent an Embassador to Sixtus to require him immediately to call a General Council to deliver the Church out of the Bondage it was in and to punish all that had any Hand in the foresaid Murder threatning if he did not call one presently to join with the other Princes of Europe to do it To which Message Sixtus returned the common prevaricating Answer of his See That he and not Secular Princes was the Judg when the Calling of such an Assembly was necessary and that if the Times would give way to it which to his great Sorrow they would not there was no Body desired to have such a Council called so much as he did Neither was there during the Reigns of Innocent the 8th and Alexander the 6th any talk of assembling a General Council unless it were by Princes now and then threatning the Popes with such an Assembly and by the Famous Savanorella who writ to most of the Princes of Europe exhorting them with great Zeal to assemble a General Council to preserve and reform the Church and to pull down the Abomination of Desolation meaning the Pope which stood in the Holy Place For which Zeal the Pope never gave over persecuting him until he had him with three more of his Brethren burnt at Florence as a Hereticks who notwithstanding that is to this Day reckoned by many of the Roman Church to have been a Prophet a worker of Miracles and a Person of extraordinary Sanctity But upon the Death of Pius who reigned but a few Weeks the Cardinals who had been most terribly tyrannized over by Alexander being for restraining the exorbitant Power of the Papacy among other Statutes they obliged themselves by an Oath in case they were chosen Pope to call a General Council within two Years in a place of Liberty And it having been found by Experience that the taking of that Oath by a Cardinal was no tie at all upon him when he came to be Pope they swore farther That they should neither absolve themselves nor give Power to any other to absolve them from the Obligation thereof and after having thus as they thought secured the Meeting of a General Council
Trent under Paul the 3d and Julius the 3d to have been Assemblies that had nothing of Liberty in them So to satisfy the Reader that it was the same with the Convention which was held at the same Place under Pius the 4th I have added a Letter of Monsieur Lansac who was at that time Embassador to the Council from the Crown of France and one of Monsieur Xainctes a Doctor of Sorbon who assisted at it as a Divine which are both printed in French in the Instructions and Missives c. To conclude tho the Doctrine of the Synods of Constance and Basil of a General Council's being superiour to the Pope has never as yet been condemned by any Roman Council that pretended to be Universal yet through that Doctrine's being discouraged at Rome the great Fountain of Preferment as a thing savouring of Heresy as also through the Power the Popes were suffered to exercise in the Synods of Florence the Lateran and this of Trent such Assemblies are no less in Bondage to the Pope than they could have been had all Councils owned him to be their Absolute Lord and Master Of which the Court of the General Inquisition at Rome was so sensible that in a Decree published by it in a Congregation held before the Pope in the Year 1659 it declared That the deciding of Controversies of Faith or Manners of the Universal Church belonged ONLY to the Judgment of the See of Rome not fearing ever to be questioned for such high Prerogative Doctrin by any future General Council It is now time to bring an Introduction that has grown already perhaps too long by reason of the variety of the Matter that I thought fit to bring within it tho as short as I could to a Conclusion But before I end it I know it may be expected that I should give an Account of the Letters and Papers that I do now publish in a Translation They are all Originals the Seals of most remain the Subscriptions and Directions shew it beyond the possibility of Contradiction They are writ in Spanish most of them fair enough to be read tho some are very hard to be read They were put in my Hands by that most Eminent Divine Dr. Stillingfleet now the most worthy Bishop of Worcester who upon my return from Portugal finding that I had made my self well acquainted with the Spanish Tongue having staied many Years there desired me to be at the pains to translate them I soon found what a valuable Treasure I had in my Hands and therefore asked him by what Conveyance they came into his Hands He told me they were communicated to him by the Right Honourable Sir William Trumbull one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State to whom they had descended among his Grandfather's Papers who had been Envoy in the Reign of King James the First at Brussels for 15 Years where he had got those Letters It is probable he had them from the Posterity of some of Card. Granvill's Secretaries to whom he had trusted the keeping of them and with whom he had left them when he withdrew from the Netherlands It seems he bought them from them but under absolute Engagements not to publish them during their Lives He himself was a most zealous Protestant which he has derived to all that have descended from him and he came into England from his Foreign Employment about the time that Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent was first printed in London That was the most proper time for publishing these Letters and must have established the Credit of the Celebrated History beyond all Attempts to detract from it There is no Memorial left in his Family of the Reasons why he did not then publish them yet since I understand from one on whom I can well depend who has read the Register of all his Letters during his Ministry that he was full of hearty Zeal for the Protestant Religion which appears in every Letter and in all the Advertisements and Advices offered by him there must have been some very important Reason that restrained a Man so full of Zeal for that Cause from publishing these Papers in the properest and fittest time in which ever they could have appeared It may be supposed that whosoever gave them to that worthy Minister took great care to have it concealed For the putting such things in the Hands of one whom the Court at Brussels esteemed a Heretick and which must have given such a Wound to an Interest to which those Princes were so much devoted must have past for an impardonable Crime and in a severe Government this must have ruined those who were suspected of having done it And since it might have been possible to have traced back a thing that was but threescore Years past it might have been found out who could have had these Papers in their keeping and by consequence have given them to the Envoy of England It is therefore reasonable to believe that whosoever delivered those to him had a Promise of absolute Secrecy during their Lives And this seems to be the Reason why so zealous a Man used so great a Reserve in so important a Matter Since that time the want of practice in Castilian has made them less read and there are so few of the mechanical People of this Nation who understand that Language that I had no encouragement to print them in their Original Language I neither could fall on one to copy them nor hear of a Printer who could compose or a Corrector of the Press to whom I could trust that piece of necessary Labour Therefore tho I know it is a preposterous thing to publish a Translation before the Originals themselves are printed yet since a Spanish Book could have no great vent in this Kingdom and I could not contrive a way how to make the correct printing it practicable I do now publish these not doubting but they will be speedily printed beyond Sea in their Original Language for I have according to the Order I received from that most Learned Prelat from whom I had them returned them back to the Noble Owner of them who will no doubt preserve them with care and shew them to such curious Persons as may desire to see them and who I hear is putting the publishing them as well as the translating them into another Language into a very good Method as well as unto good Hands which is sutable to the great Zeal he expresses for the promoting of Learning in which he is such a Master as well as a Patron and to his Affection to the Protestant Religion of which he has given so many eminent Instances The CONTENTS of Dr. Vargas's LETTERS to the Bishop of Arras and other Papers Of his Letter and Note of the 7th of October 1551. THE Legat behaves himself like a Man distracted he threatens to leave Trent accuseth the Emperor of not being so good as his Word yields at last to the Suspension
longer 112 Of his Letter of the 28th of February The Spanish Bishops begin to mutiny and send Deputies to the Embassador to complain of the Legat's not acquainting them with any Business and of the Council's enjoying no Liberty The Deputies are hindred by the Embassador and Vargas from going to the Legat for fear of raising a Storm who was himself at the bottom of this Mutiny The Pope is angry with Vargas for what he had said and done at Trent who values not his displeasure 117 Of his Letter of the last of February The Legat gets some of the Prelats over to his side and endeavours to dissolve the Council The Spanish Prelats continue their Juntos and are for a Reformation The Legat was never without Powers to suspend the Council The Pope and his Ministers are apprehensive the Spaniards will join with the Protestants to procure a Reformation Pag. 121 Directions concerning the Government of a Council and the Office of an Embassador The present Council differed from the Antient General Councils almost in every thing which were all called by the Emperors and enjoy'd an entire Liberty having all the Ecclesiastical Legislative Power lodged in them the Pope had only an honorary Presidency in them his Presence at them being not judged necessary The very Being of a General Council consists in enjoying an entire Liberty General Councils are upon expiring if not already expired No Footsteps of any of the Essentials of a General Council appeared in that of Trent especially not those of Liberty and Authority Nothing could be proposed in it but by the Legat nothing was done in it but what was ordered at Rome the Pope's Pensionaries themselves could not deny but the Council was in Bondage The Legat would have the Trent Synod governed after the Pattern of the Lateran under Leo the 10th and would not suffer it to have the Title of Ecclesiam Universalem repraesentans but instead thereof had added Proponentibus Legatis which was a new thing he added likewise to the Canons the words Salva semper in omnibus Sedis Apostolicae Autoritate The Legat out of an ill Design erects three Classes to meet in different Places at the same time and makes the Bishops vote so as is most for his Purpose He votes himself very irregularly he hectors and exposes the Bishops that vote not as he would have them Vargas wonders with what Face or Conscience the Legat could use the words Dicant Patres libere Matters of Doctrine were determined without a due discussion Diego de Mendoza the Emperor's Embassador upon the Doctrine of Justification having been published in a hurry desires the Legats to consult some of the most famous Vniversities about Doctrines before they determined them which the Legats would not consent to He also complained that the Council enjoy'd no Liberty and threatned the Legats with more German and Spanish Bishops The Legats after the Decrees concerning Original Sin had passed read the Pope's Brief to confirm them Nothing done in the Council but what was ordered at Rome The Legats having pump'd the Bishops dispatched their Pretensions to Rome They seek to confirm Abuses instead of reforming them The World would have reason to thank the Legats if they did not do all possible Mischief to the Church since they did what they would at Trent They were always sure of the major Vote by reason of their great number of Pensionaries All the Officers of the Council were the Pope's Creatures and had been named by him Vargas fears the Trent Council will instead of doing any Good do a great deal of Mischief and thinks it would be better to wait God's leisure for reforming the Church than to have a Council meet which as the Pope had ordered things were able to do nothing towards it The Trent Council had no effect but to mortify Roman Catholicks and to make sport for Protestants and to destroy the Authority of all future General Councils Julius's Design in sending but one Legat and two Presidents to Trent was to make his Authority the more Monarchical The Emperor is bound as the Protector of the Church to see that the Council enjoy an entire Liberty His Embassadors at the Council are to see that the Bishops do not vote rashly and that there be but one Classis The Embassadors must be present at all the Assemblies It is well if among a hundred Bishops there are twenty that understand any thing of Divinity The most famous Vniversities ought to be consulted about Doctrines that are to be determined Votes ought to be weighed rather than numbred The Embassadors must not suffer Doctrines which are praeter Fidem to be determined The Council being wholly at Rome and only the execution of it at Trent the Emperor's Embassadors at those two Places must hold a constant Correspondence Since the Pope's Legats have always a Brief in their Pockets to suspend or translate the Council whenever they shall judg it convenient the Embassadors ought likewise to have their Instructions what to do in such a case Pag. 127 149 Dr. Malvenda's Letters to the Bishop of Arras His Letter of the 12th of October 1551. The Legat precipitates Matters strangely he puts off the Discussion of the Doctrines to the last Day that there may be no time for treating about Reformation he is absolute in the Council Whatever the Pope would have done at Trent relating to Reformation must be signify'd to others besides the Legat It is convenient for the Honour of the Council that the Legat should not receive his Orders so publickly from Rome The Legat dreads the coming of the Protestants Pag. 157 His Letter of the 8th of November Some Account of the Bishops assembling c. 164 His Letter of the 22d of November He fears the Council will do more Harm than Good The Divines are not consulted Nothing of Majesty in the Decrees of the Council A high Character of Vargas He is unwilling to believe that the Legat has Orders from Rome to do such shameful things 166 His Letter of the 19th of December The Electors of Triers and Mentz seem resolved to leave the Council 169 His Letter of the 16th of January 1552. The Envoys of Wittemburgh and Strasburgh ought to be gratified The Legat starts Difficulties in every thing Don Francisco commended for caressing the Envoys of Duke Maurice 170 His Letter of the 27th of January Several great Points of Reformation had been proposed by the Envoys of Wittemburgh The Bishops not being allowed to propose any thing of that nature desire to have leave to speak to all those Heads particularly The Legat had foisted Clauses into the Doctrine of Order which would make the Pope superior to a General Council Pag. 172 His Letter of the 26th of February The Dispatch that was brought by Vargas was extreamly well ordered The Legat will do all he can to defeat it He expects the Pope's Answer It is madness to think that there can be any Alteration
and all talk of them The Pope that now is when he was here had his Pretensions about this thing and had he gone on as he began he had certainly carried them having been seconded therein by several And there was a certain Prelate who in a General Session had the Confidence to say on that Occasion That the Councils of Toledo were all held in contradiction to the Apostolical See with a great deal more such stuff which gave no small offence to a great many those Councils having been so famous and of so great advantage to the Church He that spoke this was the Bishop of Jano who has been since made a Cardinal and as they write at the Nomination of his Majesty who though a Person of great Honour spoke this because he knew it would be gratefull to the Legates and would make way for his promotion I have said this because I would not have things wherein the Pope and his Court have such great Interests and Pretensions to be decided or handled here since it cannot be done but to our great prejudice and to the great detriment of the whole Church which at present has neither strength nor courage to resist and if God do not remedy it I do not see when it will This is a thing I am positive in it being what I owe to the Service of God and his Majesty to whom I desire your Lordship to Communicate this and what-ever else I do in discharge of my Office it being of moment to his Majesty's Kingdoms Spain especially that it should be done The Legate among other Chapters of Reformation did pretend to put these that follow which being so prejudicial and to Spain especially we with much ado prevailed with him to let them alone till his Majesty was first consulted Don Francisco must have writ at large about this matter I will nevertheless write my Opinion thereof and what I said of it here that notwithstanding the second and third look like something they are really of no moment and yet under their colour the rest must be received and by that means that which is so much wished for will become incurable The first Tonsure let Canonists say what they will is not nor never was properly an Order but a Sign or a Door whereby to enter into Orders for according to the Master of the Sentences St. Thomas and all other Divines where there is no Character one cannot properly be called a Clerk as there is not in the first Tonsure neither is all that the Canonists and Innocent the Third say thereof to be taken strictly but in a large sense The first Tonsure being really no other than a Novitiate having been instituted only for such as did actually serve in the Church and were dedicated to the Divine Service for which reason the Consent of Secular Princes was necessary to the giving of it it appearing just that such Ministers should enjoy some Exemption but at this time that whole matter is run into such disorder that nothing of the said Institution is now observed to the exceeding great prejudice of the Common-wealth every one that will now may wear a Crown for Six-pence and two Clips with a Cissers and so plead an Exemption from the Royal Jurisdiction committing all the Crimes they please without fear of Punishment The true Remedy for this is to put such a stop to it as is necessary and not to be satisfy'd with having this Exemption taken from all Clerks that shall Marry as also to have new Orders made about the Habit and Tonsure Concerning which the Canonists have made strange work having made many Jests as well as Falshoods to pass for current Truths When I speak of the Canonists I speak as a Thief of the Family being sensible of the Abuses which have been authorized by them in the Church either out of Ignorance or for some base End for which reason what I say of them ought to be the more regarded There are three Remedies for this The first is That the first Tonsure shall be of no advantage to any that are not actually employ'd in Divine Service as has been said The second is That the first Tonsure shall never be given but together with the Order of Subdiaconate which since the Time of Innocent the Third for it was not so before has been an holy Order and that otherwise the Crown shall be of no benefit The third is That the first Tonsure shall be of no advantage to any that are not Ordained to some holy Order within a year as it is said to be at Venice the two first are the most proper Remedies there being no need of having more shaven Crowns unless it be to increase Mischiefs to disturb the Common-wealth and to carry Causes and Money to Rome what they drive at in this matter being ne quoquo modo minuatur Messis illa aurea ad quam Stratocles Democlides sese mutuo invitare solebant sic nempe joco Tribunal Curiam appellare consueverunt But in case it cannot be thus remedied as I do not believe it will it not being a thing to be expected that the Pope and his Officers should ever give their Consents to it It will then be convenient to let it remain as it is and that the rather because Princes upon their not having suffered the Council to remedy it may remedy it themselves for his Majesty may without any Scruple of Conscience redress it in his own Kingdoms by punishing his Lay-Subjects for such they are in reality there being neither Law nor Reason for their being exempted from the Royal Jurisdiction neither can they help themselves by any thing that has been Ordained by the Church to which they do not belong notwithstanding all the Disputes that have been about them betwixt the Ecclesiastical and Secular Jurisdiction The 4th Chapter is extreamly prejudicial and is levelled chiefly at his Majesty and his Kingdoms about which there are so ancient and laudable Constitutions Privileges Instruments and Customs in Spain already that the Legate cannot carry what he pretends to without wronging if not subverting all those Constitutions and all the Styles of the Councils and Chanceries such as the taking cognizance of the Violences and Outrages committed by Ecclesiasticks and Banishing them the Kingdom when they hinder the Royal Jurisdiction or disquiet and disturb the Common-wealth and commit heinous Crimes and have none to punish them for them or transgress the Orders of Madrid concerning the not bestowing of Benefices and Pensions upon Strangers or for offending against any of the Pre-eminency of those Kingdoms c. To act thus being the Defence and Conservation of the Kingdoms and the Rights thereof and not the using of Coercive Jurisdiction upon the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Immunities All which matters if I am not mistaken are thorowly handled in some Books I have composed here which hereafter may be made publick In which Causes we must be sure to be always upon
Humility which how much it is to the purpose let any one judge It is however undeniable that by this way of proceeding those inconveniencies we do now labour under were prevented every thing being done with great Authority and Liberty Upon the great Declension of the Empire after the Eighth Synod the Judices discretivi who were sent to Councils by the Emperours ceased who being Laicks had never any Vote in them after that the naming of Persons to perform the Office of those Judges whom they called Presidents and that without any prejudice to the honorary Presidency of the Pope's Legates remained in the Body of the Council where according to Andreas and Baldus it was always of right whose Authority if there were nothing else is sufficient to prove it but besides that it was practised by the Council of Constance which was the Ninth Synod in its Ninth Session as it was also in the Seventeenth Session of the Council of Basil which admitted the Pope's Legates on such conditions as kept their Presidency from being coercive than which nothing is more remarkable and modern and which ought to have been observed in this present and all future Councils The very being of a General Council after it is lawfully assembled consisting in the Liberty wherewith all matters of faith and manners are handled therein and the deciding them openly in peace and not in corners by unlawfull methods for it is when matters are thus handled and defined that Councils are inspired by the Holy Ghost in their Determinations those Words It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us being applicable only to General Councils however the Pope may arrogate them to himself in Person or in conjunction with his Colledge of Cardinals for as Abulensis in his Presace to St. Matthew well observes nothing is more certainly necessary than an entire Liberty in Councils for the want of which the Second Ephesine Council though lawfully assembled was not reckoned a Council and was accordingly revoked by the Council of Chalcedon And so when the numerous Council of Photius was objected to Nicholas the First he made answer we do not follow the Councils of Nice and Chalcedon and the Synodical Constitutions of the Holy Fathers and other Councils on account of the great Numbers of Bishops that were present at them but we do reverence their free just and divinely inspired Determinations So Agatho likewise writing to Constantine concerning the Fathers that were to assemble in the Sixth General Council tells him that there ought to be a Promise of impunity and a licence granted to all to declare their minds freely that so their faith might be published to the World and that none ought to be discouraged or hindred from speaking their thoughts either by threats or any other methods a great deal more might be added to the same purpose namely what was writ by St. Leo to Theodosius the Emperour concerning the Second Ephesine Council if what has been said were not sufficient from all which as the Authority and Majesty of General Councils is manifest so it would still be more conspicuous if we should go to the bottom of the Power that was lodged in Synods so as to lay open how great it was and of what sort of People they consisted and what Authority they exercised over all and what was every ones part in hearing and obeying but I know not by what fate of the Commonwealth if I may so speak those Assemblies are no fallen from that heighth of Authority every thing in them being so altered and disjointed that no Footsteps of their Ancient Majesty are to be discovered in them so that for the punishment of our sins they seem to be just upon expiring that having happened to them which seems to be the natural Condition of most humane Blessings in having had their Infancy their Youth and Old-age which is always succeeded by death I say this because in the whole conduct of this Council of Trent there does not appear the least footstep of any of the forementioned Essentials of a General Council on the contrary the most pernicious and effectual Methods that can be contrived have been taken to destroy Liberty totally and to rob Councils of that Authority which in case of great storms used to be the sheet-Anchor of the Church by which means they have cut off all hopes of ever having any Abuses that infest the Church redressed to the great disparagement of all past as well as future Councils from which no good is ever to be expected For as St. Austin in his Tract of the Epicureans and Stoicks speaking of St. Paul's preaching at Athens saith that the whole Multitude is threefold and consist of Believers Mockers and Doubters so it is not possible for us to express and much less to exaggerate of how pernicious consequence the conduct of this Council has been in which under the Title of directing it the Pope's Legates have so managed matters that nothing but what they have a mind to can be proposed discussed or defined therein and that too after such a manner as they would have it or as it comes ordered from Rome whither they are sending every hour for Directions so that at the same time they talk of liberty they are destroying it by their Actions all the liberty that is here being only imaginary so that their naming of it is nothing but cheat and banter which is so notorious that several of the Prelates even among the Pope's Pensioners have not the face to deny it but do with other holy Men lament things being brought to such a pass and though the iniquity of the Times and the present Posture of Affairs may keep them from declaring so much it cannot keep them from sighing to see things go as they do I come now to prove the Truth of what I have said in general from particular instances in this Council it being necessary to the curing of the Malady for to understand it In the first place the Pope's Legates have made use not only of an honorary Presidency which ought not to be denied them but of an authoritative and coercive one following in every step the Council of Lateran that was celebrated by Pope Leo the Tenth which they would gladly canonize naming it at every Turn as if it had been a General Council and such a one too as deserved to be a pattern to all others whereas in truth it was only a Domestick Synod however it being for the advantage of their pretensions to have this Synod managed after the same manner as that was its conduct hitherto has been the same to the great prejudice of the Authority of the present and all future Councils as appears from several instances namely from the Legates not suffering the Clause of Ecclesiam Universalem repraesentans to be inserted into the Decrees adding instead thereof and inculcating that of Praesidentibus eisdem tribus Apostolicae sedis Legatis which is a new thing and
THE COUNCIL of TRENT No Free ASSEMBLY More fully discovered By a Collection of Letters and Papers of the Learned Dr. VARGAS and other Great Ministers who assisted at the said Synod in Considerable Posts Published from the Original Manuscripts in Spanish which were procured by the Right Honourable Sir William Trumbull's Grandfather Envoy at Brussels in the Reign of King James the First With an Introductory Discourse concerning Councils shewing how they were brought under Bondage to the Pope By MICHAEL GEDDES LLD. and Chancellor of the Cathedral Church of Sarum LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCXCVII TO THE Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD By Divine Providence Lord Bishop of VVorcester May it please your Lordship HAD your Lordship no other Relation to the following Papers which do so plainly discover the absolute Bondage the Trent Council was in to the Pope but only that of your being universally acknowledged one of the ablest Champions the Church of England or any other Church ever brought forth against Popery over which your Victories and Triumphs are numbred no otherwise than by the many Combats you have had with it that alone would have led me to the doing both these Papers and my self the honour of prefixing your Famous Name to them But when besides that the Originals of these Papers were put into my Hands by your Lordship to be translated and made publick for the Service of the Church this afforded me so just a Pretence for the doing of it that the Ambition I have of owning to the World how much I have been beholden to your Lordship would not suffer me not to make use of And having said this I will not interrupt your better Exercises by detaining your Lordship any longer but shall continue my Prayers to God that he would be so gracious to his Church whose very Foundations are at this time so fiercely attacked as to restore you to perfect Health and to grant you a long Life to defend Her against those Enemies of Hers with whom she now struggles with the same Success that you had formerly against the Papists her standing Enemies I humbly beg your Lordship's Blessing and am Your Lordship's most humble and most obliged Servant M. GEDDES An Introductory Discourse of COUNCILS Quid enim minus deest Tyrannis quam falsas pro veris causis effingere THE Letters I here publish are an undeniable Evidence of the Council of Trent's having been in such Bondage to the Pope that tho it had been never so well disposed it was not in its Power to have reformed the Church But to open that Matter better a short and faithful Account of the Incroachments that have been made on the Authority of Councils by the Bishops of Rome which here followeth seems to be no improper Introduction to the reading of them The Catholick Church being a Society instituted by Christ into which the People of all Nations having submitted themselves to him as their Law-giver were to be admitted Christ must necessarily be supposed at the same time that he erected his Church into a Society to have prescribed a certain Form of Government to it with a Power to make such Laws and Orders as should be necessary to its Preservation as also to punish such of its Members as should obstinately deny any of the great Truths or transgress any of the known Duties which upon their admission into it they did solemnly promise and vow to believe and observe Now this being supposed which of the three Forms of Government Democracy Monarchy or Aristocracy is the best in having the fewest Inconveniencies attending it about which People may wrangle to Eternity without ever coming to any Agreement is not the Question here but the true Question is Under which of these Forms of Government Christ when he founded his Church did put it As to Democracy it neither was nor could be the Form of Government under which Christ put his Church and that for this Reason because that Form of Government if it can any ways subsist must have its Subjects near together whereas Christ designed that his Church should spread it self over the whole Earth as it did over a great part of it within a few Years after it was first founded As to Monarchy it is true it might if Christ had so thought fit have been the Form of the Government of his Church but it is as certain that he did not ordain it to be its Government as it is that the Apostles did not immediately after his Ascension change the Government that he had instituted which if it is a thing not to be imagined Christ must then have put his Church under an Aristocracy it being very plain from the Scripture that that was the Form of Government the Church was under in the Apostles Days So the first time the Church after it was founded acted as a Body that we read of was when the Apostles and Elders assembled together to quench a Dissension arisen among Christians concerning Circumcision and some other Mosaical Observances Acts the 15th in which Assembly it is plain that the Church acted as an Aristocracy And tho it is most probable that St. James and not St. Peter was the President of this Council yet whoever was it is certain he did not preside therein as a Monarch but as a Fellow-Judg with the rest of his Brethren According to which Apostolical Pattern the Pastors and Governours of the Church who succeeded the Apostles as often as there was occasion used to meet together in Councils to treat about the Affairs of their respective Churches making such Laws and Canons and inflicting such Censures as the Necessities of the Church required All which was done without the least Syllable of the Church having a Monarch set over it on Earth by Christ Thus the Church was governed in all places for near 300 Years by Provincial Councils of Bishops Not that Presbyters nay nor Lay-Christians were wholly excluded from those Assemblies the Lay-Members of the Church when she is under an Infidel Civil Government being in the place of the Civil Magistrate to her nevertheless it is certain that the Bishops as of a superior Degree to Presbyters had always the chief Authority in all such Assemblies and had probably a Negative upon the rest In the 4th Century the Church being blessed with Christian Emperors began to meet by her Bishops in Oecumenical or General Councils which was an Advantage she had not before enjoy'd it not being a thing to be expected that Princes of a contrary Religion should suffer such Assemblies to meet under their Noses All which General Councils acted and were justly esteemed by all Christians to be the Supream Legislative Authority of the Church and they looking upon themselves as such condemned Heresies and made Canons about Discipline and in a word did every thing that belonged to the Ecclesiastical Legislative Power and that without ever taking the
least notice of an Authority on Earth that was superior to theirs or of the Consent of any particular Prelats as necessary to the validating of their Determinations On the contrary those Reverend Assemblies were all called by the Emperors who in their Convocation of them appointed the Place where and the Time when they were to meet sending some of the gravest of their Senators to assist at them and protect them and dissolving them when they had finished what they were called to do All which was done without any Protestations having ever been made against it by any Bishop as an Incroachment upon his Ecclesiastical Prerogative Nay those Councils were so far from dreaming of the Bishop of Rome's having that Monarchical Authority in the Church which he now pretends to have that that Prelat tho he had often and earnestly desired it could never get one of those Assemblies to meet in the West where his See was And as to the Canons and Determinations of those Bodies they were so far from thinking that Bishop's Consent to them to be necessary that they made some not only without it but contrary to it Witness the 30th Canon of the Council of Calcedon in which any one that will look into it may plainly see what the Fathers in the 5th Century universally reckoned to be the Foundation of any Primacy or rather Precedency that the Bishop of Rome had and in case that Prelat happened to be convicted by them of Heresy they condemned him with the same freedom as they would have done any other Prelat as they did Honorius All which if true as it is a clear Demonstration that those Councils look'd upon themselves as the Supream Legislative Authority of the Church so the Truth of the whole thereof is so manifest from the publick Acts of those Assemblies that there cannot be a greater Instance of an invincible Hardiness against the brightest Evidence than that the Roman Champions give in affirming the Pope to have always had the same Authority he now pretends to and that he exercised in the Convention of Trent over General Councils His present Pretensions being 1. That the Power of Calling Suspending Translating and Dissolving General Councils is solely in him 2. That he is the sole Judg when the Calling of such Assemblies is necessary 3. That he can give a Right to vote in them to Ecclesiasticks who are not Bishops and to as many as he pleaseth which he has actually done to great Numbers of Abbots and to the Generals of the Religious Orders and to such Cardinals who are but Deacons 4. That none ought to sit and vote in a General Council that have not on some occasion or other taken an Oath of Obedience to him 5. That he is to preside in them either in Person or by his Legats and that with such an absolute Authority that nothing can be so much as proposed in them by any but by him or his Legats Lastly That nothing that is done in them is of any Validity until he has confirmed it Having named these Pretensions it would be to affront the Reader to offer to prove to him that the Assemblies that submit themselves to them can have no Authority and that the Church in her Body Representative is made thereby what Cajetan saith she is the Pope's Servant or Slave and not his Mother And as it is a thing worth any ones enquiry how this great Change in the Government of the Church was brought about so to the best of my Observation it was by these following Steps that the Popes ascended to this Pinnacle of Ecclesiastical Tyranny 1. As to the Power of Calling and Dissolving General Councils the thing that brought that into his Hands was the breaking of the Roman Empire into several independent Kingdoms and Commonwealths by which means it coming not to be in the Power of any one Prince as it was formerly to call all the Bishops to a Council the Pope seized upon it and having once got it he took care to keep it as one of the chief Jewels of his Crown for the sake of which and divers other Advantages which accrued to the Papacy by the breaking of the Roman Empire into so many independent Principalities the Popes will always take care to keep those Principalities from ever consolidating again into one great Monarchy a Universal Monarchy being a thing the Popes will never trust either their Catholick or Most Christian Son withal how zealous soever they may otherwise appear to be for their Religion A second Step towards this Ecclesiastical Tyranny was the Pope's stretching that Honorary Primacy of Order that was given him in General Councils purely on the Consideration of Rome's being the chief City in the Empire to a Primacy of Jurisdiction over those Assemblies which was the easier done through that prodigious Ignorance of antient Ecclesiastical History which reigned for some Ages in the West The third was those gross Impostures of the Decretal Epistles which were forged in the ninth Century on purpose to advance the Papal Authority they being universally believed to have been written by the antient Bishops of Rome on whom they were fathered The fourth was the Western Church after its having broke off Communion with all other Churches coming to look upon it self as the whole Catholick Church by which means any Power that had been given to the Bishop of Rome as Patriarch of the West was reckoned to extend to the whole Catholick Church But the last and great Step to these and all other Papal Usurpations was the great Lands and Revenues which were bestowed on the Roman See upon the Fall of the Lombards by Charles the Great and other Princes which great Riches with the assistance of pious Frauds chiefly of that Madness the Popes and their Monks inspired Princes with who stood in the way of their Ambition of going as far as the Holy Land to destroy themselves these I say enabled that Prelat to lay both Church and Empire at his Feet the Ecclesiasticks if they had been willing not being able to cope with a Power which at one time or other had trampled on most of the great Crowns of Europe all which was to come to pass that the Scriptures might be fulfilled which speaking of the Antichrist that was to come say that after that which withheld that is the Roman Empire was taken out of the way he was to sit in the Temple of God as God that is he was to oppress the Church as a Monarch or Tyrant and was so to bewitch the Kings of the Earth by his Sorceries and the World by his lying Signs and Wonders as to be in a Condition to destroy all that would not take his Mark upon them by submitting their Souls and Bodies to his Tyranny But to return to the Popes Usurpations upon General Councils The first Council called by any Pope that had the Title of General given it by the Roman Canonists themselves was that of the
other Place without the Consent and Approbation of the said Holy Synod and in case he has already done it or shall do it hereafter or shall issue forth any Processes or Mandates against the said Officers or any other Persons that adhere to this Synod or shall fulminate any Ecclesiastical Censures or other Penalties against any such Persons all such Censures shall be void and of no effect neither shall any Obedience be yielded to such nulled Censures Processes and Penalties So that the said Officers may notwithstanding them freely exercise their Offices in the said City of Constance during the sitting of the present Synod therein It furthermore ordains and defines That all and every Translation of Prelats as also all Deprivations of them or of any other beneficed Persons Officers Administrators of Commendas as also all Revocations of Donations and all Monitions Ecclesiastical Censures Processes Sentences and whatsoever Acts are or shall be done by the said Pope John or by any of his Officers and Commissaries to the Prejudice of the said Synod from the Day it first met or of any that adhere to it are ipso facto void and null and are by the Authority of this Synod declared so to be It doth furthermore declare That the said Pope John and all the Prelats and Persons who were called to this General Council as also all that assist thereat have been and at this time are in possession of an intire Liberty for any thing the said Council knows to the contrary To the Truth whereof this Sacred Synod calls God and Man to witness But the Council being sensible that these and a thousand more such Constitutions after they should come to have a single Pope again with an indisputable Title would be too weak Cords to hold such a Sampson if they had not a continual Check upon him to prevent the Church's relapsing into its former Bondage did wisely ordain that Councils should meet frequently by the following Decree THE frequent Meeting of General Councils being the chief Culture of the Lord's Field for the extirpating of the Thorns and Briars of Heresy Errors and Schisms and for the reforming of Abuses and Excesses to the rendring of the Lord's Vineyard fruitful the long intermission of them disseminating and nourishing all the foresaid Evils all which both the Memory of Times past and the Consideration of the present State of Affairs do plainly set before our Eyes For which Cause we do by this perpetual Edict establish decree and ordain That General Councils be frequently held and that the first do meet at the end of five Years after the dissolution of this and the second at the end of seven Years after that After which a General Council shall be perpetually held from ten Years to ten Years in such Places as the Pope shall a Month before the Dissolution of every Council but with the Consent and Approbation of the said Council appoint and in case the Pope should deny to do it the Council is then bound to appoint it that so by a certain Continuation a Council may be always either sitting or in view within a certain Term of Years which Term it shall be lawful for the Pope to shorten if there should be occasion for it with the Advice of his Brethren the Cardinals but on no Account to prolong it Neither shall it be lawful for him except in a case of visible Necessity as of a Siege War Pestilence and the like to change the Place that has been appointed and when he does it in such a case it shall be with the Consent of his Brethren the Cardinals or of two thirds of them and he shall then assign some other Place as near as may be with convenience to the Place that was first appointed and in the same Nation in case the same Impediments do not extend to all the Parts thereof which if they should happen to do it shall then be called in the next Country to it to which Place all Prelats and others who do use to be called to Councils are bound to repair as if it had been the Place at first appointed Which change of Place and abbreviation of Time the Pope is bound legally and solemnly to publish and intimate a Year before the expiration of the Time that was first fixt that so the Prelats may all at the Time appointed repair to the Celebration of a Council A certain Prelat whose Name I have not been able to recover foreseeing it is like that this wholsome Constitution would in a short time come to nothing by the Power that was given to the Pope to change the Place that had been fixt when there was a Necessity of it of which Necessity he was the Judg proposed some Heads to the Synod which had they been agreed to and executed would effectually have secured the Church from a Relapse The first was That neither the Pope nor his Cardinals should be allowed to sit in a Council whose chief Business was to reform them it not being fit that any Man should be Judg in his own Cause The second was That the Cardinals who had chosen John knowing him to be a most flagitious Person ought to be severely punished for it and not be permitted to sit in the Council The third was That the Cardinals who had of their own accord followed John when he stole out of Constance ought to be expelled the Council as they ought also to be who had affirmed the Synod to be dissolved upon John's having run away from it Lastly That till the Power of the Pope and his Ministers was suspended and retrenched it was a vain thing to think of reforming the Church either in its Head or Members I will not say that these Proposals were John Gerson's tho they do agree in the main with what we meet with in his Treatises writ on this Occasion but I think one may venture to say they were things not unworthy either of his great Piety or Learning Pope John who was for leaving no Stone unturned to keep in that beloved Chair which he had so often sworn to resign understanding that his present Protector the Duke of Austria was about submitting himself to the Emperor one of the Articles whereof he knew would be That he should deliver him into the Hands of the Council endeavoured by large Promises to engage the Duke of Burgundy in his Quarrel with whom that he might treat with the more privacy and security he stole away with two Servants only to Friburgh and from thence he removed to Brisac at which Place the Nuncios who were sent after him by the Council with Powers to require him to sign a Procuration in a Form prescribed by the Synod to resign the Papacy overtook him who having demanded that of him he promised that they should have his Answer next Morning But before that came he was gone having stoln out of Brisac in the Night and the next news the Nuncios heard of him was
that he had been at Newburgh but had been frighted out of that City by a false Report he had met with there of the Emperor's advancing that way with an Army and that he was returned to Friburgh again at which City the Nuncios having gone after him prevailed with him to sign the foresaid Procuration but it was clogg'd by him with such Conditions as he knew very well the Council would never agree to Neither was he mistaken the Council when that Instrument was presented to them by the Nuncios rejecting it with Indignation as an Affront to their Wisdom and being grown weary of treating any longer with such a false shuffling Man gave order to have him proceeded against judicially knowing very well there would be Crimes proved upon him for which were there no such thing as Schism he would deserve to be deposed Simony Perjury and a most flagitious course of Life having been proved against him by Witnesses against whose Testimonies there could be no Exception He was accused likewise of having poisoned his Predecessor and of having many times in Discourse discovered that he did not believe the Immortality of the Soul After which the Council tho fully satisfied of his Guilt yet that it might not be said of them that they had condemned a Man for enormous Crimes without having first heard what he had to say in his own Defence ordered his Process to be carried to him by five Prelats to see what he had to object against it who having waited upon him with it at Zell found him very humble and tractable he told them he was so sorry for his having stole away from the Council as he did that if it had been God's Will he wish'd that his Death had prevented his having done it and that as he had nothing to object to the Articles proved against him in his Process so he was prepared to submit to the Sentence of the Synod thereon with a most profound Humility desiring nothing so much as that they would pronounce it speedily upon him in which the Synod willingly gratified him having so soon as it had his Answer passed a Definitive Sentence declaring him to be no longer Pope and prohibiting all Christians any longer to own him as such or to give him the Title thereof reserving to themselves a Power of inflicting such other Punishments upon him as the Crimes he had been proved guilty of deserved making a Decree at the same time That in case the Roman See should any ways come to be vacant that the Cardinals should not proceed to the Election of a Pope without the Consent of the Council and that neither Baltasar de Cossa lately John the 23d nor Angelus de Corario called Gregory the 12th nor Peter de Luna called Benedict the 14th should ever be chose Pope or if they were their Election should be void Which Sentence and Decree being carried to Baltasar de Cossa at Zell he gave his Consent to them by a publick Instrument taking an Oath never to do any thing to the Contravention thereof The Council having thus laid John who was the Pope they owned aside its next business was to oblige the other two Pretenders to quit their Claims As to Gregory the 12th who was owned only by a small part of Italy after a great many Doublings he was prevailed with to appoint a Procurator to resign the Papacy in his Name but not to the Council which having been called by John he would not acknowledg but to the King of the Romans to which he was in good hopes the Council would never have agreed but he was disappointed his Resignation by his Procurator Charles Malatesti being accepted at which Gregory is said to have been so angry as notwithstanding he had a large and honourable Maintenance allowed him to have died quickly after of pure Vexation within himself for having put such a Power out of his own Hands into the Hand of a Procurator But for Benedict the 13th notwithstanding that Sigismund went into Spain on purpose to perswade him to resign and was seconded therein by the King of Arragon in whose Country he kept his Court he would not promise to quit his Claim but upon such Conditions as he was certain would never be granted him and upon the King of Arragon's withdrawing his Obedience from him he retired to a Peninsula in the Kingdom of Valentia called antiently the Chersonesus but at this time Rocha da Truna where he lived several Years after he was declared by the Council not to be Pope without ever resigning his Title to it but with his last Breath The Council being informed by Sigismund when he returned from Spain that Benedict was not to be perswaded to resign did thereupon name a select Number of Prelats to judg his Cause and having summoned him to appear before them either in Person or by his Proxy in a hundred days they sent two Monks of Cluny to acquaint him with his being summoned and to try whether now that he was thrown off almost by every body they could perswade him for the Peace of the Church to resign when Benedict first saw the Monks coming towards him he said aloud to his Courtiers Come let us hear what these two Synodal Ravens have to say to us to which one of the Monks return'd this lively Repartee That it was no wonder if Ravens did come to a Carcase that was thrown out The Monks being returned to Constance without having been able to do any thing and the hundred days being expired the Synod declared the Roman See to be vacant and having given Order to have it filled again they joined a Majority of other Bishops and Prelats to the Cardinals in the Election making a Decree at the same time that the new Pope should not dissolve the Council until the Church was reformed both in its Head and Members in pursuance whereof the Cardinals and other Prelats having on the 8th of November 1417. entred the Conclave on the third day after they were shut up they chose Odo de Columna Cardinal Deacon of St. George to the great Satisfaction of Sigismund and the whole Council who looking upon him as a devout simple Man did not doubt now that he was Pope of his complying with what he had promoted so much when he was Cardinal But the Synod quickly found it self mistaken for notwithstanding Martin which was the Name he took comply'd so far with it as to appoint Pavia to be the City the Council at the end of five Years was to meet at nevertheless when he was spoke to by several of the Prelats that they might go on with the Reformation of the Church in its Head and Members he told them very gravely that that was not a time for so good a Work of which Answer when the French Prelats complained to their King desiring him to oblige Martin to keep his Promise to them in joining with the Synod to reform the Church the King sent them word
Number of Prelats at Basil to celebrate a General Council 2. That that City was infested with the Heresy of the Hussites 3. That the Princes in its Neighbourhood were in War one with another And lastly that the Greeks who at present seemed well disposed to submit themselves to him were rather for having the Council at Bononia than at Basil Julianus when he first received these Orders notwithstanding he knew the Pope's Reasons for dissolving the Council to be all false seemed inclinable to have obeyed them having forborn for some days after to act as President But having observed that the Princes and Prelats that were at Basil were all resolved notwithstanding the Pope should pretend to dissolve it to go on with the Council and that the Cardinals who were fled thither from Rome would all join with them therein he did not only resume his Presidentship again but was so far from executing the Pope's Orders that he seem'd to go intirely into the Interests of the Council against him and having accordingly summoned all the Embassadors Cardinals and Prelats that were at Basil to assemble on the 7th of December in St. Leonard's Church it was there agreed that the first Session of the Synod should be celebrated in the Cathedral Church on the 14th day of the Month current of which having ordered an Instrument to be drawn up they commanded it to be affixed to the Gates of all the Churches in the City The day of the Session being come and all the Cardinals Embassadors and Prelats being assembled in the Cathedral Julianus after Mass made a long and learned Speech to them which being ended the Bishop of Coutances ascended the Pulpit and with an audible Voice read the Decree of the Council of Constance concerning the frequent Celebration of Councils as also the Instrument of the Nomination of the City of Basil together with Pope Martin and Pope Eugenius's Letters of Convocation after that they made several Orders about freedom of Speech and against such as should hinder any Persons from coming to Basil ordering likewise that the Prelats who assisted at the Council should enjoy the full Profits of their Benefices and naming the Notaries and other Officers of the Synod Eugenius who could not brook to have his Authority thus affronted thunders out from Rome a Bull of Dissolution of the Council in which besides his former fantastical Reasons he added that of the Synod's having invited the Hussites who were declared Hereticks to come and treat with them He also called a Synod at the same time to meet at the end of 18 Months at Bononia and another ten Years after that was dissolved at Avignon being content it seems to supererogate in giving the Church two Councils at the distance of some time and which were to be celebrated in Cities under his temporal Jurisdiction for one that was in being and out of his Territories upon the Bottom of the Council of Constance whose Establishment he reckoned would be broke by his having called new Councils to meet as he had now done But Eugenius after he had given this bold Stroke fearing left Sigismund whom he knew to be a great Friend to Councils and who had his Embassadors at Basil might be displeased with him for what he had done writ Letters to him of the same Date with the Bull of Dissolution to satisfy him of the Necessity there was of calling a Council at Bononia for the Greeks who seemed to be disposed to submit themselves to the Roman Chair To which Banter for it was no better Sigismund returned a severe Answer bearing date the 9th of January telling Eugenius in plain Terms That the Reasons he had given for his having dissolved the Council of Basil were all fantastical it being a Jest to put off the doing of so necessary a Work as the Reformation of the Church upon a Surmise of the Greeks who had for some hundreds of Years been Schismaticks appearing to be inclinable to unite themselves to the Roman See desiring him also to consider what would in all probability be the Consequence of what he had done the Fathers at Basil being resolved notwithstanding his Dissolution to sit and act as a Council and in so doing would be protected by all or most of the Princes of Europe concluding his Letter with this vehement Exhortation We do most earnestly beseech and require your Holiness in our Lord Jesus Christ whose Business this is that considering how what you have done may tend to the Subversion of the Christian Religion you would immediately remedy it by writing to the President and Council that they may proceed in the Name of the Holy Ghost in which they were called to finish the Work they have in hand Neither was Sigismund mistaken in treating what Eugenius alledged concerning an Union with the Greeks as a thing given out only for a Colour Eugenius having after he had made this use of it slighted the Business of that Union when the Greek Emperor's Embassadors came from Constantinople on purpose to treat with him about it which he did to that degree after it had been so far advanced by his Predecessor as to put an end to it It is true that Treaty was afterwards revived by him and that with great Zeal but when we come to that we shall see what was the Reason of it Eugenius was writ to likewise by the Kings of England France c. who upon the Synod's Nuncios coming to their Courts had all declared themselves in its Favour to revoke his pretended Dissolution of it that so he might prevent a Schism And the French Clergy having been called by their King at Bourgis for their Opinion in this Matter did unanimously declare themselves on the side of the Council desiring his Majesty to espouse its Quarrel as the common Concern of the Universal Church The President Julianus writ likewise passionately to his Master to revoke his Bull that was so universally odious telling him in plain Terms that if he did not do it and that speedily too he would raise such a Schism in the Church as had never been seen in it before concluding his Letter to him thus I have called upon Men on this Occasion till I am hoarse I will therefore now call upon Christ and beg him to look with an Eye of Pity on his forsaken Church which he purchased with his own Blood The Synod likewise which was not willing if it could have helpt it to have broke with Eugenius dispatched Nuncios to him to intreat him to revoke the said Bull and to come to them in Person or by his Legats to assist at the Reformation of the Church To all which Remonstrances Eugenius turned a deaf Ear seeming resolved to venture all rather than suffer Councils to go on on the Foot of that of Constance which tho he never mentioned it was the true Ground of his Quarrel with the Basileans and they being sensible that it was so now that they had so
frequently to be assembled The last Term of sixty Days being expired the Prosecutors moved again to have Eugenius pronounced Contumacious which the Fathers were hindred from doing by Letters they received from Sigismund assuring them of the Pope's having by a Bull revoked his pretended Dissolution of them and of his having likewise named Legats to go to Basil but who being hindred by some just Impediments had appointed Delegats to supply their place for some time which Bull of Revocation as it pretended to be bore date the 12th of Febr. 1433 and not 32 as it is in Bzovius Wherein Eugenius after having pretended that the Causes why he had formerly dissolved that Council were all ceased he commanded all Patriarchs Arch-Bishops Bishops c. within three Months after the Date of the said Bull to repair to Basil there to celebrate a General Council promising to send his Legats to preside therein in his Name Which Bull notwithstanding it was dispatched some Weeks before the last Nuncios went to Basil was never mentioned by them whose Business was to try if the Fathers would have been satisfied with less who for that Reason knew nothing of the said Bull till they were afterwards acquainted therewith by Sigismund and the Envoys of some German Princes who such as it was had extorted it from Eugenius With which Bull when it was brought to the Synod by some Delegats the Pope not being able it seems to find one Prelat at leisure that was fit to be his Legat on this Occasion the Fathers were more incensed than ever against Eugenius for having offered as if they had been an Assembly of Fools or Children to put an Instrument upon them which by calling a new Council at Basil confirmed his having dissolved the present as a Bull that revoked the Dissolution that it confirmed There was also a Passage in it wherewith the Fathers were highly distasted which was its giving Power to the Presidents and Legats to dispatch the Affairs of the Universal Church with the Advice of the Council this they said destroy'd the Authority of the Council at a blow and of Judges made the Prelats to be only Counsellors to the Presidents whereupon they having declared at large the ill Consequences which must attend its being in the Pope's Power to dissolve or translate General Councils at his Pleasure and that the Belief of such Councils being the Supream Authority of the Church was a Matter of Faith and that Eugenius therefore for having deny'd to hear them deserved to be treated as an Heathen and a Publican they concluded that they would after the Example of their Predecessors die a thousand Deaths rather than betray the Authority of the Church by their Sloth or Cowardise in being satisfied with such an hypocritical Bull or admitting of Presidents with such an Authority as it gave them and so having dismissed the Delegates with their Bull they went on with their Citation of Eugenius with greater Heat than ever And in their twelfth Session which was held on the 13th of July after a long Invective against Eugenius's Obstinacy they had certainly pronounced him contumacious had they not been hindred by Sigismund's Embassadors who desired sixty days more for him by which time they assured the Fathers the Emperor would be with them in Person they decreed nevertheless that at the Expiration of that Term Eugenius if he did not comply with the Synod should be ipso facto suspended But if the Synod was angry with Eugenius for having offered to put such a Trick upon it Eugenius was no less angry with the Synod for having discovered his Trick and by a Bull bearing date the 26th of July after having declared them to be a most seditious Conventicle he voided and nulled all Decrees Citations c. made by them against him and his Cardinals commanding all Christians upon pain of Excommunication not to have any regard to the Basileans or to any thing they did being a pack of factious Spirits set on to disturb the Peace of the World But this angry Bull was so far from terrifying the Council that they had certainly declared him Contumacious on the day of the Expiration of the last Term had not their Protector the Duke of Bavaria obtained 30 days more for him after the granting whereof the Archbishop of Spalato and the Bishop of Cervina the Pope's Nuncios knowing nothing of what had passed came to the Council desiring the Fathers not to pronounce Sentence against their Master the 60 days which had been allowed not being as yet expired The Cardinal Julianus told them thereupon that they had not been acquainted it seem'd with the Council's having granted the Pope 30 days more asking them whether they had brought his Adhesion to the Synod or not to which the Nuncios returned no Answer they having brought only a loose general Proposition of revoking all that had been done by the Pope provided the Synod would do the same as to all that they had done against him but without any particular mention of the Bull of Dissolution which the Pope could not endure to think of revoking by a publick Bull. This Proposition having been rejected with Indignation by the Fathers the Pope was so far provoked thereby that he published another Bull against them bearing date the 2d of September Wherein having taken notice of the Synod's having presumptuously cited him and his Cardinals he commands all Christians under pain of Anathema to look upon the said Citation and all the Effects thereof as void and null he having by these Presents in defence of the Dignity of his Holy See declared them so to be But when the thirty days the Duke of Bavaria had obtained for Eugenius were expired the Synod assembled on the 10th of October with a full purpose to have pronounced him Contumacious which as they were ready to have done News was brought that the Emperor was just alighted and was making himself ready to come to Church to them the Fathers overjoy'd at the News went in a body to wait upon him who after he had received their Congratulations going with them to the Place of their Assembly prevailed with them to suspend their Sentence a Week longer and when that was expired he desired them to adjourn the passing of it till the 8th of November which day being come the 14th Session was held with great Solemnity the Emperor assisting thereat in his Imperial Robes and with all his other Royal Insignia Wherein the Fathers having at the Emperor's Request allowed Eugenius ninety days more they drew up several Forms of Adhesion leaving it to him which of them he would sign requiring him particularly besides the Bull of Dissolution to repeal and void the last three Bulls he had published to their Prejudice Eugenius notwithstanding the Council was thus hard upon him dreading it now that the Emperor was in it much more than he had done before sent his Letters of Adhesion to it which having been presented to
Pope for his Confirmation which being presently granted by him with both Hands he sent it with all possible Expedition by the same Nuncios that had brought it from Basil to Constantinople with which the said Nuncios as Embassadors sent thither by the Council were to invite the Greek Emperor and his Clergy to the Celebration of a Council in one of the Cities of Italy therein mentioned sending at the same time a Fleet of Gallies he had hired of the Venetians to fetch them to it Which Nuncios being arrived at Constantinople they were in great haste to have an Audience and having obtained one they did in the Name of the Oecumenical Council of Basil invite the Emperor and his Clergy to imbark upon the Gallies they had brought for Italy in one of the two Cities whereof the Pope and Council were both agreed that the Synod he had desired and promised to come to should be assembled The Truth of which Invitation was confirmed not only by the Embassador the Emperor had sent to the Pope but by the Embassador likewise whom he had sent to the Council both which Ministers having been corrupted by Eugenius were sent along with this Fleet to vouch for the Truth of all that the Nuncios said Which was done likewise tho innocently by the Council's own Resident at Constantinople who having heard nothing of the Division the Pope had made at Basil and knowing the Nuncios to be Members of that Synod had not the least suspicion of their being Impostors till about a Fortnight after that News was brought that a Fleet from the Council with its Nuncios aboard were come the length of Chios the Report whereof was bore down by the Nuncios at Constantinople and their corrupted Vouchers with an astonishing Confidence as a most impudent and groundless Lie set about on purpose to disgrace them But at the end of five Days the Council's Fleet appeared before the City to confirm it which having thrown the Papaline Nuncios who did not know what to say next into a terrible plunge the Admiral of their Fleet who was the Pope's Nephew had he not been hindred by the Emperor 's express Order had taken an effectual Way to have helped them out of it by having gone out to Sea with an Intention to destroy the Council's Fleet as a Fleet of Pirats On the doing whereof the Nephew had set his Heart so much that he sent the Emperor back word when he received his Order not to stir from his Anchors that he could not justify his not going out to Sea to destroy those Pirats being expresly commanded in his Commission to do it whensoever he met them But the Emperor who could not suffer his Coast to be so affronted ordered the Council's Gallies into the Port of Cygneum giving an Audience to the Legats that were on board them who were the Bishops of Visoe and Lausan on the same Day they came ashore by whom he was quickly convinced of their being the Legats of the Council and of the former Nuncios being Impostors sent by Eugenius and that the Decree they brought with them had been made only by a small and boisterous Party in the Synod But tho the Emperor and Patriarch were both satisfied that the first Fleet was sent by Eugenius and not by the Council nevertheless they resolved to imbark upon it for Italy notwithstanding all that the Council's Legats could say and promise to perswade them to go upon their Gallies tho they reckoning that the Greeks had been gained by the Papalins by promises of great Succors and Sums of Money strived to outbid them in both assuring the Emperor that the Council had all the Western Princes on its side and that Eugenius if he was not already would certainly be deposed by the Council before he could get to Italy But when they found this would not do their next Business was to disswade the Emperor since he would not go with them from going at all telling him it was no proper time for him to seek to reconcile the Greek Church to the Latin now that the Latin was so divided within it self and that therefore it would be his best course to put off his Journey till he saw how the present Dispute betwixt the Council and the Pope would end In which Diligence they were seconded by all the Greek Ecclesiasticks who were named to go with the Emperor and Patriarch in their Western Expedition But whatever it was that had determined them on Eugenius's Gallies they would and did go whom I shall leave sailing for Italy and return to see what the Council is doing It being highly offended with Eugenius for having the Confidence thus to make use of its Name and Authority not only in contradiction to what it had decreed but with an intention to blow it up and with it the Authority of all future General Councils on the last of July 1437 they published a Monitory and Citation against him wherein having accused him of Ecclesiastical and Civil Male-administration and of Simony Prevarication and Perjury and of contemning the Authority of a General Council it summoned him to appear either in Person or being lawfully hindred by his Procurator within the term of sixty Days to answer to the Crimes he stood charged withal threatning if he did not appear to proceed against him for his Contumacy nulling at their next Session all Creations of Cardinals which were said to have been made by Eugenius as also the suppositious Decree that appointed Florence or Vtinum to be the Place the Reconciling Council was to meet at But Eugenius whose Affairs in Italy were in a much better Posture while those of the Council by reason of the Emperor's Absence from them and of his being ingaged in a War in Bohemia were in a worse than when he stooped to make an Adhesion to them was so far from obeying this Citation that by a Bull bearing date the 16th of October he translated the Council from Basil to Ferrara having so little regard to the Decree made by his Basilian Faction and which he had confirmed and was at that time making use of at Constantinople as to name neither of the Places that are mentioned therein of which tho it was a great Affront to them we do not read that his Basilian Partizans complained that being a thing that Pensioners dare not do tho never so ill used by their Patrons But tho those tame Creatures durst not resent their having their Authority thus despised the Council which was not under the same Ties to Eugenius so resented his having pretended to translate it that without allowing him one Day after the Expiration of the Term in the Citation they solemnly pronounced him Contumacious After which at the Request of the Embassadors they granted him three Months to offer his Reasons declaring his pretended Bull of Translation to be void and making several Regulations about Appeals to Rome and the disposing of Benefices to the further
retrenchment of the Papal Revenues and so soon as the said three Months were expired they solemnly declared him to be suspended from the Administration of the Papacy both in Spirituals and Temporals and that the Administration thereof was devolved to the Council commanding all Christian Princes and Bodies upon pain of Excommunication to be ipso facto incurred and all Ecclesiasticks upon the same Penalties and those of Deprivation and of being disabled to hold any Preferments not to yield him any Obedience for the future After the passing of which Sentence the Doctrines of a General Council's deriving its Authority immediately from Christ and of all Christians the Pope himself not excepted being bound to obey its Decrees were by the Synod declared to be Matters of Faith as Eugenius for not believing them was declared to be a Heretick several of the Prelats having contended to have had him declared Relapsed that he might not be capable of a Pardon tho he should submit But as Eugenius was very far from any thoughts of submitting so the Synod on the 4th of May the day appointed for passing the Sentence of Deposition upon him in a full Assembly declared Gabriel Condelmore which was Eugenius's Name before he was chosen Pope to have mocked God and the World by his Prevarications and to be guilty of despising the Authority of this present and all other General Councils in having pretended to translate this of Basil without its own Consent and in having refused to appear when cited by the said Synod and for continuing contumacious and disobedient to the Commands of the Church and a Disturber of her Peace and Unity and for being an incorrigible Schismatick and obstinate Heretick a perjured Person and a Dilapidator of the Roman Pontificate to have rendred himself unworthy of the Papacy or of any Title Degree Honour or Dignity whatsoever for which reason the Sacred and Universal Synod of Basil doth pronounce and sentence him to be lawfully deprived of the Papacy or Roman Pontificate amoving depriving and throwing him out of the same reserving a Power to it self to proceed yet further against him and prohibiting the said Gabriel upon pain of Excommunication to stile himself any longer Pope and all Christians under the same Penalty any longer to own or obey him as such After the passing of which Sentence the Synod having observ'd that some of its Members were stealing from it daily to Eugenius who was prodigal of his Preferments to all such Deserters it passed a Decree that the Synod should not be dissolved but with the Consent of two thirds of its sitting Members nor be hindred from going on with the Work it had in hand and particularly that of choosing a new Pope whose Election they appointed to begin on the 60th day after that whereon Gabriel was deposed summoning all the Cardinals to come to it and nulling all Conventions Pactions Promises Obligations and Oaths which might pretend to hinder them But not expecting that many of the Cardinals would come they ordered that 32 of the Prelats or other Ecclesiasticks of the Synod should be joined with the Cardinals and have Voices in the said Election and in case the Person chosen by the said Electors should refuse to accept of that Dignity that they should have Power to meet again and choose another and so on till they had filled the Roman Chair prescribing the form of an Oath to be taken by the Pope that should be chose the main Point whereof was that he should swear to be obedient to the Decrees of all General Councils and particularly to those of Constance and Basil After the passing of which Orders the Synod finding it would be a tedious Work for so great a Body as it was to agree in the Nomination of 32 Electors it thought fit to commit the Nomination of them to three Persons who were to be of that Number themselves The three were Thomas a Scots Cistertian Monk Abbot of Dondruina in Galloway who had stickled hard to have had Eugenius declared a Relapsed Heretick and John of Segovia a Spaniard and Arch-deacon of Villa Viziosa and Thomas de Courcellis a French-man and Canon of Amiens who being named by the Council took Christian de Gratzregia a German and Rector of St. Peter in the Diocess of Vlm into their Number which four did in a short time name the other 28 much to the Satisfaction of the Synod which 32 with the Cardinal of St. Cecilia the only Prelat of that Order then remaining in the Council did after five Scrutinies choose Amy the first Duke of Savoy Pope who had sometime before retired to the Desart of Ripoli where with several of his Nobles he lived as a Hermite I must here stop in the Account of this Transaction to reflect a little on this Scots Abbot Thomas the Cistertian Monk who was chosen the first of the three Electors It is somewhat strange that none of the Scotish Writers speak of him It was a great Honour to that Nation to have produced a Man of so eminent a Character who upon so extraordinary an occasion was set at the head of such a Business which was in a great measure to be supported by the Credit of those to whom it was trusted One ought to think that both his Learning his Integrity and his Judgment were very much distinguished and yet I do not find that he is known to the Writers of that Nation tho the best they had and one of them the best that any Nation ever had writ within a hundred Years of this time If Boethius and Lesley would take no care to preserve the Memory of a Man who was so much concerned in such a Business yet how he scaped the Diligence of Buchanan who must have valued him the more for it is somewhat strange perhaps the case with him was like that of a Prophet who is not without Honour save in his own Country or so transient a thing is Fame and Reputation that he who in one Age was esteem'd the Man of the first and most distinguished Merit of a whole Council is so forgotten in the next that even those who have laboured much and with great Success Buchanan especially to raise the Value of their Country have not mentioned a Man that was so great an Honour to it and that within memory of the time in which they writ But I now return to the Sequel of this Matter The Synod which was extreamly well pleased with the Election immediately dispatched the Cardinal of St. Cecilia with 24 Prelats and Nobles to acquaint the said Duke with his being chosen Pope who being perswaded by the said Cardinal to accept of the Papacy he took the Name of Felix and after having taken the forementioned Oath was crowned with great Solemnity at Basil This Cardinal of St. Cecilia who was commonly called the Cardinal of Arles for his having thus adhered to the Council to the last is represented by the Papalin Writers of
within two Years they proceeded to an Election and chose Julianus Ruvero Cardinal of Ostium a Prelat who loved War too well to be obliged by an Oath to embarass the Papacy with Synods and who accordingly suffered not only two but seven Years to pass without calling a Council and so he would seven score if he had lived so long notwithstanding his Oaths had not a Council been called by some of the Cardinals at Pisa to examine the Validity of his Election and to punish him for his Male-Administration and particularly for not having according to his Oath called a Council within two Years and which had he never taken any such Oath he was bound by the Decree of the Council of Constance to have called This Pisan Synod was promoted chiefly by the French King who was grown so weary of seeing the Church and Christian State thus desperately Pope-rid that he had a Medal struck with this Inscription Delebo Babylonis nomen meaning Rome a Name none that have been angry with the Popes for these twelve hundred Years have ever missed to call that City by Julius to strengthen himself against this Pisan Synod called one at the Lateran a notable Place for Liberty throwing the blame of his not having called it sooner upon the Wars and Distractions of the Times which were chiefly of his own creating And as to the Decree of the Council of Constance he put that off by affirming That it had not been regarded in eighty Years or if it had the Distractions of the Times would have justified him in not obeying it Which Lateran Council tho called after this manner and made up chiefly of a few Italian Prelats is reckoned by Bellarmine and the other Court of Rome-Writers only for its having been in absolute Subjection to the Pope to have been a General Council and such a one too as ought to be a Pattern for Tameness to all future Synods Nevertheless excepting its being a Precedent for General Councils having nothing of Authority or Liberty left them it did nothing to the Prejudice of the Constance Establishment After this of the Lateran which was continued for some time by Leo the 10th there was no Council called by any Pope until such another was convocated at Trent in the Year 1545 by Paul the 3d and after a Translation of three Years to Bononia was reassembled by Julius the 3d and who before he would congregate it had the Emperor's Promise under his Hand that nothing should be done therein that he was not for having done And after a Prorogation of 11 Years by Pius the 4th an Assembly it was so fettered by the Popes under whom it sat that from first to last nothing that looked like Liberty or Authority ever appeared in it the Pope that first called it having strictly charged his Legats who were its Presidents not to suffer any Point of his Authority to be disputed therein nor to publish any Decree in a Session before they had sent a Copy thereof to him and to a Congregation he had erected at Rome on purpose to direct what was fit to be done at Trent whose Resolutions being dispatched to the Presidents were punctually observed by them These Presidents besides their having assumed a new Authority of proposing all that was to be offered to the Council and their having by a Band of Pensioners secured the major Vote to themselves if any Prelat had the Honesty and Courage to oppose any of the Papal Designs they did brow-beat and silence him in the roughest manner and in case the Synod should on any occasion prove Refractory they had a Bull always ready in their Pocket impowring them to translate or prorogue it as they did twice upon frivolous Pretences Now that this was the true State of the Trent Synod in that Session of it which was held under Julius the 3d is proved beyond all contradiction by the following Letters of which and the great Men they were writ by I come now to give some Account The following Letters were writ from Trent during the Session of the Council which was held under Julius the 3d to Granvill then Bishop of Arras who was afterwards the Cardinal Granvill at that time first Minister to the Emperor Charles the 5th by Don Francisco Vargas Doctor of Law and Fiscal or Remembrancer of the Exchequer to the Emperor by whom he was sent to Trent when the Council first met in that City under Paul the 3d where having remained till it was upon a false Pretence translated by that Pope to Bononia he was sent to that City to protest in the Emperor's Name against its having been translated thither Which he did with so much Courage and Dexterity as raised his Name very high for an able Statesman for which Reason when the Council came to be assembled at Trent again by Julius he was sent thither by the Emperor to assist his Embassadors in all their Negotiations with the Legat who at that time was the Cardinal Crescentius As to Vargas's Talents were there nothing else to prove them to have been extraordinary the following Letters would abundantly do it in which with a great Variety of Learning and a Noble Air of Integrity and Piety is joined such a strength and clearness of Judgment as is hardly to be met with in any of the Letters of the most eminent Statesmen now extant I will not say because I read of another of the same Name who was Secretary of State to Ferdinand the Catholick that the Writer of these Letters is the Vargas meant by the Spaniards in their Proverbial Saying upon any Matters being so intricate as to require a strong Head to be able to unriddle it Averiguelo Vargas let Vargas dispatch it yet this is certain that our Vargas was looked upon by the Emperor and all his Ministers as the most dextrous Man at Business of any Spaniard of his Time upon whose having acquitted himself so much to the Emperor's Satisfaction at Trent he was presently after the Prorogation of the Council sent Embassador by the Emperor to the Republick of Venice from whence after having resided there some time he was recalled but with an Intention of sending him thither again with a double Character of Embassador both from the Emperor and his Son Philip the Design whereof was to have helped Spain by that means after it should come to be separated from the Empire to the Precedency of France Which being a thing Charles had set his Heart upon extreamly he pitched upon Vargas as the Person of all his other Ministers that was the fittest to manage so important and difficult a Point But tho the French were too wise a Nation to have such a Trick as that double Commission was put upon them and had too good a Cause to be baffled in it in so wise a Government as that of Venice it was nevertheless acknowledged by all that Vargas said and did all that was possible in such a Case So that
Si Pergama dextra c. And tho Embassadors and especially Spaniards are not very forward to extol the Abilities of the Ministers that are sent to assist them in their Business nevertheless we have Don Francisco de Toledo who was one of the Emperor's Embassadors at Trent at the time when these Letters were writ by Vargas giving the following Character of him to the Bishop of Arras in a Letter bearing date the 1st of December 1551. What your Lordship writes concerning your being satisfy'd with the Conduct of the Fiscal Vargas gives me great Content knowing him to be one of the most Learned and best qualified Persons of his Profession and withal very zealous for his Majesty's Service and much devoted to your Lordship your Lordship is therefore bound to favour him with his Majesty and to see that he be rewarded according to his Merits and Services which I shall take as a great Kindness he being a Person for whom I have a particular Affection being much beholden to him for the Assistance he has afforded me of which your Lordship takes notice In a word he is certainly such an Original as is not to be quoted again Father de Malvenda who was likewise one of the Emperor's Ministers at Trent at that time in a Letter to the Bishop of Arras which I here publish bearing date February 27 1552 saith In all our Encounters with the Legat the Senior Fiscal has still fallen upon wonderful Expedients who being a Person of great Learning and withal much experienced in Affairs of this nature has not as I am able to witness for him been mistaken in any one Point And in another of his Letters I publish likewise bearing date the 12th of October 1551 he tells the Bishop of Arras The Fiscal is certainly such a Person as you take him to be that is a Man of strong Sense and Judgment and very serviceable in giving such Directions as are necessary about the Council Now as Charles the 5th's Kindness for Vargas whom he knew to have writ so freely of the Corruptions and Abuses of the Church of Rome and of the Jugglings of the Popes and their Ministers is an Evidence of his having when he reigned been no great Bigot for Popery so we have reason to believe that after his Retirement when he came to make the study of Religion his whole Business he had his Mind so enlightned as to discover both the Errors and Corruptions of Popery and the Truth and Beauty of the Protestant Doctrines so far as to have died in the Faith of the latter of which considering among whom he died and how much all the Monks and Friars of Spain if it had been so would have been concerned to have suppressed it tho a direct and positive Proof is a thing not to be expected nevertheless not only his Chaplain and Preacher but he likewise who was his Confessor at his Death as also the Arch-Bishop of Toledo who assisted him in his last Minutes with Ghostly Counsel being all accused as they were of being Protestants is such an Evidence of that Prince's having been of the same Religion as an impartial Mind can hardly know how to resist For 1. As to his Chaplain and Preacher Augustin Cazal who was Canon of the Church of Salamanca and is acknowledged by his Enemies to have been one of the most Eloquent Preachers that ever Spain produc'd he was taken up by the Inquisition for being a Protestant in the Year 1558 and was with 13 more who died professing the Protestant Religion burnt publickly at Valladolid in the Year 1559. the unfortunate Prince Charles and his Aunt Dona Joanna who was Governess of Spain at that time being Spectators of that barbarous Execution 2. His Confessor Constantine Poncius who was Canon of Sevil and a Person of wonderful Piety and Learning was likewise taken up by the Inquisition for being a Protestant who dying in Prison the Inquisitors know best of what Death had his Bones and Effigies burnt publickly in the Market-place of Sevil in the Year 1560 as were also the Bones of the Learned Dr. Egidius Canon of Sevil who had been named by the Emperor to the Bishoprick of Fortosa who either died or was murdered in the same Prison eighteen being burnt alive at the same time for being Protestants on which occasion the Writer of the History of the Inquisition saith That had not that holy Tribunal taken care thus to put a stop to those Reformers the Protestant Religion had run through Spain like Wild-fire People of all Degrees and both Sexes being wonderfully disposed at that time to have embraced it Nay the Author of the Pontifical History who was present at some of those Martyrdoms and particularly at that of Herrezulo saith That had those Learned Men been let alone but three Months longer all Spain would have been put into a Flame by them Lastly Bartholomew de Caranza a Dominican Friar who had been Confessor to our Queen Mary and who upon her Recommendation was preferred to the Archbishoprick of Toledo having assisted Charles with his Ghostly Counsel in the last Minutes of his Life was not many Months after confined to his Palace by the Inquisition in the Village of Tordelaguna upon suspicion of his being a Protestant from which place after a Confinement of seven Years he was removed to Rome and committed to the Castle of St. Angelo where he remained a close Prisoner ten Years and was condemned at last as one suspected of Heresy This Arch-bishop was reckon'd one of the most learned Divines of his time and as such was sent by Charles the 5th to the Council of Trent where he both preached before that Synod and writ a Treatise of the Personal Residence of Bishops and Pastors he published likewise a Compendium of all the Councils and a large Catechism in Spanish which was printed in Flanders of which Archbishop and the three forementioned Martyrs I think one may truly say that they were Persons every way qualified to have reformed a corrupted Church after the best manner But that God after he had raised up such great Men to have done so excellent a Work should suffer a barbarous and inhuman Court thus to destroy both their Persons and all the Effects of their holy Labours is a Mystery of Providence whose Ways tho always righteous are many times great Depths To these Evidences of Charles the 5th's having died a Protestant I shall only add that his Grandson Charles Prince of Spain who had lived some time with him in his Monastery was afterwards imprisoned by his Father Philip and as was generally believed was put to death by him as a Favourer of Protestants and what Mezeray a Papist saith thereof in the Reign of Francis the Second is remarkable At Philip's Arrival in Spain he caused a great many to be burnt in his own Presence at Sevil and Valladolid of those they call Lutherans both Men and Women Gentlemen and Ecclesiasticks as likewise the
of some Doctrines The Pope and his Ministers abhor and dread nothing so much as the coming of the Protestants to the Council They seek to abuse the World by pretending they would gladly have the Protestants come when at the same time they are contriving all the Ways they can to hinder them The Embassadors of the King of the Romans voted that the Cup in the Sacrament belonged to the People by Divine Right The Cardinal of Trent voted that it ought to be allowed to the Germans The Council enjoys no manner of Liberty An Answer is return'd to the French King's Protestation The Legat stopt the Embassador's Mouth when he was urging him to give way to a Reformation with mention of a Letter wherein the Emperor had promised the Pope before the Council met that nothing should be done in it but what his Holiness would have done Vargas interprets the Promise so as to make it no Bar to the Emperor's endeavouring to procure a Reformation The Liberty the Pope takes is such that it could properly be called nothing but a Sickness of the Mind or a Fury Page 1 8. Of his Letter of the 12th of October A Session had been celebrated with great solemnity The Answer to the French Protestation and the Powers of the Envoys of the Elector of Brandenburgh were read therein The Article sub utraque was suspended The Envoys of Brandenburgh made a pious and learned Speech and submitted themselves to the Council The Legat endeavours to hinder the Protestants from coming to the Council by refusing them a safe Conduct The Bishops are never acquainted by the Legat with any thing till it is ready to be pronounced Things are pass'd hand over head The Bishops made the Pope's Tools to confirm his Pretensions in a Clause in the Answer to the French Protestation and not being aware of it condemned all the French and Spanish Pragmaticks The Canons of Reformation were so trivial that they deserved to be laughed at Vargas despairs of the Council's doing any Good to the Church 11 Of his Letter of the 13th of October The Legat is continually starting new Difficulties 10 Of his Letter of the 28th of October The Divines are employ'd in Disputing The Protestants are on their way to Trent The Legat declares that a Reformation was not for the Council to dwell on and that after the next Session it should meddle with nothing of that nature Things are handled so in the Council that it is not to be expected that either Protestants or Roman Catholicks should be satisfy'd with any thing it does Nothing is done but what the Pope orders which is so visible that the Protestants cannot but be hardened by it The Pope presuming on the Emperor's Friendship acts unaccountably in the Council The Legat pumps a Memorial out of the Bishops and sendeth it to Rome Vargas much discontented to see things so carried Page 20 Of his Letter of the 12th of November No hopes of any Reformation The Bishops are acquainted with nothing nor know not what they vote for The Council will produce nothing but Scorn and Confusion The Pope and his Ministers will let all go to wreck rather than reform Abuses No good to be done at Trent without a Miracle The Church will be thrown into a worse Condition by the Council than she was in before The Protestants if they come to the Council will be hardned in their Opinions by what they will see done there 25 Of his Letter of the 26th of November The Legat's Behaviour is astonishing he presumes on the Emperor's Friendship and on his Ministers acting so timorously he treats the Bishops like so many Slaves No less than a Miracle can do any good thing in the Council The Emperor tires himself in vain in negotiating with the Pope and his Ministers The Bishops are displeased with the Legat's exorbitant Proceedings Nothing to be expected from the Council but what would prejudice the Church and advance the Court of Rome The Legat endeavours by a Trick to settle the Business of Benefices in case they shall be lodged in the Bishops Care must be taken that the Good of the People and not only the Profit of the Bishops may be considered in the collation of them Vargas is against having any thing handled in the Council where the Legat does what he will and the Pope has any Interest Nothing but Mischief can be expected from General Councils while they are thus under Bondage If ever the Church is reformed it must be done by National Councils The Legat to prevent the Churches being ever reformed is for having it declared Vnlawful for National Councils to meet without the Pope's Consent and Legats in them No hopes of any Remedy from the Council The Pope in great haste to have the Council suspended A Copy of the Decrees of Doctrine not to be had The Decrees sent to Rome before they were published upon the Divines having contradicted some Doctrines in them Pag. 29 Of his other Letter of the same date The Decrees of Doctrines not settled till the Eve of the Session The Bishops gave their Placets to them without understanding them The Divines of Lovain and Cologn contradict some of the Doctrines that had been decreed in a hurry If this should come to be known it must ruin the Authority of the Council for ever The Pope and his Ministers deserve to go to the Bottom for giving such Offences and others to go with them for suffering such things The Legat's Design in putting off Doctrines thus to the Eve of the Session was that he might the better shuffle the Pope's Pretensions into them without being observed The Council enjoys no Liberty The Legat seeks to establish the use of Commendas he hector'd the Bishop of Verdun for calling the Reformation they were about a pretended Reformation The Electors much displeased with the Legat's Behaviour A sad Complaint of the Pope and his Ministers for handling things appertaining to God as they do and of no bodies having the Courage to oppose them Nothing will be done at Trent but the confirming of Abuses instead of reforming them The Legat's whole study is to promote the Profits of the Court of Rome Pag. 47 Of his Letter and Note of the 28th of November 1551. The Legat extreamly disordered by the Divines having contradicted some of the Doctrines that had been decreed which was the Reason why no body could have a Copy of those Decrees he endeavours to satisfy the Divines Vargas wishes the Confusion the Pope and his Ministers are in on this occasion may open their Eyes but does not expect it should because nothing can do it but a Miracle The Legat begins to wheedle the Divines promises they shall be consulted with for the future before any Doctrines shall pass he reports that Affairs do not go well with the Emperor in Germany and is glad of it Vpon enquiry it is found that the Doctrines that had been decreed were altered as being erroneous
have foretold I say by a Miracle because it is not to be done by any humane means so that his Majesty do's but tire himself in vain in negotiating with the Pope and his Ministers Nam surdo canitur lapis decoquitur The fruit of his Majesty's Dispatch is such as I guessed it would be that is it has made the Legate much worse than he was before who has since hammered out such an Infamous Reformation for it deserves no better Epithet as must make us fabula rifus populo I am not able to express how much it troubles me to see God and his Majesty thus Dishonoured Sed res ipsa loquitur the Prelates that are here do likewise resent it highly many of them reckoning that they wound their Consciences by holding their Tongues and by suffering things to be carried thus and who tho' they have hitherto with much ado been kept by some Offices that have been done them from doing their duties so that two Sessions have pass'd as your Lordship sees I am persuaded nevertheless that if other courses are not taken that no Offices will be able to Restrain them much longer they are so extreamly scandalized The Legate was not to be persuaded to treat about any thing that was in the Memorial and as I have writ before it would be well if he could never be brought to it For whenever he shall condescend to do any thing it will certainly be for the advantage of the Court of Rome and to the prejudice of the Church and especially of his Majesty's Kingdoms Every body do's not see the Legate's design in the business of Benefices with Cure which he is very forward to talk of having of his own accord declared that the Pope will never give his Consent to it For the Legate being sensible that many of the Bishops for their own Interest are extreamly desirous to have it pass he hopes they may be brought to make such a bargain with him as he drives at and as the present Pope when he was Legate here aimed at likewise who proposed it to the Bishops offering them the Collation of all Benefices with Cure provided the Expeditions did all pass at Rome and the Pope be re-imbursed by having all other Benefices lodged in him which is the thing they grasp at Now this being a most inconvenient and abominable bargain the Legate of his own accord declares that the Pope will never agree to it which if I have any Judgment he saith for no other end but to put the Bishops in mind to desire it of him For the clearer understandng of which matters and practises I writ to your Lordship on the 13th Instant my thoughts of the Memorial and of other affairs now if this matter of Benefices should come to be treated of here we ought in the first place to put the Pope's Ministers upon shewing what right his Holiness has to collate to any Benefice whatsoever and having brought them to that I will undertake to demonstrate from the Principles and Foundations of the Law of God and of Nature and of Men and from the ancient usage of the Church and from good policy that he has no manner of right to it and all this without doing Injury to his Dignity and the plenitude of his Power But the Pope having now by degrees and force got all into his own hands he gives the World to understand that all is his and that what any body else has is what he is willing to give them From hence it is that the wretched Canonists I meam some of them do either out of fear or flattery or both style the Pope Dominus beneficiorum Now in the handling of this affair if the provisions of Benefices should be lodged in the Bishops care must be taken that flesh and blood be not allowed so much liberty as it has been accustomed to but that it be so ordered as to partake of the ancient usage either by Examination or some other way that shall be judged most convenient that so an eye may be had therein to the profit of the Churches and the Sheep and not only of the Bishops But this being a matter of so great moment and which cannot be treated of in these times but to the prejudice of the Church and especially of Spain the best way now the Pope carries every thing he has a mind to will be not to meddle with it at all but to reserve the handling thereof to a better time Quo purgabit Dominus filios Levi which purgation must come and that with a severe Scourge or till God shall provide other remedies which may be applied at some time or other it being impossible that a thing so violent and so fraught with Abuses should hold long the whole Nerve of Ecclesiastical Discipline being broke and the Goods of God made a perfect Trade and Merchandise As to the Head of reviving Provincial Councils which is in the Memorial it has put the Legate in a great Disorder This is one of the things that was put in the Memorial without my advice who do pretend to understand what the Pope and his Minister's Pretensions are in that matter for that being a thing the Church has so often done and still has authority to do it ought not to have been proposed here as a new matter but such Councils ought to be called frequently as was the custom in former times This is a thing of that Importance that I have often and I will always say it That the Restoration of the Church is chiefly to be expected from the reviving and celebrating of Provincial Councils the Ruin thereof having proceeded from the Cessation of them which among other Effects would prevent Secular Princes being brought under necessity of medling with things to the Violation of the Ecclesiastical Immunity in which if some Remedies are not found out for their great Necessities and some holy and lawfull Courses for the obtaining of Justice they cannot forbear concerning themselves I say this of Provincial Councils because the Celebration of such as are general is as we see by Experience like the Ludi Seculares to be brought about but once in an Age if so often and when one comes to be celebrated it is done in such a manner as we now see insomuch that this which is now sitting here must totally undeceive the World so as to convince it that by reason of the Opposition and Industry of the Popes to engross all to themselves nothing of Reformation is ever to be expected from a General Council Now they being sensible that General Councils by reason of the Discords of Christian Princes and thorow some other Causes I have formerly given are thus in bondage they do all they are able to hinder the reviving of Provincial Synods except the Pope's Legates or Vicars are present at them that so they may leave no breath in the Church nor in any of its Members to the exclusion of all Remedies
our guard with the Legate who is certainly a grand Architect having a strange Faculty of seeming to give something when he gives nothing and of laying up Matter for Plea which must hereafter help the Court of Rome to Money which is the main End he drives at in this Reformation The 5th Chapter which speaks of the Immunity ought likewise to be considered lest instead of remedying what the Secular Jurisdiction and Common-wealth do at present suffer thereby they by seeming to yield something destroy all by giving a Power to the Prelates to send Laicks to their Prisons and having taken cognizance of their Crimes to joyn with the Secular Judge in punishing them Now this is a fetch no Man but the Legate could ever have dreamt of What is pretended to and desired in this matter being that heinous Crimes may not be committed without being punished by the Ecclesiasticks Secular and Regular at every turn defending their Churches and the Criminals that have fled to them with Arms and a thousand other Methods Now to put down Sanctuaries wholly would appear too rigorous considering the Derivation they have from the Law of God or from the Cities of Refuge that were under the Old Testament or as Abulensis well observes that were at all Times and in all Nations that all might not be like the Laws of Draco nothing but Blood And St. Austin in his Civitate Dei observes That when Rome was taken by the Christians that they offered no Violence to the Heathens that had taken sanctuary in the Churches All this notwithstanding things are visibly reduced to such a pass that some course must be taken to prevent the manifold Disorders that flow from these Immunities that so there may be Punishments and that the Common-wealth may be preserved in Peace which is the end of Secular Magistrates For which reason the Emperor Tiberius as Suetonius relates in his Life was so much offended at the manifold Crimes that were committed under the shelter of the Sanctuaries which were dispersed all over Italy that he dissolved them all at once We are now to see how the fore-mentioned Inconveniencies may be so remedied that the Words of our Lord My House is the House of Prayer but you have made it a Den of Thieves may not be verified in this Case It is no easie thing to find a remedy for it but if Churches must still enjoy their Immunities it will be necessary that neither Seculars nor Regulars nor no Ecclesiastical Judges shall defend any Church or Offender that is in it with any other than Spiritual Arms which are the only Arms that belong to them neither must it be lawfull for them to make any manner of resistance or to lock their doors or to give any other Impediment to the Secular Judges whom they must restrain by Religion and not by Force For besides the raising of Tumults there are other Reasons why it should not be lawfull for Ecclesiasticks to defend their Churches with Arms as their not knowing what they defend or whether the Case be such as can claim Sanctuary or whether the Secular Judges may not lawfully take the Offender out of the Church there being Cases wherein they may do it without having recourse to the Ecclesiasticks It ought farthermore to be declared That no person guilty of Fore-thought Murther Wounding or any other such Crime is to have the benefit of a Sanctuary neither ought all Churches Monastries and Chappels to enjoy that privilege but only some particular Churches that shall be appointed This is what I have to offer at present concerning the foresaid Chapters As to which and every thing else his Majesty may Command what he shall judge to be most convenient and whatsoever shall appear so to your Lordship will appear the same to me Nevertheless there is one thing I will be positive in which is That we do but tire our selves here in vain since without a Miracle nothing wherein the Pope and his Court have any Interests or Pretensions can be determined here but to our great prejudice For notwithstanding they have in a manner cancelled all former Laws and under a pretence of dispensing with them have dissipated them They are not willing nevertheless that there should be any new Laws made against Abuses for fear of offering too much Violence to People's Conscience or lest that after they are made Secular Princes should oblige them to observe them Of the truth of all that has been said what has passed concerning the Exemption of Chapters which ought to have been quite taken away that so there might be something of Order and Discipline and that they who are the Head should not be made the Feet is a sufficient Evidence Which Decree of the Council will be interpreted by the Rota not to comprehend any Chapters that enjoy an Immemorial Prescription or that were exempted at the Erection of the Church or that were defending their being exempted at the Court of Rome at the time when that Decree was pronounced By which Exceptions the Decree is laid flat upon the ground being nothing in truth but a matter of Money and Law-suits for the Chapters upon a bare Allegation of any of those things without any manner of proof will be protected by that Court and such of them as were never in the solid possession of any such Exemption shall give the Bishops trouble enough if they shall offer to call them in question God knows how sensible I was of this and of what was most convenient to have been put into this Decree which as your Lordship may remember was that all those Evasions should have been pulled up by the roots that so no Gate might have been left open for tricks for I would fain know why Prescription Immemorial Possession and Erections should hinder the Church or the Legislator from reforming Abuses and from doing what is most expedient for the Common-wealth For from the time that Abuses may be defended by Immemorial Custom a door is shut against all Remedies for the future and all Sins may plead Prescription In a word the Legates acted in this as they do in every thing else that is they would not suffer the Court of Rome to be deprived of so great a profit and for that reason did according to their Custom favour the Chapters against the Bishops pretending as an Auditor of the Camara who is since made a Cardinal said once publickly That the Honour of the Apostolical See was supported by the Chapters Your Lordship may see by this how well they know what they do and what likelihood there is of having any thing redressed here I have sent your Lordship a Memorial of the Council of Castile which was made before this Council was called as also the Pragmatica of Madrid Which orders no Benefices or Pensions to be bestowed upon Strangers with several other things This Memorial was put into my hands by the Council and I sent it with another as big or bigger
to his Majesty in the Year 1545. Vainly imagining at that time that something might have been done in earnest at Trent and that the time of our redemption was come but since it would now only trouble your Lordship to read it I forbear to send it to you but shall cite Things out of it as there shall be occasion being prepared whenever your Lordship shall command it and there shall appear any hopes of its doing any good to write a Book upon the same Subject if it shall be thought necessary There is one thing I am always positive in which is That whatsoever Spain is in possession of and doth justly defend that she ought not to suffer it to be called in question nor seek to have it granted by the Council no not though it were free and much less from such a Council as this for it is our business to be always Defendants and not Plaintiffs and especially considering how things are carried here where it is plain the Pope and his Ministers will carry whatever they have a mind to though never so much to our prejudice This is what I have always said and advised Your Lordship will see by this that the first Chapter of the Memorial that was delivered to the Legate relating to Benefices with Cure was not well weighed it being prejudicial to Spain which ought to keep it self upon the Defensive Whoever he was that drew up that Memorial was not throughly acquainted with these Affairs as appears by his having said that the Rule of Language ought to be observed as if that were the whole business or the sole Reason why Benefices should be bestowed only on the Natives Whereas in truth it is an Institution founded on Divine Natural and Humane Justice that as to all sorts of Benefices the Natives ought to be preferred to Strangers notwithstanding they do understand the Language which besides ancient Custom has several Grants to confirm it This with several other Prescriptions for the obviating of Frauds shall at some time or other be published in the Books which I have writ concerning these Affairs the last of which are in defence of the said Pragmatica the first confirming it by the Common Law of Nations and the second by the Municipal Laws of Spain This is all I shall say of Reformation and as to their way of handling Doctrines I have a great deal to say of it I gave your Lordship some time ago an account of the Legate's Conduct here but I have now some thing to add It troubles one to see how those matters are managed and determined here the Legate doing whatever he has a mind to without either numbering or weighing the Opinions of the Divines and Prelates hurrying and reserving the substance of things which ought to have been well weighed and digested to the last Minute the Major part not knowing what they are a doing I mean before the fact for believing that Christ will not suffer them to Err in their Determinations I shall bow down my head to them and believe all the Matters of Faith that shall be decided by them I pray God every body else may do the same But what is chiefly to be noted is That the Eminent Divines that are sent hither by his Majesty namely the Dean and Professors of Lovain Persons so famous for Learning and Piety are never called to the making of the Canons and Doctrines nor suffered to see whether there be any thing amiss in them This is a great fault and is much complained of to the great discredit of all they do a great many taking occasion from thence to have no great regard for their Decrees fearing they may hereafter minister Matter to Controversies It is necessary his Majesty should write warmly concerning this matter to his Ambassador namely Don Francisco commanding him to concern himself earnestly therein for it is a shame that things should be carried thus and such great and eminent Divines should be brought from the end of the World only to Dispute one hour in a Session without being ever so much as thought of after that is over whereas when Matters of Faith are to be determined they ought to be examined with great Application and people ought to tremble when they are about to define new Articles or to declare such as have formerly been determined by the Church and not to pass them as they do in a hurry the Pope's Ministers being for making Articles of Faith of divers Disputable Opinions and against declaring other things which would be of great Moment in remedying the Abuses which are crept into the Aministration of the Sacraments As to all which the Pope and his Ministers are for the fore-mentioned and other Ends continually upon their guard and they having got the Managery and Authority of the Council intirely into their hands do reckon they have got a great prize in Carrying things as they do So that if God do's not by some extraordinary Ways provide for his Church there is no hopes left of ever seeing it either united or reformed for what was it but such doings as these and the taking no care to reform innumerable Abuses that has destroy'd so many Provinces and Kingdoms and it is Justly to be feared that what is done in this Council may endanger the destroying of the rest But that the Church should be reduced to this estate and that Heresies should so much prevail is the accomplishment of what St. Paul saith in the 2d Chapter of his 2d Epist to the Thessalonians Vnless a Departure come first c. Which words are applied expressly by St. Anselm and others to the Church of Rome on account of the fore-mentioned Vices and Abuses which we now see by Experience which Text though it has other Interpretations may God bestow better things on us than we deserve The Legate runs on precipitating things as I writ your Lordship formerly whose design at present is to finish what remains of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the Sacrament of Order in the Session of January intending in two Sessions more to conclude the whole business dispatching that of Matrimony in the first and in the second that of Images the Veneration of Saints the Monastical Vows and I do not know what other things and so conclude I have it from a good hand that four days ago he received a Letter from Cardinal Maffeius who sent him word that the Council would be shut up in May and that he needed not therefore to lay in provisions for any longer time Your Lordship may be pleased to Joyn this to what has formerly been written to you to the same purpose I must tell you farther that this Council drawing so near an end is what all people rejoyce at here exceedingly there being a great many who wish it had never met and for my own part I would to God it had never been called for I am mistaken if it do not leave things worse than it
5. They imagine that by delays and gaining of time they may compass their Ends and that the Council being once suspended some accident or other may intervene which may hinder it from ever meeting any more or that God as some wish may take away his Majesty which I trust in his Mercy he will not do his Life at this time being of so great importance to the Church and to all Christendom Lastly Because if they should put an End to the Council though they should be able to do it in a short time yet they cannot tell how it might succeed or whether the Pope might not be thereby hindred from doing what he judgeth to be most convenient for himself and his Court and if during that time there should happen to be a vacancy of the Holy See whether the Council might not intermeddle therein with more vigor and justice than it did the last time by reason of the doubts and differences which were then on foot Now they reckon they shall be freed from that danger by suspending the Council which will in effect be the same as to dissolve it and the Cardinals will for their own interests be sure to further a thing wherein if there should be a vacancy the Papacy is so much concerned For these and other Reasons it is that the Pope and his Ministers are so desirous of having the Council suspended nevertheless that they may not break with his Majesty nor seem to have done it themselves they do not desire to appear to have been the Authors of it and would have it thrown upon his Majesty being so far as I can perceive in great hopes that the Electors growing sick of the great charge they are at here will be for going home in a short time neither are the Legate and Presidents less desirous of having that done on account of their own private interests The Elector's design in this I mean those of Mentz and Triers For as for Cologne who is an extraordinary Person he referrs himself intirely to his Majesty is of another nature who being such great Princes and Prelates and Servants of his Majesty are willing to return home to look after their own particular Concerns the Rumours they hear of the Tumults in Germany making them judge it necessary that the Council should be suspended and the rather because without the concurrence of France they reckon a Council cannot be celebrated to any purpose or so as to be received by the Germans This makes them to be very earnest to be gone and it is probable they are at this very time solliciting to have leave What remains to be considered is Whether it will be as convenient for his Majesty as for the Pope to have the Council suspended considering the present posture of Affairs and the Rumours of Germany It appearing to be to little purpose to hold a Council for that Province which will never make such a Reformation as is necessary and that too without the concurrence of France Moreover it cannot be for his Majesty's honour that a Council should end as this will in all probability and that in a short time I say this may make it appear to be the wiser course to have the Council put off to a better time than for to have his Majesty involve himself in new difficulties This and divers other things must be well understood by such as observe them with zeal and prudence and as are desirous to direct and serve his Majesty as to which I am sure I am not wanting Now this being supposed to be a business of great moment and that has considerable difficulties and inconveniencies on both sides that must make my judgment about it to be conditional and so far doubtfull as to reckon that That will be most expedient which his Majesty shall command and which shall seem to be so to your Lordship which what-ever it is I shall always approve and follow What I have to offer if no new Matters or Necessities do arise which may require the taking of new Measures in reference to the Affairs of Germany or if no other Methods should be found out or if there be no Secrets as there are commonly with Princes which may persuade the contrary I say what I have to offer under all these Restrictions is That this is not a time to admit or so much as to speak of a Suspension it being much more convenient notwithstanding all the difficulties and disturbances in Germany to have the Council prosecuted and since the Council cannot be suspended without going backward in the present state of affairs this seems to be the best decision of the doubt Since the suspension thereof if I am not deceived will be attended with inconveniencies that are greater beyond all comparison than the prosecution thereof will be notwithstanding it should make no such Reformation as is pretended and is necessary our sins and the iniquity of the times not giving way to it In which case I still speak so as upon no terms whatsoever to give way to the Pope and his Ministers deforming under a pretence of reforming for to canonize Abuses and doing all the mischiefs I have formerly taken notice of at large to your Lordship in none of which from the beginning I have been overseen or deceived And as I have always as your Lordship very well knows urged these matters so I do it still with greater instance Now the thing that is chiefly to be attended to herein is the End of this Suspension both at present and for the future the End as the Philosopher has it being what moves the Agent To this we must apply what has been above noted viz. That as it is for the Service of God that the Council instead of doing good should not be suffered to do mischief So it is likewise for his Majesty's honour that it should not end as we have reason to fear it will which may make it seem advisable to give way to its being suspended or put off to a more convenient time This is really such a difficulty that I do not well know what to say to it only that it would have been a happy thing that this Council had never met which is no more than what I have often wished and declared by reason of the many mischiefs it has already done and is still doing But there is no undoing what is once done unless those people could be brought to recant which they will never be brought to though you should cut their Throats for refusing and as it is to no purpose to think of that so it is to as little purpose either in this or any following Age to hope for any thing of a Reformation from a General Council or for to see any better Order therein than there is in this no not though the French and all other Christian Princes were agreed it not being to be done without making a Schism or some great Breach unless God should be
pleased to remedy things by some other way or for to work a Miracle which we have no reason to expect since there is no necessity of it God having made his Church a perfect Common-wealth by having endued it with Power sufficient to remedy all such matters if through vile Abuses and an insatiable Thirst after Empire she had not reduced her self to such a state as she is in at present or if they who ought to watch were not fallen asleep and whosoever shall go about to persuade himself that things are otherwise than thus do's but deceive himself as they do also that expect that the World as it is at this time divided and every Prince is gaping and contending after Empire that there should ever be a right understanding among them Plato assuring us that where things are so it is in vain to hope for Peace which is never to be expected untill all is brought under one Government The same Truth is confirmed to us likewise by Experience witness the manifold Miseries which have befallen the World since the beginning of the decay of the Empire Which being considered I do not see what can be hoped for at this time or hereafter All this being premised what remains is to enquire into this matter so far as his Majesty's honour is concerned therein Which I do reckon to be so closely linked to the Service of God that there is no separating them without bringing all to ruine What occurrs to me at present why the Council ought not to be suspended is 1. Because a Suspension is earnestly pursued by the Pope and his Ministers which if there were nothing else is reason enough for his Majesty's being against it there being nothing plainer or better known to the World than that their Designs and his Majesty's are quite contrary to one another in these matters 2. Because let a Suspension be brought about as it will his Majesty must bear the whole blame of it and be charged with all the ill consequences that shall attend it For they will be sure according to their old craft to make it his Majesty's and not his Holiness's doing 3. Because the suspending thereof after it has sat so many years and has had so many Debates and Sessions will create a great deal of talk and must make sport for the Hereticks who will not fail to say thereupon That his Majesty gave way to it either because he was not able or did not care to humour the Pope 4. Because any Suspension and especially if it should be at the next Session must in my judgment tend as much to his Majesty's dishonour as it will be in favour of the French who cannot be obliged by any thing so much as that for they will reckon that their having protested against the Council both here and at Rome was what caused it to be suspended neither will there be much notice taken of its having been prosecuted for some time after that was done so long as the French have gained their point at last which was the Suspension of the Council so that unless there should be an extream necessity in relation to God's Service This alone in the present state of his Majesty's affairs is sufficient to hinder him from giving his consent to its being done Lastly If there should be a Suspension it will be necessary that some Prelates should still remain here who if they should be all Spaniards the Churches in Spain will be left desolate neither will their remaining here signifie any thing if they are not a considerable Number Besides as when-ever that happens it will undoubtedly involve his Majesty in new Troubles and Engagements so it will not be possible to assemble the Church so again or if that could be done there will then be no more ground but rather less to hope for any thing of Reformation than there is at present since people will be quite tired out with the length of it We ought not therefore to deceive our selves by promising our selves things which no humane Prudence will suffer us to hope for Having taken notice of the inconveniencies which will attend the suspending of the Council I come now to set down the Advantages which will accrue to his Majesty by having it prosecuted notwithstanding it should not make such a Reformation as is necessary Now in all that I offer on this Head I do still suppose that his Majesty will as he has done hitherto still continue to sollicit his Holiness by all necessary Offices that things may not be carried here at such a scandalous rate as they have been hitherto and that he will take care that no occasion be given to the Council for to disperse it self upon the Prelate's speaking their Minds freely or denying their consent to such matters as are not convenient which is a thing that may very justly be feared The first Advantage is That since the times will not give way to more a Council will still have been celebrated by his Majesty And in having done that notwithstanding all the Disputes Wars and Contentions to the contrary his Majesty will have gained his main Point and there will be but few who will know the truth of matters and especially in succeeding Ages 2 Though there should not be such a Reformation in all things as is necessary there will be in all matters of Doctrine and it will be a great Point to have all such matters decreed and made perpetual For suppose the Hereticks should seek out flaws in the Council to excuse their not receiving it that will be no new thing and it is probable they would do the same if the whole Church were reformed but they will not last long after the Church has done all that was in her power For after this is once done his Majesty and other Christian Princes will have wherewith to compell the Hereticks when any good juncture shall happen or when they shall judge it to be convenient And for other things Remedies may be found for them 3. After the Council has done all it can as to Doctrines if through the opposition of the Pope and his Ministers a Reformation cannot be obtained which I do verily believe they will never consent to neither in a Council nor out of one Besides that his Majesty will by what he has done have discharged a great Duty he will also be better able to justifie his calling Provincial Councils and his making use of all other just and pious Methods for the remedying and reforming of his Kingdoms than he would be otherwise That being no more than what has been done formerly and may in the judgment of all pious and learned Men be repeated again 4. By how much the War goes on increasing there is the greater necessity of the Council's being continued in order to the prosecuting of one of the chief Ends for which it was assembled which was the making of Peace among all Christian Princes For which and several other good
he was pleased at every Turn to style Universal has never been admitted into that Number and as it was only an Oeconomical and not an Oecumenical Council so we feel to this Day of what Disadvantage it was to the Church besides Truths which have been once established by Councils namely that of Constance can never be shaken afterwards it not being possible that what was once a Truth and dictated by the Holy Spirit should ever be otherwise Now according to this reckoning our Council of Trent must be the Eleventh Synod notwithstanding neither the Pope nor his Legates are willing to have it reckoned so who at the opening thereof were in a great perplexity how to rank it This is the Account of the Universal Synod for albeit there were Councils celebrated by the Apostles and from which all succeeding Councils do derive all their Authority This reckoning commences nevertheless from that of Nice which consisted of 318 Fathers because Christians from the Time of Constantine have had the Liberty to assemble together after that of Nice from which the Canons of General Councils do commence the Councils of Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon were celebrated which four having been venerated by St. Austin and St. Gregory as the four Gospels does not lessen the Authority of the following Councils that were lawfully assembled This being premised the way of proceeding in past Universal Councils comes now to be observed and that in order to discover how different it was from the procedure of this present Council and how great Inconveniencies do follow thereupon the way of convocating prosecuting and finishing being quite contrary in those and this Council All the Eight General Councils having been called by the Emperours the Fathers injoying an intire Liberty in the prosecution of them and the whole Authority being lodged in the Body of the Council and if the Pope's Legates did at any time delay their coming the Council if there was an urgent Necessity did its Work without them as appears from the Definition of the Eighth Council made before the Arrival of the Legates which runs thus Having long expected the Arrival of the Vicars of the Elder Rome and it not being just to wait any longer for them it appearing to us an absurd thing to neglect the lost Church of Christ by such delays we do of Necessity denounce c. The same is to be met with in the Gests of the Second Ephesine Council which after having advertized Julius a Bishop Hilarius a Deacon and Dulcitius a Notary the Vicars of Pope Leo that the Council was to assemble next Day desiring them therefore to make haste to come to them upon their not appearing when they were expected Talasius Bishop of Caesarea said Besides that our remaining in this City is a great prejudice to the most Religious and Holy Bishops and their Churches the most Pious and Christian Emperour would have us to hasten the End of this Synod that so he may be acquainted with what shall be decreed therein Wherefore the Synod having done what was proper and convenient for it in having invited the Vicars of the most Holy Friend of God Archbishop Leo I am of opinion that since they have refused to assemble with us that we ought not to use any farther Delays This is to the purpose as to what is doing here at this time Finally whatsoever was offered and commanded to be observed by Universal Councils being for that reason of inviolable Authority it did not want the Confirmation of the Pope to give any thing of Validity to it neither was it for that but for other honest and just Ends that they first began to make use of that Confirmation there being no reason why what is determined by a General Council by the Direction of the Holy Ghost should have its Truth in suspence so as to depend on the Will of any Person for what is once true must be always so This is manifest to all but Parasites or such as seek by Tricks utterly to destroy the Authority of General Councils of which a great deal might be said had I not something else in my Eye at present I shall therefore only observe that the Argument drawn by those People on which they lay so much stress from Pope Leo and his Legates contradicting the Council of Chalcedon as to what it had ordained relating to the Chairs of Constantinople and Alexandria is not of so great Weight as they imagine and represent it to be in their Histories seeing that Council notwithstanding that Contradiction did still adhere to its Determination and which after having been observed for several Years was at last confirmed by the Sixth General Council but to return to the Direction of General Councils There was as has been already observed an entire Liberty in them their whole Authority being lodged in the Body of their Assembly as is plain from the Councils themselves the Pope's Legates having no other than an honorary Presidence in them and the privilege of voting first the Presidents Vt interloquerentur definirent being named by the Emperour and styled Judices discretivi as is plainly to be seen in the Council of Chalcedon and in the Eighth Council also in which in the first Action they spoke as follows Our Emperours have sent us their Servants and who are called his Senators to be discreet Hearers of all that shall be transacted After which the Father 's celebrated the Council and spoke and determined matters with an entire Liberty So that as we have no reason to doubt of their having been assisted by the Holy Ghost in all their Determinations we have as little reason to doubt of the Council it self having ordered and governed every thing for besides that the thing is reasonable in it self it is no more than what is of Divine Right and was expresly determined by the Council of Constance It is manifest likewise from the Council of the Apostles in which St. Peter as we see notwithstanding he was the Prince and Universal Pastor of the Church did not preside with Authority or a co-ercive Power on the contrary it is plain that the whole Power was in the Assembly and as in the fifteenth of the Acts the Determination was pronounced by James so it is said there that Peter rising up in the midst of the Brethren said c. which Action of standing up is an Argument of his not having pretended to an Authoritative Presidency for if he had he would have sate and not have rise to speak as is well observed by Abulensis though Turrecremata and others of his Stamp do interpret this as they think fit the same appears likewise from the Council mentioned in the thirteenth of the Acts where it is said when Samaria had received the Word of God they sent Peter and John c. To which and a great deal more Turrecremata Cajetan and others of their Party give a general Answer that St. Peter did that purely out of
the Authority of the Council that the Prelates should not have the courage to treat freely about Reformation they never gave them leave to treat thereof any other way than as has been mentioned it being their whole business to make a Party as if what they were about were a huckstering matter or were the compounding of a Law-suit in all which courses it is certain the Holy Ghost did not assist striving still to authorize Abuses and giving the World to understand that the Pope is gracious in granting them any thing as if all were his own taking Abuses though never so pernicious and splitting them as they thought good by which Artifice that part of the Abuse which was approved of by the Synod becomes perpetual and for the part that was reprobated they will according to their custom find ways to defeat its condemnation To which end the Legates have given the Fathers to understand that they have a Golden Bull which shall approve of all that shall be done Now let any one judge whether this be a true way of celebrating a Council or of making a Reformation for upon this foot it was debated here that the Reformation might be made at Rome as it is in effect and not by the Council nothing having been done here but what was ordained at Rome so that if every thing that is any ways prejudicial to the Council is not done here the World has reason to thank them for it But besides all this and the Synods not having the managery of it self there is nothing can be so much as to put the Vote without the consent of the Legates who notwithstanding by reason of the great Number of Pensioners which the Pope has here are always sure of a Majority do nevertheless make use of strange Tricks in their conduct of the Council Besides by having made their own Creatures the Secretaries Notaries and all the other Officers of the Council they have made it thereby a body Tot habens aedituos uti sacrae aedis custodes and without any thing of Soul or strength in it Whereas all those Officers ought to have been appointed by the Council and especially the Notaries for otherwise what security can the Council have that they will write down any thing that they do not know to be agreeable to the Pope and the Legates or at least that they will not stifle the Truth or express it so as shall amount to the same So if they who made the Protestation at Bononia had not had Notaries and Witnesses of their own they would have suffered sufficiently on that occasion This is the course that has been hitherto taken in the Council of Trent which is employed rather in strugling with the Pope and his Legates who seek to ingross all to themselves than in reforming and remedying the Evils under which the Church groans I pray God it do not increase them by the course it takes which is by Artifice and Dissimulation so far to reduce the whole Synod to the Will of the Pope that it shall be the same thing for the Pope alone to deliberate of things at Rome with his Creatures as for the Fathers here assembled to do it which is the truth of the matter the Council being really at Rome and at Trent nothing but the Execution of it The substance of all that is done here being sent hither determined from Rome and being what the Pope with the Cardinals deputed there to that purpose and who do meet together continually have determined before-hand So that it may be truly said that we are here in a Convention of Bishops but not in a Council I wish these be not the last days Whether things will continue to be carried on thus to the End of the Council I know not but I do very much suspect they will and that for this reason because they cannot be put into a better way for the Pope's purposes and his Legate's who is coming who supposing he were willing to remedy things so far as it is possible to do it by the way they are in yet considering the times and the present posture of things it is by no means convenient to run the risk of it for which reason divers are of opinion that since no remedy can be expected it would have been much better not to have celebrated a Council at this time but to have waited until God had put the Christian Commonwealth in a better disposition than it is in at present or till this period which cannot last long had been over than to have celebrated one after this manner with so little fruit to the great sorrow of Catholicks the scorn of Hereticks and the prejudice of the present and all future Councils and what makes me immoveable in such thoughts of the conduct of this Council is the very Legation that is sent hither by his Holiness being so contrived that nothing could have been invented more proper for compassing of his designs in having sent but one Legate with two presidents For which though they give another colour neither have I seen their Powers it is manifest that their design therein is to reduce all to a Monarchical Order and Authority and to have all Affairs managed by one sole confident to prevent the differences that might arise betwixt three Legates whereas since their business here is to preside had it not been for that reason they would all three have been called so It is true that the word Legate signifies an Embassadour of the Pope or of any other Prince nevertheless according to the Style of the Court of Rome and of modern Lawyers none but Cardinals are styled Legates à latere others though employed in the same business being called by other Titles as Nuncio or as these are here Presidents from their business which is to preside which Title they take care frequently to inculcate that they may be thought to observe the ancient Custom of the Apostolical See of sending three Legates to Councils notwithstanding two of them have not the same Authority with the third After the same manner the Senate sent Ten Embassadours to Caesar when he was fighting with the barbarous Nations to be Councellours to him with whose assistance and advice he did great things Pompey in the piratical War had likewise twenty Five Legates sent to him the Ancients using so to join some with those they sent to govern Provinces that it was doubtfull whether they were their partners or only their companions Of the Office of an Embassadour in the Government of a Council IN case things should be carried in the Council as they have been hitherto as we have reason to believe they will it will then be necessary to find some remedy for it and by later cares if not to revoke at least to repair things so far as may be which though it is a duty incumbent on all it is His Majesty's concern after a special manner who as he is Emperour is Advocate of
if twenty of them are Divines and capable of understanding such matters the greater part of them though otherwise good Men being unlearned and those that are learned are so in other Faculties or if they understand any thing of Divinity it is but at second-hand From hence it is that some in my judgment with good reason have affirmed that the Synod after it is assembled ought to name some learned and eminent Divines and to allow them though they are not Bishops a decisive Voice and that for the stricter Examination of all Matters of Doctrine that are to be defined it is fit likewise that they should consult the most famous Universities as I have said before and as the Embassadour would have had them to have done before they pronounced the Decree of Justification and not to have so much regard to the Plurality of Voices Quia stultorum teste Philosopho infinitus est numerus as to the weight of the judgment of eminent Men to whom this business ought to be committed by the Synod Hinc illud Plinii junioris dictum de quodam Senatus consulto aut quadam Senatus sententia loquentis quod quamvis sibi non probari significans sed hoc pluribus inquit visum numerantur enim sententiae non ponderantur Farthermore Though the Embassadour must be carefull not to quarrel with the Prelates namely the Legates but above all not with the Pope and who must for that reason be carefull to manage affairs with dexterity and modesty nevertheless he must not always sit silent in the Congregations but must at once with modesty and vigour declare what he judgeth to be most convenient and must encourage and oppose as there is occasion Ut intelligant omnes illum os habere ipseque tanti principis legatus minime videatur asymbolus There being nothing that can in reason countervail the Exorbitancies he will suffer being the Emperour's Embassadour and much less the great Bondage the Bishops are brought under Farthermore The Embassadour ought in my opinion to take care not to suffer Doctrines quae sunt praeter fidem to be determined and the rather because there are some in great haste to have it done that so there may be some means of Reconciliation with the Lutherans left I take this to be a thing of the greatest importance considering that the Hereticks who are coming now to reduce themselves which may God of his infinite Goodness give them grace to do will be willing to have some colour given them for their Obedience and Reduction The Articles that are proper for that purpose and over which being of a positive Nature the Synod has power to do what it pleaseth are manifest Farthermore Since as I have observed before the Council is in effect celebrated at Rome there being nothing here but the execution of what comes determined from thence his Majesty's chief care and vigilance must therefore be employ'd at Rome and that there be such an agreement and correspondence setled betwixt his Embassadours that they who are there may advise and direct those that are here and they that are here may do the same to those that are at Rome advising one another particularly of every thing of moment or that may be any ways prejudicial For let the Legates dissemble as much as they please it is manifest things will be concluded here as they are ordered by the Pope and his Deputies Farthermore For-as-much as I have observed before it is a thing of dangerous consequence that the Notaries of the Synod should be all the Legate's creatures the Embassadour must endeavour to bring the Synod to name such to that Office as it shall judge to be fit for it and that the Prelates that are here from his Majesty and the other Nations do either name their own or agree to name some in general Finally Whereas Pope Paul from the beginning gave a Brief to the Legates to suspend or translate the Council when or to what place they should think fit which Brief they kept secret till they had occasion to use it it would likewise be expedient that the Embassadour besides his ordinary Instructions should have a secret Power in form from his Majesty to protest against any Suspension or Translation which the Legates may offer to make since such a case may happen as did before and matters may fall out so that it may be a great prejudice to us not to have such a Power ready A great many more things may happen for which no Rule can be given before-hand it being impossible they should all be comprehended in Instructions and must therefore be left to the prudence and diligence of the Embassadour who can have no such instruction as the observing of past miscarriages The security and guard his Majesty is to give to the Council is likewise a thing of great moment to its liberty and to prevent exorbitancies This and every thing else that is necessary may his Majesty with his holy zeal and ardent desires find out and withall such a remedy for the Church as he hath for a long time been labouring to procure and may he provide such things as are convenient for the Service of God and the Reformation of the Christian Common-wealth His Majesty under God being the Supporter of all the hopes and confidence that the World has of ever seeing things better than they are Dr. Malvenda's Letter of the 12th of Octob. 1551 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord THE Reason why I have been so long in returning an Answer to your Lordship's Letter of the 29th of September was the extraordinary Business we have always just before the Session when we are employ'd in correcting and altering the Decrees and in informing the Bishops by whom Affairs but especially the Matters of Doctrine which are to be placed before the Canons are communicated to us very late so that notwithstanding the substance of those Doctrines may be sound which it is well if it is nevertheless considering that they are to correct them upon a bare hearing them read upon the Eve of the Session that must in my opinion hinder them from having that Authority and Majesty which such Matters do use to have I pray God give them Grace to mend this The Reason why they do thus precipitate such things are these two in my judgment 1. The Divines in the handling and discussing of such Matters no less than the Fathers afterwards are guilty of great Ostentation affecting to speak much to the spending of a great deal of time It being common to have people commended here for having spoke an hour an hour and an half and sometimes two hours which they are now about remedying for the future The Other is the Legate and his Faction industriously putting off the Examination of Doctrines to the very last day which they do on purpose that there may be no time left for the promoting of any Doctrines relating to a Reformation unless
are here and especially the Spaniards are in of a Physician of our own Nation and with some of our Theologues having died here for want of such a one I am told he will desire to have Doctour Gregory Lopez sent hither who I believe will be glad of the Employment I need not tell your Lordship how much I am indebted to the said Doctour for the Journey he took hither at your Lordship's Command I do therefore beseech your Lordship to promote his coming hither again all you can and the rather because the Doctour is so near and the Council is not like to sit long I hope His Majesty will not deny this request which is made to him by the whole Council in a manner The Lord prosper your most Illustrious and Reverend Person and increase your State From Trent the 27th of January 1552. I had forgot to write to you concerning the Disturbance that is raised here by a Clause in the Doctrine of the Sacrament of Order into which without ever having had it disputed or so much as communicated to the Prelates they have foisted in the Authority of the Pope above the Council making as if there were no Office in the Church Bishopricks not excepted that are not of his donation and distribution in contradiction both to the usage of the Primitive Church and to the Truth of things But notwithstanding this business when it was pressed by the Legate had a stop put to it by a suspension of those matters I am informed that the Legate designs to bring them speedily upon the Stage again and particularly that Clause which will be of so great prejudice not only to Germany which after the Pope's Authority is once declared to be superior to that of Councils will never have any regard for such Assemblies but to all that part of Christendom likewise which follows the Conclusion of the Synods of Constance and Basil which the University of Paris and the whole Kingdom of France do I am of opinion that so weighty a matter as this is ought not to be handled Ex incidenti but De proposito and at the End of the Council though considering the inconveniencies which will attend its being any ways determined it would certainly be the best course not to meddle with it at all But the Legate seeing a great many Dominicans here and a great Number of Spanish Prelates who do generally follow St. Thomas he is very earnest to have it proposed again hoping he may be able to carry it in the Council It is certainly a very unseasonable thing so that it would be well if there were an Order against medling with it in this Conjuncture since the determination thereof will infallibly drive away the Lutherans and destroy the Authority of the Decrees of the Council in a great many Provinces I do suppose Don Francisco will write to His Majesty about this I do kiss your Lordship's Hands P. de Malvenda The Difficulties I have mentioned with greater which are expected upon the Arrival of the Protestants and the Legate and his Creatures customary opposition have made Don Francisco for to judge it necessary since the Court is so near to send the Senior Fiscal to it to inform His Majesty and your Lordship at large how things stand here as a Person who knows well how to do it and how to take time by the forelock I will tell you one thing that is certainly true which is that if the said Fiscal should be perswaded to take this Journey the desire he has to see your Lordship will be his main inducement to it and so I do believe he may depart from hence in two Days Dr. Malvenda's Letter of the 26th of February 1552 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord YOur Lordship in what you say of the Fiscal is certainly in the right it being no more than what I have always known of him I am in his debt for the good Office he did me in reciting the Calendar to his Majesty wherein I do believe that might happen to him that is said of Cicero the Flower of Orators that he was come to the Lees nevertheless I thank him as much as if he had drawn nothing but pure Wine out of it The Resolution he has brought is extreamly well concerted and the most convenient for our affairs that could possibly have been made and it appears so to the Elector of Cologne to whom I reported it as it did also to Mentz nevertheless as your Lordship will see by Don Francisco's Letter the Legate will do all that is possible to defeat it and especially if the Lutherans should come He seems to have begun it already by having adjourned the Congregations untill he has received an Answer from the Pope and for to imagine that we shall ever have any alteration made here in any thing that comes determined from Rome is to look after the fifth Foot of a Ship I have from the Elector of Cologne acquainted the Embassadour with the Message that was sent him by the Legate which was That he believed the Council would not proceed notwithstanding he laboured all he could to keep it on foot He has begun likewise to drop some words as if the Italian Bishops would not be persuaded to tarry any longer if a Session were not held when at the same time it is manifest that it is he that hinders it by delays Pray God grant them a better mind than I have hitherto been able for to observe in them Whatever your Lordship shall do for the Bishop of Castellamar will certainly be well bestowed as will also what you shall do for Father Abbot Upon Doctour Olivares going with the Queen We gave over all hopes of having Gregory Lopez sent to us which was no small trouble to the Council in which the Bishops have distempers enough but have not one Physician to take care of their health I begin now God be praised for it to recover in earnest though I have a defluxion still that falls every Morning from my Head down into my Neck with no small pain which growing every Day less I take to be a good sign Erastus when he was here promised that when he returned from Spain he would dispatch that business of mine I must therefore intreat your Lordship to command him to remember it that it may according to his promise be dispatched by the next Currier that goes to Spain May our Lord preserve your Lordship's most Illustrious and Reverend Person and increase your State I kiss your Lordship's Hands P. Malvenda From Trent the 26th of February 1552. Don Francisco de Toledo's Letter of the 1st of December 1551. to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious Lord THE multitude of business we have always just before the Session and the shortness of time we are allowed to do it in hindered me till now from returning Answers to your Lordships Letters which I shall now do to them all four of
discontented he has locked himself up and does not care that any body should see him I am apt to believe the jealousies he has conceived of the Affairs at Rome are the chief Cause of his Illness For I am told he has received advice of the Pope's making more use of some of the new Cardinals than he would have had him Which knowing the easiness of the Pope's temper has put him into a great fright I must intreat your Lordship again to dispatch the Fiscal with all possible expedition for the reasons I have formerly given as I do also that you would send Dr. Gregory Lopez to us quickly who is every day more and more wished for here by the Prelates who are in great want of him The Electour of Triers is extreamly earnest for a licence to go home and has desired one of His Majesty if he does not feign he is very much indisposed and who though he was never very eloquent is now less than ever he was being neither able to speak nor understand a word that is said to him May our Lord preserve and prosper your Lordship's most Illustrious Person and increase your State Your Lordship 's most obliged Servant Don Francisco de Toledo From Trent the 7th of February 1552. The Bishop of Oren's Letter of the 12th of October 1551 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord YOur most Reverend Lordship has just cause to thank God for your having got so able a Minister to conduct and countenance the Affairs of this Holy Council which do now begin to have some life in them neither have we any reason to fear but that God who now begins to restore his Church to life again by the Ministry of our Lord the Emperour will restore His Majesty's Health that so he may be able to do things that will force his Enemies to confess that God is on his side The Session that was celebrated yesterday was so full of Grandure and Holiness as to give us fresh hopes of which since the Embassadours must have given an account I have nothing to say but only that God did certainly inspire His Majesty in commanding the Communion Sub utraque specie and of Infants to be suspended which being things whereon so much stress is laid in those Provinces it would have been a great Errour for to have determined them in the first Session without having heard the Protestants The Embassadours of the King of the Romans have given us a great deal of trouble in this matter by having affirmed that to be of Divine Right as your Lordship must have been informed nevertheless by their having since submitted themselves to the correction of the Council that danger is over The Messengers of the Marquiss of Brandenburg have given us great satisfaction whose Master by having submitted himself in earnest to all the determinations of the Council has given a good Example so that should the Count Palatine Maurice and Wittenburg but do the same when they come we should recover perfect hopes of remedy Every thing has been done in this Session that His Majesty had ordered and in my judgment as was most convenient only one thing excepted and against which I gave my Vote which was its being declared in the last Canon that Sacramental Confession is necessary to be made before the Celebration which though in it self very just and certain nevertheless since we are in the next Session to handle Sacramental Confession and to argue whether Vocal Confession is necessary and whether it is of Divine Right and who is the Minister thereof I say since all this is then to be treated of and determined I was against having had it declared in this Session that Confession was daily necessary and the rather because it has not as yet been declared to be so annually For though it is probable that they who are to argue it pro and con may make no difficulty in that point nevertheless I was for having every thing that related to Sacramental Confession determined in the next Session First as to all its Generals and afterwards as to all its particulars whereas the Protestants will now say that there is no room left for them to dispute about it since it is already declared in this to be necessary but since my Vote did not take effect I will believe that what has been done was best As to what concerns a Reformation His Majesty's Assistance will be found to be necessary to it who must set himself about it in earnest both with the Pope and the Fathers for if he does not we shall have our Wounds only skinned over but shall have the rotten Core left to the corrupting of all quickly again for my own part I cannot see nor perceive any thing that looks like warmth for a Reformation in the Presidents On the contrary they have told us plainly that we must accept of what they will be pleased to give us without offering to speak a word for any more this is enough to let your most Reverend Lordship see what is most convenient to be done for God's and His Majesty's Service and you are to know farther that the Prelates here are all very much troubled to see with how ill a Grace People that say any thing of a Reformation are heard The Answer to the King of France and the safe Conduct of the Protestants are conformable to what His Majesty had ordered and so shall every thing be to the Commands he shall send God preserve your Lordship's most Illustrious and Reverend Person and increase your State Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Your Servant The Bishop of Oren. From Trent the 12th of October 1551. The Bishop of Oren's Letter of the 28th of November 1551 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord IN your Illustrious Lordship's last Letter to me of the Ninth of November I received a signal Favour as I shall always do in knowing that I am capable of serving your Lordship It was a great Service of His Majesty the Embassadours acquainted us withall viz. His Majesty's having ordered that nothing be treated of that shall be to the prejudice of the Prelates by which means all the Discourse that was here about Benefices is turned to other matters which they call a Reformation as your Lordship will see by the Canons which are sent by the Embassadours of which we accepted because as your Illustrious Lordship had wisely advised it is necessary we should tread warily and at present accept of what they will give us But the mischief is that they are sensible of this our patience and so do discover little or no inclination for to do any thing that deserves the Name of a true Reformation notwithstanding as your Lordship well observes several things might be done that would be of great advantage to the People and would be no prejudice to His Holiness or to his Court May God remedy things under whom unless His Majesty and
not redressed This is a thing His Majesty ought to go about with that zeal and warmth wherewith it was handled in a Congregation of this Council and the rather because as the hopes we have given us that His Majesty will take care of such things are a great comfort to us so they have kept us from making that opposition that was necessary for People who are to give an account to God of what they shall do here I do not write to His Majesty concerning this because I do not care to be troublesome and do reckon it to be the same thing to acquaint your Lordship therewith I do beg it of your Lordship that you would make use of my service since there is nothing I am so ambitious of as of serving you in all things whose most Illustrious and Reverend Person may our Lord preserve and increase your State for his own holy Service and the good of the Church D. V. S. Your most assured Servant The Bishop of Astorga From Trent the 26th of November 1551. The Bishop of Pamplona's Letter of the 29th of January 1552 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord AFter having writ the Letter that goes with this as they do both with the Senior Fiscal who I am certain will deliver them My being sensible how much you delight in being kind to your Servants has encouraged me to beg some farther Favours of you The case most Reverend Lord is in Spain they demand the Subsidy which the Pope granted to His Majesty on the fruits of the Churches for the Year 1549 only which ought accordingly to have been raised out of those fruits Now most Reverend Lord in the Year 1549 I neither was a Bishop nor dreamt of being one it being the 27th of June 1550 on which day my Church was proposed at Rome before I was a Bishop Now it appears to me to be a very hard thing that they should make me pay for that that I never injoyed and that he that received it who was Don Antonio de Fonseca my Predecessour should be excused and especially considering that he has still more from the Bishoprick than I have to this they answer that I must pay the Subsidy and afterwards come upon him for it Now what reason can there be for my paying what I do not owe and if I do pay it whereon shall I have to live It would certainly be much more just considering how the Bishoprick is loaded and my great Poverty to exempt me from that Subsidy there not being a Bishop in Spain that has so many reasons for to be exempted as I have I must therefore supplicate your Lordship to favour your Servants as you use to do when there is so much cause for it Another thing is His Majesty was pleased to let me keep the Pension of Carthagena but in consideration thereof commanded me to pay 400 Ducats to one Espinola of Genoua and whereas I paid the said Ducats in broad Money the Bishop of Carthagena will not pay me but in Ducats de Camara according to their antient Value notwithstanding by an Order that I saw His Majesty commanded him to pay Don Sancho de Castilla His Majesty's Chaplain in broad Money and I am told by Dr. Malvenda likewise that he is commanded by His Majesty to pay all that he is in Arrear since he had that Bishoprick in large Ducats I must therefore intreat your Lordship to procure such an Order for me which I shall esteem as a signal Favour May our Lord prosper your Lordship's most Illustrious and Reverend Person for many Years and increase your State as your Servants desire Most Illustrious Lord I kiss your Most Reverend Lordships Hands Your Servant The Bishop of Pamplona From Trent the 29th of January 1552. The Bishop of Pamplona's Letter of the 20th of February 1552 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord I Have by divers Letters acquainted your Illustrious Lordship with what has passed concerning a Dignity called the Hospitalery in the Church of Pamplona which became void by the Death of the Licentiate Don Martin de Aguierre a professed Canon of the Order of St. Austin to which Dignity in conformity to the Statutes and Rights of the said Church I did by my Vicar on the 7th of December last collate Don Martin de Sant Ander a Man of a good Life and Learning and withall a Preacher I have likewise informed your Illustrious Lordship how great a prejudice it will be not only to the said Church but to the City and whole Kingdom if that Dignity should be given to any one that is not a Canon the deceased having founded a College for fourteen poor Students who are to have their Lodging Diet and Teaching gratis which was a very necessary Work there not being a Study in the whole Kingdom The Foundation of the Colledge was laid before I left Pamplona so that there wanted nothing but his Holiness and Majesty's consent to it Now the greatest part of this Endowment being raised out of the Revenues of the said Dignity should any one that is not a Canon be preferred to it the College will come to nothing Whereas if a Canon has it it will hold Farthermore all the Dignities of Pamplona being regular should this be given to one that is no Canon he will receive the profits without doing the Church any service since without being a Canon he cannot go into the Quire and so will be as a Woolf in eating the profits without serving God Now having received information that the said Dignity is exposed to Sale at Rome to see who will give most for it a very honourable Reformation for the Council we are in I could not both for His Majesty's Service and the discharge of my own Conscience forbear acquainting His Majesty therewith supplicating him to defend his own Patronage and not to suffer the said Church City and Kingdom to have such a wrong done them on which occasion and to kiss your Illustrious Lordship's Hands I have sent this by a Servant and with it a Memorial to his Majesty in which I give him a full Account of the case wherefore I must beseech your Lordship notwithstanding the Bishop may not deserve it to let the said Holy Church and Kingdom for to have your favour and that you would not deny it to them that so they may never forget your Illustrious Lordship in their Sacrifices and Prayers as their Benefactour which as your Lordship's Servant and Prelate of the said Church I do promise you they shall not But besides the Conclavist whom I mention in the Memorial I hear that Senior Balduino Monte his Holiness's Brother pretends to give that Dignity to I do not know whom Your Illustrious Lordship would do me a great favour if you would be pleased to write to him that the Church of Pamplona and the Ordinary thereof may not be wronged which kindness would be very much inhansed if
His Majesty would write likewise to the said Baldwin about it and would charge his Embassadour Don Diego de Mendoza to look after it I beseech your Lordship to have compassion on the Bishop who is your Lordship's and that holy Church City and Kingdom 's Creature I had writ thus far when your Lordship's Letter of the 17th instant came to my Hand by the way of Dr. Malvenda with which I received a signal Favour and which is greater than I am able to express in understanding thereby how well disposed your most Reverend Lordship is to do me any kindness May God give me strength to be able to serve your Lordship as much as I am bound and am willing to serve you As to the Letters to which your Lordship has received no Answer to that which was of greatest importance I returned an Answer by the way of Dr. Malvenda and to the first by the Bishop of Oviedo and it goes to my very Soul that your Lordship did not receive them As to the Dignity having as your Lordship will see writ concerning it before I received your Lordship's Letter I have nothing to add but only to supplicate your Lordship again to do me the Favour therein that I have desired And as to the Subsidy the best way that I can think of for the payment of it is to make me Captain of the Band of one and twenty Pensioners with the seven thousand Ducats I am owing to them and with my great Poverty and the other Debts I have upon me and if this will not do for the payment of what I do not injoy I believe a Letter from your Lordship to the Bishop of Lugo might go a great way towards it to whom your most Reverend Lordship may be pleased to write that since my Predecessour Don Antonio de Fonseca received all the Fruits of those Years and who at this time receives more Rent out of the Bishoprick than I do that it is but just that he that owes it and not he who does not should pay it As to what your Lordship writes concerning the Shedule of Carthagena I do kiss your Lordship's Hands for that Favour and do beg it of your Lordship that you would command it to be done wherein your Lordship will do me both a favour and justice and that without doing any injury to the Bishop I do likewise kiss your most Reverend Hands for the Kindness you promise to do me with the Legate and with some other Persons and I do beseech your most Reverend Lordship when you write to the Legate to mention the Church of Pamplona to him and that it may not be wronged I am much pleased with the last Article in your most Reverend Lordship's Letter I pray God the dispatch the Fiscal is to bring may be for his Service and that of His Majesty and the quiet of Germany May our Lord prosper your Lordship's most Illustrious and Reverend Person and increase your State I kiss your most Reverend Lordship's Hands Your Servant The Bishop of Pamplona From Trent the 20th of February 1552. Here follows half a dozen Lines writ with the Bishop's own Hand which I was not able to read The Bishop of Pamplona's Letter of the 27th of February 1552 to the Bishop of Arras Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord BY the letter I sent to your most Reverend Lordship by my Servant I acquainted you with the wrong they are about to do the Bishop of Pamplona and to whom a greater cannot be done and not to him only but to that Church and Kingdom on an account of the College but being sensible how forward your Lordship is to do favours I cannot forbear begging of you Nam ut placet Chrysostomo petentis negligentia reprehenditur ubi de dantis misericordia non dubitatur For which reason I do return to supplicate your most Reverend Lordship for to stand our friend and since delays in such cases are very dangerous I who am your Lordship's Creature would esteem it a great Kindness if you would be pleased to write to the Legate about this Affair and to let him know how unreasonable a thing it is in the time of a Council instead of a Reformation to help us to a Deformation and especially when the Bishop of the place is serving God and His Majesty at it and at a greater expence than he is able to bear it will be necessary likewise that your Lordship should with His Majesty's Letters write one your self to the Embassadour Don Diego de Mendoza which if it is not dispatched quickly will I fear come too late And that your most Reverend Lordship may have a perfect knowledge of the wrong that will be done thereby to the Bishop the Church and the whole Kingdom your Lordship is to understand that in former times when Navarre was under petty Kings who had scarce Bread to put in their Mouths the Popes never offered to dispose of any Preferment therein and especially in the Cathedral Church in all which times there is no President of their having done any such thing and shall we now when under so powerfull a King and who is so well able to defend his Kingdoms endure to have such things imposed upon us as those petty Kings would never have suffered Now were there nothing else but this I think it is enough to engage your Lordship to defend me and that Kingdom I forgot to tell your Lordship in my former that the French Licentiate is my Enemy though I do not know for what unless it be for his being a friend to Verio who is one of the Council and besides Archdeacon and Canon of the Church This Verio having forgot that it is his Office to do justice and hinder all Violences abuseth the Royal Authority in doing them himself and in having turned a Procuratour for all desperate Causes with whom being armed with the Royal Authority no body dares contend I beseech your Lordship to write to the said French Licentiate to favour my Causes so far as they are just and not to do the contrary who being a Creature of your Lordships as I am likewise ought for that reason to do me justice I must intreat your most Reverend Lordship not to be offended with my Letters since I have no other Patron to succour me in my Necessities The Fiscal Vargas has since he arrived here been so taken up with business that he has scarce suffered any body to see him But being yesterday at the Sermon which was preached by the Archbishop of Granada he told me by the bye and in general upon my asking him what resolution he had brought that His Majesty was against any change or having the Council prorogued nevertheless we do no more since his Arrival than we did before but do still continue here idle May our Lord prosper your Lordship's most Illustrious and Reverend Person and increase your State Most Illustrious Lord I kiss your Most Reverend Lordship's Hands Your
grant by which means things are thrown into such a terrible Confusion that the Catholicks as well as the Protestants are for having the Council suspended among other things saying openly that they do not care to be judged by one Nation and that though the Council should be continued never so long it would never make such a Reformation as is necessary nor will have any other effect but the lessening of the Authority of Councils and that in case His Majesty should do his Duty in urging to have such a Reformation he will undoubtedly embroil himself thereby with the Pope But supposing there were no harm in that so long as His Majesty does nothing but what is his Duty and convenient for the Service of God The worst of all is that no fruit can be expected from any such endeavours since they will thereupon either translate or dissolve the Council as they shall think most convenient to the robbing of Councils of that Authority which is the only refuge and remedy the Church has when disturbed by Controversies about Religion it being most certain that the Germans on the Terms they are on at present will not only not receive this Council but they will pretend that they are released from the Observation of the Interim which was to last only till the definition of a Council and will impugn this and that with too much colour among their own People who are not rightly informed of the Authority of the Church for the Council to which the Controversie was remitted not having adjusted it there can be no agreement And as it is certain that they will insist on their Religion so His Majesty will die sooner than consent to it For which and several other Reasons which have been weighed by His Majesty he is come to a resolution to write to his Embassadours about it As to what you write to me particularly I have communicated it three several times to His Majesty who continues fixt not to do any thing therein without the advice of his Embassadours whom he will have to send their opinions to him in writing which considering that his Embassadours are Men of Integrity and will keep whatever is done secret he takes to be the best Course This is made still the more difficult by the present State of things in which if the resolution his Majesty has taken has its effect there will be no necessity of entertaining any thoughts of that other Course It would do well therefore that you should propose what you have to offer as a thing I had writ to you about or spoke to you of when you were here and that you should write likewise to His Majesty desiring that your Letter may be kept secret and recommending Secrecy as to all things that are done at Trent In fine now we are on these Terms you must not fail to employ all your industry and diligence that what His Majesty is compelled by the iniquity of the times to condescend to may be done as much to his advantage as it is possible The following part is lost A Copy of a Letter of the Bishop of Arras to Dr. Vargas Magnificent Sir DEsigning to return Answers to all the Letters I find my self indebted to you for when His Majesty does the same to his dispatches I shall not inlarge in this which I write only on the occasion of Secretary Erastus going to Trent to advise you of my being in health thanks to God for it and extreamly desirous to have something wherein I may serve you which whensoever any occasion shall offer I shall do with an intire good Will Our Lord preserve you A Copy of a Letter of the Bishop of Arras of the 16th of February 1552 in answer to a Letter of Dr. Malvenda of the 27th of January 1552. Magnificent Sir I Was overjoyed at my coming to know the Fiscal Vargas by sight and discourse and though I had always reckoned him a very able Minister yet I do now find him to be a much greater Man than I thought he was I have been informed by him of all the difficulties you have encountred with as well in the business of the safe Conduct for the Protestants as in the Propositions which have been made The Legate must not certainly have studied the Affairs of Germany much nor the Books that are wrote therein that he is so much offended at what they have said in the Council The said Fiscal carries His Majesty's entire resolution as to all Affairs which he knows very well how to report He has acquainted me with the pains you have taken notwithstanding your sickness would not allow you to do what you would have done otherwise I was glad to hear him speak so well of the Bishop Castellamar of whom you know I had a good opinion before That Prelate may rest satisfied that whenever there is occasion I shall not forget to represent his Merits to His Majesty I pray God it may be of advantage to him Being desirous to do something for the Study of Barcelona I ordered a Memorial to be given in about it some days ago in conformity of what the Procuratour Gualby had writ to me concerning it Before we left Ausburg I desired His Majesty to give Dr. Gregory Lopez leave to go to a place whither I would gladly have sent him but could not obtain it His Majesty alledging that the Court having no other Spanish Physician but him and Olivares could not possibly spare him and much less can it be expected now that His Majesty should give way to his going to the Council since the Queen of Bohemia has with great importunity got Olivares to go with her It is a wonderfull thing to me that so many Spanish Prelates should not have brought a Physician with them or that being so near to Italy they should not all this while have sent for some Eminent Doctour who I suppose might have made a good business of it I do assure you I have done in this all that was possible for me and I can do no more Our Lord preserve you From Inspurg the 16th of February 1552. A Copy of the Bishop of Arras's Letter of the 9th of November 1551 in answer to two Letters of Dr. Malvenda's of the 12th of October and the 8th of November 1551. Magnificent Sir I Find my self two Letters in your debt the last of which came to me since I arrived here where if any thing can make me dispense with the Commodities of this place it will be my being so near Trent that we can almost shake Hands together I am infinitely glad that the Session was celebrated with so much Authority but the thing that troubles me is the resolution they are come to about the ways of proceeding having left the old known Methods and which is worst of all there is no remedy for it for though they know well enough what would be most convenient they will never yield to it so that without running a