that they might be free from all tyes of Duty Faith Obedience and Acknowledgment or Recognition of His Majesties Authority over them c. 1. This general Exception proved manifoldly viz. 1. By four several Instances of such Variation 2. By two notable Observations added to those Instances 3. By examining all and every of the several parts periods or clauses of their said Remonstrance and what their meaning in each must be and consequently by discovering all their subtlety of Ampliations Restrictions Abstractions Constractions Modifications Equivocations Reservations in fine all their Evasions and Subterfuges yea their beloved distinctions as well of Fact and Right as of the reduplicative and specificative sense 4. By Eighteen special Exceptions All from pag. 1. to 20 or last of this Second Treatise First special Instance of such variation and most material change 2. Second special Instance thereof 3. Third special Instance 13. Fourth and last Instance 14. These Instances back'd with two notable Observations more First Observation 16. Second Observation 17. One passage of their Remonstrance examined 2 3 5. Another 4. Two more 6. A Fifth 7. Sixth passage 8. Seventh 9. Their Conclusion 10. And after all the very beginning of their Remonstrance however it be in these words We Your Majesties Subjects the Roman-Catholick Clergy of Ireland together assembled do hereby declare and solemnly protest before God and his Holy Angels That we own and acknowledge Your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supreme Lord and undoubted Sovereign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other His Majesties Dominions This very specious beginning and these very words I say as proceeding from the said National Congregation and as relating to all as well the Clauses inserted after as those purposely omitted is and are evidently proved to signifie a meer nothing 10 11. Eighteen special Exceptions against the said Remonstrance of the National Congregation 18 19 20. In the Third Treatise Which considers the Three first Sorbon Propositions as applied and published by the Dublin Congregation THere can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational Subscribers from their Subscriptions to the said three Propositions added to their Remonstrance than was before intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according to or in that sense of theirs declared and proved to be theirs in the former Treatise Pag. 21. The unreasonable obstinacy of the Congregation as well in framing their said Remonstrance as in applying their said three Propositions both manifestly and manifoldly appears 23. First and second Argument to prove this ib. Third Argument which is ab intrinseco 24. The said three Sorbon Propositions applied c. 25. Four several Explications of the first of those three Sorbon Propositions and all those Explications own'd by the chief Divines of that Congregation ib. First Exposition 25. Second and Third 26. The Fourth and last 29. Expositions questionless even each or every of them able to â—â—ict from any man this confession that for neither of both parâ—s or both together the first Proposition adds nothing at all to their Remonstrance Pag. 30. Their second Proposition lyable to the same Exceptions Abstractions Reservations Equivocations and even Distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense ib. Their third Proposition also how specious soever yet as from them is wholly insignificant as being subject especially to the distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense of fact and of right of humane or temporal and divine or spiritual yea of ordinary and extraordinary c. 31. Third Argument in form 30. Proofs that the three Sorbon Propositions both in themselves and as applyed by the foresaid Congregation are lyable rationally to such Constructions 33. Fourth and Fifth Argument 34. An Evasion obviated 35. The Parisian Censure of Sanctarellus at length 35 36. Confirm'd by the seven other Vniversities of France 38. In the Fourth Treatise Containing Answers to the Reasons why the Congregation would not Sign any of the three latter of the Six Sorbon Declarations c. THeir Title might not ungroundedly be turn'd to this other The Jesuits Reasons unreasonable Pag. 39. The three rejected Propositions or Declarations 40. The first Paragraph of their Paper of Reasons c. contains the first or rather onely general Reason alledg'd by the Congregation for rejecting them ib. That general Reason is in effect either the Impertinency of all and each of the said Fourth Fifth and Sixth of the Six late Sorbon Declarations to assure His Majesty of Great Britain of the future Allegiance of the Irish or is the insignificancy of the same three later Propositions to assure Him any more or better of the Irish Clergies Fidelity than His Majesty might have been by their two former Instruments viz. their Remonstrance and their three first of the said six Sorbon Propositions ib. The end which the Author hath in answering as well that first or rather onely indeed but no less false than general Reason as all the rest following I confess pretended but in truth likewise very false specifical Reasons or rather pretended specifical Proofs of the foresaid general one viz. by Induction of particulars ib. The second Paragraph of their Paper i. e. the first of their specifical Reasons or Proofs viz. That they look'd upon the Fourth Proposition of Sorbon as not material in their debate For c answer'd by demonstrating the contrary as to every point of their Allegations 41 42 43 44. Particularly their speaking these words We conceive not c. in their general Reason and in their said first specifical these other words We look'd upon it c. so much in truth against their own certain knowledge and therefore Conscience answered 40 41. And their horned Argument or Dilemma answer'd 42. And their saying that they conceive not what more they might have said thaâ— hath been touch't already positively in their Remonstrance answer'd 43. They might in terminis applying the said Fourth to themselves have said That we do not approve nor ever shall any Propositions contrary unto our Kings Authority or true Liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom for example That the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons 41. And more at large discoursed upon Pag. 43. And their saying That they admit not any Power derogatory to His Majesties Authority answered 44 45. Third Paragraph of their Paper containing their next two specifical Reasons or Proofs and Arguments for their general one and for what particularly I mean concerns the Fifth Sorbon Declaration viz. their alledging first That whether the Pope or a General Council be above or not above c. is a School Question of Divinity which they thought not material to their affairs to talk of secondly That they conceive it not only impertinent but dangerous c. in the consequence to deny the Pope to be above a General Council for then it would follow that they must deny the King to be above His Parliament answer'd 46. and from thence to 53. Disparity shewn of one side between the Independency of the Royal Power from the Parliament and Dependency of the Papal from the Church and of the other between the Independency of a General Councils power from the Pope and the Dependency of the Parliaments from the King 50 51 52. The two last Paragraphs of their Paper at length concerning the Sixth Gallican or Sorbon Declaration which is against the pretended Infallibility of
multis aliis reclamabant dicentes ad Papam non pertinere Imperatorem instituero vel destituere Out of all which I think I may conclude that the Objectors themselves will if they lay aside prejudice and passion and compare all I have answered here to their objection of the opinion of two General Councils that of Lateran and that of Lyons will I say confess this allegation of theirs not only vain but absolutely false XXXI Thirdly they will find their allegations false where they say That General Councils are undervalued by some that believe only the diffusive Church is infallible I say they will particularly find this transient animadversion of theirs to be very false if they mean here the Procurator as they do undoubtedly but withal either stupidly or maliciously grounding themselves on what he hath in The Mare Ample Account pag. 60. Where indeed there is no ground at all for this calumny nor any man but a meer blockhead will say there is whatever may be said upon serious consideration of the controversie in it self about the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils debated throughly of purpose For his discourse there is no other then this That in case of such a metaphisical or morally impossible contingency as was caprichiously proposed to him by Father Bonaventure Brudin a little before one of those Franciscan Professors of Divinity at Prague in Bohemia and insisted on mightily and by way of interrogation What would the Subscribers do or think of their Remonstrance if a general Representative of the Church or a General Council truly such did hereafter condemn it His discourse I say upon this occasion as in answer to this wilde interrogatory was That in such case should it happen which yet the Procurator seemed clearly there to hold it was impossible it should happen the Subscribers would either have recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible said he that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logitians tell us it is certain Where it is evident he is so farr from undervaluing General Councils That according to at least some very learned Catholick Divines he rather overvalues them in seeming here to hold it absolutely impossible they should erre against any doctrine of Faith once delivered plainly in Scripture and by Tradition For that he seems to say so here if he say any thing at all of the question of either side or of the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils is most clear and manifest by or in that reason he giveth for his said disjunctive answer and for either the first or second or both parts of it it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow c. Where any rational man will confess he holds it impossible That a General Council truly such should define the contrary And why so but because he supposed two things 1. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance was and is a doctrine of Catholick Faith clearly delivered as such by Scripture and by Tradition 2. That it was and is impossible That a General Council truly such should define against any such doctrine or any doctrine so delivered And is not this as much as in plain terms to hold absolutely That a General Council truly such is infallible in all definitions of Faith or at least so infallible as never to define against Faith and consequently rather to overvalue than undervalue the authority of General Councils if I say we regard what some other eminent Catholick Writers teach or what in particular may be read in Franciscus à Sancta Clara's learned work of Councils that I mean which he calls Systema And any rational man will further confess That that disjunctive resolution of the Subscribers and only for such a case expressed so by the Procurator was purely conditional and the condition such too as for any thing known there of the Procurators judgment was and is absolutely impossible considering the special providence of God his promises to the Church but possible only in the fond imagination of the Proposer or of such a case which wil never be nor can ever be according to all that may be gathered out of that book or passage of the Procurators opinion For what else can his reason signifie which he gives for that disjunctive conditional answer or what these words it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians tell us it is certain Which is that one impossibility that must be here the antecedent which is it I say if not this That a General Council should define the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be false and which is the other impossibility that must be the consequent if not the recourse of the Subscribers to the diffusive Church or suffering themselves to be mislead c Now therefore it is clear first that he holds both that Antecedent and this Consequent to be impossibilities for so he sayes expresly they are And next it is no less clear that he holds the Antecedent absolutely impossible upon this ground only that he also holds the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be delivered plainly by Scripture and by Tradition and withal holds it an absolute moral impossibility that a general Council truly such should define any thing against plain Scripture or Tradition For otherwise how could he call that imaginary supposition or case an impossibility or as he speaks there one impossibility There is no man of reason would say deliberatly it were impossible that a General Council should define against any controverted doctrine unless he held as well and as firmly that a General Council might not erre as he holds well and firmly either part of that controverted doctrine it self Which is so plain that it needs no further illustration being there is no other ground imaginable for maintaining or asserting an impossibility of a General Councils defining so No other ground therefore is given here by the Procurator for being taxed with undervaluing the authority of General Councils but only this conditional proposition which he confesses implied virtually in his discourse If a General Council shall define the contrary doctrine to be true such General Council will erre But that this conditional proposition which yet was forced from him by that chimaerical Interrogation doth not amount unto an assertion of any real true moral possibility of a General Councils erring himself hath further demonstrated by several unanswerable arguments in the prosecution of his said discourse or answer pag. 62. as by that of St. Paul to the Galathians chap. 1. ver 8. Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed And by that of our Saviour Christ himself to the mis-believing Jews Ioh. 8.55 If I shall say that I do not know him meaning his Father I shall be like unto you a lyar 'T
Sorbone understood this as well as they and yet those Sorbonists who questionless understand too as well as they what is material or pertinent and what not have not thought it immaterial or impertinent to give this 4th Proposition subscribed by themselves to their own King in order to a greater assurance of their standing by him in all cases against the attempts of Popes acting singly without or separatly from a general Council That so and not a whit less is the Subject of the three former Propositions disputed in all Catholick Vniversities and yet they themselves of the Congregation thought it not impertinent or immaterial to sign those That whether they or the Sorbonists had thought so or not of this 4th Proposition the reason is obvious and evident for it to be very pertinent and material Because out of the Pope's being owned to be above a general Council it must follow in their opinion that hold him so that his decrees or definitions in matters of faith or which he declares to be such made without nay even against any Council how general soever otherwise must be submitted unto as infallible or as infallibly true and as articles of Divine saving faith to be necessarily believed by all the faithful after sufficient knowledge of such definition And consequently must follow according to that opinion that if the Pope alone without any general Council nay without consulting with any other person alive at least without consultation with or consent from any but his own particular Divines or Clergie of the City of Rome or particular Church in that City or Bishoprick shall define at any time that the three former Propositions or any thing or clause in them is Heretical Schismatical sinful Scandalous or against faith good life or Salvation both Sorbonists and our Congregation must retract their subscription and sign there recantation For both sides hold there is an infallibility not onely in the Catholick Church in general or not onely in the diffusive body of true believers but also in their supream visible and accessible Representative or Tribunal on earth of the said Catholick Church or true believers to which all sides must submit in declarations of divine Faith Now if the Pope be above a general Council who sees not that it must follow evidently that his person his representation his tribunal is the supream visible and accessible of the Church and therefore in the judgement of such as acknowledge him so must be even without a Council absolutely infallible in his definitions of faith Which being once admitted nay being not rejected upon the contradictory question what securitie or assurance can the King have of the fidelity of such persons who plainly and expresly refused to reject it The Pope without a Council may in tearms define the contrary And there are not wanting Divines even of the Congregation who understand the Canons so that they hold and speake and teach and preach too where they dare without fear of the Magistrat or laws that several Popes have long since by their decretal Epistles inserted in the body of the Canons defined as of the Catholick faith the very points against which those three former propositions were subscribed by the Sorbonists or against those three propositions in their sense though not against the sense of the Congregation or not against the same three propositions in the sense of the said congregation which is by so many abstractions distinctions and exceptions quite an other thing and farr different from the sense of Sorbone Which three answers being duely considered whither this last passage of their Divines preaching teaching or speaking so as I have now said fall under consideration or not for that matters not to weaken my answers here given to that first argument I now demand of any that will so duely consider these answers whither it can be said with any colour of reason or truth that the congregation thought a subscription to the 4th proposition to be not material to the affair or laying aside that querie of their thought whether in it self the proposition was immaterial as to the affair in hanâ— to be subscribed certainly none can say that understand the business aright but that as it was very material for the King and State and for their purpose to demand it of and expected it from them in or as to the point of assurance of their Loyaltie hereafter against such Papal attempts so it was very material to the purpose of the Congregation which as appears was in effect to give no assurance at all not to answer therein the Kings or States either demand or expectation Which and no other was the true and onely reason why they would not subscribe this 5th proposition as it was likewise their onely true inward reason for not subscribing either of the other two the 4th already considered and the sixth and last whereunto I am now making all the hast I can after I have given my answers also to their second argument on the present Subject I onely before I come so farr add for a further conviction of the unreasonableness of this very first specifical reason which they pretend both for not signing this same 5th proposition and for shewing the immaterialness or impertinency of subscribing it that if that first reason of theirs were allowed consequently it must follow that the demand of any kind of subscription to any proposition whatsoever controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities must be unreasonable And therefore besides hundreds more that of subscribing for example this proposition It is not Our doctrine that the blessed Virgin is conceived in original sin Or that of this of an other kind A tyrant by title or administration or both or either may without any sin he killed by every private man though he have no publick authority power command or licence given him for killing That the Congregation in signing and for signing the three first propositions thought or at least pretended publickly they were induced thereunto by the example of Sorbone as by a sufficient if not indeed only motive and argument of the Catholickness and lawfulness of those propositions in themselves and by consequence of a subscription to them and that they had the same example for this 4th notwithstanding it be controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities That notwithstanding this 4th proposition be so controverted or disputed yet not otherwise in many or most even Catholick Vniversities than as other doctrines or positions which nevertheless they hold to be at least and for one side of the contradiction theologically false if not manifest errors and heresies in faith And therefore in most Catholick Vniversities it is disputed not that they hold this proposition true or as much as doubtful The Pope is above a general Council but that they would shew it by Scripture tradition and reason and by solution of all that can be alledged for it to be manifestly false and erroneous in the
inclination to nor any the least tincture of a Iansenist And if what I have said here conclude me to be a Iansenist I profess my self one But if it do not as I am sure it doth not then I am none at all it not such a one as Father N. N. and the Congregation should and ought and must profess themselves in life and death if they will not live and dye out of the Catholick Church Whence it appears evidently that whatever Father N. N. intended by his few Iansenists that furthered this dispute I cannot be comprehended amongst such And I have shewed already there is none remaining to be rightly or justly intended by such But for as much as whether he really meaned any or no or entertained in his own breast with or without ground that suspition of any or no but onely intended this jealousie as a meer trick to abuse the unlearned Roman Catholicks in the reading of his paper with some kind of specious preâ—ence for not signing and consequently fixed on this of Iansenisme as the most proper to strike the greatest horrour into them of a doctrine furthered by such men as Iansenists so lately and solemnly condemned by three Popes of Heresie as he sayes I thought also fit but by no trick at all further yet a little to disabuse the readers of that unreasonable writing of his by giving here exactly and sincerely all those very doctrines which imputed to Iansenius whether found in his book or no and whether in his sense or no have been so condemned by three Popes already and are those onely which gave the name of Iansenists to such as before that condemnation maintained them in the sease they conceived them written first by Iansenius himself for such of these doctrines I mean as they allow to be in Iansenius and still maintain that neither all are found in him nor any of all condemned in his sense In giving of which I have no further end than that such readers by comparing those doctrines to this dispute may themselves be judges of this truth also that our present dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church hath no kind of relation to them nor they to it And of this other too that F. N. N. hath indeed no less impertinently than invidiously brought this to question The doctrines therefore of Iansenius or imputed to him in whatever sense are these following here commonly called the five condemned Propositions 1. Aliqua Dei praecepts hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus secundum praesentes quas habent vires sunt impossibilia deest quoque illis gratia qua possibilia fiant 2. Interiori gratiae in statu naturae lapsae nunquam contradicitur 3. Aâ— merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas â necessitate sed sufficit libertas â coactione 4. Semipelagiani admittebant praevenientis gratiae interioris necessitatem ad singulos actus etiam ad initium Fidei et in hoc erant haeretici quod vellent gratiam esse â—alem cui posset humana voluntas vel resisterevel obtemperare 5. Semipelagianum est dicere Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortuum faisse et sanguinem fudisse Now let any man that understands reason be judge whether the dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church and the decision of it in the negative against the Pope cannot be furthered by any either privatly or publickly under-hand or overboard but he must fall under the suspicion of maintaining those five so condemned propositions or some â—ne of them For my own part I protest again in the presence of God I neither have maintained nor do nor will any of them unless first determined by the known consent of the Church or that of a General Council And yet I have done already and will hereafter do what becomes me to further this dispute now in hand and the decision of it already by the Catholick Universities of France against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Catholick Church And I know others have done so before I or Iansenius was born And that all the world can do so without either formal or virtual or consequential relation to them or any of them whether they be true or false heretical or not found or not in the Book or Works of Iansenius or by those three Popes or any of them condemned or not in his meaning To his last pretence or the disturbance of both King and Countrey which he hath kept for his Triarii for his very last and strongest and surest reserve and therefore gives it in these very last words of his Paper I need not say more in this place having said so much already before to falsifie this supposition of his side and verifie it of my own against him but that were it true as he alleages it he had indeed behaved himself for so much like an Orator or Sophister of repute reserving his best argument of all to conclude all In fine triumphat Orator That being it is so manifestly false in his sense and to his purpose I wonder with what confidence he alleages it That he could not give his cause a more deadly wound than by rubbing up again our memory of this consideration That I have shewed already it is not this dispute of that sixth Proposition against the Popes infallibility and resolve of it in the negative which only was the dispute and the resolve intended all along by those that furthered it in their Congregation that can be said to be to the disturbance of either King or Countrey but the contrary dispute and resolve for that pretended infallibility must be that in this matter which ever yet since it first began hath been accompanied infallibly in several parts of the world with the disturbance of both and not with the disturbance only but with ruine also of King and Countrey together nay and of the Church too no less than of the State Politick or Civil That this latter kind of dispute and resolve for which F. N. N. and his Congregation or at least very many of them would fain be if they knew well how are already and too notoriously known to be the very first grand and necessary fundamental of the superstructure of that other so false dangerous and destructive pretence of the power direct or indirect or whatever else you call it in the Pope for deposing Kings and licencing Subjects to rebel against them That whether so or no yet no man can deny this latter pretence of power from God to depose Kings and raise their Subjects against them to be altogether insignificant where it comes to the test of reason or even of Scripture or Traditional dispute amongst rational knowing men without that other of infallibility concomitant and unseparably annexed That if so many late and sad experiences at home within this last century of years or
one tittle or any one action hitherto alledg'd against me as such other than what is in effect and substance my Assertion or Vindication of the Supreme Temporal Sovereignty of the Crowns of these Kingdoms i. e. of their being in all Temporals and all Contingencies whatsoever independent from any but God alone and therefore in Temporals no way dependent from the Pope either by divine or humane right Whether any person may on such ground call in question the sincerity of my believing or professing as I ought all the undoubted Articles of the Roman-Catholick Faith 3. And seeing there was never yet any other matter not even by my greatest Persecutors at any time objected articled oâ— pretended against me beside that i. e. besides my former opposing the Nuncio's Censures and my later promoting the Remonstrance and my endeavours in both against the pretences of the Roman Bishops to the Crowns of England Ireland Scotland c Whether it may in any wise be said or thought by unbyassed learned men That I have given any real ground for the vile detraction of those who treat me every way as if I had been a desertor of the Church 4. Nay Whether considering first The nature of those two grand Controversies wherein I have so freely engaged against all the power of the Roman Court abroad and all the endeavours of the Nuncio's Party and Antiremonstrant Clergy at home secondly The most grievous manifold and continual persecutions I suffered in both Causes one while by Suspensions and Deprivations another while by Excommunications then by Imprisonment in a Forreign Countrey even as far off as Spain and then again by new Thunders of Ecclesiastical Censures and by scandalous Declarations and posting of my Name besides other frequent enterprizes on several occasions against both my Liberty and Life thirdly My continuing constant in both Causes even all along to this very day even also then and that not only once happening when I had no support in this World but my own Conscience of suffering i. e. my own certain knowledge of my suffering onely for Righteousness sake nay then also when some of my chiefest Adversaries laboured with all their powerful malice even here at London to compel me and spared not to speak openly that either they would compel me to renounce the Roman-Catholick Church and declare my self an Heretick or they would make me submit to the Roman Court in the latter of these two Causes viz. that of the Loyal Remonstrance it being the onely matter then prosecuted against me fourthly Their failing nevertheless to this present in obtaining their will of me in either the one or other Whether I say considering all this whereof besides many men I am sure the All-seeing God is witness it be not more likely That no kind of prejudice against the Roman-Catholick Faith or Church but a true and powerful zeal according to knowledge for the primitive Christian purity of both is it that hath set me against those opinions and practices flowing in the corruption of latter Ages from the Roman Court which have shaken Religion divided Christendom and brought a scandal upon Faith as if it were to be supported or advanced by the wrath and rage of men by Rebellion and Slaughter by Subversion of Government and Confusion of the World so making it a ground of jealousie to Magistrates and diverting peaceable and charitable Souls from that union which ought to be amongst the Disciples of Christ 5. Also whether it may not by rational men be at least charitably believed That I would not so often at several times and upon several occasions since first I engag'd in either Controversie especially in the last have refused many Preferments in my own Order have rejected many tempting proffers too even of Episcopal dignity in my own Countrey have also particularly and lately in the National Synod or Congregation held at Dublin anno 1666 and that in publick before all the Fathers refused to yield by any means to their pressing offer not only of all the best Commendatory Letters that could be drawn on Paper in my behalf both to His Holiness Himself who then was and the Cardinal Patron and the Congregation de Propaganda and all other Ministers of the Roman Court as many as were concern'd in the Affairs of Ireland but also of a yearly and very considerable Salary too by general Applotment amounting as they esteemed or computed it in Three years to Two thousand pound English money and in lieu of all these offers have deliberately chosen to run the manifest hazard of undergoing and accordingly since to have in very deed undergone all the vexatious infamy of Ecclesiastical Censures in my own Church Order and Countrey and all the further Evils not only of some at least consequential hardships but of many black Calumnies many bitter Reproaches yea and some yet more inhumane Machinations of cruel men even here in England these four last years since 1669 Whether I say it may not by rational men be and be at least charitably believed That I would not have rejected freely all those tempting offers and in lieu of them voluntarily chosen to lie under all these Sufferings for any thing less than the keeping a good Conscience and the preserving the honour of Christian Catholicism untainted at least in some Priests and Religious men of the Roman-Catholick Religion in these Nations and the justifying my self and those of my way the few Irish constant Remonstrants with such others who communicate with them Loyal Subjects to our Prince the King of England and the winning also for the good of Catholicks in general upon His Majesties Councils Parliaments and all good Protestant people by our peaceable Conversation and Faithfulness amidst all our Sufferings from every side notwithstanding any difference from the Protestant Church in some few Articles of Religion Whereas such other Church-men of the Roman Communion as by their practises or principles have formerly shewn themselves and still appear to continue Enemies to the Supreme Temporal Government of these Kingdoms may in all reason expect the severest Laws to be edg'd against them by Authority under which it will be sad to suffer as evil doers 6. Lastly Whether it had not been very much for the advantage of Roman-Catholicks in general and their Religion in this Monarchy That these last hundred years they had been indoctrinated onely and wholly guided as to their Consciences by such Roman-Catholick Priests and Church-men as are of my principles in relation to the Temporal Powers independence from Rome and the indispensable obedience of Subjects in Civil matters and both the injustice and invalidity or nullity of Ecclesiastical Censures pronounced against either Prince or People or Priests for maintaining these not onely Rational but Christian Principles or asserting any of all their necessary Antecedents Consequents or Concomitants And now my Lords Fathers and Gentlemen to your impartial judgment on all and each of these Queries I do with due
upon his known virtues and great merits Whether the said Father Talbot now that he is in France will in plain express words glory there amongst his Privadoes That himself alone was the principal Author of the forementioned Libel I know not certainly But hereof I am very certain that could those good Fathers so much injured by that lying Libel attributed commonly by all men to him have any indifferent I mean Ecclesiastical Judges of their own Communion before whom they might be allow'd to prosecute him throughly according to the Canons they would produce such and so many strong at least presumptions of matter both of Fact and Right or Law as would compel him no less than his Complices to Canonical Purgation In order to which Purgation I believe he would hardly find even the very smallest number of Compurgatoâ—s which is prescribed by the Canons i. e. by Pope Innocent in cap. Quotiens de Purgat Canon And if not What then would become of his Titular Archbishoprick Deficientem in Purgatione omni officio beneficio Ecclesiastico privare procures sayes Pope Alexander III (a) Cap. Cum P. Manconella de Purgat Cano. Besides let him see what other even incapacities too he must lie under still for the special note of Infamy viz. that he cannot be either Advocate or Procurator (b) 3. q. 7. Infamis or an Accuser or a Witness (c) 3. q. 4. Nulli q. 5. Omnes 4. q. 1. Diffinimus 6. q. 1. Beatus c. sequeâ—t But I suppose that for his good service to the Court of Rome in Libelling against the Remonstrants and me above all and now that out of my Writings he knows the penalties of the Canons he may by way of prevention de plenitudine potestatis Apostolica be easily and perhaps thankfully too not only absolved from all both spiritual Censures and corporal Punishments but dispens'd with in all incapacities and restored in integrum even as to both Tribunals viz. the internal of Conscience as far as they can and external of the Church And yet I see not how after all he can clear his Accounts with God until he truly repent before Him and consequently before men repair the injuries done me and my Friends not only by his foresaid lying Libel but even by several lying Letters and other both malicious and disloyal endeavours of his Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum is a known and infallible Maxim even of the very Canon Law * 14. q. 6. Si ves it self as taken from St. Augustine Ep. 54. ad Macedonium Farewell Reader London Nov. 3. 1673. An Abridgment OF CONTENTS IN THE Four Treatises of this Book In the First Part of the First Treatise PRocuration to Father Peter Walsh Page 5. Irish Remonstrance 7 8 9. Names of the first Ecclesiastick Subscribers thereof at London 9. When where by whom and upon what occasion made 7. Signed by Ninety Seven of the Irish Nobility and Gentry at London 11. Approved by the Bishop of Kilfinuragh 12. by the Bishop of Cork 13. by the Bishop of Ferns how far 14. The Little Book called The More Ample Account by whom and upon what occasion made 11. The other called Loyalty Asserted why written 12. Remonstrance opposed and in what terms by the Apostolick Internancio Hierom de Vecchiis in his several Letters from Brussels whereof one dated 21 July 1662 you have 16. And by Cardinal Francis Barberin by his Letters of the eighth of July 1662 written to the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland ad Praestantes Viros Hiberniae 17. Confederacy amongst the Clergy both Secular and Regular in Ireland against the Remonstrance 19. The Procurator dealt with by fair offers to relinquish or at least decline the promoting of the Remonstrance 19. Father Peter Ailmer stickles against the Remonstrance 20. Of the Lords Aubigny and Montague as likewise of the rest of the English and Irish Chaplains to either Queen and the grand mistake i. e. omission at first in passing them by and the great use made of that omission 20 21. Sixteen several reasons causes or pretences thereof and all and each of them regarding onely temporal ends or worldly interest and this too mistaken 22. from thence to 27. As many several Answers which were given by the Procurator to those Reasons 27. and from thence to 41. Neither uncatholickness nor other unlawfulness in subscribing all the while so much as pretended by any in Ireland not even of those that alledged so many other excuses 42. The More Ample Account Translated at Rome in order to be Censur'd yet not Censured 43. The general Argument insisted on still by the Procurator but never answer'd by them 44. Father Macedo a Portuguez Divine pitched on at Rome to write against the Remonstrance and to answer Father Caron and Father Walsh but nothing published if he hath written Pag. 43. Father Bonaventure Bruodin an unconstant man and a great Intriguer against the Remonstrance even after he had on his knees asked pardon for his unconstancy of the Procurator 42. The Pope viz. Alexander VII refuses to meddle by Censures with the Remonstrance if the Primat 's Letters from Rome be true * But understand you that His Holiness would not by Himself or any Censure immediately from Himself meddle For certainly he did meddle by others or his Interâ—uncio De Vecciâ—â—is and Cardinal Bâ—riâ—â—ia belâ—ed him under their own proper hands 43. Names of those Ecclesiasticks who subscribed to the Remonstrance in Ireland 47. The Procurator attempts to break the Confederacy against the Remonstrance 46. Writes to the Provincial Assemblies of the Franciscans and Dominicans 48. What ensued upon these Letters 48 49. Dominicans debate the Remonstrance in a Provincial Assembly with what success 49. Treat ill the Subscribers of their Order 52. Franciscans refuse to treat of the Remonstrance in their Provincial Assembly 49. Letter of the Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in the name of his Body to the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant with an enclosed Form of Fidelity 50. His Letter to the Bishop of Dromore 52. Augustinians universally oppose the Remonstrance 54. Letter from the Dean of the Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Clergy of England as from himself and them approving the Remonstrance 55. William Burgat then Vicar-General of Imly but now Titular Archbishop of Cashel refuses to subscribe the Remonstrance and why 57. John Burk Archbishop of Tuam excuses himself at Dublin from Signing the Remonstrance upon what pretences 57 58. Jesuits treated with by the Procurator to subscribe the Remonstrance with what success 59. Queries and Reasons given to him by them against the Remonstrance 60 c. Answers to their said Papers and their first Allegation proved false 64. Their second Allegation concerning the Fourth Lateran Council under Innocent III and Council of Lyons under Innocent IV likewise proved false 65 c. Their third also concerning the Authority of General Councils to be undervalued by the Procurator and his maintaining or asserting The Diffusive Church onely
Emperour and even that of Ariminum which was a very General Council of both Greeks and Latins and for number of Bishops well nigh as great as any ever yet assembled in the Church and although consequently we must not wonder to see the Romish Clergy of this Kingdom permitted by His MAJESTY and by His Grace the LORD LIEUTENANT to meet together in Dublin at this time for an end so nearly and highly concerning the Publick Peace and Safety as a Declaration to be Subscribed by the said Clergy of their indispensable faithful real true and sincere Allegiance to His MAJESTY in all Temporal matters and in all cases of contingencies whatsoever against all Forreign or Domestick pretensions or designs should amount unto yet I am persuaded no prudent man not even of the Roman Religion either of this or any after Ages when throughly acquainted with the strange carriage of the late National Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin will scruple much to ascribe it to those fatal Influences of 1666. However I have thought it worth my Labour whil'st my remembrance is fresh of those Transactions wherein I have my self been all along not an Observer onely but an Actor to give all the material particulars to Posterity as they hapned without adding or diminshing excusing or condemning in this Relation or Narrative any thing or person For that of my own Judgment at least for what concerns the Congregation it self I reserve for a more proper place the following Treatises wherein as acting of purpose the part of a Divine I must declare that which I intend not in this first Treatise where I assume only or principally the parts of an Historian I mean still for what concerns that Congregation But to give the Reader a full and clear prospect into all I find it necessary to begin where the first occasion of that meeting began And further and because that occasion brought forth a great variety of disputes and some troubles too amongst that Clergy those few years past the knowledge of which may be useful not only to understand the intrigues happened in the foresaid General Congregation and the causes of such intrigues but also to other just and lawful ends and because also a satisfactory Narration of these disputes and troubles must needs take up near a hundred sheets if not more I have moreover thought it not amiss but much to the Readers greater facility of readily finding out or turning to that what ever he would be at to divide this first Treatise into two Parts Whereof the first part followeth The First Part OF THE FIRST TREATISE The ARGUMENT THe Procuratorium sent to Father Peter Walsh The persons that sent and sign'd it The causes of their sending or signing and first use made by him thereof The Remonstrance of 61. and occasion of it The signing at London of this Remonstrance The first Exceptions against it of its unexpediency occasioned The more ample Account The next of uncatholickness Loyalty asserted How the Bishops stood affected Bishop of Ardaghs Letter approving it Archbishop of Tuams answer to Dromore Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarin and of the Internuncio of Bruxels condemning it The Procuratour come to Ireland finds out all the intrigues and general conspiracy against it What Peter Aylmer did Use made of the Queens Chaplains not having signed Sixteen several pretences for not signing As many heads of answers which the Procurator made to their excusatory pretences No uncatholickness pretended amongst the objections The Procurators charging them continually with unconscientiousness He perswades some to sign To the rest he writes The names of the Subscribers in Ireland A General Congregation desired by the Bishop of Meath and others The Dominican Chapters Letter and Remonstrance and other matters relating to them especially to their Provincial Augustinians English Chapâ—â—â— Letter from London approving the Remonstrance of 61. William Burgat Vicar General of Imly Iohn Burk Archbishop of Tuam landed at Dublin preached unto by the Procurator The Jesuits The Queries mad by them and Resolves of the Procurator Their several Remonstrances They as all the rest decline alwayes the question of right The Procutator meets the Franciscans at Multifernan Their resolution there Their Provincials concurrence to and approbation of the Remonstrance of 61. His latter to the Duke The Dukes Letter to Mr. Walsh The Nobility and Gentry subscribing at Dublin Their Letter to the Coâ—â—ityes It s â—â—op Wexfordians signing the Remonstrance Cenâ—â—e of Lovaine solliciâ—ed by Father John Brady and procured by the Internâ—â—â—tio The first considerable effect of this Censure or the Franciscan Subscribers sâ—â—â—â—â—d Their answers to the summons Four grounds of the said Censure and answers to theâ— More Remonstrances Proclamation issued against some Regular The Procurator being return'd to England the Bruxels Internuncius arrived aâ—â— at London â—â—cognite discourses with him and Father Chron for three â—â—â—tre and offers â—â—de them by him His desires after from Bruxels by worn of â—â—â—th and by 〈◊〉 The Procurators Answers to him in two several Papers The Franciscans Remonstrance from Killihy I. THe first winter following the Kings most happy Restauration in the year 1660. the chief Persons and Prelates of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland then at home in that Countrey being from London and by Letters from F.P.W. put in mind of their duty and of the many causes the generality of that Irish Clergy had above all other Subjects of their Church in any of the three Kingdoms to make their timely and both gratulatory and supplicatory addresses to His Majesty least otherwise their former carriage in the late unfortunate Rebellion of that Kingdom in 41. and both in the rejection of the Peace of 46. and transgression by many of them also of that other of 48. might argue their silence and non-addresses did not so much proceed from want of civility and humanity or even of confidence either in themselves to make such addresses or in the most accessible exorable and merciful of Princes for what concern'd his taking such in good part as from that would be suspected by others infallibly their want of true joy for his Majesties return or of good wishes for his establishment Edmond Relly Archbishop of Ardmagh or the Primate of that Church in Ireland made by Innocent the 10th some nine years since and Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath being the only Bishops of their Religion then in Ireland excepting only one more that was many years before and is still bed-rid and was not then accessible by reason of the times and place wherein he was D. Owen Swiny Bishop of Killmore together with Iames Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare Oliver Dese Vicar General of Meath Cornelius Gaffney Vicar General of Ardagh Barnaby Barnwal Superiour of the Capucins Father Browne Superiour of the Carmelits and Father Iohn Scurlog Prior of the Dominicans at Dublin signed an Instrument of Procuration and sealed it with the Seals of their respective
either have recourse to the diffusive Church that is to the Faith of incomparably the farre greater body or number of Bishops and learned Fathers and Doctors of the several particular Churches of all ages dispersed throughout the world whereof those gathered at Nice were in comparison but a small portion or certainly in such case suffer themselves to be mislead out of their old way or belief and for and by the authority of such a Council embrace the new fancies of Arrius â—ading withal that out of one impossibility another must follow And I further demand of our Objectors whether the Catholicks answering so then to the Arrian Hereticks must have been therefore taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or which is the same thing with holding absolutely or with averring or confessing absolutely and by such answer that the Council to be convened so generally at Nice could erre in that Faith of one substance If our Objectors will say that those Consubstantialists would or did think so then it is evident our Objectors will be forced by consequence to allow the Procurator to think so to and think it also lawfully and Catholickly For neither he nor they can pretend to be Catholicks otherwise in any point then as those old Consubstantialists were But if our Objectors will say as indeed they must say these old Consubstantialists must not therefore think absolutely that Council of Nice could erre it must by the same reason follow that neither the Procurator by or for the like answer to the like caprichious interogatory must absolutely or positively think a general Council truly such can erre The second case is of a new Heresie that may without any miracle yet arise in the Church about the Divine processions As for example that as there is a Father and Son in the God-head or Divine nature or amongst the Divine persons so there must be a Mother and a Daughter And put the case too as it may be that both East and West and South and North of the universal Church or in all Countreys of the World are as much devided upon this new Heresie as they have been formerly upon that of Arrius at such time as St. Hierom said after the Council of Ariminum that the whole earth groaned under Arianisme seeing it self suddenly become Arian And therefore that by the true believers and let these be the very objectors themselves a Protestation is drawn and signed against this new Heresie to hinder a further progress of it or the corruption by it of the remaining Catholick party And then suppose further that a follower of this new Heresie would put the like caprichious interrogation to our objectors this for example what if a future general Council truly such define against your opinion adding withal that the objectors themselves knew very well this new controversie was never yet in terminis decided by a general Council In this case I demand what could our objectors answer to this Querie insisted upon or could they answer otherwise then as the Procurator did to Father Brodin And yet would they allow that by or for such answer from themselves they should be justly taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or with holding absolutely that a general Council truly such might erre I am sure whatever they answer to these Interrogatories I put them in this case will be but to confound themselves and make them an object of laughter and scorn for having so ignorantly or so malitiously amongst the people calumniated me or that my book or that passage of it as if I had therefore undervalued the authority of General Councils or as if I had positively or absolutely held they could erre or as if I had taught a new way of disclaiming in a general Council and of having recourse from such Council to the Diffusive Church whereas I have been truly in that very passage as farre as from East to West from any such matters being my answer was onely conditional and to a conditional Querie and the condition too according to what I delivered there absolutely impossible in the order I mean of moral impossibilities or of such as are said only to be such by reason of Gods special providence and special promises made to the Church for preserving it for ever in all saving truths Whereof to convince yet further these very objectors I must beg thy patience and pardon good Reader that I give here intirely the whole discourse from first to last and word by word which I made on this subject in my More Ample Account or which I made therein to both those Metaphysical contingencies or Queries which the foresaid Father Brodin insisted on The first being What if the Pope should hereafter define the contrary in terminis And the second What if a general Council did c By occasion of which Queries and in answer to them both I writt thus in that little book page 59. 60. 61. and 62. The answer to both these Metaphisical contingencies for indeed they can be hardly thought greater being first That in case the Pope alone condemn the Protestation as involving even heresie they would reflect on his fallibility in defining and would rather hold with France Spain Germany Venice while these Countries change no other of their present tenets and with all the ancient and modern times of the universal Church then with the Pope in that case Secondly that if even a general Representative of the Church or which is the same thing a general Council of Bishops truly such define it they would then either have a recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians do tell us it is certain Nor can it therefore be rationally objected that our signatures to the Protestation or other engagement to maintain the doctrine of it and keep religiously our faith therein pledged must be unlawful or unconscientious or must not be a duty incumbent on us at least if required and such a duty moreover as we can not decline without sinning against all the laws of God and man It is manifest there are opinions and such as are confessedly such and only such which yet famous Catholick Vniversities end even whole Kingdoms engage themselves by Oath and vow to maintain I instance in that of the B. Virgins Conception and could alledg several others sworn to at least by men graduated in Schooles And there are hundreds of opinions even in matters of conscience which the Dissenters themselves I am certain very often practice and they think safely too and with a good conscience yea although they hold not seldome the contrary to be no less probable and sometime more and more safe also or which what ever they do there is no doubt but ten thousand learned and pious men do practice And yet they know all these opinions even that of the conception must be
as Subject to that Metaphysical contingency nay more most of them then that of our Protestation Why then may it not be as lawful for us to practice herein notwithstanding such conditional and caprichious interrogatories We have this advantage of them that in our judgments and in the judgments of at least the incomparably far greater part even of the Catholick Church there is not only both extrinsecal and intrinsecal probability in that we promise and protest but even an absolute certainty as grounded on most clear Scriptures and traditions and that the contrary positions or tenets are so farr from having any intrinsick probability at all that they are manifest errors against the word of God whereas they on the other side practice daily in matters of greatest concern relying only on the bare saying or quotation of one or two Casuists and these too not seldom extravagant and superficial men for matter of knowledg in the most profound questions of Religion And it is further manifest by reason that were such Metaphysical contingencies or apprehensions of them of power to render any unlawfulness in our signing the said Protestation the very same contingencie must vitiat their opposing us even I say as to the question of expediency or necessity And all the expositions made by the Fathers on hard passages of Scriptures and all the Sentences or controverted conclusions of Catholick writers in the succession of all ages since the days of Peter Lombard have been and are still unlawful even as to the expediency of delivering or teaching them Which to assert would be in effect to bereave our selves of all charity and all modestie and all reason Nay all the Canons Definitions Anathematismes of so many ancient holy Christian Councels either Provincial or National as we find in the Tomes of Councels and which have been held some a thousand others 11. 12. 13. 1400. years agoe and some latter all reverenced and many of them canonized by the very Popes themselves must have been unlawful and not onely temerarious but even sinful scandalous and schismatical yea the profession of the Trinity of persons or Divinity of Jesus Christ or an Oath or Protestation made to that purpose disclaiming in and renouncing all Doctrine and authority to the contrary that is in so much would be not onely unexpedient but even unlawful sinful scandalous schismatical before the first general Councel of Nice against Arrius or that other which was held at Constantinople against Macedonius yea that admonition of Paul Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed would be so too nay and that asseveration of our Saviour Christ himself in the Gospel was rash and false Si dixero quia non scio eum similis ero vobis mendax if this argument or interrogatory of our opposers be to any purpose or if their foolish impertinent discourses or private whispers ever since the 15. of Feb. last amongst our lay Gentry here signifie any thing to prove that we renounced or disclaimed in the Doctrine or Authority of a General Councel because we disclaim and renounce any at all as yet known to us which teaches or maintains any power Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal which may absolve us from our natural Allegiance to His Majestie or which may license us to rebell against him or to kill or murther the Anointed of God our Prince though of a different belief from ours Though which is observable our Protestation rigorusly taken as to this particular be onely against all such authority as is forreign and that that of a general Council truly such be known not to be properly forreign to any Christian Country And although the true meaning and purpose of it be onely against the Spiritual or Temporal pretended power of Popes alone But however this be or any thing heretofore said to these wild imaginations I would â—ain know whither it be not an undubitable Maxime in moral Philosophy and Divinity that our action is then lawful when it is against no law that is yet known or doubted to be either of God or man And expedient when in the judgment of wise men or in our own weighing all circumstances it is expected to conduce towards a good or just end we propose to our selves And whether the possibility of a future law or declaration against or inhibition of the like any more can vitiat actions qualified so which precede such laws Certainly as this last querie must be answered in the negative so the two former in the affirmative Now let any man that reads this passage and what I have given before it and for its illustration here in this present Book and Section let I say any such man of what affection soever so he be a man of reason be judge himself whether in this passage I do undervalue the authority of general Councils And I am sure there is no other passage in any other of all my writings where I say any thing to undervalue them And yet I must tell my adversaries that such Catholick Divines as hold the absolute fallibility of General Councils even I mean in point of Faith think they can say enough for themselves to prove that themselves do not therefore or indeed at all undervalue General Councils And enough also to prove that they justly charge their opposers with overvalueing General Councils As also to prove that themselves do still acknowledg a General Council truly such to be the onely Supream Tribunal in the Church And still acknowledg the Supream power of making Canons which concern either Faith or Discipline to be in this Council And still too acknowledg both external and internal acquiescence and obedience due from all persons even from the Pope himself to all their decrees in all Spiritual matters purely such whatsoever wherein an intollerable error against the Faith received is not evidently demonstrated And enough moreover to prove that to attribute more then this to General Councils howsoever truly such were indeed to overvalue them against truth and Tradition And finally enough also to prove it may be as daungerous an errour in religion or Faith to overvalue either Pope or Council as to undervalue them But whether such Catholick Divines as think so or think themselves can say enough for all and each of these particulars do think aright I am not concern'd at present no further then to tell my Adversaries they should rather dispute against them who give some kind of ground then charge me and falsely too being I give them no such ground at all nor any other of being charged with undervalueing General Councils XXXII Fourthly they would find their allegations false where they say that in the opinion of the Diffusive Church corporal punishments may be inflicted by a spiritual power I say that this is false if they mean as they do certainly and must speaking to the purpose by the word
inconsideratione aliqua violent sed una cum ipsis Principibus debitam sacris summorum Pontificum et Conciliorum constitutionibus observ antiam praestent Decernit itaque c. 2. It is also clear enough these words ordinatione divina or the Councils saying that Ecclesiastical Immunity was constituted by divine ordination imports no more of necessity then that it was Gods good pleasure and special providence and care of the Church and Churchmen that disposed affairs so and moved the hearts of Princes and people to give such exemptions to the Church and Churchmen as they indeed have For so we say that by Gods ordination or divine ordination this or that is as it is Which yet argues no positive law of God nor any law at all of God for it to be as it is As for that of Colen besides that it is but a smale Provincial Synod never yet canonized by any general Synod nor even by any Pope and therefore in Bellarmine's own principles of no authority out of that Province not even were the Decree in a matter of Faith as it is not certainly it is manifest enough the Fathers there or in that ch par 9. quoted by him speake not a word pro or â—â—n of our present dispute or if they do any way indirectly or by consequence that all is against Bellarmine forasmuch as they determine Ecclesiastical Immunity to consist chiefly in two things The one that Clerks and their possessions are free of all imports tributs and other lay duties The other that criminals flying to Churches be not forced thence Now where is a word here of Clerks being exempt even from the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes and even the most haynous crimes imaginable and committed too in meer temporal things These Fathers of Colen did not as much as dream of any such matter At least no rational Divine is to judge or conclude out of their words or expression here that they did For the onely word here whence any such thing might be any way pretended are these aliisque maneribus laicis But who sees not there are other lay duties besides customs oâ— taxes from which by the civil constitutions of the Roman Emperours at first and after by that of other Kings who succeeded them Clerks are and have been exempted nay that their exemption from other lay duties was the first exemption they had and even that which above all other was most convenient they should have as for example from all civil offices of Collectors Bayliffs Constables from the Militia c. Why then should any Divine be so unreasonable as to derive from a position so general so proper and so true of those Fathers of Colen a conclusion so particular so improper and so false as Bellarmine doth in our present case As for those other words of this of Colen jure pariter divino humano I have already said what we must rationally think they understood by jus divinum though only applied here to other exemptions then that from the supream civil power For both the Lateran Councils I confess Bellarmine and some others with him give them both equally the name of General But I am sure withal that according to all truth the latter which he considers first or that under Leo the X. does not merit as much as the name of a General Council truly such nor even of an Occidental Council truly such and that Bellarmine himselâ— elsewhere confesses it is not esteemed as such by many great Catholicks and that moreover whatsoever he thinks the whole Gallican Church many others reject it as not esteeming it such for many reasons which I shall give hereafter in this book upon another occasion As I am sure also that all the Canons of discipline reported to be of the IV. Council of Lateran or of that under Innocent the Third which Bellarmine quotes here in the next place are doubtful though for the present it matters not much whether these Canons be or be not genuine or whether this which is called the great Council of Lateran Concilium Magnum Laterananse was or was not a general Council truly such or whether only a very great Occidental Council but not for all that a Council oecumenical or General properly and truly such of the universal Church As the same for the point of being truly oecumenical or General of the whole Church is disputed by some concerning the Tridentine Synod albeit now of greatest authority with us of all General Councils truly and unconvertedly such Neither doth it matter any more one jot whether the other Lateran under Leo the X. be admitted or not for a General Council truly such For albeit this latter in the IX Session and decreeing somewhat of Ecclesiastical Discipline sayes in general and by way of supposition that by divine and humane law there is no power attributed to Lay-men over Clerks c. and the former under Innocent cap. 24. say that some Laicks endeavour to usurp too much of divine right when they compel Church-men that receive no temporal benefit from them to swear Allegiance or take oathes of fidelity to them yet no understanding person no good Divine or Canonist may therefore conclude that certainly these Councils intended thereby to signifie as much as it to be their own bare opinion much less to declare it as the Catholick Faith which indeed is not pretended of them by Bellarmine himself or any other That Clerks are by a pâ—sitive law of God exempt even in all criminal causes whatsoever from the supream civil coercive power of temporal Princes And my reasons are 1. Because it is a maxime of both Divines and Canonists that priviledges and laws that speak of priviledges are stricti juris or strictae interpretationis when the priviledges are to the prejudice of any third's right as also when out of any other kind of more ample interpretation some either absurdity or falsity or any great inconvenience or any errour and gross mistake attributed to the laws or Law-makers or givers of such priviledge must follow 2. Because it is a maxime too very well known and granted that where a Law or Canon dwells in Generals only we must not understand particulars or such specialties as are not specially express'd and whereof there is or may be a grand controversie whether the power of the Canon-makers could reach unto them and which moreover are such that it is not likely the Law or Canon-makers would comprehend them if expresly thought upon and specially debated 3. Because it is manifest this position of Bellarmine concerning the exemption of Clergy-men in all criminal causes whatsoever c. is such a specialty and such a priviledge And therefore it must follow that whereas these Councils of Lateran do not in specifical express terms discend to it no Divine or Canonist may in reason conclude they mean'd it But on the contrary ought rather to expound them in any other probable and rational
is plain enough that if any pretend the Fathers of Agatha intended ought else it must consequently be granted this canon of theirs was not formed by them as of any matter in their opinion belonging to Catholick Faith or Laws of God or in their opinion also as much as enacted formerly in other parts by any civil or imperial or general institution or constitution made by the Christian Emperours of Rome or Constantinople but only formed by them that is by these Fathers of Agatha in pursuance and by virtue only of a local custom of Guien introduced by the command or connivence of the politick Magistrates of that little Kingdom or Countrey as regarding only the external politick administration direction or government of Churchmen which external politick government of the Church varies not seldom according to the variety of Times Kingdoms and Provinces And my reasons for saying so or for saying this to be plain enough are I. That at that very time it was otherwise by law and practice of the great Roman world or Empire in all other places generally being we know out of the imperial laws then in force and out of Ecclesiastical History that Clerks being summon'd to the civil Courts did generally in other Provinces both answer and appear without any reluctance or prohibition from Councils For this Council of Agatha was not held within the bounds at that time of the Roman Empire but under Alarick the Gothish King who at that time held Guien by hereditary and as formerly by concession too of Roman Emperours dismembred from the Empire and conferr'd on his Predecessors without any supremacy reserved to the Empire Which was the reason that in the beginning of the acts of this Council we find no mention at all of the Emperour but of the King Cum Dei nomine ex permissu Regis in Agathenscm civitatem sancta Synodus convenisset c. Ibique flexis genibus in terra pro regno ejus pro longaevitate populi Deum deprecaremur c. 2. That the above first part of this 32. canon of Agatha as likewise that whole one and twentieth canon of Tribur if construed to put a stop to Clergymen from following or acting in the forum of the lay Defendant is now at this time and hath been these many ages past abrogated by the common consent or custom of all people and nations Whereas the common law is now and hath been so long that a Clerk at difference with a Lay-man if he will be righted by law must commence his suit in the lay or civil Judicatory As we may see expresly declared to have been still the law cap. si Clericus 5. de Foro competenti where the Pope Alexander the Third hath thus decreed Si Clericus Laicum de rebus suis vel Ecclesiae impetierit Laicus res ipsas non Ecclesiae esse aut Clerici sed suas proprias asseverat debet de rigore juris ad forensem Iudicem trahi Cum Actor forum Rei sequi debeat licet in plerisque partibus aliter de consuetudine habeatur Therefore if these words or first part of the canon of Agatha Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare are neither according to the common law ciuil or canonical of the christian world nor otherwise ever yet have been observed but out of custom only in so me or even many places as at that time of the Council of Agatha it was in Guien how can we esteem otherwise of the following words or second part of the same canon Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat c. being there is no difference made in this canon it self Or who can affirm this second part was more firmly enacted by this Council or more generally observed by the Faithful Or otherwise then out of a civil custom and in pursuance and by virtue only of the supream civil power authority approbation permission or connivence in that Countrey And consequently who can rationally make it an argument of the exemption of Clergymen by the sole pure Episcopal Authority from as much as the subordinat civil Iudges Nay or an argument of their general exemption by the civil authority it self in other parts of the world at that time which was before Iustinians So little doth any part of this canon argue the exemption at any time of Clerks either in other parts of the world or in Guien it self from the supream civil Magistrate by any kind of authority imperial or Episcopal The fourth Council alledged for this exemption is that which they call Concilium primum Matisconense held in the year 576. as Barclay thinks or 581. as Spondanus or certainly 532. as the printed Acts. A Provincial Council it was of one and twenty Bishops Priscus Archbishop of Lyons presiding And as the Acts do shew called it was at the desire of King Guntheramnus who was one of the three brother Kings grand children to Clodoveus that devided France amongst themselves and left Orleance to him for his seat And all the Canons of it were in matter only of Discipline Amongst which the eight is in these words Ut nullus Clericus ad Judicem secularem quemcumque alium fratrem de clericis accusare aut ad causam dicendam trahere quocumqu loco praesumat sed omne negotium Clericorum aut in Episcopi sui aut in praesbyteri aut Archidiaconi praesentia finiatur And the fift and last Council alleadged in this matter by Cardinal Bellarmine l. 1. de cleric c. 28. ut supra is that which in order is the third of the Councils of Toledo and was held in Aera 627. being the year of our Lord Saviour Christ not 589. according to William Barclays computation but 593. according to Baronius and his continuator Spondanus Bishop of Apamia It is the 13. canon of those of Discipline or external reformation of the Clergie and people made in this Council which is pretended by the Cardinal as to his purpose And I confess this Council is of as great authority as an universal of all Spain and not of Spain alone but of the Bishops also of the Province of Narbon in France subject at that time to the Goths must be which therefore in Spain and as to Spain was stiled Concilium Vniversale having also had 70. Bishops that subscribed although not therefore a General Universal or Oecumenical Council simply such or at all such even for Discipline as to other Catholick Churches but in as much as received by them however several of its canons be inserted in Gratian this particularly whereof our present controversy is related 11. q. 1. cap. Inolita praesumptio And I confess too that Gratian hath truly related word by word this 13th canon as it is in the Council it self being this which I give here at length Inolita praesumptio usque adeo illicitis ausibus aditum patefecit ut Clerici Conclericos suos relicto
supream temporal Prince in any of the Citties or territories which he either actually possesses or challengeth to himself as such an absolute or supream independent temporal Prince To enquire into any such intrigue is not material nor any part of my purpose And all I say of it because I mention'd it accidentally is that if the Pope be not so I could heartily wish he were so provided all Popes made that good use of it and onely that good use which some blessed Popes have For I am farre enough for envying the Apostolical See or even present Roman or Papal Court any even worldly greatness which may be to the glory of God and general good of Christian people was verily such even worldly greatness not onely of the Popes of Rome but of other Bishops and of other Priests too may be without any peradventure if regulated and applyed well And I am also farre enough from perswading my self that no Christian Priest can be found who may for natural parts and gifts of God be among Christians and if it please the Christians themselves such an other as Hermes Trismegistâ—s was among Heathens a great Priest great Prophet and great King withall Nay I confess that many Clergiemen have many excellencies and advantages for government above most Laymen Yet I say withall that if in elective Kingdoms or States they were by the people put at the Helme of supream temporal government or if in hereditary Kingdoms any of them came by succession to it their being Priests Bishops or even Popes would not could not enlarge their temporal power in any kind of respect nor give them any more temporal exemption as from any pure law of God or Christian Religion then they had before they were Priests c. It is not therefore against any power Ecclesiastical or even Papal as such I dispute here but onely against the unwarrantable extension of such and as onely such by those two most eminent writers Cardinal Baronius and Cardinal Bellarmine Yet I will say this much for Cardinal Bellarmine albeit shewing 〈◊〉 this also his contradiction of himself that in his great work of controversies de Concil Eccles l. 1. 〈◊〉 13. I know lot how but by the too great power of truth he confesses in very express worth that even the very Popes themselves have been subject and even too subjected themselves in temporal affairs to the Emperours and consequently that their Pontifical or Papal office or dignity did not exempt them from subjection to the lay supream power For considering there how the foâ—â— first general Councils of the vniversal Church had been convoked by the Emperours and fearing least such convocation might prejudice that authority which he ascribes to the great Pontiff and consequently bringing four causes or reasons why the Popes then were necessitated to make use of the power Imperial as he sayes for the convocation of those four first general Councils he delivers thâ—â— his fourth Reason Quarta ratio est sayes he quia to tempore Poâ—â—tyex eâ—si in spirituâ—libus essex caput omnium etiam Imperatorum tamen in temporalibus subâ—â—citbus se Imperatoribus ideo non peterat invito Imperatore aliquid agere cum tantum â—â—bâ—isset petere ab Imperatore auxilium ad convocandum Synodum vel ut permitteret Synodum convocari tamen quia Dominum suum temporalem cum agnoscebal supplicabat ut jubereâ— Synodum convoâ—â—i At post illa tempora ista omnes causae mutata sunt Nam neo illa lex viget he means that old Imperial constitution which prohibited all Colleges and frequent or numerous Assemblies without the Emperours licence to prevent seditions designs Vide l. 1. ff de Collegiis illicitis l. Conventicula ff de Episcopis Clericis noc Imperatores in â—oto orbe dominantur nec sumptibus publicis fiunt Concilia nec sunt Gentiles qui impedire possint Pontifex qui est caput in spiritualibus cum etiam ipse in suis Provinoiis sit Princeps supremus temporalis sicut sunt Reges Principes alij id quod divina providentia factum est ut Pontifex libere manus suum exequi possit So Bellarmine cleerly and expresly to a word Therefore by this ingenuous confession of Bellarmine himself the Pope hath no freedom no exemption at all in temporal matters from the civil power of the Emperour by virtue I mean of his Pontificat or Papal office But hath all his exemption in such matters by vertue onely of the supream temporal Principality which he acquired after as Bellarmine's sayes and which he possesses yet And consequently Bellarmine confesses also that this temporal Principality being removed or lost as by a just conquest and many other legal wayes it may be the Pope will be no more exempt in temporals from the Emperour or King of Rome but subject to him wholly in such Which is that onely I contend all along in this dispute of the Pope And therefore it must also follow evidently out of this doctrine and confession of Bellarmine himself that all other Priests Bishops and Clerks whatsoever even Cardâ—nals who have no supream earthly power and Principality of their own must be throughly and entirely subject in temporal matters to those supream lay Princes in whose dominions they live and whom they acknowledge to be their own very true Soveraign Lords Which is that moreover which I contend for in all the Sections of this whole and long dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity against the Divines of Lovain And I am extremely deceaved if Bellarmine yeeld it not fairely and freely in this place however he coyned a new faith for himself after in his old age and in his little books against Barclay Widdrington and some others But forasmuch as nothing more confirmes the rightfull power and authority of Kings in all humane things over also their subjects even all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever then the most ancient custome and perpetual practise in the Christian Catholick Church this very Church her self not onely not resisting but consenting also and approving such custome and practise therefore it is that to those particular Instances already given of such practise or matter of fact in the persons of those two most holy Bishops Athanasius and Eusebius and in the persons also of those other two and not onely most holy but even the very Head Bishops of the whole Earth in their own time as being the great Pontiffs then of the Roman See to witt Gregory and Constantine I must now moreover add those other particular Instances in such matter of fact which I promised of Princes Wherein if I be somewhat prolix in bringing not a few examples down along throughout almost all ages of Christianity from the days of Constantine the great and first Christian Emperour the profit will yours good Reader and the labour mine For you may cull out and pause on such as you find the most illustrious the rest you may read over cursority on pass by
Catholick Faith and holy Scripture and the said Authors also to be therefore not onely hereticks but Arch-hereticks and which was consequent condemning likewise not onely the book it self of Marsilius and Iandunus out of which those articles were extracted but all other writings whatsoever containing the same articles adding moreover yet and commanding for a perclose of all that whoever and of what dignity order condition or state soever should thenceforth presume to defend or approve the said doctrine he should by all others be accounted of as a heretick I say that these onely five assertions which you have now read in the latin text and in their own proper tearms being those articles against which and no other assertions at all this thundering sentence of Iohn the XXII was pronounced at Auenion an 1327. as Spondanus tels of the year though he gives us no part of the Bull X. Calend. Nou. and on the VII of the same Calends and year sent in an other Bull bearing this last date to the Bishop of Woster to be published in England therefore we may conclude it will be an easy matter to ruine the above third remaining objection For passing by at present all the general advantages I might take of the doctrine and firm grounds of the doctrine which teacheth the fallibility of all sorts of Papal definitions as such or as meer Papal definitions without the joynt approbation of a general Council or of the Church it self in general be the Pope that defines whoever you please so he be not or was not any of the immediat Apostolical or Evangelical Colledg of Christ our Lord and passing by too all the specifical and particular advantages I might otherwise justly take against all the definitions of this very individual Pope Iohn the XXII as such more then against any definitions of most other Popes as being he that was himself so notoriously tainted with the heresy which holds none of the Blessed see God nor shall see him before the day of general judgment that he had immediatly before his death prepared a Bull to declare so much and define it as an Article of Faith and in his death bed retracted his opinion in this particular no further then onely to submit it to the Church and as being he that so contrary to both former and later definitions of former and later Popes especially of Nicholaus Quartus in cap. exiit de verb. signif in 6. and Clemens V. in Clementina Exiti de Paradiso set out his three Extravagants 1. Ad conditorem canonum 2. Cum inter and 3. Quia Quorumdam whereof the first and last cannot be reconciled at all not even in Bellarmine's judgment l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 14. to the said former definition of Nicholas the Fourth or sayd later of Clement the Fift however the said Iohn himself and in his said first and last Extravagant and Ioannes de Turrecremata l. 2. Sum. c. 112. labour mightily to reconcile them but all in vain and as being he moreover against whom Gulielmus Occâ—mus that great Franciscan Doctor and Prince of the Noâ—â—inals writ his special book or Tract entituled Contra triginta duos errores Ioannis Papae XXII and finally as being he or the Pope against whom and from whom that famous general Representative of the whole Franciscan Order throughout the world or their General Chapter at Perusium in Italy held under their Minister General Michael de Cesenas appealed in their own name and in the name of their said whole Order to a future General Council of the universal Church charging him with strang errors and other miscarriages if not crimes of the highest nature against all the State of Christendom passing by also the special exceptions which may be offered against this very Bull in particular whereof we treat now above other Bulls or more then against any other Bull Decree Declaration or Extravagant of this very Pope viz that being as Spondanus writes Marsilius de Padua alias Marsilius Menandrinus born in the City of Padua and Ioannes Iandunus of Perusia condemned in this Bull were the first learned Councils in point of law or divinity or both whereof the Emperour Ludovicus de Bavaria made use and the first learned Doctors who appeared for him in writing to justifie his quarrel and his imperial rights against so many thundering sentences of excommunication deposition c. pronounced by the same Pope Iohn XXII and prosecuted by him even all his life after inexorably against this Emperour and not onely by him but by his two next Successors Benedict the XII and Clement the VI. even for 33. years continually the whole extent of time wherein the said Lewis maugre all the opposition of the said three Popes one after an other vigorously defended the legality of his own election to and possession ever after of the Empire until his death and being it was in defence of such election and possession and consequently of both the Electoral and Imperial powers independence from the Pope as also in reproof of the usurpation of Popes upon the Empire and particularly of the said Iohn the XXII that Marsilius writ and publish'd his own book an 1324. directed to the said Lewis of Bavier the subject of which book was the Imperial and Papal jurisdiction as the title was Defensor Pacis and that Iandunus also writ and publish'd an other of his own de Potestate Ecclesiastica therefore the above given Bull of Iohn XXII and it in particular above any other Bull of his at least next to that other one or those moe whereby he both excommunicated and deposed the said Emperour Lewis and yet further declared his own plenitude of even supream temporal power to dispose of the Empire as he thought fit is at least for some parts of it most rationally subject to a well grounded censure of its being though indirectly a new devise and an other product of that vehement and obstinat passion of his against the same Lewis's person and even against all the Imperial power it self whatever person challeng'd or had it and of its being the most truly effectual and most speciously Papal means he could fix upon to take away all support from Lewis and to justifie his own procedure against Lewis passing by moreover that which concerns the legal or canonical both publication and reception of this Bull generally in Christendom or in any considerable parts of Christendom or whether indeed either was as he desired both should be as much as throughout France it self where he resided albeit the King of France then was sometimes an enemy to Lewis as at some other times he professed to be his friend or as much as in England notwithstanding his direction of it to the Bishop of Worster being we know that Edward the 3d then of England was mostly in league with Lewis of Bavier against the French King and was moreover by the same Lewis created Vicar of the Empire in the tract of Low countries
stretch'd along on the ground at his feet weeping and beseeching him and at their representing to him how the King had threatned him and all his with exile with destruction and death unde Rex sayes Hoveden ad an 1164. plurimum in ira adversus eum commutus minatus est ei suis exilium alias exilium mortem and I say when by such means he had sworn in retracting at last on better advise so rash an oath and refusing to confirm those pretended customes by his seal or subscription 8. And lastly in refusing either to absolve the excommunicated Bishops but in forma Ecclesiae consueta or consent that his own Clerks which came with him out of France should take any unjust or unlawfull oath contrary to the two material demands or commands to him in behalf of Henry the second by his four murtherers Willelmus de Traci Hugo de Mortvilla Richardus Brito and Reginaldus filius Vrsi For to their third which was that he should go reverently to the young King and do him homage and fealty by oath for his Archiepiscopal Barony as Parker relates it its plain enough he never refused that not onely because he did so at the time of his investiture to Henry the second himself the Father King but also because that upon his return from exile which was but a month before his death he was on his journey as farr as London to the young King's Count to do and pay this young King also all the respects and duties becoming but was by the Queens Brother Gocelinus as Hoveden writes commanded in that very young King 's own name not go to Court nor proceed further whereupon he return'd back to Canterbury In all which eight several Instances as also in all their necessary Antecedents Concomitants and Subsequents I confess again ingenuously it is my own judgment that St. Thomas of Canterbury had justice of his side because in some he had all the laws of both God and man for him and in the rest he had for him the very just and politick municipal laws of England as yet then not legally repealed these very laws I mean rehearsed by me in my seventh observation and because there was not any law of God or man against him in the case or in any of those Instances being the laws of the land were for him in all and because the design of Henry the second to oppress the people of England both Clergie and Layety but especially the Clergie and to render the Sacerdotal Order base and contemptible as we have seen before observed out of Polydore Virgil required that the Archbishop of Canterbury should stand in the gap as farr as it became a Subject by denying his own consent as a Peer and as the first Peer too of the Realm and by proceeding yet as a Bishop and as the Primate also of all Bishops in England and by proceeding so I say in a true Episcopal manner against such as would by threats of death force oppressive customs for new laws on both Peers and people Clergie and Layety against their own known will and their own old laws And therefore also consequently do acknowledg my own judgment to be that the Major of the Syllogistical objection against me or this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c against Henry the Second is fals may be by me admitted simply and absolutely without any distinction Though I add withall it be not necessary to admit it for any such inconvenience as the proof which I have given before of that Major would inferi or deduce out of the denyal of it In which proof I am sure there are several propositions or suppositions involved which no Catholick Divine not even a rigid Bellarminian is bound to allow As 1. that neither Church nor Pope can possibly err in matter of fact or in their judgment of matter of fact though relating to the life or death or precise cause of the death of any Saint or Martyr which matter of fact is neither formally nor virtually expressed nor by a consequential necessity deduced out of holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For Bellarmine himself confesses that even a general Council truly such may err in such matters of fact And the reason is clear because the judgment of the Church in such matters is onely secundum allegata probata depending wholly on the testimony of this or that man or some few or at most of many mortal and sinfull witnesses or of such of whose veracity in that the Church hath no authentick or absolutely certain revelation from God but humane probability or at most humane moral certainty which is ultimately resolved into the humane credit or faith we give an other man or men or to their veracity who possibly may themselves either of purpose too deceive us or be deceived themselves however innocently And the case is clear in the famous and great controversy about those heads were called the Tria Capitula all which concern'd matter of fact of three great Bishops in the fourth and fift general Councils under Pope Leo Magnus and Pope Vigilius And is yet no less clear in the controversy about Pope Honorius which was of matter of fact whom two general Councils condemn'd for a Heretick for a Monothelit so long after his death and out of his own writings and yet Bellarmine defends him from being such and on this ground defends him that those Councils were deceived in their judgment of matter of fact by attributing to him that doctrine which he held not 2. That the infallibility which Catholicks believe and maintain to be in the Church necessarily implyes her infallibility of judgment concerning this or that fact of any even the greatest Saint whereof we have nothing in holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For the Infallibility of the Church is onely in preserving and declaring or at least in not declaring against that whatsoever it be matter of fact or Theory which was delivered so from the beginning as revealed by God either in holy Scripture or Apostolical Tradition 3. That St. Thomas of Canterbury could not be a holy maâ—tyr or great miraculous Saint in his life or death or after his death at his tomb were his quarrel against Henry the second not just in all the essential integral and circumstantial parts of it from first to last were it not I say just according to the very objective truth of things and of the laws of God and man though it had been so or at least the substantial part of it whereon he did ultimately and onely all along insist had been so according his own inward judgment and though also his Soul had been otherwise both in that and all other matters ever so pure holy religious resigned to follow the pleasure of God and embrace truth did he know or did he think it were of the other side in any part of the
him either direct or indirect as they speak and that either spiritual or temporal or mixt depose all Kings whatsoever at least such as are Christians but above all such as are Hereticks or believers of Hereticks and may depose them at least casually as Innocent the Third speaks that is for sin or by occasion of their sin or may at least depose them for some kinds of horrid sins or lastly for evil Government or unfitness or uncapableness to govern as the foolish Assertion is of some late smattering Divines flattering Parasites of the great Pontiff For indeed although from the very first time I understood any thing of Theological positions relating to the Civil or Lay and Ecclesiastical or Church-powers which the more ancient Divines and many too of the very Scholasticks have excellently well distinguished as Gerson Almainus Occam and others it never once entered my Soul to repute the great Pontiff alone without a Council Oecumenical to be a competent Judge in this Controversie as I never since or before either believed Him to be infallible or unerrable but in such a General Synod only and only too in defining there with their concurrence Articles or matters of Faith yet even in his sole judgment as in that of the Primary Bishop and Universal Patriarch Doctor Father and spiritual Superiour of all Christians I have alwayes thought fit to acquiesce for the peace of the Church until a General Council be assembled I mean if or when he declares that his judgment as Pope not as a particular Doctor and further if it evidently appears not to contain an Error against the Christian Faith once and all along till then delivered and lastly if or when it is in matters purely belonging to that very Faith Wherewith notwithstanding is well consistent and compatible That I Religiously acknowledge his fulness of Apostolical power in spirituals and my own absolute subjection to Him in such as I do indeed and as I am specially bound to by the Rule of St. Francis I profess most devoutly acknowledge both This only follows out of what is before said That if from the appearance of Caron or Walsh at Bruxels your Lordship hoped for a Refixion of their Signatures you have invited them to no purpose Or you thought peradventure of some kind of modification or change of the said Form either as to the sense or to the words or both If to the sense you would without any peradventure lose both your oyle and pains Since it is very true and certain That hitherto no reason no motive proposed to those from whom we do expect the benefit of that Protestation could prevail with them to admit not even in the least any manner of variation in the sense for what concerns the substantial parts of a declaration and promise of fidelity indispensable by any mortal and of an acknowledgment of the Kings MAJESTIES power Supreme in Temporals to depend of God alone and of no other kind of power on earth Spiritual or Temporal or mixt of both whatsoever But if to the words the same sense in substance still retained they have already granted that Or lastly perhaps you thought of Treating with us of some other wayes or means whereby the Romish Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland may be restored to His MAJESTIES Favour notwithstanding that the foresaid Form be laid by for ever and not only that Form but all and every or any other Form Oath Protestation or Declaration whatsoever of Allegiance And truly I could with all my heart wish there might be any such Expedients proposed or such as would be grateful to His MAJESTY and prime Counsellors of State But that any such may or such as will suffice without a publick Declaration Protestation or Oath of fidelity for the future I do for my part wholly despair So deeply hath the remembrance of the Troubles raised amongst the Catholicks of Ireland against the King and Crown and Peace of that Countrey in the late Wars by the Lord Nuntio Rinuccini and by his too too zealous sticklers of the Irish Clergy fixed its Roots And so powerful to break open again and make the old sore fester anew your Lordships endeavours and contrivements for so they call here your Admonitions and Cautions and much more yet those of the most eminent Cardinal Francis Barberine in so many several Epistles of both to the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of Ireland on the subject of our Protestation have been Epistles sent to no other end say they but to alienate once more that Nation and Kingdom from the duty of Subjects For if this were not your design their demand is Why should you seek for knots in the smoothest bulrush Whatever your Lordships intention was or whichsoever of these three things you resolved to propose to Caron or Walsh or both had they appeared at Brussels I see not wherefore being they are stayed at London it may not be as well proposed unto them and by mutual Commerce of Letters treated as happily nay far more happily and speedily too I mean as to any reasonable point than if they had been at Brussels Wherefore by the wounds of the crucified God I beseech your Lordship may be pleased to deal fairly and candidly with us and with the rest of the Irish Clergy and write the single Proposition or Clause any one or more if perhaps more then one seem such to you or your Divines which may be said undoubtedly to be against faith or salvation or which may render the Subscribers guilty of Sacriledge as your Doctors of Louain have Censured the Form in general And that you may be pleased to fix on such Proposition or Propositions Clause or Clauses not by the Rule of any variable sentence of some Opiners but by that of the infallible sense of all Believers by that of the constant doctrine of the Church and by that of the divine persuasion of all People Kingdoms and Nations that are in communion with the Roman See and Bishop Which if your Lordship cannot do or if you cannot according to this Rule single out of that Form any one Proposition or Clause or more such that may be lyable to Censure let I beseech you the most holy Father permit a miserable people communicating with and obeying Him in spirituals redeem themselves by lawful and honest means from the severity of Laws which make them drag a life of hardship and slavery clear the suspition of disloyal principles and practices otherwise most justly conceived of them and wipe off as well as they can and wash away that blemish which renders even Catholick profession in it self very odious Nor verily can it be esteemed just much less pious and the Church ought to be very pious in governing That the most Holy Father should by Censures and Threats or such other means either by Letters or by Messengers compel or drive any people or persons at least who live without the bounds of his own proper temporal Jurisdiction
propositions of this paper at large and with all clearness discharged our duty as to the three first of those fiâ— of Sorbon and that now remain only the three last 13. We declare further it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the perswasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practice according to any doctrine or positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives or those of his Crown annexed thereunto by such Laws of England or Ireland as were in force before the change under Henry the 8th And never consequently to approve of or practice by teaching or otherwise any doctrine or position that maintains any thing against the genuine liberties of the Irish Church of the Roman Communion as for example that the Pope can depose a Bishop against the Canons of the said Church Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever that is either of him as of a private person or Doctor or of him as of a publick Teacher and Superiour of the universal Church or as Pope is infallible in his definitions made without the consent approbation and reception of the said Church even we mean in his definitions made either in matters of discipline or in matters of faith whether by Briefs Bulls Decretal Epistles or otherwise 14. Lastly we declare it is our unalterable resolution and shall be alwayes by Gods grace That if the Pope should or shall peradventure be at any time hereafter perswaded by any persons or motives to declare in any wise out of a General Council or before the definition of a future General Council on the point or points against the doctrine of this or any other the above propositions in whole or in part or against our selves or any others for owning or subscribing them We though with all humble submission to his Holiness in other things or in all spiritual matters purely such wherein he hath power over us by spiritual commands according to the Canons received universally in the several Roman Catholick Churches of the world shall notwithstanding continue alwayes true and faithful to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all temporal things and contingencies whatsoever according to the true plain sincere and obvious meaning and doctrine of all and every the fourteen propositions of this paper and of every part or clause of them without any equivocation mental reservation or other evasion or distinction whatsoever and in particular without that kind of distinction which is made of a reduplicative and specificative sense wherein any such may be against the said obvious and sincere meaning and consequently vain and unconscionable in this matter QUERIES CONCERNING The LAWFULNESSE of the Present CESSATION AND OF THE CENSURES AGAINST ALL CONFEDERATES ADHERING unto it PROPOUNDED By the RIGHT HONOVRABLE the SUPREME COUNCIL to the most Reverend and most Illustrious DAVID Lord Bishop of OSSORY and unto other DIVINES WITH ANSWERS GIVEN and SIGNED by the said most Reverend PRELATE and DIVINES Printed at KILKENNY Anno 1648. And Re-printed Anno 1673. The Censure and Approbation of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Thomas Deasse Doctor of Divinity of the University of Paris and Lord Bishop of Meath I The undernamed having seriously perused and exactly examined the Answers made to the QUERIES by the Right Reverend Father in God David Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines thereunto subscribing do esteem the same worthy to be published in Print to the view of the world as containing nothing either against God or against Caesar but rather as I conceive the Answerers in the first place do prove home and evidently convince the Excommunication and other Censures of the Lord Nuncio c. to have been groundless and void even of their own nature and before the Appeal and besides do manifestly convince that in case the Censures had not been such of their own nature yet the Appeal interposed suspends them wholly with their effects consequences and jurisdiction of the Judge or Judges c. And withal do solidly and learnedly vindicate from all blame the fidelity integrity and prudence of the Supreme Council in all their proceedings concerning the Cessation made with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin notwithstanding the daily increasing obloquies and calumnies of their malignant opposers In the second place the Answerers do sufficiently instruct the scrupulous and ignorant misled People exhorting them to continue in their obedience to Supreme Authority as they do in like manner confute and convince efficaciously the opposition of such obstinate and refractory persons as do presume to vilifie and tread under foot the Authority established in the Kingdom by the Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks And finally the Answerers dutifully and loyally do invite all true hearted Subjects to yield all due obedience to their Sovereign and to any other Supreme Civil Magistrate subordinate and representing the Sovereigns Supreme Authority according to the Law of God the Law of the Church and the Law of the Land Thomas Medensis Given at Kâ—lkenny Aug. 17. 1648. Another Approbation BY the perusal of this Treatise intituled Queries and Answers I am induced to concur with other eminent Surveyors thereof That it contains nothing contrary to approved Doctrine sound Faith or good Manners and therefore that behooveful use may be made thereof by such as love truth and sincerity 7. August 1648. Thomas Rothe Dean of St. Canie And Protonotary Apostolick c. Another Approbation HAving perused by Order of the Supreme Council the Queries propounded by the Supreme Council c. with Answers given them by the Right Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and other Divines and being required to deliver my sense of this work I do signifie That I find moving in the said Queries of Answers against Catholick Religion good Life or Manners but much for their advancement and great lights for the discovery of Truth I find by evident proofs declared that the Council in this affair of Cessation Appeal interposed against and other proceedings had with the Lord â—uncio and his adherents 〈◊〉 themselves with a due resentment of the general destruction of the Kingdom and with is true and knowing zeal of Loyalty for the maintenance of the Catholick Religion Justice lawful Authority the lives estates and rights of the Confedâ—ranâ—s I find by uncontroulable reasons proved That the Confederates cannot without worldly ignomity and Divine indignation fâ—ll from the said Cessation while the condition are performed and time expired I find lastly hence and by other irrefragable arguments That all and every of the Censures pronounced either by the Nuncio or any else against the Council or other Confederates upon this ground of concluding or adhering to the Cessation are unreasonable unconscionable invalid void and against Divine and Humane Laws
of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
defiled but certainly hold upon that matter in 〈◊〉 To be 〈◊〉 the Answers were 1. That it very ill â—â—ted with the profession of the followers of Christ and Successors of his Apostles and Disciples or the function of Priests of God and Preachers of Evangelical tâ—â—â—â— by their calling for any earthly regard or ambitious aim of titles or diguleies either 〈…〉 of the Church to decline the declaration of their conscience or of the doctrine of Christ whereby the stocks on people 〈◊〉 their charge or to whom they were sent might be sâ—â—â—dly and sufficiently instructed that to embrace 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 as prescribed by the law of God That besides they were altogether ouâ— in their way to those worldly and they proposed themselves with so little regard of their duty or conscience That the case was much altered 〈◊〉 that hath been these hundred years pasts And that if they expected a greater liberty they should withal expect a more arrow inspection from the Prince or State into their affairs and Government and to the persons amongst them advanced 〈◊〉 others and to the means and wayes of their advancement hereafter and their 〈◊〉 its consequently principles and faithfulness to the Crown 2. That 〈◊〉 of them as formerly had been so with â—unate and indeed most of them were so as to have been pactiâ—â—s in the Nunâ—â—o's and other annexed quarrels against the brights of the Crown 〈…〉 of the Kingdom had the 〈◊〉 reason now to be forward to embrace the opportunity given them of meâ—â—ing hereafter a better opinion and removing as well as they might out of His Majesties breast Lord Lieutenants and even out of all the rest of their fellow Subjects especially Protestants the jealousies and suspicions their former actions continue yet in them and must alwayes continue if they refuse to give so lawful and dutiful so catholick and conscientious an argument of their change and repentance as their subscription to the said Remonstrance must be reputed 3. That for those others of them who in the 〈…〉 him been honest and loyal all along they should 〈…〉 the fair hope they had of a â—ew 〈…〉 its a 〈…〉 then this for their further good 〈…〉 their profession and â—â—â—ingâ—ed 〈◊〉 of their 〈…〉 uniform in in their doctrine and life according to the law of God in all sentiâ—â—â— that Time servers nor Wealth â—â—ckâ— That besides they should confides the streight the King was in but with so 〈…〉 the impossibility of satisfying 〈…〉 happen in such a case that of this Countrey but why 〈…〉 That to the publick good and gâ—â—â— parts of the Kingdom 〈…〉 of particular could not be preferred That they 〈…〉 be of the necessities of the publick for disposition And if the King or now Laws did wrong any even of the best deserving of their friends their religion and their conscience and principles told them and their function or calling peculiarly they nor other Subjects had in such a case other remedy but prayers and tears and supplications to Him that can believe the oppressed when he please in this world and will certainly 〈…〉 in Christian patience in a better Finally that the liberty 〈◊〉 exercise of Religion and of indoctrinating the People in the wayes to heaten were the markâ— propâ—r 〈◊〉 them to shoâ— at and to this end they were called not to contend for partitions of earthly patrimonies And that where one Proprietor 〈◊〉 his â—and a thousand Catholicks would loose their souls if they would not pursue in 〈◊〉 even course the principles of the Religion and a good Conscience and by their concurrence wipe off the jealousies raised against and scandals aspersed on it by the doctrine and practises which that Remonstrance did condemn on disown 4. To those that had ingrafted in them an aversioâ— against all was called or reputed the Interest of the Crown of England in this Countrey it was seriously inculcated how unfortunate both themselves and predecessors had been therein during the revolâ—â—â—â—s and various attempts in prâ—secution thereof these 500 years past since Hâ—â—ty the 2d And how the principles and arguments they made use of to flatten themselves to some kind of â—â—â—â—fulness which indeed 〈◊〉 a pitiful and in point of conscienâ—â— were such as chose and no other then those which Father Charles 〈◊〉 Mahâ—n the Mâ—â—er Jesuit hath in his wicked Apology set out in Portugal however pretended to have been printed at Frandâ—fords and dispersed here amongst the Confederate though publickly burn'd by the hand of a hangman at Kilkenny and by the authority also of the said Confederate and against which the Proculator himself by the command of to then supream Council preach't nine Sermons five Sundays one after another in St. Kennys Church on that text of Jeremiah Quis est 〈◊〉 vobis sap â—â—siqui considerat hoc quare perierit terra Even such as would involve by consequence all Kingdoms and States in the whole earth whereinto my Forreigner ever enter'd as any time in perpetual war and blood shed Such as would beâ—â—â—ve of all right all conquering Nations let the causes of the invasion be never so just or continued-possession after be never so long and the submission of the conquer'd never so voluntary for what can appear to the eyes of man And such also as would arm even themselves who made use of such arguments one against another while the world did stand Nay and such too as being prest on by contrary arguments would make them confess consequently as indeed they did such of them as were ingenuous and freely spoke their minds to the Procurator urging them in point of reason that it were not a sin against the law of God for any to involve the whole Kingdom iâ— was again if he could to recover only for himself a small patrimony even of a much as twenty pounds a year whereof he had been in his own privat judgement dispossesâ—â—d unjustly in the late plantations made before the wars It was further laid open to such men how their sin entertaining such mâ—râ—â—â—es and harbouring such designs was by so much the more abominable before God and man by how much they were themselves Hypocritical in pretending only to others that knew them not a speciousness of Religion and that of the Church of God and interest of the Pope Then which or any of all which God knowes they intended nothing less but where it brought or could bring their other truly intended worke about 5. To the Regulars in general it was answer'd That they knew better their own strength and their own exemption and their own priviledges then so That they often engage against the whole body of the secular Clergie in matters wherein they are sure to offend them more and have more opposition from them and less support from others either in their own Country at home or abroad in forraign parts or even at Rome And they were sure enough the Pope would be wiser then to discountenance such a numerous body
the Religion and Catholick Church pure undefiled immaculate without spot or wrinckle whereby to invite and perswade others to it for the salvation of their souls or certainly that they must allow salvation as they neither do nor can to be found in other Congregations or Churches either Heretical or Schismatical And further he minded them seriously insisting no less earnestly thereupon That no earthly regard none at all of temporal either advantages or disadvantages of honour profit ease much less of such vain titles and preferments as they look after nor on the other side any apprehension of disfavour discountenance danger persecution nor loss of goods if they had any nor even of liberty and life could excuse them from this duty That whether all their hopes of the King and his great Ministers of his Councils and Parliaments or of the moderate people of the Protestant Church upon one side should fail them having done their own duty and their pleas of innocence and articles both or whatever else-were of no account and all their both nearest and dearest Lay-relative Proprietors to a man were destroyed at home and themselves finally forced abroad again or design'd to suffer in their own Countrey the extreamest rigour of laws either made already or hereafter to be at any time or contingencies there or if on the other side they were absolutely certain being exiled to meet with no less severity and cruelty from the Court of Rome or an angry incensed Pope and from all Princes and Catholick Prelates and People too where-ever they came that even this certainty of such evils however in themselves or to any prudent man neither probable nor morally possible could not excuse them from this duty That the first Subscribers had supposed all the very worst could happen beyond all fear and yet found themselves bound to do what they did That they conceived their special function nay Christianity it self obliged them so in the case and others of the same calling could pretend no special priviledge from Christ or his Gospel or his Church whatever the Courtiers of Rome but at their instance and importunity and that of their busie ignorant Agents and Sollicitours there did erroneously complement them with And therefore the conclusion of all was that he understood not with what confidence or conscience but that of horrour and sacriledge and of being guilty of the body and blood of our Lord and of eating and drinking judgment to themselves as St. Paul speaks or their own condemnation they could persisting in their obstinacy approach the Altars of God and celebrate the Divine and unbloudy Mysteries With which final conclusion as with all the rest of this last discourse notwithstandieg the Procurator most frequently and earnestly and pathetically perclosed all his several answers to the several parties of the Clergy and to those too of greatest authority and power amongst them even Provincials Vicars General Bishops and Archbishops yet which is very notable he never had hereunto at any time or from any person of them all one word of reply but sighs only from some arguing a remorse and silence from the rest without any remorse at all if their past and after actions be sufficient testimonies of their affections XIV Now after so long a discontinuance of or digression from the bare matter of fact and without further consideration of the arguments of either side or of the allegations of the dissenters the refutations or reasons insisted on by the Procurator to return back thither where I was treating how upon the arrival of the said Procurator about the end of August 1662. he had by conferring at Dublin with several of the chief heads there peevishly adverss to the Remonstrance some alledging one excuse and some another and others many together of such as you have seen already above or before the answers partly understood the whole intrigue from those men and partly too from others who came to him from several parts of the Countrey abroad of purpose to let him know the general conspiracy either enter'd or submitted unto even by some of the best affected most loyal heretofore of both Secular and Regular Clergy throughout all parts of the Kingdom against that Remonstrance and himself also upon account thereof if he persisted in his resolution to draw them to it or not to work for them a liberty as they vainly conceived he could to frame another unsignificant one for themselves and prevail for the acceptance of such by His Grace and by His Majesty the Procurator fully therefore now understanding what he was to do resolves in the first place to attempt the breaking of that ligue so general the breaking of it immediatly by some Instances at Dublin the Metrapolitan City Whose Clergy and their example must especially in such a matter have had great influence on the rest in other parts of the Kingdom and certainly so much that if they residing in the very sight of the State and giving daily intelligence to the rest abroad or if at least some leading men of them could not be wrought upon to desert so sinful and shameful I will not say disloyal a confederacy there could be no hopes at all to prevail with any others In which attempt he was presently after some little pains taken so far succesful as to have reason'd to a subscription publick owning thereof the Guardian other Fathers of the Franciscan Convent in that City being in all five with them two of the Dominicans whereof one was the then Prior of Droghedah but residing at Dublin These were they that first of all others in Ireland at home next after Father Valentine Browne at Galway condemn'd by a clear and ever since constant profession and observance of their duty the rashness and sinfulness of that so general conspiracy against it Though I must confess that as many as after followed their example to this day have of themselves freely and heartily without compulsion or even other invitation then what was publick in the Book and Letters of the Procurator come along from several and some from very remote parts of the Kingdom to Dublin of purpose to subscribe that Instrument and thereby quiet their own conscience by declaring in that manner as they should and was expected from them their true allegiance to the Prince XV. But for as much as I doubt not there are very many both desirous and curious to know the number and names of all those of the Clergy Regular or Secular who have then or at any time since concurred for the number and names of the Subscribers at London of that Clergy together with the Bishop of Dromore I have already given with the Remonstrance it self in the beginning of this Treatise as they are extant in print and because it will be more satisfaction to give them altogether then dispersedly in several places as they signed at several times the Reader may satisfie himself here in both particulars
the authority or passage alledg'd out of St. Bernard the answer is 1. That it is curtail'd by the Quoter the words immediatly following part of the same sentence and last period of that passage being purposely omitted That period being thus concluded by the Saint Séd sanè ad nutum sacerdotis jussum imperatoris Where he manifestly shews the difference betwixt the direction of the Priest and command in the Emperour over the temporal or material sword 2. That St. Bernard never mean'd to impose any any necessity of conscience on the Prince to draw his sword whensoever and as often soever as the Priest or Bishop would becken or nod or which is the same thing would advise counsel or endeavour to perswade him But mean'd only that the material sword should indeed be drawn by the Emperours command in such controversies or quarrels as the Priest might and ought in conscience to justifie according to the laws of God And that temporal Princes in undertaking war or in matter of publick or private justice where they must use the sword or force should if their be any doubt whether the undertaking or execution be according to the law of God or no and if themselves cannot resolve themselves should I say in such cases advise with or consult the Priest in that which belongs to conscience The Saint without any question supposing what the Prophet Malachy speaks That the lips of the Priest shall preserve knowledge and others shall demand of him the law of truth 3. That were St. Bernard speaking to the Bishops of Milan Constantinople Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem or to him of Paris London Toledo or Triers or to any other particular Bishop in the world that had a temporal Prince or General of War within his Diocess he might and would have said so much to him nay to the Priests that are no Bishops at all I mean the Ghostly Fathers or Spiritual Directors of Princes 4. That this very Saint himself doth abundantly clear all scruples in this matter For not to take notice of those words tuo forsitan nutu to quit the advantage of these other jussum Imperatoris both in this very passage quoted against me that other in his first book of Considerations to the same Pope Eugenius c. 5. is abundantly sufficient Non monstrabunt puto sayes he ubi aliquando quispiam Apostolorum Iudex sederit hominum aut divisor terminorum aut distributor tèrrà rum stetisse denique ego Apostolos judicandos sedisse judicantes non lego c. Ergo in criminibus non in possessionibus potestas vestra quoniam propter illa non propter has accepistis claves regni caelorum praevaricatores utique exclusuri non possessores Quaenam tihi major videtur dignitas potestas dimittendi peccata an praedia dividendi sed non est comparatio Habent haec infima terrena judices suos Reges Principes terrae Quid fines alienos invaditis After all which he gave in the same paper of his answers that is in the skirt of it this Advertisement The Reader may be pleased to take notice That however this be or whatever may be thought of this doctrine yet the Subscribers to the Protestation are not any way engaged either in the affirmative or Negative it being manifest that the protestation in it self abstracts from either part and consequently both from these Answers and the Queries too XXVII That besides and after sending the foresaid two or three Quaeries to the Procurator the Jesuits now I remember not which of them or by whom sent him this other of one single Quaerie and reasons for the Affirmative Which because it and the former were the only papers and indeed only Quaeries and Reasons either by paper or without paper insisted on seriously by them or any others in Ireland ever since this dispute concerning the Remonstrance began And none else but those Fathers of the Society and in this manner only insisted on them so I give wholly and exactly as in the original given me without any subscription Whether a temporal or corporal punishment may be inflicted by virtue of a spiritual power Some reasons offered for the Affirmative First it is a maxime of Aristotle and allowed of by all Statists Doctors of the Civil and Canon Law and by all Divines that frustra datur potestas directiva sine coerciva The spiritual power is directiva Therefore in all reason we must allow potestas coerciva or a coactive power I know the answer of such as hold the negative is that potestas directiva hath a coactive power intra eandem sphaeram that is to say when the potestas directiva is spiritual it must have potestas coerciva or a coactive power ejusdem generis of the same kind and therefore spiritual punishments are allowed to the potestas directiva spiritually as Excommunications interdicts c. but no temporal punishments To this I reply that they can scarce produce one Classick Author of any note that giveth this exposition and they that hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter for the contrary teste Basilio Pontio one of the most eminent men of this age who expressis verbis saith haec est communis omnium Catholicorum opinio Secondly omitting many other proofs it is the opinion of two General Councils that of Lyons and that of Lateran though perhaps not enacted per modum decreti But because General Councils are undervalued by some that believe that only the diffusive Church is infallible I will stand to the general practice of the diffusive Church which is the surest way to know its opinion When any person is nominatim Excommunicatus he is not only put from Mass and deprived of the suffrages of the faithful but also he is forbidden any civil commerce and conversation with the faithful he must not eat or drink with them he must not discourse nor be saluted by them besides they are whipped and commanded to undergo austere penances But all these are corporal punishments Therefore the opinion of the Diffusive Church is that a spiritual power can inflict corporal punishments And this being once granted it must be also allowed that the corporal punishment may be the greater pro qualitate delicti and consequently when the crimes are great it is in the power of the Church to inflict great punishments corporal and temporal Thirdly It is recounted 2. Machab. cap. 2. that Antiochus being King of the Jews the Priest Mathathias seeing a Jew by the Kings command ready to offer sacrifice to the Idols killed both the Jew and him who by the Kings command did compel the Jews to sacrifice Is it found in Scripture that this act is reprehended or doth any of the holy Fathers condemn Mathathias of unlawful murther in this case The same Mathathias being ready to depart this world and give an account to God of all his actions exhorteth his Sons to take arms
60. Capitula which Mathew Paris tells were proposed by Innocent to the Fathers or whither that Council enacted these or any other Canons whatsoever yet I say it clearly appears out of the very text or express letter of those 72 chapters now attributed to that Council and I mean the Text or express words of the 11. Chap. 33. Chap. 39. Chap. 51. Chap. and 61. Chap. that they are not the Acts of the Council but with additions at least And consequently that they are of no credit at all as Acts of that Council For in the 11. Chap. we find these words or manner of speaking In Lateranensi Concilio piâ fuit institutione provisum And Chap. 33. Evectionum et personarum mediocritatem observent in Lateranensi Concilio definitam And Chap. 39. De multa providentia fuit in Lateranensi Concilio prohibitum c. Quia vero propter Suppressiones et Cupiditates quorundam nullus hactenus fructus aut rarus de praedicto statuto pervenit nos evidentius et expressius occurrere cupientes praesenti Decreto statuimus c. And Chap. 61. In Lateranensi Concilio noscitur fuisse prohibitum c. Nos autem id fortius inhibentes c. Behold Innocent himself or Gregory the IX or whoever els was author of these 72. Canons witnessing plainly that they are not the Canons of that Council but Canons made after that Council because relating to other Canons formerly made by that Council Now where are those other Canons formerly so made by that Council no where certainly extant hitherto or at least at this present if not those 72. Supposititious ones which yet implyes a plaine contradiction How Cardinal Perons arguments to prove them assented to by that Council are sufficiently answered by other Catholick Divines who tell him that Abbot Joachimus's errors and Amalrichus's are not therefore condemned by Catholicks that they believe this Council to have made those Acts now extant as their's which condemn them but therefore certainly because the Fathers there did not oppose or at most made the two first Acts of those 72. or because the Church universal did after allow of the said two first Acts of Innocents condemnation of the said errours and received or approved that condemnation as they found it in the books of Decretals published by Gregory the IX and because they found that condemnation in all parts of it conform to their old auncient belief And the same they say of the articles of Transubstantiation and of the procession of the Holy Ghost And the same also proportionably of that Canon of Discipline in cap. Omnis utriusque Sexus or of that of annual confession How further when that most Illustrious Cardinal urgeth that both Scholastical Doctors and even Popes and Councils too quote some of the said 60. 70. or 72. Canons of Lateran and as of Lateran he is answered by other learned Catholicks that they are quoted so indeed by some but onely still out of supposition or onely because those Canons were so propounded or rehearsed in that Council but not out of any certain knowledg judgment or belief that they were confirmed or assented to by that Council Being such of the quoters as were indeed learned or versed in Ecclesiastical History might have known what the Historians of those days tell us that the said Capitula seemed to some to be easie and pleasing but to others heavie and burdensome and that nothing at all was plainly concluded in that Council How besides to a third argument which may be drawn out of the Council of Constance in the 39th Session where ordaining what profession the future Pope was to make those Fathers of Constance decree that every future Pope hereafter to be chosen must make this confession and profession before his election be published That he doth firmly believe the holy Catholick Faith according to the tradition of the Apostles General Councils and other holy Fathers but especially according to those traditions or Canons of the eight sacred general Councils to witt of the first of Nice of the 2d of Constantinople of the 3 d. of Ephesus of the 4th of Calcedon of the 5th and 6th of Constantinople of the 7th of Nice and of the 8th of Constantinople and also of Lateran Lyons and Vienna also general Councils how I say to this argument it is answered by very learned Catholick Divines that by the Council of Lateran here is not understood this whereof we treat under Pope Innocent the 3d. but the former celebrated under Pope Alexander the 3d. in the year 1180. And if it be understood of this Council of Lateran under Innocent it is onely say they for what concerneth those decrees wherein mention is made of the approbation of the Council as is that 46th Decree which the Council of Constance mentioneth in the Bull of Confirmation of the Emperour Fredericks constitution As also that by the Council of Lions here is not understood that under Pope Innocent the 4th who in the presence thereof excommunicated the Emperour Frederick and whereat onely 140. Bishops were present but that under Pope Gregory the Xth. in the year 1274. whereat St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas of Aquin and more than 700. Bishops were present according to Eberardus whom Binnius citeth How also did we graunt or admitt as I for my part and for what concerns the present dispute do freely graunt and admitt those 72. chap. controverted especially the 3 d. of them Ext. de Haereticis Et at tributtur Concilio Lateranensi 4. Poniturque inter ejusdem Concilii Canones Can. 3. whereof our grand controversie now is Excommunicamus et anathematizamus omnem haeresim c. Damnativero Saecularibus potestatibus praesentibus aut eorum Ballivis relinquantur c. Qui autem inventi fuerint sola suspitione notabiles c. Moneantur autem et inducantur et si necesse fuerit per censuram Ecclesiasticam compellantur c. Si vero Dominus temporalis requisitus et monitus an Ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica faeditate per Metropolitanum et Comprovinciales Episcopos Excommunicationis vinculo innodetur et si satisfacere contempserit infra annum significetur hoc summo Pontifici ut ex tunc ipse Vasallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos et terram exponat Catholicis occupandum qui cam exterminatis haereticis fine ulla contradictione possideant er in fidei puritate conservent salno jure Domini principalis dummodo super hoc ipse nullum praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum opponat eadem nihilominus lege servata circa cos qui non habent Dominos principales to have been conciliarly assented to by those Fathers of Lateran yet nothing to purpose can be concluded hence or out of any of those Canons admitted as such or out of the Canon alleadged or pleaded for so mightily not I say concluded from that Canon and there is no other Canon but that
amongst all those 72. Canons pretended for any such opinion of those Fathers How graunting even this very Canon particularly assented too and enacted by those Fathers unanimously which yet cannot according to truth be graunted no more can follow hence but that this Canon and for as much as it contains any temporal punishment or penalty of confiscation deprivation forfeiture c of estate was made by the Pope not as Pope but as a temporal Prince and made so by him for the temporal patrimony of St. Peter and other territories of the Roman See and for other Kingdoms or States made such not by the Bishops or their authority but by the authority of other temporal Princes of Christendom who all assisted in that Council by themselves in person or by Embassadours How therefore and for many other reasons which may be seen at large in Widdringtons last Rejoynder chap. 9.10.11 c. that Canon comprehends not in word or sense at all any Supream or Soveraign Princes or States but inferiour Lords or inferiour Magistrates onely according to the Doctrine and maximes even of very many of the very best Canonists themselves How onely too it is at most but a Canon of Discipline not even for that part of it which was proper to Bishops or to the Spiritual power purely such and consequently as to its vertue depending even herein of reception by those concerned and of not being abrogated after by contrary use where it was once received in what ever sense it was received or if ever indeed in any place received How finally Cardinal Bellarmine himself moved questionless by the strength and cleerness of all or at least of many of these reasons given hitherto concerning either the nullity or insignificancy of this Canon or of the rest alleadged so vainly as Canons of the 4th Lateran Council in his great Works of controversie and Books therein de Romano Pontifice where he amassed together all his strength and all the Councils he then saw might be with any colour alleadged by him to prove the Popes pretence of power for deposing Princes or inflicting on them temporal punishments omitted notwithstanding any kind of mention of this Lateran Council or Canon so little did he value it then Nor had after at any time recourse thereunto before he saw himself baffled and beaten out of all his former arguments either of Scriptures Canons or other his pittiful congrueties of reason by Doctor William Barclay or Barclay the Father in his learned Work de Potestate Papae An et quatenus in Reges et Principes Seculares ius et imperium habeat And how then for saving his own credit all he could in his reply to the said William Barclay though dead long before this reply he thought fitt to impose on the world by this unsignificant if not plainly forged Canon of that Lateran Council as Lessius another of his own Society and some time a famous Professor of Divinity in their House at Lovain had done before him to render the English Oath of Allegiance that I mean which is in the Statute of King Iames odious and uncatholick upon this account But withal how this most eminent Cardinal was no less shamefully the second time foiled in all his allegations and arguments or in those of the said Reply and amongst the rest very notably in his allegation of this Council and Canon and foiled so I say by Iohn Barclay or Barclay the Sonn in his Pietas Ioannis Barclay or his Publicae pro Regibus ac Principibus et private pro Guilielmo Barclay Parente Vindiciae Adversus Roberti S. R. E. Cardinalis Bellarmini Tractatum de Potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus Temporalibus and particularly for what concerns this Council and this third Canon of it in his Examen in Prolegomena Rob. Bellar num 76. How for what concerns that other Council of Lyons there is not one word in History or in the Acts of that Council nay nor in the very Sentence or Bull of Innocentius the Fourth who there deposed Frederick that may warrant this part of their allegation or of their saying it is or was the opinion of that Council of Lyons How on the contrary the very title or beginning of the Bull it self of Deposition sufficiently insinuats the contrary where it is said only Sacro praesente not Sacro approbante Concilio That the Acts and History which may be read briefly in M. L. Baïl that Parisian Doctors late Sum of General Councils witness the suddain horrour and amazement of that Council when they heard so unexpectedly a sentence of Deposition pronounced first by the Pope himself that is by his own mouth and after immediatly a formal one read out of paper by his command That Albertus Stadensis (a) Papa in jam dicto Coâ—cilio scilicet in die S Jacobi contra Imperatorem excommunicationis sententiam renovavit eum ab Imperiali Culmine authoritate propria deposuit hanc depositionem per totam Ecclesiam promulgavit praecipiens sub interminatione excommunicationis ut nullus eum Imperatorem de cetero nominaret Albertus Stadensis in Chronico in his Chronicle ad annum 1245. most particularly and expresly tells this Sentence was pronounced not by the authority of the Council but by the only proper authority of Innocent alone That in case that Council of Lyons had approved of it as the truth is they did not yet nothing thence could be concluded for that Councils opinion of a power in the Pope or themselves or in the Church however taken purely as the Church to depose any other or any supream temporal Prince Because that Frederick as Innocent that very same fourth Pope of that name who deposed him so alledgeth in his Bull of Deposition That the said Frederick I say had bound himself by an Oath of Allegiance to him Innocent the 3d. formerly to wit when he had illegally usurped the Empire in pursuance of another sentence of Deposition given by the self same Innocent the Third against Otho the former Emperour And because the Empire is not Hereditary nor hath been for many ages And consequently may be such or might have been such in the dayes of the said Innocent the Fourth as might have admitted the Popes negative voice in the election and further too his provision in case of a Tyrant or Usurper But whether it was then so or no I am not concerned at all nor is our present Controversie concerned in it For in other Princes especially Soveraign and Hereditary the case is different As hath been well observed by the Author of the Latin Treatise which begins Rex Pacificus de Potestate Papae And for the Emperour how elective soever I am sure he hath Lawyers both Civilians and Canonists nay and great Divines too enough to defend his rights from any kind of subjection to the Pope in temporals as even Frederick himself had For sayes the foresaid Albertius Stadensis Quidam Principum cum
is true he did not so fully dilate himself nor troubled himself nor his Reader with forming at large the argument grounded in these clear passages but left that to the judicious Reader as very obvious to any For what can be more obvious first than that neither St. Paul did say or mean that an Angel from heaven or himself should or would at any time preach any other to the Galathians Nor Christ our Saviour did say or mean that himself should or would at any time say that himself did not know the Father Secondly then that St. Paul notwithstanding that certain truth resolved and prayed or wished that both himself and even an Angel from Heaven should be accursed in case of that otherwise in it self absolutely and morally impossible supposition and that our Saviour also who was essential and eternal truth himself said and therefore truely said that in case himself did say he knew not the Father he would himself be a lyar Thirdly then that a general Council howsoever truely such cannot be less deservedly subject to be accursed or less any way be lyars is then Paul or an Angel from Heaven or at least then the natural Son of God Himself and what can be more obvious to a rational man then this discourse framed on such premisses St. Paul and our Saviour himself do cleerly say here that in case of one impossibility an other should follow St. Paul that in case an Angel from Heaven did preach otherwise he should erre and therefore should be accursed Our Saviour that in case himself said he knew not the Father himself should be a lyar And yet neither St. Paul can be therefore taxed with saying absolutely that an Angel from Heaven shall or will or may erre or may be accursed nor our Saviour with saying absolutely that himself shall or will or may be a lyar Ergo neither can the Procurator be in the case taxed with saying absolutely that a general Council truly such shall or will or may at any time erre or with saying absolutely what would onely be consequent to a general Councils conditional errour that the case may shall or will be that the subscribers shall or may be forced either to have recourse from the Representative Church that is from such a general Council to the Diffusive Church or suffer themselves to be mislead by such a Council And this is the argument which he supposed all judicious Readers would of themselves frame out of those two passages of St. Paul and our Saviour given by him briefly in the said 62. page of His More Ample Account Which now again he confesses to appear so evident to himself that he sees not what may be answered but cavil For it matters not a pinn as to the greater or lesser consequence or inconsequence what perhaps some will object that St. Paul was more firmly and cleerly certain that an Angel from Heaven would not preach otherwise c. and that our Saviour questionless was more certain that himself would not say he knew not the Father then the Procuratour was or could be that a general Council should or would or might not define the contrary doctrine c this matters not a pinn I say to prove the form of speech or the strength of the Antecedent to be any way unlike or not the same in both cases as to the concluding or inferring the like consequence to our purpose mutatis mutandis for it is the likeness or sameness of the words in the Antecedents or premisses and not the likeness or sameness of certainty in the eternal sentiments that conclude alike or inferr the like or same consequents However to clear this matter a little further and illustrate it as with the beams of the Sun I will give the objectors two cases to be considered here One past at least partly and very long since even 12. hundred years and an other which may yet well enough be in future times The first or that so already past I have briefly hinted in my More Ample Account pag. 61. it is this Before the general Council of Nice which was the first of general Councils truly such being those Councils of the Apostles have yet a more excellent name which is that of Apostolical although for ought we know ended all of them without any definition of any matters of Faith but that of the Legals only I say that before this first of Nice assembled by the Emperour Constantine the Christian Church especially in the East was lamentably divided into great factions about the Faith of one Substance one partly holding with Arrius and even amongst those very many great Bishops and Archbishops and entire Churches too That there was but one substance or nature of God the Father and of God the Son the other holding they were by nature two substances and so different by nature that the Fathers substance was increated but the Sons even I mean as God purely and essentially created or a creature and onely like the Father and God onely by grace and adoption Now I demand of our objectors what should one of these true believers of one substance answer one of the other side an Arian Heretick pressing him hard before that general Council of Nice convened and pressing him with this discourse You hold firmly and pawn your Salvation on it that there is but one and the self same identical increated substance or divine nature in God the Father and in God the Son as he is God and you are absolutely resolved never to alter that your Faith and you have subscribed a Formula or confession of Faith and a protestation too or Oath whereby you declare and swear that you will never alter your judgment in this point and whereby too you renounce and disclaim in and protest against all contrary doctrine and all authority whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to oblige you to the contrary and notwithstanding all this you see now here is very soon to sit at Nice a general Representative or a general Council truly such of the whole universal Church of Christ on earth What will you say then when they are sate or what will you do or what will you think of that your said Formula confession protestation Oath present resolution and your subscription to all if this general Council most truly such define the contrary I demand I say of our objectors what would themselves have the Catholick Consubstantialists or believers of one substance in three persons which is the very first grand Fundamental of Christian Religion or indeed what the Consubstantialist or Catholick himself could answer in such a case or to such a metaphisical contingencie caprichious interrogatory insisted upon by the Arrian or what could he answer otherwise then as the Procuratour did to the like of Brodin or what is there imaginable to be returned in answer but that in such case the Consubstantialists would
deposed from the sacaerdotal office but also thrust into a strict monastery to do perpetual pennance But nothing is concluded hence or may be against our case but on the contrary much for it as I mean to a lawful discovery of the sin or treason if such it be without discovering the sin or him that in his confession tells that intended treason For it licences the Confessors to consult in some cases with others telling them of the sins without revealing the sinner But for the rest it reflects not at all on the case of the Confessors discovery of an evil intended or plotted by others that never confess'd unto him such evil or such plot albeit the confessor knew it by or in the Sacramental confession of one of the very plotters or of some other that had no further hand in it then that of baâ—e knowledg Much less doth this Canon any way touch the case of a only seeming confitent or of such as is wickedly obstinately still impenitent however discovering such conspiracy in the confessional Seat And as little doth it say that either this kind of confession is any way Sacramental or the Seal or Obligation to keep it secret more then what is meerly natural or would be in case the party told it without any seeming formalities of a seeming Sacramental though truly known to the Confessor to be a very unsacramental confession Besides who knows not the general doctrine of Catholick Divines in relation to the Canons of the Church as such Canons only That they never bind nor intend to bind nor indeed can bind any not even I mean where they are received as this Canon is generally and ought to be not even where they seem in express words to come home to the case all the particular circumstances of it as this Canon doth not in any respect that I say such Canons neither do nor can bind any against the Law of God positive or natural Nay which is more that as barely such or as Canons of the Church only they bind not the faithful to observance where and when the observer must thereby suffer of loss of life or limb or estate or liberty or any other notable great and heavy inconvenience or evil which may be declined by the non observance of them For it is a known maxime of Divines in such cases that the Church is a pious indulgent mother But would she be so or not rather appear a cruel step-mother if she were supposed to make a Canon for concealing the intended ruine of King and Countrey and of an infinite number of Innocents nay and of her self too as may be well supposed in the case and concealing this also when the discovery so made by a confessor might prevent the whole mischief It s cruelty and inhumanity and want of piety and charity and religion and learning and reason too that would make any think she would be so impious And secondly what they can alleadg is That by the divine law natural as t is called by them for positive law divine they have none nor pretend any from Scripture or Tradition all Confessors must so behave themselves towards their penitents or confitents too let them say if they please as not to render the Sacrament of pennance odious And that a lawfulness once allowed in any case for the Confessor to reveal a thing or matter whatever it be told him in the confessional Seat and to reveal it I mean without his consent would render this holy Rite very odious and give occasion to many sinners not to declare their sins entirely but wholly to estrange themselves from confession for ever But if this argument concluded any thing to the purpose it would also conclude that Confessors must not discharg the duty they are confessedly and without contradiction of any side bound unto by all the laws of Reason and by all the Canons of the Fathers They would not enjoyn so many restitutions of lands and goods and same so extreamly grievous very often to penitents Nor would enjoyn so many other heavy pennances either medicinal or satisfactory no less painful then shameful too in many cases And who can deny but such injunctions render confession odious to nature Nay who can deny but the very duty it self of bare confession as it is prescribed by the Canons and Councils of the Church and by all Divines of the Roman Communion taught as necessary and as it is required to be exactly of all particular mortal sins of word deed or even inward consent alone and both of their number as farre as one can remember or conjecture after sufficient examination and of all kind of circumstances too that change the species as they speak must be very odious to nature especially when the sins are unnatural or shameful But if it be answered that such is the duty of the Confessor enjoyn'd him by the positive laws of the Church and by those natural laws also of Reason being he is Judge in that holy tribunal in the place of God and that such too is the doctrine of the Church and Catholick Faith where no liberty is left to Divines for teaching otherwise even so I answer to this allegation or objection of the Sacrament of confession to be rendred odious if the Confessor may be free in any case to make use of notices had therein without the Confitents permission It may indeed render it odious in such a case But to whom To a wicked impenitent or to a most unreasonable man To none truly rational and penitent to no such person making a true Sacramental confession or to none that is resolved at any time to confess holily will the confessors discharging his own duty render such a holy confession odious A duty whereunto and whereby in such case he is bound even by all the very laws of God as well positive as natural as may be easily demonstrated if at any time reqvired to hinder and prevent timely even by such a revelation such deplorable general and otherwise irremediable evils as would in all kind of moral certainty follow his not revealing the design communicated so in confession and let us always suppose the confitents denyal of consent to such revelation Though as I have noted before such denyal can hardly if at all be supposed in a true penitential confitent or in a true Sacramental confession unless we suppose withal the penitent to be some strange meer natural blockhead that is not capable of understanding his own obligation in such a case or the ghostly Fathers instructions in it Which yet is very like an impossible supposition 6. That our Masters of Lovain will find it a very hard if not absolutely impossible task To perswade a knowing pious man that either any dictate of natural reason or any ordinance of human Canons much less any article of Christian Faith or Catholick Religion hetherto delivered us either formally or virtually by Scripture or by tradition tye Confessors I
do not say not to reveal such fatal plots conspiracies or treasons without revealing the Confitent himself against the person of the Prince and the whole fabrick of the Commonwealth and by consequence ordinarily against so many millions of innocent harmless people without possibility or at least moral probability of seeing the end of the evils and general calamities arising thence but I say do not as much as tye them not to reveal the very person of the penitent or the confitent himself if the case be such or may be such though it can hardly ever be such that the design cannot by human industry be otherwise prevented For I am sure that neither that Canon of the Lateran Council nor any other of the Church doth reach this case As I am certain that all Divines will confess the Church can make no Canon hereafter to reach it if there be no former antecedent express or tacit rule for it in the law of God or nature And I am no less certain that until yesterday come back again neither the Doctors of Lovain nor any other in the world can ever demonstrate or prove any such antecedent rule either of natural reason or of Scripture or Tradition LVII As for the saying of some otherwise peradventure good Casuists or Canonists or even the croud of never so many of the later but worser Schoolmen who should valew them when they bring nothing to make their placits good no Scripture no Tradition no Fathers no Councils no reason at all that would take with a rational knowing pious man but on the contrary produce only their own ill grounded opinions and a world sometimes of barbarous names of Authors such as many of their own are even against the clear dictates of the law of God and nature against all virtue and piety and against all true Religion and even against the very first principles of reason I would very fain know of these Gentlemen these excellent Moralists who must needs dilate themselves on Metaphisical suppositions to shew forsooth their blind zeal for a meer fiction of a seal which neither God approved nor the Church ever commanded or allowed in our case what will godly pious understanding men Judge of them what will any good Christian Commonwealthsmen think of their foolish imagination of a very and truly not only unsacramental but also unnatural seal in a case proposed thus All the Catholick Princes and States of Europe and oâ— all other parts of the world professing Catholick Religion or enjoying the Roman Communion and all the power they can raise of horse and foot even two or three or four million more or less of men are in one field or one country joyn'd and amass'd together and the Emp. Kings of Spain France Poland Portugal c. and the very Pope with all the Court of Rome in the head of all against also all the contrary power of the habitable earth Hereticks and Jews Mahumetans and other Infidels and as well the Lutherans and Caluinsts and all the huge variety of other Sects both in the Greek and Latin Church as the Turk Tartar Persian Moore and Indian the Chinese and all the wild people of America and even those of the Terra australis incognita joyn'd also together in one body to ruine utterly the Catholick Church of Christ and raze it from the very face of the earth They are ready on both sides to joyn battle or as many battles as you please and to put all to a fatal hazard and let the resolution be so too that it is absolutely fixed upon by both sides and every individual of each side never to flye never to take quarter win all or loose all to kill or to be killed In this conjuncture suppose a Christian a Roman Catholick by name education profession and by inward belief too goes to confession to a Priest tells him of such a plot or yet a farre worse and incomparably more dangerous then that of Count Iulian against Roderico the Spanish King in that fatal battle wherein the Moores conquered Spain of some other discontented wicked Catholicks and whether himself had or had not a â—and therein it matters not that out of a divelish passion against the chief Commanders especially the Pope himself for some private quarrel had so devoted so resigned themselves over to the Divils power and to infernal revenge that they have contrived such a plot and are now ready for execution of it as will inevitably ruine all this Christian Catholick power deliver them up to their enemies and even bring to a most cruel slaughter all and singular the individuals of this never so vast army of the Roman Faith or Religion and in the first place the Pope himself and all his Cardinals and Court and all other Churchmen of the Roman City or Diocess and after all bring this â—ame holy City and Diocess and even all the temporal Patrimony of St. Peter within or without it to be plough'd up and sowed with salt to the end it may never again be inhabited as some conquerors are read to have done to some â—ebellions or enemy Cities But withall this penitent or this confitent when he reveals this so fatal conspiracy to the Priest is so possess'd suddenly by the Divels suggestion that notwithstanding any exhortations of the Priest he will not promise that himself will reveal it to those concern'd nor licence the said confessor to reveal it nor yet will tell him the persons time or place or manner of the execution of it whereby it might be prevented by the confessors giving a general notice only either in secret or in publick to the Pope or other King or General or person of the army and yet withal hath told so much and in such a manner that the confessor is and ought to be thereby absolutely perswaded of the truth of such and so unspeakably enormous conspiracy In such a case as this though a case that will never be yet because so many of our honest Casuists and famed Theologues and so great a croud of them too bring it or the like or yet a farre worse to a supposition because they suppose even the both temporal and spiritual destruction and even eternal damnation of all the World I demand what will truly pious understanding christian Commonwealthsmen or Divines that examine soberly and from its origin the true nature and the true ends of Sacramental confession or Sacramental secrecy or seal under which it is to be kept by the confessor and withal consider all the both general and particular most express and most indispensable tyes of the laws of God and man and nature of the laws of charity justice and loyalty and all the duties not of a Christian Subject only but of a man what I say will such other conscientious rational Commonwealthsmen or Divines think of their doctrine that maintain in such a case the lawfulness of quitting utterly all these duties or of reputing them no duties
nay and meritoriously too abide the sentence of death even in prima instantia from a Judge of Assize according to the laws of England or Ireland or both and the Execution of it and even at the same time acknowledge himself bound under pain of sin to abide this sentence and this execution patiently and christianly without resistance and yet at the same time also challenge the priviledge of the Canons or at least not renounce the priviledge of the Canons and even of such as he really conceives to be obliging Canons whether groundedly or ungroundedly he conceives or alledges such Canons it matters not to our purpose or that he may at the same time also alledge and the case may be such that he may truly too alleadge that he is proceeded against unjustly both by the Inferiour supream Judge both against the legally established received unrepealed obliging Canons of the Church and the uncontroverted clear just and wholsome laws of the State And therefore it is no less evident that there can be no inconsistency no contradiction at all betwixt a Priests acknowledging the duty of such an obedience and his challenging alwaye nevertheless a right not to be proceeded against by such a sentence That our further declaring in the said Remonstrance That notwithstanding any sentence of excommunication deposition c. we will alwayes be true obedient faithful Subjects to the King that we renounce all forreign power spiritual or temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to absolve us from us Allegiance or dispense with us therein or give us leave to raise tumults bear arms c. against his Majesty or Laws That we bold the doctrine impious and renounce â—t as such which teacheth that any Subject may murder the anointed of God his Prince though of a different Religion from his That we acknowledge all supream temporal Princes to be Gods Lieutenants on earth or in their Dominions and obedience due to them respectively in all civil and temporal affairs by their own Subjects That finally we protest against all contrary doctrines and practices That I say our further declaring any or all these particulars together doth not either formally or virtually or expresly or tacitly draw with it our declaring against or our disacknowledging renouncing declining or quitting the Exemption or Ecclesiastical immunity of Clerks either as to their Persons or as much as to their Goods if by this Exemption or Immunity that be understood as it ought certainly which all Catholick States Kingdoms Nations Councils Parliaments People Divines Universities Bishops Clerks and consequently Churches do understand in France Spain Germany Italy Venice Poland c. For the truth of all and every such declaration and obligation consequent may and doth very well stand in their opinion and according to their practice with such Exemption being they all hold this Exemption to be not independently from the soveraign power of the Princes or States or of their Laws but with dependance alway in relation to that soveraignty or supream Majesty from the inferiour Judicatures and in such cases only whether civil or criminal as are priviledged and only too in prima instantia or at most in so many other instances as will not require manifestly or by manifest necessity an appeal or recourse to the Prince or State civil or pollitick â gravamine or the interposition of the Prince's or States supream power in the case without any such appeal or recourse of either Plantiff or Defendant but ex officio where the Prince or State see a manifest necessity of such interposition as the case may be very well as it hath often been that the Ecclesiastical Judges are themselves involved in the same crime for example in treason or sedition and therefore will not punish the criminals accused before them but rather encourage them as much as they dare That moreover as it appears manifestly out of all the foresaid passages either separatly or collectively taken there is not from the first word to the last of the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance not I say any passage at all any word or syllable in that whole Declaration being these I have given are all it contains of any matter soever that may be formally or virtually expresly or tacitly directly or indirectly understood by any rational impartial man to dis-acknowledge or declare against Immunity Ecclesiastical or the Exemption of Clergy-mens either Persons or Goods as this Exemption is allowed or approved by the Catholick World or Church or as by either understood so it appears no less manifestly that in the petitionary address which immediatly follows the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance and of principles belonging to such Allegiance there is neither as much as one word which may import to an impartial understanding Reader or to any that is not clouded by ignorance or byassed by malice any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such immunity or exemption And that if in this petitionary address there be nothing to this purpose or any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption it must be and is confess'd by the very most scrupulous or most invidious Adversaries there can be none at all in all or any part of that Remonstrance or in that whole Instrument entituled The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland To prove this last conditional assertion I need not add any thing more to what I have said already or observed in considering all the several distinct parts of the Act of Recognition in it self and other declarations following therein and to what moreover I have presently hinted of the confession of our most carping Adversaries but only this one advertisement more to the Reader whereof himself by reading only over that whole Instrument can be Judge that nothing else is contained in the paper but a bare Remonstrance of grievances persecution odium c. which no man ever yet quarrel'd against as pretending therein a ground for this fourth Exception or any other whatsoever What remains therefore to be cleared is the petitionary address of that paper as that indeed against which for ought I heard from the Dissentors themselves or any of them all their quarrel is on this pretence of quitting Ecclesiastical Immunity and subjecting Clergy-men to Lay Judicatories or to Secular Courts in criminal causes But how justly or unjustly be you Judge good Reader when you have considered the words sense and scope of that Petition so often returned for answer to this invidious Exception The words and whole tenor of that perclosing Address are these and no other These being the tenets of our Religion in point of Loyalty and submission to your Majesties commands and our dependance of the See of Rome no way intrenching on that perfect obedience which by our birth by all laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to
testimonies of all Ages from the first of Christianity I say that being it is therefore plain and clear enough to any dis-interessed judicious and conscientious Divine that neither these Councils or Popes could upon rational grounds pretend any positive law of God properly or truly such either out of Scripture or out of Tradition at least for such exemption of the persons of Clergymen and in temporal affairs too from the supream civil coercive power it must consequently be confessed that unless we mean to charge an errour on these Councils and Popes we must allow the answer of such Divines as with Dominicus Soto 4. dist 25. q. 2. art 2. hold against Bellarmine in this matter to be not only full of respect but of reason also viz. that by jus divinum ordinatio divina voluntas omnipotentis cura a Deo commissa these Councils and Popes understand that right or law Divine that ordination Divine that will of God that care by God committed which is such only in as much as it is immediatly from or by the Canons or laws of the Church and that by jus humanum they understand the civil laws or institutions of meer Lay-Princes And indeed that of respect in this answer will be allowed without contradiction And that that of reason also cannot be any more denyed I am sure will appear likewise to any that please to consider how it is very usual with Popes and Councils to stile their own meer Ecclesiastical Canons Divine and such Canons I mean which by the confession of all sides never had any positive law of God in Scripture or Tradition for them For amongst innumerable proofs hereof which I could give that of the 27. Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon and that other in the third action of the VII General Synod will be sufficient proofs For in the former it is plain that meer Ecclesiastical Rules though concerning only the district jurisdiction and preheminence of the Constantinopolitane Patriarch and some other Bishops and Metrapolitans are called divine Canons and that in the latter too the title of divine constitutions or divinely inspired constitutions is attributed to the laws or Canons in general of the Church So that jus divinum ordinatio Dei c. must not be opposed in these places quoted by Bellarmine or any other such to all that which is properly strictly immediatly or only from men however taken for Lay-men or Church-men but to that which is from men acting by a meer lay natural civil temporal and politick power and not at all acting or enacting laws as the Church enacts by a pure spiritual supernatural and therefore by way excellency called a divine power and their laws therefore too in that sense or for so much called divine though not divine at all in the strict proper sense of a divine law as by this we ought to understand that which was immediatly made or delivered by God himself and by the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles or by Scripture or Tradition 3. That however this be or however it may be said by Bellarmine or by any other to be well or ill grounded or to be truly according to the sense or mind of these Councils and Popes he alleadges yet even Bellarmine himself and all others of his way will and must grant that although we did suppose and freely admit his sense of these places to have been that indeed of these Councils and Popes yet the argument is no way concluding any other not even I say for as much as it is grounded on the authority or manner of speaking used by these very Councils which are accounted General as Trent and both these Laterans 1. Because the canons or places alleadged are at best and even at most even the very best and most material of them but canons of Reformation or canons of meer Ecclesiastical Discipline which are worded so And no man that as much as pretends learning is now so ignorant as not to know that even entire Catholick Nations and many such too oppose very many such canons even of those very Councils which themselves esteem or allow as truly General and oppose not the bare words or epithets onely as our dispute now is of such words or even of bare epithets but the whole matter and sense and purpose nay and the very end too uncontrovertedly admitted to have been that of such General Councils And the reason is obvious enough vz That in canons of Reformation Discipline or manners as it is generally allowed and certain the Fathers deliver not nor intend nor pretend to deliver or declare the Catholick Faith and that in all other things they are as fallible and as subject to errour as so many other men of equal knowledge though without any of their authority or spiritual superiority 2. Because that in the very Decrees or Canons of Faith General Councils even the most truly such may erre in such words as are not of absolute necessity for declaring that which is the onely purpose of such Canon For so even Bellarmine himself teaches l. 2. de Concilior Authoritate c. 12. expresly and purposely and in these very words Denique in ipsis Decretis de fide non verba sed sensuâ— tantum ad fidem pertinet Non enim est haereticum dicere in canonibus Conciliorum aliquod verbum esse supervacaneum aut non rectè positum nisi forte de ipso verbo sit decretum formatum ut cum in Concilio Niceno decreverunt recipiendam vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et in Ephesino vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where you see that he exempts onely from this general rule the case wherein a Council should of purpose frame a Decree or Canon of Faith concerning the very use of such or such a word or epithet as the first of Nice-did for the word bâ—mousion or consubstantial against Arrius and the Council of Ephesus did for the word Deotocon or Godbearing against Nestorius Which cannot be said by Bellarmine or any other in his behalf or that either any Council or Pope have ever yet done so as to or concerning the use of the words jus divinum ordinatio divina c or of the single word or Epithet Divine in our case 3. Because and according also to not onely truth but eveâ— Bellarmine himself again in the same book and chapter in the Acts of General Councils even those Acts which concern Faith neither the disputes which are premised nor the reasons which are added nor those things or words which are inserted for explication or illustration are of Faith or intended by the Fathers to be submitted unto without contradiction as a matter certain and infallible but the bare decrees onely and not all even those very decrees but such of them onely as are defined expresly to be the Faith delivered that is as even Bellarmine himself elswhere and all the Schools now teach with him such as are said in such Council to have
way as by saying they understood not by divine that which is properly and strictly divine but that only which is in a large though somewhat improper acception such and by lay-persons understand only such inferior Lay-persons Judges or Governours as in certain cases haue not from the supream power and civil laws any cognizance of Church-men Which indeed is the only rational and natural exposition of these authorities without any erroneous absurdity falsity inconvenience or prejudice as the very Canon alledged above by me at large out of the Tridentine Synod seems expresly to intimate for as much as it expresly and signally desires or confides for so it speaks that Emperours Kings and Princes will not suffer that their Officials or inferior Magistrats or Judges violat the Immunities of the Church or Church-men out of any covetousness or inconsiderancy confidens c. nec permissuros ut officiales aut inferiores Magistratus Ecclesiae personarum Ecclesiasticarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione canâ—nicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu inconsideratione aliqua violent Besides the Reader is to observe two things for that of the fourth Lateran 1. That where 't is said there that Laicks usurp too much of divine right c. by divine right here we ought not nor indeed can if we will not make the Fathers to speak improperly understand the law of God but only the right belonging to God whether that right be derived immediatly from the law of God or law of man 2. That it cannot be truly said that any Clerks receive no temporal thing or benefit from the supream civil Magistrate whereas all Clerks receive from them temporal protection at least And therefore in reason owe Allegiance to such their protectors For Boniface the VIII although his authority or judgment alone without a Council be amongst very Catholick Nations or Universities of no great value or esteem in this or any other which concerns the difference or controversie For we know well enough how his extravagant unam sanctam de Majorit obed is reputed in the Gallican Church and what his Letter Brief or Bull was to a King of France where he declared them all Hereticks that would not acknowledge himself to be supream in that Kingdom and as well in all temporals as in spirituals and that the same esteem indeed and as to our main purpose may be and also truly and groundedly may be entertain'd of Innocent the Third no judicious Divine that will read in Spondaâ—uâ—s Contin his proceedings against most of all the Christian Kings not in Europe only but in Asia will deny I say neverthess that for what concerns only our present purpose of the exemption of Clergymens persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coactive power under which they live and are protected our learned Cardinal alledges this very Boniface to no purpose albeit he alledge him in cap. Quamquam de Censibus in 6. Where indeed there is no such thing For in that place as it is manifest enough out of the whole chapter and purpose or matter treated therein which was only of and against Guidagia that is a kind of toll custome or exaction to be paid for the safeguard of High-wayes and out of the very words which Bellarmine would not quote because not to his general purpose or to that of proving generally all the parts of his Fifth Proposition Cum igitur Ecclesiae Ecclesiasticaeque persâ—nae ac res ipsarum non solum jure humano quin etiam divino à saecularium personarum exactionibus sint immunes it is I say very manifest hence that Boniface in that place and no other is alledged out of him doth not as much as touch upon our controversie or say as Bellarmine imposes on him that Clerks and their goods are exempt from the secular power For be it well or ill said of Boniface here that as well by divine right or law as by humane Churches and Churchmen are free or exempt from all publick exactions of secular persons whereas by such exactions all Divines and Canonists understand only tributes tolls customes or taxes whatsoever of money or other things imposed as payable to the publick and whereas the very matter treated of and determined by Boniface in that Chapter is only that of guidagia or pedagia which was a duty as it seems payable then in Italy by all travellers and for their safe convoy or safe travelling whereas he commands only there that in prosecution of a certain decree made by Alexander the IV. his Predecessor Church-men pay no such guidagia or pedagia for their own Persons or Goods which they carry along or cause to be carried or sent non causa negotiandi who sees not it is a very great inconsequence and meer abuse of the Reader to conclude that therefore Boniface the VIII supposed generally nay says it to be de jure divino positivo taking this jus divinum strictly and properly that Clerks are wholy exempt in all criminal causes and all matters whatsoever from the supream civil coercive power of Lay-Princes Certainly neither doth Boniface teach any such matter there nor must any such follow out of what he either supposes or dedetermines there Because it is clear enough that certain persons even meer lay-persons may have a priviledge from all kind of taxes and yet be subject in other causes and other matters both criminal and civil to such as impose taxes For Iohn the VIII That who ever please to consider that whole chapter Si Imperator quoted by Bellarmine will be convinced this Pope intends no more but that as it is fitting the Emperour himself should for what concerns Religion learn from and not teach the Church so in Ecclesiastical matters it was Gods pleasure that Clerks should be ordered and examined and if they chanced to fall into an errour should be also reconciled on their return not by the Lay-powers but by the Pontiffs and Priests Which these words omitted by the Cardinal recipique de errore remeantes do sufficiently insinuat Besides that any man knows it is a very weak and sensless argument of a positive law of God for any thing or any duty or any priviledge that either Iohn the VIII or any other even a whole General Council should speak in this manner Omnipotens Deus voluit it was the will of God unless they had withal and on the debate or controversie it self made of purpose an express Canon declaring that thereby or by such manner or by these words it is or it was the will of the omnipotent God they mean'd to signifie not the general or special providence of God or his good will or pleasure known only to us for example in the present matter of Exemption because we see the Clerks as to many things are exempted so by the laws of Princes and that we know this could never have been done by Princes if God had not moved their hearts to do so For
not to summon Clerks to their tribunals and judge their causes whensoever such causes were meerly temporal and not properly or strictly spiritual or of a purely spiritual nature And I affirm also that before Iustinians Empire which was from the year of Christ 527. wherein it was begun to the year 565. wherein he dyed no Council nor canon of Council did ever as much as declare or even as much as only suppose that Clerks were by any other authority or by that I mean'd of the very Emperours themselves exempted generally from lay tribunals not even I mean still from those of inferiour Judges And O God of Truth how can any knowing Divine any conscientious Historian Canonist or Civilian be so preoccupated as not to acknowledge or so blind as not to see it cannot be any way probable that the Fathers of those primitive and purer ages should attribute any such power to themselves as by their own proper authority to exempt others or even themselves from that subjection to which as well themselves as all other Clerks were antecedently bound by the positive law of God himself as not only St. Augustine teaches in his exposition of the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul to the Romans but all other Fathers generally who treat of this subject or expound that chapter But to clear this matter throughly we must observe Those ancient Fathers with whom Ecclesiastical Discipline whereof now there is so great neglect did sincerely and severely nourish used their utmost endeavours that Ecclesiasticks should not onely by their doctrine instruct the people but also by their probity of manners and innocency of carriage in all things And therefore admonish'd all Clerks nay enjoyned them in their own conciliary Canons and sometimes also under heavy Ecclesiastical Sanctions or Censures That none of them should presume to convene or charge an other Clerk in any cause either criminal or civil before a secular judge but either by the intervention of friends should compose all their own differences or certainly if they would not or could not do so that they should at least suffer all to be determined by Episcopal Iudgment acquiescing therein And both advised and ordained so in imitation of St. Paul himself and for the very self-same reason or certainly not unlike to it this great Apostle had when writing to the Corinthians 1. Cor. 6. and forbidding them to sue one an other before heathen Iudges he gave therein a rule to all Christians generally for that time as well Laicks as Clerks Which reason appropriated to our present purpose of Clerks onely is That if or when it should happen that Clerks should fall out of human frailty into such imperfections or sins as other men are subject to and yet are scandalized at mightily when committed by Clergie-men they might be with farre more secrecy and much less scandal corrected by their own proper Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Superiours and consequently that such deviations of Clergiemen should not come to the knowledge of the vulgar which commonly judges of the doctrine by the life or conversation of the Doctors and is apt enough upon such occasions to laugh and scorn the persons themselves and not seldome too their very sacred function it self Besides that Clergiemen who by their calling should be in a very special manner above others careful to cherish peace and concord and be themselves by word and deed paterns of charity and patience to others should not by their own example or by their own sueing of others or of one an other in the secular and publick Courts rather shew the way to contention and strife then lead to christian peace and patience Whereby as it may be easily understood the Fathers did not by such admonitions or by such decrees lessen or intend to lessen as indeed they could not if any of them would and certainly none of them have willed so to lessen the proper civil power of the secular Iudges to heare and determine the temporal either civil or criminal causes of Clerks when brought to their tribunals and brought so either by the free access of the Clerks themselves or by their constrained or commanded appearance when called or summoned by the same Iudges For to have done so or intended so would have been to take from Princes and Magistrats that right and authority which the law of Christ doth not permit any admonitions or any decrees of the Fathers not even in or by their most solemn Councils whatsoever to take from the said Princes or Magistrats The Fathers therefore by such decrees did partly forbid that Clerks should not sue one an other and partly too that neither should they sue a meer layman before a secular Iudg. For this also of not sueing laymen some Canons have And the Fathers by those decrees ordained Episcopal punishments against all Clerks that would not observe those decrees And this is all that may be gathered out of any or all the Canons of Councils alleadged by our adversaries Now who sees not that all this might be justly and lawfully ordained by the spiritual Fathers of the Church by their Ecclesiastical Councils and Canons without any the least diminution of the former civil power of the lay Iudges over Clerks For so a good natural Father in the civil commonwealth that hath many children may command them all and also forbid them under a private domestick punishment nay even under that of disinheriting them that they contend not or sue one an other before a publick Judg about any quarrel amongst themselves but leave all such differences to himself their Father or to the private domestick judgment of their other Bretheren And may command this without any prejudice at all to the publick authority of the publick or legal Judges And therefore so too may the spiritual Fathers of the Church command those who are in a special manner and by a special tye and calling their spiritual children such as all Clerks are and may command them too under such punishments or penalties as are proper to their said spiritual Fatherhood not to the one an other or even any at all before a secular Judg. And yet by no means thereby lessen or intend to lessen the power of such Judges over Clerks or their causes whensoever convened or brought either by election or coaction before them but onely to abridgâ— the Clerks themselves of their former liberty of going so freely unto them as they used to do Which any rational person may easily judg not to be an Exemption of Clerks from secular Judges but a provident course to keep them in better order and as well as may be to avoid scandal And that my bare assertion may not be given for this my interpretation I thought it worth my labour to set down here and at length distinctly those very Decrees of Councils which Bellarmine l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. Prop. 3. pleads against us though he gives there some few words onely of some of them and
bounty how much more in reason must we not deny the Church a power to deprive such of her own favours as will not perform the conditions enjoyn'd by her for the continuance of such favours Thirdly against that which is said by Barclay and which I too have said above that this canon was made by the Fathers to restrain the giddiness and rashness of such Clergiemen as would appeal from the Church to a secular Judge after the cause had been begun to be discussed in the Church against this I say of a provision made here for such a case only of a judgment already begun in the Court Ecclesiastical and nevertheless before any judgement given transferr'd by a caprichious Clerk Bellarmine argues by objecting the Council of Milevi Concilium Melevitanum and it must be the second of Milevi under Arcadius and Honorius where it is prohibited in the ninth canon not that Clerks transfer to secular Courts a cause begun already in the Church but absolutely prohibited that by no means they go to the Emperour to demand of him secular Judges But the answer is obvious 1. That divers canons may be made by divers Councils And that it is most evident that whatever the Fathers of Milevi ordained in the case those of Carthage ordained no other then what William Barclay said and what I too have after him said without any kind of interpretation or paraprase of the Council but in the very words of the Council or Canon it self For these are the words precisely of that Canon Cum in Ecclesia ei crimen fuerit intentatum vel civilis causa fuerit commâ—ta Let any one say now for Bellarmine that ought else is decreed by the Canon then what is against such Clerks as transfer a cause already begun in the Church 2. That for that Council of Milevi albeit the Fathers prohibit in the Canon cited out of it that Clerks desire no secular judgment of the Emperour yet they prohibit not the Emperour himself to assign lay Judges to a Clerk if his Imperial Wisdom think it fit to assign such Nor even prohibit Clerks to answer if called upon by such lay Judges and obey their sentence as binding them So that both Councils that of Carthage and this of Milevi say the very same thing in this matter without any other difference but only that this of Milevi extends the prohibition further that is not only to the transferring of causes already begun before or in the presence of an Ecclesiastical Judge but even to causes not so begun For it simply or absolutely prohibits Clerks to transferr as much as in them lyes any civil or criminal cause whatsoever whether so begun or not so begun to secular Judges Where yet it is apparent there is nothing at all for the Immunity of Clerks from secular Judges being the command is only to Clerks not to demand such lay judges and no command to no restriction at all of the lay Judges to proceed ex offiâ—iâ— when the causes of Clerks are brought before them The second Council that prescribed any thing in this matter was that truly Oecumenical or General of Chalcedon for the former of Carthage though of very great authority was but a National Council of Affrick however canonized after by approbation of truly General Councils held in the year 451 under Martianus the Emperour and Pulcheria the Empress who were both present and often sate in it Wherein the ninth canon made for discipline and regulation of Church affairs or those of Clergymen was this Si quis Clericus adversus Clericum habeat negotium non derelinquat preprium Episcopum ad secularia judicia non concurrat sed prius negotium agitetur apud proprium Episcâ—pum vel certe si fuerit negotium ipsius Episcopi apud arbitros ex utraque parte electos audiatur negotium Si quis vero contra ipsius Provinciae Metropolitanum Episcopum Episcopus sive Clericus habeat controversiam pergant ad ipsius Diaecesis Primatem aut certeâ—ad Constantinopolitanae Regiae civitatis sedem ut eorum ibi negotium terminetur If any Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk let him not leave his proper Bishop nor run to secular Iudicatories But first let the matter be agitated before his proper Bishop or certainly if the controversie be with this Bishop himself let it be heard by arbiters chosen by both sides But if any Bishop or Clerk have a controversie with or against the Metrapolitan of the Province let them go to the Primate of the Diocess or certainly to the See of the Constantinopolitan Royal City that the business may be ended there And this is all this canon sayes Where it is plain enough 1. That the Fathers direct their speech to Clergiemen only prescribe a rule to them only but none at all to lay Magistrats or Iudges not even to the subordinat inferiour Iudges so little do they meddle with or ever as much as thought to meddle with the supream That although they bid Clerks not to go first to secular Iudgments yet they do not bid them not to go at last or in the next or second instance to such if they cannot agree That even to the Clerks themselves they prescribe only in such cases as a Clerk have a controversie with another Clerk but not in case a Clerk have a quarrel with a Laick or a Laick to him 2. That they declare not here enjoyn or prescribe that it was not is not of shall not be in the power of a lay Judge to determine of the causes of Clerks one against another or of that of a Clerk against a Lay-man or of a Lay-man against a Clerk when either voluntarily and by the parties themselves brought before him or when by his own authority or by due course of law or by summons from him to either or both parties they appear in his Court. So that this Canon meddles not at all with the power authority or jurisdiction of the lay Magistrates or Judges but only prescribes a rule to the Clerks themselves that themselves should not freely or voluntarily sue one another at least in prima instantia in secular Judicatories and as we may justly presume upon the same grounds and for the same ends we have before noted the Fathers of Affrick did in imitation of St. Paul or of his advice or command as you please to all Christians in general to abstain from suing one another in heathen Judicatories least otherwise they would questionless betray their religion and belye it before the haters and persecutors of it 3. That in case there were as there is not any word or matter in this canon of Chalcedon restraining any way the Jurisdiction of even inferiour lay Magistrates or Judges yet it would be to no more purpose alledged against me or against any thing I have said before in this Section concerning even the very same inferiour lay Magistrates and their Jurisdiction over Clerks in politick or temporal
matters For the Canons of this Council as the Faith of this Council had the approbation and joynt concurrence and the authority of the supream civil power of the Emperour himself there in person to give them force and virtue where-ever the sole authority spiritual of the Fathers was not sufficient or might peradventure be said by any not to have been sufficient And what I have said above was that no canon of the Church or of any Council approved or allowed in so much by the Church can be produced out of which it may appear that the Fathers of the Church the Bishops did ever by their own proper Episcopal Authority exempt Clergiemen from the Jurisdiction of as much as the inferiour lay Magistrates or declare them exempted so 4. That Iustinians foresaid 83. Novel which was made by him near 200. years after this Canon of Chalcedon and notwithstanding this Canon of Chalcedon was still in force and Iustinian himself a great reverencer and observer of all was concluded in that great Council shews the word prius in this Canon must be interpreted so as I have above of the first Instance or with relation to a posteriour judgment which might be before the secular Judges in case the parties could not agree For so the said Novel of Iustinianus made in favour of the Clergy expresly decrees that Clergymen should first be convened before their own Bishops and afterwards before the civil Judges And therefore being it is just for us to suppose the word prius in this Canon of Chalcedon was not idlely or superfluously set down by so many learned and worthy men as were those 630. Bishops who composed or enacted it we must also from hence rationally conclude that the civil Jurisdiction of even secular subordinat Judges over the Clergy is not weakned by this Canon but rather confirmed The third Council in order of those alledged by Bellarmine is that of Agatha or as others call it Agde Concilium Agathense held in the year 506. where the Fathers convened there made this Canon of Discipline which is the two and thirtieth of this Council Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Judicem Episcopo non permittente pulsare Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio saeulari proponere Si quis vero secularium per calumniam Ecclesiam vel Clerum fatigare tentaverit convictus fuerit ab Ecclesia liminibus catholicorum communione nisi digne paenituerit coerceatur Let no Clerk presume without the Bishops leave to sue any in a secular Judicatory And if he be sued let him not answer nor propose nor dare to propose a criminal matter in a secular Judgement But if any secular shall attempt by calumny to vex the Church or Clergy and shall be convicted hereof let him be driven out of the Church and from the communion of Catholicks unless he repent worthily And this is what this Council ordained and the whole tenour of this Canon Concerning which the Reader is to observe first that Gratian changed the letter and sense of it in his Decretum 11. q. 1. Can. Clericum whether of purpose and willingly or whether ignorantly or perhaps that he had another but false copy of this Council different from that of all others I know not But sure I am that instead of the Councils words which are these I give here Clericus nec quenquam praesumat Gratian abuses his Reader with those other words which quite alter the sense Clericum nullus praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare to the end the prohibition may comprehend Laicks also or that not even Laicks may sue a Clerk before a secular Judge whereas in truth or according as the canon is set down in the Council it self or all copies published in the Tomes of Councils it is only for Clerks without any mention at all of Laicks in that first part of this Canon Nay the last part of this very Canon it self shews the Fathers intended not to forbid Laicks not to sue Clerks before a secular Judge but only not to vex them by lies or calumnies before any Judge Which indeed the Fathers might justly do and justly also punish by Ecclesiastical Censures all such as would otherwise behave themselves towards Church-men either in a Secular or Ecclesiastical Judicatory if convicted to have willingly sued them so or falsely charged them Nor is it this canon only as to our business that Gratian corrupted but also that passage commonly alledged out of Pope Marcellinus's Epistle ad Faelicem in eadem causa quest can 3. where also instead of Clericus nullum Gratian foists in Clericum nullus So that for such Canonists as for what belongs to Councils have onely read the Collections of Gratian and consequently were deceived by his false reading or quotations of them we must not wonder if they have fallen into this errour of the general exemption of Clerks by Councils or Popes which I here impugne Though for all that I cannot my self but somewhat wonder that Bellarmine would in his controversies l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. follow this corrupt Reading of Gratianus and follow it alike both as to that Canon of Agatha and that Epistle of Marcellinus and not rather follow the true and genuin text in the Tomes of Councils and even in the very animadversions or castigations added to Gratian himself And the Reader is to observe secondly this Council of Agatha was but a Provincial Council or at most but a little National of such Catholick Bishops as lived in that part of Gaule or France which was then subject to King Alaricus the Arian Goth. For the number of the subscribers of this Council was only 24. Bishops 9. Priests Deacons who had proxy from such other Bishops as were absent That consequently the Canons of this Council may not be said to be canons of the Church but onely of such particular Churches as were govern'd by those few Bishops in that Kingdom of Alarick unless it may be shewed that these canons were approved of received or as they speak canonized again by the authority of some General Council of the universal Church as we know that divers not onely national but provincial Synods for example the third of Carthage and those of Gangra Laodicea Antioch c have been That it is not yet as much as pretended by any that this Council of Agatha was so received of or authorized by any General Council nor as much as confirmed by the Popes themselves or by any one Pope That if the Popes approbation or confirmation had been desired by the Fathers of it and granted to it which yet appears not to have been no more could be concluded thence but his bare approbation and confirmation of the acts for that Nation or that Kingdom onely for which they were made unless the Pope had moreover by his Patriachal or Papal power
ut cumque summus sit non poterit huic immunitati aut exemptioni propriis legibus propriaque authoritate derogare So farr the learned Cardinal hath helped us on in this matter by giving us to our hand the authors and places quoted albeit only to shew against William Barclay that himself was not single in asserting such a power to the Pope But for these natural reasons or theological if you please to call them so which to solve is my business at present he hath left his Reader to seek Which makes me say that he hath not at all removed the cause of Barclay's admiration as he ought to have done Barclay admired that so learned and so judicious a man as Cardinal Bellarmine should maintain that the Pope could exempt the Subjects of Kings from all subjection to Kings and this without any consent from the Kings themselves adding as a further cause of his admiration how it was confess'd that before such exemption by the Pope those very persons so exempted by him or attempted to be so exempted to wit the whole Ecclesiastical Order of Clerks and even as well Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs and the very Pope himself as other the most inferiour Clerks were all of them primitively originally and even by the very law of God subject to the secular Princes in all politick or civil and temporal matters and yet as a further cause adding also that the law of Christ submitted unto in Baptisme deprives no man of the temporal rights he had before baptisme and consequently deprived not for example Constantine the Great when baptized of the lawful power he had before he was baptized over the Christian Clergy Now that Bellarmine should go about to disswade Barclay from his admiration because forsooth he quotes five School-men that is four Divines and one Canonist who taught the same thing and produces only the bare words of the Assertion of two of them on the point but no reason at all of theirs or of any others or of his own for such assertion may seem to men of reason a strange way of perswading another man and master too of much reason As if Barclay should cease therefore any whit the less to admire so gross an errour in Bellarmine that some others also had fallen into the same errour before or after or together with him Nay if Bellarmine had not preposterously fixed on those very men for his companions or patrons who contradict themselves so necessarily that is at least virtually and consequentially in this matter or if he had only fixed on such Divines and Canonists who speak consequently however ungroundedly of the exemption of Clergymen as of divine right which I confess the generality of Canonists do then peradventure he might have seemed to have alledged somewhat though indeed very little to allay Barclays wonderment For truly those he alledges betray themselves and his cause manifestly whereas they hold also manifestly and at the same time that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino Which being once granted who sees not the main difficulties which lye so in their way as not possible to be removed for asserting a power in the Pope to make laws for that exemption independently of Princes Who sees not that the Pope cannot make or impose what laws he please to bereave either Prince or People of their temporal rights or of what part soever of such rights he thinks expedient or convenient And who sees not otherwise that he alone must de jure be ot least may de jure make himself to be the sole supream Prince on earth in all temporal things at least amongst Christians And therefore consequently who sees not that being the Pope is not so nor can be so nor can lessen the Princes temporal authority over his own Subjects where-ever the law of God doth not lessen it and what I say of the Pope I say too of the whole Church who sees not consequently therefore I say that neither Pope nor Council nor other authority of the Church if any other be imaginable can or could so exempt Clerks from the power of Princes being that before such exemption all Clerks were subject to Princes and by the laws of God and nature subject to them But for as much as it appears undoubtedly that Bellarmine was one that did not or at least would not see these either Antecedents or Consequents being he sayes in plain terms and in his own name also de Potestate Papae in temporalibus supra cap. 38. That whether the supream temporal Princes themselves have or have not or could or could not exempt ecclesiastical while in their Dominion from their own supream temporal power potuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex istos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare yet the supream Pontiff could exempt them so and hath exempted them so or at least could declare and hath declared them antecedently exempted so by divine right that is by God himself in holy Scripture or at least in his revealed word either written or unwritten Neque possunt Principes etiam supremi hanc exemptionem impedire That neither can the Princes even supream hinder this exemption and That all this is the common doctrine of the Divines and Canonists cui hactenus non nisi Heretiei restiterunt which none hetherto but heretick's have resisted and forasmuch also as not onely Franciscus Victoria Dominicus Soto Martinus Ledesma Dominicus Bannes and Didacus Covarruvias above particularly quoted but even the generality of Canonists and late School Divine Writers seem to be of the number of those that with Bellarmine did not or would see the same Antecedents and consequents and lastly forasmuch as we have already solved all they could say for their contrary assertions either out of Scripture or out of the laws and canons nay and out of not onely some other extrinsick authorities of other authors Philosophers and Historians I mean for what concerns matter of fact or the point of Clergiemens having been already exempted so by any whomsoever but also all the arguments grounded on or pretended from natural reason or which Bellarmine framed above for his law of Nature or Nations for the Clergie's being already so exempted now therefore to fall to that which onely is the proper subject of this present Section let us consider those other arguments pretended to be of natural reason or even of Theological reason if you please to call it so as it may perhaps be justly called because suppoâ—eing some principle of Faith which we find in other Authors as in Dominicus Soto and in Franciscus Victoria for the being of such a power in the Pope or Church or in either or in both together as purely such or as purely acting by a true proper certain or undoubted power of the Church as the Church or as a Church onely For thus it is they must state the question and that they do questionless suppose it stated Though I confess
first are to prove it necessary in reference to the persons of Clergymen as the last is to prove it necessary in reference also to their goods Soto's first medium or assumption to prove Ecclesiastical Exemption necessary in reference to the persons of Clergymen Whereas Churchmen are divino jure by the law divine ordained Ministers of the Church eidem juri proximum esse videtur vt nequeant a Judicibus secularibus evocari it seems in the very next degree to that law that secular Judges have no power to summon or proceed against them And this he further proves out of that saying of St. Paul Nemo militans Deo implicat se negotiis secularibus No man warring to God intrigues himself to secular businesses 2. ad Timoth. 2. But Soto will give me leave here first to distinguish necessaries that we may understand one another then I will answer directly to his proposition For of necessaries as to our present purpose some are per se et ex rei natura of themselves and of their own nature and at all times such to attain the end of such Ecclesiastical Power and all that are necessary in this sense are likewise de jure divino warranted by the law of God For all such necessaries or all power means rules necessary of themselves or of their own nature for that end the Church hath received from God himself not from any sanctions of Popes or Councils And others are now and then for a time or only by accident occasion or supposition necessary that is are to be necessarily observed because they happen to be commanded by the Church and freely submitted unto by the people as for example Fasting-dayes Holydayes c. Now if Soto mean the exemption of Clerks and I mean too here any kind of exemption of them in temporal matters or of their persons goods lands or houses nay or of even the very sacred Churches to be necessary in the former sense he contradicts himself for he holds Ecclesiastical Exemption to be not of divine but of humane institution If in the latter he touches not the question For at present we dispute not whether now that Clergymen have by either the Sanctions of Princes or Canons of the Fathers or both many Exemptions and if from the Princes only whether now when the Church also layes heavy injunctions on us to observe the laws of Princes in this matter it be necessary for salvation and only during such laws not to violate the true priviledges or exemptions whatever they be of Clerks given them by such laws But the question we dispute here is whether it be necessary or whether it hath been alwayes necessary for salvation that Clerks should have been so exempted at any time or by any law at all either of God or man of Prince or Church for that exemption which is pretended to be now from even the supream civil power or even for that exemption which is from inferiour lay Judges Which distinction and animadversion premised I answer directly to his proposition and absolutely deny that it seems so as he sayes or that the exemption of the persons of Clerks from the civil power seems to be eidem juri divino proximum in the next degree of proximity to that divine law whereby Clergimen are appointed by God to be Ministers of the Church For I demand how that proximity appears by this argument which yet must be the only argument to prove it Clerks are de jure divino by the law of God Ministers of the Church Ergo by the same or other law of God they cannot in civil causes be accused before or judged by the civil Judges For even so will I argue for a proximity of divine law in behalf of the civil Magistrats exemption from the Church in spiritual matters The civil Magistrats are divino jure by the law of God appointed Ministers of temporal things Ergo in Ecclesiastical or Spiritual things they cannot be judged by Ecclesiasticks Besides we have sufficiently shewed before that neither can the Pope himself or Church lay binding commands in all matters which have such or as much proximity or affinity as this of Ecclesiastical exemption hath to the law divine For his allegation of St. Paul's saying That none warring to God intrigues himself in worldly affairs who sees not the impertinency of it Did Paul speak or mean this of Clerks meerly It 's plain he mean'd it of all Christians generally If then to any purpose of Exemption alledg'd it must be necessary that all Christian Laicks be exempted as well as Clerks from the civil power Much different God knows was this divine Apostles sense exhorting that in as much as lyes in us we estrange our selves from worldly cares to the end we may the more simply and perfectly attend the will of God Besides it s also clear enough that by these words he no more interdicted the Clergy from civil Judicatories then from honours possessions moneys all which do no less highly and extreamly involve the lovers or earnest pursuers of them in secular businesses And yet amongst all Clerks in the world who will be found that will believe St. Paul did ever mean it as necessary to salvation that Clerks should not in any circumstances and observing all other commandments modestly and moderatly endeavour to attain honours possessions riches intending still to make good use of them To Soto's second argument in reference to the persons which is that it may happen that amongst some ecclesiastical causes whereof lay-men cannot be Judges some civil causes be mixed and therefore if Clerks be not exempt from the secular power it must follow that in such cases they must remain perplexed as called upon by both tribunals the civil and ecclesiastical not knowing which to obey the answer is facile enough and clear That hence no necessity of their being so exempted follows but only some greater vexation or trouble in such cases of Clerks whose fortune it is to be involved in them For we see Laicks also and not seldom contending about such matters as are partly of spiritual cognizance and partly of civil so that they are forced to appear before both the Judges Ecclesiastical and the temporal Magistrats And yet no man will therefore say it to be necessary that Laicks be exempt either from the one Court or other To Soto's third medium in reference to the persons Quod non esset decorum ut Ministri Ecclesiae qui pastores sunt etiam Iudicum Regum tanduam rei coram ipsis sisterentur That it would not be honourable that the Ministers of the Church who are Pastors even of those lay Judges even of the very Kings should be obliged to appear before them as criminals or guilty persons I answer first that to be honourable or decent is one thing and to be necessary is another Secondly that neither is it undecent As on the contrary it is neither dishonourable nor undecent that the King who in
Cler. l. 3. l. 6. l. 19. passim illo titulo and in the Code of Iustinian Tit. de Episcop Cler. l. 4. l. 12. l. 16. l. 27. in authenticis Iustiniani collat 9. Tit. 6. novel 123. de sanctissim Episcopis Nay do not we read how Gregory the Great himself that no less holy then learned Pope and zealous Defender of all the true liberties of the Church and canons of the Fathers admitted in the year 592. nay promulged the law of Mauritius wherein this Emperour enacted that no persons obnoxious to accounts or debts nor souldiers also who had not served their full time in the Warrs that is so many years as by law they ought before they could sue for a dismiss should be received to a Monastical life in Monasteries nay that notwithstanding this holy Pope himself conceived this law to be unjust in it self that is taken strictly and generally in all cases and to all such persons and souldiers yet in his letter on this subject to the same Emperour which is 16. Epistle l. 2. Registri cap. 100. he signifies his own obedience in receiving or publishing it in divers parts of the world vz. throughout the Occidental parts of the Empire though withall to satisfie his own conscience he in the same letter expostulate the injustice of this law with the Emperour concluding nevertheless all that very letter with these words of perfect submission and obedience Ego quidem jussioni subjectus eamdem legeni per diversos terrarum partes transmitti feci quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minime concordat ecce per suggestionis meae paginam serenissimis Dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolici qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quod sensi minimè tacui Which import as much as that having declared to his Imperial Majesty his own judgment of the injustice of that law and consequently paid to God what was from himself in that business due to God and yet having at the same time sent that very law according to the Emperours command into divers parts of the world to be published and observed he had also paid to Cesar what was herein due to Cesar Therefore I have sayes he on both sides done what I ought who have done my obedience to the Emperour and yet have not past in silence what I thought was for the service of God Thirdly and lastly because he concludes nothing at all For did we grant that the Pope may at his own pleasure fix on persons and command and force them to be ordered Clerks against their own will yet will it not follow that he may therefore or indeed upon any other ground subtract or exempt them from the secular power either supream or subordinat unless it be first supposed that whoever is once a Clerk is also exempt from the civil power But here we dispute not whether Clerks de facto now are so exempted by any law or power but whether the Pope or Church might de jure at any time exempt them so even against the contradictory will of all civil laws and and powers Which that the Pope or Church might or may do that argument will never prove Because such exemption is not of the essence of Clerk-ship nor at all necessarily annexed thereunto and Clerks might have been chosen by the Pope and other Bishops of the Church nay and have been so actually chosen for many hundreds of years and even for some hundreds too after the Emperours were themselves Christians when as yet the same Clerks enjoyed no such exemption by the laws or otherwise but were and by the very laws too of Christian Emperours expresly obnoxious even to inferiour civil or lay Judicatories Now the Reader may judge whether I grounded well that last part also of my defiance made to the Divines of Lovaine That is whether I had not reason to defye them as I have Sect. LXII to shew as much as any one convincing or even probable argument of natural reason to prove a power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream civil Prince or laws under wich they live as Citizens or Subjects or live at least as reputed Citizens and Subjects LXXI To cleer all whatever I intended either principally or incidentally in the former Section LXX it remains that I tell the Reader briefly that Bellarmine was too too confident also where and when he said against Barcley as we have seen above in the said last LXX Section immediatly going before this That not only the Pope could exempt all Clergymen from the supream civil power or could declare them formerly exempted so by the law of God but also that he hath de facto already exempted them or declared them exempted so by the law of God from all Princes and States on earth even in all politick civil criminal and other causes whatsoever mixt of both Petuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex illos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare sayes he adversus Guliel Barcl c. 38. For although it be not my task nor any part of my defiance or undertaking in my above LXII Section or any other place in this book nay though it be unnecessary as well in it self as for me to shew here that no meer and sole Papal Canon hath any such thing for we know that meer papal Canons or such as are made only by the Pope are not hoc ipso canons of the Church nor also hoc ipso that they are inserted in the Decrees of Gratian or Decretals of Gregory or Sixt of Boniface or Clementines of Clemens or Extravagants of Iohn the XXII not to speak of those other late canons of other Popes whereof Petrus Maffeus comprised a seventh book of Decretals and my defiance was concerning those canons which are truly and properly or simply called canons of the Church videlicet such as are made by General Councils or if at first by National or Provincial Councils or if by the Pope alone yet after have been canonized by General Councils or at least generally received by the Churches and my assertion of other canons how otherwise Papal soever is what is too of many Catholick Divines and Churches that they are not simply the canons of the Church but canons of such or such particular Churches as made or received them yea notwithstanding any extension soever of such by his Holiness and consequently that no concluding or convincing argument of general right in the whole Church as no infallible truth can be derived from them as such yet I would here advertise such Readers as are carried away and hurried into a belief of any thing which hath right or wrong the papal Authority or that of a meer and sole papal Constitutions for it not examining any further the truth of justice of it or whether the Pope could determine any such thing or upon what grounds or in what sense and by
what power he determined it I would I say advertise here such of my Readers that not only not Bellarmine himself but no other whom I could hitherto meet or read hath brought us yet any proof even of this very latter part of his said confident assertion for his voluit that is I mean for as much aâ— any one Popes having by his own papal Power or pretence of such power de facto already whether right or wrong exempted so all Clergiemen from the supream temporal Magistrats in all civil and criminal causes whatsoever or as much as declared them exempted so by any law of God and for any Popes having done or willed so expresly or clearly and indubitably on the very question either by decretal Epistle or by Bull or other Constitution whatsoever defining the case and commanding all Christians or Catholick Churches to believe this Exemption in Bellarmines latitude as given so nay or even as granted by any power or law whatsoever ecclesiastical or civil That Bellarmine hath brought no such proof the matter is clear enough being he alledgeth no more to this purpose for either part but those sayings or decrees of Cajus Marcelline Gregory the Great Symmachus Iohn the VIII and both the Innocents all and every of which I have already answered as they occurr'd in their proper places and shewed that none of them is home enough to this purpose Beside that I have proved some of them either suppositicious or corrupt and others to no purpose at all either this we have here or that for which they were brought there where I treated them And that no other Doctors Canonists or Divines of Bellarmine's way have better arguments for his said voluit or that imported by it any one may perswade himself that please to read them where they of purpose treat the matter of Ecclesiastical liberty and yet more especially where they dispute of the several Excommunications in Bulla caenae pronounced at Rome yearly and with so much solemnity by the Popes against all infringers whatsoever even Princes Kings and Emperours of the said Ecclesiastical liberty Wherein yet the Reader will find no other of any Pope's having so by himself and by his own power exempted Clerks or having declared them so exempted by the law of God but either some of those I have already answered or some other as little pertinent if not far yet more impertinent some of them then some of these I have already given Ioannes Azorius's Martinus Bonacina's collections of such arguments or canons of Popes alledged by them and others to this purpose may serve to judge by of all For I have diligently observed all the chapters of the canon law whereunto they remit us for proof that by the canon law Clerks are so exempted Azor hath them in his fifth book of his moral Institutions cap. 12. And Bonacina who was a professed Canonist a Doctor V. I. as well as of Divinity and who seeks no other rule of truth or justice in any matter but some kind of meer papal determination hath also quoted them in several parts of his moral Theology as de Legibus d. 1. q. 1. pu 6. n. 29. and in oct decalog praeceptum and de Restit disp 2. q. 9. pu 2. and de contrac d. 4. q. 2. pu 1. Parag. 1. finally Bullae caenae d. 1. q. 19. pu 2. And yet besides those texts I have treated already I find no other but cap. non minus de Immunitate Ecclesiae cap. Adversus cod tit cap. Clericis de Immunîtate Ecclesiarum in Sexto cap. Ecclesia sanctae mariae de constitutionibus and cap. seculares de foro competenti in Sexto But none of all these canons have any such matter at all as a clear express and formal nay or as much as a virtual diffinition of the Popes in the point or as to the case of the persons of Clerks being so exempted by the Pope himself or being so declared by him to have been formerly exempted by the law of God from all even supream civil power in all cases or even in any temporal cause whatsoever criminal or civil For besides that some of these canons are not sole and meeâ— papal canons out of General Councils also or of Councils at least reputed General and consequently no proofs of the Popes having by his own sole authority willed so or exempted so the Clerks or declared them formerly exempted so by the law of God it is clear enough 1. That cap. Non minus de Immunitate Ecelesia which is taken out of the nineteenth Chapter of the third General Council of Laterâ—n held under Alexander the Third Pope of that name and Frederick the Second Emperour and as such inserted by Gregory the Ninth into his Decretals speaks only against such particular Consuls and Rectors of Cities as contrary to both the civil laws and customs received amongst Christians oppressed the Church-lands and Church-men by laying more grievous taxes on them then Pharaoh did on the Children of Israel and besides did wholy evacuat the jurisdiction of Bishops and only decrees by this canon as by a canon of Discipline for such only it was that such oppressors should be excommunicated Where you see there is not a word to our purpose For who doubts but the Fathers of this Lateran Council or even the Pope alone might justly complain of and decree against such oppressors notwithstanding the perfect entire subjection of all both Clerks and Bishops in all criminal causes and even of the Church-lands too in other matters to the supream civil Power They might have excommunicated such Consuls and Rectors for oppressing only the Laicks against the civil laws and customs or otherwise against justice 2. That cap. Adversus eod tit which is also not a meer or only papal Constitution but according to the Decretals of another General Council that is of the Fourth of Lateran under Innocent the Third and the 46. constitution of those of this Council if indeed the printed Acts or Canons of this Council be true ones or be the canons of this Council or if indeed this Council made any canons at all and how ever it be is but as the former a canon of Discipline only That I say this cap. Adversus as inserted by Gregory the Ninth in his Decretals and under the above title de Immunitam Ecclesiarum l. 3. tit 49. declares no more but that the said Fourth Lateran Council prohibited likewise the particular Consuls and Rectors of Citties as the former did not to oppress the Church or Church persons with tallies collections and other exactions And besides this nothing else from the Pope himself but that neither should the Churchmen themselves of themselvs freely consent to any taxes imposed or desired by such consuls rectors without the Roman Pontiffs leave and that if any constitutions were made or sentences given to the contrary all should be void Where you see nothing yet is said to our
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
against his will that he was as yet then a Novice in the Faith and that he â—â—mitted the matter to the Roman Pontiff I say this excuse is wholly vain For first who could constrain him next he was no late Convert and the matter of usurping jurisdiction over the Church was so great notable extraordinary among Christians and of such important consequence too that t is impossible he should not be instructed in it and especially in such an instance of it though he had till then been a meer Novice or even Catechumen And in the last place who sees not it is one thing to acknowledge himself an incompetent Judge and remit the parties to their own proper Judges and an other to assign and delegat Judges to the parties which Constantine did Nor was he reprehended herein or instructed either by those three French Bishops or by Melchiades himself not even although it was known that he was most pious and most ready both to heare and obey all divine instructions Nay so farre were these French Bishops was Melchiades himself from any such exception that in pursuance of this Commission or delegation from and by Constantine a Council was gathered together at Rome to the end this troublesome cause of Caecilian and the Donatist Bishops might be the more throughly and fully discussed Optatus l. 1. wherein yet onely they did sit as Judges who were so delegated by Constantine Melchiades Maternus Rhetitius and Marinus who also the matter having been heard and examined from first to last absolved Caecilianus and condemned the Donatists Augustinus in Brevic. coll di 3. c. 22. Nay Augustine insinuats no less then that the sole judgement of Melchiades had he undertaken any such himself alone in this controversie as it was then had been usurped or had been so if he had without the Emperour 's special delegation presumed to determine it but together with those other his French Collegues For Augustine treating of the pertinacy of the Donatists in their refusing to yeeld to so many former Judgements which absolved Caecilian and labouring to clear those former judgements from all opposition he objects to himself in behalf of the Donatists epist 162. thus An forte non debuit Romanae Ecclesiae Melchiades Episcopus cum collegis transmarinis Episcopis illud sibi usurpare juditium quod ab Afris septuaginta ubi primus Tifigitanus praesedit fuerat terminatum To this what doth Augustine answer Certainly he does not denye that such judgement of Melchiades might be justly thought in the case to be usurped but excuses the judgement of Melchiades which really de facto was not that which onely might be falsely supposed or bruted to have been and defends it that so was truly by saying again thus Quid quod nec ipse usurpavit Rogatus quippe Imperator judices misit Episcopos qui cum eo viderent de tota illa causa quod justum videretur statuerent Hoc probamus Donatistarum precibus verbis ipsius Imperatoris So c. So Augustine above or in the foresaid epistle The appeall of the Donatists to the Emperour himself doth follow upon and against the foresaid judgement of the Bishops at Rome Optatus l. 1. cont Parm. And what doth Constantine then t is true he breaks out into this no less just then admiring exclamation O rabida furoris audacia sicut in causis Gentilium fieri solet appellationem interposuerant Yet this imports not signifies not by any means that Constantine abominats the ignorance of the Appellants for having or as if they had against any divine or humane rule or canon had recourse to a laye tribunal For had it been so or had this been the motive of his exclamation he had dismissed them and remitted them back again to their own proper Episcopal Judges which yet he did not but admitted their appeal Therefore this exclamation of Constantine imports no more but his great wonder at the too great obstinacy of these Donatist Appellants and their too much want of Christian humility resignation simplicity and even of their too much want also of either peace or charity that they in professing themselves to be Christian Priests and Bishops would never leave of persecuting an other Bishop not acquiesce at all in such manifold Judgements of even stranger Bishops who sate so numerously on the cause both in Affrick and Europe but would rather as contentiously as even the meerest Gentils in the world by all the most odious and tedious advantages of secular laws and in so improbable a cause and even by such an appeal from the Emperours such Delegats continue then inveterat malice against an other Christian Bishop But however this be or whatever moved Constantine to this exclamation the matter of fact which followed cannot be denyed For sure enough it is that Constantine admitted this Appeal and not onely admitted it but would have it and had it discussed in an other Council of Bishops which he summond and convened at Orleance in France wherein too himself would be and was present to heare and see this cause again discussed and the late judgement thereupon of Melchiades the Roman Bishop and of the other three Delegats reviewed Euseb l. x. c. 5. Aug. epist 68. This admission of the appeal and this reexamination by Constantine and by his Councel of Orleance seems very harsh to Baronius tom 3. an 314. n. 35. And therefore sayes that Constantine was drawn against his will to admit so unjust an Appeal from the judgement or sentence of the great Pontiff But to that of being drawn against his will we have said before enough or that there was none could force him And for the fact in it self that is for his admission I am sure Augustine never once reprehends it how reprehensible soever the Appeal was in it self or on the behalf of the Appellants Nor did any other of the Bishops of those times reprehend Constantine's said admission of it But if Constantine however against his own will or rather inclination did so any way tyrannically or by usurpation extend his imperial power to Ecclesiastical matters or to such matters of the Church as by the law of God were out or beyond the proper sphere of his lay or civil power why were the Roman Pontiff silent Why did not Caecilianus except and not obey as he did Why so many other Bishops of greatest name and fame gathered together and celebrating great Councils and sitting as Judges to obey the command of Constantine Therefore it must follow that all the Bishops then were meer stupid brutes or certainly that Constantine was so a most cruel raging tyrant and trampler underâ—oot of all the liberties of the Church that they dared not gainsay him And whereas neither can be said that we allow Constantine to be a competent Judge of those affairs which are properly and strictly Ecclesiastical that is spiritual at least in such as are meer questions of right or of the spiritual doctrine
He desires and prays that Iustine would banish Dorotheus and he cannot prevaile with Iustine forasmuch as to send Dorotheus to Rome But let us here Iustine himself answering this last demand of the Legats Inter haec say the same Legats suggestio 2. post epist Hormisd 64. giving an account to the Pope secundum ea quae praecepistis authoritatem Apostolatus vestri Principi insinuare curavimus ut ad percipiendam doctrinam Catholicae puritatis Romam praefatus Dorotheus una cum Aristide mitteraetar Qui respondit causam non esse pro qua Romam delegarentur audiendi ubi sine accusatorum controversia sese possent liberiùs excusare Where that is to be observed which in the prosecution of this account as it is Suggest 2. post epist Hormis 64. the same Legats further signifie how Dorotheus was carried to the Citty of Heraclea to stay there until his cause were adjudged but that he was presently dismiss'd thence And in the little Index which follows there they seem to signifie moreover that the judgment or Court Imperial was in this cause of Dorotheus corrupted with gold But however this of corruption be certain it is that neither did those Legats themselves nor Hormiâ—da himself at any time complain of any usurpation in or of this judgment by Iustine to which themselves did so often consent although peradventure they might have had some cause to complain of the injustice or corruption of it Iustinianus also the Emperour albeit so great a Catholick and so well deserving of the Catholick Church universally and of Catholick Church-men singularly as he was and as appears too for this of Catholick Church-men particularly out of the special priviledges he gave by his laws to the same Catholick Curchmen over and above what his Praedecessours did this very Iustinianus I say reserved still notwithstanding all his zeal for religion and all his said priviledges given his own Imperial judiciary power and would and did exercise it by proceeding and punishing in very many Instances delinquent or criminal Clerks Priests Bishops Patriarchs nay and so reserved that power still or a power of proceeding against criminal Clerks that by an express law he reserved it also to his lay Praetors of Provinces and to the lay Judges at Constantinople as I have shewed already and at large in my LXIX Section But to give here some of the particular Instances of his punishing Clerks by that his own Imperial coercive power 〈◊〉 know first it was this very Iustinianus who by his own proper and role power and authority Imperial decreed the banishment and who actually forc'd into banishment Anthimus the Patriarch of Constantinople Severus the Patriarch of Antioch Peter Bishop of Apamea and Zoaras the Praesbiter albeit they had been first deposed by an Ecclesiastical sentence Novell 42. ponitur in Concil general 5. Act. 1. where Iustinian speaks thus Interdicimus ei videlicet Anthimo commorari in hac faelici Civitate ejus districtu ac in quacumque alia insigni civitate For this Anthimus was first condemned and deposed by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical sentence of Agapetus the Roman Pontiff and after also by that of the general Synod as an intruder or as intruded into the See of Constantinople and as thinking amiss of some dogmats of Faith Ibid. Act. 1. Severus having been convicted of the same or like crimes had the like sentence of banishment pronounced against him by Iustinian similiter autem sayes this Emperour huic interdicimus omnio Regiam civitatem ingredi aut districtum ejus aut aliquam aliam de insignibus c. And enacted the same punishment against the other two Peter and Zoaras But least any should think or pretend him a meer executor of the sacerdotal sentence against these criminal Clergiemen it is to be considered first that this cannot be alleadged with any kind of colour or upon any kind of ground being that neither Pope nor Council pronounced any thing of banishment against the said criminals as indeed it was never at least in those ancient times the stile of Popes or Councils nor was after of the very Popes themselves until they became temporal Princes For since I confess the Popes do banish and may banish but out onely of their own temporal Principality The sentence therefore which Pope Agapetus and that Council which condemned those Ecclesiasticks gave or pronounced was purely and solely of Ecclesiastical Deposition and excommunication But that of Iustinian was of an other kind and much more grievous even a corporal extermination or banishment not onely from the whole citties wherein before they exercised jurisdiction but also out of all great citties of the Roman Empire And therefore Iustinian was not a meer executor of the Decree of either Pope or Council or of both but an inflicter of a new and much greater punishment and such as was proper to his own power and to which the power of the Church as a Church did neither in truth extend nor at all then as much as pretend Secondly it is to be considered that the words expression and stile which Iustinian uses in the said Novel are such are so absolute and Imperial as they cannot by any means become a meer executor Ad praesentem sayes he venimus legem nostrum Imperium contra istum praesentem scribit legem nec vtique extra Imperialem confirmationem relinquimus sententiam justè contra Severum ab Episcopis latam falsa dogmata ut publicentur nullo modo fieri in Christiano ovili Dei orthodoxo populo justum est neque ab Imperio nostro permissum est Sacram sententiam quam propriam ipsam in seipsa existentem ad huc magis firmiorem Imperium facit interdicimus omnibus â—â—tos suscipere abijci ergo ipsos sancimus de civitatibus Haec pro communi pace sanctissimarum Ecclesiarum statuimus Haec sententiavimus sequentes sanctorum Patrum dogmata ut omne sacerdotium imperturbatum de â—aetero nobis permaneat quo in pace servato reliqua nobis exuherabit politia desuper pacem habens What could be more efficaciously said to signifie that what he decrees here he decrees by his own proper Imperial authority And yet he further and expresly and particularly declares in this very Novel 42. that the judgment Ecclesiastical which proceeded was concerned onely in the bare deposition of these Churchmen from their Sees and cures and in the excommunication of them but that himself and by his own proper Imperial authority does add this decree of banishment For thus he speaks decreeing against Zoaras Et hunc de hac regia vrbe ejus districtu abijoit Imperium habitationem in alijs civitatibus ipsi omnino interdicit Itaque cum illis solis habitet consulat qui a nobis ante memorati sunt qui similia quidem blasphemant similia patiuntur similiter in exilio ponuntur si quid verò aliud in sententia sanctissimorum Episcorum quae
and this barely too crimen Ecclesiasticum it is declared that if any charge a Clerk with the former sort of crime the secular judges shall determine the cause but if with the later that the Bishop onely shall have power to judg it Quod si de criminali causa litigium emerserit tunc competentes judices in hac civitate scilicet Constantinopolitana vel in Provinciis interpellati consentaneum legibus terminum imponant c Sin autem crimen Ecclesiasticum est tunc secundum canones ab Episcopo suo causae examinatio paena procedat nullam communionem aliis judicibus in hujusmodi causis habentibus Which although it was first or originally a meer civil constitution or Novel of Iustinian yet was after made a canon of the Church by being inserted in and received by the Church amongst her canons in corpore Iuris canonici or in Gratian. Sixt canon as to pure Ecclesiastical crimes and to their punishment in case of disobedience to the Bishops was long before and not a Papal canon onely but a canon of the third Council of Carthage which was that is called the Vniversal Council understand you of Affrick and is that also in Gratian XI q. 1. c. Petimus where it is declared that intruded Bishops contemning the admonitions of the Church belong in such case to the lay judicatory Seaventh canon distinguishing likewise in effect sufficiently and clearly enough as the above fift hath done betwixt lay crimes or at least some lay crimes that is crimes which are common as well to lay-men as to Clergie-men and both Ecclesiastical crimes or such as are proper onely to Ecclesiastical persons and other crimes too which are strictly civil but not criminal is that of the first Council of Matiscon held in the year 582. under King Gunteramnus and Pope Pelagius II. wherein and in the 7. chap. the Fathers decree Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex cujuscumque Clericum absque causa criminali id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum suerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Whence appears evidently these Fathers held it no breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity that Clerks accused of murder theft or maleficium what ever they understood by this word or whether witchcraft onely according the special acception and restriction of this word or sense of it by some authors or generally all kind of lay evils or wickedness according to the general or etymological sense thereof should be subject to the meer lay coercive power of even inferiour lay judges whereof I have said more at large before And therefore by this canon Princes were to the end of the fift age of Christianity in possession of their own proper supream civil power of punishing Clerks in their own lay and princely Iudicatories tribunals or courts and even by their own inferiour proper and meer lay delegated or commission'd judges when I say the cause or accusation was purely criminal and of such crimes in specie as are murder theft or witchcraft Eight canon is that still in Gratian 23. q. 5. cap. Principes For though Isidorus de sum bon c. 35. be the original Author of it yet as in Gratian it is now allowed and accounted amongst the canons of the Church And that indeed not unworthily For thus it speaks Principes seculi non numquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eamdem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesâ—asticam muniant Caeterum intra Ecclisiam petesta es necessariae non essent nisi ut quod non fraevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem potestat hoc impleat per disciplinae terrâ—rem Saepe per regnum terrenum caeleste regnum proficit ut qui intra Ecclesiam positi contra fidem disciplinam Ecclesiae agunt rigore Principum conterantur ipsamque disciplinam quam Ecclesiae humilitas exercere non praevalet corvicibus superborum potestas principalis imponat ut venerationem mereatur virtutem potestatis impertiat Cognoscant Principes saeculi Deo debere se rationem reddere propter Ecclesiam quam a Christo tuendam accipiunt Nam sive augeatur pax displina Ecclesiae per fideles Principes sive soluatur ille ab eis rationem exiget qui corum potestati suam Ecclesiam credidit Here you see that not out of or by vertue of any commission or delegation from Bishops or Popes Princes do exercise the distriction of their power even within the Church that is against Churchmen and even too in Church affairs but out and by vertue of their own proper authority which they received from God And you see also that the Church as such by reason of its humble and essential constitution may not exercise or make use of any penal discipline as belonging to her self but for such coercion must have recourse to the power of Princes Nor let any think to evade by saying that Princes are in so much or as punishing such persons or as determining correcting or amending such affairs but Ministers of the Church and executors of the sentence or power of the Church pursuant to that which Innocent III. and the Glosse upon him say or determine cap. ut famae de sent Excom extracted out of the said Innocent's answer to the Bishop of London For I have before already in several Sections proved by reason Scripture tradition of the Fathers and practise too both general and particular and of both Fathers and Princes and Pontiffs and people that Princes have hethertoo proceeded and de jure proceeded against such persons and even too in such matters by their own proper authority without any commission had from the Church As likewise that they received from God himself such their own proper universal authority and right to proceed so against all persons whatsoever laymen or Clergiemen guilty of any crimes and in all causes too whatsoever temporal or spiritual forasmuch or wherein they relate to the external peace of the Commonwealth and to the meer external government of the Church by the power of the material sword And we have seen too already that the power of inflicting corporal punishment by way of coaction and force is absolutely denyed to the Church as a Church Which being so who will be so unreasonable as to attribute a power to Her of deputing commissioning or delegating Ministers or executors to inflict them so But what this canon or Gratian or rather Isidore who was the original Author sayes here is very observable I mean where it sayes that Princes have the height of their power within the Church and that God himself hath committed his Church to their power even as Leo Magnus the Pope writing to Leo the Emperour ep 81. sayes Debes incunctanter advertere Regiam potestatem tibi non
est auferatur fratremque nostrum Paulum Constantinopolitanae Ecclesiae Episcopum Regali authoritate vt nobiscum id est cum omni generalitate orthodoxé sapere debeat coarctare degnemini Concil Lateran consult 2. sub Martino 1. they desire the Emperour that by his legal authority and by corporal coercion he force him who not onely was a Priest not onely a Bishop but in the highest degree of the Hierarchy ordained by humane constitution or by the canons of the Church even the very Patriarch of Constantinople For a ninth canon that which is in the Ninth Council of Toledo cap. 1. may very well and properly serve where the Fathers acknowledging this supream coercive power of Clerks in Princes ordain thus against Clerks that defraud the community or the Church of the oblations intended in common for the Church Vt si sacerdotem seu ministrum aliquid ex collatis rebus praeviderint defraudare aut commonitionis honestae conventione compescant aut Episcopo vel Iudici corrigenda denuntient Quod si talia Episcopus agere tentet Metropolitano ejus haec insinuare procurent Si autem Metropolitanus talia gerat Regis haec auribus intimare non differant Where you see this ancient Council of Spanish and very orthodox Bishops ordaining that the excesses of Ecclesiastical persons of Priests Bishops and Metrapolitanes be in the last place or when no remedy is applyed by the Bishops or Metropolitanes themselves complained of to the King to be questionless by him and by his regal authority corrected and coerced Tenth and last of those canons I pitch upon and restraine my self unto here is a canon of the Synod of Ravenna convoked by Iohn the ninth Pope of that name about the nine hundredth year of Christ For in this Council Lambertus the Emperour being himself there in person and at some variance with that Pope who who was likewise present in his own person amongst his Capitula or heads which he proposed to the Council and as to be admitted by the Pope and Council proposed in the first place of all this Si quis Romanus cujuscumque sit ordinis sive de clero sive de Senatu seu de quocumque ordine gratis ad nostram Imperialem Majestatem venire voluerit aut necessitate compulsus ad nos voluerit proclamare nullus ei contradicere praesumat Donec liceat Imperatoriae Potestati eorum causas aut personas aut per Missos nostros deliberare Which capitulum was assented unto and ratified by the Fathers and made a conciliary Act and therefore too a Canon of that Council and all this done so solemnly and even in the sight and with the approbation also and consent of the very Roman Pontiff himself there in person present to the end it might appear to the world that after the more directly spiritual or purely Ecclesiastical Canons had been ended by the Fathers the Emperour would by this particular Canon of another nature have it declared that he preserved still entire his own right of judging the very Clergy of Rome it self as an Emperour and in all matters whatsoever belonging to his imperial cognizance and consequently still preserved intire his own imperial coercive power of criminal Clerks or that of punishing them civilly corporally if or when their delinquencies or crimes or the preventing of such crimes for the future in others required such punishments To conclude this Section of Canons I must give some few and brief advertisements to the Reader concerning them and my purpose in alledging them 1. That I alledge them not as causes or as grounds or springs of such authority in secular Princes but only as testimonies of the sense of the Fathers who made them and for those ages wherein they were made that there was by and from a superiour power such a previous original proper essential independent right in supream secular Princes and that for the more certain more demonstrative proofs of such a right in Princes I relye not somuch on any express Canons of either Popes or Councils as upon those plain texts of holy Scripture and those other so plain and so express of all the holy Fathers generally who in their other writings that are not Papal or conciliary Canons commented upon the same Scriptures and besides these two arguments of Scripture and Tradition which I have before given at length in three Sections for I make that of my Instances of practise part of the argument of Tradition that I do also very much relye upon those other evidences of natural reason which you may turn to Sect. LXXII 2. That although for these Canons which are only Papal that is those which are made or issued by the sole authority of one or more Popes without a Council I pretend them not to be of equal authority with such as had the consent of a Council nor hold those meer Papal Canons or any other in Gratian to be properly and strictly the Canons of the Church being these are such as were made at first or approved at last by a general Council or otherwise introduced by universal consent or custome albeit others too may be Canons for the occidental Church apart or apart for the oriental yet as to my present purpose meer Papal Canons may be justly presumed to be most sufficient testimonies because against the Popes themselves or against the present exemption of Popes by divine right and their pretended power also by any right whatsoever to exempt others I mean still out of their own dominions or those wherein they are themselves at present supream temporal Princes 3. That in my interpretations of those Canons or in my conclusions derived or intended from them I do not tye my self either to Gratian whom I confess to have seen many or most or perhaps all of them or to any of his Glossatours if indeed Gratian himself how otherwise great and earnest soever a Hiero Monarchist or Zealot for and assertor of the Roman and Papal Hieromonarchy interpret conclude or say any thing at all point blanck either directly or indirectly or consequentially or virtually against my interpretations or conclusions here out of these Canons or against my assertions all along of the supream royal coercive power of criminal Clerks For truly he may be very well understood without any such meaning xi q. 1. where he had most occasion to deliver himself as of purpose treating there of the proper Judicatory of Clerks Because that forasmuch as of this matter he treats only according to the Canons of the Church and priviledges given by Emperours and that I have shewed and proved already elsewhere in my LXIX Section â—e brings neither an Imperial constitution nor allowed Church canon nor as much as any true or certain though meer Papal Canon which maâ—y be home enough against my assertion of such an absolute independent supream coercive power in Kings and that also in his last Paragraph which begins thus as even his former doth
and Burgundy and exercised also that self same Vicariat office without any regard of the former Bulls of this Pope excommunicating deposing and depriving this Lewis for we know very well that in the Countries obeying that Emperour himself there was not nor could be any such material publication much less reception of any thing or Bull for such a part at least as struck though indirectly at the prerogatives and rights Imperial I mean such as were truly such as we know it is a maxime amongst Civilians and Canonists that laws are then laws indeed quando moribus utentium comprobantur when they are approved by reception and submission to them and yet we know withal that for such approbation or reception of and submission to all and singular the definitions of this Bull so little can be said albeit enough may be for some of them and yet not for any of them as in this Bull as it is apparant the Bull it self or the tenor of it hath been for some ages unknown and even unknown to and unseen by the very most learned and most curious at least until about some fifty or threescore years since it was by meer chance lighted on in Biblotheca Cottâ—niana Sr. Robert Cottons Library finally passing by altogether in silence as not material what Villanius an Italian Author of this Popes time and St. Antoninus too the holy Archbishop of Florence after him and others after both report of the election of this very Iohn to the Papacy or how it was himself alone being called before his Papacy Iacobus de Ossa Episcopus Cardinalis Portuensis that chose himself to be Pope viz. the Colledge of Cardinals being at variance long and compromising at last and fixing on and electing him blindly whoever he should be that were or would be elected by him alone whereupon he chose himself as likewise and as not very material passing over wholly in silence what Ciacconius relates of his breach of oath made to Neopoleon Ursinus the Archdeacon who was one of the Conclave and was author to the rest of the Cardinals to leave the whole election to him Iacobus de Ossa then but after Iohn the XXII for this oath was that he would never mount either horse or mule but to go to Rome whence his Predecessors Clement the V. had in a manner removed the Papal See by living all his life-time in France where alâ—o this Iohn or this Iames de Ossa was chosen to be Pope and yet he never once attempted to go to Rome though he lived a long and healthy life after in his Papacy and therefore the said Neapoleon would never come at him as much as once more in his life nor even after his death as much as go to his funeral ceremonies not even notwithstanding that to appease or to win him from his rigid resolution this Pope had promoted two of his Family and created them Cardinals at two several promotions Iohn Cajetanus Vrsinus and Matthew Vrsinus I say that passing by at present all the both general and specifical and particular advantages I might any way take either of the doctrine of the fallibility of Popes in general or of the fallibility of Iohn the XXII Bulls in particular or of this singular Bull of his as to some part of it at least in the sense of some Divines against Marsilius and Iandunus or of any thing else hitherto alledg'd in this last Paragraph nay supposing or granting all and each animadversion had been not only immaterial but false and which is consequent admitting the certainty of the legalâ— both emanation and publication and general reception too of this Bulâ— throughout all Christendome and of every branch of it and that even Iohn the XXII himself had either been himself alone infallible in all his Definitions of any matter to be of Catholick Faith and consequently of the matter of this Bull or at least had been so fortunate as to have defined nothing so by himself for such but what was formerly or concomitantly acknowledged to be such and even acknowledged so by the universal Church of the infallibility of which Church in matters of Faith no Catholick doubts yet I say again that granting all this My direct and positive answer to the above fourth remaining objection is very clear and very full and satisfactory viz. That although without any peradventure my doctrine hitherto all along in this Tract of a supream civil coercive power in supream temporal Princes to punish criminal Bishops Priests and other Clergiemen whatsoever dwelling and offending within their dominions is or was part of the doctrine taught as well by Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno as by thousands of the very best Roman Catholicks both in their time and before and after their time yet it is no part of that doctrine or of those articles of Marsilius or Jandunus which is properly called theirs or which as theirs John the XXII condemned or as much as touch'd at all and therefore that the objection for so much of it as is to purpose is absolutely false Which to evict no less manifestly we need no other proof then what is obvious to every judicious man by comparing together my doctrine hitherto and the above five articles which Iohn the XXII himself relates as the only proper doctrine of Marsilius and Iandunus against which he takes exception and pronounces condemnation For the first of those articles is that that which is read of Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew that he paid tribute to Cesar when he commanded the stater taken out of the fishes mouth to be given to the Collectors he commanded and did so non condescensivè liberalitate suae pietatis sed necessitate coactus not out of his condescension liberality and piety but as constrained by necessity But it is evident enough the doctrine of a supream coercive power of all Clerks in temporal Princes needs not involves not the support of any such article as this first concerning Christ whatever the sense of Marsilius or Iandunus therein was good or bad false or true for the doctrine of such power in Princes speaks only of it in relation to Clerks who are only men by nature not of Christ who was both God and man by nature even as to all the perfections and power of as well the divine as humane nature Be it therefore so that Marsilius and Iandunus mean'd heretically in this first article of theirs that is mean'd to say that Christ paid tribute not only or solely to avoid scandal but also as bound by his own condition and by the sole virtue of that tribute law in it self and as abstracting wholy from all cases of scandal and be it so as it was so that Iohn the XXII rightly condemn'd this heretical sense or even be it so that he justly condemned that first article as bearing this sense and rightly judg'd it to beare this very sense and no other good sense at all what hath
quarrel and though his body likewise had been subservient and obedient in all things to the most holy dictats of his Soul For we know that invincible or inculpable prejudice ignorance or inadvertisement against the truth of things in the course of a mans life in his actions or in his contests or even some time in his doctrine which strikes not at the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so his Soul be ever piously and charitably and Christianly and resignedly disposed to embrace truth when known either by evidence of reason or from such an authority as it is bound to submit unto doth not hinder either Sanctity or martyrdom or miracles or due canonization or a fit veneration or answerable invocation of him as even a martyrized and miraculous Saint The example of S. Cyprian that great holy martyrized Saint and Patriarch of Affrick who both lived and dyed in a wrongfull contest with even the Popes of Rome themselves and even also in a very material point of Christian doctrine is evidence enough for this And S Paul's contest with S. Peter at Antioch about the observation of the Jewish laws is evidence enough And very many other examples of great holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church who lived and dyed in material errours and material heresies too especially if the doctrine of Bellarmine in many places nay or that of even of many or rather most other School Divines be true may be produced ex superabundanti to make good this evidence 4. That the infallibility of Pope Alexander the third in canonizing S. Thomas of Canterbury and I speak now to them who suppose the Pope so infallible in all his Definitions or Bulls concerning any doctrine or fact or matter of Piety that he is so too in his canonization of Saints implyed or inferr'd of necessity that all his quarrels or at least the substantial part of that quarrel which occasion'd his death principally immediatly ultimatly not onely was just but must have been just according to the very objective truth of things in themselves and that otherwise there could be no infallibility in the said Alexander's canonization of him for a Saint and a martyr and that likewise the pursuant veneration and invocation of him for such by the Church and the miracles wrought at his hearse before he was interr'd as for example the candles lighting of themselves about his hearse after they had been quenched and his lifting up his hand after the office of the dead was ended and blessing the people c and so many other miracles wrought at several times at his Tomb after he had been long enterred that I say neither that veneration or invocation could be in truth practised without impiety or at least very much temerity not those miracles alleadg'd without forgery and fallacy nor he called a martyr in any true sense if his quarrels or quarrel as now is said with Henry the Second had not been just according to the objective truth of things in themselves For as I denyed the former three suppositions so I do this fourth also or at least I say that I am not bound to admit it First because that even allowing or if I did allow Bellarmine's or any other's doctrine of the infallibility of Popes in their Bulls of canonization and other Bulls whatsoever yet is it plain enough and even admitted by such Divines that possibly there may be an errour in some particular allegations or suppositions entertained by the Popes in the process formed for such canonization and even expressed also or insinuated in the very letters of the canonization and that no such allegations or suppositions reasons or motives are defined in any Bull of canonization or even in any other whatsoever but the principal design onely and that this in Bulls of canonization is onely that such or such a holy man is in the joyes of the blessed seeing God in the face and therefore he may be invocated as such and consequently that the infallibility which they do attribute to the Popes in their Bulls of canonization may subsist notwithstanding that some of those motives or inducements were in themselves false according at least to the objective truth of things For all which these Divines pretend to in this matter is the infallible assistance of Gods holy spirit or of his external Providence promised infallibly as they suppose to the Pope in not proposing any by such a solemn declaration to be invoked as a Saint who is not so indeed but not in supposing this or that which is said of some passage of his life nor by consequence in supposing what was the true cause of his violent death when he dyed so or that the cause was such as would make him a martyr in the stricktest sense of this word Martyr as used in the Church by way of distinction not onely from a Confessour but from such holy men who suffered violent deaths unjustly that is not by the prescript of the laws but by the power onely of wicked men or women and that too sometimes not for any cause they maintayn'd but out of hatred to their persons or to arrive at some worldly end which their life observed whereof St. Edward the Second a Saxon King of England Son to the good King Edgar is a very sufficient example who was and is invoked as a martyr and a very miraculous martyr too notwithstanding he was murthred onely by a servant and at the command of his Stepmother Alfreda as he was drinking on horseback and this too for no other cause but that her own Son Ethelredus should come to be King as presently he was made Polydore Virgil Anglicae Historiae l. VII as sometimes also for a cause which though not so clear on either side in the judgment I mean of some other indifferent men nay perhaps unrighteous on the side of the holy sufferers according to the objective truth of things in themselves yet invincibly appearing just or the more just and the more holy and pious unto them and to others also who had their life otherwise and justly too or according also even to the certain objective truth of other things in due veneration For Martyr in Greek is a witness in English and martyrdom in the Ecclesiastical use of the word is variously applyed sometime strictly to import a violent death suffered without any reluctance and suffered meerly and onely for professing or for not denying a known certain evident or notorious Catholick Evangelical truth or which is the same thing to import a witnessing or a bearing testimony to such a truth by such a death sometime largely or not so strictly however properly still to import by such a death a witnessing or a bearing testimony to a good zeal and great piety and excellent conscience in being constant to a cause which one esteems the more just and generally seems the more pious for all he knows though it be not an evangelical truth and though perhaps
but give my Reader this advertisement also That even with such questions both the infallibility of the Catholick Roman Church and the religious and rational piety also of that very Church in venerating and invoking him may subsist Because her infallibility regards other matters as I have said before and because her veneration and invocation of this or that Saint in particular whose sanctity on earth and glory in heaven is not revealed unto her otherwise or taught by clear Scripture or constant Tradition from the beginning doth and must of necessity alwayes imply as to such I mean who see no evident miracles or who are not throughly convinced of such this tacit condition That he or she whom they invoke be in glory and because also moral certainty from humane faith may ground a religious and pious practice as no certainty at all but meer probability of natural grounds may be sufficient to enact a binding law or sanction even also in order to piety and because moreover the prayers of the faithful to Saints whether they invoke them in recto or in obliquo regard principally and without any comparison but that of an infinit disproportion God himself and are terminated in him alone and so farre only regard the Saints as they are in his favour grace and glory and so far only as he is pleased we should either venerat or invoke them So that if in any kind of contingency it may happen that the Church be deceived in her opinion which in this matter depends of humane testimonies and humane knowledge apprehension or sense it cannot be therefore said that her practice is either impious or irreligious or indeed any way foolish Not impious or irreligious for the reasons hitherto given of the tacit condition and primary termination of the worship and prayer nor foolish being she hath grounds enough of and for a moral humane certainty or firm adhesion of such humane belief or perswasion to the material object of her understanding by reason of the formal object of her assent in such matters this formal object being in part the most credible testimonies of other men and in part also at least sometimes the evidence of sense And so I have done at last with all my answers to the fourth and grand and very last of all those I call'd remaining objections and have done also with all my observations and advertisements to the Reader concerning this matter of Thomas of Canterbury Only for a final perclose and for the greater satisfaction yet of the more curious Reader I will add here two appendixes The one is brief and concerning the height or amplitude whereunto the exemption of some persons and some crimes from the civil Judicatories in England grew For at last it came to be such that not only the criminal Clerks themselves however guilty of what crime you please but also the very most enormous lay criminals when their crimes had relation to or had been committed against a Clerk that is when they had impiously and execrably murdred any Clerk Priest or even Bishop or Archbishop were exempted from the secular power but understand you this conformably to my doctrine before were sent to Rome to receive such pennance as the Pope should be pleased to inflict and thereby were absolutely freed of all other punishment that is of any which the civil power and the civil or municipal laws did use or inflict for murder All which to have been so in England for some time is so true that not even any of those very most impious four murtherers of St. Thomas of Canterbury himself though a long time after remaining peaceably and publickly altogether in the village of Cnaresburc in the West of England and at the house of Hugh de Mâ—roville who was himself one of the four murtherers and Lord of that Town or Village of Cnaresburc was at all enquired after by the lay Judges nor as much as touch'd or proceeded against in any wise by them but suffer'd to depart peaceably to Rome when themselves saw that all men and women shun'd their company and that none would either speak or eat with them nor even the very dogs taste of their relicks or fragments whence they were sent by Pope Alexander to do pennance at Jerusalem where finally living a penitential life by his command in Manic nigro they dyed and were buried without the gate of the Temple with this inscription Hic iacent miseri qui martyrizaverunt Beatum Thomam Archiepiscopum Cantuaâ—iensem And yet is so true that immediatly or at least very soon after the dayes or death of St. Thomas of Canterbury Richard Archbishop also of Canterbury either he that was the Saints immediat Successor or he at least who was the Sixt after him in that See for both were Richards and this last was called Richardus Magnus and sate as I take it in the dayes of Henry the Third and I have not leasure now to see which of them it was nor is it material much to set down here which complain'd of the abuse and complain'd thus most grievously of it as you may read in Petrus Blesensis and in his seventy third Epistle to the Bishops of England Clerici vel Episcopi occisores Romam mittuntur sayes he euntesque in deliciis cum plenitudine Apostolicae gratiae majore delinquendi audacia revertuntur Taltum vindictam excessuum Dominus Rex sibi vindicat sed nos eam nobis damnabiliter reservamus atque liberam praebentes impunitatis materiam in sauces nostras Laicorum gladios provocamus Ignominiosum est quod pro capra vel ovicula gravior pro sacerdote occiso paeâ—a remissior irrogatur Where also you see this good Archbishop acknowledging in formal words not only a double inconvenience arising from such exemptions and reservations but in effect also and expresly enough acknowledging that the King did upon one side justly challenge to his own say Courts the punishment of such criminals and that on the other side the Bishops did as damnably that is unjustly reserve them to their own ecclesiastical cognizance only The other appendix is a redection upon their impiety and inhumanity who wel-nigh four hundred years after the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and in the general sack of all the Churches and holy places in England but more especially of those which were more eminent and rich and yet more particularly of the three excellently glorious monuments the first of Alban the Protomartyr of Great Brittain under Dioclesion the Emperour the second of St. Edmond that Christian Saxon King and martyr too as who was killed by the Pagans in odium fidei and the third of St. Thomas of Canterbury perswaded Henry the eight to have a process formed against him I mean Thomas of Canterbury in a Court of Justice and perswaded this King accordingly and effectually though otherwise ridiculously enough to have him declared guilty of high Treason and yet perswaded this King to have an
absolutely or actually yet establish'd Or doth not the very nature of a Parliament and the necessary and plenary freedom of the members thereof evince this 3. T is likewise true that in the great Council or Parliament held at Norththampton and when he saw some of the very Bishops violently bent against him to ingratiat and endear themselves more and more to the King and the rest through fear yielding and saw them all generally conspiring with the lay Peers and joyntly with such Peers condemning and deposing him by their sentence from his Bishoprick he appealed to the Pope from such a sentence and such Judges and such a Judicatory and in such a cause But what then Or was it treason by the nature of the thing in it self or of such an Appeale of such a man and in such a case and from such Judges or was there any law then in England making such appeal to be treason certainly it was not by either Not by the nature of such an appeal as abstractedly considered in it self because neither appeals in a spiritual cause to the Pope nor decisions in a spiritual way of such Appeals by the Pope do of their own nature draw along with them any lessening of the Majesty or supream power of the Prince or of any part of it which is proper to him nor of the safety of the people though by accident that is by abuse only sometimes of the Appellants themselves or of such Appeals or of the decision of them by some Popes and by the neglect of either Prince or Parliament giving way to frivolous appeals or admitting of notoriously corrupt decisions they may prove hurtful Nor was there any law of England as yet then establish'd when the when the Saint appealed so which made it treason or which indeed at all prohibited him or any other Clerk to appeal to Rome in any pure ecclesiastical cause whatsoever or from the judgment of either spiritual or secular Judges or even of both together in any pure spiritual or Ecclesiastical cause such as that judgement was which was pronounced in that Council or Parliament of Northamton against this holy Archbishop even a sentence of his deposition from the See Nay the continual practice of England till then for so many hundred years before and for some time after too warranted by the very municipal laws or municipal Customs or both to appeal to the Pope in such causes which practice in many Instances of even great Bishops and Archbishops both of Canterbury and York and of the Kings also of England sending sometimes their own Embassadours to plead against such Bishops and Archbishops and sometimes to help or plead for them you may see at large everâ— in Matthew Parkers own Antiquitates Britannicae evicts manifestly it was neither treason by law or by reason or by the nature of such Appeals And the practice of other Kingdoms of Christendome till this day continued shews no less that it might have been and may be duly circumstantiated without any lessening of the Majesty of the Crown danger to the safety of the people or without prejudice to any Besides who sees not that it is against the very law of God as delivered to us from the beginnings of Christianity that Lay-men as such may fit in judgment on or give sentence for the taking away the Spirituals of a Bishop As such they can neither give nor take away any spiritual Power Jurisdiction or Authority purely such from the very meanest Clerk whatsoever Indeed if a King be made the Popes Legat in his own Kingdomes as Henry the first of England was you may read it in Houeden in whom also you may see that Henry the Second wrought all he could to get the same power from Rome for himself then such a lay person but not as a meer lay person may give sentence in such causes according to the extent of his commission And who sees not moreover that the Bishops of England who sate in the Council and as sitting there proceeded most uncanonically against their own Primat If they would proceed canonically against him with any colour as much as of the ancient canons of the Church it should have been in a canonical Convocation or Council of Bishops alone and of such other Clergymen as by the canons ought to vote and the Primat should have a fair tryal and be tryed by the canons only Those Bishops failed in all this And therefore Thomas had reason to appeal to the Pope from their sentence For ever since the general Council of Sardica there was at least in the Occidental Church an appeal allowed Bishops even from their equals and even too from their superiours to the supream Bishop or him of Rome as the Fathers of Sardica at the desire of Hâ—sius their President to honour the memory of St. Peter ordained by an an express Canon Though I confess that for what concern'd the temporals of his Archbishoprick which he held only from the King and municipal laws of the land he could not appeal to the Pope understand you otherwise then as to an honourable Arbiter by consent by vertue of any canon only or at all against the said municipal Laws or Customs of the Land if they had been against him in the case of his said Temporals as I have shewed they were not or at least I am sure were not so against him not even I mean in such an appeal concerning his meer Temporals as to render him guilty of treason for appealing so oâ— in such the meer temporal concerns of his Bishoprick And yet I add that Histories make no mention of any such kind of Appeal as this last made by him then when he appealed from the Council of Noâ—thampton though he had reason after to labour in all just meer and pure Ecclesiastical ways to recover the very temporals also of his Church to the same Church T is true moreover that immediatly after his appeal he departed the Council or Parliament the Court and Kingdom and departed the Kingdom incognito in a secular weed But neither was this any treason nor even disobedience or mis-demeanour in him There was no writ of ne exeat Regno against him There was no law of God or man prohibiting him to depart so nor any reason indeed as the case stood with him The King had stabled his own horses in his lodgings to affront him He challeng'd him for thirty thousand pounds which he had administred formerly during his Chancellorship and challeng'd him of so great a sum of purpose to pick a quarrel to him for the Saint had given him an account of all when he was Chancellor and was by the Barons of the Exchequer and Richardus de Luci Lord chief Justice and by the young King himself acquit of all these and whatsoever other accounts before he was consecrated He was notwithstanding his Appeal sentenc'd by the Barons at the Kings desire to be seized on and put in prison The Archbishops of
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
the said Burk and Forgery The Reasons why we the Roman-Catholick Clergy signed not the other three French Propositions The Propositions not inserted 4 That the same Faculty doth not approve nor ever did any propositions contrary unto the French Kings Authority or true Liberties of the Gallican Church or Canons received in the same Kingdom For example That the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons 5 That it is not the Doctrine of the Faculty That the Pope is above the general Councel 6 That it is not the Doctrine or Dogme of the Faculty That the Pope without the consent of the Church is Infallible BEcause we conceive them not any way appertaining to the Points controverted and though we did we thought we had already sufficiently cleared all scruples either by our former Remonstrance seperately or jointly with the three first Propositions we had already subscribed And as to the Fourth we looked upon it as not material in our Debate for either we should sign it as it was conceived in the French Original Coppy and we thought it impertinent to talk of the French Kings Authority the Gallican Priviledges and Canons from whence they derive their Immunities c. or that we should have inserted them mutatis nominibus the names being only changed and then we conceived not what more we might have said then had been touched already positively in the Remonstrance neither do we admit any Power derogatory unto his Majesties Authority Rights c. yea more positively then doth the French Proposition as may appear As to the 5th we thought it likewise not material to our affair to talke of a School Question of Divinity controverted in all Catholick Vniversities of the World whether the Pope be above general Councel or no Whether he can annul the Acts of a general Councel or no Dissolve the general Councel or whether Contrariwise the Councel can depose the Pope c Secondly we conceive it not only impertinent but dangerous in its consequence and unseasonable to talk of a question which without any profit either to the King or his Subjects may breed Jealousie between the King and his Subjects or may give the least overture to such odious and horrid disputes concerning the Power of Kings and Commonwealths as our late sad experience hath taught us The 6th regards the Popes Infallibillity in matters of Faith Whether the Pope not as a private Doctor but with an especial Congregation of Doctors Prelats and Divines deputed can censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie or whether it be necessary to have a General Councel from all parts of the World to decide define censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie The Jansenists already condemned of Heresie by Three Popes and all the Bishops of France to vindicate themselves from the Censure contest the first way They write in their own defence and many more against them On which Subject is debated the Questio Facti whether the Propositions condemned as Heresie by the Pope be in the true sense and meaning of the Jansenists or no whether in his Book or no as may appear by such as we can produce if Necessary The Universities of France say That it is not their Doctrine that the Pope c. Whether this touched our Scope or no we leave it to all prudent men to judge If they think it doth let them know that we should not hould the Popes Infallibillity if he did define any thing against the Obedience we owe our Prince If they speak of any other Infallibillity as matter of Religion and Faith as it regardeth us not nor our Obedience unto our Soveraign so we are loath Forraign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a Question in a Country where we have neither Universitie nor Jansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few Particulars whom we conceive under our Hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Countrey XVII ON the 21 of June and 11th of the Congregation the Fathers being all seated and the Procurator also who had the night before from His Grace what answer He gave those Deputies upon receipt of their said Petition and other annexed paper being present John Burk and Cornelius Fogorty rendred such an account of their success as did seem both presently and mightily to startle at least the major part of the Congregation amongst whom the Archbishop of Ardmagh neither was nor seem'd to be the least concern'd if not more then any For as soon as those rarely gifted men Burk and Fogorty had related openly their manner of access to His Grace and not only his appearing extreamly dissatisfied with their address but his very short and positive Answer That the Fathers might Dissolve and depart immediately whether they pleased being they did no good by their meeting nor intended any the said Primat of Ardmagh stood up and fell so fouly on this Burk who as being older in years and dignified in Office before the other was he that gave this account that he spared not to tell him There could not have been any better success expected from his negotiation who being so unfit for any such matter had nevertheles so importunately thrust himself on And then converting himself to the Procurator entreated him in the name of all the Fathers that he would go to His Grace and obtain for them three days more to continue their Congregation and consider a little better how not to depart with His Grace's displeasure but rather to satisfie Him if possibly they could even by signing those very three last controverted and consequently all the Six Declarations of Sorbon applyed as they should be mutatis mutandis Wherein the whole House seeming to concur with the Primat the Procurator could do no less then promise them he would use his best endeavours and so departs for the Castle leaving them in much perplexity but withal desiring them to continue sitting till he returned They did so and he by good fortune not only found His Grace at leasure but prevailed with him for the Fathers and returned to them presently with that permission they desired They gave thanks He moves That immediately a Select Committee should be appointed to consider of both the pertinency and necessity especially as the case stood for assuring their Allegiance to the King To Sign even the Three last of those Six Sorbon Declarations The Bishop of Ardagh to hinder any further progress or signature vehemently cries out Rather presently to the vote of the whole House whether we shall in any wise or upon any condition subscribe or no those Three last But the Procurator albeit contrary to his former custome continuing still in the House and consequently of one side both by his reasons and pretence opening the mouthes of some and silencing others prevailing so at last That the greater voice cryed first for a Vote upon his motion for the Committee and than again for stroaking on
their own flesh and blood their very next Neighbours yea dearest Friends Cousins and Brethren too by the same Fathers and Mothers who should continue faithful to their Protestant King or would oppose this advice of choosing and creating another King of Ireland c he moreover hath by manifold arguments all along in his foresaid Apologetical Disputation as much as in him lay sowed the seeds of a civil cruel and perpetual War amongst the Roman-Catholick Irish Nation in general yea amongst even such of those very Confederates who peradventure might be drawn to approve jointly the choosing a Roman-Catholick either Native or Forreigner to be their King and consequently the renouncing and deposing of their Protestant King For by the said arguments which take up his said whole Apology hath not he evinced clearly if we believe himself That the Kings of England have been all along these 500 years meer Usurpers of Ireland And consequently That all at least those of either old or new English or other Forreign extraction living in Ireland and deriving originally and only their Titles or Rights from those Kings to the Lands possessed by them in that Countrey must be likewise unjust Possessors And therefore also That the more ancient Natives of Ireland otherwise called the old and meer Irish retain still fully all the ancient Right which their Predecessors enjoy'd before the Conquest of Henry II. in the year 1167 or thereabouts And by a farther and as clear a consequence at least in his Doctrine That by vertue of that old Title they might lawfully take Arms and by plain force recover all the Lands and Goods of Ireland any where possessed hitherto at any time by such usurping and unjust detainers originally of English or other Forreign Extraction however of late Confederated with them to choose a new King Now who is ignorant that the far greater part of the Roman-Catholick Nobility Gentry and other Proprietors inhabiting and possessing quietly great Estates when the War begun in 1641 and before even time out of mind and most of them for some hundreds of years derive their Extraction from those old English or other Forreign Conquerors under Henry II. of England and His Successors in the Conquest of Ireland And we have already seen That an honest Author C. M. hath warranted his Kindred of the more ancient and meer Irish as they are commonly called of the lawfulness and justice and equity also of their forcing out of all possession those unjust Inheriters and putting them all to the Sword if they did resist And therefore it is plain he hath as much as in him lay sown the seeds of a civil cruel and perpetual War amongst even the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland themselves and even those amongst them who would otherwise peradventure freely enough follow his advice in choosing another King 11. That of this wicked Book many Copies had been in the Nuncio's time privately dispersed up and down amongst trusty men throughout Ireland but not discovered or known by the contrary side i. e. by those Confederates that were known to be for returning to their Duty to the King until about the year 1647 or 1648 when it was found or seen by some of them with John Bane the then Parish-Priest of Athlone which Priest the Nuncio refused to deliver to Secular justice i. e. to the Supreme Council of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland for keeping such a Trayterous Book and not revealing it or from whence he had it to the Supreme Council or others concern'd 12. That however the same Supreme Council had it publickly burnt by the hand of the Hangman at Kilkenny the said year 1648. 13. That I my self soon after had five Sundayes and Holydayes one immediately after another Preach'd nine Sermons in St. Kenny's Church the Cathedral of that Diocess chiefly against the wicked positions and designs of this damnable Book upon this one Text or Theme out of the Prophet Jeremy Quis est vir sapicus qui intelligat hoc ad quem verbum oris Domini fiat ut annuntiet istud quare perierit terra Hierem. 9.12 Wherein after I had shewn the insignificancy of the Solutions given in that Book to the three main arguments proving the lawful Right and just Title of the Crown of England to the Kingdom of Ireland viz. Conquest Submission and Prescription for that of Pope Adrian's Donation I valued not and consequently had confirmed those arguments I enlarged my self further on another even a fourth late and indeed insoluble argument proving against that vain Babler and wicked Scribler That in case all his Solutions were admitted yet he had nothing to say nor could find any possible way to evade the perfect full and free both acknowledgment and obligation of the late Oath of Association made and taken yea so often renewed by the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by their Archbishops Bishops Earls Viscounts Barons Knights Gentry Commonalty and Burgesses even by all their Three Estates Spiritual and Temporal in their National Assemblies nay even principally and in the first place by all the chief men of the meer or most ancient Irish those very and only Authors indeed of the Insurrection in October 1641 and consequently of all the Civil Wars that followed being they were the men that drew if not in a great measure forced the Descendents of the old English Conquerors to rebel or join with them in that unhappy War and to that end of themselves freely and voluntarily first in the said year 1641. framed that Oath of Association to persuade not only those other Natives but all the World They notwithstanding their taking Arms against oppression did religiously acknowledge Charles I. of England to be their lawful King and holily swear true Allegiance to him and his lawful Heirs and Successors the Kings of England as the undoubted just and lawful Kings of Ireland too however otherwise known Protestants This was the argument that in the last place I insisted on as absolutely unanswerable though we did which yet we could not freely grant that all other were avoidable Wherein the Reader will manifestly see I had reason of my side when he shall turn in this present work of mine Append. of Instrum pag. 31. to that very Oath according as it was renewed at Kilkenny 26 July 1644. in and by the General Assembly of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland held then there For here was at least a free and voluntary both acknowledgment and submission even of the very meer Irish to a known Protestant King of England and both also by a sacred Oath freely and voluntarily framed first then taken and lastly retaken and renewed by themselves without any compulsion at all from the King or his Protestant people to that same Oath nay so far from any such that these were all against it mightily though not for our acknowledgment or submission contained therein but for other undue branches thereof And therefore were it granted That
but in the margent of their Paper the three Propositions or those not inserted as they speak and give them truely word by word for what concerns the sense as they are in the French or Latin original and as applied by the Sorbone Faculty to themselves and French Monarch and as you have them here Fourth Proposition That the same faculty doth not approve nor ever did any propositions contrary to the French Kings authority or true liberties of the Gallican Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom for example that the Pope can depose Bishops against the said Canons Fifth Proposition That it is not the doctrine of the faculty that the Pope is above the general Council Sixth Proposition That it is not the doctrine or dogme of the faculty that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible After giving so these Propositions in the margent they proceed to a special observation of each and to shew either the impertinency or unsignificancy of such to their present purpose that is to any further assurance to our Gracious King of their fidelitie hereafter in the suspected contingencies or cases than hath been already given by them in the former three Propositions and in their Remonstrance taken at least joyntly together In truth were it so were those two general reasons true as they alleage them or were the proofs they give such as might be allowed for even but probable but yet withal to purpose I would my self before any if not approve yet at least not disprove a modest and rational excuse and save my self to boot some study and some paines But finding those general reasons and further specifical proofes and applications of them to be meer pretences only without either truth or colour of such to the purpose I found it an obligation on me to undeceive as farr as I can all such as are willing to be undeceived or not to be cheated by appearances and impostures And to this further end only that the peevish ill advised resolution and obstinacy of those leading men of the Roman Catholick Irish Clergie if any other such occasion be ever offered at any time hereafter as that was they had of late may no more pretend to impose on others on the account of such unreasonable reasons Wherefore now to come up close and joyn issue with them they must give me leave to tell here that when my Lord Lieutenant demanded in effect by his message sent in writing by Richard Beling Esq their Subscriptions to the three last as to the three former of Sorbone their own Procurator Father Peter Walsh gave them in their publick assembly and in his Speech then and there on the Subject both cleer and evident reasons at large for the pertinencie in our case or as to the points controverted of their Subscriptions to those three last And such cleer and evident reasons too as manifestly evict this further truth that neither Remonstrance nor former three Propositions could signifie any thing at all to the King of an assurance of their fidelitie hereafter if they decline as the case then stood the Subscription of those other three Propositions The sum of which reasons given so by me though not joyntly all together but separatly as occasion shall require I mean to give the Reader that I may not seem to obtrude my bare word on him for proof as I answer their following Paragraphs and particular distinct observations therein of each of the said three last Propositions or which is the same thing where I refute hereafter their specifical proofes of those two general pretences So that in this place I have only first to except in general against such general allegations of theirs Secondly to taxe the penman with unsincerity in wording those pretences against his own knowledge and conscience He knew very well that both himself and generalitie of the Congregation understood these three last Propositions to be many ways appertaining and very material also to the points controverted And no less understood that they had not already cleared sufficiently all scruples either by their former Remonstrance separatly or joyntly with those three first Propositions they had before subscribed And yet he would penn those his own and the said Congregations two general answers in these words Because we conceive them not any way appertaining to the points controverted And though we did we thought we had already sufficiently cleared c. Thirdly to mind the Reader that in my two former tracts I have proved evidently and at large that the Congregation neither had already cleared all Scruples nor thought they had so either by their former Remonstrance separatly or joyntly with the three first Propositions they had already subscribed And consequently that their second general reason or pretence being so already and more than abundantly refuted what must be moreover expected from me now is That without any further taking notice of or reflexion on that unsincerity of the pen-man I no less evidently refute his or their specifical proofes of the above first general reason or allegation whether he or they conceive it to be true or false though I will not altogether so confine my self as not to be at liberty where I find cause given by them in their prosecution to shew by other particular Instances different from those I have before given but as the Subject now in hand shall require that even their second general reason or allegation must be also false whether he or they conceived it to be so or no. But for the more ample satisfaction and lesser trouble of the Reader as I have purposed I repeat here in their own words their first specifical proof which takes up intirely the second paragraph of their Paper And as to the fourth they mean the 4th French Proposition above given We looked upon it as not material in our debate For either we should sign it as it was conceived in the French original copie and we thought it impertinent to talke of the French Kings authority the Gallican privileges and Canons from whence they derive their Immunities c. or that we should have inserted them mutatis nominibus the names being onely changed and then we conceived not what more we might have said than had been touched already positively in the Remonstrance neither do we admit any power derogatory to His Majesties authority rights c. yea more positively than doth the French proposition as may appear To pass by now their expression That they looked upon it c. or not to inquire whether it be true or false that they did verily so look upon that French Proposition as not material I consider the matter or proof in it self abstracting from their looke That fourth Proposition as by Sorbone applied to themselves and French King is in these words That the same Faculty doth not approve or ever did any propositions contrary unto the French Kings authority or true liberties of the Gallican Church and Canons
Catholick faith and Christian Religion That all the Catholick Vniversities of France which are Eight in number and many more which are in Poland Germanie State of Venice c. do not otherwise controvert this proposition For they hold it positively for certain and undeniable ever since the Council of Constance that a general Council is above the Pope That finally not so many Catholick Vniversities alone maintain this maxime but even the whole Gallican Church nor the whole Gallican Church alone but the Vniversal or Catholick Church in its latitude and by its lawful Representatives even in two general Councils that of Constance I mean about 300 years since and that of Basile immediately after or within 12 years after have amongst their Canons defined this to be a catholick truth All which joyntly with what is said before in this matter if the congregation had seriously considered it is like they would have declined their vain pretence of a School question of Divinity controverted in all catholick Vniversities of the world as they speake What more I have to say on this Subject of that 5th proposition abstractedly in it self considered though by occasion of the said first unreasonable reason of the Congregation or of their absolute refusal to subscribe it upon this or any other ground whatsoever they know best what that ground was will more conveniently be said in a distinct Treatise which will be the 5th in order of this work and followes immediatly after my answers to their allegations for not signing the sixth and laâ—â— proposition and after some few more additional propositions of my own added there Secondly or to their second specifical reason whereby they labour to prove the Subscription of this 5th proposition to be not onely impertinent in it self but dangerous in its consequents and unseasonable c Its answered that indeed to take of any question so as this talke in all the circumstances of it without any profit quiet or other good to the King or his Subjects should be thought in â—ight reason to be a cause of breeding new jealousies or renewing the old between the King and his people or of giving the least overture to such odious and horrid disputâ— concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late experience hath taught us would be now unseasonable though not therefore nor at all impertinent That nevertheless to talke of this specifical or particular question whether the Pope be above the general Council and talke of it now or in this present conjuncture in Ireland and talke of it so as the Congregation might and should and as expected from them or talke of iâ— so as their talke would be to those good and rational ends of bringing dissentors of their country and Religion to a free conscientious and vnanimous subscription of the negative and of thereby obstructing much occasion of new troubles and further of rooting out the seeds of Rebellion from amongst the Roman-catholick Clergie of Ireland on pretence of Papal decrees alone or letters from the Court of Rome that I say to talke of this specifical or individual question and talke of it in this manner or to these or other such good ends and in that Congregation would not be to talke of a question either impertinent in it self or dangerous in its consequents or unseasonable in any kind of respect either of the matter persons time Prince or other people but on the contrary most pertinent safe and seasonable and bringing a long with it naturally much profit both to King and Subjects because much peace and quiet by setling a truth so necessary and of so great importance against a sly error of so pernicious destructive consequence as is the contrary position That if from such talke of this specifical or particular question in such manner to such ends and in such a Congregation any should either out of ignorance or malice fall into such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late sad experience hath taught us it could not therefore be dangerous to give in such an occasion to such disputes so little overture as talke so qualified can be rationally thought by any indifferent man to give being this overture at most and worst could not be to other than the speculative part onely of those other odious and horrid disputes but not by any means to the practical at least for the present in that Congregation or Catholick Clergie of Ireland whom that Congregation represented and commanded That in giving so little overture to that speculation or speculative part onely of that other question and giving such overture not at all necessarily but accidentally and onely out of the biass and malice or ignorance of some of themselves both which themselves too partly and partly others also as was offered might and would easily rectifie if they pleased there could be no danger at all as to the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland or as from them But that in relation to others of the Monarchy of great Brittain who of late or in the late Warrs engaged themselves practically or in the practical part of those other odious and horrid disputes it is nothing this Congregation could say or unsay on that point or any other would engage anew or disengage them That Sorbone and the whole Gallican Church and the French King himself and his Council who all maintain without contradiction as even do his very Parliaments nay his general Assemblies of all the three estates of that Kingdom the most absolute Soveraignty of the French Monarch over all his people even collectively taken in what assembly soever the most independent from them or from any els but God alone can be desired in pursuance of that other tenet they all hold in the said Gallican Church of the Kings power to be given him immediatly by God alone as by the onely efficient of it that I say that learned subtile Faculty Church Prince or people never found that impertinency or danger or unseasonableness in the subscription of Sorbone to the said Proposition But on the other side much pertinency and safety and seasonableness towards the perpetual establishment of that absolute independent power in their King whereof they are jealous as of the apple of their eye and I fear much more incomparably than most Fathers of the Congregation were of the like in their own King if not to deny it him That as these good Fathers declared publickly in their said Congregation and privatly one to another the precedent of Sorbone was enough to secure them in their subscription of the three first Propositions nay and of all for this too they said so they might and ought for the same reason perswade themselves effectually no less at least of the pertinency and safety and seasonableness of their subscription to this 5th also than of the Catholickness and lawfulness of it That further yet or even abstracting as well from all precedents as from
all ignorance malice and other preoccupation whatsoever nay and from their subscription too the Fathers will find it a very hard taske to shew I say not impertinency for this I am sure they can not after what is said before with any colour insist on any longer but any such danger in the consequence of this Proposition It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council or of this simply The Pope is not above a general Council or of this other as simple which yet is the same in effect A general Council is above the Pope That such Divines of either Greek or Latin Church either Catholick or not as affirm the Papacie or Papal authority as such or as allowed either by those Canons which in opposition to others or by way of excellency are commonly stiled Canones Vniversalis Ecclesiae or as approved even by those other Canons which are properly and onely Papal Canons and are those of the Western-Church whether all or how many of them received generally in the Western-Church or not it matters not at this time that such Divines I say of either Church Greek or Latin as affirm this Papal authority over all other Churches in the world to be onely at the utmost and immediatly such by ecclesiastical and human institution of the Church not by any of Christ otherwise then by his approbation and ratification above in Heaven of what the Church long after his Ascension had here on earth ordained will find no kind of difficulty to shew the inconsequence of the Parliament's being above the King if a general Council be above the Pope First Because the power of a general Council truely such representing the Catholick diffusive Church is by all sides confessed to be originally and immediatly de jure divino or by the immediat institution of Iesus Christ himself whether in that passage of the Gospel dic Ecclesiae or in some other Secondly Because this power is unalterable undiminishable unsubjectable even by the Council it self to any other without a new revealed command from God himself which hath not been hitherto And therefore and out of that very passage of Mathew Dic Ecclesiae must be above the Pope being the Pope can not deny himself to be one of the faithful brethren and being all faithful brethren without exception of any are commanded by Christ himself in that passage of Mathew to be under pain of Excommunication obedient to the sentence of the Church in case they be accused or charged with any guilt before it Thirdly Because on the other side the power of Parliaments is by them not onely denied to be originally or immediatly either jure divino or humano over all persons whatsoever of the respective hereditary Kingdoms if we include the Prince amongst such persons but as such denied also to have been as much as in after times introduced by any allowance or Custom approved either by God or man Prince or people themselves Fourthly Because the very same divines assert constantly the power of supream or soveraign temporal Princes or Kings at least hereditary such as our King is and of which consequently the present dispute is to be jure divino or to be given them from God himself immediatly not from or by the people Or if these divines or any of them allow it has been originally and immediatly from the people at first even as from an efficient cause yet withal maintain that the people also did originally and immediatly so transferr the whole supream power from themselves even in all contingencies whatsoever that it must be ever after irrevocable by them Alleaging for proof that the Scriptures are so clear for the Subjection and obedience of the people even to had tyrannical Kings and not for fear alone but for conscience And further alleaging that there is no tribunal of the people and consequently there is no Parliament appointed by the law of God as neither by the laws of man or nature not even in the most extraordinary cases against their Prince or against any other offending besides that erected by the Princes power Whereunto certainly he never subjects himself so as to give the people or Parliament a supream power above his ownself or a power of superiority or jurisdiction over himself and coercion of himself though he some times bind himself and limit in some cases his own power but by his own power and will alone not by any inherent in the people And who sees not in this doctrine the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of this argument The Pope is not above a general Council Therefore the King is 〈◊〉 above his Parliament Or therefore whoever subscribes that antecedent gives an overture to those late horrid disputes Would not these divines rationally say upon their own grounds this were not to argue à simili but à dissimili Would not they tell you presently what the six hundred Catholick Bishops convened in the 4th general Council that of Calcedon I mean declared in their 27th Canon albeit some great and even holy Bishops of Rome complained of it grieviously that it was the Fathers that gave the priviledges to the Bishop of ancient Rome and that it was therefore they gave such priviledges to him because ancient Rome was then the Seat of the Empire That by consequence the Papacie and power thereof as such must be acknowledged to be as instituted by the Church onely at first so till the last to be dependent subordinate and under the power of the same Church because this power of the Church is for ever unchangeable while the world continues as having been given to it by Christ himself when upon earth And therefore the Pope cannot be above but under a general Council being it is either of all sides confessed the whole power of the Church is in a general Council truely such of it must be so at least in their grounds whether any els confess or oppose it And would not they further tell you the case is quite contrary in that of King and Parliament That first there is no such thing by divine immediate institution or by that of Christ or God immediatly as a Parliament or a power thereof That neither by the mediat institution of God that is by the laws of man there is any such thing or power at least in hereditary Kingdoms which may stand in opposition to the power of Kings Nor any at all in or without such opposition but what they derive originally immediatly and solely from the pleasure of Kings at least and as I mean still in hereditary Kingdoms That secondly or in the next place the power of Kings at least hereditary Soveraign and Supream is immediatly originally and onely from God himself Or if at first any way from the people yet so from them that after their institution translation and submission hoc ipso they must be so absolute and independent that they do not acknowledge nor any way have
dangerous consequence or overture of such horrid disputes cannot follow the subscription of this fifth For to make good this consecution or to prove those consequents to follow the only medium must be this other proposition The Parliament or people in such an Hereditary Kingdom have the same power respectively in temporals over all persons even that of the Prince himself and even to deprivation or deposition too which the universal Church or general Council hath in spirituals over all faithful brethren amongst whom the Pope must be Which proposition doubtless the congregation might see if they pleased that neither Bellarmine nor Suarez nor any other Divine of their way ever yet evicted or sufficiently proved And from those Divines of either of both the other wayes there could be no reason to expect a proof thereof since those made it their work to disprove it by laying quite contrary principles which they abundantly evidence as I also my self have in my little Book on the Remonstrance of 61. Where I have by two clear Demonstrations More ample Account pag. 67 c one a priâ—ri and the other â posteriori and by Scriptures and Fathers and practice of the primitive Church by answers also to all material objections proved the Soveraignty or as Bodin speaks the Majesty to be in the Prince in all cases not in the Parliament or people not even in any extraordinary case or contingency whatsoever speaking at least as I do here of Hereditary Kingdoms So that the Fathers of the congregation would have dealed more ingenuously if they had omitted the second reason and in lieu thereof only said they conceived it their interest or it was their pleasure to adhere to Bellarmines doctrine as to this point rather then follow the example of Sorbon or doctrine of the Gallican and other national Churches or even that in those two General Councils above rehearsed And yet I confess they would have said this inconsequently withal forasmuch as they had already relinquished Bellarmine in the three former propositions if understood without vain distinctions and yet had not such clear authorities of General Councils therein for themselves albeit they had enough besides Scripture and Reason the Faculty of Sorbon directly on those very controverted points And further they would have said it against the chief purpose which must have been Sorbons and should be theirs to obstruct those other indeed no less certain evident natural then bad sad and dismal consequences of the Popes being asserted to be above General Councils I am come at last to their two last last paragraphs Which I give together because they are of one subject the sixth and last also of those propositions of Sorbon You have it above rendred in English by the Congregation and in these words That it is not the doctrine or dogme of the Faculty that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible Why the said congregation would not subscribe this proposition mutatis mutandis or taking it thus It is not our doctrine c. they give their reasons such as they are in these two paragraphs here following in their own words The sixth regards the Popes infallibility in matters of Faith whether the Pope not as a private Doctor but with an especial congregation of Doctors Prelats and Divines deputed can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie The Iansenists already condemned of Heresie by three Popes and all the Bishops of France to vindicate themselves from the censure contest the first way they write in their own defence and many more against them on which subject is debated the questio facti whether the propositions condemned as Herefie by the Pope be in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in his book or no as may appear by such as we can produce if necessary The Vniversities of France say That it is not their doctrine that the Pope c. Whether this touched our scope or no we leave it to all prudent men to judge If they think it doth let them know that we should not hold the Popes Infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience we owe our Prince if they speak of any other infallibility as matter of Religion and Faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign so we are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question in a Country where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under-hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Country Where I observe the sum of what they would say after mistating the question and after so many disguises and windings to be that this sixth Proposition is impertinent odious unprofitable unfit to be disputed in this Country relates to Jansenisme is suspected to be under-hand furthered by some of that way and finally tends to the disturbance of both King and Country And therefore they thought it fit not to subscribe to it But the contriver of these reasons will now give me leave to clear this fogg which as Sorcerers use to do he hath raised before the eyes of the Reader Whom therefore I must tell That Father N. N. hath first mis-stated the question That the question was not is not whether the Pope either as a private Doctor or as a publick of the whole Church or which is the same thing as Pope either without or with a special congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie Or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie But the qustion was and is whether the Pope even as such or even as the publick Master Doctor Director and Superiour in spiritual matters of all the faithful and even as joyntly taken with or sitting in such a special Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can so decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie that without the joynt consent or concurrence antecedent concommitant or subsequent of the universal Church at least in its Representative a General Council such decision definition censure or condemnation must be in it self infallibly true or must be as such only without any kind of even internal contradiction opposition or doubt received and believed by all the faithful or accounted infallibly true or de fide divina Catholica of divine and Catholick faith and I say accounted such or of Divine Catholick Faith hoc ipso that the Pope hath defined it so That no Catholick Writer hath ever yet questioned or denied a power and lawful authority in or to even a particular Bishop much less in or to a
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
the doctrine or Theses of those that maintained the same pretended infallibility of the Pope to be not onely matter of Religion and faith that is to be fide divina believed but also to be so believed to extend it self to all kind of matters questions disputes or controversies of or concerning what is delivered in the Depositum of faith and what is not or concerning what is lawful and what is not even as much as the undoubted infallibility of the Catholick Church either representative or diffusive can be any way extended to such And consequently could not but know the doctrine of infallibility in all such matters disputes or controversies must of necessity regard or concern this very particular matter dispute and controversy of the obedience due or not due by Subjects in all cases or in such and such special ones to their King or to him that is reputed King being it is one of the particulars included in that Vniversal Thirdly That although it be confessed the said infallibility either pretended or true for it matters not which for our purpose now as falling upon any other matter distinct from that obedience we owe our Prince doth not per se directly and immediately regard or concern that obedience yet mediately indirectly and per accidens it may and even directly often us and the Prince himself nay and the quiet and peace too of his Kingdoms For besides the general concernment of salvation or of having or not having errors in Christian Religion obtruded on us at the Popes pleasure or fancy or out of his ignorance as it may happen or of that of his few Roman Divines only when he defines without a General Council what ever the matter be there are very many particulars wherein Popes may usurp and have usurped already a power of definition which against the universal Canons and Reason and Justice too incroach on the rights both of Prince Clergy and other Catholick People or Subjects though such particulars do not immediatly directly or per se regard this particular question of our Allegiance to the Prince in temporals or though notwithstanding such definitions we were suffered still to acknowledge and obey him as our supream Lord in meeâ— temporals without any definition against that how ever with many disturbances withal on spiritual pretences tending often though per accidens only to the both temporal and spiritual ruine of both Prince Clergy and people Whereof sufficient and manifold instances may be given out of those we call the Liberties of the Gallican Church and such as are common also to other national Churches especially in the matter of Investitures Nominations Presentations Collations Resignations Unions Translations and of Legats and Nuncius's c. That as I have said before to this of impertinency the Sorbon Divines or University or Clergy or Archbishop of Paris in 63. were not of our Congregations judgment in this point or of Father N. N's but perswaded that the Popes pretended infallibility even I say as matter of Faith and Religion and even I say too as not particularly or only relating to their Allegiance concerned notwithstanding both their Prince and themselves and that obedience too for they declared against it in general And so might and ought both Father N. N. and our Congregation but that they would seem more wise and less sincere than Sorbon and the University Clergy and Archbishop of Paris In the third place I must answer his pretence of odium where he sayes in Congregations name We are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question c. That he imposeth mightily and injuriously on forrein Catholick Nations That there is not one such in all Europe and of the rest you may judge by Europe where this question is odious at all in the negative resolve to all indeed it is in the affirmative or in the assertion of such an infallibility in the Pope as matter of faith and religion unquestionably though to all also very indifferent for both sides as it is only disputed scholastically speculatively or problematically without intending it as matter of faith and religion in the affirmative or of any further design either by the affirmative or negative than of opposing truth to error and certainty of divine belief to the uncertainty of humane opinion or collection though seemingly or probably deduced out of Scripture-places or some others of great esteem amongst us That neither some few Divines at Rome nor that whole City or Clergy therein if all were of that opinion of the Popes infallibility as matter of faith and religion not even taking along with them the most blessed Pope himself the Cardinals and whole Court do make one little Nation no nor if you further aggregate unto them all those other few Divines and few I call such comparatively or in relation to all Catholick Divines of the contrary side who in several other Countreys of Europe either privately or publickly in their Schools or Writings maintain either dogmatically or problematically that assertion of the Popes infallibility or maintain it any way at all either as matter of religion and faith or as matter only of meer uncertain but yet probable opinion That by their own confession the Universities of France and these are eight in all have concurred in the negative which denyes any such infallibility to the Pope and by consequence this question as to the negative answer must not be odious in that Country That whatever France or the Gallican Church maintains in relation to faith and religion is not odious nor can be in any other Catholick Nation of Christendome because they are all of the same faith religion and communion with France and the Gallican Church That the controversie of the Venetians in 1606. with Paulus V. and all the consequents of it show manifestly that all the Catholick Countreys subject to that Commonwealth reject the Popes infallibility and hold it not odious to determine against it That for the German Hungar and Polish Nation the General Councils of Constance and Basil which for a very great part consisted of them and their general esteem and veneration to this day of those Councils and amongst other Canons made by those Councils of that particularly which altogether subjects the Pope to a General Council sufficiently prove this question and resolution of it in the negative cannot be odious to them as neither to any other Nation that maintains the Supremacy of a General Council above the Pope which all Catholick Nations and people do generally with the said Council For it must be an infallible consequence that if a General Council be above the Pope the infallibility cannot be in the Pope alone without a General Council That for Spain and other Kingdoms subject to it in the dayes of Philip the Second it may be seen out of his Edict published and observed by them against the eleventh tome of Baronius concerning the Monarchy and I mean
possible or imaginable they have both inconsequently and imprudently refused for any such odium of the Court of Rome to subscribe the said 6th proposition whereas they had before signed the three first There could be no greater odium of that Court incurred than had been so already And I am sure no forreigner they or any of them could expect or suppose but would have them incurr that odium what ever it be or if any be which they pretend here amongst their reasons Sixthly That Father N. N. and the Congregation should consider that whatever they think of that odium of the Court of Rome against the negative resolve of that question it is not comparable in greatness in it self or in the evil of its consequents to that other grand odium indeed that is generally of all other Courts and Princes Nations and Prelats Clergie and lay people that understand any thing of what ever Religion or Communion they be Catholick or uncatholick against the affirmative resolve asserting this infallibility of the Pope alone without the Church or a general Council That not onely the odium hereof is truely so great and so general but the consequents of it so fatal that it alone estranged at first so many Christian Churches and Nations and rent them in pieces from one another and ever since that fatal breach that it alone principally with-holds so many millions without the pale of the Catholick Church and until it be silenced wholy wholy bid adieu for ever and for ever exterminated out of the Church as cockle which the inimicus homo sowed in the field of Wheat when men did sleep securely there can be little hopes of reunion And it alone hath been the chief original occasion of making in these Northern Countries so many severe lawes against Papists and further yet is at this very present the grand obstacle to their repeal And consequently it alone the very head-spring of all those miseries under which both as well the members of that Congregation as all other Catholicks in this Country have groaned these hundred years and do more than ever now at this very present groan Wherefore Father N. N. and the Congregation have been much overseen to start this animadversion against themselves by alleadging the odiousness of the question For all prudent men will tell them they ought to look on that Scale which instantly weighed down right to the ground Seventhly And lastly that neither of the most blessed Pope himself nor of his Court or Courtiers they needed fear the odium nor the consequents of any such a hinderance or obstacle to their pretensions which indeed alone is the bugbear that imaginarily frighted them I say they needed fear no such if they pleased themselves as they could easily to sign generally and unanimously a Proposition so Catholick For by their good and hearty example all the rest of the Clergie would have done the same And who then would have opened his mouth against them at Rome at least to their hinderance or to put obstacle to the pretensions of any on that account questionless none at all when his Holiness or Ministers could not find any other to be preferred but such to those however inconsiderable titulary places And so much his present Holinesse's late Internuncius of Bruxels Hieronimus de Vecehijs being come to London about two years and a half since and remaining some five or six dayes incognito told my self in a conference I had with him at Sommerset-house for about three hours together in presence of two Gentlemen that were along with me Father Redmond Caron and Father Patrick Magin alive yet one of Her Majesties Chaplins where he told us all that if the Irish Clergie were of one mind and had all of them generally signed the Remonstrance of 61. His Holyness or Court of Rome would not speak against us or it notwithstanding whatever Propositions contained therein And I am sure the Propositions therein formally or virtually contained may be rationally said and are indeed in themselves more odious to that Court than this last of Sorbone So that from hence partly and partly too from several knowledges and several other arguments which I pass over now it is cleer enough the Congregation had no other kind of odium to apprehend or fear against any for signing that Proposition as neither for signing any of the rest but that which themselves or some of them or their own Irish Agents in the several Countryes or Colleges abroad particularly at Rome have raised or would hereafter at their own desire or solicitation And I am sure every one of them could forbear if they pleased not to be so buisy against themselves or any others As I am also very sure that such of them as formerly have imployed some three or four years past Father John Brady of Saint Francis's order to Lovain of purpose to solicit and obtain by the power and influence of the then Internuncius of Bruxels the foresaid Hieronimus de Vechijs and by their own misrepresentations the censure of the Theological Faculty there against the Remonstrance of 61. which the said Father did obtain though it be a very sorry and ill grounded one and so ill and unreasonable I mean that which contains their grounds and reasons at length in seaven or eight sheets of paper that it would never abide the publick view nor a copie thereof ever since to be had from those Divines had done much better to themselves and others if they had not over-buisied themselves in that matter And therefore I conclude from first to last It aboundantly appears out of so many answers their pretence here of a question so odious did no way serve their turn sufficiently to excuse them from signing the Sorbone declaration or sixth Proposition in such modest tearms applyed to themselves against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church To that other of unprofitableness for they say that it is not onely odious but withal unprofitable I can say first with St. Paul that piety is a great gain That there is no greater piety amongst good Christians especially Apostolical men Priests of God and Bishops appointed by the holy Spirit to govern their respective flocks in all matters appertaining to the Spirit than to declare the truths of God uncorruptedly to them and oppose all innovation and all rules of doctrine besides that which was unquestionably once delivered and is from the beginning handed all along for so many ages to the present without any contradiction amongst Catholicks That such is not this new rule of the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council but such as exposeth all the certainty of Christian Religion to uncertainty and Heresie That for any temporal or earthly gaine how great soever nay were the whole world as to the carnal or temporal commodities thereof to be gained infallibly should any man much less any Christian and least of all any Bishop or
Priest treat of or debate any question or subscribe any Proposition or declaration against his conscience and Religion nor on the other side ought or could any person at least such as are commanded by God and whose commission and function it is from the holy Jesus and holy Spirit to preach and teach purely the Gospel of Christian Religion and oppose by all just means any kind of innovation in the rule of Catholick and saving faith ought or could any such I say through fear of loosing those temporal profits of the whole earth had he them in actual possession omit to treat or debate or declare or subscribe a Proposition sound in it self and necessary withal in circumstances even as relating to such treatie debate declaration or subscription to oppose such innovation That such is this question and such the 6th declaration or proposition being a negative resolve of it against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church For were not the said resolve Catholick or sound in Catholick Religion even in the judgment of Father N. N. and of the Congregation they should have cleerly said so and were bound by their calling and on pain of everlasting damnation to have answered so for the discharge of their duty to God and their flocks Neither should any fear or favor have hindered their answering so For what will it availe a man to gaine the whole world and suffer the detriment of his Soul was the question of our Lord. And again in on other place do not fear those that kill the body onely but fear him that hath power to cast both body and Soul into everlasting fire was the same Heavenly Masters advise and command unto his Disciples And that the question it self of the Popes infallibility without a Council as that of the Councils without or against the Pope when he will not conform to them and the resolve of it on one side or other for or against the Pope is so necessary where the question is debated publickly and seriously for a resolve there is no man of judgement can deny Because thereon depends the whole certainty of what we are to believe or what we are to hope for as a necessary mean to Salvation It being manifest that Popes often have declared and commanded us many things to believe and may hereafter yet much more which the Church never did consent unto nay which many Catholick Churches in Europe have already and often too both contradicted and condemned But if the Pope or his determination be the infallible rule of faith then must all such people or Churches be in a damnable condition as opposing that rule and beleiving an error That hence it appears sufficiently and evidently this question or treatie of it is not onely not unprofitable but the most profitable can be seeing it regards directly the greatest profit imaginable that of the Salvation of Souls by the necessary rule or means of saving faith That further the profittableness of the negative resolve against the Popes infallibility if that resolve be Catholick in it self as neither Father N. N. nor Congregation denyes but grants it to be doth hence appear that such resolve alone removes the grand obstacle of reunion and reconciliation of such a world of particular Churches that profess Christ and by consequence of their Salvation by restoring them to the vnity of rhe Catholick Church wherein alone as in the Ark Noah Salvation is to be had For the grand remora is that by reason of that challenge of the Pope or rather of others for him of an absolute infallibility in himself they think they cannot expect his communion without being lyable to impositions on them in matters of faith at his pleasure and such impositions too as very many most learned and pious Catholicks themselves in all countries will not cannot submit unto but must therefore abide such vexation often as no less often makes their Communion with the Roman See and Pontiff cumbersome and loathsome and a yoake of that great absolute and intollerable subjection which neither themselves or Fathers before them could bear with Christian patience That if the reduction of so many millions of straying sheep into the fold and the consequent Salvation of their Souls or the preservation of those are in it already appear not sufficient arguments of profitableness to Father N.N. and the Congregation in the debate and resolve of this question if that which brings along with it per se and of its own nature the greatest Spiritual profit can be the gaine of Soules and eternal Salvation in the other life be not ranked hereby him or them in the number of things profitable but comprehended as onely such and understood by his and their unprofitable question which yet I believe F. N. N. or the Congregation will hardly own and if they will have us understand here that which as to the conveniencies of this world and life is unprofitable let it be so and then too let all prudent men judge whether people of their Condition Country and Religion should not esteem and confess that question and resolve of it in the present circumstances to be indeed not onely not unprofitable in any respect but certainly and without contradiction very profitable as being the most useful they could fix upon before together with or next after a sufficient Oath of Allegiance to remove the great jealousy hath been justly harboured as of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland and their predecessors this entire last centurie of years ever since at least Queen Mary's Reign so and farr yet more of the present Clergie ever since the 23th of October 1641. and most of all since the Waterford Congregation in 46. and James-town Council in 48. and of their too too great dependency of the Court of Rome and too too great credulitie in or belief of and submission to any decree or command or even to an ordinary letter proceeding thence though onely from one of the Ministers and also though to the direct and absolute ruine of the King and of his Kingdoms and people together And let all prudent men judge whether being that Congregation was held by the Fathers and their Remonstrance and three first Propositions of Sorbone were subscribed by them and presented of purpose or at least under pretence to remove those jealousies and thereby obtain for themselves and rest of the Clergie and to the lay people too directed by them some peace and some ease and some indulgence and comfort either by an absolute revocation of the penal Laws against their Religion or by a mitigation or suspension of such Laws and that the Fathers thought or undoubtedly should think any thing in it self otherwise Catholick or honest and just that should be in the then present circumstances useful to that end to be also profitable in this world or life because helping on that end or that relaxation or suspension of the Laws which questionless they esteem profitable even
shall answer God and such truth also as leaves him nothing to reply nor any thing at all to justifie this although conditional yet no less injurious than suspicious reflection if intended so by him or construed so by any other For although I had the honour of some little personal acquaintance in my youth with that most illustrious and most Reverend Person Iansenius himself at Lovain about some 29 years past when he was first assumed from being a Doctor of that Vniversity to the Bishoprick of Ipres being as yet but Elect onely in which quality he was pleased to honour my Philosophical publick disputes there with his presence in St. Anthony of Padua's Colledge having to that end first presented his Lordship with my Theses and Dedication to himself and although I had been soon after studying my Divinitie in the same Colledge throughly acquainted with those opinions now called Iansenisme De gratia Sufficiente et efficaâ—i c however this was by accident onely and in the writings onely too of that same Colledge and in the School dictates as they are called of that other very Reverend and learned man Father John Barnewel a little before publick professor of Divinity there and a while after Provincial of the Franciscans in Ireland Uncle to the present Lord of Trimle-stown which he defended publickly and in print though not ad mentem Scoti but Sti. Augustini and in that very Colledge some years before Iansenius was ever known or thought to write of that Subject and which also the same Father Barnewell did by the advice of that other most Reverend and learned Father of the same Order the founder of thâ— Colledge by his mediation with the Spanish Court that great Augustinianâ— Florentius Conrius he that writt de Statu parvulorum then titulary Arch-Bishop of Tuam in Ireland living in that Colledge the greatest Augustinian of the age and by whom Iansenius was indoctrinated first in those principles as they say and although moreover just when I had ended my course of Divinity in that School I was one of the very first though by meer accident onely too that ever saw and read that worke so famous now called Augustinus Iansenij for I read it in albis before it was bound and as it came from the Lovain-press about the year as I take it 1640. and although further I was curious enough to understand all the intrigues of those opinions both then and after they came soon after to publick debate in Rome and as often too ever since as I heard the great contest for or against them under the three Popes Vrban Innocent and Alexander and as farr or as much as I could heare of at so great distance or know the said contests yet I declare conscientiously before God and man 1. That I was never from the first day to this present any further concerned for Iansenius or all or any of his or the said opinions or against him or them either for the Anti-Iansenians than every or any other the most indifferent Roman Catholick in the world should be or was Nor any further at all than to know what was or might be said on both sides without any further inward prejudices of or to either than what I did or should understand the Catholick Church did or would entertain 2. That nevertheless I have always been for my own private interiour sentitiments inclined more to follow the way of sufficient grace even before any determination of Vrban Innocent or Alexander though without condemning in my own private judgement the contrary 3. That for external conformity or submission I have been alwayes resolved and am at this present as I should be in such perplexed abstruse controversies where there is no evidence on either side to acquiese in the determination of the great Pontiff unless peradventure and until a general Council truely such declare the contrary to whose determination as in all other matters of Catholick faith being bound to submit both inwardly and outwardly so in this I must and ought and will by the grace of God if ever any such Council happen to be held in our days 4. That for those Iansenists who have submitted externally to the determinations of those three great Pontiffs for what concerns the point of doctrine and are further absolutely resolved to submit both externally and internally in such and all other points or matters of Faith to the final definitions of a general Council truely such and for ought I understand all those are called Iansenists have submitted so and are so resolved I hold not them to be Hereticks at all whether those opinions attributed to Iansenius or them be Heresies or no that is onely material Heresies or no according to the phrase of the School Because to be a Heretick inwardly inward pertinacie in the judgement or will against the known faith of the Catholick Church is required and obstinacy against the sole determination of the Pope not knowing it to be withal the Church's is not sufficient as to be outwardly such outward pertinacy in words or demeanour 5. That although or if these Iansenists have been already condemned of Heresie by three Popes that is if those opinions of theirs be condemned or declared by so many Popes to be Heresies which yet implyes no declaration of the Iansenists to be or against them as Hereticks no more than did St. Cyprians doctrine of rebaptisation though declared an Heresie in it self conclude him to be an Heretick yet consequently to the Catholick doctrine of the fallibility of Popes in all kind of matters even in those of Divine belief and even those too properly and purely such we are not upon that sole account of being condemned or declared so by these Popes alone or together with their Congregation of Divines or Prelates at Rome or any other of that particular City or Diocess obliged either inwardly or outwardly to beleive them therefore infallibly such that is infallibly to beleive those opinions to be Herâ—â—es in themselves materially nor upon any other account also for what relates to extrinsecal authority besides holy Scripture evident in the points at least evident according the general and unanimous interpretation of holy Fathers but that of knowing them to be reputed and beleeved infallibly such by the Catholick or universal Church or declared such by a general Council its lawful supream Representative Which notwithstanding warrants not those Iansenists not any other to oppose or contradict those declarations of those three Popes at least in the point of doctrine and in the senâ—e the declarations were made until a general Council be convened but leaves them for their infallible directour in point of a Divine belief to another cruely certain and infallible rule indeed the declaration or consent of the Catholick Church however that be certainly and infallibly known by a general Council or otherwise 6. And lastly That I never had nor have this day nor will hereafter with Gods grace any other
of Nature Scripture Nations and Canons of Holy Church This is the sense of James Talbot Doctor of Divinity Kilkenny Aug. 4. 1648. The Approbation of the Fathers of the Society of JESUS THE ensuing Answers to the Queries being learnedly and laboriously performed replenished with variety of both Moral and Divine Doctrine as the many Authors Canons and places of holy Scripture therein cited do abundantly manifest containing nothing contrary to Catholick Faith and Religion we judge most worthy to be published as an efficacious mean to remove scruples to satisfie each one and to settle the Consciences of all sorts Hen Plunket Superior of the Society of Jesus at Kilkenny Robert Bath of the same Society Christoph Maurice of the same Society Will St. Leger of the same Society Will Dillon of the same Society John Usher of the same Society Another Approbation BY Order from the Supreme Council I have perused these Queries with their Answers and do find nothing contrary to the Catholick Religion or good Manners nay rather that they contain very solid Doctrine well grounded upon the Holy Scriptures and authorized by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church and are most worthy the Press whereby the World may be satisfied and the most tender Consciences resolved in their groundless Scruples and many dangers removed the which unsatisfied might threaten ruine on a Catholick Commonwealth James Talbot Professor of Divinity Sometimes Visitator of St. Augustin's Order in Ireland c. Another Approbation HAving perused this Book of Queries and Answers made unto them by the most Reverend Father David Lord Bishop of Ossory and several Divines of most Religious and exemplar Life and eminent Learning I see nothing contrary to Faith or good Manners nay rather judge it a very solid and profitable work grounded on the Laws of Nature of God and of Nations confirmed by Councils taught and preached by the Holy Doctors and Fathers of the Church and most worthy to be Printed forthwith That to the world may appear the just and most conscionable carriage of the Supreme Council and their adherents in this Controversie about the Cessation and the unwarrantable and illegal proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and others of the Clergy and Laity who for ends repugnant to their Oath of Association seem disaffected to the English Government as it was even in Catholick times and wholly averse from any Peace or Settlement whereby our dread Sovereign Lord and King might be relieved from his present saâ—l condition Kilkenny 12. Aug. Fr Thomas Talbot One of Her Majesties Chaplains The Approbation of Divines of Saint Francis's Order VVE have diligently read this Work and seen in all pages and parts thereof Truth enfranchiz'd Ignirance enlightned the Councils present proceedings for the Cessation and against the Censures vindicated from injustice as the opposers of their Authority are convinced of sinful Disobedience and Perjury Kilkenny the 10th of August Sebastianus Fleming Thesaurarius Ecclesiae St. Patricii Dublin Fr Thomas Babe Fr Ludovick Fitz-Gerrald Fr Paul Synot Fr James De la Mare The Supreme Councils Letter to the most Illustrious and Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory concerning the Assembling of Divines and returning his and their Result on the QVERIES FInding that to the great hinderance of the Publick quiet and the benefit of the Common Enemy the Lord Nuncio hath issued his Excommunication and thereby so far as in him lay distracted the Kingdom and divided the Nation notwithstanding that by our Appeal presented unto him the 4th of this Month his Graces further proceedings according to the Law are to be suspended Yet because it concerns the duty we owe the Kingdom to omit nothing that may remove the least scruple in any of the Confederate Catholicks by which he might avoid the visible breach of his Oath of Association by declining the Authority intrusted with us we have thought fit to let your Lordship know it is our pleasure and accordingly we pray your Lordship to assemble forthwith all the Secular and Regular Clergy and all other the able Divines now in this City together before you and to get their present Result upon the enclosed Propositions to be transmitted to us with all speed We know your Lordship so zealous a Patriot and so desirous of setling the Consciences of such few of your Flock as may haply be yet unsatisfied as you will use all possible expedition herein which is earnestly recommended to your Lordship by Kilkenny Castle 14. June 1648. Your Lordships very loving Friends Athenry Luk Dillon Rich Belling Patâ— Brian Joh Walsh Rob Devereux Gerald Fenell The QUERIES I. WHether any and if any what part of the Articles of the Cessation with the Lord of Inchiquin is against the Catholick Religion or just ground for an Excommunication II. Whether you hold the Appeal by uâ— made and interposed within the time limited by the Canon Law and Apostles being granted thereupon be a suspension of the Monitory Excommunication and Interdict and of the effects and consequences thereof and of any other proceedings or Censures in pursuance of the same III. Considering that the Propositions of the Lord Nuncio now Printed were offered by his Lordship as a mean whereby to make the Cessation conscionable whether our Answers thereunto likewise Printed are so short or unsatisfactory and wherein as they might afford just grounds for an Excommunication IV. Whether the opposing of the Cessation against the positive Order of the Council by one who hath sworn the Oath of Association be Perjury V. Whether if it shall be found That the said Excommunication and Interdict is against the Law of the Land as in Catholick time it was practised and which Laws by the Oath of Association all the Prelates of this Land are bound to maintain Can their Lordships notwithstanding and contrary to the positive Orders of the Supreme Council to the contrary countenance or publish the said Excommunication or Interdict VI. Whether a Dispensation may be given unto any Person or Parties of the Confederates to break the Oath of Association without the consent of the General Assembly who framed it as the Bond and Ligament of the Catholick Confederacy and Union in this Kingdom the alteration or dissolution whereof being by their Orders reserved only unto themselves VII Whether any persons of the Confederates upon pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio may disobey the Order of the Supreme Council ANSWERS Made to the foresaid QUERIES BY THE Most Reverend Father in GOD DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines The Preface in form of Letter directed to the Right Honourable the Supreme Council AS well in obedience to your Honours Commands as for satisfaction of our Consciences and guiding Souls committed to our Charge or clearing their Scruples and resolving such from Perplexities who come to us for their spiritual instruction We have seriously considered the Questions delivered us from your Lordships And having first proposed God before our eyes with firm resolutions
Suar. Tolet. Cajet alii quos citat sequitur Bonac tract de decalog d. 3. q. 9. pu unic prop. 3. nu 4. 5. according to the Catholick doctrine to relie for it is a mortal sin to tempt God by expectation of miracles And is there any man of sense will say That a dispensation which draweth along with it so much evil could either be in it self just or have a just cause specially where the cause pretended is the declining of a sin in adhering to a Cessation wherein or in which adhering we have manifestly proved no sin could be committed Nay We have evinced the said Cessation could not be not adhered unto or could not be rejected by the Council and Confederates without most grievous and fearful sins and we have shewed this to be the constant doctrine of the Catholick Divines and of the Church of God and that when the contrary was practised through ignorance and temerity the experience was fatal and cost them dear Thirdly By reason of the disesteem it would bring upon all Confederacy and of the unsecurity manifest danger and confusion it would bring upon and throw into all Christian States and Governments For if by such dispensations and upon such grounds the common Subject could be withdrawn from his Allegiance and with a good Conscience rebel what Prince what State or Republick nay what private man could live one day in security whereas they often see before their faces such boundless enraged ambition and such cruel designs of some Prelates may this be spoken without disparagement to so many other great and good Prelates who by their vertuous lives and apostolical doctrine support States Kingdoms and Monarchies of Christianity as in particular several are seen to use with us at this present such praise-worthy endeavours for the preservation of the Confederates If together with this example it were maintained as a Catholick Tenet That such Prelates or Churchmen could at their pleasure or upon such designs challenge and assume a power of the Fortunes Estates Crowns Lives of Kings and Republicks by dispensing with particulars or promiscuously with the multitude or any other in their due obedience and Oaths of Allegiance what should not be hourly feared Lastly which is hence consequent by reason of the aversion and hatred it would breed in all Infidels and Sectaries against our Religion For what Prince State or Commonwealth of any other Religion would admit of ours if our doctrine of dispensations in the Subjects Allegiance were so destructive of all Policy and good Government and so cruelly wicked Let us therefore here and evermore stop our Christian ears from such blasphemies against the Law of God and the Faith of the Holy Roman and Universal Church in all Ages to this present time And let us leave such Antichristian principles to Luther Calvin and such other infernal Furies who covered a great part of Europe with the blood of Christians by doctrine in substance not unlike this but certainly no worse than this and whereby they at their pleasures armed the Subject against the Prince and the People against the Magistrate for the destruction of Christianity and of the Church of God Read the Catholick Author who writ on Fox's Kalendar of Martyrs where he at large rehearseth the dangerous anarchical and bloody principles of late Sectaries specially of Puritans The Seventh and last Querie answered AS the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio highly entrench with submissive reverence to his Grace we say it on all Supreme Governors on the Law of Nations the Honour of the Confederates and brings a scandal on our Holy Mother the Catholick Church which contrary to his Lordships proceedings teacheth and warranteth Promises Leagues Contracts Cessations and Peace made with Hereticks to be Religiously performed as we have seen in the second Supposition made in our Answer to the first Querie and in the Authors there cited and teacheth as we have seen before that all Subjects both Laicks and Ecclesiasticks Priests Fryers Jesuites Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs Cardinals are bound under mortal sin and eternal damnation to obey all Orders of the Civil Magistrate wherein evil and sin doth not manifestly appear which we have sufficiently proved not to appear in their orders concerning this great difference so it must follow that none of either state Temporal or Ecclesiastical may without shipwrack of his Conscience and loss of his Soul disobey the orders of the Supreme Council on sole pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio these proceedings being now declared by strong and insoluble reasons to be unjust illegal invalid sinful commanding and enforcing to most enormous and execrable sins of Infidelity Perjury Rebellion Treason and to so many other abominable Crimes which stream out of these evil sources Whence is apparent how unsatisfactory and ignorant their Answer is who to excuse their disobedience to the Council alledge the Commands of their spiritual Superiours Guardians Pryors Provincials Bishops the Lord Nuncio c. to the contrary as if such Commands or of such Superiours or of any else whosoever temporal or spiritual were of more force to oblige their Consciences than the Commandments of God and than his Law which according to the Declaration made thereof unto us by St. Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. and by the doctrine of the Church of God the Holy Fathers and Catholick Doctors in all Ages on pain of eternal damnation enjoin both them and all such their Superiours whatsoever either of the Secular or Regular Clergy to obey the Council in all matters where manifest sin doth not appear And that sin doth not appear in any of the Commands of the Council concerning the faithful observation of this Agreement made with Inchiquyn yea notwithstanding any Censures of the Lord Nuncio we have more than sufficiently manifested and they who make this ignorant answer confess in regard it could not be hitherto found what Article or part of the Cessation might be with reason maintained to be sinful as by their flying to this strait they are constrained Otherwise certainly if they could shew any evil or sin therein they would rather make use of so reasonable an excuse for opposing the Decrees of the Council than of so bad a pretext as blind obedience to the Commands of Superiours who are as they obliged by the Law of God to be wholly subject to the Council for what concerns the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth Wherefore what they call obedience to their Superiours is no true nor vertuous obedience but vitious but sinful but against their Conscience but damnation to their Souls as the Apostle hath because it implies plain disobedience to and transgression of the Commands of God who must be obeyed before all men of the earth Will any even of themselves deny but their obedience to the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them Rapine Theft Murther Adultery Sacriledge c. or enjoing them never to confess their sins never to pray
never to do an act of charity c. would be plain disobedience to the Commands of God would be damnation to their Souls Or will they deny but their foolish excuse of blind obedience to their earthly Superiours injunctions would not in this case justifie them either before God or men nor likewise that other senseless evasion That it is not their parts to examine the justice of the Commands imposed upon them by their Prelates but simply to do what they are bid Will not they also confess if we reason with them a little further that it is therefore they should not obey and these excuses would not serve them in such a case because such Commands would be against the Law of God And will not they admit their knowledge hereof to be derived hence that they see it so expressed in Scriptures Fathers Doctors of the Catholick Roman Church in all Ages let it now be supposed that their Superiours should tell them the contrary in the same case How therefore do they on such mad pretences obey the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them to substract Civil obedience from the Supreme Civil power in a matter concerning the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth and in a matter wherein their Superiours cannot shew nor themselves can see any evil implied Do not they see it is against the express Law of God to substract obedience from the Civil power in this case Do not the Scriptures Councils * Concil Tol. x. c. 2. Si quis religiosorum ab Episcopo usque ad extremi ordiâ—is Clericum sive Monachum generalia juramenta in saluteâ— Regium gentisque aut Patriae data reperiatur violasse voluntate profana mox propria dignitate privatum loco honore habeatur exclusus Becanus in Sum. Theol. de bonit act in t c. 4. q. 7. con 4. alii apud ipsum Fathers Doctors the practice of the Church of Christ in all Ages proclaim it They cannot be ignorant hereof and if any of them hath been hitherto certainly their ignorance can be no longer invincible that is such as might not be overcome by humane industry nor probable that is which hath probable reasons to maintain their disobedience to the Council For what reasons can be probable against the plain sense of Holy Scriptures and the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church in all Ages As for affected ignorance gross vincible or improbable none of them excuse from damnation according to the sense of all Catholick Writers But alas Ignorance is not the cause of sinful Obstinacy Malice and a natural inclination occasioneth it in very many a rash engagement in others hopes of preferment to Benefices and Superiority in others in others a stupid fear of losing what they had being persuaded by experience of the former revolution that an Excommunication the most unjust would alter the whole frame of Government and that there should be no living in Ireland for any would oppose the Lord Nuncio's design herein or the power of Owen O Neill Behold the true causes of their Obstinacy In others an apprehension of shame and disgrace in reclaiming an error and falling from this way they once resolved on and no sense of Conscience Behold the reason why even the best and most learned amongst them being demanded the ground of their opposition do say commonly That they will neither give reason nor take reason and when they speak their mind at full do now at last only censure the intention which the Council and their Adherents had in the concluding the Cessation because they find no other cause and yet would seem not without some cause to reject it which they are engaged for so many unworthy causes to oppose But who sees not in our Answers to the first and second Querie the false imposture of this last refuge Yet by reason they make hereof more use than of any other we briefly propose the ensuing considerations First That the Declaration and Censures of the Lord Nuncio Congregation and Delegates in obedience to which they disobey the Council were not against such evil intentions but against the very substance of the Articles of Cessation as in themselves evil and unconscionable 'T is manifest to any that please to read and peruse the tenour of both Decrees which contain not a word importing other sense Bâ—n tract de Legib. disp 1. q. 1. punct 8. prop. 2. alii apud ipsuâ— ibid. and therefore cannot be extended to evil intentions though we granted such intentions to have been in regard a penal Decree or Law is to be restrained not extended according to the Maxim of Canonists Wherefore this recourse of theirs to evil intentions and their not shewing any other evil in the object that is in the Cessation it self or in the conclusion and observation of it concludes an Errour in the decree or sentence of Excommunication and consequently disannuls it and leaves them no reasonable pretence for disobeying the Council since their pretence is the supposed obligation of the Censures which even their own Answer takes away The second is Though it were granted that the Council or others who negotiated the affair of Cessation had such intentions at first or upon the perfection of it yet might they have changed such evil intentions into good during the Nine dayes given in the monitory Decree for deliberation and consequently if there be no other evil but of their intentions how could the Nuncio proceed to execute his Censures since they protested in their Appeal before the Ninth day and in other Printed Declarations that they had no such intention Nay how could he proceed to this execution though they never had made any such exteriour Protestation whereas without it they might have taken away the ground of the Excommunication to wit the supposed evil intentions The third That questionless our opposites will not deny but Thousands are of the Confederates who desired and embraced the Cessation not out of any such evil intention but for a just end and for their own preservation How then could such be Excommunicated since the ground of this Excommunication to wit evil intention is not to be found in them And if these be not Excommunicated is it not plain That none is Excommunicated whose Conscience tells him That he did not adhere to the Cessation with any evil intention How then doth the Nuncio proceed indifferently against them all as Excommunicated persons Nay how can he proceed against any of them as such but only against him or them whose naughty intentions are apparent and whose intentions can be apparent to him but either out of confession or secundum allegata probata by exteriour proofs for God alone is Judge of the interiour not the Church And who is it that was so convicted or confessed before him such intentions Nay who is it was summon'd to his Tribunal for such a business The fourth Consideration is of the