Catholicks of those two Nations containing only such matter and to alledge as the cause or as a cause of such condemnation and censure and alledge it also in plain terms That it the said Instrument contain'd some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion What can I say be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to say so of such a matter if it be not so at all if there be no kind of true ground for saying that it is so And that it is not so at all or that the Remonstrance contains not either formally or virtually and consequentially as much as any one thing or part of a thing if such part may be repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion appears hence evidently That neither in its Acknowledgments Confessions Promises Disclaimings Renouncings Declarations Professions Protestations Abhorrencies Detestations nor in its final resignation in the Petitionary Address nor in any other clause or word if there be any other as indeed there is not but what belongs to these heads now repeated there is not as much as a syllable which by any kind of true either Grammatical or Theological or as much as seeming or likely construction imports any more in effect than first a bare Acknowledgment of the Supreme Temporal power of these Dominions of England Ireland Scotland c. and of all persons whatsoever Laymen or Clergymen living within them to be in our gracious Sovereign Charles the Second to have been in His lawful Predecessors and hereafter to be a so in His lawful Successors as likewise a bare acknowledgment of the like Supreme power under God to be in other Princes and Supreme Magistrates within their own respective Dominions And next an express or tacite promise to observe and obey and continue Loyal or Faithful in all Civil and Temporal matters to that self-same Supreme Temporal power of our gracious King yea notwithstanding any Doctrine to the contrary or even any Attempt by any other power whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual to force them or draw them from their Allegiance or Obedience to King Charles in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs For I have already and abundantly too demonstrated where I before Treated against the four grounds of the Louain Divines and more especially where I Treated against their fourth That it is so far from being against the sincere profession of Catholick Religion to assert or promise any such thing that it is on the contrary even revealed and declared positively and expresly and clearly by God himself in several places of Holy Scripture and yet more particularly in St. Paul's Epistle and by the mouth and pen of this great Apostle That all Supreme Temporal power is in the Supreme Temporal Princes and States over all their own respective Subjects as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks And consequently that in all Temporal matters Allegiance and Faith and Obedience is due to such their power and ought to be paid and performed to them not only for fear of their Anger and Sword but for Conscience and fear of Damnation as St. Paul most expresly declares in formal words 13 ad Rom. And moreover that all this Doctrine hath been so as here delivered by universal Tradition for almost eleven entire Ages of Christian Religion all along till Gregory the Seventh usurped unto himself the Temporal power of the Empire as belonging to him by Divine Right All which being so as certainly it is so I frame thus my Argument Syllogistically against both the said Causes or Reasons supposed and expresly inserted in this second or short Censure of the Louain Faculty Theological as the only Reasons given therein wherefore they censure our Remonstrance and censure it so heavily and grievously or with such odious epithets as these unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. Whatsoever Vniversity or other Censure taxes judges or condemns any Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power of the Sword as is hitherto said in the Supreme Lay Magistrate Prince or State and withall a promise only of such obedience as before is said in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs to that Power or that Magistrate according to the Laws of the Land I say that whatever Censure taxes judges or condemns such a Remonstrance to be utterly unlawful detestable and sacrilegious viz. upon account supposition or pretence That it contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make to them and that moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion Every such University or other Censure whatsoever I say must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity But the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 61. 62. is such or is a University Censure of a Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power c. and withall a promise only of such obedience c. and yet taxes judges and condemns such a Remonstrance to be unlawful c. viz. upon account supposition c. Ergo the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 1661. and 1662. must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity And indeed the Major of this Syllogism ought at least among such Christian Divines as are men of Reason to be reputed of the nature of those Propositions which are called Propositiones per se notae if or as far as any such may be in Christian Philosophy or Divine Science of Christians For this tells us manifestly and evidently according to that evidence which Christian Religion is capable of That all such Censures as are against other at least Christian men and so great also and numerous a Body of other Christian men and are against them upon such an account only that is for maintaining such a power in the Supreme Civil Magistrate and such obedience due from the Subjects as are both revealed in the very written Word of God himself in holy Scripture and so constantly and universally delivered by Tradition and no less approved and confirmed even by pure natural Reason and so I mean revealed delivered approved and confirmed as I have already in my Disputes against the fourth ground of the Louain Divines proved that power and that obedience to have been I say that Christian Philosophy tells us manifestly and evidently that all such Censures must be so as I have said and even notoriously too rash false injurious and scandalous Rash against Prudence because heady foolishly bold and wholly inconsiderate against the Rules of that even humane Providence or of that right
distinction of Countrey or Degree or Sex or Age Men Women Children from the most illustrious Peer to the most obscure Plebeian wheresoever in any of His Majesties Kingdoms or Dominions even at this present lie under all the rigorous Sanctions and all the severe Penalties of so many incapacitating so many mulctative Laws nay and so many sanguinary which reach even to life in several cases And your Predecessors before you have well nigh a whole Century of years been continually under the smart or apprehension of the severity of them And so may your Successors and your Children and Posterity after you for so long more if the true causes of Enacting at first those Laws and continuing them ever since be no better considered i.e. no more narrowly search'd into nor more effectually regarded by you than they have been by your Fathers for you or themselves But whatever Gods providential care of or goodness to your Posterity after you may be I am sure it cannot be denied but all Roman-Catholicks universally now living any where in England Ireland or Scotland must upon due reflection find themselves highly concern'd in having the Sword-point of those penal Constitutions hanging continually and even perpendicularly over their heads Do not we all manifestly perceive they are with-held at present from execution by a very small and weak Thred not only of one life that is mortal but even of one will alone that yet may be alter'd of a sudden upon many occasions which may happen when least expected Now seeing you are all every one thus concern'd in those Laws surely so you must all be in the causes of them i.e. in those genuine true proper and onely causes which continued must necessarily continue those very Laws and which removed will naturally remove them But if in those causes your concernment be such how can it be other or indeed how can it be any way less in the Subject of this Book All the several Treatises and Parts thereof and all the several Relations Discourses Disputes Animadversions therein occasion'd by either of the two Formularies drive ultimately at a plain and full discovery of those very causes and of their continual dependance on your own proper will alone and how lawfully and justly you may or rather how strictly you are even by all the known Maxims of Christian Religion Catholick Faith and Natural Reason bound in Conscience to remove them Your Concern therefore above all others in the Subject being thus at last clearly manifested I need no further Apology for the Dedication A Consecratory Address to you appears now evidently enough to have been required by the Nature of the Work it self as a necessary Appendage of that real duty which I have endeavoured to the best of my understanding all along in this Book to pay the most sacred name of Catholicks And in truth to whom other than to your selves ought or could I upon any sufficient ground dedicate a Book of so universal and weighty a Concern of yours Yet after all I must acknowledge that besides your propriety in the Subject I had the current of my own desires and my own Ideas to exact this Duty I have in truth these many years had continually even passionate desires of some fair opportunity to offer unto you but with all due submission still some farther and more particular thoughts relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of all your foresaid evils And have at last entertain'd the pleasing Idea of a Dedicatory as the fairest occasion I could wish to speak directly and immediately to your selves all whatever I think to be for your advantage on that Subject and sutable to the measures of a Letter and what I moreover know some others think who yet have not the courage to speak or to inform you And therefore to pursue my old method I call it old having held these 26 years of delivering my thoughts fully and throughly in all Points which I conceive to be material though at the same time expecting from some contradiction and from others worse but comforting myself nevertheless with the conscience of very great Truth with the zeal of your highest advantage and with the certain expectation that all judicious good men will approve what I shall say and lay all to heart as they ought I must now tell you that if we please to examine things calmly with unprejudiced reading and unbyass'd reason we may find without any peradventure I. That the rigour of so many Laws the severity of so many Edicts and the cruel execution of both many times against even harmless People of the Roman Communion have not intentionally or designedly from the beginning aim'd nor do at present aim so much at the renunciation of any avowed or uncontroverted Articles of that Christian or Catholick Religion you profess as at the suppression of those Doctrines which many of your selves condemn as Anti-catholick and for the prevention of those practises which you all say you abhor as Antichristian II. That it is neither the number of Sacraments nor the divine excellency of the Eucharist above the rest either by the real presence in or Transubstantiation of the Consecrated Host nor the communion thereof in one kind onely nor the more holy and strict observance of Confession nor the ancient practice of Extreme Vnction nor the needless Controversies 'twixt Vs and the Protestants if we understood one another about Faith Justification Good Works or those termed Supererogatorie or about the Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques Worshipping of Images Purgatory and Pardons nor is it the Canon of the Bible or a Learned Liturgy or Continency of Priests and obligation of certain Vows or holiness of either a Monastick or Cloystered life in a well-ordered Community of devout Regulars nor is it either a Patriarchical power in the Bishop of Rome over the Western Church according to the ancient Canons and Customs or which is yet somewhat more an universal Pastorship purely spiritual acknowledg'd in Him such I mean as properly flows from the Celestial power of the two Keyes of Peter as far as ever it was acknowledged by all or any of the ancient Councils I say it is not any of all these Articles or Practises nor all together not even join'd with some others whether of lesser or greater note that is the grand Rock of scandal or that hath been these last Hundred years the cause of so many Penalties Mulcts Incapacities of shameful Deaths inflicted and more ignominious Characters given us III. That of our side the original source of all those evils and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman-Catholicks in England Ireland Scotland at any time since the first change under Henry VIII hath been a System of Doctrines and Practises not only quite other than your selves do believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture or delivered by Catholick Tradition or evidenced by Natural Reason or so much as defined by
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
and which only questionless those framers intended to give their Kings either in spiritual or temporal things or causes But hereof elsewhere It sufficeth at present that these good Abbots of Constantinople by this title of Headship by consequence or implicitly and virtually concurr in acknowledging the supream civil coercive power of the Emperour over all Clergiemen even the very Pope himself being that Headship could be no other but a Headship of civil direction by his civil laws and coercion by the material Sword And it sufficeth moreover to conclude that not those holy Fathers only who purposely expound or expresly apply the text of Paul ad Rom. 13. by Pauls more sublime powers understand the civil Princes but all other holy Fathers also who acknowledge as they all do the subjection of Churchmen to Princes do by consequence or implicitly and virtually understand the very same And therefore out of all said hitherto out of the holy Fathers I conclude my main purpose in this third way that is I conclude that as I have formerly or in my two former wayes both out of the â—etter of the text and end of it ruind all the several three answers of our Adversaries to my fourth grand argument in this Section out of St. Paul so I have now in this third way out of the clear sense or doctrine of the Fathers concerning the sense of that text of Paul as delivered to us by Tradition or especially in their writings or at least by such of them as purposely expound St. Paul To all these evidences nay to the very clearest most express and particular of them to the point for the sense of the holy Fathers generally or of any one or moe of them our Adversaries find no other answer but first to say as Bellarmine doth against Barclay cap. 3. that etiamsi non eximebat Apostolos ab â—â—la subjectiâ—â—e professio Christianae Religionis eximebat tamen principatus Apostolicus qui sublimior est omni principatu naturali albeit the profession of Christian Religion did not exempt the very Apostles themselves from that subjection to say Princes yet the Apostolical Principality which is more sublime then any natural Principality did exempt them Secondly to say as others do cont Fâ—â—g there is a great difference twixt the Sacrament of Baptisme and that other which is of Holy Orders For say they Baptismus relinquit hominem in comwani hominum caetu Ordo verò elevat ad Paternitatem etiam supra Principem Baptisme leaves a man in the common ranke of men but Order rayseth to a paternity or fatherhood above even the Prince himself Albeit not onely the reasons given by several of the holy Fathers in some of those very passages quoted by me already in this present Section evidently destroy these last answers also as they do the three former and shew them to be against the letter of the law and end of the law and against that very sense too which those Fathers themselves conceived and believed to have been of Paul in that general precept omnis anima but also my own discourses and reasons given partly in my two last Sections LXXI and LXXII in answer to some objections or evasions of Bellarmine and of others yet I think not amiss for the Readers more ample satisfaction fuller confutation of our Adversarie's in this also to handle briefly the same matter again with some necessary additions as a further illustration of what I said before And therefore I observe First that for what concern's Bellarmine's said evasion or pretence of Apostolical Principality which he sayes did exempt the Clergie albeit their profession of Christianity did not and must say also if he will answer to the argument grounded on the now given doctrine of the Fathers that the Fathers intended not to teach that that of Apostleship did not I say we must observe first that whereas that of Apostolick principality or Apostleship is as they grant found or continued onely in Bishops nay perhaps according to their doctrine found or continued in the chief Bishop onely that is in the Pope alone it must follow that either onely the Pope or at most the Bishops onely must be exempted by this evasion of Bellarmine Why then doth he exempt and notwithstanding S. Paul by the very law of God pretend to exempt the rest of the infinit multitude of inferiour Clerks from lay Princes whether the same Princes will or no nay why doth he and others of his way pretend to exempt so or even by the sole canons the very cooks and scullions of Clerks or Monks cap. Parrochianos de sent Excom in 6. O Vemerandos lixas for I may here against my Adversaries exclaime and admire so with a certain late Writer extra omnes saeculi potestates positos qui scilicetâ—e monachali culina vncti adeo pulchri emergunt vt sacram ordinis Ecclesiastici vnctionem aequiparent ipsos vnctos Domini Reges dominos suos non agnoscant I know my self sayes the same writer a little pittifull dorp or village in Insula Vegliensi of scarse a hundred straw or thatch'd houâ—es wherein there are above three-score Priests and other Clerks who use to confess ingenuously that so many of them take orders of Clerkship to the end they may be freed from the burdens wherewith other Plebeians or the Peasants are loaden by their Prince especially from rowing in the gallies So that under pretext of Sacred orders Princes are deluded by their own proper Subjects the commonwealth suffers ac interim Ecclesia repletur quisquilijs otiosorum imo sordidorum sacerdotum sayes he But however this complaint be well or ill grounded and however that abuse be of the priviledg of Clerks by the Clerks themselves or by the intention or design of such as receive orders it is not my intention here or elswhere to complain of the observance of all or any priviledges of theirs which the Princes themselves have bestowed or custome hath allowed them In this Authors admiration onely I concurre where instancing the very cook of a Convent he exclaims at the pretended exemption of Bellarmine or of even such a cook from the very supream civil power of all earthly Princes in all causes whatsoever Secondly I observe and answer directly or rather directly refute both the above last answers of Bellarmine and his fellow-stickler that if Baptisme ought not to be injurious to Princes by exempting their subjects from subjection to them so neither should Apostleship nor any sacred Order Because otherwise it is plain enough that Princes would have just cause to apprehend the growth admission or tolleration of the Faith of Christians or of themselves To prevent which apprehension or fear of Princes and of their people too it was the Fathers tel us that even Christ himself would have that subjection which himself did owe presumptively but his Apostles naturally observed not onely in and by his Apostles but even by himself too as
See Apostolick or although it be related of him in Adam l. 4. c. 46. apud Baronium tom XI an 1097. n. 17. how he used to glory that he had onely two Lords or Masters to witt the Pope and the King to whose dominion jure subjaceant omnes seculi Ecclesiae potestates all the powers of the world and Church were de jure subject and that he had both fear and honour for these two Masters I say notwithstanding that to prove the later part I shall not make use of this however a most clear and material testimony if rightly understood of both a celebrious and holy Legat Apostolick but I will produce Gerbertus sometime that is first Archbishop of Rhemes in France next of Ravennas in Italy and last of all of Rome where and when he was called Silvester the Second Even this very Silvester and this Gerbertus it is that writes thus epist 154. to the Emperour Paremus ergo sayes he Caesar Imperialibus edictis tum in hoc tum in omnibus quaecumque divina Majestas vestra decreverit non enim dâ—esse possumus obsequio qui nihil inter humanas res dulcius vestro aspicimus Imperio This treatise would swell beyond measure if I should bring all particular Instances I could even of Bishops and Popes out of learned holy writers either for the fact or right or both of such obedience in temporals given heretofore to the supream civil Princes in all temporal things But for that reason I abstain from any more such Instances until at least I come to those I promised of Princes For I cannot well treat of the one but somewhat of the other sort must be annexed Yet I cannot abstain here from observing how strangely the Church is altered now from that it was then and how different the carriage of the chief Bishops hath been at least as to many of them in the later ages from that was not onely of the most holy but of all universally in the former and more primitive ages Nicholas the first Pope of that name and Innocent the third of his chose rather to wrest aside and set awry nay to corrupt plainly the genuine sense of holy scripture than yeeld to Emperours that obedience due to them Let us heare Nicholas writing to Adventius Bishop of Mets. Apud Baron tom 10. an 863. nu 66. Illud â—ero sayes he quod dicitis Regibus Principibus vos esse subiectos eo quod dicat Apostolus 1. Pet. 2.13 Sive Regi tanquam praecel lenti placet Veruntamen videte utrum Reges isti Principes quibus vos subiectos esse dicitis veraciter Reges Principes sint videte si primum se bene regant deinde subditum populum Nam qui sibi nequam est cui alij bonus videte si jure principantur aliequi potiùs tyranni credendi sunt quà m Reges habendi quibus magis resistere ex adverso ascendere quà m subdi debemus Alioquin si talibus subditi non praelati fuerimus nos necesse est eorum vitijs faveamus Ergo Regi quasi praecellenti virtutibus scilicet non vitijs subditi estote sed Apostolus ait propter Deum non contra Deum Hetherto Pope Nicholas Paul enjoyns obedience to Nero to witt in all politick affairs or things belonging to humane policy or government nor doth he enquire by what right or title he is Prince of the Roman Empire But Nicholas will have us enquire by what right any is King or Prince and whether he be truly such in his sense when we obey him in temporals The former holy Fathers and Pontiffs both obeyed in their own persons and actions evil Princes heretick and tyrant Princes and by their doctrine with Paul the Apostle taught others also that they should obey even such Princes But Nicholas tels us here the quite contrary and sayes that we ought not obey not even in such things any civil Prince that is not truly a Prince over all his own passions and affections and is not moreover a just and good Prince in the government of his people nay tels us plainly that if he be defective in either that is according to our judgment we ought to rise and rebell against him Is this the doctrine of the former holy Fathers and Pontiffs or of the Apostle Paul or of the holy Spirit of God himself in the writings of any of the Apostles Or is it not rather the hissing of the old Serpent though proceeding from the mouth of a Roman Pontiff but certainly in so much not a Christian Pontiff however in other doctrines and in his life or conversation as religious precise strict holy as you please Against God that secular Princes nay that the very spiritual supream Pontiffs themselves are not to be obeyed in either spiritual or temporal things who ever yet doubted But that secular Princes are not to be obeyed in human things which are indifferent of their own nature which are such that by giving obedience either active or passive or both in them to the Prince we transgress no law of God or nature we commit no sin at all though the Princes themselves were known to be loaden with sin I am sure was not the doctrine receaved by Nicholas from his most holy Fore-fathers from tradition or from Scripture As for Innocent the Third it is no less clear to me that he stuffed that Answer of his to the Emperour of Constantinople which in part you may read in the Decretals of Gregory the Ninth c. Solicitae benignitatis de majoritate obedientia with many subtleties to decline or disswade this obedience due to Princes or disswade it as due from Ecclesiasticks but indeed with such subtleties I mean of distinctions or interpretations of Scripture examples and other passages especially one out of S. Peter as appeare evidently upon sober examination to be vain inventions and meer frivolous toyes if compared with the common sense or interpretation and practise also of the holy Fathers and Pontiffs in the preceeding purer ages of the Church and even for so many such ages together until at least the eight or ninth century nay or if compared but with the very bare letter and necessary sense either theological or grammatical of S. Paul himself Rom. 13. who certainly did not teach against the epistle of Peter or if compared with the whole sole drift of that great Apostle Paul there Farre enough God himself knows were both these and all the rest of the most blessed Apostles were also those most holy Successours of theirs for so many ages of Christianity from hammering or thinking of such cunning evasions The divine spirit of true Christian simplicity and humility taught them much otherwise and made them also teach others plainly and honestly without aequivocation or reservation and practise too in their own persons humbly and sincerely without the least opposition or contradiction as farre otherwise as from East to
even also his great Expositor Cardinal Cajetan and consequently too even all the famous School of Thomists to be Judges Nam Schysmatici sayes Thomas ibidem proprie dicuntur qui propria sponte intentione se ab unitate Ecclesiae separant qui subesse renuunt summo Pontifici membris Ecclesiae ei subiectis communicare renuunt Nolle enim pertinaciter obedire summo Pontifici non est Schysma sayes Cajetan on the same passage of Thomas sed nolle subesse illi ut capiti totius Ecclesiae est Schysma Nam adverte diligenter sayes the same Cajetan and in the same place quod recusare praeceptum vel udicium Papae contingat tripliciter Primo ex parte rei judicatae sen praeceptae Secundo ex parte personae judicantis â—ertio ex parte officii ipsius Judicis Si quis enim pertinaciter contemnat sententiam Papae quia scilicet non vult exequi quae mandavit puta abstinere a tali bello restituere talem statum c. licet gravissime erret non tamen est ex hoc Schysmaticus Contingit namque saepe nolle exequi praecepta Superioris retenta tamen recognitione ipsius in Superiorem Si quis vero personam Papae suspectam rationabiliter habet propterea non solum praesentiam ejus sed etiam immediatum judicium recusat paratus ad non suspectos Judices ab eodem suscipiendos nec Schysmatis nec alterius vitii crimen incurrit Naturale namque est curare nociva cavere a periculis Potestque persona Papae tyrannice gubernare tanto facilius quanto potentior est neminem in terris timet ultorem Cum quis autem Papae praeceptum vel judicium ex parte sui officii recusato non recognoscens eum ut superiorem quamvis hoc credat tunc praecipuâ— Schysmaticus est Et juxta hunc sensum sunt intelligenda verba litterae hujus id est textus D. Thomae sayes Cajetan Inobedientia enim sayes the same Cajetan going on still and concluding quantumcumque pertinax non constituit Schysma nisi sit rebellio ad officium Papae vel Ecclesiae ita ut renuat illi subesse illum recognoscere ut superiorem c. Where you see clearly That according to the sense of even the Angelical Doctor himself and even of his great Expositor and consequently of even the whole Thomistical School our Remonstrance cannot be charg'd with any Schismatical proposition or clause taking this word Schismatical properly or as it imports that sin of Schism which is distinct both from the sin of pure disobedience or disobedience only and from all other sorts too of sin Because it appears out of St. Thomas and Cajetan here that no doctrine or proposition is Schismatical in this proper sense of the word but that which freely voluntarily and intentionally separates from other members of the Catholick Church or spiritual Head of it the Pope not by disobedience only but also by denying to submit to the very true proper and just Office or Headship of the Pope or to acknowledge it and it hath already appeard out of the Remonstrance it self that there is no such doctrine or proposition formal or virtual therein As for Schism improperly taken so it still imports a sin either that of pure or only bare disobedience or any other whatsoever you please if it can import in any true sin any other sin but that of meer disobedience I have also already and abundantly vindicated the said Remonstrance from such also or from any such injurious and false aspersion both all along hitherto and even in this very Section but most particularly in my argument against its being unlawful For as the sin of pure disobedience so also every other is dictum factum or concupitum contra legem Dei But if the Divines of Louain will have our Remonstrance to be Schismatical because it separates from their evil doctrine per me licet in that sense because that is a good and vertuous sense of the word though as too too improper so no way conducing to their end nor consisting with their judgment of sub Sacrilegii reatu c. and because the doctrine of all the most Holy most Catholick and Learned Fathers and of the Blessed Apostles and even of Christ our Lord himself may be truly said to be Schismatical in that sense being it separated from the wicked Doctrine of Atheists Deists Jews Scribes Pharisees Hereticks and Schismaticks truly and properly such And Secondly As to the second branch of the said Minor which second branch is that of our said Remonstrances not being Heretical I proceed thus No Remonstrance is Heretical which contains not formally or virtually some Proposition either formally or virtually against Holy Scripture or Catholick Tradition Ours is a Remonstrance which contains no such Ergo Of the Major there can be no controversie because Heresie is defined to be an errour and onely that errour which is against some Doctrine publickly revealed by God to the Church and because it is confessed of all sides there is no Doctrine so revealed by God but that which is either formally or virtually revealed in Canonical Scripture or Catholick Tradition And the Minor I have at large already proved partly in this very Section and in my first Sillogisme therein against the two suppositions expressed in the Louaine Censure and partly also as also without comparison more amply and irrefragably in so many other Sections before some of which proceeded in a negative way against the four chief grounds of the same Louaine Censure and against all the Arguments of Bellarmine and others and the rest in a positive way no less Demonstratively against the self same grounds and Arguments Where the Reader may see diffusely that the Doctrine of a Supreme even Coercive power of Lay-Princes over even all sorts whatsoever of Clergymen within their own Dominions and that of an answerable Subjection of all sorts of people both Clerks and Laicks to the same Princes is so far from being such an errour or being Heresie against either Scripture or Tradition that it is warranted by both and the contrary Doctrine likewise manifestly against both And in this very Section I have shewed already there is neither Clause or Proposition in our whole said Remonstrance but only such as contains no more in effect but an acknowledgment of the Power in Princes and of that Subjection and Obedience of Subjects Behold Christian and impartial Reader four or five Syllogisms against the Epithets either formal or virtual of the Louain Censure which four or five together with that other longer Syllogism against the two Suppositions or Causes or Reasons expressed therein compleat the whole number of my Arguments or of what I intended to say in this last Section against that abortive Censure And now I leave it to thy own serious indifferent and Christian judgment whether considering all I may not again most justly repeat and evidently
the Tridentine Fathers but also quite contrary to those Doctrines and Practises which are manifestly recommended in the letter sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ in the writings of his blessed Apostles in the Commentaries of their holy Successors in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature it self whether Christianity be supposed or not IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary Doctrines in the most general terms without descending to particular applications of them to any one Kingdom or People c the grand Positions are as followeth viz. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ the Bishop of Rome is Vniversal Monarch and Governour of the World even with sovereign independent both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches Nations Empires Kingdoms States Principalities and over all persons Emperours Kings Princes Prelates Governours Priests and People both Orthodox and Heterodox Christian and Infidel and in all things and causes whatsoever as well Temporal and Civil as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual That He hath the absolute power of both Swords given Him That He is the Fountain of all Jurisdiction of either kind on Earth and that whoever derives not from Him hath none at all not even any the least Civil or Temporal Jurisdiction That He is the onely Supreme Judge of all Persons and Powers even collectively taken and in all manner of things divine and humane That all humane Creatures are bound under forfeiture of Eternal Salvation to be subject to Him i. e. to both His Swords That He is empowred with lawful Authority not only to Excommunicate but to deprive depose and dethrone both sententially and effectually all Princes Kings and Emperours to translate their Royal Rights and dispose of their Kingdoms to others when and how He shall think fit especially in case either of Apostasie or Heresie or Schism or breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or any publick oppression of the Church or People in their respective civil or religious Rights or even in case of any other enormous publick Sins nay in case of only unfitness to govern That to this purpose He hath full Authority and Plenitude of Apostolical Power to dispense with Subjects in and absolve them from all Oaths of Allegiance and from the antecedent tyes also of the Laws of God or man and to set them at full liberty nay to command them under Excommunication and what other Penalties He please to raise Arms against their so deposed or so excommunicated or otherwise ill-meriting Princes and to pursue them with Fire and Sword to death if they resist or continue their administration or their claim thereunto against His will That He hath likewise power to dispense not only in all Vows whatsoever made either immediately or mediately to God himself nor only as hath been now said in the Oath of Allegiance sworn to the King but in all other Oaths or Promises under Oath made even to any other man whatsoever the subject or thing sworn be That besides Oaths and Vows He can dispense in other matters also even against the Apostles against the Old Testament against the Four Evangelists and consequently against the Law of God That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him or by others deriving power from Him kills not a lawful Prince but an usurping Tyrant a Tyrant at least by Title if not by Administration too and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God or even to kill his own Prince That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman-Church ventures himself and dyes in a War against such a Tyrant i.e. against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince dyes a true Martyr of Christ and his Soul flies to Heaven immediately That His Holiness may give and doth well to give plenary Indulgence of all their sins a culpa poena to all Subjects rebelling and fighting against their Princes when He approves of the War That antecedently to any special Judgment Declaration or declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope or any other subordinate Judge against any particular person Heresie does ipso jure both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown and all other not only royal but real and personal Rights whatsoever That an Heretick possessor is a manifest Vsurper and a Tyrant also if the possession be a Kingdom State or Principality and therefore is ipso jure out-law'd and that all his People i. e. all his otherwise reputed Vassals Tenants or Subjects are likewise ipso jure absolved from all Oaths and all other tyes whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him That he is truly and certainly and properly an Heretick who misbelieves calls in question or even doubts of any one definition of the Tridentine Council or of any one that is of meer Papal Constitution or of any one of those Articles profess'd in Pius Quartus 's Creed That not only the Pope but any Patriarch nay any inferiour Bishop acknowledging His Holiness may if need be both excommunicate and depose their own respective Princes Kings or Emperours and may also without their leave or knowledge reverse the Decrees of their Vice-Roys or Lieutenants and even censure depose from and restore again such Lieutenants to their former dignity and charge That all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever both Men and Women Secular and Regular Patriarchs Primaâ—s Archbishops Bishops Abbots Abbesses Priests Fryars Monks Nuâ—s to the very Porter or Portress of a Cloyster inclusively nay to the very Scullion of the Kitchin and all their Churches Houses Lands Revenues Goods and much more all their persons are exempt by the Law of Nature and Laws of Nations and those of God in Holy Scripture both Old and New Testament and those of men i. e. of Christian Emperours Councils and Popes in their respective Institutions and Canons and are indeed universally perpetually and irrevocably so exempt from all secular civil and temporal Authority on Earth whether of States or of Princes of Kings or of Emperours and from all their Laws and all their Commands that is from both the directive and coercive virtue of either or which is the same thing in effect from sin against God and from punishment by God or man for only transgressing them That consequently if any Church-man should murder his lawful and rightful King blow up the Parliament fire burn and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore guilty of Treason or truly called a Traytor against the King or against the Kingdom or People or Laws thereof no nor could justly be punish'd at all by the secular Magistrate or Laws of the Land without special permission from the Pope or those deriving Authority from Him That nevertheless all Clergy-men regular and secular in the World from the meanest either Accolits or Converts to the highest Generals of Orders and greatest Patriarchs of Nations inclusively may be out of all Kingdoms and even contrary to
of the Land does warrant or hath at least sometime warranted That to the Crowns of England Ireland and Scotland as we can see no derivation of Divine right from Christ by St. Peter to His Holiness so neither can we see any colour of Humane right by any such consent c. That the late and last evasion of Bellarmine * Bellarmine against Barclay and others from the Argument grounded on that before-mention'd passage of St. Paul's command to the Romans and on the conformable practice of the primitive Christians when being most numerous and able to defend themselves they suffered nevertheless patiently under the Sword of persecuting Emperours is such a wicked device as makes the Apostles meer Temporizers in their Doctrine and consequently such as calls in question the whole truth of the Gospel Which to assert though onely by the sâ—quel of a slie distinction or unevading evasion is clearly no less than Blasphemy in Christian Religion Lastly That to approve so much as by silence those Principles and Practices the defence of which drive their Patrons at last to such Blasphemy yea not to condemn expresly those Positions and Actions which declare or infer it to be lawful for Subjects to dethrone nay to kill their Princes and embrue their hands in the blood of those Fellow Subjects that are defending their Princes and to act so much horrid cruelty upon the onely account of such improbable Rights Titles or Pretences of the Pope and See of Rome or even upon the joint account of introducing or re-establishing the Roman-Catholick Religion is no other than to approve at least consequentially or tacitely that which overthrows all Divine both Law and Testimony all Religion and right Reason whatsoever Nay that it is no other indeed than not onely to contradict the whole Doctrine but even to frustrate the whole design of the Gospel which either was none at all or without any question was to convert the world to God by the word of the Cross (a) 1 Cor. 1.18 and lead Souls to Heaven through the strait gate and narrow way (b) Mat. 7.14 And what are these but the mortification of our senses the contempt of riches pleasures greatness honour dominion and all the gaities of this world The crucifying of our Lusts whether Pride or Vain-glory or whatever else is or leads into sin Finally the practice of all contrary virtues especially those of humility and charity and meekness and a patient suffering in this life all the evils that God permits man to inflict Persuade your selves hence That the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God That the wisdom which is from above is gentle and peaceable as well as pure and That 't is a more glorious thing to gain one Soul to Christ by the soft and still voyce of the Gospel than to destroy a multitude because they will not come into the Fold before the chief Shepherd leads them Think besides that if the Church from particular grew Universal or Catholick by persecution and that the blood of Martyrs was the seed of the Church we should remember from whence we were hewen and tremble by contrary methods to be the Instruments of bringing Religion to that pass that there shall scarce be found Faith upon earth (c) Luc. 18.8 See moreover with your own eyes the fatal Catastrophe of all those Roman-Catholicks who in these very Nations have pursued such contrary methods at any time since 1537. Behold so many thousand heads crush'd in pieces under the Divine vengeance as broken Masts advanced on the Promontory of Rocks to give notice of the deplorable Events they have found even in this world whose example nevertheless but too many of your present Teachers advise you to follow when they dissuade you from condemning or disowning the same contrary methods the very same unchristian wayes Yea particularly behold on the most eminent place of the Promontory those Apostolical Ministers and Legats of the Holy See in Ireland Nicholas (a) He was an 1579 by Gregory XIII sent Nuncio to Ireland but with a Consecrated Banner and some Italian and Spanish Troops to invade that Kingdom as they did but were defeated by the Lord Grey Sanders an English man wandring alone in the Mountains of Kerry and starving there to death under a Tree Owen Mac Egan (b) Alias Eugenius O Hegan He was in the Rebellion of Tirowen made Bishop of Ross was great with the King of Spain was Vicarius Apostolicus in Ireland under Clement VIII had power from His Holiness to dispose of all the Ecclesiastical Livings of Munster but as Captain leading a Troop of an hundred Horse against the Loyallists with his Sword drawn in one hand and his Breviary and Beads in the other he was Slain and his Troop Routed an 1602 3. of Irish birth and race giving up his last breath even yet in a much more unepiscopal unclerkly unseemly manner And John Baptist Rinuccini (c) This good Italian Archbishop Prince and Extraordinary Nuntius in Ireland after many former practises by himself and his Dean Dionysiâ—s Massarius at last in the year 1648 May 27. issued out his Excommunication c. July 13 following he summoned a National Synod to appear at Galway After which the Supreme Council declaring on the 28 that such a National Synod could not be he issued out his Bloody Declaration which together with the effects of it put all Ireland in confusion and obliged the Loyal Party there to drive him out of the Countrey which he left Febr. 23. the same year 1648 9. What happened in the mean while at home in his own Diocess and especially in his Episcopal See of Fermo you may read in the Moderate Intelligencer Where in the Letters from Rome of July 11 2â— and July 17 27 of that year I find That lately before there had been an Insurrection of that people of Fermo against their Governour Seignior Visconti whom they slew and made themselves their own Masters They endeavoured to excuse this to the Pope their chief Lord under whom the Bishop is Prince of that City But the Pope not satisfied with their excuse sent Seignior Imperiale his Apostolick Commissary with an Army of Horse and Foot to chastise them He sent a Company of Corsicans before whom they received into the City and then fell upon them and made them Prisoners Other Towns in that Countrey of Marca dell ' Ancona Rebelled by their example and the secret encouragement they had received from the Spaniards of Naples By the Letters of Aug. 3. S. N. it appears that they sent again to the Pope but then He would not hear them The mean while Impiriale I know not how became Master of the City i. e. Fermo By the Letters of Aug. 15. S. N. 't is said he had then filled the Prisons with the Inhabitants of that City By those of Sept. 1. S. N. 't is said that yet they were in Arms about the Countrey
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
confess that their both Constitutions and Oath if there be any such Oath of those amongst them them they call Masters of Divinity are only for maintaining the doctrine of St. Thomas of Aquine not as articles of Faith nor as the doctrine of the Church nor Dogmatically at all at least not out of their School Pulpits but only by way of Scholastical speculations and for sharpning of wits and shifting the truth problematically or probably in all such matters wherein the Scripture or Tradition was not clear and certain and still only within the Schools That otherwise the whole Order of the Franciscans and all the other Schools of Scotists who maintain as stiffly and are alike by their Constitutions bound to maintain against St. Thomas the Thomists all the speculations all the subtleties of the Subtile Doctor Scotus who writ ex professo against all or almost all even every individual position of St. Thomas as well in his Divinity as Philosophy where the matter is not certain otherwise by Scripture or Tradition were to be condemned by them Which yet they will not dare in point of morallity prudence and conscience That moreover it is manifest St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs for any of his Theological opinons then for this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes on pretence or because of Infidelity Apostacy Schisme Heresy where he determines it so in his Theological Sum. 2. 2. q. x. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. And that he relyes for proof of so weighty an Assertion first on a reason that would not move the meerest novice in Divinity Quia fideles sayes he merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios lucis Supra q. 10. ar 10. in corp Which yet is the only reason this great Holy Doctor brings to prove that a very infidel Prince who was never Baptized may be deposed by the Church Secondly for proof of that same Assertion as relating specially to an Apostat Heretick or Schysmatick Prince that was Baptized relyes onely and wholy on the bare judgment and practise of Gregory the VII otherwise called Pope Hildebrand or on that Canon made by this Pope which you may find in Gratian. 15. q. 6. cap. Nos Sanctorum That as it is therefore manifest that St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs of any of his Theological Assertions then of this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes as the Reader may see partly in the Latin notes which follow this Paragraph for the rest satisfie himself at large in Father Caro'ns Remonstrantia Hibernorum so it is no less manifest that generally where the Thomists find in any other positions of this Angelical Doctor and those too of infinite less concern insuperable difficulties they decline him there expound him or his mind by some other place of his workes where he held the contrary or perhaps retracted considerately what he had before unadvisedly handled by the example of St. Austin himself in his books of Retractation And so those Irish Fathers might if they pleased have declined in this matter St. Thomas in his said Sum and expounded St. Thomas there by following St. Thomas where he holds by plain consequence of reason the contrary in his exposition of St. Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians That they could not deny but that notwithstanding all their Constitutions and Oathes whatsoever they all now generally and confessedly and without any exposition or interpretation of one place by an other decline St. Thomas of Aquin even in that matter wherein their whole Order these full 300 years found themselves most concern'd of any in point of reputation at least to follow defend him that is in the dispute of the Blessed Virgins conception without original sin Nor can deny this matter to have come within these late years to that height in Spain even where they are in such esteem that the very Provincial of their Order in the Kingdom or Province of Castile was confined to Penna de Francia by orders from the King until he subscribed under his hand against that opinion of St. Thomas in this matter and consequently acknowledged so the Blessed Virgin conceaved without original sin against the confessed doctrine of St. Thomas and against the letter of his Constitutions and verbal tenour of his Oath as a Master And yet he was not so commanded by any decrees of the Church which as it is well known hath never yet decided that question And yet also that question of the Blessed Virgin is no less known to be of infinite less consequence to the Peace or Settlement of either Church or State for the owning or disowning of either the affirmative or negative resolution and for a subscription to either than ours of the Remonstrance of our indispensable loyaltie in Temporal things to the Supream Magistrate and our lawful and rightful King Finally that St. Thomas of Aquin's Scholastical assertion whatever it be or a Statute in an Order to teach such or such a doctrine or Oath of some few members of such an Order how learned religious or eminent soever that Order be is a very bad plea at least in such a matter as ours against ten thousand other Holy and eminent Fathers Doctors Prelates in all Countreys and ages of the Church against so many express clear passages of Holy Scriptures against the universal tradition of all Christians till Gregory the VII days about the Xth. age of Christianity and against the greatest evidence of both natural reason and of hundreds too of Theological arguments the first grounds of Christianity being once admitted Quâ—niâ—â—â— autem singula persequimur admonere oportet D. Thomam alicubi in ea opinione esse ut existimet ius dominii praelationis Ethnicorum Principum justè illis auferri posse 22. q 10. art 10. per sententiam vel ordinationem Ecclesiae authoritatem Dei habentis vt ille ait D. Thomae magna apud me authoritas est sed non tanta ut omnes ejus disputationes pro Canonicis Scripturis habeam vel ut rationem vincat aut legem Ejus ego Manes veneror doctrinam suspicio Sed non est tamen cur illa ejus opinione aliquis moveatur tum quia nullam suae sententiae vel rationem idoneam efficacem vel authoritatem profert tum etiam quia in explicatione epistolae Pauli ad Corinth 1. contrarium planè sentit tum denique quia neminem secum antiquorum Patrum consentientem habet Cap. 6. rationes multae authoritatesque in contrarium supperunt Ratio autem quam adfert est quia infideles merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios Dei Mala ratio tanto viro indigna quasi verò si quis meretur privari officio beneficio
of purpose only that they might with the more colour of some religious and conscientious pretext both refuse it themselves and diswade others from it and being the men whose example had most influence of any others on all especially on the Nuntiatists throughout Ireland of what calling soever the Procuratour went so farre to meet them as themselves desired and met them with the more willingness so farre off from Dublin to the end they might not alleadge the place to be such as allowed them less freedom to speak plainly their mind grounds or reasons against that Form which they decryed so much For he hoped they would enter into some dispute with him of it in point of religion faith of conscience as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it in such respects being many of them and their party pretended amongst the illiterate or ignorant they were averse to it only on these accounts But he found them otherwise resolved then to examine it by the rules of Religion or conscience For although he stayed with them three dayes and nights and gave them provocations enough in publick to speak against it if any thing they had to say alleadging to them for it reasons both divine and humane both weighty and manifold nay and telling them at last That for his own part he was really perswaded in his conscience the contrary doctrine was not only erroneous but in it self heretical albeit he would not therefore decline communion with any yet all could not worke as much as one argument from them either from Scripture Tradition Fathers Canons or natural reason nothing at all but meer silence in answer to all and besides that nothing els but the objection of some two or three words as not being reverential enough as to the matter only of wording and the expectation of a Censure against it from Rome The Procuratour answered them to the first that the Catholicks of England who drew that Form as may be seen in Father Cressy's Exomâ—logesis were cautious without exception to word their sense so as they could not be quarreld against by any on that account That there was more danger in their excess of reverence and observance of the Pope and of his power then in their detect even by expression of words That it was not the words but the sense would be quarreld against at Rome That likewise it was not this or that individual or specifical word but the true and full sense in whatever words was expected from them by the King or State if they liked not those words which the best masters of the English tongue the Catholicks of England and after them those of their own Irish Clergie and the Nobility and Gentry also of their Nation at London had already made use of And therefore since they professed they bogled not at the sense they would do well to draw it fully in their own words but such as expressed that cleerly and without equivocation or other kind of reservation Which if they did he would undertake my Lord Lieutenant would receive it graciously and represent it to His Majesty as the same in effect with that others had given before them in other words Having nothing to reply to these answers the Provincial took pen in hand presently and desired the Procuratour himself to assist and help him with other words instead of the words Pope disclaim renounce c. Which the Procuratour doing Father Thomas Makiernan whose learning was that of the Papal Canons as having been bred in Spain a Canonist interceded and confess'd at last that for his own part he could not resolve yet to come home to the sense And the rest desired some respit until next Easter promiseing that if by that time no Censure came from Rome against the Form of 61. they would subscribe it This Father Peter Gennor said positively to the Procuratour and none opposed it but Father Makiernan somewhat doubtfully However they all entreated the Procuratour that he would in the best manner he could in the mean time excuse them to His Grace the Lord Lieutenant Now the reason why they desired this respit was that themselves as the chief contrivers had employed last Summer both from themselves and from the Bishop of Meath Antony Mageoghegan and some Vicars General Father Iohn Brady a Franciscan over Seas of purpose to sollicit a Censure both from the Vniversity of Lâ—vain and from Rome too by the intervention of those of their party there especially by the credit and authority of the Internuntio of Bruxels and they expected both infallibly before Faster Nor were they frustrated in their expectations in part I mean as to a Censure from Lovain though none to this day from His Holiness if they will not unjustly call the private letters of the two Bruxel's Internuntius's de Vechiis and Rospigliosi or those others of Cardinal Francis Barberin a Censure from Rome Which every man sees they cannot but very unjustly tearm a Roman Censure or a Censure of His Holiness or by his authority so done or notified that any one at all is bound to take notice thereof For they wanted all both the formalities and essentials of a Censure from His Holyness as from His Holiness in the quality of Pope determining any matter as they wanted likewise the essentials of a sufficient publication if nothing els were wanting Besides it is a maxime with Canonists that in praejudicium Tertii credit is not to be given to the letters of even Cardinals for what relates to the mind will or judgment of His Holiness if they produce not authentically their commission And lastly it is manifest out of those very words which Cardinal Francis Barberin relates in his Second letter which you shall have in the second Part of this Treatise as the command of His Holiness to Him that His Holiness never censured nor mean'd to censure any point or passadge of that Remonstrance of 61. but intended only the Cardinal should warn the Clergie of Ireland not to confound the civil obedience due to the King with that spiritual observance is due to the See Apostolick And who sees not that to distinguish both or the one from the other is the main drift of well observed in that Remonstrance XL. But for asmuch as these Franciscan Fathers used these delayes of purpose to have the more colour to excuse themselves from signing when they had the return they expected from their said Agent by Easter I thought fit to give here a copy of that Instrument which they or the chief of them and others with them gave him under their hands when they sent him away to worke all the intrigues he could against both that Remonstrance and subscribers of it but above all against the Procuratour It was as followeth translated out of the Latin The Instrument sent by Father John Brady and signed by Antony Ma Geoghegan Bishop of Meath and by some other few men of the Franciscans chieflly as Francis Ferral
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
be not mistaken in his rules of concluding And the minor is as manifest as the text of Silvester which I have before given is It remaineth only therefore that for a greater illustration yet of the major albeit there be no need I form this other syllogisme Whoever teacheth all this or all that above doctrine which I have given in the Latin text it cannot be rationally denyed to be as clear as the Sun that he meaneth and reacheth the lawfulness for and obligation also on the Confessor in our case to reveal all that is on evident grounds conceived by him to be necessary for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom For that doctrine supposes upon one side all the general laws of God and Nature of Charity Piety and Justice both exhorting and commanding the Confessor to prevent by all just and lawful means the execution of so evil a design and on the other side supposes also that there is no particular law of God or Nature or Man or Church against the revealing of all whatever the Confessor knows by such a confession and is conceived by him to be necessary for prevention For the only such particular law can be pretended by any is that of a seal of confession And the above doctrine expresly teacheth there is no seal at all of confession nor can be in the case or in such a confession as it expresly teacheth that when or where this seal is as it is alwayes in a true sacramental confession it is a seal wholly and only as to the person of the Confitent not as to his sin or other appendage Whereby it is further plain and evident that the above doctrine or argument derived from it cannot be eluded by saying it denies a seal as to the sin but not as to the person being it acknowledges no seal but as to the person and denies expresly all kind of seal in our case or confession But whoever meaneth and reacheth the lawfulness for and obligation too on the Confessor in our case to reveal all that is on evident grounds conceived by him to be necessary for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom meaneth also and reacheth in his grand Resolve herein the lawfulness for obligation too on the Confessor to reveal even the very individual person of such a Confitent because that for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom to reveal even the individual person of such a Confitent and without his own consent is in our case upon evident grounds conceived to be necessary Ergo whoever teacheth expresly the above doctrine it cannot be rationally denied to be as clear as the Sun that he meaneth reacheth in his grand Resolve herein the lawfulness for obligation too on the Confessor to reveal even the very individual person of the Confitent and I mean still without nay against his consent when the danger to a third person much more to a Kingdom Commonwealth or even any lesser community is great and not otherwise to be prevented and that he may reveal him without danger to himself Out of all which if it be not clear that I have Sylvester on my side and by consequence Abbas Innocentius and so many other both ancient and modern Catholick and Classick Schoolmen who teach the same Doctrine with Silvester I must confess I see not what is clear Which is the reason I dare conclude that if the Doctors of Lovaine will oppose me in the Doctrine of this sixt consideration they will raise too great a storm against themselves And I have at least no less reason to think it will be so with them too if they write against the Doctrine of any of the other five precedent Yet I would have them or all that stickle for them in this Country where the language of this book of mine is understood for if God lend me life and health I mean to speak in good season yet to the Lovaine Divines in their own language or that of their Censure I say I would have them all to understand that I have not laboured so much as I have now here to prove my Doctrine out of Silvesteâ— or any other as if I were perswaded that I could not or dared not warrant any doctrine unless I could shew it extracted from or conformable to that of other Schoolmen that writ before me on the same subject As I am farr enough from such perswasion or such fear in matters wherein I may ground my self on plain Scriptures certain Tradition or evidence of natural Reason and see no plain Scripture or Tradition or undoubted and received true Canon of the Catholick Church to gain-say that evidence although I saw at the same time ten thousand Canonists and Summists or other Casuists and even ten thousand too of the very best School-divines against me so I assure the Reader my only design by so long a discourse of Silvester was no other but to confound the more those Lovaine Divines by the very Authors who are so familiar with and approved of in their own Schools For otherwise I know well enough it is the Doctrine of the very Schools that no man is bound to swear to their doctrine jurare in verba Magâ—stri upon this ground only of its being theirs I know very well too that the more common doctrine or absolutely and simply the common doctrine of the Schools is not alwayes the more true or even simply true That some doctrines have been common amongst them three hundred years since which now are so farr from being common as not to be scarce of any one man That some also now common have been some two or three ages past the doctrine of one single man And what is now of a single School-man against the torrent of the other side may after some few years more prove it self a torrent of all sides In fine that the doctrine of the Schools as such and the doctrine of the Church as the Church are 〈◊〉 least oâ—â—en 〈◊〉 wide one from another as Heaven and Earth LIX Bu◠〈◊〉 pâ—â—â—venture some may yet object the passion of Father 〈…〉 〈…〉 aâ—â—â—gation at or before his passion or death when he 〈◊〉 examined concerning the Gun powder-treason his opinion consequently against the doctrine of revealing in such a case the person of the Confitent although I have to this objection said enough already yet because what I â—aid so was only per transennam or transiently I thought fit to repeat here again that and further add what I conceive necessary to remove this only remaining but pitiful presence of a meer made scruple 1. That his passion or death suffered by him was not to bear testimony to the contrary doctrine but for having been found guilty himself by the law at least as a concealer of that wicked plot And that as it is most certain there was never
very text and ends of that text or precept And it is in effect this that by higher powers both temporal and spiritual powers are understood respectively as to their own proper Subjects and that St. Pauls command being in such general terms as these Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit must by consequence be understood so as intending and only intending that all secular persons should be subject to those who are as to them higher powers viz. the secular Magistrate Prince King Emperour c. and that all Clergy persons also should be subject to their own respective higher powers that is to the Superiours Ecclesiastical as Bishops Archbishops c. and before all to the Pope who is above all A third answer is observed by some as yet more strange and absurd though Cardinal Bellarmines proper invention say they Who say they too not content with one single folly viz. that of the former second answer which he also with some other Divines of his way approveth and giveth would needs invent this indeed so rare so admired one That although St. Paul commands universally that all souls be subject to the higher powers yet he commands not they be all subject to the higher politick civil temporal or secular powers Quocirca sayes he lib. 1. de Translatione Imperii cap. 2. n. 7. antequam Principes politicos exaltare incipias super omnem animam ac proinde super ipsum etiam summum Pontificem de hoc enim potissima quaestio est demonstrandum tibi erit sublimiorem esse potestatem Principatus Politici quam Ecclesiastici But I for my part see nothing new in this answer of Bellarmine that is nothing materially different from the first erroneous old answer of those whom St. Austin oppugned and confuted in this matter as shall be seen presently or at least from that and the second both together For the only difference is 1. That Bellarmine would fain by this unreasonable distinction exempt at least the Pope from all secular power whatever would become of the rest of the Clergie And then he thought all was well enough as I have elsewhere noted 2. That he takes the word power in the abstract not in the concrete which yet the first answer did not As for the word higher or sublimioribus in the Latin text which he takes advantage of by taking it comparatively the first answer also took it so But however this be or whether this of Bellarmine be materially different or not from the former that is from the first or second or both answers together I am sure first that I have evidently confuted already all three out of the very obvious and clear text it self as you may see again and before in my proofs of the Major and Minor but more especially in that of the Major where any indifferent judicious and ingenious Reader cannot but confess that either there must be admitted not only one but manifold and most manifest contradictions and non-sense in that whole text or discourse of the blessed Apostle if any one of all these answers were true or certainly that those texts of Paul must not be understood literally Both which admissions are equally and confessedly of all sides false erroneous and heretical Only against that part of the first answer where it is said that by the sword in that text of St. Paul the spiritual of excommunication is to be understood and not the material of iron I am to add here that this too is plainly contradicted by the very text being hence it is clear that sword must be understood which is the proper sword of that Minister of God to whom tribute and custom were then paid Now it is no less clear these were not then paid to Christian Bishops Popes or Church but only to secular and even heathen Princes Secondly I am sure also that all those three Answers both joyntly and severally are no less confuted by the very only true primary and proper end of St. Pauls universal command in these words Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and of the rest of the discourse following For this reason as even our late School Expositors as even Cornelius a Lapide himself though of the same Society with Bellarmine hath it on the said 13. to the Romans that I may not as yet alledge any thing out of the ancient holy Fathers out of Origen Chrisostom Augustine Anselme and others of them who handle directly and of purpose this very subject this reason I say which moved Paul to that general Edict proves manifestly 1. That by higher powers he only mean'd the secular civil or politick powers and consequently by the sword also mean'd no other but the material sword 2. That by omnis anima every soul he mean'd universally also the Faithful without any distinction of Laicks and Clerks or which is the same thing without any kind of exception of Clerks from the universal affection or distribution of the word omnis or word every For this reason was only was as the above Cornelius a Lapide well proves it was out of St. Augustine Psal 118. Clemens Alexandrinus l. 4. Stromatum That in the infancy of the Christian Church even in the very days of the Apostles Christ himself there was a rumour spread that by the Gospel or Doctrine and law of Christ as being a law of grace liberty humane Policies Kingdoms Republicks were quite everted as now amongst such Hereticks as pretend the liberty of the Gospel for with drawing themselves from all kind of humane power is taught That this rumour and calumny had its first origen from the sect of Iudas Galilaeus whereof you may read Acts 5. these Galilees teaching that it was not lawful for the Jews by the law of God or Moyses not even in case of death to pay tribute customes or any other duty to Cesar they being free-born by that law and Caesar deriving no right from it Whereof the Reader may satisfie himself more at large in Iosephus l. 18. Antiquit. 1. That Christ having been himself by descent a Galilaen and reputed one of that Countrey and St. Paul too having in particular preach'd and writ much of Christian liberty or liberty from the yoake of the law and pleasure of men in some other of his Sermons and Epistles though he mean'd a liberty only from the judicial and ceremonial part of the law of Moses and from the evil commands of men some of the beleevers themselves who were in themselves otherwise corrupt or ignorant were inclined to think themselves also free from humane policies and all the power of man That the whole Nation of the Jews were generally infected with that doctrine of Iudas Galilaeus even in those very dayes of Christ and the Apostles as consequently we read that in pursuance thereof they all generally rebelled against the Romans which occasioned the siege and final destruction of Ierusalem and of their whole Nation
of them I mean as treated of the subject untill at least the Schools began in Peter Lombards dayes or at least untill Gregory VII who was a little before nay and many Fathers Interpreters and great School Divines too after the said Gregory and Lombards dayes but that I would not without necessity be too tedious these whom I have given being both many and after the Apostles the chief Fathers of Christianity whose writings are extant LXXIV Having so done in pursuance of my promise in my LXXI Sect. with my fourth and grand argument indeed which is purely Theological and is that grounded on the 13. Rom. according to the general and vnanimous exposition of that passage by the holy Fathers untill the age of Gregory the VII I am now come to my LXXIV wherein I am to give according also to my promise in the said LXXI Sect. some Instances of the practise of the holy Fathers in pursuance of this their doctrine so given hetherto in the last Section or in the LXXIII going immediately before this present And therefore this present Section is an appendage of the former as containing the best confirmation can be of the holy doctrine of the Fathers by their as holy practise in all degrees But although for matter of Instance or practise the Instance or practise of Christ himself who after commanding Peter to put up and sheath his sword declared himself to have twelve legions of Angels at command to free himself and rest of his company from the both civil and Ecclesiastical power of those who apprehended him and yet would not resist but was obedient even to the civil powers even to death it self acknowledging the very power of an Idolater civil Lieutenant over his body and acknowledging it as given from above albeit I say this Instance or practise of Christ alone should be and is enough for matter of example as Christ himself alone is or should be the onely exemplar to us in all his actions omnis enim Christi actio nostra est instructio said one of those auncient Fathers very well and albeit after and besides that of Christ our Lord the practise of all his most blessed Disciples and great Apostles too those infallible expositors of his will and law those his own proper divine special extraordinary Embassadours to all Nations of the world for teaching them by word and deed his true and pure doctrine and no other should make up Instances enough being they all even Peter himself not excepted conformably to their express doctrine practised so that is obeyed so the civil and even Infidel Princes placed over the world by God that they appeared not onely at their tribunals nay sometimes also of their own free will appealed to them but suffered patiently death it self at their command and this without pleading any exemption without other reluctancy whatsoever nay and without attempting once to make use against these Princes of even their so divine extraordinary miraculous power whereby notwithstanding in other cases and against other men they could make and did make both men and Devils and the very elements to obey their commands and albeit after and besides this Instance too of all those immediate Disciples and Apostles of our Lord we read in general other innumerable examples of all Christians both Laicks and Clerks Priests Bishops Popes and Councils also of both other Bishops and Popes during the primitive Ages of Christianity and the first 300. years and read so in general such innumerable Instances of their practise in those Ages as well of purity as of persecution conformable in all points to that which I have shewn to be the doctrine of all even the holy Fathers who are after the Apostles most famous in the Church of Christ and read these general and innumerable instances in no worse Authors and witnesses then Tertullian Cyprian and St. Augustine albeit I say all this be true and absolutely certain yet it is not my purpose to take up this Section with discouse upon either that particular Instance of the practise of our Lord himself or of that other of his immediate Disciples and Apostles or even on that general one of the practise of all Christians the first 300. years till Constantine the great But my chief purpose here is to give some other and particular Instances of the practise according to that doctrine of very eminent and holy Fathers even Bishops Patriarchs and Popes after the said first 300 years and the conformable practise also of Christian Princes in their times However it may be worth your patience first to read over transiently this following note extracted out of My More Ample Account pag. 88. 89 90 91 92 93 94. inclusively concerning that general practise or that of all Christians in general within the very first 300. years as the said Tertullian in his Apologetick cap. 37. Lactantius l. 5. Cyprian ad Demetrianum and Austin de Civit. Dei l. 22. relate it But now that nothing may be wanting to confirme throughly and according to my first intent this necessary doctrine nothing desired more to illustrate or perswade it to be infallible truth of Christian Religion let us in pursuance of the maximes consider the practise of all primitive Christians for the space of many hundred years while the Church was most holy and most pure and let us consider this practise in the undubitable writings and clearest passages of the before named most famous primitive Fathers who delivered to after ages as well the letter as the sense of the new Testament and consequently the belief or judgment of the B. Apostles and Evangelists the Commandements of Christ and pleasure of God in our case Wherein if any thing be more evident then a religious holy Conscience or perswasion of suffering rather all losses the most grievous all tortures the most exquisite death it self the worst of evills in this world rather then take armes against the Soveraign Magistrate or against the lawes or any thing more evident then that the primitive Christians at least for three or foure the first and best ages of the Church did suffer accordingly and upon this account as well as that of glory and of Christian belief that God in his own time would revenge their quarrel as to whom alone it belonged to right them against the powers of the â—â—rth or any thing likewise more evident then that conscience constant practice belief even general throughout the whole world amongst Christians in Europe Asia Africk without any one exception whereever they lived and even there and then where and when they were so numerous that by secession onely without rebellion without armes without committing treason they might have ruined the greatest Empire in the world if I say any thing may be more evident then all this in the primitive practice Let eloquent Tertullian speake in the first place and in his Apologetick for those of his own Age to the Roman Emperors and Senate Quoties enim
and therefore say also by consequence that he lay under some constraint and some necessity and some bond tye or obligation to pay that didrachma yet is it not consequent that I say he wanted that freedom or any such freedom which is simply such or lay under any constrrint or necessity which are simply such or even under any bond tye or obligation at least of justice simply such or which might oblige him under sin or the penalty of sin or by vertue of the tribute law it self to pay any tribute for the rest of my discourse most evidently shews I mean thereby no other constraint necessity or obligation but such as are secundum quid or diminutively such even such as Iohn the XXII himself allows even such as our Saviour himself means by saying ut non scandalizemus eos da c. and even such finally as arise only from the law of love and of that divine love which told him it was not fitting for him to give cause of scandal to the weak ones by his own refusal or denial or failer and which made him at last to give his life for them that took it from him And therefore also 't is not consequent that by any thing or word said in that passage of mine page 239 I joyn or concur with Marsilius or Jandunus in this first article of theirs not even as much as in the words much less in the sense of that article condemn'd by Pope Iohn the XXII Besides it is clear enough that for the defence of my thesis against Bellarmine's argument grounded by him on the texts of Matthew Mat. 17. Ergo liberi sunt filii and ut nâ—â— scandalizemus eos c. I needed not give as I did not give in my LXIII Section page 150 151 153. where I handled these words of our Saviour at large and of purpose any such answer but solved the argument fairly and clearly there without any such or as much as reflecting on any such answer that is on any such necessity or any such obligation of justice or obedience due arising from the tribute law or other command of presumed superiour Powers And it is no less clear that I was not in my 239. page nor am here now at present nor will be elsewhere any further concern'd for Marsilius or Jandunus then they held close to the general thesis only that is to the general doctrine only of the Catholick Church and that whereever they swerve from that I do from them and where that Church condemns them I also condemn them nay and that I am content likewise to condemn them where ever Iohn the XXII himself alone or in this Bull of his condemns them and yet hold still constantly to my thesis For and forasmuch as concerns their second complex article viz. Quod B. Petrus Apostolus non plus authoritatis habuit quam alii Apostoli habuerint nec aliorum Apostolorum fuit caput Item quod Christus nullum caput dimisit Ecclesiae nec aliquem Vicarium suum fecit 't is plain it concerns not our present controversie of the exemption of Clergiemen or that even of the very Apostles themselves or that even sayl also of S. Peter himselâ— from the temporal powers and in temporal matters For that Peter should have had that is actually and immediatly from Christ himself had more authority then the other Apostles had and that he should have been made or was actually made the head of them all and that Christ should have or had left some one Head to the Church and made left some one his own Vicar which is the contradictory of this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus argues nothing at all for the exemption from temporal Princes in temporal matters of as much as Peter himself or of him that had that greater authority or of that head or of that Vicar Because the doctrine of the Catholick Church teacheth us that that greater authority of Peter whatever it was and that Headship of his over the rest of the Apostles and that one Headship and one Vicarship under Christ in the Church and over the Church was meerly and purely spiritual and because not only that very doctrine but reason also and experience tells us that such greater authority spiritual and even such one Headship and one Vicarship spiritual consist well very with a lesser authority temporal in the same Head or Vicar and even with none such at all in Him and yet with another Headship and another Vicarship temporal in another person and with a full entire subjection in temporal matters to this other person or other head and other Vicar whose authority and power is only and purely temporal as on the other side the temporal Headship or temporal Vicarship consists very well with its own subjection in spiritual matters to that Headship and Vicarship which is only spiritual And more or other then what is here said Iohn the XXII arguments in his discourse against this second Article of Marsilius and Iandunus do not conclude or indeed as much as pretend to being all his reasons here are only and wholly bent against a parity of power in the Apostles amongst themselves without any exception of Peter or preheminence given to him over them How strong or how weak his reasons are I need not care at least for the present being that for the present I allow all in general both his definitions and reasons in this Bull and in particular what he reasons and defines against this second Article as not as much as in the least touching me or my thesis of the subjection of all Clergiem whether Apostles or not Apostles and even of the very spiritual Prince of the Apostles Peter himself in temporal matters to the supream temporal respective Princes within whose dominions they live For likewise as for the third of those Articles or this Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam instituere destituere ac punire as the said Iohn the XXII relates it in the beginning of his Bull or this other form of it Quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam corrigere punire ac instituere destituere 't is clear enough it may be allowed as I also do allow it to be false erroneous and heretical for one part and in one sense or even for both parts in a certain sense whatever is in the mean while thought of the other part or even of either in another different sense and yet my grand Thesis and all my doctrine hitherto even where it descends or rather ascends to the Pope himself be untouch'd by any such censure That one part I allow to be so is that which sayes it belongs to the Emperour to institute and destitute the Pope and the sense wherein I allow this part to be so or to be false erroneous and heretical is that whereby any should conceive that the Emperor could at any time and by his own proper imperial authority as such
this definition of Iohn the XXII against this last article of Marsilius and Jandunus doth not gainsay or contradict at all my main purpose or Thesis of a coercive power supream in Christian Princes over all Clerks and in all their criminal causes whatsoever For these two positions have no contradiction 1. There is a coactive power humane and corporal and civil too if you please in the Christian Church as a pure Christian Church 2. This coactive power humane corporal and civil too or not civil as you please is not altogether independent in it self but is subordinat to the higher humane and corporal powers of supream temporal Princes That they are not contradictory or inconsistent we see by the example of both civil and Ecclesiastical tribunals For the inferiour tribunals notwithstanding they have a true proper innate coactive power civil or spiritual respectively are subordinat to the superiour And so I have done at last with this long discourse occasion'd by the fourth objection or that of the conincidency of my doctrine with the condemn'd doctrine of Marsilius and Jandunus Which by a strict examen of all their five Articles and comparison of all and of each of them all to my own doctrine all along and to that which is the doctrine of the Catholick Church I have proved to be very false as I declared also that I hold no part of even their very true uncondemn'd doctrine as it was their doctrine but as it was and is the doctrine of the Catholick Church Which Catholick doctrine or doctrine of mine because it is that of the Catholick Church I am sure without any peradventure I have sufficiently nay abundantly demonstrated by reason Scripture and Tradition Therefore now to The fift and last of all these objections which I call'd remaining for the reason before given that objection I mean built upon the contrary judgment or opinion as t is pretended of St. Thomas of Canterbury and upon his Martyrdom or death suffered therefore and of his canonization also therefore and consequent veneration and invocation of him throughout and by the universal Church as of a most glorious martyrized Saint therefore This objection I confess is very specious at first as it makes the very greatest noyse and the very last essay of a dying cause But it is onely amongst the unlearned inconsiderat and vulgar sort of Divine or Canonists or both it appears to and works so T is onely amongst those who know no more of the true history of this holy mans contests and sufferings or of the particulars of the difference twixt him and his King or of the precise cause of his suffering either death at last or exile at first for a long time or many years before his death but what they read in their Breviary which yet is not enough to ground any rational objection against me though peradventure enough to solve any T is onely amongst those who do not consider duely nor indeed have the knowledg or at least have not the judgment discretion or reflection to consider duely what it amounts to in point of Christian Faith as to others or to the perswasion of others against me or my doctrine hetherto that any one Bishop how otherwise holy soever in his own life should have especially in these days of King Henry the second of England and of Pope Alexander the third of Rome suffer'd even death it self for the defence of true Ecclesiastical Immunities in general or of this or that Immunity in particular or for having opposed some particular laws either just or unjust I care not which made by a secular Prince against some certain Ecclesiastical Immunitie and whether made against those which are or were certainly true Immunities or those were onely pretended I care not also which T is onely amongst those who do not besides consider duely that not even the greatest Saints and greatest Martyrs have been always universally freed not even at their death for any thing we know from some prepossession of some one or other ilgrounded even Theological opinion or of moe perhaps and that such weakness of their understanding Faculty in such matters did not at all prejudice their Sanctity or Martyrdom because the disposition of their Souls or of that Faculty of their Souls which is called the Will was evermore perfectly obedient humble had the truth of such very matters been sufficiently represented to them because they had other sufficient manifold causes and Instances of their true Sanctity and true Martyrdom according to that knowledg which is saving though I do not averr any such prepossession here nor am forced by the objection to averr any such prepossession of St. Thomas of Canterbury in any thing which is material T is onely among such inconsiderat Divines I say that the objection grounded on his opposition to Henry the Secon'd laws concerning Clergiemen and on his exile death miracles canonization invocation appears so strong against the doctrine of a supream inherent power in secular Princes who are supream themselves to coerce by temporal punishments all criminal Clerks whosoever living within their dominions Whether the Divines of Lovain who censured our Remonstrance as you have that Censure of theirs page 120. of this first Part be to be ranked amongst such inconsiderat Divines I leave to the Reader 's own better consideration when reflecting once more both on it and all the four grounds of it he observes moreover particularly the day of the date of it so signally express'd by them in these tearms Ita post maturam deliberationem aliquoties iteratam censuimus ac decidimus Lovanii in plenu Facultatis Congregatione sub juramento indicta ac servata die â—9 Decembris gloriosi Pontificis Thomae Cantuariensis Angliae quondam Primatis mortyrio consecratae Anno Dominae Incarnationis 1662. And whether they did of purpose fix on this day of S. Thomas of Canterbury as most proper for such a censure I know not certainly but suppose undoubtedly it was not without special design they mention'd him and his primacy glory martyrdom and how that 29. day of December of their censure was consecrated to his martyrdom as I profess also ingenuously it was the reading of this so formal signal date of theirs made me ever since now and then reflect on the specious argument which peradventure some weak Divines might alleadg for their fourth ground Though to confess all the truth I never met any that fram'd it methodically or put it into any due or undue form of argument for them or of objection against me but onely in general objected that S. Thomas of Canterbury suffered for maintayning the liberties of the Church and of Clergiemen against Henry the second Which is the reason and that I may leave nothing which may seem to any to be material unsaid or unobjected cleerly and fully by my self against my self I put all which my adversaries would be at in this concern of St. Thomas of
Leges quas Edovardus tertius utendas dederat in pristinum usum revocat quae tamen sensim absoluerunt Normaâ—â—s pro commâ—do Principis ad incommodum Anglorum leges a Gulielmo primo conditas constantissime usurpantibus And again about the end of his life Tulit initio sui Principatus aliquot leges quas nec ipse nec Reges qui secuti sunt hine servaruaâ— However those I have given were his laws not repealed after by himself in Parment for he began Parliaments in England or otherwise by any publick Instrument declared as a law to the people albeit I deny not but those 16. heads controverted after twixt Thomas of Canterbury and King Henry the Second were first conceived in writing by this very Henry the first but never as a law published by him To all which I will add those further laws yet which were to our purpose also made by King Stephen Henry the First 's immediat or next Successour in two several Parliaments one at Oxford and t'other at London in that of Oxford abolishing quite that kind of tribute or assessment which other Kings had formerly often exacted from every hyde or acre of ground and promising too that neither Episcopacies nor other Ecclesiastical Benefices or Sacerdotal Prefectships should be kept vacant as much as for any the least time and in this of London or Westminster enacting for the Clergy's sake because they had liberally contributed for the warr in hand that whoever should strike any Churchman in holy orders or should without licence from the Court Ecclesiastical or Bishops lay hands upon or seize any criminal Clergymen whatever his crime were should be held excommunicat impious and accursed and should not be restored at all to the communion of the Church or absolved but by the Roman Pontiff onely Of which laws of King Stephen albeit there be no Parliament Records preserved of them as neither indeed are of all or any of those held before King John's days Polydore Virgil tels us expresly and particularly in his 12. book of Histories and life of the said Stephen For these are his words concerning the first Stephanus autem ex sententia summum consecutus imperium Oxonium proficiscitur atque ibi Principum conventum facit quo in Conventu inter caetera ut suorum animos sibi devinciret illud tributi genus quod alij Reges per singula jugera terrae saepe exigere a populo solebant prorsus sustulit atque promisit se curaturum ut deinceps Episcopatus aliae Prefecturae sacerdotales ne puncto quidem temporis vacarent c. And concerning the second these Interea Rex Londinum venit ubi celebrem Principum ac Antistitum conventum peregit in quo talia verba fecit Cum Principes fidelissimi c His dictis cuncti praesidium salutis ac libertatis defendendae se laturos pollicentur At Episcopi cum suis sacerdotibus quia pugnare fas non est pecuniam conferre promittunt quibus ut aliquid gratiae referretur in eodem Conventu constitutum est ut quicumque deinceps sacris initiatos percuterent aut alicujus criminis reos Episcoporum injussu caperent impii importunique haberentur nec ab aliquo praeterquam a Romano Pontifice in piorum caetum restitui possent quemadmodum jure Pontificio iampridem sancitum esset sed apud Anglos ante id tempus minus servatum And so I have given at large whatever I would have the Reader observe in this Seventh place of the proper civil or municipal laws of England before Henry the seconds time concerning our purpose especially the exemption of criminal Clerks even in case of murder from the lay Judges Eightly and in the last place you are to observe but onely out of this present book of my own which you you read now that is out of all said by me formerly in so many Sections from that place where I first began to dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity what my doctrine is against which the objection is made for and to come to the answering of which I have premised so long a discourse in so many observations And you are to observe well that my said doctrine is no other in effect but what I now repeat heer briefly viz. 1. That neither by the law divine positive or natural nor by the canons of the Catholick Church which are properly those are and are called Canones universalis Ecclesiae nor even by those other canons which are more properly and onely stiled Papal Canons Clergiemen living within the dominions of any Supream lay or secular Prince are exempt in criminal and temporal causes from his supream civil even coercive power 2. That not onely they are not so already exempted by any such law of God or man but also that they cannot be hereafter by any pure law of man not even of Pope or Council exempted from the said supream civil even coercive power without the consent of the Princes themselves 3. That neither can the supream secular Princes themselves grant any such exemption to Clerks living still within their dominions and remaining Subjects to them because this implyes a plain contradiction or to any Clerks at all but to such as are at the same time wholly set free from all kind of subjection or acknowledgment of their Principalities 4. That on the other side both by the natural and positive law of God and especially by the 13 of the Romans by the letter and meaning and scope or end of that whole text of St. Paul there all Christian Clerks not even the Popes not even the Apostles themselves exempted are subject in temporal matters and criminal causes even to the coercive power of the supream secular Magistrat 5. That by the doctrine also of the holy Fathers generally until Gregory the VII and by their exposition or understanding of that text of Paul all Churchmen whatsoever were and are so in the dominions of the respective supream temporal Princes whom these Clerks own to be their own legal Princes 6. That by the practise also of so many Christian Bishops Popes and Princes they were and are so 7. That even by the testimony of clear even Papal canons they were and are so that by no argument hithertoo alleadged out of reason scripture tradition Fathers Councils Papal Canons Histories by any of our adversaries the contrary is as much as any way convincingly deduced 9. And finally and in a word that all their true exemptions from either inferiour or supream secular judicatories in any temporal or criminal cause whatsoever as to the coercive punishment of them by the civil power force and sword is originally from and wholly still depending of the supream civil power In all which or in any discourse or clause said thereupon by me you are also to observe that I never said or say or intend to say that Clerks have not a true right to those exemptions from lay judicatories which the
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
a Doctrine And this to the face of a Priest pious exemplar religious I could say a Gentleman too if you will have this circumstance of blood to be of moment and who for Christ despis'd a fair Estate descended to him by inheritance and chose the Order of St. Francis A Priest so zealous for the Catholick Faith that for many years before and after this Subscription even to old Age he had laboured painfully and successfully in the Irish Vineyard to reduce Sectaries to the Church and preserve and comfort those which were Catholicks and this while the late Tyrants were in power in extreme straits and often imprisonments Who had often suffered banishment and been snatch't from the very jaws of death having been condemn'd to the Gallows by the sentence of the Laws and Judges A death which being for his Faith and the Pope he was not only most ready but most desirous to undergo but that his Judges when they saw his resolution envy'd him the glory of Martyrdom as they publickly told him This judgment of yours concerning such a man to be pronounced to his own face and pronounced by a Religious Abbot nay and also by the Abbot of Mount Royall Poor Gearnon then had better have been in his grave say you than subscribed What then is it you do not say of Caron Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers What not only of those whose names are long since in Print but which make far the greater number those who are yet only in Manuscript Guardians Priors Doctors of Divinity Bishops What of those not only Clergymen but almost of all the Lay-Catholick both Gentry and Nobility in Ireland the rest who have not yet being ready to Subscribe when call'd upon What of the English Clergy of the same Communion and Faith who 't is manifest have approved this Form of our Fidelity and made another for themselves not only not unlike ours but for what concerns the Point in Controversie far better What of the French Venetian Spanish German indeed all Catholicks in Europe and not only in Europe but all Christians of all places and all times both present and past whenever their Interest is or has been in question Nay What do you think of the Holy Doctors Prelates and Fathers whose memories are now in veneration and who conspired with us in this Doctrine nay taught it us Lastly What of the Primitive Church it self and the chief and greatest Doctors of it the most Holy Apostles and the very Princes of the Apostles Peter and Paul who first after our Saviour himself in their Epistles taught this Doctrine to the World Had it then indeed been better all these universally had never been than been defiled with this venemous Contagion Had it truly and consequentially been better too the Religion of the Cross had not been Taught by Christ Preach't by his immediate Disciples and by their Successors delivered down Better that even after it had been Preach't and believed the Superstition thereof had not been preserved but totally abolish't Better Christian Churches had been shut up their Altars profaned and destroyed the dispensation of Sacred things had ceased Sacraments Sacrifices and the Sacred dispensers of them taken away And if all this sufficed not for rooting out the pestiferous Error much better to join with Julian for restoring Paganism and Judaism or with the Saracens and Turks for setting up the fiction of Mahomet and so shutting the gates of Heaven and opening those of Hell to all Mankind by the miserable loss of souls to bring joy to the wicked spirits and make the Angels of peace as the Prophet speaks weep bitterly But a Christian Abbot to say That from whence all this would follow O shame To prefer the Temporal but most vain and false Monarchy of the Pope before the true and certain one of our eternal Bishop Saviour God! O Wickedness And to wish this rather should perish than that not be establish't O abominable and mad See my good Lord whether too much heat in a bad Cause has drawn you and the consequence of an unadvised Judgment pronounced against Father Gearnon and the Subscribers unless perhaps you would be thought to have spoken without any judgment i. e. without weighing the consequence of what you said Whatever you would have us think how much rather according to Religion more pious according to reason more prudent had it been with that most holy and most prudent Abbot of Clareval S. Bern. Ep. 170. ad Ludovic Reg. Franc. to have praised the unshakable resolution of Gearnon and the other Subscribers in performing their Allegiance to their King Although the whole World should conspire against them And by the example of that holy Saint to have added what his Writings testifie of him That even in such case viz. of a Conspiracy even of the whole world the God of Heaven is to be feared by us and therefore we are to believe that not even in such a case 't is lawful for Subjects to attempt any thing against Regal Majesty or Plot against the Life Authority or Crown of Him who is subject to God alone second to none amongst Mortals first in His own Kingdom after God and in Temporals judged by God alone How much more pious and more prudent had it been with that most prudent Saint thus to have exhorted Gearnon and each other of the Subscribers Stand thou in thy Testament exercise thy self therein and remain in the work of thy Commandments until Death take thee away as in effect also that wise Hebrew Jesus the Son of Sirach long before St. Bernard's time premonish't us Ecclesiastic xi 21 But you my Lord persuade the direct contrary and not only persuade but to your power constrain and constrain both by word and deed and that almost for these Three whole Years although not alwayes in the same words Although the whole world should be on our Kings side and the Pope alone against him by Sentence either of Deposition Privation or perhaps only Excommunication that at the back of his Holiness we not only lawfully may but ought to plot and attempt against our otherwise lawful King is your Sentence Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal your Admonition Exhortation Precept and what not Which because we do not embrace but by a publick and necessary Protestation detest on the sudden we are become wicked men deserve to be razed out of the number of the Faithful and by your Lordship are particularly termed disobedient Apostates Schismaticks Men of Dirt who have raised Troubles to the Church of God and Men who had better have been first in their Graves And thus indeed Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal however otherwise Bernard Abbot of Clarevalle But O the difference 'twixt Abbot and Abbot O Abbas Abbas as the same St. Bernard cryes out in the life of another Saint and Abbot St. Benedict comparing himself to him O the difference I say 'twixt Abbot and Abbot The Abbot who Teaches Duty to
under spiritual temporal or mixt of both is not so much disputed amongst learned men as that other far different question drawn especially from the 27th Canon of the great Council of Chalcedon as also from some others of his purely spiritual or at least Ecclesiastical power which has no respect at all to Temporals either directly or indirectly whether this power be truly by Divine right immediately over all the faithful through the whole world or onely by Humane and Ecclesiastical right or else from both at least in that latitude to which they commonly extend it that is over all the faithful everywhere none exempted either in any district of any of the other Patriarchs or in any cause With which most difficult question though I have no intention ever to meddle as however I am fully resolved to follow in this point the common doctrine and to stand unmoveably fixt to the decision of General Councils nevertheless because all men are not of the same mind that is do not judge or understand every way alike many things which may be alledged on both sides nor have the same inclinations or that forward strong and constant affection to his Holiness and the See of Rome which I have notwithstanding the injuries which I cannot deny many and as many as since the beginning of the last War in Ireland took part with the King have suffered with me I thought fit to intreat your Lordship and do with all earnestness beseech you that you will let the Subscribers live in peace not move them to impatience or anger nor reject them from Ecclesiastical charges without other demerit than this pretended one of Subscription and that you will not put a bar to the publick good of undoubted Religion for the maintenance of an assertion so far at least doubtful that in the judgment of many and those Catholick Writers and even entire Universities it deserves the name not so much as of an Opinion but of Error and Heresie and also yet so doubtful that the reason is plain why 't is call'd Heresie Understand my Lord material Heresie as they call it For I conceive no Orthodox Censurers and least of all I ever thought of charging formal Heresie upon the Pope or Church of old Rome or its particular Diocese so much as in this matter controverted betwixt us formal Heresie not being found without obstinacy against the Faith of the Universal Church undoubtedly known But as for material Heresie many orthodox learned and pious men have not doubted to fix it openly upon the Patrons of your opinion mov'd by this amongst other reasons namely that Heresie is no less in excess of than recess from the due mean in points to be believed or that 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith that is assert preach teach impose upon the Faithful to be believed as necessary to salvation or as revealed by God taught by the Apostles preserved by perpetual succession in the Church and as a part of the depositum delivered by Fathers in every age of Christian Religion to their Children That of whose necessity revelation and tradition there is no undoubted and certain evidence but opinion at most or likelihood and this only to somefew of the Faithful the rest which make a greater or as great or at least a considerable part of the Catholick Church denying disclaiming condemning abjuring it I say that according to those Doctors 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith in such manner as it is to substract from it i. e. as it is to deny any thing to be of Catholick Faith of which nevertheless t is truly undoubtedly certainly universally evident that it was revealed by Christ and deposited by the Apostles as much as any other Article of Faith Now who does not see that these who teach that Assertion of the Popes right over the Temporals of Princes as a point of Catholick Faith without the belief of which or with the witting denial of which none can be saved or entirely profess the Christian Catholick Faith relie upon Arguments at best but probable and grounding only opinion against the greater or equal or indeed the far greater remaining part of the Catholick Church which in all ages of Christianity have denied and still persevere to deny disclaim abjure that Position as impious and contrary to the doctrine received by Tradition and without difficulty solve such Arguments which they look upon as Spiders webs as ridiculous Sophisms as Trifles and pure Toyes And indeed some orthodox Doctors moved by this discourse not to mention other Reasons fear not to brand your Position with the note of Heresie But if your Lordship desire my own opinion in the case I must confess ingenuously I see not why it is not as much truly an intollerable error to assert in Popes Bishops Priests or any of the Clergy or even Laity a power to be believed as of divine Catholick Faith which does not certainly and evidently appear from the Rule of Faith that is either from Scripture or Tradition or both as it is to deny a power which does so appear * * See Bellarmine himself de Conc. l. 4. c. 4. where he teaches Errorem esse intollerabilem proponere aliquid credendum tamquam articulum fidei de quo non constet an sit verum vel falsum At last my Lord I conclude this long Letter and yet I neither repent my labour nor ask pardon for my prolixity since it no way more concerns Walsh to write Truth than it does an Internuncio to read it And if your Lordship be of the same judgment it will be well if otherwise I must bear it with patience Let it suffice me to have done what became an honest man videlicet to have refuted slanders reproaches revilings to have proved Caron and Walsh were causelesly term'd by your Lordship either Schismaticks or Apostates or which is less yet any way disobedient causelesly by contempt men of dirt causelesly also raisers of I know not what troubles to the Church of God lastly that without cause it was said to Gearnon's face he had better have been in his grave than subscribed Let it suffice to have defended the freedom of expostulating in a cause most just to have shewn it reasonable and answered those things which with most apparence are alledged to the contrary Lastly let it suffice that for a conclusion I have made you a hearty Prayer and a Petition no less earnest adding at the end and for a complement of the whole discourse that reason of so urgent a Petition which swayes with those Divines who censure with freedom your doctrine Neither have I more to add but onely my wishes that for the future the Internuncio's of Bruxels may be more men of heavenly spirit at least when they have to do with men of earthly dirt Which humbly saluting your Lordship and kissing your hands with all due respect and affection truly and from his soul wishes My LORD
Thirteenth especially considering that the promise and declaration thereof made in that Thirteenth is delivered in such words as must of necessity argue though not a formal yet a virtual assertion because a supposition of each of these three last Sorbon Propositions in that very maâ—ner I have now presently express'd or of the truth of them and by consequence also a virtual censure and condemnation of the contrary Tenets For otherwise how could We declare truly honestly and conscientiously That it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the persuasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practise according to any Positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives c. and consequently never to approve of or practise any thing contrary to the genuine Liberties of the Irish Church c 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 c. is infallible in his definitions made without the consent c as at large in the said Thirteenth complex Proposition or Paragraph How I say could We or any persons whatsoever declare truly honestly and conscientiously in such terms such a resolution as to such matters unless we or they were at the same time inwardly and throughly persuaded of the verity of those three assertory single Propositions which I say are previously and at least virtually supposed and by consequence also of the falsity of the opposite doctrines For no man at least no Divine Preacher Confessor Leader and Guide of others by his Calling and Function may or can honestly profess in publick to the World such an unalterable resolution unless he be inwardly persuaded that doctrine he disclaims in is false and the contrary true because the Apostle and reason too assures us That whatever proceeds not from Conscience is a sin and consequently that it is unlawful for any man at least who is bound to be the spiritual guide of others to profess especially in such manner such a resolution against doctrines pretended to be Religious and Evangelical of the falsity of which he is not throughly convinced being it is clear enough that want of such conviction would argue his Soul to be either habitually or actually depraved i. e. resolved to run wilfully the hazard of opposing an Evangelical Truth and therefore to be in a wicked state 10. That the foresaid Colledge of Divines consisted partly of graduated or licensed and instituted Professors of Divinity and partly of other qualified Fathers but who were also Divines although not as the former instituted Professors to teach in the Schools and that the names and qualities too or titles of all both these and those I mean as many of them as I can exactly now remember to have ordinarily come to that meeting were as followeth viz. Fr Antony O Docharty Minister Provincial of St. Francis's Order in Ireland Fr Thomas Dillon Vicar Provincial of the Discalceat Carmelits in Ireland Laurence Archbold a Secular and Parish-Priest formerly Vicar General of Dublin George Plunket a Secular Parish-Priest and Archdeacon of Meath Fr Antony Gearnon of St. Francis's Order several times formerly Guardian viz. of the Convents of Dundalk Dublin c. Fr John Reynolds of St. Dominick's Order Protonotary Apostolical c. Fr Thomas Talbot of St. Francis's Order one of Her late Maiesty the Queen Mother's Chaplains Fr Valentin Brown of St. Francis's Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity and formerly Minister Provincial of Ireland Angel Goulding a Secular Parish-Priest of St. Owens in Dublin and Doctor of Divinity Fr Bernardinus Barry of St. Francis's Order and Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Thomas Harold of the same Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Simon Wafer of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr John Grady of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr Peter Walsh of the same Order Reader of Divinity and Procurator c. In all Fourteen whereof Nine Franciscans three of the Secular Clergy one of the Carmelits and one of St. Dominick's Order and this last viz. Father John Reynolds was also their Secretary or he that writ down what they had agreed upon and kept the Papers This is a true account of the occasion end time and manner also of debating as likewise of the persons who debated the said Fifteen Propositions or Doctrine of Allegiance contain'd in them And now there remains but a few other particulars I would have here briefly advertised 1. That several other Churchmen at several times came to that little meeting as it was free and open for any that pleased to come and go when he would and object whatever he thought fit but that I do not remember any of those others that came so to have objected any thing 2. That Father Harold was he as he is a very able man that disputed most and press't hard against me on the controverted points or arising difficulties though he concurr'd at last with my sense on every point 3. That where I speak of a select number of Divines by that word select I would signifie only those who of the foresaid whole number of Fourteen were School-professors of Divinity who were indeed but seven whereof I am sure that five were as select as any our Countrey could then afford 4. That amongst the same foresaid number of Fourteen there were three who had been actual Members of the late National Congregation viz. Antony Docharty Provincial of the Franciscans Thomas Dillon Provincial of the Carmelits and Angel Goulding Doctor of Divinity 5. That six of the whole number had neither before nor after sign'd the controverted Remonstrance viz. Antony Docharty Thomas Dillon Bernardinus Barry John Grady Angel Goulding George Plunket 6. And lastly That I have been by so much the more exact in giving the particulars of this Colledge of Divines held after the National Congregation was dissolved and of the matters debated therein by how much I found it and my self also even for it traduced by false relations thereof sent over Seas For my Lord Bishop of Ferns out of his own candid nature and some kindness also to me was pleased to let me know so much though not before the year 1669. The words of his Letter dated the 6th of October said year 1669 to the present purpose are these Father Peter Walsh is said to have used fraud and force in the Congregation of the Clergy at Dublin anno 1666 and that he kept an Anti-Congregation of his own faction to vex them I saw a relation sent over of that I saw also severe lines of a great Cardinal to that purpose Whereunto he further adds kindly some further notice viz. of the late cause of their anger against me at Rome in these other words It was ill taken by all That after Cardinal Franciscus Barberinus 's Letter in His Holinesse
which they make or intend to make there if any at all indeed they make or intend together with so many quibbles and fallacies yet this Remonstrance at least as from them does no way bind them after such declaration of the Pope to hold as much as to such however inconsiderable acknowledgements or promises Fourteenth Exception That further yet as from them and without relation to any such matter declared by the Pope it leaves them alwayes at liberty upon another account not to hold to their said however inconsiderable acknowledgments and promises Videlicet upon account of their maximes of extrinsick probability or of their perswasion of the lawfulness of changeing opinions and of practising too according to the contrary opinion of others and consequently of practising against all their acknowledgments ownings Declarations promises and oaths in this their own Remonstrance according to the doctrine of such Catholick Authors as maintain all oathes of Allegiance made to a Heretick Prince to be rendred absolutely void by the very Canons of the Roman Church in corpore Juris Canonici Fifteenth Exception That finally as from them it leaves them still at liberty to say they framed and subscribed it according to the very largest rules of equivocation and mental reservation and with as many and as fine abstractions exceptions constructions restrictions and distinctions too especially that of the specificative and reduplicative sense as any the most refined Authors and most conversant in such matters Canonists or Casuists or School-divines could furnish them with in time of need And these being the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. the Reader may judge of their reasonableness or unreasonableness as he please if he hath already or when he shall have read through not only the former part of this Second Treatise but both the first and second part of the first Treatise of this Book To which if he add the reading also of all the other four he may without any question judge the better of these Exceptions whether they be well grounded or not THE THIRD TREATISE CONTAINING The three propositions of Sorbon considered as they are by this Dublin Congregation applyed to His Majestie of Great Britain and themselves And what they signifie as to any further or clearer assurance of their fidelity to the King in the cases controverted HAving given in my Narrative the occasion upon which and the persons by whom after a long dispute these propositions with the other three of the six late of Sorbon were first offered to be assented to and signed in a distinct or different instrument or paper from that of their Remonstrance and how after those very persons hindered the signing of the other or last three and further in my exceptions to instances against and observations upon that Remonstrance of theirs upon their wording of and meaning by and in the several passages or clauses all along having noted their voluntary and contradictory omissions of what was necessary and what was both expected and demanded from them on the particular points and noted their abstractions reservations exceptions equivocations illusive expositions and yet no less if not more destructive constructions I need not say much here to shew the unsignificancy of the said three propositions I mean as to the publick end for which these Assembly subscribers would impose on others or flatter themselves they were subscribed by them For it will be obvious and easie to any understanding man that shall first read those fore-going small Tracts of mine to see evidently there can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational subscribers or from their subscriptions to the said three additional propositions than was besorâ— intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according or in that sense of theirs which I have so declared at large I confess that in the state primitive or in that of the innocency of Christians these alone peradventure might have been sufficient to that end Nay and at this very present are very significant as proceeding from and applyed by the Sorbon-faculty and Gallican Church to their own most Christian King and themselves To wit amongst a People and in a Country where no other doctrine is taught or believed or as much as scarce thought upon if not by a very few privâ—tly in corners but that which they have learned from the express Canons of their own ancient Councils and of that particularly of Paris well-nigh a thousand years since in pursuance of the Tradition of their yet more ancient Fathers all along to the Apostles of Christ and Christ himself That kingly power is immedietly from God alone as from the primary and only efficient cause and no way depending of the Church or People Where the practice was so frequent when occasion was offered to resist the usurpations and incroachments of Popes on the Jurisdiction Royal and to oppose and contemn their Sentences of Deposition Deprivation Excommunication and other attempts whatsoever of the See of Rome against their Kings Parliaments or People Where Pithou's most Catholick and voluminous Books of the natural and genuine liberties of the Gallican Church and so many other great Catholick Writers on that subject are extant and frequent and conversant with them daily Where finally that King in their opinion is both their own and really most Christian and themselves of the same Religion with him and by him all their interests both religious and civil spiritual and temporal in the greatest latitude and height they can desire maintained exactly I confess that from such men of such principles in such a Country and to such a Prince these three Propositions barely as they are worded might peradventue do well enough But to conclude hence or that because the French King was pleased or satisfied with them so as coming from and presented to himself by Sorbon His Majesty of Great Britain our Gracious King must be or should be in our present case and on the points controverted amongst us pleased or satisfied with the self same resolutions or propositions aâ—d in the self same words only the application changed without any further addition explanation or descent to particulars and so pleased with them as coming from us were a very great fallacie and very great folly The cases are different in all particulars And therefore it must be consequent in reason that more particulars may and should be required and in other words that is in words expresly and sufficiently declaring as well against all equivocations and other evasions as particularly to the particular points in our own case The design having been as it is and must be yet to get us to resolve and declare satisfactorily and our own Interest and that of our Religion too especially as now in Ireland leading us thereunto But alas the private Interests of some very few men of that Congregation blew durst in the eyes of all the rest so as they
indeed any but God alone above them in temporal affairs as the very Fathers too of the Congregation avow by their own subscription of the 2d of those Propositions of Sorbone if they will have that subscription and Proposition taken in the plain obvious and honest sense and further yet is such and by reason too and Scriptures plain and cleer enough demonstrated to be such that every person in their respective kingdoms is subject to them And consequently all Parliament men however convened together as being not in any consideration or quallity soever exempt from that general command of God by the Apostle Paul 13th Romans Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditasit And now if in this doctrine and pursuant to it of those Divines whether Greek or Latin the Fathers of the Congregation such of them at least as are understanding and knowing men see not the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of that argument of theirs which is their second specifical reason for not signing the 5th Proposition or if they see not they argue not here à simili but à dissimili and therefore conclude very ill or if they see not the cases are quite contrary or hugely differing that of the Pope and Council on one side and that of the King and Parliament of the other as to the purpose here I am extreamly mistaken But whether they do or not others I am sure do very cleerly That for such other Catholick Divines as are great sticklers for the Papacie to be Jure Divino immediatly or immediatly ordained by Christ himself during his aboad on earth in that sense at least wherein it is allowed and approved by those Canons are learned Canones Ecclesiae Vniversalis and by the several Catholick Churches Kingdoms and States which have continued in perpetual communion with the Bishop and particular Church or Diocess of Rome though not in that sense and height of latitude of jurisdiction attributed thereunto by the Popes themselves in their own peculiar Canons for such Divines I say as maintain so the Papacie to be De jure Divino immediatly and nevertheless withal do constantly maintain the authority of general Councils above it by the same ius divinum or immediat institution of Christ delivered to us in that passage of Math. 18. Dic Ecclesiae or in any other of the new Testament whether in writing or not or not otherwise known evidently or sufficiently but by unwritten tradition onely the Fathers of the Congregation may see these Divines also declaring and very cleerly and consequently too without any kind of stress in their own principles against the said consequence For they will undoubly say and with very much reason also this to be a meer non sequitur The General Council which hath its power not from the Pope but originally immediatly only and perpetually from Iesus Christ over all the faithfull being declared in the 18. of St. Mathew the very last and supream Tribunal to which an offending Brother must be accused and to whose sentence he must be lyable and being so declared by Christs own mouth even to Peter himself present as may be seen in the foresaid place of Mathew taken together with St. Luke in ch the 17. must consequently be above the Pope albeit the Pope must be above every individual of them separatly taken out of the Council or when there is not any Council in being Therefore the Parliament which originally immediatly and only had its power from the King and yet none from the King or his Laws much less from the Law of God above the King Himself must nevertheless be above him even as yet remaining King and so above him too that they may deprive depose and put him even to death if they shall judge it expedient yea notwithstanding his Royal Power is given him originally immediatly and only from or by God himself and notwithstanding also the express Law of God commands all his people without any distinction of being sate in Parliament or not and commands them all even under pain of damnation to be subject to him and notwithstanding too the very Parliament themselves even sitting in Parliament confess themselves to be of the number of his People or Subjects Yet this must be the very argument which the Fathers of the Congregation must frame here to their purpose if they would pin their foresaid consequence upon even these other Catholick Divines who maintain the Papacy de jure Divino And therefore it must also be that in the opinion too or doctrine of this very class of Divines who are all admitted by Bellarmine himself as undoubtedly Catholick and no way Schismatical who maintain or admit as I have presently said the Papacie it self to be jure Divino from this proposition The Pope is not above a General Council no such dangerous consequence can be drawn no overture of any such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Commonwealths as our late sad experience hath taught us That finally if in the opinion or according to the principles or doctrine of any other Catholick Divines that dangerous consequence follow as I know it does in Bellarmine's and such others of his way who to subject the Crowns of Kings the more easily to the Popes disposal reduce all earthly temporal civil power and resolve it ultimatly into their supream pretended inherent right in the people whom as they say withal and consequently to their other principles the Pope may at his pleasure or when he shall judge it expedient command by excommunication and other ecclesiastical Censures to resume it or that their pretended inherent power for the punishment of an Apostat Heretick Schismatick or otherwise contumacious refractory or disobedient Prince if I say according to this doctrine of this third and last class of Divines how Catholick soever in other matters that dangerous consequent and overture of such odious and horrid disputes follow the above proposition or the not being of the Pope above the General Council yet for as much as their other principles which must be first admitted before any such consequent may be deduced are in themselves very false and in the case of Hereditary Kingdoms evidently such amongst Christians that please to understand the Scriptures plainly and sincerely as the primitive Believers did especially that passage omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and what follows afterwards to the same purpose in the 13. of the Romans and not go about to elude these and such other express and clear places by distinctions whereof some are apparently ridiculous and some very blasphemous too as I can instance the Fathers of the congregation might notwithstanding with much reason and even abstracting too I mean as well from all precedents as from all ignorance malice or other pre-occupation nay and from their own subscription also of the second or any other of the three first propositions though not from the doctrine of them observe how that
Law and Appeal had not been interposed yet must we hold that your Honours Appeal in your own behalf and in the name of all the Confederate Catholicks who did or do adhere unto your Honours having been so made within due time and after the form of Law tender'd with expression of reasonable causes therein for provoking to His Holiness and Apostles being demanded and granted though these Apostles are no other than Refutatories must notwithstanding suspend the Monitory or conditional Excommunication and Interdict with all their effects and consequences and all other proceedings of the Censurers in pursuance of the same It s plain by the Sacred Canons undoubted by the Doctrine of Divines and Canonists and clear by the very light of Reason which God hath given intelligent Souls Read cap. Praeterea 40. ext de appellatione cap. Si a Judic de appellat in 6. that we may pass over to shun tediousness many such places and you shall find nothing more plainly resolved in the Canons We have (a) Praeterea requisiti suimus si quis Judex ita protulerit sententiam Nisi empronio infra viginti dies satisfeceris te excommunicatum vel suspensum aut interdictum cognoscas Ille in quem fertur sententia medio tempore appellans ad diem statutum minime satisfecerit utrum ille taâ—i sententia ligetur aut interpositione Appellationis tutus existat Videtur autem nobis quod hujusmodi sententiam Appellationis obstaculum debeat impedire been demanded sayes Celestine the III. in cap. Praeterea in case a Judge pronounce sentence thus If you do not satisfie Sempronius within twenty dayes know that you are excommunicated suspended or interdicted and he against whom the sentence is given appealing in the mean time that is sometime within the twenty dayes makes no satisfaction to Sempronius at or before the day prefixed whether he to wit the party against whom the sentence was pronounced hath incurred the Censures as bound by the sentence or hath his Appeal interposed saved him harmless We think that the interposing of the Appeal hinders and takes away the force of the said sentence And thus sayes Glossa (b) Glossâ— in verb. impedire ita suspenditur sententia quae non dum tenet non enim tenet nisi extante conditione Ex quo autem reneret non suspenderetur ejus affectus c. on the word Impedire the sentence is suspended which doth yet bind or which is not yet of force he means until the time prefixed for admonition be expired and other conditions if any be as that was in this case of not satisfying performed for it is not binding until the condition be extant But if it were once binding its effect could not be suspended by an Appeal coming after c. Behold here our very case Our Judge or Judges the Lord Nuncio and his four Delegates as they are called though really it be much doubted whether the Congregation held last at Kilkenny gave them any such delegation to proceed with so much rigour against the whole body of the Kingdom to bring so much danger upon it and throw so much confusion sedition and wickedness into every corner and into the very intrals of the Confederates and this by abuse of Ecclesiastical Censures to bring scandal on the Church notwithstanding the Lord Nuncio with his four Delegates commanded the Supreme Council and their Adherents who embraced the Cessation to reject the said Cessation within or before nine dayes after the intimation of their command and likewise enjoined all others of the Confederates not to join with or consent to this Cessation otherwise declared the former excommunicated and interdicted if they fell not from it within that term prefixed and the later likewise in case they transgressed after they had got sufficient notice of their Lordships determination and Censures in this behalf The Supreme Council interposed an Appeal to His Holiness for themselves and for all the rest unto whom the Censures might be extended and tender'd it according to the form of and within the time prescribed by the Canons Is it not then consequent that these monitory and conditional Censures were by such an Appeal suspended It followeth manifestly if the judgment of Celestine was just or the Law doth not err In both monitory and conditional Censures In both an Appeal made before the dayes of admonition or allowed for deliberation were expired or before the condition was in being that is before a new transgression of the precept after sufficient notice had thereof no Appeal being interposed and after the dayes allowed for appearance were once past therefore in both cases the Appeal must have the like effect Videtur autem nobis quod hujusmodi sententiam Appellationis obstaculum debeat impedire Non enim tenet sayes (c) Celestinus in Praeterea supra Glossa ibid. Glossa nisi extante conditione c. ut supra The first branch of this second Querie and of our assertion in answering it being thus declared the next branch that is whether the effects and consequences of the Censures be likewise suspended is of easie resolution and the resolution of as easie proof For it is a known Maxim in the Canons That accessories do follow the principal cap. (d) Accessorium sequitur principale Dilectis filiis de appellat and it is certain That the Censures we speak of are the principal and that the effects and consequences are but accessories Wherefore the Censures being in themselves suspended by the Appeal the effects and consequences must be of necessity suspended And verily there is no difficulty may be moved in this point What effects and consequences of excommunication and interdict See at full in Tolet. l. 1. Bonifac. 8. in c. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. But some controversie perhaps may arise about the third part of this Querie where it 's demanded Whether all other Censures or proceedings of the Lord Nuncio Delegates or others in pursuance of the former on the same ground are likewise suspended or hindered by the said Appeal yet even this branch is so cleared by cap. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. that nothing more can be desired For in this Chapter Boniface the VIII both determines and declares That an Appeal once made the Judge from whom is no more Judge over the Appellant and that his Jurisdiction is suspended understand in the case and others thence following wherein the Appeal is made and that therefore the Appellant is not bound to appear before him If the Judge from whom be no more Judge if his Jurisdiction be suspended the Appeal being interposed if therefore the Appellant be not to appear before him what is more evident then That the said Appeal is a suspension of all other proceedings or Censures issued or to be issued in pursuance of the former or on the same ground from the Lord Nuncio and his Delegates or any other deriving Authority from them
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