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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
submission most heartily and freely appeal That you may determine for what concerns you of the truth or falsity likelihood or unlikelihood of that worst of Scandals viz. Desertion of my Order and Religion wherewith I have been frequently asperst on several occasions as in former times even Twenty years ago by some of the Nuncio's Faction so of late during all these four last years by others of the Anti-remonstrants especially by some Church-men who so little consider their holy Function that they seem to have lost all regard to Truth and Honesty and do not boggle at the shame of being daily found in manifest Forgeries so they may but do their work to serve themselves by it or to rid out of their way any person who they fear may obstruct their ambition i. e. their design of confounding all again if they alone cannot otherwise command all Onely I shall further beg as to this matter that before you determine of it you would be pleased to read over these following Appendages First Appendage relating to the Fourth Querie That in regard of the times places and occasions I lived in and employments I had and Books and persons I conversed with of every side and my own both curiosity and concern to understand matters aright and to see into their genuine causes I may without vanity say of my self That I have had more than common opportunities to know the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Court what they are and how hurtful how pernicious to these Kingdoms and to the Roman-Catholick Religion And that ever since I came to see into these things at least ever since I gave my self to a serious and full consideration of those principles and wayes which was about Twenty seven years since upon occasion given me by that Faction I have most heartily abhor'd and at all times and upon all occasions protested against them and the more I have known of them still the more I have seen cause to detest and to protest against them as I do at this day Second Appendage relating to the Fifth Querie That I can and do appeal to God Himelf That next after the regard of not wounding mortally my own Conscience by a manifest desertion of Truth and equivalent profession of such Errours as I know certainly to be against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and Gospel of Christ the chiefest motive I had for bearing up constantly so long a time against all Censures Precepts Monitories Denunciations Affixions Decrees and other grievous concomitant Persecutions in the often mention'd Cause of the Loyal Formulary was the regard of not doing you all the Roman-Catholicks of His Majesties Three Kingdoms the greatest injury that I could possibly do you or perhaps any man of my degree by confessing the grand Objection against you to be insoluble For I saw clearly That if either the temptation of preferment to Offices and Dignities or the tryal of punishment by Censures and Calumnies and all their Consequents at the pleasure of some Grandees at Rome should have had that influence on me as to make me in effect absolutely to renounce my Allegiance to the King by retracting the Subscription of my hand to that Instrument professing it in meer Temporal things onely the Argument thence derivable must have been obvious to any judicious knowing Protestant inclin'd to do you a prejudice as soon and as often as the Parliament sate and were moved in your Concerns Such an Argument I mean as urged home by a good Orator would even before indifferent Judges give much colour to that grand Objection viz. The inconsistence in these Nations 'twixt the safety of a Protestant Government and the giving of Liberty to Roman-Catholicks by repealing the penal Laws yet in force against them In substance it would have been alledg'd That the Roman-Catholicks at least for the generality of them would be alwayes right or wrong directed by their Priests That their Priests are most of them on the Popes side in this Controversie And if any of them be so hardy to oppose his usurpations there is no trusting of them for there is no reason to expect that any of them will stand to his principles and hold out For Example they might have instanced in unworthy me if I had fallen off after so long and such manifold tryals of my constancy for Twenty years past and after so many and so great obligations to persevere until the end of my life This and much more would in all probability I am sure might in all reason be alledg'd to make that great Objection hold against you had I hitherto submitted to the dictates or pleasure of the Roman Court in either Cause But it is not my business here to open more at large or press more home this Argument with all the aggravating circumstances both such as are fresh in memory and such as might be derived from the memory of former times My purpose was to hint it onely as believing this enough to shew you the reasonableness of that second Motive I had for holding out so constantly in such a Cause and in the very manner I did all along against so numerous and so dangerous Adversaries especially seeing that very manner of my holding out so or of defending my self the best I could against them was and is authorized not only by the Divine Laws of Nature and Christianity but also most expresly and clearly by the positive Constitutions of men even of Roman-Catholicks viz. the fundamental Laws of England and Ireland not to speak now of other Catholick Nations of Europe so many Hundred years since Enacted by the Roman-Catholick Princes and Parliaments of these Kingdoms against all Forreign Citations or Summons from a Forreign Power beyond the Seas and also the Ecclesiastical Canons of the Catholick Church throughout the World nay of the very Papal Canons themselves forbidding in express terms Judicia Vltramarina (a) Vid. S. Cyprian Epist 55. ibi Statutum esse omnibus nobis c. Concil Affrican Episcop 217. inter quos Divus Augustinus erat Can. 92. relatum pariter in Cad Can. Eccles Affric Can. 125. Synod ad Coelest Item 3. q. 6. haecce capita viz. Ibi. Vltra Si quis Clericus Peregrina Qui crimen q. 9. cap. Nec extra Item cap. Nonnulli de Rescrip Item Stat. General Barchinonensia Ord. Min. cap. 6. §. 1. num 1. 2. ubi Patres rationem habent illius naturalis Canonum aequitatis and expresly decreeing against many other special Injustices and Nullities on other grounds in the late procedure against me (b) If you would see more Quotations both of the Canon and Civil Law against every particular Injustice committed in Summoning me to appear beyond Seas and which do justifie in all respects my procedure in not obeying such Summons you may consult my Latin Epistle to Harold pag. 6 7. besides my Latin Hibernica Third Part and you will find a very great abundance of the
though somewhat more particularly to the Fifth That besides the facilitating all I could the Repeal of penal Statutes by overthrowing the grand Objection against it I had no other extrinsick end hitherto in any of the Controversies wherein I am engaged nor shall God willing have at any time hereafter save onely that which must have been consequential nay that which is very well becoming not only a Roman-Catholick Priest and Votary of St. Francis's Order but any Christian of whatever Church or Profession viz. the breaking down of so much of that middle wall of partition between us which hath separated first the Orient from the Occident and then again in the Occident it self hath divided from one another so numerous flourishing and conspicuous both Nations and Churches holding them so long involved in a direful Schism to the great hurt of Christianity and to the destruction of so many Souls This so great and so desirable a blessing of Peace and reconciliation of one to another in God by the Cross and by the breaking down the wall of partition all enmity being slain on both sides between the Churches i. e. between the Sons of the Church of England on this side and those of the Roman-Church on the other as many at least as are subject to His Majesty I must confess I have these many years regarded as my chief and ultimate end howsoever unlikely it seem'd in this world To this most desirable end all my Studies Writings Elucubrations and Books have been principally directed At this my Remonstrances Professions Protestations Renunciations have perpetually aimed For this I took so much pains devoured so many labours underwent so many hazards and suffered those well nigh innumerable Evils whereof I see not even yet either period or measure And finally this happy end is it that hath made me as elsewhere in some other of my Writings so now in this Epistle declare so plainly and openly against so many embroiling Positions notwithstanding they be the Doctrines of a very powerful Faction amongst Roman-Catholick Professors nay the beloved Maxims of the Roman Court and its Minion-writers Whose soever they be it 's clear enough that of them is built one entire side at least of that middle wall of partition (a) Ephes 2.14 which to the unspeakable reproach and further unvaluable hurt of the Christian Church in general hath so often both formerly and lately engaged yea and doth at present engage People Nations Principalities Republicks Kingdoms Empires not only unhappily but damnably in mortal feuds one against another but which therefore ought and must for the great end of Peace amongst the Children of God be broken down of every side by Him who is our Peace by Him who not onely in former times as you read in the Prophet and Apostle in Isaiah (b) Isa 57.19 and in (c) Ephes 2.14 17. Paul hath evangelized Peace Peace the fruit of the lips to them that were far off and to them that were nigh but now also at this present to the now divided Parties Preaches the same Peace to the end that the Sons of Peace on each side co-operating He may again make in himself of twain one new man so making peace and reconciling both unto God in one body by the Cross having stain again the enmity in his own flesh Oh that we might live to see once that day That day so fervently so anxiously beg'd of God by all his Saints That day so long desired by Princes expected by Prophets wished for so passionately by all the Children of God! That day in which there will be neither Jew (d) Coloss 3.12 Galat. 3.28 nor Gentile nor Barbarian nor Scythian nor Protestant nor Papist I mean nor Reformist nor Romanist nor any other names or symbols of Discord That day wherein once more Christ himself will be all (e) Coloss 1.18 24. Ephes 5.23 and in all both head and body and consequently there shall be one fold (f) John 10.16 and one shepherd Oh blessed day and blessed eyes that shall behold it And oh how willingly how heartily with all my Soul would I to see that most happy day run into the arms kiss the hands embrace the knees lie down at the feet of those who have bereft me of all things else and fought my life How freely how gladly for that end would I moreover if they pleased even appear before them as a Criminal even in the habit of a publick Penitent my head covered with Ashes and my body with Sackcloth my eyes running down with tears and my flesh pined away with fasting How lastly to see that greatest bliss in this life would I prostrate my self before them on the earth even without the door and porch of the Church and with humblest prayer beg admittance and not only reconciliation but pardon where even I mean according to my own proper judgment there was no need of it no fault committed by me to require it These have been the wishes God knows and this the constant disposition of my Soul these many years And therefore as an universal condemnation of the new Doctrines to eternal night and silence hath continually appear'd to me no less than necessary of one side for breaking down the middle wall of separation so amongst the Christian Churches that blessed that heavenly reconciliation union coalition in the Spirit of God and Peace of Christ which is above all sense hath alwayes been the very ultimate end in this world that I have propos'd to all my Labours and Sufferings As for the rest I know that how Divine soever the Wishes be how proper and pure and holy and excellent soever the Means that we employ for attaining them yet the Success must be in the hand of the Almighty alone who (g) Wisd 8. reaching from end to end strongly and disposing all things sweetly makes the morning star to arise in his appointed time and the evening star on the sons of the earth who (h) 2 Cor. 4.6 commands light to shine out of darkness and who alone with one word of his pleasure determines the roughest Tempest in the gentlest Calm Hatred in Love Schism in Unity and the bloodiest War in the most blessed Peace when (i) Coloss 1.20 he will and as he will reconciling all things whether Terrestrial or Celestial by the blood of his Cross Fifth Appendage relating also to all the Queries That notwithstanding any whatsoever excellence of all and every the ends both intrinsick and extrinsick which I had proposed to my self in the Controversies yet I have continually shun'd as I would a rock or a shelve in a Tempest that other late Doctrine of those Schoolmen of ours who are called Probablists which teacheth the sanctifying forsooth of all wicked means by good intentions And therefore that as far as I know my own heart and actions and the Laws of God or man I have at no time hitherto been wanting nor shall hereafter with the grace
of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
do what he was directed from Ireland he delivered the several papers to my Lord Lieutenant and both humbly and earnestly beseeched His Grace to consider of them and present the case to His Majestie and particularly that Remonstrance acknowledgement protestation and petition of the Clergie Then which scarce could any thing more be expected from them for the future whatever they or any of them had been formerly But his Grace two days after returned this answer That the Remonstrance or Declaration or Protestation therein inserted although it might well in some things be made more full and more satisfactory yet however it might be useful were it not onely a bare paper without any subscription or hand to own it Whereunto the Procuratour had no more to say but that likely they in whose behalf it was thought it enough himself should own it in their name and that the times were such in Ireland as they could not scarce three of them meet together and most of their Bishops were abroad in other Countries in exile whom to consult particularly either at home or abroad would require a longer time then the present sufferings of the generallity at home without some speedy commiseration of them could bear That in the mean time until the rest might be acquainted with the exception against it for not being signed those few of that Clergie then at London come from several parts thither which were about 30 in all and one of their Bishops amongst them would he doubted not own and signe it for themselves whereby His Majestie and Grace might see it was no forgery or imposture That he hoped the rest would when they had an opportunity to meet do the same generally And yet that although himself had as His Grace knew a general power from them under their hands and Seals to act for them all nevertheless forasmuch as this was a very special business and that he had no special Commission from them to sign this Instrument or such a special Declaration of their doctrine and conscience and because he had formerly so much experience of the diversity of their affections inclinations and interest 's in a point of this nature and of the awe they or many of them stood in or would stand in of the Court of Rome and of their dependencies thence which their titular pretensions there continued evermore he dared not venture upon owning or subscribing it in all their names though he was ready to do it in his own even as their Procuratour but still not owning a special Commission herein from them And yet hoped with all that so much affliction at home and their exile abroad for so many years under the late Usurpers had made them all wiser by this time then to scruple at the signing of a Declaration so Catholick in it self so just and necessary from them and a Declaration moreover which tyed them to no more then they were bound unto before by all the laws of God and man without any such Declaration or subscription whatsoever if perhaps we except not under the notion of such laws those Papal Canons onely however rejected by all Christians that are not subject to the Pope in his temporal principality and as well by right reason and Christian Religion condemned as indeed such declaration and subscription was chiefly intended against such III. In pursuance of this discourse and to clear as well as might be then and there at London that rational exception of His Grace a meer Paper not signed by any the Procuratour having acquainted the Catholick Bishop of Dromore then at London and such others of the Irish Clergie there with it and with the whole business and storm lately raised in Ireland against all the Catholicks on pretence of that forged letter they met together two several days at the said Procuratours chamber about 30 of them and with the Bishop four and twenty more signed the said humble Remonstrance the other 4 or 5 excusing themselves onely on pretence of inconveniency or unexpediency and such like not at all of any unlawfulness or uncatholickness in the Declaration or any thing els in the whole Paper as they declared there publickly The Nobility and Gentry also of Ireland in great number at London at that time found themselves no less concerned in this matter And therefore after having for eight weeks consequently together in several meetings publickly debated it and consulted also some eminent persons of the English Catholick Nobility and that also in a publick meeting where the same English Noblemen declared their approbation of it and having fitted for themselves an other preamble and Petition subscribed the same Declaration word by word as those of their Clergie had and presented it to His Majestie by a special Committee sent from themselves and by the hands of the Earl of Tirconel The original of which signed by 97. hands the said Earl keeps as he was entrusted with it by His Majestie who most graciously received it and kept a clean copy with himself as he had that formerly of their Clergie-men Soon after both were published in Print in distinct sheets with an advertisement to the Reader from the Procuratour under that of the Clergie which was perclosed with an invitation not onely to the rest of the Irish Clergie wheresoever but to all those of both English Scots and Welch of that function and Religion to concurre in the same or like to wipe off their holy faith and communion the scandal of such unholy principles in point of government and obedience which had so much prejudiced them and their predecessours for a whole age and reduced them to those miseries under which they groaned so long But in regard those 4. or 5. dissentors with such others English or Irish Clergie men either at London or other places as approved their unreasonable opposition made use of their exceptions and several arguments whereon they grounded their allegations of unexpediency or inconveniency the Procuratour found it necessary to give in Pâ—int and in a little book which he called The More Ample Account c. not onely the occasion of transmitting from Ireland that Remonstrance but the grounds at large which concluded both the expediency and necessity incumbent on the Clergie of Ireland in particular and above all others to subscribe it with answers to all the exceptions made till that time by the dissentors And by occasion of the last of them enlarged himself on those arguments which evidently shew by reason Scripture Fathers practise of primitive Christians and by answers to all the grand objections to the contrary that it is in no kind of contingency lawful or just in Subjects to take arms on any pretext whatsoever against the Prince or Laws or in any kind of case wherein the municipal laws of the land do not warrant them Which being addressed and by an Epistle prefixed to all the several Arch-bishops Bishops Vicars General Provincials of Regular Orders Abbots Priors Guardians Rectors
nation should highly rejoyce the miraculous Restauration of Charles the Second their natural King their only deliverer from the hard and intollerable durance and tyranny which they so many years have suffered in his absence under the suppressions of an Vsurped power and the Irish Clergie doth hold themselves by double obligation so to do first by the tye of natural subjection to their most gracious and lawful Prince secondly that they may vindicate themselves from the innumerable calumnies and lyes whereby they are misrepresented unto the King and his Ministers most falsely suggested to them that they intend to raise rebellion and tumults Wherefore we the whole body of the Dominican Friers unanimously that it may appear to the world with what sincerity of mind and purity of intension we are inclined to our Soveraign Charles the Second following the steps of our predecessors and fully satisfied in our conscience first do render most hearty thanks unto the King of Kings for the miraculous Restauration of His Sacred Majesty to His hereditarie Kingdoms and will ever pray that the same divine power and providence that established Him in his own right may give him long time happily to raign and govern And for manifestation of our fidelity to Him we do protest before God Angels and Men without any equivocation or mental Reservation our Soveraign Charles the Second to be the true and lawful King and Supream Lord of Ireland and therefore that we are in conscience and under pain of Highly offending God to obey our said Soveraign in all civil and temporal affairs no less then any of our function to their respective Princes in Europe And do further more protest that we know no external power that can absolve us from this Religious obligation no more than other Subjects of the like function with us from the like obligation in Spain France or Germany or any elswhere Finally we execrate abjure and renounce that not Catholick pernicious doctrine That any Subject may Kill or Murthen his King by himself or any other though differing with him in Religion nay we protest the contrary saying that all Subjects are bound to manifest all rebellious and machinations against their Kings person His Kingdom at State to the King or his Magistrate which we do hereby promise to do And this protestation of our fidelity we the aforesaid body of the Order of St. Dominick in Ireland do freely offer to His most meek and clement Majesty and prostrate under His Sacred â—ee we pray he may be pleased to accept this our protestation and to defend and deliver us frâ—â— the oppression of our persecutors for our profession is to fear and follow him who in the Gospel commands to give unto God his due and to Cesar his and we will always pray for His Royal Majesty his Queen and the blessing of a happy posterity Dated the 15th of October 1662. F. Iohn Hart Provincial F. Lawrence Kelly Diffinitor F. I. Burgate Deffinitor F. Eugius Coigly Diffinitor F. Richard Maddin Diffinitor F. Dionisius a Hanreghan F. Constant de Annunciatione Kyeffe F. William Bourke F. Cornelius Googhegan F. Felix Conuer F. Patrick Dulehanty F. Thomas Philbin F. Ioanner Baptista Bern F. Geâ—ot de martiribus Ferral F. Michael Fulam F. Goruldfitz Gerrald F. Abtonius Kenogan F. Clement Berae F. Batricius Doyre F. Charles Dermoâ—â— F. Dominick Fedrall F. Daniel Nolanus F. William O Meran F. Iohn Tyny F. Tadeus mac Donâ—ogh XVIII As concerning the Letter which this Dominican Provincial Father Iohn O Hart sent then by the same bearer and of the same date to the Procuratour although it was civil enough and a complement of thanks for minding his Order of their duty and further desires both of recommending them and their cause to His Grace and of hearing from him more often all particulars yet was it withal positive enough in declaring they could not or would not do more in that business than what they had now by their letter to the Duke and Remonstrance enclosed therein Nor indeed was it ever at any time before or after to this day expected by the Procuratour they would heartily or freely do any more because he knew very well in what hands the Government of that Order was or who were Provincials Definitors and Local Priors of their Province then and for many years puff and how unanimous they were all in the Nuncio's time and for him and his quarrel and ever since for the Censures and against any kind of peace with the Royal party only four or five excepted who yet had not the courage to mutter against the rest if not in private cornes Father Marke Rochford Oliver Darey Ioseph Langton Peter Nangle and because he know they gloried particularly and mightily in their however unfortunate unity therein having suffered no division amongst themselves but runn altogether one way for ought appeared so little did they consider that unity in evil is a curse from God and because he further knew certainly how they were touch'd to the very quick and took it to heart extreamly that any at all of theirs though but three only Father Scurlog Reynolds and Scully to whom since is added Father Clemens Birne had subscribed the Remonstrance and consequently saw themselves now in some degree begun to be divided In which judgment of them in general that it may be seen the Procuratour was not deceived but their violence made known to the end it may find some check hereafter I must not pass over in silence how they left no stone unremoved to vex the patience of those three or four subscribers and force them to a recantation exclaiming against them every where discountenancing them in every thing even against the rules not of their own Order only but of the common Canons of the Church and Christian charity also threatning to deprive them of active and passive voice in all elections and by actual instances thwarting in such Father Scurlog and Reynolds making one man of purpose to decline and vex them Priour of three Convents together at one time against the very Papal Canons cap. Vnum Abbatim 21. q. 1. ex Concilio Agathensi c. 57. Nay denying not licence only or a dispensation or indulgence to Reynolds in case of sickness to eat flesh but even an absolution of his sins on St. Dominicks eve because and only because he would not retract as it was in plain tearms told himself then and even by him that so denyed it his own local Prior in the City of Dublin And yet with more uncivil and barbarous usage to a Priest and from the chief Superiour Provincial in his visitation boxing an other on the face on that account only For they never did nor could taxe him nor any of those few other subscribers with any other kind of misdemeanour Finally removeing all such Friars to other Convents from being under the direction or command of Father Clement Prior of Newtown in Vlster of purpose or because he
is true he did not so fully dilate himself nor troubled himself nor his Reader with forming at large the argument grounded in these clear passages but left that to the judicious Reader as very obvious to any For what can be more obvious first than that neither St. Paul did say or mean that an Angel from heaven or himself should or would at any time preach any other to the Galathians Nor Christ our Saviour did say or mean that himself should or would at any time say that himself did not know the Father Secondly then that St. Paul notwithstanding that certain truth resolved and prayed or wished that both himself and even an Angel from Heaven should be accursed in case of that otherwise in it self absolutely and morally impossible supposition and that our Saviour also who was essential and eternal truth himself said and therefore truely said that in case himself did say he knew not the Father he would himself be a lyar Thirdly then that a general Council howsoever truely such cannot be less deservedly subject to be accursed or less any way be lyars is then Paul or an Angel from Heaven or at least then the natural Son of God Himself and what can be more obvious to a rational man then this discourse framed on such premisses St. Paul and our Saviour himself do cleerly say here that in case of one impossibility an other should follow St. Paul that in case an Angel from Heaven did preach otherwise he should erre and therefore should be accursed Our Saviour that in case himself said he knew not the Father himself should be a lyar And yet neither St. Paul can be therefore taxed with saying absolutely that an Angel from Heaven shall or will or may erre or may be accursed nor our Saviour with saying absolutely that himself shall or will or may be a lyar Ergo neither can the Procurator be in the case taxed with saying absolutely that a general Council truly such shall or will or may at any time erre or with saying absolutely what would onely be consequent to a general Councils conditional errour that the case may shall or will be that the subscribers shall or may be forced either to have recourse from the Representative Church that is from such a general Council to the Diffusive Church or suffer themselves to be mislead by such a Council And this is the argument which he supposed all judicious Readers would of themselves frame out of those two passages of St. Paul and our Saviour given by him briefly in the said 62. page of His More Ample Account Which now again he confesses to appear so evident to himself that he sees not what may be answered but cavil For it matters not a pinn as to the greater or lesser consequence or inconsequence what perhaps some will object that St. Paul was more firmly and cleerly certain that an Angel from Heaven would not preach otherwise c. and that our Saviour questionless was more certain that himself would not say he knew not the Father then the Procuratour was or could be that a general Council should or would or might not define the contrary doctrine c this matters not a pinn I say to prove the form of speech or the strength of the Antecedent to be any way unlike or not the same in both cases as to the concluding or inferring the like consequence to our purpose mutatis mutandis for it is the likeness or sameness of the words in the Antecedents or premisses and not the likeness or sameness of certainty in the eternal sentiments that conclude alike or inferr the like or same consequents However to clear this matter a little further and illustrate it as with the beams of the Sun I will give the objectors two cases to be considered here One past at least partly and very long since even 12. hundred years and an other which may yet well enough be in future times The first or that so already past I have briefly hinted in my More Ample Account pag. 61. it is this Before the general Council of Nice which was the first of general Councils truly such being those Councils of the Apostles have yet a more excellent name which is that of Apostolical although for ought we know ended all of them without any definition of any matters of Faith but that of the Legals only I say that before this first of Nice assembled by the Emperour Constantine the Christian Church especially in the East was lamentably divided into great factions about the Faith of one Substance one partly holding with Arrius and even amongst those very many great Bishops and Archbishops and entire Churches too That there was but one substance or nature of God the Father and of God the Son the other holding they were by nature two substances and so different by nature that the Fathers substance was increated but the Sons even I mean as God purely and essentially created or a creature and onely like the Father and God onely by grace and adoption Now I demand of our objectors what should one of these true believers of one substance answer one of the other side an Arian Heretick pressing him hard before that general Council of Nice convened and pressing him with this discourse You hold firmly and pawn your Salvation on it that there is but one and the self same identical increated substance or divine nature in God the Father and in God the Son as he is God and you are absolutely resolved never to alter that your Faith and you have subscribed a Formula or confession of Faith and a protestation too or Oath whereby you declare and swear that you will never alter your judgment in this point and whereby too you renounce and disclaim in and protest against all contrary doctrine and all authority whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to oblige you to the contrary and notwithstanding all this you see now here is very soon to sit at Nice a general Representative or a general Council truly such of the whole universal Church of Christ on earth What will you say then when they are sate or what will you do or what will you think of that your said Formula confession protestation Oath present resolution and your subscription to all if this general Council most truly such define the contrary I demand I say of our objectors what would themselves have the Catholick Consubstantialists or believers of one substance in three persons which is the very first grand Fundamental of Christian Religion or indeed what the Consubstantialist or Catholick himself could answer in such a case or to such a metaphisical contingencie caprichious interrogatory insisted upon by the Arrian or what could he answer otherwise then as the Procuratour did to the like of Brodin or what is there imaginable to be returned in answer but that in such case the Consubstantialists would
deposed from the sacaerdotal office but also thrust into a strict monastery to do perpetual pennance But nothing is concluded hence or may be against our case but on the contrary much for it as I mean to a lawful discovery of the sin or treason if such it be without discovering the sin or him that in his confession tells that intended treason For it licences the Confessors to consult in some cases with others telling them of the sins without revealing the sinner But for the rest it reflects not at all on the case of the Confessors discovery of an evil intended or plotted by others that never confess'd unto him such evil or such plot albeit the confessor knew it by or in the Sacramental confession of one of the very plotters or of some other that had no further hand in it then that of baâ—e knowledg Much less doth this Canon any way touch the case of a only seeming confitent or of such as is wickedly obstinately still impenitent however discovering such conspiracy in the confessional Seat And as little doth it say that either this kind of confession is any way Sacramental or the Seal or Obligation to keep it secret more then what is meerly natural or would be in case the party told it without any seeming formalities of a seeming Sacramental though truly known to the Confessor to be a very unsacramental confession Besides who knows not the general doctrine of Catholick Divines in relation to the Canons of the Church as such Canons only That they never bind nor intend to bind nor indeed can bind any not even I mean where they are received as this Canon is generally and ought to be not even where they seem in express words to come home to the case all the particular circumstances of it as this Canon doth not in any respect that I say such Canons neither do nor can bind any against the Law of God positive or natural Nay which is more that as barely such or as Canons of the Church only they bind not the faithful to observance where and when the observer must thereby suffer of loss of life or limb or estate or liberty or any other notable great and heavy inconvenience or evil which may be declined by the non observance of them For it is a known maxime of Divines in such cases that the Church is a pious indulgent mother But would she be so or not rather appear a cruel step-mother if she were supposed to make a Canon for concealing the intended ruine of King and Countrey and of an infinite number of Innocents nay and of her self too as may be well supposed in the case and concealing this also when the discovery so made by a confessor might prevent the whole mischief It s cruelty and inhumanity and want of piety and charity and religion and learning and reason too that would make any think she would be so impious And secondly what they can alleadg is That by the divine law natural as t is called by them for positive law divine they have none nor pretend any from Scripture or Tradition all Confessors must so behave themselves towards their penitents or confitents too let them say if they please as not to render the Sacrament of pennance odious And that a lawfulness once allowed in any case for the Confessor to reveal a thing or matter whatever it be told him in the confessional Seat and to reveal it I mean without his consent would render this holy Rite very odious and give occasion to many sinners not to declare their sins entirely but wholly to estrange themselves from confession for ever But if this argument concluded any thing to the purpose it would also conclude that Confessors must not discharg the duty they are confessedly and without contradiction of any side bound unto by all the laws of Reason and by all the Canons of the Fathers They would not enjoyn so many restitutions of lands and goods and same so extreamly grievous very often to penitents Nor would enjoyn so many other heavy pennances either medicinal or satisfactory no less painful then shameful too in many cases And who can deny but such injunctions render confession odious to nature Nay who can deny but the very duty it self of bare confession as it is prescribed by the Canons and Councils of the Church and by all Divines of the Roman Communion taught as necessary and as it is required to be exactly of all particular mortal sins of word deed or even inward consent alone and both of their number as farre as one can remember or conjecture after sufficient examination and of all kind of circumstances too that change the species as they speak must be very odious to nature especially when the sins are unnatural or shameful But if it be answered that such is the duty of the Confessor enjoyn'd him by the positive laws of the Church and by those natural laws also of Reason being he is Judge in that holy tribunal in the place of God and that such too is the doctrine of the Church and Catholick Faith where no liberty is left to Divines for teaching otherwise even so I answer to this allegation or objection of the Sacrament of confession to be rendred odious if the Confessor may be free in any case to make use of notices had therein without the Confitents permission It may indeed render it odious in such a case But to whom To a wicked impenitent or to a most unreasonable man To none truly rational and penitent to no such person making a true Sacramental confession or to none that is resolved at any time to confess holily will the confessors discharging his own duty render such a holy confession odious A duty whereunto and whereby in such case he is bound even by all the very laws of God as well positive as natural as may be easily demonstrated if at any time reqvired to hinder and prevent timely even by such a revelation such deplorable general and otherwise irremediable evils as would in all kind of moral certainty follow his not revealing the design communicated so in confession and let us always suppose the confitents denyal of consent to such revelation Though as I have noted before such denyal can hardly if at all be supposed in a true penitential confitent or in a true Sacramental confession unless we suppose withal the penitent to be some strange meer natural blockhead that is not capable of understanding his own obligation in such a case or the ghostly Fathers instructions in it Which yet is very like an impossible supposition 6. That our Masters of Lovain will find it a very hard if not absolutely impossible task To perswade a knowing pious man that either any dictate of natural reason or any ordinance of human Canons much less any article of Christian Faith or Catholick Religion hetherto delivered us either formally or virtually by Scripture or by tradition tye Confessors I
christian Doctors at all in this point as neither in any other that relates to either of their Censures their first and long and their last and short one of our Remonstrance For I am sure there is no Divine no knowing christian no man of reason in the world that knows what christian Religion is will say there can be other convincing proof of a Theological assertion or censure either in the affirmative or negative but one of those I offer them to prove theirs by And yet I know there may be vitious customs in the Church though not therefore imputable to the Church as approving but only at most to the Superiors or some or the chief of those Superiors as not correcting them And confess too there may be amongst either the old or late canons of those which are commonly stiled amongst us the Canons of the Church some concerning discipline only which conclude no man not even any Roman Catholick necessarily so as to render it uncatholick or unlawful in point of conscience for him to swerve from them either in a good opinion of them or moral practice by them in all cases times or Countries On which Subject and to which purpose Canus the Dominican learned Bishop of the Canaries one of the Trent Fathers may be consulted with in his work de Locis Theologicis But the rejection in so many Catholick Diocesses and countries of those very Canons of Discipline in our most famous Tridentine Council though generally amongst all of the Roman Communion held for Oecumenical besides many others of like nature and several other Councils too even uncontrovertedly general of elder standing may be more seriously considered All which notwithstanding or notwithstanding that what I have now observed of such customs or canons be a consideration of great importance yet I wave it freely as to my present dispute with the Divines of Lovaine about the seal of confession or the Confessors obligation to reveal both the treason and person in our case of such damnable confession or consultation in the confessional seat and when the evil cannot be otherwise prevented LVIII But to the end the Readers may see if they please I am not more single or singular in this very case of revealing so the very person of such a Confitent when of absolute necessity for preventing of such evil than I was in that other of revealing the evil only or treason it self to prevent it the very self same Catholick and Classick Authors especially Sylvester verb. Confessio 3. Quaesito quarto et quinto quoted by me above in my fift consideration will sufficiently prove being themselves of the same opinion and upon the self same grounds maintaining it that is not only the lawfulness of such revelation but an obligation too on the confessor to discharge himself so when he may without danger to himself For although Sylvester does not in those places querie or even resolve in express tearms about revealing the very person of such a Confitent yet it is as clear as the Sun he both means and reaches it both in his Queries and Resolves First because in his first Querie of that Chapter or title where he demands quid cadat sub sigillo Confessionis he resolving that those sins only fall under that seal which directly fall under Sacramental confession and all things els which indirectly or out of which any third person might come to knowledge of any such sin not simply in it self but relatively to the person that confess'd it ex quibus deveniri potest in notitiam peccati non simpliciter sed relative ad personam quae illud confessa est resolves consequently as well in that very place or in answer to that first Querie as in an other place after or amongst his answers to the 4th Querie and resolves too with all truth and Divinity and with Scotus and the common Doctrine of Divines against Panâ—rmitan That no sins confess'd fall under that seal as simply sins or simply confess'd but only as having relation to this or that person Secondly because that after having layd this ground in that first Querie he demands in his fourth Vtrum aliquo casu liceat sacerdoti confessionem revelare contra dictum sigillum propter aliquod damnum aut peccatum vel periculum vitandum whether it be lawfull for the Priest in any case to reveal confession against the said seal for prevention of any hurt sin or danger And in his fifth Quibus casibus andita in confessione dici aut manifestari possint sine fractione dicti sigilli In what cases the Confessor may without breach of that seal reveal what he knew in confession And thirdly because his resolves to the said fourth and fift Queries and his Instances and the reasons he gives for such resolves and instances evict plainly this truth For having first answered negatively that fourth Querie according to the common doctrine of St. Thomas and others he restraines and limits immediately after that general resolution by a specifical exception of such cases wherein there is not a true sacramental confession but a meer fiction of such for other evil ends as those for example of engageing the Confessor himself or of getting his advice or other help to execute a sinful design And gives for a reason that such a fained Penitent or Confitent opens not such matters to the Priest as to the Minister of God nor as in sacramental confession As the Reader may see here in his own words and language Quarto utrum aliquo casu liceat sacerdoti confessionem revelare contra dictum sigillum propter aliquod damnum aut peceatum vel periculum vit andum Et dico secundum S. T. et Pe. et communem omnium quod non Quod limita secundum Rai et gl in tit de paen et re quando quis vere confitetur Secus quando ficté ad impetrandum a confessore auxilium vel â—â—nsilium super aliquo peccato Hoc enim non est confessio etiam si dicatur hoc tibi dico in confessione sed confessionis destructio Et consentit Innoc. in dicto capite omnis dicens non esse verum quod tales dicant in paenitentia vel Dei Ministro cum animae consilium non requirant And having answer'd the fift Querie affirmatively or that in many cases the sin heard in confession may be revealed by the Confessor without any breach of that Seal he instances in the third place or case one that tells in Confession he hath still a real fixed purpose to commit some evil as for example to murder some body and in this third case resolves with Innocentius and Panormitan 1. That such confession is no confession at all belonging to the penitential or sacramental Court nor the Confessor bound to conceal it as being not of a sin already committed but hereafter to be committed and consequently of a sin by no means told in the sacrament or under the Seal of
with marrying Theophanes Augusta or the widdow Empress notwithstanding his own former legitimate wife was still alive and no other cause to divorce from her and that besides he had received her or the said Theophanes's Son as a Godfather out of the Sacred Font and with too much liberty given to his army to oppress against all right and reason as well the Layety as the Clergie indulging them whatever they fancied and without any punishment and with robbing the very Churches of their donaries and with laying grievous excessive tributs on both Churchmen and Layemen against the law and with assuming to himself entirely the elections of Bishops and taking to himself also all the spoils of the dead Bishops and finally with endeavouring to have all the Souldiers killed under him in his warr against the Sarracens to be accounted and invoked as martyrs Do not the Greek Historians charge this Nicephorus with all these particulars and not with that law onely And if so as questionless it is so how could Basilius Porphyrogenitus or Bellarmine or we out of either perswade our selves with any certitude it was for a bare law revoking some former priviledges of the Clergie in case I say that law was such that Empire suffered in after days and not rather for some of those other undoubted exorbitancies against undoubted either divine or humane laws or suffered not for that law in it self but for the evil end or evil execution or use of it For a law may be good in it self and yet the intention of the law maker and his use of it very wicked And after all whether it was so or no what proof I beseech you is that bare saving conjecture opinion or judgement of Porphyrogenitus That Bellarmines pretended Exemption of Clerks in all both civil and criminal causes whatsoever from the supream civil power hath been established either by the law divine natural or by the law of Nations That saying of Basilius Porphyrogenitus doth not touch this matter at all So that from first to last I dare conclude That for such Exemption and by such law of Nature and Nations Bellarmine hath not brought as much as any one argument which may seem to have the least colour of even probability itself nay nor even of that very worst sort of probability or that which our late Schoolmen call extrinsick onely Which himself did know so well that after having laboured so much to impose on us such exemption by such laws in a whole chapter yet in the chapter immediately following which is his 30. chap. l. 1. de Cleric he dares not give this doctrine of his own any better title or any better assurance not even for the being of it as much as by the divine positive law but onely the title or assurance of a bare probability of consequence And which further yet he knew so well that as he never once thought of the least Exemption of Clerks either as to their goods or as to their persons in politick or temporal affairs criminal or civil causes from any civil power whatsoever supream or not supream not even from the most inferiour civil Courts or Judges or of any kind of Exemption at all established for them in temporal matters by any law divine either natural or positive that I say as he never thought of any such Exemption by such laws in all or any the former editions of his Controversies or not until the very last edition of them by his own commands so it must be confessed he was in this point a very great changling to wit after he had seen all his other arguments out of human law or out of the civil and Canon law for his exorbitant exemption answered home by Doctor William Barclay in his accurate though little book de Potestate Papae particularly in the 15. and 32. chapters of the said book For in those former editions himself taught in express tearms against the Canonists Exemptionem Clericorum in rebus politicis tam quoad personas quam quoad bona jure humano introductam esse non divino That the exemption of Clerks in politick matters as well concerning their persons as their goods was introduced by humane law not by divine Nay also as Barclay well notes de Potestate Papae c. 15. made it his business to wit in those former editions besides which the foresaid Barclay the Father knew of none to prove the truth hereof by three several sorts of arguments 1. by that of Paul Rom. 13. omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit according to St. Chrysostome's exposition and understanding of it to be a command as well for Clerks as for Laycks 2. by other testimonies of holy Fathers in the point 3. because sayes he nullum prâ—ferri potest Dei verbum quo ista exemptio confirmetur there cannot be any word of God alleadg'd for this exemption From which doctrine he was so farre in his last edition that seeing he was left no other argument undissolved no other way unblocked for maintayning or carrying on his Exemption or that of Clerks in his exorbitant latitude of it and yet would not yield to victorious Truth he would needs in his old age trouble himself and others with a new invention or pretension rather nay rather too a meer aequivocation in effect of not onely a positive law divine per quandam similitudinem but even of a natural law divine and further confound the law of nature with that of nations and yet in the end of all pretend no more cap. 30. in solutione primae objectionis but a meer probability of consequence for his positive law of God nor for his natural but such a third degree c 29. as by his own explication of the third degree is no kind of degree at all of any true law of nature Whether this be not to abuse both Clerks and Layicks Princes and Subjects the State and Church being the controversy is of so high concern to all for the peace of the world I leave the indifferent Reader to judge For I have done my part and proceed now to shew by the solution of his other arguments LXVIII That for what concerns human laws too either civil or Ecclesiastical the case is also clear enough of my side both against him and our late Doctors of Lovaine That by neither law Clerks have ever yet been exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power nay nor in any kind of meer temporal cause whatsoever criminal or civil from that supream civil power were it necessary for my present purpose to add this as it is not Though I confess they have been exempted and very justly too by several both imperial and other municipal and Royal laws from inferiour civil Judicatories in many civil causes and in some Countries by the peculiar municipal laws of such Countries exempted also in some criminal causes in prima instantia from the inferiour subordinate civil Judges and other Judges that
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
of the didrachma and for his own very person Matth. 17.27 But this Boniface exalting himself in so much that is in temporal power above earthly Princes and States farre more then nay quite contrary to that which our Lord and Saviour Christ is read to have done himself in mortal flesh at any time or by any Instance had the confidence to attempt the bereaving even the very highest supream temporal Princes of those rights and of those duties which by the very law of God himself were theirs and were to be paid unto them unless peradventure themselves had voluntarily devested themselves of such rights or freely remitted such duties in this or that contingency I have before Section LXI though upon an others occasion and to other purpose quoted the Canon which is in cap. Clericiâ— de Immun Ecclesiaâ— in 6. wherein and whereby Boniface made this bold attempt as particularly or specifically excommunicating and by an excommunication too reserved for absolution to the Pope himself nisi in articulo mortis all Officials Rectors Captains Magistrats Barons Counts Dukes Princes and even all Kings and Emperours and generally all others of whatever praeeminency condition or estate who should upon any kind of occasion title or pretext whatsoever impose any tallies taxes collections or any tenths twentieths or hundreths upon any Church persons Churchlands or Church-revenues or who should exact or even receave any such without special licence of the Apostolick See and moreover excommunicating all orders and degrees of the very Churchmen themselves who should as much as promise to pay or consent to the payment of any such impositions or even promise or consent to pay or give any kind of money or quantity or portion of money to such Princes States Lords Officials c under any other title as that of a charitable subsidy or help-money or that of loane-money or that also of gift-money without the authority or licence of the said Apostolick See But this too excessive boldness of Boniface was both acknowledg'd and corrected by Clement the V. and by the General Council of Vienna In which Council the said Clement presiding that canon of Boniface with all the several branches or declarations of it was totally expung'd and abolished as appears by Clementina Quoniam de Immun Ecclesiaâ— But whether that Decree of Boniface was principally made by him in hatred of Phillip King of France as whom Boniface could not or would suffer to bestow the Ecclesiastical benefices of France at his own pleasure on such as he would and impose also or receave from the Churchmen or Church-revenues of France such moneyes as he wanted for the carrying on of his warr in Flanders whether so or no I say it matters not For he made it and made it generally even for all Kings Emperours c. Indeed the Gloss in Extravag Quod olim de Immunit Ecclesiarum sayes it was for the former cause he made that constitution as also that out of it orta fuerunt multa scandala Vnde Clemens Papa in Clement Quoniam de Immunit Ecclesiar voluit quod antiqna Iura servarentur non alla Constitutio But we know out of Ecclesiastical History the first original and whole procedure and by what degrees Boniface came at last to that extravagancy as to write also to that very Phillip that he held them all for Hereticks who did not acknowledg the Papal supremacy in the Kingdome of France and in all temporals as well as in spirituals Which great exorbitancy as well of the said canon as of all the precedent concountant and subsequent proceedings of Boniface occasion'd so much trouble to the vniversal Church as we know the translation of the Papacy it self to France and the frequent long scandalous and pernicious schysmes betwixt Anti popes which enâ—â—ed thereupon amounted unto For so it naturally and commonly happens that while the spiritual Prelats of the Church do according to the doctrine and practise of the ancient Church with all Christian humility obey the temporal Princes in temporal matters the Church it self and these Prelats in her enjoy Halcyon dayes peace and rest and tranquillity as that when and as often as the same Prelats replenish'd with the spirit of this world lift up their horns against Princes pushing at their temporals there is nothing to be seen but scandal and trouble and woe and calamity both in Church and State And so I have ended my comparison 'twixt the more ancient holy Popes and some of their later successors in the matter of subjection and obedience as due or not due from all Clergiemen and consequently from the very Popes themselves in temporal things to supream lay Princes I mean forasmuch as can appear out of the law of God and I mean too where Church-men themselves are not by humane right the supream temporal Princes And consequently do not mean at all by this or any other dispute or passage in this whole book to assert the subjection of Popes as they are at present though not at best but by humane right onely supposed by some or perhaps most writers to be absolute in their own temporal Patrimony and Principality that I mean of some Citties and territories of Italy and to be wholly exempt even in all kind of temporals from the Imperial power As neither do I on the other side mean to assert their such exemption or any in all kind of cases and temporals from the Emperour but abstract wholly from both the one and the other as not concerning my purpose Which purpose as I have often declared is onely and solely to oppose the exemption of all or any Churchmen in the world even of the very Pope himself from lay temporal Princes in temporal matters upon any such account as that of Sacerdotal Episcopal Papal or even Apostolical Order and my particular purpose in this present Section being to prove their subjection to lay Princes by the examples or practise of as well Popes as other Bishops nay and of most Christian Princes too in the more ancient and more holy Ages of the Church Now who sees not it is very wide from this purpose to dispute whether any Churchman any Bishop Arch-bishop Patriarch or Pope hath upon some other account been at any time or be at present exempt from all earthly powers of other Princes that is whether upon account of meer humane right given them by the Emperours or people as that acquired by donation prescription submission a just or lawfull conquest or by sale and emption c Or to dispute whether the investiture or election of the German Emperours to the title and rights of the Empire of Rome and King of the Romans or whether also the entry of their Embassadours to Rome with a naked sword in their hands or carried before them which the Embassadours of other Princes have not nor do challenge whether I say these very ceremonies be sufficient or no to hinder the Pope to be absolutely or independently
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
quarrel and though his body likewise had been subservient and obedient in all things to the most holy dictats of his Soul For we know that invincible or inculpable prejudice ignorance or inadvertisement against the truth of things in the course of a mans life in his actions or in his contests or even some time in his doctrine which strikes not at the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so his Soul be ever piously and charitably and Christianly and resignedly disposed to embrace truth when known either by evidence of reason or from such an authority as it is bound to submit unto doth not hinder either Sanctity or martyrdom or miracles or due canonization or a fit veneration or answerable invocation of him as even a martyrized and miraculous Saint The example of S. Cyprian that great holy martyrized Saint and Patriarch of Affrick who both lived and dyed in a wrongfull contest with even the Popes of Rome themselves and even also in a very material point of Christian doctrine is evidence enough for this And S Paul's contest with S. Peter at Antioch about the observation of the Jewish laws is evidence enough And very many other examples of great holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church who lived and dyed in material errours and material heresies too especially if the doctrine of Bellarmine in many places nay or that of even of many or rather most other School Divines be true may be produced ex superabundanti to make good this evidence 4. That the infallibility of Pope Alexander the third in canonizing S. Thomas of Canterbury and I speak now to them who suppose the Pope so infallible in all his Definitions or Bulls concerning any doctrine or fact or matter of Piety that he is so too in his canonization of Saints implyed or inferr'd of necessity that all his quarrels or at least the substantial part of that quarrel which occasion'd his death principally immediatly ultimatly not onely was just but must have been just according to the very objective truth of things in themselves and that otherwise there could be no infallibility in the said Alexander's canonization of him for a Saint and a martyr and that likewise the pursuant veneration and invocation of him for such by the Church and the miracles wrought at his hearse before he was interr'd as for example the candles lighting of themselves about his hearse after they had been quenched and his lifting up his hand after the office of the dead was ended and blessing the people c and so many other miracles wrought at several times at his Tomb after he had been long enterred that I say neither that veneration or invocation could be in truth practised without impiety or at least very much temerity not those miracles alleadg'd without forgery and fallacy nor he called a martyr in any true sense if his quarrels or quarrel as now is said with Henry the Second had not been just according to the objective truth of things in themselves For as I denyed the former three suppositions so I do this fourth also or at least I say that I am not bound to admit it First because that even allowing or if I did allow Bellarmine's or any other's doctrine of the infallibility of Popes in their Bulls of canonization and other Bulls whatsoever yet is it plain enough and even admitted by such Divines that possibly there may be an errour in some particular allegations or suppositions entertained by the Popes in the process formed for such canonization and even expressed also or insinuated in the very letters of the canonization and that no such allegations or suppositions reasons or motives are defined in any Bull of canonization or even in any other whatsoever but the principal design onely and that this in Bulls of canonization is onely that such or such a holy man is in the joyes of the blessed seeing God in the face and therefore he may be invocated as such and consequently that the infallibility which they do attribute to the Popes in their Bulls of canonization may subsist notwithstanding that some of those motives or inducements were in themselves false according at least to the objective truth of things For all which these Divines pretend to in this matter is the infallible assistance of Gods holy spirit or of his external Providence promised infallibly as they suppose to the Pope in not proposing any by such a solemn declaration to be invoked as a Saint who is not so indeed but not in supposing this or that which is said of some passage of his life nor by consequence in supposing what was the true cause of his violent death when he dyed so or that the cause was such as would make him a martyr in the stricktest sense of this word Martyr as used in the Church by way of distinction not onely from a Confessour but from such holy men who suffered violent deaths unjustly that is not by the prescript of the laws but by the power onely of wicked men or women and that too sometimes not for any cause they maintayn'd but out of hatred to their persons or to arrive at some worldly end which their life observed whereof St. Edward the Second a Saxon King of England Son to the good King Edgar is a very sufficient example who was and is invoked as a martyr and a very miraculous martyr too notwithstanding he was murthred onely by a servant and at the command of his Stepmother Alfreda as he was drinking on horseback and this too for no other cause but that her own Son Ethelredus should come to be King as presently he was made Polydore Virgil Anglicae Historiae l. VII as sometimes also for a cause which though not so clear on either side in the judgment I mean of some other indifferent men nay perhaps unrighteous on the side of the holy sufferers according to the objective truth of things in themselves yet invincibly appearing just or the more just and the more holy and pious unto them and to others also who had their life otherwise and justly too or according also even to the certain objective truth of other things in due veneration For Martyr in Greek is a witness in English and martyrdom in the Ecclesiastical use of the word is variously applyed sometime strictly to import a violent death suffered without any reluctance and suffered meerly and onely for professing or for not denying a known certain evident or notorious Catholick Evangelical truth or which is the same thing to import a witnessing or a bearing testimony to such a truth by such a death sometime largely or not so strictly however properly still to import by such a death a witnessing or a bearing testimony to a good zeal and great piety and excellent conscience in being constant to a cause which one esteems the more just and generally seems the more pious for all he knows though it be not an evangelical truth and though perhaps
in his own Conscience and both before God and man confess it when he reflected on so many Texts of Holy Scripture especially on that of St. Paul 13 Rom. and on the Doctrine and Expositions of all the Holy Fathers and on the practice not only of the Primitive Church but of all ensuing Churches throughout the World and of both Laity and Clergy until Gregory the VII time some Ten entire Ages after Christ and all for the independency of the civil Power of Princes from the Church as also for the subjection of the Church in civil matters to earthly Princes Humane nay and daily humane Experience also forasmuch as we see it Taught by so many famous Divines and read in their Books That it is not alwayes safe in point of Conscience to follow that opinion in practice which in pure speculation seems probable to us nay or even that which so seems the more probable whereof I could instance a variety of Examples and see it taught and read in them consequently That some may have a pure speculative opinion as probable nay as the more probable to them for such or such a power to be in the Church in actu primo and yet not this other annexed consideratis omnibus That it is lawful for the Church to proceed at any time to the execution of it And forasmuch also as all Ghostly Fathers or the Judicious and who are of a timorous Conscience nay and others too besides Ghostly Fathers daily find it so in themselves at least in such cases wherein they know that if possibly they should err and transgress against the objective Truth of Things and Laws by following in practice such a speculation as upon some ground or other seems to them to be probable or even the more probable they may run a great hazard to undergo the punishment due in the justice of God for such breach whereas they are absolutely certain that whether their such speculation be true or false yet if they in practice follow the contrary opinion or speculation there is no Law at all as much as objectively taken which may be transgressed by them As for Example in case of such a pure speculative opinion of a power in ones self to force away his Horse or Purse or House or Lands or Lordship or Principality from another who both himself and Predecessors was and were ever till then bona fide in peaceable possession and were so if it was a Lordship or Lands c. for a Thousand years For in such a case there can be no sin no breach of any Law in not Conforming in practice to the speculation but there may be in Conforming And consequently common experience also in the daily regulation of our own Conscience tells us there must not of necessity be such a connexion of dictates Besides who sees not that whether so or no there was not in England at least in the dayes of Thomas of Canterbury any Law making it Treason to hold That the Christian Church in some extraordinary case might transfer the Right of that Crown from Henry the Second As for Example in case he had really Apostatized and not only from the true Papacy or from Pope Alexander to the Anti-Pope Victor but even from Christianity it self as some of his Ambassadors to Rome and the Bishop of London in some of his Letters extant in Hoveden seemed to Threaten either the one or the other T is true I am against the Doctrine which attributes any such power to the Church as a Church or to it at all de jure divino and much more against the lawfulness of putting such pretence in execution But hence it doth not follow That as much as in my judgment the Doctrine of such power or of such practick lawfulness is Treasonable at least in all Times and all Countries For the Church may some time and in some Countrey have such a power by meer humane Right And whether she have or no where the Law of the Countrey doth not make the practice Treason or the Doctrine or Dictate Treasonable neither can be so Each or both may be unconscientious erroneous injurious and wicked at least according to the objective Truth of Things and Laws of God in themselves but to be Treason or Treasonable is another thing I said That in the dayes of Thomas there was no such Law in England for I leave it to the Learned and Reverend Judges of England to determine Whether after the Laws of Praemunire by Edward the Third and Richard the Second were made and that Declaration in this of Richard the Second made by joint consent of the Bishops too That the Crown of England is subject to none but God it be Treasonable Doctrine in England to teach the contrary I am sure the like in France and of France though extremely and most justly too censured by all the Universities of France and the Abettors or Teachers of such degraded lately in Schools and otherwise punished yet Cardinal Peron's interposition in the time of Henry the Third of France by his fine speech in the Assembly of Estates hinderâ—d it from being then declared Treason or Treasonable or Heresie or Heretical and ever since from being accounted or punished as Treason or Treasonable though of late severely and I think justly proceeded against as at least false erroneous scandalous dangerous against the Word of God c. And yet I am sure also That whether it be so or no at this time either in France or England St. Thomas of Canterbury cannot be said to have been or to be concern'd You will say again perhaps objecting your very last and strongest reserve That whatever may be said to excuse his principles of Judgment or Doctrine from being Treasonable for that I mean which appears in any of his Epistles or in that Speech of his at Chinun or other extant nothing can be said to excuse him from actual Treason which is more and worse For you will say That the Archbishop of York and Bishop of London and Salisbury did so charge him when after his return he refused to absolve them but on such a condition as they would not lie under without the Kings consent and when therefore they having cross'd the Sea to the old King the Father to Normandy they sent an Express back to England and to the young King to persuade the said young King That Thomas had sought and endeavoured to depose him Qui ei persuaderent sayes Spondanus out of Baronius and Baronius out of the Saints own 73 Epist which was his last to Pope Alexander Thomam quaesivisse cum deponere But I answer That such a charge of his such publick and profess'd Enemies was not is not to be at all believed without other proof than their own such private suggestion of it by their own Messenger to the young timorous King That no Relation or History makes mention not only not of any proof but not as much as of any
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
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
Kilfinuran On the xviii a third Message to the Congregation Burk and Fogerty on the xx present a second Petition to the Lord Lieutenant with a Paper of Reasons why the Fathers would not sign the other three Sorbon Declarations as applied c. The Lord Lieutenant's Answer being reported they or at least the chief of them are startled desire more time to sit and deliberate obtain it and yet conclude at last in the Negative Dr. Daly's exception Letter to them from the Subscribers of the first Remonstrance On the xxv their last sitting was Wherein the Procurator tells them first of the Lord Lieutenant's positive Commands to dissolve Next contradicts the relation of Ardagh Then refuses their offer both of Money and commendatory Letters In the fourth place gives a large account of the famed wonder-working Priest James Finachty Lastly moves for and procures their condemnation of two Books the one of C. M. the Jesuite and the other of R. F. the Cappuccin Some other passages relating to the Lord Lieutenant and Bishops which happen'd immediately after the Congregation was dissolv'd The Procurator's judgment of this Congregation leading Members thereof and of their several interests and ends After their dissolution the Doctrine of Allegiance in fifteen several Propositions debated for a whole Month by a Select number of Divines A Paper of Animadversions given to the Lord Lieutenant and his Graces commands laid on the Procurator I. IN September 1665. the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland having landed at Waterford passed to Kilkenny and there continuing some Weeks Father Patrick Maginn one of Her Majesties Chaplains who had from England as I noted before waited on his Grace to take that good opportunity of crossing the Sea safely came from Kilkenny to Dublin some Weeks before his Grace but in order to a further Journey to see his Friends in the North of Ireland Being come to Dublin and the Procurator Father Peter Walsh who was about that time also landed from Holy-head giving him a visit for their acquaintance and some small friendship lately before contracted in England Father Patrick offered his own endeavours to work his Countreymen of the North to a Subscription of the Remonstrance hoping thereby to make them and consequently the rest of the Roman-Catholick Irish more capable of His Majesties future Favours and abate somewhat of the rigour of the Court of Claims pursuing the new Explanatory Act which the Lord Lieutenant had then brought with him from the King and Council of England to pass in this Parliament of Ireland In particular he promised to persuade his own Brother Ronan Maginn a Priest Doctor of Divinity bred in Italy and then by a Roman Bull or Papal Dean of Dromore to subscribe and that him and Dr. Patrick Daly Vicar-General of Ardmagh and under the Archbishop Edmund Reilly a banish'd man living then in France Judge Delegate of that whole Province he would bring to Dublin to confer with the Procurator in order to a general Subscription Pursuant to his promise Father Patrick being immediately departed to the North persuades Dr. Daly to come to Dublin as likewise he brought in his own company his Brother Ronan And indeed Ronan after some Weeks conference with the Procurator and study of such Books as he had from him especially Father Caron's Remonstrantia Hibernorum at last having fully satisfied his own judgment did both freely and heartily Subscribe But for Dr. Daly he was still where he formerly was viz. at the desires of a National Synod or Congregation before he could resolve See the First Part Sect. IX pag. 27. num 16. and Sect. X. pag. 40. num 16. and Sect. XVI pag. 48. near the bottom where you have not only those desires of a National Congregation urg'd anno 1662. by the Bishop of Meath by the Vicar Apostolical of Dublin and some other such Vicars too from several parts of Ireland but also in the above page 40 and page 50. the Procurator's answer at large shewing the unreasonableness of those desires then However now or in the year 1665. the Procurator seeing no remedy i. e. no other way to cure their obstinacy thought fit at last to try this by condescending to their demand What reasons induced him now to yield herein more than before were these 1. That the Primate of Ardmagh Edmund Reilly and the Bishop of Ferns Nicholas French such leading men especially the one in the North and the other in Leinster if not all over Ireland seemâ—d by their frequent Letters from beyond Seas to the Procurator desirous to come home upon any reasonable account and submission also to His Majesty and to the Lord Lieutenant for past offences in the time of War and not to disallow but rather allow of the Remonstrance and not they alone but also the Bishop of Kilfinuran 2. That now His Majesty having been engaged in a War both with Holland and France some of the discontented Irish had been tampering with France for creating new Troubles in Ireland either by an Invasion or Insurrection or rather both and that the exiled Bishops if returned home although on pretence only of such a Congregation their very coming home so whatever otherwise they intended really would much weaken and discountenance any such either hostile or rebellious design being the end of such a Meeting was generally and evidently known out of the very Letters of Indiction to be no other than to assure the King of their indispensable fidelity in all cases and after-times 3. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance and good opinion of that Formulary had even at home in Ireland many more Favourers and Abettors now in 1665. than it had some three years before many even learned and pious Churchmen out of several parts of Ireland though not called upon having since that time come of purpose freely and affectionately to Dublin to sign it besides those of the Nobility and Gentry and some others too of the Commons as you may see page 47. 95. and 99. of the First Part of this First Treatise where also page 13. you may see the Bishop of Ardagh then in 1665. at home in Ireland approving it under his hand from Seez in France Dec. 2. 1662. in his Letter to Sir Nicholas Plunket and page 93. Father Antony Docharty Minister Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Ireland likewise under his own hand to the Lord Lieutenant concurring to it 4. That by this time the Procurator himself who chiefly promoted that work had as by many others endeavours so in a special manner by his then late Reply to the Person of Quality not onely endeared himself to the Nation in general but even to many of his former opposers amongst them and much confounded the most malicious and inveterate of those who were his old profess'd enemies upon the Nuncio's account or that of his writings and actings against the Nuncio and Owen O Neill's party 5. That in all likelihood if the Congregation were held
amongst their miserable Relations or were actual Prisoners to the Parliament or peradventure expected at least some of them a better opportunity to go if they could not stay That if I say for so long time at home after Rathmines Fate matters went so ill with all those were against the Nuncio and his censures and Owen O Neil and were for the Cessation Appeal Peace Ormond and consequently for the King much more ill must all things have gone after and accordingly did go with them abroad in all Forraign Countries of the Roman Communion and in all places and amongst all people wheresoever the Roman Court had any jurisdiction power authority or influence Their fellow exiles of the Nuncio party however Countrey-men and many of them also neighbours and kinsfolks having their hearts hardned against any commiseration and their understandings not at all as it would seem enlightned by so many and such prodigious calamities so lately befallen their common Countrey and themselves proved even in those Forraign Parts as cruel foes to them as when at home or rather yet far more cruel even in very deed as cruel as Tygers In Spain Portugal France Flanders Germany Italy nay as far as Hungary wheresoever any of the Appellants those peaceable but unfortunate Irishmen were retired to live and die in Peace if they could the Nuntiotist's who were in far greater numbers every where dispersed and well entertained yea and of far more credit also as having the speciousness of a Papal Nuntio's cause against Hereticks and recommendations of Rome and consequently of all other both Forraign Bishops and General Superiours of Orders to gain them credit informing the Natives and possessing them with sundry abominable wicked lies not only to hinder those more then afflicted men from any kind of harbour entertainment relief or even Almes given to the miserablest of beggars but also to perswade all the said Natives even to persecute them as Ormonians enemes of their own Countrey Antinuntiotists Antipapists Anticatholicks excommunicat persons favourers of Hereticks and in plain terms at last both Schismaticks and Hereticks too themselves The great plotters furtherers encouragers actors of all such evil and inhuman designs against them next after some of the Nuntiotist exiled Bishops and Paul King at Rome and Dionisius Masarius Dean of Firmo but at that time Secretary also at Rome to the Congregation of Cardinals de propaganda Fide as he had formerly been the chief man with his Lord the Nuncio in Ireland were in general the three Irish Franciscan Cloysters and Colledges the first in Louain second at Prague in Bohemia third in Rome and the Dominican Irish Colledge at Louain too and besides these all other the several Seminaries of the Irish Secular Priests and Students in Flanders France Spain and Portugal In all which as the exiled Nuntiotists had good reception so the other side had none at all both the natural inclination and worldly interests of such persons as even all along the time of the War in Ireland and much more after possessed these Colledges and Seminaries rendring the very name of Antinuntiotists odious to them Besides that the Divinity Principles commonly taught in their Schools entituled the Pope to the temporals of all the World and not only to Ireland or England c. though more especially to these and such other Countries whose Kings or chief Governours fell off from acknowledging the Holy See and consequently that the very intellect of such possessors of those Houses at least generally taking them was wholly prepossest against that name rendred so odious To descend to particular instances of those Antinuntiotists that found by sad experience in their own persons how cruel their foresaid opposite brethren were abroad and made others also be were it my design here I could manifoldly For to pass over now so may young Fathers and Students Nicholas Archbold Christopher Plunket Thomas Shortal John Shortal c. at Louain and so many others elsewhere albeit the ornament of their Colledges yet about the Year 1650 turned out of the Colledges only because they had either a little before studied under Father Walsh at Kilkenny or for some other cause or jealousie had been but suspected to be Ormonians I could name but too too many even of the more ancient known and esteemed honest men against whom being exiled to Forraign Parts the greatest malice of the Nuntiotists displayed it self though in several places and Countries openly professedly and only on account of their having approved by signature under their hands my Book of Queries Printed at Kilkenny in 1648. though only a Book against the Nuncio's censures and for the Appeal of the Supreme Council to Pope Innocent the Tenth and amongst them particularly Father John Barnwal of St. Francis's Order Reader of Divinity denyed even so little as one nights lodging in the Count of Louain and Father _____ Brown the Carmelit sufficiently vexed by those of his own Order Laurence Archbold lately before Vicar General of the Archbishoprick of Dublin and Doctor _____ Taylor two secular Priests so much malign'd in France of purpose to hinder them even from any kind of livelihood or charity of strangers and Father Laurence Tankard shut up in the Prison of Ara caeli at Rome I could also name Redmund Caron Reader of Divinity the late Commissary of his Order in Ireland Anthony Gearnon Matthias Barnwal Anthony Conmeus Reader of Divinity Morice Fitz Gerrald Francis Dillon all of them qualified and good men of the Franciscan Order all of them living religiously in their several Convents in the Low-countries except only Francis Dillon who continued still in France and Anthony Gearnon that was at all adventures return'd to his mission in Ireland by permission of his General Superiour and I could tell how all these were used in the Year 1653. that is how by a notoriously and manifoldly both false and wicked information sent expresly and purposely from Rome by two furios Zealots the one an Irishman the other an Italian against them to the Spanish General of the Franciscans Fray Pedro Manero at Madrid in Spain they were all immediately thereupon by a special Letter even from his Catholick Majesty himself to the Archduke Leopoldo at Brussels ordered to be Banished presently and perpetually out of all and every of the Dominions of the Spanish Monarchy the true and only cause indeed though not represented to his Catholick Majesty nor perhaps to Manero being that they also either maintain'd or were known to be for the Doctrine and cause which that Book asserted Nor doth it lessen the malice of their Adversaries that the information being found in all particulars very false that sentence was suspended I could moreover and without any question name the Author of that Book i. e. my self as who partly on that very occasion I mean of that Letter for Banishing sent to Leopoldo signified to me being returned from Ireland to London by Father Caron from Flanders and partly to justifie
it fit to let them know I have no purpose of leaving this City so soon but that they may have time enough to resolve upon Subscribing the said Declaration and Protestation which contains nothing but a necessary and dutiful acknowledgment of the Loyalty they owe His Majesty and a Condemnation of all Doctrine and Practice contrary thereunto And I think fit further to put them in mind that such an opportunity as this hath not been given to them or to their Predecessors and if now lost may not perhaps be easily or quickly recovered This worthy Messenger and so Catholick a Gentleman too nay of such repute amongst the late Roman Catholick Confederates of Ireland that he was the first Embassadour employed by them to the Pope and other Princes and States of Italy having done so his duty in reading that Message to the Congregation was further pleased out of his own great good will to and Zeal for them and his Religion and Countrey in general to adde also his own further desires advice reasons exhortations and importunity beseeching them with all earnestness to take special notice of the Lord Lieutenants so gracious and seasonable reminding them not to lose the present opportunity c. After this Gentleman's departure which was as soon as he had done his own speech the Procurator 〈◊〉 my self P.W. made his also being his third Speech and last indeed on the Subject of the Remonstrance of 1661. for the Signing or Subscribing of which they â—ere permitted to sit as His Grace the Lord Lieutenant expresly minds them 〈◊〉 the Second time in his Message by Mr. Belings And from this expression of his Grace the said Procurator took his exordium again now failing not in the prosecution to present and exaggerate to the Fathers by all sorts of Arguments the manifold inconveniences and irremediable evils which in a little time they would bring on themselves and all the Native People of their Communion if they persisted in their inconsiderate resolve of declining what was both expected and demanded from them the Subscription of the above Remonstrance or if in lieu thereof they subscribed only an unsignificant Formulary of a private Cabalâ—s framing long before they met in this National Congregation But finding their leading men would by no means be drawn from their unhappy purpose of Subscribing only that of their Cabal the Procurator willing yet to try a little further all possible ways of saving them by rendring their meeting in some sort successful or to some good end or of having some ground given him to excuse them to the State or to interpret their Acts so as they might seem in some wise to concur in sense with the former Remonstrance takes advantage of the Speakers or Chairmans answering him in behalf of the whole House viz. That it was not out of any prejudice against the Remonstrance of 1661 they would not Sign it but because they thought it more convenient and becoming hath their Dignity and Liberty to word their own sense and for the rest they were far from any thoughts of condemning that Remonstrance or Subscribers thereof and therefore makes them presently therein Publick this Proposal That being no reason would move them from their determination of changing or varying from that Formulary yet if they pleased to testifie under their hands or by a publick and authentick Act of their Assembly what their Speaker had now delivered concerning that same Formulary of 1661 as the only reason of their varying from it he viz. the Procurator would heartily endeavour to perswade His Grace the Lord Lieutenant to accept graciously of their new Formulary or Act of Recognition if any way or in any good sense home to purpose Whereupon he produces and reads to them a fair draught of a very short paper which to that end he had prepared for them against such a fatal contingency of their continuing unalterable in their Resolution for a change or variation from the forme Which paper was exactly in these words HAving seriously perused examined and debated the Remonstrance and Protestation of Fidelity exhibited to His Majesty in January and Feb. 1661 by the Bishop of Dromore and Father Peter Walsh and such other Divines of our Nation of Ireland and by the Nobility and Gentry then at London who concurred likewise by their subscription and exhibition as aforesaid We find no part clause or proposition or any thing at all therein in any part or as to the whole contrary to Catholick Faith or which may not be owned or subscribed with a safe and good Conscience In witness whereof We the Members House and general Congregation of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland have hereunto Subscribed at Dublin June 15. 1666. When the Procurator had read this paper to them he added moreover That without this or same other publick Instrument by them Signed or Enacted containing in effect or substance that this Paper did it was impossible to prevent a Division nay a manifest Schism amongst the Irish Clergy if the Congregation would frame or sign only a new Formulary of their own and so not only decline but at least virtually condemn the former when nothing could be shewed to the contrary But the spirit of division possessing wholly their Demagogues they excused themselves from signing that or any such Paper professing nevertheless constantly That they had nothing to object nor would at all object any thing against either that First Formulary or Subscribers thereof Whereupon the Procurator both earnestly and mightily urged that at least a Select Congregation of their best and most professed Divines should be appointed by them to examine the said Formulary or Remonstrance or rather indeed to speak properly and strictly the Act of Recognition and both profession and promise of Allegiance c inserted therein debate every Clause thereof and then report to the House their judgment of it i. e. Whether they could except either against the whole or any part or clause or proposition thereof as unlawful to be sign'd in point of Religion or Conscience Giving for his earnest urgency herein besides many other reasons this in particular That for that very end principally if not only the Letters of Indiction had directed both the Bishops and the other Prelats Regular and Secular to bring the number of Divines with them fixed upon in the said Letters and consequently That for the same end those Divines now sate as Lawful Members of the Congregation And this also particularly That all such as had for so many late years either spoke against it and traduced it as Unlawful Schismatical Heretical Sacrilegious or otherwise on any account whatsoever excused themselves from signing it appealed still for their justification to a National Assembly wherein it might be throughly examin'd and canvassed Against which both motion and reasons the Bishop of Ardagh carrying himself rather like a man besides himself than of any kind of judgment discourse or sobriety spake cryed bauled even to raving
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
that We know what Innocent the Tenth and his Congregation have decreed against the three Negative propositions of the Catholicks of England We know moreover the brief of Paul the Fifth against the Oath of Allegiance Finally we know many other decrees and Canons made by several former Popes against all kind of Oathes and obligations of Allegiance to Schismaticks Hereticks or excommunicated Princes and even I say to all such as they deem such whether they be such or no indeed I could add that we know also what the Doctrine or Maximes of the Court of Rome is in particular concerning Clergie-mens exemption from the secular power and how they hold it unlawful for such men to Swear any Allegiance contrary to their own Canons or their own interpretation of the Canons And yet the Congregation would make the world believe they have by those their three additional propositions supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance But let fooles and ignorant persons believe them I am sure no wise man acquainted with the business will No nor would be induced to think that although they had come throughly home in express words as they did not at all nor any way neer and came home so as to all particulars and to the very points both in their Remonstrance and propositions added yet that only denying at the same time and with so little reason and so much passion preoccupation and obstinacy to sign those other three of Sorbon applyed to His Majesty and themselves in the case would be argument enough to evict even from themselves a confession of this certain truth that they were obstinatly resolved to give no real assurance to His Majesty of their future obedience or faith to him either by their Remonstrance or propositions or both or any other sufficient manner and that accordingly they gave none The third argument is ab intrinseco properly or from and grounded on the significancy or rather unsignificancy of the very propositions in themselves as such and without relation to the two former arguments which are though otherwise convincing enough derived from and grounded on circumstances more extrinsecal It is from the bare words and sense or meaning the leading persons or chief Divines of the congregation have conceive or would or intend only to express by these words It is from and on their distinctions of and specifical exceptions from the too too great generality of what the words may to some import though not to others And in a word it is further derived from and grounded on their abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations in these very three propositions no less then in their Remonstrance Albeit they would impose on such as they thought fit and whilst they thought it fit that by these additional propositions they supplyed all the defects of their Remonstrance as at the same time they would let others know and shew them cleerly too they signified nothing at all as to the points controverted that is signified nothing or brought no obligation on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free by force of Arms to maintain any quarrel or cause against him Which to evince I will here again repeat the propositions or declarations as they are subscribed by them 1. Wee the undernamed do hereby declare that it is not our Doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in Temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second yea we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in civil and temporal affairs 2. That it is our Doctrin that our Gracious King Charles the Second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil or temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be our constant Doctrine from which we shall never recede 3. That it is our Doctrine that we Subjects owe so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can ever dispense with or free us of the same Now to pass by that Negative manner of expression in the former part of their first proposition and how unsignificant such must be from them who sees not their obvious equivocation in these words It is not our Doctrine on such as they list they will thereby impose and to others they tell that it is not indeed their Doctrine but the Doctrine of so many great and holy Pontiffs of the See of Rome and very expresly too and in many instances these five or six hundred years the Doctrine of Gregories the Seventh and Ninth and of Pascehals and Urbans and Innocents and of Boniface the Eight even in that publick extravagant Vnam Sanctam inserted in the body of the Canon law and of Sixtus's and Pius's yea and of Alexander the Seventh that now governs that See the Doctrine of all their Courts for so many ages and of so many Bishops Cardinals and other Prelats and Doctors of Nuncius's Internuncius's and other Ministers and messengers of Popes that in several Countries and in several occasions taught and maintained it by word and writing amongst whom as Bellarmine and Baronius and Peron and Lessius and Becan and Gretzer Fitzherbert Weston and Parsons have in their own dayes after those Seventy two other writers whom Bellarmine quotes against Barclay some sixty years agoe been very eminent so in ours and very lately nay and continually too any time these four years past Cardinal Francis Barberine at Rome and the two immediatly succeeding Internuncius's at Bruxels De Vecohys and Rospigliosi and the Divines of Lovayn have shewed themselves no less vehement by censuring as much as in them the protestation of 61. of the Catholick Bishop of Dromore of Fa. Peter Walsh and other Irish Divines and after them of others the Nobility and Gentry of that Nation So that our Gentlemen of the Congregation of 66. will by this gloss or explication of their word Our where they say it is not our Doctrine or by that equivocation or distinction elude at pleasure this Declaration as to any honest meaning They will say they have declared it is not our Doctrine that is It is not a Doctrine whereof we are the Authors or it is not a Doctrine proper particular and peculiar to us alone or which only we do teach or maintain or which we have broached or set on foot And will say nevertheless nay rather the more that for as much as it is the Doctrine of so many great men nay and of so many great and Holy Bishops of Rome at least these full six hundred years and that expresly and clearly too even in their very Canons it is consequently the Doctrine of the Church for they account the Pope and Church the same thing And therefore must not be disavowed or opposed by the faithful when there is occasion to follow or practice it So that they will say that in one sense they may
their future fidelitie hereafter in the cases or contingencies wherein they are suspected I leave the indifferent reader to be judge I know what their answer will be to these two last Objections They will say the Propositions of Sorbon had no such exception against equivocation no censure of the contrary positions But the reply is no less obvious and shews the answer in both parts unsatisfactory Because the disparity is as great as the divinity and doctrine and loyalty of that famous Colledge nay and of all the Gallican Church is known to be such that their Propositions as from them and to their King or people needed no such additional exception or censure at such time as they gave those very Propositions in the year 1663. So many books lately before written by the Divines of that Faculty and Church and by the Curats of Rouen and Paris against the whole mass of casuistical opinions amongst which that of equivocations in such cases at least as ours as likewise the other of extrinsecal probability maâ—ch in the first rank and their general horror of such vile Sophistrie and withal the settledness of the generality of the French Nation both Ecclesiasticks and Lay-men in the true honest and obvious meaning of the said Propositions as comprising without further addition or specification those very cases which our congregational Divines would by their distinctions and reservations except alwayes and yet further the very penalties enacted in the rules of Sorbon and other French Universities against any that would maintain the positions of Bellarmine or the doctrine of a power in the Pope for deposing Kings all these four arguments I say to speak no more shew there was no need that the Sorbonists in the said Propositions to their own King should expresly or any other way than by the bare Propositions in themselves protest they declared them sincerely without equivocation or mental reservation And so many former no less known heavy and home censures not only of Sorbon and Paris but of all other Universities in France against that very doctrine of any power whatsoever and consequently against that which is called by new names direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary and casual or supernatural spiritual celestial divine c. in the Pope for deposing Kings evict this confession likewise That there was no need Sorbon should to those their own propositions in the year 1663. add any new censure at all of the contrary doctrine To all which and as well concerning that of equivocation as this of censure may be added that the Sorbon-Facultie's purpose in determining and presenting the foresaid six propositions to the French King on the eighth of May 63. was only to wipe off the false aspersion which some had lately and groundlesly cast upon them as if they had held the contrary in terminis Which to have been their chief purpose may be seen by that Title of theirs prefixed to the same six propositions Declaratio Facultatis Sorbonicae contra quasdam propositiones falso impositas eidem Facultati Now who sees not that to this end it was sufficient to give the contrary or contradictory propositions without any kind of addition or explication And who sees not that our case or that of our said Congregation of Dublin of the Irish Roman Catholick Clergy was wholy different in all particulars both the doctrine and practice contrary to the plain sincere and obvious meaning of the said six propositions conceived by men that are no Sophisters hath been and is with all truth and justice grounded on sad long and manifold experiences as withal the doctrine and practice of equivocation and mental reservation charged on the generality that is on the far greater part for number of the said Irish Clergy and their Representatives And neither of them have ever yet except only those few Subscribers of the Remonstrance of 61. for ought appears either in this age or any former since the debates arose first by Books Declarations Propositions or otherwise under their hands or names any way censured that pernicious doctrine or practices following it of the Pope's power or pretence of power for deposing Kings c. as neither the doctrine of equivocation or mental reservation in such cases as ours or in any other soever But to shew what only now remains that Sorbon had that all the rest of the Catholick Universities of the Gallican Church and kingdom had lately before and both sufficiently and smartly too censured the positions contrary to the foresaid three or that of any power or pretence of power in the Pope to deprive or depose Kings raise their Subjects or the people otherwise subject in rebellion against them I will give here out of very many others those censures only of the said Faculty of Sorbon fourth of April 1626. and of the whole University of Paris the 20th of April the same year against the said uncatholick doctrines And further only add the prosecution of the same censure by the other seven Universities of France the same year too All which the late Author of the Quaeries on the Oath of Allegiance hath rendred in English and prepared to my hand as extracted out of a Book lately before printed at Paris Entituled A Collection of divers Acts Censures and Decrees as well of the Vniversity as of the faculty of Theology at Paris The Title of that of Paris and consequently of that of Sorbon therein is A Decree of the Vniversity of Paris made by the Rector Deans Proctors and Bachelors of the said Vniversity in a General Assembly had on the 20th of April 1626. at the Matutines And then immediatly follows the Decree it self in these words to a tittle It having been represented by the Rector that the sacred Faculty of Theologie moved as well by their ardent zeal and fidelity towards the Church His most Christian Majesty and his Kingdoms as also by the true and perfect love which they bear to right and justice and following therein the illustrious examples left by their Predecessors in like cases upon mature examination af a certain Latin Book Entituled A Treatise of Heresie Schisme Apostasie c. and of the Popes power in order to the punishment of those crimes printed at Rome 1625. had in the 30. and 31. Chapters of Heresie found these propositions That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastise Kings and Princes depose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdoms for the crime of Heresie and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them and that this custom has been alwaies practised in the Church c. and thereupon had by a publick just and legal sentence on the 4th of April censured these propositions of that pernicious Book and condemned the doctrine therein contained as new false erroneous contrary to the law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schisme derogative to the soveraign authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the conversion of
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
the doctrine or Theses of those that maintained the same pretended infallibility of the Pope to be not onely matter of Religion and faith that is to be fide divina believed but also to be so believed to extend it self to all kind of matters questions disputes or controversies of or concerning what is delivered in the Depositum of faith and what is not or concerning what is lawful and what is not even as much as the undoubted infallibility of the Catholick Church either representative or diffusive can be any way extended to such And consequently could not but know the doctrine of infallibility in all such matters disputes or controversies must of necessity regard or concern this very particular matter dispute and controversy of the obedience due or not due by Subjects in all cases or in such and such special ones to their King or to him that is reputed King being it is one of the particulars included in that Vniversal Thirdly That although it be confessed the said infallibility either pretended or true for it matters not which for our purpose now as falling upon any other matter distinct from that obedience we owe our Prince doth not per se directly and immediately regard or concern that obedience yet mediately indirectly and per accidens it may and even directly often us and the Prince himself nay and the quiet and peace too of his Kingdoms For besides the general concernment of salvation or of having or not having errors in Christian Religion obtruded on us at the Popes pleasure or fancy or out of his ignorance as it may happen or of that of his few Roman Divines only when he defines without a General Council what ever the matter be there are very many particulars wherein Popes may usurp and have usurped already a power of definition which against the universal Canons and Reason and Justice too incroach on the rights both of Prince Clergy and other Catholick People or Subjects though such particulars do not immediatly directly or per se regard this particular question of our Allegiance to the Prince in temporals or though notwithstanding such definitions we were suffered still to acknowledge and obey him as our supream Lord in meeâ— temporals without any definition against that how ever with many disturbances withal on spiritual pretences tending often though per accidens only to the both temporal and spiritual ruine of both Prince Clergy and people Whereof sufficient and manifold instances may be given out of those we call the Liberties of the Gallican Church and such as are common also to other national Churches especially in the matter of Investitures Nominations Presentations Collations Resignations Unions Translations and of Legats and Nuncius's c. That as I have said before to this of impertinency the Sorbon Divines or University or Clergy or Archbishop of Paris in 63. were not of our Congregations judgment in this point or of Father N. N's but perswaded that the Popes pretended infallibility even I say as matter of Faith and Religion and even I say too as not particularly or only relating to their Allegiance concerned notwithstanding both their Prince and themselves and that obedience too for they declared against it in general And so might and ought both Father N. N. and our Congregation but that they would seem more wise and less sincere than Sorbon and the University Clergy and Archbishop of Paris In the third place I must answer his pretence of odium where he sayes in Congregations name We are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question c. That he imposeth mightily and injuriously on forrein Catholick Nations That there is not one such in all Europe and of the rest you may judge by Europe where this question is odious at all in the negative resolve to all indeed it is in the affirmative or in the assertion of such an infallibility in the Pope as matter of faith and religion unquestionably though to all also very indifferent for both sides as it is only disputed scholastically speculatively or problematically without intending it as matter of faith and religion in the affirmative or of any further design either by the affirmative or negative than of opposing truth to error and certainty of divine belief to the uncertainty of humane opinion or collection though seemingly or probably deduced out of Scripture-places or some others of great esteem amongst us That neither some few Divines at Rome nor that whole City or Clergy therein if all were of that opinion of the Popes infallibility as matter of faith and religion not even taking along with them the most blessed Pope himself the Cardinals and whole Court do make one little Nation no nor if you further aggregate unto them all those other few Divines and few I call such comparatively or in relation to all Catholick Divines of the contrary side who in several other Countreys of Europe either privately or publickly in their Schools or Writings maintain either dogmatically or problematically that assertion of the Popes infallibility or maintain it any way at all either as matter of religion and faith or as matter only of meer uncertain but yet probable opinion That by their own confession the Universities of France and these are eight in all have concurred in the negative which denyes any such infallibility to the Pope and by consequence this question as to the negative answer must not be odious in that Country That whatever France or the Gallican Church maintains in relation to faith and religion is not odious nor can be in any other Catholick Nation of Christendome because they are all of the same faith religion and communion with France and the Gallican Church That the controversie of the Venetians in 1606. with Paulus V. and all the consequents of it show manifestly that all the Catholick Countreys subject to that Commonwealth reject the Popes infallibility and hold it not odious to determine against it That for the German Hungar and Polish Nation the General Councils of Constance and Basil which for a very great part consisted of them and their general esteem and veneration to this day of those Councils and amongst other Canons made by those Councils of that particularly which altogether subjects the Pope to a General Council sufficiently prove this question and resolution of it in the negative cannot be odious to them as neither to any other Nation that maintains the Supremacy of a General Council above the Pope which all Catholick Nations and people do generally with the said Council For it must be an infallible consequence that if a General Council be above the Pope the infallibility cannot be in the Pope alone without a General Council That for Spain and other Kingdoms subject to it in the dayes of Philip the Second it may be seen out of his Edict published and observed by them against the eleventh tome of Baronius concerning the Monarchy and I mean
further in pursuance of such promise and intention when they begun again and after my Lords return by an express Paper and Messenger to them taking notice of the three last not signed as yet and exspecting these also to be signed when I say they notwithstanding begun again to demur the second time and fall off their former intention and thereupon were given to understand His Grace had sent to them to dissolve they looking upon one another in a great confusion and trouble expressed even in their countenances desired me instantly and earnestly to go and prevail with my Lord that they might have a little more time to consider And that herein too I prevailed for them and got them time enough as much as themselves desired to that purpose albeit they made such unfortunate use of it So that from first to last there was nothing done by me underhand to further that dispute as nothing but what I ought to have done and what themselves expected I should and gave me the occasion themselves and for their own sake to do 5. That the foresaid Catholick virtuous and grave Gentleman sent them upon this occasion by his Grace and only to read them his Message for it was given him in writing by my Lord although after his reading that his Message publickly to them all-together he spoke of himself moreover at the same time and place not as from my Lord which he declared likewise what he thought fit briefly substantially and catholickly to perswade them not to lose the fair opportunity then present to do themselues and all others of their Communion and Countrey much right and good withal and therefore not to demur any longer on this matter of the three last propositions but subscribe these also yet all this and what more he said to perswade them was so far from being under-hand as it was before them all-together sitting in their Assembly And that more than this he did not to further this dispute 6. That if none of such I mean the said Gentleman and Father P. W. and their own special Committee or such others of the Congregation as spoke in their house on this subject or the whole Congregation themselves all together be not those few Iansenists I know none in all this Kingdom nor ever as much as heard of any one single Jansenist amongst us nor of any one as much as suspected for such only one single Chaplain to a Lady of great virtue and quality excepted and so far only too excepted that I heard some say whether with ground or not I know not he seems to have been bred with or devoted to those are now by some called Iansenists although not maintaining the doctrine imputed to Iansenius 7. That for the said Catholick vertuous and grave lay gentleman of quality who delivered the said message and spoke so as I have before said publickly what he thought reasonable to perswade them in this matter although peradventure and I say peradventure because I do but onely guess or suspect he may be the marke aimed at amongst those few Iansenists because forsooth he had been known to Father N. N. abroad in France and in the time of his exile to have been conversant with or friended by one of those are now called Iansenists though one of his own Country and Religion otherwise I am sure notwithstanding that he is no Iansenist nor ever yet hath been nor with Gods grace will at any time hereafter understanding that by a Iansenist which ought to be and is understood by such as speake either properly or truely an adhearer to or a better of the doctrine of the five Propositions condemned and in that sense they are condemned by the Roman Catholick Church not that is not understood at all but most falsly and injuriously too a man that onely hath a good opinion of and esteem for those many excellencies laying a side the quarrel of thos five condemned Propositions he sees or hath seen to be in all or most or some of those are now abusively called Iansenists and onely called so because they speake reverently of the person of Iansenius and write severely against many wicked Aphorismes of some Casuistes albeit at the same time they conform absolutely and submit humbly to all declarations even proceeding from the Pope alone against the doctrine imputed either by Popes or others to Iansenius 8. That for their own special Committee or such of them as in that Committee or in their house spoake publickly and most cleerly and positively and urgently too and tooke great pains herein that is to perswade their subscriptions to the three last as to the three first and by consequence and not by consequence onely but without any consequence expresly and determinately also to the very last of all the six Propositions or that of the Popes not being infallible without the consent of the Church or a general Council these were in the first place Fa. Iohn Talbot of the very society one of those two Divines that together with their Superiour sate as chosen members and Divines for the said Society of Jesuits in that Congregation and surely therefore not of those few Iansenists his own Colleague Father N. N. aimes or glances at And in the next place Angel Goulding a Spanish Doctor of Divinity known to be estranged as farr as from East to West from all kind of Iansenisine properly or truely such and therefore also not of those few Iansenists And that for any other of their house that spoke in that buisiness to be of those few Iansenists though it should more concern Father N. N. and his purpose to clear them yet I must confess ingenously that I never heard as much as any of them as neither indeed any of all their whole Congregation at any time suspected of being a Iansenist 9. That for what concerns or may in the opinion or suspition of any concern my self in this point or as peradventure aimed at or reflected upon by Father N. N. in this place or in his if not perhaps some few Iansenists albeit his under-hand immediately following and construed together with those few seems enough to manifest I cannot rationally be thought to be any way perstringed in this passage since all I did in the matter was what I noted before so farr from under-hand that he and the rest did think it rather too much over board and that besides I must confess I have no ground to think he aimes at me yet because I pressed that matter or this dispute most of any when once himself and Congregation had given first the cause of pressing it so and that I know not whom els he meaned if indeed he meaned any at all as I confess also I suspect he doth not but onely makes this part of his colour to abuse ignorant or undiscerning people and perswade them the better of the reasonableness of the Congregations dissent I thought fit to speake herein too what is truth as I
shall answer God and such truth also as leaves him nothing to reply nor any thing at all to justifie this although conditional yet no less injurious than suspicious reflection if intended so by him or construed so by any other For although I had the honour of some little personal acquaintance in my youth with that most illustrious and most Reverend Person Iansenius himself at Lovain about some 29 years past when he was first assumed from being a Doctor of that Vniversity to the Bishoprick of Ipres being as yet but Elect onely in which quality he was pleased to honour my Philosophical publick disputes there with his presence in St. Anthony of Padua's Colledge having to that end first presented his Lordship with my Theses and Dedication to himself and although I had been soon after studying my Divinitie in the same Colledge throughly acquainted with those opinions now called Iansenisme De gratia Sufficiente et efficaâ—i c however this was by accident onely and in the writings onely too of that same Colledge and in the School dictates as they are called of that other very Reverend and learned man Father John Barnewel a little before publick professor of Divinity there and a while after Provincial of the Franciscans in Ireland Uncle to the present Lord of Trimle-stown which he defended publickly and in print though not ad mentem Scoti but Sti. Augustini and in that very Colledge some years before Iansenius was ever known or thought to write of that Subject and which also the same Father Barnewell did by the advice of that other most Reverend and learned Father of the same Order the founder of thâ— Colledge by his mediation with the Spanish Court that great Augustinianâ— Florentius Conrius he that writt de Statu parvulorum then titulary Arch-Bishop of Tuam in Ireland living in that Colledge the greatest Augustinian of the age and by whom Iansenius was indoctrinated first in those principles as they say and although moreover just when I had ended my course of Divinity in that School I was one of the very first though by meer accident onely too that ever saw and read that worke so famous now called Augustinus Iansenij for I read it in albis before it was bound and as it came from the Lovain-press about the year as I take it 1640. and although further I was curious enough to understand all the intrigues of those opinions both then and after they came soon after to publick debate in Rome and as often too ever since as I heard the great contest for or against them under the three Popes Vrban Innocent and Alexander and as farr or as much as I could heare of at so great distance or know the said contests yet I declare conscientiously before God and man 1. That I was never from the first day to this present any further concerned for Iansenius or all or any of his or the said opinions or against him or them either for the Anti-Iansenians than every or any other the most indifferent Roman Catholick in the world should be or was Nor any further at all than to know what was or might be said on both sides without any further inward prejudices of or to either than what I did or should understand the Catholick Church did or would entertain 2. That nevertheless I have always been for my own private interiour sentitiments inclined more to follow the way of sufficient grace even before any determination of Vrban Innocent or Alexander though without condemning in my own private judgement the contrary 3. That for external conformity or submission I have been alwayes resolved and am at this present as I should be in such perplexed abstruse controversies where there is no evidence on either side to acquiese in the determination of the great Pontiff unless peradventure and until a general Council truely such declare the contrary to whose determination as in all other matters of Catholick faith being bound to submit both inwardly and outwardly so in this I must and ought and will by the grace of God if ever any such Council happen to be held in our days 4. That for those Iansenists who have submitted externally to the determinations of those three great Pontiffs for what concerns the point of doctrine and are further absolutely resolved to submit both externally and internally in such and all other points or matters of Faith to the final definitions of a general Council truely such and for ought I understand all those are called Iansenists have submitted so and are so resolved I hold not them to be Hereticks at all whether those opinions attributed to Iansenius or them be Heresies or no that is onely material Heresies or no according to the phrase of the School Because to be a Heretick inwardly inward pertinacie in the judgement or will against the known faith of the Catholick Church is required and obstinacy against the sole determination of the Pope not knowing it to be withal the Church's is not sufficient as to be outwardly such outward pertinacy in words or demeanour 5. That although or if these Iansenists have been already condemned of Heresie by three Popes that is if those opinions of theirs be condemned or declared by so many Popes to be Heresies which yet implyes no declaration of the Iansenists to be or against them as Hereticks no more than did St. Cyprians doctrine of rebaptisation though declared an Heresie in it self conclude him to be an Heretick yet consequently to the Catholick doctrine of the fallibility of Popes in all kind of matters even in those of Divine belief and even those too properly and purely such we are not upon that sole account of being condemned or declared so by these Popes alone or together with their Congregation of Divines or Prelates at Rome or any other of that particular City or Diocess obliged either inwardly or outwardly to beleive them therefore infallibly such that is infallibly to beleive those opinions to be Herâ—â—es in themselves materially nor upon any other account also for what relates to extrinsecal authority besides holy Scripture evident in the points at least evident according the general and unanimous interpretation of holy Fathers but that of knowing them to be reputed and beleeved infallibly such by the Catholick or universal Church or declared such by a general Council its lawful supream Representative Which notwithstanding warrants not those Iansenists not any other to oppose or contradict those declarations of those three Popes at least in the point of doctrine and in the senâ—e the declarations were made until a general Council be convened but leaves them for their infallible directour in point of a Divine belief to another cruely certain and infallible rule indeed the declaration or consent of the Catholick Church however that be certainly and infallibly known by a general Council or otherwise 6. And lastly That I never had nor have this day nor will hereafter with Gods grace any other
here I gave it not purposely for any such end unto which I know it both improper and forreign but gave it occasionally and only to shew the Reader that neither am I single in some other matters particularly or signally in that of the Oath of Supremacy wheresoever in this Work or elsewhere I reflect thereon mildly and interpret or expound it more benignly though withall more truly and groundedly than furious Zealots would But to strengthen S. Clara's Testimony and elucidate my own foresaid Answer in my fourth Reason the learned Reader may be pleased to consult Bruno Chaissaing a French Recollect of the same Franciscan Order Penitentiary to and under Gregory the XV and Vrban the VIII in the First or chief Church of Europe St. John Laterane at Rome and consult and read him in his Work intituled Privilegia Regularium printed at Paris with approbation Anno M.DC.LIII In which Work besides this Proposition Bruâ—o Chaissaing de Privil Reg. Tract 1. cap. 1. prop 9. 10. Possunt Reges Supremi Senatus licite retinere Bullas Apostolicas in casu vel magni scandali aut perturbationis aut praejudicii tertii aut aliorum similium which is his Tenth Proposition in order Tract 1. cap. 1. You may also find his former Ninth Proposition to be this other viz. Potest legitime appellari de abusu ad Principem Saecularem seu Senatum Supremum quotiescunque potestas Ecclesiastica pronunciat aut agit contra Canones Privilegia potestque Princeps Senatus Supremus appellationem suscipere appellantes a violenta suorum Praelatorum vexatione eripere And you may see him there purposely and at large by several Arguments proving this Ninth Proposition But you shall no where see him mincing or using any kind of nicety about the word or term Appeal nor quitting it for that other of Recourse but a fair and clear Assertion in express terms That it 's lawful for all sorts of Ecclesiasticks even the strictest Regulars to Appeal to the Secular and Supreme Lay-Power from the unjust or uncanonical Pressures of their own Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates and this also as often as the said Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates pronounce or do any thing contrary to the Canons of the Church or Priviledges of their Order And consequently you shall not in this Author Bruno Chassaing meet with Franciscus a Sancta Claras Nudam potestatem civilem but with Jurisdictionem proprie dictam in the Majesties or Persons of Kings and other Lay Supreme States over all Clergy men whatsoever living under them Otherwise how might it according to the said Bruno's Doctrine in the place above quoted be lawful for Clergymen to Appeal I mean in the proper and strict sense of this word Appeal from their own Ecclesiastick Superiors to the King or State Or how might it be lawful for the King or State to receive such Appeals For Appeals properly or simply such argue Jurisdiction no less properly and simply such in the Judge of such Appeals Further and although it be not so much to my present purpose yet if to what St. Clare hath of the power of meer Lay Princes or States in general and in particular of that of our Kings of England to collate or to nominate and present for Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices I add also the Doctrine of another very late Roman Catholick Writer and Doctor of Divinity Joannes Baptista Verius in his Book intituled Pastorale Missionariorum Tract 4. Art xi Joannes Baptista Verius S. Theologiae Doctor in Pastorali Missionar Tract 4. ar xi I hold it not amiss For in the place thereof now quoted this Doctor Verius not only teaches with Lessius and Sanchez Two Jesuits whom he quotes but out of the Extravagant Ad evitandum c. of Martin the V. in the Council of Constance expresly proveth That even all Heretick Lay Patrons whatsoever not yet by name denounced enjoy still their former right of Canonical Patronage and that consequently all such do notwithstanding their Heresie both validly and as to all effects bindingly nominate or present fit persons to all kind of Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices whereof they or their legal Predecessors at any former time were the acknowledged Patrons Now from such whether necessary or unnecessary digressions to return to the series of my proofs for my main purpose here viz. that of St. Thomas of Canterbury's not having at any time for ought appears been guilty as much as of any Treasonable Principles or Doctrines My fifth Reason is 5. Because that a pure speculative judgment of either the probability or certainty of such or such a power to be or to remain as yet or to be naturally still inherent in the Church not only to give Royal Authority at first to these or these persons but also to take it away again from them or others deriving from them in some extraordinary case of grand demerit or grand incapacity must not infer a practical dictate or any at all for the lawfulness of taking it so away And because both Reason and Experience tell us That no such pure Speculation while it remains such and comes not to be practical or to have a practical or other dictate flowing from or annex'd to it either assuring us of the lawfulness of putting such power in execution or prompting us accordingly to execute can at all annoy hurt or in any wise lessen either in fact or intention the Majesty of Temporal Princes or States as it is clear enough to any rational man without further Discourse But that such a pure speculative judgment of such a power in actu primo in the Church doth not infer a practical judgment prompting so or any other judgment practical or speculative of the lawfulness of such execution in actu secundo of such a power we have also Theological reason and Humane Experience Theological Reason which approves that Maxim of both Civilians and Canonists and of natural Reason too where the Plea is not clear against the Defendant who is in possession Melior est conditio possidentis And which tells us also Quod ubi partium jura sunt obscura favendum sit Reo magis quam Actori And tells us moreover That none is by a probable Title only to be deprived of that which he holds by as probable a Title Have not Kings at least as probable a Title for their own civil and temporal Power to be even originally independent from the Church as the Church or any Churchman Divine Civilian or Canonist hath ever yet alledged That it is dependent from the Church either in the first Institution or after Conservation of it Or is it possible That any knowing man or at least such a great and excellently and Divinely knowing Church Prelate and Lawyer as Thomas of Canterbury was suppose him never so much prepossessed with the opinion or practice of the Roman Court then growing or already grown over-mightily should but know and confess this
if the Pope define evil to be good or vice to be virtue that is define that to be good or virtuous which you thought was evil or vitious you must believe him And so do all our Sophisters maintain now a dayes that all he does is very well done and that he cannot err in that regard And so especially and particularly must all the Fathers of the Society maintain and think too not so much because of their 4th vow as it is in the Bull of Julius the 3d. wherein their Order and Statutes are confirmed but chiefly for that which their founder Saint Ignatious Loyola layes before them as the chief if not onely fundamental of their Society the denial of their own judgement in a letter of his written in Italian to the Fathers of Portugal and in this passage of it We easily endure to be out-done by all other orders in fastings watchings and other hardnesses which they use in a holy manner according to their Institution But in purity and perfection of obedience I earnestly desire that you would surpass all the rest with a true resignation of your own will and a denial of your own judgement and also because of that which moreover is said in the very articles of their institution confirmed by the Popes Buls and inserted in that above mentioned of Julius the 3d. that they are bound to acknowledge Christum velut praesentem Christ as present not onely in the person of the Pope but also of their General Moreover so must even all the assertors whatever they be of what order or institution soever of the doctrine of obedientia caeca blind obedience as it is commonly taught in this age maintain and think Further yet and to return once more to the Society in particular so have several of them very cleerly expresly and zealously taught and thought if they taught not otherwise than they thought at Coloâ—e as appears out of that prescribed Rule of theirs in Censura Colonienst fol. 136. If any man examine the doctrine of the Pope by the Rule of Gods word and seeing that it is different chance to contradict it let him be rooted out with fire and sword Finally and to return once more also to Bellarmin's own self so has this most eminent Cardinal no less distinctly and positively delivered in four several assertions in his fourth book third fourth fifth and sixth chap. de Rom. Pont. the very first genuin but sandy foundation of all this ruinous however guilded structure of the Popes pretended infallibility These assertions are First that the Pope when he teacheth the vniversal Church in such things as appertain to faith can in no case erre Secondly that not onely the Pope cannot err in faith but not even the particular Church of Rome Thirdly that the Pope cannot err not onely in matters of faith but not even in precepts of manners which are commanded to the whole Church and which consist in things necessary to salvation or such as are of themselves good or bad Fourthly that it is probable and may be piously believed that the Pope not onely as Pope but even as a particular person cannot be a Heretick by believing with obstinacy any error against the faith Although I must confess that notwithstanding all this learned Cardinals painful indeavours to prove each of these assertions throughout all the foresaid whole chapters and for eight or nine chapters more to disprove the contrary by solving as well as he can all objections making therein a particular enquirie of all the Popes that ever lived and have been charged with error and maintaining also the best he can that not one amongst them ever yet errect and that they were all honest and holy men yet he sayes nothing in all his arguments or solutions in this matter to perswade any judicious man of his pretended infallibility But however this be or not it is plain enough that according to these very principles or assertions alone any according to onely the first and third which at least of all four Father N. N. and the Congregation infallibly own as yet and refuse obstinatly to disown we cannot make sense but that which is contradictory and not to any purpose of what he sayes here not though I say we grant his meaning therein grounded on those two suppositions Fifthly That be his meaning so grounded or not or be it what ever els or however he please yet he cannot deny but the Congregation refused openly and either constantly or obstinatly as he will and even too upon the contradictory question to give as much as this very Proposition or promise under their hands that if the Pope did would or should define any thing against their Remonstrance or three first Propositions they would notwithstanding maintain them and be accordingly faithful and obedient to the King Nor can deny that there is not so much as one hand of theirs or of any els for them to this paper of reasons wherein it is said as in their name they let all prudent men know that they should not hold the Popes infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience they owe their Prince Both which being so what truth can be in this confident assertion whatever it imports Or how can such an allegation serve them in any prudent mans opinion to wave the subscription of what was so rationally expected concerning the 6th Proposition or declaration against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council Or to shew the unnecessariness thereof in their case or in relation to a sufficient assureance of their fidelitie hereafter to the King against all pretences of the Pope to his Crown or other Royal rights And so having done more than abundantly with his tacite pretence of unnecessariness virtually implyed in that allegation I must in the next place observe his transient return to his plea of impertinency again If sayes he and in the Congregations name still they he means all prudent men speake of any other infallibility as matter of Religion or faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign c. For although I have before now sufficiently demonstrated the pertinency of the question and Proposition or declaration concerning the Popes pretended infallibility without a general Council yet because Father N. N. seems to distinguish here a two-fold infallibility of the Pope for as much as he sayeth any other infallibility I must tell him First That he had more properly and intelligibly distinguished the matter in which the Popes pretended infallibility must be said to be conversant than the form of infallibility in it self which form questionless in esteem must be one and the self same whether it fall on the obedience we owe our Prince or on any other matter soever capable Secondly That he knew very well the dispute and declaration of Sorbone was against the Popes infallibility in general or in any kind of matter and against