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
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
Priest treat of or debate any question or subscribe any Proposition or declaration against his conscience and Religion nor on the other side ought or could any person at least such as are commanded by God and whose commission and function it is from the holy Jesus and holy Spirit to preach and teach purely the Gospel of Christian Religion and oppose by all just means any kind of innovation in the rule of Catholick and saving faith ought or could any such I say through fear of loosing those temporal profits of the whole earth had he them in actual possession omit to treat or debate or declare or subscribe a Proposition sound in it self and necessary withal in circumstances even as relating to such treatie debate declaration or subscription to oppose such innovation That such is this question and such the 6th declaration or proposition being a negative resolve of it against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church For were not the said resolve Catholick or sound in Catholick Religion even in the judgment of Father N. N. and of the Congregation they should have cleerly said so and were bound by their calling and on pain of everlasting damnation to have answered so for the discharge of their duty to God and their flocks Neither should any fear or favor have hindered their answering so For what will it availe a man to gaine the whole world and suffer the detriment of his Soul was the question of our Lord. And again in on other place do not fear those that kill the body onely but fear him that hath power to cast both body and Soul into everlasting fire was the same Heavenly Masters advise and command unto his Disciples And that the question it self of the Popes infallibility without a Council as that of the Councils without or against the Pope when he will not conform to them and the resolve of it on one side or other for or against the Pope is so necessary where the question is debated publickly and seriously for a resolve there is no man of judgement can deny Because thereon depends the whole certainty of what we are to believe or what we are to hope for as a necessary mean to Salvation It being manifest that Popes often have declared and commanded us many things to believe and may hereafter yet much more which the Church never did consent unto nay which many Catholick Churches in Europe have already and often too both contradicted and condemned But if the Pope or his determination be the infallible rule of faith then must all such people or Churches be in a damnable condition as opposing that rule and beleiving an error That hence it appears sufficiently and evidently this question or treatie of it is not onely not unprofitable but the most profitable can be seeing it regards directly the greatest profit imaginable that of the Salvation of Souls by the necessary rule or means of saving faith That further the profittableness of the negative resolve against the Popes infallibility if that resolve be Catholick in it self as neither Father N. N. nor Congregation denyes but grants it to be doth hence appear that such resolve alone removes the grand obstacle of reunion and reconciliation of such a world of particular Churches that profess Christ and by consequence of their Salvation by restoring them to the vnity of rhe Catholick Church wherein alone as in the Ark Noah Salvation is to be had For the grand remora is that by reason of that challenge of the Pope or rather of others for him of an absolute infallibility in himself they think they cannot expect his communion without being lyable to impositions on them in matters of faith at his pleasure and such impositions too as very many most learned and pious Catholicks themselves in all countries will not cannot submit unto but must therefore abide such vexation often as no less often makes their Communion with the Roman See and Pontiff cumbersome and loathsome and a yoake of that great absolute and intollerable subjection which neither themselves or Fathers before them could bear with Christian patience That if the reduction of so many millions of straying sheep into the fold and the consequent Salvation of their Souls or the preservation of those are in it already appear not sufficient arguments of profitableness to Father N.N. and the Congregation in the debate and resolve of this question if that which brings along with it per se and of its own nature the greatest Spiritual profit can be the gaine of Soules and eternal Salvation in the other life be not ranked hereby him or them in the number of things profitable but comprehended as onely such and understood by his and their unprofitable question which yet I believe F. N. N. or the Congregation will hardly own and if they will have us understand here that which as to the conveniencies of this world and life is unprofitable let it be so and then too let all prudent men judge whether people of their Condition Country and Religion should not esteem and confess that question and resolve of it in the present circumstances to be indeed not onely not unprofitable in any respect but certainly and without contradiction very profitable as being the most useful they could fix upon before together with or next after a sufficient Oath of Allegiance to remove the great jealousy hath been justly harboured as of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland and their predecessors this entire last centurie of years ever since at least Queen Mary's Reign so and farr yet more of the present Clergie ever since the 23th of October 1641. and most of all since the Waterford Congregation in 46. and James-town Council in 48. and of their too too great dependency of the Court of Rome and too too great credulitie in or belief of and submission to any decree or command or even to an ordinary letter proceeding thence though onely from one of the Ministers and also though to the direct and absolute ruine of the King and of his Kingdoms and people together And let all prudent men judge whether being that Congregation was held by the Fathers and their Remonstrance and three first Propositions of Sorbone were subscribed by them and presented of purpose or at least under pretence to remove those jealousies and thereby obtain for themselves and rest of the Clergie and to the lay people too directed by them some peace and some ease and some indulgence and comfort either by an absolute revocation of the penal Laws against their Religion or by a mitigation or suspension of such Laws and that the Fathers thought or undoubtedly should think any thing in it self otherwise Catholick or honest and just that should be in the then present circumstances useful to that end to be also profitable in this world or life because helping on that end or that relaxation or suspension of the Laws which questionless they esteem profitable even
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
and Burgundy and exercised also that self same Vicariat office without any regard of the former Bulls of this Pope excommunicating deposing and depriving this Lewis for we know very well that in the Countries obeying that Emperour himself there was not nor could be any such material publication much less reception of any thing or Bull for such a part at least as struck though indirectly at the prerogatives and rights Imperial I mean such as were truly such as we know it is a maxime amongst Civilians and Canonists that laws are then laws indeed quando moribus utentium comprobantur when they are approved by reception and submission to them and yet we know withal that for such approbation or reception of and submission to all and singular the definitions of this Bull so little can be said albeit enough may be for some of them and yet not for any of them as in this Bull as it is apparant the Bull it self or the tenor of it hath been for some ages unknown and even unknown to and unseen by the very most learned and most curious at least until about some fifty or threescore years since it was by meer chance lighted on in Biblotheca Cottâ—niana Sr. Robert Cottons Library finally passing by altogether in silence as not material what Villanius an Italian Author of this Popes time and St. Antoninus too the holy Archbishop of Florence after him and others after both report of the election of this very Iohn to the Papacy or how it was himself alone being called before his Papacy Iacobus de Ossa Episcopus Cardinalis Portuensis that chose himself to be Pope viz. the Colledge of Cardinals being at variance long and compromising at last and fixing on and electing him blindly whoever he should be that were or would be elected by him alone whereupon he chose himself as likewise and as not very material passing over wholly in silence what Ciacconius relates of his breach of oath made to Neopoleon Ursinus the Archdeacon who was one of the Conclave and was author to the rest of the Cardinals to leave the whole election to him Iacobus de Ossa then but after Iohn the XXII for this oath was that he would never mount either horse or mule but to go to Rome whence his Predecessors Clement the V. had in a manner removed the Papal See by living all his life-time in France where alâ—o this Iohn or this Iames de Ossa was chosen to be Pope and yet he never once attempted to go to Rome though he lived a long and healthy life after in his Papacy and therefore the said Neapoleon would never come at him as much as once more in his life nor even after his death as much as go to his funeral ceremonies not even notwithstanding that to appease or to win him from his rigid resolution this Pope had promoted two of his Family and created them Cardinals at two several promotions Iohn Cajetanus Vrsinus and Matthew Vrsinus I say that passing by at present all the both general and specifical and particular advantages I might any way take either of the doctrine of the fallibility of Popes in general or of the fallibility of Iohn the XXII Bulls in particular or of this singular Bull of his as to some part of it at least in the sense of some Divines against Marsilius and Iandunus or of any thing else hitherto alledg'd in this last Paragraph nay supposing or granting all and each animadversion had been not only immaterial but false and which is consequent admitting the certainty of the legalâ— both emanation and publication and general reception too of this Bulâ— throughout all Christendome and of every branch of it and that even Iohn the XXII himself had either been himself alone infallible in all his Definitions of any matter to be of Catholick Faith and consequently of the matter of this Bull or at least had been so fortunate as to have defined nothing so by himself for such but what was formerly or concomitantly acknowledged to be such and even acknowledged so by the universal Church of the infallibility of which Church in matters of Faith no Catholick doubts yet I say again that granting all this My direct and positive answer to the above fourth remaining objection is very clear and very full and satisfactory viz. That although without any peradventure my doctrine hitherto all along in this Tract of a supream civil coercive power in supream temporal Princes to punish criminal Bishops Priests and other Clergiemen whatsoever dwelling and offending within their dominions is or was part of the doctrine taught as well by Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno as by thousands of the very best Roman Catholicks both in their time and before and after their time yet it is no part of that doctrine or of those articles of Marsilius or Jandunus which is properly called theirs or which as theirs John the XXII condemned or as much as touch'd at all and therefore that the objection for so much of it as is to purpose is absolutely false Which to evict no less manifestly we need no other proof then what is obvious to every judicious man by comparing together my doctrine hitherto and the above five articles which Iohn the XXII himself relates as the only proper doctrine of Marsilius and Iandunus against which he takes exception and pronounces condemnation For the first of those articles is that that which is read of Christ in the Gospel of St. Matthew that he paid tribute to Cesar when he commanded the stater taken out of the fishes mouth to be given to the Collectors he commanded and did so non condescensivè liberalitate suae pietatis sed necessitate coactus not out of his condescension liberality and piety but as constrained by necessity But it is evident enough the doctrine of a supream coercive power of all Clerks in temporal Princes needs not involves not the support of any such article as this first concerning Christ whatever the sense of Marsilius or Iandunus therein was good or bad false or true for the doctrine of such power in Princes speaks only of it in relation to Clerks who are only men by nature not of Christ who was both God and man by nature even as to all the perfections and power of as well the divine as humane nature Be it therefore so that Marsilius and Iandunus mean'd heretically in this first article of theirs that is mean'd to say that Christ paid tribute not only or solely to avoid scandal but also as bound by his own condition and by the sole virtue of that tribute law in it self and as abstracting wholy from all cases of scandal and be it so as it was so that Iohn the XXII rightly condemn'd this heretical sense or even be it so that he justly condemned that first article as bearing this sense and rightly judg'd it to beare this very sense and no other good sense at all what hath
Sorbone understood this as well as they and yet those Sorbonists who questionless understand too as well as they what is material or pertinent and what not have not thought it immaterial or impertinent to give this 4th Proposition subscribed by themselves to their own King in order to a greater assurance of their standing by him in all cases against the attempts of Popes acting singly without or separatly from a general Council That so and not a whit less is the Subject of the three former Propositions disputed in all Catholick Vniversities and yet they themselves of the Congregation thought it not impertinent or immaterial to sign those That whether they or the Sorbonists had thought so or not of this 4th Proposition the reason is obvious and evident for it to be very pertinent and material Because out of the Pope's being owned to be above a general Council it must follow in their opinion that hold him so that his decrees or definitions in matters of faith or which he declares to be such made without nay even against any Council how general soever otherwise must be submitted unto as infallible or as infallibly true and as articles of Divine saving faith to be necessarily believed by all the faithful after sufficient knowledge of such definition And consequently must follow according to that opinion that if the Pope alone without any general Council nay without consulting with any other person alive at least without consultation with or consent from any but his own particular Divines or Clergie of the City of Rome or particular Church in that City or Bishoprick shall define at any time that the three former Propositions or any thing or clause in them is Heretical Schismatical sinful Scandalous or against faith good life or Salvation both Sorbonists and our Congregation must retract their subscription and sign there recantation For both sides hold there is an infallibility not onely in the Catholick Church in general or not onely in the diffusive body of true believers but also in their supream visible and accessible Representative or Tribunal on earth of the said Catholick Church or true believers to which all sides must submit in declarations of divine Faith Now if the Pope be above a general Council who sees not that it must follow evidently that his person his representation his tribunal is the supream visible and accessible of the Church and therefore in the judgement of such as acknowledge him so must be even without a Council absolutely infallible in his definitions of faith Which being once admitted nay being not rejected upon the contradictory question what securitie or assurance can the King have of the fidelity of such persons who plainly and expresly refused to reject it The Pope without a Council may in tearms define the contrary And there are not wanting Divines even of the Congregation who understand the Canons so that they hold and speake and teach and preach too where they dare without fear of the Magistrat or laws that several Popes have long since by their decretal Epistles inserted in the body of the Canons defined as of the Catholick faith the very points against which those three former propositions were subscribed by the Sorbonists or against those three propositions in their sense though not against the sense of the Congregation or not against the same three propositions in the sense of the said congregation which is by so many abstractions distinctions and exceptions quite an other thing and farr different from the sense of Sorbone Which three answers being duely considered whither this last passage of their Divines preaching teaching or speaking so as I have now said fall under consideration or not for that matters not to weaken my answers here given to that first argument I now demand of any that will so duely consider these answers whither it can be said with any colour of reason or truth that the congregation thought a subscription to the 4th proposition to be not material to the affair or laying aside that querie of their thought whether in it self the proposition was immaterial as to the affair in hanâ— to be subscribed certainly none can say that understand the business aright but that as it was very material for the King and State and for their purpose to demand it of and expected it from them in or as to the point of assurance of their Loyaltie hereafter against such Papal attempts so it was very material to the purpose of the Congregation which as appears was in effect to give no assurance at all not to answer therein the Kings or States either demand or expectation Which and no other was the true and onely reason why they would not subscribe this 5th proposition as it was likewise their onely true inward reason for not subscribing either of the other two the 4th already considered and the sixth and last whereunto I am now making all the hast I can after I have given my answers also to their second argument on the present Subject I onely before I come so farr add for a further conviction of the unreasonableness of this very first specifical reason which they pretend both for not signing this same 5th proposition and for shewing the immaterialness or impertinency of subscribing it that if that first reason of theirs were allowed consequently it must follow that the demand of any kind of subscription to any proposition whatsoever controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities must be unreasonable And therefore besides hundreds more that of subscribing for example this proposition It is not Our doctrine that the blessed Virgin is conceived in original sin Or that of this of an other kind A tyrant by title or administration or both or either may without any sin he killed by every private man though he have no publick authority power command or licence given him for killing That the Congregation in signing and for signing the three first propositions thought or at least pretended publickly they were induced thereunto by the example of Sorbone as by a sufficient if not indeed only motive and argument of the Catholickness and lawfulness of those propositions in themselves and by consequence of a subscription to them and that they had the same example for this 4th notwithstanding it be controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities That notwithstanding this 4th proposition be so controverted or disputed yet not otherwise in many or most even Catholick Vniversities than as other doctrines or positions which nevertheless they hold to be at least and for one side of the contradiction theologically false if not manifest errors and heresies in faith And therefore in most Catholick Vniversities it is disputed not that they hold this proposition true or as much as doubtful The Pope is above a general Council but that they would shew it by Scripture tradition and reason and by solution of all that can be alledged for it to be manifestly false and erroneous in the
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
one tittle or any one action hitherto alledg'd against me as such other than what is in effect and substance my Assertion or Vindication of the Supreme Temporal Sovereignty of the Crowns of these Kingdoms i. e. of their being in all Temporals and all Contingencies whatsoever independent from any but God alone and therefore in Temporals no way dependent from the Pope either by divine or humane right Whether any person may on such ground call in question the sincerity of my believing or professing as I ought all the undoubted Articles of the Roman-Catholick Faith 3. And seeing there was never yet any other matter not even by my greatest Persecutors at any time objected articled oâ— pretended against me beside that i. e. besides my former opposing the Nuncio's Censures and my later promoting the Remonstrance and my endeavours in both against the pretences of the Roman Bishops to the Crowns of England Ireland Scotland c Whether it may in any wise be said or thought by unbyassed learned men That I have given any real ground for the vile detraction of those who treat me every way as if I had been a desertor of the Church 4. Nay Whether considering first The nature of those two grand Controversies wherein I have so freely engaged against all the power of the Roman Court abroad and all the endeavours of the Nuncio's Party and Antiremonstrant Clergy at home secondly The most grievous manifold and continual persecutions I suffered in both Causes one while by Suspensions and Deprivations another while by Excommunications then by Imprisonment in a Forreign Countrey even as far off as Spain and then again by new Thunders of Ecclesiastical Censures and by scandalous Declarations and posting of my Name besides other frequent enterprizes on several occasions against both my Liberty and Life thirdly My continuing constant in both Causes even all along to this very day even also then and that not only once happening when I had no support in this World but my own Conscience of suffering i. e. my own certain knowledge of my suffering onely for Righteousness sake nay then also when some of my chiefest Adversaries laboured with all their powerful malice even here at London to compel me and spared not to speak openly that either they would compel me to renounce the Roman-Catholick Church and declare my self an Heretick or they would make me submit to the Roman Court in the latter of these two Causes viz. that of the Loyal Remonstrance it being the onely matter then prosecuted against me fourthly Their failing nevertheless to this present in obtaining their will of me in either the one or other Whether I say considering all this whereof besides many men I am sure the All-seeing God is witness it be not more likely That no kind of prejudice against the Roman-Catholick Faith or Church but a true and powerful zeal according to knowledge for the primitive Christian purity of both is it that hath set me against those opinions and practices flowing in the corruption of latter Ages from the Roman Court which have shaken Religion divided Christendom and brought a scandal upon Faith as if it were to be supported or advanced by the wrath and rage of men by Rebellion and Slaughter by Subversion of Government and Confusion of the World so making it a ground of jealousie to Magistrates and diverting peaceable and charitable Souls from that union which ought to be amongst the Disciples of Christ 5. Also whether it may not by rational men be at least charitably believed That I would not so often at several times and upon several occasions since first I engag'd in either Controversie especially in the last have refused many Preferments in my own Order have rejected many tempting proffers too even of Episcopal dignity in my own Countrey have also particularly and lately in the National Synod or Congregation held at Dublin anno 1666 and that in publick before all the Fathers refused to yield by any means to their pressing offer not only of all the best Commendatory Letters that could be drawn on Paper in my behalf both to His Holiness Himself who then was and the Cardinal Patron and the Congregation de Propaganda and all other Ministers of the Roman Court as many as were concern'd in the Affairs of Ireland but also of a yearly and very considerable Salary too by general Applotment amounting as they esteemed or computed it in Three years to Two thousand pound English money and in lieu of all these offers have deliberately chosen to run the manifest hazard of undergoing and accordingly since to have in very deed undergone all the vexatious infamy of Ecclesiastical Censures in my own Church Order and Countrey and all the further Evils not only of some at least consequential hardships but of many black Calumnies many bitter Reproaches yea and some yet more inhumane Machinations of cruel men even here in England these four last years since 1669 Whether I say it may not by rational men be and be at least charitably believed That I would not have rejected freely all those tempting offers and in lieu of them voluntarily chosen to lie under all these Sufferings for any thing less than the keeping a good Conscience and the preserving the honour of Christian Catholicism untainted at least in some Priests and Religious men of the Roman-Catholick Religion in these Nations and the justifying my self and those of my way the few Irish constant Remonstrants with such others who communicate with them Loyal Subjects to our Prince the King of England and the winning also for the good of Catholicks in general upon His Majesties Councils Parliaments and all good Protestant people by our peaceable Conversation and Faithfulness amidst all our Sufferings from every side notwithstanding any difference from the Protestant Church in some few Articles of Religion Whereas such other Church-men of the Roman Communion as by their practises or principles have formerly shewn themselves and still appear to continue Enemies to the Supreme Temporal Government of these Kingdoms may in all reason expect the severest Laws to be edg'd against them by Authority under which it will be sad to suffer as evil doers 6. Lastly Whether it had not been very much for the advantage of Roman-Catholicks in general and their Religion in this Monarchy That these last hundred years they had been indoctrinated onely and wholly guided as to their Consciences by such Roman-Catholick Priests and Church-men as are of my principles in relation to the Temporal Powers independence from Rome and the indispensable obedience of Subjects in Civil matters and both the injustice and invalidity or nullity of Ecclesiastical Censures pronounced against either Prince or People or Priests for maintaining these not onely Rational but Christian Principles or asserting any of all their necessary Antecedents Consequents or Concomitants And now my Lords Fathers and Gentlemen to your impartial judgment on all and each of these Queries I do with due
immediately before the foresaid Mauritius Aemulator sayes that Roman Pontiff (b) Agatio was chosen Pope or rather Bishop of Rome an 678. Agatho verae Apostolicae fidei piae memoriae Augustus Justinianus cujus fidei rectitudo quantum pro sincera confessione Deo placuit tantum Rempublicam Christianam exaltavit Et ubique ab omnibus gentibus ejus religiosa memoria veneratione digna censetur cujus fidei rectitudo per augustissima ejus Edicta in toto orbe diffusa laudatur Would Agatho have said so of an Heretick * To Agatho I might add Gregory II. in several Epistles nay and a far greater Authority too viz. the Fathers of the Sixth Oecumanical Sâ—nod besides many others after them See Baâ—â—â—s himself and his Epitomizer Spâ—â—danus confessing so much ad an 565. 3. That if the Truth were known it would be found that Baronius and the rest following him were willing to make use of any malicious ungrounded Fictions whatsoever against Justinian not that they believed him to have either lived at any time or dyed at last in any wilful or imputable Errour or in any at all otherwise than St. Cyprian of Carthage did but that his Laws in Ecclesiastical matters even those of Faith are a perpetual eye-sore to them because these Laws are a Precedent to all other good Princes to govern their own respective Churches in the like manner without any regard of Bulla Coenae or of so many other vain Allegations of those men that would make the World believe it unlawful for Secular Princes to make Ecclesiastical Laws by their own sole Authority for the government of the Church and all orders and degrees of Church men under them even to the very Patriarchs inclusively as Justinian did and you may see in his very many Constitutions to that purpose he did X. Although I do ingenuously confess I had on the Subject of Ecclesiastical either Exemption or Subjection very much light and help from those excellent Authors that writ before me so well on that Subject I mean both the Barclayes the Father and Son yet the learned Reader may see I have been very far from borrowing all from them or any other who treated before or after on Ecclesiastical Immunity Wherever I make use of them I have commonly added everywhere i. e. in every Section to their Answers Animadversions and Proofs my own both reasoning and reading elsewhere I have also raised against my self the strongest Objections I could imagine which they had not nor consequently the Solutions Nay Canons also viz. those Paâ—al ones which the Barclayes do not mention I have both objected and answered at large because I observed our later Casuists or Moralists Azorius and Bonacina c or chiefly or onely or at least partly to quote them though they do no more but barely quote the Chapters not the words or Text for their false Positions about Ecclesiastical Immunity as you may see in my whole LXXI Section from pag. 230. to pag. 241. Besides the whole Affirmative or Positive way against Bellarmine and his Disciples the Louain Divines in five intire long Sections from pag. 243 to pag. 374 where I assume the person of the Opponent to prove the Subjection of all Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate and prove it by Scripture Tradition Fathers Councils and as well by Ecclesiastical yea very Papal Canons as Imperial Constitutions and by Practice also and Reason is wholly from other Collections of my own neither of both the Barclayes nor Withrington nor any other seen by me having so much proceeded in this Affirmative or Positive way but mostly in that which I call Negative as it which hath for principal scope to deny and solve the Arguments of Bellarmine c. XI As for the two grand Objections framed by me against my self the one from the condemnation of Marsilius de Padua and Joan. de Janduno the other from the Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury or rather for my Answers and long material Discourses Sect. LXXVI from pag. 374 to pag. 436. nay to 462. upon and by occasion of each or either of the said two Objections I must no less ingenuously acknowledge that I was necessitated to be my self alone my own guide all along without either light or help from any Authour that handled either Subject For I never saw nor heard of any such Authour Which was the reason that I took more than ordinary pains to clear whatsoever might be alledged or pretended from either that Condemnation or this Martyrdom against the soundness of that Doctrine which maintains the Subjection of all Clergy-men whatsoever to the Supreme Temporal both directive and coercive authority even of meer Lay-Princes and States but more especially to clear the whole Intrigue of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry II and the Cause for which he suffered and to shew it was no Divine right nor even other Humane save only that of the Civil Secular and Municipal Saxon Danish and Norman Laws of England which he grounded himself on when he refused to deliver at the Kings pleasure the Criminal Clerks to be punish'd or judg'd by the Secular Judges and Officers XII The veneration I have as I am bound to the Roman-Catholick Church or that Communion in general wheresoever diffused throughout the World and my knowledge of their having in all their Calendars on the 29th of December the Festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury made me the First also that for any thing I know ventures in a singular and long Discourse by way of Appendix after my four several Answers given to the grand Objection against c. from the Martyrdom of that holy Bishop of set purpose to vindicate him from having been a Traytor to the King whether or no he was a Martyr in the Church through the merits of his Cause and according to the more proper and stricter Ecclesiastical sense of the word Martyr Three hundred years indeed after his death he was under Henry VIII in a very unusual manner both judicially summon'd to appear and formally condemn'd for a Traytor Then which judgment if woâ—â— grounded nothing can be more prejudicial to the practice of all Roman-Catholicks in the World in keeping his Festivity and honouring his Memory and begging his intercession for them to our Lord and Saviour Christ That it hath been in-grounded I do my devoir to shew and prove from pag. 439 to pag. 462. where I answer first all that hath been or could be alledged against him and then produce eight several Arguments even very strong Presumptions both in Law and Reason for him I mean as to this controverted Point Whether he could be justly said to have either dyed or even at any time lived or been a Traytor against the King People or Laws of England XIII Where I seem pag. 438. somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker the First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth you must not persuade your self I do at all
60. Capitula which Mathew Paris tells were proposed by Innocent to the Fathers or whither that Council enacted these or any other Canons whatsoever yet I say it clearly appears out of the very text or express letter of those 72 chapters now attributed to that Council and I mean the Text or express words of the 11. Chap. 33. Chap. 39. Chap. 51. Chap. and 61. Chap. that they are not the Acts of the Council but with additions at least And consequently that they are of no credit at all as Acts of that Council For in the 11. Chap. we find these words or manner of speaking In Lateranensi Concilio piâ fuit institutione provisum And Chap. 33. Evectionum et personarum mediocritatem observent in Lateranensi Concilio definitam And Chap. 39. De multa providentia fuit in Lateranensi Concilio prohibitum c. Quia vero propter Suppressiones et Cupiditates quorundam nullus hactenus fructus aut rarus de praedicto statuto pervenit nos evidentius et expressius occurrere cupientes praesenti Decreto statuimus c. And Chap. 61. In Lateranensi Concilio noscitur fuisse prohibitum c. Nos autem id fortius inhibentes c. Behold Innocent himself or Gregory the IX or whoever els was author of these 72. Canons witnessing plainly that they are not the Canons of that Council but Canons made after that Council because relating to other Canons formerly made by that Council Now where are those other Canons formerly so made by that Council no where certainly extant hitherto or at least at this present if not those 72. Supposititious ones which yet implyes a plaine contradiction How Cardinal Perons arguments to prove them assented to by that Council are sufficiently answered by other Catholick Divines who tell him that Abbot Joachimus's errors and Amalrichus's are not therefore condemned by Catholicks that they believe this Council to have made those Acts now extant as their's which condemn them but therefore certainly because the Fathers there did not oppose or at most made the two first Acts of those 72. or because the Church universal did after allow of the said two first Acts of Innocents condemnation of the said errours and received or approved that condemnation as they found it in the books of Decretals published by Gregory the IX and because they found that condemnation in all parts of it conform to their old auncient belief And the same they say of the articles of Transubstantiation and of the procession of the Holy Ghost And the same also proportionably of that Canon of Discipline in cap. Omnis utriusque Sexus or of that of annual confession How further when that most Illustrious Cardinal urgeth that both Scholastical Doctors and even Popes and Councils too quote some of the said 60. 70. or 72. Canons of Lateran and as of Lateran he is answered by other learned Catholicks that they are quoted so indeed by some but onely still out of supposition or onely because those Canons were so propounded or rehearsed in that Council but not out of any certain knowledg judgment or belief that they were confirmed or assented to by that Council Being such of the quoters as were indeed learned or versed in Ecclesiastical History might have known what the Historians of those days tell us that the said Capitula seemed to some to be easie and pleasing but to others heavie and burdensome and that nothing at all was plainly concluded in that Council How besides to a third argument which may be drawn out of the Council of Constance in the 39th Session where ordaining what profession the future Pope was to make those Fathers of Constance decree that every future Pope hereafter to be chosen must make this confession and profession before his election be published That he doth firmly believe the holy Catholick Faith according to the tradition of the Apostles General Councils and other holy Fathers but especially according to those traditions or Canons of the eight sacred general Councils to witt of the first of Nice of the 2d of Constantinople of the 3 d. of Ephesus of the 4th of Calcedon of the 5th and 6th of Constantinople of the 7th of Nice and of the 8th of Constantinople and also of Lateran Lyons and Vienna also general Councils how I say to this argument it is answered by very learned Catholick Divines that by the Council of Lateran here is not understood this whereof we treat under Pope Innocent the 3d. but the former celebrated under Pope Alexander the 3d. in the year 1180. And if it be understood of this Council of Lateran under Innocent it is onely say they for what concerneth those decrees wherein mention is made of the approbation of the Council as is that 46th Decree which the Council of Constance mentioneth in the Bull of Confirmation of the Emperour Fredericks constitution As also that by the Council of Lions here is not understood that under Pope Innocent the 4th who in the presence thereof excommunicated the Emperour Frederick and whereat onely 140. Bishops were present but that under Pope Gregory the Xth. in the year 1274. whereat St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas of Aquin and more than 700. Bishops were present according to Eberardus whom Binnius citeth How also did we graunt or admitt as I for my part and for what concerns the present dispute do freely graunt and admitt those 72. chap. controverted especially the 3 d. of them Ext. de Haereticis Et at tributtur Concilio Lateranensi 4. Poniturque inter ejusdem Concilii Canones Can. 3. whereof our grand controversie now is Excommunicamus et anathematizamus omnem haeresim c. Damnativero Saecularibus potestatibus praesentibus aut eorum Ballivis relinquantur c. Qui autem inventi fuerint sola suspitione notabiles c. Moneantur autem et inducantur et si necesse fuerit per censuram Ecclesiasticam compellantur c. Si vero Dominus temporalis requisitus et monitus an Ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hac haeretica faeditate per Metropolitanum et Comprovinciales Episcopos Excommunicationis vinculo innodetur et si satisfacere contempserit infra annum significetur hoc summo Pontifici ut ex tunc ipse Vasallos ab ejus fidelitate denunciet absolutos et terram exponat Catholicis occupandum qui cam exterminatis haereticis fine ulla contradictione possideant er in fidei puritate conservent salno jure Domini principalis dummodo super hoc ipse nullum praestet obstaculum nec aliquod impedimentum opponat eadem nihilominus lege servata circa cos qui non habent Dominos principales to have been conciliarly assented to by those Fathers of Lateran yet nothing to purpose can be concluded hence or out of any of those Canons admitted as such or out of the Canon alleadged or pleaded for so mightily not I say concluded from that Canon and there is no other Canon but that
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
to concurr unto and obey Hereupon presently without further debate for none at all scrâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the catholickness or lawfulness such scruples having been sufficiently 〈◊〉 before clear'd amongst all persons of reason and conscience as many as were at that meeting and had not subscribed at London put their hands to a clean copy of that which was before signed by the Nobility and Gentry at London and others that could not be present then subscribed in their Chambers Both these and those in all were eight Lords and twenty three Esquires Collonels and Gentlemen The Earl of Clanrickard The Earl of Castle haven The Lord of Gormanstown The Lord of Slane The Lord of Athenry The Lord of Brittas The Lord of Galmâ—y Henry Barnawel now Lord of Kingsland Sir Andrew Aylmer Sir Thomas Esmond Sir Richard Barnawel Philip fitz Gerrald Nicholas Darcy Francis Barnawal Sir Henry O Neale Nicholas White George Barnawal Richard Beling W. Talbot Iohn Walsh Michael Dormer Iohn Bellew of Wellistown Patrick Netervil Robert Netervil Charles White Coll. Walter Butler Coll. Thomas Bagnel Gerrald fitz Symons Robert Devoreux Coll. Iames Walsh Edmond Walsh Gerrald Fennel And being joyned to the London Subscribers of the Irish Nobility and Gentry they make in aâ— one hundred and twenty one whereof one and twenty Earls Viscounts and Barons XLIV But these Noblemen not thinking they had by their own only subscriptions done enough in this matter unles they had invited the rest of the Peers and Gentry of their communion where-ever in the Countrey abroad throughout Ireland to the like loyal concurrence framed the ensuing Letter and signed two and thirty copies of it one for every County in the Kingdom to get all the hands of the rest of the Catholick Noblemen and Gentlemen where-ever to the said Remonstrance Sirs THe desires we have to serve our King Countrey and Religion in all just ways gives you the trouble of this Letter Which is to let you know That after serious deliberation finding our selves and together with us all others of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom as well as the Clergy of it obliged by all the rules of Reason and tyes of Conscience in the present conjuncture especially to concurr even by subscription to the late Remonstrance and Protestation presented Last Summer to his Majesty by such of our Irish Roman Catholick Noblemen and Gentlemen as were then at London and subscribed it there and received so graciously by Him We have therefore this last week given a beginning here at Dublin to that concurrence by our own manual Subscriptions also to the same Remonstrance prefixing to it a Petition to His Grace the Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant for â—iâ—veighâ—ng our said Concurrence and representing it to His Majesty That reflecting on the unsignificancy of a few hands or subscriptions for attaining those great and good ends â—e drive at by this loyal and Religious Declaration we thought it concerned as further to invite by special Letters all the rest of the Nobility and Gentry of our Communion in the several Provinces and Counties of this Kingdom to the like Subscriptions to be transmitted to us hither without delay Whereunto we have found our selves the rather bound that we certainly know it is expected from us all by his Majesty and by the Lord Lieutenant and that his Grace doth wonder why the example of the first Subscribers at London hath not been here at home more readily and frequently followed hitherto by the rest who are no less concerned And that we know moreover that by the neglect or delay this twelve months past of a more general Concurrence to a duty so expedient and necessary we have let pass already fair opportunities to reap very many advantages by it That we hope the same prudential Christian Catholick and obvious reasons which perswaded us and such others as before us did give the first example from London will prevail with you no less Being they import as much as the clearing of our holy Religion from the scandal of the most unholy tenets or positions that can be taught written or practised the assuring his Majesty evermore of our loyal thoughts hearts and hands for Him in all contingencies whatsoever and the opening a door to our own liberty and ease hereafter from the rigorous laws and penalties under which our selves and our Predecessors before us in this Kingdom of Ireland as other our fellow Subjects of the Roman Communion in England and Scotland have sadly groaned these last hundred years That as we believe you will not think we would for even these very same ends how great and good soever nor for any other imaginable swerve in the least title from the true pure unfeigned profession of the Roman Catholick Faith nor from the reverence or obedience due unto his Holiness the Bishop of Rome or the Catholick Church in general so we believe also you will rest satisfied with the plain evidence of the very words genuine sense total contexture and final scope of this Protestation and of every entire clause thereof that nothing therein no part nor the whole of it denies 〈◊〉 indeed at all reflects on the spiritual jurisdiction authority or power of either Pope or Church or any power whatsoever which we you or any other Catholicks in the world are bound by any law divine or humane or by the maximes of our known and common Faith or by the condition of our Communion to assert own or acknowledge the whole tenour of it asserting only the supream temporal power in the Prince to be independent from any but God alone and the subjection and allegiance or the fidelity and obedience either active or passive due to Him in temporal affairs to be indispensable by any power on earth either temporal or spiritual That finally we do upon consideration of all the premisses and what else your own reasons may deduce thence and give further as additional arguments very earnestly desire and pray your unanimous cheerfull and speedy subscriptions to the said Remonstrance and Protestation which we have sent along with this Letter and by the hands of whom we have likewise prayed to call such of you together as he may conveniently or go about to your several dwellings for that end And if any chance to refuse the signing of it which we hope none will to bring us a true list and exact account of such together with the signatures of the rest that the multitude may not lye under prejudices for the failing of some Which being all we have to trouble you with at present commending you to God we bid you heartily farewell Dublin this 4th of March 1662. Your very loving friends and humble Servants Castlehaven Audley Clancartie Carlingford Mountgaret Bryttas Clanrickarde Fingall Tirconnell Galmoye Slane XLV And questionless if these copies had been sent then as was design'd there had been all the hands of the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdome to the Remonstrance before
cognizance of the Priests alone As appears sufficiently by the contrary practice of their being taxed and punished by their civil Magistrats all along from that time forward while their Commonwealth State or Kingdom was in being So that none of all these examples out of the old Testament alleadged by Bellarmine prove as much as per quamdam similitudinem by some kind of similitude as he speaks that Christian Clerks are by the positive law of God or should be exempt from either the supream or not supream coercive power of the civil Magistrate in criminal causes or any causes whatsoever nay nor that they are exempt by such as much as from taxes if the supream Magistrate shall find it necessary to impose taxes on them which is a farre less priviledge Nor yet as much as prove that any Priests or Clerks whatsoever in any age or amongst any people have ever yet been so exempt by any kind of meer human law from such supream coercive power in criminal causes And as for that onely place which he produces out of the new Testament Mat. 17. these words of our Saviour Then are the Children free and least we scandalize them c give it them for thee and me who sees not further that it is as impertinent as any of those of the old Testament and yet more impertinent then some of them to inferre our present controversy or to inferre that as much as per quandam similitudinem by the positive law of God Clerks are exempt from the cognizance and punishment of the supream civil Magistrate or even to inferre their exemption from the very most inferiour civil Judicatories in any civil or temporal cause whatsoever though it were not criminal any way Our Saviour according to the exposition of St. Hilary intimats onely his own freedom or exemption as he was the natural Son of God from that imposition laid by his Father in Exodus 30. on all the children of Israel of a sicle to the holy Temple or Tabernacle which was yearly paid by the Israelits none at all excepted not as much as those very Levits or Priests What hath this to do with the exemption of others that were not the natural Sons of God or what to do with the exemption of such others from the civil Judicatories in other causes or from the supream coercive power of the Prince in criminal causes Or if we admit the exposition of those who say this Didrachma was a tribute layd by Caesar to be payed to himself not that sicle which by the law of Moyses was to be payed to the Temple or tabernacle how doth our Saviour intimating that himself was Son to a King infinitely above all Caesars and therefore in that respect not bound to pay it if he pleased and that onely to avoyd scandal he would pay it for as much as he was not yet known to others to be the natural Son of that onely supream King of all Kings and Caesars and for that he came on earth in that form he appeared in not to break the laws of God or man but to fulfil the former in all points and to observe the later too wherein they were not against the former how I say doth such intimation made by our Saviour in that passage of Matthew any way or even as much as per quandam similitudinem inferre this conclusion Therefore by the positive law of God all Christian Clerks are in criminal causes exempt from the supream civil coercive power of Princes or Magistrats Yes very well sayes Bellarmine Because all such are of the peculiar family of Christ they are his special servants and Ministers And we know that the children of Kings being exempt from tribute and taxes it is not their own persons onely are so exempt but all their servants and Domestick family Excellent But are not all Catholicks or at least are not all holy and truly vertuous and sanctified Catholicks both men and women and as well those of them as are meer laye persons and have no other relation to Churchmen but that of the Catholick communion or Faith are not I say such of the special family of Christ his especial servants and Ministers as well at least as some Clergiemen or as at least the laye servants of some Clergiemen or as their maid-servants and men-servants their Porters Gardners Brewers Cooks and Scullions And doth not Bellarmine all those of his way extend Ecclesiastical Immunity even that very self-same Immunity which he would per quandam similitudinem as he speaks maintain to be de jure divino positivo doth not he I say at least for some part extend that even to all such laye servants even Landresses Cooks and Scullions of Clergiemen Certainly himself elswhere confesses de Concil Author l. 2. c. 17. avers also as much to his purpose That all Christian Catholicks men and women as well of the Layety as Clergie of the whole earth are of one and self-same family of Christ and fellow servants of the same house under the great Steward and Major domo of Christ the Bishop of Rome And to prove that all are of the same family and house of Christ under the same Steward brings that quaerie of Christ himself in St. Luke 12. chap. Quis est fidelis dispensator et prudens quem constituit Dominis super familiam suam c. But whether he will confess or no that they are equally of Christs household it matters not being it is evident of it self the principles of Christian Religion being supposed that such vertuous holy and sanctified laye persons who are no way obliged to Churchmen nor their domestical servants at all are more truly and properly and excellently of the family of Christ and more truly properly and excellently his servants and Ministers too in general though not by particular designation to that is the special Ministery or function of Clerks then even very many Clerks themselves not to speak of the domestick laye servants of any Clerks whatsoever Besides I demand of any that will answer for this eminent Cardinal whether all that believe in Christ as they should by a living Faith are not not onely called children of light in several places of Scripture are not not onely called servants of Christ and Domesticks of God but also have not the power given them to be the very Sons of God as Iohn the Evangelist sayes Jo. 1. dedit eis potestatem filius Dei fieri and not onely to be called so but really to be so as Paul in an other place ut filij Denominemur et simus to wit by adoption and sanctification And being it must be answered they are so called they have such power given them they are so indeed and not by name onely I farther demand then where is the strength of Bellarmine's argument grounded on our Saviour's intimating in this place of Mat. that himself was free and on the example of Earthly Princes and of their children freed by
were bound to stand or conform always or in all causes Ecclesiastical or even in any at all purely such to the sole decision made by the secular power of what was to be believed in point of Divine Faith or of what was to be acted in point of a good conscience they erre most grossely in this as they did in so many other tenets in other matters And yet all sides must confess that in such causes or in such manner Ecclesiasticks are no more exempt from the civil power then meer laymen For both equally have the same Doctors and Judges of their Faith and of their conscientious or lawful actings in relation to the laws of God or Christianity as both have the same supream civil Judges of temporal corporal and civil coercion LXXI Behold Reader in these eight last Sections which are from LXIII to LXX both inclusively taken the particular proofs or particular reasons of the Procurator's defiance to the Divines of Lovaine by his first general reason for his second answer given LXII Section to the fourth ground of the Lovaine censure For albeit as he noted before in that LXII Section he needed not have given that second answer to the said fourth ground of the Lovaine Divines the first answer which he created at length in the LXI Section immediately foregoing having sufficiently destroyed this fourth pretence of the Lovanians to witt their charging the Remonstrance of 61. and consequently all Clergiemen subscribers of it with renouncing or disclayming in Ecclesiastical exemption yet he would ex superabundanti give that very second answer you have seen in the said LXII Section videlicet That granting the Remonstrance had c. even formally and by express words declared against all pretences whatsoever of any such thing as Ecclesiastical Immunity on exemption of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream civil or temporal coercive power of the Prince or Magistrat provided still it did not declare as verely it does not against that which is indeed the real true and well grounded exemption of Clergiemen from inferiour civil Judicatories according to the respective civil laws or customs of several Kingdoms and as farre as the respective laws or customs do allow such exemption from such inferiour Judicatories yet neither the Divines of Lovaine nor any other could justly censure it therefore And the Procuratour would also give this second answer of meer purpose to dilate himself at large and at full on this subject of Ecclesiastical exemption and to ravel the whole intrigue of such tenets and arguments in this matter which have so often occasion so much trouble confusion in Christendom Which was the reason too that of meer sett purpose also he gave those two general reasons in the above LXII for this second answer of which two general reasons the first was that he defied those of Lovaine or any other Divine or Canonist in the world to shew any law divine either positive or natural or any law humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for such exemption or which is the same thing to shew any one text of holy Scripture or any one tenet of Apostolical tradition or any canon at all of the Catholick Church or even as much as any kind of passage out of the civil laws of Emperours nay as much as any one convinting or even probable argument of natural reason to prove power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream evil Prince or laws under which they live as Citizens or Subjects or literal at least reputed Citizens or Subjects And the self-same purpose of ravelling that whole intrigue was the cause he spent so much time and took so much paâ—â—â—â—â—ther too in eight long Sections to descend to and give so many particular proofs of the reasonableness of this defiance by answering for fully and clearly as he thinks he did all sorts of arguments hetherto alleadged by Bellarmine or any other against that second answer or against the subjection of Clerks to the supream civil coercive power of Princes or which is the same thing alleadged for the exemption of Clerks from this power But forasmuch as the Procuratour not onely so defied the Divines of Lovaine by that his first general reason for his second answer to their fourth ground but also by his second general reason for the same second answer confidently said writ LXII Section that on the contrary he durst undertake against the Divines of Lovaine to prove there is no such exemption nor can be and with much evidence to prove this even by clear express texts of holy Scripture in that sense the holy Fathers generally understood such texts even for a whole thousand of years I therefore now proceed to those particular proofs also of this second part or of this so confident undertaking whereby the Procuratour in his discourses of that Remonstrance more directly assumed when occasion required the person of an Assailant as in the former he did that chiefly of a Defendant And because these particular proofs or reasons given by him for this second part and the confutations of Bellarmine's replyes to some of them for some also there are which either Bellarmine saw not or if he saw them did neither well or ill replye unto will take up some few sheets more I will observe the same method I have hetherto in answering Bellarmine's arguments for his own assertions that is will treat them in several Sections apart for the Readers more easy finding and understanding what I would be at For my next Section which is in order the LXXII shall give my first three arguments whereof two are out of Bellarmine's own concessions as I shew also by further argument that in point of either Theological or Philosophical reason such concessions and even as inferring my conclusions must be made by him and all other men that will speak according to natural reason or Christian Religion And the third argument I take to be a general maxime granted by all Statists Canonists Philosophers Divines nay by all men on earth though Bellarmine hath not a word of it but tranfiently answering it as ridiculously My LXXIII Section gives at large the fourth argument which is purely Theological and is that grounded on the 13. to the Romans according to the general and unanimous exposition of that passage by the holy Fathers until the age of Gregory the Seventh My LXXIV immediatly following shall give some instances of their practices according to this their doctrine and some canons too of Popes and Councils And my LXXV some few remaining objections and answers to them But my LXXVI and last of all on this subject of Ecclesiastical Exemption or as relating to it or to the fourth ground of the Lovaine Censure shall inferr my finall conclusion out of all that is out of these next following five and out of the former eight Sections shall withal consider the meaning of the word Sacriledge of these
either give the spiritual power of the Papacy or take it away from any or should conceive that after the Church had legally revoked that power she once or twice gave Emperours to chose or elect for ever all Popes nay and all other Bishops too of the Western Church yet the Emperour could institute the Pope And the sense also wherein I condemn that Article for both parts is that which any should conceive or express by saying in other significant words that both the spiritual institution and spiritual destitution and the spiritual correction and spiritual punition of the Pope or the punition of him by spiritual wayes or in a spiritual manner or at all by the spiritual sword belongs to the Emperour as such or as only Emperour without any delegation or commission from the Church And the sense moreover wherein I condemn that Article as at least false is that whereby any might conceive that not only before the Popes were legally invested in those temporal principalities which they now enjoy and did enjoy or at least pretended to enjoy as supream temporal Princes in the time or a little before and after the time of Ioannes XXII but also after they were and are legally invested and possessed of a supream temporal independent Soveraignty if I mean they be so re vera at all which is not my business here to determine did I know well how to determine it it belong'd or belongs to the Emperour to give as much as the sole Temporals of the Papacy or take them away from the Pope or as much as to correct or punish him in any other though meer temporal civil or corporal way of coercion by the civil or material sword Now 't is clear enough that neither my Thesis in general concerning the subjection of all Clergiemen whatsoever to their own respective civil Princes nor my particular deduction from it concerning the very Popes themselves and their subjection likewise to the Roman Emperors before these Roman Emperours were legally devested of the real Soveraingty of Rome are touch't by the condemnation of either part or both parts together in any such sense of them or of either of them as I have given hitherto And it is no less clear to me that the reasons of Iohn the XXII against this third Article drives at no condemnation of it in any other sense For amongst these reasons one is the forged donation of Constantine the Great cap. Constantinus dist 96. And another is composed of a plain denyal or plainly false exposition of cap. Adrianus xxii Dist xliii and cap. In Synod ead Distinc and of a posterior revocation by the Popes themselves of the priviledge granted to Emperours in those Canons nay and of a renunciation made of that priviledge by later Emperours also So that if we gather the sense wherein Iohn the XXII censured this third Article even for either of both parts joyntly or severally as we may and ought to gather it from the reasons which he alledges against it we must evidently conclude his censure to have related only to those times wherein the Pope pretended the very temporal and legal supream independent authority or Soveraignty of the City of Rome and of some other Principalities and to those times also which preceded such priviledge given to the Emperours or followed the revocation and renunciation of such priviledge not to the time during which it held But it is apparent enough that my doctrine concerning the Popes subjection to the supream civil coercive power of the Roman Emperours had relation to those other times only wherein the Popes without any peradventure most expresly confessed themselves and to those moreover wherein they should so according to the truth of things confess themselves to be de facto and de jure subject in all temporals to the Roman Emperours And therefore is is likewise apparent enough that I am no way concern'd in this Article of Marsilius and Iandunus or in the condemnation of it Much less am I concern'd how false or how true the Popes allegations or how weak and unconcluding his reasons are which he makes against it and which are the only motives as he pretends of his definitions against it for the very chief Assertors and Defenders of the infallibility of pure Papal Definitions in matters of Faith confess that the reasons alledged by Popes in their definitive Busts are no part of the definition it self nor as such have any kind of infallibility not tye any oâ—her to approve of them further then their own proper native evidence works the understanding to an assent And yet withal as I said before so I now say again that Iohn the XXII's reasons against this third Article of Marsilius and Iandunus prove sufficiently that the doctrine of a supream civil coercive power as warranted by the law divine both natural and positive to be in Emperours or lawful Kings of Rome to coerce judge and punish the very Pope himself in criminal causes when the Pope was no supream temporal Prince or when or if at any time hereafter he shall cease to be such or if even at present he be not such and that he live within such Emperour 's or Kings dominions for this is it and all it I say in the exposition of my general Thesis in relation to the Pope is no way concern'd in the condemnation pronounced by the same Iohn the XXII against the same third Article because not in the sense wherein his said reasons prove he condemn'd this Article But forasmuch as it may be of some good use to the Reader not onely for a more full understanding of what I treat here but in other parts of this work to see at leingth both that no less famous then forged canon or chapter Constantinus dist 96 noted with a Palea in Gratian himself and those other true canons or true Chapters Hadrianus and In Synodo dist LXIII for as true and undoubted these two are by all men quoted and accounted I will not loose this occasion to give so here all three consequently If you think your labour lost in perusing them and you will not if you be not extreamly uncurious you may skip over them to my observations on the 4. and 5. article of Morfilius Ex Gratiano distinct XCVI cap. Constantinus Constantinus Imperator quarta die sui baptismi privilegium Romanae Ecclesiae Pontifici contulit ut in toto orbe Romano Sacerdotes ita hunc caput habeant sicut judices Regem In eo privilegio ita inter caetera legitur Utile judicavimus unà cum omnibus Satrapis nostris universo Senatu optimatibusque meis etiam cuncto populo Romanae gloriae imperio subiacenti ut sicut beatus Petrus in terris vicarius filii dei esse videtur constitutus ita Pontifices qui ipsius Principis Apostolorum gerunt vices principatus potestatem amplius quam terrena imperialis nostrae Serenitatis mansuetudo habere videtur concessam
too he may be deceived in the objective truth of things and sometime to import onely a witnessing by bloud so spilt or a testimony of innocent and holy bloud against those cruel men who spil'd it for no other cause but that themselves might reap some worldly advantage thereby though otherwise they had no quarrel at all with such a Saint nor he with them or with any other for defence of which his life should be taken away Secondly this fourth supposition is denyed by me because neither the diffusive nor representative Church was ever concern'd I mean their pursuant veneration or invocation of any canonized for a Saint and under the title of a martyr was never concern'd in such an intrigue as this viz whether in the more strict or large sense of the word Martyr he were a Martyr nor concern'd whether his whole or even any substantial part of his quarrel as in his Legend or in the process of his canonization was true or no or such as might entitle to martyrdom strictly taken according to the objective truth of things nor truly concern'd any further in him or in his life or death but that he was a great extraordinary servant of God in both or at least at the time of his death and that now he was in the glory of God For this onely being certain though all other matters reported of him were uncertain their veneration and invocation of him must be not onely void of all impiety but acts of true religion and true piety and for the rest they are free to believe or not by humane faith according as they see those humane proofs alleadg'd to be strong or weak Thirdly that fourth supposition is denyed because the miracles wrought cannot be said upon rational grounds to have been wrought in confirmation of the at least objective truth or justice of this or that controversy whatsoever not certainly Evangelical which such a Saint or Martyr sometimes had in his life being they were not wrought at the invocation of God by the Saint himself or by any other that God might be pleased by working such miracles to evidence the justice of such a cause For if they had been wrought so the case would be clear enough as to such who saw those miracles or to whose knowledg authentick proofs of them did sufficiently come that even the obedience truth and justice of things in such a controversy had been on such a Saints or Martyr's side But otherwise wrought they can be no more but divine testimonies of his having wonderfully or extraordinarily served God either in his life or death or both whether he was deceived or no in some things and whether he had some times and in some occasions or controversies some failings or no at least out of want of true knowledg or sound reflection for the very greatest Saints might have been deceived sometimes nay and failed too sometimes in their duty and besides they can be no more or at least on any rational ground cannot be said to be any more then divine testimonies of his being now with God in glory Out of all which I think 't is evident enough there are several suppositions in the proof of the Major which I am not bound to allow not even in their principles or doctrine who teach the infallibility of the Pope in his Bulls of canonization and several suppositions which yet I am not bound to allow notwithstanding I do my self as I confess I am bound most religiously allow the canonization veneration and invocation of St. Thomas of Canterbury and all three of him as of a glorious martyr too and notwithstanding I allow also all the miracles reported of him And consequently I think 't is evident enough that it is not necessary to admit the Major to wit this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel against Henry the Second is false for any such suppositions or for any such inconvenience as that proof of it which I have given before would inferr or deduce out of the denyal of it Therefore my reason in and for admitting that Major in this my second answer is no such matter nor is that I could not maintain St. Thomas of Canterburie's extraordinary great sanctity in his life and in or at his death and his consequent canonization veneration invocation miracles not that I could not I say maintain all without admitting that Major and granting that of necessity the quarrels causes or controversies of such a Saint with such a King and in such matters as those of Thomas of Canterbury were in must have been just from first to last of the Saints side and just I mean according to the objective truth of things in themselves But my reason for admitting it so simply and absolutely without any distinction in this second answer is that I see no reason to call in question the credit of those Historians who relate the matter of fact in that controversy so and so circumstantiated or the credit of other Historians or Antiquaries who relate those ancient Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along unrepealed in our case till Henry the Second did so repeal or attempted to repeal them so and that on the other side all right reason shewes that S. Thomas of Canterbury having so the very municipal laws of the land of his side he had justice also arising immediatly from such laws of his side and consequently that the same right reason shews that whatever doctrine condemns or opposes such known justice in the quarrel of any man whatsoever Saint or not Saint Martyr or not Martyr must be false in the case And this and this onely is my reason for admitting so that Major But what then Must I admit the Minor subsumed thus But my doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c with Henry the Second Must I admit this Minor I say nothing less For I deny it plainly and flatly and that too without any kind of distinction And that I may deny it so deny it without any contradiction contrariety inconsistence or falsity you have had already in my first answer and in my precedent observations enough to convince you Therefore consequently it must be said that the conclusion does not follow or that of the Syllogisme which pretends my doctrine of a supream civil coercive power of Clerks in criminal causes to be false for it is ill inferr'd the Minor being false or being denyed upon such rational grounds as I have formerly given An other Answer yet may be as a second to the Syllogisme though a third in order to the matter in it self or to the judgment of St. Thomas of Canterbury For the Major may be distinguish'd thus whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of such part of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel which was all along and until the very last of his life that whereon he did and would
Ecclesiasticos quam Saeculares praesertim Nobiles congruis admonitionibus sedulo continere satagat in sincera perfecta erga Sanctam Apostolicam Sedem observantia rejectis commentis novae formulae fidelitatis Valesianorum Illud enim est quod Ecclesiam Dei majori damno ac pernicie afficere potest quam quaevis anteacta Haereticorum persecutio In eo autem munere obeundo non est quod Paternitati Vestrae suggeram utpote ubertim in hujusmodi materiis instructae ex propria eruditione ac prudentia praeter ea quae nuper ipsi viva voce insmuavi signanter ut sic refutetur arguatur illud Juramentum ne tamen Regii Ministri ansam accipiant in Catholicos saeviendi eosque tanquam Regiae Dominationi quia ab Ecclesia defecerit infestos persequendi De omnibus porro quae in causa fidei at statu Ecclesiae digna notatu compererit gratissimum mihi erit Paternitatis Vestrae Litteris identidem edoceri Illas autem inscribat absque operculo A Monsieur Monsieur Francois Rossi-Bruxelles ita enim secure ad me perferentur Denique Paternitatis Vestrae Sacrificiis me animitus commendo Bruxellis 7. Octobris 1663. Paternitatis Vestrae Studiofissimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis In English thus Reverend Father in Christ YOur Paternities most friendly Letters dated at Paris the 20th of the last month I have received wherein you signifie that you are now again upon thoughts of your Journey to Ireland Wherefore I wish you a most happy Journey and send you the Faculties of an Apostolical Missionarie As for that which you mention of danger of Confusion in that Kingdom by occasion of the Visitor now suddenly to be Commission'd he meant the Visitator of the Franciscan Order in Ireland who was then to be sent or at least Commission'd from beyond Seas I could wish you did particularly inform me on that Subject that understanding fully the whole Affair I might timely take my measures Nothing occurs to me which at present I may recommend But the sum of all consists herein That rejecting the Comments Lyes or false Device of the new form of Fidelity of the Valesians you labour diligently by congruous Admonitions to contain your Countreymen especially the Nobility and Gentry in a sincere and perfect observance of the See Apostolick For that Formulary is it which can do more harm unto and bring more ruine upon the Church of God than all the forepast persecution of Hereticks In order to the discharging of that Duty incumbent on you its needless that I suggest any other thing to your Paternity being a man throughly and abundantly instructed in such matters by your own eradition and prudence besides those which I have lately by word of mouth insinuated to you signally That the said Oath be refuted and reproved so as that notwithstanding the Royal Ministers may not thence take occasion of severity against Catholicks or of persecuting them as people studiously and maliciously undermining the Royal Dominion on account of its having fallen from the Church As for the rest know it will be most grateful unto me that by your Letters I be frequently advertised of all Note-worthy matters concerning the cause of Faith or State of the Church which shall occur to you Your Letters without cover you may superscribe A Monsieur Monsieur Rossi-Bruxelles for so they will securely be brought to me To conclude I commend my self heartily to your Paternities sacrifices Bruxels 7. Octob. 1663. Your Paternities Most Affectionate Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal On either Letter though you need no Animadversions because they are of themselves plain enough as it is also plain that as well by these as other you have Sect. vii this Internuncio begun that which his Successors ever since more vigorously pursued viz. to have the Remonstrants esteemed both Schismaticks and Hereticks yet I cannot here but give some few Observations First Observation is How these men would pull out our eyes and make us believe the Pope would have all kind of Duty Faith and Obedience paid by us to our King to be exemplars of these vertues even to Hereticks and in a place of darkness the lights of the world in such matters and yet at the same time and by the same Letters to condemn us in effect as Schismaticks and Hereticks for any way acknowledging our King to be King and promising to obey Him as such and at the same time also to procure a publick University Censure of the Louain Divines to condemn our Subscription of such acknowledgment and promise and no less solemnly than formally or in express words to judge both to be unlawful detestable and sacrilegious yea and consequentially or virtually to be also Schismatical and Heretical For that our very such bare acknowledgment and promise c. were so condemn'd by them is manifest because our said Remonstrance and Subscription neither contain'd nor imported any more than such bare acknowledgment and promise c. being they contain'd and imported only this much That we acknowledge the King to be Supreme in all Temporal and Civil Affairs and that we promised to be faithfully and unchangeably obedient to him in such that is only in all Temporal and Civil things leaving out of purpose all mention of any kind of Spiritual things or causes Now who sees not that if we be condemn'd for only acknowledging the King to be Supreme in Temporals we are consequently condemn'd for the bare acknowledgment of his being at all or in any way or sense our King For there are but two or at most three wayes or senses wherein any can be truly said to be King The one that he be Supreme both in Temporals and Spirituals The other that he be in Temporals only and the last that only in Spirituals either purely and essentially or only by extrinsick denomination such But we have not Remonstrated nor have we Subscribed our acknowledgment of the King 's being our King either in the first or last sense but have been as to the words of our Formulary as far from either of both these two senses as Heaven is from Earth And therefore have only in the second Whence is further most evidently consequent That being we are condemn'd for Remonstrating or Subscribing in that sense we are also for the very barest acknowledgment can be of the Kings being any way King For how can we acknowledge him King if ever also as to very Temporals we deny his Kingship And therefore it is not only a meer Cheat and Imposture but Folly Non-sense and even plain contradiction to say That his Holiness would have us to be and continue still in our duty faith and observance to any person as to our King and yet at the same time to tell us That our profession of fidelity and obedience in Temporal things is unlawful detestable and sacrilegious nay Schismatical and Heretical upon this account that by such profession we both promise a more ample obedience to
him either direct or indirect as they speak and that either spiritual or temporal or mixt depose all Kings whatsoever at least such as are Christians but above all such as are Hereticks or believers of Hereticks and may depose them at least casually as Innocent the Third speaks that is for sin or by occasion of their sin or may at least depose them for some kinds of horrid sins or lastly for evil Government or unfitness or uncapableness to govern as the foolish Assertion is of some late smattering Divines flattering Parasites of the great Pontiff For indeed although from the very first time I understood any thing of Theological positions relating to the Civil or Lay and Ecclesiastical or Church-powers which the more ancient Divines and many too of the very Scholasticks have excellently well distinguished as Gerson Almainus Occam and others it never once entered my Soul to repute the great Pontiff alone without a Council Oecumenical to be a competent Judge in this Controversie as I never since or before either believed Him to be infallible or unerrable but in such a General Synod only and only too in defining there with their concurrence Articles or matters of Faith yet even in his sole judgment as in that of the Primary Bishop and Universal Patriarch Doctor Father and spiritual Superiour of all Christians I have alwayes thought fit to acquiesce for the peace of the Church until a General Council be assembled I mean if or when he declares that his judgment as Pope not as a particular Doctor and further if it evidently appears not to contain an Error against the Christian Faith once and all along till then delivered and lastly if or when it is in matters purely belonging to that very Faith Wherewith notwithstanding is well consistent and compatible That I Religiously acknowledge his fulness of Apostolical power in spirituals and my own absolute subjection to Him in such as I do indeed and as I am specially bound to by the Rule of St. Francis I profess most devoutly acknowledge both This only follows out of what is before said That if from the appearance of Caron or Walsh at Bruxels your Lordship hoped for a Refixion of their Signatures you have invited them to no purpose Or you thought peradventure of some kind of modification or change of the said Form either as to the sense or to the words or both If to the sense you would without any peradventure lose both your oyle and pains Since it is very true and certain That hitherto no reason no motive proposed to those from whom we do expect the benefit of that Protestation could prevail with them to admit not even in the least any manner of variation in the sense for what concerns the substantial parts of a declaration and promise of fidelity indispensable by any mortal and of an acknowledgment of the Kings MAJESTIES power Supreme in Temporals to depend of God alone and of no other kind of power on earth Spiritual or Temporal or mixt of both whatsoever But if to the words the same sense in substance still retained they have already granted that Or lastly perhaps you thought of Treating with us of some other wayes or means whereby the Romish Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland may be restored to His MAJESTIES Favour notwithstanding that the foresaid Form be laid by for ever and not only that Form but all and every or any other Form Oath Protestation or Declaration whatsoever of Allegiance And truly I could with all my heart wish there might be any such Expedients proposed or such as would be grateful to His MAJESTY and prime Counsellors of State But that any such may or such as will suffice without a publick Declaration Protestation or Oath of fidelity for the future I do for my part wholly despair So deeply hath the remembrance of the Troubles raised amongst the Catholicks of Ireland against the King and Crown and Peace of that Countrey in the late Wars by the Lord Nuntio Rinuccini and by his too too zealous sticklers of the Irish Clergy fixed its Roots And so powerful to break open again and make the old sore fester anew your Lordships endeavours and contrivements for so they call here your Admonitions and Cautions and much more yet those of the most eminent Cardinal Francis Barberine in so many several Epistles of both to the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of Ireland on the subject of our Protestation have been Epistles sent to no other end say they but to alienate once more that Nation and Kingdom from the duty of Subjects For if this were not your design their demand is Why should you seek for knots in the smoothest bulrush Whatever your Lordships intention was or whichsoever of these three things you resolved to propose to Caron or Walsh or both had they appeared at Brussels I see not wherefore being they are stayed at London it may not be as well proposed unto them and by mutual Commerce of Letters treated as happily nay far more happily and speedily too I mean as to any reasonable point than if they had been at Brussels Wherefore by the wounds of the crucified God I beseech your Lordship may be pleased to deal fairly and candidly with us and with the rest of the Irish Clergy and write the single Proposition or Clause any one or more if perhaps more then one seem such to you or your Divines which may be said undoubtedly to be against faith or salvation or which may render the Subscribers guilty of Sacriledge as your Doctors of Louain have Censured the Form in general And that you may be pleased to fix on such Proposition or Propositions Clause or Clauses not by the Rule of any variable sentence of some Opiners but by that of the infallible sense of all Believers by that of the constant doctrine of the Church and by that of the divine persuasion of all People Kingdoms and Nations that are in communion with the Roman See and Bishop Which if your Lordship cannot do or if you cannot according to this Rule single out of that Form any one Proposition or Clause or more such that may be lyable to Censure let I beseech you the most holy Father permit a miserable people communicating with and obeying Him in spirituals redeem themselves by lawful and honest means from the severity of Laws which make them drag a life of hardship and slavery clear the suspition of disloyal principles and practices otherwise most justly conceived of them and wipe off as well as they can and wash away that blemish which renders even Catholick profession in it self very odious Nor verily can it be esteemed just much less pious and the Church ought to be very pious in governing That the most Holy Father should by Censures and Threats or such other means either by Letters or by Messengers compel or drive any people or persons at least who live without the bounds of his own proper temporal Jurisdiction
or Estate to renounce in this Controversie a Doctrine or Position which they very well know to have been asserted in all Ages by Thousands and by Millions even of the most Learned most Religious and most Holy of Catholicks as the soundest and safest if not as wholly and absolutely and in all respects certainly Catholick according to the faith of Christ and to have been asserted by them for such not in their speculative Ratiocinations only but in all the practick observations of their life and yet by them for such asserted so that whensoever or as often soever as this Controversie was renewed and even at that very time it viewed first the light under Gregory the VII they devoted the contrary both doctrine and practice to all the Furies of Hell Such proceedings I say cannot be reputed just or pious in the most holy Father especially when it is apparent the Irish in relation to whom the present debate is cannot change their Opinion cannot retract their Subscription without hazard of losing all their temporal Goods and Fortunes or hopes of any whatever may in the mean time be said probably on either side for the loss or safety of those are purely spiritual But such proceedings or attempts to have their source from others without either consent or knowledge of his Holiness and to be continued certainly with the scandal of the Church and hatred of the Pope and hurt of Souls and singular decrease of Religion and yet carried on by most filthy Forgeries and Impostures must seem absolutely both unjust and wicked And your Lordship may be further pleased to write what change you desire in the words or send some other Form of your own but such as you shall rationally think may satisfie the KING and His great Counsellors and may withall be allowed by his Holiness Lastly you may be also pleased to specifie those other means if any such be which appear to your Lordship whereby the Catholick Subjects chiefly such as are of the Clergy may daily more and more ingratiate themselves with our most Gracious KING For truly and in relation to my self I protest here anew and under my hands-writing what I have before in your own presence and to your self by word of mouth at London and I protest it too in the sight of the All seeing God That I have not hitherto aimed in this whole Affair do not at present nor shall at any time hereafter God willing aim at other thing but the encrease of Christian Faith and Roman Catholick Religion the freedom of my Countreymen from the yoke of most severe Laws against it and the peace of the Kingdoms and other Dominions in general of Great Britain's Monarchy And to the end this my ingenuous Protestation may be the more believed I shall be most ready to give and make and as well by writing as by word a full entire profession of my Faith if at any time you demand it even that very profession which Pius the IV. hath ordered in prosecution of a Decree of the Council of Trent Some other passages I was minded to give in this Letter by reason of some things which more particularly concern Father Caron and Father Walsh alone and which have been said or rather indeed upbraided by your Lordship to Father Gearnon But least such an addition should be too much for one Letter or one sheet too scanty for all I have already and what I must further give in that other Subject I thought better to leave it to a distinct Paper which is the enclosed And will only add here That I willingly understood from the said Father Gearnon how your Lordship challenges me of my promise when your Lordship was here to write to you to Bruxels and that you took in ill part I never since performed but more especially that I did not at least write by him For I am glad to know your Lordship desires that which I my self so heartily i. e. an Epistolar Correspondence And without any question I was my self most firmly resolved before I knew any thing of that your challenge to send unto the said Father Gearnon Letters for your Lordship if he had stayed as I thought he would but one week longer at Bruxels However if your Lordship please I shall hereafter abundantly compensate by my diligence that fault of delaying so long my duty And so kissing your hands with all becoming respects and affection I remit your Lordship to this other annexed writing and beseech God to direct and keep you in health London Ides of Febr. 1665. stilo novo My LORD Your most Illustrious Lordships Most humble and obsequious Servant Peter Walsh The additional Paper mention'd as you see in the end of this Letter because it is long as being a necessary Expostulation with the same Internuncio for his passionate and rude and both injurious also and ignorant expressions to Mr. Gearnon at his being at Bruxels against both him and his friends Walsh and Caron I remit to the following Section which is wholly taken up by it And must only here advertise the Reader That as he will find by the date this additional Paper was not sent together with the first Letter but some dayes after it LXXXVIII HOwever that very same Paper or second Letter of the Procurator to the Internuncio de Vecchiis Translated out of the Latin is and most exactly too as followeth My Lord SInce your Lordship was pleased in Discourse with F. Gearnon to call Caron and Walsh Schismaticks and Apostates and when he expostulated the matter to assign no other Reason for those most ignominious Titles but that they had been disobedient to the command of their Superiours namely as far as may be guessed the Commissary General of the Flemish Nation who had admonish't and cited them to Rome or Bruxels I thought good to repress the malice and ignorance of your Informers together with the wonderful liberty they take to calumniate by declaring the Truth briefly in the following Lines and more at large in the bundle of Papers annexed which contains both Copies of that Citation whatsoever it was and to whomsoever directed and of the Answers of Walsh and Caron as well for themselves as for the rest who by any conjecture could be conceived concerned in it Be it therefore known to your Lordship That neither Walsh nor Caron did ever receive any Command Citation or Monition either by writing or word so much as by fame or any relation of any other from any Superiour other than one in a Letter from Father James de Riddere Commissary as abovesaid of the Flemmish Nation whom they undoubtedly acknowledge and receive as their lawful Superiour to Father Caron at London now about some Two years since and certain others in general none of those others being named nor any fact expressed by which or one of which it might certainly be determined who besides Caron were admonished or cited for in those Letters onely the said Father Caron
and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
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
under His Majesty so unspeakably and irrecoverably destructive to those of their Communion but with much confidence and alacrity resolve to pursue evermore and try their Fortune hereafter in that at least more safe and holy way of undoubted Christianity of the Cross of Christ of peace and patience and suffering and love commended by the Son of God to his Disciples 4. That in the end of the year 1662 they had lost a very great and fair opportunity indeed not only of redeeming the ill opinion was held of them as to the points of Loyal inclinations by all their Protestant fellow Subjects but also of helping and mightily furthering even their whole Nation even their Lay people Nobility Gentry and very Commons too in their Temporal concerns and lost that first and best opportunity meerly out of the Caprice of some Ecclesiastical Ringleaders by refusing then to sign the Remonstrance when for signing such offere were made as they had cause enough since to repent they had not accepted and that if they did likewise neglect this second opportunity so unexpectedly offered them now in 1666 whether they should not rationally fear to be answerable to God for all the groans and sighs of a poor Nation like to be for ever after in our days rendred utterly and helplesly Calamitous by such a second neglect or rather wilful contempt of theirs or by them of the Providence and Mercy of God knocking at their doors favourable Fortune if twice rejected seldom or never returning the third time to negligent and ungrateful men 5. The terms of the Message now sent them and not so much by whom as from whom The termes or Tenour of it to be concerning their Subscription to that very individual Formulary of Recognition which above five years before had been to redeem and help them sign'd first at London by a considerable number of their own Country and Communion both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks and amongst both or each Order of them several yea many persons of the best quality and ability to discern of such matters which had been humbly presented to and graciously accepted by His Majesty which had been the true occasion and sole Instrument of ceasing immediately so great and fierce a Persecution under which they groan'd till then which after deservedly had the concurrence or Subscription of many others both of the Clergy Nobility and Gentry at home in Dublin but which nevertheless through the malice of Satan and suggestions of Men that regarded rather their own private either animosities or ambitious desires of Mitres or other Titles and Commissions from the Court of Rome than any Publicke good of their Country or Religion or than Truth or Justice or Honesty or Christian Peace hath been so contradicted by some malign'd by others persecuted by many and rejected or put off and delayed for point of Subscription to it by all the rest as no man could be ignorant of The Person from whom the said Message came to be as they all believed nor could but know the Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of the Kingdom the Duke of Ormond even that very person that very Lord Lieutenant whom the great body of the Irish Clergy represented by them now had formerly in the years 1646 and 1650 even contrary also to publick Faith and the very Laws of Nations twice forc'd away out of the whole Kingdom yea and notwithstanding his being then at both times under His Majesty their chief Governour and Lord Lieutenant And therefore how much in all reason it concern'd them to give now a satisfactory answer to Him who was pleased out of his own Christian and Heroick Nature to pass by and forgive all such farmer indignities and misdeeds against himself and expect only from them a dutiful profession of their future Allegiance to His Majesty in Temporal things and a consequential Renunciation of dependency in such matters from any Forreign Power or Authority whatsoever This being the whole substance of that Formulary the Subscription of which His Grace expected from them 6. And Lastly That upon such answer depended wholly their own future welfare quiet peace safety being they could not otherwise than understand That as the said Lord Lieutenants Grace represented them on this occasion to His Majesty without any peradventure they were like to find themselves accordingly treated always after XII ON all and every of these Heads to such purpose in a very profound attentive silence of the whole Assembly did the Procurator speak with all becoming respect and dilate for at least an hour or more that day in one continued Oration Only he remembers to have been a little interrupted twice First by the Primat standing up and denying the six Sorbon Declarations of May 8. 1663. Secondly By Father Nicholas Nettervil one of the Fathers and two Divines of the Society of Jesus in that Congregation who soon after stood up likewise albeit scarce for one moment of time and excepting only in a few words against so great a Multitude of Catholick Writers alledg'd by the Procurator for the Doctrin of the Remonstrance but withal confidently saying those Authors were no more but two and one of them but a Schysmatical Historian the other but a Poet. I must confess it was no little cause of Admiration to me to meet with such objections from such men Objections that argued either extream ignorance even of the most publick matters or a desperat Resolution like that of those in Job described to be Rebelles lumini and to say to God Recede a nobis scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus However to the Primat I answered That if the Publick Gazets of all Countries in Europe and the great Alarum of Rome upon that very occasion in the year 1663 or if the consequent perswasion of all men together with his own experimental knowledge of such matters during his abode at Rome and Paris for so many years since did not convince him at least those very six Latin Declarations of Sorbon in Print together with His most Christian Majesties other annexed French Declarations and Commands likewise in Print as they were transmitted from Paris and brought out of France by the Reverend Father Thomas Harold who lived then in France when they were past and Published as he did for sixteen years before a Publick Professor and Teacher of Divinity in the Schools there ought to convince others especially it being evident to all men conversant in the Schools or Scholastical Authors That such was the Ancient Doctrin of the Parisian School and of their great famous Writers Masters Doctors Gerson Major Almain Joannes Parisiensis c from which their Successors never varied if not some few of them once in the time of the Guisian Ligue seduced by Bellarmine there personally amongst them incognito awed by the Power of a prevailing Faction and corrupted by promises from Rome and it being also no less known that His most Christian Majesty Lewis XIV and Pope Alexander VII were
saw by chance an extract of a late Letter sent from Ireland and written by an Irish Jesuit one Ward by name if my memory fail me not to an other Irish Jesuit at London viz Father Hughs living then with the Portugal Embassadour but now with the Queen which related How amidst all the extream afflictions of the miserable remainders at home of the Catholick People in Ireland even God himself from high had both graciously and wonderfully visited them at last to confirm them in their holy Religion by raising a wonderful man indeed amongst them James O Fienachtuy a Secular Priest who had formerly the charge of a Parish in the Archbishoprick of Tuam or Province of Connaught and by gifting this man so extraordinarily i. e. with such a true Miraculous Power of dispossessing Devils and curing too all sorts of other even the most natural diseases that he drew the world after him and not only Catholicks but Protestants In so much That he had often a Thousand sometimes Fifteen hundred nay Two or three Thousand who followed him even through Bogs Woods Mountains and Rocks and desert places whether soever the people heard him to have fled from the Persecution of Cromwel's Troups or Governours That Priests enough could not be had though many accompanied him of purpose to hear the confessions of the great Multitude drawn to Repentance and Resolutions of a new Life by the example of his life and wonder of his Works That therefore he was justly and principally next after St. Patrick alone esteemed another Thaumaturgus i. e. Wonder-worker of Ireland as being greater in the glory of Miracles and prodigiousness of Signs than any even of so vast a number of Irish Saints who are in History Recorded to have formerly in a continual succession for some Ages flourished in that then Island of Saints and therefore also That as he was of one side the greatest comfort might be to Catholicks so on the other he was even the very greatest terrour could be to Hereticks who saw clearly now they must fall being God had now at last raised them an enemy whom they could not overcome nor indeed so much as fight by any force of Arms whilest he conquered them by Words Signs and Wonders Having seen also as I remember the very Original of this Letter with Father Hughs himself whom to that purpose I accoasted and been further assured both by him and a general no less credulity then confident report amongst all the Irish then at London that all was very true and notorious at home throughout Ireland I could not but entertain pleasing Ideaes of invincible Arguments for the divine certainty of the Roman-Catholick Religion viz Arguments wholly composed of Miracles wrought so manifoldly publickly and undeniably by one professing it and wrought by him even as was further said in express confirmation of it by his invoking God to this purpose and he also himself living still in his own Countrey at home where we might easily find out the truth of matters of Fact For I must confess that having from my youth dedicated my studies chiefly to Controversial Divinity for what concern'd the differences 'twixt Roman-Catholicks and those of all other Churches especially the Protestant Church of England and having even lately had occasion enough especially at London in my frequent converse with some learned Protestants to reflect very often upon those Notes or Signes of the only true Church which Bellarmin Bozius and some others give and finding also that in my judgment all other Notes might be easily answered save that only of Miracles as alledged to be appropriated to and continued in the Roman Church only or only amongst those of her Communion there was nothing I desired more even for many years before I heard a word of Father Finachty than that I might be by some way or other absolutely and without moral possibility of contradiction or fiction assured of some at least one true Miracle wrought by any of that Communion living in our days and in any of these our own Countries at home where we might easily see both the Person and Miracle wrought by him or her especially if wrought by his or her invoking God publickly before the People or a convenient number of competent Witnesses and begging that his Divine Majesty would be pleased to work such or such a true Miracle in confirmation of the Roman-Religion in matters differing from those believed as points of Faith or Christian Doctrine by other Churches And therefore it was that when I had as before the first time heard at London of James Finachty I was mâ—ghtily pleased as flattering my self with great hopes of attaining at last in him my foresaid wish But my hopes were not long after abated if not rather quite vanished and that upon this occasion Even the very next Summer following one Father Bonaventure O Melaghlin an Irish Franciscan and one who had for many years gone through almost all promotions i. e. all both Local and Provincial Superiourships of his own Order in the Province of Ireland at home who had been several times Guardian once Vicar Provincial and now Pro-Minister Provincial going from Ireland to the general Chapter in Spain there to be one of the Vocals as representing the Person of the then Franciscan Minister Provincial of Ireland took London in his way Where finding me and often discoursing with me and amongst other matters even in presence of about nine or ten other Irish Franciscan Fathers who lived then at London and even also in particular categorical and positive answer to my Questions put unto him publickly before them all concerning the reports of Father Finachty's famed wonders or Miraculous gift of dispossessing Devils and healing too all other diseases whatsoever he assured me That neither himself nor any other of the more grave and judicious Church-men of his acquaintance at home in the Province had any such opinion of the said Father Finachty or his pretended gifts or cures That not only of his curing miraculously either all or any one natural disease but even of his curing by Exorcism or otherwise any either possessed or obtested person he could say nothing much less could give any assurance at all That for his own part he understood not so much yet as that Father Finachty's pretences of so many some Possessed and some Obsessed persons had any ground or colour nay nor perhaps could understand even so much as how any one single person's being truly in our days either Possessed or Obsessed in that Countrey might upon rational grounds be confidently alledged That not only not himself but forasmuch as he had yet learn'd or heard no other person how discerning soever hath at all hitherto discerned nor indeed could discern any proper signs of meer Diabolical works in or about such persons whom Father Finachty pretends to be under such visitations of the Devil as are truly called Possession or Obsession That if any such signs could be discern'd by
in question it was I say to avoid the grossness and odiousness and the danger withal of the consequences of that third explication or gloss in this second part they chose rather to have their more ordinary recourse to the two former and yet more plausibly to the second than first And indeed the said Father N. N. who as I have told in my Narrative was the chief man at first to offer to my self and draw the Congregation to a Subscription of them though not for any real end that might be to assure the King of their Loyaltie but for that only in my Narrative expressed and for no other besides but for a meer blindation and though after his first heat and upon a more serious reflection he was the chief man also to keep them back from subscribing the last three of those six of Sorbon I say the said wel-spoken Father when I dealed with him freely and to make himself to my self in plain tearms declare his own distinctions and evasions when I asked him familiarly how could he that was so great a stickler for Bellarmine and so great an opposer of the Remonstrance of 61. where it was against Bellarmine how could he holding still to that stickling and opposition subscribe that clause or second part of the first proposition so plainly or seemingly against Bellarmin's Doctrine of the indirect power Or how consequently would he choose rather to subscribe those propositions of Sorbon applyed to our King than the said Remonstrance of 61 or would he indeed by the promise in the first proposition to oppose the assertors of even the indirect power have it understood that he promised so in case of Excommunication Deposition Deprivation issued or pronounced by the Pope for the crimes of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people c when I put these queries to the said Reverend and both eloquent and learned Gentleman of the Society his answer was plain and positive That as the propositions reached not descended not expressed not such cases so the Congregation would not subscribe them as comprehending any such himself would not the words imported no such meaning And therefore he excepted alwayes those cases And questionless his meaning was as I know his principles are that the Pope alone is the only Judge of those cases that is can determine whether and when the King is or shall be guilty of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people or finally of any other hainous crime which may merit Excommunication or Denunciation and what is consequent deprivation deposition c. And yet notwithstanding all this Father N. N. would subscribe and hath subscribed that he shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over the King in civil and temporal affairs And yet maintains as all the rest do this subscription is not any way prejudicial to that explication of his and of theirs all in general The fourth and last explication of this second part of the said first proposition is both of the learned and unlearned of those Gentlemen of the Congregation and of their adherents or beleivers That indeed the promise must be understood with this tacit condition virtually implyed or supposed to be implyed in or annexed to all kind of lawful promises provided it appear not to us hereafter that the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time henceforth declare this our promise to be unlawful unconscionable or against the safety of our Soules or which is the same thing to be of a matter unlawful of it self to be promised or of a thing which either in it self or by consequence is against the sinceritie of Catholick Faith and Religion For say they it must be supposed alwayes and by all men that we will submit and conform to such a declaration being we have on the contradictory question expresly refused to disown the Popes infallibility Behold here four several expositions given by themselves that is by their chiefest Divines of each of both parts of this first proposition Expositions questionless even each or every of them able to evict from any man this confession that for neither of both parts nor both together this first proposition adds any thing to their Remonstrance or gives the King in the cases doubted any more assurance of their Loyaltie than their unsignificant acknowledgments declarations promises engagements oathes in the said Remonstrance do That is even just nothing at all No kind of obligation thereby on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free to maintain by force of Arms any quarrel or cause against his Majestie And for as much as their next which is their second proposition in order is liable to the very self same or the like expositions to the very self same exceptions reservations equivocations and even distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense and that it hath not a word able or significant enough I mean in this age and amongst Sophisters to obstruct these evasions learn'd at last in the later and worser ages of the Church from a few deceiptful or deceived Schoolmen and for as much as Father N. N. and the other chief Divines of the Congregation those interpreters of their mind and sense do in very deed and self same way and no other to whom and where and when they think fit expound the second also and for as much as though they declare positively in this second It is their doctrine that our gracious King Charles the second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede yet they understand first those three words our gracious King and every of them in a reduplicative sense only not in the specificative that is while he is suffered to be King and is theirs and gracious withal unto them or until he be deprived or deposed by the Popes sentence or otherwise or even cease to be any more truly our King by the very nature of his pretended misgovernment and secondly understand by that clause nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God I say they understand in that clause by the word power an ordinary power only not that extraordinary power which as before they still reserved to the Pope in those extraordinary cases of Apostacie Heresie c. and when they please too a power meerly and solely temporal such as never is the ordinary power which they attribute the Pope over Kings and thirdly tell us on those other words under God that the power of the Pope is the same which God hath and fourthly where in the end of the said proposition they declare that to witt the former parts of the same proposition to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede expound their
dangerous consequence or overture of such horrid disputes cannot follow the subscription of this fifth For to make good this consecution or to prove those consequents to follow the only medium must be this other proposition The Parliament or people in such an Hereditary Kingdom have the same power respectively in temporals over all persons even that of the Prince himself and even to deprivation or deposition too which the universal Church or general Council hath in spirituals over all faithful brethren amongst whom the Pope must be Which proposition doubtless the congregation might see if they pleased that neither Bellarmine nor Suarez nor any other Divine of their way ever yet evicted or sufficiently proved And from those Divines of either of both the other wayes there could be no reason to expect a proof thereof since those made it their work to disprove it by laying quite contrary principles which they abundantly evidence as I also my self have in my little Book on the Remonstrance of 61. Where I have by two clear Demonstrations More ample Account pag. 67 c one a priâ—ri and the other â posteriori and by Scriptures and Fathers and practice of the primitive Church by answers also to all material objections proved the Soveraignty or as Bodin speaks the Majesty to be in the Prince in all cases not in the Parliament or people not even in any extraordinary case or contingency whatsoever speaking at least as I do here of Hereditary Kingdoms So that the Fathers of the congregation would have dealed more ingenuously if they had omitted the second reason and in lieu thereof only said they conceived it their interest or it was their pleasure to adhere to Bellarmines doctrine as to this point rather then follow the example of Sorbon or doctrine of the Gallican and other national Churches or even that in those two General Councils above rehearsed And yet I confess they would have said this inconsequently withal forasmuch as they had already relinquished Bellarmine in the three former propositions if understood without vain distinctions and yet had not such clear authorities of General Councils therein for themselves albeit they had enough besides Scripture and Reason the Faculty of Sorbon directly on those very controverted points And further they would have said it against the chief purpose which must have been Sorbons and should be theirs to obstruct those other indeed no less certain evident natural then bad sad and dismal consequences of the Popes being asserted to be above General Councils I am come at last to their two last last paragraphs Which I give together because they are of one subject the sixth and last also of those propositions of Sorbon You have it above rendred in English by the Congregation and in these words That it is not the doctrine or dogme of the Faculty that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible Why the said congregation would not subscribe this proposition mutatis mutandis or taking it thus It is not our doctrine c. they give their reasons such as they are in these two paragraphs here following in their own words The sixth regards the Popes infallibility in matters of Faith whether the Pope not as a private Doctor but with an especial congregation of Doctors Prelats and Divines deputed can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain Propositions of Heresie The Iansenists already condemned of Heresie by three Popes and all the Bishops of France to vindicate themselves from the censure contest the first way they write in their own defence and many more against them on which subject is debated the questio facti whether the propositions condemned as Herefie by the Pope be in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in his book or no as may appear by such as we can produce if necessary The Vniversities of France say That it is not their doctrine that the Pope c. Whether this touched our scope or no we leave it to all prudent men to judge If they think it doth let them know that we should not hold the Popes Infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience we owe our Prince if they speak of any other infallibility as matter of Religion and Faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign so we are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question in a Country where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under-hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Country Where I observe the sum of what they would say after mistating the question and after so many disguises and windings to be that this sixth Proposition is impertinent odious unprofitable unfit to be disputed in this Country relates to Jansenisme is suspected to be under-hand furthered by some of that way and finally tends to the disturbance of both King and Country And therefore they thought it fit not to subscribe to it But the contriver of these reasons will now give me leave to clear this fogg which as Sorcerers use to do he hath raised before the eyes of the Reader Whom therefore I must tell That Father N. N. hath first mis-stated the question That the question was not is not whether the Pope either as a private Doctor or as a publick of the whole Church or which is the same thing as Pope either without or with a special congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie Or whether it be necessary to have a general Council from all parts of the world to decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie But the qustion was and is whether the Pope even as such or even as the publick Master Doctor Director and Superiour in spiritual matters of all the faithful and even as joyntly taken with or sitting in such a special Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats can so decide define censure and condemn certain propositions of Heresie that without the joynt consent or concurrence antecedent concommitant or subsequent of the universal Church at least in its Representative a General Council such decision definition censure or condemnation must be in it self infallibly true or must be as such only without any kind of even internal contradiction opposition or doubt received and believed by all the faithful or accounted infallibly true or de fide divina Catholica of divine and Catholick faith and I say accounted such or of Divine Catholick Faith hoc ipso that the Pope hath defined it so That no Catholick Writer hath ever yet questioned or denied a power and lawful authority in or to even a particular Bishop much less in or to a
and scandalously taught nay taught farr worse than ever Bellarmine did in that Howse or Colledge of the Society the chiefest of all that moved Sorbone at that time and juncture in 1663. was indeed as all the rest without any kind of inclination to or even the least immaginable approbation of Iansenisme But certainly was the removing out of their Kings brest in that suspicious conjuncture all kind of jealousie of a doctrine which being not disclaimed by them at that very time might render all their five former declarations or propositions wholy unsignificaâ—t as to any assurance of them to their King when it should please the Pope That be the immedâ—â—t or mediat occasion or both in part or in the whole too what Father N. N. sayes or at least by his invidious and no less truely impertinent unprofitable and odious digression to those disputes of the Iansenists and Anti-Iansenists would insinuat or impose on the reader be it that very debate betwixt them on the quaestio facti as he speaks whither the propositions condemned as heresie by the Pope be condemned in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in the book of Iansenius or no or be it also either in part or in the whole that contest of the Iansenists for the first way that is for the fallibility of the Pope declaring any matter as of faith without a general Council and be it this contest or allegation of theirs was onely to vindicate themselves from the censure and be it moreover that there was no other occasion moved the Faculty of Sorbone to this sixth declaration or proposition granting all and giving thereby to Father N. N. all the advantage he can desire I am content to joyn issue with him and leave it to all prudent men to judge whether hence must follow that the doctrine of the Popes infallibility as in it self and of it self abstractedly considered without any relation to Iansenisme or any other error or as considered by us does not touch our scope or that none can declare against the same thing but for the same cause that another doth I am sure all prudent men that withal are sufficiently knowing for I suppose it is onely to such Father N. N. appeals will confess that as there is often a vast difference betwixt the occasion and the thing occasioned so that which is occasioned may touch an other controversie although the occasion do not That whatever the occasions be of the declarations of Councils or Vniversities in doctrinal points yet the declarations must be always understood generally or indefinitly as the words are and without any limitation or restriction to particulars or to such occasions especially when and where such particulars or such occasions are not mentioned at all either concomitantly subsequently or precedently in the same or other instrument of such declarations as none are in this 6th or any of the other five precedent declarations of Sorbone or in the Instrument of them but such occasion onely as make them general That for the reasons above given neither the same cause nor the same end which the Iansenists had in asserting the Popes fallibility or declaring against his infallibility can be presumed of Sorbone and the rest of the Vniversities of France declaring against the same infallibility nor that limitation or restriction of their meaning to the case of Iansenisme alone That it has been always and must have been very often the practice even of general Councils to assert Christian â—aiths in a good cause and for a good end which truths even manifest notorious obstinat and condemned Hereticks had formerly and as stiffly maintained whether the cause or end they had therein was good or evil and that thereof are late examples enough in the very Council of Trent which defined many Catholick verities against Iohn Calvin and other Sectaries although Martin Luther had earnestly before and at the same time asserted the same truths and against the very self same other Sectaries And therefore it can be no prejudice to a declaration against the doctrine of the Popes pretended infallibility that the Iansenists had done the same already not even I say were it confessed of all hands the Iansenists were manifest notorious and convicted Hereticks That now and to come up closer yet to Father N. N. in the main debate I am content that either with or without any supposition at all or admittance or grant of any occasion either mediat or immediat or of any thing else but what the matter according truth bears along with and in or of it self only to leave that very main debate or quaerie to all prudent men to judge whether the Universities of France saying as Father N. N. here confesses of them and not of Sorbon only or whether they declaring publickly to the world in plain words That it is not their doctrine that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible whether I say this touched our scope or no But withal that as I have put the quaerie in Father N. N. his own words and in his own sense and as near his purpose too as himself could possibly frame it so I desire all such prudent men to consider that our scope is to assure his Majesty of the hearts and hands of all the Roman Catholicks of Ireland both Clergy and Laylty in all dangerous contingencies whatsoever but more especially in those wherein the Pope would peradventure concern himself on the account or pretence of Religion and in pursuance of such pretence though really for other ends declare against the lawfulness of the congregations Remonstrance or Oath of Allegiance or any other such former or latter of Allegiance though in temporal things alone and against the three first Propositions or any other in pursuance thereof signed by the said congregation or by any others for his Majesties greater assurance of their loyalty in temporal things only That whoever maintains the Popes infallibility where and when declaring by his papal Authority and without a General Council any doctrine sentence opinion proposition declaration acknowledgment engagement oath or promise to be unlawful or to be against the Catholick Faith or salvation of Souls or who refuseth in such a case as the congregation did refuse to disown that infallibility must be consequently resolved or at least must be supposed to be resolved to conform himself in practice when ever the occasion is offered to whatever Declarations of that nature shall at any time issue from his Holyness And consequently resolved to retract at his pleasure any form or any subscription to any form of Remonstrance Declaration or other writing whatsoever obliging them to be true liege-people to the King in temporal things only That it is no new thing with the Popes by their own immediat authority and with their Ministers on pretence of their authority whether truly granted or not granted to declare so against forms of Oathes Remonstrances or Declarations of Allegiance
in temporal things only As may be seen in many Instances and particularly in those more immediatly relating to the Catholick Subjects of the King of Great Britain the proceedings of Paul the Fifth anâ—â— 1606. against the Oath of Allegiance enacted by King Iames and of Innocent the Tenth against the three negative propositions of the English Catholicks and the both former and latter Letters also of Cardinal French Barberin as President of the congregation De propagandi Fide and of Hieronimus de Vicâ—â—â—is and Iacobus Rospigliosi as Internuncius's of Bruxels or Low-countries and Super-intendents of the affairs of Ireland against the Irish Remonstrance of 61. That both clergie and people of the Roman communion of Ireland have been this long time and are yet as to the generality or far greater part of them so principled by the chief leaders and superiours of that Clergie that whether out of ignorance or a mistaken interest or a wilful inclination they are content to be hurried away into any perswasion that hath the approbation of his Holyness at least for as much as belongs to the regulating of their conscience and instructing them in point of Faith For they are taught to believe him infallible So that till their Clergie that is the chief in authority amongst the same Clergy declare against this doctrine of the Popes infallibility there needs no more besides a rational or seeming opportunity to put all the quiet and peace of the Kingdom in hazzard again notwithstanding any kind of Remonstrance Oath or other Declarations of Loyalty but some cunning Emissary pretending a Brief Bull or other Letter from his Holyness and letting both Clergy and people or either know the contents are against all their said Remonstrances or Declaration for being loyal to the King in such or such cases and that the cases are now in being That these four points being previously and seriously considered I do with all my heart desire to joyn issue with Father N. N. on the main debate here and leave that quaerie to all prudent men to judge whether the Universities of France saying or declaring doctrinally and by a publick Instrument That it is not their doctrine that the Pope withouâ— the consent of the Church is infallible whether I say this or the like Declaration as to and against that doctrine touched our scope or no Or which is the same thing and must be and certainly is understood the quaerie in our case whether it touched or concerned not the scope which was really the Kings and my Lord Lieutenants and either was really or at least pretendedly the Congregations That the said Congregation should say and subscribe the foresaid sixth declaration or proposition applyed to themselves and give it plainly thus under their hands It is not our doctrine that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible That because it is too apparent out of the very nature of the things and signification of the words and clearness in both that all prudent knowing men of the world even the very members of that Congregation even such as were most averse cannot when they consider well these four points but answer this quoerie and judge and determine this matter against Father N. N. and therefore acknowledge against his first pretence the pertinency of that sixth proposition of the Sorbonists And because Father N. N. did himself see this very well notwithstanding the mist he raised by his unnecessary discourse of Jansenists to hinder the sight of others and so well saw this that he flyes instantly to other pretences which are in effect if I understand him unnecessariness odiousness unprofitableness c. and the strongest of all if it were true the disturbance of both King and Country which pretences yet for some part he so delivers as if he would seem according to his manner unwilling to be understood and yet so too that in the prosecution he presently returns again to his former of impertinency and then finally concludes all his either weak or false pretences in this manner and words but in the Congregations name still and I confess they owned the paper We are loath that forgein Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question in a country where we have neither Vniversity nor Iansenist amongst us if not perhaps some few particulars whom we conceive under-hand to further this dispute to the disturbance of both King and Country I must now tell him that in the next place and to his next pretence of vnnecessariness which I understand to be tacitly intimated or implyed virtually in that conditional expression and put off of his where immediatly after he leaves it to all prudent men to judge whether the 6th Proposition toucheth our scope or no he wards the blow which he saw ready for him but wards it after his manner that is with no real defence but certain and manifest equivocation of words which you have there If they think it doth let them know that we should not hold the Popes infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience we owe our Prince I say I must now tell Father N. N. the answers to this pretence also and to all that is either formally or virtually said therein are both cleer and obvious First That if he would be understood to speake here sincerly without deceipt fraud equivocation or imposture and to the purpose too there is implicantia in adjecto The Congregation and himself contradict in effect what he would have them be understood to speake so here in words For they refused to own the doctrine of the Popes infallibility even I mean in relation to the allegiance of the Subject and power of the Prince and trouble themselves and others with their vain pretences for not dis-owning it Nay and were so obstinatly resolved on this point that therefore they were dissolved and would be so dissolved notwithstanding they knew very well the State would be on this account very ill satisfied with the whole Clergie How is it then possible that Father N. N. without manifest contradiction in the whole procedure speaks his conscience here if he intends to speake without equivocation to plain sincere men and speake that which is commonly understood amongst such men by such words Secondly That if he would not be understood so but on the contrary as he ought and what really and onely he intends in his mind pursuant to his and their principles and proceedings he sayes nothing at all here to shew the unnecessariness of subscribing this 6th Proposition Because that if the Pope should for example define their Remonstrance or three first propositions or any part or clause of either contained Heresie or some what uncatholick or unlawful and against their eternal Salvation or some obedience not due to the Prince but to the Pope onely and that this were of Catholick faith without which none can be saved and that notwithstanding such definition the King or
my Lord Lieutenant would challenge the Congregation or Clergie and mind them of their said publick Remonstrance declarations oathes and ingagements and with this very passage I consider now and consequently require obedience in those very cases defined so by the Pope Father N. N. and his associats needed not according to their principles be put to any streight for answer but presently and consequently to his and their said principles and proceedings all along even in that very Congregation and notwithstanding this very present intimation declaration reason resolution or evasion rather and illusion but call it what you please would confess they said indeed amongst other things in their paper of reasons that they should not hold the Popes infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience they owe to their Prince but nevertheless would say withal they declared not what obedience is due when or wherein Or that any obedience is due when the Prince is at least nominatim declared an Heretick or excommunicat by the Pope Much less when he is by the Pope or by the people or by the sentence of either deposed or as much as suspended from administration for his ill government And since it is manifest if they will not contradict their own principles and proceedings all along which yet they have refused to do that such would be their exposition in such a case of this passage here in their paper of reasons what prudent knowing man in the world sees not they say nothing at all by this imposture against that which they do and must intend to speak against thereby if they intend any thing consequently nothing against the necessariness nothing for the unnecessariness of subscribing the 6th proposition or declaration against the Popes infallibility nothing to our purpose here against even a limited infallibility in him or against his infallibility as relating to their obedience due to the Prince and I mean also that obedience onely which is payed the Prince in temporal things alone or in such due unto him but so due notwithstanding as the Prince himself and his laws for such temporal things and all honest people too understand it due without abstraction exception restriction distinction equivocation or mental reservation for this inconsequence is cleer and manifest out of the very tearms We let all prudent men know that we should not hold the Popes infallibility if he should define any thing against the obedience we owe to our Prince in some cases or some things before he be by the Pope declared nominatim an Heretick an Excommunicat a Tirant an Usurper c or before he be either by Pope or people or by the sentence of either deposed or suspended Therefore its needless or not to the present purpose here that we disown or subscribe against his infallibility when or if he defines and as much as he defines it to be of Catholick faith that in such other cases as those of Apostacie Heresie Schisme Tyranny Usurpation Excommunication deposition suspension we owe in temporal things no obedience to such a Prince And yet this is all that Father N. N. sayes and means here if he say and mean truely so much as I am inclined to perswade my self he doth though I know withal he may be yet questioned for his meaning in these words our Prince as likewise what he really intends by the word should where he sayes we should not hold c. Thirdly That it implyes again a manifest contradiction to hold the Pope infallible in defining all matters controverted whither they be of the Catholick faith or no and yet not to hold his infallibility in defining this question whether Subjects in our condition and of our communion under such a Prince be bound to obey him in temporal things in such and such cases For this very question is mightily controverted even by Catholick Divines on both sides and hath been ever since Gregorie the 7th Fourthly That if Father N. N. his meaning here be grounded on these two suppositions first That by the law of God there is some obedience we owe to our Prince secondly That it is impossible the Pope should define any thing against the law of God and if Father N. N. will say consequently It was therefore the Congregation might have declared they should not hold the Pope's infallibility if he did define c. because they held it absolutly impossible the Pope would so define or define any thing against the obedience they owe their Prince and withal held it lawful for themselves in case of one impossibility supposed by others to resolve themselves conditionally on another as impossible as that quia ex vno impossibili sequitur aliud yet Father N. N. will find himself in this way too contradict his own and the Congregations principles videlicet such principles as he and they follow taken out of Bellarmine and other authors of his way as well in point of the doctrine of the Popes infallibility in general as of his power in particular not onely to depose Princes in such and such cases but to exempt all Clergie-men from owing any obedience at all or in any kind of case to any other Prince but himself alone And therefore further N. N. must not be thought to have said any thing here to any real purpose until he and the Congregation plainly renounce those principles which yet they have not For as in those principles or maxims the former supposition is false at least as relating to the Congregation or to any Clergie-men so it will be answered that granting the second yet according to the doctrine of the Popes infallibility both he and the Congregation and all others too must acquiesce in the Popes exposition or declaration of the law of God and beleive hereafter though against their own former dictates that this or that whatever it be is not against the law of God when or if the Pope declares it is not As according to their further doctrine of the Popes power of the Keyes for binding and loosing or of dispensing they must also believe that in case the Pope himself had declared that before his exemption or dispensation they owed obedience to the temporal Prince in some cases according to the law of God yet if his Holyness once exempt their persons as he hath already or dispense with them or with their obedience in those very cases wherein we now supposed he had formerly declared them bound by the law of God to obedience as he pretends he may nay and often too hath already in the like they owe no further any For so the Glossator avowed by the Rota Romana sayes that the Pope may dispense against the Apostle against the old Testament against the 4. Evangelist's against the law of God Gloss in canon lector dist 39. et in cap. Proposuit de concess Prebend in canon a nobis in verb. Exemptis de decimis And so sayes Bellarmine lib. 4. de Roman Pontifice cap. 5. that
causa Barthol Lancello Specul Menoch march Scâ—c plures alii cum communi Doctorum apud August Barbos in coll ad decretal in dictâ— cap. Pastoral n. 2. and as the Canonists commonly maintain Furthermore we say That if His Holiness ex plenitudine potestatis would give or hath given his Lordship a power above the Canon Law and such extraordinary faculties as that he should not be bound to admit even just Appeals yet hereby His Holiness never intended nor could lawfully or conscionably intend to hinder the Appellants from opposing the execution of an unjust sentence given against them much less from opposing a sentence or censures of their own nature invalid when their own Consciences tells them that his Lordship grounds himself upon ill information or that the obeying of the sentence may prove disadvantagious either to the Publick or Particulars against Equity and Right For in this and such like cases the Law of Nature takes place and allows the Appellant or Party aggrieved to preserve his own Right even by force if no other means be at hand against the unjust proceedings of a corrupt ignorant malicious or ill informed Judge specially if this Party aggrieved be a Prince State Council or Commonwealth which hath a Supreme Civil power as our case is Nay if His Holiness who is the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge on earth and from whom there is no Appeal in matters belonging to his judicature otherwise than from himself to himself did upon ill information or for any other cause whatsoever give judgment or pronounce Censures contrary to justice and conscience or which would be disadvantagious to our Publick cause or destructive of our Commonwealth or of the lives liberties or fortunes of the Confederates or of the Council and that part of the Confederates who adhere to them and to the Cessation being incomparably the greater part of the Kingdom there is no Catholick Divine in the World but must confess it would be lawful to resist and oppose His Holiness in this case and to hinder the execution of such a sentence yea that such as are in Publick Authority would be bound in Conscience and under pain of a most grievous mortal sin to use their uttermost endeavours for opposing the said execution even vi armis if it were necessary and no other means left of reconciliation or for preservation of the Publick Yet certainly we do not fear that any such evil shall ever come immediately from the Sacred Throne of our most Blessed Father Innocentius Lastly What is objected by some out of cap. Ad nostram and cap. Reprehensibilis de Appellat That no Appeal is allowed from a sentence given in a controversie of Faith and consequently that your Honours Appeal is against the Law since the adhering to the Cessation to be unlawful is an Article of Faith and the sentence of Excommunication and other Censures were pronounced by the Nuncio to make the Confederates religiously observe the said Article that is not to adhere to or observe the said Cessation We say all and every branch of what 's here objected is so false and so absurd as it cannot be sufficiently admired with what face can any broach such ignorant Positions What is more clearly and without controversie decreed in Sacred Canons than that all weighty causes and questions happening about Articles of Faith which are the most weighty of all causes are to be referred unto the See Apostolick and even frivolous Appeals in such Controversies be admitted that is though the causes of appealing in these matters appear not to be so just or reasonable as are required by the Canons to be in Appeals interposed from grievances in other matters See this expresly defined in the Canons placed in the Margent (s) Alexander III. in cap. majores de Baptismo majores Ecclesiae causas praesertim articulâ—s fidei contingentes ad Petri sedem referendas intelliget qui eum quaerenti domino quem discipuli dicerent ipsum esse respondisse nâ—tabit Tu es Christus filius dei vivi pro eo dominum exorasse ne deficiat fides ejus c. See cap. Ut debitus § ultim juncta Gloss in verb. causis de appellat cap. Translationem de officio Legatâ— Bellarm. l. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. â— See Bellarm. l. 4. de Rom. Pont. l. â— de Concil authorit where he teacheth and with him the Catholick Doctors commonly that only His Holiness is infallible in definâ—ng or declaring matters of Faith and that even General Councils much more National are of no such infallibility but may err until or before His Holiness confirm them Nay some Catholick Doctors as Bellarm l. 2. de Concil cap. 5. hath affirm that National Synods though so confirmed are not infallible and so constantly taught by Canonists as our opposites cannot produce one Author for themselves And what is more out of all doubt with both Heretick and Catholick Divines than that even His Holiness as Pope and Vicar of Christ yea and together with his Consistory of Cardinals and which is more sitting in a General Synod of the Universal Church on earth might err in Controversies of Fact which principally depend on informations and testimonies of men Read Bellarmine 4. de Romano Pontifice cap. 2. And consequently what is more certain and evident than that it is impossible the adhering to the Cessation concluded with Inchiquyn to be unlawful can be a matter or article of Faith or as such declared by any power on earth not to speak of the Lord Nuncio who hath no power no not together with his National Synod to define or declare such Articles even in capable matters or in questionibus juris otherwise then as a particular Doctor since it is plain that the question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it is a meer question of Fact and principally depending on the informations and testimonies of men Finally What is more plain to any knowing Reader of the two Chapters alledged against us out of the Canons by some of our opposites than that neither of them hath a word to that purpose or which by a Scholar may be understood in the sense they are produced against us For cap. ad nostram speaks only of just corrections of persons who are by profession Regulars as if a Religious man transgresseth manifestly his Rule or Institutions of his Order in this case and very justly no Appeal is admitted nisi tamen modus excedatur sayes Gloss ibid. verb. minus if a certain punishment be prescribed by the Canons for such a transgression and no other inflicted for if the punishment be arbitrary then according to Panormitan even a Regular might appeal in case of correction yea though his crime were notorious And as for cap. Reprehensibilis it makes the same sense though it be not restrained solely to the correction of Regulars but is more generally understood de disciplina Ecclesiastica of the correction of all Ecclesiasticks
their just indignation with a pious compassion of their seduced People commanded Us over to treat and conclude a Peace with the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom In obedience whereunto and in humble imitation of Their great example forgetting the ungrateful usage We had met with We undertook the hazard of that Voyage and at length concluded the Peace in this Preamble mentioned We are unwilling to say any thing that might seem to lessen the Loyalty and affection of the Assembly that concluded the Peace nor is it to that end that We shall answer to these men That though His then Majesty was in restraint and His now Majesty and His Royal Mother not in condition to send Supplies and Relief into this Kingdom yet there wanted not apparent motives of advantage to induce the Roman-Catholicks to consent to the Peace which was thankfully acknowledged by a more authentick Representative of the Nation than these Archbishops Bishops c. and even by as many of them as really or from the teeth outward for such we find now there were that consented to it Upon what conditions the Confederate Roman-Catholicks could have agreed with those in this Declaration called the Parliament of England We know not nor do believe they are able to prove their Assertions if they be put to it Though if it should appear it were not to be wondred at That Usurpers and such as make almost as little Conscience of breaking Publick Faith as these Declarers are more liberal in the dispensation of their unlawful acquirings by way of brokeage than a just Monarch whose purpose it is to keep as well as it is in His power only to grant conditions to a People in the state the said Confederates were in Next in their Preamble they say That after the concluding of the Peace the Catholick Confederates came sincerely and chearfully under His Majesties authority in Vs plentifully providing vast Sums of money well nigh half a Million of English pounds By which they seem to insinuate first That all the Roman-Catholicks of Ireland came thus chearfully under His Majesties authority whereas Owen O Neill with his whole Army and divers of the County of Wickloe with others were and continued in Rebellion long after the conclusion of the Peace as is well known to many of the Declarers who were of their Party as also that our first work was to reduce places held by them lying in our way to Dublin as Mariborough Athy c. They mention next after Their providing plentifully vast Sums of money adding also these words viz. near half a Million of English pounds to have it believed We were set forth with such a Sum and all the following provisions of Corn and Ammunition though it is notoriously knovvn That for all the half Million of English pounds the Army We had brought together could not march from about Cloghgrenan till upon Our private credit We had borrovved Eight hundred English pounds of Sir James Preston which is yet owing him and for which We have lately written to you to see him satisfied by means whereof and of a little meal not yet paid for neither as We believe We took in Talbotstown Castle-Talbot and Kildare But there our money and meal failing us and having borrowed about One hundred pounds from Twenty several Officers to give the Souldiers sustenance We were forced to stay on the West-side of the Liffy and thereby lost an opportunity of engaging Jones who with a much less Force than Ours was drawn forth of Dublin as far as Johnstown And in what continual want the Army was from Our setting forth even to the defeat at Rathmines being about Three months is so notoriously known having during all that time been very meanly supplied in money and that in small and inconsiderable Sums as by the Receiver Generals accompts may appear that if We be to be blamed it is for undertaking an Expedition so meanly provided and which We can only answer with the necessity of attempting Dublin and those parts before they should receive Supplies out of England and upon discovery destroy such as were faithful to His Majesty and importuned Us daily to advance For Magazines of Corn Ammunition and materials for War the stores We found so inconsiderably furnished or rather so absolutely unfurnished that till We with the assistance of the Commissioners procured some supply thereof in Waterford Lymerick and Kilkenny it was not possible for Us either to reduce the Fort of Maribourough and Athy held by Owen O Neill's party nor to march as We did towards Dublin And for Ammunition We were forced to bargain with Patrick Archer and other Merchants for a supply thereof engaging the King's Customs and Tenths of Prizes else that want of Ammunition had absolutely hindred Our march nor is the said Archer yet satisfied for his Ammunition The Truth of this is referr'd to the knowledge of many there met who can witness with Us herein and in many other distresses and difficulties We met with for want of money which We cannot call to mind How much of this half Million of Pounds hath come in in money or been disposed of by Warrant from Us We leave to be cleared by the Receiver Generals accompts But We are confident it will not amount to the Tenth part of half a Million of Pounds In the next place they say We have frustrated the Opinion the Nation held of Our Fidelity Gallantry and Abilities and become the Author of losing the whole Kingdom to God King and Nation If the Nation held a greater opinion of Our Gallantry and Ability than there was cause for it We are sorry We came short of their expectation But whatever it pleased God to bestow on Us in those gifts We faithfully employed it in the Cause We undertook and have not at all failed their expectation in point of Fidelity nor are We therein the Author of losing the Kingdom to God King and Nation as these Declarers have Rhetorically expressed themselves How they make good to the World the last assertion of their Preamble viz. That We began the loss of the Kingdom by violating the Articles of Peace is next to be considered First Article of the Declaration First The foresaid Catholicks having furnished his Excellency with the aforesaid Sum of money which was sufficient to make up the Army of Fifteen thousand Foot and Twenty five hundred Horse agreed upon by the Peace for the preservation of the Catholick Religion our Sovereigns interest and the Nation his Excellency gave Patents of Colonels and other Commanders over and above the Party under the Lord Baron of Inchiquyn to Protestants and upon them consumed the substance of the Kingdom who most of them afterwards betrayed or desâ—rted us ANSWER How We have been furnished with the foresaid Sum of about half a Million of Pounds We have told you in Our Answer to the Preamble If they urge Our giving Commissions which they call Patents to Protestant Officers as a breach