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
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
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
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
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
all the Municipal Laws and Oecumenical Canons too summon'd to Rome by His Holiness and are bound in Conscience to obey yea notwithstanding any command of the King or supreme temporal Magistrate to the contrary That not only the Commands of His Holiness but those also of His Delegates for example the Generals of Orders are to be in the same manner punctually obey'd by their respective Inferiours notwithstanding any contradiction of the Laws or King or any other onely the Pope excepted still who countermands all both men and Laws at His pleasure That He can suspend correct alter and utterly abolish any Imperial Royal or Municipal Constitution Custom or Law whatsoever in any State or Kingdom of the World as He shall think expedient That even so He may all Church-Canons of Discipline or Reformation whether they were made by a Diocesan or Provincial or National or even Oecumenical Synod truly such That neither the very Canons of Faith agreed upon by the most truly Oecumenical Council that ever was or can be are of any force if He alone dissent though otherwise all the Bishops Priests Doctors and People too of the Christian World every one had unanimously consented to them That His Papal Decretals Constitutions or Bulls from the instant that they are publish'd or fix'd up in acie Campi Florae or wherever else He ordains do according to their tenour presently oblige in Conscience all the Faithful throughout the whole Earth or such as are respectively concerned That He alone hath the absolute power of bestowing all Ecclesiastical Titles Benefices Offices Jurisdictions Cures from the Patriarchical to the Parochial and that being otherwise given than from Him or assumed otherwise than by His Authority they are Nullites before God and ought to be so reputed by all men and that whosoever denies this to be so is an Heretick That He alone hath likewise the absolute power not of translating only but of suspending excommunicating deposing and degrading all of them even the very Patriarchs themselves without being tyed in such procedure to the formality of Laws or Canons That He alone hath power to erect New Bishopricks unite and divide the Old give the Pall priviledge Vniversities create new Religious Orders multiplies them to what number He please extinguish them when He will c. exempt them and whom He please besides from the jurisdiction of Bishops Ordinaries and all other Persons and Powers except from Himself and His Authority That finally He alone is the Vicar of Christ on Earth And therefore in the first place He must have not a Paternal power only but a Despotical Princely and absolute Lordly power in and over the Church Militant and consequently over all General Councils to do therein what seems fit to Him in the second place His jurisdictional Authority must extend to Heaven and Hell and Purgatory thirdly without any question He hath a never-failing assistance of the Holy Ghost so that all His definitions at least in matters of Faith (a) The Colledge of the French Jesuites a Clermont in their printed Theses of the 12th of December 1662 held That the Pope is Infallible also in matters of Faith XIX Christum nos ita caput agnoscimus ut illius Regimen dum in Coelos abiit primum Petro tum deinde Successoribus commiserit eamdem quam habuit Ipse Insallibilitatem concesserit quoties ex Cathedra loquerentur XX. Datur ergo in Ecclesia Romana Controversiarum Fidei Judex Infallibilis etiam extra Concilium Generale tum in Questionibus Juris tum Facti c. Propagnabuntur Deo Duce auspice Virgine in Aula Claromontani Collegii Societatis Jesu die xii Decembris 1661. are and must be universally and perpetually true and Himself an infallible Judge in them in the fourth place which is consequent to the other He hath owing to Him from all Mortals such a perfect nay such a blind obedience That if He define Virtue to be Vice and Vice to be Virtue they ought to believe Him and if they do not they cannot be saved unless peradventure invincible ignorance excuse them and lastly to sum all in a word He is Dominus Deus noster Papa our Lord God the Pope as the Glossator (b) Zenzelinus de Cassanis in fine Glossae extravag Cum inter de verb. signif of His own Canon Law stiles Him * Aâ—stimant Papam esse unum Deum qui habet potestatem omnem in Coelo in Terra Johan Gerson Tom. ii circa materiam Excommunicationum Irregularitat Consider 11. V. That notwithstanding the incredibility of these and some other such vain Positions and of all and every of their necessary antecedents and consequents yet they all and especially the Monarchical or Despotical or rather indeed Tyrannical I am sure unreasonable and very destructive Powers ascribed in them to the Pope are every one with no lower pretence than of Divine Right and Immediate Institution of Christ maintain'd either in formal or virtual terms nay in formal the chiefest of them and such as infer the rest not only by too many of our most Famous and most Classical Authors (c) For Authors at this time Cardinal Peter Bertrand onely who lived 300 years ago may suffice whom a numberless number have ever since followed in his pernicious Doctrine which you may read Addit ad Gloss Extr. unam Sanctum de Major Obed. of all sorts Canonists Historians and Divines since the Schools began but also by the far greater authority of the Roman Bishops (d) For Popes also in this place let Boniface VIII alone suffice both in his said Extravag unam Sanctam and in many other Decretals but especially in his famed Letter to Philip Le Bel of France themselves since Pope Hildebrand's time And three only but wretchedly abused Texts of the Gospel viz. Ecce duo gladii Luc. 22.38 and Quodcunque ligaveris c. Mat. 16.19 and Pasce Oves meas Joan. 21.17 must serve the turn however against the plain design of the whole Gospel it self to drive directly by such Positions at the proper scope of the Alcoran and establish in the Church of Christ a worser Tyranny than that of Mahumetans and Mamalukes VI. That Cardinal Caesar Baronius the famous Ecclesiastical Annalist who seems in truth to have had no other end so much to heart in writing his twelve laborious Tomes as to heap together how well or ill soever all the Topicks he could imagine for asserting to the Bishops of Rome the foresaid universal Monarchy both in Spirituals and Temporals over the whole Earth yet fearing his Arguments driving at and deriving from or grounding it on a Jus Divinum or Divine Right and immediate institution of Christ would not convince any labours at last exceedingly though all in vain in several of his said Tomes of Annals to entitle His Holiness at least by Humane Right or Humane Title as for Example by Donation or Oblation or Submission or Prescription
or whoever else indoctrinated Him there have been of the other side and of the same Church as there are even at this present day many Thousands or the most Learned most Zealous most Godly Prelates and Priests and Doctors besides Laicks who have cryed them down as not only false wicked impious heretical unchristian but as absolutely tyrannical and as plainly destructive of all Government and Laws and of all Property and Peace and of all whatsoever is or can be the felicity or comfort or even freedom of the children of men This hath sufficiently appear'd in the mighty oppositions made as well from the Pulpit and by Writing as by Arms in all Countries of Europe to so many fulminating so many King-deposing pretended universal Monarchs of the World in all things both Spiritual and Temporal to these only Vicars of Christ on earth to these onely infallible Judges of his Faith Witness the Concordates of Germany the Sicilian Monarchy the Pragmatical Sanction of France the Laws of Provisors and Premunire in England and Ireland and the two Oecumenical or at least Occidental Councils of Constance and Basil and many more National Synods both before and after them held some in Italy others in Germany and others in France and held in plain contradiction to those high claims and usurpations Witness also of very late dayes the Third Estate of France in the General Assembly (t) Jan. 1614 5. of the Three Estates held under Lewis XIII Jan. 1614 3 yea notwithstanding Cardinal Perron's Oratory and of later yet all the eight Universities of that Kingdom in their sentence of Sanctarellus (u) 1626. ann 1626. and of others too before and after besides the known practice all along of their Parliaments and â—â—st of all the Theological Faculty of Sorbon and the rest of the Paris (x) 1663. Divines in the year 1663 May 8. headed by the Archbishop of that See and presenting their siâ— Declaration against the Pope to the present French Monarch Lewis XIII All which are certainly manifold clear undeniable demonstrations of what I said immediately before viz. How of the fame Roman-Catholick Church or Faith and Communion there have been all alone as there are at this present many Thousands of the most Learned Zealous 〈◊〉 Godly 〈◊〉 Priests and Doctors as well as Laicks who never approved of the foresaid either Practices or Principles but alwayes reproved condemned abhorred detested and protested against them both as not only heretical but tyrannical c. IX That consequently since the owning of such intollerable Maximes and wicked Actions or the not disowning of them cannot be justly said to be any of the peculiar Notes or characteristical Marks of a Roman-Catholick in general but only of a certain Sect or 〈◊〉 or Party amongst them whom some call Papalins others Puritan Papists and others Popish-Recusanta and since none of all the undoubted either Articles or Riâ—â—â— which all Roman-Catholicks universally without any distinction of Party or Faction do and must espouse have been hitherto reputed accused or suspected of being in themselves abstractedly and purely taken in any manner dangerous to any Government Temporal or Spiritual or to any persons either of Princes or Subjects or to the property or liberty of any Man or Woman or to the peace or quieâ— or security or conteâ—â—â—f any humane Creature however in the mean 〈…〉 â—â—al or some of them do or may seem erroneous to the learned 〈…〉 Protestants and further since King Henry VIII and the Protestant 〈…〉 Parliament of England Ireland and Scotland after him a◠〈◊〉 one 〈◊〉 could not 〈◊〉 throughly understand both these things which I have now mention'd so on the other hand they could not but observe how ever since the Oath of Supremacy though framed only by Roman-Catholick Bishops Abbots and Doctors of the English Nation and defended by the Principal (y) Bishop Gardiâ—er in his Book de â—eâ—a Obedienâ—â—â— and Bishop â—oâ—â—â—r in his Preface before it of the same occasioned the first Separation or Schism amongst the Subjects of England and Ireland the far greater part of such as continued in the Communion of the Roman Church did seem also to adhere to the foresaid dangerous Doctrines and Practises i. e. to all the pretenses and actings of the Roman Court forasmuch as they generally refus'd to disown them either by that Oath of Supremacy or by any other and moreover by consequence since the same Princes and Parliaments could not but manifestly discern all their own very being as also that of all the People under their Government to be singularly marked out and even devoted to utter extirpation by a party of men so madly principled and furiously bent living amongst them out of all that has been said it must follow That the onely original and the onely true principal causes which moved them to proceed with so much severity of Laws Proclamations and Executions against all Roman-Catholicks in general of these Dominions could be no other of our side than our Fathers and our own very great neglect and folly or contempt and wilfulness not to disown and renounce for ever publickly as we ought all such whatsoever wicked Positions and Practises nor any other indeed of their side than their firm persuations of our being therefore so desperately both principled and inclined nay resolved also and ready to give the greatest possible evidences of fiery Zeal whensoever the Commands of His Holiness from abroad shall meet with a fair opportunity at home X. That it is unreasonable to think and incredible to believe That so many judicious Princes Parliaments and Convocations who had themselves gone so far and ventured so much as they did only because they would not suffer themselves or the Protestant people govern'd by them to be imposed on against their own reason in matters of Divine Belief Rites c should at the same time be so concerned to impose on others in the like i. e. in Spiritual matters purely such in those I mean of Religion and Rites no way intrenching on the Jurisdiction or other Temporal or Spiritual Concern either of King or Bishop or other Subject whatsoever as to Enact Laws of so many grievous punishments yea of Death it self in some cases of meer purpose to extort from them a complyance or submission in such matters It is no to be believed that they would Enact those Laws against their own flesh and blood and some their nearest Relations too only for not renouncing such harmless and meer Religious Tenets or Rites which all their Predecessors before them had for so many Ages held without disturbance to the Publick or inconvenience to private Persons or hindrance to Virtue or countenance to Vice if the testimony of all Christendome for so long time be of any weight and to Enact those Laws intentionally or designedly against those things which at the very worst in all possible and conditional Contingencies are but erroneous Tenets and insignificant unprofitable Rites not
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
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
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
of the Land does warrant or hath at least sometime warranted That to the Crowns of England Ireland and Scotland as we can see no derivation of Divine right from Christ by St. Peter to His Holiness so neither can we see any colour of Humane right by any such consent c. That the late and last evasion of Bellarmine * Bellarmine against Barclay and others from the Argument grounded on that before-mention'd passage of St. Paul's command to the Romans and on the conformable practice of the primitive Christians when being most numerous and able to defend themselves they suffered nevertheless patiently under the Sword of persecuting Emperours is such a wicked device as makes the Apostles meer Temporizers in their Doctrine and consequently such as calls in question the whole truth of the Gospel Which to assert though onely by the sâ—quel of a slie distinction or unevading evasion is clearly no less than Blasphemy in Christian Religion Lastly That to approve so much as by silence those Principles and Practices the defence of which drive their Patrons at last to such Blasphemy yea not to condemn expresly those Positions and Actions which declare or infer it to be lawful for Subjects to dethrone nay to kill their Princes and embrue their hands in the blood of those Fellow Subjects that are defending their Princes and to act so much horrid cruelty upon the onely account of such improbable Rights Titles or Pretences of the Pope and See of Rome or even upon the joint account of introducing or re-establishing the Roman-Catholick Religion is no other than to approve at least consequentially or tacitely that which overthrows all Divine both Law and Testimony all Religion and right Reason whatsoever Nay that it is no other indeed than not onely to contradict the whole Doctrine but even to frustrate the whole design of the Gospel which either was none at all or without any question was to convert the world to God by the word of the Cross (a) 1 Cor. 1.18 and lead Souls to Heaven through the strait gate and narrow way (b) Mat. 7.14 And what are these but the mortification of our senses the contempt of riches pleasures greatness honour dominion and all the gaities of this world The crucifying of our Lusts whether Pride or Vain-glory or whatever else is or leads into sin Finally the practice of all contrary virtues especially those of humility and charity and meekness and a patient suffering in this life all the evils that God permits man to inflict Persuade your selves hence That the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God That the wisdom which is from above is gentle and peaceable as well as pure and That 't is a more glorious thing to gain one Soul to Christ by the soft and still voyce of the Gospel than to destroy a multitude because they will not come into the Fold before the chief Shepherd leads them Think besides that if the Church from particular grew Universal or Catholick by persecution and that the blood of Martyrs was the seed of the Church we should remember from whence we were hewen and tremble by contrary methods to be the Instruments of bringing Religion to that pass that there shall scarce be found Faith upon earth (c) Luc. 18.8 See moreover with your own eyes the fatal Catastrophe of all those Roman-Catholicks who in these very Nations have pursued such contrary methods at any time since 1537. Behold so many thousand heads crush'd in pieces under the Divine vengeance as broken Masts advanced on the Promontory of Rocks to give notice of the deplorable Events they have found even in this world whose example nevertheless but too many of your present Teachers advise you to follow when they dissuade you from condemning or disowning the same contrary methods the very same unchristian wayes Yea particularly behold on the most eminent place of the Promontory those Apostolical Ministers and Legats of the Holy See in Ireland Nicholas (a) He was an 1579 by Gregory XIII sent Nuncio to Ireland but with a Consecrated Banner and some Italian and Spanish Troops to invade that Kingdom as they did but were defeated by the Lord Grey Sanders an English man wandring alone in the Mountains of Kerry and starving there to death under a Tree Owen Mac Egan (b) Alias Eugenius O Hegan He was in the Rebellion of Tirowen made Bishop of Ross was great with the King of Spain was Vicarius Apostolicus in Ireland under Clement VIII had power from His Holiness to dispose of all the Ecclesiastical Livings of Munster but as Captain leading a Troop of an hundred Horse against the Loyallists with his Sword drawn in one hand and his Breviary and Beads in the other he was Slain and his Troop Routed an 1602 3. of Irish birth and race giving up his last breath even yet in a much more unepiscopal unclerkly unseemly manner And John Baptist Rinuccini (c) This good Italian Archbishop Prince and Extraordinary Nuntius in Ireland after many former practises by himself and his Dean Dionysiâ—s Massarius at last in the year 1648 May 27. issued out his Excommunication c. July 13 following he summoned a National Synod to appear at Galway After which the Supreme Council declaring on the 28 that such a National Synod could not be he issued out his Bloody Declaration which together with the effects of it put all Ireland in confusion and obliged the Loyal Party there to drive him out of the Countrey which he left Febr. 23. the same year 1648 9. What happened in the mean while at home in his own Diocess and especially in his Episcopal See of Fermo you may read in the Moderate Intelligencer Where in the Letters from Rome of July 11 2â— and July 17 27 of that year I find That lately before there had been an Insurrection of that people of Fermo against their Governour Seignior Visconti whom they slew and made themselves their own Masters They endeavoured to excuse this to the Pope their chief Lord under whom the Bishop is Prince of that City But the Pope not satisfied with their excuse sent Seignior Imperiale his Apostolick Commissary with an Army of Horse and Foot to chastise them He sent a Company of Corsicans before whom they received into the City and then fell upon them and made them Prisoners Other Towns in that Countrey of Marca dell ' Ancona Rebelled by their example and the secret encouragement they had received from the Spaniards of Naples By the Letters of Aug. 3. S. N. it appears that they sent again to the Pope but then He would not hear them The mean while Impiriale I know not how became Master of the City i. e. Fermo By the Letters of Aug. 15. S. N. 't is said he had then filled the Prisons with the Inhabitants of that City By those of Sept. 1. S. N. 't is said that yet they were in Arms about the Countrey
Propositions against the Jansenists and by occasion thereof against Mr. White alias Blacklow a learned Priest of the Roman communion though much for most of his books censured at Rome And he that printed at London that excellent Latin Panegyrick of Cromwel in verse I remember well though much unbecomming for the subject a Catholick Divine however it might sute a Heathen Poet Oratour as being in the praise of such a Tyrant Usurper And he that being netled by Mr. Blacklows replyes partly to be revenged on this Gentleman or out of zeal perhaps and partly to trye the fortune of his old age and expect some reward for his earnest endeavours to stifle Iansenisme in England whether for any other end I know not went to Rome immediately after his said writings and stayed there since It was this good Father as a veterane Souldier an able Divine and penman and a forraigner too that had no dependance on England they pitched on at Rome to write and print against that Remonstrance and against the sense thereof expounded by the Procuratour in his little English book wherein he gave the best account thereof he could and the exceptions made first against it required To which purpose they got the Irish Franciscans of St. Isidore their Colledge in the City to translate that little book of the Procuratours hopeing also they might find therein some passages or propositions censurable by His Holiness or Inquisition or by the Congregation de propaganda fide and thereby also find more cause and more matter to write against both the Remonstrance and chief defenders of it such as they accounted the Procuratour and Father Caron But their labour in that particular of translating of that book was lost For when they had done all their worst and brought their translation to the Colledg of Cardinals de propaganda nothing therein was esteemed censurable at least otherwise then the bare Propositions of the Remonstrance in it self And therefore it lyes and will in all likely-hood for ever lye amongst by layed sheets in that Colledg without any danger of condemnation or prohibition as even the Catholick Primate of Ardmagh then at Rome and in all probability concurring with the rest of his Countrymen against the Remonstrance and Subscribers writâ— to my self as soon as he was returned to Paris in 65. as also he together writt that His Holiness did not would not censure at all or meddle with or concern himself in that Remonstrance pro nec con otherwise then by his displeasure only against those Churchmen that were the first Authors or chief promoters of it And indeed we have no reason yet to complain of His Holiness in this matter albeit very much of the proceedings of his Eminency Cardinal Francis Barlerin and of the two Internuncius's of Bruxels But however this be or be not el Padre Macedo lost all his labours How farre he proceeded in it I do not know but sure I am whatever it was he writt on this subject it never came to light Whether because upon after thoughts they found he could saye nothing to purpose and whatever he would saye would certainly and fully be answered and judg'd safer to proceed rather by authority then reason against that Instrument and those Subscribers and by discountenancing and keeping them from all hopes of preferment or title in that Court until they retracted or whether for any other more pious and godly consideration of the Popes Holiness I cannot say for certain But am notwithstanding certain that to this day as neither Macedo nor Brodin so none els had the confidence either at home in Ireland or abroad in other Countries to publish as much as one sheet or leaf or line on that subject against the Remonstrance in print or otherwise that came to my knowledg besides those written letters only of Cardinal Barberin De Vecchijs and Rospigliosi part of which I have before given and shall the rest hereafter in their due place and besides the Censure of Lovain XIII The second particular of those two I desired the Reader to take notice of here as an appendix of those answers is That the Procurator alwayes and to all and every though so many dissenting opposing or delaying parties and factions of the Clergy against subscription in the perclose of his particular answers appropriated to their several objections inculcated seriously and vehemently insisted on this general argument against them That whereas they all generally confessed the catholickness and lawfulness of that form or of the acknowledgments declarations protestations promises engagements and petition of that Remonstrance and consequently the lawfulness of a subscription to it and withal saw clearly not only the expediency but necessity also of their concurrence and being it was evident enough they were bound under the greatest and strictest obligation of conscience and even of eternal damnation and they above other Christians by their special function to concur to all just conscientious or lawful means or such as were not sinful and were also the circumstances of place time and persons considered both expedient and necessary as well to hinder the propagation and labour the extirpation of erroneous false sinful and scandalous doctrine amongst the people whom they instructed as to wash off their holy Faith and Church such scandals already aspersed upon it through the carriage or miscarriage of some rendring it foul and odious and horrible and therefore estranging Sectaries of all sorts from all thoughts of returning or reuniting to it at any time but rather fixing them in heresie and schisme with loss of their eternal salvation even of such infinite myriads of souls for whose reduction to the Church and means of salvation they were specially commission'd by their calling and enjoyn'd to preach and teach Evangelical truths without addition or substraction of or countenance to any other novel doubtful or controverted opinions much less of those are certainly false and scandadalous and even against the common peace not of Catholicks or Christians alone but also of Infidels even of all societies of men on earth it must follow evidently out of these premises they must confess themselves to live in a very sinful state and extreamly dangerous hazzard of Gods most severe and most terrible judgments against them on the day of account if they delayed any longer their duty to God and to the King and to their own Church Religion People and to those too that abhorred their Church and Faith upon account chiefly of such their carriage or of their not disowning as they might and ought such pernicious doctrines and practises the antecedents concomitants and subsequents whereof render the Professors of the Catholick Faith and Church so abominable to all apostatized from or otherwise born and bred out of it For it is clear that under such penalties all Priests of God and Preachers of the Gospel of Christ by special function are obliged by all just means to endeavour the best they can to render
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
is true he did not so fully dilate himself nor troubled himself nor his Reader with forming at large the argument grounded in these clear passages but left that to the judicious Reader as very obvious to any For what can be more obvious first than that neither St. Paul did say or mean that an Angel from heaven or himself should or would at any time preach any other to the Galathians Nor Christ our Saviour did say or mean that himself should or would at any time say that himself did not know the Father Secondly then that St. Paul notwithstanding that certain truth resolved and prayed or wished that both himself and even an Angel from Heaven should be accursed in case of that otherwise in it self absolutely and morally impossible supposition and that our Saviour also who was essential and eternal truth himself said and therefore truely said that in case himself did say he knew not the Father he would himself be a lyar Thirdly then that a general Council howsoever truely such cannot be less deservedly subject to be accursed or less any way be lyars is then Paul or an Angel from Heaven or at least then the natural Son of God Himself and what can be more obvious to a rational man then this discourse framed on such premisses St. Paul and our Saviour himself do cleerly say here that in case of one impossibility an other should follow St. Paul that in case an Angel from Heaven did preach otherwise he should erre and therefore should be accursed Our Saviour that in case himself said he knew not the Father himself should be a lyar And yet neither St. Paul can be therefore taxed with saying absolutely that an Angel from Heaven shall or will or may erre or may be accursed nor our Saviour with saying absolutely that himself shall or will or may be a lyar Ergo neither can the Procurator be in the case taxed with saying absolutely that a general Council truly such shall or will or may at any time erre or with saying absolutely what would onely be consequent to a general Councils conditional errour that the case may shall or will be that the subscribers shall or may be forced either to have recourse from the Representative Church that is from such a general Council to the Diffusive Church or suffer themselves to be mislead by such a Council And this is the argument which he supposed all judicious Readers would of themselves frame out of those two passages of St. Paul and our Saviour given by him briefly in the said 62. page of His More Ample Account Which now again he confesses to appear so evident to himself that he sees not what may be answered but cavil For it matters not a pinn as to the greater or lesser consequence or inconsequence what perhaps some will object that St. Paul was more firmly and cleerly certain that an Angel from Heaven would not preach otherwise c. and that our Saviour questionless was more certain that himself would not say he knew not the Father then the Procuratour was or could be that a general Council should or would or might not define the contrary doctrine c this matters not a pinn I say to prove the form of speech or the strength of the Antecedent to be any way unlike or not the same in both cases as to the concluding or inferring the like consequence to our purpose mutatis mutandis for it is the likeness or sameness of the words in the Antecedents or premisses and not the likeness or sameness of certainty in the eternal sentiments that conclude alike or inferr the like or same consequents However to clear this matter a little further and illustrate it as with the beams of the Sun I will give the objectors two cases to be considered here One past at least partly and very long since even 12. hundred years and an other which may yet well enough be in future times The first or that so already past I have briefly hinted in my More Ample Account pag. 61. it is this Before the general Council of Nice which was the first of general Councils truly such being those Councils of the Apostles have yet a more excellent name which is that of Apostolical although for ought we know ended all of them without any definition of any matters of Faith but that of the Legals only I say that before this first of Nice assembled by the Emperour Constantine the Christian Church especially in the East was lamentably divided into great factions about the Faith of one Substance one partly holding with Arrius and even amongst those very many great Bishops and Archbishops and entire Churches too That there was but one substance or nature of God the Father and of God the Son the other holding they were by nature two substances and so different by nature that the Fathers substance was increated but the Sons even I mean as God purely and essentially created or a creature and onely like the Father and God onely by grace and adoption Now I demand of our objectors what should one of these true believers of one substance answer one of the other side an Arian Heretick pressing him hard before that general Council of Nice convened and pressing him with this discourse You hold firmly and pawn your Salvation on it that there is but one and the self same identical increated substance or divine nature in God the Father and in God the Son as he is God and you are absolutely resolved never to alter that your Faith and you have subscribed a Formula or confession of Faith and a protestation too or Oath whereby you declare and swear that you will never alter your judgment in this point and whereby too you renounce and disclaim in and protest against all contrary doctrine and all authority whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to oblige you to the contrary and notwithstanding all this you see now here is very soon to sit at Nice a general Representative or a general Council truly such of the whole universal Church of Christ on earth What will you say then when they are sate or what will you do or what will you think of that your said Formula confession protestation Oath present resolution and your subscription to all if this general Council most truly such define the contrary I demand I say of our objectors what would themselves have the Catholick Consubstantialists or believers of one substance in three persons which is the very first grand Fundamental of Christian Religion or indeed what the Consubstantialist or Catholick himself could answer in such a case or to such a metaphisical contingencie caprichious interrogatory insisted upon by the Arrian or what could he answer otherwise then as the Procuratour did to the like of Brodin or what is there imaginable to be returned in answer but that in such case the Consubstantialists would
either have recourse to the diffusive Church that is to the Faith of incomparably the farre greater body or number of Bishops and learned Fathers and Doctors of the several particular Churches of all ages dispersed throughout the world whereof those gathered at Nice were in comparison but a small portion or certainly in such case suffer themselves to be mislead out of their old way or belief and for and by the authority of such a Council embrace the new fancies of Arrius â—ading withal that out of one impossibility another must follow And I further demand of our Objectors whether the Catholicks answering so then to the Arrian Hereticks must have been therefore taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or which is the same thing with holding absolutely or with averring or confessing absolutely and by such answer that the Council to be convened so generally at Nice could erre in that Faith of one substance If our Objectors will say that those Consubstantialists would or did think so then it is evident our Objectors will be forced by consequence to allow the Procurator to think so to and think it also lawfully and Catholickly For neither he nor they can pretend to be Catholicks otherwise in any point then as those old Consubstantialists were But if our Objectors will say as indeed they must say these old Consubstantialists must not therefore think absolutely that Council of Nice could erre it must by the same reason follow that neither the Procurator by or for the like answer to the like caprichious interogatory must absolutely or positively think a general Council truly such can erre The second case is of a new Heresie that may without any miracle yet arise in the Church about the Divine processions As for example that as there is a Father and Son in the God-head or Divine nature or amongst the Divine persons so there must be a Mother and a Daughter And put the case too as it may be that both East and West and South and North of the universal Church or in all Countreys of the World are as much devided upon this new Heresie as they have been formerly upon that of Arrius at such time as St. Hierom said after the Council of Ariminum that the whole earth groaned under Arianisme seeing it self suddenly become Arian And therefore that by the true believers and let these be the very objectors themselves a Protestation is drawn and signed against this new Heresie to hinder a further progress of it or the corruption by it of the remaining Catholick party And then suppose further that a follower of this new Heresie would put the like caprichious interrogation to our objectors this for example what if a future general Council truly such define against your opinion adding withal that the objectors themselves knew very well this new controversie was never yet in terminis decided by a general Council In this case I demand what could our objectors answer to this Querie insisted upon or could they answer otherwise then as the Procurator did to Father Brodin And yet would they allow that by or for such answer from themselves they should be justly taxed with undervaluing the authority of general Councils or with holding absolutely that a general Council truly such might erre I am sure whatever they answer to these Interrogatories I put them in this case will be but to confound themselves and make them an object of laughter and scorn for having so ignorantly or so malitiously amongst the people calumniated me or that my book or that passage of it as if I had therefore undervalued the authority of General Councils or as if I had positively or absolutely held they could erre or as if I had taught a new way of disclaiming in a general Council and of having recourse from such Council to the Diffusive Church whereas I have been truly in that very passage as farre as from East to West from any such matters being my answer was onely conditional and to a conditional Querie and the condition too according to what I delivered there absolutely impossible in the order I mean of moral impossibilities or of such as are said only to be such by reason of Gods special providence and special promises made to the Church for preserving it for ever in all saving truths Whereof to convince yet further these very objectors I must beg thy patience and pardon good Reader that I give here intirely the whole discourse from first to last and word by word which I made on this subject in my More Ample Account or which I made therein to both those Metaphysical contingencies or Queries which the foresaid Father Brodin insisted on The first being What if the Pope should hereafter define the contrary in terminis And the second What if a general Council did c By occasion of which Queries and in answer to them both I writt thus in that little book page 59. 60. 61. and 62. The answer to both these Metaphisical contingencies for indeed they can be hardly thought greater being first That in case the Pope alone condemn the Protestation as involving even heresie they would reflect on his fallibility in defining and would rather hold with France Spain Germany Venice while these Countries change no other of their present tenets and with all the ancient and modern times of the universal Church then with the Pope in that case Secondly that if even a general Representative of the Church or which is the same thing a general Council of Bishops truly such define it they would then either have a recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians do tell us it is certain Nor can it therefore be rationally objected that our signatures to the Protestation or other engagement to maintain the doctrine of it and keep religiously our faith therein pledged must be unlawful or unconscientious or must not be a duty incumbent on us at least if required and such a duty moreover as we can not decline without sinning against all the laws of God and man It is manifest there are opinions and such as are confessedly such and only such which yet famous Catholick Vniversities end even whole Kingdoms engage themselves by Oath and vow to maintain I instance in that of the B. Virgins Conception and could alledg several others sworn to at least by men graduated in Schooles And there are hundreds of opinions even in matters of conscience which the Dissenters themselves I am certain very often practice and they think safely too and with a good conscience yea although they hold not seldome the contrary to be no less probable and sometime more and more safe also or which what ever they do there is no doubt but ten thousand learned and pious men do practice And yet they know all these opinions even that of the conception must be
as Subject to that Metaphysical contingency nay more most of them then that of our Protestation Why then may it not be as lawful for us to practice herein notwithstanding such conditional and caprichious interrogatories We have this advantage of them that in our judgments and in the judgments of at least the incomparably far greater part even of the Catholick Church there is not only both extrinsecal and intrinsecal probability in that we promise and protest but even an absolute certainty as grounded on most clear Scriptures and traditions and that the contrary positions or tenets are so farr from having any intrinsick probability at all that they are manifest errors against the word of God whereas they on the other side practice daily in matters of greatest concern relying only on the bare saying or quotation of one or two Casuists and these too not seldom extravagant and superficial men for matter of knowledg in the most profound questions of Religion And it is further manifest by reason that were such Metaphysical contingencies or apprehensions of them of power to render any unlawfulness in our signing the said Protestation the very same contingencie must vitiat their opposing us even I say as to the question of expediency or necessity And all the expositions made by the Fathers on hard passages of Scriptures and all the Sentences or controverted conclusions of Catholick writers in the succession of all ages since the days of Peter Lombard have been and are still unlawful even as to the expediency of delivering or teaching them Which to assert would be in effect to bereave our selves of all charity and all modestie and all reason Nay all the Canons Definitions Anathematismes of so many ancient holy Christian Councels either Provincial or National as we find in the Tomes of Councels and which have been held some a thousand others 11. 12. 13. 1400. years agoe and some latter all reverenced and many of them canonized by the very Popes themselves must have been unlawful and not onely temerarious but even sinful scandalous and schismatical yea the profession of the Trinity of persons or Divinity of Jesus Christ or an Oath or Protestation made to that purpose disclaiming in and renouncing all Doctrine and authority to the contrary that is in so much would be not onely unexpedient but even unlawful sinful scandalous schismatical before the first general Councel of Nice against Arrius or that other which was held at Constantinople against Macedonius yea that admonition of Paul Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed would be so too nay and that asseveration of our Saviour Christ himself in the Gospel was rash and false Si dixero quia non scio eum similis ero vobis mendax if this argument or interrogatory of our opposers be to any purpose or if their foolish impertinent discourses or private whispers ever since the 15. of Feb. last amongst our lay Gentry here signifie any thing to prove that we renounced or disclaimed in the Doctrine or Authority of a General Councel because we disclaim and renounce any at all as yet known to us which teaches or maintains any power Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal which may absolve us from our natural Allegiance to His Majestie or which may license us to rebell against him or to kill or murther the Anointed of God our Prince though of a different belief from ours Though which is observable our Protestation rigorusly taken as to this particular be onely against all such authority as is forreign and that that of a general Council truly such be known not to be properly forreign to any Christian Country And although the true meaning and purpose of it be onely against the Spiritual or Temporal pretended power of Popes alone But however this be or any thing heretofore said to these wild imaginations I would â—ain know whither it be not an undubitable Maxime in moral Philosophy and Divinity that our action is then lawful when it is against no law that is yet known or doubted to be either of God or man And expedient when in the judgment of wise men or in our own weighing all circumstances it is expected to conduce towards a good or just end we propose to our selves And whether the possibility of a future law or declaration against or inhibition of the like any more can vitiat actions qualified so which precede such laws Certainly as this last querie must be answered in the negative so the two former in the affirmative Now let any man that reads this passage and what I have given before it and for its illustration here in this present Book and Section let I say any such man of what affection soever so he be a man of reason be judge himself whether in this passage I do undervalue the authority of general Councils And I am sure there is no other passage in any other of all my writings where I say any thing to undervalue them And yet I must tell my adversaries that such Catholick Divines as hold the absolute fallibility of General Councils even I mean in point of Faith think they can say enough for themselves to prove that themselves do not therefore or indeed at all undervalue General Councils And enough also to prove that they justly charge their opposers with overvalueing General Councils As also to prove that themselves do still acknowledg a General Council truly such to be the onely Supream Tribunal in the Church And still acknowledg the Supream power of making Canons which concern either Faith or Discipline to be in this Council And still too acknowledg both external and internal acquiescence and obedience due from all persons even from the Pope himself to all their decrees in all Spiritual matters purely such whatsoever wherein an intollerable error against the Faith received is not evidently demonstrated And enough moreover to prove that to attribute more then this to General Councils howsoever truly such were indeed to overvalue them against truth and Tradition And finally enough also to prove it may be as daungerous an errour in religion or Faith to overvalue either Pope or Council as to undervalue them But whether such Catholick Divines as think so or think themselves can say enough for all and each of these particulars do think aright I am not concern'd at present no further then to tell my Adversaries they should rather dispute against them who give some kind of ground then charge me and falsely too being I give them no such ground at all nor any other of being charged with undervalueing General Councils XXXII Fourthly they would find their allegations false where they say that in the opinion of the Diffusive Church corporal punishments may be inflicted by a spiritual power I say that this is false if they mean as they do certainly and must speaking to the purpose by the word
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
pray therefore that all proceedings in this matter be charitable religious deliberate and mature to the end scandals and greater dangers may be prevented protesting that we are most ready according to the Canons of the Church and light of reason to give Cesar what is Cesars due and to God what is due to Him and that both duties observed entirely your Paternity shall find us the children of obedience who are Your most Reverend Paternitie's most humble Servants Redmond Caron And the rest of the Subscribers now at London XLIX Immediatly after and in pursuance of his answer he sent a copy thereof and of the citation to Father Peter Walsh the Procurator then in Ireland Whereof the Procurator thought fit to take so much notice out of that respect due for himself also to the said Commissary General as to return both in his own name and in that of all other Subscribers of his Order at home in Ireland this long letter that follows rendred into English out of the Latin copie To the most Reverend Father James de Riddere Commissary General of St. Franci's Order in the Belgick Brittish and other annexed Provinces at Mechlin Most Reverend Father I have some twenty dayes past seen a copy of the letter which your Paternity gave the 18th of April from Brula to Father Caron at London and his answer both sent hether by the same Father And though it may not be certainly gathered either out of that your most Reverend Paternities letter or any other argument that I am my self any way concern'd therein yet because that Reverend Fathers conjecture in his foresaid answer seems not improbable to some that your Paternity intended by that very letter to summon to Rome or Brussels the Fathers of our Order and Province of Ireland who lately made to the King in a certain form or publick Instrument a profession of their Allegiance and subscribed the same and yet notwithstanding forasmuch as there are on the other side many considerations of no little force to perswade it can be no way likely that most prudent and most learned men such as without any question it is fit we should esteem the Minister General of the whole Order of St. Francis throughout the world and his most worthy General Commissary of the Northern Provinces should attempt or intend any thing against their own Sons upon the onely account of having complyed with all divine and humane laws by professing to their lawful King that fidelity in all temporals which they are otherwise bound unto and professing it also at such a time when doubtless it was both necessary and profitable to and the very interest of the Roman Catholick Church and no kind of disadvantage but a very great and known advantage to the true Orthodox Faith therefore and not in my own name onely or from my self alone but in all theirs too and from all of our Institute living now at home in the Province and these indeed are many both grave and sound men besides some Bishops and a considerable number of others amongst the inferiour Clergie not onely secular but regular also of other Orders learned conscientious and very zealous too for the Roman Faith and Papal Dignity who have subscribed that late Protestation of our Allegiance in temporals the rumour of which profession and subscription peradventure came to your hearing I very earnestly beseech your most Reverend Paternity may be pleased to signify out of hand whether you meaned them perhaps in that citatory letter sent Father Caron or whether you mean'd not rather some others accused peradventure of some kind of real faults defects or which God forbid of crimes And if the former that is the Subscribers whether such onely of them as yet are in England or live at London or even all those too residing at home dispersed in all parts of Ireland of all whose names or subscriptions the most Excellent Vice-Râ—y the Duke of Ormond hath at present the Original Catalogue as of such who have since my last arrival here subscribed the foresaid Instrument or profession of Allegiance Which about a year and a half since was first presented to His Majesty at London read and favourably accepted by him albeit then signed but by a very few hands in respect of the numbers that since have subscribed here And your most your most Reverend Paternity may be further pleased to certifie these living so at home as I have said now dispersed throughout all Provinces and parts of this Kingdom and certifie them by me or whom els you please what you think of the Reverend Father Carons exceptions given in his answer to the summons contained in that your Epistle supposing I mean that he hath so much as by guess understood aright your meaning whether they ought to be reputed probable lawful or Canonical To me indeed reading in Gratianus the Pontifical Canons or Decrees of the Provincial Councels of Carthage and Tarragona it appears manifestly out of cap. Placuit cap. Si Episcopus cap. Si quis Episcoporum d. 18. That notwithstanding any summons even I say the most legal and formal the parties summoned are excused when either by age or sickness or the Kings command to the contrary or any other corporal necessity of moment they are hindered from appearing I speak nothing at present of other Constitutions either of even the very Pontiffs of Rome or of the greatest Councels too of the Catholick Church those Canons to witt established by the authority of Synods not Provincial onely but National of the whole Affrican Church and Oecumenical of the whole earth and by that also of the consent and acceptation or submission of all the faithful of both Churches Greek and Latin even then I mean when That was reputed Orthodox and by that likewise of the concurrence of the chiefest and greatest Fathers amongst whom St. Augustine that light of Doctors was one Which Canons prescribe the judgment or tryal of causes to be held where no danger can be of wanting witnesses of either side or only where the witnesses may conveniently appear And therefore that judicial causes or the parties accused be not drawen or summond to any place where they may not come within a very few days not summond at all to appear without the bounds of the Province where they live nor forced likewise beyond the Seas whether commonly neither the accusers themselves nor the accused much less the witnesses either will or can goe For say the Fathers of that Synod of Affrick which is called Vniversal in their Synodical epistle to Pope Celestine speaking of the Fathers of former times specially of those who made the Canons of the great and first Councel of Nice it was most prudently and justly determined by them that all judicial causes should have their decision where they had their rise And verely whoever is of an other judgment and will rather fix on a judicatory beyond the Seas will scarce or not even scarce be able to
answer that Affrican Synod where those Fathers reprove the injustice of Celestine's demand of such transmarine judgments in the case of Apiarius requiring it to be transmitted out of Affrick to Rome and reprove I say that injustice in these very words which you may read in the now mentiond Synodical Epistle a few lines after the former words Or how can that kind of transmarine judgment be rational or legal whereunto the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought because either of their sex or infirmities of old age or of many other intervening impediments But that neither within the limits of the same Province nor even where the crossing of the Sea is unnecessary the parties accused be drawn too farre from their dwelling places and so molested too much by the Judges on pretence of a judicatory Innocent the Third has enacted even in a Councel Oecomenical of the whole earth cap. Nâ—nnulli Extra de Rescriptis But all this and very many other passages to this purpose I pass over at present as I have said before I pass over likewise that exception which the Canons allow against the unsafety of the place to which the summons are the unsafety of it I say if the nature of the controversy and present circumstances be considered Especially if we call to mind what several Religious men and of several Orders too that to clear themselves from calumnies in a Controversy not altogether unlike this and being not even summond in that or any other cause whatsoever nor convicted of any kind of crime the Judges themselves confessing both did venture hence to goe and appear at Rome or Madrit have suffered in our own days in our own late memory and suffered too without so much as any kind of even the very external formality of law or canons observed towards them and suffered so too most plainly against all the laws of God and nature And if we call moreover to mind those inhumane plots contrived in forraign Countries against the very lives of some even of our secular Nobility that having been formerly engaged with us in the same controversy were after in the ruine forced to shift abroad plots layd by some of those very men that now again endeavour to embroyle all anew commixe heaven and earth put all things out of frame the second time into the most horrid confusion they can of purpose partly to asperse and be revenged of us In fine I pass over the greatest exception of all The quarrel against us and the controversy in all parts to be such as concerns the temporal rights of all supream lawful Magistrates or Governours Kings and States Kingdoms and Common-wealths that acknowledge no dependency in temporals but from God alone whether they be Christians or Pagans Orthodox or Heterodox believers And consequently such whereof the Minister general or Commissary National of St. Francis's Order is so farre wide from being judge I mean as to any effect of being able and I speake onely here of ability in point of conscience to oblige their Inferiours to determine in any part against the right of Princes or silence the truth of the Gospel of Christ in this matter chiefly where the declaration of such truth is needful amongst Sectaries that are partly for want of such declaration made to them by Catholicks known to continue their separation walke in darkness and have a most strange aversion from the Church of Rome that neither is the great and most blessed Pontiff himself alone reputed a competent much less infallible Judge in this controversy not I say reputed so even by most celebrious and most excellent Catholick Divines though earnest renowned Champions for the Roman Faith in all its tenets and latitude Which manifestly abundantly appears not onely out of the late Decree of the Theological Faculty of Paris of the 8. of May this present year 1663. and many other decisions not of that Faculty of Paris alone but of all other Vniversities of the Kingdom of France and of the Gallicane Church too in general since the horrid murthers of Henry the Third and Fourth even of National Councels of the Bishops of the same Church against the several attempts of Boniface the Eight and Julius the Second but also out of the carriadge books actions of the Divines and Prelats of the Venetian Republick and Church against Paul the Fift in the year 1606. out of the sense and sentence of the Archbishops Bishops and Abbots of the Catholick Church of England in the Raigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second above 300. years since Gregory the Eleventh and Martin the Fift strugling to the contrary but to no purpose as you may read even in Polydore Virgil in his life of Edward the Third out of the German Italian and other Churches truly Orthodox of several Nations of Europe their Prelats and Clergie who adhered to the Roman Emperours where the temporal rights were concernd against Gregory the Seventh and some other great Bishops of the Roman Sea lastly and yet more particularly our of our own William Occam in the cause of Lewis of Bauier and out of Iâ—â—nnes Parisiensis Gerson Major Almain Cardinal Cusan c. most famous writers and Doctors too both Catholick and Classick nay if any credit be given to Aventinus in his Seventh book of his Boiarian Annals where he relates the Decree of the foresaid Emperour Lewis of Bauier out of that General and celebrated Chapter of the whole very Order of St. Francis held at Perusia in Italy or out I mean of the famous Appeal they all that is their General Provincials and Doctors of Divinity made therein from Iohn the two and twentieth Pope of that name to a future Oecumenical Council of Christendom although I do not deny but the most immediate occasion of their appearing so as is related in that History against the Pope and appealing from him was his condemning the Franciscans for teaching That neither Christ nor his Apostles had any temporal right or property in earthly goods but onely simplicem usum facti Whom therefore in shew but really for an other cause that is for their siding against him with the Emperour and maintaining by their pens and Sermons the Emperours temporal rights he tearmed foolish animals pernicious foxes that by a seeming strictness of religion and hypocrisy abused the world and seduced the people having first set forth those Extravagants which you may read in the Canon law against the Order it self All which I say and very much more of this kind I pass over at present Nor least I exceed the measure of an epistle do I at this time alledge either those other arguments derived from the intrinsick nature or as they speak commonly from the very bowels of the cause it self or those which may be brought from or out of Canonical Scriptures or the monuments of holy Fathers who in a continual succession for nine hundred years compleat nay till the eleventh age of Christianity delivered
such be amongst the Subscribers can make themselves ready for the voyage before they can fit themselves with necessaries for so long a journey before they can get money to bear their charges and Passes to save them harmless the time will be wherein according to our constitutions the Commissary Visitor must go about the Province at home in Circuit And if so wherefore a journey so chargeable tedious and no less dangerous specially of so great a multitude and of persons too not convicted nor confessed nay of persons never once heard to speak or write for themselves never yet as much as once any way questioned either by messenger or by letter to this very day What I say further is That it would very well become your Paternity and the Minister General to consider seriously with your selves what your selves would do if your own condition or case in the Dominions of Spain Germany Franâ—e Poland Venice or other States and Principalities of Italy were like ours here If banishment proscription treason death it self the worst of evils and the vilest kind too of death were established by law where you live against the maintainers of the great Pontiffs pretended power either direct or indirect for deposing your own King and bereaving him of Crown and life together If you had now your selves groan'd for some ages under the yoke of severest laws against your Religion led the life of slaves in servitude and bondage if your Altars had been destroyed your Churches polluted your Holies contaminated your Goods confiscated and persons out-lawed And that now at last after so great and so long sufferings you saw a beam of light discovering some comfort some fair hopes of seeing in your own dayes under a pious King a cessation of your evils end of your persecutions restitution of your people liberty of religion intended for you and nothing else expected from you by a good lawful and merciful Prince your own natural Prince I mean but only that you would under your hands-writing renounce the late bloody horrid assertion of a Sermarine or Bellarmine Comitolus or a Suarezius a Gretzer Becan Lessius or any other such one or more Neotericks whether Divines or Canonists or both Assertions publickly and frequently condemned heretofore even by the most famous Universities Prelates Clergie and people of the greatest Catholick Nations of Europe and besides that you would only profess against assertions so strangely enormous pernicious and scandalous of such the foresaid few Divines or Canonists to be unalterably undispensably faithful in temporals to your own Monarch notwithstanding any attempts or machinations whatsoever of any person or power on earth even that of the great Pontiff to bereave your King of his temporal rights Scepter Crown or Life I say it would become your Paternitie and Minister General of the Order to consider with your selves coolely what you would think lawful to do in that case of your own what to determine as Christian Divines and what to declare promise and subscribe as faithful Subjects to your King Likewise to consider with your selves what then you would think of Caron Walsh or any others of your own Order that subscribed our above mentioned Form if I mean they in the now supposed case had the same power of or superiority over you which you indeed have over them and they used I say not abused it to estrange to alienate you and all other fellow Subjects from being so faithful to your King in his temporal Government to this end proceeded against troubled molested you with illegal summons and breach of Canons and did so too with the manifest prejudice of Catholick Religion and with the yet more special infamy hatred horrour of the Seraphick Institution amongst those are not of our Church Certainly prudent wise learned men men so zealous for Religion Faith and the service of God would alledge That there is no power given for destruction but for edification that we must rather obey God then any men whatsoever commanding against God Faith and Religion against the publick good or peace of a Catholick Nation so strangely of late and so many years together afflicted then men men too I say proceeding so either out of a certain blind obedience that sees not God or out of zeal that is not according to the knowledge of God or lastly and which is worst of all out of a sinful awe they stand in of other men who rule by power only domineering amongst the Clergie against the Prince of the Clergies precepts of Faith and examples of Life And what I finally say is That however your most reverend Paternities would carry your selves in the supposed case it concerns you in that wherein you are to be very careful and cautious that as the reverend Father Caron well adviseth in this matter or controversie if it be this indeed you intended in your Letter to the said Father your Paternities proceed religiously maturely and charitably or which is the same thing that without a just cause you proceed not to citations censures or any sentences whatsoever For when the sentence is either notoriously null by reason of an intollerable errour or through want of matter that is of a lawful cause or sin and this very sin to have a clear contumacy along with it or when the sentence is otherwise unjust by reason the substantial or essential form of judicial procedure such as the Canons and reason prescribe is not observed and much more when both that and this are manifest what fruit what effect can you hope thereof Certainly it appears out of the Canons and Doctors that a sentence of this nature obliges not Which you may see in cap. Venerabilibus Parag. potest quoque de sent Excom in 6. cap. per tuas Parag. nos igitur eod tit in Tâ—let l. i. c. 10. and Gandidus disquis 22. 24. dub 3. de Censur where he alledges Sâ—tus d. 22. q. 1. a. 2. and Suarez de Censur disp 6. sec 7 n. 52. averring moreover that when a censure is in this manner invalid or null in both Courts that is the internal of conscience and external of the Church its unnecessary to have an absolution as much as for caution as they speak With whom Henriques too l. 13. de Excommunicat cap. 15. Sayrus l. 1. de censur cap. 16. go along And as to the generality of the sentence all other Divines and Canonists Nay it appears out of that most learned and most holy Chancellor of the School of Paris Gerson de Excom consideratione 5tâ— tom 2. that a farr greater and more sinful contempt of the keyes of the Church is to be imputed to the Prelate or Ecclesiastical Judge so as is now said abusing his power then to the party censured if there be any comparison at all in the abuse Nay it further appears out of this most famous Divine that it may and is sometimes both meritorious in it self and honourable to the
deposed from the sacaerdotal office but also thrust into a strict monastery to do perpetual pennance But nothing is concluded hence or may be against our case but on the contrary much for it as I mean to a lawful discovery of the sin or treason if such it be without discovering the sin or him that in his confession tells that intended treason For it licences the Confessors to consult in some cases with others telling them of the sins without revealing the sinner But for the rest it reflects not at all on the case of the Confessors discovery of an evil intended or plotted by others that never confess'd unto him such evil or such plot albeit the confessor knew it by or in the Sacramental confession of one of the very plotters or of some other that had no further hand in it then that of baâ—e knowledg Much less doth this Canon any way touch the case of a only seeming confitent or of such as is wickedly obstinately still impenitent however discovering such conspiracy in the confessional Seat And as little doth it say that either this kind of confession is any way Sacramental or the Seal or Obligation to keep it secret more then what is meerly natural or would be in case the party told it without any seeming formalities of a seeming Sacramental though truly known to the Confessor to be a very unsacramental confession Besides who knows not the general doctrine of Catholick Divines in relation to the Canons of the Church as such Canons only That they never bind nor intend to bind nor indeed can bind any not even I mean where they are received as this Canon is generally and ought to be not even where they seem in express words to come home to the case all the particular circumstances of it as this Canon doth not in any respect that I say such Canons neither do nor can bind any against the Law of God positive or natural Nay which is more that as barely such or as Canons of the Church only they bind not the faithful to observance where and when the observer must thereby suffer of loss of life or limb or estate or liberty or any other notable great and heavy inconvenience or evil which may be declined by the non observance of them For it is a known maxime of Divines in such cases that the Church is a pious indulgent mother But would she be so or not rather appear a cruel step-mother if she were supposed to make a Canon for concealing the intended ruine of King and Countrey and of an infinite number of Innocents nay and of her self too as may be well supposed in the case and concealing this also when the discovery so made by a confessor might prevent the whole mischief It s cruelty and inhumanity and want of piety and charity and religion and learning and reason too that would make any think she would be so impious And secondly what they can alleadg is That by the divine law natural as t is called by them for positive law divine they have none nor pretend any from Scripture or Tradition all Confessors must so behave themselves towards their penitents or confitents too let them say if they please as not to render the Sacrament of pennance odious And that a lawfulness once allowed in any case for the Confessor to reveal a thing or matter whatever it be told him in the confessional Seat and to reveal it I mean without his consent would render this holy Rite very odious and give occasion to many sinners not to declare their sins entirely but wholly to estrange themselves from confession for ever But if this argument concluded any thing to the purpose it would also conclude that Confessors must not discharg the duty they are confessedly and without contradiction of any side bound unto by all the laws of Reason and by all the Canons of the Fathers They would not enjoyn so many restitutions of lands and goods and same so extreamly grievous very often to penitents Nor would enjoyn so many other heavy pennances either medicinal or satisfactory no less painful then shameful too in many cases And who can deny but such injunctions render confession odious to nature Nay who can deny but the very duty it self of bare confession as it is prescribed by the Canons and Councils of the Church and by all Divines of the Roman Communion taught as necessary and as it is required to be exactly of all particular mortal sins of word deed or even inward consent alone and both of their number as farre as one can remember or conjecture after sufficient examination and of all kind of circumstances too that change the species as they speak must be very odious to nature especially when the sins are unnatural or shameful But if it be answered that such is the duty of the Confessor enjoyn'd him by the positive laws of the Church and by those natural laws also of Reason being he is Judge in that holy tribunal in the place of God and that such too is the doctrine of the Church and Catholick Faith where no liberty is left to Divines for teaching otherwise even so I answer to this allegation or objection of the Sacrament of confession to be rendred odious if the Confessor may be free in any case to make use of notices had therein without the Confitents permission It may indeed render it odious in such a case But to whom To a wicked impenitent or to a most unreasonable man To none truly rational and penitent to no such person making a true Sacramental confession or to none that is resolved at any time to confess holily will the confessors discharging his own duty render such a holy confession odious A duty whereunto and whereby in such case he is bound even by all the very laws of God as well positive as natural as may be easily demonstrated if at any time reqvired to hinder and prevent timely even by such a revelation such deplorable general and otherwise irremediable evils as would in all kind of moral certainty follow his not revealing the design communicated so in confession and let us always suppose the confitents denyal of consent to such revelation Though as I have noted before such denyal can hardly if at all be supposed in a true penitential confitent or in a true Sacramental confession unless we suppose withal the penitent to be some strange meer natural blockhead that is not capable of understanding his own obligation in such a case or the ghostly Fathers instructions in it Which yet is very like an impossible supposition 6. That our Masters of Lovain will find it a very hard if not absolutely impossible task To perswade a knowing pious man that either any dictate of natural reason or any ordinance of human Canons much less any article of Christian Faith or Catholick Religion hetherto delivered us either formally or virtually by Scripture or by tradition tye Confessors I
testimonies of all Ages from the first of Christianity I say that being it is therefore plain and clear enough to any dis-interessed judicious and conscientious Divine that neither these Councils or Popes could upon rational grounds pretend any positive law of God properly or truly such either out of Scripture or out of Tradition at least for such exemption of the persons of Clergymen and in temporal affairs too from the supream civil coercive power it must consequently be confessed that unless we mean to charge an errour on these Councils and Popes we must allow the answer of such Divines as with Dominicus Soto 4. dist 25. q. 2. art 2. hold against Bellarmine in this matter to be not only full of respect but of reason also viz. that by jus divinum ordinatio divina voluntas omnipotentis cura a Deo commissa these Councils and Popes understand that right or law Divine that ordination Divine that will of God that care by God committed which is such only in as much as it is immediatly from or by the Canons or laws of the Church and that by jus humanum they understand the civil laws or institutions of meer Lay-Princes And indeed that of respect in this answer will be allowed without contradiction And that that of reason also cannot be any more denyed I am sure will appear likewise to any that please to consider how it is very usual with Popes and Councils to stile their own meer Ecclesiastical Canons Divine and such Canons I mean which by the confession of all sides never had any positive law of God in Scripture or Tradition for them For amongst innumerable proofs hereof which I could give that of the 27. Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon and that other in the third action of the VII General Synod will be sufficient proofs For in the former it is plain that meer Ecclesiastical Rules though concerning only the district jurisdiction and preheminence of the Constantinopolitane Patriarch and some other Bishops and Metrapolitans are called divine Canons and that in the latter too the title of divine constitutions or divinely inspired constitutions is attributed to the laws or Canons in general of the Church So that jus divinum ordinatio Dei c. must not be opposed in these places quoted by Bellarmine or any other such to all that which is properly strictly immediatly or only from men however taken for Lay-men or Church-men but to that which is from men acting by a meer lay natural civil temporal and politick power and not at all acting or enacting laws as the Church enacts by a pure spiritual supernatural and therefore by way excellency called a divine power and their laws therefore too in that sense or for so much called divine though not divine at all in the strict proper sense of a divine law as by this we ought to understand that which was immediatly made or delivered by God himself and by the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles or by Scripture or Tradition 3. That however this be or however it may be said by Bellarmine or by any other to be well or ill grounded or to be truly according to the sense or mind of these Councils and Popes he alleadges yet even Bellarmine himself and all others of his way will and must grant that although we did suppose and freely admit his sense of these places to have been that indeed of these Councils and Popes yet the argument is no way concluding any other not even I say for as much as it is grounded on the authority or manner of speaking used by these very Councils which are accounted General as Trent and both these Laterans 1. Because the canons or places alleadged are at best and even at most even the very best and most material of them but canons of Reformation or canons of meer Ecclesiastical Discipline which are worded so And no man that as much as pretends learning is now so ignorant as not to know that even entire Catholick Nations and many such too oppose very many such canons even of those very Councils which themselves esteem or allow as truly General and oppose not the bare words or epithets onely as our dispute now is of such words or even of bare epithets but the whole matter and sense and purpose nay and the very end too uncontrovertedly admitted to have been that of such General Councils And the reason is obvious enough vz That in canons of Reformation Discipline or manners as it is generally allowed and certain the Fathers deliver not nor intend nor pretend to deliver or declare the Catholick Faith and that in all other things they are as fallible and as subject to errour as so many other men of equal knowledge though without any of their authority or spiritual superiority 2. Because that in the very Decrees or Canons of Faith General Councils even the most truly such may erre in such words as are not of absolute necessity for declaring that which is the onely purpose of such Canon For so even Bellarmine himself teaches l. 2. de Concilior Authoritate c. 12. expresly and purposely and in these very words Denique in ipsis Decretis de fide non verba sed sensuâ— tantum ad fidem pertinet Non enim est haereticum dicere in canonibus Conciliorum aliquod verbum esse supervacaneum aut non rectè positum nisi forte de ipso verbo sit decretum formatum ut cum in Concilio Niceno decreverunt recipiendam vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et in Ephesino vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where you see that he exempts onely from this general rule the case wherein a Council should of purpose frame a Decree or Canon of Faith concerning the very use of such or such a word or epithet as the first of Nice-did for the word bâ—mousion or consubstantial against Arrius and the Council of Ephesus did for the word Deotocon or Godbearing against Nestorius Which cannot be said by Bellarmine or any other in his behalf or that either any Council or Pope have ever yet done so as to or concerning the use of the words jus divinum ordinatio divina c or of the single word or Epithet Divine in our case 3. Because and according also to not onely truth but eveâ— Bellarmine himself again in the same book and chapter in the Acts of General Councils even those Acts which concern Faith neither the disputes which are premised nor the reasons which are added nor those things or words which are inserted for explication or illustration are of Faith or intended by the Fathers to be submitted unto without contradiction as a matter certain and infallible but the bare decrees onely and not all even those very decrees but such of them onely as are defined expresly to be the Faith delivered that is as even Bellarmine himself elswhere and all the Schools now teach with him such as are said in such Council to have
the City and Palace beholds all persons whatsoever Laicks and Ecclesiasticks both Priests and Bishops observing himself with all demonstrations of submissive reverence and with bare heads and bended knees approaching the kisses of his hand should nevertheless presently after being gone to Church lay himself bare headed and bare kneed too at the feet of the Priest in the confessional seat the Priest in the mean time covered still and fitting and as a Judge of another quality and in that holy place and function determining of him as a criminal And as this is not dishonourable nor undecent to be done by the very Pope himself for even the Pope too must behave himself so to an inferiour Priest if he will be forgiven his sins by God notwithstanding that Soto will confess there can be no kind of undecency that the Pope in another quality should before or after judge that very Priest who presently was or shall be his Pastour in that and even judge him in the very external Court and judge him too as a lay criminal or as guilty of lay crimes so it must not be dishonourable nor undecent on the other fide for the Priests to be bound to appear when there is cause though in another Quality then that of Priests before those very Lay penitents of whom they were before Judges or to whom they shall be hereafter Pastors in discharging towards them the office of Priests To the Fourth reason of Soto in reference to the persons which was That whereas the civil power Ecclesiastical are wholly different or distinct it must be necessary that as each of them hath its proper Ministers so the Ministers of either have their own proper superiours The answer is that I grant all Neither do I nor will I at any time deny that Clerks as Clerks have the Pope for their chief Superiour according to that power which the canons of the universal Church do allow him over all Clerks as such But forasmuch as Clerks besides that of their being Clerks have also the being quality essence of Citizens or of natural or politick men or of members of a civil society of other men what is it in point of reason can hinder them from having an other Superiour to wit the King to govern them in this other consideration as men or Cittizens or such members And certainly otherwise it must be said to be necessary that neither Pope nor Church may ever judg of Laicks in any quality or in any cause whereas it is granted of all fides that Laymen have their own proper lay Superiours and are under the civil power which Soto confesses to be wholly altogether distinct from the Ecclesiastical But since we know that cannot be said and that on the contrary the truth is that laymen as they are christians or sons of the Church by Faith and Baptisme are also in that quality subject to the Ecclesiastical Superiours of the Church in matters belonging properly to their cognizance even so we must by consequence of reason assert this also as a truth That Clerks as they are men or cittizens or members of a civil or politick Society are subject also to the civil or politick Head of that Society in all matters belonging to his politick or civil headship and government In which sense or way it is true and it is we say That distinct powers must argue distinct superiours Which yet we have now seen to conclude nothing against us for the necessity of Ecclesiastical exemption or exemption of the persons of Clerks in temporal causes from the secular Magistrats To answer the fift and last argument of Soto we must remember that as it is peculiarly for the exemption of Church mens Goods from the civil Magistrat or which is the same thing from all publick or private assesments contributions taxes oâ— burthens whatsoever to be laid on such goods by the authority of any men civil Magistrat Prince King or Emperour so this Author pleads this exemption also of their goods to be not onely congruent but necessary and therefore concludes it power in the Church as a Church to make a law for it whether Princes will or not And we must know that his ground he borrows from St. Thomas out certainly makes use of it or derives a conclusion from it against the mind of St. Thomas That St. Thomas in his commentary on the 13. of the Romans where he hath it intends no more by it but to prove the natural equity of Clerks being free by the priviledge of Princes from paying tributs but expresly denies a necessity for such freedom That this to be the mind and words of St. Thomas appears plainly out of the testimony of Franciscus Victoria Relect. 1. de Potest Eccles. sect 7. Prop. 2. where he writes thus Clerici sunt exempti a tributis non jure divino sed Priâ—vlegio Principuâ— Hoc expresse dicit D. Thomas super illum locum Roman 13. Ideo enim tributa praestatis Et dicit hanc exemptionem habere equitatem quamâ—â—â— non autem necessitatem That Finally however this be certainly true yet Soto inferrs out of that reason of St. Thomas not a congruency but a necessity For as we have seen before thus he discourseth Whereas tributs customs and other publick taxes are paid to Kings for their maintenance and as a reward or satisfaction for the labours they undergo in the administration of the commonwealth and whereas Clergiemen take no less pains in discharging their own Ecclesiastical duties it is but an equal recompensation of such pains to be exempt from all tributs taxes c. Now to answer this argument where is any thing here to conclude a necessity were it even true that Clergiemen take no less pains for the common-wealth and were it also true that t is onely as a reward of labours that Kings receive tribute For the Commonwealth might as to its temporals very well subsist in this life and even as to its spiritual hopes be saved in the other without any such exemption of the goods of Clergiemen as it could no less without any exemption of their persons But whereas also indeed both the one and the other are absolutely false how can Soto as much as pretend from either to inferre his purpose For the truth is that it is not onely as a reward or satisfaction that publick taxes are paid to Kings but also as necessary enablements to them for the protection of the commonwealth Nor is the care trouble sollicitude pains or vexation of Clerks any way neer that which is of Kings Nor also can the pains of any them be whatever it be of any and we know many or most take but little pains respectively be undertaken commonly and so directly and properly for the commonwealth as the labours of Kings are and ought to be and as natural reason it self requires and shews they must be Besides doth not even St. Thomas himself expresly teach above on the 13. to
in it self purely or as abstracting from matter of fact we say two things here to clear all the fog which many of our late School Divines do raise without any cause at all to loose themselves and others in it The one is that in this cause of Caecilian and such others of Church-men wherein Constantine or other Christian Emperours interposed their imperial authority and carried themselves properly as Judges that wherein they did so was pure matter of fact whereof questionless the lay Emperours when judicious and just were secundum allegata probata as competent Judges as any Ecclesiastick And the other is that whereas the Emperour and the same we must say of every other supream or Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is of supream absolute independent power within his Empire he must consequently have sufficient authority from God himself to promote all that may be for the publick good peace or safety of his people in this life and of their happiness too in the other according as he is directed by the law of God and therefore also must have sufficient power from God himself to see and take effectual care and such effectual course as is necessary that the very Ecclesiastical affairs within his Empire be duely carried on Therefore albeit he be not the competent Judge in a doubtfull case what was or was not the Faith delivered once in such or such a point controverted yet he is a competent Judge to see and determine as to matter of Fact whether the Ecclesiasticks of his Kingdom duely observe the uncontroverted Faith or that part of Faith which all men which even themselves confess acknowledge to be that which was once so delivered or whether they duely observe the known and holy canons of the Church made for preservation of that Faith And he is a competent Judge also or hath a competent sufficient absolute independent power to force the very Ecclesiasticks themselves to keep that Faith entire and sound even also I mean as to the very Theory of it and to all questions of divine right especially where and when he sees that by reason of controversies arising about such very questions or Theory the publick external peace of either Church or State may be endangered or that the publick tranquillity depends of the unity of his people in such matters according to what was from the beginning taught By which very consideration that Constantine himself was very much induâ—ced â—o interess himself in these matters of Faith even himself also writes apud â—arrâ—nium tom 3. an 313. n. 37. least otherwise he should have seen dangeâ—ous troubles and commotions in his Empire and thence have suffered also very much in his reputation as not governing well or prudently or also as haveing imprudently embraced that religion whose professours he could not keep in peace or unity amongst themselves Of which consideration and judgement of Constantine or rather of which power and authority of Constantine or indeed of both the one and the other St. Augustine speaks ep 162. where he writes thus Quasi verò ipse sibi he means Felix Aptungitanus â—â—c comparavit ac non Imperator ita quasi jusserit ad cujus curam de qua rationem Deo redditurus esset res illa maximè pertinebat But of this authority and superintendency in general of Emperours Kings Princes and other supream temporal or politick States in and over the Church or the spiritual or Ecclesiastical both Superiours and Inferiours of the same Christian Catholick Church this is not the proper place to treat at large It sufficeth at present to say that forasmuch as Constantine did so and so often too interess himself in this cause of Caecilian and deputed Judges to hear and determine it he did all this by the true proper genuine authority of an Emperour and even of a Christian Emperour whose duty it is when the Ecclesiasticks themselves alone cannot end or compose their own dissentions that he by his own supream authority assist and promote their agreement and even force them to a just and equitable agreement Which the Milevitan Council approves in effect canone 19 and ponitur xi q. 1. c. 11. and in these tearms Placuit ut quicumque ab Imperatore cognitionem judiciorum publicorum petierit honore proprio privetur Si autem Episcopale judicium ab Imperatore postulaverit nihil ei obsit But that Constantine did in aftertimes adorn and magnifie the Church or Churchmen with most singular and most ample priviledges concerning civil judgments or judgments in civil affairs this he did not as Baronius tom 3. an 314. n. 37. would make us believe he did to correct or by way of correction of those former judgments of his own in the said or like affairs of Ecclesiastical persons which judgments our great Annalist sayes were unduly and unjustly usurped by the Emperour but did so or gave such priviledges out of his meer liberality and piety alway nevertheless reserving his own proper supream and general and imperial authority to provide upon emergencies by himself or by such others as he should think fit to depute for the necessities of the Church and Churchmen as often as he saw need However let us proceed in the matter of fact which is our proper subject here For notwithstanding the aforesaid judgment also of the Council of Orleance the Donatists yet appeal even from it and the second time to the Emperour himself against and in that cause of Cecilian and the Emperour admits again their appeal judges the matter himself absolves Cecilian and condemns the Donatists St. Augustine is my author and witness ep 48. and epist 162. where yet he neither accuses nor reprehends the Emperour Nor doth Cecilian except but obeyes and freely presents himself to be judged by the Emperour For it was a criminal judgment that is the matter debated was a crime charged upon him Nay St. Augustine openly sayes and avers that neither the accusing or appealing Bishops themselves were to be reprehended on this account that they drew or brought the affairs or causes of or accusations against other Bishops to a lay secular Judicatory For thus he writes ep 48. Si autem sicut falso arbitramini vere criminosum Caecilianum judicandum terrenis potestatibus tradiderant quid objicitis quod vâ—strorum praesumptio primitus fecit he speaks to the later Donatists quod eos non arguerimus sayes he quia fecerunt si non animo inuido noxio sed emendandi corrigendi voluntate fecissent Therefore St. Augustine sayes that where and when the dispute concerns the correction and amendment of Ecclesiasticks to demand the judgment or sentence and to appeal to the power of earthly Princes is not reprehensible if the accusers proceed not in such or indeed any other application out of envie or malice Concerning this second admission of Constantine or indeed rather concerning his whole procedure in this affair by admitting any appeal at all or
heresy and condemn'd so expresly by Iohn the XXII Pope of that name A material objection truly at least or especially amongst Roman Catholicks were it as true as it is objected For albeit the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility in his definitions made without the consent of the universal Church either by a general Council or otherwise be very fallible yet all Roman Catholicks have and ought to have that veneration and reverence to his decrees or at least to such of his decrees as are intended or pretended to be decrees of Faith or definitions against heresies as not to slight them easily or even at all without very sufficient and very manifest cause that is without finding them evidently after due examination to contain manifest errours against the Faith delivered once and at first by the blessed Apostles and since their time continued in the Church from age to age all along by and in the writings and preachings of the holy Fathers their undoubted Successors in the same Faith and delivery of it And therefore and albeit this objection hath not yet been made by any against me and that not even Bellarmine himself urgeth any thing of or relating to it more then that he barely tels in the beginning of his 28. chapter l. 1. de Cleric that over and above what many Hereticks teach of the subjection of all Clerks whatsoever both greater and lesser to the temporal Magistrat and of their subjection also de jure to such Magistrats both in payment of tributes and judgment of their causes Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno sayes he out of â—aâ—nes de Turrecremata l. 4. sum de Ecclesias part 2. c. 37. particularly and singularly taught that not even Christ himself was free from the payment of tributes and that what he did Mat. 17. when he payed the tribute money id feâ—iffe non voluntate sect necessitate he did not because he would do so but because he was bound to do so albeit I say that not even Bellarmine himself sayes ought else of the doctrine of this Marsilius and Iandunus not mentions the condemnation of them or it nor frames such condemnation to an objection nor any one els hath as yet against me or my doctrine hethertoo all along in this Tract of a coercive power supream in all criminal causes of all Clerks whatsoever yet forasmuch as it may be nevertheless reflected upon hereafter by some of the more learned and by reason that Turrecremata and in the place above quoted out of him sayes that Iohn the XXII condemned this doctrine also in the said Marsilius and Iandunus as heresie and them as hereticks for maintaining it although he brings no further proof of such condemnation but his own bare assertion or simple relation without produceing any Bull authentick or not authentick therefore as I thought it worthy of my pains to search with some diligence after the ground of this saying of Turrecremata so I have done and so at last after much reading and tossing of books I have found what I desired even a copy of the very original Bull or of that very authentick original transsumpt of it sub plumbo which that very Pope himself Iohn the XXII sent from Avenion where it was dated VII Calend. Nou. Pontificatus ejus an 12. and where the Papal seat was theâ— to England and to be publish'd in England and which also remained some years since in Biâ—liâ—theca Cottoniana the famous liberary of Sir Robert Cotton Out of which copy because it self at leingth would make at least four or five sheets of this print I give here what is necessary a brief extract but a true and most exact one and in the very words of that Bull it self or of Iohn the XXII himself speaking in it of all the several and particular doctrines or assertions of the said Marsilius and Iandunus so much decryed and so much condemned by that Pope For after the ordinary beginning Ioannes Episcopus servus servorum Dei c and the preamble immediatly following against heretical doctrines in general and after an account given also in general how it came to his hearing that duo viri nequam perditionis filii maledictionis alumni quorum unus Marsilium de Padua alter Ioannem de Ianduno se faciunt nomâ—â—â—i quemdam librum composuerunt multa falsa erronea haeretica continoâ—â—â— quodque ipsos errores haereses in Ducatu territorio Bavariae Ludovico de Bavaria excommunicato Dei Ecclesia fideique Catholicae persecutore manifesâ—â— hoste crudeli suisque horrendis excessibus gravibus culpis exigentibus 〈◊〉 si quod ei ex electione discordi quae de ipso celebrata dicebatur ad Regnum Râ—manum vel Imperium competebat justo privato judicio eisdem Marsilio Iâ—â—ni favente super ijs ac etiam adhaerente dogmatizare publicè praesumebont c he presently descends to a particular enumeration of those errors and heresies as he calls them in that book of Marsilius and Iandunus and to the declaration and condemnation of each in particular disputing â—â—â—ever first and giving his own reasons at leingth against each apart and in five distinct parragraphs for so many are the propositions before he condemns them in the end of the Bull. And thus he begins and proceeds to enumerat and particularize them In primis itaque isti viri reprobi dogmatizare praesumunt quod illud quod 〈◊〉 Christo legitur in Evangelio B. Matthei quod ipse soluit tributum Caesari quâ—â—do staterem sumptum ex ore piscis illis qui petebant didrach ma jussit daâ—â—â—â— fecit non condescensivé liberalitate suae pietatis sed necessitate coactus Secundâ— isti filii Belial dogmatizare praesumunt quod B. Petrus Apostolus non plus authoritatis habuit quam alii Apostoli habuerint nec aliorum Apostolorum fuit caput Item quod Christus nullum caput dimisit Ecclesiae nec aliquem Vicarium suum fecit Tertio isti filii Belial asserere non verentur quod ad Imperatorem spectat Papam instituere destituere ac punire Quarto dicunt isti vaniloqui imò falsiloqui quod omnes sacerdotes sive sit Papa sive Archiepiscopus vel sacerdos simplex sunt ex institutione Christi auctoritatis jurisdictionis aequalis quod autem vnus plus habeat hoc est secundum quod Imperator concedit vni vel alii plus minus sicut concessit alicui sic potest etiam illud revocare Quinto ultimo adhuc isti blasphemi dicunt quod tota Ecclesia simul juncta nullum hominem punire possit punitione coactiva nisi concedat hoc Imperator These onely being the assertions which as extracted out of the writings of the said Marsilius and Jandunus this Pope John the XXII repeats again in the end of this Bull and there very formally and sententially condemns declaring them to be erroneous and heretical against the
stretch'd along on the ground at his feet weeping and beseeching him and at their representing to him how the King had threatned him and all his with exile with destruction and death unde Rex sayes Hoveden ad an 1164. plurimum in ira adversus eum commutus minatus est ei suis exilium alias exilium mortem and I say when by such means he had sworn in retracting at last on better advise so rash an oath and refusing to confirm those pretended customes by his seal or subscription 8. And lastly in refusing either to absolve the excommunicated Bishops but in forma Ecclesiae consueta or consent that his own Clerks which came with him out of France should take any unjust or unlawfull oath contrary to the two material demands or commands to him in behalf of Henry the second by his four murtherers Willelmus de Traci Hugo de Mortvilla Richardus Brito and Reginaldus filius Vrsi For to their third which was that he should go reverently to the young King and do him homage and fealty by oath for his Archiepiscopal Barony as Parker relates it its plain enough he never refused that not onely because he did so at the time of his investiture to Henry the second himself the Father King but also because that upon his return from exile which was but a month before his death he was on his journey as farr as London to the young King's Count to do and pay this young King also all the respects and duties becoming but was by the Queens Brother Gocelinus as Hoveden writes commanded in that very young King 's own name not go to Court nor proceed further whereupon he return'd back to Canterbury In all which eight several Instances as also in all their necessary Antecedents Concomitants and Subsequents I confess again ingenuously it is my own judgment that St. Thomas of Canterbury had justice of his side because in some he had all the laws of both God and man for him and in the rest he had for him the very just and politick municipal laws of England as yet then not legally repealed these very laws I mean rehearsed by me in my seventh observation and because there was not any law of God or man against him in the case or in any of those Instances being the laws of the land were for him in all and because the design of Henry the second to oppress the people of England both Clergie and Layety but especially the Clergie and to render the Sacerdotal Order base and contemptible as we have seen before observed out of Polydore Virgil required that the Archbishop of Canterbury should stand in the gap as farr as it became a Subject by denying his own consent as a Peer and as the first Peer too of the Realm and by proceeding yet as a Bishop and as the Primate also of all Bishops in England and by proceeding so I say in a true Episcopal manner against such as would by threats of death force oppressive customs for new laws on both Peers and people Clergie and Layety against their own known will and their own old laws And therefore also consequently do acknowledg my own judgment to be that the Major of the Syllogistical objection against me or this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c against Henry the Second is fals may be by me admitted simply and absolutely without any distinction Though I add withall it be not necessary to admit it for any such inconvenience as the proof which I have given before of that Major would inferi or deduce out of the denyal of it In which proof I am sure there are several propositions or suppositions involved which no Catholick Divine not even a rigid Bellarminian is bound to allow As 1. that neither Church nor Pope can possibly err in matter of fact or in their judgment of matter of fact though relating to the life or death or precise cause of the death of any Saint or Martyr which matter of fact is neither formally nor virtually expressed nor by a consequential necessity deduced out of holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For Bellarmine himself confesses that even a general Council truly such may err in such matters of fact And the reason is clear because the judgment of the Church in such matters is onely secundum allegata probata depending wholly on the testimony of this or that man or some few or at most of many mortal and sinfull witnesses or of such of whose veracity in that the Church hath no authentick or absolutely certain revelation from God but humane probability or at most humane moral certainty which is ultimately resolved into the humane credit or faith we give an other man or men or to their veracity who possibly may themselves either of purpose too deceive us or be deceived themselves however innocently And the case is clear in the famous and great controversy about those heads were called the Tria Capitula all which concern'd matter of fact of three great Bishops in the fourth and fift general Councils under Pope Leo Magnus and Pope Vigilius And is yet no less clear in the controversy about Pope Honorius which was of matter of fact whom two general Councils condemn'd for a Heretick for a Monothelit so long after his death and out of his own writings and yet Bellarmine defends him from being such and on this ground defends him that those Councils were deceived in their judgment of matter of fact by attributing to him that doctrine which he held not 2. That the infallibility which Catholicks believe and maintain to be in the Church necessarily implyes her infallibility of judgment concerning this or that fact of any even the greatest Saint whereof we have nothing in holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For the Infallibility of the Church is onely in preserving and declaring or at least in not declaring against that whatsoever it be matter of fact or Theory which was delivered so from the beginning as revealed by God either in holy Scripture or Apostolical Tradition 3. That St. Thomas of Canterbury could not be a holy maâ—tyr or great miraculous Saint in his life or death or after his death at his tomb were his quarrel against Henry the second not just in all the essential integral and circumstantial parts of it from first to last were it not I say just according to the very objective truth of things and of the laws of God and man though it had been so or at least the substantial part of it whereon he did ultimately and onely all along insist had been so according his own inward judgment and though also his Soul had been otherwise both in that and all other matters ever so pure holy religious resigned to follow the pleasure of God and embrace truth did he know or did he think it were of the other side in any part of the
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
undoubted Rights of the Crown to Altercation Which can be no way lawful especially to Subjects Nevertheless I did not altogether as yet despair having withall at that very time and place received the said Lord Chancellor's command for calling to him my Lord Aubigny who should from him know His MAJESTIES final resolution Which was the reason I fostered still some little kind of hopes for three or four dayes longer But all in vain For notwithstanding any reasons my Lord Aubigny gave the Chancellor declared unto him in His MAJESTIES Name we should not stir Then which tydings indeed I scarce resented any thing in all my life with more sadness as having had most ardent inclinations even my self alone yea without a particular invitation by Letter or safe conduct to go and kiss your Lordships hands at Brussels and satisfie to my power the Superiours in Belgia and the Doctors too of the Theological Faculty at Louain as to that Form which is called ours For as I had fixedly resolved to yield what in me did lie to any thing might be rationally offered for the peace of my Brethren and Countreymen and Clergy and People of Ireland much more for that of the Universal Church of the Roman Communion and not only for preserving but promoting yet more and more that Reverence and Obedience which is due in spirituals throughout the whole earth to the great and most blessed Pontiff so I had also firmly determined not to shun nor decline any meeting or conference either private or publick of the most Learned especially of those of Louaâ—n And yet I doubt not those Louanians have without any just cause without any well-grounded reason without any end that is divine but meerly humahe too too rashly Censured that Form Otherwise wherefore should they be ashamed of their judgment given Wherefore apprehend so much it should be exposed to publick view Or why should they fear to let us that are above all others concerned or to let any other indeed for us have a sight of even as much as any one Copy of their original Censure For there is a report nor a report only but an asseveration of eye-witnesses that that original Censure is scarce contained in Seven Eight or Nine sheets of paper or thereabouts and that according to the manner of University Censures therein single Propositions of the Formulary are noted and Reasons given whether probable or not I now dispute not of the Censure of each Nor is it less known that the other secondary short Censure of Louain which is dispersed abroad contains in the whole but a few lines only singles not out any one or more Propositions gives no Reason at all probable or improbable Nay That Dr. Synnick answered lately the said Father Gearnon at his being at Louain and praying to see the true original first and long Censure answer'd him I say in these words only We have sent it to Rome it pleased the Pope he reserves it for his own time O worthy Academicks O excellent Divines O men born to Flattery and Servitude And O truth of mortal Wights and immortal Spirits whither art thou exil'd A very few Doctors of our Age and of one City alone to determine against the torrent of other Doctors of the whole Earth and of all Ages of Christianity and give no Reason openly for doing so and not to determine only so but to divide but rend in parts the Church as much as in them lies disturb the peace of Nations and Kingdoms asperse the Faith and make odious the Communion and Religion of the Roman See and Bishop But hereof another time At present whereas neither Caron nor Walsh can go to Brussels it will be fit to consider what is to be done to that end which your Lordship designed if even both had together appeared there For I will not question but your Lordship proposed to your self the peace or quiet of Catholick Religion and as well the liberty or free exercise thereof in the British Empire or Dominions of our King as in all other respects the comfort of Catholicks and what besides must necessarily follow a more ample and more obsequious veneration of the great Pontiff But I understand not what you might pretend to for attaining these matters if Father Caron and Walsh appeared at Brussels which you may not by exchange of Letters to and fro from them Although and I speak it in the word of a Christian and of a Priest and of a Professor too of the Seraphical Order and by consequence of a most devout observer of His Holiness and speak it moreover in the presence of omnipresent and omniscient God I have for my own part desired most passionately to go my self to Brussels laying alide all kind of delayes and humane respects whatsoever But however this be as to that now in hand Either you thought of our Refixing or Retracting our Subscriptions forsooth because according to the supercilious Louanians Censure pronounced by them as from the tripos of Apollo we are bound under the guilt of Sacriledge to Refix as they speak Which yet I scarce think could be hoped for by your Lordship or indeed by any other I mean until we be first convinced either 1. By manifest Arguments such I mean as are evident or such as can have no probable Answer That our Form implies either Heresie or Schism or some other sin Or 2. By some decree or determination of a lawful general and future Council For in those Councils past already it 's plain there is not as much as one word against us as neither in the Books of Holy Scriptures or Volumes of Holy Fathers or Tradition called Oral whatever is to the contrary babled by Bellarmine Becan Suarez Lessius Gretzer c. whose Writings altogether which Treat of this Subject no less than those of their opposers I have perused most attentively as likewise the Writings of those others who preceded them some Ages and whose too too erronious footsteps they all along followed Durand Bertrand c. 3. At least by some decree or decision and that future likewise of some Roman Pontiff for to this day there is none produced to any purpose by our Adversaries none I say of all that ever yet emaned from any Bishop of the Roman See and such decree or decision made in or by a clear authentick undeniable and unanswerable declarative Bull directed to all Christians wherever diffused throughout the World or at least to some Nation or people albeit this later kind of Bull I mean to a particular Nation or people is not sufficient according to the doctrine of Divines not even I say of those very Divines who attribute Infallibility to the Pope alone without a Council in his declaration of Faith and yet such Bull decree or decision precisely determining the point as of Christian Catholick Faith received from the Apostles and so to be necessarily believed viz. That the Roman Pontiff may by vertue of a power in
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
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
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
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
both examin what he means by his In hac where immediatly after his said excellent arguments he advises the Irish in these terms In hac igitur constantes estote nec vestri animi robur tentet aut labefactet jactatus timor c. but also retort on himself his decipulae hostis humani generis c. and tell that as he meanâ— not the true Catholick Law but that of the Court of Rome only so it is himself and his Associats that have been catch'd in the decipulae of and prompted by the inimicus homo qui superseminavit Zizania in agrotritici when he and they for maintaining their own Usurpation and Pride writ so many uncatholick and unchristian Letters to lead Captive again the miserable Irish and praecipitate them indeed to both Temporal and Eternal Destruction 10. That by his following threats of Divine Vengeance from the most Holy Father against those he says were past the bounds of modesty as also by so many other expressions not only both in this Letter and former too in the year 1662. of the Cardinals but in those also of the three Bruxels Internuncios one after another De Veccii Rospigliosi and the present Airoldi originally and truly indeed may be seen whence the great storm at last of Citations Excommunications Denunciations Depositions c. against me and my friends have proceeded especially since the year 1669. to this present 1673. But it is well they have not at Rome that true Divine Vengeance at their will And well that in such matters I owe them no obedience not even by vow or otherwise And best of all that I can be both in foro Dei in foro Ecclesia of the Faith and Communion of the true Catholick and Apostolick Church even Roman also if this new Epithet must come in to the Creed without being in such matters of the pretended Catholick either Communion or Faith of the Roman Court 11. And Lastly that Rospigliosi's Convulsion fitts and commiserating tears his either true or counterfeit weeping and all his flattering Oratory that follows must of necessity make even the most serious and sober man to smile when he considers an Apostolick Minister seeking to impose on the World endeavouring by such lying Arts and notoriously false suppositions finely worded to perswade more knowing men then himself to continue in errour For the truth is that neither he nor Barberin nor Congregation nor Pope himself could have with all their Letters or Arguments or Prayers or Tears perswaded any one of the very most seeming Bigots of the Irish Clergy to such vain and fals and pernicious Opinions as the Remonstrance renounceth if the Irish proprietors had been restored and the penal Laws against Catholicks in general repealed and no access visible for the said Ecclesiasticks to any Church-preferment Benefice or even titular Office or Dignity but as in former Catholicks times when the Laws of Praemunire were universally and strictly observed But those things not being so we must not wonder much if the less consciencious and more ambitious leading men joyn'd with others amongst them naturally desirous of a total change made use of those Letters both to fright the honester and lesser party of the otherwise well-affected well-principled and to amuse the Populace too of their communion with the Authority of the Court of Rome and great Pontiff himself as if the Catholick Religion and Faith had been really and truly invaded by the Remonstrance and the Anti-remonstrants therefore ought to be excused for their opposition of it IX AND yet they saw well enough that all they could say of that nature was not sufficient to excuse them from meeting together in the National Congregation Besides their Intelligencers at Dublin had not after Ferrals landing time enough to send Coppies of the Cardinals and Internuncius's Letter to all parts of the Kingdom where the persons concern'd were all of them at that very time preparing for their journey to Dublin Therefore on the 9th of June being Saturday and most of the Fathers come from several parts and the Bishop of Ardagh though very much contrary to my former expectation of him fallen on a sudden from his former Professions and the Bishop of Kilfinuran who a few days before was landed out of France and he with some others having conferr'd notes together behold a strange contrivance of the same Ardagh to prevent and hinder that i. e. the Meeting which those Letters could not For on that evening he accosts several of the Fathers come to town and tells them my chief design in giving way first unto and next in promoting so much the National Meeting was only or at least partly to get them all to sign a Petition to the King or Lord Lieutenant acknowledging themselves and all the rest of the Roman Catholick Clergy Regular and Secular of Ireland to be Traytors and Rebels Which proceeding from a Bishop that always till then was reputed my friend and the only Bishop too that sign'd the Letters of Indiction could not chuse but startle such as knew me not throughly however in it self otherwise incredible But so it was notwithstanding and so upon a sudden the false report like a watch word pass'd from one to another and the Motion both and Exhortation was no less sudden and rash like that in the Book of Kings ad tentoria tua O Israel every one to his own home and not as much as to stay in Town for Monday the 11th of June and consequently not as much as to meet at all in any such National Congregrtion While some were running to and fro relating that imposture and many encouraging one another to depart others that believed it not came to me and told me thereof and of the design And then it was that I first concluded absolutely that Ardagh had sold himself to Rome for a new Translation which by Oliver Plunket his Kinsman he had sollicited in that Court for some years And yet I could not but wonder that a Bishop should have so little Conscience before God or so little care of himself before men as to be the Author of such a Calumny though a calumny more ridiculous in it self than injurious to me For as soon as I heard it and gave a true account of what pass d twixt the Bishop and me which might have given occasion to that forgery it vanish'd and no man believed a word of it In short the occasion was this and no other but this Either the very morning of that Ninth of June or a day or two before visiting this Bishop of Ardagh and falling into a discourse with his Lordship of the method fit to be taken by the Fathers when assembled I said that in my opinion the Fathers should in the first place depute some of their body to acquaint His Grace with their being Assembled then to render humble thanks for His Majesties permission of or connivence at their meeting and together also to present a
that I my self had been much against the trouble of either presenting or writing it because I had clearly seen all along the stubborn unflexible resolution of the Demagogues and most of the inferiour Multitude who would hear no reason and consequently that it would have no effect upon such men of byass And yet after all that pressed by the reasons and importunities of many of those Loyal Subscribers of the former Remonstrance I drew that Letter for them and subscribed it too as one of them which I now give you here The Expostulatory Letter directed to the Chairman of the Congregation by such of the Ecclesiastical Subscribers of the former Remonstrance or of that of 1661 as were at Dublin and not Members of the Congregation delivered and read publickly a little before that National Meeting Dissolved Right Reverend and our very good Lord IT is notoriously known to the whole Kingdom That the present National Representative of the Irish Roman-Catholick Clergy is now convened in this Capital City of Ireland in order to their Signing a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise of their future Loyal fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land to our Dread Soveraign Charles the Second to the end That not only His Majesty nor only His Councils of State and Parliaments but also all other His Majesties Protestant Subjects of whatever different Religion Perswasion or Opinion as to the way of truly and rightly worshipping God may be throughly satisfied That the Roman Catholicks of Ireland even the most Reverend and Sacred Representative of all their Ecclesiasticks do now at last freely and conscientiously under their own proper hands in a publick Instrument profess themselves to be and even according to their divine Faith or true infallible Principles of right Christianity and of the Catholick Church to be as much obliged if not more in point of conscience to continue evermore faithfully subject and obedient in all such Temporal matters and according to all such Laws of the Land to His Majesty and lawful Successors in all contingencies that may happen as any other even of whatever Church or Sects either hold themselves bound or indeed by the Laws of God are otherwise bound to His Majesty or to any other their respective Soveraign Princes or States on Earth Nor is it less manifestly known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise or Protestation from this present Ecclesiastical Assembly For who is he can be ignorant of those just suspitions of an inclination to return again to disloyal both Principles and Practices under which the generality of Irish Catholicks Clergy and People do lye yet continually amongst their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion Or who indeed but knows the true source of those very great and not to be wondred at jealousies especially that which cannot be dried up in our days even the fresh memory of all that hath been so lately acted in Ireland against the Protestant Church and People by the Confederate Roman Catholicks of that Nation in the last unhappy Wars Nay who is not sensible of the miserable condition even at present of so many Thousands of our unfortunate Countreymen Or who sees not this condition is one fatal effect of that suspicion or rather as I should say of that firm perswasion amongst Protestants of the Disloyaltie of the Roman-Catholick Irish in general besides is it not as generally known How that to allay for the future that very suspicion lessen hereafter that very perswasion which hath even so lately i. e. since His Majesties happy Restauration blasted the hopes of so many thousands of our ancient Proprietors and so to vindicate their holy Religion from bearing any share in the blame of those unholy irreligious Practices of some however too too many Professors of it and consequently to obtain the ceasing of that severe Persecution commanded and effectually for some time continued by the Triumvirat in Ireland Anno 1660 a considerable number of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks then at London headed by a Bishop of the same Religion and Nation had in the same year thought it becoming their duty to God Allegiance to their Natural Prince Piety to their Countrey and the Character also of those who as the Sons of Peace desire Christian Peace and a fair friendly and faithful correspondence betwixt all His Majesties Subjects of whatever Church or Nation yea and not only thought it so becoming but after a serious debate conceived it both expedient and necessary To sign as accordingly they did sign a Remonstrance and Protestation of indispensable fidelity and obedience in all temporal matters whatsoever c or a Declaration and Promise of Loyalty indeed so full as might answer in all respects the end above mentioned And is it not likewise known That with the same Irish Ecclesiastick Subscribers of that Remonstrance the greatest and most considerable part by much of the Nobility and Gentry of our Nation at that time in London did joyn themselves and concurr even by the like subscription then or soon after in that very place besides many more also of the rest of the Nobility and Gentry at home in Ireland who next Winter and since have followed the same good example given first at London And to pass over at present how not only several more of the Irish as well Bishops as other learned Clergymen then abroad have much about the same time approved of that very Formulary of professing our Allegiance even some of them by their manual Subscriptions to it and how not only the English Noblemen advised and consulted with by the Irish Nobility at London concerning it have professed publickly in a great Assembly of the aforesaid Irish both Nobility and Gentry That were the case of the Irish theirs they and all the rest of the English Nobility and Gentry of the Roman Communion would willingly sign that Remonstrance in terminis and even sign it with their blood were this necessary but also how the English Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Secular Eeclesiasticks have in a Letter written on purpose by their command signed by their Dean Humphrey Ellice alias Doctor Waring and superscribed to the Bishop of Dromore signified clearly so much in effect of their own approving likewise the same Formulary or that very individual Remonstrance of ours We say that to pass at present all this over Is it not further as manifestly apparent how graciously that Instrument after the signature of it was received by His Majesty How immediately the Persecution in this Kingdom ceased by His Majesties express Command Nay how ever since both People and Clergy of our Communion have enjoyed the great tranquility and freedom in point of exercising our Religion and Functions which we have so gladly seen and which we so thankfully acknowledge to be still continued to us yea in a higher measure enjoyed by us at
declaration and meaning to be always with this reserve that whatever this their second proposition or constant doctrine signifie or be intended or conceived by any to signifie or this their resolution so expressed never to recede from it yet all must be with perfect submission to the Pope and so that if it sufficiently appear the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time hereafter declare by Brief Bull or other letters against such doctrine as uncatholick or against such resolution as unsafe they will quit both for these causes I say there can be no rational indifferent person but will be convinced that out of this second proposition as from them there can acrue no more assurance to the King of their future fidelitie than out of the first and consequently than out of their Remonstrance alone without any such additional proposition or propositions That is as I have a little above said just none at all Nor will their third or last Proposition mend the matter They give it indeed as the two former in words specious enough to plain well-meaning men to the simple and ignorant Nay specious enough to very understanding persons but yet such persons only as are not acquainted with their explications borrowed from late School-men and particularly from Bellarmine against Barclay and from other impugners with him of the Oath of Allegiance against the most learned Father Green and Preston of St. Beâ—ns Order as well under Widringtons name at first in several works as their own at last in their Apology to Gregory the Fourteenth and against the rest of the Roman Clergy of England that so learnedly conscientiously modestly nay and patiently too maintain'd that oath in King James's dayes especially the Secular Clergy maâ—gre Cardinal Bellarmines Letter to the Arch-Priest Blackwel and maugre likewise all his other several books under his own or fictitious names and maugre also even that either true or pretended brief of Paul the Fifth in the year 1606. against the said Oath procured by Father Parsons upon the mis-representation and most false suggestion of Cardinal Bellarmine and his seven or eight other fellow Divines to whom joyntly the examination of the said Oath of Allegiance was committed by the same holy Father Paul the Fifth and finally notwithstanding the best and worst endeavours of besides Lessius Gretzer Fitzherbert Becan Parsons himself and several others Franciscus Suarez the Spanish learned Jesuite at the instigation of the English Fathers of the same Society and in pursuance of the said Brief and for the unlawful advancement of his own great Masters no less unlawful interest This third Proposition therefore I say notwithstanding its words or tenor so specious at first to such as are not acquainted with the familiar explication or meaning of the chief proposers a meaning or explication learned from these late Sophisters that writ so ill and so erroneously too against King Iames's said Oath of Allegiance being reviewed being duly pondred as from them or as from those Congregational men will be found to be of as little weight as any of the two former and will be so found I mean as to the resolution justly expected from so venerable so grave and so withal justly suspected an Assembly But not to delay the Reader my longer I repeat again here that Proposition in it self barely or as they have given it in their own words We the undernamed do hereby declare that it is our doctrine that we Subjects oâ—e so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can either dispense with or free us of the same Now mark the Sophistry In the first place the reduplicative sense must be allowed in these two words We Subjects that is in as much or while we are Subjects Which will be no longer than it shall please the Pope not to denounce the King by name excommunicated or deprived of or deposed from his kingdoms by a judicial process or bull on pretence of his apostasie heresie schisme oppression of the Church or People against that which the Pope shall determine to be justice or faith Next the same reduplication must be allowed to fall on the word King And thirdly at the word power all the former distinctions of fact and of right of humane or temporal and divine or spiritual and of ordinary and extraordinary must be ushered in And in the last place from these general words under any pretext soever there must be alwaies understood an exception of those extraordinary cases or contingencies above so often repeated of destroying the Church or People tyrannically by endeavouring to make them Apostats Hereticks Schismaticks or by tyrannising over them even in their temporal or civil rights alone And the judgment hereof must be the Pope's only or the people's when they please to take it Nor will the Doctrine of the Apostles even in the cases of tyrannical heathen Emperours as of Nero and Domitian much less of the Fathers even in the cases of manifest notorious Apostats and Hereticks as of Iulian Constantius Valens Anastasius c. move the Divines of our congregation any whit at all They say with Bellarmine the Apostles and Fathers and other primitive Christians dissembled in this point because they had not strength enough of men and arms to oppose though besides that this answer is impious it be also most manifestly false in the case of Iulian the Apostat and of the succeeding Heretick Emperours Having thus with all sincerity considered all and every of their three Propositions both nakedly and abstractedly as they are in themselves and also as given by that Congregation and having layd open most sincerely too the meaning or sense these Divines or at least the chief and most leading of them have conceive or intend others should upon fit occasions understand by those Propositions and by their several clauses and words it only now remains that I briefly put in form my third Argument grounded on such abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations And I frame it thus Syllogistically because I have to deal with some caprichious Logicians or Sophisters No Propositions are sufficient in this age for giving assurance to the King of the future loyalty of a Roman Catholick people and as from such a Roman Catholick people too whom he hath already by experience and his Father before him found in several publick Instances manifestly disloyal and even perfidious in the highest nature could be but such Propositions as by clear express words from which there can be no exception or evasion and of which there can be no distinction according to the present School-divinity of Bellarmine or Suarez or such others descend to the specifical cases about which the controversie is if the Proposers be expresly desired by the King or the Lieutenant in his Name or by his Authority to descend so in their Remonstrance or Propositions to such cases and if they expresly and obstinatly too refuse to descend so or
Priest treat of or debate any question or subscribe any Proposition or declaration against his conscience and Religion nor on the other side ought or could any person at least such as are commanded by God and whose commission and function it is from the holy Jesus and holy Spirit to preach and teach purely the Gospel of Christian Religion and oppose by all just means any kind of innovation in the rule of Catholick and saving faith ought or could any such I say through fear of loosing those temporal profits of the whole earth had he them in actual possession omit to treat or debate or declare or subscribe a Proposition sound in it self and necessary withal in circumstances even as relating to such treatie debate declaration or subscription to oppose such innovation That such is this question and such the 6th declaration or proposition being a negative resolve of it against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church For were not the said resolve Catholick or sound in Catholick Religion even in the judgment of Father N. N. and of the Congregation they should have cleerly said so and were bound by their calling and on pain of everlasting damnation to have answered so for the discharge of their duty to God and their flocks Neither should any fear or favor have hindered their answering so For what will it availe a man to gaine the whole world and suffer the detriment of his Soul was the question of our Lord. And again in on other place do not fear those that kill the body onely but fear him that hath power to cast both body and Soul into everlasting fire was the same Heavenly Masters advise and command unto his Disciples And that the question it self of the Popes infallibility without a Council as that of the Councils without or against the Pope when he will not conform to them and the resolve of it on one side or other for or against the Pope is so necessary where the question is debated publickly and seriously for a resolve there is no man of judgement can deny Because thereon depends the whole certainty of what we are to believe or what we are to hope for as a necessary mean to Salvation It being manifest that Popes often have declared and commanded us many things to believe and may hereafter yet much more which the Church never did consent unto nay which many Catholick Churches in Europe have already and often too both contradicted and condemned But if the Pope or his determination be the infallible rule of faith then must all such people or Churches be in a damnable condition as opposing that rule and beleiving an error That hence it appears sufficiently and evidently this question or treatie of it is not onely not unprofitable but the most profitable can be seeing it regards directly the greatest profit imaginable that of the Salvation of Souls by the necessary rule or means of saving faith That further the profittableness of the negative resolve against the Popes infallibility if that resolve be Catholick in it self as neither Father N. N. nor Congregation denyes but grants it to be doth hence appear that such resolve alone removes the grand obstacle of reunion and reconciliation of such a world of particular Churches that profess Christ and by consequence of their Salvation by restoring them to the vnity of rhe Catholick Church wherein alone as in the Ark Noah Salvation is to be had For the grand remora is that by reason of that challenge of the Pope or rather of others for him of an absolute infallibility in himself they think they cannot expect his communion without being lyable to impositions on them in matters of faith at his pleasure and such impositions too as very many most learned and pious Catholicks themselves in all countries will not cannot submit unto but must therefore abide such vexation often as no less often makes their Communion with the Roman See and Pontiff cumbersome and loathsome and a yoake of that great absolute and intollerable subjection which neither themselves or Fathers before them could bear with Christian patience That if the reduction of so many millions of straying sheep into the fold and the consequent Salvation of their Souls or the preservation of those are in it already appear not sufficient arguments of profitableness to Father N.N. and the Congregation in the debate and resolve of this question if that which brings along with it per se and of its own nature the greatest Spiritual profit can be the gaine of Soules and eternal Salvation in the other life be not ranked hereby him or them in the number of things profitable but comprehended as onely such and understood by his and their unprofitable question which yet I believe F. N. N. or the Congregation will hardly own and if they will have us understand here that which as to the conveniencies of this world and life is unprofitable let it be so and then too let all prudent men judge whether people of their Condition Country and Religion should not esteem and confess that question and resolve of it in the present circumstances to be indeed not onely not unprofitable in any respect but certainly and without contradiction very profitable as being the most useful they could fix upon before together with or next after a sufficient Oath of Allegiance to remove the great jealousy hath been justly harboured as of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland and their predecessors this entire last centurie of years ever since at least Queen Mary's Reign so and farr yet more of the present Clergie ever since the 23th of October 1641. and most of all since the Waterford Congregation in 46. and James-town Council in 48. and of their too too great dependency of the Court of Rome and too too great credulitie in or belief of and submission to any decree or command or even to an ordinary letter proceeding thence though onely from one of the Ministers and also though to the direct and absolute ruine of the King and of his Kingdoms and people together And let all prudent men judge whether being that Congregation was held by the Fathers and their Remonstrance and three first Propositions of Sorbone were subscribed by them and presented of purpose or at least under pretence to remove those jealousies and thereby obtain for themselves and rest of the Clergie and to the lay people too directed by them some peace and some ease and some indulgence and comfort either by an absolute revocation of the penal Laws against their Religion or by a mitigation or suspension of such Laws and that the Fathers thought or undoubtedly should think any thing in it self otherwise Catholick or honest and just that should be in the then present circumstances useful to that end to be also profitable in this world or life because helping on that end or that relaxation or suspension of the Laws which questionless they esteem profitable even
of so many former abroad in other parts of Europe since Gregory the 7th so manifest in History force not a confession of all this from F. N. N or if the very nature of the positions in themselves and the judgment of all judicious and ingenuous men of the world prevail not with him to confess that a general decision and resolve of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Ireland as well against the Popes pretence of infallibility as against his other of a power for deposing the King and raising at pleasure his Subjects in rebellion and against both absolutely and positively be not one of the most rational wayes to hinder the disturbance of King and Countrey as from such Clergie-men and others of their Communion and Nation and if the denyal of such decision and resolve against either pretence especially against this of infallibility since it is plain that if the Pope be admitted infallible his deposing power must necessarily and instantly follow because already and manifoldly declared by several Popes if I say this denyal convince not the denyers and such denyers as the said Congregation in this Country and Conjuncture of a design or desire or pleasure or contentedness to leave still the roots or seeds of new disturbances of both King and Countrey in the hearts of their beleevers and if I say also F. N. N. himself will not upon more serious reflection acknowledge all this to be true and â—â—ident I am sure all other judicious and knowing men even such as are â—iâ—interested wholy in the quarrel and not his partisans will That finally what I have to say is That whosoever is designed by him to be per stringed in or by this last pretence of furthering this dispute to the disturbance of both King and country may answer F. N. N. what the Prophet Elias did Achab on the like occasion Non ego turbavi Israel sic 〈◊〉 demâ—â— Patris tui 3 Reg. 18.18 qui â—ereliquistis mandata Domini secuti estis Bealim And 〈◊〉 that nâ—â— such person alone who ever chiefly perhaps intended nor his few other associates only perstringed likewise by F. N. N. and congregation in this perclose of their Paper but the poor afflicted Church of Ireland generally as it compriseth all beleevers of both sorts and sexes Ecclesiastical and Lay-persons of the Roman Communion nay but the Catholick Church of Christ universally throughout the world hath cause enough already and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all such other preposterous defenders of her interests what Iacob said to Simeon and Levi Gen. 34.30 upon the sack of Sichem Turbastis me â—diosum fecistis me Chananaeis Pherezaeis habitatoribus terrae hujus And more I have not to say here on this subject of infallibility But leave the Reader that expects more on that question or this dispute in it self directly and as it abstracts from the present indirect consideration to turn over to the last Treatise of this Book Where he shall find more at large and directly to that purpose what I held not so proper for this place Though I confess it was the paper of those unreasonable reasons the answers to which I now conclude here that gave me the first occasion to add that sixth and last piece as upon the same occasion I have the fifth also immediately following this fourth Only I must add by way of good advice to F. N. N That if he or the Congregation or both or any for them will reply to these answers or to what I have before said in my second or third Treatise on their Remonstrance and three first Propositions or even in my first though a bare Narrative only and matter of notorious fact related and if they will have such reply to be home indeed it cannot be better so than by their signing the 15. following Propositions Which to that purpose I have my self drawn and had publickly debated for about a moneth together in another but more special Congregation of the most learned men of this Kingdom and their own Religion held even in that very house where the former sate and immediatly after they were dissolved The Fourteen PROPOSITIONS of F. P. W. Or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that onely which can secure His Majestie of them as much as hand or subscription can and that onely too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 1. Prop. HIS Majestie CHARLES the Second King of England is true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Dominions and all the Subjects or people as well Ecclesiastick as Lay of His Majesties said Kingdoms or Dominions are obliged under pain of sin to obey His Majestie in all Civil and Temporal affairs 2. His said Majestie hath none but God alone for Superiour or who hath any power over him Divine or Human Spiritual or Temporal Direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary de facto or de jure in his temporal rights throughout all or any of his Kingdoms of England Ireland Scotland and other Dominions annexed to the Crown of England 3. Neither the Pope hath nor other Bishops of the Church joyntly or severally have any right or power or authority that is warrantable by the Catholick Faith or Church not even in case of Schisme Heresie or other Apostacy nor even in that of any private or publick oppression whatsoever to deprive depose or dethrone His said Majestie or to raise his Subjects whatsoever of His Majesties foresaid Kingdoms or Dominions in Warr Rebellion or Sedition against him or to dispense with them in or absolve them from the tye of their sworn Allegiance or from that of their otherwise natural or legal duty of obedient faithful Subjects to His Majestie whether they be sworn or not 4. Nor can any sentence of deprivation excommunication or other censure already given or hereafter to be given nor any kind of Declaration dispensation or even command whatsoever proceeding even from the Pope or other spiritual authority of the Church warrant His Subjects or any of them in conscience to rebel or to lessen any way His said Majesties said Supream Temporal and Royal rights in any of his said Kingdoms or Dominions or over any of his people 5. It is against the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the primitive Church to pretend that there is a natural or inhere at right in the people themselves as Subjects or members of the civil common-wealth or of a civil Society to take arms against their Prince in their own vindication or by such means to redress their own either pretended or true grievances
propositions of this paper at large and with all clearness discharged our duty as to the three first of those fiâ— of Sorbon and that now remain only the three last 13. We declare further it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the perswasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practice according to any doctrine or positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives or those of his Crown annexed thereunto by such Laws of England or Ireland as were in force before the change under Henry the 8th And never consequently to approve of or practice by teaching or otherwise any doctrine or position that maintains any thing against the genuine liberties of the Irish Church of the Roman Communion as for example that the Pope can depose a Bishop against the Canons of the said Church Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever that is either of him as of a private person or Doctor or of him as of a publick Teacher and Superiour of the universal Church or as Pope is infallible in his definitions made without the consent approbation and reception of the said Church even we mean in his definitions made either in matters of discipline or in matters of faith whether by Briefs Bulls Decretal Epistles or otherwise 14. Lastly we declare it is our unalterable resolution and shall be alwayes by Gods grace That if the Pope should or shall peradventure be at any time hereafter perswaded by any persons or motives to declare in any wise out of a General Council or before the definition of a future General Council on the point or points against the doctrine of this or any other the above propositions in whole or in part or against our selves or any others for owning or subscribing them We though with all humble submission to his Holiness in other things or in all spiritual matters purely such wherein he hath power over us by spiritual commands according to the Canons received universally in the several Roman Catholick Churches of the world shall notwithstanding continue alwayes true and faithful to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all temporal things and contingencies whatsoever according to the true plain sincere and obvious meaning and doctrine of all and every the fourteen propositions of this paper and of every part or clause of them without any equivocation mental reservation or other evasion or distinction whatsoever and in particular without that kind of distinction which is made of a reduplicative and specificative sense wherein any such may be against the said obvious and sincere meaning and consequently vain and unconscionable in this matter QUERIES CONCERNING The LAWFULNESSE of the Present CESSATION AND OF THE CENSURES AGAINST ALL CONFEDERATES ADHERING unto it PROPOUNDED By the RIGHT HONOVRABLE the SUPREME COUNCIL to the most Reverend and most Illustrious DAVID Lord Bishop of OSSORY and unto other DIVINES WITH ANSWERS GIVEN and SIGNED by the said most Reverend PRELATE and DIVINES Printed at KILKENNY Anno 1648. And Re-printed Anno 1673. The Censure and Approbation of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Thomas Deasse Doctor of Divinity of the University of Paris and Lord Bishop of Meath I The undernamed having seriously perused and exactly examined the Answers made to the QUERIES by the Right Reverend Father in God David Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines thereunto subscribing do esteem the same worthy to be published in Print to the view of the world as containing nothing either against God or against Caesar but rather as I conceive the Answerers in the first place do prove home and evidently convince the Excommunication and other Censures of the Lord Nuncio c. to have been groundless and void even of their own nature and before the Appeal and besides do manifestly convince that in case the Censures had not been such of their own nature yet the Appeal interposed suspends them wholly with their effects consequences and jurisdiction of the Judge or Judges c. And withal do solidly and learnedly vindicate from all blame the fidelity integrity and prudence of the Supreme Council in all their proceedings concerning the Cessation made with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin notwithstanding the daily increasing obloquies and calumnies of their malignant opposers In the second place the Answerers do sufficiently instruct the scrupulous and ignorant misled People exhorting them to continue in their obedience to Supreme Authority as they do in like manner confute and convince efficaciously the opposition of such obstinate and refractory persons as do presume to vilifie and tread under foot the Authority established in the Kingdom by the Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks And finally the Answerers dutifully and loyally do invite all true hearted Subjects to yield all due obedience to their Sovereign and to any other Supreme Civil Magistrate subordinate and representing the Sovereigns Supreme Authority according to the Law of God the Law of the Church and the Law of the Land Thomas Medensis Given at Kâ—lkenny Aug. 17. 1648. Another Approbation BY the perusal of this Treatise intituled Queries and Answers I am induced to concur with other eminent Surveyors thereof That it contains nothing contrary to approved Doctrine sound Faith or good Manners and therefore that behooveful use may be made thereof by such as love truth and sincerity 7. August 1648. Thomas Rothe Dean of St. Canie And Protonotary Apostolick c. Another Approbation HAving perused by Order of the Supreme Council the Queries propounded by the Supreme Council c. with Answers given them by the Right Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and other Divines and being required to deliver my sense of this work I do signifie That I find moving in the said Queries of Answers against Catholick Religion good Life or Manners but much for their advancement and great lights for the discovery of Truth I find by evident proofs declared that the Council in this affair of Cessation Appeal interposed against and other proceedings had with the Lord â—uncio and his adherents 〈◊〉 themselves with a due resentment of the general destruction of the Kingdom and with is true and knowing zeal of Loyalty for the maintenance of the Catholick Religion Justice lawful Authority the lives estates and rights of the Confedâ—ranâ—s I find by uncontroulable reasons proved That the Confederates cannot without worldly ignomity and Divine indignation fâ—ll from the said Cessation while the condition are performed and time expired I find lastly hence and by other irrefragable arguments That all and every of the Censures pronounced either by the Nuncio or any else against the Council or other Confederates upon this ground of concluding or adhering to the Cessation are unreasonable unconscionable invalid void and against Divine and Humane Laws
Assembly or until upon application to His Majesty He settle the same otherwise And we do fulminate the annexed Excommunication of one date with this Declaration against all the opposers of the same Declaration All ye good Christians and Catholicks that shall read this our said Declaration forced from us by the affliction and disaster of distressed Ireland be pleased to know that we well understand the present condition of this Nation is more inclining to ruine and despair than recovery yet will we relie upon the mercy of God who can and will take off from us the heavy judgment of his Anger War and Plague if we shall amend our wicked lives and lean like little ones upon the arms of his mercy As we cry to him for remedy let us confess with tears our sins saying with the Prophet Isaiah Cecidimus quasi folium universi iniquitares nostrae quasi ventus abstulerunt nos non est qui invocet nomen tuum Domine non est qui consurgat teneat te Abscondisti faciem tuam a nobis allisisti nos in manu iniquitatis nostrae This language from the heart will reconcile Heaven to us Et quiescet ira Dei erit placabilis super nequitia populi sui Though this Nobleman-hath left us nothing but weakness and want and desolation and that the Enemy is rich strong and powerful God is stronger and can help us and for his own Name-sake will deliver us Dominus Eliae the God of Wonders and Miracles erit etiam nunc apud Hibernos if our faith prove strong and our actions sound and sincere We will conclude with St. Paul that Ocean of Wisdom and Doctor of Nations Si Deus pro nobis quis contra nos quis accusabit adversus electos Dei Deus est qui justificat quis est qui condemnet quis ergo nos separabit a charitate Christi Tribulatio an angustia an fames an nuditas an periculum an persecurio an gladius sed in bis omnibus superamus propter eum qui dilexit nos Let nothing separate you from that burning charity of Christianity and God will ever preserve protect and bless you H Ardmacan Jo Archiep. Tuam Jo Rapotens Eugen Kilmer Fran Aladen Nic Fernens Procurator Dublin Fr Anton. Clonmacnocens Walt Clonfer Procurator Leghlinens Fr. Artur Dunens Connor Procurator Dromorens Fr. Hugo Duacensis Fr. Cul de Burgo Provincialis Hiberniae Ordinis praedicat Jac Abbas de Conga Commiss generalis Canon reg S. Aug. Fr. Thom Keran Abbas de Duellio Carol Kelly S. Th. Doctor Decan Tuam Fr. Bernard Egan Procurator R. admodum P. Provincialis Fratrum Minorum Fr. Ricar O Kelly Procur Vic. Generalis Kildar Prior Rathbran Ord. Praedicar Thad Aeganus S. Th. D. Praepos Tuam Lue Plunket S. Th. D. Proton Apostolicus Rector Collegii de Kilecu exercims Lagenâ—â— Capellan major Jo Doulatus Juris Doc Abbas de Kilmanagh 〈◊〉 ex Procuratoribus Capituli Cleri Tuam Gual Enos S. T. D. Protonot Apostolicus Thesaurarius Fernen Procurator Praepositi Ecclesiae Collegiaâ—â—e Galviens And we the undernamed sitting at Galway with the Committee authorized by the Congregation held at Jamestown 6. Augusti currentis do concur with the above Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries in the above Declaration and withal do now make and firm the same as an Act of our own by our several Subscriptions this 23d of August 1650. Thomas Cashel J. Laonen Episcopus Edmun. Limiricen Rob. Corcag Cluan Fr Teren. Immolacen Jac Fallon Vic. Apostolicus Acaden The Excommunication mentioned in the above Declaration See the Latin Formulary of this Excommunication as likewise that of the fâ—rmer Declaration in Father Ponciu's Vindiciae Eversae the Excommunication pag. 253. num 149. but the Declaration before pag. 236. num 148. WHEREAS we the underwritten Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries sitting in this our present Congregation at Jamestown with the consent and approbation of the rest through the dangers of these distracted times now absent upon the sad deplorable condition of this Kingdom brought unto the last ebb that may be imagined and after sad and serious consultations had of the desperate Affairs thereof seeing no other humane way possible to put some life unto this sad gasping Kingdom but by our Counsels Co-operation and Industry as is the common sense of all our Folks who look upon us as their only sanctuary and relief against the dangers hovering on them menacing no less than the total ruine of our Nation judging our selves thereunto obliged by the Laws of God and Nature and by our Pastoral charge and in pursuance of an Oath solemnly taken by all the Prelates Noblemen and Gentlemen that were of the Grand Committee upon concluding the Peace in case of not performing the Articles thereof to continue the Association and Union of the Confederate Catholicks and to do all Acts preservative of the same by vertue of which Oath the Prelates so sworn are authorized and bound to renew and maintain the said Union and Association therefore we have endeavoured to apply to those extreme Maladies the best Salves and Remedies to us now appearing and consequently therefore issued our Declaration Yet fearing as God forbid that any irrational perverse or misled person might give any rubs and disobedience to our said Declaration we have unanimously consented and assented to draw out and unsheath the most fearful Sword of Excommunication as we do by these presents against all such wicked Imps of Satan in manner and form as followeth BY vertue of the power given us by our Saviour Jesus Christ and by his Holy Catholick Roman Church and See Apostolick as Pastors and Fathers of your Souls having first invoked the Grace of the Holy Spirit of God and having his fear before our eyes so that we aim at nothing but his Honour and Glory the exaltation of his true Faith and the preservation of his forlorn Kingdom with his Majesties interest therein after mature deliberation and sitting together We have and do by these presents Anathematize and Excommunicate with the maior Excommunication ipso facto to be incurred without expecting any further sentence And we do hereby separate from the body and communication of the Faithfull and deliver unto the power of Satan any person or persons of what quality or preheminence soever that will presume by Words Writing Force or Arms privately or publickly by themselves or others to oppose or disobey our present Declaration or any part thereof We do likewise Excommunicate as above all the Advisers Relievers Abetters and furtherers of those that will directly or indirectly infringe violate or countervene our present Sentence or Declaration Furthermore We do Excommunicate and Anathematize all our unnatural Patriots and others of our Flocks that will adhere to the Common Enemy of God King and Countrey or will any wayes help assist abet or 〈…〉 by bearing Arms for or with them or