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
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
to a perpetual cloyster'd life c was derived unto them and wholly depending of the supream temporal or civil coercive power residing originally and independently in the Prince and in his laws for the very Papal canons even Pope Caelestine the III. himself cap. 〈◊〉 homine de judicijs as I have quoted him in the former section confesseth that after and besides suspension excommunication and deposition or degradation the Church hath no other nor any more punishment for any 4. Because the very self same supream civil coercive power which as Legislative authorized the Bishops to be the onely ordinary Judges of criminal Ecclesiasticks and did also both prescribe and warrant that kind of punishment which they inflict on such Clerks and did ordain there should be no other punishment but that for such persons and the very self same supream civil power that made those municipal laws for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Judges may again unmake them upon just occasion or may lessen or moderat that exemption as there shall be cause and consequently criminal Clerks are still in so much under the supream civil coercive power as de facto de â—ure they are indeed and were indeed always for so many other respects and in so many other cases and contingencies notwithstanding the most ample municipal laws for exemption that are or have been 5. And lastly because there is no contradiction inconsistence or contrariety betwixt S. Thomas his being of this opinion and perswasion and the being of the laws of England such as I said they were then Which yet we may easily understand by the example of the priviledge of Peers For certainly the Peers of a Kingdom will not pretend themselves exempt from the supream coercive power of the Prince albeit they cannot by the laws of the land be judg'd or condemned but by their own Peers Therefore an exemption from one sort of Judges doth not argue an exemption from the supream power that is above all sorts of Judges And therefore nothing can be alleadg'd out of the life or death or sanctity or martyrdom or canonization or invocation or even miracles of S. Thomas of Canterbury nor out of all these joyntly taken with the laws of the land for which he stood to prove that he was of a contrary judgment or perswasion to my doctrine All that is alleadged of any such matters do onely evidence the purity of his Soul and justice of his cause neither of which my doctrine doth at all oppose but allow approve and confirm But if any should replye that the laws of the land as to our controversy were chang'd by the swearing of those 16. Heads of customes by all the Archbishops Bishops Earls Barons Abbots Priors and whole Clergie and even by St. Thomas of Canterbury himself first of all as Matthew Paris tels us in these tearms Hanc recognitionem consuetudinum libertatum Deo deâ—estabilium Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates Priores Clerus cum Comitibus Baronibus Proctribus cunctis juraverunt se observaturos Domino Regi heredibus ejus bona fide absque malo ingenio in perpetuum Inter alios etiam his omnibus Thomas Cantuariensis consensit and should replye that after such change by such swearing S. Thomas of Canterbury did fall into his own former opposition of or differences with Henry the second even as to the second head of those customes and in prosecution of his former refusal to deliver up to secular justice those two criminal Clerks and should therefore conclude that S. Thomas must have pretended for himself at such time not the former laws of the land which were so repealed by a contrary law of Henry the second but either the laws of God Nature or Nations or the Canons of the Church or Pope c if I say any should make this objection here the Answer is at hand very facile and clear out of my former observations viz that such swearing alone was not enough without further signing and sealing as it seems the custom then was of the Bishops and Peers in making of laws nor all three together whether signing and sealing was necessary or not without a free consent in those or of those who swore so or sign'd or sealed so and that there was no free consent but a forc'd one by threats of imprisonment banishment death appears out of my said observations and all the several Historians especially Hoveden who treat exactly of this contest Now it is plain that such laws are no true laws or have not at all as much as the essence of laws which are not freely made without such coaction And therefore consequently it is plain that such repealing was no true legal repealing of the former laws Whereof also this was a further argument that Henry the second himself did in the end of the contest wholly quit his challenge to those controverted customs which he did so for a time constrain the Bishops Clergie and people to submit to against their own will and their own true laws Yet as it must be granted by such as are versed in the antiquities of England that there was a time and some ages too of the Christian Church in England even after the conversion of the Saxons before such municipal laws were enacted for such favourable and ample immunities to Clergiemen and before also the Clergie did as much as pretend by custom or otherwise to any exemption in criminal causes from the lay courts so I confess there have passed several ages of the very Roman Religion professed by law in England after the same great immunities and exemptions in criminal causes were in some part or for the greatest part legally repealed by law or custom or both and free consent or submission of the very Bishops and Clergie themselves upon new occasions and grounds being weary of contesting with the lay judges and Kings and that immediatly too or very soon after the days of Henry the second himself the very Popes also themselves at least many of them either consenting or certainly conniving at this change in the laws customs and practice of England in order to Clergiemen Whereat we are not much to wonder being that Roger Hoveden so faithfull an Historian as he was as he was also contemporary to Alexander the third and St. Thomas of Canterbury and was moreover so extraordinary an admirer of this Saint as may be seen by reading his Annals of him being I say this Roger Hoveden tels us in plain tearms ad an 1164. that the said Pope Alexander the third himself before his going to Rome out of France sent express directions to Thomas of Canterbury when the great difference began about the 16. Heads to submit himself in all things to his King and to promise to receive observe and obey without any exception those very customs or laws controverted Deinde sayes our Annalist Hoveden venit in Angliam vir quidam Religiosus dictus
will not agree with the Parliament for not having it We are of opinion the best remedy the King 's Authority being taken away as was said of meeting this inconvenience of the Peoples closing with the Parliament is returning to the Confederacy as was intended by the Nation in case of breach of the Peace of His Majesties part This will keep an union amongst us if men will not be precipitantly guilty of breach of their Oath of Association which Oath by two solemn Orders of two several Assemblies is to continue binding if any breach of the Articles should happen of His Majesties part The King 's Authority and the Lord Lieutenants Commission being recalled by the Declaration abovesaid we are of opinion the Lord Lieutenant hath no such Authority to leave If we must expose Lives and Fortunes to the hazard of fighting for making good that Peace seeing the danger and prejudice is alike to defend that or get a better Peace why should we bound our selves within the limits of those Articles so disavowed Answer To this VVe answer That if they were alwayes of opinion all their endeavours should be employed to keep the King's Authority over them their Declaration and Excommunication is a strange way of manifesting that opinion which Declaration and Excommunication bears date before His Majesties Declaration wherein they say He throweth away the Nation as Rebels So that whatever His Majesty hath done in withdrawing His Authority it is apparent their endeavour to drive it away was first in time In their advice of returning to the Confederacy appears the scope of their dilemma's and arguments against the continuance of the King's Authority over them which that they may be sure to be rid of they say VVe have not Authority to leave Their Reasons why in Conscience they cannot consent to the revocation of their Declaration and Excommunication follow Vpon consideration of the whole matter we may not consent with safety of Conscience to the Provisoes of revoking our Declaration and Excommunication demanded by his Excellency or granting any assurance to him or the Commissioners of Trust for not attempting the like in the future and that for many Reasons especially for First Reason That the King's Authority is not in the Lord Lieutenant nor power in us to confer a new Authority on him being also destructive to the Nation to continue it in him and preservative if in another And that was our sense when we declared against the King's Authority in his person Answer The King's Authority was to Us when the Declaration and Excommunication was framed by them they acknowledge And that it is still in Us notwithstanding His Majesties said Declaration VVe are able to make good if We could find it of advantage to His service or the safety of His good Subjects But that they confess It is not in them to confer a new Authority upon us is one of the few Truths they have set down Yet why they may not pretend to give as well as take away Authority and why they may not to Us as well as to others We know not They further say It is destructive to the Nation if continued in Vs and preservative if in another and this they say was their sense when they declared against the King's Authority in Our person We would gladly know what We have done to change their sense since the time that by their many professions formerly recited they seemed to be of another opinion If it be for doing little or nothing We believe We have made it appear they are principally guilty of Our being out of action That it will be preservative to the Nation to have Authority to govern it in another We shall be glad to be convinced in the event Second Reason We much fear we should lose the few Churches remaining under his Government as we lost under him all the Churches of the Cities of Waterford and Kilkenny and the Towns of Wexford Rosse Clonmel Cashel Fethard Kilmallock c. In this agreeing with the Maccabees Maximus vero primus pro sactitate timâ—r exat templi Answer The loss of the places mentioned here is answered elsewhere We shall only add That as Cashel was lately deserted by some of those these men esteem obedient Children of Holy Church so the same men could neither be persuaded nor forced into Kilkenny when they had orders for it and by that means both places were lost Third Reason His Excellency having declared at Cork That he will maintain during his life the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches which may be the same in substance with the Oath of Covenant for ought we know we may not expect from him defence of the Catholick Religion Answer Whatever We declared at Cork in this particular was before the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and was published in Print and then well known to many of these Bishops So that they ought then to have been aware how they had concluded a Peace with one that had made such a Declaration rather than now after almost Two years to make it a ground of breaking the Peace What Our opinion is of the Covenant or the best Reformed Churches We hold not Our Self obliged to declare Resolved We were to defend the Peace concluded by Us in all the parts of it Which We have faithfully endeavoured to do and should still have endeavoured it if We had not been interrupted affronted and wholly disabled therein by the contrivement of those very Bishops their Brethren and Instruments Fourth Reason The scandal over all the world to make choice of one of a different Religion especially in Rome where His Holiness in His Agreement or Articles with the Queen of England had a Catholick Governour granted though not performed And we do fear the scourges of War and Plague that have fallen so heavy upon us are some evidences of Gods anger against us for putting Gods Causes and Churches under such a hand whereas that Trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the King's authority Answer Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to Us which they have endeavoured all the while to disguise under the personal scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of scandal at Rome for making choice as they call it as if they might choose their Governours of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they may not next pretend to the same fear of scandal for having a King of a different Religion and to the power of choosing one of their own Religion We know not Touching any agreement made between the Queen of England and His Holiness for a Governour for this Kingdom We have never heard of any such and We are most confident That in the agreement and consequently in the want of performance Her Majesty is falsely aspersed by the framers of this Paper Fifth Reason That we shall
clearest both Texts and Reasons imaginable Of all which manifold Authorities of Reason Gospel Humane Laws and Canons having had sufficient knowledge when I engaged in the Controversie and more when for so engaging and for that only I was so strangely prosecuted by Summons Censures c I thought that even my duty to you and the regard I was bound to have of your common interest required of me to make the best use I could of that knowledge in order to your publick good as well on the one hand to assert your and my both Native and Christian right against them that invaded it by those unlawful proceedings as also on the other hand to shew at least in one instance the untruness of that Proposition whereof depends and wherein lies the whole stress of the grand Objection against you which if I be not much deceived is in substance this viz. That for any Roman-Catholick Priest holding firmly to all and every the Articles of Faith undoubtedly believed or at least own'd as such amongst all Roman-Catholicks universally and observing all other duties required of him by the Canons received generally in the National Churches of that Religion it is impossible to be in all cases or contingencies whatsoever indispensably or unalterably obedient and faithful to a Protestant Prince or Kingdom or Government not even in so much as in all meer Civil or Temporal things onely according to the Laws of the Land especially if the Pope command him to the contrary under pain of Excommunication Now as I have behaved my self hitherto I am sure I have manifestly enough proved the untruth of that Proposition and by consequence for as much as pertains to me have really answer'd the grand Objection deducible from it And so have not a few other Irish Priests even all those who together with me suffered very much for many years in the former Cause of the Nunoio or in this latter of the Remonstrance or in both and have not as to either condemn'd or contradicted themselves hitherto by any unworthy submission though at last compellâ—d to silence and in other matters forced to desert me and to submit to their Adversaries Nor do I at all doubt but rather am certain there are this day within England above Five hundred Native Priests beside a great many more in Ireland however at present weathering out the storm so fully resolved for the future in their own persons and cases likewise to disprove that Proposition and to satisfie the Objection built thereon That if His MAJESTY and both Houses of PARLIAMENT may be graciously pleased to try them once with an Act of Grace after a hundred years punishment and to take off I say not any other Incapacity but onely that of living in their Native Countrey that when at home they have satisfied the State they may not be driven abroad to beg or starve and be there exposed to all the rage and violence of the Roman Court they will by a publick Instrument signed under all their hands declare as amply and clearly and heartily against all the foresaid new Doctrines and Practises and all other whatsoever groundless vain pretences of Rome as I have done or as that Act shall require and will be ready to renew that Assurance as oft as shall be required and even to expose their Lives if need be in defence of it notwithstanding any Declarations Precepts or Censures of the Pope to the contrary Third Appendage relating to the Sixth Querie That I know and cannot but mind you of what the Roman-Catholicks of these Kingdoms have lost even since the King 's most happy Restauration by not being advised by Church-men of honest principles in point of His Majesties independent Power and the Subjects indispensable Obedience to Him in all Civil or Temporal things according to the Laws of the Land They have lost three fair opportunities of being not only eased of all their pressures from the penal Statutes but rendred as happy as they could in reason desire or even wish under a Protestant King and Government The first opportunity was offered them in England in the year 1661 when it was earnestly and strongly moved in their behalf in the House of Lords to Repeal the Sanguinary Laws in the first place and a Hill was drawn up to that purpose The second and third were in Ireland the former in the year 1662 when a discontented Party of the Adventurers and Souldiers there had laid their design for surprizing the King's Castle at Dublin and the latter in the year 1666 when we were in the first War with Holland and near to it with France and the Irish National Congregation of the Roman-Catholick Clergy was by occasion of that War suffered to convene at Dublin in order to assure the King of their fidelity How happy the Roman-Catholicks in general might have been if they had taken time by the forelock in any of those three opportunities especially in the first may be easily understood And how unhappy their neglect or wilfulness hath proved to themselves I cannot but with grief of heart consider The rather because I was my self the onely man employed first to the Roman-Catholick Clergy both of England and Ireland on the foresaid occasions to prepare them against any obstruction from themselves of the favours intended towards them and that nothing else was required on the first occasion from those in England but their being ready to take the Oath of Allegiance onely as in the Statute 3 Jacobi His Majesty being then inclined to have dispens'd with them for the Oath of Supremacy nor in the second and third occasion was any thing required from those of Ireland more than their Signing the Loyal Remonstrance or Formulary which had been Sign'd before in the year 1661 by some of their own Ecclesiastical Brethren and so considerable number of their Nobility and Gentry For my own part I am morally certain that if those fair opportunities had not been slighted or if either the one or the other condition had been embraced you should not have seen in your dayes any such tryal of men for bearing office as that you complain of so much now a renouncing of the Doctrine or Tenet of Transubstantiation according to the late Act of the Parliament of England And I am no less certain that had you hearkned to the advice of any of those many virtuous learned Church-men amongst you who have as much true zeal according to knowledge even for the splendor of Catholick Religion and as much true reverence for and obedience to His Holiness as according to Reason or Christianity they can have and withall are truly well affected and rightly principled as to that faith and obedience which they and you all owe by the Laws of God and man to the Temporal Government you had neither slighted any of those good opportunities nor neglected to embrace either of those two most reasonable conditions Fourth Appendage but relating to all the Queries generally
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
Emperour and even that of Ariminum which was a very General Council of both Greeks and Latins and for number of Bishops well nigh as great as any ever yet assembled in the Church and although consequently we must not wonder to see the Romish Clergy of this Kingdom permitted by His MAJESTY and by His Grace the LORD LIEUTENANT to meet together in Dublin at this time for an end so nearly and highly concerning the Publick Peace and Safety as a Declaration to be Subscribed by the said Clergy of their indispensable faithful real true and sincere Allegiance to His MAJESTY in all Temporal matters and in all cases of contingencies whatsoever against all Forreign or Domestick pretensions or designs should amount unto yet I am persuaded no prudent man not even of the Roman Religion either of this or any after Ages when throughly acquainted with the strange carriage of the late National Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin will scruple much to ascribe it to those fatal Influences of 1666. However I have thought it worth my Labour whil'st my remembrance is fresh of those Transactions wherein I have my self been all along not an Observer onely but an Actor to give all the material particulars to Posterity as they hapned without adding or diminshing excusing or condemning in this Relation or Narrative any thing or person For that of my own Judgment at least for what concerns the Congregation it self I reserve for a more proper place the following Treatises wherein as acting of purpose the part of a Divine I must declare that which I intend not in this first Treatise where I assume only or principally the parts of an Historian I mean still for what concerns that Congregation But to give the Reader a full and clear prospect into all I find it necessary to begin where the first occasion of that meeting began And further and because that occasion brought forth a great variety of disputes and some troubles too amongst that Clergy those few years past the knowledge of which may be useful not only to understand the intrigues happened in the foresaid General Congregation and the causes of such intrigues but also to other just and lawful ends and because also a satisfactory Narration of these disputes and troubles must needs take up near a hundred sheets if not more I have moreover thought it not amiss but much to the Readers greater facility of readily finding out or turning to that what ever he would be at to divide this first Treatise into two Parts Whereof the first part followeth The First Part OF THE FIRST TREATISE The ARGUMENT THe Procuratorium sent to Father Peter Walsh The persons that sent and sign'd it The causes of their sending or signing and first use made by him thereof The Remonstrance of 61. and occasion of it The signing at London of this Remonstrance The first Exceptions against it of its unexpediency occasioned The more ample Account The next of uncatholickness Loyalty asserted How the Bishops stood affected Bishop of Ardaghs Letter approving it Archbishop of Tuams answer to Dromore Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarin and of the Internuncio of Bruxels condemning it The Procuratour come to Ireland finds out all the intrigues and general conspiracy against it What Peter Aylmer did Use made of the Queens Chaplains not having signed Sixteen several pretences for not signing As many heads of answers which the Procurator made to their excusatory pretences No uncatholickness pretended amongst the objections The Procurators charging them continually with unconscientiousness He perswades some to sign To the rest he writes The names of the Subscribers in Ireland A General Congregation desired by the Bishop of Meath and others The Dominican Chapters Letter and Remonstrance and other matters relating to them especially to their Provincial Augustinians English Chapâ—â—â— Letter from London approving the Remonstrance of 61. William Burgat Vicar General of Imly Iohn Burk Archbishop of Tuam landed at Dublin preached unto by the Procurator The Jesuits The Queries mad by them and Resolves of the Procurator Their several Remonstrances They as all the rest decline alwayes the question of right The Procutator meets the Franciscans at Multifernan Their resolution there Their Provincials concurrence to and approbation of the Remonstrance of 61. His latter to the Duke The Dukes Letter to Mr. Walsh The Nobility and Gentry subscribing at Dublin Their Letter to the Coâ—â—ityes It s â—â—op Wexfordians signing the Remonstrance Cenâ—â—e of Lovaine solliciâ—ed by Father John Brady and procured by the Internâ—â—â—tio The first considerable effect of this Censure or the Franciscan Subscribers sâ—â—â—â—â—d Their answers to the summons Four grounds of the said Censure and answers to theâ— More Remonstrances Proclamation issued against some Regular The Procurator being return'd to England the Bruxels Internuncius arrived aâ—â— at London â—â—cognite discourses with him and Father Chron for three â—â—â—tre and offers â—â—de them by him His desires after from Bruxels by worn of â—â—â—th and by 〈◊〉 The Procurators Answers to him in two several Papers The Franciscans Remonstrance from Killihy I. THe first winter following the Kings most happy Restauration in the year 1660. the chief Persons and Prelates of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland then at home in that Countrey being from London and by Letters from F.P.W. put in mind of their duty and of the many causes the generality of that Irish Clergy had above all other Subjects of their Church in any of the three Kingdoms to make their timely and both gratulatory and supplicatory addresses to His Majesty least otherwise their former carriage in the late unfortunate Rebellion of that Kingdom in 41. and both in the rejection of the Peace of 46. and transgression by many of them also of that other of 48. might argue their silence and non-addresses did not so much proceed from want of civility and humanity or even of confidence either in themselves to make such addresses or in the most accessible exorable and merciful of Princes for what concern'd his taking such in good part as from that would be suspected by others infallibly their want of true joy for his Majesties return or of good wishes for his establishment Edmond Relly Archbishop of Ardmagh or the Primate of that Church in Ireland made by Innocent the 10th some nine years since and Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath being the only Bishops of their Religion then in Ireland excepting only one more that was many years before and is still bed-rid and was not then accessible by reason of the times and place wherein he was D. Owen Swiny Bishop of Killmore together with Iames Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare Oliver Dese Vicar General of Meath Cornelius Gaffney Vicar General of Ardagh Barnaby Barnwal Superiour of the Capucins Father Browne Superiour of the Carmelits and Father Iohn Scurlog Prior of the Dominicans at Dublin signed an Instrument of Procuration and sealed it with the Seals of their respective
in this world to condemn as much as virtually or consequentially their former temerity in such engagements and that they cleerly saw their subscription to that Remonstrance must have been thought by rational men wherein I confess they were not deceived a tacit and virtual or consequential acknowledgement of their said former proceedings to have been illegal and unjust though it was not therefore intended 3. That some who had been earnest enough for the said Peaces and Cessation and all along against the Nuncio saw their neerest Catholick Relatives born to good Estates very many of them who had fought in those quarrels for the King and all along declined any conditions even from the Parliament no more regarded by the Kings Declaration and several Bills of Settlement than the very first grand contrivers of the Rebellion but their estates given away eternally to such as fought against the King even all along even from the very first day of the Warrs while any Warr continued 4. That such others and they were the farre greater number as had no affection at all to the Royal or English interest nor ever at any time had from the beginning conceived a subscription would before the world tye them to that duty they would not be tyed unto albeit for the generality of them they were more wary then to discover to others this their own peculiar cause but in lieu thereof pretended if not conscience yet at least reverence to the See Apostolick when yet being pressed on by reason and argument in point of Religion Faith and Justice many of them in private conference declined ingenuously all pretences and confess'd the true cause without any further shifting Whence it is that I know they laugh in their sleeves to see those other Gentlemen of their indeed common profession but not extraction through inconsiderancy other vain false pretences of Religion or submission to the Holy See interpose betwixt them the State so that they need not fear any peculiar necessity to be put on themselves either to discover or decline that their own motive or cause which indeed is the cause that renders them so strangly obstinate 5. That besides the Regulars generally at least the Mendicant Orders who in this Country live most by publick begging at the altars of parish Priests where the people meet on Sundays and other festivals for which if they will thrive they must have the licence and recommendation of the respective Ordinaries Bishops or Vicars general or at least not to be opposed by them or discountenanced by the parish Priests themselves pretended it a sufficient plea for not signing when they were desired That it behoved them to do nothing in such a matter before the Ordinaries and secular Clergie concurr'd or at least not to subscribe without their consent being sure if they did of meeting with much disfavour and opposition from them and with a substraction consequently through their means of the benevolence of the laye people over whom the Ordinaries and Priests must have had so great an influence as was known And moreover that each of those Mendicant Orders in particular being reason'd with alleadged that if they had singly done it or without the concurrence of such other Orders as depended in that kind of the secular Clergie they should be sure to be singularly branded as not regarding the Holy See and those oâ—hers extolled and particularly recommended in their place and by the said Clergie to the devotion of the people Whereby it would come to pass immediately that they would not be able to live in communities or otherwise And further that their priviledges and faculties from the Pope which gave them so much exemption from the Ordinaries and credit amongst the people would questionless upon the odious complaint of others and representation at Rome of their signing runn a very great hazard to be totally recalled 6. The Dominicans pretended and truely too that hitherto they had been all united in one and the self same way without any visible breach amongst them not even at that time of tryal when other Orders were devided in this Kingdom That particularly they could not but reflect on their own printed Acts of Kilkenny or of their Provincial Chapter held in their Convent there 18. Ian. 1643. under Albertus otherwise Terlagh ô Brien Prior Provincial then of their Order In which Acts and amongst the Declarations the second is of this tenour pag. 6. Declaramus cum juxta mentem Divi Thomae quem omnes Theologi in hoc sequuntur bellum quodlibet ex sufficienti Principis authoritale justa causa et recta intentione justificetur Catholicorum hoc bellum pro fidei defensione regiis praerogativis patriae libertate vitae et bonorum conservatione contra impiissimi Calvini sectam susceptum undiquaque justissimum esse Vnde Acta Capituli Nationalis Kilkenniae celebrati 10. Maii 1642. quoad hoc recipimus fratribusque nostris recipienda proponimus mandantes ut eis nullatenus directè vel indirectè se opponere audeant That further yet their general Constitutions or those of their whole Order throughout the world binds them all nay and Oathes moreover bind such as are called Masters among them to defend all the doctrine or opinions of their Angelical Doctor St. Thomas of Aquin and that St. Thomas of Aquin's doctrine 2. 2. q. 10. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. is cleerly against that whereon the Remonstrance is grounded and against that also which is therein even formally and expresly contained 7. That such of the Franciscan Order as had been the very chief Heads amongst all the Regulars to maintain the Censures of the Nuntio and all other consequents even against the rest of the same Order who no less eminently opposed the said Censures that those Franciscans I say alledged that to sign any such Remonstrance was point blanck against all their former proceedings and against all those opinions too in which their said proceedings were grounded 8. That those Orders of a later brood in the Church which began but within this last Century or much about an hundred or sixcore years since and therefore had no ancient foundations in Ireland or any at all before the change of Religion or suppression of religious houses I mean the Jesuits Cappuchins and Excalceat Carmelits and therefore to this day have no legal admission in this Countrey for houses or new erections and for old they never had any not even I mean according to the Papal canons or constitutions which prescribe as necessary thereunto besides the consent of the Supream temporal Magistrate still supposed an admission from the Ordinary with the consent of the People and pre-existent Regulars least otherwise the multiplication of religious Orders and Houses especially such as live by almes might prove too great a burthen to the Layety and Clergy both and too destructive also to themselves one of another That those three late Orders I say pretended generally for their own
them who by special function are Preachers of the Gospel of Christ and of all the promises and rewards of it to others to apply those also to themselves make use of them and remember that saying of our Saviour the eight and last and most comfortable of all the Beatitudes taught by this heavenly Master on the Mount to his Apostles Disciples and others and to all Christians by them Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam Math. 5.10 quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum whether they suffer by Prince or Pope For from both many holy men have often suffered persecution for justice and some that are at this present glorified and invoked in the Roman Calendar as Saints possessing actually that Kingdom of heaven so promised them for suffering for justice have been persecuted on that account in their life and to their death by Popes alone as for example St. Ignatius sometime Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated by Iohn the eight of Rome 13. That other no less general objection viz. That the Subscribers Lay or Ecclesiastick reaped no advantage by their subscription more then others who had not subscribed the Lay Proprietors not their temporal Estates nor Ecclesiasticks a liberty or freedom to exercise their spiritual function without fear or danger albeit the most powerful to render the Remonstrance unsignificant amongst such as either look only on the present and see no further or such also as value nothing but by temporal advantages yet was more then sufficiently more then abundantly solved by those other considerations offered to the Objectors 1. That the design of that Remonstrance and subscription of it was not thereby to be restored to their temporal estates because if such it had infallibly designed an unsettlement of the whole Kingdom since it was clear enough there is no Roman Catholick but on condition or certainty of being restored to his Lands or other temporal pretences would sign it and no less evident on the other side they could not be all restored without infallible disturbance of the publick peace and hazzard of all sides in a second bloody war there being so numerous and stubborn a party which must have been in such case dispossess'd of all their livelyhood for ever how justly or unjustly soever acquired at first 2. That nevertheless very many or most of those Remonstrants or Subscribers had been already or were to be one way or other provided for some upon title of Innocency others by special provision As indeed we have seen effected and not Remonstrants only c. That if the opposers both of Clergy and Laity had not delayed so long their own concurrence and thereby rendered themselves and their Catholick Nation suspected a new but taken time by the sore-lock and throughout the Kingdom generally cheerfully and heartily manifested their firm unalterable resolution whatever the former carriage of any was to stand inviolably firm to the King hereafter in all contingencies whatsoever according to that Remonstrance and as the first Subscribers had in their own behalf and for their sake also done they might with some colour have made this objection But being the Subscribers were so few and they almost so innumerable that opposed still with headiness and rashness it was too soon to expect those favours which are commonly given by a State upon good grounds of considerable advantage to it self such as would be in the present case the assuring of all the Catholicks in Ireland to stand firm and loyal in all kind of dangerous contingencies whatsoever 3. That all generally of that Religion ever since that Remonstrance was exhibited and graciously accepted by His Majesty had much ease connivence and liberty for publick meetings and publick exercise of their Religion throughout all the Kingdom without any considerable molestation therefore in any place if some very few walled Towns only and within the walls only or close by them be not excepted and that favour done at first continued ever since by reason only of that Remonstrance and for the sake of those who had given and subscribed it and in expectation of the concurrence of the rest to the same or like dutiful manifestation of their Allegiance That although some numbers of poor Catholicks in some few parts Town or Counties had been three or four several times taking one place with another molested by presentments in some Bishops Courts Inditements and Capiases by the civil Officers of Judges of the Assize and of Sheriffs yet upon application made they found themselves presently at ease and rest from any further prosecution 4. That albeit the indiscretion of too great a multitude of Catholicks and too publickly and boldly convening and thronging in the streets from about twelve a clock at night on Christmass day till at noon even at the very door of the Parish Church or St. Owens in Dublin where those of the contrary Religion warranted by the laws and where also the very guards did meet to serve God in their way occasion'd that disturbance and hurry objected yet they might visibly see the favour done the Remonstrant Clergy whose Chappel that was For notwithstanding their indiscreet carriage in that matter they were all set at liberty within three or four dayes and only because they were known to be true and faithful Remonstrants as besides their subscription to that paper they had all along in the former quarrel of the Nuncio and other differences of the Consederats in the late wars approved themselves to be men so loyally religiously and conscientiously principled 5. That for the Proclamation whatever the cause of it was they had no cause to complain of its execution Lastly that they were blind if they did not see ungrateful if they did not acknowledge the vast difference 'twixt the condition then of both the Lay Proprietors as to matter of estate and of Ecclesiasticks as to that of liberty and of both in all respects and that they could not but remember they were in all of them generally a little before and for so many years together without scarce any humane hope to see any end of their miseries 14. Their objection of some words and these were no more but two or three only Pope renounce Papal was answered by desiring them to shew by reason or argument how the naming of the Pope or of his Papal power or pretence or renouncing of that power in him which they confessed was not in him could argue any irreverence or disrespect especially where and when it was so necessary to use that expression or an equivalent and no other would or could do the work or compass the end they so vehemently and rationally desired That surely the Catholicks of England then which there are none in the world more observant of all respect and reverence to the Pope who were the authors and framers of the Protestation who worded it throughly knew very well these words were not irreverential in any wise That they should find
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
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
however apprehended by us to be so Now for the Lovaine Divines to say that to assert or acknowledge either of these two kinds of obedience or both as due by the law of God to the supream temporal Prince is as much as to deny the Popes or other Bishops or Priests either binding or loosing power which yet the Catholick Church never yet believed to be other then a purely spiritual power and to have no other then purely spiritual effects and a purely spiritual execution or means of execution and no corporal temporal or civil coercion or power of such coercion annexed if not that only which is added at some times and some places by the free pleasure of the supream civil Magistrate and by his proper Power and laws and is taken away again at his pleasure I say that for the Lovaine Divines to ground their Censure of sacriledge or unsincerity of Catholick Faith upon so unconsequent a supposition as if either such active or passive obedience or both together acknowledged by the Remonstrance did inferr the denyal of a binding or loosing power of the Church is to ground a very false and most injurious and erroneous Position upon a no less false and heretical supposition and is further to conclude them either bad Logicians or bad Theologians if not both For to object here that out of such active and passive obedience of Catholick Subjects notwithstanding the Popes excommunication to the contrary and out of their taking arms to defend their protestant King and his protestant Subjects as well as themselves in their lives and fortunes and out of his great power by Land and by Sea against the supposed invasion of a Catholick Army and from Catholick Princes the Pope himself being head of the Ligue must follow that if our King and his army prevail the Protestant Religion will be more and more established by him and perhaps too propagated into Catholick Countryes if he should make his Assailants a return by carrying the Warr back to their own doors or sending a formidable victorious Fleet of English Protestants to Civita Vecchia and consequently an apparant danger of destroying both Pope and Church and Religion at least amongst millions of people All which being evils of the first magnitude that whence they follow must be such I say that to object such conditional contingencies of extraordinary evils or possibilities to hinder an ordinary virtuous duty and of such evils too as have no connexion at all by nature or by design with such duty becomes very ill such Masters in Israel as the Doctors of Lovain For as it is an approved maxime in Divinity That evil is not to be done for any good that may thence arise though such good were foreseen to follow most certainly and without any kind of doubt so is it a no less approved maxime That duties enjoyned by the laws of God and man are not to be omitted and the quite contrary acted for fear of evils which by an extraordinary chance the malice or ignorance or other passion soever of other unjust men may thence derive and the anger of a just God may permit to be thence derived But if the Lovaine Doctors will deny the above active and passive obedience of Catholicks to be vertuous duties in the case and give no other reason then such as we have seen as indeed they do not for ought I saw or know and am very positive they cannot and if upon so weak a ground they have fram'd a Censure so erroneous and injurious both as they have most certainly then I have no more to say to this ground which is their second but that they have carryed themselves more prudentially in suppressing it so soon then conscientiously in alleadging it at any time LV. As for that alledged in the third place or as a third ground of the Censure I must confess I have not admiration enough to consider that men not only Doctors of Lovaine but Divines of a much inferiour degree whether of Lovaine or any other place esteemed either wise or honest should appear so weak or so malicious or both as to alledge it for a ground of any Censure at all and much more of one so severe Good God! Because the Remonstrance declares the Subscribers ready to discover any treason plot or conspiracy against his Majesties person c. that shall come to their hearing and yet not as much as promises that they will discover c. but only their being ready the Doctors of Lovaine must censure it as both sacrilegious and containing somewhat against the sincerity of Catholick Faith On precence forsooth that in relation to Confessors and Priests that hear confessions and subscrib'd or shall subscribe it it in some cases binds them to reveal secret sins heard only in the confessional seat and reveal such I mean without any licence from the penitent that confesseth such in that so holy secret and sacramental Consistory How much better had it become Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to consider LVI 1. That all kind of Oathes of Allegiance or Fidelity in what form soever and to whom soever have alwayes either formally or virtually and for the most part even formally or in express words engaged the Swearer as indeed all such Oathes should to reveal all treasons plots conspiracies against the life estate or dignity of him to whom or for whom such Oathes were made And yet such expression was never interpreted in any age or Countrey by any Divines until of late by those byassed ill grounded Writers against the English Oath of Allegiance in King James's Statute to extend by any rational consequence to any kind of the least imaginable either direct or indirect breach of that which is now commonly called the Seal of Sacramental Confession Or which in effect is the same thing to extend to the revelation of the sin of such an individual penitent without his own leave as of such a penitent individually or determinatly or of him even as of one inderminatly of such or such a Society or body or corporation whatsoever nay or as of him too as of one of such a Countrey if I mean by such revelation how indeterminat soever as to the individual person yet sufficiently determinat as to the Society or Countrey any prejudice might arise to any such Corporation or Nation Suarez l 6. Defens Fidei Cathol contra Reg. Ang. de forma Iuram Fidel. cap. 3. though not to the individual person of the penitent For never yet amongst Christians where sacramental auricular confession is or was in use hath the knowledge had by the Confessor in that secret penitential Court been esteemed to fall under the general expression or notion of knowledge or of our knowledge as to any use to be made thereof out of the confessional Seat but what the penitent is expresly consenting unto Nor hath any Priest or Bishop whereof thousands upon
there by Theodâ—sius and Valentinian signifie no more but an unlawfulness of or by their own human civil Emperial laws and where or in such cases onely as by these laws it was unlawful to subject Ecclesiasticks to the judgment of temporal powers And that these other words temporalium pâ—testatum arbitri as there and as per materiam subjectam restrained have relation solely to and onely import or signifie such temporal powers as all inferiour Magistrats are but in no wise the supream of the Emperours themselves Being so that those Emperours themselves Theodosius and Valentinian by this or any other law nor any other Emperour before them had ever granted such a priviledg to any Clerk or Church as to be wholy exempt from their own proper supream civil and imperial power Nay how farre Clerks were under the Empire of this very Valentinian from such an imaginary priviledg or Exemption from the supream imperial power may be learned out of his welfth law eod tit Novel Valentiniani De Episcopali Judicio diversorum saepe cansatio est Ne ulterius quaerela procedat necesse est praesenti lege sanari Itaque cum inter Clericos jurgium vertitur ipsis litigatoribus convenit habeat Episcapus licentiam judicaâ—di praeeunte tamen uinculo compromissi Quod laicis si consentiant authoritas nostra permittit Aliter eos Iudices esse non patimur nifi â—â—â—â—tas juâ—gantium interposita sicut dictum est conditione praecedat Quoniam constat Episcopos praesbyteâ—os fâ—rum legibus non habere nec de aliis causis secundum Arcadii Honorii Divalia constituta quae Theodosianum Corpus ostendit praeter Religionem posse cognoscere Si ambo ejusdem officii litigatores nolint vel alteruter agant publicis legibus jure communi Sin vero Petitor laicus seu in civili seu criminali causa cujuslibet loci Clericum adversarium suum si id magis eligat per authoritatem legitimam in publico judicio respondere compellat Quam formam etiam circa Episcoporum personam observari oportere censemus c. Where it is plain this Emperour acknowledges no judicial power in Bishops not even over their own very Clerks at variance amongst themselves either in criminal or civil causes nor as much as permits licences or suffers any such judicial power in the Bishop over Clerks but onely when it shall please the Clerks themselves to fix on him and besides shall make a compromise to stand to his judgment quâ—niam constat Episcopos Praesbyteros forum legibus non habere c because sayes that law sayes Valentinian who made that law it is manifest that by the laws Bishops and Priests have no judicatory nor according to the divine constitutions of Arcadius and Honrius can take cognizance of any other causes but of those of Religion And therefore decrees that if the parties at variance being both of the same profession refuse Episcopal audience that is the Bishops judgment or if either of them refuse it they are in such case to try their quarrel by the publick and common laws And further decrees that if the Plantiff being a lay person whatever the cause be against a Clerk civil or criminal shall rather choose this way of publick judgment acccording to the laws that then such Clerk be forced by lawful authority to answer And yet further particularly decrees the same form or method to be observed concerning the persons of Bishops To this law of Valentinian may be added an other long after of those other no less Orthodox Emperours Leo and Anthemius L. omnes 33. c. de Episc Cleric omnes qui ubique sunt vel posthae fuerint Orthodoxae Fidei sacerdotes Clerici cujus cumque gradus fint Monachi quoque in causis civilibus ex nullius penitus majoris minorisve sententia Iudicis commonitoria ad extranea judicia pertrahantur aut Provinciam aut locum aut Regionem quam habitant exire cagantur nullus eorum Ecclesias vel Monasteria propria quae Religionis intuitu habitant relinquere miserabili necessitate jubeatur sed apud suos Iudices ordinarios id est Provinciarum Rectores in quibus locis degunt Ecâ—lesiarum ministeriis obsecundent omniumque contra se agentium excipiant actiones Let not any whoever at present are or hereafter shall be Priests of the Orthodox Faith or Clerks of whatever degree or even Monks be at the pleasure or by a monitory sentence of any greater or lesser Iudg drawn to forraign Iudicatories or forced out of the Province place or Region where they dwell Let none of them be commanded by miserable necessity to relinquish the Churches or Monasteries which for Religions sake they inhabit but in such places as they inhabit in the Ministery of Churches let them before their own ordinary Iudges that is the Rectours of Provinces receive the actions of all such as act against them See Clerks of all degrees whatsoever not subjected to Emperours onely but to the Rectors of Provinces who also are in this law said to be their ordinary Iudges Now whereas the priviledges of Clerks are not read to have been any way lessened or recalled by any laws of former pious Emperours from the times of Theodosius and Valentinian until that of this very Leo and Anthemius but rather by little and little daily enlarged by new indulgences or exemptions given to the Church and notwithstanding such daily enlargement the Rectors of the Provinces were yet under the same Leo and Anthemius the ordinary Iudges of Clerks it is sufficiently evicted that those words before in the foresaid law of Theodosius and Valentinian fas enim non est ut divini muneris Ministri temporalium potestatum subdantur arbitrio were spoke or writ in that same sense we have said already whereas I say the Emperors then held it fas or lawful for themselves to encrease the priviledges of Clerks and also at their own pleasure or when they held it fit to leave them to the common law And who sees not further yet that Bellarmine concludes out of Iustinians 83. Novel quite contrary to the express letter of that very Novel Iustinian there expresly orders That as to such Clerks as should be convened in criminal causes at Constantinople where himself lived and the Imperial Court was then the Iudges there should determine the matter but as to other Clerks that lived in the Provinces abroad the President or Judges of those Provinces Si de criminibus conveniantur siquidem civilibus that is if the crimes of Clerks were civil or lay crimes crimina laica and not pure crimes of Religion or Faith hic quidem nempe Constantinopâ—li competentes Iudices in Provinciis autem earum praesides sive Iudices How then may Bellarmine conclude out of this Novel that Politick or lay and meerly civil even subordinate Judges such as questionless the Presidents and Judges of Provinces were under Iustinian could not Judge Clerks in
onely that what he sayes of canon law in the point is perspicuous out of the Epistle of Pope Caius to Bishop Felix out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and out of the XI book of the Register of S. Gregory ep 54. ad Ioannem Defensorem and lastly to compleat this his second argument assumes this other Proposition as a maxime That the civil law must yield to the canon law whereas sayes he still consequently the Pope may command the Emperour especially in such matters as concern the Church This strange way of argueing in a matter of such consequence out of authorities or quotations of books or chapters the words not given to the Reader which yet is familiar with this great Clerk especially where he finds the authorities or words of the text if seen at length not to be much to his purpose hath put me to more trouble then I would be and then I knew the argument deserved However I took the pains as I have also in all other material quotations of his to turn to the canons books or places quoted and see the words of those three Popes Which indeed concerning the two former as they are alleadg'd by Gratian XI q. 1. c. 1. I find to be these of Caius first Nemo unquam Episcopum apud Iudicem secularem aut alios Clericos accusare praesumat And these too ead Caus. and quest cap. 2. Nullas Iudicum neque Praesbiterum neque Diaconum aut Clericum ullum aut juniores Ecclesia sine licentia Pontificis per se distringat aut condemnare praesumat Quod si fecerit ab Ecclesia cui injuriam irrogare dignoscitur tamdiu sit sequestratus quousque reotum suum agnoscat mendet And next I find the words of Marcellinus to be these other ead caus quest cap. 3. Clericum eujuslibet or dinis absque Pontificiâ— sui permissu nullus praefumat ad seculdâ—am Indicem attâ—here neâ— Lâ—â— qâ—â—â— libet Clericum liceat accusare To which my answers are 1. That Caius having suffered Martyrdom in the year of our Lord 296. and Marcellinus being chosen the same year nay within eleven days after the passion of Caius they are both consequently of the number of those Popes whose Decretal Epistles or such as go in their names are not by learned men even of the Roman communion esteemed other then meerly supposititious or at least corrupted and therefore such as cannot be alleadged for good or certain proof in any matter 2. That these two Popes having lived and dyed before the first liberty of Christian Religion under Constantine were it certain they had really prohibited the lay Judges to proceed in any causes of Churchmen nay which is more expresly declared that such lay Judges had no kind of Iurisdiction over any Clerk in any matter soever and were it also granted that such their sole prohibition or sole Declaration were hoc ipso a canon of the Catholick Church or obliging it in general as much as any canon of even a general Council each of which particulars is so farre from being certain or being granted as in the opinion of great Divines none of all three is any way probable yet any judicious man will see plainly that by secular judges here we must not understand such Judges as were truly such by the publick authority of Emperours Princes and laws but onely such as were by a compromise onely or submission of the Christian Litigants and by the private authority of the Churches or Congregations according to that of St. Paul 1. Cor. 6. appointed to determine amongst themselves the differences of those of their own Religion and consequently such as were rather voluntary arbiters then Judges simply or properly such with coercive power For who sees not it had been most imprudently or rather indeed madly done to have prescrib'd meer humane and also unnecessary laws to those heathen Imperial Judges that put all to death whom they knew to observe as much as the very most necessary most divine law of God himself Or shall we attribute such madness to men farre less prudent then we must suppose the wisest men in the world those holy and great Pontiffs of Rome And being we cannot how then doth Bellarmine alleadg this prohibition of Caius and Marcelline Or must it follow that because these Popes commanded that none of the secular Christian Judges appointed by the several private Christian Congregations should presume to judg of Clerks without the Bishops leave therefore the same was intended or given as a rule to the publick heathen Judges commission'd by the supream absolute civil and coerecive power of Emperours The general persecutions against all Christians generally both Clerks and Laicks were continued long after the days of Caius and Marcelline throughout the Roman Empire which till Dioclesians surrender was heathen And so long the Popes could not make laws of Discipline for the Judges appointed by that Empire Nihil ad nos de iis qui soris sunt judicare sayes the Apostle himself who certainly had no less power then any Pope 3. That for the former quotation of that either pretended or true Epistle of Caius it is not material The jurisdiction of civil or Imperial heathen Judges over Christian Clerks and Bishops too might be very well acknowledged by Caius notwithstanding he had thought it convenient for avoiding scandal to forbid all Christians not to presume to accuse any Clerk before heathen judges St. Paul forbade all Christians generally and consequently the very Laicks not to accuse even other Laicks before such heathen Judges yet no man sayes that St. Paul thereby meant that Christian Laicks were exempt from the jurisdiction of those Judges And that for the later quotation also out of the same Epistle of Caius which Gratian gives in the second place or second chapter of his foresaid eleventh cause and first Question it is mark'd with a Palea in Gratian himself and therefore also is of no authority no valew at all according to the doctrine of many Canonists which doctrine must be disproved before any such allegation can be urged 4. That for Marcelline's canon whether false or true I have before observed how Gratian hath if not corrupted at least misquoted the text which is not as he hath it Clericum cujuslibet ordinis nullus praesumat accusare c. but as it is in Concil 3. Aurel. in Panormia Clericus nullum praesumat accusare And that being so read it concludes nothing to Bellarmine's purpose if not a generâ—l exemption of all persons generally as well Laicks as Clerks from secular Judges and for what onely would concern a suit commenced by a Clerk Which yet is not to Bellarmines purpose at all nor at all for any exemption of either Laicks or Clerks from the jurisdiction of secular Judges but onely for a restriction of Clerks from scandalous litigiousness as I have also before in other cases or in my answers to the canons of Carthage Chalcedon
the Romans that by the law of God Clerks are bound in conscience to pay tribute understand you if not dispensed with by the Princes Therefore in his doctrine it is not necessary that they do not pay tribute And consequently in his doctrine t is not necessary that the Church have power to exempt Clerks from tribute whether Princes will or not Moreover and for the natural equity or congruity it self which we confess may be for the exemption of Clerks from tribute alleadged out of St. Thomas and with due restrictions pleaded also from natural reason doth either tell us of Soto's even sole congruency for such exemption to be made by the sole power of the Church and not rather by the Princes themselves Or will not this allegation of natural equity or congruitâ— be satisfied if Clergiemen be freed by the secular Princes themselves and onely too in such cases as these Princes shall not upon rational and evident grounds find it necessary for the defence of other good of both Clerks and Laicks to sess the Clerks for some time again and for what they can well spare without any hinderance to divine service Finally have not Clerks in regard or lieu of their labours received so many other great and rich and excellent and superabundant compensations as well by lands and revenues as by other priviledges or will nothing els serve them but a total exemption from the royalty of Princes and of those very goods and lands too which the same Princes gave them and which the same Princes continue and protect them in all ways Behold as from or for what concerns those arguments of Soto how farr it is from necessary that either the goods or persons of Clergiemen should be exempt by the power of the Church nay indeed or by any other from the supream civil Magistrat But as an addition to all I have allready said I demand yet when it began to be necessary that either goods or persons should be so exempt For it is manifest that neither hath been allways or in all ages of Christianity from the beginning nor even from the beginning of those very ages or that very time wherein Christian Religion was by law established publickly neither so exempt I say by either Pope or Prince And I demand also whether before they were exempted any thing necessary was wanting to the Church or after this time any thing at all times necessary accrued to the Church And as Soto must answer affirmatively to both these last demands whether he can answer or no to the first so I must out of his affirmations conclude presently That neither in the days of the Apostles nor during five hundred years after and more the Church had all necessaries to attain her own proper end which is no other but salvation Then which nothing can be said more impious and horrible by Soto or any other To the first reason of Franciscus Victoria wherein he discourseth thus that because the Republick Ecclesiastical is perfect and sufficient for it self that is sufficiently empowr'd to attain its own ends therefore it hath power to make such laws as are convenient for the administration of the Church and therefore also consequently if the exemption of Clerks be so convenient this Republick may enact laws for such exemption I answer 1. That for this which is a Republick to be perfect and sufficient or simply to the perfection and sufficiency of a Republick is not required that it may enact all such laws as make for its greater splendour and glory but onely such as are necessary for its being safety and condition And that I have shewed already heer in this section That laws of Ecclesiastical exemption are not such that is are not necessary for its being c. nay or either for its well being safety and condition as it drives to its own proper ends 2. And that if this be not admitted which I say in this my first answer it must follow out of this reason of Victoria which himself too a little after it confesses to follow That the politick temporal or civil commonwealth whereas it is also perfect and self sufficient vz. in its own nature of such a commonwealth may also make laws to the prejudice of the spiritual if such laws do seem convenient to the decor and Majesty of the civil Nay this conveniency doth wholly ruine their purpose For I demand whether is most convenient that secular Princes and for the security of their secular principalities and greater splendour and Majesty of them still retain that civil power over Clerks which the laws of God and nations give them over Clerks or that the Church to the end her self may seem or be more adorned and more dignified bereave Princes of that power even against their known will and maugre all their opposition by laws and arms What if the Church shall find it sometime convenient also to subtract from the yoake or obedience of Princes even a great part of the very meerest Laicks to be as emancipated persons or freemen evermore at the pleasure of the Church ready to serve her as the Patroness of their freedom and serve her too against their former Lords That convenient is of too great and too too dangerous extension To the second reason of the same Francis Victoria which was that the Pope might by his own proper authority choose Ecclesiastical Ministers notwithstanding any contradiction of the civil power And therefore may upon the same ground exempt such Ministers from secular iudicatories The answer is that the reason is vain First because we know that no man is bound to be a Clerk not even albeit the Pope should elect or appoint him for Clerkship Or which is that I mean that it is not in the Popes power to fix on this or that meer Layman and force or command him to Clerkship at least to such Clerkship as hath so many burdens annexed to it by the positive canons of the Church onely Although I confess it is in the Popes power as belonging properly to his office to choose out of the whole number of such as freely offer themselves whom he shall think fittest and have these ordered and appointed Ministers of the Church Secondly because we know and that in the primitive Ages of Christianity when established by law as the religion of the Empire such have not been admitted to Clerkship whom the Emperours prohibited or by their laws incapacitated as much as they could from that course of life For hence it is we read so many laws in the Code of Theodosius and Justinian concerning such as ought not to be admitted to Clerkship and commanding such to be degraded and secularized again who were admitted contrary to such laws even laws made by most Christian and most Orthodox Princes the Roman Emperours Constantine the Great Valentinian the elder Arcadius and Honorius Theodosius the younger Leo and Iustinian T is a clear case ex C. Theodos. Tit. de Episcop
delegating others or sitting himself alone or with others in judgment on this cause of Cecilian a Bishop the other excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 316. n. 58. is no less vain and frivolous then his former pretences For now he sayes that Constantine yielded to or admitted of such unlawful unjust appeals to the end the schismatick Donatists being so in all tribunals overcome should at last desist from that cause and be ever after quiet and the Affrican Church so then divided by schisme might be sometime again united in peace and concord and because he thought Affrick could otherwise hardly be continued under the Roman Empire being so powerful a faction as that of the Donatists did shake the Affricans already as to their allegiance ut sic victi sayes he speaking of these schismaticks à causa desisterent penitusque conquiescerent Ecclesia Affricana schismate scissa pace atque concordia uniretur quodque existimaret haud facile posse sub Romano Imperio contineri Affricam tam potenti factione labantem To which excuse I suppose first in general that evil is not to be done for any end how good soever And yet even in such a case of Affrick the procedure of Constantine must have been evil because against both the natural positive law of God if the suppositions and positions too of Baronius and Bellarmine were true concerning the Immunity of Ecclesiasticks even also in criminal causes from all kind of lay or civil Judicatories Next I suppose in particular that the politick rules of some worldly Princes for governing or containing their people in obedience cannot excuse a pious Prince if the true liberties of the Church be hurt by the practice of such And I say moreover it is very strange that Baronius a Priest and a Cardinal Priest should admit here of such politick reasons of Constantine or rather in and for Constantine against Ecclesiastical Immunity which yet himself maintains all along also here to have been usurped upon and unjustly hurt by such procedure of Constantine yea notwithstanding that pretence of danger in Affrick In his fifth Tome an 400. n. 41. he himself praises and perhaps justly too praises the vigour and piety of St. Iohn Chrysostome in dissuading the Emperour Arcadius from granting to to Gainas the Arian Rebel that only one Church which he desired for the people of his Sect within Constantinople Theodoret. l. 5. c. 32. albeit the Emperour was otherwise and vehemently too inclined as considering the power of Gainas and suspecting he aimed at the Empire and therefore praying Chrysostome's consent for giving him that one Church to try if that would lessen the rage of Gainas for he was already in the head of an army But all was in vain for Chrysostome would not be moved But whether this was in the case rather too much rigour then true vigour in Chrysostome according to prudential maximes and pious too I leave others to judge I am sure other good Churchmen and even great Bishops have also in our own age and some former too consented to the giving awaye from Catholicks to Protestants and to the use of Protestant Ministers and their divine services not one Church only but some hundreds if not thousands of Churches in Germany France Flanders c. and this also for ever and even by publick articles of pacification And I am sure also if this were not lawfull and I mean in point of conscience or of Gods law I see not how Caholicks living under the dominion of Protestant Princes or States now at present in Europe may with any colourable argument of reason urge the restoring or bestowing on themselves some or any of the Churches which are at present and have been so long in the possession and made use of by protestant Ministers and Bishops For these Princes States Ministers Bishops and their protestant people must at least for the generality of them be supposed to hold the Roman Religion and rites to be prophanations of those Churches as Chrysostome held of the Arrian Religion and Rites so that until they be convinced that the present Roman Religion and rites are the true ancient and true rites of the true Christian Apostolick Church or that their own Religion or Rites are false no man will be able to perswade that is to convince them by reason it may be safe in point of conscience for them to permit freely in their own dominions where they can otherwise avoid it the use of any Churches to Roman Catholicks if I say Chrysostome justly and prudently speaking not according only to his opinion but according to the verity of things in themselves denied his own consent to the Emperour Arcadius for giving that one Church in Constantinople to the Arrians at that time or in that conjuncture and denied it justly and prudently I mean still upon that only account of being against conscience or against the law of God Other politick and wise considerations he might have had indeed as I beleeve he had and as I beleeve also whether he had or not he advised that herein which he thought most pious but such concern us not here As no more doth this whole Instance it self nor any part of it but only to argue ad hominem out of Baronius himself against himself and to shew that if Chrysostome be praise worthy for choosing rather to let the whole Empire nay the whole Catholick Church too run the risco of being over-run by an Arrian rebel Tyrant then consent to or permit the delivering up to the Arrians for their divine service one material Church or Temple or House only however consecrated yet composed of lime and stone or brick inanimate things Constantine is not excusable by him and by his pretence here if he transgressed Ecclesiastical Immunity in usurping on and profaning the sacred persons of Bishops who are the principal parts of the very living Church albeit a portion of the Empire were in hazard if he had not done so To pass by therefore this excuse of Baronius or to say no more of it Constantine is far better defended by saying what the truth is and was that he wanted no excuse at all being he did nothing in this whole procedure or any other of judging Churchmen in criminal causes and such dangerous variance but what became and was the duty of a pious Prince who carries the sword and ministers vindicative justice For by actual and effectual Instances to appease the tumults of the very Sacerdotal Order and to assume the protection of the Faith peace and tranquillity of the Church and to force also when necessary the Churchmen themselves to live in peace among themselves and with others is part of this princely royal and imperial duty I say nothing here of Iohn the Meletian Bishop or of those many other Egyptian Bishops commanded and actually sent by Constantine to exile of whom Baronius tom 3. an 336. n. 16 17. But forasmuch as Baronius sayes ibid n.
sayes Theodorecus l. 2. c. 9. 10. maximè omnium caepit clamare orare Imperatorem ut de iniquo indignoque ejus facinore non Episcoporum Concilio sed pro tribunali judicium quaeratur seque pollicetus primum Episcoporum Clericos qui facinoris conscij erant supplicioÌ„ coercendos traditurum Stephani quoque ministros ait eodem medo puniendos esse At cum Stephanus petulanti ore illis contradiceret affirmaretque plagas non infligendas esse Clericis placuit Imperatori Magistratibus ut quaestio de facto in Regia haberetur Ad hunc modum ergo intellecta Stephani improbitate primum Episcopis qui tum aderant mandatum dant Judices ut hominem abdicent Episcopatu deinde illi ipsi eum Ecclesia penitus expellant Where you are to observe that not onely not the judgment of the fact of Murder but not even the judgment of this question of right whether the said Patriarch or Bishop Stephen of Antioch should be deposed or no is remitted to the Ecclesiastical court or to the Church or Council of Bishops but peremptory command sent by the lay Judges to the Bishops to depose him actually and by their spiritual judgment whom they the same lay Judges had already and by a civil judgment sentenced to be so deposed albeit these lay judges reserved to themselves still or to the civil power the real execution of both sentences that is the actual and corporal expulsion of Stephen from Antioch Nor is it material to object here that Constantius was an Arrian for the Arrian Bishops stood as much for the immunities of the Church and Churchmen and so did the Arrian Princes advised by them as any Catholick Bishops or Princes did when the crime objected was not diversity in religion And this crime of Stephanus was a meer lay crime and consequently a crime that by the very laws of even Constantine the great himself nay and of all other Catholick Princes after him and after Constantius his Arrian Son for many hundreds of years and even too by the very express laws of Justinian himself so long after Constantine and Constantins was even when committed by any Ecclesiastick whosoever to be tryed and judged by the civil Judg that is by the Praetor of the Province But however this matter be of Constantius whether he was then a down right Arrian or not albeit this be not material as I have now proved I am sure his brother Emperour Constans who ruled in the west was ever a zealous Consubstantialist and orthodox in all preciseness And yet our often mentioned Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople being deposed from their Sees by other Bishops and having their refuge to him that is to this Emperour Constance in the West he at their instance and earnest petition and even in a cause meerly Ecclesiastical but for the relief of innocency oppress'd wrongfully sends letters to his said brother Constantius wherein as Socrates writes l. 2. c. 12. and Sozom. l. 3. c. 9. he signifies his pleasure that three Bishops be sent from the East to give him an account of the causes why Athanasius and Paulus had been deposed nay and threatens otherwise or if the said Athanasius and Paulus upon account given were found to have been unjustly deposed and should not be restored again to make warr on Constantius Which to avoid Constantius sent him Narcissus the Cilician Theodorus the Thracian Maris the Chalcedonian and Marcus the Syrian four Bishops as after also when Constans was not satisfied with the causes which these four Bishops alleadged he actually restored Paulus and Athanasius though for a time onely for he again banished them In which procedure of Constance I believe our very Antagonists will not have the confidence to say there was any vsurpation being that such religious orthodox Bishops as this Paul and Athanasius and so rigidly observant as they of Ecclesiastical Discipline were his Authors and Petitioners to reassume the judgment of themselves albeit in a cause purely Ecclesiastical or which onely or at least chiefly concern'd a spiritual sentence of deposition of two Bishops from their Episcopal Sees pronounced against them by a Council of other Bishops But whether our said Antagonists will or no pretend therein any vsurpation I am sure the matter of fact is true as I am sure also that even natural reason it self will force them to confess there was a supream right in Constans to relieve by all due means oppressed innocy and that there was no other way so ready just and equitable as this which he took Valentinianus a Catholick Emperour also shall make up the fourth of those Instances of Princes to our purpose For he condemned by his own Imperial sentence Bishop Chronopius to the silver mines for having appealed from an Ecclesiastical sentence of 70 other Bishops L. 2. Quorum Appel C. Theodâ—s and forced him accordingly to suffer it by going to and labouring in the said mines The very same Valentinian punished by diverse banishments the Bishops Vrsicinus Gaudentius Vrsus Ruffus and several other Bishops too because their Schysmes troubled the publick peace and tranquillity Iure mansuetudinis nostrae sensibus sayes he vel divinitus damnarum est vel tranquillitate naturae ne cum delinquentium facinore legum severitate certemus ac speâ—emendationis futurae mitiorem esse vellemus correctionis injuriam quam provocat meritum nostrum Ampeli Pater charissime Augustorum Dudum Vrsicini inquietudine provocati faventes concordiae populi Christiani quâ—eti etiam Vrbis sacratissimae providentes uno interim loco intra Gallias dumtaxat perturbatorem tranquillitatis publicae statueramus jure cohiberi scilicet ne applicatione morum latae dissensionis incommodum spargeretur Verum naturae nostrae mansuâ—tudine levigati ita memorato abscedendi copiam dedimus ne ad Vrbem Romam vel certè suburbicarias regiones pedem inferat neque nequitiae suae cogitationem canetur infundere Idetiam de caeteris ervoris consortibus Gaudentio videlicet Vrso Ruffo Auxanone Auxanio Adiedo Ruffino sancimus c. Apud Baronium tom 4. an 371. n. 1. Therefore also by this instance and by this law too of Valentinian as it ought to be the chief care of Princes as incumbent on them by their publick office and duty and by the very nature of Principality or Government that the publick peace and tranquillity be preserved entire in and amongst their Citties Cittizens and other people subject to them so it must be consequently their charge to coerce the very Ecclesiasticks themselves if they disturb that peace or tranquillity Gratianus the Emperour likewise in all points Orthodox as the dareling of S. Ambrose however onely a Catechumen banish'd on the same account the Bishops Instantius Salvianus and Priscillianus and banish'd them not onely out of their episcopal Sees or Citties wherein and whereof they were Bishops but out of all countries subject to him Though after being ill advised he
Canterbury as relating to our present purpose and put all that into this special form of argument Syllogisme and objection against my own grand Thesis Whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's cause quarrel or contest with Henry the second must be false But my grand Theirs of a power in secular supream Princes to coerce all criminal Clergiemen whatsoever living within their dominions is such or is a doctrine which condemns or opposes that very cause quarrel or contest of St. Thomas of Canterbury Ergo my grand Thests must be false The Minor will be proved thus and must be proved thus or not at all Such doctrine must necessarily suppose an errour both in the solemn canonization of him at least for a martyr properly such and yet he was solemnly canonized for a martyr properly such by Alexander the Third Pope of that name his own contemporary and must further necessarily suppose an errour too that both in the belief and practise of the universal Church of Christ forasmuch as they believe him to be a martyr properly such and both venerat and invocate him as such For that such doctrine as condems or opposes the justice of his quarrel against Henry the Second must also necessarily suppose such an errour in his canonization veneration and invocation as a martyr properly such appears hence manifestly that it is therefore he was canonized for such and is venerated and invocated as such because that quarrel of his was and is believed to have been just and that it was for maintaining the justice of it he suffered death and suffered death patiently and Christianly as became a true martyr without any resistance at all Now it is plain that such doctrine as must necessarily suppose such an errour in such canonization veneration and invocation of any must be false nay erroneous and schismatical nay and heretical too in Christian belief because it must consequently suppose that not onely the Pope nay not onely this or that particular orthodox nation but even the universality of all true Christian nations even the Catholick Church her self taken in her whole latitude not onely may sometime erre in matters which they she accounts to be part of her holy belief holy practise but hath already and continually err'd and almost for five hundred years compleat that is since the year of our Lord 1173. wherein Alexander Tertius canonized him solemnly for a martyr and she no less solemnly invocated him as such Then which consequent supposition what Roman Catholick can say that any may be more even fundamentally heretical For it must be granted as an article nay and also at least among Divines as a fundamental article of Christian Catholick religion that the true Christian Catholick Church is infallible in credendis agendis both in her belief and in her practise I mean such as she her self accounts divine or holy or certainly it must be granted that we have nothing at all infallible in her or in our religion delivered by her but what may without any special revelation from God or any either particular or universal tradition from her be demonstrated by pure natural reason and consequently that our belief of even the very whole mistery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of that other no less above our natural reason of the Trinity of persons in one God which are purely credenda as likewise those of Baptisme and the Lords Supper quatenus inter agenda as they are practised are fallible and unreasonable practises being we have nothing to render us absolutely certain of the contrary if the universal Church be fallible in her belief and practise But for the Minor as I confess that I see no other proof possible but by instancing the particulars of the difference 'twixt King Henry the Second and this holy Praelat so I confess also that if in any of those particulars or in altogether my grand Thesis or any part of my doctrine hetherto in pursuance of that my Thesis may be found and that it be clear also that St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death therefore and was therefore canonized a martyr by the Pope and as such was therefore venerated and invocated ever since or at any time by the Catholick Church then I must consequently grant the objection to be very well or at least very probably grounded as no man can deny it to be syllogistically formed or deny the conclusion to follow of necessity if both the Premisses be certainly true And for the first of them we have already seen it pretty well driven home at least by a very specious discourse and one concluding such an inconvenience as no Roman Catholick will dare allow I mean the infallibility of the whole Catholick Church either in religious belief or practise whatever in the mean time be held or thought of the Pope alone or of his particular Roman Diocess as taken a part from the rest or of any one or moe even National Churches whatsoever of Catholick communion so they amount not to that which we call and is truly the Catholick or universal Church or the general congregation of all particular or National Churches or of the more considerable parts of them or the General Representative of such more considerable parts of them which are now in Ecclesiastical communion with the Roman Bishop his particular Diocess of Rome For this general Congregation of all such particular Churches or of all the more considerable parts of them and this general Representative also whenever it is of all such more considerable parts is it I call now here and elsewhere still understand to be the Catholick Church Whereof I desire my good Readers to take special notice not that I see any special need of it to solve this objection but that I may no where seem either to equivocat or to be unwilling to be understood when there is occasion to distinguish between the sense of the Pope and that of the Church or between the authority of a particular Church or some one of ro moe peradventure and that which is properly of the universal Church Therefore now not onely to shew what may be said or not said and that even out of the very Ecclesiastical History or Annals of Baronius himself of the particulars of the said difference or quarrel and for the proof of the said Minor being it is onely from History all that can be said for the proof of it must be had and that Baronius can not be presumed to relate such matter of fact with any kind of partiality or favour to me or my Thesis or my doctrine against his own pretended Immunity of all Clergiemen or be presumed to omit any material thing which might any way advance his own pretence of such Immunity upon the contradictory question confirmed by the sense by the life and death of so great a Saint and even sealed by the bloud of so glorious a martyr
Philippus de Eleemosyna missus a latere Alexandri summi Pontificis Cardinalium omnium ad pacem faciendam inter Regem Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem per quem summus Pontifex omnes Cardinales mandaverunt Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo ut ipse pacem cum Domino suo Rege Angliae faceret leges suas sine aliqua exceptione custodiendas promitteret Nor are we much to wonder that either Popes of Rome or Bishops of England for peace's sake and upon new occasions should after the days of St. Thomas of Canterbury either connive at or concurr to or at least not oppose the legal repealing of the former municipal laws of England and of their own Ecclesiastical canons too if any had been in that point of jurisdiction or exemption of criminal Clerks from or subjection of them to even the ordinary secular judicatories at least in some cases and criminal cases too being they had and had in the very case of such enormous crimes of Clerks as murder theft malefice a precedent so auncient and of such great authority in the Catholick Church as that I have given in my LXIX Section out of the first Council of Matisconum held in the year 532. where the auncient Fathers and Bishops who composed that Council do in express tearms and in their 7. canon leave such Clerks or rather suppose them still left to secular justice as were guilty or accused of murder theft or malefice For that 7. canon is in these words Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi suia seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex absque criminali cuasa id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Besides that they had the precedent of all the Bishops of the world both in the Eastern and Western Church under the Roman Empire who all for so many hundred years of Christian Religion established by law submitted to the civil laws of the Roman and Christian Emperours by which laws until Frederick the Seconds laws Clerks were subjected in all criminal causes to the very inferiour lay judges As for the case of treason against the person of the Prince or rebellion against the State or Commonwealth it was never in any Country not even England nor at any time as much as thought on to be exempted from lay cognizance or punishment at least when the King pleased to proceed by extraordinary commission And yet also I confess that such repealing Statuts Customs or both whatever they were under Edward the Second or any former or later King from Henry the Second to Edward the Third made so a municipal law of England suffered again some chang or some amendment in favour of the Clergie in the year 1344. under King Edward the Third in a Parliament held by him at Westminster For so Matthew Parker tels us expresly in his Antiquitates Britannicae pag. 236. in his life of Ioannes Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury Rex Gallum sayes he feroci Marte expilans postquam biennio bellum gessisset exercitu in castris relicto in Angliam reversus est Westmonasterii Parlamentum tenuit In eo Clerus ei concessit decimas triennales Rex Clero vicissim concessit quod nullus Archiepiscopus vel Episcopus coram Iusticiariis Regis judicium subeat nisi Rex hoc nominatim specialiter praeceperit Tum quod nullus Clericus coram Iusticiariis Regis judicium sustineat sive ad ipsius Regis sive alicujus partis instantiam si se submittat Clericatui dicat se membrum Ecclesiae sanctae nec debere ipsis Iustitiariis respondere Quod si quis Clericus de bigamia accusetur de eo non fore permissum Iustitiariis inquirere sed mittatur curiae Christianae Which same Author Matthew Parker tels us further thus pag. 244. in the life of Simer Istippe Archbishop of Canterbury that the same Archbishop Islippe obtained further from the same King Edward the Third and in an other Parliament held by him at Westminster in the five and twentieth year of his Raign and of Christ an 1351. a more ample redress of the grievances of the Clergie from the oppressions of the lay Judges and other the Kings Ministers Archiepiscopus deinde a Rege proceribus in Parliamento obtinuit ut legum ac libertatis Ecclesiasticae oppressiones quibus Clericorum status diu afflictus fuit statuta tollerentur Quo impetrato cum Clerici permulti privilegio Clericali abutentes quam plurima flagitia perpetrarent Rege proceribus id flagitantibus ab Archiepiscopo suisque Suffraganeis statutum est ut Clerici de capitalibus criminibus testibus probationibus suave confessione convicti Episcopalibus perpetuò carceribus mancipati ad pristinum locum aut ordinem numquam restituantur ne ordini Clericali scandalum generetur sed perpetuam agentes paenitentiam quarta sexta feriis in sabbathis pane doloris aqua angustiae semel in die caeteris diebus pane tenuissima cerevisia dominico autem die pane cerevisia legumine tantummodò nutriantur And further yet the same Author Matthew Parker pag. 279. in the life of Henricus Chicheley Archbishop of Canterbury tels us how the Clergie holding a Synod under the said Chicheley in Edward the Fift's Raign an Dom. 1420 and having granted that King a Tenth Clerus a Rege vicissim impetravit Ne hospitii sui pro victualibus provisores Clericorum bona aut possessiones attingerent Deinde ut Clerici in foro Regio capitalium crimmum postulati datis fidejusseribus judicio sisti carceribus liberentur Tertio ut Presbiteri castrati felonum id est homicidarum paenis afficerentur And finally the same Author and Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker tels pag. 298. in the life of Ioannes Mortâ—n Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry the Seventh an Dom. 1487 how upon occasion of a Rebellion in England against the said Henry the Seventh and of the abuse of Sanctuaries of the priviledg of Sanctuaries especially of that of Colchester by some of the Rebels who for a time sheltering their lives in them yet when they found a fit opportunity started out often to do mischief then return'd again how I say upon this occasion the former priviledg of the very Sanctuaries was lessened by law before which law a Bull also was procured from Pope Innocent who then sate declaring that such criminals should be by the lay power extracted out of Sanctuary Lataque ex illa Papali Bulla lex est sayes Parker ut asylis inscripti si homicidia furta incendia sacrilegia depopulationes agrâ—rum Regni aut Regis proditiones postea commiserint inde ejecti vi laica ducantur ad supplicium All which several changes of or concerning the Immunities of Churchmen and Churches in England
by whom or wherein Thomas of Canterbury after some ages and upon a review of his life or actions and knowledge of his nefarious turbulencies and tragedies and of his intollerable arrogancy in raising himself above the royal power laws and dignity as he sayes was so condemn'd It seems he was either ashamed to name the person or raign of Henry the eight in such a matter and in opposition to such a Saint or verely he would impose on his unskilfull Reader and make him think it might peradventure have been so by a King and so in a time that was not reputed Schismatical by the Romanist's themselves and thereby would wholly undermine the credit of a Saint who certainly could be no true Saint if Parker was either a true Bishop in the truth and unity of the Catholick Church or true Christian in the truth and integrity of the Catholick Religion And I give it moreover to take notice of his wilful imposture where he sayes that that nameless King found out what kind of man Thomas was what evilt he had raised c. and sayes also that that nameless King found out all this in a great Conneil of all the Prelats and Peers of the Kingdom meaning so to impose on his Reader as a truth without as much as the authority of any writer for he quotes none in this nor could but against all truth that the Bishops of England in that Kings time concurr'd with him in his judgment or condemnation of Thomas of Canterbury for a traytor viz. against the Kings person or people of England or their laws or all three For certainly he could not be on any rational ground declared traytor or even to have been such at any time in his life not to speak now of the instance of his death or of any time after his reconciliation to Henry the Second but upon one of these three grounds or as having acted either against the Kings own person or royal rights or against the liberties of the people or against the sanctions of the municipal laws of England And O God of truth who is that is versed in the Chronicles of England can imagine any truth in this sly insinuation of Parker concerning that of the Bishops to have concurr'd with Henry the Eight in the condemnation or prophanation and sacriledge committed against St. Thomas of Canterbury so many hundred years after his holy life and death and so many hundred years after he had possessed not England alone but all the Christian world with the certain perswasion of his sanctity attested so even after his death by such stupendious miracles at his tomb and wrought there at or upon his invocation and by such stupendious and known miracles I say that Parker himself hath not the confidence as much as to mutter one word against the truth and certainty of their having been or having been such Nay who is it can upon a a sober reflection perswade himself that either Henry the Eight himself or any other whatever and how even soever atheistical Councellor of his could pretend any as much as probable ground in natural reason laying aside now all principles of Religion to declare this Thomas of Canterbury so long after his death to have dyed a traytor nay I say more or to have lived so or to have been so at any time in his life T is true that in all branches and each branch of the five membred complex of those first original and lesser differences which preceded that great one of the sixteen customs he for some part did not comply with the Kings expectation and for other parts positively refused to obey the Kings pleasure or even command But so might any other Subject and might I say without being therefore guilty of treason nay without being guilty of any other breach of law or conscience had he the law of the land and liberty of a Subject of his side as Thomas of Canterbury had in each of these five original differences And that he had so the law of the land for him even in that very point of them which Henry the Second took most to heart that I mean of the two criminal Clergymen besides all what I have given before at large of those very laws to prove it this also is an argument convincing enough that Henry the Second was not where he had the law of his side a man to be baffled by any Subject whatsoever nor would be so ceremonious as to call so many Councils or Parliaments of Bishops and other Estates to begg that which by law he had already in his power without their consent And therefore certainly had the law of the land been at that time for him that is for the ordinary coercion of criminal Clerks in his lay Courts and in what case soever or even in case of felony or murder committed by Clerks he had without any further ceremony at least after he saw the Archbishop refuse to comply with his desire or obey his command and after he saw also the Priest was in the very Ecclesiastical Court convict of murder sent his own Officials to force him away to and before the lay Judges and sent his Guards too or Souldiers were this necessary Neither of which he as much as attempted to do And therefore had we no other argument who sees not that it is clear enough out of this very procedure that the Archbishop committed no treason in this very matter wherein of any of also the branches of that whole five membred complex he most positively and plainly opposed that King though by such a kind of opposition as might become a Subject that is by an opposition of dissent without any interposition of arms or force 2. T is true also that after this Thomas of Canterbury opposed mightily but with such a kind opposition as I have now said all those sixteen heads of Henry the Second pretended by him to have been the Royal Costoms of his Grandfather and that after giving a forced consent and taking a forc'd oath to maintain them he retracted again freely and conscientiously his said consent and oath and refused to give his hand or seal for introducing or establishing them But I am sure there was no treason in this not only because he saw or apprehended they were against the former laws and for an evil end too press'd by that King so violently but also because he saw or apprehended that the very pretence was false that is that some of them had never been customes Is it not lawful without treason nay or other breach of law for any Peer and so great a Peer as the Archbishop of Canterbury to deny his own assent in Parliament or even to revoke and for as much as belongs to himself his own former assent at least when otherwise his conscience is wounded and when he proceeds no further by force of arms and that the laws is yet only in deliberation to be establish'd but not
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
or Estate to renounce in this Controversie a Doctrine or Position which they very well know to have been asserted in all Ages by Thousands and by Millions even of the most Learned most Religious and most Holy of Catholicks as the soundest and safest if not as wholly and absolutely and in all respects certainly Catholick according to the faith of Christ and to have been asserted by them for such not in their speculative Ratiocinations only but in all the practick observations of their life and yet by them for such asserted so that whensoever or as often soever as this Controversie was renewed and even at that very time it viewed first the light under Gregory the VII they devoted the contrary both doctrine and practice to all the Furies of Hell Such proceedings I say cannot be reputed just or pious in the most holy Father especially when it is apparent the Irish in relation to whom the present debate is cannot change their Opinion cannot retract their Subscription without hazard of losing all their temporal Goods and Fortunes or hopes of any whatever may in the mean time be said probably on either side for the loss or safety of those are purely spiritual But such proceedings or attempts to have their source from others without either consent or knowledge of his Holiness and to be continued certainly with the scandal of the Church and hatred of the Pope and hurt of Souls and singular decrease of Religion and yet carried on by most filthy Forgeries and Impostures must seem absolutely both unjust and wicked And your Lordship may be further pleased to write what change you desire in the words or send some other Form of your own but such as you shall rationally think may satisfie the KING and His great Counsellors and may withall be allowed by his Holiness Lastly you may be also pleased to specifie those other means if any such be which appear to your Lordship whereby the Catholick Subjects chiefly such as are of the Clergy may daily more and more ingratiate themselves with our most Gracious KING For truly and in relation to my self I protest here anew and under my hands-writing what I have before in your own presence and to your self by word of mouth at London and I protest it too in the sight of the All seeing God That I have not hitherto aimed in this whole Affair do not at present nor shall at any time hereafter God willing aim at other thing but the encrease of Christian Faith and Roman Catholick Religion the freedom of my Countreymen from the yoke of most severe Laws against it and the peace of the Kingdoms and other Dominions in general of Great Britain's Monarchy And to the end this my ingenuous Protestation may be the more believed I shall be most ready to give and make and as well by writing as by word a full entire profession of my Faith if at any time you demand it even that very profession which Pius the IV. hath ordered in prosecution of a Decree of the Council of Trent Some other passages I was minded to give in this Letter by reason of some things which more particularly concern Father Caron and Father Walsh alone and which have been said or rather indeed upbraided by your Lordship to Father Gearnon But least such an addition should be too much for one Letter or one sheet too scanty for all I have already and what I must further give in that other Subject I thought better to leave it to a distinct Paper which is the enclosed And will only add here That I willingly understood from the said Father Gearnon how your Lordship challenges me of my promise when your Lordship was here to write to you to Bruxels and that you took in ill part I never since performed but more especially that I did not at least write by him For I am glad to know your Lordship desires that which I my self so heartily i. e. an Epistolar Correspondence And without any question I was my self most firmly resolved before I knew any thing of that your challenge to send unto the said Father Gearnon Letters for your Lordship if he had stayed as I thought he would but one week longer at Bruxels However if your Lordship please I shall hereafter abundantly compensate by my diligence that fault of delaying so long my duty And so kissing your hands with all becoming respects and affection I remit your Lordship to this other annexed writing and beseech God to direct and keep you in health London Ides of Febr. 1665. stilo novo My LORD Your most Illustrious Lordships Most humble and obsequious Servant Peter Walsh The additional Paper mention'd as you see in the end of this Letter because it is long as being a necessary Expostulation with the same Internuncio for his passionate and rude and both injurious also and ignorant expressions to Mr. Gearnon at his being at Bruxels against both him and his friends Walsh and Caron I remit to the following Section which is wholly taken up by it And must only here advertise the Reader That as he will find by the date this additional Paper was not sent together with the first Letter but some dayes after it LXXXVIII HOwever that very same Paper or second Letter of the Procurator to the Internuncio de Vecchiis Translated out of the Latin is and most exactly too as followeth My Lord SInce your Lordship was pleased in Discourse with F. Gearnon to call Caron and Walsh Schismaticks and Apostates and when he expostulated the matter to assign no other Reason for those most ignominious Titles but that they had been disobedient to the command of their Superiours namely as far as may be guessed the Commissary General of the Flemish Nation who had admonish't and cited them to Rome or Bruxels I thought good to repress the malice and ignorance of your Informers together with the wonderful liberty they take to calumniate by declaring the Truth briefly in the following Lines and more at large in the bundle of Papers annexed which contains both Copies of that Citation whatsoever it was and to whomsoever directed and of the Answers of Walsh and Caron as well for themselves as for the rest who by any conjecture could be conceived concerned in it Be it therefore known to your Lordship That neither Walsh nor Caron did ever receive any Command Citation or Monition either by writing or word so much as by fame or any relation of any other from any Superiour other than one in a Letter from Father James de Riddere Commissary as abovesaid of the Flemmish Nation whom they undoubtedly acknowledge and receive as their lawful Superiour to Father Caron at London now about some Two years since and certain others in general none of those others being named nor any fact expressed by which or one of which it might certainly be determined who besides Caron were admonished or cited for in those Letters onely the said Father Caron
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
Ressort pour a la diligence de ses Substituts y estre pareillement leues publiees signifiees aux Professeurs de Theologie dudit Ressort a ce qu'aucun n'en pretende cause d'ignorance Faict en Parlement a Rennes le 21. Aoust 1663. We shall hereafter see those six above inserted Sorbon Declarations whether French or Latin as you have them here in both Languages out of the French Copy translated into English by the Fathers of our National Irish Assembly But for as much as it may peradventure be objected by some of the more unreasonably exceptious and contentious Irish That I ought rather to give here an exact Copy of the very and only Paris Impression it self in Latin of those Acts of that University than of any of them elsewhere in France Printed I thought fit to obstruct also herein such endless wranglers and give that which was transmitted in the said year 1663. immediatly from Paris to London Acta Parisiensia Declaratio Facultatis Theologicae Parisiensis per illius Deputatos Regi exhibita circa theses de Infallibilitate Papae OCtavo Maii die Ascensionis D. N. Jesu Christi convenerunt domini deputati de Mince Morel Betille de Breda Grandin Guyard Guischard Gabillon Coguelin Montgailard in domum Facultatis juxta decretum pridie in Congregatione Generali factum ut convenirent de iis quae Regi Christianissimo declaranda erant ex parte Facultatis per os Illustrissimi ac Reverendissimi D. Archiepiscopi Parisiensis designati cum Amplissimo Comitatu Magistrorum ejusdem Declarationes Facultatis Parisiensis factae apud Regem super quibusdam propositionibus quas non nulli voluerunt ascribere eidem Facultati I. NOn esse doctrinam Facultatis quod summus pontifex aliquam in temporalia Regis Christianissimi Authoritatem habet imo Facultatem semper obstitisse etiam iis qui indirectam tantummodo esse illam Authoritatem voluerunt II. Esse doctrinam Facultatis ejusdem quod Rex nullum omnino agnoscit nec habet in temporalibus superiorem praeter Deum eamque suam esse antiquam Doctrinam a qua nunquam recessura est III. Doctrinam Facultatis esse quod subditi fidem obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debent ut ab iis nullo pretextu dispensari possint IV. Doctrinam Facultatis esse non probare nec unquam probasse propositiones allas Regis Christianissimi Authoritati aut Germanis Ecclesiae Gallicanae libertatibus receptis in Regno Canonibus contrarias v. g. quod Summus Pontifex possit deponere Episcopos adversus eosdem Canones V. Doctrinam Facultatis non esse quod summus Pontifex sit supra Concilium Oecumenicum VI. Non esse doctrinam vel dogma Facultatis quod summus Pontifex nullo accedente Ecclesiae consensu sit infallibilis Ita de verbo ad verbum Acta Parisiis Impressa Regi exhibita Mense May 1663. For so word by word is the Printed Copy of the very Latin Paris Impression of these Acts and Six Declarations presented to His Most Christian Majesty in the month of May 1663. XIII THE Reader may now questionless expect an account from me of some either learned or at least prudential debate amongst the Fathers in so grave an Assembly upon so solemn a Message as you have before seen to them on such a Subject from the Duke of Ormond His Majesties Lord Lieutenant then of that Kingdom But I am sorry I can give none at all either of the one or other sort nay nor of any either learned or unlearned or prudential or imprudential because of no kind of debate on that Message For indeed they took no more notice of it than if none at all had been sent them the leading men the Prelats and their numerous and sure sticklers over-awing and silenceing presently any that seemed inclining to move for paying as much as any even due or civil respect in such matters to the Lord Lievtenant or as much as to dispute the equity of what their Cabal had privately before the Congregation sate resolved upon viz. not to comply with His Grace in any material point but to sign and present a new unsignificant Formulary of their own i. e. That prepared to their hands and utterly decline That which His Grace expected from them yea not to suffer any mention at all to be as much as once made in publick of the former Remonstrance So powerfully influential on them was their Prophetical opinion of wonders to be expected by and for themselves done in that wonderful year of 1666. Nor did they seem at all to consider they might be as well defeated of all such their vain worldly carnal hopes of Empire Glory Pomp which they drove at as the Apostles were when before receiving the Holy Ghost in fulness on the 5th day they put this vain question Domine si in tempore hoc restitues Regnum Israel But to leave animadvertions so it was indeed That the Fathers did not once debate not only not the heads of the Procurators Speech but not a word of the very Message from his Grace Albeit they considered how to gratifie the Procurator himself for what was past i. e. for the liberty they had now enjoyed for so many years since 1662. through his endeavours and oblige him also for the future to continue the like endeavours for them as their Procurator And indeed I had scarce been an hour abroad hard by them walking in a Garden to take the fresh air after my long speech which together with the heat of the room made me retire a little when Father Francis Fitz Gerrald a Franciscan one of the Members of that Congregation as Procurator for the Vicar General of the Diocess of Cluan a vacant See in the Province of Casâ—el came with pleasing news to flatter me as he thought telling me the Congregation had voted two thousand pounds sterling to be Levied of all the Clergy of the Kingdom by several gales to be payed me towards my expenses hereafter in carrying on as general Procurator the great affair of their liberty and freedom as till then I had the four last years Him at that time I only answered that was not the point to be either resolved or debated Soon after the Primat himself came forth to me where I continued alone walking And he also would with the same consideration have wrought me to a more plyant temper I answered him to this purpose My Lord you should have known me better then to think to amuse me with the news of any such prepostrous either motions or resolves There will be time enough to consider of such inferiour matters when you shall have first done your duty in order to the King to my Lord Lieutenant and Protestant State Council Parliament which are and ought to govern you under God in all temporal affairs nay your duty to your Native Country and Irish Nation your Church and Catholick Religion and when you shall consequently
only or at least chiefly for the confirmation of the only true Church the Roman and conviction of all Dissenters 6. That as he at London desired my Lord Aubigny the Queens great Almoner he would be pleased to make in his behalf to the Court this offer viz. That the Protestants should pitch upon such a number as they pleased of all sorts of sick persons the places and Parishes where such infirm persons lived then bring them to the most expert Physitians to have their judgments of the truth and certainty of their being without question truly sick and of the quality and inverateness of their several Diseases then carry the same diseased persons to the Protestant Clergy Ministers and Bishops to be cured by their Prayers and when these had failed of doing those any good to bring them to him publickly before as many or such as they pleased to be present and they should see that by the invocation of God and for confirmation or evidence of the Roman-Catholick Church to be the only true Church and Religion of Christ he would cure them all the same saith he which I offered at London to my Lord Aubigny and by him to the Court but was not accepted there from me I do now here again offer to you and by you to the Lord Lieutenant and Council When he had so confidently and positively answered I was much troubled at the three last Articles For I believed my Lord Clancarty told me truth And I had much cause to believe those who related his having been servant in his youth to Father Moor and from him learned the manner of Exorcizing Nor did I want the fresh memory of many other Arguments to perswade me that what ever he had done of good to any though few was by Exorcism only and only where somewhat of Possession obsession or Witchcraft intervened Besides that I could hardly doubt he did but little to any of so many as came to him sick of natural diseases only I begun therefore now inwardly in my own mind to scruple both his veracity and humility vertues I think to be expected in a worker of wonders by the pure invocation of Christ And both I scrupled the more that I observed him to blush when I objected his learning from and being a servant to Father Moor and his gifts to be confined to the only effects of bare Exorcism Then besides I considered how I had never read of any Saint in former days that put himself so freely and purposely in all places and occasions upon working of Miracles by Exorcism or otherwise much less of any that undertook so boldly at least where so little need was But again remembring that in Matt. 7.22 23. * * Multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo in nomine â—â—o damonia ejecimus in nomine tuo daemonia ejecimus in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus Et tunc confiteborillis Quia nunquam novi ves and withal considering the confidence of his offer I check'd my self However I desired him to consider well once more what he offer'd so and the consequence of his failure adding thus Father Finachty I am upon consideration of all I have from first to last heard of you inclined to think that in some occasions and to some few persons you have done some good that is that either your gift or their own Faith or at least their own strong imagination with some other natural helps hath been in some measure available to them when they came to you and you Exorcized or Crossed or Prayed over them or upon that occasion of your doing so but I am withal inclined to think you have failed the expectations of a thousand for one you have not Nay and moreover that the gift whatever it be is for Exorcizing only and not at all for curing natural Diseases I am sure Says he replying I have not failed one for a thousand I have cured and cured even of all sorts of pure Natural Diseases and what I offer I know and fear no tryal This reply made me fear the flattery or folly of some half sighted or half witted if not worse men had somewhat turn'd his brain for I dared not yet for all this entertain any determinat judgment or even scarce the least passing imagination of his being a willful Impostor Mr. Browns Relation besides the late reports and Letters from London and several other things told me for his advantage remaining still fix'd in my mind and making me rather shut my own eyes then see or freely entertain any such thought of him Which was the reason I would not any further at that time question what he had so positively averr'd himself But leaving that Subject prayed him nevertheless if not rather indeed the more to tell me when or how long since he first had found by real experience that God had bestowed these gracious gifts upon him was it then first in the Protector 's time when the reports came to us to London or was it before and what year After a little demurr he answered That long before that time when I further pressed to know was it in the time of the Confederat's and if said I so long ago it is strange I that lived constantly where the chief seat of the Confederate Assemblies and Councils and their Supream Power was even at Kilkenny whether all the Kingdom did resort did never hear one word of any such wonder-working man Notwithstanding says he it hath been so long since Pray said I hath it been as early as your being consecrated Priest Before I received any Orders at all greater or lesser Sacred or not answered he I am sorry for that said I and will give you my reason why For till now I was in good hopes your extraordinary gift in Exorcizing so effectually as you say you do might be in some measure attributed to or might be some Argument of the Authority and Power given to all Priests though given to them before they receive the Order of Priesthood or any of those called the Greater Orders even as soon as amongst the four former and lesser Orders they are ordained Exorcists But now I perceive you were a meer Lay-man and not so much as any sort of Clergy-man or Ecclesiastical person at all when first so gifted by God I was no other says he You will not be offended said I at one question more and then Iâ—le have done for this time What was I pray the very first particular whereby you assured your self experimentally then during your being a Lay-man That God had bestowed that extraordinary gift upon you Here again he demurred a little and then answered I had a brother of my own says he whose breeches the Devil stole away at night Whereupon I took a Book of Exorcisms and thence read a Prayer over him which was so effectual that the Devil restored his breeches And this was the first
late they have been to see how far you should venture on such Wonderful undertakings nay nor doubt or at least am not without hope of the return of your former Miraculous gifts if ever at any time indeed you had any such even in any sort of degree or measure As for the rest know there is nothing could happen in this World I would be more heartily glad to hear than the absolute certainty of true Miraculous or Supernatural Wonder-working gifts indeed either again returned or anew bestowed on you or in truth on any other person whatsoever in this Country where I might see with my own eyes the Miracles done This was my last discourse with and those or other to such purpose my very last words to Father Finachty which he answered by promising to do so as I desired viz. to go directly to his home in Connaught to hold no meetings in the way to attempt no further cures at all before he had first recollected himself c. And then remembring how he had though indirectly but the last night insinuated some want I gave him what money I had in my pocket i. e. about fourteen shillings which having taken he departed from me yet he had the confidence within two hours after even that very morning before he left the Town to send me a little Printed English Book in Twelves or Sixteens of his own Miracles lately done at London My Lords and Fathers this is the account which ever since that Book of Miracles given or rather sent by him to me I intended to give you all whensoever it pleased God I should have the honour of speaking to you Assembled together For I held my self bound in several respects to give it you And now that I have discharged my self of that obligation see you whether it be not fit by universal consent to obstruct all such future both attempts and pretences of Father Finachty and not only of him but of any other * * I know two more the one an Augustinian in the County of Catherlogh the other a Franciscan in the County of Wexford who were about 1664 c. by some weak people cryed up for some such wonder-working graces But I knew withall the Augustinian to have been a meer Knave and a Nonsensical Ass to boot The Franciscan was Father Anthony Stafford a Gentleman born and very devout man in his profession and therefore easily adored and cryed up even by some Gentlemen though I think himself never gave way to such reports if other such there be for Miraculous curing either any kind of meer natural disease or any sort of Possessed or Bewitched Person that so you may as much as lies in you vindicate your selves and your Church and Religion from the scandal reproach ignominy of such manifest arguments either of crazy heads or vile Impostors or both Thus having done with what I intended to say on the second of those three Heads before mentioned in the former Section pag. 706. and none having contradicted a word of what either I had so related of that weak man or advised concerning him but rather all condemning his follies and some also telling That notwithstanding his having been so convinced and confounded at Dublin yet he attempted afterwards to practise and did practise on some weak Creatures in Connaught especially Women or Maids whereof some as Demoniacks but reputed such by him he shut up in Portumna and by Discipline and Fasting made almost mad as likewise that for his further saying That all the Women of Ireland were possess'd i. e. by the Devil specially possess'd the Archbishop of Tuam within whose jurisdiction he was had forbid him all such Exorcisms and Exercise others relating that he came into and attempted to practise somewhere in Westmeath but was discountenanced there and in fine all the rest either by their words or silence appearing to be utterly dissatisfied with him and concurring to what I desired even a general opposition and prohibition of his feats everywhere thenceforth I pass'd on to the third and last of the foresaid three Heads And yet I must let my Reader know here 1. That notwithstanding so publick and general notice taken of him the same Father Finachty I have been told in the year 1649 before I left Ireland last he had got himself lately made Vicar-general by the Clergy of the vacant See of Elphin in the foresaid Province of Connaught though whether that report was true or no I cannot avert nor did I enquire 2. That no sooner had this Roman-Catholick Irish Priest Finachty been so discovered at Dublin but at Cork a Town also in Ireland starts up one .......... Gratrix an English Lay-Protestant to supply the formers place by making People believe he himself too had a Gift from God to Cure all Diseases by Praying and Stroaking and accordingly practises everywhere on many even also at London whither he came at last to Cheat the World as the former was thought to have done What became of this Gratrix I neither know nor care Only this I know That not long after his practises on Folks at London he went out like the Snuff of a Candle just as Finachty did XXII VVHat I discoursed on the third and last Head was not long because the two Books were extant and the Authors known and the designs and effects of them such as none of all the Fathers how otherwise willing soever at least some of them of that Congregation durst publickly in that place open his lips to justifie And therefore my relation of that discourse shall be answerable i. e. very short For as to the first of these Books I thought enough to let them know 1. The Title of it which is Disputatio Apologetica De Jure Regni Hiberniae pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus Haereticos Anglos 2. That it hath another small Treatise annexed as an Appendix which bears this Title Exhortatio ad Catholicos Hibernos 3. That both pieces are own'd by the same Author though under the Capital Letters only of C. M. as he owns himself to be an Irish man For in the Frontispiece or Title-page of the Disputation he sayes and only sayes Authore C. M. Hiberno Artium Sacrae Theologiae Magistro and after the second Title or that of his Appendix or Exhortation he adds again Authore C. M. Hiberno 4. That in the former Title-page 't is pretended to have been Printed at Francfort Francofurti Superiorum permissu typis Bernardi Gourani Anno Domini 1645 though we had reason to think 't was Printed in Portugal 5. That albeit the Author was unknown to me for so many years after I had seen the Book yet at last I came to know certainly and this from the there present Lord Bishop of Ardagh That he was an old Irish Jesuit living in Portugal by name Constantine or Cornelius in Irish Con or Cnochoor and by Sirname O Mahony a Munster and County Cork man of the Barony of
c. in this particular They do not say they do From performing their duty of true Obedience and Allegiance to their Prince But what Obedience and Allegiance they adjudge to be a duty and true they do not declare but leave that under the uncertainty of their own interpretation That any private Subject The King is not secured by this against either Pope or against any private Subject that may be employed to that horrid work by any pretended Authority for then he ceaseth to be a private Person The Anointed of God If the Pope Excommunicates him and deposes him will they accompt him still the Anointed of God or his Prince They have not yet told us so in this Remonstrance So that this specious Protestation of Duty falls very much shorter of the former Remonstrance and is so doubtfully exprest that it lookt rather like a fallacy to deceive the Prince than any clear asserted Loyalty to found thereon any confidence of their Obedience 3. That withall at the same time and by occasion of shewing me these Animadversions His Grace told me That being the Lords of the Council who saw that new Remonstrance and other Papers presented from the Congregation upon first sight so clearly discerned their Juggle it became me to give throughly and clearly all Exceptions at large which might or ought in reason be made against the same Remonstrance and Act of Recognition and moreover to give candidly the true import of the three first Sorbon Declarations as applied and sign'd by the Congregation or as proceeding from them as likewise to give a full and clear and satisfactory Answer to the said Congregation's third Paper or that containing their Reasons why they sign'd not the three last of those late six Sorbon Declarations 4. That in obedience to such His Graces Commands for I took such intimations for sufficient Commands from Him I put my self presently to write the three next following Treatises of this Book or the Second Third and Fourth thereof viz. answering so exactly the number of material Papers given by or presented as from the Congregation to His Grace Which Papers were only three for I look not on their Petitions as any way material 5. That besides the bare motive of obeying His Grace I had these other strong inducements to write on that Subject First I consider'd That by my being backward or if I did shew my self backward in such a matter occasion might be thence taken and peradventure justly too by the foresaid Lords of the Council and consequently by all others of their communion to suspect me also and together with me even all other Subscribers of the former Remonstrance how otherwise Loyal soever Next I remembred what my Lord Lieutenant was pleased some few dayes before to tell me of the Earl of Anglesey's new Sentiments i. e. better opinion of and more favourable inclinations to the Subscribers of the First Remonstrance than his Lordship had formerly had viz. How the said Earl having seen the originals of the late Letters come from the Court of Rome i. e. from Cardinal Francis Barberin and the then Internuncio of Burgundy and Low-countries James Rospigliosi now Cardinal Rospigliosi against the said former Remonstrance and Subscribers thereof had thereupon declared to His Grace the Lord Lieutenant 1. That himself was now at last by the said Letters fully convinced That that former Remonstrance and Controversie about it was no Juggle that Peter Walsh the chief promoter of it was no Cheat but rather on the contrary that indeed the Controversie was real and the Subscribers of that first Formulary as many of them as bore up constantly and unalterably against the Court of Rome in that point were in truth honest for so much And 2. therefore that he for his own part would be thenceforth for repealing the sanguinary and mulctative Laws in order to such constant Professors and unalterable performers of their due Allegiance to the King in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land Now when I remembred this of my Lord Anglesey I then also consider'd further nay persuaded my self That the more clearly and ingenuously I declared my self on that Subject of the Remonstrance according to my own inward Conscience but regulated still by the unerring Rule of Holy Scripture and Universal Tradition besides natural Reason in the case the more also I should at least of my part really and effectually serve the Roman-Catholicks both Clergy and People of Ireland whose true common good next unto the discharge of a good Conscience and the glory of God by the defence of Truth I alwayes proposed to my self as at least one of the chiefest ends in this World of all my labours For I doubted not but with the blessing of God what I was then to write and now have on that Subject would in time reduce many even of as well the most ignorant as most obstinate of them i. e. some to a right understanding of the principles of Christianity and Reason others to a better compliance with what in truth they understand already but through depravation of will and byas of private interest will not seem or confess they understand Nor doubted but I would confirm many more in that which they themselves already both understand and will according to their own coolest thoughts and more natural inclinations and yet after all were like to be as indeed they have lately been under strong temptations to renounce for ever both And however these matters depending on these or those Irish Clergymen themselves do or prove I must confess I never once question'd then nor do at present but that I should by my writings on that Subject not only continue but encrease those good inclinations which I had already then â—nderstood to be in the foresaid Earl of Anglesey and not in him only but in many other Moderate Noble and Illustrious persons of the Protestant Church for repealing the sanguinary and mulctative Laws in order to such persons of the Roman-Catholick Church as have already or shall hereafter capacitate themselves for so great a favour and I know they all every one may do so without quitting one article word or syllable of the Roman-Catholick Religion as professed in any other Countrey of that same Religion abroad in the world In fine I at least hoped very much to see in my own dayes even the very unexpected fruits of such good inclinations in those illustrious moderate persons that really commiserate the case not only of all such Roman-Catholick Priests of those Dominions as only for their declared Loyal principles and affections to the King are persecuted continually in their own Church and yet not protected by his Laws but likewise of so many Thousands of poor innocent well-principled and well-affected Laicks men and women who sometimes smart by and alwayes lie under the severity of the same Laws And yet after all I will not deny but I had some consideration also of defending
my self and other friends against all both Forreign Censures and Home Impostures I had in truth some regard of vindicating my self and all those persuaded by or associated with me either in signing or adhering to the foresaid Remonstrance and consequently too of vindicating even that Formulary it self from the no less malicious than both scandalous and false aspersion of unlawful detestable sacrilegious yea schismatical and heretical with which our Adversaries branded us And if I had not had that consideration in some degree of my self and Friends I had been as unsatisfied with my own heart as ever any of my Adversaries were with any of my Books For I think every honest man is bound in Conscience to defend himself and Friends especially his own and their good name wherein and as far as he justly may cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae And I am persuaded no man will be so rash or impudent as to reprove me for thinking so But withall I do protest in the presence of God it was not any such or other whatsoever private consideration or regard of my self or said Friends that was the chiefest or strongest motive I had to put Pen to Paper in any of the foresaid now hereafter following Treatises or in any other Treatise or Part or even addition of other Appendages to all the Treatises of this present Book but that more publick regard of the more common and universal good of the Irish Nation and Catholick Religion which I have signified before And so I perclose here at last this Second Part and consequently as to both Parts the whole First Treatise Which Treatise the necessary Theological Disputes against the four grounds of the Censure of Louain for an Hundred sheets together in the First Part have made so long albeit I confess the pure Historical Sections are even of themselves long enough But the next following Three Treatises will in some measure by their shortness compensate the former length For they are proportionably as short as may be and yet as long as their several Subjects require them to be having nothing Historical in them and but a strict and pure partly Theological and partly Rational Examination of the import and weight of those foremention'd three several Papers of the National Congregation and yet even that such an Examination too as in many or rather most material places doth suppose the reading of this First Treatise or of some things diffusely treated therein Which is the reason they needed not be longer than they are What I think will seem most wanting in them to the Readers ease must be That they have no Marginal nor any other sort of Remissions directing to the Sections or Pages of this First Treatise where some of the Publick Instruments or other matters related unto are given or handled at large But I could not help that being I was necessitated to write and print them before I had written a word of this And a diligent or curious Reader may quickly help himself at least by turning to the Table THE SECOND TREATISE CONTAINING Exceptions against the form or protestation of Allegiance subscribed and presented the 16. of June 1666. to His Grace the Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland by such of the Irish Clergie of of the Roman Communion as convened at Dublin the 11th of the said month and year and dissolved the 25th thereof FIrst they varied in this form not only as to single words but to entire clauses and their sense in the most material parts from the former protestation subscribed by those others of the said Clergie and of the Nobility and Gentry at London in 61. And varied so of set purpose as openly appeared upon the contradictory question and debate for fourteen dayes together in their publick Assembly that they might be free from all tyes of duty faith obedience and acknowledgment or recognition of His Majesties power over them or their own obligation to obey him in all cases and contingencies wherein Bellarmine Suarez Santarellus Mariana or any other such later or former Writers maintain the lawfulness of the deposition of Kings by the Popes or peoples authority and the lawfulness also of the Rebellion of the people against Princes deposed so or excommunicated and denounced by the Prelats of the Church And that they should not be convinced to have disclaimed any wise either clearly and expresly or equivalently and by consequence in the general pretence of a power in the Pope or Church by divine immediate right spiritual or temporal or mixt of both either direct or indirect to depose all kind of Princes at least such as they account as Hereticks in the Christian Religion and to absolve their Subjects or declare them absolved from all kind of Allegiance at least in the extraordinary or even ordinary cases of such as they likewise account or esteem Apostacie Heresie Schisme or other tyrannical or sinful administration or either true or pretended oppression of the people nor convinced also to have disclaimed even in those other meerly humane titles or rights which the Popes have so often pretended and still do and which many or most of that Irish Clergie as likewise the present faculty of Lovaine Divines in their late censure of the former Remonstrance procured by the Agency and sollicitation of some of the said Irish Clergie and by the vehement interposition of the late Internuntio at Bruxels the Italian Abbot of Mount-Royal Hieronimus De Vecchiis do peculiarly and stiffely maintain to the Realmes of England and Ireland to wit those of donation submission feudatary title and forfeiture Or which are the same those argued from the either true or pretended Bull of Adrian the fourth to Henry the second concerning the Kingdom of Ireland and those likewise argued from the famed resignation of the Crowns or Soveraignties of both Kingdoms by King John to Innocent the Third or to his Legat Pandulphus at Dover and from the payment of Peter-pence Secondly And to come to the particulars of this change or variation and and I mean it in the material parts only And not to take any notice though it is fit there should be some of the changing the Epithet or Adjective Rightful first Line of the said former Protestation of 61. into that of undoubted in this of 66. for one may be an undoubted Soveraign De facto though not De jure rightful but an Usurper Or may be in fact or possession undoubted Soveraign though another should be in deed and so acknowledged as to right the true King and Soveraign Nor yet to take any notice of altering those other three words under pain of sin second Line of the said former printed Remonstrance into those in Conscience albeit the doctrine and practice of equivocation so common to and so mightily insisted upon amongst them and yet further the positive exceptions of some of their party even at London some four years since against those very words and
which they make or intend to make there if any at all indeed they make or intend together with so many quibbles and fallacies yet this Remonstrance at least as from them does no way bind them after such declaration of the Pope to hold as much as to such however inconsiderable acknowledgements or promises Fourteenth Exception That further yet as from them and without relation to any such matter declared by the Pope it leaves them alwayes at liberty upon another account not to hold to their said however inconsiderable acknowledgments and promises Videlicet upon account of their maximes of extrinsick probability or of their perswasion of the lawfulness of changeing opinions and of practising too according to the contrary opinion of others and consequently of practising against all their acknowledgments ownings Declarations promises and oaths in this their own Remonstrance according to the doctrine of such Catholick Authors as maintain all oathes of Allegiance made to a Heretick Prince to be rendred absolutely void by the very Canons of the Roman Church in corpore Juris Canonici Fifteenth Exception That finally as from them it leaves them still at liberty to say they framed and subscribed it according to the very largest rules of equivocation and mental reservation and with as many and as fine abstractions exceptions constructions restrictions and distinctions too especially that of the specificative and reduplicative sense as any the most refined Authors and most conversant in such matters Canonists or Casuists or School-divines could furnish them with in time of need And these being the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. the Reader may judge of their reasonableness or unreasonableness as he please if he hath already or when he shall have read through not only the former part of this Second Treatise but both the first and second part of the first Treatise of this Book To which if he add the reading also of all the other four he may without any question judge the better of these Exceptions whether they be well grounded or not THE THIRD TREATISE CONTAINING The three propositions of Sorbon considered as they are by this Dublin Congregation applyed to His Majestie of Great Britain and themselves And what they signifie as to any further or clearer assurance of their fidelity to the King in the cases controverted HAving given in my Narrative the occasion upon which and the persons by whom after a long dispute these propositions with the other three of the six late of Sorbon were first offered to be assented to and signed in a distinct or different instrument or paper from that of their Remonstrance and how after those very persons hindered the signing of the other or last three and further in my exceptions to instances against and observations upon that Remonstrance of theirs upon their wording of and meaning by and in the several passages or clauses all along having noted their voluntary and contradictory omissions of what was necessary and what was both expected and demanded from them on the particular points and noted their abstractions reservations exceptions equivocations illusive expositions and yet no less if not more destructive constructions I need not say much here to shew the unsignificancy of the said three propositions I mean as to the publick end for which these Assembly subscribers would impose on others or flatter themselves they were subscribed by them For it will be obvious and easie to any understanding man that shall first read those fore-going small Tracts of mine to see evidently there can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational subscribers or from their subscriptions to the said three additional propositions than was besorâ— intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according or in that sense of theirs which I have so declared at large I confess that in the state primitive or in that of the innocency of Christians these alone peradventure might have been sufficient to that end Nay and at this very present are very significant as proceeding from and applyed by the Sorbon-faculty and Gallican Church to their own most Christian King and themselves To wit amongst a People and in a Country where no other doctrine is taught or believed or as much as scarce thought upon if not by a very few privâ—tly in corners but that which they have learned from the express Canons of their own ancient Councils and of that particularly of Paris well-nigh a thousand years since in pursuance of the Tradition of their yet more ancient Fathers all along to the Apostles of Christ and Christ himself That kingly power is immedietly from God alone as from the primary and only efficient cause and no way depending of the Church or People Where the practice was so frequent when occasion was offered to resist the usurpations and incroachments of Popes on the Jurisdiction Royal and to oppose and contemn their Sentences of Deposition Deprivation Excommunication and other attempts whatsoever of the See of Rome against their Kings Parliaments or People Where Pithou's most Catholick and voluminous Books of the natural and genuine liberties of the Gallican Church and so many other great Catholick Writers on that subject are extant and frequent and conversant with them daily Where finally that King in their opinion is both their own and really most Christian and themselves of the same Religion with him and by him all their interests both religious and civil spiritual and temporal in the greatest latitude and height they can desire maintained exactly I confess that from such men of such principles in such a Country and to such a Prince these three Propositions barely as they are worded might peradventue do well enough But to conclude hence or that because the French King was pleased or satisfied with them so as coming from and presented to himself by Sorbon His Majesty of Great Britain our Gracious King must be or should be in our present case and on the points controverted amongst us pleased or satisfied with the self same resolutions or propositions aâ—d in the self same words only the application changed without any further addition explanation or descent to particulars and so pleased with them as coming from us were a very great fallacie and very great folly The cases are different in all particulars And therefore it must be consequent in reason that more particulars may and should be required and in other words that is in words expresly and sufficiently declaring as well against all equivocations and other evasions as particularly to the particular points in our own case The design having been as it is and must be yet to get us to resolve and declare satisfactorily and our own Interest and that of our Religion too especially as now in Ireland leading us thereunto But alas the private Interests of some very few men of that Congregation blew durst in the eyes of all the rest so as they
vary about the many particulars to which his Royal Authority could extend it self and out of error attribute some such particulars to the Pope That besides notwithstanding our being right in our judgment or doctrine of the Kings supream power in Temporals and his independency in all kind of cases from any but God alone as to his said Temporals we might erre about the Temporals themselves and think many of them spirituals that are not such at all and consequently out of that error deny the Kings Authority where we should not That of this kind are all benefices Ecclesiastical as to the Lands and Revenues and all other earthly Goods any way belonging to the Church Nay and of this kind too the very bodies of ecclesiastical Persons how spiritual soever by denomination That we might also and out of errour notwithstanding our attributing sincerely the supream independent power to the King in all Temporals think or teach peradventure against the native liberties of the Irish Church such an unlimitted spiritual power in the Pope over the spiritual things or spiritual persons in this Kingdom as might be not only against the ancient spiritual Canons received in the said kingdom but against equity and reason and Religion too and very enormously also though indirectly or by consequence only but that an infallible one against the King and Kingdom even in their Temporals purely such As for example a power of election to all kind of benefices even Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Sees as well as Parochial Churches and to all these as well as those And a power of translation at his pleasure And a hundred others which may be read at large in Monsieur Pierre Pithou's great and most accurat work intituled Les Liberties de l'Eglise Gallicane and more briefly in Father Redmond Carons second Appendix to his Remonstrantia Hibernorum that last and most learned work of his and all without the Kings consent nay contrary to his express will and the fundamental Laws of the Land That it was therefore the Sorbon-Faculty who are men understand very well what is superfluous and what not and whether the matter of this fourth Proposition contained or not any thing different from the three former or from any other consisting of a general acknowledgment of their Kings most absolute independent Supremacy in Temporals it was I say therefore they would give immediatly after the three former this fourth as specifically declaring against those injuries might be otherwise done by the Pope to their Church Kingdom or King under pretence of such a spiritual power and right only which could not be said to be of its own nature either ordinarily or extraordinarily inconsistent with the supream absolute and independent power of their King in all contingencies whatsoever and yet per se would be unquestionably most injurious and grievous to them and per accidens might prove their utter bane and even as fatal to them as Bellarmine's indirect power in temporals which they protested against in their first proposition That Finally an ordinary person may understand it is one thing and much less to declare our indispensable Allegiance to the King and his independent power in all temporals and an other and much more to declare we understand that Allegiance so as we ought to hold it an incroachment on the Kings said temporal rights and authority and on the both temporal and spiritual rights also of his Catholick Subjects that the Pope should attempt in many or any particular within his Kingdoms to dispose for example sake of goods or persons though by title otherwise Ecclesiastical or Spiritual against the Canons by them received or which is the example of Sorbone to depose a Bishop within his Dominions against the said Canons And therefore it must be clear that by Subscribing the said fourth proposition duely applied mutatis nominibus the Congregation might very well and truly and rightly too have conceived they had said more than they had already or before by subscribing the former three Propositions and Remonstrance even in case I say their said Remonstrance and three Propositions had a full cleer and sufficient expression as from them to obviat all reservations abstractions distinctions equivocations c much more when it is apparent out of my two former Tracts there is no expression at all sufficient as from them to obviat such delusions So much for their first allegation or proof Though as I have before noted if it be intended a proof of the applicableness of their first general reason to the particular of this fourth Proposition it be no new medium but idem per idem and a petitio principij To their second which is that they admit not any power derogatory to His Majesties authority the answers are That I could wish 't were so indeed That they have given as yet no sufficient proof they do not if we understand what they here say as plain honest sincere men would understand these words That understanding by His Majestie 's authority what they do indeed which in effect is a very pittiful authority an authority at best and at most subordinat to that of the Pope Church and People when either please to declare against it in any of those extraordinary cases of Schisme Heresie Apostacie Tiranny c. and an authority also which even out of such cases hath no power to hinder the Pope's absolute disposition of all Ecclesiastical benefices and persons at his pleasure understanding I say this kind of authority their medium is new indeed but vain and inconclusive For how doth it follow we admit no power derogatory to such His Majesties authority Therefore we have already by saying so attributed to our Gracious King whatever the Sorbone Doctors in truth and reallity have to their own in this fourth proposition Or therefore we shall never approve any propositions contrary to His Majesties authority meaning such as it is indeed not such as by fiction curtayled nor approve any propositions contrary to the genuine liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom as for example that the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons Or therefore our second general reason for not subscribing the three last Propositions is specifically applicable to the first of them being in order the fourth of the six Which reason was that we thought we had already sufficiently cleared all Scruples If any of these consequences follow then hath Aristotle failed much in his Topicks As for their third allegation to prove this applicableness and consequently their subscription to this fourth to be not necessary but Superfluous which allegation is in effect as I understand it that they had already more positively declared themselves for the Kings authority rights c. and they should add too or at least mean if they would alledge any thing here to purpose that they had so declared themselves also for the true or genuin liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in
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
here that which they call so or the Sicilian Monarchy both in temporals and spirituals and by a thousand other oppositions against the proceedings Bulls and other attempts of several Popes by themselves and Nuncius's and yet more particularly and more home to the point out of the Spanish Divines that write of this question and out of the great esteem of Catholickness the Spaniards have of such Authors and in particular and above all the rest for Alphonsus de Castro who in his book de haeresibus proves so clearly and by so many instances the Popes fallibility even as he is Pope I say that hence it sufficiently appears this question and solution of it against the Popes infallibility is not so odious at all in that great Spanish Monarchy That I have my self in the Low-countreys an appendage of it being present some eight or nine and twenty years since or there abouts in Lovaine at the publick disputes of the two famous Professors then of Divinity in the Colledge of the Jesuits De Young and Derkennis heard and seen and read in their printed Theses's under their own names one of them in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon maintain the contradictories upon the subject of this question one of them in his general conclusions Ex tota Theologia asserting that Papa ut Papa errare non potest in definiendis controversiis fidei and the other in a particular matter as they call it which was de Fide Spe charitate that Papa ut Papa errare possit in definiendis etiam fidei Controversiis So that the very Fathers of the Society then in that Countrey and in that very hoâ—se where Bellarmine himself taught have been so far from reputing this question so odious that they disputed and determined it against this pretended infallibility of the Pope That no where to day out of Italy alone it may be with any colour said to be so odious if not perhaps in the Colledge of Cleremont and there only too peradventure to some very few two or three perhaps those inconsiderat men who out of vanity and folly raised of late so great a storm against and fixed so great a blemish on their own Society or that house in particular by their blasphemous Theses which is called the new heresie of the Iesuites because it asserted the Pope to be as infallible even in matter of fact as Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour no where in Italy it self out of the Popes temporal Jurisdiction nor there is it by others then States-men and Courtiers if not by some few and raw or young smattering and flattering and some other few ambitious and consequently fearful Divines or Canonists That neither the Popes themselves how jealous soever and zealous for maintaining their own power not even the most blessed Father Alexander the 7th who sits at this time in St. Peters Chair accounts it so odious not even now after he hath seen this sixth and solemn Declaration or Proposition of the Sorbonists upon it For if they had accounted it so odious how comes it to pass that we have never yet seen one Declaration of theirs or of any of them since Gregory the 7th whom I find to be the first pretended it in plain terms though herein as unfortunate as in his other pretence of the whole Earths Monarchy or power from Christ to dispose at his pleasure of the Crowns and Empires of the world and to depose Princes how comes it I say to pass that ever since for so many hundred years wherein the question has been canvassed we have not seen as much as any one single Declaration of any Pope against that clear express resolution of it in the negative and in so many Catholick and great Writers Gerson Almain Castro Adrian c. whereof one was a most virtuous Pope In quaest de confirmat Adrianus Papa Sextus which resolution or determination of it in the negative against the Popes infallibility was that only renders it so odious in Father N. N's esteem Or how comes it to pass that now so lately eight entire Universities some hundreds of Doctors together and by consequence the whole Gallican Church in effect debating determining the same question and in the negative also our most blessed Father Alexander the 7th if he had conceived it or their resolution so odious in point of religion or conscience tells not them or the rest of the world so much at least or at least of the very question and resolution in it self without any mention of them That if it be or suppose it be so odious or odious at all to the Pope or Court of Rome and to the Jesuites or some of them or a few other Church-men in several Countreys dispersed sticklers for the temporal greatness of that Prince or Court and sticklers for it so either out of ignorance or pre-occupation or ambition or fear and awe they stand in of their immediate or mediate Ecclesiastical Superiours yet Father N. N. should consider 1. That all these taken together make not up the number of forrein Catholick Nations nor as much as one of them or of those forrein Catholick Nations whose dis-esteem of disfavour they are so loath to hazzard 2. That albeit the Popes alone or his Courts dis-esteem or dis-favour be much to be regarded at least by such as have their temporal dependencies of his Holiness whether in Ecclesiastical Benefices or otherwise and whether within his own temporal Jurisdiction or without or in that of other Princes or States yet where the debate or controversie is in point of Religion or Faith especially of such a one as all the very fundamentals of all Religion and Faith depends of it there is no conscientious knowing Christian will say That either the esteem or dis-esteem favour or dis-favour of any Court or Prince on earth temporal or spiritual should have over at least the Priests of God and their Arch-priests too gathered together out of a whole Nation such power or keep them in such awe as therefore to wave the declaration of their Conscience or Faith in such a point being solemnly demanded it and by the lawfullest and greatest Authority could demand it of them For any such Christian will say that to do so would become very ill the Successors of the Apostles commanded upon all occasions to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and all the truths of it sincerely though they should be hated and persecuted by all men even to death for doing so And could to this purpose mind Father N. N. and the Congregation of that command of Christ Ite docete omnes gentes and docentes eos omnia quae mandavi vobis And also of that judgment of his Mat. 10. Luk. 9. Mark 8. Mat. 10. Qui negaverit me verbunt meum as Mark has it in generatione ista adultera peccatrite ego negabo eum coram Patre meo qui in caelis est filius hominis
possible or imaginable they have both inconsequently and imprudently refused for any such odium of the Court of Rome to subscribe the said 6th proposition whereas they had before signed the three first There could be no greater odium of that Court incurred than had been so already And I am sure no forreigner they or any of them could expect or suppose but would have them incurr that odium what ever it be or if any be which they pretend here amongst their reasons Sixthly That Father N. N. and the Congregation should consider that whatever they think of that odium of the Court of Rome against the negative resolve of that question it is not comparable in greatness in it self or in the evil of its consequents to that other grand odium indeed that is generally of all other Courts and Princes Nations and Prelats Clergie and lay people that understand any thing of what ever Religion or Communion they be Catholick or uncatholick against the affirmative resolve asserting this infallibility of the Pope alone without the Church or a general Council That not onely the odium hereof is truely so great and so general but the consequents of it so fatal that it alone estranged at first so many Christian Churches and Nations and rent them in pieces from one another and ever since that fatal breach that it alone principally with-holds so many millions without the pale of the Catholick Church and until it be silenced wholy wholy bid adieu for ever and for ever exterminated out of the Church as cockle which the inimicus homo sowed in the field of Wheat when men did sleep securely there can be little hopes of reunion And it alone hath been the chief original occasion of making in these Northern Countries so many severe lawes against Papists and further yet is at this very present the grand obstacle to their repeal And consequently it alone the very head-spring of all those miseries under which both as well the members of that Congregation as all other Catholicks in this Country have groaned these hundred years and do more than ever now at this very present groan Wherefore Father N. N. and the Congregation have been much overseen to start this animadversion against themselves by alleadging the odiousness of the question For all prudent men will tell them they ought to look on that Scale which instantly weighed down right to the ground Seventhly And lastly that neither of the most blessed Pope himself nor of his Court or Courtiers they needed fear the odium nor the consequents of any such a hinderance or obstacle to their pretensions which indeed alone is the bugbear that imaginarily frighted them I say they needed fear no such if they pleased themselves as they could easily to sign generally and unanimously a Proposition so Catholick For by their good and hearty example all the rest of the Clergie would have done the same And who then would have opened his mouth against them at Rome at least to their hinderance or to put obstacle to the pretensions of any on that account questionless none at all when his Holiness or Ministers could not find any other to be preferred but such to those however inconsiderable titulary places And so much his present Holinesse's late Internuncius of Bruxels Hieronimus de Vecehijs being come to London about two years and a half since and remaining some five or six dayes incognito told my self in a conference I had with him at Sommerset-house for about three hours together in presence of two Gentlemen that were along with me Father Redmond Caron and Father Patrick Magin alive yet one of Her Majesties Chaplins where he told us all that if the Irish Clergie were of one mind and had all of them generally signed the Remonstrance of 61. His Holyness or Court of Rome would not speak against us or it notwithstanding whatever Propositions contained therein And I am sure the Propositions therein formally or virtually contained may be rationally said and are indeed in themselves more odious to that Court than this last of Sorbone So that from hence partly and partly too from several knowledges and several other arguments which I pass over now it is cleer enough the Congregation had no other kind of odium to apprehend or fear against any for signing that Proposition as neither for signing any of the rest but that which themselves or some of them or their own Irish Agents in the several Countryes or Colleges abroad particularly at Rome have raised or would hereafter at their own desire or solicitation And I am sure every one of them could forbear if they pleased not to be so buisy against themselves or any others As I am also very sure that such of them as formerly have imployed some three or four years past Father John Brady of Saint Francis's order to Lovain of purpose to solicit and obtain by the power and influence of the then Internuncius of Bruxels the foresaid Hieronimus de Vechijs and by their own misrepresentations the censure of the Theological Faculty there against the Remonstrance of 61. which the said Father did obtain though it be a very sorry and ill grounded one and so ill and unreasonable I mean that which contains their grounds and reasons at length in seaven or eight sheets of paper that it would never abide the publick view nor a copie thereof ever since to be had from those Divines had done much better to themselves and others if they had not over-buisied themselves in that matter And therefore I conclude from first to last It aboundantly appears out of so many answers their pretence here of a question so odious did no way serve their turn sufficiently to excuse them from signing the Sorbone declaration or sixth Proposition in such modest tearms applyed to themselves against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church To that other of unprofitableness for they say that it is not onely odious but withal unprofitable I can say first with St. Paul that piety is a great gain That there is no greater piety amongst good Christians especially Apostolical men Priests of God and Bishops appointed by the holy Spirit to govern their respective flocks in all matters appertaining to the Spirit than to declare the truths of God uncorruptedly to them and oppose all innovation and all rules of doctrine besides that which was unquestionably once delivered and is from the beginning handed all along for so many ages to the present without any contradiction amongst Catholicks That such is not this new rule of the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council but such as exposeth all the certainty of Christian Religion to uncertainty and Heresie That for any temporal or earthly gaine how great soever nay were the whole world as to the carnal or temporal commodities thereof to be gained infallibly should any man much less any Christian and least of all any Bishop or
Priest treat of or debate any question or subscribe any Proposition or declaration against his conscience and Religion nor on the other side ought or could any person at least such as are commanded by God and whose commission and function it is from the holy Jesus and holy Spirit to preach and teach purely the Gospel of Christian Religion and oppose by all just means any kind of innovation in the rule of Catholick and saving faith ought or could any such I say through fear of loosing those temporal profits of the whole earth had he them in actual possession omit to treat or debate or declare or subscribe a Proposition sound in it self and necessary withal in circumstances even as relating to such treatie debate declaration or subscription to oppose such innovation That such is this question and such the 6th declaration or proposition being a negative resolve of it against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church For were not the said resolve Catholick or sound in Catholick Religion even in the judgment of Father N. N. and of the Congregation they should have cleerly said so and were bound by their calling and on pain of everlasting damnation to have answered so for the discharge of their duty to God and their flocks Neither should any fear or favor have hindered their answering so For what will it availe a man to gaine the whole world and suffer the detriment of his Soul was the question of our Lord. And again in on other place do not fear those that kill the body onely but fear him that hath power to cast both body and Soul into everlasting fire was the same Heavenly Masters advise and command unto his Disciples And that the question it self of the Popes infallibility without a Council as that of the Councils without or against the Pope when he will not conform to them and the resolve of it on one side or other for or against the Pope is so necessary where the question is debated publickly and seriously for a resolve there is no man of judgement can deny Because thereon depends the whole certainty of what we are to believe or what we are to hope for as a necessary mean to Salvation It being manifest that Popes often have declared and commanded us many things to believe and may hereafter yet much more which the Church never did consent unto nay which many Catholick Churches in Europe have already and often too both contradicted and condemned But if the Pope or his determination be the infallible rule of faith then must all such people or Churches be in a damnable condition as opposing that rule and beleiving an error That hence it appears sufficiently and evidently this question or treatie of it is not onely not unprofitable but the most profitable can be seeing it regards directly the greatest profit imaginable that of the Salvation of Souls by the necessary rule or means of saving faith That further the profittableness of the negative resolve against the Popes infallibility if that resolve be Catholick in it self as neither Father N. N. nor Congregation denyes but grants it to be doth hence appear that such resolve alone removes the grand obstacle of reunion and reconciliation of such a world of particular Churches that profess Christ and by consequence of their Salvation by restoring them to the vnity of rhe Catholick Church wherein alone as in the Ark Noah Salvation is to be had For the grand remora is that by reason of that challenge of the Pope or rather of others for him of an absolute infallibility in himself they think they cannot expect his communion without being lyable to impositions on them in matters of faith at his pleasure and such impositions too as very many most learned and pious Catholicks themselves in all countries will not cannot submit unto but must therefore abide such vexation often as no less often makes their Communion with the Roman See and Pontiff cumbersome and loathsome and a yoake of that great absolute and intollerable subjection which neither themselves or Fathers before them could bear with Christian patience That if the reduction of so many millions of straying sheep into the fold and the consequent Salvation of their Souls or the preservation of those are in it already appear not sufficient arguments of profitableness to Father N.N. and the Congregation in the debate and resolve of this question if that which brings along with it per se and of its own nature the greatest Spiritual profit can be the gaine of Soules and eternal Salvation in the other life be not ranked hereby him or them in the number of things profitable but comprehended as onely such and understood by his and their unprofitable question which yet I believe F. N. N. or the Congregation will hardly own and if they will have us understand here that which as to the conveniencies of this world and life is unprofitable let it be so and then too let all prudent men judge whether people of their Condition Country and Religion should not esteem and confess that question and resolve of it in the present circumstances to be indeed not onely not unprofitable in any respect but certainly and without contradiction very profitable as being the most useful they could fix upon before together with or next after a sufficient Oath of Allegiance to remove the great jealousy hath been justly harboured as of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland and their predecessors this entire last centurie of years ever since at least Queen Mary's Reign so and farr yet more of the present Clergie ever since the 23th of October 1641. and most of all since the Waterford Congregation in 46. and James-town Council in 48. and of their too too great dependency of the Court of Rome and too too great credulitie in or belief of and submission to any decree or command or even to an ordinary letter proceeding thence though onely from one of the Ministers and also though to the direct and absolute ruine of the King and of his Kingdoms and people together And let all prudent men judge whether being that Congregation was held by the Fathers and their Remonstrance and three first Propositions of Sorbone were subscribed by them and presented of purpose or at least under pretence to remove those jealousies and thereby obtain for themselves and rest of the Clergie and to the lay people too directed by them some peace and some ease and some indulgence and comfort either by an absolute revocation of the penal Laws against their Religion or by a mitigation or suspension of such Laws and that the Fathers thought or undoubtedly should think any thing in it self otherwise Catholick or honest and just that should be in the then present circumstances useful to that end to be also profitable in this world or life because helping on that end or that relaxation or suspension of the Laws which questionless they esteem profitable even
de Fide Haeret. c. 7. Lateran Constant Trid. apud cumdem in miscellaniis Idem in sum Theol. sub cod tit quaest 1. 2 4 5. Bonac tom 2. disp 3. q. 2. pu 8. §. 2. Turrian de justitia jure d. 8. dub 2. advertised and conformable to the Decrees of Three General Councils to wit That 't is not lawful to break Contracts made with or Publick Faith given to Hereticks nor to fall from Cessations or Peace concluded with them while the conditions are performed and the time unexpired no not even in case Religion did seem notably endamaged by their observation as Molanus (n) Layman l. 2. tract 3. ca. 12. con 4. Joa Mol. de Fid. haereticis ser cap. 14. and Layman expresly hold and excellently prove hence That no evil so great can happen Religion out of their observation as the scandal and consequences would arise out of the contrary Position if it were maintained and practised by Catholicks as true or conscionable Out of which Doctrine these great Divines most soundly and religiously infer that even His Holiness cannot dispense in this strait tye of Fidelity (o) Verba Layma Dico IV. S. Catholici cum Haereticis publicum soedus incant non potest per auctoritatem Pontificiam solvi aut relaxari Haec est doctrina a Joanne Molano praecipue intenta Probatur Licet enim si quaedam praecise spectentur videlicet quod Haeretici propter Baptismum Ecclesiasticae jurisdictioni subjecti sunt ob odium ac poenam ipsorum jure compelâ—antur ad remissionem Foederis in Ecclesiae detrimentum cedentis aut si recusent ipsis etiam invitis relaxatio fieri queat peâ—supremam Ecclesiasticam potestatem attamen spectatis omnibvs adeoque absolute negari debet id a summo Pontifice fieri posse Quandoquidem is non habet potestatem dispensandi aut relaxandi in detrimentum Ecclesiae talis autem relaxatio cederet in gravissimum Ecclesiae detrimentum quia cum Haeretici Catholicae Fidei hostes in omni foedere cum Catholicis into exclusam velint Papalem relaxandi potestatem ideo apud ipsos omnes nationes infideles blasphemabitur nomen domini Religio Catholica in contemptum veniet plura mala ingentia sequentur si dicatur nos cum Pontificis nostri consenso foedera publica contra jus gentium erga hostes nostros violare Hoc autem tam grave malum est ut nullum incommodum seu detrimentum Ecclesiae Catholicae ex foederis observatione inserendum ita magnum videri debeat sperantibus in deo Christo summo Ecclesiae desensore qui auxilium sert in tempore opportuno Verum Haeretici hujus temporis Calvinistae egregie asluti sunt Ut enim impune ipsis licent pâ—cta cum Catholicis inita violare causam praetexunt quod Jesuitae alii Catholici doceant fidem Haereticis quales se esse conscientia ipsis dictat servandam non esse talibus autem qui fidem violare parati sunt fidem servari non oportere cum tamen interim fidem publican a Catholicis violatam fuisse nullo exemplo ostendere possint multo minus quod Catholici Doctores in ea quam dicunt sententia sint Fidem Hareticis servandam non esse Ecce enim tam Jesuitae quam alii Doctores Catholici contrarium aperte profitentur ac docent fidem publicam Haereticis datam inviolabiliter sine ullo dispensationis aut absolutionis remedio servandam esse quamdiu ipsi servare parati sint Supposing we say both these Tenets as they cannot but be uncontroulably admitted our Answer to the first Question is That sithence it is manifest by what is said how a Truce League or Peace with Enemies of our Faith is not in it self unlawful especially where either the necessity or profit or advancement of the Affairs of true Religion expected thence do warrant it and since it is no less clear how it 's against Conscience to fall contrary to promise given from such publick Contracts or Faith engaged since likewise none of the Articles of Cessation with the Lord of Inchiquin either in their own nature according to any common or proper sense the words may have or taken together with the circumstances of the time and condition the Confederates were in at their conclusion involves any evil we must confess and aver none of the said Articles to be against Catholick Religion or just ground for Excommunication this just ground implying in it self an evil and a mortal evil (p) Suar. tom 5. de Censu dis 4. Sect 4. â—lii omnes or sin according to the unanimous consent of all Divines yea an exterior and visible (q) See the Doctors on Bulla Caenae where they treat of Excommunication against Hereticks Read likewise the Divines in their Treatises of Laws and where they inquire whether interior acts of the mind may be commanded or prohibited or whether the sins of the heart as wicked intentions c. not sufficiently discovered in the exterior may he punished by Holy Church as with Excommunication or otherwise and they answer negatively Layman l. 1. de leg tract 4. cap. 4. assert 7. cites them in great numbers And indeed the very Canons expresly define this truth cap. Sicut de Simon 5 cap. Tâ—a nos eodem titul sin as they teach And that no such evil lieth hidden in these Articles or any thing disadvantagious to Catholick Religion we are certainly persuaded it may be evident to any that will take away the film First Because there is not a word in them either positively as it is manifest or negatively if all the circumstances be considered against Religion Justice or good life and which is far more that by the second and fifth special provision is made for the advancement of Faith and Virtue throughout all the said Lord of Inchiquin's quarters a few Garisons excepted by free exercise of Catholick Religion and Function yea by possession of Churches and Church-livings where we held them at the commencement of the Treaty in as ample manner as in our own quarters Which questionless is no small advantage to Religion and which could not be acquired by War hitherto though the hazard cost much Blood and many Lives to the Confederates Secondly In regard of the then present great necessity of our Affairs the power of the Enemy so increased in all parts of the Kingdom and particularly in Munster all Ports besides five or six and maritime places of any consequence in the whole Island which are at least Twenty being in their hands near two parts of three of the Inland being either in their quiet possession or forraged by them and under contribution their Armies victorious their Fleet giving Laws to us at Sea and shutting up our Havens two vast Kingdoms within six or twelve hours sail the furthest off to back them to support their Charges and repair their Losses and on the other side the
the Religion and Catholick Church pure undefiled immaculate without spot or wrinckle whereby to invite and perswade others to it for the salvation of their souls or certainly that they must allow salvation as they neither do nor can to be found in other Congregations or Churches either Heretical or Schismatical And further he minded them seriously insisting no less earnestly thereupon That no earthly regard none at all of temporal either advantages or disadvantages of honour profit ease much less of such vain titles and preferments as they look after nor on the other side any apprehension of disfavour discountenance danger persecution nor loss of goods if they had any nor even of liberty and life could excuse them from this duty That whether all their hopes of the King and his great Ministers of his Councils and Parliaments or of the moderate people of the Protestant Church upon one side should fail them having done their own duty and their pleas of innocence and articles both or whatever else-were of no account and all their both nearest and dearest Lay-relative Proprietors to a man were destroyed at home and themselves finally forced abroad again or design'd to suffer in their own Countrey the extreamest rigour of laws either made already or hereafter to be at any time or contingencies there or if on the other side they were absolutely certain being exiled to meet with no less severity and cruelty from the Court of Rome or an angry incensed Pope and from all Princes and Catholick Prelates and People too where-ever they came that even this certainty of such evils however in themselves or to any prudent man neither probable nor morally possible could not excuse them from this duty That the first Subscribers had supposed all the very worst could happen beyond all fear and yet found themselves bound to do what they did That they conceived their special function nay Christianity it self obliged them so in the case and others of the same calling could pretend no special priviledge from Christ or his Gospel or his Church whatever the Courtiers of Rome but at their instance and importunity and that of their busie ignorant Agents and Sollicitours there did erroneously complement them with And therefore the conclusion of all was that he understood not with what confidence or conscience but that of horrour and sacriledge and of being guilty of the body and blood of our Lord and of eating and drinking judgment to themselves as St. Paul speaks or their own condemnation they could persisting in their obstinacy approach the Altars of God and celebrate the Divine and unbloudy Mysteries With which final conclusion as with all the rest of this last discourse notwithstandieg the Procurator most frequently and earnestly and pathetically perclosed all his several answers to the several parties of the Clergy and to those too of greatest authority and power amongst them even Provincials Vicars General Bishops and Archbishops yet which is very notable he never had hereunto at any time or from any person of them all one word of reply but sighs only from some arguing a remorse and silence from the rest without any remorse at all if their past and after actions be sufficient testimonies of their affections XIV Now after so long a discontinuance of or digression from the bare matter of fact and without further consideration of the arguments of either side or of the allegations of the dissenters the refutations or reasons insisted on by the Procurator to return back thither where I was treating how upon the arrival of the said Procurator about the end of August 1662. he had by conferring at Dublin with several of the chief heads there peevishly adverss to the Remonstrance some alledging one excuse and some another and others many together of such as you have seen already above or before the answers partly understood the whole intrigue from those men and partly too from others who came to him from several parts of the Countrey abroad of purpose to let him know the general conspiracy either enter'd or submitted unto even by some of the best affected most loyal heretofore of both Secular and Regular Clergy throughout all parts of the Kingdom against that Remonstrance and himself also upon account thereof if he persisted in his resolution to draw them to it or not to work for them a liberty as they vainly conceived he could to frame another unsignificant one for themselves and prevail for the acceptance of such by His Grace and by His Majesty the Procurator fully therefore now understanding what he was to do resolves in the first place to attempt the breaking of that ligue so general the breaking of it immediatly by some Instances at Dublin the Metrapolitan City Whose Clergy and their example must especially in such a matter have had great influence on the rest in other parts of the Kingdom and certainly so much that if they residing in the very sight of the State and giving daily intelligence to the rest abroad or if at least some leading men of them could not be wrought upon to desert so sinful and shameful I will not say disloyal a confederacy there could be no hopes at all to prevail with any others In which attempt he was presently after some little pains taken so far succesful as to have reason'd to a subscription publick owning thereof the Guardian other Fathers of the Franciscan Convent in that City being in all five with them two of the Dominicans whereof one was the then Prior of Droghedah but residing at Dublin These were they that first of all others in Ireland at home next after Father Valentine Browne at Galway condemn'd by a clear and ever since constant profession and observance of their duty the rashness and sinfulness of that so general conspiracy against it Though I must confess that as many as after followed their example to this day have of themselves freely and heartily without compulsion or even other invitation then what was publick in the Book and Letters of the Procurator come along from several and some from very remote parts of the Kingdom to Dublin of purpose to subscribe that Instrument and thereby quiet their own conscience by declaring in that manner as they should and was expected from them their true allegiance to the Prince XV. But for as much as I doubt not there are very many both desirous and curious to know the number and names of all those of the Clergy Regular or Secular who have then or at any time since concurred for the number and names of the Subscribers at London of that Clergy together with the Bishop of Dromore I have already given with the Remonstrance it self in the beginning of this Treatise as they are extant in print and because it will be more satisfaction to give them altogether then dispersedly in several places as they signed at several times the Reader may satisfie himself here in both particulars