were bound to stand or conform always or in all causes Ecclesiastical or even in any at all purely such to the sole decision made by the secular power of what was to be believed in point of Divine Faith or of what was to be acted in point of a good conscience they erre most grossely in this as they did in so many other tenets in other matters And yet all sides must confess that in such causes or in such manner Ecclesiasticks are no more exempt from the civil power then meer laymen For both equally have the same Doctors and Judges of their Faith and of their conscientious or lawful actings in relation to the laws of God or Christianity as both have the same supream civil Judges of temporal corporal and civil coercion LXXI Behold Reader in these eight last Sections which are from LXIII to LXX both inclusively taken the particular proofs or particular reasons of the Procurator's defiance to the Divines of Lovaine by his first general reason for his second answer given LXII Section to the fourth ground of the Lovaine censure For albeit as he noted before in that LXII Section he needed not have given that second answer to the said fourth ground of the Lovaine Divines the first answer which he created at length in the LXI Section immediately foregoing having sufficiently destroyed this fourth pretence of the Lovanians to witt their charging the Remonstrance of 61. and consequently all Clergiemen subscribers of it with renouncing or disclayming in Ecclesiastical exemption yet he would ex superabundanti give that very second answer you have seen in the said LXII Section videlicet That granting the Remonstrance had c. even formally and by express words declared against all pretences whatsoever of any such thing as Ecclesiastical Immunity on exemption of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream civil or temporal coercive power of the Prince or Magistrat provided still it did not declare as verely it does not against that which is indeed the real true and well grounded exemption of Clergiemen from inferiour civil Judicatories according to the respective civil laws or customs of several Kingdoms and as farre as the respective laws or customs do allow such exemption from such inferiour Judicatories yet neither the Divines of Lovaine nor any other could justly censure it therefore And the Procuratour would also give this second answer of meer purpose to dilate himself at large and at full on this subject of Ecclesiastical exemption and to ravel the whole intrigue of such tenets and arguments in this matter which have so often occasion so much trouble confusion in Christendom Which was the reason too that of meer sett purpose also he gave those two general reasons in the above LXII for this second answer of which two general reasons the first was that he defied those of Lovaine or any other Divine or Canonist in the world to shew any law divine either positive or natural or any law humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for such exemption or which is the same thing to shew any one text of holy Scripture or any one tenet of Apostolical tradition or any canon at all of the Catholick Church or even as much as any kind of passage out of the civil laws of Emperours nay as much as any one convinting or even probable argument of natural reason to prove power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream evil Prince or laws under which they live as Citizens or Subjects or literal at least reputed Citizens or Subjects And the self-same purpose of ravelling that whole intrigue was the cause he spent so much time and took so much paâ—â—â—â—â—ther too in eight long Sections to descend to and give so many particular proofs of the reasonableness of this defiance by answering for fully and clearly as he thinks he did all sorts of arguments hetherto alleadged by Bellarmine or any other against that second answer or against the subjection of Clerks to the supream civil coercive power of Princes or which is the same thing alleadged for the exemption of Clerks from this power But forasmuch as the Procuratour not onely so defied the Divines of Lovaine by that his first general reason for his second answer to their fourth ground but also by his second general reason for the same second answer confidently said writ LXII Section that on the contrary he durst undertake against the Divines of Lovaine to prove there is no such exemption nor can be and with much evidence to prove this even by clear express texts of holy Scripture in that sense the holy Fathers generally understood such texts even for a whole thousand of years I therefore now proceed to those particular proofs also of this second part or of this so confident undertaking whereby the Procuratour in his discourses of that Remonstrance more directly assumed when occasion required the person of an Assailant as in the former he did that chiefly of a Defendant And because these particular proofs or reasons given by him for this second part and the confutations of Bellarmine's replyes to some of them for some also there are which either Bellarmine saw not or if he saw them did neither well or ill replye unto will take up some few sheets more I will observe the same method I have hetherto in answering Bellarmine's arguments for his own assertions that is will treat them in several Sections apart for the Readers more easy finding and understanding what I would be at For my next Section which is in order the LXXII shall give my first three arguments whereof two are out of Bellarmine's own concessions as I shew also by further argument that in point of either Theological or Philosophical reason such concessions and even as inferring my conclusions must be made by him and all other men that will speak according to natural reason or Christian Religion And the third argument I take to be a general maxime granted by all Statists Canonists Philosophers Divines nay by all men on earth though Bellarmine hath not a word of it but tranfiently answering it as ridiculously My LXXIII Section gives at large the fourth argument which is purely Theological and is that grounded on the 13. to the Romans according to the general and unanimous exposition of that passage by the holy Fathers until the age of Gregory the Seventh My LXXIV immediatly following shall give some instances of their practices according to this their doctrine and some canons too of Popes and Councils And my LXXV some few remaining objections and answers to them But my LXXVI and last of all on this subject of Ecclesiastical Exemption or as relating to it or to the fourth ground of the Lovaine Censure shall inferr my finall conclusion out of all that is out of these next following five and out of the former eight Sections shall withal consider the meaning of the word Sacriledge of these
stretch'd along on the ground at his feet weeping and beseeching him and at their representing to him how the King had threatned him and all his with exile with destruction and death unde Rex sayes Hoveden ad an 1164. plurimum in ira adversus eum commutus minatus est ei suis exilium alias exilium mortem and I say when by such means he had sworn in retracting at last on better advise so rash an oath and refusing to confirm those pretended customes by his seal or subscription 8. And lastly in refusing either to absolve the excommunicated Bishops but in forma Ecclesiae consueta or consent that his own Clerks which came with him out of France should take any unjust or unlawfull oath contrary to the two material demands or commands to him in behalf of Henry the second by his four murtherers Willelmus de Traci Hugo de Mortvilla Richardus Brito and Reginaldus filius Vrsi For to their third which was that he should go reverently to the young King and do him homage and fealty by oath for his Archiepiscopal Barony as Parker relates it its plain enough he never refused that not onely because he did so at the time of his investiture to Henry the second himself the Father King but also because that upon his return from exile which was but a month before his death he was on his journey as farr as London to the young King's Count to do and pay this young King also all the respects and duties becoming but was by the Queens Brother Gocelinus as Hoveden writes commanded in that very young King 's own name not go to Court nor proceed further whereupon he return'd back to Canterbury In all which eight several Instances as also in all their necessary Antecedents Concomitants and Subsequents I confess again ingenuously it is my own judgment that St. Thomas of Canterbury had justice of his side because in some he had all the laws of both God and man for him and in the rest he had for him the very just and politick municipal laws of England as yet then not legally repealed these very laws I mean rehearsed by me in my seventh observation and because there was not any law of God or man against him in the case or in any of those Instances being the laws of the land were for him in all and because the design of Henry the second to oppress the people of England both Clergie and Layety but especially the Clergie and to render the Sacerdotal Order base and contemptible as we have seen before observed out of Polydore Virgil required that the Archbishop of Canterbury should stand in the gap as farr as it became a Subject by denying his own consent as a Peer and as the first Peer too of the Realm and by proceeding yet as a Bishop and as the Primate also of all Bishops in England and by proceeding so I say in a true Episcopal manner against such as would by threats of death force oppressive customs for new laws on both Peers and people Clergie and Layety against their own known will and their own old laws And therefore also consequently do acknowledg my own judgment to be that the Major of the Syllogistical objection against me or this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c against Henry the Second is fals may be by me admitted simply and absolutely without any distinction Though I add withall it be not necessary to admit it for any such inconvenience as the proof which I have given before of that Major would inferi or deduce out of the denyal of it In which proof I am sure there are several propositions or suppositions involved which no Catholick Divine not even a rigid Bellarminian is bound to allow As 1. that neither Church nor Pope can possibly err in matter of fact or in their judgment of matter of fact though relating to the life or death or precise cause of the death of any Saint or Martyr which matter of fact is neither formally nor virtually expressed nor by a consequential necessity deduced out of holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For Bellarmine himself confesses that even a general Council truly such may err in such matters of fact And the reason is clear because the judgment of the Church in such matters is onely secundum allegata probata depending wholly on the testimony of this or that man or some few or at most of many mortal and sinfull witnesses or of such of whose veracity in that the Church hath no authentick or absolutely certain revelation from God but humane probability or at most humane moral certainty which is ultimately resolved into the humane credit or faith we give an other man or men or to their veracity who possibly may themselves either of purpose too deceive us or be deceived themselves however innocently And the case is clear in the famous and great controversy about those heads were called the Tria Capitula all which concern'd matter of fact of three great Bishops in the fourth and fift general Councils under Pope Leo Magnus and Pope Vigilius And is yet no less clear in the controversy about Pope Honorius which was of matter of fact whom two general Councils condemn'd for a Heretick for a Monothelit so long after his death and out of his own writings and yet Bellarmine defends him from being such and on this ground defends him that those Councils were deceived in their judgment of matter of fact by attributing to him that doctrine which he held not 2. That the infallibility which Catholicks believe and maintain to be in the Church necessarily implyes her infallibility of judgment concerning this or that fact of any even the greatest Saint whereof we have nothing in holy Scripture or Apostolical tradition For the Infallibility of the Church is onely in preserving and declaring or at least in not declaring against that whatsoever it be matter of fact or Theory which was delivered so from the beginning as revealed by God either in holy Scripture or Apostolical Tradition 3. That St. Thomas of Canterbury could not be a holy maâ—tyr or great miraculous Saint in his life or death or after his death at his tomb were his quarrel against Henry the second not just in all the essential integral and circumstantial parts of it from first to last were it not I say just according to the very objective truth of things and of the laws of God and man though it had been so or at least the substantial part of it whereon he did ultimately and onely all along insist had been so according his own inward judgment and though also his Soul had been otherwise both in that and all other matters ever so pure holy religious resigned to follow the pleasure of God and embrace truth did he know or did he think it were of the other side in any part of the
controversie is in whose time Ptolomey likewise surnamed Epiphanes King of Egypt dyed and his young Son called Ptolomey Philometor was crowned after him King of Egypt and by consequence had the dominion of Ierusalem and Iewry That Antiochus Epiphanes that wicked ambitious and most cruell King of Asia and Syria taking advantage of the minority of this young Ptolomey Philometor without any just cause or provocation or any other but his own ambitious desires entred Egypt with a huge army and with intention to seize the young King and possess himself of all his Kingdom of Egypt and of his other dominions and wel-nigh effected his designs having after his taking of Memphis besieged Alexandria it self and the young King therein but was on a suddain forced to break up his siege and relinquish all again and retire immediatly out of all Egypt upon summons sent him by the Romans to do so or abide a sharp war from them That in his forced return to his own Kingdom some few wicked Jews having out of desire to be revenged of others even by the loss of their Countrey animated him to camp before Ierusalem and the riches of that City and treasures of the Temple there having set him all on fire with covetousness he marched directly towards it and the Gates being treacherously set open to him by those within of that wicked faction he surprized it in the hundred fourty and third year of the raign of Seleucus the year of the world 3796. and before Christ 168. years That as this was done without any consent of the people generally or of their Governours so he behaving himself immediatly after as the most cruel tyrant that even surprized any place and having broke all kind of conditions either concerning Religion Estate or life even with those very traytors of their own City and Countrey and having spoiled both the City and Temple and carried all the spoils with him to Antioch but two years after he surprized them so and having left most cruel Edicts after him for the future and those put in execution with unparelled cruelty it is evident enough that as he had no just title for that was nor any permission from the lawful hereditary King Ptolomey Philometor to seize Ierusalem or Iewry so he had none from the people of Ierusalem or Iewry either first or last to entitle him to the rights of a lawful King not even I say from them in case they could justly give any such their own hereditary King being still alive and still too in possession of the greatest part of his dominions nor could two years such forcible and cruel possession entitle him to any right at all That in fine as all this is manifest in History in that of Iosephus I mean and in his twelfth Book of the Antiquities of the Jews and in his eleventh for what concerns Alexander the Great himself and being further it is no less manifest in the same History of Iosephus and in the seventh and eight chapters of the said twelfth Book and in the marginal Chronology That Mattathias took arms against the said Antiochus Epiphanes immediatly after the said second year of his unlawful possession kept of Iewry 〈…〉 is immediatly â—ften the 〈◊〉 and general and cruel 〈…〉 it is no less evident 〈◊〉 foâ— that he did so that is 〈…〉 his 〈…〉 King but against 〈…〉 unjust Usurper and Tyâ—â—â— also no less 〈◊〉 And consequently that no warlike actions nor exhortations of Mattathias nor any other of that Machabâ—â—â— ar◠〈◊〉 of his Sons or of that whole Nation of the Jews against Antiochus that faithless impious inhumane King of Asia â—â—e to any purpose alledged to maintain the pretended inherent power of any Subjects whatsoever to rebell against their own true â—egal undoubted rightful hereditary King however oppressing them either in their religious or civil rights or both And this is the second answer I intended in my More Ample Account And which I give here not that it is any way necessary or directly at all to that which our present Adversaries the Authors of this second paper dispute of principally at this present or in this paper I now answer but because they have given me by their indirect reflections and by their impertinencius therein a just occasion for which I thank them to give it here for a further illustration of what I said formerly on this subject XXXV As for their Latin Postscript because I guess it was only added as an answer to an argument I press'd them with ad hominem as we speak as also with the conclusion of it in English two of their own general principles or doctrine of Probability to convince them of the lawfulness in point of conscience of subscribing the Remonstrance notwithstanding the pretence of some not only extrinsick authority 〈◊〉 even intrinsick probability appearing still in their very souls though I never did nor do believe there was any such against some position or supposition wherein that Remonstrance is grounded or which is therein contained I allow them till the advantage they can derive from these Câ—suists even as themselves quote them here For I am sure they will accordingly find the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be at least both extrinsecally and intrinsecally most probable and consequently the signing of it lawful in point of conscience But abstracting 〈◊〉 these rules and authority of Casuists which at least in 〈◊〉 matter of probability and as I have most clearly shown in my More Ample Account pag. 16. c. ought to be not only abstracted from but quite rejected as most unsafe and false and erroneous as likewise and by consequence the final English perclose as a corollary thence derived of this paper I now consider I am no less certain they will find themselves obliged in point of conscience to approve of all the doctrine positions and suppositions too of the said Remonstrance and reject and condemn the contrary as very false eroneous and scandalous too and consequently very sinful if not manifestly heretical in Christian Faith If I say they have studied or shall as they ought to do the arguments on both sides or but consulted with the Catholick Authors that have so lately handled them at large against the sophismes of Bellarmine and others of 〈◊〉 way For I fear they will not take the paâ—ts to sougth 〈…〉 â—â—â—ancie famous great and Classick Authors and 〈◊〉 in them their own ignorance and errour so long since reproach'd in the very Schools For as concerning the Scriptures and Fathers and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church and practice of Primitive Christians and that also of all ensuing ages till the Eleventh of Christianity under Gregory the Seventh they themselves cannot â—â—ny all to be against them Whereof and â—s with other both arguments and objections 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 I could heartily wish they would to satisfie yet more fully themselves take but so much pains as to read over the Barclays and Wriddringâ—â—n Father
at all and on the contrary establish a meer fiction of a duty or that which cannot be thought a duty unless God himself expresly and clerely declare it such with his own mouth or had by such means as he did his Gospel declared it so And yet too endeavour to establish such a fiction without as much as any appearance of either text of Scripture or conveyance by Tradition or sense of the Fathers or Canon of the Churches or any principle of natural reason but that is voyd of all reason and false to boot Beati quâ—â—um remissae sunt iniquitates quorum tecta sunt peccata Psal 31. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are hidden say some of these excellent Moralists out of King Davids one and thirtieth Psalm â—â—â—nium iniâ—uâ—tatem ejus non recordabor Ezek. 18. I will not remember all or any of his iniquities sayes another out of Ezekiels eighteenth Chapter where God himself speaks these words It hath been the custom of the Church or of Priests in all ages of Christianity not to reveal the penitents sayes a third Gregory the Great and the old Canon out of him in Gratian de Paenitentia d. 6. cap. Sacerdos enjoyn'd perpetual peregrinations or pilgrimages during life to the Priest revealing confession that is revealing to as the penitent might be known without his consent and cap. omnis utriusque sexus de Poenitentiis Remissionibus above cited out of the IV. Council of Lateran chang'd that punishment into another yet more severe into a perpetual deposition and perpetual imprisonment in a cloister'd life sayes a â—oâ—rth The Priest in the confessional seat is the Vicar of God and hath no other knowledge of what is told him there but what is proper to God and God for his part conceals his own knowledge therefore so should the Priest sayes a fifth of them What is told auricularly to the Priest in the confessional seat at least with other sins whereof one accuses himself in order to absolution is told under a natural bond of the greatest secrecie imaginable until the penitent or confitent dispense in it sayes a sixt To hold it lawful for a Confessor to reveal in any kind of contingency the sin and sinner both or the matter confess'd and him that confesses it would render the Sacrament of confession odious and divert those from it who otherwise would frequent it sayes a seventh Finally say the rest it is the received common doctrine of the Schools and the undoubted constant opinion of all people generally whether Schoolmen or not that it is not lawful to reveal confession directly or indirectly as that of such or such a one by name or by any kind of expression mark or token whereby he may be known And here is all they do or can alledge But O weakness of such Casuists O vanity of such Theologues who labour to establish the most pernicious maxime can be upon such feeble grounds Who alledge Scripture to conclude from the staff to the corner A holy custom to prove that which is impossible to be known as ever yet once either holily or unholily accustom'd General and wholsome Canons to resolve against a particular case whereof the Fathers never dreamed which never yet was comprehended nor could be in any Canons The Priests vicariat office and vicariat knowledge of God and Gods making no revenging use any more of his own knowledge of sins that are duly subjected to the keyes of the Church or declared penitently in a true sacramental confession to make the Confessor as wicked as the most wicked Confitent on earth that confesses not sacramentally but sacrilegiously but impenitently and impiously as in actual defiance of God and confesses not a sin past and retracted but a present resolution of future sin and even of the most enormous could be perpetrated A horrible abuse of the Confessors ear and confessional seat and either a divelish or foolish accusation without any possible true order to sacramental absolution and a meer chymera of a bond of nature to bind a Priest against all true bonds both of Grace and Nature An odium or aversion which hath never yet been which will never be nor can be in any man or woman resolved to confess holily penitently or sacramentally and an edium or aversion therefore which can have no other being but a false being or that of a false imagination only in the brain of the Alledgers and all this to further a most damnable conspiracy and as damnable secrecie of it which in effect would bring on such a confitent and such a Confessor all the real odium and aversion of God and Man and Angels too and even of the very devils themselves however the first Suggesters of such either conspiracy or secrecy Finally the common received doctrine of the Schools and the undoubted constant opinion of all people generally whether Schoolmen or not for the sacramental seal of sacramental or penitential confession of sins committed to conclude thence what cannot be concluded thence by any inference of Logick or by any topicks of either natural or divine reason such a seal where no such confession is nor can be in our case but certainly both an impenitent and impertinent hypocritical insacramental discovery of sins resolved on to be hereafter committed But to leave our metaphisical or morally impossible case and to instance no more any that hath never been not is like ever to be nor at all can be morally speaking and to instance this doctrine in such cases as may very well be and have been already of a divilish infernal conspiracy to ruine the State Church and Christian People of some one particular Nation to be revenged on the King thereof and to sacrifice both King and People how Catholick soever to the Swords of Mahumetan Moores as it happened some eight or nine hundred years since to Spain under King Roderick by the horrible and revengful treachery of Câ—unt Julian for the rape committed â—n his Daughter by that unhappy King and to suppose for example that that very Câ—unt Julian or any other of those eight thousand traytors who conspired with him had in such an impenitent or impertinent manner revealed to a Spanish Confessor that his fatal design it is plain the very self same reasons prove evidently that Confessors tye of conscience to discover the very person of such a fained penitent even without and against his own consent I mean there being no possibility of preventing the design otherwise as is supposed in the case And that the same too might and ought to be said in the case of the Powder-plot-reason or of F. H. G. Provincial of the English Jesuits his having had knowledge of it in the confessional seat if the said plot could not have been otherwise prevented the very same reasons do most evidently convince any rational man For as it is most certain that magis minus non 〈…〉 the minority
or majority of those real cases that have alreaâ—â— happened or which may yet without any stress of moral impossibility happen hereafter in other or the 〈◊〉 same Nations having the like generation of wicked men do not vary or change the species or moral nature of the sin of one side or obligation on the other from that of the above metaphysical or morally impossible contingency so it is no less certain that the Kings or States being Protestant or Catholick doth not alter a jot aâ—â— our present purpose the nature of such confession or of the seal consequent or pretended to be conseque it or of the obligation of the Confessor 〈◊〉 repute no seal to be consequent where none at all can be or in right Reason and sound The â—ogy and Christian Doctrine ought to be reputed to â—e however the great Divine Suarez in his Work against King James l. 6. â— 3. sub finem doth but most undiscreetly and unreasonably too distinguish in this matter and yet distinguishes so too as to the discovery not of the person of such confitent but even of the treason it self or future such design only without any discovery of the confitent And it is no less certain with me that Father Gâ—â—â—â—â— never had out of any such inward perswasion of a true obligatory seal in the case abstained from discovering both the treason it self intended and the very person of the traytor that so confess'd it to him if this were necessary for prevention and if what the said Father preâ—eâ—ded of such knowledge had by him in the confessional seat only were true had he not been himself aâ—â—â—â—â—ed or at least not been not disaffected to that horrid conspiracy or had he not reputed it an attempt in point of conscience lawful just and meâ—â—tâ—â—â—ious too before God to wit grounding himself upon those other yet more plainly wicked and horrid and even I say too plainly heretical maximes of his old companion the said Father Suarez and other such Divine concerning the no Allegiance no Faith due by Subjects to heretical Princes of States oppressing the Church For a man of his calling breeding years and place could not be so little conversant in those very Catholick and Classick Authors or in the matter it self of the sacramental Seal which should require those Authors to be at least quoted Authors who are known to determine for the no sacramental confession no seal at all in our case no kind of obligation or tye on the Confessor not to discover such a confitent even I mean kill against his very will if it be of absolute necessity to discover so his person for prevention of such a future damnable treason 〈…〉 even fâ—â—â— prevention of the death or destruction of any one other even the most private person whatsoever in the world though no further evil were to be feared And yet I confess always the Confessor if such a case happened is bound to use all possible means which would not hinder what of necessity must be discovered or the discovery thereof to prevent scandal or an opinion of him that he would reveal Sacramental confession albeit there be no such confession really in the case but imaginarily or only in the erroneus imagination of others The hindering or clearing nevertheless of which imagination every Confessor is bound unto not by virtue of a seal which is not in the case but of charity towards our scandalized neighbour Which not only Confessors but all persons must observe in all kind of cases and more especially than others the Confessor in such cases wherein or whereby through want of his cautious prudential carriadge others might be frighted from confessing to him And I no less acknowledg that for preventing at least particular mischiefs of private men by discovering when it is of absolute necessity for prevention the person of such an unsacramental confitent the Confessor is not obliged under sin to discover if he rationally fear his own destruction thereby or that of other men who have no hand nor knowledg of it What I say therefore in such case of the confessor is that he may lawfully without sin nay meritoriously with the grace of God if he please out of charity either expose or even loose his own life for saving others Majorem â—aritatem nemo habet quam ut quis penat animam suam pro amicis suis but is not bound to either by any law of God unless peradventure to save the publick only For the saving of which I must confess I know no rule of reason or Divinity can excuse any person from hazarding himself if it be necessary and that he withal know or believe or hope rationally he may save it by hazarding himself And what I say besides in such case is that although therein the confessor may reveal the person of such a confitent declaring a resolution or design of such a sin to be hereafter committed yet in no case may he reveal the person of a Sacramental confitent as such of sins already committed and as such confess'd by him let the sins be never so horrid even the most inhuman treasons and the most general executions imaginable Lastly what I say and repeat again is that our masters of Lovaine will find it too too hard a taske if not altogether impossible to disprove what I have now so positively said of revealing and the lawfulness of the confessors obligation also to reveal at least where he may without danger to himself or other honest men the very person that confess'd to him so unsacramentally or consulted with him so impenitently in the confessional seat such wicked resolutions or designs to be hereafter executed to reveal such person I say without his Confitents either express or tacit consent nay against his consent expresly denyed him provided still that he reveal nothing of any sin already committed and sacramentally confess'd nor any more of the person of such the foresaid unsacramental confitent or of his actions past or of his resolutions for the future or of those of any others which he knew in that manner no more I say than is necessary for preventing the evil and provided also that he declare not in what manner he had such knowledge or that he had it in the confessional seat being this circumstance must be as well unnecessary as odious But if our Lovaine masters think otherwise of the case as I do not believe they do whatever they say or seem to say in their first and long censure or if they must undertake to refute what I here say let them proceed on a Gods name and prove their such thinking saying or undertaking to be just and prove it so either by Scripture tradition reason or by any Canon or Custom of the Church and I promise I will most willingly yield my self to be indoctrinated by them Otherwise they must pardon me if I tell them they are no less erroneous than censorious masters and no
be not mistaken in his rules of concluding And the minor is as manifest as the text of Silvester which I have before given is It remaineth only therefore that for a greater illustration yet of the major albeit there be no need I form this other syllogisme Whoever teacheth all this or all that above doctrine which I have given in the Latin text it cannot be rationally denyed to be as clear as the Sun that he meaneth and reacheth the lawfulness for and obligation also on the Confessor in our case to reveal all that is on evident grounds conceived by him to be necessary for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom For that doctrine supposes upon one side all the general laws of God and Nature of Charity Piety and Justice both exhorting and commanding the Confessor to prevent by all just and lawful means the execution of so evil a design and on the other side supposes also that there is no particular law of God or Nature or Man or Church against the revealing of all whatever the Confessor knows by such a confession and is conceived by him to be necessary for prevention For the only such particular law can be pretended by any is that of a seal of confession And the above doctrine expresly teacheth there is no seal at all of confession nor can be in the case or in such a confession as it expresly teacheth that when or where this seal is as it is alwayes in a true sacramental confession it is a seal wholly and only as to the person of the Confitent not as to his sin or other appendage Whereby it is further plain and evident that the above doctrine or argument derived from it cannot be eluded by saying it denies a seal as to the sin but not as to the person being it acknowledges no seal but as to the person and denies expresly all kind of seal in our case or confession But whoever meaneth and reacheth the lawfulness for and obligation too on the Confessor in our case to reveal all that is on evident grounds conceived by him to be necessary for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom meaneth also and reacheth in his grand Resolve herein the lawfulness for obligation too on the Confessor to reveal even the very individual person of such a Confitent because that for prevention of such evils to a third person and much more to a Kingdom to reveal even the individual person of such a Confitent and without his own consent is in our case upon evident grounds conceived to be necessary Ergo whoever teacheth expresly the above doctrine it cannot be rationally denied to be as clear as the Sun that he meaneth reacheth in his grand Resolve herein the lawfulness for obligation too on the Confessor to reveal even the very individual person of the Confitent and I mean still without nay against his consent when the danger to a third person much more to a Kingdom Commonwealth or even any lesser community is great and not otherwise to be prevented and that he may reveal him without danger to himself Out of all which if it be not clear that I have Sylvester on my side and by consequence Abbas Innocentius and so many other both ancient and modern Catholick and Classick Schoolmen who teach the same Doctrine with Silvester I must confess I see not what is clear Which is the reason I dare conclude that if the Doctors of Lovaine will oppose me in the Doctrine of this sixt consideration they will raise too great a storm against themselves And I have at least no less reason to think it will be so with them too if they write against the Doctrine of any of the other five precedent Yet I would have them or all that stickle for them in this Country where the language of this book of mine is understood for if God lend me life and health I mean to speak in good season yet to the Lovaine Divines in their own language or that of their Censure I say I would have them all to understand that I have not laboured so much as I have now here to prove my Doctrine out of Silvesteâ— or any other as if I were perswaded that I could not or dared not warrant any doctrine unless I could shew it extracted from or conformable to that of other Schoolmen that writ before me on the same subject As I am farr enough from such perswasion or such fear in matters wherein I may ground my self on plain Scriptures certain Tradition or evidence of natural Reason and see no plain Scripture or Tradition or undoubted and received true Canon of the Catholick Church to gain-say that evidence although I saw at the same time ten thousand Canonists and Summists or other Casuists and even ten thousand too of the very best School-divines against me so I assure the Reader my only design by so long a discourse of Silvester was no other but to confound the more those Lovaine Divines by the very Authors who are so familiar with and approved of in their own Schools For otherwise I know well enough it is the Doctrine of the very Schools that no man is bound to swear to their doctrine jurare in verba Magâ—stri upon this ground only of its being theirs I know very well too that the more common doctrine or absolutely and simply the common doctrine of the Schools is not alwayes the more true or even simply true That some doctrines have been common amongst them three hundred years since which now are so farr from being common as not to be scarce of any one man That some also now common have been some two or three ages past the doctrine of one single man And what is now of a single School-man against the torrent of the other side may after some few years more prove it self a torrent of all sides In fine that the doctrine of the Schools as such and the doctrine of the Church as the Church are 〈◊〉 least oâ—â—en 〈◊〉 wide one from another as Heaven and Earth LIX Bu◠〈◊〉 pâ—â—â—venture some may yet object the passion of Father 〈…〉 〈…〉 aâ—â—â—gation at or before his passion or death when he 〈◊〉 examined concerning the Gun powder-treason his opinion consequently against the doctrine of revealing in such a case the person of the Confitent although I have to this objection said enough already yet because what I â—aid so was only per transennam or transiently I thought fit to repeat here again that and further add what I conceive necessary to remove this only remaining but pitiful presence of a meer made scruple 1. That his passion or death suffered by him was not to bear testimony to the contrary doctrine but for having been found guilty himself by the law at least as a concealer of that wicked plot And that as it is most certain there was never
wilfully blind even in this particular we now handle And so I have done with the Procurators first answer to their fourth ground LXII His second answer to this same 4. ground was That granting the Remonstrance had either in that perclose or some other part even formally and by express words declared against all pretences whatsoever of any such thing as Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream civil or temporal coercive power of the Prince or Magistrate provided still it did not declare as verily it does not against that which is indeed the real true and well grounded exemption of Clergiemen from inferiour civil Judicatories according to the respective civil laws or customs of several Kingdoms and as farre as the respective laws or customs do allow such exemption from such inferiour Judicatories yet neither the Divines of Lovaine nor any other could justly censure it therefore And the Procuratours reason for this second answer which he gave ex superabundanti was first in general that he defied those of Lovaine or any other Divine or Canonist in the world to shew any law Divine either positive or natural or any law human either civil or ecclesiastical for such exemption or which is the same thing to shew any one text of holy Scripture or any one tenet of Apostolick tradition or any Canon at all of the Catholique Church or even as much as any kind of passage out of the civil law of Emperours nay as much as any one convincing or even probable argument of natural reason to prove a power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen from the cognizance and coercion of the supream civil Prince or laws under which they live as Citizens or Subjects or live as at least reputed Citizens or Subjects And secondly his reason also in general for it was that on the contrary he durst undertake against the Divines of Lovaine to prove there is no such exemption nor can be and with much evidence to prove this even by clear express texts of holy Scripture in that sense the holy Fathers generally understood such texts even for a whole thousand of years But not content with these two general reasons given for that his second answer to the fourth ground of the Lovaine censure the Procuratour descended often to particular proofs of each Which I think not unworthy my pains and your patience good Reader to give at length here Protesting nevertheless that I have no design at all to lessen the priviledges Immunity or Exemption of the Sacred Ministers of God but onely to oppose the unlawful extension of it and erroneous doctrine of some Divines in this point or that which they teach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption from the supream civil coercive power against all the known laws of God LXIII And therefore and for what concerns any Divine law positive or command of God expresly either formally or virtually delivered us by Revelation and this Revelation made known unto us either by holy Scripture or by Tradition for such command it is that all Divines call the Positive law of God as it is distinguish'd from that other which they also call in opposition to this the law divine natural or as others call it the law of nature only without further addition being nothing els but one of those commanding dictats of meer natural reason which natural reason consequently such dictats thereof God hath given the Soul every man generally from his birth by the very condition of his being a man and of having his organs rightly disposed and therefore is called the law divine natural I say that for what concerns any positive law of God revealed in holy Scripture the case is clear enough even by the concession of Bellarmine himself De Clericis l. 1. cap. 28. where he confesses plainly in the proofs of his fift Proposition That there is not in holy Scriptures any precept or command properly such for the exemption of Clergiemen either as to their goods or as to their persons in publick matters that is in temporal civil or worldly affairs from the civil Magistrate And he means too by the civil Magistrate here not onely the supream civil Magistrate but even all subordinate inferiour Magistrates And confesses further though even for the matter in plain contradiction to his own Thesis immediately before that is to his said fift proposition there are onely in the old Testament some testimonies or some examples out of which per quandam similitudinem as he speaks by some kind of similitude one may deduce the exemption of Clergie-men as of Divine Right or that God is pleased they should be so exempted labouring by this vain explication to reconcile the Catholick Divines and the Canonists those maintaining very truly and learnedly that the exemption of Clerks such as it is is onely by meer humane right or law and these no less falsely and ungroundedly that it is de jure divinâ— And I say That whether Bellarmine had so confessed or no the case is clear enough still if we but consider those very testimonies and examples of Bellarmine or by him or others alleadged either out of the old Testament or out of the new The first of those Testimonies or examples out of the old Testament is that in 40. of Genesis 22. and 26. verse wherein we find that in the general famine and sale which by occasion thereof was made by all the people of Egypt and of all their lands cattle and even bodies for ever to Pharao and for bread to relieve themselves Ioseph exempted those Idolatrous Priests of Egypt from that slavery of either bodies or lands gave them corn gratis out of the Royal granaries and would not after subject as much as their lands to the condition of others which was to pay the King a fift part for ever of the encrease or fruit of their lands The second example is out of 1. Esdras cap. 7. verse 24. where it is read that King Artaxerxes commanded his Treasurers beyond the river as before 21. verse not to sess the Priests or other Ministers of the Temple at Ierusalem with any taxes c. We do you also to understand concerning all the Priests and Levites and the singers and the porters the Nathineits and Ministers of the house of this God that you have no authority to put tole and tribute and yearly rents upon them The third example or testimony is out of Leviticus 3. chap. where God himself commands Moyses to bestow on Aaron the high Priest and on his Sons the other Priests and to give them as a gift for ever all the Levits or children of Levy And God himself further expresly declares twice verse the 12. and 45 that the Levits were and should be his own mei sunt and mei erunt And these are all that Bellarmine alleadges out of the old Testament though he troubles not himself so much as to deduce them at length
and this barely too crimen Ecclesiasticum it is declared that if any charge a Clerk with the former sort of crime the secular judges shall determine the cause but if with the later that the Bishop onely shall have power to judg it Quod si de criminali causa litigium emerserit tunc competentes judices in hac civitate scilicet Constantinopolitana vel in Provinciis interpellati consentaneum legibus terminum imponant c Sin autem crimen Ecclesiasticum est tunc secundum canones ab Episcopo suo causae examinatio paena procedat nullam communionem aliis judicibus in hujusmodi causis habentibus Which although it was first or originally a meer civil constitution or Novel of Iustinian yet was after made a canon of the Church by being inserted in and received by the Church amongst her canons in corpore Iuris canonici or in Gratian. Sixt canon as to pure Ecclesiastical crimes and to their punishment in case of disobedience to the Bishops was long before and not a Papal canon onely but a canon of the third Council of Carthage which was that is called the Vniversal Council understand you of Affrick and is that also in Gratian XI q. 1. c. Petimus where it is declared that intruded Bishops contemning the admonitions of the Church belong in such case to the lay judicatory Seaventh canon distinguishing likewise in effect sufficiently and clearly enough as the above fift hath done betwixt lay crimes or at least some lay crimes that is crimes which are common as well to lay-men as to Clergie-men and both Ecclesiastical crimes or such as are proper onely to Ecclesiastical persons and other crimes too which are strictly civil but not criminal is that of the first Council of Matiscon held in the year 582. under King Gunteramnus and Pope Pelagius II. wherein and in the 7. chap. the Fathers decree Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex cujuscumque Clericum absque causa criminali id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum suerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Whence appears evidently these Fathers held it no breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity that Clerks accused of murder theft or maleficium what ever they understood by this word or whether witchcraft onely according the special acception and restriction of this word or sense of it by some authors or generally all kind of lay evils or wickedness according to the general or etymological sense thereof should be subject to the meer lay coercive power of even inferiour lay judges whereof I have said more at large before And therefore by this canon Princes were to the end of the fift age of Christianity in possession of their own proper supream civil power of punishing Clerks in their own lay and princely Iudicatories tribunals or courts and even by their own inferiour proper and meer lay delegated or commission'd judges when I say the cause or accusation was purely criminal and of such crimes in specie as are murder theft or witchcraft Eight canon is that still in Gratian 23. q. 5. cap. Principes For though Isidorus de sum bon c. 35. be the original Author of it yet as in Gratian it is now allowed and accounted amongst the canons of the Church And that indeed not unworthily For thus it speaks Principes seculi non numquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eamdem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesâ—asticam muniant Caeterum intra Ecclisiam petesta es necessariae non essent nisi ut quod non fraevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem potestat hoc impleat per disciplinae terrâ—rem Saepe per regnum terrenum caeleste regnum proficit ut qui intra Ecclesiam positi contra fidem disciplinam Ecclesiae agunt rigore Principum conterantur ipsamque disciplinam quam Ecclesiae humilitas exercere non praevalet corvicibus superborum potestas principalis imponat ut venerationem mereatur virtutem potestatis impertiat Cognoscant Principes saeculi Deo debere se rationem reddere propter Ecclesiam quam a Christo tuendam accipiunt Nam sive augeatur pax displina Ecclesiae per fideles Principes sive soluatur ille ab eis rationem exiget qui corum potestati suam Ecclesiam credidit Here you see that not out of or by vertue of any commission or delegation from Bishops or Popes Princes do exercise the distriction of their power even within the Church that is against Churchmen and even too in Church affairs but out and by vertue of their own proper authority which they received from God And you see also that the Church as such by reason of its humble and essential constitution may not exercise or make use of any penal discipline as belonging to her self but for such coercion must have recourse to the power of Princes Nor let any think to evade by saying that Princes are in so much or as punishing such persons or as determining correcting or amending such affairs but Ministers of the Church and executors of the sentence or power of the Church pursuant to that which Innocent III. and the Glosse upon him say or determine cap. ut famae de sent Excom extracted out of the said Innocent's answer to the Bishop of London For I have before already in several Sections proved by reason Scripture tradition of the Fathers and practise too both general and particular and of both Fathers and Princes and Pontiffs and people that Princes have hethertoo proceeded and de jure proceeded against such persons and even too in such matters by their own proper authority without any commission had from the Church As likewise that they received from God himself such their own proper universal authority and right to proceed so against all persons whatsoever laymen or Clergiemen guilty of any crimes and in all causes too whatsoever temporal or spiritual forasmuch or wherein they relate to the external peace of the Commonwealth and to the meer external government of the Church by the power of the material sword And we have seen too already that the power of inflicting corporal punishment by way of coaction and force is absolutely denyed to the Church as a Church Which being so who will be so unreasonable as to attribute a power to Her of deputing commissioning or delegating Ministers or executors to inflict them so But what this canon or Gratian or rather Isidore who was the original Author sayes here is very observable I mean where it sayes that Princes have the height of their power within the Church and that God himself hath committed his Church to their power even as Leo Magnus the Pope writing to Leo the Emperour ep 81. sayes Debes incunctanter advertere Regiam potestatem tibi non
great strictness in his own way I mean according to the judgment of the Prelats and Nobles of that Assembly at Paris But for a judgment also given of purpose on that whole controversie and given by a contemporary Historian a Catholick by religion a Monk by profession and writer of very good repute Gulielmus Neubrigensis and a judgment given by him of this matter even after Thomas had been both martyrized and canonized you have it in his third Book cap. 16. and in these words Sane cum plerique soleant in iis quos amant laudant affectu quidem propensiori sed prudentia parciori quicquid ab iis geritur approbaâ—e planè ego in viro illo venerabili ea quae ita ab ipso acta sunt ut nulla exinde proveniret utilitas sed feruor tantum accenderetur Regius ex quo tot mala post modum pullulasse noscuntur laudanda nequaquam censuerim licet ex laudabili zelo processerint sicut nec in Beatissimo Apostolorum Principe arcem jam Apostolicae perfectionis tenente quod geâ—tes suo exemplo Judaizare coegit in quo eum Doctor gentium reprehensibilem deciatat fuisse licet eum constat laudabili hoc pietate fecisse Third reason That he might possibly be imbued with the doctrine which was growing then of the exemption of Clergiemen either by divine immediate right of the positive or even natural law of God or by that which is pretended to be mediatly divine and immediatly canonical or humane from the Canons of the Church or at least from the bad or false interpretation of those Canons or by some prescription and will and power of those Popes who so mightily in his dayes and for almost a whole age before his dayes immediatly and continually contested with the very Emperours themselves and all other Bishops for both the spiritual and temporal soveraignty of the world and this too by a pretence of divine right And that we must not wonder that even on so great a Saint as Saint Thomas of Canterbury himself the authority of the first Apostolick See and the numbers of her admirers adorers and followers then in what quarrel soever and the specious pretence of piety in the cause and education in such principles or amongst such people should work a strong pre-possession of zeale as for the cause of God being it was reputed the cause of the Church however that according to the veritie of things or true laws divine or humane as in themselves nakedly or abstractedly it might peradventure not have either the cause of God or the cause of the Church Fourth reason and it is a confirmation that is a very probable argument though nor perhaps throughly or rigidly demonstrative of the truth of the Third That in the speech or words of St Thomas of Canterbury in the time of his banishment to his King Henry the Second at Chinun which Honeden ad an 1165. calls Verba Beati Thomae Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun we find this sentence of his Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere c. Wherein I am certain this holy Bishop was point blanck contrary to the sense of ten thousand other holy Bishops before him in the more primitive ages of the Church and contrary to plain Scripture and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church for at least the ten first and best ages of Christianity Fift reason That it is not so clear in all respects that those sixteen heads of customs passed not legally and long before the Saints death into a just municipal law of the land or of England notwithstanding that St. Thomas denyed and even justly too denyed his own hand and seale or even justly also retracted his own former consent by oath yea and notwithstanding that it was meerly out of fear that the rest of the Bishop did at first consent or gave their own consent by oath likewise For it may be said first and said also upon very probable grounds out of the several ancient Catholick and even Ecclesiastick Historians who writ of purpose of those dayes and matters that they all freely after consented And secondly it may be said that the greater vote enacts a law in Parliament having the consent royal whether one Bishop or moe peradventure or even all the Bishops dissent And thirdly yet iâ— may be said that all laws most commonly or at least too often may be called in question upon that ground of fear of the Prince Sixt and last reason That we must rather give any answer that involves not heresie or manifest errour in the Catholick Faith or natural reason obvious to every man then allow or justifie the particular actions or contests or doctrine of any one Bishop or Pope how great or holy soever otherwise or even of many such or of all their partakers in such against both holy Scriptures plain enough in the case and the holy Fathers generally for the ten first ages in their explications of such Scriptures and consequently against that universal Tradition which must of necessity be allowed Nihil enim innovandum sed quod traditum est observandum Behold here six reasons which taken at least altogether may justifie my giving the two last Answers or my adding them to the other two former As for the rest I leave it to the Readers choice which of all four he will fix on though I my self and for my own part and out of a greater reverence to the Saint himself and to the Pope that canonized him or to that Pope I mean in as much as he canonized him for a martyr in such a cause if he did so or intended so taking the name of martyr properly and strictly whereof what we read in our very Breviary of the cause for which the Pope sayes he suffered may perhaps give some occasion of scruple being it is there said of those Laws of Henry the Second and only said that they were leges utilitati ac dignitati Ordinis Ecclesiastici repugnantes but not said that they were laws against the laws of God though I say I could wish for these reasons that all my Readers did fix as I do my self rather on the first and second Answer then on the two last But on which soever of all four they six I am confident none may infer that they or I question Thomas of Canterbury's sanctity in this world either in his life or at his death or his glory in heaven after his death or question the Bull of of his canonization or question the holy practice of the Catholick Church in her veneration or invocation or finally question as much as those miracles which I suppose were sufficiently proved in the process form'd for his canonization or even those which as wrought after that time at his Tomb or elsewhere are alledg'd upon sufficient grounds if any such be so alledg'd Though I cannot here
even also his great Expositor Cardinal Cajetan and consequently too even all the famous School of Thomists to be Judges Nam Schysmatici sayes Thomas ibidem proprie dicuntur qui propria sponte intentione se ab unitate Ecclesiae separant qui subesse renuunt summo Pontifici membris Ecclesiae ei subiectis communicare renuunt Nolle enim pertinaciter obedire summo Pontifici non est Schysma sayes Cajetan on the same passage of Thomas sed nolle subesse illi ut capiti totius Ecclesiae est Schysma Nam adverte diligenter sayes the same Cajetan and in the same place quod recusare praeceptum vel udicium Papae contingat tripliciter Primo ex parte rei judicatae sen praeceptae Secundo ex parte personae judicantis â—ertio ex parte officii ipsius Judicis Si quis enim pertinaciter contemnat sententiam Papae quia scilicet non vult exequi quae mandavit puta abstinere a tali bello restituere talem statum c. licet gravissime erret non tamen est ex hoc Schysmaticus Contingit namque saepe nolle exequi praecepta Superioris retenta tamen recognitione ipsius in Superiorem Si quis vero personam Papae suspectam rationabiliter habet propterea non solum praesentiam ejus sed etiam immediatum judicium recusat paratus ad non suspectos Judices ab eodem suscipiendos nec Schysmatis nec alterius vitii crimen incurrit Naturale namque est curare nociva cavere a periculis Potestque persona Papae tyrannice gubernare tanto facilius quanto potentior est neminem in terris timet ultorem Cum quis autem Papae praeceptum vel judicium ex parte sui officii recusato non recognoscens eum ut superiorem quamvis hoc credat tunc praecipuâ— Schysmaticus est Et juxta hunc sensum sunt intelligenda verba litterae hujus id est textus D. Thomae sayes Cajetan Inobedientia enim sayes the same Cajetan going on still and concluding quantumcumque pertinax non constituit Schysma nisi sit rebellio ad officium Papae vel Ecclesiae ita ut renuat illi subesse illum recognoscere ut superiorem c. Where you see clearly That according to the sense of even the Angelical Doctor himself and even of his great Expositor and consequently of even the whole Thomistical School our Remonstrance cannot be charg'd with any Schismatical proposition or clause taking this word Schismatical properly or as it imports that sin of Schism which is distinct both from the sin of pure disobedience or disobedience only and from all other sorts too of sin Because it appears out of St. Thomas and Cajetan here that no doctrine or proposition is Schismatical in this proper sense of the word but that which freely voluntarily and intentionally separates from other members of the Catholick Church or spiritual Head of it the Pope not by disobedience only but also by denying to submit to the very true proper and just Office or Headship of the Pope or to acknowledge it and it hath already appeard out of the Remonstrance it self that there is no such doctrine or proposition formal or virtual therein As for Schism improperly taken so it still imports a sin either that of pure or only bare disobedience or any other whatsoever you please if it can import in any true sin any other sin but that of meer disobedience I have also already and abundantly vindicated the said Remonstrance from such also or from any such injurious and false aspersion both all along hitherto and even in this very Section but most particularly in my argument against its being unlawful For as the sin of pure disobedience so also every other is dictum factum or concupitum contra legem Dei But if the Divines of Louain will have our Remonstrance to be Schismatical because it separates from their evil doctrine per me licet in that sense because that is a good and vertuous sense of the word though as too too improper so no way conducing to their end nor consisting with their judgment of sub Sacrilegii reatu c. and because the doctrine of all the most Holy most Catholick and Learned Fathers and of the Blessed Apostles and even of Christ our Lord himself may be truly said to be Schismatical in that sense being it separated from the wicked Doctrine of Atheists Deists Jews Scribes Pharisees Hereticks and Schismaticks truly and properly such And Secondly As to the second branch of the said Minor which second branch is that of our said Remonstrances not being Heretical I proceed thus No Remonstrance is Heretical which contains not formally or virtually some Proposition either formally or virtually against Holy Scripture or Catholick Tradition Ours is a Remonstrance which contains no such Ergo Of the Major there can be no controversie because Heresie is defined to be an errour and onely that errour which is against some Doctrine publickly revealed by God to the Church and because it is confessed of all sides there is no Doctrine so revealed by God but that which is either formally or virtually revealed in Canonical Scripture or Catholick Tradition And the Minor I have at large already proved partly in this very Section and in my first Sillogisme therein against the two suppositions expressed in the Louaine Censure and partly also as also without comparison more amply and irrefragably in so many other Sections before some of which proceeded in a negative way against the four chief grounds of the same Louaine Censure and against all the Arguments of Bellarmine and others and the rest in a positive way no less Demonstratively against the self same grounds and Arguments Where the Reader may see diffusely that the Doctrine of a Supreme even Coercive power of Lay-Princes over even all sorts whatsoever of Clergymen within their own Dominions and that of an answerable Subjection of all sorts of people both Clerks and Laicks to the same Princes is so far from being such an errour or being Heresie against either Scripture or Tradition that it is warranted by both and the contrary Doctrine likewise manifestly against both And in this very Section I have shewed already there is neither Clause or Proposition in our whole said Remonstrance but only such as contains no more in effect but an acknowledgment of the Power in Princes and of that Subjection and Obedience of Subjects Behold Christian and impartial Reader four or five Syllogisms against the Epithets either formal or virtual of the Louain Censure which four or five together with that other longer Syllogism against the two Suppositions or Causes or Reasons expressed therein compleat the whole number of my Arguments or of what I intended to say in this last Section against that abortive Censure And now I leave it to thy own serious indifferent and Christian judgment whether considering all I may not again most justly repeat and evidently
his power and authority And we know there may be many other pretended grounds powers authorities However these matters be I declare first It was not the homeness of the Irish Formulary against the Pope but rather defect of that full and perfect and unavoidable undistinguishable homeness thereof that troubled me Though withall how defective or unhome soever it may be said by some to be against the Pope and Church or for the King and Civil Magistracy yet no man will deny now but that the Roman Court esteems it too too home and full against their Interests and Papal Usurpations Secondly That had I been at first consulted with as to the framing or fixing on a Formulary of Allegiance to the King neither King nor Council nor Parliament or House of Commons nor other Protestant Subject or not Subject whatsoever should have any ground left for excepting against the shortness or defectiveness of it as to any point controverted hitherto in that which relates to indispensable Allegiance in all Temporal things whatsoever or to its being open to Evasions or lyable to any kind of Quibbles not even to that of the reduplicative or specificative sense Thirdly That nevertheless I should not have been moved hereunto out of other respect than that of redeeming the Roman-Catholicks from the severity of the Laws against them hitherto these 100 years And I mean that of redeeming them only by a Declaration of their future fidelity and obedience in all Civil and Temporal matters so full clear and positive as would be answerable in all points to their so long consultation about such a one this whole entire Age past wherein they have declined first the Oath of Supremacy next that of Allegiance and by their demurs on both rendred themselves not only obnoxious to so many Laws but also to so many jealousies and suspitions of their Loyalty to the Crown and Kingdom of England Ireland c. as if they inclined to the vain pretences of Forreign powers And what I pray you will judicious learned Protestants say or rather what will they not say now when they cannot but understand how the said Catholicks oppose now again even a very cautious Declaration of bare and meer Allegiance in Civil things only and such a Declaration too I mean as was framed not by any Protestant but by themselves Or will not such Protestants as please have hence a very specious and probable ground to alledge in Parliament and plead there openly against the comprehension of Papists in any Act of Indulgence to Tender Consciences should there be any such And to alledge and plead I say A manifest inconsistence betwixt the safety of a Protestant Prince or State and the Repeal of Laws heretofore made against People so principled or any absolute liberty or freedom of exercise of Religion to them whose Religion appears by so many Arguments to be destructive to the very fundamentals of any Civil State especially Protestant because denying still to acknowledge as much as the very essence of such a State this essence if not consisting in at least requiring for one part of its essentials to be absolutely Sovereign or Supreme and Independent from any but God alone in all Temporal and Civil things And may not consequently the same Protestants plead That such Roman-Catholicks as peremptorily refuse to acknowledge that absolute Sovereignty or Supremacy and Independency in such a form of Declaration or Oath as cannot be lyable to any Evasions in any kind of Contingency whaâ—soever have no Title at all to His MAJESTIES gracious promises in His Letters from Breda for Indulgence to be given to all Tender Consciences that hold not Principles destructive to the fundamentals of Government For surely if any Opinions be destructive to such fundamentals those of the said Roman-Catholicks or of such Roman-Catholicks I mean as hold them must be of necessity Let any one therefore judge now with what sincerity or knowledge or truth the foresaid Internuncio Hierom de Vecchiis writ as you have seen to Father Bonaventure Brodin That the Valesian Formulary is it which may do more hurt and mischief to the Church of God than all the foreacted persecution of Hereticks And judge you Reader whom he understands here by Hereticks What by the Church of God What by hurt or mischief or ruine to that Church But blessed be God we are not so mad yet as to confine the Church of God to the walls of Rome or Papal and Cardinalitial Consistory or to the small number of men wherever diffused that either out of ambitious flattery or cowardly fear or ignorance or other respect whatsoever maintain the Papal Usurpations over Church or State asserting them so in plain contradiction both to Scripture Tradition Fathers Canons and practice too of the Catholick Church and not only to natural reason Nor yet so mad as to think that whatever hurts annoys or ruines the wicked Usurpations or unjust worldly Emoluments of such men must be esteemed any way truly hurtful to the Church of God and not rather on the other side both highly and truly advantagious and profitable Nor further yet so mad as to hold all those for Hereticks whom the Roman Ministers Tribunals or even many of their Popes even or also Boniface the VIII himself held for such No nor yet so mad as to esteem that to have been a persecution in the bad sense of this word which was a just prosecution of so many Emissaries sent heretofore from Rome of meer and set purpose to overthrow both King and Kingdom here by plotting and raising or endeavouring to raise even bloody horrid Rebellions of Subjects against both that I may say nothing now of the Invasion of Eighty Eight against Queen Elizabeth or the Powder-plot Treason after against King James and both His Houses of Parliament or of the late Rebellion in Ireland in our own dayes and year 1641. Nor finally so mad as to account the Remonstrants a Sect in the bad sense of this word albeit de Vecchiis would fain have them reputed such not only by Nicknaming them Valesians but also by joyning them in a comparative manner with those he expresly calls Hereticks For certainly it is meer madness either of blind ignorance or extreme malice that should make any to esteem the Teachers of fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things to a lawful King of what Religion soever to be therefore a Sect in the bad sense of this word Although in the Etymological sense generically taken or in any innocent thereof and in opposition to the present Roman Court its Partisans in the grand Controversie and in that or like good sense consequently whether generical or specifical wherein St. Paul confessed himself to be of the Sect of Pharisees in the point of Resurrection the Remonstrants confess themselves a Sect and glory in being so But the Internuncio gains nothing hereby if not that himself and his Associates how great or numerous soever be really in the worst sense
but many of their Superiours amongst them had also discountenanced nay to their power even vexed and persecuted such of their underlings who had signed it and moreover had understood all the other practices of their Agents beyond Seas how I say notwithstanding all this the said Lord Lieutenant had hitherto and for their sakes who signâ—d most patiently expected an amendment of such errours in the rest and in the mean time extended even to the most ungrateful of the Dissentors and opposers all those very favours of Indulgence and connivance of Publick exercise of Religion which the Subscribers enjoy And how the Procurator himself had no way lessened his Zeal to endeavour by all means he could the continuance of those favours even to the very most ungrateful and malicious of his Adversaries in the grand contest Sixth reflected on the great variety of pretences which the dissenting both Superiours and Inferiours pleaded for so many years to excuse their non-concurrence and amongst or rather above all other excuses their desire and expectation of Licence for a National Assembly to consult of the equity of the demand See those either pretences or true cause Tract 1. Part. 1. Sect. 9. from Page 21. to Pag. 27. Where you find the Sixteenth of them to be this of a National Congregation desired Seventh was wholly taken up in the Merits of the main matter in controversie or the only chief end of their meeting viz. the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof And here the Procurator shewâ—d and at large dilated upon the Lawfulness and Orthodoxness of it in point of Conscience and both Christian and Catholick Religion even I mean as to those very causes of the said Remonstrance which was the Rock of Scandal because denying and renouncing all and every the branches and appendages of the pretended Papal Authority either by Divine or Human Right to depose the King c. or dispence with or declare against the Allegiance of Subjects or by Excommunication or otherwise to raise them to a Rebellion against His Majesty c. His Arguments against any such Papal Power and consequently for the said Lawfulness and Orthodoxness he derived evidently 1. From so many plain Declarations and express commands of Holy Scripture 2. From the unanimous consent of Holy Fathers interpreting those passages of Holy Scripture so and not otherwise for a whole Thousand years until Gregory the VII's Pontificat 3. From the Practice also as well as Theory of the Christian Church Universally for those ten whole centuries of years and consequently even from true Catholick Tradition 4. From the general opposition made even in all European Nations Kingdoms States Schools Universities and National Churches to the contrary positions even also in every age since the said Gregorie's days until this very present 5. Particularly from the known Assertions of the Gallican Church and Decisions too of the eight present Universities of France all unanimously condemning those self same contrary positions as impious wicked against the Word of God Heretical and more singularly yet from the six late Declarations of Sorbon May 8. 1663. Not to mention how Cardinal Perron by his fine circumventing speech in the general Assembly of the Three Estates of that Kingdom after the Murder of Henry Le Grand only endeavour'd these Positions should not be declared in formal Words Heretical 6. From the Practice of the Parliaments of Paris and Sicilian Monarchy too 7. From the Statuts of Provisors and Praemunire made so many Hundred years since by the Roman-Catholick Kings and Parliaments of England and Ireland even all the Lords Spiritual assenting especially those Statutes under Edward the III. and Richard the II. which declare the Crown of those Kingdoms to be Imperial and subject to none but God only 8. From the eminency and multitude of most learned Roman Catholick Writers even Scholasticks who all along these 600 years have in every Age expresly condemned and even both specifically and abundantly confuted those vain and wicked pretences set on foot first by Hildebrand 9. From the pitiful silliness unsignificancy and absurdity of all Bellarmin's Arguments for the other side arguments proving either nothing at all or certainly that which neither himself nor any not even of his very beloved Popes themselves would allow 10. And Lastly from the clearness of Natural Reason also in the cases and that I mean too whether the Revelations of Christianity be presupposed or no. From all such Topicks of convincing Reason and Authority I mean as well Divine as Human the Procurator deduced his own arguments for the above Lawfulness and Orthodoxness viz. of the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof notwithstanding any Bugbear of Roman Letters or Louain Censures to the contrary The eighth advanced hence to the consequential both expediency and necessity of their unanimous cheerful Subscription without further delay or regret being there was no other way or means to redeem themselves or their Church or to satisfie or appease the King or his Protestant People for what had been so publickly and vehemently acted in former times partly by them or at least many of them and partly by the rest of the Irish Clergy represented by them and acted even all along either in or immediatly after the very first Rebellion of the Irish Nation in October 1641. and in the unhappy Congregation of Waterford Anno 1641 against the first Peace and further in the year 1648 against the Cessation with Inchiquin and for the Censures of the Nuncio Lastly in the year 1650. and most unhappy Congregation of Jamestown against the second Peace no other way truly in the first place but of humble Submissive Penitential Petition begging pardon for so many former grievous Errors against all Laws Divine and Human. Nor indeed any other in the next place to allay the just suspicions and jealousies of their future demeanour but that of a sincere hearty Loyal Recognition of His Majesties Supream Temporal Independent Power Protestation of Obedience and Fidelity according to the Laws of the Land in all Temporal matters and all contingencies whatsoever and Renunciation also of all pretended Powers and false Doctrines to the contrary The Ninth was the conclusion of all in wishes and Prayers beseeching the Fathers by all that should be dear or Sacred to them to consider That nothing was desired or expected from them in either point but what certainly was more consonant to pure Christianity i. e. to the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ and therefore doubtless more holy than the contrary was or could possibly be 2. The sad fate which had perpetually and universally attended all Rebellions of those of their Religion however at so many several times and places entred into either in England Ireland or Scotland since the first separation under Henry the Eighth 3. Whether wise men ought not even in point of Prudence not only bid at last an eternal adieu to such both Principles and Practices as proved at all times and in all Countries
to proffer so much in writing by a publcik Act of their Congregation i. e. by signing the paper to that purpose offered them to be signed unless besides other prejudices and evils which their proceedings hitherto must if not remedied by new Resolves bring of necessity on all the Roman-Catholick both Clergy and People represented or lead by them they intend also to sowe the seeds of a perpetual scandalous and fatal Schism amongst that very Clergy and People These being the heads of what we think necessary to be so debated and our desires and Petition of a Committee and Conference to such end being no other than we likewise think every indifferent Person will hold to be very reasonable in the present circumstances we have moreover thought fit to assure the Fathers That in case they convince us by reason or argument which may take with any judicious indifferent Person we shall most freely and resignedly submit to them in all and every of the controverted Points So little are we byassed against that Light which God hath imprinted on every rational Soul nay on the contrary so resolved are we to hold perpetually to the best of our knowledge to the Rule of Christian Belief which we conceive to be now or as to us and all other faithful men living the Holy Scriptures of God as they are interpreted by the constant unanimous universal Tradition of the Church and Doctrine of all the Holy Fathers even for Ten whole entire Ages of Christianity until the days and Vsurpation of Gregory the VII But if notwithstanding all and particularly so fair an offer the Congregation shall which God forbid suffer themselves to be either misguided or over-awed and over-ruled still by those persons amongst them who seek not the good of either Nation or Religion but their own peculiar worldly interest every one of them and this even knowingly to the prejudice of Evangelical truth and Propagation or Confirmation of both Schismatical and Heretical Errours or if to pleasure such persons the Congregation will not condescend to a desire so earnest and reasonable a Petition so equitable and humble for such a necessary Committee and Conference this Letter will at least bear us witness that of our part and to our power we have done what became us for preventing those evils which we mightily fear and are almost certainly perswaded the bad counsels and further designs of some leading persons amongst them will at last bring upon the Nation in general Whether in the mean time the Congregation it self can avoid the Censure of all understanding men whether even of those who otherwise might be the most fiery pretending Zealots for the Church and Pope may be worth the considering We mean when it shall be made publickly known That such a National Assembly of Ecclesiasticks would neither frame a Remonstrance of their own satisfactory to the King in point of professing their Allegiance to him for the future in meer Temporal things nor at all joyn or concur in that of others which was indeed in all respects satisfactory and as such already accepted by His Majesty and was also by not a small number of both Ecclesiasticks and Layicks of their own Countrey and Religion and amongst these and those many persons too not only considerable for other qualifications but for their Learning and judgment who even Principally to do them all the good lay in their power had freely and conscientiously signed the former Remonstrance nor yet no not even on the contradictory question would shew their Lawful exceptions or indeed any at all against the former nor even do so much as suffer it to be debated 'twixt a Committee of their own and another of the Subscribers of it no nor so much as to be debated in their own House or elsewhere by their own Divines alone whether it contain'd any Errour or any other cause of Lawful exception nor finally no not to prevent all those otherwise impending evils especially the very worst of them viz. a manifest scandalous and fatal Schism amongst the Catholick Clergy and consequently People too of this Nation the setting up or continuing of Altar against Altar would so much as testifie under their hands or by a publick Act of their House what they themselves professed there in word That they had in truth no exception against either that former Remonstrance or the Subscribers of it We say it may be worth the considering whether when all those matters and whatever else pertains unto them shall be made publick to the World this National Congregation of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks can avoid the heavy Censure of any understanding man Nay whether all understanding men who shall and when they shall read a perfect and full relation of all and particularly of this our present both hearty and humble Petition and withal of the Congregation's declining still nevertheless to come to such an issue will not judge That the same Fathers and together with them all other our Antagonists both at home and abroad Natives and Forreigners yield up the Cause justifie us and condemn themselves that refuse a Tryal so equitable in it self and so heartily and humbly desired of them by us This is all we have to say or pray at present save only That your Lordship may be pleased either by your self or some other Member of the House to read publickly in the House to all the rest of the Prelats and Fathers there Assembled this Letter of our Expostulation with and Petition to them all in general being it is only to this purpose directed to your Lordship as their Chairman Wherefore concluding we heartily wish your Lordship and them our Right Reverend good Lords and Venerable Fathers and wish them in their final Resolves before they dissolve the efficacious influence of the All-powerful Spirit of God which strongly and sweetly works all the good Resolves of men And so with much affection and all due respect we kiss your sacred hands Right Reverend and our very good Lord your Lordship 's most humble Servants Secular Priests Laurence Archbold Bartholomew Read Dominicans Fr. Clement Birn Fr. John Reynolds All Franciscans Fr. Valentine Brown Fr. Peter Walsh Fr. Anthony Gearnon Fr. Francis Coppinger Fr. Thomas Harold Fr. Christopher Plunket Fr. James Tuit Fr. Patrick Carr. Fr. Laurence Tankard Fr Thomas Talbot Fr. Mathew Duff F. James Fitz Gerrald Fr. Anthony Saul Fr. Valentine Cruiz What the qualifications or Titles were of these Subscribers you may see Treat 1. partly pag. 9. and partly pag. 47. In both which places they amongst others subscribe their names with their respective qualifications or Titles to the former Remonstrance some amongst the first Subscribers in England and others after amongst those who signed in Ireland Yet I confess there is one amongst them whose subscription was not valued nor desired by any of the rest but rather declined yea and had been absolutely refused by them if they had known how to refuse it prudently
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
distinction of Countrey or Degree or Sex or Age Men Women Children from the most illustrious Peer to the most obscure Plebeian wheresoever in any of His Majesties Kingdoms or Dominions even at this present lie under all the rigorous Sanctions and all the severe Penalties of so many incapacitating so many mulctative Laws nay and so many sanguinary which reach even to life in several cases And your Predecessors before you have well nigh a whole Century of years been continually under the smart or apprehension of the severity of them And so may your Successors and your Children and Posterity after you for so long more if the true causes of Enacting at first those Laws and continuing them ever since be no better considered i.e. no more narrowly search'd into nor more effectually regarded by you than they have been by your Fathers for you or themselves But whatever Gods providential care of or goodness to your Posterity after you may be I am sure it cannot be denied but all Roman-Catholicks universally now living any where in England Ireland or Scotland must upon due reflection find themselves highly concern'd in having the Sword-point of those penal Constitutions hanging continually and even perpendicularly over their heads Do not we all manifestly perceive they are with-held at present from execution by a very small and weak Thred not only of one life that is mortal but even of one will alone that yet may be alter'd of a sudden upon many occasions which may happen when least expected Now seeing you are all every one thus concern'd in those Laws surely so you must all be in the causes of them i.e. in those genuine true proper and onely causes which continued must necessarily continue those very Laws and which removed will naturally remove them But if in those causes your concernment be such how can it be other or indeed how can it be any way less in the Subject of this Book All the several Treatises and Parts thereof and all the several Relations Discourses Disputes Animadversions therein occasion'd by either of the two Formularies drive ultimately at a plain and full discovery of those very causes and of their continual dependance on your own proper will alone and how lawfully and justly you may or rather how strictly you are even by all the known Maxims of Christian Religion Catholick Faith and Natural Reason bound in Conscience to remove them Your Concern therefore above all others in the Subject being thus at last clearly manifested I need no further Apology for the Dedication A Consecratory Address to you appears now evidently enough to have been required by the Nature of the Work it self as a necessary Appendage of that real duty which I have endeavoured to the best of my understanding all along in this Book to pay the most sacred name of Catholicks And in truth to whom other than to your selves ought or could I upon any sufficient ground dedicate a Book of so universal and weighty a Concern of yours Yet after all I must acknowledge that besides your propriety in the Subject I had the current of my own desires and my own Ideas to exact this Duty I have in truth these many years had continually even passionate desires of some fair opportunity to offer unto you but with all due submission still some farther and more particular thoughts relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of all your foresaid evils And have at last entertain'd the pleasing Idea of a Dedicatory as the fairest occasion I could wish to speak directly and immediately to your selves all whatever I think to be for your advantage on that Subject and sutable to the measures of a Letter and what I moreover know some others think who yet have not the courage to speak or to inform you And therefore to pursue my old method I call it old having held these 26 years of delivering my thoughts fully and throughly in all Points which I conceive to be material though at the same time expecting from some contradiction and from others worse but comforting myself nevertheless with the conscience of very great Truth with the zeal of your highest advantage and with the certain expectation that all judicious good men will approve what I shall say and lay all to heart as they ought I must now tell you that if we please to examine things calmly with unprejudiced reading and unbyass'd reason we may find without any peradventure I. That the rigour of so many Laws the severity of so many Edicts and the cruel execution of both many times against even harmless People of the Roman Communion have not intentionally or designedly from the beginning aim'd nor do at present aim so much at the renunciation of any avowed or uncontroverted Articles of that Christian or Catholick Religion you profess as at the suppression of those Doctrines which many of your selves condemn as Anti-catholick and for the prevention of those practises which you all say you abhor as Antichristian II. That it is neither the number of Sacraments nor the divine excellency of the Eucharist above the rest either by the real presence in or Transubstantiation of the Consecrated Host nor the communion thereof in one kind onely nor the more holy and strict observance of Confession nor the ancient practice of Extreme Vnction nor the needless Controversies 'twixt Vs and the Protestants if we understood one another about Faith Justification Good Works or those termed Supererogatorie or about the Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques Worshipping of Images Purgatory and Pardons nor is it the Canon of the Bible or a Learned Liturgy or Continency of Priests and obligation of certain Vows or holiness of either a Monastick or Cloystered life in a well-ordered Community of devout Regulars nor is it either a Patriarchical power in the Bishop of Rome over the Western Church according to the ancient Canons and Customs or which is yet somewhat more an universal Pastorship purely spiritual acknowledg'd in Him such I mean as properly flows from the Celestial power of the two Keyes of Peter as far as ever it was acknowledged by all or any of the ancient Councils I say it is not any of all these Articles or Practises nor all together not even join'd with some others whether of lesser or greater note that is the grand Rock of scandal or that hath been these last Hundred years the cause of so many Penalties Mulcts Incapacities of shameful Deaths inflicted and more ignominious Characters given us III. That of our side the original source of all those evils and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman-Catholicks in England Ireland Scotland at any time since the first change under Henry VIII hath been a System of Doctrines and Practises not only quite other than your selves do believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture or delivered by Catholick Tradition or evidenced by Natural Reason or so much as defined by
immediately before the foresaid Mauritius Aemulator sayes that Roman Pontiff (b) Agatio was chosen Pope or rather Bishop of Rome an 678. Agatho verae Apostolicae fidei piae memoriae Augustus Justinianus cujus fidei rectitudo quantum pro sincera confessione Deo placuit tantum Rempublicam Christianam exaltavit Et ubique ab omnibus gentibus ejus religiosa memoria veneratione digna censetur cujus fidei rectitudo per augustissima ejus Edicta in toto orbe diffusa laudatur Would Agatho have said so of an Heretick * To Agatho I might add Gregory II. in several Epistles nay and a far greater Authority too viz. the Fathers of the Sixth Oecumanical Sâ—nod besides many others after them See Baâ—â—â—s himself and his Epitomizer Spâ—â—danus confessing so much ad an 565. 3. That if the Truth were known it would be found that Baronius and the rest following him were willing to make use of any malicious ungrounded Fictions whatsoever against Justinian not that they believed him to have either lived at any time or dyed at last in any wilful or imputable Errour or in any at all otherwise than St. Cyprian of Carthage did but that his Laws in Ecclesiastical matters even those of Faith are a perpetual eye-sore to them because these Laws are a Precedent to all other good Princes to govern their own respective Churches in the like manner without any regard of Bulla Coenae or of so many other vain Allegations of those men that would make the World believe it unlawful for Secular Princes to make Ecclesiastical Laws by their own sole Authority for the government of the Church and all orders and degrees of Church men under them even to the very Patriarchs inclusively as Justinian did and you may see in his very many Constitutions to that purpose he did X. Although I do ingenuously confess I had on the Subject of Ecclesiastical either Exemption or Subjection very much light and help from those excellent Authors that writ before me so well on that Subject I mean both the Barclayes the Father and Son yet the learned Reader may see I have been very far from borrowing all from them or any other who treated before or after on Ecclesiastical Immunity Wherever I make use of them I have commonly added everywhere i. e. in every Section to their Answers Animadversions and Proofs my own both reasoning and reading elsewhere I have also raised against my self the strongest Objections I could imagine which they had not nor consequently the Solutions Nay Canons also viz. those Paâ—al ones which the Barclayes do not mention I have both objected and answered at large because I observed our later Casuists or Moralists Azorius and Bonacina c or chiefly or onely or at least partly to quote them though they do no more but barely quote the Chapters not the words or Text for their false Positions about Ecclesiastical Immunity as you may see in my whole LXXI Section from pag. 230. to pag. 241. Besides the whole Affirmative or Positive way against Bellarmine and his Disciples the Louain Divines in five intire long Sections from pag. 243 to pag. 374 where I assume the person of the Opponent to prove the Subjection of all Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate and prove it by Scripture Tradition Fathers Councils and as well by Ecclesiastical yea very Papal Canons as Imperial Constitutions and by Practice also and Reason is wholly from other Collections of my own neither of both the Barclayes nor Withrington nor any other seen by me having so much proceeded in this Affirmative or Positive way but mostly in that which I call Negative as it which hath for principal scope to deny and solve the Arguments of Bellarmine c. XI As for the two grand Objections framed by me against my self the one from the condemnation of Marsilius de Padua and Joan. de Janduno the other from the Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury or rather for my Answers and long material Discourses Sect. LXXVI from pag. 374 to pag. 436. nay to 462. upon and by occasion of each or either of the said two Objections I must no less ingenuously acknowledge that I was necessitated to be my self alone my own guide all along without either light or help from any Authour that handled either Subject For I never saw nor heard of any such Authour Which was the reason that I took more than ordinary pains to clear whatsoever might be alledged or pretended from either that Condemnation or this Martyrdom against the soundness of that Doctrine which maintains the Subjection of all Clergy-men whatsoever to the Supreme Temporal both directive and coercive authority even of meer Lay-Princes and States but more especially to clear the whole Intrigue of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel with Henry II and the Cause for which he suffered and to shew it was no Divine right nor even other Humane save only that of the Civil Secular and Municipal Saxon Danish and Norman Laws of England which he grounded himself on when he refused to deliver at the Kings pleasure the Criminal Clerks to be punish'd or judg'd by the Secular Judges and Officers XII The veneration I have as I am bound to the Roman-Catholick Church or that Communion in general wheresoever diffused throughout the World and my knowledge of their having in all their Calendars on the 29th of December the Festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury made me the First also that for any thing I know ventures in a singular and long Discourse by way of Appendix after my four several Answers given to the grand Objection against c. from the Martyrdom of that holy Bishop of set purpose to vindicate him from having been a Traytor to the King whether or no he was a Martyr in the Church through the merits of his Cause and according to the more proper and stricter Ecclesiastical sense of the word Martyr Three hundred years indeed after his death he was under Henry VIII in a very unusual manner both judicially summon'd to appear and formally condemn'd for a Traytor Then which judgment if woâ—â— grounded nothing can be more prejudicial to the practice of all Roman-Catholicks in the World in keeping his Festivity and honouring his Memory and begging his intercession for them to our Lord and Saviour Christ That it hath been in-grounded I do my devoir to shew and prove from pag. 439 to pag. 462. where I answer first all that hath been or could be alledged against him and then produce eight several Arguments even very strong Presumptions both in Law and Reason for him I mean as to this controverted Point Whether he could be justly said to have either dyed or even at any time lived or been a Traytor against the King People or Laws of England XIII Where I seem pag. 438. somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker the First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth you must not persuade your self I do at all
confess that their both Constitutions and Oath if there be any such Oath of those amongst them them they call Masters of Divinity are only for maintaining the doctrine of St. Thomas of Aquine not as articles of Faith nor as the doctrine of the Church nor Dogmatically at all at least not out of their School Pulpits but only by way of Scholastical speculations and for sharpning of wits and shifting the truth problematically or probably in all such matters wherein the Scripture or Tradition was not clear and certain and still only within the Schools That otherwise the whole Order of the Franciscans and all the other Schools of Scotists who maintain as stiffly and are alike by their Constitutions bound to maintain against St. Thomas the Thomists all the speculations all the subtleties of the Subtile Doctor Scotus who writ ex professo against all or almost all even every individual position of St. Thomas as well in his Divinity as Philosophy where the matter is not certain otherwise by Scripture or Tradition were to be condemned by them Which yet they will not dare in point of morallity prudence and conscience That moreover it is manifest St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs for any of his Theological opinons then for this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes on pretence or because of Infidelity Apostacy Schisme Heresy where he determines it so in his Theological Sum. 2. 2. q. x. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. And that he relyes for proof of so weighty an Assertion first on a reason that would not move the meerest novice in Divinity Quia fideles sayes he merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios lucis Supra q. 10. ar 10. in corp Which yet is the only reason this great Holy Doctor brings to prove that a very infidel Prince who was never Baptized may be deposed by the Church Secondly for proof of that same Assertion as relating specially to an Apostat Heretick or Schysmatick Prince that was Baptized relyes onely and wholy on the bare judgment and practise of Gregory the VII otherwise called Pope Hildebrand or on that Canon made by this Pope which you may find in Gratian. 15. q. 6. cap. Nos Sanctorum That as it is therefore manifest that St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs of any of his Theological Assertions then of this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes as the Reader may see partly in the Latin notes which follow this Paragraph for the rest satisfie himself at large in Father Caro'ns Remonstrantia Hibernorum so it is no less manifest that generally where the Thomists find in any other positions of this Angelical Doctor and those too of infinite less concern insuperable difficulties they decline him there expound him or his mind by some other place of his workes where he held the contrary or perhaps retracted considerately what he had before unadvisedly handled by the example of St. Austin himself in his books of Retractation And so those Irish Fathers might if they pleased have declined in this matter St. Thomas in his said Sum and expounded St. Thomas there by following St. Thomas where he holds by plain consequence of reason the contrary in his exposition of St. Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians That they could not deny but that notwithstanding all their Constitutions and Oathes whatsoever they all now generally and confessedly and without any exposition or interpretation of one place by an other decline St. Thomas of Aquin even in that matter wherein their whole Order these full 300 years found themselves most concern'd of any in point of reputation at least to follow defend him that is in the dispute of the Blessed Virgins conception without original sin Nor can deny this matter to have come within these late years to that height in Spain even where they are in such esteem that the very Provincial of their Order in the Kingdom or Province of Castile was confined to Penna de Francia by orders from the King until he subscribed under his hand against that opinion of St. Thomas in this matter and consequently acknowledged so the Blessed Virgin conceaved without original sin against the confessed doctrine of St. Thomas and against the letter of his Constitutions and verbal tenour of his Oath as a Master And yet he was not so commanded by any decrees of the Church which as it is well known hath never yet decided that question And yet also that question of the Blessed Virgin is no less known to be of infinite less consequence to the Peace or Settlement of either Church or State for the owning or disowning of either the affirmative or negative resolution and for a subscription to either than ours of the Remonstrance of our indispensable loyaltie in Temporal things to the Supream Magistrate and our lawful and rightful King Finally that St. Thomas of Aquin's Scholastical assertion whatever it be or a Statute in an Order to teach such or such a doctrine or Oath of some few members of such an Order how learned religious or eminent soever that Order be is a very bad plea at least in such a matter as ours against ten thousand other Holy and eminent Fathers Doctors Prelates in all Countreys and ages of the Church against so many express clear passages of Holy Scriptures against the universal tradition of all Christians till Gregory the VII days about the Xth. age of Christianity and against the greatest evidence of both natural reason and of hundreds too of Theological arguments the first grounds of Christianity being once admitted Quâ—niâ—â—â— autem singula persequimur admonere oportet D. Thomam alicubi in ea opinione esse ut existimet ius dominii praelationis Ethnicorum Principum justè illis auferri posse 22. q 10. art 10. per sententiam vel ordinationem Ecclesiae authoritatem Dei habentis vt ille ait D. Thomae magna apud me authoritas est sed non tanta ut omnes ejus disputationes pro Canonicis Scripturis habeam vel ut rationem vincat aut legem Ejus ego Manes veneror doctrinam suspicio Sed non est tamen cur illa ejus opinione aliquis moveatur tum quia nullam suae sententiae vel rationem idoneam efficacem vel authoritatem profert tum etiam quia in explicatione epistolae Pauli ad Corinth 1. contrarium planè sentit tum denique quia neminem secum antiquorum Patrum consentientem habet Cap. 6. rationes multae authoritatesque in contrarium supperunt Ratio autem quam adfert est quia infideles merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios Dei Mala ratio tanto viro indigna quasi verò si quis meretur privari officio beneficio
multis aliis reclamabant dicentes ad Papam non pertinere Imperatorem instituero vel destituere Out of all which I think I may conclude that the Objectors themselves will if they lay aside prejudice and passion and compare all I have answered here to their objection of the opinion of two General Councils that of Lateran and that of Lyons will I say confess this allegation of theirs not only vain but absolutely false XXXI Thirdly they will find their allegations false where they say That General Councils are undervalued by some that believe only the diffusive Church is infallible I say they will particularly find this transient animadversion of theirs to be very false if they mean here the Procurator as they do undoubtedly but withal either stupidly or maliciously grounding themselves on what he hath in The Mare Ample Account pag. 60. Where indeed there is no ground at all for this calumny nor any man but a meer blockhead will say there is whatever may be said upon serious consideration of the controversie in it self about the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils debated throughly of purpose For his discourse there is no other then this That in case of such a metaphisical or morally impossible contingency as was caprichiously proposed to him by Father Bonaventure Brudin a little before one of those Franciscan Professors of Divinity at Prague in Bohemia and insisted on mightily and by way of interrogation What would the Subscribers do or think of their Remonstrance if a general Representative of the Church or a General Council truly such did hereafter condemn it His discourse I say upon this occasion as in answer to this wilde interrogatory was That in such case should it happen which yet the Procurator seemed clearly there to hold it was impossible it should happen the Subscribers would either have recourse to the diffusive Church or which is very probable suffer themselves to be mislead it being very possible said he that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logitians tell us it is certain Where it is evident he is so farr from undervaluing General Councils That according to at least some very learned Catholick Divines he rather overvalues them in seeming here to hold it absolutely impossible they should erre against any doctrine of Faith once delivered plainly in Scripture and by Tradition For that he seems to say so here if he say any thing at all of the question of either side or of the fallibility or infallibility of General Councils is most clear and manifest by or in that reason he giveth for his said disjunctive answer and for either the first or second or both parts of it it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow c. Where any rational man will confess he holds it impossible That a General Council truly such should define the contrary And why so but because he supposed two things 1. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance was and is a doctrine of Catholick Faith clearly delivered as such by Scripture and by Tradition 2. That it was and is impossible That a General Council truly such should define against any such doctrine or any doctrine so delivered And is not this as much as in plain terms to hold absolutely That a General Council truly such is infallible in all definitions of Faith or at least so infallible as never to define against Faith and consequently rather to overvalue than undervalue the authority of General Councils if I say we regard what some other eminent Catholick Writers teach or what in particular may be read in Franciscus à Sancta Clara's learned work of Councils that I mean which he calls Systema And any rational man will further confess That that disjunctive resolution of the Subscribers and only for such a case expressed so by the Procurator was purely conditional and the condition such too as for any thing known there of the Procurators judgment was and is absolutely impossible considering the special providence of God his promises to the Church but possible only in the fond imagination of the Proposer or of such a case which wil never be nor can ever be according to all that may be gathered out of that book or passage of the Procurators opinion For what else can his reason signifie which he gives for that disjunctive conditional answer or what these words it being very possible that out of one impossibility another should follow as Logicians tell us it is certain Which is that one impossibility that must be here the antecedent which is it I say if not this That a General Council should define the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be false and which is the other impossibility that must be the consequent if not the recourse of the Subscribers to the diffusive Church or suffering themselves to be mislead c Now therefore it is clear first that he holds both that Antecedent and this Consequent to be impossibilities for so he sayes expresly they are And next it is no less clear that he holds the Antecedent absolutely impossible upon this ground only that he also holds the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be delivered plainly by Scripture and by Tradition and withal holds it an absolute moral impossibility that a general Council truly such should define any thing against plain Scripture or Tradition For otherwise how could he call that imaginary supposition or case an impossibility or as he speaks there one impossibility There is no man of reason would say deliberatly it were impossible that a General Council should define against any controverted doctrine unless he held as well and as firmly that a General Council might not erre as he holds well and firmly either part of that controverted doctrine it self Which is so plain that it needs no further illustration being there is no other ground imaginable for maintaining or asserting an impossibility of a General Councils defining so No other ground therefore is given here by the Procurator for being taxed with undervaluing the authority of General Councils but only this conditional proposition which he confesses implied virtually in his discourse If a General Council shall define the contrary doctrine to be true such General Council will erre But that this conditional proposition which yet was forced from him by that chimaerical Interrogation doth not amount unto an assertion of any real true moral possibility of a General Councils erring himself hath further demonstrated by several unanswerable arguments in the prosecution of his said discourse or answer pag. 62. as by that of St. Paul to the Galathians chap. 1. ver 8. Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed And by that of our Saviour Christ himself to the mis-believing Jews Ioh. 8.55 If I shall say that I do not know him meaning his Father I shall be like unto you a lyar 'T
as Subject to that Metaphysical contingency nay more most of them then that of our Protestation Why then may it not be as lawful for us to practice herein notwithstanding such conditional and caprichious interrogatories We have this advantage of them that in our judgments and in the judgments of at least the incomparably far greater part even of the Catholick Church there is not only both extrinsecal and intrinsecal probability in that we promise and protest but even an absolute certainty as grounded on most clear Scriptures and traditions and that the contrary positions or tenets are so farr from having any intrinsick probability at all that they are manifest errors against the word of God whereas they on the other side practice daily in matters of greatest concern relying only on the bare saying or quotation of one or two Casuists and these too not seldom extravagant and superficial men for matter of knowledg in the most profound questions of Religion And it is further manifest by reason that were such Metaphysical contingencies or apprehensions of them of power to render any unlawfulness in our signing the said Protestation the very same contingencie must vitiat their opposing us even I say as to the question of expediency or necessity And all the expositions made by the Fathers on hard passages of Scriptures and all the Sentences or controverted conclusions of Catholick writers in the succession of all ages since the days of Peter Lombard have been and are still unlawful even as to the expediency of delivering or teaching them Which to assert would be in effect to bereave our selves of all charity and all modestie and all reason Nay all the Canons Definitions Anathematismes of so many ancient holy Christian Councels either Provincial or National as we find in the Tomes of Councels and which have been held some a thousand others 11. 12. 13. 1400. years agoe and some latter all reverenced and many of them canonized by the very Popes themselves must have been unlawful and not onely temerarious but even sinful scandalous and schismatical yea the profession of the Trinity of persons or Divinity of Jesus Christ or an Oath or Protestation made to that purpose disclaiming in and renouncing all Doctrine and authority to the contrary that is in so much would be not onely unexpedient but even unlawful sinful scandalous schismatical before the first general Councel of Nice against Arrius or that other which was held at Constantinople against Macedonius yea that admonition of Paul Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed would be so too nay and that asseveration of our Saviour Christ himself in the Gospel was rash and false Si dixero quia non scio eum similis ero vobis mendax if this argument or interrogatory of our opposers be to any purpose or if their foolish impertinent discourses or private whispers ever since the 15. of Feb. last amongst our lay Gentry here signifie any thing to prove that we renounced or disclaimed in the Doctrine or Authority of a General Councel because we disclaim and renounce any at all as yet known to us which teaches or maintains any power Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal which may absolve us from our natural Allegiance to His Majestie or which may license us to rebell against him or to kill or murther the Anointed of God our Prince though of a different belief from ours Though which is observable our Protestation rigorusly taken as to this particular be onely against all such authority as is forreign and that that of a general Council truly such be known not to be properly forreign to any Christian Country And although the true meaning and purpose of it be onely against the Spiritual or Temporal pretended power of Popes alone But however this be or any thing heretofore said to these wild imaginations I would â—ain know whither it be not an undubitable Maxime in moral Philosophy and Divinity that our action is then lawful when it is against no law that is yet known or doubted to be either of God or man And expedient when in the judgment of wise men or in our own weighing all circumstances it is expected to conduce towards a good or just end we propose to our selves And whether the possibility of a future law or declaration against or inhibition of the like any more can vitiat actions qualified so which precede such laws Certainly as this last querie must be answered in the negative so the two former in the affirmative Now let any man that reads this passage and what I have given before it and for its illustration here in this present Book and Section let I say any such man of what affection soever so he be a man of reason be judge himself whether in this passage I do undervalue the authority of general Councils And I am sure there is no other passage in any other of all my writings where I say any thing to undervalue them And yet I must tell my adversaries that such Catholick Divines as hold the absolute fallibility of General Councils even I mean in point of Faith think they can say enough for themselves to prove that themselves do not therefore or indeed at all undervalue General Councils And enough also to prove that they justly charge their opposers with overvalueing General Councils As also to prove that themselves do still acknowledg a General Council truly such to be the onely Supream Tribunal in the Church And still acknowledg the Supream power of making Canons which concern either Faith or Discipline to be in this Council And still too acknowledg both external and internal acquiescence and obedience due from all persons even from the Pope himself to all their decrees in all Spiritual matters purely such whatsoever wherein an intollerable error against the Faith received is not evidently demonstrated And enough moreover to prove that to attribute more then this to General Councils howsoever truly such were indeed to overvalue them against truth and Tradition And finally enough also to prove it may be as daungerous an errour in religion or Faith to overvalue either Pope or Council as to undervalue them But whether such Catholick Divines as think so or think themselves can say enough for all and each of these particulars do think aright I am not concern'd at present no further then to tell my Adversaries they should rather dispute against them who give some kind of ground then charge me and falsely too being I give them no such ground at all nor any other of being charged with undervalueing General Councils XXXII Fourthly they would find their allegations false where they say that in the opinion of the Diffusive Church corporal punishments may be inflicted by a spiritual power I say that this is false if they mean as they do certainly and must speaking to the purpose by the word
of purpose only that they might with the more colour of some religious and conscientious pretext both refuse it themselves and diswade others from it and being the men whose example had most influence of any others on all especially on the Nuntiatists throughout Ireland of what calling soever the Procuratour went so farre to meet them as themselves desired and met them with the more willingness so farre off from Dublin to the end they might not alleadge the place to be such as allowed them less freedom to speak plainly their mind grounds or reasons against that Form which they decryed so much For he hoped they would enter into some dispute with him of it in point of religion faith of conscience as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it in such respects being many of them and their party pretended amongst the illiterate or ignorant they were averse to it only on these accounts But he found them otherwise resolved then to examine it by the rules of Religion or conscience For although he stayed with them three dayes and nights and gave them provocations enough in publick to speak against it if any thing they had to say alleadging to them for it reasons both divine and humane both weighty and manifold nay and telling them at last That for his own part he was really perswaded in his conscience the contrary doctrine was not only erroneous but in it self heretical albeit he would not therefore decline communion with any yet all could not worke as much as one argument from them either from Scripture Tradition Fathers Canons or natural reason nothing at all but meer silence in answer to all and besides that nothing els but the objection of some two or three words as not being reverential enough as to the matter only of wording and the expectation of a Censure against it from Rome The Procuratour answered them to the first that the Catholicks of England who drew that Form as may be seen in Father Cressy's Exomâ—logesis were cautious without exception to word their sense so as they could not be quarreld against by any on that account That there was more danger in their excess of reverence and observance of the Pope and of his power then in their detect even by expression of words That it was not the words but the sense would be quarreld against at Rome That likewise it was not this or that individual or specifical word but the true and full sense in whatever words was expected from them by the King or State if they liked not those words which the best masters of the English tongue the Catholicks of England and after them those of their own Irish Clergie and the Nobility and Gentry also of their Nation at London had already made use of And therefore since they professed they bogled not at the sense they would do well to draw it fully in their own words but such as expressed that cleerly and without equivocation or other kind of reservation Which if they did he would undertake my Lord Lieutenant would receive it graciously and represent it to His Majesty as the same in effect with that others had given before them in other words Having nothing to reply to these answers the Provincial took pen in hand presently and desired the Procuratour himself to assist and help him with other words instead of the words Pope disclaim renounce c. Which the Procuratour doing Father Thomas Makiernan whose learning was that of the Papal Canons as having been bred in Spain a Canonist interceded and confess'd at last that for his own part he could not resolve yet to come home to the sense And the rest desired some respit until next Easter promiseing that if by that time no Censure came from Rome against the Form of 61. they would subscribe it This Father Peter Gennor said positively to the Procuratour and none opposed it but Father Makiernan somewhat doubtfully However they all entreated the Procuratour that he would in the best manner he could in the mean time excuse them to His Grace the Lord Lieutenant Now the reason why they desired this respit was that themselves as the chief contrivers had employed last Summer both from themselves and from the Bishop of Meath Antony Mageoghegan and some Vicars General Father Iohn Brady a Franciscan over Seas of purpose to sollicit a Censure both from the Vniversity of Lâ—vain and from Rome too by the intervention of those of their party there especially by the credit and authority of the Internuntio of Bruxels and they expected both infallibly before Faster Nor were they frustrated in their expectations in part I mean as to a Censure from Lovain though none to this day from His Holiness if they will not unjustly call the private letters of the two Bruxel's Internuntius's de Vechiis and Rospigliosi or those others of Cardinal Francis Barberin a Censure from Rome Which every man sees they cannot but very unjustly tearm a Roman Censure or a Censure of His Holiness or by his authority so done or notified that any one at all is bound to take notice thereof For they wanted all both the formalities and essentials of a Censure from His Holyness as from His Holiness in the quality of Pope determining any matter as they wanted likewise the essentials of a sufficient publication if nothing els were wanting Besides it is a maxime with Canonists that in praejudicium Tertii credit is not to be given to the letters of even Cardinals for what relates to the mind will or judgment of His Holiness if they produce not authentically their commission And lastly it is manifest out of those very words which Cardinal Francis Barberin relates in his Second letter which you shall have in the second Part of this Treatise as the command of His Holiness to Him that His Holiness never censured nor mean'd to censure any point or passadge of that Remonstrance of 61. but intended only the Cardinal should warn the Clergie of Ireland not to confound the civil obedience due to the King with that spiritual observance is due to the See Apostolick And who sees not that to distinguish both or the one from the other is the main drift of well observed in that Remonstrance XL. But for asmuch as these Franciscan Fathers used these delayes of purpose to have the more colour to excuse themselves from signing when they had the return they expected from their said Agent by Easter I thought fit to give here a copy of that Instrument which they or the chief of them and others with them gave him under their hands when they sent him away to worke all the intrigues he could against both that Remonstrance and subscribers of it but above all against the Procuratour It was as followeth translated out of the Latin The Instrument sent by Father John Brady and signed by Antony Ma Geoghegan Bishop of Meath and by some other few men of the Franciscans chieflly as Francis Ferral
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
deposed from the sacaerdotal office but also thrust into a strict monastery to do perpetual pennance But nothing is concluded hence or may be against our case but on the contrary much for it as I mean to a lawful discovery of the sin or treason if such it be without discovering the sin or him that in his confession tells that intended treason For it licences the Confessors to consult in some cases with others telling them of the sins without revealing the sinner But for the rest it reflects not at all on the case of the Confessors discovery of an evil intended or plotted by others that never confess'd unto him such evil or such plot albeit the confessor knew it by or in the Sacramental confession of one of the very plotters or of some other that had no further hand in it then that of baâ—e knowledg Much less doth this Canon any way touch the case of a only seeming confitent or of such as is wickedly obstinately still impenitent however discovering such conspiracy in the confessional Seat And as little doth it say that either this kind of confession is any way Sacramental or the Seal or Obligation to keep it secret more then what is meerly natural or would be in case the party told it without any seeming formalities of a seeming Sacramental though truly known to the Confessor to be a very unsacramental confession Besides who knows not the general doctrine of Catholick Divines in relation to the Canons of the Church as such Canons only That they never bind nor intend to bind nor indeed can bind any not even I mean where they are received as this Canon is generally and ought to be not even where they seem in express words to come home to the case all the particular circumstances of it as this Canon doth not in any respect that I say such Canons neither do nor can bind any against the Law of God positive or natural Nay which is more that as barely such or as Canons of the Church only they bind not the faithful to observance where and when the observer must thereby suffer of loss of life or limb or estate or liberty or any other notable great and heavy inconvenience or evil which may be declined by the non observance of them For it is a known maxime of Divines in such cases that the Church is a pious indulgent mother But would she be so or not rather appear a cruel step-mother if she were supposed to make a Canon for concealing the intended ruine of King and Countrey and of an infinite number of Innocents nay and of her self too as may be well supposed in the case and concealing this also when the discovery so made by a confessor might prevent the whole mischief It s cruelty and inhumanity and want of piety and charity and religion and learning and reason too that would make any think she would be so impious And secondly what they can alleadg is That by the divine law natural as t is called by them for positive law divine they have none nor pretend any from Scripture or Tradition all Confessors must so behave themselves towards their penitents or confitents too let them say if they please as not to render the Sacrament of pennance odious And that a lawfulness once allowed in any case for the Confessor to reveal a thing or matter whatever it be told him in the confessional Seat and to reveal it I mean without his consent would render this holy Rite very odious and give occasion to many sinners not to declare their sins entirely but wholly to estrange themselves from confession for ever But if this argument concluded any thing to the purpose it would also conclude that Confessors must not discharg the duty they are confessedly and without contradiction of any side bound unto by all the laws of Reason and by all the Canons of the Fathers They would not enjoyn so many restitutions of lands and goods and same so extreamly grievous very often to penitents Nor would enjoyn so many other heavy pennances either medicinal or satisfactory no less painful then shameful too in many cases And who can deny but such injunctions render confession odious to nature Nay who can deny but the very duty it self of bare confession as it is prescribed by the Canons and Councils of the Church and by all Divines of the Roman Communion taught as necessary and as it is required to be exactly of all particular mortal sins of word deed or even inward consent alone and both of their number as farre as one can remember or conjecture after sufficient examination and of all kind of circumstances too that change the species as they speak must be very odious to nature especially when the sins are unnatural or shameful But if it be answered that such is the duty of the Confessor enjoyn'd him by the positive laws of the Church and by those natural laws also of Reason being he is Judge in that holy tribunal in the place of God and that such too is the doctrine of the Church and Catholick Faith where no liberty is left to Divines for teaching otherwise even so I answer to this allegation or objection of the Sacrament of confession to be rendred odious if the Confessor may be free in any case to make use of notices had therein without the Confitents permission It may indeed render it odious in such a case But to whom To a wicked impenitent or to a most unreasonable man To none truly rational and penitent to no such person making a true Sacramental confession or to none that is resolved at any time to confess holily will the confessors discharging his own duty render such a holy confession odious A duty whereunto and whereby in such case he is bound even by all the very laws of God as well positive as natural as may be easily demonstrated if at any time reqvired to hinder and prevent timely even by such a revelation such deplorable general and otherwise irremediable evils as would in all kind of moral certainty follow his not revealing the design communicated so in confession and let us always suppose the confitents denyal of consent to such revelation Though as I have noted before such denyal can hardly if at all be supposed in a true penitential confitent or in a true Sacramental confession unless we suppose withal the penitent to be some strange meer natural blockhead that is not capable of understanding his own obligation in such a case or the ghostly Fathers instructions in it Which yet is very like an impossible supposition 6. That our Masters of Lovain will find it a very hard if not absolutely impossible task To perswade a knowing pious man that either any dictate of natural reason or any ordinance of human Canons much less any article of Christian Faith or Catholick Religion hetherto delivered us either formally or virtually by Scripture or by tradition tye Confessors I
do not say not to reveal such fatal plots conspiracies or treasons without revealing the Confitent himself against the person of the Prince and the whole fabrick of the Commonwealth and by consequence ordinarily against so many millions of innocent harmless people without possibility or at least moral probability of seeing the end of the evils and general calamities arising thence but I say do not as much as tye them not to reveal the very person of the penitent or the confitent himself if the case be such or may be such though it can hardly ever be such that the design cannot by human industry be otherwise prevented For I am sure that neither that Canon of the Lateran Council nor any other of the Church doth reach this case As I am certain that all Divines will confess the Church can make no Canon hereafter to reach it if there be no former antecedent express or tacit rule for it in the law of God or nature And I am no less certain that until yesterday come back again neither the Doctors of Lovain nor any other in the world can ever demonstrate or prove any such antecedent rule either of natural reason or of Scripture or Tradition LVII As for the saying of some otherwise peradventure good Casuists or Canonists or even the croud of never so many of the later but worser Schoolmen who should valew them when they bring nothing to make their placits good no Scripture no Tradition no Fathers no Councils no reason at all that would take with a rational knowing pious man but on the contrary produce only their own ill grounded opinions and a world sometimes of barbarous names of Authors such as many of their own are even against the clear dictates of the law of God and nature against all virtue and piety and against all true Religion and even against the very first principles of reason I would very fain know of these Gentlemen these excellent Moralists who must needs dilate themselves on Metaphisical suppositions to shew forsooth their blind zeal for a meer fiction of a seal which neither God approved nor the Church ever commanded or allowed in our case what will godly pious understanding men Judge of them what will any good Christian Commonwealthsmen think of their foolish imagination of a very and truly not only unsacramental but also unnatural seal in a case proposed thus All the Catholick Princes and States of Europe and oâ— all other parts of the world professing Catholick Religion or enjoying the Roman Communion and all the power they can raise of horse and foot even two or three or four million more or less of men are in one field or one country joyn'd and amass'd together and the Emp. Kings of Spain France Poland Portugal c. and the very Pope with all the Court of Rome in the head of all against also all the contrary power of the habitable earth Hereticks and Jews Mahumetans and other Infidels and as well the Lutherans and Caluinsts and all the huge variety of other Sects both in the Greek and Latin Church as the Turk Tartar Persian Moore and Indian the Chinese and all the wild people of America and even those of the Terra australis incognita joyn'd also together in one body to ruine utterly the Catholick Church of Christ and raze it from the very face of the earth They are ready on both sides to joyn battle or as many battles as you please and to put all to a fatal hazard and let the resolution be so too that it is absolutely fixed upon by both sides and every individual of each side never to flye never to take quarter win all or loose all to kill or to be killed In this conjuncture suppose a Christian a Roman Catholick by name education profession and by inward belief too goes to confession to a Priest tells him of such a plot or yet a farre worse and incomparably more dangerous then that of Count Iulian against Roderico the Spanish King in that fatal battle wherein the Moores conquered Spain of some other discontented wicked Catholicks and whether himself had or had not a â—and therein it matters not that out of a divelish passion against the chief Commanders especially the Pope himself for some private quarrel had so devoted so resigned themselves over to the Divils power and to infernal revenge that they have contrived such a plot and are now ready for execution of it as will inevitably ruine all this Christian Catholick power deliver them up to their enemies and even bring to a most cruel slaughter all and singular the individuals of this never so vast army of the Roman Faith or Religion and in the first place the Pope himself and all his Cardinals and Court and all other Churchmen of the Roman City or Diocess and after all bring this â—ame holy City and Diocess and even all the temporal Patrimony of St. Peter within or without it to be plough'd up and sowed with salt to the end it may never again be inhabited as some conquerors are read to have done to some â—ebellions or enemy Cities But withall this penitent or this confitent when he reveals this so fatal conspiracy to the Priest is so possess'd suddenly by the Divels suggestion that notwithstanding any exhortations of the Priest he will not promise that himself will reveal it to those concern'd nor licence the said confessor to reveal it nor yet will tell him the persons time or place or manner of the execution of it whereby it might be prevented by the confessors giving a general notice only either in secret or in publick to the Pope or other King or General or person of the army and yet withal hath told so much and in such a manner that the confessor is and ought to be thereby absolutely perswaded of the truth of such and so unspeakably enormous conspiracy In such a case as this though a case that will never be yet because so many of our honest Casuists and famed Theologues and so great a croud of them too bring it or the like or yet a farre worse to a supposition because they suppose even the both temporal and spiritual destruction and even eternal damnation of all the World I demand what will truly pious understanding christian Commonwealthsmen or Divines that examine soberly and from its origin the true nature and the true ends of Sacramental confession or Sacramental secrecy or seal under which it is to be kept by the confessor and withal consider all the both general and particular most express and most indispensable tyes of the laws of God and man and nature of the laws of charity justice and loyalty and all the duties not of a Christian Subject only but of a man what I say will such other conscientious rational Commonwealthsmen or Divines think of their doctrine that maintain in such a case the lawfulness of quitting utterly all these duties or of reputing them no duties
this great Prince And so we are at least throughly quitt even for matter of example And so I have also done with my sixth and last of all those considerations or of all those points on which I have said before in the beginning of my animadversions of or answers to the third ground of the Censure it had much better become our masters of Lovaine Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and so judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to reflect seriously before they had precipitated so temerariously and injuriously and even erroneously to boot to censure that Remonstrance of 61. on this ground of its pretended promise or tye on Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession The nullity and falsity of which pretence or ground although I knew that my very first consideration of all the six had sufficiently evinced yet I would ex superabundanti and to clear this matter in all particulars and to instruct others more fully give all the rest albeit unnecessary amongst men of reason to vindicate in this behalf or any other that Remonstrance LX. I onely to end all whatever I intended to say on this occasion further add it is a confirmation of what I have said before in my first consideration that if our sticklers at home for the Lovaine Censure in this behalf or if the opposers of the said Remonstrance of 61. on account of obliging Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession will continue still their malicious clamours against it on this account finding all other accounts to stand them in no stead though I be sure they find this very same to stand them in as little as any of all they must confess themselves consequently obliged to clamour no less nay more against the Remonstrance of 66. whereof hereafter I will treat at large even that of the Dublin Congregation of that year even that of the general Representatives of the whole Clergie of Ireland even that of their Archbishops Bishops Provincials Vicars general Divines altogether For if the former of 61. be quarreld at for expressing onely the readiness of the subscribers of it to reveal c. and for expressing such readiness without any express engagement or any at all in other express tearms then these two words being ready words of their own proper strict signification not engageing at all the subscribers to reveal or that they will discover actually but at most a present preparation or disposition of mind to discover c certainly this passage of the Remonstrance of 66. wherein there is an express engagement or one in express words that they will or shall discover c. must be in reason as much at least if not more quarreld at on that account Wherefore pursuant c. we do engage our selves to discover unto your Majesty or some of your Ministers any attempt of that kind rebellion or conspiracy against your Majesties person Crown or Royal authority that comes to our knowledge For here is the same general notion of knowledge without any express distinction of it without any express reservation or exception of that knowledge which is had in confession as indeed there should not be any either express or tacit thereof more then is in the former Remonstrance of 61. LXI To the fourth and last ground of that Censure of Lovaine against this Remonstrance of 61 their pretence of its renouncing Ecclesiastical Immunity or of subjecting Clergiemen against Ecclesiastical Immunity to the cognizance and punishment of the civil Magistrate The Procurator and other subscribers answer'd 1. That there is not a syllable in that Remonstrance which may seem to any man of reason to say either formally or virtually expresly or tacitly That Churchmen have not or ought not to have either by the laws of man civil or Ecclesiastical or by the laws of God positive or natural any such immunity or exemption either for their goods or persons from the cognizance or punishment of the subordinate inferiour civil Courts Magistrates or Judges I mean any such immunity or exemption as the Catholick Faith or Catholick Church teacheth as out of Scripture or out of Tradition or even as by virtue of any canon or custome obliging as much as the very Churchmen to assert or maintain it or not to renounce or disacknowledge it not even in some cases or some Countreys where the civil or municipal laws are contrary to such canon or such custome as for example England and Ireland where this last century of years the laws and customs are known to be so much altered from that they perhaps have formerly been in this matter That the acknowledgment of the King to be our King and our supream Lord too or the acknowledgment of his absolute independent supremacy in all temporals within his own Dominions concluds neither formally nor virtually a disacknowledgment or even the least renunciation of any kind of real true pro-per Ecclesiastical Immunity acknowledg'd by other parts or people or Churches or Churchmen in the world even in the most Catholick Countries No more certainly then doth the like acknowledgment known to be made by word and by writing by all Catholick French Spanish Venetian German c Clergiemen to their own respective Kings Emperours States conclude that they disacknowledg or renounce thereby or by any other means that which they call or acknowledg to be Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption amongst themselves That as little doth the acknowledging our selves bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of His Majesties Subjects and as the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require at our hands that I say as little doth this acknowledging such obligation draw along with it by either formal or virtual consequence our disacknowledging or renouncing our right or pretence to any true real or proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption If we have indeed or can have or ought to have any such right or pretence of right in the case For such obligation and such acknowledgment of it can and does very well consist evermore with a challenge or claim to all kinds of true and proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption whether that challenge or claim be well or ill grounded in the case being it is very well known that other His Majesties Subjects are not bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty by an active obedience always not even in all civil and temporal affairs but either by an active or passive only And being it is no less known that the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require no more at their hands even in all civil and temporal affairs then to be so obedient as either to do that freely which they prescribe or patiently and without resistance to abide the penalties of the same laws and of His majesties pleasure And being moreover it is evident of it self that a Priest can without making any resistance patiently christianly
earthly Princes and in all criminal causes whatsoever LXIV And let the Reader be also himself Judge betwixt me and this most eminent Cardinal or his defenders the Divines of Lovaine of the strength or weakness of his second proof which is the only remaining of his arguments for a Position so temerarious I say so temerarious in as much as it exempts by any law whatsoever and specially by the positive law of God all Clerks from the supream civil coactive power of supream temporal Magistrates Princes or States and that too in meer temporal matters What I would therefore say further is 4. That the case is still clear enough on my side as to any such positive law of God in holy Scripture notwithstanding all or any of his allegations of Councils or Canons for himself in his said second proof and whereof only that proof consists I admit that the Council of Trent Ses 25 cap. 20. de Reformat speaks thus Eccelesia et personarum Ecclesiasticarum Immunitas Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus instituta est That the Council of Colen held a little before the Tridentine Synod speaks also thus par 9. c. 20. Immunitas Ecclesiastica vetustissima res est jure pariter divino et humano introducta quae in duobus potissimum sita est Primum ut Clerici eorumque possessiones à vectigalibus et tributis aliis que muneribus laicis libera sint Deinde ne rei criminis ad Ecclesiam confugientes inde extrahantur That the Council of Lateran held under Leo the X. and but a little too before that of Trent speaks further thus in the 9. Ses Cum a jure tam divino quam humani Laicis potestas nulla in Ecclesiasticas personas attributa sit innovamus omnes et singulas constitutiones c. That another of Lateran also under Innocent the III. hath this language cap. 43. Nimis de jure divino quidam Laici usurpare conantur viros Ecclesisiasticos nihil temporale obtinentes ab eis ad praestanda sibi fidelitatis juramenta compellunt That Boniface the VIII in cap. Quanquam de censibus in 6. speaks of Ecclesiastical Immunity as if it had been certainly granted to be of divine right That John the VIII also hath these words or expression can si Imperator dist 96. Non a legibus publicis non a potestatibus siculi sed a Pontificibus et sacerdotibus omnipotens Deus Christianae Religionis Clericos et sacerdotes voluit ordinari et discuti That Symmachus with his whole third Roman Synod long before John the VIII affirmed That solis sacerdotibus disponendi de rebus Ecclesiae indiscusse a Deo cura commissa est That finally Innocent the IV. though as Bellarmine himself confesses here not as Pope but as a particular Doctor in his Commentaries upon cap. 2. de majoritate et obedientia after he had taught that Clerks were by the Pope with the Emperours consent exempted from the Lay-power adds moreover that forasmuch as this kind of exemption seems not to be a plenary or full exemption therefore it must be said that Clerks have been exempted so by God himself I admit I say these Councils either Provincial or General as they are or as they are called such respectively and these Popes likewise have in the places quoted these expressions or this manner of speech where they have somewhat to enact or treat of concerning the exemption of Clerks and that consequently in these places they dog in general terms speak of that exemption in general so as to attribute it in part to Gods ordination as the Fathers of Trent or to the Divine right or law as those of Colen of both Laterans Boniface the VIII or to the will of God as Iohn the VIII and for what concerns to particular the disposing of the Goods of the Church Symmachus too in that his Roman Synod As for Innocent the IV. it matters not at all what he sayes on this subject in the place quoted being its confessed by Bellarmine himself that he writ these Commentaries before he was Pope and therefore in so much is but as another private Canonist of whom we are not bound to take notice where he brings no proof For we confess there is a number of such Canonists and some Divines too that without any ground in holy Scripture or Tradition hold with him in this point but whom therefore all other sound and great Divines who examine the matter throughly and strictly charge with errour both against express Scripture and Tradition But for these Councils either General or Provincial and for these Popes also who being Popes did speak so so all and every of whom we must observe that reverence due respectively to them the answers are 1. That none at all of these places or authorities alledged out of them are home enough to our present case or dispute of the exemption of Clergy-men by the positive law of God in holy Scripture from the supream civil co-active power of Kings or States Nor as much as one word hereof And therefore did we grant as we do not nor can by any means that these Councils or Popes intended by such expressions or by these or such other words Dei ordinatione jure divino omnipotens Deus voluit a Deo cura commissa est to signifie that such exemption of Clerks even in the whole height and latitude or sense of it in Bellarmines way had been ordained immediatly and expresly by God himself or by some express immediat positive law of his delivered unto us by Revelation and by the tenets of Catholick Faith to be by us believed yet should it not follow that therefore these Councils or Popes did signifie this positive law of God for it was or is in holy Scripture Because there may be positive laws of God come to us by Tradition though not a word of them in Scripture And because it is evident these authorities alledged have no distinction at all nor any intimation of Scripture 2. That being it is plain enough out of what is said before to Bellarmines arguments out of Scripture that these Councils or Popes could not pretend to any such positive law of God in holy Scripture and no less plain out of Bellarmine himself and others of his way that they could as little pretend to any such as delivered us by Tradition for himself doth not in all this matter as much as once pretend the least Tradition unless peradventure some body will misconster him or his second proof here and say he mean'd it as a proof of Tradition in the point which cannot be laid to his charge at all for he could not be so grosly overseen as to give us only such sayings of these late Councils of Trent Cullen Lateran or of these three Popes for a Catholick Tradition and we know very well and confess he makes other kind of arguments for any particular tenets being of Tradition arguments composed of
testimonies of all Ages from the first of Christianity I say that being it is therefore plain and clear enough to any dis-interessed judicious and conscientious Divine that neither these Councils or Popes could upon rational grounds pretend any positive law of God properly or truly such either out of Scripture or out of Tradition at least for such exemption of the persons of Clergymen and in temporal affairs too from the supream civil coercive power it must consequently be confessed that unless we mean to charge an errour on these Councils and Popes we must allow the answer of such Divines as with Dominicus Soto 4. dist 25. q. 2. art 2. hold against Bellarmine in this matter to be not only full of respect but of reason also viz. that by jus divinum ordinatio divina voluntas omnipotentis cura a Deo commissa these Councils and Popes understand that right or law Divine that ordination Divine that will of God that care by God committed which is such only in as much as it is immediatly from or by the Canons or laws of the Church and that by jus humanum they understand the civil laws or institutions of meer Lay-Princes And indeed that of respect in this answer will be allowed without contradiction And that that of reason also cannot be any more denyed I am sure will appear likewise to any that please to consider how it is very usual with Popes and Councils to stile their own meer Ecclesiastical Canons Divine and such Canons I mean which by the confession of all sides never had any positive law of God in Scripture or Tradition for them For amongst innumerable proofs hereof which I could give that of the 27. Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon and that other in the third action of the VII General Synod will be sufficient proofs For in the former it is plain that meer Ecclesiastical Rules though concerning only the district jurisdiction and preheminence of the Constantinopolitane Patriarch and some other Bishops and Metrapolitans are called divine Canons and that in the latter too the title of divine constitutions or divinely inspired constitutions is attributed to the laws or Canons in general of the Church So that jus divinum ordinatio Dei c. must not be opposed in these places quoted by Bellarmine or any other such to all that which is properly strictly immediatly or only from men however taken for Lay-men or Church-men but to that which is from men acting by a meer lay natural civil temporal and politick power and not at all acting or enacting laws as the Church enacts by a pure spiritual supernatural and therefore by way excellency called a divine power and their laws therefore too in that sense or for so much called divine though not divine at all in the strict proper sense of a divine law as by this we ought to understand that which was immediatly made or delivered by God himself and by the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles or by Scripture or Tradition 3. That however this be or however it may be said by Bellarmine or by any other to be well or ill grounded or to be truly according to the sense or mind of these Councils and Popes he alleadges yet even Bellarmine himself and all others of his way will and must grant that although we did suppose and freely admit his sense of these places to have been that indeed of these Councils and Popes yet the argument is no way concluding any other not even I say for as much as it is grounded on the authority or manner of speaking used by these very Councils which are accounted General as Trent and both these Laterans 1. Because the canons or places alleadged are at best and even at most even the very best and most material of them but canons of Reformation or canons of meer Ecclesiastical Discipline which are worded so And no man that as much as pretends learning is now so ignorant as not to know that even entire Catholick Nations and many such too oppose very many such canons even of those very Councils which themselves esteem or allow as truly General and oppose not the bare words or epithets onely as our dispute now is of such words or even of bare epithets but the whole matter and sense and purpose nay and the very end too uncontrovertedly admitted to have been that of such General Councils And the reason is obvious enough vz That in canons of Reformation Discipline or manners as it is generally allowed and certain the Fathers deliver not nor intend nor pretend to deliver or declare the Catholick Faith and that in all other things they are as fallible and as subject to errour as so many other men of equal knowledge though without any of their authority or spiritual superiority 2. Because that in the very Decrees or Canons of Faith General Councils even the most truly such may erre in such words as are not of absolute necessity for declaring that which is the onely purpose of such Canon For so even Bellarmine himself teaches l. 2. de Concilior Authoritate c. 12. expresly and purposely and in these very words Denique in ipsis Decretis de fide non verba sed sensuâ— tantum ad fidem pertinet Non enim est haereticum dicere in canonibus Conciliorum aliquod verbum esse supervacaneum aut non rectè positum nisi forte de ipso verbo sit decretum formatum ut cum in Concilio Niceno decreverunt recipiendam vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et in Ephesino vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where you see that he exempts onely from this general rule the case wherein a Council should of purpose frame a Decree or Canon of Faith concerning the very use of such or such a word or epithet as the first of Nice-did for the word bâ—mousion or consubstantial against Arrius and the Council of Ephesus did for the word Deotocon or Godbearing against Nestorius Which cannot be said by Bellarmine or any other in his behalf or that either any Council or Pope have ever yet done so as to or concerning the use of the words jus divinum ordinatio divina c or of the single word or Epithet Divine in our case 3. Because and according also to not onely truth but eveâ— Bellarmine himself again in the same book and chapter in the Acts of General Councils even those Acts which concern Faith neither the disputes which are premised nor the reasons which are added nor those things or words which are inserted for explication or illustration are of Faith or intended by the Fathers to be submitted unto without contradiction as a matter certain and infallible but the bare decrees onely and not all even those very decrees but such of them onely as are defined expresly to be the Faith delivered that is as even Bellarmine himself elswhere and all the Schools now teach with him such as are said in such Council to have
been delivered and declared unanimously by the Fathers therein from the beginning as of divine Faith or as the doctrine of Christ or of the Apostles as received from Christ or that the contrary is heretical c. Non enim sunt de fide sayes Bellarmine ubi supra disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum et illustrandum adferuntur sed tantum ipsa nuda Decreta et ea non omnia sed tontum quae proponuntur tamquam de fide Interdum enim concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile c Quando autem decretum proponatur tamquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilij semper enim dicere solent se explicare fidem Catholicam vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt Quando autem nihil borum dicunt non est certum rem esse de fide Whence it must follow evidently and even by an argument a majori ad minus that neither the words or epithets used even by the most general Council may be in their decrees of Discipline Reformation or manners nor the suppositions or praevious or concomitant bare opinions which occasion'd the use of such words or epithets in such decrees bind any at all to beleeve such words or epithets were rightly used or fitly applyed or that those opinions were well grounded or certain truths at all Whereof the reason too is no less evident and obvious To wit that the Fathers or Council had not examined or discussed this matter it was not at all their business to determine it nor did they determine it And that we know laws of Reformation and even the very most substantial parts of such Canons are grounded often on or do proceed from meer probable perswasions or such as onely seem probable nay sometimes from the meer pleasure of such law makers All which being uncontrovertedly true where is the strength of Bellarmines grand or second argument framed of such bare words or epithets did we grant his sense even in the whole latitude of it were that of these Popes and Councils Or how will he seek to establish a maxime of such consequence or of so much prejudice to all supream civil Governours and even to the peace of the world to all mankind it self and a maxime for so much or for what hath reference to the exemption of Clerks as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power so clearly as will be seen hereafter in some of the following Sections against express and clear passages of holy Scripture and against the universal Tradition for a 1000. years at least how will he I say have the confidence to endeavour the establishing of such a maxime upon so weak a foundation which every man can overthrow at pleasure or deny with reason to be a foundation at all for that or any other maxime as I mean asserted to be declared such in the positive law of God either in holy Scripture or in undoubted Tradition For the positive law of God appears not to us but by either of these two wayes of the written or unwritten word of God himself 4. And lastly that besides all said in these three answers to this second argument of Bellarmine if we please to examine further what the places alleadg'd import we shall find that whatever the private or peculiar but indiscussed opinion of these Popes or Councils was or was not concerning our present dispute of the exemption of Clerks and that by the positive law of God as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil or temporal coercive power nay or whatever such words as jus diuinum ordinatio Dei voluntas omnipotentis c. abstractedly taken may import yet the places alleadged or these words or epithets used in them by these Fathers must not by any means be thought therefore to have comprehended our present case or extended to it at all And the reason is 1. That all Divines and Canonists agree that all expressions words or epithets in any law whatsoever must be understood secundum subjectam materiam or must be expounded by and according as the matter which is in debate or is intended requires and further so as no errour inconvenience or mischief follow and yet the law and words thereof maintain'd still in a good sense and to some good use especially according to former wholesome laws 2. That the matter unto which there was any reference in these places or authorities quoted so by Bellarmine was either Ecclesiastical Immunity in the most generical sense abstracting from the several underkinds true or false or pretended onely of it or was it in a less generical sense taken for that of their persons but still abstracting for any thing appears out of these places quoted from that pretended species of exemption of Clerks as to their persons from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes especially when the crimes are high and so high too as they are subversive of the very State it self and are besides in meer temporal matters and no remedy at all from the spiritual superiours And in truth for what concerns the Council of Trent which as of greatest authority amongst us as being the very last celebrated of those we esteem general Councils Bellarmine places in the front 1. it is clear enough to any that will please to read the whole tenour of that twentieth chapter Ses. 25. de Reformatione which he quotes That that Council did even there so much abstract from this matter or so little intended it that on the contrary the Fathers much rather seem to speak onely there of the Ecclesiastical exemption of Clerks as to their persons from onely inferiour secular Judicatories or onely from the inferiour Courts Judges and Officers of Princes but not at all from the Princes themselves or from their supream civil power or that of their laws Which I am very much deceived if this entire passage whereof Bellarmine gives us but a few words do not sufficiently demonstrate Cupient sancta synodus Ecclesiasticam disciplinam in Christiano populo non solum restitui sed etiam perpetuo sartam tectam a quibuscumque impedimentis conservari praeter ea quae de Ecclesiasticis personis constituit saeculares quoque Principes officij sui admonendes esse censuit confidens eos ut Catholicos quos Deus sanctae fidei Ecclesiaeque protectres esse voluit jus suum Ecclesiae restitui non tantum esse concessuros sed etiam suâ— ditos suos omnes ad debitam erga Clerum Parcchos et superiores ordines reverentiam revecaturos neâ— permâ—ssuros ut officiales aut inferiores magistratus Ecclesiae et personarum Ecclesiastisarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu
it is ordinary with all kind of people to speak so of all things happened to themselves or others sin only excepted God will have it so or God hath ordained so And yet no man will be so foolish as to gather out of such expressions that people mean to say there was a positive law of God or law of his known to us for the doing or being of things so or so Otherwise what a numberless infinity of positive laws of God must we assert which the world never yet heard of and such as never any one of all have been yet in Scripture or Tradition For Symmachus finally that which is alledged out of him or his Roman Synod concerns not the present dispute and at most and at best signifies no more then the sense of that Provincial Council speaking to Symmachus and their sense too delivered only in an ordinary way of speech not in any Canon and even this very speech against only the pretence of the Praetorian Praefect of Odoacer to make a law yet without the consent of the Church-men or of the Bishops and other Priests though with a good intention for the preservation of the Church-lands and Revenues and Goods or to hinder any Sale or Mortage of them by the very Bishops of Rome it self even for what concern'd them or their own peculiar See in that City In this case it was the Fathers of that Council spoke thus after they had caused the Instrument or Law of the said Praetorian Praefect or of Basilius to be read by Hormisda the Deacon Licet secundum prosecutionem venetabilium fratrum nostrorum Laurentii Eulalii Cresconii Maximi vel Stephani nec apud nos incertum habetur hanc ipsam scripturam nullius esse momenti verum tamen etiamsi aliqua posset ratione subsistere modis omnibus in Sindali Conventu provida Beatudinis Vestrae sententia enervari conveniebat in irritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret praesumendi quibuslibet Laicis quamvis religiosis vel pâ—tentibus in quacunque ciuitate quolibet modo aliquid decernere de Ecclesiasticis facultatibus quarum solis sacerdotibus disponendi indiscusse a Deo cura commissa decetur Where it is plain 1. That nothing is said or mean'd of the exemption of the persons of Church-men from the supream temporal power 2. That they neither signifie as much as their Goods or Lands to be exempt from that same power supream but only secundum subjectam materiam to be exempt so far from the subordinat Magistrate that no disposition could be made of the Church-lands or Goods or no provision either for the Church by such inferiour Magistrates how powerful or even religious and well meaning soever without the consent of the Bishops and Priests themselves 3. That much less do the Fathers of this Council signifie their lands or goods not to be subject to any publick taxes or which is it I mean do not signifie that God hath appointed their lands or goods should be exempt from all publick taxes tributes customs c. For the disposing of the Revenues or other goods of the Church to be indistinctly committed by God to Priests and that Priests should be notwithstanding lyable to publick contributions out of such Revenues or Goods for the publick necessities of the common-wealth are things very compatible in reason And here is nothing said by these Fathers to the contrary Besides we know that whatever may be said of that law so published by Basilius the Pretor or whether by the express command of Odoacer no man will deny that both the Pope and other Italian Bishops had reasons sufficient to move them not to regard it much as being made either by an Usurper or an enemy to the Emperour and who yet dared not take on himself the name of Emperour and moreover forasmuch as at that time that very same Usurper or Enemy Odoacer with whose authority it was made or published by Basilius was devested by Theodorick nay dead when the Fathers held that Synod and forasmuch too as in the same law that same Odâ—acer would have usurped also the election of the Pope to himself as Baronius and Spondanus have ad annum Christi 457. But however this be or be not it is evident here is not a sâ—llable for the exemption of Church-men or Clerks as to their persons and in criminal cause and that too by the positive law of God from the supream civil or coercive power And it is no less evident although my present purpose require not my animadaversion hereof That meer Lay-men Kings and Lords and Knights and Burgesses and Squires and Boores and even all masters of Families whatsoever in such contreys as have the laws of property might in a like or unlike controversie 'twixt themselves and the Clergy if the Clergy alone should attempt to make laws for disposing of their estates without their own consent might I say with very much right truth answer the Clergy as the Fathers did the Layety here or thus I mean mutatis mutandis verum tamen etiamsi aliqua c. provida Majestatis vestrae sententia eneruari conveniebat in iâ—ritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret quibuslibet Ecclesiasticis c. aliquid decernere de laicis facultatibus quarum solis laicis disponendi indiscussè a Deâ— cura commissa dâ—cetur And yet none of them would be therefore constrained or necessitated in point of reason to prove or to suppose a positive law of God for their own exemption as much as to their goods from the Clergy The civil or municipal laws or customs of men and which indeed are those only that make meum and tuum in the world in such a case would be ground enough for them to say that God committed the disposing of their own estates to themselves alone and not to the Clergy To wit for as much as by his general or special providence he had such or such civil laws made and for as much as he commands generally in holy Scripture as natural reason also tells us we must observe all kind of humane Ordinances of the supream civil Power and States we live in which imply no sin Therefore Symmachus and his Council are as vainly alledged by Bellarmine for a positive law of God for the exemption of Clergymen c. as any of those other Popes or Councils And therefore too from first to last I conclude against this most eminent Cardinal that indeed there is not any such positive law of God at least in our case that is for the exemption of the persons of Clergymen in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of supream temporal Princes no such positive I say as yet revealed unto us either by holy Scripture or by any Tradition For these arguments which I now have so answered are all he doth or can pretend for such a positive law of God from either albeit I confess he speaks not expresly of Tradition nor also
virtually pretends thereto at least otherwise then by these few and weak places whereof he composes his foresaid second proof for this his fifth Proposition l. 1. de clericis c. xxviii Exemptio Clericorum in rebus politicis tum quoad personas tum quoad bona introducta est jure humano pariter divino But I will not charge him with pretending to any argument of Tradition by either such sayings or any other whatsoever of such late Councils either Provincial or General or of these three or four Popes he alledges there And yet for what other end he should produce them but that of abusing his ignorant Reader I know not verily For we may justly suppose that he and others with him have on the very contradictory question examined searched for and alledged as many places out of Scripture as any of these Councils or Popes could possibly and yet was himself so convinced that none of all these places or texts nor altogether did really amount to a positive law of God that notwithstanding his said so positive and so absolute assertion or fifth proposition for such a positive law of God he falls immediatly to his distinguishing observation of a divine precept properly such and of not being expresly in Scripture and of its being only deduced thence per quamdam similitudinem though an observation in express terms contrary to the very conclusion or to that very proposition for which he brought these two kinds of proofs one out of Scripture and the other out of these Councils and Popes So that if he intended not these Councils and Popes so alledged and so applied by him for to prove Tradition in the case and this he doth not pretend nor any from him wil so weak an argument it must be confes'd he produced them only to abuse the undiscerning Reader as the same in truth must be also confess'd of all his Scripture-places quoted in his first proof nay and of that very proposition of his and also of both parts of it for which he brought these two sorts of proofs LXV 2. For what concerns the law divine natural or which is the same thing in effect the law of nature or the law of Reason or a convincing or concluding evident principle or maxime or position or proposition or conclusion either which is necessary of natural reason to all which the Schoolmen give the name or title of the law divine natural because or forasmuch as at our creation imprinted in our souls by God himself the Author of nature but still without any supernatural infusion being the condition of a reasonable soul requires it even without any order to immortality for what I say concerns this law divine natural the case is clear enough also by the concession of Bellarmine himself l. de Cler. c. 29. where he treats it of purpose Though withal I confess he involve it so as to abuse his Reader with a third but very false degree of the laws of nature or law divine natural of purpose to impose on his credulity or facility or undiscerning judgment and work him to a perswasion that in some true sense the exemption of Clerks is de jure divino naturali even in the whole latitude of this exemption or as he before in the 28. chap. prop. 1 2 3. expounded and maintained it generally as to their lands goods persons or as from taxes and Judgments and Courts and as not from the inferiour Magistrates alone but from the very supream and in all even the most temporal causes whatsoever as well criminal as civil and from both the directive and coercive power of the laws or commands of the supream temporal Magistrate To the end of imposing so on his Reader it must be that this otherwise most eminent and learned Cardinal in the beginning of his 29. chapter immediatly after he had stated or demanded the question An exemptio Clericorum sit juris divim naturalis for he would have it now supposed that in the foregoing chapter he had proved this Exemption in his own and now said latitude of it had been 1. de jure humano civili 2. De jure humano Ecclesiastico 3. De jure divino positivo It must be I say to this end of imposing on his Reader that after all this and after putting this question also whether the exemption of Clerks be of the law divine natural he distinguisheth three several degrees of this law divine natural and then placeth his said exemption in the third of them And yet saw well enough this third degree of his own and of Driedo's and some few Canonists forgery was of so false allay that he dares not stand to it stiffely in a proper true sense of a law of nature or of a necessary principle position or conclusion of natural reason without the free and positive constitution acceptation or custom introduced onely and freely by men and therefore useth so many windings and labours so much to reconcile Authors but all in vain as to his main purpose and finally by his position there and proofs of it which follow so confounds that his own jus divinum naturale with jus gentium and confounds them so too in express words leaving thereby his inconsiderat Reader in a labyrinth and his judicious in a laughter at both his division position and proofs whether these proofs be intended for a jus gentium taken either in a strict and proper or in a large improper sense or whether intended for a jus divinum naturale even in that very improper abusive meaning or sense of our Cardinal Whereof that you good Reader whoever you be so you be a man of reason may be yourself a discretionary Judg for authoritative judgment neither you nor I can pretend Sure I do not this being proper onely to such powers as God hath placed over us either in the spiritual or in the temporal commonwealth in the Church or State I will give here briefly these three degrees of Dictats all and every of which Bellarmine would impose on us as natural precepts and comprehend under the name of jus divinum naturale the law divine natural The first and chiefest and most proper is sayes he of such Dictats which are so perspicuously imprinted in the hearts of men that with the sole light of reason without any discipline or art nay without any discourse of reason they must be judged by all to be just Such are some first principles As for example these Good is to be desired Evil to be shunned life to be preserved with meat and drink children to be educated for the propagation of human kind God to be worshipped not to do that to an other which you would not have done to your self The second degree is of those precepts sayes he again which are from such first principles deduced as the very proximat conclusions or as conclusions naturally flowing by a facile evident and necessary consequence and so too that no discipline no art
and of allowing a competent prerogative to celestial favors that is to persons or places which by extrinsecal denomination are divine or which have that Celestial favor to be specially dedicated to the service of God But is there no other difference to be made no other prerogative to be given but an exemption so general from the supream civil power Besides our Cardinal himself confesses that Iustinian spake these words of the material Churches as he made that law for them onely not at all for the persons of Churchmen but as long as they were in those Churches albeit he made several other laws in favour of their persons also whether in or out of the most sacred Churches Of which last sort of laws more presently in the next Section So that any right collection either out of the former priviledg of Constantine or out of these later words of Iustinian signifies nothing at all to prove a custom amongst Christians forsuch exemption as Bellarmine would have amongst them as flowing from nature 2. For his second argument or similitude who sees not that as Divines and Philosophers too confess as the argument which is à simili is the very worst and most unconcluding sort of argument if it run not upon all four as they speak so this here of this great Cardinal is very lame in that respect For the difference is so wide and so great 'twixt both that we know evidently and by daily experience that the body can act nothing at all not as to natural sensation or vegetation but as a meer dead trunk a carkass without the soul nor act any thing at all rationally or freely without the direction of that superiour portion of the soul which is by some called the spirit and we know no less evidently that the lay civil Magistrate both supream and subordinat can act both rationally freely and honestly too without nay and often also against the direction of those we call the meer spiritual Magistrates or of any kind of ecclesiastical persons That the one may be and hath not seldom been without the other that is the former without the latter and yet compleat and perfect as to its own proper functions And the latter may erre and hath often err'd involving it self in politick matters out of its own sphere when the former did not But we see the natural body cannot as much as be without the soul So that for Bellarmine to assume this simile is to argue from a very lame similitude and expect this ordinary answer to the like similitudo non currit quattuor pedibus Besides I must advertise the Reader that he abuses him again by taking it in the abstract of one side Whereas if it did or could signifie any thing he should have taken it in the concrete of both sides that is made the simile 'twixt the soul and body of one side and the lay Magistrate or lay Judges and the spiritual persons of Clerks or Ecclesiastical Superiours on the other and not have assumed on this side the civil power and spiritual power only in the abstract For it is very well known these as such act not at all either of them And moreover that this argument or simile did it prove any thing as we have seen it doth not proves not only the exemption of Clergy-men from all lay-power and in all causes and matters whatsoever nor a co-ordination only in temporal matters but also and in all imaginable even the most worldly matters of any kind a super-ordination or an absolute dominion of Church-men over all the lay-persons even the most supream Monarchs on Earth To which purpose although Bellarmine presses this very same argument elsewhere dei Roman Pontif. l. 5. cap. 6. however against his other main purpose which is to give the Pope alone a power to dethrone Kings and this simile would give this very power to every Diocesan Bishop nay to the inferiour Ghostly Fathers or Parish-priests of every King yet no man I hope will be any more so foolish as to believe him or be perswaded by so lame a simile having both evidence of Reason Scripture and Tradition to the contrary as will appear hereafter in some of the following Sections on this very point we now handle Lastly I must advertise the Reader that he is not to be amused with a greater excellency of the spiritual power in it self or in its own nature or even in the end for which it was given this end being wholy supernatural such as must be that which is to a life of grace in this world and of glory in the next and which the meer lay civil or temporal power as such only hath not nor can pretend The greater excellency of one calling or profession cannot warrant the professors of it to subject to their own commands all or any other persons that profess a calling of less excellency as may be seen by daily experience in all the several professions or trades in the world Nor is it consequent by any discourse of natural reason that because one sort of men are of greater dignity as to their callings they cannot be subjected in many things or matters by the King to the command of others who are otherwise of much inferiour dignity or perhaps of none at all Nay we see daily and by ten thousand practices that Lords Marquesses Dukes must in many things obey and receive commands from very poor mean persons of no kind of titles otherwise but that of their present office and that too of the very meanest offices not seldom And must it be against natural reason that because the King of all Kings the Lord of life and death of all creatures hath out of his mercy and for the eternal ends of his mercy to all people given a certain ministery or even dignity the greatest that can be to some sort of men and this also for the service of other men in a certain calling which belongs to their spirits or souls onely they might not have been or they have not actually been subjected to other men though not so dignified in that special ministery and subjected I mean to such in other matters onely which concern their natural and civil being onely as a civil society of men living in this world We see by a thousand experiences daily that many who are very fit for one sort of command or calling are very unfit for the other And we know that the spiritual function alone to be discharged well requires the whole man And we know also that spiritual men or Clerks must notwithstanding their Clerk-ship remain always men that is involved by a thousand occasions in affairs which belong directly and properly to the temporal government of things belonging to the body alone Must it be against natural reason that God should not have exempted them in such matters from the Governours that are proper for such matters Or must it not be rather according to natural reason that in such
excellency or dignity even the very supream of that Order is in it self unreasonable unevangelical and altogether groundless and unmantainable I referr thee first Good Reader to my foregoing LXIII LXIV LXV LXVI and LXVII Sections where as I have already in this very Section told you I have of purpose examined throughly and fully answered all Bellarmines arguments for his law divine either positive or natural alledged by him for the exemption of Clerks and secondly referr thee to the very next two or three Sections immediatly following this present but more especially to the first of them which in order is my LXIV of this first part of this first Treatise where I at large and of purpose and by positive arguments of Scriptures and Fathers demonstrate even the quite contrary of what Bellarmine sayes here of heathen Princes Besides that as I have also noted above my two next arguments of natural reason which you shall have immediatly in this present Section demonstrate the falsity of this last Answer as it relates to all Clerks in general Yet for as much as Bellarmine hath given us here a most particular or special exception of the Pope however the rest do for he thinks all may be in effect safe enough if the heal only he safe being that if the Pope himself alone be exempt by divine right or law de jure divino he may then by his own papal constitutions exempt all the rest of the Clergy whether Princes will or not I must give also here my animadvensions upon his reasons or those given by him for that special exceptions made or his Holiness and for his own answer to saying that Barclayes argument which I have reheâ—â—sed a little before had two faults viz a false Antecedent and a vitious or ill inferr'd Consequence that antecedent of Bâ—rclaye being That the Pope himself had not his own exemption 〈◊〉 that of his own person but from the meer liberaliâ—â— and favour of Princes because sayes Barclay as even our Adversaries confess the Pope himself was subject de jure and de facto to heathen Princes as other Citizens were and that consequent also being That therefore that is for the Popes having been subject by the law of God to heathen Princes before they were converted it must follow that he must also by the same law be subject to them when converted or which is the same thing to Christian Kings and Emperours I say that Bellarmine for his giving answer that the antecedent is false and consequent vitious alledges first for reason of the former That our Sauiour Christ had made the Pope his own Vicat on earth and that hoc ipso by making him such he exempted him from all power of earthly Princes And in the next place alledges for reason of the latter That whereas the Pope is by the same Lord and Saviour constituted over the whole family of beleevers and that Kings and Emperours are consequently incorporated by him to be directed and ruled by him certainly no reason suffers that he be subject to them over whom he is by divine right to preside But who sees not that as Barclay assumed that very Antecedent not only from Scripture Tradition and Reason as well appear in the next Section but from the common doctrine of all at least the best sort of even School Divines and which is more from Bellarmine himself for as yet our learned Cardinal had not set forth his Recognitions and Barclay could not have once suspected that Bellarmine would in his last days of old age have changed from that which till then he had publickly exposed to the world in his Controversie so that reason which Bellarmine alledges to prove it false must appear it self to be most unreasonable to wit that Christ had appointed the Pope his own Vicar and thereby exempted him from the power of Princes Indeed if Bellarmine could evidence that our Saviour had created the Pope his Vicar General and in all things and his own Vicar too as himself was the natural Son of God and second person of the Trinity and as God by pure nature not by communication or hypostastical union and not as a mortal man or as he appeared on earth before his Resurrection or if Bellarmine could evidence briefly that our Lord created the Pope his own Vicar as well in all kind of earthly powers and temporal matters whatsoever as in some kind of limited spiritual power and things then he might have truly said that Barclayes Antecedent is false and the contrary certain or that it is not from the favour of Princes the Pope hath what exemption he hath but from the law and power of God immediatly But nothing is more certain then that the Pope was not created such a Vicar General his power as that of the Universal Church being purely and only spiritual It is true Joan. 3.35 27.21 the Father gave Christ all things into his hands and the power of all flesh Pater dedit Christo omnia in manus potestatem omnis carnis But our Cardinal hath not yet proved that either Son or Father gave or ever yet committed so large a power to any one Vicar and the contrary is otherwise in it self very certain both by Scripture Tradition and Reason Our Saviour Jesus Christ therefore left by his law the temporal administration to the temporal civil or politick Magistrates as before and from the beginning it was by all laws to the great Pontiff he committed what was agreeable to a Pontiff only or to the prime Pontiff that is to be his Vicar in all pure spiritual administration and in such only too according to the holy canons of the Catholick Church And it is clear this Function or this Dignity how great soever it be doth no more exempt the Pope as Pope from temporal subjection that is from subjection in temporal matters to a meer lay or secular Prince or Magistrate then the most high supream and by God himself immediately ordained civil power of secular Princes Kings Emperours can or doth exempt them in spiritual matters from the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope or even of any other their own proper Patriarch or Bishop or even also of an inferiour Priest in the confessional seat or other administration of the Sacraments to them And who sees not that as that Consequent of Barclay follows manifestly and necessarily out of the Antecedent once admitted because that as I have already proved and as Barclay too alleadged Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo c even so it must follow and whether it follow or not it is clear enough in it self that Bellarmine's reason to the contrary or to shew this consequence to be vitious or ill inferr'd is a most pittifull unsignificant one indeed and as such by me very often answer'd already For how many times was it answered before that the Pope as Pope is by our Lord and Saviour appointed the chief Superintendent or
Steward of the family in spiritual things onely and onely enabled with spiritual power and with spiritual means also in the execution of such power And consequently that the Pope admits or introduceth Kings and Emperours into the Christian family that they may be govern'd or directed by him spiritually what hath this to do with or how doth it inferre the Pope's being exempted in temporal matters from those very Princes no more certainly then doth the King's or Emperour's being made chief temporal Superintendent by God himself of the Christian family or of those of his own Kingdom or Empire and no more then his admitting of or introducing of whom he please of all forraigners even Churchmen Priests and Bishops and let the Pope himself be one of them as it may well be into the temporal family of his Kingdom Empire or Court and Pallace that they may be govern'd and directed by him temporally civilly or politically in all matters belonging to him hath to do with or inferrs the same King 's or Emperour's being therefore exempt in spiritual matters from these Clergiemen over whom he superintends so or whom he so admits or introduces unto his own temporal family Kingdom or Court But sayes Bellarmine again the second time cap. 35. adversus Barclaium strugling yet to maintain his denyal of that first part of my said Minor in general as to all Clerks whatsoever or whosoever concerning that of the subjection of Christian Clerks to Infidel Princes there being two sentences or opinions as we have noted before neither of them favours Barclay The true sentence or doctrine is That Christian Clerks have been jure that is by the law of Christ or of God exempted from the power of Infidel Princes albeit they had been de facto subject to them And that he exempted them as his own proper Ministers who is truly said or called Apocap 1. in the first of St. Iohns Revelations Princeps Regum terrae the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Therefore according to this sentence that proposition of Barclay which is the said first part of my Minor is to be denied which he no where proves nor hath proved in this place but assumes as granted which yet indeed the more grave Writers do not grant such as are all those that mantain Ecclesiastical Exemption to be de jure divino And yet were that proposition granted that I mean of the subjection of Christian Clerks de jure legis Christianae to Infidel Princes Barclay would not could not therefore conclude for this consecution of his thence would be denied Ergo Clerks are de jure subject also to the judgment and power of beleeving or Christian Princes For all Catholick Writers as well Divines as Canonists deny this proposition which is the second amongst those of Barclay here And that consecution would be and is denied because the supream Pontiff that is the Pope hath absolutely exempted Clerks from the power of beleeving Princes who acknowledge his power but from the power of Infidel Princes who do not acknowledge his power he hath not so absolutely exempted them because he cannot force or punish these by ecclesiastical Censures Besides that consecution would also have been and is denied because the very Christian lay Princes themselves have so exempted Clerks from themselves as understanding how great the clerical dignity is Which Infidel Princes have not done as to whom that spiritual dignity was and is unknown Hitherto Bellarmine ubi supra cap. 35. How vain this reply is first as to his law diuine which he pretends I have already shewed at large in my former Sections where I handled his texts alledged out of that same law Divine will hereafter yet shew out of other clear texts to the quite contrary Vnless perhaps he means that that adorable title of Christ which he brings here Princeps Regum terrae and he might have added too Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium be an argument of such a law divine for the exemption of Clerks But no man would be so out of his right senses and I will not charge him with being so being these titles might be as properly alledged for any thing or law whatsoever he pleased to impose on Christ without any other kind of warrant As for the title of Ministers given to Clerks I have purposely said enough in my LXIII Section Leaving these titles therefore and all other such or not such let us demand of our learned Cardinal by what words in what place book or chapter hath this very Prince of the Kings of the Earth so exempted Clerks Give us Bellarmine one material word out of holy Scripture of Apostolical Tradition that proves Clerks to be more exempted by him so then other Christians even the meerest seeliest Laicks I have shewed abundantly shewed already you cannot And next how vain this reply is by his flat denial of that proposition and saying it was no where proved but assumed without proof my next following Section will yet shew as clear as the Sun because over and above all said already by me for the negative it proves of purpose in a positive way out of Scripture also the subjection of all Christian Clerks even de jure divino vel ipsius legis Christianae to all true supream lay Princes whether Infidels or Christians under whose or in whose dominions they live In the third place also how vainly he tells us that all those whom he calls graviores Scripâ—eres the more grave Writers to wit such as teach Ecclesiastical Exemption to be jure divina deny that proposition viz. that Christian Clerks were de jure subject to Infidel Princes For besides that I may and do on farr better grounds though at present it be needless to repeat them deny those to be the more grave Writers then he affirms or can affirm them to be so it is obvious to make him this reioynder that the material querie or dispute is not whether those Writers are so or no or even whether any besides himself or even also whether himself denied that proposition but whether it may be in sound reason or Christian Religion denied And what those arguments are that perswade it may be so denied And as I am sure that Bellarmine hath as yet not given as much as one likely argument to prove it may be so denied so I do averr the same of those others too whom he calls the more grave Divines Fourthly how vain his answer is by denying the consecution or consequent in case that Antecedent were granted that is by denying the subjection of Clerks to Christian Princes to follow their having been de jure divino subject to the same Princes before they were Christian how vain I say his answer is in this much appears out of the vain grounds he gives for it either in point of authority or in point of reason For the authority he pleads for denying this consecution is that if we beleeve him of
arguments for it from the positive express law of God in holy Scripture might be rendred at last so farr unsignificant as not to conclude all men nor all affairs though otherwise temporal under it but on the contrary to exempt from it even the very most considerable part of men and affairs and a vast number too of both and consequently to lessen extreamly if they could not totally extinguish it as for any thing at least to be said for it from Scripture I must crave your pardon Reader if I be as prolix in this argument as in any or perhaps more then in any of the former or even in all three together being I am resolved to give long entire passages out of the doctrine of the most eminent of the holy Fathers and out of Ecclesiastical History too the practice of the Fathers to evict that sense of those Scripture passages which is so obvious of it self to have also been that all along handed to us by our said great fore-fathers and consequently that sense to be certain also by Tradition But first or before I come to the doctrine or which is the same thing to the exposition or sense of the Fathers or that which they delivered to us of those Scripture places in their own proper genuine and uncontroverted books I frame my fourth argument thus Whoever are expresly and clearly commanded by the mouth or pen of Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. to be subject to the higher Powers and are further told by the same Apostle and in the same place that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God that therefore whoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall acquire damnation to themselves that earthly Princes are the Ministers of God that as the Ministers of God they bear the sword and not in vain and finally that for all these reasons every soul must needs be subject to these higher Powers I say that whoever are commanded so and told so are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently threin declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes But all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are commanded so and told so by Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. Ergo all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The Major is evident because that as no man ever yet doubted of any of these passages of St. Paul in the said thirteenth Chapter to the Romans to be of holy Scripture and for so much to contain the very positive law of God that although it may be said also they for so much contain the very natural law of God so it can neither be denied honestly or christianly or even at all rationally that by Higher Powers c. in the text of Paul secular Princes only are understood being those Powers only are there understood who only bear the sword and to whom only tribute and custom is paid c. Nor can it be denied that by the text of Paul all souls are commanded to be subject in some things or some causes and therefore if not in spiritual certainly in temporal whereas all things or causes are either spiritual or temporal Nor besides can it be denied they are said here to be subject in such temporal causes only which are called meerly civil as civil are opposed to criminal because by the text they are subject even in such causes wherein use is to be made of the sword against malefactors and it is plain that such are also criminal and not civil only Nor finally and consequently can it be denied they are commanded here to be subject to the coercive part or virtue of the Princes temporal power whereas the directive as such only doth not cannot make use of the sword to punish evil doers The Minor also is evident because all Christians all men and women universally without exception or distinction of any state or profession or character are so commanded and so told and consequently Clerks being they are Christians and men For so doth the very interlineary Gloss understand it Omnis anima id est omnis homo sayes this Gloss potestatibus sublimiâ—ribus subdita sit And because the end of the precept could not be attained if all Clerks universally as well as Laicks were not so commanded and so told And because too the express doctrine and known practise of the holy Fathers for many ages after the Apostles time do teach us clearly expresly and particularly that in this text of Paul and others like it or of the same nature in the Bible all Clerks indistinctly are understood no less then Laicks As for the conclusion our Adversaries I am sure will not except against the necessity or evidence of it if the premisses be once granted or if they otherwise be in themselves true and certain To the premisses therefore to the Major and Minor it is that several frame several Answers some denying that for some part of it and others this for the whole but all of them equally spurning against truth and even rebelling against the light of their own consciences as those in Iob qui rebelles sunt lumini qui dicunt Deo recede a nobis scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus The first answer then is that by higher Powers in St. Pauls text those only are understood which are truly the higher to wit the powers Ecclesiastical or Spiritual For at least comparatively speaking these are the higher and temporal Powers the lower because the spiritual is of a more excellent nature as more directly tending to God then the temporal And consequently this answer sayes that by the Sword in the same text the material sword of Iron is not understood but the spiritual of Excommunication c. The old Authors of this answer albeit as old as St. Augustine himself for he refutes them as will be seen hereafter and other late readers and embracers of it though without sufficient patronage from its antiquity being there have been heresies confessed of all sides for heresies as old as the dayes of Austin and long before the dayes of Austin even in those of the very blessed Apostles must be obliged to deny the Major or that last part which is the only affirmation of it where I say that whoever are commanded sâ— and told so are by the positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The second Answer is of a newer stamp indeed but of no lesser both absurdity and heresie in it self and contradiction also to the
est auferatur fratremque nostrum Paulum Constantinopolitanae Ecclesiae Episcopum Regali authoritate vt nobiscum id est cum omni generalitate orthodoxé sapere debeat coarctare degnemini Concil Lateran consult 2. sub Martino 1. they desire the Emperour that by his legal authority and by corporal coercion he force him who not onely was a Priest not onely a Bishop but in the highest degree of the Hierarchy ordained by humane constitution or by the canons of the Church even the very Patriarch of Constantinople For a ninth canon that which is in the Ninth Council of Toledo cap. 1. may very well and properly serve where the Fathers acknowledging this supream coercive power of Clerks in Princes ordain thus against Clerks that defraud the community or the Church of the oblations intended in common for the Church Vt si sacerdotem seu ministrum aliquid ex collatis rebus praeviderint defraudare aut commonitionis honestae conventione compescant aut Episcopo vel Iudici corrigenda denuntient Quod si talia Episcopus agere tentet Metropolitano ejus haec insinuare procurent Si autem Metropolitanus talia gerat Regis haec auribus intimare non differant Where you see this ancient Council of Spanish and very orthodox Bishops ordaining that the excesses of Ecclesiastical persons of Priests Bishops and Metrapolitanes be in the last place or when no remedy is applyed by the Bishops or Metropolitanes themselves complained of to the King to be questionless by him and by his regal authority corrected and coerced Tenth and last of those canons I pitch upon and restraine my self unto here is a canon of the Synod of Ravenna convoked by Iohn the ninth Pope of that name about the nine hundredth year of Christ For in this Council Lambertus the Emperour being himself there in person and at some variance with that Pope who who was likewise present in his own person amongst his Capitula or heads which he proposed to the Council and as to be admitted by the Pope and Council proposed in the first place of all this Si quis Romanus cujuscumque sit ordinis sive de clero sive de Senatu seu de quocumque ordine gratis ad nostram Imperialem Majestatem venire voluerit aut necessitate compulsus ad nos voluerit proclamare nullus ei contradicere praesumat Donec liceat Imperatoriae Potestati eorum causas aut personas aut per Missos nostros deliberare Which capitulum was assented unto and ratified by the Fathers and made a conciliary Act and therefore too a Canon of that Council and all this done so solemnly and even in the sight and with the approbation also and consent of the very Roman Pontiff himself there in person present to the end it might appear to the world that after the more directly spiritual or purely Ecclesiastical Canons had been ended by the Fathers the Emperour would by this particular Canon of another nature have it declared that he preserved still entire his own right of judging the very Clergy of Rome it self as an Emperour and in all matters whatsoever belonging to his imperial cognizance and consequently still preserved intire his own imperial coercive power of criminal Clerks or that of punishing them civilly corporally if or when their delinquencies or crimes or the preventing of such crimes for the future in others required such punishments To conclude this Section of Canons I must give some few and brief advertisements to the Reader concerning them and my purpose in alledging them 1. That I alledge them not as causes or as grounds or springs of such authority in secular Princes but only as testimonies of the sense of the Fathers who made them and for those ages wherein they were made that there was by and from a superiour power such a previous original proper essential independent right in supream secular Princes and that for the more certain more demonstrative proofs of such a right in Princes I relye not somuch on any express Canons of either Popes or Councils as upon those plain texts of holy Scripture and those other so plain and so express of all the holy Fathers generally who in their other writings that are not Papal or conciliary Canons commented upon the same Scriptures and besides these two arguments of Scripture and Tradition which I have before given at length in three Sections for I make that of my Instances of practise part of the argument of Tradition that I do also very much relye upon those other evidences of natural reason which you may turn to Sect. LXXII 2. That although for these Canons which are only Papal that is those which are made or issued by the sole authority of one or more Popes without a Council I pretend them not to be of equal authority with such as had the consent of a Council nor hold those meer Papal Canons or any other in Gratian to be properly and strictly the Canons of the Church being these are such as were made at first or approved at last by a general Council or otherwise introduced by universal consent or custome albeit others too may be Canons for the occidental Church apart or apart for the oriental yet as to my present purpose meer Papal Canons may be justly presumed to be most sufficient testimonies because against the Popes themselves or against the present exemption of Popes by divine right and their pretended power also by any right whatsoever to exempt others I mean still out of their own dominions or those wherein they are themselves at present supream temporal Princes 3. That in my interpretations of those Canons or in my conclusions derived or intended from them I do not tye my self either to Gratian whom I confess to have seen many or most or perhaps all of them or to any of his Glossatours if indeed Gratian himself how otherwise great and earnest soever a Hiero Monarchist or Zealot for and assertor of the Roman and Papal Hieromonarchy interpret conclude or say any thing at all point blanck either directly or indirectly or consequentially or virtually against my interpretations or conclusions here out of these Canons or against my assertions all along of the supream royal coercive power of criminal Clerks For truly he may be very well understood without any such meaning xi q. 1. where he had most occasion to deliver himself as of purpose treating there of the proper Judicatory of Clerks Because that forasmuch as of this matter he treats only according to the Canons of the Church and priviledges given by Emperours and that I have shewed and proved already elsewhere in my LXIX Section â—e brings neither an Imperial constitution nor allowed Church canon nor as much as any true or certain though meer Papal Canon which maâ—y be home enough against my assertion of such an absolute independent supream coercive power in Kings and that also in his last Paragraph which begins thus as even his former doth
Ex his omnibus datur intelligi his own conclusion is in general tearms only importing that a Clerk is not either in a civil or criminal cause to be convented in publick that is in lay or secular Judicatories Quod Clericus sayes he ad publica judicia nec in civili nec in criminali causa est producendus not descending to the particular or specifical case of the regal power and regal cognizance intervening by special commission or special warrant or in a special emergency nor descending also to or considering the special case of times or Countryes when or where no such canon of the Church or Pope no such priviledge imperial at least in that latitude is in use or perhaps hath ever yet been received or if once received hath been again repealed Therefore Gratian may be rationally expounded to mean by his judicia publica in this Paragraph those ordinary Judicatories only which are of inferiour lay Judges and those too but only where such Canons are received or such priviledges allowed by the supream civil powers and laws But if any must needs press further yet or in any other sense the conclusion of Gratianus then I must say three things The first is that as I have proved already elsewhere in this work if a Clerk sue a Layman for any temporal matter or in a meer civil cause that is not criminal he must sue him in a lay Court and before a lay Judge and this lay Judge albeit only a subordinate inferiour and ordinary Judge shall give a binding sentence against this Clerk if the law be in the case for the Layman So that neither is it generally true not even by the very Canons I mean that Clerks in all civil causes are totally exempt from the jurisdiction of as much as the very inferiour lay Judges For the very Canons not to speak of the civil laws now in force throughout the world have ordered so Quod Actor sequatur forum Rei let the Actor be ever so much a Clerk or Ecclesiastick The second is that generally for criminal causes of Clerks Gratianus hath not produced as much as any one either imperial constitution or even any one Church Canon sufficiently either in particular or in general revoking or anulling or sufficiently declaring that revocation of the 74. Constitution of Iustinianus whereby this Emperour appoints and impowers the lay Judges for those within Constantinople and for those abroad in the Provinces the lay Pretors in the same Provinces to iudge the criminal causes of Clerks nay nor hath at all as much as attempted to answer or gain-say it albeit this very 74. Constitution was the very last chapter saving one which himself produced immediatly as a canon before the foresaid last paragraph Ex â—is omnibus Thirdly that for those Church Canons or those more likely authorities or passages true or false of some Popes or some Councils alledged by Gratianus in that his eleventh cause and first question or those in him which may seem most of any he hath to ground another sense then that I have said to be his sense I have before sufficiently nay and abundantly too cleared and answered them at large in my LXIX Section of in my answer to Bellarmine's aâ—legations of the Canons for himself and for the exemption of criminal Clerks from the supream royal coercive power of Kings where I have also noted some of Gratian's either voluntary or unvoluntary corruptions of the Canons Fourthly and consequently that whether Gratian was or was not of a contrary opinion it matters not a pin It is not his opinion and let us suppose he had truly and sincerely declared his own inward opinion for I am sure many as good and as great and far greater then he dared not declare their own when he writ his Decretum or declare any at all but in the language of the Papal Court It it is not I say his opinion but his reason we must value for sin he did not himself nor any for him does pretend to infallibility And I am sure he neither brings nor as much as pretends to bring any Scripture at all or any Tradition of the Fathers or even as much as any argument of natural reason for the warranty of any other sense And I am certain also that my judicious and impartial Readers will themselves clearly see and confess that he brings not for himself or for such a sense as much as any one Canon true or false to confront these I have alledg'd for my self and for that sense I intend all along or any one Canon true or false that denyes that which I have given for the coercive power of secular Princes to have been and to be the sense of Paul the Apostle Rom 13. or to have been and be the general and unanimous sense of the holy Fathers in their commentaries and expositions of it or finally any one Canon true or false that particularly and either formally or virtually descends to the specifical debate 'twixt the most eminent Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius or their followers the present Divines of Lovaine and me concerning the supream royal and external Jurisdiction of Kings to punish criminal Clerks by their own immediate authority royal and by virtue of their own royal commissions and delegations extraordinary in all cases and contingencies wherein the preservation of the publick peace and safety of either Church or State require it and by their mediat authority also in their inferiour Judges and by vertue of their ordinary commissions or delegations to such Judges or of the ordinary power which the civil laws of the land give to these Judges in all cases I mean wherein the same civil laws or the makers of such laws have not received or admitted of the more or less ancient constitutions of Roman Emperours or of the more or less ancient Canons of the great Pontiffs or of other Bishops in their Ecclesiastical Councils for what concerns the exemption of Clergie-men in criminal causes from the meer civil and ordinary Courts and lay inferiour or subordinate Judges and their subjection to Ecclesiastical Judges only and the Prince himself who must be without any peradventure and even in such causes too of Clerks above all Iudges in his own Kingdom whether lay or Ecclesiastical Judges For I have before sufficiently demonstrated that all Ecclesiastical Exemption in temporal matters or in all both civil and criminal causes is only from the supream civil Power as from the only proper and total efficient cause and I have also before demonstrated that no exemption to any persons or person whatsoever could be given by that Power from it self or at least for the matter of coercion and when the publick good required it unless at the same time it freed such persons or person from all kind of subjection to it self and I have likewise demonstrated before that such exemption from it self in any case at all whatsoever cannot be rationally supposed as given by
this to do or wherein doth this condemnation or judgment reflect on the doctrine which teacheth not of Christ but of the Disciples of Christ and only teacheth that all men who are only men and not Gods or that all mortal and sinful men whether Laymen or Clergiemen who are members of any commonwealth and not the heads thereof do lye under a proper and strict obligation not only of charity for the avoiding of scandal but of justice also to be humbly subject in criminal causes to the supream coercive power of the supream politick head Nay and under an obligation of justice also even to pay him tribute if he himself exempt them not from tribute I mean were it necessary for me to urge that of tribute as it is not And only teacheth moreover that such obligation of Justice ariseth from the very law divine it self both natural and positive or which is the same thing is evidently commanded by reason and by revelation by plain Scripture and Catholick Tradition by the doctrine and practice of the Christian Bishops themselves and of even their very best Christian Princes and people all along from the beginning of Christianity until this present day Certainly there is no man so blind as not to see that that first article of Marsilius and Iandunus or condemnation of it hath nothing to do with this doctrine Nor yet so blind as not to see that my elucidation of this doctrine all along or any where in this Tract hath nothing to do with that first Article taken I mean in that sense wherein as I have declared already and in no other the said Iohn the XXII condemn'd it I confess I have before that is in the 239. page of this first Part by occasion too of speaking somewhat against Bellarmine concerning the doctrine of Marsilius and Iandunus or that part of their doctrine which is in this first article said That our Saviour himself by his non scandalizemus eos in Mat. 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether to free but that as the fulfiller of the old Law and Prophets and as the giver of yet a more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the didrachma And that Marsilius de Padua or Ioannes de Ianduno were not condem'd nor censur'd at all for saying that any pure man who was not together both God and man as our Saviour Christ was by the wonderful union of both natures or that any other besides our Lord or even for saying that Peter himself was not exempt from the supream temporal power in temporal matters I have said so there I confess But what then or doth it follow that by such answer to Bellarmine I maintain this first article of Marsilius and Iandunus or that I fall under the condemnation of this first article nothing less This first article is as the Pope himself relates it in these words and only in these words Illud quod de Christo legitur in Evangelio B. Matthei quod ipse soluit tributum Caesari quando staterem sumptum ex ore piscis illis qui petebant didrachma jussit dari hoc fecit non condescensive liberalitate suae pietatis sed necessitate coactus And the condemnation of this article or the sense wherein this article was condemned is that which imposes a constraint of necessity on our Saviour for paying the didrachma and which denyes that he paid it not condescensively that is not out of his meer condescension and out of the liberality of his piety Now who sees not first that I do not by any means deny it was out of his meer condescension to the infirmities of weak men and of his liberality and piety that our Saviour commanded the didrachma to be paid nay who sees not that I do rather expresly enough say it was meerly out of his liberality piety and condescension he commanded it to be paid so for himself Do not I say most expresly or at least insinuat most sufficiently that he paid it only to avoid scandal and that he was bound by no other law to pay it but by the law of love and charity or which is the same thing and to repeat here again my own former determinate words that as the fulfiller of the old law and Prophets and as the giver of a more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the didrachma And secondly and indeed consequently who sees not that in that discourse of mine or whole passage quoted above out of my 239. page I have not a word importing any constraint of necessity or any either constraint or necessity for in effect they are both the same or import the same thing taking these words properly or absolutely and simply that is without any dimunitive adjection addition restriction or taking them not any way at all for that which is secundum quid tale as they ought not to be taken but for that which is simpliciter tale as they ought to be taken where other words or the subject restrains them not For to aver such constraint or such necessity incumbent on our Saviour in paying the didrachma were as much as to aver that either he had an inward constraint or necessity on his will or soul for want of that inward essential indifferency which makes the will and soul free in it self inwardly to volitions and nollitions or had an outward compulsion or coaction of his executive faculty for want of outward means as for example twelve legions of Angels at his command to free him from the power of those that would force him to payment whether he would or no if he had denyed it or certainly had the constraint or necessity of an obligation or tye of justice and obedience on him arising from the tribute law it self obliging him as other men under the guilt of sin and other penalties of such law to pay tribute Which last kind of necessity is that which the arguments of Iohn the XXII against the first article of Marsilius do seem to fasten upon it and condemns in it and the whole article for seeming to say that out of such necessity our Saviour paid the didrachma But whether so or no I am not concern'd because I remove all three kinds of necessity from our Saviour and all other kinds too of necessity if there be any other simply such For though I say in the beginning of the said passage page 239. that our Saviour himself by his own non scandalizemus eos Mat 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether so free c but that he was bound c and consequently say that our Saviour wanted some kind of freedom
this definition of Iohn the XXII against this last article of Marsilius and Jandunus doth not gainsay or contradict at all my main purpose or Thesis of a coercive power supream in Christian Princes over all Clerks and in all their criminal causes whatsoever For these two positions have no contradiction 1. There is a coactive power humane and corporal and civil too if you please in the Christian Church as a pure Christian Church 2. This coactive power humane corporal and civil too or not civil as you please is not altogether independent in it self but is subordinat to the higher humane and corporal powers of supream temporal Princes That they are not contradictory or inconsistent we see by the example of both civil and Ecclesiastical tribunals For the inferiour tribunals notwithstanding they have a true proper innate coactive power civil or spiritual respectively are subordinat to the superiour And so I have done at last with this long discourse occasion'd by the fourth objection or that of the conincidency of my doctrine with the condemn'd doctrine of Marsilius and Jandunus Which by a strict examen of all their five Articles and comparison of all and of each of them all to my own doctrine all along and to that which is the doctrine of the Catholick Church I have proved to be very false as I declared also that I hold no part of even their very true uncondemn'd doctrine as it was their doctrine but as it was and is the doctrine of the Catholick Church Which Catholick doctrine or doctrine of mine because it is that of the Catholick Church I am sure without any peradventure I have sufficiently nay abundantly demonstrated by reason Scripture and Tradition Therefore now to The fift and last of all these objections which I call'd remaining for the reason before given that objection I mean built upon the contrary judgment or opinion as t is pretended of St. Thomas of Canterbury and upon his Martyrdom or death suffered therefore and of his canonization also therefore and consequent veneration and invocation of him throughout and by the universal Church as of a most glorious martyrized Saint therefore This objection I confess is very specious at first as it makes the very greatest noyse and the very last essay of a dying cause But it is onely amongst the unlearned inconsiderat and vulgar sort of Divine or Canonists or both it appears to and works so T is onely amongst those who know no more of the true history of this holy mans contests and sufferings or of the particulars of the difference twixt him and his King or of the precise cause of his suffering either death at last or exile at first for a long time or many years before his death but what they read in their Breviary which yet is not enough to ground any rational objection against me though peradventure enough to solve any T is onely amongst those who do not consider duely nor indeed have the knowledg or at least have not the judgment discretion or reflection to consider duely what it amounts to in point of Christian Faith as to others or to the perswasion of others against me or my doctrine hetherto that any one Bishop how otherwise holy soever in his own life should have especially in these days of King Henry the second of England and of Pope Alexander the third of Rome suffer'd even death it self for the defence of true Ecclesiastical Immunities in general or of this or that Immunity in particular or for having opposed some particular laws either just or unjust I care not which made by a secular Prince against some certain Ecclesiastical Immunitie and whether made against those which are or were certainly true Immunities or those were onely pretended I care not also which T is onely amongst those who do not besides consider duely that not even the greatest Saints and greatest Martyrs have been always universally freed not even at their death for any thing we know from some prepossession of some one or other ilgrounded even Theological opinion or of moe perhaps and that such weakness of their understanding Faculty in such matters did not at all prejudice their Sanctity or Martyrdom because the disposition of their Souls or of that Faculty of their Souls which is called the Will was evermore perfectly obedient humble had the truth of such very matters been sufficiently represented to them because they had other sufficient manifold causes and Instances of their true Sanctity and true Martyrdom according to that knowledg which is saving though I do not averr any such prepossession here nor am forced by the objection to averr any such prepossession of St. Thomas of Canterbury in any thing which is material T is onely among such inconsiderat Divines I say that the objection grounded on his opposition to Henry the Secon'd laws concerning Clergiemen and on his exile death miracles canonization invocation appears so strong against the doctrine of a supream inherent power in secular Princes who are supream themselves to coerce by temporal punishments all criminal Clerks whosoever living within their dominions Whether the Divines of Lovain who censured our Remonstrance as you have that Censure of theirs page 120. of this first Part be to be ranked amongst such inconsiderat Divines I leave to the Reader 's own better consideration when reflecting once more both on it and all the four grounds of it he observes moreover particularly the day of the date of it so signally express'd by them in these tearms Ita post maturam deliberationem aliquoties iteratam censuimus ac decidimus Lovanii in plenu Facultatis Congregatione sub juramento indicta ac servata die â—9 Decembris gloriosi Pontificis Thomae Cantuariensis Angliae quondam Primatis mortyrio consecratae Anno Dominae Incarnationis 1662. And whether they did of purpose fix on this day of S. Thomas of Canterbury as most proper for such a censure I know not certainly but suppose undoubtedly it was not without special design they mention'd him and his primacy glory martyrdom and how that 29. day of December of their censure was consecrated to his martyrdom as I profess also ingenuously it was the reading of this so formal signal date of theirs made me ever since now and then reflect on the specious argument which peradventure some weak Divines might alleadg for their fourth ground Though to confess all the truth I never met any that fram'd it methodically or put it into any due or undue form of argument for them or of objection against me but onely in general objected that S. Thomas of Canterbury suffered for maintayning the liberties of the Church and of Clergiemen against Henry the second Which is the reason and that I may leave nothing which may seem to any to be material unsaid or unobjected cleerly and fully by my self against my self I put all which my adversaries would be at in this concern of St. Thomas of
Leges quas Edovardus tertius utendas dederat in pristinum usum revocat quae tamen sensim absoluerunt Normaâ—â—s pro commâ—do Principis ad incommodum Anglorum leges a Gulielmo primo conditas constantissime usurpantibus And again about the end of his life Tulit initio sui Principatus aliquot leges quas nec ipse nec Reges qui secuti sunt hine servaruaâ— However those I have given were his laws not repealed after by himself in Parment for he began Parliaments in England or otherwise by any publick Instrument declared as a law to the people albeit I deny not but those 16. heads controverted after twixt Thomas of Canterbury and King Henry the Second were first conceived in writing by this very Henry the first but never as a law published by him To all which I will add those further laws yet which were to our purpose also made by King Stephen Henry the First 's immediat or next Successour in two several Parliaments one at Oxford and t'other at London in that of Oxford abolishing quite that kind of tribute or assessment which other Kings had formerly often exacted from every hyde or acre of ground and promising too that neither Episcopacies nor other Ecclesiastical Benefices or Sacerdotal Prefectships should be kept vacant as much as for any the least time and in this of London or Westminster enacting for the Clergy's sake because they had liberally contributed for the warr in hand that whoever should strike any Churchman in holy orders or should without licence from the Court Ecclesiastical or Bishops lay hands upon or seize any criminal Clergymen whatever his crime were should be held excommunicat impious and accursed and should not be restored at all to the communion of the Church or absolved but by the Roman Pontiff onely Of which laws of King Stephen albeit there be no Parliament Records preserved of them as neither indeed are of all or any of those held before King John's days Polydore Virgil tels us expresly and particularly in his 12. book of Histories and life of the said Stephen For these are his words concerning the first Stephanus autem ex sententia summum consecutus imperium Oxonium proficiscitur atque ibi Principum conventum facit quo in Conventu inter caetera ut suorum animos sibi devinciret illud tributi genus quod alij Reges per singula jugera terrae saepe exigere a populo solebant prorsus sustulit atque promisit se curaturum ut deinceps Episcopatus aliae Prefecturae sacerdotales ne puncto quidem temporis vacarent c. And concerning the second these Interea Rex Londinum venit ubi celebrem Principum ac Antistitum conventum peregit in quo talia verba fecit Cum Principes fidelissimi c His dictis cuncti praesidium salutis ac libertatis defendendae se laturos pollicentur At Episcopi cum suis sacerdotibus quia pugnare fas non est pecuniam conferre promittunt quibus ut aliquid gratiae referretur in eodem Conventu constitutum est ut quicumque deinceps sacris initiatos percuterent aut alicujus criminis reos Episcoporum injussu caperent impii importunique haberentur nec ab aliquo praeterquam a Romano Pontifice in piorum caetum restitui possent quemadmodum jure Pontificio iampridem sancitum esset sed apud Anglos ante id tempus minus servatum And so I have given at large whatever I would have the Reader observe in this Seventh place of the proper civil or municipal laws of England before Henry the seconds time concerning our purpose especially the exemption of criminal Clerks even in case of murder from the lay Judges Eightly and in the last place you are to observe but onely out of this present book of my own which you you read now that is out of all said by me formerly in so many Sections from that place where I first began to dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity what my doctrine is against which the objection is made for and to come to the answering of which I have premised so long a discourse in so many observations And you are to observe well that my said doctrine is no other in effect but what I now repeat heer briefly viz. 1. That neither by the law divine positive or natural nor by the canons of the Catholick Church which are properly those are and are called Canones universalis Ecclesiae nor even by those other canons which are more properly and onely stiled Papal Canons Clergiemen living within the dominions of any Supream lay or secular Prince are exempt in criminal and temporal causes from his supream civil even coercive power 2. That not onely they are not so already exempted by any such law of God or man but also that they cannot be hereafter by any pure law of man not even of Pope or Council exempted from the said supream civil even coercive power without the consent of the Princes themselves 3. That neither can the supream secular Princes themselves grant any such exemption to Clerks living still within their dominions and remaining Subjects to them because this implyes a plain contradiction or to any Clerks at all but to such as are at the same time wholly set free from all kind of subjection or acknowledgment of their Principalities 4. That on the other side both by the natural and positive law of God and especially by the 13 of the Romans by the letter and meaning and scope or end of that whole text of St. Paul there all Christian Clerks not even the Popes not even the Apostles themselves exempted are subject in temporal matters and criminal causes even to the coercive power of the supream secular Magistrat 5. That by the doctrine also of the holy Fathers generally until Gregory the VII and by their exposition or understanding of that text of Paul all Churchmen whatsoever were and are so in the dominions of the respective supream temporal Princes whom these Clerks own to be their own legal Princes 6. That by the practise also of so many Christian Bishops Popes and Princes they were and are so 7. That even by the testimony of clear even Papal canons they were and are so that by no argument hithertoo alleadged out of reason scripture tradition Fathers Councils Papal Canons Histories by any of our adversaries the contrary is as much as any way convincingly deduced 9. And finally and in a word that all their true exemptions from either inferiour or supream secular judicatories in any temporal or criminal cause whatsoever as to the coercive punishment of them by the civil power force and sword is originally from and wholly still depending of the supream civil power In all which or in any discourse or clause said thereupon by me you are also to observe that I never said or say or intend to say that Clerks have not a true right to those exemptions from lay judicatories which the
municipal or civil laws of the land wherein they live or the approved customs thereof do give them until the same exemptions be legally repealed by an equal authority to that which gave them nor said nor do say nor intend to say but it is as lawfull for them to maintayn in all just and legal ways their own such immunities as it is for lay subjects in such ways to maintayn their own against the encroachments or usurpations of the Princes themselves or of their Ministers and consequently did not say nor do nor intend to say that they are bound to obey the pleasure of the Prince by subjecting themselves to his lay Judges in such criminal causes or any other wherein the law of the land doth free and exempt them from such judges But say and averre still the quite contrary of all these three sayings because the sublimer civil power which is in the law of the land for them in such case doth warrant them from transgressing in so much that Praecept of Paul 13. to the Romans Those eight observations being so premised and considered it will now be easy enough for me to answer fully and satisfactorily the before given fourth and last of all the remaining objections viz that so specious grand objection built as t is pretended on the contrary judgment or opinion c. of S. Thomas of Canterbury and it will be as easy for my Reader to understand that my answers which I now give are full and satisfactory Therefore My first answer is in general by denying positively plainly and flatly that there is any as much as the least truth in the pretence or supposition or in that I mean which pretends or supposeth that St. Thomas of Canterbury was of a contrary judgment or opinion to my doctrine or to any part or proposion of my doctrine hitherto of the subjection of Clergiemen to the supream coercive power of secular Princes in criminal causes or which pretends or supposeth that because he was so of a contrary opinion in theory or practice or both to any part of my said doctrine he opposed his King fell into his disfavour was exiled by him at first suffered death at last was accounted a Martyr canonized as such and invoked too ever since by the universal Church All which and every particular of which I deny both positively and plainly and flatly Neither do I doubt at all but that in my several observations hitherto taken altogether or if the seven first out of History be compared exactly to or taken together with what is given in my eight and last out of this very book of the particular heads of my doctrine in it concerning ecclesiastical exemption I have given sufficient proofs that I do upon very good very justifyable and unanswerable grounds deny so positively plainly and flatly this whole pretence or supposition and every part thereof For I have shewed what the immediat cause of his death or why he was so cruelly murthered was and that this was no other but for having answered that he would not absolve the excommunicated Bishops unless they had first promised to make satsfaction for the injury done by them to his Church or at least abide or submit to the judgment of the Pope in that case and that his Clerks who came with him from beyond the Seas should not take any oath but such an oath as were just And I have shewed also what the intermediat cause the grand long contest indeed 'twixt him and his King was and that this was no other but of the 16. Heads of customes of Henry the First or of his Grandfather as Henry the Second called them avitas which heads also I have given at length And the judicious Reader may himself clearly see that amongst all those causes or occasions either immediate or intermediat final or original proximate or remote there is nothing at all concerns or which may well or ill be said to concern our dispute or my doctrince but only the second head of those 16. customes as they were called and that of the Saints not delivering up to the secular justice the two criminal Clerks or the Priest and Chanon And the Reader also may clearly see that my doctrine no where teacheth formally or virtually or consequentially any thing contrary to what St. Thomas did either practice or must have held in theory as to either his not assenting to that second Head as neither indeed to any other of all the 16. or as to his not delivering up to secular justice those criminal Clerks For any rational man may very well understand that St. Thomas of Canterbury might without any contradiction inconsequence or contrariety to himself or to these two actions of his nay indeed or to any other opposition made by him to Henry the Second might I say have held or have been at the same time of the very self same judgment or opinion with me hitherto concerning the exemption or subjection of Clergiemen or which is the same thing that he might at the same time have held even positively formally and expresly that by no law of God or Nature or Nations or of the Catholick Church or of Roman Emperours or Pontiffs Clergiemen were or are exempted from the supream civil even coercive power in criminal causes but on the contrary that by Reason Scripture Tradition of the Fathers practice of both Fathers and Princes and even also by the very Canons of as well Popes as Councils they were and are subject to the supream civil coercive power nay and to the subordinate civil or lay inferiour Judges also in all criminal causes whatsoever as far as the civil or municipal laws of the land do subject them or wherein the said temporal or municipal laws of the land exempt them not from the coercion of lay Courts I say that any rational man may very well understand how St. Thomas might have held all this and yet at the same time and without any change in his judgment or opinion or any contradiction inconsequence or contrariety have practised justly conscientiously and holily all that he did in opposition to Henry the Second and particularly that of not delivering up to secular justice the two criminal Clerks and that also of not assenting to the second head of those 16. which were pretended by by the said Henry to be his Grandfathers customes St. Thomas of Canterbury had the very municipal and politick laws of the land or of England for himself in both these Instances as indeed he had them for himself in all other particulars wherein he opposed that King albeit his own proper undoubted Soveraign And that he had them so for himself in all his differences and particularly in these two I have clearly shewed and proved at length in my former seventh observation wherein the Reader may see that by the municipal laws of England still in being or in force as not legally repealed by a contrary law not even till after
but give my Reader this advertisement also That even with such questions both the infallibility of the Catholick Roman Church and the religious and rational piety also of that very Church in venerating and invoking him may subsist Because her infallibility regards other matters as I have said before and because her veneration and invocation of this or that Saint in particular whose sanctity on earth and glory in heaven is not revealed unto her otherwise or taught by clear Scripture or constant Tradition from the beginning doth and must of necessity alwayes imply as to such I mean who see no evident miracles or who are not throughly convinced of such this tacit condition That he or she whom they invoke be in glory and because also moral certainty from humane faith may ground a religious and pious practice as no certainty at all but meer probability of natural grounds may be sufficient to enact a binding law or sanction even also in order to piety and because moreover the prayers of the faithful to Saints whether they invoke them in recto or in obliquo regard principally and without any comparison but that of an infinit disproportion God himself and are terminated in him alone and so farre only regard the Saints as they are in his favour grace and glory and so far only as he is pleased we should either venerat or invoke them So that if in any kind of contingency it may happen that the Church be deceived in her opinion which in this matter depends of humane testimonies and humane knowledge apprehension or sense it cannot be therefore said that her practice is either impious or irreligious or indeed any way foolish Not impious or irreligious for the reasons hitherto given of the tacit condition and primary termination of the worship and prayer nor foolish being she hath grounds enough of and for a moral humane certainty or firm adhesion of such humane belief or perswasion to the material object of her understanding by reason of the formal object of her assent in such matters this formal object being in part the most credible testimonies of other men and in part also at least sometimes the evidence of sense And so I have done at last with all my answers to the fourth and grand and very last of all those I call'd remaining objections and have done also with all my observations and advertisements to the Reader concerning this matter of Thomas of Canterbury Only for a final perclose and for the greater satisfaction yet of the more curious Reader I will add here two appendixes The one is brief and concerning the height or amplitude whereunto the exemption of some persons and some crimes from the civil Judicatories in England grew For at last it came to be such that not only the criminal Clerks themselves however guilty of what crime you please but also the very most enormous lay criminals when their crimes had relation to or had been committed against a Clerk that is when they had impiously and execrably murdred any Clerk Priest or even Bishop or Archbishop were exempted from the secular power but understand you this conformably to my doctrine before were sent to Rome to receive such pennance as the Pope should be pleased to inflict and thereby were absolutely freed of all other punishment that is of any which the civil power and the civil or municipal laws did use or inflict for murder All which to have been so in England for some time is so true that not even any of those very most impious four murtherers of St. Thomas of Canterbury himself though a long time after remaining peaceably and publickly altogether in the village of Cnaresburc in the West of England and at the house of Hugh de Mâ—roville who was himself one of the four murtherers and Lord of that Town or Village of Cnaresburc was at all enquired after by the lay Judges nor as much as touch'd or proceeded against in any wise by them but suffer'd to depart peaceably to Rome when themselves saw that all men and women shun'd their company and that none would either speak or eat with them nor even the very dogs taste of their relicks or fragments whence they were sent by Pope Alexander to do pennance at Jerusalem where finally living a penitential life by his command in Manic nigro they dyed and were buried without the gate of the Temple with this inscription Hic iacent miseri qui martyrizaverunt Beatum Thomam Archiepiscopum Cantuaâ—iensem And yet is so true that immediatly or at least very soon after the dayes or death of St. Thomas of Canterbury Richard Archbishop also of Canterbury either he that was the Saints immediat Successor or he at least who was the Sixt after him in that See for both were Richards and this last was called Richardus Magnus and sate as I take it in the dayes of Henry the Third and I have not leasure now to see which of them it was nor is it material much to set down here which complain'd of the abuse and complain'd thus most grievously of it as you may read in Petrus Blesensis and in his seventy third Epistle to the Bishops of England Clerici vel Episcopi occisores Romam mittuntur sayes he euntesque in deliciis cum plenitudine Apostolicae gratiae majore delinquendi audacia revertuntur Taltum vindictam excessuum Dominus Rex sibi vindicat sed nos eam nobis damnabiliter reservamus atque liberam praebentes impunitatis materiam in sauces nostras Laicorum gladios provocamus Ignominiosum est quod pro capra vel ovicula gravior pro sacerdote occiso paeâ—a remissior irrogatur Where also you see this good Archbishop acknowledging in formal words not only a double inconvenience arising from such exemptions and reservations but in effect also and expresly enough acknowledging that the King did upon one side justly challenge to his own say Courts the punishment of such criminals and that on the other side the Bishops did as damnably that is unjustly reserve them to their own ecclesiastical cognizance only The other appendix is a redection upon their impiety and inhumanity who wel-nigh four hundred years after the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and in the general sack of all the Churches and holy places in England but more especially of those which were more eminent and rich and yet more particularly of the three excellently glorious monuments the first of Alban the Protomartyr of Great Brittain under Dioclesion the Emperour the second of St. Edmond that Christian Saxon King and martyr too as who was killed by the Pagans in odium fidei and the third of St. Thomas of Canterbury perswaded Henry the eight to have a process formed against him I mean Thomas of Canterbury in a Court of Justice and perswaded this King accordingly and effectually though otherwise ridiculously enough to have him declared guilty of high Treason and yet perswaded this King to have an
Catholicks of those two Nations containing only such matter and to alledge as the cause or as a cause of such condemnation and censure and alledge it also in plain terms That it the said Instrument contain'd some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion What can I say be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to say so of such a matter if it be not so at all if there be no kind of true ground for saying that it is so And that it is not so at all or that the Remonstrance contains not either formally or virtually and consequentially as much as any one thing or part of a thing if such part may be repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion appears hence evidently That neither in its Acknowledgments Confessions Promises Disclaimings Renouncings Declarations Professions Protestations Abhorrencies Detestations nor in its final resignation in the Petitionary Address nor in any other clause or word if there be any other as indeed there is not but what belongs to these heads now repeated there is not as much as a syllable which by any kind of true either Grammatical or Theological or as much as seeming or likely construction imports any more in effect than first a bare Acknowledgment of the Supreme Temporal power of these Dominions of England Ireland Scotland c. and of all persons whatsoever Laymen or Clergymen living within them to be in our gracious Sovereign Charles the Second to have been in His lawful Predecessors and hereafter to be a so in His lawful Successors as likewise a bare acknowledgment of the like Supreme power under God to be in other Princes and Supreme Magistrates within their own respective Dominions And next an express or tacite promise to observe and obey and continue Loyal or Faithful in all Civil and Temporal matters to that self-same Supreme Temporal power of our gracious King yea notwithstanding any Doctrine to the contrary or even any Attempt by any other power whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual to force them or draw them from their Allegiance or Obedience to King Charles in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs For I have already and abundantly too demonstrated where I before Treated against the four grounds of the Louain Divines and more especially where I Treated against their fourth That it is so far from being against the sincere profession of Catholick Religion to assert or promise any such thing that it is on the contrary even revealed and declared positively and expresly and clearly by God himself in several places of Holy Scripture and yet more particularly in St. Paul's Epistle and by the mouth and pen of this great Apostle That all Supreme Temporal power is in the Supreme Temporal Princes and States over all their own respective Subjects as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks And consequently that in all Temporal matters Allegiance and Faith and Obedience is due to such their power and ought to be paid and performed to them not only for fear of their Anger and Sword but for Conscience and fear of Damnation as St. Paul most expresly declares in formal words 13 ad Rom. And moreover that all this Doctrine hath been so as here delivered by universal Tradition for almost eleven entire Ages of Christian Religion all along till Gregory the Seventh usurped unto himself the Temporal power of the Empire as belonging to him by Divine Right All which being so as certainly it is so I frame thus my Argument Syllogistically against both the said Causes or Reasons supposed and expresly inserted in this second or short Censure of the Louain Faculty Theological as the only Reasons given therein wherefore they censure our Remonstrance and censure it so heavily and grievously or with such odious epithets as these unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. Whatsoever Vniversity or other Censure taxes judges or condemns any Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power of the Sword as is hitherto said in the Supreme Lay Magistrate Prince or State and withall a promise only of such obedience as before is said in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs to that Power or that Magistrate according to the Laws of the Land I say that whatever Censure taxes judges or condemns such a Remonstrance to be utterly unlawful detestable and sacrilegious viz. upon account supposition or pretence That it contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make to them and that moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion Every such University or other Censure whatsoever I say must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity But the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 61. 62. is such or is a University Censure of a Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power c. and withall a promise only of such obedience c. and yet taxes judges and condemns such a Remonstrance to be unlawful c. viz. upon account supposition c. Ergo the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 1661. and 1662. must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity And indeed the Major of this Syllogism ought at least among such Christian Divines as are men of Reason to be reputed of the nature of those Propositions which are called Propositiones per se notae if or as far as any such may be in Christian Philosophy or Divine Science of Christians For this tells us manifestly and evidently according to that evidence which Christian Religion is capable of That all such Censures as are against other at least Christian men and so great also and numerous a Body of other Christian men and are against them upon such an account only that is for maintaining such a power in the Supreme Civil Magistrate and such obedience due from the Subjects as are both revealed in the very written Word of God himself in holy Scripture and so constantly and universally delivered by Tradition and no less approved and confirmed even by pure natural Reason and so I mean revealed delivered approved and confirmed as I have already in my Disputes against the fourth ground of the Louain Divines proved that power and that obedience to have been I say that Christian Philosophy tells us manifestly and evidently that all such Censures must be so as I have said and even notoriously too rash false injurious and scandalous Rash against Prudence because heady foolishly bold and wholly inconsiderate against the Rules of that even humane Providence or of that right
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
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
cloud of Neotericks or of all the very most ancient Fathers and holy Doctors Doctors of Christianity all along for a Thousand years till Gregory the VII Pontificat Nor any thing at all either of holy Scripture or natural Reason both plain enough in the case For I have already in my First Part abundantly given all such Arguments And yet I will observe here that no where have I made use of Protestant Authors albeit many of them have most learnedly refuted all such petty and whatsoever other Objections but above others Joannes Roffensis most diffusely and excellently Nay nor made use not even of Marcus Antonius a Dominis the learned Archbishop of Spalato not even of him there I say where in his Ostensio errorum Francisci Suarez he canvasses the Allegation made of those 70 or 72 Authors and even reduces that number to 20. A small number God wot as to that of bare extrinsick authority of Writers if that I mean should be of any value as indeed it should not to persuade any Nay let us suppose that not only Marcus Antonius but even Joannes Barclaius in his Pietas had come short in their arguments or examination of those 70 or 72 Writers alledged by Bellarmine in his little Book de temporali potestate Papae against William Barclay for himself and that Eudaemon Joannes against John Barclay had got the better of him and not been throughly confuted by his more learned Answerer and consequently that in very deed Bellarmines whole number of 70 or 72 had been rightly and to his purpose alledged by the Bishop what proportion or rather what weight I pray could 72 late Writers have to persuade any in comparison of 72000 I am sure the most learned and holy Fathers Pastors Doctors of the University of Christians throughout the earth in all Ages from Christ and even Christ himself and his Apostles Peter and Paul in the head of them What to the belief and practice also of at least 72 millions or rather 72 hundred millions indoctrinated by them Nay or speaking even of those who writ on or as to the very point in specie and after I mean the subtle distinctions invented either by Schoolmen or others in the later and worser Ages since Gregory the Seventh's dayes what proportion can there be between those 72 Writers or Authors alledg'd by Bellarmine and those other more than 272 Writers quoted by Caron to the contrary but that of one to four So that from first to last if we regard even but the extrinsick authority onely of the number of Teachers and Writers and Writers I say on the very point and distinction the Bishop will find he relies on a weak Reed that will break and pierce and bore through his hand Nor can he pretend that St. Thomas of Aquin or S. Bonaventure have been holier than Chrysostom Austin Gregory the Great and so many other ancient Fathers whose doctrine in the controverted question so contrary to that of those late Scholastick canonized Saints I have before produced Sect. Lxxiii Lxxiv But the truth is that no extrinsick authority either of number or sanctity not even of the greatest Saints how numerous soever can be of any moment either against holy Scripture or Catholick Tradition that I may say nothing now of plain demonstration from the principles of natural reason Otherwise Cyprian of Africk and Firmilian of Cappadocia and Dionysius of Alexandria had born down the scale against other Doctors in the question of Re-baptization And for Holiness I demand who was holier than Cyprian himself alone Therefore neither did St. Thomas of Aquin nor St. Bonaventure's holiness render them infallible in their Scholastical disputes Nay do not our own Schoolmen every day reject both Thomas and Bonaventure even in a hundred points and even also where we have neither evident Scripture nor manifest tradition nor clear demonstration of reason but only stronger probabilities against them Do not all Scotists in the world laugh to scorn the Arguments in particular of Thomas of Aquin and maintain a Thousand contradictory Positions to the very Conclusions or Positions and Thesis's of Thomas and all his School of Thomists So much I could not forbear to say here occasionally though it be not my business now to dispute or confute What is more proper at present is to tell the Reader That my Lord of Ferns having received my Letter at St. Sebastian and seeing he could not prudently venture against my advice thought fit to send his letter of Proxy to his own Vicar-general N Redmond living then at home in his Diocess of Ferns and County of Wexford to supply his place in the National Congregation to be held at Dublin and vote pro or con for or against the Remonstrance according as he should see the major and sanior part do For those were the words of that Letter of Proxy if my memory fail me not for I saw and read it Whether any private instructions were contrary I know not And however we see no opposition at all no endeavours I mean from this Bishop to hinder the Fathers from meeting Which is the scope of all hitherto said as in this place said VI. AS for the Bishop of Kilfinuran Andrew Lynch the third and last of those Irish Bishops then abroad I have nothing to say that might relate to any opposition or contrivance of his to hinder the meeting of the Fathers in the National Congregation Nor indeed besides what you have already seen Part I. Sect. v. pag. 12. have I any thing else to remark here of him save only 1. That he was one of those 12 persons which the Nuncio immediately after the rejection of the Peace of 1646. recommended to Rome by his Dean Dionysius Massarius to be made Bishops and who by the same Dean received next Spring their Bulls and accordingly soon after both Consecration and Installation 2. That nevertheless in the controversie about the cessation of Arms with Inchiquin and censures of the Nuncio he seem'd to be for the Supreme Council 3. That he cunningly declined appearing either one side or other in the business of Jamestown 4. That I for my own part alwayes until I discovered him upon his landing at Dublin and by his carriage in the Congregation took him to have been rightly and honestly principled and therefore as on the same account for the Bishop of Ardagh so I had also on the same been in all occasions an earnest sollicitor of my Lord Lieutenant to suffer him to return out of France and come home to his charge of Kilfinuran 5. That notwithstanding several invitations by letters and otherwise from me to him since the year 1661. to the present 65. assuring him also that he might safely return and reside in his own Diocess yet he neither would nor it seems had any mind to return Whereof we shall see hereafter the causes 6. That concerning him and more closely in order to his affection or disaffection to our
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
Sorbone understood this as well as they and yet those Sorbonists who questionless understand too as well as they what is material or pertinent and what not have not thought it immaterial or impertinent to give this 4th Proposition subscribed by themselves to their own King in order to a greater assurance of their standing by him in all cases against the attempts of Popes acting singly without or separatly from a general Council That so and not a whit less is the Subject of the three former Propositions disputed in all Catholick Vniversities and yet they themselves of the Congregation thought it not impertinent or immaterial to sign those That whether they or the Sorbonists had thought so or not of this 4th Proposition the reason is obvious and evident for it to be very pertinent and material Because out of the Pope's being owned to be above a general Council it must follow in their opinion that hold him so that his decrees or definitions in matters of faith or which he declares to be such made without nay even against any Council how general soever otherwise must be submitted unto as infallible or as infallibly true and as articles of Divine saving faith to be necessarily believed by all the faithful after sufficient knowledge of such definition And consequently must follow according to that opinion that if the Pope alone without any general Council nay without consulting with any other person alive at least without consultation with or consent from any but his own particular Divines or Clergie of the City of Rome or particular Church in that City or Bishoprick shall define at any time that the three former Propositions or any thing or clause in them is Heretical Schismatical sinful Scandalous or against faith good life or Salvation both Sorbonists and our Congregation must retract their subscription and sign there recantation For both sides hold there is an infallibility not onely in the Catholick Church in general or not onely in the diffusive body of true believers but also in their supream visible and accessible Representative or Tribunal on earth of the said Catholick Church or true believers to which all sides must submit in declarations of divine Faith Now if the Pope be above a general Council who sees not that it must follow evidently that his person his representation his tribunal is the supream visible and accessible of the Church and therefore in the judgement of such as acknowledge him so must be even without a Council absolutely infallible in his definitions of faith Which being once admitted nay being not rejected upon the contradictory question what securitie or assurance can the King have of the fidelity of such persons who plainly and expresly refused to reject it The Pope without a Council may in tearms define the contrary And there are not wanting Divines even of the Congregation who understand the Canons so that they hold and speake and teach and preach too where they dare without fear of the Magistrat or laws that several Popes have long since by their decretal Epistles inserted in the body of the Canons defined as of the Catholick faith the very points against which those three former propositions were subscribed by the Sorbonists or against those three propositions in their sense though not against the sense of the Congregation or not against the same three propositions in the sense of the said congregation which is by so many abstractions distinctions and exceptions quite an other thing and farr different from the sense of Sorbone Which three answers being duely considered whither this last passage of their Divines preaching teaching or speaking so as I have now said fall under consideration or not for that matters not to weaken my answers here given to that first argument I now demand of any that will so duely consider these answers whither it can be said with any colour of reason or truth that the congregation thought a subscription to the 4th proposition to be not material to the affair or laying aside that querie of their thought whether in it self the proposition was immaterial as to the affair in hanâ— to be subscribed certainly none can say that understand the business aright but that as it was very material for the King and State and for their purpose to demand it of and expected it from them in or as to the point of assurance of their Loyaltie hereafter against such Papal attempts so it was very material to the purpose of the Congregation which as appears was in effect to give no assurance at all not to answer therein the Kings or States either demand or expectation Which and no other was the true and onely reason why they would not subscribe this 5th proposition as it was likewise their onely true inward reason for not subscribing either of the other two the 4th already considered and the sixth and last whereunto I am now making all the hast I can after I have given my answers also to their second argument on the present Subject I onely before I come so farr add for a further conviction of the unreasonableness of this very first specifical reason which they pretend both for not signing this same 5th proposition and for shewing the immaterialness or impertinency of subscribing it that if that first reason of theirs were allowed consequently it must follow that the demand of any kind of subscription to any proposition whatsoever controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities must be unreasonable And therefore besides hundreds more that of subscribing for example this proposition It is not Our doctrine that the blessed Virgin is conceived in original sin Or that of this of an other kind A tyrant by title or administration or both or either may without any sin he killed by every private man though he have no publick authority power command or licence given him for killing That the Congregation in signing and for signing the three first propositions thought or at least pretended publickly they were induced thereunto by the example of Sorbone as by a sufficient if not indeed only motive and argument of the Catholickness and lawfulness of those propositions in themselves and by consequence of a subscription to them and that they had the same example for this 4th notwithstanding it be controverted or disputed in all Catholick Vniversities That notwithstanding this 4th proposition be so controverted or disputed yet not otherwise in many or most even Catholick Vniversities than as other doctrines or positions which nevertheless they hold to be at least and for one side of the contradiction theologically false if not manifest errors and heresies in faith And therefore in most Catholick Vniversities it is disputed not that they hold this proposition true or as much as doubtful The Pope is above a general Council but that they would shew it by Scripture tradition and reason and by solution of all that can be alledged for it to be manifestly false and erroneous in the