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
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
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
and which only questionless those framers intended to give their Kings either in spiritual or temporal things or causes But hereof elsewhere It sufficeth at present that these good Abbots of Constantinople by this title of Headship by consequence or implicitly and virtually concurr in acknowledging the supream civil coercive power of the Emperour over all Clergiemen even the very Pope himself being that Headship could be no other but a Headship of civil direction by his civil laws and coercion by the material Sword And it sufficeth moreover to conclude that not those holy Fathers only who purposely expound or expresly apply the text of Paul ad Rom. 13. by Pauls more sublime powers understand the civil Princes but all other holy Fathers also who acknowledge as they all do the subjection of Churchmen to Princes do by consequence or implicitly and virtually understand the very same And therefore out of all said hitherto out of the holy Fathers I conclude my main purpose in this third way that is I conclude that as I have formerly or in my two former wayes both out of the â—etter of the text and end of it ruind all the several three answers of our Adversaries to my fourth grand argument in this Section out of St. Paul so I have now in this third way out of the clear sense or doctrine of the Fathers concerning the sense of that text of Paul as delivered to us by Tradition or especially in their writings or at least by such of them as purposely expound St. Paul To all these evidences nay to the very clearest most express and particular of them to the point for the sense of the holy Fathers generally or of any one or moe of them our Adversaries find no other answer but first to say as Bellarmine doth against Barclay cap. 3. that etiamsi non eximebat Apostolos ab â—â—la subjectiâ—â—e professio Christianae Religionis eximebat tamen principatus Apostolicus qui sublimior est omni principatu naturali albeit the profession of Christian Religion did not exempt the very Apostles themselves from that subjection to say Princes yet the Apostolical Principality which is more sublime then any natural Principality did exempt them Secondly to say as others do cont Fâ—â—g there is a great difference twixt the Sacrament of Baptisme and that other which is of Holy Orders For say they Baptismus relinquit hominem in comwani hominum caetu Ordo verò elevat ad Paternitatem etiam supra Principem Baptisme leaves a man in the common ranke of men but Order rayseth to a paternity or fatherhood above even the Prince himself Albeit not onely the reasons given by several of the holy Fathers in some of those very passages quoted by me already in this present Section evidently destroy these last answers also as they do the three former and shew them to be against the letter of the law and end of the law and against that very sense too which those Fathers themselves conceived and believed to have been of Paul in that general precept omnis anima but also my own discourses and reasons given partly in my two last Sections LXXI and LXXII in answer to some objections or evasions of Bellarmine and of others yet I think not amiss for the Readers more ample satisfaction fuller confutation of our Adversarie's in this also to handle briefly the same matter again with some necessary additions as a further illustration of what I said before And therefore I observe First that for what concern's Bellarmine's said evasion or pretence of Apostolical Principality which he sayes did exempt the Clergie albeit their profession of Christianity did not and must say also if he will answer to the argument grounded on the now given doctrine of the Fathers that the Fathers intended not to teach that that of Apostleship did not I say we must observe first that whereas that of Apostolick principality or Apostleship is as they grant found or continued onely in Bishops nay perhaps according to their doctrine found or continued in the chief Bishop onely that is in the Pope alone it must follow that either onely the Pope or at most the Bishops onely must be exempted by this evasion of Bellarmine Why then doth he exempt and notwithstanding S. Paul by the very law of God pretend to exempt the rest of the infinit multitude of inferiour Clerks from lay Princes whether the same Princes will or no nay why doth he and others of his way pretend to exempt so or even by the sole canons the very cooks and scullions of Clerks or Monks cap. Parrochianos de sent Excom in 6. O Vemerandos lixas for I may here against my Adversaries exclaime and admire so with a certain late Writer extra omnes saeculi potestates positos qui scilicetâ—e monachali culina vncti adeo pulchri emergunt vt sacram ordinis Ecclesiastici vnctionem aequiparent ipsos vnctos Domini Reges dominos suos non agnoscant I know my self sayes the same writer a little pittifull dorp or village in Insula Vegliensi of scarse a hundred straw or thatch'd houâ—es wherein there are above three-score Priests and other Clerks who use to confess ingenuously that so many of them take orders of Clerkship to the end they may be freed from the burdens wherewith other Plebeians or the Peasants are loaden by their Prince especially from rowing in the gallies So that under pretext of Sacred orders Princes are deluded by their own proper Subjects the commonwealth suffers ac interim Ecclesia repletur quisquilijs otiosorum imo sordidorum sacerdotum sayes he But however this complaint be well or ill grounded and however that abuse be of the priviledg of Clerks by the Clerks themselves or by the intention or design of such as receive orders it is not my intention here or elswhere to complain of the observance of all or any priviledges of theirs which the Princes themselves have bestowed or custome hath allowed them In this Authors admiration onely I concurre where instancing the very cook of a Convent he exclaims at the pretended exemption of Bellarmine or of even such a cook from the very supream civil power of all earthly Princes in all causes whatsoever Secondly I observe and answer directly or rather directly refute both the above last answers of Bellarmine and his fellow-stickler that if Baptisme ought not to be injurious to Princes by exempting their subjects from subjection to them so neither should Apostleship nor any sacred Order Because otherwise it is plain enough that Princes would have just cause to apprehend the growth admission or tolleration of the Faith of Christians or of themselves To prevent which apprehension or fear of Princes and of their people too it was the Fathers tel us that even Christ himself would have that subjection which himself did owe presumptively but his Apostles naturally observed not onely in and by his Apostles but even by himself too as
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
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
never to do an act of charity c. would be plain disobedience to the Commands of God would be damnation to their Souls Or will they deny but their foolish excuse of blind obedience to their earthly Superiours injunctions would not in this case justifie them either before God or men nor likewise that other senseless evasion That it is not their parts to examine the justice of the Commands imposed upon them by their Prelates but simply to do what they are bid Will not they also confess if we reason with them a little further that it is therefore they should not obey and these excuses would not serve them in such a case because such Commands would be against the Law of God And will not they admit their knowledge hereof to be derived hence that they see it so expressed in Scriptures Fathers Doctors of the Catholick Roman Church in all Ages let it now be supposed that their Superiours should tell them the contrary in the same case How therefore do they on such mad pretences obey the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them to substract Civil obedience from the Supreme Civil power in a matter concerning the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth and in a matter wherein their Superiours cannot shew nor themselves can see any evil implied Do not they see it is against the express Law of God to substract obedience from the Civil power in this case Do not the Scriptures Councils * Concil Tol. x. c. 2. Si quis religiosorum ab Episcopo usque ad extremi ordiâ—is Clericum sive Monachum generalia juramenta in saluteâ— Regium gentisque aut Patriae data reperiatur violasse voluntate profana mox propria dignitate privatum loco honore habeatur exclusus Becanus in Sum. Theol. de bonit act in t c. 4. q. 7. con 4. alii apud ipsum Fathers Doctors the practice of the Church of Christ in all Ages proclaim it They cannot be ignorant hereof and if any of them hath been hitherto certainly their ignorance can be no longer invincible that is such as might not be overcome by humane industry nor probable that is which hath probable reasons to maintain their disobedience to the Council For what reasons can be probable against the plain sense of Holy Scriptures and the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church in all Ages As for affected ignorance gross vincible or improbable none of them excuse from damnation according to the sense of all Catholick Writers But alas Ignorance is not the cause of sinful Obstinacy Malice and a natural inclination occasioneth it in very many a rash engagement in others hopes of preferment to Benefices and Superiority in others in others a stupid fear of losing what they had being persuaded by experience of the former revolution that an Excommunication the most unjust would alter the whole frame of Government and that there should be no living in Ireland for any would oppose the Lord Nuncio's design herein or the power of Owen O Neill Behold the true causes of their Obstinacy In others an apprehension of shame and disgrace in reclaiming an error and falling from this way they once resolved on and no sense of Conscience Behold the reason why even the best and most learned amongst them being demanded the ground of their opposition do say commonly That they will neither give reason nor take reason and when they speak their mind at full do now at last only censure the intention which the Council and their Adherents had in the concluding the Cessation because they find no other cause and yet would seem not without some cause to reject it which they are engaged for so many unworthy causes to oppose But who sees not in our Answers to the first and second Querie the false imposture of this last refuge Yet by reason they make hereof more use than of any other we briefly propose the ensuing considerations First That the Declaration and Censures of the Lord Nuncio Congregation and Delegates in obedience to which they disobey the Council were not against such evil intentions but against the very substance of the Articles of Cessation as in themselves evil and unconscionable 'T is manifest to any that please to read and peruse the tenour of both Decrees which contain not a word importing other sense Bâ—n tract de Legib. disp 1. q. 1. punct 8. prop. 2. alii apud ipsuâ— ibid. and therefore cannot be extended to evil intentions though we granted such intentions to have been in regard a penal Decree or Law is to be restrained not extended according to the Maxim of Canonists Wherefore this recourse of theirs to evil intentions and their not shewing any other evil in the object that is in the Cessation it self or in the conclusion and observation of it concludes an Errour in the decree or sentence of Excommunication and consequently disannuls it and leaves them no reasonable pretence for disobeying the Council since their pretence is the supposed obligation of the Censures which even their own Answer takes away The second is Though it were granted that the Council or others who negotiated the affair of Cessation had such intentions at first or upon the perfection of it yet might they have changed such evil intentions into good during the Nine dayes given in the monitory Decree for deliberation and consequently if there be no other evil but of their intentions how could the Nuncio proceed to execute his Censures since they protested in their Appeal before the Ninth day and in other Printed Declarations that they had no such intention Nay how could he proceed to this execution though they never had made any such exteriour Protestation whereas without it they might have taken away the ground of the Excommunication to wit the supposed evil intentions The third That questionless our opposites will not deny but Thousands are of the Confederates who desired and embraced the Cessation not out of any such evil intention but for a just end and for their own preservation How then could such be Excommunicated since the ground of this Excommunication to wit evil intention is not to be found in them And if these be not Excommunicated is it not plain That none is Excommunicated whose Conscience tells him That he did not adhere to the Cessation with any evil intention How then doth the Nuncio proceed indifferently against them all as Excommunicated persons Nay how can he proceed against any of them as such but only against him or them whose naughty intentions are apparent and whose intentions can be apparent to him but either out of confession or secundum allegata probata by exteriour proofs for God alone is Judge of the interiour not the Church And who is it that was so convicted or confessed before him such intentions Nay who is it was summon'd to his Tribunal for such a business The fourth Consideration is of the
the Tridentine Fathers but also quite contrary to those Doctrines and Practises which are manifestly recommended in the letter sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ in the writings of his blessed Apostles in the Commentaries of their holy Successors in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature it self whether Christianity be supposed or not IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary Doctrines in the most general terms without descending to particular applications of them to any one Kingdom or People c the grand Positions are as followeth viz. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ the Bishop of Rome is Vniversal Monarch and Governour of the World even with sovereign independent both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches Nations Empires Kingdoms States Principalities and over all persons Emperours Kings Princes Prelates Governours Priests and People both Orthodox and Heterodox Christian and Infidel and in all things and causes whatsoever as well Temporal and Civil as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual That He hath the absolute power of both Swords given Him That He is the Fountain of all Jurisdiction of either kind on Earth and that whoever derives not from Him hath none at all not even any the least Civil or Temporal Jurisdiction That He is the onely Supreme Judge of all Persons and Powers even collectively taken and in all manner of things divine and humane That all humane Creatures are bound under forfeiture of Eternal Salvation to be subject to Him i. e. to both His Swords That He is empowred with lawful Authority not only to Excommunicate but to deprive depose and dethrone both sententially and effectually all Princes Kings and Emperours to translate their Royal Rights and dispose of their Kingdoms to others when and how He shall think fit especially in case either of Apostasie or Heresie or Schism or breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or any publick oppression of the Church or People in their respective civil or religious Rights or even in case of any other enormous publick Sins nay in case of only unfitness to govern That to this purpose He hath full Authority and Plenitude of Apostolical Power to dispense with Subjects in and absolve them from all Oaths of Allegiance and from the antecedent tyes also of the Laws of God or man and to set them at full liberty nay to command them under Excommunication and what other Penalties He please to raise Arms against their so deposed or so excommunicated or otherwise ill-meriting Princes and to pursue them with Fire and Sword to death if they resist or continue their administration or their claim thereunto against His will That He hath likewise power to dispense not only in all Vows whatsoever made either immediately or mediately to God himself nor only as hath been now said in the Oath of Allegiance sworn to the King but in all other Oaths or Promises under Oath made even to any other man whatsoever the subject or thing sworn be That besides Oaths and Vows He can dispense in other matters also even against the Apostles against the Old Testament against the Four Evangelists and consequently against the Law of God That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him or by others deriving power from Him kills not a lawful Prince but an usurping Tyrant a Tyrant at least by Title if not by Administration too and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God or even to kill his own Prince That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman-Church ventures himself and dyes in a War against such a Tyrant i.e. against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince dyes a true Martyr of Christ and his Soul flies to Heaven immediately That His Holiness may give and doth well to give plenary Indulgence of all their sins a culpa poena to all Subjects rebelling and fighting against their Princes when He approves of the War That antecedently to any special Judgment Declaration or declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope or any other subordinate Judge against any particular person Heresie does ipso jure both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown and all other not only royal but real and personal Rights whatsoever That an Heretick possessor is a manifest Vsurper and a Tyrant also if the possession be a Kingdom State or Principality and therefore is ipso jure out-law'd and that all his People i. e. all his otherwise reputed Vassals Tenants or Subjects are likewise ipso jure absolved from all Oaths and all other tyes whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him That he is truly and certainly and properly an Heretick who misbelieves calls in question or even doubts of any one definition of the Tridentine Council or of any one that is of meer Papal Constitution or of any one of those Articles profess'd in Pius Quartus 's Creed That not only the Pope but any Patriarch nay any inferiour Bishop acknowledging His Holiness may if need be both excommunicate and depose their own respective Princes Kings or Emperours and may also without their leave or knowledge reverse the Decrees of their Vice-Roys or Lieutenants and even censure depose from and restore again such Lieutenants to their former dignity and charge That all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever both Men and Women Secular and Regular Patriarchs Primaâ—s Archbishops Bishops Abbots Abbesses Priests Fryars Monks Nuâ—s to the very Porter or Portress of a Cloyster inclusively nay to the very Scullion of the Kitchin and all their Churches Houses Lands Revenues Goods and much more all their persons are exempt by the Law of Nature and Laws of Nations and those of God in Holy Scripture both Old and New Testament and those of men i. e. of Christian Emperours Councils and Popes in their respective Institutions and Canons and are indeed universally perpetually and irrevocably so exempt from all secular civil and temporal Authority on Earth whether of States or of Princes of Kings or of Emperours and from all their Laws and all their Commands that is from both the directive and coercive virtue of either or which is the same thing in effect from sin against God and from punishment by God or man for only transgressing them That consequently if any Church-man should murder his lawful and rightful King blow up the Parliament fire burn and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore guilty of Treason or truly called a Traytor against the King or against the Kingdom or People or Laws thereof no nor could justly be punish'd at all by the secular Magistrate or Laws of the Land without special permission from the Pope or those deriving Authority from Him That nevertheless all Clergy-men regular and secular in the World from the meanest either Accolits or Converts to the highest Generals of Orders and greatest Patriarchs of Nations inclusively may be out of all Kingdoms and even contrary to
Propositions against the Jansenists and by occasion thereof against Mr. White alias Blacklow a learned Priest of the Roman communion though much for most of his books censured at Rome And he that printed at London that excellent Latin Panegyrick of Cromwel in verse I remember well though much unbecomming for the subject a Catholick Divine however it might sute a Heathen Poet Oratour as being in the praise of such a Tyrant Usurper And he that being netled by Mr. Blacklows replyes partly to be revenged on this Gentleman or out of zeal perhaps and partly to trye the fortune of his old age and expect some reward for his earnest endeavours to stifle Iansenisme in England whether for any other end I know not went to Rome immediately after his said writings and stayed there since It was this good Father as a veterane Souldier an able Divine and penman and a forraigner too that had no dependance on England they pitched on at Rome to write and print against that Remonstrance and against the sense thereof expounded by the Procuratour in his little English book wherein he gave the best account thereof he could and the exceptions made first against it required To which purpose they got the Irish Franciscans of St. Isidore their Colledge in the City to translate that little book of the Procuratours hopeing also they might find therein some passages or propositions censurable by His Holiness or Inquisition or by the Congregation de propaganda fide and thereby also find more cause and more matter to write against both the Remonstrance and chief defenders of it such as they accounted the Procuratour and Father Caron But their labour in that particular of translating of that book was lost For when they had done all their worst and brought their translation to the Colledg of Cardinals de propaganda nothing therein was esteemed censurable at least otherwise then the bare Propositions of the Remonstrance in it self And therefore it lyes and will in all likely-hood for ever lye amongst by layed sheets in that Colledg without any danger of condemnation or prohibition as even the Catholick Primate of Ardmagh then at Rome and in all probability concurring with the rest of his Countrymen against the Remonstrance and Subscribers writâ— to my self as soon as he was returned to Paris in 65. as also he together writt that His Holiness did not would not censure at all or meddle with or concern himself in that Remonstrance pro nec con otherwise then by his displeasure only against those Churchmen that were the first Authors or chief promoters of it And indeed we have no reason yet to complain of His Holiness in this matter albeit very much of the proceedings of his Eminency Cardinal Francis Barlerin and of the two Internuncius's of Bruxels But however this be or be not el Padre Macedo lost all his labours How farre he proceeded in it I do not know but sure I am whatever it was he writt on this subject it never came to light Whether because upon after thoughts they found he could saye nothing to purpose and whatever he would saye would certainly and fully be answered and judg'd safer to proceed rather by authority then reason against that Instrument and those Subscribers and by discountenancing and keeping them from all hopes of preferment or title in that Court until they retracted or whether for any other more pious and godly consideration of the Popes Holiness I cannot say for certain But am notwithstanding certain that to this day as neither Macedo nor Brodin so none els had the confidence either at home in Ireland or abroad in other Countries to publish as much as one sheet or leaf or line on that subject against the Remonstrance in print or otherwise that came to my knowledg besides those written letters only of Cardinal Barberin De Vecchijs and Rospigliosi part of which I have before given and shall the rest hereafter in their due place and besides the Censure of Lovain XIII The second particular of those two I desired the Reader to take notice of here as an appendix of those answers is That the Procurator alwayes and to all and every though so many dissenting opposing or delaying parties and factions of the Clergy against subscription in the perclose of his particular answers appropriated to their several objections inculcated seriously and vehemently insisted on this general argument against them That whereas they all generally confessed the catholickness and lawfulness of that form or of the acknowledgments declarations protestations promises engagements and petition of that Remonstrance and consequently the lawfulness of a subscription to it and withal saw clearly not only the expediency but necessity also of their concurrence and being it was evident enough they were bound under the greatest and strictest obligation of conscience and even of eternal damnation and they above other Christians by their special function to concur to all just conscientious or lawful means or such as were not sinful and were also the circumstances of place time and persons considered both expedient and necessary as well to hinder the propagation and labour the extirpation of erroneous false sinful and scandalous doctrine amongst the people whom they instructed as to wash off their holy Faith and Church such scandals already aspersed upon it through the carriage or miscarriage of some rendring it foul and odious and horrible and therefore estranging Sectaries of all sorts from all thoughts of returning or reuniting to it at any time but rather fixing them in heresie and schisme with loss of their eternal salvation even of such infinite myriads of souls for whose reduction to the Church and means of salvation they were specially commission'd by their calling and enjoyn'd to preach and teach Evangelical truths without addition or substraction of or countenance to any other novel doubtful or controverted opinions much less of those are certainly false and scandadalous and even against the common peace not of Catholicks or Christians alone but also of Infidels even of all societies of men on earth it must follow evidently out of these premises they must confess themselves to live in a very sinful state and extreamly dangerous hazzard of Gods most severe and most terrible judgments against them on the day of account if they delayed any longer their duty to God and to the King and to their own Church Religion People and to those too that abhorred their Church and Faith upon account chiefly of such their carriage or of their not disowning as they might and ought such pernicious doctrines and practises the antecedents concomitants and subsequents whereof render the Professors of the Catholick Faith and Church so abominable to all apostatized from or otherwise born and bred out of it For it is clear that under such penalties all Priests of God and Preachers of the Gospel of Christ by special function are obliged by all just means to endeavour the best they can to render
For in the same very order and with the same Titles they subscribed themselves with their own hands under the very original Remonstrance I give them here with this Advertisement to the Reader That the four first signed likewise at London before the Procurator came for Ireland three of them indeed a pretty while after the publication in print of the Remonstrance with the other twenty four London-Subscribers but the first of all I mean Father Bartholomew Stritch together with those other twenty four printed Fathers and should therefore have made up the twenty fift of those formerly printed names Whereof I confess I did not my self take notice till of late looking over the original and by meer chance comparing it with the printed copy When also I found another mistake of the Printers in putting Bartholomew Bellew instead of Patrick Bellew For Patrick Bellew who is now parish Priest of Dundalke was he that subscribed amongst those very first 25. The names of the Clergie-men Seculars or Regulars that besides the first 24. subscribed the Remonstrance of 61. either at London or Dublin or elswhere in Ireland Bartholomew Strich Sacerd. Fr. George Goulde of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Cajetanus Macharius V. I. D. et Protonotarius Fr. Thomas Talbot Almonier to the Queen Dowager Fr. Valen. Brown Read Iubilate of Divin and Commissary of the Fran. in Conaght Fr. James Fitz Symons Guardian of the Fran. at Dublin and Custos of the Province of Ireland Fr. Lawrence Tankard of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Patrick Porter of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Fr. Nicholas Fitz Symons of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Fr. Valentin Cruia of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Fr. John Reynolds of the Ord. of S. Dominick Conf. Preac Gen. and Notary Apostolick Fr. John Scurlock of the Ord. of S. Dominick Prior of Drogheda Fr. Nicholas Archbold of the Ord. of S. Fran. Conf. and Preach Fr. Phillip Codd of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Fr. Christopher Plunket of S. Fra. Ord. Preses of Clane Lawrence Archbold olim Vic. Gen. of Dublin and Rector of Laragh Bryan John Murtagh Doct. of Divinity Vicar of Athlone c. Bartholomew Read Doct. of Divin c. Tho. Kenny Sac. et Theolog. Edmund Smith Sacerd. Fr. James Shiele of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Denis Ferrail Parish Priest of Mastrim Theolog. Fr. Lawrence Cullen of S. Domincks Ord. Conf. Fr. Bonaventura Darcy of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. Fr. Patrick Carre of S. Fran. Ord. Guardian of Carrigfergus Fr. Iames Tute of S. Fran. Ord. and Guardian of Feorus Fr. Francis Coppinger of S. Fran. Ord. Read Gen. of Divinity and Guard of Corke Fr. Patrick Wesly of S. Fran. Ord. Guardian of Trim. Iohn Muldoon Prior. Insulae Sanctorum Vic. de Cashil et Rathclin Fr. Anthony Fitz gerrald of S. Fran. Ord. Read of Divinity Fr. Iames Turnor of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. Fr. Patrick Euers of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. Fr. Christopher Dillon Ord. Carmel Calceatorum nunc in Hibernia Senior et Prior Conventus de Cultrack Fr. Ludovick Fitz Gerald of S. Fran. Ord. Preses of Kildare Ronan Maginn Dean of Dromore and Doctor of Divinity Fr. Clemens Bern of S. Dominicks Ord. Prior de Villanova Fr. Didacus Bern of S. Fran. Ord. Fr. George Coddan of S. Fran. Ord. Read Gen. of Divinity and Missionary Apostolical Fr. Anthony Dalaghan of S. Fran. Ord. Guard of Killihy Fr. Thomas Harrold of S. Fran. Ord. Read Iubilate of Divinity Fr. Francis Dillon of S. Fran. Ord. Guardian of Ballimote Fr. Columbanus Gernon of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preach Fr. Iohn Dondon of S. Fran. Ord. Guardian of Limerick Fr. Iames Tute Iunior of S. Fran. Ord. Read of Divinity Fr. Anthony Molloy of S. Fran. Ord. Read of Divinity And a further advertisement is That notwithstanding the letter to my Lord Lieutenant from the now late but then actual Minister Provincial of the Franciscans in Ireland Father Anthony Docharty of which letter you shall see after some few Sections a true copy wherein he signifies his own plenary approbation of concurrence to the said Remonstrance as to all parts words and even according to the very sense and exposition of the Author whom he supposeth to be Father Peter Walsh yet for as much as he to this day would not subscribe the original nay refused to do so now very lately I do not rank him among the Subscribers As I neither do for many reasons whereof hereafter the Bishop of Killfinuran though so earnest and active for it at first in St Maloes in France by getting the subscriptions of others Nor likewise for some of the same or like reasons do I name amongst them the Bishop of Ardach albeit I have in his own hand-writing all along his Letter to his Brother Sr. Nicholas Pluncket not only or simply approving it but by arguments deduced from the doctrine of St. Paul in holy Scripture and from the practice of the primitive Christians and the several degrees of obedience taught even by Neoterick Divines proving sufficiently nay and abundantly the catholickness and lawfulness of it XVI In the next place and as soon as the Procuratour had with so good success tryed this first attempt made this first breach and consequently atleast in some degree or measure broke the grand Ligue and shewed they were not invincible nor the chief contrivers of it so absolutely and generally powerful as they made account themselves to be his care was to write to some of the most eminent persons among them in the several Provinces and first of all to the most Reverend Bishop of Meath Anthony Mageoghegan of St. Francis Order as likewise to the Vicar Apostolick of Dublin for Leinster to others in Munster Connaught and Vlster for the respective Secular Clergy in those parts as also to the Provincial Superiours of Regular Orders for the Religious under their Government or Direction But understanding of two Provincial Assemblies or Chapters intermedia as they are called of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in two different places in Connaght that of the Dominicans in Vachtirhiry and the other of the Franciseans in Muintircheany he writ special Letters to each by members of those Assemblies but late and known Subscribers to the Franciscans by Father James Fitz Simons above named Guardian of that Order at Dublin and Custos of their Province to the Dominicans by Father Iohn Reynolds the above likewise named of the same Order and Secretary of their said Meeting By which Letters he gave them notice of his arrival and seriously minded them of that which should be their greatest concern in their Assemblyes And how that laying aside all further delayes they should now at last resolve after so long a time even full seven or eight months since they with the rest of the Clergy of Ireland were specially invited by and even by his printed Book The more ample Account to a necessary concurrence with those had given
and grace and above all of his Holinesse's they were certain for their opposition to the Remonstrance as the Promoters of it should be certain of all kind of disfavour and so certain thereof that they could hardly ever expect any promotion or preferment in the Church or in their own Orders and that the Dissenters not only had that great advantage as to Church preferments and with the Distributers of such but no less certainly perswaded themselves to be equal in time at home even with the first Subscribers and even I say as to all protection and liberty from the King and State if they should be forced at last to subscribe such however compelled subscription sufficing the King of one side and excusing them on the other with the Pope and others beyond Seas and albeit the Procurator saw as clearly as consequently that the rest of the Romish Clergy throughout all other parts of the Countrey in the several Provinces received their punctual directions from those at Dublin some from one Order and some from another and others from the Parish-priests and accordingly guided themselves and therefore saw the necessity of prevailing first with those of Dublin notwithstanding and though he laboured much and often with every Order of them severally and Parish-Priests also yet he made it his chief work and for the reasons before given to perswade the Fathers of the Society Which alone was almost his only care for many weeks together XXV The progress and issue of all which was That by their own acknowledgment he cleared all the pretended conscientious scruples of those of them that treated with him That after this Father Iohn â—albot assured him that neither himself nor others of that Society who had past their last vows or fourth profession and consequently could not be ejected at the pleasure of the General or upon other less accounts then other Regulars would any longer delay their subscription then the Procurator had got the positive answer of their Superiour Father Shelton what ever his answer were And further that they would justifie by Letters to Rome and to their General and own publickly to him such their proceedings or subscription That having several times discoursed with the said Father Shelton and by Letter at last urged him to a resolution he before he would resolve sent these two or three Queries in â—â—iâ—ing to the Procurator desiring an answer to them in writing also Whether the Pope hath a perswasive and directive power over temporal Princes in temporal matters pro bono Ecclesiae And whether temporal Princes in such cases may lawfully obey him or are bound to obey him according to that of St. Bernard Converte gladium tuum in vaginam Tuus ergo ipse tuo forsitan nutu si non tua manu evaginandus Uterque ergo Ecclesiae spiritualis scilicet gladius materialis Sed is quidem pro Ecclesiâ ille vero ab Ecclesiâ exerendus est Ille Sacerdotis is militis manu sed sane ad nutum Sacerdotis XXVI That the Procurator answered this paper of Quaeries by another of Resolves And to the first Quaerie That not only the Pope but inferiour Bishops nay Ghostly Fathers have a perswasive and directive power of temporal Princes even in temporal matters and not only pro bono Ecclesiae but for the particular spiritual advantage of such Princes even such a perswasive or directive power as his Holiness and other Bishops Curats and Ghostly Fathers have respectively in temporal matters life death war peace estates inheritances c. of all Christians respectively subject to them for spiritual direction And therefore no such directive power of Princes in such matters even pro bono Ecclesiae as carries along with it a coercive power in the strict and proper sense of coercive but only a coercive power secundum quid that is by inflicting spiritual punishments and inflicting them only in a spiritual way or by spiritual means although it be confessed that sometimes or in some cases corporal punishments or temporal may be prescribed Yet inasmuch as these cannot be inflicted on the delinquent by the Church or which is the same thing that the Church hath no power from Christ to make use of corporal strength external force coaction or the material sword to execute on the Delinquent such punishments if himself do not freely consent therefore it is that we cannot allow even his Holiness as he is Vicar of Christ or Successor of St. Peter any coercive power properly or strictly such over any man much less in the temporal affairs of temporal Princes but only a coercive power by means or wayes that are purely spiritual that is by precepts and censures and these too only when they are ad edificationem non ad destructionem For it is manifest that although the particular Bishops of Diocesses have a perswasive and directive power of their respective temporal Diocesans what ever you say of Parish-priests and Ghostly Fathers in foro paenitentiae even I say in temporal things in that sense the Pope hath of the universal body of the faithful yet such particular Bishops cannot use external coaction force or the material sword by virtue I mean of their power from Christ or from the Church too as such to give any mans possessions and actually really transfer them to another although peradventure or in some contingency they may ex vi persuasiva and directiva even enjoyn any to a voluntary translation of all his rights as in case of necessary restitution In which case the Bishop notwithstanding would have as much power of coercion which would be necessary or essential to the directive as his Holiness And yet no coercive power simply such that is to force restitution by the material sword but secundum quid to wit by spiritual commands and prohibition or exclusion by such commands only from the Sacraments and from the Communion of the faithful Where indeed the directive and coercive power of the Church if you must needs use the word coercive so and attribute it to the Church doth and must end To the second Quaerie or the first part of the next disjunctive question the answer was affirmative whensoever Princes find not apparently oâ— clearly a contradiction in their commands perswasions or directions to the Commandements of God or Canons of the Church or find them evidently hazardous or destructive of their Kingdoms or People or of any other against the law of nature and reason or conscience And hence To the third Quaerie or second part of the complex or disjunctive question the Resolve was negative specially in all those excepted cases of a contradiction to the Commands of God or Canons of the Church or hazzards of their Crowns Kingdom or people or manifest wrong to any other against the law of nature and reason All which Princes are not bound to judge of according to the temporal interests or pretences of either his Holiness or other Bishop To
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
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
our Superiours that they may give it likewise on our behalf to the most holy Father and Lord Presiding over the Vniversal Church or as to the motives scope or the necessity or utility of any such Protestation so made or as to the sense too of the words if they seem to others in any part or clause of that our Form to be of dubious or ambiguous meaning although to us they seem not such and the reasons moreover and Theological grounds which evict all and every the several acknowledgments assertions and promises of the said Form to be consonant to the Orthodox Faith and even to that very Justice which Natural reason it self prescribes the Subscribers will give at large to your Paternity and Minister General or even to the most Blessed Pope himself Alexander the VII if your Paternity do but once declare plainly that your intention was in those your often mentiond citatory letters to Father Caron to summon or admonish those of your Order that subscribed the said Form and that you signifie moreover your mind to be unaltered yet either by Father Carons answer or by this present letter But whatever you intended first or determine hereafter in this particular I shall not cease to wish the descent of that holy Spirit on you that very spirit of God which teacheth all truth and inspireth all piety and religion that is right begging on bended knee the blessing of my most Reverend Father and kissing his hands Dublin the last before the Calends of Jul. MDCLXIII Your most Reverend Paternitie's Most humble Son and Servant Fr. Peter Walsh L. These answers being at least so probable as wholly grounded on the very Canons besides the natural equity of the allegations and being withal so positive wrought so much on the said most reverend Commissary General that he not only abstained from any further prosecution by himself against the Subscribers but wholly remitted the matter from himself to the Minister General of the whole Order Michael Angelus Sambuca From whom notwithstanding as neither from his Successor the other Minister General of the whole Order who now is the most Reverend Ildephonsus Salizanes a Spaniard there came no return nothing at all against the said Subscribers or any of them nor even to this day Nor could I understand of as much as their dislike of the Protestation albeit they knew very well of the Censure of Lovaine and of the letters of Cardinal Barbarin and the Internuncius at Bruxels Yet I confess I have lately understood of private Instructions given by the present Minister General Ildephonsus to his Commissary delegated hither last year to bold the Provincial Chapter of the Franciscans That he should by no means concurr to the election of Father Caron or Father Walsh to the Provincial-ship But for as much as the said Delegate when here did own no such Instructions but expresly denied he had any such or any at all against either of those two or against the Remonstrants in general or Remonstrance in it self and because he did both see and approve the Remonstrants generally instituted Local Superiours by the new Provincial Superiour and expresly refused to confirm some of those were elected against whom one of the grand exceptions was that they would not sign moreover that himself in full Chapter publickly albeit not resolving to stay in the Kingdom but return back to Spain to give the said Ildephonsus an account of his proceedings offered nevertheless for their sakes for their good to sign subscribe his own to the Remonstrance if the Capitulars would all do the like therefore I will not charge the Minister General with any such over-sight And that the Reader may not take my bare word for what I have said of the Belgick Commissary Generals ceasing to prosecute the above citation of his remitting the controversie to the Minister General of the whole Order I give here the said Commissaries own return of the 6th of April 1664. from Lovaine to a a second letter of the Procurators wherein his resolution and said remission is notified as likewise why he did not before say any thing to the long letter of the Procurator Admodum Venerando Patri P. Fratri Petro Valesio Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Provinciae nostrae Hiberniae Sacrae Theologiae lectori c. Adm. Venerande Pater Vâ—â—â—as Idibus Februarii datas à paucis diebus recepi Non recordor me ullam commissionem P. Brâ—dino vobiscum agendi dedisse Praecedentes quarum faciunt mentionem non mihi visae sunt responsum exigere cum potius responsoriae essent si non declinatoriae á mandatis Superiorum quorum non est cum subditis disputare Hinc me satisfecisse puto illas Reverendissimo Patri Generali meo vestro Superiori transmittendâ— cujus mandatis ut Commissarius ejus subditus me accomoda sine ulla necessitudine vel dependentia quam pudendam scribitis à Secretario ejus Heslenano Neque ut Successor Marchantii mortalem ullum vereor absit ut prae Deo Sed â—pto ut mecum omnes Deo quae Dei sunt ea quae Caesaris sunt Caesari reddant puro ab omni terrena labe oculo sanctam Dei voluntatem inquirant impleant mansurus Reverentiae Vestrae Addictissimus Frater servus Fr. Jacobus de Riddere Commissarius Generalis Lovanii 6. Aprilis 1664. LI. Yet I will not omit to tell how notwithstanding his Remission so notified here and his ceasing both then and ever since to prosecute his above citation he thought fit next September following to get an Act pass in a National Congregation of all the Provincials subject to him held at Antwerp where he formally reserves a power to the General Superiours to proceed against the Subscribers in due time or when it shal be convenient as withal both he and others of that Congregation declare by the same Act the Subscribers to be in so much no genuine Sons or Brethren but schismatical against the holy See Albeit neither this Act nor any as much as inckling of it for they thought fit to keep it very secret came to the Subscribers hearing until Ian. 64. according to the English computation or 65. according to the Roman when Father Gearnon sent over to the said Commissary by meer chance and great favour and secrecy got the copy of it from others altogether unknown to the Commissary himself For he would be sorry any of the Subscribers should hear on 't till he found his own time The copy is word by word thus INfra scripti in Congregatione nostra Nationali habita die 18. Septembris anno 1663. anditis magno animorum nostrorum maerere quibusdam attentatis Schijmaticis aliquorum Patrum Hibernorum adversus sanctae sedis Apostolicae authoritatem dignitatem signanter certa Protestationis sive Iuramenti Formula Regi Magnae Britanniae ab risdem nuper praesentata Hujusce Scripti tenore ex Regulae nostrae
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
matters they should be subject to such Governours though in other matters which are spiritual these very same Governours be directed by them I am sure that however any do answer to this in point of reason he cannot make any good use of Bellarmines second argument here from his simile of the soul and body to answer it 3. For his third argument from the names or titles of Fathers and Sons Pastours or Sheepheards and Sheep we know very well that both scriptures and Fathers and sacred and prophane writers adorn also Kings and supream civil Magistrats with the same titles or names of Fathers and Pastours That as Bellarmine or others of his way understand a politick or temporal Father-hood and Pastour-ship by such denominations as given to the civil Magistrate so of all sides the same titles given to Churchmen must be understood onely of that Father-hood and Pastour-ship which is purely spiritual and consequently the titles of children or sheep given to all laymen as relating to such Fathers and such Pastours must import onely spiritual sheep and spiritual children or children onely and sheep onely in matters purely spiritual That as the King is properly Pater Patriae and Pastor Patriae in that sense which is proper to him so all persons whatsoever either civil or Ecclesiastical who acknowledg him their King and themselves his Subjects are in that same sense his children and his sheep That those words Fathers and Sons Pastors and sheep being Metaphorically or onely by a Metaphor applyed to both sorts of Rulers and ruled persons the temporal and spiritual the same words names or titles are as properly applyed or attributed in a politique sense or as designing or meaning a civil Father-hood Pastor-ship c. of government as they are to a meer spiritual That hence this learned Cardinal may see First his third argument very easily solved For if reason teach that children are bound to obey their parents c and the sheep to be directed by their Pastors and consequently neither Parents nor Pastors to be subject to but exempt from the power of their children and sheep reason also teacheth that although we admitted this without any distinction when the parents and children and Pastors and sheep are such not by a metaphor but by nature that is when they are natural parents natural children natural pastors and natural sheep yet when they are such onely by metaphor or by a metaphorical kind of speech that is onely by some kind of similitude as in our case on both sides then it must be granted of necessity that the children are onely bound to obey wherein they are children and the sheep to be directed onely wherein they are sheep and consequently the parents and pastors exempted from their such respective children and sheep onely wherein they are such parents and pastors and not in other cases or matters I say that reason teaches all this and even Bellarmine himself must confess all this or certainly confess that which he would more unwillingly and plainly too against his own very first position of the Immunity of Ecclesiasticks or their exemption I mean from the lay power in Ecclesiastical or spiritual matters For the supream lay Magistrats Kings and Emperours are the politick civil Fathers and pastors of all the Common-wealth and even of all their respective Subjects aswell Clerks as Layeicks and no less properly called Fathers and pastors then the Priests Bishops or Popes themselves are so called being that neither King or Pope are so indeed but in a certain sense though different sense each of them and both onely called so by a metaphor and by some kind of similitude and in some things onely to a natural Father and natural sheep-heard and being this similitude is at least as great apt and obvious to nature in the government of Princes as in that of Priests Secondly he may see it retorted thus For if metaphorical children be subject to their metaphorical parents in all things wherein the one are such parents and the other such children and if metaphorical sheep be subject to and are to be directed by their metaphorical pastors then must it follow that in all worldly or temporal affairs in all civil and criminal causes c. all Clerks Priests and Bishops are subject to and consequently not exempted from the supream civil politick worldly temporal Father and pastor of the Common-wealth For as they are still Cittizens and members of the Common-wealth notwithstanding their special function and as they are still subjects and acknowledg the temporal King that rules temporally the Common-wealth to be even their own King alwayes for so doth Bellarmine himself confess notwithstanding the plain contradiction so must it be consequent that they must alway too acknowledg themselves metaphorically or in all such temporal respects his children and his sheep Thirdly he may see in this metaphorical argument his assumption or antecedent partly false and partly unconcluding False where he sayes or supposes at least and must suppose if he will conclude any thing that natural children are generally bound to obey their natural parents in all things and at all times both during their being minors and after and that natural parents cannot be subject to their own natural children in any respect or at any time For the contrary is evident in the doctrine of all Divines and Lawyers and by the practice of all Countries and ages or that even I mean in all things otherwise onely indifferent natural children being once come to lawful years are not bound to obey their very natural parents not even in the state of their life of marrying or living single entring Religion or not taking to this or that trade dispensing so or so of goods acquired by their own industry and a thousand such like And that also the natural parents may be bound in some cases and some times to obey their own natural children and in such to be not exempt from but subject to them As for example in all matters relating to the publick when natural children are made publick Officers or Governours of Kingdoms Provinces or even of particular Towns or Citties c. Unconcluding where he assumes for a proof of his purpose That according to nature natural sheep must be directed and govern'd by their sheepheard in all cases not he by them in any case For albeit this be simply true without any kind of distinction yet it is therefore onely true so universally because such sheep are by nature meer natural Beasts without any reason at all without discourse in any case and their sheepheard in all cases a rational Creature and as to them at least capable of some knowledg discourse and foresight of what may be for their good or hurt Now to conclude hence that men of reason because they are said to be or are indeed metaphorical sheep in order to some other men and but so in some respects or cases onely though withal truly and properly metaphorical
and consecrated to God and for his special service and sanctified too both externally and internally when they are baptized at the Sacred Font when the sanctified water is poured on them the words of life are pronounced over them and the rest of the Sacred Rites are duly performed by the Priest of God as of signing them with the sign of redemption and anointing them with the Chrysm of Sanctification and anointing them too in so many parts together as their Crown and Breast and Shoulders and of c And consequently how can it be denyed that all Christians universally that all those we call meer laymen or women must be in some sense and that even a very good true and proper sense made as if they were the peculiar and property of God Certainly not onely in this same sense or quasi can it be denyed either of Israelits or Christians but not even in the most strict and proper sense imaginable of the property of God can it be denyed that by and for many other most considerable titles as those of creation redemption sanctification preservation general and particular providence c. all the Nations of the earth aswell Infidels as believers and all their lands and goods are of the property of God As it cannot be denyed that it is onely respective or in some certain respect onely he sayes himself or we say that such or such a people or such or such things belong to God Therefore as the belonging of all persons and all things whatsoever on earth to God and the belonging of them to himself alone immediately by and for so many other titles of eminency and excellency admits according to natural reason nay and requires also according to the same reason that earthly Kings and civil Magistrats as his Vicegerents on earth in temporal matters should nevertheless have such a right derived from him to govern justly and righteously to dispose of all the very self-same persons and things it must follow by the same natural reason still that no other particular title whereby some sort of people or things are said to be God's can exempt such people or things from such a right in Princes to govern and dispose of them to such ends as God himself would have them govern'd and disposed of unless the very same God who hath bid us all universally and undistinctly obey such Princes hath himself by special provision revealed to us exempted such a sort of people or things from the government of Princes But no such special provision is yet proved in relation to Clerks Nay the quite contrary shall be proved hereafter in its proper place And yet whatever be said or thought of other proofs or no other proofs of such a special revealed provision for Clerks I am perswaded it now appears sufficiently out of what I have hitherto said That our learned Cardinal hath alleadged no proof at all nor dictate of natural reason which is our present controversy for such a portion And consequently neither any such proof or dictate for that his Assumption which he delivers so confidently in these words Certe autem in ea quae sunt eblata consecrata Deo quasi propria ipsius Dei facta sunt nullum jus habere possunt Principes seculi And yet gives no reason at all for that his too confident assertion but onely in general would have us believe him that the light of reason doth shew it to be so and then would have us believe him too that God himself hath not obscurely delivered it to be so Levit. last chap. v. 29. where it is said by Moyses to the people Quicquid semel fuerit consecratum sanctum sanctorum erit Domino whatever shall be once consecrated shall be holy of holies to the Lord. But our learned Cardinal should have considered we are not bound to believe that his bare saying That the light of reason doth shew any such thing unless he further prove it to us by a discourse of reason which yet he doth not as much as venture upon and I have shewed already he could not venture upon if he would not be foiled Nor likewise are bound to believe his bare saying that God himself hath not obscurely delivered it to be so in the said passage of Leviticus unless we can be convinced by that very passage it self or by the sense or interpretation of it delivered us by Tradition in the writings of holy Fathers But he brings us neither Church nor Fathers nor as much as one single Father so far he is from venturing on Tradition for any such meaning of that passage And I am sure the words taken either precisely in that passage or relatively and by comparing them to or expounding them by any other passages of that same chapter or even of any other either in the whole book of Leviticus or what book soever in holy Bible imports no such meaning as Bellarmine would impose on us Whatever is once consecrated shall be holy of holies to the Lord are the words Ergo sayes Bellarmine for this must be the consequence these words import not obscurely that the Vicegerent of the Lord on earth in the external Government and by the power of the carnal material or corporal sword hath no power at all from God or by nature to force by means proper to him when he shall see it necessary such consecrated persons as Clerks are to serve God holily and behave themselves justly towards their neighbours according to the ends of their consecration and thereby live so as they may be alwayes and in all things holy of holies to the Lord. If this consequence follow by any reason or Philosophy or any Scripture or Theology we may hereafter perswade our selves that ex quolibet sequitur quodlibet And if either clearly or obscurely or any way at all they import any such thing I confess my self to understand no kind of thing Therefore the natural genuine and even obvious meaning of that passage can be no other but what is sufficiently declared in that whole chapter as likewise in many other chapters even of that very book but more especially in the former part of that same 29. verse where you read this general rule given by God to the Israelits Any thing that is consecrated to the Lord whether it be man or beast or field shall not be sold neither can it be redeemed And then follows immediatly in the same verse and as a corollary that passage quoted by Bellarmine whatever is once consecrated shall be holy of holies to the Lord. Whence being compared to what is said before in the same chapter of the redemption of vows made of Lands Houses Beasts either clean or unclean and of the persons too of men and women appears plainly that nothing else is intended but that if the thing vowed be not redeemed by a sum of moneys before consecration made it shall not be lawful to redeem it any time after consecration
extended them to other Kingdoms and that besides they were after approved of and received by the Bishops of such other Kingdoms That neither Gratian's insertion of them into the body of his Decretum nor the publication of his Decretum as such by the approbation authority or command of Popes makes them hoc ipso to be extended or of more binding authority in the nature of laws then they were before such insertion publication or approbation command or authority or makes them hoc ipso to be laws for the Catholick Church but onely to be more authentick whereas we know there are a thousand authorities alleadged by Gratian which are not therefore binding laws to the Church Thirdly that whatever may be said of Inferiour lay Judicatories judgments or Judges nothing at all can be with any kind of colour inferr'd hence against the supream of the Emperour himself in any matters whatsoever laws or canons whereby his power may be conceived whether right or wrong to be any way limited Because the supream extraordinary and absolute judgment of the Prince is never understood never signified by or comprised under the general notion or common use of these words secularia judicia as the Prince himself is not understood by the general or common name of a Judge or of a secular Iudge being these words or the like according to the common use or meaning signifie onely such as are such by special office and not him at all who by a supereminent power creats both these and all other even much higher Officials For it is a rule among both Civilians and Canonists That the words of any Canons Institutions or other laws whatsoever though Canons or laws of priviledg must be stâ—â—cti juris and strictae interpretati nis where otherwise a very great inconvenience must follow or where they derogate to a former uncontroverted right of any third person and much more when by any other interpretation they derogate to the supream authority either spiritual in the Pope or temporal in the Emperour and most of all when they ruine and quite destroy either in relation to their subjects being that in so much they are purely odious though in other points where no such prejudice is they are purely favourable And Odia restringi favores autem convenit ampliari is a rule of the very Canon law in Sexto Now who sees not there can be nothing more inconvenient in it self and more odious to Princes then that so vast a number of both men and women living within their Kingdoms and going under the name and title of their Subjects should yet be exempted wholly from their even supream royal power and in all cases whatsoever civil or criminal Pursuant to the former rule is that other which Felinus hath cap. uit de sanâ—nia Quoties species a â—â—â—it aliquid generi numquam appellatione generis venit species Now Iu â—ex secularis and judicium seculare is a genus Rex Imperator c. and judicium supremum Regium or judicium supremum imperiale is a species And pursuant also to both rules is the doctrine of that celebrious late Doctor of Paris Andreas Duuallius de suprema Rom. Pontif. in Ecclesiam potestate part 2. q. 4. p. 264. where notwithstanding his being so great and known a stickler against the ancient School of Paris for the Pope in too many things yet he writeth thus Notum est nomine Cleric rum c. It is manifest that in any odious matter Bishops are not comprehended under the name of Clerks nor sometimes in the same matter â—ther Religious men under the name of Mâ—nks neque similiter nomine Dominorum Reges nor likewise Kings under the name of Landlords Govern us or Lords in regard of the height and Majesty of the Royal dignity c. And finally pursuant to the said rules and their meaning or scope it is that we read the same or the like other exceptions and of several other particulars from a comprehension under general notions in Armilla verb. Abbas n. XI verb. Clericus n. 2. verb. sacerdos n. 1. Sayrus tom 1. l. 3. c. 33. Navarr tom 2. commentar in cap. Finali de simâ—nia n. 5. Silvester verb. excommunicatio 19. n. 82. Parag. Quadragesima tertia Innâ—centius in can sedes Apostolica de Rescriptis Moreover as it is a general maxime That in a general concession or priviledge how general soever the words be such things are not to be understood as granted which evident reason tell us that in all probability the Prince or Pope or other Legislator or graunter of such concession or priviledge would not grant by any means if he had reflected or thought on it in particular so it must be as general a rule That in a general prohibition of any law or Canon and how general soever the words be such things are not prohibited which if reflected on in particular right reason tells us that in all probability it could not have been the intention of the makers of such a law or Canon to prohibit them Out of all which it is evident enough that no Divine or Canonist may conclude from the prohibition of this Council of Agde or of this Canon of it or of this second part of the said Canon that the Fathers comprehended or intended to comprehend the supream absolute and extraordinary judgment of Kings or Emperours under the general notions of secularia judicia but onely such as were commonly understood by such those I mean of subordinate inferiour Iudicatories and from which there might be upon rational grounds and by the concession or permission of their Prince or custom of the Country even at that very time wherein these Fathers lived an exemption of Clerks For who is so bereaved of common sense as to say that the Councils of Christian Bishops in those days would be so high or unreasonable or rather so mad as to prohibit Clerks not to appear at all before the King Emperour or other supream Magistrate though called upon and expresly commanded to appear before them which yet these Fathers must be said to have decreed in this Canon or second part of it if Bellarmines allegation of it be to his main purpose here of Exemption of the Clerks by this Canon from even the supream civil coercive power or if it be against mine here also which is that no Canon hath ever yet so exempted them not even this of Agde or which is the same the same thing if secularia judicia in this Canon reach even to the very supream of the Emperour or other King and in all cases and causes temporal civil or criminal whatsoever But if Bellarmine or any other for him see no absurdity in granting this to have been the meaning of this ancient though onely Provincial Synod of a few Bishops of Guien onely he must pardon me for not joyning with him in so hard a censure or opinion of such scandalous consequence of any Catholick Coucil especially so
ancient and where according to our own very common doctrine in Schools they give no sufficient ground at all to derive such unreasonable conclusions from their decrees nor ever I am confident as much as once imagined any would be so extravagant as to derive such Fourthly That although we admitted as we neither do nor can that the Fathers of Agde in the second part of this canon and by these words sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio seculari proponere were intended absolutely and generally to forbid their own Clerks in any case to answer in the publick lay Courts and in criminal causes notwithstanding the Judges themselves should expresly and particularly summon and command them to appear and answer yet nothing could be concluded hence against either of my above affirmations First nothing to prove as I will presently shew that which indeed is the only thing to be proved against my main or rather only purpose that is nothing to prove that the Fathers therefore intended that Clerks should not appear and answer if by the supream secular Judge himself or by a warrant come immediatly from the King himself or from his special Delegate in such a matter they were commanded to appear and answer before him Secondly nor any thing to prove that by the pure and sole authority of the Church or of any Councils or Bishops Cergiemen were warranted as much as in point of conscience not to appear and answer even before the subordinat inferiour lay Judges Nor thirdly yet any thing at all to prove that these Fathers of Agde or other Council declared by that other canon that Clerks were generally in all Countreys and in all causes or all matters even the most criminal and horrid soever at that time which was indeed before Iustinians time exempt as much as by the civil authority of Emperours or even of other Kings from all inferiour lay Judicatories and so exempt that if in any case these inferiour Judges themselves did ex officio proceed against them yet they were not bound to answer or obey or observe their judgement or that if those same inferiour Judges gave sentence for or against them in any temporal cause whatsoever or in any cause not purely spiritual such sentence would not hold when pronounc'd according to the civil or municipal either Imperial or Royal Laws inforce in the respective Countreys Such forbidding of their own Clerks might have been grounded on a particular custom introduced by the people in that Province of Guien and by the consent or permission or connivence or tacit approbation of the former civil Magistrats themselves or of King Alaricus himself or his Predecessors And in such case the Bishops there might have justly forbid their own Clerks to appear even at the summons of inferiour lay Iudges because the peculiar civil custom of that place not any spiritual power or canons of their own did so priviledg them albeit in all the rest of the world where the imperial written laws were still in force and strict observance no law or custom did so priviledge them or other Clerks at that time which was before Iustinians time and his law Novel 83. not to appear before the subordinat Magistrats or civil Iudges when summoned by them in a criminal cause nor priviledge the Bishops at all for holding coercive Courts either in civil or criminal causes but only by consent of both parties in difference And that it was introduced so or that such custom had been so in Guien and that only pursuant to the humane civil right or priviledge or exemption derived only from such custom and to maintain it until it had been legally revoked again by the supream civil power the Fathers of Agde made that canon or second part of it we have all the reasons to perswade us which perswade us also and clearly convince us that Ecclesiasticks are by the law of God as well as Laicks under the coercion of the lawful supream lay Magistrate and of his inferiour lay Iudges too if not or where not particularly exempted by him and those reasons besides which tell us we must have that reverence to all such Catholick ancient Fathers and especially in Council together as those of Agde are confessed to have been St. Cesarius the Archbishop of Arles and Primate of all France having been their President and so venerable an opinion of them as not to fix or give such a sense or interpretation to any of their canons however only canons of Discipline as would argue the canon-makers of ignorance or rashness or of any perversness at all or even such their canons of containing any thing either formally virtually or consequentially against the only infallible divine canons of the law of God and I mean still not to give or fix such interpretation to such canons where we can choose that is where the words are not so specifical and particular as to require it Now it is plain enough the words above-rehearsed are not so specifical or so particular as to require a contrary interpretation to that of them I have given here And yet that it was so or that in pursuance and by virtue of such a peculiar custom only of that Province or that little Kingdom there of Guien and of the supream civil Magistrats pleasure permission approbation and consent the Fathers of Agde made this canon or second part of it forbidding Clerks to answer in a criminal cause before lay Judges to wit before inferiour lay Judges we have secondly a sufficient other argument out of the first part of the same canon or out of the sense and natural consequences of it if compared with the practice of the Christian world in all other parts both at that time and at this For the first part being that no Clerk shall presume to sue a lay man before a lay Iudge without the Bishops licence and this importing as much as that an Ecclesiastical Plaintiff shall not without his Bishops leave conveâ—e a lay Defendent before his own proper lay Judge even I say in a meer lay cause or crime and this consequently being against the general rule Quâ—d Actor sequitur Forum Dei it is plain enough that if any will maintain those Fathers intended else here then only to prescribe to Clerks the first peaceable way they should take for righting themselves by letting the Bishop know the wrong done them to the end he might call the lay pretended injurer and try whether he could induce him fairly or by fatherly admonitions if first he had found a real injury done by him to the Clerk which also was christianly ordained as a rule by the Council of Tribur can 20. a German Council of two and twenty Bishops held in the year 895 under Arnulphus the Emperour and indistinctly ordained by this Council for lay men also to observe in case they pretended injuries done themselves by any Clerks I say it
Caesaris Caesari Deo quod Dei est hivero in vtroque in obedientes atque impij nec Deo reddunt amorem neque Regibus humanum timorem where you see that besides his conviction of them out of the very text of Paul he calls them imperitissimos inobedientes impios imitantes Pharisaeos most unskilfull disobedient impious and followers of the Pharisees who maintain that by the more sublime powers or by Princes in this text of Paul the Church Superiours are understood or the censure of excommunication by that sword whereof in the same text The difference therefore twixt those old dotards whom St. Augustine impugnes here and our new Bellarminians is onely that those unlearned disobedient impious and Pharisee like Adversaries of Austin expounded this Power and this sword in this text of Paul onely of the spiritual power and spiritual sword but our late Sophisters would have both the spiritual and temporal understood respectively that is each in order to a certain kind of people or the spiritual onely understood if the question be of Churchmen and the temporal onely then when lay persons are concernd By which distinction these excellent Interpreters would substract at least all Clerks whatsoever even such as onely have primam tonsuram if not all the faithfull universally from their subjection to worldly Princes And yet who sees not that Augustines arguments out of the very text of Paul equally convinceth both or as well these late Sophisters as those ancient dotards Against so many clear evidences of these holy Fathers Augustine Ambrose Chrysostome Ireneus c to be for us our opposers have nothing to alleadg but what one of them sayes Carmelita contra Fulg. that some other holy Fathers and particularly S. Anselme Symmachus and Bernard have besides the temporal understood also the power Ecclesiastical as comprehended by Paul under his more sublime powers And I confess these Fathers have so in some sense or to some purpose But withall I averre they are as wide as can be from having any where understood S. Paul in that general sense wherein our said Opposers would have him understood or to their purpose at all For these Fathers Anselme Symmachus and Bernard applye that command of Paul by way onely of proportion and as by an argument a minori as before we have seen Basil do to perswade obedience in spiritual things to the spiritual Rectors of the Church this being in effect their argument If Paul command that for the just and necessary ends of humane policy or government all men obey and be subject to the Princes of this world how mvch more should or ought the Faithfull be in spiritual matters obedient and subject to their spiritual Governours For so plainly doth Symmachus in Apolog. frame his argument speaking to the Emperour Anastasius Fortassis sayes he dicturus es scriptum esse omni potestati nos subditos esse de bere But doth he answer this objection by exempting himself from that general proposition or command for as much as it speaks of humane or civil powers or by placing himself onely under that other kind of power which is purely spiritual or Ecclesiastical nothing less For in humane or temporal things he acknowledges himself subject to the Emperour though in spiritual matters he also teaches that even the Emperour himself ought yet much more to be subject to the powers of the Church For thus he goes on and sayes Nos quidem potestates humanas suo loco suscipimus donec contra Deum suas erigunt voluntates Ceterum si omnis potestas a Deo est magis ergo quâ— rebus est praestituta divinis Defer Deo in nobis nos deferemus Deo in te And even so doth Anselme expound himself in epist ad Rom. c. 13. For when he said there omnis anima id est omnis homo sit humiliter subdita potestatibus vel saecularibus vel Ecclesiasticis sublimioribus se hoc est omnis homo sit subjectus superpositis sibi potestatibus presently he expounds himself as meaning that every Christian none at all excepted be first subject by reason of their temporals to the temporal powers and then also that by reason of their spirituals every one be subject in spiritual things to the spiritual or Ecclesiastical powers Cum enim sayes he constemus ex anima corpore quamdiu in hac vita temporali sumus etiam rebus temporalibus ad subsidium ejusdem vitae vt amur oportet nos ex ea parte quae ad hanc vitam pertinet subditos esse potestatibus id est res humanas cum aliquo honore administrantibus ex illa verò parte qua Deo credimus in regnum ejus vocamur non debemus subditi esse cuiquam homini idipsum in nobis evertere cupienti And so goes on further explicating how all Christians by reason of humane life ought to be subject to the Lay powers and pay them custome and tribute according to that of our Saviour Reddite quae sunt Caesari but not to be subject to them in matters of Faith or spiritual life but in these to the powers Ecclesiastical And so finally doth Bernard ep 183. ad Conradum Regem Romanorum Legi quippe sayes he omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit qui potestati resistit Dei ordinationi resistit Quam tamen sententiam cupio vos omnimodis moneo custodire in exhibenda reverentia summae Apostolicae sedi Which is no more then to apply that command of Paul by an argument a minori as here If it be just or equitable that according to the praecept of Paul every one be in temporals obedient to the Lay powers how much more in spirituals ought the very Kings themselves revere the powers Ecclesiastical Which to have been the sense of Bernard in that epistle or passage of it may be evinced cleerly out of an other passage of an other epistle of his epis 4. ad Sâ—n nonsem Archiepiscopum where he writes thus Intelligitis quae dico cui hâ—norem hâ—norem omnis anima inquit potestatibus sublimioribuus subdita sit Si omnis vestra Quis vos excipit ab vniversalitate Si quis tentat excipere omatur decipere S. Bernard here indeed labours to perswade the Archbishop to a more plenary obedience to the See Apostolick and to perswade him to this argues thus a minori If by the law divine we be all commanded to be subject to even secular civil powers how much more are we by the same law commanded to be subject also to the spiritual powers In prosecution of which argument mind or sense of his he adds presently advising the Archbishop not to hearken to such as would perswade him to defend his own proper dignity against the Apostolical See Haec isti Christus aliter jussit gessiâ— Reddite ait quae sunt Caesaris Caesari quae sunt Dei Deo Quod ere lâ—â—â—utus est mâ—x
determinatly provided it should remain no longer and is of that nature too that it may be easily destroyed by humane power it self vz. by destroying its foundation or ground which is certainly known to depend also of humane laws For 1. that private person formerly subject to the Earl made so now a Prince lyes no more under any such bond of subjection to the Earl being all subjection of him is destroyed as to the same Earl because the bond or subjection under which he was formerly to him wholly depended of the pleasure or will of the supream Prince King or Emperour being it was by a power delegated from the said Supream c the said Earl formerly commanded the said privat subject this delegation was revoked when such private man was by the King made a Prince for though a Prince still inferiour subordinate to the King himself that made him such yet alwayes equal at least sometimes even in a commanding power of jurisdiction superiour to the very same Earl This person therefore so formerly subject to this Earl was onely tanquam privatus as a private and as such a private person formerly subject to the same Earl Now the King removes takes away or destroyes by the Principality given that former privateness or that quality of being any more a private man which quality with the Kings delegation was the onely ground of his former subjection to the Earl 2. Even so is the former subjection of that simple ordinary Priest wholly destroyed when he is no more such or a simple ordinary or private person or Priest 3. And even so too is the subjection of the said wives destroyed by the destruction of the matrimonial contract which was it that founded or grounded their former subjection 4. And lastly so is the filial subjection to his Father taken away by the Sons Episcopacy I mean that filia subjection which is legâ—ly nor 〈…〉 this kind 〈…〉 subjection is taken away by the humane laws of emancipation And Princeâ— or States supream who are the Lord of legal things 〈…〉 Episcopacy have the power of 〈…〉 So much 〈◊〉 that subjection which was or might have bee◠〈◊〉 to have been 〈…〉 in those cases of Bellarmine But for the subjection whereof 〈◊〉 us 〈◊〉 froâ—â—â—â— person 〈◊〉 temporal things and at all times whatsoever to the stâ—p 〈…〉 under whom such persons live we have sheâ—â—â— already 〈◊〉 it 〈…〉 vino and that the foundation or ground of liâ—◠〈…〉 consequently that it cannot be destroyed if that very humane and is 〈…〉 founds that subjection be not wholly destroyed in him who pretend 〈◊〉 to be subject to the Prince or at least if God himself do not expresly exempt him being it was God himself alone that subjected him If the 〈◊〉 by ordering one with the orders of Priesthood might consequently destroy humane nature in that person so ordered or make that such person should not be any more a man as the King destroyes the quality of a private person in him whom he creates a Prince and makes him that he is no longer a private man and as he destroyes the legal tye of a Son to his Father and as humane laws also not onely canonical but civil and municipal as we see by custome and experience destroy in many cases the contract of Matrimony because all these may be easily destroyed by men being they depend of the will of men or humane lawâ—â— the examples would be to some purpose Nay I add that the King may exempt a private person from his former subjection to an Earl and subject him hereafter immediately and onely to his own Royal cognizance though such person remain still a private person not even chang his habitation For being the King is the supream or Soveraign Prince who hath for Subjects both that Earl himself and the same Earls subjects as t is supposed in the case he may if he please at least upon just ground deprive the Earl of that delegated power which he had from him over that private person And so might God for who denyes it exempt Clerks without destroying humane nature in them But that he hath done so we have no warrant no argument yet to convince us And we have seen so many cleer arguments to convince us that he hath not and those too several of them from the very rights of natural reason And I hope by this time the Reader is satisfied that our Adversaries answers to the passages quoted out of the Fathers and for the sense of the Fathers to be that I maintain or to any thing else I asserted hether too are but meer pittifull unsignificant evasions And consequently that even by the doctrine of the Holy-Fathers that general precept of Paul Omnis â—â—ima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit Rom. 13.1 must hold alwayes in all temporal things and as to all Christian Clerks whatsoever as well as to Laicks Certainly very Catholick Classick and famous Doctors as Occam and Almainus de Eccles. Laica potestate q. 2. c. 7. maintain and with reason too that if the Emperours servant were made Pope forasmuch as belongs to divine right or law and abstracting from the laws of men or from those humane rights acquired or lost by the same laws of men that Pope however true Pope would notwithstanding remain still the Emperour's servant until the Emperour had freely discharg'd him or otherwise untill his tearm were ended if he was first bound for any time Whence also as formerly in the last Section from other arguments you may conclude how unreasonable our great Cardinal is where he sayes without any proof Diaâ—â— qui Papam in terris Vicarium suum constituit hoc ipso cum exemisse ab omni potestate Princepum terrâ—â— For this is said gratis being that by the Papacy humane nature or the being or essence and properties of a mortal man are not destroyed in or taken away from the Pope and that God hath no where declared he exempted him Nay being also the quite contrary appears out of the very letter and necessary litteral sense of holy Scripture especially Rom. 13. in the general precept to all souls and Mat. 7.17 concerning the very persons of the Apostles but more particularly of Peter as also the person of Christ himself as he was a mortal man and further appears out of the motive and end of that general precept of God in St. Paul and lastly appears out of the cleer sense of the Fathers the very words they speak and the arguments they make use of Etiamsi Apostolaâ—sis si Evangelista si Propheta sive quicumque tandem es Non enim pietatem subvertit ista subjectio is the expression of Chrisostome as you have seen before And the words and arguments of the rest you have seen also before to the same purpose in this very Section Where though I have not given all the Fathers through all Ages it was not because I could not give them all as many
of them I mean as treated of the subject untill at least the Schools began in Peter Lombards dayes or at least untill Gregory VII who was a little before nay and many Fathers Interpreters and great School Divines too after the said Gregory and Lombards dayes but that I would not without necessity be too tedious these whom I have given being both many and after the Apostles the chief Fathers of Christianity whose writings are extant LXXIV Having so done in pursuance of my promise in my LXXI Sect. with my fourth and grand argument indeed which is purely Theological and is that grounded on the 13. Rom. according to the general and vnanimous exposition of that passage by the holy Fathers untill the age of Gregory the VII I am now come to my LXXIV wherein I am to give according also to my promise in the said LXXI Sect. some Instances of the practise of the holy Fathers in pursuance of this their doctrine so given hetherto in the last Section or in the LXXIII going immediately before this present And therefore this present Section is an appendage of the former as containing the best confirmation can be of the holy doctrine of the Fathers by their as holy practise in all degrees But although for matter of Instance or practise the Instance or practise of Christ himself who after commanding Peter to put up and sheath his sword declared himself to have twelve legions of Angels at command to free himself and rest of his company from the both civil and Ecclesiastical power of those who apprehended him and yet would not resist but was obedient even to the civil powers even to death it self acknowledging the very power of an Idolater civil Lieutenant over his body and acknowledging it as given from above albeit I say this Instance or practise of Christ alone should be and is enough for matter of example as Christ himself alone is or should be the onely exemplar to us in all his actions omnis enim Christi actio nostra est instructio said one of those auncient Fathers very well and albeit after and besides that of Christ our Lord the practise of all his most blessed Disciples and great Apostles too those infallible expositors of his will and law those his own proper divine special extraordinary Embassadours to all Nations of the world for teaching them by word and deed his true and pure doctrine and no other should make up Instances enough being they all even Peter himself not excepted conformably to their express doctrine practised so that is obeyed so the civil and even Infidel Princes placed over the world by God that they appeared not onely at their tribunals nay sometimes also of their own free will appealed to them but suffered patiently death it self at their command and this without pleading any exemption without other reluctancy whatsoever nay and without attempting once to make use against these Princes of even their so divine extraordinary miraculous power whereby notwithstanding in other cases and against other men they could make and did make both men and Devils and the very elements to obey their commands and albeit after and besides this Instance too of all those immediate Disciples and Apostles of our Lord we read in general other innumerable examples of all Christians both Laicks and Clerks Priests Bishops Popes and Councils also of both other Bishops and Popes during the primitive Ages of Christianity and the first 300. years and read so in general such innumerable Instances of their practise in those Ages as well of purity as of persecution conformable in all points to that which I have shewn to be the doctrine of all even the holy Fathers who are after the Apostles most famous in the Church of Christ and read these general and innumerable instances in no worse Authors and witnesses then Tertullian Cyprian and St. Augustine albeit I say all this be true and absolutely certain yet it is not my purpose to take up this Section with discouse upon either that particular Instance of the practise of our Lord himself or of that other of his immediate Disciples and Apostles or even on that general one of the practise of all Christians the first 300. years till Constantine the great But my chief purpose here is to give some other and particular Instances of the practise according to that doctrine of very eminent and holy Fathers even Bishops Patriarchs and Popes after the said first 300 years and the conformable practise also of Christian Princes in their times However it may be worth your patience first to read over transiently this following note extracted out of My More Ample Account pag. 88. 89 90 91 92 93 94. inclusively concerning that general practise or that of all Christians in general within the very first 300. years as the said Tertullian in his Apologetick cap. 37. Lactantius l. 5. Cyprian ad Demetrianum and Austin de Civit. Dei l. 22. relate it But now that nothing may be wanting to confirme throughly and according to my first intent this necessary doctrine nothing desired more to illustrate or perswade it to be infallible truth of Christian Religion let us in pursuance of the maximes consider the practise of all primitive Christians for the space of many hundred years while the Church was most holy and most pure and let us consider this practise in the undubitable writings and clearest passages of the before named most famous primitive Fathers who delivered to after ages as well the letter as the sense of the new Testament and consequently the belief or judgment of the B. Apostles and Evangelists the Commandements of Christ and pleasure of God in our case Wherein if any thing be more evident then a religious holy Conscience or perswasion of suffering rather all losses the most grievous all tortures the most exquisite death it self the worst of evills in this world rather then take armes against the Soveraign Magistrate or against the lawes or any thing more evident then that the primitive Christians at least for three or foure the first and best ages of the Church did suffer accordingly and upon this account as well as that of glory and of Christian belief that God in his own time would revenge their quarrel as to whom alone it belonged to right them against the powers of the â—â—rth or any thing likewise more evident then that conscience constant practice belief even general throughout the whole world amongst Christians in Europe Asia Africk without any one exception whereever they lived and even there and then where and when they were so numerous that by secession onely without rebellion without armes without committing treason they might have ruined the greatest Empire in the world if I say any thing may be more evident then all this in the primitive practice Let eloquent Tertullian speake in the first place and in his Apologetick for those of his own Age to the Roman Emperors and Senate Quoties enim
See Apostolick or although it be related of him in Adam l. 4. c. 46. apud Baronium tom XI an 1097. n. 17. how he used to glory that he had onely two Lords or Masters to witt the Pope and the King to whose dominion jure subjaceant omnes seculi Ecclesiae potestates all the powers of the world and Church were de jure subject and that he had both fear and honour for these two Masters I say notwithstanding that to prove the later part I shall not make use of this however a most clear and material testimony if rightly understood of both a celebrious and holy Legat Apostolick but I will produce Gerbertus sometime that is first Archbishop of Rhemes in France next of Ravennas in Italy and last of all of Rome where and when he was called Silvester the Second Even this very Silvester and this Gerbertus it is that writes thus epist 154. to the Emperour Paremus ergo sayes he Caesar Imperialibus edictis tum in hoc tum in omnibus quaecumque divina Majestas vestra decreverit non enim dâ—esse possumus obsequio qui nihil inter humanas res dulcius vestro aspicimus Imperio This treatise would swell beyond measure if I should bring all particular Instances I could even of Bishops and Popes out of learned holy writers either for the fact or right or both of such obedience in temporals given heretofore to the supream civil Princes in all temporal things But for that reason I abstain from any more such Instances until at least I come to those I promised of Princes For I cannot well treat of the one but somewhat of the other sort must be annexed Yet I cannot abstain here from observing how strangely the Church is altered now from that it was then and how different the carriage of the chief Bishops hath been at least as to many of them in the later ages from that was not onely of the most holy but of all universally in the former and more primitive ages Nicholas the first Pope of that name and Innocent the third of his chose rather to wrest aside and set awry nay to corrupt plainly the genuine sense of holy scripture than yeeld to Emperours that obedience due to them Let us heare Nicholas writing to Adventius Bishop of Mets. Apud Baron tom 10. an 863. nu 66. Illud â—ero sayes he quod dicitis Regibus Principibus vos esse subiectos eo quod dicat Apostolus 1. Pet. 2.13 Sive Regi tanquam praecel lenti placet Veruntamen videte utrum Reges isti Principes quibus vos subiectos esse dicitis veraciter Reges Principes sint videte si primum se bene regant deinde subditum populum Nam qui sibi nequam est cui alij bonus videte si jure principantur aliequi potiùs tyranni credendi sunt quà m Reges habendi quibus magis resistere ex adverso ascendere quà m subdi debemus Alioquin si talibus subditi non praelati fuerimus nos necesse est eorum vitijs faveamus Ergo Regi quasi praecellenti virtutibus scilicet non vitijs subditi estote sed Apostolus ait propter Deum non contra Deum Hetherto Pope Nicholas Paul enjoyns obedience to Nero to witt in all politick affairs or things belonging to humane policy or government nor doth he enquire by what right or title he is Prince of the Roman Empire But Nicholas will have us enquire by what right any is King or Prince and whether he be truly such in his sense when we obey him in temporals The former holy Fathers and Pontiffs both obeyed in their own persons and actions evil Princes heretick and tyrant Princes and by their doctrine with Paul the Apostle taught others also that they should obey even such Princes But Nicholas tels us here the quite contrary and sayes that we ought not obey not even in such things any civil Prince that is not truly a Prince over all his own passions and affections and is not moreover a just and good Prince in the government of his people nay tels us plainly that if he be defective in either that is according to our judgment we ought to rise and rebell against him Is this the doctrine of the former holy Fathers and Pontiffs or of the Apostle Paul or of the holy Spirit of God himself in the writings of any of the Apostles Or is it not rather the hissing of the old Serpent though proceeding from the mouth of a Roman Pontiff but certainly in so much not a Christian Pontiff however in other doctrines and in his life or conversation as religious precise strict holy as you please Against God that secular Princes nay that the very spiritual supream Pontiffs themselves are not to be obeyed in either spiritual or temporal things who ever yet doubted But that secular Princes are not to be obeyed in human things which are indifferent of their own nature which are such that by giving obedience either active or passive or both in them to the Prince we transgress no law of God or nature we commit no sin at all though the Princes themselves were known to be loaden with sin I am sure was not the doctrine receaved by Nicholas from his most holy Fore-fathers from tradition or from Scripture As for Innocent the Third it is no less clear to me that he stuffed that Answer of his to the Emperour of Constantinople which in part you may read in the Decretals of Gregory the Ninth c. Solicitae benignitatis de majoritate obedientia with many subtleties to decline or disswade this obedience due to Princes or disswade it as due from Ecclesiasticks but indeed with such subtleties I mean of distinctions or interpretations of Scripture examples and other passages especially one out of S. Peter as appeare evidently upon sober examination to be vain inventions and meer frivolous toyes if compared with the common sense or interpretation and practise also of the holy Fathers and Pontiffs in the preceeding purer ages of the Church and even for so many such ages together until at least the eight or ninth century nay or if compared but with the very bare letter and necessary sense either theological or grammatical of S. Paul himself Rom. 13. who certainly did not teach against the epistle of Peter or if compared with the whole sole drift of that great Apostle Paul there Farre enough God himself knows were both these and all the rest of the most blessed Apostles were also those most holy Successours of theirs for so many ages of Christianity from hammering or thinking of such cunning evasions The divine spirit of true Christian simplicity and humility taught them much otherwise and made them also teach others plainly and honestly without aequivocation or reservation and practise too in their own persons humbly and sincerely without the least opposition or contradiction as farre otherwise as from East to
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
such Authorities as are truly unanswerable nor to such Reasons as are truly demonstrative no not then when they had not a word to reply not even the most learned and most resolute of them I mean and I mean them also too when sate together in the most general Congregation of their Representatives Behold the cause wherefore several of the more leading and more intriguing of them and long before the said general Congregation was held finding upon one side an absolute necessity on themselves to offer at least some kind of Remonstrance of their Loyalty that they might not seem to disown their being Subjects and on the other intending not to come home to the Contents of that of 1661. so Censured by the Divines of Louain and by the several Letters of the Internuncio of Flanders and of Cardinal Francis Bellarmine most earnestly and manifoldly attempted and this too by the mediation of several persons of Quality and Honour both Lords and Ladies of their own Religion and some too of the Protestant to persuade his Grace my LORD LIEUTENANT to be content with and accept of such a Remonstrance as they would frame for themselves being as they pretended they desired this favour not to decline the substance of Father Walshe's Remonstrance as they call'd it but to give it in their own Language for the Reasons elsewhere already given in this Book And behold the cause also why though his GRACE did as often condescend to their desire in that behalf as they made it by others or even by themselves yet having to that purpose received several Papers from them besides those given before as from the Dominicans and Jesuites and no two of all agreeing fully either in words or substance much less any of all coming home in all parts to the substance of that of 1661. which by all means they declined his GRACE considering also they were but particular persons or particular Orders at most and such as could not undertake for other persons and Orders of the Irish Clergy to concur with them in these Forms offered by them how short soever of that know Formulary which was still a Bugbear to them all indifferently answered every of them They came short of their pretended offers That he clearly saw it was not against the words only but against both words and substance or sense of Father Walshe's Remonstrance they excepted And that being this substance or sense to the full and in all parts of it was necessary from them he could not but expect their Subscription to that very Remonstrance which His MAJESTY had already and so graciously accepted of as being sign'd so freely and affectionately presented by a considerable number both of the Irish Clergy and of the Irish Nobility and Gentry because although perhaps some of them intended in some measure to come near the substance or sense of that His MAJESTY so received yet there must be some mystery still in varying from it besides that there would be no end in giving way to such variety and that none of those who perhaps meant well in other words could or would engage the rest should approve of what they offered in such words much less subscribe to it The Papers so offered and presented to His GRACE besides those other you have seen already of the Dominicans pag. 56. and of the Jesuites pag. 84 85 and 86. are these following A Paper given or delivered to the DUKE by Colonel Gerrot Moore 27 March 1664. as said he the substance of that which the Romish Clergy were ready to Subscribe and Declare But I say it appear'd after in their general Congregation of 1666. at Dublin as you may see in the Second Part of this First Treatise and in the Second and Third Treatise of this Book they were far enough from being ready to Subscribe or Declare any such Thing or Paper how even short soever or not home enough to the point I Engage my self to expose my life if occasion shall require in Defence of His Majesties Person and Royal Authority against any Prince Person or Power Spiritual or Temporal Forreign or Domestick that shall invade or disturb even by Sedition or Rebellion His Majesties Rights Person Authority or Government and hereunto I engage my self to be truly faithful notwithstanding any sentence of Deposition Excommunication Censure Declaration Absolution or Dispensation whatsoever I likewise abhor and detest from my very Soul the Position fathered without any just grounds upon Roman Catholicks That Faith is not to be kept with a People of a different judgment in Religion from them Another Paper or form of a Latin Declaration or Protestation offered by Patrick Daly Doctor of the Civil and Canon Law Vicar General of Armagh and Judge Delegate of the Province of Armagh to be Subscribed by himself as given also by himself to the LORD LIEUTENANT on the 7th of April 1664. the Earl of Clancarty and Lord Birmingham being present GEntem illam nimis barbaram imo a lege naturae omnino alienam esse oportet quae non Reges a Deo sibi impositos amant vereantur revereantur qui Regium nomen Majestatem ut rem augustam plane divinam non secundum ipsum Deum in temporalibus amplectendum esse censeant colendum Hybernis igitur omnibus incumbit sed iis praecipue qui Altari inserviunt aliorum instructionem susceperint manifestare quo quantoque gaudio auspicantissimam Serenissimi nostri Monarchae maugurationem ejusque reditum ad capescendum Majorem Imperium concelebrent Hinc ego ut alios omnes decet faelicissimo nostro Principi qui has Gentes prae aliis suam Hyberniam ex faucibus crudelium Tyrannorum quorum sub immani jugo hactenus gemuere eripuit cur non fausta omnia prospeta voveam cum longe a Christiana pietate absit aliter vel facere vel sentire At cum audierim apud multos suspiciorem suboriri viros nonnullos nostri ordinis in hoc Regno esse qui intestinas Seditiones moliri imo vires externas ad Rebellandum contra Sacram Regis Majestatem afcistere conentur aspirent celare nec possum nec debeo qua observantia quo amore animi finceritate in inctissimi mei Regis obedientiam prosperitatem rerar quomodoque ad id fideliter praestandum vel Sacramento paratus sum me addicere Itaque sincere sine omni aequivocatione fuco aut mentis reservatione Sanctissime in me recipio in verbo Sacerdotis affirmo Serenissimum Regem nostrum Carolum secundum vero legitimo haereditario jure huic Regno Hiberniae aliis omnibus suis Regnis ditionibus dominari meque in omnibus temporalibus civilibus illi fidelissime merito obtemperaturum nullamque sub Coelo esse potestatem quae me ab hoc Sacramento fidelitatis plus quam Subditos meae functionis Principum Germaniae Hispaniae aut aliarum Nacionum per universum Christianum
to apprehend him or them so not appearing and to cause him or them so apprehended to be safely brought before Vs whereof they may not fail Given at the Council-Chamber in Dublin the 11th day of Iuly 1664. Ja Armachanus Mau Eustace Mich Dublin Meath Santry Hen Tichborne Jo Bysse J Temple Paul Davys J Ware God Save the King The other persons seized in the County of Cavan upon Account or Information to some of the Officers Civil or Military in that County and this Information given by some of the Neighbours were Thomas Brady James Gowan Patrick O Drumma three Secular Priests and Thomas Mukiernan Anthony Gowan and John Brady three Franciscans all leading men amongst the Clergy and Laity in those parts The Imprisonment of these six and Proclamation against those other Church-men startled mightily and cool'd the heat of the opposers of the Remonstrance because all the persons so either by Proclamation summonâ—d or by Surprizal confined were such And the Procurator's kindness and charity to the Prisoners did also help somewhat to allay their Impetuousness For though he had been then and some Months before actually sick yet notwithstanding his very great weakness he visited them several times and otherwise also shewed in effect he was far from entertaining any uncharitable disaffection or passion to their persons Besides that having suddenly after but during their Imprisonment departed to England and come to London he performed his promise to them at his departure and partly by his endeavours there and Letters back to Ireland to some persons of quality and power within a few weeks wrought their Enlargement on Bonds to appear when called upon His known successful endeavours also about that time before he left Ireland as likewise often the three last preceding Years to hinder the Indictments or Prosecutions of such in several parts of the Countrey against a great number of poor Catholicks for their Recusancy did likewise contribute to stop the Exclamations and Forgeries of the Anti-remonstrants LXXXII FRom London the Procurator being come thither about the end of August same Year 1664. next Month after sent back to Ireland the Reverend Father Antony Gearnon partly to work the Enlargement of the Prisoners and partly also when so Enlarged to get the chief Fathers of the Franciscans or the chief I mean in authority or command then amongst them videlicet their Definitory in all seven or eight to meet in some convenient place and by Letters and by the said Gearnon as a Messenger or Agent to postulate a Visitator of that Province from James de Riddere a Dutchman residing in Flanders and Commissary General then of that Order of the Franciscans throughout all the Northern and Northwest Kingdoms amongst which Ireland England and Scotland are and to that purpose to postulate and present unto him one of those other of whose faith to the King there was no suspicion Because otherwise that Order in Ireland being very numerous and leading and as to the greater number of them especially their Superiors very great Anti-remonstrants and formerly Nunciotists it could not be expected to be reduced to reason their Constitutions not warranting them to change Superiors before they had a Visitator from the General Superiors who live still in Forreign parts and because it would be of some consequence also to break in time by their example the other Regular Orders and even the Secular Clergy too And those Fathers of the Franciscans having met at Multifernan were by the said Father Gearnon and Procurator's Letters but more by that trouble whereinto some of them as above related were lately fallen wrought upon to write to Flanders and to the said de Riddere their Commissary General desiring him to let them have such an one for their Visitator as in the point of Loyalty or Fidelity to the King no exceptions could be taken against him nay such an one as should be grateful to His Majesty and great Ministers That they would receive none other And would any such even Father Redmund Caron himself For this was their language and manner of expressing their sense if I understand their Letters which for your satisfaction I give here They are three several The first is of Antony O Docharty their President because then Minister Provincial of that Order in Ireland written by him to Father Walsh the Procurator Second from the same President and all the rest of the Definitory to the self same Procurator Third also from them all to the foresaid James de Riddere the Flemmish or Dutch Commissary General The First as followeth SIR I Should have esteemed my self ungrateful had I not returned you many thanks for your Civility in your due Correspondency for the freedom of my Liberty and for your bountiful Charity without which I could neither defray my Lodging at Dublin nor be able to undertake this Journey Here we are met where I have propounded all you desire and am sorry F. Valentin hath not appeared I having adjured him by a sure way and Mr. Knight by his own way desiring him not to fail upon any score his presence would have rendred the business more facile Mr. Gearnon knows what difficulties we have met withall as he may inform you At length we have prevailed so far that you have these Instruments which I leave you to peruse and what is wanting there I do as far as in me lieth supply in mine own Addresses to the Commissary General which likewise I leave to you unsealed that you may see the Integrity and Reality of my Intentions I send also my obedience to whom you shall fix upon to be employed to his most Reverend Paternity leaving to you whom you fix upon another grateful to His Majesty in case of Mr. Caron â—s death or personal inability Thus assuring you that I will joyn heart and hand with you in all things that may concern my Loyalty the good of my Nation and Order So I subscribe SIR Your Brother and Servant Anthony Docharty Multifernan 25 Octob. 1664. The Second thus Reverend Father WE have received yours of the Third of October by the Reverend Father Anthony Gearnon to your request in which we have willingly and heartily condescended the motive of our meeting being only to do that which is for the Glory of God Interest of our King and better Settlement of our Religion and Order pursuant to which we send our Address to the Commissary General for our future Commissary and Visitator and also our Petition to his Grace though we think not our selves conscious of the least Crime against his mind or the Laws of the Land yet as desired we with as much submissiveness present it as cordially promise to banish from our hearts and actions the least thing that should incur the displeasure of His Majesty or our Lord Lieutenant to which we would annex our Remonstrance but that on the instant we had certain intelligence that the Clergy unanimously do intend to present one very speedily
Magin one of Her Majesties Chaplains coming along with his Lordship and being present all the Discourse but none else besides the said Father Redmund Caron How this Discourse continued three hours from Ten a Clock in the morning to One in the Afternoon How therein after due Salutes the Procurator immediately gave his Lordship a full account of the occasion motives ends and effects too of the Remonstrance continuing his Speech for half an hour or thereabouts and concluding That being it was apparent enough that in the said Remonstrance or Act of Recognition and Petition thereunto annexed there was nothing but what was consonant to Christian Religion and as such maintain'd expresly even in our dayes and at that very present by the Gallican Church and Universities he could not but wonder much his Lordship and Cardinal Francis Barberin should write such Letters as they had to the Nobility Gentry and Clergy of Ireland against that innocent Formulary How the Internuncio answering That his Holiness had condemn'd it the Procurator replied That besides the Non-appearance of any such Papal condemnation it was plain enough his Holiness was misinformed not only concerning the occasion expediency necessity ends and use of that Instrument but the very matter also contained therein even as Paul the V. formerly in Anno 1606. in those of the Oath of Allegiance had been misinformed and consequently abused by Father Parsons the English Jesuite and by Cardinal Bellarmine and those other six or seven Theologues deputed by that Pope to report their sense of the said Oath of Allegiance made by King James by occasion of the Powder-plot Treason How hereupon the Internuncio with some anger rejoin'd shortly Ego informavi I am he that inform'd his Holiness and the Brocurator to him again near as shortly But with your good leave my Lord you have not rightly nor well informed giving withal his convincing Reasons How Father Caron adding to the Procurator's answer and in short desiring the Internuncio to point out the Proposition or Clause one or more in that Formulary against Catholick Faith and finally concluding and asserting the said Formulary to be in all parts and all respects intirely conformable to Christian Doctrine and Catholick Faith the Internuncio had no more to say but Vos ita censetis Sedes autem Apostolica aliter censet yea think so but the See Apostolick otherwise How when both Caron and Walsh had again replied That general Allegations without particular proof of the See Apostolick's sense were to no purpose That the original or at least authentick Copy should be produced That credit in such matters was not to be given not even to the Letters of the very Cardinals as both Civilians and Canonists do teach That the Popes own acknowledg'd private Letters in case there had been such have no binding force no nor even his Briefs or Bulls in the present or other such Controversies That the point of the Popes Infallibility was no matter of Christian or Catholick Faith That the See Apostolick Roman Court and Catholick Church of Christ were three different things finally that together with all now said the reverence and obedience to his Holiness did very well consist how I say this Replication being made the Internuncio looking no more as superciliously or high as he had till then begun to speak to Father Walsh after another manner i. e. moderately and by way rather of Entreaty and Prayer than Command or Empire How this was to desire the said Father Walsh to lay by thenceforward all thoughts of that Remonstrance and think rather of any other medium whereby to obtain His MAJESTIES gracious propension to look mercifully and favourably on the Clergy of Ireland notwithstanding any thing formerly acted by them How when Father Walsh had briefly answer'd That really he knew no means could serve that end without some such Act of Recognition as the Remonstrance was the Internuncio replied He himself then would propose one and how accordingly he did this viz. Sanctissimus Dominus meus c. My most Holy Lord sayes he shall issue a Bull to all the Irish commanding them under pain of Excommunication to be henceforth and continue faithful and obedient to the King How the Procurator saying presently hereunto That indeed my Lord is the medium which if accepted would make His MAJESTY a down-right Vassal to the Pope and a very King of Cards but I hope His MAJESTY hath some better and surer means to rely on for keeping that Kingdom in peace than any kind of Bull or other even Letters Patent from his Holiness the Internuncio presently again Then sayes he I propose this other medium viz. Sanctissimus Dominus meus c. My most Holy Lord shall grant and create as many Bishops and Archbishops for Ireland as His Majesty and His Vice-Roy or Lieutenant in Ireland the Duke of Ormond will desire and those very persons they shall fix upon and moreover shall empower those persons so created Prelates to dismiss and send away out of Ireland all Clergymen whatsoever whom they shall find to be disloyal to the King How moreover the said Procurator to this also replied That although it was much more specious than the former yet considering His MAJESTIES Religion and the Laws now as yet in force and other Affairs too it seem'd impracticable for the present That were His MAJESTY even of the Roman communion nay and being what He is there was nothing offered by this medium but what was and is His own by ancient Right I mean the naming of all Prelates and suffering no other such but of His own Nomination And for banishing Disturbers away That sure He could Himself do that without the help of either Pope or inferiour Bishops whenever he should find such Proscriptions necessary And further That if He could not at least by the Authority of His own Laws or must or would admit of the Popes Authority therein as necessary then surely he must also or would in so much and that an essential point of Temporal Sovereignty acknowledge His own dependance from a Forreign power which questionless He neither would nor could Therefore considering all this besides the strict Oath of Allegiance and Obedience which even such Archbishops and Bishops must before their Consecration take to the Pope and not they alone but all sorts of beneficed persons according to the present practice and Rules of the Roman Church or prescript of their Pontificals and other Canons and must take also even expresly against all those they call or esteem Hereticks the last proposed medium could be no medium at all not as much as any kind of way probable if the Remonstrance and all such other Recognitions were by the self-same Prelates and all other inferiour Irish Clergymen laid by Especially considering that the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance both Enacted by the municipal Laws here had been long since by the Popes and Court of Rome and by all their fast Friends or maintainers of
Subjects though it be evident that neither of these positions can be deduced from the words of that Oath or their true genuine plain natural and proper sense or any sense but strain'd by a malicious or at least erroneous interpretation nor even from the intent and end of the Oath even extrinsecal end I mean or that given it by the Legislators as far I say as is possible for any other man to know and after all since 't is manifest that there has not been so much as any rumour spread that any one or more determinate and individual Proposition or Propositions is couch'd in ours which can agree with that one or more in the Oath of King James which Paul the V I do not say censured but which He but intended desired or willed so to censure which intention nevertheless desire or will He did not express in any manner sufficient to condemn any determinate Proposition and consequently either to inform the faithful what was just what unjust what holy what wicked of the matters contain'd in that Oath or to oblige any of the faithful although other conditions had not been wanting to reject any particular or individual Proposition nay peradventure not so much as in general and indefinitely or undeterminately and confusedly and farther because 't is equally and most evidently manifest that the power of the Pope is not touch't so much as afar off either directly or indirectly or by any consequence nor any truly spiritual power of any other one or more Bishops or Ecclesiasticks that is that no such power is either wholly or in part deny'd by our Form much less either the Primacy of the Pope or his power of making any properly Ecclesiastical censure against any whosoever even Kings lastly because t is manifest that that Brief of Paul the V. is in truth purely declarative and no way constitutive of new right and that declaratory Letters Bulls or whatever Papal Laws do not oblige in conscience if they relie upon a false doubtful or only probable ground and that the aforesaid Brief relies upon a doubtful at best or only probable if not plainly a manifestly false reason to wit that which is given above since I say the truth of all these things is abundantly manifest I do not see how your Lordship can without injury to our Holy Father Alexander the VII write every whither as for these three whole years you have done that such is His judgment and that He answered as above That t was needless for Him to censure our Protestation of new the censure given by Paul the V. c. being sufficient However this be i. e. whether your Lordship have in this particular done well or ill whether his Holiness said so or no in or out of Consistory whether He writ in his own hand or in another hand with his name to it or only caus'd his mind opinion and judgment to be intimated to your Lordship or neither writ nor caus'd such intimation to be given the matter is not great because as I said before your Lordship produces no Original or Copy of such Letters by which the oral judgment of the Pope Vivae vocis craculo as they call it may appear And because besides it may be reasonably presumed from the allegation it self especially if the circumstances be weigh'd with it that our Holy Father Alexander was deceiv'd by the like bad interpretation as well of the sense of the words as of the intention scope and end of our Form made by the Divines of his Court to whom he committed the business as Paul the V. was by his eight Divines who blasted the Oath of King James Lastly because that judgment of the Pope supposing it true as is alledged did not proceed ex Cathedra From the nature of which last exception I confess it follows that although in this or the like Controversie you should produce some private Letter of his Holiness himself even under his own hand we should yet think it free for us to put in our exceptions For however we should respect and kiss the Seal of his Holiness yet in such a private Letter we should acknowledge the judgment of Alexander as a private man not as Pope and should take it for the opinion of a particular Divine or Canonist not for a determination of the Judge of the Universal Church giving sentence in his sacred Tribunal and consequently should deny any manner of prejudice could thence arise to our cause Neither can your Lordship wonder at this For if the Briefs themselves of Popes though directed to a People Kingdom or entire Nation so they be not directed to all the faithful of Christ over all the world pass for private Letters of the Pope as Eudaemon-Joannes himself in the Preface to the Parallel of Tortus confesses otherwise a keen maintainer not of the Rights only but of all Pretensions of Popes or if as is in some manner touch't before such kind of Apostolical Letters that is Briefs and likewise Bulls directed to some one Province or Kingdom whether they be called private or publick are not esteemed of themselves alone to oblige any body to assent to the matters declared upon which ground amongst many others the Catholicks of England now for these Fifty years and more are not moved by that above-mentioned declaratory Brief of Paul the V. though dated at Rome and under the Seal of the Fisher why should your Lordship think that in the present Controversie any one should be moved by Letters without comparison more private and less inducing certainty as being written by the Pope to a single person and that his own Internuncio And I confess besides that to this t is consequent that although it were wholly certain that He had so judged and judged with truth that is that certain Propositions of King James's Oath had been condemn'd by Paul the V. and that the same were contained in our Protestation and it were no less certain that such censure of His were directed by an Apostolical Brief either to the English alone or Irish or both but not to all Christians over the world lastly that it were likewise certain that these Apostolical Letters in form of Brief or Bull had not been procured by concealing any thing true or alledging any thing false or by any other fraud nor granted out of anger hatred ambition fear c. nor any way extorted but proceeded from certain knowledge and the proper motion of his Holiness and that all usual formality and all solemnity of publication and promulgation according to custom had been observ'd we should yet think is free likewise for Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers and any other Divines vers't in the present Controversie so they preserve the reverence due to his Holiness and the first See to dissent except expostulate unless his Holiness or some body else should happen in those or other Letters or some other way to convince by irrefragable Reasons the
fortune of War and division of minds had hapned he also thought fit to change parties and look back towards the old Confederacy and consequently to be as active as others in the unhappy Congregation of Bishops at Jamestown in the year 1650. signing both their Declaration against the King 's Lieutenant and Excommunication too against all that would any way obey his Excellency This remedy not proving either useful or proper but far more noxious and the Parliament Forces gaining thereby and by the Lord Lieutenant's departure so much ground that all seemâ—d very soon after to be in a desperate condition and the Marquess of Clanrickard by Ormond left Deputy for the King in pursuance of Monsieur St. Katherin's negotiation with him from the Duke of Lorrain having sent other Commissioners to Flanders to Treat with his said Highness of Lorrain provided they had first the King's consent our Bishop my Lord of Ferns also departs the Kingdom to sollicit aids from Catholick Princes but not otherwise authorized thereunto than by the Letters of private persons albeit otherwise some of them Bishops Coming to Paris and there denied access which he desired to His Majesty our Gracious King and attributing this affront to the Marquess of Ormond he takes it to heart and speaks and both writes and prints too a little piece wherein he reflects too severely and unjustly on him the said Marquess of Ormond Which if I mistake not was it that occasion d those Books written after at Paris in opposition and answer one to the other by Father John Ponce the zealous Nuntiotist Franciscan and Richard Belings Esq that no less Ormonist than known Royalist although in former times the first Legat to Rome from the Confederates and other Princes of Italy and the very man that occasion'd the sending of the Nuncio to Ireland The negotiation with the Duke of Lorrain having come to nothing and Limmerick and Galway surrendred and consequently soon after the whole Kingdom submitted to the Parliament of England the afflicted Bishop knowing that by reason of his having on his return from Rome immediately quitted the Nuncio party and both submitted to and promoted the Peace of 1648 and of his consequential being blasted ever since by the factious Irish at Rome as an Ormonist there could be no favourable reception or accomodation expected for him in that Court he shifts the best he can for himself in several places until at last the Archbishop of St. Jago in Galicia in Spain harbour'd him generously and bountifully according to his dignity and merits where continuing for some years and officiating as a Suffragan Bishop he begun a correspondence with me by Letters soon after His Majesties happy Restauration as together with his Lordship did the good Irish Father of the Society of Jesus Father William St. Leger and either by James Cusack a Secular Priest and Doctor of Divinity or by Father George Gould a Franciscan both which came from him directly and brought me Letters hither to London he sent me some writings of his own against Ferral's Book The Book as I have noted before which not only bastardizing all those Irish not descended of the more ancient Septs or Names that possess'd Ireland even before any Invasion either of English or Danes nor only in general involving all that later brood under the Title of wicked Politicians Anti-Catholicks c. but particularly and singularly falling on the Two Ambassadors yea and taxing them with having of set purpose all along betrayed the Nuncio and his cause the Book I say that by such precious Contents from the first line to the last of it both opened our good Bishop's eyes more then any other argument could to see clearly the ultimate designs of that Party which led him blindfold so long and so often especially at Waterford in 1646. and Jamestown in the year 1650. and if I be not very much out in my conjecture was at least partly either the cause or the occasion of his beginning so and desiring a correspondence with me then anno 1662. at London he himself remaining at St. Jago What followed after his first Letters to me i. e. after what Dr. Cusack one of the first Subscribers of the Remonstrance writ him back what he return'd in the year 1662. to this Doctor what to the Duke of Ormond and me in 1665 pro or con upon the Subject of the Remonstrance what to me again in May 1666. from St. Sebastian viz. after he had received the Indiction and presuming licence to return home had quitted his good condition at St. Jago what I to him in answer and finally what he replyed to me in July that same year from Paris will best appear out of the Bishops own Letters Whereof I give here as many as I judg'd material or useful to any design of this First Tome and much the rather because he is not only the onely Bishop yet alive of those of the Irish Nation that were made before Nuncio Rinuccini's time but the onely also that endeavoured to give the best reasons he could for himself or for his own dissent as to that expected or desired from him And I must say this besides that surely had he the writer of them had as good a cause and been as much conversant in the Gallican Theology which in the point controverted is that of the Primitive Fathers of Christianity as he is both a good Orator and laying the Affairs of Ireland aside a very pious and exemplar Prelate the Irish Nation generally had never been as unhappy as it is even at this present The Roman-Catholick Bishop of Fern's Letter from St. Jago 18 Junii 1662. To the Reverend James Cusack Doctor of Divinity at London SIR BY the four last Letters I had from you to which I have heretofore answered you demand from me two things to wit an approbation of a Protestation signed by L. B. of Dromore your self and other Divines of our Nation in that City and that I would give you a power to sign a Procuratorium Father Peter Walsh hath from the Clergy of Ireland whereunto Edmund Reilly Antony Geoghegan James Dempsy and others have consented as you write to me To the same I also willingly consent and do hereby impower you to sign in my 〈◊〉 the said Procuratorium but with this limitation the said Father Walsh shall do nothing for me nor in my name touching the above mentioned Protestation until he shall receive my own express sense and answer That Protestation seems a Rock to the Divines of our Nation in this Kingdom and they wonder ye there made so easie a work of it yet of your good intentions in illo facto most of them rest well satisfied persuading themselves there was a necessity of undeceiving the Prince and clearing our Clergy from black Calumnies but they differ from you in the judgment of the matter and lawfulness of the said Protestation Briefly the opinion of the Divines here as well of our Nation
to suffer themselves to be carried on or hold to such rash resolves but to consider more seriously and maturely what the consequences might be For said I as to the First Either you intend to give the Lord Lieutenant full satisfaction by comprising plainly in your new Formulary the whole sense of the former Remonstrance or you do not intend any such matter but only to present him with some unsignificant Formulary not reaching home the points in controversie If the former to what purpose then would you vary from the words of that Remonstrance not only signed allready by a Bishop by so many other Divines and by so great a number also of the Nobility and Gentry all of your own Church and Communion but so solemnly presented to so graciously accepted by his Majesty so much to your ease and quiet hitherto promoted and so much also desired by His Majesty and Lord Lieutenant to have your further concurrence to it by your Manual Signature Do you intend to render your selves not without cause suspected by changing that form to work a Schysm amongst those of your own Communion and Nation To condemn all those who have Sign'd the first Formulary Do not you see it lawful for you in point of Conscience and Religion to approve what hath been done already for your ease by so many Noble Learned good Patriots but unlawful for them to fall from the justification of it Must the supercilious ungrounded Letters of Roman Courtiers or unconscionable unchristian ignorant censures of a Forreign University have such power amongst you Must Passion or even a mistaken interest rule you that are the Priests of God and carry you headlong to Schysm Besides consider the Lord Lieutenant will understand very well how it must follow That if in deference to the Roman Dictators you change as much as the words only of that Forme upon the same ground you must fall from the sense also when they shall presently send their next Letters condemning what you have done Lastly consider it is not against the words of the Remonstrance as any way less reverential that the Roman Court is or hath been hitherto incensed as you may see even in Cardinal Barberin's last Letters of April 24. this same year 1666 where he acknowledges the Remonstrance couch'd in bland oribus verbis but against the sense so that if you intend to give the sense of it in other words you must nevertheless incur their indignation If the later Do you think the Lord Lieutenant after so many years experimental knowledge of the meaning and purpose of such other several unsatisfactory Forms offered to him to decline that one which was and is satisfactory will not apprehend wherein you come short or think you he understands not English words or the material sense of them as well as you Think you that none of his Council can should himself not perceive the defectiveness Or think you that I my self could or ought to dissemble your imposing on His Grace if none else could see the Imposture But to what purpose do I question what you intend I know it Fathers And know you intend a Formulary coming short even in sense of all and each the very material passages of the Remonstrance even a Formulary that signifies nothing at all for His Majesties or Graces or Councils or Parliaments or even any particular persons either Protestants or Catholicks satisfaction as to the controverted points And therefore know 't will be rejected And what think you will the consequence be What in this conjuncture of publick affairs Erit novissimus error pejor priore And you will be certainly looked upon as men of profligate Principles and Designs and in due time also both considered and adjudged as men not worthy either of Protection or other Commiseration and not you alone but all the Clergy both Secular and Regular obeying you Nay which is yet more lamentable the very Lay-people observing you will be looked upon as men carried on blind-fold to or at least fitted and prepared for all pernicious designs when you are pleased to give the Signal As to the Second resolve or answer to my Second Querie concerning a Petition for Pardon I asked them whether they had forgotten the general either Rebellion or Insurrection which they pleased to call it of the year 1641 or the National Congregation of the Clergy Regular and Secular at Waterford under the Nuncio in the year 1646 or the other at Jamestown An. 1650 even after the Nuncio's departure or who in the mean time or rather indeed all along from 1641 to the year 1648 fought against both the Laws and those who had not only the Laws but the Kings especial Commission or who had been for the Nuncio's Censures against the Cessation who against both Peaces who for a Forreign Protectour who for the alienation of the Crown who for the design of Mac Mahon the Irish Jesuits Printed Book of Killing not only all the Protestants but even all such of the Roman Catholicâ— Irish who stood for the Crown of England and Rights of the King to Ireland and for choosing an Irish Native for their King Eligite vobis Regem vernaculum I asked them further did they indeed know none at all of the Irish Clergy yet surviving none of that very Congregation guilty of any of those matters or of any part of the Blood spilt in the late unhappy Wars or thought they it needless indeed to ask pardon of the King for such men in general or did they not know there was no Act of Indempnity yet for any such at least Clergy-men And then added Alas Fathers what a reproach will the very Presbyterians of Scotland whom you esteem the worst sort of Hereticks be unto you They have throughout all their Synods and Classes both unanimously and justly too agreed to beg the Kings Pardon and accordingly have beg'd and obtained it for their former actings And I have my self read their Petitions to that purpose in Print You that esteem your selves the only Saints for a holy Apostolical Religion will you come short of them in your duty Take heed Fathers that if you persist in your inconsiderate resolution I may not properly and truly for this very cause say to you that which our Saviour did in the Gospel to his own Countrymen the Jews who were yet the only people entrusted with the Oracles of God Amen dico vobis quoniam publicani peccatores precedent vos in Regnum Dei And here I expostulated again with the Bishop of Ardagh even before all the Fathers for his contrivance or at least very strange mistake both of my intention and words when I delivered my sense to his Lordship some two days before the Assembly sate first concerning such a Petition from them And repeated there in publick what passed between him and me on that Subject as you have it before at large Sect. 9. pag. 640. From hence I returned again to the former Subject of the
in the late Rebellion or civil War which you please to call it or even to speak one word for so much as a general Petition to be exhibited to his Majesty imploring His Majesties gracious Pardon No there was no crime at all committed by all or any of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland not even at any time nor in any occasion or matter happened since Octob. 23. 1641 if we must believe the Bishop of Ardagh Patrick Plunker pleading for them so in express terms and the tacit approbation of his words by the Universal silence of that Assembly nam qui tacet consentire videtur according to the rule of the Canon Law But who can believe either and not rather be hence convinced that God in his just indignation had suffered those Fathers to be for their punishment so strangely infatuated against all reason common sense the knowledge of all People and their own interest too For certainly and too too notoriously so they were all along in all their affairs during the fifteen days they sate but in this particular above any other even to astonishment However the Congregation being that evening adjourned to the next morning as soon as it was late and dusky having first prepared his way I went along with the Primat to the Kings Castle where my Lord Lieutenant received him privately in his Closet none being present besides me After salutes his Grace having first placed this greatest Roman Catholick Preâ—â—â—t of Ireland by him on a seat using him also with all other civil respect which the difference of Religion and reason of State could allow entertain'd him with a short but pithy material excellent Speech or rather lesson indeed It continued about a quarter of an hour And I must confess that in my life to my remembrance I never heard so much to the purpose said either so short or so well with so much weight and gravity not only not from any Lay-person to a Church-man but not even from an Ecclesiastick to any even Laick Nor was my judgement herein single The Primat himself confessed so much even openly too next morning before the whole Congregation as soon as they were sate and some occasion was offered him to speak before them of what the Lord Lieutenants Grace had recommended to them Nay he confessâ—d it also in these very Latin words Tanquam Angelus Del loquutus est mihi rendred in English Like an Angel of God he spake unto me What the heads were may be easily guessed out of what is said before both of the Primat himself and other matters hitherto in this Second part And the words I have lost because the Paper which contain'd them Yet I remember 1. They began exactly thus You know very well it was not for your good deeds the Pope created you titular Primat of Ardmagh 2. That all the while the Lord Lieutenants Grace continued speaking the Primat never as much as once lifted up his eyes but bare headed as the Lord Lieutenant also was held them still immoveably cast down and in truth behav'd himself because so conscious to himself as like a guilty penitent Transgressor admitted to the presence of his Lord as any could 3. That when His Grace the Lord Lieutenant either asked or minded him of what conditions I had proposed for his safe return and writ to himself to France he denied again that he had received that Letter 4. That I repeated thereupon in that presence of both the same Arguments I had the day before to the Primat alone to shew the unlikelihood of this excuse or at least my extream wonder at such a chance having nevertheless let fall some other words of purpose to lessen all I could before his Grace the Lord Lieutenant this weakness of the Primats answer 5. That his said Grace notwithstanding he saw clearly enough it was a meer story yet seemed not once in the least moved not as much as to reply one word on that or other subject to contristate or afflict him more but with much civility and obliging kindness recommended to him to improve the present opportunity in the Congregation for his own and Clergies and Countries best advantage and endeavour not only to rectifie but in some measure to satisfie for whatever had been not well done at any time before and so dismissed this Prelat very much satisfied with his gracious reception These are the heads of what I remember occurred or passed betwixt His Grace and this Primat then being the only time they conferred or saw one another And yet I must here take notice to the Reader That soon after the Congregation had been dissolved the Primats own Vicar General Doctor Patrick O Daly together with an other Priest of his Diocess lately then come from Paris told my self each of them at the same time with me at Dublin they had themselves severally heard from the said Primats own mouth That indeed he had in Paris before he came away thence received that Letter of mine which he so lately denyed both to me and to the Lord Lieutenant to have received but that he dared not acknowledge it either to the Duke or me or any other should tell because he then might be justly called in question for other matters if he signed not the controverted Remonstrance which yet partly through fear of the Court of Rome and partly too for other causes he neither dared nor would sign XV. THE next day being the fifteenth of June and fifth of the Congregations sitting the Lord Lieutenant having sufficiently understood their little sense of the only end for which he permitted them to meet and further how some of them had endeavoured to highten a false report of his intentions to depart suddenly out of Town of purpose to pretend they wanted time to consult or deliberate and so excuse themselves if they gave not full satisfaction it being consequently alledged they could not with safety continue their sitting when his Grace were so departed and for this reason they were better immediately sign the Instrument prepared to their hands viz. the insignificant one of which before and which you shall see in the next Section and then without further hazard of themselves Dissolve his Grace therefore thought fit to send them by Richard Bellings Esq a second Message to be read as it was this day read to them out of a written paper publickly and exactly word by word as here followeth after the Title The LORD LIEUTENANT's Second Message to the Congregation THat I understand it is reported I intend in a few days to leave this City and that it is thence apprehended by those of the Romish Clergy now met here that they may not have time to consider of and conclude upon the business for which their meeting is permitted namely for Subscribing to the Remonstrance and Protestation subscribed and presented to His Majesty in January and February 1661 by divers of the Nobility Gentry and Romish Clergy Whereupon I think
Ludovicus Pius both very Christian Catholick Emperours deserve to be particularly remembred being they made so many good Laws for the Government of meer Ecclesiastical or Church affairs and persons as may be read in their own Capitularies though not in any of those Books which make up that now commonly called Corpus Juris Civilis That for what concerns the Testimony of others i. e. of those we justly call our Holy Fathers as whom in the next degree after the Apostles we look upon as our best Masters of Christianity St. Augustin alone may at present serve for them all the rather that no man in his right senses did ever honestly or conscienciously dispute this matter Let the Disciples of Bellarmine and admirers of Baronius think what they please In hoc Reges Deo servire in quantum Reges sunt si in suo Regno bona jubeant mala prohibeant non solum quae pertinent ad humanam societatem verumetiam quae ad divinam Religionem is the sentence of this great Doctor in several places of his Works (f) Aug contra Crosse Gram l. 3. cap. 51. Ep. 50. super Psal 2. That reason alone might perswade the truth thereof being reason alone without other help teaches all both Kings and Subjects there is a God whom all must worship and glorifie and reason alone shews that when they i. e. both Kings and People are once perswaded though but by Revelation only of the true way to worship God and Kings do moreover know themselves to be the Vice-gerents of God with the power of the Sword in order to the Government of the People entrusted to their charge and the People also believe the same of them it must consequently and even from the nature of Royal Authority follow That of one side Kings are empowred to command the People to worship glorifie and praise God for his mercy render him thanks for his bounty beg assistance in dangers his deliverance from the power of enemies c and therefore also to set apart some days and observe religiously those days already set apart for such holy duties as Preaching and Praying and Fasting and invokeing God even in publick Assemblies at Church humbling themselves before him relieving the poor and doing all other works of mercy corporal and spiritual and of the other side the people are bound to obey their Kings and other Supream Civil Governours in such commands how spiritual soever the matter or things enjoyned be Nay That reason alone yea without any help or illustration either of the more ancient holy Fathers or later Expositors must teach us That if all Subjects are by the general and positive Law of God in St. Paul 13 Rom. commanded under pain of Damnation or Hell to be subject to the Supream Civil Powers without any distinguishing note of the matter enjoyn'd unless that note which makes clearly for the matter of good works to be commanded by such Rulers it must necessarily follow That since according to the Confession of every side all Subjects are obliged by that very Law in St. Paul 13 Rom. to obey their Kings in all Commands at least which are not contrary to the Laws of the Land and which concern temporary or worldly things alone much more must they be obliged to obey them in all those other more excellent and holy commands which relate either immediately and principally or mediately and consequently to their eternal happiness in another life and therefore to the most excellent of Spiritual matters For all the Laws and Precepts of God either those delivered immediately by Christ or by the mouthes and pens of his Apostles regard if not only at least principally first as the due means a Spiritual life of Grace in this World and next as the final end of such means a Spiritual life of Glory in the other Lastly That such Authority in Kings of commanding Spirituals being not derived from the Keys of the Church given to Peter and rest of the Apostles but flowing naturally originally and necessarily too from the Supream Royal or Civil Power of Kings can be no more lost or forfeited by Heresie or other Infidelity nay nor by any kind of sin or misdemeanour whatsoever than their authority for commanding in meer Temporals especially being it is manifest enough That the Authority of commanding such Spiritual duties and Religious worship of God is often too too necessary in Kings for attaining even the very true politick Temporal or earthly and natural ends of a Common-wealth securing the Temporal Peace or happiness of the People and obtaining it of God from whom alone all both Spiritual and Temporal both Supernatural and Natural blessings come So much did the Procurator let the Fathers of the Congregation know i. e. to such purpose did he speak to them on the Subject of the first of those three heads before mentioned And they did seem in truth to have been fully perswaded by his discourse For they all assented and consented That all both Feasts and Fasts all days either of Humiliation or Thanksgiving commanded by the King should be accordingly observed in their way both by themselves and rest of the Roman-Catholick Clergy and people of Ireland XXI ON the second of those Three Heads or that concerning Father James O Fienachtuy the famed wonder-working Priest he spoke in the next place giving a large and very particular account of all he had either heard from others or by his own experience known of that good Father i. e. an account of those arguments which of one side cryed him up for a Wonderful curer of all Diseases and of the other discovered him at last to have never had any such gift of healing or at least to have lost it lately if ever at any time or in any instance formerly he had it But forasmuch as the Reader may be desirous to know more particularly such matters relating to the said Fathers James O Fienachtuy who made for some years so great a noise both in Ireland and England not only amongst Roman-Catholicks but even Protestants I think it worth my labour to give here to my best remembrance the very speech or at least substance of it containing that account given so by the Procurator i. e. my self to this National Congregation as followeth viz Account of the famed Wonder-working Priest c. MY Lords and Fathers it is no disaffection to nor prejudice against the person of Father Fienachtuy but the general concern of all our Church in the truth or falshood of Miracles reported these many years to have been wrought by him puts me now in the second place upon a large discourse and very particular account of him especially as to some later passages which cannot be known to you otherwise then from me or my relation to others The first place and time I heard of this Miraculous Priest was at London in the year 1657 or thereabouts under the late Usurping Power of Cromwel Then and there I
must needs without other pretence than those already given by you depart immediatly out of town for Connaught and consequently disappoint the great expectations you would needs breed in others hitherto of what you would do in case of your Licence granted then I pray withal consider whether all the world both Protestants and Catholicks will not justly hold you to be a meer Impostor and to have been no better at any time past since you first pretended your Miraculous gift I assure you my Lord Lieutenant himself hath already this very evening said so much to me of his own judgment of you in case you depart on any such pretence of your own sickliness or what ever else you please before you appear now and endeavour at least to perform of your side To this discourse of mine Father Finachty at last answered He would then stay and appear without further delays And I for my part was better pleased he should do so than not whatever issue he had therein for I thought it less harm he were reputed a mad frantick man than a knavish Hypocritical Impostor But he had no sooner declared that his final fixed resolution as now and as I thought it to be than he presently added O that I had again those two Possessed Women which the Jesuits brought to me the other day This not only troubled me anew as I was carelesly walking the room before him but extorted from me this return O Father Finachty would you had believed or yielded to me when at our first acquaintance I told you freely my own opinion of you was That if any or whatever gift you had was only that of an Exorcist i. e. only that of helping sometimes peradventure some persons against Witchcraft Possession or Obsession but not any one from Natural diseases proceeding from other causes However yea and notwithstanding I see not why you should desire those very two Women at such a publick Tryal being you have not Cured them albeit you have Exorcized them and cannot be certain whether your Luck even so much as with or on them can be better there than elsewhere it hath been yet if they be to be found at all in town or near you shall have them brought to you All which objections or doubts of mine notwithstanding he concluded again and assured me That by God's grace he would not fail to appear and put matters to an issue even on those very same diseased persons whatever they were that were prepared by the foresaid Protestant Physitians On this assurance given so by him I took leave with him for that night not doubting of the sincerity of his promise and left him there in my own Chamber and bed leaving also one to attend and serve him if he had wanted any thing and went my self to lye in the private Oratory that was in the same house over his head But I was scarce out of my bed when unexpectedly even by the break of day I saw him even also as accoutred for a march come up into that room where I lay and telling me in plain terms I must excuse him in that finding himself not well and having been all night in so great a sweat that he throughly wet the sheets as I might find says he if I pleased to look he must and would be gone out of town presently and take his journey to Connaught praying me withal to excuse him to the Lord Lieutenant and assure His Grace that so soon as he recovered his health and strength he would not fail to come if I called him and perform what was either expected from him or himself had offered It may well be thought how concerned I was in this plain discovery or rather in the consequential reflections thereof upon the Roman-Catholicks that for so many years had suffered themselves to be so strangely deluded by such a man For I saw 't was obvious to any man that he could not be very ill nor wanted health nor strength sufficient to Exorcize Pray and Cross infirm persons nor consequently to appear at or in that publick Tryal offered by himself who could nay where and when he might otherwise freely choose would needs venture even in the beginning of Winter on so long a journey on Horse-back from Dublin to Loghreogh i. e. about an hundred English miles yet seeing clearly it was to no purpose to object any more to or expostulate with him on that Subject I only answered That I was sorry it was so with him that he could not perform his great undertakings and that I thought nevertheless it was very fit he excused himself by Letter to the Lord Lieutenant and gave therein to his Grace that assurance he then gave me viz. of returning to perform as soon as he had found himself recovered as to his health and strength But he prayed to be excused in this also alledging that he was not so great a Master of his Pen as that he would presume to write to the Kings Lieutenant Father Finachty said I you both have a legible nay fair Character and can write good sense when you please for I have seen some of your Letters And being it is so and that such your suddain departure now may appear if not incredible at least very disadvantageous to your self unless you excuse it in some probable way to His Grace I pray write to Him under your own hand and with your own Pen what you say hear to me for excusing it No he would not venture to write Why then said I if you be diffident of your own stile or phrase at least give me leave to indite your sense in such a Letter and then transcribe it your self adding or substracting what you please Nor that neither by any means would he but insisted still on my own excusing him by word of mouth Well then Father Finachty said I being you will needs so unexpectedly go and will not so much as write a few lines to excuse your self on such an occasion Let me at least perswade you to go directly your journey to Connaught and place there you intend to abide in without diverting in your journey either to the right or left hand or holding at all any publick Meetings or giving any Fields for that is your own phrase to People or so much as practising in private on any sick person whatsoever until first you have for some weeks recollected your self in spiritual exercises i e. in retirement into and examination of your own heart and both Humiliation of your self before God and hearty Repentance too for any thing truly chargeable on you before him if but peradventure some vanitie you took in some gift appearing at any time heretofore to have been bestowed on you Which advice if you observe I doubt not you will find more spiritual comfort and true advantage thereby then you have hitherto found by all your desired Fields Nor consequently doubt but your eyes will then be opened more clearly than of
to what I expected and I think expresly desired too But whether he mistook or not I found not that the Copy which he about a Fortnight after sent me answer'd my expectation wholly in any point save only in that concerning those two Books their decree consent or sense against Father Finachty being not mention'd therein and but very little of what I drove at in my discourse on the first Head concerning our obligation to observe religiously both Feasts and Fasts and other spiritual holy duties enjoin'd by the King For that Copy you have here exactly in this following Letter of his from Ross 7 July 1666 to me at Dublin Very Reverend Father IN compliance to your last speech with me I here insert such acts as I have writ though I may not say they are formal ones by reason they were not seriously digested and couched by select Committees but only upon the motions and allowance of the House for my memories sake pen'd by me they being not the principal scope of that meeting Primo Electus est Prolocutor Roverendissimus D. Andraeas Finiboren Episcopus Electus est Secretarius Nicolaus Redmond Vic. Gen. Fernen Secundo Statutum est quod nihil in presente Convocatione quoad Vocationem Sessionem Praecedentiam vel Subscriptionem actum cedat in praejudicium alicujus cujuscunque dignitatis aut instituti in futurum Tertio Statutum est ut quilibet Sacerdos saecularis cujusvis Ordinis Regularis singulis diebus dominicis festis specialiter omnibus diebus quibus vel a Rege vel Pro-Rege preces publicae indicuntur fundat certas preces Laicos similiter facere moneat Pro foelice successu Serenissimi Regis nostri Caroli Secundi Regina totiusque domus Regiae necnon Excellentissimi Domini Jacobi Ducis Ormoniae familiae ejus Quarto Liber inscriptus C. M. alias Cornelio sienti antehac Galviae a Clero Kilkenniae a Supremo Concilio Confaederatorum condemnatus ignis datus est ita etiam in hoc coetu condemnatus igne cremari dignus judicatus est Quare omnibus singulis utriusque Cleri qui librum istum penes se habent vel alibi inventum repererint praecipitur ut illum ad suos respective Superiores deferant in ignem conjici faciant Quinto Similiter fiat de libro attributo Ricardo Ferrall Capucino Sexto Quicunque Sacerdos Saecularis deprehensus fuerit distinctiones facere inter Provincias Provincias inter modernos antiquos Hibernos pro prima vice qua de hoc crimine convictus fuerit solvat quinque solidos pro secunda viginti pro tertia fuspendatur ad beneplacitum Ordinarii Septimo Quicunque Regularis cujusvis Ordinis de eodem crimine convictus fuerit pro prima vice ad quinque dies pane aqua idque super nudam terram vescatur pro secunda decem pro tertia voce activa passiva privetur ad beneplacitum sui Superioris Octavo Quicunque deprehensus fuerit circumferre unam Remonstrantiam falso Franciscanis impositam qua non solum temporalis sed omnis etiam spiritualis potestas Regi tribuitur * * It seems hereby that some malicious persons had instead of the true Remonstrance subscribed by the Irish Divines Nobility and Gentry at London in 1661. S.V. forged another and shewed it to many of purpose to persuade them that this false one was the Remonstrance which Peter Walsh presented to the King and would persuade all others to sign aut etiam Remonstrantiam modo ab hoc coetu compositam Pro-Regi exhibitam falsificare praesumpserit falsariorum paenis subjaceat This much with my love and service to your Reverence and the rest of that Seraphical Family there I take leave and rest Very Reverend Father Your affectionate Friend and Servant Nico Redmond Rosse 7 Julii 1666. However i. e. whether this Father Secretary gave me fully or truly all these Acts or no what is more to my main purpose is to let my Readers know That presently after I had ended my Discourse on the last of the foresaid three Heads and the Fathers had delivered their Sense and Censures by common consent they dissolved the Chairman having pronounced the ordinary dismiss Ite in pace And so we see at last this National Congregation ended XXIII VVHat remains therefore to see also this long Treatise ended is to give here in one entire and the last Section thereof 1. Those other passages relating to the Lord Lieutenant and Bishops which happen'd immediately after the Congregation was dissolved 2. The Procurator 's judgment of this Congregation leading Members thereof and of their several interests and ends 3. How after their dissolution the doctrine of Allegiance in Fifteen several complex Propositions or short Paragraphs was debated for a whole month by a select number of Divines 4. And last of all The Paper of Animadversions given to the Lord Lieutenant and His Grace 's Commands laid on the Procurator These are now the only remaining Appendages What I have to say of the first of them is That as soon as the Fathers had so dissolved as we have seen before every one preparing to depart the Town to their several homes Father Ronan Magin * He is Brother to Father Patrick Maginn the QUEENS Chaplain a Roman or Italian Doctor of Divinity i. e. graduated so abroad though otherwise an Irish man Dean and Vicar-general of Dromore and one too who had some time before the Congregation sate signed the Controverted Remonstrance of the year 1661 desired me to go with him to the Kings Castle and Lord Lieutenant there that he might have the honour of kissing His Graces hands and receiving His Commands before he had departed home to his Diocess I willingly yielded the rather that my own duty required I should my self however wait that morning on His Grace to give Him an account of the Congregations being dissolv'd and I was glad to have some one of the Members present when I gave it because my further duty required I should therein let His Grace understand what other matters had been treated of that Morning before the Fathers dissolved Being therefore both together admitted by His Grace in to his Closet and I giving that account and amongst or before other matters how I was necessitated to oppose the Bishop of Ardagh to his face before all the Fathers in that either through wilfulness or dulness he had so strangely misrepresented in publick to the whole Congregation His Graces answer to him and his Fellow-Commissioner and thereby endeavoured to amuse the Fathers and make them hug their own stubbornness and his and his Cabals unhappy contrivances that which mightily grieved me then to hear and was never since upon any due occasions out of my mind and therefore thought fit to take special notice of here is what His Grace thereupon with very great feeling declared viz. That sayes he these Twenty years I had to do
Thirteenth especially considering that the promise and declaration thereof made in that Thirteenth is delivered in such words as must of necessity argue though not a formal yet a virtual assertion because a supposition of each of these three last Sorbon Propositions in that very maâ—ner I have now presently express'd or of the truth of them and by consequence also a virtual censure and condemnation of the contrary Tenets For otherwise how could We declare truly honestly and conscientiously That it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the persuasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practise according to any Positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives c. and consequently never to approve of or practise any thing contrary to the genuine Liberties of the Irish Church c Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever c. is infallible in his definitions made without the consent c as at large in the said Thirteenth complex Proposition or Paragraph How I say could We or any persons whatsoever declare truly honestly and conscientiously in such terms such a resolution as to such matters unless we or they were at the same time inwardly and throughly persuaded of the verity of those three assertory single Propositions which I say are previously and at least virtually supposed and by consequence also of the falsity of the opposite doctrines For no man at least no Divine Preacher Confessor Leader and Guide of others by his Calling and Function may or can honestly profess in publick to the World such an unalterable resolution unless he be inwardly persuaded that doctrine he disclaims in is false and the contrary true because the Apostle and reason too assures us That whatever proceeds not from Conscience is a sin and consequently that it is unlawful for any man at least who is bound to be the spiritual guide of others to profess especially in such manner such a resolution against doctrines pretended to be Religious and Evangelical of the falsity of which he is not throughly convinced being it is clear enough that want of such conviction would argue his Soul to be either habitually or actually depraved i. e. resolved to run wilfully the hazard of opposing an Evangelical Truth and therefore to be in a wicked state 10. That the foresaid Colledge of Divines consisted partly of graduated or licensed and instituted Professors of Divinity and partly of other qualified Fathers but who were also Divines although not as the former instituted Professors to teach in the Schools and that the names and qualities too or titles of all both these and those I mean as many of them as I can exactly now remember to have ordinarily come to that meeting were as followeth viz. Fr Antony O Docharty Minister Provincial of St. Francis's Order in Ireland Fr Thomas Dillon Vicar Provincial of the Discalceat Carmelits in Ireland Laurence Archbold a Secular and Parish-Priest formerly Vicar General of Dublin George Plunket a Secular Parish-Priest and Archdeacon of Meath Fr Antony Gearnon of St. Francis's Order several times formerly Guardian viz. of the Convents of Dundalk Dublin c. Fr John Reynolds of St. Dominick's Order Protonotary Apostolical c. Fr Thomas Talbot of St. Francis's Order one of Her late Maiesty the Queen Mother's Chaplains Fr Valentin Brown of St. Francis's Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity and formerly Minister Provincial of Ireland Angel Goulding a Secular Parish-Priest of St. Owens in Dublin and Doctor of Divinity Fr Bernardinus Barry of St. Francis's Order and Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Thomas Harold of the same Order Reader Jubilat of Divinity Fr Simon Wafer of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr John Grady of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr Peter Walsh of the same Order Reader of Divinity and Procurator c. In all Fourteen whereof Nine Franciscans three of the Secular Clergy one of the Carmelits and one of St. Dominick's Order and this last viz. Father John Reynolds was also their Secretary or he that writ down what they had agreed upon and kept the Papers This is a true account of the occasion end time and manner also of debating as likewise of the persons who debated the said Fifteen Propositions or Doctrine of Allegiance contain'd in them And now there remains but a few other particulars I would have here briefly advertised 1. That several other Churchmen at several times came to that little meeting as it was free and open for any that pleased to come and go when he would and object whatever he thought fit but that I do not remember any of those others that came so to have objected any thing 2. That Father Harold was he as he is a very able man that disputed most and press't hard against me on the controverted points or arising difficulties though he concurr'd at last with my sense on every point 3. That where I speak of a select number of Divines by that word select I would signifie only those who of the foresaid whole number of Fourteen were School-professors of Divinity who were indeed but seven whereof I am sure that five were as select as any our Countrey could then afford 4. That amongst the same foresaid number of Fourteen there were three who had been actual Members of the late National Congregation viz. Antony Docharty Provincial of the Franciscans Thomas Dillon Provincial of the Carmelits and Angel Goulding Doctor of Divinity 5. That six of the whole number had neither before nor after sign'd the controverted Remonstrance viz. Antony Docharty Thomas Dillon Bernardinus Barry John Grady Angel Goulding George Plunket 6. And lastly That I have been by so much the more exact in giving the particulars of this Colledge of Divines held after the National Congregation was dissolved and of the matters debated therein by how much I found it and my self also even for it traduced by false relations thereof sent over Seas For my Lord Bishop of Ferns out of his own candid nature and some kindness also to me was pleased to let me know so much though not before the year 1669. The words of his Letter dated the 6th of October said year 1669 to the present purpose are these Father Peter Walsh is said to have used fraud and force in the Congregation of the Clergy at Dublin anno 1666 and that he kept an Anti-Congregation of his own faction to vex them I saw a relation sent over of that I saw also severe lines of a great Cardinal to that purpose Whereunto he further adds kindly some further notice viz. of the late cause of their anger against me at Rome in these other words It was ill taken by all That after Cardinal Franciscus Barberinus 's Letter in His Holinesse
the said Cardinal Barberin and the two Internuncio's de Vecchiis and Rospigliosi their own proper many Letters first pag. 16. and 17. and then pag. 513 515 531. and again pag. 634 636. and further yet pag. 647 and 648 and also out of the Belgian Commissary General 's Citation or Summons to Father Caron and rest of the Subscribers dated and sent in the year 1663 pag. 104. and moreover out of both Father Caron's and my own Answer also to that Summons from pag. 105. to pag. 115. and further yet out of my own two and they also very long Letters written to the Internuncio Hieronymus de Vecchiis pag. 533. and from thence to pag. 555. yea also out of my special animadversions on the foresaid Cardinal Barberin's last Letter in the year 1666 See them from pag. 636. to pag. 639. and my former observations too particularly on two Letters of de Vecchiis from pag. 516. to pag. 522. yea and out of my long disputes in so many intire Sections consequently against the four principal grounds of the Louain Vniversity Censure pag. 117. to pag. 487. nay out of even this whole History or First Tome thereof as it shall hereafter yet as clearly appear out of the Second Tome and very great variety also even of other Arguments therein than any given in this First Tome That the only ground of terming Me and Caron Apostates was and is our subscribing promoting and defending by word and print The Loyal Irish Remonstrance presented to the King in the year 1661. S. V. or of the Doctrine of Allegiance and both profession and promise of Obedience contained in the Remonstrance to His Majesty in all Temporal things according to the Laws of the Land and withal our constant refusing to retract our said manual Subscription therefore I may with all justice and confidence answer that great Man or great Roman who ever he be whose Letter the Bishop of Ferns saw that termed Me and Caron Apostates and may answer him so I mean also with all truth and certainty 1. That if by the term Apostates or rather abstract thereof he mean to signifie or we understand that which is commonly or usually imported thereby and that indeed which to perstringe hurt or annoy us would be the only material sense to be intended by him viz. a backsliding or falling off either first from the profession of true Christianity or of some Article thereof or secondly from our Sacerdotal Function or thirdly at least from the Regular Institute of St. Francis to which by solemn vows we have obliged our selves then certainly it is not Walsh and Caron are Apostates in such proper usual harmful meaning nor even in any at all of these three respects now given but he himself and his Associates in terming us so that are indeed the true Apostates in that sense and Apostates too I mean in the very first and consequently worst of the said three relations i. e. Apostates from Catholick Faith and Christian Doctrine because from an essential Article and Evangelical necessary truth and from reason also to boot Or without question That the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and all the holy Fathers following them immediately one after another for a Thousand Years till Pope Hildebrands dayes of Antichristian usurpation were grand Apostates in that very sense and first relation also 2. That if the said great Roman who ever he be meant only to term us so in a diminutive restrain'd improper unusual forreign and false acceptation meaning or sense of the word Apostate or in that which only may according to the generical or etymological sense import an Apostacy backsliding or falling off from the worldly corrupt and unjust interest of the Roman Court i. e. from any defence assertion belief or good opinion of their tyrannical and continual not only oppressing the Liberties of all other Churches but invading the Rights of all other even Secular Princes if I say he meant only this neither I nor Caron when alive would be much concern'd to answer him Though we could say that in that very case or in this very generical or etymological meaning his supposition had been false being we were never at any time in our lives for that wicked interest and therefore could not be in any kind of even generical or etymological sense Apostates from it In which respect as I can speak assuredly for my self That even from the beginning ever since I understood any thing in Controversial Divinity I both abhorr'd and upon occasion declared against the unlawful encroachments of either the worldly Court or particular Church which you please of Rome on the Temporal Rights of Supreme Secular Princes and both uncanonical and tyrannical either usurpation or administration of other Patriarchal National Provincial Diocesan Churches throughout the earth so in behalf of Father Caron who dyed at Dublin in the Month of May 1666 a little before the National Congregation there assembled and of his manifest read undoubted conscientiousness all along in both signing first and defending after the controverted Remonstrance and alwayes to his death refusing to retract his Subscription or alter his opinion and profession as to that matter I can no less assuredly speak That when he was on his death-bed even after he had received the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction and as far as I remember his last viaticum too of the Holy Eucharist nay as I am sure when he was every moment expecting death without any kind of hopes of recovery and being in this condition however still in his perfect senses he was told by me and others it had been bruted of him abroad in the City even amongst Lords and Ladies That being come to this point he retracted his signature and defence thereof and his whale Doctrine or Books of that matter He presently desired me to call in to his Chamber the whole Community of the Franciscan Fathers who were then next room to him at Supper for it was in their Dublin Convent he lay sick prepared himself to death and there also dyed even the very next day as far as I can remember after I had so called the Fathers However what is to my purpose is certain viz. That as soon as they were all entered the Commissary General who a little before came from Spain Father Mark Brown heading them our dying Father Redmund Caron having first declared the cause of his sending for them at that time to be the foresaid false report and then his trouble that any religious men should be so unreasonably desirous to advance or cherish a Faction as to invent lyes of a dying man that was every moment expecting to appear at the Tribunal of the great Judge to give there an account of both his life and doctrine in the third place he declared unto them and desired them all to bear witness of his Declaration That as he was now suddenly to answer God he both subscribed first the Remonstrance and engaged after
in defence of that Formulary and Subscription thereof according to the best and clearest dictates of his inward Conscience without having ever at any time since entertained the least thought of fear doubt or scruple of any errour sin or unlawfulness either in doing so or in not retracting what he had so done If not sayes he only in or as to some sharp words or not so respectful expressions against my Superiour the Pope if peradventure and wheresoever in my Writings or Books any such words or expressions are or by others may be apprehended to be For such unnecessary circumstantials of words any way savouring of passion I beg God heartily forgiveness But for other matters whatsoever that belong necessarily to the substance of the Doctrine I never had nor can have any remorse of Conscience because I believe it to be the Doctrine of our Saviour Christ by whose blessed merits I hope to be saved and before whose Tribunal I am now to appear And then in the fourth and last place converting himself to me and desiring me to sit by him on the Bed-side and I acordingly sitting there he further declared his Conscience to be That I was bound in Conscience to prosecute still even after his death that matter and continue that defence or advancement of that Doctrine which in his life-time I had for so many years and notwithstanding so much contradiction maintain'd So much truly of that learned modest pious man and so much I mean and such testimony given by himself at Deaths door of his own conscientiousness all along in that quarrel for which my Lord of Ferns great Roman termed him Apostate I can declare with as much assurance and confidence as any thing of my self And were it to purpose the like I could relate of another both learned person and illustrious Prelate too viz. Thomas Dese quondam Bishop of Meath and a Doctor of Paris who likewise in former times i. e. in the unhappy War-time had been no less engaged with me in the great Controversie against the Nuncio Rinuccini and all his Partizans and Censures of Interdict and Excommunication which great Controversie because it all was concerning the independency of the Supreme Temporal power as such from the Church in meer Temporal maâ—ters must consequently in effect have been the same with this other about the Remonstrance Of that excellent Bishop so much persecuted for several years by the rest of his contemporary Irish Bishops for not approving the Rebellion of the year 1641 as lawful in point of Conscience I could relate how when I had of purpose come to visit his Lordship on his death-bed in the Town of Galway and Colledge or House of the Jesuites there and then this was if I remember well when the Parliament Forces were of one side blocking up that Town and however I am sure it was much about the year 1650 or 1651. his Lordship taking me by the hand before all those were present declared in like manner his Conscience as Father Caron did many years after For although his Lordships every individual word then as to the bare literal sound I cannot at this distance of time exactly remember yet I am certain he spake the sense of these words Father Walsh I am heartily glad to see you before I dye that you may hear the Declaration of a dying man as you had his approbation when he was more like to live For I now declare That I have purely out of the internal sentiments of my Soul approved at large under my hand your Book of Queries That were it to be done again I would do it because I learned no other Doctrine from the Catholick Church on the subject of that Book but what is therein clearly asserted And therefore that especially as to that matter I now depart in peace of Conscience to appear at the great Tribunal where nevertheless I hope for mercy not for any justice of my own but through the merits of our common Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ This death-bed Declaration of this Learned man and constantly vertuous Prelate I could alledge with as great assurance as I could Father Carons were it to purpose to alledge either in this place against the foresaid great Roman who termed Me and Caron Apostates And yet I think it may be to some purpose if I tell him as I do now That the death-bed judgment of even only two such learned pious men so delivered to my self had more weight and strength to confirm me in my own former resolutions than the reviling terms of Two thousand even the very greatest Romans written or spoken by them in the dayes or time of their corporal health and worldly pomp and on the subject in controversie betwixt us could shall or ought to have for deterring me from or at all weakning me in the profession and defence of the Christian Doctrine I have learned from my youth and learn'd from the Catholick Church I mean on that same subject However and because I know or at least may rationally think such Romans and others too who have reviled me and Caron in such manner by terming us Apostates meant certainly to charge us with that which is properly commonly or usually imported amongst the vulgar by the abstract Apostacy taken in an infamous sense and some certain respect or species thereof and that nevertheless they only or at least principally and fixedly intend to charge us not in the first or second but third respect before given or third degree or rather indeed properly third species of Apostacy i. e. from the Regular Institute of St. Francis c. as likewise that so high a charge against us they ground solely upon our not appearing beyond Seas when summon'd by the Belgick Commissary General c. as if we had by such non-appearance yea notwithstanding any reason to the contrary forfeited and fallen utterly from that Regular Obedience whereunto by solemn Vow we tyed our selves and consequently turn'd Apostates ab Ordine Regulari or ab Instituto Religioso Divi Francisci and yet not only because this is not the proper place to handle that matter but also because the whole Third Part of my Latin Work intituled Hibernica c and my late printed Letter also in Latin ad Haroldum or to Father Harold are written chiefly to clear us from any sinful disobedience or contumacy in the case and by consequence from such Apostacy for without such disobedience or contumacy it is clear that such Apostacy as grounded only on sinful disobedience must of necessity vanish and further yet because I have some eight years since in my second long Letter to the Bruxel-Internuncio Hieronymus de Vecchiis which Letter may be seen Translated into English in this very Book Treat 1. Part. I. pag. 538. and from thence to pag. 555. sufficiently treated of the very subject therefore I will not give my self any further new and needless trouble on that same point again in this place but
in question it was I say to avoid the grossness and odiousness and the danger withal of the consequences of that third explication or gloss in this second part they chose rather to have their more ordinary recourse to the two former and yet more plausibly to the second than first And indeed the said Father N. N. who as I have told in my Narrative was the chief man at first to offer to my self and draw the Congregation to a Subscription of them though not for any real end that might be to assure the King of their Loyaltie but for that only in my Narrative expressed and for no other besides but for a meer blindation and though after his first heat and upon a more serious reflection he was the chief man also to keep them back from subscribing the last three of those six of Sorbon I say the said wel-spoken Father when I dealed with him freely and to make himself to my self in plain tearms declare his own distinctions and evasions when I asked him familiarly how could he that was so great a stickler for Bellarmine and so great an opposer of the Remonstrance of 61. where it was against Bellarmine how could he holding still to that stickling and opposition subscribe that clause or second part of the first proposition so plainly or seemingly against Bellarmin's Doctrine of the indirect power Or how consequently would he choose rather to subscribe those propositions of Sorbon applyed to our King than the said Remonstrance of 61 or would he indeed by the promise in the first proposition to oppose the assertors of even the indirect power have it understood that he promised so in case of Excommunication Deposition Deprivation issued or pronounced by the Pope for the crimes of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people c when I put these queries to the said Reverend and both eloquent and learned Gentleman of the Society his answer was plain and positive That as the propositions reached not descended not expressed not such cases so the Congregation would not subscribe them as comprehending any such himself would not the words imported no such meaning And therefore he excepted alwayes those cases And questionless his meaning was as I know his principles are that the Pope alone is the only Judge of those cases that is can determine whether and when the King is or shall be guilty of Apostacy Heresie Schisme tyrannical administration publick oppression of the people or finally of any other hainous crime which may merit Excommunication or Denunciation and what is consequent deprivation deposition c. And yet notwithstanding all this Father N. N. would subscribe and hath subscribed that he shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over the King in civil and temporal affairs And yet maintains as all the rest do this subscription is not any way prejudicial to that explication of his and of theirs all in general The fourth and last explication of this second part of the said first proposition is both of the learned and unlearned of those Gentlemen of the Congregation and of their adherents or beleivers That indeed the promise must be understood with this tacit condition virtually implyed or supposed to be implyed in or annexed to all kind of lawful promises provided it appear not to us hereafter that the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time henceforth declare this our promise to be unlawful unconscionable or against the safety of our Soules or which is the same thing to be of a matter unlawful of it self to be promised or of a thing which either in it self or by consequence is against the sinceritie of Catholick Faith and Religion For say they it must be supposed alwayes and by all men that we will submit and conform to such a declaration being we have on the contradictory question expresly refused to disown the Popes infallibility Behold here four several expositions given by themselves that is by their chiefest Divines of each of both parts of this first proposition Expositions questionless even each or every of them able to evict from any man this confession that for neither of both parts nor both together this first proposition adds any thing to their Remonstrance or gives the King in the cases doubted any more assurance of their Loyaltie than their unsignificant acknowledgments declarations promises engagements oathes in the said Remonstrance do That is even just nothing at all No kind of obligation thereby on them or others to the King in such cases wherein they would be free to maintain by force of Arms any quarrel or cause against his Majestie And for as much as their next which is their second proposition in order is liable to the very self same or the like expositions to the very self same exceptions reservations equivocations and even distinctions of the reduplicative and specificative sense and that it hath not a word able or significant enough I mean in this age and amongst Sophisters to obstruct these evasions learn'd at last in the later and worser ages of the Church from a few deceiptful or deceived Schoolmen and for as much as Father N. N. and the other chief Divines of the Congregation those interpreters of their mind and sense do in very deed and self same way and no other to whom and where and when they think fit expound the second also and for as much as though they declare positively in this second It is their doctrine that our gracious King Charles the second is so absolute and independent that he doth not acknowledge nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God and that to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede yet they understand first those three words our gracious King and every of them in a reduplicative sense only not in the specificative that is while he is suffered to be King and is theirs and gracious withal unto them or until he be deprived or deposed by the Popes sentence or otherwise or even cease to be any more truly our King by the very nature of his pretended misgovernment and secondly understand by that clause nor hath in civil and temporal affairs any power above him under God I say they understand in that clause by the word power an ordinary power only not that extraordinary power which as before they still reserved to the Pope in those extraordinary cases of Apostacie Heresie c. and when they please too a power meerly and solely temporal such as never is the ordinary power which they attribute the Pope over Kings and thirdly tell us on those other words under God that the power of the Pope is the same which God hath and fourthly where in the end of the said proposition they declare that to witt the former parts of the same proposition to be their constant doctrine from which they shall never recede expound their
to such particular or specifical cases But those three foresaid Propositions of the said Congregation are such as as do not so descend by clear express words from which there can be no exception or evasion and of which there can be no distinction according to the present School-divinity of Bellarmine or Suarez or such others to the particular or specifical cases about which the controversie is and the said Congregation being the Proposers have been expresly desired by the King or his Lieutenaut in his Name or by his Authority to descend so in their Remonstrance or Propositions to such cases and they have expresly and obstinatly too refused to descend so or to such particular or specifical cases and yet they are a people whom he hath already by experience and his Father before him found in several publick Instances manifestly disloyal and even perfidious in the highest nature could be Therefore those three foresaid Propositions of the said Congregation are not sufficient in this age as from them for giving assurance to the King of their future loyalty Or thus If the foresaid three Propositions of Sorbon applied by the said Congregation to the King of Great Britain and Ireland and to themselves and rest of his Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland be in the judgement of the chief Divines and leading men of that Congregation lyable rationally all circumstances weighed to such constructions as I have said hitherto they have already made and will hereafter make of the words to such as they please and when they find it opportune and if notwithstanding they have been expresly and often desired even by his Majesties Lieutenant and for his Majesties assurance of them to descend by clearer and more expressive words to the particular cases wherein the doubt was or would be yet of their future loyalty they all and their Agents for them even to his own face after long consultation for so many dayes expresly refused to descend so or assure his Majesty by those or any other additional Propositions of their future faithful carriage in such particular or specifical cases or I mean to assure His Majesty under their hands and by words comprehending expresly and specifically those very cases then it must follow evidently that they were both absolutly and obstinatly resolved to give no more assurance by the foresaid three Propositions no more satisfaction by them to the King or his great Ministers in coming home to the point or to the particular or specifical cases wherein their loyalty might be and was and is with reason doubted of than they had given before in their Remonstrance as I have in my Exceptions layd open their meaning in and by it But the foresaid three Propositions of Sorbon applied by the said Congregation c. are in the judgment of the chief Divines and leading-men of that Congregation lyable rationally all circumstances considered to such constructions as I have said hitherto c. and notwithstanding they have been expresly and often desired even by His Majesties Lieutenant and for His Majesties assurance of them to descend by clearer c. they all c. expresly refused to descend so c. Therefore it must evidently follow that they were both absolutely and obstinatly resolved to give no more assurance c. I see not I confess what their best or worst Sophisters can say that may ridd them out of the Briars And for the first I think verily none of them that understands reason will have the confidence to speake a word to the matter of either of the premisses the Major being such as in morals and in a Country where such disputes are and so many great and sad experiences relating to the matter of it may be well accounted of the nature and assume the name of that which Logicians call or tearm propositionem per se notam And the Congregation of the Clergie of Ireland at Waterford under the Lord Nunciu's presidencie withal the Decrees and consequents thereof against the peace of 46. and the meeting of the Bishops at James-town and their declarations and decrees there against the peace of 48. and all other consequents of that meeting evidently prove the Minor As for the illation and form or frame of the whole I give them leave to consult with Aristotle in his first figure and fourth moode To the second I beleive indeed they will peradventure attempt some kind of answer but such a one notwithstanding as will not abide the tryal They will perhaps denie the Minor as to the first part if they with any kind of colour denie any thing or make any answer at all to either Minor Major or conclusion They will say the foresaid propositions are not lyable rationally to such constructions c. And they must consequently disavow those abstractions distinctions c and therefore say also consequently that I impose on them And this is all they can say with any kind of colour though a very bad one But for conviction of the first branch of this answer I appeal to all judicious Readers of Bellarmines several pieces on this Subject both of those in his own proper name set forth and of those also in other mens and to the daily practice of the Schools and besides to so many other printed authors of Bellarmine's way and brethren that stiffly maintain the doctrine of equivocation and mental reservation And for the conviction of the second branch I appeal even unto Father N. N. the chief speaker and interpreter as a divine of the sense of that Congregation though he was not chaire-man and the very first proposer and to my self also of the said propositions of Sorbon even of all the six to be signed by them though of purpose only to decline the approbation or signature of onely one proposition offered them by me as I have observed in my Narrative Nay and for the conviction of this second branch of such answer I appeal to the whole Congregation and even to all and singular the members thereof whither it be not true that really they denied all along and even on the contradictory question to approve the propositions parts or clauses of the former Remonstrance that I mean of 61. Which in plain tearms disclaims and renounces any power in the Pope to deprive or depose the King or to raise his Subjects in Rebellion c by virtue of any sentence of Excommunication Deprivation Deposition or Declaration or in any other manner soever or under what pretext soever and whether they denied not to declare that there was nothing contained in that Remonstrance of 61. that might be deemed Heretical Schismatical or sinful and whether it was not upon the sole account of such particulars therein contained they did so and whether it was not therefore because they could not approving it pretend any latitude for the former evasions interpretations abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations equivocations for as much as the expressions of that were too plain and
indeed any but God alone above them in temporal affairs as the very Fathers too of the Congregation avow by their own subscription of the 2d of those Propositions of Sorbone if they will have that subscription and Proposition taken in the plain obvious and honest sense and further yet is such and by reason too and Scriptures plain and cleer enough demonstrated to be such that every person in their respective kingdoms is subject to them And consequently all Parliament men however convened together as being not in any consideration or quallity soever exempt from that general command of God by the Apostle Paul 13th Romans Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditasit And now if in this doctrine and pursuant to it of those Divines whether Greek or Latin the Fathers of the Congregation such of them at least as are understanding and knowing men see not the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of that argument of theirs which is their second specifical reason for not signing the 5th Proposition or if they see not they argue not here à simili but à dissimili and therefore conclude very ill or if they see not the cases are quite contrary or hugely differing that of the Pope and Council on one side and that of the King and Parliament of the other as to the purpose here I am extreamly mistaken But whether they do or not others I am sure do very cleerly That for such other Catholick Divines as are great sticklers for the Papacie to be Jure Divino immediatly or immediatly ordained by Christ himself during his aboad on earth in that sense at least wherein it is allowed and approved by those Canons are learned Canones Ecclesiae Vniversalis and by the several Catholick Churches Kingdoms and States which have continued in perpetual communion with the Bishop and particular Church or Diocess of Rome though not in that sense and height of latitude of jurisdiction attributed thereunto by the Popes themselves in their own peculiar Canons for such Divines I say as maintain so the Papacie to be De jure Divino immediatly and nevertheless withal do constantly maintain the authority of general Councils above it by the same ius divinum or immediat institution of Christ delivered to us in that passage of Math. 18. Dic Ecclesiae or in any other of the new Testament whether in writing or not or not otherwise known evidently or sufficiently but by unwritten tradition onely the Fathers of the Congregation may see these Divines also declaring and very cleerly and consequently too without any kind of stress in their own principles against the said consequence For they will undoubly say and with very much reason also this to be a meer non sequitur The General Council which hath its power not from the Pope but originally immediatly only and perpetually from Iesus Christ over all the faithfull being declared in the 18. of St. Mathew the very last and supream Tribunal to which an offending Brother must be accused and to whose sentence he must be lyable and being so declared by Christs own mouth even to Peter himself present as may be seen in the foresaid place of Mathew taken together with St. Luke in ch the 17. must consequently be above the Pope albeit the Pope must be above every individual of them separatly taken out of the Council or when there is not any Council in being Therefore the Parliament which originally immediatly and only had its power from the King and yet none from the King or his Laws much less from the Law of God above the King Himself must nevertheless be above him even as yet remaining King and so above him too that they may deprive depose and put him even to death if they shall judge it expedient yea notwithstanding his Royal Power is given him originally immediatly and only from or by God himself and notwithstanding also the express Law of God commands all his people without any distinction of being sate in Parliament or not and commands them all even under pain of damnation to be subject to him and notwithstanding too the very Parliament themselves even sitting in Parliament confess themselves to be of the number of his People or Subjects Yet this must be the very argument which the Fathers of the Congregation must frame here to their purpose if they would pin their foresaid consequence upon even these other Catholick Divines who maintain the Papacy de jure Divino And therefore it must also be that in the opinion too or doctrine of this very class of Divines who are all admitted by Bellarmine himself as undoubtedly Catholick and no way Schismatical who maintain or admit as I have presently said the Papacie it self to be jure Divino from this proposition The Pope is not above a General Council no such dangerous consequence can be drawn no overture of any such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Commonwealths as our late sad experience hath taught us That finally if in the opinion or according to the principles or doctrine of any other Catholick Divines that dangerous consequence follow as I know it does in Bellarmine's and such others of his way who to subject the Crowns of Kings the more easily to the Popes disposal reduce all earthly temporal civil power and resolve it ultimatly into their supream pretended inherent right in the people whom as they say withal and consequently to their other principles the Pope may at his pleasure or when he shall judge it expedient command by excommunication and other ecclesiastical Censures to resume it or that their pretended inherent power for the punishment of an Apostat Heretick Schismatick or otherwise contumacious refractory or disobedient Prince if I say according to this doctrine of this third and last class of Divines how Catholick soever in other matters that dangerous consequent and overture of such odious and horrid disputes follow the above proposition or the not being of the Pope above the General Council yet for as much as their other principles which must be first admitted before any such consequent may be deduced are in themselves very false and in the case of Hereditary Kingdoms evidently such amongst Christians that please to understand the Scriptures plainly and sincerely as the primitive Believers did especially that passage omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and what follows afterwards to the same purpose in the 13. of the Romans and not go about to elude these and such other express and clear places by distinctions whereof some are apparently ridiculous and some very blasphemous too as I can instance the Fathers of the congregation might notwithstanding with much reason and even abstracting too I mean as well from all precedents as from all ignorance malice or other pre-occupation nay and from their own subscription also of the second or any other of the three first propositions though not from the doctrine of them observe how that
and scandalously taught nay taught farr worse than ever Bellarmine did in that Howse or Colledge of the Society the chiefest of all that moved Sorbone at that time and juncture in 1663. was indeed as all the rest without any kind of inclination to or even the least immaginable approbation of Iansenisme But certainly was the removing out of their Kings brest in that suspicious conjuncture all kind of jealousie of a doctrine which being not disclaimed by them at that very time might render all their five former declarations or propositions wholy unsignificaâ—t as to any assurance of them to their King when it should please the Pope That be the immedâ—â—t or mediat occasion or both in part or in the whole too what Father N. N. sayes or at least by his invidious and no less truely impertinent unprofitable and odious digression to those disputes of the Iansenists and Anti-Iansenists would insinuat or impose on the reader be it that very debate betwixt them on the quaestio facti as he speaks whither the propositions condemned as heresie by the Pope be condemned in the true sense and meaning of the Iansenists or no whether in the book of Iansenius or no or be it also either in part or in the whole that contest of the Iansenists for the first way that is for the fallibility of the Pope declaring any matter as of faith without a general Council and be it this contest or allegation of theirs was onely to vindicate themselves from the censure and be it moreover that there was no other occasion moved the Faculty of Sorbone to this sixth declaration or proposition granting all and giving thereby to Father N. N. all the advantage he can desire I am content to joyn issue with him and leave it to all prudent men to judge whether hence must follow that the doctrine of the Popes infallibility as in it self and of it self abstractedly considered without any relation to Iansenisme or any other error or as considered by us does not touch our scope or that none can declare against the same thing but for the same cause that another doth I am sure all prudent men that withal are sufficiently knowing for I suppose it is onely to such Father N. N. appeals will confess that as there is often a vast difference betwixt the occasion and the thing occasioned so that which is occasioned may touch an other controversie although the occasion do not That whatever the occasions be of the declarations of Councils or Vniversities in doctrinal points yet the declarations must be always understood generally or indefinitly as the words are and without any limitation or restriction to particulars or to such occasions especially when and where such particulars or such occasions are not mentioned at all either concomitantly subsequently or precedently in the same or other instrument of such declarations as none are in this 6th or any of the other five precedent declarations of Sorbone or in the Instrument of them but such occasion onely as make them general That for the reasons above given neither the same cause nor the same end which the Iansenists had in asserting the Popes fallibility or declaring against his infallibility can be presumed of Sorbone and the rest of the Vniversities of France declaring against the same infallibility nor that limitation or restriction of their meaning to the case of Iansenisme alone That it has been always and must have been very often the practice even of general Councils to assert Christian â—aiths in a good cause and for a good end which truths even manifest notorious obstinat and condemned Hereticks had formerly and as stiffly maintained whether the cause or end they had therein was good or evil and that thereof are late examples enough in the very Council of Trent which defined many Catholick verities against Iohn Calvin and other Sectaries although Martin Luther had earnestly before and at the same time asserted the same truths and against the very self same other Sectaries And therefore it can be no prejudice to a declaration against the doctrine of the Popes pretended infallibility that the Iansenists had done the same already not even I say were it confessed of all hands the Iansenists were manifest notorious and convicted Hereticks That now and to come up closer yet to Father N. N. in the main debate I am content that either with or without any supposition at all or admittance or grant of any occasion either mediat or immediat or of any thing else but what the matter according truth bears along with and in or of it self only to leave that very main debate or quaerie to all prudent men to judge whether the Universities of France saying as Father N. N. here confesses of them and not of Sorbon only or whether they declaring publickly to the world in plain words That it is not their doctrine that the Pope without the consent of the Church is infallible whether I say this touched our scope or no But withal that as I have put the quaerie in Father N. N. his own words and in his own sense and as near his purpose too as himself could possibly frame it so I desire all such prudent men to consider that our scope is to assure his Majesty of the hearts and hands of all the Roman Catholicks of Ireland both Clergy and Laylty in all dangerous contingencies whatsoever but more especially in those wherein the Pope would peradventure concern himself on the account or pretence of Religion and in pursuance of such pretence though really for other ends declare against the lawfulness of the congregations Remonstrance or Oath of Allegiance or any other such former or latter of Allegiance though in temporal things alone and against the three first Propositions or any other in pursuance thereof signed by the said congregation or by any others for his Majesties greater assurance of their loyalty in temporal things only That whoever maintains the Popes infallibility where and when declaring by his papal Authority and without a General Council any doctrine sentence opinion proposition declaration acknowledgment engagement oath or promise to be unlawful or to be against the Catholick Faith or salvation of Souls or who refuseth in such a case as the congregation did refuse to disown that infallibility must be consequently resolved or at least must be supposed to be resolved to conform himself in practice when ever the occasion is offered to whatever Declarations of that nature shall at any time issue from his Holyness And consequently resolved to retract at his pleasure any form or any subscription to any form of Remonstrance Declaration or other writing whatsoever obliging them to be true liege-people to the King in temporal things only That it is no new thing with the Popes by their own immediat authority and with their Ministers on pretence of their authority whether truly granted or not granted to declare so against forms of Oathes Remonstrances or Declarations of Allegiance
if the Pope define evil to be good or vice to be virtue that is define that to be good or virtuous which you thought was evil or vitious you must believe him And so do all our Sophisters maintain now a dayes that all he does is very well done and that he cannot err in that regard And so especially and particularly must all the Fathers of the Society maintain and think too not so much because of their 4th vow as it is in the Bull of Julius the 3d. wherein their Order and Statutes are confirmed but chiefly for that which their founder Saint Ignatious Loyola layes before them as the chief if not onely fundamental of their Society the denial of their own judgement in a letter of his written in Italian to the Fathers of Portugal and in this passage of it We easily endure to be out-done by all other orders in fastings watchings and other hardnesses which they use in a holy manner according to their Institution But in purity and perfection of obedience I earnestly desire that you would surpass all the rest with a true resignation of your own will and a denial of your own judgement and also because of that which moreover is said in the very articles of their institution confirmed by the Popes Buls and inserted in that above mentioned of Julius the 3d. that they are bound to acknowledge Christum velut praesentem Christ as present not onely in the person of the Pope but also of their General Moreover so must even all the assertors whatever they be of what order or institution soever of the doctrine of obedientia caeca blind obedience as it is commonly taught in this age maintain and think Further yet and to return once more to the Society in particular so have several of them very cleerly expresly and zealously taught and thought if they taught not otherwise than they thought at Coloâ—e as appears out of that prescribed Rule of theirs in Censura Colonienst fol. 136. If any man examine the doctrine of the Pope by the Rule of Gods word and seeing that it is different chance to contradict it let him be rooted out with fire and sword Finally and to return once more also to Bellarmin's own self so has this most eminent Cardinal no less distinctly and positively delivered in four several assertions in his fourth book third fourth fifth and sixth chap. de Rom. Pont. the very first genuin but sandy foundation of all this ruinous however guilded structure of the Popes pretended infallibility These assertions are First that the Pope when he teacheth the vniversal Church in such things as appertain to faith can in no case erre Secondly that not onely the Pope cannot err in faith but not even the particular Church of Rome Thirdly that the Pope cannot err not onely in matters of faith but not even in precepts of manners which are commanded to the whole Church and which consist in things necessary to salvation or such as are of themselves good or bad Fourthly that it is probable and may be piously believed that the Pope not onely as Pope but even as a particular person cannot be a Heretick by believing with obstinacy any error against the faith Although I must confess that notwithstanding all this learned Cardinals painful indeavours to prove each of these assertions throughout all the foresaid whole chapters and for eight or nine chapters more to disprove the contrary by solving as well as he can all objections making therein a particular enquirie of all the Popes that ever lived and have been charged with error and maintaining also the best he can that not one amongst them ever yet errect and that they were all honest and holy men yet he sayes nothing in all his arguments or solutions in this matter to perswade any judicious man of his pretended infallibility But however this be or not it is plain enough that according to these very principles or assertions alone any according to onely the first and third which at least of all four Father N. N. and the Congregation infallibly own as yet and refuse obstinatly to disown we cannot make sense but that which is contradictory and not to any purpose of what he sayes here not though I say we grant his meaning therein grounded on those two suppositions Fifthly That be his meaning so grounded or not or be it what ever els or however he please yet he cannot deny but the Congregation refused openly and either constantly or obstinatly as he will and even too upon the contradictory question to give as much as this very Proposition or promise under their hands that if the Pope did would or should define any thing against their Remonstrance or three first Propositions they would notwithstanding maintain them and be accordingly faithful and obedient to the King Nor can deny that there is not so much as one hand of theirs or of any els for them to this paper of reasons wherein it is said as in their name they let all prudent men know that they should not hold the Popes infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience they owe their Prince Both which being so what truth can be in this confident assertion whatever it imports Or how can such an allegation serve them in any prudent mans opinion to wave the subscription of what was so rationally expected concerning the 6th Proposition or declaration against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council Or to shew the unnecessariness thereof in their case or in relation to a sufficient assureance of their fidelitie hereafter to the King against all pretences of the Pope to his Crown or other Royal rights And so having done more than abundantly with his tacite pretence of unnecessariness virtually implyed in that allegation I must in the next place observe his transient return to his plea of impertinency again If sayes he and in the Congregations name still they he means all prudent men speake of any other infallibility as matter of Religion or faith as it regardeth us not nor our obedience to our Soveraign c. For although I have before now sufficiently demonstrated the pertinency of the question and Proposition or declaration concerning the Popes pretended infallibility without a general Council yet because Father N. N. seems to distinguish here a two-fold infallibility of the Pope for as much as he sayeth any other infallibility I must tell him First That he had more properly and intelligibly distinguished the matter in which the Popes pretended infallibility must be said to be conversant than the form of infallibility in it self which form questionless in esteem must be one and the self same whether it fall on the obedience we owe our Prince or on any other matter soever capable Secondly That he knew very well the dispute and declaration of Sorbone was against the Popes infallibility in general or in any kind of matter and against
their or hinderance to annoy them Yet for ample satisfaction we further say to the first part of this Objection that as doubtless it concerns more nearly the Supreme Council to know the condition of the Countrey as who only were then and are yet entrusted with the Government were and are more often and more particularly inform'd so it belong'd and yet belongs to them of right to declare the ability or disability of the Countrey for War and the necessity and profit of either Cessation or Peace and consequently to conclude a Cessation and Peace or continue War we mean so far as the General Assembly furnisheth them with power as in this particular of concluding the present Cessation they have Unto which determination of theirs and unto all other in matters meerly civil such as this is where manifest sin doth not appear as in this business appears not the Lords Spiritual and both Clergies Regular and Secular are to obey as Subjects bound hereunto in Conscience and under mortal sin according to the consent of Holy Fathers and Divines where the matter is of moment and specially when it concerns the peace of the Commonwealth and allegiance to the Crown or Kingdom not to resist as Judges (q) See the Fathers and Expositors on Rom. 13.2 Oecumenius Theophilactus Augustine Ambrose Bernard with Cornelius a Lapide Omniâ— anima sayes Chrysostom potestatibus supereminentibus subdita su sive Apostolum sis sive Evangelista sive Propheta c. All other Fathers and Expositors together with Chrysostom understanding the same passage of St. Paul of obedience due to the Civil Magistrate and due unto them even by Churchmen With this sense of Fathers and Expositors all Catholick Divines agree See them together with Canon 〈◊〉 and Canons â—o this purpose in great numbers with Laymaâ— 1. l. 1. Tract 4. c. 13. and Becan in his Sum. Theol. de Leg. ham c. 6. qâ—â—i Nay that not only the Civil power obligeth thus indirectâ—y but also directly by their Laws or Commands Victoria Soto Medina and many others maintain However this be all confess that Cleâ—ks are bound in Conscience to obey the just Ordinances of the Commonwealth and undoubted it is that they are to be accounted just until manifestly they appear unjust That the Civil Laws and civil Commands of the Commonwealth or of the Civil Authority do bind Consciences to their performance under mortal sin if the thing commanded be of moment Vasquez teacheth d. 18. c. 4. and other with him Suar. l. 3. c. 27 n. 4. who are cited and followed by Becan in Sum. Theol. de Leg. hun c. 6 q. 3. n. â—i â—ii As for the second part of the said Objection it cannot be more cleared than it hath been by your Lordships in your printed answers to the Lord Nuncio 's Propositions and in your printed Declarations in pursuance of the said Answers in both which you declare unto the World and oblige your selves not to receive any other Peace but that which hath been agreed upon by the last Assembly and transmitted with the Agents unless peradventure the Kingdom and Assembly shall otherwise decree for the good of the Commonwealth Unto which Decree you are by Oath as other Confederates to conform and submit your own judgments And verily what could be more expected from your Lordships you are Confederates you took the Oath of Association you were thought worthy by both Estates Ecclesiastical and Temporal in a general Assembly to have the Kingdom put into your hands and the power of concluding a Cessation residing only in your breasts you were esteemed per consequence by the Nation to be men of honour wisdom and conscience finally what your Honours did in this business was through the vehement desires of the Provinces and known necessities of the Confederates and hath been likewise generally approved of and received by all the Catholick party in Ireland yea with joyes and thanks as the only mean of their preservation only a few refractories oppose it men without any rashness but with much grief we speak it who seem to have the evil of proper interest before their eyes unconscionable designs in their hearts and who have for such unworthy ends sufficiently discovered themselves enemies of all publick quiet and happiness of the Nation What the seditious Libellist Author of the Vindication who by that scurvy piece hath nothing served but much disserved the Nuncio here objects against the opinion we are to hold of your integrity and likewise against even your authority or power in signing the Cessation where he sayes 't was only concluded by a malignant infamous perjur'd Party of the Supreme Council by others inveigled by them and by some who officiously signed being no members of the Council this forged Calumny we say might be contemn'd and in regard it is so known to be a meer fiction of a Libellist not otherwise answered than that his Pen had too much gall and poyson and his matter neither rime nor reason Yet to undeceive the deceived if any be such and to prevent or take away the impression which perhaps the reading or hearing of this unknown detracter might give or hath given some simple Souls we thought fit to insert in this place two Acts of General Assemblies whereby this Impostor may be confounded The first is a Declaration made by the universal vote of the Kingdom in the year 1646. Febr. 2. vindicating these members of the Supreme Council from these aspersions of Perjury and Disloyalty then first endeavoured to be cast upon them by their Adversaries but now revived again from Hell by the Libellist in their negotiating with the Marquess of Ormond the rejected Peace The words of the Declaration are these And this Assembly do hereby likewise declare That the said Council Committee of Instructions and Commissioners of the Treaty have faithfully and sincerely carried and demeaned themselves in their said Negotiation pursuant and according to the trust reposed in them and gave thereof a due and acceptable account to this Assembly Given at Kilkenny the 2d day of February 1646. Surely this Declaration made after exact debate of the matter by the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons in a general Assembly of the whole Kingdom must be of more weight and power to persuade any reasonable creature than a passionate and obscure Libellists bare assertion At least the new and legal establishment of such members in their former dignity and government of the Kingdom notwithstanding all the opposition made and labours taken by their Adversaries to brand them with some character whereby to render them incapable must convince any judgment Is there any likelihood that a whole Nation in its Representative body the General Assembly and ever since in all its real parts in all Provinces Counties Cities Towns yea and Armies would have tyed themselves and sworn to obey them whom they had either proved or justly suspected not to have discharged the trust imposed or therefore had been
is humbly desired That Your Excellency will be pleased to apply Your immediate care to the forwarding of the service and setling of affairs in the other parts of the Kingdom answerable to the present danger and condition wherein it is that there may be some visible opposition to the growing power of the Enemy Thus humbly taking leave we remain Loghreogh May 2. 1650. Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servants Tho Gashell Jo Archiep. Tuamen Dillon Mountgarret Netervill Muskery Fr Hugo Duacensis Fr Anto. Clonmaâ—â—osensis Episcopus Athunry Ro Corcagensis Cluanen Upper Ossory Lucas Dillon Nich Plunâ—â—â— R Everard Ter O Neill Geffry Browne Gerald Fennel R Bellings For his Excellency the Lord Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General of Ireland These The substance of all which on their part as also the results of the consultations of that Assembly you see were deep professions of Loyalty to His Majesty Respect to Us and a resolution to endeavour Our satisfaction in what We desired To which effect the Archbishop of Tuam and Sir Lucas Dillon were employed to Lymerick with pressing Letters to persuade that Corporation to receive a Garrison and obey Our Orders By these reiterated professions We were induced to alter Our purpose of quitting the Kingdom and to dismiss a Frigat which to Our great charge We had bought and fitted for Our Transportation The Archbishop and Sir Lucas Dillon soon after returned from Lymerick with an imperfect kind of return to their Negotiation yet such as gave Us hopes that Lymerick would be brought to more reason upon further endeavours and our nearer residence Wherein We laboured with all Our industry but in vain till about the 12th of June last when We thought by a Letter and Message We received from the Mayor that we should be permitted to put a Garrison into that City as by the Copy of his Letter and Our Answer appears May it please your Excellency THE City-Council have given me in Command to signifie and humbly to offer unto Your Excellency That it was expected by them that You would being so near this City yesterday bestow a visit upon it the which is no way doubted had been done by Your Excellency if Your greater Affairs did not hinder You from the same and yet do expect when those are over Your Excellency will be pleased to step hither to settle the Garrison here the which without Your presence cannot be as is humbly conâ—eived so well done or with that expedition as our necessity requires the particulars whereof we refer to Alderman Peirs Creagh and Alderman John Bourke their relation to whom we desire Credence may be given by Your Excellency and humbly to believe that I will never fail to be Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servant Jo Creagh Mayor Lymerick Lymerick 12 Junii 1650. For His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland AFter Our hearty Commendations We have received your Letters of this dayes date by the conveyance of Alderman Peirs Creagh and heard what Alderman John Bourke and he had to say as from that Corporation In Answer whereunto We imparted some particulars unto them wherein We expect satisfaction Which if you send Us to the Rendezvous to morrow where We intend to be We shall visit that City and employ Our uttermost endeavours in setling the Garrison necessarily desired thither both for the defence and satisfaction of that City And so We bid you heartily farewell from Clare the 12th of June 1650. Your very loving Friend ORMOND To Our very loving Friend the Mayor of the City of Limerick These THE PARTICULARS I. To be received in like manner and with such respect as LORD LIEUTENANTS heretofore alwayes have been II. To have the Command of the Guards the giving of the Word and Orders in the City III. That there be Quarter provided within the City for such Guards of Horse and Foot as I carry in who are to be part of the Garrison whereof a List shall be given at the Rendezvous When upon this invitation We came near to the Gates the Aldermen employed to invite Us thither were sent out to Us to let Us know of a Tumult raised in the City by a Fryer one Father Woolfe and some others against Our coming in and a dissuasion of Our coming till that Tumult should be quieted Hereupon in hope to have brought the Corporation to a sense and performance of their duty We writ the following Letter to the Mayor viz. AFter Our hearty Commendations According to Our promise in Our Letter of the 12th of this Month from Clare We came yesterday to the Rendezvous with intent to have gone into that City for the purpose desired by you in your Letter of the same dayes date But upon Our coming to the place We received a message from you by Alderman Peirs Creagh and Alderman John Bourke importing That you consented to all We had formerly proposed to you except the admittance of Our Guards Thereupon We returned the said Messengers with answer That We intended not the drawing in of Our Guards out of any mistrust We had of the Loyalty of the Magistrates of that City to His Majesty or of their Affection to Us but for the Dignity of the place We hold and to prevent any popular Tumult that might be raised by desperate uninterested persons against Us or the Civil Government of that City whereunto We had cause to fear some loose People might by false and frivolous suggestions be too easily instigated And to take away all possibility of suspition from the most jealous that We could have any other end to the prejudice of that City the Guards We proposed were but One hundred Foot and Fifty Horse and those to consist entirely of those of your own Religion and such as by having been constantly of your Confederacy are interested in all the benefits of the Articles of Peace To this We received no positive Reply but in an uncertain manner were told by the said Aldermen of some uproar raised by a Fryer in opposition to the desires and intentions of the Mayor and principal Citizens touching Our coming thither Whereupon We thought not fit to subject His Majesties authority placed in Us to a possibility of being affronted by a wild rabble of mean People but rather to expect the issue of more setled Councils Wherein We hope will be taken into consideration not only by what power you were first made a Corporation and by whose protection you have since flourished but also what solid foundation of safety other than by receiving the defence We offer is or can be discovered to you by the present disturbers of your quiet To conclude We expect your present answer That in case We be encouraged to proceed in the wayes VVe have laid down of serving the King and preserving that City from the Tyranny of the Rebels VVe may immediately apply Our Self thereunto or failing in Our desires therein We may apply Our Self and the Forces We have
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