virtually pretends thereto at least otherwise then by these few and weak places whereof he composes his foresaid second proof for this his fifth Proposition l. 1. de clericis c. xxviii Exemptio Clericorum in rebus politicis tum quoad personas tum quoad bona introducta est jure humano pariter divino But I will not charge him with pretending to any argument of Tradition by either such sayings or any other whatsoever of such late Councils either Provincial or General or of these three or four Popes he alledges there And yet for what other end he should produce them but that of abusing his ignorant Reader I know not verily For we may justly suppose that he and others with him have on the very contradictory question examined searched for and alledged as many places out of Scripture as any of these Councils or Popes could possibly and yet was himself so convinced that none of all these places or texts nor altogether did really amount to a positive law of God that notwithstanding his said so positive and so absolute assertion or fifth proposition for such a positive law of God he falls immediatly to his distinguishing observation of a divine precept properly such and of not being expresly in Scripture and of its being only deduced thence per quamdam similitudinem though an observation in express terms contrary to the very conclusion or to that very proposition for which he brought these two kinds of proofs one out of Scripture and the other out of these Councils and Popes So that if he intended not these Councils and Popes so alledged and so applied by him for to prove Tradition in the case and this he doth not pretend nor any from him wil so weak an argument it must be confes'd he produced them only to abuse the undiscerning Reader as the same in truth must be also confess'd of all his Scripture-places quoted in his first proof nay and of that very proposition of his and also of both parts of it for which he brought these two sorts of proofs LXV 2. For what concerns the law divine natural or which is the same thing in effect the law of nature or the law of Reason or a convincing or concluding evident principle or maxime or position or proposition or conclusion either which is necessary of natural reason to all which the Schoolmen give the name or title of the law divine natural because or forasmuch as at our creation imprinted in our souls by God himself the Author of nature but still without any supernatural infusion being the condition of a reasonable soul requires it even without any order to immortality for what I say concerns this law divine natural the case is clear enough also by the concession of Bellarmine himself l. de Cler. c. 29. where he treats it of purpose Though withal I confess he involve it so as to abuse his Reader with a third but very false degree of the laws of nature or law divine natural of purpose to impose on his credulity or facility or undiscerning judgment and work him to a perswasion that in some true sense the exemption of Clerks is de jure divino naturali even in the whole latitude of this exemption or as he before in the 28. chap. prop. 1 2 3. expounded and maintained it generally as to their lands goods persons or as from taxes and Judgments and Courts and as not from the inferiour Magistrates alone but from the very supream and in all even the most temporal causes whatsoever as well criminal as civil and from both the directive and coercive power of the laws or commands of the supream temporal Magistrate To the end of imposing so on his Reader it must be that this otherwise most eminent and learned Cardinal in the beginning of his 29. chapter immediatly after he had stated or demanded the question An exemptio Clericorum sit juris divim naturalis for he would have it now supposed that in the foregoing chapter he had proved this Exemption in his own and now said latitude of it had been 1. de jure humano civili 2. De jure humano Ecclesiastico 3. De jure divino positivo It must be I say to this end of imposing on his Reader that after all this and after putting this question also whether the exemption of Clerks be of the law divine natural he distinguisheth three several degrees of this law divine natural and then placeth his said exemption in the third of them And yet saw well enough this third degree of his own and of Driedo's and some few Canonists forgery was of so false allay that he dares not stand to it stiffely in a proper true sense of a law of nature or of a necessary principle position or conclusion of natural reason without the free and positive constitution acceptation or custom introduced onely and freely by men and therefore useth so many windings and labours so much to reconcile Authors but all in vain as to his main purpose and finally by his position there and proofs of it which follow so confounds that his own jus divinum naturale with jus gentium and confounds them so too in express words leaving thereby his inconsiderat Reader in a labyrinth and his judicious in a laughter at both his division position and proofs whether these proofs be intended for a jus gentium taken either in a strict and proper or in a large improper sense or whether intended for a jus divinum naturale even in that very improper abusive meaning or sense of our Cardinal Whereof that you good Reader whoever you be so you be a man of reason may be yourself a discretionary Judg for authoritative judgment neither you nor I can pretend Sure I do not this being proper onely to such powers as God hath placed over us either in the spiritual or in the temporal commonwealth in the Church or State I will give here briefly these three degrees of Dictats all and every of which Bellarmine would impose on us as natural precepts and comprehend under the name of jus divinum naturale the law divine natural The first and chiefest and most proper is sayes he of such Dictats which are so perspicuously imprinted in the hearts of men that with the sole light of reason without any discipline or art nay without any discourse of reason they must be judged by all to be just Such are some first principles As for example these Good is to be desired Evil to be shunned life to be preserved with meat and drink children to be educated for the propagation of human kind God to be worshipped not to do that to an other which you would not have done to your self The second degree is of those precepts sayes he again which are from such first principles deduced as the very proximat conclusions or as conclusions naturally flowing by a facile evident and necessary consequence and so too that no discipline no art
once made nor consequently lawful ever after to convert it to prophane uses that is to any other uses but those intended by vow for the more especial service of God Whence further it must no less plainly appear that were that very same law of Leviticus binding Christians now under the new Testament no more can be concluded to Bellarmines purpose and as to our dispute concerning the exemption of Clergymen from the civil power but that which should as well restrain the Pope as the Prince Because no more but that neither temporal nor spiritual Magistrate could secularize Churchmen or Church-lands or Church-beasts once they had been consecrated Church men or Church-lands or Church-beasts Which yet neither Bellarmine himself nor even any of his Defenders will allow as indeed both reason and so many thousands and even daily un-reproved instances tell us it cannot be allowed So that our learned Cardinal alledgeth in this point a law which is no more a law at all to us that are Christians and yet a law which were it a law for us hath not one word to his purpose For who sees not the consistency of these two 1. A right or a power from God in the supream civil Magistrate to force consecrated persons to behave themselves as becomes such consecrated persons 2. No right or power from God in such Magistrate to prophane those consecrated persons or to apply them to any other calling or profession which is or must be inconsistent with the ends of their consecration And who sees not consequently the vain flourish of this Querie wherewith this eminent person concludes his fourth argument Quis autem dicere audeat jus esse profano homini en ea quae sancta sanctorum id est sanctissima dici meruerunt who dares be so bold as to say that a profane man hath right to those things which have deserved the name of holy of holies that is most holy And then adds as a final conclusion of all Qua ratione bona etiam temporalia Clericorum bona Dominica proprie dicuntur in can 4. Apostolico ideo tanquam Deo sacra jucisdictioni laicorum subjecta esse non possunt Upon which account sayes he temporal goods of Clergymen are in the fourth Apostolical Canon properly said to be Dominica or the Lords goods and therefore as being consecrated to God cannot be subject to the jurisdiction of Laymen But he needed not make this so vain flourish of a querie or corrollary following which himself could not but know to have been ten thousand times over and over answered by Catholick Divines and Catholick Bishops and even by some very learned and very holy Popes too who in all ages both acknowledged and asserted a right in Emperours Kings and other supream temporal or civil lay Magistrates to govern command and even force by the sword if necessary all in their Territories even the most eminently consecrated to do their several duties to God and to the Commonwealth and to all their neighbours respectively As likewise they acknowledged and asserted in the same supream civil Magistrate a right to provide by good wholsome laws and otherwise that the temporal goods of Churchmen should be rightly used by them and not abused at all against those holy ends for which only either Princes or People or both had questionless devoted such goods to God Therefore to answer his question directly and briefly I will my self be one of those who dare say that such profane men as these supream civil Magistrates are since Bellarmine must needs have all kind of Laicks how Christian soever esteemed profane men have such a right as I have here declared over such holy of holies or most holy persons and things And that his allegation not out of the fourth Apostolical Canon as he quotes it but out of the 40. were those Canons authentick or indubitable Canons of the Apostles as this learned man himself knew very well they are not makes very much less for his exemption of the Goods of Ecclesiasticks c. from such a right in such profane persons For as this Canon attributes not the title of res Dominicae to all the goods whatsoever possessed by Clerks being it doth not to the Bishops own proper goods but to those only which being in common to all the Church or as well to other Priests and Ministers as to the Bishop whereof the text it self which I give here is proof sint autem manifestae res propriae Episcopi si tamen habet proprias et manifestae Dominicae ut potestatem habeat de propriis moriens Episcopus ficut voluerit de relinquere c. so it is clear enough out of what is said hitherto that no more can be concluded out of this denomination precisely against such a supream right as I have now declared in the supream civil Magistrate then may be out of any other epithet or word signifying only a pious or godly use of such goods And therefore no such matter as Bellarmine concludes which is to be in all senses and to all purposes exempt from even the very supream jurisdiction of all kind of lay Princes Doth natural reason teach us any inconsistency 'twixt some right or some power in the lay Prince or Parliament in some cases to tax the lauds or goods of the Church and the being nevertheless of those very lands or goods still designed for pious and holy uses or that even such taxation made by such a lay supream power and the execution and use of it may it not be of absolute necessity to preserve both the State and Church and the very continuance of these goods or lands hereafter in the immediate possession and property and use of the very Church and Church-men And is it not clear that as the meer lay Subjects property in their own hands must not cease at all by their being subject to necessary contributions or taxes when the supream legislative power layes such taxes on them for the maintainance of the publick even so those goods or lands whichh are for some special ordinary use called Dominicae must not therefore cease to be Dominicae or in the property of the Church because they may according to natural reason be in certain cases lyable to the like taxes imposed by the same supream lay power and by virtue of a true right in this very supream lay power to impose by its own authority alone such taxes on Church-lands albeit the Church-men themselves should unreasonably deny their own consent nay hath not the practice of the Christian world for many ages under great and good and most religious Christian Princes shewed us that the lands of the Church were often taxed so by them and by virtue of their own proper authority alone without being once ever told by the Church that they did amiss therein or at all against the ends or use of Dominicae Did not St. Ambrose himself confess in the difference he had with the young Emperour
ut cumque summus sit non poterit huic immunitati aut exemptioni propriis legibus propriaque authoritate derogare So farr the learned Cardinal hath helped us on in this matter by giving us to our hand the authors and places quoted albeit only to shew against William Barclay that himself was not single in asserting such a power to the Pope But for these natural reasons or theological if you please to call them so which to solve is my business at present he hath left his Reader to seek Which makes me say that he hath not at all removed the cause of Barclay's admiration as he ought to have done Barclay admired that so learned and so judicious a man as Cardinal Bellarmine should maintain that the Pope could exempt the Subjects of Kings from all subjection to Kings and this without any consent from the Kings themselves adding as a further cause of his admiration how it was confess'd that before such exemption by the Pope those very persons so exempted by him or attempted to be so exempted to wit the whole Ecclesiastical Order of Clerks and even as well Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs and the very Pope himself as other the most inferiour Clerks were all of them primitively originally and even by the very law of God subject to the secular Princes in all politick or civil and temporal matters and yet as a further cause adding also that the law of Christ submitted unto in Baptisme deprives no man of the temporal rights he had before baptisme and consequently deprived not for example Constantine the Great when baptized of the lawful power he had before he was baptized over the Christian Clergy Now that Bellarmine should go about to disswade Barclay from his admiration because forsooth he quotes five School-men that is four Divines and one Canonist who taught the same thing and produces only the bare words of the Assertion of two of them on the point but no reason at all of theirs or of any others or of his own for such assertion may seem to men of reason a strange way of perswading another man and master too of much reason As if Barclay should cease therefore any whit the less to admire so gross an errour in Bellarmine that some others also had fallen into the same errour before or after or together with him Nay if Bellarmine had not preposterously fixed on those very men for his companions or patrons who contradict themselves so necessarily that is at least virtually and consequentially in this matter or if he had only fixed on such Divines and Canonists who speak consequently however ungroundedly of the exemption of Clergymen as of divine right which I confess the generality of Canonists do then peradventure he might have seemed to have alledged somewhat though indeed very little to allay Barclays wonderment For truly those he alledges betray themselves and his cause manifestly whereas they hold also manifestly and at the same time that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino Which being once granted who sees not the main difficulties which lye so in their way as not possible to be removed for asserting a power in the Pope to make laws for that exemption independently of Princes Who sees not that the Pope cannot make or impose what laws he please to bereave either Prince or People of their temporal rights or of what part soever of such rights he thinks expedient or convenient And who sees not otherwise that he alone must de jure be ot least may de jure make himself to be the sole supream Prince on earth in all temporal things at least amongst Christians And therefore consequently who sees not that being the Pope is not so nor can be so nor can lessen the Princes temporal authority over his own Subjects where-ever the law of God doth not lessen it and what I say of the Pope I say too of the whole Church who sees not consequently therefore I say that neither Pope nor Council nor other authority of the Church if any other be imaginable can or could so exempt Clerks from the power of Princes being that before such exemption all Clerks were subject to Princes and by the laws of God and nature subject to them But for as much as it appears undoubtedly that Bellarmine was one that did not or at least would not see these either Antecedents or Consequents being he sayes in plain terms and in his own name also de Potestate Papae in temporalibus supra cap. 38. That whether the supream temporal Princes themselves have or have not or could or could not exempt ecclesiastical while in their Dominion from their own supream temporal power potuit tamen voluit summus Pontifex istos eximere aut jure divino exemptos declarare yet the supream Pontiff could exempt them so and hath exempted them so or at least could declare and hath declared them antecedently exempted so by divine right that is by God himself in holy Scripture or at least in his revealed word either written or unwritten Neque possunt Principes etiam supremi hanc exemptionem impedire That neither can the Princes even supream hinder this exemption and That all this is the common doctrine of the Divines and Canonists cui hactenus non nisi Heretiei restiterunt which none hetherto but heretick's have resisted and forasmuch also as not onely Franciscus Victoria Dominicus Soto Martinus Ledesma Dominicus Bannes and Didacus Covarruvias above particularly quoted but even the generality of Canonists and late School Divine Writers seem to be of the number of those that with Bellarmine did not or would see the same Antecedents and consequents and lastly forasmuch as we have already solved all they could say for their contrary assertions either out of Scripture or out of the laws and canons nay and out of not onely some other extrinsick authorities of other authors Philosophers and Historians I mean for what concerns matter of fact or the point of Clergiemens having been already exempted so by any whomsoever but also all the arguments grounded on or pretended from natural reason or which Bellarmine framed above for his law of Nature or Nations for the Clergie's being already so exempted now therefore to fall to that which onely is the proper subject of this present Section let us consider those other arguments pretended to be of natural reason or even of Theological reason if you please to call it so as it may perhaps be justly called because suppoâ—eing some principle of Faith which we find in other Authors as in Dominicus Soto and in Franciscus Victoria for the being of such a power in the Pope or Church or in either or in both together as purely such or as purely acting by a true proper certain or undoubted power of the Church as the Church or as a Church onely For thus it is they must state the question and that they do questionless suppose it stated Though I confess
purpose Nothing but against oppressive taxes contrary to law and former customs and taxes too imposed by the Consuls only and Rectors of particular Cities Nothing in specie against even any such oppressive taxe tallies exactions collections laid or made by an absolute order law or constitution of the supream civil power or of Kings Emperours States who certainly are not understood by the names of Consuls and Rectors of Cities And however this of taxes of Clerks be nothing at all for the exemption of the persons of Clerks from the supream civil power in all other civil and criminal causes whatsoever which only is it we dispute of here Nothing besides but what was convenient for the Government of the people within the Popes own temporal Patrimony for which only the additions of Gregory were unless it pleased other Countreys and of themselves to receive his said additions Finally nothing but what the Pope Innocent might as justly have decreed in case he believed certainly that Clerks had their exemption whatever it be from the sole civil power as if he had believed they had it only from the Church or from himself or some other of his Predecessors in the See of Rome 3. For although cap. Ecclesia sanctae Mariae de constitutionibus be a meer papal constitution of Innocent the Third only and hath indeed an expression which imports some such thing as the exemption of Churches and of the persons too of Churchmen from the power of Laicks yet forasmuch as this expression is not specifical or not in specie relating to or comprising the very supream lay power it self but so generical only as these words which are the words there concerning this matter Nos attendentes quod laicis etiam religiosis super Ecclesiis personis Ecclesiasticis nulla sit attributa potestas and consequently forasmuch as these words may have a very true and rational sense notwithstanding the subjection still of the persons of Clerkes to the supream lay power because the civil laws or customs which prevailed at that time under Innocent the Third or which is the same thing because the Emperours themselves had given or permitted under themselves to the Church and Churchmen proper Ecclesiastical Judges for all their own both civil and criminal causes how ever still subordinat Judges in such causes to the Emperours and the same must be said of other Kings who had granted the like Ecclesiastical Judges and moreover forasmuch as this canon or chapter of Innocent is only a decision of a particular controversie in matter of a possession controverted betwixt a certain Church called here the Church of S. Mary and a certain Convent termed likewise in this canon the Convent of St. Sylvester which possession was adjudged by a certain lay judge called Senator against the said Convent without previous confession conviction or examination of the same Convent and those words above or meaning of them no part of that which was intended or decided by the Pope in this canon but assumed only and that also transiently as in part importing his reason or motive to remand that possession back to the said Convent and that we know the reasons motives or suppositions expressed in a sentence or canon are not therefore defined by the Pronouncer of the sentence or maker of the canon and further yet because those words neither distinguish nor determine by what authority or law that is whether by divine or humane civil or ecclesiastical authority or law it was so enacted that lay-men could have no power in the causes of Church-lands or Church-men and because too they say nothing at all of any Pope's having made such a law whether by a true or only pretended power as did incapacitat all kind of Laicks even the very supream civil Magistrate himself or indeed as much as the very subordinate inferiour lay Judges from having any judicial authority over Churchmen finally because those words of themselves take away no such authority from Laicks but only at most signifie the not being of such authority attributed to Laicks whatever those Laicks were and by what means soever it came to pass not to be attributed to them therefore it is plain enough this canon Ecclesia sanctae Mariae is to no purpose alledged for Bellarmin's voluit that is for the matter of Fact of any Pope's having done so or having exempted so by his own Power all Clerks from the jurisdiction of even supream lay Princes or even of having declared them so exempted by the law of God himself 4. That albeit also cap. seculares de foro competenti in Sexto and cap. Clericis de Immunitate Ecclesiar be two meer Papal canons as made by the sole authority of Boniface the VIII and although it be confessed this Pope did challenge all the both spiritual temporal power on earth in Church and State to himself alone as likewise consequently to his Predecessours and Successours in the See of Rome which his extravagant Vnam sanctam De Majoritate obedientia and his other proceedings against a King of France besides the later of these two canons here quoted the said cap. Clericis can prove abundantly yet I dare confidently averre that neither of these canons of his however otherwise too too exorbitant at least the later of them comes home enough to prove that any Pope hath de facto by his own meer Papal authority exempted Clerks in all civil and criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of Lay Princes or hath de facto as much as declared or defined that Clerks have been so or are so exempted by the law of God in such causes from the said supream power of temporal Princes That for the former canon seculares de foro competenti the case is clear enough out of the very words and whole tenour of it Which being but short I give here altogether not omitting one word Seenlares judices qui licet ipsis nulla competat jurisdicto in hac parte personas Ecclesiasticas ad soluendum debita super quibus coram eis contra ipsas earum exhibentur litterae vel probationes aliae indueuntur damnabili praesumptione compellunt a temeritate hujusmodi per locorum Ordinarios censura Ecclesiastica decerninus compescendos where you see first there is not one word directly or indirectly of criminal causes but only of a civil in matter of debt Nor secondly any specifical comprehension no nor any comprehension at all of Kings States or Princes but onely of those inferiour persons whose peculiar office it is to be judge twixt party and party Nor thirdly is there any word here declaring by whose law or authority that is whether by that of the Pope or that of the Church c. it came to pass that these very inferiour Lay Judges have no jurisdiction in hac parte in a civil cause of debt challenged on a Clerk or declaring how it came to pass that the proceeding judgment or determination
Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption by such his proceedings What therefore might be the cause of his desiring or accepting such a Bull if the story of it be true we may easily conteive to be of one side King Philips inexorable rigour I will not say cruelty first in excluding so many thousand religious and sacred men from all pardon and grace and next in pursuing and destroying them as irreconciliable enemies when he might have made them very tractable Subjects and on the other the Popes pretence of even the temporal Soveraignty or supream Lordship of the Country and Kingdom of Portugal as having been made tributary to the Church of Rome by Alphonsus the first Duke and King thereof according to Baronius ad annum Christi 1144. and the proceedings after of several Popes against some Kings of Portugal upon that ground by excommunicating and deposing some instituting others in their place and by exacting of them yearly at first agreed upon under Lucius the II. four ounces of Gold and after that four Marks of Gold under Alexander the IV. as an acknowledgement of his being the supream Lord of it or of its being held in Fee from the Bishops of Rome King Philip therefore to establish himself against the titles of so many other pretendents to that Crown thought it the safest way when he had done his work to make all sure with the Pope for after-times and get himself acknowledged King of Portugal even by him who pretended to be supream Lord of the Fee Though otherwise it be apparent also in Baronius that the Kings of Portugal did acknowledge so much dependence from the Kings of Castile as being bound to appear at their Court when called upon and give them three hundred Souldiers to serve against the Moors amounts unto But this could be no prejudice to a former independent and supream right of Popes to Portugal if there was any such especially whereas the same Barnius makes Castile it self feudatary to nay all Spain (a) Baron ad an Christiâ—â—â— â—01 〈◊〉 1703 the property of the of See Rome as likewise he doth in several places of his Annals all the Kingdoms of Christendome not even France (b) ad an 702. it self excepted And therefore nothing can be concluded from King Philips admission of this Bull but either his remorse of having abused that power God gave him over those religious men or used it in so much more like a Tyrant then a King unless peradventure he perswaded himself upon evident grounds they would never be true to him or his wariness in seeming so the more observant of the Pope in all things according to the maximes of Campanella while he drove at the universal Monarchy But however this be or not its plain enough out of his so publick refusal in the face of the Kingdoms of Portugal and Castile and in that publick Assembly of all the Estates amongst which the Ecclesiastical was the chief and out of his so long and severe prosecution and persecution of those Monks for three whole years till he destroyed them all and out also of the silence even by the Ecclesiasticks themselves of that argument of exemption when the occasion to alledge it was the greatest might be offered at any time and finally out of his receiving continually the most holy Sacraments of the Church all that time without any reprehension or objection made to him by the Church of so publick and so scandalous and so bloody and sacrilegious violation of her pretended nearest and dearest laws I say it is plain enough out of all that whatever the story be of that Bull or whatever the true or pretended motives of King Philip to accept of it neither his own Subjects of Spain or Portugal Clerks or Laicks nor those of other Churches or Kingdoms either Princes or people nor even the Prelats or Pope himself that was then did any way so regard the suppositions or even admonitions comminations nay or even actual censures of other Popes in their Bulla caenae or otherwise as to think perswade themselves that a true obliging canon or law either of God or Man of the State or Church or even as much as of the Pope himself could be concluded thence for any real or true exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power in criminal causes And so I have done with Bellarmines voluit As for his other saying above That hitherto only Hereticks have contradicted this kind of Exemption even this so extraordinary and extravagant exemption of all Clerks in all temporal causes whatsoever civil or criminal from the supream civil and coercive power I remit the Reader to the next following Section saving one where he shall see a farr other sort of Doctors then Hereticks to contradict it even Austins and Hieroms and Chrysostoms and Gregories nay the whole Catholick Church in all ages until these later and worser times wherein the contest was raised first and again renewed by some few Popes and their Partizans against the supream temporal power of Emperours Kings and States Only you are to take notice here Good Reader That 't is but too too familiar with our great Cardinal to make Hereticks only the opposers of such private or particular but false opinions or doctrines of his own as he would impose as the doctrines of the Catholick Church on his undiscerning Readers as on the other side to make the most notorious Arch-hereticks to be the patrons of such other doctrines as himself opposes and would fright his Readers from how well and clearly soever grounded in Scriptures Fathers Councils Reason Which is the very true genuine cause wherefore he gives us where he treats of such questions so exact a list of those chief and most notorious Hereticks who held against him on the point and gives them also in the very beginning of his chapter or controversie whatever it be As in this of Ecclesiastical Exemption besides what I have quoted now out of his book against Barclay cap. 35. he tells us l. de Cleric c. 28. First in general that very many Hereticks contend that all Clerks of what soever degree are de jure â—â—vin by the law of God or by the same law ought to be subject to the secular power both in paying tributes and in judicial proceedings or causes Secondly that Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno though Catholick Lawyers to Lodâ—uick of Bauer the Emperour but esteemed Hereticks by Bellarmine because some tenets of theirs were condemned by Iohn the XXII Pope of that name taught that not even our Sauiour himself was free from tribute and that what he did Mat. 17. when he payed the didrachme or tribute money he did not freely without any obligation to do so but necessarily that is to satisfie the obligation he had on him to do so Thirdly that Iâ—hn Calvin l. 4. Institut c. 11. Parag. 15. teaches that all Clerks ought to be subject to the laws and tribunals of secular Magistrats excepting
only such causes as are meerly Ecclesiastical That Peter Martyr in cap. 13. ad Roman not only teaches the very same but further adds that Princes could not give Clerks the priviledge to be exempt from or not to be subject to the politick Magistrats because sayes Martyr this would be against the law of God and therefore that notwithstanding any concessions of Princes Clerks ought alwayes to be subject to the secular Magistrats And that Ioannes Brentius in Prologamâ—nis and Melanchthon in locis cap. de Magistrat subject Ecclesiasticks to the secular Tribunals even in matters and causes Ecclesiastical But who is so weak as to be frighted from any truth because maintained also or asserted by some lyars Or who knows not that all both Hereticks and Arch-hereticks too joyn with the most orthodox in many both Philosophical and Theological Natural and Moral Divine and Humane positions and even in very many of the most precise uncontroverted revelations of Christian Faith Must it be suspected to be a Christian Truth that Jesus Christ is the Messias promised that he is the Son of God that there are three persons in the Godhead that there are some Sacraments of the new Testament that Christ was born of a Virgin that he suffered for Mankind that he shall come to judge the quick and the dead c. must I say any of these be suspected not to say rejected because Melanchthon or Brentius or Martyr or even Calvin himself or Luther beleeve and maintain them against other Hereticks If therefore they or any other such as they taught also this truth of Clergiemens not being exempt from but subject to the supream civil coercive power of Princes which only is it I undertake here to maintain must Bellarmine therefore think to fright us from saying the same thing although we say it not at all because they did And yet I must further tell the Readers and Admirers of Bellarmine although my task here require it not 1. That our Saviour himself by his non scandalizemus eos in Mat. 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether so free but that as the fulfiller of the old Law and Prophets and as the giver of a yet more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the di-drachma And that Marsilius de Padua or Ioannes de Ianduno were not condemned nor censured at all for saying that any pure man who was not together both God and man as our Saviour Christ was by the wonderful union of both natures or that any other besides our Lord or even for saying that Peter himself was not exempt from the supream temporal power in temporal matters 2. That if Calvin pretend no more but that Clerks ought to be subject in politick matters to the supream temporal Magistrate and where the same temporal doth not exempt them insomuch he speaks not his own sense but the sense he was formerly taught in the Catholick Church which yet in so many other points he unhappily deserted Thirdly That although if Martyr be understood also of inferiour Magistrats as I doubt not much he ought to be his addition be absolutely and simply false yet if understood of the supream onely as perhaps others may understand him and of Clerks living still as Subjects under any such temporal power supream and acknowledging and owning it for such and themselves for Subjects Martyr was not out by saying in this Hypothesis that Princes could not in secular matters exempt Clerks from the secular Magistrat vz. from the supream secular Fourthly That although also if Brentius and Melanchthon understood by causes Ecclesiastical those which are purely and originally such and not those which by custome onely or concession of Princes or because onely permitted or delegated by Princes or their laws to the cognizance of Ecclesiastical Judges are now and have been a long time called Ecclesiastical vz. per denominationem extrinsecam by an extrinsick denomination from such Ecclesiastical Judges not by any intrinsick assumed from the nature of the causes which in themselves otherwise are meerly civil or temporal as for example usury adultery theft committed in Sacred places or of Sacred things c I say that although if not this latter kind of Ecclesiastical causes but the former be understood by Melanchthon and Brentius and if they further mean'd that Clerks are to acquiesce finally in the judgment or determination of the temporal Magistrat in all such pure Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes it must be confessed their doctrine or this meaning of it is very false and heretical yet if they understood onely the second sort of Ecclesiastical causes and by secular Magistrats intended onely the supream secular it must be also confess'd that in so much they spoke orthodoxly Besides that none may upon rational grounds deny to Kings and other supream temporal Governours a certain kind of external and temporal or politick and civil superintendency even of the very truest and purest Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes of the Church such as are those of believing this or that to have been revealed by God of Ministring the Sacraments in this or that manner and with convenient or decent rites c. Provided they do not use nor attempt to use immediately by themselves or even mediately by others and by vertue of their own proper authority other means or execution of such superintendency but such means and execution as are meerly temporal and corporal or such as are answerable to the civil power and sword Which kind of superintendency and supream civil coercive judicatory power annexed and I mean also annexed in order to such spiritual causes no man will deny to Kings that will consider it is onely from their supream coercive power the Ministers of justice derive authority to put any man to death for Apostacy Infidelity or Heresy in Faith or doctrine or Sacriledg in the administration of Sacraments For it is not the Bishop or Church that by any power Episcopal or Church power adjudgeth any Clerk to death for denying or renouncing Christianity or any Priest for poysoning his communicant at the Sacred Altar or with a Sacred or unsacred hoast but the King and State and their laws and power So that these onely are still the supream Judges for temporal and corporal and civil punishment or coercion whether by death or otherwise and let the cause be never so spiritual or let the crime be committed in matters or things never so purely strictly or solely Ecclesiastical And therefore if Brentius and Melanchthon intend no more but this by saying that Ecclesiasticks were not exempt but subject even in causes Ecclesiastical to the supream civil power they both meand and sayed in so much but what the Catholick Church had taught them As if they meand any more that is if they meand to say that Ecclesiasticks
solum ad mundi regimen sed maxime ad Ecclesiae praesidiuâ— esse collatum At most therefore what is in this matter granted to the Church is that Ecclesiasticks be not by Princes proceeded against coercively to punishment if their transgression be onely or meerly Ecclesiastical and the punishment be corporal I say be not so and in such case punished corporally unless or until the Church do her own duty first by depositions or censures or both Except you always still such extraordinary cases wherein the Superiours of the Church should or would themselves also peradventure be too refractory or too contumacious against reason as guilty of the same crimes or for any causes whatsoever countenancing or favouring the criminal Clerks and therefore refusing to proceed at all or at least onely against them For when a degraded Clerk is given over to the secular Court he is not delivered so by the Church to the secular Magistrats as if the Church did mean or intend these Magistrats should proceed by vertue of a power derived from her or be the Ministers or executioners of her own sentence which if capital she hath no power no authority at all from God or man to pronounce or decree as if any other way it be purely civil or forcible at all corporally for example to corporal restraint or imprisonment she hath for so much all her power from man and from the civil laws onely but he is given over so by the Church as meaning and intending onely that such a criminal Clerk be thenceforward under the ordinary power of even the inferiour lay Magistrats and Judges and by such delivery or giving over signifying unto them that they may now proceed if they please and think fit either to absolve or condemn him For even Caelestinus III. himself a Pope of the later times confesses c. Non ab homine de judic that Ecclesiastical punishment is of a quite other nature then that which is lay and that the Church hath no kind of power or authority to inflict such punishments as are in their own nature lay punishments or which is the same thing that she hath no power no authority at all of her self as a Church to inflict any punishment but purely Ecclesiastical but suspension deposition excommunication the lesser and greater and finally degradation when the criminal Clerk is delivered over or left under the secular power let the crimes of such a Clerk be ever so great and ever too such pure lay crimes even perjury theft and murder c and even heightned also by incorrigibleness A nobis fuit ex parte tua quaesitum sayes the above Caelestine utrum liceat Regi vel alicut seculari personae judicare Clericos cujuscumque ordinis sive in furto sive homicidio vel periurio seu quibus cumque fuerint criminibus deprehensi Consultationi tuae taliter respondentus quod si Clericus in quocumque ordine constitutus in furto vel homicidio vel periurio seu alio crimine fuerit deprehensus legittime atque convictus ab Ecclesiastico Iudice deponendus est Qui si depositus incorrigibilis fuerit excommunicari debet deinde contumacia crescente anathematis mucrone feriri postmedum verò si in profundum malorum veniens contempserit cum Ecclesia non habeat ultra quid faciat ne possit esse ultra perditio plurimorâ—m per secularem comprimendus est potestatem ita quod ei deputetur exilium vel alia legittima paena Where you are to observe singularly as to our present purpose of distinction betwixt Ecclesiastical and secular punishment and of no power at all in the Church to inflict corporal secular civil or lay punishments what Caelestinus sayes in these words Cum Ecclesia non habeat ultra quid faciat As you are also to note that he answers not directly or rather indeed not at all to the main question whether the King or other secular powers could punish Clerks guilty of or manifestly deprehended in perjury theft or murder but declines that of the authority of Kings or of other secular powers acting of themselveâ— in such cases without relation to the desires of the Church that they should act so and onely prescribes to the Ecclesiastical superiours how they themselves are to proceed by degrees aâ— becomes them against such criminal Clerks For otherwise it hath been seen before and in the very laws of Iustinian submitted unto by the Church that in such criminal causes the civil Praetors proceeded immediately against Churchmen though execution of the sentence was suspended until degradation was by the Bishop And it hath been seen that in a very auncient Council of Bishops long before this Calestine the first of Matisconum I mean the cases of theft murder and malefice were still expresly and particularly supposed or rather declared to have no Ecclesiastical exemption but to be still under the cognizance of even the inferiour lay judges And reason it self and the necessary preservation of both State and Church tell us that Caelestine's answer here cannot be otherwise understood in all the formalities of it and as relateing to the power supream of Kings who acknowledg none but God above them in temporals and who recieve not or incorporat not by their own proper power and into their own civil law this canon of Caelestine in any other sense or any other Church canon at all either like or unlike to it exempting Clerks in such crimes and in the first Instance from their supream legal cognizance or even from that of their subordinat ordinary secular and lay judges For I confess that in such Kingdoms or temporal States if any such be wherein the Princes or people or civil Governours and civil laws or customs have recieved such Ecclesiastical canons for the exemption of Clerks in such crimes until such Ecclesiastical formalities had preceeded it is fitting they be obserued and ought to be observed while the civil laws which onely gave them force or a binding virtue remain unrepealed and if the litteral observation of them strike not at the very being or at least peaceable and well being of the Commonwealth But observed so that is by virtue of the civil reception and incorporation of them into the civil laws and by the civil power they make nothing at all against my main purpose or against that of those other canons I alledg for the power of Kings from God to punish delinquent Clergiemen with civil and corporal punishments where and when they shall upon rational grounds judg it necessary and expedient for the publick good of either Church or State and where and when it is not against the laws of the land that they punish them so either by themselves immediately or by their subordinat lay judges either extraordinary or ordinary The Bishops of Affrick acknowledging this power in temporal Princes write in this manner and stile to the Emperour Vt novellae praesumptionis scandalum quod adversus fidem nostram attentatum
miraculous power as that of Peter and Paul by prophecy and prayer in some other or in many other godly persons of the Church even such a miraculous power as may impetrat or may foretell the most corporal and deadly punishment on this or that wicked sinner But what hath this to do with that which is the coactive power of the Church this miraculous power may be in the most inferiour person of the Church in him that hath no kind of Church office or Church power at all and that coactive power is only in some chief Officers of the Church this is extraordinary and miraculous that ordinary and requiring no miracle this very contingent and for sometimes only and tyed to no certain sort of persons that absolutely and perpetually constant for all and in one certain degree of persons And therefore I may conclude again that no such corporal coaction nor any such coactive power of such corporal coaction is concluded or may be concluded by the second or last sort of Iohn the XXII's arguments as that is which is denyed by me or by any other Christian to be alwayes proper to and necessarily resident in the Church or as that is which is properly truly and simply called the coactive power of the Church And therefore also I may conclude further that the definition of Iohn the XXII against the fift and last Article of Marsilius and Iandunus concerns not my foresaid doctrine or my foresaid explications answers or digressions where I say that the Church of Christ as such purely hath neither temporal territory nor carnal or material sword or say the same thing in these other words that the Church as a Church hath no secular corporal or carnal power from Christ but from worldly Princes and States only to punish either corporally or civilly or that none at all from Christ to punish for example by imprisonment banishment death or by confiscation or deprivation of his temporal goods or rights or by any other corporal force or means can inflict any other kind of punishment against the criminal's own consent but that all her power as from Christ is purely spiritual and the means of executing such power must also be purely spiritual whether in the mean time the power it self or execution of it be miraculous or not miraculous and whether also the things prescrib'd or enjoyn'd be in their own nature purely spiritual or not For I confess the Church even as a pure Church only may and may by her own proper ordinary and perpetually constant Church power both prescribe and enjoyn or command strictly many things which are otherwise in their own nature purely civil temporal and corporal and that such commands oblige the spirit of man under sin when they are laid clave non errante that is when the laws of God or man or nature do otherwise require the performance of the same things either as a pure satisfaction to the vindicative justice of God for the fin committed or as a pure reparation or restitution to another man of his goods unjustly detained or as a remedy to prevent sin and that therefore the Church even as a pure Church may in some cases enjoyn also even corporal fastings watchings disciplines hair-cloathes pilgrimages c. and not only a real restitution of temporal goods illgotten or ill detained Nay and I alwayes confess that for whatsoever she can justly prescribe by her directive power spiritual she hath also an answerable coactive power spiritual even also in relation to such corporal injunctions or afflictions though she have not from Christ any corporal means allowed her of her own to force due obedience to such her either directive or coactive power but only in ordinary and to her Superiours only the spiritual means of pure Ecclesiastical or pure spiritual censures or of such as are no way civil censures and in extraordinary amongst her Prophets and wonder-working Saints the spiritual means of pure prayer and prophesie All which I am sure can be very true and infallible notwithstanding I allow this definition of Iohn the XXII against the fift Article of Marsilius and Iandunus to be absolutely true and infallible even this very definition It is false erroneous and heretical that the whole Church joyn'd together cannot punish by a coactive punishment even the most wicked person unless the Emperour grant them power to do so or punish that person so For the bare grammatical words of this definition as it lyes in it self or as they I mean the two words punitione coactiva lye in it and the theological sense too of them given by Iohn the XXII himself in other words in his Bull if this sense of those or these may be gathered from his arguments as and as I have noted before it must be in all reason admit very well of my construction being coactive punition whether in its own nature it be properly corporal or properly and only spiritual is a moral genus not only to that coactive punition which is properly and purely spiritual and to that which is properly and strictly corporal but to that also which is inflicted by means that are purely spiritual and to that which is not inflicted or put in execution by such means but by meer humane civil or corporal means and force and being the rule is generally allowed that such definitions and words in them are stricti juris and consequently not to be extended beyond that which the most ordinary strict signification of them and the materia subjecta and no prejudice to a third and in a word which a good sense requires quia odia sunt restringenda as the rule of the very canon law in Sexto is Yet if notwithstanding all this or all said hitherto upon this fift Article of Marsilius and Iandunus any will be still so unreasonably contentious as to fix rather a contrary sense that is a bad sense to the definition of Iohn the XXII against it I cannot help that otherwise then to oppose to Iohn the XXII and to such bad sense affixed to him the clear and good sense of another Pope even of Celestinus III. in the very canon law too cap. Non ab homine de Judiciis quoted by me at length in my former Section or in my LXXV Section and to oppose also the clear and good sense of even a general Council and that a late one too as being held after the dayes of Iohn the XXII I mean the Council of Constance where the Fathers Sess 15. speak thus Attento quod Ecclesia Dei non habet ultra quod agere valeat judicio seculari relinquere ipsum Curiae seculari relinquendum fore decernit which they speak in the case of Ioannes Huss after they had excommunicated and degraded him and lastly to oppose the very essential constitution of the Christian Church and of her Ecclesiastical Superiours as such And yet I must advertise my Readers that the very contrary bad sense of
where in the last place I dispute from Sect. lxi to this present lxxvi so clearly and prolixly against their fourth I have subverted by a most evident consequence all the very Fundamentals and not only the Superstructures of such a jus divinum in the Pope and not in the Pope only but in the universal Church as a Church which is yet far more than to subvert it in the Pope to depose Kings from their meer Temporal power And that whatever may be thought of my Disputes Sect. liv against their said second pretence of the binding and loosing power c. That is whether or no I have long and largely enough treated that matter in that place to clear all kind of Objections might be made in order to such a jus divinum in Pope or Church though I acknowledge none could be made with any reason yet I am sure if there was any such defect there I have elsewhere abundantly in effect compensated it in my prolix Disputes for sixteen Sections viz. from lxi to lxxvi against their fourth ground Where by so many unanswerable Arguments especially in Sect. lxxii and lxxiii I demonstrate the subjection de jure divino of all Clergymen whatsoever or whosoever and of the very Apostles themselves and by consequence of both Pope and universal Church as a pure Church to the Supreme Temporal power in Temporal matters For if de jure divino they were all both Pope and Church as such subjected entirely as at least to passive obedience in all Temporal matters to the Temporal powers respectively in the several Kingdoms or States Politick whether Christian or not Christian Catholick or not Catholick must it not follow evidently That there is no power de jure divino in either Pope or Church as purely such to depose Temporal Princes from their Temporal power Surely the inferiour wherein he is inferiour hath not power over his Superiour And if the very first glimmers of natural Reason doth not evidence this I know not what natural Reason is And if also the Arguments I have given Treating against the said fourth ground at large for the Affirmative that is for the subjection of Pope and Church as such in meer Temporals to the Supreme Temporal power of earthly and Lay Princes when and where the Princes are Lay-men or if the Solutions I have likewise given so at large to the Arguments for the contrary where I proceeded in a negative way denying the positions of Bellarmine if I say both my said Arguments and Answers be not clear and strong enough in the principles of both Reason and Christianity to maintain and prove all along That my very main purpose of a jus divinum to be for the subjection of both Pope and Church as such in meer Temporal matters to the Supreme Temporal Princes or States in the respective Kingdoms or Common-wealths of the world I confess my own ignorance of what is Reason or Christianity in any such or other matter soever Having so put a final period to all my Answers to the said four grounds of the Louain Censure of our Remonstrance what more according to my further promise or purpose in my lxxi Section must be the Subject of this present Section is first what ought to be consequent some brief reflections on the Censure it self and next the Conclusion which naturally must follow such reflections Concerning the former and seeing the Censure is in these words as you also may see by reading it over again Sect. xlvii or in page 102. of this same first Treatise and first part Quamvis Serenissimo c. quia tamen supradicta formula complectitur amplioris obedientiae promissionem quam possint Principes Seculares a Subditis suis Catholicis exigere an t Subditi ipsis praestare nonnulla insuper continet sincerae professioni Catholicae religionis repugnantia idcirco pro illicita prorsus ac detestabili habenda est Quapropter quicumque praefatam professionis formulam nondum signarunt cohibere se a signatura obligantur sub sacrilegii reatu quicumque autem signarunt refigere signaturas obstringuntur sub consimili reatu incauta namque definitio salubriter dissolvenda est nec ea dissolutio reputanda est praevaricatio sed temeritatis emendatio Ita post maturam deliberationem c. In English thus Albeit to the most Serene King of Britain and Ireland c. Yet forasmuch as the foresaid Form involves a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make unto them and that moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion therefore it must be held for wholly unlawful and detestable Which is the Reason That who ever have not yet subscribed the foresaid Form are under guilt of Sacriledge obliged to hold themselves from subscribing and that such as have already signed are bound under the same guilt to Revoke their signatures for an unwary definition must be wholsomely dissolved nor must such a dissolution be accounted any prevarication but an amendment of Rashness Thus have we after mature and frequent deliberation determined and decided at Louain c. Seeing I say the Censure is in this tenour now repeated and that although if we separate the precise or strict essentials only of this Censure from both the antecedent Suppositions and consequent Inferences altogether express'd as you see in those few lines we shall find the said precise and strict essentials of it to consist in these words only It must be held for wholly unlawful and detestable Yet forasmuch as the Faculty Theological of Louain who delivered their judgment so in this their short and second form of Censure would have us regard the whole tenour of their Paper or as well the premises which they suppose and express and the consequences which they infer as the said bare essentials of their absolute position Therefore you are to consider first That if we take altogether what they judge of it either formally or virtually and consequentially they judge our Remonstrance to be unlawful detestable sacrilegious and further yet to be either Heretical or Schismatical or both And that they judge it to be such for two Reasons which albeit they express yet they do not as much as attempt to prove but only suppose here The one is because it contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can require from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make unto them And the other is because moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of the Catholick Religion And truly that they judge it formally to be unlawful detestable and sacrilegious we see their own formal expressions for so much being that besides their formal adjectives unlawful and detestable as to the adjective or epithet sacrilegious we find it in their own formal substantive word Sacriledge where they judge that such as have already sign'd are bound under
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
defiled but certainly hold upon that matter in 〈◊〉 To be 〈◊〉 the Answers were 1. That it very ill â—â—ted with the profession of the followers of Christ and Successors of his Apostles and Disciples or the function of Priests of God and Preachers of Evangelical tâ—â—â—â— by their calling for any earthly regard or ambitious aim of titles or diguleies either 〈…〉 of the Church to decline the declaration of their conscience or of the doctrine of Christ whereby the stocks on people 〈◊〉 their charge or to whom they were sent might be sâ—â—â—dly and sufficiently instructed that to embrace 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 as prescribed by the law of God That besides they were altogether ouâ— in their way to those worldly and they proposed themselves with so little regard of their duty or conscience That the case was much altered 〈◊〉 that hath been these hundred years pasts And that if they expected a greater liberty they should withal expect a more arrow inspection from the Prince or State into their affairs and Government and to the persons amongst them advanced 〈◊〉 others and to the means and wayes of their advancement hereafter and their 〈◊〉 its consequently principles and faithfulness to the Crown 2. That 〈◊〉 of them as formerly had been so with â—unate and indeed most of them were so as to have been pactiâ—â—s in the Nunâ—â—o's and other annexed quarrels against the brights of the Crown 〈…〉 of the Kingdom had the 〈◊〉 reason now to be forward to embrace the opportunity given them of meâ—â—ing hereafter a better opinion and removing as well as they might out of His Majesties breast Lord Lieutenants and even out of all the rest of their fellow Subjects especially Protestants the jealousies and suspicions their former actions continue yet in them and must alwayes continue if they refuse to give so lawful and dutiful so catholick and conscientious an argument of their change and repentance as their subscription to the said Remonstrance must be reputed 3. That for those others of them who in the 〈…〉 him been honest and loyal all along they should 〈…〉 the fair hope they had of a â—ew 〈…〉 its a 〈…〉 then this for their further good 〈…〉 their profession and â—â—â—ingâ—ed 〈◊〉 of their 〈…〉 uniform in in their doctrine and life according to the law of God in all sentiâ—â—â— that Time servers nor Wealth â—â—ckâ— That besides they should confides the streight the King was in but with so 〈…〉 the impossibility of satisfying 〈…〉 happen in such a case that of this Countrey but why 〈…〉 That to the publick good and gâ—â—â— parts of the Kingdom 〈…〉 of particular could not be preferred That they 〈…〉 be of the necessities of the publick for disposition And if the King or now Laws did wrong any even of the best deserving of their friends their religion and their conscience and principles told them and their function or calling peculiarly they nor other Subjects had in such a case other remedy but prayers and tears and supplications to Him that can believe the oppressed when he please in this world and will certainly 〈…〉 in Christian patience in a better Finally that the liberty 〈◊〉 exercise of Religion and of indoctrinating the People in the wayes to heaten were the markâ— propâ—r 〈◊〉 them to shoâ— at and to this end they were called not to contend for partitions of earthly patrimonies And that where one Proprietor 〈◊〉 his â—and a thousand Catholicks would loose their souls if they would not pursue in 〈◊〉 even course the principles of the Religion and a good Conscience and by their concurrence wipe off the jealousies raised against and scandals aspersed on it by the doctrine and practises which that Remonstrance did condemn on disown 4. To those that had ingrafted in them an aversioâ— against all was called or reputed the Interest of the Crown of England in this Countrey it was seriously inculcated how unfortunate both themselves and predecessors had been therein during the revolâ—â—â—â—s and various attempts in prâ—secution thereof these 500 years past since Hâ—â—ty the 2d And how the principles and arguments they made use of to flatten themselves to some kind of â—â—â—â—fulness which indeed 〈◊〉 a pitiful and in point of conscienâ—â— were such as chose and no other then those which Father Charles 〈◊〉 Mahâ—n the Mâ—â—er Jesuit hath in his wicked Apology set out in Portugal however pretended to have been printed at Frandâ—fords and dispersed here amongst the Confederate though publickly burn'd by the hand of a hangman at Kilkenny and by the authority also of the said Confederate and against which the Proculator himself by the command of to then supream Council preach't nine Sermons five Sundays one after another in St. Kennys Church on that text of Jeremiah Quis est 〈◊〉 vobis sap â—â—siqui considerat hoc quare perierit terra Even such as would involve by consequence all Kingdoms and States in the whole earth whereinto my Forreigner ever enter'd as any time in perpetual war and blood shed Such as would beâ—â—â—ve of all right all conquering Nations let the causes of the invasion be never so just or continued-possession after be never so long and the submission of the conquer'd never so voluntary for what can appear to the eyes of man And such also as would arm even themselves who made use of such arguments one against another while the world did stand Nay and such too as being prest on by contrary arguments would make them confess consequently as indeed they did such of them as were ingenuous and freely spoke their minds to the Procurator urging them in point of reason that it were not a sin against the law of God for any to involve the whole Kingdom iâ— was again if he could to recover only for himself a small patrimony even of a much as twenty pounds a year whereof he had been in his own privat judgement dispossesâ—â—d unjustly in the late plantations made before the wars It was further laid open to such men how their sin entertaining such mâ—râ—â—â—es and harbouring such designs was by so much the more abominable before God and man by how much they were themselves Hypocritical in pretending only to others that knew them not a speciousness of Religion and that of the Church of God and interest of the Pope Then which or any of all which God knowes they intended nothing less but where it brought or could bring their other truly intended worke about 5. To the Regulars in general it was answer'd That they knew better their own strength and their own exemption and their own priviledges then so That they often engage against the whole body of the secular Clergie in matters wherein they are sure to offend them more and have more opposition from them and less support from others either in their own Country at home or abroad in forraign parts or even at Rome And they were sure enough the Pope would be wiser then to discountenance such a numerous body
confess that their both Constitutions and Oath if there be any such Oath of those amongst them them they call Masters of Divinity are only for maintaining the doctrine of St. Thomas of Aquine not as articles of Faith nor as the doctrine of the Church nor Dogmatically at all at least not out of their School Pulpits but only by way of Scholastical speculations and for sharpning of wits and shifting the truth problematically or probably in all such matters wherein the Scripture or Tradition was not clear and certain and still only within the Schools That otherwise the whole Order of the Franciscans and all the other Schools of Scotists who maintain as stiffly and are alike by their Constitutions bound to maintain against St. Thomas the Thomists all the speculations all the subtleties of the Subtile Doctor Scotus who writ ex professo against all or almost all even every individual position of St. Thomas as well in his Divinity as Philosophy where the matter is not certain otherwise by Scripture or Tradition were to be condemned by them Which yet they will not dare in point of morallity prudence and conscience That moreover it is manifest St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs for any of his Theological opinons then for this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes on pretence or because of Infidelity Apostacy Schisme Heresy where he determines it so in his Theological Sum. 2. 2. q. x. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. And that he relyes for proof of so weighty an Assertion first on a reason that would not move the meerest novice in Divinity Quia fideles sayes he merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios lucis Supra q. 10. ar 10. in corp Which yet is the only reason this great Holy Doctor brings to prove that a very infidel Prince who was never Baptized may be deposed by the Church Secondly for proof of that same Assertion as relating specially to an Apostat Heretick or Schysmatick Prince that was Baptized relyes onely and wholy on the bare judgment and practise of Gregory the VII otherwise called Pope Hildebrand or on that Canon made by this Pope which you may find in Gratian. 15. q. 6. cap. Nos Sanctorum That as it is therefore manifest that St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs of any of his Theological Assertions then of this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes as the Reader may see partly in the Latin notes which follow this Paragraph for the rest satisfie himself at large in Father Caro'ns Remonstrantia Hibernorum so it is no less manifest that generally where the Thomists find in any other positions of this Angelical Doctor and those too of infinite less concern insuperable difficulties they decline him there expound him or his mind by some other place of his workes where he held the contrary or perhaps retracted considerately what he had before unadvisedly handled by the example of St. Austin himself in his books of Retractation And so those Irish Fathers might if they pleased have declined in this matter St. Thomas in his said Sum and expounded St. Thomas there by following St. Thomas where he holds by plain consequence of reason the contrary in his exposition of St. Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians That they could not deny but that notwithstanding all their Constitutions and Oathes whatsoever they all now generally and confessedly and without any exposition or interpretation of one place by an other decline St. Thomas of Aquin even in that matter wherein their whole Order these full 300 years found themselves most concern'd of any in point of reputation at least to follow defend him that is in the dispute of the Blessed Virgins conception without original sin Nor can deny this matter to have come within these late years to that height in Spain even where they are in such esteem that the very Provincial of their Order in the Kingdom or Province of Castile was confined to Penna de Francia by orders from the King until he subscribed under his hand against that opinion of St. Thomas in this matter and consequently acknowledged so the Blessed Virgin conceaved without original sin against the confessed doctrine of St. Thomas and against the letter of his Constitutions and verbal tenour of his Oath as a Master And yet he was not so commanded by any decrees of the Church which as it is well known hath never yet decided that question And yet also that question of the Blessed Virgin is no less known to be of infinite less consequence to the Peace or Settlement of either Church or State for the owning or disowning of either the affirmative or negative resolution and for a subscription to either than ours of the Remonstrance of our indispensable loyaltie in Temporal things to the Supream Magistrate and our lawful and rightful King Finally that St. Thomas of Aquin's Scholastical assertion whatever it be or a Statute in an Order to teach such or such a doctrine or Oath of some few members of such an Order how learned religious or eminent soever that Order be is a very bad plea at least in such a matter as ours against ten thousand other Holy and eminent Fathers Doctors Prelates in all Countreys and ages of the Church against so many express clear passages of Holy Scriptures against the universal tradition of all Christians till Gregory the VII days about the Xth. age of Christianity and against the greatest evidence of both natural reason and of hundreds too of Theological arguments the first grounds of Christianity being once admitted Quâ—niâ—â—â— autem singula persequimur admonere oportet D. Thomam alicubi in ea opinione esse ut existimet ius dominii praelationis Ethnicorum Principum justè illis auferri posse 22. q 10. art 10. per sententiam vel ordinationem Ecclesiae authoritatem Dei habentis vt ille ait D. Thomae magna apud me authoritas est sed non tanta ut omnes ejus disputationes pro Canonicis Scripturis habeam vel ut rationem vincat aut legem Ejus ego Manes veneror doctrinam suspicio Sed non est tamen cur illa ejus opinione aliquis moveatur tum quia nullam suae sententiae vel rationem idoneam efficacem vel authoritatem profert tum etiam quia in explicatione epistolae Pauli ad Corinth 1. contrarium planè sentit tum denique quia neminem secum antiquorum Patrum consentientem habet Cap. 6. rationes multae authoritatesque in contrarium supperunt Ratio autem quam adfert est quia infideles merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios Dei Mala ratio tanto viro indigna quasi verò si quis meretur privari officio beneficio
hereafter and had already the Roman Courtiers would not did not except against the words but sense And that however if they would insist only on the words not sense and that they would choose rather not to speak English with the Catholicks of England and those too of their own Clergy Nobility and Gentry who subscribed their sense in such a form of words the Procurator doubted not to prevail with His Grace so far as a condescension to or permission of their wording their own sense would amount unto provided this came home to the same thing or sense of the former Which yet he feared nay saw clearly it would not As he was certainly perswaded by many arguments they intended alwayes to decline the question of right or authority or power either divine or humane in the Pope to depose the King or dispense with or absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance but only at most and at best to engage themselves to be true to the King whether the Pope had any such or no and without mentioning any thing at all of that pretence or declining it otherwise expresly or tacitly Wherein the Procurator was not deceived as shall hereafter in its proper place appear 15. To that of the Kings or Lord Lieutenants desire of their subscription as yet not appearing to them it was answered they had many sufficient arguments publick and notorious for a whole twelve-month pass'd of His Majesties and Lieutenants both being very well pleased with what was done and very desirous of what was not yet done That both very graciously accepted of their subscriptions who had given the first example both of Clergy Nobility and Gentry and no less concernedly expected the concurrence of the rest That it was unreasonable in them to stand upon the Kings or his Lieutenants desiring them to petition or make other necessary or expedient application in their own proper concerns That they could not be ignorant the laws required from them under great penalties other kinds of Declarations and Oathes besides which the King or his Ministers would not think it reasonable to urge them to any but withal such as they know the Oathes of Supremacy and that of Allegiance in the Statute of King Iames were Oathes which they would a thousand times more hardly digest and that they should think themselves happy to be esteemed and accounted hereafter loyal Subjects by not expecting the Kings desire much less command but by offering of themselves in lieu of those such a Declaration as they might subscribe without scruple And yet notwithstanding he could assure them that for a greater conviction of their inexcusable delayes and beating them from this retreat also and for discovering their intentions clearly before the face of the Sun they should see ere long under his Graces own proper hand-writing if nothing else would serve what without any ground left to reply would clear this objection Which as hereafter will appear they did both see and read too themselves with their own eyes in the original writing 16. For their put off to a general meeting of the whole Clergy of the Nation both Secular and Regular or of Representatives out of every Diocess and Order They were minded first of the issue of all such ever since 41. and more especially of that of 42. at Kilkenny where the General Confederacy was first established as by common and authoritative consent however most of them were thereto necessitated by the Proclamations and other severe proceedings at Dublin but singularly above all of the Congregation at Waterford against the Peace of 46. and of that other at Jamestown against the Peace of 48. And they were told those had given little encouragment to the Lord Lieutenant to licence or connive at any such National meeting until he had first some better arguments of their being changed in their principles and affections then they had given yet by so many long demurs and so many unreasonable reasons pretences and excuses and so much unwillingness reluctancy and opposition to a bare Declaration of their loyal resolutions for after-times That hence it might be rationally gathered they desired such a meeting of purpose only to oppose hereafter with the greater authority or colour of it that profession of their duty That without asking the Lord Lieutenants licence permission or connivence they met frequently in Diocesan Synods and Provincial Chapters to determine those things which themselves had a mind to and no way related to any thing would please either His Majesty or State or to the publick peace of the Country or security thereof nay sent from one Diocess and one Province to another to consult and determine the means of opposing such a duty or profession of it And so they might for a good end with less danger at least nay without any at all if they were so minded convene securely without acquainting His Grace at least without insisting on a pasport or safe conduct or other licence or permission under his hand as they unreasonably demanded In a word that this pretence and resolution of theirs of not signing that Instrument or other such without such a meeting was in the consequence thereof the most dangerous and pernicious they could alleadge or entertain being already as they were all generally satisfied of the lawfulness or Catholickness of the profession expected For what could be more dangerous in any Kingdom or State or human Society of a body politick of any people Civil or Ecclesiastick then that they would put the profession of their Allegiance to votes and would not therein or thereof determine any thing but at the pleasure of their fellow Subjects how averse soever to the State or King and to the laws even the most necessary and just in temporal affairs or what more dangerous then that there should be by necessary consequence as many Kings or Supream commanders of Allegiance of a people in a Kingdom as there are amongst the Secular Clergy Arch-bishops Bishops or Vicars Apostolick or General ruling the Parish Priests respectively subordinate to them And amongst the Regular Clergy as many such as there are Provincial Superiours who command their Priours Guardians Rectours likewise respectively subordinate nay as many too as there are such Local Superiours commanding those under their immediat direction And yet that being met alltogether every one must depend of every one in resolving whether he wil be a true Subject to his Prince or State from which he expects protection and to which by the laws of God and man he should own subjection That for these reasons and to prevent further inconvenience and obstruct all those jealousies and suspicions which a National Congregation insisted on or a licence permission or connivence to convene so insisted upon would certainly raise they would much better decline the thoughts of any such or other whatsoever meetings or dependencies one from another but from their own conscience and knowledge of both the expediency and necessity of
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
had no power in any contingency whatsoever to excommunicate him for continuing so in his loyalty Because that otherwise he binds himself against his own conscience to oppose a lawful power lawfully acting in some case which may possibly happen That on the other side if they did not mean really and conscientiously and sufficiently too as to the form of words to declare and oblige themselves as to matter of fact or in all contingencies whatsoever to to be loyal to the King notwithstanding any sentence of deposition excommunication or other declaration whatsoever c. then it was to no kind of purpose for the King or his Lieutenant to receive any Form at all from them That it should be argument enough to any States-men or other persons whatsoever of even but ordinary understanding that their meaning was not good just or honest if they pursued their design of leaving some starting holes for themselves or others as they had hitherto in in their several forms That finally no man that knew any thing of their School-divinity especially concerning the Popes infallibility and their maximes of extrinsecal probability was so blind as not to see their purpose in declining a declaration and protestation against the matter of right and that it was to no other then to have a sufficient reserve for themselves before the world in case his Holiness should point-blanck determine definitively for himself that question of right and upon that account condemn the printed Remonstrance of 61. and to no other at all then that they might be able then to speak confidently they had therefore even upon the contradictory question denied to declare against any such pretended power in his Holiness and to say consequently that now his Holiness having defined that power to be in himself and pursuant thereunto deposed the King or excommunicated his people for obeying him they also were quit of all obligation by any Remonstrance of their own which therefore they framed so as not to oblige them by its tenour in such a case But all these reasons were lost on the Fathers nay even on him that had as the Procurator thought very sincerely and faithfully promised so often to subscribe even the Remonstrance of 61. in terminis nay and after he had not only heard from the Duke 's own mouth so much of His Graces earnestness in that business but seen moreover within a while after His Graces Letter written all by his own hand to the Procurator on that subject which Letter I shall give presently upon another occasion XXXVIII This ill advised carriadge and strange obstinacy of those Fathers did not a little perplex and grieve the Procuratour both in respect of themselves and himself and the cause too For he had a particular kindness to some of them nay to their whole Order generally in Ireland for the great communication intimacy and frendship formerly betwixt their leading men and him at Kilkenny in the controversies of the Confederats and Lord Nuncio Which he manifested sufficiently in his panegyrick of St. Ignatius their Founder delivered by him in their Chappel in that town and at their own instance in the year 48. And therefore he was now so much concern'd in them for their own sakes because he foresaw that if they would pursue this obstinate resolution it would in time reflect heavily upon them all in Ireland and confirm those that managed the State there in as great prejudices as those were held generally in England these fourscore years against the Fathers of the Society in particular For his own too he was so much concern'd because when the Remonstrance was first at London graciously received by His Majesty and consequently not doubted of to prove in time by the subscription of it very instrumental to prevaile with His Majestie for some ease and some quiet and protection to the subscribers and when notwithstanding some talke was there about some Jesuits opposeing a great Minister of State bid the Procuratour not to trouble himself at all with any thoughts of perswading the Jesuits to it because said he of the wicked and perfidious principles of that Order generally in their Morals being such as they elude all tyes and duties and so elude such that there is no faith to be given to their subscriptions and because that notwithstanding so great prejudices against them yet the Procuratour singled out the carriadge and represented it of those in Ireland whereof he told the experiences he had from that was said to be of the Fathers of that Society in England in former or later times and hereby perswaded that Illustrious person to hope better of the Irish Fathers and lay all prejudices aside for some time against them until he had seen the issue For the cause in hand also because he foresaw what influence this example of their however unreasonable obstinate carriadge would have on the rest of the Dublin both Regular and Secular Clergiemen and these and those both joyntly and severally on all the rest of the Kingdom not that the Iesuits in Ireland have any thing singular in them either for number or learning being in both inferiour at present to several other Orders even of the Irish Religious men but for the repute of wariness had of them and for their more frequent correspondencies with their General at Rome to which they are tyed above all other Religions and for the great power their General is supposed to have with His Holines and consequently for the dependence many of the Irish Clergie who pretend at Rome have of the Fathers here who transmit their letters and recommend their pretensions XXXIX In January following 42. or 43. according the several stiles of England and Rome the Procuratour together with Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and Father Anthony Gearnâ—n of the same Order went to Multifernan in Westmeath and mett there with the very principal heads of the whole intrigue against the Remonstrance who came thether also from several parts of purpose to meet him These were Father Anthony Docharty then actually Minister Provincial of the Franciscans throughout the Kingdom Thomas Makiernan Brian Mac Egan Bonaventure Mellaghlin all three formerly since the troubles of Ireland begun haveing by succession borne at several times the same Office and Peter Gennor then Guardian of that place and Definitor Father Francis Ferral who was of late also Provincial of that Order and most earnest against the Remonstrance and as leading as any they had if not more and their chief Divine and should have been of that meeting came not because of a fit of the gout sorely upon him But as being within 8 miles to them they had his advice and mind These having been the men that lead all the dance and not of late in this matter only but many years before in all other affairs who had sent an express Agent over Seas to get the Remonstrance condemn'd at Rome and by forreign Vniversities
do not say not to reveal such fatal plots conspiracies or treasons without revealing the Confitent himself against the person of the Prince and the whole fabrick of the Commonwealth and by consequence ordinarily against so many millions of innocent harmless people without possibility or at least moral probability of seeing the end of the evils and general calamities arising thence but I say do not as much as tye them not to reveal the very person of the penitent or the confitent himself if the case be such or may be such though it can hardly ever be such that the design cannot by human industry be otherwise prevented For I am sure that neither that Canon of the Lateran Council nor any other of the Church doth reach this case As I am certain that all Divines will confess the Church can make no Canon hereafter to reach it if there be no former antecedent express or tacit rule for it in the law of God or nature And I am no less certain that until yesterday come back again neither the Doctors of Lovain nor any other in the world can ever demonstrate or prove any such antecedent rule either of natural reason or of Scripture or Tradition LVII As for the saying of some otherwise peradventure good Casuists or Canonists or even the croud of never so many of the later but worser Schoolmen who should valew them when they bring nothing to make their placits good no Scripture no Tradition no Fathers no Councils no reason at all that would take with a rational knowing pious man but on the contrary produce only their own ill grounded opinions and a world sometimes of barbarous names of Authors such as many of their own are even against the clear dictates of the law of God and nature against all virtue and piety and against all true Religion and even against the very first principles of reason I would very fain know of these Gentlemen these excellent Moralists who must needs dilate themselves on Metaphisical suppositions to shew forsooth their blind zeal for a meer fiction of a seal which neither God approved nor the Church ever commanded or allowed in our case what will godly pious understanding men Judge of them what will any good Christian Commonwealthsmen think of their foolish imagination of a very and truly not only unsacramental but also unnatural seal in a case proposed thus All the Catholick Princes and States of Europe and oâ— all other parts of the world professing Catholick Religion or enjoying the Roman Communion and all the power they can raise of horse and foot even two or three or four million more or less of men are in one field or one country joyn'd and amass'd together and the Emp. Kings of Spain France Poland Portugal c. and the very Pope with all the Court of Rome in the head of all against also all the contrary power of the habitable earth Hereticks and Jews Mahumetans and other Infidels and as well the Lutherans and Caluinsts and all the huge variety of other Sects both in the Greek and Latin Church as the Turk Tartar Persian Moore and Indian the Chinese and all the wild people of America and even those of the Terra australis incognita joyn'd also together in one body to ruine utterly the Catholick Church of Christ and raze it from the very face of the earth They are ready on both sides to joyn battle or as many battles as you please and to put all to a fatal hazard and let the resolution be so too that it is absolutely fixed upon by both sides and every individual of each side never to flye never to take quarter win all or loose all to kill or to be killed In this conjuncture suppose a Christian a Roman Catholick by name education profession and by inward belief too goes to confession to a Priest tells him of such a plot or yet a farre worse and incomparably more dangerous then that of Count Iulian against Roderico the Spanish King in that fatal battle wherein the Moores conquered Spain of some other discontented wicked Catholicks and whether himself had or had not a â—and therein it matters not that out of a divelish passion against the chief Commanders especially the Pope himself for some private quarrel had so devoted so resigned themselves over to the Divils power and to infernal revenge that they have contrived such a plot and are now ready for execution of it as will inevitably ruine all this Christian Catholick power deliver them up to their enemies and even bring to a most cruel slaughter all and singular the individuals of this never so vast army of the Roman Faith or Religion and in the first place the Pope himself and all his Cardinals and Court and all other Churchmen of the Roman City or Diocess and after all bring this â—ame holy City and Diocess and even all the temporal Patrimony of St. Peter within or without it to be plough'd up and sowed with salt to the end it may never again be inhabited as some conquerors are read to have done to some â—ebellions or enemy Cities But withall this penitent or this confitent when he reveals this so fatal conspiracy to the Priest is so possess'd suddenly by the Divels suggestion that notwithstanding any exhortations of the Priest he will not promise that himself will reveal it to those concern'd nor licence the said confessor to reveal it nor yet will tell him the persons time or place or manner of the execution of it whereby it might be prevented by the confessors giving a general notice only either in secret or in publick to the Pope or other King or General or person of the army and yet withal hath told so much and in such a manner that the confessor is and ought to be thereby absolutely perswaded of the truth of such and so unspeakably enormous conspiracy In such a case as this though a case that will never be yet because so many of our honest Casuists and famed Theologues and so great a croud of them too bring it or the like or yet a farre worse to a supposition because they suppose even the both temporal and spiritual destruction and even eternal damnation of all the World I demand what will truly pious understanding christian Commonwealthsmen or Divines that examine soberly and from its origin the true nature and the true ends of Sacramental confession or Sacramental secrecy or seal under which it is to be kept by the confessor and withal consider all the both general and particular most express and most indispensable tyes of the laws of God and man and nature of the laws of charity justice and loyalty and all the duties not of a Christian Subject only but of a man what I say will such other conscientious rational Commonwealthsmen or Divines think of their doctrine that maintain in such a case the lawfulness of quitting utterly all these duties or of reputing them no duties
this great Prince And so we are at least throughly quitt even for matter of example And so I have also done with my sixth and last of all those considerations or of all those points on which I have said before in the beginning of my animadversions of or answers to the third ground of the Censure it had much better become our masters of Lovaine Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and so judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to reflect seriously before they had precipitated so temerariously and injuriously and even erroneously to boot to censure that Remonstrance of 61. on this ground of its pretended promise or tye on Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession The nullity and falsity of which pretence or ground although I knew that my very first consideration of all the six had sufficiently evinced yet I would ex superabundanti and to clear this matter in all particulars and to instruct others more fully give all the rest albeit unnecessary amongst men of reason to vindicate in this behalf or any other that Remonstrance LX. I onely to end all whatever I intended to say on this occasion further add it is a confirmation of what I have said before in my first consideration that if our sticklers at home for the Lovaine Censure in this behalf or if the opposers of the said Remonstrance of 61. on account of obliging Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession will continue still their malicious clamours against it on this account finding all other accounts to stand them in no stead though I be sure they find this very same to stand them in as little as any of all they must confess themselves consequently obliged to clamour no less nay more against the Remonstrance of 66. whereof hereafter I will treat at large even that of the Dublin Congregation of that year even that of the general Representatives of the whole Clergie of Ireland even that of their Archbishops Bishops Provincials Vicars general Divines altogether For if the former of 61. be quarreld at for expressing onely the readiness of the subscribers of it to reveal c. and for expressing such readiness without any express engagement or any at all in other express tearms then these two words being ready words of their own proper strict signification not engageing at all the subscribers to reveal or that they will discover actually but at most a present preparation or disposition of mind to discover c certainly this passage of the Remonstrance of 66. wherein there is an express engagement or one in express words that they will or shall discover c. must be in reason as much at least if not more quarreld at on that account Wherefore pursuant c. we do engage our selves to discover unto your Majesty or some of your Ministers any attempt of that kind rebellion or conspiracy against your Majesties person Crown or Royal authority that comes to our knowledge For here is the same general notion of knowledge without any express distinction of it without any express reservation or exception of that knowledge which is had in confession as indeed there should not be any either express or tacit thereof more then is in the former Remonstrance of 61. LXI To the fourth and last ground of that Censure of Lovaine against this Remonstrance of 61 their pretence of its renouncing Ecclesiastical Immunity or of subjecting Clergiemen against Ecclesiastical Immunity to the cognizance and punishment of the civil Magistrate The Procurator and other subscribers answer'd 1. That there is not a syllable in that Remonstrance which may seem to any man of reason to say either formally or virtually expresly or tacitly That Churchmen have not or ought not to have either by the laws of man civil or Ecclesiastical or by the laws of God positive or natural any such immunity or exemption either for their goods or persons from the cognizance or punishment of the subordinate inferiour civil Courts Magistrates or Judges I mean any such immunity or exemption as the Catholick Faith or Catholick Church teacheth as out of Scripture or out of Tradition or even as by virtue of any canon or custome obliging as much as the very Churchmen to assert or maintain it or not to renounce or disacknowledge it not even in some cases or some Countreys where the civil or municipal laws are contrary to such canon or such custome as for example England and Ireland where this last century of years the laws and customs are known to be so much altered from that they perhaps have formerly been in this matter That the acknowledgment of the King to be our King and our supream Lord too or the acknowledgment of his absolute independent supremacy in all temporals within his own Dominions concluds neither formally nor virtually a disacknowledgment or even the least renunciation of any kind of real true pro-per Ecclesiastical Immunity acknowledg'd by other parts or people or Churches or Churchmen in the world even in the most Catholick Countries No more certainly then doth the like acknowledgment known to be made by word and by writing by all Catholick French Spanish Venetian German c Clergiemen to their own respective Kings Emperours States conclude that they disacknowledg or renounce thereby or by any other means that which they call or acknowledg to be Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption amongst themselves That as little doth the acknowledging our selves bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of His Majesties Subjects and as the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require at our hands that I say as little doth this acknowledging such obligation draw along with it by either formal or virtual consequence our disacknowledging or renouncing our right or pretence to any true real or proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption If we have indeed or can have or ought to have any such right or pretence of right in the case For such obligation and such acknowledgment of it can and does very well consist evermore with a challenge or claim to all kinds of true and proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption whether that challenge or claim be well or ill grounded in the case being it is very well known that other His Majesties Subjects are not bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty by an active obedience always not even in all civil and temporal affairs but either by an active or passive only And being it is no less known that the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require no more at their hands even in all civil and temporal affairs then to be so obedient as either to do that freely which they prescribe or patiently and without resistance to abide the penalties of the same laws and of His majesties pleasure And being moreover it is evident of it self that a Priest can without making any resistance patiently christianly
nay and meritoriously too abide the sentence of death even in prima instantia from a Judge of Assize according to the laws of England or Ireland or both and the Execution of it and even at the same time acknowledge himself bound under pain of sin to abide this sentence and this execution patiently and christianly without resistance and yet at the same time also challenge the priviledge of the Canons or at least not renounce the priviledge of the Canons and even of such as he really conceives to be obliging Canons whether groundedly or ungroundedly he conceives or alledges such Canons it matters not to our purpose or that he may at the same time also alledge and the case may be such that he may truly too alleadge that he is proceeded against unjustly both by the Inferiour supream Judge both against the legally established received unrepealed obliging Canons of the Church and the uncontroverted clear just and wholsome laws of the State And therefore it is no less evident that there can be no inconsistency no contradiction at all betwixt a Priests acknowledging the duty of such an obedience and his challenging alwaye nevertheless a right not to be proceeded against by such a sentence That our further declaring in the said Remonstrance That notwithstanding any sentence of excommunication deposition c. we will alwayes be true obedient faithful Subjects to the King that we renounce all forreign power spiritual or temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to absolve us from us Allegiance or dispense with us therein or give us leave to raise tumults bear arms c. against his Majesty or Laws That we bold the doctrine impious and renounce â—t as such which teacheth that any Subject may murder the anointed of God his Prince though of a different Religion from his That we acknowledge all supream temporal Princes to be Gods Lieutenants on earth or in their Dominions and obedience due to them respectively in all civil and temporal affairs by their own Subjects That finally we protest against all contrary doctrines and practices That I say our further declaring any or all these particulars together doth not either formally or virtually or expresly or tacitly draw with it our declaring against or our disacknowledging renouncing declining or quitting the Exemption or Ecclesiastical immunity of Clerks either as to their Persons or as much as to their Goods if by this Exemption or Immunity that be understood as it ought certainly which all Catholick States Kingdoms Nations Councils Parliaments People Divines Universities Bishops Clerks and consequently Churches do understand in France Spain Germany Italy Venice Poland c. For the truth of all and every such declaration and obligation consequent may and doth very well stand in their opinion and according to their practice with such Exemption being they all hold this Exemption to be not independently from the soveraign power of the Princes or States or of their Laws but with dependance alway in relation to that soveraignty or supream Majesty from the inferiour Judicatures and in such cases only whether civil or criminal as are priviledged and only too in prima instantia or at most in so many other instances as will not require manifestly or by manifest necessity an appeal or recourse to the Prince or State civil or pollitick â gravamine or the interposition of the Prince's or States supream power in the case without any such appeal or recourse of either Plantiff or Defendant but ex officio where the Prince or State see a manifest necessity of such interposition as the case may be very well as it hath often been that the Ecclesiastical Judges are themselves involved in the same crime for example in treason or sedition and therefore will not punish the criminals accused before them but rather encourage them as much as they dare That moreover as it appears manifestly out of all the foresaid passages either separatly or collectively taken there is not from the first word to the last of the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance not I say any passage at all any word or syllable in that whole Declaration being these I have given are all it contains of any matter soever that may be formally or virtually expresly or tacitly directly or indirectly understood by any rational impartial man to dis-acknowledge or declare against Immunity Ecclesiastical or the Exemption of Clergy-mens either Persons or Goods as this Exemption is allowed or approved by the Catholick World or Church or as by either understood so it appears no less manifestly that in the petitionary address which immediatly follows the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance and of principles belonging to such Allegiance there is neither as much as one word which may import to an impartial understanding Reader or to any that is not clouded by ignorance or byassed by malice any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such immunity or exemption And that if in this petitionary address there be nothing to this purpose or any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption it must be and is confess'd by the very most scrupulous or most invidious Adversaries there can be none at all in all or any part of that Remonstrance or in that whole Instrument entituled The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland To prove this last conditional assertion I need not add any thing more to what I have said already or observed in considering all the several distinct parts of the Act of Recognition in it self and other declarations following therein and to what moreover I have presently hinted of the confession of our most carping Adversaries but only this one advertisement more to the Reader whereof himself by reading only over that whole Instrument can be Judge that nothing else is contained in the paper but a bare Remonstrance of grievances persecution odium c. which no man ever yet quarrel'd against as pretending therein a ground for this fourth Exception or any other whatsoever What remains therefore to be cleared is the petitionary address of that paper as that indeed against which for ought I heard from the Dissentors themselves or any of them all their quarrel is on this pretence of quitting Ecclesiastical Immunity and subjecting Clergy-men to Lay Judicatories or to Secular Courts in criminal causes But how justly or unjustly be you Judge good Reader when you have considered the words sense and scope of that Petition so often returned for answer to this invidious Exception The words and whole tenor of that perclosing Address are these and no other These being the tenets of our Religion in point of Loyalty and submission to your Majesties commands and our dependance of the See of Rome no way intrenching on that perfect obedience which by our birth by all laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to
or body at pleasure according to the end this rational commandress hath prefixed to her self and on the other side we see that the flesh hath no empire no command over the spirit nor can direct or judge or restrain it in any thing Ergo sayes Bellarmine a paritate it must follow or be That in the same wise the Ecclesiastical power which is spiritual and therefore naturally superiour to the secular may when it is necessary direct judge and restrain or use coercion towards the civil power but never be it self directed judged or restrained by the secular Third argument thus As well in holy Scripture and other writings of holy Fathers as by the common custom of Christians Priests are adorned with the names or titles of Fathers and Pastors But nature teacheth that children are bound to obey their parents and willingly abide correction from them but never to think that they on the other side may themselves command correct or judge their parents And much more doth the same nature teach that sheep are directed and govern'd by their Pastours and when they straye are by the whistle or stick of their Pastors reduced again into their right way and pasture Which is so true that it would be plainly against nature that a sheep should direct or govern her Pastour Fourth argument thus Ecclesiastical persons are the Ministers of God consecrated for his onely service and for this very purpose offered by all the people to God Whence it is that they are called Clerici or Clerks from the greek word Cleros that signifies a lot as if by that name of theirs it were given us to understand that they belong specially to the lot of our Lord Which St. Hierom teacheth in his Epistle to Nepotianus But certainly in such things as are offered and consecrated to God and so in some wise made as if they were the property or peculiar of God no secular Princes can have any right Which both the light of reason doth shew and God himself delivers not obscurely in holy Scripture where he sayes in the last of Leviticus Quicquid semel Deo fuerit consecratum sanctum sanctorum erit Domino Fift and last argument thus God hath not seldom punished miraculously the prophaners of Churches and such as presumed to violate the immunities or privileges granted to sacred places Whereof much may be read with Tilmannus Bredenbachius l. 5. sacrarum collationum But that is a very notable testimony which is read of Basilius Porphyrogenitus Emperour of the Greek apud Balsamonem in Nomōca-none Photij in commentario canonis primi Synodi Constantinopolitanae primae secundae quam nos Latini Octavam appellamus For the said Basilius attributs the cause of the calamities of those days to a certain law made by his predecessour Nicephoras Phocas against the liberty of the Church Ex quo inquit lex ista robur habuit nihil boni penitus in hodiernum usque diem vitae nostrae contigit sed potius ê contrario nullum omninò genus calamitatis defuit From the time sayes Basilius that law of Nicepherus was observed no kind of good fortune happened in our life but rather on the contrary no sort of calamity was wanting And therefore this Emperour Basilius did with much reason abrogat wholly that law And these are the five arguments of Bellarmine The first grounded on his pretended custom of all Nations second on his similitude betwixt the Ecclesiastical power and lay and that of the soul and body third on the titles or names of Father and children and sheepheards and sheep fourth on the title or name of Clerks derived from the greek word Cleros and on the signification thereof and the fift on signs and prodigies as he speaks or calamities which pursued the infringers of Ecclesiastical Immunity liberty or Exemption And these arguments I have given all of them as neer as I could in his own words and form that the Reader may the more clearly judge of my answers and of the controversy in it self for what concerns my present purpose in this Section which is onely as I have often advertised the Exemption or not exemption rather by the law divine natural or law of nations of the persons of Clergiemen from the supream lay civil and coercive power in criminal causes And consequently also judge whether I wrong this most eminent Cardinal if I say as I do say That he hath by his doctrine here or in and as to this particular of such exemption and of such laws extreamly abused his Readers and not his Readers onely but his Religion and reason and Layety and Clergie and Church and State and even all mankind And that for this he pretends a custom of all Nations which never hath been yet of as much as any one Nation in the world both holy and prophane Scriptures neither of which have one word to the purpose a similitude that is lame titles or names latin and greek that to conclude his purpose are no less vain and finally the justice of God and saying of an Emperour that never executed nor this at all pronounced in our present case or dispute LXVII For and for what concerns his first argument and I mean still as he intends it to conclude not some kind of exemption Immunity or priviledge either local or personal given to Churches or Churchmen but even that plenary Exemption of his own or which he pretends of all their lands goods houses and persons too and in all kind of causes spiritual and temporal civil criminal mixt and this also not from the inferiour lay or civil Judges onely but also from all the very supreamest civil both directive and coercive powers on earth it is plain enough That his Assumption or Antecedent is false because he hath not yet nor any other can for him hereafter instance as much as any one single Nation in the world wherein they ever yet had or have at present such Exemption That for all those nations known to us we see dayly the quite contrary both taught and practised amongst them in relation to the supream civil power and as well to the persons of Clergiemen in some cases for what concerns judgement and punishment as to their goods and lands for that of taxes when the Commonwealth is necessitated to laye taxes on them That not one of those places he quotes either out of holy Scripture or other books or Histories prove that Antecedent of his or his Allegation of the custom of all nations in the point or even which is less of any one nation Though if he did or could prove it for some one nation yet he could not therefore be thought to have said any thing for the proof of that antecedent or of his grand position unless he did withal instance it generally That therefore likely it was that he onely quoted the books and chapters without giving the words or contents of those books or chapters whereby the Reader might be
of a Lay Judg in such a cause of debt challenged on a Clerk should be tearmd heer damnable presumption and temerity Yet reason tels us that Boniface supposed a former law or priviledg exempting Clerks in such a cause the breaking of which law or priviledg most have been it which he calls heer damnable presumption and temerity But who made this law or gave this priviledg whether Emperours and other Kings or whether the Pope alone or even with other Bishops or also whether God himself immediately this canon of Boniface determines not at all And though Boniface therein commands the Ordinarie to proceed with Ecclesiastical censures against such Lay judges as would presume to give sentence in a cause of debt against a Clergieman yet so might Boniface have done nay and justly too have done if such a law of exemption had been formerly made by the supream civil power and onely by this power Because even in this case Clergiemen had acquired a civil right not to be proceeded against by such inferiour Lay judges And consequently the Bishops might use the censures of the Church for defence of it as they might for defence of any other civil right in either Clergie or Layety until the same supream civil power did repeal such law or transferre again such right For so long and no longer should this law of Boniface for excommunicating such Lay Judges by the ordinaries continue So that out of so many heads either joyntly or severally taken it appears this cap. seculares de foro competenti in 6. is no sufficient proof at all that ever any Pope hath as much as de facto exempted Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power though I confess it must have supposed them formerly exempted by some power in some civil causes from inferiour Lay Judges But what 's this to purpose 7. That for the later of these two canons or cap. Clericis de Immuniâ— Eceles in 6. though it cannot be denyed that Boniface flew so high therein excommunicating all Rectors Captains Powers Barons Counts Dukes Princes Kings Emperours c. who imposed on or exacted or even received from Churchmen or Churchlands or goods any kind of burdens tallies or collections and halfs tenths twentieths hundreths or any other portion or share whatsoever of their profits or revenues as likewise all Prelats and Ecclesiasticks whosoever both secular and Regular who should pay any such under what pretext soever without express permission from himself or other Bishop of Rome succeeding him though I say all this cannot be denyed to have been so notoriously done by Boniface that it was necessary to correct so great an extravagancy of his and correct it even in a general Council which soon after his death followed under Clement the V. at Vienna in France and to revoke it wholly as may be seen by Clementina Quoniani de Immunitate Ecclesiarum yet I say withal that Boniface decreed nothing in this very chapter Clericis that may be alleadged with any reason for Bellarmine's voluit that is nothing for a power in the Pope or Church to exempt Clergiemen in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of very meer temporal Princes nay nor for a power in either to exempt Clerks from such payments Not for the former power because he speaks onely here of such payment and such payments are very different from other causes criminal or civil also Nor for the later because albeit he proceed so vigorously against all such as would either exact or receive such payments how freely soever made otherwise or would submit or consent to such payments without his own express consent yet all this he did as supposing the lands and other goods of the Church and the Churchmen themselves before exempted from all such payments and yet determines not here nor else where it was by the power of either Pope or Church they were so before exempted And Boniface perswaded himself that by what power soever they had been so exempt or by what law soever divine or humane civil or Ecclesiastical those of Emperours or Kings or those of Popes or other Bishops it was his own part to see an exact observance of such exemption and that he might to this end make use of his Ecclesiastical or spiritual censures And questionless had his supposition been true in the whole latitude of it concerning an exemption so general from all kind of tributs taxe c. in all contingencies whatsoever and by what power soever even the highest supream civil on earth laid on or received from Churchlands Goods or Persons he might observing due moderation command under meer and pure spiritual censures the due observance of such exemption though granted only by the meer temporal power and civil laws But this supposition was not right and he exceeded therefore and therefore too this Decree of his was totally annulled in the above Clementina Quoniam as I have said already 8. That for the Bull which is commonly called Bulla caenae as being yearly and with so great solemnity published and renewed at Rome on Maundy Thursday when the last Supper of our Lord is specially remembred whence it is that name of the Bull of the Supper is derived nothing at all can be concluded from it for any such voluit of Bellarmine For albeit amongst twenty special excommunications contained therein against several sorts of persons or delinquents there are at least four large ones with a huge variety of clauses particularly against so many sorts of infringers or presumed infringers of Ecclesiastical Exemption Immunity or as that Bull calls it Ecclesiastical Liberty videlicet XIV XV. XVI XVII XVIII Excommunication yet as the Pope assumes not pretends not in this Bull that himself thereby gives that liberty so he determines not therein who gave that liberty immunity or exemption to Churchmen whether God or Man And if man whether the Popes themselves or Church or whether not the Emperours and Kings As neither doth he there determine that in truth they had formerly from either God or Man or Pope or Prince or State or Church all those liberties or even any in particular of those liberties against the infringers of which he proceeds in that Bull with so great severity The Pope therefore only supposes that Churchmen had by some law or some fact of God or Man of Church or State or of the lay Princes and people these liberties But from which he sayes nothing in the Bull. Now we know that suppositions are no arguments of a determination in the case For so our own School-Divines and Bellarmine himself elsewhere de Concilior authoritat and truth it self do teach us whereof I have before given the reason Whence it appears evidently this Bulla caenae is to as little purpose alledged as any of those former papal canons for the Popes having been he that gave de facto Ecclesiastical Exemption from either supream or subordinate secular Judicatories in temporal matters whatsoever
that exemption be indeed or truly amounts to I pass over the little value many Countries of the Pope's even very strict communion and both many great and Catholick and Classick Authors too even very great sticklers for the Papacy it self as de jure divino have for this Bull or obligation of it yea notwithstanding all the solemnity used at Rome every year in renewing it How yet they will not receive nor publish it nor suffer it to be published amongst themselves nor hold themselves obliged at all by the publication of it either at Rome or in other places Whereof as enough may be seen in Suarez and Salas de Legibus where they treat of this subject so that was a notable instance which happen'd at Brussels in Albert and Isabels Principality over the Low Countreys resigned to them for ever by the King of Spain Philip the Second when the Nuncio Apostolick there at that time an Italian Archbishop thought he had met with such a conjuncture as therein he might introduce that Bull and therefore caused it to be affixed to the gates of the great Church of St. Gudula yet by commands from the Council of Brabant and Archbishop of Mechlin it was presently torn and pulled down quia non accessit placitum Principis and therefore too any further publication or observation of it prohibited ever since Which relation I had my self from the reverend Fathers de Young and Derkennis two famous professors of Divinity in the Colledge of the Jesuits at Lovaine when I studied in that University But whether this be so or no or whether the great number of those very famous Catholick Divines quoted by Suarez and Salas and by others too who maintain stiffely that Bulla caenae obliges no man in any Diocess out of the temporal Patrimony of the Roman Bishop as neither any other Bull of the Pope at least in matters of Discipline where not legally both published and received by the particular Churches Bishops Princes Clergy and People whether I say that great number of Divines be well grounded or no in maintaining so the invalidity of this Bull of the Supper without a special publication and reception in every particular Diocess neither the one viz. of that relation of the Fathers nor the other to wit of these Divines matters one pinn For I have shewed already that whether so or no whether without such particular publication and reception obliging or not obliging according to its tenour it hath not one word or clause to prove Bellarmin's voluit if by voluit he understand what he ought to our present purpose that is if the Pope's having actually or de facto as much as in him exempted Clerks by a Decretal Epistle Bull or Brief or other Declaration whatsoever sufficient for such purpose as much as according to the doctrine of the very Roman Divines and exempted them too even from the very supream civil power it self of temporal Princes or States For I confess that if any will understand by Bellarmine's voluit a meer inclination affection or good will of Popes to do so if they had found it feasible or according to the rules of prudence to do so that is if they feared not to loose all by doing so it may be granted and ought to be granted that within this last five hundred years many Popes have been spirited so whereof that conroversie in particular of Paul the V. with the Venetians in the year 1606. is for that one Pope a very notable instance But withal it must be granted on the other side that either this is not it which Bellarmine intended by his voluit or at least that he intended nothing to even his own purpose For such a will signifies nothing because not executed The contests therefore of several Popes with several Princes or States about jurisdiction as relating to Clerks argues no more but that such Popes did suppose or at least would have others believe they did suppose Clerks already or by some former law of God or Man or by humane custom in some places left in all causes whatsoever to the Court Ecclesiastical But argues not that any of themselves or other former or latter Popes whosoever did so exempt or attempted to exempt them so And for their suppositions or euen admonitions and comminations of censures nay or actual and manifold censures fulminated in such controversies against their opposers it is apparent in Ecclesiastical History they were little regarded by Princes or States or by other particular Churches of the papal communion or by their Divines Whereof also besides the State of Venice and several other Kingdoms and Principalities we have a most singular argument in the proceedings of Philip the Second that most religious and Catholick King of Spain when after the Usurpation of the Crown of Portugal by Anthony the Bastard Prior of Crati who by the faction and countenance chiefly of the Churchmen of Portugal got himself crown'd he reduced and subdued Portugal to himself as the more lawful Heir of that Kingdom For Spondanus ad Annum Christi 1581. tells how this great Catholick King expresly refused to extend to the religious of Portugal his Act of general Indemnity which in the general Assembly of Estates held by himself at Lisbone the said year he granted all those other Portugueses had opposed his title or the Duke of Alva his General or who had submitted to the said Anthony Nay excluded positively in the same Act and from the benefit of it all the Regulars or Monks of Portugal and besides them none at all but the said Prior Anthony himself the Bastard Usurper illegitimate Sou to Prince Lodovicus Franciscus Portugallus Count Vimiosi Iohn his brother Bishop of Guardia fifty other principal ring-leaders of Anthonie's faction And tells moreover that notwithstanding the general discontent arising from such exclusion or exception and notwithstanding all the frequent expostulations and supplications to his Catholick Majesty to mitigate this rigour he could never be wrought upon until at least two thousand Priests and Monks had by several kinds of violent deaths in several places partly within Portugal it self and partly abroad in the Islands of Azoras been destroyed in the prosecution of the warr against the relicks of Anthoni's Faction whereof also many were said to have been privatly dispatch'd It is true indeed that Thuanus L. 74. quoted by Spondanus ad annum Christi 1583. relates how it was rumour'd that Philip by his Embassadours at Rome obtained a Bull wherein the Pope pardoned him the killing of two thousand persons consecrated to God by a sacred and religious life But it is also true that neither Spondanus himself though a very precise religious Catholick Bishop and a great defender of all just laws of Popes and priviledges of the Clergy nor any other Historian or Writer I have yet seen reprehends nor tells that any other Divine or Clerk or even the Pope himself did reprehend King Philip as having violated
of the didrachma and for his own very person Matth. 17.27 But this Boniface exalting himself in so much that is in temporal power above earthly Princes and States farre more then nay quite contrary to that which our Lord and Saviour Christ is read to have done himself in mortal flesh at any time or by any Instance had the confidence to attempt the bereaving even the very highest supream temporal Princes of those rights and of those duties which by the very law of God himself were theirs and were to be paid unto them unless peradventure themselves had voluntarily devested themselves of such rights or freely remitted such duties in this or that contingency I have before Section LXI though upon an others occasion and to other purpose quoted the Canon which is in cap. Clericiâ— de Immun Ecclesiaâ— in 6. wherein and whereby Boniface made this bold attempt as particularly or specifically excommunicating and by an excommunication too reserved for absolution to the Pope himself nisi in articulo mortis all Officials Rectors Captains Magistrats Barons Counts Dukes Princes and even all Kings and Emperours and generally all others of whatever praeeminency condition or estate who should upon any kind of occasion title or pretext whatsoever impose any tallies taxes collections or any tenths twentieths or hundreths upon any Church persons Churchlands or Church-revenues or who should exact or even receave any such without special licence of the Apostolick See and moreover excommunicating all orders and degrees of the very Churchmen themselves who should as much as promise to pay or consent to the payment of any such impositions or even promise or consent to pay or give any kind of money or quantity or portion of money to such Princes States Lords Officials c under any other title as that of a charitable subsidy or help-money or that of loane-money or that also of gift-money without the authority or licence of the said Apostolick See But this too excessive boldness of Boniface was both acknowledg'd and corrected by Clement the V. and by the General Council of Vienna In which Council the said Clement presiding that canon of Boniface with all the several branches or declarations of it was totally expung'd and abolished as appears by Clementina Quoniam de Immun Ecclesiaâ— But whether that Decree of Boniface was principally made by him in hatred of Phillip King of France as whom Boniface could not or would suffer to bestow the Ecclesiastical benefices of France at his own pleasure on such as he would and impose also or receave from the Churchmen or Church-revenues of France such moneyes as he wanted for the carrying on of his warr in Flanders whether so or no I say it matters not For he made it and made it generally even for all Kings Emperours c. Indeed the Gloss in Extravag Quod olim de Immunit Ecclesiarum sayes it was for the former cause he made that constitution as also that out of it orta fuerunt multa scandala Vnde Clemens Papa in Clement Quoniam de Immunit Ecclesiar voluit quod antiqna Iura servarentur non alla Constitutio But we know out of Ecclesiastical History the first original and whole procedure and by what degrees Boniface came at last to that extravagancy as to write also to that very Phillip that he held them all for Hereticks who did not acknowledg the Papal supremacy in the Kingdome of France and in all temporals as well as in spirituals Which great exorbitancy as well of the said canon as of all the precedent concountant and subsequent proceedings of Boniface occasion'd so much trouble to the vniversal Church as we know the translation of the Papacy it self to France and the frequent long scandalous and pernicious schysmes betwixt Anti popes which enâ—â—ed thereupon amounted unto For so it naturally and commonly happens that while the spiritual Prelats of the Church do according to the doctrine and practise of the ancient Church with all Christian humility obey the temporal Princes in temporal matters the Church it self and these Prelats in her enjoy Halcyon dayes peace and rest and tranquillity as that when and as often as the same Prelats replenish'd with the spirit of this world lift up their horns against Princes pushing at their temporals there is nothing to be seen but scandal and trouble and woe and calamity both in Church and State And so I have ended my comparison 'twixt the more ancient holy Popes and some of their later successors in the matter of subjection and obedience as due or not due from all Clergiemen and consequently from the very Popes themselves in temporal things to supream lay Princes I mean forasmuch as can appear out of the law of God and I mean too where Church-men themselves are not by humane right the supream temporal Princes And consequently do not mean at all by this or any other dispute or passage in this whole book to assert the subjection of Popes as they are at present though not at best but by humane right onely supposed by some or perhaps most writers to be absolute in their own temporal Patrimony and Principality that I mean of some Citties and territories of Italy and to be wholly exempt even in all kind of temporals from the Imperial power As neither do I on the other side mean to assert their such exemption or any in all kind of cases and temporals from the Emperour but abstract wholly from both the one and the other as not concerning my purpose Which purpose as I have often declared is onely and solely to oppose the exemption of all or any Churchmen in the world even of the very Pope himself from lay temporal Princes in temporal matters upon any such account as that of Sacerdotal Episcopal Papal or even Apostolical Order and my particular purpose in this present Section being to prove their subjection to lay Princes by the examples or practise of as well Popes as other Bishops nay and of most Christian Princes too in the more ancient and more holy Ages of the Church Now who sees not it is very wide from this purpose to dispute whether any Churchman any Bishop Arch-bishop Patriarch or Pope hath upon some other account been at any time or be at present exempt from all earthly powers of other Princes that is whether upon account of meer humane right given them by the Emperours or people as that acquired by donation prescription submission a just or lawfull conquest or by sale and emption c Or to dispute whether the investiture or election of the German Emperours to the title and rights of the Empire of Rome and King of the Romans or whether also the entry of their Embassadours to Rome with a naked sword in their hands or carried before them which the Embassadours of other Princes have not nor do challenge whether I say these very ceremonies be sufficient or no to hinder the Pope to be absolutely or independently
wholly The first Prince therefore I bring to my purpose is that very same first and greatest of all Christian Emperours Constantine himself A Prince who as by the confession of all sides and all writers he was most pious and of all Princes deserved most and best of the Christian Catholick Churches so no man I think of all our Hieromonarchical sticklers will have the confidence to accuse him of having usurped any kind of authority over Churchmen or practised any at all over them but that was allowed him by the laws of God and nature and approved also by the State civil and Ecclesiastical But if any would be so impudent as to charge him in this matter I am sure he hath the general vote and patronage of all the ancient holy Church to clear him in it Theodoret. Histar l. 1. c. XI Sozom. l. 1. c. 16. And yet this very great and pious Constantine is he who in the Council of Nice or when it sate himself being present with them at Nice and often in the very Session Hall amidst the Council which was in his own Pallace there commanded the libels or petitions of accusations and criminations offered to him by Priests and Bishops against other Priests and other Bishops and as a Judge of them all of both sides and in such criminal matters commanded the said libels to be brought before him and receaved them albeit immediately thereupon having first brought all parties to a friendly attonement by his Princely wisedome and piety and by checking and rebuking severely both the accusers and accused for criminating and recriminating one an other with personal failings he cast before their faces all those libels into a fire as thinking it more expedient and pious that such humane imperfections or frailties of Bishops and Priests should be altogether hid and for ever unknown least otherwise or if their vices were known or publish'd the vulgar the lay people universally might be scandalized and corrupted as takeing from such examples a greater liberty for themselves to commit sin without remorse or shame Indeed Sozomen tells that Constantine said in this occasion It was not lawfull for him as being a man to take upon or unto himself the cognizance of such causes where the accusers and the accused were Priests But if Constantine said so at all without any kind of doubt he must be supposed to have said so partly out of some excess of reverence and piety to their Order which he would not have then and in the face of the world to be blemish'd publickly with such foule aspersions and partly must be understood to mean that part of the accusations which contained meer Ecclesiastical and not lay crimes to witt heresy and the like whereof he was not so competent a judg and above all said so that he might the more easily bring them to concord and for the more quick dispatch of the grand controversy that of Arrius's pestilent heresy in the Faith the debate of which was the great end of gathering that Council to which dispatch or even debate that of privat criminations of one another was a great delay and might be a farre greater if Constantine had not carried himself in this matter so prudently and piously For if Constantine had said so indeed and withall meand to be understood of even meer lay crimes or strictly or in a strict sense of the word fas or lawfull in order to such crimes of Priests or even also to signifie that himself was not a competent judge nor the sole Iudge for the punishing of heresy in them by external coercion as by corporal or pecuniary mulcts by imprisonment exile death he had never receaved the petitions either of the accusers or accused but remitted them on both sides to their own proper judges and judicatories the tribunals of Bishops Nay the Bishops themselves at least such of them as were not particularly concern'd in such criminations had likely admonish'd him not to give eare or audience to the accusers of Bishops or at all receave their libels as not being their competent judge in any cause whatsoever at least to punish or coerce them And yet for any thing out of History none of them ever admonish'd much less reprehended him in this matter And do not we know it was that very Constantine who soon after and by his own Imperial authority proceeded with just coercive rigour against Arrius the Priest and for his most pestilent and most turbulent heresy sent him to banishment For although it was the said Council of Bishops at Nice that by their own episcopal censure condemned him for an heretick and separated him from the communion of the faithfull yet his corporal punishment was from the Tole imperial power of Constantine As when the question was again of his restitution it was neither that Council nor any other Bishops that revoked him from exile but Constantine alone and by his own Imperial power alone Athanasius de Synod Socrat. l. 1. c. 25. Sozom. l. 2. c. 28. And we know also that the same Constantine and by his own sole and proper imperial power banish'd many Bishops too that were accused to be complices in that heresy with Arrius the Priest as Constantine himself confesses of Eusebius Theognides and several others in his letter to the Nicomedians Theodoretus l. â— c. 20. Sed isti sayes Constantine honesti bonique scilicet Episcopi qui vera Concilij dividicatione ad paenitentiam agendam reservati sunt non solum eos admiserunt ad se secum in tuto collocarunt verum etiam illorum depravatis moribus communicarunt Quam â—â—rem erga istos ingratos aliquod supplicium censui statuendum propterea mandatum dedi ut asuis abrepti sedibus quà m longissimè religarentur So Constantine himself Where he expresly sayes that himself ordained their punishment and himself had given order for their being forced from their Episcopal Sees and carried exiles to the very remotest parts of the whole Empire But Cradinal Baronius cannot endure this Imperial stile And therefore in his tome 3. an 329. n. 13. endeavours to make us beleeve it was by the authority of the Nicene Council that Constantine sent these Bishops to banishment Caeterum sayes Baronius quod spectat ad Constantinum non novam in Episcopos depositionis exilij sententiam protulii sed quam sciebat olim latam a Niceno Concilio suis vero precibus revocatam voluit iterum val dari Depositos hos namo in Niceno Concilio constat tum ex ijs quae superius suo loco dicta sunt tum etiam ex ijs quae habentur in Epistola Synodali Concilij Alexandrini apud Athanasium in Apologia secunda ubi haec leguntur Postquam de Eusebio Theognide Arianis Episcopis depositis in Niceno Concilio plura Patres lâ—qunti fuerant c. So our great Annalist knows not how to distinguish or rather will not distinguish twixt a meer Ecclesiastical or meerly
in it self purely or as abstracting from matter of fact we say two things here to clear all the fog which many of our late School Divines do raise without any cause at all to loose themselves and others in it The one is that in this cause of Caecilian and such others of Church-men wherein Constantine or other Christian Emperours interposed their imperial authority and carried themselves properly as Judges that wherein they did so was pure matter of fact whereof questionless the lay Emperours when judicious and just were secundum allegata probata as competent Judges as any Ecclesiastick And the other is that whereas the Emperour and the same we must say of every other supream or Soveraign Prince within his own dominions is of supream absolute independent power within his Empire he must consequently have sufficient authority from God himself to promote all that may be for the publick good peace or safety of his people in this life and of their happiness too in the other according as he is directed by the law of God and therefore also must have sufficient power from God himself to see and take effectual care and such effectual course as is necessary that the very Ecclesiastical affairs within his Empire be duely carried on Therefore albeit he be not the competent Judge in a doubtfull case what was or was not the Faith delivered once in such or such a point controverted yet he is a competent Judge to see and determine as to matter of Fact whether the Ecclesiasticks of his Kingdom duely observe the uncontroverted Faith or that part of Faith which all men which even themselves confess acknowledge to be that which was once so delivered or whether they duely observe the known and holy canons of the Church made for preservation of that Faith And he is a competent Judge also or hath a competent sufficient absolute independent power to force the very Ecclesiasticks themselves to keep that Faith entire and sound even also I mean as to the very Theory of it and to all questions of divine right especially where and when he sees that by reason of controversies arising about such very questions or Theory the publick external peace of either Church or State may be endangered or that the publick tranquillity depends of the unity of his people in such matters according to what was from the beginning taught By which very consideration that Constantine himself was very much induâ—ced â—o interess himself in these matters of Faith even himself also writes apud â—arrâ—nium tom 3. an 313. n. 37. least otherwise he should have seen dangeâ—ous troubles and commotions in his Empire and thence have suffered also very much in his reputation as not governing well or prudently or also as haveing imprudently embraced that religion whose professours he could not keep in peace or unity amongst themselves Of which consideration and judgement of Constantine or rather of which power and authority of Constantine or indeed of both the one and the other St. Augustine speaks ep 162. where he writes thus Quasi verò ipse sibi he means Felix Aptungitanus â—â—c comparavit ac non Imperator ita quasi jusserit ad cujus curam de qua rationem Deo redditurus esset res illa maximè pertinebat But of this authority and superintendency in general of Emperours Kings Princes and other supream temporal or politick States in and over the Church or the spiritual or Ecclesiastical both Superiours and Inferiours of the same Christian Catholick Church this is not the proper place to treat at large It sufficeth at present to say that forasmuch as Constantine did so and so often too interess himself in this cause of Caecilian and deputed Judges to hear and determine it he did all this by the true proper genuine authority of an Emperour and even of a Christian Emperour whose duty it is when the Ecclesiasticks themselves alone cannot end or compose their own dissentions that he by his own supream authority assist and promote their agreement and even force them to a just and equitable agreement Which the Milevitan Council approves in effect canone 19 and ponitur xi q. 1. c. 11. and in these tearms Placuit ut quicumque ab Imperatore cognitionem judiciorum publicorum petierit honore proprio privetur Si autem Episcopale judicium ab Imperatore postulaverit nihil ei obsit But that Constantine did in aftertimes adorn and magnifie the Church or Churchmen with most singular and most ample priviledges concerning civil judgments or judgments in civil affairs this he did not as Baronius tom 3. an 314. n. 37. would make us believe he did to correct or by way of correction of those former judgments of his own in the said or like affairs of Ecclesiastical persons which judgments our great Annalist sayes were unduly and unjustly usurped by the Emperour but did so or gave such priviledges out of his meer liberality and piety alway nevertheless reserving his own proper supream and general and imperial authority to provide upon emergencies by himself or by such others as he should think fit to depute for the necessities of the Church and Churchmen as often as he saw need However let us proceed in the matter of fact which is our proper subject here For notwithstanding the aforesaid judgment also of the Council of Orleance the Donatists yet appeal even from it and the second time to the Emperour himself against and in that cause of Cecilian and the Emperour admits again their appeal judges the matter himself absolves Cecilian and condemns the Donatists St. Augustine is my author and witness ep 48. and epist 162. where yet he neither accuses nor reprehends the Emperour Nor doth Cecilian except but obeyes and freely presents himself to be judged by the Emperour For it was a criminal judgment that is the matter debated was a crime charged upon him Nay St. Augustine openly sayes and avers that neither the accusing or appealing Bishops themselves were to be reprehended on this account that they drew or brought the affairs or causes of or accusations against other Bishops to a lay secular Judicatory For thus he writes ep 48. Si autem sicut falso arbitramini vere criminosum Caecilianum judicandum terrenis potestatibus tradiderant quid objicitis quod vâ—strorum praesumptio primitus fecit he speaks to the later Donatists quod eos non arguerimus sayes he quia fecerunt si non animo inuido noxio sed emendandi corrigendi voluntate fecissent Therefore St. Augustine sayes that where and when the dispute concerns the correction and amendment of Ecclesiasticks to demand the judgment or sentence and to appeal to the power of earthly Princes is not reprehensible if the accusers proceed not in such or indeed any other application out of envie or malice Concerning this second admission of Constantine or indeed rather concerning his whole procedure in this affair by admitting any appeal at all or
delegating others or sitting himself alone or with others in judgment on this cause of Cecilian a Bishop the other excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 316. n. 58. is no less vain and frivolous then his former pretences For now he sayes that Constantine yielded to or admitted of such unlawful unjust appeals to the end the schismatick Donatists being so in all tribunals overcome should at last desist from that cause and be ever after quiet and the Affrican Church so then divided by schisme might be sometime again united in peace and concord and because he thought Affrick could otherwise hardly be continued under the Roman Empire being so powerful a faction as that of the Donatists did shake the Affricans already as to their allegiance ut sic victi sayes he speaking of these schismaticks à causa desisterent penitusque conquiescerent Ecclesia Affricana schismate scissa pace atque concordia uniretur quodque existimaret haud facile posse sub Romano Imperio contineri Affricam tam potenti factione labantem To which excuse I suppose first in general that evil is not to be done for any end how good soever And yet even in such a case of Affrick the procedure of Constantine must have been evil because against both the natural positive law of God if the suppositions and positions too of Baronius and Bellarmine were true concerning the Immunity of Ecclesiasticks even also in criminal causes from all kind of lay or civil Judicatories Next I suppose in particular that the politick rules of some worldly Princes for governing or containing their people in obedience cannot excuse a pious Prince if the true liberties of the Church be hurt by the practice of such And I say moreover it is very strange that Baronius a Priest and a Cardinal Priest should admit here of such politick reasons of Constantine or rather in and for Constantine against Ecclesiastical Immunity which yet himself maintains all along also here to have been usurped upon and unjustly hurt by such procedure of Constantine yea notwithstanding that pretence of danger in Affrick In his fifth Tome an 400. n. 41. he himself praises and perhaps justly too praises the vigour and piety of St. Iohn Chrysostome in dissuading the Emperour Arcadius from granting to to Gainas the Arian Rebel that only one Church which he desired for the people of his Sect within Constantinople Theodoret. l. 5. c. 32. albeit the Emperour was otherwise and vehemently too inclined as considering the power of Gainas and suspecting he aimed at the Empire and therefore praying Chrysostome's consent for giving him that one Church to try if that would lessen the rage of Gainas for he was already in the head of an army But all was in vain for Chrysostome would not be moved But whether this was in the case rather too much rigour then true vigour in Chrysostome according to prudential maximes and pious too I leave others to judge I am sure other good Churchmen and even great Bishops have also in our own age and some former too consented to the giving awaye from Catholicks to Protestants and to the use of Protestant Ministers and their divine services not one Church only but some hundreds if not thousands of Churches in Germany France Flanders c. and this also for ever and even by publick articles of pacification And I am sure also if this were not lawfull and I mean in point of conscience or of Gods law I see not how Caholicks living under the dominion of Protestant Princes or States now at present in Europe may with any colourable argument of reason urge the restoring or bestowing on themselves some or any of the Churches which are at present and have been so long in the possession and made use of by protestant Ministers and Bishops For these Princes States Ministers Bishops and their protestant people must at least for the generality of them be supposed to hold the Roman Religion and rites to be prophanations of those Churches as Chrysostome held of the Arrian Religion and Rites so that until they be convinced that the present Roman Religion and rites are the true ancient and true rites of the true Christian Apostolick Church or that their own Religion or Rites are false no man will be able to perswade that is to convince them by reason it may be safe in point of conscience for them to permit freely in their own dominions where they can otherwise avoid it the use of any Churches to Roman Catholicks if I say Chrysostome justly and prudently speaking not according only to his opinion but according to the verity of things in themselves denied his own consent to the Emperour Arcadius for giving that one Church in Constantinople to the Arrians at that time or in that conjuncture and denied it justly and prudently I mean still upon that only account of being against conscience or against the law of God Other politick and wise considerations he might have had indeed as I beleeve he had and as I beleeve also whether he had or not he advised that herein which he thought most pious but such concern us not here As no more doth this whole Instance it self nor any part of it but only to argue ad hominem out of Baronius himself against himself and to shew that if Chrysostome be praise worthy for choosing rather to let the whole Empire nay the whole Catholick Church too run the risco of being over-run by an Arrian rebel Tyrant then consent to or permit the delivering up to the Arrians for their divine service one material Church or Temple or House only however consecrated yet composed of lime and stone or brick inanimate things Constantine is not excusable by him and by his pretence here if he transgressed Ecclesiastical Immunity in usurping on and profaning the sacred persons of Bishops who are the principal parts of the very living Church albeit a portion of the Empire were in hazard if he had not done so To pass by therefore this excuse of Baronius or to say no more of it Constantine is far better defended by saying what the truth is and was that he wanted no excuse at all being he did nothing in this whole procedure or any other of judging Churchmen in criminal causes and such dangerous variance but what became and was the duty of a pious Prince who carries the sword and ministers vindicative justice For by actual and effectual Instances to appease the tumults of the very Sacerdotal Order and to assume the protection of the Faith peace and tranquillity of the Church and to force also when necessary the Churchmen themselves to live in peace among themselves and with others is part of this princely royal and imperial duty I say nothing here of Iohn the Meletian Bishop or of those many other Egyptian Bishops commanded and actually sent by Constantine to exile of whom Baronius tom 3. an 336. n. 16 17. But forasmuch as Baronius sayes ibid n.
vincti sumus Where you see a General Council and a Council truely General with their armes or hands wide spread bowing down humbling themselves touching as their phrase is the knees of the Emperour and beseeching him to set free to them out of prison the Patriarchal Praesident of their whole Council And you may see them in some passages going before complaine indeed but with all modesty to the Emperour that his Majesty was deceaved by sinister information But that he oppress'd or infring'd Ecclesiastical Immunity they neither complaine of there nor elsewhere so farr were they from any thoughts of proceeding to excommunications Interdicts or monitories or minatories of either and consequently so farr from the practise of some later Ages The same Theodosius and by the Ministers of his Pretorian Presect exiled Nestorius Patriarch of Constantinople who was by the said great Ephesme Council condemned of heresie as may be read in the Acts of that Council And truly Cyril of Alexandria epist 6. writing to Iuvenal Bishop of Ierusalem advises that the extermination of Nestorius should be desired and expected from this Emperour only and from his subordinate civil Magistrates Necessarium autem erit sayes he ut Christi amanti ac religiosissimo Regi universis Magistratibus scribamus consulamusque ne pietati in Christum hominem praeponant sed largiatur orbi rectae fidei firmitudinem ac greges Domini à malo pastore liberent nisi universorum consiliis obtemperaverit Pursuant to which desire this very Theodosius afflicted most grievously several other Bishops for being only suspected of Nestorianism Amongst whom let Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus albeit in himself otherwise a very true and sure Catholick tell how the Emperour punish'd him upon suspicion only let us observe whether he complain that a Laick should take cognizance of judge and sentence and confine a Bishop or whether only be complain of the injustice of the proceeding against him as having no crime at all whereof he was convicted or which he had confessed or that was objected to him at least upon any kind of even but a probable ground Cum enim sayes he himself Theodoretus epist 81. apud Paron tom 6. an 440. num 11. ad Nomum consulem semel iterum scripserim litteras nondum accepi Imperatoris decreto Cyrenssum regionis terminos praeterire prohibeor Nulla vero alia causa hujus damnationis videtur praeterquam quod Synodos Episcoporum congrego licet neque accusatio ostenderetur neque actor appareret neque reus convictus decretum tamen editum fuit c. And then adducing the example of Festus with Paul Act. 25. he adds Et haec quidem dicebat homo qui Christo non credebat sed idolorum erroribus serviebat Ego vero neque interrogatus An Synodes congregem nec ne quorum causa congregem quid mali afferam vel rebus Ecclesiae vel publicis ac si in maximis deliquissem ab aliis arceor civitatibus Quin immo aliis quidem omnibus omnis aperta est civitas non solum Arrii Evnâ—mii sectateribus sed Marcionistis illis qui Valentini Montani morbo laborant nec non Ethnicis Iudaeis Ego vero qui pro dogmatibus Evangelicis pugno ab omni excluder civitate Moreover it was Theodosius commanded Irenaeus Bishop of Tyrus to be not only deposed from his Episcopal See but also degraded of Sacerdotal Order as was actually done in obedience to his command Acta Concil Ephes edit Pelt tom 5. c. 29. And further yet it was this Emperour Theodosius that notwithstanding the foresaid great General Synod of Ephesus deposed the before mentioned Iohn from his Patriarchal See of Antioch as appears in the Acts by his own imperial authority interceded and hindered the execution of that sentence nay commanded it should not be executed and who also by his own self same and onely imperial authority though for a very just end or least otherwise great troubles should arise licenced the said Iohn to return to his former See of Antioch And finally it was this Emperour Theodosius that called both Iohn and Cyril to himself to Nicomedia and forced them to agree among themselves and Iohn also to agree with the Catholick Church wherever by renouncing Nostorius Martianus a no less Catholick Emperour even he who together with Pulcheria the good Empress convoked the fourth General Council or that great one indeed of Chalâ—dâ—n this very Martianus I say was he that by his own Imperial authority removed from the Patriarch of Antioch the cause of â—â—as and brought it to his own cognizance and this too at the Instance of the Priests of the Diocess of Edessa Subjects to and accusers of the said Ibas their own Bishop and because they alleadged that the Patriarch of Antioch to whom the cognizance of their accusation against Ibas immediatly belong'd in the Church was suspected of partiality and committed it to other Bishops to be judg'd by them joyning also to these other Bishops for an assistent Damasium Tribunum Nâ—tarium a meer lay officer Concil Chalced. Act. 9. But that which herein or in this cause of Ibas and in this Imperial cognizance and commission of it is more notable yet is that the complaint of the said Priests his accusers was purely Ecclesiastical as wholly concerning an excommunication which he had pronounced against them But I have elsewhere noted that the Prince hath an external superintendence over and power of the external regiment of even meer Church affairs especially in two cases viz. 1. when manifest injustice is committed or innocency oppressed or whether it be so or no in rei veritate when complaints are made to the Prince that matters are so carried in the Church or by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governours of it 2. when he sees that by the carriage however this be of Churchmen or of the spiritual superiours of other Churchmen or laymen the publick peace or tranquillity of either Church or State politick is any way disturbed or hazarded or that any other publick spiritual or even temporal good which implyes no sin is hindered Pursuant to which it was also that Leo Magnus Primus the first and great Pope of that name writ to an other Leo the Emperour and writ in his 81. epist to coerce the Clerks of the Constantinopolitan Church as favourers of hereticks In quibus sayes this holy Pope deturbandis si frater meus Anatolius cum nimis benigne parcit segnior invenitur dignamini prâ—fide vestra etiam istam Ecclesiae praestare medicinam ut tales non solùm ab craine Clericatus sed etiam ab urbis habitatione pellantur Where this Pope desires the Emperour to exercise his own Imperial power not delegats any Ecclesiastical to him though he desires the Emperour not onely to banish those Clerks from the City but also to have them degraded from their order And pursuant to the same
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
Catholick Faith and holy Scripture and the said Authors also to be therefore not onely hereticks but Arch-hereticks and which was consequent condemning likewise not onely the book it self of Marsilius and Iandunus out of which those articles were extracted but all other writings whatsoever containing the same articles adding moreover yet and commanding for a perclose of all that whoever and of what dignity order condition or state soever should thenceforth presume to defend or approve the said doctrine he should by all others be accounted of as a heretick I say that these onely five assertions which you have now read in the latin text and in their own proper tearms being those articles against which and no other assertions at all this thundering sentence of Iohn the XXII was pronounced at Auenion an 1327. as Spondanus tels of the year though he gives us no part of the Bull X. Calend. Nou. and on the VII of the same Calends and year sent in an other Bull bearing this last date to the Bishop of Woster to be published in England therefore we may conclude it will be an easy matter to ruine the above third remaining objection For passing by at present all the general advantages I might take of the doctrine and firm grounds of the doctrine which teacheth the fallibility of all sorts of Papal definitions as such or as meer Papal definitions without the joynt approbation of a general Council or of the Church it self in general be the Pope that defines whoever you please so he be not or was not any of the immediat Apostolical or Evangelical Colledg of Christ our Lord and passing by too all the specifical and particular advantages I might otherwise justly take against all the definitions of this very individual Pope Iohn the XXII as such more then against any definitions of most other Popes as being he that was himself so notoriously tainted with the heresy which holds none of the Blessed see God nor shall see him before the day of general judgment that he had immediatly before his death prepared a Bull to declare so much and define it as an Article of Faith and in his death bed retracted his opinion in this particular no further then onely to submit it to the Church and as being he that so contrary to both former and later definitions of former and later Popes especially of Nicholaus Quartus in cap. exiit de verb. signif in 6. and Clemens V. in Clementina Exiti de Paradiso set out his three Extravagants 1. Ad conditorem canonum 2. Cum inter and 3. Quia Quorumdam whereof the first and last cannot be reconciled at all not even in Bellarmine's judgment l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 14. to the said former definition of Nicholas the Fourth or sayd later of Clement the Fift however the said Iohn himself and in his said first and last Extravagant and Ioannes de Turrecremata l. 2. Sum. c. 112. labour mightily to reconcile them but all in vain and as being he moreover against whom Gulielmus Occâ—mus that great Franciscan Doctor and Prince of the Noâ—â—inals writ his special book or Tract entituled Contra triginta duos errores Ioannis Papae XXII and finally as being he or the Pope against whom and from whom that famous general Representative of the whole Franciscan Order throughout the world or their General Chapter at Perusium in Italy held under their Minister General Michael de Cesenas appealed in their own name and in the name of their said whole Order to a future General Council of the universal Church charging him with strang errors and other miscarriages if not crimes of the highest nature against all the State of Christendom passing by also the special exceptions which may be offered against this very Bull in particular whereof we treat now above other Bulls or more then against any other Bull Decree Declaration or Extravagant of this very Pope viz that being as Spondanus writes Marsilius de Padua alias Marsilius Menandrinus born in the City of Padua and Ioannes Iandunus of Perusia condemned in this Bull were the first learned Councils in point of law or divinity or both whereof the Emperour Ludovicus de Bavaria made use and the first learned Doctors who appeared for him in writing to justifie his quarrel and his imperial rights against so many thundering sentences of excommunication deposition c. pronounced by the same Pope Iohn XXII and prosecuted by him even all his life after inexorably against this Emperour and not onely by him but by his two next Successors Benedict the XII and Clement the VI. even for 33. years continually the whole extent of time wherein the said Lewis maugre all the opposition of the said three Popes one after an other vigorously defended the legality of his own election to and possession ever after of the Empire until his death and being it was in defence of such election and possession and consequently of both the Electoral and Imperial powers independence from the Pope as also in reproof of the usurpation of Popes upon the Empire and particularly of the said Iohn the XXII that Marsilius writ and publish'd his own book an 1324. directed to the said Lewis of Bavier the subject of which book was the Imperial and Papal jurisdiction as the title was Defensor Pacis and that Iandunus also writ and publish'd an other of his own de Potestate Ecclesiastica therefore the above given Bull of Iohn XXII and it in particular above any other Bull of his at least next to that other one or those moe whereby he both excommunicated and deposed the said Emperour Lewis and yet further declared his own plenitude of even supream temporal power to dispose of the Empire as he thought fit is at least for some parts of it most rationally subject to a well grounded censure of its being though indirectly a new devise and an other product of that vehement and obstinat passion of his against the same Lewis's person and even against all the Imperial power it self whatever person challeng'd or had it and of its being the most truly effectual and most speciously Papal means he could fix upon to take away all support from Lewis and to justifie his own procedure against Lewis passing by moreover that which concerns the legal or canonical both publication and reception of this Bull generally in Christendom or in any considerable parts of Christendom or whether indeed either was as he desired both should be as much as throughout France it self where he resided albeit the King of France then was sometimes an enemy to Lewis as at some other times he professed to be his friend or as much as in England notwithstanding his direction of it to the Bishop of Worster being we know that Edward the 3d then of England was mostly in league with Lewis of Bavier against the French King and was moreover by the same Lewis created Vicar of the Empire in the tract of Low countries
day murthered him in the Church as he was at evening prayer Seventhly you are to observe good Reader what the ancient Christian civil or municipal laws of England or those I mean of the State politick and civil as they are distinguish'd from the meer canons of the Church were concerning the immunity of Clergiemen from secular tribunals in the punishment of their crimes and were yet in the days of S. Thomas and Henry the second or at any time before that contest not legally repealed then by a contrary civil or municipal law of that land or by any contrary custom admitted or in force For I must confess that often considering with my self how it was not probable that so vertuous and just a man and even so knowing a man also as S. Thomas of Canterbury must have been being he studied so long both in Oxford and Paris and the civil law in Italy and was one of the Justiciers in London before he went to Italy was after Archdeacon and last of all before made Archbishop was five whole years great Chancellour of England sitting and judging in the Court of highest judicature how I say it was not onely not probable but not even really possible that such a man being made Archbishop of Canterbury should upon false grounds that is upon any such vain or trifling grounds as those are of some of our late School-divines Canonists or Historians or as those are of Bellarmine Baronius c. for the exemption of Clergiemen from secular tribunals even the very supream in or as to the judgment or punishment of their crimes whatsoever contend so mightily and so dangerously and so fatally at last with Henry the Second or contend with him at all upon such grounds for any kind of exemption of those two Clerks whereof before from the Kings Judicatories especially when the King himself desired they should be delivered to the secular Court because of their own proper great delinquency and because also or indeed cheifly of the great clamours were then against the more general delinquency of Clerks in England as not regarding much Ecclesiastical punishments or should also but I say still upon the grounds of Bellarmine or his Associats contend with that King upon the matter or subject of the second of those 16. Heads which begins Clerici citati c. and which is the only indeed of all those 16. Heads that any way touches our present controversie or which of all those Heads may at all be made use of against my doctrine of the subjection of Clerks in criminal causes to the supream civil power Therefore I took the pains in reading over all the more ancient civil or municipal laws of England as many as I heard were extant and not only the Saxon laws publish'd of late by Abrahamus Whelocus though formerly translated into Latin out of the ancient English or Saxon language by Gulielmus Lambardus but also the Norman laws made for England by William the Conquerour and his youngest Son King Henry the first as Roger Twisden gives them as likewise I yet further took pains in consulting the Histories of William the Conqueror William Rufus Henry the First King Stephen Henry the Second c. because I perswaded my self it could not be otherwise but that certainly S. Thomas had some good sure ground for himself in the municipal proper peculiar laws of England for that which concern'd his grand contest or even for that second head fingly taken of those above 16. or even also for his not delivering up to secular judgment those two criminal Clerks Nor truly was I deceived in my perswasion nor frustrated in my inquisition For having read the laws of King Inas who began to raign an 712. and ended an 729. of King Alured who began his raign an 871. and ended an 900 of King Ethelred who began an 979. ended an 1016. of King Edgar who began an 959. ended an 975. of King Edmund who began 940. ended 946. of Edward the Second of that name of Saxon Kings who began 900. end 924. and of Guthrun the Danish tributary King those laws I mean which are called Faedera Edwardi ac Guthruni Regum of King Ethelstan who began his raign 924. ended 940. of King Canutus who began 1016. ended 1035. of Edward the Third of that name of the Saxon Kings otherwise called Edouardus bonus Edward the Confessor and St. Edward who began 1042. ended 1066. as likewise those of Gulielmus Conquaestor who began 1067. ended 1087. and of Henricus primus who began 1100. ended 1135. I find enough to my purpose 'T is true those of Inas Ethelred and Aelstane have nothing in particular touching it nor those even of Edgar which were renewed again LXVII years after his death and after that by reason of the intervening wars they had been so long out of use and were so renewed by Edwardus bonus St. Edward the Confessor any thing but that in general which is the first of all his laws Primum Ecclesiae Dei jura ac Immunitates sitas omnes habento deâ—umas quisque c. yet those of Alured determine thus Sacerdos si quempiam interfecerit eorum omnium quae ope domicilii fretus acquisierit confiscatio sequitor eumque gradu spoliatum Episcopus è fano pellito ni Dominus data capitis aestimatione veniam illi exorarit And those of Edmund thus si quis hominis Christiani sanguinem effuderit ad Regium conspectum etsi ei seruierit non admittitor ni prius id sceleris juxta ac fuerit ei ab Episcopo ac sacerdote imperatum compensarit But those of Edward the Second and Guthrum thus Si quis sacris initiatus clepserit dimicarit peierarit aut fornicatus fuerit capitis aestimatione mulcta aut legis violatae paena pro îpsa delicti ratione compensato Deo saltem prout se regulae habuerint Ecclesiasticae faciat satis atque in custodiam ni fidejussores admoverit conjicitor Sacerdos si in diebus festis aut jeiuniis populo indicendis erraverit 30. solidis si quidem id inter Anglos evenerit mulctator fin idem in Dacis acciderit sesquimarcam pendito Sacerdos si ad dies in hoc condictos oleum non pararit sacrosanctum aut baptisma cum usus fuerit denegarit inter Anglos mulctator in Dacis autem legis violatae paenas luctooras nimirum duodenas numerato Si quis sacris initiatus capitale quidquam perpetrarit capitor ut tandem Episcopo criminis admissi paenas dependat And those also of Canutus in part after the same manner and in part otherwise or thus Si eorum qui Arae deservierint aliquis hominem occiderit aut insigne aliquod perpetrarit flagitium gradu honore dispoliatus perinde ei atque Papa circumscripserit habitandi locum exulato ac cumulatè compensato Sin is crimen fuerit inficiatus excusatio tripla esto Atque ni hanc quae Deo hominibus
here I gave it not purposely for any such end unto which I know it both improper and forreign but gave it occasionally and only to shew the Reader that neither am I single in some other matters particularly or signally in that of the Oath of Supremacy wheresoever in this Work or elsewhere I reflect thereon mildly and interpret or expound it more benignly though withall more truly and groundedly than furious Zealots would But to strengthen S. Clara's Testimony and elucidate my own foresaid Answer in my fourth Reason the learned Reader may be pleased to consult Bruno Chaissaing a French Recollect of the same Franciscan Order Penitentiary to and under Gregory the XV and Vrban the VIII in the First or chief Church of Europe St. John Laterane at Rome and consult and read him in his Work intituled Privilegia Regularium printed at Paris with approbation Anno M.DC.LIII In which Work besides this Proposition Bruâ—o Chaissaing de Privil Reg. Tract 1. cap. 1. prop 9. 10. Possunt Reges Supremi Senatus licite retinere Bullas Apostolicas in casu vel magni scandali aut perturbationis aut praejudicii tertii aut aliorum similium which is his Tenth Proposition in order Tract 1. cap. 1. You may also find his former Ninth Proposition to be this other viz. Potest legitime appellari de abusu ad Principem Saecularem seu Senatum Supremum quotiescunque potestas Ecclesiastica pronunciat aut agit contra Canones Privilegia potestque Princeps Senatus Supremus appellationem suscipere appellantes a violenta suorum Praelatorum vexatione eripere And you may see him there purposely and at large by several Arguments proving this Ninth Proposition But you shall no where see him mincing or using any kind of nicety about the word or term Appeal nor quitting it for that other of Recourse but a fair and clear Assertion in express terms That it 's lawful for all sorts of Ecclesiasticks even the strictest Regulars to Appeal to the Secular and Supreme Lay-Power from the unjust or uncanonical Pressures of their own Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates and this also as often as the said Ecclesiastical Powers or Prelates pronounce or do any thing contrary to the Canons of the Church or Priviledges of their Order And consequently you shall not in this Author Bruno Chassaing meet with Franciscus a Sancta Claras Nudam potestatem civilem but with Jurisdictionem proprie dictam in the Majesties or Persons of Kings and other Lay Supreme States over all Clergy men whatsoever living under them Otherwise how might it according to the said Bruno's Doctrine in the place above quoted be lawful for Clergymen to Appeal I mean in the proper and strict sense of this word Appeal from their own Ecclesiastick Superiors to the King or State Or how might it be lawful for the King or State to receive such Appeals For Appeals properly or simply such argue Jurisdiction no less properly and simply such in the Judge of such Appeals Further and although it be not so much to my present purpose yet if to what St. Clare hath of the power of meer Lay Princes or States in general and in particular of that of our Kings of England to collate or to nominate and present for Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices I add also the Doctrine of another very late Roman Catholick Writer and Doctor of Divinity Joannes Baptista Verius in his Book intituled Pastorale Missionariorum Tract 4. Art xi Joannes Baptista Verius S. Theologiae Doctor in Pastorali Missionar Tract 4. ar xi I hold it not amiss For in the place thereof now quoted this Doctor Verius not only teaches with Lessius and Sanchez Two Jesuits whom he quotes but out of the Extravagant Ad evitandum c. of Martin the V. in the Council of Constance expresly proveth That even all Heretick Lay Patrons whatsoever not yet by name denounced enjoy still their former right of Canonical Patronage and that consequently all such do notwithstanding their Heresie both validly and as to all effects bindingly nominate or present fit persons to all kind of Ecclesiastical Dignities and Benefices whereof they or their legal Predecessors at any former time were the acknowledged Patrons Now from such whether necessary or unnecessary digressions to return to the series of my proofs for my main purpose here viz. that of St. Thomas of Canterbury's not having at any time for ought appears been guilty as much as of any Treasonable Principles or Doctrines My fifth Reason is 5. Because that a pure speculative judgment of either the probability or certainty of such or such a power to be or to remain as yet or to be naturally still inherent in the Church not only to give Royal Authority at first to these or these persons but also to take it away again from them or others deriving from them in some extraordinary case of grand demerit or grand incapacity must not infer a practical dictate or any at all for the lawfulness of taking it so away And because both Reason and Experience tell us That no such pure Speculation while it remains such and comes not to be practical or to have a practical or other dictate flowing from or annex'd to it either assuring us of the lawfulness of putting such power in execution or prompting us accordingly to execute can at all annoy hurt or in any wise lessen either in fact or intention the Majesty of Temporal Princes or States as it is clear enough to any rational man without further Discourse But that such a pure speculative judgment of such a power in actu primo in the Church doth not infer a practical judgment prompting so or any other judgment practical or speculative of the lawfulness of such execution in actu secundo of such a power we have also Theological reason and Humane Experience Theological Reason which approves that Maxim of both Civilians and Canonists and of natural Reason too where the Plea is not clear against the Defendant who is in possession Melior est conditio possidentis And which tells us also Quod ubi partium jura sunt obscura favendum sit Reo magis quam Actori And tells us moreover That none is by a probable Title only to be deprived of that which he holds by as probable a Title Have not Kings at least as probable a Title for their own civil and temporal Power to be even originally independent from the Church as the Church or any Churchman Divine Civilian or Canonist hath ever yet alledged That it is dependent from the Church either in the first Institution or after Conservation of it Or is it possible That any knowing man or at least such a great and excellently and Divinely knowing Church Prelate and Lawyer as Thomas of Canterbury was suppose him never so much prepossessed with the opinion or practice of the Roman Court then growing or already grown over-mightily should but know and confess this
Ecclesiasticos quam Saeculares praesertim Nobiles congruis admonitionibus sedulo continere satagat in sincera perfecta erga Sanctam Apostolicam Sedem observantia rejectis commentis novae formulae fidelitatis Valesianorum Illud enim est quod Ecclesiam Dei majori damno ac pernicie afficere potest quam quaevis anteacta Haereticorum persecutio In eo autem munere obeundo non est quod Paternitati Vestrae suggeram utpote ubertim in hujusmodi materiis instructae ex propria eruditione ac prudentia praeter ea quae nuper ipsi viva voce insmuavi signanter ut sic refutetur arguatur illud Juramentum ne tamen Regii Ministri ansam accipiant in Catholicos saeviendi eosque tanquam Regiae Dominationi quia ab Ecclesia defecerit infestos persequendi De omnibus porro quae in causa fidei at statu Ecclesiae digna notatu compererit gratissimum mihi erit Paternitatis Vestrae Litteris identidem edoceri Illas autem inscribat absque operculo A Monsieur Monsieur Francois Rossi-Bruxelles ita enim secure ad me perferentur Denique Paternitatis Vestrae Sacrificiis me animitus commendo Bruxellis 7. Octobris 1663. Paternitatis Vestrae Studiofissimus Hieronymus Abbas Montis Regalis In English thus Reverend Father in Christ YOur Paternities most friendly Letters dated at Paris the 20th of the last month I have received wherein you signifie that you are now again upon thoughts of your Journey to Ireland Wherefore I wish you a most happy Journey and send you the Faculties of an Apostolical Missionarie As for that which you mention of danger of Confusion in that Kingdom by occasion of the Visitor now suddenly to be Commission'd he meant the Visitator of the Franciscan Order in Ireland who was then to be sent or at least Commission'd from beyond Seas I could wish you did particularly inform me on that Subject that understanding fully the whole Affair I might timely take my measures Nothing occurs to me which at present I may recommend But the sum of all consists herein That rejecting the Comments Lyes or false Device of the new form of Fidelity of the Valesians you labour diligently by congruous Admonitions to contain your Countreymen especially the Nobility and Gentry in a sincere and perfect observance of the See Apostolick For that Formulary is it which can do more harm unto and bring more ruine upon the Church of God than all the forepast persecution of Hereticks In order to the discharging of that Duty incumbent on you its needless that I suggest any other thing to your Paternity being a man throughly and abundantly instructed in such matters by your own eradition and prudence besides those which I have lately by word of mouth insinuated to you signally That the said Oath be refuted and reproved so as that notwithstanding the Royal Ministers may not thence take occasion of severity against Catholicks or of persecuting them as people studiously and maliciously undermining the Royal Dominion on account of its having fallen from the Church As for the rest know it will be most grateful unto me that by your Letters I be frequently advertised of all Note-worthy matters concerning the cause of Faith or State of the Church which shall occur to you Your Letters without cover you may superscribe A Monsieur Monsieur Rossi-Bruxelles for so they will securely be brought to me To conclude I commend my self heartily to your Paternities sacrifices Bruxels 7. Octob. 1663. Your Paternities Most Affectionate Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal On either Letter though you need no Animadversions because they are of themselves plain enough as it is also plain that as well by these as other you have Sect. vii this Internuncio begun that which his Successors ever since more vigorously pursued viz. to have the Remonstrants esteemed both Schismaticks and Hereticks yet I cannot here but give some few Observations First Observation is How these men would pull out our eyes and make us believe the Pope would have all kind of Duty Faith and Obedience paid by us to our King to be exemplars of these vertues even to Hereticks and in a place of darkness the lights of the world in such matters and yet at the same time and by the same Letters to condemn us in effect as Schismaticks and Hereticks for any way acknowledging our King to be King and promising to obey Him as such and at the same time also to procure a publick University Censure of the Louain Divines to condemn our Subscription of such acknowledgment and promise and no less solemnly than formally or in express words to judge both to be unlawful detestable and sacrilegious yea and consequentially or virtually to be also Schismatical and Heretical For that our very such bare acknowledgment and promise c. were so condemn'd by them is manifest because our said Remonstrance and Subscription neither contain'd nor imported any more than such bare acknowledgment and promise c. being they contain'd and imported only this much That we acknowledge the King to be Supreme in all Temporal and Civil Affairs and that we promised to be faithfully and unchangeably obedient to him in such that is only in all Temporal and Civil things leaving out of purpose all mention of any kind of Spiritual things or causes Now who sees not that if we be condemn'd for only acknowledging the King to be Supreme in Temporals we are consequently condemn'd for the bare acknowledgment of his being at all or in any way or sense our King For there are but two or at most three wayes or senses wherein any can be truly said to be King The one that he be Supreme both in Temporals and Spirituals The other that he be in Temporals only and the last that only in Spirituals either purely and essentially or only by extrinsick denomination such But we have not Remonstrated nor have we Subscribed our acknowledgment of the King 's being our King either in the first or last sense but have been as to the words of our Formulary as far from either of both these two senses as Heaven is from Earth And therefore have only in the second Whence is further most evidently consequent That being we are condemn'd for Remonstrating or Subscribing in that sense we are also for the very barest acknowledgment can be of the Kings being any way King For how can we acknowledge him King if ever also as to very Temporals we deny his Kingship And therefore it is not only a meer Cheat and Imposture but Folly Non-sense and even plain contradiction to say That his Holiness would have us to be and continue still in our duty faith and observance to any person as to our King and yet at the same time to tell us That our profession of fidelity and obedience in Temporal things is unlawful detestable and sacrilegious nay Schismatical and Heretical upon this account that by such profession we both promise a more ample obedience to
his power and authority And we know there may be many other pretended grounds powers authorities However these matters be I declare first It was not the homeness of the Irish Formulary against the Pope but rather defect of that full and perfect and unavoidable undistinguishable homeness thereof that troubled me Though withall how defective or unhome soever it may be said by some to be against the Pope and Church or for the King and Civil Magistracy yet no man will deny now but that the Roman Court esteems it too too home and full against their Interests and Papal Usurpations Secondly That had I been at first consulted with as to the framing or fixing on a Formulary of Allegiance to the King neither King nor Council nor Parliament or House of Commons nor other Protestant Subject or not Subject whatsoever should have any ground left for excepting against the shortness or defectiveness of it as to any point controverted hitherto in that which relates to indispensable Allegiance in all Temporal things whatsoever or to its being open to Evasions or lyable to any kind of Quibbles not even to that of the reduplicative or specificative sense Thirdly That nevertheless I should not have been moved hereunto out of other respect than that of redeeming the Roman-Catholicks from the severity of the Laws against them hitherto these 100 years And I mean that of redeeming them only by a Declaration of their future fidelity and obedience in all Civil and Temporal matters so full clear and positive as would be answerable in all points to their so long consultation about such a one this whole entire Age past wherein they have declined first the Oath of Supremacy next that of Allegiance and by their demurs on both rendred themselves not only obnoxious to so many Laws but also to so many jealousies and suspitions of their Loyalty to the Crown and Kingdom of England Ireland c. as if they inclined to the vain pretences of Forreign powers And what I pray you will judicious learned Protestants say or rather what will they not say now when they cannot but understand how the said Catholicks oppose now again even a very cautious Declaration of bare and meer Allegiance in Civil things only and such a Declaration too I mean as was framed not by any Protestant but by themselves Or will not such Protestants as please have hence a very specious and probable ground to alledge in Parliament and plead there openly against the comprehension of Papists in any Act of Indulgence to Tender Consciences should there be any such And to alledge and plead I say A manifest inconsistence betwixt the safety of a Protestant Prince or State and the Repeal of Laws heretofore made against People so principled or any absolute liberty or freedom of exercise of Religion to them whose Religion appears by so many Arguments to be destructive to the very fundamentals of any Civil State especially Protestant because denying still to acknowledge as much as the very essence of such a State this essence if not consisting in at least requiring for one part of its essentials to be absolutely Sovereign or Supreme and Independent from any but God alone in all Temporal and Civil things And may not consequently the same Protestants plead That such Roman-Catholicks as peremptorily refuse to acknowledge that absolute Sovereignty or Supremacy and Independency in such a form of Declaration or Oath as cannot be lyable to any Evasions in any kind of Contingency whaâ—soever have no Title at all to His MAJESTIES gracious promises in His Letters from Breda for Indulgence to be given to all Tender Consciences that hold not Principles destructive to the fundamentals of Government For surely if any Opinions be destructive to such fundamentals those of the said Roman-Catholicks or of such Roman-Catholicks I mean as hold them must be of necessity Let any one therefore judge now with what sincerity or knowledge or truth the foresaid Internuncio Hierom de Vecchiis writ as you have seen to Father Bonaventure Brodin That the Valesian Formulary is it which may do more hurt and mischief to the Church of God than all the foreacted persecution of Hereticks And judge you Reader whom he understands here by Hereticks What by the Church of God What by hurt or mischief or ruine to that Church But blessed be God we are not so mad yet as to confine the Church of God to the walls of Rome or Papal and Cardinalitial Consistory or to the small number of men wherever diffused that either out of ambitious flattery or cowardly fear or ignorance or other respect whatsoever maintain the Papal Usurpations over Church or State asserting them so in plain contradiction both to Scripture Tradition Fathers Canons and practice too of the Catholick Church and not only to natural reason Nor yet so mad as to think that whatever hurts annoys or ruines the wicked Usurpations or unjust worldly Emoluments of such men must be esteemed any way truly hurtful to the Church of God and not rather on the other side both highly and truly advantagious and profitable Nor further yet so mad as to hold all those for Hereticks whom the Roman Ministers Tribunals or even many of their Popes even or also Boniface the VIII himself held for such No nor yet so mad as to esteem that to have been a persecution in the bad sense of this word which was a just prosecution of so many Emissaries sent heretofore from Rome of meer and set purpose to overthrow both King and Kingdom here by plotting and raising or endeavouring to raise even bloody horrid Rebellions of Subjects against both that I may say nothing now of the Invasion of Eighty Eight against Queen Elizabeth or the Powder-plot Treason after against King James and both His Houses of Parliament or of the late Rebellion in Ireland in our own dayes and year 1641. Nor finally so mad as to account the Remonstrants a Sect in the bad sense of this word albeit de Vecchiis would fain have them reputed such not only by Nicknaming them Valesians but also by joyning them in a comparative manner with those he expresly calls Hereticks For certainly it is meer madness either of blind ignorance or extreme malice that should make any to esteem the Teachers of fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things to a lawful King of what Religion soever to be therefore a Sect in the bad sense of this word Although in the Etymological sense generically taken or in any innocent thereof and in opposition to the present Roman Court its Partisans in the grand Controversie and in that or like good sense consequently whether generical or specifical wherein St. Paul confessed himself to be of the Sect of Pharisees in the point of Resurrection the Remonstrants confess themselves a Sect and glory in being so But the Internuncio gains nothing hereby if not that himself and his Associates how great or numerous soever be really in the worst sense
but many of their Superiours amongst them had also discountenanced nay to their power even vexed and persecuted such of their underlings who had signed it and moreover had understood all the other practices of their Agents beyond Seas how I say notwithstanding all this the said Lord Lieutenant had hitherto and for their sakes who signâ—d most patiently expected an amendment of such errours in the rest and in the mean time extended even to the most ungrateful of the Dissentors and opposers all those very favours of Indulgence and connivance of Publick exercise of Religion which the Subscribers enjoy And how the Procurator himself had no way lessened his Zeal to endeavour by all means he could the continuance of those favours even to the very most ungrateful and malicious of his Adversaries in the grand contest Sixth reflected on the great variety of pretences which the dissenting both Superiours and Inferiours pleaded for so many years to excuse their non-concurrence and amongst or rather above all other excuses their desire and expectation of Licence for a National Assembly to consult of the equity of the demand See those either pretences or true cause Tract 1. Part. 1. Sect. 9. from Page 21. to Pag. 27. Where you find the Sixteenth of them to be this of a National Congregation desired Seventh was wholly taken up in the Merits of the main matter in controversie or the only chief end of their meeting viz. the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof And here the Procurator shewâ—d and at large dilated upon the Lawfulness and Orthodoxness of it in point of Conscience and both Christian and Catholick Religion even I mean as to those very causes of the said Remonstrance which was the Rock of Scandal because denying and renouncing all and every the branches and appendages of the pretended Papal Authority either by Divine or Human Right to depose the King c. or dispence with or declare against the Allegiance of Subjects or by Excommunication or otherwise to raise them to a Rebellion against His Majesty c. His Arguments against any such Papal Power and consequently for the said Lawfulness and Orthodoxness he derived evidently 1. From so many plain Declarations and express commands of Holy Scripture 2. From the unanimous consent of Holy Fathers interpreting those passages of Holy Scripture so and not otherwise for a whole Thousand years until Gregory the VII's Pontificat 3. From the Practice also as well as Theory of the Christian Church Universally for those ten whole centuries of years and consequently even from true Catholick Tradition 4. From the general opposition made even in all European Nations Kingdoms States Schools Universities and National Churches to the contrary positions even also in every age since the said Gregorie's days until this very present 5. Particularly from the known Assertions of the Gallican Church and Decisions too of the eight present Universities of France all unanimously condemning those self same contrary positions as impious wicked against the Word of God Heretical and more singularly yet from the six late Declarations of Sorbon May 8. 1663. Not to mention how Cardinal Perron by his fine circumventing speech in the general Assembly of the Three Estates of that Kingdom after the Murder of Henry Le Grand only endeavour'd these Positions should not be declared in formal Words Heretical 6. From the Practice of the Parliaments of Paris and Sicilian Monarchy too 7. From the Statuts of Provisors and Praemunire made so many Hundred years since by the Roman-Catholick Kings and Parliaments of England and Ireland even all the Lords Spiritual assenting especially those Statutes under Edward the III. and Richard the II. which declare the Crown of those Kingdoms to be Imperial and subject to none but God only 8. From the eminency and multitude of most learned Roman Catholick Writers even Scholasticks who all along these 600 years have in every Age expresly condemned and even both specifically and abundantly confuted those vain and wicked pretences set on foot first by Hildebrand 9. From the pitiful silliness unsignificancy and absurdity of all Bellarmin's Arguments for the other side arguments proving either nothing at all or certainly that which neither himself nor any not even of his very beloved Popes themselves would allow 10. And Lastly from the clearness of Natural Reason also in the cases and that I mean too whether the Revelations of Christianity be presupposed or no. From all such Topicks of convincing Reason and Authority I mean as well Divine as Human the Procurator deduced his own arguments for the above Lawfulness and Orthodoxness viz. of the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof notwithstanding any Bugbear of Roman Letters or Louain Censures to the contrary The eighth advanced hence to the consequential both expediency and necessity of their unanimous cheerful Subscription without further delay or regret being there was no other way or means to redeem themselves or their Church or to satisfie or appease the King or his Protestant People for what had been so publickly and vehemently acted in former times partly by them or at least many of them and partly by the rest of the Irish Clergy represented by them and acted even all along either in or immediatly after the very first Rebellion of the Irish Nation in October 1641. and in the unhappy Congregation of Waterford Anno 1641 against the first Peace and further in the year 1648 against the Cessation with Inchiquin and for the Censures of the Nuncio Lastly in the year 1650. and most unhappy Congregation of Jamestown against the second Peace no other way truly in the first place but of humble Submissive Penitential Petition begging pardon for so many former grievous Errors against all Laws Divine and Human. Nor indeed any other in the next place to allay the just suspicions and jealousies of their future demeanour but that of a sincere hearty Loyal Recognition of His Majesties Supream Temporal Independent Power Protestation of Obedience and Fidelity according to the Laws of the Land in all Temporal matters and all contingencies whatsoever and Renunciation also of all pretended Powers and false Doctrines to the contrary The Ninth was the conclusion of all in wishes and Prayers beseeching the Fathers by all that should be dear or Sacred to them to consider That nothing was desired or expected from them in either point but what certainly was more consonant to pure Christianity i. e. to the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ and therefore doubtless more holy than the contrary was or could possibly be 2. The sad fate which had perpetually and universally attended all Rebellions of those of their Religion however at so many several times and places entred into either in England Ireland or Scotland since the first separation under Henry the Eighth 3. Whether wise men ought not even in point of Prudence not only bid at last an eternal adieu to such both Principles and Practices as proved at all times and in all Countries
particular cases either of Excommunication or the pretended exemption of Clergymen or Condemnation of the contrary Doctrines c. in which and against all which the former Remonstrance was home enough moreover also considering the several Distinctions which they had learned from Bellarmin Suarez Molina c. to evade any kind of tye on Sophisters in special cases from those so general Declarations of Sorbon in which Distinctions I doubted not the Proposer himself Father Nettervil was more than sufficiently conversant therefore I saw nothing yet proposed to satisfie me because nothing at all which I could undertake to be any way sufficient or fit to be moved unto the Lord Lieutenant as a medium to assure his Grace and His Majesty of their future fidelity hereafter in all contingencies or indeed in any of those contingencies wherein their fidelity might be tryed home to the quick and I was resolved my self not for any intreaties or even specious offers whatsoever to be found or prove treacherous to the Trust reposed in me either by one or other side by His Majesty or by the Clergy or prove unanswerable to that expectation which either the Catholick Church and Irish Nation or the Lord Lieutenant and Protestant State or People should or might have of the honesty and integrity of a Priest of the Roman Church so particularly and singularly looked upon as I had now been for many years both formerly and of late in such publick Transactions as I had been engaged in And being for the above considerations I saw nothing in this new Proposal which accepted by me could of my side answer that trust or expectation their Paternities must excuse from me returning to the Assembly upon that account barely or without further satisfaction given to my own more material proposals made to them To this purpose when I had answered they i.e. those three Fathers laid themselves presently to their knees at my feet begging of me by all that was dear or sacred not to persist in my Resolution but to yeild to their request in this one particular I must confess that although I was somewhat moved by this kind of unexpected either humility or importunity of such men both friends and Priests and otherwise too in their Profession so well qualified besides that they represented then the whole Congregation and although I did likewise at the same instant uncover and kneel with them praying them to rise but not herein prevailing until they had spent all their Rhetorick and tyred themselves and me for a long time yet recollecting all my strength of reason against this extraordinary attack of humility importunity and friendship I resolved them at last plainly and flatly That I found still a necessity on me which they had not so much as gone about by any rational argument to take away not to be weakned to a condescention in this case albeit I would be otherwise perswaded by them and by them especially above others to any matter wherein Reason or Conscience or Justice or Equity or even regard of the Publick good of that very Congregation that sent them would suffer me to be indifferent And therefore I prayed them to return to the Congregation with this answer of mine adding only thereunto That however so soon as the Congregation had performed what they now offered i. e. signed those six Sorbon Declarations or Propositions applyed to themselves mutatis mutanais notwithstanding I returned not to them yet I would consider how to make the best use I could of this offer and such their Subscription or performance of it Whereupon we rose up of each side they departed and I walked alone melancholy enough What the final issue was upon the report they made to the Congregation of my answer will appear soon XVI BUT in the mean time you must know That the very next morning which was the 16. of the moneth and sixth of the Congregation a third Message with an additional offer from the Congregation was delivered me by the Bishop of Ardagh himself though indeed a very unsignificant both message and offer yet such a one as I expected by him In short his Lordship having come where he had been told I was then he desired me to walk to a private room where he might talk more freely and communicate to me what he had in charge from the Fathers And being so withdrawn he shews me a draught of a Paper which the Congregation would sign for my own proper satisfaction When I had perâ—ifed it I found it contained no more in effect then a Testimony of theirs That I had not been Author of the controverted Remonstrance and that for the rest I had had very good intentions all along in whatever I did Therefore my â—â—swer to his Lordship was very short and no other than That I needed no such testimony of theirs for either point That had I been the Author of that Loyal Formulary I had rather gloried therein than either denied oâ— excused my being so That I had both God and my own Conscience to beare witness to my good intentions who were the only infallible witnesses of the interiour and had moreover my writings nay and other works also to give men who can judge of the exteriour stronger arguments and much clearer evidences of my good intentions all along for my Religion and Nation since first I appeared in Publick affairs or controversies in the year 1646 than any paper Testimony of the Congregation might give Moreover that the question or point in difference twixt the Congregation and me was not of the Author of the Remonstrance nor of my intentions nor even of any Testimony of theirs to be given me or any other And Lastly That his Lordship therefore must excuse me not only from listning to any unsignificant proposal of that kind nor only from accepting any such but from accepting either such or not such Testimonials from them Whereupon having restored his paper to him we parted he to the Congregation and I to the Kings Castle What he did with the Fathers we shall see hereafter As for my going to the Castle it was for no other end than to inform his Grace the Lord Lieutenant of all that passed both that morning and former day How I had solemnly and purposely withdrawn from the Fathers and wherefore Of their Committees sent to me and offer by them of signing the six Sorbon Declarations What these Declarations were what they imported as from well meaning men what on the other side as from Sophisters and Juglers versed in Equivocation Reservation both Mental and Vocal and many other subtilties of School distinctions especially what from such as on the contradictory question refused to descend to the case of Excommunication as neither would they to those other of Apostacy Heresie pretence of Tyrannical Government or oppression of the People either in their Religions or Civil Rights or of other Sins of the Governour or even of unfitness c. And nevertheless
that I my self had been much against the trouble of either presenting or writing it because I had clearly seen all along the stubborn unflexible resolution of the Demagogues and most of the inferiour Multitude who would hear no reason and consequently that it would have no effect upon such men of byass And yet after all that pressed by the reasons and importunities of many of those Loyal Subscribers of the former Remonstrance I drew that Letter for them and subscribed it too as one of them which I now give you here The Expostulatory Letter directed to the Chairman of the Congregation by such of the Ecclesiastical Subscribers of the former Remonstrance or of that of 1661 as were at Dublin and not Members of the Congregation delivered and read publickly a little before that National Meeting Dissolved Right Reverend and our very good Lord IT is notoriously known to the whole Kingdom That the present National Representative of the Irish Roman-Catholick Clergy is now convened in this Capital City of Ireland in order to their Signing a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise of their future Loyal fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land to our Dread Soveraign Charles the Second to the end That not only His Majesty nor only His Councils of State and Parliaments but also all other His Majesties Protestant Subjects of whatever different Religion Perswasion or Opinion as to the way of truly and rightly worshipping God may be throughly satisfied That the Roman Catholicks of Ireland even the most Reverend and Sacred Representative of all their Ecclesiasticks do now at last freely and conscientiously under their own proper hands in a publick Instrument profess themselves to be and even according to their divine Faith or true infallible Principles of right Christianity and of the Catholick Church to be as much obliged if not more in point of conscience to continue evermore faithfully subject and obedient in all such Temporal matters and according to all such Laws of the Land to His Majesty and lawful Successors in all contingencies that may happen as any other even of whatever Church or Sects either hold themselves bound or indeed by the Laws of God are otherwise bound to His Majesty or to any other their respective Soveraign Princes or States on Earth Nor is it less manifestly known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise or Protestation from this present Ecclesiastical Assembly For who is he can be ignorant of those just suspitions of an inclination to return again to disloyal both Principles and Practices under which the generality of Irish Catholicks Clergy and People do lye yet continually amongst their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion Or who indeed but knows the true source of those very great and not to be wondred at jealousies especially that which cannot be dried up in our days even the fresh memory of all that hath been so lately acted in Ireland against the Protestant Church and People by the Confederate Roman Catholicks of that Nation in the last unhappy Wars Nay who is not sensible of the miserable condition even at present of so many Thousands of our unfortunate Countreymen Or who sees not this condition is one fatal effect of that suspicion or rather as I should say of that firm perswasion amongst Protestants of the Disloyaltie of the Roman-Catholick Irish in general besides is it not as generally known How that to allay for the future that very suspicion lessen hereafter that very perswasion which hath even so lately i. e. since His Majesties happy Restauration blasted the hopes of so many thousands of our ancient Proprietors and so to vindicate their holy Religion from bearing any share in the blame of those unholy irreligious Practices of some however too too many Professors of it and consequently to obtain the ceasing of that severe Persecution commanded and effectually for some time continued by the Triumvirat in Ireland Anno 1660 a considerable number of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks then at London headed by a Bishop of the same Religion and Nation had in the same year thought it becoming their duty to God Allegiance to their Natural Prince Piety to their Countrey and the Character also of those who as the Sons of Peace desire Christian Peace and a fair friendly and faithful correspondence betwixt all His Majesties Subjects of whatever Church or Nation yea and not only thought it so becoming but after a serious debate conceived it both expedient and necessary To sign as accordingly they did sign a Remonstrance and Protestation of indispensable fidelity and obedience in all temporal matters whatsoever c or a Declaration and Promise of Loyalty indeed so full as might answer in all respects the end above mentioned And is it not likewise known That with the same Irish Ecclesiastick Subscribers of that Remonstrance the greatest and most considerable part by much of the Nobility and Gentry of our Nation at that time in London did joyn themselves and concurr even by the like subscription then or soon after in that very place besides many more also of the rest of the Nobility and Gentry at home in Ireland who next Winter and since have followed the same good example given first at London And to pass over at present how not only several more of the Irish as well Bishops as other learned Clergymen then abroad have much about the same time approved of that very Formulary of professing our Allegiance even some of them by their manual Subscriptions to it and how not only the English Noblemen advised and consulted with by the Irish Nobility at London concerning it have professed publickly in a great Assembly of the aforesaid Irish both Nobility and Gentry That were the case of the Irish theirs they and all the rest of the English Nobility and Gentry of the Roman Communion would willingly sign that Remonstrance in terminis and even sign it with their blood were this necessary but also how the English Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Secular Eeclesiasticks have in a Letter written on purpose by their command signed by their Dean Humphrey Ellice alias Doctor Waring and superscribed to the Bishop of Dromore signified clearly so much in effect of their own approving likewise the same Formulary or that very individual Remonstrance of ours We say that to pass at present all this over Is it not further as manifestly apparent how graciously that Instrument after the signature of it was received by His Majesty How immediately the Persecution in this Kingdom ceased by His Majesties express Command Nay how ever since both People and Clergy of our Communion have enjoyed the great tranquility and freedom in point of exercising our Religion and Functions which we have so gladly seen and which we so thankfully acknowledge to be still continued to us yea in a higher measure enjoyed by us at
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
inclination to nor any the least tincture of a Iansenist And if what I have said here conclude me to be a Iansenist I profess my self one But if it do not as I am sure it doth not then I am none at all it not such a one as Father N. N. and the Congregation should and ought and must profess themselves in life and death if they will not live and dye out of the Catholick Church Whence it appears evidently that whatever Father N. N. intended by his few Iansenists that furthered this dispute I cannot be comprehended amongst such And I have shewed already there is none remaining to be rightly or justly intended by such But for as much as whether he really meaned any or no or entertained in his own breast with or without ground that suspition of any or no but onely intended this jealousie as a meer trick to abuse the unlearned Roman Catholicks in the reading of his paper with some kind of specious preâ—ence for not signing and consequently fixed on this of Iansenisme as the most proper to strike the greatest horrour into them of a doctrine furthered by such men as Iansenists so lately and solemnly condemned by three Popes of Heresie as he sayes I thought also fit but by no trick at all further yet a little to disabuse the readers of that unreasonable writing of his by giving here exactly and sincerely all those very doctrines which imputed to Iansenius whether found in his book or no and whether in his sense or no have been so condemned by three Popes already and are those onely which gave the name of Iansenists to such as before that condemnation maintained them in the sease they conceived them written first by Iansenius himself for such of these doctrines I mean as they allow to be in Iansenius and still maintain that neither all are found in him nor any of all condemned in his sense In giving of which I have no further end than that such readers by comparing those doctrines to this dispute may themselves be judges of this truth also that our present dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church hath no kind of relation to them nor they to it And of this other too that F. N. N. hath indeed no less impertinently than invidiously brought this to question The doctrines therefore of Iansenius or imputed to him in whatever sense are these following here commonly called the five condemned Propositions 1. Aliqua Dei praecepts hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus secundum praesentes quas habent vires sunt impossibilia deest quoque illis gratia qua possibilia fiant 2. Interiori gratiae in statu naturae lapsae nunquam contradicitur 3. Aâ— merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas â necessitate sed sufficit libertas â coactione 4. Semipelagiani admittebant praevenientis gratiae interioris necessitatem ad singulos actus etiam ad initium Fidei et in hoc erant haeretici quod vellent gratiam esse â—alem cui posset humana voluntas vel resisterevel obtemperare 5. Semipelagianum est dicere Christum pro omnibus omnino hominibus mortuum faisse et sanguinem fudisse Now let any man that understands reason be judge whether the dispute of the Popes fallibility or infallibility without the consent of the Church and the decision of it in the negative against the Pope cannot be furthered by any either privatly or publickly under-hand or overboard but he must fall under the suspicion of maintaining those five so condemned propositions or some â—ne of them For my own part I protest again in the presence of God I neither have maintained nor do nor will any of them unless first determined by the known consent of the Church or that of a General Council And yet I have done already and will hereafter do what becomes me to further this dispute now in hand and the decision of it already by the Catholick Universities of France against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Catholick Church And I know others have done so before I or Iansenius was born And that all the world can do so without either formal or virtual or consequential relation to them or any of them whether they be true or false heretical or not found or not in the Book or Works of Iansenius or by those three Popes or any of them condemned or not in his meaning To his last pretence or the disturbance of both King and Countrey which he hath kept for his Triarii for his very last and strongest and surest reserve and therefore gives it in these very last words of his Paper I need not say more in this place having said so much already before to falsifie this supposition of his side and verifie it of my own against him but that were it true as he alleages it he had indeed behaved himself for so much like an Orator or Sophister of repute reserving his best argument of all to conclude all In fine triumphat Orator That being it is so manifestly false in his sense and to his purpose I wonder with what confidence he alleages it That he could not give his cause a more deadly wound than by rubbing up again our memory of this consideration That I have shewed already it is not this dispute of that sixth Proposition against the Popes infallibility and resolve of it in the negative which only was the dispute and the resolve intended all along by those that furthered it in their Congregation that can be said to be to the disturbance of either King or Countrey but the contrary dispute and resolve for that pretended infallibility must be that in this matter which ever yet since it first began hath been accompanied infallibly in several parts of the world with the disturbance of both and not with the disturbance only but with ruine also of King and Countrey together nay and of the Church too no less than of the State Politick or Civil That this latter kind of dispute and resolve for which F. N. N. and his Congregation or at least very many of them would fain be if they knew well how are already and too notoriously known to be the very first grand and necessary fundamental of the superstructure of that other so false dangerous and destructive pretence of the power direct or indirect or whatever else you call it in the Pope for deposing Kings and licencing Subjects to rebel against them That whether so or no yet no man can deny this latter pretence of power from God to depose Kings and raise their Subjects against them to be altogether insignificant where it comes to the test of reason or even of Scripture or Traditional dispute amongst rational knowing men without that other of infallibility concomitant and unseparably annexed That if so many late and sad experiences at home within this last century of years or
Confederates fallen to such an ebb and sad condition our two most flourishing Armies defeated and brought to nothing our quarters over-run by four several Enemies burnt wasted and for no less than a third part of what was ours intirely even last year now made tributary our own Forces of the Vlster Army devouring what was left by the Common Enemy and in Hostile wise destroying all places which by others were untouch't and which before this Cruelty were able to and really did support the most considerable proportions of the charges of War our Exchequer hence both empty and altogether hopeless to get in monies from a Countrey so totally exhausted and so lamentably ruined our expectations of great Sums and helps from beyond Seas being turn'd to wind smoke and despair for any thing hath yet appeared or if some little quantity be come it being feared that it should be given for maintaining sides and supporting Factions against the Government as we have seen in effect proved no common Granaries for the Publick and but very small store of grain with any private persons in so great a dearth of Corn as Ireland hath not seen in our memory and so cruel a Famine which hath already killed Thousands of the poorer sort and therefore no possibility to keep an Army in the field though no other want had been but that of bread and if Enemies were as hitherto coming on us from the four Winds lastly so much dissention such distance and such malignant hatred 'twixt our selves within the body of the Confederates as the wiser sort did not without cause conceive to be too ominous and to weaken us no less than could the strongest Army of our Enemies an ebb so low and a condition so sad of the Confederates that according to humane hopes there was no likelihood without a Cessation with some one Party they might subsist this Summer either by a defensive War in all the Provinces or an offensive in one and a defensive in the rest Yet by the Cessation they might be so enabled that according to much probability Religion might be planted this season where Heresie is most insolent and powerful of any place in the Kingdom For if that Party of the Confederates which now opposeth the Cessation were obedient and together with the Forces of the Marquess of Clanrickard drawn by this Cessation from a Neuter to a Confederate or at least to a social War against His Majesties Enemies and of the Lords Taffe Preston and Inchiquin nay should Inchiquin stay at home and give no help but only forbear annoying us should we say the foresaid Lords and Forces march against the Scots and Dublin who sees not but by the help of this Cessation Faith and Religion might in many places be planted this Summer on the ruines of Heresie And hence it is That Thirdly it is clear The Cessation is so far from disadvantaging Religion as there could hardly be a better way thought of to further it Whence followeth That not only necessity which hath been now declared but also utility or great advantage gotten by it for the Cause doth warrant it since by the Articles Inchiquin himself with his victorious Army is bound to display these Colours for us which so many times we groaned to see against us More indeed than the nature of a Cessation draweth along with it and if it be taken together with the former benefit of the second and fifth Article and with the care had that the Lord of Inchiquin's Protestant Party should not enjoy the like benefit or liberty of either their Function or Religion in our quarters more it is plain to the honour and profit of our Faith than the greatest and most Catholick Kings and Emperours performed in the like occasions Certainly we know the King of Spain hath to pass over the present Peace so long expected and so much spoken of almost in our own memory concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the Hollanders (r) Auctarium Chron. ad annal Barronii ad an 1609. and yet no such liberty obtained for the Catholick Religion within their quarters Nay we know That the most powerful and most virtuous Charles the V. King of Spain and Emperour of Germany though his Kingdoms were so vast his Forces both at Sea and Land so great his Treasures so inexhaustible and himself so victorious yet to provide for the safety of his Estate rather than to hazard too much with the Hereticks of Germany (s) Idem ad an 1547. 1552. was contented to give them by express Article and Act of Parliament the free exercise of their Religion and Function even of that Religion which was presented by the Lutherans and is called Confessio Augustana throughout all Germany (t) Yet liberty of Religion is the very worst of evils most repugnant to and destructive of Catholick Faith and of all Civil Government and only out of meer necessity to be permitted Becan in Suâ— de fid Haer. ser c. 16. q. 4. con 2. 3. by vertue of which Act and of other such Acts made by his Successors the Lutherans and Catholicks on several hours use their Rites in the same Churches in many Towns of Germany c. even to this present day We know moreover That Matthias Caesar (u) Knolls in his Turk Hist in Achâ— Gospar Landorp in the year 1606. articled with the Protestant rebellious Hungarians That from thenceforth it should be lawful for every man throughout the Kingdom of Hungary to have the free use of his Religion and to believe what he would And in the year 1609. for to purchase his own peace and safety of his Empire gave free exercise of Religion and delivered the University of Prague to the rebellious Sectaries on the 12th of July and several Churches in Austria and Moravia to the Hereticks then in Arms (x) See at large in the Turkish History in Achmat fol. 1290. the pacification made with the Protestant States of Moravia and Austria and fol. 1295. the pacification made with the Bohemians on the 12th of March We know lastly That Henry the III. King of France was constrained through the dangers otherwise threatning his State to condescend to a worse Peace than any of these mentioned with the Huguenots at large set down in Surius (y) Surius ad an 1576. And that Henry the IV. seeing his Flour-de-lucis thrown into a Labyrinth of Troubles by the same Hereticks to provide for the good of his Kingdom by quietness confirmed unto them their liberty of Religion gave stipends to their Ministers out of the Publick Treasury and certain strong holds as a pledge for performance Yet no Censures issued against these Catholick Princes or Subjects for such Agreements no Declaration made by His Holiness or by the Clergy against them but Churches open to them alwayes and Sacraments administred Which questionless could not be if His Holiness if the Prelates of those Kingdoms if the Clergy and Universities did
Suar. Tolet. Cajet alii quos citat sequitur Bonac tract de decalog d. 3. q. 9. pu unic prop. 3. nu 4. 5. according to the Catholick doctrine to relie for it is a mortal sin to tempt God by expectation of miracles And is there any man of sense will say That a dispensation which draweth along with it so much evil could either be in it self just or have a just cause specially where the cause pretended is the declining of a sin in adhering to a Cessation wherein or in which adhering we have manifestly proved no sin could be committed Nay We have evinced the said Cessation could not be not adhered unto or could not be rejected by the Council and Confederates without most grievous and fearful sins and we have shewed this to be the constant doctrine of the Catholick Divines and of the Church of God and that when the contrary was practised through ignorance and temerity the experience was fatal and cost them dear Thirdly By reason of the disesteem it would bring upon all Confederacy and of the unsecurity manifest danger and confusion it would bring upon and throw into all Christian States and Governments For if by such dispensations and upon such grounds the common Subject could be withdrawn from his Allegiance and with a good Conscience rebel what Prince what State or Republick nay what private man could live one day in security whereas they often see before their faces such boundless enraged ambition and such cruel designs of some Prelates may this be spoken without disparagement to so many other great and good Prelates who by their vertuous lives and apostolical doctrine support States Kingdoms and Monarchies of Christianity as in particular several are seen to use with us at this present such praise-worthy endeavours for the preservation of the Confederates If together with this example it were maintained as a Catholick Tenet That such Prelates or Churchmen could at their pleasure or upon such designs challenge and assume a power of the Fortunes Estates Crowns Lives of Kings and Republicks by dispensing with particulars or promiscuously with the multitude or any other in their due obedience and Oaths of Allegiance what should not be hourly feared Lastly which is hence consequent by reason of the aversion and hatred it would breed in all Infidels and Sectaries against our Religion For what Prince State or Commonwealth of any other Religion would admit of ours if our doctrine of dispensations in the Subjects Allegiance were so destructive of all Policy and good Government and so cruelly wicked Let us therefore here and evermore stop our Christian ears from such blasphemies against the Law of God and the Faith of the Holy Roman and Universal Church in all Ages to this present time And let us leave such Antichristian principles to Luther Calvin and such other infernal Furies who covered a great part of Europe with the blood of Christians by doctrine in substance not unlike this but certainly no worse than this and whereby they at their pleasures armed the Subject against the Prince and the People against the Magistrate for the destruction of Christianity and of the Church of God Read the Catholick Author who writ on Fox's Kalendar of Martyrs where he at large rehearseth the dangerous anarchical and bloody principles of late Sectaries specially of Puritans The Seventh and last Querie answered AS the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio highly entrench with submissive reverence to his Grace we say it on all Supreme Governors on the Law of Nations the Honour of the Confederates and brings a scandal on our Holy Mother the Catholick Church which contrary to his Lordships proceedings teacheth and warranteth Promises Leagues Contracts Cessations and Peace made with Hereticks to be Religiously performed as we have seen in the second Supposition made in our Answer to the first Querie and in the Authors there cited and teacheth as we have seen before that all Subjects both Laicks and Ecclesiasticks Priests Fryers Jesuites Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs Cardinals are bound under mortal sin and eternal damnation to obey all Orders of the Civil Magistrate wherein evil and sin doth not manifestly appear which we have sufficiently proved not to appear in their orders concerning this great difference so it must follow that none of either state Temporal or Ecclesiastical may without shipwrack of his Conscience and loss of his Soul disobey the orders of the Supreme Council on sole pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio these proceedings being now declared by strong and insoluble reasons to be unjust illegal invalid sinful commanding and enforcing to most enormous and execrable sins of Infidelity Perjury Rebellion Treason and to so many other abominable Crimes which stream out of these evil sources Whence is apparent how unsatisfactory and ignorant their Answer is who to excuse their disobedience to the Council alledge the Commands of their spiritual Superiours Guardians Pryors Provincials Bishops the Lord Nuncio c. to the contrary as if such Commands or of such Superiours or of any else whosoever temporal or spiritual were of more force to oblige their Consciences than the Commandments of God and than his Law which according to the Declaration made thereof unto us by St. Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. and by the doctrine of the Church of God the Holy Fathers and Catholick Doctors in all Ages on pain of eternal damnation enjoin both them and all such their Superiours whatsoever either of the Secular or Regular Clergy to obey the Council in all matters where manifest sin doth not appear And that sin doth not appear in any of the Commands of the Council concerning the faithful observation of this Agreement made with Inchiquyn yea notwithstanding any Censures of the Lord Nuncio we have more than sufficiently manifested and they who make this ignorant answer confess in regard it could not be hitherto found what Article or part of the Cessation might be with reason maintained to be sinful as by their flying to this strait they are constrained Otherwise certainly if they could shew any evil or sin therein they would rather make use of so reasonable an excuse for opposing the Decrees of the Council than of so bad a pretext as blind obedience to the Commands of Superiours who are as they obliged by the Law of God to be wholly subject to the Council for what concerns the peace and tranquility of the Commonwealth Wherefore what they call obedience to their Superiours is no true nor vertuous obedience but vitious but sinful but against their Conscience but damnation to their Souls as the Apostle hath because it implies plain disobedience to and transgression of the Commands of God who must be obeyed before all men of the earth Will any even of themselves deny but their obedience to the Commands of their Superiours enjoining them Rapine Theft Murther Adultery Sacriledge c. or enjoing them never to confess their sins never to pray
find no succour or countenance from any Catholick Prince of the Church or Laity he governing but reproach and disgrace Answer We believe that no Prince or State that could not be induced to succour or countenance this Nation being under obedience to their natural King will succour or countenance it if it suffer it self to be seduced into Rebellion upon the motives suggested by these men and their Brethren which were to give evil example to their own Subjects and hazard the quiet of their Kingdoms or States Sixth Reason That the Souldiers by the ill success of his conduct have not the heart to fight under him and so we shall be lost if we come to fighting Seventh Reason We find the People generally in great fear to be lost under his Government and are of opinion That the greater part of the People will agree with the Parliament if the Authority were continued in him despairing of defence under him Answer To these We have answered elsewhere * * From page 109. to page 115. in this Discourse Eighth Reason That we declared against him having the King's Authority out of no spleen or malice against his person so save us God but for the fear we had upon good deliberation of the utter ruine and destruction of the Nation under his Government and that now finding no reasons or wayes of preservation by him we may not with reason be induced to alter our opinion especially the Kings authority being not in him Answer We cannot sufficiently wonder That men having no spleen or malice to our person have yet been so Transported by their desire to have a Governour to their mind as to asperse us with so many untruths as they have been detected of in this Discourse Or why if their charity be such as they speak of they chose not rather to deal freely with Us in private when VVe so often provoked them to it than to join with others to keep Us here against Our inclination as if it were on purpose to send Us away irrecoverably blasted in Honour and Reputation by their publick Declaration Ninth Reason That those two considerable Corporations remaining are at great distance with his Excellency for giving Commissions to take away their Goods and other Reasons and are thought to be resolved not to submit to him though they resolve to appear as in their intentions and actions they conceive they are faithful to the Crown and to the Kings authority obedient if placed in another person Answer As to the Commissions here mentioned to be given by Us against Lymerick the many provocations disobediences affronts and challenges of dues by the Commissioners applotted on them required much more at Our hands than VVe did VVhich you will find by the ensuing Discourse though therein VVe are necessitated to re-assume in part what VVe formerly said of the demeanour of that City That VVe having for a long time observed the great disadvantage His Majesties service in the conduct of the VVar hath been subject unto for want of Garrisoning the Army in the principal Cities and Towns of this Kingdom whereby the Army could not but be undisciplin'd and unfit for action the Countrey where VVe have been forced to quarter them at large burthened and destroyed and the said Cities and Towns on the defence whereof depended the preservation of the Kingdom with the lives liberties and fortunes of all His Majesties good Subjects therein in apparent hazard of being lost upon the approach of an Enemy as by sad experience hath been verified in the loss of some places of importance for the want of the seasonable admitting into them of fitting Governours and Garrison Souldiers VVe did on the 14th of January last propose unto the Commissioners authorized by Us in pursuance of the Articles of Peace That then immediately Lymerick and other places should be strongly Garrison'd and Fortifi'd and in pursuance of the said Articles VVe offer'd unto them the names of three persons of the Roman-Catholick Religion that out of them they might choose one for the Command of Lymerick But the Plague increasing at Kilkenny together with the necessity of dissolving the meeting then there and for other important Reasons the Election of a Governour of the said City of Lymerick was deferred to the end that at Our coming thither VVe might in the manner prescribed by the Articles of Peace make choice of such a Person and Garrison as might be at once fit for so important a Charge and beyond all possibility of being lyable to just Exception from that Corporation We leave it to the Commissioners and others that then attended Us to witness what pains We there took to satisfie those of that City in the necessity of their speedy receiving a Governour and Garrison in relation to all the interests that can be of value with any people what Our patience was in passing by many disrespects and marks of an unworthy distrust put upon us there as particularly the Officer commanding the City Guards neither came to Us for orders nor imparted any to Us That no Officer of the Army nor any other person could without special leave and that hardly obtained from the Mayor be admitted to come to Us to receive Our commands and directions for resisting the Rebels than by this means prevailing in the County of Lymerick and other places and That the Lord Viscount Kilmallock a Peer of the Realm and an Officer of the Army was We being upon the place restrained of his liberty for no other reason than for quartering by Our orders for one Night some few Horse under his Command in the liberties of the City When thorough such their deportment We despaired of persuading them to the wayes leading to their proper safety and also judged it far beneath the honour of Our Master to remain any longer in a place where such Affronts were put upon His Authority intrusted with Us We determined to remove from thence to Loghreogh appointing the said Commissioners and as many of the Roman-Catholick Bishops as were within any convenient distance to meet Us there on the 19th of March Where being met We declared unto them the necessity of Garrisoning that City and gave them some notice of Our resentment of Our usage there yet sparingly in hope that by their means they might be brought to consent to what was so necessary for their own preservation and in time to a better understanding of their duty to His Majesties Authority Whereupon the said Commissioners by two of their number directed very pressing and rational Letters to that Corporation to the effect proposed by Us offering to them their choice of five persons for the Martial Government of that City all of the Roman-Catholick Religion of considerable interest in the Kingdom and of unblemished Reputation And the Bishops do affirm That they accompanied those Letters with others from themselves persuading that obedience should be given to what was required by Us with the advice and consent of
withal that if they had stated or supposed it otherwise as they do not or if we did suppose even all the civil or temporal power in the world conferr'd by the world it self on the great Pontiff or on the Church or Churchmen to make what laws he or they pleased in all civil things and for all mortal men and by themselves to govern the world as the onely supream civil Governours yet my judgment would be still that even in such a case according to natural reason there could be no power at all in the Pope or Church as indeed none is at present nor can be at any time in the Princes or people themselves or both or even together with the Church to exempt Churchmen from the supream civil Magistrat in whose Dominions they live And yet in the case which is now in being of the Popes being at present the supream civil Magistrat in Rome and in the whole temporal Patrimony of St. Peter in some tracts of Italy for so at least he is in effect or by actual possession of the rights of such a supream civil Magistrat he cannot by any argument of natural reason exempt the Clergie of those tracts from his own said supream civil power of them unless he at the same time devest himself wholly of that very same supream civil power and quit it absolutely to some other Whereof more hereafter in the following Sections where it will appear that the exemption of Clerks from the supream power of Kings under whom they live and whom they acknowledg to be also their own Kings implyes a most plain and manifest contradiction In the mean time let us now to the onely arguments remaining those natural or Theological reasons of the other side for such a power in the Pope or Church These reasons such as they be I find to be in all seven or eight six whereof are fram'd by Dominicus Soto and the other two by Franciscus Victoria Albeit five of those fix are onely to prove the said exemption as to the persons of Clergiemen but the rest to prove it not onely as to their persons but as to their goods also And besides these eight reasons I see no other in these or other Authors of their way nor indeed any thing els not even in Covarâ—â—vias himself but some few authorities of other Canonists which are not worth the while nor at all proper to repeat heer being such as they neither belong to reason nor have on other account any power of perswasion The first general reason of Dominicus Soto proveing this exemption as well necessary as congruous and both as to the goods and as to the persons of Clergiemen Ecclesiastical power sayes he is per se that is of it self or by its own nature sufficient and independent from the civil power Therefore it may of it self make all such laws as are either necessary or convenient for its own administration quae suae administrationi sunt necessariae vel congruentes But the law of exemption of Clerks both as to their goods and persons from all kind of Secular Magistrats even the very most supream is either necessary or at least very congruent that is to say is at least convenient or agreeable or meet or fitting or expedient for Church administration Now to prove this assumption first as to the persons or to prove it to be even necessary That the persons of Churchmen should be so exempt Soto gives four specifical reasons as immediately after he gives also a fifth to prove it necessary as to their very goods The first specifical reason or medium of Soto to prove it necessary as to their persons For sayes he whereas the Ministers of the Church are constituted according to divine law it must seem in the next degree of proximity to the said law divine that they may not be called upon or commanded by the secular Judges Second specifical reason as to the persons It may happen that amongst Ecclesiastical causes whereof lay â—en cannot be Judges some civil matters do intervene And therefore if Clergiemens persons were not exempt from all kind of secular Iudicatories they must be in such cases perplexed not knowing which tribunal to obey when called upon by both Ecclesiastical and secular Third specifical reason of Soto as to the persons It would not be decent nor have any decorum that the Ministers of Churches who are Pastours of even those very Judges themselves nay and of Kings too should be as criminals or guilty persons called upon by those Iudges or bound to appear as such before them Fourth specifical reason of Soto as to the persons Whereas the civil power and Ecclesiastical are in their own natures wholly distinct or different it is necessary that as each hath its own proper Ministers so the Ministers of each have their own proper Superiours Hitherto this learned Schoolman as to the persons But as to the goods of Clergiemen his onely reason is which is in order the sixth of those reasons That whereas tributes and customs are paid to Kings in lieu of or as a recompence for the labours they undergoe in ruleing the Commonwealth and whereas Clerks undergoe no less in discharge of their own duty or towards the maintenance of the Church it seems but a due recompensation that their goods be exempt from all tributs taxes c. Seventh reason but given by Franciscus Victoria to prove the necessity of a power in the Church to exempt both goods and persons The Ecclesiastical Republick is perfect in it self and sufficient in it self Therefore it hath power to make such laws as are convenient for the administration of the Church And therefore also if the exemption of Clerks from the civil power even supream be convenient for such administration it hath power to enact such exemption by law Eight and last reason and it is of the same Franciscus Victoria but as to the persons onely The Pope may by his own proper authority choose fix on or design and actually appoint and iustice to Ecclesiastical Ministers notwithstanding any contradiction of the civil power Therefore he may also â—â—on the same ground or for the some reason exempt those Ecclesiastical Ministers from the secular power And these are all the arguments grounded on reason or which as grounded purely or chiefly on reason the common principles of Faith or of the existence of a Christian Church being once admitted ouâ— adversaries bring But whether any of all be sufficiently convincing or whether any of all be as much as probable I mean intrinsecally probable the indifferent judicious Reader is to give his judgment when I have done my devoire in answering For I remember what I have undertaken Section LXII to shew not onely that no convincing argument of natural reason can be produced but not even as much as any probable argument of such reason meaning still by probable that which is intrinsecally such Though I do withall advertise here That no even intrinsick