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
answer that Affrican Synod where those Fathers reprove the injustice of Celestine's demand of such transmarine judgments in the case of Apiarius requiring it to be transmitted out of Affrick to Rome and reprove I say that injustice in these very words which you may read in the now mentiond Synodical Epistle a few lines after the former words Or how can that kind of transmarine judgment be rational or legal whereunto the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought because either of their sex or infirmities of old age or of many other intervening impediments But that neither within the limits of the same Province nor even where the crossing of the Sea is unnecessary the parties accused be drawn too farre from their dwelling places and so molested too much by the Judges on pretence of a judicatory Innocent the Third has enacted even in a Councel Oecomenical of the whole earth cap. Nâ—nnulli Extra de Rescriptis But all this and very many other passages to this purpose I pass over at present as I have said before I pass over likewise that exception which the Canons allow against the unsafety of the place to which the summons are the unsafety of it I say if the nature of the controversy and present circumstances be considered Especially if we call to mind what several Religious men and of several Orders too that to clear themselves from calumnies in a Controversy not altogether unlike this and being not even summond in that or any other cause whatsoever nor convicted of any kind of crime the Judges themselves confessing both did venture hence to goe and appear at Rome or Madrit have suffered in our own days in our own late memory and suffered too without so much as any kind of even the very external formality of law or canons observed towards them and suffered so too most plainly against all the laws of God and nature And if we call moreover to mind those inhumane plots contrived in forraign Countries against the very lives of some even of our secular Nobility that having been formerly engaged with us in the same controversy were after in the ruine forced to shift abroad plots layd by some of those very men that now again endeavour to embroyle all anew commixe heaven and earth put all things out of frame the second time into the most horrid confusion they can of purpose partly to asperse and be revenged of us In fine I pass over the greatest exception of all The quarrel against us and the controversy in all parts to be such as concerns the temporal rights of all supream lawful Magistrates or Governours Kings and States Kingdoms and Common-wealths that acknowledge no dependency in temporals but from God alone whether they be Christians or Pagans Orthodox or Heterodox believers And consequently such whereof the Minister general or Commissary National of St. Francis's Order is so farre wide from being judge I mean as to any effect of being able and I speake onely here of ability in point of conscience to oblige their Inferiours to determine in any part against the right of Princes or silence the truth of the Gospel of Christ in this matter chiefly where the declaration of such truth is needful amongst Sectaries that are partly for want of such declaration made to them by Catholicks known to continue their separation walke in darkness and have a most strange aversion from the Church of Rome that neither is the great and most blessed Pontiff himself alone reputed a competent much less infallible Judge in this controversy not I say reputed so even by most celebrious and most excellent Catholick Divines though earnest renowned Champions for the Roman Faith in all its tenets and latitude Which manifestly abundantly appears not onely out of the late Decree of the Theological Faculty of Paris of the 8. of May this present year 1663. and many other decisions not of that Faculty of Paris alone but of all other Vniversities of the Kingdom of France and of the Gallicane Church too in general since the horrid murthers of Henry the Third and Fourth even of National Councels of the Bishops of the same Church against the several attempts of Boniface the Eight and Julius the Second but also out of the carriadge books actions of the Divines and Prelats of the Venetian Republick and Church against Paul the Fift in the year 1606. out of the sense and sentence of the Archbishops Bishops and Abbots of the Catholick Church of England in the Raigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second above 300. years since Gregory the Eleventh and Martin the Fift strugling to the contrary but to no purpose as you may read even in Polydore Virgil in his life of Edward the Third out of the German Italian and other Churches truly Orthodox of several Nations of Europe their Prelats and Clergie who adhered to the Roman Emperours where the temporal rights were concernd against Gregory the Seventh and some other great Bishops of the Roman Sea lastly and yet more particularly our of our own William Occam in the cause of Lewis of Bauier and out of Iâ—â—nnes Parisiensis Gerson Major Almain Cardinal Cusan c. most famous writers and Doctors too both Catholick and Classick nay if any credit be given to Aventinus in his Seventh book of his Boiarian Annals where he relates the Decree of the foresaid Emperour Lewis of Bauier out of that General and celebrated Chapter of the whole very Order of St. Francis held at Perusia in Italy or out I mean of the famous Appeal they all that is their General Provincials and Doctors of Divinity made therein from Iohn the two and twentieth Pope of that name to a future Oecumenical Council of Christendom although I do not deny but the most immediate occasion of their appearing so as is related in that History against the Pope and appealing from him was his condemning the Franciscans for teaching That neither Christ nor his Apostles had any temporal right or property in earthly goods but onely simplicem usum facti Whom therefore in shew but really for an other cause that is for their siding against him with the Emperour and maintaining by their pens and Sermons the Emperours temporal rights he tearmed foolish animals pernicious foxes that by a seeming strictness of religion and hypocrisy abused the world and seduced the people having first set forth those Extravagants which you may read in the Canon law against the Order it self All which I say and very much more of this kind I pass over at present Nor least I exceed the measure of an epistle do I at this time alledge either those other arguments derived from the intrinsick nature or as they speak commonly from the very bowels of the cause it self or those which may be brought from or out of Canonical Scriptures or the monuments of holy Fathers who in a continual succession for nine hundred years compleat nay till the eleventh age of Christianity delivered
justice or such dispensation may be given without manifest injury to a third and besides where it is not repugnant to the law of God positive or natural And all this binding and loosing power in the Pope even in the whole Execution of it according to the Canons of the Vniversal Church and as farre as these Canons allow it as it is and will be religiously acknowledged and observed still by the Subscribers in all occasions so it is left wholly untouch'd unspoken of unmedled with but supposed still by the Remonstrance as a most Sacred Right not to be controverted much less denyed the Pope by any Catholick nor even to other Bishops of the Church for the portion belonging to them by the self same Canons But what hath this to do with the Lovain pretence of a power in the Pope to bind people by the Popes own peculiar laws Canons precepts or censures by Bulls or otherwise to do that which according to plain Scriptures practise of the primitive Church and Churches following for XI entire ages and according to the interpretation or sense delivered by Holy Fathers of those very Scriptures and according to the very first and clearest reflections also of natural reason must be vitious wicked and even most enormously wicked transgressions of those laws of God wherein neither Pope nor Vniversal Church have any power to dispense what to do with a pretended power in any to absolve from Subjection or command the Rebellion of Subjects against Soveraign Princes who are accountable to none for their temporals but to God Or what to do with binding or loosing to the prejudice and manifest injury not of one third person alone but of so many millions of third persons as there are people in a Kingdom or State This loosing is not of sin or of the penalties of sin but of virtue of Christian duties and divine injunctions Nor is such binding a binding to Holy righteousness but to Horrible depravedness And therefore both such binding and such loosing must be from no true power Divine or Humane from no Gospel of Jesus Christ or Canons of the Catholick Church nor from those Holy Keyes of knowledge or jurisdiction given St. Peter to open Heaven to penitents or shut it to impenitents nor from any Keyes at all but very false and errant Keyes if not right or true Keyes in this sense and to this purpose only that they set open the Gates of Hell first to receive all such unhappy Soules as make use of them and then to lock them in for ever Yet now that the Pope is and while he is or shall be continued a Soveraign temporal Prince in some part of Italy for the time hath been for many ages of Christianity even since Christian Religion was by law established when the Pope had no such not only Soveraign or supream but not even any inferiour subordinate temporal Princely power and may be so again for ought any man knows the Subscribers will freely grant the Lovain Divines That upon just grounds when truely such are or shall be the Pope may in the capacity of a temporal Prince but not of a Christian Bishop and may I say without any breach of the law of God declare and make Warr against the King of England always provided that he observe in all particulars what the law of God Nations and Nature require from him in the declaration or prosecution thereof And may do so with as much right as any other Soveraign Prince meerly temporal can but with no more certainly And further that the grounds of warr may possibly or in some extraordinary case be such on the Popes side as not only in the unerrable judgement of God but in the opinion of all men that shall know the grounds of both sides truely and sincerely stated the Warr may be just on the Popes side and unjust on the Kings The Subscribers do freely grant the Lovain Divines all this and all the advantages they can derive hence But what then must it follow that the subscribers have therefore sacrilegiously or against the sincerity of Catholick Religion declared in general or promised in their Remonstrance that they are ready to stand by the King and loose their lives in defence of his Person Rights or Crown or of his Kingdom State and people against all invaders whatsoever Papal or Princely spiritual or temporal c. forraign or domestick Or must this follow albeit we grant also the said promise or Declaration of standing so by the King to extend it self to or comprehend that very extraordinary case or contingency of our certain evident knowledg of the injustice of the Warr on the Kings side and clear Justice on the Popes Certainly neither the one nor other follows For albeit the case or supposition be rather metaphysically then morally possible that the generality of Subjects of either of the Princes or States in Warr together may evidently know or certainly assure themselves of the cleer Justice of the affailants fide at least so as to have no such kind of probability of any Justice on the defendants part and forasmuch as he is a Defendant yet admitting the case were morally possible who knows not that natural reason tells us and Divines and Lawyers teach that however the Prince both rashly and unjustly brings a Warr on himself and people yet both he and they are bound to hazard their lives each for others mutual defence that is for the defence of the Crown Kingdom State and Republick and for the lives liberties goods and fortunes of all that compose it though not for defence of any rashness or injustice So that although it be granted that both Prince and people are to quit all kind of unjust pretences yet their own natural defence or that of their goods lives and liberties as it comes not under that notion so it is unseparable from their taking armes in their own mutual defence in a meere defensive Warr or even that which happens after to be offensive before a good or Just peace can be obtained and is so I mean unseparable notwithstanding any injustice whatsoever done at first by Prince or people that brought the Warr upon themselves Be it therefore so that the Pope in such temporal capacity would make Warr on the King of England and be it granted for the present what otherwise in it self is very doubtful at least if not manifestly false That for the only unjust laws or only unjust execution of such or only other misgovernment or oppressions whatsoever of one King or Prince of his own proper natural undoubted Subjects without any injury done thereby to forraigners or any other forraign Kings Subjects or Prince or State such forraign Monarch or Common-wealth may justly declare and make Warr against him as for example the French or Spanish King and by the same reason the Pope also in his said temporal capacity against the King of England and be it clear and evident likewise that the
or in bringing these words to expound those other of Gregory in his foresaid two epistles to Mauritius and Theodorus To return therefore to those most true and proper words again of these two epistles of Gregory I say now that if you add to them the fact of Gregory whereof also before that is his actual and effectual obedience to Mauritius in promulging that law albeit Gregory thought it an unjust law and if you add also his notable profession of obedience and subjection in these tearms Ego quidem jussiâ—ni subjectus c and I say that if you take alltogether I see â—â—â—t how it is possible that you may doubt hereafter of Gregory's sense in this matter but be absolutely and firmely perswaded it was Gregory's doctrine that all Christians universally both Layety and Clergie not even the very great Pontiff himself or the Bishop of Rome excepted are bound in conscience and according to S. Paul's command to be most humbly obedient in all civil affairs to the sublimer powers of King Emperours or other supream politick States within their respective dominions And I say also that I do not see how any professing the law of Christ much less any Priest can have the confidence to say that Gregory's acknowledgement of his due subjection or submission and obedience to Mauritius hath any thing of a dejected Soul any thing flaccid or weak or any thing at all unworthy of the Apostolical vigour as Barenius very little piously excusing the expressions of Gregory speaks For even this great Annalist himself could not but know it was the perpetual custome of the Church in its spiritual Rectors and before the later and worser times of the too much worldly greatness and ambitious designes of some of them to treat with all humility and greatest submission could be with earthly Princes Kings and Emperours and to treat so with them even when they were evil and wicked Princes as Christ himself did and his Apostles did and as even very many of the most holy Pontiffs of Rome did before too much avarice and ambition seized some others that succeeded in that holy See of Peter and in many other particular Sees too parts and persons of the vniversal Church Which indeed is it and nothing else made Baronius give here his animadversions of fear on these epistles of Gregory least any pious Reader should cast down his brows eo quòd abjectè nimis visus sit tibi loquutus S. Gregorius But certainly the vigour Apostolical the nerves and strength which are truly Pontifical or Episcopal do not consist in vain worldly and proud ambition or desire of dominion or imprudent stiffness hardness or obstinacy against Princes and for any matters that are temporal but in the preaching of the Gospel in the propogation of the Faith and in sowing the seed of the word of God although it were certain that for doing so the Apostolical man or Bishop should be an object of scorn and a subject too of pain Ibant Apostoli gaudentes a conspectu Concilij quoniam digni habiti sunt pro nomine Jesu contumeliam pati Act. 5.21 Therefore Gregory is rather very much to be praised herein that in his own very Episcopal Patriarchal or Papal person which you please not in any comical or scenical he speaks to the Emperour withall respect and modesty For albeit he sayes in the beginning of his epistle to Mauritius that he writes not as a Bishop but as a private man this he sayes to the end he may the more easily prepare and obtain the benevolence of Mauritius with whom in a private quality he was long before both personally acquainted and in that quality held an especiall friendship when as yet neither Mauritius himself was other then a private man Besides he writes in this manner that he might give no cause of indignation or of supposition that he mean'd for the matter in agitation to deal with him as a Bishop or Pastour with his sheep or to correct or rebuke him with authority And therefore least Mauritius should think that which was to follow by way of reprehension of that law in it self proceeded from Gregory as pretending to have an authoritative power though onely episcopal to reprehend him and alter it but that he should rather take what followed in good and friendly part it was therefore I say Gregory protests in the very beginning of his letter that he writes not as a Bishop but as a friend to a friend Which is not to personat or assume an other person as in a scene according to the most vain conception of Baronius whom the due modesty and subjection of Gregory so contrary to that of our days did beyond measure gall Yet I would have the Reader observe that Gregory might justly as or when occasion required admonish and rebuke more severely the very Emperour himself and that he had from God authority to do so For I do constantly profess that even all Kings and Emperours no less then all other men are as faithfull men or as Christian believers subject to the spiritual correction of the Church where it is necessary or expedient And yet Gregory chose rather onely to insinuat the iniquity of that law as he conceaved it and this with the greatest modesty could be then to rebuke Mauritius with any kind of severity However Baronius cannot abide that Gregory should have obeyed the Emperour in the promulgation of that law albeit that at the same time or before he had so insinuated the iniquity of it What doth he invent to rid himself out of this labyrinth He makes Gregory not the censor onely but the corrector also and amender of this very law and so that Gregory gave thereby arguments enough of his sacerdotal vigour Pontifical authority and power too over the very Empire it self Dum accedens sayes Baronius tom 8. an 593. nu 21. censor arbiter constitutionis Imperatoriae admovens ad sacram quam vocabant tabulam stylum edicti illius quaedam addidit jungent ac minuens pro arbitrio ut ad rectam Catholicae Ecclesiae normam disciplinam aptaret nihilque penitus in eo quod Ecclesiasticae officeret libertati sacris canonibus contradiceret praetermittens intactum posteris egregium relinquens exemplum quicquid leges sanciendo delirant Imperatores ac Reges a Romanae Ecclesiae Pontificibus esse pretinus emendandum corrigendum sicque ab ipsis favendum eorum votis ut eos errantes cum mansuetudine ut vidimus Gregorium fecisse corrigant Pontificia potestate quod perperam factum nossent Apostolica censura castigent seque exhibeant eorum Magistros Doctores correctores juxta illud divinum oraculam Hier. 1. 10. non illi tantum Prophetae pronunciatum sed omnibus qui pro Deo ad populum divina legatione funguntur Constitui te hodie super gentes super regna ut euellas destruas disperdas dissipes edifices
supream temporal Prince in any of the Citties or territories which he either actually possesses or challengeth to himself as such an absolute or supream independent temporal Prince To enquire into any such intrigue is not material nor any part of my purpose And all I say of it because I mention'd it accidentally is that if the Pope be not so I could heartily wish he were so provided all Popes made that good use of it and onely that good use which some blessed Popes have For I am farre enough for envying the Apostolical See or even present Roman or Papal Court any even worldly greatness which may be to the glory of God and general good of Christian people was verily such even worldly greatness not onely of the Popes of Rome but of other Bishops and of other Priests too may be without any peradventure if regulated and applyed well And I am also farre enough from perswading my self that no Christian Priest can be found who may for natural parts and gifts of God be among Christians and if it please the Christians themselves such an other as Hermes Trismegistâ—s was among Heathens a great Priest great Prophet and great King withall Nay I confess that many Clergiemen have many excellencies and advantages for government above most Laymen Yet I say withall that if in elective Kingdoms or States they were by the people put at the Helme of supream temporal government or if in hereditary Kingdoms any of them came by succession to it their being Priests Bishops or even Popes would not could not enlarge their temporal power in any kind of respect nor give them any more temporal exemption as from any pure law of God or Christian Religion then they had before they were Priests c. It is not therefore against any power Ecclesiastical or even Papal as such I dispute here but onely against the unwarrantable extension of such and as onely such by those two most eminent writers Cardinal Baronius and Cardinal Bellarmine Yet I will say this much for Cardinal Bellarmine albeit shewing 〈◊〉 this also his contradiction of himself that in his great work of controversies de Concil Eccles l. 1. 〈◊〉 13. I know lot how but by the too great power of truth he confesses in very express worth that even the very Popes themselves have been subject and even too subjected themselves in temporal affairs to the Emperours and consequently that their Pontifical or Papal office or dignity did not exempt them from subjection to the lay supream power For considering there how the foâ—â— first general Councils of the vniversal Church had been convoked by the Emperours and fearing least such convocation might prejudice that authority which he ascribes to the great Pontiff and consequently bringing four causes or reasons why the Popes then were necessitated to make use of the power Imperial as he sayes for the convocation of those four first general Councils he delivers thâ—â— his fourth Reason Quarta ratio est sayes he quia to tempore Poâ—â—tyex eâ—si in spirituâ—libus essex caput omnium etiam Imperatorum tamen in temporalibus subâ—â—citbus se Imperatoribus ideo non peterat invito Imperatore aliquid agere cum tantum â—â—bâ—isset petere ab Imperatore auxilium ad convocandum Synodum vel ut permitteret Synodum convocari tamen quia Dominum suum temporalem cum agnoscebal supplicabat ut jubereâ— Synodum convoâ—â—i At post illa tempora ista omnes causae mutata sunt Nam neo illa lex viget he means that old Imperial constitution which prohibited all Colleges and frequent or numerous Assemblies without the Emperours licence to prevent seditions designs Vide l. 1. ff de Collegiis illicitis l. Conventicula ff de Episcopis Clericis noc Imperatores in â—oto orbe dominantur nec sumptibus publicis fiunt Concilia nec sunt Gentiles qui impedire possint Pontifex qui est caput in spiritualibus cum etiam ipse in suis Provinoiis sit Princeps supremus temporalis sicut sunt Reges Principes alij id quod divina providentia factum est ut Pontifex libere manus suum exequi possit So Bellarmine cleerly and expresly to a word Therefore by this ingenuous confession of Bellarmine himself the Pope hath no freedom no exemption at all in temporal matters from the civil power of the Emperour by virtue I mean of his Pontificat or Papal office But hath all his exemption in such matters by vertue onely of the supream temporal Principality which he acquired after as Bellarmine's sayes and which he possesses yet And consequently Bellarmine confesses also that this temporal Principality being removed or lost as by a just conquest and many other legal wayes it may be the Pope will be no more exempt in temporals from the Emperour or King of Rome but subject to him wholly in such Which is that onely I contend all along in this dispute of the Pope And therefore it must also follow evidently out of this doctrine and confession of Bellarmine himself that all other Priests Bishops and Clerks whatsoever even Cardâ—nals who have no supream earthly power and Principality of their own must be throughly and entirely subject in temporal matters to those supream lay Princes in whose dominions they live and whom they acknowledge to be their own very true Soveraign Lords Which is that moreover which I contend for in all the Sections of this whole and long dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity against the Divines of Lovain And I am extremely deceaved if Bellarmine yeeld it not fairely and freely in this place however he coyned a new faith for himself after in his old age and in his little books against Barclay Widdrington and some others But forasmuch as nothing more confirmes the rightfull power and authority of Kings in all humane things over also their subjects even all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever then the most ancient custome and perpetual practise in the Christian Catholick Church this very Church her self not onely not resisting but consenting also and approving such custome and practise therefore it is that to those particular Instances already given of such practise or matter of fact in the persons of those two most holy Bishops Athanasius and Eusebius and in the persons also of those other two and not onely most holy but even the very Head Bishops of the whole Earth in their own time as being the great Pontiffs then of the Roman See to witt Gregory and Constantine I must now moreover add those other particular Instances in such matter of fact which I promised of Princes Wherein if I be somewhat prolix in bringing not a few examples down along throughout almost all ages of Christianity from the days of Constantine the great and first Christian Emperour the profit will yours good Reader and the labour mine For you may cull out and pause on such as you find the most illustrious the rest you may read over cursority on pass by
indeed I repented to have had any Communion with them especially the Primat 1. Because that whatever lye T.T. told me before yet he I mean the Primat brag'd that being offer'd to be admitted and introduced at Bruxels to kiss the Kings hand he plainly refused it nor ever did nor would hereafter at any time either kiss his hand or otherwise be presented to Him 2. That in the hearing of many whereof my self was one and at a publick treat or dinner he was even so carelesly passionate as to boast also That he had never been friend or well-willer to any of the four naming the King and his Two Brothers with the Marquess of Ormond nor would ever be 3. That to ingratiate himself and his party with Thurlo and the young Protector and to obtain favours and graces for them even with the exclusion of the Royal Party of the Irish Catholicks he amongst other arguments alledged That to the Contrivances Arms and Divisions made by Owen O Neil the State of England owed their present Possession of Ireland and that the same party of the Irish Natives ought to be not only on that account favour'd and trusted but because also they never had affection for the King or his Family 4. Finally that he writ Precepts under his Seal to all his Province of Ardmagh to pray for the health prosperity and establishment of the said Protector and State and Government of England and Ireland as they were then To which four I might have added that N. B. as soon as he understood of the Communication betwixt his other two Associats and me advised them presently to have me secured by a Warrant from Thurlo and that T.T. on my reasoning with himself in some case till I put him into passion threatned to my face and in great fury too before a certain Lady he would have me speedily fast enough by the heels Yet not this but the former four made me at last venture to acquaint my self with one of the Council of State and so contrive their sudden dismiss out of England back to France without other harm done them but that of an injunction to be immediatly gone at their peril And forc'd so away to France they were all three suddenly when they least expected it In France the Primat stays not but passes over thence immediately by Sea to Ireland and there accosts or sends to his old friends Collonel Theophilus Jones and his Brother Doctor Jones the Protestant Bishop of Clogher roames up and down in several Provinces of that Kingdome and so and by what else I know not the particulars gives occasion to those that knew him well to inform against him to the English Court in the Lowcountries then in the year 1659. and beginning of 1660 that he was endeavouring all he could to animate the Fanaticks and some other Protestants in Ireland against the coming in or admitting of the King to return or be restored at all and that he promised them to that end great assistance from or a conjunction of the stronger party of the Roman Catholick Irish Immediatly before His Majesties departure out of Holland for England Don Stephano de Gamarro then Spanish Embassador with the States is spoken to desiring his Excellency to inform the Court of Rome 1. of such a Bishop in Ireland who if taken must suffer by the Law 2. That His Majesty desired not to be put to the stress of signing the Warrant of his Execution 3. And therefore that even by commands from Rome he should be revoked immediatly out of Ireland Next Winter after the Kings happy Restauration and immediatly also after my Procuratorium signâ—d by the same Prelat in the first place and sent to me from Ireland I received from some in England a Duplicat of Commands sent from Rome to him for retiring on sight Upon receipt of these in Ireland he passes thence again to France writes to me from Roan a pittiful Letter both denying flatly the last Accusation to have been true and complaining that himself alone amongst the whole Irish Nation should be forc'd to mourn in those days of general Jubilee for His Majesties Restauration and therefore prays my Intercession for His Majesties unparallelâ—d Clemency and Mercy I returned him the most comfortable answer I could but withal advising him to patience for three years more as also assuring him that by that time I hoped my intercession for him should be effectual To Rome he goes writes to me once or twice from thence see Sect. 6. pag. 14. of the First Part and stays there till the beginning of the year 1665. when he returns back to France and writes and minds me of my promise And after some few exchanges more of Letters at last and according to my advice for addressing himself by Letter to his Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he sent to me for the said Duke this following Letter of extraordinary great Repentance Submission and Prayer of Pardon from His Majesties mercy To his Excellency the Duke of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of IRELAND May it please your Excellency I Am the Publican standing a far off not daring to lift up mine eyes to the Heavens and your Grace but knocking my Breast humbly pray your Excellency be pleased to be favourable to me and make me partaker of His Majesties unparalle'ld mercies promising in the sight of God and his Angels that I will endeavour to comply in all points with his Soveraign Majesties most gracious Will and your Excellencies commands as far as shall become a modest faithful and thankful Subject If otherwise who am I but a Worm the reproach of Mankind the vilitie of the People a dead Dog a Flea And yet my gracious Lord Your Excellencies Most humble Servant Edmund Ardmach Paris Aug. 31. 1665. It is only to make the Reader understand first this Letter next some other passages hereafter which relate to a man of so great dignity in the Church and lastly what merits and considerations are most prevalent at Rome to procure the greatest Ecclesiastical preferments within His Majesties Dominions that I have given so large and particular account of this Prelate and not any hatred to or disesteem of his person or want of due veneration to his memory now that he is departed this life and I hope in a place of happiness and glory before this time I never had any private difference or quarrel with him in my life nor he with me for ought I know nay I found alwayes as some esteem and affection also in him for me so in my self I am sure no less to serve him where I could both unfeignedly and affectionately as I did all along for many years in all occasions And yet until the year 1669. a little before his death in France and his very last Letter thence to me I never knew of his having obliged me so much as he did hindring the
to acknowledge Charles the Second to be within his own Dominions either King at all or Supream Lord in Temporals independently from the Pope or to teach maintain assert or believe that his Roman Catholick Subjects are notwithstanding any Papal Power or pretence and notwithstanding any sentence either of excommunication or deposition from such Papal Power bound under pain of Sin as much as any Protestants to obey his Majesty in all Civil and Temporal affairs according to or as far as the Laws of the Land require obedience from them in such Temporal matters For this Doctrine or acknowledgment of the Remonstrance and only this in substance is all the danger and is only it also that made Caron Walsh and other Subscribers to lye under the infamous title of false Brethren And truly that nothing else or more in effect is in the Protestation or Remonstrance which so strangly allarum'd them at Rome you see demonstrated particularly and diffusely Part. 1. Sect. LXXVII from Pag. 462. to Pag. 487. That very Section which concludes the whole discourse against the Divines of Louain 8. That it is no less pleasant i. e. ridiculous to see the same Cardinal further tell the Irish he was commanded by his Holiness to admonish them seriously not to confound civil obedience with that other due to the Apostolick See and by civil obedience he means that which is or shall be paid in Civil or Temporal things to the King Now is not this a very wise admonition or rather pretty cheat of confounding words where the Cardinal dares not speak his mind plainly or sincerely at all Did ever Caron Walsh or other of the Subscribers or could they indeed by the Remonstrance intend to confound both obediences or that which is universally due in all Temporal or Civil affairs to the King according to the Laws and that which is to the Pope only in some Spiritual or Ecclesiastical matters according to the Canons Nay doth not the Remonstrance profess only the former to the King leaving and that expresly too the latter as due to the Pope And were not therefore the Irish or the Remonstrants they that of one side perfectly distinguished those obediences but the Cardinal and his Associats they of the other that horribly confounded the Spiritual with the Civil Nay that made the Spiritual swallow up at one gulp the whole Civil that would have no kind of obedience at all not even in meer temporals or Civil things paid our King by us and consequently have him to be no King by our good will if not precarious and dependent for his Crown from the Pope otherwise why the Remonstrance so dangerous so pernicious so damnable so adverse to Catholick Faith so destructive to Eternal Salvation It only acknowledges Civil obedience due to him and consequently his Kingship only in Temporals If such bare acknowledgment be so wicked and uncatholick at Rome then it must be such also to say that Charles the Second is in any true sense at all our King But we must pardon the Cardinals phrasing his mind being he dared not speak all out plainly or clearly and must give him leave rather to speak meer nonsense all along now or at least nothing but false and ridiculous suppositions and even as such known to himself For I beseech what else doth the second part of his admonition here to the Irish import or signifie what this I mean neve in vestrum induet animum patiamini Regi partre non posse qui Romano Pontifici morem gerit As if Caron Walsh or any others had at any time or upon any account whatsoever or at least on some endeavoured to perswade the Irish they could not be obedient to the King while they acknowledge any veneration of dependence from or obedience to the Pope in such Spiritual matters as properly belong to his Holiness according to the Canons Then which supposition nothing can be more false Indeed it is very true and evident also that none can be truly or really faithful to the King who pays that obedience to the Roman Pontiff which Cardinal Barberin means here but not sufficiently expresses if not to his own Cabal by his morem gerit As for his reason or assertion added in these other words Cum immo nihil ad Regum Authoritatem firmandam magis conferat quam in subditis fidele erga Pontificiam Auctoritatem obsequium it is no less evidently fals then we manifestly know out of History That such faithful obsequiousness to the Popes as he means hath but too too often armed the Subjects against their even both Christian and Catholick Princes Kings Emperours nay the very Sons against their Loyal Fathers and again others against these very Sons though crowned with Imperial Diadems And for his two Queries immediatly following viz. these Et sane quae Lex Monarchico Regimini adeo favet quam Catholica Quae justam Regibus subjectionem precipit adeo arcte quam illa quae obedire Praepositis suis aperte jubet Certainly nothing could be more either fallaciously or impertinently demanded to his purpose The true Catholick i. e. Christian Law equally favours all kinds of lawful Governments where ever lawfully introduced and established whether Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical And the Gospel of Christ delivered by the Apostles Peter and Paul equally commands obedience to the Supream Civil Power without any distinction of the Power placed in one man or in many for the Apostles speak sometimes in the singular number and at other times in the plural Nay in the very place the Cardinal here alludes unto out of Paul which is Obedite praepofitis vestris subiacete eis Ipsi enim pervigilant quasi rationem pro animabus vestris reddituri is in the Plural And yet who sees not withal how impertinently this place is alluded unto here by the Cardinal Heb. 13.17 as making any jot for obedience to the meer Lay or Civil Power being the Praepositi spoken of in it by Paul are onely the meer Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Officers or Ministers Besides would not the Cardinal change his application if he were to speak on the present Subject to the State either of Venice or Genua or other Common-wealths in Italy And yet after all I confess that his pretended but very false Religion or Law Catholick I mean that of his Congregation and Court as to the controverted point favours more indeed only his Monarchical Government and his indeed only Independent Monarch both Spititual and temporal on Earth the great Roman Pontiff under whom in his Doctrine all other Princes and States are but petty precarious Vicars and favours that more I say then any other Law But can or ought therefore such a Mystery impose on us to perswade any against Caron or Walsh or their fellow-Subscribers or the Instrument it self which they Subscribed nay can it indeed lull a sleep Supream Temporal Princes or States 9. That hence appears I might with much reason
in the late Rebellion or civil War which you please to call it or even to speak one word for so much as a general Petition to be exhibited to his Majesty imploring His Majesties gracious Pardon No there was no crime at all committed by all or any of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland not even at any time nor in any occasion or matter happened since Octob. 23. 1641 if we must believe the Bishop of Ardagh Patrick Plunker pleading for them so in express terms and the tacit approbation of his words by the Universal silence of that Assembly nam qui tacet consentire videtur according to the rule of the Canon Law But who can believe either and not rather be hence convinced that God in his just indignation had suffered those Fathers to be for their punishment so strangely infatuated against all reason common sense the knowledge of all People and their own interest too For certainly and too too notoriously so they were all along in all their affairs during the fifteen days they sate but in this particular above any other even to astonishment However the Congregation being that evening adjourned to the next morning as soon as it was late and dusky having first prepared his way I went along with the Primat to the Kings Castle where my Lord Lieutenant received him privately in his Closet none being present besides me After salutes his Grace having first placed this greatest Roman Catholick Preâ—â—â—t of Ireland by him on a seat using him also with all other civil respect which the difference of Religion and reason of State could allow entertain'd him with a short but pithy material excellent Speech or rather lesson indeed It continued about a quarter of an hour And I must confess that in my life to my remembrance I never heard so much to the purpose said either so short or so well with so much weight and gravity not only not from any Lay-person to a Church-man but not even from an Ecclesiastick to any even Laick Nor was my judgement herein single The Primat himself confessed so much even openly too next morning before the whole Congregation as soon as they were sate and some occasion was offered him to speak before them of what the Lord Lieutenants Grace had recommended to them Nay he confessâ—d it also in these very Latin words Tanquam Angelus Del loquutus est mihi rendred in English Like an Angel of God he spake unto me What the heads were may be easily guessed out of what is said before both of the Primat himself and other matters hitherto in this Second part And the words I have lost because the Paper which contain'd them Yet I remember 1. They began exactly thus You know very well it was not for your good deeds the Pope created you titular Primat of Ardmagh 2. That all the while the Lord Lieutenants Grace continued speaking the Primat never as much as once lifted up his eyes but bare headed as the Lord Lieutenant also was held them still immoveably cast down and in truth behav'd himself because so conscious to himself as like a guilty penitent Transgressor admitted to the presence of his Lord as any could 3. That when His Grace the Lord Lieutenant either asked or minded him of what conditions I had proposed for his safe return and writ to himself to France he denied again that he had received that Letter 4. That I repeated thereupon in that presence of both the same Arguments I had the day before to the Primat alone to shew the unlikelihood of this excuse or at least my extream wonder at such a chance having nevertheless let fall some other words of purpose to lessen all I could before his Grace the Lord Lieutenant this weakness of the Primats answer 5. That his said Grace notwithstanding he saw clearly enough it was a meer story yet seemed not once in the least moved not as much as to reply one word on that or other subject to contristate or afflict him more but with much civility and obliging kindness recommended to him to improve the present opportunity in the Congregation for his own and Clergies and Countries best advantage and endeavour not only to rectifie but in some measure to satisfie for whatever had been not well done at any time before and so dismissed this Prelat very much satisfied with his gracious reception These are the heads of what I remember occurred or passed betwixt His Grace and this Primat then being the only time they conferred or saw one another And yet I must here take notice to the Reader That soon after the Congregation had been dissolved the Primats own Vicar General Doctor Patrick O Daly together with an other Priest of his Diocess lately then come from Paris told my self each of them at the same time with me at Dublin they had themselves severally heard from the said Primats own mouth That indeed he had in Paris before he came away thence received that Letter of mine which he so lately denyed both to me and to the Lord Lieutenant to have received but that he dared not acknowledge it either to the Duke or me or any other should tell because he then might be justly called in question for other matters if he signed not the controverted Remonstrance which yet partly through fear of the Court of Rome and partly too for other causes he neither dared nor would sign XV. THE next day being the fifteenth of June and fifth of the Congregations sitting the Lord Lieutenant having sufficiently understood their little sense of the only end for which he permitted them to meet and further how some of them had endeavoured to highten a false report of his intentions to depart suddenly out of Town of purpose to pretend they wanted time to consult or deliberate and so excuse themselves if they gave not full satisfaction it being consequently alledged they could not with safety continue their sitting when his Grace were so departed and for this reason they were better immediately sign the Instrument prepared to their hands viz. the insignificant one of which before and which you shall see in the next Section and then without further hazard of themselves Dissolve his Grace therefore thought fit to send them by Richard Bellings Esq a second Message to be read as it was this day read to them out of a written paper publickly and exactly word by word as here followeth after the Title The LORD LIEUTENANT's Second Message to the Congregation THat I understand it is reported I intend in a few days to leave this City and that it is thence apprehended by those of the Romish Clergy now met here that they may not have time to consider of and conclude upon the business for which their meeting is permitted namely for Subscribing to the Remonstrance and Protestation subscribed and presented to His Majesty in January and February 1661 by divers of the Nobility Gentry and Romish Clergy Whereupon I think
I was my self present in the Congregation when this Letter was therein publickly read Sed canebatur surdis They had before obstinately resolved against all reason The Miracles and Revolutions they expected from the year 1666 their Forraign Intelligence and expectations and their lying Prophecies at home together with so many other vain perswasions of their own fixed them unalterable Whence it was That they neither did nor would give other answer to this Letter Subscribed by so many than what they had before given to my self alone viz. That none should speak any more against the former Remonstrance or those who subscribed and held to it still But how well they and their partizans have performed this verbal promise the Second Tome of this Work shall discover The truth is their Cabal never once intended to perform Whereof because I then also had been throughly perswaded by unanswerable and clear arguments in reply to their Answer I thought fit to say as I did accordingly before them all and both immediatly and publickly there in the place That both I my self and all the rest not only of those who subscribed the above Letter but all others of the former Remonstrants where ever dispersed throughout the Kingdom in whose behalf as well as their own such as were present in town had so subscribed that Expostulatory Letter would be at last necessitated to declare and would accordingly declare against them to the people even also at the Altars and from the Pulpits by laying the Sin of Schism besides the true causes too of all other evils threatning and impending over the Nation and Religion at their door if they on their side did not exactly perform their promise and perform it effectually by silencing all the malicious and ignorant traducers of the former Remonstrance and Subscribers of it Yet I must confess that although I did then really so intend as I spake and was not at all by any one of the Fathers either publickly in that Congregation expostulated with or privately there or elsewhere that I could hear even so much as murmured of for that my freedom in declaring what I had so resolved for all such future contingencies nevertheless upon after thoughts of taking more prudential ways i. e. ways of less noise and no scandal and yet I knew St. Bernard's Maxime Melius est ut scandalum oriatur quam veritas relinquatur I did while I remain'd in Ireland i. e. till May 1669 however provoked manifoldly in too too many instances both refrain my self and hinder all other Subscribers of the former Remonstrance from declaring so or speaking in Church or Chappel at the Altar or in the Pulpit any word or matter against them or any of them yea notwithstanding I had been many times and on several occasions mightily importuned to the contrary and that also by very good and vertuous men XX. BUT to return to the Bishop of Ardagh and Vicar General Apostolick of Cashel these two last Commissioners employed by the Congregation to His Grace the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General c of Ireland I must now tell my Reader That on Monday morning the 25 of June and 15th and last of our National Congregation the Fathers being Assembled to hear what their said Commissioners could report of their success on the former Saturday night upon delivering their last signed Paper and pleading their excuse for other matters to His Grace the Procurator gives them His Grace's positive commands to Dissolve that morning and retire to their respective homes telling them withal That His Grace found no satisfaction in any of their Addresses The Bishop of Ardagh on the other side endeavours to make them believe That His Grace did seem fully satisfied with their Remonstrance or Act of Recognition and other Paper of the Three first Sorbon Propositions delivered at the same time nay and that His Grace even in express terms had promised to represent unto His Maiesty these two Instruments as satisfactory i. e. as containing fully all those Declarations of Allegiance or Fidelity and Obedience which could be expected from any Roman-Catholicks whatsoever subject to His Majesty But the Procurator considering this to be the last time the Congregation was to meet and seeing no remedy but that he must either suffer the Fathers to dissolve and depart with so false and noxious too a Perswasion or must oppose this Prelat even to his face chooseth what any honest man especially of his place and trust would in such case And therefore tells the Fathers how himself having been present all the while at both times when the Lord Lieutenant spoke either to the said Bishop of Ardagh and Father John Burk Vicar General of Cashel on the 23 of June at night or before to the same Ardagh and Kilfinuragh on the 16 of the same moneth could and must assure the Congregation That His Grace did neither at the one or other time give any kind of ground for this relation viz of His seeming to have been satisfied with their said Addresses or instruments and of promising to represent them as satisfactory c. That on the contrary he gave ground enough by his short and sharp answers and by his severe countenance shewed to the last Commissioners viz. the foresaid Bishop of Ardagh and Vicar General of Cashel on Saturday night the 23 that he was extreamly unsatisfied That all the ground the Bishop could pretend for his relation made clear against him being that when he desired His Grace would be pleased to represent their said Instruments to His Majesty the answer made him by His Grace had been in these words only I will represent them as they deserve And that men of reason or judgment who knew in what manner His Grace had spoken these words what he said to Burk immediately after and how without further Ceremony nay with all other manifest signs of displeasure He dismissed them might easily see the Bishop had either strangly forgotten what he saw and heard or more strangely mistaken contraries one for an other This matter of the Procurators opposing to that relation made by Ardagh being over the Primat stands up and after some few words to the Chairman turning himself to the Procurator tells him what the Congregation had resolved upon in his behalf Viz. That in regard of his pains already taken for and many obligations put upon the the Roman-Catholick People of the Nation and of his great expences too for so many years past since he was made Procurator in the year 1660 as likewise considering that neither his future pains nor future expences in serving and obliging much more yet the same people by continuing and worthily discharging his office of Procurator for them with the King and His Majesties great Ministers of State could be less than thitherto both had been The Lords and rest of the Fathers of the Congregation partly to provide for their own concerns and partly to shew the most effectual signs they could
the Kingdom and no demonstration could be made how the Kingdom could be preserved under Our Government that then the said Declaration should be published It is further expressed in the said Order That VVe being sollicited to the effect aforesaid with urgent reasons absolutely denied to consent thereunto and that VVe neither did nor could demonstrate unto them any way of preserving the remainder of the Kingdom under Our Government and therefore according to the Trust reposed in them by the said Congregation they did publish the said Declaration denouncing to all Archbishops Bishops c. This is all VVe observe in this Order of Publication more than is contained in the Declaration at Jamestown VVhat We have to answer in this Order for Publication is briefly this They held it fit VVe should quit the Kingdom and depute the King's Authority with some person or persons of Trust that is pleasing to them We refuse so to do upon their advice giving them some reasons why We refuse and promising them more if they would at a free Conference hear them For not following this advice without refuting the Reasons We gave for Our not going and without hearing or so much as asking what other reasons those were which We were unwilling to write and yet would tell them at a free Conference by which caution they might imagine they were of moment they proceded to their Declaration and Excommunication Here though We have formerly touched it let it be observed That having several times and upon several occasions offered to leave the Kingdom and to depute the Kings authority not to disparage the Nation with the onely person in all respects fit for it and a Roman-Catholick This was not accepted of but We are made believe the Lord of Inchiquin being removed from any charge of the Army and the Protestant Party gone there remained no further distrust or dislike of Us and that then all obedience would be given Us. All this and whatever else they advised being done on Our part Our Frigat which lay in Ire-Connaught whence We might have securely gone being sent away and the Harbours blocked up by the Rebels ships they impose upon Us to effect an impossibility namely to go out of the Kingdom without means of Transportation or else as far in them lies We are rendred infamous throughout the world and to all Ages by their defamatory Libel Whatever Our demerit had been and if We were the faithless the negligent the every way unworthy person they have described Us to be certainly they cannot free themselves from the guilt of so mean and base a Treachery Let it be next considered That if when a company of Bishops or a Congregation of Archbishops Bishops c have a mind to set up themselves or any others as Governours over the Kingdom and this power they assume at least in the interval of Assemblies and have now twice practised it and the Governour appointed by Royal Authority or when that is absent which should never be supposed by a just Representative of the Nation will not give them room by quitting the Government he is placed in at their desire without direction from the Power whence he derives his Authority or without unavoidable necessity inforcing him if We say for his not doing a thing so contrary to the Trust reposed in him to the sense of those intrusted by the People as the Commissioners of Trust were and contrary to the sense of the most interested persons of the Kingdom the foresaid company of Bishops or Congregation may therefore with impunity deliver all men to Satan that shall feed help or adhere to him it is in this case easie to discover that Bishops or a Congregation thus doing do aim at and will if so permitted easily compass the Supreme Temporal Power If it be said They only do it upon evident necessity for the preservation of the People in apparent hazard of being lost and that in this case only of so absolute necessity they pretend to such power and when informed or convinced will lay it down to the King or Assembly We believe no King or State careful of their own preservation will allow they have this power even in this case For instance if the Bishops or Congregation of both Clergies of the Kingdom of Naples or of any Signiory under the State of Venice should pretend to a power upon any necessity whatsoever whereof the said Bishops and Congregation to be Judges of discharging the Subjects of the King of Spain from obeying the Vice-Roy of Naples or the Subjects of any Signiory under the State of Venice from obeying the Governour of any such Signiory appointed by the State directing them in the mean time to observe and obey such Form of Government as the said Congregation should prescribe till it should be otherwise ordered by the said King or State VVe suppose it would not pass for Orthodox Doctrine in that Roman-Catholick Kingdom or State That a Congregation is qualified with such power Nor would the necessity of their so doing nor yet the sanctity of their function or persons protect them from severe punishment That Our Kings Prerogative in that particular is as great in this Kingdom as the King of Spains in Naples or that of the State of Venice in any Signiory of theirs it is Treason to deny as it is to affirm That in this particular such a Congregation here hath more authority than a like Congregation in that Kingdom or State But these men have not only in this case exceeded whatever at any time or in any place was pretended to by any of their Function but had less ground if less might be for such a pretension than any others For here in a solemn Assembly of the Nation a Peace was concluded most of the Bishops signing this Declaration were actually there consenting to the Peace and all the Congregation either at or after the conclusion of the Peace subscribed to it So that by the general consent of the Congregation first or last Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery c were to look to the performance of the Articles of Peace and thereby had greater pretence to be proper Judges of the violation of the said Articles than this Congregation Yet without consulting them they publish this Declaration and fulminate their Excommunication against any that should adhere to Us among other things for pretended violations of the Peace and would not by the said Commissioners be persuaded to retract it VVhere they say We neither did nor could demonstrate unto them any way of preserving the remainder of the Kingdom under Our Government it was a question never asked of Us either by the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelly who brought Us the message or by the Bishops of Cork and Clonfert that were sent to Us for Our Answer or indeed by any other If such a question had been moved to Us VVe should doubtless have answered That the most probable
as well with His Grace as with His Majestie and His Majesties other great Ministers and for the rest of the Catholick people of Ireland that ease and connivence he could for what concerned the exercise of their Religion Nor onely that but as occasion offered by writing and printing and exhibiting to His Majestie Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Chancellour of England and other great Ministers of State several papers and books in Print and otherwise of his own labours to move the performance of the Peace of 48. to the Catholicks of Ireland and to mind His Majestie of his justice to Innocents and of His mercy to Nocents But in the first place laboured opportunely and importunely till he prevailed at last to get all the great number of Priests released which had been in several places and Provinces of Ireland in restraint about six-score of them and a great many for several years before His Majesties happy Restauration Wherein he was so impartial to all that although he was offered several times the release of such of those Priests as he would pass his word for that they had been honest all along in the Royal cause during the late difference betwixt the Confederats of Ireland yet he modestly and patiently declined that savour and let those his own special friends suffer with the rest until His Majesties Gracious condescension and my Lord Lieutenants goodness looked indifferently upon them all with an eye of compassion and mercy upon hopes given His Majesty that they would all prove faithful Subjects evermore II. The year 60. and 61. being passed over till the winter came and the hopes of Roman Catholicks for what was moved in their behalf in the House of Lords at Westminster concerning the repeal of laws against them at least and in the first place of those are called Sanguinary being blasted in the bud and the example of the late Irish Rebellion and breach of both peaces in 46. and 48. by some or many of those of that Religion and Nation having besides other arguments and intrigues being made use of against such as moved for such repeal and the Parliament of England being adjourned or prorogued and that of Ireland then under the Lords Justices the Chancellour the Earls of Orrery and Montrath sitting and a great plott amongst the Irish Catholicks so falsly imposed upon them grounded on the no less false and vain pretence of a letter sent by one Priest to an other but contrived onely by a perfidious fanatick impostour as appeared soon after and that Parliament of Ireland however and Lords Justices upon this ground proceeding with strange and new severity against both Clergie and Layety of that Religion and some few of the Catholick Gentry and Clergie consulting together at Dublin of a remedy Sir Richard Barnewal Richard Beling Esq Thomas Tyrrel Esq Oliver Dese Vicar general of Meath Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and others it was resolved upon at last to Remonstrate their condition to His Majestie and Petition his just and merciful regard of them that suffered so unjustly Which accordingly the said Mr. Beling drew in the name of the Catholick Clergie of Ireland Because the design was chiefly imposed on them and upon their account the Layety suffered But forasmuch as he considered that a bare Remonstrance of their sufferings or a bare Petition of redress could not much avail a people that lately had acted as they had done in obedience to the Nuncio both he and the rest of those gentlemen with whom he consulted found it necessary by a Solemn Declaration of their principles in point of obedience in temporal things to obstruct the grand objection of The inconsistency of Catholick Religion and of a tolleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State Which was the reason that one of those Gentlemen remembring they had lately seen a printed Declaration of the Catholicks of England in their name exhibited in a long Petition to the Parliament at Westminster a little before or in the beginning of the commotions of those Kingdoms about the year 1640. and lighting on the book after diligent search wherein they had read it which is that of Father Cressy an English man and a Benedictine Monke sometime before Protestant Dean of Leighlin in Ireland entituled his Exomologesis or the motives of his conversion to the Catholick Church and having brought it to Mr. Beling he judging it very proper for the present matter and purpose of the Catholicks and Clergy of Ireland and much pleased to have such a precedent as that of men so learned and wary as the Catholicks of England for a business or Declaration of that kind extracted it word by word out of the said book pag 76. 77. and 78. Paris impression without any other change but of the Application to the King instead of the Parliament and of Ireland instead of England and inserted it in that Remonstrance which he then drew for his own Countrymen Which although it hath been often already and in several pieces of mine published in Print yet forasmuch as it was that which occasioned this general Congregation at Dublin of the said Irish Clergie in 66. five years after it was in their names exhibited to His Majestie at London and because peradventure many would consider the tenour of it when they come to read this present Treatise and other Treatises following to free them of a trouble to looke after those other pieces wherein it is I have thought fit to give them it here again to their hand To the KINGS most Excellent Majesty The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgement Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergy of your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland do most humbly Represent this their present state and deplorable Condition That being intrusted by the undispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the cure of Souls and the care of their Flocks in order to the Administration of Sacraments and Teaching the People that perfect obedience which for Conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands they are loaden with Calumnies and persecuted with Severity That being obliged by the Allegiance they owe and ought to swear unto your Majesty To reveal all conspiracies and practices against your Person and Royal Authority that come to their knowledge they are themselves clamour'd against as Conspirators plotting the destruction of the English among them without any ground that may give the least colour to so foul a crime to pass for probable in the judgment of any indifferent person That their Crimes are as numerous and divers as are the Inventions of their Adversaries and because they cannot with freedom appear to justifie their Innocency all the fictions and allegations against them are received as undoubted verities and which is yet more mischievous the Laity upon whose Consciences the character of Priesthood gives them an influence suffer
powred forth unsavouriness and those who should have enlightned others to have brought darkness on them Wherefore such as have kept themselves free from subscriptions or from this kind of infectious disease let them by all means beware they be not drawn into the pitt by their blind leaders and let them uphold the doctrine that is sound Who stands let him take heed he fall not But for such as are unhappily fallen let them rise without delaye And let them know so much as to acknowledg and take hold of that Right hand which their as well most Holy as most loving Father stretches forth in admonishing them Finally let all of you joyned together in the bond of peace yield those respects to the King which true Faith teaches In the mean time I in the name of the whole Congregation appointed overseers of your affairs do wish all things may be prosperous no you and withal exhort you to retain the same constancy of most valorous Resolutions which you have manifested in defending the purity of Religion That you beleive also that all Irish Catholicks are beloved in the bowels of Christ by our most Holy Lord and that his Holyness is even from his whole heart and out of that charity which is from God possessed with the greatest desires of the health and tranquillity of you all Given at Rome the 8. of July 1662. Your most addicted Francis Barbarine VIII Soon after the date of these Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarine and of the Bruxels Internuntio Hieronimus de Veccbiis the Lord Lieutenant being come for Ireland and the Procurators duty bringing him thither after he had answered the man in the dark in the behalf of the Irish in general and in relation to their temporal Estates and had also in the Clergies name made his gratulatory address first to both their Majesties the King and Queen and next to the Lord Lieutenant also when His Grace had the second time that great charge of the Lieutenancy of Ireland put upon him and being arrived at Dublin and being commanded by His Grace to endeavour presently the subscriptions of those at home in the Countrey the first opposition he found was that of fine words and offers of money for his pains taken hitherto for them and three hundred pounds therefore if he would prevail with His Grace to accept of their subscriptions to another form such as themselves would frame because that signed at London was odious in the Court of Rome as lessening the authority of the most holy Father But when they found him unalterable and that he told them positively it was unworthy of them to move any such thing and of him to listen to it besides that they were much deceived in their judgment of His Grace or of the matter in it self as if it depended of the Procurator to perswade or disswade His Grace therein or as if His Grace did not sufficiently understand the consequence of any the least material change or the sense of English words and what imported or not the King or States security as from them presently he understands of a late and general resolution taken by all the Heads of the Clergy not to sign at all that Remonstrance nor suffer any under their respective charges to sign it And further understands that besides the three Provincials of the Franciscans Dominicans and Augustinians a little before his landing met at Dublin and entred into a confederacy together against it Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath and the Provincial of the Franciscans by name Anthony Docharty and besides him Thomas ma Kiernan Francis Ferral and others of the same Order with some Vicars General of the North had signed an Instrument and sent an express messenger one Father John Brady with it over Seas to procure Letters and Censures against the Remonstrance Subscribers That moreover Father Peter Aylmer a little before made Curat of St. Owens at Dublin aspiring further to be made Bishop or at least Vicar Apostolick for having lately been so eminent an opposer of the Remonstrances at London abusing the people with telling them though most falsely the Sorbonists were against it grounding himself only for this vain report upon simple letters from another Irish Priest at Paris a man as ignorant as himself and who seemed to know as little what the Parisians taught or taught not as himself that I say this Father Aylmer made himself very instrumental for such ambitious ends to encourage which he needed not the said Bishop of Meath and the said Father Dempsy Vicar General of Dublin and all others of both Secular and Regular Clergy to resolve absolutely against it Wherein he had the more credit that they were told he had lately been my Lord Aubignyes Confessor at Whitehall and surely therefore knew the King did not expect any such paper or subscription from them nor the Duke either but that as he and they gave out all was the Procurators own contrivance and importunity to further that wherein himself had once engaged That further they saw such as were even at Court and in the daily sight of His Majesty and greatest Ministers of State the Queens own Chaplins those that were natives of England and Ireland were not as much as once called to for their subscription And yet none other of that Clergy in such favour as they Nay that both the grand Almoners of both Queens the Lord Aubigny and Abbot Montague both of them so great and so considerable and the first so near in blood to His Majesty and both looked upon at least the former in a fair way to the greatest dignities in the Catholick Church next the Papacy that both those said they were known to be averse from it But I must advertise the Reader that although use was made of such arguments suggested by the said Father Aylmer some others whom I know very well yet the same Gentlemen could not but know as well then and all others have been long since or at least are now at last throughly convinced of this truth That it was both His Majesties my Lord Lieutenants earnest desires by His Majesties express positive directions to him The Irish Clergie should sign that Remonstrance as an argument of their purpose and firm resolution to be more faithful to Him hereafter than the generality of them had proved to his Father the same Lord Lieutenant heretofore in the late Warrs of that Country That Father Welsh their own Procuratour though zealous enough for the lawfulness Catholickness expediency and necessity also of such signature by them yet had never urged any when once he perceived their general opposition had not His Grace told him of His Majesties pleasure in the case and not seen withall the consequents of their refusal or delay would prove in time very prejudicial both to themselves and the Lay People instructed by them and that such their subscription must have been the only medium to procure them that
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
sinful obedience to the will of others Because the Procurator had out of a particular regard of such honest men of their Society in Ireland as joyn'd with him formerly in the differences with the Nuntio and out of an esteem and affection also for their Society in it self as considered in its primitive foundation institution and observance and in its labours for the training up of youth laying aside the latter prejudices brought upon it by those inconsiderat works of some though too many of their chief writers because I say the Procurator had for those reasons ventur'd so fairly and earnestly both in his More Ample Account and in his private discourses lately and earnestly with some persons of highest rank in both Kingdoms to vindicate as much as in him lay the Irish Jesuits though not every individual of them from those aspersions the generality of that Order lyes under amongst Protestants at least in England and from such aspersions indeed against their practises and against their principles or doctrine not of deposition only but of equivocation mental reservation and of the lawfulness of changing opinions resolutions and practices too at pleasure according to their other maximes of extrinsick probability and in all matters whatsoever and because he had done so much herein that whereas before those great persons had no inclination at all to receive any kind of declaration of Allegiance or faithfulness from men of such principles as the foresaid printed Authors argue in their opinions the Society in general to be yet he prevailed so far with them as not to involve the Fathers in Ireland in the same esteem with such others of the same Order in some other Countries as had so justly deserved their blame and censure 9. To that other excuse common to the three late Orders as well Capuchins and Carmelits as Jesuits the answer was That the Princes or States permission of or connivence with them should more be regarded then that either of Ordinaries or pre-existent Regulars or of the Court of Rome it self And this they could not expect in reason if they they appeared not zealous of His Majesties lawful rights and prerogatives in all temporal matters and for the peace and safety of his People and Kingdoms at least if they shewed themselves perverse and peevish against either or against so lawful and necessary a duty as is a bare naked Remonstrance or Declaration of their loyal principles and affections where and when so justly expected from them by and to assure His Majesty of their better carriage hereafter then Himself or his Father of glorious memory had found in the late wars of their Countrey And if by their cheerful hearty concurrence to such demonstrations of duty they merited a better opinion hereafter to be had of them by His Majesty and great Ministers of State and such as would really deserve protection they needed not fear the opposition of others whatsoever whiles they behaved themselves as men of discretion and their profession should 10. To that Bugbear which those of the Secular Clergy alledged to excuse themselves it was said That they very well knew it was a meer pretence That the Shoo did not really pinch them there That albeit the Regulars were numerous and of esteem yet not of so great or prevalent as in such a matter or any at all which had reason for it and for the Secular Clergy could any way bear them down even in case the Regulars did not concur with them That they were the Pastors and Leaders of the Flock by power command and law of the Church and their authority and jurisdiction established by the Canons from the very beginning That the Regulars had no such authoritative commanding power nor subjection due unto them from the people but was voluntary in the internal Court of Conscience in foro paenitentiali or only in the private auricular confessional seat That besides it had no kind of colour but their example would be immediatly followed by all Regulars by some freely and heartily who were otherwise themselves our of judgment and affection too so principled and so affected and only expected their authority to back them by others out of shame and fear to see by any further opposition themselves reduced to a streight of giving other reasons then such as they could not own or maintain and of discovering so the true cause rebellious principles and affections and consequently of seeing themselves houted at by all sober and good people even of their own religion and communion And as for the false aspersion and scandal raised against that Remonstrance amongst some of the Commons as if it signified in effect as much as the Oath of Supremacy it was themselves suffered that of meer purpose to go oâ— and they might with one single declaration as easily disabuse all pâ—ssessed therewith as it was raised without any ground That no Church-man even the most malicious would before any understanding man own the raising or forwarding of it however it was known that some few of them in private corners did whisper it to the illiterate as I could name a certain Prior of the Dominicans Order Father Michael Fullam to have done most unconscientiously that I may say no more though chiefly of purpose to excuse by such diabolical forgeries their own opposition when upbraided therewith by good honest wel-meaning people as some few others of them had the impudence and I could instance Father W. L. of the Society and Father D. D. of the Franciscans for a long time to say and aver too that the King as being a Protestant should not be prayed for at all by Catholicks either publickly or privatly though some few others also and somwhat more warily though erroneously enough too and against plain Scriptures both in the Old and new Testament and the continued practice of the primitive Church distinguish'd the manner of praying for him and a long time held and indoctrinated others that he should not be prayed for so as to desire the temporal safety of his Crown or Person victory over his enemies or any prosperous earthly success unto him at all but his conversion only and repentance in this life and salvation in the next without any further addition That as this heretical doctrine was soon and quite beaten down by the contrary practice of the whole Clergy both Secular and Regular which now we see and hear at all Chappels and Altars so that calumny and scandal would throughout the Kingdom cease in one fortnight if they pleased to declare it such as they are bound in conscience truth and honesty to do 11. As for the pick of some to the Procurator whom they falsely suppose to be the Author of the Remonstrance though had he been so he would rather glory therein then be ashamed thereof or of the Declaration of loyalty inserted in that Remonstrance if not peradventure for being any way or in part defective or not home enough in some things
the Religion and Catholick Church pure undefiled immaculate without spot or wrinckle whereby to invite and perswade others to it for the salvation of their souls or certainly that they must allow salvation as they neither do nor can to be found in other Congregations or Churches either Heretical or Schismatical And further he minded them seriously insisting no less earnestly thereupon That no earthly regard none at all of temporal either advantages or disadvantages of honour profit ease much less of such vain titles and preferments as they look after nor on the other side any apprehension of disfavour discountenance danger persecution nor loss of goods if they had any nor even of liberty and life could excuse them from this duty That whether all their hopes of the King and his great Ministers of his Councils and Parliaments or of the moderate people of the Protestant Church upon one side should fail them having done their own duty and their pleas of innocence and articles both or whatever else-were of no account and all their both nearest and dearest Lay-relative Proprietors to a man were destroyed at home and themselves finally forced abroad again or design'd to suffer in their own Countrey the extreamest rigour of laws either made already or hereafter to be at any time or contingencies there or if on the other side they were absolutely certain being exiled to meet with no less severity and cruelty from the Court of Rome or an angry incensed Pope and from all Princes and Catholick Prelates and People too where-ever they came that even this certainty of such evils however in themselves or to any prudent man neither probable nor morally possible could not excuse them from this duty That the first Subscribers had supposed all the very worst could happen beyond all fear and yet found themselves bound to do what they did That they conceived their special function nay Christianity it self obliged them so in the case and others of the same calling could pretend no special priviledge from Christ or his Gospel or his Church whatever the Courtiers of Rome but at their instance and importunity and that of their busie ignorant Agents and Sollicitours there did erroneously complement them with And therefore the conclusion of all was that he understood not with what confidence or conscience but that of horrour and sacriledge and of being guilty of the body and blood of our Lord and of eating and drinking judgment to themselves as St. Paul speaks or their own condemnation they could persisting in their obstinacy approach the Altars of God and celebrate the Divine and unbloudy Mysteries With which final conclusion as with all the rest of this last discourse notwithstandieg the Procurator most frequently and earnestly and pathetically perclosed all his several answers to the several parties of the Clergy and to those too of greatest authority and power amongst them even Provincials Vicars General Bishops and Archbishops yet which is very notable he never had hereunto at any time or from any person of them all one word of reply but sighs only from some arguing a remorse and silence from the rest without any remorse at all if their past and after actions be sufficient testimonies of their affections XIV Now after so long a discontinuance of or digression from the bare matter of fact and without further consideration of the arguments of either side or of the allegations of the dissenters the refutations or reasons insisted on by the Procurator to return back thither where I was treating how upon the arrival of the said Procurator about the end of August 1662. he had by conferring at Dublin with several of the chief heads there peevishly adverss to the Remonstrance some alledging one excuse and some another and others many together of such as you have seen already above or before the answers partly understood the whole intrigue from those men and partly too from others who came to him from several parts of the Countrey abroad of purpose to let him know the general conspiracy either enter'd or submitted unto even by some of the best affected most loyal heretofore of both Secular and Regular Clergy throughout all parts of the Kingdom against that Remonstrance and himself also upon account thereof if he persisted in his resolution to draw them to it or not to work for them a liberty as they vainly conceived he could to frame another unsignificant one for themselves and prevail for the acceptance of such by His Grace and by His Majesty the Procurator fully therefore now understanding what he was to do resolves in the first place to attempt the breaking of that ligue so general the breaking of it immediatly by some Instances at Dublin the Metrapolitan City Whose Clergy and their example must especially in such a matter have had great influence on the rest in other parts of the Kingdom and certainly so much that if they residing in the very sight of the State and giving daily intelligence to the rest abroad or if at least some leading men of them could not be wrought upon to desert so sinful and shameful I will not say disloyal a confederacy there could be no hopes at all to prevail with any others In which attempt he was presently after some little pains taken so far succesful as to have reason'd to a subscription publick owning thereof the Guardian other Fathers of the Franciscan Convent in that City being in all five with them two of the Dominicans whereof one was the then Prior of Droghedah but residing at Dublin These were they that first of all others in Ireland at home next after Father Valentine Browne at Galway condemn'd by a clear and ever since constant profession and observance of their duty the rashness and sinfulness of that so general conspiracy against it Though I must confess that as many as after followed their example to this day have of themselves freely and heartily without compulsion or even other invitation then what was publick in the Book and Letters of the Procurator come along from several and some from very remote parts of the Kingdom to Dublin of purpose to subscribe that Instrument and thereby quiet their own conscience by declaring in that manner as they should and was expected from them their true allegiance to the Prince XV. But for as much as I doubt not there are very many both desirous and curious to know the number and names of all those of the Clergy Regular or Secular who have then or at any time since concurred for the number and names of the Subscribers at London of that Clergy together with the Bishop of Dromore I have already given with the Remonstrance it self in the beginning of this Treatise as they are extant in print and because it will be more satisfaction to give them altogether then dispersedly in several places as they signed at several times the Reader may satisfie himself here in both particulars
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
probability how great soever so it retain still the true ond onely nature of probability and arrive not to evidence and consequently be no more that which is meer probability but a quite other thing can serve our adversaries to quarrel against my doctrine which maintains no exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat For if their arguments or reasons whatsoever be but probable or should I admit any of them to be probable how intrinsecally soever yet admitting them but as onely such and not convincing and further shewing clearly they are not convincing the consequence of my admitting them for such onely that is for even intrinsecally probable and no more must be also that the tenet grounded on them cannot be certain And therefore that by the common doctrine of Divines and Lawyers Princes cannot be deprived of their supream power over Clerks whereof they are and have been alwayes in possession Because upon or for an uncertain title or uncertain allegations and all reasons which are onely probable are uncertain as to us none may be justly thrown out of a long continued possession and a possession which was bona fide such and a possession too which in the case and according to reason must have at least the same or as much even intrinsick probability for it in point of natural reason as is pleaded against it from pretences of the like natural reason This being the nature of meer probability of reason if understood to be such to inforce by a necessary consequence the like probability of reason producible for the other side of the contradictory Which advertisement I premise for the less acute or less discerning Readers sake not that I do my self apprehend any such true intrinsick probability in the propositions or assumptions of any the above reasons of Soto or Victoria as inferring their intended consequence nor that I fear any other judicious uninteressed or unbyassed person will apprehend any such in them whereas on the contrary I doubt not my solutions or answers to them will no less clearly in the point also satisfie the Reader then my former to Bellarmine's Scriptures Laws and Canons have Therefore to pass by at this time what I could answer in general to all those arguments both of Soto and Victoria and to all other such of others if any other such be which is that learned men would in such a matter of so great weight and consequence and of such infinit prejudice to Princes and the State Politick universally expect a demonstration if not a pure Philasophical one of both Premisses and conclusion at least a Theological one and not such pittifull aequivocate Sillogismes or rather ill assuming and ill concluding Parologismes to which there are as many clear and convincing answers as there are propositions or even almost words And that it very ill becomes so great Clerks to lay so weak a foundation for so vast a fabrick as they would build thereon a power in the Pope to exempt all Clerks nay to exempt so many millions of men and women subjects and free them all from that subjection which they all owe to Kings by the laws of God and nature I say that to pass by now this general animadversion and To answer first in particular to Soto and to all the particulars of his argument I distinguish the Ecclesiastical power which he sayes to be per se that is of it self or of its own proper nature self sufficient and independent from the civil For if thereby Soto understand that the spiritual authority given to the Apostles and Church viz. that of preaching the word administring the sacraments interpreting of scriptures absolving from sins excluding contumacious sinners out of the Church receiving them again when they are penitent and of doing or discharging all such other functions which are purely spiritual and are sufficient for eternal salvation of mortals I confess that Ecclesiastical power so taken is per se of it self or of such its own nature sufficient to attain its own true proper ends that is to lead people to salvation or which is it I mean can without any help from the civil power lead unto this great end And consequently may enact such proportionable laws and sanctions as are necessary in circumstances to attain this self same happy end But withall I say that as it is one thing to say as it must in truth be said That Ecclesiastical power so taken and so sufficient for such end is in such respect independent from the civil power because the civil power can neither give it nor take it away and a quite other thing to say that the persons who have this Ecclesiastical power are not or may not or ought not to be in other respects dependent from the civil power and civil Magistrats so it is perspicuous That a law for the exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power and this law of exemption made also by the very Clerks themselves of themselves and by vertue onely of a pretended power in themselves and without any consent nay with manifest reluctance of the said civil supream power and Magistrat I say t is perspicuous that such a law of such exemption so made nay indeed or any way made either without or with the consent of the said supream civil Magistrat or even by either spiritual or temporal power or even by both powers together cannot be numbred amongst such other laws or sanctions as are necessary to lead unto or attain salvation For who ever yet doubted that Christians whatsoever Clergie and Layety can or could be saved notwithstanding that all Clergiemen were subject still to the civil jurisdiction of even the subordinate lay Judges and were in all politick or temporal matters or causes whatsoever both civil criminal or mixt of both convened in civil courts tryed by the common laws and received sentence from the lay Judges as formerly it hath sometimes been a long time been under not onely Heathen but very Christian Emperours Or whatever others answer how can Soto in particular say otherwise then that such a law or such exemption cannot be necessary For upon one side he teacheth as we have seen before that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino and on the other no man in the world and consequently nor Soto himself will deny nor can deny That all kind of things provisions laws c whatsoever accounted necessary for salvation must be confess'd to be de jure divino But forasmuch as Soto adds That the power Ecclesiastical may not only enact such laws as are necessary for its administration but such laws also as are congruent I would fain know of him what he means by congruent If laws so agreeable meet fitting or expedient for the due exercise or execution of the same true genuin pure Ecclesiastical Power that without such laws no such due exercise or execution may be of such power then indeed or understood in this sense he
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
and members of the common-wealth exempt from the direction or coercion from either or both together of the civil laws in meer temporal things or of the meer civil Head in such things even in such case wherein the Church made conform or not conform laws or canons in the fals-same things great troubles would arise in the common-wealth because one part of such members would draw one way and an other an other way and because that speaking humanely naturally ordinarily where the temporal interests of the several parts are divers and quite contrary as it may very well be nay and by experience is too always in all such cases and where every side pursues passionatly their own interest without any law or Head to direct or punish them in the case it is impossible but all sides should fall at last into factious and violences of one against an other For so hath the experience of all ages and all countryes taught us and taught us too most singularly in the very case of Clerks and Laicks divided so and driving different interests while the Clerks would neither be directed nor coerced in temporal powers by the civil Head or civil laws of the civil common-wealth whereof yet they pretended themselves to be as men civil members and hath also taught us in Characters of blood wherewith all Europe hath been so often dyed in grain To this argument or to that common place or principle of great disturbances to arise in the common-wealth if any of the parts or members were in the case exempted so from the civil Head or laws or if in particular the Clergie were so exempted Bellarmine answers when this place or principle of experience is retorted and made use of against himself and notwithstanding his own former use of it for himself answers l. cont Barcl cap. 35. by denying plainly that any such troubles or disturbance of the common-wealth would arise or follow the exemption of the cittizens parts or members Ecclesiastical from the direction or coercion of the politick civil Head because sayes he the Bishops or chief of Bishops the Pope himself would both direct and coerce them as much and where it would be neccessary or expedient for the publick peace or other good end But against this answer too there are such obvious and insoluble reasons that we need not say more on this subject First who sees not it is and must be a most miserable common-wealth politick such a one as can never be able to attain the proper ends of a true common-wealth therefore no true common-wealth politick that hath no other means to preserve it self but by the direction and coercion of Christian Bishops as such The power of Christian Bishops as such or laying aside that which is delegated to them by or derived to them from the civil Princes and civil laws and which therefore may be taken onely again at the pleasure of the same Princes and laws is not other but onely and purely spiritual or of spiritual commands or censures without any kind of bodily force or coaction annexed And we know and see by ten thousand experiences dayly that such commands or censures cannot hinder wicked men from even the very worst of wickedness not even from that which brings along with it all kind of wickedness not even from that which is diametrically directly primarily and of its own proper nature opposit and contrary to the true genuine proper ends of every true politick common-wealth Nay that very known and confess'd immediate commands and censures of God himself that even his peremptory comminations and positive Declarations of everlasting flames and of the life of Devils expecting infallibly the transgressor's are not able to hinder wicked men nor even worldly Churchmen from that which brings along with it all other evils from sedition treason and rebellion I mean from rayling arms against the laws and Prince I mean For we see that by so many deplorable examples verified in all ages which the Poet said of evil men Oderunt peccare mali formidine paenae And we see by no fewer that meer spiritual punishmâ—nts without corporal coercioâ—â— are of no force to keep the world in peace That not even the Pope himself notwithstanding his plenitude of spiritual power and notwithstanding all his spiritual commands and censures imaginable is able to keep in peace as much as that one very Town of Citty of Rome wherein himself resides without Garrisons and Guards and the assistance of the Corporal streingth of his whole Ecclesiastical Patrimony nay and often of other States Principalities Kingdoms to back him How then may it be said groundedly at all that the Bishops or Pope as such would or indeed could effectually either direct or coerce the rest of the Clergie of any Kingdom if once resolved on such mischiefs able to effect them having no other opposition or coercion but that onely of spiritual commands or spiritual censures Secondly who is so ignorant in History as not to know that both some Bishops some Popes themselves have not seldom been as guilty of the same most enormous crimes of sedition treason and rebellion or of raysing countenancing and abetting such in others as any other of the inferiour Clergie against the peace and quiet of the ciuil common-wealth Do not we know that even some of the very Popes have upon occasion that too not seldom given Cruzadas and other Bulls of Indulgence to rayse such commotions even the most horrid against lawful Princes and the peace of their Kingdoms and to the perpetual ruine of so many millions of their people And as concerning Ireland in particular being this controversy is with so much heat debated now in Ireland do not we remember what the Bishops did at Waterford in 1646 what at Iames-stown in 1649 what the Pope's Nuncio the most otherwise Reverend and Illustrious Joannes Baptista Rinuccini Archbishop and Prince of Fermo did what consequently the Pope himself Innocent the X. who sent him did Nay what also his Predecessour Urban the VIII who sent before that Nuncio Franciscus Scarampus did and what that Bull of Indulgence which goes under his name doth signifie And for other too too frequent examples of the like nature both in Ireland in other countries and both in this very present former ages wherein the Court of Rome great Pontiffs of the holy See disturbed mightily the peace of so many Kingdoms and States and ruined so many millions of other Princes Subjects and the Princes themselves that is the whole common-wealth politick both Head members are not the Annals of Baronius Spondanus witnesses beyond exception And was it not upon this onely ground and by occasion of this onely doctrine of Bellarmine and of the appendages of it that all such mischiefs happened Or how was it possible in nature to prevent such evils where the people were imbued by their Clergie with such principles That by the laws of Christianity
Catholicks of those two Nations containing only such matter and to alledge as the cause or as a cause of such condemnation and censure and alledge it also in plain terms That it the said Instrument contain'd some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion What can I say be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to say so of such a matter if it be not so at all if there be no kind of true ground for saying that it is so And that it is not so at all or that the Remonstrance contains not either formally or virtually and consequentially as much as any one thing or part of a thing if such part may be repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion appears hence evidently That neither in its Acknowledgments Confessions Promises Disclaimings Renouncings Declarations Professions Protestations Abhorrencies Detestations nor in its final resignation in the Petitionary Address nor in any other clause or word if there be any other as indeed there is not but what belongs to these heads now repeated there is not as much as a syllable which by any kind of true either Grammatical or Theological or as much as seeming or likely construction imports any more in effect than first a bare Acknowledgment of the Supreme Temporal power of these Dominions of England Ireland Scotland c. and of all persons whatsoever Laymen or Clergymen living within them to be in our gracious Sovereign Charles the Second to have been in His lawful Predecessors and hereafter to be a so in His lawful Successors as likewise a bare acknowledgment of the like Supreme power under God to be in other Princes and Supreme Magistrates within their own respective Dominions And next an express or tacite promise to observe and obey and continue Loyal or Faithful in all Civil and Temporal matters to that self-same Supreme Temporal power of our gracious King yea notwithstanding any Doctrine to the contrary or even any Attempt by any other power whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual to force them or draw them from their Allegiance or Obedience to King Charles in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs For I have already and abundantly too demonstrated where I before Treated against the four grounds of the Louain Divines and more especially where I Treated against their fourth That it is so far from being against the sincere profession of Catholick Religion to assert or promise any such thing that it is on the contrary even revealed and declared positively and expresly and clearly by God himself in several places of Holy Scripture and yet more particularly in St. Paul's Epistle and by the mouth and pen of this great Apostle That all Supreme Temporal power is in the Supreme Temporal Princes and States over all their own respective Subjects as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks And consequently that in all Temporal matters Allegiance and Faith and Obedience is due to such their power and ought to be paid and performed to them not only for fear of their Anger and Sword but for Conscience and fear of Damnation as St. Paul most expresly declares in formal words 13 ad Rom. And moreover that all this Doctrine hath been so as here delivered by universal Tradition for almost eleven entire Ages of Christian Religion all along till Gregory the Seventh usurped unto himself the Temporal power of the Empire as belonging to him by Divine Right All which being so as certainly it is so I frame thus my Argument Syllogistically against both the said Causes or Reasons supposed and expresly inserted in this second or short Censure of the Louain Faculty Theological as the only Reasons given therein wherefore they censure our Remonstrance and censure it so heavily and grievously or with such odious epithets as these unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. Whatsoever Vniversity or other Censure taxes judges or condemns any Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power of the Sword as is hitherto said in the Supreme Lay Magistrate Prince or State and withall a promise only of such obedience as before is said in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs to that Power or that Magistrate according to the Laws of the Land I say that whatever Censure taxes judges or condemns such a Remonstrance to be utterly unlawful detestable and sacrilegious viz. upon account supposition or pretence That it contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make to them and that moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion Every such University or other Censure whatsoever I say must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity But the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 61. 62. is such or is a University Censure of a Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power c. and withall a promise only of such obedience c. and yet taxes judges and condemns such a Remonstrance to be unlawful c. viz. upon account supposition c. Ergo the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 1661. and 1662. must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity And indeed the Major of this Syllogism ought at least among such Christian Divines as are men of Reason to be reputed of the nature of those Propositions which are called Propositiones per se notae if or as far as any such may be in Christian Philosophy or Divine Science of Christians For this tells us manifestly and evidently according to that evidence which Christian Religion is capable of That all such Censures as are against other at least Christian men and so great also and numerous a Body of other Christian men and are against them upon such an account only that is for maintaining such a power in the Supreme Civil Magistrate and such obedience due from the Subjects as are both revealed in the very written Word of God himself in holy Scripture and so constantly and universally delivered by Tradition and no less approved and confirmed even by pure natural Reason and so I mean revealed delivered approved and confirmed as I have already in my Disputes against the fourth ground of the Louain Divines proved that power and that obedience to have been I say that Christian Philosophy tells us manifestly and evidently that all such Censures must be so as I have said and even notoriously too rash false injurious and scandalous Rash against Prudence because heady foolishly bold and wholly inconsiderate against the Rules of that even humane Providence or of that right
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
Remonstrance and let them know that I understood of great Cabals amongst them to hinder even any kind of debate nay reading or so much as mention of the said Remonstrance in their House Telling them withal That notwithstanding all such contrivances of men who desired in effect nothing but confusion I hoped none there present would have the confidence to hinder my own publick reading of that Instrument as neither of other Instruments too that concernâ—d as well them all as my self to hear them both read and debated or opposed if any could pretend against them any matter of debate or opposition And presently in a great silence and attention of the Fathers drawing out of my pocket the very Original Remonstrance See in Tract 1. Part 1. pag. 7. and from pag. 462 to 487 sent to me to London out of Ireland together both with that other Original exact Copy thereof which was sign'd by all the Ecclesiasticks who either sign'd it at London first or Dublin after and one of the first Printed Copies also of the same Instrument I read publickly to them this from first to last pausing on each clause of the controverted Act of Recognition and Petitionary Address and demanding at each as also again after all read over Whether they had any thing to object against any either particular clause or the whole taken together desiring them also to confer if they pleased the Printed and the said original Copies and then to judge of the truth or falshood equity or iniquity of another sort of publick Instrument sign'd by some few of the Irish Clergy-men represented by them and given in the year 1662. to Father John Brady a Franciscan one of their Members present as one of the two Divines of that Order and carried by him to the University of Louain that very year to procure thereby as he did the Censure of that University or Theological Faculty thereof against the Remonstrance For in that so given to the said Brady the Subscribers of it say That I invented the Remonstrance and falsly imposed it on others See Part. 1. pag. 91. Where you have a Copy of that lying disloyal Instrument given to the said Brady In the next place I told them That for as much as I had understood for so many years past since 1661 That several in remote parts of the Kingdom had traduced me as without any ground or authority arrogating the Title of Procurator c I desired their patience to hear and see with their own ears and eyes the original Procuratorium under Hands and Seals sent me to London from the Prelats by Father Antony Gearnon in the end of the year 1660. And consequently I both produced and read it to them as you have the Copy thereof Tract 1. Part. 1. pag 5. Adding that although I saw it was not sign'd by hands out of every several Province and Order because that by reason of the terrible Persecution there was no possibility at the time of its date to convene others than such as had Signed it yet by the advice of the Bishop of Dromore and the rest of the Remonstrants at London and because the sad condition of the Irish Clergy at home required I should as solemnly as could be appear for them all as their General Procurator without distinction of Provinces or Orders I did therefore as Procurator utriusque Cleri Hiberniae sign that Formulary and Remonstrance which was to do them good upon my owning it as such or under that title at least until they might be convened together albeit I did expresly refuse to subscribe the said Formulary as having special Commission from them or any of them to subscribe it in their name however withal I at the same time and to the same great Ministers of State declared That I hoped the rest of the Irish Clergy when the storm of Persecution being over they could meet together or appear in publick and when at least the Bishops were permitted to return home from Forraign parts would all of them in good time concur also by their own proper Manual Signatures added thereunto In the Third place I craved their further patience whiles I shewed and read another sort of authentick Instrument wherein though I was my self chiefly concern'd they were also not a little viz. my Letters of Licence Mission Authority and Obedience to live and exercise my Priestly Function throughout the three Nations from the Regular Order whereof professed my self and hoped to continue till death a true genuine Member Telling them moreover it was therefore I desired this last Instrument should be heard and viewed publickly because I understood that by the industry and malice of some old Enemies to me for my former actings in defence of the Kingdom against the Nuncio as likewise through the consequential but unreasonable aversion of the same parties from any kind of satisfactory Profession of Allegiance to the King they had in corners whispered up and down the Country amongst their partizans followers and devotes especially amongst the ruder sort of people I had been these many years and continued still an Apostate from my own Order as having no Letters of Obedience from either the General or Provincial Superiours thereof Which though by a Thousand other arguments and amongst other by the Procuratorium already seen and read of so many Reverend Prelats to me giving me both such ample testimony and withal no less Authority Power and Jurisdiction too than was in their power to give it be sufficiently and manifoldly convinced to be a grand Imposture yet I thought fit to let them if any of them were present hear and see the very Original Patent also of the General Superiour of my own Order approved even by the Manual Signature of the very Provincial of Ireland Anthony Docharty there present as one of the chief Members of the Congregation And then I drew forth and read publickly those obediential Letters under the great Seal of the Franciscan Order as followeth Frater Antonius ab Oudenhoven Lector Jubilatus totius Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Exdiffinitor generalis super Provincias Germaniae Superioris Belgii Hiberniae Angliae Scotiae Daciae cum plenitudine potestatis in utroque foro Commissarius generalis Venerando Admodum Patri fratri Petro Valesio Provinciae Hiberniae Concionatori ac Sacrae Theologiae Lectori Salutem in Domino Sempiternam QVandoquidem expulsus Hibernia cum obedientialibus Reverendissimi Patris Jacobi de Riddere Praedecessoris nostri cum magna plurium Catholicorum consolatione versatus fueris in Anglia postulaverisque a Nobis dictam Missionem confirmari Hinc est quod de tua idoneitate animarum zelo ac discretione plurimum in Domino confidentes virtute praesentium licentiam tibi nostram concedamus ut cum Sanctae Obedientiae merito dictam Missionem per Angliam Hiberniam alia loca vicina pro ut expedire indicaveris continuare valeas assumpto socio tibi grato commendantes vos
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
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
prosecute Our determination to run all possible hazards for the Kings service and the preservation of the Nation We received from you the abovementioned Propositions which how far they may be conducible to that end We know not but do wish what We are able to do for your satisfaction and the satisfaction of the People upon them may have the effect aimed at and that with the speed necessary for your and their preservation II. To the second We do not understand how the most of the present distresses of the Kingdom could proceed from the want of a Privy Council nor considering the State of the Kingdom the power intrusted with the Commissioners their abilities and how freely We communicate with them things of greatest importance how the framing of such a Council can advantage the management of the War which is now the only matter of State And that consisting only of provision to be made for an Army and the employing that Army to the best advantage is or may be as well done by the advice and assistance of the said Commissioners as by any Council of State who will have no power to raise men or to provide for them and to whom designs upon the Enemy are no further to be communicated than We shall think fit And with such We shall as readily acquaint the Commissioners and as soon be advised by them as any other We can think of the rather that We know none upon whose faith and judgment we may more safely depend nor that can better assist Us in any thing they shall be advised with by reason of their knowledge of the ability and burthen of the Kingdom which We doubt the state of most men considered cannot but be increased by a Privy Council For these Reasons We think not fit unnecessarily to presume upon doing a thing for which We neither have power nor president Yet rather than there should be any thing wanting that is in Our power to satisfie the People let the particular Acts that Privy Counsellors have heretofore done and are now necessary be instanced and as far forth as they shall appear necessary and fit We shall qualifie persons free from just exception with such powers III. All this Proposition is assented unto and as far forth as concerns Us shall be observed and immediately put in execution save that if it be intended the Commissioners should give their consent to what particular Officers should be established We conceive that a power wherewith they are not qualified by the Articles nor fit for Us to bind Our Self or any other chief Governour unto And for the not multiplying or exceeding the numbers to be fixed upon but by further solemn establishment We consent unto it as far as the same is agreeable to the Articles of Peace IV. To be explained what is intended by exact wariness or what is understood by probable circumstances V. The too punctual observation of this Proposition hath been of worse consequence than the particulars complained of have been And We expect that if the Articles of Peace be found destructively strict in this point they may be dispensed with and not only Our Self but whoever commands a considerable Party of the Army upon any Expedition may have power to Garrison any place he shall conceive necessary without consulting any man VI. This is to be explained as to particulars and then such answer shall be given as is fit and agreeable to the power given Us by His Majesty and the Articles of Peace VII We have been alwayes ready to comply with this Proposition and have more than once made offer of it witness the Commissioners and are still ready to perform what in this point We are obliged unto by the Articles of Peace VIII This Proposition is assented unto and was never hindred by Us save as to the disposing of money wherein We insist upon and shall conform Our Self to the Articles of Peace and could wish that others besides the Receiver General accomptable for great Sums of money both before and since the Peace had been or might be brought to accompt for the ease of the Kingdom IX We are ready to do justice unto the Countrey and upon the Offenders mentioned in this Proposition in such manner and with such assistance as is usual and requisite in like cases and to that effect We desire that particulars may be instanced X. To be Explained XI VVe acknowledge this Proposition to be pursuant to the Letter of the Articles of Peace and that by unavoidable necessity it hath been infringed and VVe affirm that in the case the Kingdom is the strictness thereof must be dispensed with or othewise certain provision made for the Army else no service can be done Signed ORMOND To which Answers they took no exception but as being satisfied with them made the following Declaration in their own names and the names of their Brethren the rest of the Bishops of the Kingdom The Declaration of the undernamed Bishops in the name of themselves and the rest of the Bishops convoked at Lymerick as deputed by them presented to His Excellency the Lord Marquess of Ormond LORD LIEUTENANT for His MAJESTY and General Governour of Ireland c. MAY it please Your Excellency to be informed That we are very sensible of the Jealousies and Suspitions conceived of us as was intimated unto us that we believe arising from some disaffected and misunderstanding persons that spare not to give ill characters of us as if these deplorable times wherein our Religion King and Countrey are come to the vertical point of their total ruine and destruction it should be imagined by any that we behave our selves like sleeping Pastors in no wayes contributing our best endeavours for the preservation of the People which ought to be more dear unto us than any other worldly thing that may be thought of Wherefore as well for the just vindication of our own reputation against such undeserved aspersions as for future testimony of our sincerity and integrity to endeavour alwayes the safety of the People and to manifest to Your Excellency as the Kings Majesties Lieutenant and chief Governour of this Kingdom that no labour or care of ours hath been or shall be wanting to proceed effectually to any Proposals You will please to make known unto us that may conduce to those ends We thought it therefore fit to present this Declaration of our real intentions in the name of our selves and the rest of our Brethren the Archbishops and Bishops of this Kingdom whereby we avow testifie declare and protest before God and the World That since our general meeting at Cloanmacnoise or there we have omitted nothing that did occur unto us tending to the advancement of His Majesties interest and the good of the Kingdom generally but have there and then ordered and decreed all things to us appertaining or which was in our power necessarily conducing to the publick conservation of His Majesty and His Subjects interest And also