Reason which should govern or direct their particular Actions as well in order to themselves as to others and should foresee what might be objected False against Truth because so manifestly against both the Divine revealed Truths of Christian Religion and against those evidences also of natural Reason given by me before against the fourth ground of the same Louain Divines Injurious against Justice because against the most considerable right can be of all Princes States and People and even of the Clergy too if considered aright And in the highest degree may be Scandalous against Charity because in the highest degree may be harming the name and same of their Christian Catholick Neighbours and of so vast a multitude of them and because also not only of endangering in the highest degree inasmuch as in them lay even the very Temporal safety of so great a number of all the poor Catholicks in the British Monarchy and the peace of the King of Englands Dominions but further yet of raising against and casting and continuing on the Roman Religion it self in general or wheresoever professed the greatest hatred and blackness and hideousness and horrour may be and because too consequently of continuing still the chief cause of the grand Schism in Europe by keeping still that Block of stumbling and Rock of Scandal in the way of all Sects whatsoever which above any other hinders them from thinking of a Return to their Mother Church whereby to save their Souls in the Unity and Truth of the Catholick Church Than which I am sure nothing can be either more highly or more properly and strictly scandalous As for the Minor of the Syllogism being the last part of it which sayes that the second or short Censure of Louain judges our Remonstrance to be unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. is so manifest that it cannot be disputed since you read it so in that very Censure it self the former part only which sayes also and where it sayes That our Remonstrance contains only in effect word and sense an Acknowledgment only of a meer Supreme Temporal power in the Supreme Politick Magistrate and a promise of Obedience and Fidelity in meer Temporal things to the same Power and Magistrate remains to be made here no less manifest and to be made so manifest by analysing resolving and taking in pieces the whole frame of the Act of Recognition and all the Appendages of it whereof the dispute is or may be whether it contains any things besides such Temporal power in the Magistrate and such Obedience and Faith in Temporal things in the Subjects or by considering every clause of it one after another apart and the relations of one to another and to the whole and of the whole to each For there can be no other way to demonstrate this former part of the Minor And this is an easie way ad oculum and will save the Reader some labour of turning to the 7 8 and 9 pages where the whole Remonstrance is wherein that Act of Recognition and those other Appendages of it are inserted Yet before I come to an issue on this point the Reader is to be Advertised First That in that publick Instrument which hath these six or seven years past occasioned so many Differences or Disputes or rather renewed them having for Title The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland it which in this distinction of words and proper strict sense of them as distinct is and ought to be understood by the word Remonstrance as in this Title so distinguish'd is not that which is at all controverted For that which is so understood is only the Representation of their then present sad and deplorable condition or of such grievances persecution suspition calumnies and odium under which for their Religion they lay then amongst their Protestant Fellow Subjects in Ireland Secondly That that which is and ought to be understood by the word Acknowledgment properly and strickly taken as in this Title signifying somewhat distinct from the meaning of the former word Remonstrance is no other than that which in the same Title is imported also by the word Protestation with this only difference That the whole Act of Recognition with all its Clauses and Appendages may be and is properly and truly an acknowledgment and confession both of the Supreme civil or Temporal power and of that obedience as above And that the very same whole Act of Recognition or Acknowledgment is in the Title called a Protestation partly because the Remonstrants or Subscribers do about the end of the same Act of Recognition formally or in formal express words Protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary of that which they acknowledge confess c. in that very Act of Recognition and partly too because that having done in the former part of that publick Instrument with the Representation of their Grievances in general then and immediately before they begin their said Recognition they speak thus We know what odium all the Catholick Clergy lies under by reason of the Calumnies with which our Tenents in Religion and our dependance upon the Popes Authority are aspersed and we humbly beg Your Majesties pardon to vindicate both by the ensuing Protestation which we make in the sight of Heaven and in the presence of Your Majesty sincerely and truly without equivocation or mental reservation and partly also because by the word Protestation any publick Testimony whether it be by an Oath or not may be truly and properly understood And therefore I confess ingenuously that within the whole Act of Recognition separately taken from the rest of that Instrument there is no Protestation at all understanding by the word Protestation that kind of Testimony which is by oath For indeed there is no oath at all either formal or virtual in the whole Act so taken separately or in any Clause or Appendage of it so taken And yet I confess too that is or may well be understood to be either a formal or at least a virtual oath which is in the passage immediately antecedent or going before that Act. But this oath imports no more then that the Remonstrants or Subscribers do so antecedently swear or protest in the sight of Heaven that they do sincerely and truly without equivocation or mental reservation acknowledge confess disclaim renounce declare promise profess protest hold abhor and detest whatever they acknowledge confess c. in their following Declaration or said Act of Recognition And therefore by no meâ—â— imports that they swear their Acknowledgment Confession Renunciation c. are made conformably to the objective truth of Things or Laws in themselves For Example They swear not nor protest at all in the sight of Heaven That our Sovereign King Charles the Second is Lawful and Rightful King Supreme Lord c. or I mean that He is so according to the verity of Things and Laws in themselves but only that they
distinction of Countrey or Degree or Sex or Age Men Women Children from the most illustrious Peer to the most obscure Plebeian wheresoever in any of His Majesties Kingdoms or Dominions even at this present lie under all the rigorous Sanctions and all the severe Penalties of so many incapacitating so many mulctative Laws nay and so many sanguinary which reach even to life in several cases And your Predecessors before you have well nigh a whole Century of years been continually under the smart or apprehension of the severity of them And so may your Successors and your Children and Posterity after you for so long more if the true causes of Enacting at first those Laws and continuing them ever since be no better considered i.e. no more narrowly search'd into nor more effectually regarded by you than they have been by your Fathers for you or themselves But whatever Gods providential care of or goodness to your Posterity after you may be I am sure it cannot be denied but all Roman-Catholicks universally now living any where in England Ireland or Scotland must upon due reflection find themselves highly concern'd in having the Sword-point of those penal Constitutions hanging continually and even perpendicularly over their heads Do not we all manifestly perceive they are with-held at present from execution by a very small and weak Thred not only of one life that is mortal but even of one will alone that yet may be alter'd of a sudden upon many occasions which may happen when least expected Now seeing you are all every one thus concern'd in those Laws surely so you must all be in the causes of them i.e. in those genuine true proper and onely causes which continued must necessarily continue those very Laws and which removed will naturally remove them But if in those causes your concernment be such how can it be other or indeed how can it be any way less in the Subject of this Book All the several Treatises and Parts thereof and all the several Relations Discourses Disputes Animadversions therein occasion'd by either of the two Formularies drive ultimately at a plain and full discovery of those very causes and of their continual dependance on your own proper will alone and how lawfully and justly you may or rather how strictly you are even by all the known Maxims of Christian Religion Catholick Faith and Natural Reason bound in Conscience to remove them Your Concern therefore above all others in the Subject being thus at last clearly manifested I need no further Apology for the Dedication A Consecratory Address to you appears now evidently enough to have been required by the Nature of the Work it self as a necessary Appendage of that real duty which I have endeavoured to the best of my understanding all along in this Book to pay the most sacred name of Catholicks And in truth to whom other than to your selves ought or could I upon any sufficient ground dedicate a Book of so universal and weighty a Concern of yours Yet after all I must acknowledge that besides your propriety in the Subject I had the current of my own desires and my own Ideas to exact this Duty I have in truth these many years had continually even passionate desires of some fair opportunity to offer unto you but with all due submission still some farther and more particular thoughts relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of all your foresaid evils And have at last entertain'd the pleasing Idea of a Dedicatory as the fairest occasion I could wish to speak directly and immediately to your selves all whatever I think to be for your advantage on that Subject and sutable to the measures of a Letter and what I moreover know some others think who yet have not the courage to speak or to inform you And therefore to pursue my old method I call it old having held these 26 years of delivering my thoughts fully and throughly in all Points which I conceive to be material though at the same time expecting from some contradiction and from others worse but comforting myself nevertheless with the conscience of very great Truth with the zeal of your highest advantage and with the certain expectation that all judicious good men will approve what I shall say and lay all to heart as they ought I must now tell you that if we please to examine things calmly with unprejudiced reading and unbyass'd reason we may find without any peradventure I. That the rigour of so many Laws the severity of so many Edicts and the cruel execution of both many times against even harmless People of the Roman Communion have not intentionally or designedly from the beginning aim'd nor do at present aim so much at the renunciation of any avowed or uncontroverted Articles of that Christian or Catholick Religion you profess as at the suppression of those Doctrines which many of your selves condemn as Anti-catholick and for the prevention of those practises which you all say you abhor as Antichristian II. That it is neither the number of Sacraments nor the divine excellency of the Eucharist above the rest either by the real presence in or Transubstantiation of the Consecrated Host nor the communion thereof in one kind onely nor the more holy and strict observance of Confession nor the ancient practice of Extreme Vnction nor the needless Controversies 'twixt Vs and the Protestants if we understood one another about Faith Justification Good Works or those termed Supererogatorie or about the Invocation of Saints Veneration of Reliques Worshipping of Images Purgatory and Pardons nor is it the Canon of the Bible or a Learned Liturgy or Continency of Priests and obligation of certain Vows or holiness of either a Monastick or Cloystered life in a well-ordered Community of devout Regulars nor is it either a Patriarchical power in the Bishop of Rome over the Western Church according to the ancient Canons and Customs or which is yet somewhat more an universal Pastorship purely spiritual acknowledg'd in Him such I mean as properly flows from the Celestial power of the two Keyes of Peter as far as ever it was acknowledged by all or any of the ancient Councils I say it is not any of all these Articles or Practises nor all together not even join'd with some others whether of lesser or greater note that is the grand Rock of scandal or that hath been these last Hundred years the cause of so many Penalties Mulcts Incapacities of shameful Deaths inflicted and more ignominious Characters given us III. That of our side the original source of all those evils and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman-Catholicks in England Ireland Scotland at any time since the first change under Henry VIII hath been a System of Doctrines and Practises not only quite other than your selves do believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture or delivered by Catholick Tradition or evidenced by Natural Reason or so much as defined by
what they had from the concession of Princes and as long only as the Princes or civil Magistrate and laws did authorize it But Pontius does not say so and therefore t is their saying only For though he say that his own assertion for the affirmative be the common opinion of all Catholicks yet we know what Schoolmen now a dayes understand in their Schools by that manner of speech when they say any assertion is the common opinion of all Catholicks or all Doctors and that they intend only to oppose common against that which is not common or not in the vogue although otherwise held by many in the very Schools and even by Classick Authors and by all sides accounted very Orthodox and by the most learned without contradiction accounted often the best safest As for their epithet of one of the most eminent of this age given Pontius I will allow it if they mean such eminency as Canonists or Casuists that commonly writ in some things the worst Divinity amongst Christians can challenge to themselves XXX Secondly they would find their Allegations false where they say The affirmative Resolve is the opinion of two general Councils that of Lateran and that of Lyons and I know they mean the fourth of Lateran under Innocent the third An. 1215. and the first of Lions under Innocent the fourth An. 1245. For albeit this objection were the allegation true presses not at all in the wary tearms they make it here being they onely pretend not the Faith or Catholick belief but the bare naked opinion onely of these Councils and being further they pretend no Decree of either of the said Councils or any other for as much as this opinion and therefore leave us still at liberty for any thing here objected to hold always to our own contrary judgement the opinion onely of never so numerous a Council not prejudicing the judgement of others when grounded upon evidence of reason or Scripture not considered of or canvassed in such Council yet how little soever this kind of objection deserves regard or answer or how weak soever to any real purpose were the allegation true I doubt not the objectors themselves will be convinced it is not onely vaine but false withal if laying aside passion and prejudice they consider well what they say here and compare it to what they may see recorded in Mathew Paris Nauelerus Albertus Stadensis and even in Platina himself and what also they may further see clearly demonstrated in Widringtons learned Works especially in his Discussio Discussionis Decreti Concilij Magni Lateranensis and in his last English Rejoynder to Fitz Herbert c. concerning what was done or not done by those two famous Councils How 60. Capitula or Chapters were rehearsed in that Council of Lateran which to some did seem pleasing or easie to others burdensome How nothing at all was plainly concluded by those Fathers of Lateran their Council having unexpectedly been forced to break up by reason of the Popes recess to appease some troubles of Italie How these 70. or 72. Chapters or Canons commonly of late attributed to that Lateran Council were onely Innocents's own draught though not so distinguished or not in this number and onely at most proposed by him but not assented to by them How those very Canons themselves do not pretend themselves enacted or assented to by the Council but onely some few of them and those in all but 14 videlicet the 2. 4. 5. 18. 42. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 51. 66. 69. and 72. or last of all concerning the holy land amongst which it is manifest the third Canon whereof our controversie is and which is now the third in Order is not to be found How so little credit was ever till of late dayes given to those 70. or 72. Capitula as Canons of that Council or is to day by learned men that they were never heard of as such for full three hundred years after the time that Council sate nor at all heard of until the year 1537. Wherein extracted first by Joannes Cochleus out of some German Library as was pretended and sent to Petrus Crabb a Franciscan they were annexed afterwards to the other Councils by the said Franciscan Petrus Crabb in his edition of Councils An. 1538. as if they had been unquestionably the true Acts of that Council of Lateran or such as had been assented to by all the Fathers or by such a number of the Fathers as had made them Conciliary Acts of that Council How consequently being there preceeded but three years before an edition of the former and later Councils by Jacobus Merlin without any such 60. 70. or 72. or any number whatsoever of Chapters or Canons of that fourth of Lateran or any mention at all of them or of any other Acts or Canons of that Council and being the Historians of those times that is such Historians as writt immediately or next after that Council nay and such others too as writt long after it expresly tell us that as I have before said that Council of Lateran concluded nothing plainly therefore these 70. or 72. Lateran Canons nor by consequence that third amongst them whereof our present controversie is deserve not so much as and as I mean Canons made Conciliarly by that Council or assented to by the Fathers of it to be put in equal ballance with those other 70. or 72. suppositicious ones of Nice brought to us of late from Arabia and collected by Alphonsus Pisanus How it is conceived more probably according truth that as Gregory the IX who was Nephew to the said Innocent the Third put them in his Uncles name into the Decretals and digested them into that number and method wherein they are in the said Decretals though dispersed in several books and under several titles of the same Decretals and prefixed to the several Chapters or heads of them Innocentius Tertius in Concilio Generali upon this ground that they were proposed by the said Innocentius Tertius though not assented to in that Council except onely the two first which were and are of faith and therefore needed no more but the tacit approbation of the Fathers or their not opposeing them publickly when they were read so the above perhaps well meaning German finding after so many hundred years an old copie of them as prepared for that Council or as digested after or as devided by the said Gregory the IX or by others for him without further examination or consideration of what other Historians or Antiquaries that writt long before him recorded to posteritie of the truth of those matters published them as genuin Acts of that Council which yet in truth were but the Acts of Innocent onely authorized so by his Nephew Gregory the IX in his Decretals How moreover it appears as clear as the Sun out of those very Canons or manner of speech in them and express words That whither that Lateran Council assented or not assented to those
testimonies of all Ages from the first of Christianity I say that being it is therefore plain and clear enough to any dis-interessed judicious and conscientious Divine that neither these Councils or Popes could upon rational grounds pretend any positive law of God properly or truly such either out of Scripture or out of Tradition at least for such exemption of the persons of Clergymen and in temporal affairs too from the supream civil coercive power it must consequently be confessed that unless we mean to charge an errour on these Councils and Popes we must allow the answer of such Divines as with Dominicus Soto 4. dist 25. q. 2. art 2. hold against Bellarmine in this matter to be not only full of respect but of reason also viz. that by jus divinum ordinatio divina voluntas omnipotentis cura a Deo commissa these Councils and Popes understand that right or law Divine that ordination Divine that will of God that care by God committed which is such only in as much as it is immediatly from or by the Canons or laws of the Church and that by jus humanum they understand the civil laws or institutions of meer Lay-Princes And indeed that of respect in this answer will be allowed without contradiction And that that of reason also cannot be any more denyed I am sure will appear likewise to any that please to consider how it is very usual with Popes and Councils to stile their own meer Ecclesiastical Canons Divine and such Canons I mean which by the confession of all sides never had any positive law of God in Scripture or Tradition for them For amongst innumerable proofs hereof which I could give that of the 27. Canon of the General Council of Chalcedon and that other in the third action of the VII General Synod will be sufficient proofs For in the former it is plain that meer Ecclesiastical Rules though concerning only the district jurisdiction and preheminence of the Constantinopolitane Patriarch and some other Bishops and Metrapolitans are called divine Canons and that in the latter too the title of divine constitutions or divinely inspired constitutions is attributed to the laws or Canons in general of the Church So that jus divinum ordinatio Dei c. must not be opposed in these places quoted by Bellarmine or any other such to all that which is properly strictly immediatly or only from men however taken for Lay-men or Church-men but to that which is from men acting by a meer lay natural civil temporal and politick power and not at all acting or enacting laws as the Church enacts by a pure spiritual supernatural and therefore by way excellency called a divine power and their laws therefore too in that sense or for so much called divine though not divine at all in the strict proper sense of a divine law as by this we ought to understand that which was immediatly made or delivered by God himself and by the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles or by Scripture or Tradition 3. That however this be or however it may be said by Bellarmine or by any other to be well or ill grounded or to be truly according to the sense or mind of these Councils and Popes he alleadges yet even Bellarmine himself and all others of his way will and must grant that although we did suppose and freely admit his sense of these places to have been that indeed of these Councils and Popes yet the argument is no way concluding any other not even I say for as much as it is grounded on the authority or manner of speaking used by these very Councils which are accounted General as Trent and both these Laterans 1. Because the canons or places alleadged are at best and even at most even the very best and most material of them but canons of Reformation or canons of meer Ecclesiastical Discipline which are worded so And no man that as much as pretends learning is now so ignorant as not to know that even entire Catholick Nations and many such too oppose very many such canons even of those very Councils which themselves esteem or allow as truly General and oppose not the bare words or epithets onely as our dispute now is of such words or even of bare epithets but the whole matter and sense and purpose nay and the very end too uncontrovertedly admitted to have been that of such General Councils And the reason is obvious enough vz That in canons of Reformation Discipline or manners as it is generally allowed and certain the Fathers deliver not nor intend nor pretend to deliver or declare the Catholick Faith and that in all other things they are as fallible and as subject to errour as so many other men of equal knowledge though without any of their authority or spiritual superiority 2. Because that in the very Decrees or Canons of Faith General Councils even the most truly such may erre in such words as are not of absolute necessity for declaring that which is the onely purpose of such Canon For so even Bellarmine himself teaches l. 2. de Concilior Authoritate c. 12. expresly and purposely and in these very words Denique in ipsis Decretis de fide non verba sed sensuâ— tantum ad fidem pertinet Non enim est haereticum dicere in canonibus Conciliorum aliquod verbum esse supervacaneum aut non rectè positum nisi forte de ipso verbo sit decretum formatum ut cum in Concilio Niceno decreverunt recipiendam vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et in Ephesino vocem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where you see that he exempts onely from this general rule the case wherein a Council should of purpose frame a Decree or Canon of Faith concerning the very use of such or such a word or epithet as the first of Nice-did for the word bâ—mousion or consubstantial against Arrius and the Council of Ephesus did for the word Deotocon or Godbearing against Nestorius Which cannot be said by Bellarmine or any other in his behalf or that either any Council or Pope have ever yet done so as to or concerning the use of the words jus divinum ordinatio divina c or of the single word or Epithet Divine in our case 3. Because and according also to not onely truth but eveâ— Bellarmine himself again in the same book and chapter in the Acts of General Councils even those Acts which concern Faith neither the disputes which are premised nor the reasons which are added nor those things or words which are inserted for explication or illustration are of Faith or intended by the Fathers to be submitted unto without contradiction as a matter certain and infallible but the bare decrees onely and not all even those very decrees but such of them onely as are defined expresly to be the Faith delivered that is as even Bellarmine himself elswhere and all the Schools now teach with him such as are said in such Council to have
West Yet I confess the first occasion of that writing of Innocent's to the Emperour of Constantinople or that which he intended or at least pretended finally to instruct or advise the Emperour in was very just viz that the same Emperour should beare a greater respect to the Patriarch of Constantinople then to make him sit at the left side of his foot-stool so contrary to the laudable custome of other Christian Emperours and Kings cum alij Reges Principes sayes he Archiepiscopis Episcopissuis sicut debent reverenter assurgant eis juxta sevenerabilem sedem assignent But for any thing else in that epistle of Innocent which relates either directly or indirectly to our present purpose I must confess I see nothing at all but what is quite contrary in his application to the sense to the belief and to the practise too of all Antiquity if peradventure you except not that onely passage where he sayes Quod autem sequitur Regi tanquam praecellenti non negamus quin praecellat Imperator in temporalibus illos dumtaxat qui ab eo suscipiunt temporalia Which yet I for my own part do not except because under the word dumtaxat there lyes much restriction nay and under the word or verb praecellat also Because that dumtaxat restraines the latitude of those who might or should be said in temporals or by reason of their temporals to be under the Emperour and subject and obedient to him to such onely who receave temporals to witt lands revenues or perhaps besides these onely some temporal jurisdiction and consequently excludes all other Clerks from subjection or obedience to the Emperour who receave no such temporals from him albeit they have the benefit of temporal protection from his laws and sword for this last is not by Innocents doctrine as to our present purpose accounted among such temporals as he speaks of here And because this praecellat by reason of its more abstract and more common signification of it self imports not as much as a praecellency in power authority or jurisdiction over those very same Clerks who receave even such temporals of Innocent from the Emperour But however this be of Innocent's meaning by these two words or wary manner of expression by them I am sure he declares his mind plainly in the rest or in his answers to and distinctions of the Emperour's arguments out of Scripture especially of the place out of Peter to be that Clerks are not by the law of God to be subject to the Emperour For the refutation of which answers or distinctions I remit the Reader to what I have said formerly at large out of the law of God and Nature for the subjection of Clerks and to what besides I said before at leingth in answer to Bellarmines arguments for the exemption of Clerks either by the law of God or man or nature Where albeit I have said nothing in particular to that place of Peter or to Innocents quibble upon it as not being vaâ—â—ed by Bellarmine himself and therefore not produced by him for himself yet I have given abundantly what may shew the impertinency of alleadging that place of Peter against me or that quibble of Innocent upon it or even any thing else said by the same Innocent well or ill either in this canon Solicitae benignitatis de Major obed or elsewhere and particularly in cap. Nâ—vit ille de Judicijs Which 〈◊〉 chapter I note particularly because the Catholick Bishop of Ferns alledges it singularly in a letter of his I have as very much relyed upon by the Irish Divines who live abroad in Spain and by them relyed upon as upon a strong argument for a power in the Pope to depose Kings at least ratione peccatâ— and consequently for the unlawfulness to sign our Remonstrance of 61. or 62. which cleerly and expresly disclaims and renounceth any such power in the Pope either upon the account of sin or any other whatsoever but onely in relation to such Kings as hold their Kingdoms in fee from him and who consequently are not absolute Soveraigns or not absolutely the supream Lords of their Kingdoms not even I mean in temporals nor hold of God immediately but of the Pope whom they themselves acknowledg to be the chief truly supream Lord of such Kingdoms though by human right onely But the truth is that no such deposing power in the Pope as to other Kings who do not acknowledg themselves to hold in fee from him can be gathered out of this cap. Nâ—vit ilâ—e de Iudicijs Where if strictly examined Innocent does no more sayes no more upon complaint made to the same Pope Innocent by a King of England against a King of France That he of France though admonished by him several times to keep the treaty sworn and peace agreed upon betwixt them and particularly in relation to the County of Poitiers which England held in fee from France and as agreed upon too by articles of the said treaty and peace mutually sworn did without any regard of his oath or any just cause endeavour to force in hostile manner that fee of Poitiers back again from the possession of the English where I say upon this complaint and for ought appears out of this canon in it self Novit ille de Iudiciis Innocent doth no more but write to the Clergie of France that he deputed a certain French Arch-bishop an other French Abbot to examine the matter of Fact and proceed thereupon to give sentence and besides this sayes no more in this chapter to any such purpose as the said Irish Divines alleadg him for but that the King of France being so Evangelically denounced to the Church according to that rule of the Gospel Si peccaverit in te frater tuus c dic Ecclesiae and complained of as a publick scandalous breaker of a just Peace and religious Oath he the said Innocent did not intend to judg of the Fee being the iudgment of this belong'd to the King of France but onely of the sin committed in the breach of peace and oath Non enim intendimus sayes he judicare de feudo cujus ad ipsum spectat judicium sed decernere de peccatâ— cujus ad nâ—s pertinet sine dubitatione censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus Now whether the said Irish Divines may hence and onely hence conclude their deposing power I mean as much as according to the judgment of the same Innocent himself alone I see nothing at all in all this which may force us to yeeld Innocent his Delegats might have observed all he prescribes herein or in that whole chapter and all which the Gospel allows to him or to the Church in the case that iâ— he and they might in case of such a publick sin in the French King of the Church's admonition and of his contumacy against such admonition have proceeded to excommunicate him evangelically that is might have deprived him
such a person than Kings can require from their Catholick Subjects and somewhat also against the sincerity of Divine Christian Faith For so the Censure of Louain sayes and so say all the Letters of so many Internuncio's and Cardinals these Ten years past against us and our Remonstrance and Subscription thereof and adhesion to it But any thing is enough to impose on willing minds Though at the same time none can be so stupid as not to see what these Papal Courtiers mean by the word King in order to us What by these things that de Vecchiis prayes we may render to the King What by those other he sayes belong to God What finally we must understand by his prayer That we may so render to the King what belongs to the King that we may not take from God what belongs to God A Cypher he means by the first as to Right but as to Fact an Usurper Invader or Tyrant Dissimulation for a time by the second The Kingdom and all the very Temporals thereof by the third And so we understand his prayer plainly for the Pope is God's Vice-gerent on earth even as to all Temporals and Crowns whatsoever by Divine Right but as to those of Ireland and England yea and Scotland too by humane Title also And truly those who lately in the year 1669. received Mr. Lyons's Retractation of the Remonstrance and excepted against that parenthesis viz. Salva fidelitate mea Regi in temporalibus debita inserted by him in that Retractation confirm all this 2. How they would have the Remonstrants or Subscribers of the Irish Formulary of Allegiance termed Valesiani or Valesians As if these Remonstrants were a Sect of Hereticks and Valesius or Father Peter Walsh whose surname Walsh they call in Latin Valesius their head or as if he were the Inventer or at least Renewer and chief maintainer now in these Countries of that Doctrine of indispensable unchangeable Allegiance in Temporal things to the Supreme Secular Prince and consequently an Arch-heretick Which questionless to have been the meaning of de Vecchiis what follows immediately in that Letter of his to Bruodin seems sufficiently to confirm I mean that passage Illud enim est quod Ecclesians Dei majori damno ac pernicie afficerâ— potest quam quovis antâ—acta Hareticorum persecutio But as I have already in many Sections together proved that Doctrine to be Christian and Catholick and the contrary Heretical as termed even when it first began some 600 years since Haeresis Hildebrandina from Pope Hâ—debrand alias Gregory the VII so I have ingenuously acknowledged who the first Authors of our Remonstrance or Formulary were That these were the Roman Catholicks of England That the Catholicks of Ireland had it from them out of Serenus Cressy's Exomâ—legesis where he inserts it as one of the motives either of his conversion to the Roman Communion or at least of his being less prejudiced than formerly against that Communion That Father Peter Walsh even that Valesius mean't by de Vecchiis was at first but one of the first Subscribers of it though afterwards he was necessitated to be both a promoter and defender of what was by him so conscientiously and justly subscribed And now again he doth confess That if to have done so argue him to be a Heretick or Arch-heretick he is content to be esteemed so by such as in the point not only abuse these terms but really associate him therein with the Christian Church and all the Holy Catholick Fathers thereof for a 1000 years till the foresaid Gregory the VII's Pontificat And in truth I am not asham'd to confess in St. Paul's words Acts 24.14 That according to that Sect which they i.e. the Roman Ministers call Heresie I serve the Father my God believing all whatsoever is written in the Law and the Prophets Whence is also consequent That had I been the only true Author Contriver and Framer of the above Remonstrance I ought and should rather have gloried therein than be â—â—â—â—med thereof Only I must confess That from the very beginning of this Controversie I have been a little â—nwardly troubled for some defects I observed in the Formulary wherein I mean it is in some passages a little short of those expressions or extensions necessary in this Age against the subtle distinctions or evasions of many or some at least of the worst sort of Scholasticks Namely in that passage where it hath 1. That no private Subject can murther or kill the Anointed of the Lord and 2. In that where it only declares the Subscribers to be ready to reveal all Conspiracies c. and 3. In that where it disclaims and renounces all Forreign Jurisdiction inasmuch as it may seem able c. expressing so an act of their will as it does not absolutely of their understanding or their judgment delivered against the very being of any such power in the Pope and 4. Where in the whole it hath neither formal nor virtual Oath either assertory promissory or declaratory nor hath such I say not even any where from the first word of that Act of Recognition to the last of it although there seem an Oath immediately preceding that Formulary but an Oath only to declare without equivocation what follows in the Formulary For these defects particularly and some few other which at my very first reading of that Formulary I observed to wit in this Age and amongst cunning subtle Evaders to be some defects I confess I was somewhat troubled Yet on the other side considering there was enough in it as proceeding from candid and willing minds and honest men that intended not any Cheat or Imposture and considering also that I could not alter change or add a word to mend it if I would present it to the King as it came to me from Ireland to be presented in the name and as from the Roman-Catholick Clergy in general of that Kingdom it must be granted that it lay not then in my power to help those defects otherwise than as I did immediately after in my rational and true Expositions of the meaning and conscientious tye of the said Formulary in all Contingencies whatsoever Which Expositions and meaning I published in my More ample Account that little Book set forth in Print presently after the Formulary had been subscribed and presented to the King Moreover I considered that the candor of the Subscribers or Swearers of the very Oath of Allegiance that which is in the Statute of King James must have some grains of allowance or certainly that otherwise no expressions therein are full or home enough to prevent all distinctions or obviate even very many evasions which might be to frustrate some at least of the great ends of that Oath being it does not seem in strictness of words or sense amongst subtle men to provide against Rebellions that may be on other grounds or pretences but those only of sentences or attempts proceeding from the Pope or of
possis rationabilem causam praetendas quia patienter sustinebimus si non feceris quod prava nobis fuerit insinuatione suggestum If sayes he at any time we write to your Brotherhood what may seem to exasperate your mind you ought not to be troubled Weighing seriously the quality of the business whereof we write either fulfill reverently our Command or by your Letters pretend a reasonable cause for which you may not observe it For we shall patiently bear if you do not that which shall be suggested by evil information And therefore I have further particularly and consequentially noted in the 53. page of that little Book That nothing is more known then that even after or when the Papal Bulls appear to be authentick and that it moreover appears they have not been grounded on any sinister Information as to matter of Fact from others yet according to the Pope's own Law and natural reason too if they proceed from ignorance of the Divine Law or of that of Nations or of the Canons of the Universal Church or from hatred malice or other evil passion or any unjust end or when they are notably prejudicial to Justice or the rights of a third passion they may be suspended as to any execution of or obedience to be given to them until his Holiness be informed by those that find themselves aggrieved by such Letters or Decrees or Bulls and until there may be a legal fair and equitable discussion of the cause and where it may conveniently or ought to be discussed And that it will be sufficient for such as are so concern'd or find themselves so aggrieved to alledge or even to pretend only for their excuse to his Holiness some rational cause that is such as were it true might and ought to be reputed rational to save them from any disobedience or irreverence This much and many other things also to this purpose I have said in my More Ample Account against that pretended Brief of Paul the V or use made thereof against our Formulary But much more as well of that Brief or condemnation by Paul V as of the other by Innocent X pretended by de Vecchiis I have said in a Letter to this Internuncio himself which you may read in the next Section saving one following this And therefore I will not here detain you any longer on this Subject but refer to that following Section and Letter Only what I did not give in that Letter I mean the specifical Articles or three negative Propositions in specie said to have been condemn'd by Innocent X I will for the Readers satisfaction give here together with their Names who in England subscribed these negative Propositions or Articles Because otherwise it may be hard to find or know what they were As for the Oath of Allegiance said to be condemn'd by Paul the V I need not give that being any man can find it in the Statute Books and many others at hand And because that matter of those negative Articles is of importance to be truly and fully known and that I can say nothing of my own knowledge thereof but what I read and hear from others I will give here without Comment two Papers of that matter delivered to me lately by some of those who have been either Actors or conversant with some of the chief yet alive who acted in it and subscribed the very Original of those Articles in the year 1647 or 1648. One of those Papers is in Writing never yet Printed as I am told and hath first a Preamble containing the motives of the Subscription next the affirmative Propositions themselves whose negatives were subscribed then the Subscriptions of Seven Roman-Catholick Lords of England and Seven and Twenty Esquires and Gentlnmen of the same Religion and Countrey after these Subscriptions it hath another short Preamble to the other Subscriptions of Clergymen Secular and Regular which follow and so in the last place the Names of these Clergymen Eight in all The other Paper is in Print and besides those Articles doth contain a long and good Letter from Paris written by Dr. Holden to England upon that matter The written Paper is of this tenor THE Roman-Catholicks of this Nation taking into consideration the Twelve Proposals of His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax lately publish't this present year 1647. and how prejudicial and destructive it might be to them at this time tacitely to permit an Opinion by some conceived of an inconsistency in their Religion with the Civil Government of this Kingdom by reason of some Doctrines and Positions scandalously laid upon them which might thereby draw on persons that cannot Conform themselves to the Religion here established an incapacity to receive and be partakers of a general benefit intended for the ease of Tender Consciences have thought it convenient to endeavour the just vindication of their integrities therein And to remove the scandal out of all the minds and opinions of moderate and charitable persons do declare the Negative to these Propositions following I. That the Pope or Church hath power to absolve any person or persons whatsoever from his or their obedience to the Civil Government established in this Nation II. That it is lawful by the Popes or Churches command or dispensation to kill destroy or otherwise injure any person or persons whatsoever because he or they are accused or condemned censured or excommunicated for Error Schism or Heresie III. That it is lawful in it self or by the Popes dispensation to break either word or oath with any persons abovesaid under pretence of their being Hereticks And in farther Testimony that we disallow the said precedent Propositions as being no part of our Faith or ever taught us by our Pastors we have ratifi'd the same under our hands Winchester Brudenell Petre. Teinham Powiis W. Montagu E. Brudenell Walter Blunt Henry Bedingfield Francis Howard Tho Gascoigne Francis Mannock John Arundell Fran Slaughter Fran Petre. Will Arundell Will Havington Edw Smith Robert Hennage Joh. Webb James Yates Thomas Gage Edmond Thorold Nicholas Crispe John Chapperline Antâ— Monson Rich Cotton Edmond Plowden Jo Tasburghe Geo Pulton Geo Fortesen John Chamberline Hen Bedingfield Upon the ground given in the Twelfth Proposal printed Aug. 1. 1647. by Authority from his Excellence Sir Tho Fairfax That the penal Statutes in force against Roman-Catholicks shall be Repealed and farther that they shall enjoy the liberty of their Consciences by grant from the Parliament if it may be Enacted That it shall not be lawful for any person or persons being subject unto the Crown of England to profess or acknowledge for truth or persuade others to believe these following Propositions That the Pope c. These Premises considered we under-written set our hands that every one of these three Propositions may be lawfully answered unto in the Negative Geo Gage Tho Dade Dominican Henry More Jesuite William Penry Fryar Bonaventure Bridges Phil Champet Tho Carre Geo Ward The printed Paper is of this
little on those Aspersions which in the progress of your discourse with Father Gearnon were cast upon Caron and me For you were pleased to reproach our Descent Parentage or the meanness of our Birth and Families and withall to complain of I know not what Troubles rais'd by us to the Church of God Homines de luto quas molestias Ecclesiae Dei creaverunt Men of dirt said you what troubles have they not caused us and to the Church of God Good God! A Christian an Ecclesiastical an Apostolical man to reproach other Clergymen in the School of the Humble of Christ and his Apostles and reproach them I say with their Lineage how mean soever This from a Minister of the Successor of Peter Of his Vicar who for the meanness and poverty of his stock was born in a Hovel in a Stable and laid in a Manger and who according to the Law was truly called and truly also was a Carpenters Son Of that See in which have sate so many Bishops Supreme Judges of the World of the lowest extraction and almost in our Age a Weaver and Brewer and that Minorite Fisher too as our Holy Malachias 500 years before Prophetically called him And yet 't is your Lordships pleasure to upbraid Caron and Walsh with the meanness of their Birth Apostolical man Worthy Minister of the Supreme Bishop Who would persuade Christian Priests Philosophers Religious persons to esteem the Goods of Fortune Goods which are Trifles and for the most part misfortunes and make it shameful to want these things which do not make a good man O my good Lord how much more proper had it been for you to have admonish't us from the Apostle Doctor of the Gentiles to attend to our vocation and often inculcated the reason from him viz. because not many wise according to the flesh not many powerful not many noble but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise 1 Cor. 1.27 and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the strong and the ignoble and contemptible things of the world and those which are not God hath chosen to confound those that are that all flesh may not glory in his sight For as the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah long before said All flesh is hay and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field Isaiae 40 6. Nevertheless I would not have your Lordship think I have alledged these things to excuse a base extraction or acknowledge the truth of that reproach of yours Nothing less my good Lord. Neither have our Parents or Families been in themselves such or at all reputed such And we were born not only not of Jews or Mahumetans or Hereticks or Schismaticks or any sort of Infidels or so much as Neophits whence according to the rigour of any Canons or Statutes any note of infamy any suspition or incapacity could in the Church or our Order be derived to the children but even of unblemisht Christians and old Catholicks And those too not of the very lowest sort or dregs of the people Not of Slaves or Workmen Mercenaries or Hirelings nor even of Mecanicks Tradesmen Artificers or Bores not only not of persons in any kind base I speak for the present according to the manner and account of the World but of such who were neither so mean nor so poor as to be taken for Dirt I mean in the sense of your Lordship Otherwise I know very well what not only may but ought in a like occasion be said not only to ours but to whatsoever Pedigree of whatever mortal whether base or noble as Elihu the son of Barachiel the Buzite said to Job Ecce me sicut te fecit Deus de eodem luto ego quoque formatus sum Behold God made me as thee and of the same clay or dirt was I also formed Job 33. Fortune or to speak more Christianly Providence gave us both Parents content with their moderate lot My Ancestors to my Father who being the second Brother could not therefore be Heir have almost now for 500 years enjoy'd an Estate of inheritance in Lands and Villages belonging to them in Ireland The Son in a right Line still succeeding the Father Caron likewise has Ancestors who peradventure were able to reckon more Ages of ancient descent and possession than those among the ancient Romans who were proudest Wherefore let not these things be understood as said in defence of a fordid Extraction but in Reproof of a most vain untruth For I cannot but according to the admonition of St. Paul esteem this Objection of our Descent most vain whether it be true or false An Ethnick Poet could say I hardly call our own or Ancestors or Stock or what we have not done our selves And 't is the saying of another wise man That 's true Nobility which adorns the mind with vertuous manners But while I repeat the sayings of wise men am not I my self become foolish to use the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles pleading thus in my foolishness for flesh and blood and pedigrees Be it so But you have constrain'd me 2 Cor. xii 11. as the same Apostle answered in a case not much unlike Besides I may add 't is lawful for a Clergy or Religious man to have a care of Honour too such I mean as is according to the esteem of the world Honour so it be not contrary to Goodness or Holiness especially where he sees that by the lessening of it his authority and power to persuade people to the Truths of the Gospel is lessened and that such is the design of his envious Calumniators And I suppose your Lordship will not be angry that I have as becomes every honest man endeavoured to wipe off the dirt thrown in my face that is answer'd the reproaches and injuries objected Nay so far am I from fearing this that I should much more fear to pass for truly vile and unworthy either to speak or any way have to do with your Lordship if out of Cowardize I should neglect or out of Baseness omit to give a free and true Answer For which Reason my Lord neither can I here pass over in silence your Lordships judgment of Father Gearnon Whom after you had ask't if he were of the number of the Subscribers and he had acknowledged it it had been better replied you you had been in your grave first Now of all that came from you in your Discourse with Father Gearnon this judgment which you made of him can least be past in silence because it reaches by consequence not only all the Subscribers but all other maintainers and that for all Ages of Christian Religion past and future as well as present all Doctors Favourers Abettors nay all Believers or any way Assenters to this Doctrine That Kings may not be depos'd by the Pope It had been better said you to have been in your grave before you had subscribed to such
not only by priority of place or honour of dignity or only vocation or age or sanctity but I speak with the generality of Divines by priority of an ordinary Pastor and Prelate that is of spiritual Jurisdiction received from Christ over the Rams as well as sheep of the flock as well over the Apostles universally as all the rest of the faithful And yet St. Paul reprehended St. Peter not with less but far greater liberty though in a case if I mistake not of less moment and this in a Publick meeting of the Disciples and not only reprehended but resisted him to his face reproov'd accus'd him of Judaism among the Jews Gentilism among Gentiles dissembling amongst both and that he walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel And this passage betwixt St. Peter and himself St. Paul would have testified to the Christian world in the Epistle which he writ to the Galatians although this dissembling of St. Peter was afterwards defended from sin by St. Austin against the Writings of the learned and holy St. Hierom. 'T is superfluous to rehearse what others have done in process of time and almost all ages of Christian Religion in imitation of St. Paul and with like liberty reprehending even Popes themselves the Successors of St. Peter what the holiest Bishops the most Religious Abbots most austere Monks the best Priests and the devontest Laity and Clergy almost of all degrees and all these united to the Roman Church and Bishop in the strictest tye of Ecclesiastical communion For the present and for a Letter let that one example of St. Paul suffice and let it suffice to excuse Walsh from too great a freedom in writing to an Internuncio of an Internuncio whom he does not acknowledge for his Superiour and to an Internuncio of a Cardinal whom he does acknowledge I complain or reproach or object nothing but that in the present Controversie you walk not according to the truth of the Gospel but that by that dissembling or flattery or at least wicked errour of yours you strive to put a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples the Christian world beyond comparison worse than that of the Mosaick Law and strive to impose this yoke of a kind of Papal Tyranny by arts truly bad A yoke which neither we nor our Fathers could bear a yoke plainly contrary to the yoke of Christ My yoke is sweet sayes our good Saviour and my burthen light That of yours is full of thorns and your burthens more than insupportable driving both body and soul even to Hell And shall it be thought a fault in Walsh after he has been provoked with much injury and urged with reproaches and slanders and that only for this cause That he writes more freely than becomes him not against the Pope himself Alexander the VII whom God long preserve to the good of his whole Church who for his own part is said to be so innocent in this matter that he has severely reprehended both Cardinal and Abbot not against those of his Court or Ministers universally but onely one inferiour though a commendatory Abbot and one Bishop though a Cardinal but two of the whole number of his Ministers Will they say That though the matter require freedom yet 't is not allowable in Walsh nor fit in an Inferior to and of a Superior¿ What then was not Paul inferiour to Peter and Bernard to Eugenius and Robert that holy Bishop of Lincoln to Innocentius So many other famous holy Catholick Writers were they not inferiour to Popes I say themselves to whom or of whom many even in this very Controversie have written and written with a liberty at least not less If you object again That Walsh is tyed by a particular vow of his Rule to render obedience to his Superiours Walsh will reply again That to this very day he never was commanded by any Superiour either under obedience as the custom is or censure nor in vertue of the Holy Ghost or by any formal so much as simple command not so much as by a single admonition either not to hold as he does or not to write or speak And Walsh will reply That the obedience he has vow'd is Canonical not Political and to be understood of spiritual not civil matters And he will reply besides That a Vow neither is nor can be a bond of iniquity as from the Canons themselves of the Popes even the very dullest of the Canonists teach Lastly he will reply too That a man is not less obliged by a precept of Divine or even Ecclesiastical Law receiv'd I mean and not repugnant to the Divine Law than by the tye of a Vow how solemn soever And that St. Paul St. Bernard Robert of Lincoln and the rest of whose greater at least equal freedom in expostulating with the greatest and holiest Popes I have spoken above were tyed to Canonical obedience by a precept of the Divine I speak according to the opinion of your Lordship without doubt and the most common amongst Divines or Ecclesiastical Law or both and that many of them had also upon them the tye of a religious Vow Why then should not that be lawful to Walsh which was lawful to them and many of them in this very Controversie or some other wholly like it If your Lordship say our Holy Father Alexander the VII who now sits in the Throne of St. Peter has written Letters to you by which it appears it is the judgment of His Holiness That this Form of ours contains Propositions which are all one with those condemn'd long since by Paul the V. and lately again by Innocont the X. If I say you object thus Walsh will answer First As for what concerns our Holy Father Alexander the VII that where a thing makes to the prejudice of a third person and this manifestly makes to the prejudice not only of one single third person but of a great Kingdom of many such Kingdoms nay of the whole World credit by the Canons is not to be given either to your Lordship or any other Minister whatsoever and howsoever dignified with Cardinalship or other Title unless he produce the Original or at least authentick Copy thereof You have yet produced none you have shew'd none either to the parties concerned or to any other as far as we can understand Besides that private Letters even of our Holy Father Alexander himself are not of force to oblige the faithful to a conformity of judgment or opinion much less of Faith which is Catholick and Divine unless some Rescript or Decretal Epistle some Bull or Brief which kind of writings you do not so much as alledge come out with due solemnity be publish't and promulgated and this not directed to any particular person or persons neither to one Clergy People or Kingdom or even more than one but to all the faithful of Christ wherever they be Otherwise that according to many eminent Divines even of those who are for the
omnibus Catholicis ad quos divertere contingerit in visceribus Jesu Christi Vale in Christo Jesu ora pro Nobis Datum Brugis Flandrorum in Conventu nostro Fratrum Minorum Recollectorum die .13 Mensis Februarii Anno 1659. sub me a Signatura officiique Sigillo majori Frater Antonius ab Oudenhoven qui supra O Locus Sigilli Ego infrascriptus admitto per omnia has Patentes Reverendissimi Commissarii Generalis quatenus vel si necessum sit eandem Licentiam facultatesque omnes consequentes de novo a meipso in quantum possum eidem V.A.P. Fatri Petro Valesio qui supra concedo In quer fidem subscribo in Conventu Montisfernandi hac Decima Feb. 1662. Frater Antonius Docharty Minister Pronuncialis Having done I laid these Original Patents down upon the Speakers or Chairmans Table before him as I did the two former Instruments And then desired the said Chairman or Prolocutor my Lord Bishop of Kilfinuran that if any could object any thing he should appear and speak without further delay But no man did against either any of these Instruments or my own Person or my Authority or what I did or what title of their general Procurator I used in Print or the ways I took or the good intentions I had all along to serve them and the Catholick Nation of Ireland On the contrary the Chairman returned me Complements of thanks and acknowledgments not only of my good intentions all along but of the highest obligations laid by me on all Irish Catholicks both Clergy and People c. Indeed against what I moved and so earnestly urged them to viz the controverted Remonstrance I remember the Primat spoke his own Resolution in these very words Father Walsh I know you are as good a Catholick as any of us and yet I declare to you that I will not sign that Remonstrance Wherein the Bishop of Ardagh did second him much more vehemently and passionately To the Primat the reply was in short That his reason had he given any might be shewn unreasonable and his understanding better informed but there was none but God and himself could rectifie his will As for Ardagh notwithstanding he gave no more reason for his passionate wilfulness then the Primat did yet because he bustled much more violently and confidently and withal unconstantly if not perfidiously I took the pains to expostulate with him a little more and expose him publickly to the whole Congregation pulling out and reading to them all that Letter of his from Seiz in France to his Brother Sir Nicholas Plunket which you had before Part. 1. Sect. Pag. And then demanding of him My Lord Can you deny this Letter to be written all along and signed by your own proper hand your own said very Brother Nicholas gave me it even this very Original which you see And since you cannot deny this Letter What is the reason you will not sign now what you have therein so approved by reason and argument under your own hand To this he answered but faintly and ridiculously too viz. That indeed although he could not deny that to be his own Letter yet he thought the Remonstrance which he so approved therein varied something from thence ever since controverted even from that which now was publickly read Therefore leaving Ardagh to find a better answer I turn'd to my Lord of Kilfinuran the Speaker himself and demanded of him likewise Whether his Lordships own self had not procured at St. Malos in France 1663. even the Subscription of about a dozen Irish Priests there at that time unto this very controverted Remonstrance or Copy thereof sent as it was thither in Print from London both in single sheets and in my own More Ample Account He could not deny it How then my Lord said I comes it to pass that you are now so much estranged from that you so much then approved Why so averse from it now We have says he no prejudice against nor aversion from it but we would be at liberty to make use of our own words for expressing our own sense Hereunto as soon as I had replyed again what you have before of wording or sense to be worded I converted my self to some others who were concern'd not to be as mute on that Subject as I had known they were continually since they sate the very first day I asked 1. The Provincial of the Franciscans Whether he himself had not under his own hand in a Letter dated at Multifernan in January 1662. S. V. to the Lord Lieutenant approved at large both the sense and words of the Remonstrance without any kind of exception 2. Father Oliver Desse the Vicar General of Meath Whether he was not of Council in contriving and sending that very individual Formulary unto me to London 3. Ronan Magin Vicar General of Dromore and Cornelius Fogorty D. V. I. two other Members present Whether they had not signâ—d that Instrument 4. The Jesuits also present whether they could deny that in the Winter of the said year 1662 their then Provincial Superiour Shelton together with his two Companions of the same Society Father Thomas Quin and Father John Talbot being for the Lord Lieutenant and introduced by my own self to his Grace and amongst other things demanded by his Grace what they had to say against the signing of the said Instrument they all every one answered They had nothing at all either of Heresie or Schism or other unlawfulness to object to it nay confessed ingenuously They apprehended not so much as a Venial Sin or Venial Transgression of any Law Divine or Human to be in it or in the signing of it though they themselves through fear of the Popes displeasure abstain'd and desired to be excused from signing it And whether the said three Fathers Shelton Quin and Talbot had not by such their answer moved so his Grace that he thereunto replyed in these very words The King shall continue King in spite of the Pope But neither to these Queries nor any other part of my discourse in prosecution of them or any of them was there a word return'd some of the persons concern'd especially the Franciscan Provincial hanging down their heads and the rest also by their silence acknowledging no less the truth of all I said than their own either prevarication or cowardliness Yet I must confess my remembrance of Father John Brady's standing up and speaking in his own concern and excusing himself where and when I taxed him particularly for having gone Anno 1662 Agent over the Seas to procure as he did the Censure of the Faculty Theological of Louain against the former and Loyal Formulary But verily he said nothing to satisfie any indifferent person being he so disingenuously protested there in publick that although he designedly went as he was indeed sent to Louain about that business yet he only desired the opinion of the Doctors there but never any Censure of that Remonstrance
before the said Oath in 1641 or in 1642 there had never been any full and free submission or consent of the old Irish Natives yet C. M. was in this very point perversly and wickedly out in his foresaid Book because first published and printed by him in the year 1645 that is even after he had manifestly and manifoldly known of that very Oath of Association which was the only essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Irish Confederates as such as I think out of that his own very Book pag. 101. may appear he had where he tells us of the first though he there call it the last General or National Assembly of the Confederates begun at Kilkenny Oct. 24. ann 1642. and continued there above two Months i. e. to the Ninth of January next following whereon it was dissolv'd nay tells and gives some of the very Laws Enacted there in their Module of Government if I be not mistaken though Laws in truth contradicting his unjust erroneous bloody cruel both principles and designs yea consequentially overthrowing both his Disputation and Exhortation in all their parts 14. And lastly That being all these things were notoriously known it became the Fathers of this National Congregation by a publick Act of their own to condemn immediately to the fire so damnable a Book As to and of the other Book or that of Richard Ferral the Irish Cappucin for to him only the common vogue attributes it because what I spoke to the Fathers was the same in substance which upon another occasion I have before related pag. 504 I remit the Reader back again to that place And being I have said much already there of the subject and design of this Book of Ferrals as in effect concurring to the same end with the former of Mahony I will only add here 1. That this of Ferrals though presented to the Cardinals not before but much about the year 1658. I am sure not heard of till then by others most concern'd particularly drives at restoring the former late Confederacy of the then surviving Roman-Catholicks of Ireland but principally if not only of those of the more ancient or as they are call'd meer Irish Septs the Author having represented at large all those other Irish or as they are by him and his party nick-nam'd by way of contempt English-Irish Gauls Forreigners Saxons c. and rendred them as unworthy to be trusted in so holy a League because descended from the old English Conquerors 2. That in this so particular and indeed principal design of his it would seem he had an Eye to the Declaration and Excommunication of the Roman-Catholick Irish Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates at Jamestown in Connaught 12 of August 1650. not only against the then King's Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland the then Marquess now Duke of ORMOND by devesting Him of all power but for the former Confederacy by restoring it as much as in them lay and commanding others that it should be effectually restored And would seem likewise he knew well enough and related to what the Committee of the said Congregation I mean the Committee of Bishops sitting at Galway even after that Congregation was dissolv'd thought fit to answer the Proposals made by the Commissioners of Trust on the 29 of October the same year 1650 wherein the said Committee insisted chiefly upon the Nations returning to the Confederacy See in the end of this Tome in the Appendix of Instrum pag. 65 c. the said Declaration and pag. 70. the annexed Excommunication Item in the second Appendix or in that other of the Marquess of ORMOND's long and excellent Letter pag. 128 and 129 the said Answer of that Committee of Bishops 3. That both the Address and Title of this Book of Ferrals is this and no other Ad Sacram Congregationem de Propaganda Fide Hic Authores modus eversionis Catholicae Religionis in Hibernia recensentur aliquot remedia pro conservandis reliquiis Catholicae Religionis Gentis proponuntur After which immediately he begins his Book of indeed very false information and as wicked advice in too too many particulars to the said Congregation of Cardinals thus Hibernia quae olim Scotia Insula Sanctorum dicebatur c. 4. That although as I have also in this present Work elsewhere noted the Reverend Father John Lynch i. e. the Author of Cambrensis Eversus had learnedly and fully under the name of Eudoxius Alithinologus answerâ—d that perverse writing first in his Alithinologia printed anno 1664 and under this Title viz. Alithinologia sive Veridica Responsio ad Invectivam mendaciis fallaciis calumniis imposturis faetam in plurimos Antistites Proceres omnis ordinis Hibernos a R. P. R. F. C. Congregationi de propaganda fide Anno Domini 1659. exhibitam and then again in his Supplementum Alithinologiae yet nevertheless or rather the more I thought it became me to move their Paternities to the same condemnation from them this Piece also which I had already desired of the former of Mahony's Having to such purpose as hitherto discoursed to the Fathers on both these Books and so concluded not only what I had to say on the third and last Head but whatever I intended to say of all the three Heads or Articles They decreed unanimously i. e. nemine contradicente the burning of both Books And I remember that one of the Cappuccins related if not there I am sure elsewhere even to my self for I do not exactly or certainly now remember the day or place That the very General Chapter of the Cappuccins themselves beyond Seas had condemn'd both Ferral's said Book and himself too But whether any one either in that Congregation then or at any other time declared That the Clergy at or of Galway i. e. any General or National nay or Provincial Diocesan or Local Assembly of Irish Clergymen had formerly at Galway or even elsewhere condemn'd Mahony's Book I do not remember at all General or National I am sure held at Galway I am sure none did because I know there was no kind of National Assembly held there in my dayes for the National Synod which the Nuncio had summon'd thither when he was in opposition to the Supreme Council was hinder'd by the same Council Whereof I thought fit to advertise the Reader because I am now to give the Congregation's Secretary's Father Nicholas Redmond the Vicar General of Fern's account by Letter to my self of the Acts of the said Congregation For when the Congregation was dissolved or at least upon dissolving I desir'd him to give me or at least send me soon a perfect Copy of their Acts. And I confess I desired this chiefly to see whether what I desired in point of each of the last three Heads whereof I gave now for substance the same account I gave the Fathers on that last day if not hour of their sitting had been inserted in their publick Acts according
those words our Supream Lord and further because of the genius and temper and so many several interests of the men that composed that Congregation and Interests also though in some or many respects divided yet all through pre-occupation ignorance and a perverse obstinacy conspiring together in the main of not speaking their conscience plainly either pro or con for these reasons I say this acknowledgment from them and in these words alone of the Kings Supremacy in Temporals or to speak more properly as I would fain to the purpose of the Kings temporal Supremacy or supream politick and civil Power with the Sword corporal or carnal if I may so speak over all persons subject to him and in all causes indifferently wherein corporal force or co-action is used is lyable to as many deceitful evasions and interpretations as any of the former in that recognition or of those that follow after in their confessions or promises And yet herein they need not find out any way that hath not been chalked before them by some of their sophistical Predecessors these sixty years It is but to pursue their steps and tell the people as several of their chief Speakers and Interpreters have already by clear expressions given sufficient cause to expect they will when they find it convenient that he is acknowledged Supream for the present but not so for the future That both for the present and future he may be acknowledged Supream but their meaning may be and is That he is and may be so de facto not de jure in fact only in actual possession and by force only not by right That he may be so by right also but by such right only as the laws of the Land can or do give him not by such right as the laws of the Church may much less by that right which the laws of God and nature have not given him in those contingencies above Finally as they leave themselves a latitude by the former answers notwithstanding this recognition of Supream in those bare words only or any thing else in this Remonstrance to maintain alwayes the saâ—rilegiousness of the Remonstrance of 61. I speak according to the Censure of the Lovaine Divines of that Remonstrance of 61. and even upon their grounds of humane right which the Popes pretend to the kingdoms of England and Ireland and which those Divines of Lovaine assert unto the See of Rome viz. Those of a pretended submission donation prescription feudatary title given and forfeiture made so they retain the like notwithstanding this acknowledgement here notwithstanding all said before and after To maintain no less stiffely when they shall think fit the other pretended but divine Supream both Temporal and Spiritual right of Popes as well to the Realms of England and Ireland as to all and over all at least Christian Kingdoms and Kings in the world For they will and may say according to their principles which they flatly denied to quit by any sufficient expression or indeed rather denied to meddle with at all or declare themselves in any manner on the point according to such I say they will plead when they shall think it may be done prudently That they do not here acknowledge the King their Supream Lord but in relation only to or in rank and order only of such Lords as are meerly temporal not by any means absolutely or without such relation not at all in relation to such Lords as have a power absolutely divine or supernatural and is composed by God himself both of temporal and spiritual natural and supernatural and is immediatly given by Him to them over the whole earth at least the parts of it that are Christian and also at least in some extraordinary cases Of the emergencie of which cases that they themselves alone I mean such Lords are Judges appointed by Him and that such Lords are the Popes only and certainly they will say And consequently that by no general acknowledgement of a meer temporal â—upremacy in a King by a Catholick it can be presumed he any way intended to relate to that divine spiritual supernatural extraordinary Attribute Power or Supremacy of the Popes even in temporal matters or intended any way to deny it For it is a maxim with Canonists that in a general expression is not to be understood that which the Expressor would not specifically grant were it demanded of him in specie much less that which being demanded of him specifically he of set purpose refuses to express it so though he write not under his hand that specifical demand or denial but passes both by I will say nothing at present of the relative or comparative form of this recognition which they choose rather then that positive and absolute one of the former Remonstrance of 61. Though I be sure that that of 61. being absolute and positive for it is worded thus We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions puts us not to an inquiry after the manner or measure of the truth lawfulness rightfulness or supremacy of his Titles of his Kingship Lordship or Soveraignty over or to all his other Dominions or those are called his besides Ireland as this of the Congregation must them that please to understand it by the rules of Sophistry or Subtilty Whereby they gave cause to suspect they would have their own relative or comparative form understood by such as listed to understand or interpret it so when they found it could be done prudently For they would have their 's not to be positive at all but relative as you see in their own words which say only thus We acknowledge your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other your Majesties Dâ—minions Now the Querie is how well they acknowledge or would have others to acknowledge him True and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign of all other his Majesties Dominions How well of Tangier Jamaica or France c And if his Majesties title to these or either of them be uncertain with them or by many or some of them not accounted good or just at all whether by this relative form they choose of purpose they declare or acknowledge his title to Ireland to be any better The liberty they leave themselves by their manner of expression here to have recourse for interpretation when they please to their logical Sophistry and make this acknowledgement sometimes and to some persons a modal Proposition at other times and to other persons a Proposition not modal but only de extremo modificato gives them the trouble to answer these Queries As in the impartial understanding Reader it and what is here said thereupon may work this perswasion That notwithstanding this their kind of owning and acknowledging his Majesty they are still
strong motives and moral certainties produced before in our Answer to the second Querie and which we may have to persuade us that the Supreme Council who are chiefly aimed at in this business had no such evil intentions Which together with all hitherto said being duly pondered by them who now seem so adverse to us in opinion but by them discharged a little of passion retyring into their Souls and looking with an eye of indifferency upon this difference we doubt not but they will acknowledge before God the truth of our Assertions and with how little reason but great hazard of eternal salvation they disobey the Commands of the Supreme Council on pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and we hope as we most heartily desire with all our Souls that they or at least such of them as have an affection to Loyalty and a true zeal of Gods cause will by their unfeigned and repentant submission to the Supreme Authority established by the Kingdom make happy these Answers labour'd as the shortness of time did permit for their conversion and satisfaction of all good Patriots by DAVID Bishop of OSSORY F John Roe Provincial of the Excal Carmelites Nicholas Taylor Doctor of Divinity William Shergoli Professor of Divinity Prebend of Houth and Vic. For. of Fingal Fr John Barnwall Lector of Divinity Fa Simon Wafer Lector of Divinity F Peter Walsh Lector of Divinity Luke Cowley Archdeacon of Ossory and Protonotary Apostolick Laurence Archbold Vic. For. in the Deaneries of Brea Tawney and Glandalagh F Christopher Plunket Guardian of St. Francis Convent in Dublin Fa John Dormer Guardian of St. Francis 's Order at Castle-dermot Fr Bonaventure Fitz-Gerald Guardian of Kildare F Laurence Matthews Preses of Carmel Kilken F Laur. a sancto Bernardo Paul Nash Prebend John Shee Prebend of Main James Sedgrave FINIS THE FIRST APPENDIX CONTAINING Some of those PUBLICK Instruments related unto PARTLY IN THE QUERIES AND PARTLY In several places of the precedent WORK or in the Four Treatises of this FIRST TO ME. VIZ. I. The Oath of Association or that which was the essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland as such according to that Form wherein it was taken or renewed in the year 1644. II. The Lord Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict by him and his Fellow Delegates or Sub-Delegates fulminated on the 27th of May 1648. against the Adherers to the Cessation made with Inchiquin III. The Supreme Councils Appeal interposed on the 31 of May the same year to His Holiness Pope Innocent X. from the said Censures Nuncio and His Fellow Delegates c. IV. The Articles of the Second Peace or of that on the 27th of the following January same year 1648. according to the old English computation but the 7th of February 1649. according to the new Roman stile concluded betwixt His Majesty CHARLES I. and the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by James Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Special Commissioner for His Majesty in treating and concluding that Peace V. The Declaration of the Archbishops Bishops and other Irish Prelates at Jamestown 12 Aug. 1650. against the said Marquess Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland wherein they assume to themselves the Regal Power restore again the Confederacy declare the said Marquess devested of all power c. VI. The Excommunication of the same date fulminated by the same Irish Archbishops Bishops and others against all persons whatsoever obeying any more or at any time thenceforth the said Marquess however the King 's Lieutenant Printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII The Preamble to the Oath of Association WHEREAS the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom of Ireland have been enforced to take Arms for the necessary defence and preservation as well of their Religion plotted and by many foul practices endeavoured to be quite suppressed by the Puritan Faction as likewise of their Lives Liberties and Estates and also for the defence and safeguard of His Majesties Regal Power just Prerogatives Honour State and Rights invaded upon and for that it is requisite That there should be an unanimous Consent and real Union between all the Catholicks of this Realm to maintain the Premisses and strengthen them against their Adversaries It is thought fit by them That they and whosoever shall adhere unto their Party as a Confederate should for the better assurance of their adhering fidelity and constancy to the Publick Cause take the ensuing Oath The Oath of Association I A. B. do profess swear and protest before God and his Saints and Holy Angels That I will during life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to His Heirs and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all His and their just Prerogatives Estates and Rights the power and priviledge of the Parliament of this Realm the fundamental Laws of Ireland the free exercise of the Roman-Catholick Faith and Religion throughout all this Land and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estates and Rights of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof And that I will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said Publick Cause And that I will not seek directly or indirectly any Pardon or Protection for any Act done or to be done touching the General Cause without the consent of the major part of the said Council And that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my Life and Estate assist prosecute and maintain the same So help me God and his Holy Gospel By the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland Kilkenny July 26. 1644. Upon full debate this day in open Court Assembly it is unanimously declared by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Knights and Burgesses of this House That the Oath of Association as it is already penned of Record in this House and taken by the Confederate Catholicks is full and binding without addition of any other words thereunto And it is ordered That any person or persons whatsoever who have taken or hereafter shall take the said Oath of Association and hath or shall declare by word or actions or by persuasions of others That the said Oath or any Branch thereof doth or may admit any equivocation or mental reservation if any such person or persons be shall be deemed a breaker of his and their Oath respectively and adverse to the General Cause and as a Delinquent or Delinquents for such offence shall be punished And it is further ordered That the several Ordinaries shall take special care that the Parish-Priests within their respective Diocesses shall publish and declare That any person or persons who hath or shall take
was betrayed by the Protestant Ward that was in it surprized indeed it was so the endeavour of recovering that place was not under Our immediate conduct We going that day it was attempted with a Party to Waterford But who it was that importuned the falling on of the men so unprovided Sir Lucas Dillon and others there present as We have heard are able to inform you And for not fighting at Thomas-town it is here set down as if the Officers and Souldiers had proposed some such thing and were absolutely forbidden or refused leave or to be led on by Us to fight Which is a malicious and false suggestion For never any such motion was made to Us by any Officer or Souldier nor indeed could be for before the Enemy were drawn up that morning on the Top of the Hill on the other side of the water over against Thomas-town We were by a false Alarum drawn towards Kilkenny as is set down in Our Answer to the pretended Grievances as is well known to Mr. Patrick Bryen and others We believe there assembled Here again the Declarers must be beholding to their ancient Travellers to make it good That it is an advantage of ground to have a Bridge to pass by Three or Four in a Front in the sight of an Enemy and a steep Hill to ascend to the charge of an Enemy drawn up in order on the Top of the Hill for thus it is very well known is the scituation of Thomas-town and the Hill whereon the Enemy drew up after We were drawn away to Kilkenny as is aforesaid The rest of this Article is a passionate enumeration of the Enemies subsequent success wherein the Declarers and their Instruments have more to answer for than We as We were a greater loser than many of them put together But how We become chargeable with the loss of any place in Leinster since We put the whole management of the affairs of that Province into other hands especially of Catherlogh commanded by a Bishop Dromore We much wonder And if We had not proof of these mens prodigious faculty in framing and venting Untruths We should admire at their shameless impudence in saying Tecroghan was given up by order and their affirming it with this parenthesis viz. to speak nothing for the present of other places insinuating That if they would they are able to tell of many other places given up by Our order when they might have been longer held For so this Declaration being framed against Us must and they desire it should be understood Which is so foul so unchristian and so uncharitable a way of proceeding That it would make one believe they rather conjured for the spirit of the Father of Lyes than invoked the assistance of the Holy Ghost to assist when they framed this Declaration VVhat endeavour there was used to relieve Tecroghan and how it was given up there are many there met that are able to witness especially the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard Sir Luke Fitz Gerald and Sir Robert Talbot the then Governour of that place who is able to declare perhaps to produce all the orders he received from Us concerning it Tenth Article of the Declaration That the Prelates after the numerous Congregation at Cloanmacnoise where they made Declarations for the Kings great advantage after printed and after many other laborious meetings and consultations with the expressions of their sincerity and earnestness were not allowed by his Excellency to have employed their power and best diligence towards advancing the Kings interest but rather suspected and blamed as may appear by his own Letter to the Prelates then at Jamestown written August 2d and words were heard to fall from him dangerous as to the persons of some Prelates ANSWER That which VVe complain of is That notwithstanding their continual Declarations of Loyalty to His Majesty and their sincerity and earnestness to advance His service and interest they have continually by themselves and their known instruments practised the direct contrary The Copy of Our Letter of Aug. 2d sent them to Jamestown is before recited upon another occasion And VVe believe there is nothing contained in that Letter but is well known to be Truth and will be justified by many of best Quality in that Assembly What the words were which were heard to fall from Us dangerous to the persons of some Prelates when VVe are particularly charged with them VVe shall deny nothing that is Truth In the mean time let it be judged if VVe had such a desire of doing them hurt in their persons whether in the person of the Bishop of Killaloe who signed this Declaration VVe had not in Our power a subject whereon to have manifested Our disposition to revenge Whom yet the Bishops in a Letter of theirs to the Earl of Westmeath the Bishop of Leghlin and others which Letter is before recited upon another occasion do acknowledge to have been preserved by Our means though in the said Letter they untruly charge those they call Cavaliers with any attempt or purpose of doing the said Bishops person any further prejudice than to apprehend him and bring him before Us. Eleventh Article of the Declaration That his Excellency represented to His Majesty some parts of this Kingdom disobedient which absolutely deny any disobedience by them committed and thereby procured from His Majesty a Letter to withdraw his own Person and the Royal Authority if such disobediences were multiplied and to leave the People without the benefit of the Peace This was the reward his Excellency out of his envy to a Catholick Loyal Nation prepared for Our Loyalty and Obedience sealed by the shedding of our blood and the loss of our substance ANSWER VVe acknowledge to have represented to His Majesty That divers places in this Kingdom were in disobedience to His Authority And that there were and are such places is a Truth as well known to these Declarers as any work is known to the Workman that made it Which to have concealed from His Majesty had been to have betrayed the Trust by him reposed in Us and to have taken upon Our Self the blame due to them We also acknowledge to have humbly desired His Majesties leave to withdraw Our own Person out of the Kingdom in case those disobediences were multiplied Which having received and those disobediences being multiplyed VVe had withdrawn Our Self from being an idle witness of the loss of the Kingdom and the ruine of many of Our Friends had not divers of these Declarers several times but more especially at Loghreogh dissuaded Us from going and promised to do their uttermost endeavour to procure Us the obedience VVe desired without which it was plain to all men VVe could attempt nothing for the preservation of the Kingdom with hope of success But VVe were not so bold as to direct His Majesty to remove His Authority or how else to dispose of it as the Declarers are But how really VVe know not troubled they are that