of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
answer that Affrican Synod where those Fathers reprove the injustice of Celestine's demand of such transmarine judgments in the case of Apiarius requiring it to be transmitted out of Affrick to Rome and reprove I say that injustice in these very words which you may read in the now mentiond Synodical Epistle a few lines after the former words Or how can that kind of transmarine judgment be rational or legal whereunto the persons of necessary witnesses cannot be brought because either of their sex or infirmities of old age or of many other intervening impediments But that neither within the limits of the same Province nor even where the crossing of the Sea is unnecessary the parties accused be drawn too farre from their dwelling places and so molested too much by the Judges on pretence of a judicatory Innocent the Third has enacted even in a Councel Oecomenical of the whole earth cap. Nâ—nnulli Extra de Rescriptis But all this and very many other passages to this purpose I pass over at present as I have said before I pass over likewise that exception which the Canons allow against the unsafety of the place to which the summons are the unsafety of it I say if the nature of the controversy and present circumstances be considered Especially if we call to mind what several Religious men and of several Orders too that to clear themselves from calumnies in a Controversy not altogether unlike this and being not even summond in that or any other cause whatsoever nor convicted of any kind of crime the Judges themselves confessing both did venture hence to goe and appear at Rome or Madrit have suffered in our own days in our own late memory and suffered too without so much as any kind of even the very external formality of law or canons observed towards them and suffered so too most plainly against all the laws of God and nature And if we call moreover to mind those inhumane plots contrived in forraign Countries against the very lives of some even of our secular Nobility that having been formerly engaged with us in the same controversy were after in the ruine forced to shift abroad plots layd by some of those very men that now again endeavour to embroyle all anew commixe heaven and earth put all things out of frame the second time into the most horrid confusion they can of purpose partly to asperse and be revenged of us In fine I pass over the greatest exception of all The quarrel against us and the controversy in all parts to be such as concerns the temporal rights of all supream lawful Magistrates or Governours Kings and States Kingdoms and Common-wealths that acknowledge no dependency in temporals but from God alone whether they be Christians or Pagans Orthodox or Heterodox believers And consequently such whereof the Minister general or Commissary National of St. Francis's Order is so farre wide from being judge I mean as to any effect of being able and I speake onely here of ability in point of conscience to oblige their Inferiours to determine in any part against the right of Princes or silence the truth of the Gospel of Christ in this matter chiefly where the declaration of such truth is needful amongst Sectaries that are partly for want of such declaration made to them by Catholicks known to continue their separation walke in darkness and have a most strange aversion from the Church of Rome that neither is the great and most blessed Pontiff himself alone reputed a competent much less infallible Judge in this controversy not I say reputed so even by most celebrious and most excellent Catholick Divines though earnest renowned Champions for the Roman Faith in all its tenets and latitude Which manifestly abundantly appears not onely out of the late Decree of the Theological Faculty of Paris of the 8. of May this present year 1663. and many other decisions not of that Faculty of Paris alone but of all other Vniversities of the Kingdom of France and of the Gallicane Church too in general since the horrid murthers of Henry the Third and Fourth even of National Councels of the Bishops of the same Church against the several attempts of Boniface the Eight and Julius the Second but also out of the carriadge books actions of the Divines and Prelats of the Venetian Republick and Church against Paul the Fift in the year 1606. out of the sense and sentence of the Archbishops Bishops and Abbots of the Catholick Church of England in the Raigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second above 300. years since Gregory the Eleventh and Martin the Fift strugling to the contrary but to no purpose as you may read even in Polydore Virgil in his life of Edward the Third out of the German Italian and other Churches truly Orthodox of several Nations of Europe their Prelats and Clergie who adhered to the Roman Emperours where the temporal rights were concernd against Gregory the Seventh and some other great Bishops of the Roman Sea lastly and yet more particularly our of our own William Occam in the cause of Lewis of Bauier and out of Iâ—â—nnes Parisiensis Gerson Major Almain Cardinal Cusan c. most famous writers and Doctors too both Catholick and Classick nay if any credit be given to Aventinus in his Seventh book of his Boiarian Annals where he relates the Decree of the foresaid Emperour Lewis of Bauier out of that General and celebrated Chapter of the whole very Order of St. Francis held at Perusia in Italy or out I mean of the famous Appeal they all that is their General Provincials and Doctors of Divinity made therein from Iohn the two and twentieth Pope of that name to a future Oecumenical Council of Christendom although I do not deny but the most immediate occasion of their appearing so as is related in that History against the Pope and appealing from him was his condemning the Franciscans for teaching That neither Christ nor his Apostles had any temporal right or property in earthly goods but onely simplicem usum facti Whom therefore in shew but really for an other cause that is for their siding against him with the Emperour and maintaining by their pens and Sermons the Emperours temporal rights he tearmed foolish animals pernicious foxes that by a seeming strictness of religion and hypocrisy abused the world and seduced the people having first set forth those Extravagants which you may read in the Canon law against the Order it self All which I say and very much more of this kind I pass over at present Nor least I exceed the measure of an epistle do I at this time alledge either those other arguments derived from the intrinsick nature or as they speak commonly from the very bowels of the cause it self or those which may be brought from or out of Canonical Scriptures or the monuments of holy Fathers who in a continual succession for nine hundred years compleat nay till the eleventh age of Christianity delivered
been delivered and declared unanimously by the Fathers therein from the beginning as of divine Faith or as the doctrine of Christ or of the Apostles as received from Christ or that the contrary is heretical c. Non enim sunt de fide sayes Bellarmine ubi supra disputationes quae praemittuntur neque rationes quae adduntur neque ea quae ad explicandum et illustrandum adferuntur sed tantum ipsa nuda Decreta et ea non omnia sed tontum quae proponuntur tamquam de fide Interdum enim concilia aliquid definiunt non ut certum sed ut probabile c Quando autem decretum proponatur tamquam de fide facile cognoscitur ex verbis Concilij semper enim dicere solent se explicare fidem Catholicam vel Haereticos habendos qui contrarium sentiunt vel quod est communissimum dicunt anathema ab Ecclesia excludunt eos qui contrarium sentiunt Quando autem nihil borum dicunt non est certum rem esse de fide Whence it must follow evidently and even by an argument a majori ad minus that neither the words or epithets used even by the most general Council may be in their decrees of Discipline Reformation or manners nor the suppositions or praevious or concomitant bare opinions which occasion'd the use of such words or epithets in such decrees bind any at all to beleeve such words or epithets were rightly used or fitly applyed or that those opinions were well grounded or certain truths at all Whereof the reason too is no less evident and obvious To wit that the Fathers or Council had not examined or discussed this matter it was not at all their business to determine it nor did they determine it And that we know laws of Reformation and even the very most substantial parts of such Canons are grounded often on or do proceed from meer probable perswasions or such as onely seem probable nay sometimes from the meer pleasure of such law makers All which being uncontrovertedly true where is the strength of Bellarmines grand or second argument framed of such bare words or epithets did we grant his sense even in the whole latitude of it were that of these Popes and Councils Or how will he seek to establish a maxime of such consequence or of so much prejudice to all supream civil Governours and even to the peace of the world to all mankind it self and a maxime for so much or for what hath reference to the exemption of Clerks as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power so clearly as will be seen hereafter in some of the following Sections against express and clear passages of holy Scripture and against the universal Tradition for a 1000. years at least how will he I say have the confidence to endeavour the establishing of such a maxime upon so weak a foundation which every man can overthrow at pleasure or deny with reason to be a foundation at all for that or any other maxime as I mean asserted to be declared such in the positive law of God either in holy Scripture or in undoubted Tradition For the positive law of God appears not to us but by either of these two wayes of the written or unwritten word of God himself 4. And lastly that besides all said in these three answers to this second argument of Bellarmine if we please to examine further what the places alleadg'd import we shall find that whatever the private or peculiar but indiscussed opinion of these Popes or Councils was or was not concerning our present dispute of the exemption of Clerks and that by the positive law of God as to their persons in criminal causes from the supream civil or temporal coercive power nay or whatever such words as jus diuinum ordinatio Dei voluntas omnipotentis c. abstractedly taken may import yet the places alleadged or these words or epithets used in them by these Fathers must not by any means be thought therefore to have comprehended our present case or extended to it at all And the reason is 1. That all Divines and Canonists agree that all expressions words or epithets in any law whatsoever must be understood secundum subjectam materiam or must be expounded by and according as the matter which is in debate or is intended requires and further so as no errour inconvenience or mischief follow and yet the law and words thereof maintain'd still in a good sense and to some good use especially according to former wholesome laws 2. That the matter unto which there was any reference in these places or authorities quoted so by Bellarmine was either Ecclesiastical Immunity in the most generical sense abstracting from the several underkinds true or false or pretended onely of it or was it in a less generical sense taken for that of their persons but still abstracting for any thing appears out of these places quoted from that pretended species of exemption of Clerks as to their persons from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes especially when the crimes are high and so high too as they are subversive of the very State it self and are besides in meer temporal matters and no remedy at all from the spiritual superiours And in truth for what concerns the Council of Trent which as of greatest authority amongst us as being the very last celebrated of those we esteem general Councils Bellarmine places in the front 1. it is clear enough to any that will please to read the whole tenour of that twentieth chapter Ses. 25. de Reformatione which he quotes That that Council did even there so much abstract from this matter or so little intended it that on the contrary the Fathers much rather seem to speak onely there of the Ecclesiastical exemption of Clerks as to their persons from onely inferiour secular Judicatories or onely from the inferiour Courts Judges and Officers of Princes but not at all from the Princes themselves or from their supream civil power or that of their laws Which I am very much deceived if this entire passage whereof Bellarmine gives us but a few words do not sufficiently demonstrate Cupient sancta synodus Ecclesiasticam disciplinam in Christiano populo non solum restitui sed etiam perpetuo sartam tectam a quibuscumque impedimentis conservari praeter ea quae de Ecclesiasticis personis constituit saeculares quoque Principes officij sui admonendes esse censuit confidens eos ut Catholicos quos Deus sanctae fidei Ecclesiaeque protectres esse voluit jus suum Ecclesiae restitui non tantum esse concessuros sed etiam suâ— ditos suos omnes ad debitam erga Clerum Parcchos et superiores ordines reverentiam revecaturos neâ— permâ—ssuros ut officiales aut inferiores magistratus Ecclesiae et personarum Ecclesiastisarum immunitatem Dei ordinatione et Canonicis sanctionibus constitutam aliquo cupiditatis studio seu
tale aliquid sive ex scripto sive ex non scripto praesumpserit imperare post cinguli privationem XX. librarum auri poenam exolvere jubemus Ecclesiae cujus Episcopus produci aut exhiberi jussus est executorem similiter post cinguli privationem verberibus subdendum et in exilium deportandum Item post multa si autem a Clerico aut Laico quccumque aditio contra Episcopum fiat propter quamlibet causam apud sanctissimum ejus metropolitanum secundum sanctas regulas et nostras leges causa judicetur Et si quis judicatis contradixerit ad beatissimum Archiepiscopum Patriarcham Diocesees illius referatur causa et ille secundam canones leges huic praebeat finem Finally but yet moreover after quoting the law of Gratianus Valentinianus and Theodosius out of the Code l. VII titu XLVII constit III. in the point of nullity of a sentence when pronounced a non suo Iudice and the laws of Arcadius Honorius C. l. IX titu I. censtit XX. in the point of accusation made by Servants or Slaves except only the case of treason or crime against Majesty and the judgment of Modestinus the Lawyer ad legem Iuliam Majestatis l. Famosi lib. Pandectarum XLVIII in the point of credit not to be given to such accusers even in such a crime if the life or esteem of the accused was not such before as might render him suspected and another Novel Constitution as he calls it which is Authent de testib Parag. Et hic vero in the point of not condemning any by or for testmonies of witnesses to near which he was not called and of not receiving the testimonies of vile persons sine corporali discussione as he begun with and proceeded all along only out of the civil laws so he concludes at last that whole epistle out of the same civil laws tit XLIV lib. Câ—diâ—is in the point of giving sentence in writing quia scriptis debuit judicaâ—i Nam ibi inter alia dicitur atque praecipitur ut sententia quae sine scripto dicta fuerit ne nomen quidem sententiae mereatur sayes Gregory putting a final perclose to this 54 epistle ad Joan. Defensor l. XI Registri And this being the whole tenour as to the substance of that letter of St. Gregory and not as much as any one Canon at all as much as related unto by him therein from the first word to the last but only those canons in general which concern the order of Appeals in a Bishops cause not in that of other Clerks from the Metrapolitan to the Patriarch and yet these Canons too related unto here not by Gregory but by Leo Augustus himself and this also according to former civil laws of other Emperours and with so many exceptions still particularly for the cases of treason against Majesty and of a special warrant from the Prince himself to a lay subordinat Judge who sees not that Bellarmine had no kind of ground in this Epistle to abuse his Reader with quoting it as containing some argument to prove that although the civil law or Novels of Iustinian did not generally exempt Clerks in criminal causes from all publick or civil Judicatories yet the canon law did exempt them so or in such causes from all such Tribunals even the very supream But as for that other proposition which to compleat his second argument he assumes as a maxime That the civil law must yield to the canon law and for that also which to prove this maxime he further sayes That the Pope may command the Emperour especially in such matters as concern the Church which say at present of each a part and both together and of this manner of arguing is that in all I see nothing alledged or proved I mean to his purpose here but ignotum per ignotius and that my following Sections will further shew that in his sense or as applyed to his purpose or at least is necessarily inferring his Thesis or grand proposition or assertion of his Ecclesiastial Immunity both maxime and proof are absolutely false and yet and moreover consequently that his ratiocination or discourse composed of both is nothing else too but falsum per falsius However because neither the truth or probability as neither the untruth or improbability of any thing before said by me in this present Section depends of the truth or falsity of either that maxime or that other proposition assumed to make good that maxime being the dispute hitherto hath not been whether the Church could heretofore make or hereafter can make such canons as Bellarmine would have for such exemption or consequently whether in such case the civil laws being contrary must and ought to yield and be corrected by the canons or whether in such case too that maxime and proposition assumed to prove it might not be alledged and ought not to be admitted as out of controversie but the dispute hitherto in this Section having only been of the fact of the Church not of the power that is having been whether indeed she hath either justly or unjustly right or wrong validly or invalidly made at any time already or heretofore until this very present any such canon and because I perswade my self that I have sufficiently enough and very clearly too solved all that ever Bellarmine alledg'd either in his great work of Controversies and even in the very last edition of that great work or in his little book writ after of purpose by him De Potestate Temporali Papae adversus Gulielmum Barclaium for any such canon hitherto made I will now finally conclude that wherewith I begun this Section which is that neither by the Canons of the Church there hath ever been yet any such exemption as Bellarmine pretends or his Schollars in this the Divines of Lovaine of any Clerks whatsoever Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs c. from the supream civil temporal or lay power or Magistrats under which or whom they live And I conclude also my two several Affirmations immediatly following that Assertion and given or made there so immediatly as further illustrations of my meaning And to this conclusion add only here That I have taken so much pains in examining the canons alledg'd by our great Cardinal not indeed out of any purpose desire or inclination to exagitat the priviledges of Clergiemen or that I do at all or would envy them such priviledges or endeavour to lessen the reverence or esteem due or the honours or favours done or bestowed on their sacred functions and persons which any one may easily believe that knows me to be one of them my self through Gods mercy and favour to me how otherwise undeservedly soever But that next to that of speaking all necessary truths as it becomes a man of my profession in defence also of this so certain and christian truth of Clergiemens not being exempt from the supream secular civil Power as likewise of so many
only such causes as are meerly Ecclesiastical That Peter Martyr in cap. 13. ad Roman not only teaches the very same but further adds that Princes could not give Clerks the priviledge to be exempt from or not to be subject to the politick Magistrats because sayes Martyr this would be against the law of God and therefore that notwithstanding any concessions of Princes Clerks ought alwayes to be subject to the secular Magistrats And that Ioannes Brentius in Prologamâ—nis and Melanchthon in locis cap. de Magistrat subject Ecclesiasticks to the secular Tribunals even in matters and causes Ecclesiastical But who is so weak as to be frighted from any truth because maintained also or asserted by some lyars Or who knows not that all both Hereticks and Arch-hereticks too joyn with the most orthodox in many both Philosophical and Theological Natural and Moral Divine and Humane positions and even in very many of the most precise uncontroverted revelations of Christian Faith Must it be suspected to be a Christian Truth that Jesus Christ is the Messias promised that he is the Son of God that there are three persons in the Godhead that there are some Sacraments of the new Testament that Christ was born of a Virgin that he suffered for Mankind that he shall come to judge the quick and the dead c. must I say any of these be suspected not to say rejected because Melanchthon or Brentius or Martyr or even Calvin himself or Luther beleeve and maintain them against other Hereticks If therefore they or any other such as they taught also this truth of Clergiemens not being exempt from but subject to the supream civil coercive power of Princes which only is it I undertake here to maintain must Bellarmine therefore think to fright us from saying the same thing although we say it not at all because they did And yet I must further tell the Readers and Admirers of Bellarmine although my task here require it not 1. That our Saviour himself by his non scandalizemus eos in Mat. 17. sufficiently proves that not even himself was altogether so free but that as the fulfiller of the old Law and Prophets and as the giver of a yet more perfect law for the salvation of mortals and as a pure man he was bound videlicet by the rules of not giving just cause of scandal and ruine to others in that circumstance to pay the di-drachma And that Marsilius de Padua or Ioannes de Ianduno were not condemned nor censured at all for saying that any pure man who was not together both God and man as our Saviour Christ was by the wonderful union of both natures or that any other besides our Lord or even for saying that Peter himself was not exempt from the supream temporal power in temporal matters 2. That if Calvin pretend no more but that Clerks ought to be subject in politick matters to the supream temporal Magistrate and where the same temporal doth not exempt them insomuch he speaks not his own sense but the sense he was formerly taught in the Catholick Church which yet in so many other points he unhappily deserted Thirdly That although if Martyr be understood also of inferiour Magistrats as I doubt not much he ought to be his addition be absolutely and simply false yet if understood of the supream onely as perhaps others may understand him and of Clerks living still as Subjects under any such temporal power supream and acknowledging and owning it for such and themselves for Subjects Martyr was not out by saying in this Hypothesis that Princes could not in secular matters exempt Clerks from the secular Magistrat vz. from the supream secular Fourthly That although also if Brentius and Melanchthon understood by causes Ecclesiastical those which are purely and originally such and not those which by custome onely or concession of Princes or because onely permitted or delegated by Princes or their laws to the cognizance of Ecclesiastical Judges are now and have been a long time called Ecclesiastical vz. per denominationem extrinsecam by an extrinsick denomination from such Ecclesiastical Judges not by any intrinsick assumed from the nature of the causes which in themselves otherwise are meerly civil or temporal as for example usury adultery theft committed in Sacred places or of Sacred things c I say that although if not this latter kind of Ecclesiastical causes but the former be understood by Melanchthon and Brentius and if they further mean'd that Clerks are to acquiesce finally in the judgment or determination of the temporal Magistrat in all such pure Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes it must be confessed their doctrine or this meaning of it is very false and heretical yet if they understood onely the second sort of Ecclesiastical causes and by secular Magistrats intended onely the supream secular it must be also confess'd that in so much they spoke orthodoxly Besides that none may upon rational grounds deny to Kings and other supream temporal Governours a certain kind of external and temporal or politick and civil superintendency even of the very truest and purest Ecclesiastical or purely spiritual causes of the Church such as are those of believing this or that to have been revealed by God of Ministring the Sacraments in this or that manner and with convenient or decent rites c. Provided they do not use nor attempt to use immediately by themselves or even mediately by others and by vertue of their own proper authority other means or execution of such superintendency but such means and execution as are meerly temporal and corporal or such as are answerable to the civil power and sword Which kind of superintendency and supream civil coercive judicatory power annexed and I mean also annexed in order to such spiritual causes no man will deny to Kings that will consider it is onely from their supream coercive power the Ministers of justice derive authority to put any man to death for Apostacy Infidelity or Heresy in Faith or doctrine or Sacriledg in the administration of Sacraments For it is not the Bishop or Church that by any power Episcopal or Church power adjudgeth any Clerk to death for denying or renouncing Christianity or any Priest for poysoning his communicant at the Sacred Altar or with a Sacred or unsacred hoast but the King and State and their laws and power So that these onely are still the supream Judges for temporal and corporal and civil punishment or coercion whether by death or otherwise and let the cause be never so spiritual or let the crime be committed in matters or things never so purely strictly or solely Ecclesiastical And therefore if Brentius and Melanchthon intend no more but this by saying that Ecclesiasticks were not exempt but subject even in causes Ecclesiastical to the supream civil power they both meand and sayed in so much but what the Catholick Church had taught them As if they meand any more that is if they meand to say that Ecclesiasticks
quarrel and though his body likewise had been subservient and obedient in all things to the most holy dictats of his Soul For we know that invincible or inculpable prejudice ignorance or inadvertisement against the truth of things in the course of a mans life in his actions or in his contests or even some time in his doctrine which strikes not at the fundamentals of Christian doctrine so his Soul be ever piously and charitably and Christianly and resignedly disposed to embrace truth when known either by evidence of reason or from such an authority as it is bound to submit unto doth not hinder either Sanctity or martyrdom or miracles or due canonization or a fit veneration or answerable invocation of him as even a martyrized and miraculous Saint The example of S. Cyprian that great holy martyrized Saint and Patriarch of Affrick who both lived and dyed in a wrongfull contest with even the Popes of Rome themselves and even also in a very material point of Christian doctrine is evidence enough for this And S Paul's contest with S. Peter at Antioch about the observation of the Jewish laws is evidence enough And very many other examples of great holy Fathers and Doctors of the Catholick Church who lived and dyed in material errours and material heresies too especially if the doctrine of Bellarmine in many places nay or that of even of many or rather most other School Divines be true may be produced ex superabundanti to make good this evidence 4. That the infallibility of Pope Alexander the third in canonizing S. Thomas of Canterbury and I speak now to them who suppose the Pope so infallible in all his Definitions or Bulls concerning any doctrine or fact or matter of Piety that he is so too in his canonization of Saints implyed or inferr'd of necessity that all his quarrels or at least the substantial part of that quarrel which occasion'd his death principally immediatly ultimatly not onely was just but must have been just according to the very objective truth of things in themselves and that otherwise there could be no infallibility in the said Alexander's canonization of him for a Saint and a martyr and that likewise the pursuant veneration and invocation of him for such by the Church and the miracles wrought at his hearse before he was interr'd as for example the candles lighting of themselves about his hearse after they had been quenched and his lifting up his hand after the office of the dead was ended and blessing the people c and so many other miracles wrought at several times at his Tomb after he had been long enterred that I say neither that veneration or invocation could be in truth practised without impiety or at least very much temerity not those miracles alleadg'd without forgery and fallacy nor he called a martyr in any true sense if his quarrels or quarrel as now is said with Henry the Second had not been just according to the objective truth of things in themselves For as I denyed the former three suppositions so I do this fourth also or at least I say that I am not bound to admit it First because that even allowing or if I did allow Bellarmine's or any other's doctrine of the infallibility of Popes in their Bulls of canonization and other Bulls whatsoever yet is it plain enough and even admitted by such Divines that possibly there may be an errour in some particular allegations or suppositions entertained by the Popes in the process formed for such canonization and even expressed also or insinuated in the very letters of the canonization and that no such allegations or suppositions reasons or motives are defined in any Bull of canonization or even in any other whatsoever but the principal design onely and that this in Bulls of canonization is onely that such or such a holy man is in the joyes of the blessed seeing God in the face and therefore he may be invocated as such and consequently that the infallibility which they do attribute to the Popes in their Bulls of canonization may subsist notwithstanding that some of those motives or inducements were in themselves false according at least to the objective truth of things For all which these Divines pretend to in this matter is the infallible assistance of Gods holy spirit or of his external Providence promised infallibly as they suppose to the Pope in not proposing any by such a solemn declaration to be invoked as a Saint who is not so indeed but not in supposing this or that which is said of some passage of his life nor by consequence in supposing what was the true cause of his violent death when he dyed so or that the cause was such as would make him a martyr in the stricktest sense of this word Martyr as used in the Church by way of distinction not onely from a Confessour but from such holy men who suffered violent deaths unjustly that is not by the prescript of the laws but by the power onely of wicked men or women and that too sometimes not for any cause they maintayn'd but out of hatred to their persons or to arrive at some worldly end which their life observed whereof St. Edward the Second a Saxon King of England Son to the good King Edgar is a very sufficient example who was and is invoked as a martyr and a very miraculous martyr too notwithstanding he was murthred onely by a servant and at the command of his Stepmother Alfreda as he was drinking on horseback and this too for no other cause but that her own Son Ethelredus should come to be King as presently he was made Polydore Virgil Anglicae Historiae l. VII as sometimes also for a cause which though not so clear on either side in the judgment I mean of some other indifferent men nay perhaps unrighteous on the side of the holy sufferers according to the objective truth of things in themselves yet invincibly appearing just or the more just and the more holy and pious unto them and to others also who had their life otherwise and justly too or according also even to the certain objective truth of other things in due veneration For Martyr in Greek is a witness in English and martyrdom in the Ecclesiastical use of the word is variously applyed sometime strictly to import a violent death suffered without any reluctance and suffered meerly and onely for professing or for not denying a known certain evident or notorious Catholick Evangelical truth or which is the same thing to import a witnessing or a bearing testimony to such a truth by such a death sometime largely or not so strictly however properly still to import by such a death a witnessing or a bearing testimony to a good zeal and great piety and excellent conscience in being constant to a cause which one esteems the more just and generally seems the more pious for all he knows though it be not an evangelical truth and though perhaps
too he may be deceived in the objective truth of things and sometime to import onely a witnessing by bloud so spilt or a testimony of innocent and holy bloud against those cruel men who spil'd it for no other cause but that themselves might reap some worldly advantage thereby though otherwise they had no quarrel at all with such a Saint nor he with them or with any other for defence of which his life should be taken away Secondly this fourth supposition is denyed by me because neither the diffusive nor representative Church was ever concern'd I mean their pursuant veneration or invocation of any canonized for a Saint and under the title of a martyr was never concern'd in such an intrigue as this viz whether in the more strict or large sense of the word Martyr he were a Martyr nor concern'd whether his whole or even any substantial part of his quarrel as in his Legend or in the process of his canonization was true or no or such as might entitle to martyrdom strictly taken according to the objective truth of things nor truly concern'd any further in him or in his life or death but that he was a great extraordinary servant of God in both or at least at the time of his death and that now he was in the glory of God For this onely being certain though all other matters reported of him were uncertain their veneration and invocation of him must be not onely void of all impiety but acts of true religion and true piety and for the rest they are free to believe or not by humane faith according as they see those humane proofs alleadg'd to be strong or weak Thirdly that fourth supposition is denyed because the miracles wrought cannot be said upon rational grounds to have been wrought in confirmation of the at least objective truth or justice of this or that controversy whatsoever not certainly Evangelical which such a Saint or Martyr sometimes had in his life being they were not wrought at the invocation of God by the Saint himself or by any other that God might be pleased by working such miracles to evidence the justice of such a cause For if they had been wrought so the case would be clear enough as to such who saw those miracles or to whose knowledg authentick proofs of them did sufficiently come that even the obedience truth and justice of things in such a controversy had been on such a Saints or Martyr's side But otherwise wrought they can be no more but divine testimonies of his having wonderfully or extraordinarily served God either in his life or death or both whether he was deceived or no in some things and whether he had some times and in some occasions or controversies some failings or no at least out of want of true knowledg or sound reflection for the very greatest Saints might have been deceived sometimes nay and failed too sometimes in their duty and besides they can be no more or at least on any rational ground cannot be said to be any more then divine testimonies of his being now with God in glory Out of all which I think 't is evident enough there are several suppositions in the proof of the Major which I am not bound to allow not even in their principles or doctrine who teach the infallibility of the Pope in his Bulls of canonization and several suppositions which yet I am not bound to allow notwithstanding I do my self as I confess I am bound most religiously allow the canonization veneration and invocation of St. Thomas of Canterbury and all three of him as of a glorious martyr too and notwithstanding I allow also all the miracles reported of him And consequently I think 't is evident enough that it is not necessary to admit the Major to wit this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel against Henry the Second is false for any such suppositions or for any such inconvenience as that proof of it which I have given before would inferr or deduce out of the denyal of it Therefore my reason in and for admitting that Major in this my second answer is no such matter nor is that I could not maintain St. Thomas of Canterburie's extraordinary great sanctity in his life and in or at his death and his consequent canonization veneration invocation miracles not that I could not I say maintain all without admitting that Major and granting that of necessity the quarrels causes or controversies of such a Saint with such a King and in such matters as those of Thomas of Canterbury were in must have been just from first to last of the Saints side and just I mean according to the objective truth of things in themselves But my reason for admitting it so simply and absolutely without any distinction in this second answer is that I see no reason to call in question the credit of those Historians who relate the matter of fact in that controversy so and so circumstantiated or the credit of other Historians or Antiquaries who relate those ancient Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along unrepealed in our case till Henry the Second did so repeal or attempted to repeal them so and that on the other side all right reason shewes that S. Thomas of Canterbury having so the very municipal laws of the land of his side he had justice also arising immediatly from such laws of his side and consequently that the same right reason shews that whatever doctrine condemns or opposes such known justice in the quarrel of any man whatsoever Saint or not Saint Martyr or not Martyr must be false in the case And this and this onely is my reason for admitting so that Major But what then Must I admit the Minor subsumed thus But my doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c with Henry the Second Must I admit this Minor I say nothing less For I deny it plainly and flatly and that too without any kind of distinction And that I may deny it so deny it without any contradiction contrariety inconsistence or falsity you have had already in my first answer and in my precedent observations enough to convince you Therefore consequently it must be said that the conclusion does not follow or that of the Syllogisme which pretends my doctrine of a supream civil coercive power of Clerks in criminal causes to be false for it is ill inferr'd the Minor being false or being denyed upon such rational grounds as I have formerly given An other Answer yet may be as a second to the Syllogisme though a third in order to the matter in it self or to the judgment of St. Thomas of Canterbury For the Major may be distinguish'd thus whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of such part of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel which was all along and until the very last of his life that whereon he did and would
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
I had for some time intended concerning Father Finachty which was to inquire particularly of all the most judicious and knowing both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks throughout the several Diocesses of Ossory or Kilkenny Leighlin Kildare and Dublin where the said Finachty had some two years before in the time of his pass or permission publickly in his great meetings practised what he could and to enquire I say of them all what they knew or believed of him or his miracles or had seen done by him that should persuade them either the one way or other Therefore I did presently enquire all I could first at Kilkenny next in the Diocess of Leighlin then in that of Kildare fourthly in the Diocess of Dublin it self abroad in the Countrey all in my way back to that Capital City and in the last place within that same Metropolitical City again the second time and much more exactly than before Having in eight or nine dayes or thereabouts ended this enquiry and reflecting on the sum of what I found thereby I found my self as little satisfied as if not much more unsatisfied than before What troubled me most was That all the Church-Fathers whether Regulars of what Order soever or Secular Parish-Priests to whom I spake on the Subject and I speak to a great many having visited them of purpose for that end even every one of them seem'd against Finachty Others when I spoke of him shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders Others in plain terms calling him a grand Impostor and covetous Wretch assuring me he did in effect no other thing really but what he did for himself i. e. Cheat all the World receive all was offer'd him in any place by some well-meaning but deluded People both rich and poor viz. Horses Watches Gold Silver pieces of woollen and linnen Cloth c. which said they argued him not to be a man of so much as ordinary either grace or vertue much less of extraordinary holiness or miraculous gifts Others and and to instance one viz. Father Dominick Dempsy a venerable old and experienced Franciscan of known repute affirming to me in the Convent of Clane That the said Finachty's very pretence of Exercising and dispossessing Devils was to their knowledge a lying Cheat of his own That his custom was to get a multitude together in some open field and there being encircled by them while every one of the simpler sort looked on him as an undoubted Wonder-worker to single out before them all some young Maid then to say she had been possessed by the Devil and if she denied it to box her and bang her lustily until she being so confounded before the People and to be rid of the shame by yielding to him had confessed what he pleased and answer'd all his Interrogatories as he would and led her himself to the answer during his Exorcising of her That he had done so hard by at Downadea where Sir Andrew Alymer lives within Two miles of the said Franciscan Convent of Clane and That one Maid so abused by him there came to my self to confession very soon after sayes the above Father Dominick accusing her self penitently That to be rid as soon as she could of the shame of being continued so publick a spectacle where every one believed him rather than her she had against her own knowledge and check of Conscience acknowledged her self possessed by the Devil and sufferâ—d him to practise on her as such even there publickly before the whole multitude and said what ever else he would have her say to his further Interrogatories and so abused all the People too whereas truly in her life she had never been troubled with Devil or other evil but was perfectly in health both of body and mind As for the Lay-persons some few I met that cryed him up and others that decryed him down as much In the Diocess of Leighlin a Gentlewoman told me in the presence of several others That she had her self gone Thirty mile to see him practice at Downadea aforesaid but if he came again to the Countrey she would not go Thirty paces nay nor over the Threshold to see his Miracles so little had she of cause in what she had already seen to believe any truth in them or expect any wonders from him Yet being come to the Lady Dongans at Castle-town and Lady Whites at Leixlip both places in the Diocess of Dublin and wherein Finachty had in his perambulatory Circuit appeared and practised I found the Ladies and other Gentlewomen had entertained a better opinion of him For some of those of Castle-town affirmed to me That he had with them there and themselves being present restored a Cripled man to going and a Blind man to seeing And some also of those of Leixlip told me That with themselves in that Town he had throughly quieted a Woman that before his coming was either possessed or mad as who did sometimes walk even on the very ridge of the Roofs of Houses Yet I must confess the Parish-Priest of Castle-town Father Gerrot Kevanagh seemed not throughly satisfied of the miraculousness of what was done there For sayes he to me Father Finachty used other help than that of Exorcising Praying Touching or bare Crossing He lay down upon and stretch'd out by pure force the knees of the Cripple so that he seem'd by pure force to have stretch'd his sinews or removed the impediment whatever it was that hinder'd him before from going and with his fingers too he forcibly opened the eye-lids of the blind man Besides sayes he neither the one nor the other was perfectly Cured by him whatever the means were the Blind saw not clearly nor did the Cripple go not even then at all so strongly and confidently but rather so as if he were to relapse again very soon as we have seen he hath already for the matter And this to the best of my remembrance was what the said Father Kevanagh told me at Castle-town as of his own knowledge for he said himself was present and saw all was done and the manner and method of doing whatever was done at Castle-town At last when I came to Dublin and there also enquired I found as little satisfaction or rather less for any matter done there by Father Finachty though still in Town since his late arrival and practising daily in one place or other I found the Protestants laughing to scorn all our Allegations of late Miracles in our Church Nay Dr. Loftus told me They had been once on a resolution to bring Finachty in to the Bishops Court for a Wizard or an Impostor and that himself had put them off till he had first spoken to me or at least until my Lord Lieutenant's return And from the Roman-Catholick Churchmen I understood that in those few dayes of my absence they themselves both Seculars and Regulars in a meeting held by them of purpose the Vicar-General Apostolick being present had been upon a debate to forbid Finachty
only or at least chiefly for the confirmation of the only true Church the Roman and conviction of all Dissenters 6. That as he at London desired my Lord Aubigny the Queens great Almoner he would be pleased to make in his behalf to the Court this offer viz. That the Protestants should pitch upon such a number as they pleased of all sorts of sick persons the places and Parishes where such infirm persons lived then bring them to the most expert Physitians to have their judgments of the truth and certainty of their being without question truly sick and of the quality and inverateness of their several Diseases then carry the same diseased persons to the Protestant Clergy Ministers and Bishops to be cured by their Prayers and when these had failed of doing those any good to bring them to him publickly before as many or such as they pleased to be present and they should see that by the invocation of God and for confirmation or evidence of the Roman-Catholick Church to be the only true Church and Religion of Christ he would cure them all the same saith he which I offered at London to my Lord Aubigny and by him to the Court but was not accepted there from me I do now here again offer to you and by you to the Lord Lieutenant and Council When he had so confidently and positively answered I was much troubled at the three last Articles For I believed my Lord Clancarty told me truth And I had much cause to believe those who related his having been servant in his youth to Father Moor and from him learned the manner of Exorcizing Nor did I want the fresh memory of many other Arguments to perswade me that what ever he had done of good to any though few was by Exorcism only and only where somewhat of Possession obsession or Witchcraft intervened Besides that I could hardly doubt he did but little to any of so many as came to him sick of natural diseases only I begun therefore now inwardly in my own mind to scruple both his veracity and humility vertues I think to be expected in a worker of wonders by the pure invocation of Christ And both I scrupled the more that I observed him to blush when I objected his learning from and being a servant to Father Moor and his gifts to be confined to the only effects of bare Exorcism Then besides I considered how I had never read of any Saint in former days that put himself so freely and purposely in all places and occasions upon working of Miracles by Exorcism or otherwise much less of any that undertook so boldly at least where so little need was But again remembring that in Matt. 7.22 23. * * Multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo in nomine â—â—o damonia ejecimus in nomine tuo daemonia ejecimus in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus Et tunc confiteborillis Quia nunquam novi ves and withal considering the confidence of his offer I check'd my self However I desired him to consider well once more what he offer'd so and the consequence of his failure adding thus Father Finachty I am upon consideration of all I have from first to last heard of you inclined to think that in some occasions and to some few persons you have done some good that is that either your gift or their own Faith or at least their own strong imagination with some other natural helps hath been in some measure available to them when they came to you and you Exorcized or Crossed or Prayed over them or upon that occasion of your doing so but I am withal inclined to think you have failed the expectations of a thousand for one you have not Nay and moreover that the gift whatever it be is for Exorcizing only and not at all for curing natural Diseases I am sure Says he replying I have not failed one for a thousand I have cured and cured even of all sorts of pure Natural Diseases and what I offer I know and fear no tryal This reply made me fear the flattery or folly of some half sighted or half witted if not worse men had somewhat turn'd his brain for I dared not yet for all this entertain any determinat judgment or even scarce the least passing imagination of his being a willful Impostor Mr. Browns Relation besides the late reports and Letters from London and several other things told me for his advantage remaining still fix'd in my mind and making me rather shut my own eyes then see or freely entertain any such thought of him Which was the reason I would not any further at that time question what he had so positively averr'd himself But leaving that Subject prayed him nevertheless if not rather indeed the more to tell me when or how long since he first had found by real experience that God had bestowed these gracious gifts upon him was it then first in the Protector 's time when the reports came to us to London or was it before and what year After a little demurr he answered That long before that time when I further pressed to know was it in the time of the Confederat's and if said I so long ago it is strange I that lived constantly where the chief seat of the Confederate Assemblies and Councils and their Supream Power was even at Kilkenny whether all the Kingdom did resort did never hear one word of any such wonder-working man Notwithstanding says he it hath been so long since Pray said I hath it been as early as your being consecrated Priest Before I received any Orders at all greater or lesser Sacred or not answered he I am sorry for that said I and will give you my reason why For till now I was in good hopes your extraordinary gift in Exorcizing so effectually as you say you do might be in some measure attributed to or might be some Argument of the Authority and Power given to all Priests though given to them before they receive the Order of Priesthood or any of those called the Greater Orders even as soon as amongst the four former and lesser Orders they are ordained Exorcists But now I perceive you were a meer Lay-man and not so much as any sort of Clergy-man or Ecclesiastical person at all when first so gifted by God I was no other says he You will not be offended said I at one question more and then Iâ—le have done for this time What was I pray the very first particular whereby you assured your self experimentally then during your being a Lay-man That God had bestowed that extraordinary gift upon you Here again he demurred a little and then answered I had a brother of my own says he whose breeches the Devil stole away at night Whereupon I took a Book of Exorcisms and thence read a Prayer over him which was so effectual that the Devil restored his breeches And this was the first
otherwise contributing to them without 〈◊〉 necessity Further in pursuance of our said Declaration we do Excommunicate as above all those that will side and adhere to the Lord Marquess of Ormond against our said Declaration by bearing Arms for him or his Party by giving him any Subsidie Contribution monies or Intelligence or in any way strengthning securing advising or helping him or obeying his Commands against us or our right intentions herein We do likewise suspend respectively ab officio beneficio voce activa passiva gratiis indultis privilegiis quibuscunque all and singular Ecclesiastical persons Dignitaries Pastors Priests Chaplains either of the Army or private Families Regular and Secular and all other Ecclesiastical persons whatsoever that will give counsel or advice against hinderance or opposition to our said Sentence or Declaration And for further strengthning of these our Act and Acts Sentence and Result we do hereby reserve the Absolution from the above Excommunication and Censures to our selves or to others that will be particularly authorized by us Finally we command respectively as aforesaid sub iisdem penis Censuris all our Vnder Pastors Parish Priests Religious Convents and other Communalties that inter Missarum Solemnia or in publick Places and Sermons they publish this our present Declaration and Sentence of Excommunication and Suspension when and wheresoever they will be required so to do Given at Jamestown under our hand Aug. 12. 1650. Signed by H Ardmacan Jo Archiep. Tuam Jo Rapotens Eugen Kilmor Fran Aladen Nic Fernens Procurator Dublin Fr Anton. Clonmacnocens Walt Clonfert Procurator Leghlinens Fr. Artur Dunens Connor Procurator Dromorens Fr. Hugo Duacensis Fr. Gul de Burgo Provincialis Hiberniae Ordinis praedicat Jac Abbas de Conga Commiss generalis Canon reg S. Aug. Fr. Thom Keran Abbas de Duellio Carol Kelly S. Th. Doctor Decan Tuam Fr. Bernard Egan Procurator R. admodum P. Provincialis Fratrum Minorum Fr. Ricar O Kelly Procur Vic. Generalis Kildar Prior Rathbran Ord. Praedicat Thad Aeganus S. Th. D. Praepos Tuam Luc Plunket S. Th. D. Proton Apostolicus Rector Collegii de Kilecu exercitus Lageniae Capellan major Jo Doulaeus Juris Doc. Abbas de Kilmanagh unus ex Procuratoribus Capituli Cleri Tuam Gual Enos S. T. D. Protonot Apostolicus Thesaurarius Fernen Procurator Praepositi Ecclesiae Collegiatae Galviens And we the undernamed sitting at Galway with the Commissioners authorized by the Congregation held at Jamestown sexto Augusti currentis do concur with the above Sentence of Excommunication and Censures and withal do now make and firm the same as an Act of our own by our several Subscriptions Aug. 23. 1650. Thomas Cashel Jo Laonen Episcopus Edm. Limericen Rob Corgan Cluan Fr Terent. Immolacen Jac. Fallonus Vic. Apostolicus Acaden Fr Petrus Tiernanus Proc. Ministri Provincialis Fratrum Minorum THE SECOND APPENDIX CONTAINING I. The then Marquess now Duke of Ormond and then also Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of the Kingdom of IRELAND HIS Long and Excellent Letter FROM KILCOLGAN The Second of December 1650. TO THE Lords and Gentlemen ASSEMBLED AT LOGHREOGH i. e. to the last GENERAL ASSEMBLY of all the THREE ESTATES of the whole Irish Nation which the Roman Catholicks there held before they were utterly subdued by the Parliament of England In full Answer To and clear DEMONSTRATION of the manifold CALUMNIES INJUSTICE and both Disloyal and Tyrannical USURPATION of the two last of those Publick Instruments given in the former APPENDIX and of the PRELATES and others who sign'd them II. The said GENERAL ASSEMBLIES PVBLICK ACT and DECLARATION at Loghreogh the 7th of December same year 1650. upon receipt of the above LETTER Printed in the Year M. DC LXXIII The Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland His Letter to Loghreogh against the Declaration and Excommunication of Jamestown 1650. AFter Our hearty Commendations Many of the Nobility and Gentry being there assembled by our Letters of the 24th of October last We presume two particulars will come under consideration with them The one His Majesties Declaration made in Scotland seeming to annul the Peace concluded in this Kingdom The other a Declaration and Excommunication contrived at Jamestown in August last by divers Bishops there met and published in September following according to their Order as is alledged by the Publishers Concerning the matter of the Declaration and Excommunication being the thing first come to knowledge here We shall set down the manner of their proceeding and examine the grounds of it plainly and truly But We are necessitated to be the more large in the discourse of it for that it will not easily be believed without clear proof that men of their Function professed Piety and supposed Wisdom would publish such high and bitter Things against Us as are contained in their Declaration and Excommunication but upon infallible grounds of Reason and Truth So that if we should say nothing of it or against it We might possibly in the judgment of some there to Posterity and in Forreign Countries stand convinced of the Calumnies thereby cast upon Us though to Us and to many others it be well known their Quarrel is not to Our Person but to the Authority placed in Us and the Profession We are of Both which they confess plainly enough in their Paper given to the Commissioners authorized by Us in pursuance of the Articles of Peace at Galway bearing date the 29th of October last as shall appear when We come to speak of that Paper For the better understanding of the manner of their proceeding in this business it is fit you be informed That upon Our observation and experience of the unhappy influence some of the Bishops and their Instruments with the help of their forgeries and calumnies which they never spare to invent and publish when they would withdraw the Subjects from obedience had gained upon the People but more especially in Corporate Towns and Cities and having had recent and particular experience of the obstinate disobedience of the City of Waterford and the interruption thereby given to the recovery of what Cromwel had gained in his march from Dublin till he came before that City and finding clearly that the entertainment We received there which We refer to the relation of the Lord Dillon Sir Lucas Dillon and Sir Richard Barnewall notwithstanding all our pains taken and hazards undergone to preserve that City proceeded from the labour of some of the Clergy We did by Letters of the 27th of February last past call to Lymerick as many Bishops as were within any convenient distance and there in presence of the Commissioners authorized by Us in pursuance of the Articles of Peace freely told them That without the People might be brought to have a full confidence in Us and yield a perfect obedience to Us and without the City of Lymerick might be persuaded to receive a Garrison and obey Our Orders it was
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