Res ignorata Necesse Mihi tamen multo firmior ac tutior regula videtur esse ut ubi jus naturae certat cum jure positivo Ecclesiastico hoc illi cedat Fr. Petrus Valesius in Opero Theologico seu Responsionibus ad Quaesita Ministri Provincialis Respons ad Quaes Tertium XXXIII In so many instances they could find their Allegations to be false if they did but a little seriously consider them Now for their unconcluding ones I take in the first place their allegation of the Faithful's being whipped by the Church and commanded to undergoe austere pennances But to conclude hence that therefore a corporal punishment may be inflicted by virtue of a spiritual power so as this spiritual power be properly or truly coercive or inflictive and not directive onely or meerly of such corporal punishments whether the patient will or not or so that it is authorized by God or by it self in its own nature of a spiritual power to proceed in a meer compulsory way to the actual execution of such punishments or to use corporal force compulsion or coaction to inflict such on him that otherwise refuses to undergoe them is a strange way of argueing Every ghostly Father may in some cases enjoyn his penitent such punishments and by virtue of his meer spiritual power may do so but can inflict none either by himself or by an other if the penitent will be refractory And not onely the Pope not only the Bishop but every inferiour Priest may in foro confessionali enjoyn his penitent even how great soever otherwise even a King or Emperour what ever is judg'd necessary for his eternal Salvation and consequently in some cases a deposition of themselves even from their whole temporal estates Kingdoms or Empires as in that of tyrannical and manifest usurpation and of necessary restitution the true and legal heire surviving and known and possible to be admitted without subversion of the State or people much more where it may be availeable to the support of both Yet I hope the Author of this Querie and reasons for the affirmative will not say that every such ghostly Father can proceed to execution whether their penitents will or no or can by force of Arms or other corporal means devest them respectively of their ill-gotten goods estates Kingdoms Empires though only to put the lawfull proprietors in possession thereof And yet the power in every such Confessour to enjoyn such temporal restitutions dispositions or even depositions and deprivations respectively to be undergone and executed by the penitents themselves and by virtue also of such injunction cannot be denied to be both truly spiritual and very legal too in the nature of a spiritual power Therefore spiritual directions injunctions prescriptions or commands of corporal punishments or of disposing so or so of our temporal estates allowed of or granted to be proper to a spiritual power is a very unconcluding argument That a real execution either immediate or mediate by corporal compulsory means coaction or force belongs to the same power And yet it is granted still that the spiritual power considered as directive hath a proportionable coercive power to witt meerly spiritual annexed inseparably and therefore no other execution but by meer spiritual wayes or means that is by denying of communion in meer spiritual matters For it is a most certain Christian and Catholick maxime That the Church of Christ as such meerly hath neither territory nor sword understanding those which are properly such or the material carnal civil or temporal sword XXXIV In the next place who sees not the inconsequence of his example out of 1. Mac. 2 Mattathias the Priest under the dispensations of the old Testament killed the Jew that offered Sacrifice to Idols and took arms against Antiochus and is not reproved therefore but rather renowned Therefore now under the new Testament corporal and mortal punishments may be forcibly inflicted and rebellion raysed against a lawful Prince by vertue only of the spiritual power of Christian Priests How many gross mistakes in this application and conclusion The Testaments are different and so are the means of planting establishing propagating or observing them no less different The former had promises of temporal blessings the later of purely spiritual The former had by special warrant of the God of Hosts a carnal sword to maintain it the later a spiritual word only Besides it appears no where that Mattathias killed that Sacrificeing Jew or took arms against Antiochus by vertue of his religious Priestly function or that he did either but in a meer natural or civil capacity as a chief member of the temporal common-wealth of the Jews albeit his motive was mixed with religious considerations And if it did as certainly it does not we know the law whereby he was to govern himself in point of conscience was that of Moyses which as to the express letter did warrant both his killing the Idolatrous Jew and his rebelling against that heathen and Alien tyrannizing usurper Therefore to conclude hence That when there is an other Testament Law Priesthood of a quite other nature each and those old ones of Moyses quite abolished by an equal power with that authorized them that now under the new testament law and priesthood of Christ no more a God of Hosts but suffering Saviour and now under that Ghospel which directs it self to be planted preserved restored not by the sword but by the word not by fighting but by suffering which gives no temporal power but meerly spiritual nor contains any promises of earthly rewards but celestial alone therefore I say to conclude from that example of the Macchabees that now this spiritual power of Christian Priests can warrant killing and rebelling by its own proper authority is nothing less absurd then what the most unconcluding argument would conclude All which I doubt not the authors of this Querie and reasons for the affirmative would have had understood more easily if they had had reflected on them a little more coolely But their interest or passion or both shut all the avenues to a serious recollection or which is worse made then guilty of horrible not only dissimulation but opposition of such known truths in matter of conscience and Christian Faith and consequently of that sin against the Holy Ghost which shall neither be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come And if they had had understood or reflected so they needed not to have been driven to such a pitiful and shameful shift as to quote so falsely or imperfectly the Author of The More Ample Account's answer to that objection of the Macchabees warre Which answer yet how satisfactory soever in the judgment of others or unsatisfactory in theirs was not by me in that place or book to any such weak argument as they frame here on the Macchabaean warre not at all to invalidate their now pretence of a power in either Christian or Moysaycal Priest to kill and rebell
is Ecclesiastical Judges given them in such exempted causes both criminal and civil but given them so by the supream authority civil and proceeding in so much against them to a meer civil determination execution and coaction by vertue onely of the power derived from the civil laws and supream civil Magistrate and not by vertue of any spiritual power or other whatsoever derived from the Church as purely a Church Because the Church as such hath neither territory nor sword consequently no external criminal or civil Judicatory with any external or temporal power of coaction or coercion properly such but onely a spiritual power of meer spiritual censures which is but secundum quid or diminutively and improperly called coercion or coaction for what belongs to our purpose here But however this be or be not it is clear enough First that by no civil law of the Roman Emperours Clerks have been ever yet at any time exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat or from the supream civil coercive power of his laws Which I take to be so absolutely certain That Bellarmine himself for proof of his third Proposition which he hath cap. 28. l. 1. de Cler. in these general words Non possunt Clericiâ—a Judicâ— seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent had not the confidence to alleadg any other imperial or civil constitution but onely those of the Emperour Justinian's Novells 79. 83. and 123. where yet Bellarmine confesses this Emperour decreed no more but the exemption of Clerks and Monks from secular that is laye judicatories in civil causes onely and not in criminal Nay confesses that for criminal causes the same Justinian particularly and expresly decrees in these very Novels that Clergiemen be subject still to the lay or civil Pretors Jurisdiction with this caution only that judgment of death be not pronounced in the Pretors Court against a Clerk before he be degraded by the Bishop So that by the very concession and confession of Bellarmine himself it is not only clear enough that no civil constitution can be produced for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream lay power but also clear enough that no such can be pleaded for their exemption in such causes from all subordinate inferiour lay Courts being the Pretors Court was a subordinate one at least unto the Princes own supream Tribunal and being that Bellarmine having confessed this much of this law of Iustinians finds no other civil Institution for his purpose in criminal causes to alledge but flyes presently to his Ecclesiastical Institutions in that point saying that albeit the civil law did not so exempt Clerks in criminal causes from the civil Judicatories yet the Canons of the Church did as sayes he appears clearly out of the Epistle of Cains the Pope to Felix and out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and also out of the XI book of Gregory the Greats Register epist 54. ad Joannem Defensorem and saying further that the civil law must yield to the Canon Law cum possit summus Pontifex Imperatori praecipere in iis praesertim quae ad Ecclesiam pertinent whereas sayes he the supream Pontiff or Pope may command the Emperour especially in such things as concern the Church Where it is evident that Bellarmine confesses plainly there is no civil Institution or Law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the civil or lay Courts For the Reader is to take notice here that by the civil law in this matter no other civil law is understood but that only of Emperours From which indeed originally and only all the exemption of Clerks proceeded even in those Christian Countreys which have shaken off the yoke and even in those too which never yet were under that of the Imperial Power or Laws but have made themselves peculiar municipal laws Which yet albeit they be meerly and properly civil laws yet are they not the civil laws whereof Bellarmine treats and his other Associats contend as we are sure they give more exemption to Clerks either in criminal or civil causes then those of the Roman Emperour did But forasmuch as many of our Clerks are ignorant of that spring of their exemption whatever this exemption truly groundedly be as others are no less ungrateful for not acknowledging it I will oblige those and check these by laying here before their eyes the very first laws the several degrees of them whereby they came by the meer favour of the Roman Emperours to that exemption from Secular Courts which they have truly ever since enjoyed more or less in Christendome according as these laws were continued practised or even by other Princes not subject any more or at all to the Roman Emperours and Laws enacted a new or allowed of Therefore and that we may not erre hereafter in this point the Reader is to know that all these several priviledges liberties or exemptions either of persons lands or other goods which the Clergy hath now in Christian Kingdoms and States have not been granted at first by any one Emperour or at any one time The very first exemption ever yet granted to Clerks was that of Constantine the Great whereby after this good Emperour had formerly published his edicts of liberty for Christian Religon in general he particularly gave this priviledge by law to those of that religion were called Clerks that they should not be obnoxious to nominations or susceptions that is that if they were named or elected for any civil office of Magistracy or Wardship or of gathering of Taxes Tributes c. yet they should not be bound to undergo any such whereas before that law or priviledge Christian Clerks being named or elected were bound to undergo all such offices without any such excuse at all But eight years after this law so made the same Câ—nstantine made another whereby he gave a general exemption to such Clerks from all kind of civil offices l. 1. 2. Cod. Theod. de Episcop Cleric l. 16. wherein he gives the reason of this priviledge least sayes he Clerks sacrilego livâ—re quorundam a divinis obsequiis avocentur may out of the sacrilegious envy of some be called away or diverted from their divine imployments And indeed it is very observable against the ungrateful temerity of some Clerks who are loath to acknowledge the spring of their Immunity to be from the secular power that the same most Christian Prince calls those exemptions priviledges For so he calls them in express tearms Haereticorum factiâ—ne comperimus Ecclesiae Catholicae Clericos ita vexari ut nominationibus seu suceptionibus aliquibus quas publicus mos exposcit centra indulta sibi privilegia pregraventur we have found sayes he that by the faction of Hereticks the Clerks of the Catholick Church are so vexed that they are forced to submit to nominations and susceptions which publick use requires against the priviledges granted them In reference to and
probability how great soever so it retain still the true ond onely nature of probability and arrive not to evidence and consequently be no more that which is meer probability but a quite other thing can serve our adversaries to quarrel against my doctrine which maintains no exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat For if their arguments or reasons whatsoever be but probable or should I admit any of them to be probable how intrinsecally soever yet admitting them but as onely such and not convincing and further shewing clearly they are not convincing the consequence of my admitting them for such onely that is for even intrinsecally probable and no more must be also that the tenet grounded on them cannot be certain And therefore that by the common doctrine of Divines and Lawyers Princes cannot be deprived of their supream power over Clerks whereof they are and have been alwayes in possession Because upon or for an uncertain title or uncertain allegations and all reasons which are onely probable are uncertain as to us none may be justly thrown out of a long continued possession and a possession which was bona fide such and a possession too which in the case and according to reason must have at least the same or as much even intrinsick probability for it in point of natural reason as is pleaded against it from pretences of the like natural reason This being the nature of meer probability of reason if understood to be such to inforce by a necessary consequence the like probability of reason producible for the other side of the contradictory Which advertisement I premise for the less acute or less discerning Readers sake not that I do my self apprehend any such true intrinsick probability in the propositions or assumptions of any the above reasons of Soto or Victoria as inferring their intended consequence nor that I fear any other judicious uninteressed or unbyassed person will apprehend any such in them whereas on the contrary I doubt not my solutions or answers to them will no less clearly in the point also satisfie the Reader then my former to Bellarmine's Scriptures Laws and Canons have Therefore to pass by at this time what I could answer in general to all those arguments both of Soto and Victoria and to all other such of others if any other such be which is that learned men would in such a matter of so great weight and consequence and of such infinit prejudice to Princes and the State Politick universally expect a demonstration if not a pure Philasophical one of both Premisses and conclusion at least a Theological one and not such pittifull aequivocate Sillogismes or rather ill assuming and ill concluding Parologismes to which there are as many clear and convincing answers as there are propositions or even almost words And that it very ill becomes so great Clerks to lay so weak a foundation for so vast a fabrick as they would build thereon a power in the Pope to exempt all Clerks nay to exempt so many millions of men and women subjects and free them all from that subjection which they all owe to Kings by the laws of God and nature I say that to pass by now this general animadversion and To answer first in particular to Soto and to all the particulars of his argument I distinguish the Ecclesiastical power which he sayes to be per se that is of it self or of its own proper nature self sufficient and independent from the civil For if thereby Soto understand that the spiritual authority given to the Apostles and Church viz. that of preaching the word administring the sacraments interpreting of scriptures absolving from sins excluding contumacious sinners out of the Church receiving them again when they are penitent and of doing or discharging all such other functions which are purely spiritual and are sufficient for eternal salvation of mortals I confess that Ecclesiastical power so taken is per se of it self or of such its own nature sufficient to attain its own true proper ends that is to lead people to salvation or which is it I mean can without any help from the civil power lead unto this great end And consequently may enact such proportionable laws and sanctions as are necessary in circumstances to attain this self same happy end But withall I say that as it is one thing to say as it must in truth be said That Ecclesiastical power so taken and so sufficient for such end is in such respect independent from the civil power because the civil power can neither give it nor take it away and a quite other thing to say that the persons who have this Ecclesiastical power are not or may not or ought not to be in other respects dependent from the civil power and civil Magistrats so it is perspicuous That a law for the exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power and this law of exemption made also by the very Clerks themselves of themselves and by vertue onely of a pretended power in themselves and without any consent nay with manifest reluctance of the said civil supream power and Magistrat I say t is perspicuous that such a law of such exemption so made nay indeed or any way made either without or with the consent of the said supream civil Magistrat or even by either spiritual or temporal power or even by both powers together cannot be numbred amongst such other laws or sanctions as are necessary to lead unto or attain salvation For who ever yet doubted that Christians whatsoever Clergie and Layety can or could be saved notwithstanding that all Clergiemen were subject still to the civil jurisdiction of even the subordinate lay Judges and were in all politick or temporal matters or causes whatsoever both civil criminal or mixt of both convened in civil courts tryed by the common laws and received sentence from the lay Judges as formerly it hath sometimes been a long time been under not onely Heathen but very Christian Emperours Or whatever others answer how can Soto in particular say otherwise then that such a law or such exemption cannot be necessary For upon one side he teacheth as we have seen before that the exemption of Clerks is not de jure divino and on the other no man in the world and consequently nor Soto himself will deny nor can deny That all kind of things provisions laws c whatsoever accounted necessary for salvation must be confess'd to be de jure divino But forasmuch as Soto adds That the power Ecclesiastical may not only enact such laws as are necessary for its administration but such laws also as are congruent I would fain know of him what he means by congruent If laws so agreeable meet fitting or expedient for the due exercise or execution of the same true genuin pure Ecclesiastical Power that without such laws no such due exercise or execution may be of such power then indeed or understood in this sense he
amongst all those 72. Canons pretended for any such opinion of those Fathers How graunting even this very Canon particularly assented too and enacted by those Fathers unanimously which yet cannot according to truth be graunted no more can follow hence but that this Canon and for as much as it contains any temporal punishment or penalty of confiscation deprivation forfeiture c of estate was made by the Pope not as Pope but as a temporal Prince and made so by him for the temporal patrimony of St. Peter and other territories of the Roman See and for other Kingdoms or States made such not by the Bishops or their authority but by the authority of other temporal Princes of Christendom who all assisted in that Council by themselves in person or by Embassadours How therefore and for many other reasons which may be seen at large in Widdringtons last Rejoynder chap. 9.10.11 c. that Canon comprehends not in word or sense at all any Supream or Soveraign Princes or States but inferiour Lords or inferiour Magistrates onely according to the Doctrine and maximes even of very many of the very best Canonists themselves How onely too it is at most but a Canon of Discipline not even for that part of it which was proper to Bishops or to the Spiritual power purely such and consequently as to its vertue depending even herein of reception by those concerned and of not being abrogated after by contrary use where it was once received in what ever sense it was received or if ever indeed in any place received How finally Cardinal Bellarmine himself moved questionless by the strength and cleerness of all or at least of many of these reasons given hitherto concerning either the nullity or insignificancy of this Canon or of the rest alleadged so vainly as Canons of the 4th Lateran Council in his great Works of controversie and Books therein de Romano Pontifice where he amassed together all his strength and all the Councils he then saw might be with any colour alleadged by him to prove the Popes pretence of power for deposing Princes or inflicting on them temporal punishments omitted notwithstanding any kind of mention of this Lateran Council or Canon so little did he value it then Nor had after at any time recourse thereunto before he saw himself baffled and beaten out of all his former arguments either of Scriptures Canons or other his pittiful congrueties of reason by Doctor William Barclay or Barclay the Father in his learned Work de Potestate Papae An et quatenus in Reges et Principes Seculares ius et imperium habeat And how then for saving his own credit all he could in his reply to the said William Barclay though dead long before this reply he thought fitt to impose on the world by this unsignificant if not plainly forged Canon of that Lateran Council as Lessius another of his own Society and some time a famous Professor of Divinity in their House at Lovain had done before him to render the English Oath of Allegiance that I mean which is in the Statute of King Iames odious and uncatholick upon this account But withal how this most eminent Cardinal was no less shamefully the second time foiled in all his allegations and arguments or in those of the said Reply and amongst the rest very notably in his allegation of this Council and Canon and foiled so I say by Iohn Barclay or Barclay the Sonn in his Pietas Ioannis Barclay or his Publicae pro Regibus ac Principibus et private pro Guilielmo Barclay Parente Vindiciae Adversus Roberti S. R. E. Cardinalis Bellarmini Tractatum de Potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus Temporalibus and particularly for what concerns this Council and this third Canon of it in his Examen in Prolegomena Rob. Bellar num 76. How for what concerns that other Council of Lyons there is not one word in History or in the Acts of that Council nay nor in the very Sentence or Bull of Innocentius the Fourth who there deposed Frederick that may warrant this part of their allegation or of their saying it is or was the opinion of that Council of Lyons How on the contrary the very title or beginning of the Bull it self of Deposition sufficiently insinuats the contrary where it is said only Sacro praesente not Sacro approbante Concilio That the Acts and History which may be read briefly in M. L. Baïl that Parisian Doctors late Sum of General Councils witness the suddain horrour and amazement of that Council when they heard so unexpectedly a sentence of Deposition pronounced first by the Pope himself that is by his own mouth and after immediatly a formal one read out of paper by his command That Albertus Stadensis (a) Papa in jam dicto Coâ—cilio scilicet in die S Jacobi contra Imperatorem excommunicationis sententiam renovavit eum ab Imperiali Culmine authoritate propria deposuit hanc depositionem per totam Ecclesiam promulgavit praecipiens sub interminatione excommunicationis ut nullus eum Imperatorem de cetero nominaret Albertus Stadensis in Chronico in his Chronicle ad annum 1245. most particularly and expresly tells this Sentence was pronounced not by the authority of the Council but by the only proper authority of Innocent alone That in case that Council of Lyons had approved of it as the truth is they did not yet nothing thence could be concluded for that Councils opinion of a power in the Pope or themselves or in the Church however taken purely as the Church to depose any other or any supream temporal Prince Because that Frederick as Innocent that very same fourth Pope of that name who deposed him so alledgeth in his Bull of Deposition That the said Frederick I say had bound himself by an Oath of Allegiance to him Innocent the 3d. formerly to wit when he had illegally usurped the Empire in pursuance of another sentence of Deposition given by the self same Innocent the Third against Otho the former Emperour And because the Empire is not Hereditary nor hath been for many ages And consequently may be such or might have been such in the dayes of the said Innocent the Fourth as might have admitted the Popes negative voice in the election and further too his provision in case of a Tyrant or Usurper But whether it was then so or no I am not concerned at all nor is our present Controversie concerned in it For in other Princes especially Soveraign and Hereditary the case is different As hath been well observed by the Author of the Latin Treatise which begins Rex Pacificus de Potestate Papae And for the Emperour how elective soever I am sure he hath Lawyers both Civilians and Canonists nay and great Divines too enough to defend his rights from any kind of subjection to the Pope in temporals as even Frederick himself had For sayes the foresaid Albertius Stadensis Quidam Principum cum
of the communication of the Church and even of that of his own subiects in spiritual things or which is the same thing might have declared him to be thenceforth or until he did hear the Church no better then a Heathen or a Publican and that all the rest of the faithfull should hold him for such until he submitted But it is plain enough that neither Publican or Heathen as such or for being such were by any law deposed from their principalities or deprived of any other temporal rights especially when our Saviour gave that rule being the Roman Emperours their under Governours and Garrisons in Ierusalem and Iury and the Collectors of their publick taxes there were heathens and publicans and held as such by the Jews and by the Apostles and consequently excommunicated evangelically or excluded from their religious rites and yet were not held by either Jews or Christians at least not by the Christians to have forfeited any temporal dominion over them or other right amongst them And it is plain enough for any thing may be known out of this chapter Novit ille de Major obed that Innocent prescribes no more therein for his said Legats or himself but to proceed to an Evangelical censure against that King of France in which censure that as we have now seen of deposition from or deprivation of his Crown or of that see of Poitiers is not involv'd Wherefore then do the said Irish Divines relye on this canon to their said purpose And yet withall I confess that because I know Innocent was elsewhere of their opinion or seem'd at least so cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi and that moreover he certainly practised according to such opinion and practised also as highly almost according to it as any Pope and more frequently then any sate in St. Peters chayre and that he scarce left one King of his time in all Europe but he vexed and shaked by his sentences either of formal deposition or of that which in his doctrine was virtual for the matter although not such according to sound doctrine by excommunication I mean which was praeliminary to the other and which he as many other Popes would have to have other effects then the Gospel annexed to it and that Henricus Spondanus that Catholick Bishop Continuator of the Annals of Baronius is in the long life of the said Innocent a witness beyond exception in this matter of the too too many menaces and actual thunders too of this good Pope against all and singular the said very supream Princes of Europe though in effect he held none supream not even in temporals at least in some cases but himself alone and because it is manifest that however this matter be of his opinion or practise of a power in himself direct or indirect or casual as he phrases it cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi for deposing Princes what he held concerning the exemption of all Ecclesiastick persons at least all Priests appears without contradiction or controule in that epistle of his to the Constantinopolitan Emperour in the foresaid cap. Sollicitae benignitatis de Major obed and because that exemption might be without the other pretension and finally because our present maine purpose requires onely to instance the change in the doctrine or practise of Exemption therefore it is I have thought fit to instance here and annex Innocent immediately after Pope Nicholas though in the mean time I omit Gregory the VII and some others with him whose Histories are so famous especially because this Innocent gives the very same corrupt interpretation of St. Peter's epistle which Nicholas gave before him And yet also I confess there may be very much observed on and very much said against that fine artifice that misterious hook of Innocent which you may discover plainly under that subtle distinction of his in the above cap. Novit ille de Major Obed. Non enim intendimus judicare de feudo c sed decernere de delicto cujus ad nos â—pertinet sine dubitatione censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus A misterious hook indeed whereby if once swallowed all the meerest temporal causes in all Christian Kingdoms and States in the world nay and I mean too in all kind of trades handecrafts or other callings whatsoever must of necessity be decided in the external consistories of the Pope and of his Legats whensoever it shall please his Holiness to erect such Courts either at home in his own country or abroad in all other Countries for his Legats For it is clear enough there are sins whereof for example the Marchant and the Taylor the Lawyer and the Clerk the Councellour and the Client the Statesman and the Souldier the Baker Brewer Shoomaker c may be accused or sins of them or of each of them and at least pretended injustices of the particular laws rules customes of every kind of secular Corporation which may be denounced evangelically to the Pope or to his Legats And therefore it is also clear that by this subtle interpretation made by Innocent of Evangelical correction or of the power of the Church and of the Pope by vertue of it he may were it true hook into his own proper Ecclesiastical consistories all the temporal causes in the world and consequently render all the lay judicatories in the world unsignificant evacuat them all every one among Christians especially if his other text in cap. Per Venerubilem Qui filij sint legittimi were admitted as a rule where he sayes Verum â—â—man in alâ—s Regionibus non solum in Ecclesiae Patriâ—â—nio super quo plenam temporalium gerimus potestatem certis causis inspectio temporalem jâ—â—isdictionem casualiter exercemus and further also consequently might without much difficulty make himself de jure and de facto the sole supream Prince indeed both spiritual and temporal among Christians But forasmuch as it is not my business here to examine this matter any further then to shew the change or difference of opinions and practises betwixt some of the later Popes and the former as to that of acknowledging and yielding obedience or not to the supream lay Princes I proceed and anâ—â—â— to Nicholas and Innocent the â—â—ird Boniface the VIII And I am sure if I had annexed also Innocent the Fourth in particular many others with him whom I do not mention at all I should not do it impertinently But to avoyd too much prolixity I content my self at this present with Boniface the Eight With him above others I end this comparison that it may be rendred the more conspicuous Paul the Apostle said Rom. 13.7 Cui tributum tributum cui vectigal vectigal The succeeding Fathers taught by word and confirmed by deed what Christ himself had taught also by word Matth. 22.21 viz. that what was Cesar's should be paid to Cesar and what he moreover confirmed by deed that is by actual payment
supream temporal Prince in any of the Citties or territories which he either actually possesses or challengeth to himself as such an absolute or supream independent temporal Prince To enquire into any such intrigue is not material nor any part of my purpose And all I say of it because I mention'd it accidentally is that if the Pope be not so I could heartily wish he were so provided all Popes made that good use of it and onely that good use which some blessed Popes have For I am farre enough for envying the Apostolical See or even present Roman or Papal Court any even worldly greatness which may be to the glory of God and general good of Christian people was verily such even worldly greatness not onely of the Popes of Rome but of other Bishops and of other Priests too may be without any peradventure if regulated and applyed well And I am also farre enough from perswading my self that no Christian Priest can be found who may for natural parts and gifts of God be among Christians and if it please the Christians themselves such an other as Hermes Trismegistâ—s was among Heathens a great Priest great Prophet and great King withall Nay I confess that many Clergiemen have many excellencies and advantages for government above most Laymen Yet I say withall that if in elective Kingdoms or States they were by the people put at the Helme of supream temporal government or if in hereditary Kingdoms any of them came by succession to it their being Priests Bishops or even Popes would not could not enlarge their temporal power in any kind of respect nor give them any more temporal exemption as from any pure law of God or Christian Religion then they had before they were Priests c. It is not therefore against any power Ecclesiastical or even Papal as such I dispute here but onely against the unwarrantable extension of such and as onely such by those two most eminent writers Cardinal Baronius and Cardinal Bellarmine Yet I will say this much for Cardinal Bellarmine albeit shewing 〈◊〉 this also his contradiction of himself that in his great work of controversies de Concil Eccles l. 1. 〈◊〉 13. I know lot how but by the too great power of truth he confesses in very express worth that even the very Popes themselves have been subject and even too subjected themselves in temporal affairs to the Emperours and consequently that their Pontifical or Papal office or dignity did not exempt them from subjection to the lay supream power For considering there how the foâ—â— first general Councils of the vniversal Church had been convoked by the Emperours and fearing least such convocation might prejudice that authority which he ascribes to the great Pontiff and consequently bringing four causes or reasons why the Popes then were necessitated to make use of the power Imperial as he sayes for the convocation of those four first general Councils he delivers thâ—â— his fourth Reason Quarta ratio est sayes he quia to tempore Poâ—â—tyex eâ—si in spirituâ—libus essex caput omnium etiam Imperatorum tamen in temporalibus subâ—â—citbus se Imperatoribus ideo non peterat invito Imperatore aliquid agere cum tantum â—â—bâ—isset petere ab Imperatore auxilium ad convocandum Synodum vel ut permitteret Synodum convocari tamen quia Dominum suum temporalem cum agnoscebal supplicabat ut jubereâ— Synodum convoâ—â—i At post illa tempora ista omnes causae mutata sunt Nam neo illa lex viget he means that old Imperial constitution which prohibited all Colleges and frequent or numerous Assemblies without the Emperours licence to prevent seditions designs Vide l. 1. ff de Collegiis illicitis l. Conventicula ff de Episcopis Clericis noc Imperatores in â—oto orbe dominantur nec sumptibus publicis fiunt Concilia nec sunt Gentiles qui impedire possint Pontifex qui est caput in spiritualibus cum etiam ipse in suis Provinoiis sit Princeps supremus temporalis sicut sunt Reges Principes alij id quod divina providentia factum est ut Pontifex libere manus suum exequi possit So Bellarmine cleerly and expresly to a word Therefore by this ingenuous confession of Bellarmine himself the Pope hath no freedom no exemption at all in temporal matters from the civil power of the Emperour by virtue I mean of his Pontificat or Papal office But hath all his exemption in such matters by vertue onely of the supream temporal Principality which he acquired after as Bellarmine's sayes and which he possesses yet And consequently Bellarmine confesses also that this temporal Principality being removed or lost as by a just conquest and many other legal wayes it may be the Pope will be no more exempt in temporals from the Emperour or King of Rome but subject to him wholly in such Which is that onely I contend all along in this dispute of the Pope And therefore it must also follow evidently out of this doctrine and confession of Bellarmine himself that all other Priests Bishops and Clerks whatsoever even Cardâ—nals who have no supream earthly power and Principality of their own must be throughly and entirely subject in temporal matters to those supream lay Princes in whose dominions they live and whom they acknowledge to be their own very true Soveraign Lords Which is that moreover which I contend for in all the Sections of this whole and long dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity against the Divines of Lovain And I am extremely deceaved if Bellarmine yeeld it not fairely and freely in this place however he coyned a new faith for himself after in his old age and in his little books against Barclay Widdrington and some others But forasmuch as nothing more confirmes the rightfull power and authority of Kings in all humane things over also their subjects even all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever then the most ancient custome and perpetual practise in the Christian Catholick Church this very Church her self not onely not resisting but consenting also and approving such custome and practise therefore it is that to those particular Instances already given of such practise or matter of fact in the persons of those two most holy Bishops Athanasius and Eusebius and in the persons also of those other two and not onely most holy but even the very Head Bishops of the whole Earth in their own time as being the great Pontiffs then of the Roman See to witt Gregory and Constantine I must now moreover add those other particular Instances in such matter of fact which I promised of Princes Wherein if I be somewhat prolix in bringing not a few examples down along throughout almost all ages of Christianity from the days of Constantine the great and first Christian Emperour the profit will yours good Reader and the labour mine For you may cull out and pause on such as you find the most illustrious the rest you may read over cursority on pass by
the said supream power or understood in or by any priviledge of exemption unless it be so expresly specifically or determinatly said by clear words in such priviledge and lastly I have before demonstrated that no such priviledge or any with such words nor any canon or even any other testimony for such a priviledge or such words hath ever yet been alledg'd by any of all our Adversaries LXXVI The few remaining Objections are now to be considered and solved according to my promise and method prescribed to my self in my LXXI Section I call them remaining not that I left any of Bellarmine's arguments unanswered or unresolved where I treated against them of purpose in eight long Sections viz. from my LXIII to my LXX Section both inclusively taken but that I met elsewhere with these objections I am to examine here now or that they occurred to my self and that I have not yet of purpose cleared or sifted them in particular and that they are indeed the only which I conceive to remain as yet so of purpose particularly unresolved albeit I doubt not they are in general or by the general grounds I have laid and proved already in so many former passages and by the general solutions and reasons I have given against Bellarmines arguments sufficiently resolved However that I may leave no place at all for cavil I descend to these also in particular Whereof there are four in all The first is composed of three several Scripture Texts of St. Paul himself For this great Apostle sayes expresly 1 Cor. 10.6 that he himself had a present power to take revenge of or to punish all disobedience In promptu habentes sayes he ulcisci inobedientiam And 1. Cor. 4.21 he puts the question thus to the Corinthians Quid vultis in vïrga veniam ad vos what will you have me come in or with a rod to you And 1. Timoth 5.19 he commands Timothy that against a Presbyter he shall not receive any accusation that hath less then two or three witnesses to make it good Accusationem adversus presbyterum nolï recipere nisi sub duobus aut tribus testibus And several more such peradventure may be added Out of all which the inference must be if any at all be made against me to purpose how unjustly or ungroundedly soever that herein St. Paul contradicts himself and his own command to all souls Rom. 13. or certainly that I have all along hitherto affixed that sense to this command of Paul omnis anima c. Rom. 13. which Paul never had But the answer is very facile and solution obvious viz. that all these three texts and other such in Paul or other Apostle Evangelist or Prophet if any such other places be of him or of any of them are certainly and onely understood of the Ecclesiastical or Spiritual power of Paul and of other Church Superiours and only of meer Ecclesiastical purely such both judgments and punishments denounced or pronounced by vertue of that spiritual power In which manner and by which power it was that Paul without any doubt could deliver and did deliver some disobedient scandalous and exorbitant sinners to Sathan 1. Corinth 5.5 Now that this answer is unquestionably well grounded nor ought to be at all contradicted I need not repeat again what I have so at large produced before out of the holy Fathers generally acknowledging no other power in the Church but purely spiritual not even in the very Apostles themselves who founded the Church And as little do I need repeat those other texts of Paul Rom. 13. or what I said before upon them which is that they can have no kind of sense at all but meer contradictory nonsense if Paul did not mean by them certainly that the very Church and Church Superiours were not exempt in temporal matters from the secular Princes but subject to them in all such even as to civil coercion by the material sword and consequently if he did not mean that the Church as such had no civil corporal or temporal coercive power properly such but only and meerly spiritual or that of Ecclesiastical Censures only properly and strictly such Yet I will not upon this new occasion forbear to mind thee good Reader once more of that canon of Caelestinus III. cap. cum non ab homine de judiciis Which I have given also at large in my last Section immediatly before this present and which onely is enough to justifie in all points my solution here of this first remaining objection Caelestine there expresly declares that the â—hurch hath no power at all not even over the meerest Clerk but that which is purely spiritual by meer Church censures of suspension deposition excommunication degradation and that after pronounceing such censures she hath no more to do but to implore the secular civil power Cum Ecclesia non habeat ultra quid faciat sayes the said Caelestine Which being so who sees not the vanity of this first remaining objection Or who sees not that such a spiritual power in Paul Timothy and other Church Superiours can very well stand with their own subjection and with the subjection also of all their flock whether disobedient or obedient to the civil power of the civil Magistrat in all things and in such manner as is proper to the same civil Magistrat or finally who sees not but that one may have a power to punish with one certain kind of punishment and not with an other The second remaining objection is of S. Ambrose or of his having proceeded judicially and authoritatively to condemn or free a certain Virgin votress accused of whoredom and of his having renewed the judgment of this fact upon an appeal to him and even renewed it against a former judgment pronounced by Syagrius Bishop of Verona Ambrosius l. 1. ep 64. But the answer is as easy and obvious to this also and is that Ambrose sate in judgment on this crime not as intending or pretending to punish it with any civil corporal punishment nor as pretending any Church power properly such to pronounce any sentence obliging to such punishments but as intending onely a meer Ecclesiastical Episcopal and spiritual cognizance and in order onely to a meer spiritual punishment correction and amendment of the accused if she had been found guilty of the crime that is in order onely to a spiritual ejection and spiritual excommunication of her out of the Church until she had by fruitfull and exemplar repentance merited to be readmitted again into the Church Which appears hence also that Ambrose when he had heard all throughly absolved this Virgin as unjustly accused and excommunicated her accusers The third remaining objection is that this doctrine of a supream coercive power in supream temporal Princes to punish criminal Bishops Priests and other Clergiemen is and was the doctrine of Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno both of them condemned as hereticks and this doctrine of theirs condemn'd likewise as an
and criminal causes all alike all from from the Pope himself to the most inferiour Clerk in the Church without any other distinction in such temporal subjection and consequents of it but what the supream Prince himself and his own proper civil laws do make being that by the law of God declared by the Apostle ad Rom. 13. for as much as concerns or depends only of it the precept is in general as well to the Pope as to the meanest Acolyt Omnis anima potentatibus sublimioribus subdita sit Even as the disparity or inequality of temporal authority and civil jurisdiction between the temporal estates of a Kingdom and the civil diversity of degrees of superiority amongst them by whomsoever instituted hinder not their parity and equality and unity also of subjection in meer spiritual things to the spiritual Prince or Bishop and to his supream spiritual corrective power as purely such and wherein it is purely such Whereby you may clearly see I am not any way concern'd in John the XXII's condemnation of this fourth Article though I also condemn'd it in his sense and in the very words too he gives it us yea notwithstanding I do not approve at all either his allegations or supposititions or the strength of his arguments where he disputes against it And for the last article of all the five which only remains yet unconsidered and is this Quod tota Ecclesia simul juncta nullum hominem punire possit punitione coactiva nisi concedat hoc Imperator as it is related in the beginning of the said Bull or this other form of it as in the repetition about the end of the same Bull where 't is censured Quod Papa vel tota Ecclesia simul sumpta nullum hominem quantumcunque sceleratum potest punire punitione coactiva nisi Imperator daret eis authoritatem I say the very same I did of all the rest Although I confess this Article at first appearance seems to come nearest home of all the five to that part of my doctrine or suppositions explications answers in so many passages hitherto and hereafter in some other parts of this Book where I say the Church as a Church hath neither sword nor territory nor any civil or corporal force coercion or penalty to be inflicted by her self immediatly or even by her mediatly that is executed indeed immediatly by any other but by vertue only of her authority derived to him or injunction laid upon him For this Article seems to say the very same thing in asmuch as it sayes that neither Pope nor universal Church joyn'd together in one can punish any person how wicked soever with a coactive punishment unless the Emperour give them authority to do so Notwithstanding both which it will be facil enough to shew out of this very Bull and out of a great part of Iohn the XXII's own proper discourse therein against this fifth Article in specie that he would understand a quite other thing by coactive punishment here then I do any where consequently it will be also facil enough to shew that this Article of Marsilius and Iandunus taken so or in any bad or heretical sense and my said doctrine which denyes coactive punition or civil and corporal punishments to the Church as a Church or to be inflicted by her and by virtue of her own proper native authority are in the reality of things as wide from one another as from East to West albeit according to the equivocation or rather clear mistake of these two words punitione coactiva or of this one single word coactive or of its proper strict signification they may seem the same thing but to him only that is willing to be deceived or to such a one as Iohn the XXII himself either censuring this fift Article or disputing against it or at least in some part of his disputes against it in this Bull seems to be For immediatly after this learned Pope had given the said fift Article and even in this form Adbuc isti blasphemi dicunt quod tota Ecclesia simul juncta nullum hominem puniâ—e possit punitione coactiva nisi concedat hoc Imperator he proceeds immediatly to disprove it thus Quod utique doctrinae Evangelicae noscitur obviare Constat enim quod à Christo Petro in persona Petri Ecclesiae potestas coactiva concessa vel saltim promissa extitit quae quidem promissio fuit postea adimpleta cum Simoni Christus dixit quodcumque ligaueris super terram c. Ligantur enim non solum voluntarii sed inuiti Adhuc constat sicut ibi legitur in Mattheo quod si aliquis damnum alii indebite dederit illeque ad mandatum Ecclesiae noluerit emendare quod Ecclesia per potestatem à Christo sibi concessam ipsum ad hoc per excommunicationis sententiam compellere potest quae quidem potestas est utique coactiva Circa quod est advertendum quod cum excommunicatio major nedum excommunicatum à perceptione sacramentâ—rum removeat sed etiam à communione fidelium ipsum excommunicatum excludit quod corporalis etiam à Christo coactio Ecclesiae est permissa cum etiam secundum Imperiales leges gravius reputetur inter homines conversari ipsorumque privari suffragio quam ab hominibus separari Ex quo sequitur potestatem câ—activam non ab Imperatore terreno sed ab ipso Christo fuisse originaliter Ecclesiam consequutam Where it is clear enough out of all his arguments here that by coaction punition and coactive power to punish so or to use such coaction and which he attibutes to the Church as a Church and as given her originally by Christ he understands no other kind of coaction coactive punishment or coactive power but that which is only and purely spiritual because none other but that which is of excommunication or to punish by excommunication and by that kind of excommunication too which is certainly properly and purely Evangelical or grounded in the Gospel And consequently it is clear enough that albeit this kind of coaction be called by him here a corporal coaction also yet as I must say that he somewhat improperly calls it so or corporal coaction or even indeed coaction at all being there is no corporal force used or which may be used by the judge that pronounceth it to put it in execution I mean which may be used by vertue of the same spiritual church-Church-power out of which or by vertue of which it was pronounced so I must say that whether he call it so improperly or no or whether or no he may not properly call it both coaction and corporal coaction too for asmuch as it brings some kind of necessity on the excommunicated to submit and that this necessity relates also in some degree to the very corps or body of the excommunicated by reason that all others do shun even his corporal communion company or conversation excepting only such as are by
determining at all whether the King or his inferior Courts or Judges may or may not justly and by their own proper supream or subordinat civil authority and expresly against the Popes decrees proceed against such criminals according to the present municipal lawes of the land nor determining whether such Ecclesiastick criminals may in conscience where they may or can choose subject themselves in such cases as wherein by the Canons of the Roman Church they are exempt from the power and punishment of the secular Magistrat and his lawes unless or until they be delivered over to him by the Church albeit the subscribers of that Remonstrance of 61. were then are now and will so continue principled in conscience and doctrine that by the lawes of God no Canons of the Church may exempt any Church-men of what rank or degree soever no more then they can meer Lay-men from either the directive or coercive supream temporal power of such Kings as have not any other superior in their temporals but God alone nor against their wills or lawes from their courts or subordinat Judges though it be most conformable to the law of God and nature that Princes should for the reverence of the sacred function exempt them generally from the power of inferior or subordinat judicatures and leave them to be punished by their own Ecclesiastical superiors if not in such cases or contingencies as they shall find their said Ecclesiastical superiors to be unwilling or unfitting or to be involved themselves in the same crimes or the chief Patrons of them But however this be in truth and whatever the subscribers of 61. think or think not of this matter and whether the foresaid two lines which finally conclude their said sequel petition and resignation imply formally or virtually or any way at all such renunciation of Ecclesiastical immunity or implye it not in any kind of manner yet for as much as upon many occasions great use has been made as I have said before of the above objections though as often cleerly and throughly solved as made against the Remonstrance of 61. and that in this other of 66. the contrivers and promoters of it have intirely omitted that passage both as to the words and sense and I mean that sense which they themselves conceive or certainly would have others conceive of purpose to render that passage and by and for it the whole foresaid Remonstrance of 61. odious and scandalous and for as much also as from persons so principled in that point of Clergie mens exemption there can be no assurance to the King by general words and notions or by such too too general acknowledgements protestations declarations and promises of any real true and significant subjection intended or promised by them but such only as leaves them alwayes at liberty that is free from the supream temporal Coercive power of the King and his laws and leaves them not so much as under an inward obligation of sin to conform outwardly or submit as much as to the direction or directive part virtue or power of any kind of Temporal or civil Magistrat or laws but only under such an unsignificant obligation as these words ex aequo et bono import and for as much further as until they declare sufficiently that is cleerly expresly and particularly against this dangerous false and scandalous doctrine it must in reason be to no purpose for them to offer or for His Majestie to receive any kind of Protestation of Allegiance from them therefore I found this alteration and omission of the said two lines nothing equivalent as to that sense how injuriously or invidiously soever conceived by them being in their own Remonstrance given in lieu thereof I say I found that change a most material exception and if not a greater at least as great as any of all the former Leaving to the judicious Reader to be considered soberly and coolely what according to such doctrine of the exemption or immunity of Clergy-men signifies any word acknowledgment protestation declaration or promise as from such Clergy-men in their Remonstrance even in case there had been no other Exception to it What those words which are their very first beginning of it We your Majesties Subjects the Roman Catholtck Clergy of Ireland c Or whether from such men so principled in this matter these words must be construed or understood to import any more then that they profess themselves verbally not really equivocally not univocally Subjects Or do not they withal and at the same time perswade themselves and stiffely maintain that however in word they complement yet in deed they are not Subjects either in soul or body not even in any kind of case to any civil or temporal power or law on earth as barely such Or doth the Kings Majesty pretend his own to be other then barely and only such that is temporal and civil And so I conclude all my four Instances Which especially the second and fourth or this last I confess might be comprized in a fewer Lines But I chose this method of purpose to make the weaker sort of capacities to understand at large the causes of dissatisfaction my Lord Lieutenant and Council have in this Remonstrance of the foresaid late Assembly how specious soever it may appear at first reading to such as are not throughly acquainted with the intrigues And now to those Instances and Exceptions will only add in brief two Observations more Which especially the first of them confirm evidently enough to any indifferent man that is not a fool how little how weak and frail and false the assurance is the King can derive from such a Remonstrance of such men and in such a country and time as this First Observation That upon the sole account of their express refusal on the contradictory publick debate in the Assembly to petition his Majesty as you have seen at large in the Narrative whlch goes before the Exceptions for pardon of those crimes or offences chargable on them as committed by them or any of them or any else of the Irish Clergie by reason or occasion of the first Insurrection 23. Octob. in 41. or of the after conjunction of the rest of the Irish Catholicks the same or following year in a social war with the first Insurrectors or by reason or occasion in particular of the Clergies general Congregation at Waterford under the Nuncios Authority and their Declaration therein and those other actings afterwards in pursuance thereof in the next general Assembly of the three Estates in Kilkenny against the peace of 46. or of the total breach and publick rejection of it in all parts of the Kingdom or by reason or occasion also of the Declarations of the Bishops at Jamesstown against the second Peace or that which followed in 48. and of the consequent breaches thereof by so many other persons and parties and in so many other Provinces and Counties of the Kingdom I say that upon the sole account of
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
once made nor consequently lawful ever after to convert it to prophane uses that is to any other uses but those intended by vow for the more especial service of God Whence further it must no less plainly appear that were that very same law of Leviticus binding Christians now under the new Testament no more can be concluded to Bellarmines purpose and as to our dispute concerning the exemption of Clergymen from the civil power but that which should as well restrain the Pope as the Prince Because no more but that neither temporal nor spiritual Magistrate could secularize Churchmen or Church-lands or Church-beasts once they had been consecrated Church men or Church-lands or Church-beasts Which yet neither Bellarmine himself nor even any of his Defenders will allow as indeed both reason and so many thousands and even daily un-reproved instances tell us it cannot be allowed So that our learned Cardinal alledgeth in this point a law which is no more a law at all to us that are Christians and yet a law which were it a law for us hath not one word to his purpose For who sees not the consistency of these two 1. A right or a power from God in the supream civil Magistrate to force consecrated persons to behave themselves as becomes such consecrated persons 2. No right or power from God in such Magistrate to prophane those consecrated persons or to apply them to any other calling or profession which is or must be inconsistent with the ends of their consecration And who sees not consequently the vain flourish of this Querie wherewith this eminent person concludes his fourth argument Quis autem dicere audeat jus esse profano homini en ea quae sancta sanctorum id est sanctissima dici meruerunt who dares be so bold as to say that a profane man hath right to those things which have deserved the name of holy of holies that is most holy And then adds as a final conclusion of all Qua ratione bona etiam temporalia Clericorum bona Dominica proprie dicuntur in can 4. Apostolico ideo tanquam Deo sacra jucisdictioni laicorum subjecta esse non possunt Upon which account sayes he temporal goods of Clergymen are in the fourth Apostolical Canon properly said to be Dominica or the Lords goods and therefore as being consecrated to God cannot be subject to the jurisdiction of Laymen But he needed not make this so vain flourish of a querie or corrollary following which himself could not but know to have been ten thousand times over and over answered by Catholick Divines and Catholick Bishops and even by some very learned and very holy Popes too who in all ages both acknowledged and asserted a right in Emperours Kings and other supream temporal or civil lay Magistrates to govern command and even force by the sword if necessary all in their Territories even the most eminently consecrated to do their several duties to God and to the Commonwealth and to all their neighbours respectively As likewise they acknowledged and asserted in the same supream civil Magistrate a right to provide by good wholsome laws and otherwise that the temporal goods of Churchmen should be rightly used by them and not abused at all against those holy ends for which only either Princes or People or both had questionless devoted such goods to God Therefore to answer his question directly and briefly I will my self be one of those who dare say that such profane men as these supream civil Magistrates are since Bellarmine must needs have all kind of Laicks how Christian soever esteemed profane men have such a right as I have here declared over such holy of holies or most holy persons and things And that his allegation not out of the fourth Apostolical Canon as he quotes it but out of the 40. were those Canons authentick or indubitable Canons of the Apostles as this learned man himself knew very well they are not makes very much less for his exemption of the Goods of Ecclesiasticks c. from such a right in such profane persons For as this Canon attributes not the title of res Dominicae to all the goods whatsoever possessed by Clerks being it doth not to the Bishops own proper goods but to those only which being in common to all the Church or as well to other Priests and Ministers as to the Bishop whereof the text it self which I give here is proof sint autem manifestae res propriae Episcopi si tamen habet proprias et manifestae Dominicae ut potestatem habeat de propriis moriens Episcopus ficut voluerit de relinquere c. so it is clear enough out of what is said hitherto that no more can be concluded out of this denomination precisely against such a supream right as I have now declared in the supream civil Magistrate then may be out of any other epithet or word signifying only a pious or godly use of such goods And therefore no such matter as Bellarmine concludes which is to be in all senses and to all purposes exempt from even the very supream jurisdiction of all kind of lay Princes Doth natural reason teach us any inconsistency 'twixt some right or some power in the lay Prince or Parliament in some cases to tax the lauds or goods of the Church and the being nevertheless of those very lands or goods still designed for pious and holy uses or that even such taxation made by such a lay supream power and the execution and use of it may it not be of absolute necessity to preserve both the State and Church and the very continuance of these goods or lands hereafter in the immediate possession and property and use of the very Church and Church-men And is it not clear that as the meer lay Subjects property in their own hands must not cease at all by their being subject to necessary contributions or taxes when the supream legislative power layes such taxes on them for the maintainance of the publick even so those goods or lands whichh are for some special ordinary use called Dominicae must not therefore cease to be Dominicae or in the property of the Church because they may according to natural reason be in certain cases lyable to the like taxes imposed by the same supream lay power and by virtue of a true right in this very supream lay power to impose by its own authority alone such taxes on Church-lands albeit the Church-men themselves should unreasonably deny their own consent nay hath not the practice of the Christian world for many ages under great and good and most religious Christian Princes shewed us that the lands of the Church were often taxed so by them and by virtue of their own proper authority alone without being once ever told by the Church that they did amiss therein or at all against the ends or use of Dominicae Did not St. Ambrose himself confess in the difference he had with the young Emperour
criminal causes while or during their being Clerks or before degradation For as for that other passage or those other words which Bellarmine takes hold of to abuse his Reader prius hunc spoliari a Deo amabili Episcopo sacerdotali dignitate ita sub legum manu fieri in English these this Clerk to be spoiled first of his sacerdâ—â—al dignity by the beloved Bishop of God and so to be put under the hand of laws who sees not that please to read that Novel nay that please to read what Bellarmine himself before and elswhere l. de Cler. c. 28. most expresly and particularly taught of the contents of that Novel who sees not I say that these words prius hunc spoliari c. ita sub legum manu fieri do not signifie in that law that Clerks were not before the Bishop degraded them subject in such criminal causes to the lay Presidents of Provinces or to the laws but onely after such degradation It is expresly provided in that very law as Bellarmine himself in the book of his now quoted confesses That the lay judg is in the very first place of all and before any such degradation to take cognizance of such criminal causes of Clerks and that in the next place if this lay judge find him guilty the Bishop is to degrade him before the execution or judgment of execution be given by the judge Is it not plain enough that by this very law or Novel of Iustinian Clerks were in such causes subject to such lay Judges and laws before any degradation by the Bishop could such lay Judges take cognizance of any cause or person that were not by law subject to them Therefore it is evident that the words prius spoliari c. in that passage quoted by Bellarmine and words ita sub legum manu fieri must as there be onely understood in relation to a publick definitive sentence of punishment and execution of such Which that Novel ordains for the honour of the sacred function of Priests not to be pronounced before the Judge give notice to the Bishop to degrade such a Priest as is by the same lay Judge upon examination and full discussion of the cause found to have deserved some infamous punishment as for example to be condemned to death or to the mines or perpetual banishment That so it may not be said that a Priest but a man despoiled first of the dignity of a Priest and of the very order it self as much as could be and of all kind of priviledges of the Clerical order was legally condemn'd and suffer'd such an ignominious punishment And by consequence the priority signified by that word prius relates to the posteriority of a definitive publick sentence of such infamy and to the execution of it not at all to a posteriority of power in such lay Judge over such a Clerk in such a cause which power we have now seen by that very Novel to have been anteriour to and wholly independent of the Bishops degradation being that the power of judicial cognizance of the crime was such And by the same consequence that being under the power of the civil laws imported by those other words ita sub legum manu fieri signifies onely a certain kind of being under and that too in order onely to such a subordinate Judge in such a cause but not all kinds of being under nor any kind at all in order to the supream civil Judge As for Bellarmines Allegation here of the Council of Constance Ses 31. it s not to the purpose because whatever may be said to have been meaned by the Fathers in those or any other such words or whether they intended only an exemption from the subordinat ciuil or lay Judges or even from the supream yet they say not here or elsewhere that such exemption whâ—tever was given by the civil laws Besides it is evident that the Fathers of Constance made no Canon at all in this point of exemption and that albeit they have these words alledged here by the Cardinal yet they only have them or make use of them in a particular case decreeing the liberty of the Bishop of Aste from an unjust imprisonment wherein he was by force kept by Philip the Count of Virtues a Philippo Comite virtutum who was not the said Bishop's supream temporal Prince or Lord but a subordinate and who without any warrant from the Supream had by usurpation imprisoned the said Bishop So that the Fathers of Constance alledging in the particular sentence they gave for this Bishop and against this Counâ— and in such a particular that laici nullam in Clericos potestatem aut jurisdictionem habent and alledging this only too by way of supposition or as a reason of their said particular sentence in favour of the said Bishop must not be presumed to have supposed more then was necessary for the justification of their said sentence especially where to have supposed so must have been point blanck without any former canon of the Church or law of the Empire or custom of the world and consequently against plain Scripture Rom. 13. as I will shew hereafter But to be exempt from the jurisdiction or coercive power of subordinat civil or subordinat lay Judges Lords or Princes according to the late civil laws of the Empire and to the custom that by little and little was introduced and then in force in the Christian world was enough for that purpose or justification of that sentence notwithstanding a plenary subjection still of even Bishops to the supream lay coercive power The Fathers of Constance therefore being justly exasperated against the said Earl did rationally and pertinently secundum subjectam materiam make use of these words in the sentence they gave against him attendentes quod subditi in eorum Praelatos Laici in Clericos nullam habent jurisdictionem potestatem For it is a rule in both the canon and civil Law that the sense of words how indefinit soever in any instrument writing or speech whatsoever must not be what they import in a strict Gramatical or Logical sense but what they do ex intentione loquentis according to the intention of the speaker or writer and that this intention must be gathered not only out of the beginning middle and conclusion or end of any such instrument writing or speech and out of the collation of altogether Cum utriusque Juris argumenta nos doceant ea quae in medio ad finem atque principium ea quae in fine ad utrumque vel corum alterum recte referri sayes Nicholas III. in his Decretal Exiit de verbor significatione in Sexto but also as natural reason tells us ex subjecta materia out of the very matter whereof or concerning which the law instrument writing or discourse is What last of all is alledged out of Frederick the Second's Constitution being it is no more but a general ordinance or
matters For the Canons of this Council as the Faith of this Council had the approbation and joynt concurrence and the authority of the supream civil power of the Emperour himself there in person to give them force and virtue where-ever the sole authority spiritual of the Fathers was not sufficient or might peradventure be said by any not to have been sufficient And what I have said above was that no canon of the Church or of any Council approved or allowed in so much by the Church can be produced out of which it may appear that the Fathers of the Church the Bishops did ever by their own proper Episcopal Authority exempt Clergiemen from the Jurisdiction of as much as the inferiour lay Magistrates or declare them exempted so 4. That Iustinians foresaid 83. Novel which was made by him near 200. years after this Canon of Chalcedon and notwithstanding this Canon of Chalcedon was still in force and Iustinian himself a great reverencer and observer of all was concluded in that great Council shews the word prius in this Canon must be interpreted so as I have above of the first Instance or with relation to a posteriour judgment which might be before the secular Judges in case the parties could not agree For so the said Novel of Iustinianus made in favour of the Clergy expresly decrees that Clergymen should first be convened before their own Bishops and afterwards before the civil Judges And therefore being it is just for us to suppose the word prius in this Canon of Chalcedon was not idlely or superfluously set down by so many learned and worthy men as were those 630. Bishops who composed or enacted it we must also from hence rationally conclude that the civil Jurisdiction of even secular subordinat Judges over the Clergy is not weakned by this Canon but rather confirmed The third Council in order of those alledged by Bellarmine is that of Agatha or as others call it Agde Concilium Agathense held in the year 506. where the Fathers convened there made this Canon of Discipline which is the two and thirtieth of this Council Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Judicem Episcopo non permittente pulsare Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat nec proponat nec audeat criminale negotium in judicio saeulari proponere Si quis vero secularium per calumniam Ecclesiam vel Clerum fatigare tentaverit convictus fuerit ab Ecclesia liminibus catholicorum communione nisi digne paenituerit coerceatur Let no Clerk presume without the Bishops leave to sue any in a secular Judicatory And if he be sued let him not answer nor propose nor dare to propose a criminal matter in a secular Judgement But if any secular shall attempt by calumny to vex the Church or Clergy and shall be convicted hereof let him be driven out of the Church and from the communion of Catholicks unless he repent worthily And this is what this Council ordained and the whole tenour of this Canon Concerning which the Reader is to observe first that Gratian changed the letter and sense of it in his Decretum 11. q. 1. Can. Clericum whether of purpose and willingly or whether ignorantly or perhaps that he had another but false copy of this Council different from that of all others I know not But sure I am that instead of the Councils words which are these I give here Clericus nec quenquam praesumat Gratian abuses his Reader with those other words which quite alter the sense Clericum nullus praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare to the end the prohibition may comprehend Laicks also or that not even Laicks may sue a Clerk before a secular Judge whereas in truth or according as the canon is set down in the Council it self or all copies published in the Tomes of Councils it is only for Clerks without any mention at all of Laicks in that first part of this Canon Nay the last part of this very Canon it self shews the Fathers intended not to forbid Laicks not to sue Clerks before a secular Judge but only not to vex them by lies or calumnies before any Judge Which indeed the Fathers might justly do and justly also punish by Ecclesiastical Censures all such as would otherwise behave themselves towards Church-men either in a Secular or Ecclesiastical Judicatory if convicted to have willingly sued them so or falsely charged them Nor is it this canon only as to our business that Gratian corrupted but also that passage commonly alledged out of Pope Marcellinus's Epistle ad Faelicem in eadem causa quest can 3. where also instead of Clericus nullum Gratian foists in Clericum nullus So that for such Canonists as for what belongs to Councils have onely read the Collections of Gratian and consequently were deceived by his false reading or quotations of them we must not wonder if they have fallen into this errour of the general exemption of Clerks by Councils or Popes which I here impugne Though for all that I cannot my self but somewhat wonder that Bellarmine would in his controversies l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. follow this corrupt Reading of Gratianus and follow it alike both as to that Canon of Agatha and that Epistle of Marcellinus and not rather follow the true and genuin text in the Tomes of Councils and even in the very animadversions or castigations added to Gratian himself And the Reader is to observe secondly this Council of Agatha was but a Provincial Council or at most but a little National of such Catholick Bishops as lived in that part of Gaule or France which was then subject to King Alaricus the Arian Goth. For the number of the subscribers of this Council was only 24. Bishops 9. Priests Deacons who had proxy from such other Bishops as were absent That consequently the Canons of this Council may not be said to be canons of the Church but onely of such particular Churches as were govern'd by those few Bishops in that Kingdom of Alarick unless it may be shewed that these canons were approved of received or as they speak canonized again by the authority of some General Council of the universal Church as we know that divers not onely national but provincial Synods for example the third of Carthage and those of Gangra Laodicea Antioch c have been That it is not yet as much as pretended by any that this Council of Agatha was so received of or authorized by any General Council nor as much as confirmed by the Popes themselves or by any one Pope That if the Popes approbation or confirmation had been desired by the Fathers of it and granted to it which yet appears not to have been no more could be concluded thence but his bare approbation and confirmation of the acts for that Nation or that Kingdom onely for which they were made unless the Pope had moreover by his Patriachal or Papal power
Pontifice suo ad judicia publica pertrahant Proinde statuimus ut hoc de caetero non praesumatur Si quis hoc praesumpserit facere causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus Out of both these Councils that is out of that eight canon of that first Matisconensian Council and this 13. canon of the third Toletan our learned Cardinal endeavours again to impose on his unlearned Readers But not so much in his great work of controversies l. 1. de Cler. c. 28. where he onely or at least commonly cited the bare chapters and not as much as the material words of Councils so farre he was from composing arguments but in that other book he writ long after against D. W. Barclay and in defence of his foresaid Controversies and particularly of what he taught therein or in his often quoted first book de Cleric c. 28. It is therefore in this reply of his which he also entitles as Barclay did his own book against him De potestate Papae in Temporalibus and it is in the 24. chapter of it and after so many other arguments weak enough as I have already shewn them to be framed and replyes made against William Barclay on pretence of those other councils and in behalf of his own allegation of them it is I say in this little and last beloved piece of his old age he argues thus interrogatively or Socratically out of both these last Councils Si Laici Magistratus c. If sayes he Lay Magistrats were legal Judges of Clergiemen by what right law or title could the above Matisconensian Council decree that all causes of clerks should be determined in the presence of the Bishop or Presbiter or Archdeacon And how could this Toletan Council also with so great asperity of words tearm it praesumption and unlawful attempts in Clergiemen to have recourse to secular Iudicatories And how lastly would this same Council dare to rescind or annull the sentence of the secular Judg and besides to excommunicate the Clerk that procured such sentence or sued any other Clerk in a secular Court or Iudicatory For so much do these words import Causam perdat a communione efficiatur extraneus let him loose his cause and be made a stranger to communion But the answer is facile enough and clear 1. That neither of both Councils or canons determins any thing against the secular Judge himself or against his having still a power of Iurisdiction to judg the causes of Clerks when called or come before him but onely prohibits Clerks themselves to have recourse of themselves or freely of themselves to sue one an other in secular Courts as hath been said before to the canon of Carthage And for prohibiting such voluntary recourse of Clerks that these Fathers of Matiscon and Toledo had respectively the same rights or authority which those of Carthage or even those of Chalcedon had even that very same which St. Paul had when he either commanded or advised his Corinthians not to sue one an other before Heathen judges c. And therefore that these Councils do rather confirm then any way infirm the jurisdiction at that time yet of lay Judges 2. That Bellarmine is much out of the way in thinking if ever he thought so indeed that by these words causam perdat the Fathers of Toledo rescind or annul the sentence of the secular judg by their own proper Episcopal or spiritual authority For and for what belong'd and was necessary to such rescission or annullation strictly taken the Fathers in making this canon as likewise in making any other such or that would or should require a politick civil power properly such in the canon-makers derived their authority from King Recaredus himself at whose command this third Council of Toledo was called and therefore sate in it himself and made the first speech to open it and several speeches after and finally confirmed it with his own subscription in these words Flavius Recaredus Rex hanc deliberationem quam cum sancta definivimus Synodo confirmans subscripsi Having also before his said subscription premised this declaration or admonition to all concern'd Praecedente autem diligenti cauta deliberatione sive quae ad fidem conveniunt sue quae ad morum correctionem respiciunt sensus maruritate intelligentiae gravitate constant esse digesta Nostra proinde authoritas hoc omnibus hominibus ad regnum nostrum pertinentibus jubet ut si qua definita sunt in hoc Concilio acto in urbe Toletana anno Regni nostri faeliciter quarto nulli contemnere liceat nullus praeterire praesumat For so it hath been usual that where the civil and Ecclesiastical power agree well together in making laws each or both do make such use of one an others authority that as to the words the Church sometimes doth seem to speak as having civil jurisdiction and the Politick or secular civil power also to make such laws as are of Ecclesiastical Notion Neither indeed doing so or seeming so by vertue of its own proper innate authority but by that borrowed from the other or as being certain of the others approbation and ratihabition Which was the cause that Recaredus the foresaid King of Spain though a meer layman ordained in his confirmation of this Toletan Council in his own name too that if any person Concilii observator esse noluerit superba fronte majorum statutis repugnans si Episcopus Praesbiter Diaconus aut Clericus fuerit ab omni Concilio excommunicationi subjaceat What is the power of excommunication in a lay Kings hands Or did Recaredus the very first Catholick King after those Arian Gothish Kings of Spain a King so truly Catholick and pious as he is confessed to have been did he usurp the rights and proper powers of the Church and even in that very Edict unto which the Fathers of this Toletan Council did themselves subscribe themselves Nothing less What he did in this respect or by such words was by consent of the Fathers nor in so much did he assume peradventure as much the person of a law maker as of a publisher of that law which in this particular of excommunication was onely made by the Fathers Though withal I confess that a secular Prince may by his own proper supream and even still meer civil power make a law commanding or enjoyning the Bishops to excommunicate in certain cases and a law besides ordaining some temporal punishment for such as without any just cause or against the known canons of the Church should excommunicate For to say so we are not onely warranted by natural reason or consideration of the proper office of the supream civil Magistrate which consists in taking care that all degrees either civil or Ecclesiastical under his charge do justly and religiously discharge themselves but also by the canon De illicita 24. q. 3. taken out of a Paris Council where the Fathers speak thus De illicita excommunicatione Lex
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
in plain tearms deny the Major to wit for the last part of it and for the former distinguish the word Cittizens parts members and again the word Subject For he would say that albeit whoever are Cittizens or parts and members and not the civil or politik heads of the civil or politick common-wealth Empire Kingdom Principality as such or as a civil and politick society are subject to and not exempt from the politick head power and laws which is the first part of the Major yet he would deny that which follows as the second part of the same proposition to wit this nor consequently from the supream coercive power of it And he would in the former part distinguish and say that indeed whoever are Cittizens parts members c. are subject either coercively or directively or both and that lay Cittizens or lay parts or members are both ways subject in all temporal matters but Ecclesiastical members not otherwise but directively and by no means coercively and that such members I mean Ecclesiastical are then onely as much as directively subject when the canons of the Church do not order the same temporal things Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo For what els do you see in the writings of this great Clerk but a perpetual change from one doctrine to an other in this matter and some other such of the Pope and Clergie as of the King also and Layety one doctrine while he was young an other when he was grown old and in his old age it self so many distinctions and evasions or rather confusions and contradictions that we know not where to and him or what to learn from him He would have the Clergie as politick parts or members of the politick common-wealth to be called Subjects to Kings whom he confesses to be the Politick Heads and he would have Kings to be called their Kings too and not onely called Kings in relation to lay subjects and he alleadges and truly too alleadges that Clergiemen as well as laymen pray for them as for their own Kings and we know it must be confessed by him they are so prayed for being the very publick Liturgy in the mass book hath that publick prayer which all Priests and Bishops too mast say and sing publickly at the altar of God wherein they say and pray for the King as their own King Et pro Rege nostro c. nay and he confesses too there in really an obligation whereby they are bound and really a subjection which they owe to Kings and yet after all he renders doth the names unsignificant and things inconsistent For I beseech you how can the King be a King that is a supream politick head and Governour to the Clerks of his Dominions or how can these they be politick Cittizens parts members of his Kingdom or bound to him or be his subjects that is be under him as such if he have no power of and over them or to command them or tye them by laws and precepts or if he have not as much as a directive power to command them or if they be not bound by as much as a directive obligation that is by an obligation arising or proceeding from the directive virtue of the command given or layed upon them To be a King of or over any or to be such a Head or such a Governour of any implyes essentially a power to command him or them over whom he is such and a passive tye of obedience in or obligation on him or them who are subjects or truly or in any proper sense named subjects And yet Bellarmine sayes in effect and gives it for his final Resolution though in contradiction to himself elsewhere nay and every where that in order to Clerks there is no such power in the King in any case not even in the very meerest temporal whatsoever nor any such obligation or tye on Clerks For he sayes as you have seen a little before that Clerks are not bound to obey their Kings meer civil laws in meer temporal matters whensoever the canons of the Church order the same matters and sayes too they are not bound as much as by the directive virtue of such laws and therefore sayes they are not bound at all being there is no tye can be but either coercive or directive and consequently must say though again in contradiction to himself the King is not King at all of Clerks nor Clerks subjects at all to the King For as the case hath already been in many even meer civil or temporal things that the canons or commands of the Pope for both are the same and the same too with these of the Church as to Bellarmines purpose have been even contrary to the civil laws of Kings and to their civil commands so the case may soon be and very well be that is whenever the Pope shall please that the canons be contrary in all such things How then can the essence or essential nature of Kingship or of Prefection and Subjection 'twixt the King and the Clerks of his dominions be And for the case that is at present wherein some temporal dispositions or a disposition in some temporal matters is left to the civil laws of Kings or left I mean as yet untouch'd by Papal constitutions who sees not plainly but that according to the above other final doctrine and subtle distinction of Bellarmine I mean his viâ—rationis and vi legis there is not even in such things or in order to the civil laws or civil commands of the King any obligation at all on Clerks to the King or to his even such commands or laws nor consequently any power of Kingship in him even in such things or by such laws over Clerks and as even now at present the case is For he tels you plainly that Clerks are not vi legis sed vi rationis bound not even as much as directively bound by virtue of such law but onely by virtue of reason And yet here also he contradicts again both himself and reason too Being that if they be bound by the virtue of reason to observe such a civil law of the Kings that is by that of natural reason or of a practical dictate of such reason for I can understand nothing els by his vis rationis which tells them they are bound in the case to observe such a law then must it be that they are bound also vi legis or by the at least directive virtue of the law it self For it is plain that no otherwise do we conclude or gather or perswade our selves that Laymen are bound either by the directive or coercive part of such law or that indeed any humane law at all even Ecclesiastical or perhaps too any law that most immediately divine obligeth us obligeth any Laicks or Clerks vi legis but onely hence that natural reason or a practical dictat of our understanding even that light of Gods countenance or that which God himself hath imprinted on
arguments for it from the positive express law of God in holy Scripture might be rendred at last so farr unsignificant as not to conclude all men nor all affairs though otherwise temporal under it but on the contrary to exempt from it even the very most considerable part of men and affairs and a vast number too of both and consequently to lessen extreamly if they could not totally extinguish it as for any thing at least to be said for it from Scripture I must crave your pardon Reader if I be as prolix in this argument as in any or perhaps more then in any of the former or even in all three together being I am resolved to give long entire passages out of the doctrine of the most eminent of the holy Fathers and out of Ecclesiastical History too the practice of the Fathers to evict that sense of those Scripture passages which is so obvious of it self to have also been that all along handed to us by our said great fore-fathers and consequently that sense to be certain also by Tradition But first or before I come to the doctrine or which is the same thing to the exposition or sense of the Fathers or that which they delivered to us of those Scripture places in their own proper genuine and uncontroverted books I frame my fourth argument thus Whoever are expresly and clearly commanded by the mouth or pen of Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. to be subject to the higher Powers and are further told by the same Apostle and in the same place that there is no power but of God and the powers that be are ordained of God that therefore whoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist shall acquire damnation to themselves that earthly Princes are the Ministers of God that as the Ministers of God they bear the sword and not in vain and finally that for all these reasons every soul must needs be subject to these higher Powers I say that whoever are commanded so and told so are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently threin declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes But all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are commanded so and told so by Paul the Apostle Rom. 13. Ergo all Clergiemen whoever living within the Dominions of any supream secular Prince are by the very positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The Major is evident because that as no man ever yet doubted of any of these passages of St. Paul in the said thirteenth Chapter to the Romans to be of holy Scripture and for so much to contain the very positive law of God that although it may be said also they for so much contain the very natural law of God so it can neither be denied honestly or christianly or even at all rationally that by Higher Powers c. in the text of Paul secular Princes only are understood being those Powers only are there understood who only bear the sword and to whom only tribute and custom is paid c. Nor can it be denied that by the text of Paul all souls are commanded to be subject in some things or some causes and therefore if not in spiritual certainly in temporal whereas all things or causes are either spiritual or temporal Nor besides can it be denied they are said here to be subject in such temporal causes only which are called meerly civil as civil are opposed to criminal because by the text they are subject even in such causes wherein use is to be made of the sword against malefactors and it is plain that such are also criminal and not civil only Nor finally and consequently can it be denied they are commanded here to be subject to the coercive part or virtue of the Princes temporal power whereas the directive as such only doth not cannot make use of the sword to punish evil doers The Minor also is evident because all Christians all men and women universally without exception or distinction of any state or profession or character are so commanded and so told and consequently Clerks being they are Christians and men For so doth the very interlineary Gloss understand it Omnis anima id est omnis homo sayes this Gloss potestatibus sublimiâ—ribus subdita sit And because the end of the precept could not be attained if all Clerks universally as well as Laicks were not so commanded and so told And because too the express doctrine and known practise of the holy Fathers for many ages after the Apostles time do teach us clearly expresly and particularly that in this text of Paul and others like it or of the same nature in the Bible all Clerks indistinctly are understood no less then Laicks As for the conclusion our Adversaries I am sure will not except against the necessity or evidence of it if the premisses be once granted or if they otherwise be in themselves true and certain To the premisses therefore to the Major and Minor it is that several frame several Answers some denying that for some part of it and others this for the whole but all of them equally spurning against truth and even rebelling against the light of their own consciences as those in Iob qui rebelles sunt lumini qui dicunt Deo recede a nobis scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus The first answer then is that by higher Powers in St. Pauls text those only are understood which are truly the higher to wit the powers Ecclesiastical or Spiritual For at least comparatively speaking these are the higher and temporal Powers the lower because the spiritual is of a more excellent nature as more directly tending to God then the temporal And consequently this answer sayes that by the Sword in the same text the material sword of Iron is not understood but the spiritual of Excommunication c. The old Authors of this answer albeit as old as St. Augustine himself for he refutes them as will be seen hereafter and other late readers and embracers of it though without sufficient patronage from its antiquity being there have been heresies confessed of all sides for heresies as old as the dayes of Austin and long before the dayes of Austin even in those of the very blessed Apostles must be obliged to deny the Major or that last part which is the only affirmation of it where I say that whoever are commanded sâ— and told so are by the positive law of God in holy Scripture subject to and consequently therein declared to be not exempt in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of earthly Princes The second Answer is of a newer stamp indeed but of no lesser both absurdity and heresie in it self and contradiction also to the
and this barely too crimen Ecclesiasticum it is declared that if any charge a Clerk with the former sort of crime the secular judges shall determine the cause but if with the later that the Bishop onely shall have power to judg it Quod si de criminali causa litigium emerserit tunc competentes judices in hac civitate scilicet Constantinopolitana vel in Provinciis interpellati consentaneum legibus terminum imponant c Sin autem crimen Ecclesiasticum est tunc secundum canones ab Episcopo suo causae examinatio paena procedat nullam communionem aliis judicibus in hujusmodi causis habentibus Which although it was first or originally a meer civil constitution or Novel of Iustinian yet was after made a canon of the Church by being inserted in and received by the Church amongst her canons in corpore Iuris canonici or in Gratian. Sixt canon as to pure Ecclesiastical crimes and to their punishment in case of disobedience to the Bishops was long before and not a Papal canon onely but a canon of the third Council of Carthage which was that is called the Vniversal Council understand you of Affrick and is that also in Gratian XI q. 1. c. Petimus where it is declared that intruded Bishops contemning the admonitions of the Church belong in such case to the lay judicatory Seaventh canon distinguishing likewise in effect sufficiently and clearly enough as the above fift hath done betwixt lay crimes or at least some lay crimes that is crimes which are common as well to lay-men as to Clergie-men and both Ecclesiastical crimes or such as are proper onely to Ecclesiastical persons and other crimes too which are strictly civil but not criminal is that of the first Council of Matiscon held in the year 582. under King Gunteramnus and Pope Pelagius II. wherein and in the 7. chap. the Fathers decree Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex cujuscumque Clericum absque causa criminali id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum suerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Whence appears evidently these Fathers held it no breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity that Clerks accused of murder theft or maleficium what ever they understood by this word or whether witchcraft onely according the special acception and restriction of this word or sense of it by some authors or generally all kind of lay evils or wickedness according to the general or etymological sense thereof should be subject to the meer lay coercive power of even inferiour lay judges whereof I have said more at large before And therefore by this canon Princes were to the end of the fift age of Christianity in possession of their own proper supream civil power of punishing Clerks in their own lay and princely Iudicatories tribunals or courts and even by their own inferiour proper and meer lay delegated or commission'd judges when I say the cause or accusation was purely criminal and of such crimes in specie as are murder theft or witchcraft Eight canon is that still in Gratian 23. q. 5. cap. Principes For though Isidorus de sum bon c. 35. be the original Author of it yet as in Gratian it is now allowed and accounted amongst the canons of the Church And that indeed not unworthily For thus it speaks Principes seculi non numquam intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent ut per eamdem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesâ—asticam muniant Caeterum intra Ecclisiam petesta es necessariae non essent nisi ut quod non fraevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem potestat hoc impleat per disciplinae terrâ—rem Saepe per regnum terrenum caeleste regnum proficit ut qui intra Ecclesiam positi contra fidem disciplinam Ecclesiae agunt rigore Principum conterantur ipsamque disciplinam quam Ecclesiae humilitas exercere non praevalet corvicibus superborum potestas principalis imponat ut venerationem mereatur virtutem potestatis impertiat Cognoscant Principes saeculi Deo debere se rationem reddere propter Ecclesiam quam a Christo tuendam accipiunt Nam sive augeatur pax displina Ecclesiae per fideles Principes sive soluatur ille ab eis rationem exiget qui corum potestati suam Ecclesiam credidit Here you see that not out of or by vertue of any commission or delegation from Bishops or Popes Princes do exercise the distriction of their power even within the Church that is against Churchmen and even too in Church affairs but out and by vertue of their own proper authority which they received from God And you see also that the Church as such by reason of its humble and essential constitution may not exercise or make use of any penal discipline as belonging to her self but for such coercion must have recourse to the power of Princes Nor let any think to evade by saying that Princes are in so much or as punishing such persons or as determining correcting or amending such affairs but Ministers of the Church and executors of the sentence or power of the Church pursuant to that which Innocent III. and the Glosse upon him say or determine cap. ut famae de sent Excom extracted out of the said Innocent's answer to the Bishop of London For I have before already in several Sections proved by reason Scripture tradition of the Fathers and practise too both general and particular and of both Fathers and Princes and Pontiffs and people that Princes have hethertoo proceeded and de jure proceeded against such persons and even too in such matters by their own proper authority without any commission had from the Church As likewise that they received from God himself such their own proper universal authority and right to proceed so against all persons whatsoever laymen or Clergiemen guilty of any crimes and in all causes too whatsoever temporal or spiritual forasmuch or wherein they relate to the external peace of the Commonwealth and to the meer external government of the Church by the power of the material sword And we have seen too already that the power of inflicting corporal punishment by way of coaction and force is absolutely denyed to the Church as a Church Which being so who will be so unreasonable as to attribute a power to Her of deputing commissioning or delegating Ministers or executors to inflict them so But what this canon or Gratian or rather Isidore who was the original Author sayes here is very observable I mean where it sayes that Princes have the height of their power within the Church and that God himself hath committed his Church to their power even as Leo Magnus the Pope writing to Leo the Emperour ep 81. sayes Debes incunctanter advertere Regiam potestatem tibi non
vniversae personae regni qui de Rege tenent in capite habent possessiones suas de dominico Regis sicut Baroniam inde respondent justitiis ministris Regis sequuntur faciunt omnes consuetudines regias rectitudines sicut ceteri Barones debent interesse judiciis curiae domini Regis cum Baronibus usque perveniatur in judicio ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem 4. Si quisquam de Proceribus Regni diffortiaverit Archiepiscopo vel Episcopo vel Archidiacono de se vel de suis justitiam exhibere Rex debet justitiare si fortè aliquis disfortiaverit domino Regi rectitudinem suam Archiepiscopi vel Episcopi Archidiaconi debent eum justitiare ut domino Regi Satisfaciat 5. Catalla eorum qui sunt in Regis forisfacto non detineat Ecclesia vel â—â—meterium contra justitiam Regis quia ipsius Regis sunt sive in Ecclesiis sive extra fuerint inventa 6. Filii rusticorum non debent ordinari absque assensu domini de cujus terra nati dignoscentur Fourthly you are to observe out of the same Authors Baronius Spondanus c That notwithstanding the principal or grand quarrel was concerning these and those in all sixteen heads yet the more immediat motive of the Saints death was only his refusal of giving absolution from Ecclesiastical censures but upon a certain condition to some Bishops after the King was reconciled to him For to pass by at present all other matters happen'd in prosecution of the said great difference from the year 1164. wherein the Saint presented those heads to Pope Alexander and 1170. wherein being reconciled to the King in France and with his licence return'd to England he suffer'd at Canterbury and to say nothing at all here of the Kings excessive cruelty against the favourers of St. Thomas during those six years after of his exile nor of the Saints earnest prosecution of the grand quarrel and of his own part against the King abroad in the Papal Court both in France and Rome when that Court was removed to Rome in the interim nor of the first meeting design'd 'twixt the Pope himself and the King to determine the controversie but frustrated or rather impeded wholly because the King would not assent to the Saints being present nor of that other meeting which came after to be held about the same controversy twixt the same King of England Henry the second and King Lewis of France even the Saint himself too being admitted to be present nor of three or four solemn Embassies even along to Rome about the same matter from the same Henry and so many more of Bishops Archbishops and Cardinals part of them French and part Italian sent from Pope Alexander to Henry nor of the different judgments or affections of the same Cardinal Embassadours or Legats and how some complain'd they were corrupted by the Kings money nor of King Lewis of France though otherwise both a pious Prince and great favourer of Thomas his having been dissatisfied with our Saint's rigour at the conference with Henry wherein Lewis interceded for him to Henry nor of the said Lewis's favouring again mightily the Saint and in his quarrel undermining closely at Rome King Henry nor of the Legantine power for the Kingdom of England excepting only the Diocess of York committed by the Pope to our Saint notwithstanding his being still a banish'd man in France nor of the revocation or moderation and suppression for a time of that same power upon new applications made to Rome by Henry not also of the renewed confirmation after all this of Thomas in all the fulness of the same power extending even to the Kings own person and to the inderdiction of his whole Kingdom if it pleased Thomas nor of Thomas's condemning while yet he was in France eâ—iled the controverted laws especially and namely some chief heads of them by virtue of his said Legantine power excommunicating also all the advisers upholders observers c. of them and absolving moreover all the Bishops from the oath they took firmly to observe them nor of the excommunications he moreover pronounced nominatim as well against the Kings Embassadours to the Emperour Frederick as against several others in England nor of the other difference happened twixt him and the Archbishop of York with his associat Bishops who joyntly consecrated the young King at the old Kings or Fathers command and consecrated him so in the Diocess of Canterbury against the express inhibition sent them both by himself the ordinary of that Diocess and whose right or priviledg such consecration was and by Pope Alexander too nor of the excommunication also and other censures fulminated partly therefore against the said Archbishop and his consecratours the Bishops of London and Salisbury and fulminated even by the very self same Pope Alexander and partly for having sworn to maintain or observe the 16. controverted laws nor of the preparations made by Thomas to interdict by his own Legantine power both King and Kingdom nor of the peremptory day prefixed the King even also by the Pope himself and by some other extraordinary Legats sent him to agree with Thomas at his peril by the said day nor of the final and terrible threat indeed sent also by them to the King from the said Alexander to witt that if he would not restore Thomas immediatly and without any condition at all of observing the controverted laws His Holyness would deal with him as he had all ready done with Frederick that is bereave him by a judicial sentence of his Crown and Dignity rayse both his own people and forraigners against him c nor of the absolute reconciliation of Thomas by such threats to the King on the Feast of Mary Magdalen and his solemn admission then to his Majesty by the mediation of the said last extraordinary Legats the Archbishop of Roan and Bishop of Nivern and without any condition at all on S. Thomas's side nor of the King 's falling off immediatly in some things from his promise to the Legats by denying to restore to the Church some lands which Thomas claimed as its proper right nor lastly of the new threats of Interdict from Pope Alexander for not restoring these lands I say that to pass by at present and say nothing here of all these and some other particulars happen'd in the prosecution of the principal controversy twixt the said King Henry and S. Thomas from the year 1164. until 1170 it is manifest even also out of Barâ—nius himself that after the King had newly promised Thomas to restore those lands when he I mean the King should be in person return'd from Normandy to England and that Thomas himself laying aside all further delayes of his own return to his own See of Canterbury having the Kings licence to return and the Dean of Salisbury to safe-guard him along by the King's command had accordingly embarked and was landed though
undoubted Rights of the Crown to Altercation Which can be no way lawful especially to Subjects Nevertheless I did not altogether as yet despair having withall at that very time and place received the said Lord Chancellor's command for calling to him my Lord Aubigny who should from him know His MAJESTIES final resolution Which was the reason I fostered still some little kind of hopes for three or four dayes longer But all in vain For notwithstanding any reasons my Lord Aubigny gave the Chancellor declared unto him in His MAJESTIES Name we should not stir Then which tydings indeed I scarce resented any thing in all my life with more sadness as having had most ardent inclinations even my self alone yea without a particular invitation by Letter or safe conduct to go and kiss your Lordships hands at Brussels and satisfie to my power the Superiours in Belgia and the Doctors too of the Theological Faculty at Louain as to that Form which is called ours For as I had fixedly resolved to yield what in me did lie to any thing might be rationally offered for the peace of my Brethren and Countreymen and Clergy and People of Ireland much more for that of the Universal Church of the Roman Communion and not only for preserving but promoting yet more and more that Reverence and Obedience which is due in spirituals throughout the whole earth to the great and most blessed Pontiff so I had also firmly determined not to shun nor decline any meeting or conference either private or publick of the most Learned especially of those of Louaâ—n And yet I doubt not those Louanians have without any just cause without any well-grounded reason without any end that is divine but meerly humahe too too rashly Censured that Form Otherwise wherefore should they be ashamed of their judgment given Wherefore apprehend so much it should be exposed to publick view Or why should they fear to let us that are above all others concerned or to let any other indeed for us have a sight of even as much as any one Copy of their original Censure For there is a report nor a report only but an asseveration of eye-witnesses that that original Censure is scarce contained in Seven Eight or Nine sheets of paper or thereabouts and that according to the manner of University Censures therein single Propositions of the Formulary are noted and Reasons given whether probable or not I now dispute not of the Censure of each Nor is it less known that the other secondary short Censure of Louain which is dispersed abroad contains in the whole but a few lines only singles not out any one or more Propositions gives no Reason at all probable or improbable Nay That Dr. Synnick answered lately the said Father Gearnon at his being at Louain and praying to see the true original first and long Censure answer'd him I say in these words only We have sent it to Rome it pleased the Pope he reserves it for his own time O worthy Academicks O excellent Divines O men born to Flattery and Servitude And O truth of mortal Wights and immortal Spirits whither art thou exil'd A very few Doctors of our Age and of one City alone to determine against the torrent of other Doctors of the whole Earth and of all Ages of Christianity and give no Reason openly for doing so and not to determine only so but to divide but rend in parts the Church as much as in them lies disturb the peace of Nations and Kingdoms asperse the Faith and make odious the Communion and Religion of the Roman See and Bishop But hereof another time At present whereas neither Caron nor Walsh can go to Brussels it will be fit to consider what is to be done to that end which your Lordship designed if even both had together appeared there For I will not question but your Lordship proposed to your self the peace or quiet of Catholick Religion and as well the liberty or free exercise thereof in the British Empire or Dominions of our King as in all other respects the comfort of Catholicks and what besides must necessarily follow a more ample and more obsequious veneration of the great Pontiff But I understand not what you might pretend to for attaining these matters if Father Caron and Walsh appeared at Brussels which you may not by exchange of Letters to and fro from them Although and I speak it in the word of a Christian and of a Priest and of a Professor too of the Seraphical Order and by consequence of a most devout observer of His Holiness and speak it moreover in the presence of omnipresent and omniscient God I have for my own part desired most passionately to go my self to Brussels laying alide all kind of delayes and humane respects whatsoever But however this be as to that now in hand Either you thought of our Refixing or Retracting our Subscriptions forsooth because according to the supercilious Louanians Censure pronounced by them as from the tripos of Apollo we are bound under the guilt of Sacriledge to Refix as they speak Which yet I scarce think could be hoped for by your Lordship or indeed by any other I mean until we be first convinced either 1. By manifest Arguments such I mean as are evident or such as can have no probable Answer That our Form implies either Heresie or Schism or some other sin Or 2. By some decree or determination of a lawful general and future Council For in those Councils past already it 's plain there is not as much as one word against us as neither in the Books of Holy Scriptures or Volumes of Holy Fathers or Tradition called Oral whatever is to the contrary babled by Bellarmine Becan Suarez Lessius Gretzer c. whose Writings altogether which Treat of this Subject no less than those of their opposers I have perused most attentively as likewise the Writings of those others who preceded them some Ages and whose too too erronious footsteps they all along followed Durand Bertrand c. 3. At least by some decree or decision and that future likewise of some Roman Pontiff for to this day there is none produced to any purpose by our Adversaries none I say of all that ever yet emaned from any Bishop of the Roman See and such decree or decision made in or by a clear authentick undeniable and unanswerable declarative Bull directed to all Christians wherever diffused throughout the World or at least to some Nation or people albeit this later kind of Bull I mean to a particular Nation or people is not sufficient according to the doctrine of Divines not even I say of those very Divines who attribute Infallibility to the Pope alone without a Council in his declaration of Faith and yet such Bull decree or decision precisely determining the point as of Christian Catholick Faith received from the Apostles and so to be necessarily believed viz. That the Roman Pontiff may by vertue of a power in
him either direct or indirect as they speak and that either spiritual or temporal or mixt depose all Kings whatsoever at least such as are Christians but above all such as are Hereticks or believers of Hereticks and may depose them at least casually as Innocent the Third speaks that is for sin or by occasion of their sin or may at least depose them for some kinds of horrid sins or lastly for evil Government or unfitness or uncapableness to govern as the foolish Assertion is of some late smattering Divines flattering Parasites of the great Pontiff For indeed although from the very first time I understood any thing of Theological positions relating to the Civil or Lay and Ecclesiastical or Church-powers which the more ancient Divines and many too of the very Scholasticks have excellently well distinguished as Gerson Almainus Occam and others it never once entered my Soul to repute the great Pontiff alone without a Council Oecumenical to be a competent Judge in this Controversie as I never since or before either believed Him to be infallible or unerrable but in such a General Synod only and only too in defining there with their concurrence Articles or matters of Faith yet even in his sole judgment as in that of the Primary Bishop and Universal Patriarch Doctor Father and spiritual Superiour of all Christians I have alwayes thought fit to acquiesce for the peace of the Church until a General Council be assembled I mean if or when he declares that his judgment as Pope not as a particular Doctor and further if it evidently appears not to contain an Error against the Christian Faith once and all along till then delivered and lastly if or when it is in matters purely belonging to that very Faith Wherewith notwithstanding is well consistent and compatible That I Religiously acknowledge his fulness of Apostolical power in spirituals and my own absolute subjection to Him in such as I do indeed and as I am specially bound to by the Rule of St. Francis I profess most devoutly acknowledge both This only follows out of what is before said That if from the appearance of Caron or Walsh at Bruxels your Lordship hoped for a Refixion of their Signatures you have invited them to no purpose Or you thought peradventure of some kind of modification or change of the said Form either as to the sense or to the words or both If to the sense you would without any peradventure lose both your oyle and pains Since it is very true and certain That hitherto no reason no motive proposed to those from whom we do expect the benefit of that Protestation could prevail with them to admit not even in the least any manner of variation in the sense for what concerns the substantial parts of a declaration and promise of fidelity indispensable by any mortal and of an acknowledgment of the Kings MAJESTIES power Supreme in Temporals to depend of God alone and of no other kind of power on earth Spiritual or Temporal or mixt of both whatsoever But if to the words the same sense in substance still retained they have already granted that Or lastly perhaps you thought of Treating with us of some other wayes or means whereby the Romish Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland may be restored to His MAJESTIES Favour notwithstanding that the foresaid Form be laid by for ever and not only that Form but all and every or any other Form Oath Protestation or Declaration whatsoever of Allegiance And truly I could with all my heart wish there might be any such Expedients proposed or such as would be grateful to His MAJESTY and prime Counsellors of State But that any such may or such as will suffice without a publick Declaration Protestation or Oath of fidelity for the future I do for my part wholly despair So deeply hath the remembrance of the Troubles raised amongst the Catholicks of Ireland against the King and Crown and Peace of that Countrey in the late Wars by the Lord Nuntio Rinuccini and by his too too zealous sticklers of the Irish Clergy fixed its Roots And so powerful to break open again and make the old sore fester anew your Lordships endeavours and contrivements for so they call here your Admonitions and Cautions and much more yet those of the most eminent Cardinal Francis Barberine in so many several Epistles of both to the Clergy Nobility and Gentry of Ireland on the subject of our Protestation have been Epistles sent to no other end say they but to alienate once more that Nation and Kingdom from the duty of Subjects For if this were not your design their demand is Why should you seek for knots in the smoothest bulrush Whatever your Lordships intention was or whichsoever of these three things you resolved to propose to Caron or Walsh or both had they appeared at Brussels I see not wherefore being they are stayed at London it may not be as well proposed unto them and by mutual Commerce of Letters treated as happily nay far more happily and speedily too I mean as to any reasonable point than if they had been at Brussels Wherefore by the wounds of the crucified God I beseech your Lordship may be pleased to deal fairly and candidly with us and with the rest of the Irish Clergy and write the single Proposition or Clause any one or more if perhaps more then one seem such to you or your Divines which may be said undoubtedly to be against faith or salvation or which may render the Subscribers guilty of Sacriledge as your Doctors of Louain have Censured the Form in general And that you may be pleased to fix on such Proposition or Propositions Clause or Clauses not by the Rule of any variable sentence of some Opiners but by that of the infallible sense of all Believers by that of the constant doctrine of the Church and by that of the divine persuasion of all People Kingdoms and Nations that are in communion with the Roman See and Bishop Which if your Lordship cannot do or if you cannot according to this Rule single out of that Form any one Proposition or Clause or more such that may be lyable to Censure let I beseech you the most holy Father permit a miserable people communicating with and obeying Him in spirituals redeem themselves by lawful and honest means from the severity of Laws which make them drag a life of hardship and slavery clear the suspition of disloyal principles and practices otherwise most justly conceived of them and wipe off as well as they can and wash away that blemish which renders even Catholick profession in it self very odious Nor verily can it be esteemed just much less pious and the Church ought to be very pious in governing That the most Holy Father should by Censures and Threats or such other means either by Letters or by Messengers compel or drive any people or persons at least who live without the bounds of his own proper temporal Jurisdiction
met and played and run bolt up right and streight with as much activity and strength as the tallest and most active of all the rest of the youths and as if he had never been cripled even to the extream wonderment of every one that had known before This much did that Gentleman Mr. Geoffry Brown assure to me of his own knowledge as likewise That he never heard that that man so cured had at any time after relapsed into his former state of a Cripple And that this was all he could say for certain of Father Finachty which happened says he I must confess many years ago in the Protectors time adding withal That of other matters then or before or since related of him he could say nothing nor could deermine for his own part whether that he saw was a true Miracle or no. This relation from Geoffery Brown together with Mr. Belings very great and confident opinion went far to perswade me that in some at least former instances whether by reason of the Faith or of the strong Imagination of those came to Father Finachty to be cured by him or whether of any special gift or Grace he had from God somewhat happened to some few persons that seem'd Miraculous And truly Mr. Belings in particular was so confident of such Gift and Grace in him that not long after this my self being present he moved the Lord Lieutenant very earnestly for a new Pass to be given to the said Father to the end he might freely and publickly appear again and practice where ever he pleased even at Dublin Though I must withal acknowledge that my Lord Lieutenant seem'd no less confident that nothing done by him was truly Miraculous but whatsoever was reported of him was either a lye or a cheat or at best and most and where or if any thing on some occasion or to some ones self did seem done to himself a work of meer fancy and strong imagination saying nevertheless to Mr. Belings and me That notwithstanding such his opinion of Finachty yet he affirmed not the ceasing of Miracles Vniversally in all parts of the Church or world nor denyed but peradventure at the very present even some Jesuits wrought true Miracles somewhere and on some occasions in the East Indies Japan or China for the Conversion of Infidels but then also adding withal and in the last place assuring Mr. Belings That however says he if Father Finachty come to Dublin and do but one Miracle only of all the incredible numbers reported he shall lye even in my own bed here within the Kings Castle and be as safe and free as I to come and go at his pleasure But Mr. Beling says he then concluding look you to it that instead of acquiring honour and converting Protestants to your own Religion by bringing that Miraculous man of yours hither and exposing him to more prying more narrow searchers than any he hath met with amongst men that are themselves willing to be deceived you find not quite contrary effects and make him an object of scorn for Mountebankery and your selves of laughter for your credulity as I am sure you will Now partly because Mr. Belings notwithstanding all his former earnestness for and esteem of that famous man desisted from any further prosecution of this business i. e. from any invitation of him to come and appear at Dublin for the Conversion of Protestants and partly too because I heard so many others albeit no less either zealous or judicious Roman-Catholicks of a quite contrary opinion to Mr. Bellings in Finachty's concern nor moved at all by Geoffrey Brown â—s Relations I also gave over then any further enquiry resolved nevertheless to renew it again if peradventure I should hear afterwards of any more new Wonders or new Miracles wrought But I did not hear a word of such new matters not even for the whole Twelvemonth next coming Nay he not contrary and in the mean while the Earl of Clancarty assured me That himself was present when and where Father Finachty during his late pass and progress about the Kingdom Exorcised publickly at the Lady Thurls in Ormond with all his might and strength and consequently also exercised all his power of Wonder-working or Curing miraculously and there observed That when he the said Exorcist Father Finachty had done with some who were brought to him or whom he himself had fixed upon as Demoniacks and another thrusting in through the crowd had succeeded in their place as having a sore shoulder and desiring to be Cured thereof Father Finachty looking first on it and seeing it even visibly sore not only answer'd in the hearing of all were present and near him as I was said the foresaid Lord of Clancarty That it was a natural sore i. e. an evil or disease proceeding from natural causes only and consequently from other than any Diabolical work by possession obsession or otherwise and That he had nothing to do with any sort of meer natural disease whatsoever but pursuant to this answer refusing to meddle with or practise on that sore-shoulderâ—d man dismiss'd him openly and presently without having once attempted to cure or to ease him by Exorcism or other exercise of praying or crossing or blowing or stroaking c. Besides this relation of my Lord Clancarty I was told also about the same time by another person of very good credit a Connaught man too of the same Countrey with the said Father that he viz. Finachty had formerly been servant in his youth to one Father Moor an old venerable Jesuit and skilful Exorcist That of this same Father Moor it was he learn'd his Art or knowledge of Exorcising And that besides that knowledge and his own continual practice and long experience wherein he might be wholly directed by the known Books of Exorcisms as Flagellum Daemonum and such other as without question he was throughly conversant in them he could not truly pretend to other extraordinary power gift or vertue These two so particular and positive relations of men whom I had much reason to believe could not but very much further my being wholly taken off at least for a time from inquiring more after that good Father unless or until peradventure I did upon some new grounds understand more of him and that of new Miracles and these too more authentick than the former reported of him And yet I will not deny but Mr. Brown's Relation and his Testimony continued still more deeply fix'd in my Thoughts and had more weight with me than I could by any means rid my self of But it was not very long ere I had again the powerful Argument of universal Report and that even from London of the said Father Finachty's new and most prodigious and manifold signs and wonders wrought there For about a Twelve-month or thereabouts or at least not much more after he had from his former Circuit withdrawn himself back to Connaught and and that all persons were silent concerning him
free to disown and disacknowledge him at such times and to such persons as they shall think good or expedient And so I conclude this my second and long Instance The third Instance briefly is in their voluntary and purposed omission and even upon the contradictory question both privatly and publickly so often made to them about this omission of the immediate preamble that in the Remonstrance of 61. goes before the Protestation therein inserted We know what odium all the Catholick Clergie lies under by reason of the calumnies with which our tenets in religion and our dependence upon the Popes Authority are aspersed And we humbly begg 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 Their omission I say of this preamble as to the last words without equivocation or mental reservation or of any other words in lieu thereof that might signifie or import so much Which voluntary purposed omission of theirs at least in so much contradiction of it and in the present circumstances evidently confirms the reasonableness of all the several exceptions made hitherto all along this Paper And that they did omit these words or any equivalent of set purpose to reserve unto themselves a liberty of equivocation and mental reservation in all and every the several clauses of theirs just as those Fathers of the Franciscan Order in their meeting at Killiby 1665. and in their framing there another though fan better Remonstrance that which they sent under the great Seal of their Province to my Lord Lieutenant then at London expresly refused to insert therein any word at all against equivocation or mental reservation nor could by any reasons be induced to insert such as those that were present with them do testifie In imitation or pursuance of which omission and refusal of the said Franciscans and for the same ends proposed by them unto themselves this General Congregation of these Representatives of the whole Irish Clergie both Secular and Regular hath done the like here Which being so I would faine know of themselves again as it hath been several times already demanded of them publickly in their said meeting but never answered to what purpose is their Protestation or what assurance of their fidelity can the King derive from thence Fourth and last instance is in their omission likewise of the sequel or of the final petitionary address and resignation in the Remonstrance of 61. and I mean their omission of the last passage only or of the two last lines which contained the foresaid resignation But that I may be the better understood in this matter I must give first the genuine words and whole tenor of that sequel petition and resignation which the Remonstrants of 61. made thus These being the tenents of our Religion in point of loyalty and submission to your Majesties commands and our dependence of the See of Rome no way intrenching upon that perfect obedience which by our birth by all lawes divine and humane we are bound to pay to your Majestie our natural and lawful Soveraign we humbly begg prostrat at your Majesties feet That you be pleased to protect us from the severe persecution we suffer meerly for our profession in Religion leaving those that are or hereafter shall be guilty of other crimes and there have been such in all times as well by their pens as by their actions to the punishment prescribed by the law Now it is to be observed that one of the very first and greatest exceptions by several Priests and Church-men of Ireland against that Remonstrance then was That in these two last lines was contained though not so clearly and expresly yet virtually or implicitly a resignation or renunciation of Ecclesiastical Immunitie or which is the same thing a subjection of Priests and Bishops and other Clergie-men and this by their own free offer to the punishment of secular Courts and Magistrats and even to the punishment of such Courts and Magistrats as are not of their own Religion That such resignation is unlawful or sinful against the lawes of God and holy Church That by these lawes of the Church nay and according to the opinion or Doctrine of great Divines of the Roman Communion by the very lawes of God Clergie-men are exempt from the secular power lawes tribunals as at least to any Coercion or punishment to be inflicted on them by such That Clergie-men are not obliged to own any other subjection to the civil lawes courts power Magistrat or Prince but that of a meer passive direction not of coaction or coercion at all That by the directive part or virtue of the civil law they are not bound in conscience or under pain of sin but only ex aequo et bono That finally being the civil lawes and power cannot bind them in conscience under pain of sin but where the lawes of God positive or natural or the Canons of the Church joyntly bind them and for as much only and solely as such lawes of God or Canons of the Church bind them and being these Canons of the Church or Papal constitutions do not only not bind them for they do not seem once to reflect on the lawes of God as they are sufficiently declared in holy Scripture and positive in binding them to subject themselves to Kings or their lawes at least as to the coercive power of such but expresly bind them to the contrary and excommunicat them if they subject themselves so or at least their persons what ever be said of lands or goods which in all cases are by the said constitutions wholy exempt until after degradation they be freely delivered over by the Ecclesiastical Judge to the secular power and being moreover that it is an act of such transcendent virtue to oppose the secular power intrenching on at least these personal immunities or exemption of Clergie-men that St. Thomas of Canterbury was therefore canonized a martyr and hath been these 400. years by the Catholick Church publickly invoked as such with God in glory it must follow consequently out of all here said that the said resigning perclose of that Remonstrance of 61. must have been sinful and scandalous All which objections having been made use of by many these 4. years past upon several occasions though without sufficient ground in the foresaid passage words or any proper meaning of them conceivable by unbyassed Readers for to such I am sure those words can import no more than a resolution in the subscribers not to interpose for any of their Country and Communion that should happen thenceforth to be punishable by the lawes for other crimes then such only as by the letter of the law are accompted or presumed crimes for professing and serving God according to the belief rites and manner of worship used throughout the world amongst Catholicks that communicat with the See of Rome not
their express and publick refusal in their Congregation and on the contradictory question to begg pardon for themselves or any others for the said crimes nay as much as to condemn or even acknowledge in such actings any crime of Rebellion or Treason it plainly appears they have not in word or sense intended by their said Remonstrance or by any owning protestations acknowledgements declarations promises or engagements expressed therein to disown really the pretended extraordinary or casual power of the Church as a Church by virtue of either a divine or humane title as challenged either by the Pope alone or even by other inferiour Bishops and we have seen those Bishops at Jamesstown did not only challenge it but practice accordingly in some cases to command or approve of the deposition or deprivation of the Prince or of the rebellion of Subjects against him Nor likewise to disdown really much less to condemn the doctrine of a pretended Inherent and natural right power or authority in the People not as a Church but as a meer civil Society to redress their own grievances by taking arms against the King and his Laws when they shall judge it necessary or expedient and that in their own judgement there is no other way left them to help themselves For if these Gentlemen had but as much as once really intended to disown in words or sense such pretended powers or doctrines which maintain them they had not with so much contradiction and so contrary to all reason and with so much animosity heat and clamour expresly and pertinanaciously refused not only to petition for pardon for themselves or others for the illegal practice but also in any kind of terms the most milde could be and the most abstracting from any positive accusation of themselves or others for it was proposed only so to express their detestation or at least dislike of what was done against the laws in those several Instances of the late Rebellion and iterated continuation of and relapse into it But the truth is and was what it seemed The leading men amongst them would not suffer the rest to assent to any thing at all which might be or seem an argument against the like future however illegal undertakings Which being so is it not manifest how little how weak and frail and false the assurance is the King can derive from such a Remonstrance of such men and in such a Country and time as this The other Observation is That upon the sole account likewise of that very new scandalous false and evil doctrine of some late Casuists or extrinsecal Probablists as they are called which teacheth the lawfulness in point of conscience of changing opinions judgments doctrines and practises thence consequent and changing such at pleasure and as often as you will even in the most weighty matters and consequently teacheth the lawfulness of following the opinion judgment or doctrine of others even those you judge the less safe and less probable and following them even against your own fixed Judgment and practising accordingly and upon the sole account of this new doctrine being owned by all or most or chief at least of the Divines of that Assembly and so far owned by some of their chief and leading men that upon the very question and in relation to any Oath of Allegiance to the King which they had no mind to subscribe they particularly owned it and asked my self to what purpose should they be urged to any such form whereas they might in conscience according to such doctrine next day follow the contrary judgment of others I say that upon this account only if there had been no other or if their Remonstrance had been satisfactory and clear in all other points as indeed it is not in any at all and until they do clearly and expresly under their hands in a publick Instrument disown and condemn a principle so fallacious and wicked for directing mens actions and consciences all the assurance they have yet given by any Papers even taking them in the best sense which any plain honest man could give them in a sense they never intended and all the assurance they can or shall any of them peradventure yet think upon to give hereafter in any other kind of Protestation ought in reason to be esteemed as proceeding from them very little and very weak and very frail and very false and in a word such as and for as much as proceeding from them so principled to any man that were not a meer fool could signifie no more then a meer nothing Nor is it necessary at present to bring other proof hereof then what is without further explanation obvious to every man of sense and obvious out of that very owning of theirs of the said pernicious position of those Probablists and out of that Quaerie made in pursuance thereof by such owners of it Nor can any thing be more evident than that to extend the general doctrine of Casuists or general position of the lawfulness of following any opinion that is by some Authors maintained as probable at least to extend it to the particular cases of either publick or private contracts and yet further to extend it to the very case of a publick or even private profession and Oath of Allegiance to the Prince were nothing else but to teach perjury deceit and perfidiousness and to take away all faith truth and safety from the world even from all kind of societies of men To conclude therefore all I have said in this second Treatise and to give here briefly distinctly and clearly all the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. as the Remonstrance of men so principled and so affected as the generality of the Congregation or the generality of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland have and must yet seem to be The first Exception comprising all in general as the rest descend to particulars is That of set purpose and to be free of all engagements when or if occasion requires the contrivers fram'd it so that in the most material partâ— it varies from the former Protestation subscribed by those â—thers of the said Clergy and by their Nobility and Gentry at London in 〈◊〉 and 62. and varies not only as to single words but as to entire clauses bâ—â—h in words and sense nay and whole matter too or question in debate â—pecially as to those five clauses or passages before observed in the first and second Instance pag. 2. and 3. of this Second Treatise and also as to both the only and so material and necessary Protestation of that same former Remonstrance and the no less material and necessary resignation or that they conceive to be such in the last Line of the Petition of that self-same former Remonstrance Second Exception That in this their own of 66. the Fathers purposely all along from the first word to the last decline mentioning the Pope by this although most honourable title or by any other title
proper to Him or indeed by any word or words sufficiently as from them comprehending Him Third Exception That by their form of Recognition in this Remonstrance they do not positively or absolutely but at most and at best relatively conditionally and modally acknowledge Charles the Second to be their true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign of Ireland Fourth Exception That neither according to this relative conditional or modal recognition of this Remonstrance it acknowledges Charles the Second to be rightful King of Ireland which yet the former did but this latter not leaving so the Subscribers elbow-room to play fast and loose with their distinctions and say they so acknowledge Him King of Ireland de facto only or only at most by that presumptive right which is from humane Laws in force not by that which is the true right only and is only derived from the Laws of God or Nature or Canons of the Church Fifth Exception That by the title of supream Lord in this Remonstrance as from that Congregation must not be understood a Supremacy of Lordship not subordinat in Temporals to the pretended both temporal and spiritual supream Lord of the whole Earth or at least of the whole Christian Earth Nor which is the same thing a Supremacy of independence in Temporals at least in all cases from any but God alone But only such a a Supremacy in Temporals as ordinarily excludes Subordination in power to or dependence in such from any of his own People or even from altogether in most cases and in ordinary cases also from the Pope or Church though not from the Church Pope or People in some extraordinary contingencies Sixth Exception That consequently the profession of their being His Majesties Subjects made here by the Congregation signifies no more but a subjection answerable to such a Lordship and such a Kingship And yet further such subjection as obliges them not to acknowledge themselves thereby or by the Laws of God or canons of the Church bound under pain of sin to obey Him or by such laws or canons bound under any pain to obey Him as much as other Subjects ought or as much as the Laws of the Land or humane rules of Government in this Kingdom require at their hands Seventh Exception That as from them it doth not bind them not to acknowledge and assert alwayes what they or any of them at any time hitherto have contended for or do contend or at least pretend that they contend for even at this present their divine or celestial their extraordinary and casual as well positive as negative supream temporal power or pretended power of the Pope over in or to the kingdoms of Ireland England c. as well as over all other Kingdoms Empires States and as well and as truly and properly over their Temporals as over Spirituals at least ratione peccati or in ordine ad spiritualia Eighth Exception That as from them it does not sufficiently exclude dis-acknowledge or disown the Popes even meer humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right by Donation Submission Prescription Peter-peace Feudatary title given or Forfeiture made c. to the temporal Supremacy or supream temporal King-ship Lord-ship or supream power of Goverment ship of England Ireland c. in some cases as being in such cases legally devolved to him and by him to be disposed of at his pleasure to whom he will Ninth Exception That as from them it no way binds them or any else to disown the Popes pretended lawful power either divine or humane for dethroning deposing or depriving the King or binds them any way to dis-allow of the pretended just and lawful execution if any should happen of such power or pretended power by Excommunication and actual denunciation of such Censure and of all the penalties annexed by Papal constitutions or by other sentence or declaration or by any other means whatsoever Nor as from them binds them or any other not to obey the Pope in such matters and disobey the King Nay nor both to disown him as a King and fight against him as a Tyrant and as a Tyrant too as well by title as by administration according to the doctrine of Suarez Def. Fidei Cath. L. 6. C. 4. de formâ Juram Tenth Exception That as from them and pursuant to their meaning by the title or word Supream it professes not against that other seditious doctrine of a pretended natural and inherent right or power in the people themselves not as a Church of Christ but as a natural temporal politick and civil society of men to dethrone or depose the King by virtue thereof when or if they shall on rational grounds or grounds seeming such to themselves judge it necessary for their own preservation or doing themselves right where they think themselves oppressed and the complaints are general A power indeed were it true as the Authors of this doctrine pretend it to be the only supream or that is only and simply and properly such or at least is more truly and properly such then that attributed by this Remonstrance to the King though not according to Bellarmine and those of his way to be compared at all to that of the Pope which alwaies must be the superlatively supream over all Eleventh Exception That as from them it binds them not nor any other not to approve of the practice of that wicked maxime which avers it lawful in some case for Subjects to murther or to kill not only their Prince of a different Religion from theirs but even their Prince of the same true Catholick Religion with them Twelfth Exception That as from them it doth not bind them to acknowledge the Kings either Coercive or directive power of themselves Or That they or any other Clergy-men are bound under pain of sin to submit by a passive obedience to the coercion or by an active obedience conform to the direction of any meer Lay Magistrate or Prince how supream or rightful soever or of his Laws not even in things otherwise indifferent or not prohibited by the Laws of God nor even in things not prohibited by the Canons of the Church if not peradventure to such Lay-Princes only and such laws of theirs if there be indeed any such as are particularly and specially priviledged by the Pope And consequently does not bind them to condemn or disown that most wickedly dangerous Aphorisme attributed to Emanuel Sa in some of his Editions but certainly necessarily and evidently derived from Bellarmine and Suarez c. That in relation to any meer Lay-Prince or King or State Clergy-men cannot be said in any case whatsoever to be guilty of high Treason or of that horrid crime of Laesae Majestatis or of defying denying or lessening Majesty Thirteenth Exception That in case the Pope should declare this Remonstrance of theirs to be uncatholick or unlawful or any way unsafe in point of conscience as to those very small inconsiderable acknowledgments or promises
to such particular or specifical cases But those three foresaid Propositions of the said Congregation are such as as do not so descend by clear express words from which there can be no exception or evasion and of which there can be no distinction according to the present School-divinity of Bellarmine or Suarez or such others to the particular or specifical cases about which the controversie is and the said Congregation being the Proposers have been expresly desired by the King or his Lieutenaut in his Name or by his Authority to descend so in their Remonstrance or Propositions to such cases and they have expresly and obstinatly too refused to descend so or to such particular or specifical cases and yet they are a people whom he hath already by experience and his Father before him found in several publick Instances manifestly disloyal and even perfidious in the highest nature could be Therefore those three foresaid Propositions of the said Congregation are not sufficient in this age as from them for giving assurance to the King of their future loyalty Or thus If the foresaid three Propositions of Sorbon applied by the said Congregation to the King of Great Britain and Ireland and to themselves and rest of his Roman Catholick Subjects of Ireland be in the judgement of the chief Divines and leading men of that Congregation lyable rationally all circumstances weighed to such constructions as I have said hitherto they have already made and will hereafter make of the words to such as they please and when they find it opportune and if notwithstanding they have been expresly and often desired even by his Majesties Lieutenant and for his Majesties assurance of them to descend by clearer and more expressive words to the particular cases wherein the doubt was or would be yet of their future loyalty they all and their Agents for them even to his own face after long consultation for so many dayes expresly refused to descend so or assure his Majesty by those or any other additional Propositions of their future faithful carriage in such particular or specifical cases or I mean to assure His Majesty under their hands and by words comprehending expresly and specifically those very cases then it must follow evidently that they were both absolutly and obstinatly resolved to give no more assurance by the foresaid three Propositions no more satisfaction by them to the King or his great Ministers in coming home to the point or to the particular or specifical cases wherein their loyalty might be and was and is with reason doubted of than they had given before in their Remonstrance as I have in my Exceptions layd open their meaning in and by it But the foresaid three Propositions of Sorbon applied by the said Congregation c. are in the judgment of the chief Divines and leading-men of that Congregation lyable rationally all circumstances considered to such constructions as I have said hitherto c. and notwithstanding they have been expresly and often desired even by His Majesties Lieutenant and for His Majesties assurance of them to descend by clearer c. they all c. expresly refused to descend so c. Therefore it must evidently follow that they were both absolutely and obstinatly resolved to give no more assurance c. I see not I confess what their best or worst Sophisters can say that may ridd them out of the Briars And for the first I think verily none of them that understands reason will have the confidence to speake a word to the matter of either of the premisses the Major being such as in morals and in a Country where such disputes are and so many great and sad experiences relating to the matter of it may be well accounted of the nature and assume the name of that which Logicians call or tearm propositionem per se notam And the Congregation of the Clergie of Ireland at Waterford under the Lord Nunciu's presidencie withal the Decrees and consequents thereof against the peace of 46. and the meeting of the Bishops at James-town and their declarations and decrees there against the peace of 48. and all other consequents of that meeting evidently prove the Minor As for the illation and form or frame of the whole I give them leave to consult with Aristotle in his first figure and fourth moode To the second I beleive indeed they will peradventure attempt some kind of answer but such a one notwithstanding as will not abide the tryal They will perhaps denie the Minor as to the first part if they with any kind of colour denie any thing or make any answer at all to either Minor Major or conclusion They will say the foresaid propositions are not lyable rationally to such constructions c. And they must consequently disavow those abstractions distinctions c and therefore say also consequently that I impose on them And this is all they can say with any kind of colour though a very bad one But for conviction of the first branch of this answer I appeal to all judicious Readers of Bellarmines several pieces on this Subject both of those in his own proper name set forth and of those also in other mens and to the daily practice of the Schools and besides to so many other printed authors of Bellarmine's way and brethren that stiffly maintain the doctrine of equivocation and mental reservation And for the conviction of the second branch I appeal even unto Father N. N. the chief speaker and interpreter as a divine of the sense of that Congregation though he was not chaire-man and the very first proposer and to my self also of the said propositions of Sorbon even of all the six to be signed by them though of purpose only to decline the approbation or signature of onely one proposition offered them by me as I have observed in my Narrative Nay and for the conviction of this second branch of such answer I appeal to the whole Congregation and even to all and singular the members thereof whither it be not true that really they denied all along and even on the contradictory question to approve the propositions parts or clauses of the former Remonstrance that I mean of 61. Which in plain tearms disclaims and renounces any power in the Pope to deprive or depose the King or to raise his Subjects in Rebellion c by virtue of any sentence of Excommunication Deprivation Deposition or Declaration or in any other manner soever or under what pretext soever and whether they denied not to declare that there was nothing contained in that Remonstrance of 61. that might be deemed Heretical Schismatical or sinful and whether it was not upon the sole account of such particulars therein contained they did so and whether it was not therefore because they could not approving it pretend any latitude for the former evasions interpretations abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations equivocations for as much as the expressions of that were too plain and
by the sole vertue of their Sacerdotal or spiritual power for I did not then as much as dream of any such foolish consequence but against the pretence of an inherent natural civil and supream power in the people themselves as a people or civil society whether Priests otherwise or no Priests or mixt of both A farre more takeing though at least now under the new testament a false and vain pretence also To that precedent of the Macchabees alleadg'd out of the old Testament to justifie this pretence of such an inherent natural not spiritual power in Christian Subjects to rebell against their lawful Prince on pretext of oppression either in their religious or civil rights or both I answered briefly thus Pag. 94. of The More Ample Account That neither the praised valour noble attempts victories and atchivemenâ—s of the Machabees can prejudice this doctrine Because that as in their dayes yet the wisdome of the celestial Father our Saviour Christ was not come to enlighten the world or to teach the Jewes in particular the perfect understanding of their own law or to give a more excellent one to all Nations of the Earth so they relied still on the first donation of Palestine made by God himself immediatly to Abraham for the children of Jacob and made againe unto them in the Law of Moâ—es and doubtless were perswaded that no violence or force or conquering armes of the Asian Kings could devest them of that title which God himself appearing visibly had invested them with Is there any word here of such uncivil and â—rreverent language as ignorance of their own 〈◊〉 charged by me on the Macchabees Or who knows not that such perfect understanding thereof as the holy Jesus caught the world after is quite an other thing then ignorance simply spoken or such ignorance of the litteral sense of their law which would have been at that time or in the dayes of the Macchabees or any time before or after from the first giving of their law till Jesus came accounted ignorance by the knowing doctors of the said law and consequently have rendred those Macchabees guilty of a sinful neglect and hainous transgression And who sees not I made out their plea of justification not at all from such ignorance nor even from an imperfect understanding but from the immediate donation of Palestine to them as to their Predecessors and Successors by God himself appearing so visibly and manifoldly and by the clear express letter also of his Law unto them And therefore that I had sufficiently ruined all the strength of the argument built on this example by rebellious Christian Subjects for their pretence of such inherent supream natural power being they can pretend no such visible appearance donation law of God to themselves or to their Predecessors or Successors but know all to be quite contrary But after all suppose I had not made so clear demonstrations against such pretence of a temporal civil or natural power in the people or that I had not given so clear and satisfactory solution to this argument for it what can be thence concluded for the supernatural and purely spiritual power of Christian Priests just a meer nothing So that those Gentlemen might have spared themselves and me some labour in this point and particularly both in this fling they had here at my doctrine in my More Ample Account and in all that follows to no purpose in their own paper of that other answer which they say some do give but I am sure I never gave nor found my self necessitated to give Yet I profess my thanks unto them in this one respect here That they have given the occasion to clear yet more abundantly and perhaps too more satisfactorily at least to some that of the Macchabees I mean as it is urged for the pretended inherent right of the people as a civil or temporal Society though not as a spiritual or not as a Christian Church but still as a people purely or naturally considered I did verily intend to add in that same little Book of mine and to that now mentioned passage for a second answer what I shall here But having had no time to review that passage then when the Printer came to it I am now heartily glad of this occasion that I may yet with-all evidence and clearness imaginable ruine this very strongest argument out of Scripture whereof some especially of our Opposers make so much use as of the most specious argument can be for that right of the people at least as of a people though not as a Christian Church You are therefore good Reader to understand that this Antiochus against whom Mattathias begin the warr and his Sons the Machabeans continued it nobly and fortunatly was not that Antiochus the Great King of Asia who in the year of the world 3742 and before Christ 222. and either by title of conquest or of a just war against Ptolomey Philopater and his Son called Ptolomey the Famous King of Egypt and Jewry and against Scopas General to this Ptolomey the Famous or by title of the free and voluntary submission of the Jews themselves to him or by both titles was their lawful King as also a good bountiful and very favourable King unto them as long as he lived after I say that that Antiochus against whom Mattathias took arms and encouraged the rest of his Countreymen to take arms was not this Great and so good Antiochus but another many years after who was surnamed Epiphanes though King likewise of Asia who only and by the reasonable practiâ—es or some few Iews surprized Ierusalem in the year of the world â—79â— and before Christ 168. years That the Jews since their first free and voluntary submission to Alexander the Great himself in person and in the year of the world 3630 and before Christ 334. and since the death soon after of the said Alexander the year before Christ 322. were upon the partition of the Macedonias conquest and Empire peaceably subject first to Ptolomaeus Lagus and then after to his Son Ptolomey Philadelphus who had the Bible translated by the 72. Interpreters and so forth in a continual series to the other Ptolomeys Kings of Egypt only the few years excepted wherein Antiochus the Great prevailed so as I have said against Ptolomey Philopater or his Son Ptolomey the Famous and until this Great Antiochus contracted aliance with this Ptolomey by the marriage of Cleopatra upon which they were on both sides at peace again and all things restored to to their former condition and the command of Ierusalem and the rest of Iewry as likewise of Celosyria Phaenicia and other bordering Countreys returned to the Ptolomeys and the tributes as in former time since Lagus gathered by and paid to their Officers who were the very Jews themselves so it is plain and manifest in History that matters continued so until the dayes of this Antiochus Epiphanes King of Asia or Syria of whom our present