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
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
the authority or passage alledg'd out of St. Bernard the answer is 1. That it is curtail'd by the Quoter the words immediatly following part of the same sentence and last period of that passage being purposely omitted That period being thus concluded by the Saint Séd sanè ad nutum sacerdotis jussum imperatoris Where he manifestly shews the difference betwixt the direction of the Priest and command in the Emperour over the temporal or material sword 2. That St. Bernard never mean'd to impose any any necessity of conscience on the Prince to draw his sword whensoever and as often soever as the Priest or Bishop would becken or nod or which is the same thing would advise counsel or endeavour to perswade him But mean'd only that the material sword should indeed be drawn by the Emperours command in such controversies or quarrels as the Priest might and ought in conscience to justifie according to the laws of God And that temporal Princes in undertaking war or in matter of publick or private justice where they must use the sword or force should if their be any doubt whether the undertaking or execution be according to the law of God or no and if themselves cannot resolve themselves should I say in such cases advise with or consult the Priest in that which belongs to conscience The Saint without any question supposing what the Prophet Malachy speaks That the lips of the Priest shall preserve knowledge and others shall demand of him the law of truth 3. That were St. Bernard speaking to the Bishops of Milan Constantinople Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem or to him of Paris London Toledo or Triers or to any other particular Bishop in the world that had a temporal Prince or General of War within his Diocess he might and would have said so much to him nay to the Priests that are no Bishops at all I mean the Ghostly Fathers or Spiritual Directors of Princes 4. That this very Saint himself doth abundantly clear all scruples in this matter For not to take notice of those words tuo forsitan nutu to quit the advantage of these other jussum Imperatoris both in this very passage quoted against me that other in his first book of Considerations to the same Pope Eugenius c. 5. is abundantly sufficient Non monstrabunt puto sayes he ubi aliquando quispiam Apostolorum Iudex sederit hominum aut divisor terminorum aut distributor tèrrà rum stetisse denique ego Apostolos judicandos sedisse judicantes non lego c. Ergo in criminibus non in possessionibus potestas vestra quoniam propter illa non propter has accepistis claves regni caelorum praevaricatores utique exclusuri non possessores Quaenam tihi major videtur dignitas potestas dimittendi peccata an praedia dividendi sed non est comparatio Habent haec infima terrena judices suos Reges Principes terrae Quid fines alienos invaditis After all which he gave in the same paper of his answers that is in the skirt of it this Advertisement The Reader may be pleased to take notice That however this be or whatever may be thought of this doctrine yet the Subscribers to the Protestation are not any way engaged either in the affirmative or Negative it being manifest that the protestation in it self abstracts from either part and consequently both from these Answers and the Queries too XXVII That besides and after sending the foresaid two or three Quaeries to the Procurator the Jesuits now I remember not which of them or by whom sent him this other of one single Quaerie and reasons for the Affirmative Which because it and the former were the only papers and indeed only Quaeries and Reasons either by paper or without paper insisted on seriously by them or any others in Ireland ever since this dispute concerning the Remonstrance began And none else but those Fathers of the Society and in this manner only insisted on them so I give wholly and exactly as in the original given me without any subscription Whether a temporal or corporal punishment may be inflicted by virtue of a spiritual power Some reasons offered for the Affirmative First it is a maxime of Aristotle and allowed of by all Statists Doctors of the Civil and Canon Law and by all Divines that frustra datur potestas directiva sine coerciva The spiritual power is directiva Therefore in all reason we must allow potestas coerciva or a coactive power I know the answer of such as hold the negative is that potestas directiva hath a coactive power intra eandem sphaeram that is to say when the potestas directiva is spiritual it must have potestas coerciva or a coactive power ejusdem generis of the same kind and therefore spiritual punishments are allowed to the potestas directiva spiritually as Excommunications interdicts c. but no temporal punishments To this I reply that they can scarce produce one Classick Author of any note that giveth this exposition and they that hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter for the contrary teste Basilio Pontio one of the most eminent men of this age who expressis verbis saith haec est communis omnium Catholicorum opinio Secondly omitting many other proofs it is the opinion of two General Councils that of Lyons and that of Lateran though perhaps not enacted per modum decreti But because General Councils are undervalued by some that believe that only the diffusive Church is infallible I will stand to the general practice of the diffusive Church which is the surest way to know its opinion When any person is nominatim Excommunicatus he is not only put from Mass and deprived of the suffrages of the faithful but also he is forbidden any civil commerce and conversation with the faithful he must not eat or drink with them he must not discourse nor be saluted by them besides they are whipped and commanded to undergo austere penances But all these are corporal punishments Therefore the opinion of the Diffusive Church is that a spiritual power can inflict corporal punishments And this being once granted it must be also allowed that the corporal punishment may be the greater pro qualitate delicti and consequently when the crimes are great it is in the power of the Church to inflict great punishments corporal and temporal Thirdly It is recounted 2. Machab. cap. 2. that Antiochus being King of the Jews the Priest Mathathias seeing a Jew by the Kings command ready to offer sacrifice to the Idols killed both the Jew and him who by the Kings command did compel the Jews to sacrifice Is it found in Scripture that this act is reprehended or doth any of the holy Fathers condemn Mathathias of unlawful murther in this case The same Mathathias being ready to depart this world and give an account to God of all his actions exhorteth his Sons to take arms
this great Prince And so we are at least throughly quitt even for matter of example And so I have also done with my sixth and last of all those considerations or of all those points on which I have said before in the beginning of my animadversions of or answers to the third ground of the Censure it had much better become our masters of Lovaine Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and so judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to reflect seriously before they had precipitated so temerariously and injuriously and even erroneously to boot to censure that Remonstrance of 61. on this ground of its pretended promise or tye on Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession The nullity and falsity of which pretence or ground although I knew that my very first consideration of all the six had sufficiently evinced yet I would ex superabundanti and to clear this matter in all particulars and to instruct others more fully give all the rest albeit unnecessary amongst men of reason to vindicate in this behalf or any other that Remonstrance LX. I onely to end all whatever I intended to say on this occasion further add it is a confirmation of what I have said before in my first consideration that if our sticklers at home for the Lovaine Censure in this behalf or if the opposers of the said Remonstrance of 61. on account of obliging Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession will continue still their malicious clamours against it on this account finding all other accounts to stand them in no stead though I be sure they find this very same to stand them in as little as any of all they must confess themselves consequently obliged to clamour no less nay more against the Remonstrance of 66. whereof hereafter I will treat at large even that of the Dublin Congregation of that year even that of the general Representatives of the whole Clergie of Ireland even that of their Archbishops Bishops Provincials Vicars general Divines altogether For if the former of 61. be quarreld at for expressing onely the readiness of the subscribers of it to reveal c. and for expressing such readiness without any express engagement or any at all in other express tearms then these two words being ready words of their own proper strict signification not engageing at all the subscribers to reveal or that they will discover actually but at most a present preparation or disposition of mind to discover c certainly this passage of the Remonstrance of 66. wherein there is an express engagement or one in express words that they will or shall discover c. must be in reason as much at least if not more quarreld at on that account Wherefore pursuant c. we do engage our selves to discover unto your Majesty or some of your Ministers any attempt of that kind rebellion or conspiracy against your Majesties person Crown or Royal authority that comes to our knowledge For here is the same general notion of knowledge without any express distinction of it without any express reservation or exception of that knowledge which is had in confession as indeed there should not be any either express or tacit thereof more then is in the former Remonstrance of 61. LXI To the fourth and last ground of that Censure of Lovaine against this Remonstrance of 61 their pretence of its renouncing Ecclesiastical Immunity or of subjecting Clergiemen against Ecclesiastical Immunity to the cognizance and punishment of the civil Magistrate The Procurator and other subscribers answer'd 1. That there is not a syllable in that Remonstrance which may seem to any man of reason to say either formally or virtually expresly or tacitly That Churchmen have not or ought not to have either by the laws of man civil or Ecclesiastical or by the laws of God positive or natural any such immunity or exemption either for their goods or persons from the cognizance or punishment of the subordinate inferiour civil Courts Magistrates or Judges I mean any such immunity or exemption as the Catholick Faith or Catholick Church teacheth as out of Scripture or out of Tradition or even as by virtue of any canon or custome obliging as much as the very Churchmen to assert or maintain it or not to renounce or disacknowledge it not even in some cases or some Countreys where the civil or municipal laws are contrary to such canon or such custome as for example England and Ireland where this last century of years the laws and customs are known to be so much altered from that they perhaps have formerly been in this matter That the acknowledgment of the King to be our King and our supream Lord too or the acknowledgment of his absolute independent supremacy in all temporals within his own Dominions concluds neither formally nor virtually a disacknowledgment or even the least renunciation of any kind of real true pro-per Ecclesiastical Immunity acknowledg'd by other parts or people or Churches or Churchmen in the world even in the most Catholick Countries No more certainly then doth the like acknowledgment known to be made by word and by writing by all Catholick French Spanish Venetian German c Clergiemen to their own respective Kings Emperours States conclude that they disacknowledg or renounce thereby or by any other means that which they call or acknowledg to be Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption amongst themselves That as little doth the acknowledging our selves bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of His Majesties Subjects and as the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require at our hands that I say as little doth this acknowledging such obligation draw along with it by either formal or virtual consequence our disacknowledging or renouncing our right or pretence to any true real or proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption If we have indeed or can have or ought to have any such right or pretence of right in the case For such obligation and such acknowledgment of it can and does very well consist evermore with a challenge or claim to all kinds of true and proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption whether that challenge or claim be well or ill grounded in the case being it is very well known that other His Majesties Subjects are not bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty by an active obedience always not even in all civil and temporal affairs but either by an active or passive only And being it is no less known that the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require no more at their hands even in all civil and temporal affairs then to be so obedient as either to do that freely which they prescribe or patiently and without resistance to abide the penalties of the same laws and of His majesties pleasure And being moreover it is evident of it self that a Priest can without making any resistance patiently christianly
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
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
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
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
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-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
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
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
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
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