THE History Vindication OF The Loyal Formulary or Irish Remonstrance So Graciously Received by His MAJESTY Anno 1661. AGAINST All CALUMNIES and CENSURES IN SEVERAL TREATISES WITH A True Account and Full Discussion of the Delufory Irish Remonstrance and other Papers Framed and Insisted on By the National Congregation at Dublin Anno 1666 And Presented to His MAJESTIES then Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom the Duke of ORMOND But Rejected by HIS GRACE To which are added THREE APPENDIXES Whereof the Last contains The Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland His LONG EXCELLENT LETTER Of the Second of December 1650. In Answer to both the DECLARATION and EXCOMMUNICATION of the Bishops c. at Jamestown THE AUTHOR Father Peter Walsh of the Order of St. Francis Professor of Divinity Melior est contentiâ— pietatis causa suscepta quà m vitiosa concordia Greg. Nazianz. Orat. 1. pro Pace Printed Anno M.DC.LXXIV TO THE CATHOLICKS OF ENGLAND IRELAND SCOTLAND And all other DOMINIONS UNDER His Gracious Majesty CHARLES II. My Lords Fathers and Gentlemen HOw customary soever amongst Writers both ancient and modern sacred and profane the Dedication of Books hath been as well sometimes only to desire patronage as at other times gratefully to acknowledge benefits yet I do ingenuously confess it was nor this nor that end nor indeed any private regard whatsoever made me after some debate with my self resolve at last upon a Dedicatory Address to the most illustrious name of British and Irish Catholiks that name of names and most glorious of titles so peculiarly challeng'd and zealously contended for by you as the proper inheritance of those in this famous Empire of Great Brittaine that continue in Ecclesiastical Communion with the Catholick Bishop of old Rome What induced me to this Dedication or rather what required it as a duty of me was your undenyable concern above others in the subject or matters treated in this Book and indeed whole design of it even that very publick and great concern of yours appearing all along to be so proper so intrinsick nay so essential to the Book it self and if I may speake freely that very concern of yours the most universal and most considerable of any can be thought of at present by you To evidence your being every one so concern'd I think there needs no more than to consider what the said subject is It is 1. in general the old and fatal Controversie of late again much more unreasonably and vehemently if not more unhappily too then at any time before renewed amongst his Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects especially those of Ecclesiastical Function about the nature measures and obligation of Allegiance due to His Majesty from them in meer temporal things only And 2. in particular it is for one moyety or principal part thereof the Loyal Formulary of remonstrating promising and protesting indispensable Faith and Obedience to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all civil and temporal tâ—ings whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land or of His Kingdoms respectively Which Formulary was first conceived and agreed upon in the Reign of His Majesties Father of glorious Memory about five and thirty years since by the Roman Catholicks of England or at least some leading persons of them but more lately viz. after His present Majesties happy Restauration and more effectually too was espoused by considerable numbers of those of Ireland for many evident Reasons The chief Reason was the rather by that means to induce His Sacred Majesty to command the ceasing of a rigorous persecution which was then * 1661. actually on foot in that Kingdom under the Triumvirat of Sir Maurice Eustace Lord Chancellor and the Earls of Orrery and Mountrath against all Roman Catholicks universally without distinction or exception of any After much both private and publick debate about this Formulary in the years 1661 and 1662 it not only was subscribed at several times and places by the proper hands of threescore and ten of their Clergy whereof a Bishop was one and a hundred sixty four of their chiefest Lay Nobility Gentry and Proprietors whereof one and twenty were Peers viz. seven Earls nine Viscounts and five Barons but immediately after the first Subscription at London anno 1661. was solemnly presented to and graciously accepted by His Majesty And I suppose they that had any dislike of it in those dayes were well enough pleased with their shares of the success which was His Majesties effectual countermanding the winds and tempest of persecution throughout Ireland and his gracious smiling on the distressed Catholicks both People and Clergy of that Island This honest Formulary now commonly called the Irish Remonstrance so necessarily and piously espoused thus by so many good Patriot-Subscribers as a conscientious Christian full and satisfactory profession of the duty which by all Laws divine and humane they as well as all other Subjects owe His Majesty against all pretences of the Pope to the contrary was even for that very cause i. e. for being so Christianly honest and sincerely loyal soon after traduced and impugned by sundry Ecclesiasticks of the Roman Communion and chiefly by many of those Irish who had received most benefit by it These good men were not content by their reproaches and calumnies to make it odious at home but also dealt so by their disloyal Arts and powerful Friends in other Countries that they got it to be censur'd and condemn'd in formal terms as unlawful detestable sacrilegious yea in effect as schismatical and heretical by the publick Censures of the Lovain Theological Faculty and publick Letters also both of the Bruxell-Internuncio's De Vecchii and Rospigliosi and of the Roman Cardinals De propaganda Fide under the presidency of Cardinal Francis Barbarin himself though amongst other his many titles at Rome stiled Protector of England Having thus gotten the face of Authority on their side they have not ceased ever since for twelve years to the present 1673 but especially these five or six last years have in a most furious manner proceeded even with all the vilest arts of malicious Cabals Conspiracies Plots Libels and an Impostor Commissary and a forged Commission and all the most lying slanders imaginable to persecute and defame the few remaining constant Ecclesiastical Subscribers They have kept them in continual chace with all the greatest and all the most illegal most uncanonical extent of an abused Power with monitories citations depositions excommunications denunciations and even publick affixion or posting of them Of which extremely unjust and scandalous procedures against men no way contumacious as I have sufficiently proved * Vid. Hibernica Valesii Tert. Part. Epist Prim. ad Haroldum there was no cause in nature that appeared or was pretended but a manifest design to force them to renounce their Allegiance to the King by retracting their Subscriptions When they had found them of proof against these attempts under colour of Law they broke out into rage and being
as well with His Grace as with His Majestie and His Majesties other great Ministers and for the rest of the Catholick people of Ireland that ease and connivence he could for what concerned the exercise of their Religion Nor onely that but as occasion offered by writing and printing and exhibiting to His Majestie Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Chancellour of England and other great Ministers of State several papers and books in Print and otherwise of his own labours to move the performance of the Peace of 48. to the Catholicks of Ireland and to mind His Majestie of his justice to Innocents and of His mercy to Nocents But in the first place laboured opportunely and importunely till he prevailed at last to get all the great number of Priests released which had been in several places and Provinces of Ireland in restraint about six-score of them and a great many for several years before His Majesties happy Restauration Wherein he was so impartial to all that although he was offered several times the release of such of those Priests as he would pass his word for that they had been honest all along in the Royal cause during the late difference betwixt the Confederats of Ireland yet he modestly and patiently declined that savour and let those his own special friends suffer with the rest until His Majesties Gracious condescension and my Lord Lieutenants goodness looked indifferently upon them all with an eye of compassion and mercy upon hopes given His Majesty that they would all prove faithful Subjects evermore II. The year 60. and 61. being passed over till the winter came and the hopes of Roman Catholicks for what was moved in their behalf in the House of Lords at Westminster concerning the repeal of laws against them at least and in the first place of those are called Sanguinary being blasted in the bud and the example of the late Irish Rebellion and breach of both peaces in 46. and 48. by some or many of those of that Religion and Nation having besides other arguments and intrigues being made use of against such as moved for such repeal and the Parliament of England being adjourned or prorogued and that of Ireland then under the Lords Justices the Chancellour the Earls of Orrery and Montrath sitting and a great plott amongst the Irish Catholicks so falsly imposed upon them grounded on the no less false and vain pretence of a letter sent by one Priest to an other but contrived onely by a perfidious fanatick impostour as appeared soon after and that Parliament of Ireland however and Lords Justices upon this ground proceeding with strange and new severity against both Clergie and Layety of that Religion and some few of the Catholick Gentry and Clergie consulting together at Dublin of a remedy Sir Richard Barnewal Richard Beling Esq Thomas Tyrrel Esq Oliver Dese Vicar general of Meath Father James Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans at Dublin and others it was resolved upon at last to Remonstrate their condition to His Majestie and Petition his just and merciful regard of them that suffered so unjustly Which accordingly the said Mr. Beling drew in the name of the Catholick Clergie of Ireland Because the design was chiefly imposed on them and upon their account the Layety suffered But forasmuch as he considered that a bare Remonstrance of their sufferings or a bare Petition of redress could not much avail a people that lately had acted as they had done in obedience to the Nuncio both he and the rest of those gentlemen with whom he consulted found it necessary by a Solemn Declaration of their principles in point of obedience in temporal things to obstruct the grand objection of The inconsistency of Catholick Religion and of a tolleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State Which was the reason that one of those Gentlemen remembring they had lately seen a printed Declaration of the Catholicks of England in their name exhibited in a long Petition to the Parliament at Westminster a little before or in the beginning of the commotions of those Kingdoms about the year 1640. and lighting on the book after diligent search wherein they had read it which is that of Father Cressy an English man and a Benedictine Monke sometime before Protestant Dean of Leighlin in Ireland entituled his Exomologesis or the motives of his conversion to the Catholick Church and having brought it to Mr. Beling he judging it very proper for the present matter and purpose of the Catholicks and Clergy of Ireland and much pleased to have such a precedent as that of men so learned and wary as the Catholicks of England for a business or Declaration of that kind extracted it word by word out of the said book pag 76. 77. and 78. Paris impression without any other change but of the Application to the King instead of the Parliament and of Ireland instead of England and inserted it in that Remonstrance which he then drew for his own Countrymen Which although it hath been often already and in several pieces of mine published in Print yet forasmuch as it was that which occasioned this general Congregation at Dublin of the said Irish Clergie in 66. five years after it was in their names exhibited to His Majestie at London and because peradventure many would consider the tenour of it when they come to read this present Treatise and other Treatises following to free them of a trouble to looke after those other pieces wherein it is I have thought fit to give them it here again to their hand To the KINGS most Excellent Majesty The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgement Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland YOur Majesties faithful Subjects the Roman Catholick Clergy of your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland do most humbly Represent this their present state and deplorable Condition That being intrusted by the undispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the cure of Souls and the care of their Flocks in order to the Administration of Sacraments and Teaching the People that perfect obedience which for Conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands they are loaden with Calumnies and persecuted with Severity That being obliged by the Allegiance they owe and ought to swear unto your Majesty To reveal all conspiracies and practices against your Person and Royal Authority that come to their knowledge they are themselves clamour'd against as Conspirators plotting the destruction of the English among them without any ground that may give the least colour to so foul a crime to pass for probable in the judgment of any indifferent person That their Crimes are as numerous and divers as are the Inventions of their Adversaries and because they cannot with freedom appear to justifie their Innocency all the fictions and allegations against them are received as undoubted verities and which is yet more mischievous the Laity upon whose Consciences the character of Priesthood gives them an influence suffer
them as he knowes would otherwise endeavour to do me ill Offices at Rome and render me the more unservicable there and at home after to His Majestie and your Grace I confess My Lord this reservedness argues some weakness or fearfulness in me and yet I cannot help it otherwise at present or until at least we have some further certainty of the Popes silence then we have yet then by assuring your Grace in the faith of a Christian that I will during life observe most religiously in the whole latitude words and sence of it according to the explication of the Author unto me that Protestation And indeed my Lord I can assure your Grace further that it is no new Iudgement nor new affection of my Soul that works in me now but that which I have had these many years past been very much inclined to and which moreover the sufferings of my Predecessors and unfortunate family I am of ever since Henry the 8. for the Crown of England hath in some measure made natural to me For the rest my Lord I have begd of the bearer that he would from time to time let me know your Graces pleasure and Commands and let your Grace know that I will have all those under my charge as farr as I can have power with them to continue their devotions and vowes to God for his most Sacred Majesty and your Grace and that whatever others do I will ever joyn with such as are most devoted to your Grace as My Lord your Graces Most faithful most obsequious and most affectionate Servant Anthony Docharty Minister Provincial of the Franciscans This letter I thought fit to insert because the said late Provincial of the Franciscans for now he is out of his Office carried not himself as to that matter of the Remonstrance either before or after the said letter so candidly and sincerely as would become a person of his place For he notwithstanding all his wariness being suspected by many that he had subscribed and demanded by them whether he had would never own any such thing that I may say no more and thereby rendred his said concurrence altogether unsignificant as to any use could be made thereof His denyal was grounded I suppose hereon that he had not subscribed the individual paper of the original Remonstrance which most others had And peradventure this equivocation had been harmless if it had stayed there or there were not further ill consequences of such equivocation But it was otherwise as his end in both subscribing and denying was for his own private concerns without any regard of the publick and was only to save his own stake with both sides however were a looser Yet this much I will say for him that after this he writt earnestly over Seas to hinder all he could any censures or proceedings against the Subscribers albeit in some of his letters to that purpose he condemned them himself Nor indeed was it agreable to his purpose of dissembing with both parties to do other haveing been himself the principal in sending before the above named Father Iohn Brady to procure censures against the Remonstrance in it self and by consequence against the first publick and printed Subscribers of it And he could not but know that in all likelyhood he had done his worke by that time as indeed he did all he could do However this be I think it not amiss to mind those Franciscan Fathers of that meeting at Multiferum of their unreasonable obstinacy when they remember the following letter of His Grace to the Procuratour as he was on his journey thether which they themselves there did both see and read the Procuratour having so thought fit to answer their pretence of not subscribing on this account That they were not yet satisfied His Majesty or Lord Lieutenant expected any such matter from them but on the contrary were told it was only the Procuratours desire and worke to engage others as deep as himself for his own sake only or to bring himself off the better at Rome by the multitude concurring with him For Mr. Peter Walsh Sir Dublin 26. Jan. 1662. COnsidering how well His Majesty received the Subscriptions to the Protestation presented to him in England I do a little wonder that the example hath not been more readily and frequently followed here than for ought I can hear from you it hath been I have no end in wishing it should than that those of loyal and peaceable dispositions may thereby be distinguished from others for their own advantage Yet any prudent person will believe the Subscribers are more like to find it than the Refusers I desire to know who have already subscribed since your arrival in this Kingdom and who have refused to subscribe And so I rest Your very affectionate Friend Ormonde XLIII Soon after the Procurator had return'd to Dublin from this meeting at Multifernan and the Bishop of Meath Anthony Mageoghegan led wholy by those Fathers had on pretence of the sharpness of the season excused himself by Letter from another meeting with him in his return and when he considered there was no more to be done with or expected from the Generality of the Irish Church-men at least for some time or until they had a general Congeregation by advice of some persons of quality he desired the prime Noblemen and Gentlemen then at Dublin and who had not been at London when the Remonstrance was agitated and subscribed there by such as at that time were there to meet at my Lord Clanriâ—kards of purpose to receive satisfaction in that business whereof there was so much talk amongst all people and to discharge their own duty what ever the Ecclesiasticks did Being met the Lord Birmingham as a most rational and most candid person obiected all he had from others to the Procurator as if all had proceeded from him only But the Earl of Tirconel being present as he was most instrumental both in this meeting and in so many others held at London formerly about the Remonstrance to forward it cleared the Procurator fully for what was done at London declaring that the concurrence of the Nobility and Gentry was wholly and solely their own act originally mentioned by the Earls of Glancarty Carlingford and himself and seconded in very good earnest home by the Earl of Inchiquin some English Catholick Noblemen having of purpose come to their meeting where they declared the joynt approbation of the Catholicks of England and that were the case of the Irish theirs they would most freely and heartily subscribe that very individual Remonstrance with the Preamble and Petition without any change And for the Procurators endeavours to perswade the Clergy in Ireland since his arrival the above Letter of His Grace produced there to my Lord Birmingham and the â—eâ—â— did satisfie them no less fully that he did herein but what he ought and was his Majesties and Lord Lieutenants desire and was both expediâ—â—â— and necessary for all concern'd
Kilfinuran On the xviii a third Message to the Congregation Burk and Fogerty on the xx present a second Petition to the Lord Lieutenant with a Paper of Reasons why the Fathers would not sign the other three Sorbon Declarations as applied c. The Lord Lieutenant's Answer being reported they or at least the chief of them are startled desire more time to sit and deliberate obtain it and yet conclude at last in the Negative Dr. Daly's exception Letter to them from the Subscribers of the first Remonstrance On the xxv their last sitting was Wherein the Procurator tells them first of the Lord Lieutenant's positive Commands to dissolve Next contradicts the relation of Ardagh Then refuses their offer both of Money and commendatory Letters In the fourth place gives a large account of the famed wonder-working Priest James Finachty Lastly moves for and procures their condemnation of two Books the one of C. M. the Jesuite and the other of R. F. the Cappuccin Some other passages relating to the Lord Lieutenant and Bishops which happen'd immediately after the Congregation was dissolv'd The Procurator's judgment of this Congregation leading Members thereof and of their several interests and ends After their dissolution the Doctrine of Allegiance in fifteen several Propositions debated for a whole Month by a Select number of Divines A Paper of Animadversions given to the Lord Lieutenant and his Graces commands laid on the Procurator I. IN September 1665. the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland having landed at Waterford passed to Kilkenny and there continuing some Weeks Father Patrick Maginn one of Her Majesties Chaplains who had from England as I noted before waited on his Grace to take that good opportunity of crossing the Sea safely came from Kilkenny to Dublin some Weeks before his Grace but in order to a further Journey to see his Friends in the North of Ireland Being come to Dublin and the Procurator Father Peter Walsh who was about that time also landed from Holy-head giving him a visit for their acquaintance and some small friendship lately before contracted in England Father Patrick offered his own endeavours to work his Countreymen of the North to a Subscription of the Remonstrance hoping thereby to make them and consequently the rest of the Roman-Catholick Irish more capable of His Majesties future Favours and abate somewhat of the rigour of the Court of Claims pursuing the new Explanatory Act which the Lord Lieutenant had then brought with him from the King and Council of England to pass in this Parliament of Ireland In particular he promised to persuade his own Brother Ronan Maginn a Priest Doctor of Divinity bred in Italy and then by a Roman Bull or Papal Dean of Dromore to subscribe and that him and Dr. Patrick Daly Vicar-General of Ardmagh and under the Archbishop Edmund Reilly a banish'd man living then in France Judge Delegate of that whole Province he would bring to Dublin to confer with the Procurator in order to a general Subscription Pursuant to his promise Father Patrick being immediately departed to the North persuades Dr. Daly to come to Dublin as likewise he brought in his own company his Brother Ronan And indeed Ronan after some Weeks conference with the Procurator and study of such Books as he had from him especially Father Caron's Remonstrantia Hibernorum at last having fully satisfied his own judgment did both freely and heartily Subscribe But for Dr. Daly he was still where he formerly was viz. at the desires of a National Synod or Congregation before he could resolve See the First Part Sect. IX pag. 27. num 16. and Sect. X. pag. 40. num 16. and Sect. XVI pag. 48. near the bottom where you have not only those desires of a National Congregation urg'd anno 1662. by the Bishop of Meath by the Vicar Apostolical of Dublin and some other such Vicars too from several parts of Ireland but also in the above page 40 and page 50. the Procurator's answer at large shewing the unreasonableness of those desires then However now or in the year 1665. the Procurator seeing no remedy i. e. no other way to cure their obstinacy thought fit at last to try this by condescending to their demand What reasons induced him now to yield herein more than before were these 1. That the Primate of Ardmagh Edmund Reilly and the Bishop of Ferns Nicholas French such leading men especially the one in the North and the other in Leinster if not all over Ireland seemâ—d by their frequent Letters from beyond Seas to the Procurator desirous to come home upon any reasonable account and submission also to His Majesty and to the Lord Lieutenant for past offences in the time of War and not to disallow but rather allow of the Remonstrance and not they alone but also the Bishop of Kilfinuran 2. That now His Majesty having been engaged in a War both with Holland and France some of the discontented Irish had been tampering with France for creating new Troubles in Ireland either by an Invasion or Insurrection or rather both and that the exiled Bishops if returned home although on pretence only of such a Congregation their very coming home so whatever otherwise they intended really would much weaken and discountenance any such either hostile or rebellious design being the end of such a Meeting was generally and evidently known out of the very Letters of Indiction to be no other than to assure the King of their indispensable fidelity in all cases and after-times 3. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance and good opinion of that Formulary had even at home in Ireland many more Favourers and Abettors now in 1665. than it had some three years before many even learned and pious Churchmen out of several parts of Ireland though not called upon having since that time come of purpose freely and affectionately to Dublin to sign it besides those of the Nobility and Gentry and some others too of the Commons as you may see page 47. 95. and 99. of the First Part of this First Treatise where also page 13. you may see the Bishop of Ardagh then in 1665. at home in Ireland approving it under his hand from Seez in France Dec. 2. 1662. in his Letter to Sir Nicholas Plunket and page 93. Father Antony Docharty Minister Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Ireland likewise under his own hand to the Lord Lieutenant concurring to it 4. That by this time the Procurator himself who chiefly promoted that work had as by many others endeavours so in a special manner by his then late Reply to the Person of Quality not onely endeared himself to the Nation in general but even to many of his former opposers amongst them and much confounded the most malicious and inveterate of those who were his old profess'd enemies upon the Nuncio's account or that of his writings and actings against the Nuncio and Owen O Neill's party 5. That in all likelihood if the Congregation were held
been certainly informed that all Ireland were absolutely resolved to bid an eternal adieu to all or any Communion with the Roman Church and great Pontiff So much and so nearly to heart did they take that harmless that innocent profession of Allegiance though but in temporal things only made to a Protestant King of England by some and those too but a few respectively of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland As for any thing more of the said Primat Reilly to be observed in this present Section I remember no more but only 1 That as soon as the news of his arrival was bruted both Protestants and Roman Catholicks admired very much how he especially at such a time not only of War twixt England of one side and Holland and France of the other but also of all the three Estates of Ireland in Parliament at Dublin dared to venture home and appear even in that Capital City 2. That some few days before the then Lord Chancellour of England having intelligence of the said Primats landing secretly in England from Flanders and passing through England incognito to Ireland advertised the Lord Lieutenant thereof by that very Packet-boat by which Reilly landed to the end he should be taken the permission of his return having not been signified by his Grace to the said Lord Chancellour but by the next Packet after 3. That for the two Bishops Ardagh and Kilfinuran who till the Primats landing were the only chief in the Congregation and the former of them the only Bishop of the Province of Ardmagh the other the only of the Province of Cashil having withal the Bishop of Tuam's proxy they seemed not any way at all pleased with his arrival as neither did he seem to have much correspondence with or any great esteem for either of them 4. That as far as I could observe all along after during the other Thirteen days of their Session both he of them and they of him stood in some awe I mean as to any clearer declaration of their sentiments or inclinations either to satisfie the King or dissatisfie the Pope in that for which they were permitted to Convene Though withal I did then and do also at present firmly perswade my self out of what I did then my self both see and hear done in the publick Session That the said Ardmagh seemâ—d much more strongly inclin'd to give even full satisfaction as to the point of any Declaration which might concern either his future fidelity or Petition of Pardon for any matters whatsoever past then either Ardach or Kilfinuran whereof you shall have the true reason according to my best conjecture where I give my own judgment of the Congregation and leading Members thereof XI WHat we are now to consider is what happen'd or was done next day being the 13 of June and 3 of their Session but the very first day indeed wherein any material thing was spoke or said or delivered by any in order to the ends for which the Fathers were convened But an unlucky sudden and unexpected accident was like that very day without any further progress in the intended or at least pretended scope of this meeting to have utterly dissolved it and put a final but shameful period to all their designes For the House being sate and Speaker placed in his Chair the Primat last of all coming in bid the Chair-man viz. the Bishop of Kilfinuran leave the Chair as being due to him the said Primat saying withal that none should in his presence besides himself possess that seat The Chair-man refuses and contradicts and with him also not only the Bishop of Ardagh and the Vicar General or Apostolical of Dublin but many more nay most of all the House Whereupon arises a vehement hurry clamour tumult The Primat presently withdraws And all the Members of his Province of Ardmagh except one or two depart likewise following their Archbishop No sooner was he the said Primat gone with his followers then Ardagh Kilfinuran the Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and all their fast Partizans bale out vehemently for a Dissolution a departure every one to his own home There was nothing to be heard or seen but a loud din and some running to the door to keep it open others to shut it some encouraging taking and haleing one another by the hands to depart others crying Dissolve Dissolve and some on the other side praying intreating conjureing them to stay a little and think better of the scandalous Sequel I that found my self as much concern'd as any if not more than any one used all my utmost endeavours to hinder so sad a resolution At last converting my self to the two Bishops in the hearing of all the rest I took the liberty even also of sharp reproof but after I had seen that intreaties would not do with them who together with James Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin were the ringleaders of that so Scandalous and factious resolve And amongst or besides many other things I spoke out openly and plainly to them both That without comparison It had been less hurt they had both drop'd down dead in that very place than that the whole Irish Clergy yea and Laity also their whole Nation their Religion and Communion in general should be on such an occasion exposed to that eternal shame reproach and scorn amongst all Protestants which they must certainly have expected by continuing so mad so furious and desperate a resolution That sure they should have considered their meeting was not nor could be unknown as not unto the Protestant Councel of State so neither to the Parliament of all the three Protestant Estates of the Kingdom both of them at that very time sitting in that very Citty where a National Congregation of the Roman Catholick Clergy did so behave themselves That further they should also have considered how during all that very time that very hour of their so phrantick a transport Three Lay persons both of Quality and their own Nation and Religion also employed to them by his Grace the Lord Lieutenant of the Kingdom and sent by him on a special message to them were hard by expecting to be introduced And Lastly therefore that neither amongst Protestants nor Catholicks they could ever at any time wipe off the ignominious and even also barbarous stain if they persisted to say nothing of all other inconveniences and evils which must have been the consequence of so much not only rashness but also unmannerliness Netled at my freedom the Bishop of Ardach replies in a troubled angry mood and in these very words Quid tu Fratercule ita ad Episcopos But my return was obvious enough That the Case required it And that had there been no other reason as indeed many more were to oblige me thereunto but the very Contents of the publick Instrument signed even by him as well as by others whereby I was the general Procurator empowred with all Power Authority and even Jurisdiction too for the ends of the
clearest both Texts and Reasons imaginable Of all which manifold Authorities of Reason Gospel Humane Laws and Canons having had sufficient knowledge when I engaged in the Controversie and more when for so engaging and for that only I was so strangely prosecuted by Summons Censures c I thought that even my duty to you and the regard I was bound to have of your common interest required of me to make the best use I could of that knowledge in order to your publick good as well on the one hand to assert your and my both Native and Christian right against them that invaded it by those unlawful proceedings as also on the other hand to shew at least in one instance the untruness of that Proposition whereof depends and wherein lies the whole stress of the grand Objection against you which if I be not much deceived is in substance this viz. That for any Roman-Catholick Priest holding firmly to all and every the Articles of Faith undoubtedly believed or at least own'd as such amongst all Roman-Catholicks universally and observing all other duties required of him by the Canons received generally in the National Churches of that Religion it is impossible to be in all cases or contingencies whatsoever indispensably or unalterably obedient and faithful to a Protestant Prince or Kingdom or Government not even in so much as in all meer Civil or Temporal things onely according to the Laws of the Land especially if the Pope command him to the contrary under pain of Excommunication Now as I have behaved my self hitherto I am sure I have manifestly enough proved the untruth of that Proposition and by consequence for as much as pertains to me have really answer'd the grand Objection deducible from it And so have not a few other Irish Priests even all those who together with me suffered very much for many years in the former Cause of the Nunoio or in this latter of the Remonstrance or in both and have not as to either condemn'd or contradicted themselves hitherto by any unworthy submission though at last compellâ—d to silence and in other matters forced to desert me and to submit to their Adversaries Nor do I at all doubt but rather am certain there are this day within England above Five hundred Native Priests beside a great many more in Ireland however at present weathering out the storm so fully resolved for the future in their own persons and cases likewise to disprove that Proposition and to satisfie the Objection built thereon That if His MAJESTY and both Houses of PARLIAMENT may be graciously pleased to try them once with an Act of Grace after a hundred years punishment and to take off I say not any other Incapacity but onely that of living in their Native Countrey that when at home they have satisfied the State they may not be driven abroad to beg or starve and be there exposed to all the rage and violence of the Roman Court they will by a publick Instrument signed under all their hands declare as amply and clearly and heartily against all the foresaid new Doctrines and Practises and all other whatsoever groundless vain pretences of Rome as I have done or as that Act shall require and will be ready to renew that Assurance as oft as shall be required and even to expose their Lives if need be in defence of it notwithstanding any Declarations Precepts or Censures of the Pope to the contrary Third Appendage relating to the Sixth Querie That I know and cannot but mind you of what the Roman-Catholicks of these Kingdoms have lost even since the King 's most happy Restauration by not being advised by Church-men of honest principles in point of His Majesties independent Power and the Subjects indispensable Obedience to Him in all Civil or Temporal things according to the Laws of the Land They have lost three fair opportunities of being not only eased of all their pressures from the penal Statutes but rendred as happy as they could in reason desire or even wish under a Protestant King and Government The first opportunity was offered them in England in the year 1661 when it was earnestly and strongly moved in their behalf in the House of Lords to Repeal the Sanguinary Laws in the first place and a Hill was drawn up to that purpose The second and third were in Ireland the former in the year 1662 when a discontented Party of the Adventurers and Souldiers there had laid their design for surprizing the King's Castle at Dublin and the latter in the year 1666 when we were in the first War with Holland and near to it with France and the Irish National Congregation of the Roman-Catholick Clergy was by occasion of that War suffered to convene at Dublin in order to assure the King of their fidelity How happy the Roman-Catholicks in general might have been if they had taken time by the forelock in any of those three opportunities especially in the first may be easily understood And how unhappy their neglect or wilfulness hath proved to themselves I cannot but with grief of heart consider The rather because I was my self the onely man employed first to the Roman-Catholick Clergy both of England and Ireland on the foresaid occasions to prepare them against any obstruction from themselves of the favours intended towards them and that nothing else was required on the first occasion from those in England but their being ready to take the Oath of Allegiance onely as in the Statute 3 Jacobi His Majesty being then inclined to have dispens'd with them for the Oath of Supremacy nor in the second and third occasion was any thing required from those of Ireland more than their Signing the Loyal Remonstrance or Formulary which had been Sign'd before in the year 1661 by some of their own Ecclesiastical Brethren and so considerable number of their Nobility and Gentry For my own part I am morally certain that if those fair opportunities had not been slighted or if either the one or the other condition had been embraced you should not have seen in your dayes any such tryal of men for bearing office as that you complain of so much now a renouncing of the Doctrine or Tenet of Transubstantiation according to the late Act of the Parliament of England And I am no less certain that had you hearkned to the advice of any of those many virtuous learned Church-men amongst you who have as much true zeal according to knowledge even for the splendor of Catholick Religion and as much true reverence for and obedience to His Holiness as according to Reason or Christianity they can have and withall are truly well affected and rightly principled as to that faith and obedience which they and you all owe by the Laws of God and man to the Temporal Government you had neither slighted any of those good opportunities nor neglected to embrace either of those two most reasonable conditions Fourth Appendage but relating to all the Queries generally
do what he was directed from Ireland he delivered the several papers to my Lord Lieutenant and both humbly and earnestly beseeched His Grace to consider of them and present the case to His Majestie and particularly that Remonstrance acknowledgement protestation and petition of the Clergie Then which scarce could any thing more be expected from them for the future whatever they or any of them had been formerly But his Grace two days after returned this answer That the Remonstrance or Declaration or Protestation therein inserted although it might well in some things be made more full and more satisfactory yet however it might be useful were it not onely a bare paper without any subscription or hand to own it Whereunto the Procuratour had no more to say but that likely they in whose behalf it was thought it enough himself should own it in their name and that the times were such in Ireland as they could not scarce three of them meet together and most of their Bishops were abroad in other Countries in exile whom to consult particularly either at home or abroad would require a longer time then the present sufferings of the generallity at home without some speedy commiseration of them could bear That in the mean time until the rest might be acquainted with the exception against it for not being signed those few of that Clergie then at London come from several parts thither which were about 30 in all and one of their Bishops amongst them would he doubted not own and signe it for themselves whereby His Majestie and Grace might see it was no forgery or imposture That he hoped the rest would when they had an opportunity to meet do the same generally And yet that although himself had as His Grace knew a general power from them under their hands and Seals to act for them all nevertheless forasmuch as this was a very special business and that he had no special Commission from them to sign this Instrument or such a special Declaration of their doctrine and conscience and because he had formerly so much experience of the diversity of their affections inclinations and interest 's in a point of this nature and of the awe they or many of them stood in or would stand in of the Court of Rome and of their dependencies thence which their titular pretensions there continued evermore he dared not venture upon owning or subscribing it in all their names though he was ready to do it in his own even as their Procuratour but still not owning a special Commission herein from them And yet hoped with all that so much affliction at home and their exile abroad for so many years under the late Usurpers had made them all wiser by this time then to scruple at the signing of a Declaration so Catholick in it self so just and necessary from them and a Declaration moreover which tyed them to no more then they were bound unto before by all the laws of God and man without any such Declaration or subscription whatsoever if perhaps we except not under the notion of such laws those Papal Canons onely however rejected by all Christians that are not subject to the Pope in his temporal principality and as well by right reason and Christian Religion condemned as indeed such declaration and subscription was chiefly intended against such III. In pursuance of this discourse and to clear as well as might be then and there at London that rational exception of His Grace a meer Paper not signed by any the Procuratour having acquainted the Catholick Bishop of Dromore then at London and such others of the Irish Clergie there with it and with the whole business and storm lately raised in Ireland against all the Catholicks on pretence of that forged letter they met together two several days at the said Procuratours chamber about 30 of them and with the Bishop four and twenty more signed the said humble Remonstrance the other 4 or 5 excusing themselves onely on pretence of inconveniency or unexpediency and such like not at all of any unlawfulness or uncatholickness in the Declaration or any thing els in the whole Paper as they declared there publickly The Nobility and Gentry also of Ireland in great number at London at that time found themselves no less concerned in this matter And therefore after having for eight weeks consequently together in several meetings publickly debated it and consulted also some eminent persons of the English Catholick Nobility and that also in a publick meeting where the same English Noblemen declared their approbation of it and having fitted for themselves an other preamble and Petition subscribed the same Declaration word by word as those of their Clergie had and presented it to His Majestie by a special Committee sent from themselves and by the hands of the Earl of Tirconel The original of which signed by 97. hands the said Earl keeps as he was entrusted with it by His Majestie who most graciously received it and kept a clean copy with himself as he had that formerly of their Clergie-men Soon after both were published in Print in distinct sheets with an advertisement to the Reader from the Procuratour under that of the Clergie which was perclosed with an invitation not onely to the rest of the Irish Clergie wheresoever but to all those of both English Scots and Welch of that function and Religion to concurre in the same or like to wipe off their holy faith and communion the scandal of such unholy principles in point of government and obedience which had so much prejudiced them and their predecessours for a whole age and reduced them to those miseries under which they groaned so long But in regard those 4. or 5. dissentors with such others English or Irish Clergie men either at London or other places as approved their unreasonable opposition made use of their exceptions and several arguments whereon they grounded their allegations of unexpediency or inconveniency the Procuratour found it necessary to give in Pâ—int and in a little book which he called The More Ample Account c. not onely the occasion of transmitting from Ireland that Remonstrance but the grounds at large which concluded both the expediency and necessity incumbent on the Clergie of Ireland in particular and above all others to subscribe it with answers to all the exceptions made till that time by the dissentors And by occasion of the last of them enlarged himself on those arguments which evidently shew by reason Scripture Fathers practise of primitive Christians and by answers to all the grand objections to the contrary that it is in no kind of contingency lawful or just in Subjects to take arms on any pretext whatsoever against the Prince or Laws or in any kind of case wherein the municipal laws of the land do not warrant them Which being addressed and by an Epistle prefixed to all the several Arch-bishops Bishops Vicars General Provincials of Regular Orders Abbots Priors Guardians Rectors
powred forth unsavouriness and those who should have enlightned others to have brought darkness on them Wherefore such as have kept themselves free from subscriptions or from this kind of infectious disease let them by all means beware they be not drawn into the pitt by their blind leaders and let them uphold the doctrine that is sound Who stands let him take heed he fall not But for such as are unhappily fallen let them rise without delaye And let them know so much as to acknowledg and take hold of that Right hand which their as well most Holy as most loving Father stretches forth in admonishing them Finally let all of you joyned together in the bond of peace yield those respects to the King which true Faith teaches In the mean time I in the name of the whole Congregation appointed overseers of your affairs do wish all things may be prosperous no you and withal exhort you to retain the same constancy of most valorous Resolutions which you have manifested in defending the purity of Religion That you beleive also that all Irish Catholicks are beloved in the bowels of Christ by our most Holy Lord and that his Holyness is even from his whole heart and out of that charity which is from God possessed with the greatest desires of the health and tranquillity of you all Given at Rome the 8. of July 1662. Your most addicted Francis Barbarine VIII Soon after the date of these Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarine and of the Bruxels Internuntio Hieronimus de Veccbiis the Lord Lieutenant being come for Ireland and the Procurators duty bringing him thither after he had answered the man in the dark in the behalf of the Irish in general and in relation to their temporal Estates and had also in the Clergies name made his gratulatory address first to both their Majesties the King and Queen and next to the Lord Lieutenant also when His Grace had the second time that great charge of the Lieutenancy of Ireland put upon him and being arrived at Dublin and being commanded by His Grace to endeavour presently the subscriptions of those at home in the Countrey the first opposition he found was that of fine words and offers of money for his pains taken hitherto for them and three hundred pounds therefore if he would prevail with His Grace to accept of their subscriptions to another form such as themselves would frame because that signed at London was odious in the Court of Rome as lessening the authority of the most holy Father But when they found him unalterable and that he told them positively it was unworthy of them to move any such thing and of him to listen to it besides that they were much deceived in their judgment of His Grace or of the matter in it self as if it depended of the Procurator to perswade or disswade His Grace therein or as if His Grace did not sufficiently understand the consequence of any the least material change or the sense of English words and what imported or not the King or States security as from them presently he understands of a late and general resolution taken by all the Heads of the Clergy not to sign at all that Remonstrance nor suffer any under their respective charges to sign it And further understands that besides the three Provincials of the Franciscans Dominicans and Augustinians a little before his landing met at Dublin and entred into a confederacy together against it Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath and the Provincial of the Franciscans by name Anthony Docharty and besides him Thomas ma Kiernan Francis Ferral and others of the same Order with some Vicars General of the North had signed an Instrument and sent an express messenger one Father John Brady with it over Seas to procure Letters and Censures against the Remonstrance Subscribers That moreover Father Peter Aylmer a little before made Curat of St. Owens at Dublin aspiring further to be made Bishop or at least Vicar Apostolick for having lately been so eminent an opposer of the Remonstrances at London abusing the people with telling them though most falsely the Sorbonists were against it grounding himself only for this vain report upon simple letters from another Irish Priest at Paris a man as ignorant as himself and who seemed to know as little what the Parisians taught or taught not as himself that I say this Father Aylmer made himself very instrumental for such ambitious ends to encourage which he needed not the said Bishop of Meath and the said Father Dempsy Vicar General of Dublin and all others of both Secular and Regular Clergy to resolve absolutely against it Wherein he had the more credit that they were told he had lately been my Lord Aubignyes Confessor at Whitehall and surely therefore knew the King did not expect any such paper or subscription from them nor the Duke either but that as he and they gave out all was the Procurators own contrivance and importunity to further that wherein himself had once engaged That further they saw such as were even at Court and in the daily sight of His Majesty and greatest Ministers of State the Queens own Chaplins those that were natives of England and Ireland were not as much as once called to for their subscription And yet none other of that Clergy in such favour as they Nay that both the grand Almoners of both Queens the Lord Aubigny and Abbot Montague both of them so great and so considerable and the first so near in blood to His Majesty and both looked upon at least the former in a fair way to the greatest dignities in the Catholick Church next the Papacy that both those said they were known to be averse from it But I must advertise the Reader that although use was made of such arguments suggested by the said Father Aylmer some others whom I know very well yet the same Gentlemen could not but know as well then and all others have been long since or at least are now at last throughly convinced of this truth That it was both His Majesties my Lord Lieutenants earnest desires by His Majesties express positive directions to him The Irish Clergie should sign that Remonstrance as an argument of their purpose and firm resolution to be more faithful to Him hereafter than the generality of them had proved to his Father the same Lord Lieutenant heretofore in the late Warrs of that Country That Father Welsh their own Procuratour though zealous enough for the lawfulness Catholickness expediency and necessity also of such signature by them yet had never urged any when once he perceived their general opposition had not His Grace told him of His Majesties pleasure in the case and not seen withall the consequents of their refusal or delay would prove in time very prejudicial both to themselves and the Lay People instructed by them and that such their subscription must have been the only medium to procure them that
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
its Clients in Ireland or elsewhere 12. That further in or about the year 1658. Richard Ferral an Irish Capuccin did present at Rome to the Congregation of Cardinals de propaganda Fide the wicked Book attributed to him The Book of Lyes of Malice and of the very grand mystery of all mischief and of the very original inveterate and fatal division no less unhappily than cursedly renewed so often these 500 years and last of all by this Firebrand 'twixt those of the meer or more ancient Irish extraction and those of the latter or as they are called of the ancient English Conquerours of that Kingdom under Henry the II. or after in the following Ages And the Book presented of purpose to be as a standing Rule or Module to the said Congregation for governing thenceforward the affairs of Ireland as shewing them in effect and plainly enough 1. That no Families not even of the very eldest English extraction in Ireland how Catholick soever in their formal profession were to be trusted with any Prelacies or other at least chief offices in governing the Clergy either Secular or Regular 2. Declaring in express terms all such to be wicked Politicians addicted wholly to the Protestant Kings and State of England 3. On that account falling also fouly even both upon the Right Reverend Nicholas French Bishop of Ferns and Sir Nicholas Plunket although formerly both of them in such esteem with and so beloved of the Nuncio that they were his Darlings and the two Embassadors recommended so specially by him as by his approbation sent from the Irish Confederates to Rome in the year 1646. And 4. suggesting further That none of those either Bishops or others Secular or Regular who had at any time opposed the Nuncio or Owen O Neill and his Army the onely Catholick Army with this Author ought to have permission from Rome to return home lest they should again corrupt the People and hinder them from the new Catholick Confederacy which the Author so expresly drives at therein Now that such a Book so plainly discovering to the world what the ultimate designs of the Irish Nuncio Party had been still from the beginning and continued yet so to be even in the general desolation of Ireland should be so received and countenanced by that Congregation of Cardinals at Rome as it was then and so indeed that it seem'd in effect to have been their Rule both some years before it was heard of publickly and after too for some other years could not but make the small remainder of the Appellant or peaceable Irish Clergy to despair utterly It is true indeed that now since the years 1668. the Court of Rome seems not so much to regard that National distinction which hath been the old bane of Ireland these 500 years But to their own purpose the Romans have nevertheless effectually regarded even so lately and do still and will evermore while they can a far more advantagious to themselves and much more underminingly dangerous to the rights of the Crown of England and peace of the People not only of Ireland but of other Nations subject to the Imperial Crown of England They have lately made some of English and other Forreign Extraction such as Ferral counts them to be even some of those very Families whom this Author expresly and specifically maligns in the highest degree and have lately I say made some of them even Bishops and Archbishops but nevertheless upon full assurance that they have been alwayes and would hereafter unalterably continue fixâ—d even in all respects to all the very temporal interests and pretences of the great Pontiff And they have thereby impos'd on the generality of those who consider no more but bare names and know not the Romans have only seem'd at present for a time only and some few persons only to have quitted that so odious and invidious charge of that national and fatal distinction and this onely too because it was of no more use to them at least not of so much universal use in the present conjuncture The Romans far more politick than Ferral had seen by experience of how great use a few Prelates of that extraction which he decryes had been to them in Ireland even upon the very first insurrection in Octob. 1641. and much more both in forming the Confederacy at Kilkenny _____ in 1642 and in rejecting the first peace at Waterford in 1646. and in opposing the Cessation first and second peace after in 1648 and finally in the fatal meetings of the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks at Jamestown and Galway in 1650 to overthrow again the said second Peace The Romans knew full well the argument was derived from the conjunction of some few eminent Ecclesiasticks of that extraction with those others albeit the only Catholicks in the said Ferral's Book and the great and effectual use indeed was made in Ireland of that argument to persuade the men of Arms and other Laicks Noblemen Gentlemen and all sorts of that same English or other Forreign extraction For the argument was this in short If said those onely Catholicks it had been lawful in point of Religion or Conscience to oppose the first taking of Arms or the following Confederacy or the rejection of the first Peace or the Censures against the Cessation following or Owen O Neill's holding out so long even against this second Peace or at last the Declaration and Excommunication of the Bishops against that very second Peace or if these matters look'd finally upon the setting up a native of the more ancient Irish extraction or bringing in a Forreign Prince or quitting any due Allegiance to the King of Great Britain then surely Thomas Flemming Archbishop of Dublin Thomas Walsh of Cashel Robert Barry Bishop of Cork Comerford of Waterford Nicholas French of Ferns c. and so many other good men also even of the inferiour Clergy Regular and Secular of that extraction whose name or relations cannot pretend to a foot of Land or House to inhabit in Ireland but by or from the Crown and Laws of England had never join'd with those others And this was the argument that in Ireland was more useful to the ends both of the Romans and first Irish either Insurrecters or Opposers of the following Cessation or Peace than any other than even the very unjust designs of the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlacy yea also than any strength after of those very first or grand designers of the meer or more ancient Irish extraction For it is well known that these had never signified any thing considerable in any of the foresaid undertakings but had been crush'd presently if the English Colonies persuaded by that argument had not join'd with and supported them As even it is no less and even consequentially known by experience that any one Prelate or Churchman at least of parts and repute extracted from the old English stock both hath been heretofore and is at present more able to work
of Orders had by the direction of that Court sent many Letters and Instructions and by their procurement also the University of Louain had given their Theological Censure against those Remonstrators and the Remonstrance it self some early enough and others at several times after all along from the year 1661. for seven or eight years more continually yet until they knew for certain that the Duke of Ormond who took that matter and the protection of the said Remonstrants to heart was totally removed from the Government of Ireland and matters as to that affair also of the Remonstrance wholly altered or not look't upon here in England at Court they never attempted to proceed further But then immediately as knowing and finding their seconds both in Ireland and England what engine have they not made use of to destroy those Remonstrators and suppress their wicked Heresie What numerous Orcations of Archbishops Bishops Vicars Apostolical Provincials of Regular Orders c. for and in Ireland and of men by inclination or for interest or out of ignorance or some perhaps out of all three professed sworn devoted Anti-Remonstrants What Citations Depositions and Excommunications What Denunciations and Affixions of the Remonstrants or the chief of them Nay what other hellish inventions too by the Italianated Engineers here at home against the same impious Hereticks forsooth that deny the Pope to be either Dominus Deus noster Papa or King of the world or as much as Supreme Lord of poor Ireland Nor have the Roman Courtiers failed in timing not even this their last persecution from the year 1669. to this present 1673. against those men For therein also they have prospered yea it would seem they have had here at home even from great men in power all furtherance and favours to prosper so i. e. to oppress and suppress utterly those Remonstrators nay and the very doctrine of that Remonstrance certainly much beyond either my expectation or opinion in the year 1661. when I had it sign'd and presented to and was also so graciously accepted by His Majesty though not against my then also expresly resolved preparation of mind and resignation of soul and constancy of heart and exhortation to others too as you may see evidently in my More Ample Account pag. 45. 48 49. and against all such even extraordinary contingencies or persecutions even I mean from either or any side whatsoever Court of Rome or Court of England or both My good Angel some secret instinct from God I doubt not having even then so particularly both forewarnâ—d and forearm'd me against all such future events how improbable soever they seem'd to be then and my own reason also telling me from the beginning the Roman Court would leave no stone unremoved to work the Court of England against me and my Friends and that very Formulary too however this last of the Formulary might seem impossible if not peradventure to those only who are reported to have a constant Council sitting to reconcile contradictions and render impossibilities possible quia filii hujus Saeculi prudentiores filiis lucis in generatione sua sunt Luc. 14.8 Hitherto whatever I intended either by anticipation or otherwise in prosecuting of my Answers to the first Querie put in the beginning of this Section As for the second Querie there viz. How it came to pass that those few Remostrants professing so as they should and ought their Allegiance to the King in all Temporal Affairs and onely in such Affairs have been nevertheless as they are even at present therefore and onely therefore by their Adversaries at home though otherwise Fellow-subjects without any fear or shame so vehemently obstinately and openly opposed yea to their power persecuted needs but little to be said here if any thing after or besides what you have already in the First Part Sect. ix from page 21. to 27. where you have Sixteen several Allegations of the Anti-Remonstrants to excuse themselves though all and each fully answered in the Tenth Section immediately following and beginning page 27. And therefore at present I will in answer to that second Querie add here to those former Allegations That the said Anti-Remonstrants being sure of all the authority power and favour of the Court of Rome both to back them in such not only their opposition but persecution yea and to reward them in due time with Mitres and all other Dignities Benefices Offices extraordinary Missions Commissions Faculties c. each one proportionably to his degree zeal and merit in behaving himself manfully against those Remonstrants those Vnderminers forsooth of the Holy See they were also both encouraged and assured by private Agents and other Friends at His Majesties Court That even also this very Court of England should be made for them ere long and against the Remonstrators And that in the mean time surely and however they behaved themselves they should fare no worse than the great body of Protestant Nonconformists overspreading the Three Nations And lastly That there should never be any difference or distinction made by any future favourable Edict Statute Law or otherwise in England or Ireland betwixt any two Parties of Roman-Catholicks however either of them the one way or other well or ill principled in order to the Pope or King Besides they were told by some disaffected cunning Lawyers their Friends That the Lord Lieutenant dared not own the urging them to sign the Remonstrance much less the forcing them by any kind of punishment to allow or approve thereof because there was no Law for doing so that Formulary it self not being legal nor in any wise taken notice of in Law but varying in many respects from the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance That the tendring of these legal Oaths indeed the Lord Lieutenant might by Law justifie and according to Law punish the refusers of them but that nevertheless he would be wary enough to tender these lest he should meet with a general repulse and have no thanks neither in the Court of England for his zeal Moreover there wanted not leading men amongst them who albeit they laugh'd in their sleeves at the Cheats of the Roman and Louain Censures procured against the Remonstrance and acknowledg'd ingenuously there was nothing in that Formulary against either Catholick Revelation or Religion or indeed in any point so against conscience or justice that people might not if they pleased to renounce their own liberty without any sin subscribe their names to it yet after all were as zealously and even inwardly both affected and principled for the freedom of their Native Countrey from a Forreign yoke for such they call the English Rule there as ever Judas Galilaeus Acts 5. was in former times for his own beloved Countrey of Palestine to free it from subjection to the Roman Eagles Men that holding as mean an opinion of all kind of Papal pretences either from divine or humane right to the Temporal Monarchy I say not either of the whole Earth or
but many of their Superiours amongst them had also discountenanced nay to their power even vexed and persecuted such of their underlings who had signed it and moreover had understood all the other practices of their Agents beyond Seas how I say notwithstanding all this the said Lord Lieutenant had hitherto and for their sakes who signâ—d most patiently expected an amendment of such errours in the rest and in the mean time extended even to the most ungrateful of the Dissentors and opposers all those very favours of Indulgence and connivance of Publick exercise of Religion which the Subscribers enjoy And how the Procurator himself had no way lessened his Zeal to endeavour by all means he could the continuance of those favours even to the very most ungrateful and malicious of his Adversaries in the grand contest Sixth reflected on the great variety of pretences which the dissenting both Superiours and Inferiours pleaded for so many years to excuse their non-concurrence and amongst or rather above all other excuses their desire and expectation of Licence for a National Assembly to consult of the equity of the demand See those either pretences or true cause Tract 1. Part. 1. Sect. 9. from Page 21. to Pag. 27. Where you find the Sixteenth of them to be this of a National Congregation desired Seventh was wholly taken up in the Merits of the main matter in controversie or the only chief end of their meeting viz. the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof And here the Procurator shewâ—d and at large dilated upon the Lawfulness and Orthodoxness of it in point of Conscience and both Christian and Catholick Religion even I mean as to those very causes of the said Remonstrance which was the Rock of Scandal because denying and renouncing all and every the branches and appendages of the pretended Papal Authority either by Divine or Human Right to depose the King c. or dispence with or declare against the Allegiance of Subjects or by Excommunication or otherwise to raise them to a Rebellion against His Majesty c. His Arguments against any such Papal Power and consequently for the said Lawfulness and Orthodoxness he derived evidently 1. From so many plain Declarations and express commands of Holy Scripture 2. From the unanimous consent of Holy Fathers interpreting those passages of Holy Scripture so and not otherwise for a whole Thousand years until Gregory the VII's Pontificat 3. From the Practice also as well as Theory of the Christian Church Universally for those ten whole centuries of years and consequently even from true Catholick Tradition 4. From the general opposition made even in all European Nations Kingdoms States Schools Universities and National Churches to the contrary positions even also in every age since the said Gregorie's days until this very present 5. Particularly from the known Assertions of the Gallican Church and Decisions too of the eight present Universities of France all unanimously condemning those self same contrary positions as impious wicked against the Word of God Heretical and more singularly yet from the six late Declarations of Sorbon May 8. 1663. Not to mention how Cardinal Perron by his fine circumventing speech in the general Assembly of the Three Estates of that Kingdom after the Murder of Henry Le Grand only endeavour'd these Positions should not be declared in formal Words Heretical 6. From the Practice of the Parliaments of Paris and Sicilian Monarchy too 7. From the Statuts of Provisors and Praemunire made so many Hundred years since by the Roman-Catholick Kings and Parliaments of England and Ireland even all the Lords Spiritual assenting especially those Statutes under Edward the III. and Richard the II. which declare the Crown of those Kingdoms to be Imperial and subject to none but God only 8. From the eminency and multitude of most learned Roman Catholick Writers even Scholasticks who all along these 600 years have in every Age expresly condemned and even both specifically and abundantly confuted those vain and wicked pretences set on foot first by Hildebrand 9. From the pitiful silliness unsignificancy and absurdity of all Bellarmin's Arguments for the other side arguments proving either nothing at all or certainly that which neither himself nor any not even of his very beloved Popes themselves would allow 10. And Lastly from the clearness of Natural Reason also in the cases and that I mean too whether the Revelations of Christianity be presupposed or no. From all such Topicks of convincing Reason and Authority I mean as well Divine as Human the Procurator deduced his own arguments for the above Lawfulness and Orthodoxness viz. of the Remonstrance and Subscription thereof notwithstanding any Bugbear of Roman Letters or Louain Censures to the contrary The eighth advanced hence to the consequential both expediency and necessity of their unanimous cheerful Subscription without further delay or regret being there was no other way or means to redeem themselves or their Church or to satisfie or appease the King or his Protestant People for what had been so publickly and vehemently acted in former times partly by them or at least many of them and partly by the rest of the Irish Clergy represented by them and acted even all along either in or immediatly after the very first Rebellion of the Irish Nation in October 1641. and in the unhappy Congregation of Waterford Anno 1641 against the first Peace and further in the year 1648 against the Cessation with Inchiquin and for the Censures of the Nuncio Lastly in the year 1650. and most unhappy Congregation of Jamestown against the second Peace no other way truly in the first place but of humble Submissive Penitential Petition begging pardon for so many former grievous Errors against all Laws Divine and Human. Nor indeed any other in the next place to allay the just suspicions and jealousies of their future demeanour but that of a sincere hearty Loyal Recognition of His Majesties Supream Temporal Independent Power Protestation of Obedience and Fidelity according to the Laws of the Land in all Temporal matters and all contingencies whatsoever and Renunciation also of all pretended Powers and false Doctrines to the contrary The Ninth was the conclusion of all in wishes and Prayers beseeching the Fathers by all that should be dear or Sacred to them to consider That nothing was desired or expected from them in either point but what certainly was more consonant to pure Christianity i. e. to the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ and therefore doubtless more holy than the contrary was or could possibly be 2. The sad fate which had perpetually and universally attended all Rebellions of those of their Religion however at so many several times and places entred into either in England Ireland or Scotland since the first separation under Henry the Eighth 3. Whether wise men ought not even in point of Prudence not only bid at last an eternal adieu to such both Principles and Practices as proved at all times and in all Countries
of so many former abroad in other parts of Europe since Gregory the 7th so manifest in History force not a confession of all this from F. N. N or if the very nature of the positions in themselves and the judgment of all judicious and ingenuous men of the world prevail not with him to confess that a general decision and resolve of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Ireland as well against the Popes pretence of infallibility as against his other of a power for deposing the King and raising at pleasure his Subjects in rebellion and against both absolutely and positively be not one of the most rational wayes to hinder the disturbance of King and Countrey as from such Clergie-men and others of their Communion and Nation and if the denyal of such decision and resolve against either pretence especially against this of infallibility since it is plain that if the Pope be admitted infallible his deposing power must necessarily and instantly follow because already and manifoldly declared by several Popes if I say this denyal convince not the denyers and such denyers as the said Congregation in this Country and Conjuncture of a design or desire or pleasure or contentedness to leave still the roots or seeds of new disturbances of both King and Countrey in the hearts of their beleevers and if I say also F. N. N. himself will not upon more serious reflection acknowledge all this to be true and â—â—ident I am sure all other judicious and knowing men even such as are â—iâ—interested wholy in the quarrel and not his partisans will That finally what I have to say is That whosoever is designed by him to be per stringed in or by this last pretence of furthering this dispute to the disturbance of both King and country may answer F. N. N. what the Prophet Elias did Achab on the like occasion Non ego turbavi Israel sic 〈◊〉 demâ—â— Patris tui 3 Reg. 18.18 qui â—ereliquistis mandata Domini secuti estis Bealim And 〈◊〉 that nâ—â— such person alone who ever chiefly perhaps intended nor his few other associates only perstringed likewise by F. N. N. and congregation in this perclose of their Paper but the poor afflicted Church of Ireland generally as it compriseth all beleevers of both sorts and sexes Ecclesiastical and Lay-persons of the Roman Communion nay but the Catholick Church of Christ universally throughout the world hath cause enough already and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all such other preposterous defenders of her interests what Iacob said to Simeon and Levi Gen. 34.30 upon the sack of Sichem Turbastis me â—diosum fecistis me Chananaeis Pherezaeis habitatoribus terrae hujus And more I have not to say here on this subject of infallibility But leave the Reader that expects more on that question or this dispute in it self directly and as it abstracts from the present indirect consideration to turn over to the last Treatise of this Book Where he shall find more at large and directly to that purpose what I held not so proper for this place Though I confess it was the paper of those unreasonable reasons the answers to which I now conclude here that gave me the first occasion to add that sixth and last piece as upon the same occasion I have the fifth also immediately following this fourth Only I must add by way of good advice to F. N. N That if he or the Congregation or both or any for them will reply to these answers or to what I have before said in my second or third Treatise on their Remonstrance and three first Propositions or even in my first though a bare Narrative only and matter of notorious fact related and if they will have such reply to be home indeed it cannot be better so than by their signing the 15. following Propositions Which to that purpose I have my self drawn and had publickly debated for about a moneth together in another but more special Congregation of the most learned men of this Kingdom and their own Religion held even in that very house where the former sate and immediatly after they were dissolved The Fourteen PROPOSITIONS of F. P. W. Or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that onely which can secure His Majestie of them as much as hand or subscription can and that onely too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 1. Prop. HIS Majestie CHARLES the Second King of England is true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Dominions and all the Subjects or people as well Ecclesiastick as Lay of His Majesties said Kingdoms or Dominions are obliged under pain of sin to obey His Majestie in all Civil and Temporal affairs 2. His said Majestie hath none but God alone for Superiour or who hath any power over him Divine or Human Spiritual or Temporal Direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary de facto or de jure in his temporal rights throughout all or any of his Kingdoms of England Ireland Scotland and other Dominions annexed to the Crown of England 3. Neither the Pope hath nor other Bishops of the Church joyntly or severally have any right or power or authority that is warrantable by the Catholick Faith or Church not even in case of Schisme Heresie or other Apostacy nor even in that of any private or publick oppression whatsoever to deprive depose or dethrone His said Majestie or to raise his Subjects whatsoever of His Majesties foresaid Kingdoms or Dominions in Warr Rebellion or Sedition against him or to dispense with them in or absolve them from the tye of their sworn Allegiance or from that of their otherwise natural or legal duty of obedient faithful Subjects to His Majestie whether they be sworn or not 4. Nor can any sentence of deprivation excommunication or other censure already given or hereafter to be given nor any kind of Declaration dispensation or even command whatsoever proceeding even from the Pope or other spiritual authority of the Church warrant His Subjects or any of them in conscience to rebel or to lessen any way His said Majesties said Supream Temporal and Royal rights in any of his said Kingdoms or Dominions or over any of his people 5. It is against the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the primitive Church to pretend that there is a natural or inhere at right in the people themselves as Subjects or members of the civil common-wealth or of a civil Society to take arms against their Prince in their own vindication or by such means to redress their own either pretended or true grievances
unanimously in Tyr-Oen's Rebellion against the self-same heretical Queen as they call'd her not to mention here any way His Breve to Tyr-Owen himself (h) Dated in January the said year of His Popedom but of Christ 1601. And the Theological Judgment of the two famous Universities of Castile Salamanca and Valladolid (i) The former at Salamanca dated the second of February 1603. albeit the Jesuits Colledge there begun and Signed it before on the seventh of March 1602. the latter dated at Valadolid the eighth of March 1603. both justifying the lawfulness of Tyr-Oen and his Associates their taking Arms against the Queen and condemning as guilty of mortal sin all the other Roman-Catholick Irish that obeyed the Queen and fought against them for Her Majesty And the two several Breves of Paul V. (k) The first dated at St. Marks in Rome sub annulo Piscatoris x. Cal. Octob. 1606 and the second next year after which was the third of his Papacy dated likewise there at St. Marks on the 23d of August in the second and third year of His Papacy and both Breves directed to the Catholicks of England against the Oath of Allegiance made by King James in Parliament a little time before And lastly the other two several Breves of Vrban VIII (l) And that dated at St. Peters at Rome under the Signet of the Fisher May 30. 1626. whereof one was in like manner to the Catholicks of England exhorting them to lose their lives rather than be drawn to take noxium illud illicitum Anglicanae fidelitatis Juramentum quo non solum id agitur ut fides Regi servetur sed ut sacrum universae Ecclesiae sceptrum eripiatur Vicariis Dei omnipotentis c. that pernicious and unlawful Oath of Allegiance of England which His Predecessor of happy memory Paul V had condemned as such The other was that Bull or Breve of Plenary Indulgence (m) Dated 1643. May 25. given yet more lately to all the Roman-Catholicks of Ireland who had join'd in the Rebellion there begun in the year 1641 even that very Bull I mean which the Person of Quality objects in his Answer to P. W. Besides all these Publick Instruments and many more I omit of Paper and Parchment and Hands and Seals which are not denied nor can be on any sufficient ground witness in the second place all the no less unchristian than unhappy effects of these very Bulls Breves Judgments and Indulgences Particularly witness first the Rebellion of the Lincolnshire Twenty thousand men under that sturdy Monk Doctor Mackerel alias Captain Cobler and immediately after their suppression the much more terrible Insurrection of Forty thousand Yorkshire and other Northern men formed into a complete Army and even provided with a Train of Artillery calling themselves the Holy and Blessed Pilgrimage or the Pilgrimage of Grace and both Rebellions raised on pretence of Religion against Henry VIII (n) Two Rebellions in the year 1537. against Henry VIII Two more against King Edward VI. Several other in England and Ireland against Q. Elizabeth in the year 1537. Next those other two great Bodies of Northern and Western Roman-Catholick Zealots against his son King Edward VI and the latter marching into the Field with a Crucifix under a Canopy which instead of an Altar was set in a Cart accompanied with Crosses and Candlesticks and Banners and Holy Bread and Holy Water c. Then the unfortunate Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland with all their Adherents drawn so temerariously into the Field at Cliflord Moore not far from Wetherby in the West-riding of Yorkshire against their lawful Queen Elizabeth Then the Earls of Desmond Tyr-Oen Tyrconnel the Viscount Baltinglasse O Docharty and so many other Septs and Names as at several times Rebelled against Her in Ireland and from first to last continued there a long and doubtful War against Her Then the Invincible Armada (o) Spanish Invasion 1588. or Spanish Invasion in the memorable year 1588 besides those more private Plots of Parry Babington Savage Cullen Lopez Squire York and others to take away Her Life by Sword or Poyson Then against King James not only in Scotland (p) The armed Confederacy of several Earls in the year 1592. and while He was only King of Scotland the armed Confederacy of the Earls of Montrosse Bothwell Crawford Arrol Huntley Anguss the Lairds of Kinfawns of Fintrie and others in the year 1592 by the advice and at the sollicitation of the Jesuits Hay Creighton Abircrumby Tyrie but in England (q) Gunpowder-Treason Nov. 5. 1605. after coming to that Crown also both against Him and all the Three Estates of that Kingdom in Parliament assembled the most Execrable design of the Powder-plâ—t Traytors on the Fifth of November 1605 besides other Designs and less famed Contrivances formerly both in England and Scotland against His own Person Liberty and Life Lastly Under King Charles I of Glorious Memory the Universal Rebellion or Insurrection which you please to call it of all the Roman-Catholicks of Ireland (r) The Irish Rebellion 1641. a very few excepted against His said Maiesties Laws Authority and Deputies of that Kingdom in 1641 their Confederacy formed and War continued by them for so many years after and even Two several Peaces (s) The first Peace in the year 1646 and the second in the year 1648. with His Majesties LORD LIEUTENANT in that interim so scandalously violated by the prevailing Party amongst them To all which matters of Fact of both kinds relating only to the proper and even latter as well affairs as times of these Kingdoms of England Ireland and Scotland if we please to add the strictest Oath of Fidelity that can be imagined which all even our own Archbishops Bishops and Abbots do and must take at their Consecration that I may pass over now in silence not only the other Oath which all Beneficed Church-men whatsoever that have Collation or Institution by Bull from His Holiness nay all graduated Lawyers and Physitians do likewise take but also the false and yet both practical and general interpretation of the solemn vow of Obedience which all even our very Regulars do make there can be nothing more desired to shew That we need not go higher up than our own Dayes and our Fathers nor farther off than the peculiar Concerns of these very Nations to instance both manifestly and abundantly such practises as in all respects are answerable to the very worst of those Principles to which they relate VIII That notwithstanding the great multitude of Roman-Catholick Writers and greater authority of other Patrons of the same Church viz. the Roman Bishops themselves commonly these last 600 years maintaining even the very highest Enormities of the now related both Principles and Practises yet even continually since the very first time that any 〈◊〉 in those Principles or any lawfulness in those Practices hath been asserted either by Pope Hildebrand Himself
of that which we do and ever acknowledged to be his birth-right God give those poore wretches under oppression in Ireland true patience to be aâ— out their misery with a constant memory of their duty to his Divine Majesty that permits their affliction and their King that haply cannot yet binder it conveniently As soon as I have answer from the rest of the Prelates to your request I will write to your Lordship of our resolution In the mean time I assure your Lordship that the Letter I answer now is the only I received from you since you departed France but that all notwithstanding I am My Lord Your Lordships affectionate and humble Servant Johannes Archiepiscopus Tuamensis Dinan 30. Ian. 1662. VII The opposers of the Remonstrance therefore relyed wholy on their endeavours with the two Bishops that lived at home in Ireland Anthony Ma. Geoghegan Bishop of Meath since that time dead and Doctor Owen Swiny Bishop of Killmore alive still and besides these upon the Generality of the Vicars-General of Ireland whom they had known formerly to have been for the Nuntio and for the same reason upon the Provincials of the three more numerous Regular Orders the Franciscans Dominicans and Augustinians and for the lesser and latter Orders they made sure account of them in the crowd and on other accounts which shall hereafter be given Upon all these men and upon the endeavours of those of their affection and Countrey at Lovaine to work against that Remonstrance with the then Internuncius of Bruxels Hieronimus de Veechiis who had from the Pope a kind of superintendency over Irish affairs and by his means at Rome the grand opposers of the said Remonstrance built all their hopes to thwart it and render it uneffectual and unsignificant though to their own ruine not upon any reason or arguments against either the catholickness or usefulness of it Nor were they deceived in their hopes or mistaken in their measures though withal fortunate in misfortune For in Iuly 1662. this Internuncio writ two several Letters against it and the Subscribers one to the Bishop of Dromore and another to Father Francis Lyons alias Matthew Duff of St. Francis's Order which two Letters came accidentally unsealed to my Lord Chancellour of Englands hands And several others to others in Ireland of some of which I have the copies and of some too the very originals In all which he signifieth by direction as he sayes from his Holiness and from the Congregation de propaganda the said Remonstrance to contain propositions co-incident with those condemned by Paul the V. long since and lately by Innocent the Tenth And therefore needs no new censure against it As in one I have my self the original directed to one Father Bonaventure Brodin of St. Francis Order 7th October 63. he sayes That Valesian Instrument or Formula as he calls it of Allegiance can do more hurt to the Church of God than all former persecutions of Hereticks Quam quaevis anteacta Hereticarum persecutio But for the Readers more ample satisfaction I give here word by word the letter of the said Internuncio whereof at first copies were dispersed with so much diligence and conveyed privately from hand to hand throughout all the parts and corners of this Kingdome Reverende in Christo Pater Petiit a me Paternitas tua quid resolutum fuerit Romae circa Declarationem seu Protestationem incipientem Your Majesties faithful Subjects et desinentem prescribed by the law Serenissimo Angliae Regi oblatam ac ab aliquot Ecclesiasticis Hibernis subscriptam Quocirca desiderio vestro optime satisfactum censui si quae eâ de re nuper ex mandato Sanctissimi Domini Nostri ad me scripta sunt vobis ommunicem nempe post diligentem discussionem in variis Eminentissimorum Cardinalium et Theologorum congressibus factam deprehensam esse protestationem illam instar repullulantis hydrae continere propositiones convenientes cum aliis a fede apostoliea olim reprobatis fignanter a faelicis mem riae Paulo V. per constitutionem in forma Brevis et nuper anno 1648. in Congregatione specialiter commissa ab Innocentio X. Proinde Sanctissimus Dominus censuit opus modo non esse nisi ut id ipsum declaretur Nobisque mandavit bane ejus mentem omnibus testatam facere ut publice pateat eandem protestationem ac subscriptiones appositas a Sanctitate sua non solum non approbatas fuisse sed neque permissas aut per conniventiam toleratas imo graviter indoluisse quod per exemplum Ecclesiasticorum tracti sint in eundem errorem Nobiles seculares ejusdem regni Hiberniae quorum protestationem ac subscriptiones pariter reprobat juxta praemissam ferâ—nam idque ad eximendas Catholicorum conscientias a dolo et errore quo circumveniuntur Non intendit tamen per hoc ullo modo Sanctissimus Dominus Catholicos avertere a praestanda serenissimo Regi suo sincerè et ex animo fidelitate illa quae religionem supremo Regum Regi debitam câ—mitatur et condecerat imo potius monet et hortatur ut ea fidelitate reliquis subditis examplo praeluceant tanquam illi qui inter tenebras ambulent in luce Haec quidem sunt quae ad me de toto hoc negotio scribi jussit Sanctissimus Dominus Eadem poterit Paternitas Tua communicare omnibus suis ut de rei veritate atque indubitata Sanctitatis suae meniâ— reddantur certiores Tuis demum sacraficiis me ex aninto commendo Bruxellis 21. July 1662. Studiosissimus in Domino Hieronimus Abbas Montis Regalis Reverend Father in Christ Your Paternity hath desired from me what hath been resolved at Rome concerning the Declaration or Protestation beginning your Majesties faithful Subjects and ending prescribed by the law presented to the most Serene King of England and subscribed by some Irish Ecclesiasticks Wherefore I thought I shall very well satisfie your desires if I communicate to you what hath been written thereupon by command of our most holy Lord. To witt that after diligent discussion in several meetings of the most eminent Cardinals and Divines that Protestation hath been found like the returning Hydra to contain propositions agreeing with others heretofore condemned by the Sea Apostolick particularly by Paul the fift of happy memory by a constitution in form of Brief and lately in the year 1648. in a Congregation purposely held to that end by Innocent the X. And hence it is that the most holy Lord hath thought no more necessary now but that this very thing should be declared And commanded us to testifie unto all this his mind to the end it may appear publickly that the said Protestation subscriptions added have not only not been approved by His Holiness but not as much as permitted or even by connivence tollerated yea that he hath grievously ressented that by the example of Ecclesiasticks the secular Nobles of the foresaid Kingdom of Ireland
dissolution be accounted any prevarication but an amendmendment of rashness Thus have we after mature and frequent deliberation determined and decided at Lovaine in a full Congregation of the Faculty summon'd under Oath and held the 29th of December consecrated to the Martyrdome of the most glorious Bishop Thomas of Canterbury sometime Primate of England in the year of our Lords Incarnation 1662. Subscribed By the Deane and Faculty of Louaine The place of the Seale And after George Lipsius Bedel and sworn Notary to the said Theological Faculty XLVIII The first considerable effect this Lovaine Censure had was a citatory letter from the most reverend Father the Commissary General of the Franciscan order and Belgick Nation James de Riddere a Brabantine sent from Brula in Germany to Father Caron then at London The said Commissary being Ordinary Superior of all the Franciscan Order in the Belgick Nation and consequently of the Irish Franciscans as belonging to the same Belgick Nation according to the division and Statutes of that Order which divide all the Provinces thereof where-ever in the world into six Nations three Tramontaries three Cismontaines of which Cismontane the Belgick Nation is one comprehends not only at the several Provinces of lower Germany most of those of the higher but also those of Denmarke Scotland England and Ireland which four last Kingdoms or the Convents of Franciscans therein before the change of Religion though very numerous made but four Provinces of that Order So that by vertue of his Ordinary Superiour-ship General over the Franciscans in that Belgick Nation though otherwise subject himself to the Minister General of the whole Order throughout the world the said Commissary General Iames de Riddere cited Father Caron and those others mean'd by him as involved in the business to appear at Rome or Bruxels Yet having not particularly expressed the business or cause and for some other essential defects in that manner of citation Father Caron return'd the answer you have here after that citatory Letter which I give first A Letter written by the Commissary General of St. Francis Order in the Belgick German and Brittish Nation and over those of the same Order in Ireland and Denmark Father Iames de Riddere a Brabantine to Father Redmond Caron Reverend Father YOurs of the 15th of March were sent me by Father Augustine Niffo and I received them on the 17th of April at Brule in the Province of Cullen being imployed in visiting And wondred such great difficulties and dangers in obeying the commands of Superiours alledged by you who have so easily ingaged in a business full of difficulties and dangers not only to your selves in particular but the whole Order Therefore be it known to your Reverence be it known to all that have engaged themselves in the same affair That our most holy Lord whom by a special â—ye of our Rule we ought to obey doth justly expect an account from you satisfaction from your Superiors Whence it is that by iterated commands from the most Reverend Father General I admonish your Reverences and summon you to appear either before him at Rome or me at Bruxels to yield a more ample account of that act of yours to the end we may satisfie the See Apostolick be careful of the honour of the Order and of your own particular honour safety and comfort which out of a fatherly affection is desired by Your reverend Paternities most addicted Brother and Servant Fr. Iames de Riddere Superscribed To the very reverend Father Father Redmond Caron of the Order of the Friars Minors and Province of Ireland Reader Iubilate of sacred Theology As soon as Father Caron received this Letter he called together such of the Irish Franciscan Subscribers as he could meet with at London and with their consent and in all their names return'd in Latin this answer you have here translated Father Carons Reply signed by him and the rest of the Subscribers of his Order and Province of Ireland then at London Most Reverend Father YOurs of the 18th of April given at Brule we have seen whereby you summon us that have engaged in that affair to Rome or Bruxels We have sent a Copy thereof into Ireland that your summons may be known to the rest without whose answer we cannot in a Cause common to us all give that full satisfaction we intend However such as are here wonder that in your letter of Summons the cause of summoning them is not otherwise specified then by these words who have engaged themselves in that affair What affair Nay how so great a multitude being at least of the very Franciscans forty in number who with many others of the Secular and Regular Clergy and some Bishops too have signed that Remonstrance or Protestation if it or those of your Order that signed it be meaned by you may be summoned to Rome or Bruxels without any regard or consideration of either the old age of some the sickness of many and the poverty all wanting means to bear their charges for so long a journey And again how are they cited to Rome or Bruxels who by another mandate of the Right Reverend Father General which mandat is now here at London are commanded home to Ireland Whatever may be said in answer to these expostulations your most reverend Paternity may be pleased to understand the Laws of England are and of three hundred years standing that no Subject may under pain of death without the Kings licence depart the Kingdom in obedience to or compliance with any citation from forreign parts not even from Rome And that whoever doth otherwise summon or if subject to the King serues any such summons or even obeys them is in this Kingdom declared guilty of High Treason All which His sacred Majesty that now raigns hath confirmed of late and under the same penalties commanded us to observe We do not believe that your most Reverend Paternity is of opinion that we ought with so great a hazzard of our selves transgress those Laws and that command of our King to whom our bodies are subject by divine right Yet if it shall please your most Reverend Paternity to do in this case what the Canons of the Church do appoint in any such that is to appoint here or from elsewhere send unto us a Commissary or Delegate to take cognizance of our fact whatever it be where it was done to hear examine determine of and judge it we shall be very glad and most willingly submit to correction if we have swerved in any thing from the doctrine of all Antiquity Scripture or Fathers Or if peradventure you be not pleased with this submissive offer the Custos of our Province who by command of the late Middle Chapter in Ireland prepares for his journey to the General Chapter at Rome will more fully inform the Right Reverend Father General and your Paternity More we cannot say for your satisfaction until we hear from Ireland We
Sir James Ware hath of an Irish King long before the English conquest whether the story be true or false to have gone to Rome out of devotion and layd down or offered up his Crown at St. Peters shrine Which if it had given a real title to the Pope or that See it must follow that the Bishop and See of Winchester hath as much great just certain and lawful to the Kingdoms of England Denmarke and all those others by inheritance or conquest belonging sometimes to Canutus For this devout King did no less there after he had checked the vain flattery of his Courtiers when upon a day sitting on the shore and the tyde coming in and they calling him Lord of Lands and Seas he commanding the floud not to advance and being not obeyed by the Waves but wett to some purpose presently and directly went to the Cathedral of Winchester and there offered up to God his Crown laying it on the high altar with resolution never more to put it on his head but acknowledg him the only Soveraign King of Sea and Land who commanded that little Wave to wet him And the only Original pretence of the Popes or See Apostolique's human right to England was the donation or submission of King Iohn to Innocent the thirds Legat at Dover Cardinal Pandulphus But who is so ignorant in Divinity as to pretend a right acquired by such a donation or submission were it absolutely certain as yet even Polidore Virgil himself seems to think it not to be forasmuch as he writes of it upon report onely Both law and reason tell us that a King cannot without consent of His Kingdom alien at the title thereof And Histories tell us that King Iohn who was an Usurper too for a long time at least made that donation or submission or whatever you call it directly against the Kingdom so farre he was from having the consent of his Peers people or Parliament That Henry the 3d. the Kingdom of England soon after the troubles were appeased expresly protested against it protested so even by their express Embassadour to that purpose the Archbishop of Canterbury even before in the presence of the General Councel of Lyons See Walsingame ad an 1245. and Harpsfield ad Sec. 14. c. 5. That so many laws made by all the three estates in Parliament under Edward the third and Richard the second which declare England to be an Empire and the King thereof to acknowledg no other on Earth above him but God alone did protest against it And the prescriptions of five entire ages confirm without all controule these protestations So that the Lovain Divines could not on coole and sober reflection but Judge this first ground either as to the first Original or continuance of it to be all composed of sand either as to England or Ireland or both For the same arguments are equally of force against that pretended gift of the Irish Monarch being that if we declined the likeness of it in all points or as to his intention of a reverential true acknowledgment of Gods power only or of a tye of himself and his Crown to be alwayes militant for the faith and confession of St. Peter or of a donary only of his bare Crown as to the materials of it not of the politick rights and power signified thereby to the Church of that holy Apostle or if we granted as we do not by any means That this Irish Monarch intended absolutely as much as in him to give up all the temporal Soveraignty of Ireland to that holy See yet whereas it appears not by any kind of Allegation History or Scroll that he was commission'd by the Provincial Kings or by the States of the Kingdom to do so such intention of his or such oblation donation or subjection as proceeding thence or made by him amounts to a meer nothing For no man gives that so as thereby to transferre a right which he is not empower'd by the laws to give As for the Bull or Bulls granted by Adrian the IV. to Henry the second for either the Lordship or Kingship for both were granted or at least are pretended to have been granted as may be seen in those copies extant in Baronius they are to no purpose at all in this matter Because if those we read in that great Annalist be true and not subreptitious or counter fit it is manifest out of the very tenour of them they are wholly grounded upon errour because the only ground alleadg'd in them for the Popes right to dispose of Ireland is That al Ilands on which the Sun of Justice that is Christian Religion did shine belonged to the See of Peter But whence this title came to the Ilands a lone more then to the continent nothing at all is pretended in those Bulls nor by any for them other then a meer forged imposture of donation by Constantine the great who yet is known to have never had the least footing in Ireland * As it is known that c. Constantinus d. 96. in Gratian. is not onely a meer Palea but speaks as well of the whole continent of Europe as of the Ilands For to pretend as a ground of them or of such donation or the right to make it Bellarmines indirect power in the Pope over the temporals of all Kings in ordine ad spiritualia besides that the restriction in the said Bulls to the Ilands alone and no extension to the Continent ruines this pretence or allegation it cannot be made use of by the Lovain Divines to justifie this first ground of their censure which is only meer humane right and that of Bellarmine is Divine as derived or pretended to be derived from Christ himself immediately But I confess the Lovain Divines were wary enough to decline this least they should bring on themselves a more dangerous censure from their own King and raise the power and just indignation of all Kings States and people even of their own communion to punish their temerity LIV. Nor can their next ground any whit more justifie their Censure The power of binding and loosing which the Catholick Churches of the Roman communion throughout the world acknowledge in the Pope or Church is that only which binds sinners in their sins or in just Ecclesiastical and meerly spiritual censures by denying them absolution from either clave non errante and that besides which enables them to lay binding commands or make binding laws Ecclesiastical and purely spiritual not against the laws of God and Canons of the Vniversal Church but conformable to both for the suppression of vice and furtherance of virtue And is that only which looseth sinners by absolving them in due circumstances from both sins and censures and further by dispensing with them sine prejudicio tertii in vowes or Oathes made to God alone or in other Obligations arising from the Canons of the Church only where a third person is not concern'd in point of
an ordinance in such general or rather indefinit terms for the exemption of Clerks in a criminal question from the civil-Judicatory or being it is but a command or law That none should presume to call or draw an Ecclesiastical person in a criminal question or even civil to a secular judgment against the Imperial Constitutions and Canonical Functions and whereas there was never yet any Imperial Constitution or Canonical Sanction either made before his time or in his time or after his time that exempted Clergymen in either of both sorts of questions civil or criminal from the supream civil and absolute power of the Emperour themselves or of other Kings that acknowledge neither Emperour nor Pope nor any other above themselves in their temporal government who sees not that out of this Constitution of Frederick nothing can be concluded for such exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream civil power but only from that of subordinat inferiour and ordinary civil or secular Judicatories Besides we know Fredericks laws were only for those few Cities or Provinces that remain'd in his time which was about the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twenty and therefore could not pretend nor did pretend to prescribe laws to other Kingdoms or Kings for the exemption of Clerks either in civil or criminal causes or even to the inferiour Iudicatories of other Kings And that we know also that that law of Frederick was not imitated by the like in other Principalities not subject to him not imitated I say generally as to the exemption of Clerks in all either civil or criminal causes whatsoever from the very subordinat inferiour civil Iudicatories nor even in prima instantia So that I must conclude that Bellarmine was put to a very narrow strait for an imperial or civil law wh◠〈◊〉 pitch't on this of Frederick which was not known nor as much as 〈◊〉 of in other parts of even Europe it self as owning no subjection to Frederick And yet a law not to the purpose were it of the same authority those Imperial Constitutions were when the Orient and the Occident South and North as far as the Roman Empire was ever spread at any time or even in great Constantins days were under one Lord. An imperial or civil law in those days or of such others for some ages after which wâ—e received in the wide christian world consequently generally retained might have been to purpose if it had clearly expresly on particularly enacted any thing to our present purpose But conceived in such terms as this of Frederick coâ—lâ— not be to such purpose For it is one thing to be exempted from the subjection due to Emperours or Kings and another to be exempted a forâ— secuilâ—i from a secâ—â—â—â— Iudicatory The Emperours had under themselves and established by themselves and by their own civil laws two sorts of Iudicatories The one termâ—â—â—g meer civil or meer secular Iudicatory where peculars onely or meer â—ay men were Judges And the other termed 〈◊〉 Ecclesiastical Iudicatory where Ecclesiastical Persons only or persons depâ—â—â—â— by them were Iudgeâ— whatever the cause or question was civil or criâ—â—nal temporal or spiritual or mixt of both And both had their power which as coercive or a 〈…〉 with any coerciâ—â—â— from the Emperours and from their civil law 〈◊〉 So that the Emperours exempting any from the secular Iudicatory 〈…〉 leave or put such under the subordinat pâ—â—er of the Ecclesiastical Judges deputed by the same Emperours or by their laws Which they might have done in favour of meer lay men 〈◊〉 some lay-men and in some or many or all case whatsoever made had it been their Imperial pleasure as often they did by instances grant Epise 〈◊〉 And entiam to meer lay men and in meer lay crimes or lay causes 〈◊〉 civil and criminal at leaâ— in civil Would Bellarmine conclude therefore that those were exempted or should be in such a case and by the Emperours themselves or their laws exempted from their own supream civil coercive power in criminal causes or indeed in any whatsoever Or must it follow that because by the law of England a Lord for example 〈◊〉 be condemned or tryed in a criminal cause but by his Peers that therefore in England a Lord is exempt from the supream civil coercive power of the King himself Or that it is not by a power derived from the King thâ—â— Peer 〈…〉 condemn or free another Peer Or even that by the supream power of the King which formerly established such a law of priviledge for Peers the same law may not be justly again or upon just grounds repealed and a contrary law made in Parliament if at any time it were found by manifest experience that the Peers did manifestly and manifoldly and even to the ruine of the King and Kingdom and against the very primary intention of all priviledges and laws make use of or rather abuse such a former law or former priviledge Or finally and consequently that whatever priviledge of exemption though only from Inferiour lay Judges was so granted as before to Clerks by the supream civil power of Emperours Kings and other States was such that in case of manifest and manifold abuse even to the ruine of the publick and without any hope of amendment it could not be revoked again or moderated by another law and equal power to that which gave it before Therefore from first to last I think it is now clear enough that by the civil law no Clerks are exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of such temporal Princes or States under whom they live LXIX That neither by the Canons of the Church I am now to prove Wherein I find so little difficulty that notwithstanding the general errour so wide spread or supposed amongst as well Divines as Canonists to the contrary but introduced at first and continued after out of some passages of Councils very ill understood considered or examined I dare say boldly that not onely none of all those Councils or Canons of Councils alledged for such exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power but not even any of them alledged for their exemption from as much as the subordinat civil power of inferiour Judicatories hath any such matter at all Though my purpose here be not other then to prove this truth for what concerns the supream power only To which purpose I affirm that no where in any Council is it found that the Fathers attributed such authority to themselves as by their own sole power to exempt Clerks from lay Tribunals â— or which is the same thing to deprive secular Judges or Magistrates of power empire command judgment coercion or Iurisdiction over Clerks or which also imports the very same to prohibit the secular Judges not to take cognizance of or give sentence in the causes either civil or criminal of Clerks brought unto their tribunals or finally and it is still in effect the same
but give my Reader this advertisement also That even with such questions both the infallibility of the Catholick Roman Church and the religious and rational piety also of that very Church in venerating and invoking him may subsist Because her infallibility regards other matters as I have said before and because her veneration and invocation of this or that Saint in particular whose sanctity on earth and glory in heaven is not revealed unto her otherwise or taught by clear Scripture or constant Tradition from the beginning doth and must of necessity alwayes imply as to such I mean who see no evident miracles or who are not throughly convinced of such this tacit condition That he or she whom they invoke be in glory and because also moral certainty from humane faith may ground a religious and pious practice as no certainty at all but meer probability of natural grounds may be sufficient to enact a binding law or sanction even also in order to piety and because moreover the prayers of the faithful to Saints whether they invoke them in recto or in obliquo regard principally and without any comparison but that of an infinit disproportion God himself and are terminated in him alone and so farre only regard the Saints as they are in his favour grace and glory and so far only as he is pleased we should either venerat or invoke them So that if in any kind of contingency it may happen that the Church be deceived in her opinion which in this matter depends of humane testimonies and humane knowledge apprehension or sense it cannot be therefore said that her practice is either impious or irreligious or indeed any way foolish Not impious or irreligious for the reasons hitherto given of the tacit condition and primary termination of the worship and prayer nor foolish being she hath grounds enough of and for a moral humane certainty or firm adhesion of such humane belief or perswasion to the material object of her understanding by reason of the formal object of her assent in such matters this formal object being in part the most credible testimonies of other men and in part also at least sometimes the evidence of sense And so I have done at last with all my answers to the fourth and grand and very last of all those I call'd remaining objections and have done also with all my observations and advertisements to the Reader concerning this matter of Thomas of Canterbury Only for a final perclose and for the greater satisfaction yet of the more curious Reader I will add here two appendixes The one is brief and concerning the height or amplitude whereunto the exemption of some persons and some crimes from the civil Judicatories in England grew For at last it came to be such that not only the criminal Clerks themselves however guilty of what crime you please but also the very most enormous lay criminals when their crimes had relation to or had been committed against a Clerk that is when they had impiously and execrably murdred any Clerk Priest or even Bishop or Archbishop were exempted from the secular power but understand you this conformably to my doctrine before were sent to Rome to receive such pennance as the Pope should be pleased to inflict and thereby were absolutely freed of all other punishment that is of any which the civil power and the civil or municipal laws did use or inflict for murder All which to have been so in England for some time is so true that not even any of those very most impious four murtherers of St. Thomas of Canterbury himself though a long time after remaining peaceably and publickly altogether in the village of Cnaresburc in the West of England and at the house of Hugh de Mâ—roville who was himself one of the four murtherers and Lord of that Town or Village of Cnaresburc was at all enquired after by the lay Judges nor as much as touch'd or proceeded against in any wise by them but suffer'd to depart peaceably to Rome when themselves saw that all men and women shun'd their company and that none would either speak or eat with them nor even the very dogs taste of their relicks or fragments whence they were sent by Pope Alexander to do pennance at Jerusalem where finally living a penitential life by his command in Manic nigro they dyed and were buried without the gate of the Temple with this inscription Hic iacent miseri qui martyrizaverunt Beatum Thomam Archiepiscopum Cantuaâ—iensem And yet is so true that immediatly or at least very soon after the dayes or death of St. Thomas of Canterbury Richard Archbishop also of Canterbury either he that was the Saints immediat Successor or he at least who was the Sixt after him in that See for both were Richards and this last was called Richardus Magnus and sate as I take it in the dayes of Henry the Third and I have not leasure now to see which of them it was nor is it material much to set down here which complain'd of the abuse and complain'd thus most grievously of it as you may read in Petrus Blesensis and in his seventy third Epistle to the Bishops of England Clerici vel Episcopi occisores Romam mittuntur sayes he euntesque in deliciis cum plenitudine Apostolicae gratiae majore delinquendi audacia revertuntur Taltum vindictam excessuum Dominus Rex sibi vindicat sed nos eam nobis damnabiliter reservamus atque liberam praebentes impunitatis materiam in sauces nostras Laicorum gladios provocamus Ignominiosum est quod pro capra vel ovicula gravior pro sacerdote occiso paeâ—a remissior irrogatur Where also you see this good Archbishop acknowledging in formal words not only a double inconvenience arising from such exemptions and reservations but in effect also and expresly enough acknowledging that the King did upon one side justly challenge to his own say Courts the punishment of such criminals and that on the other side the Bishops did as damnably that is unjustly reserve them to their own ecclesiastical cognizance only The other appendix is a redection upon their impiety and inhumanity who wel-nigh four hundred years after the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and in the general sack of all the Churches and holy places in England but more especially of those which were more eminent and rich and yet more particularly of the three excellently glorious monuments the first of Alban the Protomartyr of Great Brittain under Dioclesion the Emperour the second of St. Edmond that Christian Saxon King and martyr too as who was killed by the Pagans in odium fidei and the third of St. Thomas of Canterbury perswaded Henry the eight to have a process formed against him I mean Thomas of Canterbury in a Court of Justice and perswaded this King accordingly and effectually though otherwise ridiculously enough to have him declared guilty of high Treason and yet perswaded this King to have an
is due to them according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal Affairs And therefore we do herâ— protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary And we do hold it â—â—â—ious and against the Word of God to maintain That any private Subject may â—ill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince though of a different Belief and â—â—ligion from his And we abhor and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked After which Act of Recognition and Appendages of it you have immediately in the same Instrument this Petitionary Address These being the Tenents of our Religion in point of Loyalty and Submission to Your Majesties Commands and our dependance of the See of Rome no way intrenching upon that perfect Obedience which by our Birth by all Laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to Your Majesty our natural and lawful Sovereign we humbly beg prostrate at Your Majesties feet that you would 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 Having so given all I would have the Reader to take notice of here previously or before I come to an issue on the Point for proving my above Minor that is for proving that in our Remonstrance there is nothing at all contained but a bare acknowledgment confession c. of the Supreme Temporal power to be in the respective Lay Supreme or absolute Princes within their own Dominions and of obedience to be due to them in all Temporal affairs by all their own respective Subjects albeit I confess that for my present purpose of proving my said Minor I have not so dilated as I did in my second Advertisement but for that other end I there expressed for whether in the said Act of Recognition there be an Oath virtually or formally contain'd or not it matters not to my purpose of shewing or proving that no more nor ought else is therein contain'd or acknowledg'd but the meer Temporal Supreme power of the Prince in Temporal Affairs and obedience of the Subjects in the same Temporal Affairs Now therefore to demonstrate clearly that nothing else but such power and such obedience is therein acknowledged confessed c. nor by consequence any other disclaimed renounced abhorred detested or protested against but what doth not subsist with that power in the Prince and that obedience in the Subjects who sees not first that there are no more but Nine periods or clauses with perfect periods in the said Act of Recognition from the first word of it to the last immediately before the Petitionary Address And that in none at all of all these Nine either separately or jointly taken there is other power than such meer Temporal or Civil acknowledg'd in the King or in any other Temporal Prince or other Obedience Loyalty or Fidelity but such as is in Temporal things only acknowledg'd to be due from Subjects to their Prince And secondly or consequently too who sees not there is not in any of the said clauses either separately or jointly taken any other power disclaimed in or renounced or abhorred or detested or protested or declared against as being or as pretended to be in any other Pope or Prince or Church or People but that only which is inconsistent with His Majesties Supreme Temporal power only And that there is not any other obedience likewise declared against but that obedience only which is inconsistent with the obedience of Subjects in Temporal things to their own respective Supreme Temporal Princes For taking these Nine periods or clauses or parts of the said Act of Recognition and considering them first each apart separately what I say will be evident to any man that hath sense and reason The first period is in these words We do acknowledge and confess Your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supreme Lord and rightful Sovereign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other Your Majesties Dominions Sure here is no word or words importing signifying or attributing to King Charles any power but that which His true and lawful Kingship Supreme Lordship and Rightful Sovereignty requires to be in him And therefore not any power but that which is meerly Temporal for his said Kingship Lordship and Sovereignty require no other 'T is true the Protestants or those of the Protestant Church of England who are not in communion with Rome or the Roman Bishop and who take that Oath they call the Oath of Supremacy do understand the Kings Royal power to extend it self to as well Spiritual as Temporal things and persons and consequently by the words Supreme Lord if in an Oath framed by themselves and for themselves or to be by themselves taken or subscribed might understand that themselves I say by such words and Oath would attribute to the King such a Supreme Lordship and consequently such a Supreme power as extended to as well Spiritual things and persons as to meer Temporal things Yet it is also true 1. That this hath nothing to do with the signification of the words Supreme Lord as used by Catholicks in a Remonstrance drawn by Catholicks and only for Catholicks to sign 2. That these words Supreme Lord especially as used to a secular Prince signifie not either by their proper native signification as imposed originally or used by knowing men nor by or in even the vulgar acception of them any other Supreme Lordship but that of a meer temporal worldly politick or Civil Supreme power of the Sword and not at all any spiritual of the Word or Sacraments of the Christian Religion 3. That the Sons of the Protestant Church of England however by their Oath of Supremacy they attribute to or acknowledge in the King a Supremacy that is a Supreme power over all or in all as well spiritual things and spiritual persons as in or over all temporal things and persons yet by that Supremacy or Supreme power they understand no spiritual power at all either of the Word Sacraments or Faith or of any other matter whatsoever but a meer Temporal Civil or Politick power of the material Sword And therefore it is plain That neither in the Catholick or Protestant meaning of the words of this first Period any other power is or may be understood but a meer Temporal power Supreme acknowledged in the King And therefore also it 's no less plain that by the said words or sense of them it cannot be said the Remonstrance or Subscribers of it do either formally or virtually or any way at all consequentially ascribe to the King any kind of spiritual Supremacy or Supremacy of spiritual power but of meer Temporal and Politick power or do at all as much as by any kind of rational consequence deny the pure spiritual
doth not swerve from the square of Sacred Canons from the consent of great Divines and Canonists from the practice of most Catholick Nations and amongst the rest of England before the Schism without controulment of the Clergy nay we are undoubtedly possessed the Law of Nature which is above all Canons doth approve and command it so strictly as we cannot otherwise answer the Trust reposed in us when by our negligence herein the Lives and Fortunes of the Confederate Catholicks would be exposed to most inevitable and evident danger Given at Kilkenny Castle the Third day of June 1648. and in the Four and twentieth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland Mountgarret Athunry Donboyne Lucas Dillon Rob Linch Rich Barnewall Rich Everard Rich Bellings Patr Gough John Walsh Gerrald Fennell Patrick Brian Robert Deuereax George Commin GOD SAVE THE KING 6. That next Winter following the General Assembly of all the Three Estates of the Confederates being conven'd from all parts of the Kingdom at Kilkenny in order to conclude the Second Peace or it called the Peace of 1648. with His Majesties Lord Lieutenant and great Commissioner the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond as they did indeed before that year ended conclude it they took into their special care to second the foresaid publick Declaration of the Supreme Council and that by another as publick of their own fix'd up publickly to the great Gate as the manner was of their Assembly-house and to several other places in Town under the hand of their Speaker Sir Richard Blake In which Assembly Declaration and Act the Estates amongst other things took notice first of the designs of the rebellious Clergymen especially Regulars who even contrary to the Oath of Association took part with the Nuncio Owen O Neill and others proscrib'd by publick and lawful Authority to hold meetings and celebrate even Provincial Chapters in the woody mountainous boggy or other unaccessible places possess'd by Owen O Neill and that too partly nay principally of purpose to proceed against those other good and loyal Churchmen who for His Majesties service obeyed the Supreme Authority of the Confederates yea to displace and deprive them of their respective local Superiourships Guardianships or other offices and to name Malignants in their stead And therefore in the next place they strictly commanded all such rebellious Out-lawed Ecclesiasticks of what dignity or title or office soever at their utmost peril not to hold any kind of Meeting or Chapter upon any account whatsoever And Thirdly also they no less strictly enjoin'd all and every the loyal Ecclesiasticks and on their Allegiance to the King and likewise at their utmost peril commanded them not to assemble with nor receive or obey any Summons Orders Precepts Sentences Institutions Destitutions Statutes c. of or from all or any of the adverse party but to continue their respective offices and other matters as formerly until His Holiness or other general Superiours beyond Seas should upon or after full information send persons duly qualified and empower'd to rectifie all abuses and punish in their way according to their demerits those fire-brands of rebellion and civil War 7. That accordingly all Ecclesiasticks adhering to and obeying the said Supreme Authority behaved themselves but more especially those of the Franciscan Order being they were above others concern'd forasmuch as Father Thomas Makiernan their Minister Provincial and his Diffinitory all and every of them declared Enemies to and by the said Supreme Authority had within Owen O Neill's Quarters presumed to hold a Chapter or Congregation intermedia as they call it and therein authoritatively as much as in them lay displaced all the loyal Guardians throughout the whole Province and order'd Malignants to succeed them 8. That by such means used and care taken that year 1648. the loyal Ecclesiasticks of Ireland then came to be and continue still so numerous until they got the upper hand in all parts even amongst the common people and quite run down their Adversaries and so for what belongâ—d to them enabled the very same foresaid Supreme Council and General Assembly to reduce that Irish Nation once more unto their due obedience to His Majesty by treating and concluding as they did within a few Months after the second Peace or that of 1648. with His Majesties foresaid great Commissioner 9. That after this Peace concluded and the Government thereby placed in and executed by the said Commissioner the Duke of Ormond as under the King Lord Lieutenant those same loyal Ecclesiasticks having in all respects the same countenance and protection from his Excellency which was before given them by the Confederate Council and Assembly witness in particular among an hundred other examples which I could alledge Father Redmund Caron come and sent from Flanders as upon the Letters and Complaints of the foresaid Council and Assembly delegated by the Highest power general then of the Franciscan Order the most Reverend Peter Marchant of purpose to reform the abuses of his Order in Ireland and either to reduce or depose the rebellious Provincial and Diffinitory they I mean the above loyal Ecclesiasticks encreased daily more and more both in number strength and credit until the two Sieges of Londonderry and Dublin had been raised and the fate of Rathmines happen'd and Cromwel with a great Army landed and the strong Sea-towns of Munster betrayed and Droghedagh and Wexford stormed and Rosse taken and the repulse at Carrig and the treachery at Waterford and Owen O Neill with his Forces being rejected by the Parliament of England condition'd but too late with and submitted to the Lord Lieutenant and Owen O Neil dying at the very time the Bishop of Clogher Ewer mâ—â— Mahoâ— made General of the same Northern Army Then it was that the Nuntio party of the Ecclesiasticks being on the late submission mix'd with the Royalists reassum'd new courage and gain'd ground by sowing new divisions and playing over again their former Game Then that after the Appeal to Innocent the Tenth sent to and prosecuted at Rome by Father John Roe Provincial of the Irish Carmelites the same Nuntio partty first began to speak big and Triumph also in that Court the said Father Roe without any satisfaction or positive answer being forced to leave off his prosecution and depart if not steal away privily viz. when the news of Rathmineâ— and the consequences thereof had been with so much gladness and excess of joy come to and proclaimed in Rome Then it was that all means and devices had been ordered there to make use of the present occasion of the Royals Powers declining in Ireland for either the reduction or destruction of the Anti-Nuntiotist Irish Ecclesiasticks as being the time expected when these could have but little or no support from a tottering Government a Government undermin'd hourly by its own seeming friends and therefore even professed Subjects and at the same
the Lay-people of the same extraction to any design of such nature than a whole Hundred if not than a Thousand of the other could or can Which being well enough known to the Roman Court is it indeed and no other consideration at all of justice or equity in the case hath made that Court as sometimes informer dayes when the carrying on of their designs requir'd it so lately again since the year 1668. seemingly for some part and only for the present occasion and necessity decline Ferral's advice in that one point of such a National distinction so universally taken or observed without any discretion But to leave this digression how useful soever and come to a conclusion of all I would be at to answer the first Querie proposed in the beginning of this Section you are now in the last place to observe what did and must have followed or been annexed to so many other causes or so many other previous influential and effectual both dispositions and predeterminations viz. 13. That while those Loyal Irish Ecclesiasticks who in the grand Controversie with the Nuncio declared and stood firmly against him were every day more and more wasting and decaying at home since the coming in of Owen O Neill â—s Party about the end of the year 1649. but much more also abroad since they had been forc'd to Forreign Countries on the other side the Nuncio Party both Regular and Secular not only at home for the generality of them preserved themselves from the undistinguishing Sword of the Parliament Souldiery by retiring still into the fastnesses of the Countrey Boggs and Woods and Mountains in their own quarters when the former as being most of them Natives and Inhabitants of the Cities Corporations and other the more civilized Champion Countries seized first by the Parliament could not or would not do so but abroad in other Countries recruited mightily as having all the Superiours of their Faction and all the Irish Monasteries and Seminaries in their possession and all the authority and power of the Court of Rome to favour them and recruited so mightily I say by a young Frye of their own inclinations received into the Monasteries Colledges and Seminaries bred and brought up throughly paced in their Principles than ordered Priests Professors Confessors Preachers c. and after that besides very many of the old ones their masters sent home as so many Apostles into Ireland one after another as soon as there seem'd any quiet or harbour for them there even many of them before the King had been restored but in far greater numbers immediately after His Restauration Behold Reader in Thirteen several Heads and most of them complex and all mark'd or distinguish'd by so many arithmetical numbers in the margin a final full and satisfactory Answer to the former of the two Queries you have in the beginning of this incidental or occasional Section that former being in effect this How it came to pass that so many Irish Ecclesiasticks of the Roman Communion both appeared and prevail'd so as they did against the Pope â—s Nuncio in Ireland and all his Party and Censures in the year 1648. and yet now for so many years after His Majesties happy Restauration of so great a Body as at least 2000 Irish Ecclesiasticks at home in Ireland Sixty nine onely have been found to appear professing openly as much as in Temporals their due Allegiance to His Majesty by Signing the Loyal Irish Remonstrance presented to His Majesty in the year 1661 For although I have of purpose and to avoid too much prolixity omitted many things more which might have been truly and materially said in answer yet I am sure I have said enough here to inform any rational indifferent person how or by what means that which is demanded or enquir'd after came to pass on either side and how so great a change of the Irish Clergy happen'd in Fourteen years from 1648. to 1662. for in this year 1662. the grand opposition which continues ever since against the Remonstrance begun And have given enough of the true motives occasions causes and degrees of that change And further yet have said enough to persuade any indifferent man that the whole of those very motives occasions means causes and degrees of either side may be reduced to or referr'd as springing from one of these two more general causes 1. The Civil Magistrates Authority Power Sword being careful and vigorous and executive in supporting and protecting those Ecclesiasticks that stood firmly for it against the usurpations and encroachments of Rome and likewise in prosecuting and punishing all other Ecclesiasticks who being meer dependents of and Emissaries from the Roman Court were manifestly known to undermine the Civil Power and Magistracy 2. The same Temporal Magistrates or Governours being grown careless or remiss therein or having not force or strength enough left to execute and having at last through Gods unsearchable pleasure or permission been utterly disabled ruined and come to be no more if not in title only the Magistrate or Governour The former is sufficiently grounded in what you have before from number the 1. to number the 6. And albeit the latter even as to all Parts be also in the following numbers or paragraphs abundantly shewn yet I think it not amiss to give more particularly yet of the First Part and perhaps Second too thereof the very first original and manifest proof whence all the rest followed which I my self as having been singularly concern'd have observed when it was but yet under deliberation It is and was the weakness of our Temporal Government in yielding in the year 1648. to Owen O Neill and Bishop of Clogher's demand as the first preliminary Article of their Treaty with the Marquess of Ormond then His Majesties Lieutenant of Ireland That all who had opposed the Nuncio's Censures or in their behalf the Twelve Roman-Catholick Commissioners of Peace should humbly Petition the Pope for a general Absolution from the said Censures Indeed Ferral sayes in his Book to the Congregation de propaganda it was absolutely the very first of the Articles concluded then by Owen O Neill's Party without mentioning whether it was only preliminary or otherwise This much I know That when after the fatal breach at Rathmines and taking of Droghedagh by storm and the revolt of the Sea Ports in Munster and the march to and storm and surprizal of Wexford by Cromwel and consequently after Owen O Neill's further application to the Parliament of England had been rejected and the Cessation with him notwithstanding his service to them had expired that when I say in this conjuncture the Lord Lieutenant then Marquess of Ormond had sent the Bishop of Ferns and Sir Nicholas Plunket as Commissioners to offer Conditions to and treat and conclude with Owen O Neill and the Army and Party till then siding with him these two Commissioners writ back to Kilkenny and either to his Excellency or to the rest of those called
indeed I repented to have had any Communion with them especially the Primat 1. Because that whatever lye T.T. told me before yet he I mean the Primat brag'd that being offer'd to be admitted and introduced at Bruxels to kiss the Kings hand he plainly refused it nor ever did nor would hereafter at any time either kiss his hand or otherwise be presented to Him 2. That in the hearing of many whereof my self was one and at a publick treat or dinner he was even so carelesly passionate as to boast also That he had never been friend or well-willer to any of the four naming the King and his Two Brothers with the Marquess of Ormond nor would ever be 3. That to ingratiate himself and his party with Thurlo and the young Protector and to obtain favours and graces for them even with the exclusion of the Royal Party of the Irish Catholicks he amongst other arguments alledged That to the Contrivances Arms and Divisions made by Owen O Neil the State of England owed their present Possession of Ireland and that the same party of the Irish Natives ought to be not only on that account favour'd and trusted but because also they never had affection for the King or his Family 4. Finally that he writ Precepts under his Seal to all his Province of Ardmagh to pray for the health prosperity and establishment of the said Protector and State and Government of England and Ireland as they were then To which four I might have added that N. B. as soon as he understood of the Communication betwixt his other two Associats and me advised them presently to have me secured by a Warrant from Thurlo and that T.T. on my reasoning with himself in some case till I put him into passion threatned to my face and in great fury too before a certain Lady he would have me speedily fast enough by the heels Yet not this but the former four made me at last venture to acquaint my self with one of the Council of State and so contrive their sudden dismiss out of England back to France without other harm done them but that of an injunction to be immediatly gone at their peril And forc'd so away to France they were all three suddenly when they least expected it In France the Primat stays not but passes over thence immediately by Sea to Ireland and there accosts or sends to his old friends Collonel Theophilus Jones and his Brother Doctor Jones the Protestant Bishop of Clogher roames up and down in several Provinces of that Kingdome and so and by what else I know not the particulars gives occasion to those that knew him well to inform against him to the English Court in the Lowcountries then in the year 1659. and beginning of 1660 that he was endeavouring all he could to animate the Fanaticks and some other Protestants in Ireland against the coming in or admitting of the King to return or be restored at all and that he promised them to that end great assistance from or a conjunction of the stronger party of the Roman Catholick Irish Immediatly before His Majesties departure out of Holland for England Don Stephano de Gamarro then Spanish Embassador with the States is spoken to desiring his Excellency to inform the Court of Rome 1. of such a Bishop in Ireland who if taken must suffer by the Law 2. That His Majesty desired not to be put to the stress of signing the Warrant of his Execution 3. And therefore that even by commands from Rome he should be revoked immediatly out of Ireland Next Winter after the Kings happy Restauration and immediatly also after my Procuratorium signâ—d by the same Prelat in the first place and sent to me from Ireland I received from some in England a Duplicat of Commands sent from Rome to him for retiring on sight Upon receipt of these in Ireland he passes thence again to France writes to me from Roan a pittiful Letter both denying flatly the last Accusation to have been true and complaining that himself alone amongst the whole Irish Nation should be forc'd to mourn in those days of general Jubilee for His Majesties Restauration and therefore prays my Intercession for His Majesties unparallelâ—d Clemency and Mercy I returned him the most comfortable answer I could but withal advising him to patience for three years more as also assuring him that by that time I hoped my intercession for him should be effectual To Rome he goes writes to me once or twice from thence see Sect. 6. pag. 14. of the First Part and stays there till the beginning of the year 1665. when he returns back to France and writes and minds me of my promise And after some few exchanges more of Letters at last and according to my advice for addressing himself by Letter to his Grace the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he sent to me for the said Duke this following Letter of extraordinary great Repentance Submission and Prayer of Pardon from His Majesties mercy To his Excellency the Duke of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of IRELAND May it please your Excellency I Am the Publican standing a far off not daring to lift up mine eyes to the Heavens and your Grace but knocking my Breast humbly pray your Excellency be pleased to be favourable to me and make me partaker of His Majesties unparalle'ld mercies promising in the sight of God and his Angels that I will endeavour to comply in all points with his Soveraign Majesties most gracious Will and your Excellencies commands as far as shall become a modest faithful and thankful Subject If otherwise who am I but a Worm the reproach of Mankind the vilitie of the People a dead Dog a Flea And yet my gracious Lord Your Excellencies Most humble Servant Edmund Ardmach Paris Aug. 31. 1665. It is only to make the Reader understand first this Letter next some other passages hereafter which relate to a man of so great dignity in the Church and lastly what merits and considerations are most prevalent at Rome to procure the greatest Ecclesiastical preferments within His Majesties Dominions that I have given so large and particular account of this Prelate and not any hatred to or disesteem of his person or want of due veneration to his memory now that he is departed this life and I hope in a place of happiness and glory before this time I never had any private difference or quarrel with him in my life nor he with me for ought I know nay I found alwayes as some esteem and affection also in him for me so in my self I am sure no less to serve him where I could both unfeignedly and affectionately as I did all along for many years in all occasions And yet until the year 1669. a little before his death in France and his very last Letter thence to me I never knew of his having obliged me so much as he did hindring the
and no more talk had been of any Cures done or of any more attempts of Curing made by him behold on a sudden by several Packets one after another many Letters from London besides many persons too come from thence to Dublin reporting for certain That he was there i. e. at London publickly before all the World both Catholicks and Protestants even in the very most Publick Chappels in that great City as the Portugueze Ambassadors at Wildhouse the Queens at St. James's c. doing Wonders indeed that is not only dispossessing Devils by Exorcism but by that and other Prayers Curing presently all manner even of the most natural inveterate and habitual Diseases as namely restoring Sight to the Blind Going to the Lame Hearing to the Deaf c. Of those Letters one was written by Mr. Patrick Archer then at London to his Wife at Dublin which I read Another was to my self from Father Redmund Caron The former had not so much power to make me assent because I knew Mr. Archer to be not only not very discerning nor only very illiterate but though otherwise a good man so indiscreetly zealous That he would believe any thing of such nature which any Roman-Catholick Priest or Churchman would tell him But Father Caron's had more Authority to persuade me specially if he had writ the particulars and those to have been done to his own knowledge and himself being present without any possibility of Cheat which he did not write but only in general That Father Finachty was doing wonderful things with them at London However these Letters together with the universal report of others were enough to make me this third time I heard of that miraculous man more inquisitive than ever And therefore some few weeks after those Letters I gladly heard That Finachty was even through fear conceived by the Protestant Clergy of England he would by his Miracles convert their Flocks to the Roman Church dismiss'd London and thence honourably conveyed in a Coach of Six Horses by an English Catholick Gentleman J.D.E. through Oxford to Chester and so to Holyhead in Wales where he was then with my Lord Dillon and Gerrot Moor Esq two great admirers of him only expecting a Wind for Dublin And within a few other dayes I yet more gladly heard of his Landing at Rings-end together with those noble Gentlemen who likely were able to give Testimony of some of those Miracles reported from London But my great vexation at the same time was That the Lord Lieutenant having some few dayes before departed to Kilkenny I had engaged my self for some business to follow His Grace and to begin my Journey the very next morning as I did in truth hoping nevertheless to return suddenly ere Father Finachty and those Gentlemen come in his Company should part from Dublin If any will ask here How came Finachty to go to London The true Answer is That there being a Portugueze Lady a Countess with the Queen who had utterly lost her sight and was stark blind and she hearing from some of the Irish Chaplains that serve the Queen amongst whom the foresaid Hughs the Jesuit is one of such a Wonder-working Priest in Ireland she or the Queen's Majesty or some other employed Father Teig Mac Eochuy * * Now since the year 1671 the same Father Teig is made Bishop of Clonfert by a Bull from Rome But for what either merits or demerits himself knows alias Capt. Power an Irish Dominican and one of Her Majesties Chaplains in Extraordinary but in Ordinary to the Lady Marquess Dowager of Clanricard and Connaught man too of the same Countrey with Finachty and furnished him with money into Ireland to bear his own Charges and the said Finachty's in their Journey thence to London and he viz. Father Teig undertook the Journy came to Dublin both going to and returning with the miraculous man from Connaught was both times at my Chamber yet told me not a word then of any such matter but ship'd his said Wonder-working Companion privately for England Which was the reason we heard nothing of Finachty's being away out of Ireland till we heard of his Miracles done at London Nor then nor after did I know how he came to go thither until that being my self at London in July 1665. in the great Plague-time i. e. after all other discoveries made here I was told these particulars at my own lodging there by the said Father Teig himself who then also not only acknowledged to me how unsatisfied himself was in point of those famed Miracles after that Finachty had plainly failed in doing any kind of good to the Portugueze Countess for the recovery of her sight as he did manifestly fail therein albeit for her sake chiefly if not only gone to London but that he was farther much scandalized that such a man as that same Finachty was after all pretending at Rome as sayes he he is actually now for the Bishoprick of Elphin To return to the former series of my Discourse on the fourth day of my being then at Kilkenny the Earl of Fingall came to Town from Dublin and together with him one Father .......... Plunket a Regular Priest of the Order of Discalceate Carmelites Meeting this Father accidentally that very Evening he came and enquiring what News he told me That Father Finachty was at Dublin practising indeed publickly but withal certainly with much scandal and reproach to the whole Catholick Religion That he had a Woman come after or along with him out of England some said out of Lancashire in particular whom he gave out to be a Demoniack or possessed by the Devil and that amongst other his Feats he would needs Exorcise this Woman publickly in the said Earl of Fingall's house before a great multitude of all sorts of People Catholicks and Protestants of both Sexes amongst whom the Lady Marquess of Antrim a great Protestant had been led thither by Father Peter Talbot and all this forsooth for the proof or confirmation of the Roman-Catholick Religion to be the only true Christian Catholick Religion That when he had amused the beholders with expectation of dispossessing utterly that Woman and making the Devil depart her Father Peter Talbot had interposed telling him it should be in signo visibili that is it should be done so as the standers by might be persuaded thereof by some visible sign given by the Devil at his departure That Finachty promising this and to this purpose or to effect this visible sign falling again to his Adjurations failed manifestly before all the People nothing having been done but the Demoniack if such she was scorning and laughing at all his confidence and pretended power And that hereupon all the People departed with extream dissatisfaction and the Catholicks with confusion also but the Protestants with laughter This Relation put me presently as on a resolution to return to Dublin in the greatest haste I could so likewise on the very last and strictest inquisition which
with these Irish Bishops I never found any of them either to speak the truth or to perform their promise to me only the Bishop of Clogher excepted for during the little time he lived after his submission to the Peace and Commission received from me I cannot charge him No could I choose but be mightily troubled when I heard from His Graces own mouth and on that occasion and before another witness too such a character of so many Roman-Catholick Prelates even all the Archbishops and Bishops of the whole Nation being Five or six and twenty or thereabouts For I know there was no man alive had reason or the opportunities and occasions to know them better than he did no man that try'd them more to the quick even in the weightiest matters could be and I knew very much of their failings my self and was no less certain even by the experimental knowledge I my self likewise for so many years ever since 1648. had of His Graces veracity That he spoke his own inward Conscience in that testimony how general and pungent soever and therefore I concluded That surely he must have very much prejudice against a Religion or Church that was chiefly and generally throughout a whole Nation governed by such spiritual Guides And this Conclusion which I derived then presently was it that so much troubled me when I heard him speak that his testimony and withall observed not only his action or gesture viz. how at the same time he laid his hand on his breast but even his religious asseveration in these other words As I am a Christian premitted to the said either testimony or whatever else you please to call it whether Declaration Answer Observation or Complaint Of which action and asseveration I took indeed the more special notice then and now again do take here that I never observed him before or after on any occasion whatsoever to have averr'd or denied any thing in that manner i. e. either with any such laying of his hand on his breast or any such calling his Christianity to witness as neither in truth with any other kind of Oath As for the rest not only my trouble but my wonder for I did also wonder much those Irish Bishops generally could have been such men had been very much less even at that very time had I before seen his long and excellent Letter of all the Transactions 'twixt him and those Bishops but for two years only i. e. from the year 1648. to the 29th of October in 1650. written by Him as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from Kilcolgan the second of December 1650 to the last General Assembly of the Three Roman-Catholick Estates of that Nation which very Letter I do now for the reasons given in my Preface communicate to publick view in Print annexing it by way of Appendix to this present Work or First Tome in the end thereof But to leave this digression of my own thoughts or passions and return to the prosecution of what besides speaking of his remembrance of matters past the Lord Lieutenant gave me of His Commands upon the foresaid occasion of my relating how the Bishop of Ardagh had to the Fathers misreported His Grace's answer what I am now to tell is That His Grace even at that very time commanded me to go presently to the said Bishop of Ardagh and to the Bishop of Kilfinuragh the Chairman too and let them know from Him That He would speak to them both together before they left the Town For he took the said misreporting of His answer so much to heart That He was resolved not only to expostulate with them for that disingenuity but even to rebuke them for it in presence of half a dozen Noblemen and Gentlemen of their own communion to the end he might have Witnesses enough and such men too against whom those Bishops could take no exception and so dismiss them free to stay or go whithersoever they would And this and no other was the design of that Command given me as even himself declared then But Kilfinuragh it seems too conscious to himself all along for the design he drove and carried in the Congregation prevented this Message by shifting presently his Lodgings as soon as the House dissolved For so Father John Burk the Vicar-General Apostolick of Cashil another great Intriguer though in all things else dull enough told me just as I was in my way to find Kilfinuragh out as moreover he told me it was to no purpose for me to seek that Bishop because he was either by that time out of Town or would suddenly be and that in the mean time if he was not already gone he would not have the place of his retirement known Which being related to the Lord Lieutenant His Grace presently sends Mr. William Summers chief Clerk in Secretary Lane's Office to the Bishop of Ardaghs Lodgings at his brother Sir Nicholas Plunket's house and not to him only but to the Primate also where he lodged with an express Command to them both not to stir out of Town till further orders this Messenger being further directed That in case he found them not within he should leave that Command at their Lodging to be notified to them immediately on their return Which being accordingly received by them and their trouble thereat signified to me I went to see them both and quieted their trouble by letting them know what the occasion and end of it was that there was no further hurt intended them or either of them but that of a bare verbal expostulation that after such they should be as free to go where they pleased as before and that in the mean time there was no hardship in their restraint which allowed them the liberty of a great City and Suburbs and pleasant Fields on every side thereof Yet the Primate whether more conscious to himself for any late design than Ardagh I know not was so fearful to transgress That from that day he never once dared to walk abroad into the Fields lest it should be interpreted a breach of his duty or of that Command laid on him Within a few dayes the Lord Lieutenant parting for some weeks to Kilkenny before His departure sends for me and tells me He had somewhat more to say to the Primate than I knew yet And then commands Sir George Lane Knight His Grace's chief Secretary to lead me into His Closet and shew me that part of a certain Letter which concern'd the said Primate Reilly Sir George did so and therein shews and reads to me how the Earl of Sandwich Ambassador for the Crown of England in Spain had inform'd thence That as he passed through Gallicia to Madrid the Roman-Catholick Irish Bishop of Ferns inform'd him of Edmund Reilly the Roman-Catholick Archbishop and Primate of Ardmagh's being gone to Ireland from France and with a real purpose and out of meer design to raise the Irish again into Rebellion or at least to prepare for it by all
the arts he could This was the substance of what Sir George Lane shewed me for the words I remember not as neither do I know nor did I enquire from whom the said Letter shewn me was or whether it was Sandwich's own Letter or the Secretary of States at London or any others What is more material to know is That presently after having return'd to my Lord Lieutenant in the Gallery His Grace commanded me to go directly to the said Primate and tell him what was shewn me and all the particulars and how therefore he must be under a Guard of Souldiers but withall to bid him not to be thereat frighted nor startled but to bear all patiently for a few dayes that there was no further hurt intended towards him but to keep him from hurting others by too much liberty that no less than to be so restrained might be expected where and when such an information was come and finally that within a very little time he should be sent back safely from whence he came last I must confess this Errand was not welcome to me by reason chiefly of the mention which I must have made therein of the Bishop of Ferns for whom I had much respect and kindness For I well foresaw the Primate would if ever they met challenge and charge him with the said Information and thereby in all likelihood add to the afflictions of that already too much afflicted Prelate being he was still abroad an Exile and consequently in some degree or way depending of the favour of the Roman Court and Ministers or at least concern'd mightily not to raise anew their anger against him especially after he had in hopes to be admitted to return home quitted the good condition he had in Gallicia from the Archbishop of St. Diego and come to Flanders where the Bruxels Internuncio was able at any time to hinder him even from the charity of the very Prelates But on the other side I considered not only the necessity of obeying in such a matter the King's Lieutenant but the equity also of my own letting the Primate know all even in case I were not commanded seeing I say matters come to that pass Otherwise he would questionless and others for him would have misrepresented me or perhaps which was yet worse the Lord Lieutenant Himself as who had a mind or design to entrap him the Primate Archbishop or at least had without any cause made him Prisoner This and no other consideration whatsoever was it made me not only tell himself what I was commanded but others also what I had so told himself though with inward grief still for being so necessitated to a relation which I feared might some way prejudice the good Bishop of Ferns though withall I well enough saw at the same time that nothing could be proved against him Canonically there where I feared he might be so prejudiced or hurt as on the other side that some conjuncture might happen when so dutiful an Information given by him to the Kings Ambassadour in Forreign Parts might advantage him at home as truly I think it ought However when I told all to the Primate notwithstanding I first prepared him to constancy and tranquility of mind as well as I could his countenance altered and he seem'd almost besides himself upon hearing the intelligence come from the Ambassador but the mention of a Guard quite dejected him Which made me cheer him with all possible assurances that he should suffer no more than a few dayes very civil restraint Whereupon he presently removed his Lodging to a better Air and there expected the Guard of Souldiers which accordingly was put there on him but observing him with much respect and hindring no person whatsoever man or woman of any degree to visit and stay with him as long and as many together as they or he pleased as neither him even to say Mass to them or exercise other Priestly or Episcopal Function I was my self daily with him to keep him in heart though all I did or said to that purpose could not altogether free him of frightful apprehensions until he found by his own clear experiment the performance of all my words even to a tittle And that he found in this manner According to the Lord Lieutenant's order left to the Privy Council upon his departure to Kilkenny they within about a week or at most fortnight after sent for the Archbishop or Primate Prisoner to be brought before them Where appearing he though much contrary or at least beyond his own frightful imaginations found himself not so much as in any kind of point whatsoever examined so far was he from hearing a word of his confinement to the Kings Castle the best and most favourable doom himself believed did attend him from them not so much as look'd upon severely but only told first they had orders to dismiss or rather send him safely as a banish'd man into any Roman-Catholick Countrey he pleased out of the Kings Dominions and then in the next place briefly and obligingly ask'd Whether he would choose to go to France and if so Whether by long Sea or through England told withall he should have his own choice He answering That he would choose to pass through England to France the Lords of the Council bid him then be ready to ship with the first convenience telling him They would send one with him to the Secretary of State at London who I mean the Secretary would take care for his farther safe passage to and transportation from Dover as also that the person who should accompany him should not be at his charge at all but should have from them whereby to defray his own charges All which being declared by the Lords of the Council they dismiss'd him civilly back to his Lodgings The person they fixed upon to wait on him to London was the City Major one Stanley who accordingly had Forty pounds from the Council to bear his own charges As soon as the wind served and the Primate was ready they went both to Rings-end where I my self was daily with them till they ship'd As soon as they came to London however the Primate feared even his own shadow there especially because the Parliament of England was then sitting yet he found no other there also than a full performance of what he was promised at Dublin For without any examination or question he was thence fairly dismiss'd under the keeping of the same Stanley to Dover and there ship'd by Stanley for Calais where he Landed safely went to Louain and thence writ to me that he was dealt with truly fairly and civilly in every particular as I had promised him he should be Stanley also and the Primat's own servant being returned to Dublin the former from England and the other from Flanders assured me of all the particulars of the Primat's Journey through England What became of Kilfinuragh and Ardagh the other two Bishops and the one playing least in sight and
propositions of this paper at large and with all clearness discharged our duty as to the three first of those fiâ— of Sorbon and that now remain only the three last 13. We declare further it is our unalterable resolution proceeding freely from the perswasion of a good Conscience and shall be ever with Gods grace First never to approve or practice according to any doctrine or positions which in particular or general assert any thing contrary to His Majesties Royal Rights or Prerogatives or those of his Crown annexed thereunto by such Laws of England or Ireland as were in force before the change under Henry the 8th And never consequently to approve of or practice by teaching or otherwise any doctrine or position that maintains any thing against the genuine liberties of the Irish Church of the Roman Communion as for example that the Pope can depose a Bishop against the Canons of the said Church Secondly not to maintain defend or teach that the Pope is above a General Council Thirdly also never to maintain defend or teach That the Pope alone under what consideration soever that is either of him as of a private person or Doctor or of him as of a publick Teacher and Superiour of the universal Church or as Pope is infallible in his definitions made without the consent approbation and reception of the said Church even we mean in his definitions made either in matters of discipline or in matters of faith whether by Briefs Bulls Decretal Epistles or otherwise 14. Lastly we declare it is our unalterable resolution and shall be alwayes by Gods grace That if the Pope should or shall peradventure be at any time hereafter perswaded by any persons or motives to declare in any wise out of a General Council or before the definition of a future General Council on the point or points against the doctrine of this or any other the above propositions in whole or in part or against our selves or any others for owning or subscribing them We though with all humble submission to his Holiness in other things or in all spiritual matters purely such wherein he hath power over us by spiritual commands according to the Canons received universally in the several Roman Catholick Churches of the world shall notwithstanding continue alwayes true and faithful to our Gracious King Charles the Second in all temporal things and contingencies whatsoever according to the true plain sincere and obvious meaning and doctrine of all and every the fourteen propositions of this paper and of every part or clause of them without any equivocation mental reservation or other evasion or distinction whatsoever and in particular without that kind of distinction which is made of a reduplicative and specificative sense wherein any such may be against the said obvious and sincere meaning and consequently vain and unconscionable in this matter QUERIES CONCERNING The LAWFULNESSE of the Present CESSATION AND OF THE CENSURES AGAINST ALL CONFEDERATES ADHERING unto it PROPOUNDED By the RIGHT HONOVRABLE the SUPREME COUNCIL to the most Reverend and most Illustrious DAVID Lord Bishop of OSSORY and unto other DIVINES WITH ANSWERS GIVEN and SIGNED by the said most Reverend PRELATE and DIVINES Printed at KILKENNY Anno 1648. And Re-printed Anno 1673. The Censure and Approbation of the most Illustrious and most Reverend Thomas Deasse Doctor of Divinity of the University of Paris and Lord Bishop of Meath I The undernamed having seriously perused and exactly examined the Answers made to the QUERIES by the Right Reverend Father in God David Lord Bishop of Ossory and by the Divines thereunto subscribing do esteem the same worthy to be published in Print to the view of the world as containing nothing either against God or against Caesar but rather as I conceive the Answerers in the first place do prove home and evidently convince the Excommunication and other Censures of the Lord Nuncio c. to have been groundless and void even of their own nature and before the Appeal and besides do manifestly convince that in case the Censures had not been such of their own nature yet the Appeal interposed suspends them wholly with their effects consequences and jurisdiction of the Judge or Judges c. And withal do solidly and learnedly vindicate from all blame the fidelity integrity and prudence of the Supreme Council in all their proceedings concerning the Cessation made with the Lord Baron of Inchiquin notwithstanding the daily increasing obloquies and calumnies of their malignant opposers In the second place the Answerers do sufficiently instruct the scrupulous and ignorant misled People exhorting them to continue in their obedience to Supreme Authority as they do in like manner confute and convince efficaciously the opposition of such obstinate and refractory persons as do presume to vilifie and tread under foot the Authority established in the Kingdom by the Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks And finally the Answerers dutifully and loyally do invite all true hearted Subjects to yield all due obedience to their Sovereign and to any other Supreme Civil Magistrate subordinate and representing the Sovereigns Supreme Authority according to the Law of God the Law of the Church and the Law of the Land Thomas Medensis Given at Kâ—lkenny Aug. 17. 1648. Another Approbation BY the perusal of this Treatise intituled Queries and Answers I am induced to concur with other eminent Surveyors thereof That it contains nothing contrary to approved Doctrine sound Faith or good Manners and therefore that behooveful use may be made thereof by such as love truth and sincerity 7. August 1648. Thomas Rothe Dean of St. Canie And Protonotary Apostolick c. Another Approbation HAving perused by Order of the Supreme Council the Queries propounded by the Supreme Council c. with Answers given them by the Right Reverend DAVID Lord Bishop of Ossory and other Divines and being required to deliver my sense of this work I do signifie That I find moving in the said Queries of Answers against Catholick Religion good Life or Manners but much for their advancement and great lights for the discovery of Truth I find by evident proofs declared that the Council in this affair of Cessation Appeal interposed against and other proceedings had with the Lord â—uncio and his adherents 〈◊〉 themselves with a due resentment of the general destruction of the Kingdom and with is true and knowing zeal of Loyalty for the maintenance of the Catholick Religion Justice lawful Authority the lives estates and rights of the Confedâ—ranâ—s I find by uncontroulable reasons proved That the Confederates cannot without worldly ignomity and Divine indignation fâ—ll from the said Cessation while the condition are performed and time expired I find lastly hence and by other irrefragable arguments That all and every of the Censures pronounced either by the Nuncio or any else against the Council or other Confederates upon this ground of concluding or adhering to the Cessation are unreasonable unconscionable invalid void and against Divine and Humane Laws
said Articles and before the said Publication shall not be accompted taken or construed or be Treason Felony or other offence to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion Provided likewise That the said Act of Oblivion shall not extend unto any person or persons that will not obey and submit unto the Peace concluded and agreed on by these Articles Provided further That the said Act of Oblivion or any in this Article contained shall not hinder or interrupt the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to call to an account and proceed against the Council and Congregation and the respective Supreme Councils Commissioners General appointed hitherto from time to time by the Confederate Catholicks to manage their affairs or any other person or persons accomptable to an account for their respective Receipts and disbursments since the beginning of their respective employments under the said Confederate Catholicks or to acquit or release any arrears of Excises Customs or Publick Taxes to be accompted for since the Three and Twentieth of October 1641. and not disposed of hitherto to the Publick use but that the Parties therein concerned may be called to an account for the same as aforesaid by the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them the said Act or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding XIX Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act be passed in the next Parliament prohibiting That neither the Lord Deputy or other chief Governour or Governours Lord Chancellor Lord High Treasurer Vice-Treasurer Chancellor or any of the Barons of the Exchequer Privy Council or Judges of the Four Courts be Farmers of His Majesties Customs within this Kingdom XX. Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act of Parliament pass in this Kingdom against Monopolies such as was Enacted in England 21 Jacobi Regis with a further Clause of Repealing of all Grants of Monopolies in this Kingdom and that Commissioners be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to set down the Rates for the custom and imposition to be laid on Aquavitae Wine Oyl Yearn and Tobacco XXI Item It is concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That such persons as shall be agreed on by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them shall be as soon as may be authorized by Commission under the Great Seal to regulate the Court of Castle-Chamber and such causes as shall be brought into and censured in the said Court XXII Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is graciously pleased That Two Acts lately passed in this Kingdom the one prohibiting the plowing with Horses by the Tail and the other prohibiting the burning of Oats in the straw be Repealed XXIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased For as much as upon application of Agents from this Kingdom unto His Majesty in the Fourth year of His Reign and lately upon humble suit made unto His Majesty by a Committee of both Houses of the Parliament of this Kingdom some order was given by His Majesty for redress of several Grievances and for so many of those as are not expressed in the Articles whereof both Houses in the next ensuing Parliament shall desire the benefit of His Majesties said former directions for redresses therein that the same be afforded them yet so as for prevention of inconveniencies to His Majesties service that the warning mentioned in the Four and twentieth Article of the Graces in the Fourth year of His Majesties Reign be so understood that the warning being left at the persons Dwelling-houses be held sufficient warning and that as to the Two and twentieth Article of the said Graces the Process hitherto used in the Court of Wards do still continue as hitherto it hath done in that and hath been used in our English Courts But the Court of Wards being compounded for so much of the aforesaid Answer as concern warning and process shall be omitted XXIV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That Maritime Causes may be determined in this Kingdom without driving of Merchants or others to appeal and seek Justice elsewhere and if it shall fall out that there be cause of an Appeal the Party grieved is to appeal to His Majesty in the Chancery of Ireland and the Sentence thereupon to be given by the Delegates to be definitive and not to be questioned upon any further Appeal except it be in the Parliament of this Kingdom if the Parliament then shall be sitting otherwise not This to be by Act of Parliament And until the said Parliament the Admiralty and Maritime Causes shall be ordered and setled by the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being by and with the advice and consent of the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them XXV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom be eased of all Rents and increase of Rents lately
Roman-Catholicks the 17th day of January 1648 and in the 24th year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. ORMONDE The DECLARATION intituled thus A Declaration Of the Archbishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries of the Secular and Regular Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland AGAINST The continuance of His MAJESTIES Authority in the person of the Marquess of ORMOND Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the misgovernment of the Subject the ill Conduct of His MAJESTIES Army and the violation of the Articles of Peace Dated at Jamestown in the Convent of the Fryers Minors August 12. 1650. THE Catholick People of Ireland in the year 1641. forced to take up Arms for the defence of Holy Religion their Lives and Liberties the Parliament of England having taken a resolution to extinguish the Catholick Faith and pluck up the Nation root and branch a powerful Army being prepared and designed to execute their black rage and cruel intention made a Peace and published the same the 17th of January 1648 with James Lord Marquess of Ormond Commissioner to that effect from His Majesty or from His Royal Queen and Son Prince of Wales now CHARLES II. hereby manifesting their Loyal thoughts to Royal Authority This Peace or Pacification being consented to by the Confederate Catholicks when His Majesty was in restraint and neither He nor His Queen or Prince of Wales in condition to send any supply or relief to them when also the said Confederate Catholicks could have agreed with the Parliament of England upon as good or better conditions for Religion and the Lives Liberties and Estates of the People than were obtained by the above Pacification and thereby freed themselves from the danger of any Invasion or War to be made upon them by the Power of England where notwithstanding the Pacification with His Majesty they were to dispute and fight with their and his Enemies in the Three Kingdoms Let the World judge if this be not an undeniable Argument of Loyalty This Peace being so concluded the Catholick Confederates ran sincerely and chearfully under His MAJESTIES Authority in the person of the said Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland plentifully providing vast sums of Monies well nigh half a Million of English pounds besides several Magazines of Corn with a fair Train of Artillery great quantity of Powder Match Ammunition with other Materials for War After his Excellency the said Lord Lieutenant frustrating the expectation the Nation had of his Fidelity Gallantry and Ability became the Author of almost losing the whole Kingdom to God King and Natives which he began by violating the Peace in many parts thereof as may be clearly evidenced and made good to the World I. FIrst The foresaid Catholicks having furnished his Excellency with the aforesaid Sum of Money which was sufficient to make up the Army of Fifteen thousand Foot and Two thousand five hundred Horse agreed upon by the Peace for the preservation of the Catholick Religion our Sovereigns interest and the Nation his Excellency gave Patents of Colonels and other Commanders over and above the party under the Lord Baron of Inchiquin to Protestants and upon them consumed the substance of the Kingdom who most of them afterwards betrayed or deserted us II. That the Holds and Ports of Munster as Cork Youghal Kingsale c. were put in the hands of faithless men of the Lord of Inchiquin's Party that betrayed these places to the Enemy to the utter endangering of the KING's interest in the whole Kingdom This good service they did His MAJESTY after soaking up the sweet and substance of His Catholick Subjects of Munster where it is remarkable That upon making the Peace his Excellency would no way allow His Loyal Catholick Subjects of Cork Youghal Kingsale and other Garrisons to return to their own Homes or Houses III. Catholick Commanders instanced by the Commissioners of Trust according to the Pacification and hereupon by his Excellencies Commission receiving their Commands in the Army as Colonel Patrick Purcel Major General of the Army and Colonel Peirce Fitz-Gerald alias Mr. Thomas Commissary of the Horse were removed without the consent of the said Commissioners and by no demerit of the Gentlemen and the said places that of Major General given to Daniel O Neil Esq a Protestant and that of Commissary of the Horse to Sir William Vaughan Knight and after the said Sir William â—s death to Sir Thomas Armstrong Knight both Protestants IV. A Judicature and legal way of administring Justice promised by the Articles of Peace was not performed but all process and proceedings done by Paper Petitions and thereby private Clerks and other corrupt Ministers inrich't the Subject ruined and no Justice done V. The Navigation the great support of Ireland quite beaten down his Excellency disheartning the Adventurers Undertakers and Owners as Captain Antonio and others favouring Hollanders and other Aliens by reversing of Judgments legally given and definitively concluded before his Commissioners Authority By which depressing of Maritime affairs and not providing for an orderly and good Tribunal of Admiralty we have hardly a Bottom left to transmit a Letter to His Majesty or any other Prince VI. The Church of Cloine in our possession at the time of making the Peace violently taken from us by the Lord of Inchiquin contrary to the Articles of Peace no Justice nor redress was made upon Application or Complaint VII That Oblations Book monies Interments and other Obventions in the Counties of Cork Waterford and Kerry were taken from the Catholick Priests and Pastors by the Ministers without any redress or restitution VIII That the Catholick Subjects of Munster lived in slavery under the Presidency of the Lord of Inchiquin these being their Judges that before were their Enemies and none of the Catholick Nobility or Gentry admitted to be of the Tribunal IX The Conduct of the Army was improvident and unfortunate Nothing hapned in Christianity more shameful than the disaster at Rathmines near Dublin where his Excellency as it seemed to ancient Travellers and men of experience who viewed all kept rather a Mart of Wares a Tribunal of Pleadings or a great Inne of Play Drinking and Pleasure than a well ordered Camp of Souldiers Droghedagh unrelieved was lost by storm with much bloodshed and the loss of the flower of Leinster Wexford lost much by the unskilfulness of a Governour a young man vain and unadvised Ross given up and that by his Excellencies order without any dispute by Colonel Luke Taffe having within near upon 2500 Souldiers desirous to fight After that the Enemy make a Bridge over the River of Ross a wonder to all men and understood by no man without any let or interruption our Forces being within Seven or eight Miles to the place where 200 Musqueteers at Rossberkine being timely ordered had interrupted this stupendious Bridge and made the Enemy weary of the Town Carrig being betrayed by the
all that should feed help or adhere to Us are set down in their Declaration * See before page 65. in the former Appendix of Instruments where you have this Declaration at length both Preamble and Fifteen Articles thereof entirely and consequently without interposition of any other matter After which also you have there pag. 70. the Excommunication before mentioned of the 12th of August intituled A Declaration of the Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries of the Regular and Secular Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland against the continuance of His Majesties authority in the Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the misgovernment of the Subject and the ill conduct of His Majesties Army and the violation of the Articles of Peace at Jamestown in the Convent of the Friers Minors the 12th of August 1650. That in this Title they assume unto themselves a power to declare against the continuance of His Majesties authority where he hath placed it needs no further proof than the reading of it But whence they derive their pretence to this power We find not any where expressed nor by whom they are constituted Judges of the misgovernment of the People the ill conduct of His Majesties Army or of the violation of the Articles of Peace For the misgovernment of the People and ill conduct of His Majesties Army We acknowledge no earthly competent Judge of Us but His Majesty and the established Laws And for the violation of the Articles of Peace by the consent even of all those Bishops unless there be gotten amongst them some that opposed the Peace and joined with those that assisted the English Rebels as long as they could give them hire the trust of looking to the observance of the Articles of Peace was reposed by the General Assembly with whom the Peace was concluded in Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Dr. Gerald Fennel Esquires as appears by the said Articles Whereby we suppose it is clear That as the Bishops have arrogated to themselves an unwarranted power to declare against the continuance of His Majesties authority where he hath placed it and to be Our Judges in the government of the People and conduct of the Army wherein VVe doubt whether their skill be answerable to their desire to try it so have they as unwarrantably taken upon them to judge what is or is not a violation of the Articles of Peace and in all they have endeavoured to invade and usurp both upon King and People bereaving the one of Royalty and the other of Freedom Now supposing they were the Monarchs they would be let the grounds of their Excommunication set forth in all that VVe have seen be duly examined and it will be found that their sentence is most unjust So that as their Tribunal is usurped their Judgment is erroneous VVe begin with the Preamble of the Declaration in these words Preamble of the Declaration THE Catholick People of Ireland in the year 1641. forced to take up Arms for the defence of Holy Religion their Lives and Liberties the Parliament of England having taken a resolution to extinguish the Catholick Faith and pluck up the Nation root and branch a powerful Army being prepared and designed to execute their black rage and cruel intention made a Peace and published the same 17th Jan. 1648 with James Lord Marquess of Ormond Commissioner to that effect from His Majesty or from His Royal Queen and Son Prince of Wales now Charles the Second thereby manifesting their Loyal thoughts to Royal Authority This Peace or Pacification being consented to by the Confederate Catholicks when His Majesty was in restraint and neither He or His Queen or the Prince of Wales in condition to send any supplies or relief to them when also the said Confederate Catholicks could have agreed with the Parliament of England upon as good or better conditions for Religion and the Lives Liberties and Estates of the People than were by the above Pacification obtained and thereby free themselves from the danger of any Invasion or War to be made upon them by the power of England where notwithstanding the Pacification with His Majesty they were to dispute and fight with their and His Enemies in the Three Kingdoms Let the world â—udge if this be not an undeniable argument of Loyalty The Peace being so concluded the Catholick Confederates came sincerely and chearfully under His Majesties authority in the person of the said Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland plentifully providing vast Sums of monies well nigh half a Million of English pounds besides several Magazines of Corn with a fair Train of Artillery great quantity of Powder Match Ammunition with other materials for War After His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant frustrating the expectation the Nation had of his Fidelity Gallantry and Ability became the Author of almost losing the whole Kingdom to God King and Nation Which he began by violating the Peace in many parts thereof as may be clearly evidenced and made good to the world ANSWER Concerning their motives of taking up Arms in the year 1641 We shall say nothing But since they begin so high with their Narrative as the year 1641 it will not be amiss to mind them That betwixt that and the year 1648 there was by Authority from His Majesty and Our Ministration several Cessations and at length a Peace concluded with the Confederate Roman-Catholicks in the year 1646 which Peace was shamefully and perfidiously violated by the instigation and contrivement of most part of these Archbishops Bishops Prelates and others of the Secular and Regular Clergy and that not in slight and strained particulars such as We are now charged with by them but by coming with Two powerful Armies before the City of Dublin upon no provocation from Us unless they esteemed the continuance of a Cessation for about Three years with them and the bringing them a Peace to their own doors such a provocation as deserved their bending their united power against Us leaving other parts that neither had nor would have Peace or Cessation with them unmolested and at liberty to waste their quarters whil'st they devoured Ours and sought Our ruine This as a particular blotting their name and memory with the everlasting infamy of Perfidy Ingratitude and undeniable Disloyalty they have reason to leap over in their Preamble least they should awaken the Curses of those multitudes of People who being seduced into so horrid a violation of Publick Faith by their impious allurements and hellish Excommunications are thereby become desolate Widows helpless Orphans and miserable Exiles from the place of their birth and sustenance True it is That His late Majesty and His now Majesty then Prince of Wales overcoming
under all the crimes thus falsly imputed to them it being their Adversaries principal design That the Irish whose Estates they enjoy should be reputed persons unfit and no way worthy any Title to your Majesties mercy That no wood comes amiss to make Arrows for their Destruction for as if the Roman Catholick Clergie whom they esteem most criminal were or ought to be a society so perfect as no evil no indiscreet person should be found amongst them they are all of them generally cryed down for any crime whether true or feigned which is imputed to one of them and as if no words could be spoken no Letter written but with the common consent of all of them the whole Clergie must suffer for that which is laid to the charge of any particular person amongst them We know what Odium all the Catholick Clergie lies under by reason of the Calumnies with which our Tenents in Religion and our Dependence upon the Popes Authority are aspersed And we humbly beg your Majesties pardon to vindicate both by the ensueing Protestation which we make in the sight of Heaven and in the presence of your Majesty sincerely and truly without equivocation or mental reservation We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightfull Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of Sin to obey your Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or Sea of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope His Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from Him or his Sea against your Majesty or Royal Authority We will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to your Majesty And we openly disclaim and renounce all forreign Power be it either Papal or Princely Spiritual or Temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from this Obligation or shall any way give us leave or license to raise tumults bear arms or offer any violence to your Majesties Person Royal Authority or to the State or Government Being all of us ready not only to discover and make known to your Majesty and to your Ministers all the Treasons made against your Majesty or Them which shall come to our hearing but also to lose our Lives in the defence of your Majesties Person and Royal Authority and to resist with our best endeavours all conspiracies and attempts against your Majesty be they framed or sent under what pretence or patronized by what forreign power or authority soever And further we profess that all absolute Princes and Supream Governours of what Religion soever they be are Gods Lieutenants on Earth and that obedience is due to them according to the laws of each Commonwealth respectively in all Civil and Temporal affairs And therefore we do here protest against all Doctrine and Authority to the contrary And we do hold it impious and against the word of God to maintain that any private Subject may kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince though of a different belief and Religion from his And we abhor and detest the practice thereof as damnable and wicked These being the Tenents of our Religion in point of loyalty and submission to your Majesties Commands and our Dependence of the Sea of Rome no way intrenching upon that perfect Obedience which by our Birth by all laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to your Majesty our natural and lawful Soveraign We humbly beg prostrate at your Majesties feet That you would 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 Fr. Oliver Dâ—arcy Bishop of Dromore Fr. George Dillon of S. Fran. Ord. Guardian of the Irish Franciscans at Paris Fr. Philip Roch of S. Fran. Ord. Reader Gen. of Divinity Fr. Anthony Gearnon of S. Fran. Ord. one of Her Majesties the Queen Mothers Chapl. Fr. Iohn Everard of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Anthony Nash of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. William Lynch of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. Fr. Nicholas Sall of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Iames Cusack Doctor of Divinity Cornelius Fogorty Protonot Apost and Doctor of the Civil and Canon Law Daniel Dougan Divine Fr. Henry Gibbon of S. Aug. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Redmund More of S. Dom. Ord. Conf. and Preac Bartholomew Bellew Dennis Fitz Ranna Bartholomew Flemming Fr. Redmund Caron of S. Fran. Ord. Reader jubilate of Divinity Fr. Simon Wafre of the same Order Reader of Divinity Fr. Iames Caverley of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Iohn fitz Gerrald of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Theobald Burk of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Matthew Duff of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Peter Geoghegan of S. Fran. Ord. Conf. and Preac Fr. Peter Walsh of S. Fran. Ord. Reader of Div. and Procurator of the Roman Catholick Clergy both Secular and Regular of Ireland This paper without any hands to it for the gentlemen that consulted of and drew it in this form did not then reflect on the necessariness of any subscription to it and if they had they saw the storm so great and furious raised suddenly against those men chiefly who should have subscribed it that it was impossible for them to meet even for any such or other end soever and yet the making of such address to His Majestie could not be delayed so as to send about to search for them where they could not be met with singly one by one but after too much time therefore I say this paper without any hands to it was delivered immediately to Father James Fitz Simons residing and hiding himself the best he could at Dublin to be sent together with the Proclamation of the Lords Justices and ordinances of Parliament and the forged letter of Mac Dermot the Priest and their own discoveries of the imposture to the above Father P. W. then at London as Procuratour of the Clergie to be presented by him to His Majestie and Lord Lieutenant and was accordingly sent and delivered him by the Earl of Fingale who had then some occasions of his own to goe for England Which the Procurator had no sooner received then after communicating all to some others of the Irish Clergy and Gentry then at London and press'd by them all to
any further practice in that Town yea to command him away as an Impostor or at least a Brain-sick man and that only at the earnest intercession of some few not to give thereby more advantage to Protestants they had forborn to put such thoughts in execution against him Yea Father James Tully a Franciscan and Connarght man both Nuntiotist and Anti-remonstrant living there told me himself was the onely man that strenuously interposed not for any opinion he had of Finachty's Gifts or Miracles but for the foresaid Reason chiefly and that he alone hindred that Decree which was earnestly press'd by others especially the Fathers of the Society Moreover I found that the Franciscan Convent whereof the Guardian and others mostly had subscribed the Remonstrance were the chiefest if not the onely men amongst all the Clergy whether Regular or Secular of that Capital City that shewed him most countenance as who several times had entertainâ—d him civilly and suffered him to practise publickly in their house Whether they did so out of any inward belief or great opinion they had of his Wonder-working gifts or whether only yielding to the Reports come from London or above all whether because they thought he had still especially in other remote parts of the Kingdom a great interest in the common people and knew themselves and the rest of their Fellow-subscribers to have been by some Anti-remonstrants strangely malign'd amongst the Vulgar and that his Authority also had been made use of to hurt them and therefore by Civilities towards him even where the greatest Anti-remonstrants were his greatest opposites and persecutors they would engage him now to be thenceforth of their side or whether for all these Reasons together or other whatsoever I know not But so it was that they were at that time his only publick Friends of the whole Dublin Clergy And so it was also that a young Protestant Irish Gentlewoman by name Mrs. Agnes ......... having come to him in their House when he was practising there was as her self gave out and both they and she after told my self Cured by him of some kind of inward pain in one of her limbs but which I do not remember now though I remember it was not visible to others and was thereupon reconciled to the Roman Church having confessed to one of the Priests of that House and received the Sacrament of Christs body there What this wrought on her might signifie I leave to the judgment of others But it was the onely miraculous Cure whereof as done there or at all in this Town in my absence I had even so much certainty given me as I tell here Hitherto my Lords and Fathers you have the sum of all which in so many years I heard of this good man from others as likewise of my own endeavours to know as well as I could from others the truth of matter of Fact concerning him What follows and that indeed I would be finally and principally at in this account is from my own certain knowledge even from that of my own eyes and ears and conversation with him here during five or six Weeks immediately after ending my said last enquiries For next day in the morning I went and found him out where I understood him to be at Father Ailmer's a Secular Priest's Chappel in St. Owens Arch where he was in the Vestry preparing to vest himself for the Altar I sent in my name and being admitted found him alone on his knees After salutes and sitting down together the introduction to our discourse was my saying I doubted not he had by report heard somewhat of me as I had of him very much albeit the subjects of talking of us had been very different He answer'd 'T was true Then I told him of my great longing for many years and that much greater of late to see him and be satisfied by himself of the grounds of such contrary relations concerning him And so proceeded from the first reports of him seen by me in a Letter to London from Ireland in the Protector 's dayes to the contradiction thereof by Father Mellaghlin thence to the Lord Lieutenant's Commands to me thence to my first inquisition at Dublin thence to Mr. Belings and Mr. Brown's relation thence to my Lord Clancarty's thence to that of his having learned his faculty of Exorcising from old Father Moor the Jesuit whose servant he had been thence to my ceasing from any further inquisition for that time thence to the late reports of such manifold miraculous Cures at London thence to what Father Plunket the Carmelite had told me at Kilkenny viz. of his failing now of late after his Landing where he practised publickly at the Earl of Fingalls thence to my own last inquisition through several Diocesses abroad in the Countrey as I returned and finally thence to what I heard since my coming to Town I ripped up and told him clearly all whatever I had heard either of the one or other side for him or against him Yet withal assuring him I did so without any prejudice of my own part and only to be satisfied by himself as being persuaded he would tell me but truth and being resolved to believe his own relation of himself Telling him besides That partly for his own sake and partly for my own but principally for that of the publick of Catholick Religion and the Professors thereof both Clergy and People of Ireland though more especially the Clergy I desired this favour and candor of him being he himself could but know my employment and that by reason thereof an account of him would be expected from me by the Lord Lieutenant and that moreover I could assure him he had been severely proceeded against even in publick Court ere then by the Protestant Officials had they not had some little regard of me or at least expected the Lord Lieutenants pleasure at his return This was the sum of what I spoke to him before he gave me his answers and spoke in truth with as much sincerity as ever I did any thing in my life And therefore I was inwardly much troubled when I found not the satisfaction in some of them which I expected For the substance of his Answers was 1. That he had formerly as he thought the general good opinion and approbation of the Clergy 2. That of late the Jesuits were the men who chiefly both in England and here since his Landing opposed him 3. That he never said any such thing as by my relation the Earl of Clancarty reported of him to me nay never to any or upon any occasion denied the gracious gift of God to himself for curing whatever even the most natural Diseases or Evils 4. That he learned no such matter as the knowledge of Exorcizing or other whatsoever of that Father Moor the Jesuit nor had been at any time his servant 5. That whatever he had formerly or lately done either in Ireland or England was all done by him as Gods Instrument
only or at least chiefly for the confirmation of the only true Church the Roman and conviction of all Dissenters 6. That as he at London desired my Lord Aubigny the Queens great Almoner he would be pleased to make in his behalf to the Court this offer viz. That the Protestants should pitch upon such a number as they pleased of all sorts of sick persons the places and Parishes where such infirm persons lived then bring them to the most expert Physitians to have their judgments of the truth and certainty of their being without question truly sick and of the quality and inverateness of their several Diseases then carry the same diseased persons to the Protestant Clergy Ministers and Bishops to be cured by their Prayers and when these had failed of doing those any good to bring them to him publickly before as many or such as they pleased to be present and they should see that by the invocation of God and for confirmation or evidence of the Roman-Catholick Church to be the only true Church and Religion of Christ he would cure them all the same saith he which I offered at London to my Lord Aubigny and by him to the Court but was not accepted there from me I do now here again offer to you and by you to the Lord Lieutenant and Council When he had so confidently and positively answered I was much troubled at the three last Articles For I believed my Lord Clancarty told me truth And I had much cause to believe those who related his having been servant in his youth to Father Moor and from him learned the manner of Exorcizing Nor did I want the fresh memory of many other Arguments to perswade me that what ever he had done of good to any though few was by Exorcism only and only where somewhat of Possession obsession or Witchcraft intervened Besides that I could hardly doubt he did but little to any of so many as came to him sick of natural diseases only I begun therefore now inwardly in my own mind to scruple both his veracity and humility vertues I think to be expected in a worker of wonders by the pure invocation of Christ And both I scrupled the more that I observed him to blush when I objected his learning from and being a servant to Father Moor and his gifts to be confined to the only effects of bare Exorcism Then besides I considered how I had never read of any Saint in former days that put himself so freely and purposely in all places and occasions upon working of Miracles by Exorcism or otherwise much less of any that undertook so boldly at least where so little need was But again remembring that in Matt. 7.22 23. * * Multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo in nomine â—â—o damonia ejecimus in nomine tuo daemonia ejecimus in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus Et tunc confiteborillis Quia nunquam novi ves and withal considering the confidence of his offer I check'd my self However I desired him to consider well once more what he offer'd so and the consequence of his failure adding thus Father Finachty I am upon consideration of all I have from first to last heard of you inclined to think that in some occasions and to some few persons you have done some good that is that either your gift or their own Faith or at least their own strong imagination with some other natural helps hath been in some measure available to them when they came to you and you Exorcized or Crossed or Prayed over them or upon that occasion of your doing so but I am withal inclined to think you have failed the expectations of a thousand for one you have not Nay and moreover that the gift whatever it be is for Exorcizing only and not at all for curing natural Diseases I am sure Says he replying I have not failed one for a thousand I have cured and cured even of all sorts of pure Natural Diseases and what I offer I know and fear no tryal This reply made me fear the flattery or folly of some half sighted or half witted if not worse men had somewhat turn'd his brain for I dared not yet for all this entertain any determinat judgment or even scarce the least passing imagination of his being a willful Impostor Mr. Browns Relation besides the late reports and Letters from London and several other things told me for his advantage remaining still fix'd in my mind and making me rather shut my own eyes then see or freely entertain any such thought of him Which was the reason I would not any further at that time question what he had so positively averr'd himself But leaving that Subject prayed him nevertheless if not rather indeed the more to tell me when or how long since he first had found by real experience that God had bestowed these gracious gifts upon him was it then first in the Protector 's time when the reports came to us to London or was it before and what year After a little demurr he answered That long before that time when I further pressed to know was it in the time of the Confederat's and if said I so long ago it is strange I that lived constantly where the chief seat of the Confederate Assemblies and Councils and their Supream Power was even at Kilkenny whether all the Kingdom did resort did never hear one word of any such wonder-working man Notwithstanding says he it hath been so long since Pray said I hath it been as early as your being consecrated Priest Before I received any Orders at all greater or lesser Sacred or not answered he I am sorry for that said I and will give you my reason why For till now I was in good hopes your extraordinary gift in Exorcizing so effectually as you say you do might be in some measure attributed to or might be some Argument of the Authority and Power given to all Priests though given to them before they receive the Order of Priesthood or any of those called the Greater Orders even as soon as amongst the four former and lesser Orders they are ordained Exorcists But now I perceive you were a meer Lay-man and not so much as any sort of Clergy-man or Ecclesiastical person at all when first so gifted by God I was no other says he You will not be offended said I at one question more and then Iâ—le have done for this time What was I pray the very first particular whereby you assured your self experimentally then during your being a Lay-man That God had bestowed that extraordinary gift upon you Here again he demurred a little and then answered I had a brother of my own says he whose breeches the Devil stole away at night Whereupon I took a Book of Exorcisms and thence read a Prayer over him which was so effectual that the Devil restored his breeches And this was the first