and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
the Tridentine Fathers but also quite contrary to those Doctrines and Practises which are manifestly recommended in the letter sense and whole design of the Gospel of Christ in the writings of his blessed Apostles in the Commentaries of their holy Successors in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof and moreover in the very clearest dictates of Nature it self whether Christianity be supposed or not IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary Doctrines in the most general terms without descending to particular applications of them to any one Kingdom or People c the grand Positions are as followeth viz. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ the Bishop of Rome is Vniversal Monarch and Governour of the World even with sovereign independent both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches Nations Empires Kingdoms States Principalities and over all persons Emperours Kings Princes Prelates Governours Priests and People both Orthodox and Heterodox Christian and Infidel and in all things and causes whatsoever as well Temporal and Civil as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual That He hath the absolute power of both Swords given Him That He is the Fountain of all Jurisdiction of either kind on Earth and that whoever derives not from Him hath none at all not even any the least Civil or Temporal Jurisdiction That He is the onely Supreme Judge of all Persons and Powers even collectively taken and in all manner of things divine and humane That all humane Creatures are bound under forfeiture of Eternal Salvation to be subject to Him i. e. to both His Swords That He is empowred with lawful Authority not only to Excommunicate but to deprive depose and dethrone both sententially and effectually all Princes Kings and Emperours to translate their Royal Rights and dispose of their Kingdoms to others when and how He shall think fit especially in case either of Apostasie or Heresie or Schism or breach of Ecclesiastical Immunity or any publick oppression of the Church or People in their respective civil or religious Rights or even in case of any other enormous publick Sins nay in case of only unfitness to govern That to this purpose He hath full Authority and Plenitude of Apostolical Power to dispense with Subjects in and absolve them from all Oaths of Allegiance and from the antecedent tyes also of the Laws of God or man and to set them at full liberty nay to command them under Excommunication and what other Penalties He please to raise Arms against their so deposed or so excommunicated or otherwise ill-meriting Princes and to pursue them with Fire and Sword to death if they resist or continue their administration or their claim thereunto against His will That He hath likewise power to dispense not only in all Vows whatsoever made either immediately or mediately to God himself nor only as hath been now said in the Oath of Allegiance sworn to the King but in all other Oaths or Promises under Oath made even to any other man whatsoever the subject or thing sworn be That besides Oaths and Vows He can dispense in other matters also even against the Apostles against the Old Testament against the Four Evangelists and consequently against the Law of God That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him or by others deriving power from Him kills not a lawful Prince but an usurping Tyrant a Tyrant at least by Title if not by Administration too and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God or even to kill his own Prince That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman-Church ventures himself and dyes in a War against such a Tyrant i.e. against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince dyes a true Martyr of Christ and his Soul flies to Heaven immediately That His Holiness may give and doth well to give plenary Indulgence of all their sins a culpa poena to all Subjects rebelling and fighting against their Princes when He approves of the War That antecedently to any special Judgment Declaration or declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope or any other subordinate Judge against any particular person Heresie does ipso jure both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown and all other not only royal but real and personal Rights whatsoever That an Heretick possessor is a manifest Vsurper and a Tyrant also if the possession be a Kingdom State or Principality and therefore is ipso jure out-law'd and that all his People i. e. all his otherwise reputed Vassals Tenants or Subjects are likewise ipso jure absolved from all Oaths and all other tyes whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him That he is truly and certainly and properly an Heretick who misbelieves calls in question or even doubts of any one definition of the Tridentine Council or of any one that is of meer Papal Constitution or of any one of those Articles profess'd in Pius Quartus 's Creed That not only the Pope but any Patriarch nay any inferiour Bishop acknowledging His Holiness may if need be both excommunicate and depose their own respective Princes Kings or Emperours and may also without their leave or knowledge reverse the Decrees of their Vice-Roys or Lieutenants and even censure depose from and restore again such Lieutenants to their former dignity and charge That all Ecclesiasticks whatsoever both Men and Women Secular and Regular Patriarchs Primaâ—s Archbishops Bishops Abbots Abbesses Priests Fryars Monks Nuâ—s to the very Porter or Portress of a Cloyster inclusively nay to the very Scullion of the Kitchin and all their Churches Houses Lands Revenues Goods and much more all their persons are exempt by the Law of Nature and Laws of Nations and those of God in Holy Scripture both Old and New Testament and those of men i. e. of Christian Emperours Councils and Popes in their respective Institutions and Canons and are indeed universally perpetually and irrevocably so exempt from all secular civil and temporal Authority on Earth whether of States or of Princes of Kings or of Emperours and from all their Laws and all their Commands that is from both the directive and coercive virtue of either or which is the same thing in effect from sin against God and from punishment by God or man for only transgressing them That consequently if any Church-man should murder his lawful and rightful King blow up the Parliament fire burn and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore guilty of Treason or truly called a Traytor against the King or against the Kingdom or People or Laws thereof no nor could justly be punish'd at all by the secular Magistrate or Laws of the Land without special permission from the Pope or those deriving Authority from Him That nevertheless all Clergy-men regular and secular in the World from the meanest either Accolits or Converts to the highest Generals of Orders and greatest Patriarchs of Nations inclusively may be out of all Kingdoms and even contrary to
You may at the very first hearing of this Proposal plainly discover their design to be no other than by such indirect means of cunning delayes under pretence of filial reverence forsooth to hinder you for ever from professing at least to any purpose i. e. in a sufficient manner or by any sufficient Formulary that loyal obedience you owe to his Majesty and to the Laws of your Country in all Affairs of meer temporal concern This you cannot but judge to be their drift unless peradventure you think them to be really so frantick as to perswade themselves That from Julius Caesar or his Successor Octavian after the one or the other had by arms and slaughter tyrannically seized the Commonwealth any one could expect a free and voluntary restitution of the People to their ancient Liberty or which is it I mean and is the more unlikely of the two That from Clement the Tenth now sitting in the Chair at Rome or from his next or from any other Successor now after six hundred years of continual usurpation in matters of highest nature and now also after the Lives of about fourscore Popes one succeeding another since Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh his Papacy and since the Deposition of the Emperor Henry the Fourth by Him in the year of Christ 1077 any one should expect by a paper-Petition or paper-Address to obtain the restoring or manumising of the Christian World Kingdoms States and Churches to their native rights and freedom or that indeed it could be other than ridiculous folly and madness to expect this And yet certainly thiâ— must be the natural consequent of the Popes or present Papal Courts giving you licence to sign such a publick Instrument as will do your selves and Religion right amongst his Majesties Protestant Subjects or as even amongst your selves will satisfie the more ingenuous loyal and intelligent Persons Thus at last in so many several Paragraphs in all eighteen I have given at large those farther and more particular thoughts of mine relating both to the proper causes and proper remedies of those Evils which as you so much complain lie so heavy on you as Papists to wit the rigorous Sanctions of the penal Laws c. And consequently I have given you those conceptions whereof I said also before not only That without peradventure you may find them to be right if you please to examine things calmly with unprejudicâ—d reading and coolely with unbyassed reason but also That beside your great concern above others in the peculiar Subject of the Book it was my desire to speak directly and immediately to your selves all that moved me to make this consecratory Address to you as esteeming the knowledge of such matters to be for your great advantage and withall considering a Dedicatory Epistle as the fittest place in which I might present them to your view A third motive yet and this the onely other if in effect it be another of this Dedication was my further desire of choosing you as the fittest Judges of such a Work seeing you are the only Professors amongst all those of so many different Churches in these Kingdoms who peculiarly derive your Faith from that of Old Rome which will still be famous throughout the World For although I thought it excusable not to importune you for Patronage to a Book whose Nativity is I know not which very hard or very easie to calculate nevertheless I held it but reasonable to submit wholly to your judgment the Book it self and the Subject therein handled or the Controversie 'twixt the persecuted Remonstrants of the year 1661 of one side and their persecuting Antagonists of the other In which judgment of yours I have the more reason to be concern'd for both That this and some other Books or Tracts of mine already printed and publish'd besides some other well nigh ready for the Press as well in English as in Latin do in that cause wholly decline the Authoritative â—udgment of His Holiness and consequently of all His suspected Ministers and all other suspected Delegates whatsoever as holding them in that Controversie not to be competent Judges but criminal Parties and knowing that not only in common reason and equity but also by the express Canons of the Catholick Church they cannot be Parties and Judges in the same cause with authority to bind others Therefore until His Holiness or His subordinate Ministers Officials or Delegates under Him in point of or in order to such Authoritative Judgment be pleased to proceed Canonically against me and other Remonstrants i. e. to proceed against us in a Regular Judicatory or Tribunal and in a Regular way that is by giving us indifferent Judges and a place of safety to appear in and both beyond all exception according to the Canons of the Universal Church I and my said Fellow-sufferers the few remaining constant Remonstrators must be in a high measure concern'd in that other I think more excellent kind of judgment which is common to you and to all judicious sober conscientious Men a judgment not of authority or power to bind others but of discretion and reason to direct your selves in order to that opinion you are to hold of and communication you may have with us after you have throughly and seriously ponderâ—d the merits of our Cause and the proceedings of those who would make themselves even against all the Rules of Reason and all the Canons too of the Christian Church our Authoritative Judges in that very Cause in which they are the principal Parties However though I cannot for my own part otherwise choose than be somewhat sollicitous for the succesâ— while it is a meer future contingency yet I hope and am almost confident That my integrity and constancy in the Roman-Catholick Religion shall be vindicated against all Aspersions and Misconstructions when I Appeal to you for Justification whose Censure would be the most grievous that can befall me For in truth I do so Appeal to you in this very passage most humbly and earnestly demanding of you 1. Whether in those two grand Controversies one succeeding another the former that of the Nuncio Rinuccini's Ecclesiastical Censures of Interdict and Excommunication in the Kingdom of Ireland (e) an 1648. against all the Adherers to the Cessation concluded by the Confederate Catholicks with the then Baron now or late Earl of Inchiquin who had then declared for the late King the later of the Remonstrance presented to His Majesty (f) an 1661 â— since His Happy Restauration in both which I have ever since continually engaged against the Roman Courts designs on the Supreme Temporal power of these Kingdoms Whether I say my Sermons or my Books my Doctrine or my Practice in the Concerns of either Controversie can be justly tax'd with so much as one tittle or one action against that Roman-Catholick Faith which you all together with the Roman-Catholick World abroad believe as necessary to Salvation 2. Or seeing there is not so much as any
Steward of the family in spiritual things onely and onely enabled with spiritual power and with spiritual means also in the execution of such power And consequently that the Pope admits or introduceth Kings and Emperours into the Christian family that they may be govern'd or directed by him spiritually what hath this to do with or how doth it inferre the Pope's being exempted in temporal matters from those very Princes no more certainly then doth the King's or Emperour's being made chief temporal Superintendent by God himself of the Christian family or of those of his own Kingdom or Empire and no more then his admitting of or introducing of whom he please of all forraigners even Churchmen Priests and Bishops and let the Pope himself be one of them as it may well be into the temporal family of his Kingdom Empire or Court and Pallace that they may be govern'd and directed by him temporally civilly or politically in all matters belonging to him hath to do with or inferrs the same King 's or Emperour's being therefore exempt in spiritual matters from these Clergiemen over whom he superintends so or whom he so admits or introduces unto his own temporal family Kingdom or Court But sayes Bellarmine again the second time cap. 35. adversus Barclaium strugling yet to maintain his denyal of that first part of my said Minor in general as to all Clerks whatsoever or whosoever concerning that of the subjection of Christian Clerks to Infidel Princes there being two sentences or opinions as we have noted before neither of them favours Barclay The true sentence or doctrine is That Christian Clerks have been jure that is by the law of Christ or of God exempted from the power of Infidel Princes albeit they had been de facto subject to them And that he exempted them as his own proper Ministers who is truly said or called Apocap 1. in the first of St. Iohns Revelations Princeps Regum terrae the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Therefore according to this sentence that proposition of Barclay which is the said first part of my Minor is to be denied which he no where proves nor hath proved in this place but assumes as granted which yet indeed the more grave Writers do not grant such as are all those that mantain Ecclesiastical Exemption to be de jure divino And yet were that proposition granted that I mean of the subjection of Christian Clerks de jure legis Christianae to Infidel Princes Barclay would not could not therefore conclude for this consecution of his thence would be denied Ergo Clerks are de jure subject also to the judgment and power of beleeving or Christian Princes For all Catholick Writers as well Divines as Canonists deny this proposition which is the second amongst those of Barclay here And that consecution would be and is denied because the supream Pontiff that is the Pope hath absolutely exempted Clerks from the power of beleeving Princes who acknowledge his power but from the power of Infidel Princes who do not acknowledge his power he hath not so absolutely exempted them because he cannot force or punish these by ecclesiastical Censures Besides that consecution would also have been and is denied because the very Christian lay Princes themselves have so exempted Clerks from themselves as understanding how great the clerical dignity is Which Infidel Princes have not done as to whom that spiritual dignity was and is unknown Hitherto Bellarmine ubi supra cap. 35. How vain this reply is first as to his law diuine which he pretends I have already shewed at large in my former Sections where I handled his texts alledged out of that same law Divine will hereafter yet shew out of other clear texts to the quite contrary Vnless perhaps he means that that adorable title of Christ which he brings here Princeps Regum terrae and he might have added too Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium be an argument of such a law divine for the exemption of Clerks But no man would be so out of his right senses and I will not charge him with being so being these titles might be as properly alledged for any thing or law whatsoever he pleased to impose on Christ without any other kind of warrant As for the title of Ministers given to Clerks I have purposely said enough in my LXIII Section Leaving these titles therefore and all other such or not such let us demand of our learned Cardinal by what words in what place book or chapter hath this very Prince of the Kings of the Earth so exempted Clerks Give us Bellarmine one material word out of holy Scripture of Apostolical Tradition that proves Clerks to be more exempted by him so then other Christians even the meerest seeliest Laicks I have shewed abundantly shewed already you cannot And next how vain this reply is by his flat denial of that proposition and saying it was no where proved but assumed without proof my next following Section will yet shew as clear as the Sun because over and above all said already by me for the negative it proves of purpose in a positive way out of Scripture also the subjection of all Christian Clerks even de jure divino vel ipsius legis Christianae to all true supream lay Princes whether Infidels or Christians under whose or in whose dominions they live In the third place also how vainly he tells us that all those whom he calls graviores Scripâ—eres the more grave Writers to wit such as teach Ecclesiastical Exemption to be jure divina deny that proposition viz. that Christian Clerks were de jure subject to Infidel Princes For besides that I may and do on farr better grounds though at present it be needless to repeat them deny those to be the more grave Writers then he affirms or can affirm them to be so it is obvious to make him this reioynder that the material querie or dispute is not whether those Writers are so or no or even whether any besides himself or even also whether himself denied that proposition but whether it may be in sound reason or Christian Religion denied And what those arguments are that perswade it may be so denied And as I am sure that Bellarmine hath as yet not given as much as one likely argument to prove it may be so denied so I do averr the same of those others too whom he calls the more grave Divines Fourthly how vain his answer is by denying the consecution or consequent in case that Antecedent were granted that is by denying the subjection of Clerks to Christian Princes to follow their having been de jure divino subject to the same Princes before they were Christian how vain I say his answer is in this much appears out of the vain grounds he gives for it either in point of authority or in point of reason For the authority he pleads for denying this consecution is that if we beleeve him of
orbem absolvere possit Et propterea dogma illud quod asserit quemque posse suum Regem quod sit disparis Religionis aut fidei Romano Catholicae contrariae e medio tollere aut contra illum arma movere ut impium Sacris Scripturis vetitum detestor abhominor Ac proinde teneo ac profiteor esse cuivis boni Catholici Subditi officium omnes Conspirationes clandestinas machinationes ad Rebellionem tendentes Regi aut sub illo Magistratui competenti aut Consiliario quamprimum aperire indicare neque ita facturum juro profiteor Ad quod maxime Divinum illud Oraculum Reddite Caesari quae sunt Caesaris Deo quae sunt Dei me invitat imo firmiter obligat In quorum omnium singulorum fidem ac robur his ego proptia manu subscripsi Pat Daly J. V. D. Octavo Maii 1663. THat Nation must be very barbarous and altogether a stranger to the Law of Nature which does not love dread and reverence Kings see over them by God which does not esteem the Name and Majesty of a King to be embraced and worshipped in Temporals next to God as a thing glorious yea even divine Wherefore there is a duty incumbent upon all the Irish but especially upon those who serve at the Altar and have the charge of instructing others to manifest with what and how great joy they celebrate the most happy Inauguration of our Illustrious Monarch and His Return to possess the Government of His Ancestors Why should not I therefore as it becomes all others likewise wish all happiness and prosperity to our most successful Prince who has snatch't these Nations and above others His Ireland out of the jaws of cruel Tyrants under whose barbarous yoke they have hitherto groaned Since it is far from Christian piety to do or think otherwise But having heard that many have a suspition there are several of our Order in this Kingdom who endeavour to raise intestine Sedition yea and aspire to get Forreign Forces to make a Rebellion against the Sacred Majesty of the King I cannot nor ought I to conceal with what observance love and sincerity of mind I am ready to yield Obedience and wish Prosperity to my most victorious King and how I am ready to bind my self by Oath faithfully to perform the same Wherefore I do most Religiously acknowledge and affirm in the word of a Priest sincerely and without all equivocation disguise or mental reservation That our most Illustrious King CHARLES the Second is Lord of this Kingdom of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Realms and Dominions by a true legitimate and hereditary Right and that I will obey him in all matters Temporal and Civil most faithfully I and deservedly and that there is no power under Heaven which can absolve me from this Oath of Allegiance more than those of my Function who are Subjects of the Princes of Germany Spain or other Nations throughout the World And therefore I detest and abhor the Opinion as impious and forbidden by the Holy Scriptures which maintains That any one may kill His King or take up Arms against Him because He is of a different Religion or of a Belief contrary to the Roman Catholick Faith Wherefore I assert and profess That it is the duty of every good and Catholick Subject forthwith to detect and discover to the King or to some competent Magistrate under him or to a Privy Counsellor all Conspiracies and clandestine Machinations tending to Rebellion and I swear and profess that I my self will so do Whereunto that Divine Oracle give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods does chiefly invite and firmly bind me To give strength and credit to all and every of these I have subscribed with mine own hand Pat Daly J. V. D. 10 May 1663. Where you see nothing at all home to any purpose much less to that of the Remonstrance of 1661. And indeed this good man alledges now being the year 1668. it was therefore the general Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin and in 1666. did not would not Subscribe the Remonstrance of 1661. because Father P. Walsh declared publickly in the said Congregation That Remonstrance tyed them to stand by the King against even the very Pope himself in person invading any of His MAJESTIES Dominions with an Army and even in case too the pretence and intent also of such Invasion were only and purely to Re-establish Catholick Religion and to restore Catholick Proprietors to those Estates whereof they have been so lately dispossessed by force of Arms or which have been more lately yet invested in others by those several Acts of Parliament we have seen pass since the Kings Restauration But whether or no the said Father Peter Walsh descended then to such a case expresly and publickly in any of his several Speeches to that Congregation yet I am sure he hath sufficiently demonstrated in the _____ page of this First Part and elsewhere often the lawfulness and justice and even the necessity also of such engagement and sense of the Remonstrance at least as to a promise of passive obedience even in such very case to the King Nay and also as to active obedience and positive fighting for the King and themselves and for the natural and civil being of all the people of these Dominions even also in case of such an Invasion or of any made even with previous manifestoes of such a pure intention because no mortal man could without divine special and extraordinary Revelation know certainly that to be the real inward intention whatever the verbal outward of manifestoes should be and because of the nature of Conquest and Wars wherein a thousand Accidents may intervene which may wholly change the first intention or design A Third Paper or form of a Declaration and given the DUKE by the Lord Birmingham April 8. same Year 1664. VVE acknowledge and profess that it 's our Tenet and Opinion That we are by the Laws of God bound under pain of sin to observe inviolably and perform publick Faith with all manner of persons of whatever profession in Religion they be and to be as true obedient and loyal to our Sovereign Lord and King CHARLES the Second King of this Realm of Ireland and other His Dominions as any of His Subjects and that accordingly we will bear Him during our lives true Faith and Allegiance in as dutiful and obedient manner as the Laws of this Kingdom do require from us And if the Pope of Rome or any other person either Ecclesiastical or Temporal shall either by force of Excommunication Sentence of Deposition or by any other wayes or means attempt any thing to His prejudice That we will in opposition thereunto and in defence and maintenance of His Person Crown and Government expose our Lives and Fortunes if need be All which we Religiously swear to observe and that no
to apprehend him or them so not appearing and to cause him or them so apprehended to be safely brought before Vs whereof they may not fail Given at the Council-Chamber in Dublin the 11th day of Iuly 1664. Ja Armachanus Mau Eustace Mich Dublin Meath Santry Hen Tichborne Jo Bysse J Temple Paul Davys J Ware God Save the King The other persons seized in the County of Cavan upon Account or Information to some of the Officers Civil or Military in that County and this Information given by some of the Neighbours were Thomas Brady James Gowan Patrick O Drumma three Secular Priests and Thomas Mukiernan Anthony Gowan and John Brady three Franciscans all leading men amongst the Clergy and Laity in those parts The Imprisonment of these six and Proclamation against those other Church-men startled mightily and cool'd the heat of the opposers of the Remonstrance because all the persons so either by Proclamation summonâ—d or by Surprizal confined were such And the Procurator's kindness and charity to the Prisoners did also help somewhat to allay their Impetuousness For though he had been then and some Months before actually sick yet notwithstanding his very great weakness he visited them several times and otherwise also shewed in effect he was far from entertaining any uncharitable disaffection or passion to their persons Besides that having suddenly after but during their Imprisonment departed to England and come to London he performed his promise to them at his departure and partly by his endeavours there and Letters back to Ireland to some persons of quality and power within a few weeks wrought their Enlargement on Bonds to appear when called upon His known successful endeavours also about that time before he left Ireland as likewise often the three last preceding Years to hinder the Indictments or Prosecutions of such in several parts of the Countrey against a great number of poor Catholicks for their Recusancy did likewise contribute to stop the Exclamations and Forgeries of the Anti-remonstrants LXXXII FRom London the Procurator being come thither about the end of August same Year 1664. next Month after sent back to Ireland the Reverend Father Antony Gearnon partly to work the Enlargement of the Prisoners and partly also when so Enlarged to get the chief Fathers of the Franciscans or the chief I mean in authority or command then amongst them videlicet their Definitory in all seven or eight to meet in some convenient place and by Letters and by the said Gearnon as a Messenger or Agent to postulate a Visitator of that Province from James de Riddere a Dutchman residing in Flanders and Commissary General then of that Order of the Franciscans throughout all the Northern and Northwest Kingdoms amongst which Ireland England and Scotland are and to that purpose to postulate and present unto him one of those other of whose faith to the King there was no suspicion Because otherwise that Order in Ireland being very numerous and leading and as to the greater number of them especially their Superiors very great Anti-remonstrants and formerly Nunciotists it could not be expected to be reduced to reason their Constitutions not warranting them to change Superiors before they had a Visitator from the General Superiors who live still in Forreign parts and because it would be of some consequence also to break in time by their example the other Regular Orders and even the Secular Clergy too And those Fathers of the Franciscans having met at Multifernan were by the said Father Gearnon and Procurator's Letters but more by that trouble whereinto some of them as above related were lately fallen wrought upon to write to Flanders and to the said de Riddere their Commissary General desiring him to let them have such an one for their Visitator as in the point of Loyalty or Fidelity to the King no exceptions could be taken against him nay such an one as should be grateful to His Majesty and great Ministers That they would receive none other And would any such even Father Redmund Caron himself For this was their language and manner of expressing their sense if I understand their Letters which for your satisfaction I give here They are three several The first is of Antony O Docharty their President because then Minister Provincial of that Order in Ireland written by him to Father Walsh the Procurator Second from the same President and all the rest of the Definitory to the self same Procurator Third also from them all to the foresaid James de Riddere the Flemmish or Dutch Commissary General The First as followeth SIR I Should have esteemed my self ungrateful had I not returned you many thanks for your Civility in your due Correspondency for the freedom of my Liberty and for your bountiful Charity without which I could neither defray my Lodging at Dublin nor be able to undertake this Journey Here we are met where I have propounded all you desire and am sorry F. Valentin hath not appeared I having adjured him by a sure way and Mr. Knight by his own way desiring him not to fail upon any score his presence would have rendred the business more facile Mr. Gearnon knows what difficulties we have met withall as he may inform you At length we have prevailed so far that you have these Instruments which I leave you to peruse and what is wanting there I do as far as in me lieth supply in mine own Addresses to the Commissary General which likewise I leave to you unsealed that you may see the Integrity and Reality of my Intentions I send also my obedience to whom you shall fix upon to be employed to his most Reverend Paternity leaving to you whom you fix upon another grateful to His Majesty in case of Mr. Caron â—s death or personal inability Thus assuring you that I will joyn heart and hand with you in all things that may concern my Loyalty the good of my Nation and Order So I subscribe SIR Your Brother and Servant Anthony Docharty Multifernan 25 Octob. 1664. The Second thus Reverend Father WE have received yours of the Third of October by the Reverend Father Anthony Gearnon to your request in which we have willingly and heartily condescended the motive of our meeting being only to do that which is for the Glory of God Interest of our King and better Settlement of our Religion and Order pursuant to which we send our Address to the Commissary General for our future Commissary and Visitator and also our Petition to his Grace though we think not our selves conscious of the least Crime against his mind or the Laws of the Land yet as desired we with as much submissiveness present it as cordially promise to banish from our hearts and actions the least thing that should incur the displeasure of His Majesty or our Lord Lieutenant to which we would annex our Remonstrance but that on the instant we had certain intelligence that the Clergy unanimously do intend to present one very speedily
or Estate to renounce in this Controversie a Doctrine or Position which they very well know to have been asserted in all Ages by Thousands and by Millions even of the most Learned most Religious and most Holy of Catholicks as the soundest and safest if not as wholly and absolutely and in all respects certainly Catholick according to the faith of Christ and to have been asserted by them for such not in their speculative Ratiocinations only but in all the practick observations of their life and yet by them for such asserted so that whensoever or as often soever as this Controversie was renewed and even at that very time it viewed first the light under Gregory the VII they devoted the contrary both doctrine and practice to all the Furies of Hell Such proceedings I say cannot be reputed just or pious in the most holy Father especially when it is apparent the Irish in relation to whom the present debate is cannot change their Opinion cannot retract their Subscription without hazard of losing all their temporal Goods and Fortunes or hopes of any whatever may in the mean time be said probably on either side for the loss or safety of those are purely spiritual But such proceedings or attempts to have their source from others without either consent or knowledge of his Holiness and to be continued certainly with the scandal of the Church and hatred of the Pope and hurt of Souls and singular decrease of Religion and yet carried on by most filthy Forgeries and Impostures must seem absolutely both unjust and wicked And your Lordship may be further pleased to write what change you desire in the words or send some other Form of your own but such as you shall rationally think may satisfie the KING and His great Counsellors and may withall be allowed by his Holiness Lastly you may be also pleased to specifie those other means if any such be which appear to your Lordship whereby the Catholick Subjects chiefly such as are of the Clergy may daily more and more ingratiate themselves with our most Gracious KING For truly and in relation to my self I protest here anew and under my hands-writing what I have before in your own presence and to your self by word of mouth at London and I protest it too in the sight of the All seeing God That I have not hitherto aimed in this whole Affair do not at present nor shall at any time hereafter God willing aim at other thing but the encrease of Christian Faith and Roman Catholick Religion the freedom of my Countreymen from the yoke of most severe Laws against it and the peace of the Kingdoms and other Dominions in general of Great Britain's Monarchy And to the end this my ingenuous Protestation may be the more believed I shall be most ready to give and make and as well by writing as by word a full entire profession of my Faith if at any time you demand it even that very profession which Pius the IV. hath ordered in prosecution of a Decree of the Council of Trent Some other passages I was minded to give in this Letter by reason of some things which more particularly concern Father Caron and Father Walsh alone and which have been said or rather indeed upbraided by your Lordship to Father Gearnon But least such an addition should be too much for one Letter or one sheet too scanty for all I have already and what I must further give in that other Subject I thought better to leave it to a distinct Paper which is the enclosed And will only add here That I willingly understood from the said Father Gearnon how your Lordship challenges me of my promise when your Lordship was here to write to you to Bruxels and that you took in ill part I never since performed but more especially that I did not at least write by him For I am glad to know your Lordship desires that which I my self so heartily i. e. an Epistolar Correspondence And without any question I was my self most firmly resolved before I knew any thing of that your challenge to send unto the said Father Gearnon Letters for your Lordship if he had stayed as I thought he would but one week longer at Bruxels However if your Lordship please I shall hereafter abundantly compensate by my diligence that fault of delaying so long my duty And so kissing your hands with all becoming respects and affection I remit your Lordship to this other annexed writing and beseech God to direct and keep you in health London Ides of Febr. 1665. stilo novo My LORD Your most Illustrious Lordships Most humble and obsequious Servant Peter Walsh The additional Paper mention'd as you see in the end of this Letter because it is long as being a necessary Expostulation with the same Internuncio for his passionate and rude and both injurious also and ignorant expressions to Mr. Gearnon at his being at Bruxels against both him and his friends Walsh and Caron I remit to the following Section which is wholly taken up by it And must only here advertise the Reader That as he will find by the date this additional Paper was not sent together with the first Letter but some dayes after it LXXXVIII HOwever that very same Paper or second Letter of the Procurator to the Internuncio de Vecchiis Translated out of the Latin is and most exactly too as followeth My Lord SInce your Lordship was pleased in Discourse with F. Gearnon to call Caron and Walsh Schismaticks and Apostates and when he expostulated the matter to assign no other Reason for those most ignominious Titles but that they had been disobedient to the command of their Superiours namely as far as may be guessed the Commissary General of the Flemish Nation who had admonish't and cited them to Rome or Bruxels I thought good to repress the malice and ignorance of your Informers together with the wonderful liberty they take to calumniate by declaring the Truth briefly in the following Lines and more at large in the bundle of Papers annexed which contains both Copies of that Citation whatsoever it was and to whomsoever directed and of the Answers of Walsh and Caron as well for themselves as for the rest who by any conjecture could be conceived concerned in it Be it therefore known to your Lordship That neither Walsh nor Caron did ever receive any Command Citation or Monition either by writing or word so much as by fame or any relation of any other from any Superiour other than one in a Letter from Father James de Riddere Commissary as abovesaid of the Flemmish Nation whom they undoubtedly acknowledge and receive as their lawful Superiour to Father Caron at London now about some Two years since and certain others in general none of those others being named nor any fact expressed by which or one of which it might certainly be determined who besides Caron were admonished or cited for in those Letters onely the said Father Caron
others or if indeed Finachty's judgment ought to be esteemed there would be work enough for Exorcists nay for all the Priests of Ireland though every one of them turn'd special Exorcist being he the said Father Finachty would make simple people believe that all kinds even of the most seeming corporal or natural diseases whatsoever now in Ireland are special effects of the Devils really Possessing or Obsessing the bodies of the sick That such being as to this matter the fanatick judgment of Finachty it ought to be attributed to meer folly or frenzy that now for well nigh Twelve hundred years we heard nothing from Historians of any such Diabolical Power in any Christian Countrey much less in Ireland whence as we read in our Ecclesiastical History our great Apostle St Patrick expelled at once so in truth miraculously yea and visibly too all the otherwise invisible Devils who till then by Possession and Obsession had tormented the old Heathen Inhabitants thereof That especially in a time of a Christian Kingdoms or Nations or Peoples being so grievously afflicted by visible enemies as the Roman-Catholick Irish are at present and nevertheless bearing their afflictions patiently and continuing constantly in their Sacred Religion a man of reason should not once imagine that the mercy and goodness of God would at the same time deliver them over so at least generally even also to invisible Demons as Finachty pretends That every one who pleased to enquire might find he himself the said Finachty was a very illiterate undiscerning person who never had studied not only not any thing to be considered in either natural or rational Philosophy but not one word in Divinity which might enable him to discern or try so much well as his own Spirit And in the last place That such as he himself or they themselves pretended to have been cured by him of any visible disease from what cause soever flowing were observed to have very soon after relapsed into their former evil or rather indeed not to have been at all really cured by him To this purpose and in such company as before I told when Father Melaghlin had at large and very confidently too at several times and in answer also to my Queries made to him discoursed I knew not well what to think much less what to reply And yet I must confess I gave him the more credit i. e. the rather believed he spoke nothing of prejudice envy or malice nor indeed any thing at all other than what either he had heard from the most judicious Ecclesiasticks of his acquaintance and he was throughly acquainted all all over Ireland or knew by his own experience 1. Because I could not understand he ever had or well could have had any or difference or communion with Finachty 2. Because I knew they had both been equally still of the same Nuncio-party in the late differences of the Nation nay and both even by their very names equally lovers of that common Interest concerning which they would equally both desire to know and ask too if they knew of whom as the Apostles did of Christ Domine si in tempore hoc restitutes regum Israel and by consequence were equally wishers even of true Miracles and wonders to obtain or see that restitution they expected 3. Because it could not fall into my Soul that the relator Father Mellaghlin would on that occasion freely and deliberately commit that kind of sin which as being against the Holy Ghost is not forgiven either in this or the other world and that none doubted his sin would be such if he had perversly either maligned or denyed the free grace of God in any man appearing so miraculously as was reported by others it did in Father Finachty However I made no doubt his i. e. Father Melaghlins so confident and positive answers in the case were sufficient to suspend at least my judgment or belief of any kind of true miraculous power in the said James Finachty notwithstanding his being so much cryed up for such a power Which therefore I did accordingly and for that time no more troubled my self with enquiring after him especially the rather that there was scarce any further talk of his wonders until after some four or five years more Then indeed i. e. some two years after the Kings most happy Restauration and the next August after the Triumvirats Persecution of the Irish Papists ceased and when the Duke of Ormond as the Kings Lieutenant had arrived in Ireland Anno 1662 was the second time I heard of the powerful Spirits having seized again Father Finachty and working wonders by him And then also it was that I became much more inquisitive than before of all was reported of him even for these two reasons 1. I was then my self arrived in Ireland about a Moneth after the Duke of Ormond landed where I might have all opportunities and means to learn the truth of all the said Father Finachty's either true or only pretended miraculous gifts and works 2. Immediately upon my landing and presenting my self before the Lord Lieutenant His Grace commanded me amongst other matters to look particularly and singularly after him the same Father Finachty and see he abused the People no longer by going about so like a Mountebanke cheating all the Nation nay and bringing his Countrey-men also into suspition of some bad design amongst them and this neither unjustly nor at all ungroundlesly if his procession about the Kingdom and the Multitudes every where flocking to him be considered together with all other circumstances of time and present conjuncture of publick Affairs This command and these reasons or speech of His Grace the Kings Lieutenant General and General Governour of the Kingdom added much to my own former inclinations to enquire after Father Finachty's proceedings And therefore without delay I conferr'd with the most judicious of all sorts of both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks from all parts of the Kingdom then at Dublin and amongst them with many whereof some were of his own Countrey or Province of Connaught and Countrey of Galway wherein he had his ordinary Residence who knew him very well for many years and others of other parts who had gone of purpose even some of them a long way to see him practise on themselves and others as they did What I learned of them all generally concerning his late peregrination about the Kingdom was 1. That by the mediation of some friends he had the Summer past of that same year 1662 before the Lord Lieutenants Landing procured or at least obtained a Pass from some of the great ones in Authority to go freely where he pleased about Ireland and accordingly had gone from Province to Province and consequently also had met and drawn after him many hundreds in some places in other many thousands of people some expecting to be healed by him of their infirmities others who were incomparably the greater number to be satisfied in their curiosity 2. That he had also
those words our Supream Lord and further because of the genius and temper and so many several interests of the men that composed that Congregation and Interests also though in some or many respects divided yet all through pre-occupation ignorance and a perverse obstinacy conspiring together in the main of not speaking their conscience plainly either pro or con for these reasons I say this acknowledgment from them and in these words alone of the Kings Supremacy in Temporals or to speak more properly as I would fain to the purpose of the Kings temporal Supremacy or supream politick and civil Power with the Sword corporal or carnal if I may so speak over all persons subject to him and in all causes indifferently wherein corporal force or co-action is used is lyable to as many deceitful evasions and interpretations as any of the former in that recognition or of those that follow after in their confessions or promises And yet herein they need not find out any way that hath not been chalked before them by some of their sophistical Predecessors these sixty years It is but to pursue their steps and tell the people as several of their chief Speakers and Interpreters have already by clear expressions given sufficient cause to expect they will when they find it convenient that he is acknowledged Supream for the present but not so for the future That both for the present and future he may be acknowledged Supream but their meaning may be and is That he is and may be so de facto not de jure in fact only in actual possession and by force only not by right That he may be so by right also but by such right only as the laws of the Land can or do give him not by such right as the laws of the Church may much less by that right which the laws of God and nature have not given him in those contingencies above Finally as they leave themselves a latitude by the former answers notwithstanding this recognition of Supream in those bare words only or any thing else in this Remonstrance to maintain alwayes the saâ—rilegiousness of the Remonstrance of 61. I speak according to the Censure of the Lovaine Divines of that Remonstrance of 61. and even upon their grounds of humane right which the Popes pretend to the kingdoms of England and Ireland and which those Divines of Lovaine assert unto the See of Rome viz. Those of a pretended submission donation prescription feudatary title given and forfeiture made so they retain the like notwithstanding this acknowledgement here notwithstanding all said before and after To maintain no less stiffely when they shall think fit the other pretended but divine Supream both Temporal and Spiritual right of Popes as well to the Realms of England and Ireland as to all and over all at least Christian Kingdoms and Kings in the world For they will and may say according to their principles which they flatly denied to quit by any sufficient expression or indeed rather denied to meddle with at all or declare themselves in any manner on the point according to such I say they will plead when they shall think it may be done prudently That they do not here acknowledge the King their Supream Lord but in relation only to or in rank and order only of such Lords as are meerly temporal not by any means absolutely or without such relation not at all in relation to such Lords as have a power absolutely divine or supernatural and is composed by God himself both of temporal and spiritual natural and supernatural and is immediatly given by Him to them over the whole earth at least the parts of it that are Christian and also at least in some extraordinary cases Of the emergencie of which cases that they themselves alone I mean such Lords are Judges appointed by Him and that such Lords are the Popes only and certainly they will say And consequently that by no general acknowledgement of a meer temporal â—upremacy in a King by a Catholick it can be presumed he any way intended to relate to that divine spiritual supernatural extraordinary Attribute Power or Supremacy of the Popes even in temporal matters or intended any way to deny it For it is a maxim with Canonists that in a general expression is not to be understood that which the Expressor would not specifically grant were it demanded of him in specie much less that which being demanded of him specifically he of set purpose refuses to express it so though he write not under his hand that specifical demand or denial but passes both by I will say nothing at present of the relative or comparative form of this recognition which they choose rather then that positive and absolute one of the former Remonstrance of 61. Though I be sure that that of 61. being absolute and positive for it is worded thus We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions puts us not to an inquiry after the manner or measure of the truth lawfulness rightfulness or supremacy of his Titles of his Kingship Lordship or Soveraignty over or to all his other Dominions or those are called his besides Ireland as this of the Congregation must them that please to understand it by the rules of Sophistry or Subtilty Whereby they gave cause to suspect they would have their own relative or comparative form understood by such as listed to understand or interpret it so when they found it could be done prudently For they would have their 's not to be positive at all but relative as you see in their own words which say only thus We acknowledge your Majesty to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other your Majesties Dâ—minions Now the Querie is how well they acknowledge or would have others to acknowledge him True and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign of all other his Majesties Dominions How well of Tangier Jamaica or France c And if his Majesties title to these or either of them be uncertain with them or by many or some of them not accounted good or just at all whether by this relative form they choose of purpose they declare or acknowledge his title to Ireland to be any better The liberty they leave themselves by their manner of expression here to have recourse for interpretation when they please to their logical Sophistry and make this acknowledgement sometimes and to some persons a modal Proposition at other times and to other persons a Proposition not modal but only de extremo modificato gives them the trouble to answer these Queries As in the impartial understanding Reader it and what is here said thereupon may work this perswasion That notwithstanding this their kind of owning and acknowledging his Majesty they are still
declaration and meaning to be always with this reserve that whatever this their second proposition or constant doctrine signifie or be intended or conceived by any to signifie or this their resolution so expressed never to recede from it yet all must be with perfect submission to the Pope and so that if it sufficiently appear the Pope hath already declared or shall at any time hereafter declare by Brief Bull or other letters against such doctrine as uncatholick or against such resolution as unsafe they will quit both for these causes I say there can be no rational indifferent person but will be convinced that out of this second proposition as from them there can acrue no more assurance to the King of their future fidelitie than out of the first and consequently than out of their Remonstrance alone without any such additional proposition or propositions That is as I have a little above said just none at all Nor will their third or last Proposition mend the matter They give it indeed as the two former in words specious enough to plain well-meaning men to the simple and ignorant Nay specious enough to very understanding persons but yet such persons only as are not acquainted with their explications borrowed from late School-men and particularly from Bellarmine against Barclay and from other impugners with him of the Oath of Allegiance against the most learned Father Green and Preston of St. Beâ—ns Order as well under Widringtons name at first in several works as their own at last in their Apology to Gregory the Fourteenth and against the rest of the Roman Clergy of England that so learnedly conscientiously modestly nay and patiently too maintain'd that oath in King James's dayes especially the Secular Clergy maâ—gre Cardinal Bellarmines Letter to the Arch-Priest Blackwel and maugre likewise all his other several books under his own or fictitious names and maugre also even that either true or pretended brief of Paul the Fifth in the year 1606. against the said Oath procured by Father Parsons upon the mis-representation and most false suggestion of Cardinal Bellarmine and his seven or eight other fellow Divines to whom joyntly the examination of the said Oath of Allegiance was committed by the same holy Father Paul the Fifth and finally notwithstanding the best and worst endeavours of besides Lessius Gretzer Fitzherbert Becan Parsons himself and several others Franciscus Suarez the Spanish learned Jesuite at the instigation of the English Fathers of the same Society and in pursuance of the said Brief and for the unlawful advancement of his own great Masters no less unlawful interest This third Proposition therefore I say notwithstanding its words or tenor so specious at first to such as are not acquainted with the familiar explication or meaning of the chief proposers a meaning or explication learned from these late Sophisters that writ so ill and so erroneously too against King Iames's said Oath of Allegiance being reviewed being duly pondred as from them or as from those Congregational men will be found to be of as little weight as any of the two former and will be so found I mean as to the resolution justly expected from so venerable so grave and so withal justly suspected an Assembly But not to delay the Reader my longer I repeat again here that Proposition in it self barely or as they have given it in their own words We the undernamed do hereby declare that it is our doctrine that we Subjects oâ—e so natural and just obedience to our King that no power under any pretext soever can either dispense with or free us of the same Now mark the Sophistry In the first place the reduplicative sense must be allowed in these two words We Subjects that is in as much or while we are Subjects Which will be no longer than it shall please the Pope not to denounce the King by name excommunicated or deprived of or deposed from his kingdoms by a judicial process or bull on pretence of his apostasie heresie schisme oppression of the Church or People against that which the Pope shall determine to be justice or faith Next the same reduplication must be allowed to fall on the word King And thirdly at the word power all the former distinctions of fact and of right of humane or temporal and divine or spiritual and of ordinary and extraordinary must be ushered in And in the last place from these general words under any pretext soever there must be alwaies understood an exception of those extraordinary cases or contingencies above so often repeated of destroying the Church or People tyrannically by endeavouring to make them Apostats Hereticks Schismaticks or by tyrannising over them even in their temporal or civil rights alone And the judgment hereof must be the Pope's only or the people's when they please to take it Nor will the Doctrine of the Apostles even in the cases of tyrannical heathen Emperours as of Nero and Domitian much less of the Fathers even in the cases of manifest notorious Apostats and Hereticks as of Iulian Constantius Valens Anastasius c. move the Divines of our congregation any whit at all They say with Bellarmine the Apostles and Fathers and other primitive Christians dissembled in this point because they had not strength enough of men and arms to oppose though besides that this answer is impious it be also most manifestly false in the case of Iulian the Apostat and of the succeeding Heretick Emperours Having thus with all sincerity considered all and every of their three Propositions both nakedly and abstractedly as they are in themselves and also as given by that Congregation and having layd open most sincerely too the meaning or sense these Divines or at least the chief and most leading of them have conceive or intend others should upon fit occasions understand by those Propositions and by their several clauses and words it only now remains that I briefly put in form my third Argument grounded on such abstractions exceptions distinctions reservations and equivocations And I frame it thus Syllogistically because I have to deal with some caprichious Logicians or Sophisters No Propositions are sufficient in this age for giving assurance to the King of the future loyalty of a Roman Catholick people and as from such a Roman Catholick people too whom he hath already by experience and his Father before him found in several publick Instances manifestly disloyal and even perfidious in the highest nature could be but such Propositions as by clear express words from which there can be no exception or evasion and of which there can be no distinction according to the present School-divinity of Bellarmine or Suarez or such others descend to the specifical cases about which the controversie is if the Proposers be expresly desired by the King or the Lieutenant in his Name or by his Authority to descend so in their Remonstrance or Propositions to such cases and if they expresly and obstinatly too refuse to descend so or
no yet doubtless even the Lord Nuncio and Delegates will not deny but the causes expressed in the Appeal are probable or likely or such as if they can be proved to be true will be thought sufficient There is no man of judgment hath ever yet seen or will see the Appeal that can or will deny this And if so how could it be rejected in foro exteriori as unjust whereas it hath the conditions prescribed by the Doctors Canons and Glosses for a just Appeal the one to have been made in due time and the other to have expressed in it motives which may seem in facie Ecclesiae to be probable likely or such as being proved would be thought lawful For that of bona fides mentioned by some of the Divines is not required by them but only for securing the interiour Conscience of the Appellant and not for any thing might concern the exteriour Tribunal wherein judgment is not given of the interiour opinion or bona fides of the Appellant but of that which appears exteriourly as of the causes expressed in the Appeal c. which if secundum allegata probata they be found true the Judge ad quem to whom only it belongs will give sentence for the Appeal whether in the mean time the interiour opinion of the Appellant was a bona fides or no. For of the interiour God alone is Judge not the Church And this is the reason why the Canons and Glosses speaking of the reasonableness and justice of the causes which being expressed makes the Appeal just require only such motives as seem probable or true though in themselves they be not true or such as being proved to wit before the Judge ad quem would make the Appeal lawful and say nothing of the bona fides conceiving this to be impertinent and not belonging to the external Court of judgment which they do chiefly regard Yet because the bona fides of the Appellants may be sufficiently conjectured out of the probability likelihood or evidence of the motives expressed in the Appeal who can doubt that knows the state of Ireland and looks on our condition with an indifferent eye but the Council and Confederates had not only probable motives but even reasons in themselves and before the World most evidently just which necessitated them to make their address to His Holiness and throw themselves into His protection though for point of Conscience this was needless from the violent proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and his either Delegates or Sub-delegates as being for private ends opposite to the advancement of Religion and of the common Cause destructive of the Kingdom and illegally thwarting the Supreme Civil power of the Confederates by drawing the people in as much as in them lie to Sedition and Rebellion All which motives and many more your Honours expressed at large in your Appeal and their truth may be manifestly inferred out of our sad condition the great necessity the Countrey stood in of a Cessation and the no less utility might be derived from it for the Catholick Cause as your Honours of the Council declared in your said Appeal and we have shewed in our answer to the first Querie Unto which motives may yet be added according to the power for adding your Lordships reserved to your selves in your Appeal what is consequent out of them and out of other particulars expressed in the Appeal videlicet That your Honours and the rest of the Confederates were commanded on pain of Excommunication and Interdict not to adhere unto a Cessation concluded upon actually and from which neither you nor they could fall without omission of most vertuous acts Fidelity in performance of Promises Religion in sacred Oaths and Disobedience to Authority nor without commission of sinful acts unfaithfulness in Contracts Perjury in Oaths and disobedience to Authority From which likewise you could not fall without extremely endamaging and hazarding the Commonwealth by reason of the strength and multitude of enemies which that Cessation rejected would on all sides come upon us besides the judgments of God would hang over us for our perfidiousness (k) See both in Sacred and Prophane Histories the dreadful punishments that attended alwayes the breach of Publick Faith and Perfidiousness See in the 2d of Kings 2â— how Heaven pursued with vengeance the King and whole Kingdom of Israel for having broken Faith with the Gibeonites though no less than a Hundred years since the Covenant made with them Josh 9. yea and though in that Covenant the Gibeonites used subtlety and were by profession Infidels Were not the chosen people and Nation of God for this breach of Faith scourged with an universal Famine even in the dayes of holy King David propter Saul domum ejus sanguinum quia occidit Gabeonitas And notwithstanding so many Thousands starved to death by this Famine was the Divine wrath appeased until Seven of his Sons who brake the League were resigned over by King David to the pleasure of the offended Gibeonites and were Crucified alive by them upon a Mount before the face of God Et dedit eos in manus Gabaâ—nitorum qui cruc fierunt eos in monto coram Domino repropitiatus est Deus torrae post hac See in the 36 of Paralipâ—m the deplorable fate of the unfortunate King Sedecias and of his Kingdom for having contrary to promise made renounced his Allegiance broken League with and taken Arms against Nabuchadnezzaâ— the Monarch of Babylon A â—ege quoquo Nabuchadâ—â—sâ—â— recesserat qui adjuraverat eum per Deum Was not his Kingdom therefore utterly destroyed the holy City râ—zed the Temple of God burn'd the miserable King deprived of those eyes wherewith before he beheld the Covenant broken finally his Countrey planted with Aliens and both himself and the remainder of his people translated to Babylon for to lead the life of Slaves in a long Captivity of 70 years Yet Sedecias was drawn to this breach of Peace through causes no less specious than Nebuchadnezzar's Idolatry in Religion and Tyranny in his Government of the elect Nation of God See in Gregory Sceidius and in Knolls's Turkish History the formidable event of a Cessation or Ten years Truce broken formerly concluded 'twixt Vladislaus the Christian Catholick King of Hungary and Amwâ—ath the Turkish Monarch but broken by the Christian King soon after 't was published by the persuasions and overmuch importunity of part of the Clergy specially of Julian the Florentine Cardinal then Legate Apostolick in the Kingdom of Hungary who needs would dispense in the Oath interchangeably taken by Christians and Turks for observing the Cessation Alas how late came repentance when the poor Hurgâ—rians beheld their valiant and good Vladislaus slain before their faces in the Battel of Varra their Nobility slaughtered â—â—lian himself with oâ—her Authors of this misfortune all naked covered only with blood and yielding the ghost their Army ever before this faithless dealing victorious totally destroyed and
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
otherwise at all noxious to humane Society and then also and there to Enact those penal Laws where at the same time the Lawmakers could not but have continually before their eyes all those beforemention'd Positions and Practises which they could not but judge to be indeed of the greatest Danger Insolence Pride Injustice Usurpation Tyranny and Cruelty imaginable even those very Positions and Practises which they knew to threaten themselves above others most particularly and which they saw themselves Ten thousand times more concern'd to persecute than any pure Religious Rites or Articles nay which they also knew to be such as even according to the judgment of the greater and sounder part of the Roman-Catholicks themselves abroad in other parts of the World did of their own nature require all the severity of Laws and all the anger of Men to prosecute them I am sure the Third Estate of the Roman Catholicks of France anno 1514 1â— did think so when they desired it should be made a fundamental Law of FRANCE to be kept and known by all men That the King being acknowledged Head in his Dominions holding his Crown and his Authority only from God there is no power on earth whatever Spiritual or Temporal that hath any right over his Kingdom either to depose our Kings or dispense with or absolve their Subjects from the fidelity and obedience which they owe to their Soveraign for any cause or pretence whatsoever That all his Subjects of what quality or condition soever shall keep this Law as holy true and agreeable to God's Word without any distinction equivocation or limitation whatsoever which shall be sworn and signed by all the Deputies of Estates and henceforward by all who have any Benefice or Office in the Kingdom before they enter upon such Benefice or Office and that all Tutors Masters Regents Doctors and Preachers shall teach and publish that the contrary Opinion viz. That it is lawful to kill and depose our Kings to rebel and rise up against them and shake off our Obedience to them upon any occasion whatever is impious detestable quite contrary to Truth and the establishment of the State of France which immediately depends upon God only That all Books teaching these false and wicked Opinions shall be held as seditious and damnable All Strangers who write and publish them shall be look'd upon as sworn enemies to the Crown and that all Subjects of His Majesty of what quality and condition soever who favour them shall be accounted as Rebels Violators of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and Traytors against the King c. And I am sure also That all the Parliaments and Universities of the same Kingdom did likewise think and believe so when at several times they proceeded with so much severity in their censures against so many inconsiderate Writers that maintain'd the Papal vain pretences of Authority to depose Kings and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them But to say nothing at present of the many several Arrests of the French Parliaments on this subject and speak only of their University Censures how smart these were in general the Universities of Paris (z) 1626 4. April and Caen (a) 7. May. and Rheims (b) 18. May. and Tholouze (c) 23. May. and Poitiers (d) 26. June and Valence (e) 14. July and Burdeaux (f) 16. July and Bourges (g) 25. November sufficiently tell us in their special Censures anno 1626. against the Jesuit Sanctarellus in particular i. e. against the Doctrine of such a power in the Pope asserted by him the said Sanctarellus in his Treatise of Heresie Schism Apostasie c. The first of them viz. the University of Paris finding in the said Book this Assertion That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastise Kings and Princes depose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdoms for the crime of Heresie c. condemn'd it in formal words as new false erroneous contrary to the Law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schism derogative to the Soveraign Authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the conversion of Infidels and Heretical Princes disturbing the publick peace tending to the ruine of Kingdoms and Republicks diverting Subjects from the obedience due to their Soveraigns and precipitating them into faction rebellion sedition and even to commit Particides on the sacred Persons of their Princes And the other seven Universities were not much behind for they also every one condemn'd it as false erroneous contrary to the Word of God pernicious seditious and detestable XI That if any shall object those penal Statutes which may perhaps be thought by some to have all their quarrel and bend all their force and level all the rigor of their Sanctions against some harmless Doctrines and practises whether in themselves otherwise true or false good or bad I say against the meer spiritual meer sacramental rites of our Religious worship of God and our Belief of meer supernatural operations following as for example against our Doctrines of the Consecration and Transubstantiation and our practice withall of the adoration of the Host which this present Parliament at Westminster in their late Act against Popish Recusants may be thought by some to make the principal mark whereat all the arrows of disfavour must now be shot the answer is both consequential and clear viz. That the Law-makers perswading themselves 1. that the Roman Catholicks in general of these Kingdoms both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks had alwayes hitherto since the schism either out of ignorance and blind zeal or a mistaken interest or irrational fear refused or at least declined to disown by any sufficient publick instrument the foresaid Anti-catholick Positions and Practises which maintain the Popes pretences of all Supreme both Spiritual and Temporal Dominion Jurisdiction Authority Power Monarchy and Tyranny c 2. That their Missionaries i e. their Priests not only day and night labour to make new Proselytes but also to infuse into as many of them and of their other Penitents as they think fit all their own Principles of Equivocation and mental Reservation in swearing any Oath even of Allegiance or Supremacy to the King and forswearing any thing or doctrine whatsoever except only those Articles which by the indispensable condition of their communion they may not dissemble upon Oath 3. That the Tenet of Transubstantiation is one of those Articles therefore to discover by this however otherwise in it self a very harmless Criterium the mischief which they conceive to go along with it thorough the folly of Roman Catholicks in these Dominions they make it the test of discriminating the Loyally principled Protestant from the disloyal and dissembling Papist Which otherwise they would not have done if the Romanists themselves in general who are Subjects to our Gracious King had by any sufficient Test distinguished amongst themselves and thereby convinced the Parliament and all other Protestant people
bound themselves Liege-men to His Holiness even by the very strictest Oath (a) See this Oath in the Roman Pontifical of Clement VIII anno 1596 Pro universo Orbe Christiano Printed at Antwerp by Plantinian in the year 1626. It is there pag. 59 60 61 under the Title De Consecratione Electi in Episcopum and again under the Title De Pallio pag. 86 87 and 88. In both places it is word by word in this following manner or Forâ—â—â—â—y EGO N. Eâ—â—tus Ecclesiae N. ab haâ— hora in antea fidelis obediens ero heato Petro Apostolo Sanctaeque Romana Ecclesiae Domino nostro Domino N. Papae N. suisque Successoribus canonicè intrantibus Non ero in consiâ—io â—â—t confeâ—â—â—â—◠〈◊〉 facto ut vitam perdent aut membrum seu capiantur â—ala Captione aut in eos violenter manus qâ—omodâ—livet ingerâ—â—â—â—â— vel injuriae aliquae inferantur quovis quaesito colore Consilium verò quod mihi credituri sunt per 〈◊〉 aut â—â—nctos suoâ— sâ—â— litteras ad eorum damnum me sciente nemini pandam Papatum Romanum Regalia Sancti Petri adjutor eis ero ad retinendum defendendum salvo meo Ordine contra omnem hominem Legatum Apostolicae Sedis in eando redeundo honorifice tractabo in suis necessitatibus adjuvabo Jura honores privilegia auctoritatem Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Domini nostri Papae Successorum praedictorum conservare defendere augere promovere curabo Neque ero in consilio vel facto seu tractatu in quibus contra ipsum Dominum nostrum vel eamdem Romanam Ecclesiam aliqua sinistra vel praejudicialia personarum juris honoris status potestatis eorum machinentur Et si talia à quibuscumque tractari vel procurari novero impediam hoc pro posse quanto citius potero significabo eidem Domino nostro vel alteri per quem possit ad ipsius notitiam pervenire Regulas Sanctorum Patrum decreta ordinationes seu dispositiones reservationes provisimes mandata Apostolica totis viribus observabo faciam ab aliis observari Hereticos Schismaticos rebelles eidem Domino nostro vel Successoribus praedictis pro posse persequar impugnabo Vocatus ad Synodum veniam nisi praepeditus fuero canonica praepeditione Apostolorum limina singulis trienaiis personaliter per meipsum visitabo Domino nostro ac Successoribus praefatis rationem reddam de toto meo pastorali officio ac de rebus omnibus ad meae Ecclesiae statum ad Cleri populi disciplinam animarum denique quae meae fidei traditae sunt salutem quâ—vis modo pertinentibus vicissim mandata Apostolica humiliter recipiam quam diligentissiâ—ne exequar Quod si legitimo impedimento detentus fuero praefata omnia adiâ—plebo per certam Nuntium ad hoc speciale mandatum habentem de grenio mei Capitâ—li aut alium in dignitate Ecclesiâ—stiâ—a constitutum seu alias personatum Ecclesiasticum habentem aut his mihi deficientibus per Diaeâ—sinum Sacerdotem Clero dificiente omnino per aliquem aliâ—â— Presbyterum Secularem vel Regularem spectatae probitatis religionis de supradictis omnibus pienè instructum De hujusmodi autem impedimento docebo per legitimas probationes ad Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem proponentem in Congregatione Saâ—â—i Concilii per supradictum Nuntium transmittendas Possessiones vero ad mensam meam pertinentes non vendam nec donabo neque impignorabo nec de novo infeâ—dabo vel aliquo modo alienabo etiam cum consensu Capituli Ecclesiae meae inconsalto Romano Pontifice Et si ad aliquam alienationem devenero poeâ—as in quadam super hoc edita Constitutione contentas eo ipso incurrere volo Sic me Deus adjuvet haec Sancta Dei Evangelia Tum respondet Consecrator Deo gratias Whosovever shall consider all and every the special tyes of this Oath will not much admire at the carriage either of the Ecclesiastical and National Congregation of the Irish Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks at Waterford in Ireland under the Presidency of the Papal Nuncio Rinuccini in the year 1646 against the Peace of the same year or of the other of the Prelates of the said Kingdom after at Jamestown against the Peace of the year 1648. Both the one and the other as to their Archbishops Bishops and Abbots took the said Oath to the Pope And none of them took either of the Oaths of Supremacy or Allegiance to the King or indeed any other at all to Him save onely that of the Irish Association Whence moreover is consequent That we must not wonder if their Successors the present Irish Archbishops Bishops and Abbots of the Roman Communion besides the Doctors of Divinity Law and Physick of the same Communion and Nation graduated abroad in Catholick Universities and consequently tyed to the Pope by another special Oath follow upon occasion the example of their said Predecessors Nay there is not so much as an Irish Oath of Association to oblige these latter to acknowledge the King much less to be true to Him For we know they condemn not only the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance but even the Irish Remonstrance of the year 1661 and persecute it to boot Nay we know they must be perjured to the Pope if they prove faithful to the King Whether so or no to God judge you I am sure if they were not Traytors in taking the foresaid Oath to His Holiness they were at least Renouncers of their Allegiance to His Majesty and of their Obedience also to the Catholick Church that could be sworn or pen'd especially being the Pope Himself is the onely Interpreter thereof and those that now gape for Promotion must hereafter when they can catch it be likewise sworn by the very same Oath before they be either Installed or Consecrated others are not only by the general Vow of Regular Obedience but either by another special one of meer Blind Obedience or at least special Interpretation of the said General Vow tyed for ever to Travel into any part of the Earth and do whatever His Holiness shall command them without examining the reasons of His Will and these are they who fith most and best in troubled waters nay who make all Fish that comes to their Net others are of the Sect of Indifferents except where their own Individuals are concerned and in order to some peculiar temporary advantage to themselves others are meer pretending Zealoâ—s Bigots Hypocrites but withall ignorant enough most of them I have the Charity to think there are others who either dare do no other for Fear and that partly excuses or who want parts or means to know better which is the onely thing that can make them innocent in this matter XVI That specially where the matter in it self is so clear and evident there is but little reason why you should be either
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
though somewhat more particularly to the Fifth That besides the facilitating all I could the Repeal of penal Statutes by overthrowing the grand Objection against it I had no other extrinsick end hitherto in any of the Controversies wherein I am engaged nor shall God willing have at any time hereafter save onely that which must have been consequential nay that which is very well becoming not only a Roman-Catholick Priest and Votary of St. Francis's Order but any Christian of whatever Church or Profession viz. the breaking down of so much of that middle wall of partition between us which hath separated first the Orient from the Occident and then again in the Occident it self hath divided from one another so numerous flourishing and conspicuous both Nations and Churches holding them so long involved in a direful Schism to the great hurt of Christianity and to the destruction of so many Souls This so great and so desirable a blessing of Peace and reconciliation of one to another in God by the Cross and by the breaking down the wall of partition all enmity being slain on both sides between the Churches i. e. between the Sons of the Church of England on this side and those of the Roman-Church on the other as many at least as are subject to His Majesty I must confess I have these many years regarded as my chief and ultimate end howsoever unlikely it seem'd in this world To this most desirable end all my Studies Writings Elucubrations and Books have been principally directed At this my Remonstrances Professions Protestations Renunciations have perpetually aimed For this I took so much pains devoured so many labours underwent so many hazards and suffered those well nigh innumerable Evils whereof I see not even yet either period or measure And finally this happy end is it that hath made me as elsewhere in some other of my Writings so now in this Epistle declare so plainly and openly against so many embroiling Positions notwithstanding they be the Doctrines of a very powerful Faction amongst Roman-Catholick Professors nay the beloved Maxims of the Roman Court and its Minion-writers Whose soever they be it 's clear enough that of them is built one entire side at least of that middle wall of partition (a) Ephes 2.14 which to the unspeakable reproach and further unvaluable hurt of the Christian Church in general hath so often both formerly and lately engaged yea and doth at present engage People Nations Principalities Republicks Kingdoms Empires not only unhappily but damnably in mortal feuds one against another but which therefore ought and must for the great end of Peace amongst the Children of God be broken down of every side by Him who is our Peace by Him who not onely in former times as you read in the Prophet and Apostle in Isaiah (b) Isa 57.19 and in (c) Ephes 2.14 17. Paul hath evangelized Peace Peace the fruit of the lips to them that were far off and to them that were nigh but now also at this present to the now divided Parties Preaches the same Peace to the end that the Sons of Peace on each side co-operating He may again make in himself of twain one new man so making peace and reconciling both unto God in one body by the Cross having stain again the enmity in his own flesh Oh that we might live to see once that day That day so fervently so anxiously beg'd of God by all his Saints That day so long desired by Princes expected by Prophets wished for so passionately by all the Children of God! That day in which there will be neither Jew (d) Coloss 3.12 Galat. 3.28 nor Gentile nor Barbarian nor Scythian nor Protestant nor Papist I mean nor Reformist nor Romanist nor any other names or symbols of Discord That day wherein once more Christ himself will be all (e) Coloss 1.18 24. Ephes 5.23 and in all both head and body and consequently there shall be one fold (f) John 10.16 and one shepherd Oh blessed day and blessed eyes that shall behold it And oh how willingly how heartily with all my Soul would I to see that most happy day run into the arms kiss the hands embrace the knees lie down at the feet of those who have bereft me of all things else and fought my life How freely how gladly for that end would I moreover if they pleased even appear before them as a Criminal even in the habit of a publick Penitent my head covered with Ashes and my body with Sackcloth my eyes running down with tears and my flesh pined away with fasting How lastly to see that greatest bliss in this life would I prostrate my self before them on the earth even without the door and porch of the Church and with humblest prayer beg admittance and not only reconciliation but pardon where even I mean according to my own proper judgment there was no need of it no fault committed by me to require it These have been the wishes God knows and this the constant disposition of my Soul these many years And therefore as an universal condemnation of the new Doctrines to eternal night and silence hath continually appear'd to me no less than necessary of one side for breaking down the middle wall of separation so amongst the Christian Churches that blessed that heavenly reconciliation union coalition in the Spirit of God and Peace of Christ which is above all sense hath alwayes been the very ultimate end in this world that I have propos'd to all my Labours and Sufferings As for the rest I know that how Divine soever the Wishes be how proper and pure and holy and excellent soever the Means that we employ for attaining them yet the Success must be in the hand of the Almighty alone who (g) Wisd 8. reaching from end to end strongly and disposing all things sweetly makes the morning star to arise in his appointed time and the evening star on the sons of the earth who (h) 2 Cor. 4.6 commands light to shine out of darkness and who alone with one word of his pleasure determines the roughest Tempest in the gentlest Calm Hatred in Love Schism in Unity and the bloodiest War in the most blessed Peace when (i) Coloss 1.20 he will and as he will reconciling all things whether Terrestrial or Celestial by the blood of his Cross Fifth Appendage relating also to all the Queries That notwithstanding any whatsoever excellence of all and every the ends both intrinsick and extrinsick which I had proposed to my self in the Controversies yet I have continually shun'd as I would a rock or a shelve in a Tempest that other late Doctrine of those Schoolmen of ours who are called Probablists which teacheth the sanctifying forsooth of all wicked means by good intentions And therefore that as far as I know my own heart and actions and the Laws of God or man I have at no time hitherto been wanting nor shall hereafter with the grace
deny the King to be above His Parliament answer'd 46. and from thence to 53. Disparity shewn of one side between the Independency of the Royal Power from the Parliament and Dependency of the Papal from the Church and of the other between the Independency of a General Councils power from the Pope and the Dependency of the Parliaments from the King 50 51 52. The two last Paragraphs of their Paper at length concerning the Sixth Gallican or Sorbon Declaration which is against the pretended Infallibility of the Pope 53. In which two Paragraphs after first they had mistated the Question and after so many disguises and windings the sum of what the Congregation would say is That the foresaid Sixth Gallican Sorbon or Parisian Declaration viz. it denying the Infallibility of the Pope is impertinent odious unprofitable unfit to be disputed in Ireland relates to Jansenism is suspected to be under-hand furthered by some of that way and finally tends to the disturbance of both King and Countrey 52. This whole sum and every particular thereof answered in order from the said p. 53. to the last of the Treatise viz. p. 59. The five Propositions of Jansenius which are called Jansenism 77. Finally That to Father N.N. the Composer of the foresaid Paper of Reasons and by occasion of the very last words of that Paper viz. these to the disturbance of both King and Countrey the Procurator may answer what the Prophet Elias did to Achab Non ego turbavi Israel sed tu domus Patris tui qui dereliquistis mandata Domini sequuti estis Baalim Nay that the Catholick Church of Christ especially in Ireland as it comprises all both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks of either Sex hath already cause enough and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all other such preposterous Defenders of Her Interests what Jacob said to Simeon and Levi Turbastis me odiosum fecistis Chananaeis Pherezeis habitatoribus terrae hujus IMmediately after the end of the Fourth Treatise you may find the Fourteen Propositions * A further account of these Fourteen Propositions c. See Treatise I. Part II. pag. 752. of Father Peter Walsh or the Doctrine of Allegiance c. 80 81 82 83. WHat the Contents are of the First Appendix viz. the Kilkenny Book of Queries and Answers c you may easily guess by the Queries themselves in all Seven which are to be seen together Pag. 111. though falsely printed p. 11. which is immediately before the Preface OF the Contents of the next Appendix which in the Print is called by mistake the First Appendix but should be the Second and is indeed the Appendix containing Six Publick Instruments you need no Abridgment here because the very Title-page sufficiently gives one BVt of the Contents of the Third or last Appendix viz. the Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland His Letter c because that Letter contains One and thirty Leaves and a great variety of matters of highest importance viz. all the great differences and causes of them which happened 'twixt the Roman-Catholick Archbishops and Bishops nay and some refractory Cities and Towns in Ireland of one side and His Excellency on the other from the Conclusion of the later Peace or that of the year 1648 till His forc'd departure to France from Kilcolgan in the latter end of the year 1650. I have upon after-thoughts and for the greater satisfaction of the Reader given here some few and the more general Heads as followeth The cause why His Excellency writes against the Declaration and Excommunication of the Prelates at Jamestown Pag. 75. The obstinate Disobedience of the City of Waterford ib. By His Letters of the 27th of February 1649 S. V. He calls to Limmerick as many Bishops as were within any convenient distance ib. Eleven Proposals offered to His Excellency on the 13th of March 1649 S. V. as so many Remedies for removing the Discontents and Distrusts of the People and for advancing His Majesties service presented by such of the Clergy as met at Limmerick the 8th of March 1649. S. V. and the Commissioners of Trust 76 77 78. His Excellency finding no effect of their Promises but that the City of Limmerick continued in their refusal to receive a Garrison c. Adjourns that meeting from Limmerick to Loghreogh about the 19th of the said March whither also by His Letters He desires all the rest of the Bishops of the Kingdom to come promising to give them there an answer to their Paper of Remedies or Proposals 79. His Excellencies Answers in Ten Heads to the Proposals 79 80 81. A Declaration of the Bishops by way of Letter to His Excellency dated at Loghreogh 28th of March 1650 and Signed by John Archbishop of Tuam Walter Bishop of Clonfert Francis Bishop of Killala Robert Bishop of Cork and Cluam and Hugh Bishop of Kilmaduach 81 82. His Excellencies Reflections on this Letter And another meeting of all the Bishops together with the Commissioners of Trust besides divers others of the Nobility and many Gentlemen of Quality appointed by His Excellency to be held at the same Town of Loghreogh on the 25th of April then following 83. This Conventions Letter to His Excellency dated at Loghreogh ult April 1650 and Sign'd by Two and Twenty hands 84. His Excellencies Answer dated Loghreogh May 1. 1650. 85 86. The Conventions Reply by another Letter to His Excellency dated at Loghreogh May 2d 1650 and Sign'd by Eighteen Hands 87 By the reiterated professions of Loyalty and Obedience in all the precedent Letters his Excellency was induced to alter his purpose of quitting the Kingdom c. 88. Mayor of Limmerick's Letter the 12th of June 1650 to his Excellency inviting him thither to settle a Garrison And his Excellencies Answer with three particulars imparted by him to the Messengers that came from Limmerick 88 89. When upon the said invitation of the Mayors his Excellency came near to the City Gates the two Aldermen employed formerly to invite him thither were now sent out to let him know of a Tumult raised in the City by a Fryer one Father Woolfe * He was a Dominican and as it is said the very same man who in the year 1646 when the King's Herald at Arms even before the Mayor and Aldermen all standing by in their Formalities was proclaiming the Peace of that year raised a furious tumult of the Rascal-multitude and with them even himself also being in his Monastical Habit in the Head of them pelting a showre of stones at the Herald put an end to that Peace or rather obstructed all Peace in that City and by example of that strong City in the whole Kingdom and some others against his coming in Pag. 89. His Excellencies Letter of the 14th of June on this occasion to the Mayor in hope to bring the Corporation to a sense and performance of their duty ib. But
Dignities and Offices whereby they constituted the said Father Walsh their Agent and Procurator to His Majesty and great Ministers to kiss His Majesties hands in their behalf and name c. Giving him moreover all the power authority and jurisdiction they could to act for them and the rest of the Clergy and Catholicks of Ireland and to do all things he should find expedient in order to obtain what favours His Majesty should think fit by connivence or otherwise for the exercise of their Religion and to save them from persecution on that account To which Instrument of Procuration many others afterwards did subscribe and put their Seals as soon as they saw it in particular the Bishop of Dromore and the Bishop of Ardagh with their own hands and the Bishop of Ferns by his proxy and special Commission from Spain to that end That the rest of the chief Superiours of the Clergy in other parts of Ireland did not the reason was given that the times then when it was done and sent to London were such as no Messenger would undertake to go about with the Instrument and to meet together it was impossible and all thought it sufficient for all that the Primate and those other Bishops and Vicars General had already done it especially whereas it was known that the Primate himself drew that Instrument Which I thought fit to insert here word by word as it is in the original writing To the end some persons who are yet unsatisfied in this matter may see what warrant the said Procurator had from the Clergy themselves to act for them and urge them far more yet then he hath to do themselves right In Dei nomine Amen Sciant vniversi per praesentes quod nos qui huic instrumento Procuratorio subscripfimus eligendum duximus sicut per praesentes eligimus nominamus facimus et constituimus Reverendum admodum et venerabilem virum Fratrem Patrem Petrum Valesium Ordinis Sti Francisci Recollectum S. Theologiae Lectorem c. nostrum Procuratorem Agentem et negotiorum Actorem et Gestorem ut nostro omnium nomine et vice osculetur Sacras manus Serenissimi Domini Regis nostri Caroli II. congratuleturque ejus felici et faustae inaugurationi et ingressui in sua Regna Monarchiam et Imperium Eidemque Serenissimo Domino Regi vota et preces nostras humiliter offerat et praesentet et coram sua Sacra Majestate Judicibus Commissionariis Delegatis et Ministris quibuscumque ab eodem Serenissimo nostro Rege ad id deputatis aut deputandis proponat agat sollicitet et promoveat causam Catholicorum et libertatis sive tollerantiae exercitii Religionis Catholicae in hoc regno Hiberniae Vt saltem procuret nobis eas conditiones favores et gratias quae in Articulis Pacis et Reconciliationis an 1648. compositae ratae et confirmatae inter Excellentissimum Dominum Marchionem Ormoniae et Confederatos Catholicos pactae et promissae nobis fuerunt omniaque alia proponat agat et concludat nostro omnium nomine quae in ordine ad dictam sollicitationem et Agentiam necessaria aut conducibilia fuerint Proinde damus eidem venerabili et Rdo. admodum Patri omnem potestatem Authoritatem et Iurisdictionem in quantum possumus aut debemus ut ad debitum effectum perducat pacem tranquillitatem et quietem Religionis Catholicae in hoc Regno Rogantes ut eidem credentia et fides abundé in omnibus habeâtur In quorum fidem has signaturis et sigillis nostris muniri fecimus Primo Jan. 1660. In the name of God Amen Be it known to all men by these presents that we who have subscribed this Procuratory Instrument have thought fit to elect as we do by these presents elect name make and constitute the very Reverend man Father Peter Walsh Recollect of the Order of St. Francis and Reader of holy Theology c. our Procurator Agent Actor and Doer of our affairs that in all our names and place he may kiss the Sacred hands of our most Serene Lord and King Charles the Second and congratulate his happy and fortunate inauguration and ingress into his Kingdoms Monarchy and Empire and that he may humbly offer and present unto the same most Serene Lord and King our vows and prayers and that before his Sacred Majesty Judges Commissioners and Delegats and other Ministers soever deputed already or hereafter to be deputed by the same our most Serene King he may propound act sollicit and promote the cause of Catholicks and of the liberty or tolerancy of exercise of Catholick Religion in this Kingdom of Ireland That at least he may procure to us those conditions favours and graces which in the Articles of Peace and Reconciliation in the year 1648. compounded ratified and confirmed betwixt the most excellent Lord Marquess of Ormond and the Catholick Confederats were conditioned for and promised to us And that he may propound act and conclude in all our names all other things which in order to the said sollicitation and Agency shall be necessary or conducing Therefore we give the same venerable and very Reverend Father all power authority and jurisdiction as much as we can or ought that he may bring to a good issue the peace tranquillity and quiet of Catholick Religion in this Kingdom praying that credence and beleef may be given him abundantly in all things In witness whereof we have strengthned these with our subscriptions and Seals 1. of Ian. 1660. Edmundus Archiepiscopus Ardmachanus totius Hiberniae Primas Fra. Antonius Episcopus Medensis Fra. Oliverus Episcopus Dromorensis Patricius Episcopus Ardaghadensis 1665. Cornelius Gaffneus Vic. Gen. Ardachaden Oliverus Dese Vic. Gen. Medensis Ego Jacobus Cusacus S. Theologiae D. fretus authoritate et commissione speciali Rmi D. Nicholai Episcopi Fernensis huic instrumento Procuratorio ejusdem Illmi ac Rmi D. Episcopi nomine subscribo die 8. Sep. 1662. Iacobus Dempsy Vic. Apostolicus Dublinensis c. Fra Ioannes Scurlog Ord. Praedicatorum Fra. Barnabas Barnewallus Ord. Capucinerum Fra Paulus Brownus Carmelita Discalocatus When the said Peter Walsh had in the same month of Ian. 1660. according to the English stile for it was 61. according to the Roman received this Instrument at London by the hands of the Reverend Father Antony Gearnon of St. Francis's Order and shewed it immediately to my Lord Lieutenant although as he expected he was soundly checked by His Grace for daring to receive such an Instrument from such men that is men as to the generality and chief of them formerly and lately too so charactered as they were for being in their inclinations and carriage very much disaffected to His Majesties interests and very obnoxious to the laws yet he ceased not ever after upon all good opportunities to act for them and all the rest of the Irish Clergie of their communion indifferently and without any distinction and endeavour to worke their peace
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
defiled but certainly hold upon that matter in 〈◊〉 To be 〈◊〉 the Answers were 1. That it very ill â—â—ted with the profession of the followers of Christ and Successors of his Apostles and Disciples or the function of Priests of God and Preachers of Evangelical tâ—â—â—â— by their calling for any earthly regard or ambitious aim of titles or diguleies either 〈…〉 of the Church to decline the declaration of their conscience or of the doctrine of Christ whereby the stocks on people 〈◊〉 their charge or to whom they were sent might be sâ—â—â—dly and sufficiently instructed that to embrace 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 as prescribed by the law of God That besides they were altogether ouâ— in their way to those worldly and they proposed themselves with so little regard of their duty or conscience That the case was much altered 〈◊〉 that hath been these hundred years pasts And that if they expected a greater liberty they should withal expect a more arrow inspection from the Prince or State into their affairs and Government and to the persons amongst them advanced 〈◊〉 others and to the means and wayes of their advancement hereafter and their 〈◊〉 its consequently principles and faithfulness to the Crown 2. That 〈◊〉 of them as formerly had been so with â—unate and indeed most of them were so as to have been pactiâ—â—s in the Nunâ—â—o's and other annexed quarrels against the brights of the Crown 〈…〉 of the Kingdom had the 〈◊〉 reason now to be forward to embrace the opportunity given them of meâ—â—ing hereafter a better opinion and removing as well as they might out of His Majesties breast Lord Lieutenants and even out of all the rest of their fellow Subjects especially Protestants the jealousies and suspicions their former actions continue yet in them and must alwayes continue if they refuse to give so lawful and dutiful so catholick and conscientious an argument of their change and repentance as their subscription to the said Remonstrance must be reputed 3. That for those others of them who in the 〈…〉 him been honest and loyal all along they should 〈…〉 the fair hope they had of a â—ew 〈…〉 its a 〈…〉 then this for their further good 〈…〉 their profession and â—â—â—ingâ—ed 〈◊〉 of their 〈…〉 uniform in in their doctrine and life according to the law of God in all sentiâ—â—â— that Time servers nor Wealth â—â—ckâ— That besides they should confides the streight the King was in but with so 〈…〉 the impossibility of satisfying 〈…〉 happen in such a case that of this Countrey but why 〈…〉 That to the publick good and gâ—â—â— parts of the Kingdom 〈…〉 of particular could not be preferred That they 〈…〉 be of the necessities of the publick for disposition And if the King or now Laws did wrong any even of the best deserving of their friends their religion and their conscience and principles told them and their function or calling peculiarly they nor other Subjects had in such a case other remedy but prayers and tears and supplications to Him that can believe the oppressed when he please in this world and will certainly 〈…〉 in Christian patience in a better Finally that the liberty 〈◊〉 exercise of Religion and of indoctrinating the People in the wayes to heaten were the markâ— propâ—r 〈◊〉 them to shoâ— at and to this end they were called not to contend for partitions of earthly patrimonies And that where one Proprietor 〈◊〉 his â—and a thousand Catholicks would loose their souls if they would not pursue in 〈◊〉 even course the principles of the Religion and a good Conscience and by their concurrence wipe off the jealousies raised against and scandals aspersed on it by the doctrine and practises which that Remonstrance did condemn on disown 4. To those that had ingrafted in them an aversioâ— against all was called or reputed the Interest of the Crown of England in this Countrey it was seriously inculcated how unfortunate both themselves and predecessors had been therein during the revolâ—â—â—â—s and various attempts in prâ—secution thereof these 500 years past since Hâ—â—ty the 2d And how the principles and arguments they made use of to flatten themselves to some kind of â—â—â—â—fulness which indeed 〈◊〉 a pitiful and in point of conscienâ—â— were such as chose and no other then those which Father Charles 〈◊〉 Mahâ—n the Mâ—â—er Jesuit hath in his wicked Apology set out in Portugal however pretended to have been printed at Frandâ—fords and dispersed here amongst the Confederate though publickly burn'd by the hand of a hangman at Kilkenny and by the authority also of the said Confederate and against which the Proculator himself by the command of to then supream Council preach't nine Sermons five Sundays one after another in St. Kennys Church on that text of Jeremiah Quis est 〈◊〉 vobis sap â—â—siqui considerat hoc quare perierit terra Even such as would involve by consequence all Kingdoms and States in the whole earth whereinto my Forreigner ever enter'd as any time in perpetual war and blood shed Such as would beâ—â—â—ve of all right all conquering Nations let the causes of the invasion be never so just or continued-possession after be never so long and the submission of the conquer'd never so voluntary for what can appear to the eyes of man And such also as would arm even themselves who made use of such arguments one against another while the world did stand Nay and such too as being prest on by contrary arguments would make them confess consequently as indeed they did such of them as were ingenuous and freely spoke their minds to the Procurator urging them in point of reason that it were not a sin against the law of God for any to involve the whole Kingdom iâ— was again if he could to recover only for himself a small patrimony even of a much as twenty pounds a year whereof he had been in his own privat judgement dispossesâ—â—d unjustly in the late plantations made before the wars It was further laid open to such men how their sin entertaining such mâ—râ—â—â—es and harbouring such designs was by so much the more abominable before God and man by how much they were themselves Hypocritical in pretending only to others that knew them not a speciousness of Religion and that of the Church of God and interest of the Pope Then which or any of all which God knowes they intended nothing less but where it brought or could bring their other truly intended worke about 5. To the Regulars in general it was answer'd That they knew better their own strength and their own exemption and their own priviledges then so That they often engage against the whole body of the secular Clergie in matters wherein they are sure to offend them more and have more opposition from them and less support from others either in their own Country at home or abroad in forraign parts or even at Rome And they were sure enough the Pope would be wiser then to discountenance such a numerous body
confess that their both Constitutions and Oath if there be any such Oath of those amongst them them they call Masters of Divinity are only for maintaining the doctrine of St. Thomas of Aquine not as articles of Faith nor as the doctrine of the Church nor Dogmatically at all at least not out of their School Pulpits but only by way of Scholastical speculations and for sharpning of wits and shifting the truth problematically or probably in all such matters wherein the Scripture or Tradition was not clear and certain and still only within the Schools That otherwise the whole Order of the Franciscans and all the other Schools of Scotists who maintain as stiffly and are alike by their Constitutions bound to maintain against St. Thomas the Thomists all the speculations all the subtleties of the Subtile Doctor Scotus who writ ex professo against all or almost all even every individual position of St. Thomas as well in his Divinity as Philosophy where the matter is not certain otherwise by Scripture or Tradition were to be condemned by them Which yet they will not dare in point of morallity prudence and conscience That moreover it is manifest St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs for any of his Theological opinons then for this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes on pretence or because of Infidelity Apostacy Schisme Heresy where he determines it so in his Theological Sum. 2. 2. q. x. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. And that he relyes for proof of so weighty an Assertion first on a reason that would not move the meerest novice in Divinity Quia fideles sayes he merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios lucis Supra q. 10. ar 10. in corp Which yet is the only reason this great Holy Doctor brings to prove that a very infidel Prince who was never Baptized may be deposed by the Church Secondly for proof of that same Assertion as relating specially to an Apostat Heretick or Schysmatick Prince that was Baptized relyes onely and wholy on the bare judgment and practise of Gregory the VII otherwise called Pope Hildebrand or on that Canon made by this Pope which you may find in Gratian. 15. q. 6. cap. Nos Sanctorum That as it is therefore manifest that St. Thomas of Aquin is not weaker in his proofs of any of his Theological Assertions then of this of a power in the Pope or Church for deposing Infidel or Heretick Princes as the Reader may see partly in the Latin notes which follow this Paragraph for the rest satisfie himself at large in Father Caro'ns Remonstrantia Hibernorum so it is no less manifest that generally where the Thomists find in any other positions of this Angelical Doctor and those too of infinite less concern insuperable difficulties they decline him there expound him or his mind by some other place of his workes where he held the contrary or perhaps retracted considerately what he had before unadvisedly handled by the example of St. Austin himself in his books of Retractation And so those Irish Fathers might if they pleased have declined in this matter St. Thomas in his said Sum and expounded St. Thomas there by following St. Thomas where he holds by plain consequence of reason the contrary in his exposition of St. Pauls Epistles to the Corinthians That they could not deny but that notwithstanding all their Constitutions and Oathes whatsoever they all now generally and confessedly and without any exposition or interpretation of one place by an other decline St. Thomas of Aquin even in that matter wherein their whole Order these full 300 years found themselves most concern'd of any in point of reputation at least to follow defend him that is in the dispute of the Blessed Virgins conception without original sin Nor can deny this matter to have come within these late years to that height in Spain even where they are in such esteem that the very Provincial of their Order in the Kingdom or Province of Castile was confined to Penna de Francia by orders from the King until he subscribed under his hand against that opinion of St. Thomas in this matter and consequently acknowledged so the Blessed Virgin conceaved without original sin against the confessed doctrine of St. Thomas and against the letter of his Constitutions and verbal tenour of his Oath as a Master And yet he was not so commanded by any decrees of the Church which as it is well known hath never yet decided that question And yet also that question of the Blessed Virgin is no less known to be of infinite less consequence to the Peace or Settlement of either Church or State for the owning or disowning of either the affirmative or negative resolution and for a subscription to either than ours of the Remonstrance of our indispensable loyaltie in Temporal things to the Supream Magistrate and our lawful and rightful King Finally that St. Thomas of Aquin's Scholastical assertion whatever it be or a Statute in an Order to teach such or such a doctrine or Oath of some few members of such an Order how learned religious or eminent soever that Order be is a very bad plea at least in such a matter as ours against ten thousand other Holy and eminent Fathers Doctors Prelates in all Countreys and ages of the Church against so many express clear passages of Holy Scriptures against the universal tradition of all Christians till Gregory the VII days about the Xth. age of Christianity and against the greatest evidence of both natural reason and of hundreds too of Theological arguments the first grounds of Christianity being once admitted Quâ—niâ—â—â— autem singula persequimur admonere oportet D. Thomam alicubi in ea opinione esse ut existimet ius dominii praelationis Ethnicorum Principum justè illis auferri posse 22. q 10. art 10. per sententiam vel ordinationem Ecclesiae authoritatem Dei habentis vt ille ait D. Thomae magna apud me authoritas est sed non tanta ut omnes ejus disputationes pro Canonicis Scripturis habeam vel ut rationem vincat aut legem Ejus ego Manes veneror doctrinam suspicio Sed non est tamen cur illa ejus opinione aliquis moveatur tum quia nullam suae sententiae vel rationem idoneam efficacem vel authoritatem profert tum etiam quia in explicatione epistolae Pauli ad Corinth 1. contrarium planè sentit tum denique quia neminem secum antiquorum Patrum consentientem habet Cap. 6. rationes multae authoritatesque in contrarium supperunt Ratio autem quam adfert est quia infideles merito suae infidelitatis merentur potestatem amittere super fideles qui transferuntur in filios Dei Mala ratio tanto viro indigna quasi verò si quis meretur privari officio beneficio
them who by special function are Preachers of the Gospel of Christ and of all the promises and rewards of it to others to apply those also to themselves make use of them and remember that saying of our Saviour the eight and last and most comfortable of all the Beatitudes taught by this heavenly Master on the Mount to his Apostles Disciples and others and to all Christians by them Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam Math. 5.10 quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum whether they suffer by Prince or Pope For from both many holy men have often suffered persecution for justice and some that are at this present glorified and invoked in the Roman Calendar as Saints possessing actually that Kingdom of heaven so promised them for suffering for justice have been persecuted on that account in their life and to their death by Popes alone as for example St. Ignatius sometime Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated by Iohn the eight of Rome 13. That other no less general objection viz. That the Subscribers Lay or Ecclesiastick reaped no advantage by their subscription more then others who had not subscribed the Lay Proprietors not their temporal Estates nor Ecclesiasticks a liberty or freedom to exercise their spiritual function without fear or danger albeit the most powerful to render the Remonstrance unsignificant amongst such as either look only on the present and see no further or such also as value nothing but by temporal advantages yet was more then sufficiently more then abundantly solved by those other considerations offered to the Objectors 1. That the design of that Remonstrance and subscription of it was not thereby to be restored to their temporal estates because if such it had infallibly designed an unsettlement of the whole Kingdom since it was clear enough there is no Roman Catholick but on condition or certainty of being restored to his Lands or other temporal pretences would sign it and no less evident on the other side they could not be all restored without infallible disturbance of the publick peace and hazzard of all sides in a second bloody war there being so numerous and stubborn a party which must have been in such case dispossess'd of all their livelyhood for ever how justly or unjustly soever acquired at first 2. That nevertheless very many or most of those Remonstrants or Subscribers had been already or were to be one way or other provided for some upon title of Innocency others by special provision As indeed we have seen effected and not Remonstrants only c. That if the opposers both of Clergy and Laity had not delayed so long their own concurrence and thereby rendered themselves and their Catholick Nation suspected a new but taken time by the sore-lock and throughout the Kingdom generally cheerfully and heartily manifested their firm unalterable resolution whatever the former carriage of any was to stand inviolably firm to the King hereafter in all contingencies whatsoever according to that Remonstrance and as the first Subscribers had in their own behalf and for their sake also done they might with some colour have made this objection But being the Subscribers were so few and they almost so innumerable that opposed still with headiness and rashness it was too soon to expect those favours which are commonly given by a State upon good grounds of considerable advantage to it self such as would be in the present case the assuring of all the Catholicks in Ireland to stand firm and loyal in all kind of dangerous contingencies whatsoever 3. That all generally of that Religion ever since that Remonstrance was exhibited and graciously accepted by His Majesty had much ease connivence and liberty for publick meetings and publick exercise of their Religion throughout all the Kingdom without any considerable molestation therefore in any place if some very few walled Towns only and within the walls only or close by them be not excepted and that favour done at first continued ever since by reason only of that Remonstrance and for the sake of those who had given and subscribed it and in expectation of the concurrence of the rest to the same or like dutiful manifestation of their Allegiance That although some numbers of poor Catholicks in some few parts Town or Counties had been three or four several times taking one place with another molested by presentments in some Bishops Courts Inditements and Capiases by the civil Officers of Judges of the Assize and of Sheriffs yet upon application made they found themselves presently at ease and rest from any further prosecution 4. That albeit the indiscretion of too great a multitude of Catholicks and too publickly and boldly convening and thronging in the streets from about twelve a clock at night on Christmass day till at noon even at the very door of the Parish Church or St. Owens in Dublin where those of the contrary Religion warranted by the laws and where also the very guards did meet to serve God in their way occasion'd that disturbance and hurry objected yet they might visibly see the favour done the Remonstrant Clergy whose Chappel that was For notwithstanding their indiscreet carriage in that matter they were all set at liberty within three or four dayes and only because they were known to be true and faithful Remonstrants as besides their subscription to that paper they had all along in the former quarrel of the Nuncio and other differences of the Consederats in the late wars approved themselves to be men so loyally religiously and conscientiously principled 5. That for the Proclamation whatever the cause of it was they had no cause to complain of its execution Lastly that they were blind if they did not see ungrateful if they did not acknowledge the vast difference 'twixt the condition then of both the Lay Proprietors as to matter of estate and of Ecclesiasticks as to that of liberty and of both in all respects and that they could not but remember they were in all of them generally a little before and for so many years together without scarce any humane hope to see any end of their miseries 14. Their objection of some words and these were no more but two or three only Pope renounce Papal was answered by desiring them to shew by reason or argument how the naming of the Pope or of his Papal power or pretence or renouncing of that power in him which they confessed was not in him could argue any irreverence or disrespect especially where and when it was so necessary to use that expression or an equivalent and no other would or could do the work or compass the end they so vehemently and rationally desired That surely the Catholicks of England then which there are none in the world more observant of all respect and reverence to the Pope who were the authors and framers of the Protestation who worded it throughly knew very well these words were not irreverential in any wise That they should find
hereafter and had already the Roman Courtiers would not did not except against the words but sense And that however if they would insist only on the words not sense and that they would choose rather not to speak English with the Catholicks of England and those too of their own Clergy Nobility and Gentry who subscribed their sense in such a form of words the Procurator doubted not to prevail with His Grace so far as a condescension to or permission of their wording their own sense would amount unto provided this came home to the same thing or sense of the former Which yet he feared nay saw clearly it would not As he was certainly perswaded by many arguments they intended alwayes to decline the question of right or authority or power either divine or humane in the Pope to depose the King or dispense with or absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance but only at most and at best to engage themselves to be true to the King whether the Pope had any such or no and without mentioning any thing at all of that pretence or declining it otherwise expresly or tacitly Wherein the Procurator was not deceived as shall hereafter in its proper place appear 15. To that of the Kings or Lord Lieutenants desire of their subscription as yet not appearing to them it was answered they had many sufficient arguments publick and notorious for a whole twelve-month pass'd of His Majesties and Lieutenants both being very well pleased with what was done and very desirous of what was not yet done That both very graciously accepted of their subscriptions who had given the first example both of Clergy Nobility and Gentry and no less concernedly expected the concurrence of the rest That it was unreasonable in them to stand upon the Kings or his Lieutenants desiring them to petition or make other necessary or expedient application in their own proper concerns That they could not be ignorant the laws required from them under great penalties other kinds of Declarations and Oathes besides which the King or his Ministers would not think it reasonable to urge them to any but withal such as they know the Oathes of Supremacy and that of Allegiance in the Statute of King Iames were Oathes which they would a thousand times more hardly digest and that they should think themselves happy to be esteemed and accounted hereafter loyal Subjects by not expecting the Kings desire much less command but by offering of themselves in lieu of those such a Declaration as they might subscribe without scruple And yet notwithstanding he could assure them that for a greater conviction of their inexcusable delayes and beating them from this retreat also and for discovering their intentions clearly before the face of the Sun they should see ere long under his Graces own proper hand-writing if nothing else would serve what without any ground left to reply would clear this objection Which as hereafter will appear they did both see and read too themselves with their own eyes in the original writing 16. For their put off to a general meeting of the whole Clergy of the Nation both Secular and Regular or of Representatives out of every Diocess and Order They were minded first of the issue of all such ever since 41. and more especially of that of 42. at Kilkenny where the General Confederacy was first established as by common and authoritative consent however most of them were thereto necessitated by the Proclamations and other severe proceedings at Dublin but singularly above all of the Congregation at Waterford against the Peace of 46. and of that other at Jamestown against the Peace of 48. And they were told those had given little encouragment to the Lord Lieutenant to licence or connive at any such National meeting until he had first some better arguments of their being changed in their principles and affections then they had given yet by so many long demurs and so many unreasonable reasons pretences and excuses and so much unwillingness reluctancy and opposition to a bare Declaration of their loyal resolutions for after-times That hence it might be rationally gathered they desired such a meeting of purpose only to oppose hereafter with the greater authority or colour of it that profession of their duty That without asking the Lord Lieutenants licence permission or connivence they met frequently in Diocesan Synods and Provincial Chapters to determine those things which themselves had a mind to and no way related to any thing would please either His Majesty or State or to the publick peace of the Country or security thereof nay sent from one Diocess and one Province to another to consult and determine the means of opposing such a duty or profession of it And so they might for a good end with less danger at least nay without any at all if they were so minded convene securely without acquainting His Grace at least without insisting on a pasport or safe conduct or other licence or permission under his hand as they unreasonably demanded In a word that this pretence and resolution of theirs of not signing that Instrument or other such without such a meeting was in the consequence thereof the most dangerous and pernicious they could alleadge or entertain being already as they were all generally satisfied of the lawfulness or Catholickness of the profession expected For what could be more dangerous in any Kingdom or State or human Society of a body politick of any people Civil or Ecclesiastick then that they would put the profession of their Allegiance to votes and would not therein or thereof determine any thing but at the pleasure of their fellow Subjects how averse soever to the State or King and to the laws even the most necessary and just in temporal affairs or what more dangerous then that there should be by necessary consequence as many Kings or Supream commanders of Allegiance of a people in a Kingdom as there are amongst the Secular Clergy Arch-bishops Bishops or Vicars Apostolick or General ruling the Parish Priests respectively subordinate to them And amongst the Regular Clergy as many such as there are Provincial Superiours who command their Priours Guardians Rectours likewise respectively subordinate nay as many too as there are such Local Superiours commanding those under their immediat direction And yet that being met alltogether every one must depend of every one in resolving whether he wil be a true Subject to his Prince or State from which he expects protection and to which by the laws of God and man he should own subjection That for these reasons and to prevent further inconvenience and obstruct all those jealousies and suspicions which a National Congregation insisted on or a licence permission or connivence to convene so insisted upon would certainly raise they would much better decline the thoughts of any such or other whatsoever meetings or dependencies one from another but from their own conscience and knowledge of both the expediency and necessity of
nation should highly rejoyce the miraculous Restauration of Charles the Second their natural King their only deliverer from the hard and intollerable durance and tyranny which they so many years have suffered in his absence under the suppressions of an Vsurped power and the Irish Clergie doth hold themselves by double obligation so to do first by the tye of natural subjection to their most gracious and lawful Prince secondly that they may vindicate themselves from the innumerable calumnies and lyes whereby they are misrepresented unto the King and his Ministers most falsely suggested to them that they intend to raise rebellion and tumults Wherefore we the whole body of the Dominican Friers unanimously that it may appear to the world with what sincerity of mind and purity of intension we are inclined to our Soveraign Charles the Second following the steps of our predecessors and fully satisfied in our conscience first do render most hearty thanks unto the King of Kings for the miraculous Restauration of His Sacred Majesty to His hereditarie Kingdoms and will ever pray that the same divine power and providence that established Him in his own right may give him long time happily to raign and govern And for manifestation of our fidelity to Him we do protest before God Angels and Men without any equivocation or mental Reservation our Soveraign Charles the Second to be the true and lawful King and Supream Lord of Ireland and therefore that we are in conscience and under pain of Highly offending God to obey our said Soveraign in all civil and temporal affairs no less then any of our function to their respective Princes in Europe And do further more protest that we know no external power that can absolve us from this Religious obligation no more than other Subjects of the like function with us from the like obligation in Spain France or Germany or any elswhere Finally we execrate abjure and renounce that not Catholick pernicious doctrine That any Subject may Kill or Murthen his King by himself or any other though differing with him in Religion nay we protest the contrary saying that all Subjects are bound to manifest all rebellious and machinations against their Kings person His Kingdom at State to the King or his Magistrate which we do hereby promise to do And this protestation of our fidelity we the aforesaid body of the Order of St. Dominick in Ireland do freely offer to His most meek and clement Majesty and prostrate under His Sacred â—ee we pray he may be pleased to accept this our protestation and to defend and deliver us frâ—â— the oppression of our persecutors for our profession is to fear and follow him who in the Gospel commands to give unto God his due and to Cesar his and we will always pray for His Royal Majesty his Queen and the blessing of a happy posterity Dated the 15th of October 1662. F. Iohn Hart Provincial F. Lawrence Kelly Diffinitor F. I. Burgate Deffinitor F. Eugius Coigly Diffinitor F. Richard Maddin Diffinitor F. Dionisius a Hanreghan F. Constant de Annunciatione Kyeffe F. William Bourke F. Cornelius Googhegan F. Felix Conuer F. Patrick Dulehanty F. Thomas Philbin F. Ioanner Baptista Bern F. Geâ—ot de martiribus Ferral F. Michael Fulam F. Goruldfitz Gerrald F. Abtonius Kenogan F. Clement Berae F. Batricius Doyre F. Charles Dermoâ—â— F. Dominick Fedrall F. Daniel Nolanus F. William O Meran F. Iohn Tyny F. Tadeus mac Donâ—ogh XVIII As concerning the Letter which this Dominican Provincial Father Iohn O Hart sent then by the same bearer and of the same date to the Procuratour although it was civil enough and a complement of thanks for minding his Order of their duty and further desires both of recommending them and their cause to His Grace and of hearing from him more often all particulars yet was it withal positive enough in declaring they could not or would not do more in that business than what they had now by their letter to the Duke and Remonstrance enclosed therein Nor indeed was it ever at any time before or after to this day expected by the Procuratour they would heartily or freely do any more because he knew very well in what hands the Government of that Order was or who were Provincials Definitors and Local Priors of their Province then and for many years puff and how unanimous they were all in the Nuncio's time and for him and his quarrel and ever since for the Censures and against any kind of peace with the Royal party only four or five excepted who yet had not the courage to mutter against the rest if not in private cornes Father Marke Rochford Oliver Darey Ioseph Langton Peter Nangle and because he know they gloried particularly and mightily in their however unfortunate unity therein having suffered no division amongst themselves but runn altogether one way for ought appeared so little did they consider that unity in evil is a curse from God and because he further knew certainly how they were touch'd to the very quick and took it to heart extreamly that any at all of theirs though but three only Father Scurlog Reynolds and Scully to whom since is added Father Clemens Birne had subscribed the Remonstrance and consequently saw themselves now in some degree begun to be divided In which judgment of them in general that it may be seen the Procuratour was not deceived but their violence made known to the end it may find some check hereafter I must not pass over in silence how they left no stone unremoved to vex the patience of those three or four subscribers and force them to a recantation exclaiming against them every where discountenancing them in every thing even against the rules not of their own Order only but of the common Canons of the Church and Christian charity also threatning to deprive them of active and passive voice in all elections and by actual instances thwarting in such Father Scurlog and Reynolds making one man of purpose to decline and vex them Priour of three Convents together at one time against the very Papal Canons cap. Vnum Abbatim 21. q. 1. ex Concilio Agathensi c. 57. Nay denying not licence only or a dispensation or indulgence to Reynolds in case of sickness to eat flesh but even an absolution of his sins on St. Dominicks eve because and only because he would not retract as it was in plain tearms told himself then and even by him that so denyed it his own local Prior in the City of Dublin And yet with more uncivil and barbarous usage to a Priest and from the chief Superiour Provincial in his visitation boxing an other on the face on that account only For they never did nor could taxe him nor any of those few other subscribers with any other kind of misdemeanour Finally removeing all such Friars to other Convents from being under the direction or command of Father Clement Prior of Newtown in Vlster of purpose or because he
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
controversie is in whose time Ptolomey likewise surnamed Epiphanes King of Egypt dyed and his young Son called Ptolomey Philometor was crowned after him King of Egypt and by consequence had the dominion of Ierusalem and Iewry That Antiochus Epiphanes that wicked ambitious and most cruell King of Asia and Syria taking advantage of the minority of this young Ptolomey Philometor without any just cause or provocation or any other but his own ambitious desires entred Egypt with a huge army and with intention to seize the young King and possess himself of all his Kingdom of Egypt and of his other dominions and wel-nigh effected his designs having after his taking of Memphis besieged Alexandria it self and the young King therein but was on a suddain forced to break up his siege and relinquish all again and retire immediatly out of all Egypt upon summons sent him by the Romans to do so or abide a sharp war from them That in his forced return to his own Kingdom some few wicked Jews having out of desire to be revenged of others even by the loss of their Countrey animated him to camp before Ierusalem and the riches of that City and treasures of the Temple there having set him all on fire with covetousness he marched directly towards it and the Gates being treacherously set open to him by those within of that wicked faction he surprized it in the hundred fourty and third year of the raign of Seleucus the year of the world 3796. and before Christ 168. years That as this was done without any consent of the people generally or of their Governours so he behaving himself immediatly after as the most cruel tyrant that even surprized any place and having broke all kind of conditions either concerning Religion Estate or life even with those very traytors of their own City and Countrey and having spoiled both the City and Temple and carried all the spoils with him to Antioch but two years after he surprized them so and having left most cruel Edicts after him for the future and those put in execution with unparelled cruelty it is evident enough that as he had no just title for that was nor any permission from the lawful hereditary King Ptolomey Philometor to seize Ierusalem or Iewry so he had none from the people of Ierusalem or Iewry either first or last to entitle him to the rights of a lawful King not even I say from them in case they could justly give any such their own hereditary King being still alive and still too in possession of the greatest part of his dominions nor could two years such forcible and cruel possession entitle him to any right at all That in fine as all this is manifest in History in that of Iosephus I mean and in his twelfth Book of the Antiquities of the Jews and in his eleventh for what concerns Alexander the Great himself and being further it is no less manifest in the same History of Iosephus and in the seventh and eight chapters of the said twelfth Book and in the marginal Chronology That Mattathias took arms against the said Antiochus Epiphanes immediatly after the said second year of his unlawful possession kept of Iewry 〈…〉 is immediatly â—ften the 〈◊〉 and general and cruel 〈…〉 it is no less evident 〈◊〉 foâ— that he did so that is 〈…〉 his 〈…〉 King but against 〈…〉 unjust Usurper and Tyâ—â—â— also no less 〈◊〉 And consequently that no warlike actions nor exhortations of Mattathias nor any other of that Machabâ—â—â— ar◠〈◊〉 of his Sons or of that whole Nation of the Jews against Antiochus that faithless impious inhumane King of Asia â—â—e to any purpose alledged to maintain the pretended inherent power of any Subjects whatsoever to rebell against their own true â—egal undoubted rightful hereditary King however oppressing them either in their religious or civil rights or both And this is the second answer I intended in my More Ample Account And which I give here not that it is any way necessary or directly at all to that which our present Adversaries the Authors of this second paper dispute of principally at this present or in this paper I now answer but because they have given me by their indirect reflections and by their impertinencius therein a just occasion for which I thank them to give it here for a further illustration of what I said formerly on this subject XXXV As for their Latin Postscript because I guess it was only added as an answer to an argument I press'd them with ad hominem as we speak as also with the conclusion of it in English two of their own general principles or doctrine of Probability to convince them of the lawfulness in point of conscience of subscribing the Remonstrance notwithstanding the pretence of some not only extrinsick authority 〈◊〉 even intrinsick probability appearing still in their very souls though I never did nor do believe there was any such against some position or supposition wherein that Remonstrance is grounded or which is therein contained I allow them till the advantage they can derive from these Câ—suists even as themselves quote them here For I am sure they will accordingly find the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be at least both extrinsecally and intrinsecally most probable and consequently the signing of it lawful in point of conscience But abstracting 〈◊〉 these rules and authority of Casuists which at least in 〈◊〉 matter of probability and as I have most clearly shown in my More Ample Account pag. 16. c. ought to be not only abstracted from but quite rejected as most unsafe and false and erroneous as likewise and by consequence the final English perclose as a corollary thence derived of this paper I now consider I am no less certain they will find themselves obliged in point of conscience to approve of all the doctrine positions and suppositions too of the said Remonstrance and reject and condemn the contrary as very false eroneous and scandalous too and consequently very sinful if not manifestly heretical in Christian Faith If I say they have studied or shall as they ought to do the arguments on both sides or but consulted with the Catholick Authors that have so lately handled them at large against the sophismes of Bellarmine and others of 〈◊〉 way For I fear they will not take the paâ—ts to sougth 〈…〉 â—â—â—ancie famous great and Classick Authors and 〈◊〉 in them their own ignorance and errour so long since reproach'd in the very Schools For as concerning the Scriptures and Fathers and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church and practice of Primitive Christians and that also of all ensuing ages till the Eleventh of Christianity under Gregory the Seventh they themselves cannot â—â—ny all to be against them Whereof and â—s with other both arguments and objections 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 I could heartily wish they would to satisfie yet more fully themselves take but so much pains as to read over the Barclays and Wriddringâ—â—n Father
to concurr unto and obey Hereupon presently without further debate for none at all scrâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the catholickness or lawfulness such scruples having been sufficiently 〈◊〉 before clear'd amongst all persons of reason and conscience as many as were at that meeting and had not subscribed at London put their hands to a clean copy of that which was before signed by the Nobility and Gentry at London and others that could not be present then subscribed in their Chambers Both these and those in all were eight Lords and twenty three Esquires Collonels and Gentlemen The Earl of Clanrickard The Earl of Castle haven The Lord of Gormanstown The Lord of Slane The Lord of Athenry The Lord of Brittas The Lord of Galmâ—y Henry Barnawel now Lord of Kingsland Sir Andrew Aylmer Sir Thomas Esmond Sir Richard Barnawel Philip fitz Gerrald Nicholas Darcy Francis Barnawal Sir Henry O Neale Nicholas White George Barnawal Richard Beling W. Talbot Iohn Walsh Michael Dormer Iohn Bellew of Wellistown Patrick Netervil Robert Netervil Charles White Coll. Walter Butler Coll. Thomas Bagnel Gerrald fitz Symons Robert Devoreux Coll. Iames Walsh Edmond Walsh Gerrald Fennel And being joyned to the London Subscribers of the Irish Nobility and Gentry they make in aâ— one hundred and twenty one whereof one and twenty Earls Viscounts and Barons XLIV But these Noblemen not thinking they had by their own only subscriptions done enough in this matter unles they had invited the rest of the Peers and Gentry of their communion where-ever in the Countrey abroad throughout Ireland to the like loyal concurrence framed the ensuing Letter and signed two and thirty copies of it one for every County in the Kingdom to get all the hands of the rest of the Catholick Noblemen and Gentlemen where-ever to the said Remonstrance Sirs THe desires we have to serve our King Countrey and Religion in all just ways gives you the trouble of this Letter Which is to let you know That after serious deliberation finding our selves and together with us all others of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom as well as the Clergy of it obliged by all the rules of Reason and tyes of Conscience in the present conjuncture especially to concurr even by subscription to the late Remonstrance and Protestation presented Last Summer to his Majesty by such of our Irish Roman Catholick Noblemen and Gentlemen as were then at London and subscribed it there and received so graciously by Him We have therefore this last week given a beginning here at Dublin to that concurrence by our own manual Subscriptions also to the same Remonstrance prefixing to it a Petition to His Grace the Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant for â—iâ—veighâ—ng our said Concurrence and representing it to His Majesty That reflecting on the unsignificancy of a few hands or subscriptions for attaining those great and good ends â—e drive at by this loyal and Religious Declaration we thought it concerned as further to invite by special Letters all the rest of the Nobility and Gentry of our Communion in the several Provinces and Counties of this Kingdom to the like Subscriptions to be transmitted to us hither without delay Whereunto we have found our selves the rather bound that we certainly know it is expected from us all by his Majesty and by the Lord Lieutenant and that his Grace doth wonder why the example of the first Subscribers at London hath not been here at home more readily and frequently followed hitherto by the rest who are no less concerned And that we know moreover that by the neglect or delay this twelve months past of a more general Concurrence to a duty so expedient and necessary we have let pass already fair opportunities to reap very many advantages by it That we hope the same prudential Christian Catholick and obvious reasons which perswaded us and such others as before us did give the first example from London will prevail with you no less Being they import as much as the clearing of our holy Religion from the scandal of the most unholy tenets or positions that can be taught written or practised the assuring his Majesty evermore of our loyal thoughts hearts and hands for Him in all contingencies whatsoever and the opening a door to our own liberty and ease hereafter from the rigorous laws and penalties under which our selves and our Predecessors before us in this Kingdom of Ireland as other our fellow Subjects of the Roman Communion in England and Scotland have sadly groaned these last hundred years That as we believe you will not think we would for even these very same ends how great and good soever nor for any other imaginable swerve in the least title from the true pure unfeigned profession of the Roman Catholick Faith nor from the reverence or obedience due unto his Holiness the Bishop of Rome or the Catholick Church in general so we believe also you will rest satisfied with the plain evidence of the very words genuine sense total contexture and final scope of this Protestation and of every entire clause thereof that nothing therein no part nor the whole of it denies 〈◊〉 indeed at all reflects on the spiritual jurisdiction authority or power of either Pope or Church or any power whatsoever which we you or any other Catholicks in the world are bound by any law divine or humane or by the maximes of our known and common Faith or by the condition of our Communion to assert own or acknowledge the whole tenour of it asserting only the supream temporal power in the Prince to be independent from any but God alone and the subjection and allegiance or the fidelity and obedience either active or passive due to Him in temporal affairs to be indispensable by any power on earth either temporal or spiritual That finally we do upon consideration of all the premisses and what else your own reasons may deduce thence and give further as additional arguments very earnestly desire and pray your unanimous cheerfull and speedy subscriptions to the said Remonstrance and Protestation which we have sent along with this Letter and by the hands of whom we have likewise prayed to call such of you together as he may conveniently or go about to your several dwellings for that end And if any chance to refuse the signing of it which we hope none will to bring us a true list and exact account of such together with the signatures of the rest that the multitude may not lye under prejudices for the failing of some Which being all we have to trouble you with at present commending you to God we bid you heartily farewell Dublin this 4th of March 1662. Your very loving friends and humble Servants Castlehaven Audley Clancartie Carlingford Mountgaret Bryttas Clanrickarde Fingall Tirconnell Galmoye Slane XLV And questionless if these copies had been sent then as was design'd there had been all the hands of the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdome to the Remonstrance before
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
praescripto protestamur profitemur nos esse humillimos obedientissimos ejusdem sanctae Sedis filios subditos paratosque pro illius Superiorum nostrorum authoritate animas penere Adeeque nos hujusmodi Schismatica attentata detestari nec eorum authores vel fautores pro genuinis fratribus agnoscere Quia tamen ex authentico testimonio Reverendorum Patrum Provincialis Exprovincialis Angliae verbis scriptis nobis exhibito constat ulteriores processus contra hujusmodi refractarios non solummodo in nullum bâ—num cessuros sed etiam in grave praejudiâ—ium persecutionem et perniciem Catholicorum in Anglia et Hibernia hinc censemus hâ—c tempore supersedendum ulteriori executioni salva semper Superiorum authoritate quorum mandatis et ordinationibus cum omni humilitate et animorum promptitudine nos submittimus Datum Antuerpiae c. Subsignatum erat ab omnibus Quâ—d testâ—r Frater Iacâ—bus de Riddere Commissarius Generalis Germanâ— Belgious Extractum Lovanii 4. Ianuarii 1665. per me Fratrem Bâ—naventuram Docharty Now to be more particularly and fully informed of the truth of this Instrument or copy as soon as I received it I accoasted the then Provincial of the Franciscans in England Father N. L. Croix whom I know to have been a member of that Congregation And he told all was true but withal that himself refused to sign it Behold here another considerable effect of that Lovaine Censure For albeit endeavours have been used to get the University of Salamanca in Spain to conncurr in the like or some other as bad censure against the Remonstrance and great expectations thereof as appears out of the Dominican Provincial Father John Harts letter yet nothing could be done there nor in any other University in the world against it only that of Lovaine excepted To which because some Anti-Remonstrants look so much on this University Censure to bear down the scales the Subscribers oppose Sorbon and Navarre and all the eight Universities of France and all those too in the State of Venice besides the practice and doctrine of the whole Christian world out of the temporal Patrimony of the Pope a small district of Italy to say nothing of so vast a cloud of other yet more convincing testimonies and authorities of Scriptures Fathers Doctrine and Practice of the whole primitive Church and that also of all succeeding ages of the Christian Church until Gregory the VII who lived not until the eleventh age of Christianity nor to say any thing too of so many irrefragable arguments of reason both Natural and Theological which may be seen partly in my More Ample Account and for the rest very learnedly at large in Father Carons Remonstrantiá Hibernorum LII But the last and worst effect of all was a kind of specious pretence for those more unlearned and more ignorant of the Irish Clergy in all places both at home in Ireland and abroad in other Countreys and not for such only but for the more knowing of the Dissenters or Opposers to heighten their animosities and strengthen their opposition and even to except amongst the vulgar thence forward against the Remonstrance not as unexpedient only or unnecessary but as sacrilegious schismatical and heretical being it was in effect declared such by the Lovaine Divines Which is the reason I think it not amiss to give here what I know or what I have heard from those very eye-witnesses of the chief grounds those Lovaine Doctors built upon to issue a Censure of so much temerity falsity and folly Father Brian Barry of St. Francis's Order who was then at Lovaine a learned understanding Gentleman and Father Iohn Brady the chief Agent for and Sollicitour of this Censure were they that gave me this account For I have said before the first and long censure of that University wherein the propositions apart and censure of each and grounds of every censure are distinctly set never came to publick view nor could be seen by any of the Subscribers to this day Therefore what I give here of that matter must be on the credit of those two Gentlemen And 't is like none will doubt at least the Agents relation that procured it especially when they know he is a man that wants neither understanding nor memory as I assure them he is First ground That the Remonstrance bereaves the Pope and See Apostolick of that humane right or that even temporal civil and politick Supremacy or Soveraignty which he hath or pretends partly by donation partly by submission and partly too by prescription to the Kingdoms of England and Ireland 2. That if not formally at least virtually and consequentially it bereaves the Pope of even a meer spiritual binding and loosing power of the Subscribers as for example in case he should make warr on the King of England of set and only meer purpose to recover the Church-lands of Ireland to restore them to the right proprietors and apply them to those holy uses they were at first design'd unto by the donors and in such case should on pain of excommunication command all Irish Catholicks not to fight against his army landed in this Kingdom but on the contrary to joyn heart and hand with it against the King and moreover to hold themselves really truly and conscientiously absolved by him from all Allegiance to his Majesty 3. That it tyes Ghostly Fathers to reveal secrets heard in Sacramental Confession as when the penitents accuse themselves or otherwise declare in the confessional seate either directly or indirectly any treason plot or conspiracy against the King 4. That it subjects Clergy-men against ecclesiastical immunity to the cognizance and punishment of the civil Magistrate And these were all the grounds which the said Agent Father Brady told my self upon his arrival at Dublin from Flanders after procuring the said censure which the Lovaine Divines had given of that Remonstrance as being therefore sacrilegious and against the sincerity of the Catholick Faith Weak ones indeed and partly most false and partly too most unsignificant to prove either the one or the other LIII For in relation to the first ground as the Procuratour then reason'd with the said Agent Neither can that humane right or title of the Pope or See of Rome to England or Ireland be proved so even as to its first Origine much less as to the continuance of it in after ages that any Divine may even according to the common rules or maximes of School Divinity censure him that is in actual possession bona fide his predecessors before him for so many hundred years to be either guilty of sacriledge or of doing any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith for defending his said possession and title thereof against all opposers Nor consequently censure the Subscribers of a declaration which asserts that right unto him to be guilty of either The onely Original pretence of the Bishop or See Apostolick to Ireland is that relation which
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
justice or such dispensation may be given without manifest injury to a third and besides where it is not repugnant to the law of God positive or natural And all this binding and loosing power in the Pope even in the whole Execution of it according to the Canons of the Vniversal Church and as farre as these Canons allow it as it is and will be religiously acknowledged and observed still by the Subscribers in all occasions so it is left wholly untouch'd unspoken of unmedled with but supposed still by the Remonstrance as a most Sacred Right not to be controverted much less denyed the Pope by any Catholick nor even to other Bishops of the Church for the portion belonging to them by the self same Canons But what hath this to do with the Lovain pretence of a power in the Pope to bind people by the Popes own peculiar laws Canons precepts or censures by Bulls or otherwise to do that which according to plain Scriptures practise of the primitive Church and Churches following for XI entire ages and according to the interpretation or sense delivered by Holy Fathers of those very Scriptures and according to the very first and clearest reflections also of natural reason must be vitious wicked and even most enormously wicked transgressions of those laws of God wherein neither Pope nor Vniversal Church have any power to dispense what to do with a pretended power in any to absolve from Subjection or command the Rebellion of Subjects against Soveraign Princes who are accountable to none for their temporals but to God Or what to do with binding or loosing to the prejudice and manifest injury not of one third person alone but of so many millions of third persons as there are people in a Kingdom or State This loosing is not of sin or of the penalties of sin but of virtue of Christian duties and divine injunctions Nor is such binding a binding to Holy righteousness but to Horrible depravedness And therefore both such binding and such loosing must be from no true power Divine or Humane from no Gospel of Jesus Christ or Canons of the Catholick Church nor from those Holy Keyes of knowledge or jurisdiction given St. Peter to open Heaven to penitents or shut it to impenitents nor from any Keyes at all but very false and errant Keyes if not right or true Keyes in this sense and to this purpose only that they set open the Gates of Hell first to receive all such unhappy Soules as make use of them and then to lock them in for ever Yet now that the Pope is and while he is or shall be continued a Soveraign temporal Prince in some part of Italy for the time hath been for many ages of Christianity even since Christian Religion was by law established when the Pope had no such not only Soveraign or supream but not even any inferiour subordinate temporal Princely power and may be so again for ought any man knows the Subscribers will freely grant the Lovain Divines That upon just grounds when truely such are or shall be the Pope may in the capacity of a temporal Prince but not of a Christian Bishop and may I say without any breach of the law of God declare and make Warr against the King of England always provided that he observe in all particulars what the law of God Nations and Nature require from him in the declaration or prosecution thereof And may do so with as much right as any other Soveraign Prince meerly temporal can but with no more certainly And further that the grounds of warr may possibly or in some extraordinary case be such on the Popes side as not only in the unerrable judgement of God but in the opinion of all men that shall know the grounds of both sides truely and sincerely stated the Warr may be just on the Popes side and unjust on the Kings The Subscribers do freely grant the Lovain Divines all this and all the advantages they can derive hence But what then must it follow that the subscribers have therefore sacrilegiously or against the sincerity of Catholick Religion declared in general or promised in their Remonstrance that they are ready to stand by the King and loose their lives in defence of his Person Rights or Crown or of his Kingdom State and people against all invaders whatsoever Papal or Princely spiritual or temporal c. forraign or domestick Or must this follow albeit we grant also the said promise or Declaration of standing so by the King to extend it self to or comprehend that very extraordinary case or contingency of our certain evident knowledg of the injustice of the Warr on the Kings side and clear Justice on the Popes Certainly neither the one nor other follows For albeit the case or supposition be rather metaphysically then morally possible that the generality of Subjects of either of the Princes or States in Warr together may evidently know or certainly assure themselves of the cleer Justice of the affailants fide at least so as to have no such kind of probability of any Justice on the defendants part and forasmuch as he is a Defendant yet admitting the case were morally possible who knows not that natural reason tells us and Divines and Lawyers teach that however the Prince both rashly and unjustly brings a Warr on himself and people yet both he and they are bound to hazard their lives each for others mutual defence that is for the defence of the Crown Kingdom State and Republick and for the lives liberties goods and fortunes of all that compose it though not for defence of any rashness or injustice So that although it be granted that both Prince and people are to quit all kind of unjust pretences yet their own natural defence or that of their goods lives and liberties as it comes not under that notion so it is unseparable from their taking armes in their own mutual defence in a meere defensive Warr or even that which happens after to be offensive before a good or Just peace can be obtained and is so I mean unseparable notwithstanding any injustice whatsoever done at first by Prince or people that brought the Warr upon themselves Be it therefore so that the Pope in such temporal capacity would make Warr on the King of England and be it granted for the present what otherwise in it self is very doubtful at least if not manifestly false That for the only unjust laws or only unjust execution of such or only other misgovernment or oppressions whatsoever of one King or Prince of his own proper natural undoubted Subjects without any injury done thereby to forraigners or any other forraign Kings Subjects or Prince or State such forraign Monarch or Common-wealth may justly declare and make Warr against him as for example the French or Spanish King and by the same reason the Pope also in his said temporal capacity against the King of England and be it clear and evident likewise that the
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
them from tribute and of the Domestick family of such Princes or their children free also from paying tribute and lastly on our Saviours bidding Peter to pay for them both least people should be scandalized as if sayes Bellarmine our Saviour himself had thereby declared or said that both himself and his family whose Prefect Peter was should be free from all tribute quasi diceret et se et familiam suam cujus Prefectus erat Petrus liberos esse debere where I say now is the strength of this argument to prove that by the positive law of God as much as per quandam similitudinem all Clergiemen of the world are exempt more then others both as to their goods and persons from the supream civil power or even to prove they are by such law exempt more then others as much as from tribute All Christians are of the family and as such Peter is Prefect of them all And certainly Bellarmine himself hath strugled much in his books de Rom. Pont. and more singularly yet in his others against Barelay and Widdrington to prove that Peter was so in his own days and after his days that other succeeding Bishops of Rome are so likewise even over all the goods and lands and bodies too of Christians and not onely over those of Christians but over all those of the Heathen also For so at last Bellarmine found himself constrain'd to say by the arguments of Widdrington and Barclay to which he could find no other answer But however this be or whether by any kind of similitude it may be concluded out of this passage of Matthew that Clergiemen as being in one certaine sense more especially of the Household or Domestick family of Christ either as he was the natural Son of God or as he was a man should be more exempt from paying tribute or taxes then others of his even holy believers and sanctified family who are not in that certain sense or in that special manner that is by such a special function of his family whether I say this follow or no pâ—â— quamdam similitudinem out of that passage of Matthew yet no man of never so little reason can alleadge for Bellarmine That our Saviour's instance there in his Querie to Peter about the Kings of the Earth and his pronouncing and concluding out of Peters answer Ergo liberi sunt fily must inferre that Clerks should therefore be exempt in criminal causes from the supream coercive power of the civil Magistrate or of any supream earthly King For it is well known that earthly Kings do not exempt not even the most special domesticks of their children from their own Royal supream coercive power or from that of their laws in criminal causes albeit they give them exemption from tributs or taxes and many other priviledges And no less known too That they exempt not from that power and in such causes not even their very children themselves Nay nor in civil causes either so but that they may be sued even before the subordinate inferiour Judges in the Kings Courts of Justice And for criminal causes the Cronicles of England and Histories of Spain can shew us Instances These of a Prince of Spain put to death by his Father King Phillip the Second for some intelligence as some do say with the Turk And those of a Prince of England proceeded against even by an Inferiour Judge for some misdemeanour committed or authorized by him and even proceeded so against without any special warrant from the King but that which the Judge had in the laws of the Kingdom All which being so how can it follow out of that our Saviour's illation from the answer of Peter concerning the practice of Earthly Kings in the case of not exacting tribute or taxes from their own children That by the positive law of God in this place of Matthew Clerks are absolutely exempt from the supream civil coercive power in criminal causes Or how indeed I say doth that consequence follow as much as per quandam similitudinem And follow yet upon this account that Clerks are in such a special manner of the family of the Prince or even of the Kings Heir apparant If he shall answer by quitting our Saviours illation implied in the word Erge and that of the similitude from the practice of earthly Kings as to the matter of coercion and by insisting only on these words liberi sunt filii as upon a positive declaration made by our Saviour of the exemption of Clergy-men from all Kings of the Earth and in all matters whatsoever and consequently also by appropriating so the word filii here to Clergy-men alone that not only all other Christians because Lay-persons but even our Saviour himself be not thereby understood in the quality of the natural Son of God I say that if any shall answer by such a systeme of suppositions the Reply is clear and convincing enough 1. That they are all either very false or at least very vain because without any proof or colour of proof 2. That such a positive Declaration by these words Ergo liberi sunt filii is contradicted by Bellarmine himself who expresly acknowledges no divine precept properly such of the positive law of God either in this place or any other of holy Scripture for the exemption of Clergymen either from taxes or judicial proceedings of the civil Magistrate And I am sure both he and all other Divines will confess that a positive Declaration made by Christ in holy Scripture is to all Christians a divine precept and properly such of the positive law of God 3. That if these words were such a positive Declaration neither Bellarmine nor others needed their per quandam similitudinem nor any further going about the bush 4. And lastly that if they were such then certainly St. Paul had been much out of the way when he declared the contrary Rom. 13. and all the holy Fathers expounding him there even for a whole thousand years and all the Christian Church consequently until our new Interpreters and Sophisters came in these latter ages to tell us what Christ declared as will appear evidently in one of the following Sections where I treat of that command of St. Paul or of God rather by St. Paul 13 Rom. Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit c. Let the judicious Reader himself be now judge whether the case for what concerns any positive law of God in holy Scripture be not clear enough on my side what ever Bellarmine say or whether he confess that there is no precept properly such of God or of such law in holy Scripture being our Adversaries alledge no other places either out of the old or new Testament but these I have now considered as the only of all which together Bellarmine frames but to no purpose his first argument to prove that Clergymen are even by the positive law of God free or exempt from even the supream civil coercive power of all
is Ecclesiastical Judges given them in such exempted causes both criminal and civil but given them so by the supream authority civil and proceeding in so much against them to a meer civil determination execution and coaction by vertue onely of the power derived from the civil laws and supream civil Magistrate and not by vertue of any spiritual power or other whatsoever derived from the Church as purely a Church Because the Church as such hath neither territory nor sword consequently no external criminal or civil Judicatory with any external or temporal power of coaction or coercion properly such but onely a spiritual power of meer spiritual censures which is but secundum quid or diminutively and improperly called coercion or coaction for what belongs to our purpose here But however this be or be not it is clear enough First that by no civil law of the Roman Emperours Clerks have been ever yet at any time exempted in criminal causes from the supream civil Magistrat or from the supream civil coercive power of his laws Which I take to be so absolutely certain That Bellarmine himself for proof of his third Proposition which he hath cap. 28. l. 1. de Cler. in these general words Non possunt Clericiâ—a Judicâ— seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent had not the confidence to alleadg any other imperial or civil constitution but onely those of the Emperour Justinian's Novells 79. 83. and 123. where yet Bellarmine confesses this Emperour decreed no more but the exemption of Clerks and Monks from secular that is laye judicatories in civil causes onely and not in criminal Nay confesses that for criminal causes the same Justinian particularly and expresly decrees in these very Novels that Clergiemen be subject still to the lay or civil Pretors Jurisdiction with this caution only that judgment of death be not pronounced in the Pretors Court against a Clerk before he be degraded by the Bishop So that by the very concession and confession of Bellarmine himself it is not only clear enough that no civil constitution can be produced for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the supream lay power but also clear enough that no such can be pleaded for their exemption in such causes from all subordinate inferiour lay Courts being the Pretors Court was a subordinate one at least unto the Princes own supream Tribunal and being that Bellarmine having confessed this much of this law of Iustinians finds no other civil Institution for his purpose in criminal causes to alledge but flyes presently to his Ecclesiastical Institutions in that point saying that albeit the civil law did not so exempt Clerks in criminal causes from the civil Judicatories yet the Canons of the Church did as sayes he appears clearly out of the Epistle of Cains the Pope to Felix and out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and also out of the XI book of Gregory the Greats Register epist 54. ad Joannem Defensorem and saying further that the civil law must yield to the Canon Law cum possit summus Pontifex Imperatori praecipere in iis praesertim quae ad Ecclesiam pertinent whereas sayes he the supream Pontiff or Pope may command the Emperour especially in such things as concern the Church Where it is evident that Bellarmine confesses plainly there is no civil Institution or Law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the civil or lay Courts For the Reader is to take notice here that by the civil law in this matter no other civil law is understood but that only of Emperours From which indeed originally and only all the exemption of Clerks proceeded even in those Christian Countreys which have shaken off the yoke and even in those too which never yet were under that of the Imperial Power or Laws but have made themselves peculiar municipal laws Which yet albeit they be meerly and properly civil laws yet are they not the civil laws whereof Bellarmine treats and his other Associats contend as we are sure they give more exemption to Clerks either in criminal or civil causes then those of the Roman Emperour did But forasmuch as many of our Clerks are ignorant of that spring of their exemption whatever this exemption truly groundedly be as others are no less ungrateful for not acknowledging it I will oblige those and check these by laying here before their eyes the very first laws the several degrees of them whereby they came by the meer favour of the Roman Emperours to that exemption from Secular Courts which they have truly ever since enjoyed more or less in Christendome according as these laws were continued practised or even by other Princes not subject any more or at all to the Roman Emperours and Laws enacted a new or allowed of Therefore and that we may not erre hereafter in this point the Reader is to know that all these several priviledges liberties or exemptions either of persons lands or other goods which the Clergy hath now in Christian Kingdoms and States have not been granted at first by any one Emperour or at any one time The very first exemption ever yet granted to Clerks was that of Constantine the Great whereby after this good Emperour had formerly published his edicts of liberty for Christian Religon in general he particularly gave this priviledge by law to those of that religion were called Clerks that they should not be obnoxious to nominations or susceptions that is that if they were named or elected for any civil office of Magistracy or Wardship or of gathering of Taxes Tributes c. yet they should not be bound to undergo any such whereas before that law or priviledge Christian Clerks being named or elected were bound to undergo all such offices without any such excuse at all But eight years after this law so made the same Câ—nstantine made another whereby he gave a general exemption to such Clerks from all kind of civil offices l. 1. 2. Cod. Theod. de Episcop Cleric l. 16. wherein he gives the reason of this priviledge least sayes he Clerks sacrilego livâ—re quorundam a divinis obsequiis avocentur may out of the sacrilegious envy of some be called away or diverted from their divine imployments And indeed it is very observable against the ungrateful temerity of some Clerks who are loath to acknowledge the spring of their Immunity to be from the secular power that the same most Christian Prince calls those exemptions priviledges For so he calls them in express tearms Haereticorum factiâ—ne comperimus Ecclesiae Catholicae Clericos ita vexari ut nominationibus seu suceptionibus aliquibus quas publicus mos exposcit centra indulta sibi privilegia pregraventur we have found sayes he that by the faction of Hereticks the Clerks of the Catholick Church are so vexed that they are forced to submit to nominations and susceptions which publick use requires against the priviledges granted them In reference to and
godliness piety zeal what they believed to be their own proper goods how much more would they have abstained from usurping on those of the Church and to which they had known themselves to have no kind of right Secondly forasmuch as depends of the testimony or authority of the civil Law it self it is clear enough that Clergiemen have not only been originally or sometime but have continued alwayes or at all times since the very first of christianity are at present stil subject to the supream civil Power therefore not exempt from it For being it appears by these laws that Clergiemen were so first indistinctly in all kind of politick matters subject or not exempt in any either from the supream civil or subordinate civil and being further that none of these laws nor altogether exempt them but in some politick things or some such causes from the subordinat only and in none at all from the supream in any such cause and being moreover that it was from and by virtue of or by a power derived from those very civil laws and consequently from the supream civil Magistrate Prince Emperour that Ecclesiastical Judges were so appointed for other Clerks in any civil or criminal cause whatsoever or in those we call meer lay crimes it must follow that forasmuch as concerns the testimony of those civil laws which Bellarmine quotes here Clerks are still subject to the supream civil power though not in some cases or not even in very many cases to the subordinat civil but in such have other Judges that is Ecclesiastical ones appointed them by the same laws For by the testimony of these laws they are not exempt wherein they were not exempted by those very laws And those laws do not exempt them in any case at all from the Legislator Himself or from the supream civil power nor even from the subordinate indistinctly and universally in all cases but in some only Thirdly it is clear enough also by the testimony authority and warranty of these civil Laws and forasmuch I say as depends of such warranty if joyn'd together with the allowed doctrine of all christian both Lawyers and Divines generally that in such Christian Kingdoms as never have been govern'd by those laws of Roman Emperours or which in after-times did legally shake off the yoke both of the Empire and imperial laws generally and are govern'd only by municipal laws of their own Clerks are not exempt at all in politick matters from either supream or subordinate lay Courts or Judges no further then such municipal peculiar civil laws do exempt them And being that in no such Countrey at all for any thing we know yet or is alledged yet by Bellarmine or by our Divines of Lovaine Clerks are not exempt by such laws from the supream civil power and being at least that whatever may be imagined of some one or other Countrey with or without ground we know certainly there is no such law in England or Ireland nor hath yet ever been it is no less clear that Clerks are not at all exempt in England or Ireland in politick matters from the supream civil power of the Prince or of his Laws forasmuch I say still as depends of the testimony of the civil laws or even of the doctrine of either Christian Lawyers or Catholick Divines Which doctrine is that laws of men when meer laws of men and in politick matters depend not only of public tiâ—â—â— but also of legal reception and hereof also that they be not abrogated again by a contrary establishment or by a general opposition abrogation or disuse in any particular Kingdom or State especially if such as have the supream civil Legislative Power approve of or concurr to such abrogation or disuse Fourthly and Lastly and as a corrollary out of all it is perspicuous that as the very civil laws of Roman Emperours and such other municipal laws of other Christian Princes giving such or some certain and special exemptions and other priviledges to Clergiemen and giving them freely and out of devotion only for the greater decency and reverence of the Church do convince any rational person that secular Princes are still continually as they have been originally Superiours in temporal power to the Clergy even to all Priests and Bishops whatsoever living within their Dominions so they also convince that not even the great Priest and Bishop the very chief and spiritual Prince both of all Priests and of all Bishops too the Pope himself not even this so Oecumenical Vicar of Christ in all spiritual matters throughout the whole earth can be truly said to be at present upon any other account exempted from secular Powers in temporal matters but on this only that he also himself is now as he hath been for some ages though not from the beginning a temporal or secular Prince too and that now he represents a double Person that of the Successor of St. Peter at Rome which undoubtedly he hath from Christ and from the Church purely taken as a Church and that also of a secular Prince with independent secular civil or temporal power which latter he hath no less undoubtedly and even only and solely from the meer devotion benevolence bounty and gift of other Princes and people even I mean of meer lay Princes People But to the end learned men shall not say I take advantage of Bellarmine's not having so throughly examined this matter in his great work of Controversies nor even in his very last edition of that work which yet is the edition I have hitherto answered and shall not object at any time that Bellarmine sifted yet more narrowly the question of the civil laws in a latter book of his when he was in his old age forced to it by Doctor William Barelay's answers and solutions of all the Church-canons whereon chiefly or rather indeed only Bellarmine relyed till then as we have seen and we shall further see yet in the next Section for his so general exemption of Clergiemen from even the supream civil coercive power in all criminal causes whatsoever least I say any should object this I will give at large and in Bellarmines own words but Englished all that he replies in that his very last piece on this subject we have now in hand of the civil laws against the same William Barclay and my own rejoynder also though in effect and for the most part made before I confess by another that is by Iohn Barclay the Son in his Pietas and to justifie the quarrel of his then dead Father LXIX Bellarmine therefore seeing by the said William Barclay's work De Potestate Papae in Temporalibus against him that all his former pretences of what law soever civil or ecclesiastical for the exemption of Clergiemen from the supream civil Power could not perswade any judicious Reader of that book of William Barclay regards no more what he had granted before in his great Works of Controversies and even in the very
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
is plain enough that if any pretend the Fathers of Agatha intended ought else it must consequently be granted this canon of theirs was not formed by them as of any matter in their opinion belonging to Catholick Faith or Laws of God or in their opinion also as much as enacted formerly in other parts by any civil or imperial or general institution or constitution made by the Christian Emperours of Rome or Constantinople but only formed by them that is by these Fathers of Agatha in pursuance and by virtue only of a local custom of Guien introduced by the command or connivence of the politick Magistrates of that little Kingdom or Countrey as regarding only the external politick administration direction or government of Churchmen which external politick government of the Church varies not seldom according to the variety of Times Kingdoms and Provinces And my reasons for saying so or for saying this to be plain enough are I. That at that very time it was otherwise by law and practice of the great Roman world or Empire in all other places generally being we know out of the imperial laws then in force and out of Ecclesiastical History that Clerks being summon'd to the civil Courts did generally in other Provinces both answer and appear without any reluctance or prohibition from Councils For this Council of Agatha was not held within the bounds at that time of the Roman Empire but under Alarick the Gothish King who at that time held Guien by hereditary and as formerly by concession too of Roman Emperours dismembred from the Empire and conferr'd on his Predecessors without any supremacy reserved to the Empire Which was the reason that in the beginning of the acts of this Council we find no mention at all of the Emperour but of the King Cum Dei nomine ex permissu Regis in Agathenscm civitatem sancta Synodus convenisset c. Ibique flexis genibus in terra pro regno ejus pro longaevitate populi Deum deprecaremur c. 2. That the above first part of this 32. canon of Agatha as likewise that whole one and twentieth canon of Tribur if construed to put a stop to Clergymen from following or acting in the forum of the lay Defendant is now at this time and hath been these many ages past abrogated by the common consent or custom of all people and nations Whereas the common law is now and hath been so long that a Clerk at difference with a Lay-man if he will be righted by law must commence his suit in the lay or civil Judicatory As we may see expresly declared to have been still the law cap. si Clericus 5. de Foro competenti where the Pope Alexander the Third hath thus decreed Si Clericus Laicum de rebus suis vel Ecclesiae impetierit Laicus res ipsas non Ecclesiae esse aut Clerici sed suas proprias asseverat debet de rigore juris ad forensem Iudicem trahi Cum Actor forum Rei sequi debeat licet in plerisque partibus aliter de consuetudine habeatur Therefore if these words or first part of the canon of Agatha Clericus nec quenquam praesumat apud secularem Iudicem episcopo non permittente pulsare are neither according to the common law ciuil or canonical of the christian world nor otherwise ever yet have been observed but out of custom only in so me or even many places as at that time of the Council of Agatha it was in Guien how can we esteem otherwise of the following words or second part of the same canon Sed si pulsatus fuerit non respondeat c. being there is no difference made in this canon it self Or who can affirm this second part was more firmly enacted by this Council or more generally observed by the Faithful Or otherwise then out of a civil custom and in pursuance and by virtue only of the supream civil power authority approbation permission or connivence in that Countrey And consequently who can rationally make it an argument of the exemption of Clergymen by the sole pure Episcopal Authority from as much as the subordinat civil Iudges Nay or an argument of their general exemption by the civil authority it self in other parts of the world at that time which was before Iustinians So little doth any part of this canon argue the exemption at any time of Clerks either in other parts of the world or in Guien it self from the supream civil Magistrate by any kind of authority imperial or Episcopal The fourth Council alledged for this exemption is that which they call Concilium primum Matisconense held in the year 576. as Barclay thinks or 581. as Spondanus or certainly 532. as the printed Acts. A Provincial Council it was of one and twenty Bishops Priscus Archbishop of Lyons presiding And as the Acts do shew called it was at the desire of King Guntheramnus who was one of the three brother Kings grand children to Clodoveus that devided France amongst themselves and left Orleance to him for his seat And all the Canons of it were in matter only of Discipline Amongst which the eight is in these words Ut nullus Clericus ad Judicem secularem quemcumque alium fratrem de clericis accusare aut ad causam dicendam trahere quocumqu loco praesumat sed omne negotium Clericorum aut in Episcopi sui aut in praesbyteri aut Archidiaconi praesentia finiatur And the fift and last Council alleadged in this matter by Cardinal Bellarmine l. 1. de cleric c. 28. ut supra is that which in order is the third of the Councils of Toledo and was held in Aera 627. being the year of our Lord Saviour Christ not 589. according to William Barclays computation but 593. according to Baronius and his continuator Spondanus Bishop of Apamia It is the 13. canon of those of Discipline or external reformation of the Clergie and people made in this Council which is pretended by the Cardinal as to his purpose And I confess this Council is of as great authority as an universal of all Spain and not of Spain alone but of the Bishops also of the Province of Narbon in France subject at that time to the Goths must be which therefore in Spain and as to Spain was stiled Concilium Vniversale having also had 70. Bishops that subscribed although not therefore a General Universal or Oecumenical Council simply such or at all such even for Discipline as to other Catholick Churches but in as much as received by them however several of its canons be inserted in Gratian this particularly whereof our present controversy is related 11. q. 1. cap. Inolita praesumptio And I confess too that Gratian hath truly related word by word this 13th canon as it is in the Council it self being this which I give here at length Inolita praesumptio usque adeo illicitis ausibus aditum patefecit ut Clerici Conclericos suos relicto
Iustiniani Imperatoris Catholici quam probat servat Catholica Ecclesia constitutione c. XXIV cap. eccl 1. decrevit ut nemo Episcopus nemo praesbiter excommunicet aliquem antequam causa probetur c. In which law of Iustinian it is also very observable that he prescribes meer ecclesiastical punishments to be undergone by the transgressors of it Is autem qui non legittime excommunicaverit in tantum abstineat a sacra communione tempus quantum majori sacerdoti visum fuerit c. On the other side it hath been often seen that the Fathers themselves assembled in Councils made ordinances or canons in matters belonging properly to the politick administration as to wit being certain the Prince would by his own proper authority approve of such canons and consequently give them that force which the onely spiritual power could not or as knowing that by the civil laws or customs of countries such matters ought to be observed but wanted nevertheless for their more conscientious and careful observance the admonition of the Fathers and the severity also of Ecclesiastical censures threatned against the infringers Which to have been so indeed may truly and clearly appear even out of this very Council of Toledo where annuente consentiente Rege some politick canons were made by the Fathers and may appear also out of that former of Matiscon wherein the 14 canon is Vt Iudaeis a caena Domini usque ad primum diem pâ—st Pascha secundum edictum bonae Recordationis Domini Childeberti Regis per plateas aut fâ—rum quasi insultationis causa deambulandi licentia denegetur 3. That if we did absolutely grant without reserve that by the royal authority of King Guntramnus in this first Council of Matisconum and of King Recaredus in that of Toledo the jurisdiction of subordinate inferiour lay Judges over Clerks had been totally extinct in the respective Kingdoms of those two Kings yet nothing hence for the exemption of Clerks from the very supream royal power in it self and in all cases or causes Nor any thing to prove such exemption from inferiour tribunals whatever it was to have proceeded from any power of the Church or even from any temporal power of Kings before Iustinians time and Novels in favour of Clergiemen for both these Councils were held after Iustinians Raign 4. And lastly that Bellarmine was not wary enough in alleadging that first Council of Matisconum For besides that what he alleadgeth out of it hath not as much as any seeming argument for his purpose but that simple Quere which every novice could answer he hath moreover given his Readers occasion to tell him that of all Councils he should ever beware to touch on this of Matisconum being the seventh canon of it is so clear and express against his pretence of divine right or divine law for the exemption of Clerks in criminal causes from the lay Magistrate or indeed rather of any law at all even meerly humane either civil or Ecclesiastical for their exemption in all crimes or in all those which are in the canons stiled lay crimes crimina laica that murther theft and witchcraft are by name excepted by this very Council and in the seventh canon from any such priviledge of Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption from the lay Judges however the criminal be a Clerk as may appear to any that is not wilfully blind out of this VII canon it self being as to the tenor of it word by word at leingth what I give here Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi sui a seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque judex absque causa criminali id est homicidis furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur So at that time the Fathers of this Matisconensâ—â—â— Council thought it not against any law divine or humane civil or Ecclesiastical to acknowledg the jurisdiction of even inferiour Judges over Clerks accused of or as much as accused of murder theft or witchcraft and consequently nor to leave them in such causes to the punishment prescribed by the law And what think you then would these Fathers have any more priviledged such Clerks as should perchance be found guilty of or charg'd with sedition rebellion hostility or any other undenyable treason against the King State or People Or did these Fathers think you harbour at any time the least thought of a priviledge from God or Church or Prince or people to Clergiemen guilty of moveing subjects to take arms against the King himself and his laws And these being all the Councils alleadged by the learned Cardinal in his controversies de Cleric l. 1. c. 28. and those other Councils after added by him in his foresaid other last peculiar little book de potestate Papae in temporalibus against William Barclay undoubtedly because upon after thoughts he found the former in his controversies not convincing at all as no more will you those his additional ones being also already and at large both in my general Answers to them all together and in my particular answers to each a part cleared by me abundantly in my LXIV and LXIX Section where the Reader may turn to them back again if he please for those additional Councils are no other then Lateranense magnum sub Innoc. III. cap. 43. Constantiense Sess 31. Lateranense ultimum sub Leone X. finally the Council of Trent Sess 25. c. 20. de Reformat All which I have though upon another occasion considered in my said former LXIV LXIX Section therefore to perclose this present Section I find my self obliged onely further to take notice of what the Cardinal sayes nay indeed gives for the second main proof of his third Proposition l. 1. de Cleric c. 28. which third Proposition is as I have before noted in general tearms this Non possunt Cerici a judice seculari judicari etiamsi leges civiles non servent For after the Cardinal had briefly quoted the Councils of Chalcedon Agatha Carthage Toledo and Matisconum and of these five Councils had framed his first argument for that his so general third Proposition and then for a second argument pretended first the constitutions of Emperours Novel 79. 83. and 123. but immediatly after acknowledging these Imperial constitutions did not reach the exemption of Clerks at least in criminal causes from some even Inferiour or subordinate lay judges but expresly subjects them still in such causes to the Praetors and Presidents he at last for a second proof of his said Proposition to wit as it relates to criminal causes relyes wholly and onely on the authority of the canon law and for canon law in the point brings no other proof then a general and bare allegation of three Popes Caius Marcellinus and S. Gregory the Great without as much as giving us their words but telling us
that exemption be indeed or truly amounts to I pass over the little value many Countries of the Pope's even very strict communion and both many great and Catholick and Classick Authors too even very great sticklers for the Papacy it self as de jure divino have for this Bull or obligation of it yea notwithstanding all the solemnity used at Rome every year in renewing it How yet they will not receive nor publish it nor suffer it to be published amongst themselves nor hold themselves obliged at all by the publication of it either at Rome or in other places Whereof as enough may be seen in Suarez and Salas de Legibus where they treat of this subject so that was a notable instance which happen'd at Brussels in Albert and Isabels Principality over the Low Countreys resigned to them for ever by the King of Spain Philip the Second when the Nuncio Apostolick there at that time an Italian Archbishop thought he had met with such a conjuncture as therein he might introduce that Bull and therefore caused it to be affixed to the gates of the great Church of St. Gudula yet by commands from the Council of Brabant and Archbishop of Mechlin it was presently torn and pulled down quia non accessit placitum Principis and therefore too any further publication or observation of it prohibited ever since Which relation I had my self from the reverend Fathers de Young and Derkennis two famous professors of Divinity in the Colledge of the Jesuits at Lovaine when I studied in that University But whether this be so or no or whether the great number of those very famous Catholick Divines quoted by Suarez and Salas and by others too who maintain stiffely that Bulla caenae obliges no man in any Diocess out of the temporal Patrimony of the Roman Bishop as neither any other Bull of the Pope at least in matters of Discipline where not legally both published and received by the particular Churches Bishops Princes Clergy and People whether I say that great number of Divines be well grounded or no in maintaining so the invalidity of this Bull of the Supper without a special publication and reception in every particular Diocess neither the one viz. of that relation of the Fathers nor the other to wit of these Divines matters one pinn For I have shewed already that whether so or no whether without such particular publication and reception obliging or not obliging according to its tenour it hath not one word or clause to prove Bellarmin's voluit if by voluit he understand what he ought to our present purpose that is if the Pope's having actually or de facto as much as in him exempted Clerks by a Decretal Epistle Bull or Brief or other Declaration whatsoever sufficient for such purpose as much as according to the doctrine of the very Roman Divines and exempted them too even from the very supream civil power it self of temporal Princes or States For I confess that if any will understand by Bellarmine's voluit a meer inclination affection or good will of Popes to do so if they had found it feasible or according to the rules of prudence to do so that is if they feared not to loose all by doing so it may be granted and ought to be granted that within this last five hundred years many Popes have been spirited so whereof that conroversie in particular of Paul the V. with the Venetians in the year 1606. is for that one Pope a very notable instance But withal it must be granted on the other side that either this is not it which Bellarmine intended by his voluit or at least that he intended nothing to even his own purpose For such a will signifies nothing because not executed The contests therefore of several Popes with several Princes or States about jurisdiction as relating to Clerks argues no more but that such Popes did suppose or at least would have others believe they did suppose Clerks already or by some former law of God or Man or by humane custom in some places left in all causes whatsoever to the Court Ecclesiastical But argues not that any of themselves or other former or latter Popes whosoever did so exempt or attempted to exempt them so And for their suppositions or euen admonitions and comminations of censures nay or actual and manifold censures fulminated in such controversies against their opposers it is apparent in Ecclesiastical History they were little regarded by Princes or States or by other particular Churches of the papal communion or by their Divines Whereof also besides the State of Venice and several other Kingdoms and Principalities we have a most singular argument in the proceedings of Philip the Second that most religious and Catholick King of Spain when after the Usurpation of the Crown of Portugal by Anthony the Bastard Prior of Crati who by the faction and countenance chiefly of the Churchmen of Portugal got himself crown'd he reduced and subdued Portugal to himself as the more lawful Heir of that Kingdom For Spondanus ad Annum Christi 1581. tells how this great Catholick King expresly refused to extend to the religious of Portugal his Act of general Indemnity which in the general Assembly of Estates held by himself at Lisbone the said year he granted all those other Portugueses had opposed his title or the Duke of Alva his General or who had submitted to the said Anthony Nay excluded positively in the same Act and from the benefit of it all the Regulars or Monks of Portugal and besides them none at all but the said Prior Anthony himself the Bastard Usurper illegitimate Sou to Prince Lodovicus Franciscus Portugallus Count Vimiosi Iohn his brother Bishop of Guardia fifty other principal ring-leaders of Anthonie's faction And tells moreover that notwithstanding the general discontent arising from such exclusion or exception and notwithstanding all the frequent expostulations and supplications to his Catholick Majesty to mitigate this rigour he could never be wrought upon until at least two thousand Priests and Monks had by several kinds of violent deaths in several places partly within Portugal it self and partly abroad in the Islands of Azoras been destroyed in the prosecution of the warr against the relicks of Anthoni's Faction whereof also many were said to have been privatly dispatch'd It is true indeed that Thuanus L. 74. quoted by Spondanus ad annum Christi 1583. relates how it was rumour'd that Philip by his Embassadours at Rome obtained a Bull wherein the Pope pardoned him the killing of two thousand persons consecrated to God by a sacred and religious life But it is also true that neither Spondanus himself though a very precise religious Catholick Bishop and a great defender of all just laws of Popes and priviledges of the Clergy nor any other Historian or Writer I have yet seen reprehends nor tells that any other Divine or Clerk or even the Pope himself did reprehend King Philip as having violated
Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption by such his proceedings What therefore might be the cause of his desiring or accepting such a Bull if the story of it be true we may easily conteive to be of one side King Philips inexorable rigour I will not say cruelty first in excluding so many thousand religious and sacred men from all pardon and grace and next in pursuing and destroying them as irreconciliable enemies when he might have made them very tractable Subjects and on the other the Popes pretence of even the temporal Soveraignty or supream Lordship of the Country and Kingdom of Portugal as having been made tributary to the Church of Rome by Alphonsus the first Duke and King thereof according to Baronius ad annum Christi 1144. and the proceedings after of several Popes against some Kings of Portugal upon that ground by excommunicating and deposing some instituting others in their place and by exacting of them yearly at first agreed upon under Lucius the II. four ounces of Gold and after that four Marks of Gold under Alexander the IV. as an acknowledgement of his being the supream Lord of it or of its being held in Fee from the Bishops of Rome King Philip therefore to establish himself against the titles of so many other pretendents to that Crown thought it the safest way when he had done his work to make all sure with the Pope for after-times and get himself acknowledged King of Portugal even by him who pretended to be supream Lord of the Fee Though otherwise it be apparent also in Baronius that the Kings of Portugal did acknowledge so much dependence from the Kings of Castile as being bound to appear at their Court when called upon and give them three hundred Souldiers to serve against the Moors amounts unto But this could be no prejudice to a former independent and supream right of Popes to Portugal if there was any such especially whereas the same Barnius makes Castile it self feudatary to nay all Spain (a) Baron ad an Christiâ—â—â— â—01 〈◊〉 1703 the property of the of See Rome as likewise he doth in several places of his Annals all the Kingdoms of Christendome not even France (b) ad an 702. it self excepted And therefore nothing can be concluded from King Philips admission of this Bull but either his remorse of having abused that power God gave him over those religious men or used it in so much more like a Tyrant then a King unless peradventure he perswaded himself upon evident grounds they would never be true to him or his wariness in seeming so the more observant of the Pope in all things according to the maximes of Campanella while he drove at the universal Monarchy But however this be or not its plain enough out of his so publick refusal in the face of the Kingdoms of Portugal and Castile and in that publick Assembly of all the Estates amongst which the Ecclesiastical was the chief and out of his so long and severe prosecution and persecution of those Monks for three whole years till he destroyed them all and out also of the silence even by the Ecclesiasticks themselves of that argument of exemption when the occasion to alledge it was the greatest might be offered at any time and finally out of his receiving continually the most holy Sacraments of the Church all that time without any reprehension or objection made to him by the Church of so publick and so scandalous and so bloody and sacrilegious violation of her pretended nearest and dearest laws I say it is plain enough out of all that whatever the story be of that Bull or whatever the true or pretended motives of King Philip to accept of it neither his own Subjects of Spain or Portugal Clerks or Laicks nor those of other Churches or Kingdoms either Princes or people nor even the Prelats or Pope himself that was then did any way so regard the suppositions or even admonitions comminations nay or even actual censures of other Popes in their Bulla caenae or otherwise as to think perswade themselves that a true obliging canon or law either of God or Man of the State or Church or even as much as of the Pope himself could be concluded thence for any real or true exemption of Clerks from the supream civil power in criminal causes And so I have done with Bellarmines voluit As for his other saying above That hitherto only Hereticks have contradicted this kind of Exemption even this so extraordinary and extravagant exemption of all Clerks in all temporal causes whatsoever civil or criminal from the supream civil and coercive power I remit the Reader to the next following Section saving one where he shall see a farr other sort of Doctors then Hereticks to contradict it even Austins and Hieroms and Chrysostoms and Gregories nay the whole Catholick Church in all ages until these later and worser times wherein the contest was raised first and again renewed by some few Popes and their Partizans against the supream temporal power of Emperours Kings and States Only you are to take notice here Good Reader That 't is but too too familiar with our great Cardinal to make Hereticks only the opposers of such private or particular but false opinions or doctrines of his own as he would impose as the doctrines of the Catholick Church on his undiscerning Readers as on the other side to make the most notorious Arch-hereticks to be the patrons of such other doctrines as himself opposes and would fright his Readers from how well and clearly soever grounded in Scriptures Fathers Councils Reason Which is the very true genuine cause wherefore he gives us where he treats of such questions so exact a list of those chief and most notorious Hereticks who held against him on the point and gives them also in the very beginning of his chapter or controversie whatever it be As in this of Ecclesiastical Exemption besides what I have quoted now out of his book against Barclay cap. 35. he tells us l. de Cleric c. 28. First in general that very many Hereticks contend that all Clerks of what soever degree are de jure â—â—vin by the law of God or by the same law ought to be subject to the secular power both in paying tributes and in judicial proceedings or causes Secondly that Marsilius de Padua and Ioannes de Ianduno though Catholick Lawyers to Lodâ—uick of Bauer the Emperour but esteemed Hereticks by Bellarmine because some tenets of theirs were condemned by Iohn the XXII Pope of that name taught that not even our Sauiour himself was free from tribute and that what he did Mat. 17. when he payed the didrachme or tribute money he did not freely without any obligation to do so but necessarily that is to satisfie the obligation he had on him to do so Thirdly that Iâ—hn Calvin l. 4. Institut c. 11. Parag. 15. teaches that all Clerks ought to be subject to the laws and tribunals of secular Magistrats excepting
this following now as a distinct one and as in order my third And I frame it thus Whatever natural civil or politick supream right and authority of civil direction and civil coercion of all and every person or persons whatsoever of the politick Commonwealth as such may be necessary for the preservation of the being and peace of the whole is by the law of nature it self to be attributed to and asserted or allowed in the same Commonwealth as such and consequently in the supream politick Head of it as such whether this Head be one single person by nature or an aggregation of many persons together by policy But the natural civil or politick supream right and authority of civil direction and civil coercion of all Clergiemen whatsoever living under or in any politick Commonwealth as such is necessary for the preservation of the being and peace of the whole Ergo the natural civil or politick supream right and authority of civil direction and civil coercion of all Clergiemen whatsoever living under or in any politick Commonwealth as such is by the law of nature it self to be attributed to and asserted or allowed in the same Commonwealth and consequently in the supream politick Head of it whether this head be one single person by nature or an aggregation of many persons together by policy The Major besides that it is proved already by and in the prosecution of my former argument where I alledged that maxime or principle allowed by all men and which in reason must be so allowed by all men viz. That every well or rightly establish'd civil Commonwealth must by the law of nature have in it self as such and consequently in its politick Head as such too that natural or civil authority over all the parts and members which may sufficiently enable the whole to attain the proper natural and civil ends of the whole and of all such parts as parts both joyntly and severally these ends being the civil peace quiet justice and comfortable secure living of all together I say the Major besides its being already proved so is further proved by this other maxime which even Suarez himself l. 3. de Primatu sum Pontif. c. 1. n. 4. allows and alledgeth for certain and for evident in natural reason Quod humana natura non possit esse destituta remediis ad suam conservationem necessariis That humane nature cannot be destitute of sufficient right and authority to do those things which are necessary for its own preservation in a peaceable and just way of living Now it is clear enough that the civil direction and civil coercion of all persons whatsoever living within the Dominions of the Commonwealth while they live there is necessary for its preservation And the Major is further also proved by a third maxime or principle which Morl. hath in Empor jur 1. p. tit 2. de legibus num 20. vers .. Quia cum regnum To wit this Cui regnum conceditur necessario omnia censentur concessa sine quibus regnum gubernari non potest To whom a Kingdom is given all things that is to say all right and authority which are necessary for the well governing of it are supposed to be given And yet who sees not this principle could not be true if that Major also were not true For whatever is necessary for the preservation of the being and peace of the Commonwealth is also necessary for the wel-governing of it As for the Minor I have abundantly proved it also before in the prosecution of my second argument And of the conclusion to follow the premisses necessarily there is no man will doubt It remains therefore that for an appendix of these arguments grounded on pure natural reason for the subjection of Clergiemen to or which is the same thing against their exemption from the supream civil coercive power in temporal causes to conclude this Section I shew by natural reason also that the very temporal Princes themselves how otherwise supream soever could not cannot by any law right authority or power given them by God or Man exempt from themselves that is from their own supream civil and even coercive power the Clergiemen of their own Dominions whiles I mean such Clergiemen remain of or in their Dominions and acknowledge themselves or indeed be inferiours and subjects to the same Princes or otherwise that these Princes be either acknowledged by them or otherwise truly and legally be their natural or proper legal Princes But for as much as Bellarmine hath in the often quoted 35. chap. l. contra Barclaium as being mightily startled by this position roused himself again and laid about him no less mightily to ruine it then he had to ruine that other which denied the Pope himself any such power of exempting Clerks from the same temporal Princes I will to avoid here some labour of repetition first give our learned Cardinals arguments against it and then consequently my own proofs for it in the solution of those arguments Ad quintam propofitionem sayes he quae erat non potuisse Principes supremos eximere Clericos a sua Regia potestate respondemus id manifestè falsum esse Nam etiamsi non possit summus Princeps c. To the fift proposition sayes Bellarmine which was that supream Princes could not exempt Clerks from their own Royal power I answer that it is manifestly false For albeit the supream Prince may not exempt all that live in his Kingdom from his own power unless he resign his Principality yet he may exempt some part of his people from some part of his power or even from all parts of his power and at the same time be both truly said and remain still a Prince For it is proper to a supream Prince to exact tribute from the people subject to him as the Apostle teaches Rom. 13. For it is therefore sayes he you pay tributes for they are the Ministers of God serving unto this purpose And yet the King may free such as he please from tributs For it is said 1. of Kings or of Samuel cap. 17. whoever shall kill the Philisthine the King shall enrich him with great riches and shall make his Father's house free from tributes in Israel Even so if some great King do free some one Citty amidst his Kingdom or bestow it absolutely on some body it will not be therefore consequent that he may not be said to be King of his whole Kingdom especially if he still protect and defend that Citty and that the Cittizens thereof do freely observe the laws of his Kingdom So therefore too might Kings exempt from their own Royal power the Clerks living in their Kingdom and yet be said to be and truly be kings not onely of Laicks but also of Clerks who freely observe their politick laws and who being Actors referre or deferre the causes they have with Laicks to their Royal tribunals and acquiesce to their judgment or sentence in such causes And because
the King labours and watches for the defence not onely of Laicks but of Clerks also therefore not Laicks onely but also Clerks do give him that honour which is due to Kings according to the precept of the Apostle Peter Fear God honour the King 1. Pet. 2. Finally they pray for the King as the Apostle bids them 1. Timoth. 2. saying I desire therefore first of all things that obsecrations prayers postulations thankes-givings be made for all men for Kings and all that are in preheminence Nor onely do they power their prayers to God for Kings in general but say in specie in particular pro Rege N. vel pro Imperatore N. for our King N. or for our Emperour N. expressing their names First therefore what Bellarmine sayes here is that the King may exempt some part of his own people from some part of his own power or even from his own whole power And this he proves thus Because sayes he the King may bestow on some house or Citty an exemption or immunity from tributs What 's this to our question Doth an exemption from tributs work this effect that whoever is so exempted is no more bound to the Prince in any kind of subjection For this is the onely question We confess the priviledges given to Clerks to be greater then a sole exemption from tributs but we deny that Clerks therefore are totally manumised set free or exempted from their subjection to Princes But sayes Bellarmine it is the prerogative of a Prince to exact tribute as it is to command or judge or punish and therefore if he can remit the one why not the other A vast difference there is most eminent Cardinal It is indeed proper to or the prerogative of a Prince to exact tributes because none exact such but Princes or States which are the same thing here But it is also proper to a King to remit tributes because none else may and that by such remission he ceaseth not to be â—â—ince of the same persons or people or City to which tribute is so remitted and that it may also be expedient sometimes for his Principality to remit them Nay if Princes had universally remitted all kind of tribute to all the people of their Dominions as Nero thought to do and could and would content themselves and bear all the charges of the publick and defend it too with by and out of their own patrimony would they fall therefore from their Principality But it is no way proper to a King to remit to any in all things all kind of obedience or subjection to himself and yet still to be truly called and truly essentially or properly to be or to remain King of those very persons to whom such remission is made because the power of lording commanding judging punishing at least in some cases is the very essence of Principality so that the Prince cannot remit or quit this and withal continue Prince Nor doth Bellarmine help himself by saying that albeit the Prince may not exempt or set free all his people and still remain Prince yet he may some part of them For it is plain that he cannot any part and together be Prince or King of that part whereas it is of the very essence of a King to lord it over and command his whole Kingdom to provide for his whole Kingdom and to have all within his Kingdom Natives Forreigners Dwellers Sejourners Inmates Travellers c. of what degree or quality soever obnoxious or subject to his will and laws the good to be encouraged to be rewarded by him and malefactors to be coerced and punish'd also by him Nor indeed is he instituted King to govern any part or parts of his Kingdom but to govern the whole Kingdom And therefore it must be that if he exempt any part from subjection to himself which yet he cannot de jure without the consent of all the Estates of the Kingdom he must as well in order to such part cease to be King as he would in order to all if he had bestowed that plenary exemption upon all and every part of his Kingdom For I beseech you what rational man would perswade himself that for example the present French or Spanish Kings are absolute Kings respectively of all France or of all Spain or of all French and Spaniards if in the richest and fruitfullest Territories of all France there be four or five hundred thousand Frenchmen and so many French women and if double trebble or quadrubble that number be in the Spanish so exempt from the French and Spanish Kings Dominions and yet so diffused in every Province County City Corporation and the very Villages that nothing can be more and yet having moreover so much influence on the rest of the people that they can turn them which way they please Or how could for another examples sake either Henry the Eight in England or his Catholick Predecessors be justly called or stiled Kings of England if the Clerks of that Kingdom then almost innumerable and possessing as their own proper lands and goods wel-nigh the one entire moyety of it were not truly and properly subjects to the said Henry and to other his said Predecessors Secondly what Bellarmine sayes though by way of interrogation is That if some great King doth in the middle of his Kingdom free some one City or absolutely bestow it on another he may be notwithstanding said to be King of his whole Kingdom But I would fain know what our great Cardinal understands by these words Rex totius regni sui King of all his own Kingdom Doth he repute that City so exempted or so made free by that great King to be notwithstanding part of that very Kings own whole Kingdom If so our Cardinal recedes not only from truth but from common sense For I pray what is it else to be a King but to lord it over those or to command those of whom he is King Can Bellarmine himself deny the King to be Superiour in relation to those of whom he is King And yet himself teaches cont Barclaium cap. 13. that every Superiour may command his Inferiour omnis superior potest imperare inferiori suo Some indeed question how far or in what things the power of Kings extend to their people but none at all whether in any thing or even very many things it reach or command them But our Cardinal will have that City exempted to be no more subject in any thing to be no more commanded in any matter by that King Therefore he is no more King of it Nor doth it make any difference in the case that he protect or defend that Citty For it is one thing to be a Protector or Defender and an other to be King Who is it would say that the Kings of England or France were Kings of Holland and of the rest of the United Provinces at any time since the said Provinces rebelled against their own natural King albeit we know and it
be confessed that the French and English Kings were their Protectors and Defenders against the Kings of Spain Or who would say that Henry the Second of France was King of the Confederate Princes of Germany although it be confessed also that the said Confederate Princes chose him for their Protector And as little doth that other reason or pretence and allegation of Bellarmine cives illi leges regni sponte servent that the Cittizens of that so exempted Citty do freely observe the laws of the Kingdom make any material difference in the case unless peradventure that if the Spaniards would receive the laws of France and by an express Statute enact these laws for themselves or otherwise out of custom observe them it must be granted that consequently the Spaniards renounce their own Principality and yield themselves to that of France But if Bellarmine understand or mean that Citty so exempted to be no more of the Kingdom then is the similitude to no purpose being himself grants and averrs that after and notwithstanding the exemption of Clerks Kings are not onely Kings of the Laymen but also of the Clergiemen Reges esse nonsolum Laicorum sed etiam Clericorum Reges Yet as for the reasons which he gives for this concession and asseveration I must say they are childish and unworthy of Bellarmine The first is that Clerks do freely observe the politick laws But I have rejected this presently or a little before Nor indeed can it be said with any colour that it some Nation as for example now the Armenians did receive observe the laws of a forraign King as for example too those of the King of France or Poland or Spain c. therefore such Nation must be said to acknowledg this forraign King for their own King The second is quia Clerici causas quas cum Laicis habens cum actores sunt aâ— tribunal iâ—sius Regis deferunt in judicio sententiae ejus in ejusmodi causis acquiescum that Clerks when being Actors against Laicks bring their causes to the King's tribunal and in such causes acquiesce to the judgment and sentence of his temporal Court or politick Judges But who sees not that this is not to acknowledg him to be their King And who sees not that there is no other subjection of Clerks herein but such as is acknowledged by meer strangers forraigners aliens and such as is necessary in all kinds of judicial proceedings If a Frenchman have a suit with a Spaniard if any man of this King 's natural and legal Subjects commence a suit against the Subject of an other King and living still in the Dominions of this other King must not such a Plaintiff or such an Actor apply himself to the Courts or Judicatories of the Defendant that is to those of this other King Will the Plaintiff therefore acknowledg this other King to be simply or absolutely his own King will a Spaniard if he sue in France and before French Judges acknowledg therefore the French King to be his own King or will a Hollander sueing an Englishman in England therefore acknowledg the King of England to be his own meer trifles Actor sequitur forum Rei And therefore as you rightly conclude that he is the Defenders King simply and absolutely before whom in the case he is convented so is it unreasonably inferred that he is the Actor's King before whom such Actor convents an other But sayes Bellarmine Clerks do pray in specie for the King and pray thus Pro Rege nostro N. For our King N. c. And what is more against Bellarmine For hence nothing follows more directly then that the King is King of Clerks also and that Clerks are his Subjects For who can conceive the King to be King of Clerks and yet that Clerks should not be his Subjects Being that as Almainus de sup potest c. q. 2. cap. 5. teaches Aliquem esse Regem nihil aliud est quam habere superioritatem erga subditos in subditis esse obligationem parendi Regi c. One to be a King is nothing els but to have a politick both directive and coercive power of superiority over all the people of his Dominions and that consequently there be obligations answerable on the same people as Subjects to obey him However Bellarmine would needs by so many absurd arguments uphold his very absurd sentences which say in plain tearms the King to be King of Clerks and yet Clerks not to be Subjects to the King a Citty or people to be absolutely free and yet have the King for their King and themselves for part of his Kingdom and which in word consequently confound the very notions of King and Subject and of ruling and being ruled But certainly nothing could be said to confirm and illustrate more my purpose here or that of no power in Kings to exempt Clerks from their own supream power then that Bellarmines answers and reasons for the contrary are such wretched ones indeed Out of the refutations of which and of all said before in this Section especially in prosecution of my second and third Argument it will be obvious enough to frame this other in behalf of that Corollary or Incidental Position which I gave only as an appendix of my third argument Whoever have and continue any office which essentially involves a power supream both directive and coercive of all Clerks within their Dominions may not devest themselves of the power of directing and coercing the same Clerks unless they do withal devest themselves of that office as towards the self same Clerks Because they cannot devest themselves of the essence of that which they hold still or while they hold it or for the time wherein they are to hold it this arguing a plain contradiction But the office of Kings involves a power supream both directive and coercive of all Clerks within their Dominions For this I have proved already and at large by very natural reason Ergo whoever have the office of Kings may not devest themselves of a power supream both directive and coercive of all Clerks within their Dominions unless with all they devest themselves of the office Kings as towards the self same persons Now we have seen hitherto that not only by reason and experience but even by our learned Cardinals own concessions and allegations Kings have not devested do not devest themselves of the office of Kings towards the Clerks of their Dominions but on the contrary that Kings are truly properly and essentially Kings also of such Clerks And consequently too we have seen that while the case is so and for the time it shall be so with them they cannot by any priviledges at all they have given hitherto or shall give hereafter so exempt Clerks as to exempt them from their own supream directive and coercive power And so I end this LXXII Section of my three grand Arguments of all their appendages composed partly of undoubted Theological
very text and ends of that text or precept And it is in effect this that by higher powers both temporal and spiritual powers are understood respectively as to their own proper Subjects and that St. Pauls command being in such general terms as these Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit must by consequence be understood so as intending and only intending that all secular persons should be subject to those who are as to them higher powers viz. the secular Magistrate Prince King Emperour c. and that all Clergy persons also should be subject to their own respective higher powers that is to the Superiours Ecclesiastical as Bishops Archbishops c. and before all to the Pope who is above all A third answer is observed by some as yet more strange and absurd though Cardinal Bellarmines proper invention say they Who say they too not content with one single folly viz. that of the former second answer which he also with some other Divines of his way approveth and giveth would needs invent this indeed so rare so admired one That although St. Paul commands universally that all souls be subject to the higher powers yet he commands not they be all subject to the higher politick civil temporal or secular powers Quocirca sayes he lib. 1. de Translatione Imperii cap. 2. n. 7. antequam Principes politicos exaltare incipias super omnem animam ac proinde super ipsum etiam summum Pontificem de hoc enim potissima quaestio est demonstrandum tibi erit sublimiorem esse potestatem Principatus Politici quam Ecclesiastici But I for my part see nothing new in this answer of Bellarmine that is nothing materially different from the first erroneous old answer of those whom St. Austin oppugned and confuted in this matter as shall be seen presently or at least from that and the second both together For the only difference is 1. That Bellarmine would fain by this unreasonable distinction exempt at least the Pope from all secular power whatever would become of the rest of the Clergie And then he thought all was well enough as I have elsewhere noted 2. That he takes the word power in the abstract not in the concrete which yet the first answer did not As for the word higher or sublimioribus in the Latin text which he takes advantage of by taking it comparatively the first answer also took it so But however this be or whether this of Bellarmine be materially different or not from the former that is from the first or second or both answers together I am sure first that I have evidently confuted already all three out of the very obvious and clear text it self as you may see again and before in my proofs of the Major and Minor but more especially in that of the Major where any indifferent judicious and ingenious Reader cannot but confess that either there must be admitted not only one but manifold and most manifest contradictions and non-sense in that whole text or discourse of the blessed Apostle if any one of all these answers were true or certainly that those texts of Paul must not be understood literally Both which admissions are equally and confessedly of all sides false erroneous and heretical Only against that part of the first answer where it is said that by the sword in that text of St. Paul the spiritual of excommunication is to be understood and not the material of iron I am to add here that this too is plainly contradicted by the very text being hence it is clear that sword must be understood which is the proper sword of that Minister of God to whom tribute and custom were then paid Now it is no less clear these were not then paid to Christian Bishops Popes or Church but only to secular and even heathen Princes Secondly I am sure also that all those three Answers both joyntly and severally are no less confuted by the very only true primary and proper end of St. Pauls universal command in these words Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and of the rest of the discourse following For this reason as even our late School Expositors as even Cornelius a Lapide himself though of the same Society with Bellarmine hath it on the said 13. to the Romans that I may not as yet alledge any thing out of the ancient holy Fathers out of Origen Chrisostom Augustine Anselme and others of them who handle directly and of purpose this very subject this reason I say which moved Paul to that general Edict proves manifestly 1. That by higher powers he only mean'd the secular civil or politick powers and consequently by the sword also mean'd no other but the material sword 2. That by omnis anima every soul he mean'd universally also the Faithful without any distinction of Laicks and Clerks or which is the same thing without any kind of exception of Clerks from the universal affection or distribution of the word omnis or word every For this reason was only was as the above Cornelius a Lapide well proves it was out of St. Augustine Psal 118. Clemens Alexandrinus l. 4. Stromatum That in the infancy of the Christian Church even in the very days of the Apostles Christ himself there was a rumour spread that by the Gospel or Doctrine and law of Christ as being a law of grace liberty humane Policies Kingdoms Republicks were quite everted as now amongst such Hereticks as pretend the liberty of the Gospel for with drawing themselves from all kind of humane power is taught That this rumour and calumny had its first origen from the sect of Iudas Galilaeus whereof you may read Acts 5. these Galilees teaching that it was not lawful for the Jews by the law of God or Moyses not even in case of death to pay tribute customes or any other duty to Cesar they being free-born by that law and Caesar deriving no right from it Whereof the Reader may satisfie himself more at large in Iosephus l. 18. Antiquit. 1. That Christ having been himself by descent a Galilaen and reputed one of that Countrey and St. Paul too having in particular preach'd and writ much of Christian liberty or liberty from the yoake of the law and pleasure of men in some other of his Sermons and Epistles though he mean'd a liberty only from the judicial and ceremonial part of the law of Moses and from the evil commands of men some of the beleevers themselves who were in themselves otherwise corrupt or ignorant were inclined to think themselves also free from humane policies and all the power of man That the whole Nation of the Jews were generally infected with that doctrine of Iudas Galilaeus even in those very dayes of Christ and the Apostles as consequently we read that in pursuance thereof they all generally rebelled against the Romans which occasioned the siege and final destruction of Ierusalem and of their whole Nation
under Titus and Vesâ—asâ—an some forty years after the death of Christ Now therefore that of danger that Christians might easily perswade themselves that they were all set free from the laws and power of men by the grace and liberty of the Gospel and that of the consequent danger also of too much scandal to be cast upon them as originally Gallicans and teaching Christian liberty which yet was not rightly understood by some and not of scandal only but of grievous persecutions from Gentil Princes against the religion in general and faith of Christ I say that these dangers fore-seen by the blessed Apostle and his desire of removing such dangers and obstructing also other consequent inconveniencies having been the only cause motive end of that general Edict of his omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit who sees not it was not to his purpose here as not to treat of the spiritual Superiority of Bishops or Pastors or of their spiritual sword or of the obedience or awe beleivers should stand in to either so neither to command or intend that Laicks onely should obey the Lay powers and Clerks the spiritual For if he had intended either those spiritual powers onely or that spiritual sword onely or if he had exempted any at all of the Christians especially so great and considerable a body of them as all their Apostles Evangelists Doctors Prophets Bishops Priests Deacons c. and as all these would prove in time to be who sees not that the secular heathen Princes would think themselves to have a most just cause to rage against them as everting all humane government and power We know and see daily that even Christian Princes even now a days nay even ever since the very first Christian Princes were nor even the most pious and godly of them did ever yet abide that as much as any one individual person how high and holy a Clerk soever should be in their Kingdom and not subject in temporals Therefore the very true primary and proper end of this general edict of Paul concludes against all and every of the above answers no less evidently then the letter or text it self in that whole discourse of Paul Thirdly and yet more particularly and singly as to Bellarmine's own so strange and new and proper invention as I have noted before that some take that answer to be which I have placed as a third answer but certainly his whether it be different or not I am no less certainly perswaded that all disinteressed judicious men will confess that both his reasons for it are convinced again by the very letter of the text or whole context of the Apostles discourse there not onely to be vain pittifull subtilities or rather childish unsignificant captions of words but also to inferre manifest contradiction in that very whole context For though Bellarmine above de Translat Imperij l. 1. c. 2. n. 7. after he had answered Illyricus that S. Paul said not Let every soul be subject to the politick powers but Let every soul be subject potestatibus sublimioribus to the more sublime or higher powers and after he had consequently told Illyricus that before he went about to exalt the politick powers above all souls and by consequence above the Pope himself of whom sayes Bellarmine the chief question is he ought to demonstrate first that the power of the politick Magistrate is more sublime then that of the Ecclesiastical although I say after this Bellarmine interrogates whether S. Paul himself did not openly subject all the faithfull not even the Magistrate excepted to the Bishops where he sayes Obedite prepositis vestris subiacete eis Ipsi enim pervigilant quasi rationem pro animabus vestris reddituri c. Heb. 13.17 And then produces Nazianzâ—n Ambrose Chrysostome and Bernard who all subject Princes to the Church yet I say withall it is plain enough he brings nothing here to purpose or to prove the reasonableness of or any kind of seeming colour in his answer but those two very bad childish arguments which he most unreasonably grounds on the word powers and on the word higher or words more sublime For no man disputes but grants that all the faithfull including the very Magistrate Prince King or Emperour are bound in spiritual matters purely such or as such to obey the spiritual Superiours of the Church clave non errante which is all can be derived or was intended by St. Paul in that passage to the Hebrews or by those Fathers So that so much of Bellarmines allegations here was impertinent What therefore he relyes upon as material is 1. that as he pretends the word potestatibus powers in that general edict of St. Paul may and ought to be understood in the abstract as Logicians speak vz. as importing onely the authority which Princes have and not the concrete of that power or not the Princes themselves as having that power or authority 2. that as he pretends also the word sublimioribus in that same general command of Paul was intended by Paul comparatively not positively and that comparison also intended by Paul to be betwixt the Ecclesiastical power as more sublime in its own nature and the secular as less sublime Behold his two and onely reasons for an answer so inconsistent not onely with that motive and end we have seen before the Apostle had but so contradictory also to the very letter and all kind too of any litteral sense in the letter For who sees not that by the very letter and litteral sense of that whole context it is evidently seen that St. Paul took the word potestatibus powers in the concrete or which is the same thing that by the word powers he mean'd the very secular Princes themselves who had that power which made them higher or sublimer then others For he sayes that whosoever resist that power acquire damnation to themselves And then presently for Princes are not a terrour of good works but of the evil And soon after will you sayes he not fear the power do well and you shall have praise And then immediatly For he is the Minister of God Whence if it be not evident that by the word powers the Apostle intends the Princes themselves and not their authority in the abstract but in the concrete as affecting and acting in and by the Princes or rather the Princes as acting by it I must confess I understand not how any thing at all can be proved out of any text For besides that the powers or the power in the abstract are not is not resisted or feared but in the concrete it is at least evident that Princes who are a terrour and the Minister of God are powers and power in the concrete And yet nothing is more evident nor can be out of any text then that those which are or that which is called the higher or more sublime powers in the first verse omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit are in the
West Yet I confess the first occasion of that writing of Innocent's to the Emperour of Constantinople or that which he intended or at least pretended finally to instruct or advise the Emperour in was very just viz that the same Emperour should beare a greater respect to the Patriarch of Constantinople then to make him sit at the left side of his foot-stool so contrary to the laudable custome of other Christian Emperours and Kings cum alij Reges Principes sayes he Archiepiscopis Episcopissuis sicut debent reverenter assurgant eis juxta sevenerabilem sedem assignent But for any thing else in that epistle of Innocent which relates either directly or indirectly to our present purpose I must confess I see nothing at all but what is quite contrary in his application to the sense to the belief and to the practise too of all Antiquity if peradventure you except not that onely passage where he sayes Quod autem sequitur Regi tanquam praecellenti non negamus quin praecellat Imperator in temporalibus illos dumtaxat qui ab eo suscipiunt temporalia Which yet I for my own part do not except because under the word dumtaxat there lyes much restriction nay and under the word or verb praecellat also Because that dumtaxat restraines the latitude of those who might or should be said in temporals or by reason of their temporals to be under the Emperour and subject and obedient to him to such onely who receave temporals to witt lands revenues or perhaps besides these onely some temporal jurisdiction and consequently excludes all other Clerks from subjection or obedience to the Emperour who receave no such temporals from him albeit they have the benefit of temporal protection from his laws and sword for this last is not by Innocents doctrine as to our present purpose accounted among such temporals as he speaks of here And because this praecellat by reason of its more abstract and more common signification of it self imports not as much as a praecellency in power authority or jurisdiction over those very same Clerks who receave even such temporals of Innocent from the Emperour But however this be of Innocent's meaning by these two words or wary manner of expression by them I am sure he declares his mind plainly in the rest or in his answers to and distinctions of the Emperour's arguments out of Scripture especially of the place out of Peter to be that Clerks are not by the law of God to be subject to the Emperour For the refutation of which answers or distinctions I remit the Reader to what I have said formerly at large out of the law of God and Nature for the subjection of Clerks and to what besides I said before at leingth in answer to Bellarmines arguments for the exemption of Clerks either by the law of God or man or nature Where albeit I have said nothing in particular to that place of Peter or to Innocents quibble upon it as not being vaâ—â—ed by Bellarmine himself and therefore not produced by him for himself yet I have given abundantly what may shew the impertinency of alleadging that place of Peter against me or that quibble of Innocent upon it or even any thing else said by the same Innocent well or ill either in this canon Solicitae benignitatis de Major obed or elsewhere and particularly in cap. Nâ—vit ille de Judicijs Which 〈◊〉 chapter I note particularly because the Catholick Bishop of Ferns alledges it singularly in a letter of his I have as very much relyed upon by the Irish Divines who live abroad in Spain and by them relyed upon as upon a strong argument for a power in the Pope to depose Kings at least ratione peccatâ— and consequently for the unlawfulness to sign our Remonstrance of 61. or 62. which cleerly and expresly disclaims and renounceth any such power in the Pope either upon the account of sin or any other whatsoever but onely in relation to such Kings as hold their Kingdoms in fee from him and who consequently are not absolute Soveraigns or not absolutely the supream Lords of their Kingdoms not even I mean in temporals nor hold of God immediately but of the Pope whom they themselves acknowledg to be the chief truly supream Lord of such Kingdoms though by human right onely But the truth is that no such deposing power in the Pope as to other Kings who do not acknowledg themselves to hold in fee from him can be gathered out of this cap. Nâ—vit ilâ—e de Iudicijs Where if strictly examined Innocent does no more sayes no more upon complaint made to the same Pope Innocent by a King of England against a King of France That he of France though admonished by him several times to keep the treaty sworn and peace agreed upon betwixt them and particularly in relation to the County of Poitiers which England held in fee from France and as agreed upon too by articles of the said treaty and peace mutually sworn did without any regard of his oath or any just cause endeavour to force in hostile manner that fee of Poitiers back again from the possession of the English where I say upon this complaint and for ought appears out of this canon in it self Novit ille de Iudiciis Innocent doth no more but write to the Clergie of France that he deputed a certain French Arch-bishop an other French Abbot to examine the matter of Fact and proceed thereupon to give sentence and besides this sayes no more in this chapter to any such purpose as the said Irish Divines alleadg him for but that the King of France being so Evangelically denounced to the Church according to that rule of the Gospel Si peccaverit in te frater tuus c dic Ecclesiae and complained of as a publick scandalous breaker of a just Peace and religious Oath he the said Innocent did not intend to judg of the Fee being the iudgment of this belong'd to the King of France but onely of the sin committed in the breach of peace and oath Non enim intendimus sayes he judicare de feudo cujus ad ipsum spectat judicium sed decernere de peccatâ— cujus ad nâ—s pertinet sine dubitatione censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus Now whether the said Irish Divines may hence and onely hence conclude their deposing power I mean as much as according to the judgment of the same Innocent himself alone I see nothing at all in all this which may force us to yeeld Innocent his Delegats might have observed all he prescribes herein or in that whole chapter and all which the Gospel allows to him or to the Church in the case that iâ— he and they might in case of such a publick sin in the French King of the Church's admonition and of his contumacy against such admonition have proceeded to excommunicate him evangelically that is might have deprived him
of the communication of the Church and even of that of his own subiects in spiritual things or which is the same thing might have declared him to be thenceforth or until he did hear the Church no better then a Heathen or a Publican and that all the rest of the faithfull should hold him for such until he submitted But it is plain enough that neither Publican or Heathen as such or for being such were by any law deposed from their principalities or deprived of any other temporal rights especially when our Saviour gave that rule being the Roman Emperours their under Governours and Garrisons in Ierusalem and Iury and the Collectors of their publick taxes there were heathens and publicans and held as such by the Jews and by the Apostles and consequently excommunicated evangelically or excluded from their religious rites and yet were not held by either Jews or Christians at least not by the Christians to have forfeited any temporal dominion over them or other right amongst them And it is plain enough for any thing may be known out of this chapter Novit ille de Major obed that Innocent prescribes no more therein for his said Legats or himself but to proceed to an Evangelical censure against that King of France in which censure that as we have now seen of deposition from or deprivation of his Crown or of that see of Poitiers is not involv'd Wherefore then do the said Irish Divines relye on this canon to their said purpose And yet withall I confess that because I know Innocent was elsewhere of their opinion or seem'd at least so cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi and that moreover he certainly practised according to such opinion and practised also as highly almost according to it as any Pope and more frequently then any sate in St. Peters chayre and that he scarce left one King of his time in all Europe but he vexed and shaked by his sentences either of formal deposition or of that which in his doctrine was virtual for the matter although not such according to sound doctrine by excommunication I mean which was praeliminary to the other and which he as many other Popes would have to have other effects then the Gospel annexed to it and that Henricus Spondanus that Catholick Bishop Continuator of the Annals of Baronius is in the long life of the said Innocent a witness beyond exception in this matter of the too too many menaces and actual thunders too of this good Pope against all and singular the said very supream Princes of Europe though in effect he held none supream not even in temporals at least in some cases but himself alone and because it is manifest that however this matter be of his opinion or practise of a power in himself direct or indirect or casual as he phrases it cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi for deposing Princes what he held concerning the exemption of all Ecclesiastick persons at least all Priests appears without contradiction or controule in that epistle of his to the Constantinopolitan Emperour in the foresaid cap. Sollicitae benignitatis de Major obed and because that exemption might be without the other pretension and finally because our present maine purpose requires onely to instance the change in the doctrine or practise of Exemption therefore it is I have thought fit to instance here and annex Innocent immediately after Pope Nicholas though in the mean time I omit Gregory the VII and some others with him whose Histories are so famous especially because this Innocent gives the very same corrupt interpretation of St. Peter's epistle which Nicholas gave before him And yet also I confess there may be very much observed on and very much said against that fine artifice that misterious hook of Innocent which you may discover plainly under that subtle distinction of his in the above cap. Novit ille de Major Obed. Non enim intendimus judicare de feudo c sed decernere de delicto cujus ad nos â—pertinet sine dubitatione censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus A misterious hook indeed whereby if once swallowed all the meerest temporal causes in all Christian Kingdoms and States in the world nay and I mean too in all kind of trades handecrafts or other callings whatsoever must of necessity be decided in the external consistories of the Pope and of his Legats whensoever it shall please his Holiness to erect such Courts either at home in his own country or abroad in all other Countries for his Legats For it is clear enough there are sins whereof for example the Marchant and the Taylor the Lawyer and the Clerk the Councellour and the Client the Statesman and the Souldier the Baker Brewer Shoomaker c may be accused or sins of them or of each of them and at least pretended injustices of the particular laws rules customes of every kind of secular Corporation which may be denounced evangelically to the Pope or to his Legats And therefore it is also clear that by this subtle interpretation made by Innocent of Evangelical correction or of the power of the Church and of the Pope by vertue of it he may were it true hook into his own proper Ecclesiastical consistories all the temporal causes in the world and consequently render all the lay judicatories in the world unsignificant evacuat them all every one among Christians especially if his other text in cap. Per Venerubilem Qui filij sint legittimi were admitted as a rule where he sayes Verum â—â—man in alâ—s Regionibus non solum in Ecclesiae Patriâ—â—nio super quo plenam temporalium gerimus potestatem certis causis inspectio temporalem jâ—â—isdictionem casualiter exercemus and further also consequently might without much difficulty make himself de jure and de facto the sole supream Prince indeed both spiritual and temporal among Christians But forasmuch as it is not my business here to examine this matter any further then to shew the change or difference of opinions and practises betwixt some of the later Popes and the former as to that of acknowledging and yielding obedience or not to the supream lay Princes I proceed and anâ—â—â— to Nicholas and Innocent the â—â—ird Boniface the VIII And I am sure if I had annexed also Innocent the Fourth in particular many others with him whom I do not mention at all I should not do it impertinently But to avoyd too much prolixity I content my self at this present with Boniface the Eight With him above others I end this comparison that it may be rendred the more conspicuous Paul the Apostle said Rom. 13.7 Cui tributum tributum cui vectigal vectigal The succeeding Fathers taught by word and confirmed by deed what Christ himself had taught also by word Matth. 22.21 viz. that what was Cesar's should be paid to Cesar and what he moreover confirmed by deed that is by actual payment
restored them back Severus hystor l. 2. in fine Nor doth Baronius himself tom 4. an 381. n. 110. reprehend him in this matter or at all upon account of usurping on Ecclesiastical persons rights or judgments but onely upon account of having favoured hereticks to wit forasmuch as he restored those three Bishops whom himself had before so lately banish'd Ex quo quidem facinore sayes Baronius sibi necem comparavit But this is a most vain judgment of Baronius For the said Instantius and Priscillianus soon after appealing to Maximus the tyrant Emperour Vsurper and murderer of Gratianus were by him as being or at least pretending to be an earnest Catholick called to his own presence to be judged again by his Imperial authority the Catholick Bishops who accused them desiring this of him most earnestly and were at last condemned by him the one to have his head cut off and the other to be carried to a place of perpetual banishment Several other Bishops also the very same great Catholick Hypocritical Zelot Maximus punish'd in the self same manner some by death and some by banishment Prosper in Chron. Severus l. 2. observing still the Catholick Praelats with much respect and above all St. Ambrose himself notwithstanding he saw very well that Ambrose could not be drawn to approve of his treacherous usurpation but stood still firm to young Valentinian the lawfull Emperour though an Arrian profess'd and consequently an Haeretick Emperour Against whom on that specious pretext of heresy Maximus rebelled and usurped the Empire as being himself a Catholick and pretending onely or at least chiefly to maintain Catholick religion against Arrianisme which infected the young Emperour Valentinian and his mother And yet Baronius might know that this very Maximus who so put even those very heretick or Schismatick Bishops to exile and death whom Gratian restored a little before and was himself therefore and by Gods special ordinance or just permission most cruelly murthered by Maximus if we may believe Baronius for what concern'd the cause of Gods permission of the untimely death of Gratian I say Baronius might know that this very Maximus saw suddenly after as violent and fatal an end of his own Empire and life together by the victorious arms of Theodosius Now to observe that heer which is more to our purpose I confess that Severus reproves the inconstancy of those Catholick Bishops who charg'd Priscillian in that they sufferd him to provoke that is to appeal to the Emperour or that they sufferd the causes of the Church to be judged or determined by a Secular Iudg. But to me it seems plainly that the cause of Priscillian and of the rest was not purely Ecclesiastical For that Priscillian himself was charg'd also with meer lay crimes and that having confess'd his own obscenities he was condemned the same Severus tells And that of such crimes nay indeed of all crimes whatsoever so they were found to be real crimes much more when they disturbed the publick peace or endanger'd it the more sublime the meer Secular powers were the Judges and avengers by strict coercion and corporal punishment or by the material sword and pure force S. Paul teacheth and the perpetual custome in all Christian Kingdoms and States confirmeth Arcadius an Emperour also very orthodox received the accusations against John Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople and thereupon having first ordered a judicial procedure against this great and holy Bishop at last condemned and sent him with a guard of Souldiers farr off to exile Socrates l. 6. c. 16. Pallaâ— in Dialâ—g And certainly Pope Innocent the first of that name who then govern'd the See of Rome where he inveighs bitterly against Arcadius and against Eudoxia his Empress as against most grievous persecuters of so great and so holy a man doth not at all object that Arcadius being a meer lay man usurped a judiciary power in Ecclesiastical matters or so against his own proper Bishop nor that he proceeded so against him out of or by a tyrannical power and not by any legal authority over him in the case but onely reprehends Arcadius in that he had not proceeded justly against Chrisostome or in that he had not made right use of the power which he had in the case and in a word in that he expelled Chrisostome from his Episcopal throne before his cause had been legally and throughly sifted or judged as it ought and consequently without observing the due formalities or even substantial or essential procedure in such case required by the law Ejecisti sayes he ê throno suo rerum judicata magnum totius orbis Doctorem Nicephor l. 13. c. 34. Nor doth Chrisostome himself any where complaine of the Emperour as having usurped a power of judging condemning or banishing him And yet we know he writt to several especially to Pope Innocent many letters fraught with complaints of the Emperours unjust judgment and proceedings against him acknowledging Arcadius or at least supposing him still a legal Judg though unjust as to the sentence in the case Theodosius the younger Emperour known likewise to have been still a most zealous and pious Catholick Prince clap'd in prison Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria Praesident of the General Council of Ephesus and together with him Memnon an other Catholick Bishop albeit this good Prince was in the merit of the cause abused by the false informations of John Patriarch of Antioch and of those other Bishops of his faction who met in a private Council amongst themselves at Ephesus too and separated or absented themselves from the rest or from the publick session house where the said Praesident and generality sate And though after by the great Council of Ephesus to wit when all the Bishops met there the second time the cause of Cyril having been examined he was and all of his way declared innocent and John and his complices condemn'd by their Ecclesiastical sentence yet or notwithstanding all this could not the said great Catholick prisoners Cyril Memnon c be set at liberty out of prison not even I say by the authority of this very great and true Oecumenical Council All this great Council did and all they could do as to this of the liberty of these prisoners was to write and petition to the Emperour by their Legats sent of purpose and in this behalf to his Majesty and petition him by this very tenour and forme of words Nunc verò his scriptis per hos Legatos â—ientissimos Episcopos vestra pia genua pretensia manibus attingimus ut quae â—i lenter acta sunt cum sanctissimis pientissimis Episcopis Cyrillo Memnone nullumque canonibus robur habentia prorsus irrita sint c. Relat. Syn. Ephes. apud Cyril in Apologetico And then soon after conclude thus Oramus igitur Vestram Majestatem soluite nos illos a vinculis vinctis enim fratribus ac Praesidibus sancte nostrae synodi etiam nos quodammodo
their own civil power both executed and decreed such corporal or civil punishment and consequently who were the sole authoritative Judges of both Priests Bishops and Popes I mean as to inflict or not inflict such corporal or civil punishments on them be the crime whatsoever you please Lay or Ecclesiastical But if you would see yet some instance or some example in particular fact of the continued possession of that authority in Princes even after I mean the tenth century of Christian Religion was compleat You may reflect on Conradus the Emperour who in presence of Benedict the ninth Roman Pontiff of that name sharply arose against and roughly laid hands that is with his own hands seized on Heribertus Archbishop of Millan as guilty of treasonable practices against the Empire albeit this Heribeâ—t saved himself after by flight and in the presence too of the same Pope Benedict in his hearing and seeing all was done decreed banishment from their Sees against three other Bishops and effectually cast them to exile the Bishop of Cremona Vercellis and Placentia Hermannus in Chron. an 1037. and Baronius eod an tom 11. Where this great Annalist Baronius divines after his own manner that surely Conradus did not this or that without consulting first and obtaining the good leave of the Roman Pontiff dreaming so what the Historians of that age were ignorant of did wholy pass over in silence without question because there was no such consultation held with the Pope no such leave asked from him for it is not likely that if any such had been they had given us no kind of hint of it And so too this prophetical or conjectural Annalist gives us his own very vain imagination for a record where he sayes that a suddain pestilence followed to revenge this fact or this usurpation of Conradus But if Conradus with licence of the Pope proceeded so against these criminal Bishops wherefore doth Baronius invent this revenge of an usurpation that was not in the case if his dream be true So little is our great interpreter of God's judgments and scourges consistent or constant to himself And if any should say for him that he meaned not that God reveng'd by such a plague any usurpation of Conrade being the Pope gave his consent also but only mean'd that God thereby reveng'd some other injustice in the proceedings albeit authorized by the Imperial and Papal powers joyntly or both together then I say that such meaning or interpretation of Baronius were it infallibly true in such meaning is nothing to his purpose here or against mine at all as the judicious Reader may himself easily see without any further illustration or observation by me And you may also reflect on Henry King of the Romans afterwards Emperour and the second of this name who continuing and persevering in the possession of the right or authority of coercing and punishing Clergiemen in imitation of his Predecessors wel-nigh a thousand years deprived of his dignity Widgerus Archbishop of Ravenna nay and the Pope himself of his Papacy Gregory the Fifth of that name Hermannus in Chron. Of other Henry's Emperours of Rome I say nothing Because in their time and by the occasion of the too great abuse by Clergiemen of the reverence to and patience of Princes with the Roman See in particular and Ecclesiastical Order in general nay and peradventure also by the occasion of the neglect and sluggishness of the Princes themselves that I may not here enlarge on or give other most certainly true causes as likewise by occasion of the many great priviledges formerly granted by Emperours and other Kings to all Priests and Bishops albeit amongst all such priviledges there was never any such to them in general as an exemption in temporal matters from the supream civil power and moreover by occasion of some special priviledges granted to the Roman See alone and to the Bishops thereof and finally by occasion of the vast both spiritual and temporal Revenues which these Roman Pontiffs were in the dayes of the other Henries possessors of they I mean the Roman Pontiffs were then arrived to such a height of worldly greatness and strength that seeing the former and indeed formidable power of the Roman Empire divided and subdivided in to so many different unsubordinate Kingdoms and seeing themselves could hardly ever want some one or other Prince amongst all to embrace their Papal quarrel against any other either Prince King or Emperour and considering also the great ignorance or blind zeal of many then who as their affections lead them or as their Preachers told them in some or many Provinces of Europe took all the Dictates of Roman Pontiffs for so many infallible or divine oracles pursuant to the doctrine hereof also first invented soon after vented by Gregory the VII I say that by these occasions and by their own improvements of them the Popes were in the times of the other succeeding Henries come to such a height of glory and greatness that they dared resist as they did Kings and Emperours in what quarrels soever and particularly in this of the pretended exemption not of themselves only but of all Bishops of the world nay and of all Priests too nay and also of all other Clerks of whatsoever lower degree from all earthly power add in all criminal causes of what nature soever pretending that such persons as being dedicated to God had no other truly proper and supream Governour or Prince on earth but themselves alone the Popes of Rome And therefore being it was then or much about that time this controversie begun which I have disputed on hitherto I have resolved to bring no instances of other Princes or Bishops since that time or of that time but content my self with these of more antiquity as best sorting with my purpose which only is and was along in this Section to shew the former doctrine of the holy Fathers and their Exposition of St. Paul 13. Rom. confirmed by the practice and in so many particular instances of both Ecclesiastical Prelats and Christian Princes in the more ancient Ages of the Church and for so many ages together all along quite contrary to both the doctrine and practice of some few or many if you please Ecclesiasticks in the later and worser and in this by little and little degenerated ages of Christianity And yet I would have my Readers take notice that I could furnish them were it necessary with a cloud of witnesses and a cloud of such particular instances both in the very said time and after the very said time of even the self same other Henries also and even also all along in every age of these very latter and worser until this present wherein we live and in this present year of it 1667. and could furnish them with these witnesses and produce to them these other such particular instances in matter of fact of Bishops and of Princes and of Roman Catholick Princes too for such only
vniversae personae regni qui de Rege tenent in capite habent possessiones suas de dominico Regis sicut Baroniam inde respondent justitiis ministris Regis sequuntur faciunt omnes consuetudines regias rectitudines sicut ceteri Barones debent interesse judiciis curiae domini Regis cum Baronibus usque perveniatur in judicio ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem 4. Si quisquam de Proceribus Regni diffortiaverit Archiepiscopo vel Episcopo vel Archidiacono de se vel de suis justitiam exhibere Rex debet justitiare si fortè aliquis disfortiaverit domino Regi rectitudinem suam Archiepiscopi vel Episcopi Archidiaconi debent eum justitiare ut domino Regi Satisfaciat 5. Catalla eorum qui sunt in Regis forisfacto non detineat Ecclesia vel â—â—meterium contra justitiam Regis quia ipsius Regis sunt sive in Ecclesiis sive extra fuerint inventa 6. Filii rusticorum non debent ordinari absque assensu domini de cujus terra nati dignoscentur Fourthly you are to observe out of the same Authors Baronius Spondanus c That notwithstanding the principal or grand quarrel was concerning these and those in all sixteen heads yet the more immediat motive of the Saints death was only his refusal of giving absolution from Ecclesiastical censures but upon a certain condition to some Bishops after the King was reconciled to him For to pass by at present all other matters happen'd in prosecution of the said great difference from the year 1164. wherein the Saint presented those heads to Pope Alexander and 1170. wherein being reconciled to the King in France and with his licence return'd to England he suffer'd at Canterbury and to say nothing at all here of the Kings excessive cruelty against the favourers of St. Thomas during those six years after of his exile nor of the Saints earnest prosecution of the grand quarrel and of his own part against the King abroad in the Papal Court both in France and Rome when that Court was removed to Rome in the interim nor of the first meeting design'd 'twixt the Pope himself and the King to determine the controversie but frustrated or rather impeded wholly because the King would not assent to the Saints being present nor of that other meeting which came after to be held about the same controversy twixt the same King of England Henry the second and King Lewis of France even the Saint himself too being admitted to be present nor of three or four solemn Embassies even along to Rome about the same matter from the same Henry and so many more of Bishops Archbishops and Cardinals part of them French and part Italian sent from Pope Alexander to Henry nor of the different judgments or affections of the same Cardinal Embassadours or Legats and how some complain'd they were corrupted by the Kings money nor of King Lewis of France though otherwise both a pious Prince and great favourer of Thomas his having been dissatisfied with our Saint's rigour at the conference with Henry wherein Lewis interceded for him to Henry nor of the said Lewis's favouring again mightily the Saint and in his quarrel undermining closely at Rome King Henry nor of the Legantine power for the Kingdom of England excepting only the Diocess of York committed by the Pope to our Saint notwithstanding his being still a banish'd man in France nor of the revocation or moderation and suppression for a time of that same power upon new applications made to Rome by Henry not also of the renewed confirmation after all this of Thomas in all the fulness of the same power extending even to the Kings own person and to the inderdiction of his whole Kingdom if it pleased Thomas nor of Thomas's condemning while yet he was in France eâ—iled the controverted laws especially and namely some chief heads of them by virtue of his said Legantine power excommunicating also all the advisers upholders observers c. of them and absolving moreover all the Bishops from the oath they took firmly to observe them nor of the excommunications he moreover pronounced nominatim as well against the Kings Embassadours to the Emperour Frederick as against several others in England nor of the other difference happened twixt him and the Archbishop of York with his associat Bishops who joyntly consecrated the young King at the old Kings or Fathers command and consecrated him so in the Diocess of Canterbury against the express inhibition sent them both by himself the ordinary of that Diocess and whose right or priviledg such consecration was and by Pope Alexander too nor of the excommunication also and other censures fulminated partly therefore against the said Archbishop and his consecratours the Bishops of London and Salisbury and fulminated even by the very self same Pope Alexander and partly for having sworn to maintain or observe the 16. controverted laws nor of the preparations made by Thomas to interdict by his own Legantine power both King and Kingdom nor of the peremptory day prefixed the King even also by the Pope himself and by some other extraordinary Legats sent him to agree with Thomas at his peril by the said day nor of the final and terrible threat indeed sent also by them to the King from the said Alexander to witt that if he would not restore Thomas immediatly and without any condition at all of observing the controverted laws His Holyness would deal with him as he had all ready done with Frederick that is bereave him by a judicial sentence of his Crown and Dignity rayse both his own people and forraigners against him c nor of the absolute reconciliation of Thomas by such threats to the King on the Feast of Mary Magdalen and his solemn admission then to his Majesty by the mediation of the said last extraordinary Legats the Archbishop of Roan and Bishop of Nivern and without any condition at all on S. Thomas's side nor of the King 's falling off immediatly in some things from his promise to the Legats by denying to restore to the Church some lands which Thomas claimed as its proper right nor lastly of the new threats of Interdict from Pope Alexander for not restoring these lands I say that to pass by at present and say nothing here of all these and some other particulars happen'd in the prosecution of the principal controversy twixt the said King Henry and S. Thomas from the year 1164. until 1170 it is manifest even also out of Barâ—nius himself that after the King had newly promised Thomas to restore those lands when he I mean the King should be in person return'd from Normandy to England and that Thomas himself laying aside all further delayes of his own return to his own See of Canterbury having the Kings licence to return and the Dean of Salisbury to safe-guard him along by the King's command had accordingly embarked and was landed though
upon his landing all the Ports being by the Archbishop of York Bishop of Lendon and Bishop of Salisbury's directions beset with Souldiers his baggage was narrowly search'd of purpose to seize on all his Bulls and letters from the Pope it is manifest I say that presently after this affront when or assoon as he was come to Canterbury the Kings Ministers sollicited by the said Bishops of York London and Salisbury who were then also come to Canterbury of purpose to vex Thomas declared unto him in the Kings name that he should absolve the Bishops who were suspended and excommunicated by the Pope because what was so done against them redounded to the Kings injury and to the subversion of the customs of the Kingdom That to this declaration or demand Thomas answered first Non esse judicis inferioris soluere sententiam superioris that it was not the part of an inferiour judg to solve the sentence of a superiour And secondly answer'd when others more urgently press'd him and threatned him in the Kings behalf that for the peace of the Church and reverence he boare to the King he would run the hazard of giving absolution to those Bishops so they would swear in forma Ecclesia in the then usual form of the Church to obey the commands of the great Pontiff That hereupon when the rest of the Bishops began to yield as not thinking it safe to oppose themselves to the Church and impugne the Apostolical sanctions for the preservation of the customs of the Kingdom the man enemy of peace sayes Spondanus out of Baronius and author and propagator of all dissention from the very beginning of the troubles the Archbishop of York disswaded them advising that they should rather go to the King without whose consent sayes he such an oath could not be taken That following this advice they all immediatly crossed the Sea to the King then as yet in France and adding sin to sin sayes Baronius or his Epitomizer Spâ—ndanus sent messengers back to the young King in England â—â—o should perswade him That Thomas had sought to depose his Majesty That finally with the Father King Henry the Second himself having been otherwise before ill enough affected to Thomas though lately so as we have seen reconciled those ill advisers wrought so much by their accusations that wholy transported with rage he was heard often to let fall those fatal complaints and curses of all who had been bred with him whom he had so favoured and advanced that none of all would riâ— him of one Priest who so troubled the Kingdom and sought to despoyle him of his Royal Dignity And therefore also what is the scope of this fourth observation is manifest viz that notwithstanding the grand quarrel which continueâ— so long was about those 16. Heads of laws or customs yet the more immediat motive of the Saints death was onely that his refusal of giving absolution to those censur'd Bishops after the King was reconciled to him without any condition of tying him to the observation of the said Heads nay rather with express promise made by the King to the Pope and his said last Legats that he would no more urge their observance For as the said Baronius and Spondanus tel the particulars of this last motive out of the often mention'd Acts of his life and out of the 73. epistle of S. Thomas himself which was his last to Pope Alexander as they relate also out of the same Acts and other Historians and epistles of the Saint all other particulars given by me in this fift observation so they tell us out of the same Acts wherein as to this now all other Histories agree how the Courtiers being much moved to indignation against Thomas by these words of the King four of them conspiring the death of Thomas and immediatly therefore sayling into England and being come to Canterbury and with their swords drawn on the 29. of Dec. 1170. scarce a month after the Saint was return'd from his long exile then there broke violently into the Church when and where the good Archbishop was at evening prayers with his Monks and other Clerks and furiously calling for him by his name and the Saint hereupon being come towards them mildly and after reproving the Sextons for endeavouring to shut the Church doors and to keep out these murtherers saying that the Church was not to be kept or defended after the manner of camps non esse Ecclesiam castrorum more custodiendam telling the murtherers he was ready to suffer death for God and for asserting justice and the liberty of the Church and commanding them under excommunication not to hurt any other of his either Monk Clerk or Laick and lastly bowing down his head as in prayer and recommending himself and the cause of the Church to God to the blessed Virgin to the holy Patrons of that his own particular Church of Canterbury and to S. Denis by name and in this Christian posture expecting the fatal strokes he received them withall constancy whereby in an instant his bloud and brain mixed together with his dead trunk covered the sacred pavement Whence appears undoubtedly that whatever the former differences were twixt the King and our Saint the sole immediat later difference and onely cause of those fatal exclamations of the Kings which made or occasioned those four unfortunate gentlemen to commit so prodigious a Sacriledg was his above recited refusal of absolution to York and the other censur'd Bishops unless they would promise in forma Ecclesiae consueta to stand to the judgment of the Pope Fiftly you are to observe how it is so farr from appearing out even of Baronius or Spondanus that S. Thomas of Canterbury did break or would breake with the King or have any difference at all with him upon every of the above 16. Heads individually separatly taken as it is certain on the contrary 1. That even Pope Alexander himself even in a publick consistory where also Thomas himself was present allowed of the six last as tollerable 2. That the same Pope writing in the year 1169. epist 11. and epist 30. to the said King Henry the Second and his Bishops of England even then when the contest was in the very height took notice onely of two points in as much as he onely therein admonish'd the King most earnestly to suffer that the vacant Churches might be provided for by canonical election of Bishop and commanded the Bishops to excommunicate all both receivers and givers of lay investitures and to see that all such persons should be effectually shâ—nned by all the faâ—â—â—â— 3. That Polydore Virgiâ— in Henric. 2. â— XIII Histor Angl. tels us expresly and pâ—ainly that the grands or chief caâ—â—e of S. Thomas of Canterburys so great and long contest with his King Henry the second was that he observed this King daily advancing such Priests to Ecclesiastical dignities and even Bishopricks as were leâ—â— deserving and doing so as the King pleaded
for himself by veâ—â—â—â— of the Norman laws in force which empowered him to bestow such Ecclesiastical preferments and dignities on those he thought 〈◊〉 and consequently observed 〈◊〉 takeing a direct course to break all the authority and dignity of the Sacerdotal order and labouring mightily to bend all right and law whether soever he pleased nam cum Thomasvir summa integritate atque prudentia cerneret Regem quotidie sacerdotes minus idoneos aut eligere Episcopos aut ad aâ—d perducere sacerdotia ac ex praescripto Normannicarum legum jure ut ille aicbat suo utendo nihiâ—â— a â—â—jorum consuetudine atque concessis alienunt faciendo omnem sacerdotalis ordinis authoritatem dignitat emque frangere demum ius fasque coâ—ari trahere quo vellet priâ—â— cum admonuit c. And sixtly your are to observe several passages in that most exact latin relation or latin liâ—e of S. Thomas written and publish'd by Matthew Parker in his Antiquitates Brittannicae amongst other lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury To which so exact relation yet of Parker I do not by any mâ—ans remit you as that I do my self nor would have you good Reader to approve any of his expressions where they are to the contempt prejudice or dishonour of St. Thomas being this Matthew Parker was of an other communion that is a Protestant and even also too the very first Protestant Archbishop placed in the See of Canterbury under Queen Elisabeth and consequently no great adorer or admirer of S. Thomas but remit you to it rather as well for the better justification of S. Thomas in his grand controversy as for the great illustration of my own Answers in some particulars to the argument grounded against me on the contrary And you are to note that Parker gives you in his margent those ancient Catholick Historians of England out of whom he takes his said most exact relation as to the matter though not as to his own in everent words in some passages and gives you Houeden Walter Coventren Roff. Histor Ioranal Hist Roger de Cestriae William Cantuariens Matthew Paris Florilegus Heribertus Arch. Nicholas Trivet Radulph de Duceto Gemblacen Sigibertut Allanus Abbas Theokesheriensis Annal. Eccles. August Aurea hystor part 2. Matthew Westmonast Gervasius Therefore out of this relation partly and partly in order to it so given by Matthew Parker who questionless might have had more then any other of his days all the Records both printed books and ancient manuscrips of this Saints life if onely those which are said to be in the Vatican be excepted whereof notwithstanding he seems to have had a copy for Heribertus whom he frequently quotes in the Margent was one of the four compilers of the Vatican life you are to observe to my purpose and even to the Saints advantage and for his justification 1. How when he had been pitch'd upon by the King to be chosen Archbishop against his own will he declared freely to the â—ame King that if his Majesty would have him chosen his Majesty must expect opposition from him in the concerns of Ecclesiastical rights or immunities whenever entrench'd upon by his Majesty or civil officers 2. That the Priest accused of murder was not convict by witnesses nor by his own confession though he sailed in that was called canonical or legal purgation And yet for failing herein was punish'd as much as the Archbishop could punish him and as much too as the law required he should be that is was degraded and cloyster'd to do perpetual pennance during life and even that strict pennance which the canons laws and customs of England prescribed 3. That albeit of the crime of the Chanon Phillip Bâ—â—is nothing in particular is written by our Historians besides that of his reviling the King's Judges when he was spre'd to their tribunal yet the Archbishop not onely had him whip'd or scours'd publickly but also deprived of all Ecclesiastical benefices and offices â— That it was onely by due course of law our holy Archbishop recovered those landâ— as of right belonging to the Church of Canterbury whereof or of which 〈…〉 such complaints were made to the King 5. That for having 〈◊〉 â—â—s Seal of Chancellourship to the King to Narmandy and so quitted himself of that office he did nothing against the law of God or man nay or any thing but what he was licenced to do by the young King Henry the Son at such time as he consented to the election and was consecrated in the said young King's owâ— presence as the Saint himself pleased for himself publickly in the Parliament at Westminster 6. That for his having hindered the payment of the yearly contribution from every hyde of land he did not hinder any free and voluntary contribution of such payment but the exaction of it as of an assessment laid by the Kings own warrant and to be paid as a duty in the case into his own excheque whereas by the law or custom of the land there was not in the then case any such duty of eâ—action and assessment of such money to be paid into the Kings Treasury 7. That those 16. Heads of laws or customs about which the grand and long contest was are acknowledg'd here by Matthew Parker himself not to have been as yet then either laws or customs of the land though Henry the Second alleadg'd them and would have them as such and as the laws or customs of his grand Father but onely were conceived or written by Henry the first but never by him or other after him till Henry the Second pass'd so into laws or customs and that Thomas of Canterbury reflecting hereupon gave it amongst other reasons for his falling back from his forced oath at Clarendone and for his not confirming by his seal as was expected what he had so formerly sworn ex metu caâ—ente in virum constantem 8. That the four Squires who murther'd him demanded three things of him to be done The first was that he should do homage to the young King for his Barony the second that such Clerks as he brought with him into the Kingdom should take such an oath to the same King as would be prescribed to them for the security of the Kingdom and the third was that he should absolve the Bishops and other excommunicated persons from those Ecclesiastical censures which they had incurr'd 9. That S. Thomas denyed none of all but onely with this caution the two last that the oath to be offred to himself or those Clerks should be such an oath as might be justly or by law required of them and that those Bishops and other excommunicated persons who had done manifest injury to him and to his Church of Canterbury for which injuries partly they were excommunicated should first by oath promise to make satisfaction or repair the prejudices and injuries so done by them And that for such his answers which was but very just they immediatly next
being there was no law divine at all obliging him to the contrary nor any humane either civil or Ecclesiastical that could oblige him to the contrary and in the case where of one side he saw the three Estates of the Kingdom consenting to the King in those matters controverted and on the other the so powerfull and passionat a King fully resolved to ruine him and all his partakers But I say this onely as in relation to the objective connexion or being of things and laws in themselves not to that of the same things or laws as they perhaps appeared otherwise in that holy zealous Bishop's apprehension or misapprehension of them or of some of them or of all or of some circumstances which by an unerring judgment ought to be or would be considered And however I by no means say that either according to his own apprehension he was bound under sin to conform to that Kings will in any of all those Instances nor that abstracting from all then present circumstances he was so bound according to or by the very objective nature of the things or laws in themselves whatever they were subjectively in his conception For there is a great deal of difference betwixt saying that he might without sin have done so and that he was bound under sin to do so Second reason That very ancient and at least some of them contemporary Catholick and even some of them also Ecclesiastick persons and authors too of great esteem credit and faith seem partly in their relations of matters of fact and partly too in their own judgments delivered of purpose on such matter and seem also manifestly enough to condemn our Saints too much rigour in not submitting to what Henry the Second desired of him For during the Saints exile of what passed after that Lewis of France and Henry the Second of England were made friends for lately before they were at warr and that Henry went to see Lewis to Paris and that amongst other matters some overtures of reconciliation twixt the same Henry and Thomas of Canterbury were made by Lewis St. Thomas himself being then personally at the French Court though not appearing then before his own King but sending his desires in writing to him amongst which this was that his Majestie would restore him to his Bishoprick restore also the fruits or revenews of his said Bishoprick detain'd from him and received by whomsoever during his exile and moreover yet would restore him to all the other lands taken from him after he was made Archbishop and after that the King had answered to these demands that he could restore nothing to him who freely of himself without any compulsion had deserted his own Church by his voluntary flight and so had rendred it or made it to be accounted or held pro derelicta as forsaken and given him just occasion to make use of his Royal power in applying the vacant fruits to other persons according as the law and custom of the Kingdom was in such cases and yet that he was ready to give him all due satisfaction before either the King of France himself or the Parliament of Paris or even before the Vniversity of Paris wherein so many learned and disinteressed persons were out of many different Provinces and Nations and after that King Lewis and other of his Court present at this answer had been by it reconciled to Henry no less then they had till then and in relation to St. Thomas been extreamly prejudiced against and averss from him and that hereupon immediatly Thomas being admitted to the presence had prostrated himself at King Henry's feet saying these words Domine Rex totam causam unde inter nos orta est dissentio tuo committo arbitrio salvo honore Dei and after that King Henry being much troubled at thiâ— adâ—eâ—tion salvo honore Dei had called Thomas an unmindful ingrateful person for all his royal munificence favours to him and turning himself to the King of France had said as followeth I say that of what passed then in such a presence Abbas Theokesburiensis writes in these words Et ad Gallum conversus Quicquid isti inquit displicuerit dicet honori Dei esse contrarium Sed ne videar vel Dei vel suo honori in aliquo velle resistere hoc tantum postulo Multi in Anglia extiterunt Reges quorum quidam majori quidam minori authoritate atque ditione fuerunt quam ego sum Multi rursus Archiepiscopi Cantuarienses praeter hunc magni atque sancti viri Itaque quod officii suorum antecessorum maximus meorum minimo praestitit hoc mihi Thomas praestet acquiescam Quae cumdixisset Rex ab astantibus undique acclamatum est Rex satis se humiliat Cumque Thomas aliquantisper siluisset Gallus quid injuit Domine Archiepiscope vis esse major sanctis viris vel major Petro Quid dubitas Ecce pax pro foribus And writes moreover that to this question of King Lewis of France Thomas of Canterbury answered that the condition of those and these times or of the times of his Predecessours and of his own were not the same Illos sayes he as the same Author relates his words pedetentim Reges ad Christum obsequio allexisse cum omnia quae ad religionem spectarent uno memento perficere non poterant se ab his non esse recessurum quae jam Ecclesiae acquisita atque incrifacta sunt Praeterea lapsos illos in multis ut homines ipsumque Petrum singulos fuisse quorum exempla sequi necesse non haberet crevisse Ecclesiae facultates semper constantia Praelatorum quas suae jam acquisitas Ecclesiae ut diminuantur nunquam esse passurum And the same Author partly and partly Matthew Paris write that upon this answer of Thomas the Nobility of both Kingdoms France and England there present imputed to this extraordinary stiffness and rigour of Thomas that a perfect peace and reconciliation was not concluded 'twixt the King and him at that very time and place and said it was unfit that a voluntary fugitive from his own Countrey should be maintain'd in France That however so many and so powerful were the intercessors for him that questionless the King and he had then agreed if he had not so rashly added the Proviso salvo honore Dei that the King proffered him all kind of security preter osculum pacis but that the Archbishop refused all other conditions of peace Finally that when the Assembly was parting or breaking up the Bishops and other Peers who were mediators in the matter upbraided the Archbishop to his face Quod semper superbus elatus sapiensque in oculis suis fuisset propriaeque semper sectator voluntatis quod per ipsum ex parte jam destructa penitus cito destrueretur Ecclesia So these Catholick Authors as to their relation of some part of the matter of fact and as to their relation also of the Saints too
by whom or wherein Thomas of Canterbury after some ages and upon a review of his life or actions and knowledge of his nefarious turbulencies and tragedies and of his intollerable arrogancy in raising himself above the royal power laws and dignity as he sayes was so condemn'd It seems he was either ashamed to name the person or raign of Henry the eight in such a matter and in opposition to such a Saint or verely he would impose on his unskilfull Reader and make him think it might peradventure have been so by a King and so in a time that was not reputed Schismatical by the Romanist's themselves and thereby would wholly undermine the credit of a Saint who certainly could be no true Saint if Parker was either a true Bishop in the truth and unity of the Catholick Church or true Christian in the truth and integrity of the Catholick Religion And I give it moreover to take notice of his wilful imposture where he sayes that that nameless King found out what kind of man Thomas was what evilt he had raised c. and sayes also that that nameless King found out all this in a great Conneil of all the Prelats and Peers of the Kingdom meaning so to impose on his Reader as a truth without as much as the authority of any writer for he quotes none in this nor could but against all truth that the Bishops of England in that Kings time concurr'd with him in his judgment or condemnation of Thomas of Canterbury for a traytor viz. against the Kings person or people of England or their laws or all three For certainly he could not be on any rational ground declared traytor or even to have been such at any time in his life not to speak now of the instance of his death or of any time after his reconciliation to Henry the Second but upon one of these three grounds or as having acted either against the Kings own person or royal rights or against the liberties of the people or against the sanctions of the municipal laws of England And O God of truth who is that is versed in the Chronicles of England can imagine any truth in this sly insinuation of Parker concerning that of the Bishops to have concurr'd with Henry the Eight in the condemnation or prophanation and sacriledge committed against St. Thomas of Canterbury so many hundred years after his holy life and death and so many hundred years after he had possessed not England alone but all the Christian world with the certain perswasion of his sanctity attested so even after his death by such stupendious miracles at his tomb and wrought there at or upon his invocation and by such stupendious and known miracles I say that Parker himself hath not the confidence as much as to mutter one word against the truth and certainty of their having been or having been such Nay who is it can upon a a sober reflection perswade himself that either Henry the Eight himself or any other whatever and how even soever atheistical Councellor of his could pretend any as much as probable ground in natural reason laying aside now all principles of Religion to declare this Thomas of Canterbury so long after his death to have dyed a traytor nay I say more or to have lived so or to have been so at any time in his life T is true that in all branches and each branch of the five membred complex of those first original and lesser differences which preceded that great one of the sixteen customs he for some part did not comply with the Kings expectation and for other parts positively refused to obey the Kings pleasure or even command But so might any other Subject and might I say without being therefore guilty of treason nay without being guilty of any other breach of law or conscience had he the law of the land and liberty of a Subject of his side as Thomas of Canterbury had in each of these five original differences And that he had so the law of the land for him even in that very point of them which Henry the Second took most to heart that I mean of the two criminal Clergymen besides all what I have given before at large of those very laws to prove it this also is an argument convincing enough that Henry the Second was not where he had the law of his side a man to be baffled by any Subject whatsoever nor would be so ceremonious as to call so many Councils or Parliaments of Bishops and other Estates to begg that which by law he had already in his power without their consent And therefore certainly had the law of the land been at that time for him that is for the ordinary coercion of criminal Clerks in his lay Courts and in what case soever or even in case of felony or murder committed by Clerks he had without any further ceremony at least after he saw the Archbishop refuse to comply with his desire or obey his command and after he saw also the Priest was in the very Ecclesiastical Court convict of murder sent his own Officials to force him away to and before the lay Judges and sent his Guards too or Souldiers were this necessary Neither of which he as much as attempted to do And therefore had we no other argument who sees not that it is clear enough out of this very procedure that the Archbishop committed no treason in this very matter wherein of any of also the branches of that whole five membred complex he most positively and plainly opposed that King though by such a kind of opposition as might become a Subject that is by an opposition of dissent without any interposition of arms or force 2. T is true also that after this Thomas of Canterbury opposed mightily but with such a kind opposition as I have now said all those sixteen heads of Henry the Second pretended by him to have been the Royal Costoms of his Grandfather and that after giving a forced consent and taking a forc'd oath to maintain them he retracted again freely and conscientiously his said consent and oath and refused to give his hand or seal for introducing or establishing them But I am sure there was no treason in this not only because he saw or apprehended they were against the former laws and for an evil end too press'd by that King so violently but also because he saw or apprehended that the very pretence was false that is that some of them had never been customes Is it not lawful without treason nay or other breach of law for any Peer and so great a Peer as the Archbishop of Canterbury to deny his own assent in Parliament or even to revoke and for as much as belongs to himself his own former assent at least when otherwise his conscience is wounded and when he proceeds no further by force of arms and that the laws is yet only in deliberation to be establish'd but not
York and London laugh'd him to scorn in his own presence London would have with his own hands forc'd his Archiepiscopal Cross out of his hands for the Saint himself carried his own Cross in his own hands that day to Court or to that Parliament Some came to him there and then and told him that his death was sworn by his adversaries à Regalibus as Houeden ad an 1164. relates it The Earls of Cornwal and Leister came to him where he sate to bid him hear the sentence they came to pronounce against him from the Barons notwithstanding his appeal And Thomas being in such a stress commanded them on pain of excommunication to pronounce no sentence against him that day because he had appeal'd to the Popes presence And while they return'd with this answer of his to the King slipt out alone got a Horseback and one of his Servants who was there and saw the gate shut and the Guards astonish'd and a bunch of Keyes hanging hard by lighted by chance on the right key open'd the gate no man opposing and he rode peaceably to the Chanons Regular chang'd at night his habit and took a boat privatly for Flanders to save his life What treason was this None by nature of such flight in it self nor any by any law that was then nor indeed by any binding law of man that could be in the case The law of nature gives leave to even the greatest criminal to save his life by flight when he makes no other opposition or any by force of arms or forcible resistance And Christ himself said to his own Apostles and by them to Thomas of Canterbury and such others in such cases as went against their conscience Cum persecuti fuerint vos in una civitate fugite in aliam And if King Henry refused to give leave to Thomas of Canterbury when a little before his Appeal he demanded it to leave the Kingdom and that after his Appeal he departed without any more asking or obtaining such leave that matters nothing to render him guilty of treason for the reasons before given or even to render him guilty of any other misdemeanour or even of as much as any culpable disobedience for he had leave in the case from the King of Kings and from his general law for all Christians and no positive law of man much less personal precept of man can take away that liberty among Christians because there is no law nor precept amongst Christians understood to bind against the law of God or to bereave a man of that liberty and power which he hath from the law of God and nature at least in such a case which concerns the preservation of his life when it is in such evident hazard Nor will it be to any purpose to alledge the law or custom of England since the raign of William Rufus who begun it by his bare Edict as Polydore Virgil sayes l. x. Hystor Anglic. and upon a wicked occasion which the said Rufus's general expilation of all sorts and estates of people both of the Layery and Clergie and for an unmerciful end also to wit least they should elsewhere find any redress or remedy of their evils being that as Cicero sayes those evils are more tollerable which we hear then which we feel which Edict was that none should depart the Kingdom without his Pass for it is answered that the Law or Custom of England ever since and in pursuance of that Edict of Rufus either is not at all that none shall depart England without the Kings Pass as we see by daily experience it is not but only that none shall depart when he is served with a Writ ne exeas regno or were it so even in Henry the Second's dayes and in order to the very Clergie as I say it could could not be then when they were restored to all their former liberty and this too by the very Laws of Henry the First and laws and practice also at least as to this point and many others of King Stephen and yet I say were it so even at the time of our Saints Controversie at Northampton with Henry the Second as I am sure it was not the law of nature and law of Christ dispensed with our Saint for his flight against the letter but not against the rational sense of such a law of the Land or of such a Custom or whatever else you call it And it will be also to as little purpose to alledge here against St. Thomas what Houeden tells us ad an 1165. how all cryed after him upon his going out of the Room and getting to Horse whether do you go Traytor For so Houeden tells it in express tearms Dum autem sayes he praedicti Comites redirent ad Regem cum responso illo Archiepiscopus exiuit à thalamo progrediens per medium illorum uenit ad Paiefridum suum ascendit exivit ab aula omnibus clamantibus post eum dicentibus Quo progrederis proditor Expecta audi judicium tuum This I say will be to as little nay less purpose to be alleadg'd For Hoveden there doth but relate barely matter of fact and the cry of the ignorant flattering multitude And we know such a cry makes no man a Traytor indeed And we know his very Judges how unconscientious or incompetent how malicious or ill affected or how fearful soever they were not to comply in all things with their King against Thomas gave no such sentence against him as indeed they could not with any kind of colour being the said King had no other pretence to get him sentencâ—d by them but that Thomas refused to give a second account for the administration of which and of the accounts of which he had been long before legally acquitted both by the Judges and by the young King himself ideo amplius nolo inde placitare said our Saint Quod cum Regi constaret sayes Hoveden dixit Baronibus suis cito facite mihi judicium de illo qui hono meus ligius est As for Hoveden's own judgement its clear enough all along for the Saint where he of purpose and at large writes his life and death and martyrdome and miracles inserts his Epistles at length accounts him a most holy man in his life and a most glorious martyr and Saint in his death and after his death 4. But after his flight to Flanders a Country in peace at that time with England he went to France and to King Lewis which was but a back friend to England and he went to the Pope and incensed him against the King of England And yet here was no treason committed nor hostility raised by the Saint against his own King nor for ought appears out of History intended at all by him He went to France and to the King of France and to the Pope also partly to excuse himself and shew the cause why he denyed to comply with his own King for his
threatned and prepared also to interdict the Kings Dominions Let it be so as indeed Historians confess it was so And let it be so too that he prepared to publish both a local and personal interdict and which is more yet to excommunicate the Kings own Person for I confess also this very last of preparing to excommunicate the King though nothing out of History of what quality the interdict was to be or whether not only local but also personal And though reason tells us and we are not without reason or History to presume otherwise then that if personal also it was only to be against such persons as gave cause for such interdict however it was not reason either by the law of the Land at least then or by the nature of even such interdict the most general could be Not by the Law because none such is alledged nor indeed can be being it is very certain that Ecclesiastical Discipline Jurisdiction and censures were allowed then by the Law or Custome of England to be exercised in all the formality of the Canons Nor by its own nature because it is a pure spiritual penalty depriving only of Divine Offices and Ecclesiastical Burial and of some Sacraments viz. Eucharist Order Matrimony and in some cases of that of Pennance too As for the Saints preparing to excommunicate the King I have said enough of that already or of the nature and effects of the excommunication which he was resolved to pronounce had the peace not been made And I am sure we have example enough in St. Ambrose interdicting the great Roman and Christian Emperor of the World Theodosius from entring his Church at Millan that Ecclesiastical censures as such pronounced against a King by his Bishop however otherwise in temporals his own subject render not the Bishop a traytor against his King or Countrey And if you say that such general interdicts of a Kingdom are sometime causes or occasions of the peoples rising in armes against the Prince what then they are not so by their own nature nor commonly so as much as by accident or by the mallice or folly or impatience of such as abuse them The pure preaching of the Gospel hath been sometimes through the malice of men an occasion of armes and wars and slaughter of subjects and of Princes too And the holiest things and best means and wholsomest Physick may be abused Must this hinder the right use of them or must it render Christian remedies treasonable among Christians that even some Popes or some Prelates or some other Clerks or some people have either actually made evil use of them or intended to do so But for such intention it cannot be fix'd on St. Thomas of Canterbury and I shall give presently sufficient arguments that it could not be so fixed on him nay that really he had not any such And yet in the mean time I confess I am not my self in my own judgement nor ever was since I understood any thing in Theology for the practice nay or Theory of such general interdicts of a Kingdome either local or personal much less of any mixt of both nor even of a Province Diocess City or University But this is not my work now whether my own private opinion or judgement herein be right or not as I do not absolutely averr that it is right nor is it requisite I should here give my self or others the trouble of discussing the grounds Pro or Con. 7. But Pope Alexander threatned by his last Embassadours or Legats and bitter express Letters to King Henry the Second that if he did not receive Thomas to peace and without prosecution of the 16 Customes he would proceed against him as he had lately against the Emperour Frederick that is to a sentential deposition of him from his Crown and Kingdome or to the actual raising in War of both his own Subjects and of those were not his own Subjects against him Thomas of Canterbury had no hand in contriving such an Embassy or in procuring such Letters as to these particulars He solicited indeed by his own Letters from France to Alexander at Rome and so did the King of France and some of the Bishops of France most earnestly that the Pope would be pleased to recall his own late Papal suspension of the Legatine Commission and his own late Papal exemption given to King Henry the Second at the same Henry's earnest suit by his Embassadour from Thomas's both extraordinary power of a Legat and Ordinary of the Archbishop of Canterbury over King Henry and licence him to proceed Ecclesiastically against this King And no more appears out of History that Thomas solicited the Pope in if not peradventure that the Pope himself would immediately by himself proceed against Henry in the same manner was uncontroulably allowed by all the Christian Church then and all the Christian Common-wealth that is to a pure spiritual excommunication and pure spiritual interdict If the Pope exceeded both the desires of Thomas and power of Alexander what was that to Thomas For I confess that if Henry the Second did not acknowledge himself Alexanders vassal in temporals or his Kingdome tributary or to hold it in fee from Rome or that it was so then indeed by some kind of true humane right then certainly it must follow that Alexanders threats were not well grounded nor just but very injurious and very erroneous too though not treasonable in him because he was no Subject of Henry's I say if because I do not certainly know what the conscience of Henry or well or ill grounded opinion of English men generally was at that time I see that this very same Henry a little before took such a Bull for the invasion of Ireland from Adrian the fourth Pope of that name an English man who sate immediately before this Alexander that gives much ground to think that either he was perswaded the Pope had a supream even I mean temporal right to all the Christian Islands at least in the West or that he would make use of any the most improbable and ridiculous title what soever to invade and possess other mens rights And I see that he trembled at the very mention of the Popes interposition But however this matter be nothing appears out of History or ancient Records of the Saints Letters and whence should we know or should Henry the 8th after 300 years know but from History or such Records that our Saint had any kind of hand directly or indirectly in procuring or intending such a message from Alexander the III. to Henry the II. And we know Alexander was his own Master and that being setled at Rome and having humbled Frederick whether by lawful or unlawful means he little cared for Henry whereever the controversies touched or concerned his own whether true or only pretended supream Pontificial power in the exemption of Clergy-men from secular powers or in any other such whatsoever Though in other matters wherein his own interest
was not so neerly concerned he could not but retain still kindness enough for Henry albeit the King of France as nearer him and of greater use could not but sometime cross that very kindness 8. But the former Cardinal-Legats come the first time from Rome to compose the difference 'twixt Henry and Thomas where they had a conference with him betwixt Gisortium and Trie amongst other things objected to him in the behalf of Henry and after they had been with Henry that he had perswaded the King of France to war upon him Adjecerunt etiam querelas sayes Hoveden ad an 1169. injurias quibus Rex Angliae se ab ipso lasum esse conquestus est imponens ei etiam inter caetera quod ei excitaverat guerram Regis Francorum But in these words you see Hoveden sayes that this was an imposture or that Henry imposed on Thomas in this particular And immediately after the same Author tells that Thomas refuted this and all other objections by true and probable reasons Cantuariensis autem sayes he in omni humilitate mansuetudine spiritus post gratiarum actionem Domino Papae illis debitam respondit ad singula rationibus veris probabilibus querelas Regis evacuans injurias Ecclesiae damna intollerabilia patenter exponens You will say that however this be of such actual treason or treason in fact against his Prince by setting on the King of France it cannot be denyed that he held treasonable Principles that is such Principles as were suitable to such practise or such treason in fact because such as lessen the Majesty of the King and Kingdome if not wholly subject it to others forasmuch as his opinion and judgment was that Kings receive their power from the Church as himself declared in his own words to the King at Chinun Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings But I say that as he cannot in act or fact be accused of treason so neither in habitude or aptitude or inclination or true meaning or natural sequele of that word saying opinion or judgement of his at Chinun may he be charged with any as much as speculative treasonable Principles however otherwise abstracting wholly not only from fact but even from intention or even also from being rendred any kind of way or framed into practical dictates 1. Because it is one thing to say that Christian Kings receive their power from the Church and another to say that after they have once received their power so the Church may either revoke it again wholly or any way lessen it As it is one thing to say that from the people as a civil society of men and not from them as a Church Kings especially in elective Kingdomes receive their power and an other that the people having once conferr'd it and so transferr'd the Majesty from themselves may revoke it againe either at their pleasure or in any case whatsoever without the King 's own consent And because the first or the assertion of receiving such power either from Church or people is no way treasonable either by the nature of such reception or such assertion in it self considered or by any positive law in any Country for ought we have heard not even in England nor certainly was treasonable in the days of Thomas of Canterbury However perhaps it be an errour against the truth of things in themselves to say that Kings in hereditary Kingdomes receive their politick royal power either from the Church or from the people or even in elective Kingdomes otherwise from either then as from bare instrumental or conditional causes or such as Philosophers call conditiones sine quibus non c. not at all from either as from the true proper efficient cause of the power For this efficient is according to the sounder doctrine in Christian Religion and in reason too God alone As even according to the Doctrine of Bellarmine God alone is the onely true proper immediate efficient of the Papal power albeit he had not been Pope if he had not first been elected by the Church or by their Representative now the Colledg of Cardinals or formerly by the Emperours or before that by the Roman Clergy or before that also by the Clergy and people of Rome both joynd together 2. Because that although we find this entire passage Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere non ipsam ab illis sed a Christo salva pace vestra loquor non haberetis Episcopis praecipere absolvere aliquem vel excommunicare trahere Clericos ad secularia examina judicare de decimis de Ecclesiis interdicere Episcepis ne tractent de transgressione fidei vel juramenti multa alia quae in hunc modum scripta sunt inter consuetudines vestras quas dicitis avitas I say that although we find this entire passage amongst those which are called in Hoveden Verba Beati Thoma Cant. Archiep. ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun nay although we did admit it as truly such and admit all the rest of that Speech in Hoveden as words spoke by St. Thomas himself whereof yet I have this ground to doubt that I find not in the whole series of the History of matter of Fact either in Hoveden himself or any other when or how or that at all St. Thomas ever met that King during his banishment but twice once in Paris and in presence of the King of France and another time in the fields abroad when they were at last reconciled by the mediation of the last Legates Where then was Chinun here or any such words However admitting those Words and that entire passage of or amongst those Words as really spoke by St. Thomas and at such a place and Councel I see nevertheless partly in some former passages of that very speech at Chinun and partly also and more fully perhaps in his long and second Letter which no man doubts to be his own true letter to Gilbert Bishop of London and see in both ground enough to answer and say that in this passage I have already given the Saint mean't not at all that from the Church Kings receive so their true civil or politick Royal power or their power of the material sword at least as to the essentials or even as to the necessary appendages of it in pure civil or temporal matters that without such reception as he mean't of it from the Church they had had none at all or that without such reception as he mean't neither their birth-right in hereditary Kingdomes nor election of the people in elective Kingdomes nor any other Title whatsoever in either could be sufficient to give them as man can give true civil and politick Royal Power or to give this I mean antecedently to their receiving what they use to
credit given to this ungodly suggestion or of any kind of proceedings after in pursuance thereof by the same young King against Thomas That the ground or colour of this suggestion was no other but that Thomas held those Bishops for excommunicated who did use Pontificals contrary to the Popes command and custom of the Church and of England also in the Consecration of the said young King and use them so in the Diocess of another Bishop without his Licence That no man is so blind or was then so blind as to hold that the young Kings being King depended of his being Consecrated at all by any Bishops whether excommunicated or not excommunicated And therefore that albeit I grant as I do verily grant That St. Thomas had been guilty of Actual Treason if he had sought in any wise or at any time against the Law of the Land to depose either of both Kings the young or old the Father or the Son yet nothing material is alledged to prove that ever he did so Besides I answer That on the other side there are so many and so strong Arguments and Presumptions in Law and in Reason to persuade us of the greatest unlikelihood may be of any such matter to have been whereas no kind of proof hath been or hath been offer'd That I see not how any rational indifferent person may or might have ever entertained any such thought of St. Thomas of Canterbury First Argument His wonderful austere holy devout life with so perfect a contempt of all that was pleasant gay or glorious in the world immediately upon his Election and ever after to the hour of his death and this life so devoted wholly to God attested even by the confession of Parker himself but seen particularly and exactly in all the contemporary Writers of the Saints own time as Hoveden and others whom I have before quoted Second Argument His having lived the most retired contemplative life could be in three several Monasteries in Flanders and France even all the time of his Exile first in St. Bertins at St. Omers in Flanders next at Pontiniacum in France and lastly in the Abby of St. Columb in another part of France when and after he was forc'd from Pontiniacum by the Threats of Henry the Second to the Abbot of this place to banish out of the Dominions of England all the Monks of his Order if he did any longer entertain or relieve Thomas In which Abby of St. Columb he for the four whole last years of his Banishment and until his Return to England led that life which merited as he was in prayer and after he was reconciled to his King to hear a voyce from Heaven saying to him Surge velociter abi in sedem tuam glorificabis Ecclesiam meam sanguine tuo tu gloriaberis in me Hoveden ad An. 1170. Third Argument That notwithstanding Henry the Second had Legates favourable enough to him and a Pope also yet neither before them nor in his Letters or Messages to the Pope himself he ever did for so many years of the Saints Banishment or after his Return during the Saints life as much as once insist upon any Treasonable practice of his against himself or Son or Crown or Kingdom nor even as much as once lightly charge him with any for ought appears out of History and that Histories tell how when the former Legates once lightly objected his raising the King of France c. whoever put that into their mouths The Saint answered so clearly and convincingly That there was not a word of proof or even as much as reply against him Fourth Argument That not even after the Saints death not even then when all Christendom with horrour and amazement looked upon and cryed against Henry the Second as a most impious Murtherer and execrable Tyrant thinking the Saint was murthered by his command or consent not even then when he was therefore taken for an excommunicated person and the worst of those excommunicated against whom as Actors any way or Authors of the Saints death Pope Alexander so formidably Thundered Curses and Anathems from Rome and this too at the passionate instance of both the King and Clergy of France That I say not even then or at any time after nor then when at his own earnest solicitation special entraordinary Legates came along from Rome to hear him plead his own excuse or what he could alledge for himself to extenuate the horrour of his guilt he or his Son did or the Bishops of their way did or any other for them or either of them did as much as once pretend any Treason or any other Misdemeanor at all of the Saint whereby as much as to extenuate the heinousness and hideousness of the Murther committed on him but only made it their work to justifie themselves by Oath That they never consented to nor as much as suspected his death upon any account whatsoever Fifth Argument That Henry the Second himself so great a King as he was and so passionately bent against the Saint in his life-time did for having been only unknown to himself or without design the occasion of the Saints death undergo such Pennance and perform'd it so devoutly and unfeignedly invocating the Saint at his shrine that 't is not any way probable the Saint was ever guilty of the least Treason or that the King ever entertained any such Thought of the Saint For what rational man much less so Royal and interested a person would have in such manner invoked a Traytor Sixth Argument That God shewed by so many prodigious signs and wonders incontinently and continually after the Saints death wrought above all the power of nature That he was no Traytor Amongst which though I do not rank those extraordinary temporal blessings poured from Heaven upon this penitent King and on that very day wherein he ended so devoutly his Pilgrimage and his Fasts and Watch and other corporal Afflictions endured first by coming in a penitent Weed and Bare-foot for Three whole Miles that is from the place where he first saw the Church of Canterbury where the Martyr was Enterr'd leaving the very print of his steps all bloody behind him the keen stones cutting his tender feet so that much blood ran from them all along continually and next in the Church of Canterbury by receiving there and on his naked shoulders so many sharp lashes of Disciplines as they call them from the hands of all the Bishops Priests and Monks present yet being those extraordinary temporal blessings were so signal as the overthrow of the whole Scottish power on that day and as the taking also of their King prisoner on that very same day too by his Armies in the North of England I cannot say but the Catholick Writers of that Time had Reason to attribute even these earthly favours of God to the Kings so exemplary and satisfactory Humiliation and to the Saints benign propitious and powerful intercession with God for
people and that obedience also in Temporals which is in all other Subjects to their own respective Princes and States or an obedience which tyes them not to raise Tumults bear Arms c. against the Princes Person Royal Authority c Lastly Who sees not there was very much both expediency and necessity in these Kingdoms of England Ireland and Scotland but more especially in Ireland for Catholick Priests amongst such a world of Sectaries and under a Protestant King and State to make such a Remonstrance or one in such even formal words of disclaiming and renouncing in so much any Forreign power being the generality of Romish Priests in these Kingdoms or at least in Ireland have been these many Years and are as yet upon so many sufficient grounds suspected to own such a Forreign power both Papal and Princely Spiritual and Temporal as in their opinion at least may seem nay is able and may even justly pretend to free discharge and absolve them from all obligation of Loyalty even in the most Civil and Temporal Affairs whatsoever and give them leave and licence to raise Tumults bear Arms and offer violence to His Majesties Person Royal Authority and to the State and Government of both Ireland Scotland and England So that from first to last you see by this Discourse even the very grand Block of stumbling and chief Rock of scandal quite removed or rather see there hath never been any such at all in the Remonstrance being this fourth Clause or Period of it is free of any such and hath neither Block nor Rock in it self at all the Block and Rock being onely in false and even wilfully and maliciously false Representations of it by perverse Interpreters Fifth Period or Clause follows 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 whatsoever But certainly here is nothing else Remonstrated but their being ready to perform their Duty in meer Civil or Temporal Affairs or which is the same thing I mean to perform a meer Civil and Temporal Duty and to perform it in a meer Civil way as all Subjects ought to their meer Civil or Temporal Prince To reveal Treason and defend the Kings Person Royal Authority and State even with the hazard of their Lives Are not both meer Civil and Temporal Duties As for that which some either too grosly stupid or too ridiculously malicious object 1. That Confessors who subscribe this Period or Clause of the Remonstrance declare they are ready and oblige themselves thereby to reveal in some case Sacramental Confessions and break the Sacred Seal of such Confessions made to them forasmuch as they say here They are ready to reveal all Treasons which shall come to their hearing And 2. That all sorts of Catholicks both Laymen and Clergymen subscribing this Clause bind themselves thereby to reveal that also which they cannot in Conscience reveal forasmuch as this Clause binds them to reveal all Treasons and we know 't is Treason by the Law at least in England 't is so to Reconcile any man to the Pope or to be Reconciled so to be made a Priest beyond the Seas by the Popes Authority and afterwards to return to the Kingdom of England as it is also Treason to deny that the King's Majesty of England is Supreme Governor in His Kingdom even in Ecclesiastical Causes and yet 't is plain they cannot nor ought not by any Law of Conscience as it stands not with the Laws of their Communion or Religion to reveal such matters To the first or that of Confessors I have already of purpose and at large answered in my LV Section where I Treated this Subject against the Third ground of the Louain Censure And to the Second or that of all Catholicks generally I say in brief here That Widdrington hath in his Theological Disputation Cap. 4. Sect. 3. upon the Oath of Allegiance most learnedly clearly and even diffusely answered this very Objection made in his time by some especially by Antonius Capellus Controvers 1. Cap. 2. pag. 30 seq against which or in answer to which the learned Widdrington or whoever was Author of those Works which go under his name in effect sayes That neither King James himself nor His Oath of Allegiance nor the Statute thereupon by the Clause of that Oath which tyes to the discovery of Treason did intend to bind or does indeed any way bind to the discovery of other Treason or Trayterous Conspiracy than that which is truly such by the Laws of God Nature and Nations even that which is truly such in all Catholick Nations against Catholick Princes but by no means to the discovery of such matters as are only of late by the peculiar Law of England called or made Treasons Treasonable or Trayterous Conspiracies and are not otherwise in their own nature against the natural Allegiance Truth Fidelity and Obedience of Subjects to their Prince And I say besides that neither any indifferent Catholick or even Protestant ever yet understood by the word Treason in such a Clause whereby Catholicks in an Oath or Declaration especially made by themselves oblige themselves to discover all Treasons any other kind of Treason but that which is such of it 's own nature or by all the Laws of God Nature and Nations or that which is such in all Catholick States and Kingdoms not that which is such by the positive Law of only this or that Kingdom or is only such by Laws made against even the very profession of the Roman Catholick Religion for such might be made Treasonable by an unjust Law of men were it left to the greater vote at least in some Contingencies and in some Countries And I say in the last place That words bind not against or besides the intention of such as speak or subscribe them not are by any Rule of Reason or Law to be construed so to bind whensoever the obvious and common sense of such words in all Nations or in the generality of Nations and Religions require no other intention but may subsist very well without any other intention and the Speakers and Subscribers of such words be thought to deal honestly and conscientiously and to be without fraud equivocation or mental reservation in such their speaking and subscribing Out of all which jointly taken with what I have said before on the other Clauses it is apparent enough That notwithstanding such capricious and foolish Objections the fifth Period contains no other than a promise or purpose of the Subscribers of being faithful in performing their natural Duty in Temporal matters without any kind
Dilationis Capituli Provincialis datum in Comitiis generalibus illi qui actu sunt Superiores possint debeant in regimine suo permanere donec aliter ab Ordine disponatur Quod credo Regiae Majestati non posse esse ingratum quandoquidem illos hactenus fideles expertus sit jam ostendant se velle in omnibus possibilibus complacere obedire prout ego desidero exoptans salutares annum novum appropinquantem Dabam Mechliniae xxix Decembris 1664. Excellentissime Domine Humillimus Servus Jacobus Riddere Commis Generalis Nationis Germano Belgicae In English thus Most Excellent Sir THere could not be more grateful News brought me than that of yours of the second of December to wit of the ceasing of all Differences and Contentions betwixt my Brethren in Ireland whom I desire to be so united as they may unite all the people of that Kingdom in the love of God and cherish them in that fidelity which is due to their King whose benevolent inclinations I have experienced some years since when I had the honour to kiss His Hands at Colen Wherefore I Congratulate Him the recovery of His Hereditary Kingdoms which then I wished to His Majesty and which that He may long and happily govern I now again wish and that he may shall endeavour to obtain from God by my Sacrifices and Prayers and by those of mine as likewise by all other services if to render any such it be in my power Being lately advertised by your Letters that such Commissaries as I had deputed for the Visitation of the Fathers and Brethren in the Province of Ireland were less grateful I presently suspended the Commission given until according to your Letters in the General Chapter which was then at Rome provision were made of such as might be grateful to all and profitable to the Province Whereof also I advertised the most Reverend Minister General who then was but now is out of Office as likewise I have him that now is That he might be pleased to help that afflicted Province or command me what he would have done by me in that business Whereupon as yet I have received no Answer which is the Reason my hands are tyed in a matter devolved to the Chapter and my Superiors Whose pleasure being desired it were temerity and irreverence to proceed in a business of so great weight and consideration without expecting their Answer who are principally interested In the mean time I hope this cannot displease His Majesty to whom I dare say nothing shall be denied which by the Laws of God and our Profession may be done For which I will also to my power and with all sincerity and diligence not omit to labour supposing that according to the Decree of Dilation of the Provincial Chapter given in the General Chapter such as are yet actually Superiors may and ought to continue in their Offices till it be otherwise disposed by the Order Which I believe cannot be ungrateful to His Kingly Majesty whereas he hath experienced them hitherto faithful and that now they shew themselves willing to please and obey him in all possible things as I also desire wishing the new approaching Year may be happy Mechlin 29. Decemb. 1664. Most Excellent Sir Your humble Servant James Riddere Commissary General of the Belgick Nation Which dissembling unjust procedure of the said Commissary being throughly considered by Father Antony Gearnon sent over of purpose to him and more especially reflected upon as soon as he privately got both intelligence and a Copy as well of the foresaid Antwerp Declaration as of those late Letters of Barberin to de Riddere and de Riddere â—s in answer to Barberin he would lose no more time in pursuit of his negotiation with de Riddere but went to Louain to try whether from Dr. Sinnick or any other he might get a Copy or sight of the first long Censure of the Faculty Theological there against the Remonstrants But his endeavours herein also were fruitless For he could have no more satisfaction nor reason from any there but this brief sentence of Doctor Sinnick from his own mouth Misimus Romam Placuit Pontifici reservat in suâ— tempora Only this little further satisfaction he had though not as to that matter That upon occasion of reasoning with the said Sinnick and other Irish there and of a Report thereof then come to the then Internuncio at Bruxels Hieronimus de Vecchiis Abbas Montis Regalis he was sent for by him and though superciliously enough dealt with at first by this Lord Internuncio in order both to Father Caron Father Walsh and himself too yet at last and when the storm was over was desired by him to work with both the said Fathers Caron and Walsh to take a journey over to Flanders to himself and their Superiours in the Order to reason the case with them and with the Divines of Louain and that then himself would not be wanting to make Father Caron Visitor of his Order in Ireland as was desired by Father Walsh and others LXXXIII BUT forasmuch as this proposition or desire of the Internuncio was made in December the same year 1664. or at least in January then immediately following and consequently after some little personal acquaintance he had had with the above Fathers Caron and Walsh I must return back to the month of September that self-same year and let the Reader understand How soon after the Procurator's coming to London in August immediately preceding the said Bruxel Internuncio Hieronymus de Vecohiis having first gone to Paris to the Cardinal Legate Chisi Nephew to the last Pope Alexander the VII arrived incognito at London about this time or in the month of September taking that for his way to Bruxels And how the Procurator hearing by chance of his being there so as I have said incognito and that he was to make no stay but immediately to depart for Flanders made it his work by all the means he could to have a Conference with his Lordship and expostulate with him for so many of his Letters to Ireland and England and for those too of Cardinal Francis Barberin against the Remonstrance or that Protestation of fidelity to the King presented to His MAJESTY in 1661. and particularly for endeavouring by his said Letters to make the Subscribers and entitle them odiously a Sect and the Valesian Sect as from the Latin Sirname of the Procurator which is Valesius and for endeavouring consequently to withdraw His MAJESTIES Catholick Subjects from their obedience and faith to His MAJESTY and prepare them for a Rebellion in such contingencies or on such specious pretexts as the discontents of many or some of them would approve and the Court of Rome or some of their inconsiderate Divines and Canonists would no less allow How also the Procurator having in his company Father Caron came at last to a Conference with his Lordship in the Back-yard at Sommerset-house Father Patrick
his power and authority And we know there may be many other pretended grounds powers authorities However these matters be I declare first It was not the homeness of the Irish Formulary against the Pope but rather defect of that full and perfect and unavoidable undistinguishable homeness thereof that troubled me Though withall how defective or unhome soever it may be said by some to be against the Pope and Church or for the King and Civil Magistracy yet no man will deny now but that the Roman Court esteems it too too home and full against their Interests and Papal Usurpations Secondly That had I been at first consulted with as to the framing or fixing on a Formulary of Allegiance to the King neither King nor Council nor Parliament or House of Commons nor other Protestant Subject or not Subject whatsoever should have any ground left for excepting against the shortness or defectiveness of it as to any point controverted hitherto in that which relates to indispensable Allegiance in all Temporal things whatsoever or to its being open to Evasions or lyable to any kind of Quibbles not even to that of the reduplicative or specificative sense Thirdly That nevertheless I should not have been moved hereunto out of other respect than that of redeeming the Roman-Catholicks from the severity of the Laws against them hitherto these 100 years And I mean that of redeeming them only by a Declaration of their future fidelity and obedience in all Civil and Temporal matters so full clear and positive as would be answerable in all points to their so long consultation about such a one this whole entire Age past wherein they have declined first the Oath of Supremacy next that of Allegiance and by their demurs on both rendred themselves not only obnoxious to so many Laws but also to so many jealousies and suspitions of their Loyalty to the Crown and Kingdom of England Ireland c. as if they inclined to the vain pretences of Forreign powers And what I pray you will judicious learned Protestants say or rather what will they not say now when they cannot but understand how the said Catholicks oppose now again even a very cautious Declaration of bare and meer Allegiance in Civil things only and such a Declaration too I mean as was framed not by any Protestant but by themselves Or will not such Protestants as please have hence a very specious and probable ground to alledge in Parliament and plead there openly against the comprehension of Papists in any Act of Indulgence to Tender Consciences should there be any such And to alledge and plead I say A manifest inconsistence betwixt the safety of a Protestant Prince or State and the Repeal of Laws heretofore made against People so principled or any absolute liberty or freedom of exercise of Religion to them whose Religion appears by so many Arguments to be destructive to the very fundamentals of any Civil State especially Protestant because denying still to acknowledge as much as the very essence of such a State this essence if not consisting in at least requiring for one part of its essentials to be absolutely Sovereign or Supreme and Independent from any but God alone in all Temporal and Civil things And may not consequently the same Protestants plead That such Roman-Catholicks as peremptorily refuse to acknowledge that absolute Sovereignty or Supremacy and Independency in such a form of Declaration or Oath as cannot be lyable to any Evasions in any kind of Contingency whaâ—soever have no Title at all to His MAJESTIES gracious promises in His Letters from Breda for Indulgence to be given to all Tender Consciences that hold not Principles destructive to the fundamentals of Government For surely if any Opinions be destructive to such fundamentals those of the said Roman-Catholicks or of such Roman-Catholicks I mean as hold them must be of necessity Let any one therefore judge now with what sincerity or knowledge or truth the foresaid Internuncio Hierom de Vecchiis writ as you have seen to Father Bonaventure Brodin That the Valesian Formulary is it which may do more hurt and mischief to the Church of God than all the foreacted persecution of Hereticks And judge you Reader whom he understands here by Hereticks What by the Church of God What by hurt or mischief or ruine to that Church But blessed be God we are not so mad yet as to confine the Church of God to the walls of Rome or Papal and Cardinalitial Consistory or to the small number of men wherever diffused that either out of ambitious flattery or cowardly fear or ignorance or other respect whatsoever maintain the Papal Usurpations over Church or State asserting them so in plain contradiction both to Scripture Tradition Fathers Canons and practice too of the Catholick Church and not only to natural reason Nor yet so mad as to think that whatever hurts annoys or ruines the wicked Usurpations or unjust worldly Emoluments of such men must be esteemed any way truly hurtful to the Church of God and not rather on the other side both highly and truly advantagious and profitable Nor further yet so mad as to hold all those for Hereticks whom the Roman Ministers Tribunals or even many of their Popes even or also Boniface the VIII himself held for such No nor yet so mad as to esteem that to have been a persecution in the bad sense of this word which was a just prosecution of so many Emissaries sent heretofore from Rome of meer and set purpose to overthrow both King and Kingdom here by plotting and raising or endeavouring to raise even bloody horrid Rebellions of Subjects against both that I may say nothing now of the Invasion of Eighty Eight against Queen Elizabeth or the Powder-plot Treason after against King James and both His Houses of Parliament or of the late Rebellion in Ireland in our own dayes and year 1641. Nor finally so mad as to account the Remonstrants a Sect in the bad sense of this word albeit de Vecchiis would fain have them reputed such not only by Nicknaming them Valesians but also by joyning them in a comparative manner with those he expresly calls Hereticks For certainly it is meer madness either of blind ignorance or extreme malice that should make any to esteem the Teachers of fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things to a lawful King of what Religion soever to be therefore a Sect in the bad sense of this word Although in the Etymological sense generically taken or in any innocent thereof and in opposition to the present Roman Court its Partisans in the grand Controversie and in that or like good sense consequently whether generical or specifical wherein St. Paul confessed himself to be of the Sect of Pharisees in the point of Resurrection the Remonstrants confess themselves a Sect and glory in being so But the Internuncio gains nothing hereby if not that himself and his Associates how great or numerous soever be really in the worst sense
other ARTICLES proposed to the Catholicks of England whereunto it was required they should subscribe their negative Answers whereby it might be understood they profess that there is nothing contained in these three Articles which doth necessarily belong to the Catholick Faith and Religion insomuch that they may and will abjure if it be thought needful the practice and execution of them all I. THat the Pope or Church hath power to absolve any person or persons from their obedience to the Civil and Political Government established or to be established in this Nation in Civil and Political Affairs II. That by the Command or Dispensation of the Pope or Church it if lawful to kill destroy or do any injury to any person or persons living within the Kings Dominions because that such a person or persons are accused condemned censured or excommunicated for Error Schism or Heresie III. That it is lawful in it self or by dispensation from the Pope to break promise or oath made to any of the aforesaid persons under pretence that they are Hereticks Fifty English Catholick Gentlemen have subscribed Negative answers to these three Articles upon certain conditions secretly agreed upon for the good and free exercise of the Catholick Religion they being assured by divers Priests both Seculars and Regulars under their Hand-writings that it was lawful for them so to do Which since a Congregation in Rome hath ordained and decreed was not nor is not lawful Whereupon a Priest writeth out of England to his friend a Doctor of Divinity of Paris and sends him a Copy of this Congregational Decree earnestly desiring him that he will let him freely know his sentiment and opinion in this business Which Doctors answer to the question here followeth Most dear Brother in Christ HAving seriously considered the three Articles you sent me with their little Preface which you say contains in brief the substance of what was intended both by the proposers and your selves I cannot refuse neither in charity nor friendship to give you my opinion concerning your Subscription thereunto Yet being unwilling you should relie upon my private and particular judgment in a matter of such moment I have consulted with several great and learned men of our Nation but especially some of the most ancient and learned Doctors of Divinity of our Faculty here whose constant sentiments are that not only in their Opinion your Act is lawful just and true but that it is also the general and universal belief of all the learned and judicious men of this Kingdom So that I see not upon what grounds you need fear or apprehend the Censures which the Decree of the Congregation in Rome pretends you have incurred Were your Kingdom or State setled and that your liberty depended only upon your giving assurance of your fidelity I should easily procure you such sovereign Antidotes against your timorous apprehensions and such publick Declarations of your duty in this kind as that none but either weakly scrupulous or busily factious would be any whit moved at the interessed proceedings of the Court of Rome Methinks you should not be ignorant how such Decrees of those Congregations are slighted and rejected in the Supreme Courts of this Kingdom by the most learned and most vertuous Secular Judges of the Christian world Even those who bear the most dutiful Respect to his Holiness as well Seculars as Regulars will openly profess That the Cabals and Interests of the Court of Rome are now so generally known that the Decrees of their Congregations are scarcely taken notice of out of the Popes Territories We had not many months ago such a Decree sent hither from Rome to the Pope's Nuncio against a late Book called Les grandeurs de L'eglise Romaine which because the Popes Nuncio would have published and dispersed throughout the Kingdom having obtained licence from the King to it The Kings Advocate General Mr. Talon a man worthy of his place made a learned Speech in open Parliament without any relation or interest to the Doctrine of the Book against the admittance of such Decrees wherein he remarked very well the different nature and quality of these Congregational Decrees which were never received nor acknowledged as legal and authentical in France from th Bulls of his Holiness as Head of the Church And this Speech was immediately confirmed an ratified by a judgment given by this renowned Senate and so the publication of the Decree was hindered and suppressed There was likewise in the year 1625. a seditious Book written by one Garasse a Jesuite but bearing no name entituled Admonitio ad Regem secretly dispersed up and down in this City which was condemned by a general Synod of the Clergy of this Kingdom then assembled in this Town wherein the indispensable duty and obedience of Catholick Subjects to an heretical and even to a persecuting King or State was particularly declared and avouched You may see the words themselves pag. 12. Quare id ipsum c. Given at Paris in the general Assembly of the Clergy the 13th of Decemb. 1625. Whereupon one Sanctarellus an Italian Jesuite was caused to write a Book in approbation of the Pope's temporal authority to depose Kings and Princes and to absolve their Subjects from their obedience which was presently censured by our Faculty of Divinity and the affirmative Doctrine of your first Article which is your chief difficulty and other such like Positions were improved and condemned as new false erroneous contrary to the Word of God c. Given in the Sorbon the 1st of April 1626. Hereupon four of the most famous Jesuites of France then residing Superiours in their Colledges here were sent to the Parliament and being demanded their Opinions in this point they confirmed and ratified this Censure under their hands professing farther That they did and would consent and adhere to what the Sorbon had or should declare in this or any other matter of Doctrine I could send you the particulars of these and many such like proceedings here being partly in Print partly upon publick Record but I conceive it needless at least for the present However the Court of Rome's pretensions to Secular and Temporal power over Kings and Commonwealths are now grown out of date nor was it ever authorized but by the execution of it The Origine of the Pope's authority in Temporal Affairs is well enough known The great piety and respect to the See of Rome of divers ancient Emperors Kings and Princes have made them receive their Crowns and Diadems from his Sacred hands and cast their Swords and Scepters at his Saintly feet Others have made use of the Pope's swaying power to settle themselves in their usurped Monarchies and Princedoms Not any versed in Ecclesiastical History but knows the particulars of these Truths But to come back to your Decree I perceive that the Authors of it looking only upon tht Negative answers to the bare Articles without the Preface or separated Instrument whereunto you Priests
the Franciscan Order in Flanders James de Riddere but also the then present Theological Faculty of Louain were really desired no Reason whatever was pretended but even contrary to all Reason expected an absolute and blind submission However the Procurator Father Peter Walsh was very unwilling to give amongst his own Countreymen against himself or Formulary this advantage viz. that upon or notwithstanding such a specious invitation he would not dare abide the test or go I mean to Flanders to confer with his own Superiours and those Divines of Louain who had so briskly censured the same Formulary He apprehended the false and scandalous consecutions would be thence deduced and both loudly and largely in every part of Ireland amongst all sorts of people cryed and spread by the Anti-Remonstrants viz. That had not Walsh and Caron suspected their own strength to justifie the Formulary and consequently the unsoundness of it in point of Catholick Religion they had never bogled at appearing in Flanders Behold the true genuine cause wherefore Father Walsh resolved at any rate or risk whatsoever to go himself alone when Father Caron would not provided nevertheless he had their permission at Court by whose mediation and persuasion he had both obtain'd already the quiet which the Clergy and people of Ireland at that present did enjoy and expected much more yet for the future or had at least His MAJESTIES Licence And indeed partly with the most specious Reasons he could offer and partly also by too much importunity he obtain'd at last the Duke of ORMOND then LORD LIEUTENANT of Ireland his consent But when the matter came to the Lord Chancellor and others it was wholly obstructed yea notwithstanding my Lord Aubigny's joint and earnest sollicitation even for four or five Weeks this Noble man also being as earnest therein as concern'd to oblige thereby the said Internuncio and Court of Rome wherein he was about that time a Pretendant And yet the Lord Chancellor would send no other but this very Lord Aubigny to both Walsh and Caron declaring to them from the King it was His MAJESTIES pleasure and express commands to them they should not stir out of His MAJESTIES Dominions And to Father Walsh moreover That the Chancellor would speak to himself on that Subject Who when he appeared before his Lordship heard himself to some purpose ratled for entertaining any such thought And I remember very well that his Lordship said to me amongst many other things That I was rash and foolish to think they would perform any faith or promise with me yea notwithstanding I had all the safe Conducts I could wish both de Vecchiis's and Carracens's too the Spanish Governour then That he was certain had they now once more got me into their hands they would together with the Remonstrance and all the consequents of it call to mind what I had formerly acted against the Nuncio Rinuccini and therefore would never let me return nor And that sure I could not by any promise expect more safety than Huss did from the Emperour's Pass-port nor surely from the present Ministers of the Court of Rome more honesty or sincerity than he by a fiery and deadly experience found in the Council of Constance Lastly his conclusion was a repetition of His MAJESTIES former Commands to me by my Lord Aubigny Then which I must confess as I also before God protest it to be true I do not remember that in my life I received any Command with more regret so earnestly desirous was I then to appear in Flanders and confer with those Divines of Louain who so temerariously Censured the Formulary and Subscribers of it And so troubled I was with the apprehension of what Lyes and Scandals my Adversaries would derive from my not going thither Which and to speak also plainly my further sense under my own hand 's writing to the said Internuncio de Vecchiis was the reason I writ him immediately in Latin this following Letter being an exact Translation of the Latin My Lord HAving understood from Father Gearnon what your Lordship was pleased either to communicate or object or otherwise to give him in charge to be told to Father Caron and me of your Lordships desire of seeing us the said Caron and Walsh at Brussels to the end we might confer with our Superiours and other Divines about the Form of the late Protestation and having withall soon after seen your most civil Letter to the same Father Caron inviting him particularly to Brussels and inviting him as well for the foresaid end as for that other also of removing the difficulties that hinder as yet his being instituted Commissary Visitator of the Province of Ireland which difficulties your Lordship sayes have their total rise from the said Form as the onely Rock of Scandal I resolved presently to use my utmost endeavours for satisfying your Lordships desire and that your most civil invitation should not be in vain And therefore have these five whole Weeks past minded onely a Licence or Permission to depart as my Lord Aubigny can witness and likewise press'd it very earnestly as well with the Vice-Roy of Ireland as with the Chancellor of England For without their privity and good will and much less without His MAJESTIES consent or permission it could not be lawful for us or either of us in this or like case to depart Nor would even your Lordship if I be not much deceived think it expedient we should whereas any kind of dispute conference or even change either in the sense or words of that Form would be to no purpose without their previous consent who must of necessity be assured by that very Form or some other such Catholick and just I mean and which they shall think sufficient to their own purpose of the future Loyalty of Subjects in matters relating to the temporal peace of the Kingdom and who if they be not so assured will give no hopes at all of that liberty for the Clergy or people of Ireland which these poor Creatures do with so much longing expect And indeed the most excellent Vice-Roy assented first But when the matter was broke to the KING and Chancellor it seemed of greater moment than to be so soon determined Wherefore having further till the first of February expected His MAJESTIES Royal Pleasure being at last sent for by my Lord Chancellor and appearing at his house after much debate to and fro near two whole hours partly upon your Lordships Letter to Father Caron which the Chancellor then was pleased to hear me read and partly upon other papers and passages relating to the subject of that your Letter I nevertheless heard to my very great grief even there and then my self present and from his own very mouth pronounced That neither Caron nor I nor any other should go on such an Errand or depart for any such end because this were as much as to subject a thing in it self wholly certain and the regal and
time overpowred by a declared Forraign Enemy And that amongst other such means and devices First the Commissary General alias Commissarius Generalis Familiae of the Franciscan Order in Spaine by name Pedro Mannero sent immediately into Ireland new Parents revoking and annulling the delegat Authority of Father Redmund Caron over all the Irish Franciscans of that Kingdom to take thereby all support of Church-Authority from the numerous party of them that were and would be still to the very last opposers of the Nuntio's Faction of those who design'd to alienat Ireland totally and utterly for ever from the Crown of England although it was then and now likewise clear enough that even according to the very General Statutes of that Order neither the said Manero nor any other in his Office had or could have by vertue only of such Office or without special Commission from Rome which yet he did not specifie or allude unto any kind of Authority over the above Redmund's Commissariat Power delegated unto him by the Belgian Commissary General of the North-west Nations Next and soon after that Danielâ—a Dungo an Italian being chosen Vicar General of the whole Franciscen Order throughout the World for the Minister General had been dead some moneths before during the vacancy of whose place the Belgick Commissary Reverendissimus Marchantius when he had no Superiour in the Order above him sent and delegated the foresaid Redmund with full Authority into Ireland commanded by the Supream Power at Rome sent a second Patent of his own whereby not only the Supream Power at Rome sent a second Patent of his own whereby not only the said Father Caron's delegation was totally extinct but a fierce Irish Nuntiotist by name Eugenius Fildeus or Owen O Fihilly put in the same power which Caron had over all his Order in that Kingdome And then also it was that wicked Cabals were every day a forming both in Camps and Cities amongst many both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks against the King's Lieutenant the Marquess of Ormond the Nuntiotist Clergy-men of Owen Oneills Party being indefatigable in making use of the Argument of ill success not considering they had themselves been the only chief and first causes of that very success nor scrupling once to mix truth and lies indifferently so they could as indeed they did corrupt thereby but too too many Then I say it was that Limmerick and Galway plaid their prizes and when so many Troops and Regiments so many even of Horse and Foot in every Province seduced into private Confederacies and correspondencies to undoe themselves expecting every day to see Emerus mac Mahon the Bishop of Clogher then General only of the Vlster Army to be declared by himself and others of his way in the other several Provinces and really to command as Generalissimo of all Ireland and to see presently Armes and Money arrived to him as such out of Spain by the Agency of Patrick O Duff a Franciscan now at the writing hereof in the year 1672. arrived in London as a Successor to the said Emerus in that Bishoprick of Clogher employed sometimes before out of Ireland into Spain for that purpose and consequently to see moreover a Forreign Protector of the Roman Catholick Religion c. But God otherwise provided the said Emerus's Vlster Army being defeated by the Parliament Forces in that Province and he himself taken and put to death by them An accident which I also my self bewailed though I had little reason if I had considered onely my self For no sooner had that Army come in upon capitulation on the death of Owen O Neill to the Duke of Ormond and march'd up to Kilkenny and with them the said Clogher and that he was made there one of the Twelve Commissioners of Peace in behalf of the former Confederates of Ireland and sate with the rest in that City before he was made General by the King's Lieutenant no sooner invited in by my self and sent by the rest of those Commissioners to the Franciscan Monastery where I my self was then Superior and a great company before him and Bishop also of Dromore reasoning together of some differences in order to compose them by the mediation of the foresaid Twelve Commissioners of Peace he upon my answering modestly enough some things alledged falling suddenly into a violent and extravagant passion and converting his face and speech to me by my own name then calling me Apostate and great Writer of Books though he mean't onely the little Book of Queries written against the Censures of the Nuncio and withal vehemently striking his hand on the Table at which he Dromore and many more of the company sate took a solemn bloody Oath That although it happen'd that all the rest of Ireland might peradventure be forgiven yet I never should But however these private matters were I return to what more to my present purpose happen'd then or immediately before and after that defeat and death of Clogher For a little before that as far as I can remember it was 1. That the rest of all or very near all the Archbishops and Bishops hoping all to be their own now that they had the Bishop of Clogher made General of the confident victorious Catholick Army of the North as they call'd it and amongst them even many of those Bishops too that so lately before appeared against the Nuncio's Censures met together at Jamestown in Connaught and together also with some other Clergymen Secular and Regular assumed to themselves the Supreme civil power by declaring and that by a publick Instrument dated at Jamestown in the Convent of the Franciscans there Aug. 12. an 1650. against the Kings Lieutenant General and General Governour of that Kingdom by restoring the former Confederacy and by excommunicating also all persons whatsoever that would any more obey him c. 2. That the five other Bishops and one Vicar Apostolick remaining at Galway did on August 23. of the said month and year confirm under their hands too and as to every particular what those of Jamestown had done 3. That the new Commissary Visitator of the Franciscan Order Eugenius Fildeus having before summon'd a Provincial Chapter to the Convent of Kilconel in Connaught and holding it the 17 of August that same year 1650. at such time as most of the other temporal Provinces of Ireland had been over-run by the Parliament Forces and yet encourag'd by the example of the Bishops and the Nuntiotists of that Order convening there in great numbers and such as were for His Maiesties Lieutenant and yet came thither for all came not being not only deprived of voices and otherwise too proceeded against contrary to all form of Justice even their Enemies also being made their Judges but moreover with Threats and actual violence used to the chief of them Father Valentine Brown Professor Jubilat of Divinity and a holy man and a man also who had been Provincial near Thirty years before being frighted to an unworthy
submission under their own hands writing and a new Provincial and Diffinitory chosen all of them Nuntiotists and all the Guardians likewise either titular or real made of that Party and in the last place Fifteen severe and publick Statutes voted and established for perpetual Laws against all the Anti-Nuntiotists the said Commissary Visitator confirm'd all and so discharged his duty to Rome which had him for those ends and no other Commission'd 4. That after the defeat of the foresaid Bishop of Clogher and the excommunication too of the rest of the Bishops and of their other assistants of the Clergy both Secular and Regular against all who should thenceforth obey or acknowledge the King's Lieutenant came to be generally known and the Lord Lieutenant had thereupon thought fit to withdraw out of the Kingdom and nevertheless and at the importunity of the more loyal part of the Nobility and Gentry having thought also fit to leave the Kings Authority in the hands of the truly loyal Marquess of Clanrickard a Roman Catholick yet even under this very Catholick Deputy the Nuntiotists not regarding neither him no more indeed then they did the Protestant Marquess of Ormond nor the common Enemy studied nothing more than how in the few places how in the very Mountains Boggs and Woods which only at last through their own disobedience and division were left them and that too but a little longer free if yet free from the Parliament Forces to persecute those other Clergymen who as well in their latter as former excommunication opposed them still but chiefly to persecute their more leading or more resolute men and above all others Father Peter Walsh who records this now to Posterity And that him the said Father Walsh they persecuted so maliciously inveterately continually and in many respects inhumanely â—oo throughout all Provinces Counties Places whither at any time he withdrew or wherever he sheltred himself from the common Enemy the Parliament Forces that at last in the year 1651. and then in a Provincial Synod held in the woods of Clanmalira in the Province of Leinster where he then was by chance they not only solemnly and by name denounc'd him excommunicated but interdicted even also the victualling Folks that should for as much as his money dare to suffer him enter into their houses or sell him meat or drink nay further that some of that very meeting though not by a publick Act encourag'd the looser Souldiery to kill him telling them it was lawful so to do being he was excommunicated as disobedient to and an Enemy of the Church What he suffered lately before at Kilkenny Limmerick Killaloe Galway Inishbofin c what hazards he run often in the very High-wayes Travelling were too long and not proper here to be related It sufficeth to let the Reader guess hence how it was about this time everywhere throughout Ireland with the generality of such loyal Ecclesiasticks as with him stood out so many furious shocks and weather'd so great and long and continual storms after the Royal Government began to decline in August 1649. but much more after the Lord Lieutenant had by Jamestown Excommunication been forc'd away for France about the end of the year 1650. And yet I must confess they were much weakned too before then by the loss of such numbers of them and of the holiest of them as were kill'd at Wexford * Richard Synot Paul Synot Francis Stafford Hamond Stafford John Esmond Peter Stafford c. all of them esteemed the most religious exemplar and indeed holy men of their Order in Ireland or at least equal to any whatsoever The first of them was often Guardian of several Convents amongs which was that of St. Isidore at Rome and Custos of the Province The second was even Legat from the Pope in Baâ—bary for many years Third Guardian of Wexford sometime and Secretary of the Province Fourth also Guardian of the same place and after an Hermit in an Island till he was commanded out of it by Father Caron Fifth likewise Guardian of the same Convent in his turn and of special gift in exercising Sixth like St. Bartholomew had by continual kneeling in Prayer the skin of his knees as hard as a Camels by the Parliament Forces when the Town was taken by storm and some also at Droghedagh and others elsewhere albeit the adverse Ecclesiasticks or Nuncio party cryed down those true and holy Martyrs for truly cursed and excommunicated persons and refused to pray for them as having condignly suffer'd death because forsooth obnoxious to the Nuncio's Excommunication they lived and dyed out of the Church And I must confess also that some others of their best ablest and holiest Fathers too at Waterford during the Siege thereof at Dublin in Prison and elsewhere in several parts of the Kingdom dyed of the great Plague which begun in the year 1649 and continued above Three years running over all parts and corners of the Island except onely the North. As for the Nuncio's unheard of proceedings against Valentine Brown and George Dillon at Galway such qualified persons the one Reader Jubilate of Divinity and Father of the Province as who had not only often been Guardian and Commissary thereof but also Minister Provincial above Twenty years before the other a Noble-man's son and then actual Guardian of the Town as he had formerly been Diffinitor and several times Guardian of some other Convents and both of them most virtuous and exemplar men how the Nuncio himself in person jointly with their own Provincial Thomas Makiernan suspended and both removed and reduced them to the communion of Laicks publickly before the People and this only for refusing to approve of his former Excommunication fulminated against the adherers to the Cessation of Arms concluded with the Baron of Inchiquin in May 1648 I say that as for this albeit so unjust so unheard of so uncanonical procedure wherein moreover the Nuncio himself denied them even a Copy of their sentence I will say nothing here because notwithstanding it and many other such of the said Provincial Makiernan against some others then and for some months before and after in such parts of the Kingdom where he and his Faction were rampant the opposers of the Censures adherers to the Cessation and Appeal and consequently also the said Valentine and George within some few months more got clearly the better every way of all their Adversaries albeit these advantages were lost again by such degrees and means as I have said before And for the same Reason I will not mention here Neither 1. The Provincial Chapter of the Franciscan Order at Rosserial in the year 1647. where at the Nuncio's beck and by his and the Vlster parties contrivement both Provincial Diffinitors Custos and all the Guardians generally throughout the whole Kingdom only a very few of these last excepted were chosen out of that sole Faction which had devoted it self to the said Nuncio and Owen O Neill for obstructing
any kind of Peace with the Protestant Royal Party nay where all the whole Diffinitory consisting then of nine Vocals was only of those called by way of distinction the meer or more ancient Irish not as much as one of those other of the old English blood or name being elected or admitted but by a wicked Conspiracy and for the ends of the Nuncio and Owen O Neill laid by the Nuncio himself having stayed Three months at Galway i. e. near Rosserial of purpose to see all this done as himself gloried to Thomas Dese then Bishop of Meath and yet a Conspiracy never before hapned not even since the Franciscan Order was introduced into Ireland in St. Francis's own dayes by an English Nobleman Morris Fitz-Gerrald near 500 years since Nor 2. The great storm immediately after that Chapter and that same year 1647. raised at Kilkenny against Peter Walsh i. e. my self at that time one of the two actual Professors or Readers of Divinity in the Franciscan Monastery there a storm which continued against him even in that very place for seven Months which suspended him first from Preaching then prepared a Domus Disciplinae for him and this not only after a formal Appeal made to the Commissary General but also both by an express command of the Nuncio himself and by a formal sentence too of the above Diffinitory with their Provincial Makiernan come of purpose thither next dissolved the Philosophy School and presently after even also the other of Divinity then seemingly dispersed the very Professors in all six to try whether that would make him they aimed at retire at last and when he would not otherwise forc'd him by a formal Precept and under Excommunication to depart within Twenty four hours as a banishâ—d man and not enter any Sea-town or other place that had a Library yea never more to return without special Licence There having been no other true cause no nor as much as pretence or colour of all that not only severe and violent prosecution of me but utter confusion and total cessation also even of the publick Studies of the Province but that in a Sermon preached by me at a publick Exposition of the Sacrament I preached in general terms against those more publick Sins of all degrees of people and more especially the Sins of Perjury against the Oath of Association and consequently those of Disobedience and Rebellion against the Supreme Authority and that to my purpose of shewing the Judgments of God inflicted even on Christian and Catholick Nations in former times I produced some examples out of ancient History particularly out of Gildas Sapiens in his Book de Excidio Britannico which were thought to have reflected on the Nuncio and his party of Irish Ecclesiasticks and that I refused to retract that Sermon or reflection and retract it I mean in such form as they would have me do but rather when they forced me again into the Pulpit confirm'd all again though only in general terms as in the former Sermon against all such of whatever degree as found themselves guilty Behold the onely true cause or as much as pretence though somewhat strengthned as they would make themselves believe by objecting further to me but most falsly on the very moment wherein my sentence of Banishment was pronounced that they were informed I was then writing a Book for the Press And yet I confess it was a Cause which the Nuncio took so much to heart that himself in person accompanied with the Bishop of Ferns not being able to press in to the Chappel through the croud endeavoured nevertheless to send in through them to silence me in the very Pulpit and then also when I was in the heat of my exaggerations and applications And that besides when Sermon was done and his Lordship retired to his own house in great trouble and that I was by a Messenger call'd and appear'd that very Evening his Lordship gave me this short applause and entertainment Pater Valesi hodie infecisti totam Nobilitatem Hiberniae perdidisti rem nostram nimium pupugisti nos And so turn'd his back withdrawing from me Nor 3. Constantinus Mahony alias Cornelius a Sancto Patricio the Irish Jesuits Book dispersed privily that same year or precedent in all parts of that Kingdom against any Right in the Kings of England in or to Ireland whereof more hereafter in its due place Nor 4. The surprisal of the Castle of Athlone that same very year too by the Nuncio's Party and his Lordships refusing to give any effectual commands for the restoring it as he refused also to give up to secular justice Joh-Bane Parish-Priest then of Athlone in whose hands the foresaid Book against then King was found Nor 5. in the year 1649. the popular Sedition and both furious dangerous and memorable Tumult at Kilkenny of a rascal plebeian multitude of some Hundreds if not Thousands of men and women in the dusk of an Evening called together and wrought upon by the circumvention and manifest lyes of seven or eight Franciscans of the Nuncio's declared party to attempt by plain force and this even within the Franciscan Monastery there the murdering of the Reverend Commissary Caron and other Fathers with him viz. John Barnwall Reader of Divinity Antony Gearnon Guardian of Dundalk James Fitz-Simon Guardian of Montifernan Patrick Plunket Confessor to the poor Clares of Athlone and Peter Walsh actual Reader of Divinity then in that very Convent and one who so lately before viz. in the year 1646. sav'd both Mayor and Aldermen from being hang'd and the City from being plunder'd by Owen O Neill All these five several and notable matters with many other such I pass over as I have said for the same reason I had not to insist on the Nuncio's own uncanonical procedure at Galway against Brown and Dillon viz. because that after all such the Royal Party i. e. the loyal Ecclesiasticks had clearly got the better of all their Adversaries and that too in all respects and kept it until the disastrous fate of Rathmines Camp put all things again into confusion What therefore must be more proper to my present purpose is to let the Reader know 10. That if all things went so ill and cross and sadly with the loyal Ecclesiasticks at home in Ireland and worse and worse every day since the fatal chance at Rathmines in August 1649. until the whole Kingdom was utterly subdued through their own division by the Parliament Armies in 1652. even Limmerick and Galway having then yielded and the Regiments and Legions Horse and Foot of the several Provinces upon capitulation to be Transported for Spain having also then though but in several parties laid down their Arms and accordingly been Transported and with them all such Ecclesiasticks survivers of the dead and of either party as could go or had the courage to go except a few ancient men and very few others that either chose to run all hazards at home
where Pope Innocent the X. was to pass cryed to His Holiness against him Justitia Pater Sancte and together exhibited a Memorial accusing him not only in general of being a Correspondent of the English Hereticks Patron of Apostates Enemy to the Catholick King but in particular also of other several even the most infamous personal Crimes For albeit his own true innocency and strong belief thereof amongst the generality even of the great Ministers at Rome as also the inward guilt of those Calumniators and other the Diabolical contrivers of their malice soon dispersed both the raisers and contrivers and the cloud it self of infamy which they had so gathered and raised against him yet he took this procedure of his Countreymen so to heart that he carried the grief thereof with him not long after to his Grave And yet I must here tell my Reader that the onely true original motive of so vile an enterprize against him was no other but a Letter they understood to have been written out of Ireland to him in the year 1649. by the Marquess of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom wherein he was desired That in pursuance of his other good offices for His King and Court he would take also special care thenceforth to see the abuses both of the Irish Clergy in general and particularly of those of his own Order rectified by more religious and loyal Superiours than those were that of late times had by their unchristian doctrine and bad example well nigh utterly ruin'd their Countrey and mightily scandal'd their Church And so having done with those Heads of some few particular instances which out of a far greater nay indeed prodigious number if all were known of those of persecution abroad I thought fit to give here as they occurr'd to remembrance now I proceed to the remainder of the more general causes of that paucity enquired after Wherefore you are now to observe 11. That in the year 1655. the said Nuntiotist party having as to the affairs of their own Countrey all power at Rome prevail'd at last with His Holiness then sitting in the Chair Alexander the VII to grant a Bull of extraordinary Delegation dated at Rome Aug. 27. 1655. directed to and for the most vehement and thorow-paced of all the Irish Bishops of the Nuncio's party then surviving except peradventure Antony Mageoghan the Franciscan Bishop formerly of Cluanmacnoise but now about this time Translated to Meath But it was supposed his own act to be left out of that Bull because not only that he foresaw the employment might prove in time if not invidious at least very odious but also that himself living then at Rome and indeed the onely Irish Bishop at that time there was the chief procurer of it However to these four viz. one of each either Temporal or Ecclesiastical Province of Ireland John sirnamed Cullenan if I be not mistaken Bishop of Raphoe in Vlster Walter Lynch Bishop of Cluanfert in Connaught Edmund Dempsy alias Deemusvy Bishop of Leghlin in Leinster and Robert Barry Bishop of Cork in Munster though all four even that very time as alwayes after till they all every one dyed living abroad in Banishment and wide enough dispersed and separated the first in Brussels second in Hungary third in Galicia or elsewhere in Spain and fourth at St. Malos in France to these four I say a plenary Apostolical power was delegated and given by the said Bull to reconcile and absolve in forma Ecclesiae consueta all Irish whatsoever that appearing penitent for having opposed the Nuncio in Ireland or consequently incurr'd his Censures would come to any of them humbly submit crave absolution and perform what the Delegate should impose This Bull although granted through several false Informations besides many more false suppositions as out of the very tenour thereof was and is manifest to such as knew the Transactions either of the grand Controversie at home in Ireland or of the prosecution of the Appeal at Rome but more especially granted through that of those two notoriously false informations 1. That the Nuncio had to his Excommunication and Interdict the concurrence of the lawful Delegates and Sub-delegates then of the other Irish Archbishops and Bishops in general 2. That Innocent the X. had rejected or condemned the Appeal as frivolous both which material falsities rendred that whole Bull void yet the foresaid John Bishop of Raphoe living then at Bruxels and entituling himself Vice-Primate of all Ireland by the advice of his factious Party in Flanders caused to be immediately Printed with a Preface or Admonition prefixed to it Ad populares Hibernos excommunicatos both in his own name and in that also of his other Three fellow Delegates but a Preface much yet more injurious false injurious and malicious too than the Bull it self as either in it self or as proceeding from the Informers Procurers or Framers of it considered For as for the Pope himself that granted it we must suppose neither injury nor falsity nor malice in him as to his grant but that injury only of granting any such Bull at the instance or upon the information of one side But for the admonishing Delegates or rather perhaps the onely one of them that in the name of all the rest prefixâ—d the said Preface or Admonition you may judge of their justice and charity and somewhat also of the whole of that excellent piece of theirs and may judge of all I say out of this one passage of it paraphrasing on the words in forma Ecclesiae consueta inserted in that Bull. Upon which words they speak thus Quinto denique ut alia omittam in eodem Brevi habetur poenitentes debere absolvi in forma Ecclesiae consueta ut scilicet denudatis scapulis virgas excipiant pro offensa admissa satisfaciant aliasque subeant poenas quae in Rituali Romano exprimuntur And yet that Bull although so plainly subreptitious and void and although moreover so paraphrased all along as tamquam ex ungue Leonem you may judge out of that one passage yet being Printed published and dispersed amongst all the Irish in all parts of Europe and not only in Flanders or at home in Ireland amongst the miserable but still divided both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks and in such a time and conjuncture of things when there was no hopes of better dayes for those against whom it was procured we must not wonder much if it and the other endeavours of the Publishers join'd with it made them but too too many Proselytes though rather for fear and out of despair than love or inward persuasion nor wonder if those Proselytes having purchased some little quiet though but little credit or trust thereby not even amongst their Adversaries were loth even after the Kings Restauration or by signing the Remonstrance to hazard that quiet any more until they were sure to be protected by the King and his Laws against the insulting power of Rome and malice of
fortune of War and division of minds had hapned he also thought fit to change parties and look back towards the old Confederacy and consequently to be as active as others in the unhappy Congregation of Bishops at Jamestown in the year 1650. signing both their Declaration against the King 's Lieutenant and Excommunication too against all that would any way obey his Excellency This remedy not proving either useful or proper but far more noxious and the Parliament Forces gaining thereby and by the Lord Lieutenant's departure so much ground that all seemâ—d very soon after to be in a desperate condition and the Marquess of Clanrickard by Ormond left Deputy for the King in pursuance of Monsieur St. Katherin's negotiation with him from the Duke of Lorrain having sent other Commissioners to Flanders to Treat with his said Highness of Lorrain provided they had first the King's consent our Bishop my Lord of Ferns also departs the Kingdom to sollicit aids from Catholick Princes but not otherwise authorized thereunto than by the Letters of private persons albeit otherwise some of them Bishops Coming to Paris and there denied access which he desired to His Majesty our Gracious King and attributing this affront to the Marquess of Ormond he takes it to heart and speaks and both writes and prints too a little piece wherein he reflects too severely and unjustly on him the said Marquess of Ormond Which if I mistake not was it that occasion d those Books written after at Paris in opposition and answer one to the other by Father John Ponce the zealous Nuntiotist Franciscan and Richard Belings Esq that no less Ormonist than known Royalist although in former times the first Legat to Rome from the Confederates and other Princes of Italy and the very man that occasion'd the sending of the Nuncio to Ireland The negotiation with the Duke of Lorrain having come to nothing and Limmerick and Galway surrendred and consequently soon after the whole Kingdom submitted to the Parliament of England the afflicted Bishop knowing that by reason of his having on his return from Rome immediately quitted the Nuncio party and both submitted to and promoted the Peace of 1648 and of his consequential being blasted ever since by the factious Irish at Rome as an Ormonist there could be no favourable reception or accomodation expected for him in that Court he shifts the best he can for himself in several places until at last the Archbishop of St. Jago in Galicia in Spain harbour'd him generously and bountifully according to his dignity and merits where continuing for some years and officiating as a Suffragan Bishop he begun a correspondence with me by Letters soon after His Majesties happy Restauration as together with his Lordship did the good Irish Father of the Society of Jesus Father William St. Leger and either by James Cusack a Secular Priest and Doctor of Divinity or by Father George Gould a Franciscan both which came from him directly and brought me Letters hither to London he sent me some writings of his own against Ferral's Book The Book as I have noted before which not only bastardizing all those Irish not descended of the more ancient Septs or Names that possess'd Ireland even before any Invasion either of English or Danes nor only in general involving all that later brood under the Title of wicked Politicians Anti-Catholicks c. but particularly and singularly falling on the Two Ambassadors yea and taxing them with having of set purpose all along betrayed the Nuncio and his cause the Book I say that by such precious Contents from the first line to the last of it both opened our good Bishop's eyes more then any other argument could to see clearly the ultimate designs of that Party which led him blindfold so long and so often especially at Waterford in 1646. and Jamestown in the year 1650. and if I be not very much out in my conjecture was at least partly either the cause or the occasion of his beginning so and desiring a correspondence with me then anno 1662. at London he himself remaining at St. Jago What followed after his first Letters to me i. e. after what Dr. Cusack one of the first Subscribers of the Remonstrance writ him back what he return'd in the year 1662. to this Doctor what to the Duke of Ormond and me in 1665 pro or con upon the Subject of the Remonstrance what to me again in May 1666. from St. Sebastian viz. after he had received the Indiction and presuming licence to return home had quitted his good condition at St. Jago what I to him in answer and finally what he replyed to me in July that same year from Paris will best appear out of the Bishops own Letters Whereof I give here as many as I judg'd material or useful to any design of this First Tome and much the rather because he is not only the onely Bishop yet alive of those of the Irish Nation that were made before Nuncio Rinuccini's time but the onely also that endeavoured to give the best reasons he could for himself or for his own dissent as to that expected or desired from him And I must say this besides that surely had he the writer of them had as good a cause and been as much conversant in the Gallican Theology which in the point controverted is that of the Primitive Fathers of Christianity as he is both a good Orator and laying the Affairs of Ireland aside a very pious and exemplar Prelate the Irish Nation generally had never been as unhappy as it is even at this present The Roman-Catholick Bishop of Fern's Letter from St. Jago 18 Junii 1662. To the Reverend James Cusack Doctor of Divinity at London SIR BY the four last Letters I had from you to which I have heretofore answered you demand from me two things to wit an approbation of a Protestation signed by L. B. of Dromore your self and other Divines of our Nation in that City and that I would give you a power to sign a Procuratorium Father Peter Walsh hath from the Clergy of Ireland whereunto Edmund Reilly Antony Geoghegan James Dempsy and others have consented as you write to me To the same I also willingly consent and do hereby impower you to sign in my 〈◊〉 the said Procuratorium but with this limitation the said Father Walsh shall do nothing for me nor in my name touching the above mentioned Protestation until he shall receive my own express sense and answer That Protestation seems a Rock to the Divines of our Nation in this Kingdom and they wonder ye there made so easie a work of it yet of your good intentions in illo facto most of them rest well satisfied persuading themselves there was a necessity of undeceiving the Prince and clearing our Clergy from black Calumnies but they differ from you in the judgment of the matter and lawfulness of the said Protestation Briefly the opinion of the Divines here as well of our Nation
Nation The message the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Kelly Dean of Tuam brought from the Prelats to your Excellency maketh this manifest In what a lamentable condition the Kingdom was then how little thereof those faithful to the King had being driven all of us into a corner of one Province how unlike we were to recover what was lost or defend what we held no man knoweth better than your Grace The King was also then in the hands of the Scottish Presbiterians deadly enemies to the Catholicks of Ireland so as there was no access to his Majesty In the opinion of all there was need of a speedy cure for the Nation in danger or all was given for lost The Prelats that met at Jamestown had some Moneths before in the Congregation of Clonmacnois as your Grace knoweth well co-operated to the best of their power with your Excellency and made Ordinances for keeping the People in obedience under His Majesty and in Vnion with one another under your Government for there was fear the Enemy then Powerful would debauch them from their duty Our thoughts in Jamestown were the same we had in Clonmaknois and all of us aimed at the safety of all interests and represented as we then conceived to your Excellency the right expedient of setling all things the best way the times did then permit If we have not hit the remedy we had a good mind to do it without any mans prejudice Let therefore the World deal with us that walked bona fide as they do with Physitians who are not punished for missing the Cure when they have done their best endeavours and let those that are pleased to condemn the Fact at least excuse our intentions which excuseth us before God For these and other reasons I can alledge I am as I conceive able to clear my self from blame certain I am I had not the mind of incurring blame if questioned before an indifferent and well informed Judge unquestioned I cannot be justly Condemned If I shall say about the doings of Jamestown other then what I said which is the true dicta-men of my Soul I shall belye my self and betray my fame which is a sin before God Yet for all this I had rather in this particular and all other of this kind depend upon his Majesties Clemency and your Graces benignity than mine innocency My fault I will not be so great an Hypocrite as to excuse it committed against your Grace was a culpable Passion of speaking and writing severely of some of your doings after the Peace And for this none hath been more angry with me then my self none more afflicted for malice against your Person Dignity or any your Interest I am and have been ever free How this Scintilla of misunderstanding between your Grace and me was first inkindled and what persons suspitions and mistakes gave growth thereunto it skilleth not to speak in this place But I take God to witness I never writ a line until much provoked by the doings of some people More than I have said against my self no man is justly able to say Now if Augustus Cesar a Pagan did heartily pardon Lucius Cinna who resolved to kill him at the Altar offering Sacrifice will not your Grace a Christian freely forgive me for a Passion of Nature that is my only offence far different in blackness from Cynna's murthering mind My Lord a great Mind becometh a great Fortune and a great Clemency is the companion and greatest honour of both As your Grace hath the two first let the pardon I demand granted tell me you have the last and give me leave to speak freely to your Grace in Seneca's Language that to a great man many punishments are as dishonourable as many funerals to a Physitian Having ingeniously confessed all I can say against my self I have reason to expect your Grace's Pardon and Protection which I pray may be signified unto me by some one of your trusty Secretaries that I may know the waters of your anger are fallen My Lord where I am I am well looked upon and enjoy a subsistence competent and decent for quality whereas going home I have nothing before me for relieving me my Church and Lands being transferred to another hand most of all my friends are dead and gone a few worthy Gentlemen allied to me who have a willingness to subsist me live themselves in poverty and in great fear they will not be restored to their own Notwithstanding all those incommodities if my weak forces for I am afflicted with many sharp pangs of infirmity will serve me and that I may enjoy your Grace's Protection for discharging a trust God put upon me I am resolved to set forward Were it not for this reason of duty to God and love to my Flock your Grace may confidently believe my exile would be more pleasing than my Countrey God prosper and protect your Grace for which I have now for some years heartily prayed so wishing with a submissive kiss of your hand My Lord Your Graces most Obedient Humble Servant Nico. Fernensis St. James in Gallicia Septem 22. 1665. My Letter March 10. 1666. to my Lord of Ferns My Lord YOurs to myself of the 19. and to the Duke of the 22. of this present year 1665. I received about two moneths past from the bearer of them Mr. Archbold As likewise soon after came to my hands accidentally yours to Doctor Cusack though first open'd by a friend of his the said Doctor having dyed here some few days before to our great grief All which Letters the Duke read and discoursed with me upon but only read that part of yours to Doctor Cusack which related to himself and what you desired the Doctor to let His Grace understand Concerning your Letter to his Grace though you sent it me with a flying seal and liberty to deliver it or not and that I disliked your justification or at least too much Candor in the affairs of Jamestown as I told the bearer before I delivered it yet because of your remoteness and the long time past since you writ before and the uncertainty of hearing from you again in such haste as would be necessary I thought best to deliver it as it was and excuse you the best I could In brief you must write a more submissive Letter as to Jamestown affairs and such other publick actings in former times here and write the total change of your judgment in reference to all such matters And for my part my Lord I wonder much in the first place that your Lordship reflected not on the Laws of all Kingdoms in such cases or pretences whatsoever and on the general unanswerable reasons that can justifie all Rebellions on your account of a good end Non sunt facienda mala ut eveniant bona is an allowed and necessary Maxime in our Divinity And in the second no less wonder you considered not that as there is much difference betwixt a Physitian and an Emperick so
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
Remonstrance and let them know that I understood of great Cabals amongst them to hinder even any kind of debate nay reading or so much as mention of the said Remonstrance in their House Telling them withal That notwithstanding all such contrivances of men who desired in effect nothing but confusion I hoped none there present would have the confidence to hinder my own publick reading of that Instrument as neither of other Instruments too that concernâ—d as well them all as my self to hear them both read and debated or opposed if any could pretend against them any matter of debate or opposition And presently in a great silence and attention of the Fathers drawing out of my pocket the very Original Remonstrance See in Tract 1. Part 1. pag. 7. and from pag. 462 to 487 sent to me to London out of Ireland together both with that other Original exact Copy thereof which was sign'd by all the Ecclesiasticks who either sign'd it at London first or Dublin after and one of the first Printed Copies also of the same Instrument I read publickly to them this from first to last pausing on each clause of the controverted Act of Recognition and Petitionary Address and demanding at each as also again after all read over Whether they had any thing to object against any either particular clause or the whole taken together desiring them also to confer if they pleased the Printed and the said original Copies and then to judge of the truth or falshood equity or iniquity of another sort of publick Instrument sign'd by some few of the Irish Clergy-men represented by them and given in the year 1662. to Father John Brady a Franciscan one of their Members present as one of the two Divines of that Order and carried by him to the University of Louain that very year to procure thereby as he did the Censure of that University or Theological Faculty thereof against the Remonstrance For in that so given to the said Brady the Subscribers of it say That I invented the Remonstrance and falsly imposed it on others See Part. 1. pag. 91. Where you have a Copy of that lying disloyal Instrument given to the said Brady In the next place I told them That for as much as I had understood for so many years past since 1661 That several in remote parts of the Kingdom had traduced me as without any ground or authority arrogating the Title of Procurator c I desired their patience to hear and see with their own ears and eyes the original Procuratorium under Hands and Seals sent me to London from the Prelats by Father Antony Gearnon in the end of the year 1660. And consequently I both produced and read it to them as you have the Copy thereof Tract 1. Part. 1. pag 5. Adding that although I saw it was not sign'd by hands out of every several Province and Order because that by reason of the terrible Persecution there was no possibility at the time of its date to convene others than such as had Signed it yet by the advice of the Bishop of Dromore and the rest of the Remonstrants at London and because the sad condition of the Irish Clergy at home required I should as solemnly as could be appear for them all as their General Procurator without distinction of Provinces or Orders I did therefore as Procurator utriusque Cleri Hiberniae sign that Formulary and Remonstrance which was to do them good upon my owning it as such or under that title at least until they might be convened together albeit I did expresly refuse to subscribe the said Formulary as having special Commission from them or any of them to subscribe it in their name however withal I at the same time and to the same great Ministers of State declared That I hoped the rest of the Irish Clergy when the storm of Persecution being over they could meet together or appear in publick and when at least the Bishops were permitted to return home from Forraign parts would all of them in good time concur also by their own proper Manual Signatures added thereunto In the Third place I craved their further patience whiles I shewed and read another sort of authentick Instrument wherein though I was my self chiefly concern'd they were also not a little viz. my Letters of Licence Mission Authority and Obedience to live and exercise my Priestly Function throughout the three Nations from the Regular Order whereof professed my self and hoped to continue till death a true genuine Member Telling them moreover it was therefore I desired this last Instrument should be heard and viewed publickly because I understood that by the industry and malice of some old Enemies to me for my former actings in defence of the Kingdom against the Nuncio as likewise through the consequential but unreasonable aversion of the same parties from any kind of satisfactory Profession of Allegiance to the King they had in corners whispered up and down the Country amongst their partizans followers and devotes especially amongst the ruder sort of people I had been these many years and continued still an Apostate from my own Order as having no Letters of Obedience from either the General or Provincial Superiours thereof Which though by a Thousand other arguments and amongst other by the Procuratorium already seen and read of so many Reverend Prelats to me giving me both such ample testimony and withal no less Authority Power and Jurisdiction too than was in their power to give it be sufficiently and manifoldly convinced to be a grand Imposture yet I thought fit to let them if any of them were present hear and see the very Original Patent also of the General Superiour of my own Order approved even by the Manual Signature of the very Provincial of Ireland Anthony Docharty there present as one of the chief Members of the Congregation And then I drew forth and read publickly those obediential Letters under the great Seal of the Franciscan Order as followeth Frater Antonius ab Oudenhoven Lector Jubilatus totius Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Exdiffinitor generalis super Provincias Germaniae Superioris Belgii Hiberniae Angliae Scotiae Daciae cum plenitudine potestatis in utroque foro Commissarius generalis Venerando Admodum Patri fratri Petro Valesio Provinciae Hiberniae Concionatori ac Sacrae Theologiae Lectori Salutem in Domino Sempiternam QVandoquidem expulsus Hibernia cum obedientialibus Reverendissimi Patris Jacobi de Riddere Praedecessoris nostri cum magna plurium Catholicorum consolatione versatus fueris in Anglia postulaverisque a Nobis dictam Missionem confirmari Hinc est quod de tua idoneitate animarum zelo ac discretione plurimum in Domino confidentes virtute praesentium licentiam tibi nostram concedamus ut cum Sanctae Obedientiae merito dictam Missionem per Angliam Hiberniam alia loca vicina pro ut expedire indicaveris continuare valeas assumpto socio tibi grato commendantes vos
confidently as if they had with them the most fully and clearly and satisfactorily Loyal Instruments could be framed even Instruments in every respect home to the point expected from them after a short Harrangus such as it was delivered by the Bishp of Kilfinuragh as the Congregations Chair-man presented to his Grace both the Original Parchment Roll opened and the other annexed Original Paper whereof before as they were signed by the proper hands of the Fathers But his Grace having received these Instruments and layed them by on his Table answered only in a very few words That after he had read and considered of their Petition and Instruments they should hear further from him And so his Grace dismissed those first Deputies of the Congregation It remains therefore now to end this Section that for the Readers fuller satisfaction I give here an exact Copy of both the foresaid Congregational Instruments with such Titles prefixed as the Originals have but first a Copy also of their Petition The Congregation's Petition delivered by the two aforesaid Bishops on June 16. 1666. To His Grace JAMES Duke of ORMOND LORD LIEVTENANT General and General Governour of Ireland The humble Petition of the Romish Catholick Clergy now met in the City of Dublin THE Petitioners do most humbly and thankfully acknowledge the favour your Grace hath done them in the allowance and permission of a Meeting in this City of Dublin at this time by which they have had the opportunity of a Free Conference together and the happiness to have concurred in a Remonstrance and Protestation of their Loyaltie to His Majesty wherein they resolve Inviolablie to continue which they beseech your Grace to accept from them and represent to His Majesty the rather that it was so unanimously agreed to as there was not one dissenting Voice in all their Number This is their prayer to your Grace for whom and whose Posterity they will as obliged always pray The Act of Recognition as I call it commonly to distinguish it from the former of others in 1661 or the Remonstrance and Protestation of Loyalty as they term it in their above Petition Signed by the National Congregation of the Irish Roman-Catholick Clergy in 1666 and delivered likewise June 16 by the same Bishops to His Grace as from and by direction of that Assembly To the King 's most Excellent Majesty CHARLES the Second King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. VVE Your Majesties Subjects the Roman-Catholick Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland together assembled do hereby declare and solemnly protest before God and His Holy Angels That we own and acknowledge Your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supreme Lord and undoubted Sovereign as well of this Realm of Ireland as of all other Your Majesties Dominions consequently we confess our selves bound in Conscience to be obedient to Your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal affairs as any Subject ought to be to his Prince and as the Laws of God and Nature require at our hands Therefore we promise That we will inviolably bear true Allegiance to Your Majesty Your lawful Heirs and Successors and that no power on earth shall be able to withdraw us from our duty herein And that we will even to the loss of our blood if occasion requires assert Your Majesties Rights against any that shall invade the same or attempt to deprive Your Self or Your lawful Heirs and Successors of any part thereof And to the end this our sincere Protestation may more clearly appear We further declare That it is not our Doctrine that Subjects may be discharged absolved or freed from the Obligation of performing their duty of true Obedience and Allegiance to their Prince much less may we allow of or pass as tolerable any Doctrine that perniciously and against the Word of God maintains That any private Subject may lawfully kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince Wherefore pursuant to the deep apprehension we have of the abomination and sad consequences of its practice 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 whereby such horrid evils may be prevented Finally As we hold the Premises to be agreeable to good Conscience so we Religiously Swear the due observance thereof to our utmost and will Preach and Teach the same to our respective Flocks In witness whereof we do hereunto Subscribe the 15th day of June 1666. Edmund Archbishop of Ardmagh Primat of all Ireland Patrick Bishop of Ardagh Andrew Bishop of Kilfinuragh Procurator to the Lord Archbishop of Tuam and to the Reverend Fathers Richard Scis Vicar General of Killalla and Maurice Corghcar Vicar General of Aconry James Dempsy Vicar General Apostolick of Dubliâ— He might have added too and Vicar Capitulary of the Diocess of Kildare John Burk Vicar General Apostolick of Cashel Denis Harty Vicarius Apostolicus Laonensis Patricius Daly Vicarius Generalis Ardmachanus ac Procurator Rapotensis Oliver Desse Vic. Gen. Midensis Terence Fitz-Patrick Vicar General of Ossorie Robert Power Vicar General of Waterford and Lismore c. Dominick Roch Vicar General of Corck Connor Fogorty Proctor of Ardfert and Achdeo Nicolas Redmond Vicar General of Fernes Teig O Brien Dean of Lismore and Parson of Dungarvan John Deoran Proctor for Father Charles Nolan Vicar General of Laghlin Thomas Higgin Vicar General of Elphin Ronan Magin Vicar-General of Dromote James Phelan Doctor of Divinity Parson of Callan Dean of Ossory Protonotary Apostolical Thomas Lacy Substitute of Limmerick Father Francis Fitz Gerrald Proctor of the Vicar General of Cluon George Plunket Divine Daniel Kelly Vicar General of Cluonfert James Killine Vicar General Duacensis Edmund Teig Vicar General of Cloanmacnoise Owen O Coigly Procurator Derensis Patrick O Mulderig Vicarius Generalis Dun. Connor Thomas Fitz Symons Divine for the Province of Vlster Thady Brohy Divine for the Province of Leinster Doctor Angel Goulding Divine for the Province of Leinster John Nolan Master of Arts Divine for Leinster Dorby Doyle Batchelor of Divinity of the Province of Leinster Edmund O Deoran Magister Ordinis Melitensis Charles Horan Divine of the Diocess of Elphin in the Province of Connaught Constantine Duffy Vicar General of Clogher John Hannin Substitute and Official of Imly Fr Peter Walsh Reader of Divinity of St. Francis 's Order Procurator of the Catholick Clergy Andrew Bishop of Kilfinuragh Chairman Fr John Hart Provincial of the Order of Preachers and a Divine for the Province of Connaught Fr Stephen Lynch Provincial of the Order of St. Augustin and a Divine for Connaught Fr Antony Docharty Provincial of the Franciscans Andrew Sall Superiour of the Society of Jesus in Ireland Fr Thomas Dillon Vicar Provincial of the Discalceat Carmelits Fr Bernard Barry Lector Jubilate of the Order of S. Francis Fr John Brady Lector of Divinity Fr Dominick Martin of the Order of
S. Augustin Lector of Moral Divinity Definitor and Prior of Dublin John Talbot of the Society of Jesus Fr John Warren Discalceat Carmelit Fr Matthew Nangle Carmelit Discalceat F. Henry Burgate Divine of the Order of Preachers F. Christopher Bath Divine of the Order of Preachers Fr John Welden Cappuccin Divine Fr James Dowdal Divine Cappuccin Nicolaus Netterville Sâ—c Jesu Doctor Theologus Fr Christopher Dillon of the Order of S. August Lector Jubilate and Prior of the Convent of Dunnemore By Command Nicolas Redmond Secretary The Second Instrument or that of the Three first Sorbon Propositions or Declarations applied c. and delivered also at the same time with their Remonstrance to His Grace by the aforesaid two Bishops as from the Congregation though subscribed but by three hands only at this time and without other Preaâ—ble or Title prefâ—â—ed to it than as here followeth viz. Certain Propositions of the Roman Catholick Clergy of the Kingdom of Ireland conformable to the Doctrine of Sorbon and several Parliaments of France in the year 1663. I. WE do hereby declare That it is not our Doctrine that the Pope hath any Authority in Temporal affairs over our Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second yea we promise that we shall still oppose them that will assert any Power either direct or indirect over him in Civil and Temporal affairs II. That it is our Doctrine That our Gracious King Charles the Second is so absolute and independent that he acknowledgeth not not hath in Civil and Temporal affairs any Power above him under God and that to be our constant Doctrine from which we shall never decline III. That it is our Doctrine That we Subjects owe such Natural and just Obedience unto our King that no Power under any pretext soever can either dispence with us or free us thereof Edmund Archbishop of Ardmagh and Primat of all Ireland Andrew Bishop of Kilfinuragh Chairman Nicholas Redmond Secretary XVII The next day being Sunday the Fathers rested But on Monday being the Eighth of their Meeting and Eighteenth of the Month they sate again and received the LORD LIEUTENANT's third and last Message by the same Catholick Gentleman Mr. Belings who brought the second and as the two former had been read it to them out of a Paper word by word as here the Title only excepted The LORD LIEUTENANTS Third Message to the Congregation June 16. 1666. THat on the 16. instant I received from two of the Romish Clergy now met in this City one Parchment directed to His Majesty and signed by divers of the said Clergy one Paper signed by three of them Intituled Certain Propositions c. and a Petition directed unto me in the name of them all not signed by any of them I think fit to let them understand That I observe that together with the Propositions of Sorbon sent and signed by them as aforesaid there are three material Propositions omitted which might as well be appropriated to His Majesty and this Kingdom as the other three are as also that the same number or Persons have not Subseribed to the said Proposition as to the Parchment Instrument Mr. Belings being departed the Procurator stood up and spake to the main purpose of this last Message from His Grace shewing at large by manifold and evident arguments That the other three of the Sorbon Declarations which they had omitted to Sign were both as material to the purpose and not only might but ought as well be appropriated to His Majesty and Kingdom of Ireland as the first Three were These three last or three controverted Propositions being the Fourth Fifth and Sixth of Sorbon you have already had pag. 660 c. and again pag. 663. where you may also peruse all the Six As for those reasons or arguments urged then by me to demonstrate how both material expedient and even necessary the Subscription of the same Fourth Fifth and Sixth Propositions must have been mutatis mutandis because the Fourth following Treatise of this Book hath diffusely them i. e. the same arguments pag. 43. 44. pag. 46 47. c. pag. 57 58 c. and must of necessity have them as the chief Subject handled there of purpose viz. in answer to the Reasons given to the contrary in a paper presented from the Congregation to the Lord Lieutenant therefore I refer the Reader for so much to that Fourth Treatise which indeed was Printed before the First And consequently what I am to give here now in relation to such matter is only to let the Reader know in short That on this Subject of those three last of the Six Sorbon Declarations the Chair-man viz. the Bishop of Kilfinuragh though having so lately come from France after living there so long and throughly acquainted with the positions and Maxims of the Gallican Church discovered himself but too too manifestly to be not a little if not extreamly disaffected to the then English Government of Ireland by his earnest opposition to my own face there of all or any of these three last Sorbon Declarations to be applyed to the Monarch of Great Britain and Ireland Charles the Second and to that Congregation or Romish Clergy of Ireland and so to be signed by them That and which I much more wonder at even Father Nicholas Nettervil who first of all the Committee the day before and on his very knees to me offered all the Six Declarations should be signed even he himself both as confidently and vehemently now and even also to my own face opposed the signing of any one of those three last That neither he nor the Chairman were contented with their bare dissent but made Speeches and gave reasons too all they could to disswade the rest of the Fathers from signing c. That when the approbation or Declaration of Sorbon as well for those Three last as for the former Three was objected They not only answered the disparity of the cases or applications to be very great viz. Forasmuch as 1. The French King was Rex Christianissimus 2. And he maintained the Roman-Catholick Clergy of France both in their respective Spiritual jurisdictions and temporal Possessions too 3. And all was otherwise in order to the application of the said Propositions they were pressed unto but even with as much either boldness or rashness as if the said French Kings Forces had been actually then ready and even at that very nick of time resolved to Transport for and Invade Ireland were not shye to magnifie and cry him up so before all the Fathers that every one understood plainly what they meand i. e. whom they intended of the other side to lessen and cry down That therefore the Procurator both strongly and clearly shewed the unsignificancy of these answers and whatever other reasons they alledged for excusing themselves from signing even those three last of the Sorbon Declarations applyed as they ought to be nay shewed most evidently that for those very causes they alledged
this present then we could almost have not long since either believed or hoped we should live to see But notwithstanding such great and good effects of the signature of that Loyal Formulary Remonstrance by those few Ecclesiasticks that gave the first Example at London and soon after by the Nobility and Gentry there at that time is it not equally apparent That too too many Irish Ecclesiasticks of the same Church-communion proving ever since for so many years ungrateful for so great benefits received from His Majesty and His Majesties Lieutenant General governing this Kingdom and received too by the means of that Remonstrance and of the Subscription thereof by those who had no other end in either than to redeem their Nation from the severe execution of Penal Laws yea proving to the King himself as ungrateful truly as those barbarous People were who darted Arrows at the Sun for his comfortable beams of light and heat afforded to them either not rightly understanding or not well considering the Doctrinal points of the said Remonstrance or indeed rather out of their willful byass of proper and private interest partly and partly out of meer envy and malice have used their utmost endeavours to obtain and accordingly in Forraign Parts have obtained not only judicial or Scholastical Censures both from the Roman Ministers of State and the Faculty Theological of Louain but other vexatious and Penal proceedings against some at least of the chief Ecclesiastical Subscribers and Defenders thereof nay before and after have both Preached and Prayed at home in this Kingdom every where against the Formulary it self and Subscribers thereof representing that amongst the Vulgar People who cannot discern as undoubtedly unlawful sinful scandalous sacrilegious yea schismatical and heretical too and these consequently no better who have subscribed and yet not retracted their subscription Now being the Resolves of all and each of these Queries hitherto must be in the affirmative the consequence if we be not much mistaken must also be That it is no less notoriously known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a full and satisfactory Declaration c as above from this present Ecclesiastical Meeting than it is That the end of their being by his Grace the Kings Lieutenant permitted to meet and sit and deliberate so freely as they can desire and do now here in the Capital City of the Kingdom is no other All which being so it will easily be believed our affliction must be very great when of one side we certainly understand The whole procedure of the Congregations debates and resolves hitherto these Eleven days of their Session makes it appear evidently That the chief Leaders thereof mind nothing less than that end for which they and the rest of the Members have been convened or permitted to meet yea That they are obstinately possessed with and set upon quite contrary designs of their own and when at the same time of the other side we seriously consider That the issue of such Counsels if persisted in till the Fathers be dissolved must at long running of necessity prove extreamly fatal even to the generality of all both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks of the whole Irish Nation because either represented or guided by this Congregation For being we see plainly before our eyes that since the designes of those leading Demagogues are as contrary to the just peaceable and Loyal designes which we and other Subscribers of the former Remonstrance we mean that of the year 1661 had from the beginning have at present and shall God willing hereafter always continue as even darkness and light errour and truth or Hell and Heaven are or can be one to another it must naturally follow That we must consequently and no less clearly behold all our former hopes of the Irish Catholicks welfare by this National Assembly's Convention dashed to nothing and even not only despair of any good but very justly fear great and irrecoverable evils to the Nation from this very Meeting to succeed those fair and pleasing hopes if we say the Fathers end as they have begun and proceeded hitherto suffering themselves to be misled by their passionately and blindly interested Demagogues and even hurried on furiously into a cross and effectual thwarting for the future all those very publick ends which for the good of their Nation and Religion the said former Remonstrance and both Ecclesiastick and Lay Subscribers thereof drove at And surely 't is not probable that any will not easily believe that such considerations which ought to afflict all good Patriots bring upon us by so much the greater affliction by how much we think our selves the more nearly concern'd than others who have not ventured as far as we under sufferances from our own Church of purpose to do that very Church and Professors thereof in the British Empire and particularly in Ireland all the good offices we could even also by subscribing presenting defending and promoting hitherto in all just ways That Formulary of 1661 and both Doctrine and Practice thereof as the only means or at least very first of all due means for His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects wherever in His Dominions to win upon and to ingratiate themselves with their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion So much of our Melancholy thoughts and hearty resentments we thought fit to represent to the Congregation by your Lordship their Chairman to the end that since it continues yet and may some days farther and several of the Members thereof are lately more and more disposed to give the Lord Lieutenant all kind of full and real satisfaction and therefore some hopes remain still that matters are not absolutely past all recovery or remedy we may further represent as we do by this address and by your Lordship to the rest of the the Right Reverend Prelats and all other the Venerable Fathers our additional and humble both desire and Petition That they will be pleased to appoint a Committee of their best or most Select Divines to debate with us their reasons if any indeed they have whether Theological or Prudential why the Signature either of the Three last of the Six Sorbon Declarations or even of the former Remonstrance hath been hitherto excepted against And wherefore on the contradictory Question such a Formulary of their own framing hath been Signed and presented by them as hath nothing material in it not any thing truly either in the same or other words of all or any the material Points of the former Remonstrance What errour against Christian Religion or Catholick Faith or sound Doctrine they found or could alledge against all or any of those Points or Clauses of the former Remonstrance which they have so of meer design omitted in their own Lastly being they profess in words They have not excepted against their own signing of the said former Remonstrance out of any prejudice against it or the Subscribers of it why they do notwithstanding refuse
Muskerry as likewise that the same Bishop having in the late general ruine of his Countrey when subdued by Cromwel departed and gone to Portugal of purpose to offer his Episcopal service to that Nation wanting Bishops at that time was by the said Father Cornelius a Sancto Patricio for so he called himself there amongst his Order presented with a Copy of that Book owning himself Author thereof 6. That the Subject of the former piece or Apologetical Disputation is the same Authors utmost devoir to persuade the then Confederate Catholicks of Ireland That no King of England John Serjeant an English Priest of the Secular Clergy told me of late in England That studying in Portugal he was well acquainted with this Father Mahony of the Society of Jesus there and knew him by the name of Cornelius a St. Patricio and living at S. Roch in Lisbon and that he professed himself openly the Authour of that wicked Apologetical Disputation and Exhortation added thereunto nor Crown nor People nor State of that Kingdom had at any time any kind of Right to the Kingdom of Ireland or any part thereof that their Title to it was but meer usurpation and violence and that therefore the old Natives i. e. the meer Irish might choose and make themselves a King of one of their own Irish and in the then present circumstances of Charles I. of England's being an Heretick ought i. e. were bound in Conscience to do so and throw off together the yoke of both Hereticks and Forreigners 7. That to this purpose of persuading his Countreymen to so daring an attempt he makes it his work in that piece from pag. 7. to pag. 64. in five several and large Sections to answer all the Arguments commonly made use of to prove the true Right of the Kings of England to the Kingdom of Ireland viz. those of Donation by the Pope or Bull of Adrian IV. to Henry II. Conquest by the Sword Submission of the Irish Kings Princes Bishops People and Prescription even almost of Five hundred years 8. That the whole remainder of that Apologetical Disputation i. e. the last Section thereof even from pag. 65. to pag. 102. is taken up by him in proving an Hypothesis not only no less treasonable but if not manifestly heretical in the grounds yet I am sure much more pernicious to the World in general as to the same grounds For that Hypothesis or conditional Assertion is in these very terms Dato ergo Pag. 65. non concesso quod Reges Angliae olim fuissent legitimi ac veri Domini Hiberniae ut aliqui Angli immerito contendunt nihilominus Ordines illius Regni optimo jure poterant ac debebant omni dominio Hiberniae privare tales Reges postquam facti sunt haeretici atque tyranni And those grounds or Scheme of them you may see in these other words immediately following Hoc enim jus Ibid. potestas deponendi Principes tyrannos in omni Regno Republica est sive Gubernatio sit Monarchica sive Aristocratica vel Democratica Jam si consensui Regni vel Reipublicae in hac re accederet authoritas Apostolica quis nisi haereticus vel stultus audebit negare quod hic affirmamus Doctores Theologi Juris utriusque periti passim docent rationes probant exempla suadent Thus he makes sure work on every side by affirming as you see now That granting or supposing what till then he labour'd to prove was very false viz That the Kings of England from Henry the Second's time downwards until they became Hereticks had a true right of Lordship and Sovereignty in the Kingdom of Ireland yet the Three Estates of that Kingdom might and ought to deprive them as soon as they turn'd Hereticks and Tyrants For sayes he such right and authority for deposing tyrannical Princes is in every Kingdom and Commonwealth whether the Government be Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical And then sayes he again if to the consent of the Kingdom or Commonwealth in this matter the authority of the See Apostolick be added who but an Heretick or Fool dare be so bold as to deny what we affirm here and the Doctors both of Divinity and of the Civil and Canon Law do commonly teach Reasons prove Examples persuade 9. That the whole and consequential both subject and scope of his other annexed Piece or Tract called his Exhortation to the Catholicks of Ireland is to exhort the Irish and from all the other Topicks he judg'd most expedient even to enflame them to a putting that in execution which he had already as much as in him lay shewed to be not only lawful for but obligatory on them i. e. to a renouncing the Protestant King of England and electing presently amongst themselves a Roman-Catholick Irish Native to be their King as may be seen partly in these words in the beginning of the first page of the same Exhortation albeit the 103 page of the whole Book as composed of those two Pieces viz In sequenti Exhortatione opto persuadere Hibernis ut Haereticorum jugum semel excussum numquam iterum admittant nec permittant sed potius eligant sibi Regem Catholicum vernaculum seu naturalem Hibernum qui cos Catholicâ— gubernare possit and partly in these other pag. 117. Eligite igitur Regem vernaculum fratrem vestrum Catholicum aliquem Hibernum as likewise partly yet in these pag. 125. Hiberni mei agite pergite perficite incaeptum opus defensionis libertatis vestra occidite haereticos adversarios vestros eorum fautores ad utores e medio tollite especially if expounded as they must be by those other given before in his Apol. Disp. pag. 45. viz. Vnde non solum haereticos Anglos Scotos expellere debetis sed etiam Hibernos cujuscumque conditionis haereticis auxiliantes vel aliquo modo faventes e medio tollere deberetis tanquam Patriae proditores hostes non enim ignoratis poenas quas in Jure incurrunt haeretici illorum santores Legite caput 32 Exodi invenietis quod sanctus Patriarcha Moyses praecepis occidere 23 millia Haebreorum ob peccatum Idololatriae Legite similiter caput 25 Libri Numerorum ubi ob peccatum Infidelitatis Idololatriae praecepit Deus tollere cunctos Principes populi suspendere eos in patibulis Quinimo eodem die occisa sunt 24 millia hominum Israelitarum Jam supra dixi haresim comparari cum Idololatria haereticos esse similes Idololatris sunt enim infideles Deo hominibus Quare ut malum a vobis tollatur e medio tollite haereticos eorum fautores etiamsi alioquin sint fratres proximi vestri sicut Deus praecepit Moyses fecit 10. That beside this extreme cruelty he exhorts unto of putting to death all not only English and Scottish Hereticks remaining in Ireland but all whatsoever even Roman-Catholick Irish albeit
remit the Reader to such other Books and other places also in this same Book where he may find as much satisfaction as can be desired To clear in all respects whatsoever that very matter i. e. To evince as clear as the Sun shines in his brightest meridian glory That not even so much as that very species or kind of Apostasie which is or ought to be only grounded on the sin of disobedience or contumacy against some lawful Commands or Summons can be with any justice or truth objected to Me and Caron or to either of us No not even now in the year 1673 to me alone though I confess that I have my self alone since the 20th of September 1669 at several times opposed but Canonically opposed three several Citations or Summons and Commands at the instance and by the procurement of the late Bruxel-Internuncio Airoldi and other Roman Ministers abroad and their Irish Emissaries both abroad in other Countries and at home in Ireland but of purpose to suppress utterly the doctrine of the Remonstrance sent one after another from beyond Seas yea and from the lawful or acknowledged General Superiours of my own Order enjoining me under pain of Excommunication ipso facto latae to appear before them in Forreign Countries and within the term of time peremptorily prefix'd by them So much here by occasion of that second friendly Advertisement given me by my Lord of Ferns or of that great Romans having termed Me and Caron Apostates and whose Letter terming us so my Lord of Ferns did see although otherwise to treat here of that matter was I know Forreign enough to the main scope of my third Appendage which had been sufficiently treated before And therefore now There remains only the fourth and last of all the Appendages viz. A Paper of Animadversions given to the Lord Lieutenant and His Grace's Commands laid on the Procurator Upon or by occasion of which Paper I have no more to say but 1. That when the Commissioners of the National Congregation had presented His Grace the Lord Lieutenant their new Remonstrance or new Recognition and His Grace taking time to consider and examine throughly the import thereof had shewed it to such Lords of the Kings Privy Council in that Kingdom whom He thought fit to consult in that affair before He gave His Answer to the Congregation which long'd very much to know whether He would accept thereof as satisfactory one of the said Lords viz. the Earl of Anglesey then Vice-Treasurer of Ireland now at the writing hereof Lord Privy Seal in England drew briefly some material Animadversions upon it shewing its insignificancy and unsatisfactoriness in or as to the main points wherein the Fathers should have declared themselves 2. That soon after they i. e. that Congregation had dissolved His Grace was pleased to tell me of that Paper of Animadversions and together give me the very Original of which Original as I have it by me still so I give here a true exact Copy viz. Animadversions on the Remonstrance or Protestation of the Romish Clergy of Ireland subscribed the 15th day of June 1666. WE Your Majesties Subjects His Majesties satisfaction is the pretence of both these Remonstrances of this and of the former presented by Peter Walsh the Procurator of the Romish Clergy of Ireland 1661. If the former had not been in some degree satisfactory in England it had not been offered to their Subscriptions here Therefore in differing from that they must design either to offer more which is not pretended or less which will not be enough or only to alter the expression But as to that it is not probable that they would put themselves to any stress to find out better words to signifie their meaning than those which have already obtained some acceptance It may therefore be more than suspected that they decline that first Remonstrance because it is not lyable to so many reserves and uncertainties as they would have it and they will have another of their own which is more subject to what interpretations they shall please to put upon it The truth of which Conjecture is too evident by these following particulars differing from the former Remonstrance Undoubted Sovereign Seems to signifie only him who exercises Supreme Authority but the rightful Sovereign as it is expressed in the former is he who ought to exercise that Authority As any Subject ought to be to his Prince The Pope often pretending Authority directly or indirectly over Princes in Temporal affairs this expression secures not our King of their obedience against the pretensions of the Pope And as the Laws of God and Nature require I living in Ireland will obey the great Turk as far as the Laws of God and Nature require but the former Protesters will obey King Charles as far as the Laws and Government of this Kingdom require The Laws of God and Nature are general to all Mankind and every Rebel pretends to an observation of them They design not obedience to a particular King who will not regulate it by the particular constitution of his Kingdom We will inviolably bear true Allegiance That is in their own sense as far as the Laws of God and Nature require Some make the Pope Judge of the former but every man makes himself Judge of the latter The King must please both to be sure of these men No Power on Earth shall be able to withdraw us from our duty herein This is little significant seeing their duty is tryable only by the Laws of God and Nature of which the Pope and themselves are Judges But if they intend really to oppose any design of the Pope against the King why do they not say they will do it in that Paper which pretends to secure His Majesty in that particular Their obedience to the Pope is that which makes the jealousie of their disobedience to the King Therefore to clear themselves they should have renounc'd the Popes Authority as it may be opposite to the Kings If they dare not name opposition to him how can it be expected that they will oppose him And how careful they are not to give offence to the Pope we see by their clear leaving out almost the whole Paragraph in the former Remonstrance which secures particularly against his Vsurpations If they say they decline naming him in bare respect to him it seems they prefer their Complement beyond their duty but if that be it why then do they name him in their Subscriptions to the first Proposition of the faculty of Sorbon We will to the loss of our blood assert Your Majesties Rights But they are still no more than the Laws of God and Nature allows you The Laws of the Kingdom are insignificant It is not our Doctrine that Subjects may be discharged c. But doth their Doctrine condemn and anathematize such practises Or do they condemn and anathematize that Doctrine Do they condemn the Doctrine of Suarez Bellarmine Mariana Salmeron Becanus
my self and other friends against all both Forreign Censures and Home Impostures I had in truth some regard of vindicating my self and all those persuaded by or associated with me either in signing or adhering to the foresaid Remonstrance and consequently too of vindicating even that Formulary it self from the no less malicious than both scandalous and false aspersion of unlawful detestable sacrilegious yea schismatical and heretical with which our Adversaries branded us And if I had not had that consideration in some degree of my self and Friends I had been as unsatisfied with my own heart as ever any of my Adversaries were with any of my Books For I think every honest man is bound in Conscience to defend himself and Friends especially his own and their good name wherein and as far as he justly may cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae And I am persuaded no man will be so rash or impudent as to reprove me for thinking so But withall I do protest in the presence of God it was not any such or other whatsoever private consideration or regard of my self or said Friends that was the chiefest or strongest motive I had to put Pen to Paper in any of the foresaid now hereafter following Treatises or in any other Treatise or Part or even addition of other Appendages to all the Treatises of this present Book but that more publick regard of the more common and universal good of the Irish Nation and Catholick Religion which I have signified before And so I perclose here at last this Second Part and consequently as to both Parts the whole First Treatise Which Treatise the necessary Theological Disputes against the four grounds of the Censure of Louain for an Hundred sheets together in the First Part have made so long albeit I confess the pure Historical Sections are even of themselves long enough But the next following Three Treatises will in some measure by their shortness compensate the former length For they are proportionably as short as may be and yet as long as their several Subjects require them to be having nothing Historical in them and but a strict and pure partly Theological and partly Rational Examination of the import and weight of those foremention'd three several Papers of the National Congregation and yet even that such an Examination too as in many or rather most material places doth suppose the reading of this First Treatise or of some things diffusely treated therein Which is the reason they needed not be longer than they are What I think will seem most wanting in them to the Readers ease must be That they have no Marginal nor any other sort of Remissions directing to the Sections or Pages of this First Treatise where some of the Publick Instruments or other matters related unto are given or handled at large But I could not help that being I was necessitated to write and print them before I had written a word of this And a diligent or curious Reader may quickly help himself at least by turning to the Table THE SECOND TREATISE CONTAINING Exceptions against the form or protestation of Allegiance subscribed and presented the 16. of June 1666. to His Grace the Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland by such of the Irish Clergie of of the Roman Communion as convened at Dublin the 11th of the said month and year and dissolved the 25th thereof FIrst they varied in this form not only as to single words but to entire clauses and their sense in the most material parts from the former protestation subscribed by those others of the said Clergie and of the Nobility and Gentry at London in 61. And varied so of set purpose as openly appeared upon the contradictory question and debate for fourteen dayes together in their publick Assembly that they might be free from all tyes of duty faith obedience and acknowledgment or recognition of His Majesties power over them or their own obligation to obey him in all cases and contingencies wherein Bellarmine Suarez Santarellus Mariana or any other such later or former Writers maintain the lawfulness of the deposition of Kings by the Popes or peoples authority and the lawfulness also of the Rebellion of the people against Princes deposed so or excommunicated and denounced by the Prelats of the Church And that they should not be convinced to have disclaimed any wise either clearly and expresly or equivalently and by consequence in the general pretence of a power in the Pope or Church by divine immediate right spiritual or temporal or mixt of both either direct or indirect to depose all kind of Princes at least such as they account as Hereticks in the Christian Religion and to absolve their Subjects or declare them absolved from all kind of Allegiance at least in the extraordinary or even ordinary cases of such as they likewise account or esteem Apostacie Heresie Schisme or other tyrannical or sinful administration or either true or pretended oppression of the people nor convinced also to have disclaimed even in those other meerly humane titles or rights which the Popes have so often pretended and still do and which many or most of that Irish Clergie as likewise the present faculty of Lovaine Divines in their late censure of the former Remonstrance procured by the Agency and sollicitation of some of the said Irish Clergie and by the vehement interposition of the late Internuntio at Bruxels the Italian Abbot of Mount-Royal Hieronimus De Vecchiis do peculiarly and stiffely maintain to the Realmes of England and Ireland to wit those of donation submission feudatary title and forfeiture Or which are the same those argued from the either true or pretended Bull of Adrian the fourth to Henry the second concerning the Kingdom of Ireland and those likewise argued from the famed resignation of the Crowns or Soveraignties of both Kingdoms by King John to Innocent the Third or to his Legat Pandulphus at Dover and from the payment of Peter-pence Secondly And to come to the particulars of this change or variation and and I mean it in the material parts only And not to take any notice though it is fit there should be some of the changing the Epithet or Adjective Rightful first Line of the said former Protestation of 61. into that of undoubted in this of 66. for one may be an undoubted Soveraign De facto though not De jure rightful but an Usurper Or may be in fact or possession undoubted Soveraign though another should be in deed and so acknowledged as to right the true King and Soveraign Nor yet to take any notice of altering those other three words under pain of sin second Line of the said former printed Remonstrance into those in Conscience albeit the doctrine and practice of equivocation so common to and so mightily insisted upon amongst them and yet further the positive exceptions of some of their party even at London some four years since against those very words and
truely declare it is not their or it is not our Doctrine though in an other sense they cannot nor intended so to do And for to justifie this declaration distinction or equivocation they will according to the principles of equivocating Divines readily make use of that passage or words of our Saviour in the Gospel mea doctrina non est mea sed ejus qui mifit me Patris And yet when they shall find it for their advantage they will no less readily acknowledge that their intention also was to declare by those words that what follows is not the doctrine of even those very Doctors or Popes nor consequently of the Church And yet will acknowledge too this much without any prejudice to their own opinion or judgment in the points controverted and without holding themselves obliged by this Declaration understood as it ought or may not to practice accordingly For all they say in this first part of that first Proposition is We the under-named do hereby declare that it is not our doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second They will here presently when they please and shall think fit have recourse to the several meanings of the word Authority And without any necessity of using the distinction which yet is obvious enough and frequent with them of authority in fact and authority of right they will say although not with the Doctors of Lovaine in their censure of the Remonstrance of 61. that they declare it is not the doctrine of the Romae Church that the Pope hath any authority which is purely or meerly temporal or even humane at all or by humane right ways or title acquired over the King in his temporal Affairs And that neither hath he any Divine or Spiritual which is ordinary over him in such or which at his pleasure may at all times and in all cases dispose of the Kings Temporals And after this or notwithstanding any thing here declared they will say with Bellarmine that all the most supream right or authority challenged by Popes to depose Princes and dispose of their Temporals is entire and safe enough For this grand Authority indeed they have or challenge thereunto universally is not in the rank of temporals nor in the order of humane Authorities but in that of wholy spiritual and purely divine and supernatural Is not ordinary but extraordinary or as Innocent the 3d. speaks casual only that is in some particular great and extraordinary cases or emergencies and this too ratione peccati alone as the same Innocent further saith And consequently they will say that by any such general though negative Declaration or by a Declaration in such general words only or against any Authority in general to be in the Pope this very specifical this extraordinary casual spiritual celestial divine Authority in such great unusual contingencies must never be thought to be declared against according to the maxime of Lawyers and Law before given in my Exceptions to their Remonstrance For which saying they will further yield this reason That without any such specifical meaning intended their said Declaration or Proposition may be useful to shut out of doors the Popes humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right said to have been acquired and by the present Faculty of Lovaine maintained to continue still in force to these Kingdoms by donation submission prescription feudatary title and forfeiture And that such Declaration or one against such humane pretences in particular to his Majesties Kingdoms of England or Ireland nay and Scotland too was enough to be expected from them by his Majesty without putting them to the stress of resolving on that other supereminent divine pretence and which really is to all other at least christian Kingdoms in the world or all those of other Kings and in such extraordinary cases as well as to his Majestie 's They have yet in store a third explication equivocation distinction but as fallacious as if not more than any of these two already given And I call it a third way of evasion though as to the first part of it and as to the matter in it self of that first part however the words be different it varyes not or but very little from what is already said in effect It does in indeed in the second Part as will be seen They will as occasion requires or they find it expedient say nothing of the first on the words our doctrine nor of the second on the words authority in temporal affairs But when they come to Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will instantly tell you as Logicians or Sophisters of their specificative and reduplicative sense And that these words bear it And that the cause it self and the conjuncture of circumstances make their recourse to this kind of distinction very lawful They will therefore when they please to proceed a third way allow it is not the doctrine not even of the Catholick Church that the Pope hath any authority not even spiritual or divine in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will I say allow this Proposition or this part of that first complex Proposition but allow it only in sensu reduplicative in the reduplicative sense or as the reduplication falls on these last words Our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second In the specificative they will deny it and withal deny it was their meaning what ever the Sorbonists meaned by the like to their own King to declare at any time or by that Proposition that the Pope had not some authority in temporal affairs over our King considered as a Criminal or Sinner though in such not any over him considered only as our Soveraign Lord and King Charles the Second They will further say that while the Pope himself or people or both joyntly suffer or tollerat Charles the Second as King the Pope hath no authority in temporal affairs over him But yet when he finds it convenient and necessary in any of those great extraordinary emergencies not to tollerat him any longer he may by his divine authority in such cases depose and deprive him of all his temporals together and transfer the right of them to another and this by way of Jurisdiction over his person as a criminal and sinner not over his person as a King not criminal or sinful They will further say and though I meaned it hitherto as the second part of this third way yet it may be also and is a fourth way of explication or evasion that allowing it not to be the doctrine of the Church that the Pope hath any Authority of Jurisdiction Power or Superiority properly such in temporal affairs over the King considered either in the reduplicative or specificative sense and allowing too that themselves intended to declare so much by the said former part of their first Proposition yet the last refuge is alwayes open A Power and Authority in the
their future fidelitie hereafter in the cases or contingencies wherein they are suspected I leave the indifferent reader to be judge I know what their answer will be to these two last Objections They will say the Propositions of Sorbon had no such exception against equivocation no censure of the contrary positions But the reply is no less obvious and shews the answer in both parts unsatisfactory Because the disparity is as great as the divinity and doctrine and loyalty of that famous Colledge nay and of all the Gallican Church is known to be such that their Propositions as from them and to their King or people needed no such additional exception or censure at such time as they gave those very Propositions in the year 1663. So many books lately before written by the Divines of that Faculty and Church and by the Curats of Rouen and Paris against the whole mass of casuistical opinions amongst which that of equivocations in such cases at least as ours as likewise the other of extrinsecal probability maâ—ch in the first rank and their general horror of such vile Sophistrie and withal the settledness of the generality of the French Nation both Ecclesiasticks and Lay-men in the true honest and obvious meaning of the said Propositions as comprising without further addition or specification those very cases which our congregational Divines would by their distinctions and reservations except alwayes and yet further the very penalties enacted in the rules of Sorbon and other French Universities against any that would maintain the positions of Bellarmine or the doctrine of a power in the Pope for deposing Kings all these four arguments I say to speak no more shew there was no need that the Sorbonists in the said Propositions to their own King should expresly or any other way than by the bare Propositions in themselves protest they declared them sincerely without equivocation or mental reservation And so many former no less known heavy and home censures not only of Sorbon and Paris but of all other Universities in France against that very doctrine of any power whatsoever and consequently against that which is called by new names direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary and casual or supernatural spiritual celestial divine c. in the Pope for deposing Kings evict this confession likewise That there was no need Sorbon should to those their own propositions in the year 1663. add any new censure at all of the contrary doctrine To all which and as well concerning that of equivocation as this of censure may be added that the Sorbon-Facultie's purpose in determining and presenting the foresaid six propositions to the French King on the eighth of May 63. was only to wipe off the false aspersion which some had lately and groundlesly cast upon them as if they had held the contrary in terminis Which to have been their chief purpose may be seen by that Title of theirs prefixed to the same six propositions Declaratio Facultatis Sorbonicae contra quasdam propositiones falso impositas eidem Facultati Now who sees not that to this end it was sufficient to give the contrary or contradictory propositions without any kind of addition or explication And who sees not that our case or that of our said Congregation of Dublin of the Irish Roman Catholick Clergy was wholy different in all particulars both the doctrine and practice contrary to the plain sincere and obvious meaning of the said six propositions conceived by men that are no Sophisters hath been and is with all truth and justice grounded on sad long and manifold experiences as withal the doctrine and practice of equivocation and mental reservation charged on the generality that is on the far greater part for number of the said Irish Clergy and their Representatives And neither of them have ever yet except only those few Subscribers of the Remonstrance of 61. for ought appears either in this age or any former since the debates arose first by Books Declarations Propositions or otherwise under their hands or names any way censured that pernicious doctrine or practices following it of the Pope's power or pretence of power for deposing Kings c. as neither the doctrine of equivocation or mental reservation in such cases as ours or in any other soever But to shew what only now remains that Sorbon had that all the rest of the Catholick Universities of the Gallican Church and kingdom had lately before and both sufficiently and smartly too censured the positions contrary to the foresaid three or that of any power or pretence of power in the Pope to deprive or depose Kings raise their Subjects or the people otherwise subject in rebellion against them I will give here out of very many others those censures only of the said Faculty of Sorbon fourth of April 1626. and of the whole University of Paris the 20th of April the same year against the said uncatholick doctrines And further only add the prosecution of the same censure by the other seven Universities of France the same year too All which the late Author of the Quaeries on the Oath of Allegiance hath rendred in English and prepared to my hand as extracted out of a Book lately before printed at Paris Entituled A Collection of divers Acts Censures and Decrees as well of the Vniversity as of the faculty of Theology at Paris The Title of that of Paris and consequently of that of Sorbon therein is A Decree of the Vniversity of Paris made by the Rector Deans Proctors and Bachelors of the said Vniversity in a General Assembly had on the 20th of April 1626. at the Matutines And then immediatly follows the Decree it self in these words to a tittle It having been represented by the Rector that the sacred Faculty of Theologie moved as well by their ardent zeal and fidelity towards the Church His most Christian Majesty and his Kingdoms as also by the true and perfect love which they bear to right and justice and following therein the illustrious examples left by their Predecessors in like cases upon mature examination af a certain Latin Book Entituled A Treatise of Heresie Schisme Apostasie c. and of the Popes power in order to the punishment of those crimes printed at Rome 1625. had in the 30. and 31. Chapters of Heresie found these propositions That the Pope may with temporal punishments chastise Kings and Princes depose and deprive them of their Estates and Kingdoms for the crime of Heresie and exempt their Subjects from the obedience due to them and that this custom has been alwaies practised in the Church c. and thereupon had by a publick just and legal sentence on the 4th of April censured these propositions of that pernicious Book and condemned the doctrine therein contained as new false erroneous contrary to the law of God rendring odious the Papal Dignity opening a gap to Schisme derogative to the soveraign authority of Kings which depends on God alone retarding the conversion of
vary about the many particulars to which his Royal Authority could extend it self and out of error attribute some such particulars to the Pope That besides notwithstanding our being right in our judgment or doctrine of the Kings supream power in Temporals and his independency in all kind of cases from any but God alone as to his said Temporals we might erre about the Temporals themselves and think many of them spirituals that are not such at all and consequently out of that error deny the Kings Authority where we should not That of this kind are all benefices Ecclesiastical as to the Lands and Revenues and all other earthly Goods any way belonging to the Church Nay and of this kind too the very bodies of ecclesiastical Persons how spiritual soever by denomination That we might also and out of errour notwithstanding our attributing sincerely the supream independent power to the King in all Temporals think or teach peradventure against the native liberties of the Irish Church such an unlimitted spiritual power in the Pope over the spiritual things or spiritual persons in this Kingdom as might be not only against the ancient spiritual Canons received in the said kingdom but against equity and reason and Religion too and very enormously also though indirectly or by consequence only but that an infallible one against the King and Kingdom even in their Temporals purely such As for example a power of election to all kind of benefices even Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Sees as well as Parochial Churches and to all these as well as those And a power of translation at his pleasure And a hundred others which may be read at large in Monsieur Pierre Pithou's great and most accurat work intituled Les Liberties de l'Eglise Gallicane and more briefly in Father Redmond Carons second Appendix to his Remonstrantia Hibernorum that last and most learned work of his and all without the Kings consent nay contrary to his express will and the fundamental Laws of the Land That it was therefore the Sorbon-Faculty who are men understand very well what is superfluous and what not and whether the matter of this fourth Proposition contained or not any thing different from the three former or from any other consisting of a general acknowledgment of their Kings most absolute independent Supremacy in Temporals it was I say therefore they would give immediatly after the three former this fourth as specifically declaring against those injuries might be otherwise done by the Pope to their Church Kingdom or King under pretence of such a spiritual power and right only which could not be said to be of its own nature either ordinarily or extraordinarily inconsistent with the supream absolute and independent power of their King in all contingencies whatsoever and yet per se would be unquestionably most injurious and grievous to them and per accidens might prove their utter bane and even as fatal to them as Bellarmine's indirect power in temporals which they protested against in their first proposition That Finally an ordinary person may understand it is one thing and much less to declare our indispensable Allegiance to the King and his independent power in all temporals and an other and much more to declare we understand that Allegiance so as we ought to hold it an incroachment on the Kings said temporal rights and authority and on the both temporal and spiritual rights also of his Catholick Subjects that the Pope should attempt in many or any particular within his Kingdoms to dispose for example sake of goods or persons though by title otherwise Ecclesiastical or Spiritual against the Canons by them received or which is the example of Sorbone to depose a Bishop within his Dominions against the said Canons And therefore it must be clear that by Subscribing the said fourth proposition duely applied mutatis nominibus the Congregation might very well and truly and rightly too have conceived they had said more than they had already or before by subscribing the former three Propositions and Remonstrance even in case I say their said Remonstrance and three Propositions had a full cleer and sufficient expression as from them to obviat all reservations abstractions distinctions equivocations c much more when it is apparent out of my two former Tracts there is no expression at all sufficient as from them to obviat such delusions So much for their first allegation or proof Though as I have before noted if it be intended a proof of the applicableness of their first general reason to the particular of this fourth Proposition it be no new medium but idem per idem and a petitio principij To their second which is that they admit not any power derogatory to His Majesties authority the answers are That I could wish 't were so indeed That they have given as yet no sufficient proof they do not if we understand what they here say as plain honest sincere men would understand these words That understanding by His Majestie 's authority what they do indeed which in effect is a very pittiful authority an authority at best and at most subordinat to that of the Pope Church and People when either please to declare against it in any of those extraordinary cases of Schisme Heresie Apostacie Tiranny c. and an authority also which even out of such cases hath no power to hinder the Pope's absolute disposition of all Ecclesiastical benefices and persons at his pleasure understanding I say this kind of authority their medium is new indeed but vain and inconclusive For how doth it follow we admit no power derogatory to such His Majesties authority Therefore we have already by saying so attributed to our Gracious King whatever the Sorbone Doctors in truth and reallity have to their own in this fourth proposition Or therefore we shall never approve any propositions contrary to His Majesties authority meaning such as it is indeed not such as by fiction curtayled nor approve any propositions contrary to the genuine liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom as for example that the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons Or therefore our second general reason for not subscribing the three last Propositions is specifically applicable to the first of them being in order the fourth of the six Which reason was that we thought we had already sufficiently cleared all Scruples If any of these consequences follow then hath Aristotle failed much in his Topicks As for their third allegation to prove this applicableness and consequently their subscription to this fourth to be not necessary but Superfluous which allegation is in effect as I understand it that they had already more positively declared themselves for the Kings authority rights c. and they should add too or at least mean if they would alledge any thing here to purpose that they had so declared themselves also for the true or genuin liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in
Catholick faith and Christian Religion That all the Catholick Vniversities of France which are Eight in number and many more which are in Poland Germanie State of Venice c. do not otherwise controvert this proposition For they hold it positively for certain and undeniable ever since the Council of Constance that a general Council is above the Pope That finally not so many Catholick Vniversities alone maintain this maxime but even the whole Gallican Church nor the whole Gallican Church alone but the Vniversal or Catholick Church in its latitude and by its lawful Representatives even in two general Councils that of Constance I mean about 300 years since and that of Basile immediately after or within 12 years after have amongst their Canons defined this to be a catholick truth All which joyntly with what is said before in this matter if the congregation had seriously considered it is like they would have declined their vain pretence of a School question of Divinity controverted in all catholick Vniversities of the world as they speake What more I have to say on this Subject of that 5th proposition abstractedly in it self considered though by occasion of the said first unreasonable reason of the Congregation or of their absolute refusal to subscribe it upon this or any other ground whatsoever they know best what that ground was will more conveniently be said in a distinct Treatise which will be the 5th in order of this work and followes immediatly after my answers to their allegations for not signing the sixth and laâ—â— proposition and after some few more additional propositions of my own added there Secondly or to their second specifical reason whereby they labour to prove the Subscription of this 5th proposition to be not onely impertinent in it self but dangerous in its consequents and unseasonable c Its answered that indeed to take of any question so as this talke in all the circumstances of it without any profit quiet or other good to the King or his Subjects should be thought in â—ight reason to be a cause of breeding new jealousies or renewing the old between the King and his people or of giving the least overture to such odious and horrid disputâ— concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late experience hath taught us would be now unseasonable though not therefore nor at all impertinent That nevertheless to talke of this specifical or particular question whether the Pope be above the general Council and talke of it now or in this present conjuncture in Ireland and talke of it so as the Congregation might and should and as expected from them or talke of iâ— so as their talke would be to those good and rational ends of bringing dissentors of their country and Religion to a free conscientious and vnanimous subscription of the negative and of thereby obstructing much occasion of new troubles and further of rooting out the seeds of Rebellion from amongst the Roman-catholick Clergie of Ireland on pretence of Papal decrees alone or letters from the Court of Rome that I say to talke of this specifical or individual question and talke of it in this manner or to these or other such good ends and in that Congregation would not be to talke of a question either impertinent in it self or dangerous in its consequents or unseasonable in any kind of respect either of the matter persons time Prince or other people but on the contrary most pertinent safe and seasonable and bringing a long with it naturally much profit both to King and Subjects because much peace and quiet by setling a truth so necessary and of so great importance against a sly error of so pernicious destructive consequence as is the contrary position That if from such talke of this specifical or particular question in such manner to such ends and in such a Congregation any should either out of ignorance or malice fall into such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late sad experience hath taught us it could not therefore be dangerous to give in such an occasion to such disputes so little overture as talke so qualified can be rationally thought by any indifferent man to give being this overture at most and worst could not be to other than the speculative part onely of those other odious and horrid disputes but not by any means to the practical at least for the present in that Congregation or Catholick Clergie of Ireland whom that Congregation represented and commanded That in giving so little overture to that speculation or speculative part onely of that other question and giving such overture not at all necessarily but accidentally and onely out of the biass and malice or ignorance of some of themselves both which themselves too partly and partly others also as was offered might and would easily rectifie if they pleased there could be no danger at all as to the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland or as from them But that in relation to others of the Monarchy of great Brittain who of late or in the late Warrs engaged themselves practically or in the practical part of those other odious and horrid disputes it is nothing this Congregation could say or unsay on that point or any other would engage anew or disengage them That Sorbone and the whole Gallican Church and the French King himself and his Council who all maintain without contradiction as even do his very Parliaments nay his general Assemblies of all the three estates of that Kingdom the most absolute Soveraignty of the French Monarch over all his people even collectively taken in what assembly soever the most independent from them or from any els but God alone can be desired in pursuance of that other tenet they all hold in the said Gallican Church of the Kings power to be given him immediatly by God alone as by the onely efficient of it that I say that learned subtile Faculty Church Prince or people never found that impertinency or danger or unseasonableness in the subscription of Sorbone to the said Proposition But on the other side much pertinency and safety and seasonableness towards the perpetual establishment of that absolute independent power in their King whereof they are jealous as of the apple of their eye and I fear much more incomparably than most Fathers of the Congregation were of the like in their own King if not to deny it him That as these good Fathers declared publickly in their said Congregation and privatly one to another the precedent of Sorbone was enough to secure them in their subscription of the three first Propositions nay and of all for this too they said so they might and ought for the same reason perswade themselves effectually no less at least of the pertinency and safety and seasonableness of their subscription to this 5th also than of the Catholickness and lawfulness of it That further yet or even abstracting as well from all precedents as from
all ignorance malice and other preoccupation whatsoever nay and from their subscription too the Fathers will find it a very hard taske to shew I say not impertinency for this I am sure they can not after what is said before with any colour insist on any longer but any such danger in the consequence of this Proposition It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council or of this simply The Pope is not above a general Council or of this other as simple which yet is the same in effect A general Council is above the Pope That such Divines of either Greek or Latin Church either Catholick or not as affirm the Papacie or Papal authority as such or as allowed either by those Canons which in opposition to others or by way of excellency are commonly stiled Canones Vniversalis Ecclesiae or as approved even by those other Canons which are properly and onely Papal Canons and are those of the Western-Church whether all or how many of them received generally in the Western-Church or not it matters not at this time that such Divines I say of either Church Greek or Latin as affirm this Papal authority over all other Churches in the world to be onely at the utmost and immediatly such by ecclesiastical and human institution of the Church not by any of Christ otherwise then by his approbation and ratification above in Heaven of what the Church long after his Ascension had here on earth ordained will find no kind of difficulty to shew the inconsequence of the Parliament's being above the King if a general Council be above the Pope First Because the power of a general Council truely such representing the Catholick diffusive Church is by all sides confessed to be originally and immediatly de jure divino or by the immediat institution of Iesus Christ himself whether in that passage of the Gospel dic Ecclesiae or in some other Secondly Because this power is unalterable undiminishable unsubjectable even by the Council it self to any other without a new revealed command from God himself which hath not been hitherto And therefore and out of that very passage of Mathew Dic Ecclesiae must be above the Pope being the Pope can not deny himself to be one of the faithful brethren and being all faithful brethren without exception of any are commanded by Christ himself in that passage of Mathew to be under pain of Excommunication obedient to the sentence of the Church in case they be accused or charged with any guilt before it Thirdly Because on the other side the power of Parliaments is by them not onely denied to be originally or immediatly either jure divino or humano over all persons whatsoever of the respective hereditary Kingdoms if we include the Prince amongst such persons but as such denied also to have been as much as in after times introduced by any allowance or Custom approved either by God or man Prince or people themselves Fourthly Because the very same divines assert constantly the power of supream or soveraign temporal Princes or Kings at least hereditary such as our King is and of which consequently the present dispute is to be jure divino or to be given them from God himself immediatly not from or by the people Or if these divines or any of them allow it has been originally and immediatly from the people at first even as from an efficient cause yet withal maintain that the people also did originally and immediatly so transferr the whole supream power from themselves even in all contingencies whatsoever that it must be ever after irrevocable by them Alleaging for proof that the Scriptures are so clear for the Subjection and obedience of the people even to had tyrannical Kings and not for fear alone but for conscience And further alleaging that there is no tribunal of the people and consequently there is no Parliament appointed by the law of God as neither by the laws of man or nature not even in the most extraordinary cases against their Prince or against any other offending besides that erected by the Princes power Whereunto certainly he never subjects himself so as to give the people or Parliament a supream power above his ownself or a power of superiority or jurisdiction over himself and coercion of himself though he some times bind himself and limit in some cases his own power but by his own power and will alone not by any inherent in the people And who sees not in this doctrine the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of this argument The Pope is not above a general Council Therefore the King is 〈◊〉 above his Parliament Or therefore whoever subscribes that antecedent gives an overture to those late horrid disputes Would not these divines rationally say upon their own grounds this were not to argue à simili but à dissimili Would not they tell you presently what the six hundred Catholick Bishops convened in the 4th general Council that of Calcedon I mean declared in their 27th Canon albeit some great and even holy Bishops of Rome complained of it grieviously that it was the Fathers that gave the priviledges to the Bishop of ancient Rome and that it was therefore they gave such priviledges to him because ancient Rome was then the Seat of the Empire That by consequence the Papacie and power thereof as such must be acknowledged to be as instituted by the Church onely at first so till the last to be dependent subordinate and under the power of the same Church because this power of the Church is for ever unchangeable while the world continues as having been given to it by Christ himself when upon earth And therefore the Pope cannot be above but under a general Council being it is either of all sides confessed the whole power of the Church is in a general Council truely such of it must be so at least in their grounds whether any els confess or oppose it And would not they further tell you the case is quite contrary in that of King and Parliament That first there is no such thing by divine immediate institution or by that of Christ or God immediatly as a Parliament or a power thereof That neither by the mediat institution of God that is by the laws of man there is any such thing or power at least in hereditary Kingdoms which may stand in opposition to the power of Kings Nor any at all in or without such opposition but what they derive originally immediatly and solely from the pleasure of Kings at least and as I mean still in hereditary Kingdoms That secondly or in the next place the power of Kings at least hereditary Soveraign and Supream is immediatly originally and onely from God himself Or if at first any way from the people yet so from them that after their institution translation and submission hoc ipso they must be so absolute and independent that they do not acknowledge nor any way have
great Archbishop Primate Patriarch and least of all in or to the chief of Patriarchs to decide define censure and condemn in his own Diocess and in his own Diocesan Synod or when he shall see cause even without any such Synod certain propositions of Heresie provided he carry himself warily circumspectly have sufficient knowledge of or in the divine Scriptures Traditions Canons or Faith of the universal Church concerning the points controverted That notwithstanding the Catholick Church or Doctors thereof require submission and obedience at least externally even to such decisions and from all kind of persons respectively subject to the direction of such Deciders and require that submission and obedience universally where ever and whensoever the decision appears not or until it appear by sufficient and clear evidence to be in it self indeed against the faith received or at least to be very much doubted of by the rest of the faithful or by a considerable party of the learned and pious yet not only in the opinion of Jansenists but even of most of the most Orthodox Anti-Jansenists the same Catholick Church hath never yet attributed infallibility to any such decision as barely purely and only such but on the contrary held it alwayes as such to be fallible That in the same opinion likewise and as well of most of the severest Anti-Jansenist's as of the very most rigid Jansenist's when the Propositions defined so are in themselves infallibly true and of divine Catholick belief they must not therefore nor are by the Catholick Church required to be by the faithful believed to be such that is infallibly true ratione formae or by reason onely or at all of any such decision definition censure or condemnation or of any how formal soever so made as above even by the Pope himself and even with an especial Congregation of Doctors or Divines and Prelats but ratione materiae by reason of the matter onely whereon such decision falls Although to the vulgar and ignorant such particular decision onely may and ought to be a sufficient motive of even the most internal submission of their Soules as long as they hear no publick contradiction of the points by any of the rest of the Churches or pious and learned Doctors which are within the pale of the Catholick Church That as it is confessed notwithstanding that there are some other Divines of the Catholick communion who in those later and worser ages of the Church attribute infallibility to such decisions made by Popes onely without any further consent or concurrence of the Catholick Church by a general Council or otherwise than by such few Divines or Canonists as the Pope is pleased to consult with nay or otherwise too than by his own onely judgment declared to all Christians by a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle though even against the judgment of all other Divines Canonists Prelats even those of his own particular Diocess Church or City of Rome for they place all his infallibility nay that of the whole Church in his own judgment alone declared by him as Pope or ex Cathedra that is in their explication of Cathedra declared by him to all the faithful in a Brief Bull or Decretal Epistle authoritate Petri et Pauli Apostolorum or commanded by him under pain of Excommunication or anathema or forfeiture of Salvation to be followed as the faith delivered once by the Apostles of Christ so most of this way or this opinion have been long before there was any Iansenist in the world before Iansenius himself had ever put penn to paper nay before he was born Though it be confessed withal it took strongest footing in many Schools since Bellarmine undertook the patronage of it but this too was before Iansenius's time That therefore the question in it self and even as well in relation to the Parisians or Sorbonists as to us here in Ireland and certainly of us there can be no kind of dispute abstracts wholy from all kind of Iansenisme as it is also well known the former or that of the Pope's authority over or subjection to a general Council does That whether the Sorbonist's or any of them in subscribing the 6th Proposition took occasion in part from that Bull of Alexander the 7th wherein he declares the five condemned Propositions to be in Iansenius or further took any from that Blasphemous thesis of Cleremont asserting the same infallibily to the Popes declaration even in matter of fact which Christ our Saviour had when upon earth or whether they took from neither any such occasion as indeed they might and should very justly from that of Cleremont and therefore likely have it is manifest enough that the Sorbonist's who subscribed this 6th Proposition or declaration against the doctrine of the Popes infallibility are no Iansenist's as being men that are all known to have subscribed the condemnation of the five Propositions of Iansenius and men too that most of them have been earnest all along against his doctrine and against the Patrons of it how ever some time of their own Faculty but not at all long before the date of these six Propositions That besides considering the State of the Kingdom of France and affairs of their King in the month and 8th of May 1663. when the Sorbonist's made these declarations and His being at defiance with the Pope at that very time and considering also that the four first import directly and onely for the matter what concerned their said Kings security against all such future pretensions or attempts of Popes as those were of Boniface the 8th or Iulius the second and considering besides that the whole Vniversitie of Paris not Sorbone onely went altogether with the Arch-Bishop of that See heading them to present the same declarations to their King and that his French Majesty took such special care to publish them in Print throughout his Kingdom with his own declarative commands prefixed to them and moreover considering that the former five without the 6th could not be sufficient in point of doctrine to secure him of his Catholick Subjects against the Pope and further yet considering that the said French King himself was constantly and is so farr from being a Iansenist that he hath always been and was at that very time as he is now at this present a great persecuter of them and finally considering that all the Bishops of France with all its Vniversities and for the matter the whole Gallican Church concurred with those three Popes in the condemnation of that which is reputed Iansenisme I mean the five Propositions commonly said to be found in Iansenius I say that considering well and joyning all together it may be easily and rationally concluded that amongst other motives as that of Cleremont concerning the Popes infallibility in matter of Fact equal to Christs and as that of Sorbone's wiping of the imputation of the same doctrine also of the Popes infallibility in general according to Bellarmines way so lately
hisce subscripsimus Kilkenniae 28 Januarii 1648. Jo Archiepiscopus Tuamen Fran Aladen Ed Limericensis THE ARTICLES OF PEACE Made and Concluded by his Excellency JAMES LORD Marquess of Ormond LORD LIEUTENANT GENERAL AND General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland on the behalf of His Majesty WITH THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Roman-Catholicks of the said Kingdom on the behalf of His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of the same Re-printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII BY THE LORD LIEVTENANT GENERAL AND General Governour Of the Kingdom of IRELAND ORMONDE VVHEREAS Articles of Peace are made concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between Vs JAMES Lord Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland by vertue of the Authority wherewith We are entrusted for and on the behalf of His Most Excellent Majesty of the one part and the General Assembly of the Roman-Catholicks of the said Kingdom for and on the behalf of His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of the same on the other part A true Copy of which Articles of Peace is hereunto annexed We the Lord Lieutenant do by this Proclamation in His Majesties Name publish the same and do in His Majesties Name strictly charge and command all His Majesties Subjects and all others inhabiting or residing within His Majesties said Kingdom of Ireland to take notice thereof and to render due Obedience to the same in all the parts thereof And as His Majesty hath been induced to this Peace out of a deep sense of the miseries and calamities brought upon this His Kingdom and People and out of a hope conceived by His Majesty that it may prevent the further effusion of His Subjects Blood redeem them out of all the miseries and calamities under which they now suffer restore them to all quietness and happiness under His Majesties most gracious Government deliver the Kingdom in general from those Slaughters Depredations Rapines and Spoils which alwayes accompany a War encourage the Subjects and others with comfort to betake themselves to Trade Traffick Commerce Manufacture and all other things which uninterrupted may increase the wealth and strength of the Kingdom beget in all His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom a perfect unity amongst themselves after the too long continued division amongst them So His Majesty assures Himself that all His Subjects of this His Kingdom duly considering the great and inestimable benefits which they may find in this Peace will with all duty render due Obedience thereunto And We in His Majesties Name do hereby declare That all persons so rendring due Obedience to the said Peace shall be protected cherished countenanced and supported by His Majesty and His Royal Authority according to the true intent and meaning of the said Articles of Peace Given at Our Castle of Kilkenny the Seventeenth day of January 1648. GOD SAVE THE KING ARTICLES of Peace made concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between his Excellency JAMES Lord Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of His Majesties Kingdom of Ireland for and on the behalf of His Most Excellent Majesty by vertue of the Authority wherewith the said Lord Lieutenant is intrusted on the one part And the GEMERAL ASSEMBLY of the Roman Catholicks of the said Kingdom for and on the behalf of His Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects of the same on the other part HIS Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects as thereunto bound by Allegiance Duty and Nature do most humbly and freely acknowledge and recognize their Sovereign Lord King Charles to be lawful and undoubted King of this Kingdom of Ireland and other His Highness Realms and Dominions And His Majesties said Roman Catholick Subjects apprehending with a deep sense the sad condition whereunto His Majesty is reduced as a further humble Testimony of their Loyalty do declare That they and their Posterity for ever to the uttermost of their power even to the expence of their blood and fortunes will maintain and uphold His Majesty His Heirs and lawful Successors their Rights Prerogatives Government and Authority and thereunto freely and heartily will render all due obedience OF which faithful and loyal Recognition and Declaration so seasonably made by the said Roman Catholicks His Majesty is graciously pleased to accept and accordingly to own them his loyal and dutiful Subjects and is further graciously pleased to extend unto them the following graces and securities I. IMprimis It is concluded accorded and agreed upon by and betweeen the said Lord Lieutenant for and on the behalf of His most Excellent Majesty and the said General Assembly for and on the behalf of the said Roman Catholick Subjects And His Majesty is graciously pleased that it shall be Enacted by Act to be past in the next Parliament to be held in this Kingdom That all and every the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion within the said Kingdom shall be free and exempt from all Mulcts Penalties Restraints and Inhibitions that are or may be imposed upon them by any Law Statute Usage or Custom whatsoever for or concerning the free exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion And that it shall be likewise Enacted That the said Roman Catholicks or any of them shall not be questioned or molested in their Persons Goods or Estates for any matter or cause whatsoever for concerning or by reason of the free exercise of their Religion by vertue of any Power Authority Statute Law or Usage whatsoever And that it shall be further Enacted That no Roman Catholick in this Kingdom shall be compelled to exercise any Religion Form of Devotion or Divine Service other than such as shall be agreeable to their Conscience and that they shall not be prejudiced or molested in their Persons Goods or Estates for not observing using or hearing the Book of Common Prayer or any other Form of Devotion or Divine Service by vertue or colour of any Statute made in the second year of Queen Elizabeth or by vertue or colour of any other Law Declaration of Law Statute Custom or Usage whatsoever made or declared to be made or declared And that it shall be further Enacted That the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion or any of them be not bound or obliged to take the Oath commonly called the Oath of Supremacy expressed in the Statute of Secundo Eliz. cap. 10. or in any other Statute or Statutes and that the said Oath shall not be tendred to them and that the refusal of the said Oath shall not redound to the prejudice of them or any of them they taking the Oath of Allegiance in haec verba viz. I A. B. do truly acknowledge profess testifie and declare in my Conscience before God and the World That our Sovereign Lord King CHARLES is lawful and rightful King of this Realm and of other His Majesties Dominions and Countries and I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them will defend to the uttermost of my
the mean time that no such Indictments Attainders Outlawries Processes or other proceedings thereupon nor any Letters Patents Grants Leases Custodiums Bonds Recognizances or any Record Act or Acts Office or Offices Inquisitions or any other thing depending upon or taken by reason of the said Indictments Attainders or Outlawries shall in any sort prejudice the said Roman Catholicks or any of them but that they and every of them shall be forthwith on perfection of these Articles restored to their respective possessions and hereditaments respectively provided that no man shall be questioned by reason hereof for measne rates or wastes saving wilful wastes committed after the first day of May last past V. Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased that as soon as possibly may be all impediments which may hinder the said Roman Catholicks to sit or vote in the next intended Parliament or to choose or to be chosen Knights and Burgesses to sit or vote there shall be removed and that before the said Parliament VI. Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That all Debts shall remain as they were upon the 23d of October 1641. notwithstanding any disposition made or to be made by vertue or colour of any Attainders Outlawry Fugacy or other forfeiture and that no Disposition or Grant made or to be made of any such Debts by vertue of any Attainder Outlawry Fugacy or other forfeiture shall be of force and this to be passed as an Act in the next Parliament VII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is graciously pleased That for the securing of the Estates or reputed Estates of the Lords Knights Gentlemen and Freeholders or reputed Freeholders as well of Connaught and County of Clare or Countrey of Thomond as of the Counties of Limerick and Tipperary the same to be secured by Act of Parliament according to the intent of the 25th Article of the Graces granted in the Fourth year of His Majesties Reign the tenour whereof for so much as concerneth the same doth ensue in these words viz. We are graciously pleased that for the securing of the Inhabitants of Connaught and Countrey of Thomond and County of Clare that their several Estates shall be confirmed unto them and their Heirs against Vs and our Heirs and Successors by Act to be passed in the next Parliament to be holden in Ireland to the end the same may never hereafter be brought into any further question by us our Heirs and Successors In which Act of Parliament so to be passed you are to take care that all tenures in capite and all Rents and Services as are now due or which ought to be answered unto Us out of the said Lands and Premises by any Letters Patents past thereof since the first year of King Henry the Eighth or found by any Office taken from the said first year of King Henry the Eighth until the One and twentieth of July 1615. whereby Our late dear Father or any His Predecessors actually received any profit by Wardship Liveries Primer-seizins Measne-rates Ousterlemaynes or Fines of Alienations without Licence be again reserved unto Us Our Heirs and Successors and all the rest of the Premises to be holden of our Castle of Athlone by Knights service according to our said late Fathers Letters notwithstanding any tenures in capite found for Us by office since the One and twentieth of July One thousand six hundred and fifteen and not appearing in any such Letters Patents or Offices within which Rule His Majesty is likewise graciously pleased That the said Lands in the Counties of Limerick and Tipperary be included but to be held by such Rents and Tenures only as they were in the fourth year of His Majesties Reign provided alwayes That the said Lords Knights Gentlemen and Freeholders or reputed Freeholders of the said Province of Connaught County of Clare and County of Thomond and Counties of Tipperary and Limerick shall have and enjoy the full benefit of such composition and agreement which shall be made with His most Excellent Majesty for the Court of Wards Tenures Respite and issues of homage any Clause in this Article to the contrary notwithstanding And as for the Lands within the Counties of Kilkenny and Wickloe unto which His Majesty was intituled by office taken or found in the time of the Earl of Strafford's Government in this Kingdom His Majesty is further graciously pleased That the state thereof shall be considered in the next intended Parliament where His Majesty will assent unto that which shall be just and honourable And that the like Act of Limitation of His Majesties Titles for the security of the Estates of His Subjects of this Kingdom be passed in the said Parliament as was Enacted in the One and twentieth year of His late Majesty King James's Reign in England VIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That all incapacities imposed upon the Natives of this Kingdom or any of them as Natives by any Act of Parliament Provisoes in Patents or otherwise be taken away by Act to be passed in the said Parliament and that they may be enabled to erect one or more Inns of Court in or near the City of Dublin or elsewhere as shall be thought fit by His Majesties Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being And in case the said Inns of Court shall be erected before the first day of the next Parliament then the same shall be in such place as His Majesties 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 Castelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunrie 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 think fit And that such Students Natives of this Kingdom as shall be therein may take and receive the usual degrees accustomed in any Inns of Court they taking the ensuing Oath viz. I A. B. do truly acknowledge profess testifie and declare in my Conscience before God and the World That our Sovereign Lord King CHARLES is lawful and rightful King of this Realm and of other His Majesties Dominions and Countries and I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against His or Their Crown and Dignity and do my best endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors or to the Lord Deputy or other His Majesties Chief Governour
their Votes in Parliament until such time as they shall afterwards acquire such Estates respectively and that none be admitted into the House of Commons but such as shall be estated and resident within this Kingdom XII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That as for and concerning the independency of the Parliament of Ireland of the Parliament of England His Majesty will leave both Houses of Parliament in this Kingdom to make such Declaration therein as shall be agreeable to the Law of the Kingdom of Ireland XIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That the Council Table shall contain it self within its proper bounds in handled matters of State and weight fit for that place amongst which the Patents of Plantation and the Offices whereupon those Grants are founded are to be handled as matters of State and to be heard and determined by His Majesties Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours for the time being and the Council publickly at the Council-Boord and not otherwise Titles between Party and Party grown after these Patents granted are to be left to the ordinary course of Law And that the Council Table do not hereafter intermeddle with common business that is within the cognizance of the ordinary Courts nor with the altering of possessions of Lands nor make nor use private Orders Hearings or References concerning any such matter nor grant any Injunctions or order for stay of any Suits in any Civil cause and that Parties grieved for or by reason of any proceedings formerly had there may commence their Suits and prosecute the same in any of His Majesties Courts of Justice or Equity for remedy of their pretended Rights without any restraint or interruption from His Majesty or otherwise by the chief Governour or Governours and Council of this Kingdom And that the proceedings in the respective Presidents Courts shall be pursuant and according to His Majesties printed Book of Instructions and that they shall contain themselves within the limits prescribed by that Book when the Kingdom shall be restored to such a degree of quietness as they be not necessarily inforced to exceed the same XIV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further pleased That as for and concerning one Statute made in this Kingdom in the Eleventh year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth intituled An Act for staying of Wool Flocks Tallow and other necessaries within this Realm And one other Statute made in the said Kingdom in the Twelfth year of the Reign of the said Queen intituled An Act _____ And one other Statute made in the said Kingdom in the Thirteenth year of the Reign of the said late Queen intituled An Explanation of the Act made in a Session of this Parliament for the staying of Wool Flocks Tallow and other Wares and Commodities mentioned in the said Act and certain Articles added to the same Act all concerning Staple or Native Commodities of this Kingdom shall be repealed if it shall be so thought fit in the Parliament excepting for Wool and Wool-fells and that such indifferent 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 Dillen 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 authorized by Commission under the great Seal to moderate and ascertain the rates of Merchandize to be exported or imported out of or into this Kingdom as they shall think fit XV. Item It is concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That all and every person and persons within this Kingdom pretending to have suffered by offices found of several Countries Territories Lands and Hereditaments in the Province of Vlster and other Provinces of this Kingdom in or since the first year of King James's Reign or by attainders and forfeitures or by pretence or colour thereof since the said first year of King James or by other Acts depending on the said offices attainders and forfeitures may petition His Majesty in Parliament for relief and redress and if after examination it shall appear to His Majesty the said persons or any of them have been injured then His Majesty will prescribe a course to repair the person or persons so suffering according to justice and honour XVI Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That as to the particular cases of Maurice Lord Viscount de Rupe Fermoy Arthur Lord Viscount Jueagh Sir Edmond Fitz-Gerald of Cloungliffe Baronet Charles Mac Charthy Reagh Roger Moore Anthony Moore William Fitz-Gerard Anthony Lynch John Lacy Collo Mac Bryen Mac Mahon Donnel Costingen Edmond Fitz-Gerald of Ballimartyr Lucas Keatinge Theobald Roch Fitz-Myles Thomas Fitz-Gerald of the Vally John Bourke of Loghmaske Edmond Fitz-Gerald of Ballimullo James Fitz-William Gerald of Glysnan and Edward Sutton they may Petition His Majesty in the next Parliament whereupon His Majesty will take such consideration of them as shall be just and fit XVII Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That the Citizens Freemen Burgesses and former Inhabitants of the City of Cork and Towns of Youghal and Dongarvan shall be forthwith upon perfection of these Articles restored to their respective Possessions and Estates in the said City and Towns respectively where the same extends not to the indangering of the Garrisons in the said City and Towns in which case so many of the said Citizens and Inhabitants as shall not be admitted to the present possession of their houses within the said City and Towns shall be afforded a valuable annual Rent for the same until settlement in Parliament at which time they shall be restored to those their possessions And it is further agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That the said Citizens Freemen Burgesses and Inhabitants of the said City of Cork and Towns of Youghal and Dongarvan respectively shall be enabled in convenient time before the next Parliament to be held in this Kingdom to choose and return Burgesses into the same Parliament XVIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That an Act of Oblivion be passed in the next Parliament to extend to all His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom and their Adherents of all Treasons and offences Capital Criminal and Personal and other
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 for letting setting and improving the Estates of all such person and persons as shall adhere to any Party opposing His Majesties authority and not submitting to the Peace and that the profits of such Estates shall be converted by the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being to the maintenance of the Kings Army and other necessary charges until settlement by Parliament And that 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 have power to applot raise and levy means with indifferency and equality for the buying of Arms and Ammunition and for the entertaining of Frigots in such proportion as shall be thought fit by His Majesties 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 the said Arms and Ammunition to be laid up in such Magazines and under the charge of 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 to be disposed of and the said Frigots to be employed for His Majesties service and the publick use and benefit of the Kingdom of Ireland And that 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 have power to applot raise and levy means with indifferency and equality by way of Excise or otherwise in the several Cities Corporate Towns Counties and parties of Counties now within the Quarters and only upon the Estates of the said Confederate Roman-Catholicks all such Sum and Sums of money as shall appear to 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 be really due for and in the discharge of the Publick engagements of the said Confederate Catholicks incurred or grown due before the conclusion of these Articles And that 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 authorized to appoint Receivers Collectors and all other Officers for such monies as shall be assessed taxed or applotted in pursuance of the Authorities mentioned in this Article and for the Arrears of all former Applotments Taxes and other Publick dues yet unpaid And that 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 in case of refractoriness or delinquency may distrain and imprison and cause such Delinquents to be distrained and imprisoned And that 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 make perfect Books of all such monies as shall be applotted raised and levied out of which Books they are to make several and respective Abstracts to be delivered under their hands or the hands of any seven or more of them to the several and respective Collectors which shall be appointed to levy and receive the same and that a Duplicate of the said Books under the hands 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 be delivered unto His Majesties Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being whereby a present accompt may be given And that 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 them shall have power to call the Council and Congregation and the respective Supreme Councils and Commissioners General appointed hither to from time to time by the said Confederate Roman-Catholicks to manage their publick affairs and all other persons answerable to an accompt for all their Receipts and Disbursments since the beginning of their respective employments under the Confederate Roman Catholicks XXVIII Item It is concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That for the preservation of the Peace and tranquility of the Kingdom the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of
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
Protestants Warde there our Army afterwards appearing before the place the Souldiers were commanded to fight against the Walls and armed men without great Guns Ladders Petards Shovels Spades Pickaxes or other necessaries there being kill'd upon the place above 500 Souldiers valiantly fighting Yet near Thomas-town our Souldiers being of tryed Foot two to one and well resolved were forbidden to fight in the open Field having advantage of ground against the Enemy to the utter disheartning of the Souldiers and People After this the Enemy came like a deluge upon Calan Featbard Cashel Killmalock and other Corporations within the Provinces of Leinster and Munster and the Countrey about rendred Tributary Then followed the taking of Laghlin and Kilkenny then that of Clonmel where the Enemy met with gallantry loss and resistance Lastly Ticrohan and Catharlough two great pillars of Leinster shaken down that of Ticrohan to speak nothing for the present of all other places was given up by orders Waterford block't in is in a sad condition Dunkannon the key of the Kingdom unrelieved since the first of December is like to be given up and lost X. That the Prelates after the numerous Congregation at Cloanmacnoise where they made Declarations for the Kings great advantage after printed and after many other laborious meetings and consultations with the expressions of their sincerity and earnestness were not allowed by his Excellency to have employed their power and best diligence towards advancing the Kings interest but rather suspected and blamed as may appear by his own Letter to the Prelates then at Jamestown written August 2d And words were heard to fall from him dangerous as to the persons of some Prelates XI That his Excellency represented to His Majesty some parts of this Kingdom disobedient which absolutely deny any such disobedience by them committed and thereby procured from His MAJESTY a Letter to withdraw his own person and the Royal Authority if such disobediences were multiplied and to leave the people without the benefit of the Peace This was the reward his Excellency out of his envy to a Catholick Loyal Nation prepared for our Loyalty and Obedience sealed by the shedding of our blood and the loss of our substance XII That his Excellency and the Lord of Inchiquin when enemies to the Catholicks being very active in unnatural executions against us and shedding the blood of poor Priests and Churchmen have shewed little of action since this Peace but for many months kept themselves in Connaught and Thumond where no danger or the Enemy appeared spending their time as most men observed in play pleasure and great merriment while the other parts of the Kingdom were bleeding under the Sword of the Enemy This was no great argument of sense or grief in them to see a Kingdom lost to His MAJESTY XIII That his Excellency when prospering put no trust of places taken in into the hands of Catholicks as that of Droghedagh Dundalk Trim c. and by this his diffidence in Catholicks and by other his actions and expressions the Catholick Army had no heart to fight or to be under his command and feared greatly if he had mastered the Enemy and with them the Commissioners of Trust or the greater part of them and many Thousands of the Kingdom also feared he would have brought the Catholick Subjects and their Religion to the old slavery XIV We will not speak of many Corruptions and Abuses as passing of a Custodium upon the Abby of Killbegaine worth in past years to the Confederates well nigh 400 l. per annum to Secretary Lane for 40 l. or thereabouts per annum nor of many other such like to Daniel O Neil and others at an under-value to the great prejudice of the Publick XV. We do also notifie to the Catholicks of the Kingdom most of the above Grievances and breaches of the Peace being delivered to the Commissioners of Trust in February last that the Clergy and Laity receiving redress or justice the discontent of the Subject might be removed no amendment appeared after eight months effluxed but the evil still continued that occasioned the ruine of the Nation And we also protest to the whole World having done our best we have no power to remove the jealousies and fears of the People Besides the above Injuries and violation of the Articles of the Peace against Religion the Kings interest and the Nation nothing appearing before the eyes of the People but desolation waste burning and the destruction of the Kingdom three parts of four thereof being come under contribution to the Enemy Cities Towns and strong holds taken from them Altars pulled down Churches lost Priests killed and banished Sacraments and Sacrifices and all things holy profaned and almost utterly extinguished Armies and great numbers of Souldiers by them maintained and the Enemy not fought withall those that would fight for them born down and those that would betray them cherished and advanced finally no visible Army or defence appearing they are come to despair of recovering what is lost or defending what they hold and some inclining for safety of their lives and estates do compound with the Parliament persuading themselves no safety can be to any living under the Government of the LORD LIEUTENANT attended by fate and disaster For prevention of these evils and that the Kingdom may not be utterly lost to His MAJESTY and His Catholick Subjects this Congregation of Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries of both Clergies of this Kingdom found our selves bound in Conscience after great deliberation to declare against the continuance of His Majesties Authority in the person of the said Lord Marquess of Ormond premitting this Protestation to the world That we had never come to such Declaration but that we and the People of this Kingdom generally despair of the Kingdoms recovery under his Government as hereby we do declare as well in our own names and behalf as in the names and behalf of the rest of the Catholicks of this Kingdom against him the said Marquess of Ormond having by his misgovernment ill Conduct of His Majesties Army and the breach of Publick Faith with the People in several particulars of the Articles of the Peace rendered himself uncapable of continuing that great Trust any longer being questionable before His Majesty for the said injuries and ill Government to which effect we will join with other members of this Kingdom in drawing a Charge against him and we hereby manifest to the People they are no longer obliged to obey the Orders and Commands of the said Lord Marquess of Ormond but are until a General Assembly of the Nation can be conveniently called together unanimously to serve against the common Enemy for the defence of the Catholick Religion His Majesties interest their Liberties Lives and Fortunes in pursuance of the Oath of Association and to observe and obey in the mean time the form of Government the said Congregation shall prescribe until it be otherwise ordered by an
gathered to that purpose to some other service And so VVe bid you heartily farewell from Shanbuoly the 14th of June 1650. Your loving Friend ORMOND To Our very loving Friend the Mayor of the City of Lymrick These But neither that nor all VVe could do upon subsequent Treaties and Overtures moving from themselves could at all prevail with them no not Our offer of putting Our self into the City and running the fortune of it when Ireton was encamped before it But to return to the proceedings of the Bishops whose next action was a meeting at Jamestown of their own meer motion and power where whether they have not taken upon them somewhat beyond the regulation of their Clergy and spiritual affairs upon which perhaps it is thought they may so meet though stretched to the remotest possibility of strained consequence will appear by the acts of that clandestine Assembly at the very entrance whereunto a Letter signed by the Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam gave Us some doubt what kind of Congregation that would prove Their said Letter and Our Answer to it follows in these words viz. May it please Your Excellency THis Nation become of late the fable and reproach of the Christianity is brought to a sad condition Notwithstanding the frequent and laborious meetings and consultations of the Prelates we find jealousies and fears deep in the hearts of men thorns hard to take out We see most men contributing to the Enemy and rendring their persons and substance useful to his malice and destructive to Religion and the Kings interest This kind of men if not timely prevented will betray irremediably themselves and us We find no stock or substance ordered for maintaining the Souldier nor is there an Army any way considerable in the Kingdom to recover what is lost or defend what we hold So as humanely speaking if God will not be pleased for his mercies sake to take off from us the heavy judgments of his anger we are fair for losing Sacred Religion the Kings Authority and Ireland The four Archbishops to acquit their own Consciences in the eyes of God have resolved to meet at Jamestown about the sixth day of the next month and to bring along as many of the Suffragans as may repair thither with safety The end of this consultation is to do what in us lyeth for the amendment of all Errors and recovery of this afflicted People If Your Excellency shall think fit in Your wisdom to send one or more persons to make Proposals for the safety of the Nation we shall not want willingness to prepare good Answers nor will we despair of the blessing of God and of his powerful influence to be upon our sincere intentions in that place Even so we conclude remaining Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servants Fr Thomas Dublin Jo Archiepiscopus Tuamen 24th July 1650. For his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland AFter Our hearty Commendations VVe received yours of the 24th of July on the first of this Month and do with much grief acknowledge That this Nation is brought into a sad condition and that by such means as when it shall be known abroad and by story delivered to Posterity will indeed be thought a Fable For it will seem incredible That any Nation should so madly affect and violently pursue the wayes leading to their own destruction as this People will appear to have done and that after the certain ruine they were running into was evidently and frequently discovered unto those that in all times and upon all other occasions have had power to persuade or compel them to what ever they thought fit And it will be less credible when it shall be declared as with truth it will be that the temporal spiritual and eternal interest and safety even of those that had this power and that have been thus forewarned did consist in making use of it to reclaim the People and direct them into the wayes of preservation To be plain it cannot be denied but the disobedience VVe have met with which VVe at large declared unto many of you who with divers others of the Nobility and Gentry were assembled at Loghreogh in April last were the certain ready wayes to the destruction of this Nation as by Our Letter of the first of May to that Assembly VVe made apparent Ancient and late experience hath made evident what power those of your Function have had to draw the People of this Nation to what they thought fit VVhether your Lordships have been convinced That the obedience which VVe desired should be given to His Majesties authority in Us pursuant to the Articles of Peace was the way to preserve the Nation VVe know not or whether your Lordships have made use of all the means at other times and upon other occasions exercised by you to procure this necessary obedience VVe shall not now determine Sure VVe are That since the said Assembly not only Lymerick hath persisted in the disobedience it was then in and aggravated the same by several affronts since fixed upon the Kings authority but Galway hath been seduced into like disobedience For want of due compliance from those places but principally from Lymerick it hath been impossible for us to raise or employ an Army against the Rebels For to attempt it any where on the other side of the Shannon but near Lymerick and without the absolute Command of that City to secure it could be no other than the certain ruine of the design in the very beginning of it the Rebels power being such as to dissipate with ease the foundation that should be laid there And to have done it on this side the Shannon was impossible since the ground-work of the Army must be raised and supported from thence which whil'st it was in forming would have exhausted all the substance of these parts and not have effected the work For want of such an Army which with Gods assistance might certainly have been long since raised if Lymerick had obeyed Our Orders the Rebels have without any considerable resistance from abroad taken Clonmel Tecroghan and Catherlagh and reduced Waterford and Duncannon to great and We fear irrecoverable distress The loss of these places and the want of any visible power to protect them hath doubtlesly induced many to contribute their substance and personal assistance to the Rebels from which whether they might have been with-held by Church Censures We know not but have not heard of any such which issued against them And lastly for want of such an Army the Rebels have taken to themselves the Contribution which might considerably have assisted to support an Army and preserve the Kingdom If therefore the end of your Consultation at Jamestown be to acquit your Consciences in the eyes of God the amendment of all Errors and the recovery of this afflicted People as by the Letter giving Us notice of your meeting is professed We have endeavoured briefly to shew That the Spring of Our past losses and
approaching ruine arises from disobedience and it will not be hard to shew That the Spring of those disobediences arises from the Forgeries invented the Calumnies spread against Government and the incitements of the People to Rebellion by very many of the Clergy That these are Errors are frequently practised and fit for amendment is no more to be doubted than that without they be amended the affliction of the People will continue and as is to be feared end in their utter destruction Which if prevented by what your Consultation will produce the happy effect of your meeting will be acknowledged without questioning the Authority by which you meet or expect Proposals from Us which other than what ye have formerly and now by this Our Letter made We hold not necessary And so We bid your Lordships farewell from Roscomon the second of August 1650. Your Lordships very loving Friend ORMOND In their said Letter they tell Us the end of their consultation was to do what in them lay to mend all Errors and recovery of the afflicted People And as if they had absolute power of Government they write to Us to send one or more persons to make Proposals to them for the safety of the Nation to which they say they shall not want willingness to prepare good Answers We leave it to the judgment of that Assembly whether the most absolute Monarch in Christendom could after a more Kingly manner have required the advice of His Subjects or with a more negligent State have promised gracious Answers Our Answer to the said Letter produced the expressions you will find in a Letter of theirs from Jamestown dated the 10th of August viz. May it please Your Excellency WE received Your Excellencies Letter of the second current Where to Our grief and admiration we saw some expressions that seem meant for casting a blame upon us of the present sad condition of the Kingdom which we hope to answer to the satisfaction of Your Excellency and the whole Nation In the mean time we premit this Protestation as we are Christian Catholick Prelates that we have done our endeavours with all earnestness and candor for taking away from the hearts of the People all jealousies and diffidences that were conceived the occasion of so many disasters that befel the Nation and that in all occasions our actions and co-operations were ready to accompany all Your Excellencies designs for preservation of all His Majesties interests in this Kingdom Whose State being in the present desperate condition we thought it our duty to offer unto Your Excellency our sense of the only possibility we could devise for its preservation and that by the intervention and expression of my Lord of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelly Dean of Tuam who shall clearly deliver unto Your Excellency our thoughts and good intentions as to this effect praying Your Excellency to give full credit to what they will declare in our names in this business which will be still owned as our command laid upon them and the declaration of the sincere hearts of Jamestown dated the 10th of August 1650. Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servants H Ardmach Jo Archiep. Tuamen Jo Rapotensis Eugenius Killmore Nich Fernensis Procurator Archiepiscopi Dubliniensis Walt Clonferten Procurator Leghlin Fr Anto Cloanmacnosensis Episcopus Arthurus Dunensis Connerensis Th Higgin Procurat Ossor Fr Ricardus Kelly Procurat Kildar Rathbran Ord. Praed For His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland These Now let it be judged whether by this Letter We couâ—d suspect The satisfaction they intended to give Us and the whole Nation that they were free from working the disobediences We complained of and which they grieved and admired to be charged with could be their Declaration and Excommunication dated the 11th and 12th of August the very next day after they had sent the above recited Letter If We could have guessed at their purpose by their words and deep protestations We should rather have expected their sentences would have been fulminated generally against all of their Religion in this Kingdom that would not give Us full obedience and particularly against Lymerick and Galway if they persisted in the disobedience they were in than that an Excommunication should be published against any that would feed help or adhere unto Us. If this be a manifestation of the candor of their endeavours with all earnestness to take away from the hearts of the People all jealousies and diffidences We are much to seek for an argument of the contrary or how to understand protestations premitted in the name of Christian Catholick Prelates But to proceed here followeth their message sent by the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelly with Our Letter and Answer to their said message May it please Your Excellency WE being intrusted from the Clergy met at Jamestown to deliver a message to Your Excellency purporting their advice what the only means is as they conceive that may serve to free the Nation from the sad condition whereunto it is reduced at present do in obedience to Your Excellencies command signified for giving in the substance of the said message in writing humbly represent the same to be as followeth That whereas they doubt not Your Excellency hath laboured by other hands to bring the best aids that possibly could be had from abroad for relief of this gasping Nation yet finding now in their Conscience no other expedient or remedy for the preservation thereof and of His Majesties interests therein more prevalent than Your Excellencies speedy repair to His Majesty for preventing the ruine and desolation of all and leaving the Kings authority in the hands of some person or persons faithful to His Majesty and trusty to the Nation and such as the affection and confidence of the People will follow by which the rage and fury of the Enemy may receive interruption They humbly offer this important matter of safety or destruction of this Nation and the Kings interest to Your wisdom and consideration hoping the Kingdom by Your Excellencies presence with His Majesty and entrusting safely the Kings authority as above may with Gods blessing hold out until relieved with supplies from His Majesty The Prelates in the mean time will do what lieth in their power to assist the person or persons so entrusted The great trust His Majesty doth repose in Your Excellency the vast interest in Fortune Alliance and Kindred You have in the Nation and Your experience in the management of affairs of greatest consequence will we doubt not added to other the reasons proposed by us induce You to embrace this advice as proceeding from our pious intentions that look only on the preservation of the Catholick Religion the support of His Majesties Authority and the Estates Liberties and Fortunes of His Subjects of this Kingdom Which we humbly offer as Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servants Fr Ol. Dromore Cha Kelly August 13. 1650. AFter Our hearty Commendations The Letter of Credence of the
10th of August from the Bishops met at Jamestown being delivered to Us on the 12th of the same by the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelly Dean of Tuam We desired them for the more sure and easie understanding and answering a Proposition of so high importance to reduce the substance of their message unto writing which on the 13th of the said month they accordingly did Which after We had considered and imparted to the Commissioners of Trust We found could not be so well answered in writing as We hoped it might be by a free and personal Conference with the said Prelates which on the 26th of this month We hoped might have been had In which hope We travelled hither at a time when Our presence towards the passages upon the Shannon betwixt Killaloe and Lymerick was very necessary for the defence of that part of the Kingdom lying on this side that River But finding now that the said Prelates have not found it convenient to be here We do according to your desire return Our answer to the foresaid Proposition by the Bishops of Cork and Clonfert And so We bid you heartily farewell from Loghreogh the 31 of August 1650. Your Lordships very loving Friend ORMOND To Our very loving Friends the Prelates met at Jamestown These An Answer to the Message delivered to Vs by the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelâ—y Dean of Tuam from the Prelates met at Jamestown by vertue of their Letter desiring us to give full Credence to the said Bishop and Dean dated at Jamestown the 10th of Aug. 1650. The substance of which Message may be reduced to these particulars I. THe Message or Advice which is Our speedy repair to His Majesty to procure Supplies for the relief of the Kingdom leaving the Kings authority in the hands of some person or persons faithful to His Majesty and trusty to the Nation than which they say they can find no other expedient or remedy for relief of this gasping Nation and preservation of His Majesties interests therein or to prevent the ruine and desolation of all II. The reason of this Advice which is That thorough the Trust reposed in Us by His Majesty and our own interest in Fortune Alliance and Kindred in the Nation they hope those Supplies may more easily and speedily be obtained by Our mediation than by any other means III. The Prelates promise undertaking that in the mean time which We understand to be during Our absence they will do what lieth in their power to assist the person or persons that shall be entrusted with the Kings authority Whereunto We answer That as the principal motives inducing us thorough some hazards and many difficulties to come into this Kingdom were the obedience We owe to His Majesties command and Our earnest desire to preserve this Nation in their Allegiance to Him wherein We alwayes have and ever shall place Our interest and the interest of such Kindred and Allies as will be guided by Our advice or example so We shall alwayes readily expose Our Self to the like or greater hazards and difficulties to remove out of the Kingdom when We receive His Majesties command for it or shall be convinced that our removal tends more to His service and the preservation of the Nation than our stay We confess That observing the destructive disobedience and obstinacy of divers persons and places We were once of opinion That We might have done Our King and Countrey better service by withdrawing Our Self than by continuing here by how much there would then have been less ground for division when the Nation should be governed by one or more of their own Religion And sure We were That the stronger the resistance were that should be made against the Rebels under what conduct whatsoever the better it would be for the King and for the Nation And though We held it not fit for Us even in point of Honour in flat terms to propose Our removal which might have met with as great misinterpretation as other actions and propositions of Ours intended for the good of the People have done yet in a Discourse had with many of the Prelates first at Lymerick and afterwards here VVe did in a manner lead them to the Proposition they have now made And VVe freely acknowledge That if they and the Nobility and Gentry here met in April last had not in writing and in discourse given Us assurance That they not only desired Our stay but would endeavour to procure such obedience to Us as might enable Us with hope of success to have gone on in the VVar VVe should have made use of the liberty given Us or command then laid upon Us by His Majesty to have freed Our Self from the vexation We have since endured and the dishonour VVe foresaw VVe should be subject unto for want of that power without which as We then told the said Bishops c. VVe should be able to do nothing considerable for the King or Nation Those assurances VVe have transmitted to His Majesty as also Our resolution to attend the effects of them But those disobediences still continuing VVe have again acquainted Him with the state of His Affairs here and do daily expect His pleasure upon the representations VVe have made to him without which unless forced by inevitable necessity VVe cannot answer Our removal out of the Kingdom VVhich is our first and principal reason why VVe may not comply with the advice given Us. Another reason is That VVe plainly observe That though the division is great in the Nation under Our Government yet it will be greater upon Our removal For which in a free conference VVe should have given such pregnant evidence as VVe hold not fit this way to declare The third is That though since the meeting here where we were assured of such effectual endeavours to procure obedience to the King's authority placed in Us the particular disobediences VVe then instanced have continued and been improved by many other affronts yet it hath pleased God to raise His Majesties affairs elsewhere to so hopeful a condition that may occasion His Majesties sending Us such commands as VVe should be sorry should not find Us upon the place In the last place it is most certain That no mediation of Ours will prevail so much with His Majesty for sending relief and supplies hither as the representations VVe desire to be enabled to make of the dutifulness and obedience of the People whereunto to dispose them VVe do again call upon you to make use of all the means within your power Given at Loghreogh the 31 of August 1650. ORMOND By which VVe conceive it appears That neither from that message had VVe cause to fear that such terrible Declarations and Excommunications should so suddenly without any more warning have followed Our refusal or delay to remove out of the Kingdom The moderation and civility of their message and the reasons set down by Us for Our not going considered
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
their just indignation with a pious compassion of their seduced People commanded Us over to treat and conclude a Peace with the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom In obedience whereunto and in humble imitation of Their great example forgetting the ungrateful usage We had met with We undertook the hazard of that Voyage and at length concluded the Peace in this Preamble mentioned We are unwilling to say any thing that might seem to lessen the Loyalty and affection of the Assembly that concluded the Peace nor is it to that end that We shall answer to these men That though His then Majesty was in restraint and His now Majesty and His Royal Mother not in condition to send Supplies and Relief into this Kingdom yet there wanted not apparent motives of advantage to induce the Roman-Catholicks to consent to the Peace which was thankfully acknowledged by a more authentick Representative of the Nation than these Archbishops Bishops c. and even by as many of them as really or from the teeth outward for such we find now there were that consented to it Upon what conditions the Confederate Roman-Catholicks could have agreed with those in this Declaration called the Parliament of England We know not nor do believe they are able to prove their Assertions if they be put to it Though if it should appear it were not to be wondred at That Usurpers and such as make almost as little Conscience of breaking Publick Faith as these Declarers are more liberal in the dispensation of their unlawful acquirings by way of brokeage than a just Monarch whose purpose it is to keep as well as it is in His power only to grant conditions to a People in the state the said Confederates were in Next in their Preamble they say That after the concluding of the Peace the Catholick Confederates came sincerely and chearfully under His Majesties authority in Vs plentifully providing vast Sums of money well nigh half a Million of English pounds By which they seem to insinuate first That all the Roman-Catholicks of Ireland came thus chearfully under His Majesties authority whereas Owen O Neill with his whole Army and divers of the County of Wickloe with others were and continued in Rebellion long after the conclusion of the Peace as is well known to many of the Declarers who were of their Party as also that our first work was to reduce places held by them lying in our way to Dublin as Mariborough Athy c. They mention next after Their providing plentifully vast Sums of money adding also these words viz. near half a Million of English pounds to have it believed We were set forth with such a Sum and all the following provisions of Corn and Ammunition though it is notoriously knovvn That for all the half Million of English pounds the Army We had brought together could not march from about Cloghgrenan till upon Our private credit We had borrovved Eight hundred English pounds of Sir James Preston which is yet owing him and for which We have lately written to you to see him satisfied by means whereof and of a little meal not yet paid for neither as We believe We took in Talbotstown Castle-Talbot and Kildare But there our money and meal failing us and having borrowed about One hundred pounds from Twenty several Officers to give the Souldiers sustenance We were forced to stay on the West-side of the Liffy and thereby lost an opportunity of engaging Jones who with a much less Force than Ours was drawn forth of Dublin as far as Johnstown And in what continual want the Army was from Our setting forth even to the defeat at Rathmines being about Three months is so notoriously known having during all that time been very meanly supplied in money and that in small and inconsiderable Sums as by the Receiver Generals accompts may appear that if We be to be blamed it is for undertaking an Expedition so meanly provided and which We can only answer with the necessity of attempting Dublin and those parts before they should receive Supplies out of England and upon discovery destroy such as were faithful to His Majesty and importuned Us daily to advance For Magazines of Corn Ammunition and materials for War the stores We found so inconsiderably furnished or rather so absolutely unfurnished that till We with the assistance of the Commissioners procured some supply thereof in Waterford Lymerick and Kilkenny it was not possible for Us either to reduce the Fort of Maribourough and Athy held by Owen O Neill's party nor to march as We did towards Dublin And for Ammunition We were forced to bargain with Patrick Archer and other Merchants for a supply thereof engaging the King's Customs and Tenths of Prizes else that want of Ammunition had absolutely hindred Our march nor is the said Archer yet satisfied for his Ammunition The Truth of this is referr'd to the knowledge of many there met who can witness with Us herein and in many other distresses and difficulties We met with for want of money which We cannot call to mind How much of this half Million of Pounds hath come in in money or been disposed of by Warrant from Us We leave to be cleared by the Receiver Generals accompts But We are confident it will not amount to the Tenth part of half a Million of Pounds In the next place they say We have frustrated the Opinion the Nation held of Our Fidelity Gallantry and Abilities and become the Author of losing the whole Kingdom to God King and Nation If the Nation held a greater opinion of Our Gallantry and Ability than there was cause for it We are sorry We came short of their expectation But whatever it pleased God to bestow on Us in those gifts We faithfully employed it in the Cause We undertook and have not at all failed their expectation in point of Fidelity nor are We therein the Author of losing the Kingdom to God King and Nation as these Declarers have Rhetorically expressed themselves How they make good to the World the last assertion of their Preamble viz. That We began the loss of the Kingdom by violating the Articles of Peace is next to be considered First Article of the Declaration 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 Twenty 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 Inchiquyn to Protestants and upon them consumed the substance of the Kingdom who most of them afterwards betrayed or desâ—rted us ANSWER How We have been furnished with the foresaid Sum of about half a Million of Pounds We have told you in Our Answer to the Preamble If they urge Our giving Commissions which they call Patents to Protestant Officers as a breach
and for his own Names sake will deliver us Deus Eliae the God of wonders and miracles erit etiam nunc apud Hibernos if our Faith prove strong and our actions sound and sincere We will conclude with St. Paul that Ocean of Wisdom and Doctor of Nations Si Deus pro nobis quis contra nos Quis accusabit adversus electos Dei Deus qui justificat quis est qui condemnat Quis ergo nos separabit a charitate Christi Tribulatio an angustia an fames an nuditas an periculum persecutio an gladius sed in his omnibus superamus propter eum qui dilexit nos Let nothing separate you from the burning charity of Christ and God will ever preserve protect and bless you SIGNED Nicolaus Fernensis Procurator Dubliniensis Fr Antonius Cloanmacnoisensis Walterus Clonfertensis Procurator Laghlinensis Fr Arthurus Dunensis Connorensis Procurator Dromorensis Carolus Kelly S. T. D. Decanus Tuamensis Fr Bernardus Egan Procurator R. admodum P. Provincialis Fratrum Minorum Fr Ricardus O Kelly Procurator Vicarii Generalii Kildariensis Prior Rathbran Ordinis Praedicatorum Lucas Plunket S.T.D. Protonot Apostol Rector Collegii de Kilecu Exercitus Lageniae Capellanus Major Hugo Ardmaghanus Joannes Archiepiscopus Tuamensis Joannes Rapotensis Eugenius Kilmorensis Franciscus Aladensis Fr Gulielmus de Burgo Provincialis Ordinis Praedicatorum Jacobus Abbas de Conga Commissarius Generalis Can. Reg. S. Augustin Walterus Enos S. T. D. Protonotarius Apost Thesaurar Fernensis Procurator Ecclesiae Collegiatae Galviensis Thadaeus Eganus S. T. D. Praepositus Tuamensis Joannes Doulaeus Juris Doctor Abbas de Cilmanagh unus ex Procuratoribus Capitali Cleri Tuamensis And we the undernamed sitting at Galway with the Committee authorized by the Congregation held at Jamestown the 6th of Aug. currentis do concur with the above Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries in the above Declaration and withal do now make firm the same as an Act of our own by our several Subscriptions this 23d of August 1650. Fr Terentius Imolacensis Jacobus Fallonus Vicarius Apostolicus Accadensis Thomas Casselensis Joannes Laonensis Edmundus Lymericensis Robertus Corcagiensis Cloanensis ANSWER This Conclusion of their Declaration is a general recapitulation of the miseries and desolation fallen upon the Kingdom and People in Tragical and passionate expressions endeavouring to infuse into them a belief that all those Afflictions are thorough Our means fallen upon them whereas We suppose We have made it evident That next to the good pleasure of God to chastise the Nation the reason thereof may most reasonably be attributed to the Sedition Disloyalty Pride Covetousness and Ambition to Rule of these Declarers whom VVe challenge to instance whom VVe have born down that would have fought for them or whom cherished or advanced that would or did betray them And where they say That some are inclining to submit to those they call the Parliament persuading themselves that there can be no safety under Our Government attended by fate and disaster as they express themselves more like Heathen Poets than Christian Bishops and Churchmen it is known to some there That to Our certain knowledge divers persons and places of consideration would have submitted to the Enemy if We had gone rather than live under the Tyranny and confusion of the Government projected by these Declarers which was the principal reason of Our stay as will We fear be too evidently verified when We are gone unless that Assembly prevent it by more prudent temperate and solid determinations than these men are capable of giving or receiving Next they say That for prevention of those evils and that the Kingdom should not be utterly lost to His Majesty and His Catholick Subjects they found themselves bound in Conscience to declare against the continuance of His Majesties Authority in Vs and accordingly in their own Name and in the Name of the rest of the Catholicks of the Kingdom they do declare against the continuance of His Majesties Authority in Vs having by Our misgovernment and ill conduct of the Army and breach of Publick Faith rendred Our Self uncapable of continuing that great Trust any longer To which We answer That to prevent the loss of the Kingdom to His Majesty they take the Kingdom to themselves and without so much as making any address to Him or pretending to have received any direction or Commission from Him they declare to the People that they are no longer obliged to obey any Orders or Commands of the person by Commission authorized from him but until a General Assembly may conveniently be called or until upon application to His Majesty he settle the same elsewhere to observe the form of Government the said Congregation shall prescribe Whereby is to be observed That as they take it upon them when they please and in the highest Temporal affairs in the world to declare the sense of the People without their consent a thing that We have never read or heard was ever till now pretended to by King Pope or Clergy so they evidently assume the power of dissolving and erecting the Temporal Government of the Kingdom And this they say they found themselves bound in Conscience to do Which being a pretence inscrutable and at all times readily to be taken up can only be answered by the Laws of the Land that will not allow the excuse of Conscience for taking a Purse on the Highway or to come home to this matter for Acts of High Treason For the Clause viz. or until upon application to His Majesty he settle the same elsewhere it is inserted with purpose to abuse the People with a belief of their Loyalty when they have first incited them to Rebellion Touching the complaint they say will make against Vs to His Mejesty it should in reason and justice have preceded their Declaration And if either His Majesty had refused them hearing and justice or if We had not submitted to His determination there had been some colour for their proceeding as they did In the last part of their Conclusion they prepare the People with an Apology of the desperate state the Kingdom is left in by Us to bear the more patiently the utter loss of it under the Government they would set up and with a touch indeed of Episcopal counsel to amend their lives and depend upon Gods providence and protection they dismiss them Wherein what example they have given them We leave to the judgment of God the Searcher of hearts and the impartial Judge of the thoughts and actions of men In the Order attested by the Bishop of Clonfert for publication of the Excommunication which publication was made at Laghreogh the 15th of September it is expressed that the Order given to the Committee of Bishops at Galway by the Congregation at Jamestown was That in case VVe would not depart the Kingdom upon their advice and depute the Kings Authority with persons of Trust or that We denied to depart
the Kingdom and no demonstration could be made how the Kingdom could be preserved under Our Government that then the said Declaration should be published It is further expressed in the said Order That VVe being sollicited to the effect aforesaid with urgent reasons absolutely denied to consent thereunto and that VVe neither did nor could demonstrate unto them any way of preserving the remainder of the Kingdom under Our Government and therefore according to the Trust reposed in them by the said Congregation they did publish the said Declaration denouncing to all Archbishops Bishops c. This is all VVe observe in this Order of Publication more than is contained in the Declaration at Jamestown VVhat We have to answer in this Order for Publication is briefly this They held it fit VVe should quit the Kingdom and depute the King's Authority with some person or persons of Trust that is pleasing to them We refuse so to do upon their advice giving them some reasons why We refuse and promising them more if they would at a free Conference hear them For not following this advice without refuting the Reasons We gave for Our not going and without hearing or so much as asking what other reasons those were which We were unwilling to write and yet would tell them at a free Conference by which caution they might imagine they were of moment they proceded to their Declaration and Excommunication Here though We have formerly touched it let it be observed That having several times and upon several occasions offered to leave the Kingdom and to depute the Kings authority not to disparage the Nation with the onely person in all respects fit for it and a Roman-Catholick This was not accepted of but We are made believe the Lord of Inchiquin being removed from any charge of the Army and the Protestant Party gone there remained no further distrust or dislike of Us and that then all obedience would be given Us. All this and whatever else they advised being done on Our part Our Frigat which lay in Ire-Connaught whence We might have securely gone being sent away and the Harbours blocked up by the Rebels ships they impose upon Us to effect an impossibility namely to go out of the Kingdom without means of Transportation or else as far in them lies We are rendred infamous throughout the world and to all Ages by their defamatory Libel Whatever Our demerit had been and if We were the faithless the negligent the every way unworthy person they have described Us to be certainly they cannot free themselves from the guilt of so mean and base a Treachery Let it be next considered That if when a company of Bishops or a Congregation of Archbishops Bishops c have a mind to set up themselves or any others as Governours over the Kingdom and this power they assume at least in the interval of Assemblies and have now twice practised it and the Governour appointed by Royal Authority or when that is absent which should never be supposed by a just Representative of the Nation will not give them room by quitting the Government he is placed in at their desire without direction from the Power whence he derives his Authority or without unavoidable necessity inforcing him if We say for his not doing a thing so contrary to the Trust reposed in him to the sense of those intrusted by the People as the Commissioners of Trust were and contrary to the sense of the most interested persons of the Kingdom the foresaid company of Bishops or Congregation may therefore with impunity deliver all men to Satan that shall feed help or adhere to him it is in this case easie to discover that Bishops or a Congregation thus doing do aim at and will if so permitted easily compass the Supreme Temporal Power If it be said They only do it upon evident necessity for the preservation of the People in apparent hazard of being lost and that in this case only of so absolute necessity they pretend to such power and when informed or convinced will lay it down to the King or Assembly We believe no King or State careful of their own preservation will allow they have this power even in this case For instance if the Bishops or Congregation of both Clergies of the Kingdom of Naples or of any Signiory under the State of Venice should pretend to a power upon any necessity whatsoever whereof the said Bishops and Congregation to be Judges of discharging the Subjects of the King of Spain from obeying the Vice-Roy of Naples or the Subjects of any Signiory under the State of Venice from obeying the Governour of any such Signiory appointed by the State directing them in the mean time to observe and obey such Form of Government as the said Congregation should prescribe till it should be otherwise ordered by the said King or State VVe suppose it would not pass for Orthodox Doctrine in that Roman-Catholick Kingdom or State That a Congregation is qualified with such power Nor would the necessity of their so doing nor yet the sanctity of their function or persons protect them from severe punishment That Our Kings Prerogative in that particular is as great in this Kingdom as the King of Spains in Naples or that of the State of Venice in any Signiory of theirs it is Treason to deny as it is to affirm That in this particular such a Congregation here hath more authority than a like Congregation in that Kingdom or State But these men have not only in this case exceeded whatever at any time or in any place was pretended to by any of their Function but had less ground if less might be for such a pretension than any others For here in a solemn Assembly of the Nation a Peace was concluded most of the Bishops signing this Declaration were actually there consenting to the Peace and all the Congregation either at or after the conclusion of the Peace subscribed to it So that by the general consent of the Congregation first or last Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery c were to look to the performance of the Articles of Peace and thereby had greater pretence to be proper Judges of the violation of the said Articles than this Congregation Yet without consulting them they publish this Declaration and fulminate their Excommunication against any that should adhere to Us among other things for pretended violations of the Peace and would not by the said Commissioners be persuaded to retract it VVhere they say We neither did nor could demonstrate unto them any way of preserving the remainder of the Kingdom under Our Government it was a question never asked of Us either by the Bishop of Dromore and Dr. Charles Kelly who brought Us the message or by the Bishops of Cork and Clonfert that were sent to Us for Our Answer or indeed by any other If such a question had been moved to Us VVe should doubtless have answered That the most probable
Kingdom Lastly That a present course be taken for means for Our support in proportion answerable to Our place yet with regard to the state of the Kingdom VVhich last VVe should not propose but that We are deprived of Our private Fortune whereupon We have solely subsisted ever since We came to the Kingdom To all which We expect your present Answer And so We bid you heartily farewell and remain at Enis the 23d of October 1650. Your very loving Friend ORMOND What more could in this case be offered by Us or upon what more necessary conditions We know not And that this Our offer was satisfactory to the said Commissioners appears by their Letter to Us in these words May it please Your Excellency YOur Lordships of the 23d of this instant we have received and therein to our unexpressible grief we find that His Majesty hath been induced to declare the Peace concluded in this Kingdom in the year 1648 to be void and that he is absolved therefrom taking for the principal grounds for such his Declaration the unlawfulness of the Act. And howbeit we cannot without a very feeling sense of the grief the Nation with just cause may entertain of the prejudice thereby brought upon them and the blemish cast upon those hearty endeavours of theirs to restore His Majesty to His former estate and power over His Subjects look upon those unexpected fruits of their blood and substance so chearfully spent in his service yet it greatly comforts us to understand that notwithstanding that Declaration by some undue means obtained from His Majesty Your Excellency is resolved by all the means that it shall please God to offer unto You and thorough all hazards in the behalf of this Nation to insist upon and assert that Peace and persist in so doing until Your Excellency and such as shall be entrusted and authorized by the Nation shall have free and safe access unto His Majesty And as to those Provisoes which are expressed as necessary conditions whereby His Majesties Authority which notwithstanding that Declaration we still do embrace and revere may be continued among us besides our general profession to act what lies in our power in the wayes of His Majesties service and to Your Excellencies satisfaction we do return the ensuing Answers And To the first Proviso concerning the revocation of those Acts Declaration and Excommunication issued by the Bishops met at Jamestown and the assurance demanded that nothing in that kind shall be attempted for the future we do humbly answer That Your Excellency to whom we have often expressed our resentment of such their proceedings may be confident we shall labour so far as in us lies to see Your Excellency satisfied in this particular and to that end we will all or some of us with Your Excellencies allowance and as You shall think fit repair to Galway to Treat with the Prelates upon this Subject To the second we humbly return as Answer That albeit we know that by those Censures of the Bishops met at Jamestown His Majesties Authority was invaded and an unwarranted Government set up contrary to the Laws of the Kingdom and that we are assured no Subject could be justly warranted by that Excommunication to deny obedience to His Majesties Authority in Your Excellency yet being of opinion that a publick Declaration of this kind in this conjuncture of affairs ought properly and would with more countenance and authority move from an Assembly than from us and that by such a publick Declaration now from us we would wholly obstruct the way to prevail with the Prelates to withdraw those Censures or act what is desired by the former Proviso and likewise endanger what union there is at present in opposing the Common Enemy and prejudice the hopes of a more perfect union for the future wherein the preservation of the Nation doth principally consist we do therefore humbly beseech Your Excellency to call upon an Assembly of the Nation from whom such a Declaration as may be effectual in this behalf and may settle those distractions can only proceed Yet if in the mean time and before the meeting of that Assembly those Censures now suspended shall be revived we will endeavour to suppress their influence upon the People by such a Declaration as shall become Loyal Subjects and men entrusted to see all due obedience paid to His Majesties Government over this Kingdom To the third we do humbly return as Answer That we shall at all times and in such manner as Your Excellency shall think fit to prescribe invite all or any His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects to such a Declaration which yet until we shall understand the Clergies sense upon the first Proviso we do humbly represent as fit for a time to be forborn To the fourth we humbly return as Answer That whatsoever Your Excellency shall find to be properly within our power and will direct to be done for procuring a free residence for Your person in any place you shall choose within the limits not possessed by the Rebels we shall readily obey Your Lordships Commands therein To the fifth we humbly return as Answer That upon debate with Your Excellency of the places fit to be Garrisoned and the number of men fit to be received thereunto we shall according to the Articles of Peace use our utmost endeavours to have such Garrison so agreed upon admitted To the last we humbly return as Answer That as we have at all times heretofore been ready and willing Your Excellencies charge should be supported out of the Revenue of the Kingdom so we are now very ready to concur in assigning any of the dues already accrued or such as shall grow due hereafter or to impose a new applotment upon the Subject towards Your Excellencies maintenance Thus humbly taking leave we remain Inis 24 Octob. 1650. Your EXCELLENCIES Most humble Servants N Plunket Ri Barnewall Ri Everard Gerald Fennell Arthunry Lucas Dillon Ric Bellings Geff Browne In pursuance of their desire expressed in the now recited Letter We gave way to their Treating with the Prelates at Galway Accordingly they went thither and proposed to the said Prelates the Revocation of their Declaration upon the motives expressed in these ensuing heads Proposals of the Commissioners of Trust made to the Committee of the Congregation the 29th of October 1650. and the Answers of the Committee I. FIrst They offered to our consideration part of a Letter of the Lord Lieutenant to them written at Enis the 23d of October last II. They shewed us the King 's Declaration made touching the Covenant and the disavowing the Peace and pursuant to that acquainted us with the condition of the Kingdom as in relation to the Kings party engaged to the Covenant and in relation to the Independents so as the onely seeming safety for the Nation is that of the Peace III. They desired to know from us what way we conceived remaineth that may tend best to the preservation of the Nation
all the Municipal Laws and Oecumenical Canons too summon'd to Rome by His Holiness and are bound in Conscience to obey yea notwithstanding any command of the King or supreme temporal Magistrate to the contrary That not only the Commands of His Holiness but those also of His Delegates for example the Generals of Orders are to be in the same manner punctually obey'd by their respective Inferiours notwithstanding any contradiction of the Laws or King or any other onely the Pope excepted still who countermands all both men and Laws at His pleasure That He can suspend correct alter and utterly abolish any Imperial Royal or Municipal Constitution Custom or Law whatsoever in any State or Kingdom of the World as He shall think expedient That even so He may all Church-Canons of Discipline or Reformation whether they were made by a Diocesan or Provincial or National or even Oecumenical Synod truly such That neither the very Canons of Faith agreed upon by the most truly Oecumenical Council that ever was or can be are of any force if He alone dissent though otherwise all the Bishops Priests Doctors and People too of the Christian World every one had unanimously consented to them That His Papal Decretals Constitutions or Bulls from the instant that they are publish'd or fix'd up in acie Campi Florae or wherever else He ordains do according to their tenour presently oblige in Conscience all the Faithful throughout the whole Earth or such as are respectively concerned That He alone hath the absolute power of bestowing all Ecclesiastical Titles Benefices Offices Jurisdictions Cures from the Patriarchical to the Parochial and that being otherwise given than from Him or assumed otherwise than by His Authority they are Nullites before God and ought to be so reputed by all men and that whosoever denies this to be so is an Heretick That He alone hath likewise the absolute power not of translating only but of suspending excommunicating deposing and degrading all of them even the very Patriarchs themselves without being tyed in such procedure to the formality of Laws or Canons That He alone hath power to erect New Bishopricks unite and divide the Old give the Pall priviledge Vniversities create new Religious Orders multiplies them to what number He please extinguish them when He will c. exempt them and whom He please besides from the jurisdiction of Bishops Ordinaries and all other Persons and Powers except from Himself and His Authority That finally He alone is the Vicar of Christ on Earth And therefore in the first place He must have not a Paternal power only but a Despotical Princely and absolute Lordly power in and over the Church Militant and consequently over all General Councils to do therein what seems fit to Him in the second place His jurisdictional Authority must extend to Heaven and Hell and Purgatory thirdly without any question He hath a never-failing assistance of the Holy Ghost so that all His definitions at least in matters of Faith (a) The Colledge of the French Jesuites a Clermont in their printed Theses of the 12th of December 1662 held That the Pope is Infallible also in matters of Faith XIX Christum nos ita caput agnoscimus ut illius Regimen dum in Coelos abiit primum Petro tum deinde Successoribus commiserit eamdem quam habuit Ipse Insallibilitatem concesserit quoties ex Cathedra loquerentur XX. Datur ergo in Ecclesia Romana Controversiarum Fidei Judex Infallibilis etiam extra Concilium Generale tum in Questionibus Juris tum Facti c. Propagnabuntur Deo Duce auspice Virgine in Aula Claromontani Collegii Societatis Jesu die xii Decembris 1661. are and must be universally and perpetually true and Himself an infallible Judge in them in the fourth place which is consequent to the other He hath owing to Him from all Mortals such a perfect nay such a blind obedience That if He define Virtue to be Vice and Vice to be Virtue they ought to believe Him and if they do not they cannot be saved unless peradventure invincible ignorance excuse them and lastly to sum all in a word He is Dominus Deus noster Papa our Lord God the Pope as the Glossator (b) Zenzelinus de Cassanis in fine Glossae extravag Cum inter de verb. signif of His own Canon Law stiles Him * Aâ—stimant Papam esse unum Deum qui habet potestatem omnem in Coelo in Terra Johan Gerson Tom. ii circa materiam Excommunicationum Irregularitat Consider 11. V. That notwithstanding the incredibility of these and some other such vain Positions and of all and every of their necessary antecedents and consequents yet they all and especially the Monarchical or Despotical or rather indeed Tyrannical I am sure unreasonable and very destructive Powers ascribed in them to the Pope are every one with no lower pretence than of Divine Right and Immediate Institution of Christ maintain'd either in formal or virtual terms nay in formal the chiefest of them and such as infer the rest not only by too many of our most Famous and most Classical Authors (c) For Authors at this time Cardinal Peter Bertrand onely who lived 300 years ago may suffice whom a numberless number have ever since followed in his pernicious Doctrine which you may read Addit ad Gloss Extr. unam Sanctum de Major Obed. of all sorts Canonists Historians and Divines since the Schools began but also by the far greater authority of the Roman Bishops (d) For Popes also in this place let Boniface VIII alone suffice both in his said Extravag unam Sanctam and in many other Decretals but especially in his famed Letter to Philip Le Bel of France themselves since Pope Hildebrand's time And three only but wretchedly abused Texts of the Gospel viz. Ecce duo gladii Luc. 22.38 and Quodcunque ligaveris c. Mat. 16.19 and Pasce Oves meas Joan. 21.17 must serve the turn however against the plain design of the whole Gospel it self to drive directly by such Positions at the proper scope of the Alcoran and establish in the Church of Christ a worser Tyranny than that of Mahumetans and Mamalukes VI. That Cardinal Caesar Baronius the famous Ecclesiastical Annalist who seems in truth to have had no other end so much to heart in writing his twelve laborious Tomes as to heap together how well or ill soever all the Topicks he could imagine for asserting to the Bishops of Rome the foresaid universal Monarchy both in Spirituals and Temporals over the whole Earth yet fearing his Arguments driving at and deriving from or grounding it on a Jus Divinum or Divine Right and immediate institution of Christ would not convince any labours at last exceedingly though all in vain in several of his said Tomes of Annals to entitle His Holiness at least by Humane Right or Humane Title as for Example by Donation or Oblation or Submission or Prescription
was betrayed by the Protestant Ward that was in it surprized indeed it was so the endeavour of recovering that place was not under Our immediate conduct We going that day it was attempted with a Party to Waterford But who it was that importuned the falling on of the men so unprovided Sir Lucas Dillon and others there present as We have heard are able to inform you And for not fighting at Thomas-town it is here set down as if the Officers and Souldiers had proposed some such thing and were absolutely forbidden or refused leave or to be led on by Us to fight Which is a malicious and false suggestion For never any such motion was made to Us by any Officer or Souldier nor indeed could be for before the Enemy were drawn up that morning on the Top of the Hill on the other side of the water over against Thomas-town We were by a false Alarum drawn towards Kilkenny as is set down in Our Answer to the pretended Grievances as is well known to Mr. Patrick Bryen and others We believe there assembled Here again the Declarers must be beholding to their ancient Travellers to make it good That it is an advantage of ground to have a Bridge to pass by Three or Four in a Front in the sight of an Enemy and a steep Hill to ascend to the charge of an Enemy drawn up in order on the Top of the Hill for thus it is very well known is the scituation of Thomas-town and the Hill whereon the Enemy drew up after We were drawn away to Kilkenny as is aforesaid The rest of this Article is a passionate enumeration of the Enemies subsequent success wherein the Declarers and their Instruments have more to answer for than We as We were a greater loser than many of them put together But how We become chargeable with the loss of any place in Leinster since We put the whole management of the affairs of that Province into other hands especially of Catherlogh commanded by a Bishop Dromore We much wonder And if We had not proof of these mens prodigious faculty in framing and venting Untruths We should admire at their shameless impudence in saying Tecroghan was given up by order and their affirming it with this parenthesis viz. to speak nothing for the present of other places insinuating That if they would they are able to tell of many other places given up by Our order when they might have been longer held For so this Declaration being framed against Us must and they desire it should be understood Which is so foul so unchristian and so uncharitable a way of proceeding That it would make one believe they rather conjured for the spirit of the Father of Lyes than invoked the assistance of the Holy Ghost to assist when they framed this Declaration VVhat endeavour there was used to relieve Tecroghan and how it was given up there are many there met that are able to witness especially the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard Sir Luke Fitz Gerald and Sir Robert Talbot the then Governour of that place who is able to declare perhaps to produce all the orders he received from Us concerning it Tenth Article of the Declaration That the Prelates after the numerous Congregation at Cloanmacnoise where they made Declarations for the Kings great advantage after printed and after many other laborious meetings and consultations with the expressions of their sincerity and earnestness were not allowed by his Excellency to have employed their power and best diligence towards advancing the Kings interest but rather suspected and blamed as may appear by his own Letter to the Prelates then at Jamestown written August 2d and words were heard to fall from him dangerous as to the persons of some Prelates ANSWER That which VVe complain of is That notwithstanding their continual Declarations of Loyalty to His Majesty and their sincerity and earnestness to advance His service and interest they have continually by themselves and their known instruments practised the direct contrary The Copy of Our Letter of Aug. 2d sent them to Jamestown is before recited upon another occasion And VVe believe there is nothing contained in that Letter but is well known to be Truth and will be justified by many of best Quality in that Assembly What the words were which were heard to fall from Us dangerous to the persons of some Prelates when VVe are particularly charged with them VVe shall deny nothing that is Truth In the mean time let it be judged if VVe had such a desire of doing them hurt in their persons whether in the person of the Bishop of Killaloe who signed this Declaration VVe had not in Our power a subject whereon to have manifested Our disposition to revenge Whom yet the Bishops in a Letter of theirs to the Earl of Westmeath the Bishop of Leghlin and others which Letter is before recited upon another occasion do acknowledge to have been preserved by Our means though in the said Letter they untruly charge those they call Cavaliers with any attempt or purpose of doing the said Bishops person any further prejudice than to apprehend him and bring him before Us. Eleventh Article of the Declaration That his Excellency represented to His Majesty some parts of this Kingdom disobedient which absolutely deny any disobedience by them committed and thereby procured from His Majesty a Letter to withdraw his own Person and the Royal Authority if such disobediences were multiplied and to leave the People without the benefit of the Peace This was the reward his Excellency out of his envy to a Catholick Loyal Nation prepared for Our Loyalty and Obedience sealed by the shedding of our blood and the loss of our substance ANSWER VVe acknowledge to have represented to His Majesty That divers places in this Kingdom were in disobedience to His Authority And that there were and are such places is a Truth as well known to these Declarers as any work is known to the Workman that made it Which to have concealed from His Majesty had been to have betrayed the Trust by him reposed in Us and to have taken upon Our Self the blame due to them We also acknowledge to have humbly desired His Majesties leave to withdraw Our own Person out of the Kingdom in case those disobediences were multiplied Which having received and those disobediences being multiplyed VVe had withdrawn Our Self from being an idle witness of the loss of the Kingdom and the ruine of many of Our Friends had not divers of these Declarers several times but more especially at Loghreogh dissuaded Us from going and promised to do their uttermost endeavour to procure Us the obedience VVe desired without which it was plain to all men VVe could attempt nothing for the preservation of the Kingdom with hope of success But VVe were not so bold as to direct His Majesty to remove His Authority or how else to dispose of it as the Declarers are But how really VVe know not troubled they are that
the People should be deprived of the King's authority and the benefit of the Articles of Peace is apparent by this Declaration and Excommunication wherein they direct the People to return to their Association which is inconsistent with both and by the Answer of the Bishops at Galway to the Commissioners whereof We shall have occasion to speak hereafter And where they charge Us with Envy to the Nation for doing Our Duty to the King VVe hope to have given such proof of the contrary as hath satisfied the most interested men in the Nation And VVe conceive We could not have manifested Our affection to it by a more signal instance than by offering to leave His Majesties authority in the person of the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard and to withdraw Our Self to sollicite for Supplies when it was most probable they might be got finding that Our being a Protestant gave these Declarers some advantage to withdraw the People from their obedience to Us. Twelfth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency and the Lord Inchiquin when Enemies to the Catholicks being very active in unnatural execution against us and shedding the blood of poor Priests and Churchmen have shewed little of action since this Peace but for many months kept themselves in Connaught and Thomond where no danger or the Enemy appeared spending â—heir time as most men observed in Play Pleasure and great merriment while the other parts of the Kingdom were bleeding under the Sword of the Enemy This was no great argument of sense or grief in them to see a Kingdom lost to His Majesty ANSWER We are not willing to look back so far as to the time when by His Majesties Command and Commission We bore Arms in the War against the Confederates but must justifie Our Self That We were never active in unnatural execution against them but have many times suffered much Calumny for Our desire of preserving many of them that fell into Our hands as some in that Assembly can witness who were by Our means preserved and if they think fit may testifie as much But if the Declarers oppose Our being active then to Our unactivity this last Summer as an argument of Our want of desire to oppose the Enemy We answer That in the time they mention We had free Election of Officers the absolute power of Dublin and other Garrisons where We caused the Souldiers to be continually exercised their Arms kept in order and could in a short time when We pleased have drawn the Army together and marched with it where We pleased Advantages which rendred the Victories We gained full as easie as those gotten by the Enemy against Us have been upon the like advantage on their part It is true That all this last Summer We and the Lord Inchiquin have continued in Connaught and Thomond where there was no Enemy But it is also true That We were not suffered to have the means of preparing an Army fit to seek or oppose an Enemy as We have set down in Our Letter of the second of August to the Bishops at Jamestown recited formerly upon another occasion And since they here mention the Lord Inchiquin with Us We think fit to mind divers in that Assembly to whom it is well known that many of the Bishops did long since upon several occasions declare That all their suspition and the suspition the People held of Us was by reason of the power the Lord Inchiquin had with Us. And that during his continuance in employment or the continuance of any of his Party in the Army it was not possible for them to remove that suspition out of the minds of the People But that if his Lordship were once out of Command and his Party removed they doubted not full and chearful obedience would be given Us. Hereupon his Lordship voluntarily withdrew himself from having to do with the conduct of the Army yet is he by these men charged for want of activity When his Lordship had thus waved his employment and his Party were gone off and that they had wrought the like distrust of the remainder of the Party that came off to Us from Dublin and other parts so that now We were forced likewise to send them away then they judged it a fit time for them to declare also against Us. Then divers Bishops and other Churchmen changed their note and dealt underhand with the Lord Inchiquin to stay in the Kingdom though We should go saying That the distrust and dislike of the People was only against Vs and not against him Then they fell first to call their meeting at Jamestown and then to publish this Declaration from which they were with-held for fear all the time the foresaid Parties were with Us. This We suspected would be the issue of their working away the Protestant Party and of all their promises Yet to leave them wholly without excuse and to satisfie some that believed better of them We consented to part with those men of whose courage and fidelity to His Majesty and affection to Us We had good experience and cast Our Self wholly upon the assurances these Bishops and others had so often and so solemnly made to Us of giving Us and procuring for Us all possible compliance and obedience the result whereof appears in their Declaration Yet it is very well known That whenever the Enemy drew towards the Shannon side We drew together all the men We could to the defence of the passages which otherwise the Enemy had gained And whatever Our play and merriment was We had certainly as great cause to grieve at the loss of a Kingdom to His Majesty as these Declarers who have not carried themselves so towards him as to expect a greater proportion of His favour than We. Thirteenth Article of the Declaration That his Excellency when prospering put no trust of places taken in into the hands of Catholicks as that of Drogheda Dundalk Trym c. and by this his diffidence in Catholicks and by other his actions and expressions the Catholick Army had no heart to fight or to be under his Command and feared greatly if he had mastered the Enemy and with them the Commissioners of Trust or the greater part of them and many Thousands of the Kingdom also feared he would have brought the Catholick Subjects and their Religion to the old slavery ANSWER In answer to this Article VVe say that Drogheda was put into the hands and trust of Sir Arthur Ashton a Roman-Catholick and that of the Souldiers and Officers of that Garrison the greater part were of that Religion That for Trym it was governed by Mr. Daniel O Neil who though a Protestant was yet a Native of this Kingdom and one that had manifested great affection to the Nation That the greater part of the Officers and Souldiers with him were Roman-Catholicks and that the Lord Viscount Dillon a Roman-Catholick had Command over the said Daniel O Neil For Dundalk it is known that place was given up