endeavouring to be wiser than he that made us and instead of being extravagantly Divine prove at last to be ridicolously brutish But on the other side were the Designe of these Religious retirements from the world so manag'd as that they should be free and voluntary both for the beginning and continuing of them and made serviceable to the Publick either as convenient Seminaries of such as should be any ways influential abroad or as Receptacles for such whose former Merits should claim their Alimony and Writ of ease from the places which they had oblig'd they would be so far from being dissik'd that they seem to be by all means encourag'd and promoted Before I dismiss this whole Cause I think it not unseasonable to invite the Intelligent Reader to take a small view of the present State of the Roman Church We know that the Regulars are the Janizaries of the Court of Rome That they have their exemptions from the Jurisdiction of the Clergy of those particular Kingdoms where they are and so have no dependance upon their Natural Prince or Bishop And yet to the care of some of these are almost all the youth of Europe committed It was the complaint of the University of Paris in 1643 That the Jesuits had ruin'd all the Universities in France by draining all the youth into their Schools so that the two Colledges in Paris had more than all the Colledges besides And that almost all the other Universities had scarce Auditors for their Professors 'T is well known at present that the Colledges of the Jesuits are almost as many as the Grammar-Schools in France Their teaching gratis being a great invitation to a People that ha's so many publick Impositions upon them and so little Mony 'T is as well known that the first Lesson which they endeavour to insinuate into their Disciples is to be firm and constant in the Maximes that they instil into them which indeed we find is a natural effect of that Relation betwixt a Tutor and his Scholar when there are not mighty precautions us'd to prevent it But if we be at all acquainted with the Affairs of those men 't is still much better known what are those Principles that not only particular men but such as have the Subscriptions of the Deputies of the whole Order have publickly own'd in Print about Moral Theology and the Government and Conduct of our Lives The Provincial Letters have sufficiently shewn by an infinite number of Quotations out of their Principal and Leading men all Licens'd by the Authority of their Order what deductions they have made from that Principle of Directing the Intention so as to indulge all manner of Immorality killing men for a box on the ear though they would run away from them Theft Uncleanness Lying in the gross sense Killing of Judges and Witnesses bare-fac'd Simony Covetousness so as to wish the death of the Persons that stand in their way assisting of Superiors in things known to be directly vicious palpable Cheating and all this with this only Proviso that they be all the while so well-meaning men that they look only at the Good that may arise from the thing to their advantage not the hurt and damage that will follow upon it to their Neighbours though the latter may far exceed the former The Collections of these Maximes have been done by many out of their Writings some very pernitious ones by the faithful Grotius in his Book de Jure Belli Pacis But to remove all subterfuges and scruples from those who have not leisure to examine these Casuists the Learned Author of those Letters one of their own Church ha's perform'd it the weakness of their Answers to him established it and given Authority to what he has affirmed Excepting therefore that small Party of Seculars that never had their Education under these men and those few that became Converts afterwards from the Principles that they had once sucked in no very ordinary thing shall we not conclude that the remaining body of the Church is in a very deplorable condition and it may be so universally that it may almost endanger the visibility of the other little remnant Next to the Jesuits in power and interest our Franciscans are esteem'd the most prevailing Party and as the Jesuits have got the vogue for the only Masters of Learning so these come in for their claim of the greatest Exemplariness of life For there being two necessary requisites for all practical Sciences that is Rules and Instances of the practice of those Rules for particular circumstances It was thought fit by the then Governing-party of that Church to set up a certain Order of men retired from the common converse of the rest who should be as so many convincing Experiments to demonstrate the power and efficacy of the Rules of their Religion and these were always thought to be more necessary for their publick influence upon the lives of the people as the power of Example exceeds that of Precept or as a true fire does that of a Picture Of this kind are our Franciscans and of all other Orders by the severity of their Institution most likely to answer their Churches intention both for the evidencing the Principles of it by their practice and for perswading imitation by their Examples See then the utmost of what such a Religion can do and what Fruits are to be expected amongst such as imitate them If Jesuits have given dangerous Precepts certainly the Fryars had given a greater strength to them by their lives and practices So that they must still have that praeeminence so often boasted of of being at wonderful Unity with one another of having a perfect conformimity betwixt their Rules and Examples and considering the indefatigableness of both for promoting the common Interest of spreading their Doctrine and Party almost Universally This seems to be the present repraesentation of the state of that Church and alarms all Christian Princes since Christianity is almost lost in Christendom to recover this Holy Land out of the hands of this Usurping Leviathan and to settle new Teachers of Old Morality and let punishment distinguish betwixt the ordinary sober practice of Virtue and Pharisaical Impurity or Holy Cheats There cannot be a more glorious Design than to take care against the debauching of natural Principles by a false Religion and of advancing their Power by the happy assistances of a true one Nor a greater security of the Civil Government than by excluding all other Independent Authorities from the over-ruling of natural Conscience the Spring of all humane Actions that tend to the Publick good and the preservation of Common-wealths The distinct Jurisdictions may otherwise clash with one another in which contest we may well think that the Conductors of the Conscience will have the superiority The experience of this has been fatal to the Persons of Princes and does always make them obnoxious to bold Assassinates in their greatest security If there happen any Disputes
the Town or the Theatre For the whole Design of it being a matter of Fact I thought a Verbal Translation would the best suit it lest the altering of the Words should cause a misrepresentation of the true Sence A CHAPTER-ACT OF THE RELIGIOUS SISTERS OF THE Royal Monastery of Saint Catharine near Provins to own their Factum against the Cordeliers and all the Matters of Fact contained in the same THis day Monday the fourth day of the month of April one thousand six hundred and sixty seven about three of the clock in the afternoon We Notaries Hereditary Note-keepers and Registers to the King undersigned at the request of the Sisters Margaret Le Cocq de Chauvigny Magdelaine Pilon Susan Gaultier De Flovigny Gedouin Darzillers Paris De Beaufort Du Pas Bourdault De la Salle Rohault l' Ainee Rohault la Jeune Vessiere Bourgouin Guignet Des Plasses and D' Aguerre All of them Nuns professed in the Royal Monastery of the Mount Saint Catharine near Provins are come over to the said Monastery where being the said Religious Sisters being assembled according to the usual manner they made a Declaration to us Tha having understood that the Fathers Cordeliers notwithstanding and to the prejudice of the Procuration that they gave of it intended and endeavoured to make the Factum that they had composed for the defence of their Cause against the said Fathers Cordeliers be reputed to be A piece without any consent to it on their part and of which my Lord Archbishop of Sens was the Authour That so after their having been the causes of an infinite number of disorders in their Monastery aswell in their Spiritual as their Temporal concerns they might by this means still frustrate the design that the Religious Sisters had to publish the particular accounts of them though with a great deal of regret and confusion of Spirit since that they have learnt at last by God's mercy to prefer the Salvation of their Souls before all Temporal and Worldly considerations They do now acknowledg and declare That they made the said Factum that they gave the Copies and Originals of it and that they are ready respectively and every one in particular for her own part to maintain the said Factum in all the things that it contains and moreover to add to them Things much more horrible which also have been already declared by them and are in the hands of the said Lord Archbishop of Sens if what is contain'd in the said Factum be not thought sufficient Moreover They have told us and declared to us That the Widow Du Gast could not truly say that the said Lord Archbishop of Sens did compose the said Factum that he gave her the Papers and Manuscripts of it and took the Sheets back again but only that the person who was intrusted to carry it to be printed did it may be make use of the name of the said Lord Archbishop to secure himself and to avoid the having it seized upon by the Fathers Cordeliers in case it had been printed in the Nuns name As in effect notwithstanding all kind of precaution they could use to prevent it they have been acquainted that the said Fathers Cordeliers did seize upon some of the Sheets of it which they would have put into the hands of Monsieur the Lieutenant Criminal of Paris to hinder all their designs and intentions Of the which present Declaration thus made by the above-named Religious Sisters after they had been heard separately being assembled together as is aforesaid those Religious Sisters did demand an Act of us And to them this present one is given and granted to serve for what it is proper This was done passed and dispatch'd in the said Monastery And all the said Religious Sisters before-named and appearing in their own persons have signed upon the Copy of these presents together with us Notaries signed underneath it remaining in the possession of Bruyant Signed Bruyant and De Huchy Each of them a Paraphe Compared with the Original by the Kings Counsellor Secretary of the House of the Crown of France and of the Finances A FACTVM OR DECLARATION in COURT FOR The Religious Sisters of Saint Catharine near Provins against the Fathers Cordeliers IT is with a great deal of regret that the Religious Sisters of Saint Catharine near Provins see themselves forc'd to give an account to the Publick of the Suits which they make at Court against the Fathers Cordeliers But the injustice with which it has pleas'd those Fathers to traduce their best intentions and to make the unanimous consent of the greatest and soundest part of their Community pass for a Faction and a Caball only of some private persons will not allow them to hold their peace and they might well fear if they dissembled their sense of this injury that they might seem to authorize all their other disorders It is nothing then but the bare necessity of defending and justifying themselves which moves them to speak And whatsoever mischiefs these Fathers may have done in their House whatsoever scandals they may have occasion'd yet nothing does more nearly affect them than the force which they now constrain them to put upon themselves to publish such things as they could have wish'd for the interest of God and his Church for the honour of that whole Order aswell as upon the account of their own reputation to have buried in an eternal silence SECTION I. What gave occasion to the Suits which the Nuns of Saint Catharine make at Court against the F. Cordeliers THe Monastery of the Nuns of Saint Clare near Provins was founded in the year 1237. by Theobald the Fourth King of Navarre and Earl of Brie and Champaigne The Traditions of this Monastery say that this Prince caus'd it to be built in honour of Saint Catharine upon occasion of a vision which he had in his Castle of Provins from whence he had for several nights together seen upon the Hill where the Monastery now stands a bright shining light in the middle of which he discovered a Lady of extraordinary beauty who with the point of a Sword mark'd out the compass of this House This Prince who had a great devotion for Saint Catharine was perswaded that it was she that thus design'd out the place where God would be serv'd under her good guidance He resolv'd therefore to build a Nunnery there to endow it and to settle those Nuns there whom Saint Clare who was then living had sent him from Assize from whence the fame of her great Sanctity had diffus'd it self all over the World These holy Maids liv'd in his Castle of Provins the space of four years at the end of which the House being compleatly finish'd they at last took possession of it Theobald the Fifth who succeeded him had not less affection for this Monastery than his Father who had left his heart there for a pledge of his love He gave these Nuns great endowments granted them great
priviledges and at the sollicitation of Isabella the daughter of Saint Lewis whom he had married he procured of Pope Vrban the Fourth a permission for them to take the Rule which at the desire of Saint Lewis he had made for the Nuns of Long-Champ who had been founded by this holy King twenty two years after the Monastery of Saint Catharine Theobald the Fifth dying as he return'd from the voyage that he had undertaken with Saint Lewis his Father-in-Law beyond Sea would be buried in this Monastery The Princess Isabella his wife who died the same year chose likewise this place for her interment and accordingly their ashes lie here to this day This is all that is known of the History of this Monastery The several Fires that have happened and the care that the Cordeliers have taken to make away all the Titles and Writings hinder us from being able to give any further light into it There is nothing but a Bull of Alexander the Fourth which escaped them which shall hereafter in its place be mentioned and a permission from the Archbishop of Sens to beg in the Diocess for the rebuilding of the Church of Saint Catharine which had been burnt down by the English so that one cannot precisely determine the time when these Cordeliers first intruded themselves into this Monastery All that is known for certain is that about an hundred years since this House having been again consumed by Fire was a while after rebuilt by the care of the Lady Margaret de Billy of the Illustrious House of Prunay then Abbess of it who retired in the mean while into the Castle of Provins as her Predecessors had done upon the like occasions Five or six and twenty years after Madam d'Osonville being chosen Abbess and finding the House in horrible irregularities occasion'd by the conduct of the Cordeliers who had made themselves Masters of it set her self about applying some remedies against it She got a Nun of Amiens where the Rule was observ'd to come over to her for this purpose to teach it her Nuns to give them the example of it and to be assistant to her to deny those Fathers entrance into the House God preserv'd her forty years in this Charge in spite of all the attempts and persecutions of those Fryers during all which time they frustrated all her good designs and all the regulations which she had made for settling the Discipline according to the advice of many learned Divines so that as the greatest number of the Nuns were habituated to these infamous communications she could never draw them out of it notwithstanding all the precautions she could make use of and the disorder did still much more encrease after her death which happen'd in 1636 which was the time when the Cordeliers bethought themselves of making the Nuns accept of the Triennial that the Abbesses might be in greater dependance upon them that they themselves might be absolute Masters of the Elections and that they might with the more ease and success oppose the good designs of those that should be elected They exercised their Tyranny in this House till the year 1648 when many of the Nuns abhorring their extravagancies did make suit in Parliament to be discharged of their conduct But Father le Fort who was then appointed Commissary and who rul'd all in this Monastery imagin'd that now was the most favourable opportunity offer'd him to advance himself higher in the esteem of those of his own Order and to make himself still more absolute in this House He thereupon gives such advice to each of the Parties as was most proper to foment the Division and in the Chapters which he called no less than three times a day he loaded them with such horrid and injurious language upon their intending to withdraw themselves from under their direction calling them People of Sack-cloath and Cord Souls of Brimstone and Salt-peter That those Maids being terrifi'd with it seeing that unless they were assisted in it they could not yet shake off this so intolerable a Yoke were contented to let them make some new regulations and to let the late Monsieur Coqueret be named by the Parliament to draw them up for them and thus they continued under the same Government but yet hoping withal that the Regulations that were made for them would give some remedy at least to the evils that they laboured under But these Regulations were never put in practice nor so much as communicated to the Nuns the Cordeliers being always resolved to retain to themselves the same power and the same facility to commit the same disorders At last in the year 1663 The Nuns seeing that the Abbess who had then finished her Triennial and who had never been advanced to that charge but by the factious arts of the Cordeliers would if she were longer continu'd wholly consume both Temporall and Spiritual incomes of the Monastery to satisfie the greediness of these Fathers were resolved to make choice of another The Cordeliers were well aware of this design and omitted nothing to continue this Nun in her Government They made use of all ordinary artifices in order to it The Provincial took those for Associates Scrutatour and Secretary whom he knew to have most power over the inclinations of the Nuns They had private conferences with them some of which were continued till two a-clock in the morning They used the assistance of Kindred and Friends abroad who openly made parties for her They spared not for either promises or threats Some of the Nuns a great while before had by the Physitians order desired leave to go out to take the waters They were now offered to have it upon condition that they would give her their vote They had refused it them for two years before foreseeing what use they might make of it at the time of the Election They gave them and many others Notes to signe that were wrot by a Cordelier to assure themselves of their votes and of their faithfulness to what they had promised They took away the office of Scribe from her to whom it did belong according to the order of the House And in fine after all these precautions proceeding to an Election after that the scruting had been renewed no less than nine times without being able to overcome the resolution which the best-inclined amongst them had taken never to consent to the Election of a person who was so directly contrary to the good of their House They advised her to give her vote for her self and the Provincial also gave her his a practice never before heard of amongst them so that of thirty three votes counting that of her own and another of the Provincial's who had no manner of right to give any she had in all but seventeen Although this Election was against all forme yet they were forced to suffer it but not without this provision that the Treasurers should be joyned with the Abbess in the management of the
acknowledge Mounsieur Bourree their Confessour And as if the Cordeliers were afraid lest these Maids by doing their duties and frequenting the Sacraments should come to be sensible of the precipice they had engaged them in they perswaded them to absent themselves wholly from them and all the care that My Lord Archbishop of Sens could use to make them come to these Solemnities and the goodness he shewed them in offering them Confessours of any of the other Religious Orders to draw them to it could not prevent them from letting Easter-day passe without receiving the Communion That Prelate threatned them with the penalties incurred by the Holy Canons if they acquitted not themselves of a duty which he made appear to them was so indispensible They had three Admonitions for it according to the custome They returned no other answer to all this but injurious Language and Contempt And in fine after a tedious Expectation of their Repentance having declared to them in the usual form that they had incurred Excommunication they behaved themselves so haughtily that their Sisters who were more sensibly affected at that violent and stubborn Deportment with which they opposed the good Order that was intended to be settled in the House than at the particular Injuries which they had received from them having informed the Court of it and presented a Petition to which was joyned a Declaration of all that had passed The Court by a Decree of the 5th of September 1666. remitted them to My Lord Archbishop of Sens to be redressed by him by all wayes due and reasonable and even to the carrying away of such Nuns as he should think fit into other Monasteries Did enjoyn the Lieutenant General of Provins and others the Kings Officers to assist the said Lord Archbishop with the Secular Arme and the Kings Deputy-Attourney to give his Ayd My Lord Archbishop of Sens seeing himself forc'd by their obstinacy to put this Decree in Execution did cause some of them to be carried into other Monasteries They then began to abandon their former stubbornness and to acknowledge the voyce of their true Pastor And as they were now no longer beset with the Cordeliers who made them stop their Ears and who encouraged them in this their Rebellion they had no sooner had the taste of this happy liberty which was procured them by delivering them out of a place where they were held Captives but they acknowledged the need that their House stood in of the Remedy which was applyed to those wounds that the Religious Fathers had given to their Discipline the necessity of my Lord Archbishop of Sens's Orders and the Justice of the Decrees of the Court that had confirmed them They therefore presently wrot to this Prelate to beg his pardon for the disobedience which a false Zeal for their Rule had made them commit and to assure him of the good disposition they were in to submit themselves to his Orders and to acknowledge him for their lawful Superiour And not only those who were carried out to other Monasteries but even those who stayed still at St. Catharines did by publick Acts and before Notaries protest the Nullity of all that they might have done or signed to the contrary But the Cordeliers who whilest these nine or ten Nuns did make profession of so much resolution to retain them still in their House had several times made a shew of leaving them to themselves not considering with themselves that these Nuns being no longer managed by them would soon return to their duty and would not fail to execute that themselves which the Fathers did but make a shew of doing betook themselves to other Artifices to maintain themselves in the Vsurpation they had assumed in making themselves the Directours of this Monastery For this purpose they undertook two things equally contrary to the Laws of the Land the Priviledges of the Gallicane Church and to the Authority of Parliament The one under the name of the Procuratour General of the Order and the other under the name of the Nuns of St. Catharine Under the name of the Procuratour General of the Order they addressed themselves to the Congregation of the Regulars at Rome where thinking to elude the Execution of the Decree of the 15th of May 1664. and of those others issued out since by which the Nuns of St. Catharine are remitted to the Archbishop of Sens they procured a Decree bearing That that Prelate should have a time assigned him to be heard That in the mean while the Censures pronounced by him should be taken off and that the Monastery should continue under the Conduct and Jurisdiction of the Cordeliers Under the name of the Nuns of St. Catharine they obtained of their General a Commission by which Father Pinault Warden of the great Convent at Paris is fully empowered to reform the Nuns of St. Catharine to correct them to govern them and to give them Religious Fathers for Confessours And they are all commanded under penalty of Excommunication to obey him and to acknowledge him Commissary which is in plain terms to make all that is dependant and undecided in the Court to be judged at Rome by their General without any cognizance of the cause and without hearing of the parties The Religious Sisters of St. Catharine being acquainted with the private intrigues of the Cordeliers met in Chapter the 5th of February 1666. and did to the Number of twenty of them all Nuns of the Quire resolve to present a Petition at Court to get a Decree by which My Lord Archbishop of Sens should be declared Superiour of their House with a prohibition to all others to disturb or hinder him in the Possession and Jurisdiction of this right And the 4th of August the same year it being noised abroad That Father Pinault Warden of Paris had got the Kings Letters Patents upon the pretended Commission of the Father General they presented a new Petition to My Lord Archbishop of Sens signed by twenty Nuns all professed of the Quire to request him in all Humility to receive them once more under his Protection and immediately to come over to their Monastery to settle the Regulations there which he should find necessary as he had already began to do And that they might omit nothing that might contribute to the procuring them so Powerful an Assistance against the mischiefs with which they saw themselves over-run On the twentieth of the same Moneth they opposed the Registring of the Letters Patents which might have been imposed upon them upon this pretended Commission from the General and on the thirteen of November they appealed as from the abuse of this same Commission and on the seventeenth they signified their Appeal to Father Pinault But because they had not as yet made their Appeal as from an abuse of the pretended Decree of the Congregation obtained by the Procuratour General of the Order not imagining that in France there ought any regard to be had to a Grant
it and to scandalize the Church THere is nothing more abus'd than the words that Jesus Christ made use of to exhort the Faithful carefully to avoid the scandalizing of their Brethren for they are indifferently apply'd to those that reprove Vice and to those that commit it And there are people who value themselves highly for their Spirituality that are scarce at all touch'd at the licentiousness with which the greatest crimes are committed and yet are even transported with rage at the zeal with which they are reprov'd The Holy Fathers were of another mind They thought That true Charity towards persons oblig'd them to write with heat against their Extravagances and they were not at all afraid that they should trespass upon that Charity or pass for slanderers for reproving them openly if they were of a publick nature They thought that they were the true causers of scandal that committed these publick Disorders and the persons to whom Jesus Christ spoke when he said Wo be to the World because of scandals Wo be to the Man by whom scandal comes And that on the other side Those that reprov'd them that put a check to them were those that Jesus Christ had encourag'd to this Pious Office when he said It is necessary that scandals should come The rank which the Scribes Pharisees and Doctours of the Law held amongst the Jews was much more considerable than that which the Cordeliers hold in the Church since that Our Saviour says of them That they sate in the Chair of Moses and therefore commands to observe and do all that they taught And yet the eminent Condition to which they were rais'd and the need that they had of being in esteem amongst the people that they might follow their instructions did they hinder him from reproving the irregularities of their base and self-interested practices Does he not call them Hypoerites full of stupidity blind Guides Serpents and a brood of Vipers Does he not compare them to whited Sepulchres which appear fair without to the eyes of men but within are full of dead mens bones and all kind of rottenness Does he not tell them That they appear also just to the eyes of men but within are full of Hypocrisie and Iniquity That they make clean the outside of the platter and cup whilst their inward parts are full of rapine and uncleanness And though one of those Doctors replies upon it That in speaking so he dishonoured them also Does he for all that leave off discovering their Villanies And does he not on the contrary add Wo be to you also ye Doctors of the Law who load men with burdens not to be born and will not touch them your selves with your little finger In fine when his Disciples themselves represented to him That the Pharisees were offended at the liberty with which he reproved their errors Does he not answer them Let them alone They are blind leaders of the blind Sinite eos Coeci sunt c. Let not the Fathers Cordeliers then fancie that the Rules of any Charity that was due to their Order are violated by representing as has been done their disorderly practices to shew what necessity there is of taking an House of Virgins out of their hands who are in such evident danger of being ruin'd 'T is the Abuses and Disorders that they have committed in this Monastery that dishonour the Order and scandalize the Church and not the zeal of those that endeavour to purge the House of the corruption with which they have infected it And there has been so little of a Design in this to diminish the true Glory of the Order and that of their Founder that on the contrary 't is acknowledged for a reason of the Cordeliers falling into all these horrible misdemeanors That they have departed from the spirit of St. Francis and that contrary to all his Maximes and Prohibitions they have engag'd themselves in the Government of the Nuns But if any Persons after all this be yet offended at the liberty with which these Excesses are represented they will by that shew as St. Bernard said formerly to justifie himself for the holy liberty with which he had in his Apology reprov'd the Disorders that were slipt into the Order of Cluni that they love not the Order since that they are unwilling that the Corruptions and Abuses of it should be condemn'd and banish'd out of it And there is nothing to be answer'd to these persons but the saying of St. Gregory the Great cited also by St. Bernard 'T is better that Scandal should come than that the truth should be abandoned It is better that Scandal should come of it than that Religious Fathers upon the account of their being Religious and therefore that their disorderly Practices cause great Scandal when they come once to be known should without check profane the most sacred things and carry unchast flames into the very Sanctuary and into those hearts which Jesus Christ has after a peculiar manner made his Temples and a part of himself This is now that which oblig'd them to discover the Disorders that the Cordeliers have committed in the House of St. Catharine and not the desire of affronting an Order which it may be would be still in the high esteem that the humility and simplicity of St. Francis had put it into if it had continued obedient to the Bishops under whom it receiv'd its birth and if these Fathers had taken care as their Saint had often warn'd them to avoid having any communication with the Religious Sisters It was thought to be the Interest of the Church That the Bishops who have Nunneries of the Religious of St. Clare in their Diocesses and who are oblig'd to give an account to God of them should have knowledge of these Disorders that so having a pious indignation at them they might apply themselves as they are bound by their Office to hinder the committing of the like Crimes in those Houses or to banish them out of them if by ill hap they were slipt in It was thought to be the Interest of the State That Magistrates and Publick Persons should have knowledge of these Disorders that so they might be convinc'd of the necessity there is of maintaining the Bishops in the Rights given them by the Holy Scriptures and Councils over all the Monasteries of Nunns for fear that the Friers who have gain'd upon their Jurisdiction should change those Holy Retirements and Sanctuaries into Houses of Debauchery and Temples of Venus and lest this abuse that the Cardinals and Prelates assembled together by the Order of Paul the Third did so long ago declare That it did disfigure the Church and confound Christianity should at last draw down the wrath of God upon the whole Kingdom by the publick Sacriledges which say they are committed with horrible Scandal in most of the Nunneries that are under the Conduct of the Cloistered Friers It was thought to be the Interest of all the Friers to
have knowledge of these Disorders that they might the more zealously love and value the retirement and solitude of their Cloysters That they might take the more care to avoid the Nunns Grates with whom all the Founders of the several Orders have expresly forbidden them to have any communication And that that they might mind themselves of that excellent saying of St. Augustine Quid interest utrum in uxore an in matre an in sorore dum tamen Eva in qualibet muliere caveatur It was thought to be the Interest of all the Nunns to have a knowledg of these Disorders that they might unite themselves with joy to the Government of their Bishops their true Pastors and lawful Superiors and that they might carefully fly from those Strangers those Mercenaries and those false Pastors That come to them cloathed like sheep but within are ravening wolves That devour their houses under a pretence of making long Prayers and that even to this day compass Sea and Land to make one Jew and after he is made so they make him twice as fit for Hell as themselves Lastly It was thought to be the interest of the Nuns of St. Catharine That the World should have a knowledge of these Disorders that they might withall acknowledge the Justice of their Suits at Court against the Cordeliers the Generosity that has made them shut their eyes against all humane Interests and Considerations that might have drawn them from it and the Christian Contempt they have shown of Worldly Reputation to recover their solid and true honour which consists in resettling good Order and regularity in their House The Conclusion AFter what has been represented in both parts of the Factum and the Answers now made to all that can be alledg'd in favour of the Cordeliers it cannot be imagin'd that there is any person that is not fully convinc'd of the Justice of the Pretensions of the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine They desire not that the Authours of all the Disorders that have been committed in their House should be inform'd against That so long a continuation of crimes should be punish'd That the violation of so many Laws so many abominable profanations should be chastiz'd according to the severity of the Rules of Church and State They freely offer to chastise them upon themselves by the ways of Christian Penance to expiate them by their groans and tears and as much as in them lyes to appease the Wrath of God justly provok'd by all these abominations by the Mortifications of a Religious life and the constant Sacrifice of an humble and contrite heart They only desire that by removing these pernicious Directours of their Consciences from their House they might recover their liberty of acquitting themselves of that and their other Obligations That by preventing these Fathers from having any access to them they might put a stop to the Scandals that they have occasion'd for so many years together And that such people as have neither Faith nor Honour nor Conscience might not be any longer suffred in the face of the whole Church to abuse a Jurisdiction which they have usurped over them against the most Essential Rights of Episcopacy If nothing but their temporal interests had been concerned in it and that the Cordeliers would have been contented to have consum'd their whole Revenue in Feasting Dissoluteness and Debauchery or to have robb'd them of it according as they had occasion for it and stood in need of it to satisfie their ambitious ends their self-interest or their pleasures with it it may be they should have dissembled the injury But the honour of their Monastery is now concern'd in it which cannot be resettled in its former splendour but by restoring it again to the Authority of My Lord Archbishop of Sens unto which according to the Holy Scripture according to the Canons of the Councils according to the Maximes of the Gallicane Church according to the mind of St. Francis and according to the first settlement of the Nuns of St. Clare it ought to be submitted The Salvation of their own Souls and of the Souls of all those Virgins that in Succession of time shall be engag'd in this Monastery are concern'd in it whom these Fathers considering what kind of people they are will most indubitably alienate from the Fidelity which they owe to Jesus Christ Lastly The main thing that is made the matter of the present concern is To procure a Favour for a great number of Virgins Consecrated to the Service of God that would never be refus'd to any Ordinary Virgins of the World who had been stolne away from their Parents and implor'd the assistance of the Laws to be restor'd to them back again and to be forc'd out of the hands of those Villains who would with so much insolence have attempted upon their honour The Religious Sisters of St. Catharine expect this favour from the Court with so much the more Confidence as the danger in which they are is more evident They hope that that August Tribunal having always testify'd so much zeal for the Rights of the Bishops and for the true liberty of the Nunneries will be tenderly affected at the hard captivity under which they have for so many years groan'd And that they shall not have a less favourable Audience than the Religious Sisters of St. Eutrope of Chanteloup Those of St. Nicholas of Melun Those of the Annunciate at Bologne and so many others besides who have been restor'd to the Jurisdiction of their Bishops for abuses very like to those that the Cordeliers have committed in their House They hope that It having given testimony of its great zeal for upholding all Religious Orders in the first spirit and sincerity of their Foundation It will not refuse this favour to the Order of St. Francis by obliging the Cordeliers to leave off being Directours to those whom their Holy Founder has so streightly forbid them to meddle withall which he so earnestly endeavour'd to separate them from and which we look'd upon as a very dangerous snare that the Devil had laid for his Order and which they themselves have found by dreadful Experience to have been so mischievous to them Lastly They hope that the Court having always given evidence of so much Judgment Prudence and Equity in its determinations It will not now abandon them to the power of those who have engag'd them in that sad condition that they have for so many years continu'd in but will on the contrary conclude That the Mischief that the Cordeliers have done to their Monastery cannot be prevented but by the cares of their true Pastour FINIS Jan. 5. 1675 1676. Imprimatur Geo. Hooper Ex Aed Lambethan The Contents A Chapter-Act of the Nuns to own their Factum A Factum or Declaration in Court for the Nuns against the Friers Page 1 Section I. What gave occasion to the Suits made by the Nuns against the Cordeliers at Court page 3 Sect. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. That the Cordeliers have no just Title for their Jurisdiction over the Nuns p. 37 Sect. 9. 10. That if they had had any Title they have now lost their Right to it by their Misdemeanours which are specified by these particulars p. 40 Sect. 11. Abuses in their Spiritual Concerns p. 43 In the Education of Pensioners p. 46 Novices Education of young Novices p. 48 And of young professed Nuns p. 53 Vndecent Books allowed them p. 54 Instructions p. 55 Presents to the Nuns p. 57 Letters Posies and Devices p. 58 Publick Allusions p. 64 Dedication of Theses p. 65 Profanation of Sermons p. 70 The Marriages of the Friers and Nuns p. 72 Frolicks and Entertainments p. 75 Love-Letters p. 78 Sacriledge and Profanations p. 93 Mad Revellings and secret Entries into the Nunnery p. 95 Insolences and Disorders of the Friers Which the Nuns blusht at p. 97 Sect. 12. Abuses of the Temporal Concern p. 105 Riotous Wastes of the Revenue of the Nunnery in Debaucheries by Thefts and Cheats in Licentiousness p. 105. to 115 Sect. 13. That it is impossible there should be any good Discipline settled in this Nunnery by the Cordeliers p. 116 Sect. 14. The Superiours of the Order caus'd the Disorders viz. The Provincials Masters of the Revels The Nuns Preferred for their kindness p. 117 Sect. 15. That the Nuns have Invincible Reasons not to trust the Cordeliers p. 130 Sect. 16. The Cordeliers pretences to colour their Designs are answered p. 138 The Conclusion representing the whole Case pag. 180 A Catalogue of some Books Printed for and sold by Robert Pawlet at the Bible in Chancery-Lane near Fleet-street MAry Magdalen's Tears wip'd off or A Voice of Peace to an Vnquiet Conscience Published for the Comfort of all those who mourn in Zion Sermons Preached by that Eminent Divine Henry Hammond D.D. Golden Remains of that ever Memorable Mr. John Hales of Eaton Colledge c. The Second Impression with Additions not before published Episcopacy as Established by the Law in England written by the Especial Command of the late King CHARLES by R. Saunderson late Lord Bishop of Lincoln A Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture or The certain and indubitable Books thereof as they are received in the Church of England By Dr. Cosin late Lord Bishop of Durham A Collection of Articles Injunctions Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions Ecclesiastical with other Publick Records of the Church of England with a Preface by Anthony Sparrow Lord Bishop of Exon. The Bishop of Exon's Caution to his Diocess against false Doctrines Delivered in a Sermon at his primary Visitation The whole Duty of Man laid down in a plain and familiar way for the use of All but especially the meanest Reader necessary for all Families with private Devotions on several occasions The Gentleman 's Calling written by the Author of the Whole Duty of Man The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety or An Impartial Survey of the Ruines of Christian Religion undermined by Unchristian Practice by the Author of the Whole Duty of Man An Historical Vindication of the Church of England as it stands separated from the Roman c. by Sir Roger Twisden Baronet Mr. Chillingworth's Reasons against Popery perswading his Friend to return to his Mother the Church of England from the Church of Rome The Book of Homilies appointed to be read in Churches Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical Divine Breathings or A Pious Soul thirsting after Christ In 100 Excellent Meditations Hugo Grotius de Rebus Belgicis or the Annals and History of the Low-Countrey Wars in English wherein is manifested that the United Netherlands are indebated for the Glory of their Conquest to the Valour of the English A Treatise of the English Particles shewing much of the variety of their significations and uses in English and how to render them into Latin according to the propriety and elegancy of that Language with a Praxis upon the same By William Walker B. D. Schoolmaster of Grantham The Royal Grammar commonly called Lillie's Grammar explained opening the meaning of the Rules with great plainness to the understanding of Children of the meanest capacity with Choice Observations on the same from the best Authors By W. Walker B. D. Author of the Treatise of English Particles A Treatise proving Spirits Witches and Supernatural Operations by pregnant Instances and Evidences by Meric Casaubon D. D. A Catalogue of the Names of all the Parliaments or reputed Parliaments from the Year 1640. A Narrative of some Passages in or relating to the Long Parliament By a Person of Honour Nemesius's Nature of Man in English by G. Withers Gent. Inconveniences of Toleration A Letter about Comprehension A Thanksgiving Sermon preached before the King by J. Dolben D. D. Dean of Westminster and Clerk of the Closet Bishop Brownrig's Sermon on the Gun-powder Treason A Narrative of the Burning of London 1666. with an Account of the Losses and a most Remarkable Parallel between it and MOSCO both as to the Plague and Fire A Collection of the Rules and Orders now used in Chancery Mr. White 's Learned Tract of the Laws of England Graphice or the Use of the Pen and Pensil in Designing Drawing and Painting By Sir William Sanderson Knight The Communicant instructed for worthy Receiving the Lord's Supper By Tho. Trott of Barkston near Grantham Military and Maritime Discipline c. Sir Francis Moor's REPORTS Baron Savil's REPORTS All Sorts of LAW-BOOKS FINIS