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
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
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
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
Leges quas Edovardus tertius utendas dederat in pristinum usum revocat quae tamen sensim absoluerunt Normaâ—â—s pro commâ—do Principis ad incommodum Anglorum leges a Gulielmo primo conditas constantissime usurpantibus And again about the end of his life Tulit initio sui Principatus aliquot leges quas nec ipse nec Reges qui secuti sunt hine servaruaâ— However those I have given were his laws not repealed after by himself in Parment for he began Parliaments in England or otherwise by any publick Instrument declared as a law to the people albeit I deny not but those 16. heads controverted after twixt Thomas of Canterbury and King Henry the Second were first conceived in writing by this very Henry the first but never as a law published by him To all which I will add those further laws yet which were to our purpose also made by King Stephen Henry the First 's immediat or next Successour in two several Parliaments one at Oxford and t'other at London in that of Oxford abolishing quite that kind of tribute or assessment which other Kings had formerly often exacted from every hyde or acre of ground and promising too that neither Episcopacies nor other Ecclesiastical Benefices or Sacerdotal Prefectships should be kept vacant as much as for any the least time and in this of London or Westminster enacting for the Clergy's sake because they had liberally contributed for the warr in hand that whoever should strike any Churchman in holy orders or should without licence from the Court Ecclesiastical or Bishops lay hands upon or seize any criminal Clergymen whatever his crime were should be held excommunicat impious and accursed and should not be restored at all to the communion of the Church or absolved but by the Roman Pontiff onely Of which laws of King Stephen albeit there be no Parliament Records preserved of them as neither indeed are of all or any of those held before King John's days Polydore Virgil tels us expresly and particularly in his 12. book of Histories and life of the said Stephen For these are his words concerning the first Stephanus autem ex sententia summum consecutus imperium Oxonium proficiscitur atque ibi Principum conventum facit quo in Conventu inter caetera ut suorum animos sibi devinciret illud tributi genus quod alij Reges per singula jugera terrae saepe exigere a populo solebant prorsus sustulit atque promisit se curaturum ut deinceps Episcopatus aliae Prefecturae sacerdotales ne puncto quidem temporis vacarent c. And concerning the second these Interea Rex Londinum venit ubi celebrem Principum ac Antistitum conventum peregit in quo talia verba fecit Cum Principes fidelissimi c His dictis cuncti praesidium salutis ac libertatis defendendae se laturos pollicentur At Episcopi cum suis sacerdotibus quia pugnare fas non est pecuniam conferre promittunt quibus ut aliquid gratiae referretur in eodem Conventu constitutum est ut quicumque deinceps sacris initiatos percuterent aut alicujus criminis reos Episcoporum injussu caperent impii importunique haberentur nec ab aliquo praeterquam a Romano Pontifice in piorum caetum restitui possent quemadmodum jure Pontificio iampridem sancitum esset sed apud Anglos ante id tempus minus servatum And so I have given at large whatever I would have the Reader observe in this Seventh place of the proper civil or municipal laws of England before Henry the seconds time concerning our purpose especially the exemption of criminal Clerks even in case of murder from the lay Judges Eightly and in the last place you are to observe but onely out of this present book of my own which you you read now that is out of all said by me formerly in so many Sections from that place where I first began to dispute of Ecclesiastical Immunity what my doctrine is against which the objection is made for and to come to the answering of which I have premised so long a discourse in so many observations And you are to observe well that my said doctrine is no other in effect but what I now repeat heer briefly viz. 1. That neither by the law divine positive or natural nor by the canons of the Catholick Church which are properly those are and are called Canones universalis Ecclesiae nor even by those other canons which are more properly and onely stiled Papal Canons Clergiemen living within the dominions of any Supream lay or secular Prince are exempt in criminal and temporal causes from his supream civil even coercive power 2. That not onely they are not so already exempted by any such law of God or man but also that they cannot be hereafter by any pure law of man not even of Pope or Council exempted from the said supream civil even coercive power without the consent of the Princes themselves 3. That neither can the supream secular Princes themselves grant any such exemption to Clerks living still within their dominions and remaining Subjects to them because this implyes a plain contradiction or to any Clerks at all but to such as are at the same time wholly set free from all kind of subjection or acknowledgment of their Principalities 4. That on the other side both by the natural and positive law of God and especially by the 13 of the Romans by the letter and meaning and scope or end of that whole text of St. Paul there all Christian Clerks not even the Popes not even the Apostles themselves exempted are subject in temporal matters and criminal causes even to the coercive power of the supream secular Magistrat 5. That by the doctrine also of the holy Fathers generally until Gregory the VII and by their exposition or understanding of that text of Paul all Churchmen whatsoever were and are so in the dominions of the respective supream temporal Princes whom these Clerks own to be their own legal Princes 6. That by the practise also of so many Christian Bishops Popes and Princes they were and are so 7. That even by the testimony of clear even Papal canons they were and are so that by no argument hithertoo alleadged out of reason scripture tradition Fathers Councils Papal Canons Histories by any of our adversaries the contrary is as much as any way convincingly deduced 9. And finally and in a word that all their true exemptions from either inferiour or supream secular judicatories in any temporal or criminal cause whatsoever as to the coercive punishment of them by the civil power force and sword is originally from and wholly still depending of the supream civil power In all which or in any discourse or clause said thereupon by me you are also to observe that I never said or say or intend to say that Clerks have not a true right to those exemptions from lay judicatories which the
Philippus de Eleemosyna missus a latere Alexandri summi Pontificis Cardinalium omnium ad pacem faciendam inter Regem Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem per quem summus Pontifex omnes Cardinales mandaverunt Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo ut ipse pacem cum Domino suo Rege Angliae faceret leges suas sine aliqua exceptione custodiendas promitteret Nor are we much to wonder that either Popes of Rome or Bishops of England for peace's sake and upon new occasions should after the days of St. Thomas of Canterbury either connive at or concurr to or at least not oppose the legal repealing of the former municipal laws of England and of their own Ecclesiastical canons too if any had been in that point of jurisdiction or exemption of criminal Clerks from or subjection of them to even the ordinary secular judicatories at least in some cases and criminal cases too being they had and had in the very case of such enormous crimes of Clerks as murder theft malefice a precedent so auncient and of such great authority in the Catholick Church as that I have given in my LXIX Section out of the first Council of Matisconum held in the year 532. where the auncient Fathers and Bishops who composed that Council do in express tearms and in their 7. canon leave such Clerks or rather suppose them still left to secular justice as were guilty or accused of murder theft or malefice For that 7. canon is in these words Vt nullus Clericus de qualibet causa extra discussionem Episcopi suia seculari judice injuriam patiatur aut custodiae deputetur Quod si quicumque Iudex absque criminali cuasa id est homicidio furto aut maleficio facere fortasse praesumpserit quamdiu Episcopo loci illius visum fuerit ab Ecclesiae liminibus arceatur Besides that they had the precedent of all the Bishops of the world both in the Eastern and Western Church under the Roman Empire who all for so many hundred years of Christian Religion established by law submitted to the civil laws of the Roman and Christian Emperours by which laws until Frederick the Seconds laws Clerks were subjected in all criminal causes to the very inferiour lay judges As for the case of treason against the person of the Prince or rebellion against the State or Commonwealth it was never in any Country not even England nor at any time as much as thought on to be exempted from lay cognizance or punishment at least when the King pleased to proceed by extraordinary commission And yet also I confess that such repealing Statuts Customs or both whatever they were under Edward the Second or any former or later King from Henry the Second to Edward the Third made so a municipal law of England suffered again some chang or some amendment in favour of the Clergie in the year 1344. under King Edward the Third in a Parliament held by him at Westminster For so Matthew Parker tels us expresly in his Antiquitates Britannicae pag. 236. in his life of Ioannes Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury Rex Gallum sayes he feroci Marte expilans postquam biennio bellum gessisset exercitu in castris relicto in Angliam reversus est Westmonasterii Parlamentum tenuit In eo Clerus ei concessit decimas triennales Rex Clero vicissim concessit quod nullus Archiepiscopus vel Episcopus coram Iusticiariis Regis judicium subeat nisi Rex hoc nominatim specialiter praeceperit Tum quod nullus Clericus coram Iusticiariis Regis judicium sustineat sive ad ipsius Regis sive alicujus partis instantiam si se submittat Clericatui dicat se membrum Ecclesiae sanctae nec debere ipsis Iustitiariis respondere Quod si quis Clericus de bigamia accusetur de eo non fore permissum Iustitiariis inquirere sed mittatur curiae Christianae Which same Author Matthew Parker tels us further thus pag. 244. in the life of Simer Istippe Archbishop of Canterbury that the same Archbishop Islippe obtained further from the same King Edward the Third and in an other Parliament held by him at Westminster in the five and twentieth year of his Raign and of Christ an 1351. a more ample redress of the grievances of the Clergie from the oppressions of the lay Judges and other the Kings Ministers Archiepiscopus deinde a Rege proceribus in Parliamento obtinuit ut legum ac libertatis Ecclesiasticae oppressiones quibus Clericorum status diu afflictus fuit statuta tollerentur Quo impetrato cum Clerici permulti privilegio Clericali abutentes quam plurima flagitia perpetrarent Rege proceribus id flagitantibus ab Archiepiscopo suisque Suffraganeis statutum est ut Clerici de capitalibus criminibus testibus probationibus suave confessione convicti Episcopalibus perpetuò carceribus mancipati ad pristinum locum aut ordinem numquam restituantur ne ordini Clericali scandalum generetur sed perpetuam agentes paenitentiam quarta sexta feriis in sabbathis pane doloris aqua angustiae semel in die caeteris diebus pane tenuissima cerevisia dominico autem die pane cerevisia legumine tantummodò nutriantur And further yet the same Author Matthew Parker pag. 279. in the life of Henricus Chicheley Archbishop of Canterbury tels us how the Clergie holding a Synod under the said Chicheley in Edward the Fift's Raign an Dom. 1420 and having granted that King a Tenth Clerus a Rege vicissim impetravit Ne hospitii sui pro victualibus provisores Clericorum bona aut possessiones attingerent Deinde ut Clerici in foro Regio capitalium crimmum postulati datis fidejusseribus judicio sisti carceribus liberentur Tertio ut Presbiteri castrati felonum id est homicidarum paenis afficerentur And finally the same Author and Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker tels pag. 298. in the life of Ioannes Mortâ—n Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry the Seventh an Dom. 1487 how upon occasion of a Rebellion in England against the said Henry the Seventh and of the abuse of Sanctuaries of the priviledg of Sanctuaries especially of that of Colchester by some of the Rebels who for a time sheltering their lives in them yet when they found a fit opportunity started out often to do mischief then return'd again how I say upon this occasion the former priviledg of the very Sanctuaries was lessened by law before which law a Bull also was procured from Pope Innocent who then sate declaring that such criminals should be by the lay power extracted out of Sanctuary Lataque ex illa Papali Bulla lex est sayes Parker ut asylis inscripti si homicidia furta incendia sacrilegia depopulationes agrâ—rum Regni aut Regis proditiones postea commiserint inde ejecti vi laica ducantur ad supplicium All which several changes of or concerning the Immunities of Churchmen and Churches in England
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
Infallibility of the Pope without a general Council no writings of His whatsoever though under his own hand and with his own name induce not a certainty of Faith or such an one in which there can be no falshood or errour I say nothing for the present of the other conditions they require to this that a Declaration of the Pope though by such a Decretal Epistle or Brief so promulgated and so directed to all the faithful of Christ though definitive too and in a matter of Faith oblige not per se of its own sole nature to assent or what restrictions they put as namely that neither the proems nor motives nor suppositions nor any reasons alledged are defined And that whenever the Bull is declarative onely and not constitutive also or as far as 't is only declarative if it relie on false grounds or reasons or any way uncertain or apparent only or only opinative or probable so far of necessity it is subject to the danger of errours and that the constitutive part of such a Bull grounded only upon such a declarative necessarily wants all manner of force to oblige any whatsoever at least those who clearly see the errour doubt or uncertainty For the present likewise I say nothing that these Divines require besides to the Infallibility of a Papal definition or to this that none may dissent that the Pope declare in express or equivalent words that the Article defined is an Article of Catholick faith and the contrary or contradictory heretical All these things I say and possibly more to this purpose I pass over in silence Yet there is a certain errour deceit or at least supposition not well grounded I have read and observ'd in several of your Lordships Letters to several people both here and in Ireland which I cannot let pass without a short animadversion It is That our Holy Father Alexander the VII did not think it necessary to give a new censure of our Protestation that being sufficient which had been made by former Popes since it appeared ours contained some things which were the same with the Propositions condemn'd heretofore by Paul the V. and lately by Innocent the X. But my Lord it does not appear that Paul the V. has condemn'd any one or more certain and determinate Propositions of the Oath of Allegiance as they call it or Fidelity prescrib'd by a Law of King James and the Parliament and Kingdom in his time For in the reference which you make to the judgment of Paul the V. you allude to Propositions contain'd in that Oath Nay it appears on the contrary out of the Letters of Paul the V. which are extant in Print and in form of a Brief directed onely to the Catholicks of England I question not for the present whether they were subreptitious or ever publish't or whether the due Solemnities of Law were observed it appears I say he never condemned any one or more in particular but onely in general terms after other matters of not going to the Churches Sermons and Rites of Protestants or Heterodox admonishes the Catholicks of England not to take that Oath or the like as is manifest by the very tenour of the first Brief dated at Rome the 10th of the Calends of Octob. 1606. in which only first Brief he speaks directly and by design against that Oath of it self And in particular this is manifest by the words of the same Pope in the same Brief which give the onely reason why he admonishes them not to take that Oath and why he tells them it ought perspicuously to appear to the English Catholicks out of the words of the Oath that such an Oath cannot be taken with the safety of Catholick faith and of their souls Since sayes he it contains many things which are manifestly contrary to faith and salvation For after these words and for these alone as the onely ground and reason of his Declaration and Admonition it follows immediately Therefore we admonish you that you wholly beware of taking this or the like Oaths Wherefore since it appears sufficiently by these words which assign his reason especially joyn'd with the tenour of the rest of the Brief from the beginning to the end that Paul the V. did not condemn all that was containâ—d in that Oath I say did not condemn all so much as in these general or any other terms of these Letters or at least since it does not only sufficiently but evidently appear that to his Holiness Alexander the VII it can not be known by those Letters nor indeed can be known at all for no man in his wits will say he can be certain of this otherwise than by those words and that Brief which in particular or whether any such of the Propositions contain'd in that Oath of Allegiance made by King James were censured by that Declaration nay not so much as which he desired or intended to censure and because 't is no less plain to any that shall exactly compare that Form of the Kings with ours that the Propositions are far different both in words and sense and that in that there be many more Propositions but fewer in ours that in that there is contain'd a formal Oath largely expressed and an Oath without all doubt strictly taken in some places assertory in others promissory for thrice at least if not four or five times they formally swear in that manner in that of the Kings but no Oath at all contained in ours not so much as largely taken no where in no part or Proposition from the beginning of the form to the end that 't is affirm'd in that and peradventure with the sacred tye of an Oath that there is in the Pope no power to depose Kings whereas ours for what concerns that particular expresses onely an act of the will and renounces such a power determining nothing either with or without an Oath of the Position in it self and taken in its own nature whether it be true or false or probable or not that in that some things are abjured as heretical in ours none that that binds under obligation of a promise sworn to to discover all Treasons ours declares onely a readiness of mind to discover them I say since it appears that all these things are most true and farther out of Parson's Letters in Withrington dated at Rome when they consulted there of condemning that Oath of K. James and farther also out of several Books of Bellarmine though under counterfeit names against the said Withâ—ington and other defenders of the said Oath that Paul the V. was only or chiefly moved to frame that Brief by which the Kings Oath is condemned by this reason because He had been persuaded though without any either sufficient or probable argument by Bellarmine himself and those other seven or eight Divines at Rome whom He had deputed to examine it that by that Oath was likewise deny'd the Primacy of the Pope and his power to excommunicate either Kings or their
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
or whoever else indoctrinated Him there have been of the other side and of the same Church as there are even at this present day many Thousands or the most Learned most Zealous most Godly Prelates and Priests and Doctors besides Laicks who have cryed them down as not only false wicked impious heretical unchristian but as absolutely tyrannical and as plainly destructive of all Government and Laws and of all Property and Peace and of all whatsoever is or can be the felicity or comfort or even freedom of the children of men This hath sufficiently appear'd in the mighty oppositions made as well from the Pulpit and by Writing as by Arms in all Countries of Europe to so many fulminating so many King-deposing pretended universal Monarchs of the World in all things both Spiritual and Temporal to these only Vicars of Christ on earth to these onely infallible Judges of his Faith Witness the Concordates of Germany the Sicilian Monarchy the Pragmatical Sanction of France the Laws of Provisors and Premunire in England and Ireland and the two Oecumenical or at least Occidental Councils of Constance and Basil and many more National Synods both before and after them held some in Italy others in Germany and others in France and held in plain contradiction to those high claims and usurpations Witness also of very late dayes the Third Estate of France in the General Assembly (t) Jan. 1614 5. of the Three Estates held under Lewis XIII Jan. 1614 3 yea notwithstanding Cardinal Perron's Oratory and of later yet all the eight Universities of that Kingdom in their sentence of Sanctarellus (u) 1626. ann 1626. and of others too before and after besides the known practice all along of their Parliaments and â—â—st of all the Theological Faculty of Sorbon and the rest of the Paris (x) 1663. Divines in the year 1663 May 8. headed by the Archbishop of that See and presenting their siâ— Declaration against the Pope to the present French Monarch Lewis XIII All which are certainly manifold clear undeniable demonstrations of what I said immediately before viz. How of the fame Roman-Catholick Church or Faith and Communion there have been all alone as there are at this present many Thousands of the most Learned Zealous 〈◊〉 Godly 〈◊〉 Priests and Doctors as well as Laicks who never approved of the foresaid either Practices or Principles but alwayes reproved condemned abhorred detested and protested against them both as not only heretical but tyrannical c. IX That consequently since the owning of such intollerable Maximes and wicked Actions or the not disowning of them cannot be justly said to be any of the peculiar Notes or characteristical Marks of a Roman-Catholick in general but only of a certain Sect or 〈◊〉 or Party amongst them whom some call Papalins others Puritan Papists and others Popish-Recusanta and since none of all the undoubted either Articles or Riâ—â—â— which all Roman-Catholicks universally without any distinction of Party or Faction do and must espouse have been hitherto reputed accused or suspected of being in themselves abstractedly and purely taken in any manner dangerous to any Government Temporal or Spiritual or to any persons either of Princes or Subjects or to the property or liberty of any Man or Woman or to the peace or quieâ— or security or conteâ—â—â—f any humane Creature however in the mean 〈…〉 â—â—al or some of them do or may seem erroneous to the learned 〈…〉 Protestants and further since King Henry VIII and the Protestant 〈…〉 Parliament of England Ireland and Scotland after him a◠〈◊〉 one 〈◊〉 could not 〈◊〉 throughly understand both these things which I have now mention'd so on the other hand they could not but observe how ever since the Oath of Supremacy though framed only by Roman-Catholick Bishops Abbots and Doctors of the English Nation and defended by the Principal (y) Bishop Gardiâ—er in his Book de â—eâ—a Obedienâ—â—â— and Bishop â—oâ—â—â—r in his Preface before it of the same occasioned the first Separation or Schism amongst the Subjects of England and Ireland the far greater part of such as continued in the Communion of the Roman Church did seem also to adhere to the foresaid dangerous Doctrines and Practises i. e. to all the pretenses and actings of the Roman Court forasmuch as they generally refus'd to disown them either by that Oath of Supremacy or by any other and moreover by consequence since the same Princes and Parliaments could not but manifestly discern all their own very being as also that of all the People under their Government to be singularly marked out and even devoted to utter extirpation by a party of men so madly principled and furiously bent living amongst them out of all that has been said it must follow That the onely original and the onely true principal causes which moved them to proceed with so much severity of Laws Proclamations and Executions against all Roman-Catholicks in general of these Dominions could be no other of our side than our Fathers and our own very great neglect and folly or contempt and wilfulness not to disown and renounce for ever publickly as we ought all such whatsoever wicked Positions and Practises nor any other indeed of their side than their firm persuations of our being therefore so desperately both principled and inclined nay resolved also and ready to give the greatest possible evidences of fiery Zeal whensoever the Commands of His Holiness from abroad shall meet with a fair opportunity at home X. That it is unreasonable to think and incredible to believe That so many judicious Princes Parliaments and Convocations who had themselves gone so far and ventured so much as they did only because they would not suffer themselves or the Protestant people govern'd by them to be imposed on against their own reason in matters of Divine Belief Rites c should at the same time be so concerned to impose on others in the like i. e. in Spiritual matters purely such in those I mean of Religion and Rites no way intrenching on the Jurisdiction or other Temporal or Spiritual Concern either of King or Bishop or other Subject whatsoever as to Enact Laws of so many grievous punishments yea of Death it self in some cases of meer purpose to extort from them a complyance or submission in such matters It is no to be believed that they would Enact those Laws against their own flesh and blood and some their nearest Relations too only for not renouncing such harmless and meer Religious Tenets or Rites which all their Predecessors before them had for so many Ages held without disturbance to the Publick or inconvenience to private Persons or hindrance to Virtue or countenance to Vice if the testimony of all Christendome for so long time be of any weight and to Enact those Laws intentionally or designedly against those things which at the very worst in all possible and conditional Contingencies are but erroneous Tenets and insignificant unprofitable Rites not
amongst the same Protestants to perswade themselves that however in our neighbouring Catholick Kingdoms the Article of Transubstantiation and the Doctrine of the Bishop of Rome's universal Monarchy or of his both spiritual and temporal supreme Jurisdiction do not walk hand in hand together yet amongst the generality of Roman Catholicks in these Nations it hath been otherwise continually these last hundred years and is at present whether in the mean time this proceed out of Ignorance or Interest or both XIII That thus at last the only true both original and continual causes on our side of all the severe Laws and of all the other grievous misfortunes and miseries past and present which we complain of and groan under as peculiar to the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion in these Nation appearing to be and really being such as I have hitherto discoursed none can be so short sighted or so unapprehensive as not without further discourse to understand likewise the only Christian and proper efficacious remedy of all the said evils for what I mean concerns the future and our own endeavours and concurrence with God and man to help our selves For certainly nothing can be more obvious to reason than that since our own either formal or virtual express or tacit owning of so many uncatholick Positions and so many unchristian practises by our continual refusing to disown them or either of them in any sufficient manner or as we ought by any proper Test hath been of our side hitherto the only immediate cause of all our woes and especially of all those legal Sanctions which upon due reflection do without doubt render our best condition even at present anxious it must follow That the only proper true and efficacious remedy on our side also must be at last our own free and unanimous and hearty and conscientious disowning of all and every the said erroneous Positions and wicked practises even by such a publick full and clear Instrument or Declaration and Oath as may satisfie all Protestants of our utter Aversness and Enmity to all Rebellious Doctrines and Practises whatsoever especially to those which tend to the maintaining of any kind of temporal Dominion or Jurisdiction direct or indirect or even any spiritual Power or Authority which may have the effect of such temporal in the Pope or See of Rome over his Majesty or any of his Majesties Subjects or at all within the Realms of England Ireland or Scotland or within any of the other Dominions acknowledging his Majesty even in any case of contingency imaginable especially in case of either true or only pretended Apostacy Heresie Schism c. and such publick Instrument Declaration and Oath so full and clear even also against all equivocations and both mental and vocal evasions whatsoever to be in your name together with your Petition most humbly presented to the King and Parliament some time this present Session by your sufficient Representatives the Roman Catholick Lords or such of them as will be pleased to take these matters to heart XIV That when in such manner as you ought you have performed that duty which you have so long owed to God and the King to your Country and Religion to the Christian Church in general and all mankind and amongst them to your selves and your posterity after you and when you have thereby done your part to disarm all the anger of the Presses and to silence all the clamor of Pulpits and put an effectual stop to a thousand new Invectives and ten thousand more Sermons preparing to incense the Protestant people against you i. e. when by such a publick Instrument or solemn Declaration and Religious Oath of the generality of your Nobles Ecclesiasticks and Gentry you shall have quite rendred unsignificant their I know not which more affrighting or bewitching Theme quite destroyed their Common place and no less effectually than clearly answered their only grand Objection against your Liberty viz. That of The inconsistence of the safety of a Protestant Prince or State or Kingdom or People with Liberty in the same Dominions given to Roman-Catholick Subjects and consequently when by doing so you shall have done your selves all the greatest right you can think of viz. you shall have conform'd to the inward dictates of a good Conscience wiped off from your holy Religion the outward scandal of most wicked Principles yielded to victorious Truth wheresoever you behold her and which is and must be consequential when you shall have thus after a tedious contest of above a hundred years advanced on your side the first considerable step to meet half way the Right Reverend Prelates and other learned Teachers of the Church of England in order to a happy reconciliation at last of the remaining differences then may you confidently expect from their side also i. e. from his most Gracious Majesty and the great Wisdom and Piety of both Houses of Parliament all that ease relaxation indulgence peace kindness love which by any men dissenting yet in so many other points from the Religion established by Law can be in reason expected even a Repeal at least of all the Sanguinary and Mulctative Laws For to expect an equality in all priviledges with those that are of the Protestant Church until God be pleased to bring you nearer them or them to you than in a meer profession how real and cordial and universal or comprehensive soever of Allegiance to the King in Temporal or Civil Affairs only I say till that day come which we pray for it will I believe seem unreasonable to your selves to expect that equality with them which they were not to expect of you if you had the power in your hands and they were in your condition How can they in reason expect so much favour as they now shew us if they retain any memory of former times and consider the now prevailing Party amongst us and Papal Constitutions even at this present governing that Party at least in relation to such as are reputed Hereticks or Schismaticks by the Consistory at Rome XV. That of those Ecclesiasticks who as the English Opposers of the Oath of Allegiance or the Irish Persecutors of the Loyal Remonstrance shall endeavour to persuade your continuing alwayes Rigid Papalins maugre Heaven and Earth and to stifle any motion or thought of giving a Protestant Prince or Parliament any more satisfaction in the principal point either of Consistence or Inconsistence c than your selves or your Predecessors have given hitherto some of them are naturally averse to the Crown of England and would be so though it were as entirely devoted now to the See of Rome as it was at Dover when King â—ohn laid it there at the Legat's feet others are daily expectants of Mitres and Titles and Bulls and Dignities from that City of Fortune others have already taken the Formal or Ceremonial possession of their now most Illustrious and most Reverend Lordships and these also have already at their Consecration
one tittle or any one action hitherto alledg'd against me as such other than what is in effect and substance my Assertion or Vindication of the Supreme Temporal Sovereignty of the Crowns of these Kingdoms i. e. of their being in all Temporals and all Contingencies whatsoever independent from any but God alone and therefore in Temporals no way dependent from the Pope either by divine or humane right Whether any person may on such ground call in question the sincerity of my believing or professing as I ought all the undoubted Articles of the Roman-Catholick Faith 3. And seeing there was never yet any other matter not even by my greatest Persecutors at any time objected articled oâ— pretended against me beside that i. e. besides my former opposing the Nuncio's Censures and my later promoting the Remonstrance and my endeavours in both against the pretences of the Roman Bishops to the Crowns of England Ireland Scotland c Whether it may in any wise be said or thought by unbyassed learned men That I have given any real ground for the vile detraction of those who treat me every way as if I had been a desertor of the Church 4. Nay Whether considering first The nature of those two grand Controversies wherein I have so freely engaged against all the power of the Roman Court abroad and all the endeavours of the Nuncio's Party and Antiremonstrant Clergy at home secondly The most grievous manifold and continual persecutions I suffered in both Causes one while by Suspensions and Deprivations another while by Excommunications then by Imprisonment in a Forreign Countrey even as far off as Spain and then again by new Thunders of Ecclesiastical Censures and by scandalous Declarations and posting of my Name besides other frequent enterprizes on several occasions against both my Liberty and Life thirdly My continuing constant in both Causes even all along to this very day even also then and that not only once happening when I had no support in this World but my own Conscience of suffering i. e. my own certain knowledge of my suffering onely for Righteousness sake nay then also when some of my chiefest Adversaries laboured with all their powerful malice even here at London to compel me and spared not to speak openly that either they would compel me to renounce the Roman-Catholick Church and declare my self an Heretick or they would make me submit to the Roman Court in the latter of these two Causes viz. that of the Loyal Remonstrance it being the onely matter then prosecuted against me fourthly Their failing nevertheless to this present in obtaining their will of me in either the one or other Whether I say considering all this whereof besides many men I am sure the All-seeing God is witness it be not more likely That no kind of prejudice against the Roman-Catholick Faith or Church but a true and powerful zeal according to knowledge for the primitive Christian purity of both is it that hath set me against those opinions and practices flowing in the corruption of latter Ages from the Roman Court which have shaken Religion divided Christendom and brought a scandal upon Faith as if it were to be supported or advanced by the wrath and rage of men by Rebellion and Slaughter by Subversion of Government and Confusion of the World so making it a ground of jealousie to Magistrates and diverting peaceable and charitable Souls from that union which ought to be amongst the Disciples of Christ 5. Also whether it may not by rational men be at least charitably believed That I would not so often at several times and upon several occasions since first I engag'd in either Controversie especially in the last have refused many Preferments in my own Order have rejected many tempting proffers too even of Episcopal dignity in my own Countrey have also particularly and lately in the National Synod or Congregation held at Dublin anno 1666 and that in publick before all the Fathers refused to yield by any means to their pressing offer not only of all the best Commendatory Letters that could be drawn on Paper in my behalf both to His Holiness Himself who then was and the Cardinal Patron and the Congregation de Propaganda and all other Ministers of the Roman Court as many as were concern'd in the Affairs of Ireland but also of a yearly and very considerable Salary too by general Applotment amounting as they esteemed or computed it in Three years to Two thousand pound English money and in lieu of all these offers have deliberately chosen to run the manifest hazard of undergoing and accordingly since to have in very deed undergone all the vexatious infamy of Ecclesiastical Censures in my own Church Order and Countrey and all the further Evils not only of some at least consequential hardships but of many black Calumnies many bitter Reproaches yea and some yet more inhumane Machinations of cruel men even here in England these four last years since 1669 Whether I say it may not by rational men be and be at least charitably believed That I would not have rejected freely all those tempting offers and in lieu of them voluntarily chosen to lie under all these Sufferings for any thing less than the keeping a good Conscience and the preserving the honour of Christian Catholicism untainted at least in some Priests and Religious men of the Roman-Catholick Religion in these Nations and the justifying my self and those of my way the few Irish constant Remonstrants with such others who communicate with them Loyal Subjects to our Prince the King of England and the winning also for the good of Catholicks in general upon His Majesties Councils Parliaments and all good Protestant people by our peaceable Conversation and Faithfulness amidst all our Sufferings from every side notwithstanding any difference from the Protestant Church in some few Articles of Religion Whereas such other Church-men of the Roman Communion as by their practises or principles have formerly shewn themselves and still appear to continue Enemies to the Supreme Temporal Government of these Kingdoms may in all reason expect the severest Laws to be edg'd against them by Authority under which it will be sad to suffer as evil doers 6. Lastly Whether it had not been very much for the advantage of Roman-Catholicks in general and their Religion in this Monarchy That these last hundred years they had been indoctrinated onely and wholly guided as to their Consciences by such Roman-Catholick Priests and Church-men as are of my principles in relation to the Temporal Powers independence from Rome and the indispensable obedience of Subjects in Civil matters and both the injustice and invalidity or nullity of Ecclesiastical Censures pronounced against either Prince or People or Priests for maintaining these not onely Rational but Christian Principles or asserting any of all their necessary Antecedents Consequents or Concomitants And now my Lords Fathers and Gentlemen to your impartial judgment on all and each of these Queries I do with due
submission most heartily and freely appeal That you may determine for what concerns you of the truth or falsity likelihood or unlikelihood of that worst of Scandals viz. Desertion of my Order and Religion wherewith I have been frequently asperst on several occasions as in former times even Twenty years ago by some of the Nuncio's Faction so of late during all these four last years by others of the Anti-remonstrants especially by some Church-men who so little consider their holy Function that they seem to have lost all regard to Truth and Honesty and do not boggle at the shame of being daily found in manifest Forgeries so they may but do their work to serve themselves by it or to rid out of their way any person who they fear may obstruct their ambition i. e. their design of confounding all again if they alone cannot otherwise command all Onely I shall further beg as to this matter that before you determine of it you would be pleased to read over these following Appendages First Appendage relating to the Fourth Querie That in regard of the times places and occasions I lived in and employments I had and Books and persons I conversed with of every side and my own both curiosity and concern to understand matters aright and to see into their genuine causes I may without vanity say of my self That I have had more than common opportunities to know the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Court what they are and how hurtful how pernicious to these Kingdoms and to the Roman-Catholick Religion And that ever since I came to see into these things at least ever since I gave my self to a serious and full consideration of those principles and wayes which was about Twenty seven years since upon occasion given me by that Faction I have most heartily abhor'd and at all times and upon all occasions protested against them and the more I have known of them still the more I have seen cause to detest and to protest against them as I do at this day Second Appendage relating to the Fifth Querie That I can and do appeal to God Himelf That next after the regard of not wounding mortally my own Conscience by a manifest desertion of Truth and equivalent profession of such Errours as I know certainly to be against the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and Gospel of Christ the chiefest motive I had for bearing up constantly so long a time against all Censures Precepts Monitories Denunciations Affixions Decrees and other grievous concomitant Persecutions in the often mention'd Cause of the Loyal Formulary was the regard of not doing you all the Roman-Catholicks of His Majesties Three Kingdoms the greatest injury that I could possibly do you or perhaps any man of my degree by confessing the grand Objection against you to be insoluble For I saw clearly That if either the temptation of preferment to Offices and Dignities or the tryal of punishment by Censures and Calumnies and all their Consequents at the pleasure of some Grandees at Rome should have had that influence on me as to make me in effect absolutely to renounce my Allegiance to the King by retracting the Subscription of my hand to that Instrument professing it in meer Temporal things onely the Argument thence derivable must have been obvious to any judicious knowing Protestant inclin'd to do you a prejudice as soon and as often as the Parliament sate and were moved in your Concerns Such an Argument I mean as urged home by a good Orator would even before indifferent Judges give much colour to that grand Objection viz. The inconsistence in these Nations 'twixt the safety of a Protestant Government and the giving of Liberty to Roman-Catholicks by repealing the penal Laws yet in force against them In substance it would have been alledg'd That the Roman-Catholicks at least for the generality of them would be alwayes right or wrong directed by their Priests That their Priests are most of them on the Popes side in this Controversie And if any of them be so hardy to oppose his usurpations there is no trusting of them for there is no reason to expect that any of them will stand to his principles and hold out For Example they might have instanced in unworthy me if I had fallen off after so long and such manifold tryals of my constancy for Twenty years past and after so many and so great obligations to persevere until the end of my life This and much more would in all probability I am sure might in all reason be alledg'd to make that great Objection hold against you had I hitherto submitted to the dictates or pleasure of the Roman Court in either Cause But it is not my business here to open more at large or press more home this Argument with all the aggravating circumstances both such as are fresh in memory and such as might be derived from the memory of former times My purpose was to hint it onely as believing this enough to shew you the reasonableness of that second Motive I had for holding out so constantly in such a Cause and in the very manner I did all along against so numerous and so dangerous Adversaries especially seeing that very manner of my holding out so or of defending my self the best I could against them was and is authorized not only by the Divine Laws of Nature and Christianity but also most expresly and clearly by the positive Constitutions of men even of Roman-Catholicks viz. the fundamental Laws of England and Ireland not to speak now of other Catholick Nations of Europe so many Hundred years since Enacted by the Roman-Catholick Princes and Parliaments of these Kingdoms against all Forreign Citations or Summons from a Forreign Power beyond the Seas and also the Ecclesiastical Canons of the Catholick Church throughout the World nay of the very Papal Canons themselves forbidding in express terms Judicia Vltramarina (a) Vid. S. Cyprian Epist 55. ibi Statutum esse omnibus nobis c. Concil Affrican Episcop 217. inter quos Divus Augustinus erat Can. 92. relatum pariter in Cad Can. Eccles Affric Can. 125. Synod ad Coelest Item 3. q. 6. haecce capita viz. Ibi. Vltra Si quis Clericus Peregrina Qui crimen q. 9. cap. Nec extra Item cap. Nonnulli de Rescrip Item Stat. General Barchinonensia Ord. Min. cap. 6. §. 1. num 1. 2. ubi Patres rationem habent illius naturalis Canonum aequitatis and expresly decreeing against many other special Injustices and Nullities on other grounds in the late procedure against me (b) If you would see more Quotations both of the Canon and Civil Law against every particular Injustice committed in Summoning me to appear beyond Seas and which do justifie in all respects my procedure in not obeying such Summons you may consult my Latin Epistle to Harold pag. 6 7. besides my Latin Hibernica Third Part and you will find a very great abundance of the
Copy of the Original sent from the foresaid Rospigliosi to Patrick Dempsy alias O Deemusuy an Irish Priest and Prefect then of the Irish Colledge at Lile in Flanders and all of them against the meeting or convening of the Fathers at Dublin and against the Remonstrance 642 643. by mistake of the Printer printed 647. Rospigliosi's Letter dated at Brussels 3d of May 1666 to Father Patrick Dempsy Prefect of the Irish Seminary at Lile 647. The same Rospigliosi's Letter dated 20th May 1666 to Edmund Reilly Archbishop of Ardmagh and Primat of all Ireland 648. Item his Letter dated 24th of May 1666 to Martin Bishop of Ipres ib. Item the same Bishop of Ipres his Letter dated 27th of May 1666 to the said Primat 649. What may be seen by all these Letters ib. On the third day of the Congregation the Primat being entered a great dispute and sudden Tumult also followed about Precedency and the Chair The Primat withdraws whom all the Members of the North i. e. of his Archiepiscopacy follow and depart the House The rest of the leading Factionists cry out loudly for a dissolution of the House The Procurator intercedes and with the help of some few other well-meaning men appeases the Tumult and brings back the Primat with the Members of his Province 650 651. This Tumult being over Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Robert Talbot Baronet and John Walsh Esq who waited all the time of the Tumult in a Garden hard by are introduced who being seated and all silent declare they came from the Lord Lieutenant and immediately one of them at the desire of the rest stands up and reads out of a Paper not Sign'd by any their Message though not with this or other Title or Superscription much less Subscription 656. Nine several Heads of the Procurator's Speech to the Congregation after the foresaid Gentlemen departed 653 654 655 656 657. He was interrupted twice in his Speech once by the Primat and once by Father Nicholas Nettervil the Jesuit What they objected and what he replied 657 658. The present French King Lewis XIII's Declaration in French concerning or upon the six late Declarations of the Divines of Paris 8th of May 1663 against the Papal ungrounded pretences and those six Sorbon or Paris Theological Declarations both in Latin and French together with the pursuance of the same matter by the Parliament of Renmes from 659 to 663. The Fathers being strangely prepossess'd with Forreign Intelligences and their own Prophetical Dreams and hopes of Wonders in that wonderful year 1666 slight so much the Lord Lieutenant's Message that notwithstanding also whatsoever the Procurator had spoken so largely home to them on that Subject or Message they did not once debate it or put it to the question whether they should 664. Yet they took into consideration and resolved to gratifie the Procurator himself with a contribution of Two thousand pounds but he takes no notice thereof ibid. His Expostulation privately with the Primat for his carriage so contrary to the conditions of the permission sent him by Letters to Paris for coming home The Primat denies the receipt of any such Letter Whereupon the Procurator is more amazed and presses him home with Arguments sufficiently evincing the contrary 665. The Procurator being after this inform'd of the desperate resolution of the Fathers neither to Petition for pardon to the Irish Clergy for any matter formerly passed in the Wars nor to comply with the Lord Lieutenant's desire of their concurrence to a Subscription of the Remonstrance so graciously accepted by His Majesty in the year 1661 S. V. enters the Congregation on the fourth day of their sitting and desires the Speaker a positive Answer from the House to two Queries Their Answers and his Replies at large before all the Fathers 666 667 c. The said Remonstrance of the year 1661 S. V. together with the Procurator's Instrument of Procuration and his Obediential Letters or Patents from the Superiours both General and Provincial of his own Order publickly read in the Congregation The Procurator desires after they were read that if any one there could object any thing he should stand up and speak None does but several ask him pardon publickly before all for having spoken against him confessing their fault and ignorance in speaking formerly to his prejudice 668 669 670 671 672. The Chairman return'd thanks What the Primat spoke then and what the Procurator answer'd him ib. What the Bishop of Ardagh answer'd to the First Querie concerning a Petition to the King for pardon to the Clergy c. And what the Procurator replyed 670 672. The Primat introduc'd that night to the Lord Lieutenant and the Heads of the Lord Lieutenant's Speech to him What also was objected to or answer'd in that presence by the Primat concerning the conditions written to him to Paris of his permission for coming back to Ireland from France 673 674. Lord Lieutenant's second Message to the Congregation by Richard Belings Esq on the fifth day of the said Congregation ib. Procurator's Speech to the Congregation after that Gentleman's departure 675. The Chairman viz. the Bishop of Kilfinuragh answering the Procurator in behalf of the House declares their reason i. e. their pretence for not Signing the former Remonstrance or that of the year 1661. S. V. The medium thereupon offered by the Procurator viz. a certain other Paper of some ten Lines to be Sign'd by them 675. Their Demagogues would not consent 676. The Procurator urges then earnestly that at least a Committee of the more select Divines of the House should be appointed to consider and report to the House matter of Divinity and Conscience But the Bishop of Ardagh cryes out furiously No Divines Away with the Divines Out with the Divines and his more numerous Faction sitting on the Lower Forms to second him fall to clapping of Hands and stamping with their Feet The severe reproof given them by the Procurator when the noise was over Pag. 676. The Procurator declares to them he would withdraw himself wholly from them And accordingly doth withdraw and why ib. Two several Committees one after another sent to him from the Congregation to desire his return The second of them consisted onely of three viz. Father Nicholas Nettervil Father John Talbot both of the Society and Father Angel Golding a Secular Priest and Doctor of Divinity who lay themselves at last on their knees a long time entreating his return and offer that the Congregation would Sign all the Six late Declarations of Sorbon or Paris as applied to His Majesty and themselves 677. Answer of the Procurator to their desires and offers who in like manner kneel'd to them 677 678. Next morning which was the Sixteenth of the Month and Sixth day of the Congregation an additional message and offer was by the Bishop of Ardagh delivered to the Procurator And what the answer and issue was 679 680. By the Lord Lieutenant's command partly and partly
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
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
in this world to condemn as much as virtually or consequentially their former temerity in such engagements and that they cleerly saw their subscription to that Remonstrance must have been thought by rational men wherein I confess they were not deceived a tacit and virtual or consequential acknowledgement of their said former proceedings to have been illegal and unjust though it was not therefore intended 3. That some who had been earnest enough for the said Peaces and Cessation and all along against the Nuncio saw their neerest Catholick Relatives born to good Estates very many of them who had fought in those quarrels for the King and all along declined any conditions even from the Parliament no more regarded by the Kings Declaration and several Bills of Settlement than the very first grand contrivers of the Rebellion but their estates given away eternally to such as fought against the King even all along even from the very first day of the Warrs while any Warr continued 4. That such others and they were the farre greater number as had no affection at all to the Royal or English interest nor ever at any time had from the beginning conceived a subscription would before the world tye them to that duty they would not be tyed unto albeit for the generality of them they were more wary then to discover to others this their own peculiar cause but in lieu thereof pretended if not conscience yet at least reverence to the See Apostolick when yet being pressed on by reason and argument in point of Religion Faith and Justice many of them in private conference declined ingenuously all pretences and confess'd the true cause without any further shifting Whence it is that I know they laugh in their sleeves to see those other Gentlemen of their indeed common profession but not extraction through inconsiderancy other vain false pretences of Religion or submission to the Holy See interpose betwixt them the State so that they need not fear any peculiar necessity to be put on themselves either to discover or decline that their own motive or cause which indeed is the cause that renders them so strangly obstinate 5. That besides the Regulars generally at least the Mendicant Orders who in this Country live most by publick begging at the altars of parish Priests where the people meet on Sundays and other festivals for which if they will thrive they must have the licence and recommendation of the respective Ordinaries Bishops or Vicars general or at least not to be opposed by them or discountenanced by the parish Priests themselves pretended it a sufficient plea for not signing when they were desired That it behoved them to do nothing in such a matter before the Ordinaries and secular Clergie concurr'd or at least not to subscribe without their consent being sure if they did of meeting with much disfavour and opposition from them and with a substraction consequently through their means of the benevolence of the laye people over whom the Ordinaries and Priests must have had so great an influence as was known And moreover that each of those Mendicant Orders in particular being reason'd with alleadged that if they had singly done it or without the concurrence of such other Orders as depended in that kind of the secular Clergie they should be sure to be singularly branded as not regarding the Holy See and those oâ—hers extolled and particularly recommended in their place and by the said Clergie to the devotion of the people Whereby it would come to pass immediately that they would not be able to live in communities or otherwise And further that their priviledges and faculties from the Pope which gave them so much exemption from the Ordinaries and credit amongst the people would questionless upon the odious complaint of others and representation at Rome of their signing runn a very great hazard to be totally recalled 6. The Dominicans pretended and truely too that hitherto they had been all united in one and the self same way without any visible breach amongst them not even at that time of tryal when other Orders were devided in this Kingdom That particularly they could not but reflect on their own printed Acts of Kilkenny or of their Provincial Chapter held in their Convent there 18. Ian. 1643. under Albertus otherwise Terlagh ô Brien Prior Provincial then of their Order In which Acts and amongst the Declarations the second is of this tenour pag. 6. Declaramus cum juxta mentem Divi Thomae quem omnes Theologi in hoc sequuntur bellum quodlibet ex sufficienti Principis authoritale justa causa et recta intentione justificetur Catholicorum hoc bellum pro fidei defensione regiis praerogativis patriae libertate vitae et bonorum conservatione contra impiissimi Calvini sectam susceptum undiquaque justissimum esse Vnde Acta Capituli Nationalis Kilkenniae celebrati 10. Maii 1642. quoad hoc recipimus fratribusque nostris recipienda proponimus mandantes ut eis nullatenus directè vel indirectè se opponere audeant That further yet their general Constitutions or those of their whole Order throughout the world binds them all nay and Oathes moreover bind such as are called Masters among them to defend all the doctrine or opinions of their Angelical Doctor St. Thomas of Aquin and that St. Thomas of Aquin's doctrine 2. 2. q. 10. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. is cleerly against that whereon the Remonstrance is grounded and against that also which is therein even formally and expresly contained 7. That such of the Franciscan Order as had been the very chief Heads amongst all the Regulars to maintain the Censures of the Nuntio and all other consequents even against the rest of the same Order who no less eminently opposed the said Censures that those Franciscans I say alledged that to sign any such Remonstrance was point blanck against all their former proceedings and against all those opinions too in which their said proceedings were grounded 8. That those Orders of a later brood in the Church which began but within this last Century or much about an hundred or sixcore years since and therefore had no ancient foundations in Ireland or any at all before the change of Religion or suppression of religious houses I mean the Jesuits Cappuchins and Excalceat Carmelits and therefore to this day have no legal admission in this Countrey for houses or new erections and for old they never had any not even I mean according to the Papal canons or constitutions which prescribe as necessary thereunto besides the consent of the Supream temporal Magistrate still supposed an admission from the Ordinary with the consent of the People and pre-existent Regulars least otherwise the multiplication of religious Orders and Houses especially such as live by almes might prove too great a burthen to the Layety and Clergy both and too destructive also to themselves one of another That those three late Orders I say pretended generally for their own
excuse their great dependence from the Ordinaries and Secular Clergy as to their future admission to the respective Districts or Diocesses and their establishment for houses in the Countrey Besides that they were but a very few and inconsiderable in respect of others That however their judgment affection or extraction lead them yet this cause alone might be sufficient for their excuse not to subscribe without encouragment by example from the Ordinaries And yet it is very well known that several of them as likewise of the other more ancient Orders laboured earnestly and mightily that there should be no such encouragment or example at all from Ordinaries or any other Whereof the reason is very obvious Because the later any religious Institution is and the newer in any Catholick Countrey the greater dependence it must have and the more support it wants from Rome Which those three last Orders amongst us were so far from putting to any hazard to be lost by subscription that they would assure themselves of it more and more by the greatest opposition they could make in favour of all pretences for the holy See and thereby also be sure to continue their yearly pensions of Missionaries such of them I mean as are pensionaries upon the account of mission as several are 9. That above all the Jesuits yet more particularly found themselves concern'd on this particular account that so many great and famous Writers of their Society and by consequence the whole Society it self had been all along these fourscore years at least throughly engaged to maintain the contrary doctrine and practises 10. That on the other side the Secular Clergy pretended there was no signing for themselves before the Regulars concurr'd who as being commonly the best Divines and Preachers and many in number and changeable from County to County and from one Diocess and Province to another at their Superiours will and in most parts in greater esteem with the lay people then the Secular Clergy would if not concurring with them cast such an aspersion on them as would be able to render them infamous and contemptible amongst their own Parishioners upon account of so specious a pretence amongst ignorant people as the renouncing the Papal power and acknowledging the King to be Supream Head of the Church would amount unto For so many and very many too of both Secular and Regular Clergy gave out to the common sort against their own knowledge and conscience the Subscribers mean'd and did by that Remonstrance of 61. representing it as the same thing with the Oath of Supremacy which Roman Catholicks generally have refused this hundred years and therefore lay under so many incapacities and other penalties Nay some of those Clergy-men did not stick to say and swear too they would sooner take the Oath of Supremacy than subscribe that Remonstrance And yet it is very clear those Gentlemen understand neither or if they do either that certainly they are out as to both in their explications of them as far as from East to West For in the sense wherein the sons of the Protestant Churches of England and Ireland take the Oath of Supremacy they acknowledge no spiritual Supremacy purely such or any such spiritual Headship or supream Government-ship in the King in any causes or things what soever even temporal so far are they from acknowledging such in causes or things Ecclesiastical or Spiritual not even in those which are by extrinsecal denomination only called Ecclesiastical or Spiritual but only a Supream Politick Civil or Temporal Head-ship or Government-ship in all things whatsoever by the power of the material Sword and this of this Sword over all persons generally as well Church-men as others Which sense is very Catholick and owned in relation to their Kings and 〈…〉 temporal Governours by all Catholicks in France Spain Germany Poland Italy 〈◊〉 wheresoever in the world Nor do they intend to deny by the 〈◊〉 Oath in the negative â—â—me any power purely spiritual to the Pope or other even 〈◊〉 Prelate 〈◊〉 that power only which 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—ugnant to that supâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 temporal or politick Government-ship be not said to be such as indeed it cannot justly And on the other side it is plain the Remonstrance o◠〈…〉 not a word or clause either defectâ—â—◠〈◊〉 directly or by any kind of consequence importing the 〈◊〉 wherein the Roman Catholicke have refused â—â—therto the â—â—nd Oath of Supremacy 〈◊〉 this sense is no other than 〈…〉 by the universality of the words or signs 〈◊〉 the affirmative and negative 〈◊〉 the Roman Catholick Vulgar understands ever also a spiritual Privacy or Supremacy purely such to be attributed to the King and denied to the Pope and other Bishops in those Dominions albeit this sense be plainly repugnant to the very Confession of Faith in the 〈◊〉 articles of the Prâ—â—estâ—â—â— Church England and Ireland and to those others of Queen Elizabeth in her Injuctions authorized and owned even by Parliament Now it is no less manifest and out of all controversie amongst such as do but even lead singly over the Protestation of 61. that there us not a word in it 〈◊〉 â—biâ—â—ting any such to the King or denying it to the Pope or intending at all any such thing nor indeed any thing else but what is allowed and approved by the doctrine and practice of all the Catholick world abroad iâ— peradventure the present Roman Court not the Roman Church be not excepted and the few sticklers for it although against the sense and inclination of all the wise and moderate Popes even I mean too such as governed that See in these latter times But however this be or be not such was the pretence of many for not concurring by their subscriptions albeit they confess'd withal the Remonstrance very catholick in it self And for this pretence or the scandal raised against the Remonstrance of renouncing the Pope or importing the same with the Oath of Supremacy besides the malicious or wilful stumbling of some at one word in it not construed or taken with the words immediatly following restraining that word as all men of never so little reason or sense must allow it ought to be I know not but the reprinting of the single sheet of that Remonstrance at London by some of purpose to gain by selling it when all the first Edition was immediately bought and the reprinting of it with a false Title cryed and sold so up and down the Streets which false Title imported the renouncing of the Pope by the Popish Clergy of Ireland whether I say this occasioned not at first that aspersion amongst some ignorant people I know not though I am sure it could not amongst the Clergy on Layety either that read the paper it self or what was therein contained 11. That some also of the leading men had a special pick to it only because advanced by the Procurator by whose means they would not even desire the freest exercise of their Religion because he had been all
the Religion and Catholick Church pure undefiled immaculate without spot or wrinckle whereby to invite and perswade others to it for the salvation of their souls or certainly that they must allow salvation as they neither do nor can to be found in other Congregations or Churches either Heretical or Schismatical And further he minded them seriously insisting no less earnestly thereupon That no earthly regard none at all of temporal either advantages or disadvantages of honour profit ease much less of such vain titles and preferments as they look after nor on the other side any apprehension of disfavour discountenance danger persecution nor loss of goods if they had any nor even of liberty and life could excuse them from this duty That whether all their hopes of the King and his great Ministers of his Councils and Parliaments or of the moderate people of the Protestant Church upon one side should fail them having done their own duty and their pleas of innocence and articles both or whatever else-were of no account and all their both nearest and dearest Lay-relative Proprietors to a man were destroyed at home and themselves finally forced abroad again or design'd to suffer in their own Countrey the extreamest rigour of laws either made already or hereafter to be at any time or contingencies there or if on the other side they were absolutely certain being exiled to meet with no less severity and cruelty from the Court of Rome or an angry incensed Pope and from all Princes and Catholick Prelates and People too where-ever they came that even this certainty of such evils however in themselves or to any prudent man neither probable nor morally possible could not excuse them from this duty That the first Subscribers had supposed all the very worst could happen beyond all fear and yet found themselves bound to do what they did That they conceived their special function nay Christianity it self obliged them so in the case and others of the same calling could pretend no special priviledge from Christ or his Gospel or his Church whatever the Courtiers of Rome but at their instance and importunity and that of their busie ignorant Agents and Sollicitours there did erroneously complement them with And therefore the conclusion of all was that he understood not with what confidence or conscience but that of horrour and sacriledge and of being guilty of the body and blood of our Lord and of eating and drinking judgment to themselves as St. Paul speaks or their own condemnation they could persisting in their obstinacy approach the Altars of God and celebrate the Divine and unbloudy Mysteries With which final conclusion as with all the rest of this last discourse notwithstandieg the Procurator most frequently and earnestly and pathetically perclosed all his several answers to the several parties of the Clergy and to those too of greatest authority and power amongst them even Provincials Vicars General Bishops and Archbishops yet which is very notable he never had hereunto at any time or from any person of them all one word of reply but sighs only from some arguing a remorse and silence from the rest without any remorse at all if their past and after actions be sufficient testimonies of their affections XIV Now after so long a discontinuance of or digression from the bare matter of fact and without further consideration of the arguments of either side or of the allegations of the dissenters the refutations or reasons insisted on by the Procurator to return back thither where I was treating how upon the arrival of the said Procurator about the end of August 1662. he had by conferring at Dublin with several of the chief heads there peevishly adverss to the Remonstrance some alledging one excuse and some another and others many together of such as you have seen already above or before the answers partly understood the whole intrigue from those men and partly too from others who came to him from several parts of the Countrey abroad of purpose to let him know the general conspiracy either enter'd or submitted unto even by some of the best affected most loyal heretofore of both Secular and Regular Clergy throughout all parts of the Kingdom against that Remonstrance and himself also upon account thereof if he persisted in his resolution to draw them to it or not to work for them a liberty as they vainly conceived he could to frame another unsignificant one for themselves and prevail for the acceptance of such by His Grace and by His Majesty the Procurator fully therefore now understanding what he was to do resolves in the first place to attempt the breaking of that ligue so general the breaking of it immediatly by some Instances at Dublin the Metrapolitan City Whose Clergy and their example must especially in such a matter have had great influence on the rest in other parts of the Kingdom and certainly so much that if they residing in the very sight of the State and giving daily intelligence to the rest abroad or if at least some leading men of them could not be wrought upon to desert so sinful and shameful I will not say disloyal a confederacy there could be no hopes at all to prevail with any others In which attempt he was presently after some little pains taken so far succesful as to have reason'd to a subscription publick owning thereof the Guardian other Fathers of the Franciscan Convent in that City being in all five with them two of the Dominicans whereof one was the then Prior of Droghedah but residing at Dublin These were they that first of all others in Ireland at home next after Father Valentine Browne at Galway condemn'd by a clear and ever since constant profession and observance of their duty the rashness and sinfulness of that so general conspiracy against it Though I must confess that as many as after followed their example to this day have of themselves freely and heartily without compulsion or even other invitation then what was publick in the Book and Letters of the Procurator come along from several and some from very remote parts of the Kingdom to Dublin of purpose to subscribe that Instrument and thereby quiet their own conscience by declaring in that manner as they should and was expected from them their true allegiance to the Prince XV. But for as much as I doubt not there are very many both desirous and curious to know the number and names of all those of the Clergy Regular or Secular who have then or at any time since concurred for the number and names of the Subscribers at London of that Clergy together with the Bishop of Dromore I have already given with the Remonstrance it self in the beginning of this Treatise as they are extant in print and because it will be more satisfaction to give them altogether then dispersedly in several places as they signed at several times the Reader may satisfie himself here in both particulars
Thomas Makiernan c. and sent of purpose to procure the Protestation to be censured WE the vndernamed of both Clergies of Ireland finding our selves much traduced in forraign Nations as if we had been at least the mediat Authors of a certain writing printed at London 3. February 1661. the title whereof is The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland exhibited to our most Serene King of Great Brittain Charles the Second by a certain Father Fr. Peter Walsh under the title of Procurator of both Clergies Secular and Regular which writing is said in a further Explication thereof set out likewise in Print by the same Father to have been sent him out of Ireland to London as from the Generality of the said Clergies to the end he might present it in their names to the King Therefore that it may appear publickly to the world how injuriously we suffer in this matter We do by this present Instrument make it known and signifie and in the word of Priests do holily swear that neither we nor any of vs have concurred to the making of the said Remonstrance Protestation c. or to the sending of it from Ireland to London nor finally to the presenting of it to the King nay not so much as to have seen heard or understand any thing of the said Remonstrance before it appeared in Ireland in the moneth of March last past And therefore do well know it hath been framed and forged by the said Author and his complices In witness whereof we have subscribed to this Instrument this day being the 24. of July 1662. XLI To return when the Procuratour heard their put off he told them first he understood well enough their purpose and thereupon shewed them a copy of this Instrument they had given the said Father Brady which he recieved a little before from some of their own in Vlster That he knew well enough who subscribed it as for that some of them were present there and who refused to subscribe it as for instance one by name Father Oliver Dese Vicar General of Meath and knew they perswaded the Vicars General to raise 6. pounds a Diocess for their Agents charges and this to worke sedition at home by the help of forraign Censures That besides much disloyaltie to the King and much malice to the Procuratour it contained manifest lyes Secondly he told them such an answer was worse then a plain denyal without any reason given for it Because it rendred by consequence any subscription of theirs at any time and to any Form unsignificant as to any kind of assurance of their loyaltie or Faith to the King For upon the same grounds they would refuse to sign at Easter if such a Censure came by that time they might and should and would questionless retract their signature whenever there came any Censure from beyond Seas especially from His Holiness And then to what purpose any Form at all or any subscription from men so principled or so resolved nay to what other intent was the Remonstrance of 61. but to assure the King against such danger or what use could be or was intended to be made of it for the advantage of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland or what to perswade the Kings Councils Parliaments or other Protestants to be more favourable to them hereafter if not upon this account only That His Majestie could in all contingencies whatsoever be sure of such as would subscribe it But all this and what ever more he said then and in those three whole dayes and nights he stayed with them and very much he said in that time even also upon grounds of humane prudence and of both the present and past condition of their Country and people of their religion in it and of their own late carriadge in the Warres was to no more purpose then to wash the Blackamore Only he prevailed and this only too in private with the Provincial Father Docharty to give him two letters written all along with his own hand and subscribed by him The first was licencing those of his own Order such as would to subscribe the Remonstrance even that I mean so much controverted For the Procuratour objected to him and it was very true that he had partly by himself immediately in his visits of the Convents and partly by others deputed by him as Commissaries to visit where he would not goe himself commanded the respective local both Superiours and Inferiours not to subscribe that Remonstrance And for instance that himself personally visiting those of Trim enjoyn'd the Guardian of that place Father Patrick Wesly and that too under paine of Excommunication not to subscribe And his Commissary to some of the Convents of Leinster Father Antony Darcy enjoyn'd the same to those of Wexford though not under the same penalty The second letter was to my Lord Duke as from himself alone and containing his own private approbation of and concurrence to the said Remonstrance even as to every part clause word and even too in the true obvious and whole genuine sense of the Author whom he supposed to be the Procuratour himself because it goes commonly in his name And here you have his second letter at length copied verbatim out of the original May it please your Grace HAving recieved from the Reverend Bearer full satisfaction in all particulars relating to the late Remonstrance and Protestation so graciously accepted by his Majestie and haveing further known by him your Graces expectation of a more general concurrence from the rest of the Irish Clergie to the said Protestation and considering moreover that the said Protestation containes nothing but the dutie of a Catholick Subject to his most Sacred Majestie though of a different Religion from that professed in the Roman Church I found myself bound in conscience by the laws of God and dictates of natural reason to concurre as I do by these lines under my hand and most heartily from my very Soul with the rest who have already signed to approve of and own all and every particular of the said humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition presented to His Majestie at London and to your Grace by Father Peter Walsh in the name or behalf of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland Yet my Lord forasmuch as I am tyed by my charge and Rule to take suddenly a Iourney to Rome as likewise Father Fitz Simons Guardian of the Franciscans of Dublin is your Grace will I hope excuse me for the reasons which I have intrusted the Bearer withal not to sign or subscribe my name in the common paper with the rest until I turn back if it be Gods pleasure that I return safe And will give me leave I hâ—pe likewise to beg this further favour thâ—â— this letter appear not against me nor my name in Print until that time unless peradventure that Father Walsh get the concurrence of all other hands or of such of
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
at the meeting at London which was before that of Clarendon or Northampton So that as Baronius or Spondanus out of him or both say it was to excuse his own King that Neubrigensis fixes on this of our holy Archbishops denyal to deliver to legal punishment those criminal Clerks as on the onely cause of the following tragedy being it was so specious a cause on the Kings side to quarrel with the Archbishop even so I cannot but say that I think these two great Annalists have of purpose albeit without sufficient ground contradicted Neubrigensis to excuse the Saint even also in this very particular instance as well as in all other of the difference being such a demand must appear to most men on first sight to be but very just on the Kings side and consequently that the denyal of it must on the Archbishops side appear to the same men at least too too rigid if not unjust as to the matter in it self though I for my own part verely believe the Saint apprehended it farr otherwise nay am certain he did as I am also at least very probably perswaded that he apprehended it so upon very just grounds and very true even in themselves objectively But however this matter be of the sole cause and because it is not much material to my main purpose whether of the two Neubrigensis or Baronius out of those other Authors speaks most exactly of that or if it be any way or in any degree material that surely Baronius's observation of others causes to have proceeded must be for me and though to help Neubrigensis as likewise to illustrate the matter in it self a little more I can add Hoveden ad an 1163. where he writes thus Eodem anno gravis discordia orta est inter Regem Angliae Thomam Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum de Ecclesiasticis dignitatibus quas idem Rex Anglorum tuebare minuere conâ—batur Archiepiscopus ille leges dignitates Ecclesiasticas modis omnibus illibatas conservare nitebatur Rex enim volebat praesbyteros diaconos subdiaconos alios Ecclesiae Rectores si comprehensi fuissent in latrocinio vel muâ—dra vel felonia vel iniqua combustione vel in his similibus ducere ad secuâ—ariâ— examina punire sicut laicum Contra quod Archiepiscopus dicebat quod si clericus insacris ordinibus constitutus vel quilibet alius Rector Ecclesiae calumniatus fuerit de aliqua re per viros Ecclesiasticos in curia Ecclesiastica debet judicari si convictus fuerit ordines suos amittere sic alienatus ab efficio Beneficio Ecclesiastico si postea fâ—ris fecerit secundum voluntatem Regis Bailivorum suorum judicetur therefore now Secondly you are to observe the progress of this great jealousy of the Kings whatever the sole first cause of it was and you are to observe it also out of Baronius who takes it from Robertus or Heribertus one of the said four Authors of the Acts viz that in the same year of Christ 1163. the same King Henry the Second being mightily incensed against our holy Archbishop of Canterbury and convening at London both him and rest of the Bishops of England and urging vehemently that such criminal Clerks as those before mentioned should after canonical punishment inflicted on them in the Ecclesiastical Court be delivered nevertheless to the secular Court our said holy Archbishop and not he alone but all the other Bishops unanimously and flatly refused to do so That hereupon the King being wholly enraged as seeing them all to a man so unanimous against him in that point demanding of them whether they would observe his royal customs consuetudines suas Regias they all having first consulted together and every one apart being demanded so apart answered they would with this caution Salvo ordine suo That when the King urged them to promise absolutely that they would without any such caution onely Thomas answered that when they had formerly sworn allegiance and fidelity to him Vitam scilicet membrum honorem terrenum salvo ordine suo in this earthly Honour the Royal customs were comprehended and that they would not oblige themselves in any other form to their observance then in that wherein they had formerly sworn That although Hilary Bishop of Chester seeing the King more and more incensed vehemently by reason of such their unanimous answer did without advising with the rest change that contentious caution into these other two words bona fide promising that himself would observe the Royal customs bona fide yet the King was nothing at all appeased but rejected him also with contumely and after many altercations departed full of anger and indignation from London without saluting any one of all the Bishops That matters continueing thus for some time next year after which was 1164. Thomas of Canterbury being much importuned by the reasons and desires of many Bishops and Abbots to conform himself in the controverted point to the Kings pleasure one of the Abbots having also told him that Pope Alexander himself when he had heard of these altercations had given way to and licenced such their conformity Thomas I say being perswaded at last by such arguments accoasted the King and promised him that he would alter the word or the caution which gave so much offence to His Majesty in that which related to his Royal customs or to the form of their oath for observing those customs That the King being hereby somewhat appeased and withal desirous that such alteration should be made publickly in Parliament or in a general Assembly of all the three Estates summon'd the same three Estates Lords spiritual Temporal and Commons or Magistrates as Baronius calls them to meet at Clarendon this very year 1164. and upon the thirtyth of Jan. That this great Assembly being sate and the King urging the performance of what was so promised Thomas apprehending again mightily that such performance might prejudice Ecclesiastical Immunity fell back from his promise nor could ever be brought on to it again or to acquiesce to the King either by any threatnings or by any blandishments of his untill at last moved by the continual intreaties prayers geniculations tears of as well the Bishops as of others of the Clergie and Nobility and by the present danger of prison banishment death represented by them to him he chose rather sayes Baronius to obey them then him that is he chose rather to be perswaded by them then by him and however this be acquiesced at last and first of all and in the presence of all the Bishops and whole Parliament swore to observe the Royal customs bona fide omitting and suppressing the contentious caution or words Salvo ordine and that immediatly after him all and singular the other Bishops every one a part for himself took the same oath and in the very self same tearms or form And you are to observe here how Roger Hoveden a
absolutely or actually yet establish'd Or doth not the very nature of a Parliament and the necessary and plenary freedom of the members thereof evince this 3. T is likewise true that in the great Council or Parliament held at Norththampton and when he saw some of the very Bishops violently bent against him to ingratiat and endear themselves more and more to the King and the rest through fear yielding and saw them all generally conspiring with the lay Peers and joyntly with such Peers condemning and deposing him by their sentence from his Bishoprick he appealed to the Pope from such a sentence and such Judges and such a Judicatory and in such a cause But what then Or was it treason by the nature of the thing in it self or of such an Appeale of such a man and in such a case and from such Judges or was there any law then in England making such appeal to be treason certainly it was not by either Not by the nature of such an appeal as abstractedly considered in it self because neither appeals in a spiritual cause to the Pope nor decisions in a spiritual way of such Appeals by the Pope do of their own nature draw along with them any lessening of the Majesty or supream power of the Prince or of any part of it which is proper to him nor of the safety of the people though by accident that is by abuse only sometimes of the Appellants themselves or of such Appeals or of the decision of them by some Popes and by the neglect of either Prince or Parliament giving way to frivolous appeals or admitting of notoriously corrupt decisions they may prove hurtful Nor was there any law of England as yet then establish'd when the when the Saint appealed so which made it treason or which indeed at all prohibited him or any other Clerk to appeal to Rome in any pure ecclesiastical cause whatsoever or from the judgment of either spiritual or secular Judges or even of both together in any pure spiritual or Ecclesiastical cause such as that judgement was which was pronounced in that Council or Parliament of Northamton against this holy Archbishop even a sentence of his deposition from the See Nay the continual practice of England till then for so many hundred years before and for some time after too warranted by the very municipal laws or municipal Customs or both to appeal to the Pope in such causes which practice in many Instances of even great Bishops and Archbishops both of Canterbury and York and of the Kings also of England sending sometimes their own Embassadours to plead against such Bishops and Archbishops and sometimes to help or plead for them you may see at large everâ— in Matthew Parkers own Antiquitates Britannicae evicts manifestly it was neither treason by law or by reason or by the nature of such Appeals And the practice of other Kingdoms of Christendome till this day continued shews no less that it might have been and may be duly circumstantiated without any lessening of the Majesty of the Crown danger to the safety of the people or without prejudice to any Besides who sees not that it is against the very law of God as delivered to us from the beginnings of Christianity that Lay-men as such may fit in judgment on or give sentence for the taking away the Spirituals of a Bishop As such they can neither give nor take away any spiritual Power Jurisdiction or Authority purely such from the very meanest Clerk whatsoever Indeed if a King be made the Popes Legat in his own Kingdomes as Henry the first of England was you may read it in Houeden in whom also you may see that Henry the Second wrought all he could to get the same power from Rome for himself then such a lay person but not as a meer lay person may give sentence in such causes according to the extent of his commission And who sees not moreover that the Bishops of England who sate in the Council and as sitting there proceeded most uncanonically against their own Primat If they would proceed canonically against him with any colour as much as of the ancient canons of the Church it should have been in a canonical Convocation or Council of Bishops alone and of such other Clergymen as by the canons ought to vote and the Primat should have a fair tryal and be tryed by the canons only Those Bishops failed in all this And therefore Thomas had reason to appeal to the Pope from their sentence For ever since the general Council of Sardica there was at least in the Occidental Church an appeal allowed Bishops even from their equals and even too from their superiours to the supream Bishop or him of Rome as the Fathers of Sardica at the desire of Hâ—sius their President to honour the memory of St. Peter ordained by an an express Canon Though I confess that for what concern'd the temporals of his Archbishoprick which he held only from the King and municipal laws of the land he could not appeal to the Pope understand you otherwise then as to an honourable Arbiter by consent by vertue of any canon only or at all against the said municipal Laws or Customs of the Land if they had been against him in the case of his said Temporals as I have shewed they were not or at least I am sure were not so against him not even I mean in such an appeal concerning his meer Temporals as to render him guilty of treason for appealing so oâ— in such the meer temporal concerns of his Bishoprick And yet I add that Histories make no mention of any such kind of Appeal as this last made by him then when he appealed from the Council of Noâ—thampton though he had reason after to labour in all just meer and pure Ecclesiastical ways to recover the very temporals also of his Church to the same Church T is true moreover that immediatly after his appeal he departed the Council or Parliament the Court and Kingdom and departed the Kingdom incognito in a secular weed But neither was this any treason nor even disobedience or mis-demeanour in him There was no writ of ne exeat Regno against him There was no law of God or man prohibiting him to depart so nor any reason indeed as the case stood with him The King had stabled his own horses in his lodgings to affront him He challeng'd him for thirty thousand pounds which he had administred formerly during his Chancellorship and challeng'd him of so great a sum of purpose to pick a quarrel to him for the Saint had given him an account of all when he was Chancellor and was by the Barons of the Exchequer and Richardus de Luci Lord chief Justice and by the young King himself acquit of all these and whatsoever other accounts before he was consecrated He was notwithstanding his Appeal sentenc'd by the Barons at the Kings desire to be seized on and put in prison The Archbishops of
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
and Religious did subscribe which was purposely made to secure the Lay-Gentlemen that supposing they might enjoy the freedom of their Religion they might lawfully renounce the practice of these Articles which makes the case far different both to the one and the other they conceived you intended to deny and destroy the probability of that Opinion which they think it necessary for their ends to maintain And therefore to keep their hold and conserve their pretended right they framed this Decree in hugger mugger and kept it private Their chief motive is acknowledged in the Decree it self Least it should be said hereafter that his Holiness did approve or connive at the Subscription to such Articles as were prejudicial to his Pontificial greatness The same was also expresly intimated to the Popes Nuncio here it being signified unto him there should be no legal publication of it no more then there had been at Rome nor consequently sure did they intend it should oblige Nay even they themselves would esteem him a very Fool that would lose his Estate or venture his Life for the maintenance of this Opinion or Decree Your Negative Answers to these Articles are to be understood according to your and the Proposers intentions that is to renounce the practice of them and profess them to be no part of your Faith and Religion which I believe the very Court of Rome doth not pretend witness Cardinal Peron who after he had often averred in his Oration to the Nobles of France in the year 1615. that the Doctrine of the Pope's power to depose Heretical Kings and absolve their Subjects from their obedience was only Problematical And in particular That the Catholicks of England were obliged to obey King James then reigning In his other Oration to the third Sâ—â—te who urged and pressed to have the contrary Doctrine received as a fundamental Law of the Kingdom and as holy true and conformable to the Word of God having used all possible Arguments to dissuade them from this design and learnedly labouring to shew a greater probability for the affirmative part He concludes towards the end of his Speech That the Pope doth tolerate and suffer the contrary Opinion to be held so it be only maintained as Problematical in matter of Faith that is saith he so it be not proposed as necessary to Faith nor the Opposite declared as contrary to the Word of God impious and detestable Besides this Decree is given against the Negative Subscribers to unpublished Articles without any information or knowledge of the original Instrument whereunto you Priests did subscribe nay without calling any of you to Account but only in the Air against the Negative Subscription supposed to be done they know not where nor how contrary to the ordinary forms of our Law avd Justice But every man who hath negotiated in the Court of Rome can tell you That these Congregational Decrees are generally made by a few Cardinals and Prelates who to speak modestly little know upon what grounds and principles the abstruse Sequels of Faith are to be resolved They say in this They have consulted Divines that is perhaps some few Forreign Regulars whose Interests lie wholly in that Court depending immediately of it and exempted by his Holiness from the ordinary and divine Hierarchical Government of the Church who knowing nothing of the Affairs nor of the Circumstance of the Question were not like to deliver any other Opinion than what their great Patrons would have them I wish with all my heart That with the loss of my blood I could blot out the belief of all experienced men that nothing but Interest and Faction are prevalent in the Court of Rome It is now in every mans mouth that understands the Affairs of the World that they seek their own ends not the publick good Finally I remark that they chiefly direct their Decree to the Superiours of their exempted Emissaries no mention made of the Bishop or Clergy who are the only lawful and Canonical publishers with the permission and consent of the State or Civil Magistrates of any true authentical spiritual Command Truly if such a Decree had been sent hither and so illegally proclaimed it would have been presently condemned to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman In a word I see nothing capable to beget a Scruple nor that ought to hinder any Catholick from Subscribing to the Articles as you have done Nor shall I easily persuade my self that any wise and experienced man will shrink from so just an Act. If your State King or Parliament will suffer and tolerate you to live quietly under them which I wonder such able men should boggle at I shall quickly provide and help you with such advice from the most learned and most vertuous Divines of Europe as will make your Ecclesiastical Government an example to all other States and Kingdoms your Neighbours And still conserving all due Respect and spiritual Obedience to the See of Rome you shall free your selves from all unnecessary and unfit dependance of the Roman Court wherein I shall furnish you with the resolutions of such Questions as will open the eyes of all your unexperienced and tender conscienced Countrey-men who have not had perhaps the means to discern and distinguish their due and unnecessary obedience from a superfluous and unjust obsequiousness And which shall withall make appear to all the Christian World the now well near Fourscore years hard and unfatherly dealing of the Court of Rome over the poor persecuted and distressed Catholicks of England Let it therefore be your constant endeavour to give the King State or Parliament full satisfaction and assurance of your fidelity to the Civil and Political government of your Kingdom whatsoever it shall be which may most certainly stand with the integrity of your Religion and Consciences For the rest fear nothing trust to the justice of your Cause which you may assuredly believe will not want support For my particular according to my poor Ability you shall ever find me Your most loving Brother in Christ And obedient Servant T.H. From Paris this 2d of April 1648. By which two several Papers the written and the printed the Reader may understand fully what he shall find hereafter answered by me in the year 1664. to the foresaid Internuncio de Vecchiis concerning his Allegation or pretence of Innocent the X's having condemned these Negatives and consequently our Remonstrance as for one part thereof coincident with or virtually contain'd in them Fourth and last Observation is concerning that signal crafty admonition which the same de Vecchiis gave as you have before seen to Father Bruodin in these words Signanter ut sic refutetuâ— illud Jura nentum ne tamen Regii Ministri ansam accipiant in Catholicos saeviendi eosque tamquam Regia Dominationi quia ab Ecclesia defecerit infestos puniendi If I be not much mistaken de Vecchiis would have the Anti-Remonstrants use all kind of other false Arguments to
Kilfinuran On the xviii a third Message to the Congregation Burk and Fogerty on the xx present a second Petition to the Lord Lieutenant with a Paper of Reasons why the Fathers would not sign the other three Sorbon Declarations as applied c. The Lord Lieutenant's Answer being reported they or at least the chief of them are startled desire more time to sit and deliberate obtain it and yet conclude at last in the Negative Dr. Daly's exception Letter to them from the Subscribers of the first Remonstrance On the xxv their last sitting was Wherein the Procurator tells them first of the Lord Lieutenant's positive Commands to dissolve Next contradicts the relation of Ardagh Then refuses their offer both of Money and commendatory Letters In the fourth place gives a large account of the famed wonder-working Priest James Finachty Lastly moves for and procures their condemnation of two Books the one of C. M. the Jesuite and the other of R. F. the Cappuccin Some other passages relating to the Lord Lieutenant and Bishops which happen'd immediately after the Congregation was dissolv'd The Procurator's judgment of this Congregation leading Members thereof and of their several interests and ends After their dissolution the Doctrine of Allegiance in fifteen several Propositions debated for a whole Month by a Select number of Divines A Paper of Animadversions given to the Lord Lieutenant and his Graces commands laid on the Procurator I. IN September 1665. the Duke of Ormond then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland having landed at Waterford passed to Kilkenny and there continuing some Weeks Father Patrick Maginn one of Her Majesties Chaplains who had from England as I noted before waited on his Grace to take that good opportunity of crossing the Sea safely came from Kilkenny to Dublin some Weeks before his Grace but in order to a further Journey to see his Friends in the North of Ireland Being come to Dublin and the Procurator Father Peter Walsh who was about that time also landed from Holy-head giving him a visit for their acquaintance and some small friendship lately before contracted in England Father Patrick offered his own endeavours to work his Countreymen of the North to a Subscription of the Remonstrance hoping thereby to make them and consequently the rest of the Roman-Catholick Irish more capable of His Majesties future Favours and abate somewhat of the rigour of the Court of Claims pursuing the new Explanatory Act which the Lord Lieutenant had then brought with him from the King and Council of England to pass in this Parliament of Ireland In particular he promised to persuade his own Brother Ronan Maginn a Priest Doctor of Divinity bred in Italy and then by a Roman Bull or Papal Dean of Dromore to subscribe and that him and Dr. Patrick Daly Vicar-General of Ardmagh and under the Archbishop Edmund Reilly a banish'd man living then in France Judge Delegate of that whole Province he would bring to Dublin to confer with the Procurator in order to a general Subscription Pursuant to his promise Father Patrick being immediately departed to the North persuades Dr. Daly to come to Dublin as likewise he brought in his own company his Brother Ronan And indeed Ronan after some Weeks conference with the Procurator and study of such Books as he had from him especially Father Caron's Remonstrantia Hibernorum at last having fully satisfied his own judgment did both freely and heartily Subscribe But for Dr. Daly he was still where he formerly was viz. at the desires of a National Synod or Congregation before he could resolve See the First Part Sect. IX pag. 27. num 16. and Sect. X. pag. 40. num 16. and Sect. XVI pag. 48. near the bottom where you have not only those desires of a National Congregation urg'd anno 1662. by the Bishop of Meath by the Vicar Apostolical of Dublin and some other such Vicars too from several parts of Ireland but also in the above page 40 and page 50. the Procurator's answer at large shewing the unreasonableness of those desires then However now or in the year 1665. the Procurator seeing no remedy i. e. no other way to cure their obstinacy thought fit at last to try this by condescending to their demand What reasons induced him now to yield herein more than before were these 1. That the Primate of Ardmagh Edmund Reilly and the Bishop of Ferns Nicholas French such leading men especially the one in the North and the other in Leinster if not all over Ireland seemâ—d by their frequent Letters from beyond Seas to the Procurator desirous to come home upon any reasonable account and submission also to His Majesty and to the Lord Lieutenant for past offences in the time of War and not to disallow but rather allow of the Remonstrance and not they alone but also the Bishop of Kilfinuran 2. That now His Majesty having been engaged in a War both with Holland and France some of the discontented Irish had been tampering with France for creating new Troubles in Ireland either by an Invasion or Insurrection or rather both and that the exiled Bishops if returned home although on pretence only of such a Congregation their very coming home so whatever otherwise they intended really would much weaken and discountenance any such either hostile or rebellious design being the end of such a Meeting was generally and evidently known out of the very Letters of Indiction to be no other than to assure the King of their indispensable fidelity in all cases and after-times 3. That the doctrine of the Remonstrance and good opinion of that Formulary had even at home in Ireland many more Favourers and Abettors now in 1665. than it had some three years before many even learned and pious Churchmen out of several parts of Ireland though not called upon having since that time come of purpose freely and affectionately to Dublin to sign it besides those of the Nobility and Gentry and some others too of the Commons as you may see page 47. 95. and 99. of the First Part of this First Treatise where also page 13. you may see the Bishop of Ardagh then in 1665. at home in Ireland approving it under his hand from Seez in France Dec. 2. 1662. in his Letter to Sir Nicholas Plunket and page 93. Father Antony Docharty Minister Provincial of the Franciscan Order in Ireland likewise under his own hand to the Lord Lieutenant concurring to it 4. That by this time the Procurator himself who chiefly promoted that work had as by many others endeavours so in a special manner by his then late Reply to the Person of Quality not onely endeared himself to the Nation in general but even to many of his former opposers amongst them and much confounded the most malicious and inveterate of those who were his old profess'd enemies upon the Nuncio's account or that of his writings and actings against the Nuncio and Owen O Neill's party 5. That in all likelihood if the Congregation were held
all the Signers to remain in the Procurator's hands to be by him sent as soon or when he thought fit by an Express to the several Provinces Diocesses Orders Prelates and Superiors respectively concern'd he judg'd it expedient for some reasons to keep them till the beginning of February next following By which time he dispatch'd them with the Express agreed upon Now forasmuch as peradventure some Readers observing how occasionally I have here given the number as well of Bishops then however living viz. Three at home in Ireland and Three more abroad in forreign Parts as of those Irish Churchmen at that same time professing and tyed to Regular Orders by solemn Vows in all about 800 may think it some oversight if I give not also the Total number that is my best conjecture of the number of the Secular Clergy throughout all the several Diocesses of that Kingdom at that very time and not this onely but how many of the Bishops Vicars-General and Provincials too of Regular Orders then also governing had been of the Nuncio Party or Faction and consequently either principled against or out of interest averse from the Remonstrance I can say to the former that the Secular Priests then at home were betwixt a Thousand and Eleven hundred though I cannot say the exact number But now in 1672. I doubt not they are well nigh so many more by reason of the indiscreet laying of hands even since 1666. by the Bishop of Ardagh till 1669. on all persons that were presented to him and since 1669. to this present 1672. not only by the same Bishop Translated to Meath but by so many other Bishops and Archbishops who have been made since by new Creations from Rome To the latter That of the whole number of those either Diocesan or Provincial Governours Archbishops and Bishops whether at home or abroad Vicars of vacant Sees and Regular Prelates two Bishops onely i. e. Tuam and Ardagh and one Vicar-General onely by name Oliver Dese Vicar-General of Meath sided with the Supreme Council against the Censures of the Nuncio in the year 1648. That is in effect sided with the Royal party to reduce the Nation and bring it back to its former due Allegiance and Obedience to the King And besides them one Vicar Provincial onely I mean Thomas Dillon the Carmelite albeit no Provincial Superiour of his Order in that time of great contest in the Nation about the said Censures For in so many years past from 1648 to 1665. when the above Letters were sign'd all the other Bishops and Vicars-General of the Clergy who in that Controversie sided with the Supreme Council dyed and Rome and the Nuntiotist Clergy at home provided men of other principles to supply their places I am sure Rome hath at least since 1669. more than abundantly done its work that way in Ireland As for a third question which perhaps may be here put by a curious searcher into those affairs how many I mean or whether any of the said actual either Diocesan or Provincial Governours of the Irish Clergy Secular or Regular had peradventure at any time before 1665. or then signed the Remonstrance about which all the dispute was since 1661 The answer is in brief That of all such onely Ronan Maginn Vicar-General of Dromore had signed that Instrument though he was not Vicar-General when he sign'd it but soon after chosen Indeed the Bishop of Ardagh as was said before approved of it by Letter from Seez in France to his Brother at London but sign'd not the Instrument it self And Kilfinuran at St. Malo's in the year 1662. got about a dozen hands of Irish Ecclesiasticks to it there but suppress'd all as soon as he or they heard of the displeasure of Rome against it which they suddenly did within some few weeks after Lastly Father Antony Docharty Minister Provincial then of the numerous Order of Franciscans writ to the Lord Lieutenant the Letter you have already seen page 62. but this he would not own to any but to him that made him write that Letter that dictated it to him that carried it from him to and had it back again from the Duke To all others Docharty would seem to be as he really was for his own ends Anti-Remonstrant playing so fast and loose with both sides continually And this is a perfect Scheme as to those affairs of the chief Rulers of the Roman-Catholick Clergy Regular and Secular of Ireland at that time or year 1665. What number of other Ecclesiasticks who either had no command of others or if they or some of them had was restraint to less districts i. e. to the title and thing too either of Local Superiors of Convents or of Rectors of Parishes albeit many of them incomparably better in all respects of learning vertue and other parts qualified for the higher employments of their Church in that Nation than many of those that enjoy'd them what number of all such I say did before that time sign the Remonstrance I need not repeat here again since you have it page 9. and page 47. of the First Part of this First Treatise where if I mistake not the whole number that was then of Ecclesiastical Subscribers of that Instrument is Threescore and Nine taking in this number the deceased Bishop of Dromore Oliver Darcy who was the chief though not first in time of them but dyed about the end of the year 1663. if I remember the time justly A small number indeed if onely as to the number compared to their opposers of the same Irish Clergy even but those at home in Ireland then who certainly were 2000 or thereabouts besides all others in the Irish Colledges Seminaries Convents and other Colledges and Cloysters too amongst the Natives of several Countreys beyond Seas besides also the University of Louain and above all the Court of Rome its Ministers Internuncio's Nuncio's Cardinals Congregations of Cardinals yea and the most Holy Father himself though he appear'd not as Pope and ex Cathedra formally and absolutely defining against the Remonstrants or their often mention'd Formulary and consequently too besides not only and in a very extraordinary manner all the Generals of Regular Orders but even all whatsoever the dependents of the Roman Court in all Countries of Europe especially in those of His Majesties Dominions all the pretendents candidats expectants of Mitres or other dignities or offices from that holy place and City of fortune Questionless if bare number nay if also worldly power dignity authority and the most prevalent of all interest were to be regarded by the Priests of God followers of the Apostles all and each should have born down the Scales on this side without any compare Even interest it self I say because the Irish Anti-Remonstrants notwithstanding their opposition lost nothing either of liberty or other benefits or favours at home from the civil Magistrate from the Lord Lieutenant or Kings Majesty or His Court Council or Parliament being equal
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
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
great horror as to this point of Subjects murthering their Kings which yet they do not really if their above reservations principles explications and all due circumstances above likewise intimated for some part and the wary placing of their words here be as they ought seriously examined The words expressing their seeming but very milde condemnation are placed thus Much less can we allow of or pass as tollerable any doctrine that perniciously and against the Word of God maintains that any private Subject may lawfully kill the Anointed of God his Prince Where in the first place it is to be observed that besides other changes of the clause in the Protestation of 61. relating particularly to this matter and which you have there in this absolute tenor And hold it impious and against the Word of God to maintain that any private Subject may kill and murther the anointed of God his Prince though of different belief and religion from his These later Protestors omit these last words though of different belief and religion from his Words without question as material in our case as any if not more then any of the former the religious pretences of the lawfulness of killing Princes and other circumstances being duely weighed In the next place the words private Subject and the other words Anointed of God his Prince as well severally as joyntly taken and I mean as in this last Remonstrance or this of the congregation of 66. though not as in the former of 61. are to be considered as no way comprehending in the present case dispute and circumstances and proceeding from such unwilling minds and equivocating subscribers any person that shall pretend himself to be no more a Subject no more a privat person but a publick Minister of the Pope or people executing the sentence of either against a deposed deprived un-anointed or dis-anointed or excommunicated Prince no more in such cases the anointed of God no more a Prince but in the opinion which they refused to condemn or decline a tyrant by title or administration or both Lastly t is to be observed that however these late subscribers of the said congregation of 66. expound or understand the foresaid words private Subject the Anointed of God his Prince yet the whole proposition as it lies and the verb maintains as it is therein determined affected or restrained from its more general signification by those other immediatly antecedent words which perniciously and against the word of God and consequently as that proposition is not absolute but modal as logicians speak imports not by necessary construction that every or any doctrine which maintains that any privat Subject may lawfully kill or murther the Anointed of God his Prince is pernicious and against the word of God For it only disallowes that Doctrine which perniciously and against the word of God to witt in some cases maintains c. and leaves the subscribers at liberty to approve of the same Doctrine in other cases wherein notwithstanding any words here they may say it does not perniciously nor against the word of God maintain that killing or murthering And they may instance the case wherein he is or may be deposed deprived excommunicated or a declared or publickly known tyrannical Administrator Governor or oppressor of the people against Justice So that the whole contexture of that proposition seems framed of purpose to equivocat and say nothing to any other purpose Which further yet may appear out of their double sense of the word Lawfully by them inserted Which in relation to themselves or others they will expound when they please of the Law of the Land onely And they will easily and without equivocation or mental reservation grant that in all cases whatsoever its unlawful by the Law of the Land to murther or kill the Prince But they do not as yet say it is so by or according to the laws of God and nature which are above the laws of the land So that it were necessary for them to speak plainly and expresly acccording to these last clauses if they would be understood to declare home as much as to this very point alone since they have not done so yet to any other And hence and out of all hitherto observed the two remaining clauses or parts of their Remonstrance appear to signifie a meer nothing as they proceed from them in this Remonstrance and relate as they must to their sense in all the foregoing parts Wherefore say they pursuant to the deep apprehension we have of the abomination and sad consequences of such practice we do engage our selves to discover unto your Majesty or some of your Ministers any attempt of that kind conspiracy or rebellion against your Majesties person Crown or Royal Authority that comes to our knowledge In case the Subscribers knew that the Catholicks of Ireland were now prudently resolved as having a good strong back to rebel or take Armes to morrow not only after a sentence of deposition of Charles the second pronounced by the Pope or a censure of Excommunication issued from his Holiness by virtue of which censure or under which penalty he would enjoyn all Irish Catholicks to joyn together not of purpose or primarily against the King or against His Crown Person or Authority or not of purpose to kill or murther Him or not as much as to de-throne or un-un-king Him but to restore themselves to their antient possessions or unto their both Temporal and Spiritual rights their lands and Religion and relieve themselves from the publick general oppression they complain of as pretended to proceed only from his great Ministers Councils and Parliaments not from himself but also without any such previous sentences or censures these subscribers notwithstanding this engagement and even without any breach of it I say according to their own sense both here and all along in their Remonstrance may nevertheless conceal such their Countrymens design And for the cases of deposition or excommunication as above there can be no manner of doubt they reserve still notwithstanding the words of this engagement as they understand them that liberty to themselves for at least in these cases and according to the opinions these men refuse to disown expresly cleerly or even virtually or equivalently in other words and which they refuse to disown so under their hands writing there would be no Rebellion against Majestie Crown or Authority Royal belonging to Charles over them And consequently neither if these subscribers should know certainly the final or primary design were to beâ—eâ—ve the King of His life would they find themselves bound by the tenor of this engagement or any other clause in their Remonstrance to reveal it at least I say after such previous sentences of deposition deprivation and excommunication or after the right of the Crown were pretended and known to be given for the good of Catholick Religion to an other Prince The reduplicative and specificative senses wherein the chief decliners of the former
which they make or intend to make there if any at all indeed they make or intend together with so many quibbles and fallacies yet this Remonstrance at least as from them does no way bind them after such declaration of the Pope to hold as much as to such however inconsiderable acknowledgements or promises Fourteenth Exception That further yet as from them and without relation to any such matter declared by the Pope it leaves them alwayes at liberty upon another account not to hold to their said however inconsiderable acknowledgments and promises Videlicet upon account of their maximes of extrinsick probability or of their perswasion of the lawfulness of changeing opinions and of practising too according to the contrary opinion of others and consequently of practising against all their acknowledgments ownings Declarations promises and oaths in this their own Remonstrance according to the doctrine of such Catholick Authors as maintain all oathes of Allegiance made to a Heretick Prince to be rendred absolutely void by the very Canons of the Roman Church in corpore Juris Canonici Fifteenth Exception That finally as from them it leaves them still at liberty to say they framed and subscribed it according to the very largest rules of equivocation and mental reservation and with as many and as fine abstractions exceptions constructions restrictions and distinctions too especially that of the specificative and reduplicative sense as any the most refined Authors and most conversant in such matters Canonists or Casuists or School-divines could furnish them with in time of need And these being the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. the Reader may judge of their reasonableness or unreasonableness as he please if he hath already or when he shall have read through not only the former part of this Second Treatise but both the first and second part of the first Treatise of this Book To which if he add the reading also of all the other four he may without any question judge the better of these Exceptions whether they be well grounded or not THE THIRD TREATISE CONTAINING The three propositions of Sorbon considered as they are by this Dublin Congregation applyed to His Majestie of Great Britain and themselves And what they signifie as to any further or clearer assurance of their fidelity to the King in the cases controverted HAving given in my Narrative the occasion upon which and the persons by whom after a long dispute these propositions with the other three of the six late of Sorbon were first offered to be assented to and signed in a distinct or different instrument or paper from that of their Remonstrance and how after those very persons hindered the signing of the other or last three and further in my exceptions to instances against and observations upon that Remonstrance of theirs upon their wording of and meaning by and in the several passages or clauses all along having noted their voluntary and contradictory omissions of what was necessary and what was both expected and demanded from them on the particular points and noted their abstractions reservations exceptions equivocations illusive expositions and yet no less if not more destructive constructions I need not say much here to shew the unsignificancy of the said three propositions I mean as to the publick end for which these Assembly subscribers would impose on others or flatter themselves they were subscribed by them For it will be obvious and easie to any understanding man that shall first read those fore-going small Tracts of mine to see evidently there can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational subscribers or from their subscriptions to the said three additional propositions than was besorâ— intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according or in that sense of theirs which I have so declared at large I confess that in the state primitive or in that of the innocency of Christians these alone peradventure might have been sufficient to that end Nay and at this very present are very significant as proceeding from and applyed by the Sorbon-faculty and Gallican Church to their own most Christian King and themselves To wit amongst a People and in a Country where no other doctrine is taught or believed or as much as scarce thought upon if not by a very few privâ—tly in corners but that which they have learned from the express Canons of their own ancient Councils and of that particularly of Paris well-nigh a thousand years since in pursuance of the Tradition of their yet more ancient Fathers all along to the Apostles of Christ and Christ himself That kingly power is immedietly from God alone as from the primary and only efficient cause and no way depending of the Church or People Where the practice was so frequent when occasion was offered to resist the usurpations and incroachments of Popes on the Jurisdiction Royal and to oppose and contemn their Sentences of Deposition Deprivation Excommunication and other attempts whatsoever of the See of Rome against their Kings Parliaments or People Where Pithou's most Catholick and voluminous Books of the natural and genuine liberties of the Gallican Church and so many other great Catholick Writers on that subject are extant and frequent and conversant with them daily Where finally that King in their opinion is both their own and really most Christian and themselves of the same Religion with him and by him all their interests both religious and civil spiritual and temporal in the greatest latitude and height they can desire maintained exactly I confess that from such men of such principles in such a Country and to such a Prince these three Propositions barely as they are worded might peradventue do well enough But to conclude hence or that because the French King was pleased or satisfied with them so as coming from and presented to himself by Sorbon His Majesty of Great Britain our Gracious King must be or should be in our present case and on the points controverted amongst us pleased or satisfied with the self same resolutions or propositions aâ—d in the self same words only the application changed without any further addition explanation or descent to particulars and so pleased with them as coming from us were a very great fallacie and very great folly The cases are different in all particulars And therefore it must be consequent in reason that more particulars may and should be required and in other words that is in words expresly and sufficiently declaring as well against all equivocations and other evasions as particularly to the particular points in our own case The design having been as it is and must be yet to get us to resolve and declare satisfactorily and our own Interest and that of our Religion too especially as now in Ireland leading us thereunto But alas the private Interests of some very few men of that Congregation blew durst in the eyes of all the rest so as they
this Kingdom and in that particular too that the Pope could not depose Bishops in Ireland against the same Canons for that their third allegation I say it appears already out of all hiterto said to be even as to both branches of this fourth proposition or in relation to the said branches more than positively more than abundantly false especially if we understand by the Kings authority rights c. what honest men without Sophistry understand For if we do not the allegation must be to no purpose though it should relate only to the first branch as appears manifestly out of what is before said to their first and second allegation And for the second branch or part of the said fourth proposition they have not as much as any kind of colour to say that in their Remonstrance or three first Propositions they have as much as glanced at it Which the Reader may see with his own eyes and of himself without any further proof of mine conclude evidently by comparing together this fourth Proposition and their said three former Propositions and Remonstrance What ground then had they for this third Sophistical allegation of a more positiveness I confess that notwithstanding I have read and read again ten times over and over their said Remonstrance and three Propositions signed by them and compared both to this fourth I see none at all but that very vnsignificant and sorry one which is by a little inconsiderable change of the first Proposition which the Congregation was absolutly necessitated unto if they would not be convinced by every Soul that knew their former actions of a manifest untruth and lye For the first Proposition of Sorbone declaring in the second part that the said Faculty had always or at all times thitherto resisted or opposed even such as attributed to the Pope as much as an indirect authority or an indirect authority alone over the temporals of the most Christian King it is manifest our Congregation could not imitate Sorbone as to that part or I mean for what concerned the time past or could not have said as those of that Faculty did in these words immo semper obstitisse Pacultatem eriant ijs qui indirectam tantummodo voluerunt esse illum authoritatem Which was the reason that forced them to change the Precerpâ—â— perfect tense of the infinitive moode which tense the Sorbonists did and justy could make use of as they framed that first Proposition and change it to the future tense of the Indicative moode and put it into this form we promise that we shall still oppose them who shall assert any power either direct or indirect over him in Civil and temporal affairs Now what more positiveness hath this of the future tense argued I would fain know of any man And other argument than this sorry though necessary change I see none if not peradventure the words natural and just added to obedience in the third Proposition Epithets not made use of here by Sorbone be not thought by Father N. N. to be arguments of more positiveness But if he do and shew himself herein less than a Sophister every understanding man can tell him presently that where Sorbone sayes and declares in the said third Proposition their doctrine to be quod Subditi fidem et obedientiam Regi Chriâ—â—tae nissim it a debent ut ab ijs nullo praetextu dispensari possint it was needless to add those or any other Epithets to that faith and obedience which they profess there to be so due from his own Subjects to the most Christian King that under no pretext soever they may be dispensed with therein For certainly every man knowes there is no faith or obedience due from them to him but natural and just as neither can be from us to our own King So that albeit those Epithets be good yet they and nothing to the French proposition much less more positiveness in the declaration And whither the word faith which the Sorboniâ—â— have in this their third Proposition and yet is omitted in the same by our Congregation whither purposely or not I know not certainly do argue a less positiveness of less â—ye or obligation I leave it to others to determine Having done with their second Paragraph we are now come to their third Which I give likewise at length and in then own words As to the 5th they mean the 5th Sorbone Proposition as here in terminis that it is noe the doctrine of the Faculty but applied to the Congregation That it is not our doctrine that the Pope is above the general Couneâ— We thought it likewise not material to our affaire to talke of a School-question of Divinity controverted in all Catholick Vniversities of the world whether the Pope be above general Councils or no whether he can annul the Acts of a general Council or no dissolve the general Council or whither contrary-wise the Council can depose the Pope c. Secondly we conceive it not onely impertinent but dangerous in its consequence and unseasonable to talke of a question which without any profit either to the King or his Subjects may breed jealousy between the King and his Subjects or may give the least overture to such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Common-wealths as our late sad experience hath taught us Where I observe two Specifical reasons and no more given by them for the applicableness to their present purpose here of their above first general pretence The first is that whether the Pope be above a general Council or no is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities The second that their subscription to the fifth Proposition of Paris or to their resolve on this question would give others to understand it must consequently follow it is not their doctrine that the King is above the Parliament It seems they were put to very narrow shifts when they stuffed their Paper with such weak arguments But the illness of the cause afforded them no better and their resolution not to subscibe having been so unalterable as it was they must have pretended the most specious they could not certainly out of any hope to render by such pretences their obstinacie excusable with any judicious knowing men much less to impose on the Lord Lieutenant for whose immediat satisfaction they would have others believe these reasons and arguments were so digested but for a quite other design which was to abuse the multitude or vulgar by pretences of reasons and arguments whereof the common People could not understand the weakness whom therefore I have thought paines-worthy to disabuse by these following answers And first to their first argument which sayeth it is disputed in all Catholick Vniversities whether the Pope be above a general Council or not and therefore concludes the immaterialness and impertinency of their subscription to that 5th of Paris or to this It is not our doctrine that the Pope is above a general Council it is answered That those of
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
indeed any but God alone above them in temporal affairs as the very Fathers too of the Congregation avow by their own subscription of the 2d of those Propositions of Sorbone if they will have that subscription and Proposition taken in the plain obvious and honest sense and further yet is such and by reason too and Scriptures plain and cleer enough demonstrated to be such that every person in their respective kingdoms is subject to them And consequently all Parliament men however convened together as being not in any consideration or quallity soever exempt from that general command of God by the Apostle Paul 13th Romans Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditasit And now if in this doctrine and pursuant to it of those Divines whether Greek or Latin the Fathers of the Congregation such of them at least as are understanding and knowing men see not the great and cleer and evident inconsequence of that argument of theirs which is their second specifical reason for not signing the 5th Proposition or if they see not they argue not here à simili but à dissimili and therefore conclude very ill or if they see not the cases are quite contrary or hugely differing that of the Pope and Council on one side and that of the King and Parliament of the other as to the purpose here I am extreamly mistaken But whether they do or not others I am sure do very cleerly That for such other Catholick Divines as are great sticklers for the Papacie to be Jure Divino immediatly or immediatly ordained by Christ himself during his aboad on earth in that sense at least wherein it is allowed and approved by those Canons are learned Canones Ecclesiae Vniversalis and by the several Catholick Churches Kingdoms and States which have continued in perpetual communion with the Bishop and particular Church or Diocess of Rome though not in that sense and height of latitude of jurisdiction attributed thereunto by the Popes themselves in their own peculiar Canons for such Divines I say as maintain so the Papacie to be De jure Divino immediatly and nevertheless withal do constantly maintain the authority of general Councils above it by the same ius divinum or immediat institution of Christ delivered to us in that passage of Math. 18. Dic Ecclesiae or in any other of the new Testament whether in writing or not or not otherwise known evidently or sufficiently but by unwritten tradition onely the Fathers of the Congregation may see these Divines also declaring and very cleerly and consequently too without any kind of stress in their own principles against the said consequence For they will undoubly say and with very much reason also this to be a meer non sequitur The General Council which hath its power not from the Pope but originally immediatly only and perpetually from Iesus Christ over all the faithfull being declared in the 18. of St. Mathew the very last and supream Tribunal to which an offending Brother must be accused and to whose sentence he must be lyable and being so declared by Christs own mouth even to Peter himself present as may be seen in the foresaid place of Mathew taken together with St. Luke in ch the 17. must consequently be above the Pope albeit the Pope must be above every individual of them separatly taken out of the Council or when there is not any Council in being Therefore the Parliament which originally immediatly and only had its power from the King and yet none from the King or his Laws much less from the Law of God above the King Himself must nevertheless be above him even as yet remaining King and so above him too that they may deprive depose and put him even to death if they shall judge it expedient yea notwithstanding his Royal Power is given him originally immediatly and only from or by God himself and notwithstanding also the express Law of God commands all his people without any distinction of being sate in Parliament or not and commands them all even under pain of damnation to be subject to him and notwithstanding too the very Parliament themselves even sitting in Parliament confess themselves to be of the number of his People or Subjects Yet this must be the very argument which the Fathers of the Congregation must frame here to their purpose if they would pin their foresaid consequence upon even these other Catholick Divines who maintain the Papacy de jure Divino And therefore it must also be that in the opinion too or doctrine of this very class of Divines who are all admitted by Bellarmine himself as undoubtedly Catholick and no way Schismatical who maintain or admit as I have presently said the Papacie it self to be jure Divino from this proposition The Pope is not above a General Council no such dangerous consequence can be drawn no overture of any such odious and horrid disputes concerning the power of Kings and Commonwealths as our late sad experience hath taught us That finally if in the opinion or according to the principles or doctrine of any other Catholick Divines that dangerous consequence follow as I know it does in Bellarmine's and such others of his way who to subject the Crowns of Kings the more easily to the Popes disposal reduce all earthly temporal civil power and resolve it ultimatly into their supream pretended inherent right in the people whom as they say withal and consequently to their other principles the Pope may at his pleasure or when he shall judge it expedient command by excommunication and other ecclesiastical Censures to resume it or that their pretended inherent power for the punishment of an Apostat Heretick Schismatick or otherwise contumacious refractory or disobedient Prince if I say according to this doctrine of this third and last class of Divines how Catholick soever in other matters that dangerous consequent and overture of such odious and horrid disputes follow the above proposition or the not being of the Pope above the General Council yet for as much as their other principles which must be first admitted before any such consequent may be deduced are in themselves very false and in the case of Hereditary Kingdoms evidently such amongst Christians that please to understand the Scriptures plainly and sincerely as the primitive Believers did especially that passage omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit and what follows afterwards to the same purpose in the 13. of the Romans and not go about to elude these and such other express and clear places by distinctions whereof some are apparently ridiculous and some very blasphemous too as I can instance the Fathers of the congregation might notwithstanding with much reason and even abstracting too I mean as well from all precedents as from all ignorance malice or other pre-occupation nay and from their own subscription also of the second or any other of the three first propositions though not from the doctrine of them observe how that
strong motives and moral certainties produced before in our Answer to the second Querie and which we may have to persuade us that the Supreme Council who are chiefly aimed at in this business had no such evil intentions Which together with all hitherto said being duly pondered by them who now seem so adverse to us in opinion but by them discharged a little of passion retyring into their Souls and looking with an eye of indifferency upon this difference we doubt not but they will acknowledge before God the truth of our Assertions and with how little reason but great hazard of eternal salvation they disobey the Commands of the Supreme Council on pretence of the present proceedings of the Lord Nuncio and we hope as we most heartily desire with all our Souls that they or at least such of them as have an affection to Loyalty and a true zeal of Gods cause will by their unfeigned and repentant submission to the Supreme Authority established by the Kingdom make happy these Answers labour'd as the shortness of time did permit for their conversion and satisfaction of all good Patriots by DAVID Bishop of OSSORY F John Roe Provincial of the Excal Carmelites Nicholas Taylor Doctor of Divinity William Shergoli Professor of Divinity Prebend of Houth and Vic. For. of Fingal Fr John Barnwall Lector of Divinity Fa Simon Wafer Lector of Divinity F Peter Walsh Lector of Divinity Luke Cowley Archdeacon of Ossory and Protonotary Apostolick Laurence Archbold Vic. For. in the Deaneries of Brea Tawney and Glandalagh F Christopher Plunket Guardian of St. Francis Convent in Dublin Fa John Dormer Guardian of St. Francis 's Order at Castle-dermot Fr Bonaventure Fitz-Gerald Guardian of Kildare F Laurence Matthews Preses of Carmel Kilken F Laur. a sancto Bernardo Paul Nash Prebend John Shee Prebend of Main James Sedgrave FINIS THE FIRST APPENDIX CONTAINING Some of those PUBLICK Instruments related unto PARTLY IN THE QUERIES AND PARTLY In several places of the precedent WORK or in the Four Treatises of this FIRST TO ME. VIZ. I. The Oath of Association or that which was the essential tye of the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland as such according to that Form wherein it was taken or renewed in the year 1644. II. The Lord Nuncio's Excommunication and Interdict by him and his Fellow Delegates or Sub-Delegates fulminated on the 27th of May 1648. against the Adherers to the Cessation made with Inchiquin III. The Supreme Councils Appeal interposed on the 31 of May the same year to His Holiness Pope Innocent X. from the said Censures Nuncio and His Fellow Delegates c. IV. The Articles of the Second Peace or of that on the 27th of the following January same year 1648. according to the old English computation but the 7th of February 1649. according to the new Roman stile concluded betwixt His Majesty CHARLES I. and the Roman-Catholick Confederates of Ireland by James Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Special Commissioner for His Majesty in treating and concluding that Peace V. The Declaration of the Archbishops Bishops and other Irish Prelates at Jamestown 12 Aug. 1650. against the said Marquess Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland wherein they assume to themselves the Regal Power restore again the Confederacy declare the said Marquess devested of all power c. VI. The Excommunication of the same date fulminated by the same Irish Archbishops Bishops and others against all persons whatsoever obeying any more or at any time thenceforth the said Marquess however the King 's Lieutenant Printed in the Year M.DC.LXXIII The Preamble to the Oath of Association WHEREAS the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom of Ireland have been enforced to take Arms for the necessary defence and preservation as well of their Religion plotted and by many foul practices endeavoured to be quite suppressed by the Puritan Faction as likewise of their Lives Liberties and Estates and also for the defence and safeguard of His Majesties Regal Power just Prerogatives Honour State and Rights invaded upon and for that it is requisite That there should be an unanimous Consent and real Union between all the Catholicks of this Realm to maintain the Premisses and strengthen them against their Adversaries It is thought fit by them That they and whosoever shall adhere unto their Party as a Confederate should for the better assurance of their adhering fidelity and constancy to the Publick Cause take the ensuing Oath The Oath of Association I A. B. do profess swear and protest before God and his Saints and Holy Angels That I will during life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Sovereign Lord CHARLES by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to His Heirs and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all His and their just Prerogatives Estates and Rights the power and priviledge of the Parliament of this Realm the fundamental Laws of Ireland the free exercise of the Roman-Catholick Faith and Religion throughout all this Land and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estates and Rights of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof And that I will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said Publick Cause And that I will not seek directly or indirectly any Pardon or Protection for any Act done or to be done touching the General Cause without the consent of the major part of the said Council And that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my Life and Estate assist prosecute and maintain the same So help me God and his Holy Gospel By the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland Kilkenny July 26. 1644. Upon full debate this day in open Court Assembly it is unanimously declared by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Knights and Burgesses of this House That the Oath of Association as it is already penned of Record in this House and taken by the Confederate Catholicks is full and binding without addition of any other words thereunto And it is ordered That any person or persons whatsoever who have taken or hereafter shall take the said Oath of Association and hath or shall declare by word or actions or by persuasions of others That the said Oath or any Branch thereof doth or may admit any equivocation or mental reservation if any such person or persons be shall be deemed a breaker of his and their Oath respectively and adverse to the General Cause and as a Delinquent or Delinquents for such offence shall be punished And it is further ordered That the several Ordinaries shall take special care that the Parish-Priests within their respective Diocesses shall publish and declare That any person or persons who hath or shall take
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
or Governours for the time being all Treasons or Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear to be intended against His Majesty or any of them and I do make this Recognition and Acknowledgment heartily willingly and truly upon the true Faith of a Christian So help me God c. And His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Roman-Catholick Subjects may erect and keep Free-Schools for education of youth in this Kingdom any Law or Statute to the contrary notwithstanding and that all the matters assented unto in this Article be passed as Acts of Parliament in the said next Parliament IX Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That places of Command Honour Profit and Trust in His Majesties Armies in this Kingdom shall be upon perfection of these Articles actually and by particular instances conferred upon His Roman-Catholick Subjects of this Kingdom and that upon the distribution conferring and disposing of the places of Command Honour Profit and Trust in His Majesties Armies in this Kingdom for the future no difference shall be made between the said Roman-Catholicks and other His Majesties Subjects but that such distribution shall be made with equal indifferency according to their respective merits and abilities And that all His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom as well Roman-Catholicks as others may for His Majesties service and their own security arm themselves the best they may wherein they shall have all fitting encouragement And it is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That places of Command Honour Profit and Trust in the Civil Government of this Kingdom shall be upon passing of the Bills in these Articles mentioned in the next Parliament actually and by particular instances conferred upon His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of this Kingdom and that in the distribution conferring and disposal of the places of Command Honour Profit and Trust in the Civil Government for the future no difference shall be made between the said Roman-Catholicks and other His Majesties Subjects but that such distribution shall be made with equal indifference according to their respective merits and abilities and that in the distribution of Ministerial offices or places which now are or hereafter shall be void in this Kingdom equality shall be used to the Roman-Catholick Natives of this Kingdom as to other His Majesties Subjects And that the command of Forts Castles Garrison Towns and other places of importance in this Kingdom shall be conferred upon His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of this Kingdom upon perfection of these Articles actually and by particular instances and that in the distribution conferring and disposal of the Forts Castles Garrison Towns and other places of importance in this Kingdom no difference shall be made between His Majesties Roman-Catholick Subjects of this Kingdom and other His Majesties Subjects but that such distributions shall be made with equal indifference according to their respective merits and abilities and that until full settlement in Parliament Fifteen thousand Foot and Two thousand and five hundred Horse of the Roman-Catholicks of this Kingdom shall be of the standing Army of this Kingdom and that until full settlement in Parliament as aforesaid the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloc 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 Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe 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 shall diminish or add unto the said number as they shall see cause from time to time X. Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Majesty will accept of the yearly Rent or annual Sum of Twelve thousand pounds sterl to be applotted with indifferency and equality and consented to be paid to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors in Parliament for and in lieu of the Court of Wards in this Kingdom Tenures in Capite Common Knights service and all other Tenures within the cognizance of that Court and for and in lieu of all Wardships Primer-seisins Fines Ousterlemaynes Liveries Intrusions Alienations Measne-rates Releases and all other Profits within the cognizance of the said Courts or incident to the said Tenures or any of them or Fines to accrue to His Majesty by reason of the said Tenures or any of them and for and in lieu of respites and issues of homage and fines for the same and the said yearly Rent being so applotted and consented unto in Parliament as aforesaid then a Bill is to be agreed on in the said Parliament to be passed as an Act for the securing of the said yearly Rent or annual Sum of Twelve thousand pounds to be applotted as aforesaid and for the extinction and taking away of the said Court and other matters aforesaid in this Article contained And it is further agreed That reasonable Compositions shall be accepted for Wardships fallen since the Three and twentieth of October One thousand six hundred forty and one and already granted and that no Wardship fallen and not granted or that shall fall shall be passed until the success of this Article shall appear and if His Majesty be secured as aforesaid then all Wardships fallen since the said Three and twentieth of October are to be included in the Agreement aforesaid upon Composition to be made with such as have Grants as aforesaid which Composition to be made with the Grantees since the time aforesaid is to be left to indifferent persons and the Umpirage to be the said Lord Lieutenant XI Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That no Nobleman or Peer of this Realm in Parliament shall be hereafter capable of more proxies than two and that blank proxies shall be hereafter totally disallowed and that if such Noblemen or Peers of this Realm as have no Estates in this Kingdom do not within five years to begin from the conclusion of these Articles purchase in this Kingdom as followeth viz. a Lord Baron Two hundred pounds per annum a Lord Viscount Four hundred pounds per annum and an Earl Six hundred pounds per annum a Marquess Eight hundred pounds per annum and a Duke a Thousand pounds per annum shall lose
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
will not agree with the Parliament for not having it We are of opinion the best remedy the King 's Authority being taken away as was said of meeting this inconvenience of the Peoples closing with the Parliament is returning to the Confederacy as was intended by the Nation in case of breach of the Peace of His Majesties part This will keep an union amongst us if men will not be precipitantly guilty of breach of their Oath of Association which Oath by two solemn Orders of two several Assemblies is to continue binding if any breach of the Articles should happen of His Majesties part The King 's Authority and the Lord Lieutenants Commission being recalled by the Declaration abovesaid we are of opinion the Lord Lieutenant hath no such Authority to leave If we must expose Lives and Fortunes to the hazard of fighting for making good that Peace seeing the danger and prejudice is alike to defend that or get a better Peace why should we bound our selves within the limits of those Articles so disavowed Answer To this VVe answer That if they were alwayes of opinion all their endeavours should be employed to keep the King's Authority over them their Declaration and Excommunication is a strange way of manifesting that opinion which Declaration and Excommunication bears date before His Majesties Declaration wherein they say He throweth away the Nation as Rebels So that whatever His Majesty hath done in withdrawing His Authority it is apparent their endeavour to drive it away was first in time In their advice of returning to the Confederacy appears the scope of their dilemma's and arguments against the continuance of the King's Authority over them which that they may be sure to be rid of they say VVe have not Authority to leave Their Reasons why in Conscience they cannot consent to the revocation of their Declaration and Excommunication follow Vpon consideration of the whole matter we may not consent with safety of Conscience to the Provisoes of revoking our Declaration and Excommunication demanded by his Excellency or granting any assurance to him or the Commissioners of Trust for not attempting the like in the future and that for many Reasons especially for First Reason That the King's Authority is not in the Lord Lieutenant nor power in us to confer a new Authority on him being also destructive to the Nation to continue it in him and preservative if in another And that was our sense when we declared against the King's Authority in his person Answer The King's Authority was to Us when the Declaration and Excommunication was framed by them they acknowledge And that it is still in Us notwithstanding His Majesties said Declaration VVe are able to make good if We could find it of advantage to His service or the safety of His good Subjects But that they confess It is not in them to confer a new Authority upon us is one of the few Truths they have set down Yet why they may not pretend to give as well as take away Authority and why they may not to Us as well as to others We know not They further say It is destructive to the Nation if continued in Vs and preservative if in another and this they say was their sense when they declared against the King's Authority in Our person We would gladly know what We have done to change their sense since the time that by their many professions formerly recited they seemed to be of another opinion If it be for doing little or nothing We believe We have made it appear they are principally guilty of Our being out of action That it will be preservative to the Nation to have Authority to govern it in another We shall be glad to be convinced in the event Second Reason We much fear we should lose the few Churches remaining under his Government as we lost under him all the Churches of the Cities of Waterford and Kilkenny and the Towns of Wexford Rosse Clonmel Cashel Fethard Kilmallock c. In this agreeing with the Maccabees Maximus vero primus pro sactitate timâ—r exat templi Answer The loss of the places mentioned here is answered elsewhere We shall only add That as Cashel was lately deserted by some of those these men esteem obedient Children of Holy Church so the same men could neither be persuaded nor forced into Kilkenny when they had orders for it and by that means both places were lost Third Reason His Excellency having declared at Cork That he will maintain during his life the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches which may be the same in substance with the Oath of Covenant for ought we know we may not expect from him defence of the Catholick Religion Answer Whatever We declared at Cork in this particular was before the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and was published in Print and then well known to many of these Bishops So that they ought then to have been aware how they had concluded a Peace with one that had made such a Declaration rather than now after almost Two years to make it a ground of breaking the Peace What Our opinion is of the Covenant or the best Reformed Churches We hold not Our Self obliged to declare Resolved We were to defend the Peace concluded by Us in all the parts of it Which We have faithfully endeavoured to do and should still have endeavoured it if We had not been interrupted affronted and wholly disabled therein by the contrivement of those very Bishops their Brethren and Instruments Fourth Reason The scandal over all the world to make choice of one of a different Religion especially in Rome where His Holiness in His Agreement or Articles with the Queen of England had a Catholick Governour granted though not performed And we do fear the scourges of War and Plague that have fallen so heavy upon us are some evidences of Gods anger against us for putting Gods Causes and Churches under such a hand whereas that Trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the King's authority Answer Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to Us which they have endeavoured all the while to disguise under the personal scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of scandal at Rome for making choice as they call it as if they might choose their Governours of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they may not next pretend to the same fear of scandal for having a King of a different Religion and to the power of choosing one of their own Religion We know not Touching any agreement made between the Queen of England and His Holiness for a Governour for this Kingdom We have never heard of any such and We are most confident That in the agreement and consequently in the want of performance Her Majesty is falsely aspersed by the framers of this Paper Fifth Reason That we shall
but give my Reader this advertisement also That even with such questions both the infallibility of the Catholick Roman Church and the religious and rational piety also of that very Church in venerating and invoking him may subsist Because her infallibility regards other matters as I have said before and because her veneration and invocation of this or that Saint in particular whose sanctity on earth and glory in heaven is not revealed unto her otherwise or taught by clear Scripture or constant Tradition from the beginning doth and must of necessity alwayes imply as to such I mean who see no evident miracles or who are not throughly convinced of such this tacit condition That he or she whom they invoke be in glory and because also moral certainty from humane faith may ground a religious and pious practice as no certainty at all but meer probability of natural grounds may be sufficient to enact a binding law or sanction even also in order to piety and because moreover the prayers of the faithful to Saints whether they invoke them in recto or in obliquo regard principally and without any comparison but that of an infinit disproportion God himself and are terminated in him alone and so farre only regard the Saints as they are in his favour grace and glory and so far only as he is pleased we should either venerat or invoke them So that if in any kind of contingency it may happen that the Church be deceived in her opinion which in this matter depends of humane testimonies and humane knowledge apprehension or sense it cannot be therefore said that her practice is either impious or irreligious or indeed any way foolish Not impious or irreligious for the reasons hitherto given of the tacit condition and primary termination of the worship and prayer nor foolish being she hath grounds enough of and for a moral humane certainty or firm adhesion of such humane belief or perswasion to the material object of her understanding by reason of the formal object of her assent in such matters this formal object being in part the most credible testimonies of other men and in part also at least sometimes the evidence of sense And so I have done at last with all my answers to the fourth and grand and very last of all those I call'd remaining objections and have done also with all my observations and advertisements to the Reader concerning this matter of Thomas of Canterbury Only for a final perclose and for the greater satisfaction yet of the more curious Reader I will add here two appendixes The one is brief and concerning the height or amplitude whereunto the exemption of some persons and some crimes from the civil Judicatories in England grew For at last it came to be such that not only the criminal Clerks themselves however guilty of what crime you please but also the very most enormous lay criminals when their crimes had relation to or had been committed against a Clerk that is when they had impiously and execrably murdred any Clerk Priest or even Bishop or Archbishop were exempted from the secular power but understand you this conformably to my doctrine before were sent to Rome to receive such pennance as the Pope should be pleased to inflict and thereby were absolutely freed of all other punishment that is of any which the civil power and the civil or municipal laws did use or inflict for murder All which to have been so in England for some time is so true that not even any of those very most impious four murtherers of St. Thomas of Canterbury himself though a long time after remaining peaceably and publickly altogether in the village of Cnaresburc in the West of England and at the house of Hugh de Mâ—roville who was himself one of the four murtherers and Lord of that Town or Village of Cnaresburc was at all enquired after by the lay Judges nor as much as touch'd or proceeded against in any wise by them but suffer'd to depart peaceably to Rome when themselves saw that all men and women shun'd their company and that none would either speak or eat with them nor even the very dogs taste of their relicks or fragments whence they were sent by Pope Alexander to do pennance at Jerusalem where finally living a penitential life by his command in Manic nigro they dyed and were buried without the gate of the Temple with this inscription Hic iacent miseri qui martyrizaverunt Beatum Thomam Archiepiscopum Cantuaâ—iensem And yet is so true that immediatly or at least very soon after the dayes or death of St. Thomas of Canterbury Richard Archbishop also of Canterbury either he that was the Saints immediat Successor or he at least who was the Sixt after him in that See for both were Richards and this last was called Richardus Magnus and sate as I take it in the dayes of Henry the Third and I have not leasure now to see which of them it was nor is it material much to set down here which complain'd of the abuse and complain'd thus most grievously of it as you may read in Petrus Blesensis and in his seventy third Epistle to the Bishops of England Clerici vel Episcopi occisores Romam mittuntur sayes he euntesque in deliciis cum plenitudine Apostolicae gratiae majore delinquendi audacia revertuntur Taltum vindictam excessuum Dominus Rex sibi vindicat sed nos eam nobis damnabiliter reservamus atque liberam praebentes impunitatis materiam in sauces nostras Laicorum gladios provocamus Ignominiosum est quod pro capra vel ovicula gravior pro sacerdote occiso paeâ—a remissior irrogatur Where also you see this good Archbishop acknowledging in formal words not only a double inconvenience arising from such exemptions and reservations but in effect also and expresly enough acknowledging that the King did upon one side justly challenge to his own say Courts the punishment of such criminals and that on the other side the Bishops did as damnably that is unjustly reserve them to their own ecclesiastical cognizance only The other appendix is a redection upon their impiety and inhumanity who wel-nigh four hundred years after the death of St. Thomas of Canterbury and in the general sack of all the Churches and holy places in England but more especially of those which were more eminent and rich and yet more particularly of the three excellently glorious monuments the first of Alban the Protomartyr of Great Brittain under Dioclesion the Emperour the second of St. Edmond that Christian Saxon King and martyr too as who was killed by the Pagans in odium fidei and the third of St. Thomas of Canterbury perswaded Henry the eight to have a process formed against him I mean Thomas of Canterbury in a Court of Justice and perswaded this King accordingly and effectually though otherwise ridiculously enough to have him declared guilty of high Treason and yet perswaded this King to have an
Act passed in Parliament whereby it was made capital for any either to keep holy-day for him or to pray unto him or to call him a Saint at all or even to suffer his name to be in their Calanders c. if Sanderus de Schismat Angl. l. 1. in Henric. speak truth of such matter of fact in Henry the Eights raign nay moreover perswaded this King to have him disinterred or dis-entombed and his Relicks body or bones burn'd and the very ashes scattered into the four winds if Pope Paul the Third was rightly inform'd for thus he speaks of this matter in his Bull of the year 1538. against the said Henry Postquam ipsum Divum Thomam ad majerem religionis contemptum in judicium vocari tanquam contumacem damnari ac proditorem declarari feeerat exhumari combuâ—i cineres in ventum spargi jussit omnium plaâ—è cunctaram gentium crudelitatem superans cum ne in bello quidem holles victores saevire in mortuorum cadavera soleant All which this King was perswaded unto by such wicked Councellors as had no other God but gain For if Sanderus tell truth in this matter there was so great a treasure of gold silver and pretious stones and so much most costly stuffs hangings c. in and belonging to that only Tomb of St. Thomas of Canterbury as loaded six and twenty Waines of the greatest and largest by the confession of that Kings own Treasurer who received them Ut occasionem quaeri oportuerit unde expilaretur And histories tell us that Henry the Eight did not so or give any such command out of any such principle of religion or irreligion as that is which sayes that no Saints are to be venerated or invocated or even honoured by such pretious donaries bestowed on their Tombs for he never altered from the saith of the Roman Church in this as neither did he in any other except that only of the Popes Supremacy if in this very point of Supremacy understood rightly he altered at all otherwise then schismatically And reason tells us that for maintaining or forwarding his schysm it was unnecessary that he should spoil this holy mans Tomb or indeed any other Shrine or Church or Chappel For a separation from the power of the Pope or even renunciation of both his pretended and true power of primacy whatever this be may be very well conceived to be and to have been both in its own nature and all the then circumstances wholy independent from any such proceedings against St. Thomas of Canterbury or indeed any other Saint especially being that as I have demonstrated heretofore St. Thomas of Canterbury never either formally or virtually or consequentially in any of his contests with Henry the Second denied the Kings of England's supream temporal independent power or any which was in him according to the laws of the Land which were then unrepealed So that I may here to that impious Councellor whoever he was of Henry the Eight apply that of St. Augustine in Psal 63. v. 7. Sed avaritia illa quae captivavit discipulum comitem Christi captivavit militem custodem Jepulchri Yet Matthew Parker very like himself in other things would fain justifie these proceedings of Henry the Eight For in the end of that life which he writes of Thomas Becket amongst his other lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury though he write that exactly enough laying aside his own censorious terms of against the Saint in some passages yet in the perclose of all he writes thus Thomas etsi celebri testimonio Martyrii à Papali Clero pro Ecclesiae suae Cantuariensis privilegiis candidatus in Ecclesia Christi humili primum in cripto positus deinde sublimiori excelso ac sumptuoso delubro conditur fuerit in quo caput ejus seorsim à cadavere situm Thomae Martyris corona appellabatur ad quod peregrinantes undique confluerent muneraque praetiosa deferrent stupendaque edita miracula quae ab Anglicis Latinisque scriptoribus ejus laudes celebrantibas commemorantur utque perenni gloria nulla oblivione interitura floreret horis matutinis atque vespertinis preces ab acutissimo Theologo Thoma Aquinate elegantiori style tamquam rythmo compositae atquae concinnatae quibus auditorum aures mulcerent in ejusque stuporem raperentur quotidie ei fusae fuerint tandem tamen saeculis aliquot labentibus diligenti ac sedula indagatione adhibitis totius regni Praesulibus ac Proceribus Rex qualis Thomas fuerit certo comperit quam nefanda gesserat quantasque turbas tragaedias in regno concitaverat Ideoque nomen ejus in publicarum precum libris ut Sanctum ubivis decantatum deleri penitus abradi praecepit Intollerabili enim arrogantia supra Regiam authoritatem juraque publica magisque quam Christianae aut Ecclesiasticae libertatis immunitas divino jure postulat se extulerat Tanta autem fama celebritate adumbratae sanctitatis suae nomen percrebuerat ut Cantuariensis Ecclesia in qua delubrum ejus situm erat quae ut diximus Christi servatoris Ecclesia ex prima institutione dicebatur id nomen amiserat in sancti Thomae Ecclesiae nomen fere transierat Sed hic semper est adulterinarum fucatarum rerum exitus ut veritate tempore probata hypocrisis patestat in nihilum concidat And with these last words of his own il-grounded il-affected censure this otherwise good Antiquary but first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury made by Queen Elizeabeth shuts up his whole life of his so great holy Catholick Predecessour in that See Which entire passage out of him I give here that the Protestant Readers of this work of mine who have a prejudice against any thing related by Sanderus or exaggerated by Paulus Tertius and perhaps they have reason to be so against Sanders in many things and this Paul too in some things and yet perhaps also against neither for what relates to the present subject may see the said usage against St. Thomas of Canterbury attested for the most weighty part by Parker himself and for no part denyed by him and that my both Catholick and Protestant Readers may see in this relation of Parker himself very much to confirm us in our opinion and belief of St Thomas of Canterburye's undoubted sanctity in his life or death or rather both whether he was a martyr or no in the rigid sense of the word being that he I mean Matthew Parker acknowledges here in such express words that there were stupendious miracles wrought at his tomb and that he neither here nor elsewhere contradicts those miracles by saying they were either forgeries or delusions And besides I give this passage all along in Parkers own words that the candid Reader may see I have reason to wish that Parker had not been so little candid himself in this very passage as neither to name that King or fix on that time
and us IV. They proposed that an Vnion cannot be had or preserved for preservation of the Nation without keeping the King's Authority among us for that many of those considerable will instantly make their conditions with the Enemy the Kings Authority being taken away and that there is no hopes of leaving that Authority with us but by revoking the Excommunication and the Declaration for it will not be left by the Lord Lieutenant or undergone by Clanricard but on those terms Whether there is ground for the sense of the Commissioners delivered in and upon these heads We leave to themselves to make good and to the event that shall follow the refusal of the Prelates to hearken or assent to the Proposals of the said Commissioners But finding that in the Reasons given by the said Prelates for their refusal and in the Advices they give for the union and preservation of the Nation they have repeated some of those things wherewith VVe were formerly unjustly charged by them and have framed new objections against Us VVe shall take a particular view of each of them and as far forth as VVe conceive Our Self concerned shall give Answers to them though VVe had reason to hope That if the offer VVe made should not meet with the success VVe desired that yet so affectionate a manifestation of Our love to the Nation transporting Us to an overture of reconciliation with those that had so much injured Us would not have given ground for repeating of old and casting new Aspersions upon Us. Answers of the Committee to the Proposals of the Commissioners before recited First Article The abovementioned Letter was read containing his Excellencies undertaking for asserting the Peace and his demands of two Provisoes to that end Where we observe his Excellency informed His Majesty of certain disobediences and affronts put upon the Kings Authority and consequently suggested matter to His Majesty of making His Declaration against the Peace Answer VVe have in Our Answer * * Pag. 115. to the 11th Article of their Declaration answered to this Introduction and Our Letter out of which they make this Collection is but newly recited * * Pag. to which VVe refer them Second Article We have perused the King 's Declaration disavowing of the late Peace And are of opinion for ought to Vs appearing That the King hath thereby withdrawn His Commission and Authority from the Lord Lieutenant This is clearly proved out of a branch of the said Declaration taking away and nulling all Commissions granted by him In that Declaration the King will have no friends but the friends of the Covenant Hence it is evidently inferred That His Majesties Authority is taken away from the Lord Lieutenant unless he be a friend to the Covenant as we conceive he is not But if he be he is not our friend nor to be trusted by us in having authority over us In the same Declaration the Irish Nation as bloody Rebels are cast from the protection of the Kings Laws and Royal Favours It may not therefore be presumed That He would have His Authority kept over such a Nation to govern them We do join with you in that you represent to wit there is no safety to be expected from Covenanters or Independents for the Catholick Religion or this Nation If that of the Peace be proved the onely safety we are for it However we conceive the benefit thereof is due to us having made no breach of our part Answer Here they readily declare their opinion concerning His Majesties having recalled Our Commission and take pains to prove it by an unavoidable dilemma or that at least We are not their Friend nor to be Trusted by them and by another strong Argument they endeavour to prove His Majesty would not have His Authority at all kept over this Nation VVhen by this means they have as they think shewed it impossible That the Peace can be continued which they know it cannot without the continuance of the Kings Authority then they say if the Peace be proved the onely safety they are for it and that however they conceive the benefit thereof is due to them having made no breach on their part If they would make it their business to seek for Arguments to keep the Kings Authority over them they might perhaps find many and these as convincing as those they have found to dispute it out of the Kingdom as The Conclusion and Ratification of the Peace here by vertue of His Authority precedent to the Declaration seeming to annul it the certainty that He was in a free condition when he gave the said Authority and ratified the Peace concluded by it and The question that may be made whether he was so when he declared against it and lastly That by the Articles of Peace He is obliged to continue His Authority here from which obligation no Declaration at least importuned from Him by His Subjects of Scotland can free Him or take from this Nation who have no dependence on Scotland the benefit of the Agreement made by His Majesty with them Upon these grounds it was That until His Majesty had been fully informed in all that had passed here and declared his free sense upon it We offered to justifie the lawfulness of concluding the Peace and the continuing validity of it to those that had not forfeited their interest in it if We might have had the concurrence of these Bishops and obedience in the places by the strength and means whereof it might have been justified And surely this was an offer not meriting the scorn and bitterness wherewith it was rejected If they that contrived this Paper have made no breach of the Peace on their part We have lost much labour in the forepassed discourse But We believe We have proved they have made many and those the highest it was possible to make And sure they must be very partial on their own side if they think the benefit of a thing they reject is due to them Third Article Something of our sense concerning what way may tend best to the Nations preservation we will say beneath and do offer our clear intentions before God to join with you and all men in what will be found the best and safest way to such preservation Answer This is onely a profession which requires no Answer from Us. Fourth Article We are of opinion and did ever think all our endeavours should be employed to keep the Kings Authority over us But when His Majesty throweth away the Nation from His protection as Rebels withdrawing His own Authority we cannot understand this mystery of preserving the same with us and over us or how it may be done Whereas you say That many of those considerable will instantly make their conditions with the Enemy if the King 's Authority be taken away by himself as by His Declaration it is and not driven away by the Subject in such case when the People may not hold it likely they