in the payment of the tribute money or didrachma Matth. 7.17 and in the sufferance of Judgment John 18. and in the clear command given that by all persons what was Caesars due should be rendered to Caesar Matt. 22.20 If therefore Christ would not exempt himself nor his Apostles especially Peter from this subjection S. Paul had reason to include all Christians vniversally without any exception or distinction in his general praecept omnis anima c. especially being that as Chrysostome well noteth this kind of subjection doth not subvert piety Non enim pictatem evertit hujusmodi subjectio What argument then have our Adversaries to perswade themselves that on or by the title of Apostleship or Sacred Orders they may presume to exempt themselves in civil or humane things from obedience to Princes Apostleship or Sacred Orders do not take away from man that nature which is human Certainly how much or holily soever a man be ordered or highly soever promoted to Ecclesiastical offices yet he is still a man and as a man naturally civil or a civil part or member of the civil commonwealth or society of other men and therefore by the very law divine natural must be in humane things subject to the powers of this world especially whereas neither Apostleship nor Sacred Orders implye essentially or properly more then a naked ministry and servitude however divine and supernatural for the salvation of Souls And therefore if Baptisme takes not away the natural state or condition of man nor at all frees him from those obligations which humane nature draws along with it self much less will or can Sacred Orders or even Apostleship change that condition or remove those obligations As for Bellarmine's other evasion which sayes that the law of Christ does not per se ac propriè quasi hoc ipsum intendat directly properly and intentionally bereave Princes of their Dominion over Clerks but onely consequenteâ— consequently as directly intending to honour Clerks by raising them to a higher order but not to injure Princes at all and for his exemplifying this matter and evasion in the cases of a private subject or servant of some Earl made a Prince or Duke by the King and having jurisdiction too given him â—over that very Earl of a simple Priest made a Metrapolitan by the Pope and consequently made Superiour to the very Bishop who so lately before was the Ordinary of that Priest of an Infidel husband who is by the conversion of his wife to Christianity deprived of his husbandly right Sed tamen dum evehit Laicos ad ordinem altiorem id est Clericorum non est mirum si consequenter privet Principes jure quod in eos habebant dum essent in gradu inferiore Bellarm. Cont. Barcl cap. 34. of a Christian husband also who is by the ingress of his wife to a Cloysterd life and profession of it deprived likewise of all right to her and finally of a Son made a Bishop over whom hoc ipso his Father looses all Fatherly power albeit I have said enough already Sect. LXXII to this evasion and to all and every of these examples apart yet that I may shew further how they are not even here more then elsewhere to Bellarmine's purpose First I demand of Bellarmine himself and of all his Schollars which is proportionably the greater elevation or evection for Bellarmine useth this kind of phrase evehit laicos ad ordinem altiorem as you may see in the margent or which in due proportion is the greater heightning or raysing of a man which the more eminent degree Christianisme in relation to an Infidel or Clerkship in relation to a lay Christian Certainly in the former evection or elevation a man who immediately before was the son of the Devil and slave of sin and condemned to Hell is suddenly raysed to the adoption of the Sons of God nay is made the very Heir of God and co-heir of Christ himself as the Apostle speaks But in the later what hath a Clerk above a Laick the very Priests the very Bishops the very Popes themselves as such have onely over and above holy Christian Laicks but a bare ministery or a bare ministerial office for the service and salvation of others As for Deacons Sub-deacons and those other Clerks initated onely with the four lesser Orders as they are called and those Clerks also who have neither greater nor lesser Orders but onely the bare first tonsure who sees not but their condition or designation imports much less incomparably Therefore the evection or elevation or the raysing heightning or dignifiing which is by the Sacrament of Order is respectively farre beneath that which is by that of Baptisme And much more that evection which is by bare Clerkship as such For bare Clerkship as such is conferr'd even by the very first consure which I am sure is no Order at all And yet Bellarmine must in his principles denye that S. Paul did comprehend such bare and onely tonsur'd Clerks in his foresaid general precept albeit the above evasion of Apostleship or of Sacred or not Sacred Orders cannot serve his turn any way or with any kind of even bad colour to evade the cleerness of arguments proving the contrary and the dignity of Baptisme by an argument a majori above that of prima tonsura And therefore too from first to last neither Bellarmine nor his other stickler or associat says any thing at all or any thing that hath the least probability of truth at least to their purpose either by this last evasion of Clergiemens being directly intended to be raysed to a higher order which though true is not to purpose or by the former of Apostleship and order and of the pretended difference twixt Baptisme and Order both which are plainly false As for Bellarmines per se proprie quasi hoc ipsum intendat I have said enough to that in my former Section and it cannot be material here to repeat any thing or add concerning that And so I have done with my first demand Now therefore Next I demand of Bellarmine's admirers whether themselves must not see that that subjection which is taken away or dissolved in all those cases wherein he makes instance is of a quite different nature from that of the subjection which the Fathers teach out of the Apostle and natural reason also to be due by all sorts of men to the supream temporal Princes And consequently whether they see not that those cases or examples are to no other purpose but to shew that he sayes nothing by them to conclude that which should be his onely purpose Certainly there is no impartial cleer-sighted man but will answer these Queries affirmatively For the former subjection or that which is or was in those cases of Bellarmine is of that nature that the very laws humane or divine or both together or those for some of the cases and these for the rest have expresly specifically and
determinatly provided it should remain no longer and is of that nature too that it may be easily destroyed by humane power it self vz. by destroying its foundation or ground which is certainly known to depend also of humane laws For 1. that private person formerly subject to the Earl made so now a Prince lyes no more under any such bond of subjection to the Earl being all subjection of him is destroyed as to the same Earl because the bond or subjection under which he was formerly to him wholly depended of the pleasure or will of the supream Prince King or Emperour being it was by a power delegated from the said Supream c the said Earl formerly commanded the said privat subject this delegation was revoked when such private man was by the King made a Prince for though a Prince still inferiour subordinate to the King himself that made him such yet alwayes equal at least sometimes even in a commanding power of jurisdiction superiour to the very same Earl This person therefore so formerly subject to this Earl was onely tanquam privatus as a private and as such a private person formerly subject to the same Earl Now the King removes takes away or destroyes by the Principality given that former privateness or that quality of being any more a private man which quality with the Kings delegation was the onely ground of his former subjection to the Earl 2. Even so is the former subjection of that simple ordinary Priest wholly destroyed when he is no more such or a simple ordinary or private person or Priest 3. And even so too is the subjection of the said wives destroyed by the destruction of the matrimonial contract which was it that founded or grounded their former subjection 4. And lastly so is the filial subjection to his Father taken away by the Sons Episcopacy I mean that filia subjection which is legâ—ly nor 〈…〉 this kind 〈…〉 subjection is taken away by the humane laws of emancipation And Princeâ— or States supream who are the Lord of legal things 〈…〉 Episcopacy have the power of 〈…〉 So much 〈◊〉 that subjection which was or might have bee◠〈◊〉 to have been 〈…〉 in those cases of Bellarmine But for the subjection whereof 〈◊〉 us 〈◊〉 froâ—â—â—â— person 〈◊〉 temporal things and at all times whatsoever to the stâ—p 〈…〉 under whom such persons live we have sheâ—â—â— already 〈◊〉 it 〈…〉 vino and that the foundation or ground of liâ—◠〈…〉 consequently that it cannot be destroyed if that very humane and is 〈…〉 founds that subjection be not wholly destroyed in him who pretend 〈◊〉 to be subject to the Prince or at least if God himself do not expresly exempt him being it was God himself alone that subjected him If the 〈◊〉 by ordering one with the orders of Priesthood might consequently destroy humane nature in that person so ordered or make that such person should not be any more a man as the King destroyes the quality of a private person in him whom he creates a Prince and makes him that he is no longer a private man and as he destroyes the legal tye of a Son to his Father and as humane laws also not onely canonical but civil and municipal as we see by custome and experience destroy in many cases the contract of Matrimony because all these may be easily destroyed by men being they depend of the will of men or humane lawâ—â— the examples would be to some purpose Nay I add that the King may exempt a private person from his former subjection to an Earl and subject him hereafter immediately and onely to his own Royal cognizance though such person remain still a private person not even chang his habitation For being the King is the supream or Soveraign Prince who hath for Subjects both that Earl himself and the same Earls subjects as t is supposed in the case he may if he please at least upon just ground deprive the Earl of that delegated power which he had from him over that private person And so might God for who denyes it exempt Clerks without destroying humane nature in them But that he hath done so we have no warrant no argument yet to convince us And we have seen so many cleer arguments to convince us that he hath not and those too several of them from the very rights of natural reason And I hope by this time the Reader is satisfied that our Adversaries answers to the passages quoted out of the Fathers and for the sense of the Fathers to be that I maintain or to any thing else I asserted hether too are but meer pittifull unsignificant evasions And consequently that even by the doctrine of the Holy-Fathers that general precept of Paul Omnis â—â—ima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit Rom. 13.1 must hold alwayes in all temporal things and as to all Christian Clerks whatsoever as well as to Laicks Certainly very Catholick Classick and famous Doctors as Occam and Almainus de Eccles. Laica potestate q. 2. c. 7. maintain and with reason too that if the Emperours servant were made Pope forasmuch as belongs to divine right or law and abstracting from the laws of men or from those humane rights acquired or lost by the same laws of men that Pope however true Pope would notwithstanding remain still the Emperour's servant until the Emperour had freely discharg'd him or otherwise untill his tearm were ended if he was first bound for any time Whence also as formerly in the last Section from other arguments you may conclude how unreasonable our great Cardinal is where he sayes without any proof Diaâ—â— qui Papam in terris Vicarium suum constituit hoc ipso cum exemisse ab omni potestate Princepum terrâ—â— For this is said gratis being that by the Papacy humane nature or the being or essence and properties of a mortal man are not destroyed in or taken away from the Pope and that God hath no where declared he exempted him Nay being also the quite contrary appears out of the very letter and necessary litteral sense of holy Scripture especially Rom. 13. in the general precept to all souls and Mat. 7.17 concerning the very persons of the Apostles but more particularly of Peter as also the person of Christ himself as he was a mortal man and further appears out of the motive and end of that general precept of God in St. Paul and lastly appears out of the cleer sense of the Fathers the very words they speak and the arguments they make use of Etiamsi Apostolaâ—sis si Evangelista si Propheta sive quicumque tandem es Non enim pietatem subvertit ista subjectio is the expression of Chrisostome as you have seen before And the words and arguments of the rest you have seen also before to the same purpose in this very Section Where though I have not given all the Fathers through all Ages it was not because I could not give them all as many
conclude that which was before the conclusion of my first and grand Syllogism in this very Section against the foresaid two suppositions expressed in the Louain Censure That is whether I may not most justly repeat and most evidently conclude again that the said second or short Censure of Louain which was it only came as yet to publick view against that Remonstrance of ours or of 1661 or 1662 Must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity Nay whether indeed it be not it self and not our Remonstrance that which is truly both Vnlawfull Detestable Sacrilegious Schysmatical and Heretical being it condems for such that Protestation which in all respects is Catholick Peaceable Religious Desirable Dutifull and Lawfull And whether this Protestation being really such and that Censure really such also as it now appears abundantly to be the former so Holy the latter so Wicked the inference of the Louaine Divines wherewith they conclude their said Censure in these words Quapropter quicunque praefatam professionis formulam nondum ignorant cohibere se a signatura obligantur sub sacrilegii reatu quicumque autem signarunt refigere signaturas obligantur sub consimili reata adding to confirm this second part of their Inference and resolution that saying of the Canons incauta namque definitio salubriter dissolvenda est nec ea dissolutio reputanda est praevaricatio sed temeritatis emendatio whether I say that Inference as such or as an Inference be not deduced from notoriously false Premises and Antecedents and whether as a Resolution without any note of Inference it be not in it self as Wicked Injurious Unlawfull Detestable Schysmatical and Heretical as that must be which in a manner so solemn determines against and dehorts from the most important and most known and most necessary Christian Obedience Fidelity and Duty of Subjects to their Princes And more especially of Catholick Subjects to their Protestant Prince and yet most especially of all where the Catholick Subjects lye under such great and such rational suspition of their at least in certain Cases Fidelity to their Protestant Prince as the Rebellion of the Catholicks of Ireland in the year 1641. and their several breaches of the two Peaces in the years 1646 and 1648. besides other later Arguments have occasioned to be entertain'd of the greater part of the said Irish Catholicks Or at least and without any such relation or comparison at all but positively and strictly speaking whether that final Resolve of Louain be not and even as to both parts of it to wit the first which says That such as have not yet signed the said Remonstrance are bound under the guilt of Sacriledge to abstain from signing and the last which says also That such others who have already signed are under the like guilt bound to retire that is to revoke or cancel their Signatures whether I say that final Resolve of Louaine and as to both the said parts be not most Ungodly False Unjust Scandalous Impious and Rebellious Resolves And whether the Catholicks of Ireland practising accordingly do not thereby strengthen the Arguments of such of the Protestants as would contiue the Laws in force against Papist Recusants Whether also it appear not by this time most evidently out of what is said hitherto both in this present Section and in all the so many foregoing other Sections against the four grounds of the Louaine Censure that on the contrary such of the Catholicks of Ireland especially those of Ecclesiastical Function are under the guilt of the highest and foulest and most dangerous at least Scandal may be cast or continued on their Religion and Communion bound to add or to offer their own Subscriptions also to the said Remonstrance being that by such Subscriptions or Offer they may ruin the strongest nay the only Argument is made use of by their grand Adversaries to Scandalize their Religion and Communion and render both odious to King and State and inconsistent with the safety of at least any Protestant Kingdom or People and consequently hinder by so specious and truely strong an Argument the Repeal of the Laws which are against Papists as being a People who maintain still according to the Censure of Louaine or final Resolve therein contained that under no less then the guilt of Sacriledge no Remonstrance no Declaration no Testation or Oath is to be Subscribed by them if it disclaim any Power in the Pope to License them at his pleasure to Rebel against their Protestant King and Murther both Him and His Protestant Subjects albeit their own Relations and fellow Subjects too and who maintain also according to the same Censure or some final Resolve therein contained that even such as have already Subscribed any such Remonstrance Declaration Protestation or Oath though containing nothing else but a bare acknowledgment of the Kings Supreme or Soveraign Power in meer Temporals and the Obedience and Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects to him in such Temporals only are under no less also then the guilt of the like Sacriledge bound to Refix again their Signatures And whether such as have already Subscribed especially those of Ecclesiastical Function are not yet more strictly bound under the same highest and foulest and most dangerous Scandal to their Religion and Communion not to Refix i.e. not to retract their Subscriptions For if Priests who have so freely and voluntarily of themselves without any kind of coaction Subscribed a Lawfull Declaration of their Allegiance to their King and this only in meer Temporal Affairs be not bound not to Refix their Subscriptions upon the Judgment of Foraign or Factious Divines or upon a Letter from Rome against it or any other account whatsoever cannot all Protestants rationally conclude that there is no Trust to be reposed in no Faith to be given to such men or to any others lead or indoctrinated by them no not although they had signed Ten thousand Protestations Then which I pray can there be a more dangerous Scandal to the Religion and Communion and Persons too of Catholick Subjects under a Protestant Prince and State and where such severe and severely Penal and incapacitating Laws are still in force against Papist Recusants Besides and which is very consequentially hear whether the Faculty Theological of Louain or those of it yet alive who sign'd that most imprudent rash injurious false wicked impious and scandalous Censure And whether the two late Bruxell Internuncio's De Vecchiis and Rospigliosi and the most eminent Lord Cardinal Francis Barberin being they all three severally take the pains to write so many strange or rather bad Letters some to the Clergy and others to the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland giving both these and those caution against and exhorting all to beware of the often mention'd Remonstrance as of a dangerous unlawful and pernicious Declaration and as of one moreover contrived of purpose by false Brethren a falsis fratribus
now resolv'd to hunt them to death they left no way untried direct indirect overt covert of truth and of lies of force and fraud of secret machinations and open violence They laid about them every where both abroad in other Countries of Europe and at home in His Majestie 's Dominions being every where back'd with the special authority of the Court of Rome and even here at London which may be thought stranger being assisted by the special ministry of those who pretended still to be nevertheless very loyal Subjects to the Crown of England But no where so effectually as in the Kingdom of Ireland where His Holiness made thirteen Prelates viz. four Archbishops and nine Bishops in a very short time * 1669. 1670. 1671. that is immediately upon and soon after the Duke of Ormond's removal from the Government of that Kingdom in that very nick of time and opportunity so long expected and so passionately desired by them of meer purpose for that very Apostolical work So dangerous a thing it is reputed at Rome for the Subjects to give their natural Prince any pledge of their Faith which the Pope cannot undo It is no less criminal in the esteem of that Court than if the triple Crown it self and Keys of Heaven and Peter's Chair i. e. all the authority of the Holy See and all the very essentials of the Papacy were invaded by it In opposition to this no less persecuted than Loyal Instrument there was after four years consultation another of quite different words matter ends and consequently fortune set up by a general consent or rather intrigue of the Adversaries And this other Instrument is it which at least occasionally makes up the other half of the whole subject of this Book as it is that which was the Remonstrance Act of Recognition or Formulary propounded in and approved and subscribed by the National Synod or Congregation of the Roman Catholick Clergy both Secular and Regular Archbishops Bishops Provincials of Orders Vicars General and other Divines of Ireland convened at Dublin and there continued from the eleventh to the twenty fifth of June 1666. Now this being the onely National Synod or Assembly of Roman-Catholick Ecclesiasticks that with licence or connivence from the lawful Magistracy hath been held in any of His Majesties Kingdoms at any time since Queen Mary's Reign Who would have thought but that this singular Grace of His Majesty should have produced and even extorted from them some sutable extraordinary demonstration of their Loyalty It appeared not in their said Remonstrance or Formulary which was so fallacious and delusory so void of any assurance or so much as a promise of that indispensable Obedience and Faith which we owe to His Majesty in all Temporal things according to the Laws of the Land nay which was so void of so much as a promise of such Obedience or Faith in any one Temporal thing whatsoever according to those Laws that it was in effect little less than an open profession of Disloyalty in the Contrivers of it And therefore no wonder it was not censur'd or condemn'd but rather approved and applauded in the Roman Court. And indeed there was no other to be expected from that Synod At the opening whereof it being propounded by a Subscriber of the persecuted Remonstrance and by many clear unanswerable Reasons both urg'd and evinc'd by him that they should desire His Majesties pardon to the Irish Clergy in general for their guilt or the guilt of such of them as were obnoxious to the Laws for their carriage in the late Rebellion and Civil Wars in which even many there present were known to have been deeply engaged the prevailing Party for the rest were silent refus'd not only to ask pardon but so much as to acknowledge that there was any need of it From the acknowledgment of which they were so far as in express words before all publickly to speak and answer That they knew none at all guilty of any Crime for any thing done in the War Nay when His Majesties Lieutenant the Duke of ORMOND at that time Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of the Kingdom desired this of them at least that they would give His Majesty some assurance of their future obedience or peaceable demeanour upon any contingence either of Deposition or Excommunication by the Pope they refused even this without so much as putting it to the question It was more indeed than they thought fit to undertake for themselves But whatever their thoughts upon that or any other Subject were what I am now to re-mind you is That these two so different Formularies Remonstrances or Acts of Recognition whereof I have given hitherto that brief account which is proper in this place and all the Disputes concerning the former and all the Intrigues of the latter and all the material proper immediate Antecedents Concomitants and Consequents of both are equally the Subject of this present Book And that both of them equally concern although with different Aspects the Roman-Catholick Faith and Professors especially in these Kingdoms the former tending directly yea necessarily to the true advantage of that Religion but the latter by no less necessity of evident reason tending to the great disadvantage nay to the utter destruction of that which you hold dearer than your lives Without peradventure then you are universally so concern'd in the Subject of this Book as I have said and not only you but your Posterity after you and your Priests and your Nobles your Gentry and People your Peace and Quiet Religion Estates Liberty and Lives in short all your happiness and being in this World not to say also in the future If any yet doubt of this I desire him to look back and consider how many thundering Bulls have been issued from the Roman See at several times since the year 1535 some excommunicating others deposing our Princes and others even disposing of their Kingdoms and exposing them as a prey to Forreigners How many dangerous Invasions from abroad and rebellious Insurrections at home How many other treasonable Conspiracies and horrid Plots that followed those Papal sentences And all the ill success of such unchristian bloody undertakings the extinction of so many hundred illustrious Families the desolation of so many thousand ancient Houses the destruction of so many Myriads of poor harmless innocent People on every side and all the unspeakable miseries of the vanquish'd Party the pitiful Groans of surviving Heirs and the penitential Sobs of their dying Fathers for having under pretence of Catholick Religion or for any other cause whatsoever lifted up an armed hand against their Prince or his Laws I am deceived if these be not as many unanswerable demonstrations that you are without any doubt so universally and deeply concern'd in that Subject Whereunto if the penal Laws be added what can be desired more to evince even perceptibly to sense your great concernment therein All Roman-Catholicks universally without any
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
clearest both Texts and Reasons imaginable Of all which manifold Authorities of Reason Gospel Humane Laws and Canons having had sufficient knowledge when I engaged in the Controversie and more when for so engaging and for that only I was so strangely prosecuted by Summons Censures c I thought that even my duty to you and the regard I was bound to have of your common interest required of me to make the best use I could of that knowledge in order to your publick good as well on the one hand to assert your and my both Native and Christian right against them that invaded it by those unlawful proceedings as also on the other hand to shew at least in one instance the untruness of that Proposition whereof depends and wherein lies the whole stress of the grand Objection against you which if I be not much deceived is in substance this viz. That for any Roman-Catholick Priest holding firmly to all and every the Articles of Faith undoubtedly believed or at least own'd as such amongst all Roman-Catholicks universally and observing all other duties required of him by the Canons received generally in the National Churches of that Religion it is impossible to be in all cases or contingencies whatsoever indispensably or unalterably obedient and faithful to a Protestant Prince or Kingdom or Government not even in so much as in all meer Civil or Temporal things onely according to the Laws of the Land especially if the Pope command him to the contrary under pain of Excommunication Now as I have behaved my self hitherto I am sure I have manifestly enough proved the untruth of that Proposition and by consequence for as much as pertains to me have really answer'd the grand Objection deducible from it And so have not a few other Irish Priests even all those who together with me suffered very much for many years in the former Cause of the Nunoio or in this latter of the Remonstrance or in both and have not as to either condemn'd or contradicted themselves hitherto by any unworthy submission though at last compellâ—d to silence and in other matters forced to desert me and to submit to their Adversaries Nor do I at all doubt but rather am certain there are this day within England above Five hundred Native Priests beside a great many more in Ireland however at present weathering out the storm so fully resolved for the future in their own persons and cases likewise to disprove that Proposition and to satisfie the Objection built thereon That if His MAJESTY and both Houses of PARLIAMENT may be graciously pleased to try them once with an Act of Grace after a hundred years punishment and to take off I say not any other Incapacity but onely that of living in their Native Countrey that when at home they have satisfied the State they may not be driven abroad to beg or starve and be there exposed to all the rage and violence of the Roman Court they will by a publick Instrument signed under all their hands declare as amply and clearly and heartily against all the foresaid new Doctrines and Practises and all other whatsoever groundless vain pretences of Rome as I have done or as that Act shall require and will be ready to renew that Assurance as oft as shall be required and even to expose their Lives if need be in defence of it notwithstanding any Declarations Precepts or Censures of the Pope to the contrary Third Appendage relating to the Sixth Querie That I know and cannot but mind you of what the Roman-Catholicks of these Kingdoms have lost even since the King 's most happy Restauration by not being advised by Church-men of honest principles in point of His Majesties independent Power and the Subjects indispensable Obedience to Him in all Civil or Temporal things according to the Laws of the Land They have lost three fair opportunities of being not only eased of all their pressures from the penal Statutes but rendred as happy as they could in reason desire or even wish under a Protestant King and Government The first opportunity was offered them in England in the year 1661 when it was earnestly and strongly moved in their behalf in the House of Lords to Repeal the Sanguinary Laws in the first place and a Hill was drawn up to that purpose The second and third were in Ireland the former in the year 1662 when a discontented Party of the Adventurers and Souldiers there had laid their design for surprizing the King's Castle at Dublin and the latter in the year 1666 when we were in the first War with Holland and near to it with France and the Irish National Congregation of the Roman-Catholick Clergy was by occasion of that War suffered to convene at Dublin in order to assure the King of their fidelity How happy the Roman-Catholicks in general might have been if they had taken time by the forelock in any of those three opportunities especially in the first may be easily understood And how unhappy their neglect or wilfulness hath proved to themselves I cannot but with grief of heart consider The rather because I was my self the onely man employed first to the Roman-Catholick Clergy both of England and Ireland on the foresaid occasions to prepare them against any obstruction from themselves of the favours intended towards them and that nothing else was required on the first occasion from those in England but their being ready to take the Oath of Allegiance onely as in the Statute 3 Jacobi His Majesty being then inclined to have dispens'd with them for the Oath of Supremacy nor in the second and third occasion was any thing required from those of Ireland more than their Signing the Loyal Remonstrance or Formulary which had been Sign'd before in the year 1661 by some of their own Ecclesiastical Brethren and so considerable number of their Nobility and Gentry For my own part I am morally certain that if those fair opportunities had not been slighted or if either the one or the other condition had been embraced you should not have seen in your dayes any such tryal of men for bearing office as that you complain of so much now a renouncing of the Doctrine or Tenet of Transubstantiation according to the late Act of the Parliament of England And I am no less certain that had you hearkned to the advice of any of those many virtuous learned Church-men amongst you who have as much true zeal according to knowledge even for the splendor of Catholick Religion and as much true reverence for and obedience to His Holiness as according to Reason or Christianity they can have and withall are truly well affected and rightly principled as to that faith and obedience which they and you all owe by the Laws of God and man to the Temporal Government you had neither slighted any of those good opportunities nor neglected to embrace either of those two most reasonable conditions Fourth Appendage but relating to all the Queries generally
in the Title of it before the Introduction and in the Argument of the whole immediately following that Introduction yet when I came to the Censure of Louain and to their four chief grounds c I found it expedient to give there at length what in substance was for the greatest part on several occasions and for the rest might on other the like occasions be unanswerably said against all and every of the said four grounds of that nevertheless ungrounded Louain Censure the rather that Father Caian neither in his Remonstrantia Hibernorum not in any other Book had lifted any of the said grounds in specie VI. Pursuing this incidental matter I dispute against those Louain Divines nay expresly also and purposely too against their Leaders the most eminent Cardinals Bellarmine Baronius c from Sect. LII pag. 117. to Sect. LXXVIII pag. 487. First Part of the First Treatise that is throughout Fourstore and odd sheets consequently Which having done I return again to pure matter of Fact according to the principal design of the said First Treatise VII The searching throughly into the bottom of their Fourth Ground takes up Threescore and ten sheets of that long but necessary Insertion Which no man will admire it should who shall consider That by ruining that Fourth Ground onely which is the pretended Exemption of Clergymen from the Supreme Temporal or Secular and Civil both directive and coercive Power and consequently by proving the subjection even of all Clerks i. e. of all Ecclesiasticks Priests Monks Bishops Archbishops Primats Patriarchs and Popes nay of all Apostles Evangelists and Prophets c to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate to have been from the beginning de jure divino and never to have been after at any time altered or otherwise determined by any Laws of God or man I must without further trouble have both consequently and evidently ruin'd all and every the pretences of the Pope or Church to any Dominion Jurisdiction or Prefection whether direct or indirect over the Temporals of the Supreme Lay-Magistrate For natural reason shews every man That Subjection and Exemption how much more That Subjection and Prefection Jurisdiction Dominion in order to the same Temporal Magistrate and Temporal matters are incompatible in the same person or persons whatsoever Because they are such contrary Attributes as being affirm'd of any thing infer a manifest Contradiction v. g. To be subject and not to be subject at the same time and in the same respect to the self-same Temporal Powers And therefore by proving clearly no Exemption at all of any Ecclesiasticks whatsoever from the Supreme Civil either directive or coercive Power nay by proving consequentially and by no less clearly and positively evincing a total subjection of them to the said Power I must likewise of necessity evince that they can pretend no kind of Authority either direct or indirect in any case whatsoever to dethrone depose deprive suspend or lessen that same Power unless peradventure they can make Contradictories true VIII My purpose to pull up thus by the very root and overturn the sandy foundation of that so vain pretended Authority over the Temporals of lay-Lay-Princes and States is it that made me unravel the whole matter of Ecclesiastical Immunity and dispute it so largely with all the exactness I could For I have therein proceeded first in a negative way answering all and every material Argument of Bellarmine yea and of others also to a tittle as well those in his Book de Clericis as those other in his latter Work against William Barclay and consequently as well those so unconsequentially derived by him either from the Laws of Nature or Laws of Nations or from the authority of Ethnick Historians or other Authors as those which he no less ungroundedly grounds partly on the divine and positive Laws of God in Holy Scriptures partly on the humane Laws of Christian Emperours in the Code of Theodosius or Institutions of Justinian partly on the Canons of either old or new Ecclesiastical Synods partly on the bare sayings of some ancient Fathers or even Popes in their own Cause and partly too on the bare Testimony or Authority of some of our Church-Annalists or Historians Next I have proceeded also on that Subject in a positive or affirmative way by proving manifestly and I think unanswerably too from all the same Topicks of the Laws of God and man of those of Nature and those of Nations of those of Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testament and those not onely of Imperial Constitutions but Ecclesiastical Canons yea and meer Papal Canons too and from the judgment also of ancient Fathers in their Commentaries and the Testimony of other even Ecclesiastical Writers in their Histories and in the last place from and by the intrinsick Topick of pure natural and obvious Reason That never yet hath any such Exemption of Clerks i. e. Churchmen from the Supreme either directive or coercive Power of the Civil Magistrate had any being at all in rerum natura or any right to such being Nay I have shewed also by manifest Reason I think that neither at any time hereafter can Princes give such Exemption to Clerks their Subjects without either manifest contradiction in adjecto as Logicians speak or devesting themselves wholly and really of the name and authority of Kings or Princes over them IX If any except against my deriving of Arguments or alledging of Precedents from the Facts of Justinian the Emperour as you find I do Sect. LXXIII pag. 359. or shall out of ignorance or spleen follow the examples either of Baronius Spondanus and Alemannus or of Evagrius long before them so inconsiderately and falsely blasting the glorious memory of that most Christian most Catholick most pious and virtuous Prince as if he had been not only a violator of Ecclesiastical Immunity and an Usurper of the Sacerdotal Office in many respects but a Defender and Believer of manifest Heresie (a) Haeresis Apthartodocitarum sive Incorruptibilium vel Phantasiastarum viz. of that which believed or taught our Saviours flesh to have been alwayes incorruptible and as if he had therefore been eternally damn'd to Hell if any I say except or object thus against my alledging the Facts of Justinian it will be satisfaction enough at present to let him know 1. That Evagrius who is the first Author of this Relation and Invective against Justinian writ onely by hear-say of that matter as who both writ and ended his History long after Justinian's death viz. in the Twelfth year of Mauritius the Emperor * Justinian dyed an Chr. 565. The twelfth year of Mauritius was an Chr. 595. which was thirty years after Justinian's death 2. That the Christian World both East and West in those very dayes of Evagrius held a far other opinion of Justinian's Faith as may appear even out of Pope Agatho's Letter to the Emperours Constantinus Heraclius and Tiberius who Reigned both successively after Justinian and
defiled but certainly hold upon that matter in 〈◊〉 To be 〈◊〉 the Answers were 1. That it very ill â—â—ted with the profession of the followers of Christ and Successors of his Apostles and Disciples or the function of Priests of God and Preachers of Evangelical tâ—â—â—â— by their calling for any earthly regard or ambitious aim of titles or diguleies either 〈…〉 of the Church to decline the declaration of their conscience or of the doctrine of Christ whereby the stocks on people 〈◊〉 their charge or to whom they were sent might be sâ—â—â—dly and sufficiently instructed that to embrace 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 as prescribed by the law of God That besides they were altogether ouâ— in their way to those worldly and they proposed themselves with so little regard of their duty or conscience That the case was much altered 〈◊〉 that hath been these hundred years pasts And that if they expected a greater liberty they should withal expect a more arrow inspection from the Prince or State into their affairs and Government and to the persons amongst them advanced 〈◊〉 others and to the means and wayes of their advancement hereafter and their 〈◊〉 its consequently principles and faithfulness to the Crown 2. That 〈◊〉 of them as formerly had been so with â—unate and indeed most of them were so as to have been pactiâ—â—s in the Nunâ—â—o's and other annexed quarrels against the brights of the Crown 〈…〉 of the Kingdom had the 〈◊〉 reason now to be forward to embrace the opportunity given them of meâ—â—ing hereafter a better opinion and removing as well as they might out of His Majesties breast Lord Lieutenants and even out of all the rest of their fellow Subjects especially Protestants the jealousies and suspicions their former actions continue yet in them and must alwayes continue if they refuse to give so lawful and dutiful so catholick and conscientious an argument of their change and repentance as their subscription to the said Remonstrance must be reputed 3. That for those others of them who in the 〈…〉 him been honest and loyal all along they should 〈…〉 the fair hope they had of a â—ew 〈…〉 its a 〈…〉 then this for their further good 〈…〉 their profession and â—â—â—ingâ—ed 〈◊〉 of their 〈…〉 uniform in in their doctrine and life according to the law of God in all sentiâ—â—â— that Time servers nor Wealth â—â—ckâ— That besides they should confides the streight the King was in but with so 〈…〉 the impossibility of satisfying 〈…〉 happen in such a case that of this Countrey but why 〈…〉 That to the publick good and gâ—â—â— parts of the Kingdom 〈…〉 of particular could not be preferred That they 〈…〉 be of the necessities of the publick for disposition And if the King or now Laws did wrong any even of the best deserving of their friends their religion and their conscience and principles told them and their function or calling peculiarly they nor other Subjects had in such a case other remedy but prayers and tears and supplications to Him that can believe the oppressed when he please in this world and will certainly 〈…〉 in Christian patience in a better Finally that the liberty 〈◊〉 exercise of Religion and of indoctrinating the People in the wayes to heaten were the markâ— propâ—r 〈◊〉 them to shoâ— at and to this end they were called not to contend for partitions of earthly patrimonies And that where one Proprietor 〈◊〉 his â—and a thousand Catholicks would loose their souls if they would not pursue in 〈◊〉 even course the principles of the Religion and a good Conscience and by their concurrence wipe off the jealousies raised against and scandals aspersed on it by the doctrine and practises which that Remonstrance did condemn on disown 4. To those that had ingrafted in them an aversioâ— against all was called or reputed the Interest of the Crown of England in this Countrey it was seriously inculcated how unfortunate both themselves and predecessors had been therein during the revolâ—â—â—â—s and various attempts in prâ—secution thereof these 500 years past since Hâ—â—ty the 2d And how the principles and arguments they made use of to flatten themselves to some kind of â—â—â—â—fulness which indeed 〈◊〉 a pitiful and in point of conscienâ—â— were such as chose and no other then those which Father Charles 〈◊〉 Mahâ—n the Mâ—â—er Jesuit hath in his wicked Apology set out in Portugal however pretended to have been printed at Frandâ—fords and dispersed here amongst the Confederate though publickly burn'd by the hand of a hangman at Kilkenny and by the authority also of the said Confederate and against which the Proculator himself by the command of to then supream Council preach't nine Sermons five Sundays one after another in St. Kennys Church on that text of Jeremiah Quis est 〈◊〉 vobis sap â—â—siqui considerat hoc quare perierit terra Even such as would involve by consequence all Kingdoms and States in the whole earth whereinto my Forreigner ever enter'd as any time in perpetual war and blood shed Such as would beâ—â—â—ve of all right all conquering Nations let the causes of the invasion be never so just or continued-possession after be never so long and the submission of the conquer'd never so voluntary for what can appear to the eyes of man And such also as would arm even themselves who made use of such arguments one against another while the world did stand Nay and such too as being prest on by contrary arguments would make them confess consequently as indeed they did such of them as were ingenuous and freely spoke their minds to the Procurator urging them in point of reason that it were not a sin against the law of God for any to involve the whole Kingdom iâ— was again if he could to recover only for himself a small patrimony even of a much as twenty pounds a year whereof he had been in his own privat judgement dispossesâ—â—d unjustly in the late plantations made before the wars It was further laid open to such men how their sin entertaining such mâ—râ—â—â—es and harbouring such designs was by so much the more abominable before God and man by how much they were themselves Hypocritical in pretending only to others that knew them not a speciousness of Religion and that of the Church of God and interest of the Pope Then which or any of all which God knowes they intended nothing less but where it brought or could bring their other truly intended worke about 5. To the Regulars in general it was answer'd That they knew better their own strength and their own exemption and their own priviledges then so That they often engage against the whole body of the secular Clergie in matters wherein they are sure to offend them more and have more opposition from them and less support from others either in their own Country at home or abroad in forraign parts or even at Rome And they were sure enough the Pope would be wiser then to discountenance such a numerous body
and grace and above all of his Holinesse's they were certain for their opposition to the Remonstrance as the Promoters of it should be certain of all kind of disfavour and so certain thereof that they could hardly ever expect any promotion or preferment in the Church or in their own Orders and that the Dissenters not only had that great advantage as to Church preferments and with the Distributers of such but no less certainly perswaded themselves to be equal in time at home even with the first Subscribers and even I say as to all protection and liberty from the King and State if they should be forced at last to subscribe such however compelled subscription sufficing the King of one side and excusing them on the other with the Pope and others beyond Seas and albeit the Procurator saw as clearly as consequently that the rest of the Romish Clergy throughout all other parts of the Countrey in the several Provinces received their punctual directions from those at Dublin some from one Order and some from another and others from the Parish-priests and accordingly guided themselves and therefore saw the necessity of prevailing first with those of Dublin notwithstanding and though he laboured much and often with every Order of them severally and Parish-Priests also yet he made it his chief work and for the reasons before given to perswade the Fathers of the Society Which alone was almost his only care for many weeks together XXV The progress and issue of all which was That by their own acknowledgment he cleared all the pretended conscientious scruples of those of them that treated with him That after this Father Iohn â—albot assured him that neither himself nor others of that Society who had past their last vows or fourth profession and consequently could not be ejected at the pleasure of the General or upon other less accounts then other Regulars would any longer delay their subscription then the Procurator had got the positive answer of their Superiour Father Shelton what ever his answer were And further that they would justifie by Letters to Rome and to their General and own publickly to him such their proceedings or subscription That having several times discoursed with the said Father Shelton and by Letter at last urged him to a resolution he before he would resolve sent these two or three Queries in â—â—iâ—ing to the Procurator desiring an answer to them in writing also Whether the Pope hath a perswasive and directive power over temporal Princes in temporal matters pro bono Ecclesiae And whether temporal Princes in such cases may lawfully obey him or are bound to obey him according to that of St. Bernard Converte gladium tuum in vaginam Tuus ergo ipse tuo forsitan nutu si non tua manu evaginandus Uterque ergo Ecclesiae spiritualis scilicet gladius materialis Sed is quidem pro Ecclesiâ ille vero ab Ecclesiâ exerendus est Ille Sacerdotis is militis manu sed sane ad nutum Sacerdotis XXVI That the Procurator answered this paper of Quaeries by another of Resolves And to the first Quaerie That not only the Pope but inferiour Bishops nay Ghostly Fathers have a perswasive and directive power of temporal Princes even in temporal matters and not only pro bono Ecclesiae but for the particular spiritual advantage of such Princes even such a perswasive or directive power as his Holiness and other Bishops Curats and Ghostly Fathers have respectively in temporal matters life death war peace estates inheritances c. of all Christians respectively subject to them for spiritual direction And therefore no such directive power of Princes in such matters even pro bono Ecclesiae as carries along with it a coercive power in the strict and proper sense of coercive but only a coercive power secundum quid that is by inflicting spiritual punishments and inflicting them only in a spiritual way or by spiritual means although it be confessed that sometimes or in some cases corporal punishments or temporal may be prescribed Yet inasmuch as these cannot be inflicted on the delinquent by the Church or which is the same thing that the Church hath no power from Christ to make use of corporal strength external force coaction or the material sword to execute on the Delinquent such punishments if himself do not freely consent therefore it is that we cannot allow even his Holiness as he is Vicar of Christ or Successor of St. Peter any coercive power properly or strictly such over any man much less in the temporal affairs of temporal Princes but only a coercive power by means or wayes that are purely spiritual that is by precepts and censures and these too only when they are ad edificationem non ad destructionem For it is manifest that although the particular Bishops of Diocesses have a perswasive and directive power of their respective temporal Diocesans what ever you say of Parish-priests and Ghostly Fathers in foro paenitentiae even I say in temporal things in that sense the Pope hath of the universal body of the faithful yet such particular Bishops cannot use external coaction force or the material sword by virtue I mean of their power from Christ or from the Church too as such to give any mans possessions and actually really transfer them to another although peradventure or in some contingency they may ex vi persuasiva and directiva even enjoyn any to a voluntary translation of all his rights as in case of necessary restitution In which case the Bishop notwithstanding would have as much power of coercion which would be necessary or essential to the directive as his Holiness And yet no coercive power simply such that is to force restitution by the material sword but secundum quid to wit by spiritual commands and prohibition or exclusion by such commands only from the Sacraments and from the Communion of the faithful Where indeed the directive and coercive power of the Church if you must needs use the word coercive so and attribute it to the Church doth and must end To the second Quaerie or the first part of the next disjunctive question the answer was affirmative whensoever Princes find not apparently oâ— clearly a contradiction in their commands perswasions or directions to the Commandements of God or Canons of the Church or find them evidently hazardous or destructive of their Kingdoms or People or of any other against the law of nature and reason or conscience And hence To the third Quaerie or second part of the complex or disjunctive question the Resolve was negative specially in all those excepted cases of a contradiction to the Commands of God or Canons of the Church or hazzards of their Crowns Kingdom or people or manifest wrong to any other against the law of nature and reason All which Princes are not bound to judge of according to the temporal interests or pretences of either his Holiness or other Bishop To
amongst all those 72. Canons pretended for any such opinion of those Fathers How graunting even this very Canon particularly assented too and enacted by those Fathers unanimously which yet cannot according to truth be graunted no more can follow hence but that this Canon and for as much as it contains any temporal punishment or penalty of confiscation deprivation forfeiture c of estate was made by the Pope not as Pope but as a temporal Prince and made so by him for the temporal patrimony of St. Peter and other territories of the Roman See and for other Kingdoms or States made such not by the Bishops or their authority but by the authority of other temporal Princes of Christendom who all assisted in that Council by themselves in person or by Embassadours How therefore and for many other reasons which may be seen at large in Widdringtons last Rejoynder chap. 9.10.11 c. that Canon comprehends not in word or sense at all any Supream or Soveraign Princes or States but inferiour Lords or inferiour Magistrates onely according to the Doctrine and maximes even of very many of the very best Canonists themselves How onely too it is at most but a Canon of Discipline not even for that part of it which was proper to Bishops or to the Spiritual power purely such and consequently as to its vertue depending even herein of reception by those concerned and of not being abrogated after by contrary use where it was once received in what ever sense it was received or if ever indeed in any place received How finally Cardinal Bellarmine himself moved questionless by the strength and cleerness of all or at least of many of these reasons given hitherto concerning either the nullity or insignificancy of this Canon or of the rest alleadged so vainly as Canons of the 4th Lateran Council in his great Works of controversie and Books therein de Romano Pontifice where he amassed together all his strength and all the Councils he then saw might be with any colour alleadged by him to prove the Popes pretence of power for deposing Princes or inflicting on them temporal punishments omitted notwithstanding any kind of mention of this Lateran Council or Canon so little did he value it then Nor had after at any time recourse thereunto before he saw himself baffled and beaten out of all his former arguments either of Scriptures Canons or other his pittiful congrueties of reason by Doctor William Barclay or Barclay the Father in his learned Work de Potestate Papae An et quatenus in Reges et Principes Seculares ius et imperium habeat And how then for saving his own credit all he could in his reply to the said William Barclay though dead long before this reply he thought fitt to impose on the world by this unsignificant if not plainly forged Canon of that Lateran Council as Lessius another of his own Society and some time a famous Professor of Divinity in their House at Lovain had done before him to render the English Oath of Allegiance that I mean which is in the Statute of King Iames odious and uncatholick upon this account But withal how this most eminent Cardinal was no less shamefully the second time foiled in all his allegations and arguments or in those of the said Reply and amongst the rest very notably in his allegation of this Council and Canon and foiled so I say by Iohn Barclay or Barclay the Sonn in his Pietas Ioannis Barclay or his Publicae pro Regibus ac Principibus et private pro Guilielmo Barclay Parente Vindiciae Adversus Roberti S. R. E. Cardinalis Bellarmini Tractatum de Potestate Summi Pontificis in rebus Temporalibus and particularly for what concerns this Council and this third Canon of it in his Examen in Prolegomena Rob. Bellar num 76. How for what concerns that other Council of Lyons there is not one word in History or in the Acts of that Council nay nor in the very Sentence or Bull of Innocentius the Fourth who there deposed Frederick that may warrant this part of their allegation or of their saying it is or was the opinion of that Council of Lyons How on the contrary the very title or beginning of the Bull it self of Deposition sufficiently insinuats the contrary where it is said only Sacro praesente not Sacro approbante Concilio That the Acts and History which may be read briefly in M. L. Baïl that Parisian Doctors late Sum of General Councils witness the suddain horrour and amazement of that Council when they heard so unexpectedly a sentence of Deposition pronounced first by the Pope himself that is by his own mouth and after immediatly a formal one read out of paper by his command That Albertus Stadensis (a) Papa in jam dicto Coâ—cilio scilicet in die S Jacobi contra Imperatorem excommunicationis sententiam renovavit eum ab Imperiali Culmine authoritate propria deposuit hanc depositionem per totam Ecclesiam promulgavit praecipiens sub interminatione excommunicationis ut nullus eum Imperatorem de cetero nominaret Albertus Stadensis in Chronico in his Chronicle ad annum 1245. most particularly and expresly tells this Sentence was pronounced not by the authority of the Council but by the only proper authority of Innocent alone That in case that Council of Lyons had approved of it as the truth is they did not yet nothing thence could be concluded for that Councils opinion of a power in the Pope or themselves or in the Church however taken purely as the Church to depose any other or any supream temporal Prince Because that Frederick as Innocent that very same fourth Pope of that name who deposed him so alledgeth in his Bull of Deposition That the said Frederick I say had bound himself by an Oath of Allegiance to him Innocent the 3d. formerly to wit when he had illegally usurped the Empire in pursuance of another sentence of Deposition given by the self same Innocent the Third against Otho the former Emperour And because the Empire is not Hereditary nor hath been for many ages And consequently may be such or might have been such in the dayes of the said Innocent the Fourth as might have admitted the Popes negative voice in the election and further too his provision in case of a Tyrant or Usurper But whether it was then so or no I am not concerned at all nor is our present Controversie concerned in it For in other Princes especially Soveraign and Hereditary the case is different As hath been well observed by the Author of the Latin Treatise which begins Rex Pacificus de Potestate Papae And for the Emperour how elective soever I am sure he hath Lawyers both Civilians and Canonists nay and great Divines too enough to defend his rights from any kind of subjection to the Pope in temporals as even Frederick himself had For sayes the foresaid Albertius Stadensis Quidam Principum cum
justice or such dispensation may be given without manifest injury to a third and besides where it is not repugnant to the law of God positive or natural And all this binding and loosing power in the Pope even in the whole Execution of it according to the Canons of the Vniversal Church and as farre as these Canons allow it as it is and will be religiously acknowledged and observed still by the Subscribers in all occasions so it is left wholly untouch'd unspoken of unmedled with but supposed still by the Remonstrance as a most Sacred Right not to be controverted much less denyed the Pope by any Catholick nor even to other Bishops of the Church for the portion belonging to them by the self same Canons But what hath this to do with the Lovain pretence of a power in the Pope to bind people by the Popes own peculiar laws Canons precepts or censures by Bulls or otherwise to do that which according to plain Scriptures practise of the primitive Church and Churches following for XI entire ages and according to the interpretation or sense delivered by Holy Fathers of those very Scriptures and according to the very first and clearest reflections also of natural reason must be vitious wicked and even most enormously wicked transgressions of those laws of God wherein neither Pope nor Vniversal Church have any power to dispense what to do with a pretended power in any to absolve from Subjection or command the Rebellion of Subjects against Soveraign Princes who are accountable to none for their temporals but to God Or what to do with binding or loosing to the prejudice and manifest injury not of one third person alone but of so many millions of third persons as there are people in a Kingdom or State This loosing is not of sin or of the penalties of sin but of virtue of Christian duties and divine injunctions Nor is such binding a binding to Holy righteousness but to Horrible depravedness And therefore both such binding and such loosing must be from no true power Divine or Humane from no Gospel of Jesus Christ or Canons of the Catholick Church nor from those Holy Keyes of knowledge or jurisdiction given St. Peter to open Heaven to penitents or shut it to impenitents nor from any Keyes at all but very false and errant Keyes if not right or true Keyes in this sense and to this purpose only that they set open the Gates of Hell first to receive all such unhappy Soules as make use of them and then to lock them in for ever Yet now that the Pope is and while he is or shall be continued a Soveraign temporal Prince in some part of Italy for the time hath been for many ages of Christianity even since Christian Religion was by law established when the Pope had no such not only Soveraign or supream but not even any inferiour subordinate temporal Princely power and may be so again for ought any man knows the Subscribers will freely grant the Lovain Divines That upon just grounds when truely such are or shall be the Pope may in the capacity of a temporal Prince but not of a Christian Bishop and may I say without any breach of the law of God declare and make Warr against the King of England always provided that he observe in all particulars what the law of God Nations and Nature require from him in the declaration or prosecution thereof And may do so with as much right as any other Soveraign Prince meerly temporal can but with no more certainly And further that the grounds of warr may possibly or in some extraordinary case be such on the Popes side as not only in the unerrable judgement of God but in the opinion of all men that shall know the grounds of both sides truely and sincerely stated the Warr may be just on the Popes side and unjust on the Kings The Subscribers do freely grant the Lovain Divines all this and all the advantages they can derive hence But what then must it follow that the subscribers have therefore sacrilegiously or against the sincerity of Catholick Religion declared in general or promised in their Remonstrance that they are ready to stand by the King and loose their lives in defence of his Person Rights or Crown or of his Kingdom State and people against all invaders whatsoever Papal or Princely spiritual or temporal c. forraign or domestick Or must this follow albeit we grant also the said promise or Declaration of standing so by the King to extend it self to or comprehend that very extraordinary case or contingency of our certain evident knowledg of the injustice of the Warr on the Kings side and clear Justice on the Popes Certainly neither the one nor other follows For albeit the case or supposition be rather metaphysically then morally possible that the generality of Subjects of either of the Princes or States in Warr together may evidently know or certainly assure themselves of the cleer Justice of the affailants fide at least so as to have no such kind of probability of any Justice on the defendants part and forasmuch as he is a Defendant yet admitting the case were morally possible who knows not that natural reason tells us and Divines and Lawyers teach that however the Prince both rashly and unjustly brings a Warr on himself and people yet both he and they are bound to hazard their lives each for others mutual defence that is for the defence of the Crown Kingdom State and Republick and for the lives liberties goods and fortunes of all that compose it though not for defence of any rashness or injustice So that although it be granted that both Prince and people are to quit all kind of unjust pretences yet their own natural defence or that of their goods lives and liberties as it comes not under that notion so it is unseparable from their taking armes in their own mutual defence in a meere defensive Warr or even that which happens after to be offensive before a good or Just peace can be obtained and is so I mean unseparable notwithstanding any injustice whatsoever done at first by Prince or people that brought the Warr upon themselves Be it therefore so that the Pope in such temporal capacity would make Warr on the King of England and be it granted for the present what otherwise in it self is very doubtful at least if not manifestly false That for the only unjust laws or only unjust execution of such or only other misgovernment or oppressions whatsoever of one King or Prince of his own proper natural undoubted Subjects without any injury done thereby to forraigners or any other forraign Kings Subjects or Prince or State such forraign Monarch or Common-wealth may justly declare and make Warr against him as for example the French or Spanish King and by the same reason the Pope also in his said temporal capacity against the King of England and be it clear and evident likewise that the
pretence or even true real only cause of Warr so declared and prosecuted by the Pope against our King is purely and solely for unjust laws made and executed against Catholicks and against as well their temporal as spiritual rights and only to restore such rights to the Catholick Subjects of great Brittain and Ireland and be it further made as clear and certain as any thing can be made in this life to an other by Declarations or Manifestoes of the Popes pure and holy intentions in such an undertaking and of his Army 's too or that they intend not at all to Usurp for themselves or alienat the Crown or other rights of the Kingdoms or of any of the people but only to restore the Catholick people to their former state according to the ancient fundamental laws and to let the King govern them so and only disinable him to do otherwise and having put all things into such order to withdraw his Army altogether let all this I say be granted yet forasmuch as considering the nature of Warr and conquest and how many things may intervene to change the first intentions so pure could these intentions I say be certainly known as they cannot to any mortal man without special Divine revelation what Divines can be so foolish or peremptory as to censure the Catholick Subjects for not lying under the mercy of such a forraign Army or even in such a case to condemn them either of Sacriledg or of any thing against the sincerity of Catholick Faith only for not suffering themselves to lye for their very natural being at such mercy Or if any Divines will be so foolish or peremptory as these Lovain Divines proved themselves to have been by this second ground of their Censure I would fain know what clear uncontroverted passage of Holy Scripture and allowed uncontroverted sense thereof or what Catholick uncontroverted doctrine of holy Tradition or even what convincing argument of natural reason they can alleadg in the case And as I am sure they cannot alleadg any so all others may presume so too being their said original long Censure wherein they lay down all their grounds and likely too their best proofs of such dare not see the light or abide the test of publick view And if all they would have by this ground or pretence of ground or by the bad arguments they frame to make it good were allowed it is plain they conclude no more against a Remonstrance which assures our King of his Roman Catholick Subjects to stand by him in all contingencies whatsoever for the defence of his person Crown Kingdom and people and their natural and political or civil rights and liberties against the Pope himself then they would against such a Remonstrance as comprehended not such standing by against the Pope but only against French Spanish or other Princes of the Roman Church or Communion For the Pope hath no more nor can pretend any more right in the case to make Warr on the King of England then any meer temporal Prince of that Religion can being if he did Warr it must be only and purely as a meer temporal Prince for as having pure Episcopal power either that wich is immediately from Jesus Christ or that which is onely from the Fathers and Canons of the Church or if you please from both he is not capacitated to fight with the sword but with the word that is by praying and preaching and laying spiritual commands and inflicting spiritual censures only where there is just cause of such And I am sure the Lovain Divines have not yet proved nor will at any time hereafter that the non-rebellion of Subjects against their own lawful Prince let his government be supposed never so tyrannical never so destructive to Catholick Faith and Religion or even their taking arms by his command to defend both his and their own civil and natural rights against all forraign invaders whatsoever and however specious the pretext of invasion be is a just cause of any such spiritual Ecclesiastical censure Nor have proved yet against them or can hereafter that such censures in either of both cases would bind any but him alone that should pronounce them and those only that besides would obey them Yet all this notwithstanding I am farre enough and shall ever be from saying or meaning that Subjects whatsoever Catholick or not Catholick ought or can justy defend any unjust cause or quarrel of their Prince when they are evidently convinced of the injustice of it Nor consequently is it my saying or meaning that Catholick Subjects may enlist themselves in their Princes Army if an offensive Warr be declared against the Pope or even other Catholick Prince or State soever and had been declared so by the Prince himself or by his Generals or Armyes and by publick Manifesto's or otherwise known sufficiently and undoubtedly to be for extirpation of the true Orthodox Faith or Catholick Religion or of the holy rites or Liturgy or holy discipline of it Nor doth our Remonstrance engage us to any such thing but is as wide from it as Heaven from Earth It engages us indeed to obey the King even by the most active obedience can be even to enlist our selves if he command us and hazard our lives in fighting for the defence of his Person Crowns Kingdoms and People amongst which people our selves are but only still in a defensive Warr for his and their lives rights and liberties but engages us not at all to any kind of such active obedience nor ever intended to engage or supposed us engaged thereunto in case of such an offensive Warr as I have now stated What obedience the Remonstrance engages us unto in this later case is onely or meerly passive And to this passive obedience I confess it binds us in all contingencies whatsoever even the very worst imaginable But therefore binds us so because the law of the Land and the law of God and the law of Reason too without any such Remonstrance bound us before The Remonstrance therefore brings not in this particular as neither indeed in any other any kind of new tye on us but only declares our bare acknowledgement of such tyes antecedently Even such tyes as are on all Subjects of the world to their own respective lawful supream politick Governours Which bind all Subjects whatsoever to an active obedience when ever and where euer they are commanded any thing either good of its own nature or even but only indifferent and where the law of God or the law of the Land doth not command the contrary or restrain the Princes power of commanding it And to a passive obedience when he commands us any evil or any thing against either of both laws That is to a patient abiding suffering or undergoing without rebellion or any forcible resistance whatever punishment he shall inflict on us for not doing that which he commands and is truly evil in it self as being against the laws of God or is
do not say not to reveal such fatal plots conspiracies or treasons without revealing the Confitent himself against the person of the Prince and the whole fabrick of the Commonwealth and by consequence ordinarily against so many millions of innocent harmless people without possibility or at least moral probability of seeing the end of the evils and general calamities arising thence but I say do not as much as tye them not to reveal the very person of the penitent or the confitent himself if the case be such or may be such though it can hardly ever be such that the design cannot by human industry be otherwise prevented For I am sure that neither that Canon of the Lateran Council nor any other of the Church doth reach this case As I am certain that all Divines will confess the Church can make no Canon hereafter to reach it if there be no former antecedent express or tacit rule for it in the law of God or nature And I am no less certain that until yesterday come back again neither the Doctors of Lovain nor any other in the world can ever demonstrate or prove any such antecedent rule either of natural reason or of Scripture or Tradition LVII As for the saying of some otherwise peradventure good Casuists or Canonists or even the croud of never so many of the later but worser Schoolmen who should valew them when they bring nothing to make their placits good no Scripture no Tradition no Fathers no Councils no reason at all that would take with a rational knowing pious man but on the contrary produce only their own ill grounded opinions and a world sometimes of barbarous names of Authors such as many of their own are even against the clear dictates of the law of God and nature against all virtue and piety and against all true Religion and even against the very first principles of reason I would very fain know of these Gentlemen these excellent Moralists who must needs dilate themselves on Metaphisical suppositions to shew forsooth their blind zeal for a meer fiction of a seal which neither God approved nor the Church ever commanded or allowed in our case what will godly pious understanding men Judge of them what will any good Christian Commonwealthsmen think of their foolish imagination of a very and truly not only unsacramental but also unnatural seal in a case proposed thus All the Catholick Princes and States of Europe and oâ— all other parts of the world professing Catholick Religion or enjoying the Roman Communion and all the power they can raise of horse and foot even two or three or four million more or less of men are in one field or one country joyn'd and amass'd together and the Emp. Kings of Spain France Poland Portugal c. and the very Pope with all the Court of Rome in the head of all against also all the contrary power of the habitable earth Hereticks and Jews Mahumetans and other Infidels and as well the Lutherans and Caluinsts and all the huge variety of other Sects both in the Greek and Latin Church as the Turk Tartar Persian Moore and Indian the Chinese and all the wild people of America and even those of the Terra australis incognita joyn'd also together in one body to ruine utterly the Catholick Church of Christ and raze it from the very face of the earth They are ready on both sides to joyn battle or as many battles as you please and to put all to a fatal hazard and let the resolution be so too that it is absolutely fixed upon by both sides and every individual of each side never to flye never to take quarter win all or loose all to kill or to be killed In this conjuncture suppose a Christian a Roman Catholick by name education profession and by inward belief too goes to confession to a Priest tells him of such a plot or yet a farre worse and incomparably more dangerous then that of Count Iulian against Roderico the Spanish King in that fatal battle wherein the Moores conquered Spain of some other discontented wicked Catholicks and whether himself had or had not a â—and therein it matters not that out of a divelish passion against the chief Commanders especially the Pope himself for some private quarrel had so devoted so resigned themselves over to the Divils power and to infernal revenge that they have contrived such a plot and are now ready for execution of it as will inevitably ruine all this Christian Catholick power deliver them up to their enemies and even bring to a most cruel slaughter all and singular the individuals of this never so vast army of the Roman Faith or Religion and in the first place the Pope himself and all his Cardinals and Court and all other Churchmen of the Roman City or Diocess and after all bring this â—ame holy City and Diocess and even all the temporal Patrimony of St. Peter within or without it to be plough'd up and sowed with salt to the end it may never again be inhabited as some conquerors are read to have done to some â—ebellions or enemy Cities But withall this penitent or this confitent when he reveals this so fatal conspiracy to the Priest is so possess'd suddenly by the Divels suggestion that notwithstanding any exhortations of the Priest he will not promise that himself will reveal it to those concern'd nor licence the said confessor to reveal it nor yet will tell him the persons time or place or manner of the execution of it whereby it might be prevented by the confessors giving a general notice only either in secret or in publick to the Pope or other King or General or person of the army and yet withal hath told so much and in such a manner that the confessor is and ought to be thereby absolutely perswaded of the truth of such and so unspeakably enormous conspiracy In such a case as this though a case that will never be yet because so many of our honest Casuists and famed Theologues and so great a croud of them too bring it or the like or yet a farre worse to a supposition because they suppose even the both temporal and spiritual destruction and even eternal damnation of all the World I demand what will truly pious understanding christian Commonwealthsmen or Divines that examine soberly and from its origin the true nature and the true ends of Sacramental confession or Sacramental secrecy or seal under which it is to be kept by the confessor and withal consider all the both general and particular most express and most indispensable tyes of the laws of God and man and nature of the laws of charity justice and loyalty and all the duties not of a Christian Subject only but of a man what I say will such other conscientious rational Commonwealthsmen or Divines think of their doctrine that maintain in such a case the lawfulness of quitting utterly all these duties or of reputing them no duties
as much as a thought of pardoning him or offering him his life on condition he would renounce the contrary opinion some man can aver certainly or truly or as much as probably that what he alledged for himself of having only known the plot in confession either sacramental or not sacramental was true 2. That in case it had been true his own very Order that is all the Writers of his own Society if we may believe Suarez condemn his opinion of the seal for as much as he pretended it was therefore he would not reveal the plot because he had only heard it in confession and consequently seal'd up from any discovery by him For Suarez defies the King of Great Brittain ' gainst whom he writ even King Iames himself to produce as much as one Jesuit Writer that ever held it to be against the seal of confession oâ— any way unlawful to reveal the treason so as the Penitent or Confitent himself were neither directly or indirectly revealed And yet it is very certain that Father Garnet not only not did so whereas he might safely have done so even without any kind of danger to himself and might have done so by a hundred wayes and without as much as discovering himself but also pretended that he ought not to have done so or to have revealed the treason albeit there could be no danger thereby of revealing either directly or indirectly him that told it in confession 3. That hence it appears this objection whatever it be good or bad is not properly or peculiarly against the doctrine of this sixt consideration but more directly against that of the third and fourth where the Doctors of Lovaine and their ignorant sticklers may see other Catholick and Classick Doctors crying shame on them condemning it To which Doctors there quoted I now add Alexander Hales part 4. q. 78. memb 2. art 2. S. Thomas 4. distinct 21. q. 3. ar 1. ad 1. Scotus in 4. dist 21. q. 2. Hadrianus Papa 4. dist ubi de Sacram. Câ—nf edit Paris 1530. pag. 289. Navar. in Enchirid. c. 8. Ioseph Angles in Florib part 1. pag. 247. edit Antuerp Petrus Soto Lect. 11. de Confess Suarez Tom. 4. in 3. part D. Thomae disp 33. paragraph 3. Greg. de Valentia Tom. 4. disp 7. q. 13. punct 3. who all teach what I have in my said third and fourth consideration the lawfulness of disclosing the treason without disclosing the Penitent 4. That it s no way probable that a man so versed in at least not so ignorant of the doctrine of his own School or wherein he was bred with Father Suarez his old companion in Spain the doctrine of extrinsick probability as we must suppose a Provincial of the Society to have been should have made conscience of revealing the treason without revealing the Confitent being we cannot by any means presume that he was so extreamly ignorant as not to know this kind of revealing was taught by so many famous and pious even Classick Divines 5. That we may rather certainly and groundedly perswade our selves That being himself in other Instances confessed he knew of that wicked plott by other means also or out of confession as well from Father Greenwell as from Mr. Catesby it was no pretence of a Confessional Seal or any such opinion of the being of such a Seal in the case that hindered him from discovering either the treason it self or the traytors but that other more damnable opinion which he learned of so many other in this licentious and impious writers That no faith no allegiance is due from any Catholick Subjects to an excommunicate heretick Prince nor sinful treason can be committed against him or his laws or his people who support him 6. That be it so or be it otherwise nay granting all the objection pretends to or that it were true certain and notoriously known that Father Garnet had suffered only and meerly and when he could otherwise choose for that opinion of the unlawfulness for such a Confessor to reveal the very individual person of such a Conficent as we have supposed in our case and had suffered death for refusing to retract when he might have had life pardon for retracting yet all this amounts to no more then to an argument of the inward opinion of one single man or of his not pretending outwardly in word what he had not inwardly in thought But perswades no rational man therefore that his opinion was true or his perswasion right or his zeal according to knowledg much less that his martyrdom was Christian or glorious We know there are martyrs of errour as well as of truth and these to be the martyrs of Christ and those the martyrs of the Adversary of Christ We know what death and how willingly the Donatists and Circumcellions Gregor l. 2. Regist. op 36. ad Vniversos Episcopos Hibernia and twenty other sorts of Sectaries in all ages to this present suffered often for their false opinions And we know whose saying it is that Non paena sed causa martyrem facit And we know moreover how pertinently that indeed great and holy Pope St. Gregory the Great applyed this passage of Cyprian with so many other excellent sentences of his own reproving those ancient Bishops of Ireland a 1000 years since for their sufferance of persecution in so bad a cause and upon account only of so bad a cause as their opinion was of the Tria Capitula 7. And lastly that being it is on the contrary certain that Father Garnet approved not so his at any time inward perswasion by such outward testimony of his blood spilt or life lost to confirm it much less his constancy in it and being therefore that all can be concluded from his allegation or his suffering amounts to no more than to a bare outward pretence of his own having followed once such an opinion in such an unhappy and unholy matter of fact and this pretence also taken only or made use of that unconstantly contradictorily too for to excuse himself in part that is to lessen his guilt of that horrid conspiracy nay being in very deed and by Father Garnets own confession that he had other knowledg of that plott then what he had onely in confession and consequently being that he could pretend no more truly to excuse himself then a meer natural secrecy without any kind of relation to a sacramental secrecy Iohn de Serres in Henry the Fourth Pag. 865. Translat Grimstone The objectors will give me leave to mind them of as pious and religious a Father that Millanese Father Honorio of the Cappucchins Institute who farre more fortunately discreetly piously and conscientiously practised according to the quite contrary even home or at least as home upon one side as Father Garnet may be justly said to have done on t'other to our case by discovering to Henry le Grand of France the very individual person that was to assassinat
nay and meritoriously too abide the sentence of death even in prima instantia from a Judge of Assize according to the laws of England or Ireland or both and the Execution of it and even at the same time acknowledge himself bound under pain of sin to abide this sentence and this execution patiently and christianly without resistance and yet at the same time also challenge the priviledge of the Canons or at least not renounce the priviledge of the Canons and even of such as he really conceives to be obliging Canons whether groundedly or ungroundedly he conceives or alledges such Canons it matters not to our purpose or that he may at the same time also alledge and the case may be such that he may truly too alleadge that he is proceeded against unjustly both by the Inferiour supream Judge both against the legally established received unrepealed obliging Canons of the Church and the uncontroverted clear just and wholsome laws of the State And therefore it is no less evident that there can be no inconsistency no contradiction at all betwixt a Priests acknowledging the duty of such an obedience and his challenging alwaye nevertheless a right not to be proceeded against by such a sentence That our further declaring in the said Remonstrance That notwithstanding any sentence of excommunication deposition c. we will alwayes be true obedient faithful Subjects to the King that we renounce all forreign power spiritual or temporal in as much as it may seem able or shall pretend to absolve us from us Allegiance or dispense with us therein or give us leave to raise tumults bear arms c. against his Majesty or Laws That we bold the doctrine impious and renounce â—t as such which teacheth that any Subject may murder the anointed of God his Prince though of a different Religion from his That we acknowledge all supream temporal Princes to be Gods Lieutenants on earth or in their Dominions and obedience due to them respectively in all civil and temporal affairs by their own Subjects That finally we protest against all contrary doctrines and practices That I say our further declaring any or all these particulars together doth not either formally or virtually or expresly or tacitly draw with it our declaring against or our disacknowledging renouncing declining or quitting the Exemption or Ecclesiastical immunity of Clerks either as to their Persons or as much as to their Goods if by this Exemption or Immunity that be understood as it ought certainly which all Catholick States Kingdoms Nations Councils Parliaments People Divines Universities Bishops Clerks and consequently Churches do understand in France Spain Germany Italy Venice Poland c. For the truth of all and every such declaration and obligation consequent may and doth very well stand in their opinion and according to their practice with such Exemption being they all hold this Exemption to be not independently from the soveraign power of the Princes or States or of their Laws but with dependance alway in relation to that soveraignty or supream Majesty from the inferiour Judicatures and in such cases only whether civil or criminal as are priviledged and only too in prima instantia or at most in so many other instances as will not require manifestly or by manifest necessity an appeal or recourse to the Prince or State civil or pollitick â gravamine or the interposition of the Prince's or States supream power in the case without any such appeal or recourse of either Plantiff or Defendant but ex officio where the Prince or State see a manifest necessity of such interposition as the case may be very well as it hath often been that the Ecclesiastical Judges are themselves involved in the same crime for example in treason or sedition and therefore will not punish the criminals accused before them but rather encourage them as much as they dare That moreover as it appears manifestly out of all the foresaid passages either separatly or collectively taken there is not from the first word to the last of the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance not I say any passage at all any word or syllable in that whole Declaration being these I have given are all it contains of any matter soever that may be formally or virtually expresly or tacitly directly or indirectly understood by any rational impartial man to dis-acknowledge or declare against Immunity Ecclesiastical or the Exemption of Clergy-mens either Persons or Goods as this Exemption is allowed or approved by the Catholick World or Church or as by either understood so it appears no less manifestly that in the petitionary address which immediatly follows the said Act of Recognition or Declaration of Allegiance and of principles belonging to such Allegiance there is neither as much as one word which may import to an impartial understanding Reader or to any that is not clouded by ignorance or byassed by malice any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such immunity or exemption And that if in this petitionary address there be nothing to this purpose or any such dis-acknowledgment of or declaration against such Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption it must be and is confess'd by the very most scrupulous or most invidious Adversaries there can be none at all in all or any part of that Remonstrance or in that whole Instrument entituled The humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition of the Roman Catholick Clergy of Ireland To prove this last conditional assertion I need not add any thing more to what I have said already or observed in considering all the several distinct parts of the Act of Recognition in it self and other declarations following therein and to what moreover I have presently hinted of the confession of our most carping Adversaries but only this one advertisement more to the Reader whereof himself by reading only over that whole Instrument can be Judge that nothing else is contained in the paper but a bare Remonstrance of grievances persecution odium c. which no man ever yet quarrel'd against as pretending therein a ground for this fourth Exception or any other whatsoever What remains therefore to be cleared is the petitionary address of that paper as that indeed against which for ought I heard from the Dissentors themselves or any of them all their quarrel is on this pretence of quitting Ecclesiastical Immunity and subjecting Clergy-men to Lay Judicatories or to Secular Courts in criminal causes But how justly or unjustly be you Judge good Reader when you have considered the words sense and scope of that Petition so often returned for answer to this invidious Exception The words and whole tenor of that perclosing Address are these and no other These being the tenets of our Religion in point of Loyalty and submission to your Majesties commands and our dependance of the See of Rome no way intrenching on that perfect obedience which by our birth by all laws divine and humane we are bound to pay to
your Majesty our natural and lawful Soveraign we humbly beg prostrate at your Majesties feet that you would be pleased to protect us from the severe persecution we suffer meerly for our profession in Religion leaving those that are or hereafter shall be guilty of other crimes and there have been such in all times as well by their pens as by their actions to the punishment prescribed by the law Against these very last lines of this Petition or against this final perclose of of all leaving those that are or hereafter shall be guilty of other crimes c. to the punishment prescribed by the law our Adversaries labour so mightily to except as unlawful to be owned or subscribed at least by Catholick Priests or as acknowledging Clergy-men subject to the Secular Court and consequently as either disacknowledging or at least renouncing the priviledge of their Order whereby they are for their persons especially in criminal causes wholy exempt from the jurisdiction of Lay Judges let the crimes be never so hainous until they be first judged in the Ecclesiastick Court before their own proper competent Ecclesiastick Superiours or spiritual Judges and before they be further condemned by such and after all degraded or at least delivered over also by such to the Secular Court or Lay Judges But who sees not the vanity and nullity of this objection or of this consecution Who sees not the Objectors were resolved to seek here a knot in the bul-rush Clergy-men of the Romish Communion living in a Country where all the laws are against their very profession where all the prejudices imaginable were and with much ground too against the very persons of many as enemies to the Crown and State and where as yet no endeauours had been used by them to secure the State of as much as their Allegiance only for the very future and in a Countrey also where no such priviledge at least as to them is or hath been owned by the Kings Laws Magistrates or Judges for a whole century of years such Clergy-men I say and such of them too I mean as find themselves not guilty of other crime then that which according to the law of God is no crime at all addressing themselves to a just and merciful Prince but a Prince nevertheless that is not of their communion nor doth acknowledge or admit of such their Exemption and attempting by a declaration and promise of their future Allegiance to free themselves from a severe persecution raised against them cannot such Clergy-men as observe strictly and religiously that precept in particular of St. Peter to all Christians in general whether Lay-men or Clergy-men Nemo autem vestrum patiatur ut homicida aut fur aut maledicus aut alienorum appetitor let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as a rayler or as a coveter of other mens Goods 1 Pet. 4. Cannot such Clergy-men I say and cannot they too according to all the rules of prudence and conscience intreat and implore the Princes compassionat regard of their innocent profession and harmless behaviour in the pure exercise of a holy Religion and humbly beg his protection of them from suffering on that account only and for a further inducement of such Princes favouring them on that account remonstrate also unto him what should and ought to be consequent in the case that they are not Supplyants for any of their function who is or shall be hereafter guilty of any true crimes as theft murder sedition rebellion c. but only for such as are or shall be charged with such matters as only in the presumption of the present laws of the Land are crimes and only too even by such presumption religious crimes Or cannot they in such a Countrey and circumstances prudently and lawfully too for what concerns conscience do so and remonstrate so especially in such discreet wary general terms as these leaving those that are or shall be hereafter guilty of other crimes c. to the punishment prescribed by the law without dis-acknowledging or even renouncing even as much as to themselves alone where they can choose the priviledge or pretence of priviledge of Clergy-men for being exempt Or must it follow that they acknowledge that priviledge whatever it be or how ever expounded or extended by some not due to them by any law divine or humane civil or ecclesiastical Or must it follow that they do absolutely renounce it either for themselves or others if it be probable or possible they may to any real purpose challenge the benefit thereof Or rather is it not manifest and as clear as the Sun that no such consequence follows out of such Remonstrance or such words or such leaving in the circumstances or cases but at most and at worst a conditional resignation of their own souls or conditional renuntiation of such priviledge or pretence thereof and as to themselves alone and in such circumstances only or while the laws of the Land are such and the Prince and People observant of such laws and that Romish Clergy-men must will they nill they be judged by and according to such laws And consequently too as clear as the Sun that those words above leaving c. which end that petition and whole paper of that of 61. and which are the only pretended ground of that objection cannot be justly taxed at least in the case or circumstances with other meaning or sense then can be justly derived from this other expression which might be of it in these other words we do not beg your Majesty to protect us from any persecution can be against us upon account of Theft Murder Treason Rebellion or any other of those true crimes crimes which are otherwise stiled in the Canons lay-crimes nor we intercede or supplicate for any persons guilty of or in as much as they shall be charged with any such true crime but for what concerns us resolve to let all such answer for themselves and stand or fall according to law Now it is plain that all this imports no more then a greater detestation of such crimes in Clergiemen and of the persons of Clergiemen as guilty of such And further and at most and worst but a resolution not to be concern'd in such nor to petition the King in their behalf nor to interpose at all twixt them and the law though meaning without any peradventure that which is by His Majesty understood the law For they exclude above expresly all equivocation And yet the Divines of Lovaine and sticklers for them in Ireland must needs censure so harmless so prudent and so necessary a petition or expression and censure it as renouncing or declaring against Ecclesiastical Immunity and further censure it as even sacrilegious and containing somewhat against the sincerity of Catholick Faith Certainly if so or if they be not abused by misinformation or misrepresentation of their grounds of censure I cannot otherwise judge of them but that they have been
it is ordinary with all kind of people to speak so of all things happened to themselves or others sin only excepted God will have it so or God hath ordained so And yet no man will be so foolish as to gather out of such expressions that people mean to say there was a positive law of God or law of his known to us for the doing or being of things so or so Otherwise what a numberless infinity of positive laws of God must we assert which the world never yet heard of and such as never any one of all have been yet in Scripture or Tradition For Symmachus finally that which is alledged out of him or his Roman Synod concerns not the present dispute and at most and at best signifies no more then the sense of that Provincial Council speaking to Symmachus and their sense too delivered only in an ordinary way of speech not in any Canon and even this very speech against only the pretence of the Praetorian Praefect of Odoacer to make a law yet without the consent of the Church-men or of the Bishops and other Priests though with a good intention for the preservation of the Church-lands and Revenues and Goods or to hinder any Sale or Mortage of them by the very Bishops of Rome it self even for what concern'd them or their own peculiar See in that City In this case it was the Fathers of that Council spoke thus after they had caused the Instrument or Law of the said Praetorian Praefect or of Basilius to be read by Hormisda the Deacon Licet secundum prosecutionem venetabilium fratrum nostrorum Laurentii Eulalii Cresconii Maximi vel Stephani nec apud nos incertum habetur hanc ipsam scripturam nullius esse momenti verum tamen etiamsi aliqua posset ratione subsistere modis omnibus in Sindali Conventu provida Beatudinis Vestrae sententia enervari conveniebat in irritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret praesumendi quibuslibet Laicis quamvis religiosis vel pâ—tentibus in quacunque ciuitate quolibet modo aliquid decernere de Ecclesiasticis facultatibus quarum solis sacerdotibus disponendi indiscusse a Deo cura commissa decetur Where it is plain 1. That nothing is said or mean'd of the exemption of the persons of Church-men from the supream temporal power 2. That they neither signifie as much as their Goods or Lands to be exempt from that same power supream but only secundum subjectam materiam to be exempt so far from the subordinat Magistrate that no disposition could be made of the Church-lands or Goods or no provision either for the Church by such inferiour Magistrates how powerful or even religious and well meaning soever without the consent of the Bishops and Priests themselves 3. That much less do the Fathers of this Council signifie their lands or goods not to be subject to any publick taxes or which is it I mean do not signifie that God hath appointed their lands or goods should be exempt from all publick taxes tributes customs c. For the disposing of the Revenues or other goods of the Church to be indistinctly committed by God to Priests and that Priests should be notwithstanding lyable to publick contributions out of such Revenues or Goods for the publick necessities of the common-wealth are things very compatible in reason And here is nothing said by these Fathers to the contrary Besides we know that whatever may be said of that law so published by Basilius the Pretor or whether by the express command of Odoacer no man will deny that both the Pope and other Italian Bishops had reasons sufficient to move them not to regard it much as being made either by an Usurper or an enemy to the Emperour and who yet dared not take on himself the name of Emperour and moreover forasmuch as at that time that very same Usurper or Enemy Odoacer with whose authority it was made or published by Basilius was devested by Theodorick nay dead when the Fathers held that Synod and forasmuch too as in the same law that same Odâ—acer would have usurped also the election of the Pope to himself as Baronius and Spondanus have ad annum Christi 457. But however this be or be not it is evident here is not a sâ—llable for the exemption of Church-men or Clerks as to their persons and in criminal cause and that too by the positive law of God from the supream civil or coercive power And it is no less evident although my present purpose require not my animadaversion hereof That meer Lay-men Kings and Lords and Knights and Burgesses and Squires and Boores and even all masters of Families whatsoever in such contreys as have the laws of property might in a like or unlike controversie 'twixt themselves and the Clergy if the Clergy alone should attempt to make laws for disposing of their estates without their own consent might I say with very much right truth answer the Clergy as the Fathers did the Layety here or thus I mean mutatis mutandis verum tamen etiamsi aliqua c. provida Majestatis vestrae sententia eneruari conveniebat in iâ—ritum deduci ne in exemplum remaneret quibuslibet Ecclesiasticis c. aliquid decernere de laicis facultatibus quarum solis laicis disponendi indiscussè a Deâ— cura commissa dâ—cetur And yet none of them would be therefore constrained or necessitated in point of reason to prove or to suppose a positive law of God for their own exemption as much as to their goods from the Clergy The civil or municipal laws or customs of men and which indeed are those only that make meum and tuum in the world in such a case would be ground enough for them to say that God committed the disposing of their own estates to themselves alone and not to the Clergy To wit for as much as by his general or special providence he had such or such civil laws made and for as much as he commands generally in holy Scripture as natural reason also tells us we must observe all kind of humane Ordinances of the supream civil Power and States we live in which imply no sin Therefore Symmachus and his Council are as vainly alledged by Bellarmine for a positive law of God for the exemption of Clergymen c. as any of those other Popes or Councils And therefore too from first to last I conclude against this most eminent Cardinal that indeed there is not any such positive law of God at least in our case that is for the exemption of the persons of Clergymen in criminal causes from the supream civil coercive power of supream temporal Princes no such positive I say as yet revealed unto us either by holy Scripture or by any Tradition For these arguments which I now have so answered are all he doth or can pretend for such a positive law of God from either albeit I confess he speaks not expresly of Tradition nor also
pastors at the same time in other cases and respects and in order also to those very other men must notwithstanding all this be directed govern'd judg'd in the self-same other cases and respects and by the very self-same other men who yet are themselves in such other cases and respects but meer metaphorical sheep and no pastors at all I say that to conclude so must of necessity be no other then to conclude that which cannot be concluded but by a manifest inconsequence against natural reason no less manifest abuse of this very similitude because as it is now apparant it concludes the metaphorical Pastor wherein he is pastor to be directed by his own metaphorical sheep To his Fourth argument from the Greek word Cleres or Latin Clerici or the title of Clerks appropriated or at least attributed as originally peculiar to Ecclesiastical men or to the argument derived from the signification of that word name or title importing as much as a lot and consequently signifying Churchmen to be in a special manner of the lot or portion or share of God The answer is obvious 1. That were that indeed the etimological reason of that title as attributed to them which yet this Cardinal hath not proved and others that dive unto such etimological reasons deny saying that Churchmen are not therefore stiled Clerks but because they of their own parts are by their orders supposed to take God onely for their own portion lot share inheritance yet I say were the meaning that which he gives this word certainly no more could be thence concluded for their exemption or immunity from the supream civil coercive power then could be for the like exemption of the Levits by the words of God himself so often repeated in Leviticus mei sunt And being these words of God himself prove no such exemption to have been of the Levits as I have before discoursed in the former section much less can the title of Clerks assumed by our churchmen themselves or given them by other men though I confess significantly and properly enough 2. That notwithstanding that Clergiemen are by special function and in a more special manner then meer laymen the Ministers of God and consecrated for to be so and were it granted besides that all Clergiemen are at the time of their consecration or other designation such as that is of the onely first clipping of their haire by the Bishop which is called primi tonsura and which without any more adoo makes them Clerks were it I say granted that at such time all the lay people and even the very supream civil Magistrate himself amongst them did offer to God for his Ministery all Clergiemen whatsoever that is all such as are then to be initiated by the Bishop which yet cannot be granted being we see often too many unfit in many respects initiated so against both the express Canons of the Church and known judgment of both Prince and People no more can be rationally concluded from either such designation or such oblation or both together but that neither people nor Prince may at any time evermore divert or hinder from the Sacred Ministery the persons so consecrated by the Bishop and offered by themselves to God for that his special Ministery Nor therefore of such initiated persons no such exemption at least as that pretended to be of them from even the very supream civil power and in all causes even the most criminal soever can at all from such consecration or oblation or both together be concluded by any principle of natural reason Because natural reason and practise too of all ages and countries tels us there is no incompatibility at all betwixt the duty or subjection of sacred persons to or not exemption from at least the supream civil power and that of their special holy function but on the contrary that the former doth much advantage the later And because both natural reason and christian Religion tels us that Clerks by their sacred initiation are not freed from any other former duties or from such as they had till then been bound unto by the laws of God or nature to be performed to other men as for example the duty of paying a pecuniary sum borrowed from a Neighbour the duty of reverencing honouring obeying and serving their natural parents in all such things and cases as children ought c. And lastly because it is confessed of all sides that subjection to the not onely supream but subordinate civil Magistrate in such criminal causes was a former duty Whence also it is clear enough that the exemption of Clerks from the subordinate or inferiour civil Judges cannot be said to be annexed perse or naturally or necessarily at all to any such initiation oblation or both together but meerly by accident and by the free will of others forasmuch to witt as it pleased the civil Magistrate civil power and civil laws to exempt them from such inferiour civil Judges in all or many or some cases according to the divers customs of divers Countries 3. That were that assumption of Bellarmine universally true without any distinction where he sayes That in things offered and consecrated to God and therefore made in some sense as if they were the peculiar and property of God no secular Princes can have any right or were it true in his sense and to his purpose or were a peoples being made in some sense as if they were the peculiar and property of God were this I say wherein Bellarmine here puts all his force an argument of the exemption of such people from all meer civil or lay power then must it follow that all not onely the 12. tribes of Israel and not the tribe of Levi alone had been in the old Testament exempted from all meer lay power but even that all Christians are universally in the new For all the 12. tribes were not onely purified and sanctified by several aspersions and other ceremonies performed by Moyses and Aaron and offered also and devoted by themselves to God and this too by the appointment of God himself but were also all of them generally adopted by God and by his own mouth declared his own chosen people portion lot inheritance and sanctified by himself and for his own service segregated out of all the Nations of the earth Eritis mihi sancti quia sanctus sum ego Dominus separavi vos a caeteris populis ut essetis mei Levit. 20. words I am sure spoken by Moyses as from the mouth of God himself and spoken by him to all the 12. Tribes universally and not to that of Levi alone And therefore all the 12. Tribes of Israel were made as of the property and peculiar of God himself quasi ipsius dei propria facta sunt according to Bellarmines phrase speaking of Clerks And for all Christians too universally who is so ignorant as not to know or so obstinate as not to confess that they are offered by their Godfathers
Valentinian and with his Arrian Mother about the giving up a Church in Milan to thense of the Arrians did not I say this so great and so holy and so knowing Ambrose tell the Emperour that indeed the lands of the Church were under his power and therefore payed him tribute but that the Church it self was not for such an impious use Therefore our learned Cardinal is much out in his collection here from this Canon of the Apostles when he sayes that by natural reason because the goods or lands of the Church are called Dominicae therefore the cannot in any wise or for any use or in any case be subject to the supream lay Jurisdiction To his fifth and last argument I need not say much because it so little requires other answer than That it is the very worst sort of argument he could use for his Ecclesiastical Immunity and for the being of it as such from the very law of Nations and Nature For to pretend or alledge even true miraculous extraordinary judgments or punishments from God on the Profaners of holy places or even too on the tyrannical Oppressors of holy or Ecclesiastical Persons as also on a Prince or People for having made first or observed after out of covetousness hatred envy pride ambition or any other sinful end such laws as naturally must lessen the holiness or esteem or reverence which must be due to either such places or such persons what hath this to do with the religious worshippers of such places and with the careful protectors of such persons or with either Prince or People that for a just and holy end make a wholsome law which being observed by Church-men will make them more holy and more reverend Besides how often have we read of extraordinary judgments of God pursuing presently the injustice committed by either Prince or People against meer lay men and against such as could pretend no such exemption and against such too as had no right of their side but from the positive civil Institutions or Laws made by other meer lay-men If our most eminent Cardinal had alledged and proved but one only miracle wrought in the case that is wrought by the invocation of God and either expresly or even tacitly for the confirmation of his Thesis or the being of Clergymen so exempt as he would have them in all cases and all respects from the supream civil jurisdiction of lay Princes then indeed he might have had some colour to amuse the Reader with that his fifth Argument Albeit yet such miracle would not be home enough unless withal it appeared wrought to confirm their being so exempt by the law of Nations and Nature But neither for Churchmen or Church doth he as much as pretend to any such material miracle or any such extraordinary punishments from God And good God! what is it to prove such exemption as he pretends That the sacrilegious robbers or any other wicked prophaners of a Church dyed presently That a passionat wicked Prince who did without any form of justice without any just cause at all and who did even against his own laws and his own conscience persecute to death a Religious Prelate or Priest onely for having been a good Prelate or good Priest in reprehending wickedness that I say such a Prince had an evil or strange and suddain end Certainly were it acknowledged of all sides did God himself now expresly and intelligibly and evidently reveal it to all the world that notwithstanding any pretence or even any positive laws of men hitherto all kind of Churchmen and Churches and their persons goods lands houses c. were as other men in all kind of temporal matters subject to the disposition and coercion of not only the supream but also of the inferiour civil Magistrate yet from the providence and goodness and justice also of God we might rationally expect sometime and pray sometime also for such extraordinary and exemplary miraculous punishment of such as would abuse that right or that power given them by God to govern well questionless to govern holily and justly the Church of God and Ministers and lands and revenues of it Besides how often have such extraordinary miraculous punishments seized on the very Ecclesiastical Governours themselves and even on the very supream Ecclesiastical Governours who have oppressed the inferiour Clergie And yet there was no exemption of this inferiour Clergie from them concluded thence Lastly how knows for what injustice in particular did those extraordinary punishments from God and let us suppose them still truly miraculous and from God in a special way which yet will be hardly proved of most of them seize upon such as were said to have violated Churches or Churchmen against that which this learned Cardinal pretends to be Ecclesiastical Immunity Exemption or Liberty Did God reveal it was particularly for infringing that or infringing any part of all that which Bellarmine understands or pretends to be of true and due Ecclesiastical exemption and was moreover to shew by a testimony from Heaven That this Ecclesiastical Immunity of his must be admitted to be such by the law of Nations and Nature Or did God reveal it was not perhaps for some other indeed more unquestionably exorbitant wickedness of those very men so punished miroculously Or must the single conjecture of Basilius Porphyrogenitus be to us a certainty that indeed those evils happened at that time to the Constantinopolitan Empire by reason or because of that law whatever it was made by Nicephorus Phocas and further yet a concluding argument for the being of Bellarmine's such pretended Ecclesiastical Immunity from the law of Nations and Nature which onely is our present business or dispute Nay must we not rather according to reason attribute those very plagues or judgments from God at that time to other causes that is to the undoubted uncontroverted injustices and wrongs done by Nicephorus Phocas in using ill and abusing very much the supream power he had over the Clergie if I say there was any thing extraordinary in those plagues or if they were such as the like or farre worse did not fall on that people or Emperour of Constantinople very often before that law was made and after that law was again abolished and when Ecclesiastical Immunity was as strictly and religiously observed as ever or when the supream civil power as rightly used as ever for the veneration of holy places and holy persons Do not the Greek Historians of those times Curopolates and Cedrenus Zonaras and Glycas do not Baronius and his Abbreviator Spendanus ad Annum Christi 962. 964. confess with those Greeks That Nicephorus Phocas though otherwise an excellent and victorious Prince had been charged with several other exorbitances as with having suffered himself after the death of Romanus to be chosen Emperour by the Army notwithstanding that Basilius and Constantinus both lawful Sons to the deceased Emperour Romanus were yet alive and lawful Heirs of the Empire and
criminal causes while or during their being Clerks or before degradation For as for that other passage or those other words which Bellarmine takes hold of to abuse his Reader prius hunc spoliari a Deo amabili Episcopo sacerdotali dignitate ita sub legum manu fieri in English these this Clerk to be spoiled first of his sacerdâ—â—al dignity by the beloved Bishop of God and so to be put under the hand of laws who sees not that please to read that Novel nay that please to read what Bellarmine himself before and elswhere l. de Cler. c. 28. most expresly and particularly taught of the contents of that Novel who sees not I say that these words prius hunc spoliari c. ita sub legum manu fieri do not signifie in that law that Clerks were not before the Bishop degraded them subject in such criminal causes to the lay Presidents of Provinces or to the laws but onely after such degradation It is expresly provided in that very law as Bellarmine himself in the book of his now quoted confesses That the lay judg is in the very first place of all and before any such degradation to take cognizance of such criminal causes of Clerks and that in the next place if this lay judge find him guilty the Bishop is to degrade him before the execution or judgment of execution be given by the judge Is it not plain enough that by this very law or Novel of Iustinian Clerks were in such causes subject to such lay Judges and laws before any degradation by the Bishop could such lay Judges take cognizance of any cause or person that were not by law subject to them Therefore it is evident that the words prius spoliari c. in that passage quoted by Bellarmine and words ita sub legum manu fieri must as there be onely understood in relation to a publick definitive sentence of punishment and execution of such Which that Novel ordains for the honour of the sacred function of Priests not to be pronounced before the Judge give notice to the Bishop to degrade such a Priest as is by the same lay Judge upon examination and full discussion of the cause found to have deserved some infamous punishment as for example to be condemned to death or to the mines or perpetual banishment That so it may not be said that a Priest but a man despoiled first of the dignity of a Priest and of the very order it self as much as could be and of all kind of priviledges of the Clerical order was legally condemn'd and suffer'd such an ignominious punishment And by consequence the priority signified by that word prius relates to the posteriority of a definitive publick sentence of such infamy and to the execution of it not at all to a posteriority of power in such lay Judge over such a Clerk in such a cause which power we have now seen by that very Novel to have been anteriour to and wholly independent of the Bishops degradation being that the power of judicial cognizance of the crime was such And by the same consequence that being under the power of the civil laws imported by those other words ita sub legum manu fieri signifies onely a certain kind of being under and that too in order onely to such a subordinate Judge in such a cause but not all kinds of being under nor any kind at all in order to the supream civil Judge As for Bellarmines Allegation here of the Council of Constance Ses 31. it s not to the purpose because whatever may be said to have been meaned by the Fathers in those or any other such words or whether they intended only an exemption from the subordinat ciuil or lay Judges or even from the supream yet they say not here or elsewhere that such exemption whâ—tever was given by the civil laws Besides it is evident that the Fathers of Constance made no Canon at all in this point of exemption and that albeit they have these words alledged here by the Cardinal yet they only have them or make use of them in a particular case decreeing the liberty of the Bishop of Aste from an unjust imprisonment wherein he was by force kept by Philip the Count of Virtues a Philippo Comite virtutum who was not the said Bishop's supream temporal Prince or Lord but a subordinate and who without any warrant from the Supream had by usurpation imprisoned the said Bishop So that the Fathers of Constance alledging in the particular sentence they gave for this Bishop and against this Counâ— and in such a particular that laici nullam in Clericos potestatem aut jurisdictionem habent and alledging this only too by way of supposition or as a reason of their said particular sentence in favour of the said Bishop must not be presumed to have supposed more then was necessary for the justification of their said sentence especially where to have supposed so must have been point blanck without any former canon of the Church or law of the Empire or custom of the world and consequently against plain Scripture Rom. 13. as I will shew hereafter But to be exempt from the jurisdiction or coercive power of subordinat civil or subordinat lay Judges Lords or Princes according to the late civil laws of the Empire and to the custom that by little and little was introduced and then in force in the Christian world was enough for that purpose or justification of that sentence notwithstanding a plenary subjection still of even Bishops to the supream lay coercive power The Fathers of Constance therefore being justly exasperated against the said Earl did rationally and pertinently secundum subjectam materiam make use of these words in the sentence they gave against him attendentes quod subditi in eorum Praelatos Laici in Clericos nullam habent jurisdictionem potestatem For it is a rule in both the canon and civil Law that the sense of words how indefinit soever in any instrument writing or speech whatsoever must not be what they import in a strict Gramatical or Logical sense but what they do ex intentione loquentis according to the intention of the speaker or writer and that this intention must be gathered not only out of the beginning middle and conclusion or end of any such instrument writing or speech and out of the collation of altogether Cum utriusque Juris argumenta nos doceant ea quae in medio ad finem atque principium ea quae in fine ad utrumque vel corum alterum recte referri sayes Nicholas III. in his Decretal Exiit de verbor significatione in Sexto but also as natural reason tells us ex subjecta materia out of the very matter whereof or concerning which the law instrument writing or discourse is What last of all is alledged out of Frederick the Second's Constitution being it is no more but a general ordinance or
tale aliquid sive ex scripto sive ex non scripto praesumpserit imperare post cinguli privationem XX. librarum auri poenam exolvere jubemus Ecclesiae cujus Episcopus produci aut exhiberi jussus est executorem similiter post cinguli privationem verberibus subdendum et in exilium deportandum Item post multa si autem a Clerico aut Laico quccumque aditio contra Episcopum fiat propter quamlibet causam apud sanctissimum ejus metropolitanum secundum sanctas regulas et nostras leges causa judicetur Et si quis judicatis contradixerit ad beatissimum Archiepiscopum Patriarcham Diocesees illius referatur causa et ille secundam canones leges huic praebeat finem Finally but yet moreover after quoting the law of Gratianus Valentinianus and Theodosius out of the Code l. VII titu XLVII constit III. in the point of nullity of a sentence when pronounced a non suo Iudice and the laws of Arcadius Honorius C. l. IX titu I. censtit XX. in the point of accusation made by Servants or Slaves except only the case of treason or crime against Majesty and the judgment of Modestinus the Lawyer ad legem Iuliam Majestatis l. Famosi lib. Pandectarum XLVIII in the point of credit not to be given to such accusers even in such a crime if the life or esteem of the accused was not such before as might render him suspected and another Novel Constitution as he calls it which is Authent de testib Parag. Et hic vero in the point of not condemning any by or for testmonies of witnesses to near which he was not called and of not receiving the testimonies of vile persons sine corporali discussione as he begun with and proceeded all along only out of the civil laws so he concludes at last that whole epistle out of the same civil laws tit XLIV lib. Câ—diâ—is in the point of giving sentence in writing quia scriptis debuit judicaâ—i Nam ibi inter alia dicitur atque praecipitur ut sententia quae sine scripto dicta fuerit ne nomen quidem sententiae mereatur sayes Gregory putting a final perclose to this 54 epistle ad Joan. Defensor l. XI Registri And this being the whole tenour as to the substance of that letter of St. Gregory and not as much as any one Canon at all as much as related unto by him therein from the first word to the last but only those canons in general which concern the order of Appeals in a Bishops cause not in that of other Clerks from the Metrapolitan to the Patriarch and yet these Canons too related unto here not by Gregory but by Leo Augustus himself and this also according to former civil laws of other Emperours and with so many exceptions still particularly for the cases of treason against Majesty and of a special warrant from the Prince himself to a lay subordinat Judge who sees not that Bellarmine had no kind of ground in this Epistle to abuse his Reader with quoting it as containing some argument to prove that although the civil law or Novels of Iustinian did not generally exempt Clerks in criminal causes from all publick or civil Judicatories yet the canon law did exempt them so or in such causes from all such Tribunals even the very supream But as for that other proposition which to compleat his second argument he assumes as a maxime That the civil law must yield to the canon law and for that also which to prove this maxime he further sayes That the Pope may command the Emperour especially in such matters as concern the Church which say at present of each a part and both together and of this manner of arguing is that in all I see nothing alledged or proved I mean to his purpose here but ignotum per ignotius and that my following Sections will further shew that in his sense or as applyed to his purpose or at least is necessarily inferring his Thesis or grand proposition or assertion of his Ecclesiastial Immunity both maxime and proof are absolutely false and yet and moreover consequently that his ratiocination or discourse composed of both is nothing else too but falsum per falsius However because neither the truth or probability as neither the untruth or improbability of any thing before said by me in this present Section depends of the truth or falsity of either that maxime or that other proposition assumed to make good that maxime being the dispute hitherto hath not been whether the Church could heretofore make or hereafter can make such canons as Bellarmine would have for such exemption or consequently whether in such case the civil laws being contrary must and ought to yield and be corrected by the canons or whether in such case too that maxime and proposition assumed to prove it might not be alledged and ought not to be admitted as out of controversie but the dispute hitherto in this Section having only been of the fact of the Church not of the power that is having been whether indeed she hath either justly or unjustly right or wrong validly or invalidly made at any time already or heretofore until this very present any such canon and because I perswade my self that I have sufficiently enough and very clearly too solved all that ever Bellarmine alledg'd either in his great work of Controversies and even in the very last edition of that great work or in his little book writ after of purpose by him De Potestate Temporali Papae adversus Gulielmum Barclaium for any such canon hitherto made I will now finally conclude that wherewith I begun this Section which is that neither by the Canons of the Church there hath ever been yet any such exemption as Bellarmine pretends or his Schollars in this the Divines of Lovaine of any Clerks whatsoever Priests Bishops Archbishops Patriarchs c. from the supream civil temporal or lay power or Magistrats under which or whom they live And I conclude also my two several Affirmations immediatly following that Assertion and given or made there so immediatly as further illustrations of my meaning And to this conclusion add only here That I have taken so much pains in examining the canons alledg'd by our great Cardinal not indeed out of any purpose desire or inclination to exagitat the priviledges of Clergiemen or that I do at all or would envy them such priviledges or endeavour to lessen the reverence or esteem due or the honours or favours done or bestowed on their sacred functions and persons which any one may easily believe that knows me to be one of them my self through Gods mercy and favour to me how otherwise undeservedly soever But that next to that of speaking all necessary truths as it becomes a man of my profession in defence also of this so certain and christian truth of Clergiemens not being exempt from the supream secular civil Power as likewise of so many
withal that if they had stated or supposed it otherwise as they do not or if we did suppose even all the civil or temporal power in the world conferr'd by the world it self on the great Pontiff or on the Church or Churchmen to make what laws he or they pleased in all civil things and for all mortal men and by themselves to govern the world as the onely supream civil Governours yet my judgment would be still that even in such a case according to natural reason there could be no power at all in the Pope or Church as indeed none is at present nor can be at any time in the Princes or people themselves or both or even together with the Church to exempt Churchmen from the supream civil Magistrat in whose Dominions they live And yet in the case which is now in being of the Popes being at present the supream civil Magistrat in Rome and in the whole temporal Patrimony of St. Peter in some tracts of Italy for so at least he is in effect or by actual possession of the rights of such a supream civil Magistrat he cannot by any argument of natural reason exempt the Clergie of those tracts from his own said supream civil power of them unless he at the same time devest himself wholly of that very same supream civil power and quit it absolutely to some other Whereof more hereafter in the following Sections where it will appear that the exemption of Clerks from the supream power of Kings under whom they live and whom they acknowledg to be also their own Kings implyes a most plain and manifest contradiction In the mean time let us now to the onely arguments remaining those natural or Theological reasons of the other side for such a power in the Pope or Church These reasons such as they be I find to be in all seven or eight six whereof are fram'd by Dominicus Soto and the other two by Franciscus Victoria Albeit five of those fix are onely to prove the said exemption as to the persons of Clergiemen but the rest to prove it not onely as to their persons but as to their goods also And besides these eight reasons I see no other in these or other Authors of their way nor indeed any thing els not even in Covarâ—â—vias himself but some few authorities of other Canonists which are not worth the while nor at all proper to repeat heer being such as they neither belong to reason nor have on other account any power of perswasion The first general reason of Dominicus Soto proveing this exemption as well necessary as congruous and both as to the goods and as to the persons of Clergiemen Ecclesiastical power sayes he is per se that is of it self or by its own nature sufficient and independent from the civil power Therefore it may of it self make all such laws as are either necessary or convenient for its own administration quae suae administrationi sunt necessariae vel congruentes But the law of exemption of Clerks both as to their goods and persons from all kind of Secular Magistrats even the very most supream is either necessary or at least very congruent that is to say is at least convenient or agreeable or meet or fitting or expedient for Church administration Now to prove this assumption first as to the persons or to prove it to be even necessary That the persons of Churchmen should be so exempt Soto gives four specifical reasons as immediately after he gives also a fifth to prove it necessary as to their very goods The first specifical reason or medium of Soto to prove it necessary as to their persons For sayes he whereas the Ministers of the Church are constituted according to divine law it must seem in the next degree of proximity to the said law divine that they may not be called upon or commanded by the secular Judges Second specifical reason as to the persons It may happen that amongst Ecclesiastical causes whereof lay â—en cannot be Judges some civil matters do intervene And therefore if Clergiemens persons were not exempt from all kind of secular Iudicatories they must be in such cases perplexed not knowing which tribunal to obey when called upon by both Ecclesiastical and secular Third specifical reason of Soto as to the persons It would not be decent nor have any decorum that the Ministers of Churches who are Pastours of even those very Judges themselves nay and of Kings too should be as criminals or guilty persons called upon by those Iudges or bound to appear as such before them Fourth specifical reason of Soto as to the persons Whereas the civil power and Ecclesiastical are in their own natures wholly distinct or different it is necessary that as each hath its own proper Ministers so the Ministers of each have their own proper Superiours Hitherto this learned Schoolman as to the persons But as to the goods of Clergiemen his onely reason is which is in order the sixth of those reasons That whereas tributes and customs are paid to Kings in lieu of or as a recompence for the labours they undergoe in ruleing the Commonwealth and whereas Clerks undergoe no less in discharge of their own duty or towards the maintenance of the Church it seems but a due recompensation that their goods be exempt from all tributs taxes c. Seventh reason but given by Franciscus Victoria to prove the necessity of a power in the Church to exempt both goods and persons The Ecclesiastical Republick is perfect in it self and sufficient in it self Therefore it hath power to make such laws as are convenient for the administration of the Church And therefore also if the exemption of Clerks from the civil power even supream be convenient for such administration it hath power to enact such exemption by law Eight and last reason and it is of the same Franciscus Victoria but as to the persons onely The Pope may by his own proper authority choose fix on or design and actually appoint and iustice to Ecclesiastical Ministers notwithstanding any contradiction of the civil power Therefore he may also â—â—on the same ground or for the some reason exempt those Ecclesiastical Ministers from the secular power And these are all the arguments grounded on reason or which as grounded purely or chiefly on reason the common principles of Faith or of the existence of a Christian Church being once admitted ouâ— adversaries bring But whether any of all be sufficiently convincing or whether any of all be as much as probable I mean intrinsecally probable the indifferent judicious Reader is to give his judgment when I have done my devoire in answering For I remember what I have undertaken Section LXII to shew not onely that no convincing argument of natural reason can be produced but not even as much as any probable argument of such reason meaning still by probable that which is intrinsecally such Though I do withall advertise here That no even intrinsick
the Romans that by the law of God Clerks are bound in conscience to pay tribute understand you if not dispensed with by the Princes Therefore in his doctrine it is not necessary that they do not pay tribute And consequently in his doctrine t is not necessary that the Church have power to exempt Clerks from tribute whether Princes will or not Moreover and for the natural equity or congruity it self which we confess may be for the exemption of Clerks from tribute alleadged out of St. Thomas and with due restrictions pleaded also from natural reason doth either tell us of Soto's even sole congruency for such exemption to be made by the sole power of the Church and not rather by the Princes themselves Or will not this allegation of natural equity or congruitâ— be satisfied if Clergiemen be freed by the secular Princes themselves and onely too in such cases as these Princes shall not upon rational and evident grounds find it necessary for the defence of other good of both Clerks and Laicks to sess the Clerks for some time again and for what they can well spare without any hinderance to divine service Finally have not Clerks in regard or lieu of their labours received so many other great and rich and excellent and superabundant compensations as well by lands and revenues as by other priviledges or will nothing els serve them but a total exemption from the royalty of Princes and of those very goods and lands too which the same Princes gave them and which the same Princes continue and protect them in all ways Behold as from or for what concerns those arguments of Soto how farr it is from necessary that either the goods or persons of Clergiemen should be exempt by the power of the Church nay indeed or by any other from the supream civil Magistrat But as an addition to all I have allready said I demand yet when it began to be necessary that either goods or persons should be so exempt For it is manifest that neither hath been allways or in all ages of Christianity from the beginning nor even from the beginning of those very ages or that very time wherein Christian Religion was by law established publickly neither so exempt I say by either Pope or Prince And I demand also whether before they were exempted any thing necessary was wanting to the Church or after this time any thing at all times necessary accrued to the Church And as Soto must answer affirmatively to both these last demands whether he can answer or no to the first so I must out of his affirmations conclude presently That neither in the days of the Apostles nor during five hundred years after and more the Church had all necessaries to attain her own proper end which is no other but salvation Then which nothing can be said more impious and horrible by Soto or any other To the first reason of Franciscus Victoria wherein he discourseth thus that because the Republick Ecclesiastical is perfect and sufficient for it self that is sufficiently empowr'd to attain its own ends therefore it hath power to make such laws as are convenient for the administration of the Church and therefore also consequently if the exemption of Clerks be so convenient this Republick may enact laws for such exemption I answer 1. That for this which is a Republick to be perfect and sufficient or simply to the perfection and sufficiency of a Republick is not required that it may enact all such laws as make for its greater splendour and glory but onely such as are necessary for its being safety and condition And that I have shewed already heer in this section That laws of Ecclesiastical exemption are not such that is are not necessary for its being c. nay or either for its well being safety and condition as it drives to its own proper ends 2. And that if this be not admitted which I say in this my first answer it must follow out of this reason of Victoria which himself too a little after it confesses to follow That the politick temporal or civil commonwealth whereas it is also perfect and self sufficient vz. in its own nature of such a commonwealth may also make laws to the prejudice of the spiritual if such laws do seem convenient to the decor and Majesty of the civil Nay this conveniency doth wholly ruine their purpose For I demand whether is most convenient that secular Princes and for the security of their secular principalities and greater splendour and Majesty of them still retain that civil power over Clerks which the laws of God and nations give them over Clerks or that the Church to the end her self may seem or be more adorned and more dignified bereave Princes of that power even against their known will and maugre all their opposition by laws and arms What if the Church shall find it sometime convenient also to subtract from the yoake or obedience of Princes even a great part of the very meerest Laicks to be as emancipated persons or freemen evermore at the pleasure of the Church ready to serve her as the Patroness of their freedom and serve her too against their former Lords That convenient is of too great and too too dangerous extension To the second reason of the same Francis Victoria which was that the Pope might by his own proper authority choose Ecclesiastical Ministers notwithstanding any contradiction of the civil power And therefore may upon the same ground exempt such Ministers from secular iudicatories The answer is that the reason is vain First because we know that no man is bound to be a Clerk not even albeit the Pope should elect or appoint him for Clerkship Or which is that I mean that it is not in the Popes power to fix on this or that meer Layman and force or command him to Clerkship at least to such Clerkship as hath so many burdens annexed to it by the positive canons of the Church onely Although I confess it is in the Popes power as belonging properly to his office to choose out of the whole number of such as freely offer themselves whom he shall think fittest and have these ordered and appointed Ministers of the Church Secondly because we know and that in the primitive Ages of Christianity when established by law as the religion of the Empire such have not been admitted to Clerkship whom the Emperours prohibited or by their laws incapacitated as much as they could from that course of life For hence it is we read so many laws in the Code of Theodosius and Justinian concerning such as ought not to be admitted to Clerkship and commanding such to be degraded and secularized again who were admitted contrary to such laws even laws made by most Christian and most Orthodox Princes the Roman Emperours Constantine the Great Valentinian the elder Arcadius and Honorius Theodosius the younger Leo and Iustinian T is a clear case ex C. Theodos. Tit. de Episcop
Scripture teacheth the truth of that maxime as I have taken it Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo For if there be a latitude or liberty once given to mince these temporal rights without an express or certain warrant in that law it self of Christ it must be consequent that according to the caprichiousness or wilfulness of any either ignorant or interessed person the beleevers may be deprived now of one and then of another and at last of all kinds of civil rights under pretext forsooth of their submitting all to the pleasure of the Church by their profession of Christianity being that without such express warrant caution or provision there can be no reason given why of one more then of another or even why of one more then of all Having thus laid and demonstrated my first proposition or major of this my first argument I assume this other proposition for my minor But there was a natural or meer civil temporal or politick jurisdiction power authority or dominion which amounted to a coercive power in all temporal causes in every supream temporal Prince for example in Constantine the Great over all Christians whatsoever Laicks or Clerks living within his or their dominions before he or they became Christian in re vel in voto or by a perfect entire submission to the laws of Christianity and there is no such formal or virtual caution or provision in the law of Christ for the exemption of Clerks and after his or their such entire submission neither he nor they did expresly or tacitly and equivalently of their own accord devest themselves of or quit that power not even I mean in order to any Clerks whatsoever so living still within his or their dominions Ergo The same natural and meer civil temporal or politick jurisdiction power authority and dominion which amounts to a coercive power in all temporal causes over the same Christians whatsoever Laicks and Clerks living within his or their dominions remained in them and him after he or they were so become Christians The conclusion follows evidently the premisses being once admitted And of the premisses the minor only remains to be proved Which yet although having three parts into the first of Clerks to have been subject in politick matters to the supream coercive power of heathen Princes appears already and sufficiently demonstrated in my former Sections where I solved all the arguments of Bellarmine to the contrary from the laws divine either positive or natural and from the laws of Nations too and shall yet more positively and abundantly appear out of my very next immediatly following LXIII and LXIV Sections where by authorities of Scriptures and expositions of those very Scripture places by holy Fathers and by examples or practice according to such expositions I treat this matter and prove this first part of this Minor at large Nay and shall appear too most positively and abundantly out of my second and third arguments of reason either Theological or Natural either ad hominem or not ad hominem but abstracting from all concessions ab homine which follow in this very present Section And therefore to save my self the trouble of too much repetition I remit the Reader to those other Sections and arguments the rather that Bellarmine himself never scrupled in his first editions of his controversies nor ever until he saw himself in his old age beaten from all his other retreats by the writings of other Catholick Divines Canonists against him and consequently the rather that this matter of this first part of my foresaid Minor is now so little controverted that scarce any can be found of such impudence as to deny it notwithstanding Bellarmine's illgrounded chang◠or opposition in his old age whereof more presently And as to the second part of no such formal or virtual caution or provision in the law of Christ for the exemption of Clerks the very self same Sections which demonstrate the first part do also this But for the third or last part of this Minor which was that after their conversion to Christianity Princes did not quit or devest themselves of this supream coercive power of or over Clerks c I need not say more here or elswhere then I have before in answering Bellarmine's arguments out of the civil laws of Emperours Section LX. And nothing els but alleadg the known general and continual challenge of all Christian supream civil Magistrats Emperours Kings Princes and States to this very day of that supream coercive power of Clerks in all politick matters and their actual practice accordingly at their pleasure and when occasion requireth Notwithstanding all this evidence Bellarmine strugles like a bird in a cage For though he had not this argument framed against him dilated upon at full as I have heer but onely pressed by that bare maxime Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo objected to him by William Barclay he answers thus contra Barclaium cap. XXXIIII It is true sayes he the law of Christ deprives no man of his right and dominion proprié perise quasi hoo ipsum intendat nisi aliquis culpa sua privari mereatur properly and intentionally or that of it self or of its own nature it deprives no man so as intending to deprive him so if not in case of demerit when a man through his own fault deserves to be deprived of his right or dominion Yet when it raises laymen to a higher order such as that is of Clerks we must not wonder that consequently it deprives Princes of the right or dominion they had over such men whiles in a condition much inferiour Nor are there examples wanting in other things as well prophane as sacred 1◠The King rayses a private man till then subject to an Earl and rayses him I say to a Principality It must be confess'd this Earl is consequently deprived of his Lordship or dominion which till then he had over this man nay perhaps further even subjected consequently to this very man whose Lord he was so late The Pope rayses an ordinary or simple Priest to a Metropolitane a Priest subject otherwise to a Suffragan Bishop and by such creation without any injury to this Bishop or Suffragan places consequently such a Priest in a Metropolitical power of command over even the very Ordinary under whom he was immediately before A unbelieving heathen or infidel husband had the right of a her band to and dominion over his infidel wife she is converted to the Christian Faith he remaining still an unbeliever And the law of Christ doth without injury deprive him of all right evermore too that woman if she please Even so by a marriage done or contracted by words of the present time a Christian husband acquires a right to such a Christian wife and yet if she before consummation please to ascend to or embrace a higher and holier state of life or that of a Votress in a Cloyster within the tearm of
Steward of the family in spiritual things onely and onely enabled with spiritual power and with spiritual means also in the execution of such power And consequently that the Pope admits or introduceth Kings and Emperours into the Christian family that they may be govern'd or directed by him spiritually what hath this to do with or how doth it inferre the Pope's being exempted in temporal matters from those very Princes no more certainly then doth the King's or Emperour's being made chief temporal Superintendent by God himself of the Christian family or of those of his own Kingdom or Empire and no more then his admitting of or introducing of whom he please of all forraigners even Churchmen Priests and Bishops and let the Pope himself be one of them as it may well be into the temporal family of his Kingdom Empire or Court and Pallace that they may be govern'd and directed by him temporally civilly or politically in all matters belonging to him hath to do with or inferrs the same King 's or Emperour's being therefore exempt in spiritual matters from these Clergiemen over whom he superintends so or whom he so admits or introduces unto his own temporal family Kingdom or Court But sayes Bellarmine again the second time cap. 35. adversus Barclaium strugling yet to maintain his denyal of that first part of my said Minor in general as to all Clerks whatsoever or whosoever concerning that of the subjection of Christian Clerks to Infidel Princes there being two sentences or opinions as we have noted before neither of them favours Barclay The true sentence or doctrine is That Christian Clerks have been jure that is by the law of Christ or of God exempted from the power of Infidel Princes albeit they had been de facto subject to them And that he exempted them as his own proper Ministers who is truly said or called Apocap 1. in the first of St. Iohns Revelations Princeps Regum terrae the Prince of the Kings of the Earth Therefore according to this sentence that proposition of Barclay which is the said first part of my Minor is to be denied which he no where proves nor hath proved in this place but assumes as granted which yet indeed the more grave Writers do not grant such as are all those that mantain Ecclesiastical Exemption to be de jure divino And yet were that proposition granted that I mean of the subjection of Christian Clerks de jure legis Christianae to Infidel Princes Barclay would not could not therefore conclude for this consecution of his thence would be denied Ergo Clerks are de jure subject also to the judgment and power of beleeving or Christian Princes For all Catholick Writers as well Divines as Canonists deny this proposition which is the second amongst those of Barclay here And that consecution would be and is denied because the supream Pontiff that is the Pope hath absolutely exempted Clerks from the power of beleeving Princes who acknowledge his power but from the power of Infidel Princes who do not acknowledge his power he hath not so absolutely exempted them because he cannot force or punish these by ecclesiastical Censures Besides that consecution would also have been and is denied because the very Christian lay Princes themselves have so exempted Clerks from themselves as understanding how great the clerical dignity is Which Infidel Princes have not done as to whom that spiritual dignity was and is unknown Hitherto Bellarmine ubi supra cap. 35. How vain this reply is first as to his law diuine which he pretends I have already shewed at large in my former Sections where I handled his texts alledged out of that same law Divine will hereafter yet shew out of other clear texts to the quite contrary Vnless perhaps he means that that adorable title of Christ which he brings here Princeps Regum terrae and he might have added too Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium be an argument of such a law divine for the exemption of Clerks But no man would be so out of his right senses and I will not charge him with being so being these titles might be as properly alledged for any thing or law whatsoever he pleased to impose on Christ without any other kind of warrant As for the title of Ministers given to Clerks I have purposely said enough in my LXIII Section Leaving these titles therefore and all other such or not such let us demand of our learned Cardinal by what words in what place book or chapter hath this very Prince of the Kings of the Earth so exempted Clerks Give us Bellarmine one material word out of holy Scripture of Apostolical Tradition that proves Clerks to be more exempted by him so then other Christians even the meerest seeliest Laicks I have shewed abundantly shewed already you cannot And next how vain this reply is by his flat denial of that proposition and saying it was no where proved but assumed without proof my next following Section will yet shew as clear as the Sun because over and above all said already by me for the negative it proves of purpose in a positive way out of Scripture also the subjection of all Christian Clerks even de jure divino vel ipsius legis Christianae to all true supream lay Princes whether Infidels or Christians under whose or in whose dominions they live In the third place also how vainly he tells us that all those whom he calls graviores Scripâ—eres the more grave Writers to wit such as teach Ecclesiastical Exemption to be jure divina deny that proposition viz. that Christian Clerks were de jure subject to Infidel Princes For besides that I may and do on farr better grounds though at present it be needless to repeat them deny those to be the more grave Writers then he affirms or can affirm them to be so it is obvious to make him this reioynder that the material querie or dispute is not whether those Writers are so or no or even whether any besides himself or even also whether himself denied that proposition but whether it may be in sound reason or Christian Religion denied And what those arguments are that perswade it may be so denied And as I am sure that Bellarmine hath as yet not given as much as one likely argument to prove it may be so denied so I do averr the same of those others too whom he calls the more grave Divines Fourthly how vain his answer is by denying the consecution or consequent in case that Antecedent were granted that is by denying the subjection of Clerks to Christian Princes to follow their having been de jure divino subject to the same Princes before they were Christian how vain I say his answer is in this much appears out of the vain grounds he gives for it either in point of authority or in point of reason For the authority he pleads for denying this consecution is that if we beleeve him of
all Catholick Writers as well Divines as Canonists But surely either he was not in earnest or he did not esteem any of the holy Fathers or holy Expositors of Scripture for a thousand years nor any other of those most celebrious and Catholick Authors even Scholasticks even eminent men and even within all along down the very last five centuries of Christianity since the Schools begun to have been Divines Then which to esteem or say nothing could be esteemed nothing could be said more untruly or injuriously as will appear out of my allegations in my next Section of at least those indeed the most eminent nay the only indeed eminent Divines for matter of authority and belief to be given their sayings without further examination or expectation of their reasons And the reasons which he gives and which you have presently seen above being only these two viz. that the Pope absolutely exempted Clerks from Christian Princes but not absolutely from Heathen Princes and that the Princes themselves exempted the Clerks from themselves are both of them demonstrated already by me to be without any sufficient ground even in the very papal canons or Imperial Constitutions whatsoever the first in my LXXI Section and the second in my LXVIII LXIX Section and by consequence proved to be manifestly false though I speak it with all reverence to the dignity and person also of Cardinal Bellarmine Besides I must tell our learned Cardinal that I have also ruined already all those arguments framed by his grauest Writers to prove as much as a power in the Pope to exempt Clerks So that suppose he did flatter himself or impose on others that some one Pope or other or even many or all of them together or one after another had set forth Bulls of such Exemption without the consent of Princes all would signifie a meer nothing to prove that consecution of Barclaye to be no right consecution unless Bellarmine did first prove by better Arguments that the fact of Popes or their decisions must be concluding arguments of their power from Christ to do so or to determine so or so Which I am sure Bellarmine himself hath never yet proved and therefore and for many other reasons yet farr more pregnant am very certain that none else will or can at any time hereafter prove And what I say and have said and proved before of Popes to have no such power the very self same I shall in this very Section and other following arguments therein sufficiently prove of Princes that is that Princes have no power invested in them to exempt the Clerks of their own dominions and such Clerks I mean as acknowledge themselves Subjects or indeed remain so and acknowledge too those Princes to remain still their Princes Kings or Soveraigns that I say such Princes and all Soveraign and Christian Princes are such as all Clerks of their own Dominions are such too have no power invested in them to exempt such Clerks from their own supream earthly lay or secular power in temporal causes Whence also must be consequent that Bellarmine to no purpose alledged against Barclaye's consecution suppose he did truly alledge it that Christian Princes exempted Clerks c. And yet it is certain still he did not truly but for the matter it self falsely pretend this exemption to be given by any Princes Fiftly and lastly how vain that reason is which besides that of Infidel Princes not acknowledging the papal Power and Christian Princes acknowledging it he gives for a further cause why the Pope exempted Clergiemen from the power of Christian Princes but not from the power of the Heathen But to consider the more clearly and throughly how vain not only that reason but his whole answer is in this particular of Heathen Princes and the difference he puts in the case let us repeat his own whole Latin Text of this matter Quoniam sayes he summus Pontifex Clericos absolute exemit a potestate Principum fidelium qui ejus potestatem agnoscunt a potestate autem Principum Infidelium qui ejus potestatem non agnoscunt non ita absolute exemit cum eos censuris Ecclesiasticis coercere non possit A most vain discourse truly in the whole For if all other Clerks were subject to Christian Princes before the Pope exempted them as this second answer must suppose certainly so must even the Popes themselves have been For who I beseech you exempted the Pope himself that he might after exempt others And have not I shewed a little above the vanity of Bellarmine's reasons which he brings to prove that He who is Prince of the Kings of the earth Apocap 1. exempted so the Pope Nor is that diversity which our learned Cardinal puts 'twixt Heathen Princes and Christian any one whit to the purpose or such as you may thence conclude that on the Clerks living in their Dominions or under the one more then on those Clerks living under the other the Pope may bestow the priviledge of such exemption that is any exemption de jure or by right and law not in fact only For and for what belongs to the Popes right or power from Christ if he could de jure by that right or power exempt from Christian Princes Clerks otherwise subject to such Christian Princes he should also the Christian Clerks living in the Dominions of Heathen Princes But sayes Bellarmine there is a diversity a difference in the cases And what is that Quod Papa censuris Ecclesiasticis Principes infideles coercere non potuerit fideles potuerit that the Pope sayes he might not use towards infidel Princes the coercion of censures he means Interdict and Excommunication towards Christian Princes he might An immaterial diversity in earnest a difference to no purpose at all For if Bellarmine's intention be to give this difference for what concerns the fact of exempting effectually it might very well be that Christian Princes though loaden with censures from the Pope though devoted by him to eternal maledictions would no more de facto set Clergiemen free from their own cognizance punishment c. then meer Infidel Princes against whom the Pope could not make use of his Ecclesiastical Censures But if Bellarmine gives this diversity or difference in relation to the pretended right or power from Christ in the Pope for to attempt or endeavour to exempt Clerks then must the reason be yet farr more absurd as if the Pope could not de jure exempt Clerks if he could not by his censures effectually break the rebellious contumacy of Princes For I demand to what purpose would the Pope have fulminated censures in the case Is it that he would command Princes under the penalties expressed that the Princes themselves should de jure exempt Clerks from themselves that is from their own regal Jurisdiction both subordinate and supream If this only be what is intended Ergo 't is not intended that the Pope himself could by himself de jure exempt Clerks but only that
he could use means to compel the Princes themselves to exempt them so de jure Or is it to command Princes under the prescribed penalties that they should suffer Clerks to be and live de facto at liberty whom he himself had already or de jure set at liberty And if this be the Popes design in fulminating such censures then is it also plain that this very allegation destroyes that vain pretence of any material diversity or difference in the cases For that I may omit what I said a little before viz. that Christian Princes may be found I should rather say that all Christian Princes are de facto such who would be no more effectually compelled or moved to manumise de facto such vast numbers of Cittizens or Subjects then the very meerest Infidel Princes certainly this allegation reason or cause must be wholy conversant in matter of fact not in that of right because thereby it is not proved that the Pope might rather de jure exempt Clerks from the yoake of Christian Princes then of Ethnick but only that he might the more easily from and by Christian Princes get them de facto exempted whom himself had before de jure exempted which is nothing at all to the question As for the rest or that which Bellarmine alledgeth in the former words viz. these Clericos absolvte exemit a potestate principum fidelium qui ejus potestatem agnoscunt that the Pope hath absolutely exempted Clerks from the power of faithful Princes who acknowledge his power I have already above observed both falsity and fallacy therein Falsity because the Pope is no where read to have ever yet made canons for such exemption but only canons after and in pursuance of the exemption before granted by Emperors which is not not the exemption we dispute of here For the truth is that both Pope Church received vindicated what they could that ecclesiastical exemption was bestowed on them freely by Princes vindicated it as given to them by others but not as having had it formerly of their own either de facto or de jure Fallacy because that although Christian Princes acknowledge the Popes power yet they acknowledge this power as such to be no other then purely spiritual or in spiritual things only And by no means acknowledge such a power in him as may set loose free in all things from their own regal and temporal power such a great number of their people and this absolutely too as Bellarmine thought fit to express himself For so much hath our learned Cardinal himself granted in effect nay alledged l. 1. de Cleric cap 28. for the only proof of his second proposition there which is Nâ—n sunt exempti Clerici ab obligatione legum civilium quae non repugnant sacris canonibus vel officio Clericali And so much in effect is granted by him in that other book of his which goes under the name of Franciscus Romulus where he sayes in Responsiâ—â—te ad praec capita Apologiae pag. 114. That Bishops ought to be subject in temporal matters tâ— Kings and Kings to Bishops in spiritual Episcopi Regibus in temporalibus relâ—us Reges Episcopis in spiritualibus subjecti esse debebunt Yet after such concessions and notwithstanding such affirmations and allegations when the same are urged against himself to some purpose by William Barclay he flyes presently to his vain distinctions and reserved sense how inconsistent soever with any kind of rational or material sense First he tells â—od c. 28. l. 1. de Cler. That although he said in his above second proposition that Clerks are not exempti from the obligation of the civil laws which are not contrary to the sacred canons or Clerical Office yet as he meaned only those politick laws which direct humane actions in temporal commerce as for example when the Prince or lay Magistrate ordaines a certain price of vendible things or commands that none go abroad with armes at night or without light or that none transport or export corn out of the Province and the like so his meaning was not that by such laws Clergiemen are bound â—verciâ—ely obligatione â—â—actina for these are his own words but only that they are bound by that kind of obligation which is called and is solely directive sâ—lum directiva are his own words also if peradventure the same civil laws be not approved by the Church And that if the canons of the Church had ordered or disposed of the very same temporal things that is had ordained or prescribed how men should demean or carry themselves in the self-same temporal occasions or matters Clerks would then be obliged to follow the disposition of the canons whatever it were even in such matters and not be obliged as much as directively to observe the civil law that is would not be obliged to or by the very directive part or virtue of the said civil law and not only not to or by the câ—ercive sanctions of it which prescribe punishment tunc or nunc legem civilem ne directive quidem observare tenerentur sayes he in plain terms Secondly he sayes l. contra Barclaium cap. 24. That although Clerks be Cittizens and a certain part of the politick State or Commonwealth this proves no more but that they are bound viâ—rationis by the force or vertue of reason but proves not they are bound vi legis by vertue of the civil law it self And sayes he had no other meaning that is mean'd no other kind of bond or obligation when or where he brought in his book of Clerks cap. 28. that argument of Clerks their being Cittizens or certain parts of the politick State to prove his above second proposition or that Clerks were not exempt from the obligation of the civil laws which are not repugnant to the sacred canons or clerical Office Thirdly he sayes cap. 15. lib. contra Barclaium that Franciscus Romulus in the above quoted place speaks only of that subjection de subjectione quam habebant Episcopi alii Clerici ad observandos leges politicâ—s c. which Bishops and other Clerks had on themselves to observe the politick laws and not to disturb the politick order setled by Kings even as sayes he the Popes Gelasius and Nicholas do teach the one in his Epistle to Anastasius the Emperor and the other also in his Epistle to the Emperour Michael both whom Franciscus Romulus hath quoted But hence sayes our Cardinal it follows not that a Bishop may be forced by the King to obey or may be punished by the King if he obey not whereas the King hath no power at all over Bishops or Clerks which is most manifestly read in the Councel of Constance Behold here the very quintessence of our most eminent Cardinals final Reasons or doctrine of his continâ—â—al aequivocations and reservations in this matter In effect therefore his answer to my second argument would be were he to answer it in form that he would
the King labours and watches for the defence not onely of Laicks but of Clerks also therefore not Laicks onely but also Clerks do give him that honour which is due to Kings according to the precept of the Apostle Peter Fear God honour the King 1. Pet. 2. Finally they pray for the King as the Apostle bids them 1. Timoth. 2. saying I desire therefore first of all things that obsecrations prayers postulations thankes-givings be made for all men for Kings and all that are in preheminence Nor onely do they power their prayers to God for Kings in general but say in specie in particular pro Rege N. vel pro Imperatore N. for our King N. or for our Emperour N. expressing their names First therefore what Bellarmine sayes here is that the King may exempt some part of his own people from some part of his own power or even from his own whole power And this he proves thus Because sayes he the King may bestow on some house or Citty an exemption or immunity from tributs What 's this to our question Doth an exemption from tributs work this effect that whoever is so exempted is no more bound to the Prince in any kind of subjection For this is the onely question We confess the priviledges given to Clerks to be greater then a sole exemption from tributs but we deny that Clerks therefore are totally manumised set free or exempted from their subjection to Princes But sayes Bellarmine it is the prerogative of a Prince to exact tribute as it is to command or judge or punish and therefore if he can remit the one why not the other A vast difference there is most eminent Cardinal It is indeed proper to or the prerogative of a Prince to exact tributes because none exact such but Princes or States which are the same thing here But it is also proper to a King to remit tributes because none else may and that by such remission he ceaseth not to be â—â—ince of the same persons or people or City to which tribute is so remitted and that it may also be expedient sometimes for his Principality to remit them Nay if Princes had universally remitted all kind of tribute to all the people of their Dominions as Nero thought to do and could and would content themselves and bear all the charges of the publick and defend it too with by and out of their own patrimony would they fall therefore from their Principality But it is no way proper to a King to remit to any in all things all kind of obedience or subjection to himself and yet still to be truly called and truly essentially or properly to be or to remain King of those very persons to whom such remission is made because the power of lording commanding judging punishing at least in some cases is the very essence of Principality so that the Prince cannot remit or quit this and withal continue Prince Nor doth Bellarmine help himself by saying that albeit the Prince may not exempt or set free all his people and still remain Prince yet he may some part of them For it is plain that he cannot any part and together be Prince or King of that part whereas it is of the very essence of a King to lord it over and command his whole Kingdom to provide for his whole Kingdom and to have all within his Kingdom Natives Forreigners Dwellers Sejourners Inmates Travellers c. of what degree or quality soever obnoxious or subject to his will and laws the good to be encouraged to be rewarded by him and malefactors to be coerced and punish'd also by him Nor indeed is he instituted King to govern any part or parts of his Kingdom but to govern the whole Kingdom And therefore it must be that if he exempt any part from subjection to himself which yet he cannot de jure without the consent of all the Estates of the Kingdom he must as well in order to such part cease to be King as he would in order to all if he had bestowed that plenary exemption upon all and every part of his Kingdom For I beseech you what rational man would perswade himself that for example the present French or Spanish Kings are absolute Kings respectively of all France or of all Spain or of all French and Spaniards if in the richest and fruitfullest Territories of all France there be four or five hundred thousand Frenchmen and so many French women and if double trebble or quadrubble that number be in the Spanish so exempt from the French and Spanish Kings Dominions and yet so diffused in every Province County City Corporation and the very Villages that nothing can be more and yet having moreover so much influence on the rest of the people that they can turn them which way they please Or how could for another examples sake either Henry the Eight in England or his Catholick Predecessors be justly called or stiled Kings of England if the Clerks of that Kingdom then almost innumerable and possessing as their own proper lands and goods wel-nigh the one entire moyety of it were not truly and properly subjects to the said Henry and to other his said Predecessors Secondly what Bellarmine sayes though by way of interrogation is That if some great King doth in the middle of his Kingdom free some one City or absolutely bestow it on another he may be notwithstanding said to be King of his whole Kingdom But I would fain know what our great Cardinal understands by these words Rex totius regni sui King of all his own Kingdom Doth he repute that City so exempted or so made free by that great King to be notwithstanding part of that very Kings own whole Kingdom If so our Cardinal recedes not only from truth but from common sense For I pray what is it else to be a King but to lord it over those or to command those of whom he is King Can Bellarmine himself deny the King to be Superiour in relation to those of whom he is King And yet himself teaches cont Barclaium cap. 13. that every Superiour may command his Inferiour omnis superior potest imperare inferiori suo Some indeed question how far or in what things the power of Kings extend to their people but none at all whether in any thing or even very many things it reach or command them But our Cardinal will have that City exempted to be no more subject in any thing to be no more commanded in any matter by that King Therefore he is no more King of it Nor doth it make any difference in the case that he protect or defend that Citty For it is one thing to be a Protector or Defender and an other to be King Who is it would say that the Kings of England or France were Kings of Holland and of the rest of the United Provinces at any time since the said Provinces rebelled against their own natural King albeit we know and it
that every man as man whoever he be whether Christian or Infidel whether Laick or Clerk whether Priest Bishop or Pope by reason of his humane nature and notwithstanding the power Ecclesiastical of such as have this power is subject to the lay or civil power in temporal matters And this is it which the Apostle mean'd And as he spoke to all the faithfull not excepting even the Magistrate when he subjected them all to Superiours Ecclesiastical Heb. cap. 13. so doth he speak to all even by adding the word omnis or every which he did not in the case of subjection to Ecclesiastical Superiors when he subjects them all not even the very Pope excepted to the more sublime powers which were and are the lay Princes For in temporals there is no power in the world not onely not more sublime but not so sublime as that of the temporal Princes within their own respective territories and in spirituals none more sublime nor as sublime as that of Pontiffs And as in order to spiritual things the supream civil power doth not exempt the Prince himself from the power Ecclesiastical in concreto that is from the persons having that power even so neither doth the power Ecclesiastical exempt the person or man that is Priest or Pontiff as he is a man from the secular power in concreto Nor doth it matter a pinn whether in abstractâ— and in a different kind the one power be more sublime that is more excellent our divine in its own nature of a meer power then the other For persons more excellently more divinely qualified then others may be and are daily seen to be in concreto subject to those others in some things by reason of some office those others beare or even of some inferiour calling or art wherein they may instruct the former those otherwise more excellently and more divinely qualified persons Having thus examined confuted and retorted more then sufficiently our learned Cardinal's evasion and his two grounds of his evasion from the letter and both obvious and necessary sense of the letter of St. Pauls so general and so strictly universal injunction to all Christians both Clerks and Laicks for obeying and being subject to the civil power and having no less confuted the other two answers also of others that is having both out of the very text of St. Paul and out also of the motives and scope of St. Paul confuted abundantly all the before given three answers of all the several Adversaries old or new it remains now that to those my two ways of both refutation and confirmation I add yet a third Which is that I promised of the sense of the holy Fathers on the very controverted points here concerning what was mean'd by St. Paul in this command omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit what those higher powers are what the sword he speaks of after what subjection and obedience wherein And from whom due or by what persons to be paid For if I shew by clear express texts of the holy Fathers also my doctrine here is evinced then I have discharged fully what I purposed and what I promised or undertook either in this present Section or in my LXII Section against the Divines of Lovaine Therefore I say Thirdly I am likewise as sure of this third way of refuting the foresaid three answers and proving my own purpose or confirming my above fourth grand argument even as to both premisses and every part of them as I have shewn already that I had reason to be of the two former ways vz. the text it self and rational sense of the law and the chief motive and end of the same law or of that whole context of Paul wherein it was written and delivered to us For to begin with St. Augustine although he be not the first or ancientest of the Fathers I quote or who according to the ages of Christianity treated first to our purpose of this matter for in that I do not tye my self here to a method as neither in giving together all places or passages of the same or other Fathers without interposition of those of some other it is plain enough that he is home enough in Psal 118. conc 31. where he discourseth thus Principes persequuti sunt me gratis Quid enim Christiani laeserant regna terrena ut principes persequutionem in eos excitarent sine causa quamvis eis Regnum salorum promiserit Rex eorum Quid inquam laeserant regna terrena Numquid eâ—rum Rex milites suos prohibuit impedire exhibere quae debentur Regibus terre Nâ—nne de hoc sibi calumniam molientibus Judeis ait Matthaei 22.20 Reddite Cesari quae Cesaris sunt Deo quae Dei sunt Nonne tributum de ore piscis etiam ipse persoluit Mat. 17.23 Nonne praecursor eius militibus regni bujus quod facere deberent pro aeterna salute quaerentibus non ait Cingulum soluite armi vâ—stra proijcite Râ—gein vestrum deserite ut possitis Domino militare sed ait Lucae 3.14 Neminem concussâ—ritis nulli calumniam feceritis sufficiat vibis stipendium vestrum Nonne unus militum ejus dilectissimus Comes ejus commilit nibus suis quâ—dammodo Christi Provincialibus dixit Rom. 13.1 Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditae sit paulo post ait Reddite omnibus debita cui tributum c. Et 1. Timoth. 2.2 praecepit ut pro ipsis etiam Regibus oraret Ecclesia Quid ergo eos Christiani offenderunt Quod debitum non reddiderunt In quo Christiani non sunt terrenis Regibus obsequuti Ergo terreni Reges Christianos gratis persequuti sunt And again what the Babilonical captivity signified in former times the same Augustine tels in this manner l. de Catechis Rud. c. 21. saying Hoc autem totum figurate significat Ecclaesiam Christi in omnibus sanctis ejus qui sunt cives Hierusalem caelestis servituram fuisse sub regibus hujus saeculi Dicit enim Apostolica doctrina ut omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit uâ—â—reddantur omnibus omnia cui tributum tributum cui vectigal vectigal caetera quae salvo Dei nostri cultu constitutionis humanae Principibus reddimus Quâ—nd ipse Dominus ut nobis bujus sanae doctrinae preberet exemplum pro capite hominis quâ—erat indutus tributum soluere non dedignatus est Do you see this text or this precept of Paul omnis anima c. and all that follows applyed by St. Augustine to earthly Princes Do you see in him those earthly Princes to be those higher or more sublime powers of Paul Do you not read here that all the Saints were to serve those earthly powers and to be subject to them according to that command of Paul Do you hold that Churchmen are not to be ranked amongst the Saints Nay rather perhaps will not our Adversaries account Ecclesiasticks onely to be the Saints and all others
prayer armed and vehemently exhorted them to defend manfully the Apostolical Dogmats went on towards Ister And they being return'd to their town City endeavor to excite one an other and strongly resist the incursions of the Wolves To me truly this Narrative or History seems very admirable where I see that such a man as this Eusebius was that is according to Gregory Nazianzen's testimony of him in epist 28. et 30. a most holy man was of this perswasion that he ought much more to esteem of and observe the natural and Apostolical precept of paying obedience to Princes then to regard his own proper and so great afflictions or even to regard those most dangerous and grievous hazards of his flock to be devoured by Wolves that is by the Arrian Bishops and Priests for whom to make place and that they being once introduced might also introduce Arrianisme to Samosata it was and for no other cause that Valens the Emperour an Impious Arrian himself and cruel Tyrant indeed to all the opposers of that heresy banished the said most holy Eusebius Who albeit he had streingth to resist being he had so much power with the people and they so much fervour in his concern chose nevertheless to obey an impious edict of the Emperour 's and obey it not so much out any feare of the Prince as out of that of conscience For sayes the History he recited the Apostles praecept whereby we are perspicuously commanded to obey the Magistrats and Powers Nor did Athanasius dissent as presently we have seen Albeit some of the Bishops of our dayes and many also of the inferiour Clergie would in such cases and having that power with the people S. Athanasius and Eusebius had beat an allarme and sound a charge incontinentlâ— to opposition sedition and plain rebellion and all over armed with thundering censures and curses would fight obstinatly and hazard all even to dethrone such Princes Third Instance is of Gregory the Great and first of that name A Pope indeed however so great a Saint and withall as carefull to preserve and vindicate his own Ecclesiasticall eminency as could become him yet as perfect an exemplar of subjection and obedience to secular Princes in humane things as any Mauritius the Emperour publish'd a law at Constantinople otherwise called new Rome and sent it to old Rome and to St. Gregory himself wherein it was enacted Vt nulli qui in manu signatus est converti liceret that it should not be lawfull for any who had been marked in the hand to be conveâ—ted Which law hindering souldiers from conversion to a religious life in Monasteries for this was the conversion mean'd by it seem'd unjust to S. Gregory and yet the Emperour commanded him to publish it But he as you may read in himself l. 2. Regist epist 61. indic XI and that he might do his own duty both to God and Caesar and so in all respects discharge a good conscience by his letters modestly admonishes the Emperour of the injustice of the law this notwithstanding at the same time to shew his subjection and obedience to the Emperour fulfills his command by transmitting to several parts of the Empire that very law and having it publish'd And nevertheless in one of his letters to the Emperour he brings our Saviour Christ as speaking thus to the same Emperour Sacerdotes meos tuae manui commisi tua meâ— servitio milites tuos subtrahis And yet concludes at last with these words I have elsewhere quoted Ego quidem jussioni subjectus eamdem legem per diversas terrarum partes transmitti feci quia lex ipsa omnipotenti Deo minimè concordet ecce per suggestionis meae paginam serenissimis Dominis nunciavi Vtrâ—bique ergo quae debui exâ—lui qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro Deo quod sensi minimè tacui Three great Instances great examples indeed every one of them but more especially the last by so much the farre greater by how much t is clear to us the commands were so unjust as that they were against God himself because the two first were against the true Orthodox Religion the last against the true genuine liberty of the Church at least as was conceaved by Gregory Yet Athanasius Eusebius Gregory chose rather to execute the divine precept for obeying Princes then trust to their own judgments call that obedience in question And yet in aftertimes even for such laws of Princes wherein farre less injuries were contained or enjoyned Excommunications Interdicts warrs privations depositions were both denounced and executed O tempora O mores Gregory doth not approve of the law nay he reprehends it And yet Gregory doth not onely not annul nor attempt to annul it but also that he may shew his obedience to the Prince is himself the chief Promulger of it Therefore what Pope Gelasius said to the Emperour Anastasius Legibus tuis ipsi quoque parent Religionis Antistites that all three at least both Eusebius and Gregory verified in effect and in all respects and not out of equity and decency as some of our modern Authors Carmelita cont Fulg. both ungroundedly and falsely interpret but out of a true sense of justice and of their obligation of conscience to do so by reason of the jurisdiction and power of Princes as given them by God For therefore also it was that Gregory said to the Emperour that Christ had committed his own Priests to his hands And least any should say or think here that Gregory did onely mean to signifie a bare recommendation of the Priests to the Emperours care but not a subjection of them to his power for this evasion too some of our Moderns have let our Opposers consider the same Gregory's words in his 64. epist ad Theodorum Medicum intimum Mauritji Imperatoris speaking again of the very same law Valde autem mihi durum videtur sayes he vt ab ejus servitio milites suos prohibeat qui ei omnia tribuit dominari eum non solum militibus sed etiam sacerdotibus concessit Where I plainly see dominion over Priests given by God to the Emperours and as well over Priests as over Souldiers in the judgment of Gregory and therefore jurisdiction being Imperial dominion cannot be without Imperial jurisdiction let such Canonists and such late School Divines Summists or Casuists talke contradictory non sense endlesly who treating on Bulla cenae acknowledg in secular Princes in many cases a bare civil and natural power to coerce Clerks as for the preservation of the Common-wealth or the relief of Innocents unjustly oppress'd c. and yet denye them jurisdiction over Clerks as if the latin word jurisdictio had not primarily and originally most commonly and properly meaned that pronouncing of judgment or of the law and right which is in secular Courts or which is by authority of the supream civil Power So great a testimony being that of as great and
of the communication of the Church and even of that of his own subiects in spiritual things or which is the same thing might have declared him to be thenceforth or until he did hear the Church no better then a Heathen or a Publican and that all the rest of the faithfull should hold him for such until he submitted But it is plain enough that neither Publican or Heathen as such or for being such were by any law deposed from their principalities or deprived of any other temporal rights especially when our Saviour gave that rule being the Roman Emperours their under Governours and Garrisons in Ierusalem and Iury and the Collectors of their publick taxes there were heathens and publicans and held as such by the Jews and by the Apostles and consequently excommunicated evangelically or excluded from their religious rites and yet were not held by either Jews or Christians at least not by the Christians to have forfeited any temporal dominion over them or other right amongst them And it is plain enough for any thing may be known out of this chapter Novit ille de Major obed that Innocent prescribes no more therein for his said Legats or himself but to proceed to an Evangelical censure against that King of France in which censure that as we have now seen of deposition from or deprivation of his Crown or of that see of Poitiers is not involv'd Wherefore then do the said Irish Divines relye on this canon to their said purpose And yet withall I confess that because I know Innocent was elsewhere of their opinion or seem'd at least so cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi and that moreover he certainly practised according to such opinion and practised also as highly almost according to it as any Pope and more frequently then any sate in St. Peters chayre and that he scarce left one King of his time in all Europe but he vexed and shaked by his sentences either of formal deposition or of that which in his doctrine was virtual for the matter although not such according to sound doctrine by excommunication I mean which was praeliminary to the other and which he as many other Popes would have to have other effects then the Gospel annexed to it and that Henricus Spondanus that Catholick Bishop Continuator of the Annals of Baronius is in the long life of the said Innocent a witness beyond exception in this matter of the too too many menaces and actual thunders too of this good Pope against all and singular the said very supream Princes of Europe though in effect he held none supream not even in temporals at least in some cases but himself alone and because it is manifest that however this matter be of his opinion or practise of a power in himself direct or indirect or casual as he phrases it cap. per Venerabilem Qui filij sint legittimi for deposing Princes what he held concerning the exemption of all Ecclesiastick persons at least all Priests appears without contradiction or controule in that epistle of his to the Constantinopolitan Emperour in the foresaid cap. Sollicitae benignitatis de Major obed and because that exemption might be without the other pretension and finally because our present maine purpose requires onely to instance the change in the doctrine or practise of Exemption therefore it is I have thought fit to instance here and annex Innocent immediately after Pope Nicholas though in the mean time I omit Gregory the VII and some others with him whose Histories are so famous especially because this Innocent gives the very same corrupt interpretation of St. Peter's epistle which Nicholas gave before him And yet also I confess there may be very much observed on and very much said against that fine artifice that misterious hook of Innocent which you may discover plainly under that subtle distinction of his in the above cap. Novit ille de Major Obed. Non enim intendimus judicare de feudo c sed decernere de delicto cujus ad nos â—pertinet sine dubitatione censura quam in quemlibet exercere possumus debemus A misterious hook indeed whereby if once swallowed all the meerest temporal causes in all Christian Kingdoms and States in the world nay and I mean too in all kind of trades handecrafts or other callings whatsoever must of necessity be decided in the external consistories of the Pope and of his Legats whensoever it shall please his Holiness to erect such Courts either at home in his own country or abroad in all other Countries for his Legats For it is clear enough there are sins whereof for example the Marchant and the Taylor the Lawyer and the Clerk the Councellour and the Client the Statesman and the Souldier the Baker Brewer Shoomaker c may be accused or sins of them or of each of them and at least pretended injustices of the particular laws rules customes of every kind of secular Corporation which may be denounced evangelically to the Pope or to his Legats And therefore it is also clear that by this subtle interpretation made by Innocent of Evangelical correction or of the power of the Church and of the Pope by vertue of it he may were it true hook into his own proper Ecclesiastical consistories all the temporal causes in the world and consequently render all the lay judicatories in the world unsignificant evacuat them all every one among Christians especially if his other text in cap. Per Venerubilem Qui filij sint legittimi were admitted as a rule where he sayes Verum â—â—man in alâ—s Regionibus non solum in Ecclesiae Patriâ—â—nio super quo plenam temporalium gerimus potestatem certis causis inspectio temporalem jâ—â—isdictionem casualiter exercemus and further also consequently might without much difficulty make himself de jure and de facto the sole supream Prince indeed both spiritual and temporal among Christians But forasmuch as it is not my business here to examine this matter any further then to shew the change or difference of opinions and practises betwixt some of the later Popes and the former as to that of acknowledging and yielding obedience or not to the supream lay Princes I proceed and anâ—â—â— to Nicholas and Innocent the â—â—ird Boniface the VIII And I am sure if I had annexed also Innocent the Fourth in particular many others with him whom I do not mention at all I should not do it impertinently But to avoyd too much prolixity I content my self at this present with Boniface the Eight With him above others I end this comparison that it may be rendred the more conspicuous Paul the Apostle said Rom. 13.7 Cui tributum tributum cui vectigal vectigal The succeeding Fathers taught by word and confirmed by deed what Christ himself had taught also by word Matth. 22.21 viz. that what was Cesar's should be paid to Cesar and what he moreover confirmed by deed that is by actual payment
restored them back Severus hystor l. 2. in fine Nor doth Baronius himself tom 4. an 381. n. 110. reprehend him in this matter or at all upon account of usurping on Ecclesiastical persons rights or judgments but onely upon account of having favoured hereticks to wit forasmuch as he restored those three Bishops whom himself had before so lately banish'd Ex quo quidem facinore sayes Baronius sibi necem comparavit But this is a most vain judgment of Baronius For the said Instantius and Priscillianus soon after appealing to Maximus the tyrant Emperour Vsurper and murderer of Gratianus were by him as being or at least pretending to be an earnest Catholick called to his own presence to be judged again by his Imperial authority the Catholick Bishops who accused them desiring this of him most earnestly and were at last condemned by him the one to have his head cut off and the other to be carried to a place of perpetual banishment Several other Bishops also the very same great Catholick Hypocritical Zelot Maximus punish'd in the self same manner some by death and some by banishment Prosper in Chron. Severus l. 2. observing still the Catholick Praelats with much respect and above all St. Ambrose himself notwithstanding he saw very well that Ambrose could not be drawn to approve of his treacherous usurpation but stood still firm to young Valentinian the lawfull Emperour though an Arrian profess'd and consequently an Haeretick Emperour Against whom on that specious pretext of heresy Maximus rebelled and usurped the Empire as being himself a Catholick and pretending onely or at least chiefly to maintain Catholick religion against Arrianisme which infected the young Emperour Valentinian and his mother And yet Baronius might know that this very Maximus who so put even those very heretick or Schismatick Bishops to exile and death whom Gratian restored a little before and was himself therefore and by Gods special ordinance or just permission most cruelly murthered by Maximus if we may believe Baronius for what concern'd the cause of Gods permission of the untimely death of Gratian I say Baronius might know that this very Maximus saw suddenly after as violent and fatal an end of his own Empire and life together by the victorious arms of Theodosius Now to observe that heer which is more to our purpose I confess that Severus reproves the inconstancy of those Catholick Bishops who charg'd Priscillian in that they sufferd him to provoke that is to appeal to the Emperour or that they sufferd the causes of the Church to be judged or determined by a Secular Iudg. But to me it seems plainly that the cause of Priscillian and of the rest was not purely Ecclesiastical For that Priscillian himself was charg'd also with meer lay crimes and that having confess'd his own obscenities he was condemned the same Severus tells And that of such crimes nay indeed of all crimes whatsoever so they were found to be real crimes much more when they disturbed the publick peace or endanger'd it the more sublime the meer Secular powers were the Judges and avengers by strict coercion and corporal punishment or by the material sword and pure force S. Paul teacheth and the perpetual custome in all Christian Kingdoms and States confirmeth Arcadius an Emperour also very orthodox received the accusations against John Chrysostome Bishop of Constantinople and thereupon having first ordered a judicial procedure against this great and holy Bishop at last condemned and sent him with a guard of Souldiers farr off to exile Socrates l. 6. c. 16. Pallaâ— in Dialâ—g And certainly Pope Innocent the first of that name who then govern'd the See of Rome where he inveighs bitterly against Arcadius and against Eudoxia his Empress as against most grievous persecuters of so great and so holy a man doth not at all object that Arcadius being a meer lay man usurped a judiciary power in Ecclesiastical matters or so against his own proper Bishop nor that he proceeded so against him out of or by a tyrannical power and not by any legal authority over him in the case but onely reprehends Arcadius in that he had not proceeded justly against Chrisostome or in that he had not made right use of the power which he had in the case and in a word in that he expelled Chrisostome from his Episcopal throne before his cause had been legally and throughly sifted or judged as it ought and consequently without observing the due formalities or even substantial or essential procedure in such case required by the law Ejecisti sayes he ê throno suo rerum judicata magnum totius orbis Doctorem Nicephor l. 13. c. 34. Nor doth Chrisostome himself any where complaine of the Emperour as having usurped a power of judging condemning or banishing him And yet we know he writt to several especially to Pope Innocent many letters fraught with complaints of the Emperours unjust judgment and proceedings against him acknowledging Arcadius or at least supposing him still a legal Judg though unjust as to the sentence in the case Theodosius the younger Emperour known likewise to have been still a most zealous and pious Catholick Prince clap'd in prison Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria Praesident of the General Council of Ephesus and together with him Memnon an other Catholick Bishop albeit this good Prince was in the merit of the cause abused by the false informations of John Patriarch of Antioch and of those other Bishops of his faction who met in a private Council amongst themselves at Ephesus too and separated or absented themselves from the rest or from the publick session house where the said Praesident and generality sate And though after by the great Council of Ephesus to wit when all the Bishops met there the second time the cause of Cyril having been examined he was and all of his way declared innocent and John and his complices condemn'd by their Ecclesiastical sentence yet or notwithstanding all this could not the said great Catholick prisoners Cyril Memnon c be set at liberty out of prison not even I say by the authority of this very great and true Oecumenical Council All this great Council did and all they could do as to this of the liberty of these prisoners was to write and petition to the Emperour by their Legats sent of purpose and in this behalf to his Majesty and petition him by this very tenour and forme of words Nunc verò his scriptis per hos Legatos â—ientissimos Episcopos vestra pia genua pretensia manibus attingimus ut quae â—i lenter acta sunt cum sanctissimis pientissimis Episcopis Cyrillo Memnone nullumque canonibus robur habentia prorsus irrita sint c. Relat. Syn. Ephes. apud Cyril in Apologetico And then soon after conclude thus Oramus igitur Vestram Majestatem soluite nos illos a vinculis vinctis enim fratribus ac Praesidibus sancte nostrae synodi etiam nos quodammodo
vincti sumus Where you see a General Council and a Council truely General with their armes or hands wide spread bowing down humbling themselves touching as their phrase is the knees of the Emperour and beseeching him to set free to them out of prison the Patriarchal Praesident of their whole Council And you may see them in some passages going before complaine indeed but with all modesty to the Emperour that his Majesty was deceaved by sinister information But that he oppress'd or infring'd Ecclesiastical Immunity they neither complaine of there nor elsewhere so farr were they from any thoughts of proceeding to excommunications Interdicts or monitories or minatories of either and consequently so farr from the practise of some later Ages The same Theodosius and by the Ministers of his Pretorian Presect exiled Nestorius Patriarch of Constantinople who was by the said great Ephesme Council condemned of heresie as may be read in the Acts of that Council And truly Cyril of Alexandria epist 6. writing to Iuvenal Bishop of Ierusalem advises that the extermination of Nestorius should be desired and expected from this Emperour only and from his subordinate civil Magistrates Necessarium autem erit sayes he ut Christi amanti ac religiosissimo Regi universis Magistratibus scribamus consulamusque ne pietati in Christum hominem praeponant sed largiatur orbi rectae fidei firmitudinem ac greges Domini à malo pastore liberent nisi universorum consiliis obtemperaverit Pursuant to which desire this very Theodosius afflicted most grievously several other Bishops for being only suspected of Nestorianism Amongst whom let Theodoret Bishop of Cyrus albeit in himself otherwise a very true and sure Catholick tell how the Emperour punish'd him upon suspicion only let us observe whether he complain that a Laick should take cognizance of judge and sentence and confine a Bishop or whether only be complain of the injustice of the proceeding against him as having no crime at all whereof he was convicted or which he had confessed or that was objected to him at least upon any kind of even but a probable ground Cum enim sayes he himself Theodoretus epist 81. apud Paron tom 6. an 440. num 11. ad Nomum consulem semel iterum scripserim litteras nondum accepi Imperatoris decreto Cyrenssum regionis terminos praeterire prohibeor Nulla vero alia causa hujus damnationis videtur praeterquam quod Synodos Episcoporum congrego licet neque accusatio ostenderetur neque actor appareret neque reus convictus decretum tamen editum fuit c. And then adducing the example of Festus with Paul Act. 25. he adds Et haec quidem dicebat homo qui Christo non credebat sed idolorum erroribus serviebat Ego vero neque interrogatus An Synodes congregem nec ne quorum causa congregem quid mali afferam vel rebus Ecclesiae vel publicis ac si in maximis deliquissem ab aliis arceor civitatibus Quin immo aliis quidem omnibus omnis aperta est civitas non solum Arrii Evnâ—mii sectateribus sed Marcionistis illis qui Valentini Montani morbo laborant nec non Ethnicis Iudaeis Ego vero qui pro dogmatibus Evangelicis pugno ab omni excluder civitate Moreover it was Theodosius commanded Irenaeus Bishop of Tyrus to be not only deposed from his Episcopal See but also degraded of Sacerdotal Order as was actually done in obedience to his command Acta Concil Ephes edit Pelt tom 5. c. 29. And further yet it was this Emperour Theodosius that notwithstanding the foresaid great General Synod of Ephesus deposed the before mentioned Iohn from his Patriarchal See of Antioch as appears in the Acts by his own imperial authority interceded and hindered the execution of that sentence nay commanded it should not be executed and who also by his own self same and onely imperial authority though for a very just end or least otherwise great troubles should arise licenced the said Iohn to return to his former See of Antioch And finally it was this Emperour Theodosius that called both Iohn and Cyril to himself to Nicomedia and forced them to agree among themselves and Iohn also to agree with the Catholick Church wherever by renouncing Nostorius Martianus a no less Catholick Emperour even he who together with Pulcheria the good Empress convoked the fourth General Council or that great one indeed of Chalâ—dâ—n this very Martianus I say was he that by his own Imperial authority removed from the Patriarch of Antioch the cause of â—â—as and brought it to his own cognizance and this too at the Instance of the Priests of the Diocess of Edessa Subjects to and accusers of the said Ibas their own Bishop and because they alleadged that the Patriarch of Antioch to whom the cognizance of their accusation against Ibas immediatly belong'd in the Church was suspected of partiality and committed it to other Bishops to be judg'd by them joyning also to these other Bishops for an assistent Damasium Tribunum Nâ—tarium a meer lay officer Concil Chalced. Act. 9. But that which herein or in this cause of Ibas and in this Imperial cognizance and commission of it is more notable yet is that the complaint of the said Priests his accusers was purely Ecclesiastical as wholly concerning an excommunication which he had pronounced against them But I have elsewhere noted that the Prince hath an external superintendence over and power of the external regiment of even meer Church affairs especially in two cases viz. 1. when manifest injustice is committed or innocency oppressed or whether it be so or no in rei veritate when complaints are made to the Prince that matters are so carried in the Church or by the spiritual or Ecclesiastical Governours of it 2. when he sees that by the carriage however this be of Churchmen or of the spiritual superiours of other Churchmen or laymen the publick peace or tranquillity of either Church or State politick is any way disturbed or hazarded or that any other publick spiritual or even temporal good which implyes no sin is hindered Pursuant to which it was also that Leo Magnus Primus the first and great Pope of that name writ to an other Leo the Emperour and writ in his 81. epist to coerce the Clerks of the Constantinopolitan Church as favourers of hereticks In quibus sayes this holy Pope deturbandis si frater meus Anatolius cum nimis benigne parcit segnior invenitur dignamini prâ—fide vestra etiam istam Ecclesiae praestare medicinam ut tales non solùm ab craine Clericatus sed etiam ab urbis habitatione pellantur Where this Pope desires the Emperour to exercise his own Imperial power not delegats any Ecclesiastical to him though he desires the Emperour not onely to banish those Clerks from the City but also to have them degraded from their order And pursuant to the same
opinion or rather certain and true judgment of such a power in the Emperour as properly and essentially belonging to his Imperial office it was that the orthodox Bishops of Syria writ also to the same Emperour Leo for punishing by his own Imperial power according to the laws of the civil Commonwealth Timotheus Elucus Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria as by the same laws and against both the same laws and Princes too being guilty of various crimes but in particular of adultery and murder De delictis autem say they post Câ—ncil Chalced. praesumptionibus quas nefandê commisit Reipublicae legibus corum praesulibus judicio competenti subdetur Where you see a meer secular judgment called or said to be a competent judgment of criminal Bishops And indeed that the banishment of the said Timotheus which soon after followed by the decree of this Emperour Liberat. Brevi c. 13. proceeded onely from his own proper Imperial power not from any Church power or from any commission or delegation from the Church we may gather sufficiently out of the 100. epist of the above S. Leo the Pope wherein he writes thus to Gennadius Dilectio tua eniti elaborare debit ne redeundi integram capiat libertatem de quo jam Edictis suis Princeps Christianissimus judicavit Finally pursuant to the same knowledg of the Imperial power and authority from God for judging and sentencing the criminal causes and inflicting corporal punishments in such criminal causes and on such Clergymen as were found guilty Pope Simplicius epist 9. 11. beseecheth the Emperour Zeno Vt quod per nos sayes he Ecclesia seriò postulat imô quod ipsi specialiùs supplicamus Petrum Alexandrinae Ecclesiae pervasorem ad exteriora transferri piissima praeceptione jubeatis But to leave this judgment of Popes or other Bishops of the power and authority Royal in the case which Judgment as such of the power is not the proper and primary subject of this section or at least of this part of it and to return to matter of fact onely and this of the Princes themselves acting by particular Instances The next Prince I offer to the Readers consideration is Theodoricus King of Italy For this Prince albeit an Arrian as to his beleef of the Trinity of persons or Divinity of Jesus Christ yet in all other points of Christian religion and in his veneration and observance of the Church and Churchmen and of their priviledges and exemptions in general and this without any distinction of Arrians or not Arrians he was precise wary and strict enough nor is there any reprehension or complaint of him in History as not being so And yet he is recorded to have admitted of and discussed the accusations drawn and presented to him by the very Catholicks themselves both Layety and Clergye against Pope Symmachus Of which matter Anastasius Bibliothecarius writes thus in Symmacho Post annos vero quattuor aliqui ex clero zelo ducti aliqui ex Senatu maximè Festus Prâ—binus insimulaverunt Symmachum subornarunt falsos testes quos miserunt Ravennam ad Regem Theodoricum accusantes beatum Symmachum occultè revocarunt Laurentium post libellum Romae factum fecerunt Schysma divisus est iterum Clerus nam alij communicaverunt Symmacho alij Laurentio Tunc Festus Probinus Senatores miserunt relationem Regi caeperunt agere ut visitatorem daret Rex Sedi Apostolieae quod canones prohibent And albeit upon debate this King at last remitted this cause of Symmachus to a Council of Bishops and that by the same King's licence several Councils of Bishops convened at Rome to sift it throughly which Councils I have amongst others and upon an other occasion quoted in the marginal note of my introduction to this first Treatise pag. 1. yet no man can deny that he admitted the accusations and thereupon and as judg of them and of the whole cause exercised several judiciary acts as having a legal power or Christian authority to do so Nor did Symmachus except or resist nor did any for him or in his behalf or in behalf of the Church or of Ecclesiastical Immunity reprehend Theodorick for doing so Nay we have seen before in this Treatise Sec ... this very Symmachus himself openly professing that he himself would yield to God in the Emperour's person to wit by obeying him in humane things as we saw him desiring on the other side that the Emperour should likewise revere God in the person of the Pontiff doubtless for what concern'd spiritual or divine matters The Catholick Emperour Justinus proceeded yet more imperially in the criminal cause of Dorotheus Bishop of Thessalonica For this Bishop being accused of sedition and of several murders too and particularly of the murder of Iohn who was one of the Legats of the See Apostolick and the rest of the Apostolick Legats being his accusers before the Emperour and being so also by express command from Hormisda the Pope whose Legats they were and he too that was murdered and this Pope himself pressing hard that the said Bishop Dorotheus the supposed murderer of his Legat should either be deposed by the Emperour from his Bishoprick and sent to banishment farr from his place or See and Church or certainly be sent to Rome with all fit prosecution of his cause Iustin indeed proceeded to a judicial tryal and sentence of the criminal Bishop but with so much regard of his own imperial power in the case that he neither did the one nor the other which Hormisda so earnestly pressed for Of all which the Suggestions amongst and after the epistles of Hormisda and these epistles themselves particularly the Suggestion which is after the 56. epist and the second Suggestion after the 64. epist and the 57. epistle in it self may be read Promittit say the Legats writing to the Pope Sancta Clementia for so they stile the Emperour vindicare citare Dorotheum quia nos contestati sumus pietatem ejus c. And Hormisda himself the Pope epist 57. writing to the said Legats Nam eumdem Dorotheum sayes he Constantinopolim jussu Principis didicimus evocatum adversus quem Domino filio nostro Clementissimo Principi debetis insistere ne ad eamdem civitatem denuo revertâ—tur sed Episcopatus quem numquam bene gessit honore deposito ab eodem loco ac Ecclesia longius relegetur vel certè huc ad urbem sub prosecutione congrua dirigatur But wherefore doth not this Pope command his Legats to insist upon the delivering of such a criminal a criminal Bishop into their own proper custody hands and power to proceed against him to judg and punish him as they shall find cause being they alone and not the Emperour were his competent Judges in the case if we believe our Bellarminians and Baronius wherefore do not these Legats wherefore doth not this Pope himself being denied what he desired fulminat excommunications against Iustine
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
the guilt of Sacriledge to refix their signatures which can be no less even formally than to say That the Remonstrance in it self is sacrilegious But that virtually and consequentially they judge it also to be either Heretical or Schismatical no other proof is requisite besides that where they say That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of the Catholick Religion For whoever sayes so of any form must virtually and consequentially say the same form is either Heretical or Schismatical or both because all judicious learned persons know very well That no things are repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion but such things as imply Heresie or Schism or both Secondly You are to consider That in their first and long original unpublish'd Censure the Louain Divines gave these four chief grounds which I have hitherto impugned in well nigh a Hundred sheets and gave them I say for their own grounds of alledging those two pretended Causes or Reasons and of their consequent Censure so as above of our Remonstrance as unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. And consequently you are to consider That being those four chief grounds of theirs are so clearly and utterly and universally ruined by me hitherto their said two pretended Causes or Reasons which had no subsistence but in those grounds must also be no less universally clearly and utterly ruined and by further consequence so likewise no less universally clearly and utterly must their said Censure be being this depends wholly on those two Reasons or Causes and these on the four grounds Thirdly You are to consider yet more particularly the grand Temerity against Prudence Falsity against Truth Injury against Justice and Scandal against Charity of this Censure by reflecting first on those Reasons or Causes given in and for it and secondly on the sense of each of those words adjectives or epithets of it and by comparing both these epithets and those causes to the several parts clauses or propositions of the Remonstrance it self analyzed into propositions or even to the whole Remonstrance as comprising all together without any such Analysts understanding now by the Remonstrance that part of it which only is in dispute the Act of Recognition with the Declarations Renunciations c. therein contained and the Petitionary address thereunto annexed To which purpose I desire the judicious learned Reader to look back to the 7 8 and 9th page of this First Part and read there once more attentively that our Remonstrance from first to last and then analyse or resolve it I mean resolve those Recognitions Declarations Renunciations Promises c. and Petitionary addresses all therein contained and analyse or resolve all into so many particular distinct propositions as they are fit or may be resolved into and after this to apply those two Reasons or Causes and each and all those adjectives or epithets of the above Louain Censure to each proposition severally nay and to all at last jointly taken And to the same purpose I desire him to consider that in no part of the Remonstrance nor in the whole taken together any obedience is promised or acknowledged or confessed to be due to our Sovereign Charles the Second or any other Temporal Prince but that which is in Civil and Temporal Affairs only and none at all in spiritual things nor in any kind of spiritual thing For so is the obedience it promises acknowledges or confesseth as due to our gracious King in His own Dominions by all his own Subjects whether Protestants or Catholicks and as due to all other absolute Princes and Supreme Governors within their own respective Dominions also and by their own respective Subjects so I say is that obedience most signally expressed and determined in formal words and in two several passages of this Remonstrance to all Civil and Temporal Affairs adding further yet and in signal formal words too that it be in such meer Civil and Temporal Affairs not universally or absolutely in all cases according to the arbitrary will or pleasure of the Prince Charles the Second but as the Laws and Rules of Government in such things in this Kingdom do require at our hands and to other such Supreme independent Princes or Magistrates according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively Whence any judicious Reader may conclude at least if he have read what I have hitherto so diffusely writ of the subjection of all even Clergy-men to the Supreme Temporal Magistrate in Temporal things That the Divines of Louain did most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously suppose their first Cause or Reason of their Censure viz. That our Remonstrance contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make unto them For I have demonstrated at large before that by the Law of God and Nature and by the Laws of man as well these are Ecclesiastical as Civil all men are bound to pay such obedience to their respective Kings or Supreme Magistrates And if they are so bound to pay it sure the Prince may especially when he sees Reason for it require a promise or an acknowledgment or confession or declaration of it from them and they make such promise acknowledgment c. And I am sure too that our Prince had much Reason then when that Remonstrance was made and hath yet still to expect such even a most formal promise and declaration from the Romish Clergy of Ireland and they no less to make it to Him To the same purpose yet of seeing further into the Temerity Falsity Injury and Scandal of the said Louain Censure the Reader may be pleased to reflect again once more and no less particularly on their abovesaid second Supposition Cause or Reason of it as you have seen that Louain Faculty in this their short Censure which we now handle express that second Cause viz. That moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion and I desire the good Reader to apply this and compare it either to all the propositions jointly taken or to every one severally of our Remonstrance and then judge whether I have not just Reason to complain of them and tax them as I do that this which they suppose in the second place is most rashly falsly injuriously and scandalously supposed or alledged by them as a Cause or Reason of their Censure For what can be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to condemn or censure a pure and meer Acknowledgment Confession Declaration or promise of Loyalty or of Allegiance Fidelity and Obedience to our Rightful and Supreme Lord and Sovereign and a promise of such in meer Temporal things made to Him by His own natural Catholick Subjects and made in a publick Remonstrance wherein those of England as well nay antecedently to as those of Ireland joyn'd than I say to condemn or censure such a publick Instrument of such a great Body containing of the
and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
ignorance to assert nay and endeavour also even before his own face to maintain That because the King was out of the Roman-Catholick Church it was not lawful to pray for him at all or at least not publickly on any other day in the year than good Friday nor then in particular for him but in general only i. e. forasmuch as he was comprehended amongst the great generality of Infidels or of Jews Mahumetans Pagans and Hereticks for whom altogether the Church prayed on good Friday as being the Aniversary of that day whereon our Saviour dyed for all the Children of Adam in general nor yet then or so to pray for him without some further qualification and restriction of what we should beg of God or wish from Heaven to him i. e. to pray only for what concern'd the Spiritual welfare of his Soul and therefore only to pray for his Conversion to the Roman-Catholick Church but not for his Temporal prosperity in this world until he be a true Member of the only true Church 2. That although his own endeavours partly and partly those not only of the rest of the former Remonstrants but of other good men who albeit they had through fear of the Roman Court and other Ecclesiastical Superiours not subscribed the Formulary or Remonstrance of the year 1661 yet in their Souls and where they durst both in word and deed too approve it had prevailed in most parts of the Kingdom against this wicked Heresie of not praying as they ought for the Supream Temporal Powers he knew notwithstanding too too well that all opposers were not yet perswaded to decry this errour down or to practice against it 3. That notwithstanding the ignorance or malice of such disaffected Church-men the Holy Scriptures to speak nothing at all of Natural Reason in the case or I mean of that reason which directs us to wish well to all men and love our Neighbours as our selves were plain enough both for Praying and Sacrificeing too even for Idolatruos and Heathen yea persecuting Heathen Princes and not only for their Spiritual welfare but their Temporal as Baruch 1.11 and 2 Timoth 2.1 at least joyned together manifestly prove For certainly the Princes and Kings for whom Paul desires Timothy and all other Christians to pray for Heathens and Nero amongst them was the very first Persecuting Roman Emperour And no less certainly both Nabuchodonozor and Baltassar in the Prophet Baruch were Heathen Princes and the former He that sacrilegiously robâ—d the Holy Temple nay utterly in his time subverted the Kingdom of the chosen People of God and carried the miserable remainders of them Captive to Babilon 4. That no Church-canon or Custom or Rubrick or Reason or Doctrine or Practice hath any power to prescribe against the Laws of God or their eternal reason declared in both the New and Old Testaments 5. And Lastly That nothing could more justly render us to all Protestants both suspected of disloyalty and odious for immorality than such our scandalous either opposing or omitting so known a duty Secondly for the later or second part of that same first of those Three Heads he let them know likewise That although not even the Subscribers of the very former Remonstrance or of that of the year 1661 may be thought to be obliged by the only precise contents of that Formulary To acknowledg either the Kings Authority in commanding any meer spiritual duties or the Peoples obligation in point of Conscience to obey the King in such commands yet no man of knowledge will thence conclude that the intention or design of that Formulary or Subscription of it was either formally or virtually i. e. tacitly and consequently to deny all such Authority in the King or all such obligation of conscience on either Lay people or Clergy but only in plain and express terms to acknowledge the Kings other kind of independent Authority viz That in Temporals and for commanding in all Temporals universally according to the Laws of the Land of the misbelief or denyal and rejection of which even Vniversal and Independent Authority in Temporals it behooved the Subscribers to clear themselves or at least those in general in whose behalf they Subscribed and Remonstrated That such concern and such intention or design is very far from any consequution or sequel implying their denyal of the Kings Authority for commanding some Spirituals even truly such nay or of his Authority for commanding Vniversally all Spirituals whether not purely or purely such to be duly perform'd by all Subjects both Lay and Ecclesiastical respectively as they are in their several capacities by the Laws of God and man directed enabled and obliged to perform and discharge them and therefore also very far from any conseqution implying their denial either of Peoples or Clergys obligation in point of conscience to obey the King whensoever He commands a due and holy observance or performance and discharge of such Spiritual works which neither of their own nature nor by any icrcumstances or ends prescribed by Him are vitiated or against the Laws of God but are in every such respect acts of true Religion Piety and Holiness For who sees not That a general affirmation of one sort of Authority in Kings and of a correspondent tye of obedience thereunto in Subjects must not infer a general renunciation or denyal of another kind of Authority in the one and tye on the other when these latter can not be truly said to be inconsistent with those other That both the Examples even of the most religious holy Kings either amongst the Jews and Israelites in the Old Testament or amongst Christians under the dispensation of the New yea in the more early times thereof and the Doctrin of the Fathers and natural reason too in the case manifestly prove this Authority in all Kings for commanding even such spiritual duties and consequently this obligation of and tye of Conscience on all Subjects of whatever Religion true or false the same or different from that professed by their Kings to obey them even in all such their commands whither given by Law or by Proclamation or other temporary Precept That to this purpose the Books of Paralipomenon do furnish us plentifully with the examples of David (a) 1 Parlip cap. 23 cap. 28. 2 Paralip 8 Ezechias (b) 2 Paralip 29. and Josias (c) Ibid. 35. to say nothing now of Joas adhuc dum bonum (d) Ibid 24. faceret coram domino nothing of Salomon (e) 3. Reg. 2. Vide etiam 4. Reg. 18 23. cap. 2 Paralip 19 34 35. cap. Et Mac. 4.59 Ester 9.26 Dan. 3 19. â—on 3.7 c. and the Civil Laws of the Christian Emperours of Rome the Books of the Code Pandects and Authenticks furnish us no less plentifully with examples of Constantine the Great Theodosius both the older and younger Honorius Martianus Justinian Heracliuus Leo and many more amongst whom Carolus Magnus and
my self and other friends against all both Forreign Censures and Home Impostures I had in truth some regard of vindicating my self and all those persuaded by or associated with me either in signing or adhering to the foresaid Remonstrance and consequently too of vindicating even that Formulary it self from the no less malicious than both scandalous and false aspersion of unlawful detestable sacrilegious yea schismatical and heretical with which our Adversaries branded us And if I had not had that consideration in some degree of my self and Friends I had been as unsatisfied with my own heart as ever any of my Adversaries were with any of my Books For I think every honest man is bound in Conscience to defend himself and Friends especially his own and their good name wherein and as far as he justly may cum moderamine inculpatae tutelae And I am persuaded no man will be so rash or impudent as to reprove me for thinking so But withall I do protest in the presence of God it was not any such or other whatsoever private consideration or regard of my self or said Friends that was the chiefest or strongest motive I had to put Pen to Paper in any of the foresaid now hereafter following Treatises or in any other Treatise or Part or even addition of other Appendages to all the Treatises of this present Book but that more publick regard of the more common and universal good of the Irish Nation and Catholick Religion which I have signified before And so I perclose here at last this Second Part and consequently as to both Parts the whole First Treatise Which Treatise the necessary Theological Disputes against the four grounds of the Censure of Louain for an Hundred sheets together in the First Part have made so long albeit I confess the pure Historical Sections are even of themselves long enough But the next following Three Treatises will in some measure by their shortness compensate the former length For they are proportionably as short as may be and yet as long as their several Subjects require them to be having nothing Historical in them and but a strict and pure partly Theological and partly Rational Examination of the import and weight of those foremention'd three several Papers of the National Congregation and yet even that such an Examination too as in many or rather most material places doth suppose the reading of this First Treatise or of some things diffusely treated therein Which is the reason they needed not be longer than they are What I think will seem most wanting in them to the Readers ease must be That they have no Marginal nor any other sort of Remissions directing to the Sections or Pages of this First Treatise where some of the Publick Instruments or other matters related unto are given or handled at large But I could not help that being I was necessitated to write and print them before I had written a word of this And a diligent or curious Reader may quickly help himself at least by turning to the Table THE SECOND TREATISE CONTAINING Exceptions against the form or protestation of Allegiance subscribed and presented the 16. of June 1666. to His Grace the Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant General and General Governour of Ireland by such of the Irish Clergie of of the Roman Communion as convened at Dublin the 11th of the said month and year and dissolved the 25th thereof FIrst they varied in this form not only as to single words but to entire clauses and their sense in the most material parts from the former protestation subscribed by those others of the said Clergie and of the Nobility and Gentry at London in 61. And varied so of set purpose as openly appeared upon the contradictory question and debate for fourteen dayes together in their publick Assembly that they might be free from all tyes of duty faith obedience and acknowledgment or recognition of His Majesties power over them or their own obligation to obey him in all cases and contingencies wherein Bellarmine Suarez Santarellus Mariana or any other such later or former Writers maintain the lawfulness of the deposition of Kings by the Popes or peoples authority and the lawfulness also of the Rebellion of the people against Princes deposed so or excommunicated and denounced by the Prelats of the Church And that they should not be convinced to have disclaimed any wise either clearly and expresly or equivalently and by consequence in the general pretence of a power in the Pope or Church by divine immediate right spiritual or temporal or mixt of both either direct or indirect to depose all kind of Princes at least such as they account as Hereticks in the Christian Religion and to absolve their Subjects or declare them absolved from all kind of Allegiance at least in the extraordinary or even ordinary cases of such as they likewise account or esteem Apostacie Heresie Schisme or other tyrannical or sinful administration or either true or pretended oppression of the people nor convinced also to have disclaimed even in those other meerly humane titles or rights which the Popes have so often pretended and still do and which many or most of that Irish Clergie as likewise the present faculty of Lovaine Divines in their late censure of the former Remonstrance procured by the Agency and sollicitation of some of the said Irish Clergie and by the vehement interposition of the late Internuntio at Bruxels the Italian Abbot of Mount-Royal Hieronimus De Vecchiis do peculiarly and stiffely maintain to the Realmes of England and Ireland to wit those of donation submission feudatary title and forfeiture Or which are the same those argued from the either true or pretended Bull of Adrian the fourth to Henry the second concerning the Kingdom of Ireland and those likewise argued from the famed resignation of the Crowns or Soveraignties of both Kingdoms by King John to Innocent the Third or to his Legat Pandulphus at Dover and from the payment of Peter-pence Secondly And to come to the particulars of this change or variation and and I mean it in the material parts only And not to take any notice though it is fit there should be some of the changing the Epithet or Adjective Rightful first Line of the said former Protestation of 61. into that of undoubted in this of 66. for one may be an undoubted Soveraign De facto though not De jure rightful but an Usurper Or may be in fact or possession undoubted Soveraign though another should be in deed and so acknowledged as to right the true King and Soveraign Nor yet to take any notice of altering those other three words under pain of sin second Line of the said former printed Remonstrance into those in Conscience albeit the doctrine and practice of equivocation so common to and so mightily insisted upon amongst them and yet further the positive exceptions of some of their party even at London some four years since against those very words and
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-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
their express and publick refusal in their Congregation and on the contradictory question to begg pardon for themselves or any others for the said crimes nay as much as to condemn or even acknowledge in such actings any crime of Rebellion or Treason it plainly appears they have not in word or sense intended by their said Remonstrance or by any owning protestations acknowledgements declarations promises or engagements expressed therein to disown really the pretended extraordinary or casual power of the Church as a Church by virtue of either a divine or humane title as challenged either by the Pope alone or even by other inferiour Bishops and we have seen those Bishops at Jamesstown did not only challenge it but practice accordingly in some cases to command or approve of the deposition or deprivation of the Prince or of the rebellion of Subjects against him Nor likewise to disdown really much less to condemn the doctrine of a pretended Inherent and natural right power or authority in the People not as a Church but as a meer civil Society to redress their own grievances by taking arms against the King and his Laws when they shall judge it necessary or expedient and that in their own judgement there is no other way left them to help themselves For if these Gentlemen had but as much as once really intended to disown in words or sense such pretended powers or doctrines which maintain them they had not with so much contradiction and so contrary to all reason and with so much animosity heat and clamour expresly and pertinanaciously refused not only to petition for pardon for themselves or others for the illegal practice but also in any kind of terms the most milde could be and the most abstracting from any positive accusation of themselves or others for it was proposed only so to express their detestation or at least dislike of what was done against the laws in those several Instances of the late Rebellion and iterated continuation of and relapse into it But the truth is and was what it seemed The leading men amongst them would not suffer the rest to assent to any thing at all which might be or seem an argument against the like future however illegal undertakings Which being so is it not manifest how little how weak and frail and false the assurance is the King can derive from such a Remonstrance of such men and in such a Country and time as this The other Observation is That upon the sole account likewise of that very new scandalous false and evil doctrine of some late Casuists or extrinsecal Probablists as they are called which teacheth the lawfulness in point of conscience of changing opinions judgments doctrines and practises thence consequent and changing such at pleasure and as often as you will even in the most weighty matters and consequently teacheth the lawfulness of following the opinion judgment or doctrine of others even those you judge the less safe and less probable and following them even against your own fixed Judgment and practising accordingly and upon the sole account of this new doctrine being owned by all or most or chief at least of the Divines of that Assembly and so far owned by some of their chief and leading men that upon the very question and in relation to any Oath of Allegiance to the King which they had no mind to subscribe they particularly owned it and asked my self to what purpose should they be urged to any such form whereas they might in conscience according to such doctrine next day follow the contrary judgment of others I say that upon this account only if there had been no other or if their Remonstrance had been satisfactory and clear in all other points as indeed it is not in any at all and until they do clearly and expresly under their hands in a publick Instrument disown and condemn a principle so fallacious and wicked for directing mens actions and consciences all the assurance they have yet given by any Papers even taking them in the best sense which any plain honest man could give them in a sense they never intended and all the assurance they can or shall any of them peradventure yet think upon to give hereafter in any other kind of Protestation ought in reason to be esteemed as proceeding from them very little and very weak and very frail and very false and in a word such as and for as much as proceeding from them so principled to any man that were not a meer fool could signifie no more then a meer nothing Nor is it necessary at present to bring other proof hereof then what is without further explanation obvious to every man of sense and obvious out of that very owning of theirs of the said pernicious position of those Probablists and out of that Quaerie made in pursuance thereof by such owners of it Nor can any thing be more evident than that to extend the general doctrine of Casuists or general position of the lawfulness of following any opinion that is by some Authors maintained as probable at least to extend it to the particular cases of either publick or private contracts and yet further to extend it to the very case of a publick or even private profession and Oath of Allegiance to the Prince were nothing else but to teach perjury deceit and perfidiousness and to take away all faith truth and safety from the world even from all kind of societies of men To conclude therefore all I have said in this second Treatise and to give here briefly distinctly and clearly all the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. as the Remonstrance of men so principled and so affected as the generality of the Congregation or the generality of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland have and must yet seem to be The first Exception comprising all in general as the rest descend to particulars is That of set purpose and to be free of all engagements when or if occasion requires the contrivers fram'd it so that in the most material partâ— it varies from the former Protestation subscribed by those â—thers of the said Clergy and by their Nobility and Gentry at London in 〈◊〉 and 62. and varies not only as to single words but as to entire clauses bâ—â—h in words and sense nay and whole matter too or question in debate â—pecially as to those five clauses or passages before observed in the first and second Instance pag. 2. and 3. of this Second Treatise and also as to both the only and so material and necessary Protestation of that same former Remonstrance and the no less material and necessary resignation or that they conceive to be such in the last Line of the Petition of that self-same former Remonstrance Second Exception That in this their own of 66. the Fathers purposely all along from the first word to the last decline mentioning the Pope by this although most honourable title or by any other title
proper to Him or indeed by any word or words sufficiently as from them comprehending Him Third Exception That by their form of Recognition in this Remonstrance they do not positively or absolutely but at most and at best relatively conditionally and modally acknowledge Charles the Second to be their true and lawful King supream Lord and undoubted Soveraign of Ireland Fourth Exception That neither according to this relative conditional or modal recognition of this Remonstrance it acknowledges Charles the Second to be rightful King of Ireland which yet the former did but this latter not leaving so the Subscribers elbow-room to play fast and loose with their distinctions and say they so acknowledge Him King of Ireland de facto only or only at most by that presumptive right which is from humane Laws in force not by that which is the true right only and is only derived from the Laws of God or Nature or Canons of the Church Fifth Exception That by the title of supream Lord in this Remonstrance as from that Congregation must not be understood a Supremacy of Lordship not subordinat in Temporals to the pretended both temporal and spiritual supream Lord of the whole Earth or at least of the whole Christian Earth Nor which is the same thing a Supremacy of independence in Temporals at least in all cases from any but God alone But only such a a Supremacy in Temporals as ordinarily excludes Subordination in power to or dependence in such from any of his own People or even from altogether in most cases and in ordinary cases also from the Pope or Church though not from the Church Pope or People in some extraordinary contingencies Sixth Exception That consequently the profession of their being His Majesties Subjects made here by the Congregation signifies no more but a subjection answerable to such a Lordship and such a Kingship And yet further such subjection as obliges them not to acknowledge themselves thereby or by the Laws of God or canons of the Church bound under pain of sin to obey Him or by such laws or canons bound under any pain to obey Him as much as other Subjects ought or as much as the Laws of the Land or humane rules of Government in this Kingdom require at their hands Seventh Exception That as from them it doth not bind them not to acknowledge and assert alwayes what they or any of them at any time hitherto have contended for or do contend or at least pretend that they contend for even at this present their divine or celestial their extraordinary and casual as well positive as negative supream temporal power or pretended power of the Pope over in or to the kingdoms of Ireland England c. as well as over all other Kingdoms Empires States and as well and as truly and properly over their Temporals as over Spirituals at least ratione peccati or in ordine ad spiritualia Eighth Exception That as from them it does not sufficiently exclude dis-acknowledge or disown the Popes even meer humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right by Donation Submission Prescription Peter-peace Feudatary title given or Forfeiture made c. to the temporal Supremacy or supream temporal King-ship Lord-ship or supream power of Goverment ship of England Ireland c. in some cases as being in such cases legally devolved to him and by him to be disposed of at his pleasure to whom he will Ninth Exception That as from them it no way binds them or any else to disown the Popes pretended lawful power either divine or humane for dethroning deposing or depriving the King or binds them any way to dis-allow of the pretended just and lawful execution if any should happen of such power or pretended power by Excommunication and actual denunciation of such Censure and of all the penalties annexed by Papal constitutions or by other sentence or declaration or by any other means whatsoever Nor as from them binds them or any other not to obey the Pope in such matters and disobey the King Nay nor both to disown him as a King and fight against him as a Tyrant and as a Tyrant too as well by title as by administration according to the doctrine of Suarez Def. Fidei Cath. L. 6. C. 4. de formâ Juram Tenth Exception That as from them and pursuant to their meaning by the title or word Supream it professes not against that other seditious doctrine of a pretended natural and inherent right or power in the people themselves not as a Church of Christ but as a natural temporal politick and civil society of men to dethrone or depose the King by virtue thereof when or if they shall on rational grounds or grounds seeming such to themselves judge it necessary for their own preservation or doing themselves right where they think themselves oppressed and the complaints are general A power indeed were it true as the Authors of this doctrine pretend it to be the only supream or that is only and simply and properly such or at least is more truly and properly such then that attributed by this Remonstrance to the King though not according to Bellarmine and those of his way to be compared at all to that of the Pope which alwaies must be the superlatively supream over all Eleventh Exception That as from them it binds them not nor any other not to approve of the practice of that wicked maxime which avers it lawful in some case for Subjects to murther or to kill not only their Prince of a different Religion from theirs but even their Prince of the same true Catholick Religion with them Twelfth Exception That as from them it doth not bind them to acknowledge the Kings either Coercive or directive power of themselves Or That they or any other Clergy-men are bound under pain of sin to submit by a passive obedience to the coercion or by an active obedience conform to the direction of any meer Lay Magistrate or Prince how supream or rightful soever or of his Laws not even in things otherwise indifferent or not prohibited by the Laws of God nor even in things not prohibited by the Canons of the Church if not peradventure to such Lay-Princes only and such laws of theirs if there be indeed any such as are particularly and specially priviledged by the Pope And consequently does not bind them to condemn or disown that most wickedly dangerous Aphorisme attributed to Emanuel Sa in some of his Editions but certainly necessarily and evidently derived from Bellarmine and Suarez c. That in relation to any meer Lay-Prince or King or State Clergy-men cannot be said in any case whatsoever to be guilty of high Treason or of that horrid crime of Laesae Majestatis or of defying denying or lessening Majesty Thirteenth Exception That in case the Pope should declare this Remonstrance of theirs to be uncatholick or unlawful or any way unsafe in point of conscience as to those very small inconsiderable acknowledgments or promises
truely declare it is not their or it is not our Doctrine though in an other sense they cannot nor intended so to do And for to justifie this declaration distinction or equivocation they will according to the principles of equivocating Divines readily make use of that passage or words of our Saviour in the Gospel mea doctrina non est mea sed ejus qui mifit me Patris And yet when they shall find it for their advantage they will no less readily acknowledge that their intention also was to declare by those words that what follows is not the doctrine of even those very Doctors or Popes nor consequently of the Church And yet will acknowledge too this much without any prejudice to their own opinion or judgment in the points controverted and without holding themselves obliged by this Declaration understood as it ought or may not to practice accordingly For all they say in this first part of that first Proposition is We the under-named do hereby declare that it is not our doctrine that the Pope hath any authority in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second They will here presently when they please and shall think fit have recourse to the several meanings of the word Authority And without any necessity of using the distinction which yet is obvious enough and frequent with them of authority in fact and authority of right they will say although not with the Doctors of Lovaine in their censure of the Remonstrance of 61. that they declare it is not the doctrine of the Romae Church that the Pope hath any authority which is purely or meerly temporal or even humane at all or by humane right ways or title acquired over the King in his temporal Affairs And that neither hath he any Divine or Spiritual which is ordinary over him in such or which at his pleasure may at all times and in all cases dispose of the Kings Temporals And after this or notwithstanding any thing here declared they will say with Bellarmine that all the most supream right or authority challenged by Popes to depose Princes and dispose of their Temporals is entire and safe enough For this grand Authority indeed they have or challenge thereunto universally is not in the rank of temporals nor in the order of humane Authorities but in that of wholy spiritual and purely divine and supernatural Is not ordinary but extraordinary or as Innocent the 3d. speaks casual only that is in some particular great and extraordinary cases or emergencies and this too ratione peccati alone as the same Innocent further saith And consequently they will say that by any such general though negative Declaration or by a Declaration in such general words only or against any Authority in general to be in the Pope this very specifical this extraordinary casual spiritual celestial divine Authority in such great unusual contingencies must never be thought to be declared against according to the maxime of Lawyers and Law before given in my Exceptions to their Remonstrance For which saying they will further yield this reason That without any such specifical meaning intended their said Declaration or Proposition may be useful to shut out of doors the Popes humane pretences or pretences of meer humane right said to have been acquired and by the present Faculty of Lovaine maintained to continue still in force to these Kingdoms by donation submission prescription feudatary title and forfeiture And that such Declaration or one against such humane pretences in particular to his Majesties Kingdoms of England or Ireland nay and Scotland too was enough to be expected from them by his Majesty without putting them to the stress of resolving on that other supereminent divine pretence and which really is to all other at least christian Kingdoms in the world or all those of other Kings and in such extraordinary cases as well as to his Majestie 's They have yet in store a third explication equivocation distinction but as fallacious as if not more than any of these two already given And I call it a third way of evasion though as to the first part of it and as to the matter in it self of that first part however the words be different it varyes not or but very little from what is already said in effect It does in indeed in the second Part as will be seen They will as occasion requires or they find it expedient say nothing of the first on the words our doctrine nor of the second on the words authority in temporal affairs But when they come to Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will instantly tell you as Logicians or Sophisters of their specificative and reduplicative sense And that these words bear it And that the cause it self and the conjuncture of circumstances make their recourse to this kind of distinction very lawful They will therefore when they please to proceed a third way allow it is not the doctrine not even of the Catholick Church that the Pope hath any authority not even spiritual or divine in temporal affairs over our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second they will I say allow this Proposition or this part of that first complex Proposition but allow it only in sensu reduplicative in the reduplicative sense or as the reduplication falls on these last words Our Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second In the specificative they will deny it and withal deny it was their meaning what ever the Sorbonists meaned by the like to their own King to declare at any time or by that Proposition that the Pope had not some authority in temporal affairs over our King considered as a Criminal or Sinner though in such not any over him considered only as our Soveraign Lord and King Charles the Second They will further say that while the Pope himself or people or both joyntly suffer or tollerat Charles the Second as King the Pope hath no authority in temporal affairs over him But yet when he finds it convenient and necessary in any of those great extraordinary emergencies not to tollerat him any longer he may by his divine authority in such cases depose and deprive him of all his temporals together and transfer the right of them to another and this by way of Jurisdiction over his person as a criminal and sinner not over his person as a King not criminal or sinful They will further say and though I meaned it hitherto as the second part of this third way yet it may be also and is a fourth way of explication or evasion that allowing it not to be the doctrine of the Church that the Pope hath any Authority of Jurisdiction Power or Superiority properly such in temporal affairs over the King considered either in the reduplicative or specificative sense and allowing too that themselves intended to declare so much by the said former part of their first Proposition yet the last refuge is alwayes open A Power and Authority in the
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
my Lord Lieutenant would challenge the Congregation or Clergie and mind them of their said publick Remonstrance declarations oathes and ingagements and with this very passage I consider now and consequently require obedience in those very cases defined so by the Pope Father N. N. and his associats needed not according to their principles be put to any streight for answer but presently and consequently to his and their said principles and proceedings all along even in that very Congregation and notwithstanding this very present intimation declaration reason resolution or evasion rather and illusion but call it what you please would confess they said indeed amongst other things in their paper of reasons that they should not hold the Popes infallibility if he did define any thing against the obedience they owe to their Prince but nevertheless would say withal they declared not what obedience is due when or wherein Or that any obedience is due when the Prince is at least nominatim declared an Heretick or excommunicat by the Pope Much less when he is by the Pope or by the people or by the sentence of either deposed or as much as suspended from administration for his ill government And since it is manifest if they will not contradict their own principles and proceedings all along which yet they have refused to do that such would be their exposition in such a case of this passage here in their paper of reasons what prudent knowing man in the world sees not they say nothing at all by this imposture against that which they do and must intend to speak against thereby if they intend any thing consequently nothing against the necessariness nothing for the unnecessariness of subscribing the 6th proposition or declaration against the Popes infallibility nothing to our purpose here against even a limited infallibility in him or against his infallibility as relating to their obedience due to the Prince and I mean also that obedience onely which is payed the Prince in temporal things alone or in such due unto him but so due notwithstanding as the Prince himself and his laws for such temporal things and all honest people too understand it due without abstraction exception restriction distinction equivocation or mental reservation for this inconsequence is cleer and manifest out of the very tearms We let all prudent men know that we should not hold the Popes infallibility if he should define any thing against the obedience we owe to our Prince in some cases or some things before he be by the Pope declared nominatim an Heretick an Excommunicat a Tirant an Usurper c or before he be either by Pope or people or by the sentence of either deposed or suspended Therefore its needless or not to the present purpose here that we disown or subscribe against his infallibility when or if he defines and as much as he defines it to be of Catholick faith that in such other cases as those of Apostacie Heresie Schisme Tyranny Usurpation Excommunication deposition suspension we owe in temporal things no obedience to such a Prince And yet this is all that Father N. N. sayes and means here if he say and mean truely so much as I am inclined to perswade my self he doth though I know withal he may be yet questioned for his meaning in these words our Prince as likewise what he really intends by the word should where he sayes we should not hold c. Thirdly That it implyes again a manifest contradiction to hold the Pope infallible in defining all matters controverted whither they be of the Catholick faith or no and yet not to hold his infallibility in defining this question whether Subjects in our condition and of our communion under such a Prince be bound to obey him in temporal things in such and such cases For this very question is mightily controverted even by Catholick Divines on both sides and hath been ever since Gregorie the 7th Fourthly That if Father N. N. his meaning here be grounded on these two suppositions first That by the law of God there is some obedience we owe to our Prince secondly That it is impossible the Pope should define any thing against the law of God and if Father N. N. will say consequently It was therefore the Congregation might have declared they should not hold the Pope's infallibility if he did define c. because they held it absolutly impossible the Pope would so define or define any thing against the obedience they owe their Prince and withal held it lawful for themselves in case of one impossibility supposed by others to resolve themselves conditionally on another as impossible as that quia ex vno impossibili sequitur aliud yet Father N. N. will find himself in this way too contradict his own and the Congregations principles videlicet such principles as he and they follow taken out of Bellarmine and other authors of his way as well in point of the doctrine of the Popes infallibility in general as of his power in particular not onely to depose Princes in such and such cases but to exempt all Clergie-men from owing any obedience at all or in any kind of case to any other Prince but himself alone And therefore further N. N. must not be thought to have said any thing here to any real purpose until he and the Congregation plainly renounce those principles which yet they have not For as in those principles or maxims the former supposition is false at least as relating to the Congregation or to any Clergie-men so it will be answered that granting the second yet according to the doctrine of the Popes infallibility both he and the Congregation and all others too must acquiesce in the Popes exposition or declaration of the law of God and beleive hereafter though against their own former dictates that this or that whatever it be is not against the law of God when or if the Pope declares it is not As according to their further doctrine of the Popes power of the Keyes for binding and loosing or of dispensing they must also believe that in case the Pope himself had declared that before his exemption or dispensation they owed obedience to the temporal Prince in some cases according to the law of God yet if his Holyness once exempt their persons as he hath already or dispense with them or with their obedience in those very cases wherein we now supposed he had formerly declared them bound by the law of God to obedience as he pretends he may nay and often too hath already in the like they owe no further any For so the Glossator avowed by the Rota Romana sayes that the Pope may dispense against the Apostle against the old Testament against the 4. Evangelist's against the law of God Gloss in canon lector dist 39. et in cap. Proposuit de concess Prebend in canon a nobis in verb. Exemptis de decimis And so sayes Bellarmine lib. 4. de Roman Pontifice cap. 5. that
religious or civil or both and by all right reason it is to be condemned in all temporal Kingdoms or Common-wealth where the civil laws of the land declare and provide against it as Treason or Rebellion 6. We hold it uncatholick false and scandalous doctrine which teacheth that Apostacy Schisme Heresie or any kind of sin or sins how grievous soever or any Excommunication or other Ecclesiastical censures of the Church of Christ how ever denounced can or do of their own nature as they abstract from the civil power and laws of the civil Magistrate or of the respective Kingdoms and Sâ—ates deprive any person whatsoever Prince or Subject of any of their temporal rights or Dominions or warrant any other to take away their life or any way annoy them in their persons or goods 7. We hold it manifestly impious unchristian and against the word of God to averr that a King lawfully such by title may upon any pretence whatsoever even of Schisme or Heresie or also of tirannical administration either in civil or religious matters or both be murthered or killed by any of his Subjects even in case the Pope alone or joyntly with other spiritual or temporal superiours of the Church should licence or pretend to licence it either by a publick or private or pretended sentence of Excommunication Deposition or Deprivation 8. The doctrine which teacheth that a King lawfully such by title and possession is no more King after he is deprived or deposed by the Popes sentence upon any pretence whatsoever and consequently teacheth by a vain and wicked distinction that who killeth him after such sentence killeth not a King but a private man or a publick and tirannical Usurper is false dangerous and intollerable amongst Christians 9. Notwithstanding the allegations of some for the general exemption of Clergie men by divine or human laws or both from the secular power We hold that all both Secular and Regular Clergie men whatsoever born and residing within any of His Majesties Dominions are by the law of God subject to His Majesties supream temporal both directive and coercive power as to that of their onely supream temporal Lord on earth from which none can justly pretend any exemption either divine or human other than what by the allowance favour and indulgence of the supream Magistrate and laws of the land are in force and use however they may have a right to be exempted in some cases from the temporal jurisdiction of inferiour Judicatures 10. Subjects professing declaring or subscribing any conscientious Oath Instrument Form or paper of their Allegiance and fidelity to their Prince in temporal affairs cannot in conscience make use of the doctrine of equivocation whereby they may be said to have a reserved sense in their words or mind not obvious or not conceived generally by others that intend no deceit 11. Nor can they in conscience then or at any time after make use of that other new doctrine of some Casuists or Probablists as they are called which teacheth the lawfulness of changing opinions and practices thence consequent at pleasure or as oft as you will even in matters of conscience and which teacheth consequently the lawfulness of following the opinion of others in those you judge less safe and less probable and following them even against your own fixed judgement and practising accordingly For to extend this doctrine of such Casuists that least the cases of either publick or private contracts much more or much less or any way at all â—o that of a publick or even private profession of allegiance to the Prince were nothing else but to teach perjury deceit and perfidiousness and to take away all faith and truth and safety from the world even from all kind of society of men Wherefore notwithstanding any controversie about the lawfullness of any form professing allegiance to the Prince and notwithstanding some peradventure may be who may say and even upon probable grounds either extrinsecal or even intrinsecal the said form to be unlawful that is unconscionable yet if it be not evidently such but on the contrary probably lawful it must ever hind him that taketh sweareth or subscribeth to it so that he may not at any time ever made in practice follow the contrary opinion notwithstanding any multitude or authority of its Patrons less than that of the Catholick Church 12. After mature perusal examination and discussion of the Remonstrance or Protestation of Loyalty subscribed in ouâ— at London by the Catholick Bishop of Dromore Father Peter Walsts and other Divines and by the Catholick Irish Nobility and Gentry then likewise there as also by others after both of the Clergy and Lavity here at 〈◊〉 in Ireland We find and we declare this to be our opinion judgment and conscience That notwithstanding the censure of those few Divines of the Lovaine-Faculty a censure some three years since and very imprudently too by the Agency Solicitation and Importunity of some of our Countrey-men procured and notwithstanding the Letters now of late or even those formerly sent to this Nation as from and in the name of Cardinal Francis Barbaâ—â—â— from Rome or those others from Bruxels and from the two succeeding Interâ—â—â—iuâ—'s there Hieronimus de Vâ—cchiis and Iacobus Rosâ—â—gliâ—sâ— and notwithstanding any other allegations whatsoever against the said Remonstrance or Protestation yet there is nothing in the said humble Remonstrance Acknowledgment Protestation and Petition that may justly be repâ—ted against the Catholick Faith nothing that may not be owned and subscribed with a safe conscience by every good Catholick Subject and consequently nothing that under the guilt of sacriledge or other sin ought or can at any time hereafter be disowned by such as have already or shall hereafter subscribe that Instrument And we further declare it to be our opinion judgment and conscience That for many reasons and specially for that of avoiding the imputation and scandal of our Adversaries that the Roman Catholick Tenets are inconsistent with the loyalty of Subjects due unto Protestant Kings and consequently of a disloyal inconstancy to be brought on themselves and the Catholick Religion they are bound under the heavy guilt of a sacrilegious breach of that Protestation not only not to revoke at any time for fear favour or any other respect their subscriptions but also not to decline in any wise in whole or in part the doctrine of that Protestation or the practice of it in relation to His Majesty according to the true sincere and plain meaning of the words without any kind of equivocation abstraction exception distinction or mental reservation And to the end it may appear to all the world we neither have nor will nor can have any kind of reserve we thought fit to declare our selves fully even on all the six late propositions of Sorbon as applyable to his Majesty of Great Brittain and Ireland our gracious King and to his Subjects And therefore and being we have already in the eight first
causa Barthol Lancello Specul Menoch march Scâ—c plures alii cum communi Doctorum apud August Barbos in coll ad decretal in dictâ— cap. Pastoral n. 2. and as the Canonists commonly maintain Furthermore we say That if His Holiness ex plenitudine potestatis would give or hath given his Lordship a power above the Canon Law and such extraordinary faculties as that he should not be bound to admit even just Appeals yet hereby His Holiness never intended nor could lawfully or conscionably intend to hinder the Appellants from opposing the execution of an unjust sentence given against them much less from opposing a sentence or censures of their own nature invalid when their own Consciences tells them that his Lordship grounds himself upon ill information or that the obeying of the sentence may prove disadvantagious either to the Publick or Particulars against Equity and Right For in this and such like cases the Law of Nature takes place and allows the Appellant or Party aggrieved to preserve his own Right even by force if no other means be at hand against the unjust proceedings of a corrupt ignorant malicious or ill informed Judge specially if this Party aggrieved be a Prince State Council or Commonwealth which hath a Supreme Civil power as our case is Nay if His Holiness who is the Supreme Ecclesiastical Judge on earth and from whom there is no Appeal in matters belonging to his judicature otherwise than from himself to himself did upon ill information or for any other cause whatsoever give judgment or pronounce Censures contrary to justice and conscience or which would be disadvantagious to our Publick cause or destructive of our Commonwealth or of the lives liberties or fortunes of the Confederates or of the Council and that part of the Confederates who adhere to them and to the Cessation being incomparably the greater part of the Kingdom there is no Catholick Divine in the World but must confess it would be lawful to resist and oppose His Holiness in this case and to hinder the execution of such a sentence yea that such as are in Publick Authority would be bound in Conscience and under pain of a most grievous mortal sin to use their uttermost endeavours for opposing the said execution even vi armis if it were necessary and no other means left of reconciliation or for preservation of the Publick Yet certainly we do not fear that any such evil shall ever come immediately from the Sacred Throne of our most Blessed Father Innocentius Lastly What is objected by some out of cap. Ad nostram and cap. Reprehensibilis de Appellat That no Appeal is allowed from a sentence given in a controversie of Faith and consequently that your Honours Appeal is against the Law since the adhering to the Cessation to be unlawful is an Article of Faith and the sentence of Excommunication and other Censures were pronounced by the Nuncio to make the Confederates religiously observe the said Article that is not to adhere to or observe the said Cessation We say all and every branch of what 's here objected is so false and so absurd as it cannot be sufficiently admired with what face can any broach such ignorant Positions What is more clearly and without controversie decreed in Sacred Canons than that all weighty causes and questions happening about Articles of Faith which are the most weighty of all causes are to be referred unto the See Apostolick and even frivolous Appeals in such Controversies be admitted that is though the causes of appealing in these matters appear not to be so just or reasonable as are required by the Canons to be in Appeals interposed from grievances in other matters See this expresly defined in the Canons placed in the Margent (s) Alexander III. in cap. majores de Baptismo majores Ecclesiae causas praesertim articulâ—s fidei contingentes ad Petri sedem referendas intelliget qui eum quaerenti domino quem discipuli dicerent ipsum esse respondisse nâ—tabit Tu es Christus filius dei vivi pro eo dominum exorasse ne deficiat fides ejus c. See cap. Ut debitus § ultim juncta Gloss in verb. causis de appellat cap. Translationem de officio Legatâ— Bellarm. l. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. â— See Bellarm. l. 4. de Rom. Pont. l. â— de Concil authorit where he teacheth and with him the Catholick Doctors commonly that only His Holiness is infallible in definâ—ng or declaring matters of Faith and that even General Councils much more National are of no such infallibility but may err until or before His Holiness confirm them Nay some Catholick Doctors as Bellarm l. 2. de Concil cap. 5. hath affirm that National Synods though so confirmed are not infallible and so constantly taught by Canonists as our opposites cannot produce one Author for themselves And what is more out of all doubt with both Heretick and Catholick Divines than that even His Holiness as Pope and Vicar of Christ yea and together with his Consistory of Cardinals and which is more sitting in a General Synod of the Universal Church on earth might err in Controversies of Fact which principally depend on informations and testimonies of men Read Bellarmine 4. de Romano Pontifice cap. 2. And consequently what is more certain and evident than that it is impossible the adhering to the Cessation concluded with Inchiquyn to be unlawful can be a matter or article of Faith or as such declared by any power on earth not to speak of the Lord Nuncio who hath no power no not together with his National Synod to define or declare such Articles even in capable matters or in questionibus juris otherwise then as a particular Doctor since it is plain that the question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of it is a meer question of Fact and principally depending on the informations and testimonies of men Finally What is more plain to any knowing Reader of the two Chapters alledged against us out of the Canons by some of our opposites than that neither of them hath a word to that purpose or which by a Scholar may be understood in the sense they are produced against us For cap. ad nostram speaks only of just corrections of persons who are by profession Regulars as if a Religious man transgresseth manifestly his Rule or Institutions of his Order in this case and very justly no Appeal is admitted nisi tamen modus excedatur sayes Gloss ibid. verb. minus if a certain punishment be prescribed by the Canons for such a transgression and no other inflicted for if the punishment be arbitrary then according to Panormitan even a Regular might appeal in case of correction yea though his crime were notorious And as for cap. Reprehensibilis it makes the same sense though it be not restrained solely to the correction of Regulars but is more generally understood de disciplina Ecclesiastica of the correction of all Ecclesiasticks
this great Prince And so we are at least throughly quitt even for matter of example And so I have also done with my sixth and last of all those considerations or of all those points on which I have said before in the beginning of my animadversions of or answers to the third ground of the Censure it had much better become our masters of Lovaine Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and so judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to reflect seriously before they had precipitated so temerariously and injuriously and even erroneously to boot to censure that Remonstrance of 61. on this ground of its pretended promise or tye on Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession The nullity and falsity of which pretence or ground although I knew that my very first consideration of all the six had sufficiently evinced yet I would ex superabundanti and to clear this matter in all particulars and to instruct others more fully give all the rest albeit unnecessary amongst men of reason to vindicate in this behalf or any other that Remonstrance LX. I onely to end all whatever I intended to say on this occasion further add it is a confirmation of what I have said before in my first consideration that if our sticklers at home for the Lovaine Censure in this behalf or if the opposers of the said Remonstrance of 61. on account of obliging Confessors to break the Sacred Seal of Confession will continue still their malicious clamours against it on this account finding all other accounts to stand them in no stead though I be sure they find this very same to stand them in as little as any of all they must confess themselves consequently obliged to clamour no less nay more against the Remonstrance of 66. whereof hereafter I will treat at large even that of the Dublin Congregation of that year even that of the general Representatives of the whole Clergie of Ireland even that of their Archbishops Bishops Provincials Vicars general Divines altogether For if the former of 61. be quarreld at for expressing onely the readiness of the subscribers of it to reveal c. and for expressing such readiness without any express engagement or any at all in other express tearms then these two words being ready words of their own proper strict signification not engageing at all the subscribers to reveal or that they will discover actually but at most a present preparation or disposition of mind to discover c certainly this passage of the Remonstrance of 66. wherein there is an express engagement or one in express words that they will or shall discover c. must be in reason as much at least if not more quarreld at on that account Wherefore pursuant c. we do engage our selves to discover unto your Majesty or some of your Ministers any attempt of that kind rebellion or conspiracy against your Majesties person Crown or Royal authority that comes to our knowledge For here is the same general notion of knowledge without any express distinction of it without any express reservation or exception of that knowledge which is had in confession as indeed there should not be any either express or tacit thereof more then is in the former Remonstrance of 61. LXI To the fourth and last ground of that Censure of Lovaine against this Remonstrance of 61 their pretence of its renouncing Ecclesiastical Immunity or of subjecting Clergiemen against Ecclesiastical Immunity to the cognizance and punishment of the civil Magistrate The Procurator and other subscribers answer'd 1. That there is not a syllable in that Remonstrance which may seem to any man of reason to say either formally or virtually expresly or tacitly That Churchmen have not or ought not to have either by the laws of man civil or Ecclesiastical or by the laws of God positive or natural any such immunity or exemption either for their goods or persons from the cognizance or punishment of the subordinate inferiour civil Courts Magistrates or Judges I mean any such immunity or exemption as the Catholick Faith or Catholick Church teacheth as out of Scripture or out of Tradition or even as by virtue of any canon or custome obliging as much as the very Churchmen to assert or maintain it or not to renounce or disacknowledge it not even in some cases or some Countreys where the civil or municipal laws are contrary to such canon or such custome as for example England and Ireland where this last century of years the laws and customs are known to be so much altered from that they perhaps have formerly been in this matter That the acknowledgment of the King to be our King and our supream Lord too or the acknowledgment of his absolute independent supremacy in all temporals within his own Dominions concluds neither formally nor virtually a disacknowledgment or even the least renunciation of any kind of real true pro-per Ecclesiastical Immunity acknowledg'd by other parts or people or Churches or Churchmen in the world even in the most Catholick Countries No more certainly then doth the like acknowledgment known to be made by word and by writing by all Catholick French Spanish Venetian German c Clergiemen to their own respective Kings Emperours States conclude that they disacknowledg or renounce thereby or by any other means that which they call or acknowledg to be Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption amongst themselves That as little doth the acknowledging our selves bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of His Majesties Subjects and as the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require at our hands that I say as little doth this acknowledging such obligation draw along with it by either formal or virtual consequence our disacknowledging or renouncing our right or pretence to any true real or proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or Exemption If we have indeed or can have or ought to have any such right or pretence of right in the case For such obligation and such acknowledgment of it can and does very well consist evermore with a challenge or claim to all kinds of true and proper Ecclesiastical Immunity or exemption whether that challenge or claim be well or ill grounded in the case being it is very well known that other His Majesties Subjects are not bound under pain of sin to obey His Majesty by an active obedience always not even in all civil and temporal affairs but either by an active or passive only And being it is no less known that the laws and rules of Government in this Kingdom require no more at their hands even in all civil and temporal affairs then to be so obedient as either to do that freely which they prescribe or patiently and without resistance to abide the penalties of the same laws and of His majesties pleasure And being moreover it is evident of it self that a Priest can without making any resistance patiently christianly