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 this world to condemn as much as virtually or consequentially their former temerity in such engagements and that they cleerly saw their subscription to that Remonstrance must have been thought by rational men wherein I confess they were not deceived a tacit and virtual or consequential acknowledgement of their said former proceedings to have been illegal and unjust though it was not therefore intended 3. That some who had been earnest enough for the said Peaces and Cessation and all along against the Nuncio saw their neerest Catholick Relatives born to good Estates very many of them who had fought in those quarrels for the King and all along declined any conditions even from the Parliament no more regarded by the Kings Declaration and several Bills of Settlement than the very first grand contrivers of the Rebellion but their estates given away eternally to such as fought against the King even all along even from the very first day of the Warrs while any Warr continued 4. That such others and they were the farre greater number as had no affection at all to the Royal or English interest nor ever at any time had from the beginning conceived a subscription would before the world tye them to that duty they would not be tyed unto albeit for the generality of them they were more wary then to discover to others this their own peculiar cause but in lieu thereof pretended if not conscience yet at least reverence to the See Apostolick when yet being pressed on by reason and argument in point of Religion Faith and Justice many of them in private conference declined ingenuously all pretences and confess'd the true cause without any further shifting Whence it is that I know they laugh in their sleeves to see those other Gentlemen of their indeed common profession but not extraction through inconsiderancy other vain false pretences of Religion or submission to the Holy See interpose betwixt them the State so that they need not fear any peculiar necessity to be put on themselves either to discover or decline that their own motive or cause which indeed is the cause that renders them so strangly obstinate 5. That besides the Regulars generally at least the Mendicant Orders who in this Country live most by publick begging at the altars of parish Priests where the people meet on Sundays and other festivals for which if they will thrive they must have the licence and recommendation of the respective Ordinaries Bishops or Vicars general or at least not to be opposed by them or discountenanced by the parish Priests themselves pretended it a sufficient plea for not signing when they were desired That it behoved them to do nothing in such a matter before the Ordinaries and secular Clergie concurr'd or at least not to subscribe without their consent being sure if they did of meeting with much disfavour and opposition from them and with a substraction consequently through their means of the benevolence of the laye people over whom the Ordinaries and Priests must have had so great an influence as was known And moreover that each of those Mendicant Orders in particular being reason'd with alleadged that if they had singly done it or without the concurrence of such other Orders as depended in that kind of the secular Clergie they should be sure to be singularly branded as not regarding the Holy See and those oâ—hers extolled and particularly recommended in their place and by the said Clergie to the devotion of the people Whereby it would come to pass immediately that they would not be able to live in communities or otherwise And further that their priviledges and faculties from the Pope which gave them so much exemption from the Ordinaries and credit amongst the people would questionless upon the odious complaint of others and representation at Rome of their signing runn a very great hazard to be totally recalled 6. The Dominicans pretended and truely too that hitherto they had been all united in one and the self same way without any visible breach amongst them not even at that time of tryal when other Orders were devided in this Kingdom That particularly they could not but reflect on their own printed Acts of Kilkenny or of their Provincial Chapter held in their Convent there 18. Ian. 1643. under Albertus otherwise Terlagh ô Brien Prior Provincial then of their Order In which Acts and amongst the Declarations the second is of this tenour pag. 6. Declaramus cum juxta mentem Divi Thomae quem omnes Theologi in hoc sequuntur bellum quodlibet ex sufficienti Principis authoritale justa causa et recta intentione justificetur Catholicorum hoc bellum pro fidei defensione regiis praerogativis patriae libertate vitae et bonorum conservatione contra impiissimi Calvini sectam susceptum undiquaque justissimum esse Vnde Acta Capituli Nationalis Kilkenniae celebrati 10. Maii 1642. quoad hoc recipimus fratribusque nostris recipienda proponimus mandantes ut eis nullatenus directè vel indirectè se opponere audeant That further yet their general Constitutions or those of their whole Order throughout the world binds them all nay and Oathes moreover bind such as are called Masters among them to defend all the doctrine or opinions of their Angelical Doctor St. Thomas of Aquin and that St. Thomas of Aquin's doctrine 2. 2. q. 10. ar 10. and q. 12. ar 2. is cleerly against that whereon the Remonstrance is grounded and against that also which is therein even formally and expresly contained 7. That such of the Franciscan Order as had been the very chief Heads amongst all the Regulars to maintain the Censures of the Nuntio and all other consequents even against the rest of the same Order who no less eminently opposed the said Censures that those Franciscans I say alledged that to sign any such Remonstrance was point blanck against all their former proceedings and against all those opinions too in which their said proceedings were grounded 8. That those Orders of a later brood in the Church which began but within this last Century or much about an hundred or sixcore years since and therefore had no ancient foundations in Ireland or any at all before the change of Religion or suppression of religious houses I mean the Jesuits Cappuchins and Excalceat Carmelits and therefore to this day have no legal admission in this Countrey for houses or new erections and for old they never had any not even I mean according to the Papal canons or constitutions which prescribe as necessary thereunto besides the consent of the Supream temporal Magistrate still supposed an admission from the Ordinary with the consent of the People and pre-existent Regulars least otherwise the multiplication of religious Orders and Houses especially such as live by almes might prove too great a burthen to the Layety and Clergy both and too destructive also to themselves one of another That those three late Orders I say pretended generally for their own
onely that what he sayes of canon law in the point is perspicuous out of the Epistle of Pope Caius to Bishop Felix out of the first Epistle of Marcellinus and out of the XI book of the Register of S. Gregory ep 54. ad Ioannem Defensorem and lastly to compleat this his second argument assumes this other Proposition as a maxime That the civil law must yield to the canon law whereas sayes he still consequently the Pope may command the Emperour especially in such matters as concern the Church This strange way of argueing in a matter of such consequence out of authorities or quotations of books or chapters the words not given to the Reader which yet is familiar with this great Clerk especially where he finds the authorities or words of the text if seen at length not to be much to his purpose hath put me to more trouble then I would be and then I knew the argument deserved However I took the pains as I have also in all other material quotations of his to turn to the canons books or places quoted and see the words of those three Popes Which indeed concerning the two former as they are alleadg'd by Gratian XI q. 1. c. 1. I find to be these of Caius first Nemo unquam Episcopum apud Iudicem secularem aut alios Clericos accusare praesumat And these too ead Caus. and quest cap. 2. Nullas Iudicum neque Praesbiterum neque Diaconum aut Clericum ullum aut juniores Ecclesia sine licentia Pontificis per se distringat aut condemnare praesumat Quod si fecerit ab Ecclesia cui injuriam irrogare dignoscitur tamdiu sit sequestratus quousque reotum suum agnoscat mendet And next I find the words of Marcellinus to be these other ead caus quest cap. 3. Clericum eujuslibet or dinis absque Pontificiâ— sui permissu nullus praefumat ad seculdâ—am Indicem attâ—here neâ— Lâ—â— qâ—â—â— libet Clericum liceat accusare To which my answers are 1. That Caius having suffered Martyrdom in the year of our Lord 296. and Marcellinus being chosen the same year nay within eleven days after the passion of Caius they are both consequently of the number of those Popes whose Decretal Epistles or such as go in their names are not by learned men even of the Roman communion esteemed other then meerly supposititious or at least corrupted and therefore such as cannot be alleadged for good or certain proof in any matter 2. That these two Popes having lived and dyed before the first liberty of Christian Religion under Constantine were it certain they had really prohibited the lay Judges to proceed in any causes of Churchmen nay which is more expresly declared that such lay Judges had no kind of Iurisdiction over any Clerk in any matter soever and were it also granted that such their sole prohibition or sole Declaration were hoc ipso a canon of the Catholick Church or obliging it in general as much as any canon of even a general Council each of which particulars is so farre from being certain or being granted as in the opinion of great Divines none of all three is any way probable yet any judicious man will see plainly that by secular judges here we must not understand such Judges as were truly such by the publick authority of Emperours Princes and laws but onely such as were by a compromise onely or submission of the Christian Litigants and by the private authority of the Churches or Congregations according to that of St. Paul 1. Cor. 6. appointed to determine amongst themselves the differences of those of their own Religion and consequently such as were rather voluntary arbiters then Judges simply or properly such with coercive power For who sees not it had been most imprudently or rather indeed madly done to have prescrib'd meer humane and also unnecessary laws to those heathen Imperial Judges that put all to death whom they knew to observe as much as the very most necessary most divine law of God himself Or shall we attribute such madness to men farre less prudent then we must suppose the wisest men in the world those holy and great Pontiffs of Rome And being we cannot how then doth Bellarmine alleadg this prohibition of Caius and Marcelline Or must it follow that because these Popes commanded that none of the secular Christian Judges appointed by the several private Christian Congregations should presume to judg of Clerks without the Bishops leave therefore the same was intended or given as a rule to the publick heathen Judges commission'd by the supream absolute civil and coerecive power of Emperours The general persecutions against all Christians generally both Clerks and Laicks were continued long after the days of Caius and Marcelline throughout the Roman Empire which till Dioclesians surrender was heathen And so long the Popes could not make laws of Discipline for the Judges appointed by that Empire Nihil ad nos de iis qui soris sunt judicare sayes the Apostle himself who certainly had no less power then any Pope 3. That for the former quotation of that either pretended or true Epistle of Caius it is not material The jurisdiction of civil or Imperial heathen Judges over Christian Clerks and Bishops too might be very well acknowledged by Caius notwithstanding he had thought it convenient for avoiding scandal to forbid all Christians not to presume to accuse any Clerk before heathen judges St. Paul forbade all Christians generally and consequently the very Laicks not to accuse even other Laicks before such heathen Judges yet no man sayes that St. Paul thereby meant that Christian Laicks were exempt from the jurisdiction of those Judges And that for the later quotation also out of the same Epistle of Caius which Gratian gives in the second place or second chapter of his foresaid eleventh cause and first Question it is mark'd with a Palea in Gratian himself and therefore also is of no authority no valew at all according to the doctrine of many Canonists which doctrine must be disproved before any such allegation can be urged 4. That for Marcelline's canon whether false or true I have before observed how Gratian hath if not corrupted at least misquoted the text which is not as he hath it Clericum cujuslibet ordinis nullus praesumat accusare c. but as it is in Concil 3. Aurel. in Panormia Clericus nullum praesumat accusare And that being so read it concludes nothing to Bellarmine's purpose if not a generâ—l exemption of all persons generally as well Laicks as Clerks from secular Judges and for what onely would concern a suit commenced by a Clerk Which yet is not to Bellarmines purpose at all nor at all for any exemption of either Laicks or Clerks from the jurisdiction of secular Judges but onely for a restriction of Clerks from scandalous litigiousness as I have also before in other cases or in my answers to the canons of Carthage Chalcedon
delegating others or sitting himself alone or with others in judgment on this cause of Cecilian a Bishop the other excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 316. n. 58. is no less vain and frivolous then his former pretences For now he sayes that Constantine yielded to or admitted of such unlawful unjust appeals to the end the schismatick Donatists being so in all tribunals overcome should at last desist from that cause and be ever after quiet and the Affrican Church so then divided by schisme might be sometime again united in peace and concord and because he thought Affrick could otherwise hardly be continued under the Roman Empire being so powerful a faction as that of the Donatists did shake the Affricans already as to their allegiance ut sic victi sayes he speaking of these schismaticks à causa desisterent penitusque conquiescerent Ecclesia Affricana schismate scissa pace atque concordia uniretur quodque existimaret haud facile posse sub Romano Imperio contineri Affricam tam potenti factione labantem To which excuse I suppose first in general that evil is not to be done for any end how good soever And yet even in such a case of Affrick the procedure of Constantine must have been evil because against both the natural positive law of God if the suppositions and positions too of Baronius and Bellarmine were true concerning the Immunity of Ecclesiasticks even also in criminal causes from all kind of lay or civil Judicatories Next I suppose in particular that the politick rules of some worldly Princes for governing or containing their people in obedience cannot excuse a pious Prince if the true liberties of the Church be hurt by the practice of such And I say moreover it is very strange that Baronius a Priest and a Cardinal Priest should admit here of such politick reasons of Constantine or rather in and for Constantine against Ecclesiastical Immunity which yet himself maintains all along also here to have been usurped upon and unjustly hurt by such procedure of Constantine yea notwithstanding that pretence of danger in Affrick In his fifth Tome an 400. n. 41. he himself praises and perhaps justly too praises the vigour and piety of St. Iohn Chrysostome in dissuading the Emperour Arcadius from granting to to Gainas the Arian Rebel that only one Church which he desired for the people of his Sect within Constantinople Theodoret. l. 5. c. 32. albeit the Emperour was otherwise and vehemently too inclined as considering the power of Gainas and suspecting he aimed at the Empire and therefore praying Chrysostome's consent for giving him that one Church to try if that would lessen the rage of Gainas for he was already in the head of an army But all was in vain for Chrysostome would not be moved But whether this was in the case rather too much rigour then true vigour in Chrysostome according to prudential maximes and pious too I leave others to judge I am sure other good Churchmen and even great Bishops have also in our own age and some former too consented to the giving awaye from Catholicks to Protestants and to the use of Protestant Ministers and their divine services not one Church only but some hundreds if not thousands of Churches in Germany France Flanders c. and this also for ever and even by publick articles of pacification And I am sure also if this were not lawfull and I mean in point of conscience or of Gods law I see not how Caholicks living under the dominion of Protestant Princes or States now at present in Europe may with any colourable argument of reason urge the restoring or bestowing on themselves some or any of the Churches which are at present and have been so long in the possession and made use of by protestant Ministers and Bishops For these Princes States Ministers Bishops and their protestant people must at least for the generality of them be supposed to hold the Roman Religion and rites to be prophanations of those Churches as Chrysostome held of the Arrian Religion and Rites so that until they be convinced that the present Roman Religion and rites are the true ancient and true rites of the true Christian Apostolick Church or that their own Religion or Rites are false no man will be able to perswade that is to convince them by reason it may be safe in point of conscience for them to permit freely in their own dominions where they can otherwise avoid it the use of any Churches to Roman Catholicks if I say Chrysostome justly and prudently speaking not according only to his opinion but according to the verity of things in themselves denied his own consent to the Emperour Arcadius for giving that one Church in Constantinople to the Arrians at that time or in that conjuncture and denied it justly and prudently I mean still upon that only account of being against conscience or against the law of God Other politick and wise considerations he might have had indeed as I beleeve he had and as I beleeve also whether he had or not he advised that herein which he thought most pious but such concern us not here As no more doth this whole Instance it self nor any part of it but only to argue ad hominem out of Baronius himself against himself and to shew that if Chrysostome be praise worthy for choosing rather to let the whole Empire nay the whole Catholick Church too run the risco of being over-run by an Arrian rebel Tyrant then consent to or permit the delivering up to the Arrians for their divine service one material Church or Temple or House only however consecrated yet composed of lime and stone or brick inanimate things Constantine is not excusable by him and by his pretence here if he transgressed Ecclesiastical Immunity in usurping on and profaning the sacred persons of Bishops who are the principal parts of the very living Church albeit a portion of the Empire were in hazard if he had not done so To pass by therefore this excuse of Baronius or to say no more of it Constantine is far better defended by saying what the truth is and was that he wanted no excuse at all being he did nothing in this whole procedure or any other of judging Churchmen in criminal causes and such dangerous variance but what became and was the duty of a pious Prince who carries the sword and ministers vindicative justice For by actual and effectual Instances to appease the tumults of the very Sacerdotal Order and to assume the protection of the Faith peace and tranquillity of the Church and to force also when necessary the Churchmen themselves to live in peace among themselves and with others is part of this princely royal and imperial duty I say nothing here of Iohn the Meletian Bishop or of those many other Egyptian Bishops commanded and actually sent by Constantine to exile of whom Baronius tom 3. an 336. n. 16 17. But forasmuch as Baronius sayes ibid n.
Canterbury as relating to our present purpose and put all that into this special form of argument Syllogisme and objection against my own grand Thesis Whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's cause quarrel or contest with Henry the second must be false But my grand Theirs of a power in secular supream Princes to coerce all criminal Clergiemen whatsoever living within their dominions is such or is a doctrine which condemns or opposes that very cause quarrel or contest of St. Thomas of Canterbury Ergo my grand Thests must be false The Minor will be proved thus and must be proved thus or not at all Such doctrine must necessarily suppose an errour both in the solemn canonization of him at least for a martyr properly such and yet he was solemnly canonized for a martyr properly such by Alexander the Third Pope of that name his own contemporary and must further necessarily suppose an errour too that both in the belief and practise of the universal Church of Christ forasmuch as they believe him to be a martyr properly such and both venerat and invocate him as such For that such doctrine as condems or opposes the justice of his quarrel against Henry the Second must also necessarily suppose such an errour in his canonization veneration and invocation as a martyr properly such appears hence manifestly that it is therefore he was canonized for such and is venerated and invocated as such because that quarrel of his was and is believed to have been just and that it was for maintaining the justice of it he suffered death and suffered death patiently and Christianly as became a true martyr without any resistance at all Now it is plain that such doctrine as must necessarily suppose such an errour in such canonization veneration and invocation of any must be false nay erroneous and schismatical nay and heretical too in Christian belief because it must consequently suppose that not onely the Pope nay not onely this or that particular orthodox nation but even the universality of all true Christian nations even the Catholick Church her self taken in her whole latitude not onely may sometime erre in matters which they she accounts to be part of her holy belief holy practise but hath already and continually err'd and almost for five hundred years compleat that is since the year of our Lord 1173. wherein Alexander Tertius canonized him solemnly for a martyr and she no less solemnly invocated him as such Then which consequent supposition what Roman Catholick can say that any may be more even fundamentally heretical For it must be granted as an article nay and also at least among Divines as a fundamental article of Christian Catholick religion that the true Christian Catholick Church is infallible in credendis agendis both in her belief and in her practise I mean such as she her self accounts divine or holy or certainly it must be granted that we have nothing at all infallible in her or in our religion delivered by her but what may without any special revelation from God or any either particular or universal tradition from her be demonstrated by pure natural reason and consequently that our belief of even the very whole mistery of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of that other no less above our natural reason of the Trinity of persons in one God which are purely credenda as likewise those of Baptisme and the Lords Supper quatenus inter agenda as they are practised are fallible and unreasonable practises being we have nothing to render us absolutely certain of the contrary if the universal Church be fallible in her belief and practise But for the Minor as I confess that I see no other proof possible but by instancing the particulars of the difference 'twixt King Henry the Second and this holy Praelat so I confess also that if in any of those particulars or in altogether my grand Thesis or any part of my doctrine hetherto in pursuance of that my Thesis may be found and that it be clear also that St. Thomas of Canterbury suffered death therefore and was therefore canonized a martyr by the Pope and as such was therefore venerated and invocated ever since or at any time by the Catholick Church then I must consequently grant the objection to be very well or at least very probably grounded as no man can deny it to be syllogistically formed or deny the conclusion to follow of necessity if both the Premisses be certainly true And for the first of them we have already seen it pretty well driven home at least by a very specious discourse and one concluding such an inconvenience as no Roman Catholick will dare allow I mean the infallibility of the whole Catholick Church either in religious belief or practise whatever in the mean time be held or thought of the Pope alone or of his particular Roman Diocess as taken a part from the rest or of any one or moe even National Churches whatsoever of Catholick communion so they amount not to that which we call and is truly the Catholick or universal Church or the general congregation of all particular or National Churches or of the more considerable parts of them or the General Representative of such more considerable parts of them which are now in Ecclesiastical communion with the Roman Bishop his particular Diocess of Rome For this general Congregation of all such particular Churches or of all the more considerable parts of them and this general Representative also whenever it is of all such more considerable parts is it I call now here and elsewhere still understand to be the Catholick Church Whereof I desire my good Readers to take special notice not that I see any special need of it to solve this objection but that I may no where seem either to equivocat or to be unwilling to be understood when there is occasion to distinguish between the sense of the Pope and that of the Church or between the authority of a particular Church or some one of ro moe peradventure and that which is properly of the universal Church Therefore now not onely to shew what may be said or not said and that even out of the very Ecclesiastical History or Annals of Baronius himself of the particulars of the said difference or quarrel and for the proof of the said Minor being it is onely from History all that can be said for the proof of it must be had and that Baronius can not be presumed to relate such matter of fact with any kind of partiality or favour to me or my Thesis or my doctrine against his own pretended Immunity of all Clergiemen or be presumed to omit any material thing which might any way advance his own pretence of such Immunity upon the contradictory question confirmed by the sense by the life and death of so great a Saint and even sealed by the bloud of so glorious a martyr
by whom or wherein Thomas of Canterbury after some ages and upon a review of his life or actions and knowledge of his nefarious turbulencies and tragedies and of his intollerable arrogancy in raising himself above the royal power laws and dignity as he sayes was so condemn'd It seems he was either ashamed to name the person or raign of Henry the eight in such a matter and in opposition to such a Saint or verely he would impose on his unskilfull Reader and make him think it might peradventure have been so by a King and so in a time that was not reputed Schismatical by the Romanist's themselves and thereby would wholly undermine the credit of a Saint who certainly could be no true Saint if Parker was either a true Bishop in the truth and unity of the Catholick Church or true Christian in the truth and integrity of the Catholick Religion And I give it moreover to take notice of his wilful imposture where he sayes that that nameless King found out what kind of man Thomas was what evilt he had raised c. and sayes also that that nameless King found out all this in a great Conneil of all the Prelats and Peers of the Kingdom meaning so to impose on his Reader as a truth without as much as the authority of any writer for he quotes none in this nor could but against all truth that the Bishops of England in that Kings time concurr'd with him in his judgment or condemnation of Thomas of Canterbury for a traytor viz. against the Kings person or people of England or their laws or all three For certainly he could not be on any rational ground declared traytor or even to have been such at any time in his life not to speak now of the instance of his death or of any time after his reconciliation to Henry the Second but upon one of these three grounds or as having acted either against the Kings own person or royal rights or against the liberties of the people or against the sanctions of the municipal laws of England And O God of truth who is that is versed in the Chronicles of England can imagine any truth in this sly insinuation of Parker concerning that of the Bishops to have concurr'd with Henry the Eight in the condemnation or prophanation and sacriledge committed against St. Thomas of Canterbury so many hundred years after his holy life and death and so many hundred years after he had possessed not England alone but all the Christian world with the certain perswasion of his sanctity attested so even after his death by such stupendious miracles at his tomb and wrought there at or upon his invocation and by such stupendious and known miracles I say that Parker himself hath not the confidence as much as to mutter one word against the truth and certainty of their having been or having been such Nay who is it can upon a a sober reflection perswade himself that either Henry the Eight himself or any other whatever and how even soever atheistical Councellor of his could pretend any as much as probable ground in natural reason laying aside now all principles of Religion to declare this Thomas of Canterbury so long after his death to have dyed a traytor nay I say more or to have lived so or to have been so at any time in his life T is true that in all branches and each branch of the five membred complex of those first original and lesser differences which preceded that great one of the sixteen customs he for some part did not comply with the Kings expectation and for other parts positively refused to obey the Kings pleasure or even command But so might any other Subject and might I say without being therefore guilty of treason nay without being guilty of any other breach of law or conscience had he the law of the land and liberty of a Subject of his side as Thomas of Canterbury had in each of these five original differences And that he had so the law of the land for him even in that very point of them which Henry the Second took most to heart that I mean of the two criminal Clergymen besides all what I have given before at large of those very laws to prove it this also is an argument convincing enough that Henry the Second was not where he had the law of his side a man to be baffled by any Subject whatsoever nor would be so ceremonious as to call so many Councils or Parliaments of Bishops and other Estates to begg that which by law he had already in his power without their consent And therefore certainly had the law of the land been at that time for him that is for the ordinary coercion of criminal Clerks in his lay Courts and in what case soever or even in case of felony or murder committed by Clerks he had without any further ceremony at least after he saw the Archbishop refuse to comply with his desire or obey his command and after he saw also the Priest was in the very Ecclesiastical Court convict of murder sent his own Officials to force him away to and before the lay Judges and sent his Guards too or Souldiers were this necessary Neither of which he as much as attempted to do And therefore had we no other argument who sees not that it is clear enough out of this very procedure that the Archbishop committed no treason in this very matter wherein of any of also the branches of that whole five membred complex he most positively and plainly opposed that King though by such a kind of opposition as might become a Subject that is by an opposition of dissent without any interposition of arms or force 2. T is true also that after this Thomas of Canterbury opposed mightily but with such a kind opposition as I have now said all those sixteen heads of Henry the Second pretended by him to have been the Royal Costoms of his Grandfather and that after giving a forced consent and taking a forc'd oath to maintain them he retracted again freely and conscientiously his said consent and oath and refused to give his hand or seal for introducing or establishing them But I am sure there was no treason in this not only because he saw or apprehended they were against the former laws and for an evil end too press'd by that King so violently but also because he saw or apprehended that the very pretence was false that is that some of them had never been customes Is it not lawful without treason nay or other breach of law for any Peer and so great a Peer as the Archbishop of Canterbury to deny his own assent in Parliament or even to revoke and for as much as belongs to himself his own former assent at least when otherwise his conscience is wounded and when he proceeds no further by force of arms and that the laws is yet only in deliberation to be establish'd but not
to proffer so much in writing by a publcik Act of their Congregation i. e. by signing the paper to that purpose offered them to be signed unless besides other prejudices and evils which their proceedings hitherto must if not remedied by new Resolves bring of necessity on all the Roman-Catholick both Clergy and People represented or lead by them they intend also to sowe the seeds of a perpetual scandalous and fatal Schism amongst that very Clergy and People These being the heads of what we think necessary to be so debated and our desires and Petition of a Committee and Conference to such end being no other than we likewise think every indifferent Person will hold to be very reasonable in the present circumstances we have moreover thought fit to assure the Fathers That in case they convince us by reason or argument which may take with any judicious indifferent Person we shall most freely and resignedly submit to them in all and every of the controverted Points So little are we byassed against that Light which God hath imprinted on every rational Soul nay on the contrary so resolved are we to hold perpetually to the best of our knowledge to the Rule of Christian Belief which we conceive to be now or as to us and all other faithful men living the Holy Scriptures of God as they are interpreted by the constant unanimous universal Tradition of the Church and Doctrine of all the Holy Fathers even for Ten whole entire Ages of Christianity until the days and Vsurpation of Gregory the VII But if notwithstanding all and particularly so fair an offer the Congregation shall which God forbid suffer themselves to be either misguided or over-awed and over-ruled still by those persons amongst them who seek not the good of either Nation or Religion but their own peculiar worldly interest every one of them and this even knowingly to the prejudice of Evangelical truth and Propagation or Confirmation of both Schismatical and Heretical Errours or if to pleasure such persons the Congregation will not condescend to a desire so earnest and reasonable a Petition so equitable and humble for such a necessary Committee and Conference this Letter will at least bear us witness that of our part and to our power we have done what became us for preventing those evils which we mightily fear and are almost certainly perswaded the bad counsels and further designs of some leading persons amongst them will at last bring upon the Nation in general Whether in the mean time the Congregation it self can avoid the Censure of all understanding men whether even of those who otherwise might be the most fiery pretending Zealots for the Church and Pope may be worth the considering We mean when it shall be made publickly known That such a National Assembly of Ecclesiasticks would neither frame a Remonstrance of their own satisfactory to the King in point of professing their Allegiance to him for the future in meer Temporal things nor at all joyn or concur in that of others which was indeed in all respects satisfactory and as such already accepted by His Majesty and was also by not a small number of both Ecclesiasticks and Layicks of their own Countrey and Religion and amongst these and those many persons too not only considerable for other qualifications but for their Learning and judgment who even Principally to do them all the good lay in their power had freely and conscientiously signed the former Remonstrance nor yet no not even on the contradictory question would shew their Lawful exceptions or indeed any at all against the former nor even do so much as suffer it to be debated 'twixt a Committee of their own and another of the Subscribers of it no nor so much as to be debated in their own House or elsewhere by their own Divines alone whether it contain'd any Errour or any other cause of Lawful exception nor finally no not to prevent all those otherwise impending evils especially the very worst of them viz. a manifest scandalous and fatal Schism amongst the Catholick Clergy and consequently People too of this Nation the setting up or continuing of Altar against Altar would so much as testifie under their hands or by a publick Act of their House what they themselves professed there in word That they had in truth no exception against either that former Remonstrance or the Subscribers of it We say it may be worth the considering whether when all those matters and whatever else pertains unto them shall be made publick to the World this National Congregation of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks can avoid the heavy Censure of any understanding man Nay whether all understanding men who shall and when they shall read a perfect and full relation of all and particularly of this our present both hearty and humble Petition and withal of the Congregation's declining still nevertheless to come to such an issue will not judge That the same Fathers and together with them all other our Antagonists both at home and abroad Natives and Forreigners yield up the Cause justifie us and condemn themselves that refuse a Tryal so equitable in it self and so heartily and humbly desired of them by us This is all we have to say or pray at present save only That your Lordship may be pleased either by your self or some other Member of the House to read publickly in the House to all the rest of the Prelats and Fathers there Assembled this Letter of our Expostulation with and Petition to them all in general being it is only to this purpose directed to your Lordship as their Chairman Wherefore concluding we heartily wish your Lordship and them our Right Reverend good Lords and Venerable Fathers and wish them in their final Resolves before they dissolve the efficacious influence of the All-powerful Spirit of God which strongly and sweetly works all the good Resolves of men And so with much affection and all due respect we kiss your sacred hands Right Reverend and our very good Lord your Lordship 's most humble Servants Secular Priests Laurence Archbold Bartholomew Read Dominicans Fr. Clement Birn Fr. John Reynolds All Franciscans Fr. Valentine Brown Fr. Peter Walsh Fr. Anthony Gearnon Fr. Francis Coppinger Fr. Thomas Harold Fr. Christopher Plunket Fr. James Tuit Fr. Patrick Carr. Fr. Laurence Tankard Fr Thomas Talbot Fr. Mathew Duff F. James Fitz Gerrald Fr. Anthony Saul Fr. Valentine Cruiz What the qualifications or Titles were of these Subscribers you may see Treat 1. partly pag. 9. and partly pag. 47. In both which places they amongst others subscribe their names with their respective qualifications or Titles to the former Remonstrance some amongst the first Subscribers in England and others after amongst those who signed in Ireland Yet I confess there is one amongst them whose subscription was not valued nor desired by any of the rest but rather declined yea and had been absolutely refused by them if they had known how to refuse it prudently
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
de Fide Haeret. c. 7. Lateran Constant Trid. apud cumdem in miscellaniis Idem in sum Theol. sub cod tit quaest 1. 2 4 5. Bonac tom 2. disp 3. q. 2. pu 8. §. 2. Turrian de justitia jure d. 8. dub 2. advertised and conformable to the Decrees of Three General Councils to wit That 't is not lawful to break Contracts made with or Publick Faith given to Hereticks nor to fall from Cessations or Peace concluded with them while the conditions are performed and the time unexpired no not even in case Religion did seem notably endamaged by their observation as Molanus (n) Layman l. 2. tract 3. ca. 12. con 4. Joa Mol. de Fid. haereticis ser cap. 14. and Layman expresly hold and excellently prove hence That no evil so great can happen Religion out of their observation as the scandal and consequences would arise out of the contrary Position if it were maintained and practised by Catholicks as true or conscionable Out of which Doctrine these great Divines most soundly and religiously infer that even His Holiness cannot dispense in this strait tye of Fidelity (o) Verba Layma Dico IV. S. Catholici cum Haereticis publicum soedus incant non potest per auctoritatem Pontificiam solvi aut relaxari Haec est doctrina a Joanne Molano praecipue intenta Probatur Licet enim si quaedam praecise spectentur videlicet quod Haeretici propter Baptismum Ecclesiasticae jurisdictioni subjecti sunt ob odium ac poenam ipsorum jure compelâ—antur ad remissionem Foederis in Ecclesiae detrimentum cedentis aut si recusent ipsis etiam invitis relaxatio fieri queat peâ—supremam Ecclesiasticam potestatem attamen spectatis omnibvs adeoque absolute negari debet id a summo Pontifice fieri posse Quandoquidem is non habet potestatem dispensandi aut relaxandi in detrimentum Ecclesiae talis autem relaxatio cederet in gravissimum Ecclesiae detrimentum quia cum Haeretici Catholicae Fidei hostes in omni foedere cum Catholicis into exclusam velint Papalem relaxandi potestatem ideo apud ipsos omnes nationes infideles blasphemabitur nomen domini Religio Catholica in contemptum veniet plura mala ingentia sequentur si dicatur nos cum Pontificis nostri consenso foedera publica contra jus gentium erga hostes nostros violare Hoc autem tam grave malum est ut nullum incommodum seu detrimentum Ecclesiae Catholicae ex foederis observatione inserendum ita magnum videri debeat sperantibus in deo Christo summo Ecclesiae desensore qui auxilium sert in tempore opportuno Verum Haeretici hujus temporis Calvinistae egregie asluti sunt Ut enim impune ipsis licent pâ—cta cum Catholicis inita violare causam praetexunt quod Jesuitae alii Catholici doceant fidem Haereticis quales se esse conscientia ipsis dictat servandam non esse talibus autem qui fidem violare parati sunt fidem servari non oportere cum tamen interim fidem publican a Catholicis violatam fuisse nullo exemplo ostendere possint multo minus quod Catholici Doctores in ea quam dicunt sententia sint Fidem Hareticis servandam non esse Ecce enim tam Jesuitae quam alii Doctores Catholici contrarium aperte profitentur ac docent fidem publicam Haereticis datam inviolabiliter sine ullo dispensationis aut absolutionis remedio servandam esse quamdiu ipsi servare parati sint Supposing we say both these Tenets as they cannot but be uncontroulably admitted our Answer to the first Question is That sithence it is manifest by what is said how a Truce League or Peace with Enemies of our Faith is not in it self unlawful especially where either the necessity or profit or advancement of the Affairs of true Religion expected thence do warrant it and since it is no less clear how it 's against Conscience to fall contrary to promise given from such publick Contracts or Faith engaged since likewise none of the Articles of Cessation with the Lord of Inchiquin either in their own nature according to any common or proper sense the words may have or taken together with the circumstances of the time and condition the Confederates were in at their conclusion involves any evil we must confess and aver none of the said Articles to be against Catholick Religion or just ground for Excommunication this just ground implying in it self an evil and a mortal evil (p) Suar. tom 5. de Censu dis 4. Sect 4. â—lii omnes or sin according to the unanimous consent of all Divines yea an exterior and visible (q) See the Doctors on Bulla Caenae where they treat of Excommunication against Hereticks Read likewise the Divines in their Treatises of Laws and where they inquire whether interior acts of the mind may be commanded or prohibited or whether the sins of the heart as wicked intentions c. not sufficiently discovered in the exterior may he punished by Holy Church as with Excommunication or otherwise and they answer negatively Layman l. 1. de leg tract 4. cap. 4. assert 7. cites them in great numbers And indeed the very Canons expresly define this truth cap. Sicut de Simon 5 cap. Tâ—a nos eodem titul sin as they teach And that no such evil lieth hidden in these Articles or any thing disadvantagious to Catholick Religion we are certainly persuaded it may be evident to any that will take away the film First Because there is not a word in them either positively as it is manifest or negatively if all the circumstances be considered against Religion Justice or good life and which is far more that by the second and fifth special provision is made for the advancement of Faith and Virtue throughout all the said Lord of Inchiquin's quarters a few Garisons excepted by free exercise of Catholick Religion and Function yea by possession of Churches and Church-livings where we held them at the commencement of the Treaty in as ample manner as in our own quarters Which questionless is no small advantage to Religion and which could not be acquired by War hitherto though the hazard cost much Blood and many Lives to the Confederates Secondly In regard of the then present great necessity of our Affairs the power of the Enemy so increased in all parts of the Kingdom and particularly in Munster all Ports besides five or six and maritime places of any consequence in the whole Island which are at least Twenty being in their hands near two parts of three of the Inland being either in their quiet possession or forraged by them and under contribution their Armies victorious their Fleet giving Laws to us at Sea and shutting up our Havens two vast Kingdoms within six or twelve hours sail the furthest off to back them to support their Charges and repair their Losses and on the other side the
one tittle or any one action hitherto alledg'd against me as such other than what is in effect and substance my Assertion or Vindication of the Supreme Temporal Sovereignty of the Crowns of these Kingdoms i. e. of their being in all Temporals and all Contingencies whatsoever independent from any but God alone and therefore in Temporals no way dependent from the Pope either by divine or humane right Whether any person may on such ground call in question the sincerity of my believing or professing as I ought all the undoubted Articles of the Roman-Catholick Faith 3. And seeing there was never yet any other matter not even by my greatest Persecutors at any time objected articled oâ— pretended against me beside that i. e. besides my former opposing the Nuncio's Censures and my later promoting the Remonstrance and my endeavours in both against the pretences of the Roman Bishops to the Crowns of England Ireland Scotland c Whether it may in any wise be said or thought by unbyassed learned men That I have given any real ground for the vile detraction of those who treat me every way as if I had been a desertor of the Church 4. Nay Whether considering first The nature of those two grand Controversies wherein I have so freely engaged against all the power of the Roman Court abroad and all the endeavours of the Nuncio's Party and Antiremonstrant Clergy at home secondly The most grievous manifold and continual persecutions I suffered in both Causes one while by Suspensions and Deprivations another while by Excommunications then by Imprisonment in a Forreign Countrey even as far off as Spain and then again by new Thunders of Ecclesiastical Censures and by scandalous Declarations and posting of my Name besides other frequent enterprizes on several occasions against both my Liberty and Life thirdly My continuing constant in both Causes even all along to this very day even also then and that not only once happening when I had no support in this World but my own Conscience of suffering i. e. my own certain knowledge of my suffering onely for Righteousness sake nay then also when some of my chiefest Adversaries laboured with all their powerful malice even here at London to compel me and spared not to speak openly that either they would compel me to renounce the Roman-Catholick Church and declare my self an Heretick or they would make me submit to the Roman Court in the latter of these two Causes viz. that of the Loyal Remonstrance it being the onely matter then prosecuted against me fourthly Their failing nevertheless to this present in obtaining their will of me in either the one or other Whether I say considering all this whereof besides many men I am sure the All-seeing God is witness it be not more likely That no kind of prejudice against the Roman-Catholick Faith or Church but a true and powerful zeal according to knowledge for the primitive Christian purity of both is it that hath set me against those opinions and practices flowing in the corruption of latter Ages from the Roman Court which have shaken Religion divided Christendom and brought a scandal upon Faith as if it were to be supported or advanced by the wrath and rage of men by Rebellion and Slaughter by Subversion of Government and Confusion of the World so making it a ground of jealousie to Magistrates and diverting peaceable and charitable Souls from that union which ought to be amongst the Disciples of Christ 5. Also whether it may not by rational men be at least charitably believed That I would not so often at several times and upon several occasions since first I engag'd in either Controversie especially in the last have refused many Preferments in my own Order have rejected many tempting proffers too even of Episcopal dignity in my own Countrey have also particularly and lately in the National Synod or Congregation held at Dublin anno 1666 and that in publick before all the Fathers refused to yield by any means to their pressing offer not only of all the best Commendatory Letters that could be drawn on Paper in my behalf both to His Holiness Himself who then was and the Cardinal Patron and the Congregation de Propaganda and all other Ministers of the Roman Court as many as were concern'd in the Affairs of Ireland but also of a yearly and very considerable Salary too by general Applotment amounting as they esteemed or computed it in Three years to Two thousand pound English money and in lieu of all these offers have deliberately chosen to run the manifest hazard of undergoing and accordingly since to have in very deed undergone all the vexatious infamy of Ecclesiastical Censures in my own Church Order and Countrey and all the further Evils not only of some at least consequential hardships but of many black Calumnies many bitter Reproaches yea and some yet more inhumane Machinations of cruel men even here in England these four last years since 1669 Whether I say it may not by rational men be and be at least charitably believed That I would not have rejected freely all those tempting offers and in lieu of them voluntarily chosen to lie under all these Sufferings for any thing less than the keeping a good Conscience and the preserving the honour of Christian Catholicism untainted at least in some Priests and Religious men of the Roman-Catholick Religion in these Nations and the justifying my self and those of my way the few Irish constant Remonstrants with such others who communicate with them Loyal Subjects to our Prince the King of England and the winning also for the good of Catholicks in general upon His Majesties Councils Parliaments and all good Protestant people by our peaceable Conversation and Faithfulness amidst all our Sufferings from every side notwithstanding any difference from the Protestant Church in some few Articles of Religion Whereas such other Church-men of the Roman Communion as by their practises or principles have formerly shewn themselves and still appear to continue Enemies to the Supreme Temporal Government of these Kingdoms may in all reason expect the severest Laws to be edg'd against them by Authority under which it will be sad to suffer as evil doers 6. Lastly Whether it had not been very much for the advantage of Roman-Catholicks in general and their Religion in this Monarchy That these last hundred years they had been indoctrinated onely and wholly guided as to their Consciences by such Roman-Catholick Priests and Church-men as are of my principles in relation to the Temporal Powers independence from Rome and the indispensable obedience of Subjects in Civil matters and both the injustice and invalidity or nullity of Ecclesiastical Censures pronounced against either Prince or People or Priests for maintaining these not onely Rational but Christian Principles or asserting any of all their necessary Antecedents Consequents or Concomitants And now my Lords Fathers and Gentlemen to your impartial judgment on all and each of these Queries I do with due
of God be wanting in any reverence duty or obedience which by Vow or Rule or Canon or Reason I do or may according to the Faith or Doctrine of the Universal Church owe either to the most Holy Father the Bishop of Old Rome or to any other Bishops or to any other Prelates or Superiours in their respective places whether Secular or Regular because doing otherwise I could not but condemn my self of using evil means to attain or drive at lawful ends and consequently of being as bad an Interpreter of that saying of our Lord in St. Matthew (a) Matth. 6.22 Si oculus tuus fuerit simplex totum corpus tuum lucidum erit as any of the late extrinsick Probablists are Whereunto also is consequent That I never at any time hitherto intended nor shall I hope through the same grace of God for the future willingly or wittingly intend either in my Writings Actions or Designs any thing against the Divine Authority of the Catholick Church or even against the venerable either Majesty or Primacy or even Power Authority and Jurisdiction of the First of Bishops or First of Apostolical Sees the Roman I mean not altogether so far as a number of Popes speaking in their own cause or a company of Schoolmen prepossessed by them or frighted or hired or misled through corruption and ignorance of the later times have asserted the former in their Canons and the other in their speculative Writings but as far as the Catholick Church in all Ages hath believed or taught how great soever or whatsoever that Patriarchical or Jurisdictional power be which she believes or acknowledges to be in the Roman Archbishop either from divine Title or humane onely nay which but the National Churches hard by us though composing her but in part the Spanish and the Sicilian the French and German the Venetian and the Polish notwithstanding they be of strict communion with the Pope do universally or unanimously believe For I think it too hard a task for any private man much more for me to know better what hath been delivered in all former Ages or is believed in this present as an Article or Doctrine of undoubted Faith divine by the Universal Church of Christ on earth than may be learned from the unanimous consent of those very National Churches of Europe alone agreeing together upon any Article as undoubtedly such Other humane Laws indeed or Canons or Customs they may agree in that oblige not other Catholicks of their communion in other Kingdoms or Nations but where and as much as they are received and not abolished again or antiquated either by a Municipal Law or National Canon or even by general Custom prescribing against the former The Sixth and last Appendix relating likewise generally to the former Questions That as notwithstanding my Appeal to your judgment of discretion I never intended to exempt or withdraw my self i. e. my person from the Authoritative or binding sentence of Canonical Delegates if my Adversaries continue their prosecution and His Holiness may be induced to grant me such Delegates as He is certainly bound to do or at least to acquit me and rescind all the illegal proceedings hitherto of his subordinate Ministers and Officials against me so neither do I decline their judgment of my Writings Nay on the contrary my resolution hath alwayes been and I hope shall evermore be which I do now the second or third time declare in Print under my own hand or name to submit with full and perfect resignation every word in my several Books even to the Authoritative judgment not only of the Catholick Church the House (b) 2 Tim. 3. of the living God and the pillar and foundation of truth or which is the same thing of its lawful Representative an Oecumenical Synod truly such that highest Tribunal on earth in matters of Divine Faith and Holy Discipline nor only of a free Occidental Council of the Latin Church alone but even of any other Judges whatsoever many or few or even so few as two or three that shall in the interim of such a Council be delegated by His Holiness or any other that hath a lawful Church-power to require obedience from me in such cases provided those other Judges Delegate be competent i. e. indifferent or above all those exceptions which the Canons of the Catholick Church allow To the Authoritative sentence even of any such Delegates I will and do submit both my Person and my Writings in this sense that if I cannot conform my own inward opinions reason or belief to theirs yet I will abide whatever punishment they shall therefore inflict upon me and patiently undergo it until absolv'd from it or dispens'd with by a higher or at least equal power But to that of such an Oecumenical Synod or even such an Occidental onely as before I shall moreover God willing as I do at this very present for all future times most heartily conform all the most inward dictates of my Soul for what concerns any matter of pure Christian Faith and shall throughly acquiesce in their determination whatever may be in the mean time disputed by others or even my self of the absolute Fallibility as to us of the very most General Representatives or most Oecumenical Councils themselve before their Decrees be at least virtually or tacitely received by the Represented or Diffusive Church without publick opposition to them from any considerable part of the said Church Besides for what concerns not the binding power of publick Tribunals but the discerning of every private Conscience I shall and do most readily submit even every word also in my Writings not only to your â—ensure but to that of all such learned men of whatsoever Nation or Religion as diligently and sincerely seek aâ—ter Truth And God forbid I should be otherwise disposed or that I who believe and maintain the Pope himself not to be Infallible not even in His definitions of Faith if made by Him without the concurrence either of the Catholick Church diffusive or of its lawful Representative a General Council truly such wherein He is but the First or Chief Bishop onely should think my self not Fallible or not subject to Errour Yet I hope and am sufficiently assured that in any material point either of Doctrine or Practice relating to the publick Controversie in hand I have not hitherto fallen into Errour After all this submission it must not seem strange if I except as I do plainly in this Cause both against the Authoritative and Discretive Judgment of all the Roman Ministers Cardinals Consistories Congregations Courtiers and all their Clients whatsoever And yet it is not their Fallibility but their Partiality their extreme blindness or wilfulness or both in their own Cause and for maintaining their own worldly Interest and consequently it is their actual Errour yea and actual prejudgment too of the Cause without so much as giving any reason nay without so much as hearing once the Parties concern'd
of the Land does warrant or hath at least sometime warranted That to the Crowns of England Ireland and Scotland as we can see no derivation of Divine right from Christ by St. Peter to His Holiness so neither can we see any colour of Humane right by any such consent c. That the late and last evasion of Bellarmine * Bellarmine against Barclay and others from the Argument grounded on that before-mention'd passage of St. Paul's command to the Romans and on the conformable practice of the primitive Christians when being most numerous and able to defend themselves they suffered nevertheless patiently under the Sword of persecuting Emperours is such a wicked device as makes the Apostles meer Temporizers in their Doctrine and consequently such as calls in question the whole truth of the Gospel Which to assert though onely by the sâ—quel of a slie distinction or unevading evasion is clearly no less than Blasphemy in Christian Religion Lastly That to approve so much as by silence those Principles and Practices the defence of which drive their Patrons at last to such Blasphemy yea not to condemn expresly those Positions and Actions which declare or infer it to be lawful for Subjects to dethrone nay to kill their Princes and embrue their hands in the blood of those Fellow Subjects that are defending their Princes and to act so much horrid cruelty upon the onely account of such improbable Rights Titles or Pretences of the Pope and See of Rome or even upon the joint account of introducing or re-establishing the Roman-Catholick Religion is no other than to approve at least consequentially or tacitely that which overthrows all Divine both Law and Testimony all Religion and right Reason whatsoever Nay that it is no other indeed than not onely to contradict the whole Doctrine but even to frustrate the whole design of the Gospel which either was none at all or without any question was to convert the world to God by the word of the Cross (a) 1 Cor. 1.18 and lead Souls to Heaven through the strait gate and narrow way (b) Mat. 7.14 And what are these but the mortification of our senses the contempt of riches pleasures greatness honour dominion and all the gaities of this world The crucifying of our Lusts whether Pride or Vain-glory or whatever else is or leads into sin Finally the practice of all contrary virtues especially those of humility and charity and meekness and a patient suffering in this life all the evils that God permits man to inflict Persuade your selves hence That the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God That the wisdom which is from above is gentle and peaceable as well as pure and That 't is a more glorious thing to gain one Soul to Christ by the soft and still voyce of the Gospel than to destroy a multitude because they will not come into the Fold before the chief Shepherd leads them Think besides that if the Church from particular grew Universal or Catholick by persecution and that the blood of Martyrs was the seed of the Church we should remember from whence we were hewen and tremble by contrary methods to be the Instruments of bringing Religion to that pass that there shall scarce be found Faith upon earth (c) Luc. 18.8 See moreover with your own eyes the fatal Catastrophe of all those Roman-Catholicks who in these very Nations have pursued such contrary methods at any time since 1537. Behold so many thousand heads crush'd in pieces under the Divine vengeance as broken Masts advanced on the Promontory of Rocks to give notice of the deplorable Events they have found even in this world whose example nevertheless but too many of your present Teachers advise you to follow when they dissuade you from condemning or disowning the same contrary methods the very same unchristian wayes Yea particularly behold on the most eminent place of the Promontory those Apostolical Ministers and Legats of the Holy See in Ireland Nicholas (a) He was an 1579 by Gregory XIII sent Nuncio to Ireland but with a Consecrated Banner and some Italian and Spanish Troops to invade that Kingdom as they did but were defeated by the Lord Grey Sanders an English man wandring alone in the Mountains of Kerry and starving there to death under a Tree Owen Mac Egan (b) Alias Eugenius O Hegan He was in the Rebellion of Tirowen made Bishop of Ross was great with the King of Spain was Vicarius Apostolicus in Ireland under Clement VIII had power from His Holiness to dispose of all the Ecclesiastical Livings of Munster but as Captain leading a Troop of an hundred Horse against the Loyallists with his Sword drawn in one hand and his Breviary and Beads in the other he was Slain and his Troop Routed an 1602 3. of Irish birth and race giving up his last breath even yet in a much more unepiscopal unclerkly unseemly manner And John Baptist Rinuccini (c) This good Italian Archbishop Prince and Extraordinary Nuntius in Ireland after many former practises by himself and his Dean Dionysiâ—s Massarius at last in the year 1648 May 27. issued out his Excommunication c. July 13 following he summoned a National Synod to appear at Galway After which the Supreme Council declaring on the 28 that such a National Synod could not be he issued out his Bloody Declaration which together with the effects of it put all Ireland in confusion and obliged the Loyal Party there to drive him out of the Countrey which he left Febr. 23. the same year 1648 9. What happened in the mean while at home in his own Diocess and especially in his Episcopal See of Fermo you may read in the Moderate Intelligencer Where in the Letters from Rome of July 11 2â— and July 17 27 of that year I find That lately before there had been an Insurrection of that people of Fermo against their Governour Seignior Visconti whom they slew and made themselves their own Masters They endeavoured to excuse this to the Pope their chief Lord under whom the Bishop is Prince of that City But the Pope not satisfied with their excuse sent Seignior Imperiale his Apostolick Commissary with an Army of Horse and Foot to chastise them He sent a Company of Corsicans before whom they received into the City and then fell upon them and made them Prisoners Other Towns in that Countrey of Marca dell ' Ancona Rebelled by their example and the secret encouragement they had received from the Spaniards of Naples By the Letters of Aug. 3. S. N. it appears that they sent again to the Pope but then He would not hear them The mean while Impiriale I know not how became Master of the City i. e. Fermo By the Letters of Aug. 15. S. N. 't is said he had then filled the Prisons with the Inhabitants of that City By those of Sept. 1. S. N. 't is said that yet they were in Arms about the Countrey
Emperour and even that of Ariminum which was a very General Council of both Greeks and Latins and for number of Bishops well nigh as great as any ever yet assembled in the Church and although consequently we must not wonder to see the Romish Clergy of this Kingdom permitted by His MAJESTY and by His Grace the LORD LIEUTENANT to meet together in Dublin at this time for an end so nearly and highly concerning the Publick Peace and Safety as a Declaration to be Subscribed by the said Clergy of their indispensable faithful real true and sincere Allegiance to His MAJESTY in all Temporal matters and in all cases of contingencies whatsoever against all Forreign or Domestick pretensions or designs should amount unto yet I am persuaded no prudent man not even of the Roman Religion either of this or any after Ages when throughly acquainted with the strange carriage of the late National Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin will scruple much to ascribe it to those fatal Influences of 1666. However I have thought it worth my Labour whil'st my remembrance is fresh of those Transactions wherein I have my self been all along not an Observer onely but an Actor to give all the material particulars to Posterity as they hapned without adding or diminshing excusing or condemning in this Relation or Narrative any thing or person For that of my own Judgment at least for what concerns the Congregation it self I reserve for a more proper place the following Treatises wherein as acting of purpose the part of a Divine I must declare that which I intend not in this first Treatise where I assume only or principally the parts of an Historian I mean still for what concerns that Congregation But to give the Reader a full and clear prospect into all I find it necessary to begin where the first occasion of that meeting began And further and because that occasion brought forth a great variety of disputes and some troubles too amongst that Clergy those few years past the knowledge of which may be useful not only to understand the intrigues happened in the foresaid General Congregation and the causes of such intrigues but also to other just and lawful ends and because also a satisfactory Narration of these disputes and troubles must needs take up near a hundred sheets if not more I have moreover thought it not amiss but much to the Readers greater facility of readily finding out or turning to that what ever he would be at to divide this first Treatise into two Parts Whereof the first part followeth The First Part OF THE FIRST TREATISE The ARGUMENT THe Procuratorium sent to Father Peter Walsh The persons that sent and sign'd it The causes of their sending or signing and first use made by him thereof The Remonstrance of 61. and occasion of it The signing at London of this Remonstrance The first Exceptions against it of its unexpediency occasioned The more ample Account The next of uncatholickness Loyalty asserted How the Bishops stood affected Bishop of Ardaghs Letter approving it Archbishop of Tuams answer to Dromore Letters of Cardinal Francis Barbarin and of the Internuncio of Bruxels condemning it The Procuratour come to Ireland finds out all the intrigues and general conspiracy against it What Peter Aylmer did Use made of the Queens Chaplains not having signed Sixteen several pretences for not signing As many heads of answers which the Procurator made to their excusatory pretences No uncatholickness pretended amongst the objections The Procurators charging them continually with unconscientiousness He perswades some to sign To the rest he writes The names of the Subscribers in Ireland A General Congregation desired by the Bishop of Meath and others The Dominican Chapters Letter and Remonstrance and other matters relating to them especially to their Provincial Augustinians English Chapâ—â—â— Letter from London approving the Remonstrance of 61. William Burgat Vicar General of Imly Iohn Burk Archbishop of Tuam landed at Dublin preached unto by the Procurator The Jesuits The Queries mad by them and Resolves of the Procurator Their several Remonstrances They as all the rest decline alwayes the question of right The Procutator meets the Franciscans at Multifernan Their resolution there Their Provincials concurrence to and approbation of the Remonstrance of 61. His latter to the Duke The Dukes Letter to Mr. Walsh The Nobility and Gentry subscribing at Dublin Their Letter to the Coâ—â—ityes It s â—â—op Wexfordians signing the Remonstrance Cenâ—â—e of Lovaine solliciâ—ed by Father John Brady and procured by the Internâ—â—â—tio The first considerable effect of this Censure or the Franciscan Subscribers sâ—â—â—â—â—d Their answers to the summons Four grounds of the said Censure and answers to theâ— More Remonstrances Proclamation issued against some Regular The Procurator being return'd to England the Bruxels Internuncius arrived aâ—â— at London â—â—cognite discourses with him and Father Chron for three â—â—â—tre and offers â—â—de them by him His desires after from Bruxels by worn of â—â—â—th and by 〈◊〉 The Procurators Answers to him in two several Papers The Franciscans Remonstrance from Killihy I. THe first winter following the Kings most happy Restauration in the year 1660. the chief Persons and Prelates of the Catholick Clergy of Ireland then at home in that Countrey being from London and by Letters from F.P.W. put in mind of their duty and of the many causes the generality of that Irish Clergy had above all other Subjects of their Church in any of the three Kingdoms to make their timely and both gratulatory and supplicatory addresses to His Majesty least otherwise their former carriage in the late unfortunate Rebellion of that Kingdom in 41. and both in the rejection of the Peace of 46. and transgression by many of them also of that other of 48. might argue their silence and non-addresses did not so much proceed from want of civility and humanity or even of confidence either in themselves to make such addresses or in the most accessible exorable and merciful of Princes for what concern'd his taking such in good part as from that would be suspected by others infallibly their want of true joy for his Majesties return or of good wishes for his establishment Edmond Relly Archbishop of Ardmagh or the Primate of that Church in Ireland made by Innocent the 10th some nine years since and Anthony Mageoghegan Bishop of Meath being the only Bishops of their Religion then in Ireland excepting only one more that was many years before and is still bed-rid and was not then accessible by reason of the times and place wherein he was D. Owen Swiny Bishop of Killmore together with Iames Dempsy Vicar Apostolick of Dublin and Capitulary of Kildare Oliver Dese Vicar General of Meath Cornelius Gaffney Vicar General of Ardagh Barnaby Barnwal Superiour of the Capucins Father Browne Superiour of the Carmelits and Father Iohn Scurlog Prior of the Dominicans at Dublin signed an Instrument of Procuration and sealed it with the Seals of their respective
them who by special function are Preachers of the Gospel of Christ and of all the promises and rewards of it to others to apply those also to themselves make use of them and remember that saying of our Saviour the eight and last and most comfortable of all the Beatitudes taught by this heavenly Master on the Mount to his Apostles Disciples and others and to all Christians by them Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam Math. 5.10 quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum whether they suffer by Prince or Pope For from both many holy men have often suffered persecution for justice and some that are at this present glorified and invoked in the Roman Calendar as Saints possessing actually that Kingdom of heaven so promised them for suffering for justice have been persecuted on that account in their life and to their death by Popes alone as for example St. Ignatius sometime Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated by Iohn the eight of Rome 13. That other no less general objection viz. That the Subscribers Lay or Ecclesiastick reaped no advantage by their subscription more then others who had not subscribed the Lay Proprietors not their temporal Estates nor Ecclesiasticks a liberty or freedom to exercise their spiritual function without fear or danger albeit the most powerful to render the Remonstrance unsignificant amongst such as either look only on the present and see no further or such also as value nothing but by temporal advantages yet was more then sufficiently more then abundantly solved by those other considerations offered to the Objectors 1. That the design of that Remonstrance and subscription of it was not thereby to be restored to their temporal estates because if such it had infallibly designed an unsettlement of the whole Kingdom since it was clear enough there is no Roman Catholick but on condition or certainty of being restored to his Lands or other temporal pretences would sign it and no less evident on the other side they could not be all restored without infallible disturbance of the publick peace and hazzard of all sides in a second bloody war there being so numerous and stubborn a party which must have been in such case dispossess'd of all their livelyhood for ever how justly or unjustly soever acquired at first 2. That nevertheless very many or most of those Remonstrants or Subscribers had been already or were to be one way or other provided for some upon title of Innocency others by special provision As indeed we have seen effected and not Remonstrants only c. That if the opposers both of Clergy and Laity had not delayed so long their own concurrence and thereby rendered themselves and their Catholick Nation suspected a new but taken time by the sore-lock and throughout the Kingdom generally cheerfully and heartily manifested their firm unalterable resolution whatever the former carriage of any was to stand inviolably firm to the King hereafter in all contingencies whatsoever according to that Remonstrance and as the first Subscribers had in their own behalf and for their sake also done they might with some colour have made this objection But being the Subscribers were so few and they almost so innumerable that opposed still with headiness and rashness it was too soon to expect those favours which are commonly given by a State upon good grounds of considerable advantage to it self such as would be in the present case the assuring of all the Catholicks in Ireland to stand firm and loyal in all kind of dangerous contingencies whatsoever 3. That all generally of that Religion ever since that Remonstrance was exhibited and graciously accepted by His Majesty had much ease connivence and liberty for publick meetings and publick exercise of their Religion throughout all the Kingdom without any considerable molestation therefore in any place if some very few walled Towns only and within the walls only or close by them be not excepted and that favour done at first continued ever since by reason only of that Remonstrance and for the sake of those who had given and subscribed it and in expectation of the concurrence of the rest to the same or like dutiful manifestation of their Allegiance That although some numbers of poor Catholicks in some few parts Town or Counties had been three or four several times taking one place with another molested by presentments in some Bishops Courts Inditements and Capiases by the civil Officers of Judges of the Assize and of Sheriffs yet upon application made they found themselves presently at ease and rest from any further prosecution 4. That albeit the indiscretion of too great a multitude of Catholicks and too publickly and boldly convening and thronging in the streets from about twelve a clock at night on Christmass day till at noon even at the very door of the Parish Church or St. Owens in Dublin where those of the contrary Religion warranted by the laws and where also the very guards did meet to serve God in their way occasion'd that disturbance and hurry objected yet they might visibly see the favour done the Remonstrant Clergy whose Chappel that was For notwithstanding their indiscreet carriage in that matter they were all set at liberty within three or four dayes and only because they were known to be true and faithful Remonstrants as besides their subscription to that paper they had all along in the former quarrel of the Nuncio and other differences of the Consederats in the late wars approved themselves to be men so loyally religiously and conscientiously principled 5. That for the Proclamation whatever the cause of it was they had no cause to complain of its execution Lastly that they were blind if they did not see ungrateful if they did not acknowledge the vast difference 'twixt the condition then of both the Lay Proprietors as to matter of estate and of Ecclesiasticks as to that of liberty and of both in all respects and that they could not but remember they were in all of them generally a little before and for so many years together without scarce any humane hope to see any end of their miseries 14. Their objection of some words and these were no more but two or three only Pope renounce Papal was answered by desiring them to shew by reason or argument how the naming of the Pope or of his Papal power or pretence or renouncing of that power in him which they confessed was not in him could argue any irreverence or disrespect especially where and when it was so necessary to use that expression or an equivalent and no other would or could do the work or compass the end they so vehemently and rationally desired That surely the Catholicks of England then which there are none in the world more observant of all respect and reverence to the Pope who were the authors and framers of the Protestation who worded it throughly knew very well these words were not irreverential in any wise That they should find
Propositions against the Jansenists and by occasion thereof against Mr. White alias Blacklow a learned Priest of the Roman communion though much for most of his books censured at Rome And he that printed at London that excellent Latin Panegyrick of Cromwel in verse I remember well though much unbecomming for the subject a Catholick Divine however it might sute a Heathen Poet Oratour as being in the praise of such a Tyrant Usurper And he that being netled by Mr. Blacklows replyes partly to be revenged on this Gentleman or out of zeal perhaps and partly to trye the fortune of his old age and expect some reward for his earnest endeavours to stifle Iansenisme in England whether for any other end I know not went to Rome immediately after his said writings and stayed there since It was this good Father as a veterane Souldier an able Divine and penman and a forraigner too that had no dependance on England they pitched on at Rome to write and print against that Remonstrance and against the sense thereof expounded by the Procuratour in his little English book wherein he gave the best account thereof he could and the exceptions made first against it required To which purpose they got the Irish Franciscans of St. Isidore their Colledge in the City to translate that little book of the Procuratours hopeing also they might find therein some passages or propositions censurable by His Holiness or Inquisition or by the Congregation de propaganda fide and thereby also find more cause and more matter to write against both the Remonstrance and chief defenders of it such as they accounted the Procuratour and Father Caron But their labour in that particular of translating of that book was lost For when they had done all their worst and brought their translation to the Colledg of Cardinals de propaganda nothing therein was esteemed censurable at least otherwise then the bare Propositions of the Remonstrance in it self And therefore it lyes and will in all likely-hood for ever lye amongst by layed sheets in that Colledg without any danger of condemnation or prohibition as even the Catholick Primate of Ardmagh then at Rome and in all probability concurring with the rest of his Countrymen against the Remonstrance and Subscribers writâ— to my self as soon as he was returned to Paris in 65. as also he together writt that His Holiness did not would not censure at all or meddle with or concern himself in that Remonstrance pro nec con otherwise then by his displeasure only against those Churchmen that were the first Authors or chief promoters of it And indeed we have no reason yet to complain of His Holiness in this matter albeit very much of the proceedings of his Eminency Cardinal Francis Barlerin and of the two Internuncius's of Bruxels But however this be or be not el Padre Macedo lost all his labours How farre he proceeded in it I do not know but sure I am whatever it was he writt on this subject it never came to light Whether because upon after thoughts they found he could saye nothing to purpose and whatever he would saye would certainly and fully be answered and judg'd safer to proceed rather by authority then reason against that Instrument and those Subscribers and by discountenancing and keeping them from all hopes of preferment or title in that Court until they retracted or whether for any other more pious and godly consideration of the Popes Holiness I cannot say for certain But am notwithstanding certain that to this day as neither Macedo nor Brodin so none els had the confidence either at home in Ireland or abroad in other Countries to publish as much as one sheet or leaf or line on that subject against the Remonstrance in print or otherwise that came to my knowledg besides those written letters only of Cardinal Barberin De Vecchijs and Rospigliosi part of which I have before given and shall the rest hereafter in their due place and besides the Censure of Lovain XIII The second particular of those two I desired the Reader to take notice of here as an appendix of those answers is That the Procurator alwayes and to all and every though so many dissenting opposing or delaying parties and factions of the Clergy against subscription in the perclose of his particular answers appropriated to their several objections inculcated seriously and vehemently insisted on this general argument against them That whereas they all generally confessed the catholickness and lawfulness of that form or of the acknowledgments declarations protestations promises engagements and petition of that Remonstrance and consequently the lawfulness of a subscription to it and withal saw clearly not only the expediency but necessity also of their concurrence and being it was evident enough they were bound under the greatest and strictest obligation of conscience and even of eternal damnation and they above other Christians by their special function to concur to all just conscientious or lawful means or such as were not sinful and were also the circumstances of place time and persons considered both expedient and necessary as well to hinder the propagation and labour the extirpation of erroneous false sinful and scandalous doctrine amongst the people whom they instructed as to wash off their holy Faith and Church such scandals already aspersed upon it through the carriage or miscarriage of some rendring it foul and odious and horrible and therefore estranging Sectaries of all sorts from all thoughts of returning or reuniting to it at any time but rather fixing them in heresie and schisme with loss of their eternal salvation even of such infinite myriads of souls for whose reduction to the Church and means of salvation they were specially commission'd by their calling and enjoyn'd to preach and teach Evangelical truths without addition or substraction of or countenance to any other novel doubtful or controverted opinions much less of those are certainly false and scandadalous and even against the common peace not of Catholicks or Christians alone but also of Infidels even of all societies of men on earth it must follow evidently out of these premises they must confess themselves to live in a very sinful state and extreamly dangerous hazzard of Gods most severe and most terrible judgments against them on the day of account if they delayed any longer their duty to God and to the King and to their own Church Religion People and to those too that abhorred their Church and Faith upon account chiefly of such their carriage or of their not disowning as they might and ought such pernicious doctrines and practises the antecedents concomitants and subsequents whereof render the Professors of the Catholick Faith and Church so abominable to all apostatized from or otherwise born and bred out of it For it is clear that under such penalties all Priests of God and Preachers of the Gospel of Christ by special function are obliged by all just means to endeavour the best they can to render
for the quarrel of God and for the defence of their Religion Nunc ergo O Filii aemulatores estate legis date animas vestras pro testamento Patrum vestrorum And cap. 13. we find vos scitis quanta ego fratres mei Domus patris mei fecimus pro legibus pro sanctis praelia I know the Author of the Book of the defence of the Remonstrance or Protestation saith that the Machabees made war through ignorance because they understood not their own law nor had the light of the law of Jesus Christ but he must give us leave not to believe him until he produceth some more warrantable authority then his bare word God having justified their war with miracles I have heard some say being pressed by this and other arguments that the wars of the Machabees were just not for that they fought for Gods cause or in defence of their Religion but because the true Prince retaineth his right alwayes and can recover his Kingdom again by force of arms if occasion serveth and he be able though his people be conquered and in a long and continued subjection to another King And therefore the Machabees had right to recover Iudea from the Gentile King and for this reason the war was just of their side But this evasion is a very slight one first because the Machabees are not praised for fighting for that cause but for their Religion Secondly because they had no right to the Crown of Iudea but the Progenitors of our Saviour Jesus Christ but they kept the command to themselves and never gave it to the right line of succession to the Crown among the Jews Besides none will presume to say that the wars of the late Earl of Tyrone against the Crown of England were just though his Ancestors were Kings of Ulster or Monarchs of Ireland What a probable opinion is and when a man may lawfully follow it Potest quis sequi tanquam probabilem opinionem unius doctoris probi docti maximé si adducat aliquam rationem intrinsicê probabilem et non sit contra opinionem communem Ita Sanches et undecimiali Non tamen si ab aliis Recentioribus valde famigeratis recitatur Ita Bresserus et alii Neque eo ipso quo invenitur impressa in aliquo Authore censeri potest probabilis .. Neque approbatio libri approbat omnes ejus opinniones Ita Marchantius et omnes alii communiter Let the Affirmative and the Negative of the above proposed question be be considered with the Reasons and Authors of both sides If they find reasons and authors according to what is laid down here concerning what is a probable opinion he may follow which part he pleaseth otherwise he cannot not follow it as a probable opinion XXVIII That forasmuch as in the Procuratour's Answers to their two or three former Queries they had had particularly cleerly his answer to this also that he found no new matter in this second paper but pitiful though replyes in effect which they can reasons for the affirmative yet such replyes as are grounded solely on the bare saying or opinion either of Pontius one of their own Society or of a confused rabble of such other Neoterick Schoolmen thronging together and treading in the stepps one of another like a flock of sheep without further serious ponderation of the nature of things in themselves or of those reasons would render such their saying intrinsecally probable or even extrinsecally from any decision or at least from any manifest determination obliging to submit unto nor found any thing more then either a full conviction of their not being conversant in those great Classick Authors Gerson Maior Almaine Johannes Parisiensis c. or the precedent or example of the Macchabees rebelling against Antiochus and the answer of the Procuratour to it in his little book entitled The More Ample Account this imperfectly related as ill considered and that worst of all applyed to maintain their affirmative resolve or a power in the Christian Church as purely such to inflict by force of Arms and by virtue of a Divine supernatural power corporal punishments upon any therefore and because too that none came ever after to own this second paper or demaund his rejoynder and moreover because themselves that sent it whoever they were did no longer insist upon it or any thing contain'd therein as shall be seen hereafter he lay'd it by as unsignificant for other purpose then to relate the folly of men that maugre all Christianity abuse themselves and others with such like silly and weak or false or only negative arguments For besides that if they had been pleased to consult Barclay the Father Son against Bellarmine and Widdrington's so many learned works against both the same Eminent Cardinal 's several books writt on this subject bearing either his own proper name or those of Tortus Sculkenius c as also against all the choycest arguments even of Cardinal Peron and so many others of the Society as Parsons and Gâ—etzer and fitz Herbert and Lessius personated under the name of Singleton or if they pleased to read what those other excellent Professors of Divinity of S. Benedicts Order Father Preston and Green apologized for themselves most learnedly to the Pope Gregory the XIIII they would have not only seen the vanity of their maxime of Statists or philosophers as here made use of or of Aristotle in particular so ill understood by them but that meaning of it or that the coercive power must be of the same kind with the directive to be that which was of a great number of most famous Classick Authors of the School besides that it was in all ages the doctrine of the Church and of even all the holy Fathers till Gregory the VII and that meaning also for what concerns our purpose deduced out of clear and evident Scriptures as those most famous Classick Authors perswaded themselves I say that besides all this if the authors of this Quaerie and second paper had considered a little their own allegations here and the arguments to the contrary they would find them partly false and partly unconcluding XXIX First they would find them false where they say that such as hold the negative can scarce produce one Classick Author c. and such as hold the affirmative may produce as many as ever wrote ex professo of this matter and if they mean only that Basilius Pontius sayes so they will find him too notoriously false if they please to consult Alensis Maior Gerson Almain Johannes Parisiensis c. not to speak a word of all or any of the holy Fathers nor of so many whole entire Vniversities nor of the common sense and practise of so many millions of the whole Catholick Church in all ages till Gregory the VII and after that believed and acknowledg'd themselves as a Church of Christ purely such to have no other coercion but
the Nuntio came to besiege Dublin That he covld not understand why they declined a subscriptien to the Remonstrance signed presented to and received already at London by his Majesty whereas themselves now confess'd for they did so in his own presence it was very lawful and Catholick and could not be even as much as a venial sin for any to sign it That finally notwithstanding all he would not advise such wise men as they were what they had to do but knew what himself was to do which was to observe his own Masters directions And if they thought fitter to observe another Master that is him they called their General and is at Rome still to command or direct them what he please from the Pope they were to look to that and run the hazzard Wherefore and forasmuch too as within a few dayes more they understood by several wayes that his Grace having seriously considered of that second Form of theirs declared it in many points unsatisfactory they form'd yet a third adding somewhat more to the former but abstracting still both from any expression comprehending in terminis the Pope and from any likewise that might engage them not to decline the question or position of Right or that which asserts a power in the Pope or Church in some cases to depose the King and absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance being obstinately resolved to declare and engage only against matters of fact and this too with as many exceptions equivocations abstractions distinctions reservations as the words of this third Form would bear and the Divinity of their Casuists would allow The Jesuits third Remonstrance Declaration or Protestation of Allegiance WE the undernamed do acknowledge his Majesty King Charles the Second to be our true and lawful King supream Lord and right Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and all other his Majesties Dominions We acknowledge our selves bound in conscience to obey his Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs and notwithstanding the diversity of Religion in Him and us we engage our selves that during life we shall be as loyal to his Majesty as any of his Subjects whatsoever And we engage our selves to expose our Lives if occasion shall require in defence of his Majesties Person and royal Authority and that no sentence of deposition excommunication or any other censure whatsoever shall mâ—ve us to recede from any point of this our engagement of Allegiance and Duty We engage our selves to detect and discover to his Majesty and his Ministers whatsoever Treasons and Conspiracies against his Majesty or Governours shall come to our knowledge We detest from our hearts that impious doctrine which averreth that any Subject can murther or kill his anointed King or Prince though of a different judgement in Religion and we abhorr the damnable practice of that wicked assertion All which we swear religiously to observe according to the common and usual signification of the words without equivocation or mental reservation So help us God This third Form they offered and delivered my Lord by some friend of theirs within a few dayes after they had given the second by themselves But they found here also that his Grace understood English as well as themselves and that it was for some other purpose then that of a bare change or complement of words they strove so mightily to decline the printed Form of 61. being they would not in so many changes come near the material sense thereof notwithstanding they laboured so much to perswade others they never had any exception against the sense but against the words only as not being reverential enough because forsooth the Pope though only by this highest title of his office or dignity was express'd therein and because of the words disclaim and renounce which yet signified only as there a disclaim or renunciation of that ill grounded pretence of power in his Holiness to depose the King or licence his Subjects to take arms against Him But this exception against such words was found at last not to be The Exception but a real one indeed against the sense in whatever terms express'd XXXII The Fathers having found all their three several changes to no purpose one of them whom the Procurator esteemed still very much came to him and offered to change the fourth time their Form and express in particular the Pope so they were not required to meddle with the question of right But the Procurator answered they went too long already about the bush That if they mean'd really and conscientiously and sufficiently too as to the form of words to declare and oblige themselves as to matter of fact or in all contingencies whatsoever and notwithstanding any sentence of deposition deprivation suspension or excommunication against the King or his Liege-people and notwithstanding any other declaration whatsoever or dispensation with or absolution of the said people from their allegiance upon what pretext soever civil or religions temporal or spiritual to continue alwaies true and loyal Subjects to him who is now their King to Charles the Second and to his lawful Heirs and Successors they should not scruple neither in point of conscience or worldly interest to disclaim and renounce in plain express terms any such pretended power in the Pope That for what belong'd to conscience nothing was clearer then that they had the same warrant to renounce the power which they had to renounce obedience to it in all kind of contingencies whatsoever because it is impossible there should be a power in the Pope to command them and they in no case bound to take notice of or obey it For as it is a maxime that Frustra est potentia quae non reduciter ad actum so it is another maxime that Frustra est potentia mandandi si non sit obligatio parendi There can be no act of a commanding power but vain if there be no case wherein it is to be obeyed That for matter of interest or worldly regard of favour or disfavour they might be sure it would be the same thing at Rome to renounce that power and to renounce all obedience to it for ever nay the latter a farr greater guilt before God and man if the Romans or others understood the Fathers scrupled at the former and swallowed the latter because the latter without a persuasion of the former cannot be less then folly or sacriledge whether the swearers intend to perform or not That Bellarmine himself their own great Patron tells them so much in his Writings against Widdrington where he disputes against the Oath of Allegiance and proves enough to this purpose though very little to his own but however concludes truly that 't is impossible a man should swear without sacriledge that notwithstanding any excommunication or other sentence from the Pope against the King or his people he would alwayes continue a loyal Subject to the King in opposition to the Popes commands and yet not be perswaded at the same time the Pope
six months were over and the Clergie had been ashamed of their own obstinacy and no less confounded at their own scarce credible inconsiderancy But it pleased God to dispose affaires so that His Grace the Lord Lieutenant albeit otherwise very desirous to see these letters take effect as he was timely acquainted with the drawing and signing of them yet as they were ready to be dispatch'd to the several Counties and most of them too by Noblemen considering the dangerous plot then in hand amongst those disloyal Fanaticks who were to seize the Castle of Dublin and thinking prudently that if any papers whatsoever were carried about at that time by the Catholicks for getting hands or subscriptions those wicked plotters and their party would misinterpret them and pretend thereby a plott or some dangerous conspiracy a preparing amongst the Papists whereby to excuse the better themselves for meeting frequently in armed troups by day or night and considering moreover what influence the Irish Clergie had in the late warrs on the Layety of their communion yea notwithstanding any former Oath and that the same might be again unless the Clergie themselves had subscribed His Grace was pleased for these reasons to countermand for that time and suspend ever since the sending about of those letters expecting it might be done more seasonably when the Clergie had signed first and questionless too expecting the Clergie would sign as soon as their pretence of not dareing to meet by Representatives in a general Congregation were layed aside though it happen'd otherwise as will appear in the second Part of this first Treatise XLVI However the Catholick Gentry or old proprietours of the County of Wexford and few survivours of the Cittizens of that Town expected no such invitation by letters from the Noblemen but without any other then that they had gathered out of The More Ample Account and their own reason having framed for themselves a suitable both Petition to the Lord Lieutenant and preamble to His Majesty subscribed the Remonstrance with about two hundred hands for they wanted only three of that number and sent it His Grace by Mr. William Stafford of Lambstown who took great pains in this business Which Instrument of theirs I would not omit to insert here at length as an eternal monument of their honest loyal hearts however they have been abused in the late warrs by some of their spiritual leaders though perhaps that too more out of ignorance and blind zeal then any malice and whatever or how sad soever their condition above most other Counties be ever since as it was then when they signed so freely of themselves yea notwithstanding the contrary endeavours used by some Clergiemen especially two Fathers of the Society to disswade them Whether those Fathers behaved themselves so undiscreetly out of any disaffection to the King or rather out of mistaken Religion and prepossession by such foolish arguments as they had learned in their own Schools or by reading Bellarmine Suamz or such other by ass'd writers or whether by special command or direction of their Superiours I knew not To His Grace the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant General an General Governour of Ireland The Humble Petition of the Subscribers MOst humbly sheweth that they come with the same alacrity and cheerfulness to present to your Grace the ensueing Remonstrance and Protestation which some of their fellow Subjects of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom not long since humbly laid at His Majecties Feet Who was graciously pleased to accept thereof And they with the same zeal acknowledging themselves to be bound in the same duty and indispensable tyes of obedience to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors in all temporal matters do humbly beseech your Grace that this their most hearty concurrence to the same faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance may be made the more acceptable by your Graces conveyance thereof to His Majesty And they shall pray c. To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty The faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance of the Roman Catholick Gentry of the County of Ireland WHereas a considerable part of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland by the name of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland presented to your most Excellent Majesty a sincere Protestation and humble Remonstrance intituled the faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance of the Roman Catholick Nobility and Gentry of Ireland for divers substantial and solid reasons in the said faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance ingenuously and conscientiously expressed and set forth Now we the said Roman Catholick Gentry of the said County of Wexford whose names are hereunto subscribed being members of the said Roman Catholick Gentry of Ireland being bound in Conscience and duty to own the said faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance as well as our Countreymen first subscribing thereunto for the motives in the said faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance expressed and in imitation of our said Countreymen and to avoid all jealousies and misopinions which may be concieved of our selves and of our Religion and feareing least we may be thought to vary from the said first Subscribers in doctrine in Religion or Religious Tenets do sincerely and truly without Equivocation or mental reservation in the sight of God and in the presence of your Majesty Acknowledg and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other your Majesties Dominions and therefore we acknowledg and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of sin to obey your Majesty in all civil and temporal affairs as much as any other of your Majesties Subjects and as the laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands and that notwithstanding any power or pretention of the Pope or Sea of Rome or any sentence or Declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessours or Successours or by any authority spiritual or temporal proceeding or derived from him or his Sea against your Majesty or Royal Authority we will still acknowledge and perform to the utmost of our abilities our faithful loyalty and true Allegiance to your Majesty And we openly disclaim and renounce all forraign power be it either Papal or Princely spiritual or temporal or us much as is may seem able or shall pretend to free discharge or absolve us from this Obligation or shall any way give us leave or licence to raise tumults bear Arms or offer any violence to your Majesties Person Royal Authority or to the State or Government being all of us ready not only to discover and make known to your Majesty or to your Ministers all the Treasons made against your Majesty or them which shall come to our hearing but also to loose our lives in the defence of your Majesties Person and Royal Authority and to resist with our best endeavours all conspiracies and attempts against
such be amongst the Subscribers can make themselves ready for the voyage before they can fit themselves with necessaries for so long a journey before they can get money to bear their charges and Passes to save them harmless the time will be wherein according to our constitutions the Commissary Visitor must go about the Province at home in Circuit And if so wherefore a journey so chargeable tedious and no less dangerous specially of so great a multitude and of persons too not convicted nor confessed nay of persons never once heard to speak or write for themselves never yet as much as once any way questioned either by messenger or by letter to this very day What I say further is That it would very well become your Paternity and the Minister General to consider seriously with your selves what your selves would do if your own condition or case in the Dominions of Spain Germany Franâ—e Poland Venice or other States and Principalities of Italy were like ours here If banishment proscription treason death it self the worst of evils and the vilest kind too of death were established by law where you live against the maintainers of the great Pontiffs pretended power either direct or indirect for deposing your own King and bereaving him of Crown and life together If you had now your selves groan'd for some ages under the yoke of severest laws against your Religion led the life of slaves in servitude and bondage if your Altars had been destroyed your Churches polluted your Holies contaminated your Goods confiscated and persons out-lawed And that now at last after so great and so long sufferings you saw a beam of light discovering some comfort some fair hopes of seeing in your own dayes under a pious King a cessation of your evils end of your persecutions restitution of your people liberty of religion intended for you and nothing else expected from you by a good lawful and merciful Prince your own natural Prince I mean but only that you would under your hands-writing renounce the late bloody horrid assertion of a Sermarine or Bellarmine Comitolus or a Suarezius a Gretzer Becan Lessius or any other such one or more Neotericks whether Divines or Canonists or both Assertions publickly and frequently condemned heretofore even by the most famous Universities Prelates Clergie and people of the greatest Catholick Nations of Europe and besides that you would only profess against assertions so strangely enormous pernicious and scandalous of such the foresaid few Divines or Canonists to be unalterably undispensably faithful in temporals to your own Monarch notwithstanding any attempts or machinations whatsoever of any person or power on earth even that of the great Pontiff to bereave your King of his temporal rights Scepter Crown or Life I say it would become your Paternitie and Minister General of the Order to consider with your selves coolely what you would think lawful to do in that case of your own what to determine as Christian Divines and what to declare promise and subscribe as faithful Subjects to your King Likewise to consider with your selves what then you would think of Caron Walsh or any others of your own Order that subscribed our above mentioned Form if I mean they in the now supposed case had the same power of or superiority over you which you indeed have over them and they used I say not abused it to estrange to alienate you and all other fellow Subjects from being so faithful to your King in his temporal Government to this end proceeded against troubled molested you with illegal summons and breach of Canons and did so too with the manifest prejudice of Catholick Religion and with the yet more special infamy hatred horrour of the Seraphick Institution amongst those are not of our Church Certainly prudent wise learned men men so zealous for Religion Faith and the service of God would alledge That there is no power given for destruction but for edification that we must rather obey God then any men whatsoever commanding against God Faith and Religion against the publick good or peace of a Catholick Nation so strangely of late and so many years together afflicted then men men too I say proceeding so either out of a certain blind obedience that sees not God or out of zeal that is not according to the knowledge of God or lastly and which is worst of all out of a sinful awe they stand in of other men who rule by power only domineering amongst the Clergie against the Prince of the Clergies precepts of Faith and examples of Life And what I finally say is That however your most reverend Paternities would carry your selves in the supposed case it concerns you in that wherein you are to be very careful and cautious that as the reverend Father Caron well adviseth in this matter or controversie if it be this indeed you intended in your Letter to the said Father your Paternities proceed religiously maturely and charitably or which is the same thing that without a just cause you proceed not to citations censures or any sentences whatsoever For when the sentence is either notoriously null by reason of an intollerable errour or through want of matter that is of a lawful cause or sin and this very sin to have a clear contumacy along with it or when the sentence is otherwise unjust by reason the substantial or essential form of judicial procedure such as the Canons and reason prescribe is not observed and much more when both that and this are manifest what fruit what effect can you hope thereof Certainly it appears out of the Canons and Doctors that a sentence of this nature obliges not Which you may see in cap. Venerabilibus Parag. potest quoque de sent Excom in 6. cap. per tuas Parag. nos igitur eod tit in Tâ—let l. i. c. 10. and Gandidus disquis 22. 24. dub 3. de Censur where he alledges Sâ—tus d. 22. q. 1. a. 2. and Suarez de Censur disp 6. sec 7 n. 52. averring moreover that when a censure is in this manner invalid or null in both Courts that is the internal of conscience and external of the Church its unnecessary to have an absolution as much as for caution as they speak With whom Henriques too l. 13. de Excommunicat cap. 15. Sayrus l. 1. de censur cap. 16. go along And as to the generality of the sentence all other Divines and Canonists Nay it appears out of that most learned and most holy Chancellor of the School of Paris Gerson de Excom consideratione 5tâ— tom 2. that a farr greater and more sinful contempt of the keyes of the Church is to be imputed to the Prelate or Ecclesiastical Judge so as is now said abusing his power then to the party censured if there be any comparison at all in the abuse Nay it further appears out of this most famous Divine that it may and is sometimes both meritorious in it self and honourable to 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
however apprehended by us to be so Now for the Lovaine Divines to say that to assert or acknowledge either of these two kinds of obedience or both as due by the law of God to the supream temporal Prince is as much as to deny the Popes or other Bishops or Priests either binding or loosing power which yet the Catholick Church never yet believed to be other then a purely spiritual power and to have no other then purely spiritual effects and a purely spiritual execution or means of execution and no corporal temporal or civil coercion or power of such coercion annexed if not that only which is added at some times and some places by the free pleasure of the supream civil Magistrate and by his proper Power and laws and is taken away again at his pleasure I say that for the Lovaine Divines to ground their Censure of sacriledge or unsincerity of Catholick Faith upon so unconsequent a supposition as if either such active or passive obedience or both together acknowledged by the Remonstrance did inferr the denyal of a binding or loosing power of the Church is to ground a very false and most injurious and erroneous Position upon a no less false and heretical supposition and is further to conclude them either bad Logicians or bad Theologians if not both For to object here that out of such active and passive obedience of Catholick Subjects notwithstanding the Popes excommunication to the contrary and out of their taking arms to defend their protestant King and his protestant Subjects as well as themselves in their lives and fortunes and out of his great power by Land and by Sea against the supposed invasion of a Catholick Army and from Catholick Princes the Pope himself being head of the Ligue must follow that if our King and his army prevail the Protestant Religion will be more and more established by him and perhaps too propagated into Catholick Countryes if he should make his Assailants a return by carrying the Warr back to their own doors or sending a formidable victorious Fleet of English Protestants to Civita Vecchia and consequently an apparant danger of destroying both Pope and Church and Religion at least amongst millions of people All which being evils of the first magnitude that whence they follow must be such I say that to object such conditional contingencies of extraordinary evils or possibilities to hinder an ordinary virtuous duty and of such evils too as have no connexion at all by nature or by design with such duty becomes very ill such Masters in Israel as the Doctors of Lovain For as it is an approved maxime in Divinity That evil is not to be done for any good that may thence arise though such good were foreseen to follow most certainly and without any kind of doubt so is it a no less approved maxime That duties enjoyned by the laws of God and man are not to be omitted and the quite contrary acted for fear of evils which by an extraordinary chance the malice or ignorance or other passion soever of other unjust men may thence derive and the anger of a just God may permit to be thence derived But if the Lovaine Doctors will deny the above active and passive obedience of Catholicks to be vertuous duties in the case and give no other reason then such as we have seen as indeed they do not for ought I saw or know and am very positive they cannot and if upon so weak a ground they have fram'd a Censure so erroneous and injurious both as they have most certainly then I have no more to say to this ground which is their second but that they have carryed themselves more prudentially in suppressing it so soon then conscientiously in alleadging it at any time LV. As for that alledged in the third place or as a third ground of the Censure I must confess I have not admiration enough to consider that men not only Doctors of Lovaine but Divines of a much inferiour degree whether of Lovaine or any other place esteemed either wise or honest should appear so weak or so malicious or both as to alledge it for a ground of any Censure at all and much more of one so severe Good God! Because the Remonstrance declares the Subscribers ready to discover any treason plot or conspiracy against his Majesties person c. that shall come to their hearing and yet not as much as promises that they will discover c. but only their being ready the Doctors of Lovaine must censure it as both sacrilegious and containing somewhat against the sincerity of Catholick Faith On precence forsooth that in relation to Confessors and Priests that hear confessions and subscrib'd or shall subscribe it it in some cases binds them to reveal secret sins heard only in the confessional seat and reveal such I mean without any licence from the penitent that confesseth such in that so holy secret and sacramental Consistory How much better had it become Doctors of Divinity and of so grave and judicious a Faculty as that of Lovaine should be to consider LVI 1. That all kind of Oathes of Allegiance or Fidelity in what form soever and to whom soever have alwayes either formally or virtually and for the most part even formally or in express words engaged the Swearer as indeed all such Oathes should to reveal all treasons plots conspiracies against the life estate or dignity of him to whom or for whom such Oathes were made And yet such expression was never interpreted in any age or Countrey by any Divines until of late by those byassed ill grounded Writers against the English Oath of Allegiance in King James's Statute to extend by any rational consequence to any kind of the least imaginable either direct or indirect breach of that which is now commonly called the Seal of Sacramental Confession Or which in effect is the same thing to extend to the revelation of the sin of such an individual penitent without his own leave as of such a penitent individually or determinatly or of him even as of one inderminatly of such or such a Society or body or corporation whatsoever nay or as of him too as of one of such a Countrey if I mean by such revelation how indeterminat soever as to the individual person yet sufficiently determinat as to the Society or Countrey any prejudice might arise to any such Corporation or Nation Suarez l 6. Defens Fidei Cathol contra Reg. Ang. de forma Iuram Fidel. cap. 3. though not to the individual person of the penitent For never yet amongst Christians where sacramental auricular confession is or was in use hath the knowledge had by the Confessor in that secret penitential Court been esteemed to fall under the general expression or notion of knowledge or of our knowledge as to any use to be made thereof out of the confessional Seat but what the penitent is expresly consenting unto Nor hath any Priest or Bishop whereof thousands upon
there by Theodâ—sius and Valentinian signifie no more but an unlawfulness of or by their own human civil Emperial laws and where or in such cases onely as by these laws it was unlawful to subject Ecclesiasticks to the judgment of temporal powers And that these other words temporalium pâ—testatum arbitri as there and as per materiam subjectam restrained have relation solely to and onely import or signifie such temporal powers as all inferiour Magistrats are but in no wise the supream of the Emperours themselves Being so that those Emperours themselves Theodosius and Valentinian by this or any other law nor any other Emperour before them had ever granted such a priviledg to any Clerk or Church as to be wholy exempt from their own proper supream civil and imperial power Nay how farre Clerks were under the Empire of this very Valentinian from such an imaginary priviledg or Exemption from the supream imperial power may be learned out of his welfth law eod tit Novel Valentiniani De Episcopali Judicio diversorum saepe cansatio est Ne ulterius quaerela procedat necesse est praesenti lege sanari Itaque cum inter Clericos jurgium vertitur ipsis litigatoribus convenit habeat Episcapus licentiam judicaâ—di praeeunte tamen uinculo compromissi Quod laicis si consentiant authoritas nostra permittit Aliter eos Iudices esse non patimur nifi â—â—â—â—tas juâ—gantium interposita sicut dictum est conditione praecedat Quoniam constat Episcopos praesbyteâ—os fâ—rum legibus non habere nec de aliis causis secundum Arcadii Honorii Divalia constituta quae Theodosianum Corpus ostendit praeter Religionem posse cognoscere Si ambo ejusdem officii litigatores nolint vel alteruter agant publicis legibus jure communi Sin vero Petitor laicus seu in civili seu criminali causa cujuslibet loci Clericum adversarium suum si id magis eligat per authoritatem legitimam in publico judicio respondere compellat Quam formam etiam circa Episcoporum personam observari oportere censemus c. Where it is plain this Emperour acknowledges no judicial power in Bishops not even over their own very Clerks at variance amongst themselves either in criminal or civil causes nor as much as permits licences or suffers any such judicial power in the Bishop over Clerks but onely when it shall please the Clerks themselves to fix on him and besides shall make a compromise to stand to his judgment quâ—niam constat Episcopos Praesbyteros forum legibus non habere c because sayes that law sayes Valentinian who made that law it is manifest that by the laws Bishops and Priests have no judicatory nor according to the divine constitutions of Arcadius and Honrius can take cognizance of any other causes but of those of Religion And therefore decrees that if the parties at variance being both of the same profession refuse Episcopal audience that is the Bishops judgment or if either of them refuse it they are in such case to try their quarrel by the publick and common laws And further decrees that if the Plantiff being a lay person whatever the cause be against a Clerk civil or criminal shall rather choose this way of publick judgment acccording to the laws that then such Clerk be forced by lawful authority to answer And yet further particularly decrees the same form or method to be observed concerning the persons of Bishops To this law of Valentinian may be added an other long after of those other no less Orthodox Emperours Leo and Anthemius L. omnes 33. c. de Episc Cleric omnes qui ubique sunt vel posthae fuerint Orthodoxae Fidei sacerdotes Clerici cujus cumque gradus fint Monachi quoque in causis civilibus ex nullius penitus majoris minorisve sententia Iudicis commonitoria ad extranea judicia pertrahantur aut Provinciam aut locum aut Regionem quam habitant exire cagantur nullus eorum Ecclesias vel Monasteria propria quae Religionis intuitu habitant relinquere miserabili necessitate jubeatur sed apud suos Iudices ordinarios id est Provinciarum Rectores in quibus locis degunt Ecâ—lesiarum ministeriis obsecundent omniumque contra se agentium excipiant actiones Let not any whoever at present are or hereafter shall be Priests of the Orthodox Faith or Clerks of whatever degree or even Monks be at the pleasure or by a monitory sentence of any greater or lesser Iudg drawn to forraign Iudicatories or forced out of the Province place or Region where they dwell Let none of them be commanded by miserable necessity to relinquish the Churches or Monasteries which for Religions sake they inhabit but in such places as they inhabit in the Ministery of Churches let them before their own ordinary Iudges that is the Rectours of Provinces receive the actions of all such as act against them See Clerks of all degrees whatsoever not subjected to Emperours onely but to the Rectors of Provinces who also are in this law said to be their ordinary Iudges Now whereas the priviledges of Clerks are not read to have been any way lessened or recalled by any laws of former pious Emperours from the times of Theodosius and Valentinian until that of this very Leo and Anthemius but rather by little and little daily enlarged by new indulgences or exemptions given to the Church and notwithstanding such daily enlargement the Rectors of the Provinces were yet under the same Leo and Anthemius the ordinary Iudges of Clerks it is sufficiently evicted that those words before in the foresaid law of Theodosius and Valentinian fas enim non est ut divini muneris Ministri temporalium potestatum subdantur arbitrio were spoke or writ in that same sense we have said already whereas I say the Emperors then held it fas or lawful for themselves to encrease the priviledges of Clerks and also at their own pleasure or when they held it fit to leave them to the common law And who sees not further yet that Bellarmine concludes out of Iustinians 83. Novel quite contrary to the express letter of that very Novel Iustinian there expresly orders That as to such Clerks as should be convened in criminal causes at Constantinople where himself lived and the Imperial Court was then the Iudges there should determine the matter but as to other Clerks that lived in the Provinces abroad the President or Judges of those Provinces Si de criminibus conveniantur siquidem civilibus that is if the crimes of Clerks were civil or lay crimes crimina laica and not pure crimes of Religion or Faith hic quidem nempe Constantinopâ—li competentes Iudices in Provinciis autem earum praesides sive Iudices How then may Bellarmine conclude out of this Novel that Politick or lay and meerly civil even subordinate Judges such as questionless the Presidents and Judges of Provinces were under Iustinian could not Judge Clerks in
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
against this instance I say moreover against Bellarmine and for Barclay that to conclude thence as our Cardinal would is nothing else but to conclude Sophistically And that Bellarmine himself were he alive again and being he is not that his defenders must acknowledge so much is very evident hence that Barclay's argument as mine here or his assuming this maxime Lex Christi neminem privat jure dominioque suo as this very maxime in it self proceeds onely and is understood onely or certainly should be amongst Christian Divines of meer natural civil or politick rights or such as are not by that law of Christ expresly or tacitly but certainly however spiritualized or made properly and purely spiritual and supernatural by the proper signification of a Sacrament of the new law to which they are elevated by Christ himself who is questionless the onely Institutour of such Sacraments and who might rayse any otherwise natural thing whatsoever as he pleased to this Sacramental dignity spirituality and supernaturality both as to signification and effection too or production of what effects he had thereby designed Now who sees not or at least what Catholick Divine or Canonist sees not that Matrimony or the matrimonial contract ordained for every Christian that would choose that course of life however amongst Heathens it be onely a meer natural and civil contract yet as engaged in by a Christian it is raysed by the law of Christ himself to that purely spiritual and supernatural notion And therefore who sees not that Matrimony and all the rights acquired thereby being now it is in Christian Religion a true and proper Sacrament of that Religion and consequently a spiritual matter and of pure Ecclesiastical notion as such must be dispensed and ruled by and according to the peculiar law of Christ and his peculiar precepts for it given either by himself immediately or by his Apostles and appearing to us either in the written word or even in that which is called unwritten but universally in all ages and amongst all true believers received as such And who moreover sees not that not onely in that case of an unbelieving husband nor also in that other case which Bellarmine instances of Matrimony contracted onely by words or consent betwixt a believing both man and woman but not consummated which kind of Matrimony they call matrimonium ratum but also in other almost innumerable cases in this matter of matrimony the right of a Christian husband or wife is taken away or lost which yet would not have been lost to or taken away from a Jew or Infidel in the like case It was lawful for for a Jew or Infidel to marry his Uncle's or Aunt 's daughter By the common laws and canons of Christians this is now prohibited to Christians It was lawfull for them in many cases to give a Bill of Divorce In the self same cases this is unlawful for us even Christ himself and by his own express command or Declaration enjoyning as not to do so Behold how this maxime The law of Christ deprives none of his right is not to be understood of Sacramental and purely Ecclesiastical matters or of such wherein that very law made express or undoubted provision Therefore to speak yet further no less truly then precisely we must say that albeit the law of Christ deprive no man of his right in any case whatsoever yet this law by its own proper true genuine right and power by that of Christ himself who as the natural Son of God had all right and all power in himself as Lord of all ordered this particular matrimonial right so as to be of spiritual and Ecclesiastical notion amongst Christians and therefore to depend in many or most cases not of the temporal but of the spiritual power not of the state but of the Church What hath this to do with other meer civil natural or politick rights or such as have not been at all spiritualized or supernaturalized by their elevation to the nature of a Sacrament or otherwise nay concerning which there hath not been any express or tacit provision made in the law of Christ for their being of Ecclesiastical notion at all or subject to the power of the Church but rather the contrary most expresly To prove that such remain still untouch'd unaltered in Christian Princes notwithstanding their submission to the law of Christ and remaine the very same that they were in these self same Princes or in other before they were Christians or even in any other Princes still as yet Heathen that so commonly applauded and generally received maxime Lex Christi neminem privat jure suo was insisted on by William Barclay and by his Son after him against Bellarmine in this matter of Ecclesiastical exemption as intending onely to prove thereby that Christ did not by his law alter or abolish the meer political rights of any Prince or Subject but left them still in their former state so farre from being abrogated that they were absolutely confirmed unto them as will appear evidently in my next Section they were and were so even by express decrees of that very law And that amongst those meer political rights that of a coercive power in Princes and in all temporal causes of and over all Clerks whatsoever living within their dominions is not one or that the exemption or subjection of Clerks in such matters hath been spiritualized or supernaturalized by the law of Christ or that in the same law there is any express or tacit provision or caution that Clerks should not be subject so to secular Princes I make no question the intelligent Reader understands by this time that Bellarmine hath said nothing yet here to move the least scruple to any rational man And therefore to proceed to the rest of his Instances the Reader is to observe 3. That what our learned Cardinal sayes heer of a natural Father's loosing his Fatherly power over his Son when this Son of his is created Bishop must be alike erroneous with that of his depriving the Prince of his Princely power of any persons when ordered Clerks For it his meaning be that Bishops are freed from that Fatherly power which is of divine right both natural and positive I say that sentence must be very Blasphemous because expresly against the known law of God and Nature Wherein to dispense no creation nor elevation to what dignity soever even Papal or Imperial no law of man nor power on earth spiritual or temporal or both together can be alledged But if his meaning be that a Bishop hoc ipso that he is made Bishop is freed from that fatherly command over him which meerly and only depends of the civil laws I say this very commanding power authority Jurisdiction or whatever you call it cannot be taken away or that the Father cannot be deprived of it without permission from the temporal Prince to whose care and will the keeping strictly to or dispencing in the civil laws is
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
aequum bonum as they shall think fit to an external confirmity and by the directive virtue and part onely of such laws but by no means to or by the sanctions or coercive part as Bellarmine holds and whether Gregory's entreating Mauritius to shew due reverance to the Priests of God import as much as that the Priests should not ought not to be punished by the Emperour when they transgressed for so too Bellarmine sayes that Gregory may be interpreted I leave to the discerning Reader As also whether dominari imports nought else but legibus obligare and whether reverentiam exhibere import the same with or as much as non â—â—â—ire Finally whether Cardinal Bellarmine not being content with these absurd Glosses but adding moreover that it is not to be wondred at Si Gregorius ita loquatur â—t iugum tyrannicum Mauritij si auferre non poterat mitigare saltem moderari nâ—gretur if Gregory speaks with so great submission to mitigate and moderate the tyrannical yoak of Mauritius being he could not wholly rid himself of it whether I say Bellarmine saying so taxe not Gregory with dissimulation and yet gives not any probable reason wherefore Gregory should so strangely dissemble For certainly for such a man as Gregory was to dissemble so or speak so in such a matter against his conscience was not to mitigate or moderate but to nourish and encrease tyranny and encrease it also to the greatest prejudice could be against the Vniversal Church if what Bellarmine and Baronius would faine defend as their main scope were true that is if it were true that Priests are by the law of God exempt from all secular even Imperial power And yet I must say now and this is an other but shorter and clearer Answer both to Baronius and Bellarmine and as to the place alleadged out of St. Gregory's commentaries that as St. Gregory intended not nor could make any strict or proper comparison twixt that Christian Emperour he means in his commentaries on the penitential Psalms and Nero and Dioclesian but onely for example's sake to instance who were though not all in the same degree and might be called or said to be portae Inferi against the Church as having persecuted her every one of them more or less such as was sayes he Nero and Dioclesian and he that now persecutes to wit each of them in his own kind Nero in his and Dioclesian in his and in some degree or measure he too that by or through Symoniacal avarice was thought by Gregory to vex and trouble the Church and as that comparison made by Gregory how proper or strict soever it may be taken to be and though it were intended of Mauritius himself doth nothing advantage Baronius or Bellarmine is no way material being as I have said already there is no specialty in it or in the whole complaint of the oppression of Priests in particular but onely of the Church in general so it is manifest enough that if they cannot produce some passage out of Gregory where he teaches that Priests onely for their being Priests were not bound in meer temporal matters to obey the just commands of Nero and Dioclesian though otherwise or in other matters as in those of true Religion cruel persecutors or that Priests for onely being Priests were not by the text of Paul ad Roman 13. subject in temporal matters to those very persecuting sublimer powers they say nothing at all out of Gregory to decline this sense I have given to be the true proper genuine sense of Gregory in his often quoted epistles to Mauritius and Theodorus for the subjection of all Churchmen nay even too of the Pope himself or of Gregory himself to Mauritius or to any other Emperour And I am sure they can alleadg no such place out of Gregory 'T is true that Gregory hath super Psal 5. Paenitent vers Tota die exprobrabant mihi inimici mei this passage before quoted Coneitavit enim sayes he speaking of the Devil adversus Ecclesiam non solum innumerabilem populi multitudinem verum etiam regiam si fas est dicere potestatem nulla enim ratio sinit ut inter Reges habeatur qui destruit potius quam regat imperiam c. Where as you see after telling how the Devil had excited against the Church of God not onely a numberless number of people but also the royal power if it be lawfull to call it such he adds immediately For sayes he no reason permits that he be esteemed amongst Kings who rather destroyes then governs the Empire I say 't is true that Gregory hath this passage But I say also it is no less true that heer is not a word to Baronius's or Bellarmine's purpose in our present dispute For laying aside that themselves are bound in their own principles to interpret these words beningly and with a graine of salt as the phrase is in Schools and to say that Gregory's meaning was not that before a legal sentence of deposition by sufficient authority that Emperour whoever he was retayn'd not still de jure all his imperial power notwithstanding any ill-government or any kind of destruction which S. Gregory did or could without an Hyperbole charge upon him properly and truely nor consequently was that it was not in strictness of speech and in reality of things lawfull to call his power the true Royall Imperial power nor was that in the same strictness and reality no reason suffered him to be esteemed or accounted a King or Emperour but was onely such meaning as they have who when they have a great disesteem for one and for some actions of his very much below a man use commonly to say That he is no man and by consequence that Gregory must not be understood here as speaking Philosophically or Grammatically but Rhetorically or as meaning onely that he was a very bad very unjust King as to the use of his Kingship in some thing albeit still a true King as to the authority of a King and to the use too in all other things wherein he govern'd according to the laws or to reason I say that laying aside this interpretation or exposition of Gregory's meaning which themselves Baronius and Bellarmine are even in their own principles bound to give and yet could have no place if Gregory's words here be taken rigorously or in a strict grammatical sense it is manifest enough that here is not one word take it in what sense you please Philosophical and Grammatical or Theological or Rhetorical that signifies he was no King for having challeng'd vsurped or executed a Royal power jurisdiction or authority over and against Preists in meer temporal things or for having punish'd such Priests as were highly and enormously delinquent against the laws in such temporal things So that from first to last nothing can be more evident than that our good Cardinals have lost all their pains in commenting on this passage of Gregory's Commentarie's
sayes Theodorecus l. 2. c. 9. 10. maximè omnium caepit clamare orare Imperatorem ut de iniquo indignoque ejus facinore non Episcoporum Concilio sed pro tribunali judicium quaeratur seque pollicetus primum Episcoporum Clericos qui facinoris conscij erant supplicioÌ„ coercendos traditurum Stephani quoque ministros ait eodem medo puniendos esse At cum Stephanus petulanti ore illis contradiceret affirmaretque plagas non infligendas esse Clericis placuit Imperatori Magistratibus ut quaestio de facto in Regia haberetur Ad hunc modum ergo intellecta Stephani improbitate primum Episcopis qui tum aderant mandatum dant Judices ut hominem abdicent Episcopatu deinde illi ipsi eum Ecclesia penitus expellant Where you are to observe that not onely not the judgment of the fact of Murder but not even the judgment of this question of right whether the said Patriarch or Bishop Stephen of Antioch should be deposed or no is remitted to the Ecclesiastical court or to the Church or Council of Bishops but peremptory command sent by the lay Judges to the Bishops to depose him actually and by their spiritual judgment whom they the same lay Judges had already and by a civil judgment sentenced to be so deposed albeit these lay judges reserved to themselves still or to the civil power the real execution of both sentences that is the actual and corporal expulsion of Stephen from Antioch Nor is it material to object here that Constantius was an Arrian for the Arrian Bishops stood as much for the immunities of the Church and Churchmen and so did the Arrian Princes advised by them as any Catholick Bishops or Princes did when the crime objected was not diversity in religion And this crime of Stephanus was a meer lay crime and consequently a crime that by the very laws of even Constantine the great himself nay and of all other Catholick Princes after him and after Constantius his Arrian Son for many hundreds of years and even too by the very express laws of Justinian himself so long after Constantine and Constantins was even when committed by any Ecclesiastick whosoever to be tryed and judged by the civil Judg that is by the Praetor of the Province But however this matter be of Constantius whether he was then a down right Arrian or not albeit this be not material as I have now proved I am sure his brother Emperour Constans who ruled in the west was ever a zealous Consubstantialist and orthodox in all preciseness And yet our often mentioned Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria and Paulus Bishop of Constantinople being deposed from their Sees by other Bishops and having their refuge to him that is to this Emperour Constance in the West he at their instance and earnest petition and even in a cause meerly Ecclesiastical but for the relief of innocency oppress'd wrongfully sends letters to his said brother Constantius wherein as Socrates writes l. 2. c. 12. and Sozom. l. 3. c. 9. he signifies his pleasure that three Bishops be sent from the East to give him an account of the causes why Athanasius and Paulus had been deposed nay and threatens otherwise or if the said Athanasius and Paulus upon account given were found to have been unjustly deposed and should not be restored again to make warr on Constantius Which to avoid Constantius sent him Narcissus the Cilician Theodorus the Thracian Maris the Chalcedonian and Marcus the Syrian four Bishops as after also when Constans was not satisfied with the causes which these four Bishops alleadged he actually restored Paulus and Athanasius though for a time onely for he again banished them In which procedure of Constance I believe our very Antagonists will not have the confidence to say there was any vsurpation being that such religious orthodox Bishops as this Paul and Athanasius and so rigidly observant as they of Ecclesiastical Discipline were his Authors and Petitioners to reassume the judgment of themselves albeit in a cause purely Ecclesiastical or which onely or at least chiefly concern'd a spiritual sentence of deposition of two Bishops from their Episcopal Sees pronounced against them by a Council of other Bishops But whether our said Antagonists will or no pretend therein any vsurpation I am sure the matter of fact is true as I am sure also that even natural reason it self will force them to confess there was a supream right in Constans to relieve by all due means oppressed innocy and that there was no other way so ready just and equitable as this which he took Valentinianus a Catholick Emperour also shall make up the fourth of those Instances of Princes to our purpose For he condemned by his own Imperial sentence Bishop Chronopius to the silver mines for having appealed from an Ecclesiastical sentence of 70 other Bishops L. 2. Quorum Appel C. Theodâ—s and forced him accordingly to suffer it by going to and labouring in the said mines The very same Valentinian punished by diverse banishments the Bishops Vrsicinus Gaudentius Vrsus Ruffus and several other Bishops too because their Schysmes troubled the publick peace and tranquillity Iure mansuetudinis nostrae sensibus sayes he vel divinitus damnarum est vel tranquillitate naturae ne cum delinquentium facinore legum severitate certemus ac speâ—emendationis futurae mitiorem esse vellemus correctionis injuriam quam provocat meritum nostrum Ampeli Pater charissime Augustorum Dudum Vrsicini inquietudine provocati faventes concordiae populi Christiani quâ—eti etiam Vrbis sacratissimae providentes uno interim loco intra Gallias dumtaxat perturbatorem tranquillitatis publicae statueramus jure cohiberi scilicet ne applicatione morum latae dissensionis incommodum spargeretur Verum naturae nostrae mansuâ—tudine levigati ita memorato abscedendi copiam dedimus ne ad Vrbem Romam vel certè suburbicarias regiones pedem inferat neque nequitiae suae cogitationem canetur infundere Idetiam de caeteris ervoris consortibus Gaudentio videlicet Vrso Ruffo Auxanone Auxanio Adiedo Ruffino sancimus c. Apud Baronium tom 4. an 371. n. 1. Therefore also by this instance and by this law too of Valentinian as it ought to be the chief care of Princes as incumbent on them by their publick office and duty and by the very nature of Principality or Government that the publick peace and tranquillity be preserved entire in and amongst their Citties Cittizens and other people subject to them so it must be consequently their charge to coerce the very Ecclesiasticks themselves if they disturb that peace or tranquillity Gratianus the Emperour likewise in all points Orthodox as the dareling of S. Ambrose however onely a Catechumen banish'd on the same account the Bishops Instantius Salvianus and Priscillianus and banish'd them not onely out of their episcopal Sees or Citties wherein and whereof they were Bishops but out of all countries subject to him Though after being ill advised he
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
too he may be deceived in the objective truth of things and sometime to import onely a witnessing by bloud so spilt or a testimony of innocent and holy bloud against those cruel men who spil'd it for no other cause but that themselves might reap some worldly advantage thereby though otherwise they had no quarrel at all with such a Saint nor he with them or with any other for defence of which his life should be taken away Secondly this fourth supposition is denyed by me because neither the diffusive nor representative Church was ever concern'd I mean their pursuant veneration or invocation of any canonized for a Saint and under the title of a martyr was never concern'd in such an intrigue as this viz whether in the more strict or large sense of the word Martyr he were a Martyr nor concern'd whether his whole or even any substantial part of his quarrel as in his Legend or in the process of his canonization was true or no or such as might entitle to martyrdom strictly taken according to the objective truth of things nor truly concern'd any further in him or in his life or death but that he was a great extraordinary servant of God in both or at least at the time of his death and that now he was in the glory of God For this onely being certain though all other matters reported of him were uncertain their veneration and invocation of him must be not onely void of all impiety but acts of true religion and true piety and for the rest they are free to believe or not by humane faith according as they see those humane proofs alleadg'd to be strong or weak Thirdly that fourth supposition is denyed because the miracles wrought cannot be said upon rational grounds to have been wrought in confirmation of the at least objective truth or justice of this or that controversy whatsoever not certainly Evangelical which such a Saint or Martyr sometimes had in his life being they were not wrought at the invocation of God by the Saint himself or by any other that God might be pleased by working such miracles to evidence the justice of such a cause For if they had been wrought so the case would be clear enough as to such who saw those miracles or to whose knowledg authentick proofs of them did sufficiently come that even the obedience truth and justice of things in such a controversy had been on such a Saints or Martyr's side But otherwise wrought they can be no more but divine testimonies of his having wonderfully or extraordinarily served God either in his life or death or both whether he was deceived or no in some things and whether he had some times and in some occasions or controversies some failings or no at least out of want of true knowledg or sound reflection for the very greatest Saints might have been deceived sometimes nay and failed too sometimes in their duty and besides they can be no more or at least on any rational ground cannot be said to be any more then divine testimonies of his being now with God in glory Out of all which I think 't is evident enough there are several suppositions in the proof of the Major which I am not bound to allow not even in their principles or doctrine who teach the infallibility of the Pope in his Bulls of canonization and several suppositions which yet I am not bound to allow notwithstanding I do my self as I confess I am bound most religiously allow the canonization veneration and invocation of St. Thomas of Canterbury and all three of him as of a glorious martyr too and notwithstanding I allow also all the miracles reported of him And consequently I think 't is evident enough that it is not necessary to admit the Major to wit this proposition whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel against Henry the Second is false for any such suppositions or for any such inconvenience as that proof of it which I have given before would inferr or deduce out of the denyal of it Therefore my reason in and for admitting that Major in this my second answer is no such matter nor is that I could not maintain St. Thomas of Canterburie's extraordinary great sanctity in his life and in or at his death and his consequent canonization veneration invocation miracles not that I could not I say maintain all without admitting that Major and granting that of necessity the quarrels causes or controversies of such a Saint with such a King and in such matters as those of Thomas of Canterbury were in must have been just from first to last of the Saints side and just I mean according to the objective truth of things in themselves But my reason for admitting it so simply and absolutely without any distinction in this second answer is that I see no reason to call in question the credit of those Historians who relate the matter of fact in that controversy so and so circumstantiated or the credit of other Historians or Antiquaries who relate those ancient Saxon Danish Norman laws of England all along unrepealed in our case till Henry the Second did so repeal or attempted to repeal them so and that on the other side all right reason shewes that S. Thomas of Canterbury having so the very municipal laws of the land of his side he had justice also arising immediatly from such laws of his side and consequently that the same right reason shews that whatever doctrine condemns or opposes such known justice in the quarrel of any man whatsoever Saint or not Saint Martyr or not Martyr must be false in the case And this and this onely is my reason for admitting so that Major But what then Must I admit the Minor subsumed thus But my doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of St. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel c with Henry the Second Must I admit this Minor I say nothing less For I deny it plainly and flatly and that too without any kind of distinction And that I may deny it so deny it without any contradiction contrariety inconsistence or falsity you have had already in my first answer and in my precedent observations enough to convince you Therefore consequently it must be said that the conclusion does not follow or that of the Syllogisme which pretends my doctrine of a supream civil coercive power of Clerks in criminal causes to be false for it is ill inferr'd the Minor being false or being denyed upon such rational grounds as I have formerly given An other Answer yet may be as a second to the Syllogisme though a third in order to the matter in it self or to the judgment of St. Thomas of Canterbury For the Major may be distinguish'd thus whatever doctrine condemns or opposes the justice of such part of S. Thomas of Canterbury's quarrel which was all along and until the very last of his life that whereon he did and would
was not so neerly concerned he could not but retain still kindness enough for Henry albeit the King of France as nearer him and of greater use could not but sometime cross that very kindness 8. But the former Cardinal-Legats come the first time from Rome to compose the difference 'twixt Henry and Thomas where they had a conference with him betwixt Gisortium and Trie amongst other things objected to him in the behalf of Henry and after they had been with Henry that he had perswaded the King of France to war upon him Adjecerunt etiam querelas sayes Hoveden ad an 1169. injurias quibus Rex Angliae se ab ipso lasum esse conquestus est imponens ei etiam inter caetera quod ei excitaverat guerram Regis Francorum But in these words you see Hoveden sayes that this was an imposture or that Henry imposed on Thomas in this particular And immediately after the same Author tells that Thomas refuted this and all other objections by true and probable reasons Cantuariensis autem sayes he in omni humilitate mansuetudine spiritus post gratiarum actionem Domino Papae illis debitam respondit ad singula rationibus veris probabilibus querelas Regis evacuans injurias Ecclesiae damna intollerabilia patenter exponens You will say that however this be of such actual treason or treason in fact against his Prince by setting on the King of France it cannot be denyed that he held treasonable Principles that is such Principles as were suitable to such practise or such treason in fact because such as lessen the Majesty of the King and Kingdome if not wholly subject it to others forasmuch as his opinion and judgment was that Kings receive their power from the Church as himself declared in his own words to the King at Chinun Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings But I say that as he cannot in act or fact be accused of treason so neither in habitude or aptitude or inclination or true meaning or natural sequele of that word saying opinion or judgement of his at Chinun may he be charged with any as much as speculative treasonable Principles however otherwise abstracting wholly not only from fact but even from intention or even also from being rendred any kind of way or framed into practical dictates 1. Because it is one thing to say that Christian Kings receive their power from the Church and another to say that after they have once received their power so the Church may either revoke it again wholly or any way lessen it As it is one thing to say that from the people as a civil society of men and not from them as a Church Kings especially in elective Kingdomes receive their power and an other that the people having once conferr'd it and so transferr'd the Majesty from themselves may revoke it againe either at their pleasure or in any case whatsoever without the King 's own consent And because the first or the assertion of receiving such power either from Church or people is no way treasonable either by the nature of such reception or such assertion in it self considered or by any positive law in any Country for ought we have heard not even in England nor certainly was treasonable in the days of Thomas of Canterbury However perhaps it be an errour against the truth of things in themselves to say that Kings in hereditary Kingdomes receive their politick royal power either from the Church or from the people or even in elective Kingdomes otherwise from either then as from bare instrumental or conditional causes or such as Philosophers call conditiones sine quibus non c. not at all from either as from the true proper efficient cause of the power For this efficient is according to the sounder doctrine in Christian Religion and in reason too God alone As even according to the Doctrine of Bellarmine God alone is the onely true proper immediate efficient of the Papal power albeit he had not been Pope if he had not first been elected by the Church or by their Representative now the Colledg of Cardinals or formerly by the Emperours or before that by the Roman Clergy or before that also by the Clergy and people of Rome both joynd together 2. Because that although we find this entire passage Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere non ipsam ab illis sed a Christo salva pace vestra loquor non haberetis Episcopis praecipere absolvere aliquem vel excommunicare trahere Clericos ad secularia examina judicare de decimis de Ecclesiis interdicere Episcepis ne tractent de transgressione fidei vel juramenti multa alia quae in hunc modum scripta sunt inter consuetudines vestras quas dicitis avitas I say that although we find this entire passage amongst those which are called in Hoveden Verba Beati Thoma Cant. Archiep. ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun nay although we did admit it as truly such and admit all the rest of that Speech in Hoveden as words spoke by St. Thomas himself whereof yet I have this ground to doubt that I find not in the whole series of the History of matter of Fact either in Hoveden himself or any other when or how or that at all St. Thomas ever met that King during his banishment but twice once in Paris and in presence of the King of France and another time in the fields abroad when they were at last reconciled by the mediation of the last Legates Where then was Chinun here or any such words However admitting those Words and that entire passage of or amongst those Words as really spoke by St. Thomas and at such a place and Councel I see nevertheless partly in some former passages of that very speech at Chinun and partly also and more fully perhaps in his long and second Letter which no man doubts to be his own true letter to Gilbert Bishop of London and see in both ground enough to answer and say that in this passage I have already given the Saint mean't not at all that from the Church Kings receive so their true civil or politick Royal power or their power of the material sword at least as to the essentials or even as to the necessary appendages of it in pure civil or temporal matters that without such reception as he mean't of it from the Church they had had none at all or that without such reception as he mean't neither their birth-right in hereditary Kingdomes nor election of the people in elective Kingdomes nor any other Title whatsoever in either could be sufficient to give them as man can give true civil and politick Royal Power or to give this I mean antecedently to their receiving what they use to
Catholicks of those two Nations containing only such matter and to alledge as the cause or as a cause of such condemnation and censure and alledge it also in plain terms That it the said Instrument contain'd some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion What can I say be more rash false injurious and scandalous than to say so of such a matter if it be not so at all if there be no kind of true ground for saying that it is so And that it is not so at all or that the Remonstrance contains not either formally or virtually and consequentially as much as any one thing or part of a thing if such part may be repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion appears hence evidently That neither in its Acknowledgments Confessions Promises Disclaimings Renouncings Declarations Professions Protestations Abhorrencies Detestations nor in its final resignation in the Petitionary Address nor in any other clause or word if there be any other as indeed there is not but what belongs to these heads now repeated there is not as much as a syllable which by any kind of true either Grammatical or Theological or as much as seeming or likely construction imports any more in effect than first a bare Acknowledgment of the Supreme Temporal power of these Dominions of England Ireland Scotland c. and of all persons whatsoever Laymen or Clergymen living within them to be in our gracious Sovereign Charles the Second to have been in His lawful Predecessors and hereafter to be a so in His lawful Successors as likewise a bare acknowledgment of the like Supreme power under God to be in other Princes and Supreme Magistrates within their own respective Dominions And next an express or tacite promise to observe and obey and continue Loyal or Faithful in all Civil and Temporal matters to that self-same Supreme Temporal power of our gracious King yea notwithstanding any Doctrine to the contrary or even any Attempt by any other power whatsoever Temporal or Spiritual to force them or draw them from their Allegiance or Obedience to King Charles in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs For I have already and abundantly too demonstrated where I before Treated against the four grounds of the Louain Divines and more especially where I Treated against their fourth That it is so far from being against the sincere profession of Catholick Religion to assert or promise any such thing that it is on the contrary even revealed and declared positively and expresly and clearly by God himself in several places of Holy Scripture and yet more particularly in St. Paul's Epistle and by the mouth and pen of this great Apostle That all Supreme Temporal power is in the Supreme Temporal Princes and States over all their own respective Subjects as well Ecclesiasticks as Laicks And consequently that in all Temporal matters Allegiance and Faith and Obedience is due to such their power and ought to be paid and performed to them not only for fear of their Anger and Sword but for Conscience and fear of Damnation as St. Paul most expresly declares in formal words 13 ad Rom. And moreover that all this Doctrine hath been so as here delivered by universal Tradition for almost eleven entire Ages of Christian Religion all along till Gregory the Seventh usurped unto himself the Temporal power of the Empire as belonging to him by Divine Right All which being so as certainly it is so I frame thus my Argument Syllogistically against both the said Causes or Reasons supposed and expresly inserted in this second or short Censure of the Louain Faculty Theological as the only Reasons given therein wherefore they censure our Remonstrance and censure it so heavily and grievously or with such odious epithets as these unlawful detestable sacrilegious c. Whatsoever Vniversity or other Censure taxes judges or condemns any Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power of the Sword as is hitherto said in the Supreme Lay Magistrate Prince or State and withall a promise only of such obedience as before is said in meer Civil and Temporal Affairs to that Power or that Magistrate according to the Laws of the Land I say that whatever Censure taxes judges or condemns such a Remonstrance to be utterly unlawful detestable and sacrilegious viz. upon account supposition or pretence That it contains a promise of a more ample Obedience than Secular Princes can exact from their Catholick Subjects or their Subjects make to them and that moreover it contains some things repugnant to the sincere profession of Catholick Religion Every such University or other Censure whatsoever I say must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity But the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 61. 62. is such or is a University Censure of a Remonstrance that contains only in effect or both in word and sense a bare Acknowledgment of such meer Supreme Temporal Natural Civil and Political power c. and withall a promise only of such obedience c. and yet taxes judges and condemns such a Remonstrance to be unlawful c. viz. upon account supposition c. Ergo the second or short Censure given by the Louain Divines against the Irish Remonstrance of 1661. and 1662. must be rash against Prudence false against Truth injurious against Justice and scandalous in the highest degree against Charity And indeed the Major of this Syllogism ought at least among such Christian Divines as are men of Reason to be reputed of the nature of those Propositions which are called Propositiones per se notae if or as far as any such may be in Christian Philosophy or Divine Science of Christians For this tells us manifestly and evidently according to that evidence which Christian Religion is capable of That all such Censures as are against other at least Christian men and so great also and numerous a Body of other Christian men and are against them upon such an account only that is for maintaining such a power in the Supreme Civil Magistrate and such obedience due from the Subjects as are both revealed in the very written Word of God himself in holy Scripture and so constantly and universally delivered by Tradition and no less approved and confirmed even by pure natural Reason and so I mean revealed delivered approved and confirmed as I have already in my Disputes against the fourth ground of the Louain Divines proved that power and that obedience to have been I say that Christian Philosophy tells us manifestly and evidently that all such Censures must be so as I have said and even notoriously too rash false injurious and scandalous Rash against Prudence because heady foolishly bold and wholly inconsiderate against the Rules of that even humane Providence or of that right
Supremacy of the Pope whatever this be which the Catholick Church allows him For a pure Supreme Temporal in one and a pure Supreme Spiritual in another and over the same persons and causes are very truly certainly and evidently consistent The second Period or Clause being this And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged under pain of Sin to obey Your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs as much as any other of Your Majesties Subjects and as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands and consequently being only and wholly of the obedience due by Catholick Subjects to Hâ—s Majesty and being it doth in formal express words determine this obedience to all Civil and Temporal Affairs as you see it doth there can be therefore no dispute of this Period The third Period also containing only in effect an acknowledgment of their resolution to acknowledge evermore and perform their Loyalty and true Allegiance to the King notwithstanding any contradiction by or from the Pope or by or from any other deriving power from the Pope or See of Rome for the words are these And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against Your Majesty or Royal Authority we will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our Abilities our faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty I say that being the third Period hath no other words or matter it 's very evident that the whole entire Subject of it is nought else but obedience in Temporals because the Loyalty and true Allegiance of Catholicks to their at least Protestant Prince can be no other but obedience and fidelity towards Him in all Temporal matters and because that by these words Our Loyalty and true Allegiance to Your Majesty neither His Majesty Himself nor other Protestant nor any indifferent and judicious Catholick ever yet understood nor indeed ought to understand any other Loyalty or Allegiance but that which is in meer Temporals Nor can it be said upon any rational ground that because the Remonstrants do here acknowledge That notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope c. or any sentence c. or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal c. it must follow That they either deny the true spiritual Authority of the Pope over any Christians or any part of the world or even his Temporal within his own temporal Territories or within those Territories I mean which are His uncontroverredly even also as to the temporal Government or that they are resolved or that they promise or declare that they will disobey or oppose any just sentence or declaration of his obliging themselves or any other Nothing less then either doth follow by any kind of consequence whereas indeed no more but that they are persuaded that the Pope hath neither any true Spiritual nor any true Temporal power from God or man to devest the King of his Temporals or to hinder them from being His loyal liege men in such Temporals and that if he pronounced any sentence or gave any command to the contrary though it were even by Excommunication such sentence and such command and even such Excommunication would be as to all effects and purposes null and void because against the Laws of God and man and nature and not proceeding from any true power he had from God or from the Church of God but only from a vain and false presumption of power or authority in the case and a clave errante from a Key errant or which is the same in effect at most and at best from such an abuse of his authority as invalidates and annulls his sentence in all respects whatsoever They do not therefore at all hereby or in this Clause as neither in any other not even as much as virtually or consequentially in any manner soever deny or oppose his true and pure spiritual power of judging or binding or that which truly and really is in him to judge and bind spiritually or in a spiritual manner both King and Subjects or to pronounce even Excommunication against either themselves or the King if or when there shall happen any just cause thereof But they only deny 1. That he hath no kind of Temporal power acquired either by divine or humane Right that reaches to the King or his Crown People or Dominions 2. That the spiritual power which he truly and really hath either from God immediately or from the Church and which the same Catholick Church acknowledges to be so in him or which the Subscribers admit to be in him can have no such effect by Excommunication or other sentence or means as is the bereaving the King of his Temporals or as is the hindering the Subjects to obey or making it lawful for them in point of Conscience and Religion not to perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their faithful Loyalty and true Allegiance to His Majesty And that this third Period or Clause or words or meaning of them import no more but this or that such Clause or Subscribers of it cannot be rationally said to deny or declare against any true power of the Pope or any true or just or legal or even as much as only valid sentence of his I shew evidently thus by two several examples of the like expression used in another matter For without denying or opposing the Popes true power or any true just or valid or binding sentence of his his Sons may declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope or See of Rome or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by the Pope his Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from him or his See against their natural Father or his Fatherly Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their natural duty and filial obedience to their said Father And without denying or opposing the Kings true power or any true just or even any valid or binding sentence of his the very Subscribers themselves may declare as I for my part do here declare and I am sure all the rest are ready to declare that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the King or of His Crown or Kingdom or any sentence or declaration of what kind or quality soever given or to be given by His Majesty His Predecessors or Successors or by any Authority Spiritual or Temporal proceeding or derived from Him or His Kingdoms against their spiritual Father the Pope or his true Papal Authority they will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of their Abilities their Canonical fidelity and all that true obedience they are bound unto by
orbem absolvere possit Et propterea dogma illud quod asserit quemque posse suum Regem quod sit disparis Religionis aut fidei Romano Catholicae contrariae e medio tollere aut contra illum arma movere ut impium Sacris Scripturis vetitum detestor abhominor Ac proinde teneo ac profiteor esse cuivis boni Catholici Subditi officium omnes Conspirationes clandestinas machinationes ad Rebellionem tendentes Regi aut sub illo Magistratui competenti aut Consiliario quamprimum aperire indicare neque ita facturum juro profiteor Ad quod maxime Divinum illud Oraculum Reddite Caesari quae sunt Caesaris Deo quae sunt Dei me invitat imo firmiter obligat In quorum omnium singulorum fidem ac robur his ego proptia manu subscripsi Pat Daly J. V. D. Octavo Maii 1663. THat Nation must be very barbarous and altogether a stranger to the Law of Nature which does not love dread and reverence Kings see over them by God which does not esteem the Name and Majesty of a King to be embraced and worshipped in Temporals next to God as a thing glorious yea even divine Wherefore there is a duty incumbent upon all the Irish but especially upon those who serve at the Altar and have the charge of instructing others to manifest with what and how great joy they celebrate the most happy Inauguration of our Illustrious Monarch and His Return to possess the Government of His Ancestors Why should not I therefore as it becomes all others likewise wish all happiness and prosperity to our most successful Prince who has snatch't these Nations and above others His Ireland out of the jaws of cruel Tyrants under whose barbarous yoke they have hitherto groaned Since it is far from Christian piety to do or think otherwise But having heard that many have a suspition there are several of our Order in this Kingdom who endeavour to raise intestine Sedition yea and aspire to get Forreign Forces to make a Rebellion against the Sacred Majesty of the King I cannot nor ought I to conceal with what observance love and sincerity of mind I am ready to yield Obedience and wish Prosperity to my most victorious King and how I am ready to bind my self by Oath faithfully to perform the same Wherefore I do most Religiously acknowledge and affirm in the word of a Priest sincerely and without all equivocation disguise or mental reservation That our most Illustrious King CHARLES the Second is Lord of this Kingdom of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Realms and Dominions by a true legitimate and hereditary Right and that I will obey him in all matters Temporal and Civil most faithfully I and deservedly and that there is no power under Heaven which can absolve me from this Oath of Allegiance more than those of my Function who are Subjects of the Princes of Germany Spain or other Nations throughout the World And therefore I detest and abhor the Opinion as impious and forbidden by the Holy Scriptures which maintains That any one may kill His King or take up Arms against Him because He is of a different Religion or of a Belief contrary to the Roman Catholick Faith Wherefore I assert and profess That it is the duty of every good and Catholick Subject forthwith to detect and discover to the King or to some competent Magistrate under him or to a Privy Counsellor all Conspiracies and clandestine Machinations tending to Rebellion and I swear and profess that I my self will so do Whereunto that Divine Oracle give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods does chiefly invite and firmly bind me To give strength and credit to all and every of these I have subscribed with mine own hand Pat Daly J. V. D. 10 May 1663. Where you see nothing at all home to any purpose much less to that of the Remonstrance of 1661. And indeed this good man alledges now being the year 1668. it was therefore the general Congregation of the Irish Clergy at Dublin and in 1666. did not would not Subscribe the Remonstrance of 1661. because Father P. Walsh declared publickly in the said Congregation That Remonstrance tyed them to stand by the King against even the very Pope himself in person invading any of His MAJESTIES Dominions with an Army and even in case too the pretence and intent also of such Invasion were only and purely to Re-establish Catholick Religion and to restore Catholick Proprietors to those Estates whereof they have been so lately dispossessed by force of Arms or which have been more lately yet invested in others by those several Acts of Parliament we have seen pass since the Kings Restauration But whether or no the said Father Peter Walsh descended then to such a case expresly and publickly in any of his several Speeches to that Congregation yet I am sure he hath sufficiently demonstrated in the _____ page of this First Part and elsewhere often the lawfulness and justice and even the necessity also of such engagement and sense of the Remonstrance at least as to a promise of passive obedience even in such very case to the King Nay and also as to active obedience and positive fighting for the King and themselves and for the natural and civil being of all the people of these Dominions even also in case of such an Invasion or of any made even with previous manifestoes of such a pure intention because no mortal man could without divine special and extraordinary Revelation know certainly that to be the real inward intention whatever the verbal outward of manifestoes should be and because of the nature of Conquest and Wars wherein a thousand Accidents may intervene which may wholly change the first intention or design A Third Paper or form of a Declaration and given the DUKE by the Lord Birmingham April 8. same Year 1664. VVE acknowledge and profess that it 's our Tenet and Opinion That we are by the Laws of God bound under pain of sin to observe inviolably and perform publick Faith with all manner of persons of whatever profession in Religion they be and to be as true obedient and loyal to our Sovereign Lord and King CHARLES the Second King of this Realm of Ireland and other His Dominions as any of His Subjects and that accordingly we will bear Him during our lives true Faith and Allegiance in as dutiful and obedient manner as the Laws of this Kingdom do require from us And if the Pope of Rome or any other person either Ecclesiastical or Temporal shall either by force of Excommunication Sentence of Deposition or by any other wayes or means attempt any thing to His prejudice That we will in opposition thereunto and in defence and maintenance of His Person Crown and Government expose our Lives and Fortunes if need be All which we Religiously swear to observe and that no
ruine the credit of the Ecclesiastick Subscribers to the end the people or rest of the Clergy might not be indoctrinated or lead by them on the controverted point so prejudicial to the worldly interest of the Roman Court and Pontiff He would have them cryed down for disobedience to their Ecclesiastick Superiours Excommunicated persons Schismaticks Hereticks and in a word for wicked men designing wickedness and undermining the very fundamentals of the Old Religion Church and Head of the Church and in all things conspiring also to ruine their own Nation eternally for the sake of English Scots and others both British and Irish Hereticks And yet in the mean time to pretend nothing at all of the true ground but amongst those were sure to the Cabale nay on the contrary to deny stifly That the quarrel to or against the said Ecclesiastick Subscribers is upon any such ground of their Subscription to the Remonstrance least peradventure His MAJESTY or His great Ministers being informed and convinced thereof should cherish them and punish their opposers and consequently the doctrine of the said Remonstrance be more and more both spread and rooted amongst the Roman-Catholicks of His MAJESTIES Dominions and so the Letters also from Rome and Bruxels and Censure of Louain and other proceedings from other parts also beyond Seas and opposition at home against the said Formulary and Ecclesiastick owners thereof prove rather hurtful than profitable or advantagious to maintain the Roman Courts pretensions to England Ireland c. I am sure if any think me deceived in this my judgment or interpretation of this passage of de Vecchiis Letter to Father Bruodin he will not think so whatever he speaks after he shall not only consider the former passage and rest of the same Letter together with the whole tenour of those other Letters of the same de Vecchiis to Lyons Caeron and others which you have page 15 513 531. and of those of Cardinal Francis Barberin which you have page 17. and page 505. of this First Part and of those many others too partly of the same Cardinal Barberin and partly of the now Cardinal then Internuncio Rospigliosi which you have moreover in the Second Part of this First Treatise in several pages together and besides all these Letters when he shall reflect on the bitter invectives of the above de Vecchiis against Caron and Walsh in his personal Conference at Bruxels with Father Antony Gearnon one of the Subscribers and shall peruse my long Letter which is given hereafter Sect. Lxxxvi in answer to those invectives However I am most certain no indifferent man can think so after perusing also the Second Tome of this Work wherein matter of Fact since the year 1666. to this present 1672. shall be related and consequently the fate of that Loyal Formulary and well-meaning Subscribers thereof shall be seen to be that they have been especially these last four years viz. from the year 1668. to this present 1672. as they are yet still persecuted from the Court of Rome abroad and its Emissaries here at home by Depositions Excommunications and all kind of other the very vilest and inhumane wayes too infamous Lyes and abominable Calumnies and horrid Plots and Conspiracies also even of Assassination against such of them as would not calmly yield and retract their Subscription or yield obedience to the Roman Decree or Patents of Cardinal Barberin that Decree or those Letters Patents I mean so uncanonically injuriously and as to any right or tye of the Canons invalidly too deposing Father Francis Coppinger from his office of Provincialship over all the Franciscans of Ireland both at home in that Countrey and abroad in Forreign parts and the Irish Colledges in such parts and deposing him I say for no other cause but only That he was one of the late Remonstrants as he was formerly all along one also of the old Anti-Nuntiotists and that it was too too prejudicial both to the Roman Court abroad and its Emissaries at home in Ireland to see the Provincial Superiour of the most numerous Order in that Kingdom nay and together with him so many Local or Conventual Superiours called Guardians to be of that dangerous Sect of Valesian Remonstrants as Internuncio de Vecchiis called them For in that Second Tome you shall see the chief Anti-Remonstrants and above all the fiercest Leader of them all now lately in the year 1669. by that Court and questionless for advancing its designs and interests in these Kingdoms created Archbishop of one of the Metropolitical Sees of Ireland making use of even all the very most truly wicked Maxims of those now commonly stiled See the late Book intituled The Jesuits Morals The Jesuits Morals and of set purpose too making use of those Morals to suppress the said Remonstrants even as such But more especially to ruine both in name fame or esteem yea and if necessary in their very being and life too such of the same Remonstrants as should peradventure make or rather indeed have already made head or any resistance against him or the dictates of Rome to and by him Such persons I mean as knew full well and no less contemn'd his shameful ignorance and yet shameless impudence his lying genius and innumerable forgeries his arrogance unparallelâ—d and ambition without end his disloyal designs and spirit of revenge Gulielmus Tyrius and in fine his Religion and Devotion like those heretofore of the Senior of the Mountain that very zealous but withall both impious and barbarous and inhumane and Mahumetan Author Captain Prince of those devoted Eastern or Assyrian Assassines we read of in Gulielmus Tyrius And therefore in the said Second Tome you shall see the same Prelate and to the very same end of triumphing in the destruction of the Remonstrants shall see him particularly and singularly making use of all the most abominable and horrible doctrines As 1. Of those of Dicastillus Crassetus Danjou Albius Franciscus Amicus and so many others besides the grand but impudent Apologist all related by Ludovicus Montaltius Ep. 15. (a) See Ludovic Montalt in his Provincial Letters Ep. 15. and Willielmus Vendrockius in his Notes upon the same letter Notat 1. §. 1 2 3. 4. but especially 4. Edit Latina Colon An. 1658. and by Vendrockius in his Notes on that Epistle and by both there objected to the Jesuits for the lawfulness according to Conscience and Christianity of ruining your Adversaries by calumniating them i. e. by aspersing them with nay and by accusing them of all kind of invented and forged Crimes imaginable even Adultery Murther Heresie Treason c. And 2. Of those also either of (b) See the same Montalt Ep. 13. and the same Vendrockius ibid. Notat Unic §. 2 3 4 5. Lessius or Molina or Escobarius or Reginaldus or Baldellus or Fillutius or Desboys or the foresaid brave Amicus not to say any thing now of Peter Navarr Sayrus Gordon or Caramuel or several
the Franciscan Order in Flanders James de Riddere but also the then present Theological Faculty of Louain were really desired no Reason whatever was pretended but even contrary to all Reason expected an absolute and blind submission However the Procurator Father Peter Walsh was very unwilling to give amongst his own Countreymen against himself or Formulary this advantage viz. that upon or notwithstanding such a specious invitation he would not dare abide the test or go I mean to Flanders to confer with his own Superiours and those Divines of Louain who had so briskly censured the same Formulary He apprehended the false and scandalous consecutions would be thence deduced and both loudly and largely in every part of Ireland amongst all sorts of people cryed and spread by the Anti-Remonstrants viz. That had not Walsh and Caron suspected their own strength to justifie the Formulary and consequently the unsoundness of it in point of Catholick Religion they had never bogled at appearing in Flanders Behold the true genuine cause wherefore Father Walsh resolved at any rate or risk whatsoever to go himself alone when Father Caron would not provided nevertheless he had their permission at Court by whose mediation and persuasion he had both obtain'd already the quiet which the Clergy and people of Ireland at that present did enjoy and expected much more yet for the future or had at least His MAJESTIES Licence And indeed partly with the most specious Reasons he could offer and partly also by too much importunity he obtain'd at last the Duke of ORMOND then LORD LIEUTENANT of Ireland his consent But when the matter came to the Lord Chancellor and others it was wholly obstructed yea notwithstanding my Lord Aubigny's joint and earnest sollicitation even for four or five Weeks this Noble man also being as earnest therein as concern'd to oblige thereby the said Internuncio and Court of Rome wherein he was about that time a Pretendant And yet the Lord Chancellor would send no other but this very Lord Aubigny to both Walsh and Caron declaring to them from the King it was His MAJESTIES pleasure and express commands to them they should not stir out of His MAJESTIES Dominions And to Father Walsh moreover That the Chancellor would speak to himself on that Subject Who when he appeared before his Lordship heard himself to some purpose ratled for entertaining any such thought And I remember very well that his Lordship said to me amongst many other things That I was rash and foolish to think they would perform any faith or promise with me yea notwithstanding I had all the safe Conducts I could wish both de Vecchiis's and Carracens's too the Spanish Governour then That he was certain had they now once more got me into their hands they would together with the Remonstrance and all the consequents of it call to mind what I had formerly acted against the Nuncio Rinuccini and therefore would never let me return nor And that sure I could not by any promise expect more safety than Huss did from the Emperour's Pass-port nor surely from the present Ministers of the Court of Rome more honesty or sincerity than he by a fiery and deadly experience found in the Council of Constance Lastly his conclusion was a repetition of His MAJESTIES former Commands to me by my Lord Aubigny Then which I must confess as I also before God protest it to be true I do not remember that in my life I received any Command with more regret so earnestly desirous was I then to appear in Flanders and confer with those Divines of Louain who so temerariously Censured the Formulary and Subscribers of it And so troubled I was with the apprehension of what Lyes and Scandals my Adversaries would derive from my not going thither Which and to speak also plainly my further sense under my own hand 's writing to the said Internuncio de Vecchiis was the reason I writ him immediately in Latin this following Letter being an exact Translation of the Latin My Lord HAving understood from Father Gearnon what your Lordship was pleased either to communicate or object or otherwise to give him in charge to be told to Father Caron and me of your Lordships desire of seeing us the said Caron and Walsh at Brussels to the end we might confer with our Superiours and other Divines about the Form of the late Protestation and having withall soon after seen your most civil Letter to the same Father Caron inviting him particularly to Brussels and inviting him as well for the foresaid end as for that other also of removing the difficulties that hinder as yet his being instituted Commissary Visitator of the Province of Ireland which difficulties your Lordship sayes have their total rise from the said Form as the onely Rock of Scandal I resolved presently to use my utmost endeavours for satisfying your Lordships desire and that your most civil invitation should not be in vain And therefore have these five whole Weeks past minded onely a Licence or Permission to depart as my Lord Aubigny can witness and likewise press'd it very earnestly as well with the Vice-Roy of Ireland as with the Chancellor of England For without their privity and good will and much less without His MAJESTIES consent or permission it could not be lawful for us or either of us in this or like case to depart Nor would even your Lordship if I be not much deceived think it expedient we should whereas any kind of dispute conference or even change either in the sense or words of that Form would be to no purpose without their previous consent who must of necessity be assured by that very Form or some other such Catholick and just I mean and which they shall think sufficient to their own purpose of the future Loyalty of Subjects in matters relating to the temporal peace of the Kingdom and who if they be not so assured will give no hopes at all of that liberty for the Clergy or people of Ireland which these poor Creatures do with so much longing expect And indeed the most excellent Vice-Roy assented first But when the matter was broke to the KING and Chancellor it seemed of greater moment than to be so soon determined Wherefore having further till the first of February expected His MAJESTIES Royal Pleasure being at last sent for by my Lord Chancellor and appearing at his house after much debate to and fro near two whole hours partly upon your Lordships Letter to Father Caron which the Chancellor then was pleased to hear me read and partly upon other papers and passages relating to the subject of that your Letter I nevertheless heard to my very great grief even there and then my self present and from his own very mouth pronounced That neither Caron nor I nor any other should go on such an Errand or depart for any such end because this were as much as to subject a thing in it self wholly certain and the regal and
undoubted Rights of the Crown to Altercation Which can be no way lawful especially to Subjects Nevertheless I did not altogether as yet despair having withall at that very time and place received the said Lord Chancellor's command for calling to him my Lord Aubigny who should from him know His MAJESTIES final resolution Which was the reason I fostered still some little kind of hopes for three or four dayes longer But all in vain For notwithstanding any reasons my Lord Aubigny gave the Chancellor declared unto him in His MAJESTIES Name we should not stir Then which tydings indeed I scarce resented any thing in all my life with more sadness as having had most ardent inclinations even my self alone yea without a particular invitation by Letter or safe conduct to go and kiss your Lordships hands at Brussels and satisfie to my power the Superiours in Belgia and the Doctors too of the Theological Faculty at Louain as to that Form which is called ours For as I had fixedly resolved to yield what in me did lie to any thing might be rationally offered for the peace of my Brethren and Countreymen and Clergy and People of Ireland much more for that of the Universal Church of the Roman Communion and not only for preserving but promoting yet more and more that Reverence and Obedience which is due in spirituals throughout the whole earth to the great and most blessed Pontiff so I had also firmly determined not to shun nor decline any meeting or conference either private or publick of the most Learned especially of those of Louaâ—n And yet I doubt not those Louanians have without any just cause without any well-grounded reason without any end that is divine but meerly humahe too too rashly Censured that Form Otherwise wherefore should they be ashamed of their judgment given Wherefore apprehend so much it should be exposed to publick view Or why should they fear to let us that are above all others concerned or to let any other indeed for us have a sight of even as much as any one Copy of their original Censure For there is a report nor a report only but an asseveration of eye-witnesses that that original Censure is scarce contained in Seven Eight or Nine sheets of paper or thereabouts and that according to the manner of University Censures therein single Propositions of the Formulary are noted and Reasons given whether probable or not I now dispute not of the Censure of each Nor is it less known that the other secondary short Censure of Louain which is dispersed abroad contains in the whole but a few lines only singles not out any one or more Propositions gives no Reason at all probable or improbable Nay That Dr. Synnick answered lately the said Father Gearnon at his being at Louain and praying to see the true original first and long Censure answer'd him I say in these words only We have sent it to Rome it pleased the Pope he reserves it for his own time O worthy Academicks O excellent Divines O men born to Flattery and Servitude And O truth of mortal Wights and immortal Spirits whither art thou exil'd A very few Doctors of our Age and of one City alone to determine against the torrent of other Doctors of the whole Earth and of all Ages of Christianity and give no Reason openly for doing so and not to determine only so but to divide but rend in parts the Church as much as in them lies disturb the peace of Nations and Kingdoms asperse the Faith and make odious the Communion and Religion of the Roman See and Bishop But hereof another time At present whereas neither Caron nor Walsh can go to Brussels it will be fit to consider what is to be done to that end which your Lordship designed if even both had together appeared there For I will not question but your Lordship proposed to your self the peace or quiet of Catholick Religion and as well the liberty or free exercise thereof in the British Empire or Dominions of our King as in all other respects the comfort of Catholicks and what besides must necessarily follow a more ample and more obsequious veneration of the great Pontiff But I understand not what you might pretend to for attaining these matters if Father Caron and Walsh appeared at Brussels which you may not by exchange of Letters to and fro from them Although and I speak it in the word of a Christian and of a Priest and of a Professor too of the Seraphical Order and by consequence of a most devout observer of His Holiness and speak it moreover in the presence of omnipresent and omniscient God I have for my own part desired most passionately to go my self to Brussels laying alide all kind of delayes and humane respects whatsoever But however this be as to that now in hand Either you thought of our Refixing or Retracting our Subscriptions forsooth because according to the supercilious Louanians Censure pronounced by them as from the tripos of Apollo we are bound under the guilt of Sacriledge to Refix as they speak Which yet I scarce think could be hoped for by your Lordship or indeed by any other I mean until we be first convinced either 1. By manifest Arguments such I mean as are evident or such as can have no probable Answer That our Form implies either Heresie or Schism or some other sin Or 2. By some decree or determination of a lawful general and future Council For in those Councils past already it 's plain there is not as much as one word against us as neither in the Books of Holy Scriptures or Volumes of Holy Fathers or Tradition called Oral whatever is to the contrary babled by Bellarmine Becan Suarez Lessius Gretzer c. whose Writings altogether which Treat of this Subject no less than those of their opposers I have perused most attentively as likewise the Writings of those others who preceded them some Ages and whose too too erronious footsteps they all along followed Durand Bertrand c. 3. At least by some decree or decision and that future likewise of some Roman Pontiff for to this day there is none produced to any purpose by our Adversaries none I say of all that ever yet emaned from any Bishop of the Roman See and such decree or decision made in or by a clear authentick undeniable and unanswerable declarative Bull directed to all Christians wherever diffused throughout the World or at least to some Nation or people albeit this later kind of Bull I mean to a particular Nation or people is not sufficient according to the doctrine of Divines not even I say of those very Divines who attribute Infallibility to the Pope alone without a Council in his declaration of Faith and yet such Bull decree or decision precisely determining the point as of Christian Catholick Faith received from the Apostles and so to be necessarily believed viz. That the Roman Pontiff may by vertue of a power in
or Estate to renounce in this Controversie a Doctrine or Position which they very well know to have been asserted in all Ages by Thousands and by Millions even of the most Learned most Religious and most Holy of Catholicks as the soundest and safest if not as wholly and absolutely and in all respects certainly Catholick according to the faith of Christ and to have been asserted by them for such not in their speculative Ratiocinations only but in all the practick observations of their life and yet by them for such asserted so that whensoever or as often soever as this Controversie was renewed and even at that very time it viewed first the light under Gregory the VII they devoted the contrary both doctrine and practice to all the Furies of Hell Such proceedings I say cannot be reputed just or pious in the most holy Father especially when it is apparent the Irish in relation to whom the present debate is cannot change their Opinion cannot retract their Subscription without hazard of losing all their temporal Goods and Fortunes or hopes of any whatever may in the mean time be said probably on either side for the loss or safety of those are purely spiritual But such proceedings or attempts to have their source from others without either consent or knowledge of his Holiness and to be continued certainly with the scandal of the Church and hatred of the Pope and hurt of Souls and singular decrease of Religion and yet carried on by most filthy Forgeries and Impostures must seem absolutely both unjust and wicked And your Lordship may be further pleased to write what change you desire in the words or send some other Form of your own but such as you shall rationally think may satisfie the KING and His great Counsellors and may withall be allowed by his Holiness Lastly you may be also pleased to specifie those other means if any such be which appear to your Lordship whereby the Catholick Subjects chiefly such as are of the Clergy may daily more and more ingratiate themselves with our most Gracious KING For truly and in relation to my self I protest here anew and under my hands-writing what I have before in your own presence and to your self by word of mouth at London and I protest it too in the sight of the All seeing God That I have not hitherto aimed in this whole Affair do not at present nor shall at any time hereafter God willing aim at other thing but the encrease of Christian Faith and Roman Catholick Religion the freedom of my Countreymen from the yoke of most severe Laws against it and the peace of the Kingdoms and other Dominions in general of Great Britain's Monarchy And to the end this my ingenuous Protestation may be the more believed I shall be most ready to give and make and as well by writing as by word a full entire profession of my Faith if at any time you demand it even that very profession which Pius the IV. hath ordered in prosecution of a Decree of the Council of Trent Some other passages I was minded to give in this Letter by reason of some things which more particularly concern Father Caron and Father Walsh alone and which have been said or rather indeed upbraided by your Lordship to Father Gearnon But least such an addition should be too much for one Letter or one sheet too scanty for all I have already and what I must further give in that other Subject I thought better to leave it to a distinct Paper which is the enclosed And will only add here That I willingly understood from the said Father Gearnon how your Lordship challenges me of my promise when your Lordship was here to write to you to Bruxels and that you took in ill part I never since performed but more especially that I did not at least write by him For I am glad to know your Lordship desires that which I my self so heartily i. e. an Epistolar Correspondence And without any question I was my self most firmly resolved before I knew any thing of that your challenge to send unto the said Father Gearnon Letters for your Lordship if he had stayed as I thought he would but one week longer at Bruxels However if your Lordship please I shall hereafter abundantly compensate by my diligence that fault of delaying so long my duty And so kissing your hands with all becoming respects and affection I remit your Lordship to this other annexed writing and beseech God to direct and keep you in health London Ides of Febr. 1665. stilo novo My LORD Your most Illustrious Lordships Most humble and obsequious Servant Peter Walsh The additional Paper mention'd as you see in the end of this Letter because it is long as being a necessary Expostulation with the same Internuncio for his passionate and rude and both injurious also and ignorant expressions to Mr. Gearnon at his being at Bruxels against both him and his friends Walsh and Caron I remit to the following Section which is wholly taken up by it And must only here advertise the Reader That as he will find by the date this additional Paper was not sent together with the first Letter but some dayes after it LXXXVIII HOwever that very same Paper or second Letter of the Procurator to the Internuncio de Vecchiis Translated out of the Latin is and most exactly too as followeth My Lord SInce your Lordship was pleased in Discourse with F. Gearnon to call Caron and Walsh Schismaticks and Apostates and when he expostulated the matter to assign no other Reason for those most ignominious Titles but that they had been disobedient to the command of their Superiours namely as far as may be guessed the Commissary General of the Flemish Nation who had admonish't and cited them to Rome or Bruxels I thought good to repress the malice and ignorance of your Informers together with the wonderful liberty they take to calumniate by declaring the Truth briefly in the following Lines and more at large in the bundle of Papers annexed which contains both Copies of that Citation whatsoever it was and to whomsoever directed and of the Answers of Walsh and Caron as well for themselves as for the rest who by any conjecture could be conceived concerned in it Be it therefore known to your Lordship That neither Walsh nor Caron did ever receive any Command Citation or Monition either by writing or word so much as by fame or any relation of any other from any Superiour other than one in a Letter from Father James de Riddere Commissary as abovesaid of the Flemmish Nation whom they undoubtedly acknowledge and receive as their lawful Superiour to Father Caron at London now about some Two years since and certain others in general none of those others being named nor any fact expressed by which or one of which it might certainly be determined who besides Caron were admonished or cited for in those Letters onely the said Father Caron
Kings and the Abbot who Teaches Treachery The Abbot who approves Subjection and the Abbot who approves Rebellion The Abbot who writes for Truth and the Abbot who writes for Lyes for Vanity Falshood and most dangerous Errours Lastly the Abbot who leads to Life and the Abbot who leads to Death both temporal of the body in this World and eternal of the Soul in the next I have spoken freely I must confess but not more freely than truly nor is the freedom I take more then necessary Your Lordship is the Assailant I only defend my self and that with the moderation of an unblameable defence A defence not of my self alone but of many others of thousands of almost all the Catholicks of Ireland England Scotland nay of the universal Church wheresoever diffused For that speech of yours that judgment rashly given of Gearnon has injur'd all wheresoever they live who are against the temporal Monarchy of the Pope And those former practises and attempts of yours as likewise of his Eminence Cardinal Barberin by so many Epistles and Emissaries by which you have rendred all His Majesties Catholick Subjects suspected beyond measure in the point of Allegiance and continued them under the yoke of most severe Laws have dejected afflicted and for the present quite ruin'd them all And what we had done by that publick Declaration of our Allegiance with a good Conscience and right Faith and a good and necessary end namely to clear Catholick Religion from the scandal and infamy especially amongst Sectaries of the most odious Tenets of King-deposition and King-deprivation nay and King-killing too at the will of the Pope in order to Spirituals by a pretended either direct or indirect power and besides to get those Laws taken away which have long been made against Catholicks in these Kingdoms and principally against the abettors and believers of such most wicked assertions your Lordship and his Eminence have suddenly blown away and by those Epistles of yours so busily dispers't through Ireland and England reproved either of Lying or Errour Then which in the circumstances in which things then were nothing could come to the hands of those Protestants who were enemies to Catholicks more acceptable or more wish't for nothing more contrary to the Orthodox nay or such even Heterodox as being moderate and well-affected desired a Repeal of Laws made against Religion Those being overjoy'd they had now got out of your Letters evident as they thought Arguments to overthrow or obstruct the end and scope of our Form of Protestation and prove that Catholick Religion is wholly inconsistent and incompatible with the absolute and indispensable allegiance of Subjects and the safety of the King and State especially in a Kingdom of a contrary communion These on the other side dejected with extreme grief to fall thus from their hopes when they saw that must happen which did namely That the Catholick Clergy at least in Ireland would by such Letters break into Parties and by consequence would not so unanimously freely seasonably and ingenuously give such assurance of their Allegiance for the future by subscribing the Protestation as might stop the mouths of all their Adversaries and open those of their Friends and which our good King and his principal Ministers would admit as sufficient Wherefore 't is Hierom Abbot of Mount Royal and Cardinal Francis Barberin who for the present have cast down afflicted and ruined the Catholick interest and hopes thereof in Ireland principally And consequently only you two and your credulous Clients and Zealots after you for the most part over-ignorant dull and envious not Caron nor Walsh nor any other of the Subscribers either singly or altogether you two I say are the men who in the British Empire and chiefly Ireland have raised to the Catholick Church of Christ not only troubles but mischiefs to be deplored for ever unless the mercy of God and a good King divert them and we are chiefly they who have prescribâ—d remedies against those troubles and mischiefs You two alone more than all the rest have bravely bestirr'd your selves and to your power endeavoured to obstruct all peaceable and Christian nay even in any sort probable or apparent ways to a Catholick people not only for restoring Orthodox Religion and Faith but re-establishing also the Papal Rights I mean those are truly such We are they who have laid open the onely lawful honest holy peaceable evangelical way of entirely restoring both viz. the ancient Religion and Papal Jurisdiction As far namely as that Jurisdiction is true not pretended as 't is admitted by the Canons of the universal Church not usurped against and above them as 't is purely spiritual and of the keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven not temporal not mixt not confused not of the ensigns of a certain worldly Dominion and to speak in one word as far as 't is either acknowledged or received by all other Roman Catholicks of Europe Lastly you alone have been the leaders of those who as the Samaritans and Idumaeans of old look with malicious eyes upon the repairing the Holy Temple under our Cyrus and run headlong upon and with all sorts of weapons fiercely fight and this almost daily and hourly against the builders of the walls We are they who with one hand lay stones in the holy wall with the other drive back the enemy Let the Church of God and our Holy Father the Pope himself consider in equity and justice what thanks what rewards belong to you what crime is to be imputed and what punishment inflicted on us Confidently and undoubtedly I speak it If we who have subscribed that Protestation have not been nor shall be able to restore the veneration due to his Holiness by the way we have taken that is an Apostolical Christian way a way of Allegiance in Subjects peace to the People and all manner of security to Princes it will never be restored by that contrary way of yours which you have hitherto shewn us that is by Anti-apostolical Anti-evangelical Antichristian doctrines and practices both of Tumults Seditions Conspiracies Rapines Perjury Homicide nay Regicide too of Treasons and Rebellions and by consequence of acting in a most impious War and cruel Murthers and more then cruel effusion of innocent blood My Lord there has been tryal enough of that execrable way of yours enough of Attempts enough of Rebellion enough and more then enough of War Of all which Ireland alone is and to all Ages will be a sad argument for History God who is good not being inclined to give a blessing or wish't success to wicked arts or means used either in a pretended or even truly intended quarrel of Religion Nor our humble Saviour Jesus Christ crucified being pleased that his Religion should be restored by other wayes than what he first ordained or any other indeed than that of Humility and the Cross as that alone which he both in life and death in word and work shew'd his ungrateful people the Jews
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
opposite opinion of errour and so convince it that neither Walsh or other Subscribers or Divines who would otherwise except against it could have left them any thing of moment which in their own conscience they judged unsolved In which case nevertheless not to assent would be unlawful not for such Brief or Bull consider'd precisely of it self or in its own nature but because the truth is rendered manifest and the mind convincâ—t by arguments unavoidable which 't is evident are not necessarily requisite in such Letters These things are said according to the sense of those who are Patrons of the Papal Infallibility For otherwise we might recur to other Authors no less Catholick and truly Learned who in this or the like Controversie would without more ado openly reject all definitions of the Pope whatsoever made without the consent of a general Council though declared by Bull directed to all the faithful of Christ in whatever part of the world and who nevertheless were are and in that case too would be most dutiful observant sons of the Bishops of the Roman See as united by the holy band of Religion and the strict tye of whatever other Ecclesiastical communion But because what is said above is abundantly sufficient to answer the objection drawn from the judgment of his Holiness whether only pretended or true makes now no matter as far as it concerns our present case that is the coincidence or identity to use the School terms of some Propositions in our Protestation with those which some mistakingly would have condemnâ—d by Paul the V. in the Allegiance Oath of King James it is not for the present necessary to have any recourse to them Now for what relates to a like conformity suppos'd in the judgment alledged of our Holy Father Alexander betwixt some Propositions of our Protestation with others said to be condemned by Innocent X. of happy memory namely the three Negatives signed as is said by some Fifty English Catholicks of Quality to Cromwel to obtain some liberty for those of the Roman Catholick Faith the answer is much easier partly from what has already been said and partly from what will presently be alledged For Innocent did not publish that judgment of his by any Bull or Brief either to the Catholicks of England or any other so much as one particular man anywhere as far as has been heard to this day so much as by rumour But if any Decree were either made or projected of that matter in a Consistory of Cardinals with the assistance or by the command of Innocent and afterwards sent to Bruxels or Paris to the Nuncio's as there is a report of its being sent to the Nuncio of Paris nothing has been heard more of its publication but remainâ—d suppressed according to that report in the hands of that Nuncio Now whether it were so or no is no great matter nothing to purpose since according to Divines generally and Canonists too such Decrees fram'd in that manner and no otherwise declared do not force consent nor reach faith nor oblige any of the faithful to submission at least out of the Popes temporal State no not in a Controversie of far less moment as where there is no question of faith but only and it may be a just reformation of manners And yet 't were much more proper to attribute the care of such a reformation to the Pope alone I mean without the intervention of a general Council than of declaring the truths of Faith by an infallible judgment and definition such as it were unlawful for any man in any case to contradict Besides 't is a plain case that Cromwel was an Usurper a Traytor and a Tyrant all manner of wayes both in administration and title according to the twofold acception or sense of that word found generally amongst Divines and particularly in Suarez against the King of England And therefore that wise Pope might neither imprudently nor unjustly condemn such Propositions in that conjuncture of things or looking upon the immediate though extrinsecal end then in view namely of observing fidelity to a Tyrant Although we are to judge quite otherwise and according to the common doctrine of Orthodox Divines it be lawful to judge so in case He had not respect to that end but minded only the intrinsecal or even extrinsecal end which is limited by the Law or took the Propositions bare in themselves and abstracting from all bad ends Wherefore it does not appear to the Church of Christ nay to any particular men nor ever did authentically and legitimately that those negative Propositions were any way either by word or writing condemn'd by Innocent the X at least by him as Pope and speaking ex Cathedra Wherefore my Lord since there is no other condemnation of Innocent or Paul the V. to which his Holiness Pope Alexander could relate than those here mentioned and your Lordship objects nothing else and since those old arguments so often brought by Bellarmine Suarez Lessius c. as well under their own as borrowed names from some places and facts of former Popes though in their own cause and some appearances if they be appearances of Councils and scrap't together from false Reason and the Authority whether of some later Doctors or the ancient and holy Scriptures have by other famous men of the Church of Rome long since been weakned answered overthrown there remains to Walsh the same liberty of expostulating which devout men and men no less learned than holy have by their example in all Ages so often taught May your Lordship therefore cease to persecute Caron or Walsh May his Eminence Cardinal Barberin cease May you both cease and I beseech you by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge both you and me at his terrible judgment Cease I say both of you to seduce the Clergy and People of Ireland You have laboured now these three years to corrupt them both You have endeavoured to tear again in pieces a Kingdom every way miserable You have bestirred your selves to your power to replant a most pernicious Errour but onely amongst either simple or mercenary people onely in one corner of the world with those of discretion and honesty you prevail not a jot In all Europe besides in Italy it self next the very temporal Patrimony of St. Peter which now for some Ages has been annex't to the Popedom onely by Humane not Ecclesiastical or Divine Right that is by the gift of Princes or favour of the People you lose your labour For the mask is now taken off and if I may conjecture of future things will be taken off more and more every day Which your Lordship himself if I be not deceived knows to be so true that you cannot be ignorant that in the rest of the world I mean those parts of it which are in the Catholick communion of the Roman Church this your or our question of the Popes pretended right over the Temporals of Kings whatever name it go
under spiritual temporal or mixt of both is not so much disputed amongst learned men as that other far different question drawn especially from the 27th Canon of the great Council of Chalcedon as also from some others of his purely spiritual or at least Ecclesiastical power which has no respect at all to Temporals either directly or indirectly whether this power be truly by Divine right immediately over all the faithful through the whole world or onely by Humane and Ecclesiastical right or else from both at least in that latitude to which they commonly extend it that is over all the faithful everywhere none exempted either in any district of any of the other Patriarchs or in any cause With which most difficult question though I have no intention ever to meddle as however I am fully resolved to follow in this point the common doctrine and to stand unmoveably fixt to the decision of General Councils nevertheless because all men are not of the same mind that is do not judge or understand every way alike many things which may be alledged on both sides nor have the same inclinations or that forward strong and constant affection to his Holiness and the See of Rome which I have notwithstanding the injuries which I cannot deny many and as many as since the beginning of the last War in Ireland took part with the King have suffered with me I thought fit to intreat your Lordship and do with all earnestness beseech you that you will let the Subscribers live in peace not move them to impatience or anger nor reject them from Ecclesiastical charges without other demerit than this pretended one of Subscription and that you will not put a bar to the publick good of undoubted Religion for the maintenance of an assertion so far at least doubtful that in the judgment of many and those Catholick Writers and even entire Universities it deserves the name not so much as of an Opinion but of Error and Heresie and also yet so doubtful that the reason is plain why 't is call'd Heresie Understand my Lord material Heresie as they call it For I conceive no Orthodox Censurers and least of all I ever thought of charging formal Heresie upon the Pope or Church of old Rome or its particular Diocese so much as in this matter controverted betwixt us formal Heresie not being found without obstinacy against the Faith of the Universal Church undoubtedly known But as for material Heresie many orthodox learned and pious men have not doubted to fix it openly upon the Patrons of your opinion mov'd by this amongst other reasons namely that Heresie is no less in excess of than recess from the due mean in points to be believed or that 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith that is assert preach teach impose upon the Faithful to be believed as necessary to salvation or as revealed by God taught by the Apostles preserved by perpetual succession in the Church and as a part of the depositum delivered by Fathers in every age of Christian Religion to their Children That of whose necessity revelation and tradition there is no undoubted and certain evidence but opinion at most or likelihood and this only to somefew of the Faithful the rest which make a greater or as great or at least a considerable part of the Catholick Church denying disclaiming condemning abjuring it I say that according to those Doctors 't is as much Heretical to add to Faith in such manner as it is to substract from it i. e. as it is to deny any thing to be of Catholick Faith of which nevertheless t is truly undoubtedly certainly universally evident that it was revealed by Christ and deposited by the Apostles as much as any other Article of Faith Now who does not see that these who teach that Assertion of the Popes right over the Temporals of Princes as a point of Catholick Faith without the belief of which or with the witting denial of which none can be saved or entirely profess the Christian Catholick Faith relie upon Arguments at best but probable and grounding only opinion against the greater or equal or indeed the far greater remaining part of the Catholick Church which in all ages of Christianity have denied and still persevere to deny disclaim abjure that Position as impious and contrary to the doctrine received by Tradition and without difficulty solve such Arguments which they look upon as Spiders webs as ridiculous Sophisms as Trifles and pure Toyes And indeed some orthodox Doctors moved by this discourse not to mention other Reasons fear not to brand your Position with the note of Heresie But if your Lordship desire my own opinion in the case I must confess ingenuously I see not why it is not as much truly an intollerable error to assert in Popes Bishops Priests or any of the Clergy or even Laity a power to be believed as of divine Catholick Faith which does not certainly and evidently appear from the Rule of Faith that is either from Scripture or Tradition or both as it is to deny a power which does so appear * * See Bellarmine himself de Conc. l. 4. c. 4. where he teaches Errorem esse intollerabilem proponere aliquid credendum tamquam articulum fidei de quo non constet an sit verum vel falsum At last my Lord I conclude this long Letter and yet I neither repent my labour nor ask pardon for my prolixity since it no way more concerns Walsh to write Truth than it does an Internuncio to read it And if your Lordship be of the same judgment it will be well if otherwise I must bear it with patience Let it suffice me to have done what became an honest man videlicet to have refuted slanders reproaches revilings to have proved Caron and Walsh were causelesly term'd by your Lordship either Schismaticks or Apostates or which is less yet any way disobedient causelesly by contempt men of dirt causelesly also raisers of I know not what troubles to the Church of God lastly that without cause it was said to Gearnon's face he had better have been in his grave than subscribed Let it suffice to have defended the freedom of expostulating in a cause most just to have shewn it reasonable and answered those things which with most apparence are alledged to the contrary Lastly let it suffice that for a conclusion I have made you a hearty Prayer and a Petition no less earnest adding at the end and for a complement of the whole discourse that reason of so urgent a Petition which swayes with those Divines who censure with freedom your doctrine Neither have I more to add but onely my wishes that for the future the Internuncio's of Bruxels may be more men of heavenly spirit at least when they have to do with men of earthly dirt Which humbly saluting your Lordship and kissing your hands with all due respect and affection truly and from his soul wishes My LORD
Ressort pour a la diligence de ses Substituts y estre pareillement leues publiees signifiees aux Professeurs de Theologie dudit Ressort a ce qu'aucun n'en pretende cause d'ignorance Faict en Parlement a Rennes le 21. Aoust 1663. We shall hereafter see those six above inserted Sorbon Declarations whether French or Latin as you have them here in both Languages out of the French Copy translated into English by the Fathers of our National Irish Assembly But for as much as it may peradventure be objected by some of the more unreasonably exceptious and contentious Irish That I ought rather to give here an exact Copy of the very and only Paris Impression it self in Latin of those Acts of that University than of any of them elsewhere in France Printed I thought fit to obstruct also herein such endless wranglers and give that which was transmitted in the said year 1663. immediatly from Paris to London Acta Parisiensia Declaratio Facultatis Theologicae Parisiensis per illius Deputatos Regi exhibita circa theses de Infallibilitate Papae OCtavo Maii die Ascensionis D. N. Jesu Christi convenerunt domini deputati de Mince Morel Betille de Breda Grandin Guyard Guischard Gabillon Coguelin Montgailard in domum Facultatis juxta decretum pridie in Congregatione Generali factum ut convenirent de iis quae Regi Christianissimo declaranda erant ex parte Facultatis per os Illustrissimi ac Reverendissimi D. Archiepiscopi Parisiensis designati cum Amplissimo Comitatu Magistrorum ejusdem Declarationes Facultatis Parisiensis factae apud Regem super quibusdam propositionibus quas non nulli voluerunt ascribere eidem Facultati I. NOn esse doctrinam Facultatis quod summus pontifex aliquam in temporalia Regis Christianissimi Authoritatem habet imo Facultatem semper obstitisse etiam iis qui indirectam tantummodo esse illam Authoritatem voluerunt II. Esse doctrinam Facultatis ejusdem quod Rex nullum omnino agnoscit nec habet in temporalibus superiorem praeter Deum eamque suam esse antiquam Doctrinam a qua nunquam recessura est III. Doctrinam Facultatis esse quod subditi fidem obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debent ut ab iis nullo pretextu dispensari possint IV. Doctrinam Facultatis esse non probare nec unquam probasse propositiones allas Regis Christianissimi Authoritati aut Germanis Ecclesiae Gallicanae libertatibus receptis in Regno Canonibus contrarias v. g. quod Summus Pontifex possit deponere Episcopos adversus eosdem Canones V. Doctrinam Facultatis non esse quod summus Pontifex sit supra Concilium Oecumenicum VI. Non esse doctrinam vel dogma Facultatis quod summus Pontifex nullo accedente Ecclesiae consensu sit infallibilis Ita de verbo ad verbum Acta Parisiis Impressa Regi exhibita Mense May 1663. For so word by word is the Printed Copy of the very Latin Paris Impression of these Acts and Six Declarations presented to His Most Christian Majesty in the month of May 1663. XIII THE Reader may now questionless expect an account from me of some either learned or at least prudential debate amongst the Fathers in so grave an Assembly upon so solemn a Message as you have before seen to them on such a Subject from the Duke of Ormond His Majesties Lord Lieutenant then of that Kingdom But I am sorry I can give none at all either of the one or other sort nay nor of any either learned or unlearned or prudential or imprudential because of no kind of debate on that Message For indeed they took no more notice of it than if none at all had been sent them the leading men the Prelats and their numerous and sure sticklers over-awing and silenceing presently any that seemed inclining to move for paying as much as any even due or civil respect in such matters to the Lord Lievtenant or as much as to dispute the equity of what their Cabal had privately before the Congregation sate resolved upon viz. not to comply with His Grace in any material point but to sign and present a new unsignificant Formulary of their own i. e. That prepared to their hands and utterly decline That which His Grace expected from them yea not to suffer any mention at all to be as much as once made in publick of the former Remonstrance So powerfully influential on them was their Prophetical opinion of wonders to be expected by and for themselves done in that wonderful year of 1666. Nor did they seem at all to consider they might be as well defeated of all such their vain worldly carnal hopes of Empire Glory Pomp which they drove at as the Apostles were when before receiving the Holy Ghost in fulness on the 5th day they put this vain question Domine si in tempore hoc restitues Regnum Israel But to leave animadvertions so it was indeed That the Fathers did not once debate not only not the heads of the Procurators Speech but not a word of the very Message from his Grace Albeit they considered how to gratifie the Procurator himself for what was past i. e. for the liberty they had now enjoyed for so many years since 1662. through his endeavours and oblige him also for the future to continue the like endeavours for them as their Procurator And indeed I had scarce been an hour abroad hard by them walking in a Garden to take the fresh air after my long speech which together with the heat of the room made me retire a little when Father Francis Fitz Gerrald a Franciscan one of the Members of that Congregation as Procurator for the Vicar General of the Diocess of Cluan a vacant See in the Province of Casâ—el came with pleasing news to flatter me as he thought telling me the Congregation had voted two thousand pounds sterling to be Levied of all the Clergy of the Kingdom by several gales to be payed me towards my expenses hereafter in carrying on as general Procurator the great affair of their liberty and freedom as till then I had the four last years Him at that time I only answered that was not the point to be either resolved or debated Soon after the Primat himself came forth to me where I continued alone walking And he also would with the same consideration have wrought me to a more plyant temper I answered him to this purpose My Lord you should have known me better then to think to amuse me with the news of any such prepostrous either motions or resolves There will be time enough to consider of such inferiour matters when you shall have first done your duty in order to the King to my Lord Lieutenant and Protestant State Council Parliament which are and ought to govern you under God in all temporal affairs nay your duty to your Native Country and Irish Nation your Church and Catholick Religion and when you shall consequently
that I my self had been much against the trouble of either presenting or writing it because I had clearly seen all along the stubborn unflexible resolution of the Demagogues and most of the inferiour Multitude who would hear no reason and consequently that it would have no effect upon such men of byass And yet after all that pressed by the reasons and importunities of many of those Loyal Subscribers of the former Remonstrance I drew that Letter for them and subscribed it too as one of them which I now give you here The Expostulatory Letter directed to the Chairman of the Congregation by such of the Ecclesiastical Subscribers of the former Remonstrance or of that of 1661 as were at Dublin and not Members of the Congregation delivered and read publickly a little before that National Meeting Dissolved Right Reverend and our very good Lord IT is notoriously known to the whole Kingdom That the present National Representative of the Irish Roman-Catholick Clergy is now convened in this Capital City of Ireland in order to their Signing a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise of their future Loyal fidelity and obedience in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land to our Dread Soveraign Charles the Second to the end That not only His Majesty nor only His Councils of State and Parliaments but also all other His Majesties Protestant Subjects of whatever different Religion Perswasion or Opinion as to the way of truly and rightly worshipping God may be throughly satisfied That the Roman Catholicks of Ireland even the most Reverend and Sacred Representative of all their Ecclesiasticks do now at last freely and conscientiously under their own proper hands in a publick Instrument profess themselves to be and even according to their divine Faith or true infallible Principles of right Christianity and of the Catholick Church to be as much obliged if not more in point of conscience to continue evermore faithfully subject and obedient in all such Temporal matters and according to all such Laws of the Land to His Majesty and lawful Successors in all contingencies that may happen as any other even of whatever Church or Sects either hold themselves bound or indeed by the Laws of God are otherwise bound to His Majesty or to any other their respective Soveraign Princes or States on Earth Nor is it less manifestly known how great and urgent the very special causes are which even of necessity require such a Remonstrance or Declaration and Promise or Protestation from this present Ecclesiastical Assembly For who is he can be ignorant of those just suspitions of an inclination to return again to disloyal both Principles and Practices under which the generality of Irish Catholicks Clergy and People do lye yet continually amongst their fellow Subjects of the Protestant Religion Or who indeed but knows the true source of those very great and not to be wondred at jealousies especially that which cannot be dried up in our days even the fresh memory of all that hath been so lately acted in Ireland against the Protestant Church and People by the Confederate Roman Catholicks of that Nation in the last unhappy Wars Nay who is not sensible of the miserable condition even at present of so many Thousands of our unfortunate Countreymen Or who sees not this condition is one fatal effect of that suspicion or rather as I should say of that firm perswasion amongst Protestants of the Disloyaltie of the Roman-Catholick Irish in general besides is it not as generally known How that to allay for the future that very suspicion lessen hereafter that very perswasion which hath even so lately i. e. since His Majesties happy Restauration blasted the hopes of so many thousands of our ancient Proprietors and so to vindicate their holy Religion from bearing any share in the blame of those unholy irreligious Practices of some however too too many Professors of it and consequently to obtain the ceasing of that severe Persecution commanded and effectually for some time continued by the Triumvirat in Ireland Anno 1660 a considerable number of Roman-Catholick Irish Ecclesiasticks then at London headed by a Bishop of the same Religion and Nation had in the same year thought it becoming their duty to God Allegiance to their Natural Prince Piety to their Countrey and the Character also of those who as the Sons of Peace desire Christian Peace and a fair friendly and faithful correspondence betwixt all His Majesties Subjects of whatever Church or Nation yea and not only thought it so becoming but after a serious debate conceived it both expedient and necessary To sign as accordingly they did sign a Remonstrance and Protestation of indispensable fidelity and obedience in all temporal matters whatsoever c or a Declaration and Promise of Loyalty indeed so full as might answer in all respects the end above mentioned And is it not likewise known That with the same Irish Ecclesiastick Subscribers of that Remonstrance the greatest and most considerable part by much of the Nobility and Gentry of our Nation at that time in London did joyn themselves and concurr even by the like subscription then or soon after in that very place besides many more also of the rest of the Nobility and Gentry at home in Ireland who next Winter and since have followed the same good example given first at London And to pass over at present how not only several more of the Irish as well Bishops as other learned Clergymen then abroad have much about the same time approved of that very Formulary of professing our Allegiance even some of them by their manual Subscriptions to it and how not only the English Noblemen advised and consulted with by the Irish Nobility at London concerning it have professed publickly in a great Assembly of the aforesaid Irish both Nobility and Gentry That were the case of the Irish theirs they and all the rest of the English Nobility and Gentry of the Roman Communion would willingly sign that Remonstrance in terminis and even sign it with their blood were this necessary but also how the English Chapter of the Roman-Catholick Secular Eeclesiasticks have in a Letter written on purpose by their command signed by their Dean Humphrey Ellice alias Doctor Waring and superscribed to the Bishop of Dromore signified clearly so much in effect of their own approving likewise the same Formulary or that very individual Remonstrance of ours We say that to pass at present all this over Is it not further as manifestly apparent how graciously that Instrument after the signature of it was received by His Majesty How immediately the Persecution in this Kingdom ceased by His Majesties express Command Nay how ever since both People and Clergy of our Communion have enjoyed the great tranquility and freedom in point of exercising our Religion and Functions which we have so gladly seen and which we so thankfully acknowledge to be still continued to us yea in a higher measure enjoyed by us at
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
saw by chance an extract of a late Letter sent from Ireland and written by an Irish Jesuit one Ward by name if my memory fail me not to an other Irish Jesuit at London viz Father Hughs living then with the Portugal Embassadour but now with the Queen which related How amidst all the extream afflictions of the miserable remainders at home of the Catholick People in Ireland even God himself from high had both graciously and wonderfully visited them at last to confirm them in their holy Religion by raising a wonderful man indeed amongst them James O Fienachtuy a Secular Priest who had formerly the charge of a Parish in the Archbishoprick of Tuam or Province of Connaught and by gifting this man so extraordinarily i. e. with such a true Miraculous Power of dispossessing Devils and curing too all sorts of other even the most natural diseases that he drew the world after him and not only Catholicks but Protestants In so much That he had often a Thousand sometimes Fifteen hundred nay Two or three Thousand who followed him even through Bogs Woods Mountains and Rocks and desert places whether soever the people heard him to have fled from the Persecution of Cromwel's Troups or Governours That Priests enough could not be had though many accompanied him of purpose to hear the confessions of the great Multitude drawn to Repentance and Resolutions of a new Life by the example of his life and wonder of his Works That therefore he was justly and principally next after St. Patrick alone esteemed another Thaumaturgus i. e. Wonder-worker of Ireland as being greater in the glory of Miracles and prodigiousness of Signs than any even of so vast a number of Irish Saints who are in History Recorded to have formerly in a continual succession for some Ages flourished in that then Island of Saints and therefore also That as he was of one side the greatest comfort might be to Catholicks so on the other he was even the very greatest terrour could be to Hereticks who saw clearly now they must fall being God had now at last raised them an enemy whom they could not overcome nor indeed so much as fight by any force of Arms whilest he conquered them by Words Signs and Wonders Having seen also as I remember the very Original of this Letter with Father Hughs himself whom to that purpose I accoasted and been further assured both by him and a general no less credulity then confident report amongst all the Irish then at London that all was very true and notorious at home throughout Ireland I could not but entertain pleasing Ideaes of invincible Arguments for the divine certainty of the Roman-Catholick Religion viz Arguments wholly composed of Miracles wrought so manifoldly publickly and undeniably by one professing it and wrought by him even as was further said in express confirmation of it by his invoking God to this purpose and he also himself living still in his own Countrey at home where we might easily find out the truth of matters of Fact For I must confess that having from my youth dedicated my studies chiefly to Controversial Divinity for what concern'd the differences 'twixt Roman-Catholicks and those of all other Churches especially the Protestant Church of England and having even lately had occasion enough especially at London in my frequent converse with some learned Protestants to reflect very often upon those Notes or Signes of the only true Church which Bellarmin Bozius and some others give and finding also that in my judgment all other Notes might be easily answered save that only of Miracles as alledged to be appropriated to and continued in the Roman Church only or only amongst those of her Communion there was nothing I desired more even for many years before I heard a word of Father Finachty than that I might be by some way or other absolutely and without moral possibility of contradiction or fiction assured of some at least one true Miracle wrought by any of that Communion living in our days and in any of these our own Countries at home where we might easily see both the Person and Miracle wrought by him or her especially if wrought by his or her invoking God publickly before the People or a convenient number of competent Witnesses and begging that his Divine Majesty would be pleased to work such or such a true Miracle in confirmation of the Roman-Religion in matters differing from those believed as points of Faith or Christian Doctrine by other Churches And therefore it was that when I had as before the first time heard at London of James Finachty I was mâ—ghtily pleased as flattering my self with great hopes of attaining at last in him my foresaid wish But my hopes were not long after abated if not rather quite vanished and that upon this occasion Even the very next Summer following one Father Bonaventure O Melaghlin an Irish Franciscan and one who had for many years gone through almost all promotions i. e. all both Local and Provincial Superiourships of his own Order in the Province of Ireland at home who had been several times Guardian once Vicar Provincial and now Pro-Minister Provincial going from Ireland to the general Chapter in Spain there to be one of the Vocals as representing the Person of the then Franciscan Minister Provincial of Ireland took London in his way Where finding me and often discoursing with me and amongst other matters even in presence of about nine or ten other Irish Franciscan Fathers who lived then at London and even also in particular categorical and positive answer to my Questions put unto him publickly before them all concerning the reports of Father Finachty's famed wonders or Miraculous gift of dispossessing Devils and healing too all other diseases whatsoever he assured me That neither himself nor any other of the more grave and judicious Church-men of his acquaintance at home in the Province had any such opinion of the said Father Finachty or his pretended gifts or cures That not only of his curing miraculously either all or any one natural disease but even of his curing by Exorcism or otherwise any either possessed or obtested person he could say nothing much less could give any assurance at all That for his own part he understood not so much yet as that Father Finachty's pretences of so many some Possessed and some Obsessed persons had any ground or colour nay nor perhaps could understand even so much as how any one single person's being truly in our days either Possessed or Obsessed in that Countrey might upon rational grounds be confidently alledged That not only not himself but forasmuch as he had yet learn'd or heard no other person how discerning soever hath at all hitherto discerned nor indeed could discern any proper signs of meer Diabolical works in or about such persons whom Father Finachty pretends to be under such visitations of the Devil as are truly called Possession or Obsession That if any such signs could be discern'd by
and no more talk had been of any Cures done or of any more attempts of Curing made by him behold on a sudden by several Packets one after another many Letters from London besides many persons too come from thence to Dublin reporting for certain That he was there i. e. at London publickly before all the World both Catholicks and Protestants even in the very most Publick Chappels in that great City as the Portugueze Ambassadors at Wildhouse the Queens at St. James's c. doing Wonders indeed that is not only dispossessing Devils by Exorcism but by that and other Prayers Curing presently all manner even of the most natural inveterate and habitual Diseases as namely restoring Sight to the Blind Going to the Lame Hearing to the Deaf c. Of those Letters one was written by Mr. Patrick Archer then at London to his Wife at Dublin which I read Another was to my self from Father Redmund Caron The former had not so much power to make me assent because I knew Mr. Archer to be not only not very discerning nor only very illiterate but though otherwise a good man so indiscreetly zealous That he would believe any thing of such nature which any Roman-Catholick Priest or Churchman would tell him But Father Caron's had more Authority to persuade me specially if he had writ the particulars and those to have been done to his own knowledge and himself being present without any possibility of Cheat which he did not write but only in general That Father Finachty was doing wonderful things with them at London However these Letters together with the universal report of others were enough to make me this third time I heard of that miraculous man more inquisitive than ever And therefore some few weeks after those Letters I gladly heard That Finachty was even through fear conceived by the Protestant Clergy of England he would by his Miracles convert their Flocks to the Roman Church dismiss'd London and thence honourably conveyed in a Coach of Six Horses by an English Catholick Gentleman J.D.E. through Oxford to Chester and so to Holyhead in Wales where he was then with my Lord Dillon and Gerrot Moor Esq two great admirers of him only expecting a Wind for Dublin And within a few other dayes I yet more gladly heard of his Landing at Rings-end together with those noble Gentlemen who likely were able to give Testimony of some of those Miracles reported from London But my great vexation at the same time was That the Lord Lieutenant having some few dayes before departed to Kilkenny I had engaged my self for some business to follow His Grace and to begin my Journey the very next morning as I did in truth hoping nevertheless to return suddenly ere Father Finachty and those Gentlemen come in his Company should part from Dublin If any will ask here How came Finachty to go to London The true Answer is That there being a Portugueze Lady a Countess with the Queen who had utterly lost her sight and was stark blind and she hearing from some of the Irish Chaplains that serve the Queen amongst whom the foresaid Hughs the Jesuit is one of such a Wonder-working Priest in Ireland she or the Queen's Majesty or some other employed Father Teig Mac Eochuy * * Now since the year 1671 the same Father Teig is made Bishop of Clonfert by a Bull from Rome But for what either merits or demerits himself knows alias Capt. Power an Irish Dominican and one of Her Majesties Chaplains in Extraordinary but in Ordinary to the Lady Marquess Dowager of Clanricard and Connaught man too of the same Countrey with Finachty and furnished him with money into Ireland to bear his own Charges and the said Finachty's in their Journey thence to London and he viz. Father Teig undertook the Journy came to Dublin both going to and returning with the miraculous man from Connaught was both times at my Chamber yet told me not a word then of any such matter but ship'd his said Wonder-working Companion privately for England Which was the reason we heard nothing of Finachty's being away out of Ireland till we heard of his Miracles done at London Nor then nor after did I know how he came to go thither until that being my self at London in July 1665. in the great Plague-time i. e. after all other discoveries made here I was told these particulars at my own lodging there by the said Father Teig himself who then also not only acknowledged to me how unsatisfied himself was in point of those famed Miracles after that Finachty had plainly failed in doing any kind of good to the Portugueze Countess for the recovery of her sight as he did manifestly fail therein albeit for her sake chiefly if not only gone to London but that he was farther much scandalized that such a man as that same Finachty was after all pretending at Rome as sayes he he is actually now for the Bishoprick of Elphin To return to the former series of my Discourse on the fourth day of my being then at Kilkenny the Earl of Fingall came to Town from Dublin and together with him one Father .......... Plunket a Regular Priest of the Order of Discalceate Carmelites Meeting this Father accidentally that very Evening he came and enquiring what News he told me That Father Finachty was at Dublin practising indeed publickly but withal certainly with much scandal and reproach to the whole Catholick Religion That he had a Woman come after or along with him out of England some said out of Lancashire in particular whom he gave out to be a Demoniack or possessed by the Devil and that amongst other his Feats he would needs Exorcise this Woman publickly in the said Earl of Fingall's house before a great multitude of all sorts of People Catholicks and Protestants of both Sexes amongst whom the Lady Marquess of Antrim a great Protestant had been led thither by Father Peter Talbot and all this forsooth for the proof or confirmation of the Roman-Catholick Religion to be the only true Christian Catholick Religion That when he had amused the beholders with expectation of dispossessing utterly that Woman and making the Devil depart her Father Peter Talbot had interposed telling him it should be in signo visibili that is it should be done so as the standers by might be persuaded thereof by some visible sign given by the Devil at his departure That Finachty promising this and to this purpose or to effect this visible sign falling again to his Adjurations failed manifestly before all the People nothing having been done but the Demoniack if such she was scorning and laughing at all his confidence and pretended power And that hereupon all the People departed with extream dissatisfaction and the Catholicks with confusion also but the Protestants with laughter This Relation put me presently as on a resolution to return to Dublin in the greatest haste I could so likewise on the very last and strictest inquisition which
only or at least chiefly for the confirmation of the only true Church the Roman and conviction of all Dissenters 6. That as he at London desired my Lord Aubigny the Queens great Almoner he would be pleased to make in his behalf to the Court this offer viz. That the Protestants should pitch upon such a number as they pleased of all sorts of sick persons the places and Parishes where such infirm persons lived then bring them to the most expert Physitians to have their judgments of the truth and certainty of their being without question truly sick and of the quality and inverateness of their several Diseases then carry the same diseased persons to the Protestant Clergy Ministers and Bishops to be cured by their Prayers and when these had failed of doing those any good to bring them to him publickly before as many or such as they pleased to be present and they should see that by the invocation of God and for confirmation or evidence of the Roman-Catholick Church to be the only true Church and Religion of Christ he would cure them all the same saith he which I offered at London to my Lord Aubigny and by him to the Court but was not accepted there from me I do now here again offer to you and by you to the Lord Lieutenant and Council When he had so confidently and positively answered I was much troubled at the three last Articles For I believed my Lord Clancarty told me truth And I had much cause to believe those who related his having been servant in his youth to Father Moor and from him learned the manner of Exorcizing Nor did I want the fresh memory of many other Arguments to perswade me that what ever he had done of good to any though few was by Exorcism only and only where somewhat of Possession obsession or Witchcraft intervened Besides that I could hardly doubt he did but little to any of so many as came to him sick of natural diseases only I begun therefore now inwardly in my own mind to scruple both his veracity and humility vertues I think to be expected in a worker of wonders by the pure invocation of Christ And both I scrupled the more that I observed him to blush when I objected his learning from and being a servant to Father Moor and his gifts to be confined to the only effects of bare Exorcism Then besides I considered how I had never read of any Saint in former days that put himself so freely and purposely in all places and occasions upon working of Miracles by Exorcism or otherwise much less of any that undertook so boldly at least where so little need was But again remembring that in Matt. 7.22 23. * * Multi dicent mihi in illa die Domine Domine nonne in nomine tuo in nomine â—â—o damonia ejecimus in nomine tuo daemonia ejecimus in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus Et tunc confiteborillis Quia nunquam novi ves and withal considering the confidence of his offer I check'd my self However I desired him to consider well once more what he offer'd so and the consequence of his failure adding thus Father Finachty I am upon consideration of all I have from first to last heard of you inclined to think that in some occasions and to some few persons you have done some good that is that either your gift or their own Faith or at least their own strong imagination with some other natural helps hath been in some measure available to them when they came to you and you Exorcized or Crossed or Prayed over them or upon that occasion of your doing so but I am withal inclined to think you have failed the expectations of a thousand for one you have not Nay and moreover that the gift whatever it be is for Exorcizing only and not at all for curing natural Diseases I am sure Says he replying I have not failed one for a thousand I have cured and cured even of all sorts of pure Natural Diseases and what I offer I know and fear no tryal This reply made me fear the flattery or folly of some half sighted or half witted if not worse men had somewhat turn'd his brain for I dared not yet for all this entertain any determinat judgment or even scarce the least passing imagination of his being a willful Impostor Mr. Browns Relation besides the late reports and Letters from London and several other things told me for his advantage remaining still fix'd in my mind and making me rather shut my own eyes then see or freely entertain any such thought of him Which was the reason I would not any further at that time question what he had so positively averr'd himself But leaving that Subject prayed him nevertheless if not rather indeed the more to tell me when or how long since he first had found by real experience that God had bestowed these gracious gifts upon him was it then first in the Protector 's time when the reports came to us to London or was it before and what year After a little demurr he answered That long before that time when I further pressed to know was it in the time of the Confederat's and if said I so long ago it is strange I that lived constantly where the chief seat of the Confederate Assemblies and Councils and their Supream Power was even at Kilkenny whether all the Kingdom did resort did never hear one word of any such wonder-working man Notwithstanding says he it hath been so long since Pray said I hath it been as early as your being consecrated Priest Before I received any Orders at all greater or lesser Sacred or not answered he I am sorry for that said I and will give you my reason why For till now I was in good hopes your extraordinary gift in Exorcizing so effectually as you say you do might be in some measure attributed to or might be some Argument of the Authority and Power given to all Priests though given to them before they receive the Order of Priesthood or any of those called the Greater Orders even as soon as amongst the four former and lesser Orders they are ordained Exorcists But now I perceive you were a meer Lay-man and not so much as any sort of Clergy-man or Ecclesiastical person at all when first so gifted by God I was no other says he You will not be offended said I at one question more and then Iâ—le have done for this time What was I pray the very first particular whereby you assured your self experimentally then during your being a Lay-man That God had bestowed that extraordinary gift upon you Here again he demurred a little and then answered I had a brother of my own says he whose breeches the Devil stole away at night Whereupon I took a Book of Exorcisms and thence read a Prayer over him which was so effectual that the Devil restored his breeches And this was the first
seen and heard not being void even of some suspitious thoughts coming on me whether I would or no that the reason of his retiring first in private with the Girl was only to Cathechize her how to behave her self and answer to the questions he should put her in publick as soon as he callâ—d us in However I clearly saw he gave no proofs that day of any Miraculous gift for curing either the one or other sort of diseases I mean either those proceeding immediately from some extraordinary Diabolical operation or those which have other immediate ordinary causes visible or natural And yet I dared not judge that he had no such gift although he failed that time but rather would even then perswade my self he might have it in some occasions and in order to some persons according to the good pleasure and mercy of God being continued even then in so favourable an opinion of him by the returning Memory of what was lately written of him from London and what some others told me but especially of what Geoffry Brown related And yet withal I could not but judge out of what I had my self that day seen his great proffer could be no less than subject to a very great contingency Notwithstanding which judgment of mine and of many others too declared again and again by my self to him I saw his confidence always such in demanding Licence for the more publick tryal before mentioned that I would even shut my own eyes a little longer and see only with his Which was the reason that upon his coming to lye at one Mr. Raughter's his own Countrey-man in Kennedy Lane within two or three doors to my Lodging I not only visited him again early in a morning but finding him there on his knees all alone at his private Devotions desired him to sign with the sign of the Cross even my self from the crown of my Head to the very soales of my Feet in every part of my body and pray over me telling him I had a little spice of the Scurvy for many years encreasing still more and more by my sedentary Life and though not with pain yet often with weakness and numbness of my Arms and Legs besides other evident signs thereof especially spots of all colours of the Rainbow to day appearing and next day again disappearing And certainly during all the time he signed my limbs and prayed over me he standing and I kneeling no man I think could ever have less prejudice or more resignation than I had even in order I mean to his gift or effect thereof on my self being as before and after so at that very time resolved not to frame any judgment of him out of his want of success on me nay nor on any other one or more persons whatsoever practised on in private but to suspend my judgment till I had seen the success of the publick tryal himself desired So far was I all along unto the very last from either disaffection to or prejudice against Father Finachty Though as neither in or from this practice or effect thereof on my self so neither in or from that I had seen of his on others I could see any argument for him Therefore to come at last to his own great and publick Tryal because he himself would needs have it so even against all my advises and reasons given him at several times as soon as my Lord Lieutenant was returned from Kilkenny which happened to be some days if not weeks before Father Finachtys praying over my self I acquainted his Grace with that great and confident proposal made having withal given him at large the best and truest account I could of all was said for and against the said Father and what besides I had either learned from himself or seen my self otherwise by him adding also my reasons why it were fit to yield to his Petition For said I if he have any such true Miraculous gift from God it must be a sin against the Holy Ghost to oppose it wilfully or willingly such being that of resisting or impugning the grace of God appearing to the World in any man of what Religion soever And if he have no such gift indeed but only pretends it wittingly as an Impostor or imagines it unwittingly as a frantick man then without any peradventure such a publick Tryal as he desires will be the readiest and most certain way of any to discover at last unanswerably the Imposture or frenzy or both and that so fully and notoriously too that simple well-meaning people may be no longer abused Upon my first application His Grace did seem very unwilling to grant a request which if condescended to and accordingly complyed with by Finachty must end not only in laughter and scorn of him amongst all beholders but amongst all Protestants in reproach also of the credulous folly of Roman-Catholicks in general Yet my importunity joyn'd with that reason presently given prevailed so at last that His Grace resolved to let him have his will And therefore bid me go to him the said Finachty once more and as from himself i. e. from His Grace the Lord Lieutenant to put this question exactly viz. Whether he excepted against any kind of natural sickness for albeit I told my Lord he did not but undertook to cure all universally as before yet His Grace would have me go from himself and tell Finachty I was commanded to him so of purpose by His Grace upon this express Errand I did therefore obey and Finachty did again and again assure me that he excepted against no sort of sick persons whatever even the most natural inveterat and habitual Diseases they had and bid me answer so from him to the Lord Lieutenant as also that to evidence before the World That the Roman-Catholick Religion was the only true way of Salvation he would undertake to cure miraculously before all the beholders such a select number of whatever sick persons who had been so tryed as before by their own Physitians and so prayed over by their Priests and Bishops of the Protestant Church but not cured nor curable by them When I had delivered this positive answer My Lord presently concluded that without further delay he should have matter enough furnished to him for making his offer good they would find out the sick let him look to the rest And yet says my Lord because I am sure he will fail in performance of any Wonders I will take care there shall be but a few Protestants there and such only as shall be discreet men and I would advise that you suffer but a few also of the discreeter Catholicks to be present Yet if Finachty will have a Multitude of these who can help it though otherwise I desire not by any means of my own part to expose the weakness of Roman-Catholicks in giving credit to so much Knavery or at least to so much frenzy nor even to confound him but before the smallest number of both sides may
late they have been to see how far you should venture on such Wonderful undertakings nay nor doubt or at least am not without hope of the return of your former Miraculous gifts if ever at any time indeed you had any such even in any sort of degree or measure As for the rest know there is nothing could happen in this World I would be more heartily glad to hear than the absolute certainty of true Miraculous or Supernatural Wonder-working gifts indeed either again returned or anew bestowed on you or in truth on any other person whatsoever in this Country where I might see with my own eyes the Miracles done This was my last discourse with and those or other to such purpose my very last words to Father Finachty which he answered by promising to do so as I desired viz. to go directly to his home in Connaught to hold no meetings in the way to attempt no further cures at all before he had first recollected himself c. And then remembring how he had though indirectly but the last night insinuated some want I gave him what money I had in my pocket i. e. about fourteen shillings which having taken he departed from me yet he had the confidence within two hours after even that very morning before he left the Town to send me a little Printed English Book in Twelves or Sixteens of his own Miracles lately done at London My Lords and Fathers this is the account which ever since that Book of Miracles given or rather sent by him to me I intended to give you all whensoever it pleased God I should have the honour of speaking to you Assembled together For I held my self bound in several respects to give it you And now that I have discharged my self of that obligation see you whether it be not fit by universal consent to obstruct all such future both attempts and pretences of Father Finachty and not only of him but of any other * * I know two more the one an Augustinian in the County of Catherlogh the other a Franciscan in the County of Wexford who were about 1664 c. by some weak people cryed up for some such wonder-working graces But I knew withall the Augustinian to have been a meer Knave and a Nonsensical Ass to boot The Franciscan was Father Anthony Stafford a Gentleman born and very devout man in his profession and therefore easily adored and cryed up even by some Gentlemen though I think himself never gave way to such reports if other such there be for Miraculous curing either any kind of meer natural disease or any sort of Possessed or Bewitched Person that so you may as much as lies in you vindicate your selves and your Church and Religion from the scandal reproach ignominy of such manifest arguments either of crazy heads or vile Impostors or both Thus having done with what I intended to say on the second of those three Heads before mentioned in the former Section pag. 706. and none having contradicted a word of what either I had so related of that weak man or advised concerning him but rather all condemning his follies and some also telling That notwithstanding his having been so convinced and confounded at Dublin yet he attempted afterwards to practise and did practise on some weak Creatures in Connaught especially Women or Maids whereof some as Demoniacks but reputed such by him he shut up in Portumna and by Discipline and Fasting made almost mad as likewise that for his further saying That all the Women of Ireland were possess'd i. e. by the Devil specially possess'd the Archbishop of Tuam within whose jurisdiction he was had forbid him all such Exorcisms and Exercise others relating that he came into and attempted to practise somewhere in Westmeath but was discountenanced there and in fine all the rest either by their words or silence appearing to be utterly dissatisfied with him and concurring to what I desired even a general opposition and prohibition of his feats everywhere thenceforth I pass'd on to the third and last of the foresaid three Heads And yet I must let my Reader know here 1. That notwithstanding so publick and general notice taken of him the same Father Finachty I have been told in the year 1649 before I left Ireland last he had got himself lately made Vicar-general by the Clergy of the vacant See of Elphin in the foresaid Province of Connaught though whether that report was true or no I cannot avert nor did I enquire 2. That no sooner had this Roman-Catholick Irish Priest Finachty been so discovered at Dublin but at Cork a Town also in Ireland starts up one .......... Gratrix an English Lay-Protestant to supply the formers place by making People believe he himself too had a Gift from God to Cure all Diseases by Praying and Stroaking and accordingly practises everywhere on many even also at London whither he came at last to Cheat the World as the former was thought to have done What became of this Gratrix I neither know nor care Only this I know That not long after his practises on Folks at London he went out like the Snuff of a Candle just as Finachty did XXII VVHat I discoursed on the third and last Head was not long because the two Books were extant and the Authors known and the designs and effects of them such as none of all the Fathers how otherwise willing soever at least some of them of that Congregation durst publickly in that place open his lips to justifie And therefore my relation of that discourse shall be answerable i. e. very short For as to the first of these Books I thought enough to let them know 1. The Title of it which is Disputatio Apologetica De Jure Regni Hiberniae pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus Haereticos Anglos 2. That it hath another small Treatise annexed as an Appendix which bears this Title Exhortatio ad Catholicos Hibernos 3. That both pieces are own'd by the same Author though under the Capital Letters only of C. M. as he owns himself to be an Irish man For in the Frontispiece or Title-page of the Disputation he sayes and only sayes Authore C. M. Hiberno Artium Sacrae Theologiae Magistro and after the second Title or that of his Appendix or Exhortation he adds again Authore C. M. Hiberno 4. That in the former Title-page 't is pretended to have been Printed at Francfort Francofurti Superiorum permissu typis Bernardi Gourani Anno Domini 1645 though we had reason to think 't was Printed in Portugal 5. That albeit the Author was unknown to me for so many years after I had seen the Book yet at last I came to know certainly and this from the there present Lord Bishop of Ardagh That he was an old Irish Jesuit living in Portugal by name Constantine or Cornelius in Irish Con or Cnochoor and by Sirname O Mahony a Munster and County Cork man of the Barony of
c. in this particular They do not say they do From performing their duty of true Obedience and Allegiance to their Prince But what Obedience and Allegiance they adjudge to be a duty and true they do not declare but leave that under the uncertainty of their own interpretation That any private Subject The King is not secured by this against either Pope or against any private Subject that may be employed to that horrid work by any pretended Authority for then he ceaseth to be a private Person The Anointed of God If the Pope Excommunicates him and deposes him will they accompt him still the Anointed of God or his Prince They have not yet told us so in this Remonstrance So that this specious Protestation of Duty falls very much shorter of the former Remonstrance and is so doubtfully exprest that it lookt rather like a fallacy to deceive the Prince than any clear asserted Loyalty to found thereon any confidence of their Obedience 3. That withall at the same time and by occasion of shewing me these Animadversions His Grace told me That being the Lords of the Council who saw that new Remonstrance and other Papers presented from the Congregation upon first sight so clearly discerned their Juggle it became me to give throughly and clearly all Exceptions at large which might or ought in reason be made against the same Remonstrance and Act of Recognition and moreover to give candidly the true import of the three first Sorbon Declarations as applied and sign'd by the Congregation or as proceeding from them as likewise to give a full and clear and satisfactory Answer to the said Congregation's third Paper or that containing their Reasons why they sign'd not the three last of those late six Sorbon Declarations 4. That in obedience to such His Graces Commands for I took such intimations for sufficient Commands from Him I put my self presently to write the three next following Treatises of this Book or the Second Third and Fourth thereof viz. answering so exactly the number of material Papers given by or presented as from the Congregation to His Grace Which Papers were only three for I look not on their Petitions as any way material 5. That besides the bare motive of obeying His Grace I had these other strong inducements to write on that Subject First I consider'd That by my being backward or if I did shew my self backward in such a matter occasion might be thence taken and peradventure justly too by the foresaid Lords of the Council and consequently by all others of their communion to suspect me also and together with me even all other Subscribers of the former Remonstrance how otherwise Loyal soever Next I remembred what my Lord Lieutenant was pleased some few dayes before to tell me of the Earl of Anglesey's new Sentiments i. e. better opinion of and more favourable inclinations to the Subscribers of the First Remonstrance than his Lordship had formerly had viz. How the said Earl having seen the originals of the late Letters come from the Court of Rome i. e. from Cardinal Francis Barberin and the then Internuncio of Burgundy and Low-countries James Rospigliosi now Cardinal Rospigliosi against the said former Remonstrance and Subscribers thereof had thereupon declared to His Grace the Lord Lieutenant 1. That himself was now at last by the said Letters fully convinced That that former Remonstrance and Controversie about it was no Juggle that Peter Walsh the chief promoter of it was no Cheat but rather on the contrary that indeed the Controversie was real and the Subscribers of that first Formulary as many of them as bore up constantly and unalterably against the Court of Rome in that point were in truth honest for so much And 2. therefore that he for his own part would be thenceforth for repealing the sanguinary and mulctative Laws in order to such constant Professors and unalterable performers of their due Allegiance to the King in all Temporal things whatsoever according to the Laws of the Land Now when I remembred this of my Lord Anglesey I then also consider'd further nay persuaded my self That the more clearly and ingenuously I declared my self on that Subject of the Remonstrance according to my own inward Conscience but regulated still by the unerring Rule of Holy Scripture and Universal Tradition besides natural Reason in the case the more also I should at least of my part really and effectually serve the Roman-Catholicks both Clergy and People of Ireland whose true common good next unto the discharge of a good Conscience and the glory of God by the defence of Truth I alwayes proposed to my self as at least one of the chiefest ends in this World of all my labours For I doubted not but with the blessing of God what I was then to write and now have on that Subject would in time reduce many even of as well the most ignorant as most obstinate of them i. e. some to a right understanding of the principles of Christianity and Reason others to a better compliance with what in truth they understand already but through depravation of will and byas of private interest will not seem or confess they understand Nor doubted but I would confirm many more in that which they themselves already both understand and will according to their own coolest thoughts and more natural inclinations and yet after all were like to be as indeed they have lately been under strong temptations to renounce for ever both And however these matters depending on these or those Irish Clergymen themselves do or prove I must confess I never once question'd then nor do at present but that I should by my writings on that Subject not only continue but encrease those good inclinations which I had already then â—nderstood to be in the foresaid Earl of Anglesey and not in him only but in many other Moderate Noble and Illustrious persons of the Protestant Church for repealing the sanguinary and mulctative Laws in order to such persons of the Roman-Catholick Church as have already or shall hereafter capacitate themselves for so great a favour and I know they all every one may do so without quitting one article word or syllable of the Roman-Catholick Religion as professed in any other Countrey of that same Religion abroad in the world In fine I at least hoped very much to see in my own dayes even the very unexpected fruits of such good inclinations in those illustrious moderate persons that really commiserate the case not only of all such Roman-Catholick Priests of those Dominions as only for their declared Loyal principles and affections to the King are persecuted continually in their own Church and yet not protected by his Laws but likewise of so many Thousands of poor innocent well-principled and well-affected Laicks men and women who sometimes smart by and alwayes lie under the severity of the same Laws And yet after all I will not deny but I had some consideration also of defending
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
which they make or intend to make there if any at all indeed they make or intend together with so many quibbles and fallacies yet this Remonstrance at least as from them does no way bind them after such declaration of the Pope to hold as much as to such however inconsiderable acknowledgements or promises Fourteenth Exception That further yet as from them and without relation to any such matter declared by the Pope it leaves them alwayes at liberty upon another account not to hold to their said however inconsiderable acknowledgments and promises Videlicet upon account of their maximes of extrinsick probability or of their perswasion of the lawfulness of changeing opinions and of practising too according to the contrary opinion of others and consequently of practising against all their acknowledgments ownings Declarations promises and oaths in this their own Remonstrance according to the doctrine of such Catholick Authors as maintain all oathes of Allegiance made to a Heretick Prince to be rendred absolutely void by the very Canons of the Roman Church in corpore Juris Canonici Fifteenth Exception That finally as from them it leaves them still at liberty to say they framed and subscribed it according to the very largest rules of equivocation and mental reservation and with as many and as fine abstractions exceptions constructions restrictions and distinctions too especially that of the specificative and reduplicative sense as any the most refined Authors and most conversant in such matters Canonists or Casuists or School-divines could furnish them with in time of need And these being the most obvious material Exceptions against this Remonstrance of 66. the Reader may judge of their reasonableness or unreasonableness as he please if he hath already or when he shall have read through not only the former part of this Second Treatise but both the first and second part of the first Treatise of this Book To which if he add the reading also of all the other four he may without any question judge the better of these Exceptions whether they be well grounded or not THE THIRD TREATISE CONTAINING The three propositions of Sorbon considered as they are by this Dublin Congregation applyed to His Majestie of Great Britain and themselves And what they signifie as to any further or clearer assurance of their fidelity to the King in the cases controverted HAving given in my Narrative the occasion upon which and the persons by whom after a long dispute these propositions with the other three of the six late of Sorbon were first offered to be assented to and signed in a distinct or different instrument or paper from that of their Remonstrance and how after those very persons hindered the signing of the other or last three and further in my exceptions to instances against and observations upon that Remonstrance of theirs upon their wording of and meaning by and in the several passages or clauses all along having noted their voluntary and contradictory omissions of what was necessary and what was both expected and demanded from them on the particular points and noted their abstractions reservations exceptions equivocations illusive expositions and yet no less if not more destructive constructions I need not say much here to shew the unsignificancy of the said three propositions I mean as to the publick end for which these Assembly subscribers would impose on others or flatter themselves they were subscribed by them For it will be obvious and easie to any understanding man that shall first read those fore-going small Tracts of mine to see evidently there can be no more assurance of the present or future faith of those Congregational subscribers or from their subscriptions to the said three additional propositions than was besorâ— intended by them in or could be from their sole Remonstrance taken according or in that sense of theirs which I have so declared at large I confess that in the state primitive or in that of the innocency of Christians these alone peradventure might have been sufficient to that end Nay and at this very present are very significant as proceeding from and applyed by the Sorbon-faculty and Gallican Church to their own most Christian King and themselves To wit amongst a People and in a Country where no other doctrine is taught or believed or as much as scarce thought upon if not by a very few privâ—tly in corners but that which they have learned from the express Canons of their own ancient Councils and of that particularly of Paris well-nigh a thousand years since in pursuance of the Tradition of their yet more ancient Fathers all along to the Apostles of Christ and Christ himself That kingly power is immedietly from God alone as from the primary and only efficient cause and no way depending of the Church or People Where the practice was so frequent when occasion was offered to resist the usurpations and incroachments of Popes on the Jurisdiction Royal and to oppose and contemn their Sentences of Deposition Deprivation Excommunication and other attempts whatsoever of the See of Rome against their Kings Parliaments or People Where Pithou's most Catholick and voluminous Books of the natural and genuine liberties of the Gallican Church and so many other great Catholick Writers on that subject are extant and frequent and conversant with them daily Where finally that King in their opinion is both their own and really most Christian and themselves of the same Religion with him and by him all their interests both religious and civil spiritual and temporal in the greatest latitude and height they can desire maintained exactly I confess that from such men of such principles in such a Country and to such a Prince these three Propositions barely as they are worded might peradventue do well enough But to conclude hence or that because the French King was pleased or satisfied with them so as coming from and presented to himself by Sorbon His Majesty of Great Britain our Gracious King must be or should be in our present case and on the points controverted amongst us pleased or satisfied with the self same resolutions or propositions aâ—d in the self same words only the application changed without any further addition explanation or descent to particulars and so pleased with them as coming from us were a very great fallacie and very great folly The cases are different in all particulars And therefore it must be consequent in reason that more particulars may and should be required and in other words that is in words expresly and sufficiently declaring as well against all equivocations and other evasions as particularly to the particular points in our own case The design having been as it is and must be yet to get us to resolve and declare satisfactorily and our own Interest and that of our Religion too especially as now in Ireland leading us thereunto But alas the private Interests of some very few men of that Congregation blew durst in the eyes of all the rest so as they
vary about the many particulars to which his Royal Authority could extend it self and out of error attribute some such particulars to the Pope That besides notwithstanding our being right in our judgment or doctrine of the Kings supream power in Temporals and his independency in all kind of cases from any but God alone as to his said Temporals we might erre about the Temporals themselves and think many of them spirituals that are not such at all and consequently out of that error deny the Kings Authority where we should not That of this kind are all benefices Ecclesiastical as to the Lands and Revenues and all other earthly Goods any way belonging to the Church Nay and of this kind too the very bodies of ecclesiastical Persons how spiritual soever by denomination That we might also and out of errour notwithstanding our attributing sincerely the supream independent power to the King in all Temporals think or teach peradventure against the native liberties of the Irish Church such an unlimitted spiritual power in the Pope over the spiritual things or spiritual persons in this Kingdom as might be not only against the ancient spiritual Canons received in the said kingdom but against equity and reason and Religion too and very enormously also though indirectly or by consequence only but that an infallible one against the King and Kingdom even in their Temporals purely such As for example a power of election to all kind of benefices even Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Sees as well as Parochial Churches and to all these as well as those And a power of translation at his pleasure And a hundred others which may be read at large in Monsieur Pierre Pithou's great and most accurat work intituled Les Liberties de l'Eglise Gallicane and more briefly in Father Redmond Carons second Appendix to his Remonstrantia Hibernorum that last and most learned work of his and all without the Kings consent nay contrary to his express will and the fundamental Laws of the Land That it was therefore the Sorbon-Faculty who are men understand very well what is superfluous and what not and whether the matter of this fourth Proposition contained or not any thing different from the three former or from any other consisting of a general acknowledgment of their Kings most absolute independent Supremacy in Temporals it was I say therefore they would give immediatly after the three former this fourth as specifically declaring against those injuries might be otherwise done by the Pope to their Church Kingdom or King under pretence of such a spiritual power and right only which could not be said to be of its own nature either ordinarily or extraordinarily inconsistent with the supream absolute and independent power of their King in all contingencies whatsoever and yet per se would be unquestionably most injurious and grievous to them and per accidens might prove their utter bane and even as fatal to them as Bellarmine's indirect power in temporals which they protested against in their first proposition That Finally an ordinary person may understand it is one thing and much less to declare our indispensable Allegiance to the King and his independent power in all temporals and an other and much more to declare we understand that Allegiance so as we ought to hold it an incroachment on the Kings said temporal rights and authority and on the both temporal and spiritual rights also of his Catholick Subjects that the Pope should attempt in many or any particular within his Kingdoms to dispose for example sake of goods or persons though by title otherwise Ecclesiastical or Spiritual against the Canons by them received or which is the example of Sorbone to depose a Bishop within his Dominions against the said Canons And therefore it must be clear that by Subscribing the said fourth proposition duely applied mutatis nominibus the Congregation might very well and truly and rightly too have conceived they had said more than they had already or before by subscribing the former three Propositions and Remonstrance even in case I say their said Remonstrance and three Propositions had a full cleer and sufficient expression as from them to obviat all reservations abstractions distinctions equivocations c much more when it is apparent out of my two former Tracts there is no expression at all sufficient as from them to obviat such delusions So much for their first allegation or proof Though as I have before noted if it be intended a proof of the applicableness of their first general reason to the particular of this fourth Proposition it be no new medium but idem per idem and a petitio principij To their second which is that they admit not any power derogatory to His Majesties authority the answers are That I could wish 't were so indeed That they have given as yet no sufficient proof they do not if we understand what they here say as plain honest sincere men would understand these words That understanding by His Majestie 's authority what they do indeed which in effect is a very pittiful authority an authority at best and at most subordinat to that of the Pope Church and People when either please to declare against it in any of those extraordinary cases of Schisme Heresie Apostacie Tiranny c. and an authority also which even out of such cases hath no power to hinder the Pope's absolute disposition of all Ecclesiastical benefices and persons at his pleasure understanding I say this kind of authority their medium is new indeed but vain and inconclusive For how doth it follow we admit no power derogatory to such His Majesties authority Therefore we have already by saying so attributed to our Gracious King whatever the Sorbone Doctors in truth and reallity have to their own in this fourth proposition Or therefore we shall never approve any propositions contrary to His Majesties authority meaning such as it is indeed not such as by fiction curtayled nor approve any propositions contrary to the genuine liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in the same Kingdom as for example that the Pope can depose Bishops against the same Canons Or therefore our second general reason for not subscribing the three last Propositions is specifically applicable to the first of them being in order the fourth of the six Which reason was that we thought we had already sufficiently cleared all Scruples If any of these consequences follow then hath Aristotle failed much in his Topicks As for their third allegation to prove this applicableness and consequently their subscription to this fourth to be not necessary but Superfluous which allegation is in effect as I understand it that they had already more positively declared themselves for the Kings authority rights c. and they should add too or at least mean if they would alledge any thing here to purpose that they had so declared themselves also for the true or genuin liberties of the Irish Church and Canons received in
the doctrine or Theses of those that maintained the same pretended infallibility of the Pope to be not onely matter of Religion and faith that is to be fide divina believed but also to be so believed to extend it self to all kind of matters questions disputes or controversies of or concerning what is delivered in the Depositum of faith and what is not or concerning what is lawful and what is not even as much as the undoubted infallibility of the Catholick Church either representative or diffusive can be any way extended to such And consequently could not but know the doctrine of infallibility in all such matters disputes or controversies must of necessity regard or concern this very particular matter dispute and controversy of the obedience due or not due by Subjects in all cases or in such and such special ones to their King or to him that is reputed King being it is one of the particulars included in that Vniversal Thirdly That although it be confessed the said infallibility either pretended or true for it matters not which for our purpose now as falling upon any other matter distinct from that obedience we owe our Prince doth not per se directly and immediately regard or concern that obedience yet mediately indirectly and per accidens it may and even directly often us and the Prince himself nay and the quiet and peace too of his Kingdoms For besides the general concernment of salvation or of having or not having errors in Christian Religion obtruded on us at the Popes pleasure or fancy or out of his ignorance as it may happen or of that of his few Roman Divines only when he defines without a General Council what ever the matter be there are very many particulars wherein Popes may usurp and have usurped already a power of definition which against the universal Canons and Reason and Justice too incroach on the rights both of Prince Clergy and other Catholick People or Subjects though such particulars do not immediatly directly or per se regard this particular question of our Allegiance to the Prince in temporals or though notwithstanding such definitions we were suffered still to acknowledge and obey him as our supream Lord in meeâ— temporals without any definition against that how ever with many disturbances withal on spiritual pretences tending often though per accidens only to the both temporal and spiritual ruine of both Prince Clergy and people Whereof sufficient and manifold instances may be given out of those we call the Liberties of the Gallican Church and such as are common also to other national Churches especially in the matter of Investitures Nominations Presentations Collations Resignations Unions Translations and of Legats and Nuncius's c. That as I have said before to this of impertinency the Sorbon Divines or University or Clergy or Archbishop of Paris in 63. were not of our Congregations judgment in this point or of Father N. N's but perswaded that the Popes pretended infallibility even I say as matter of Faith and Religion and even I say too as not particularly or only relating to their Allegiance concerned notwithstanding both their Prince and themselves and that obedience too for they declared against it in general And so might and ought both Father N. N. and our Congregation but that they would seem more wise and less sincere than Sorbon and the University Clergy and Archbishop of Paris In the third place I must answer his pretence of odium where he sayes in Congregations name We are loath forreign Catholick Nations should think we treat of so odious and unprofitable a question c. That he imposeth mightily and injuriously on forrein Catholick Nations That there is not one such in all Europe and of the rest you may judge by Europe where this question is odious at all in the negative resolve to all indeed it is in the affirmative or in the assertion of such an infallibility in the Pope as matter of faith and religion unquestionably though to all also very indifferent for both sides as it is only disputed scholastically speculatively or problematically without intending it as matter of faith and religion in the affirmative or of any further design either by the affirmative or negative than of opposing truth to error and certainty of divine belief to the uncertainty of humane opinion or collection though seemingly or probably deduced out of Scripture-places or some others of great esteem amongst us That neither some few Divines at Rome nor that whole City or Clergy therein if all were of that opinion of the Popes infallibility as matter of faith and religion not even taking along with them the most blessed Pope himself the Cardinals and whole Court do make one little Nation no nor if you further aggregate unto them all those other few Divines and few I call such comparatively or in relation to all Catholick Divines of the contrary side who in several other Countreys of Europe either privately or publickly in their Schools or Writings maintain either dogmatically or problematically that assertion of the Popes infallibility or maintain it any way at all either as matter of religion and faith or as matter only of meer uncertain but yet probable opinion That by their own confession the Universities of France and these are eight in all have concurred in the negative which denyes any such infallibility to the Pope and by consequence this question as to the negative answer must not be odious in that Country That whatever France or the Gallican Church maintains in relation to faith and religion is not odious nor can be in any other Catholick Nation of Christendome because they are all of the same faith religion and communion with France and the Gallican Church That the controversie of the Venetians in 1606. with Paulus V. and all the consequents of it show manifestly that all the Catholick Countreys subject to that Commonwealth reject the Popes infallibility and hold it not odious to determine against it That for the German Hungar and Polish Nation the General Councils of Constance and Basil which for a very great part consisted of them and their general esteem and veneration to this day of those Councils and amongst other Canons made by those Councils of that particularly which altogether subjects the Pope to a General Council sufficiently prove this question and resolution of it in the negative cannot be odious to them as neither to any other Nation that maintains the Supremacy of a General Council above the Pope which all Catholick Nations and people do generally with the said Council For it must be an infallible consequence that if a General Council be above the Pope the infallibility cannot be in the Pope alone without a General Council That for Spain and other Kingdoms subject to it in the dayes of Philip the Second it may be seen out of his Edict published and observed by them against the eleventh tome of Baronius concerning the Monarchy and I mean
here that which they call so or the Sicilian Monarchy both in temporals and spirituals and by a thousand other oppositions against the proceedings Bulls and other attempts of several Popes by themselves and Nuncius's and yet more particularly and more home to the point out of the Spanish Divines that write of this question and out of the great esteem of Catholickness the Spaniards have of such Authors and in particular and above all the rest for Alphonsus de Castro who in his book de haeresibus proves so clearly and by so many instances the Popes fallibility even as he is Pope I say that hence it sufficiently appears this question and solution of it against the Popes infallibility is not so odious at all in that great Spanish Monarchy That I have my self in the Low-countreys an appendage of it being present some eight or nine and twenty years since or there abouts in Lovaine at the publick disputes of the two famous Professors then of Divinity in the Colledge of the Jesuits De Young and Derkennis heard and seen and read in their printed Theses's under their own names one of them in the forenoon and the other in the afternoon maintain the contradictories upon the subject of this question one of them in his general conclusions Ex tota Theologia asserting that Papa ut Papa errare non potest in definiendis controversiis fidei and the other in a particular matter as they call it which was de Fide Spe charitate that Papa ut Papa errare possit in definiendis etiam fidei Controversiis So that the very Fathers of the Society then in that Countrey and in that very hoâ—se where Bellarmine himself taught have been so far from reputing this question so odious that they disputed and determined it against this pretended infallibility of the Pope That no where to day out of Italy alone it may be with any colour said to be so odious if not perhaps in the Colledge of Cleremont and there only too peradventure to some very few two or three perhaps those inconsiderat men who out of vanity and folly raised of late so great a storm against and fixed so great a blemish on their own Society or that house in particular by their blasphemous Theses which is called the new heresie of the Iesuites because it asserted the Pope to be as infallible even in matter of fact as Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour no where in Italy it self out of the Popes temporal Jurisdiction nor there is it by others then States-men and Courtiers if not by some few and raw or young smattering and flattering and some other few ambitious and consequently fearful Divines or Canonists That neither the Popes themselves how jealous soever and zealous for maintaining their own power not even the most blessed Father Alexander the 7th who sits at this time in St. Peters Chair accounts it so odious not even now after he hath seen this sixth and solemn Declaration or Proposition of the Sorbonists upon it For if they had accounted it so odious how comes it to pass that we have never yet seen one Declaration of theirs or of any of them since Gregory the 7th whom I find to be the first pretended it in plain terms though herein as unfortunate as in his other pretence of the whole Earths Monarchy or power from Christ to dispose at his pleasure of the Crowns and Empires of the world and to depose Princes how comes it I say to pass that ever since for so many hundred years wherein the question has been canvassed we have not seen as much as any one single Declaration of any Pope against that clear express resolution of it in the negative and in so many Catholick and great Writers Gerson Almain Castro Adrian c. whereof one was a most virtuous Pope In quaest de confirmat Adrianus Papa Sextus which resolution or determination of it in the negative against the Popes infallibility was that only renders it so odious in Father N. N's esteem Or how comes it to pass that now so lately eight entire Universities some hundreds of Doctors together and by consequence the whole Gallican Church in effect debating determining the same question and in the negative also our most blessed Father Alexander the 7th if he had conceived it or their resolution so odious in point of religion or conscience tells not them or the rest of the world so much at least or at least of the very question and resolution in it self without any mention of them That if it be or suppose it be so odious or odious at all to the Pope or Court of Rome and to the Jesuites or some of them or a few other Church-men in several Countreys dispersed sticklers for the temporal greatness of that Prince or Court and sticklers for it so either out of ignorance or pre-occupation or ambition or fear and awe they stand in of their immediate or mediate Ecclesiastical Superiours yet Father N. N. should consider 1. That all these taken together make not up the number of forrein Catholick Nations nor as much as one of them or of those forrein Catholick Nations whose dis-esteem of disfavour they are so loath to hazzard 2. That albeit the Popes alone or his Courts dis-esteem or dis-favour be much to be regarded at least by such as have their temporal dependencies of his Holiness whether in Ecclesiastical Benefices or otherwise and whether within his own temporal Jurisdiction or without or in that of other Princes or States yet where the debate or controversie is in point of Religion or Faith especially of such a one as all the very fundamentals of all Religion and Faith depends of it there is no conscientious knowing Christian will say That either the esteem or dis-esteem favour or dis-favour of any Court or Prince on earth temporal or spiritual should have over at least the Priests of God and their Arch-priests too gathered together out of a whole Nation such power or keep them in such awe as therefore to wave the declaration of their Conscience or Faith in such a point being solemnly demanded it and by the lawfullest and greatest Authority could demand it of them For any such Christian will say that to do so would become very ill the Successors of the Apostles commanded upon all occasions to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and all the truths of it sincerely though they should be hated and persecuted by all men even to death for doing so And could to this purpose mind Father N. N. and the Congregation of that command of Christ Ite docete omnes gentes and docentes eos omnia quae mandavi vobis And also of that judgment of his Mat. 10. Luk. 9. Mark 8. Mat. 10. Qui negaverit me verbunt meum as Mark has it in generatione ista adultera peccatrite ego negabo eum coram Patre meo qui in caelis est filius hominis
confundetur super eum cum venerit in gloria Patris sui cum Angelis sanctis And then of the prediction Odio eritis omnibus propter nomen meum And after in the last place of the benediction of the encouragement and great reward therefore Beâ—ti eritis cum vos oderint homines cum separaverint vos exprobraverint ejeâ—erint nomen vestrum tanquam malum propter filium hominis gaudeâ—e in illa die exultate ecce enim merces vestra multa est incaelo secundum haec enim faciebant prophetis patres eorum 3. That the Clergy of Ireland least of any Clergy in the world hath any such dependencies at this present of the Pope and his Court. They have not from him or any else either benefice or pension if not perhaps some few Capucines and a very few more that receive from that Court and for their mission yearly some little inconsiderable sum Their benefices and patrimony is the sole benevolence of the poor Catholick Laytie which the Pope cannot take from them if themselves please And therefore must be the less excusable by much I speak according to humane weakness For it is a confessed truth they should not for the whole temporal patrimony of the Pope or Prince either speak or be silent against their Faith in such an occasion at least as that was of the Congregation And for their dependence of him in spirituals properly or purely such they know very well the maxime of the great Apostle There is no power to destruction but for edification Besides they are sure enough the Pope would not if he could lessen or weaken or discountenance that And that his Holyness cannot but understand very well that the veneration of his See and of his predecessors hath been much greater when this pretence of infallibility was far lesser and that that may be again expected when this shall be no more challenged and that to this end besides the regard of Souls the continuance of them in their spiritual functions in Ireland will be as useful as so many Church-men amongst such a people 4. That besides their independence in any kind of temporals from the Pope or his Court both Clergy and Laytie of Ireland of his communion are generally ruined as we see at present and eternally too for ought we see both themselves and posterity after them in their temporals and God send that only in their temporals for through and by their too much observance of that Court and the supream Bishop of it and yet nothing the more relieved or regarded after by him or his Court if a few parchment-rolls titulary Bishopricks or Vicarships in partibus that is here at home in miserable Ireland but given withal to such men only as were imployed by the chief Ministers of that Court of purpose to add fuell to the fire instead of quenching the flame while there was either fire ot flame or may be further yet any such expected be not reputed a relief or regard of a whole Nation that lost it self unfortunatly upon such foolish accounts And consequently least of any Catholicks in the world ought to regard the odium of that Court where they saw no other odium of other men against them on the account which only ought to be regarded amongst them of having done any thing against the truth or will of God against faith or religion which neither N. N. nor any else of the Congregation did as much as pretend unto against this sixth or any of the two former propositions unsubscribed by them 5. That if notwithstanding so many so clear and satisfactory answers the Fathers of the Congregation be yet unsatisfied of the unreasonableness and and unsufficiency of this pretence of odium to decline the subscription of the Popes fallibility if their apprehension of being lessened in the esteem or favour of the most blessed Alexander the 7th or of those are powerful in his Court who may give or hinder those vain concessions of I know not what empty titles expected thence of the translation of one from one titular See to another or the succession of another to an Archbishoprick not vacant as yet or the promotion of a third and fourth to other two such vacant Sees or of so many others of them both secular and regular to as many Bishopricks as there are such Irish titles in the Roman list each one pretending for one and some for more to be sure at last of one or of some also to inferiour titles to Vicariats Apostolical or General or even to Deanryes and Parsonages though still bare titles only or of the election or institution of Regulars to their own peculiar offices of Provincials Commissaries Visitators Priors Guardians Rectors c If I say their apprehension or fear of seeing all their hopes of and long pursuit after such empty titles how inconsiderable and invaluable soever in their own nature or esteem of others thwarted crossed frustrated wholy perswade them as yet of the reasonableness of this pretence of odium in the Roman Court against the question or that resolution of it or if moreover their expectation or inclination to which God forbid should be or I should charge on them a new conquest by forreigners in the present conjuncture of affairs in this year 66. expected by so many to produce as many more wonders do help on that perswasion of that resonableness and that no consideration no regard of what becomes Apostolical Bishops of Christ and Priests of God to do for discharge of their conscience in point of declaring their faith or doctrine especially on such an occasion as that was whereof we treat then I must tell Father N. N. and rest of our fathers of the Congregation in the first place that they proceed inconsequently alleaging here that odium for their excuse in not subscribing the 6th which if any such odium be they have incurred before for subscribing the first three For certainly the Popes and that Court have ever yet farr more concerned themselves in maintaining their pretences of power to depose Kings than that other of infallibility in themselves without a Council In the next place that they quite mistate and mistake the wayes to attain or retain what they would be at For matters as to them too run not in the same Channel now they have under former Princes this last hundred years We have through Gods favour a Gracious and wise King and Ministers answerable that can and will make some neerer inspection into the affairs and intrigues of their Roman Catholick Subjects of the Clergie as well as into those of others and as farr as they relate to their own safety and that of all their Subjects of whatever Religion or Communion And in the last place that supposing or granting the very worst of their expectations desires or fears that which no true Subject or good Catholick of these Dominions can desire yet as to such contingencies also future
possible or imaginable they have both inconsequently and imprudently refused for any such odium of the Court of Rome to subscribe the said 6th proposition whereas they had before signed the three first There could be no greater odium of that Court incurred than had been so already And I am sure no forreigner they or any of them could expect or suppose but would have them incurr that odium what ever it be or if any be which they pretend here amongst their reasons Sixthly That Father N. N. and the Congregation should consider that whatever they think of that odium of the Court of Rome against the negative resolve of that question it is not comparable in greatness in it self or in the evil of its consequents to that other grand odium indeed that is generally of all other Courts and Princes Nations and Prelats Clergie and lay people that understand any thing of what ever Religion or Communion they be Catholick or uncatholick against the affirmative resolve asserting this infallibility of the Pope alone without the Church or a general Council That not onely the odium hereof is truely so great and so general but the consequents of it so fatal that it alone estranged at first so many Christian Churches and Nations and rent them in pieces from one another and ever since that fatal breach that it alone principally with-holds so many millions without the pale of the Catholick Church and until it be silenced wholy wholy bid adieu for ever and for ever exterminated out of the Church as cockle which the inimicus homo sowed in the field of Wheat when men did sleep securely there can be little hopes of reunion And it alone hath been the chief original occasion of making in these Northern Countries so many severe lawes against Papists and further yet is at this very present the grand obstacle to their repeal And consequently it alone the very head-spring of all those miseries under which both as well the members of that Congregation as all other Catholicks in this Country have groaned these hundred years and do more than ever now at this very present groan Wherefore Father N. N. and the Congregation have been much overseen to start this animadversion against themselves by alleadging the odiousness of the question For all prudent men will tell them they ought to look on that Scale which instantly weighed down right to the ground Seventhly And lastly that neither of the most blessed Pope himself nor of his Court or Courtiers they needed fear the odium nor the consequents of any such a hinderance or obstacle to their pretensions which indeed alone is the bugbear that imaginarily frighted them I say they needed fear no such if they pleased themselves as they could easily to sign generally and unanimously a Proposition so Catholick For by their good and hearty example all the rest of the Clergie would have done the same And who then would have opened his mouth against them at Rome at least to their hinderance or to put obstacle to the pretensions of any on that account questionless none at all when his Holiness or Ministers could not find any other to be preferred but such to those however inconsiderable titulary places And so much his present Holinesse's late Internuncius of Bruxels Hieronimus de Vecehijs being come to London about two years and a half since and remaining some five or six dayes incognito told my self in a conference I had with him at Sommerset-house for about three hours together in presence of two Gentlemen that were along with me Father Redmond Caron and Father Patrick Magin alive yet one of Her Majesties Chaplins where he told us all that if the Irish Clergie were of one mind and had all of them generally signed the Remonstrance of 61. His Holyness or Court of Rome would not speak against us or it notwithstanding whatever Propositions contained therein And I am sure the Propositions therein formally or virtually contained may be rationally said and are indeed in themselves more odious to that Court than this last of Sorbone So that from hence partly and partly too from several knowledges and several other arguments which I pass over now it is cleer enough the Congregation had no other kind of odium to apprehend or fear against any for signing that Proposition as neither for signing any of the rest but that which themselves or some of them or their own Irish Agents in the several Countryes or Colleges abroad particularly at Rome have raised or would hereafter at their own desire or solicitation And I am sure every one of them could forbear if they pleased not to be so buisy against themselves or any others As I am also very sure that such of them as formerly have imployed some three or four years past Father John Brady of Saint Francis's order to Lovain of purpose to solicit and obtain by the power and influence of the then Internuncius of Bruxels the foresaid Hieronimus de Vechijs and by their own misrepresentations the censure of the Theological Faculty there against the Remonstrance of 61. which the said Father did obtain though it be a very sorry and ill grounded one and so ill and unreasonable I mean that which contains their grounds and reasons at length in seaven or eight sheets of paper that it would never abide the publick view nor a copie thereof ever since to be had from those Divines had done much better to themselves and others if they had not over-buisied themselves in that matter And therefore I conclude from first to last It aboundantly appears out of so many answers their pretence here of a question so odious did no way serve their turn sufficiently to excuse them from signing the Sorbone declaration or sixth Proposition in such modest tearms applyed to themselves against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church To that other of unprofitableness for they say that it is not onely odious but withal unprofitable I can say first with St. Paul that piety is a great gain That there is no greater piety amongst good Christians especially Apostolical men Priests of God and Bishops appointed by the holy Spirit to govern their respective flocks in all matters appertaining to the Spirit than to declare the truths of God uncorruptedly to them and oppose all innovation and all rules of doctrine besides that which was unquestionably once delivered and is from the beginning handed all along for so many ages to the present without any contradiction amongst Catholicks That such is not this new rule of the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church or a general Council but such as exposeth all the certainty of Christian Religion to uncertainty and Heresie That for any temporal or earthly gaine how great soever nay were the whole world as to the carnal or temporal commodities thereof to be gained infallibly should any man much less any Christian and least of all any Bishop or
Priest treat of or debate any question or subscribe any Proposition or declaration against his conscience and Religion nor on the other side ought or could any person at least such as are commanded by God and whose commission and function it is from the holy Jesus and holy Spirit to preach and teach purely the Gospel of Christian Religion and oppose by all just means any kind of innovation in the rule of Catholick and saving faith ought or could any such I say through fear of loosing those temporal profits of the whole earth had he them in actual possession omit to treat or debate or declare or subscribe a Proposition sound in it self and necessary withal in circumstances even as relating to such treatie debate declaration or subscription to oppose such innovation That such is this question and such the 6th declaration or proposition being a negative resolve of it against the Popes infallibility without the consent of the Church For were not the said resolve Catholick or sound in Catholick Religion even in the judgment of Father N. N. and of the Congregation they should have cleerly said so and were bound by their calling and on pain of everlasting damnation to have answered so for the discharge of their duty to God and their flocks Neither should any fear or favor have hindered their answering so For what will it availe a man to gaine the whole world and suffer the detriment of his Soul was the question of our Lord. And again in on other place do not fear those that kill the body onely but fear him that hath power to cast both body and Soul into everlasting fire was the same Heavenly Masters advise and command unto his Disciples And that the question it self of the Popes infallibility without a Council as that of the Councils without or against the Pope when he will not conform to them and the resolve of it on one side or other for or against the Pope is so necessary where the question is debated publickly and seriously for a resolve there is no man of judgement can deny Because thereon depends the whole certainty of what we are to believe or what we are to hope for as a necessary mean to Salvation It being manifest that Popes often have declared and commanded us many things to believe and may hereafter yet much more which the Church never did consent unto nay which many Catholick Churches in Europe have already and often too both contradicted and condemned But if the Pope or his determination be the infallible rule of faith then must all such people or Churches be in a damnable condition as opposing that rule and beleiving an error That hence it appears sufficiently and evidently this question or treatie of it is not onely not unprofitable but the most profitable can be seeing it regards directly the greatest profit imaginable that of the Salvation of Souls by the necessary rule or means of saving faith That further the profittableness of the negative resolve against the Popes infallibility if that resolve be Catholick in it self as neither Father N. N. nor Congregation denyes but grants it to be doth hence appear that such resolve alone removes the grand obstacle of reunion and reconciliation of such a world of particular Churches that profess Christ and by consequence of their Salvation by restoring them to the vnity of rhe Catholick Church wherein alone as in the Ark Noah Salvation is to be had For the grand remora is that by reason of that challenge of the Pope or rather of others for him of an absolute infallibility in himself they think they cannot expect his communion without being lyable to impositions on them in matters of faith at his pleasure and such impositions too as very many most learned and pious Catholicks themselves in all countries will not cannot submit unto but must therefore abide such vexation often as no less often makes their Communion with the Roman See and Pontiff cumbersome and loathsome and a yoake of that great absolute and intollerable subjection which neither themselves or Fathers before them could bear with Christian patience That if the reduction of so many millions of straying sheep into the fold and the consequent Salvation of their Souls or the preservation of those are in it already appear not sufficient arguments of profitableness to Father N.N. and the Congregation in the debate and resolve of this question if that which brings along with it per se and of its own nature the greatest Spiritual profit can be the gaine of Soules and eternal Salvation in the other life be not ranked hereby him or them in the number of things profitable but comprehended as onely such and understood by his and their unprofitable question which yet I believe F. N. N. or the Congregation will hardly own and if they will have us understand here that which as to the conveniencies of this world and life is unprofitable let it be so and then too let all prudent men judge whether people of their Condition Country and Religion should not esteem and confess that question and resolve of it in the present circumstances to be indeed not onely not unprofitable in any respect but certainly and without contradiction very profitable as being the most useful they could fix upon before together with or next after a sufficient Oath of Allegiance to remove the great jealousy hath been justly harboured as of the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland and their predecessors this entire last centurie of years ever since at least Queen Mary's Reign so and farr yet more of the present Clergie ever since the 23th of October 1641. and most of all since the Waterford Congregation in 46. and James-town Council in 48. and of their too too great dependency of the Court of Rome and too too great credulitie in or belief of and submission to any decree or command or even to an ordinary letter proceeding thence though onely from one of the Ministers and also though to the direct and absolute ruine of the King and of his Kingdoms and people together And let all prudent men judge whether being that Congregation was held by the Fathers and their Remonstrance and three first Propositions of Sorbone were subscribed by them and presented of purpose or at least under pretence to remove those jealousies and thereby obtain for themselves and rest of the Clergie and to the lay people too directed by them some peace and some ease and some indulgence and comfort either by an absolute revocation of the penal Laws against their Religion or by a mitigation or suspension of such Laws and that the Fathers thought or undoubtedly should think any thing in it self otherwise Catholick or honest and just that should be in the then present circumstances useful to that end to be also profitable in this world or life because helping on that end or that relaxation or suspension of the Laws which questionless they esteem profitable even
of so many former abroad in other parts of Europe since Gregory the 7th so manifest in History force not a confession of all this from F. N. N or if the very nature of the positions in themselves and the judgment of all judicious and ingenuous men of the world prevail not with him to confess that a general decision and resolve of the Roman Catholick Clergy in Ireland as well against the Popes pretence of infallibility as against his other of a power for deposing the King and raising at pleasure his Subjects in rebellion and against both absolutely and positively be not one of the most rational wayes to hinder the disturbance of King and Countrey as from such Clergie-men and others of their Communion and Nation and if the denyal of such decision and resolve against either pretence especially against this of infallibility since it is plain that if the Pope be admitted infallible his deposing power must necessarily and instantly follow because already and manifoldly declared by several Popes if I say this denyal convince not the denyers and such denyers as the said Congregation in this Country and Conjuncture of a design or desire or pleasure or contentedness to leave still the roots or seeds of new disturbances of both King and Countrey in the hearts of their beleevers and if I say also F. N. N. himself will not upon more serious reflection acknowledge all this to be true and â—â—ident I am sure all other judicious and knowing men even such as are â—iâ—interested wholy in the quarrel and not his partisans will That finally what I have to say is That whosoever is designed by him to be per stringed in or by this last pretence of furthering this dispute to the disturbance of both King and country may answer F. N. N. what the Prophet Elias did Achab on the like occasion Non ego turbavi Israel sic 〈◊〉 demâ—â— Patris tui 3 Reg. 18.18 qui â—ereliquistis mandata Domini secuti estis Bealim And 〈◊〉 that nâ—â— such person alone who ever chiefly perhaps intended nor his few other associates only perstringed likewise by F. N. N. and congregation in this perclose of their Paper but the poor afflicted Church of Ireland generally as it compriseth all beleevers of both sorts and sexes Ecclesiastical and Lay-persons of the Roman Communion nay but the Catholick Church of Christ universally throughout the world hath cause enough already and will I fear have much more yet to say as well to him and the Congregation as to all such other preposterous defenders of her interests what Iacob said to Simeon and Levi Gen. 34.30 upon the sack of Sichem Turbastis me â—diosum fecistis me Chananaeis Pherezaeis habitatoribus terrae hujus And more I have not to say here on this subject of infallibility But leave the Reader that expects more on that question or this dispute in it self directly and as it abstracts from the present indirect consideration to turn over to the last Treatise of this Book Where he shall find more at large and directly to that purpose what I held not so proper for this place Though I confess it was the paper of those unreasonable reasons the answers to which I now conclude here that gave me the first occasion to add that sixth and last piece as upon the same occasion I have the fifth also immediately following this fourth Only I must add by way of good advice to F. N. N That if he or the Congregation or both or any for them will reply to these answers or to what I have before said in my second or third Treatise on their Remonstrance and three first Propositions or even in my first though a bare Narrative only and matter of notorious fact related and if they will have such reply to be home indeed it cannot be better so than by their signing the 15. following Propositions Which to that purpose I have my self drawn and had publickly debated for about a moneth together in another but more special Congregation of the most learned men of this Kingdom and their own Religion held even in that very house where the former sate and immediatly after they were dissolved The Fourteen PROPOSITIONS of F. P. W. Or the doctrine of Allegiance which the Roman Catholick Clergie of Ireland may with a safe Conscience and at this time ought in prudence to subscribe unanimously and freely as that onely which can secure His Majestie of them as much as hand or subscription can and that onely too which may answer the grand objection of the inconsistency of Catholick Religion and by consequence of the toleration of it with the safety of a Protestant Prince or State 1. Prop. HIS Majestie CHARLES the Second King of England is true and lawful King Supream Lord and rightful Soveraign of this Realm of Ireland and of all other His Majesties Dominions and all the Subjects or people as well Ecclesiastick as Lay of His Majesties said Kingdoms or Dominions are obliged under pain of sin to obey His Majestie in all Civil and Temporal affairs 2. His said Majestie hath none but God alone for Superiour or who hath any power over him Divine or Human Spiritual or Temporal Direct or indirect ordinary or extraordinary de facto or de jure in his temporal rights throughout all or any of his Kingdoms of England Ireland Scotland and other Dominions annexed to the Crown of England 3. Neither the Pope hath nor other Bishops of the Church joyntly or severally have any right or power or authority that is warrantable by the Catholick Faith or Church not even in case of Schisme Heresie or other Apostacy nor even in that of any private or publick oppression whatsoever to deprive depose or dethrone His said Majestie or to raise his Subjects whatsoever of His Majesties foresaid Kingdoms or Dominions in Warr Rebellion or Sedition against him or to dispense with them in or absolve them from the tye of their sworn Allegiance or from that of their otherwise natural or legal duty of obedient faithful Subjects to His Majestie whether they be sworn or not 4. Nor can any sentence of deprivation excommunication or other censure already given or hereafter to be given nor any kind of Declaration dispensation or even command whatsoever proceeding even from the Pope or other spiritual authority of the Church warrant His Subjects or any of them in conscience to rebel or to lessen any way His said Majesties said Supream Temporal and Royal rights in any of his said Kingdoms or Dominions or over any of his people 5. It is against the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the primitive Church to pretend that there is a natural or inhere at right in the people themselves as Subjects or members of the civil common-wealth or of a civil Society to take arms against their Prince in their own vindication or by such means to redress their own either pretended or true grievances
will not agree with the Parliament for not having it We are of opinion the best remedy the King 's Authority being taken away as was said of meeting this inconvenience of the Peoples closing with the Parliament is returning to the Confederacy as was intended by the Nation in case of breach of the Peace of His Majesties part This will keep an union amongst us if men will not be precipitantly guilty of breach of their Oath of Association which Oath by two solemn Orders of two several Assemblies is to continue binding if any breach of the Articles should happen of His Majesties part The King 's Authority and the Lord Lieutenants Commission being recalled by the Declaration abovesaid we are of opinion the Lord Lieutenant hath no such Authority to leave If we must expose Lives and Fortunes to the hazard of fighting for making good that Peace seeing the danger and prejudice is alike to defend that or get a better Peace why should we bound our selves within the limits of those Articles so disavowed Answer To this VVe answer That if they were alwayes of opinion all their endeavours should be employed to keep the King's Authority over them their Declaration and Excommunication is a strange way of manifesting that opinion which Declaration and Excommunication bears date before His Majesties Declaration wherein they say He throweth away the Nation as Rebels So that whatever His Majesty hath done in withdrawing His Authority it is apparent their endeavour to drive it away was first in time In their advice of returning to the Confederacy appears the scope of their dilemma's and arguments against the continuance of the King's Authority over them which that they may be sure to be rid of they say VVe have not Authority to leave Their Reasons why in Conscience they cannot consent to the revocation of their Declaration and Excommunication follow Vpon consideration of the whole matter we may not consent with safety of Conscience to the Provisoes of revoking our Declaration and Excommunication demanded by his Excellency or granting any assurance to him or the Commissioners of Trust for not attempting the like in the future and that for many Reasons especially for First Reason That the King's Authority is not in the Lord Lieutenant nor power in us to confer a new Authority on him being also destructive to the Nation to continue it in him and preservative if in another And that was our sense when we declared against the King's Authority in his person Answer The King's Authority was to Us when the Declaration and Excommunication was framed by them they acknowledge And that it is still in Us notwithstanding His Majesties said Declaration VVe are able to make good if We could find it of advantage to His service or the safety of His good Subjects But that they confess It is not in them to confer a new Authority upon us is one of the few Truths they have set down Yet why they may not pretend to give as well as take away Authority and why they may not to Us as well as to others We know not They further say It is destructive to the Nation if continued in Vs and preservative if in another and this they say was their sense when they declared against the King's Authority in Our person We would gladly know what We have done to change their sense since the time that by their many professions formerly recited they seemed to be of another opinion If it be for doing little or nothing We believe We have made it appear they are principally guilty of Our being out of action That it will be preservative to the Nation to have Authority to govern it in another We shall be glad to be convinced in the event Second Reason We much fear we should lose the few Churches remaining under his Government as we lost under him all the Churches of the Cities of Waterford and Kilkenny and the Towns of Wexford Rosse Clonmel Cashel Fethard Kilmallock c. In this agreeing with the Maccabees Maximus vero primus pro sactitate timâ—r exat templi Answer The loss of the places mentioned here is answered elsewhere We shall only add That as Cashel was lately deserted by some of those these men esteem obedient Children of Holy Church so the same men could neither be persuaded nor forced into Kilkenny when they had orders for it and by that means both places were lost Third Reason His Excellency having declared at Cork That he will maintain during his life the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches which may be the same in substance with the Oath of Covenant for ought we know we may not expect from him defence of the Catholick Religion Answer Whatever We declared at Cork in this particular was before the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and was published in Print and then well known to many of these Bishops So that they ought then to have been aware how they had concluded a Peace with one that had made such a Declaration rather than now after almost Two years to make it a ground of breaking the Peace What Our opinion is of the Covenant or the best Reformed Churches We hold not Our Self obliged to declare Resolved We were to defend the Peace concluded by Us in all the parts of it Which We have faithfully endeavoured to do and should still have endeavoured it if We had not been interrupted affronted and wholly disabled therein by the contrivement of those very Bishops their Brethren and Instruments Fourth Reason The scandal over all the world to make choice of one of a different Religion especially in Rome where His Holiness in His Agreement or Articles with the Queen of England had a Catholick Governour granted though not performed And we do fear the scourges of War and Plague that have fallen so heavy upon us are some evidences of Gods anger against us for putting Gods Causes and Churches under such a hand whereas that Trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the King's authority Answer Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to Us which they have endeavoured all the while to disguise under the personal scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of scandal at Rome for making choice as they call it as if they might choose their Governours of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they may not next pretend to the same fear of scandal for having a King of a different Religion and to the power of choosing one of their own Religion We know not Touching any agreement made between the Queen of England and His Holiness for a Governour for this Kingdom We have never heard of any such and We are most confident That in the agreement and consequently in the want of performance Her Majesty is falsely aspersed by the framers of this Paper Fifth Reason That we shall
the Religion and Catholick Church pure undefiled immaculate without spot or wrinckle whereby to invite and perswade others to it for the salvation of their souls or certainly that they must allow salvation as they neither do nor can to be found in other Congregations or Churches either Heretical or Schismatical And further he minded them seriously insisting no less earnestly thereupon That no earthly regard none at all of temporal either advantages or disadvantages of honour profit ease much less of such vain titles and preferments as they look after nor on the other side any apprehension of disfavour discountenance danger persecution nor loss of goods if they had any nor even of liberty and life could excuse them from this duty That whether all their hopes of the King and his great Ministers of his Councils and Parliaments or of the moderate people of the Protestant Church upon one side should fail them having done their own duty and their pleas of innocence and articles both or whatever else-were of no account and all their both nearest and dearest Lay-relative Proprietors to a man were destroyed at home and themselves finally forced abroad again or design'd to suffer in their own Countrey the extreamest rigour of laws either made already or hereafter to be at any time or contingencies there or if on the other side they were absolutely certain being exiled to meet with no less severity and cruelty from the Court of Rome or an angry incensed Pope and from all Princes and Catholick Prelates and People too where-ever they came that even this certainty of such evils however in themselves or to any prudent man neither probable nor morally possible could not excuse them from this duty That the first Subscribers had supposed all the very worst could happen beyond all fear and yet found themselves bound to do what they did That they conceived their special function nay Christianity it self obliged them so in the case and others of the same calling could pretend no special priviledge from Christ or his Gospel or his Church whatever the Courtiers of Rome but at their instance and importunity and that of their busie ignorant Agents and Sollicitours there did erroneously complement them with And therefore the conclusion of all was that he understood not with what confidence or conscience but that of horrour and sacriledge and of being guilty of the body and blood of our Lord and of eating and drinking judgment to themselves as St. Paul speaks or their own condemnation they could persisting in their obstinacy approach the Altars of God and celebrate the Divine and unbloudy Mysteries With which final conclusion as with all the rest of this last discourse notwithstandieg the Procurator most frequently and earnestly and pathetically perclosed all his several answers to the several parties of the Clergy and to those too of greatest authority and power amongst them even Provincials Vicars General Bishops and Archbishops yet which is very notable he never had hereunto at any time or from any person of them all one word of reply but sighs only from some arguing a remorse and silence from the rest without any remorse at all if their past and after actions be sufficient testimonies of their affections XIV Now after so long a discontinuance of or digression from the bare matter of fact and without further consideration of the arguments of either side or of the allegations of the dissenters the refutations or reasons insisted on by the Procurator to return back thither where I was treating how upon the arrival of the said Procurator about the end of August 1662. he had by conferring at Dublin with several of the chief heads there peevishly adverss to the Remonstrance some alledging one excuse and some another and others many together of such as you have seen already above or before the answers partly understood the whole intrigue from those men and partly too from others who came to him from several parts of the Countrey abroad of purpose to let him know the general conspiracy either enter'd or submitted unto even by some of the best affected most loyal heretofore of both Secular and Regular Clergy throughout all parts of the Kingdom against that Remonstrance and himself also upon account thereof if he persisted in his resolution to draw them to it or not to work for them a liberty as they vainly conceived he could to frame another unsignificant one for themselves and prevail for the acceptance of such by His Grace and by His Majesty the Procurator fully therefore now understanding what he was to do resolves in the first place to attempt the breaking of that ligue so general the breaking of it immediatly by some Instances at Dublin the Metrapolitan City Whose Clergy and their example must especially in such a matter have had great influence on the rest in other parts of the Kingdom and certainly so much that if they residing in the very sight of the State and giving daily intelligence to the rest abroad or if at least some leading men of them could not be wrought upon to desert so sinful and shameful I will not say disloyal a confederacy there could be no hopes at all to prevail with any others In which attempt he was presently after some little pains taken so far succesful as to have reason'd to a subscription publick owning thereof the Guardian other Fathers of the Franciscan Convent in that City being in all five with them two of the Dominicans whereof one was the then Prior of Droghedah but residing at Dublin These were they that first of all others in Ireland at home next after Father Valentine Browne at Galway condemn'd by a clear and ever since constant profession and observance of their duty the rashness and sinfulness of that so general conspiracy against it Though I must confess that as many as after followed their example to this day have of themselves freely and heartily without compulsion or even other invitation then what was publick in the Book and Letters of the Procurator come along from several and some from very remote parts of the Kingdom to Dublin of purpose to subscribe that Instrument and thereby quiet their own conscience by declaring in that manner as they should and was expected from them their true allegiance to the Prince XV. But for as much as I doubt not there are very many both desirous and curious to know the number and names of all those of the Clergy Regular or Secular who have then or at any time since concurred for the number and names of the Subscribers at London of that Clergy together with the Bishop of Dromore I have already given with the Remonstrance it self in the beginning of this Treatise as they are extant in print and because it will be more satisfaction to give them altogether then dispersedly in several places as they signed at several times the Reader may satisfie himself here in both particulars