How the in Ireland. them of the Queen's protection, forfeits their lands and tenements, goods, and chattels, casts their bodies into prison for life, or during the pleasure of the Crown. As no infidel could contrive a more blasphemous mockery of religion than such a consecration would be, so it would puzzle a tyrant to invent a more cruel and disproportionate punishment. My consolation, and a great one it is, is that I do not and cannot so interpret the statute. I do not believe, nor shall I, until I am told so by the highest judicial authority in the land, that we have such a law under which we live. I do not believe that in any age, or under any Monarch, Lords and Commons of England would be found to pass a law with such enactments as these-under which such things could even be possible. I cannot think that, for so many centuries, holy men should have been found, in unbroken series, content to lay on their consciences so heavy burthens as these. But it was said that the construction of the statute I decase stands precate in such strong language-(language I meant not to be strong, but the simplest statement of the idea which it conveys makes it seem strong)-only brings about, in substance, the same state of things as by law now exists in the realm of Ireland and in our Colonial Church. As regards the latter, the argument is wholly unfounded. The sees have been erected in the Colonies, and the Bishops appointed, not under any acts of the Legislature, but by the exercise of the royal prerogative alone, and the Metropolitan is under no statutory compulsion whatever as to the consecration; it cannot be pretended that he may not exercise an entire, though of course responsible, discretion as to the performance of that rite in any given case. And, as to Ireland, the argument, to have any weight, must assume the Crown's lawyers' construction of the statute; if consecration be not a ministerial act under the statute of Elizabeth, but the Metropolitan is at liberty to act according to his conscience, and will incur no penalties if he only refuses to consecrate, where the canonical unfitness of the appointed makes it right and proper that he should decline; then the legal condition of the Irish branch of the Church is not in any way to be pressed as an argument against the rule.' No. XLIII. ABSTRACT OF THE BULL OF POPE PAUL 111. DENOUNCED AGAINST KING HENRY VIII. The following account, and abridged summary of the contents, of this notable document, is extracted from Foulis's "History of Romish Treasons," &c. Lond. 1681, p. 315. "But let the king think as well as he pleaseth of his own authority, the pope will have as good opinion of his own; and to let King Henry see how far his jurisdiction reacheth, Paul III.(h) draws up a thundering bull against his Majesty, in which he deprives him of his dominions: this for some time he keeps by him, but at last sent it (i) roaring abroad; and what a notable thing it was, Father Paul (one of the most judicious Friars that ever set pen to paper) shall tell you(k)—a terrible thundering bull, such as was never used by his predecessors, nor imitated by his successors. "The thing itself being very long, and as tedious as idle, I shall refer you for it to their Bullaria, but the substance of it take as followeth. "It begins with a canting or Quaking preface (as most other Bulls do) oddly misapplying of the Holy Scripture to fob up the Papal power. "Rants dapperly against the king and his subjects that obey him. "Interdicts all cities, Churches, Places, which favour or adhere to him. "Declares him, his friends, and their children, deprived of all benefits and privileges, and uncapable to obtain any. "Absolves all his subjects from their oaths of obedience or allegiance to him their king. "Pronounceth that he and his adherents shall be held as infamous; their wills, Testimonies, Credits, and Authorities not to be of any validity. "Prohibits under papal punishment, to deal, trade, or have any medling with such wicked people. "Injoyns all ecclesiastics forthwith to avoid the king's dominions, nor to return thither but by a papal licence, upon sure certificate of the said king's repentance and submission "Commands the nobility, gentry, and others to make it their care and business to expel and depose the said Henry from his dominions. "Declares all leagues, treaties, or agreements, made by the said king, with other Christian princes, to be null; which if the said kings and potentates do not forthwith submit to as void and of none effect, that then their respective territories to lye under interdiction, and so to remain, till the said princes shall renounce all amity and alliance with the said Henry. "Exhorts and commands all the said princes and others by vertue of their obedience, to invade, spoil, take arms, and fight against the said king, and all those who are subject to him. And as for the goods, ships, and whatsoever else they take from the said English, He by his infallible and papal authority giveth to the said takers all right and propriety. "Willeth all Patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and all other ecclesiastics, under pain of the severest censures, publicly to declare by Bell Book and Candle, the said Henry and all his adherents excommunicated. 66 Requireth that none, under the guilt of the same censures, any way hinder the publication of this Bull against the king. "And if any do withstand, contradict, or gainsay, by any means, signs, or tokens whatever, this bull, that then he or they so opposing, shall incur the wrath of Almighty God and the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. "Dated at Rome at St. Mark's anno 1535, III. Kal. Septemb. In the 1st year of our Popedom." No. XLIV. TWO PAPAL EPISTLES ENCOURAGING O'NEILL TO REBELLION IN Support OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. (A.D. 1538 AND 1541.) The following is the letter mentioned at p. 697 sup., as having been written in the name of Pope Paul and his cardinals to O'Neill of Ulster, to excite him to rebellion against Henry VIII., in support of the authority of the Church of Rome in Ireland. Prophecy of "My son O'Neal, "Thou and thy fathers are all along faithful to the downfall the mother Church of Rome. His Holiness Paul, now Pope, and the council of the holy fathers there, have lately found out a prophecy there remaining, of one St. Laserianus, an Irish bishop of Cashel, wherein he saith, that the mother Church of Rome falleth, when in Ireland of the Church of Rome, on the failure of the "Catholic" faith in Ireland. Letter of O'Neill. the Catholic faith is overcome. Therefore for the glory of the mother Church, the honour of St. Peter, and your own secureness, suppress heresy and his holiness' enemies, for when the Roman faith there perisheth, the see of Rome falleth also. Therefore the Council of Cardinals have thought fit to encourage your country of Ireland as a sacred island; being certified, whilst the mother Church hath a son of worth as yourself, and those that shall succour you and join therein, that she will never fall; but have more or less a holding in Britain in spite of fate. "Thus having obeyed the order of the most sacred council, we recommend your princely person to the [care of the] Holy Trinity, of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and all the heavenly host of heaven. Amen. "Episcopus Metensis." (Vid. Ware's Life of Abp. Browne. Cox's Hist. i. 258.) In April, 1541, another letter of kindred purport was addressed to Con O'Neill by Pope Paul himself, of which the following is a translation, (from the Latin original in De Burgo, Hib. Dom. p. 873.) "Diploma of Paul III., Supreme Pontiff, to the most excellent Lord Con O'Neill, Prince of the Irish in Ul ster. |