taken. "Some priests, and some of the religious," says cardinal Bentivoglio, in the extract already cited from the Answer to the Memoirs of Panzani, "admitted the oath; and, deviating still more from

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the right path, endeavoured to maintain that it "was not repugnant to the catholic faith. But, "the number of these priests is very small; and "besides, they are the least zealous, and the least ❝ valued for learning and virtue. All the rest of "the clergy have shown the greatest steadiness in opposing the oath; and the same must be said "of all the regulars in general. Many of each description, contemning a thousand dangers, " and even death itself, have publicly confuted it "with great strength of learning, and intrepidity "of mind; and have thereby acquired singular "merit with the whole church, and the highest "veneration among the catholics of that kingdom." But, it should not be unobserved, that cardinal Bentivoglio saw with ultramontane eyes; and would, therefore, be disposed to think unfavourably of all, who rejected the papal pretension to temporal power.

A letter written, in 1681, by the chapter of the English catholic clergy to cardinal Howard, stated that, "more of the nobility, gentry, and commonalty, had actually taken it, or seemed resolved "to take it:" and desired his eminence to oppose an attempt, then supposed to be making at Rome, to procure a censure of those who took it. His opposition succeeded, and no such censure found way to England.

its

It is observable, that, when James the second was duke of York, he himself took the oath of allegiance, and intimated an intention of enforcing it when he should be king.

L. 4.

Complete Rejection (now adopted by the universal Catholic Church,)-of the Pope's Deposing Power, in the Declaration of the Gallican Church, in 1682 :

But,

Magna est veritas,-et prævalebit.

SEVENTY-FIVE years after the date of the last of the briefs of Paul the fifth, the assembly of the Gallican clergy, in 1682, subscribed their celebrated declaration respecting the civil and temporal powers.-It consists of four articles :

By the first, they resolved, that "the power, "which Jesus Christ had given to St. Peter, and "his successors, related only to spiritual things, "and to those which concern salvation, and not "to things civil and temporal; so that, in tempo"rals, kings and princes are not subject to the "ecclesiastical powers; and cannot, directly or

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indirectly, be deposed by the power of the keys, "or their subjects discharged by it, from the obe"dience which they owe to their sovereigns, or "from the oaths of allegiance*."

* The second article declares, that the plenitude of the power, which resides in the holy see and the successors of St. Peter, in respect to spiritual concerns, does not derogate from what the council of Constance has defined, in its fourth and fifth sessions, on the superior authority of general councils.

The three other articles are contested by some catholic divines: but, from the first, there is not

The third article declares, that the exercise of the apostolical power of the holy see should be governed by the canons, which have been enacted by the spirit of God, and are respected by all the christian world; and that the rules, customs, and usages, received by the kingdom and churches of France, and approved by the holy see, should be inviolably preserved.

The fourth article declares, that in questions of faith, the pope has the principal authority, and that his decisions extend over the universal church, and each church in particular; but that, unless they have the consent of the church, they are not irreformable.

These articles passed unanimously, and the monarch was desired to publish them throughout his kingdom. He immediately issued an edict, by which he ordered the declaration to be registered by all the parliaments, bailiwicks, stewartries, universities, and faculties of divinity and canon law, within his dominions. The edict forbad all persons, secular or regular, to write or teach any thing contrary to the declaration; and that no person should be appointed professor of theology, who did not previously engage to teach no other doctrine.

The declaration met with little opposition in France*: out of France, the case was very different, and an interesting and instructive narrative might be framed of the contests to which it gave rise: but the subject of these pages requires no more than a short mention of the part which Bossuet took in it. The most voluminous, by far, of the adversaries of the declaration, was Thomas Roccaberti, general of the Dominican friars, archbishop of Valentia, and inquisitor-general. He signalized his zeal against it by three folio volumes of his own composition; and by publishing, in twenty-one volumes, folio, with the title of Bibliotheca Maxima Pontifica, a compilation of all the tracts, which he could discover, in favour of the pontifical claims. Bossuet replied to the former of the works, by a treatise intituled, "La France Orthodoxe; ou, Apologie de "l'Ecole de Paris, et le Clergé de France, contre plusieurs * The reader will see, in c. lxxv. s. 8. of these Memoirs, that it was universally signed by the jesuits in France.

now, either among the laity, or the clergy,-with the slight exception of a few, a very few aulici vaticani,-a single dissentient voice. Even the « Adversaires." And by the desire of Lewis the fourteenth, he afterwards composed his larger work, "Défense de la "Déclaration de l'Assemblée Générale de France, de 1682, "touchant la Puissance Ecclesiastique." Neither of these works was published in his life-time; the last was written by him in Latin, and translated into French, by the abbé Leroy, under the direction of Bossuet's nephew, the bishop of Troyes.

In the "Annales Philosophiques Morales et Litteraires; ou, "Suite des Annales Catholiques," tom. i. 503, mention is made of a manuscript of the celebrated Fleury, which contains an historical account of this important declaration. The annalist mentions, that it appears from this manuscript, that Bossuet wisely moderated the too ardent spirit of some of the leading members of the assembly, who proposed much stronger terms, for the language of the declaration, than those which were afterwards adopted by the assembly.

A good history of this interesting church document is wanting: a general notion of the points in dispute, of the import of the declaration, and the arguments for and against the opinions which it expresses, may be formed by perusing, on the cisalpine side of the question, the Report of the bishop of Tournay, and the Fourth, Seventh, and Twelfth Discourses of Fleury; and by perusing, on its transalpine side, the Mémoires Chronologiques et Dogmatiques of father d'Avrigni, and the celebrated treatise, Quis est Petrus?

The pope's claim to temporal power by divine right, has not perhaps, at this time, a single advocate: but the other articles of the declaration are still a subject of dispute. It should be observed, that the members of the assembly never proposed to hold out their declaration as a decree respecting faith: they, indeed, considered it to be founded on the scripture, on tradition, on solid and unanswerable arguments, but still to be no more than an opinion. The ultramontanes predicate the same of their tenets. Moderate men, of neither side, tax the opposite tenets with heresy or schism. Each considers his own and his adversary's doctrine, on these points,

present pope, in his negotiation with Napoleon, expressed his willingness to acquiesce in the subscription of it, by the clergy of France.-How much, then, is it to be lamented, that this better spirit did not animate the pontiffs, Paul the third, Pius the fifth, Gregory the thirteenth, Sixtus the fifth, Clement the eighth, Paul the fifth, Urban the eighth, and (as we shall afterwards see), Innocent the tenth, when they published the unhappy, and evil-bearing briefs, bulls, and decrees, mentioned in the series of these pages!

To preserve the continuity of the subject, and bring it to its close, we have a little anticipated, in this chapter, the order of events: we shall now resume the historical thread.

CHAP. LI.

DECLINE OF THE PARTY OF THE ENGLISH FUGITIVES IN SPAIN.

1612.

THE correspondence, in Winwood's Memorials, of sir Charles Cornwallis, the resident minister of king James at Madrid, with the earl of Salisbury, contains much curious information respecting the state and dispositions of the English fugitives in Spain, during the first years of the reign of that

to be in the class of opinions, on which the church has not yet pronounced, and which, therefore, any individual may conscientiously hold.