THE LORD Inchiqvins' Queries to the Protestant Clergy of the Province of Munster, with their Answer to the said queres. AS ALSO SIR RICHARD Blague's Speech Chaireman to the Assembly of the Confederate Catholics at KILLKENNY, made to his Excellence the Lord MARQVIS of ORMOND upon signing of the ARTICLES of PEACE. AND HIS EXELLENCIES Answer to SR. Richard Blague's Speech. PUBLISHED By His majesty's Special Command.  
HAGE: Printed by Samuel BROUN English bookseller, Dwelling in the Achter-om at the sign of the English Printing house. Anno M.DC.XLIX.   

THE LORD Inchiqvins' Queries to the Protestant clergy of the Province of Munster.  
MR. Dean Boyle I desire you to propose these several Queries to the Clergy, and return me their clear and Conscientious Answer to them.  

I.  
Whether the clergy, living under the protection of His Majesty in this Province, do conceive themselves obliged by Conscience to give obedience to his Commands, and the Authority placed under Him, for the preservation of the English Protestant Party here, and the army under their Command? And whether there be not the same Engagement upon them to use their utmost Endeavours possible to confirm, and settle all fluctuating persons to the like obedience? And whether all contrary practices be not blameable?   

II.  
Whether their Endeavours thereunto ought not to be showed by them in their public ministry; videlicet their Prayers and Sermons, which they shall exercise themselves in, at their public Meetings, and assemblies of the People, and in their other Devotions, and Discourses also?   

III.  
Whether Prayers uttered in these assemblies, though with pretences to perform that duty before mentioned, may include in them suppositions scandalous against either the Person, Right government, or pious Affections of the King, or his Ministers? And whether any that do so, may not be rather said to accuse them before God, and men, than any way to assist them in the preservation of the People, or Army under their Commands, in amity and obedience?   

IV.  
Can it be lawful, or approved in Conscience, That the Ministers should present to the People the Mysteries of State (if they came to their Knowledge) or to manifest unto them their own apprehensions (if not sufficiently understood?) And if so by what authority? to what intent? or end? If not, ought they not to keep themselves within their own Line, preaching faith, and good manners, with obedience to the civil Magistrate?   
Inchiquin.   

THE PROTESTANT CLERGY of Munster's Answer to the Lord Inchiquins' Queres.  
IN obedience to your honour's Commands we have taken the Queres into our Consideration, and unanimously return this Answer.  

To the first Quere.  
First. we acknowledge, that we, who live under the protection of His Majesty in this Province, are bound, by our duty towards God, and our oaths of allegiance, and supremacy, to give obedience to Him, as to our liege Lord, and supreme governor in all Causes, and over all persons, as well ecclesiastical, as civil.  
Secondly. we acknowledge, that by the same tye of Conscience towards God, & duty towards our sovereign, we are bound to obey all lawful authority placed under Him, and over us, and in particular, that which is now established in the hands of the most honourable the Lord marquess of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant general of this kingdom: Together with that in your lordship's management, as Lord President of this Province, and general of the Protestant forces in these parts, And we freely profess our selves, not only bound to obey your honour but likewise to glorify God on your behalf, as the happy Instrument of the preservation of the Remnant of Protestants that remain in these parts, And more especially of ourselves, as (under God, and our sovereign) the principle Patron, and Protector of us in this Church; for which, as we promise our free & cheerful obedience, so we desire to pay our willing Devotions to God for you that he would always remember you for good concerning this, and wipe not out the good deeds you have done for the House of God, and for the Officers thereof.  
Thirdly. we confess it our duty, and shall endeavour the performance of it, to the utmost of our power, to labour, by all means possible, to fix, and confirm all wavering persons in their due obedience to this Authority established, as the most probable means to preserve the Protestant party, and the Army under your honour's Command.  
Fourthly. we cannot but acknowledge, that all contrary practices are justly blameable before God & Man, and we utterly disclaim, and disavow all Dictates, and Discourses whether by word, or writing, which in any ways tend to raise up the people's jealousy of the piety, and good inclination of our governors towards us.   

To the Second Quere  
We acknowledge it a part of our ministerial Duty, in our public Exercises, to endeavour, from the word of God, to instill the Doctrine of obedience to civil Magistrates into the breasts of the People, and having planted that Doctrine, to water it with our Prayers, and weed up contrary opinions by our Discourses public, and private, and this we conceive the means to prevent intestine broils amongst us, and to stop the effusion of blood, and settle us in a quiet & peaceable life, in all godly conversation and honesty.   

To the third Quere.  
We acknowledge we owe the Magistrate the duty of our hearts, and knees; supplications, and Prayers, and Intercessions, and giving of thanks is to be made for all men, especially for Kings, and all that are in authority; But as for any scandalous suppositions against their persons or government, we esteem them contrary to the method of Christian Prayers, which teacheth us to lift up holy hands without wrath, and therefore to be avoided as libels, and railing Accusations, rather than humble supplications and such as are faulty here in (if any such be amongst us) we desire them to rectify their Devotions in this particular.   

To the fourth Quere.  
We acknowledge that the chief and principal subject of Ministers in their sermons should be in instructing of the People in the right faith of the gospel, good life and manners, and that their Discourses should no way entrench upon the civil government, or Transactions of State businesses, to detract from them, by possessing the People with any scandalous suppositions, which may alienate their affections, and obedience to them, and that they should not communicate any Mysteryes of State (which may be thought fit to be imparted unto them) without the special command of those which have immediate Authority reposed in them.  


Kobert Nayler.  
Hilke Hussey.  
Bern. Packington.  
Edward sing.  
David Bovild.  
Andrew chaplain.  
Rob. Shawe.  
Rich. Germine.  
Phil. Fitz Symons.  
Hen. Copley.  
John Goddard.  
John Hall.  
Tho. Blackwell.  
John Godfrey.  
Sirach Gilsland.  
Tho. Bennet.  
Rich. Burgh.  
Mich. Boyles.  
John Snary.  
James Dyer.  
Morgan Mundyn.  
John Stawell  
Richard boil.  
James Cox.  
Edward Fenner.  
Tho. Roberts.  
Rue Wight.  
Charles Coldwell.  
Beniam Hearne  
Lewis Frix.  
Edward John.  
Anthony Procter.  
Tho. Hacket.  
Nept. Blood.  
Israel Taylor.  
Henr. Ruyg.  
Tho. Frith.  
Rob. Browne.  
Phil. Holmes.  
Florence Corty.  
Rob. Baily.  
Edward Eyres.  
Edmund grain.      

SIR RICHARD Blague's Speech Chaireman to the Assembly of the Confederate Catholics at Killkenny, made to his Excellence the Lord Lieutenant, upon signing of the Articles of Peace.  
May it please your Excellence.  
I Am Commanded by the prelacy, Nobility, and gentry of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, now assembled in this city of Kilkenny, to present unto your excellency their ardent zeal (naturally engrafted in their hearts) to their sacred sovereign King Charles his service, unto whom they ever have been, are, and will be, most faithful, & loyal subjects; and in the next place, their great affection to your excellency, and the never dying memory they entertain, and will retain of your most noble and successful Endeavours in the jointing, & setting together of the much disordered frame of this kingdom. Former Cessations, Accommodations, and Capitulations did but skin over the deep, & wide wounds that were, and are in the body of it. They received no life or perfection, they abortively perished in the Embryo, and vanished into the air: But the Peace (that by the great mercy of God, by the influence of His Majestye's graces, and by the ministry, and cooperation of your excellency, is now to be Established) will prove, (as with joy & confidence we expect) a firm, stable, and lasting Peace, a Peace that will cure these bleeding wounds, search to the very root, and pluck out all the splinters that remain of them: A Peace that will (as we hope, and is the height of our desires, as it shall be of our endeavours) reinvest His majesty in his just, due, and royal Rights, and Prerogatives, and will restore this Nation to its former luster, plenty, and tranquillity: such a Peace as already ends all our doubts, fears, and Jealousies in a mutual confidence & rejoicing, and will make all the Members of this general Assembly (an Assembly, unto which the present and future ages will justly give the glorious name of the peacemaking Assembly) after their many distractions, and long continued sufferings, to return unto their several respective countries, and dwellings, with olive branches (the Emblems of Peace) in their hands, and the words in their mouths that were said of our saviour, when upon his entrance into the city of Naim, he met with the funerals of a dead young man, the only son of his following weeping Mother, whom (Graciously compassionating her tears) he restored from death to life, the words were, and not unaptly to be applied to our present Condition, Ecce Propheta magnus surrexit in nobis, & quiae Deus visitavit plebem suam.  
Most Excellent Lord, (whom God almighty hath preserved, and lead, as it were, by the hand, through a sea of troubles & dangers, to be the happy, & essential Instrument, to mediate, actuate, and now consummate this great work, and to make Ireland (like the heavenly Jerusalem) to be a city at unity with in itself, I cannot sufficiently express the sense, and joyous exultancy of these most venerable prelates, most honourable Lords, most judicious, and gallant Gentry, the representative body of the Roman Catholics of this kingdom, nor with what fervour and ardour they expect to reap the blessed fruits (which they have so long sighed for, and did sow in their blood & tears) of this Peace, and of your Excellencie's government of this kingdom, unto which, being derived from His majesty (who is the spring from which these Graces and favours flow upon them) they will humbly and heartily pay all due obedience. Your Excellencie's fast, and tried fidelity to his majesty, your own great interest in the kingdom, and the many great parts and talents that God and nature have plentifully endowed you with, giving them assurance, that your government will produce effects suitable to their expectation, and that will answer their desires.  
It much transcends my weak abilities to represent them, their affections, apprehensions, and hopes, in their right and lively colours, and therefore I humbly beg, that your excellency will vouchsafe to give a benign and favourable interpretation to what, by their Commands, I have endeavoured humbly to offer unto your grave judgement, and consideration, and that your excellency will be pleased to sign this Instrument, the Everlasting Record, and Monument of this blessed Peace, as by their Commands (it having been solemnly and unanimously by them so voted) I have had the honour, (a greater honour than my low, & humble thoughts ever aspired to) in their chair to sign this Counterpart thereof, and, in all their names, most humbly to present it to your excellency.   

HIS exellencies' Answer to S Richard Blague's speech.  
My Lords and Gentlemen.  
I Shall not speak to those expressions of duty and Loyalty, so eloquently digested into a Discourse, by the Gentleman appointed by you to deliver your sense, you will presently have in your hands greater and more solid Arguments of His majesty's gracious acceptance of them, than I can enumerate, or then perhaps, you yourselves discern, for, besides the provision made against your remotest fears of the severity of certain laws, and besides many other freedoms, and bounties conveyed to you, and your posterity, by these Articles. There is a door, and that a large one, not left, but set open to give you entrance, by your future merits, to whatsoever of honour, or other advantage, you can reasonably wish, so that you have in present fruition what may abundantly satisfy, and yet there are no bounds set to your hopes, but you are rather invited, or, (according to a new Phrase, but to an old & better purpose) You seem to have a Call from Heaven, to excercise your arms and uttermost fortitude, in the noblest, and justest Cause the world hath known; for let all the Circumstances, incident to a great & good Cause of war, be examined, and they will be found Comprehended in that which you are now called warrantably to defend, Religion; not in the narrow circumscribed definition of it, by this, or that late found out means, but Christian Religion, is our quarrel, which certainly is as much, as fatally struck at (I may say more) by the blasphemous licence of this Age, than ever it was by the rudest Incursions of the most barbarous and most avowed enemies to Christianity. The venerable laws, and fundamental Constitutions are trodden under impious, and, for the most, mechanic feet. The sacred person of the King (the life of those laws) under an ignominious imprisonment, and his life threatened to be taken away by the Sacrilegious hands of the basest of the People that owe Him obedience; And, to endear the quarrel to you, the fountain of all the benefits you have but now acknowledged, and of what you may further hope for by this Peace, & your own merits, is now in danger to be obstructed by the execrable murder of the worthjest Prince that ever ruled these Islands. In short, Hell can add nothing to the desperate mischief now openly projected.  
And now judge, if a greater, a more glorious field was ever set open to action; and than prepare yourselves to enter into it, And receive these few Advices from one throughly embarked with you in the Adventure.  
First. Let me recommend unto you, that to this, as to all other holy Actions, you would prepare yourselves with perfect Charity, a Charity that may obliterate whatsoever of Rancours a long continued civil war may have contracted in you agamist any that shall now cooperate with you in so blessed a work, and let his engagement with you, (who ever he is) be, as it ought to be, a Bond of unity, of Love, of Concord, stronger than the nearest tye of nature.  
In the next place, mark, and beware of those that shall go about to renew, or create Jealousies in you, under what pretence soever, and account such as infernal Ministers, employed to promote the black design on foot, to subvert Monarchy, and to make us all slaves to those that are so to their own avaricious Lusts.  
A way as soon, and as much as possibly may be, with those distinctions of Nations, and of parties, which are the fields where in the seeds of those Ranker weeds are sown by the great Enemy of our Peace  
In the last place, let us all divest ourselves of that preposterous, that ridicilous Ambition, and self Interest, which rather leads to our threatened general ruin, then to the enjoyment of Advantages unseasonably desired.  
And if at any time you shall think yourselves pinched too near the bone by those Taxes, and Leavyes that may be imposed for your defence, Consider then, how vain, how foolish a thing it will be, to starve a Righteous Cause for want of necessary support; to preserve yourselves fat and guilded sacrifices to the rapine of a merciless Enemy.  
And if we come thus well prepared to a Contention, so just, on our part, God will bless our Endeavours with success and victory, and will crown our sufferings with honour, and patience; for what honour will it not be, (if God have so determined of us) to perish with a long glorious Monarchy? And who can want patience to suffer with oppressed Princes? But as our Endeavours, so let our prayer be, vigorous, that they may be delivered from a more unnatural Rebellion then is mentioned by any now raised to the highest pitch of success against them.  
I should now say some thing to you for myself, in return to the advantageous mention made of me, & my Endeavours to bring this settlement to pass: but I confess my thoughts were wholly taken up with those much greater Concernements; Let it suffice, that as I wish to be continued in your good esteem and affection, so I shall freely adventure upon any hazard, and esteem no trouble a difficulty too great to encounter, if I may manifest my zeal to this Cause, and discharge some part of the obligations that are upon me to serve this kingdom.  
FINIS.