Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	parliament_n	successor_n	2,446	5	9.0199	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30986	That the bishops in England may and ought to vote in cases of blood written in the late times upon occasion of the Earl of Straffords case / by [a] learned pen ; with some answers to the objections of the then Bishop of Lincoln, against bishops voting in Parliament.	Barlow, Thomas, 1607-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing W2677C; Wing B845; ESTC R17167	16,504	22

Kingdom and therefore they are abolished by the Statute of 25 Henry the 8 th 2. So are they by the same Statute because the Lords have declared That the Bishops Vote here by the Laws and Statute of this Realm And all Canons that Cross with these are there abolished 3. So are they by the same Statute as thwarting the Kings Prerogative to call Bishops by Summons to Vote in Parliament 4. So are they by the Vote in the House of Commons 21 Maij. 1641 Because they are not Confirmed by Act of Parliament 5. This Argument was deserted by Mr. Perpoint and confest to be but an Argumentum ad hominem Arg. IIII. Because the twenty four Bishops have a dependancy upon the Arch-Bishops and because of their Oath of Canonical obedience to them Answer 1. They have no dependancy upon the Arch-Bishops but in points of Appeal and Visitation only and owe them no Obedience but in these two points None at all in Parliament where they are Pares they are equals and as Bracton tels us Par in Parem non habet imperium What hath Canonical Obedience to do with a Vote in Parliament declared in this Bill to be no Ecclesiastical but a Secular Affair 2. This Argument reacheth not the two Arch-Bishops discharged in the Rubrick from this Oath and therefore is no Reason for the passing of this Bill Arg. V. Because they are but for their Lives and therefore are not fit to have Legislative Power over the Honours Inheritances Persons and Liberties of others Ans. 1. Bishops are not for their Lives only but for their Successors also in their Land and Honour As the Earls and Barons also are for their Successors in their Lands and Honours and holding their Lands in Fee-Simple may with as good reason Vote in the Honour Inheritance Persons and Liberties of others as others may and do in theirs 2. Many Peers have been Created for their Lives only and the Earl of Surrey for the Life of his Father who yet Voted in this House 3. The Knights Citizens and Burgesses are chosen for one Parliament only and yet use their Legislative Power nor will their being Elected difference their Case for the Lords use that Power in a greater eminency who are not Elected 4. A Burgess that hath a free-hold but for term of Life only may Vote and assent to a Law in Parliament 5. No such exception ever heard of in the Diets of Germany the Corteses of Spain or the three Estates in France where the Prelates Vote in all these points with the Nobility and the Commons Arg. VI. Because of Bishops dependancy and expectancy of Translations to places of greater profit Answ. 1. This Argument supposeth all Kings and all Bishops to be very faulty if they take the time of their Votes in Parliament from these dependancies and expectancies 2. This may be said of all the Kings great Officers of all the Noble Members of both Houses who may be conceived as well as Bishops to have their Expectancies and consequently to be deprived by this Reason of Voting in Parliament 3. This Argument reacheth not at the two Arch-Bishops and so falls short of the Votes which are to be taken away by this Bill Arg. VII That several Bishops have of late much encroached upon the Consciences and properties of the Subjects and they and their Successors will be much encouraged still to encroach and the Subjects will be much discouraged from Complaining against such encroachments if 26 of that Order be to be Judges upon these Complaints The same Reason extends to their Legislative Power in any Bill to pass for the regulation of their Power upon any emergent inconveniency by it Answ. 1. This Argument fights not against Bishops Votes in Parliament but against their Votes in Convocation where if any where they have encroached upon the Consciences and Properties of the Subject Nor yet at the Votes of such Bishops there as are not guilty of this Offence Nor need the Subject to be discouraged in Complaining against the like Grievance though 26 of that Order continue Judges for they shall not Vote as Judges in their own Cause when they are Legally Charged And if they should Vote what were that to the purpose when the Lay-Peers are still four to one The Bishops Assisted with a double Number of Mitred Abbots and Priors could not hinder the Laws made against the Court of Rome the Alien Cardinals and Prelates the Provisors the Suiters to the Popes Consistory under Edw. 3 d Rich. 2 d and Hen. 4 th Much more may those emergent exhorbitances of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction be soon curbed and redressed in this inequality of Votes between the Temporal and Spiritual Lords So as this Argument doth not so much hurt the Votes as it quails the Courage of the Bishops who may justly fear by this and by the next Argument that the taking away of their Votes is but a kind of forerunner to the abolishing of their Jurisdiction Arg. VIII Because the whole Number of them is interessed to maintain the Jurisdiction of Bishops which hath been found so grievous to the three Kingdoms that Scotland hath utterly abolished it and Multitudes in England and Ireland have Petitioned against it Answ. 1. This Argument is not against the Vote of Bishops but against Episcopacy it self which must be removed because Scotland hath done so and some in England and Ireland would have it so and yet peradventure ten times as great a Number as these desire the contrary 2. There will be found Peers enough in the Upper-House to reform any thing that is amiss in the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction although the twenty six Prelates should be so wicked as to oppose it as there were found Peers enough in that Noble House to curb the Court of Rome and the Revenues of the Cardinals under Edw. 3 d to meet with the Provisors under Ric. 2 d to put all the Clergy into a Praemunire under Hen. 8 and to Reform the Religion 1º Elizabeth notwithstanding the Opposition of all the Bishops Arg. IX Because the Bishops being Lords of Parliament it setteth too great a distance betwe●● them and the rest of their Brethren in the Ministry which occasioneth pride in them discontent in others and disquiet in the Church Answ. This is an Argument from Moral Philosophy which affords no Demonstrations All are not proud that vote in Parliament nor discontented that are not so imployed This Argument fights only against their title of being Lords which is not the Question at this time FINIS

know the Nature of a Protestation which some peradventure may mistake Protestatio est animi nostri declaratio juris acquirendi vel conservandi vel damnum depellendi causa facta saith Spigelius Calvin and all the Civilians No Protestation is made by any man in his Wits to destroy his own Right and much less another mans but to acquire or preserve some Right or to avoid and put off some Wrong that was like to happen to the party or Parties that make the Protestation As here in Courtneys Protestation the Prelates in the first place conceive a Right and Power they had voluntarily to absent themselves whilst some matters were treated of at that time in that House of Lords which by the Canon Law the breach whereof the Popes of Rome did in those times vindicate with far more severity than they did the transgressions of the Laws of God they were not permitted to be present at and all this not for want of Right to be there in all Causes but for honesty and preservation of their Estates as it is in the Act of Parliament 11 Rich. 2. In the second place they did preserve their former Right as Peers which they still had though voluntarily absenting of themselves More solito interessendi considerandi tractandi ordinandi definiendi all things without exception Acted and Executed in that Parliament And in the Last place they protest against any loss of Right of being or Voting in Parliament that could befal them for this voluntary absenting of themselves at this time And where in this Protestation is there one word to prejudice their Successors or to authorize any Peer to Command his fellow Peer called thither by more Antient prescription of time and by the same Writs of Summons that himself is to withdraw and go out from this Common Council of the Kingdom Thirdly we do not certainly know what these matters were whereat Arch-Bishop Courtney conceived the Prelates neither could nor ought to be present These matters are left in loose and general words in that Protestation Some conceive indeed it was at the Condemnation of Tressilian Brambre the Lord Beauchamp and others See Antiquit. Brit. pag. 286. But the notes of Priviledges belonging to the Lords collected by Mr. Selden do with more reason a great deal assign this going forth of the Prelates to be occasioned by certain Appeals of Treason advanced in that Parliament by the Duke of Glocester against Alexander Arch-Bishop of York whom the Popish Canons of those times as you know exempted as a Sacred Person from the cognisance of King or Parliament and therefore the rest of the Bishops as the squares went then neither could nor ought to be present and parties to break upon the Exemptions Immunities and Priviledges of that great Prelate But the Earl of Strafford is not the Arch-Bishop but the President of York and to challenge any such Exemptions and Immunities from the cognisance of the King or Parliament amounts at this time to little less than Treason and therefore is th●● Protestation very unseasonably urged to thrust out any Protestant Prelate from Voting in Parliament Lastly a Protestation in the Civil or Canon Law for the Law of this Land knoweth it not is but a Testation or Witnessing before-hand of a mans own mind or Opinion whereby we that Protest provide to save and preserve our own Right for the time to come It concludes no man besides our selves no Stranger to this Act no Heir no Successor but if it be admitted sticks as inherent in the Singular and individual Person until either the Party dies or the Protestation be withdrawn and revoked And therefore what is a Protestation made by William Courtney to William Laud or by Thomas Arundel to bind Thomas Morton And what one Rule in the Common Law of the Land in the journal Book or in the Records of the Town can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and Voting in Causes of Blood They were sometimes by the great favour of the King the Lords and the Commons not otherwise permitted to absent themselves never before this time Commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause whatsoever that was agitated in Parliament So our Law-Books say that the Prelates by the Canon Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be Tryed which is enough to shew their Right thereunto 10 Edward the 4 th fol. 6. B. placit 17. And that it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to Vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford pleas of the Crown fol. 59. The Canon Law saith Stamford in a distinct and separated Notion and therefore not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common Law or the Law of this Land Objection But the Bishop of Lincoln and Bishop Andrews before him did alwayes forbear to Vote in Causes of Blood and did voluntarily retire out of the House when this Cause of the Earl of Strafford came to any serious Agitation Neither putting this withdrawing of the Prelates to any Vote nor offering to enter any Protestation Answer That Bishop had no opportunity to enter Protestations which you shall never find to have been offered by the Prelates but in Plein Parliaments when the three Bodies are together And his voluntary withdrawing of himself he may live to Repent him of if he shall hereafter be questioned for the same at the Kings-Bench or elsewhere He was called thither by his Writ which he did not so easily Obtain to sit and not to withdraw himself from Parliament when he pleased Besides his extraordinary Obligations to the Lords at this time whom he could not offend without great suspicion of high Ingratitude He is the first Prelate that ever was fetched out of the Tower and brought to sit in Parliament by the Black-Rod And therefore we are not so much to consider that Prelates Opinions or Actions in this kind as the reasons he gave for the same which as I have heard them Rehearsed are to speak modestly of them no Demonstrations His first and main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. the 2 d. That it is the Honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood The French word Honesteté signifies decency and Comliness as though it were a Butcherly and loathsome matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an Imaginary decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Ignorance in the dark Fog and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a Shaven Crown to depend upon their Holy Father the Pope to Plead Exemptions and to refuse to Answer for Felonies in the Kings Courts c. All these Particulars were esteemed in those dayes the Honesteté of the Clergy and such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. the