Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	law_n	parliament_n	repeal_v	2,928	5	12.0628	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41042	Seasonable advice to Protestants shewing the necessity of maintaining the established religion in opposition to popery / by Dr. Fell ...	Fell, John, 1625-1686.	1688 (1688)	Wing F620; ESTC R6938	21,116	40

be content to truckle under the Canon Law and occasional Bulls of his Holiness or Legantine Commissions The proceedings of the Courts in Westminster veiling to Prohibitions and Appeals to Rome against which a Premunire will be a weak fence in Bar to the plenitude of the Apostolic Power and to murmur or dispute any thing will be especially to new Converts interpreted Heresie a word of so sharp an importance as not to need a Comment There is a Tradition that heretofore the Gentlemen of the long Robe were in that mean estate as to ply at Westminster Hall Gate as now Watermen do at the Stairs for a Fare let the Practicioners in that noble Profession consider whether some such thing would not in earnest be the consequent of Popery And the rest of the People of England would do well to think whether they are fitted for a Journey to Rome as often as they shall be called thither I do not mean the divertisement of Travel or devotion of Pilgrimage but the compulsion of Citations from that Court where the attendance and expence is not likely to be less than formerly it was when it occasioned the groans and sad complaints of our Fore-fathers which though they have escaped our experimental knowledge sufficiently appear in all our Histories Or should the English Law have some quarter given it and be allowed a little Chamber practise this must be only in reference to the Layty All Ecclesiastics are under a more perfect dispensation and only accountable to the Apostolic See either for their actions or concerns the benefits of which though the Secular Priests share in some proportion the Regulars much more liberally enjoy being owned by the Pope as his Souldiers and Pretorian bands listed under the Generals of their several Orders maintained indeed at the cost of the Countries where they live but for the service of their Sovereign abroad to whom they owe an entire and blind obedience And that they may give no Hostages to the State where they reside are forbid to marry So that if Popery should prevail we must besides all charges necessary to secure our selves from forreign enemies both by Land and Sea constantly maintain a vast Army of possibly an hundred thousand men for such were the old numbers to assure our slavery to the Roman Yoke Nor are these Priviledges of the Church only personal the places themselves which these religious men possess are hallowed into Sanctuaries and give protection unto any criminal that treads within their thresholds the most horrid Murther or barbarous Villany is to have the Benefit of the Clergy and if the Malefactor have but time to step into a Cloyster he fears no farther prosecution VII But besides the inconvenience of submitting to a foreign Law that certain mark of slavery and the intolerable burthens that attend its execution it will be of moment to advise how well our Property and interest in our estates will stand secur'd And though when Princes are upon their good behaviour to be disseiz'd of their dominions whenever they offend his Holiness of Rome the Pesant or the Gentleman have no great reason to expect indemnity yet should the Farm or Manor-house be too low a mark for the Roman Thunderer to level at 't is not to be imagined the Lord Abbots and the Lands of all Religious houses will be past by as trifles The Church is ever a Minor and cannot be prescribed against by time or barr'd in her claims and our holy Father out of his Paternal care will find himself concern'd to vindicate the Orphan committed to his trust Some perchance who enjoy those Lands think they need not apprehend any thing because they hold under Acts of Parliament But they who imagine this should consider that the same strength that can repeal those Laws that establish Protestancy may also do as much for those which suppress Religious houses and no body can tell what the force and swing of a violent turn especially in England may produce where we seldom proceed with coldness or reserve Acts of resumption are not things unheard of in ours or in forrein stories Nor is the consent of the Pope in Queen Maries days a better security for in case of a change of Religion all those grants will be interpreted a bare permission and that conditional in order to the great end of reclaiming an heretical Kingdom which not being then accepted of and finally submitted to will not be thought obligatory when Papists by their own skill or interest have gotten the power into their hands King Charles the First yielded at the Isle of Wight that the Church Lands should be leased out for 99 years in order to a present peace and settlement of all things through the interposition of a powerful and violent Faction it was not then accepted of Does any man think the Obligation of leasing for 99 years remains now Let our Lay-Abbots apply this to their case and then judge whether they upon a revolution will be more secure of their Possessions than the late Purchasers were or whether those Purchasers were not as confident of transmitting their Acquisitions to their posterity as any possessor of Church Lands now is or has been The King of France not long since has redeemed back to the Crown those demesnes which belong'd to it paying back such summs as were really laid out by the Purchasers and allowing the mean profits as interest for the money so laid out Which method of procedure has been defended by very considerable Arguments to be just and equitable If the money expended on the Church penniworths at the dissolution of Religious houses were now refounded and the advantage of above 100 years profit already received were thrown in to the bargain though the present Proprietaries would have an ill exchange yet there would be so much plausibleness in the grounds of it as in the zeal and heat of a turn would not be easily controul'd especially if it be farther prest that the first claim from the Acts of Parliament suppressing Church Lands appear to be not full and peremptory the Lands of the first suppression in the 27. year of Henry 8. not seeming to intend an alienation to common and secular uses but to have been vested in the King in trust that the revenues might be employed to the pleasure of Almighty God and to the honour and profit of this Realm As to the second in 31 year of Henry 8. The Act supposes and is built upon the alienations legally made by the respective Religious Houses and Corporations who are said of their own voluntary minds good wills and assents without constraint coaction or compulsion of any manner of person or persons by the due order and course of the common Laws of this Realm of England and by their sufficient Writings of Record under their Covent and common Seals c. Now to the verifying of these particulars a great many doubtful circumstances and nice