Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	acknowledge_v	church_n	scripture_n	3,085	5	6.3603	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64738	The nunns complaint against the fryers being the charge given into the court of France, by the nunns of St. Katherine near Provins, against the Fathers Cordeliers their confessours / several times printed in French, and now faithfully done into English.; Factum pour les religieuses de Sainte-Catherine-les-Provins. English	Varet, Alexandre-Louis, 1632-1676.	1676 (1676)	Wing V110; ESTC R34691	69,713	232

of their Religion which it is impossible they should acquit themselves of under the Direction of the Cordeliers 3. It is true that their Rule seems to commit the care of their Monasteries to the Cordeliers But it has been made appear that it is rather a permission that the Pope has given them to undertake to be their Guides against the express prohibition of St. Francis to the contrary than an obligation upon the Nuns to be subject to them That whatsoever intention the Popes had that drew up their Rule it could not prejudice the Rights acknowledged due to the Bishops by the Holy Scripture The Canons of Councils and the General practice of the whole Church to govern the Monasteries and consequently that the Cordeliers could never exercise any Hierarchical Office but in dependence upon their Authority 4. Though it should be granted that the Nuns of St. Catharine were by their Foundation subject to the General of the Cordeliers that their Rule obliges them to it and that their Bishops consented to it which yet is not true they could not for all that without evidently endangering their Salvation continuelonger under them consequently are obliged by all Divine and Humane Laws to deliver themselves from them and to expect all their assistances from the Conduct of their Prelate for whatsoever they shall stand in need of to the better acquitting themselves of their Obligations and to the reforming of their Lives 'T is ridiculous to pretend as the Cordeliers do that the Nuns of St. Catharine being without any necessity and against the command of God and the Rules of the Church withdrawn from under the Jurisdiction of my Lord Archbishop of Sens that they cannot now without sinning return under it how great how pressing and how evident soever the necessity be which forces them to it The Cordeliers Reason 'T is only the Capriciousness of some private Nuns and the Revengefulness of two of them that they would have punished for the scandalls they have occasioned IT is not intended here to make a particular discussion of this Affair nor to apologize for those two Nuns who are acknowledged in the process of the Declaration to have been the first that implored the protection of the Court against the unreasonableness and the Disorders of the Cordeliers 'T is asserted here only That the most Reputed amongst these Fathers should not then as they did and as it is ready to be justified by their own Letters have themselves procured their going out of the Monastery and given them recommendations to make use of to accomplish their design 'T is asserted That the Provincial and his Secretary ought not to have made them buy their leave to go to take the waters at the price of their Votes for the Election of an Abbess to whom they thought themselves obliged in conscience not to give it and if there be any scandal come of it 't is they that are to answer it to God and the World 'T is asserted That if those Nuns were guilty of the Crime that they were accused of The Provincial and his Secretary ought not to have protestted to them that the Excommunications that they should pronounce against them should be but a formàl shew counterfeit anger and a bug-bear and that the sentence should be nulled immediately after the thundering it out That they ought at least to have observed some shadow of Justice and not declare them Excommunicated deprived of both Active and Passive Vote of the Offices of the House and of the liberty of the Grate and this for as long as the Provincial and his successours should think fit against all usual forms of procedure without any information without confronting of witnesses and only after that the Provincial had entertained them for three days together at the Grate with sottish impertinencies and that the Secretary had the impudence to kiss one of them by force in the presence of her Fellow-sisters and consequently that they had Right to appeal from a sentence so unequitable and so abusive as this was Lastly 'T is asserted That if the Provincial had had the least respect to God in this pretended Chastisement upon the account of the scandall that the Nuns were accused to have been occasioners of he should not have given one of them any ground to write that which we shall presently extract word for word out of a Letter which she wrote at the very time that she hoped he would be more favourable to her and therefore cannot be accused of having wrote it out of Revenge LETTER I should never have believed that a Provincial could ever have been capable of talking as he does He makes all things trifles and niceness He calls well-grounded Denyals weakness of spirit signs of Ignorance In a word we are said he Novices in Love If I were not affraid that this would be intercepted I would tell you such things as you are not able to imagine No you shall never know them for I shall never be able to acquaint you with them without blushes If it be thus that he courts his Angelica and desires such favours as these of her sure she must be far from being very squeamish to be able not to nauseate him His Passion and sighs that he reproaches us for being insensible of do nothing but scandalize us and the testimonies of his affection that he would give us do but make us hate him the more sometimes he thinks he has Right to command us to receive them and at other times is sorry that his Power extends not to the motions of the heart to gain him that which he desires without further delay c. The Cordeliers Reason They have the greatest and soundest part of the Community on their side 'T IS not to be wondred at That the Cordeliers should make such stories to their General and to the Congregation of the Regulars in Italy But that they should dare to procure Letters Patents in France upon such suppositions as these is a very strange thing and such as does sufficiently acquaint all people with the quality of their Spirit which is to dare to doe and to undertake any thing There were in the year 1664. in the Monastery of St. Catharine twenty nine professed Nuns of the Quire There were seventeen of them that on the fifth of September the same year signed the Act by which they agreed amongst themselves to petition my Lord Archbishop of Sens to receive them under his Conduct and to show all earnest readiness that was requisit to return under his Jurisdiction There remained then not above twelve Two of which a little while after joyned with the other seventeen so that now there was but ten of the Quire that declared for the Cordeliers and that continued for any time in this party Of these ten there were two that did most remarkably abandon them and with the other nineteen Sisters signed all the Petitions that were since presented to the Court and to

have knowledge of these Disorders that they might the more zealously love and value the retirement and solitude of their Cloysters That they might take the more care to avoid the Nunns Grates with whom all the Founders of the several Orders have expresly forbidden them to have any communication And that that they might mind themselves of that excellent saying of St. Augustine Quid interest utrum in uxore an in matre an in sorore dum tamen Eva in qualibet muliere caveatur It was thought to be the Interest of all the Nunns to have a knowledg of these Disorders that they might unite themselves with joy to the Government of their Bishops their true Pastors and lawful Superiors and that they might carefully fly from those Strangers those Mercenaries and those false Pastors That come to them cloathed like sheep but within are ravening wolves That devour their houses under a pretence of making long Prayers and that even to this day compass Sea and Land to make one Jew and after he is made so they make him twice as fit for Hell as themselves Lastly It was thought to be the interest of the Nuns of St. Catharine That the World should have a knowledge of these Disorders that they might withall acknowledge the Justice of their Suits at Court against the Cordeliers the Generosity that has made them shut their eyes against all humane Interests and Considerations that might have drawn them from it and the Christian Contempt they have shown of Worldly Reputation to recover their solid and true honour which consists in resettling good Order and regularity in their House The Conclusion AFter what has been represented in both parts of the Factum and the Answers now made to all that can be alledg'd in favour of the Cordeliers it cannot be imagin'd that there is any person that is not fully convinc'd of the Justice of the Pretensions of the Religious Sisters of St. Catharine They desire not that the Authours of all the Disorders that have been committed in their House should be inform'd against That so long a continuation of crimes should be punish'd That the violation of so many Laws so many abominable profanations should be chastiz'd according to the severity of the Rules of Church and State They freely offer to chastise them upon themselves by the ways of Christian Penance to expiate them by their groans and tears and as much as in them lyes to appease the Wrath of God justly provok'd by all these abominations by the Mortifications of a Religious life and the constant Sacrifice of an humble and contrite heart They only desire that by removing these pernicious Directours of their Consciences from their House they might recover their liberty of acquitting themselves of that and their other Obligations That by preventing these Fathers from having any access to them they might put a stop to the Scandals that they have occasion'd for so many years together And that such people as have neither Faith nor Honour nor Conscience might not be any longer suffred in the face of the whole Church to abuse a Jurisdiction which they have usurped over them against the most Essential Rights of Episcopacy If nothing but their temporal interests had been concerned in it and that the Cordeliers would have been contented to have consum'd their whole Revenue in Feasting Dissoluteness and Debauchery or to have robb'd them of it according as they had occasion for it and stood in need of it to satisfie their ambitious ends their self-interest or their pleasures with it it may be they should have dissembled the injury But the honour of their Monastery is now concern'd in it which cannot be resettled in its former splendour but by restoring it again to the Authority of My Lord Archbishop of Sens unto which according to the Holy Scripture according to the Canons of the Councils according to the Maximes of the Gallicane Church according to the mind of St. Francis and according to the first settlement of the Nuns of St. Clare it ought to be submitted The Salvation of their own Souls and of the Souls of all those Virgins that in Succession of time shall be engag'd in this Monastery are concern'd in it whom these Fathers considering what kind of people they are will most indubitably alienate from the Fidelity which they owe to Jesus Christ Lastly The main thing that is made the matter of the present concern is To procure a Favour for a great number of Virgins Consecrated to the Service of God that would never be refus'd to any Ordinary Virgins of the World who had been stolne away from their Parents and implor'd the assistance of the Laws to be restor'd to them back again and to be forc'd out of the hands of those Villains who would with so much insolence have attempted upon their honour The Religious Sisters of St. Catharine expect this favour from the Court with so much the more Confidence as the danger in which they are is more evident They hope that that August Tribunal having always testify'd so much zeal for the Rights of the Bishops and for the true liberty of the Nunneries will be tenderly affected at the hard captivity under which they have for so many years groan'd And that they shall not have a less favourable Audience than the Religious Sisters of St. Eutrope of Chanteloup Those of St. Nicholas of Melun Those of the Annunciate at Bologne and so many others besides who have been restor'd to the Jurisdiction of their Bishops for abuses very like to those that the Cordeliers have committed in their House They hope that It having given testimony of its great zeal for upholding all Religious Orders in the first spirit and sincerity of their Foundation It will not refuse this favour to the Order of St. Francis by obliging the Cordeliers to leave off being Directours to those whom their Holy Founder has so streightly forbid them to meddle withall which he so earnestly endeavour'd to separate them from and which we look'd upon as a very dangerous snare that the Devil had laid for his Order and which they themselves have found by dreadful Experience to have been so mischievous to them Lastly They hope that the Court having always given evidence of so much Judgment Prudence and Equity in its determinations It will not now abandon them to the power of those who have engag'd them in that sad condition that they have for so many years continu'd in but will on the contrary conclude That the Mischief that the Cordeliers have done to their Monastery cannot be prevented but by the cares of their true Pastour FINIS Jan. 5. 1675 1676. Imprimatur Geo. Hooper Ex Aed Lambethan The Contents A Chapter-Act of the Nuns to own their Factum A Factum or Declaration in Court for the Nuns against the Friers Page 1 Section I. What gave occasion to the Suits made by the Nuns against the Cordeliers at Court page 3 Sect. 2. 3. 4. 5.