Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
authority_n ecclesiastical_a foreign_a jurisdiction_n 2,075 5 9.5695 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A39152 Melinus inquirendum, or, An impartial enquiry into the late proceedings against the bishops wherein the Kings supremacy is vindicated, and his soveraign authority in (matters ecclesiastical) asserted against all the popular arguments of the times : in a letter to a friend / by W. E. W. E. 1688 (1688) Wing E43; ESTC R1034 3,374 4

There is 1 snippet containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Melius Inquirendum OR AN IMPARTIAL ENQUIRY Into the late Proceedings Against the Bishops WHEREIN The Kings Supremacy is Vindicated and His Soveraign Authority in matters Ecclesiastical Asserted against all the Popular Arguments of the Times In a Letter to a Friend By W. E. SIR AFter a long debate with my Self and many weary Minutes spent in hearing the Argument under Consideration banded Pro Contra I came to this Result To Examine and Enquire with all the possible Candor and Ingenuity I could into the nature and merit of the Cause so much noised in the World lately depending between the King and Seven of His Bishops Deliberating upon which I easily perceived That thro the Sophistical Insinuations of some Designing men the Inadvertency of Others and the Blind Zeal of an Unreasonable Rabble that neither can not desire to distinguish between Truth and Error in matters Sacred or Civil many a well-meaning man might be Imposed upon for which Reason I conceived it a Duty to Represent to you and the World an Impartial State of the Case both Respecting matter of Fact on the one side and the Right of Power Invested in the Prince on the other An Abstract of which take with all the brevity that so Important a Consideration will Admit of The King apprehensive that multitudes of His Loving Subjects might be Ignorant of His Royal Inclination to the Establishment of an Universal Liberty of Conscience in matters meerly Religious Notwithstanding His Declaration to that purpose had been Published Twelve Months before thought fit to Repeat the same with New and Further Assurances of His Resolutions to Adhere thereunto and signified His Royal Pleasure to the Bishops that they should Order the Reading thereof by the Clergy of their Respective Diocesses at the time of Divine Service to the end the whole Kingdom might understand His Majesty's Care of and Clemency to His People in general Being a design so Heroick and founded upon Principles so Primitively Christian that perhaps no Age can parallel in any Prince since Christianity hath flourished in the World However a Juncto of Seven Bishops Petioned or rather Remonstrated to the King that the Declaration was Illegal and founded upon such a Dispensing Power as might at Pleasure set aside all Laws a heavy Charge and that it was a point of so great a Consequence they could not make themselves so much Parties to it as the Reading of it in Churches amounted to A bitter Pill to be digested tho an evident and lasting instance of their implacable Enmity to Liberty of Conscience how fairly soever guilded with plausible and specious Pretences The King's Soveraignty thus Arraigned a Pamphlet to that purpose Printed which some of the Clergy shewed no small disposition to read in the room of the Declaration the Mobile ●●eadfully possessed with the Popery of Liberty of Conscience It seemed high time for the King to Vindicate Himself and therefore the Bishops were Summoned to Appear before him in Council which they did accordingly and in Conclusion owned and stood by the Paper presented to the King and being Required to enter into a Recognizance to Appear and Answer it at Law they refused and were therefore from the Council-Board Committed to the Tower of London which it seems they were not a little Ambitious of for as they passed along they Proclaimed to the People to stand fast to the Protestant Religion as if they had been going to Martyrdom for that Cause an Ingenious way of courting the Rabble to abet their design of promoting the Ruine of two parts in three of all the Protestants in England by blowing Liberty of Conscience off the Stage at one blast As much as if they had said Now good People look to it Popery is going to be imposed on you Oppose it even to the Death An infallible way to deceive the unthinking Crowd for in the Language of the Ingenious Hudibras When you at anything would Rail Then you make Popery the Scale To take the height on 't and explain To what degree it is Prophane A Notion so naturally Swallowed by the hot-headed Herd that they never consider the Event till the violent Opperation like a dose of Aqua-fortis rages in their miserable Bowels to their unexpected Destruction On the 15th day of June being the First day of the Term they were brought to the King's Bench-Bar by a Hab●as Corpus where after the Councils debare on both Sides they Entered into a Recognizance to take their Tryals on the 29th day of the same Month which accordingly they did the matter they were Charged with was for making and Publishing a False and Seditious Libel Twelve Gentlemen being Sworn to Try the Issue after a Long Tryal they were on Saturday the 30th of June aforesaid brought in Not Guilty and the Rude Multitude as well at the Tryal as Afterwards were not a little Uncivil by Hissing Hooping Hollowing but whether it proceeded from the Church-of-England-Principle of Non-Resistance I am not able to determine One thing I may not Omit That before the Tryal it was an undoubted Truth among the Loyal Church-Party That the Jury were pack'd made up of Dissenters and Persons disaffected to the Bishops and such as if it lay in their way would hang them if it were for nothing but their Laun Sleeves But when they brought them in Not Guilty they were all Good Men and True and as clean from Sin as the Syrian from his Leprosie after he had been dipt seven times in Jordan Having given you a brief Recital of matter of Fact I will add a few words respecting the Kings Soveraignty whence it shall be manifest That He is not only the Civil Head of the State but the Ecclesiastical Head of the Spirituality according to the Constitution of the Church-of-England and de jure Metropolitan of all England Scotland and Ireland and may at pleasure by vertue of his Sacred Function be concern'd Circa Sacra about Sacred Affairs for when the Popes Supremacy and Headship was Beheaded by Henry the Eighth to the end he might be Divorced from Queen Katharin● he obtained a Statute for the cutting off all Apeals from Rome and to enable the Kings Courts Spiritual and Temporal to determine the same any Forreign Inhibitions Appeals Sentences Summons c. from the See of Rome to be no Let or Impediment notwithstanding 24 Hen. 8.12 That this King Annexed all the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and the Pope never had greater Authority over the Church then our Kings are Invested with by Sundry Acts of Parliament that which of Old was Papa is no other now then our Kings being Pater Patriae But doth it not further appear That at the Coronation of our Kings they have the Ordination of Clergy-men as well as the Oath of a King otherwise what means those significant words used by the Bishop with Unction Anthems Prayers and Imposition of hands and the same at the Coronation of the Prince as at the Ordination of the Prelate Come Holy Ghost Eternal God c And among other things the Bishop says these Words Let him obtain Favour of the People though the Clergy has shew'd him but little of late Like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the Waters Zacharias in the Temple Give him Peter's Key of Discipline and Paul 's Doctrine And in Anointing the Bishop further saith Let those Hands be Anointed with Holy Oyl as Kings and Prophets have been Anointed and as Samuel The Arch-Bishop and Dean of Westminster putting the Coife on the King's Head and on His Body the Surplice using this Prayer O Lord King of Kings and Lord of Lords c. Yet for all this His Supremacy will be no longer allowed than it runs on all fours to the utter Extirpation of all that dissent from our Church and he must by no means countenance a Toleration upon Pain of His Soveraignty being called in Question And if His Majesty insist upon Obedience to His Royal Authority though in a matter presumed on all hands to be innocent and just in the Sight of God and good Men Yet to colour the design of obstructing Liberty of Conscience it shall bear the ignominious name of Popery and Arbitrary Power and then our Work is done And though we stile the King God's Vice-Gerent and say Next unto Thee and Thy Christ Supream Moderator and Governour If he dispute our pretended Prelatical Prerogative the Church Rabble in spight of passive Obedience shall be Animated with the dreadful Apprehensions of Fire and Faggot to commit all sorts of Outrages as is evident by the late Ryots upon Discharge of the Bishops Aut Caesar aut nihil The Prelates are resolved to be Os Oraculum Regis Reipublicae and the Voice of the pretended Loyal Party is that the King 's dispen sing Power is clipp'd and Liberty of Conscience has received a mortal Wound and is Breathing its last Well Gentlemen whilst there is Life there is Hope the King is still Head both of Church and State Your own Concessions allow'd him so once 't is not Three-pence Difference if upon change of Circumstances you have chang'd your Opinions the better part of his Subjects believe it still and as long as he is invested with a Power to Command all good men will be ready to obey his Lawful Injunctions and perhaps to your Shame and the Confusion of all your Intrigues 'T is not to be doubted but he is sensible of the Indignity done to His Person and Government However that ought to be left to His own Princely Conduct Thus much I presumed would not be unacceptable of the Transactions of the time and the Sentiments of Your Humble Servant W. E. With Allowance LONDON Printed for G. L. at the Two Swans without Bishopsgate 1688.