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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	author_n	church_n	england_n	1,632	5	5.8746	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35632	The case of pluralities & non-residence rightly stated in a letter to the author of a book called, A defence of pluralities, &c. shewing the false reasonings and evil doctrines therein contained / by an impartial hand, and a hearty well-wisher to the Church of England.	Impartial hand and a hearty well-wisher to the Church of England.	1694 (1694)	Wing C966; ESTC R16560	28,436	93

THE CASE OF Pluralities Non-Residence RIGHTLY STATED In a Letter to the Author of a Book called A Defence of Pluralities c. shewing the false Reasonings and evil Doctrines therein contained By an Impartial Hand and a Hearty Well-wisher to the Church of England LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin at the Oxford Arms-Inn in Warwick-Lane 1694. THE CASE OF Pluralities and Non-Residence Rightly Stated THE CASE OF Pluralities and Non-Residence RIGHTLY STATED c. SIR YOU have not thought fit to acquaint the World by what Name or Title you are dignified or distinguished or where you dwell and if I should know where your Parsonage or Vicarage-House stands your Book gives me reason to think that if I directed my Letter thither it would not find you at home And therefore I know not how to Salute you but from the Press 'T is not my design to find fault with any thing in your Book which is honest or tolerable I shall pass over some expressions which will not bear a Censure and not call you to account for every undecent or impertinent passage and if you had dealt thus with those whom you call Antipluralists I had had less to say to you You complain in your Introduction of some both of our Friends and Enemies who have made too violent exclamations against Pluralities in general But I desire you seriously to consider whether you have not been transported to the contrary extreme and endeavoured to palliate and justifie some things which are really blameable and sinful I know that upon all occasions men of your Spirit when you are pursued by arguments take your selves to the Church as a sure Sanctuary and no man must undertake to question or contradict what you say upon peril of being lookt upon and treated as her Enemies Though our Church pretends not to Infallibility or Perfection yet some who would be thought her choicest Sons seem to affect something very much like it They endeavour to put the Stamp of her Authority upon their own private opinions and even faults and impeach all such as will not admit them to be Current and Authentick for Faction and Disobedience And I do not know that our excellent Church hath reason to be asham'd of any thing more than such Sons who would perswade the World that their personal faults are committed by her Authority and countenanced by her Indulgence Such men as these thinking to make amends for failure in what is their proper Duty usually overdo the business in blustring and talking for her and in a superconformity as to lesser and external matters and which looks very ugly in Clergy-men they usually slight and vilifie those of their Brethren who conscientiously and industriously discharge their duty as a sort of popular and which amongst them is scandal enough moderate men especially if they upon any occasion express their dislike of enormous Pluralities and Non-Residence Some of those severe things which you say of some City-Preachers may be true And yet I believe that most of them do more Service to the Church than any Non-resident Pluralists or even the Defender of them They keep many in her bosome and in tolerable conformity to her who would soon be frighted into a Conventicle by a Minister of your temper But if they are to be blamed who Preach not so discretely as they ought how much more ought you in justice to blame those who hardly Preach at all at least in such places as they should And pray let me know by the next what reason you have to be so very angry with those honest Gentlemen who whilst they themselves faithfully perform their Office sometimes reflect upon others for not doing the like as to call them Puritans Infidels Traditors and to treat those who are guilty of the greatest fault that Ministers well can be viz. negglect of the Souls of People committed to their charge so very gently Let me know upon what grounds you deal with the former as Enemies to the Church and not the latter 'T is natural for men who do their own duty and bear the heat and burden of the day to be moved at the negligence and laziness of them who should be their Fellow-labourers especially if they find themselves rewarded by their Superiours with nothing but Scorn and Contempt and the others punished for their Idleness with the best Livings and Preferments 'T is no wonder if some men concern'd have perhaps too deeply resented and warmly declared against such proceedings I am apt to think that if so deserving a person as your self Sir should have had the ill luck to have had your merits overlook'd and gotten no Benefice at all or a very mean one and had seen many inferior to your self in true worth richly provided for you might thereby have been provok'd to write as zealously against Pluralities as you now write for them ●… 185. If yet a Soul oppress'd with poverty could ever have rais'd it self to attempt any such great design You may wonder how I am got already almost to the end of your Book but the reason of my referring to these words is because you seem plainly in that Paragraph to inform the World how you come to be an Author viz. by your being a Pluralist and Non-resident For there you would perswade us that hardly any but such can be Writers But if you have no excuse for your absence from or neglect of your Cures but this take my word for it you had better be amongst your Rusricks as you are pleased to call your Parishioners Tho' if a man have a mind to be an Author I do not know why he may not be so and yet serve his Cures too I despair ever to see you so effectually to serve the Church by writing as the Blessed Richard Hooker did who perform'd the Office of a diligent Pastor during the time of his writing those most Excellent Books of Eccl. Polity You are pleased to say that to your certain knowledge he had Ibid. and dyed possessed of very great Preferments and yet one may dare say he was no Pluralist and Non-resident if he had we should have heard of that too And here Sir I must tell you that one grievous thing I have to charge you with is that under a pretence of proving Plurality and Non-residence to be lawful Jure Divino you undertake to say that a Minister hath no obligation to personal labour in his Charge and that he may if he please be absent altogether from them Sit still O Pluralist Eat Drink and be Merry Farm out your Benefices and make the best of them And let the Curate look to the discharge of your Conscience and Duty to God and the People You have your Quietus given you by our Author There will never any account be required of you for the Souls of your People nor your own neither For if Ministers and especially Incumbents are not accountable for neglect of duty to the Souls intrusted

then under a Cloud Barbarism and Infidelity generally prevailing in these Islands Now briefly to recapitulate what hath been said on this Head Since the Ministry is an Office and therefore duly to be executed since the Church in all Ages hath confined the Exercise of this Office chiefly to the Diocese or Parish to which Ministers are ordained or instituted since the Church of England in particular exacts of them whom she ordains solemn Vows and promises to instruct and teach the People committed to their charge to give wholsom Exhortations both to the sick and whole within their Cures to administer Christian Doctrines and Sacraments to them to drive away all erroneous and strange Doctrine to maintain peace and love as much as in them lyeth amongst their Parishioners Since this cannot be done without personal care and labour and since the Church requires it at their hands and neither doth nor can dispence with their Neglect it necessarily follows that they who undertake such Cures as they are not able to discharge or so many Churches as they cannot duly watch over do in undertaking them grosly sin And that they who have promised and are able to perform but will not do violate their Faith made solemnly to God and his People And what I have now said concludes against you in two points First According to your Hypothesis there are no bounds set to Pluralities by the Law of God tho' the Church be so severe as to stint you to two but that a Man may have as many as he can get and have served by Curates Your Reason against Pluralities being unlawful is That there is no mention made of Parish-Priests or Churches in Holy Scripture and therefore there can be no directions concerning them pag. 17. Now after this way of arguing it follows That he who shall procure a 100 Benefices or ten times more doth not transgress the Divine Law And therefore Bogo de Clare and Adam de Straton pag. 143. are clearly brought off from trespassing against the divine Law though the latter had 23 Benefices in one Province and the other you know not how many in both For you tell us plainly pag. 141 142. That whereas Arch-Bishop Pecham inveigh'd against Plurality of Benefices as a mortal sin he proceeded upon a false Principle 'T is pity you did not live in those days for I verily believe that you might have saved this honest Adam the 30000 Marks and upwards which Edward the first fined him for Corruption in the Exchequer if it were the same man as probably it was I am sure you might as easily have proved that taking of Bribes was no Mortal Sin as that such enormous Pluralities were not so And pag. 195. having fairly reckoned up all the faults of Extravagant and Irregular Pluralists yet you cannot find in your heart to call them directly sinful but only matter of great Inconvenience to the Church and Scandal to Religion And every one knows that a thing may be Inconvenient and Scandalous and yet have no intrinsic evil in it Especially if the Scandal be only taken and not given O how sweetly do you treat your Brethren the Non-Resident Pluralists One of these may break all the Ten Commandments with less reproof from you than a poor industrious Clergy-man omit a Ceremony He that doth the latter is in your language a Traditor an Infidel or which with you perhaps is worse a Puritan but the other tho' he behave himself as though he cared not for the Souls of his People tho' he think himself wholly disburthened of the Cure of Souls as you had already taught them to do by delegating it to a Curate tho' he put no bounds to the desire of Pluralities tho he neglect Alms and Hospitality and suffer his houses to be dilapidated pag. 193. And tho' he do half a hundred more such ugly tricks all this is only inconvenient and offensive Now upon this Supposition viz. That Pluralities though never so numerous are not contrary to the Divine Law there needs but one metropolitan Bishop in all Christendom a Pope you may call him if you please so that he maintain a great Army of Stipendiary Suffragans and which is a Doctrine which I think the World never heard of before but one incumbent Presbyter under him maintaining Legions of Curates in every Kingdom For if it be not a mortal sin to have 23 Benefices how do you prove it so to have as many hundred or thousand 'T would indeed be Scandalous i. e. weak Brethren might take offence at it But you will say 't is pity such a Constitution should be sinful Oh! what a rare Author would such a brave fellow as this Universal Presbyter make he might write a whole Vatican full of Books and gratify you perhaps so far as to enable you to continue writing little Defences and to make such wonderful discoveries as you have lately in acquainting the World how many Children Bishop O. had for starting the project But I am afraid you will be angry with me for spoiling this new invention as I think I have effectually done For if every one who is instituted in a Living be oblig'd personally to take care of it then he who undertakes more or greater Cures than he is capable of looking after sins in doing of it But another ill consequence of your Hypothesis is That Livings may be held at never so great a distance So that for ought appears in your Book to the contrary nay by what is there asserted it is lawful jure Divino for a Man to hold 3 or more Benefices whereof one we will suppose situate in Britaine the second in Japan and the third in Peru and I fancy you would chuse a Golden one why may they not be 30 Degrees distant as well as 30 Miles according to your way of arguing Forasmuch as the Livings cannot personally be supplied in any sence pag. 28. But if it be true which I have laid down viz. That 't is unlawful to take two Benefices or more which you cannot personally and very frequently supply if it be necessary that he who hath solemnly accepted the charge of any people be by his Office and other additional obligations tyed to watch over their Souls to deliver to them the whole Council of God and to be ready on all occasions to preserve them from Error and Discord and the like Spiritual Evils then it clearly follows that 't is contrary to the Law of God to take the charge of two or more livings so far distant from each other that it shall be morally impossible for him in any measure personally to supply them both The Church indeed allows of 30 Miles distance tho' the Canons of 1571. permit but 26. But I do not think it an argument of an affectionate and ingenuous Son to stretch the favours of his indulgent Mother or to run to the utmost bounds which she hath set him 'T is as difficult for a Man to determine the