Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	according_a	ecclesiastical_a	law_n	1,550	5	5.5075	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33964	The history of conformity, or, A proof of the mischief of impositions from the experience of more than 100 years	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5319; ESTC R28566	30,488	42

be present at that action Possibly it had been less exposed to scandal if instead of them two or three Ministers had so joined and the end as well obtained but surely this was a far lesser evil than the admitting of all to the Sacrament that could but rehearse the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments there was nothing in this action but any pious Ministers who are the stewards of the mysteries of God might answer with a safe conscience for of Stewards it is required that they should be faithful saith the Apostle and I believe any Bishop would have judged his Steward unfaithful if he had dealt out his Master's goods contrary to his Master's order The Ministers Master's order is plain enough that the holy Sacrament belongs not either to ignorant or scandalous persons All the Churches of God in all Ages agree this our own Church in her principles agreeth it yet in practice all Ministers were tyed to give the Sacrament as in times of Popery to all such as could but rehearse the Creed the Pater Noster and the Ten Commandments and confessed in Lent those eminent persons who were commissionated by Edw. 6. to draw up a new body of Ecclesiastical Laws though that excellent Prince lived not long enough to set his Hand and Seal to it so as what they had done had no legal force had expresly determined Tit. de Sacramentis Cap. 5. We will have none admitted to the Table of the Lord until in the Church he hath made profession of his faith What should good Ministers do in this case they could act but precariously it seems at Wandsworth in Surry there was a people that voluntarily submitted to this what harm was this to the Bishops But the truth is this business of discipline came into very little debate before 1584. after that Subscription had been so fatally imposed In several Diocesses I perceive there were some circumstantial variations in the forms of Subscriptions To let my Reader therefore know what it was I will give it him as it lieth in the 36th Canon 1603. when it first received any thing like a legal confirmation which was at least 25. or 26. years after it was first devised and full 30. years after it was so rigorously pressed 1. Art That the Queens Majesty under God is thē Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other her Highnesses Dominions and Territories as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and that no forreign Prince Person State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority or Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within her Majesties Realms Dominions or Countries 2. Art That he alloweth the Book of Articles agreed on by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London 1562. and that he acknowledgeth All and Every the Articles therein being in number 39. besides the Ratification to be agreeable to the Word of God 3. Art That the Book of Common-Prayer and of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God and that it may lawfully be used and that he himself will use the form in the said Book prescribed in publick Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and no other This Engine was first formed by the Archbishop Whitgift and was one of those 16. Proposals he offered to the Queen for the setling of the Church a Copy of which in M. S. with two Answers to them I have read some little difference there was in the Arch-bishops form His first Article was 1. Art That the Authority which is given her Majesty in Causes Ecclesiastical by the Laws of the Land is lawful and according to the Word of God The Second Article was his Third andran thus 2. Art That he allowed the Book of Articles of Religion agreed on by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London 1562. and set forth by her Majesties Authority and that he agreeth the Articles therein contained to be agreeable to the Word of God 3. Art Which was the Archbishops Second was word for word the same This Motion of the Archbishops put the Queen upon adding force to the Imposition which indeed had been by some Bishops began before but now in most Diocesses it was rigorously pressed The issue of this is told us by the Author of the unlawful practices of Prelates in these words Whatsoever was required in Civil Causes either that concerned her Majesty or the State was by the Ministers embraced wholly and freely In Ecclesiastical Causes also whatsoever concerned Doctrine or otherwise was expresly required by Statute for Subscription Thus far at the first all men with protestation offered but to yeild to this thing so strange and new without any Law in streighter sort than ever was required That all things were agreeable to Gods Word and not against it not only tollerable but allowable both in the Book of Common Prayer and in the Book of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons This was refused divers of the Ministers were suspended multitudes were thrust out How many godly able painful Ministers were outed all over England I cannot tell but ex ungue Leonem I have seen a M. S. which gives an account of the names of Sixty odd in Suffolk Twenty one in Lincolnshire Sixty four in Norfolk Thirty eight in Essex which though they seem comparatively few yet are a great many when we consider that in Essex at that time there was an account given of 163. Ministers that never Preach'd only read Prayers and Homilies and 85. more Pluralists Non residents or persons most notoriously debaucht This was the first fruit of that Archbishops preferment and a fair offer at the rooting out of the reformed Religion as soon as planted which never did nor ever will live and flourish in any place under the conduct of an ignorant debauched unpreaching Ministry such a Ministry much better serving Popish than Protestant purposes What the Ministers that were suspended or deprived did to prevent their misery or to get this severity a little mitigated and allayed at this time in the years 1583 1584 1585. I shall inform the world from the worthy Author of the Book aforementioned wrote at that very time and often quoted by Bishop Bancroft His words are these The Cause was general means were made Ministers presented Doubts Protestations Supplications they were repulsed reviled threatned the Ministers did indure sustained with a good Conscience but their miserable flocks were subject to all disorders spoils havock Good men mourned evil men prevailed License possessed all places nothing was reserved whole to civil and modest life These things Gentlemen of all sorts took to heart they lamented their own estate and the estate of the people they pitied their Ministers their Wives and Children Gods Cause moved them the honour of the Gospel drew them yea the safety

themselves by Petition to the Queen and to particular Lords of the Council then to the Queen and the whole Council Particularly Dunmow in Essex sent a Supplication to my Lord Rich. The Parishioners of Aldermary in London to the Earl of Leicester The Ministers of the Diocess of Peterborough to another Lord. Many addressed to the whole Council viz. The Gentlemen of Norfolk the Ministers in Norfolk the Ministers of Essex the Ministers of Lincolnshire Essex Oxfordshire the Isle of Ely and many other Counties and places I have by me all the Copies I shall only transcribe that of the Ministers of Lincolnshire The Supplication of the Ministers of Lincolnshire to the Lords of the Council Forasmuch Right Honourable as the Lord of heaven and earth hath substituted your Honours next under her Majesty to procure passage to his Gospel beauty to his Church and glory to his Kingdom in which business of the Lord to the great joy of all those which pray heartily for the peace of Jerusalem hitherto you have happily proceeded We whose names are underwritten whom the same Lord hath in mercy placed over some of his people here in Lincolnshire as Pastors and Preachers to feed them with the word of truth do humbly beseech your Honours to regard the pitiful and woful estate of our Congregations and people in these parts which being destitute of our Ministry by the means of a Subscription generally and strictly urged now of late by the Bishops Officers do mourn and lament It is well known to all your Lordships that an absolute Subscription is required throughout the whole Province of Canterbury to three Articles The first concerning her Majesties Supreme Authority The second to the Book of Common-prayer with that of consecrating Bishops and ordering Priests and Deacons The third concerning the Book of Articles As touching the first we offer our sevles to a full Subscription as always heretofore we have done as also to the Articles of Religion I presume here must be meant as in the rest generally is exprest so far as they concern matters of Faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments and cannot be accepted herein without an absolute Subscribing to the other unto which we dare not condescend being as yet many of us not fully acquainted with the Book of confecrating Bishops and ordering Priests and Deacons and all of us unresolved and unsatisfied in our Consciences in many points of the Common-Prayer May it please your Lordships also favourably to consider that in refusing an absolute Subscription we do it not out of any arrogance or singularity but only for that we have no sufficient resolution which we have earnestly desired of some doubts about divers weighty matters and points in the same Book which requests of ours sith we could not obtain we desired that at the least in our Subscription we might make exceptions of the things whereof we doubted which they have utterly denied us for which causes Right Honourable we fearing to Subscribe so absolutely as we were urged we are all suspended from executing the function of our Ministry amongst our people to the great danger of their souls and danger of losing the fruit of our former poor labours which we have by Gods Grace imployed upon them wherefore we humbly crave of your Honours our Cause being as we are perswaded the Lords own Cause and his Churches that it may be considered And that since we can neither be impeached of false Doctrine nor of contempt of her Majesties Laws nor of refusing of the exercising of the Book of Common-Prayer in our charges nor of breeding contention and sedition in the Church And again that Papists her Majesties enemies with Atheists to the corrupting of Religion in Doctrine and Manners do daily multiply and increase we may be restored to our flocks and people in such sort as with all peace of Conscience we may go forward with the Lords Work in building up his house in several places Thomas Fulkeck Hugh Tuke John Daniel Richard Allen. Anthony Hunt Reinold Grome Thomas Tripler Shepheard Henry Nelson Mat. Tomson Thomas Bradly Joseph Gibson James Worship Charles Bingam John Munning Humfrid Travers John Pryer John Summerscales John Wintle Richard Holdsworth Richard Kellet These are enough for specimens of several sorts of Supplications There were others more particularly directed to the Queen and to some great persons all much to the same sense This last means had some little effect of which the Author of the Book called The unlawful practices of Prelates giveth us this account c. 4. Hence became the subscription to be somewhat more tolerable and further time was granted unto divers in divers Countreys and retaining that which pertained to the Civil State and in the Ecclesiastical that which concerned doctrine with protestation to use the Book of Common-prayer the Archbishop suffered himself to be entreated to require no more of many To this many were drawn the peace of the Church the compassion of their flocks the weariness of turmoils brought many to it that yet did it some with tears some with so great heaviness of conscience long after as they were never quiet till their dying day So great a desire of unity was in sundry men that stood herein Others satisfying themselves with a protestation of an holy and godly resolution by the Archbishop and other of the Bishops in certain points as they supposed by the example of certain learned men in the like case did not refuse to subscribe as the Ministers of Sussex and such like Again some other special men were admitted in divers places with more favour as the Ministers of Leicestershire Buckinghamshire and somt other places and some such others chiefly such whose authority would have brought discredit to their too too severe proceedings without any subscription at all Hence of the multitude that held out at first seemed not so great tho in truth in respect of the men and the times they were too too many and their subscription laid with their sundry exceptions in a manner no subscription at all But with the credit of these shewing only the subscriptions in one paper and retaining their Protestation in another many were drawn also as unawares birds into the net by the chirping of birds first taken From the colour of these last forms of subscriptions sprang bruits as tho all things were well in the Orders and Liturgy of the Church of England all things subscribed unto that all had yielded that whosoever mouths were open had subscribed But how far these differ frow that which was at first tendered I suppose no man is ignorant As again how little difference there is between the latter and that which all men did freely and frankly offer at the first Nothing that did pertain to her Excellent Majesty was struck at nothing that concerned doctrine or the substance of our faith Nothing that in the Statutes was set down touching Subscription The most that was excepted against at first and