Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	bring_v	plaintiff_n	1,503	5	10.5483	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70427	An historical and geographical description of France extracted from the best authors, both ancient and modern. By J. De Lacrose, Eccl. Angl. Presb.	Lacroze, Jean Cornand de, d. ca. 1705.	1694 (1694)	Wing L136A; ESTC R223644	308,707	674

that Court where their Power is very considerable since the Suppression of the Charge of Lord Constable upon whom they were formerly depending However this Power is somewhat counterballanced by their great Increase in Number of late years The Lord Chancellor is the Head of all the Courts of Justice and presides in all the King's Councils in his Absence Besides he cannot be destituted but by Death or Trespass And therefore the Kings to keep this great Minister in awe have a Lord Keeper of the Seals whom they cause to discharge the Chancellor's Functions by giving him the Seals in which Occasion the Chancellor retains no more but the bare Name of his Office He has under him the Masters of the Requests who serve quarterly judge the Differences between the Officers of the Crown and prepare such Matters as are to come before the King 's Great Council This Council is now a Soveraign Court of Justice whose Sentences are executed throughout the whole Kingdom it 's composed of the Chancellor and eight Masters of Requests From this Court issue all the Placates Ordinances and Proclamations There are also a Council of State a Council of the Exchequer a Privy-Council to determine Appeals and Contests about the Jurisdiction of Judges and the Cabinet Council who manages all the Affairs and is as the Soul of the Realm Besides the twelve ancient Peers of France there are near a hundred more created since two or three Centuries but though they have the Priviledge to sit in the Parliament at Paris and not to be judged by any other Court yet they fall short of the Lustre and Power of the first Peers The Knights of the Order of St. Michael instituted by Lewis XI in 1469 are in no extraordinary Repute and this Order is now only considered as a step to that of the Holy Ghost instituted by Henry III. in 1570 whose Knights are fewer in number and more respected it being given as a token of special Favour and to such as are already of St. Michael's Order and considered by their Birth or Merits I supersede to speak of the Lord Admiral the Vice-Admirals and Rear-Admirals Of the Generals Lieutenant Generals Masters de Camp Collonels c. Of the Masters of the Ordnance of the Lord Treasurers Counsellors and Secretaries of State of the Ambassadors Lord Almoner Under Almoners Chaplains in Ordinary and other Officers either Civil Military or Ecclesiastical who are little or nothing different from the like in England But I must not forget to speak a word of the King's Confessor who though he has originally no more Power than the Clerk of the Closet here yet through the superstitious Condescension of the late Kings and the shrewd Management of those cunning Politicians Cotton Annat and La Chaize are become so powerful as to get into their Hands the Direction of the most important Affairs of the Kingdom under pretence of Conscience When the Jesuits were recalled into France King Henry IV. was advised to take one of these Fathers for his Confessor who should be as an Hostage for the Fidelity of the whole Club. But this very Caution proved his Ruine for Father Cotton whom he pitched upon having first seduced his Queen laid his Plot so well with Spain and his Fellow-Jesuits that the King was murthered by Ravaillac And that Henry's Ghostly Father and Queen had a Hand in this horrid Business can hardly be doubted after the Insinuations the sincere Mezeray gives of it There are two Charges in France the like I don't know that we have in England or at least they are not here in such a Consideration as in that Kingdom The Officers who discharge them are always Counts or Dukes or Princes of the Blood and are called the Great Huntsman and the Great Falconer of France They have large Appointments Gifts and Profits and several Officers under them whose Places are at their Disposal The Captain General of the Hunting-Nets and the Great Wolf-Hunter keep likewise an honourable Rank and all four are sworn by the King himself I shall finish this Chapter with mentioning the Way of administring Justice in France Suits are for the most part commenced before the ordinary Judges of the Place which are called Royal or Seigneurial according as the Town or Village depends ●mmediately upon the King or a private Lord except in some particular Cases or when one of the Parties concerned is exempted from their Jurisdiction Thence ●hey are brought before the Baylives or Se●eschals who are Chief Justices of a certain Precinct called Baylwick Vriguory Provostship or Seneshalship These Baylives are Noble Men who bear a Sword instead of a Gown and seldom discharge their Office themselves but have two Lieutenants under them one for Civil and the other for Criminal Causes The last and Supream Jurisdiction is ●he High Court of Parliament each of which is composed of ten twelve or fifteen Presidents and well near eighty or an hundred Counsellors The Power of this Court ●s yet very great because of the many Noble and Priviledged Men whose Causes immediately resort to it But it was much greater in times past especially that of the Parliament of Paris which was in some manner a standing Assembly of the General States For no Edict or Proclamation of the King had the Force of a Law before ●t was ●enteriné or ratify'd by them and they might reject such as were not in their Judgments fit for the Publick Good A Boldness of which History furnisheth us with several Examples even under the most powerful and respected Princes as Lewis XI Francis I. and Henry IV. But the late Ministers Richelieu Mazarin Colbert and Louvois have so far undermined the Authority of these Courts that they not only dare not reject any of the King's Edicts but dare not so much as make use of the Word Enteriné their Style being now Lû verifié en Parlement That is Read and acknowledged for a true Writing or Order of the King The Intendants are the Men whom the Promoters of Arbitrary Power have made a special use of to bring down the Power of Parliaments They are a kind of Overseers whom the French Kings began to send into the several Provinces of their Dominions fifty or sixty years ago and who under pretence of setling the King's Revenues reconciling Differences about it or seeing Justice well done have considerably encroached upon the Jurisdiction of Parliaments without that the Complaints of the last were ever regarded at Court The preposterous Zeal of these Magistrates against the Reformed was none of the least Causes of their Decay for as often as any Suit wherein both Churches seemed to be concerned came before them we were sure to get an Arrêt de Partage or that the Protestant President and Counsellors would give their Voice in favour of the Defenders whereas the Roman Catholicks would decide for the Plaintiffs how ill grounded soever their Actions might be This of course brought the Decision of the

Matter before the King's Council so that our Reformed seeing that no Justice was to be hoped from the Parliament made an Interest to remove the Cause before the King's Council that they might avoid expences which many other imitated not without the secret Support of the Court. CHAP. VI. Of the Religion of the French THE Reader must not here expect an Account of the Bardes and Druides or of the Idolatrous Worship of the ancient Gauls neither am I minded to assert or confute what has been said concerning St. Denis the Areopagite being Bishop of Paris or St. Martial Bishop of Limoges and both Apostles of the Gauls about the Year 70. By whomsoever the Christian Religion has been first preached in France sure it is that it was early enough since in the middle of the second Century there were two conspicuous Churches at Lyons and Vienne who endured a long and bloody Persecution under the Empire of Marc. Aurele An. 176. By what Means and Degrees Popery corrupted Christianity is not a Mystery in this Protestant Kingdom but I have some Observations to make upon the Progress and present State of that Superstitious Worship in France It 's well known that Superstition began to creep into the Church by the over-great Honour the Faithful rendered to those Christian Heroes the Martyrs who contrary to the Heathen that got a Name by their being troublesome to others signalized themselves by their own Sufferings And with great reason were they so much reverenced since the Pagan Antiquity which mentions so many Hercules can hardly supply us with an Anaxarchus While these couragious Athletes lay in Prison Sinners were released of their Penances upon their Intercession after their Death their Tombs were the Gathering-place of the Faithful and when God had given Peace to his Church Temples were built upon or near their Graves and called after their Names And as the Vulgar doth not know how to keep the golden middle Path hates or loves despises or praises to excess So this due and lawful Remembrance soon degenerated into an Idolatrous Worship Perhaps at the beginning it had been easie to Clergy-Men to put a Stop to that Superstition but the Generality found it seems their Reckoning by it and pious Men durst not oppose the Current However the Gauls had the Honour to produce one Jovinian a Monk of Milan who endured a long Persecution for openly disproving the creeping Practices of Coelibacy Vows and the Veneration of Reliques in the time of St. Ambrose But a greater Man than Jovinian whom neither Italians nor Spaniards can challenge is Vigilantius for he was born at Calaguri a small Borough near Cominges in Gascony True it is that St. Jerom disputed against him with much Violence but the Learned know that the Conduct of this Father is not so much commended as his Science and notwithstanding his Out-crys Vigilantius quietly died in the Communion of the Church and left a great many Disciples who seem to have been the Fore-fathers of the Albigenses as those of Jovinian maintained the Truth in the Churches of Italy till Claudius Archbishop of Turin arose and was succeeded by the Vaudois The second Step of Superstition was the Worship of Images which when the Emperors of the East could no longer oppose God raised Charlemaign in the West who caus'd it to be condemned together with the second Council of Nice in another held at Francfort Ann. 794. At the same time Agobard Archbishop of Lyons and Claudius of Turin preach'd and wrote again●● these Idolatrous Practices which prevail'● at last during the Weakness and Division of Charlemaign's House and Successors Transubstantiation was a casual Off-spring of Image-Worship for when th● Orthodox told the Iconolatre's that God'● Son had left us but an Image of himself namely the Holy Sacrament which notwithstanding he never commanded to adore the last after many Subterfuges finally bethought themselves of this Answer 〈◊〉 That the consecrated Bread and Wine were not a simple Image of our Lord but his true Body and Blood Against this strange Doctrine Bertram or Ratramn Priest and Monk of Corby in Picardy composed a Book about the Year 850. and a little after John Scot Erigeene Professor of Divinity in the University of Paris wrote of the same Matter both by Order of Charles the Bald Emperor By the Opposition of these great Men this monstrous Tenet was somewhat suppressed but as it lifted up its Head again after their Death Berengarius Arch-Deacon of Anger 's arose for the Truth in 1035 was a long time maintained by several French Bishops against the Power and Persecution of the Popes and dy'd in the Communion of the Church Ann. 1088 not without solemnly recalling the nonsensical Confession which the Popes Nicolas II. and Gregory VII had forced upon him After Berengarius the Assertors of the Truth had more dreadful Storms to go through however France was never wanting such Christian Heroes Some rejected all the Popish Errors as Peter de Bruys and Henry of Tolose the Waldenses and Albigenses Some confuted Transubstantiation as John Dr. of Paris known under the Name of Joannes de Parisiis others bewailed the Corruption of the Church as Nicolas of Clemangis others inveighed against the Monks their Luxury and Covetousness especially William of St. Amour As to those that opposed the Tyranny and Usurpations of the Popes it would be too tedious to enumerate them and I refer my Reader to the Learned Richer and Du Pin. De potest Eccles L. 1. c. 3. De Antiq. Eccles Discipl Diss 7. The French Soyl being so well prepared to receive the Seed of the Gospel 't is not to be wondered at if the Disciples of Luther and the Writings of Calvin caused such a Harvest in that Kingdom one ought rather to be surpriz'd that it was not fruitful every where and that against all Appearance in less than 200 Years the Roman Tare has outwardly covered the whole Realm again I say against all appearance for it seems somewhat strange that some Northern Countries have generally i●brac'd and hitherto preserved the Refo●mation and that the quick-sighted Fren●● have suffered themselves to be imposed u●on so far as to let Popery and Tyran● prevail after they had spilt so much Bloo● to obtain at least a Liberty of Conscienc● I will not presume to enter the Secrets 〈◊〉 God but as the ways of his Providen●● may sometimes be discovered after the ●vent and the Faults of our Fore-fathers 〈◊〉 the Frauds of our Enemies may make 〈◊〉 wiser for the future so it will not m●thinks be amiss to observe the Causes tha● have put a stop to the Reformation i● France 1. In most of the Countries that reforme● themselves the Church-Revenues were no● all disposed of according to the pious Intent of the Givers but a good part wa● appropriated to Secular Uses which alienated the Hearts of the Clergy in othe● Countries and gave them occasion to insinuate to the People that Covetousness an● not