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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	church_n	time_n	3,239	5	3.7702	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33223	The state of the Church of Rome when the Reformation began as it appears by the advice given to Paul III and Julius III by creatures of their own : with a preface leading to the matter of the book.	Clagett, William, 1646-1688.	1688 (1688)	Wing C4400; ESTC R15337	26,546	43

he cannot do well and as he ought if as a Shepherd he dwells not with his Sheep besides Holy Father the example of this custom does a world of mischief For how can this Holy See guide others and correct their Abuses if she suffers such Abuses in her principle Members For we do not think that because they are Cardinals it should be more lawful for them to transgress the Laws but that they should least of all presume to do it since their lives are to be a Law to others nor are they to be like the Pharisees who said but did not but to our Saviour Christ who began to do and then to teach And besides this Licentiousness being the fewel of Avarice the use of it is prejudicial to the Counsels they take in Church Affairs Moreover for the obtaining of Bishopricks Cardinals do court Kings and Princes their dependence upon whom afterwards hinders them from speaking their minds freely at least if they were bold and willing enough to speak yet they would easily be perverted into a wrong judgment by affection and interest We could wish therefore that this custom were broken and that all the Cardinals might have an equal Revenue which would maintain them handsomly according to their Dignity which provision we think might easily be made if we would be willing to serve Mammon no longer and would serve none but Christ. These things being set right which refer to the appointment of your Ministers who are as it were the Instruments for the right performing of God's Worship and the well ordering of the People in a Christian Life We must now come to those things which relate to the Government of Christian People As to which matter most holy Father there is an Abuse in the first place to be corrected and the greatest care is to be taken that Bishops especially no nor Curates be absent from their Churches and Parishes unless for a weighty cause but keep their Residence but especially the Bishops since they are the Husbands of the Church committed to their care For we appeal to God that no sight can be more lamentable to a Christian man going through Christendom than this solitude of the Churches Almost all the Pastors are withdrawn from their Flocks which are almost every-where entrusted with Hirelings There ought therefore to be a great Penalty upon Bishops above all and likewise upon Curates who are absent from their Flocks and who ought not onely to be censured but not so much as receive the Revenues of the Church unless for some short time the Bishops obtain leave of absence from your Holiness and the Curates from their Bishops Let some of the Laws and Decrees of Councils in this matter be read whereby it is provided that a Bishop shall not be absent from his Church above three Lord's Days It is also an Abuse that so many of the most Reverend Cardinals are absent from this Court and do not so much as in part do any thing of that Office which belongs to a Cardinal We think indeed that 't is expedient for some few Cardinals to live in their Provinces since thy are as it were the Root of the Papacy that by shooting out its strings abroad in the Christian World contains the People in their Obedience to the Roman See. But yet we think it were very much for the Interest of your Holiness to recal them though not perhaps every one to their Residence in this Court For besides that by this means they would execute the proper Office of Cardinals the State and Retinue of your Court would be provided for and the want of those many Bishops would be supplied who ought to leave the Court and return to their Churches Another great Abuse and by no means to be endured since 't is a scandal to all Christian People arises from the hindrances and restraints that are upon Bishops in the Governing of their Flocks and chiefly in the punishing and correcting of wicked persons For first there are ill men and especially Clergy-men who by many ways exempt themselves from the Jurisdiction of their Ordinary But then if they are not exempt they betake themselves easily to the Penitentiary or to the Datary where they presenly find a way to protect their Impunity and which is still worse by giving of Money This scandal most holy Father does so disturb Christian People that 't is not to be expressed We beseech your Holiness by the Bloud of Christ wherewith he hath Redeemed his Church having washed the same in his Bloud that these foul blemishes be taken away Let these mischiefs be removed to which if in any Republick or Kingdom allowance were given it would in a little time fall head-long into ruine and would not by any means be able to subsist long And yet we think it is lawful for us so that we have the doing of it our selves to see these Monsters brought into the Common-wealth of Christendom In the Orders of the Religious there is another Abuse to be corrected that many of them are so degenerate that they are grown scandalous and their examples pernicious to the Seculars We think the Conventual Orders are to be abolished not by doing to any man that injury of Dispossessing him but by forbidding them to admit any more For thus without wronging any one they would soon be worn out and good Religious might be substituted instead of them but at present it were best that all Children who are not yet professed should be taken from their Monasteries We think also that as to the Preachers and Confessors that are sent out by the Fryers there is need of Animadversion and Amendment that great care should be taken by their Chief that they be fitly qualified and then that they be presented to the Bishops to whom chiefly the Church is intrusted to be examined by them or by fit persons and that without their consent they be not admitted to the exercise of those Offices We have already said most holy Father that it is by no means lawful to make any Gain by the use of the Keys in which matter the Words of Christ stand firm and sure Freely ye have received freely give This does not onely belong to your Holiness to take notice of but to all who share in this power and therefore we desire that it may be observed by your Legates and Nuntio's For as the custom which has much prevailed dishonours this See and makes the People clamorous so the contrary would be exceedingly for the Ornament of the one and for the Edification of the other Christian People are disturbed by another Abuse which concerns Nuns that are under the care of the Conventual Fryers where in most Monasteries publick Sacriledges are committed to the intolerable scandal of the Citizens Let your Holiness deprive the Conventuals of this care and give it to the Ordinaries or to others as you shall see cause The publick Schools are most perniciously abused especially in Italy where

many Professors of Philosophy teach that which is wicked Yea in Churches themselves there are most ungodly Disputes and if any of them are pious for the matter yet Divine things are handled very irreverently as to the manner and that before the People Therefore where there are publick Schools the Bishops should be required to admonish the Readers not to teach Impiety to young Men but to shew the weakness of natural light in questions concerning God concerning the lateness or the eternity of the World and the like and to direct them to pious Belief And as no publick Disputations about such Questions should be permitted so neither concerning matters of Divinity which by this means would lose very much the esteem and reverence of the People Those things should be disputed privately and other Questions in Natural Philosophy chosen for publick disputations Which caution is to be given to all other Bishops especially of the greater Cities where such Disputations use to be held The same care is to be taken about the Printing of Books and all Princes are to be Written to not to suffer any sort of Books whatsoever without farther examination to be Printed in their Territories The care of which thing should likewise be given to the Ordinaries And because Erasmus's Colloquies are now-a-days wont to be read to Children in Grammar Schools in which there are many things apt to dispose uneducated minds to Impiety therefore the reading of those Colloquies and the like in such places ought to be prohibited Now besides these things which refer to the appointing of your Ministers in this care of the whole Church and then in the Administration and Government thereof your Holiness may please to take notice that there are other Abuses introduced likewise The first concerns Apostate Fryars or Religious who notwithstanding their solemn Vow draw back from the Religion of their Order and obtain leave not to wear the Habit of it No not the least appearance thereof but onely some handsome Habit of a Clergy-man We say nothing now of Lucre for we noted at first that Merchandise was not to be made of the Power of the Keys received from Christ We now say that this kind of Dispensation is not to be used For the Habit is the sign of the Profession to which these Apostates ought to be held nor has the Bishop power in this case so true it is that this Liberty ought not to be given to these men Neither when they have broken away from their Vow to God should they be suffered to enjoy Benefices or Cures There is another Abuse in the Collectors for the Holy Ghost for St. Anthony and others of this kind which put Cheats upon Rustics and simple People and intangle them in a world of Superstition These Collectors we think ought to be taken away Another Abuse there is in dispensing with a Person in Holy Orders to Marry which is not to be allowed to any unless it be for the preservation of human Race in any Nation where the Cause is weighty and of publick concern This is especially to be observed in these times in which this Liberty is violently contended for by the Lutherans We conceive it also to be an Abuse to dispense with the Marriage of those that are in the Second Degree of Consanguinity or Affinity unless it be for a weighty reason Nor should Dispensations be granted without other Degrees but where the Cause is honest and still without Mony unless the Parties were married before in which case it is lawful to impose a pecuniary Punishment in order to Absolution from Sin already committed and to convert it to pious uses such as your Holiness promotes For as where there is no Sin in the use of the Keys to be done away no Mony can be demanded so where Absolution from Sin is desired a pecuniary Mulct may be laid and designed for pious uses In the Absolution of a Simoniacal Person there is another Abuse and 't is a dismal thing to consider that this Plague reigns in the Church to that degree that some are not afraid to be guilty of Simony and to go presently for Absolution The truth is they buy their Absolution and so they keep the Benefice they bought before We do not say that your Holiness wants power to forgive that Punishment which is by positive Law appointed for this Crime but that you ought not by any means to do it that so horrible a Wickedness may be more effectually suppressed then which there is none that breeds more Mischief and Scandal Neither is Liberty to be given to Clergy-men unless for an urgent Cause to dispose of the Goods of the Church by Will least that which is for the relief of the Poor be converted to private Pleasure and the luxury of Building But neither are faculties to receive Confessions with the use of a portable Altar easily to be granted for thus Ecclesiastical Affairs grow cheap and that Sacrament also which is the principal of all the rest Nor are Indulgences to be given above once a Year in every greater City Nor ought a Commutation of Vows to be lightly yielded to but where the Good is equivalent and will bear it out It has been a Custom also to change the Wills of Testators who have left a certain Sum of Money for pious and charitable purposes which by the Authority of your Holiness is transferred to the Heir or the Legatee under pretence of their Poverty c. and this is gain'd by Mony too Surely unless a great change happens in the Estate of the Heir by the Death of the Testator so that the Testator himself in all likelihood if he had foreseen that change would also have changed his Will it is an impious thing to depart from the last Will and Testament of the Dead Of filthy lucre we have spoken so often that we must mention it no more And thus according to our capacity having summarily described all those things which belong to the Duty of the Supreme Bishop of the Catholic Church it remains that we say something of that which belongs to the Roman Bishop This City of Rome is both the Mother of the Church and the Mistress of other Churches wherefore the Worship of God and purity of Manners should flourish there most of all But yet Holy Father all Strangers are scandalized when they go into St. Peter's Church and see what slovenly ignorant Priests say Mass there so habited and cloathed that they could not appear cleanly in a nasty House This is so mighty an offence to All that the most Reverend the Arch-presbiter and the Poenitentiary are to take care of this Thing and remove the Scandal And the like order is to be taken in other Churches Nay in this City Whores walk about as if they were goodly Matrons or they ride upon Mules and are at Noon-day followed up and down by men of the best account in the Families of Cardinals and by Clergy-men We