Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	ecclesiastical_a	law_n	2,368	5	5.0759	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34967	An epistle apologetical of S.C. to a person of honour touching his vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet.	Cressy, Serenus, 1605-1674.	1674 (1674)	Wing C6893; ESTC R26649	61,364	165

as a good Consci●nce obliges me revoke since they are built only on suspicions not sufficient to warrant me to be a Iudge of his Intentions And this satisfaction I hope will deserve to be esteemed cordial and becoming a Christian because it is thus publickly made by me being at too great a distance to apprehend any danger from his resentment whereas the sharp language I then used towards him when I was obnoxious to the effects of his Choler To conclude this present argument I desire you Honoured Sir to reflect on that well known saying better becoming the Wise Laelius than a Comical Poet ● Omnes quibus res sunt minùs secundae magis sunt nescio quo mod● suspiciosi Ad Contumeliam om●i● accipiunt magis Propter suam impotentiam se semper credunt negligi ¶ 4. A Religious Profession pretended to be inconsistent with my Fidelity to His Majesty 46. AFter you had so generously laid an eternal Obligation on Dr. Stillingfleet by so publick a condemnation of me for my incivilities towards him you proceed to a charge against me of a far higher nature accusing I should say arraigning me for having renounced my Subjection to the King by being a Benedictin and consequently chusing other Superiours to my self with Obedience to wh●m my Obedience to the King you say is inconsistent so that I am so obnoxious to the Laws that I cannot securely live one day or set my foot in England c. 47. Sir if by my professing my self a Benedictin and moreover that I am obliged by Vow to obey my Superiours all which I cannot deny your inference be concluding that I am a Traytor to His Majesty God have mercy on my Soul I do not pretend to have any skill in our Statute Laws notwithstanding I never yet heard any one say that the meer being of a Religious Order was declared Treason in England for upon that account a Benedictin Lay brother would be as obnoxious to the Title and punishment of a Traytor as a Priest Besides this the French Benedictins of whose Fidelity to their King you have a good opinion m●ke the same Profession of Obedience to their Superi●urs without the least jealousie conceived by that State But however the matter stands as to the D●claration of Law I ●e●e protest in the presence of God that if I had any suspition that my Vow of Obedience to Regular Superi●urs did in any degree prejudice my Obligation of Fidelity to the King either by Nature or Religion n●y if I were not certain of the contrary the next Line here to be added should be a renunciation of the Title of a Benedictin and a r●vocation of the Vow of Regular Obedience 48. I will add further if I had not been assured that by the Profession of being a Member of the Roman Catholick Church I should continue as dutiful and obedient a Subject to His Majesty as ever I had been I had never before my Conversion so much as enquired into the Truth of other Cath●lick Doctrines 49. Nay yet farther Sir since I am fallen almost unawares into the humour of protesting though no Protestant I will be yet more bold to protest sincerely That if I were not entirely satisfied yea assured that no● the least Obligation of acknowledging any Temporal Authority in the Pope over this Kingdom was imposed on English Catholick Priests Secular or Regular by vertue of their receiving Ordination in and from the Church of Rome and likewise that the spiritual Jurisdiction exercised by them in vertue of such Ordination did in no measure prejudice or abridge the Civil Authority justly inherent in Monarchs of what Religion soever I should esteem them very unfit and dangerous Directors of the Souls of His Majesties Subjects and deservedly obnoxious to the utmost penalty of the Laws here enacted against them 50. Now what greater assurance can any one have of this than from a Consideration First That in all Catholick Kingdoms and States where the Supreme Magistrates are jealous enough of their Temporal Rights such Ordinations are not only p●rmitted but allowed and enjoined And Secondly That all the same Acts of Spiritual Iurisdiction exercised by Catholick Priests are also exercised by P●otestant Ministers over His Majesties Subjects For these also by vertue of their Ordination do lawfully and validly as they absolutely perswade themselves administer Sacraments absolve Penitent Sinners and I direct Souls in the way to Heaven c. Which Functions you will not surely say to be conferred on them by the King but only that the King permits them to receive them from the Bishop who only can communicate to others the Spiritual Faculties which himself has received from His Superiour the Archbishop 51. Truly Sir the innocence of Catholick Priests in this matter is to me so evident that I believe not any of them but durst commit themselves to the judgment of Dr. Stillingfleet himself but upon this condition that by the great interest you now certainly have in him you could obtain from him a sincere resolution of these few Proposals which I am sure he is able to give viz. 1. Whether among the several Sects with whom he received his Education and Learning the respective Ministers do not exercise all the foresaid Spiritual Faculties and Iurisdictions 2. Since it is certain that such Faculties have been conferred on th●m neither by the King nor Bishop but on the contrary are absolutely forbidden by all our Laws both Ecclesiastical and Temporal Whether he esteems the said Ministers to deserve therefore the name and punishment of Traytors 3. With what confidence they can take the Oath of the Kings Supremacy in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil 4. Whether he can demonstrate and if he can he is earnestly desired that he would do it that the difference in these regards between Catholick Priests and Dissenting Ministers is so great that the former deserve only the name of Traytors 5. This if he affirm he ought also to demonstrate that it is incomparably more dangerous to the King that Spiritual Functions should be received and this not immediately from one Person a thousand miles distant than from God knows how many in the Bowels of the Kingdom 52 If you will still oppose to poor Cath●licks alone the Laws of the Kingd●m which allow these Acts of Spiritual Iurisdicti●n in Pr●testant Ministers and scarce punish them in Presbyterians but make them Tre●s●n only in Catholick Priests To this terrible Objection what Answer can be given but either a silent patience or the same which the Apostles gave when convened before the Sanedrim And truly Honoured Sir if I were so happy as to see such a person as your self sitting in a high Place of Iudicature and were also a Priest arraigned before you for receiving and exercising such a Iurisdiction I should not be much apprehensive of a black Sentence from a Iudge in his own disposition compassionate and who by many years experience has

younger years enjoyed in Oxford That which he esteemed both most false and injurious was my saying That the Presbyterians had constrained the whole Kingdom to forswear the Religion in which they had been bred But truly under favour I do not understand wherein this Expression was either false or injurious to Loyal Protestants For certain it is that at the time to which that Speech had relation the King's Enemies were de facto Masters of the Kingdom and that all the Authority and Power both at Westminster and in the Field were employed most unjustly to constrain all men to swear to the Scottish Covenant In which they so far prevailed that the whole face of the Kingdom both as to Doctrine and Discipline was entirely changed and become Presbyterian And this was all that I did or could mean by that expression the truth whereof was too too manifest To whom therefore any injury was done by me in that passage I cannot yet imagine For though it was too true that the whole Kingdom as to the publick profession and practise had forsworn the former established Religion yet it does not hence follow neither had I the least thought of inferring such a cons●quence that all yea or that any considerable number of English Protestants had subscribed and sworn to the Covenant no more than that Roman Catholicks had done so On the contrary I knew that both the English Clergy and Protestant Gentry had generally suffered the loss of their Churches and Estates for refusing to take the Covenant and to acknowledge the Vsurpers Authority ● Neither had I the least thought that ●he foresaid publick Change introduced by Violence and Tyranny had diminished the Right which the Protestant Religion had to be justly esteemed the Religion of the Kingdom no more than th● Vsurpers invading the Regal Throne could any way prejudice His Majesties Title thereto 63. But a second passage there is offensive to the said Venerable Prelate which I do acknowledge more difficult to be de●en●ed or excused It is my saying That several of the wisest and learnedst of the Clergy had been content to buy their security with a v●luntary degrading of themselves from their Offices and Titles Now in some degree to qualifie a resentment which the English Clergy may not unreasonably conceive from this passage that which I have to represent is That when I wrote the Book I was in a Foreign Country so that whatsoever I could write touching our own Affairs I must have received from Information by Letters or Friends And by such Information I wrote this particular passage 'T is true before I left this Kingdom the unworthy miscarriage of that ungrateful perfidious Prelate D. Williams Archbishop of York was publickly known and abominated And too credulous I was of some few Examples of something alike though far less heinous a nature which were written or brought out of England to the place where I then resided which I afterwards found to have been groundless but till now too late for me thus publickly to disavow 64. Before I quit this trouble some Book my Exomologesis I conceive my self obliged to do right to a learned Doctor of the Church of England Dr. Tillotson who in a Book written against another Catholick Ad●e●sa●y takes occasion quasi aliud agens to produce a passage in my Exomologesis changed in the second Impression and as he affirms changed with great disingenuity A Copy of his Book I have not at present and therefore I cannot cite his words but to my best remembrance they regarded a saying of mine in the 40. Chapter of my Exomologesis of the first Impression wherein I had called the word Infallible a word to me unfortunate and I had also said that Mr. Chillingworth comba●ed with that word with too much success Whereas in the second Impression that same passage which by a new division of the parts of the Book f●ll to be in the 20. Chapter of the second Section was so changed as to impute the said success and unfortunateness not with regard to Catholicks but himself only and has followers who to their great harm took advantage unnecessarily of the utmost importance of the said word beyond what his Adversary would have required And as for Catholick Controvertists ● I endeavoured to excuse their employing that word to signifie thereby alone the unappealable Authority of the Cath●lick Church I c●nnot with any confidence affirm that I have given an exact account of the particular proofs alledged by Doctor Tillotson ● to justifie his impu●ing to me a very mis-becoming disingeruity in the alteration mad● Nei●her is it needful the fault being manifest But I am willing that my Pen should here publickly acknowledge the justice of that imputation and I will not give cause a second time to have the same disingenuity laid to my charge for I will very simply and ingenuously relate the occasion and motive of the said disingenuous change which was this A certain ancient V●n●rable Religious Father who for School-Learning and skill in the canon-Canon-Law was the most eminent p●rson in all these Provinces knowing my intention to r●print my Exomologesis and being● I conceive not well pleased that a dis-reputation should be cast on that sort of Learning in which he excelled earnestly suggested to me a qualification of the said passage in my Book and withal assured me that the Censure I had given of an expression or Term for so many ag●s in general use among Catholick Controvertists and Schoolmen would every where giv● great offence And therefore though he would by no means counsel me to prejudice Truth yet that it was not always necessary to discover every thing that is true Therefore his advice was that in the new Impression I should retrench so much in that Chapter as reflected with disadvantage on those Catholick Writers who made use of the word Infallibility Thus he advised me and thus out Reverence to the person I comply●d with his desire For which I cannot as I said before blame Dr. Tillotson for charging me with disingenuity 65. The next Book which I justly pretend to be guiltless of the crime of revi●ing the Church of England is a short Treatise named an Appendix in which are cleared c●rtain mis-constructions of my Exomologists ● published by I. P. Author of the Preface b●fore my Lord Falkland●s Discourse of Infallibility which is annexed at the end of the second Impression of my Exomologesis The said Author I. P. I never had the happiness to know but I wish if Catholick Religion must be opposed it may always find such ●d●ersaries that is persons endowed with very considerable parts of learning and acuteness enabling them with as much advantage as their cause will afford to maintain it and in maintaining it not to wander into unnecessary excursions and to use a stile though not void of sharpness yet such a sharpness as will not be ungrateful even to their opponents much less expose them and all