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	power_n	1,653	5	4.9005	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54578	A discourse concerning liberty of conscience In which are contain'd proposalls, about what liberty in this kind is now politically expedient to be given, and severall reasons to shew how much the peace and welfare of the nation is concern'd therein. By R.T.	Pett, Peter, Sir, 1630-1699.; Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1661 (1661)	Wing P1881A; ESTC R213028	34,446	118

do not wonder at Trading persons who hate Ceremonies that they thus think God in respect of this hatred altogether such as themselves And therefore Almighty God designing his Worship from the Jewish Church to be full of Ceremonies and such as were Typical of his Son did divert that Nation from the utmost promoting of Trade To this end they were not planted except a few of them by the Sea-side but in In-land places and thereby were the better enabled to advance shepherdry and the multiplying of various kinds of Cattel in order to their Sacrifices They were forbid to take use money of one another not that there was any reall evil or Injustice in Usury but that it would have drawn them on to the advancement of Trade and consequently have interrupted the course of their solemn Rites and Ceremonies Religion would then have suffer'd by Trade whereas the contrary thing hath since happen'd from it For beside those Vices that are concomitant of Idleness which Trade repels the increase of Navigation must necessarily propagate the knowledg of Christian Religion as well as humane Arts and Sciences Thus Multi pertransibunt augebitur Scientia If in opposition to what hath been said about Trading persons being generally disaffected to Ceremonies in Religion any shall urge that in the Popish Republicks Trade and Ceremonies are both us'd It may be answer d that the many Ceremonies there are rather endured then loved and that if mens understandings were not there mis-guided by a belief of their being necessary to salvation the practice of them would quickly be abated just as we see the motion of a lock to be alter'd when the hand is removed that held back the spring Let but the Protestant Religion get ground there and so consequently the Tributes of their time be no more demanded for their present Ceremonies and we shall soon find how unwilling they will be to pay them I shall now briefly speak of the other parties as the Independents c. and take notice of their considerableness and hopes of bidding fair for an interest in the hearts of any of the people And here I shall observe that if these Sects had got no ground in the Nation that yet they want not their likelyhoods of doing it and that first by reason of the ready inclination of many among us to mutability in nothing more then their opinions about controverted things in Religion For opinions held by the English are held by Islanders And therefore Bodin in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem and fifth chapter of it doth very judiciously shew how people are to be moderated by different Laws according to their Climates and Situations which he confirmes by mentioning the severall Vices and Vertues of Countries remotely distant from one another saying how that Ventosa loca ferociores homines mobiliores reddunt quieta verò humaniores constantiores i. e. Countries disturb'd with frequent winds make men more fierce and mutable but Countries that are free from such do make men more civil and constant And secondly because the Protestant Religion doth indemnifie us in the Court of Conscience for believing in matters of Religion according to the Dictates of our private Judgements or rather oblige us to it Doubtless if it be not lawful for every man to be guided by his private judgement in things of Religion t' will be hardly possible to acquit our separation from the Romish Church from the guilt of schism The Genius of the Protestant Religion doth make it as naturall to us to weigh and consider any notions though recommended to us by our Ministers as 't is to tell money after our spiritual Fathers which we shall be as ready to do as after our naturall Nor can the decisions of Synods and Generall Councils terminate our inquiries in Religion or keep single Divines from recommending notions de fide And therefore as any Judge is concern'd to be wary how he gives sentence in a cause or inforceth the Execution of it when there lie appeales from his to severall other Judicatories so doth it likewise import Synods or Conventions of Divines to be cautious in their deciding matters of Faith since every such cause is to be carryed from their Bar to the examination of more then ten thousand Chancellours as many being Judges of the cause as there are rational men It hath been long since observ'd by many that Christian Religion hath moderated the extremity of servitude as to civil things in the places where it hath been receiv'd And certainly it is much more consonant to that Religion and especially that form of it which hath asserted its spirituall freedom from the impositions of others to allow spiritual liberty to others Nor doth it seem worthy of Christ who hath left us a Religion full of Mysteries and not any visible Judge of them to have design'd about those any visible Executioners If any man thinks otherwise let him say so I might further shew how these Sects caresse the vulgar in giving the power of the keys to the people in their gather'd Churches and how likely 't is that many busie men and of good natural parts who have not Learning enough to procure any good Church-preferment from the old or modern Episcopall men and it may be any such Learned men as have been repuls'd by them as to preferment will be gathering Churches But this present inquiry concerning the interest the severall Sects among us have in the hearts of many needs no further prosecution We find too many places swarming with them And such is the peculiar temper and complexion of most people of these perswasions and the melancholy of them more fix'd and sharp then that of any other party that this concurring with Religion of which I doubt not but very many of them have a true sense will incline them to persist in their present practises Of the heighth and setledness of these mens discontents we had experience in their voluntary removal out of the Nation carrying their Estates with them some to Holland and others to New England when the other more sagacious party of non-Conformists since call'd Presbyterians chose to weather out the storm at home and to get for themselves as good terms as they could THE FOURTH REASON that I shall urge to prove how much the peace and security of the Nation will be advanc'd by the liberty propounded may be taken from the inclinations of Orders and Degrees of other men among us and such as are not much engaged in these parties who account it their interest to be free from any religious impositions of the Clergy and to have the power of Bishops so moderated as that they may not be able to make any suffer for not being of their opinions in lesser matters of Religion And here I shall observe first how the Judges of the Land and the Lawyers generally have been ready to curb the excess of power in any Bishops The Bishops

judging of Ecclesiastical causes according to the Canon Law a Law of which Albericus Gentilis that renown'd Civilian saith in the 19th chap. of his second Book De Nuptiis Sed hoc jus brutumque barbarum sane est natum in tenebris seculorum spississimis productum a monacho tenebrione c. was an occasion of our Lawyers contrasts with them And what may well create suspicions that the Bishops keeping of Courts as they did was not according to Law may be had from those words of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in his Epistle Dedicatory to the King before his Speech in the Star-chamber I do humbly in the Churches name desire of Your Majesty that it may be resolv'd by all the Reverend Iudges of England and then Publish d by Your Majesty that our keeping Courts and Issuing Processe in our own Names and the like Exceptions formerly taken and now renew'd are not against the Law of the Realm c. And how ready the Lawyers have been to check the severity of Ecclesiastical Courts their innumerable prohibitions shew In the dayes of Popery the Prelates could awe the Judges with Excommunication for such crimes as the Church call'd so But how little of terrour the application of that censure hath had since appears from the frequent denouncing of it against the same man And therefore that Learned Lawyer Judge Ienkins in the second part of his Works saith that for opposing the excesses of one of the Bishops he lay under three Excommunications Secondly the substantial body of the Gentry heretofore was and is still likely to be for the moderating the exercise of Episcopal power and for the opposing its extravagance The oath ex officio and commuting for penance and other such kind of things cannot but be thought troublesome to them But that which I shall here chiefly take notice of is how a considerable part of the Gentry of England is grown more inquisitive in matters of Religion within these late yeares then formerly Where this inquiring temper is not no opinion so horrid but may be universally believ'd Thus the Turks may be induced to think that there is a Devil in the juyce of Grapes and the Papists that there may be a God therein But when men are neither by Religion or temper restrain'd from searching into the causes of things they will not in civility to other mens understandings believe propositions to be true or false And that which makes me beside my own observation to conclude that many of the Gentry of late are grown more inquisitive in Religious things then formerly and are likely so to continue is because they are more then heretofore inquisitive in civil things As when the polish'd knowledg of Philologie had obtain'd a conquest over the insignificant Learning of the School-men no man was thought worthy the name of a Scholar but he who understood the Greek Tongue so since the late introduction of reall Learning into the World by Galilaus Tycho Brahe my Lord Bacon Gassendus Des Cartes neither the knowledg of elegant words or nice Speculations wil yield any man the Reputation of being Learn'd that is altogether rude in Mathematicks which as they were formerly counted the Black Art and their Professors such as Roger Bacon Conjurers so may possibly School-Divinity and School-Divines hereafter be Having thus asserted the present searching disposition of a great part of our ingenious Gentry it may well be hence inferr'd that liberty of conscience may be of high use to them and that if any Ecclesiasticall persons determine any thing contrary to their reasons they will not believe them or if against their safety not obey them I think therefore by the way it was very politickly done of the Consistory of Cardinalls to imprison Galilaeus for affirming the motion of the Earth since that notion of his might fill the world with several new debates and inquiries and so Ignorance the mother of Devotion be destroy'd To prevent which effectuall care is taken by the Iesuites as appeares by the instructions given them in the Directory of their order call'd Directorium exercit spirit Ignatii Loyolae part 2. p. 172. Where there are Regulae aliquae tenendae ut cum Orthodoxâ Ecclesiâ sentiamus And the first Rule is Vt sublato proprio omni judicio teneamus semper promptum paratumque animum ad obediendum Catholicae Hierarchicae Ecclesiae It followes p. 176. Reg. 13. Ut Ecclesiae conformes simus si quid quod oculis nostris appareat album nigrum illa definiverit debemus itidem quod nigrum sit pronuntiare This is in the Edition of that Book at Tholou Anno 1593. and confirm'd by the Bull of Pope Paul the third In short he that hath had but any conversation with that ingenious part of the Gentry who have concern'd themselves in the consideration of Church-Government cannot but take notice of these two assertions being in vogue among them which whether true or no 't is not here pertinent to determine The first that 't is possible for Monarchy to subsist here without that high power our Bishops formerly had and so that Maxim No Bishop no King hath been disbelieved This Maxim seems to them true concerning Turky No Mufti no Grand Signior because the Mufti can with the Screen of Religion as he pleases hide the ugliness of those actions the Grandeur of the Turkish Empire is supported by But our Kings govern according to Law and so the Engin of Superstition is not here of use for the amusing people into slavery I confess any party of men that wil not own the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes as well as Civil is not fit to be allow'd as the State-Religion But that Supremacy of the Kings in Ecclesiastical matters and in Civil is acknowledged by the Divines that are for the Lord Primates form of Episcopacy as much as by any other A second assertion very much receiv'd among them is that no particular form of Church-Government is of Divine right Of this opinion my Lord Bacon shews himself to be expresly in his Considerations touching the Edification and Pacification of the Church of England and so my Lord Falkland in one of his printed Speeches where speaking of Bishops he saith I do not believe them to be jure divino nay I believe them to be not jure divino but neither do I believe them to be injuria humana So that it is no wonder that among our ordinary enquirers after knowledg this notion is believed which was so by those two incomparably Learned persons And it may seem much more to gratifie the power of Princes then the Maxim No Bishop no King can do The Author of the History of the Council of Trent makes mention how Laymez Generall of the Jesuits spent a whole Congregation in proving that Bishops are jure pontificio and not jure divino and said that the power of Iurisdiction was given wholly to the Bishop of Rome and that none in