Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	matter_n	nature_n	2,049	5	5.3756	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36249	The doctrine of the Church of England concerning the independency of the clergy on the lay-power, as to those rights of theirs which are purely spiritual, reconciled, with our oath of supremacy, and the lay-deprivations of the popish-bishops in the beginning of the reformation / by the author of The vindication of the depriv'd bishops.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1697 (1697)	Wing D1813; ESTC R10224	66,791	94

they could they did so it being notorions in those Primitive Times that they had no more consent of the Civil Magistrate for the one than for the other and yet exercised both and were seconded by God in their Acts of Discipline which supposed their claim to both of them But by Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles the Apostles themselves could lay no claim to either of them without the consent of the Civil Magistrate and therefore could derive no such Rights to Successors claiming from them that could be undeprivable by the Civil Magistrate Had this Doctrine been true Bishops deprived by a lawful Magistrate cou'd have claim'd no longer But even our Adversaries themselves seem sensible now not only how contrary those Paradoxes were to the Sense of truly Catholick Antiquity but also how little agreeable they are to the prevailing Opinion of them who cordially espouse the Cause of Religion in general and of the Church of England in particular even in this present degenerous Age. This being so our Adversaries themselves cannot be displeased at us for disowning a Supremacy explained by and grounded on such Doctrines as even themselves dare not undertake to defend § XII AND such indeed was the Supremacy as it was first introduced by King Henry the VIII and as it was continued under King Edward the VI. Then as much was challenged as could be allowed by even those licentious Principles of Archbishop Cranmer I mean so much was challenged by the Kings themselves and by the Laity who made a majority in the Legislative Power by the Constitution So much was plainly the design of King Henry to whom Cranmer so effectually recommended himself by these Opinions as our Historian observes And the Sense of the Legislative Power cannot be better proved ●●an from the Expressions of the Laws themselves T 〈…〉 st Law is more modest and though it do own the King for Head of the Body Politick consisting of Spiritualty and Temporalty yet withal it clearly distinguishes their two Jurisdictions and does not make them interfere any further than as that perhaps might be meant by making the King the common Head of both of them For so the words of the Act run The body Spiritual whereof having power when any cause of the Law Divine happened to come in question or of Spiritual learning that it was declared interpreted and shewed by that part of the said Body Politick called the Spiritualty now usually called the English Church which always hath been reputed and also found of that sort that both for knowledge integrity and sufficiency of number it hath been always thought and is also at this hour sufficient and meet of it self without the intermeddling of any exterior Person or Persons to declare and determine all such doubts and to administer all such Offices and Duties as to their rooms Spiritual doth appertain c. And the Laws Temporal for tryal of Property of Lands and Goods and for the conservation of the People of this Realm in Unity and Peace without rapin or spoil was and yet is administred adjudged and executed by sundry Judges and Ministers of the other part of the said Body Politick called the Temporalty And both their Authorities and Jurisdictions do conjoyn together in the due administration of Justice the one to help the other Accordingly it is afterwards enacted that all Causes concerning our Dominions be finally and difinitively adjudged and determined within the Kings Jurisdiction and Authority and not elsewhere in such Courts Spiritual and Temporal of the same as the natures conditions and equalities of the Cases and matters aforesaid in contention or hereafter happening in contention shall require Thes● things plainly shew the State wherein that assuming Princes ●ound things when he began his Innovations and which all o 〈…〉 to endeavour to restore who desire that the antient bounds of Magna Charta should be preserved inviolable For what security can it give us in our present Settlements if former violations of it in others by not being repealed must be allowed to pass into Precedents for new and future violences when any are possessed of force sufficient to attempt them But this will directly overthrow the Legality of what has been done for depriving our Holy Fathers by a Lay Authority even supposing it Legal It is indeed probable that when this Act was made the King himself designed no such exercise of purely Spiritual Authority by Lay Persons Bishop Burnet himself observes that in Cromwell ' s first Commission as no such Precedency was granted him as was afterwards next the Royal Family so neither was any Authority at all granted him over the Bishops And this Act now mentioned shews plainly that the Case was so All Appeals here of private Persons in Spiritual Causes are ultimately to the Archbishops saving the Prerogative of the Archbishop and See of Canterbury And in Causes wherein the King should be concerned the ultimate Appeal is to the Spiritual Prelates and other Abbots and Priors of the upper House assembled and convocated by the Kings Writ in the Convocation being or next ensuing within the Province or Provinces where the same matter of contention is or shall be begun Thus far therefore it is very plain that neither the Title of Head nor the Supremacy could oblige us to own any Lay Authority whatsoever to be sufficient for a Spiritual Deprivation even interpreted according to the Sense of the Legislators themselves So all the Right that the King as a common Head could pretend to over the Clergy in Causes purely Spiritual was not a Right to give them any Power which they were not supposed to have Antecedently to any exercise of the Kings Authority over them but a Right to oblige them to make a good Use of that Power which they had already received from God But on this Supposition as he can give them no new Power in these matters so neither can he take that Power from them which he never gave them Which will alone be sufficient to ruine the validity of Lay Deprivations § XII HOWEVER Archbishop Cranmer ' s Opinion being so grateful to the King and the Laity who made the majority in the Legislative Power did accordingly prevail But being withal as singular among the Clergy who were notoriously the only competent Judges of Spiritual Rights it prevailed in such a way as one would expect an Opinion labouring under such a disadvantage of true Authority would do that it was urged to the height when either elation of success or an exigence of affairs urged them to such odious extremities otherwise the practise of it was intermitted when cooler thoughts took place as having great presumptions against it that it was unwarrantable and those good ones even in the Opinion of the Governours themselves who having now intirely subdued the Clergy were no longer under any other restraint than that which was from their own Consciences Accordingly after the surrendry of the Clergy when now

which had been challenged by her Father and Brother does not so much imply that her Supremacy was as bad as theirs as that it was not worse This later meaning was very apposite to her purpose in urging it on the Popish Bishops who had owned it in her Father and Brothers times when it was worse than what was now expected from them But from the time she put out this Injunction and downwards her own Authority is sufficient to assure us whatever it was then that it is not required now Especially when seconded by the other Authorities which we shall produce hereafter § XXI BVT it is observable by the way that by the Queens explication the Supremacy over Spiritual Persons is all that is Sworn to not that which is expressly mentioned in the Oath which is in Spiritual Causes For the Queen professes her self satisfied if those two things be included in the Oath the renunciation of all foreign dependences and her Sovereignty at home over all her Subjects as well Spiritual as Temporal She requires no more for discharging Persons who can go so far from all the Penalties of the Act by which the Oath was imposed That these two may be reconciled it will be requisite that no more be included in the Oath than is in the Injunction and therefore that no Spiritual Causes be meant in the Oath but such as are absolutely necessary to be included in order to the rendring the Supremacy over Spiritual Persons practicable Such are all those Temporalties which on account of their being of their own nature Temporalties must therefore be supposed to have been Originally the Magistrates Right and are therefore only called Spirituals inasmuch as they are by the favour of the Magistrate annexed to Spiritual Offices and Spiritual Persons For this is a known Notion of this Word in our Laws that all the Temporals that were annexed to Spirituals are for that reason called Spirituals also So the Bishops Lordships their Baronies their Benefices are all called Spiritual So the Honours and Revenues also of the inferior Clergy and the Legal Priviledges to which they are intituled by their Tenures So the Causes also which being originally Political have notwithstanding been permitted to Spiritual Jurisdiction of this sort are all Causes Matrimonial and Testamentery which belonged to Secular Courts before the Conve 〈…〉 〈◊〉 of Princes to the Christian Religion And upon account of this name of Spiritual which is given to things of this nature in our Laws it is that the same Laws refer their cognizance to Spiritual Cou●●s and Spiritual Jurisdictions And indeed the generality 〈◊〉 the Causes now tryed in the Spiritual Courts were originally of this kind of things of their own nature Temporal and therefore Originally of secular cognizance Yet when the Clergy insisted on their exemption and allowed no appeals from their Courts in any of the matters then permitted to their Jurisdiction unless when themselves were pleased to deliver their Criminals over to the Secular Arm this Practise left the Secular Prince no remedy in so many Cases Originally belonging to his own cognizance more properly than to theirs to whom it had been allowed by the indulgence of his well-meaning pious Predecessors This grievance was again less tolerable to the Secular Magistrate on this account that the very Persons of the Clergy on account of their being taken for Spiritual in the estimation of the Law were wholly exempted from the cognizance of the Lay Courts even when guilty of Secular Crimes unless the Spiritual Judges were pleased to give them up to the Secular Arm after their having first degraded them and thereby deprived them of their Claim to Exemption on account of their being taken for Spiritual Persons There was reason for these Exemptions when they were first granted by Christian Princes full of their new zeal for their excellent Religion upon their first embracing it It had been practised by the Jews and from them received by the Christians before the Conversion of Princes even in the times of the Apostles Even then a Brother was not permitted to go to Law with a Brother before Infidel Judges They could be no other than Secular Causes that Infidel Judges were allowed to determine The name used by St. Paul who calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implie● they were so as also the meanness of the Persons by him 〈…〉 llowed to judge concerning them Even our Saviour himself seems to 〈◊〉 to it and to allow of it as I think Erastus himsel● 〈◊〉 first very happily observed when he allows them who would not stand to such an awa●● of their own Ecclesiastical Brethren to be accounted as ●●athens and Infidels that is to be as freely prosecuted in Heathen Courts as Infidels might be when Brethren of the peculiar People had any secular controversies with them The reason given for this was that Infidels might not know and take scandal at the Infirmities of those who were to be as lights exemplary to those who were not of the same profession And this reason held as well in the first times of the Conversion of Princes to our Christian Religion as it had done before Then also Heathens were allowed by the Constitution to be Judges in the Roman Courts And it holds still in general even since our Christian Laws have excluded any but those who at least profess themselves Christans from being Judges in our present Secular Courts The Clergy are still obliged to be as exemplary to our Christian Brethren of the Laity now as all Christians in general were then obliged to be in relation to the generality of the Gentile World This makes it as reasonable still to conceal the infirmities of the Clergy from the Lay Judges of our Secular Courts as it was then to conceal the Infirmities of Christians in general from the Gentile Courts And the grants of the Emperors to this purpose were only to authorize them to practise the same way of concealment by confining such Causes to the Audientia Episcopalis as they had practised before any Indulgences from Princes Nor was this liberty abused or like to be so whilst the Clergy had no foreign dependences such as they were possessed of afterwards not only in King Henry the VIIIths time but long before him when these Disputes concerning Exemptions were first started It was in Cases where the scandal might be avoided by such a Judgment of Persons well-affected and concerned for their Order not in Case of open hostility to their Prince None such were ever protected by their Priviledge in the first Ages after the Conversion of the Empire to our Christian Religion But when this foreign dependence had brought things to this pass that Spiritual Judges might be justly suspected of partiality in these Causes which were not Originally of Spiritual cognizance then it was not unseasonable nor unkind if Princes in their own defence did so far resume their antient Rights as to take better security than had been