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A61555 Ecclesiastical cases relating to the duties and rights of the parochial clergy stated and resolved according to the principles of conscience and law / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester. Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. 1698 (1698) Wing S5593; ESTC R33861 132,761 428

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to their Brethren and answer to the Accusations brought against them But suppose they will not and others of the Brethren say they ought not and so fall into Heats and Disputes among themselves about it and make new Parties and Divisions Is not this an admirable Way of preserving Peace and Order and Discipline in a Church And I am as certain this is not the Way of Christ's appointing as I am that God is the God of Order and not of Confusion and that when Christ left the Legacy of Peace to his Church he left a Power in some to see his Will performed But these things can never be objected against us for all are Members of the same Body and are governed by certain and known Rules and if any be guilty of open Violation of it the Way is open to accuse and prosecute them and if they be found guilty the Censures of the Church will render them uncapable of doing it in such a Station or at least to bring them to Confession of their Fault and Promise of future Amendment And now I leave any one to judge whether the Parochial Clergy are not under greater and better Discipline than the Teachers of the separate Congregations II. But the great Complaint of such Men is That we want Parochial and Congregational Discipline so that Faults should be examined and punished where they have been committed but instead of that all Matters are drawn into the Ecclesiastical Court and there Causes are managed so as looks rather like a Design to punish Men in their Purses than for their Faults and the Delays are so great that the Court it self seems to be designed for Penance and grows very uneasie even to those who are the Members of our Church And some think that the proceeding against Men upon Articles of Enquiry not so agreeable to the Rights and Liberties of Mankind In answer to this I shall consider 1. The Proceedings upon Enquiry at Visitations 2. The Method of Proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Courts 3. The Inconveniencies of parochial Discipline 1. As to Enquiries at Visitations They were grounded upon one of the main Pillars of our Law viz. an ancient immemorial Custom founded upon good Reason In the first Canons that ever were made in this Church under Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury the second is That every Bishop is to look after the Government of his own Diocess and not to invade anothers And that in so doing they went about their Diocesses in order to an Enquiry and Correction of Miscarriages is evident from the Council under Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury Can. 3. 25. the first Council at Calechyth Can. 3. the Constitutions of Odo Archbishop of Canterbury Can. 3. and the Canon of Edgar Can. 3. But in these Saxon times the Visitations were annual which were found inconvenient and therefore in the Norman times the Archdeacons were taken into a part of the Jurisdiction under the Bishop and visited those years the Bishop did not But we meet with no Archdeacons with any kind of Jurisdiction in the Saxon times we read indeed sometimes of the Name of Archdeacons but they had nothing to do in the Diocess but only attended the Bishop at Ordinations and other publick Services in the Cathedral Lanfranc was the first who made an Archdeacon with Jurisdiction in his See And Thomas first Archbishop of York after the Conquest was the first who divided his Diocess into Archdeaconries and so did Remigius Bishop of Lincoln his large Diocess into Seven Archdeaconries saith H. of Huntingdon And so it was with the rest of which there were two Occasions 1. The laying aside the Corepiscopi in the Western Parts as assuming too much to themselves 2. The publick Services which the Bishops were more strictly tied to as the King's Barons in the Norman times Which was the Reason not only of taking in Archdeacons but likewise of Archpresbyters or Rural-Deans who had some Inspection into the several Deanaries and assisted the Bishop in such things as they were appointed to do and then came in the other Ecclesiastical Officers as Vicars General Chancellors Commissaries c. for we read not of them here at all in the Saxon times but about the time of Hen. II. the Bishops took them for their Assistance in Dispatch of Causes when the King required their strict Attendance on the publick Affairs in the Supreme Court of Parliament 2. As to the Method of Proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Courts it is no other than hath been continued here without Interruption till of late years ever since the Conquest For the Consistory-Court and the Rules of Proceeding there were established by a Law in the time of William the First As far as I can find by King Edward's Laws c. 4. the Bishops did then proceed by the Ecclesiastical Laws although they then sat in the County-Court but this caused so much Confusion that William by a general Consent and a Charter directed to all the People of England doth separate the Ecclesiastical from the Temporal Courts which was enrolled as good Law 2 R. 2. upon occasion of a Suit of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln and therefore the Charter of Remigius Bishop of Lincoln is more mentioned than others but the same was to all the Bishops and Counties of England as appears by other Copies of it Thus the Consistory-Court was first established as a distinct Court from the County-Court which it was not in the Saxon times for then the Bishop sate with the Civil Magistrate in the same Court and Ecclesiastical Causes were first heard and decided there It seems the People wer very unwilling to go to a new Place and therefore the Law is inforced with severe Penalties for Contempt And those who object against the Reasonableness of the Method of Proceeding in those Courts must reflect upon some of the wisest Nations in the World who have gone upon the same Grounds in all that have received the Civil Law and upon some of the greatest Courts at this time in the Kingdom as the Chancery and Admiralty which go by the same Fundamental Rules As to any Objections which arise from the personal Faults of those who are imployed in them that reaches I am afraid to all Courts and it ought to be the Work and Business of those who look after them to do what in them lies to reform them that others Faults may not be laid at their Doors 3. But for those who would have a Parochial or Congregational Discipline set up as much better and more effectual I shall desire them to consider that since Matters of Discipline are such as that in them the Reputation and Interest of Persons is very much concerned they ought not to be left to Arbitrary Proceedings of any Persons but they ought to be managed by the certain and common Rules of Justice since every Man hath a Right to defend himself when he is accused And unless there be known and
Bishop to be translated from that Place he was first Consecrated to as well as to hold another with it But the Good of the Church being the main Foundation of all the Rules of it when that might be better promoted by a Translation it was by a tacit Consent looked on as no unjust Violation of its Rules The Question then is Whether the Churches Benefit may not in some Cases make the Canons against Non-Residence as Dispensible as those against Translations And the Resolution of it doth not depend upon the voiding the particular Obligation of the Incumbent to his Cure but upon some more general Reason with respect to the State of the Church as being imployed in the Service of it which requires a Persons having not a bare Competency for Subsistence but a Sufficiency to provide Necessaries for such Service For those seem to have very little regard to the flourishing Condition of a Church who would confine the Sufficiency of a Subsistence meerly to the Necessaries of Life But it seems to be reasonable that Clergymen should have Incouragement sufficient not only to keep them above Contempt but in some respect agreeable to the more ample Provision of other Orders of Men. And by God's own Appointment the Tribe of Levi did not fall short of any of the rest if it did not very much exceed the Proportion of others We do not pretend to the Privileges they had only we observe from thence that God himself did appoint a plentiful Subsistence for those who attended upon his Service And I do not know what there is Levitical or Ceremonial in that I am sure the Duties of the Clergy now require a greater Freedom of Mind from the anxious Cares of the World than the Imployments of the Priests and Levites under the Law But we need not go so far back if the Church enjoyed all her Revenues as entirely as when the severe Canons against Pluralities were made there would not be such a Plea for them as there is too much Cause for in some Places from the Want of a competent Subsistence But since that time the Abundance of Appropriations since turned into Lay-Fees hath extreamly lessened the Churches Revenues and have left us a great Number of poor Vicarages and Arbitrary Cures which would hardly have afforded a Maintenance for the Nethinims under the Law who were only to be Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water But this doth not yet clear the Difficulty For the Question is Whether the Subsistence of the Clergy can lawfully be improved by a Plurality of Livings Truly I think this if it be allowed in some Cases lawful to be the least desirable way of any but in some Circumstances it is much more excusable than in others As when the Benefices are mean when they lie near each other when great care is taken to put in sufficient Curates with good Allowance when Persons take all Opportunities to do their Duties themselves and do not live at a distance from their Benefices in an idle and careless manner But for Men to put in Curates meerly to satisfie the Law and to mind nothing of the Duties of their Places is a horrible Scandal to Religion and our Church and that which if not amended may justly bring down the Wrath of God upon us For the loosest of all the Popish Casuists look upon this as a very great Sin even those who attributed to the Pope the highest Dispensing Power in this Case But when the great Liberty of Dispensing had made the Ecclesiastical Laws in great measure useless then it was thought fit by our Law-makers to restrain and limit it by a Statute made 21 H. VIII wherein it is Enacted That if any Person or Persons having one Benefice with Cure of Souls being of the yearly Value of Eight Pounds or above accept or take any other with Cure of Souls and be instituted and inducted in Possession of the same that then and immediately after such Possession had thereof the first Benefice shall be adjudged to be void And all Licenses and Dispensations to the contrary are declared to be void and of none effect This one would have thought had been an effectual Remedy against all such Pluralities and Dispensations to obtain them and this no doubt was the primary Design of the Law but then follow so many Proviso's of Qualified Men to get Dispensations as take off a great deal of the Force and Effect of this Law But then it ought well to be consider'd Whether such a License being against the chief Design of a Law can satisfie any Man in point of Conscience where there is not a just and sufficient Cause For if the Pope's Dispensation with the supposed Plenitude of his Power could not satisfie a Man's Conscience without an antecedent Cause as the Casuists resolve much less can such Proviso's do it It is the general Opinion of Divines and Lawyers saith Lessius That no Man is safe in Conscience by the Pope's Dispensation for Pluralities unless there be a just cause for it No Man can with a safe Conscience take a Dispensation from the Pope for more Benefices than one meerly for his own Advantage saith Panormitan and from him Sylvester and Summ. Angelica A Dispensation saith Cardinal To-let secures a Man as to the Law but as to Conscience there must be a good cause for it and that is when the Church hath more Benefit by it than it would have without it But the Pope's Dispensing Power went much farther in point of Conscience in their Opinion than that which is setled among us by Act of Parliament For it is expressed in the Statute of 21 Hen. VIII That the Dispensation is intended to keep Men from incurring the Danger Penalty and Forfeiture in the Statute comprised So that the most qualified Person can only say that the Law doth not deprive him but he can never plead that it can satisfie him in point of Conscience unless there be some Cause for it which is of more Moment to the Church than a Man 's sole and constant Attendance on a particular Cure is But this Statute is more favourable to the Clergy than the Canon Law was before in two Particulars 1. In declaring that no simple Benefices or meer Dignities as the Canonists call them are comprehended under the Name of Benefices having Cure of Souls viz. no Deanary Archdeaconry Chancellorship Treasurership Chantership or Prebend in any Cathedral or Collegiate Church nor Parsonage that hath a Vicar endowed nor any Benefice perpetually appropriate But all these before were within the reach of the Canon Law and a Dispensation was necessary for them Which shews that this Law had a particular respect to the necessary Attendance on Parochial Cures and looked on other Dignities and Preferments in the Church as a sufficient Encouragement to extraordinary Merit 2. That no notice is taken of Livings under the Valuation of 8 l. which I suppose is that of 20 E. 1.