Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A50916
|
Of reformation touching chvrch-discipline in England, and the cavses that hitherto have hindred it two bookes, written to a freind [sic]
|
Milton, John, 1608-1674.
|
1641
(1641)
|
Wing M2134; ESTC R17896
|
44,575
|
96
|
their deceitfull Pedleries to gaine as many associats of guiltines as they can and to infect the temporall Magistrate with the like lawlesse though not sacrilegious extortion see a while what they doe they ingage themselves to preach and perswade an assertion for truth the most false and to this Monarchy the most pernicious and destructive that could bee chosen What more banefull to Monarchy then a Popular Commotion for the dissolution of Monarchy slides aptest into a Democracy and what stirs the Englishmen as our wisest writers have observ'd sooner to rebellion then violent and heavy hands upon their goods and purses Yet these devout Prelates spight of our great Charter and the soules of our Progenitors that wrested their liberties out of the Norman gripe with their dearest blood and highest prowesse for these many years have not ceas't in their Pulpits wrinching and spraining the text to set at nought and trample under foot all the most sacred and life blood Lawes Statutes and Acts of Parliament that are the holy Cov'nant of Union and Marriage betweene the King and his Realme by proscribing and confiscating from us all the right we have to our owne bodies goods and liberties What is this but to blow a trumpet and proclaime a fire-crosse to a hereditary and perpetuall civill warre Thus much against the Subjects Liberty hath been assaulted by them Now how they have spar'd Supremacie or likely are here-after to submit to it remaines lastly to bee consider'd The emulation that under the old Law was in the King toward the Preist is now so come about in the Gospell that all the danger is to be fear'd from the Preist to the King Whilst the Preists Office in the Law was set out with an exteriour lustre of Pomp and glory Kings were ambitious to be Preists now Priests not perceiving the heavenly brightnesse and inward splendor of their more glorious Evangelick Ministery with as great ambition affect to be Kings as in all their courses is easie to be observ'd Their eyes over imminent upon worldly matters their desires ever thirsting after worldly employments in stead of diligent and fervent studie in the Bible they covet to be expert in Canons and Decretals which may inable them to judge and interpose in temporall Causes however pretended 〈◊〉 Doe they not hord up Plefe seeke to bee porent in secular Strength in State Affaires in Lands Lordships and Demeanes to sway and carry all before them in high Courts and Privie Counsels to bring into their grasp the high and principall Offices of the Kingdom have they not been bold of late to check the Common Law to slight and brave the indiminishable Majestie of our highest Court the Law-giving and Sacred Parliament Doe they not plainly labour to exempt Church-men from the Magistrate Yea so presumptuously as to question and menace Officers that represent the Kings Person for using their Authority against drunken Preists The cause of protecting murderous Clergie-men was the first heart-burning that swel'd up the audacious Becket to the pestilent and odious vexation of Henry the second Nay more have not some of their devoted Schollers begun I need not say to nibble but openly to argue against the Kings Supremacie is not the Châ—…ife of them accus'd out of his owne Booke and his late Canons to affect a certaine unquestionable Patriarchat independent and unsubordinate to the Crowne From whence having first brought us to a servile Estate of Religion and Manhood and having predispos'd his conditions with the Pope that layes claime to this Land or some Pepin of his owne creating it were all as likely for him to aspire to the Monarchy among us as that the Pope could finde meanes so on the sudden both to bereave the Emperour of the Roman Territory with the favour of Italy and by an unexpected friend out of France while he was in danger to lose his new-got Purchase beyond hope to leap in to the faire Exarchat of Ravenna A good while the Pope suttl'y acted the Lamb writing to the Emperour my Lord Tiberius my Lord Mauritius but no sooner did this his Lord pluck at the Images and Idols but hee threw off his Sheepes clothing and started up a Wolfe laying his pawes upon the Emperours right as forfeited to Peter Why may not wee as well having been forewarn'd at home by our renowned Chaucer and from abroad by the great and learned Padre Paolo from the like beginnings as we see they are feare the like events Certainly a wise and provident King ought to suspect a Hierarchy in his Realme being ever attended as it is with two such greedy Purveyers Ambition and 〈◊〉 I say hee ought to suspect a Hierarchy to bee as dangerous and derogatory from his Crown as a Tetrarchy oâ—… a Hepiarchy Yet now that the Prelates had almost attain'd to what their insolent and unbridl'd minds had hurried them to thrust the Laiâ—…â—…der the despoticall rule of the Monarch that they themselves might confine the Monarch to a kind of Pupillagâ—… under their Hierarchy observe but how their own â—…inciples combat one another and supplant each one his fellow Having fitted us only for peace and that a servile peace by lessening our numbers dreining our estates enfeebling our bodies cowing our free spirits by those wayes as you have heard their impotent actions cannot sustaine themselves the least moment unlesse they rouze us up to a Warre fit for Cain to be the Leader of an abhorred a cursed a Fraternall Warre ENGLAND and SCOTLAND dearest Brothers both in Natnre and in CHRIST must be set to wade in one anothers blood and IRELAND our free Denizon upon the back of us both as occasion should serve a piece of Service that the Pope and all his Factors have beene compassing to doe ever since the Reformation But ever-blessed be he and ever glorifi'd that from his high watch-Tower in the Heav'ns discerning the crooked wayes of perverse and cruell men hath hitherto maim'd and insatuated all their damnable inventions and deluded their great Wizzards with a delusion fit for fooles and children had GOD beene so minded hee could have sent a Spirit of Mutiny amongst us as hee did betweene Abimilech and the Sechemites to have made our Funerals and slaine heaps more in number then the miserable surviving remnant but he when wee least deserv'd sent out a gentle gale and message of peace from the wings of those his Cherubins that fanne his Mercy-seat Nor shall the wisdome the moderation the Christian Pietie the Constancy of our Nobility and Commons of England be ever forgotten whose calme and temperat connivence could sit still and smile out the stormy bluster of men more audacious and precipitant then of solid and deep reach till their own fury had run it selfe out of breath assailing by rash and heady approches the impregnable situation of our Liberty and safety that laught such weake enginry to scorne such poore drifts to make a NationallWarre of a Surplice Brabble a Tippet-scuffle and
Physick't And surely they were moderate Divines indeed neither hot nor cold 〈◊〉 Grindall the best of them afterwards Arch Bishop of Canterbury lost favour in the Court and I think was discharg'd the goverment of his See for favouring the Ministers though Camden seeme willing to finde another Cause therefore about her second Yeare in a Parliament of Men and Minds some scarce well grounded others belching the soure Crudities of yesterdayes Poperie those Constitutions of EDW. 6. which as you heard before no way satisfi'd the men that made them are now establish't for best and not to be mended From that time follow'd nothing but Imprisonments troubles disgraces on all those that found fault with the Decrees of the Convâ—…cation and strait were they branded with the Name of Puritans As for the Queene her selfe shee was made beleeve that by putting downe Bishops her Prerogative would be infring'd of which shall be spoken anon as the course of Method brings it in And why the Prelats labour'd it should be so thought ask not them but ask their Bellies They had found a good Tabernacle they sate under a spreading Vine their Lot was fallen in a faire Inheritance And these perhaps were the cheife impeachments of a more sound rectifying the Church in the Queens Time From this Period I count to begin our Times which because they concerne us more neerely and our owne eyes and eares can give us the ampler scope to judge will require a more exact search and to effect this the speedier I shall distinguish such as I esteeme to be the hinderers of Reformation into 3. sorts Antiquitarians for so I had rather call them then Antiquaries whose labours are usefull and laudable 2. Libertines 3. Polititians To the votarists of Antiquity I shall think to have fully answer'd if I shall be able to prove out of Antiquity First that if they will conform our Bishops to the purer times they must mew their feathers and their pounces and make but curttail'd Bishops of them and we know they hate to be dockt and clipt as much as to be put down outright Secondly that those purer times were corrupt and their Books corrupted soon after Thirdly that the best of those that then wrote disclaim that any man should repose on them and send all to the Scriptures First therfore if those that over-affect Antiquity will follow the square therof their Bishops must be elected by the hands of the whole Church The ancientest of the extant Fathers Ignatius writing to the Philadelphians saith that it belongs to them as to the Church of God to choose a Bishop Let no man cavill but take the Church of God as meaning the whole consistence of Orders and Members as S. Pauls Epistles expresse and this likewise being read over Besides this it is there to be mark'd that those Philadelphians are exhorted to choose a Bishop of Antioch Whence it seems by the way that there was not that wary limitation of Dioces in those times which is confirm'd even by a fast friend of Episcopacie Camden who cannot but love Bishops as well as old coins and his much lamented Monasteries for antiquities sake He writes in his description of Scotland that over all the world Bishops had no certaine Dioces till Pope Dionysius about the yeare 268. did cut them out and that the Bishops of Scotland executed their function in what place soever they came indifferently and without distinction till King Malcolm the third about the yeare 1070. whence may be guest what their function was was it to goe about circl'd with a band of rooking Officials with cloke bagges full of Citations and Processes to be serv'd by a corporalty of griffonlike Promooters and Apparitors Did he goe about to pitch down his Court as an Empirick does his banck to inveigle in all the mony of the ConÌ„trey no certainly it would not have bin permitted him to exercise any such function indifferently wherever he came And verily some such matter it was as want of a fat Dioces that kept our Britain Bishops so poore in the Primitive times that being call'd to the Councell of Ariminum in the yeare 359. they had not wherewithall to defray the charges of their journey but were fed and lodg'd upon the Emperors cost which must needs be no accidentall but usuall poverty in them for the author Sulp. Severus in his 2 Booke of Church History praises them and avouches it praise-worthy in a Bishop to be so poore as to have nothing of his own But to return to the ancient election of Bishops that it could not lawfully be without the consent of the people is so expresse in Cyprian and so often to be met with that to cite each place at large were to translate a good part of the volume therfore touching the chief passages I referre the rest to whom so list peruse the Author himselfe in the 24. Epist. If a Bishop saith he be once made and allow'd by the testimony and judgement of his collegues and the people no other can be made In the 55. When a Bishop is made by the suffrage of all the people in peace In the 68. marke but what he saies The people chiefly hath power either of choosing worthy ones or refusing unworthy this he there proves by authorities out of the old and new Testament and with solid reasons these were his antiquities This voyce of the people to be had ever in Episcopal elections was so well known before Cyprians time even to those that were without the Church that the Emperor Alexander Severus desir'd to have his governours of Provinces chosen in the same manner as 〈◊〉 can tell So little thought it he offensive to Monarchy and if single authorities perswade not hearken what the whole generall Councel of Nicaea the first and famousest of all the rest determines writing a Synodal Epist. to the African Churches to warn them of Arrianisme it exhorts them to choose orthodox Bishops in the place of the dead so they be worthy and the people choose them whereby they seem to make the peoples assent so necessary that merit without their free choyce were not sufficient to make a Bishop What would ye say now grave Fathers if you should wake and see unworthy Bishops or rather no Bishops but Egyptian task-masters of Ceremonies thrust purposely upon the groaning Church to the affliction and vexation of Gods people It was not of old that a Conspiracie of Bishops could frustrate and fob off the right of the people for we may read how S. Martin soon after Constantine was made Bishop of Turon in France by the peoples consent from all places thereabout mâ—…ugre all the opposition that the Bishops could make Thus went matters of the Church almost 400. yeare after Christ and very probably farre lower for Nicephorus Phocas the Greek Emperour whose reign fell neare the 1000. year of our Lord having done many things tyrannically is said by Cedrenus to have done nothing more grievous and