Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ecclesiastical_a	governor_n	supreme_a	3,829	5	8.9454	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33964	The history of conformity, or, A proof of the mischief of impositions from the experience of more than 100 years	Collinges, John, 1623-1690.	1681 (1681)	Wing C5319; ESTC R28566	30,488	42

be present at that action Possibly it had been less exposed to scandal if instead of them two or three Ministers had so joined and the end as well obtained but surely this was a far lesser evil than the admitting of all to the Sacrament that could but rehearse the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments there was nothing in this action but any pious Ministers who are the stewards of the mysteries of God might answer with a safe conscience for of Stewards it is required that they should be faithful saith the Apostle and I believe any Bishop would have judged his Steward unfaithful if he had dealt out his Master's goods contrary to his Master's order The Ministers Master's order is plain enough that the holy Sacrament belongs not either to ignorant or scandalous persons All the Churches of God in all Ages agree this our own Church in her principles agreeth it yet in practice all Ministers were tyed to give the Sacrament as in times of Popery to all such as could but rehearse the Creed the Pater Noster and the Ten Commandments and confessed in Lent those eminent persons who were commissionated by Edw. 6. to draw up a new body of Ecclesiastical Laws though that excellent Prince lived not long enough to set his Hand and Seal to it so as what they had done had no legal force had expresly determined Tit. de Sacramentis Cap. 5. We will have none admitted to the Table of the Lord until in the Church he hath made profession of his faith What should good Ministers do in this case they could act but precariously it seems at Wandsworth in Surry there was a people that voluntarily submitted to this what harm was this to the Bishops But the truth is this business of discipline came into very little debate before 1584. after that Subscription had been so fatally imposed In several Diocesses I perceive there were some circumstantial variations in the forms of Subscriptions To let my Reader therefore know what it was I will give it him as it lieth in the 36th Canon 1603. when it first received any thing like a legal confirmation which was at least 25. or 26. years after it was first devised and full 30. years after it was so rigorously pressed 1. Art That the Queens Majesty under God is thē Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other her Highnesses Dominions and Territories as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and that no forreign Prince Person State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority or Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within her Majesties Realms Dominions or Countries 2. Art That he alloweth the Book of Articles agreed on by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London 1562. and that he acknowledgeth All and Every the Articles therein being in number 39. besides the Ratification to be agreeable to the Word of God 3. Art That the Book of Common-Prayer and of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God and that it may lawfully be used and that he himself will use the form in the said Book prescribed in publick Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and no other This Engine was first formed by the Archbishop Whitgift and was one of those 16. Proposals he offered to the Queen for the setling of the Church a Copy of which in M. S. with two Answers to them I have read some little difference there was in the Arch-bishops form His first Article was 1. Art That the Authority which is given her Majesty in Causes Ecclesiastical by the Laws of the Land is lawful and according to the Word of God The Second Article was his Third andran thus 2. Art That he allowed the Book of Articles of Religion agreed on by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London 1562. and set forth by her Majesties Authority and that he agreeth the Articles therein contained to be agreeable to the Word of God 3. Art Which was the Archbishops Second was word for word the same This Motion of the Archbishops put the Queen upon adding force to the Imposition which indeed had been by some Bishops began before but now in most Diocesses it was rigorously pressed The issue of this is told us by the Author of the unlawful practices of Prelates in these words Whatsoever was required in Civil Causes either that concerned her Majesty or the State was by the Ministers embraced wholly and freely In Ecclesiastical Causes also whatsoever concerned Doctrine or otherwise was expresly required by Statute for Subscription Thus far at the first all men with protestation offered but to yeild to this thing so strange and new without any Law in streighter sort than ever was required That all things were agreeable to Gods Word and not against it not only tollerable but allowable both in the Book of Common Prayer and in the Book of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons This was refused divers of the Ministers were suspended multitudes were thrust out How many godly able painful Ministers were outed all over England I cannot tell but ex ungue Leonem I have seen a M. S. which gives an account of the names of Sixty odd in Suffolk Twenty one in Lincolnshire Sixty four in Norfolk Thirty eight in Essex which though they seem comparatively few yet are a great many when we consider that in Essex at that time there was an account given of 163. Ministers that never Preach'd only read Prayers and Homilies and 85. more Pluralists Non residents or persons most notoriously debaucht This was the first fruit of that Archbishops preferment and a fair offer at the rooting out of the reformed Religion as soon as planted which never did nor ever will live and flourish in any place under the conduct of an ignorant debauched unpreaching Ministry such a Ministry much better serving Popish than Protestant purposes What the Ministers that were suspended or deprived did to prevent their misery or to get this severity a little mitigated and allayed at this time in the years 1583 1584 1585. I shall inform the world from the worthy Author of the Book aforementioned wrote at that very time and often quoted by Bishop Bancroft His words are these The Cause was general means were made Ministers presented Doubts Protestations Supplications they were repulsed reviled threatned the Ministers did indure sustained with a good Conscience but their miserable flocks were subject to all disorders spoils havock Good men mourned evil men prevailed License possessed all places nothing was reserved whole to civil and modest life These things Gentlemen of all sorts took to heart they lamented their own estate and the estate of the people they pitied their Ministers their Wives and Children Gods Cause moved them the honour of the Gospel drew them yea the safety

matters of indifferency when so many Books so many Disputations testified we differed from them because of their Idolatry in many things and their Doctrine of Justification by Works c. The last is yet of all the most weak for how did we by it shew our consent with other Protestant Churches In the year 1552 which was the last of King Edward in the year 1558 which was the first of Queen Elizabeth there were no Protestant Churches but the Luther an Churches the Suitzerland Churches and that of Geneva besides some in Germany which followed the Reformation of Suitzerland and Geneva In retaining these Ceremonies we shewed a dissent to the Reformed Churches in Suitzerland and at Geneva and all those who followed their order and shewed our consent only with the Lutheran Churches so imperfectly reformed that in the Synod at Dōrt the Messengers of all Reformed Churches there met made a difficulty to afford them the name of Protestants though I think the name Protestant better agreed to them than that of Evangelici which was the name the Reformed were known by for the ten first years after the Reformation began Besides that for Kneeling at the Sacrament the Saxon Churches retain it upon their peculiar notion wherein they differ from all other Reformed Churches viz. The Corporeal Presence of Christ in and with that Ordinance For the retaining of some Ceremonies in the Saxon Churches a double account is to be given Luther and Ambsdorfius were great Zealots for them partly to quiet the people who had so lately been Papists and it may be partly in opposition to Zuinglius and specicially to Carolostadius who had made himself the Author of abolishing some during Luther's absence when he was hid for fear of a Decree at Worms Melancthon a very learned man being of a more so●t ductile spirit with Justus Jonas and some others took Luther's part Carolostadius was run down both Zuinglius and Carolostadius saw that the retaining any of the Popish Ceremonies would have no desired effect but rather scandalize their friends and harden the Papists and the taking them away afterward would be called a Refining upon a Refining they therefore though they bare with much some few years yet took the first opportunity to throw them all out where they had to do The case was much the same with us in England our Ceremonies were retain'd upon no such pretences as were before expressed There was no Reverence in it shewed to antiquity No consent shewed with the most or best Reformed Churches at that time But our best and most eminent Ministers had been Papists used their Missal practiced all their Ceremonies At that time to have receded from the Papists in all things fit to have been receded from might have been oddly lookt upon by the people Besides that the people in times of Popery were much strangers to any thing of Religion but Ceremonies and hearing Mass hence as may be seen in the first Edition of the Common Prayer many things were put in which were left out by the Bishops in the 2d Edn. of it in K. Edw. time And had it pleased God after Q. Maries time to have continued us such Bishops as Cranmer Hooper Latimer Coverdale c. there is little doubt but these Controversies had long since been at an end But our Bishops many of them were such moderate men as could abide here all Queen Maries time others of them were such as indeed had been beyond Sea but very zealous there to keep up the Book in the framing of which themselves had an hand amongst these was Dr. Cox the same reason held as in K. Edw. the 6. time for humouring the people thus the Ceremonies came at first to be established For the Forms of Prayer there was not the same reason for establishing some Forms at present in that state of the Church there could scarce have been any Praying or Preaching without some Forms both of Prayers and Sermons there were twenty reading Ministers for one who had any competent abilities either to Pray or Preach But the reason was the very same for the establishing so many of the Old Forms and keeping Methods agreeing to none of any Reformed Church I offer it to any knowing persons to judg whether whatever be said by some this was not the true reason of the first establishment and they were no invaluable reasons for the continuance of them for some few years until people were brought off more from their old Superstitions I find that in most places of Germany at first the Reformation was gradual some Ceremonies and Superstitious usages were cast out one year some the next some several years after the Gospel was first Preached in those places But why these should be continued after twenty years when it was seen that the continuance of them had no effect to bring in Papists but gave a great scandal to and made a great division amongst Protestants and when people were further enlightned and their first heats for their old ways of worship were abated is a much greater mystery yet we shall find that in the 25 26 27 years of Queen Elizabeth there was a more severe urging these things than ever before I am loth to think any rancor against those at that time called Puritans was the Original cause but do believe that an imployment for those who managed the Ecclesiastical Courts without using their power against the Papists or Moral Debauchees might be no little argument in the cause and a design driven by the Papists and Atheists in the Nation to that purpose Such Considerations as these could never affect an English Parliament so as to make a first establishment of them But the succeeding Parliaments and Princes found them in possession that we say is nine parts of a Law and some Zealots in the Church strained their wits to make them appear lawful and so within the power of the Superiour and for many of them several good men had not then light enough to discern their unlawfulness ●● as there were very few that wrote to purpose on that argument Dr. Ames was almost the only man in his age Indeed the Ceremonies the reading the Old Translation of the Scripture and the Apocryphal Books the Subscription That there was nothing in the Common Prayer Book and Book of Ordaining Priests and Deacons but what was agreeable to Gods Word were an hundred year since argued against as unlawful as I could prove by several writings of the Nonconformists of those times I have seen an ancient Manuscript of them big enough for a just folio some things were not then practised non required to be put in ure though they were in the Queens Injunctions c. some of them at least In all the cases of Nonconformists in Queen Elizabeths time I find not a Minister complaining for being inforced to receive or to administer the Sacrament to people kneeling I find nothing of any suffering for not bowing at the