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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ecclesiastical_a	jurisdiction_n	king_n	2,975	5	4.2912	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27050	A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1427; ESTC R19704	421,766	406

Bishop and his Chancellor and other Officers are over us all The Magistrates Civil Governmeut of the Church I shall not meddle with as having no exceptions against it The Sacerdotal or Spiritual Power called the Power of the Keys determineth who shall be Members of the Church and partake of its Communion and exerciseth other acts of Spiritual Discipline of which more anon This power is said to be in Archbishops and Bishops in foro ecclesiae publico vel exteriore though also in the Governed Presbyters in foro privato interiore as they may privately comfort a penitent person and declare God's promise of the pardon of his sin The Archbishops have it in eminency As also the power of confirming the Election of the Bishops of their Provinces and the power of Consecrating Bishops with two others and the power of Convocating Provincial Synods upon the Kings Prescript and of moderating in them The power of receiving Appeals and of Visiting the whole Provinces yea to receive Appeals from the lower Judges omiting the middle ones and to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in any vacant Diocess under them They have power of Dispensation in all Causes not judged contrary to Gods word wherever the Pope had power and where the Pope had not power if the King or Council permit it them They may dispense with the Eating of flesh on Fasting-days with Marrying without previous publication with divers irregularities and sometime may abolish simoniacum ambitum They may grant Commendams and Dispence with Non-residence and with the keeping of divers Churches called Benefices in several Cases and with a Sons succeeding his Father and with Lay-mens possessing the Church-maintenance called Prebends The Bishops who take place in Parliament of other Barons as the Archbishops do of Dukes are all chosen really by the King who nominateth in a Writ to the Dean and Chapter the man whom they must chuse who pro forma do chuse him never contradicting the Kings Nomination Their proper Office consisteth in the powers of Order and of Jurisdiction as they distinguish them Their power of Order is threefold 1. To Ordain Priests and Deacons 2. To Consecrate Churches and Burying places 3. To Confirm Children after Baptism when they can speak and say the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and others that were not Confirmed in their Childhood Besides that they may be Privy-Counsellors Lord-Keepers of the Great Seal Lord Treasurers Embassadours c. Their ordinary Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction extendeth 1. to the Interdiction of Divine Offices 2. to publick Admonitions and Penances 3. to suspension from the Sacrament and from ingress into the Church and 4. to Excommunication and Absolution and 5. to Anathematisms And as to Ministers 1. They may Sequester Benefices 2. They may Suspend ab officio beneficio and forbid them to Preach or Pray Or grant License to such as shall be tolerated to Preach 3. They may deprive 4. And depose Ministers by sentence verbal and degradation actually This Church Jurisdiction of Bishops is distinguished into Voluntary and Contentious The Voluntary extendeth to abundance of things granted them by Statute and by Common Law which I pass by That which they claim both by Municipal Law and Ecclesiastical is 1. The probate of the Testaments of the dead 2. The granting Administration of Goods to the next of Kin 3. Keeping the bona caduca where none claimeth the Inheritance 4. To receive Reasons of Administring and to be Judges of them 5. To confer Benefices or Institute such as others present 6. To grant Induction to the Instituted 7. To receive the Fruits of vacant Benefices 8. To allow the Vicar a fit proportion 9. To grant Letters Dimissory or Testimonial 10. To Visit their Diocess once in three years In which Triennial Visitation they usually go to one Town in a County and never see the face of the people in the many score or hundred Churches about them and thither they summon the Ministers and the Church-Wardens and Sides-men Where one Minister preacheth and then the Ministers must dine with the Bishop and in Court he or his Officer giveth a Book of Printed Articles containing a multitude of particulars which the Church-warden must swear to present by where because of the quality of them some Church-Wardens refuse and others because of the number some saying it is unlawful to undo their Ministers and Neighbours by such Presentments as for omitting a Ceremony for preaching or keeping a Fast in private c. and some saying it is impossible to keep the Oath and some saying that if they do it they shall be hated of their Neighbours Whereupon those that refuse are prosecuted to punishment And the rest take the Oath and Articles but not one of many doth present accordingly though the Canon enquires after the perjured And many that fear perjury or persecution themselves do hire some poor man to be Church-Warden in their stead that will venture upon all I must intreat the Reader to peruse some of their Books of Articles especially such as Bishop Mountagues and Bishop Wrens to see what was then enquired after Dr. Zouch de Jud. Eccless p. 37. § 1. Part. 3. saith Ad judices quod attinet statuto ordinatum quod personae conjugatae dummodo Doctores Juris Civilis fuerint qui ad officium Cancellarii Vicarii Generalis Officialis vel Commissarii à Majestate Regia Archiapiscopo Episcopo Archidiacono aut alio quocunque potestatem habente deputati sunt omnem Jurisdictionem Ecclesiasticam exercere quam libet censuram sive coercitionem ●rrogare possint This Jurisdiction of Bishops is exercised either Universally by a Vicar General usually a Lay-man or qarticularly by a Commissary And when he please the Bishop may do it himself The other part of their Jurisdiction is called Contentious And here the Bishop may himself judge in some Cases but in the ordinary course of Jurisdiction a Civil Lawyer called his Chancellor is the Judge This Chancellor is and must be a Lay-man which even Bishop Goodman of Gloucester Myst Rel. Epist I have it and can produce it at this time under the Kings own Hand and Seal wherein he forbids that any Church-man or Priest in Holy Orders be a Chancellor and this was the occasion of all the corruption of the Spiritual Courts For Chancellors live only on the Fees of the Court and for them to dismiss a Cause it was to lose so much blood See further in him a Papist Bishop of a Protestant Diocess complaineth in Print that he could not get Reformed This Chancellor keepeth an Ordinary Court in the form of a Civil Court where are Advocates for Council and Proctors for pleading Certain men called Apparitors whose name is commonly a scorn among the people do from abroad the Country bring them in Accusations and Summon the persons accused besides those that by Plaintiffs are accused Here are judged Causes about Church Materials and Causes Criminal which he that

parts requisite thereunto or had not as yet attained to maturity of years being not much past their nonage as we have known some of them to be or in all respects undeserving persons And yet men of age and experience eminent for learning and piety must stand unveiled before such as these to receive directions and commands from them to whom they were able and fit to give the same who through the just judgment of the Almighty have since been as much and more scorned than they do now scorn others every way their superiour but in place Here he citeth such like words also even from Bishop Andrews Gonc ad Cler. with his prediction of the fall of their order for their vicious lives So p. 6. To this specious design an open way seemed to be made by the great profaness and vicious living of the opposite party who while they were zealous for conformity to the ordinances of men and thought a main part of Christian duty to depend upon the observation of them did allow themselves carnal liberty inviolating the precepts and commandements of God And this they did as from the inbred corruption which is common to all men so likewise from a private spirit of opposition against the adversaries of their cause And p. 10 11. Speaking of advantages against the Bishops and their party saith he This perchance was not the meanest that they might thus check and shame the open prophaness gross impiety irreligion and sin of their professed adversaries The which to speak truth was so eminent oft times and notorious in many of them as might startle a meer natural Conscience to hear or behold it and cause therein an abhorrence from their courses so opposite as well to right reason as sanctifying grace much more in a mind inlightened though with the smallest ray of Evangelical truth For what could be more strange or hateful to men in whom was any spark remaining of common grace or moral virtue and who were not wholly possessed with Atheism and carried on with fullest bent to libertinism and ungodly practice than to hear those that professed themselves the followers of Christ scoffing at the purest acts of his worship blaspheming or prophaning his holy name by causless Oaths fearful imprecations direful execrations and such like speeches not to be expressed again without horror and amazement And not only so but glorying likewise in this their abominable wickedness and in other of like damnable nature in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine and strong drinks revellings wherein they thought it strange that others ran not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of them How much did this their apparent and overdaring impudence in sin commend and grace the seeming Saint-like conversation of their adversaries of some of them we cannot without manifest breach of charity judge of them otherwise than that they were simple harmless well meaning men who being offended and not without cause at the corruption of the times and scandalous lives of many in the sacred office of the Ministry And indeed their strict conformity in other respects to the precepts of the Gospel with their constancy in suffering for the defence of their cause did argue as much to moderate men and not possessed with prejudicate hatred of their opinion and persons For such as these could never be induced to entertain a good conceit of them no not in the least measure but judged their best actions to be counterfeit and false and thought their greatest suffering to proceed from pride and contumacy of spirit Now as it comes to pass between those that extreamly hate one another that they endeavour as much as in them lieth to be unlike each other in manner of life so it fared in this case And p. 27. 28. The slack hand of ecclesiastical discipline was another cause of the general ignorance and prophaness of these times which reached no further for the most part to the inferior Clergy how peccant soever otherwise than in disconformity to Episcopal orders Provincial or Synodical Constitutions touching external government Neither did it call people to a due account if any of their proficiency in the knowledge of Christ Jesus or censure them for non-proficiency therein yea scarcely for gross and scandalous crimes if they were persons known to be well affected to the present Government And of the change since in 1653 when Bishops were down he saith p. 29. I can speak it on my own knowledge that a Town of good note in the Western parts of the land not far distant from the Sea heretofore famed for all manner of riot and disorder by this course of late years hath been reduced to that order and discipline that it is a rare matter to see a man there at any time distempered with wine and strong drink or to hear a rash Oath proceed from any mans mouth no not when there is most frequent concourse of people thither from all the neighbouring parts Such changes through Gods mercy were not rare till Prelacy returned Reader I cite the words of this author so tediously because many would perswade those that knew not those times that none of this was true on either side And because the Author was a very high Prelatist writing openly against their adversaries 1653. VI. Dr. Gauden after Bishop of Worcester Hiera spist pag. 287. saith I neither approve or excuse the personal faults of any particular Bishops as to the exercise of their power and authority which ought not in weighty matters to be mannaged without the presence Council and suffrages of the Presbyters such as are fit for that assistance The want of this S. Ambrose S. Hierome and all sober men * justly reprove as unsafe for the Bishops and Presbyters and the whole Church For in multitude of Counsellors is safety and honor I am sure much good they might all have done as many of them did whom these touchy times were not worthy of And p 262. 263. They have taught me to esteem the ancient and Catholick Government of Godly Bishops as Moderators and Presidents among the Presbyters in any Diocess or Precincts in its just measure and constitution for power paternal duty exercised such as was in the persecuting purest and primitive times Just such we offered them in Bishop Ushers Model p. 263 I confess after the example of the best times and judgment of the most learned in all Churches I alwayes wished such moderation on all sides that a Primitive Episcopacy which imported the authority of one grave and worthy person chosen by the consent and assisted by the presence Counsel and suffrages of many Presbyters might have been restored or preserved in this Church And this not out of any factious design but for those weighty reasons which prevail with me Add to this what he saith in Hookers life of the late Bishops and remember that this man was one of the Keenest Writers against the adversaries of the Bishops in his