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	king_n	supremacy_n	2,485	5	10.5338	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54578	A discourse concerning liberty of conscience In which are contain'd proposalls, about what liberty in this kind is now politically expedient to be given, and severall reasons to shew how much the peace and welfare of the nation is concern'd therein. By R.T.	Pett, Peter, Sir, 1630-1699.; Dury, John, 1596-1680.	1661 (1661)	Wing P1881A; ESTC R213028	34,446	118

judging of Ecclesiastical causes according to the Canon Law a Law of which Albericus Gentilis that renown'd Civilian saith in the 19th chap. of his second Book De Nuptiis Sed hoc jus brutumque barbarum sane est natum in tenebris seculorum spississimis productum a monacho tenebrione c. was an occasion of our Lawyers contrasts with them And what may well create suspicions that the Bishops keeping of Courts as they did was not according to Law may be had from those words of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in his Epistle Dedicatory to the King before his Speech in the Star-chamber I do humbly in the Churches name desire of Your Majesty that it may be resolv'd by all the Reverend Iudges of England and then Publish d by Your Majesty that our keeping Courts and Issuing Processe in our own Names and the like Exceptions formerly taken and now renew'd are not against the Law of the Realm c. And how ready the Lawyers have been to check the severity of Ecclesiastical Courts their innumerable prohibitions shew In the dayes of Popery the Prelates could awe the Judges with Excommunication for such crimes as the Church call'd so But how little of terrour the application of that censure hath had since appears from the frequent denouncing of it against the same man And therefore that Learned Lawyer Judge Ienkins in the second part of his Works saith that for opposing the excesses of one of the Bishops he lay under three Excommunications Secondly the substantial body of the Gentry heretofore was and is still likely to be for the moderating the exercise of Episcopal power and for the opposing its extravagance The oath ex officio and commuting for penance and other such kind of things cannot but be thought troublesome to them But that which I shall here chiefly take notice of is how a considerable part of the Gentry of England is grown more inquisitive in matters of Religion within these late yeares then formerly Where this inquiring temper is not no opinion so horrid but may be universally believ'd Thus the Turks may be induced to think that there is a Devil in the juyce of Grapes and the Papists that there may be a God therein But when men are neither by Religion or temper restrain'd from searching into the causes of things they will not in civility to other mens understandings believe propositions to be true or false And that which makes me beside my own observation to conclude that many of the Gentry of late are grown more inquisitive in Religious things then formerly and are likely so to continue is because they are more then heretofore inquisitive in civil things As when the polish'd knowledg of Philologie had obtain'd a conquest over the insignificant Learning of the School-men no man was thought worthy the name of a Scholar but he who understood the Greek Tongue so since the late introduction of reall Learning into the World by Galilaus Tycho Brahe my Lord Bacon Gassendus Des Cartes neither the knowledg of elegant words or nice Speculations wil yield any man the Reputation of being Learn'd that is altogether rude in Mathematicks which as they were formerly counted the Black Art and their Professors such as Roger Bacon Conjurers so may possibly School-Divinity and School-Divines hereafter be Having thus asserted the present searching disposition of a great part of our ingenious Gentry it may well be hence inferr'd that liberty of conscience may be of high use to them and that if any Ecclesiasticall persons determine any thing contrary to their reasons they will not believe them or if against their safety not obey them I think therefore by the way it was very politickly done of the Consistory of Cardinalls to imprison Galilaeus for affirming the motion of the Earth since that notion of his might fill the world with several new debates and inquiries and so Ignorance the mother of Devotion be destroy'd To prevent which effectuall care is taken by the Iesuites as appeares by the instructions given them in the Directory of their order call'd Directorium exercit spirit Ignatii Loyolae part 2. p. 172. Where there are Regulae aliquae tenendae ut cum Orthodoxâ Ecclesiâ sentiamus And the first Rule is Vt sublato proprio omni judicio teneamus semper promptum paratumque animum ad obediendum Catholicae Hierarchicae Ecclesiae It followes p. 176. Reg. 13. Ut Ecclesiae conformes simus si quid quod oculis nostris appareat album nigrum illa definiverit debemus itidem quod nigrum sit pronuntiare This is in the Edition of that Book at Tholou Anno 1593. and confirm'd by the Bull of Pope Paul the third In short he that hath had but any conversation with that ingenious part of the Gentry who have concern'd themselves in the consideration of Church-Government cannot but take notice of these two assertions being in vogue among them which whether true or no 't is not here pertinent to determine The first that 't is possible for Monarchy to subsist here without that high power our Bishops formerly had and so that Maxim No Bishop no King hath been disbelieved This Maxim seems to them true concerning Turky No Mufti no Grand Signior because the Mufti can with the Screen of Religion as he pleases hide the ugliness of those actions the Grandeur of the Turkish Empire is supported by But our Kings govern according to Law and so the Engin of Superstition is not here of use for the amusing people into slavery I confess any party of men that wil not own the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes as well as Civil is not fit to be allow'd as the State-Religion But that Supremacy of the Kings in Ecclesiastical matters and in Civil is acknowledged by the Divines that are for the Lord Primates form of Episcopacy as much as by any other A second assertion very much receiv'd among them is that no particular form of Church-Government is of Divine right Of this opinion my Lord Bacon shews himself to be expresly in his Considerations touching the Edification and Pacification of the Church of England and so my Lord Falkland in one of his printed Speeches where speaking of Bishops he saith I do not believe them to be jure divino nay I believe them to be not jure divino but neither do I believe them to be injuria humana So that it is no wonder that among our ordinary enquirers after knowledg this notion is believed which was so by those two incomparably Learned persons And it may seem much more to gratifie the power of Princes then the Maxim No Bishop no King can do The Author of the History of the Council of Trent makes mention how Laymez Generall of the Jesuits spent a whole Congregation in proving that Bishops are jure pontificio and not jure divino and said that the power of Iurisdiction was given wholly to the Bishop of Rome and that none in

the Clergy or Laiety of this Land or either of them Which Vote of that House may seem to be grounded on this consideration that a Legislative power is inseparable from the King and Parliament and that if a Parliament would transmit their interest in the Legislative Power to any other order of men they cannot do it more then a Judge can delegate his Authority to his Clerks or any be a Deputies Deputy I shall onely here further observe that the Lawyers whose Obligations on the account of interest to moderate the power of Bishops I have before spoke of are still likely to be a great part of the House of Commons and to have the conduct of Parliamentary Affaires much in their hands and to concur with any party against the Bishops if they should invade the due Liberty of mens Consciences or endeavour to make themselves formidable in the Nation The LAST REASON I shall urge to prove what advantages will redound to the Nation from the allowance of a due Liberty of Conscience is that it will necessarily produce an advancement of our Trade and Traffick the hinderance whereof must needs follow from the contrary practice The largenesse of Trade in any Countrey is most certainly founded in the populousnesse of it 'T is onely in populous Countries that the wages of work-men are cheap whereby a greater store of Manufactures is prepared for Exportation In populous Countries onely they fell their own Commodities dear and buy foreign cheap 'T is there that Land is worth twice as many yeares purchase as elsewhere And in such Countries onely is the fishing Trade carryed on which none will employ themselves in that can live upon the shore reasonably well and which in populous Countries enough will not be able to do This then being laid down as a principle that the wealth of any Nation depends on its populousnesse I may confidently affirm that the populousnesse of a Countrey doth much depend upon the Liberty of Conscience that is there granted The Kingdom of Spain may here serve for this to be Exemplified in where there are not men enough to Manufacture their own Wooll and where there is more black mony Brass or Copper Coin used then in other Nations notwithstanding all the Silver that comes thither from the West-Indies It was the rigour of the Inquisition that brought that Monarch who would have been an universall one to send Ambassadours to his high and mighty subjects But we need not look out of our own Countrey for instances of Trades suffering together with Freedom of Conscience For by reason of the former severity exercised on those that would not conform to the Ceremonies imposed many thousands of people bred up in a way of Trade and Traffick left the Kingdom going some of them to America and others to Holland where our Countrey-men did compensate to the Hollanders for severall Manufactures which they directed us to when the Rage of Duke Alva's persecution occasion'd their residence among us And what could more prejudice the Trade of our Countrey I know not then the peopleing other Countries with our Artificers and the teaching them our Arts and Manufactures And it is considerable that the sort of Trading men on whom the shock of persecution did seem to light most heavily was that of those whose Trades did lie chiefly in advancing our staple-Commodity of Wooll and preparing our Old and New Draperies for Exportation to which Trades the ordinary sort of Puritan Non-Conformists were rather inclined then to ploughing and digging because in these Trades of theirs as namely Weaving Spinning Dressing c. Their Children might read Chapters to them as they were at work and they might think or speak of Religious things or sing Psalmes and yet pursue their Trades Besides these Trades were more suitable to their Constitutions which were generally not so Robust as of others and to the melancholy of their tempers Now these men being frequently disturb'd by Apparitors and summon'd to Ecclesiasticall Courts for working on Holy-Days perhaps or going on a Sunday to some Neighbouring Parish when they had no Sermon in their own or for some such causes were so hinder'd in the course of their Trades that they were necessitated to remove out of the Kingdom They could not expect that Merchants or other Trading persons would imploy them and take their work unlesse they could bring it in at such a set time that it might be as occasion required Exported and sent to Faires and Markets abroad at punctuall times likewise which Merchants are concern'd in taking care of lest their Commodities be undersold Now these Puritan Traders were not in a capacity to dispatch the sending in of their Manufactures to others at the time agreed on by reason of their frequent Citations to and Delays at the Bishops Courts And since other Nations have now the way of making Cloath as namely France Holland and Flanders if we do not sell it cheaper then they we shall hardly have any abroad sold at all To conclude the Examination of this particular affaire not any that hath search'd at all into the nature of the Trade of this Nation but believes that the best way to advance it would be to call in and invite any Protestant strangers to come and live among us and to encourage Artists of all Nations to come and plant themselves here which cannot be done without the giving them a due Liberty of Conscience and if it be our interest to encourage strangers and give them this Liberty this dealing may much more be expected by our own natives But 't is needlesse to insist longer in giving plain reasons for a plain proposition I shall onely therefore before I now draw this discourse about the due Liberty of Conscience that is fit to be practised in this Nation toward an end shew that thereby the Reverend Fathers of the Churche the Bishops will find their inter●st advanc'd in particular as well as the interest of the Nation in generall If any man shall say that the Government of the Church by Bishops is the most pure and Apostolicall I am firmly of his opinion yet as No Bishop no King is now no uncontradicted Maxim so is it lesse unquestion'd that no force in matters of Religion no Bishop But notwithstanding the severity that hath been exercised on mens Consciences by former Prelats such is the prudence of some of the present Fathers of the Church that they will I believe see it to be as much their interest to give Liberty of Conscience as it can be the interest of any men to receive it And indeed if this were but in a fair manner distributed among the severall Sects I have spoken of they would no more endeavour the destruction of the Episcopall Clergy then the Iews at Rome tolerated do design the ruine of the Pope Nay further these Sects having liberty under their Government would serve them as a ballance against popular envy I have often wish'd that our Nobility