Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	canon_n	council_n	nice_a	2,852	5	10.4936	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54076	Usury stated being a reply to Mr. Jelinger's Usurer cast whereto are adjoyned, some animadversions on Mr. Bolton's and Mr. Capel's discourses, concerning the same subject / written by T.P.	T. P.	1679 (1679)	Wing P122; ESTC R39078	124,005	274

whether such as we have borrowed or such as by our own voluntary promise are become our debts for they are equally due to him that can lay either of these claims to them and therefore the withholding of either of them is a theft a keeping from my neighbour that which is his Mr. J. The Vsurer is a Covetous Person Reply Whereto I answer in the words of Bishop Taylor H. living p. 325. Covetousness is to be carried by the proper motives to Charity and by the proper rules to Justice which being secured the Arts of getting Money are not easily made Criminal Mr. J. O what indirect courses do they greedily take Reply Blame those that do so and spare not but blame not others therefore that use no courses but what are warrantable The rest of his Additionals as that the Vsurer is a Destroyer c. If intended for all persons by him counted Usurers are no better than the Products of a mistaken Zeal and serve to prove the censoriousness of the Writer We are now come to his Cloud of Witnesses Fathers Councils and Schoolmen which he all Summons in to give witness to the Cause he hath in hand his Forces he Musters up for his Cause will yet admit of a defalcation whether we consider persons or things testified against 1. As to persons reproved for Usury after he hath made a great flourish with Canons and Councils p. 27. he comes to confess that Clergy men are mostly concerned therein and upon search into the fourth Century Magd. Cent. 41. I meet with but one Canon amongst all that extends the Prohibition of Usury See Dr. Hammond pract cat p. 315. Edit 1662 farther than to Church Men and this one taken notice of by him and the Triumph that is made from the Council of Nice consisting of 318 holy Men condemning the Vsurer and his Vsury c. amounts to no more than this Whoever of the Clergy for filthy lucre sake exerciseth Vsury Let him be Deposed And if I do say that I suppose that Usury was then in common practise in the Church by those that are commonly called the Laity and allowed them you shall see that I have some reasons for my conjecture For 1. In the same Century Magd. Cent. 4th c. 1273. Sylvester Bishop of Rome faithfully discharging his Office and reforming the Clergy It is said Clericos usuris Civilibus vacantes ad precationes retraxit he brought back the Clergy to their Ministerial work from Civil-usury wherewith they were taken up Civil is here opposed I suppose to Ecclesiastick and may therefore be translated Lay-Usury as the common practice of such but not allowed to those of the Clergy 2. In that the Hereticks Ibid. col 374. called Andreans left the Communion of the Church because that Usurers were suffered therein 3. Those several Councils that prohibited the practice of Usury to the Clergy do assign peculiar reasons for their so doing which are not so applicable to others besides the Clergy As 1. No man that warreth intangleth himself with the affairs of this life Thus the 3d Council of Carthage Can. 15.6 Col. 867.868 Upon this very account the Apostles would be excused from tending of Tables that they might wholly give themselves to the work of the Ministry And upon this account the Councils forbad the practice of other Civil Imployments and Offices to the Clergy which in themselves were lawful so that they might not be Merchants Farmers Proctors Guardians c. Yea were prohibited all secular cares and imployments See the aforesaid Council with the Council of Chalcedon Can. 3. Prelat 2. Can. 14. 2. Because the Church-stock might not be disposed of for the bringing in of any prigain And so I find that Sophronius Col. 505. a Bishop was excommunicated by the Acaciani because he had made gain of the Church-Money and so defrauded the same turning it to his own proper Use The Custom being then that not only the Bishops and the other Clergy were maintained out of the common Stock of the Church they belonged to and other Revenues thereof but also the Poor and Strangers And Bernard long after Ibid. says to the Clergy without exception in Epist 2. Whatsoever thou retainest of the Altar beside necessary Maintenance and simple Habit it is not thine it is Rapine it is Sacriledge 3. I read also in the same Council of Carthage forementioned Can. 49. That Bishops Presbyters Deacons or any other of the Clergy that came poor to their Ecclesiastical Offices and after that therein purchased to themselves Fields or Farms they were to restore them to the Church and keep nothing proper to themselves unless what they obtained by other Largesses or by the right of Inheritance A Canon that many who Zealously plead against Usury from ancient Canons would be loath to be confined to Thus we see men can take and leave at pleasure 4. And as for the other fathers that are usually brought in as witnesses against Usury there is reason to think they were so bitter against Usury as practised in their times which it seems was very bad they would not have called it Murder else and many other such occasions laid to its charge As they managed it it was a meer cheat or Cozenage Lactantius else would not have said Quid faenerarius nisi ut fallat And Chrysostome as before said In Matt. there was nothing more cruel nothing more shameful than the Vsury of his time No wonder then that he and others were so Sharpe against it In ps 1 4. And Basil saith it was then Judged by Christians a very inhumane Act if any one had made gaine by Lending to the poor Leaving our thoughts free to think that it was not so accounted when they made advantage of lending to such as were not poor 5. And it is beyond doubt P. 28. that those expressions he quotes from Calvin and Luther were by them intended against the same Exorbitant Usurers and griping oppressors though by him slyly brought in to bespatter all such as take any thing for loan surely it was no fair dealing in Mr. J. After he informed us that whatsoever a man takes over and above the money lent is Vsury and that the men that did so were the persons declaimed against by the fathers presently to subjoyn Calvin tels us that this kind of men is purposely minded to suck out the bloud of others and So Luther calls the Vsurer the bloud-sucker of the people Whereas Calvins Judgement is well known that he held not all taking above the principal unlawful as may hereafter appear P. 48. Neither is it much to the purpose whether Calvin himself were a lender upon usury seeing he hath discovered his Judgement yet I deny the Cogency of Mr. Js Argument that he was not viz. because he was poor And then for Luther whom Mr. J. layes claim to we shall be the better able to Judge of