Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
conscience_n	according_a	law_n	write_v	1,034	5	6.0174	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61530	The Bishop of Worcester's charge to the clergy of his diocese, in his primary visitation begun at Worcester, Sept. 11, 1690	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1691 (1691)	Wing S5565A; ESTC R17405	34,012	60

of his Work to others can he reasonably look for the same Success Believe it all our Pains are little enough to awake the sleepy and secure Sinners to instruct the ignorant to reclaim the vitious to rebuke the profane to convince the erroneous to satisfie the doubtful to confirm the wavering to recover the lapsed and to be useful to all according to their feveral Circumstances and Conditions It is not to Preach a Sermon or two in a Weeks time to your Parishoners that is the main of your Duty that is no such difficult Task if Men apply their Minds as they ought to do to Divine Matters and do not spend their Retirements in useless Studies but the great Difficulty lies in Watching over your Flock i. e. knowing their Condition and applying your selves suitably to them He that is a Stranger to his Flock and only visits them now and then can never be said to watch over it he may watch over the Fleeces but he understands little of the State of his Flock viz. of the Distempers they are under and the Remedies proper for them The Casuists say That the reason why there is no Command for Personal Residence in Scripture is because the Nature of the Duty it self requires it for if a Person be required to do such things which cannot be done without it Residence is implyed As a Pilot to a Ship needs no Command to be in his Ship for how can he do the Office of a Pilot out of it Let none think to excuse themselves by saying that our Church only takes them for Curates and that the Bishops have the Pastoral Charge for by our old Provincial Constitutions which are still in force so far as they are not repugnant to the Law of the Land even those who have the smallest Cures are called Pastors and Lyndwood there notes that Parochialis Sacerdos dicitur Pastor and that not merely by way of Allusion but in respect of the Care of Souls But we need not go so far back For what is it they are admitted to Is it not ad Curam Animarum Did not they promise in their Ordination To teach the People committed to their Care and Charge The Casuists distinguish a threefold Cure of Souls 1. In foro interiori tantum and this they say is the Parochial Cure 2. In foro exteriori tantum where there is Authority to perform Ministerial Acts as to suspend excommunicate absolve sine Pastorali Curâ and this Archdeacons have by virtue of their Office 3. In utroque simul where there is a special Care together with Jurisdiction this is the Bishops And every one of these say they secundum commune Jus Canonicum is obliged to Residence i. e. by the common Law Ecclesiastical of which more afterwards The Obligation is to perpetual Residence but as it is in other positive Duties there may other Duties intervene which may take away the present force of it as Care of Health necessary Business publick Service of the King or Church c. But then we are to observe that no Dispensation can justifie a Man in point of Conscience unless there be a sufficient Cause and no Custom can be sufficient again the natural Equity of the Case whereby every one is bound from the Nature of the Office he hath undertaken I confess the Case in Reason is different where there is a sufficient Provision by another fit Person and approved by those who are to take Care that Places be well supplied and where there is not but yet this doth not take off the force of the Personal Obligation arising from undertaking the Cure themselves which the Ecclesiastical Law understands to be not merely by Promise but cum effectu as the Canonists speak which implies personal-Residence Not that they are never to be away Non sic amare intelligi debet ut nunquam inde recedat saith Lyndwood but these Words are to be understood civili modo as he expresses it i. e. not without great Reason There must not be saith he Callida Interpretatio sed talis ut cessent fraudes negligentiae i. e. There must be no Art used to evade the Law nor any gross Neglect of it It 's true the Canonists have distinguished between Rectoriēs and Vicarages as to Personal Residence but we are to consider these things 1. The Canon Law strictly obliges every one that hath a Parochial Cure to perpetual Residence and excepts only two Cases when the Living is annexed to a Prebend or Dignity and then he who hath it is to have a perpetual Vicar instituted with a sufficient Maintenance 2. After this Liberty obtained for dignified Persons to have Vicars endowed in their Places the Point of Residence was strictly injoyned to them and we find in the Provincial Constitutions a Difference made between Personatus and Vicaria but this was still meant of a Vicarage endowed This was in the time of Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury and in another Constitution he required an Oath of Personal Residence from all such Vicars altho' the Place were not above the value of five Marks which as appears by Lyndwood else where was then sufficient for Maintenance and Hospitality And to cover the shameful Dispensations that were commonly granted to the higher Clergy under Pretence of the Papal Power the poor Vicars by a Constitution of Otho were bound to take a strict Oath of continual Residence and without it their Institution was declared to be Null But even in that Case the Gloss there saith That they may be some time absent for the Benefit of the Church or State but not for their own particular Advantage 3. The Obligation in point of Conscience remains the same but Dispensing with Laws may take away the Penalty of Non-Residence in some Cases Joh. de Athon Canon of Lincoln who wrote the Glosses on the Legatine Constitutions doth not deny but that Rectors are as well bound to Residence as Vicars but these are more strictly tied by their Oath and because a Vicar cannot appoint a Vicar but a Parson may And altho that Name among some be used as a Term of Reproach yet in former Ages Personatus and Dignitas were the same thing and so used here in England in the Time of Henry II. but afterwards it came to be applied to him that had the Possession of a Parochial Benefice in his own immediate Right and was therefore bound to take Care of it For the Obligation must in Reason be supposed to go along with the Advantage however Local Statutes may have taken off the Penalty II. When you have thus considered the Obligation which lies upon you to take Care of your Elock let me in the next place recommend to you a plain useful and practical Way of Preaching among them I mean such as is most likely to do good upon them which certainly ought to be the just Measure of

part of common Justice and Honesty so to do And the Lord Coke positively affirms that Dilapidation is a good Cause of Deprivation And it was so Resolved by the Judges in the King's Bench 12. Jac. Not by Virtue of any new Law or Statute but by the old Ecclesiastical Law For which Coke refers to the Year-Books which not only shew what the Ecclesiastical Law then was but that it was allowed by the Common Law of England and we are told that is never given to change but it may be forced to it by a New Law which cannot be pretended in this Case And by the old Constitutions here received the Bishops are required to put the Clergy in mind of keeping their Houses in sufficient Reparations and if they do it not within two months the Bishop is to take care it be done out of the Profits of the Benefice By the Injunctions of Ed. VI. and Queen Elizabeth all Persons having Ecclesiastical Benefices are required to set apart the Fifth of their Revenue to Repair their Houses and afterwards to maintain them in good condition V. Pluralities By the Ecclesiastical Law which was here received the actual receiving Institution into a second Benefice made the first void ipso jure and if he sought to keep both above a Month the second was void too Lyndwood observes that the Ecclesiastical Law had varied in this matter And it proceeded by these steps which are more than Lyndw. mentions I. It was absolutely forbidden to have two Parishes if there were more than ten Inhabitants in them because no Man could do his Duty in both Places And if any Bishop neglected the Execution of it he was to be excommunicated for two Months and to be restored only upon Promise to see this Canon executed II. The Rule was allowed to hold as to Cities but an Exception was made as to small and remote Places where there was a greater Scarcity of Persons to supply them III. If a Man had two Benefices it was left to his Choice which he would have but he could not hold both This kind of Option was allowed by the Ecclesiastical Law then in force IV. That if he takes a second Benefice that Institution is void by the third Council of Lateran under Alexander III. V. That by taking a second the first is void which is the famous Canon of the fourth Lateran Council VI. That if he were not contented with the last but endeavour to keep both he should be deprived of both And this was the Ecclesiastical Law as it was declared in our Provincial Constitutions But the general Practice was to avoid the former according to the Lateran Council These were very severe Canons but that one Clause of the Pope's dispensing Power made them to signifie little unless it were to advance his Power and Revenue For when the Dispensing Power came to be owned the Law had very little force especially as to the Consciences of Men. For if it were a Law of God how could any man dispense with it unless it were as apparent that he had given a Power in some Cases to Dispense as that he had made the Law Those Casuists are very hard put to it who make Residence Jure Divino and yet say the Pope may dispense with it which at last comes only to this that the Pope can authoritatively declare the sufficiency of the Cause so that the whole matter depends upon the Cause whether there can be any sufficient to excuse from Personal Residence It is agreed on all hands that the habitual Neglect of a Charge we have taken upon our selves is an evil thing and that it is so to heap up Preferments merely for Riches or Luxury or Ambition but the main Question in point of Conscience is what is a sufficient Cause to justifie any Man's breaking so reasonable and just a Rule as that of Residence is It cannot be denied that the eldest Canons of the Church were so strict and severe that they made it unlawful for any man to go from that Church in which he first received Orders as well as to take another Benefice in it and so for any Bishop to be translated from that Place he was first Consecrated to as well as to hold another with it But the Good of the Church being the main Foundation of all the Rules of it when that might be better promoted by a Translation it was by a tacit Consent looked on as no unjust violation of its Rules The Question then is whether the Churches Benefit may not in some Cases make the Canons against Non-Residence as Dispensable as those against Translations And the Resolution of it doth not depend upon the voiding the particular Obligation of the Incumbent to his Cure but upon some more general Reason with respect to the State of the Church As being imployed in the Service of it which requires a Persons having not a bare Competency for Subsistence but a sufficiency to provide Necessaries for such Service For those seem to have very little Regard to the flourishing Condition of a Church who would confine the Sufficiency of a Subsistence merely to the Necessaries of Life But it seems to be Reasonable that Clergy-Men should have Incouragement sufficient not only to keep them above Contempt but in some respect agreeable to the more ample Provision of other Orders of Men. And by God's own Appointment the Tribe of Levi did not fall short of any of the rest if it did not very much exceed the Proportion of others We do not pretend to the Privileges they had only we observe from thence that God himself did appoint a plentiful Subsistence for those who attended upon his Service And I do not know what there is Levitical or Ceremonial in that I am sure the Duties of the Clergy now require a greater Freedom of Mind from the anxious Cases of the World than the Imployments of the Priests and Levites under the Law But we need not go so far back if the Church injoyed all her Revenues as entirely as when the severe Canons against Pluralities were made there would not be such a Plea for them as there is too much Cause for in some Places from the want of a competent Subsistence But since that time the Abundance of Appropriations since turned into Lay-Fees hath extremely lessened the Churches Revenues and have left us a great number of poor Vicarages and Arbitrary Cures which would hardly have afforded a Maintenance for the Nethinims under the Law who were only to be Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water But this doth not yet clear the Difficulty for the Question is whether the Subsistence of the Clergy can lawfully be improved by a Plurality of Livings Truly I think this if it be allowed in some Cases lawful to be the least desireable way of any but in some Circumstances it is much more excusable than in others As when the Benefices