Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	woman_n	work_n	young_a	27	3	5.0006	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56397	Religion and loyalty, the second part, or, The history of the concurrence of the imperial and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the government of the church from the beginning of the reign of Jovian to the end of the reign of Justinian / by Samuel Parker ...	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1685 (1685)	Wing P471; ESTC R16839	258,566	668

yet what he did was by the pretended Authority of Councils but this is the first time that any Prince challeng'd a Power to judg of Faith by his Imperial Authority And as it hapned it was as good a season as the Experiment could have been tryed in when the Tryal fell upon such a Man as St. Ambrose a Man of infinite Courage and Integrity and he has distill'd the very Spirit of both into his Reply the short of it is this Sir I hope I return you a sufficient Answer though I come not to Court upon the Errand that I am sent for neither let any Man judg me contumacious when I only maintain what your Father of blessed Memory was not only wont to say in discourse but to enact by Law That in Causes of Faith or Ecclesiastical Discipline he alone ought to be Judg who is qualified for it by Right and Office He would have Bishops judg of Bishops nay if a Bishop were guilty of Crimes of any other nature he was pleased to refer them also to the Ecclesiastical Judicature But when I beseech you Gracious Sir did you ever hear that Lay-men made themselves Judges of a Bishop in a Cause of Faith No Sir I cannot crouch to so mean a Flattery as to forget my Sacerdotal Trust that I should part with it to any other when God has committed it to my Charge If a Bishop is to be taught by a Laick let the Laick preach too Believe me Sir it is certain both from the Holy Scriptures and the practice of the whole Church that in matters of Faith Bishops are to guide Emperors and not Emperors Bishops Execute if you please your late bloudy Law upon me Ambrose is not so much worth that for the sake of his own poor self he should prostitute not only his own Priest-hood but the dignity of all the Bishops If there be any Controversy of Faith know that it is their business to decide it as was done under the great Constantine who prescribed nothing to the Bishops but left them to their own liberty of Judgment and the same was the practice under his Son Constantius thô what was well begun was afterward perverted For the Bishops agreed upon an Orthodox Faith whil'st some few would have the thing determin'd at Court whereby they at last imposed upon the Bishops who as soon as they understood the cheat recall'd their Sentence and ratified the Nicene Faith This has a peculiar reference to the Council of Ariminum In short Sir if Auxentius desire a Council though it is by no means fit that so many Bishops should be put to so much trouble by the petulancy of one Man who though he were an Angel from Heaven ought not to be regarded if he oppose the Peace of the Church whenever a Council is call'd I shall not absent my self This is the sum of his resolute Answer as far as it concerns my Argument where we see that the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith was always own'd to be an unalienable Right in the Governors of the Church and was never challenged by any Emperor before this young Prince who was boisterously thrust upo● it by the importunity of a furious Woman and her Scythian Priest And they having now begun the Work resolve to go through with open force and for that end procure a Law for the ejectment of Catholick Bishops out of their Churches under Penalty of Death to all those that refuse to resign them and for the first execution of it send a Party to seize St. Ambrose and take possession of his Church But the People defend the Doors The Officers command him in the Emperor's Name to deliver up his Church and the Goods of it At this the People are afraid that he will comply No says he fear not that I cannot forsake my Flock and deliver it up to the Guardianship of a Woolf. If they will dispossess me by force they may carry away my Body but not my Mind I am ready to submit to any thing that the Imperial Power can inflict but as long as I can I must and will discharge the duty of my Priestly Office Why then are you troubled I will never willingly forsake you if I am forced I must not resist I can mourn and weep and pray my Tears are Arms against the Goths these are our Priestly Weapons any other way I neither ought nor can resist And as for delivering up the Goods of the Church he tells the Officers Gentlemen if the Emperor be pleased to command any thing that is my own I would freely present him wi●h it but I can take away nothing out of the House of God nor give that away which was only intrusted with me to keep And being often prest to a voluntary resignation this was his constant and peremptory Answer and withal boldly advising the Emperor to beware what he did in seizing the Goods of God and invading the Rights of the Church And thus things stood three whole days St. Ambrose would not deliver up his Church nor the Emperor durst not take it by force And when the Courtiers perswaded him to go in Person and turn him out he replyed I thank you for that for if Ambrose should command you to deliver me up bound into his hands you would obey him and therefore for fear of farther mischief he was forced to desist though by his proceeding so far he brought great disgrace upon himself in so much that the Tyrant Maximus wrote a smart Letter to him to upbraid him with the folly and dishonor of his Attempt it is very well written but s●mm'd up in this one short saying Periculosè mihi crede divina tentantur Believe me it is a dangerous thing but to touch the Ark. But this was done in order to his Invasion of Italy to ingage the Orthodox on his side as if he had taken up Arms to vindicate their Cause for the Rescript of Valentinian reacht not St. Ambrose alone but all Churches under the Emperor's Jurisdiction as appears not only by the Rescript it self but by the Tyrants Epistle Audivi enim novis Clementiae tuae Edictis Ecclesiis Catholicis vim illatam fuisse obsideri in Basilicis sacerdotes mulctam esse propositam paenam capitis adjectam et legem sanctissimam sub Nomine nescio cujus legis everti I am informed that by some new Edicts of your Grace force has been offer'd to the Catholick Churches that the Priests have been besieged in their Cathedrals that the punishment annext to the Law is no less than pain of Death and that the most religious Law of the Empire is destroyed under pretence of I know not what new Law of your own And so the next news we hear of the Tyrant is his declaration of open War by which the young unadvised Emperor being in a great distress supplicates St. Ambrose to undertake an Ambassy to disswade the Tyrant from his Design which he frankly and readily

Regions with this Reserve that if they transgress't their limits they were to be punisht with all possible severity not at all as Christians but meerly as Subjects that were Factious and Seditious in the Commonwealth Qui si ingratâ pertinacià Statutum mansuetudinis nostrae egrediendum putaverit eundem non jam ut Christianum quippe quem à communione Religionis mentis inquietudo disterminat sed ut hominem factiosum perturbatoremque publicae tranquillitatis Legum Religionis inimicum juris severitas persequatur And in the same Rescript the same Decree is made against his Followers as Baronius gives it us out of his Vatican Manuscript Upon this they are quiet all the Reign of Valentinian but after this under Gratian and the young Valentinian they raise greater Stirs and Tumults So that in the year 378 they are again Condemn'd by a Council at Rome though Baronius places it in the year 381 whereas it is evident from the Inscription of the Letter of the Council to the Emperors that it was in this year of 378 for it is directed only to Gratian and Valentinian and therefore it must have been written after the Death of Valens and before the choice of Theodosius to the Empire Now Valens was kill'd in August 378 and Theodosius chosen in the January following and therefore it must have been transacted in that interval of time and no other But they having done their part they write to the Emperor Gratian to solicite him to do his who as we find by this Letter had not been negligent in the Business for that is the Contents of the first part of it to return him thanks for his former Rescript When this former Rescript that the Letter speaks of was publisht I know not neither is it that I can find any where extant Baronius that first brought the former Rescripts of Valentinian the Elder out of the Vatican Manuscript is altogether silent about it Labbé says it was in the year 374 upon what Ground or Authority he says it I know not for that Law that he refers to in the Theodosian Code is only a general Law against the Concealers of all sorts of Criminals to make them liable to the same sort of Punishment that is due to the Offender himself But whenever it was Publisht the Contents of it are evident from this Epistle viz. to drive Vrsicinus into Banishment upon the Ecclesiastical Sentence against him But for all that Vrsicinus and his Faction grow stubborn and are suffer'd through the negligence of the Governors to spread their Schism and in some places as the Council here inform the Emperor to over-awe his Judges with Tumults threatning them with no less than Death it self and for that Reason they request his Majesty to renew his former Rescript against them Upon this the Emperor writes a very chiding and threatning Letter to Aquilinus Vicarius of the City complaining of the Negligence and Dishonesty of his Officers qui privatae gratiae imperialia praecepta condonant who sacrificed the Emperor's Commands to their own private concerns and as he afterwards expresses it Hactenus stertit iners dissimulatio Judicum Notwithstanding all our Commands hitherto the Judges snore and counterfeit inadvertency And therefore he requires him under high and unusual Threatnings to put his Law in execution against them for their Banishment an Hundred miles from the City and gives him this general Rule Vt condemnati Judicio rectè sentientium Sa●erdotum reditum postea vel ad Ecclesias quas contaminaverant non haberent vel redintegrationem Judicii frustrà à nobis impudenti pervicacià precarentur That when they were condemn'd by the regular Sentence of the Priestly Order they should not be permitted to return to their Churches that they had defiled or to move for a re-hearing in the Civil Courts And after this we hear no more of them till the Council of Aquileia in the year 381 who sent a Letter to the Emperor Gratian first Publisht by Sirmond lest whil'st he was involved in Wars he should be prevailed upon to abate of his Severity against them And to their former Crimes of Faction and Sedition they now inform him that they had joyn'd Communion with the Arians to strengthen their Party and enable them more effectually to disturb the Peace of the Catholick Church what was done upon it I find not for we hear no more of them till the Death of Damasus and the Election of Siricius in the year 385. who was violently opposed by Vrsicinus but Vrsicinus was utterly rejected by the People and condemn'd by a Rescript of Valentinian the younger extant only in Baronius out of his Vatican Manuscript and after this we never hear any more either of him or his Schism The second Schism was that of Alexandria that began immediately upon the Death of St. Athanasius by whom upon his Death-bed Peter an ancient Presbyter of that Church and the inseparable Companion of all his Troubles was recommended for his Successor and was accordingly accepted with the unanimous Suffrage both of the Clergy the Magistrates and the People But he was scarce warm in his Episcopal Throne before he is forced by the Governor of the Province to quit it to save his life and so takes Sanctuary at Rome He was scarce gone but Euzoius that had been at the beginning of the Heresie with Arius that was the only Man that stuck to him in his Banishment and had now at last by the help of his good Masters the Eunuchs thrust himself into the great See of Antioch and with him one Magnus a great Officer at Court and an eminent Instrument at that time in all the Persecutions against the Catholicks bring Lucius to Alexandria with a strong Guard and an Imperial Mandate to put him in Possession of that See This Lucius had been often catching at the Prize but could never seize it till now Upon the Death of George in the Reign of Julian he put in for it against Athanasius and in the Reign of Jovian he and his Friend Euzoius in vain preferr'd Articles against him for his Ejectment but now by the help of his Money as Peter upbraids him and the Procurement of the Eunuchs under Valens he takes violent Possession of it And being an Usurper he is forced to govern as all hated Usurpers do and outdoes his bloody Predecessor George in Cruelty and Barbarity a large Description of the unparallel'd outrage against the Catholicks by Magnus may be seen in Peter's Letter extant in Theodoret. And so things continued in the same Posture till the year 377 when Valens was terrified with the Invasion of the Goths that were come up to the very Walls of the City of Constantinople at which time say the Historians he call'd home the banisht Bishops or rather as others say he and his Courtiers being otherwise employed they take that Opportunity to return home And so Peter comes to Alexandria