Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	bishop_n	church_n	succession_n	2,569	5	10.4652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36249	The doctrine of the Church of England concerning the independency of the clergy on the lay-power, as to those rights of theirs which are purely spiritual, reconciled, with our oath of supremacy, and the lay-deprivations of the popish-bishops in the beginning of the reformation / by the author of The vindication of the depriv'd bishops.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1697 (1697)	Wing D1813; ESTC R10224	66,791	94

could hinder the Bishops and the People too who were rightly informed concerning the nature of the Spiritual Society from judging Consecration necessary for obtaining that Power which is purely Spiritual And it 's being thought necessary by the Bishops was enough to oblige the Consecrating Bishops to give and the Consecrated Bishops to receive that Spiritual Power which in their Opinion could not be had otherwise then by their Consecration And intending to give and receive it what could hinder their Intentions from the usual Success when the same Solemnities were used by Persons equally Authorized to give it with those who had been used to give it formerly Nor could the Magistrate expect that to gratify him they shou'd defraud themselves of any Priviledges or Powers received by their Ancestors and convey'd as before from Persons empower'd to administer the Solemnities and Rites of Consecration Such a Singular obsequiousness and self-denial is this He could not I say either in Conscience or Equity pretend to expect unless He had secur'd it in express Terms and exacted a particular Profession a Profession that might make it inconsistent with the Bishops Veracity to give or receive the usuall Power as by the same Solemnities and Authority it had been given and received by their Ancestors Rather on the contrary the Permission of the sam● Solemn Rites and the same Authority in administring them as before without any new Security against the usual effect is an Argument the Prince left it to their Liberty to intend the giving and receiving the same Spiritual Power from CHRIST as had been usually conveyed by the same Ministry He therefore contented him self with the Security given him by the Patents that from whomsoever they received the Right of being Bishops in regard to Conscience yet they should not be Bishops in Law intitled to Baronies and revenues any longer than he pleased This being so it will follow that what they did before Deprivation was valid in Conscience and in Law also but what they did afterwards though that might also be valid in Concsience yet it was not to be vaild in Law Our first Consecrations were of the former sort and therefore were not the less valid in Conscience for having the accession of a validity in Law Thus our first Consecrations might derive a Title to our Present Fathers in Conscience not deprivable at the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate with regard to Conscience GOD awaken the zeal of our late Fathers and Brethern for asserting these Rights in Conscience which are so essential to their being our Fathers and our Brethren and for the Religion and Communion of our late common Churches in these Kingdoms And may our common LORD plead the Cause of his distressed and deserted Spouse THE END The Independency of Bishops on the Sate pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy * Injunct Q. Eliz. An. 1559. 5 † Eliz. 1. In App. to Bishop Burnet's 〈◊〉 of Refor And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greater than that of any modern particular one * P. 14. † Defence of the Church of England p. 20 21 22. Even with regard to our particular Church our behaviour signifies more love and concern for her than that of our late Brethren does We shew our greater 〈◊〉 to our Church particularly in not yielding so 〈◊〉 as they do that she should lose bee Rights on any terms What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King Arch-●p Cranmers Opinions in 〈◊〉 cury the VIII and Edw. the VI. time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Autho●●● See those Papers published by Bishop Stallingfleet Iren. c. ult and by Bishop Burnet Hist. of Resor Part. I. Collect. n. XXI B. III. Part II. Collect. Num. 2. Archbish●p C●●●mer's Au 〈…〉 〈◊〉 these matter no● at all Vol. I. Book III p. 267. It is not for the Interest of the Church or the Reformation that his Authority i● these things should be regarded Part. I. B. III. p. 204. Part. II. B. II. p. 243. His Opinions in this matter no more agreeable to the sense of our present Adversaries than to ours P. I. B. III. p. 267. The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine 24 Hen. VIII 12. When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cr 〈…〉 it was not 〈◊〉 ●greeable to the tru 〈…〉 of the Legis 〈…〉 Vol. I. B. III. R. 278. The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King 25 H. VIII 10. The Supremacy explained 26 H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause Addend to the First Vol. Num. V. The 〈◊〉 as explained in 37 H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer 25 II. VIII 〈◊〉 19. The same Notion of the Supremacy continued also under King Edw. the VI. Bishop Burnet Vol. II. Col. B. II. The Kings Re 〈…〉 Pap. 2. King Henry the VIIIths Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a Sense con●stent with our Principles Bishop Burnet p. 11. B. 111. Col. num 2. 1 Eliz. 1. Injunct by Queen Es●z Edition by Bishop Sparrow p. 77. 78. That Explication discharges'us now from any obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmer's Principles Resor Leg. Eccl. de Excom c. 2. De offic Jurisd omn. Judic What the Queen requires we can sincerely undertake and in a sense fully answering the Imposition of the Legislators ●he Queen's Injunction excuses us from swearing to the Supremacy over Spiriritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force The Explication in the Injunctions authorized by our Church in her XXXVIIth Article The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed also by Act of Parliament 5 Elizab. 1. It is rather supposed than contradicted by the second Canon The Practise of the Supremacy to our times no argument of the imposed sense of the Legislators against us Can. 12● The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical The Lay Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any just consequence affect our present Case Vid. Specimen against Bishop Burnet p. 52 53. The Popish Bishops were of another Communion And therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay Magistrate This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practise of Antiquity If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now 〈◊〉 Settle 〈…〉 give Right ●●ere no better ●i●ht is injured by them This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes Opt. Milev cont Parmenian L. 1. Artem. On●ir 〈◊〉 1. c. 14 Adv. Euciferian They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title Part. II. §. LV. p. 133. Ib. p. 131.

particulars of it were that our Church does not tell us here Yet without an enumeration of particulars none can tell what particulars were intended But these are rather to be judged of by other passages where the same Church tells us what that Authority was which she thought the Godly Kings had amongst the Jews This she her self tells us expresly in the Article She there tells us that the only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers If this Right of ruling the Ecclesiasticks be all that is asserted to the Prince by the Supremacy in Spirituals and that very ruling be only a restraining them with the Civil Sword these two things are so very exactly agreeable to our Doctrine that we can by no means be concerned in the censures mentioned in the Canon I might withall mention what I have already insisted on the approbation of the Explication in the Injunction in the same Article by which we are excused from believing that the Lay Magistrate has any Right to deprive Bishops of their Spiritual Power or from believing any thing from whence that may be solidly inferred For why should we not interprete the sense of our Church of England in her Canons by her sense in her Articles Why should we suspect she meant to Excommunicate her Members by her Canons where no particulars are expressed for particularly disowning that extent of secular Authority in Spirituals which in her Articles where she states the Question and tells us what she takes to be the Rights of Princes as expressed in the Scriptures she does not mention as a Right of the Jewish Kings nor consequently of our own We deny not our Kings a Right of driving Bishops away by the Civil Sword if no more be insisted on from the Case of Solomon and Abiathar And no more can be pretended to be the Right of our Kings by this Explication in the Article This is in truth an antient Right of the Supream Power even before it was Christian. The Emperor Aurelian had it though then a Pagan and afterwards a Persecutor and practised it with the approbation of the Primitive Church against Samosatenus Exile and imprisonment and confinement to a certain place such as that was of Abiathar to Anathoth we grant to be Temporal Punishments in the Power and Right of him whoever he be who has the Right of managing the Civil Sword But it is very plain by this Interpretation of the Queens Injunction allowed in this Article that our Church did not oblige to the rigour of some mens private opinions and particularly not to these of Archbishop Cranmer concerning the dependence of the Sacordotal Power on the Prince And therefore though there have been those who from that Case of Abiathar have inferred the deprivableness of the Episcopal Power by the Lay Magistrate there is no reason to believe that ever our Church in that Canon intended to exclude all such from Communion who could not come up to the heights of these private O●●●ators The rather this is credible because I have already shewn that even in the times of King Henry the VIII and of King Edward the VI. when these Opinions were believed by the Legislators themselves they notwithstanding had not the confidence to impose them How much less were they likely to 〈◊〉 under King James the 〈◊〉 when these Opinions were generally disbelieved I am sure those Fathers who made those Canons could not with the least likelihood pretend that in those Times of the Primitive Church when the first Christian Emperors governed this Opinion was believed that all Spiritual Power was derived from the Emperor and was therefore deprivable by him Yet if they did not they could not give this Right of depriving Bishops of their Spiritual Power to our Kings considering that in this very same Canon they do not pretend to give our Kings any other Rights than what were owned in the first Christian Emperors by the Primitive Christians § XXVI WELL. But however our Adversaries think that the sense of the Legislators as explained by the Practise is against us that Laymen have been permitted the use of Spiritual Censures Such was that Case of Cromwell Such that of the Lay Civilians still permitted by the Spiritual Courts and defended by the Act of Parliament Such the late Commission Court empowered to suspend and deprive the Bishop of London consisting of Laicks mixt with Ecclesiasticks and a Lay President But Facts alone do by no means signifie the mind of the Legislators unless they be approved and agreeable to Principles Much less can they pretend to be Rules in Conscience to the Obedience of the Subjects For Princes do many things upon exigencies of state which even themselves do not approve when they are free from those exigencies So far they would be even themselves from imposing them generally on their Subjects Consciences And the Facts we are speaking of have been so rare and discontinued that even that is suffi●ient to shew that even the Princes themselves have done them unwillingly and with regret and under the necessity of those very exigencies I need not repeat what I have already observed to this purpose in the Reigns of King Henry the VIII and King Edward the VI. As for the Commission Court it is no wonder if King James the II. took the utmost liberty that Protestant Lawyers allowed as Law It is rather to be admir'd that Protestant Lawyers should help him to an Expedient so hurtful to their own Communion and that upon such slender grounds as a few Facts which they were pleased upon so little probability to allow as Precedents The Bishop of London then when it was his own case did not think the Laymen his competent Judges in order to his suspension or deprivation from Spirituals And those Lawyers who had so much zeal not as to pervert them but keep them equal and unbiassed between both extreams did think his Plea not only equitable in conscience but warrantable in Law It were well his Lordship and those Lawyers would recollect how applicable those things are to our present case which themselves so zealously defended then As for the Act in favour of the Lay Civilians it self complains of the rareness of such Examples then because of the averseness of the Bishops to imploy such persons on such affairs That is sufficient to shew how much it was even then against the sense of the Ecclesiasticks who were the only competent Judges of Right in matters of this nature with regard to Conscience Since that time it has been still more disagreeable though the Practice has continued on account of that Act in favour of it Yet it has furnished the Non-conformists with an Objection and that such an one