Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	baron_n	lord_n	master_n	2,584	5	7.0203	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65589	A defence of pluralities, or, Holding two benefices with cure of souls as now practised in the Church of England.	Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695.	1692 (1692)	Wing W1561; ESTC R8846	81,283	204

the Archbishoprick of York held two Bishopricks and the best Abbey of England In the beginning of the Reformation in England the Papal Power being abolished by Act of Parliament it was found necessary to invest the power of granting Dispensation of Plurality in some person For this purpose the Statute 21 H. 8. was made which restored to the Prelates of the Church their original power of dispensing herein long since taken from them by Papal usurpation only restored it not to every Ordinary to be executed in his own Diocess as was formerly but fixed it wholly in the Archbishop of the Province In this Act the 29th Canon of the fourth Lateran Council is confirmed in relation to Benefices with cure of Souls viz. That if such a second Benefice be taken without Dispensation it shall void the first Then the power and manner of Dispensation is declared and appointed and the persons named who shall be capable of receiving such a Dispensation that is all Chaplains of the King Queen and Royal Family eight Chaplains of every Archbishop six of a Duke or Bishop five of a Marquess or Earl four of a Vicount three of a Baron Lord Chancellour and Knight of the Garter two of a Dutchess Marchioness Countess or Baroness being Widows one of the Chief Justice of the Kings Bench and Warden of the Cinque-ports all Brothers and Sons of Temporal Lords and Knights all Doctors and Batchelors of Divinity or of the Canon Law who shall be admitted to any of those Degrees by either of the Universities These are the only persons capable of receiving Dispensation but as yet they have no right to claim it that is to be acquired by their particular merit of which the Archbishop is made the sole Judge After all no more than two Benefices are allowed to be dispensed with except only in one case that is when any of the Kings Chaplains are sworn of the Kings Council such being made capable of receiving a Dispensation for three Benefices a case which perhaps never happened to any except Dr. Wotton and I am not assured whether he took the advantage of it As for Secretary Boxall and some others in Queen Mary's time when the Popes dispensing power was revived they are not to be accounted for When such a Dispensation is in virtue of this Act granted to any one both the Grant if self and the C●nons of the Church limit the use of it that so neither of the Benefices therein personally united may receive any de●riment either in spiritual or mixt matters The 41th Canon of the Synod held at London in the year 1603. directs That no Dispensation for keeping more Benefices with cure than one shall be granted to any but such only as shall be thought very well worthy for his learning and very well able and sufficient to discharge his duty c. Provided always that he be by a good and sufficient caution bound to make his personal Residence in each his said Benefices for some reasonable time in every year and that the said Benefices be no more than 30 miles distant asunder and lastly that he have under him in the Benefice where he doth not reside a Preacher lawfully allowed that is able sufficiently to teach and instruct the people The form of the Dispensation which hath been always used since the Reformation begins with a supposal of the great merits of the person to whom it is granted and afterwards adds these Conditions Provided alway that in each of the aforesaid Churches as well that from which you shall be absent for the greater part as the other in which you shall make perpetual and personal residence you preach thirteen Sermons every year according to the Constitutions of the Church of England in that case set forth and therein handle the holy Word of God sincerely religiously and reverently and that in the same Benefice from which you shall be chiefly absent you keep hospitality for two months every year and in that time entertain and relieve the inhabitants of the same Parish especially the poor and needy in proportion to the profits and revenues of the Benefice Provided also always that the cure of that Church from which you shall be chiefly absent be in the mean time well supplied in all things by some fit Minister able to explain and interpret the Principles of the Christian Religion and to preach the Word of God to the people if the revenues of the said Church can coveniently maintain such a Curate and that a competent and sufficient Salary to be limited and appointed by the Bishop of that place according to his discretion or by us or our Successours in case the Diocesan Bishop shall not do his duty herein be given and paid bonâ side to the said Curate Herein it is to be observed That altho no more than two months Residence upon the Benefice less frequented be expressed yet thirteen Sermons are injoyned to be preached yearly at it which being not ordinarily to be performed in distant Parishes as for contiguous Parishes the Pluralist may reside constantly upon both in an Ecclesiastical sense without the residence of as many weeks I have for that reason often said in this Discourse that a Pluralist is bound to reside three months in every year upon that Benefice which he less frequenteth I have now finished the History of Parochial Foundations and Pluralities in this Nation and now dare to appeal to the judgment of the Reader whether the granting of such Pluralities as are now allowed be against the first design of the foundation and endowment of Parochial Churches I fear the same judgment will not be passed concerning some other Cases which have been incidentally mention●d as of the Residence of Bishops at their Cathedral Churches which for the greater good of their Diocesses the Council of London held under Archbishop Lanfranc commanded to be translated to the principal Cities of their Diocesses of the obligation of Prebendaries and Archdeacons to constant Residence of the incompatibility of two such Dignities of the unlawfulness of holding Commendams in another Diocess or being translated from one Diocess to another All these cases were manifested to be consonant to the first design of the Foundation and Endowments of Cathedral Churches yet contrary practices are introduced and no exclamation made against them Other like cases might be named as as that formerly Clergymen if they had proper possessions sufficient to maintain them should receive no allowance from the Church that they were bound to spend all in hospitality and alms or bequeath what remained to the Church whence they got their money or possessions Many of these old customs may be agreeable to the first design of the endowment of the Church yet not necessary and some of them not fit to be continued If any of them do deserve to be revived they are such as may be effected by the old Laws still in force and want no new Laws but only the pleasure

they excepted the Chaplains of Archbishops and Bishops as was before said And for the Kings of our Nation their design in the munificent endowment of Churches was as well to provide fit rewards for able persons employed in their own service as to provide persons for the service of those Churches Formerly therefore while the Laity were either wholly unlettered or given to a Military life the King made use of the Service of Clergymen in all the Offices of the Chancery Privy-Seal Secretary in all Courts of Justice and in Embassies And if Clergymen had not then been permitted to serve the King herein none of these Offices could have been duly executed The service of these Clergymen the King rewarded with Benefices and Ecclesiastical Preferments and for the reward of the Masters and Clerks in Chancery fixed many Advowsons in the gift of the Lord Chancellour or Keeper for the time being which still continue altho the reason of it hath long since ceased To return to the History of Pluralities after the power of dispensing with them was taken from the Bishops and fixed wholly in the Pope by the Lateran Council no further care or decency was observed therein but within 60 years they grew so enormous as not to be defended This the Mendicant Friers who in the intermediate time arose and multiplied made great use of in their exclamations against the Secular Clergy and by it made them odious One of this Order John Peckham being promoted to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury applied himself with great zeal to overthrow these Pluralities For which end he made a Canon in the Council of Reading in the year 1279. that all Benefices held by one Clergyman without a Papal Dispensation should be void except the last and that all Clergymen who should hereafter receive more Benefices than one without a Papal Dispensation Seu titulo institutionis seu commendationis seu custodiae should be ipso facto deprived of all and incur the sentence of Excommunication Afterwards in the heat of opposition he proceeded so far as to inveigh against all Plurality of Benefices as a mortal sin and in the Council of Lambeth in the year 1281. after a long invection against the sin of Plurality admonished Primò secundo tertiò omnes hujusmodi pluralitatem damnabiliter occupantes that they should within six months freely and absolutely resign all their Benefices except one into the hands of their Diocesan For disobedience to this injunction or admonition he refused to confirm John de la More elected to the Bishoprick of Winchester and John de Kirkby elected to the Bishoprick of Rochester and notwithstanding all appeals and opposition annulled their Elections ob crimen pluralitatis and caused the one to renounce the right of his Election and the other to be rejected in the Court of Rome to which he had appealed The principle indeed upon which he did proceed was false but the enormity of Pluralities was at that time so great that it became the care of an Archbishop to oppose and reform it I will produce the example of a score of Pluralists who all died while he sat Archbishop that from thence it may be judged how different the case then was from that which now obtains in the Church of England Bogo de Clare held thirteen Benefices with cure of Souls in the Province of Canterbury beside several Prebends But all this was inconsiderable to what he held in the Province of York in which his Spiritual Preferments did according to the tax of those times amount to the yearly value of 1980 Marks as appears by a Certificate of the Archbishop of York in the Register of the Church of York Galfridus Haspal died possessed of fifteen Benefices in the Province of Canterbury Radulphus Fremingham held nine Benefices in the same Province Malcolmus de Harle held five Benefices in the same Province Henricus Sampson held six Benefices in so many several Diocesses of the same Province Adam de Stratton died possessed of twenty three Benefices in the same Province Adam de Walton held seven Benefices in the same Province Petrus de Wynch held eight Benefices in the same Province Adam Pain died possessed of fourteen Benefices in the same Province Hugo de la Penne held seven Benefices in the same Province Willelmus Brumton died possessed of ten Benefices in the same Province Rogerus de la Ley held seven Benefices in the same Province beside several Archdeaconries and Prebends Rogerus Barret held six Benefices in the same Province Willelmus de Monteforti held eight Benefices in the same Province Robertus de Drayton held seven Benefices in the same Province Willelmus de Percy held eight Benefices in both Provinces Hugo de Cressingham held nine Benefices Ricardus de Hengham held fourteen Bene●ices Johannes Clarel held fifteen Benefices Hugo de Clos held fourteen Benefices By the vigorous opposition made to these extravagant Pluralities by Archbishop Peckham some Reformation seems to have been made for when Pope Vrban V. in a Bull dated 1365. May 5. after a long invection against Pluralities commanded the names of all the Pluralists in England to be transmitted to him not that he intended to reform the abuse but only to squeeze money from them the Plurality of those times was found to consist not so much in Benefices with cure of Souls as in Prebends of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of which there was then a far greater number than remains now in England Yet the Pope in his Bull makes no difference between Plurality of Spiritual Promotions with or without cure of Souls but taxeth both alike I have seen the return made to the Pope of all the Pluralists residing at that time in or about London wherein if my memory fails me not I observed no great number of Benefices with cure of Souls held by one man but many examples of great number of Prebends held by one person Among whom is William de Wickham who held thirteen Prebends and Dignities in so many several Churches and but one Benefice with cure of Souls in the Province of Canterbury For by this time almost all the Prebends and Archdeaconries of England were got into the hands of Canonists who quickly found out subtle distinctions quirks and devices whereby to evade the obligation of personal constant residence upon their Dignities As for Benefices with cure of Souls more were then held by several men than is now allowed in the Church of England Whether Pluralities continued in the same state till the Reformation whether in the intermediate time they increased or decreased I cannot certainly affirm but suppose it not unlikely that as the corruptions of the Court of Rome granting Dispensations grew daily more exorbitant so less shame or modesty was observed by her in giving enormous Dispensations of this kind and just before the Reformation flourished in England a more monstrous Pluralist than was ever known before that is Cardinal Wolsey who with