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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	honourable_a	house_n	petition_n	3,157	5	9.0634	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77858	An humble examination of a printed abstract of the answers to nine reasons of the House of Commons, against the votes of bishops in Parliament. Printed by order of a committee of the honourable House of Commons, now assembled in Parliament.	Burges, Cornelius, 1589?-1665.	1641 (1641)	Wing B5672; Thomason E164_14; ESTC R21636	38,831	83

AN HUMBLE EXAMINATION OF A PRINTED ABSTRACT OF The Answers to Nine Reasons of the House of Commons AGAINST The Votes of Bishops in Parliament Printed by order of a Committee of the Honourable House of Commons now Assembled in Parliament LONDON Printed for P. Stephens and C. Meredith 1641. AN HUMBLE EXAMINATION OF A Printed ABSTRACT of the ANSVVERS given to Nine REASONS of the HOUSE of COMMONS Against the Votes of Bishops in Parliament I. REASON of the House of Commons BEcause it is a very great hinderance to the exercise of their Ministeriall Function To this Reason a foure-fold Answer is sent abroad ANSVVER 1. Is is not so much hinderance as their convening to Generall Councels Synods Convocations Assemblies Classes and the like in all the Churches Reformed or otherwise EXAMEN Convening to Generall Councels Synodes c. when need requireth is a proper part of their Ecclesiasticall Office and so cannot rightly be termed any hinderance to their Ministeriall Function at all For then although they be enforced to be absent from their particular Congregations they doe still move within their owne proper Orbe for the more publike Service of the Church and so they may with more reason expect a blessing on it But when they Vote in Parliament as Peeres in Civill and Secular Affaires touching Trade Merchandize and other particulars of State policy they be Eccentrick and out of their owne Sphere and Calling This therefore must needs be not only some hinderance but a very great hinderance to the exercise of their Ministeriall Function because to qualifie them to give such Votes with judgement they must necessarily bestow themselves most if not altogether upon the study of and searching into all those Secular matters which in Parliaments be or may be debated and voted and in the inquiry into all those principles and deepe mysteries of State wherein all that vote in the House of Peeres ought above all others to be most conversant which cannot ordinarily bee attained without spending most of their time and study thereupon Si enim velit Episcopus ut caelesti pariter terreno Regi placeat ad utrumque se officium dividere certe Rex caelestis qui sibi vult ex toto corde tota anima tota virtute serviri ministerium divinum non approbat non diligit non acceptat Nam nec terreni Principis ratiocinia quisquam dimidius sufficienter administrat Matth. Parker Antiq. Britanni in Huberto ex Wil. Nubrig as a learned Archbishop of Canterbury out of another grave Author hath observed And sithence to be able to give a Vote in the Lords House of Parliament judiciously and for the benefit of the publike requires such constant industry daily observation and no small experience of all kindes of secular affaires with their severall casuall turnings and vicissitudes I cannot see how Bishops voting in that House can avoid one of these three evils either they must give their votes ignorantly and ignorance usually runs wrong or corruptly to serve other mens turnes be they right or wrong or els they must necessarily bend most part of their lives to secular studies and imployments to which they were never bred from which their Ministeriall Function should exclude them and for which many godly Bishops and others beside sundry Councels in all ages have condemned them many of those Ancients having alledged that Scripture in 2 Tim. 2.4 Nemo militans Deo implicat se negotiis secularibus c. to this very purpose For more expedition I shall only name some of those Authors and Councels Cyprian Epist 66. juxta Pamel Can. 6. Apost apud Zonaram Concil Carthag 4. Can. 16. Concil Chalced. Oecum Sess 15. Can. 3. August Epist 110. Greg. Magn. Dial. lib 1. Praefat. Excerpt Egberti Can. 16. Can. 57. Concil Calchuth Can. 10. Anselm in Concil Westm ut videre est in Gulielm Malmsb. de Gestis Pontif. l. 1. Mat. Par. Hist Angl. in the Cases of Walter B. of Durham in time of Will the Conq. and of Hubert Archb. of Cant. in Ric. 1. Yea we shall find this sharply condemned by popish Prelates themselves Corp. Iur. Can. dist 88. And Othobone the Popes Legate here in Hen. 3. his time censured it and provided against it as vitium horrendum Const Legat. cap. Cum honest But I leave them See also Tindall in his Tract of Obedience of a Christian B. Hooper on 8. Command B. Latymer Sermon called the Plough B. Iewel defence of Apol. par 5. chap. 4. divis 2. Mat. Parker Archb. of Cant. Antiquit. Brit. in Huberto where he is very large sharp and solid in this point Take a passage or two because his Booke is not in every hand Neque enim si verum judicare volumus in Republica Christiana quicquam sani atque integri seculum illud Richardi primi tulit Fictaque adumbrata Religionis specie proposita totus Clerus in sceleribus muneribus honoribus rapinis neglecto penitus verbo impune volutabat Hujus mali origo ab hoc profluxit quod contra Orthodoxorum Patrum decreta Clerus nimium mundanis se negotiis immiscuit Then hee goes on to shew a fearefull example of Gods vengeance upon one of them who had beene advanced to a very high Office in the State which Relation he thus closeth up Cujus generis exempla idcirco proferenda sunt ut deterreatur a vectigalibus Regiis Civilibus publicisque occupationibus Clerus Evangelio propagando praecipue studeat ac incumbat And how ever hee after takes notice of somewhat which happened in the beginning of Henry 3. wherein he seemes to preferre the fidelity of the Clergy to that of the Laity in administring of Civill Offices yet he doth it not as allowing the Clergie to be so imployed but rather as secretly taxing the Nobility of that time for being so unfaithfull to the King and Kingdome which surely is no warrant for the Clergie to step out of their own Calling It is true that anciently Bishops have beene allowed to intermeddle in some Civil affairs at sometimes Constantine made a law to that purpose in case of voluntary appeals from civil Iudicatories Sozom. li. 1. cap. 9. And Valens added to it in cases of Hospitals and Schooles Hist. Counc of Trent Yet the mischiefs of such intermedling were soone felt and groaned under Hence Honorius and Arcadius made a Law against it and Valentinian afterwards put it in execution even in Rome it selfe So did other Emperours as appeares by the Corps of the Civil Law in many places Indeed some succeeding Emperours gave relaxations and inlarged the power and preheminence of Bishops so farre that at length there was no reducing them to their ancient limits till that once glorious Scepter was become so inglorious as to be wholly at the devotion command and dispose of the Mitre to the perpetual ignominie and irreparable undoing of that puissant Empire And whereas some urge that Statute De Provisoribus

the Reason is not abated Next what a scandall to Bishops is it that even since the Reformation begun in Edward the sixth his time the Bishops all the Bishops should oppose the restauration thereof in the beginning of Queene ELIZABETH after an interruption of scarce five yeares and an halfe Surely if Bishops can so farre degenerate in so short a time they are hardly to bee trusted with Voting in Parliament for any long continuance especially in an age of such a postatising of the most and warping of the best IX REASON of the House of Commons BEcause Bishops being Lords of Parliament it setteth too great a distance betweene them and the rest of their Brethren in the Ministery which occasioneth pride in them discontent in others and disquiet in the Church ANSVVER This is an Argument from Morall Philosophy which affords no Demonstrations All are not proud that Vote in Parliament nor discontented which are not so imployed This Argument fights onely against their Title of being LORDS which is not the Question at this time And were those Brethren so wise and well affected as they might be they would rejoyce rather that some of their owne profession are advanced to those places wherein they may bee capable upon all occasions of doing good offices to them and to this whole Church EXAMEN The first note is but a peece of mirth which is but little Demonstration of any great Morality in a Cause so serious If all bee not proud that vote in Parliament they have the more cause to be thankfull to God that keepes them humble in so great a temptation Yet usually all be not humble who say they are not proud Proud men of all others will be least knowne of Pride The Reason doth not say that all are proud who Vote but only that such high dignity not meet for them occasioneth pride and I hope it will not bee denyed by a Bishop to be a rule of Divinity as well as of Morall Philosophy that apparent and experienced occasions of sinne must bee avoyded as well as the sinne it selfe Besides this Answerer takes no notice of the maine basis of the Argument which is that this setteth too great a distance betweene the Bishops and the rest of their Brethren And to say truth there was no great Reason why hee should considering the Principles of Prelates which will never suffer them to subscribe to the truth of such a Proposition They never thinke the distance to be too great betweene themselves and the inferiour Clergie And the neerer to parity the neerer to Heresie Yet because this is an opinion not very fit to bee spoken out it was good policy to passe over this branch in silence and it were superfluous to labour in the asserting of that which the Answer doth not gain-say And though all bee not discontented that are not so imployed for some of them are Chaplaines Dependants Expectors Pretenders to the like places and so cannot but rejoyce to see them on Cock-Horse who will they hope one day give them the hand to lift them up behind them Yet there bee many moe who have more cause of just discontent at the infinite clation intolerable pride and boundlesse passions of some of the Bishops who looking up to their owne Lordly Titles doe take it for a part of their honour to looke downe upon their poore brethren with so much superciliousnesse as if they were not brethren but servants yea slaves ad servitutem natos Tiberius Tacit as Hee said of his subiugated fellow Senators of Rome Before this Lording in Parliament came up the old Rule among Bishops was Con. Carthag 4. ca. 34. Episcopus in quolibet loco sedens stare Presbyterum non patiatur But that Canon is now 1240. yeares old and so may well be forgotten Now it is well if he may after long atttendance bee admitted into the presence of a Bishop where he must stand bare headed while the Bishop sits or perhaps lyes along in State And whereas before they were not ashamed to call and honour them as Brethren now they have other names for them Dunce Asse Foole Iack Rogue Scotish spirited rascall any thing that a tongue set on fire of Hell can belch out Lo here the goodly fruit of Episcopacie advanced to the heigth of Peerage in Parliament and wel were it for many of them and their poore Clergie if this were the worst and greatest cause of griefe and discontent administred by the Bishops to many grave Godly painefull peaceable Ministers whose heavie burdens are presented in multitudes of Petitions to the present Parliament and therefore I forbeare to relate them But where it is said that this Argument of the House of Commons fights only against their Title of Lords the Answer misreports it For it marcheth not fighteth against them as Lords of Parliament now if to be a Lord in Parliament and to Vote as Peeres there be not the same thing the Answer is worthy of Consideration otherwise it can expect no entertainment but neglect The House of Commons did purposely use this phrase here because the very Reason it selfe is grounded partly upon the Title yet so as that they consider a Bishop as a Peere admitted to Vote in Parliament These two are convertible and equipollent expressions He is a Lord of Parliament Ergo he Votes He Votes in Parliament Ergo a Lord of Parliament And this Lordship in Parliament is that which lifts him up so high above his brethren as makes him to be and they to fare the worse all dayes of his life Wherefore to conclude all such is my folly that I know not what wisedome or good affection it were for those Brethren to rejoyce much to see any of their owne Profession to bee exposed to so great temptations by being advanced to that place which is so farre from rendring them capable or apt to doe good offices to either Church or State as that it makes them more unapt unto and uncapable of doing any good at all either in Parliament Pulpit or Consistory For it puts them out of their Calling unapts them for the proper worke of it and is not seldome secretly followed by the just judgment of GOD with a spirit of coldnesse and benumdnesse of those excellent parts wherewith many of them before abounded with a spirit of giddinesse in point of judgment with a spirit of contempt of those Ordinances which formerly they prized in point of affection with a spirit of pride over their brethren in point of behaviour with a spirit of persecution of the power of godlinesse in point of jurisdiction and with a spirit of opposition to the perfect Reformation of this whole Church See the close of last precedent Answer in point of Legislative power in Parliament ERGO Bishops ought not to Vote in Parliament FINIS Pag. 2. l. 28. after acceptat there should be a short line thus as implying some words omitted which in the Author be interposed p. 4. l. 7. r. indicare p. 26. l. 5. r. avocation p. 34. l. ult r. 18. ibid. in Mar. dele 1317. r. M. 17. p. 63. l. 14. r. could p. 75. l. 25. r. nati