OF THE PACIFICATION OF THE CHURCH. 77 



incident to jurisdiction, may very well suffice his 

 office. But yet there is another help : for the causes 

 that come before him, are these : tithes, legacies, 

 administrations, and other testamentary causes; 

 causes matrimonial ; accusations . against ministers^ 

 tending to their suspension, deprivation, or degrad 

 ing ; simony, incontinency, heresy, blasphemy, breach 

 of the sabbath, and other like causes of scandal. 

 The first two of these, in my opinion, differ from the 

 rest ; that is, tithes and testaments : for those be 

 matters of profit, and in their nature temporal; 

 though, by a favour and connivance of the temporal 

 jurisdiction, they have been allowed and permitted to 

 the courts ecclesiastical; the one, to the end the 

 clergy might sue for that that was their sustentation 

 before their own judges ; and the other, in a kind of 

 piety and religion, which was thought incident to 

 the performance of dead men s wills. And surely 

 for these two the bishop, in my opinion, may with 

 less danger discharge himself upon his ordinary 

 judges. And I think likewise it will fall out, that 

 those suits are in the greatest number. But for the 

 rest, which require a spiritual science and discretion, 

 in respect of their nature, or of the scandal, it were 

 reason, in my opinion, there were no audience given 

 but by the bishop himself; he being also assisted, as 

 was touched before : but it were necessary also he 

 were attended by his chancellor, or some others his 

 officers being learned in the civil laws, for his better 

 instruction in points of formality, or the courses of 

 the court : which if it were done, then were there 



