Selected quad for the lemma: church_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
church_n	apostle_n	bishop_n	peter_n	13,295	5	7.4927	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30253	A case concerning the buying of bishops lands with, the lawfulness thereof and the difference between the contractors for sale of those lands, and the corporation of VVells, ordered, Anno. 1650, to be reported to the then Parliament / with the necessity thereof, since fallen upon Dr. Burges.	Burges, Cornelius, 1589?-1665.	1659 (1659)	Wing B5670; ESTC R11486	85,757	85

of Bishops to be Sacriledge To make way hereunto he premiseth these things 1. That God accepts of things given him and hath a Propriety in them as well in the New as in the Old Testament 2. That God gets this Propriety as well by acceptation of voluntary gifts as by his command for the giving of them c. Now unless he make it out that Gods Acceptation and Propriety as he phraseth it reach to Church Lands of Bishops his labour is in vain and his Arguments from those Texts are no other then a gross abusing of the Scriptures like that of those unlearned and unstable ones who wrest them to their own destruction e 2 Pet. 3.16 His first Text out of Mat. 25. neither doth nor can extend to Christs Acceptation of or Propriety in Church-Lands voluntarily given to Bishops for their Maintenance It speaks onely of Alms whereby the Hungry Naked Sick or Persecuted Members of Christ are Christianly relieved Not the accepting Lands for Bishops such especially as that Author declareth for who Lord it over God's Heritage by appropriating the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction to themselves two of the most senseless Dreams that can be fathered upon those Scriptures which the same Authour abuseth * Page 20. to that purpose Nor is there the least hint of Christs Acceptation of Lands for any Uses whatsoever but onely of present supplies of Food Rayment and other Necessaries suitable to the instant wants of his distressed Members But saith he Doth Christ thus accept of meat and cloathing and not of those Endowments that bring these to perpetuity Will he take meat and refuse Revenues and he concludes it of both adding that it were a strange thing Christ should take those Gifts so kindly for provisions of all called His and that onely His Apostles and His seventy Disciples should be excepted from sharing therein This would not seem strange to him were he not a stranger to the Scriptures He might by further search know That though Christ accepted of Gifts for the Poor yet when they were more then there was present use of they were abused even under Christs own Nose by that thief Judas who bore the Bag f Joh. 12.6 And would it were a slander to say That most of those that since have been trusted with that Bag and with the large Revenues given to that Use are too near of Kin to that first Treasurer Under the Old Testament God made many provisions for the Poor but none in Land it self And how much the Poor get by the gift of Lands especially after one Age or two under the Gospel is too obvious and lamentable to behold That Author therefore begs the Question by way of a confident Interrogation Will He take Meat and refuse Revenues which should the Authour be kept from till he prove it he might perhaps starve to Death But as for Christs accepting of and having a Propriety in Lands given to the Church for Bishops c. he is out toto Coelo as far as the East is from the West That Christ took care for the Poor is evident and that his care was no less for his Ministers is no less a Truth For he that of old made that a Law Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the Corn g Deut. 25.4 did he it as taking care onely or chiefly for Oxen nay for our sakes no doubt is it written yea altogether for our sakes saith St. Paul h 1 Cor. 9.10 in behalf of all Ministers that labour in the Word and Doctrine Howbeit from hence to make it good that that Text in Mat. 25. extendeth or is extendable to Christs acceptance of the gift of Lands for Himself or for His Apostles or His seventy Disciples or any of their Successors will require time till the thirtieth day of February or the Greek Kalends come about As for Christ himself although he were of the Blood-Royal of the Lineage of David both by his Mothers side and by his supposed Fathers too i Luk. 2.4 He professeth that very Foxes and Birds were better provided then He for the one had Holes the other Nests but he had not so much as a Room or Pillow on which He might lay His Head k Mat. 8.20 And when He sent out the Twelve His charge was l Mat. 10.9.10 Provide neither Gold nor Silver nor Brass in your Purses nor Scrip for your journey neither two Coats c. Not that He meant to starve them for He took care that provision should be made for their present supply by those to whom they preached so as they wanted nothing m Luk 22.35 and that upon this account That the labourer is worthy of his hire n Mat. 10.10 May it not then upon better grounds be retorted Christ would accept of no Lands or House for Himself and forbad even Gold and Silver to His Apostles therefore he will not accept own or hold the Lands of Bishops especially of such as he never owned Not that it is unlawful now for Ministers that preach the Gospel to receive allowance but that those words of our Lord in Mat. 25. had no relation thereunto And albeit if we give credit to Platina Petrus de Natalibus and others Pope Vrban 1. about the year of Christ 233. by an Epistle Decretal ordained That the Church might enjoy praedia quorum proventibus alendos statuit Ecclesiae Ministros c. Possessions out of which Profits he appointed the Ministers of the Church to be maintained and forbad the alienating thereof under pain of Excommunication which Pope Lucius 1. afterwards o An. 255. seconded and Pius 2. long after him p An. 1459. confirmed as a Law Yet he that shall trace the best Ecclesiastical Histories shall finde that the Church was endowed with no Lands even in the greatest advancement of Bishops by Constantine the Great It is true that in the suppositious Donation of Constantine it is said That upon the Churches which he erected to the honour of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul possessionum praedia contulit he conferred the spoils of Possessions gotten by War Yet this in the Language of those times and of the Civil Law did not extend to the Lands themselves but onely to the Profits of them Before Constantine Bishops could enjoy no Lands for even in the beginning of his raign the Bishop of Rome himself Sylvester and his Associates in the Ministry were fain to hide for safety of their Lives in the Hill Saracte about twenty miles distant from Rome since called Monte di Sylvestro as by that very Donation appeareth Nor did that Emperour endow the Bishops with Lands but onely gave them large Allowances out of Lands for which a voice is said to be uttered from Heaven Hodie seminatur Virus in Ecclesia But be it as the Papalins and this Author perhaps would have it that such Decrees were made by Vrban 1.

Lucius 1. and others for enjoying of Lands yet the very best Original Title of Bishops to Church-Lands is not from Christ himself by vertue of what he spake Mat. 25. but onely from some Popes of Rome His pretended Vicars Touching the second Text Mat. 10.40 it is so clearly meant of the Apostles Ministry not Bishops Lands and of their entertainment for present supply of Necessaries not for Pomp and State and of giving them Gold and Silver enough to maintain it that it may well be wondered even by a wise man with what forehead that Authour could apply that Scripture to Christs accepting and owning the Gifts of Bishops Lands which in those times were not so much as dream'd of by any Bishop or Apostle of Christs Ordination All which that Text can imply is but this That he that receiveth His Apostles receiveth Himself and His Father also by vertue whereof He and His Father will effectually move the hearts of the Receivers to see that His Apostles shall want nothing while they are imployed in preaching to them Which what it can conduce to prove Christs acceptante of Lands for a perpetual Maintenance which by no Story appeareth to be enjoyed of His Apostles must be left onely to Impudence to make forth Nor was Ananias and his wife smitten or so much as questioned Act. 5. for selling of Lands devoted to God and the Church but for their dissembling and lying unto God For whereas in the first receiving of the Gospel by the preaching of Peter many thousands were likely upon that very account at that time to starve being hated and persecuted for believing in Christ such as were rich sold their Estates and put all into one common Banck or Purse for Relief of the whole Community of Believers Ananias and Sapphira pretended to do the like they sold their Lands yet brought but part of the price to the Apostles and pretended that what they so brought was the whole And being questioned by Peter whether this were All they sold their Lands for they both with impudence stood to their first Lye and for that were condemned and smitten with death not for Sacriledge by selling Lands but for Hypocrisie in making the world believe more then was true and by defrauding the Church of part of that which he pretended to dedicate unto God for the Relief of not Ministers but the poor Brethren that then held all things in Common There being then no Lands or Revenues sold or set forth for Ministers nor did these Hypocrites pretend unto it Howbeit in as much as they pretended to give all and yet kept back part of the price which they professed to devote to that publick Service of God and his People they are not to be excused of Sacriledge Not because they voluntarily devoted it without a Command for Christ himself in such cases of Extremity had commanded the imparting of what might be spared q Luk. 3.11 but because they had defrauded the Church and abused the world the Apostles and God himself of what they had with great shew of piety and charity professed freely to give even when the giving of the whole was not required But that great ruffling flourish which this Author makes thereupon That generally all the Fathers both of the Greek and Latine Church make his crime to be a robbing of God of that wealth which by Vow or Promise was now become Gods propriety is nothing as to the aliening the Lands of Bishops or of the Church which is the point he undertook to prove for his crime in lying and defrauding lay not in selling or alienating of Lands but in the price of them And so all Expositors Ancient and Modern agree which comes not up to our Authors purpose But whereas he pag. 26. alledgeth Calvin and Beza as being of the same judgment with the Fathers herein it is worth the noting to observe how corruptly he translateth their words which he produceth Calvin saith he speaking of that fact of Ananias Sacrum esse Deo profitebatur which this man thus translateth He professeth that his Land should be a sacred thing unto God And Beza too Praedium Deo consecrassent the man and his wife had consecrated their Land unto God This he doth to wiredraw that Text to make it reach to the unlawfulness of selling of Church-Lands of Bishops whereas he abuseth both these Authors and the Text it self by such a false Translation Calvin saith not that Ananias professeth his Land should be sacred unto God but the money he made of it should be all sacred unto the Lord. Nor can Beza's expression of praedium signifie Lands for that were expressly to contradict the Text which speaks it of the price not of the Land Nor is he blamed for selling Land devoted to God but for being false in his account of the sale which he pretended to make unto Peter yea unto God the Holy Ghost himself Oh what Fig-leaves is Error forced to cover its nakedness withal when called out by Truth to shew it self in the open light And as touching that of the Apostle Rom. 2.22 committest thou sacriledge It is not denyed but that there is now such a sin as sacriledge under the Gospel in the New Testament that it is as odious in a Christian as ever it was in a Jew and is more immediately a transgression against God than other sins against the second Table But still this Author begs the question in extending this to Lands while he produceth no proof or instance at all for such an Interpretation Yea those very instances which he alledgeth out of Iraeneus and Origen refer to goods not to Lands And what he adds viz. So the Fathers generally must by his own instances last mentioned be limitted to what himself hath alledged out of Irenaeus and Origen Else it were ridiculous to say So the Fathers generally if they speak in another sense How Kings have long after the reign of Constantine the Great given Lands c. to the Church shall after be shewed in due place But whereas this Author to prove Gods propriety by voluntary gifts not commanded gives instance in the Temple as a thing accepted and owned but not commanded of God he was surely asleep when he did it Did not God fore-tell and fore-Ordain a Place which himself should chuse to cause his name to dwell there Deut. 12.11 And if our Authour do not take upon him to be wiser then Solomon he must confess this to be meant of that very Temple For so Solomon himself calls it the place of which God had said My name shall be there 1 Kin. 8.29 And albeit David for that he had been a man of war and had shed blood 1 Chro. 28.3 was forbidden to build that house yet Solomon by Gods express appointment which hath the force of a Command was chosen to build that House ver 6. Who could imagine such frothy stuff to prove his second Proposition of Gods propriety in things

each particular Congregation or Parish Church as Glebes for their habitation and necessary provision of Cattle for their use are accepted of God as sacred because Himself commanded the like for the Priests of the Law who had sundry other obventions and in-comes by the Levitical Offerings and Sacrifices which Ministers now cannot enjoy and it cannot be thought that God or Christ will be more wanting to Ministers of the Gospel than to the Priests of the Law And as God forbad the sale of those Lands vvhile that Priesthood continued so it vvill accordingly follow that parochial Glebes are not to be sold from the Church so long as they be imployed for the maintenance of such Ministers as truly and faithfully preach the Gospel to the people of those places where such Lands are given For the very Churches to which they are annexed vvere built by men of quality and piety for the good of the souls of the living and those Glebes vvere bestowed for the incouragement of such Godly Pastors as ministred unto them the bread of life so far as the Founders vvere able to judge Indeed vvhere Popes have appropriated them to his Italian tools and Creatures or unto those Augaean Stables the Monasteries erected in height of Popery vvho never took care to feed the Flocks of God in those places there they that called themselves the Church first led the vvay to Sacriledge in the point of Glebes by perverting and aliening them from their true use to pamper the bellies of Epicures and to maintain the State and Pomp of Atheists under the name and habit of the Prelatical Clergie Let none therefore vvho are of the Prelatical Party and cry out so much against Sacriledge blame the late Parliament for selling some Glebes that had been so appropriated and impropriated for they did but therein follow the same path vvhich those carnal Prelates had trodden out unto them Which if it be Sacriledge it is nothing but vvhat the Papal Church had taught them to commit If any should dream that the setting out of the holy portion of Land about the Sanctuary h Ezek. 45. cap. 48. shewed to Ezekiel in a Vision as a type and prophecie of the state of the Churches of Christ under the Gospel is both a vvarrant and command to set out Lands to be holy unto God under the New Testament that would be no other but a manifest perverting and overthrowing of the genuine sense of those Scriptures For although it be on all hands agreed that from the 40 chapter of Ezekiel to the end of that Book the main scope is to decipher and describe the state of the Church under Christ and his Gospel yet it is not affirmed by any one Author that the Temple there intended and Gods command there given touching the setting out of Lands for the same are to be understood properly according to the Grammatical construction of the vvords as if God meant to erect another new material Temple at Hierusalem in Judea and to revive and establish the same Levitical Offerings and Sacrifices formerly offered by Aaron and his Sons to be again offered by Zadock and others of Aarons Order But See Jun. in Ezek. 40. that all is spoken in a figure and in a spiritual sense yet under legal expressions and by vvay of allusion to the material Temple of Solomon as being the most glorious instance that could then be found to illustrate and most lively to set forth the far more glorious estate and spiritual endowments of the Evangelical Church of Christ the New Hierusalem vvhich should so far exceed that in Judea as the Heavenly Hierusalem i Heb. 12.22 doth the earthly and as the spiritual Temples of the living God do excel that of Solomon Wherefore to dravv an argument thence for the consecrating of Lands in a proper sense for the maintenance and state of Bishops is not only to proclaim him to be a weak man that doth it but to publish to all the vvorld that there is no ground in Scripture as indeed there is not to found any Title of Bishops Lands upon The Original of Bishops Lands in England The Original then and by consequent the Title of Bishops Lands in this Kingdom can derive no further or higher than the abused magnificence and bounty of Princes and others nuzzelled in ignorance and superstion both before and since the Conquest in the height of Popery vvhereby Monasteries and Cathedrals have been endowed vvith large portions of Land and other Revenues under the specious pretence of giving them to God and Holy Church even to the impoverishing not of private Families alone but of the Kingdom also Nor vvere they given indeed to maintain a Preaching Ministry to instruct the people in the true knowledge of Christ and his Gospel for this most of those men that held those Lands ever persecuted but for Superstitious ends and uses and imployed for the most part to maintain the Riots Pomp and State and other excesses and lusts of Abby-Lubbers and other belly-gods and drones to the great dishonour of God and scandal of the Gospel Therefore it is to be observed that the greatest and richest indowments of Cathedrals and Monasteries with Lands in England were made when Satans Throne was most exalted and his Kingdom in greatest peace even in times of thickest Popish darkness when even Kings themselves and Nobles scarce knew a letter nor the rest understood any thing of Christ or Religion no nor of the very Laws of the Nation but what the Prelatical Popish Clergie whose policy and interest it vvas to keep all in grossest ignorance thought fit at some special times for their own gain and advantage to communicate The Clergie being the sole Masters of the times and holding all the chief Offices and Places of Power and Judicature even in the State as vvell as in the Church did vvhat they list both with King and People And with their familiar spirit of Excommunication the great Mormo and scare-crow of the Laity they could and did conjure in to their own and other Churches what quantities of Lands or of ought else that was beneficial they pleased But in nothing did they exercise so much tyrannie as over the consciences of men according to what was prophecied by their greatly pretended Patron and Pillar St. Peter k 2 Pet. 2 1 3. who gave warning long before of their wiles and tricks whereby through covetousness with fained words they would make merchandise of the people This they did not only as they of old that swallowed up the needy first by making them poor and then buying them for silver and the needy for shooes l Amo. 8.6 but as those Merchants of Babylon whose Merchandise was not of beasts and sheep of Horses and Charets of Slaves and bodies alone but of Souls of men m Rev. 18.13 And as they kept the people in ignorance the more easily to prey upon them so they purposely winked at