Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	england_n	king_n	kingdom_n	13,057	5	6.0109	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

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

desidentes With unclean feet they Usurp the Seat of the Apostle Peter but through Covetousness they rather sit indeed in Judas his Chair of Pestilence This with much more that highly esteemed Author writes of the Clergy of his time which future ages did not make better For since the Conquest the Prelates and Monks have been more high-flown grasped more Lands upon the same account with the former into their Possession then their Predecessors in so much as the Clergie Monks and Nuns of England being not a fortieth nay not a hundredth part of the Kingdom had by these wiles and devices gotten as some intelligent men have computed a third part of all the prime Lands in the Nation into their clutches at what time King Henry the Eighth began to seize the lesser Monasteries and all upon the same ground of meriting Salvation for themselves and their Relations dead or unborn Thus Henry the Third in the ninth of his Reign himself being then but eighteen years of age was hook'd into that Great Charter Magna Chartae so much cryed up by the Prelatical Clergy to which he thus prefaceth Henry by the Grace of God King of England c. to all Archbishops Bishops c. Know ye that We unto the Honour of God and for the Salvation of the Souls of Our Progenitors and Successors Kings of England c. have given and granted c. to which all the Bishops and Abbots as well as others were of Counsel and Witnesses by which it appears that this Charter was granted to merit Salvation so as however the honour of God be mentioned yet the dishonour of God and Christ lay at the bottom of that Grant in reference to the Foundation laid in his heart by the Prelates The same is after declared in the Statute De Provisorib Beneficior in the 25 of Edw. 3. where it is expresly said That the Church of England was founded in the State of Prelacy within the Realm of England by his Grandfather which was Edw. 1. and his Progenitors and by the Earles Barons and other Nobles of the said Realm and their Ancestors to inform them and the People of the Law of God * This was ever pretended but never performed unless by some few very rarely as the stories of those Times plainly testifie See Mat. Paris ad ann 1253. Fox his Martyrol of the same times and to make Hospitality Alms and other Works of Charity in the places where the Churches were founded for the SOULS of the Founders their heires and all Christians c. In which Act the Bishops as well as others joyned thereby proclaiming to the world the superstitious Foundations of getting so many Lands to the Church Yea so zealously bent were the Prelates of those times to augment the Churches Patrimony that a Constitution t Lindw l. 5. tit de poenit remiss ca. Cum anima was made in a Provincial Synod under Richard Withershed alias Weather-head in the Reign of Hen. 3. not to suffer any Physitian to administer any Physick to any Patient whatsoever be he in never so great Extremity and Danger till the Patient were first shrived by a Priest under pain of Suspension ab ingressu Ecclesiae The pretence was to physick his Soul first but the meaning was to get a collop to some Chantery or Monastery to pray for his Soul in Purgatory upon which the Priest absolved him and not before And this was that which occasioned so many Chanteries justly vacated and seized by Edw. 6. being given to him by Parliament 1 Edw. 6.14 Nor were the Kings and Parliaments especially after King John so hood-wink'd and cow'd as not to take notice of and provide against those excessive gifts of Lands to the Church as they call'd it which so greatly rob'd the Commonwealth For the same Hen. 3. who first granted the Great Charter Cap. 36. wherein he confirmed the Rights and Liberties of Holy Church as that Idolized Crew was then termed did in the same Chapter enact a That it should not be lawful from thenceforth to any to give his Lands to any Religious House and to take the same again to hold of the same House * Because Lands so held were free from all Tythes Taxes and Eschetes Therefore many did so convey Lands to cozen the King and other chief Lords Nor shall it be lawful to any House of Religion to take the Lands of any and to lease the same to him of whom he received it And that if any from thenceforth gave his Lands to any Religious Houses and thereupon be convict the gift should be utterly void and the Land accrew to the Lord of the Fee Here then was a Liberty of resuming Lands dedicated to the Church and an imploying of them to such secular uses as the Lord of the Fee should appoint without incurring the guilt of Sacriledge Next after Henry the Third succeeded his Son Edward the First who confirmed Magna Charta in the 25 of his Reign and with it the Clause or Chapter last mentioned but before he did that even in the seventh of his Reign he made a strict Law against Mort-main by advice of the Prelates as well as others to make all gifts and Purchases of Lands without special License from the King to be null and void and the Lands forfeited to the chief Lord if he took the advantage within a year and half or else to the King in case the chief Lord neglected the seizure within the said time therein limited and appointed for his seizing thereof for his own use Which Law however it were mitigated at the importunity of the Clergy by Edward the Third who in such Cases enacted the taking of Fines in stead of Forfeitures Yet afterwards in 15 Rich. 2. that first Statute of 7 Edw. 1. was not onely set on foot again but extended to all Guilds Fraternities and Corporations yea to all Donations of Lands for Church-yards or for any other Church Use And that if contrary thereunto any should presume to give or to receive any Lands upon a Church account or otherwise without the Kings special License they should either procure his License or sell away those Lands by the then next Michaelmas By all which it is manifest that neither the Kings nor Parliaments nor Bishops themselves in Parliament ever took all Lands given to Churches to be Sacred and Gods Propriety Jure Divino or so much as lawful for the Church to hold them without License from the King or other chief Lord of the Fee of whom such Lands were before holden Witness the many Statutes against Mort-Main or against the falling of Lands into a dead hand that is the Church whereby neither King nor Kingdom could receive any thing out of them for Defence of the Realm nor the chief Lords enjoy the benefit of chief Rents Services Fines of Alienation or Eschetes which being an apparent wrong to all occasioned those Statutes Not that it is