Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	lord_n	parliament_n	20,596	5	6.9552	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30255	No sacrilege nor sin to alienate or purchase cathedral lands, as such: or, A vindication of, not onely the late purchasers; but, of the antient nobility and gentry; yea, of the Crown it self, all deeply wounded by the false charge of sacrilege upon new purchasers. By C. Burges, D.D.; Case concerning the buying of bishops lands.	Burges, Cornelius, 1589?-1665.	1660 (1660)	Wing B5676; ESTC R202286	78,792	78

draw them on to such Donations Yea sozealously bent were the Prelates of those times to augment the Churches Patrimony that by a Provincial Constitution made by Richard Withershead alias Wctherhead Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Hen. 3. it was forbidden to all Physicians to administer any Physick to any Patient be his extremity and danger never so great under pain of suspension ab ingressu Ecclesae till the Patient were shrived by a Priest The pretence was to visit and physick his Soul first But the meaning was to get a collop out of his Estate to some Church Chappel or Monastery to increase their own Revenues Upon which the Priest absolved him but not before And this was that which occasioned the multiplying of Chaunteries Obiits c. and afterwards the abrogating of them in the reign of Edw. 6. to whom they were given by Parliament I. Edw. 6. 14. Nor were the Kings and Parliaments especially after King John so hood-winkt or cowed as not to see and take notice of and provide against those excessive gifts of Lands to the Church that is to the Clergy whereby they greatly robbed the Commonwealth and ruined many particular families Therefore the same Henry the third when he first granted the Great Charter and therein confirmed the Right and Liberties which doth not necessarily if at all import Lands of holy Church as that Idolized Crew was then termed did in the same Charter enact 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 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 shall be utterly void and the land accrew to the Lord of the fee. Here then was a Law against voluntary gifts of Lands and a liberty granted to others to recover them back notwithstanding their pretended giving them unto God whereby it appears that some sorts of giving and accepting and receiving Lands for the Church is not a duty but a fault which deserves punishment not a reward Next after Hen. 3. succeeded his son Edw. I. who in the 25th of his reign confirmed the Great Charter and in 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 Mortmain 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 to be forfeited to the chief Lord if he took the advantage within one year and an half or else to the King in case the chief Lord neglected the time therein appointed and limitted It is true that Edward 3. a popular Prince at the importunity of the Clergy of whom he was necessitated to make much use in his wars did somewhat mitigate the rigour of former Statutes of Mortmain who in case of breach thereof enacted that instead of forfeitures parties offending should onely pay a Fine Howbeit in 15 Rich. 2. that Statute De Religiosis 7. Edw. I. was not onely revived and set on foot again but made to extend to all Lands privately given for Church-yards or Glebes of Vicars c. or to Guilds Fraternities and Corporations without special License from the King And that if any before this last Statute had bought procured or received such Lands without License they should either procure his License or sell those Lands away for other uses by the next Michaelmas following else the Lands to be forfeited and seisure to be made of them as in the aforesaid Statute of 7. Edw. I. de Religiosis was provided This indeed was the main quarrel which Thomas A undel then Archbishop of Canterbury had against that King for which he conspired with Henry of Bullingbrook afterwards Henry 4. to depose and ruine him By all which it is manifest that neither Kings nor Parliament no not Bishops themselves in Parliament ever took all Lands given to Churches upon mens private devotions and liberality to be sacred or holy to the Lord and thereby to become his propriety or so much as lawful for the Church to hold them without special License from the King and other chief Lord or Lords of the see Yea these Acts of Parliament declare plainly that such voluntary giving of Lands was in it self against Law For there being required a special License for legitimating thereof it is manifest that the thing could not be done without dispensing with the Laws made against it The unlawfulness whereof is declared to be that the King and Kingdom was thereby defrauded of such taxes and payments when the Lands once were in Mortmain or a dead hand to wit the Church as formerly had been raised out of them for defence of the Realm and the chief Lords of the Fee were deprived of their chiefRents Services Reliefs Fines of Alienation Eschetes c. which being an apparent wrong to all occasioned the making of those Laws against that lawless Liberty And yet our Advocates for Church-Lands will needs contend that every thing voluntarily given to Holy Church be it for what use it will Superstitious or not must needs by that very Donation instantly become so sacred that it may by no means be alienated and that God accepts it for his own although given contrary to the Laws of those men to whose Ordinances even to every one of them not contrary to Gods we are commanded to submit for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him c. Thus we see what in truth the Title of the Lands of Bishops and other Cathedral men in England was whence derived upon what grounds and in what manner procued and enjoyed which sufficiently argues them even in construction of Scripture as well as of humane Laws to be far from being sacred or Holy to the Lord so as upon any account whatsoever to intitle him unto them CHAP. III. It is neither Sacrilege nor other sin to aliene or purchase such Lands to any common use especially since the Statutes of 17. Car. I. cap. II. and cap. 28. THis is evident from the premises and is here added by way of Antithesis to obviate those Two confident Assertions of the Letter Answerer before mentioned viz. That to invade those things given to the Church be they moveable or immoveable is expresly the sin of Sacrilege And That this sin is not onely against Gods positive Law but plainly against his Moral Law To charge a man with Sacrilege is the highest accusation for the greatest crime next to the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost for it is ranged with Idolatry it self Rom. 2.22 yea

not Gods Goods it is no Sacrilege to steal them but Paul charging men with Sacrilege plainly implies that the things taken from the Church are Gods own proper Goods But the Gentleman may do well to make it out that Paul speaks here of lurching away or perverting of things or of robbing the Church of Lands given to God for his service and worship which will be an hard matter for him to do He that pretends to so much acquaintance with the Greek and Latine Fathers of the Church may know if he please that not onely the Fathers but Modern Expositors differ about the meaning of that Text. For some understand here by Sacrilege the irreligious liberty which some out of covetousness then took in buying and using those meats which had been sacrificed to Idols and after sold in the Shambles by the Priests at a lower price then other meat was sold for which meats Christians might not so much as touch And so Sacrilege here meant is like that of Achan and Saul the taking of the accursed thing Thus Chrysostome Theophylact and sundry others And seeing Calvin was but even now so great a man with Mr. D. it will not I hope offend him to quote Calvin upon this Text as he did upon the former His words are these Sacrilegium est profanatio Divinae Majestatis sed quum Gentes Deorum suorum Majestatem Idolis affigerent vocarunt duntaxat sacrilegium si quis subripuisset quod templis dicatum esset in quibus putabant sitam esse totam Religionem Sic hodie ubi pro verbo Dei regnat superstitio non aliud sacrilegii genus agnoscunt quam Templorum opulentiae suppilasse Quando nullus est Deus nisi in Idolis nulla religio nisi in luxu pompa Sunt tamen qui hic sacrilegii nomine intelligant contrectationem usumque rerum quae Idolis'erant dicatae quas ne contingere quidem debebant Sacrilege is the profanation of the Divine Majesty But whereas the Gentiles fixed the Majesty of their Gods upon Idols they onely called that Sacrilege viz. If any man had taken away that which had been dedicated to their Temples in which they thought all Religion did consist So at this day where in stead of the Word of God Superstition reigneth men acknowledge no other kind of Sacrilege then the pilfering or stealing of the riches or wealth of their Temples When as with them there is no God but in Idols of their own framing no Religion but in Luxury and Pomp. There are nevertheless who under the name of Sacrilege understand the contrectation or medling and use of things dedicated to Idols which they ought not at all to touch Which of these Mr. D. best likes is left to him to chuse This is not alleaged as denying that there may be such a sin as Sacrilege under the Gospel in the New Testament or that it is less odious in a Christian then ever it was in a Jew as being more immediately a transgression of the first Table But still this Author begs the question by extending this to Lands while he produced no ground or instance of such an interpretation Yea those very allegations which he produceth without citing the particular places out of Irenaeus and Origen do as he alleageth them refer to Goods not to Lands And what he adds so the Fathers generally must be limited to what he last alleaged out of Irenaeus and Origen Else it were incongruous to say So the Fathers c. if they speak in another sense How Emperors and Kings have given Lands to the Church shall after be shewed in due place His second Proposition is this God gets this propriety as well by an acceptation of what is voluntarily given as by a command that such things should be presented to him For proof whereof he instanceth in the Temple at Hierusalem which God owns as much as he did the Jews tythes and offerings These last were his by express command but the Temple was if you will believe him the voluntary designe of good David and the voluntary work of King Solomon Yea God expresly tells David that he had been so far from commanding that house that he had not so much as once asked that service whence Paul tells the Jews that neither against the Law nor Temple he had offended any thing implying that in some case he might offend against the Temple yet not against the Law But was not this man asleep when he wrote this It is true that for the time persons whom he would have to build it he had given no express command these being but circumstances Howbeit he must needs confess that the Temple it self was to be built by Gods own appointment Did not God long before tell Moses and his people of a place which himself would chuse to cause his Name to dwell there Deut. 12. 11. Now what is this less then a Command And if our Author take not upon him to be wiser then Solomon he must confess this to be meant of that very Temple For so Solomon himself understood it My Name shall be there I King 8. 29. Now although David was not admitted to build that House for that he had been a man of war and had shed blood Yet Solomon by Gods express appointment and ordination was chosen by God to build that House Who could imagine such stuff should stick to the Pen of such an Author for proof of a Proposition of so great Concernment to him that drew it That the Temple was a voluntary Offering not built by Command of God without which no man might worship there He also no less confidently affirmeth that to say God accepts of meat drink and cloathing and of money for which Land was sold yet not of Land it self is so contrary to all reason and practise not onely of the Christian but humane or Heathenish world and to what God himself hath expressed in the Old Testament and no where recalled in the New that he that can quiet his Conscience with such conceits as these may he doubts not attain the discovery of some Quirks which in his conceit may palliate Murders or Adulteries But this is so false that it cannot but astonish a modest Reader acquainted with the Word of God and knowing the truth to find him so boldly to affirm that for which there is no footstep in the Scriptures as shall hereafter be made out in the third Chapter where it will be more proper according to the method before proposed to speak to this futilous and absurd Assertion 2. Coroll The retaining or using of any thing in Gods Worship which he hath not prescribed but forbidden is no less Sacrilege than the robbing of Churches It is all one with the taking of the accursed thing and Putting it amongst their own stuff All monuments of Idolatry as well as Idolatry it self wereto be by Gods command destroyed because they are as much accursed

indeed there is not to found any Title of such Lands upon But one hath found out a gallant passage of Moses to prove that very Heathens by light of natural reason found and held it requisite that their Priests should have a setled maintenance in Lands The place is in Gen. 47. 22. where it is said that when Joseph in the extremity of the seven years famine bought all the Lands of the people of Egypt for bread to keep them alive Onely the Land of the Priests bought he not which shews they had Lands and that oseph would not meddle with the buying of them But why what because they were hallowed or consecrated to the Egyptian Gods and therefore Holy No such matter but because Pharaoh provided a portion of meat for them and they did eat the portion which Pharaoh gave them Wherefore they sold not their Lands Indeed Nature may teach that God is to be worshipped that he is to have Priests for his worship and that they are to be maintained but out of Lands where did Nature ever teach that If the Heathens that were most civilized made any standing provisions for their Priests it was in Tithes and Offerings This the Reverend Dr. Carlton hath industriously noted out of Plutarch Herodotus Macrobius Diodorous Siculus Xenophon and others But for making such provisions of Lands none of those Authors are alleged And whereas the Apostle saith that the things which the Gentiles sacrificed they sacrifice unto Devils it ill becomes a Bishop to urge that Act of the Kings of Egypt in setting out Lands for such Priests as done by the light of nature which was done out of ignorance and corruption of nature as a warrant for Christians to give Lands to Cathedrals 2. Come we from the Law to the Gospel from the Old Testament to the New Neither here can we finde one silhable that countenanceth much less requireth the endowment of Cathedrals with Lands as holy to the Lord. It is true that the Learned Knight Sir Henry Spelman in his Treatise de non temer andis Ecclesiis hath Learnedly proved it to be Sacrilege to rob Churches of the maintenance by Divine right due unto them but that is not spoken of Lands given by men but of Tithes setled by God as the standing maintenance of Ministers of the Gospel as is obvious to every eye that carefully heedeth the body of that Book There are indeed some wyre-drawn Arguments produced by a great D. in his Answer to the Letter to Dr. Turner to make out Gods acceptance of and propriety in such lands But these have been examined before and therefore shall be here passed over In the New Testament there is recorded 1. Matter of fact 2. Matter of Ordinance for the providing of maintenance for Ministers so soon as that Ordinance could be put in execution 1. The matter of fact will appear by what Christ himself and afterwards his Apostles had for their maintenance in those times As for Christ himself although he were of the bloud Royal of the lineage of David both by his mothers side and his supposed fathers side too he prosesseth that very foxes and birds of the air were better provided for then himself for the one had holes theother nests but he had not so much as whereon to lay his head neither room nor pillow It is true there was a common purse or bag with which Judas was trusted and thereupon tempted to become a thief And it is manifest that out of that Cash contributed by well-disposed Converts both he and his Disciples furnished themselves with necessary food and gave to the poor besides But as for any House or Land for a standing or setled maintenance or abode it is clear he had none although Heir of all things Nor was that provision which he had any dainty or costly fare but only some loaves of bread and a few fishes not above five barley loaves and two stshes at a time which a boy might carry for Christ and his twelve Apostles And whatever Judas did in purloyning for himself the rest of the Apostles were content to observe their Masters Injunctions not onely when he first sent them out at what time he charged them to provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their purses nor scrip for their journey neither two coats c. but even long after when he had left the earth and ascended heaven and the multitude of believers dayly encreased Even then Peter professed to the lame man that lay at the Gate of the Temple and asked an Alms of him Silver and Gold have I none Yea a good while after that blessed Paul laboured working with his own hands as a Tent-maker and that night and day not for recreation or out of covetousness but to minister to the necessities not onely of himself but of those that were with him not as having no right to maintenance but that he might not be chargeable unto such as being yet unconverted or not fully satisfied touching this matter might take offence at his requiring of present maintenance Therefore sometimes he would take maintenance of one Church convinced of their duty in administring to him to supply his wants while he preached to another more disaffected unsatisfied covetous or quarrelsome Thus he preached the Gospel of God freely to the rich voluptuous and quarrelling Corimbians robbing other Churches by taking wages of them to do service to the Corinthians Where by the way take notice that he that taketh wages where he doth not or hath not done service is a Church-robber It is true if he work faithfully elsewhere and no maintenance is there without scandal to be had and another place where he hath industriously laboured is willing to afford contribution upon that account it is not such a robbery as is sin in him but rather in them who put him upon it as Quakers and others would now do the Ministers of the Gospel for they refusing to maintain him do what in them lies to put him upon robbing others Let no man hence conclude I. That Christ meant to starve his Apostles when he sent them out to preach or took not sufficient care for their provision For by their Ministry He so wrought upon those to whom he preached if sons of peace that his Apostles wanted nothing and that upon this account That the labourer is worthy of his meat saith Matthew of his hire saith Luke This is then allowed to those who are commissionated by Christ to preach the Gospel but not to usurpers and false Prophets that run before they be sent supposing gain to be godliness Unto such Priests that so teach for hire and to such Prophets as so divine for money a wo is due which will be accomplished on them Nor Secondly That it is hereby intended that it is unlawful now for Ministers of the Gospel to have more or better

there but even that Bishop or Pope Silvester himself and his Associates in the Ministry when Conftantine first came to Rome and took on him the Empire not knowing his temper were so much afraid of him that they for safety of their lives hid themselves in the Hill Soracte afterwards upon that occasion called Monte di Sylvestro about twenty miles from Rome until they were better satisfied touching Constantines affection to the Christian Religion if that Donation of Constantine be worthy of any credit But to leave what was done at Rome and in other Countries it behoves us to enquire how things of this nature were carried in England And as to this it is pleaded that Lucius King in same part of Britain being converted to the knowledge and faith of Christ about the year 176. which is a mistake rooted out the Idol-Priests and taking away their Possessions and Territories he gave them to the Churches of the believing Christians which be endowed with addition of more lands and larger Revenues For this two learned Authors Antiq. Brit. and Armican perhaps he meant Armacanus that is Matthew Parker after Archbishop of Cant. and Dr. Usher Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland are alleaged But he that voucheth them was so wise as not to reser his Readers to the particular places in those Authors wherein they may finde what he alleageth out of them So that this without offence to his Lordship might be passed over without answer Nevertheless that it may not be thought unanswerable he may be pleased to know that however Antiquit. Britan. be a very good book not now to be had because out of print yet what is quoted out of him is not clearly if at all to be found in our ancient Authors It is indeed acknowledged that Eleutherius then Bishop of Rome at the request of Lucius sent him two godly Ministers Faganus and Damianus as some call them who converted the Britains to the faith although Lucius himself was before a Christian as appears by his Letter to Eleutherius Then were the Idol-Temples and all other Monuments of Gentilism destroyed and the people brought to serve one God who before served many There were then in Britan 28 Head-Priests called Flanines and three Arch-Priests over them called Arch-Flamines Instead of the former they made 28 Bishops and in room of the other three they made three Archhishops who had their seats in London York and Glamorgan But not one word of endowing them or their Churches with the Lands of the Flamines or Arch-Flamines either in Baronius himself our own Bede or any other Classical Author yet occurring Wherefore until he that tells this Story of setling those Lands on the Church shall make it more punctually let it not be offensive to pass over that Tale with the words of the Magdiburgenses Celebratur autem imprimis Propagatio in Britania sub Eleutberio facta de qua tamen plerague tam dub è obscurè recitantur ut propemodum tota haec historia de fide sua laboret The Propagation of the Christian Religion in Britain under Eleutberius is much applauded and cried up Concerning which notwithstanding things are for the most part so doubt doubtfully and obscurely related that almost the whole History thereof labours under much uncertainty of the truth of it And albeit it be said that Britain continued in the faith above 200 years after Lucius even until the Saxons then Heathens and Infidels came in and by their power destroyed the Christian Religion until Augustine the Monk converted sundry of the Kings of the then Heptarchy and reduced their people to the Faith again yet in all that time no mention is made in any History of credit of lands given to and setled upon Bishops and Cathedral men in this Nation I consess Matthew of Westminster tells us That Lucius conferred upon and by Charters confirmed to Churches and Ecclesiastical men sundry Possessions and Territeries and granted such Priviledges to Churches and Church-yards that whoever having offendect and fled to them was to freed from punishment But what Churches Clergy-men and Territories they were is not set down and it is strange that a Monk should know more of Lucius his endowment than Bede or others that had written of Lucius long before I therefore think this to be one of those corruptions of which he that printed his Flores Anno 1570. gives warning in his Preface and touching him and Matthew Paris too he there passeth this censure Barbaros esse satcor nec renuo si dicas varie corruptos They are barbarous in language I confess saith he nor will I oppose if you say They are variously corrupted in matter And give what credit you will to that Story yet 't is plain the counsel came from Rome for the doing of it Lucius did as the Romish Instructors taught The Original then and by consequent the Title of the Lands of Bishops and therest of the Cathedral men in England cannot of certainty derive higher then the abused Magnificence of Princes and other great men nuzled in Ignorance and Superstition both before and since the Conquest in the heighth of Popery whereby Monasteries first and afterwards Cathedrals have been endowed with large Portions of Lands and other Revenues under the specious but cheating pretence of giving them to God and Holy Church even to the impoverishing not onely of particular Families but of the Kingdome Nor were they given indeed to maintain a preaching-Ministry for which all Church-maintenance was at first appointed by God even when the daily Sacrifices were on foot to instruct the people in the true knowledge of Christ and his Gospel and to quicken them to the power of godliness for these most of those men who held those Lands ever persecuted but for superstitious ends and uses and imployed for the most part to maintain the Luxury Pomp State and other Excesses and Lusts of Abby-Lubbers and other Cathedral Drones and Belly-gods to the great dishonour of God and scandal of the Gospel And it is to be observed that if any credit be given to Histories the greatest and richest endowments of Cathedrals and Monasteries with Lands in this Nation 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 their Nobles scarce knew one letter in a Book nor the rest understood any thing of Christ or Religion otherwise than so many Parrets no nor of the very Municipai Laws of the Nation further than what the Prelatical Clergy whose interest it was to keep all in grossest ignorance though fit for their own gain and advantage to communicate The Clergy being sole Masters of the times and holding all the chief Offices and Places of Power and Judicature in the State as well as in the Church did what they list both with King and People And with their familiar spirit of Excommunication the great Mormo and Scare-crow of