Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	pope_n	rome_n	5,434	5	6.6788	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77137	A defence and justification of ministers maintence by tythes. And of infant-baptism, humane learning, and the sword of the magistrate; which some Anabaptists falsely call four sandy pillars, and popish foundations of our ministry and churches. In which tythes are proved to be due by divine right to the ministers of the gospel. All common objections answered, and divers cases of conscience humbly proposed: with a light to clear them. / In a reply to a paper sent by some Anabaptists to Immanuel Bourne, late pastor of the church in Asheover in the county of Derby: now preacher to the congregation at Waltham in the county of Leicester. With a short answer to Anthony Peirson's great case of tythes, &c.	Bourne, Immanuel, 1590-1672.	1659 (1659)	Wing B3851; Thomason E1907_1	92,679	184

hundred years before the Council of Lateran or any Popes Decretals for payment of them to which some would relate this division of Parishes and the payment of Tythes But after that the Pope had appropriated Tythes to his Monasteries and robbed the particular Parishes and their parish Ministers of them then these new opinions concerning Tythes began to creak out and the Schoolmen and others to please the Pope they endeavor to justifie the Popes Sacriledge for certainly that was a diverting of the Ministers maintenance of Tythes from the original intention and use of them whatever men may suppose to the contrary or the Pope pretend to ustifie himself Alexander de Hales 3. part qu 51. art 3. Then Alexander De Hales an Englishman and a Schoolman he affirms tythes to be judicials and so might more lawfully be disposed of by appropriations to Monasteries This was about One thousand two hundred and fifty four hundred years since The opinion that Tythes were Almes did arise from the abuse of Tythes in Popery taking them from the Ministers to Abbyes Monasterie c. and Aquinas endeavors to the same effect This is one opinion of Rome but Tythes cannot be judicials for no holy things are judicials The judicial laws did concern the civil government of the Jews but Tythes are holy to the Lord Levit. 27.32 therefore they cannot be judicials as the said men devised And before we noted another later opinion that Tythes were mere Alms given by the Church and to Church Ministers as men were converted to Christian Religion and Religion more setled in the world This opinion say some was brought in by the Waldenses upon their sight of the abominable abuses of Tythes in the Church of Rome if I may call it a Church the Popes having perverted Tythes from the true use and turned and abused them to maintain the luxury of lazie Abbots Monks and ungodly Friers who were full of all abominations But these good men did not rightly consider the first original nor the reason which moved godly men to give the Tythes to Gods Ministers who taught them the Gospel for their comfortable livelihood and better maintenance And this was because those holy men which gave their Tythes were satisfied in Conscience that Tythes were Gods right his own reserved portion due to Christ as a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec Gen. 28.32 therefore Jacob vowed to pay Tythes as a duty to Christ for the maintenance of his faithful Ministers And the abu●e of them in Popery could not take away Gods right nor deprive Gods faithful Ministers of that comfortable maintenance which is due to them from Christ for their service to him in preaching of the Gospel 2 Cor. 5.20 For what else are Gods Ministers but Christs servants We are Ambassadors for Christ and we beseech you in Christs stead as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead that you be reconciled to God and therefore may lawfully expect and look for this lawful gain for their labor every one even in the place where he is whatsoever Anabaptists or Quakers alleage to the contrary To conclude A fourth opinion yet later hath been that Tythes are ceremonial and that they are to be abolished and that Ministers that take Tythes deny Christ to be come in the flesh and endeavor to setup again Aarons Priesthood and to revive it again That there is nothing due to Christs Ministers but they should live in high or rather low poverty and the like These are the common cries of our croaking Quakers who are cunningly and I believe some of them ignorantly by the Devil and Antichrist and his Emissaries set on to overthrow the Ministers of Christ in England and the Gospel too if God suffer them And thus as Schollers of that most wicked Apostate Emperor Julian by destroying Tythes and Ministers maintenance to destroy the Ministery it self that they may more easily remove the Candlestick of the Gospel and set up the Kingdom of Antichrist instead of Christ in the Nation which God of his mercy keep from us least Ephesus lot be our portion to lo●e both the Gospel and our lives estates and liberties to some Turkish Tyrant or other Antichrist to our sorrows and undoing for ever But these men blinded by the spirit of Error speak they know not what For what are Ceremonies but carnal rites which were enjoyned until the time of Reformation as you may read Heb. 9.10 noted before These the Apostle calls weak and beggerly rudiments which held men in bondage as the observation of days and moneths and times and years such shadows and ceremonies as were appointed for instruction and teaching men until Christ who is the substance and end of all was come Now Tythes were not appointed to teach men any thing but for the maintenance and livelihood of them that are Teachers the faithful Preachers of the Gospel and Ministers of Christ Therefore Tythes are not ceremonies as the ceremonious Quakers would have them but the just Temporal outward gain and reward for their labor which the faithful Ministers of Christ may lawfully seek by every man for his labor in his place As it was with the Levites in Nehemiahs time I perceived saith he Nehe. 13 10 11 12. that the portions of the Levites had not been given them For the Levites were fled every one to his field Then contended I with the Rulers and said Why is the house of God forsaken and I gathered them together and set them in their places Then brought all Judah the Tythe of the Corn and new Wine and Oyl into the Treasuries This was the second Tythe which was to be eaten before the Lord and of which the Levites were to have part and when that was kept from them they fled every man to his field to his quarter where they had their houses and where they taught the people and where they had the first Tythe to maintain them It was lawful for them in that case to seek every man for his gain from his place and so it is now for the Ministers of Christ when their just dues are kept from them they are constrained sometimes to seek though sore against their will every man for his just gain in his place where God sets him And this they may lawfully do yea to desire the help of the Magistrate if it cannot otherwise be obtained and this without any just blame whatsoever Quakers or Anabaptists teach their Auditors And thus I have sufficiently answered the Objections pretending that Tythes are Popish Antichristian and Ceremonial and cleared the contrary at full if men will not hoodwink themselves or be wilfully deceived by the deceivers I shall onely propose and examine some Cases of Conscience and wish the Anabaptists Quakers and those that take their parts to enquire into them before they go on any further to oppose Tythes or take them away from the faithful Ministers of Christ And

Ministers of Christ are worthy of 1 Tim. 5.17 This truth we may find witnessed in antient Histories and in the primitive Fathers of the Church First for History we will begin with our own British Antiquities remembred by that learned Mr. Pryn in his Gospel-plea proving that the present opposition against Tythes proceeds not from any real grounds of conscience but base covetousness Mr. Prynne his Gospel plea p. 123. cites John Capgrave in vila Joseph Christ Glastoniens Vincent spect Hist lib. 23 cap. 147. cited by Doctor Vsher Brit Eccles Antiq cap. 2. pag. 973. c. carnal policie c. and a Jesuitical and Anabaptistical design to subvert our Ministers Church and Religion Now Mr. Pryn out of that godly learned and worthy Dr. Vsher relates that Ioseph of Arimathea who with Nicodemus took care for the burial of our Saviour in a new sepulchre where never man was laid as S. John witnesseth Joh. 19 21. This Joseph came with some others into England about the year of Christ Forty eight and preached the Gospel to Arniragus a British King a valiant Prince Dr. Prideaun in Rom. Tribun pag. 289. called Hector of Britain who embraced the Christian faith and understanding the purity of their doctrine and holiness of their conversation he gave as the History relates twelve Hides of land in the Isles of Avalon since called Glastenbury in Somersetshire where they built the first Church made as the Historian speaks of Wattle and Reeds and there they continued together preaching the Gospel and living upon this their Glebe now of great value saith Mr. Pryn which was afterwards confirmed to them and the Ministers of the Gospel there succeeding them both by Marius and Coilus next successors to Arniragus whom also they instructed in the Christian religion Thus was Ministers maintenance taken care of by that Christian King here about forty eight years after Christ Dr. Vsher Brit. Eccles Antiq. Spelmanni Conc. pag. 12. cited by Mr. Prynne his Gospel plea. pag. 124 The Poet thus Lucius in Christum credit Christoque dicatos Ecclesias dotat distinctas ordinat urbes c. Again about the year of Christ One hundred seventy six within two hundred years after Christ we read of Lucius our King of Britain that being converted to the Christian faith by Faganus and Damianus Preachers of the Gospel sent to him at his request by Elutherius Bishop of Rome he builded and endowed Churches through his Dominions with Glebe-lands and Tythes and this for the maintenance of the Ministers of Christ long before Pope or Popery was set up in the world And this afterwards the British and Saxon Kings confirmed and enacted more fully I may tell you that about three hundred years after Christ the Christians being here and elswhere restored to peace Gild●s Dr. Vshers Brit. Eccles Antiq. pag. 193. SpelConc p. 36. 45. Cited by Mr. Prynne and freed from persecution by Constantine the Great who was born in England the first Christan Emperor they began to build and repair those Churches or Meeting-places the Emperor Dioclesian and other persecutors had rased to the ground And then were Churches endowed and Ministers maintained by Tythes as well as Glebe-lands witness the antient Writers and Fathers of the Church then and before those times And this long before Pope or Popery and Antichrist of Rome was stiled Universal Bishop and declared Antichrist in the Church I might give you a catalogue of Godly men from those times almost to these very days who witnessed Tythes to be Gods right and due by Divine right to the Ministers of the Gospel I will name but a few And first I begin with Irenaeus Iren. lib. 4. cap. 20. who lived about one hundred and eighty years after Christ and he tells us that the Apostles and so the Ministers of Christ are the Lords Priests that serve at the Altar 1 Cor. 9.13 14. that must eat the Lords part that must have the substance of the Levites not of gift but of right Of them spake Moses And what was the principal substance of which the Levites did live but the Tythes which God gave to Levi for his fervice in the tabernacle Num. i8 2i Therefore certainly Irenaeus witnesseth what was due of right to the Ministers of the Gospel in his time and this was Tythes Again Origen who lived about two hundred years after Christ Sed in novo Testa mento similiter venerabilis est decas c. in his Homilies upon Genesis as in other places he declareth his judgment concerning Tythes But also in the New Testament saith he the Tenth is venerable And because there is one Author of all one fountain one beginning even Christ therefore the people pay Tythes to the Ministers of Christ Thus you see in Origen's time within two hundred years after Christ Tythes were esteemed venerable in the New Testament as well as in the Old and the Christians paid Tythes as of old And this was four hundred years before the Antichrist of Rome was risen up in the Church or made himself manifest in the world Tythes were not then Antichristian nor Popish as the Quakers Anabaptistical Can and others would make men believe Thirdly Cyprian de unit eccles Cyprian who lived about two hundred and fifty years after Christ They did then viz. in the primitive times sell their houses and lands and laid the money down at the Apostles feet for the use of the Church laying up treasure in heaven But now saith he De patrimonio nec decimas damus We do not so much as give the Tenth of our patrimony to God The Father reproveth the Christians for coming short of the Jews in giving God his right But some Quaker or Anabaptist will object Object This sheweth rather that Tythes were not due or not paid in those times of Cyprian I answer Answ Mal. 3.6 7. That is not so For you may read Mal. 3. that the Lord reproveth the Jews for not paying of their tythes and tells them they were robbers of God guilty of that odious sin of sacrilege Ye have robbed me saith the Lord and ye say wherein In tythes and offerings but ye are cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole nation Doth this prove that Tythes were not due then by the law of God or that none were then paid in that Nation Certainly no but rather the contrary that they were due by Gods law yea that they were the Lords and that those whosoever kept them back they were thieves and robbers then as they are now in the times of the Gospel Tythes certainly were due by Divine right in S. Cyprian's judgment which was long before the days of the Pope or Papacie or that Antichrist of Rome in the world Fourthly Hilar lib. explan in Mat. c. 24. Hilary who lived about three hundred and fifty years after that in his book of Explanation upon Matthew Because the