Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	england_n	king_n	kingdom_n	4,625	5	5.7154	4	false

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