ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the overlaps between corporate and religious thought, especially in the metaphor of the ‘corporation of heaven’. It shows how this idea was used during the Civil Wars to reinforce both religious and political ideas of unity and collectivity. It then demonstrates the ways in which the corporation was used as a counter to the idea of divinely ordained kingship, replacing it with the image of a corporate heaven composed of a collective of angels. Finally, it examines how with Restoration approaching, the idea of the corporate commonwealth, on earth and in heaven, became contested once more.
