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A47743
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An essay concerning the divine right of tythes by the author of The snake in the grass.
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Leslie, Charles, 1650-1722.
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1700
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Wing L1132; ESTC R11457
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102,000
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from Him For says he Isai xlv 7. I make Peace and Create Evil I the Lord do all these things And Am. iij. 6. Shall ther be Evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it The wicked Blaspheme God Psal x. 12 14 15. while they do say in their Heart Tush Thou God carest not for it He hideth away his Face and He will never see it Surely Thou hast seen it for Thou beholdest Vngodliness and Wrong This Thou may'st take the Matter into Thine own Hand And the Jews are Reprehended by our Saviour for Not Discerning the Signs of the Times Mat. xvi 3. It is call'd a Knowing of God to observe the Course of His Judgment and His Mercies for how otherwise can we Know Him upon Earth He Judged the Cause of the Poor and Needy Jer. xxij 16. then it was well with him Waâ— not this to know Me saith the Lord And the Consequence is That not to take Notice of these things is not to Know God it is to Belie Him to Blaspheme Him as in the Texts before Quoted and Many More that cou'd be Produc'd to the same Purpose Now to Apply this to our Present Purpose I do not Pretend to draw an Argument from the Many Instances of God's Remarkable Judgments upon both their Persons and Families who had Robb'd His Church as if those Judgments Must of Necessity have been Inflicted Purely and Solely for this Sin But if this be a Sin and of so Deep a Dye as it must be if it be any Sin at all for it can be no other than Sacrilege And if that be the most Open and Notorious Known Sin of these Persons And likewise That these Judgments are observ'd to follow the Lands Houses and Tythes Impropriate tho often Bought and Sold and Changing of Owners Not in Every Case for if God shou'd Punish Wickedness in All the World must soon be Destroy'd And He do's often suffer the Wicked to Prosper It is one of the Sharpest Scourges He uses to Chastise a Sinful Nation And having done His Work to Burn the Rod But when we see Judgments to follow such a Sin for the Most Part and in such Repeated and Remarkable Instances as Sir Henry Spelman gives Us in his History of Sacrilege And many more of the same sort which we can Gather elsewhere And some that our own Experience can furnish Us withal In such Cases it is far from Superstition to take Notice of the Hand of God in them And not to do it is that Stupidity and Blasphemy before Reprehended it is a Hardning our selves against all the Methods of Divine Providence a Denial of it and Living without God in the World Who can for Example avoid the Observation of the New-Forest in Hampshire Devouring so Many of William the Conqueror's Sons by Strange Deaths he having Destroy'd 26 Parish Churches to make Room for his Deer there as you may see in Spelman's Hist Sacril p. 119 120. Or what is observ'd in the Preface to his De non Temerand Eccl. p. 42. That within 20 years after Hen. VIII his Seizing the Revenues of the Church by the Advice and Assistance of his Nobility and Dividing her Patrimony among them Chiefly More of them and their Children were Attainted and Dy'd by the Sword of Justice than from the Conquest to that time which was about 500 years Sir Henry Spelman's Hist Sacril c. vij Computes that The great Increase of Lands and Wealth that came to the King by the Dissolution was Quadruple to the Crown-Lands And takes Notice p. 226 227. how the Crown-Lands were Dwindling away Most of them being then gone when he Wrote in the Reign of King Charles I. and only Fee-Farm Rents Reserv'd out of the Greatest part of them viz. 40000 l. a year out of the Crown-Lands and 60000 l. out of the Church-Lands And observes as a Continuance of the Judgment upon them That an Infraction was then begun to be Made upon the Very Fee-Farm Rents themselves And that some of them had been Alienated But if he had Liv'd another Reign he wou'd have seen them Every one Sold And the Crown Reduc'd to Live from Hand to Mouth upon the Mere Benevolence of those Whose Care it is to keep it Always so Depending and upon its Good Behaviour So much has the Crown Gain'd by the Access of Sacrilegious Wealth as from Imperial Dignity and a Propriety Paramount in all the Lands of England to become an Honourable Beggar for its Daily Bread I know not how far this has sunk with those who are Concern'd Or whether another Curse may not be Added that is Never to Consider but Go on However Sir Hen. Spelman has told Us of several Gentlemen in England who out of a Due sense of the sin of this Sacrilege have freely Given up and Restored to the Chruch as far as the Laws wou'd Permit them all their Impropriate Tythes which had Descended to them from their Ancestors That instead of them and the Curses which attended them they might Entail the Blessing of God upon the Rest of their Estates and upon their Posterities The sense of this sunk so Deep with the Great Earl of Strafford that foreseeing a new Sacrilegious Deluge of Vsurpation upon the Church then coming on An. 1640 he made it his Dying In junction to his Sâ—â— under Peril of his Curse and of the Curse of God never to meddle with any Church-Lands or what had been once Dedicated to God This Legacy he sent him from the Scaffold where Men are past Dissembling or Courting of Favour tho this cou'd have been no Recommendation to him at that time And how Light soever some Men make of the sin of Sacrilege while they Gain by it yet when they come to Dye they may have the same sense of it which that Noble Lord then so Religiously Exprest But ther being no Repentance Accepted by God without Restitution as far as in our Power I Pray God they may think of it while it is in their Power to make that Restitution which Alone can witness the Sincerity of their Repentance 8. Ther can no Pretence be made for the Lawfulness of Impropriations when those Very Acts of Parliament which took them from the Church and Gave them to Lay-Men do acknowledge that they are God's Dues and His Right That they are Due to God and Holy Church as in 27 Hen. VIII c. 20. Nay they were always so acknowledg'd and no otherwise Insomuch that ther was no Law or Precedent for a Lay-Man to sue for Tythes it was utterly Heterogeneous and Abhorrent For which Reason when Tythes were given to Lay-Men they were forced to have a Particular Act of Parliament 32 Hen. VIII c. 7. to Enable Lay-men to sue for Tythe which before they cou'd not do In which Very Act Tythe is Nam'd as being Due to Almighty God And next to Act of Parliament the Great Oracle of our Law Sir Edw. Coke is to be heard who
Profit us if God withdraws His Blessing The like Absolute Dependence did Christ Require in His Apostles when He Commanded them to Provide neither Gold nor Silver for their Journey Matth. x. 9. And has Instructed us as the Israelites in their Daily Manna to Pray for no more at once than the Bread of one Day Give us This Day our Daily Bread or for our Bread Day by Day And to Trust God for the Morrow III. When the Israelites were settl'd in Canaan besides His many Extraordinary and Miraculous Protections over them He Establish'd in their stated Oeconomy several Immediate Dependencies upon Him without any Trust to Natural Causes And that not for Once or Twice as if only for a Trial but to Continue Daily and Yearly to signifie their Absolute and Eternal Dependence upon Him and Him only I. Exod. xxiv 23 24. Thus Three Times every Year all the Men in the whole Nation were Commanded to leave all their Frontiers Unguarded and to come up to Jerusalem to attend the solemn Feasts there Here the Objection rises Naturally That they being often almost always in War with all their Neighbour-Nations And these Nations knowing the Times of these their Feasts when all their Country was left Destitute of Men except Jerusalem whither they All went their Enemies shou'd watch these Times and make Inroads upon the Country which no Men were left to Defend But for a Security from this God Commands them to Depend wholly upon His Promise v. 24. above-quoted in these Words Neither shall any Man Desire thy Land when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the Year Here God not only Promises that none shall Invade their Land but that no Man should so much as Desire it at those Times though all the rest of the Year they were at open Wars with them And pursuant to this Promise it is miraculously observable in their Histories that they were never invaded in any of these Times while they Perform'd this Command II. Take another Instance Every Seventh Year was to be a Sabbath they were neither to Plow nor Sow Levit. xxv 5 11. neither Reap that which Groweth of it self And the Objection is put v. 20. And if ye shall say What shall we Eat the Seventh Year Behold we shall not sow nor gather in our Increase And the Answer is given in the next Verses Then I will Command my Blessing upon you in the Sixth Year and it shall bring forth Fruit for Three Years and ye shall sow the Eighth Year and Eat yet of old Fruit until the Ninth Year until her Fruits come in ye shall Eat of the old Store And to this they were to Trust their very Lives they were to Starve if it fail'd But if they shou'd Trust entirely to these Promises of God then God assures them of His Blessing for it v. 18 and 19. both to Protect their Land from their Enemies and to Feed them to the full in it Wherefore ye shall do my Statutes and keep my Judgments and do them and ye shall Dwell in the Land in Safety And the Land shall yield her Fruit and ye shall Eat your fill and Dwell therein in Safety But on the other hand if they wou'd not Trust absolutely to God then God threatens them that the Second Causes shall not help them wherein they Trusted But that He can Command all the Courses of Nature and to their Punishment if they Disobey as well as to their Benefit if they Trust in God If they shou'd Refuse or Neglect to keep the Sabbatical Year then God threatens them that He wou'd Banish them out of the Land and that the Land shou'd enjoy her Sabbaths that is Rest from being Plow'd or Sow'd when they were out of it since they Durst not Trust so far in God as to let her have that Rest He commanded while they were in it Thus God spake to them Levit. xxvj 34 35. Then shall the Land Enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth Desolate and ye be in your Enemy's Land even then shall the Land Rest and Enjoy her Sabbaths As long as it lieth Desolate it shall Rest because it did not Rest in your Sabbaths when ye Dwelt upon it And again Ver. 43. The Land also shall be left of them and shall Enjoy her Sabbaths while she lieth Desolate without them And they shall accept of the Punishment of their Iniquity because even because they Despis'd my Judgments and because their Soul abhorred my Statutes Now it is very observable how Exactly this Threatning or Prophecy was fulfill'd upon the Jews They had Neglected to Observe the Sabbatical Year for 490 Years in which time ther are 70 Sabbatical or Seventh Years and the Captivity in Babylon was by God Determin'd to that Exact Number of 70 Years on Purpose to fulfil this His Threatning as it is written 2 Chron. xxxvj 21. To fulfil the Word of the Lord by the Mouth of Jeremiah by whom God had after Threaten'd the same until the Land had Enjoy'd her Sabbaths for as long as she lay Desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfil Threescore and Ten Years III. Another Great Instance of their Dependence upon God was their Years of Jubile and Release 1. In the Year of Jubile which was every 50th Year all Sales of Lands were Determin'd and the Land Reverted to the Seller And the Reason is given Levit. xxv 23. The Land shall not be sold for ever For the Land is Mine says God for ye are Strangers and Sojourners with Me. We are but Tenants at Will and are to look upon Nothing in this World as our Inheritance God only is the Proprietor and hath given us but an Vsufructuary Tenure to Live upon His Land but not to think it our own 2. But the Year of Release was yet a Greater Trial of their Dependence upon God This was every Seventh Year And in this Year all Personal Debts were Discharg'd and all the Hebrew Bond-Men were set at Liberty Not only set at Liberty but it is Commanded Deut. xv 13 c. And when thou sendest him out Free from thee thou shalt not let him go away Empty Thou shalt furnish him Liberally out of thy Flock and out of thy Floor and out of thy Wine-Press Of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath Blessed thee thou shalt give unto him And It shall not seem hard unto thee when thou sendest him away Free from thee for the Lord thy God shall Bless thee in all that thou doest The like Reason is given for the Release of Debts which is Requir'd Ver. 1 and 2. At the end of every Seven Years thou shalt make a Release And this is the manner of the Release Every Creditor that Lendeth ought unto his Neighbour shall Release it he shall not Exact it of his Neighbour or of his Brother because it is called the Lord's Release Now from Reading of this Law the Thought Naturally arises That