Judge shal crave the assistance of the Justices to attach the party and commit him to ward till he shall recognise to yield quiet obedience c. Provided that this extend not to London who were to have a way by themselves nor to hinder any remedy by due prohibition c. Nor any thing to continue longer then till the new Canon should be made which is not yet done and whereof before enough Mark the whole Tenour Is here any thing of giving Tythes Of wronging any man of a Farthing by a new and forced Imposition Of removing from one to settle on another To enrich Peter by taking from Paul Not a syllable But all upon supposition that somewhat was due before Let that be paid or if not the allowed ancient course is awakened and quickened for recovery So 't is onely a Declaratory Law as Sir Edward Cook speaks often upon like occasion renewing what was and rowsing up the dulness of perverse and covetous men to pay who were found backward but this was a goad to force them on forward in the way they had went and wherein they ought to go It were a disparagement to have here a Right settled to the Thing and to it in our opinion yea to our opinion it selfe to think so But it seemeth things went not on by help of this new Law fully according to desire The Times were we know troubled and many other Rights being both unsettled and removed no marvell if these Neighbours to them were also shaken Divers no doubt wished them more then so quite down the mouthes or rather Gulphs or rather then both hellish depths of sacrilegious and covetous carnal men having never been but wide open to devour what ever was sacred and here stood gaping to swallow this morsell none of their Own but due to man in Justice as well as to God for Religion and by Dedication For going on to subtract the just payment the complaint is evident inshrined in the sacred Monuments of the Law it selfe and entered the Parliament Roll for memory with what the wisedom of that Councel the Representative of the Nation could afford for remedy of so large a spreading inconvenience It was intended chiefly for the new Impropriator inabling him being Lay to make his Complaint in the spiritual Court but reaching in all other also with intent to let him in with them by no means purposing to shut or let both out and though with due restraint at first to that examen onely yet Evasions were after found that both have used to go out where no more was intended but to let one in The Law speaks as followeth How Tythes ought to be paid and how to be recovered being not paid Where divers and sundry persons inhabiting in sundry Counties and places of this Realm 32 Hen 8. cap. 7. and other the Kings Dominions not regarding their Duties to Almighty God and to the King our Sovereign Lord but in few years past more contemptuously and commonly presuming to offend and infringe the good and wholesom Laws of this Realm and gracious commandments of our said Sovereign Lord then in times past hath been séen or known Mark Laws duties and lawfull Tythes have not letted to subtract and withdraw the lawfull and accustomed tythes of Corn Hay Pasturages and other sort of tythes and Oblations commonly due to the Owners Proprietaries and Possessours of the Parsonages Vicarages and other Ecclesiastical places of and within the said Realms and Dominions being the more incouraged thereto for that divers of the Kings Subjects being Lay persons having Parsonages Vicarages and tythes to them and their heirs or to them and to their heirs of their bodies lawfully begotten or for form of life or years cannot by order and course of the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Realm sue in any Ecclesiastical Court for the wrongfull with-holding and detaining of the said tythes or other Duties nor cannot by the Order of the Common Laws of this Realm have any due remedy against any person or persons their heirs or assignes that wrongfully detaineth or with-holdeth the same by occasion whereof much controversie suit variance and discord is like to insurge and insue among the Kings Subjects to the great detriment damage and decay of many of them if convenient and spéedy remedie be not therefore had and provided Wherefore it is ordained and inacted by our said Sovereign Lord the King with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Commons in this present Parliament assembled by Authority of the same that all and singular persons of this his said Realm or other his Dominions of what estate degrèe or condition soever he or they shall fully truly and effectually divide set out yield and pay all and singular tythes and Offerings aforesaid according to the lawfull Customes and Vsages of the Parishes and places where such tythes or Duties shall grow arise come or be due And in case it shall happen any person or persons of his or their ungodly and perverse will and minde to detain or with hold any of the said tythes or Offerings or part or parcell thereof then the person or party being Ecclesiastical or Lay person having cause to demand or have the said tythes or Offerings being thereby wronged or grieved shall and may convent the person or persons so offending before the Ordinary his Commissary or other competent Minister or lawfull Iudge of the place where such wrong shall be done according to the Ecclesistical Laws And so on to the Appellants paying Costs before he remove the Sute Order to call in the Magistrates help in case of contumacy saving Lands discharged of Tythes and the City of London c. This is that clearly is and if there we no more one would think enough to settle as far as an Act of State or publick Decree can both a right and a course of Justice that men should both be apportioned these Dues and know how to come by them of which yet I remember my word before and far deeper is laid and upon more firme and lower faster ground then any single tottering Act the Foundation of this Right which settles not but upon or with the whole body of immovable Fundamentals of the Kingdom is clasped in with the Roots of Government hath grown up with it through all her known progresses to the present State of perfection is flesh of her flesh bone of her bone nor can is much to be feared without mortal violence admit a partition and segregation such as if mens private parcimony and pinching wretched Covetousness joyned with improvidence and injustice should go on to call for so great a mischief upon themselves would indanger to shake the frame of the whole Compages and by the same unadvised Principle of its unjust and violent removal leave little constancy or assurance of any thing Which great Possessours had need chiefly to look to and prevent if they can upon any pretence as of easing poor men
will of the Gentiles and walking in all lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquettings and abominable idolatries wondring that others who by the Grace of God have escaped the pollutions that are in the world through these lusts and old things are past away with them all things are become new run not with them as formerly into the same excess of riot speaking evill of them for it as the Apostle says And shall these I say do thus and no man molest them or trouble them or question as God forbid they should for craving having and mis-spending what they have Civil right to while the 1 Matth 20. 8. chap. 10. 10. Luk. 10. 7. 1 Tim. 5 18 Labourer is kept short of his hire 2 1 Cor. 9. â— 1 Tim. 5. 18. Deut. 25 4. The mouth of the Oxe muzzled that treadeth the mowe and kept short of his due allowance Gods Minister onely is pittanced of what may keep him alive and honest together and they that take themselves for good men doubt whether they may subtract from him his part of the Charter He is I aver He is one of the most Necessary men in his Parish for discharge of duty he would soonest be missed of All if he should be absent As great expectation is of Him while he is there and there is neither Free-holder nor Copy-holder Yeoman Gentleman or scarce Any other who in sickness absence exclusion or so would be more missed of the Neighbour-hood of any of whom they expect no more then what duly they have of him and more And what wisdom or equity were it then to chuse out Him to be robbed at the root despoiled of his right shrunk in those sinews must give all his designs or godly good works life power and motion in this world and desire his means of living to be withholden from him due by Law While other that would very likely do less good with it certainly have less duty expected of them for it have enough and to spare yea Fruges consumere nati men born onely to live and spend have plenty that nor own nor pretend to own any necessary fitting honest manly imployment to the furthering of that common good whereof they reap the chiefest benefit But like drones suck the sweet and make sport with the sweat of other mens browes wearing Mannours on their backs and pouring Farms down their throats swimming in golden Lard up to the Chin as he said live at ease in Sion neither Fish nor Flesh having nothing of Human or Christian Lay or Ecclesiastical Magistrate or Officer publick or private charged or they think fit should be charged on their account to God or man Church or State I speak not this that they should be deprived of anything is Theirs or to stir up discontented fault-finders against them which I assure my self cannot be attempted without sedition in the State or sin to their souls who should be so troublesome Let every Swine have his own dunghil every man have his Own as well as do 1 Mat. 20. 15. what he listeth therewith as the Scripture says if He mis-spend 2 Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Rom. 14. 4. And Why doest thou judge thy Brother or why doest thou set at nought thy Brother we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ For it is written As I live saith the Lord Every knee shall bow to Me and every tongue shall confeâ—s to God So then every one of us shall gave account of himself to God ver 10 11 12. God shall judge But comparatively If These then Those if They have and none subtract or deny how much less or with equall necessity not from him that 3 1 Cor. 15. 10. laboureth more abundantly then they all as the Apostle speaketh and in another place is 4 1 Tim. 5. 17. worthy of double honour labouring still in the word and doctrine God forbid any should have wrong or not their right be it much or little and Who or Whatsoever But is this sort of men Onely inconsiderable to be shut out of door when right is distributing and they alone are Chidden if they ask their Due or expect their Right from the Petition of Right and the every man else inriching Charter Heu quòd literulas stulti docuêre parentes Nay will they not blame their calling that deprives them of common equity and shuts them out from the open Hall of Justice and they may not claim their due in Every ones Inheritance It grieves me to consider and I wonder it should be so The same men that urge those publick Concessions so earnestly and would suffer more rather then lose any of their little shares in this universal Grant yet cry out against Tythes without moderation or measure take on and complain as of a burden insupportable and when their own parts are taken out They may not be restrained of their liberty or abridged of their property God forbid they should Other mens right or liberties they may be stamped under feet their Dues are inconsiderable no dear Own by their Property I hope and believe they have been hitherto but mistaken in judgement and thinking Tythes to be no other but the impositions of some later statutes or the usurpations of the Consistory no wonder or blame they would have tyranny abolished and exactions removed that every man may enjoy his dear Own and no man usurp upon his neighbour in any the smallest matter But would they consider what deep and settled and al over-spread radication these claims have in all the Civil laws of the land How the Parliament allowes them the Petition of Right involves them the Canon gave them the Charter confirmed them the Common Law set them up and all the Politicks of the Nation combine and conjoyn their strength for their legal Dueness as of Any thing Could they look past some single Order or Act into the depth of that diffused and far-spreading Rule and Giver of all Right with us the Soveraign Law and there finde that what gives all men right in this Nation gives here with as undoubted assurance and a manifold accumulation of more strength and evidence They would then I trust change their notes or as the word uses to be sing us another song They would not betray their discretion to such necessary disgrace as must follow upon their destroying with one hand what but now they had set up with the other nor would they take away w th their left what they gave with their right but Right and Charter and Liberty and Property should be all of a sort and one mans claim of any thing from or by any of Them as good as anothers Could they espy that which is an involved title in these publick evidences they contend for and these Dues to be as certainly implied in the Charter as they are as their own inheritances They would no doubt soon
possible conversation or acquaintance is but in some plain simple English Book perhaps broken Statute Book or perhaps but some Abridgemement or Compendium Dispendium those excellent instruments of advancing ignorance and by help of little cost or pains inabling sluggards to know upon the matter as much as comes to just nothing build certainly and confidently upon this little as if it were All enough are resolute confident as if there were no more and if any thing be obtruded or questioned farther they bestow but their attention or wonder with 1 Act. 13 41. Habak 1. 5. Jewish incredulity they will not believe nay though a man tell it them Suspecting all that is beyond the narrow compass of their very short reach and not much caring if all other superfluities they esteem them so because they are not able to judge of them were buried in the pit of utter forgetfulness As little considering that their foundations have foundations and those yet again other and other and under and yet farther under and take away either or the advantage and stay of either the readiest way is taking to stir all to unsettle the firmest to tumble down the highest to leave order happiness peace and wealth buried under a heap of rubbish and the fair piles we now behold and enjoy even All the fruits of an orderly and advised disposition of things intombed under the scattered fragments of its own ruine and very confusion For old things are not to be cast away without possible inconveniences to new the foundations unseen are still a part of the fair building yea do support it and take away the lowest the next still sinks of any thing and by degrees All Even so take away the first settling Laws the under-praestructions whereupon things had their first settling composition and stay the rest totters and may expect ere long ruine in a State Particularly for tythes their fastest and most solid strength seems below in the old unseen acts of gift and first disposition the new can be never but a fair and presently useful declaration to set out uttermost to the sight of the world and as the paint that shines for people to gaze upon the strength of the wall and house both is in the inclosed materials and rocky foundation Yet because these are of great estimation with the multitude and ought indeed to be of some with All I shall not shun to give them intire in the opinion of the many enough to create a right if nought else were as if nought else were perhaps they might But as now things stand are so far from doing it effectually and onely that they do it not in any degree Any more then if a present Act should be made about Fines and Relieves the next age might think it gave the Lord that Right we know he enjoys already Or as a new Act about Quit-rents and Herriots should be mistaken to raise or warrant the things no man but knows had right before The most in addition any new order can doe being but to rectifie dispose or settle some new course about the things so due already that 't is that injury comes near a Theft to subtract or deny the just payment of them So the following later Statutes nor do nor can any more but to revive quicken and establish the ancient right of tythes extant and of long being before awaken mens dulness inforce their payment remove obstructions that have grown in by corruption with time and make that which is shine brighter and fairer by the fourbishing over of a new and fresh authority Their dueness being that these statutes did never intend to meddle with infringe further help nor hinder but they were what they were before and it were one of the most pitiful pieces of Ignorance befitting onely the Vulgar heard of unlettered Simplicians and deserving rather commiseration then the exercise of any of our manly passions to entertain a thought to or toward the contrary What! that these later Statutes created tythes Made them due Gave them that their abrogation should have a possibility of taking them away and what the service of God has to trust to by virtue of their promulgation This is such a shallow conceit is onely worthy the weak brains of the multitude where onely it possibly could be hatched or can be tolerated or indured no more excusable then if any should say Aristotles Astronomy gave the Sun a being in the Firmament or Charta Forrestae first set up Game or a present Law if it should dispose of did erect Parks and Chases or a new order about Escheats or Mortuaries the next mistaken Age might interpret to give them being and first beginning But to the words of the Statute which both in the beginning and progress have dueness of Tythes existent and then in being supposed and they are as followeth Forâ—smuch as divers numbers of evil disposed persons inhabited in sundry Counties Tythes shall be paid according to the Custoâ—e of the Parish c. Cities Towns and places of this Realm having no respect to their duties to Almighty God 27 Hen 8. cap. 20. but against Right and good Conscience have attempted to subtract and withhold in some places the whole and in some places great parts of their Tythes and Oblations as well personal as prediâ—l Due unto Almighty God and holy Church and pursuing such their detestable enormities and injuries have attempted in late time past to disobey contenm and despise the processe laws and decrées of the Ecclesiastical Courts of this Realm in more temerons and large manner then before this time hath béen séen For reformation of which said injuries and for unitie and peac to be preâ—erved amongst the Kings Subjects of this Realm our Soveraign Lord the King being Supreme Head in Earth under God of the Church of England willing the spiritual rights and duties of that Church to be preserved continued and maintained hath ordained and enacted by Authoritie of this present Parliament That every of his Subjects of this Realm of England Wales and Calais and the Marches of the same according to the Ecclesiastical Laws and Ordinances of his Church of England and after the laudable Usages and Customes of their Parish or other place where he dwelleth or occupieth shall yéeld and pay his Tythes and Offerings and other duties of holy Church and that for such subtractions of any of the said tythes offerings or other duties the Parson Vicar or Curate or other partie in that behalf grieved may by due processe of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Church of England convent the person or persons so offending before his Ordinarie or other competent Iudge of this Realm having authoritie to hear and determine the right of tythes and also to compel the same person or persons so offending to do and yeeld their said duties in that behalf This was the Legislative part follows order in case of contumacy that the Ordinary or other
erat demonstrandum CHAP. XXXIII IT remains for inference and application to the just conscience that every sober and well-meaning Honest man quietly and orderly compose himself then to his duty in obedience and if this burden be duly and fitly laid on on Him to take it up and go away with it as contented not wrangling or quarrelling to his due shame abominable sin as well as manifest injustice dangerously seditious disturbance But be satified with his own give out to others with willingness what is theirs He acknowledges and must acknowledge and not His. My Lot may be of the Receiving part If it be I may justly expect mine own require it demand it and unless my Christian perswasion be against going to Law for any thing which has colour from 1 Cor. 6. 1 6 7. if it be denied as for any other Right sue for it Or if my lot be on the paying part here I have both leave and duty not to 1 Do all things without murmurings and disputings that ye may be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom ye shine as Lights in the world holding forth thus the word of life that I may have comfort of you in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain Phil. 2. 14 15 16. See also 1 Cor 10. 10 and Iude ver 16. Sure this is a Gospel sin murmure or complain shift or evade but meekly gently and Christianlike do what belongs to me reckoning my self no Honest man unless I have thus much Honesty to be Content to give every man his Due yea not as the Ox or the Slave meerly for fear of the whip but from forwardness and readiness quickned by the inspiration of my Religion whatsoever I do as unto the Lord or unto Men doing it Heartily and willingly as knowing I am bound to keep my rank 2 Rom. 13. 1 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not onely for wrath but for Conscience sake For 3 2 Cor. 6. 7. God loveth a chearfull Giver and a chearfull Doer and it is the great commendation of Christian Religion that it makes or leaves none slow or indifferent in any good Duty but adds wings to the weary or heavy doubting soul more readily effectually and chearfully to do every thing ought to be done for the Lords sake 'T is said there are some whose Consciences will not give them leave to issue forth these Dues according to legal Obligation and and all just expectation even as just as any is in the world But I ask almost in the same words whether their Consciences will give them leave to pay their Dues A Just Assesment Stated Rights A Quit Rent a Fine a Releif or any Just Imposition Set aside Leviticus Malachi the Epistle to the Hebrews yea the whole Bible This Rent-charge as it were is so due by Civil Justice will they now be Honest Men If they answer but Roundly and home to this I have as much as I desire Will their Consciences give them leave to pay their Debts what is doomed such If this be not a Debt to the due Receiver a yearly profit issuing out of their Lands to anothers use by Law Nothing is due here in England and for this is the strength of the whole Treatise going before Thou sayest I cannot prove Tythes due by the Law of God I went not about it but if I can by the Law of Man this is enough for thee thou repliest Leviticus is abrogated the Hebrews dark Abrahams and Jacobs but examples But wilt thou pay a Custome or Toll or Tribute or legal Taxation Is a Rent-charge due or Relief or Quit-Rent By what Obligation soever thou shalt confess There by the same and of equal strength I will make good my Plea here Where art thou now Wilt thou pay both or none What but English Sacred Law gives the one and the same gives the other Pay or deny both or neither the equity is of equal measure strength and evidence for both together O Christian let not the World deceive thee Let not the God of this World blinde thine eys If thy Covetousness hinder not thy Conscience may well serve thee to pay thy Dues yea would Constrain thee that is more then Permit for true Religion does more then Give leave Command and Injoyn men to be Just and Righteous Nor let any one say These are Trifles far below the height of Heaven May not a man keep a good Christians Conscience to God without troubling himself with these Levitical Ceremonies Hearken man This is a part of our Moral Righteousness as things are Now with Us a part of Necessary Justice A man can be with Us No more Unrighteous or Unhonest then he can here make light of this part of his legal Duty Nor let him say I have given my name to Heaven I have weightier things in consideration Must I interrupt or pull down my higher thoughts from devotion faith and Spirituals to these which when a Pharisee boasted exact obedience of he remained but a Pharisee O Good Man value things as they are Thou wilt not neglect Earth I hope in order to Heaven or suffer thy Religion to leave thee Not Honest or Unjust Must thou not deal Truly in these lower things before thou art fit to be trusted in higher Or is Moral Justice an Heathen vertue meer stranger to the power of Godliness and Not regarded at all by the God of the Christians Does not thine own Saviour say Believe not me but believe Him and believe me but as I do with fidelity and trust dispense the the Truths of for and from Him that 1 Luc. 16. 10 11. He that is faithfull in the least is faithfull also in much He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much If therefore ye have not been faithfull in the Vnrighteous Mammon who will commit to your Trust the True Riches Nor let any further excuse with the pretence of the Nature of Things He hath weaned himself from these lower to better Faith hope praise and prayer c. do so take him up that meaner things have less regard justly He is for the Heighth of Holiness And I will believe him as soon as that He hath climbed the Pinacles of Solomons Temple who is scarce got up the steps of Solomons Porch That he that is Unjust can be Holy or that Good man fitted to be a Citizen of the new Jerusalem a Free-man of the Kingdom of Heaven Who wants necessary qualifications to live in an honest well-governed Common-wealth on Earth Shall Heaven be furnished out with Dishonest men or the legal Members of that Citie be Defrauders and Deceivers Does not the 2 1 Cor. 6 9. Apostle say What can be plainer Be not deceived Some are apt to think so That the Vnjust Idolaters thievesor covetous shal ever Inherit the Kingdom of God