Table-Talk BEING THE DISCOURSES OF John Selden Esq OR HIS SENSE of various MATTERS of Weight and high Consequence Relating especially to Religion and State Distingue Tempora The Second Edition LONDON Printed for Jacob Tonson at the Judge's Head near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleetstreet and Awnsham and John Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row 1696. To the Honourable Mr. Justice Hales One of the JUDGES OF THE Common-Pleas And to the much Honoured Edward Heywood John Vaughan AND Rowland Jewks Esquiers Most worthy Gentlemen WEre you not Executors to that Person who while he liv'd was the Glory of the Nation yet I am Confident any thing of his would find Acceptance with you and truly the Sense and Notion here is wholly his and most of the Words I had the opportunity to hear his Discourse twenty Years together and lest all those Excellent things that usually fell from him might be lost some of them from time to time I faithfully committed to Writing which here digested into this Method I humbly present to your Hands you will quickly perceive them to be his by the familiar Illustrations wherewith they are set off and in which way you know he was so happy that with a marvelous delight to those that heard him he would presently convey the highest Points of Religion and the most important Affairs of State to an ordinary apprehension In reading be pleas'd to distinguish Times and in your Fancy carry along with you the When and the Why many of these things were spoken this will give them the more Life and the smarter Relish 'T is possible the Entertainment you find in them may render you the more inclinable to pardon the Presumption of Your most Obliged and most Humble Servant RI. MILWARD THE TABLE ABbies Priories page 1 Articles 3 Baptism 4 Bastard 5 Bible Scripture 6 Bishops before the Parliament 11 Bishops in the Parliament 13 Bishops out of the Parliament 19 Books Authors 25 Canon-Law Ceremony 27 Chancellour 28 Changing Sides 29 Chrismas 30 Christians 31 Church 32 Church of Rome 34 Churches City 35 Clergy 36 High Commission House of Commons 38 Confession 39 Competency 40 Great Conjunction Conscience 41 Consecrated Places 43 Contracts 44 Council 45 Convocation Creed 46 Damnation 47 Devils 48 Self-Denial 51 Duel 52 Epitaph 53 Equity 54 Evil Speaking 55 Excommunication 56 Faith and Works 59 Fasting-Days 60 Fathers and Sons Fines 61 Free-will Fryers 62 Friends Genealogy of Christ 63 Gentlemen 64 Gold Hall 65 Hell 66 Holy-Days 67 Humility 68 Idolatry Jews 69 Invincible Ignorance Images 70 Imperial Constitutions Imprisonment 72 Incendiaries Independency 73 Things Indifferent Publick Interest 75 Humane Invention Judgments 76 Judge 77 Juggling Jurisdiction 78 Jus Divinum King 79 King of England 81 The King 84 Knights Service 86 Land Language 87 Law 88 Law of Nature 90 Learning 91 Lecturers Libels 93 Liturgy Lords in the Parliament 94 Lords before the Parliament 95 Marriage 97 Marriage of Cosin Germans 98 Measure of things 99 Difference of Men Minister Divine 100 Money 107 Moral Honesty 108 Mortage Number 109 Oaths 110 Oracles 113 Opinion 114 Parity Parliament 116 Parson 119 Patience Peace 120 Penance People 121 Pleasure 122 Philosophy 124 Poetry 125 Pope 127 Popery 130 Power State 131 Prayer 134 Preaching 137 Predestination 144 Preferment 145 Praemunire Prerogative 148 Presbytery 149 Priest of Rome 151 Prophecies 152 Proverbs Question 153 Reason 154 Retaliation Reverence 155 Non Residency 156 Religion 157 Sabboth 163 Sacrament Salvation 164 State 165 Superstition Subsidies 166 Simony Ship-Money 167 Synod Assembly 158 Thanksgiving Tythes 171 Trade 174 Tradition Transubstantiation 175 Traitor Trinity 176 Truth 177 Trial 178 University 179 Vows 180 Usury Pious Uses 181 War 182 Witches Wife 186 Wisdom 187 Wit 188 Women 189 Year 190 Zelots 192 THE DISCOURSES OF John Selden Esq Abbies Priories c. 1. THE unwillingness of the Monks to part with their Land will fall out to be just nothing because they were yielded up to the King by a Supream Hand viz. a Parliament If a King conquer another Country the People are loath to lose their Lands yet no Divine will deny but the King may give them to whom he please If a Parliament make a Law concerning Leather or any other Commodity you and I for Example are Parliament-Men perhaps in respect to our own private Interest we are against it yet the major Part conclude it we are then in volv'd and the Law is good 2. When the Founder of Abbies laid a Curse upon those that should take away those Lands I would fain know what Power they had to curse me 'T is not the Curses that come from the Poor or from any Body that hurt me because they come from them but because I do something ill against them that deserves God should curse me for it On the other side 't is not a Man's blessing me that makes me blessed he only declares me to be so and if I do well I shall be blessed whether any bless me or not 3. At the time of Dissolution they were tender in taking from the Abbots and Priors their Lands and their Houses till they surrendred them as most of them did indeed the Prior of St. John's Sir Richard Weston being a stout Man got into France and stood out a whole Year at last submitted and the King took in that Priory also to which the Temple belonged and many other Houses in England they did not then cry no Abbots no Priors as we do now no Bishops no Bishops 4. Henry the Fifth put away the Friars Aliens and seized to himself 100000 l. a Year and therefore they were not the Protestants only that took away Church Lands 5. In Queen Elizabeths time when all the Abbies were pulled down all good Works defaced then the Preachers must cry up Justification by Faith not by good Works Articles 1. THE nine and thirty Articles are much another thing in Latin in which Tongue they were made than they are translated into English they were made at three several Convocations and confirmed by Act of Parliament six or seven Times after There is a Secret concerning them Of late Ministers have subscribed to all of them but by Act of Parliament that confirm'd them they ought only to subscribe to those Articles which contain matter of Faith and the Doctrine of the Sacraments as appears by the first Subscriptions But Bishoâ— Bancroft in the Convocation held in King Jame's days he began it that Ministers should subscribe to three Things to the King's Supremacy to the Common-Prayer and to the Thirty Nine Articles many of them do not contain matter of Faith Is it matter of Faith how the Church should be govern'd Whether Infants should be baptized Whether we have any Property in our Goods c. Baptism 1. 'T Was a good way to persuade Men to be christned to tell them that they had a Foulness about them viz. Original Sin that could not be washed away but by
The meaning of the Law was that so much should be taken from a Man such a Cobbet sliced off that yet not withstanding he might live in the same Rank and Condition he lived in before but now they fine Men ten times more than they are worth Free-will 1. THe Puritans who will allow no Free-will at all but God does all yet will allow the Subject his Liberty to do or not to do notwithstanding the King the God upon Earth The Armenians who hold we have Free-will yet say when we come to the King there must be all Obedience and no Liberty to be stood for Fryers 1. THE Fryers say they possess nothing whose then are the Lands they hold not their Superiour's he hath vow'd Poverty as well as they whose then To answer this 't was decreed they should say they were the Popes And why must the Fryers be more perfect than the Pope himself 2. If there had been no Fryers Christendom might have continued quiet and things remain at a stay If there had been no Lecturers which succeed the Fryers in their way the Church of England might have stood and flourisht at this Day Friends 1. OLD Friends are best King James us'd to call for his old Shoos they were easiest for his Feet Genealogy of Christ. 1. TThey that say the Reason why Joseph's Pedigree is set down and not Mary's is because the Descent from the Mother is lost and swallowed up say something but yet if a Jewish Woman marry'd with a Gentil they only took Notice of the Mother not of the Father but they that say they were both of a Tribe say nothing for the Tribes might marry one with another and the Law against it was only Temporary in the time while Joshua was dividing the Land lest the being so long about it there might be a confusion 2. That Christ was the Son of Joseph is most exactly true For though he was the Son of God yet with the Jews if any Man kept a Child and brought him up and call'd him Son he was taken for his Son and his Land if he had any was to descend upon him and therefore the Genealogy of Joseph is justly set down Gentlemen 1. What a Gentleman is 't is hard with us to define in other Countries he is known by his Priviledges in Westminster-Hall he is one that is reputed one in the Court of Honour he that hath Arms. The King cannot make a Gentleman of Blood what have you said nor God Almighty but he can make a Gentleman by Creation If you ask which is the better of these two Civilly the Gentleman of Blood Morally the Gentleman by Creation may be the better for the other may be a Debauch'd Man this a Person of Worth 2. Gentlemen have ever been more Temperate in their Religion than the common People as having more Reason the others running in a hurry In the beginning of Christianity the Fathers writ Contra gentes and Contra Gentiles they were all one But after all were Christians the beter sort of People still retain'd the Name of Gentiles throughout the four Provinces of the Roman Empire as Gentil-hommel in French Gentil homo in Italian Gentil-huombre in Spanish and Gentil-man in English And they no question being Persons of Quality kept up those Feasts which we borrow from the Gentils as Christmas Candlemas May-day c. continuing what was not directly against Christianity which the common People would never have endured Gold 1. THere are two Reasons why these Words Jesus autem transiens per medium eorum ibat were about our old Gold the one is because Riply the Alchymist when he made Gold in the Tower the first time he found it he spoke these Words per medium eorum that is per medium Ignis Sulphuris The other because these Words were thought to be a Charm and that they did bind whatsoever they were written upon so that a Man could not take it away To this Reason I rather incline Hall 1. THE Hall was the Place where the great Lord us'd to eat wherefore else were the Halls made so big Where he saw all his Servants and Tenants about him He eat not in private except in time of Sickness when once he became a thing Coop'd up all his greatness was spoil'd Nay the King himself used to eat in the Hall and his Lords sate with him and then he understood Men. Hell 1. THere are two Texts for Christ's descending into Hell The one Psal. 16. The other Acts the 2d where the Bible that was in use when the Thirty Nine Articles were made has it Hell But the Bible that was in Queen Elizabeth's time when the Articles were confirm'd reads it Grave and so it continued till the new Translation in King Jame's time and then 't is Hell again But by this we may gather the Church of England declin'd as much as they could the descent otherwise they never would have alter'd the Bible 2. He descended into Hell this may be the Interpretation of it He may be dead and buried then his Soul ascended into Heaven Afterwards he descended again into Hell that is into the Grave to fetch his Body and to rise again The Ground of this Interpretation is taken from the Platonick Learning who held a Metampsychosis and when a Soul did descend from Heaven to take another Body they call'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the lower World the State of Mortality Now the first Christians many of them were Platonick Philosophers and no question spake such Language as was then understood amongst them To understand by Hell the Grave is no Tautology because the Creed first tells what Christ suffered He was Crucified Dead and Buried then it tells us what he did He descended into Hell the third day he rose again he ascended c. Holy-Days 1. THey say the Church imposes Holy-Days there 's no such thing tho' the Number of Holy-days is set down in some of our Common-Prayer Books Yet that has relation to an Act of Parliament which forbids the keeping of any Holy-Days in time of Popery but those that are kept are kept by the Custom of the Country and I hope you will not say the Church imposes that Humility 1. HUmility is a Vertue all preach none practise and yet every body is content to hear The Master thinks it good Doctrine for his Servant the Laity for the Clergy and the Clergy for the Laity 2. There is Humilitas quaedam in Vitio If a Man does not take notice of that Excellency and Perfection that is in himself how can he be thankful to God who is the Author of all Excellency and Perfection Nay if a Man hath too mean an Opinion of himself 't will render him unserviceable both to God and Man 3. Pride may be allow'd to this or that degree else a Man cannot keep up his Dignity In Gluttony there must be Eating in Drunkenness there must be drinking
to command that is where he must be obeyed so is every Supream Power and Prince They that stretch his Infallibility further do they know not what 5. When a Protestant and a Papish dispute they talk like two Mad-men because they do not agree upon their Principles the one way is to destroy the Pope's Power for if he hath Power to command me 't is not my alledging Reasons to the contrary can keep me from obeying For Example if a Constable command me to wear a green Suit to Morrow and has Power to make me 't is not my alledging a hundred Reasons of the Folly of it can excuse me from doing it 6. There was a Time when the Pope had Power here in England and there was excellent Use made of it for 't was only to serve Turns as might be manifested out of the Records of the Kingdom which Divines know little of If the King did not like what the Pope would have he would forbid the Pope's Legate to land upon his Ground So that the Power was truly then in the King though suffered in the Pope But now the Temporal and the Spiritual Power Spiritual so call'd because ordain'd to a Spiritual End spring both from one Fountain they are like to twist that 7. The Protestants in France bear Office in the State because though their Religion be different yet they acknowledge no other King but the King of France The Papists in England they must have a King of their own a Pope that must do something in our Kingdom therefore there is no reason they should enjoy the same Priviledges 8. Amsterdam admits of all Religions but Papists and 't is upon the same Account The Papists where e'er they live have another King at Rome all other Religions are subject to the present State and have no Prince else-where 9. The Papists call our Religion a Parliamentary Religion but there was once I am sure a Parliamentary Pope Pope Urban was made Pope in England by Act of Parliament against Pope Clement The Act is not in the Book of Statutes either because he that compiled the Book would not have the Name of the Pope there or else he would not let it appear that they medled with any such thing but 't is upon the Rolls 10. When our Clergy preach against the Pope and the Church of Rome they preach against themselves and crying down their Pride their Power and their Riches have made themselves Poor and Contemptible enough they dedicate first to please their Prince not considering what would follow Just as if a Man were to go a Journey and seeing at his first setting out the Way clean and fair ventures forth in his Slippers not considering the Dirt and the Sloughs are a little further off or how suddenly the Weather may change Popery 1. THE demanding a Noble for a dead body passing through a a Town came from hence in time of Popery they carried the dead Body into the Church where the Priest said Dirgies and twenty Dirgies at four Pence a piece comes to a Noble but now it is forbidden by an Order from my Lord Marshal the Heralds carry his Warrant about them 2. We charge the Prelatical Clergy with Popery to make them odious tho' we know they are guilty of no such thing Just as heretofore they call'd Images Mammets and the Adoration of Images Mammetry that is Mahomet and Mahometry odious Names when all the World knows the Turks are forbidden Images by their Religion Power State 1. THere is no stretching of Power 't is a good Rule Eat within your Stomach Act within your Commission 2. They that govern most make least Noise You see when they row in a Barge they that do drudgery-work slash and puff and sweat but he that governs sits quietly at the Stern and scarce is seen to stir 3. Syllables govern the World 4. All Power is of God means no more than Fides est servanda When St. Paul said this the People had made Nero Emperour They agree he to command they to obey Then Gods comes in and casts a hook upon them keep your Faith then comes in all Power is of God Never King dropt out of the Clouds God did not make a new Emperour as the King makes a Justice of Peace 5. Christ himself was a great observer of the Civil Power and did many things only justifiable because the State requir'd it which were things meerly Temporary for the time that State stood But Divines make use of them to gain Power to themselves as for Example that of Die Ecclesiae tell the Church there was then a Sanhedrim a Court to tell it to and therefore they would have it so now 6. Divines ought to do no more than what the State permits Before the State became Christian they made their own Laws and those that did not observe them they Excommunicated naughty men they suffered them to come no more amongst them But if they would come amongst them how could they hinder them By what Law by what Power they were still subject to the State which was Heathen Nothing better expresses the Condition of Christians in those times than one of the meetings you have in London of Men of the same Country of Sussex-Men or Bedfordshire-Men they appoint their Meeting and they agree and make Laws amongst themselves He that is not there shall pay double c. and if any one mis-behave himself they shut him out of their Company But can they recover a Forfeiture made concerning their Meeting by any Law Have they any power to compel one to pay but afterwards when the State became Christian all the Power was in them and they gave the Church as much or as little as they pleas'd and took away when they pleas'd and added what they pleas'd 7. The Church is not only subject to the Civil Power with us that are Protestants but also in Spain if the Church does Excommunicate a Man for what it should not the Civil Power will take him out of their Hands So in France the Bishop of Angiers alter'd something in the Breviary they complain'd to the Parliament at Paris that made him alter it again with a comme abuse 8. the Parliament of England has no Arbitrary Power in point of Judicature but in point of making Law only 9. If the Prince be servus natura of a servile base Spirit and the Subjects liberi Free and Ingenuous oft-times they depose their Prince and govern themselves On the contrary if the People be Servi Natura and some one amongst them of a Free and Ingenuous Spirit he makes himself King of the rest and this is the Cause of all changes in State Common-wealths into Monarchies and Monarchies into Common-wealths 10. In a troubled State we must do as in foul Weather upon the Thames not think to cut directly through so the Boat may be quickly full of Water but rise and fall as the Waves do give as much as conveniently we can
a wise Man that knows the minds and insides of Men which is done by knowing what is habitual to them Proverbs are habitual to a Nation being transmitted from Father to Son Question 1. WHen a doubt is propounded you must learn to distinguish and show wherein a thing holds and wherein it doth not hold Ay or no never answer'd any Question The not distinguishing where things should be distinguish'd and the not confounding where things should be confounded is the cause of all the Mistakes in the World Reason 1. IN giving Reasons Men commonly do with us as the Woman does with her Child when she goes to Market about her Business she tells it she goes to buy it a fine Thing to buy it a Cake or some Plums They give us such Reasons as they think we will be catched withal but never let us know the Truth 2. When the School-Men talk of Recta Ratio in Morals either they understand Reason as it is govern'd by a Command from above or else they say no more than a Woman when she says a thing is so because it is so that is her Reason perswades her 't is so The other Acception has Sense in it As take a Law of the Land I must not depopulate my Reason tells me so Why Because if I do I incurr the detriment 3. The Reason of a Thing is not to be enquired after till you are sure the Thing it self be so We commonly are at What 's the Reason of it before we are sure of the Thing 'T was an excellent Question of my Lady Cotten when Sir Robert Cotten was magnifying of a Shooe which was Moses's or Noah's and wondring at the strange Shape and Fashion of it But Mr. Cotten says she are you sure it is a Shooe Retaliation 1. AN Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth That does not mean that if I put out another Man's Eye therefore I must lose one of my own for what is he the better for that tho' this be commonly received but it means I shall give him what Satisfaction an Eye shall be judged to be worth Reverence 1. T IS sometimes unreasonable to look after Respect and Reverence either from a Man 's own Servant or other Inferiours A great Lord and a Gentleman talking together there came a Boy by leading a Calf with both his Hands says the Lord to the Gentleman You shall see me make the Boy let go his Calf with that he came towards him thinking the Boy would have put off his Hat but the Boy took no Notice of him The Lord seeing that Sirrah says he Do you not know me that you use no Reverence Yes says the Boy if your Lordship will hold my Calf I will put off my Hat Non-Residency 1. THE People thought they had a great Victory over the Clergy when in Henry the Eighth's time they got their Bill passed That a Clergy-Man should have but two Livings before a Man might have Twenty or Thirty 't was but getting a Dispensation from the Pope's Limiter or Gatherer of the Peter-Pence which was as easily got as now you may have a Licence to eat Flesh. 2. As soon as a Minister is made he hath Power to preach all over the World but the Civil-Power restrains him he cannot preach in this Parish or in that there is one already appointed Now if the State allows him Two Livings then he hath Two Places where he may Exercise his Function and so has the more Power to do his Office which he might do every where if he were not restrained Religion 1. KIng James said to the Fly Have I Three Kingdoms and thou must needs fly into my Eye Is there not enough to meddle with upon the Stage or in Love or at the Table but Religion 2. Religion amongst Men appears to me like the Learning they got at School Some Men forget all they learned others spend upon the Stock and some improve it So some Men forget all the Religion that was taught them when they were Young others spend upon that Stock and some improve it 3. Religion is like the Fashion one Man wears his Doublet slash'd another lac'd another plain but every Man has a Doublet So every Man has his Religion We differ about Trimming 4. Men say they are of the same Relion for Quietness sake but if the Matter were well examin'd you would scarce find Three any where of the same Religion in all Points 5. Every Religion is a getting Religion for though I my self get nothing I am subordinate to those that do So you may find a Lawyer in the Temple that gets little for the present but he is fitting himself to be in time one of those great Ones that do get 6. Alteration of Religion is dangerous because we know not where it will stay 't is like a Milstone that lies upon the top of a pair of Stairs 't is hard to remove it but if once it be thrust off the first Stair it never stays till it comes to the bottom 7. Question Whether is the Church or the Scripture Judge of Religion Answ. In truth neither but the State I am troubled with a Boil I call a Company of Chirurgeons about me one prescribes one thing another another I single out something I like and ask you that stand by and are no Chirurgeon what you think of it You like it too you and I are Judges of the Plaster and we bid them prepare it and there 's an end Thus 't is in Religion the Protestants say they will be judged by the Scriptures the Papists say so too but that cannot speak A Judge is no Judge except he can both speak and command Execution but the truth is they never intend to agree No doubt the Pope where he is Supream is to be Judg if he say we in England ought to be subject to him then he must draw his Sword and make it good 8. By the Law was the Manual received into the Church before the Reformation not by the Civil Law that had nothing to do in it nor by the Canon Law for that Manual that was here was not in France nor in Spain but by Custom which is the Common Law of England and Custom is but the Elder Brother to a Parliament and so it will fall out to be nothing that the Papists say Ours is a Parliamentary Religion by reason the Service-Book was Established by Act of Parliament and never any Service-Book was so before That will be nothing that the Pope sent the Manual 't was ours because the State received it The State still makes the Religion and receives into it what will best agree with it Why are the Venetians Roman Catholicks because the State likes the Religion All the World knows they care not Three-pence for the Pope The Council of Trent is not at this day admitted in France 9. Papist Where was your Religion before Luther an Hundred years ago Protestant Where was America an
Parliament was wary what Subsidies they gave to the King because they had no account but now they care not how much they give of the Subjects Money because they give it with one hand and receive it with the other and so upon the matter give it themselves In the mean time what a case the Subjects of England are in if the Men they have sent to the Parliament mis-behave themselves they cannot help it because the Parliament is Eternal 2. A Subsidy was counted the fifth part of a Man's Estate and so fifty Subsidies is five and forty times more than a Man is Worth Simony 1. THE Name of Simony was begot in the Canon-Law the first Statute against it was in Queen Elizabeth's time Since the Reformation Simony has been frequent One reason why it was not practised in time of Popery was the Pope's provision no Man was sure to bestow his own Benefice Ship-Money 1. MR. Noy brought in Ship-money first for Maritine Towns but that was like putting in a little Augur that afterwards you may put in a greater He that pulls down the first Brick does the main Work afterwards 't is easie to pull down the Wall 2. They that at first would not pay Ship-money till 't was decided did like brave Men though perhaps they did no good by the Trial but they that stand out since and suffer themselves to be distrained never questioning those that do it do pitifully for so they only pay twice as much as they should Synod Assembly 1. WE have had no national Synod since the Kingdom hath been settled as now it is only Provincial and there will be this inconveniency to call so many Divines together 't will be to put Power in their Hands who are too apt to usurp it as if the Laity were bound by their Determination No let the Laity consult with Divines on all sides hear what they say and make themselves Masters of their Reasons as they do by any other profession when they have a Difference before them For Example Gold-smiths they enquire of them if such a Jewel be of such a Value and such a Stone of such a Value hear them and then being rational Men judge themselves 2. Why should you have a Synod when you have a Convocation already which is a Synod Would you have a superfetation of another Synod The Clergy of England when they cast off the Pope submitted themselves to the Civil Power and so have continued but these challenge to be Jure Divino and so to be above the Civil Power these challenge Power to call before their Presbyteries all Persons for all Sins directly against the Law of God as proved to be Sins by necessary Consequence If you would buy Gloves send for a Glover or two not Glovers-Hall consult with some Divines not send for a Body 3. There must be some Laymen in the Synod to over-look the Clergy lest they spoil the civil Work Just as when the good Woman puts a Cat into the Milk-House to kill a Mouse she sends her Maid to look after the Cat lest the Cat should eat up the Cream 4. In the Ordinance for the Assembly the Lords and Commons go under the Names of learned godly and judicious Divines there is no Difference put betwixt them and the Ministers in the Context 5. 'T is not unusual in the Assembly to revoke their Votes by reason they make so much haste but 't is that will make them scorn'd You never heard of a Council revok'd an Act of its own making they have been wary in that to keep up their Infallibility if they did any thing they took away the whole Council and yet we would be thought Infallible as any Body 'T is not enough to say the House of Commons revoke their Votes for theirs are but Civil Truths which they by agreement create and uncreate as they please But the Truths the Synod deals in are Divine and when they have voted a thing if it be then true 't was true before not true because they voted it nor does it cease to be true because they voted otherwise 6. Subscribing in a Synod or to the Articles of a Synod is no such terrible thing as they make it because If I am of a Synod 't is agreed either tacitely or expresly That which the major part determines the rest are involv'd in and therefore I subscribe though my own private Opinion be otherwise and upon the same Ground I may without scruple subscribe to what those have determin'd whom I sent though my private Opinion be otherwise having respect to that which is the Ground of all assemblies the Major part carries it Thanksgiving 1. AT first we gave Thanks for every Victory as soon as ever 't was obtained but since we have had many now we can stay a good while We are just like a Child give him a Plum he makes his Leg give him a second Plum he makes another Leg At last when his Belly is full he forgets what he ought to do then his Nurse or some body else that stands by him puts him in mind of his Duty Where 's your Leg Tythes 1. TYthes are more paid in kind in England than in all Italy and France In France they have had Impropriations a long time we had none in England till Henry the Eighth 2. To make an Impropriation there was to be the Consent of the Incumbent the Patron and the King then 't was confirm'd by the Pope Without all this the Pope could make no Impropriation 3. Or what if the Pope gave the Tythes to any Man must they therefore be taken away If the Pope gives me a Jewel will you therefore take it away from me 4. Abraham paid Tythes to Melchizedeck what then 'T was very well done of him It does not follow therefore that I must pay Tythes no more than I am bound to imitate any other Action of Abraham's 5. 'T is ridiculous to say the Tythes are God's Part and therefore the Clergy must have them Why so they are if the Laymen has them 'T is as if one of my Lady Kent's Maids should be sweeping this Room and another of them should come and take away the Broom and tell for a Reason why she should part with it 'T is my Lady's Broom As if it were not my Lady's Broom which of them soever had it 6. They consulted in Oxford where they might find the best Argument for their Tythes setting aside the Jus Divinum they were advis'd to my History of Tythes a Book so much cry'd down by them formerly in which I dare boldly say there are more Arguments for them than are extant together any where Upon this one writ me word That my History of Tythes was now become like Pleus's Hasta to wound and to heal I told him in my Answer I thought I could fit him with a better Instance 'T was possible it might undergo the same Fate that Aristotle Avicen and Averroes did in France