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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90205	An indictment against tythes: or, Tythes no wages for Gospel-ministers: wherein is declared, I. The time when tythes were first given in England. II. By whom, and by whose authority and power tythes were first by a law established in England. III. To whom, and to what end and purpose tythes were first given, and after continued in England. IV. Ministers pretending a threefold right to tythes, 1. By donation. 2. By the laws of the nation. And 3. By the Law of God; examined and confuted ... To which are added, certain reasons taken out of Doctor Burgess his Case, concerning the buying of bishops lands, which are as full and directly against tythes, as to what he applied them. Likewise a query to William Prynne. By John Canne. By John Osborne, a lover of the truth as it is in Jesus.	Osborne, John, lover of the truth as it is in Jesus.; Canne, John, d. 1667?	1659 (1659)	Wing O525; Thomason E989_28; ESTC R203025	30,438	45

is to be feared under the sprinkling of a Vial. He hath had something of the mark of the Beast so long upon him as no wonder if a noysome and Grievous Sore be upon him for it Neither do I expect under the pain and torment he is but he will more and more blaspheme the name of God his Tabernacle them that dwell in heaven 4. And to observe here the wise mans counsel Pro. 26. 4 5. thus far I take notice of the man seeing he will be doing and by the ten idle Queries which he put forth the other day it is apparent his wit lies not that way I will put this Question to him Suppose a man hath a fair pool of water in his ground the which in time becomes corrupted Weeds grow Mud increaseth and Frogs creep into it Now to help this the Owner cuts a new channel and draws the Water out to another place and leaves the filth and corruption behinde The Question is and the Case is put to Will. Prynne in the behalf of the Frogs Whether the water be the Frogs because the pit is theirs in which the waters formerly stood and whether the Frogs have cause to croak foam as if they had wrong done them or condemn those Fishes for Hereticks Sectaries and Schismaticks which refuse the stinking Mud for the other Christal Stream This pit we will take to be the old Form of Government by King Lords and House of Commons the Weeds and Mud Tyranny and Idolatry of all sorts and sizes the Frogs Archbishops Bishops and the whole Hierarchie down to the Parish-Clerk not excluding the Lawyers the Waters the just Rights and Liberties of the People in things Civil and Ecclesiastical the Owner the People in their Representatives Now something is already done in cutting a new channel and drawing the Waters to another place to wit a free Commonwealth and to leave the Weeds and Mud behinde And here is some work for William Prynne if he can leave his peevish passion and be sober a while to shew us what wrong the owner doth to these Frogs and why they must be Sectaries Anabaptists Jesuites c. that prefer the sweet and wholesome waters of Truth and Righteousness before the Weeds and Mud of Tyranny and Idolatry We will allow William Prynne the Pit and the Weeds and Mud But the water is the Owners of the ground And therefore if the Peoples Representatives shall go forward in bringing away all the good Water to this other place I mean a Commonwealth and leave the Weeds and Mud to the Frogs in the Pit there are not a few will justifie their doing against all that William Prynne can say for the Pit the Weeds Mud and Frogs For conclusion Great is the difference among us about the Good Old Cause one saith it is thus and another takes it otherwise Now the way to be patient quiet contented it is to take notice that the Lord is coming forth to decide the controversie And it will not be long I am strongly perswaded but he will make it clear and certain that he may run that readeth whether the Case which William Prynne hath stated be the Good Old Cause or what others otherwise have asserted It was the Lord who by a wonderful appearing decided the Controversie between Moses and the Magicians so afterwards between Elias and the Priests of Baal I am apt to think the present difference about the Good Old Cause will not be decided but by some visible and eminent hand of God There have been many Appeals especially of late put up to God about it and I am waiting and many more by faith and prayer for an answer from Heaven that is shortly to see shame and final confusion upon whatsoever is not the Good Old Cause but cried up by corrupt men for self-interest and what is the Good Cause indeed to be glorious and alone exalted Be silent O all flesh before the Lord for he is raised out of his holy habitation Zech. 2. 13. From my house without Bishopsgate at the three Stills the 13th of the 5th month 1659. John Canne AN INDICTMENT Against TYTHES THe consideration of the great oppression that is now exercised in this land by imposing upon men that intolerable burthen of Tythes wich lieth heavy upon and is grievous to the people of this Nation in general and more particularly to the Husbandmen and Farmers of Lands who after great labor and charges in plowing and ordering their Land and sowing their Seed and maintaining their Family and Cattel and payment of Rents and other Charges and Taxes imposed upon them wait patiently for a plentifull Harvest to countervail their pains and charges but then cometh a Tythe taker with his Cart and sweepeth away in the name of a Tenth a fourth if not a third part of the Husbandmans profit But most especially this unlawfull payment of Tythes is most burthensome to the conscientious and faithfull Servants of Jesus Christ who desire to obey him and his Commandments These I say and such like considerations have incited me to inquire seriously and to search out diligently First the time 1. The time when 2. By whom 3. To whom and to what end when Tythes were first given in England Secondly by whom and by whose Authority a Law for payment of Tythes was first established and after confirmed And thirdly to whom and for what end and purpose Tythes have been formerly and yet are paid in England And of these I shall speak briefly in order as I have laid them down And first to the time when Tythes were first given 1. The time in England I finde it affirmed by several Authors that in the first Three hundred years after Christ no Tythes were paid in England but the Priests in those times were maintained by the free benevolence and contribution of the people as Tertullian Origen and Cyprian do testifie And in the next Three hundred years in the time of the Danes and Saxons Heathenism and Paganism did totally overspread this Land until about the year of our Lord Six hundred when Gegory the great sent over Augustine the Monk into England assisted with forty Preachers to convert the Saxons from Paganism to Popery which was effected in the time of Ethelbert the first Christian King of Kent who being converted was afterward an instrument for the conversion of his Nation the Saxons This Ethelbert is reported to have been very bountifull to the said Austine the Monk and gave him the Lordship and Royalty of his chief City Canterbury but that he gave him any Tythes or ever commanded Tythes to be paid to him or to any other or made any Law for payment of Tythes it doth not appear to me by any History Nor can it be proved that any Law was made for payment of Tythes in England until the year of our Lord 786. And then in the time of Off a King of Mercia which was in 2. By whom the time

onely in the time of the Levitical Law in the Land of Canaan and not elsewhere and by the Jews onely but never by the Gentiles But it is objected by the pleaders for Tythes in these Objection our dayes That Tythes are due to the Receivers thereof by a threefold Right First by ancient donation thereof to the Church for maintenance of Christianity Four hundred years 1. Right before the Donation in times of Popery but they prove it not Secondly by the Law of the Land And thirdly by the Law 2. Right of God all which I shall by Gods assistance seriously examine and according to my best understanding give a brief 3. Right and satisfactory Answer thereunto in order as they are propounded To the first viz. Donation I shall not need to make Answer any long answer because I have formerly proved first the time when and by whom Tythes were first given in England Secondly By whom and by whose authority they were by a Law first established And thirdly To whom and to what end and purpose Tythes were first given in England and since continued If they were first given to the Church for maintenance of Christianity as is by some pretended Four hundred years before the time of Popery Then I desire to know who were the first Donors of them and to what Church they were dedicated whether to the Church of Christ or to some Idol-Temple For I finde it reported by Sir Henry Spelman that the Heathens and Pagans before the conversion of the Saxons in England to Christianity gave In his larger work of Tythes Tythes to their Idol-Gods and Goddesses as the Arabians to their God Sabin the Siphnians to their God at Delphos the Romans to Hercules the Ephesians to Diana and others to Jupiter and Apollo c. So that if any man will boast of the Antiquity of Tythes to have been Four hundred years before the time of Offa then he must claim them by an Heathenish Donation for I am confident that there was no such donation in England until the year of our Lord 786. For in the Primitive times for Three hundred years after Christ no Tythes were paid in England as I have already proved although there were many Christians then in England and many Churches gathered in Asia and elsewhere And whereas it is alledged that Constantine the great who was the first Christian Emperour upon whose Donation some do much rely I cannot finde that he did ever command Tythes to be paid in any place or to any persons But I do read in the History of his life that he bestowed Houses Lands large favours and Possessions upon Bishops and Priests and large gifts and favours upon Christian people but no Tythes mentioned amongst all those gifts and favours And Sabellicus who was himself a Roman questioneth the truth of those large Donations Yet doubtless his bounty was so great to the Bishops and Priests of those times that thereby they became proud covetous and contentious the seeds whereof were so deep sown that they are not yet totally eradicated To the second right as some call it which say Answer to the second Right they is by the Laws of the Land I answer That I endeavour not to destroy but to maintain the Laws of the Land which are consonant to and grounded upon the Laws of God and desire that they may be rightly expounded and righteous judgement given upon them yea even those which are thought to make most for payment of Tythes I begin with the Statute of the 27 year of H. 8. whereby 1. Law for Tythes Ministers are enabled to sue for Tythes but where In the Ecclesiastical Court onely and not elsewhere For before that time I find no Law extant to compel men to pay Tythes or to be sued at Law for non-payment of them But onely a decretal Epistle of Pope Innocent the third which saith Sir Edward Cook was no binding Law Also Instit part 2. in the Two and thirtieth year of Hen. 8. another Act of Parliament was made especially for the benefit of Impropriators 2. Law for Tythes who before that time had no power given them to recover Tythes but in that Act is a special Proviso That no person Ecclesiastical or temporal shall sue for any Tythes in any temporal Court but onely in the Ecclesiastical Court Thirdly in the second year of Edward 6. another 2. Law for Tythes Act of Parliament was made whereby the two former Acts of the twenty seven and thirty two of Hen. 8. and every Article and Branch therein contained are ratified and confirmed but upon serious consideration of the several parts of this Act it will appear that it giveth no power to sue for Tythes at the Common-Law nor in any Court of Equity For in the first branch thereof which is a very imperfect one it is said that every Subject of the King 1. Imperfect shall set out and pay his predial Tythes and that no person shall carry away any such Tythes before he hath set out for the Tythes thereof the Tenth part of the same or agreed with the Proprietor c. upon pain of forfeiture of the treble value c. So that it appeareth to me that the forfeiture given by this Act is not the treble value of the Tenth part of all a mans Corn and Hay but a treble value of a Tenth part of the Tenth of Corn and Hay Secondly it is not therein declared who shall have 2. Imperfect sue for and recover that forfeiture of treble value And no private person can claim a forfeiture given by any penal Law except it be given him in express terms by the same Law Therefore I do conceive that the forfeiture if there be any such given by the first branch of this Act ought to be recovered and imployed to the use of the chief Magistrate or of the Common-wealth and not of any private or particular person whosoever Thirdly it is not thereby appointed how or where the said penalty shall be recovered as in all other penal 2. Imperfect Acts it is declared That the forfeture shall be either to the King solely or to the King and Informer or to the Party grieved to be recovered in some Court of Record by Action of debt bill plaint or information But there is no such limitation in that Branch of that Statute Therefore I do call it an imperfect branch because in two other branches of the same Statute of 2 Edw. 6. it is enacted and declared That no person shall be convented or sued for any Tythes before any other judge then Ecclesiastical And further in a latter branch of the same Act power is given to sue at the Common-Law for the penalty forfeited for not delivering in a Copy of the Libel and suggestion whereupon a Prohibition is granted And for these considerations and some other Reasons following I am perswaded that the makers of that

the Lord was their portion Thirdly the poor the widow and the fatherless were to Reason 3. partake of the Tythes with them But first the Ministers of England are not the hundredth 1. part of the people of England Secondly They or most of them have besides their 2. Tythes Glebe-lands and some of them a competent estate in temporal fee-simple-Lands and some of them have a good portion of goods and moneys and some other profitable wayes to gain by Thirdly Few of them feed the hungry cloath the naked 3. relieve the poor widows and Orphans as they ought to do And therefore how dare they pretend Scripture Equity or Reason for payment of Tythes to them when God hath left no such Rule upon Record in any part of the New-Testament Nor did the Lord ever challenge Tythes of the Gentles as he did of the Jews and God is now so far from being honoured by payment of Tythes as that he is highly dishonoured thereby and Jesus Christ denied to be come in the flesh and the Levitical Priesthood seemingly upholden and maintained But it is further asserted by the same Doctor that Objection Christ chalengeth Tythes as a Right and Due belonging to himself and that he hath given them to the Ministers of the Gospel for their maintenance and therefore are to be paid to the Ministers of England at this day To this I answer That when he or any other man shall Answer prove this assertion by a positive text of Scripture in the New Testament then shall I be silent and oppose him no more But I fear that this will not content him because he still strongly endeavoureth to prove his Scriptural right as he calleth it 1 Cor. 9. 14. by multiplying a great sound of words but not according to the forme of sound words ten times repeating that pregnant place as he calleth it 1 Cor. 9. 14. Even so hath the Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel And this he would have to be an Ordinance of God for Ministers maintenance by Tythes at this day Even so as the Levitical Priests were maintained by Tythes in the time of the Law I deny not that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel but it must be in such a way and by such means as Christ hath appointed them that is as the Ministers of the Gospel lived in the Primitive times by the benevolence and free gift of People and not by Tythes For Christ and his Apostles never had any Tythes or great Parsonages as the Ministers of England have although they preached the Gospel diligently from house to house and from Country to Country Our Saviour saith Luk. 9. 58. Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head He had not a great house to dwell in nor worldly rich Revenues to maintain him though he was Lord of all he had not so much money as would pay custom for himself and Peter until it was taken out of the fishes mouth Matth. 16. 27. And he saith That the Disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord. Yet many of the Ministers Matth. 10. 24. of England who stile themselves the servants of Christ strive for great livings fair houses dainty fare and the pomp and pleasure of this world rather then to be rich in good works But to answer directly to his Even so First I say that the Apostles meaning in that place 1 Cor 9. 14. is either wholly mistaken or unjustly wrested by the Doctor to make good his assertion for there is not one word of Tythes for Ministers maintenance in all that Chapter True it is that the Apostle pleads there for a competent maintenance for the Ministers of the Gospel but not by Tythes as the Doctor would have it God himself appointed that the Ministers that served at the Altar should partake with the Altar and that they should receive Tythes and such part of the Sacrifices as was not consumed by fire But the Office of the Priests and Levites being abolished and the Law for Tythes abrogated and no new donation of the like maintenance made by Christ to the Ministers of the Gospel by what right can the Ministers of England now claim Tythes And further to his Even so which he urgeth so often I answer that I conceive he buildeth but upon a sandy foundation for if he well considereth the Greek he shall finde it to be there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in our English Translations is rendred And so or So also and the word Even is found onely in the last translation of the Bible But secondly suppose that the Original may bear that Translation Even so yet that will not prove that it is a Divine Ordinance enjoyning men to pay Tythes to the Ministers of England For I do not finde in any part of the New Testament that God complaineth against Christians for robbing him of his honor Christ of his homage Ministers of their maintenance and the People of the means of Salvation because they pay not Tythes But sure I am that many Ministers of England rob God of his honour by their licentious conversation Christ of his homage See Heb. 2. 9. by not acknowledging him to have died for all men and men of their goods by unjustly exacting Tythes to 1 John 2. 2. spend upon their own lusts So that it may be justly said that the taking of Tythes and not the with-holding of Tythes ariseth from loose principles and argueth that such as take Tythes for preaching without any Law of God to warrant them are not the true Ministers of Jesus Christ For there is no such agreement between the Old and New Testament in point of Tythes as the Doctor would have men to believe Therefore I leave it to the judgement of wise conscientious men to judge whether I or the Doctor do erre in this point from the truth of the Scripture Some other Arguments have been also drawn from the Scriptures by others defenders of Tythes but I shall wave them at present and follow the Doctor a little further who in the next place goeth about to maintain the lawfulness of Tythes for Ministers maintenance by a Catholick Custom confirmed by Antiquity and Universality two strong props or pillars whereupon the Popish Religion Idolatry and will-worship is upholden but I finde no such custom in the Church of Christ in the first Six hundred years after Christ as it is affirmed by some Historians By others Eight hundred fifty five years by others Nine hundred and by others not until the Council of Lateran Anno 1215. or as some others do affirm that in or about the year of our Lord One thousand two hundred a decretal Epistle by Pope Innocent the third dated at Lateran was directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Tythes should be paid to

by whose counsel King Henry the eighth dissolved the Abbies Monasteries Nunneries and all those habitations of an idle luxurious and adulterous people and took away all their Lands Tythes and great Revenues and converted them to temporal and civil uses to the benefit of his Subjects as may be seen at large in Fox his History of the Martyrs whereunto I refer the Reader because I intend brevity and not to trouble you with a tedious Discourse Therefore having briefly shewed how that threefold cord so much boasted of by the National Ministers of England is utterly broken in pieces Tythes having no good foundation either by donation or by the Law of God or of men I shall now cease to proceed any further in the prosecution of this point at this time but shall leave it to the judgement of all understanding men who are not byassed by prejudice nor blinded by covetousness And if I have herein declared any thing contrary to the truth of the Scriptures I desire to be better informed and my error to be manifested unto me that I may repent of it and not persist in it For humanum est errare belluinum perseverare It is incident to humane nature to erre but it is a beastly property pertinaciously to go on and to persevere in an Error But if I have done nothing herein but what I am warranted to do by the Holy Scripture Then I desire all men as they desire the glory of God and their own good to refrain from giving or taking of Tythes and from encouraging any man to take Tythes as wages for preaching the Gospel A Postscript THere being some room left I thought good to fill it up with an Argument taken from the Authors Major and Doctor Burges's Minor And being put together shall leave it to the judicious and impartial Reader to judge whether from both he may not rationally conclude That Tythes are unlawful The Authour of this Treatise hath proved as cleer as the sun at noon day That Tythes as they are now required were first dedicated upon false grounds and for superstitious and base ends most derogatory to God and Christ and meerly to maintain and countenance a cursed Brood of Vipers in their lyes and beastly vanities So He. Doctor Burgess comes in with the other part and with great confidence assarts it That Things not appointed by God from the beginning but His Case concering the buying of Bishops Lands c. pag. 30 31. dedicated to him without his order and allowance is a laying aside and a rejecting the Commandment of God and making the Word of God of none effect Mark 7. 8 9 13. Yea he saith further and let all Tythe-taking Priests note his words If things are dedicated upon a false ground SUCH A DEDICATION IS NO WHIT BETTER THEN THE HIRE OF A WHORE OR THE PRICE OF A DOG that is then Money gotten by whoredom and the sale of a dog brought into the house of the Lord and dedicated to him both which he abhorreth and he looks no otherwise upon them then as the offering of swines blood the cutting off of a dogs neck or the blessing of an Idol And when it can be proved saith he that God accepted of such offering in the time of the Law then also it may be granted that he will own such MONGREL DED'CATIONS in the dayes of the Gospel Again It is apparent saith he that those gifts to Bishops were no longer to be continued then the Function of those to whom they were given remained Datur Beneficium propter Officium Office and Benefice are Relatives like twins they live and die together Judge Reader whether the Doctor be not entangled in his own words according to that in the Poet Non est Lex justior ulla Quam necis artifices arte perire sua For if this be true which he saith then none but Mass-mongers ought to receive Tythes For no man I think hath the face to deny it but Tythes came first up in England for Masses to be sung or said for quick and dead It was not given as maintenance to a Gospel-Minister And therefore by the Doctors own confession Tythes were no longer to be continued then the Function of those to whom they were given did remain So that if the Doctor deny the Function of a Mass Priest he must if true to his own principle deny taking of Tythes for like twins they live and die together A little more out of the Doctor Things once given to God by his command warrant or approbation may not be al●●ned to other uses whilest the use of Gods appointment doth continue but not all that men pretend or say they give to God As in persons so in things such onely as the Lord chuseth or accepteth and none else are holy Num. 16. 7. let men say or thinke what they will to the contrary Here I agree with the Doctor in both points 1. That things dedicated to God by his own order and allowance ought to stand whilst the use of Gods appointment doth continue So likewise things not appointed by God at first but dedicated to him upon false grounds and superstitious ends ought to be aliened neither is it any sin or sacriledge to buy or sell them But such are Tythes as hath been proved But the Doctor possibly will say He wrote in the defence of the lawfulness of buying Bishops Lands not intending Tythes It is true he did so and tells us That Tythes are still due by divine right to Christ But the man is again snared in his own words and may well cry out Heu patior telis vulnera facta meis The Argument which he brings to prove it lawful that Bishops Lands may be aliened diverted or purchased to common use notwithstanding their first dedication is Because there is no warrant in Scripture for the giving of Lands to Bishops nor arguments to prove Christs acceptance of them as holy to the Lord There is no word saith he in the new testament that requireth or countenanceth such endowments Ergo. There are six particulars which he hath for Tythes to prove them Jure divino and are still due as he saith by divine right unto Christ But I desire all men in all places to take notice that there is not one word in any of his six particulars which proves Tythes to be Gods Ordinance for the maintenance of Evangelical Ministers I say again and will stand by it He shews us not one Scripture in the New Testament that ever the Lord required Tythes under the Gospel So that it is apparent enough he hath as little to say for Tythes from the Scripture as for the Bishops Lands and I am perswaded should these Tythes be aliened diverted or purchased for common use he and others who are now great Champions for them would face about and undertake that there is no more sacriledge or sin to buy and sell the Tythes of the nation then Bishops Lands And I have good ground for what I say for 1. what he waites against the Bishops for the alienation of their Lands and Revenues is as full and direct against the Tythes of the Clergy that they should be taken away Neither 2. can he justifie by Scripture his bold Assertion viz. That Tythes are the proper maintenance set apart for the Ministers of the Gospel and cannot be alienated without sacriledge I say he can no more make this good by the word of God then the Bishops could prove the buying or selling of their Lands to be sacrilege I have onely one thing to add and it is Humbly to advise all such as shall read the present Controversie concerning Tythes to take heed they are not abused For those who commonly plead for them will deceive the Reader unlesshe do observe their craft by their extravagant and impertinent discourses using many words but nothing to the Question But no man is more wild and rangeth from the Case rightly stated then Will. Prynne We read of one Doria the Admiral of Genoa being to fight at sea against the Saracens he fetcht his course so far about to gain the winde that he could never come to strike a blow before the battle was ended Their manner is and here lies Will. Prynn's proper gift unless rayling to blot much paper with proving what was never questioned we have sometimes a hundred Scriptures quoted to prove Tythes lawful under the Law another while as many old Statutes made by popish Princes and Parliaments commanding Tythes Then the practice of Heathens and Pagans are cited paying Tythes to their Priests But what is all this to the matter for what purpose and end are these things mentioned if not to beguile an ignorant Reader Ego de Alliis loquor tu responderes de Cepis They know well enough or ate very ignorant about the question of Tithes what they spend most of their breath for is not denyed by their Opposites But the Case stated is principally thus And I shall conclude with the Argument Things not appointed by God but dedicated to him without his order and allowance and upon a false ground and for idolatrous and superstitious ends as unlawful and sinful are to be removed So Doctor Burgess But Tythes under the New Testament were never appointed of God but dedicated to him without his order and allowance upon false grounds and for Idolatrous and superstitious ends So the Author Therefore Tythes as unlawful and sinful are to be taken away FINIS

of the Heptarchy there was a great Council holden in Mercia by two Legats sent from Pope Hadrian the first wherein as it 's reported Tythes were first established So that the first Law for payment of Tythes came from the Pope and decreed onely by his Agents in the Kingdom of Mercia being but a seventh part of England and afterwards as Popery increased so Tythes also were established in other parts of England by the several Kings thereof who out of an ignorant superstitious zeal being thereunto perswaded by the Pope and his Agents did many things contrary to the Law of God And this leads me to my third particular viz. to whom and to what end and purpose Tythes were formerly given and yet are paid in England It is reported that the foresaid Offa King of Mercia 3. To what end was a man of a high stomack and stoutness endeavouring by wars and bloodshed to enlarge his own Kingdom and after many conquests making Egfryd his Son a King with him in great devotion went to Rome where with the like zeal and example of Inas the West-Saxon King he made his kingdom subject to a Tribute then called Peter-pence afterwards Rome-scot besides other rich gifts that he gave to Pope Hadrian for canonizing Albane a Saint And returning home again about the year of our Lord 795. in honour of the Saint and pretending repentance for his sins built a Magnifick Monastery over against Verolanium indowing it with Lands and rich Revenues for maintenance of one hundred Monks Also in testimony of his repentance for the blood he had spilt and the sins he had committed he gave the tenth part of all his own goods to the Churchmen and to the poor hoping thereby to expiate his sins and to merit Salvation The next in order was Ethelwolph the nineteenth King of the Ethelwolph West-Saxons who in his youth was committed to the care of Helmestan Bishop of Winchester and by him to Swithun a famous learned Monk of that time took such a liking to the quiet and solitary life onely enjoyed by men of Religion that he undertook the Monkish vow and profession and was made Deacon and afterwards elected Bishop of Winchester But the death of his father King Egbert immediately following by great intreaty of the Nobles and partly by constraint of the Clergy he was made King and was by the authority of Pope Gregory the fourth whose Creature he was in both Professions absolved and discharged of his vows In the nineteenth year of his Reign remembring his former Ecclesiastical Profession ordained That Tythes and Lands due to holy Church should be free from all Tributes or Regal Services And in great devotion went himself to Rome where he was honourably received and entertained the space of a whole year new built the English-School that Offa the Mercian King before had there founded confirming also his grant of Peter-pence and further covenanting to pay yearly Three hundred marks to Rome to be thus imployed One hundred to St. Peter's Church another hundred to St. Paul's Light and the third to the Pope It is also said that Athelstan King of the West-Saxons Ethelstan about the year of our Lord 924. to pacifie the Ghost of his murthered brother Edwin to whose death he is said to have consenced did not onely undergo seven years Penance but also built certain Monasteries and decreed that Tythes should be paid by himself his Bishops and Officers but not by all his Subjects hoping thereby to expiate his sins Such was the blindness and ignorance of men in those times being seduced and led away from the truth by the Pope and his ungodly Agents being perswaded in their hearts that the Pope had power to pardon all their sins were they never so great and hainous Edgar about the year of our Lord 959 is said to Edgar have confirmed the payment of Tythes upon as bad a ground as Athelstan did This Edgar was a man of a vicious life favourable to the Monks he displaced the married Priests and brought in Monks of single life to possesse their places He built Forty seven some say and repaired divers Monasteries and Nunneries he was cruel to Citizens and a deflowrer of Maidens The first act was committed against the Virgin Wolfhild a sacred Nun the second offence was against the virgin Ethelfleda another of his lascivious acts was joyned with the blood of Earl Ethelwold that he might enjoy Elfrida his wife And as one saith For the most part such seed-plots were ever sown in the furrows of blood as plainly appears in these and divers other examples Canutus also the first Danish King who being guilty of Canutus the blood of Edward and Edmund sons of Ironside and Heirs to the Crown about the year 1016. confirmed Tythes built the Abby of St Bennet in Norfolk and in Suffolk he with great devotion built and endowed the Monastery of St Edmund which Saint he most dreadfully feared for the seeming Ghost of him often affrighted him for which cause as also to expiate the sins of his Father he confirmed Tythes c. Unto such strange illusions were the Princes then led by the blinde Guides that ever made gain of their devotions Many other such like examples I might produce but the few before mentioned may suffice to shew First When 1. The time when Tythes were first given in England Secondly By whom and whose authority the first Law for payment of Tythes in 1. By whom England was made And thirdly To whom and to what end and purpose Tythes were first paid in England not to Ministers 3. To what end of Christ to preach the Gospel but to Antichristian Idolaters and to a wicked idolatrous superstitious end viz. for satisfaction of the sins of the Donor to maintain a popish idle sottish Clergy to say and sing mass to pray for the souls of the Donors their wives and children living and dead And as at the first Tythes were given to Mass-Priests to read and sing the Latine-Mass So they have for many years been since continued for reading the English-Mass the book of Common-Prayer as may plainly be made to appear by the Statutes of the second year of Edward 6. and the Statute of the first of Eliz. and no Law extant for payment of Tythes to Ministers for preaching the Gospel For although heretofore in the time of the Bishops a Minister preached never so often yet if he refused to read the Book of the Common-Prayer he was by the Law to be deprived of his spiritual promotions Seeing then that Tythes were first established and since continued upon so evil and sandy foundation and to wicked ends Therefore they ought utterly to be abolished and rooted out of this and all other Christian Common-wealths as popish idolatrous superstitious and derogatory to the worship and service of God because God never commanded that Tythes should be paid to any man but to the Priests and Levites