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heaven_n	father_n	great_a	lord_n	5,746	5	3.6147	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77137	A defence and justification of ministers maintence by tythes. And of infant-baptism, humane learning, and the sword of the magistrate; which some Anabaptists falsely call four sandy pillars, and popish foundations of our ministry and churches. In which tythes are proved to be due by divine right to the ministers of the gospel. All common objections answered, and divers cases of conscience humbly proposed: with a light to clear them. / In a reply to a paper sent by some Anabaptists to Immanuel Bourne, late pastor of the church in Asheover in the county of Derby: now preacher to the congregation at Waltham in the county of Leicester. With a short answer to Anthony Peirson's great case of tythes, &c.	Bourne, Immanuel, 1590-1672.	1659 (1659)	Wing B3851; Thomason E1907_1	92,679	184

and Ambassadour of the Lord Jesus and your Honours Servant in Christ and for Christ Immanuel Bourne TO ALL THE Reverend Godly and Faithfull Ministers Ambassadours OF JESUS CHRIST in ENGLAND Whether moderate Presbyterians Independents or of different Judgments The Blessings of Truth Peace and Love with onenesse of Spirit and Protection in the Lord Jesus Reverend Fathers Brethren IT is a sacred and certain Truth witnessed by the Spirit of God in holy Scripture and manifested in the various turnings of the wheels of Gods Providence in all ages that the Lord Jehovah the Omnipotent all-sufficient and only wise God doth and will order all things for his own eternal Glory and the everlasting happiness of his Church and Children beloved in the Lord Jesus But yet the dispensations of God and the foot-steps of his infinite wisdom are somtimes so obscure and dark that our blind and weak eyes are not able to see the cloud of his Gracious protection walking with us by day nor his pillar of fire to give us light in the night So that a troubled and trembling soul is somtimes amazed and constrained to cry out with that great Apostle Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his waies past finding out And somtimes with the Prophet to reason the case with God in a time of trouble fear and danger O Lord how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear even cry out of violence and thou wilt not save Why dost thou shew me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance for spoyling and violence are before me and there are that raise up strife and contention It is apparent that since the fallen Angels left their first habitation and by the subtilty of the Serpent tempted and overcame our first Parents to break that first Covenant and to sin against God and lose that happy estate wherein they were created and since God was pleased to publish the second Covenant in that Gospel-promise the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head that old Serpent the Devil Satan and the seed of that Serpent the wicked of the world discovered at full that enmity that is in them against the seed of the woman the servants of the most high God the sons and daughters of the King of Glory in Christ the Redeemer The Lord hath prosecuted his design according to his eternal councel for the salvation of his people and to this end as he himself preached the Gospel at first and revealed his mind and will to our first Parents in Paradise so he constituted Christ his only begotten Son to be the Anointed the eternal High Priest and Prophet and King of his Church And this Prophetical Office as Christ did exercise and execute himself somtimes before and somtimes since his coming in the flesh so did he call and ordain his holy Prophets and Apostles part before and part after his resurrection yea after he ascended up on high and led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men he gave some to be Apostles and some Prophets and some Pastors and teachers for the work of the Ministry for the edification of the body of Christ untill we all come in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ and hath promised to be with them to the end of the world And for their comfortable maintenance and encouragement although the great God his Father Lord of Heaven and earth after he had created the world and gave to Adam and his posterity the Lordship and dominion over the creatures to hold upon his and their good behaviour of the Lord himself their Creator as chief Lord of all yet the Lord did never give all to Adam or to his posterity but hath reserved a special part to himself as he did the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Paradise this special part to be for his worship and service and the maintenance of his Ministers and Ambassadors to the end of the world as is fully proved to my understanding in this following Treatise But as God hath prosecuted his design to further the salvation of his people and maintenance of the Gospel and Gospel-Ministry so hath the Devil and his Angels and servants had their design to hinder the Lords great work by all subtill frauds and open hostility to their power the wicked to this end have laboured to get and keep in their hands Gods reserved part They robbed God of old before the coming of Christ and they have robbed God since and their plots and designs still are to rob the Lord Christ and his faithful Godly Ministers and Ambassadors to the utmost of their abilities both in these Nations and other Parts where the Gospel of Christ is or hath been preached It was the policy and practise of Julian that Apostate Emperour that he might more easily destroy the Gospel and Gospel-Ministry to destroy and take away their Maintenance And this certainly is and hath been the design of those who are enemies of us the Godly and Faithful Ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and under the name of Antichristian Ministers seek to destroy us and our Maintenance and perswade many godly people against us and labour to stir up the godly Magistrate yea the Parliaments and powers of the Nation to take away our Tithes and to allow us no setled Maintenance but that we should live of the Charity and almes of the people that we might be starved as anti-Christian Ministers as some of them have expressed themselves to me although it is evident none are more zealous and laborious to bring down the Kingdom of Antichrist and to set King Jesus upon his Throne than we are not by blood as some dream we would have it but by the powerful preaching of the Gospel of peace and our winning of souls to God not by blood I say for this is and hath been the nature and design and practise of Antichrist that whore of Babylon to be drunk with the blood of the Saints Martyrs of Jesus Christ fulfilling the Prophecy of our Saviour that the time should come that whosoever of the blind wicked world should kill his Ministers and Disciples should think they did God good service these things shall they do unto you saith Christ because they have not known the Father nor yet me This is that which divers seduced souls have lately discovered to be their desire and design not only that the faithful witnesses may prophesie in s●ckcloath by taking away their Maintenance but be slain lie dead and unburied in the streets to the rejoycing of the wicked damnable world But the Lord hath wonderfully preserved us to this day blessed be his Name The many Pamphlets lately written and printed against Tithes or any setled Maintenance to the Ministers of

weak in the Faith receive but not to doubtful Disputations Besides there are several Disputations in print already enough to satisfie Yet if you John Darker would write your Arguments drawn out of the holy Scriptures to prove what you affirmed yesterday as I apprehended you That the godly preaching Ministers in England are all Antichristian and our Reformed and Reforming Churches Babylon and to be departed from and our preaching not to be heard with your hand and the hand of your cheif Teacher I should God willing give you my Answer And to this I subscribed my name Immanuel B●urne For your wresting and misrepresenting my words and opprobrious terms you give me and false consequences you put upon me I have learned not to give reviling speeches for reviling But I may tell you That you raise a false position like a man of straw and then you will father it on me and fight against me for it when it is a Bastard of your own begetting I pardon this also The Anabaptists Answer Then you proceed in a magesterial way and with a high vapour But Sir say you we must let you understand that those foundation-Principles of the Church of God which we suppose you well know would have been the matter of our discourse hath Scripture as clear to prove them as the Sun at noon day without the help of your consequences or illustrations and you set down divers of your grounds or foundation-principles as that God made the Heaven and the earth Gen. 1.1 That all men are sinners Rom. 3.23 That God made men upright Eccles 7.29 That God sent his Son to save sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 The Resurrection from the dead Joh. 5.29 Mr. Bourns Reply For Reply These are plain Truths and full proof without consequence But these Truths are not in controversie between us But now you come to shuffle in matters of controversie amongst the rest like a man that mingles corrupt wares among good the more easily to sell them and deceive the people As it follows in your Answer The Anabaptists Answer If I would dispute say you that the subjects of baptism are men and women and Repentance and Faith go before to fit them for it it is clear without dubiousness Act. 8.12.37 and 2.38 And you further tell me The Ana ∣ baptists Grounds of Separa ∣ tion That to satisfie my desire to know the grounds of your Separation and why you look upon us as none of the Church of Christ or Ministers of the Gospel for which in the whole you give three Reasons First Reason 1 Because as you conceive we frame not our Church of right materials that is as you explain your self not of men and women of riper years converted but of Infant children who can make no profession of Faith or Repentance Secondly Reason 2 A second ground is Because as you dream we walk in parallel with those the Scripture speaketh of who make merchandise of the word of God for which you name divers places of Scripture Micah 3.11 Ezek. 22 26 c. Jer. 5.30 31. and 23.14 15. Phil. 3.18 All which you wrest and most falsly apply to the godly faithful Ministers of Christ in England which most truly may be applied to your selves as I have proved at full and made ready to have sent you though now I shall not trouble the Press with it being nothing but your fals Quaking scandal and the like to be retorted upon you which I conceive is unchristian like Reason 3 Your third Reason or Ground of Separation is Because as your opinion is our Church standeth upon these four sandy Pillars or Popish foundations Four sandy Pillars 1. Humane Learning 2. Say you Baptizing as you call it but Rantizing or rather cousening of Babes in their cradles take away that say you and you would have no Church 3. Your Tythes or forced Maintenance the wages of unrighteousness say you after which you all run astray take away that and preach who will 4. The Magistrates sword which the Priests have run to in many Generations take away that say you which hath ever been the fundamental of your livelihood and then you would be in danger of starving amongst them whom you call Christians Mr. Bour●● Reply Now I see friends you have changed your method for before your first ground was admission of Infants to be members by baptism of our Churches And in your four sandy pillars you put Humane Learning before Infant Baptism I shall in like manner take liberty to change your method and for my Reply begin first with that which is your third sandy Pillar or popish Foundation as you may please to term it and this is our Tythes or forced maintenance which you call the wages of unrighteousness Because it is so much opposed and spoken against by too many in these times who are not onely adversaries to Ministers Maintenance by Tythes but to the Ministery it self First let us look into the Book of God even from the Creation read Genes ch 1. 2. and you shall find That howsoever the Lord the Creator of heaven and earth the chief Lord of all the world did and hath entrusted Adam and Eve and their sons and daughters with the keeping and possession of inferior creatures and dominion over them and with the fruits of the earth and the increase thereof yet the Lord hath reserved a twofold right yet in the creature First general over all the world and the kingdoms of the earth and goods therein to dispose of them when and where and to whom he pleaseth This the Scripture witnesseth at full He gave the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham Gen. 15.18 And Hanna tells us that the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich he bringeth low and lifteth up 1 Sam. 27.8 And the Psalmist tels us The earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof Psal 24.1 So the Psalmist again bringeth in God himself speaking All the beasts of the forrest are mine and so are the cattel upon a thousand hills and if I were hungry I would not tell thee for the world is mine and the fulness thereof as is expressed Psal 50.10 12. And the word of the Lord to Jeremiah from the Lord Thus shall ye say I have made the heaven and the earth the man and the beast that are upon the ground by my great power and by my outstretched arm and have given it to whomsoever it seemed meet unto me And now I have given all these lands into the hands of the king of Babylon my servant as you may find recorded Jer. 27.5 6. This Daniel declares in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the high tree in the midst of the earth which was decreed to be cut down The decree was for bringing down Nebuchadnezzar himself till he did know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will Witness Daniel ch 4.25 Thus hath God a general right over all the world and

by the Apostle to the Hebrews chap. 7. This Melchisedec was King of Salem Priest of the most high God who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings and blessed him to whom also Abraham gave the Tenth of all And why the Tenth part Question and not the Seventh or Eighth part or the Twentieth or Thirtieth part wherefore did Abraham give the Tenth part of all to Melchisedec Answer Vnde enim homo re●um juarum decimam potius quam nonam vel octavam vel aliam quamque partem offerendam esse scire potuisset nisi à Deo ●octus suisset From the beginning men were taught by God to pay Tythes as Hugo de Sancto victorie Erudii Theol. de Saer lib. 1. par 12. cap. 4. I answer Certainly Abraham did know God's will what was Gods part either by the Law of Nature or the positive Law of God taught him from his Ancestors from the Patriarks Noah or Shem or some other or they or their Father had received from Adam and Adam from God and therefore Abraham gave to Melchisedec the Priest of the most high God the Tenth part and neither more nor less this was acceptable to God and this was received of Melchisedec as the Lords portion no doubt and not a will worship of Abraham Again not onely Abraham but Jacob the Grandchild of Abraham and Father of Levi before Levi was born or that solemn gift of Tythes by the Lord to the Tribe of Levi he followeth the steps of his Grandfather Abraham and freely declares what was and is the Lords part or portion for maintenance of his Service and Servants in their Ministerial Office Gen. 28.12 13 14 c. This he doth upon that vision or apparition of Christ to Jacob in that Dream of the Ladder whose top did reach to Heaven and the Angels of God ascending and descending Gen. 28. and Jehovah promising blessings to Jacob upon which when he awaked he was taken with an awful reverence of the Maiesty of God and his presence there and maketh that solemn vow to God That the Lord should be his God that he would worship God in that place and if God should bless him c. and give him but bread to eat and rayment to put on of all that God should give him he should give the Tenth to God This certainly was no rash vow of Jacob no Wil-worship nothing but what h● did know to be his duty and that which God would accept therefore he voweth not the eight part nor the twelfth nor the twentieth but the Tenth And of all that thou shalt give me I will give the Tenth to thee Thus you have two witnesses from the sons of Noah in the posterity of Shem where the true Religion was chiefly preserved and the Church planted and these recorded in the written word of God the sacred Scriptures and this before the Levitical Law But this is not all for we finde the same witnessed in the posterity of other the sons of Noah of which though many of them lost the true knowledge of the true God and the right manner of giving all the Honor and Service to God yet they retained some parts of Worship due to God which they gave to their false Gods when they were ignorant of the true God amongst the rest that spark of light of the Law of Nature or of the positive Law of God which they had taught them by their great Grandfather Noah or some from him to pay as a due the Tenth or Tythe to God Thus we read Dydimus old Grammarian That it was a Greek custom to consecrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tythes of their abundance to the gods And Pisistratus that Tyrant of Athens writeth to Solon De Lacr●● in vita Solonis that all the Athenians do separte the Tythe of their fruits not to be spent for our use saith he but for publick sacrifice Herodot in Clio. c. And King Cyrus his Soldiers by the advise of Craesus were staid from spoiling the Lydians City That the Tythes might first be paid to Jupiter And as among the Greeks Festus Decima quaeque veteres Diis s●is offerebant Macr●bius out of Varro Plut●●ucul so among the Latines the Antients did use to offer all their ●ythes to the gods And another witnesseth that the Antients were wont to give the Tenth to Hercules And it was a common custom amongst the Romans It is reported of Lucullus That he grew rich because he observed the use of paying Tythes to Hercules Zenoph●n witnesses that others used to pay Tythes to Apollo Yea this custom was not onely used amongst the Civil Nations of the Gentiles Plin. hist lib. 12. cap. 14.19 but even amongst the ruder also Plinie writing of the Sabaeans and Aethiopians saith That in the Spices of which those Countries yield abundance the Merchants may not meddle with any before the Priests have laid out the Tenth to their gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A.R. his view of all Religions I have read that in the old Arabians Religion the custom of the Nabathaeans was to pay Tythes of their Frankincense to their god Sabis and the Priests are not to take it by weight but by measure and they are tied by their Dicipline not to gather Cynamon till they first sacrifice then they divide it with a consecrated Spear and assign to that God they worship his portion and afterwards they take their own parts to themselves Plut in the life of Camillus And Plutarch relates of Camillus that Roman Dictator and valiant Souldier who by some was called the Sword of Rome when he went to War as Captain General of the Roman Army against the famous City of the Vejans which some take to be the Venetians before the Roman Emperors Dr Heylins Geograph and divers hundreds of years before the birth of Christ he vowed that if he won the City he would offer the tenth part of the Spoils unto the gods But after the Victory he did either forget his vow or was unwilling to trouble the City or suffered the Soldiers to take the Spoils without reserving the Tythes of all as he had vowed But after when upon some occasions the Romans thought the Divine Powers were offended though they did not know for what and that Camillus was discharged of his charge of being General He acqainted the Senators with his vow upon which they made an order That every man should upon oath present the tenth part of all his gains in that War that so it might be given to the gods But that being found difficult they agreed That a massie cup of gold should be made and sent to the Temple of Apollo at Delphos whom they esteemed a chief amongst the gods in lieu or exchange of the Tythes Yea and the Ladies and rich women were so zealous to promote this gift that they gave their gold and jewels to make it more rich and as they