effect ensued Then brought all Iudah the Tithes of the Corn and the new Wine and the Oyle unto the Treasurers c. And Nehemiah was so far from deeming this Injustice or Oppression as some now malitiously term it that he prayes Remember me O my God concerning this and wipe not out my good Deeds that I have done for the House of my God and for the offices thereof Neh. 13. 10 to 15. From which President Nicholas Hemingius a far better Divine and Scholar than John Canne and all his Associates against Tithes thus resolves in his Commentary on 1 Thess 5. 1â— 1â— Therefore the Godly are to be admonished That by Divine Right they owe Stipends unto the Ministers of the Church But that nothing may be here neglected to the dammage of the Ministry This care belongs to the Superious For if Kings be nursing Fathers to the Church as Isaiah admonisheâ—b Possunt et debent jure divino ministris Ecclesiae stipendia ordinare they may and ought by Divine Right or Gods Law to ordain Stipends to the Ministers of the Church by the example of the most godly King Hezâ—chiah 2 Chron. 31. That they may wholly addict themselves to the Law of God And if the people detain these Salaries and setled Dues from them they may enforce them by Fines penalties and Actions to pay them 3ly If these Examples prevail not we have the President of a zealous Heathen Prince who shall rise up in judgement against many pretended Magistrates resusing to assist complaining Ministers to recover their just Tithâ—s and Dues from their refractory ingrate people to wit King â—â—taxerxes who making a Decree for furnishing Ezra the Priest with whatsoever he should require for the maintenance of Gods worship and House Ezra 7. â—1 c. concludes it thus v. 26. And whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King which confirm our Ministers Tithes and Dues Let Iudgement be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or unto Banishment or to Confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment And lest any should deem this a Tyrannical Oppressing Edict Ezra himself subjoyns in the very next words v. 27. Blessed be the Lord of our Fathers who hath put such a thing as this is in the Kings heart Which Law if now put into due execution would send Canne and most of his Confederates here packing back again to Amsterdam or some Gibbet or Prison and strip them of the Goods they have got by the warres and troubles of the time 4ly We have King Darius his Decree for repairing Gods House and furnishing the Priests there with all necessaries they required which thus concluces with a most severe penaltie against the wilfull Disobeyers of it Ezra 6. 11. Also I have made a Decree That whosoever shall alter this word Let Timber be pulled down from his House and being set up Let him be hanged thereon and his House be made a Dunghill for this How many nâ—w 〈◊〉 should we now have throughout England and how many new purchased Houses by those who had noâ—e of late would be made Dungheaps if this rigid Law were now put in â—â—e Which may stop the clamorous months of such who cry out against Laws and Ordinances for Tithes prescribing more moderate penalties Object But all this is but Old Testament will many now object what can you allege for your Propositions â—â—â—â—f out of the Gospel Answ To stop their mouths I answer 1. That the Gospel expresly commands all living under it To render to all their Dues Therefore to Ministers to whom I have proved Tithes and other setled maintenance to be a just Due and Debt to owe nothing to any Man Rom. 13. 7 8. Therefore not to Ministers But what if bold atheistical obstinate or covetous Wretches will not pay these Dues to their Ministers doth the Gospel allow Magistrates and higher Powers to compel them to it Yes in the very antecedent words v. 4 5. If tâ—ou do that which is evil as the defrauding denying detaining of the Ministers as well as the Magistrates or any others Due Debts and Salaries is a doing of evil prohibited by the forecited words and many other Texts elsewhere insisted on be afraid for â—e beareth not the Sword in vain as he should do might he compell none by it to their duties For he is the Minister of God even a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Wherefore ye must needs be subject in yielding to their commanding Laws and Ordinances for Tithes and Ministers Dues as well as others edged with coercive Penalties not only for wrath that is for fear of the Penalties which else fall upon you for your disobedience exasperate the Higher Powers and Civil Magistrate to execute wrath upon you but even for conscience sake which should more prevail with men than wrath and Penalties though our Tithe-detainers now are grown so atheistically impudent as to alledge conscience for not rendring them and robbing God himself of them Mal. 3. â—â— as well as his Ministers 2ly The Holy Ghost by the Apostle Peter thus seconds his former precept by Paul 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether to the King as Supream or unto Governours who have made many Lawes and Ordinances for payment of our Ministers Tithes and Duties Yea but say our sturdy armed and unarmed Tithe-detainers now What if we will not do it as we are resolved notwithstanding all such Laws and Ordinances What Are you resolved to disobey and contemn Gods Gospel Laws and Ordinances as well as Mans Where is your Religion your Saintship you so much boast of Will you provoke the Lord himself to wrath are you stronger than he I presume not Therefore the Apostle subjoins That these Kings and Governours are sent by him for the Punishment of Evil doers And such are all those who detain the Ministers established Dues who are not only Theeves and Robbers of God in the Old Testaments language Mal. 3 8. but committers of Sacrilege Rom. 2. 20. Thou that abbâ—rrest Idols as many Tithe-oppugners pretend they do Dost thou commit Sacrilege and Church Robberie Acts 19. 37. in the New Testaments and meer Heathens Dialect who fall under the just punishment of Kings and Governours whom God will bear out in the just punishment of such evil doers or elle punish them himself in a more severe manner if the Armed sonnes of Zerviah be too hard for David and It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God who even under the Gospel is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 29. and hath proved so to many Tithe-oppugners very lately both in consuming their Houses and personal Estate as well by real fire as by inflicting Spiritual judgements on their souls 3ly Our Saviours own words recorded in the Gospel are direct in point Luke 12. 57 58 59. Mat. 5. 25. And why even of your selves judge
of the Tithes of some Thousands of our best Benefices unto Abbies and Monasteries and robbing the Ministers of them to whom only they were given by God himself and the first Donors for their Maintenance to the great prejudice both of the Ministers and People was one principal cause that by a Divine Judgement and Providence beyond all mens expectation the Pope and they were both suppressed together on a suddain even by him who not long before had justified his usurped Supremacy against Luther and for which he had received this ominous Title from the Pope DEFENDER OF THE FAITH God grant our New Defenders of the Faith do not as ill â—â— quite those Persons Powers who first commissioned them with their Arms to defend our Faith Church Religion against Iesuites Papists and their Confederates in the Field as King Henry did the Pope after this new Moâ—â—o 7ly That ouâ— God blessed honoured us with the first incomparable Protestant King in the world no Papist but a REAL SAINT beyond any of his years in this or former Ages even young KING EDWARD THE SIXT the first King I read of who by publick Laws and Statutes suppressed banished all Popish Pictures Ceremonies Superstitious Monuments Practices Abuses throughout his Dominions and established the true worship Service Sacraments Ministers and Ministry and Gospel of Christ throughout his Dominions for which all Ages shall call him blessed no waies embesselling or diminishing the Churches Glebes Tithes or Revenues and enacting a New excellent Law for Tithes recovery when detained But God taking him suddenly from hence to a better Kingdom and his Successor Queen Mary defacing deforming his blessed Reformation and restoring both the Pope and Popery again almost to its former height except in point of Monkery which the defacing of the Monasteries prevented 8ly God then blessed our Church and Kingdom with an unparallel'd Protestant Princesse Queen Elizabeth a Nursing Mother to the Church who demolished the whole Body of Popery with the Popes revived usurpations again by publick Acts established the reformed Religion again in greater beauty and purity than at first banishing all Jesuites and Seminary Priests as Traytors restored the exiled Ministers of the Gospel suffering for Religion rewarding them with the rechest Bishopricks and Church-Preferments and planting a faithfull painfull preaching Ministry by degrees in most dark corners of her Dominions endowed them with a setled competent maintenance which our subsequent Protestant Kings continued to them and their Successors without diminution All which considered we of this Isle may with much thankfulnesse to God and honour to our Princes without flattery averr before all the world That the forecited Prophecies of Kings being Nursing Fathers and Queens Nursing-Mothers to the Church and specially Kings and Queens of this Isle have been more really accomplished in the Kings and Queens of this our Island than in the Kings and Queens of any other Isle Kingdom or Nation whatsoever throughout the world and God grant that those who shall succeed them in any other New modelled-form of Government may not prove such Step-Fathers and Step-Mothers to our Churches and Ministers as to demolish the one and strip the other quite naked of all that former Livelihood and remaining small Revenues which they yet enjoy by our Princes Grants Gists Charters Laws and Favours only and thereby give all Godly Ministers and people too in our Nation just cause to cry out with wringed hands weeping eyes and bleeding hearts in the Prophets words Hosea 10. 3 4. For now they shall say We have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do to us or amongst us They have spoken words Swearing falsely in making a Covenant Thus Iudgement springeth up as Hemlock one of the deadliest Poysons to destroy men in the fields Or else to speak in Solomons language to the same effect Prov. 28. 2. For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof as our Land had never so many Transgressions and Princes too as now But by a Man of Vnderstanding and Knowledge and where is such a one to be found to stand up in a Gap the state thereof shall be prolonged Now the Lord raise up such a Man or Men lest God say to our Nation and all Grandees in Power as he did once to the prophane wicked Prince of Israel whose day was come Ezech. 21. 25 26 27. Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same Exalt him that is Low and abase him that is High I will overturn overturn overturn Church State Laws and it shall be no more untill he come whose Right it is and I will give it him To prevent these treble fatal over-turnings with the wiping and turning of our Jerusalem UPSIDE DOWN like a Dish a certain Fore-runner of a Churches Nations ruine 2 Kings 21. 13. Psal 146. 9. I shall now in the last place present the whole Nation with a brief Catalogue of those manifold Laws Statutes which our Kings have successively made in their Great Councils and Parliaments almost from the very first establishment of Religion in our Island for the due payment of Ministers Tithes by coercive Means Forfeitures Penalties in case of willfull detaining or neglect in paying all or any part of them at the times appointed which those who please may peruse in Câ—ronicon Johannis Brompton Mr. Lambards Archaiâ—n Sir Henry Spelmans Councils Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments John Bridges his Defence of the Government of the Church of England Book 16. p. 1350. Our Statutes at large and Mr. Rastals Abridgement of Statutes Title Tithes which Laws being well known to most learned men are therefore needlesse fully to transcribe The first of them is the forecited Law Decree of the Council of Calcuth under King Oswald and Oâ—â—a An. 787. of famous King Alfred Anno 787. of King Alfred and Gutburn the Dane cap. 9. De Decimis Deo Debiâ—u about the year 890. of King Edward the elder and Gutburn Anno 905. or 906. as some Cap. 6. in some c. 9. DE DECIMIS ET CENSU ECCLISLE RETENTIS of King Aethelstan made in the famous Council of Gratelean An 928. cap. 1. DE DECIMIS REDDENDIS tam ex Animalibus quam de fructibus terrae which this King himself duly paid and then enjoyned all his great Officers and People duly to render of King Edmond An. 944. c. 2. concluding Qui non solverit ANATHEMA ESTO Of famous King Edgar Anno 967. c. 3. DE DECIMIS Canon 54. of the Kings and Presbyters of Northumberlana made a little after that time Lex 51. of King Aetâ—elred An. 1012. c. 1 4. of King Knute the Dane An. 1032. c. 8. but 15. in some Copies De Decimis reddendis c. 11 17. and a Statute law against obstinate Detainers of Tithes there stiled JURA ET DEBITIONES DIVINAE of King Edward the Confessor about the year 1060. confirmed verbatim by William the
without due reverence and finally Christians without Christ as Bernard writes they then had by this Monkish Sacrilegious Doctrine and practice The fourth Objection much insisted on as I hear against our coercive Laws and Ordinances for Ministers Tithes is this common Mistake That the payment of Tithes to Ministers as a Parochial Right and Due was first setled by the Popish Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the 3d. An. 1215. before which every man might freely give his Tithes to what Persons or Churches he pleased Therefore it is most unjust unreasonable to deprive men of this liberty and enforce them to pay Tithes to their Ministers now by such Laws and Ordinances I answer That this is a most gross Mistake of some ignorant Lawyers and John c Canne For in the Canons of this Council there is not one syllable tending to this purpose as I noted above 20. years since out of Binius and Surius in the Margin of Sir Edward Cooks 2. Reports fol. 446. where it is asserted which error he expresly retracts in his 2d Institutes on Magna Charta f. 641. The words of the Council Can. 56. Plerique sicut excipimus Regulares Clerici Seculares interdum dum Domos locant vel Feuda concedunt in Presudicium Parochialium Ecclestarum pactum adjiciunt ut Conductores Feudatorii Decimas eis solvant apud eosdem elegant Supremam Cum autem id ex avaritiâ— radice procedat pactum hujusmodi penitus reprobamus Statuentes ut quicquid fuerit ratione hujusmodi pacti praeceptum Ecclestae Parochiali reddatur By which Constitution it is apparent First that Parish Priests and Churches had a just Parochial Right to the Parishioners Tithes within their Precincts before this Council else they would not have awarded restitution to them of the Tithes received and that they had so ordered and decreed it by sundry Councils and Civil laws some hundreds of years before is apparent by the 2. Council of Cavailon under Charles the Great An. 813. Can. 19. Synodus Ticimensis under Lewis the 2d An. 855. The Council of Mentz under the Emperour Arnulph An. 894. Can. 3. The Council of Fliburg An. 895. Can. 14. The Decree of Pope Leo the 4th attributed to Gelasius by some about the year 850. The Council of Wormes and Mentz about that time or before cited by Gratian Caus 16. qu. 1. The Council of Claremont under Pope Vrban An. 1095. these abroad and at home in England The Ecclesiastical Laws of King Edgar An. 967. c. 1 2. The Council of Eauham under King Edgar An. 1010. and his Laws near that time c. 14. and the Council of London under Archbishop Hubert An. 1200. 15 years before this of Lateran All which enjoyn the people to pay their Tithes to their own Mother-Churches where they heard divine Service and received the Sacraments and not to other Churches or Chapels at their pleasures unless by consent of the Mother-Churches Hence Peirus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bath about the year 1170. 45. years before the Council of Lateran in his 62. Epistle writes thus to the Praemonstraticatian Monks who procured an Exemption from paying Tithes out of their Lands That their Lands were obnoxious to Tithes before they became theirs and were paid hitherto not with respect of Persons sed ratione Territorii but by reason of the Territory and Parish Precincts And Pope Innocent the 3d. his Decree dated from Lateran An. 1200. mistaken for the Council of Lateran cited in Cooks 2 Instit p. 641. was but in confirmation of these precedent Authorities 2ly The abuses complained against and reformed by this Council was not the lay Parishioners giving away of their Tithes from their own Ministers and Parish-Churches at their pleasures not a word of this but a New minted practice of most covetous Monks Religious Houses and some secular Clerks to rob the Parish-Churches and Ministers of all the Tithes of the lands held of them by compelling their Tenants and Lessees by special covenants in their Leases and Bonds to pay their Tithes arising out of their Lands only to themselves and their Monasteries not to their Parish Churches as formerly which the Pope and this great General Council resolve to proceed merely from the root of Covetousness let Canne and his Comrades observe it who pretend Conscience to be the ground whereupon they condemn reform this practice null the Covenants Bonds Deformations and decreed Restitution of all profits by these Frauds to the Parish-Churches And was not this a just righteous and conscionable Decree rather than an Antichristian and Papal as Canne Magisterially censures it 3ly Admit the Parochial Right of Tithes first setled in and by this Council which is false yet being a right established at 438. years since confirmed by constant use Custom Practice even since allowed by the Common law of England ratified by the Great Charter of England ch 1. with sundry other Sâ—atutes Acts of Parliament Canons of our Councils and Convocations and approved by all our Parliaments ever since as most just expedient necessary Yea setled on our Parish Churches by original Grants of our Ancestors for them their Heirs and Assigns for ever with general warranties against all men with special Execrations and Anathemaes denounced against all such who should detain or substract them from God and the Church to whom they consecrated them for every and that as sacred Tribute reserved commanded by God himself in the Old and New Testament as a badge of his Vniserval Dominion over them and their Possessions held of him as Supream Landlord as the Council of London under Archbishop Hubert in the 2d year of King John with another Council under Archbishop Replain 3 E. 3. The Council under Archbishop Stratford with others resolve There neither is nor can be the least pretext of Iustice Reason Prudence Law or Conscience for any Grandees in present Power by force or fraud to Null Repeal Alâ—er this Ancient Right and unquestionable Title of our Ministers to them now and set every man loose to pay no Tithes at all or to dispose of them how and to whom they will at their pleasure to destroy our Churches Ministers Parishes and breed nothing but Quarrels and Confusions in every place and Parish at this present when all had now need to study to be quiet and to do their own Business and not to disturb all our Ministers and others Rights without any lawfull call from God or the Nation Which unparalleld incroachment on our Ministers and Parish-Churches Rights if once admitted countenanced all the people in the Nation by better right and reason may pull down all the Fences and Inclosures of Fields Forests or Commons made since this Council deny substract all Customs Impositions Duties Rents Payments publick or private imposed on or reserved from them since that time by publick Laws or special Contracts and pay all their Rents Customs and Tenure-Serviceâ— to whom and when they please which our
and Title to it by Conquest and professed they would spend their lives in the quarrel Ipsa enim mors dulcis erit dum enim in vindiâ—â—ndo Patres nostros in tuendo libertatem nostram in exâ—lâ—ando Regem nostrum perpessi fuerimus Wherefore Conquest now can certainly be no Just no Lawfull Plea Title for any of our Officers or Souldiers which this Greatest Conqueror and this Great Councel so long since damned as unjust and Irrational To which I shall annex the Resolution of our Noble King Henry the 2d and of all the Bishops Abbots Peers Earls Barons of England assembled in a Parliamentary General Councel of the Realm at Westminster An. 1126 to determine a Controversie between Alfonso King of Castile and Sancho King of Navarre concerning divers Castles and Territories in Spain won by War and Conquest by Sancho King of Navarre from Alfonso whiles he was a Pupil and Orphan which they both submitted to their final determination who having heard both parties unanimously resolved that these Castles and Lands should be restored to Alfonso by King Sancho with all their bounds and appurtenances quia per Bellum violenter injuste abstulisset because he had violently and unjustly taken them away by War which resolution was confirmed under the Kings Great Seal and sent unto these Kings Therefore Conquest alone can be no just no legal Saintlike Right Title to any Lands Possessions Powers violently unjustly gotten claimed by Wars by our Swordmen now after these two antient famous Parliamentary Resolutions in point even between foreign Conquering Princes much lesse then between those Native Englishmen who raised waged our Army and Officers to defend not conquer them in a meer intestine civil War 5ly William Duke of Normandy Edward the 3d Henry the 4th Edward the 4th and Henry the 7th though they all came to the Crown by the Sword and Conquest of their Competitors yet they never claimed the Crown nor Kingdom by Conquest but Title only nor esteemed the English Irish or Welch a conquered Nation nor altered our antient Government Laws Liberties Parliaments or Ministers Tithes and Maintenance but confirmed them as all our Histories manifest in their Lives and Statutes made by them in the beginning of their respective reigns attest I have formerly proved in the case of William commonly stiled the Conqueror who ratified all our Liberties Laws Customs Franchises presented to him upon Oath without the least alteration diminution or prevarication to the peoples Great content Yea King Henry the 4th as Placita Corone rot Parl. 1 H 4. n. 17. record did in the first Parliament held by him after his Conquest of Richard the 2d make this memorable Declaration to his people entred in that Roll. That he claimed the Realm and Crown of England with all their Members and Appurtenances as right heir thereto by Bloud by Descent and by the right God had given him through the ayd of his Parents and Friends for to recover the said Realm which Realm was upon the point to be undone for want of Government and abrogating of the Laws and Customs of the Realm And that it was not his will that any should think that he would by way of Conquest disinherit any one of his Heritage Franchise or other Right which he ought to have nor to out or deprive any man of that he had or should have by the good Laws or Customes of the Realm all which he confirmed by a special Act before 1 H. 4. c. 1. but only those who were against his good purpose and the common profit of the Realm and were guilty of all the evil come upon the Realm and were adjudged guilty thereof in that Parliament as Sir William Le Scroop Sir Henry Green and Sir John Bassy whose Lands only he would have by Conquest as forfeited by their Treasons Whereupon the Commons thanked the King and praysed God that he had sent them such a King and Governour Upon all which Considerations and the Resolution of learned Grotius with others quoted by him That by the very Laws of War even those who are conquered by foreign Enemies ought to enjoy by permission of the Conquerors their own Laws Liberties Magistrates Religion and a share in their Government much more in such a Civil War as ours where the Souldiers Generals can pretend no Conquest over those who raised waged them for their just defence against Conquest and Invasion of their Laws Liberties Government Magistrates Rights Privileges I hope those vaporing Officers Souldiers who have formerly cried up pleaded practised this pretended Title of Conquest amongst us and used many of their former Masters Raisers and the whole Nation more like to conquered enslaved People than their fellow Christian Brethren and Freeborn Englishmen who have paid them so well for all those Services they imployed them in will henceforth totally renounce this their false usurped Injurious Plea Title and no more persist under pretext thereof to deprive our Ministers Church Peers Parliaments Nation of their very Native Freedomes Liberties Franchises Rights Laws Government Lands Possessions which they were purposely commissioned waged and by all Sacred all Civil Obligations Trusts Oaths Vowes Protestations perpetually engaged to defend against the least violation or Innovation without their free and full consents in a due and lawfull Parliament freely elected by them not forcibly obtruded on them without their choise or privity Yea I trust they will be so just so righteous towards me so great a Sufferer by under them only for discharging my Conscience and bounden duty towards my God our Church and Native Country of England as no waies to be angry with me or Injurious towards me for this my New Gospel Plea interwoven with a Legal and Rational for the Lawfulness and Continuance of the antient setled Maintenance and Tithes of the Ministers of the Gospel and the good old Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Nation which their present busie Endeavours to abolish alter subvert beyond yea against their Trusts Commissions Callings have necessitated me now to publish to the world to preserve our Church State Ministry from new Combustions and Impendent ruine but rather sound a Retreat from these their Heady Proceedings which I fear the Jesuites with their Confederates the Anabaptists have engaged them so deeply in to work as well their own as the publick speedy ruine both of our Church Religion State Ministry Nation and excite them to use the self-same deportment words to me who have no private design nor interest of my own or other mens in this my voluntary undertaking but only the publique Safety and Weal as enraged David did once to Abigail when she diverted him from his rash bloody resolution to destroy Nabal and his family for a Churlish Answer returned to him for his Kindness 1 Sam. 25. 32 33. Now blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which
endowed by themselves or else went as Pilgrims to Rome then reputed famous for Her Piety Besides multitudes of the Royal Progeny who followed their examples both in their Piety Charity and Bounty to the Church And amongst others of our antient Kings King Eâ—helwolfe gave not only the Tenth out of all his goods and Chattels but likewise of all the Lands and Houses of his whole Realm to the Church His Sonne incomparable King Alfred founder or at least Restorer and Enlarger of our famous Vniversity of Oxford though he was for the most part taken up with Warres and Military affairs by reason of the Danes invasions fighting no lesse than 52. set battels with them for the most part with glorious success yet out of an Ardent zeal to God in emulation of Zacheus he gave no lesse than half of his annual Rents and spoils of war besides in pious uses to wit for relieving the poor both at home and abroad for maintaining rewarding Scholars Ministers building schools of Learning maintaining professors of divers Arts and Sciences in them especially in Oxford and devoted no lesse than the third part of his time to wit eight hours every natural day to his sacred studies and devotions Besides the time he spent in his Military imployments Civil Government and enacting Laws of most excellent use by advise of the wisest men which have continued ever since So as Asser Menevensis in Egercituesse in his life Spelman and others give this Brief Character and Encomium of his Excellencies O Stuporem omnium aetatum Aluredum cujus dum Religionem intuemur nunquam exiisse videatur Monasterio Dum Bella Militiam nullibi versatus fuisse unquam nisi in Castris dum Scripta ejus Lucubrationes vitam transâ—isse in Academia dum Regni Populique sui administrationem nihilo unquam studuisse nisi in Foro Senatu Justitiae promovendae Legibusque bonis Sanciendis Of which good Laws of his extracted out of the Old and New Testament for most part this for the due payment of Tithes and Oblations to Ministers was one cap. 38. DECIMAS Primigenia adulta tua DEO DATO O that all those Militarie victorious Commanders who boast of like victories as he obtained would imitate him in these his Vertues Bounty Liberalitic both to our Universities Scholars Ministers and promulging Edicts for the due payment of their detained Tithes and Dues and then they should be Chronicled for SAINTS INDEED as well as the forenamed Kings of which there was not one in three in former Ages as Sir Henry Spelman observes WHO DID NOT ADORN AUGMENT ENRICH THE CHURCH IN SOME THINGS even during their very wars instead of making a mere prey and spoyl of her as some late SAINTS have done to maintain the warres and enrich themselves In which Sacrilegious Rapines if any shall persevere to the utter ruine of the remaining Glebes Tithes Maintenance of all our Ministers and Churches too the prime Honour of our Nation ECCLESIA Faemina Lana as some have designed and would engage them to do to render our Religion Nation and those who shall give their Votes thereto for ever execrable Let them take heed that instead of inducing the Ministers and godly people really fearing God throughout our three Nations to forget Monarchy and be in love with their New Military Government they do not necessitate them and most others too thereby by comparing their Irreligious Church Robberies and Sacrilegious Rapines against the very Laws even of War and Conquest it self in an Enemies Country and detestable to very Heathens as Grotius proves at large to love and honour Kings and Monarchs more than ever as the only Nursing-Fathers to Gods Ministers Church People under the Gospel and to esteem others not comming in by the Door into the Sheepâ—â—ld but climbing up by Storm some other way to be but Theeves and Robbers who come not but to Steal Kill and to Destroy whatever the Bounty Piety and Mâ—nisicence of these and other our Kings have built and setled on the Clergy for Gods Honour and maintenance of his worship and thereby engage them so to act speak and peremptorily resolve as all the Israelites and Godly Levites Priests People twice did in a like case 2 Chron. 11 13 14 15 16 17. 1 Sam. â— 3 5 19 20. If any here object these Kings and Queens were more Popish Superstitious than really Religious Admit they were â—n some things as too much doting upon Monkery not Monarchy or worldly wealth or Power which some condemn in others when most guilty of and applauding it in themselves yet their very Bounty and profuse munificent Building Monasteries and Nunneries whereof King Edgar alone built no less than 47. endowed them with large Revenues and intended to make them up 50. had he lived besides what they bestowed in building adorning endowing maintaining all Cathedral and Parish Churches and Chapels for the support and honour of their superstitious Religion should eternally shame all those pretended Saints who will be at no cost at all to maintain and propagate what they now call the True Religion and the faithfull Ministers of the Gospel but instead thereof will by mere Force and Rapine against all Rules of Law Justice Piety Equity and war it self plunder if they can the remaining Materials and Fabricks of our Churches which those Kings or their Successors and other antient Benefactors built for Gods Honour and the small surviving Lands Rectories Glebes Tithes Pensions Dues which our Ministers yet enjoy by their sole Bounty Piety Gift Laws without any real charge injurie oppression or obligation to any Mortals now surviving them But to take off the stain of Popery wholly from our Kings which was no disparagement to their commendable Charity and Bounty Consider in the sixth place that God hath honoured us with the first Christian King in the Universe Henry the 8th who durst not only question but by Publick Laws and Statutes abolish and renounce the Popish usurped Antichristian Power and with it all Popish Shavelings Abbots Priors Monks Nunnes and many Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and restored the People to the use of the Holy Scriptures in their own Native Language Whose example encouraged other Kings Princes Churches to do the like Who though he seised upon Abby Lands as given to mere Superstitious Persons Orders Vses repugnant to Gods word and the Popes mere Creatures and Supporters yet he continued the Lands Glebes Tithes and Maintenance of the Bishops and other Ministers and augmented iâ— and our Vniversities Revenues also out of the Abbies Spoyles which yet could not exempt him from the publick censure of some Protestants for selling or rteaining most of their Lands and Impropriations for his own use which say they he should have rather converted to other lawfull sacred uses according to the will of the first Donors And Mr. Purchas writes That the Monks unrighteous coveting and the Popes appropriating
Conquerour in the fourth year of his Reign c. 8 9. forecited To which may be added the Great Charters of King Henry the first and King John recorded in Matthew Paris ratified by King Henry the 3d. in his Magna Charta c. 11. made in the 9th year of his Reign confirmed by above 37 Acts of Parliament since in many successive Parliaments That the Church of England shall be free now in greater Bondage than ever and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable never so much violated diminished as now notwithstanding all Oaths Laws Covenants Declarations Protestations lately and all antient Solemn Curses and Excommunications annually made against the Infringers thereof 13 E. 1. 17 E. 3. 14. 2 H. 4. c. 4. Enacting the Cistertian Monks to pay Tithes to Ministers and Evangelists notwithstanding any Buls of Exemption from the Pope which the King and Parliament declared to be void and that the Promâ—vers or Executors of any such Buls shall be attainted in a Praemunire It appears by the Parliament Roll of 2 H. 4. nu 40. This Act was made upon the Petition of all the Commons which because not extant in print pertinent to the present business of Tithes and unknown to most I shall here transcribe at large May it please our most gracious Lord the King to consider That whereas time out of mind the Religions men of the Order of the Cistercians of your Realm of England have paid all manner of Tithes of their lands tenements possessions let to farm or manured and occupied by other persons besides themselves and of manner of things tithable being and growing upon the same lands tenements and possessions in the same manner as your other Lieges of the said Realm Yet so it is that of late the said Religious have purchased a Bull from our Holy Father the Pope by the which our said Holy Father hath granted to the said Religious That they shall pay no Tithes of their Lands Tenements Possessions Woods Eattel or any thing whatsoever although they are or shall be leased or farmed notwithstanding any Title of Prescription or Right acquired or which hereafter may be had or acquired to the contrary The which Pursute and Grant is apparently against the Laws and Customs of your Realm by reason that divers Compositions real and Indentures are made between many of the said Religioius and others your Lieges of the prise of such Tithes and also by reason that in divers Parishes the Tithes demanded by the said Religious by colour of the said Bull exceed the fourth part of the value of the Benefices within whose limits and bounds they are and so if the said Bull should be executed much more the late Petions against all Tithes and coercive Maintenance for Ministers câ—ndescended to as well your dreadfull Majesty â—s your Lieges Patrons of the said Benefices shall receive great losses in their Advowsons of the said Benefices and the Conusance which in this behalf appertains and in all times hath belonged to your Regality shall be discussed in Court Christian against the said Laws and Customes besides pray mark the prevailing reason the Troubles and Commotions which may arise among your people by the motion and execution of such Novelties within your Realm That hereupon by assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament you would be pleased to ordain that if the said religious or any other put or shall put the said Bull in execution shall be put out of your Protection by due Process made in this behalf and their goods forfeited to You lost and that as a work of Charity Which Petition being read and considered was answered in the words following It is accorded by the King and Lords in Parliament That the Order of the Cistertians shall be in the state they were before the time of the Bull purchased comprised in this Petition and that as well those of the said Order as all others Religious and Secular of what estate or condition soever they be who shall put the said Bull in execution or shall hereafter take advantage in any manner of any such Bulls already purchased or to be purchased shall have Process made against them and either of them by sommoning them within a moneth by a Writ of Premunire Facias And if they make default or shall be attainted that they shall be put out of the Kings Protection and incur the peines and forfeitures comprised in the Statute of Provisors made in the 13. year of King Richard And moreover for to eschue many probable mischiefs likely to arise in time to come that our said Lord the King shall send to our Holy Father the Pope for to repeal and annal the said Bulls purchased and to abstain to make any such Grant hereafter To which Answer the Commons well agreed and that it should be made into a Statute From which memorable Record I shall desire Iohn Canne and all his ignorant deluded Disciples who cry out against Tithes and the payment of them as Popish to observe 1. That all the Commons of England in this Parliament even in times of Popery together with the King and Lords resolve the quite contrary That the exemption of any order of men from payment of their due and accustomed Tithes is Popish and that the Pope was the first and only man who presumed by his Bulls to exempt men from payment of due and accustomed Tithes to their Ministers 2ly That Popish Friers of the Cistercian Order not Godly Saints abhorring Monkerie and Poperie were the first men who sued for procured and executed such Exemptions from the Pope and that merely out of Covetousness against the express word and Law of God as our John Salisbury de Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. and our Arch-deacon of Bathe Petrus Blesensis observe who tax them for it And therefore the petitioning writing endeavouring to procure a like exemption from the payment of antient and accustomed Tithes to our Ministers must be Popish and Monkish likewise infused into our New lighted Saints by some Popish Monks and Jesuits disguised under the notion of New-lights Seekers Anabaptists c. 3ly That they declare this Bull though granted by their Holy-Father the Pope whose Authority and esteem was then very great to be against the Laws and Customs of the Realm and thereupon repeal null it for the present and provide against the grant of any such Bulls for Non-payment of Tithes for the future and make the Procurers and Executioners of them subject to a Praemunire Such a transcendent Crime and Grievance did they then adjudge it to seek or procure the least exemption from payment of Tithes from any earthly Powers yea from their very Holy Father the Pope himself then in his highest Power 4ly That they resolve the exemption from Tithes though amounting but to a fourth part in every Parish would prove a great prejudice to the King and all other Patrons in their Advowsons
assensum vero non praebeat improvide affirmantibus non debere esse res Dominicâ—s id est Domino Dominantium traditas Itaque sub defensione Regis sit et sicuti suae propriae haereditati magisque advertat Quia quantò Deus excellentior est hominibus tanto praestantior est Divina causa mortalium possessione Quocirca decipitur quisquis plus in propriis quam in Dominicis rebus gloriatur Quarum Defensor et Custos divinitatis Constitutiones diligenti cura non solum eas servare sed etiam multiplicare debet Si quis igitur insanus importunitate illa quae diximus praestantior a quà m sua defendere oportet augmentare Si quis igitur insanus importunitate improbitateque sua Regem a recto proposito pervertere tentaverit nullisque remediis mitigari posse visus fuerit licet obsequiis aliquibus transitoriis sit necessarius abscindendus ab eo projiciendusque est juxta illud Evangelium Si pes manus aut occulus tuus scandilizatâ—te erue eum projice absâ—te Since then Christian Emperors Kings Princes in Forein parts and our own Kings and Parliaments in and by all the forecited Laws and Statutes yet in force have established Tithes and other Duties on our Clergy and Ministers of the Gospel and thus publickly branded the negligent or wilfull detainers sustractors of this just Debt and Duty prescribed by our Laws with Warrant from the Old and New Testament for evil disposed persons not regarding their duty to Almighty God which therefore none who claim their Power from or for God should now regard or countenance in the least degree enforcing them by actions at Law Imprisonment payment of treble Dammages excommunications and the like coercive wayes to render to them Tithes at last to their loss Why Christian Magistrates should not still enforce the obstinate detainers of Ministers Tithes and defrauders of them in their just Dues and merited rewards for their Ministery as hath been formerly practised in all ages and places too Let all Anti-tithers who would be Lawless as well as Titheless and Godless resolve me when they can and if they deem themselves above all humane Laws and Penalties so long as they wear their swords by their sides for defrauding our Ministers of their lawfull Tithes and Dues let them then chew the cudd upon this Evangelical Precept backed with the strongest coercive power both in Heaven and Earth 1 Thes 4. 6. Let no man go beyond or defraud his brother much less then his Minister in any thing therefore not in Tithes due by Divine and humane Right mark the reason Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such things as we have forewarned and testified And what vengeance God will take of such who defraud their Brethen and Ministers of their debts and necessitate them to sue them at the Law to recover their Rights he resolves in the 1 Cor. 6 7 to 11. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because you go to Law to wit before Heathen Judges or without just cause one with another the greatest if not only fault being in the Defrauder and Detainer why do ye not rather take wrong why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded Nay why do you wrong and defraud and that your Brethren and which is more rob your Ministers yea but what harm or punishment will follow on it Mark it O all ye Saint-seeming Hypocrites who are guilty of it Know ye not That the unrighteous who thus wrong and defraud their Brethren and Ministers which is worse shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither Theeves nor covetous and such are all those who rob and defraud their Ministers of their Tithes and Duties shall not inherit the Kingdom of God no more than Fornicators Idolaters c. with whom they are here coupled Let all those then who are guilty of this damning sin which disinherits them of Gods Kingdom now seriously repent and reform it with all such who have abetted or confederated with them herein that so I may adde with the Apostle in the next words And such were some nay all of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God And now to cloze up this Chapter I shall desire all Anti-Tithers who have already in their heady Resolutions resolved to abolish not only all our Ministers Tithes and antient Dues established by the Lord himself in the Old and New Testament with all the forecited Laws Statutes Ordinances for the true and due payment of them but all other coercive maintenance for their future subsistence if not their very Rectories Glebes and Fabricks of our Churches devoted for a prey by divers sadly and seriously to consider these ensuing particulars 1. That herein they shall shew themselves not only worse by thousands of Degrees than our forementioned Kings and Queens who built and endowed our Churches with Glebes Tithes and a liberal Maintenance and worse than the most of all their Ancestors Protestants or Papists who have hitherto continued confirmed established them by successive Laws but even worse than the worst of Turks and Insidels who alwaies heretofore and at this very day have and do allow their Mahometan and Pagan Idolatrous Priests in all places a liberal competent setled Salarie and erect magnificent Temples to Mahomet and their Idols exceeding most of our fairest Christian Churches both for beauty and number as you may read at large in Pulchas Pilgrimage Alexander ab Alexandro Hospinian De Origine Templorum and others And to give you one instance for all There are no lesse than 700 Moschees or Saracinical Temples in Fesse a Mahometan City in Barbary the chief whereof is Carven being a full mile and an half in compasse It hath 31 Gates great and high the Roof is 150 yards long and 80 broad the Steeple very high the Ornaments rich and stately Round about it are divers Porches containing 40 yards in length and 30. in breadth About the Walls are Pulpits of divers sorts wherein the Masters and Priests of their Law read to the People such things as they think pertain to their Salvation The Revenue of this Temple alone Anno 1526. was no lesse than 200. Duckets a day of old rents The chief Church in Morocco is bigger though not altogether so fair as that of Fesse and hath a Tower so high that the Hills of Azafi being 120. miles distance may be seen from thence as Leo Purchas and Heylin write These Temples and others are adorned with marble Pillars and curious Mosaicks carved works of all sorts Their Priests and Readers of the Law have a liberal Stipenâ— with Books and lands likewise allowed them and are had in very high estimation and Reverence both with their Kings Magistrates People the Califfs there receiving likewise the tenth Measure of Corn yearly from the People
who flourished but 200. years after Christ Modicum uâ—â—squisque stipem Menstrua die vel cum velit et si modo volit si modo possit apponit nam nemo compellitur there was no need when they were so free of their own accord sed sponte conâ—ert Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt And though their Monthly stipends in regard of their great Poverty were thus termed small comparatively to what they were before the Persecution yet indeed they were very large considered in themselves as by the same Authors following words in this Apology c. 42. appears Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatim quam vestra Religio templatim they bestowing more in a Liberal free way of Christian Charity in every Village towards their Ministers and Poor than the wealthy Pagan Romans did in their Temples and Sacrifices for the Maintenance of their Paganism In the 9th general Persecution of the Christians about 273 years after Christ or before The Governour of Rome told Saint Lawrence the Martyr Arch-Deacon to Pope Xistus the 2d and Treasurer of the Christians Oblations for the Ministers Maintenance and Poors relief that the common Report then was how the Christians did frequently cell their Lands and disâ—nherit their Children like those in the Acts to enrich the Ministers and relieve the Poor bringing thousands of Sestertii at a time to St. Lawrence out of the sale of their Lands so as their Treasury was so great that he thought to seise on it for a prey Which their bountiful Liberality Prudentius thus poetically expresseth Offerre fundis venditis Sistertiorum Millia Addicta Avorum praedia Faedis sub auctionibus Successor exhaeres gemit Sanctis egens Parentibus Et summa pietasli creditur Nudare dulces beros What need then any Law to compel the Christians to pay Tithes or Ministers dues when in the heat of Persecution they were so bountifull to them and the Poor as thus voluntarily to contribute their whole Estates for their support Whose President if the Cavillers against our present penal Laws Ordinances for Tithes would imitate no Minister nor other voluntary Tith-payers would oppose their repeal And though in these Primitive times of Persecution the Christians being spoyled of their Lands and Possessions could not pay Tithes in kind in most places but were necessitated to such voluntary Contributions as these yet without all peradventure they held the payment of Tithes to Ministers in kind a Divine Moral Duty and in some places and at some times when and where they could did voluntarily pay Tithes as a Duty for their Maintenance without any coercive Laws or Canons upon the bare demand or exhortation of their Ministers by vertue of Gods own Divine Laws as is undeniable by Irenaeus l. 4. c. 34. who records That the Christians in his time being but 180. years after Christ did not give lesse to their Ministers than the Jews did to their Priests by the Law of Moses who received the consecrated TITHES of their people but more Designing omnia quae sunt ipsorum all they had to the Lords use Hilariter ac liberaliter ea quae non sunt minâ—ra Giving chearfully and freely those things which were not lesse than Tithes as having greater hope than they And further confirmed by Origen Homil. 11 in Numeros Saint Cyprian lib. 1. Epist 9. De unitate Ecclesiae the words of Saint Augustine Hom. 48. Majores nostri ideo copiis abundabant quia Deo Decimas dabant And the second Council of Mascin An. 586. Can. 5. Leges Divinae Consulentes Sacerdotibus ac Ministris Ecclesiarum pro Haereditaria portione omni populo praeâ—eperunt Decimas fructuum suorum locis sacris praestare ut nullo labore impediti per res illegitimas possint vacare Ministeriis Quas leges Christianorum Congeries legis temporibus custodivit iutemerata Which prove a long continued Custom and Practice of paying Tithes to Ministers as a Divine Right and Duty used amongst Christians long before St. Augustins dayes and this antient Council And no sooner were the times of Persecution paâ—t but the Divine Right of Tithes was asserted pressed and the due payment of them inculcated by St. Hilary Nazianzen Ambrose Hierom Chrysostom Augustine Eusebius Cassian Cyril of Jerusalem Isiodore Pelusiota and Caesarius Arelatensis all flourishing within 500. years after Christ as Dr. Tillesly proves at large And the people during that space paying their Tithes freely without any compulsion in all places there needed neither Laws nor Canons to enforce their payment whence Agobardus writes thus about the year of our Lord 820. when Laws and Canons began to be made for their payment of the precedent times Nulla compulit necessitas fervente ubique religiosadevotione amore illustrandi Ecclesiae ultro aestuante That there was no need of Canons or Laws to compel the payment of Tithes whiles servent religious Devotion and love of illustrating Churches every where abounded But in succeeding degenerating times when according to Christs prediction the love and zeal of many Christians to God Religion and Ministers began to grow lukewarm and colder than before so as they began to detain their Tithes and Ministers dues then presently Christian Kings and Bishops in Ecclesiastical and Temporal Synods and Councils began generally in all places to make Laws and Canons for the due payment of them declaring in them only the Divine Right Laws and Precepts of God to the People both in the Old and New Testament as a sufficient obligation seconded by their bare Canons and Edicts without any coercion or penalty to oblige them to their due payment The first unquestionable Canon for the payment of Tithes I find extant is that of the second Council of Mascin forecited An. 586. cap. 5. The first Law extent made by any General Council or Parliament for the payment of Tithes is that of the Council of Calcuth in England under Offa and Alfred An. 786 declaring their Divine Right and enjoyning their payment without any Penalty After which Charles the Emperour about the year of our Lord 813. by Canons made in sundry Councils and in his Capitulars or Laws enjoyned the payment of Tithes under pain of being enforced to render them by distresse upon complaint and some small penalties Since which time many Laws and Canons were made in our own and forein Realms till our present times for the due payment of Tithes under sundry penalties which because collected by Sir Henry Spelman in his Councils Mr. Selden in his History of Tithes Bochellus Decret Eccles Gal. l. 6. Tit. 8. De Decimis Fridericus Lindebrogus Codex Legum Antiquarum Surius Binius Crab Lindwood in their Collections of Councils and sundry others I have therefore only given the Reader a brief Catalogue of the principal Civil laws both at home and abroad for the due payment of them reciting more at large but what others for the most part have omitted and are not vulgarly known giving only
word and kept thy Covenant They shall or let them teach Jacob thy Judgements and Israel thy Law They shall put Incense before thee and whole burnt Sacrifice upon thine Altar Blesse O Lord his Substance and accept the Work of his â—ands Smite through the Loyns of them that rise up against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again Which I shall recommend to John Canne for his next Text when he preacheth before his Fraternity of Anabaptistical Tithe-Oppugners and Church-Robbers to all injurious Substracters of their Ministers Tithes and professed Enemies to their Calling And so much for the third Proposition CHAP. IV. I Now march to the 4th Proposition That our Ministers Tithes are really no Burthen Grievance or Oppression to the People but a just antient charge debt annuity or duty as well as their Landlords rents or Merchants poundage That the abolishing of them will be no real Ease Gain or advantage to Farmers Lessees and the poorer sort of People as is falsely pretended but only to rich Landlords and Landed-men and a loss and detriment to all others There have been divers clamorous Petitions of late against Tithes subscribed by many poor People Labourers Servants Apprentises who never were capable in their Estates to pay any not by the Nobility Gentry and Freeholders of the Nation or the generality of those whose Estates are most charged with them who repute them no Burden nor Grievance and desire their continuance as if they were the very Bonds of Wickednesse the heavy Burdens and Yoak which God himself by an extraordinary Call hath called forth some in present Power speedily to loose undo and break Isay 58. 6 7. to which they allude and much insist on when as it is most clear That this perverted Text was never once intended of Tithes which God himself imposed on his people as a just reserved Rent and Tribute due unto himself and his Ministers and adjudgeth it plain b ROBBING OF GOD to substract much more then to abolish and those who press the abolishing of Tithes from this Text may with much more colour urge it against all Landlords Rents Annuities Tonnage Poundage the antient Customs of Wool Woolfels Leather Tinne Lead which they and their Ancestors by their Tenures and our known Laws have paid time out of mind and presse those in power to expunge these Texts out of the very Gospel as Apochryphal and burdensom Mat. 22. â—1 Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods a clear Gospel-Text for the payment of Tithes which are Gods own Tribute and Portion Levit. 27. 30 32. Mal. 3. 8 9 and Rom. 13. 7 Render therefore to all their Dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom c. against both which they directly Petition as the premises demonstrate This calumny and wresting of Scripture being removed I shall thus make good the first Branch of the Proposition I have already manifested by undeniable Antiquities Laws Records That Tithes were freely given to and setled on our Church and Ministers by our pious Kings Munificence Charters Laws with the general applause and consent of all the Nobility and People upon the very first setlement of Religion in this Island many hundred years before we read of any publick Taxes for Defence of the Realm or maintenance of the Warres by Land or Sea the first whereof was Dane-gelt first imposed by common consent of the Lords in Parliament An. 983. or before the antientest yet continued Custâ—me on Wool Woolfels and Skins exported first granted by Parliament in 3 E. 1. Anno Dom. 1276. at least 500. years after the first extant grant Law and setlement of Tithes in perpetuity as a Divine Duty Rent and Service for the necessary maintenance of Gods Ministers and publick Worship This most antient annual Rent Charge or Tribute unto God hath inviolably continued in all publick Changes and Revolutions of Church and State Briâ—ons Saxons Danes Normans English Papists Protestants Conquerors Invadors Right Heirs and Lawfull Purchasers Intruders Disseisers Lessâ—es of all sorts whether Publick Persons or Private maintaining consirming rendring their Tithes successively as a Divine and Sacred Quit-Rent due to God wherewith they came charged into the world till they departed out of it laying down this for a Principle of Divinity Law Equity That God alone bath given to every Man the Lands and all he holds and possesseth whereby he gains his food and living and therefore out of the Land and Trade whereby every one gets necessary supply for his body he ought to contribute a Tenth and Tribute towards the Service of God and Salvation of his Soul much better than his Body as Augustine in his 229. Sermon Tom. 10. and the Antient Saxon Canons of an uncertain time and Author resolve There was no Purchaser Heir Inheritor Farmer Tenant or Lessee of Lands in our whole Nation that paid Tithes out of it since Tithes first setled in this Kingdome but he inherited purchased took and held his Lands charged with Tithes Whence our Law-books resolve That no Lay-man can by the very Common Law of England allege any Custome or Prescription for not paying Tithes but only a Modus Decimandi in recompence of his Tithes which he may in some cases plead because grounded on some antient Contract and a valuable consideration in Lieu of Tithes Moreover as all Men took their Purchases Farmes Leases or Inheritances by Descent thus charged so this charge was universally known to all Purchasers Lesees and the full annual value of the Predial Tithes they pay out of their Lands or Leases abated them in their Purchases Rents Fines by the Venders and Lessers of purpose to defray the publick necessary annual Charge which if the Lands had been Tithe-Free had been proportionably raised to the common value of the Tithes in the Purchase Moneys Fines or Rents and will be so by every Seller of Lands and Land-lord when ever Tithes be suppressed This being a clear undeniable Truth which every rational man must subscribe to it is certain no person this day living complaining or not complaining against Tithes can in Verity Equity Justice Reason repute or call them either an unjust or oppressing Yoak Bond Burden as many Ignoramusses do without sense or reason nor any burden or charge at all to him since he had or rather hath the full annual value of them allowed him in his Purchase Fine or Rent by him that sold or leased his Lands unto him And although it be true that in such Tithes as the Earth doth not naturally produce without labour as it doth Grasse Wood Fruits viz. Corn Hops Saffron Woad and the like the Minister enjoyes the Tenth of the Husbandmans increase seed labour and costs in tillage and improvement the great Objection against Tithes as an Heavy Burthen and Oppression yet all this pretended great cost and charge except only in Cases of Improvements was altogether or
ERRATA PAge 68. l. 11. r. luent p. 141. l. 31. Solemanum r. Salmurum Rothingue r. Rothomag p. 142. l. 20. Trovomala The REMAINDER or SECOND PART of A GOSPEL PLEA Interwoven with a RATIONAL and LEGAL FOR THE LAWFULNESS CONTINUANCE Of the Antient Setled MAINTENANCE and TITHES Of the Ministers of the Gospel WHEREIN The DIVINE RIGHT OF OUR MINISTERS TITHES is further asserted The Magistrates Inforcement of the DUE PAYMENT OF THEM BY COERCIVE PENAL LAWS when substracted or detained vindicated That they are no REAL BURDEN or GRIEVANCE to the People the abolishing them no Ease Benefit to Farmers Tenants or Poor-People but a Prejudice rather and a gain to None but Rich Land-Lords cleared That the present Opposition against them proceeds not from any true Grounds of Conscience or Real Inconveniences in Tithes themselves but only from base Covetousness carnal Policy want of Christian Love Charity to and professed Enmity against the Ministers of the Gospel Yea from a JESUITICAL and ANABAPTISTICAL DESIGN to subvert ruine our Church Ministry Religion and bring a Perpetual Infamie on our Nation and the Reformed Religion here professed By William Prynne of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns Inne 1 Cor. 9 14. Even so hath THE LORD ORDAINED that those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae Domos tunc Fundos venundabant thesauros sibi in Coelo reponentes at nunc de Patrimonio nec Decimas damus cum Vendere jubeat Dominus Emimus potius augemus Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Per Prophetam praecepit Dominus Decimas inferri in horreum suum vos ab ejus horreo jubet is auferri c. Quid interest Equos rapiatis an Decimas Nisi quia Decima res spiritualis est ideo enormius SACRILEGIVM in Decimis committitur quam in Equis Cum Dominus praecipit Decimas solvi quis contra ejus praeceptum potuit dispensare London Printed by T. Childe and L. Parry for Edward Thomas and are to be sold at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1659. THE REMAINDER OR SECOND PART OF A GOSPEL PLEA FOR THE Lawfullness and Continuance of the antient setled Maintenance and TITHES of the Ministers of the GOSPEL KIng David a holy Zealot after Gods own heart who fulfilled all his will records this to Posterity in sacred Writ as the most transplendent Character of his own real Saintship in a Divine Appeal to God himself Psal 69. 9. The zeal of THINE HOUSE hath eaten me up And when our Saviour Christ the Son of David according to the flesh out of an enflamed zeal against the Sacrilegious Prophanation of Gods Temple in Jerusalem made a scourge of small Cords wherewith he drove all that sold Sheep and Oxen with their Cattel out of the Temple powred out the Changers Mony overthrew their Tables and said unto those that sold Doves Take these things hence Make not my Fathers House an House of Merchandize His Disciples upon this occasion remembred and applyed this very Scripture to him The zeal of thine House hath eaten me up John 2. 15 16 17. But the preposterous zeal of many Iesuited Anabaptistical qua king pretended Saints Souldiers Zealots in our degenerated dayes is diametrically contrary to this of David and our Saviour Christ even to devour and eat up Gods House it self with all his faithfull Ministers remaining Tithes Rectories Glebes Maintenance at one meal which of late years and now again they have prosecuted with such eager Appetites and hungry Stomacks that they make it their very prime main only Businesse endeavouring to effect it with such Post-hast as might anticipate all new printed Pleas for their just defence and fore-judge most Ministers Patrons Peoples Rights throughout our Nation even out of Term in a long Vacation as in August 1653. and now again without any Legal Summons Process Tryal by their Peers before competent lawfull Judges meet to decide such a universal Right Title publike Interest which more or lesse concerns every particular County City Parish Minister Patron Person throughout the Realm and therefore ought not to be drawn into Question much lesse Decision without their General consent desire petition and a full deliberate hearing of all Parties interessed before a full Legal Parliamentary Tribunal duly elected entrusted by all the People according to our Laws This being an undoubted principle of Nature Law Equity common Justice and Reason Quod tangit omnes ab omnibus debet approbari Et Populi minor pars Populum non obligit This their preproperous speed and preposterous proceeding necessitated my Stationer at the importunity of some Ministers in September 1653. to thrust out and publish to the World an imperfect Piece and beginning only of my Gospel-Plea for the Lawfulnesse and Continuance of the Antient setled Maintenance and Tithes of the Ministers of the Gospel without this Remaining part then sent up together with it or any Errata to it or Notice given to the Reader if its incompleatnesse some few dayes before the great Debate of our New Legifers Septemb. 1653. concerning the future standing or down-fall of Tithes which would have been finished and quite past before the whole could possibly be printed and so have rendered the entire Plea lesse seasonable serviceable beneficial to our Church and Ministers than the publishing of a Fragment of it in that nick of time proved to them through Gods blessing on it This unexpected sodain publication thereof upon that inevitable occasion as it caused an Omission of some part of the second Chapter in confirmation of the second Proposition touching the Divine Right of Ministers Tithes and of the 3. ensuing Chapters So it hath necessitated me to publish this Subsequent Appendix to that Chapter by way of Supplement as a necessary Introduction to the Remaining Part here printed with it for the Readers better satisfaction in this publique Controversy and stopping the clamorous Mouthes of all Gain-sayers Which had been published soon after the former in the year 1653. had not my former Stationers long Infirmity Sicknesse Death retarded its progresse at the Presse and enforced me to seek out another Midwife to bring it into the world at this instant time I hope not as an Abortive out of Season the former Opposites to our Ministers and their Tithes being ever since and now again as Malicious against them as ever waiting only for a fresh oportunity to suppress them ever since their then sodain defeat in this their Impious Sacrilegious Designe when almost ripened to accomplishment in their Hopes and Votes unexpectedly dashed in a moment There being since this their disappointment a new disguised Antichristian sect of Quakers introduced by Jesuits and Franciscan friers as I have elswhere evidenced sprung up amongst us more virulently opposite to our Ministers and their Maintenance by TITHES than any other which they not only decry in all their Pamphlets but totally substract and detain from
not of Confusion doing all things in order number and due proportion hath amongst all other Numbers specially fixed upon a TENTH And thereupon the Antients heretofore both Natural Legal Pagan and Christian led by a natural and divine instinct thereunto have ever principally insisted on a TENTH in all their divine sacred Rites Mysteries Dues reserved by or rendered of them to their Gods and in all their publick civil Taxes Tributes Customes Duties imposed by or paid to their Emperors Kings Princes and Supreme Magistrates Hence God saith expresly All Tithes are the Lords Levit. 27. 30 c. And how his Not by Couetesie or Tolleration not by Purchase or Stipulation not by Compensation or Annexation not by Benevolence or mens free Donation but by original Right of Creation in proâ—ucing every thing in its kind and of absolute Soveraign Dominion expressed in the word LORDS as a universal Rent service or acknowledgement reserved by God himself the Supreme Land-lord of all the Earth from Adam and all his Posterity to the end of the world when he gave them the Earth to inhabit and manure as mere Tenants at will under him He that is I AM himself Qui cepit nunquam desinet numquam being vitae essentiae interminabilis tota simul perfecta possessio in aeterno suâ— consummato EVER POSSESSED TITHES as well as the seventh day which he saith is HIS SABBATH SINCE THEY HAD BEING which are indeed his ab aeterno suo inchâ—ato In this Tithes were Gods not only at the time when he first challenged them by an expresse written Law and Reservation Levit. 27. 30 31 32 c. but long before even when Abraham paid them and before that ever since the time of the Creation that God made any thing tithable to increase out of the earth for the use of mâ—n The time never was that Tithes were not Gods nor shall ever be that they shall cease to be his and his Priests and Ministers in and by him by his special Donation and Institution not mans for the constant support of his continual publick worship and that by a Divine Right God in those things which are direct points of Piety and necessary appurtenances for his solemn worship such as are Tithes for his Prieâ—â—â— and Ministers competent standing maintenance in all Aâ—â—â— places and weekly times for his worship never leaving men free to their own wiâ—ls inventions or arbitrary pleasures no more than Land-lords their Tenants or Kings their Subjects but confining them to a certainty himself by his word as well as he doth it in all parts and duties of his worship That Abraham knew this Divine Right of God to Tithes when he paid Tithes of all to Melchisedeâ— not arbitrarily but of due right by vertue of some Divine Precept else Melchisedeâ— had been inferiour to Levi who received Tithes from his Brethren by a Divine Law and Command Hebr. 7. 4 5 6 c. he receiving this Precept of paying Tithes by Tradition from Heber who learned it of Sâ—m who was so taught of his Father Nâ—ah he by succession RECEIVING IT FROM ADAM who as he was wrought and fashioned by God so was he herein taught and instructâ—d by God And therefore not only amongst the Sons of God such as called rightly upon the name of thâ— Lord but even amongst thâ— Giants of the Daughters of Mâ—n worshipping invented Godâ— by themselves and dedicatinâ— their TITHES unto them as the Premises evideâ—câ— THERE NEVER WAS NUMBER THAT DID INTRUDE UPON THE TENTH MUCH LESSE SHOULDER IT OUT OF DOORS This Number of Tâ—â— writes Philo the learned Jew that most sacred Wâ—â—â—â—â— Mâ—ses hath not a little commended because the best Duties of Man are by him couâ—hed under that number as God TEN COMMANDEMENTS Vows Prayers First-Fruits perpetual Offerings pardoning Debts and reducing all things unto their First estate every Fiftieth year of Jubilee made up of Tenths the Fur niture of the Tabernacle with a thousand such like in the old Testament besides other things of like nature expressed under this Number of TEN in the New by which we may know that TEN IS THE NVMBER OF PERFECTION as â—ivers style it and hath near affinity with God in sacred things That from Gods own Original Reservation of TENTHS to himself and his Ministers this number became sacred and universal afterwards in all publick civil Taxes Dues reserved to Kings and Supream Magistrates For the First-born and chief of the Family from Adam till the Levitical Priesthood instituted being for the most part King as well as Priest thereof as Melchisedec who received Tithes of Abraham was Gen. 14. 18. Heb. 7. 1 2. when these two Offices came afterwards to be centred and settled in two distinct persons thereupon the antient TENTHS reserved by God and assigned to his Priests and Ministers in perpetuity for their subsistence and maintenance of his publick worship from the Creation to the end of the world by a Divine Law which no humane powers could repeal both amongst Gods own people and most Heathens Nations were appropriated to and received only by the Priests and Ministers though divested of the Royal dignity and a NEW TENTH by way of Tribute Tax Custome or Subsidy amounting commonly to the Tenth part of the people 's tithed increase and estates in all Kingdomes and Republiks was by Common consent imposed on and reserved received by Emperors Kings Princes and Supreme Magistrates from the people for their support defraying the charges of the Government and their peoples necessary defence upon all occasions Hence Tributes Taxes Customes and publick impositions were usually called TENTHS as well as Ministers Tithes both amongst Gods own people 1 Sam. 8. 15 17. amounting To the tenth of their estates and increase as also amongst the antient Romans Grecians and most other Pagan Nations of old as Mr. Mountague proves at large in his Diatribae c. 3. by sundry Authors as they were anciently and at this day so stiled both amongst the Turks Moors Spaniards Germans Italians French Danes Swedes Poles Scots Irish and most other Pagan and Christian Nations at this day especially in England as you may read at large in Rastals Abridgments of Statutes Title Taxes and Tenthes Brooks Abridgement and Ashes Tables Title Quinzime Disme Tax and Tallaâ—e and our Parliament Records And from this number of Ten their Officers as well of State as Religion were usually stiled Decemviri Decuriones Decumani Decani Decadarchae Decatutae Decatologi Decatorii and the like our Names of Offices of Deans Tithingmen Collectors of Tenths c. proceeding from the self-same Number Sacred every way even amongst Pagan Nations both in their Duties of Piety and Policy by constant tradition they knew not why nor wherefore and likewise amongst Gods people upon the premised grounds Hence Doctor Tillesley thus concludes in his Epistle to King James before his Animadversions on Mr. Seldens History Surely the Number Tenth or Tithe is Sacred and very
being but â—ne intire Corporation or spiritual Body-Politique wherof Jesus Christ himself is the only head King Lord Law-giver High-Priest Chief Pastor Minister Advocate Saviour Foundation Corner-Stone and the successive Priests Ministers and Members thereof from the beginning to the end of the World serving worshipping adoring only one and the self-same true immutable invisible eternal Lord God according to his prescribed will and word and Jesus Christ himself the only High priest of this Church for ever receiving and God his Father prescribing Tithes for the Maintenance of his Priests and Levites both before and under the Law and no wayes abolishing but ratifying them in and by the Gospel as I have already proved There neither is nor can be any other particular kind of competent sitting standing setled Maintenance Reward or Recompence for all the Ministers of the Gospel evinced demonstrated out of Gods word which may be truly reputed moral natural divine universal perpetual and unarbitrary nor any other duly rendered from all Christians in all Ages places in Faith Conscience and sincere obedience towards God as such a maintenance but this of Tithes alonâ— independent on the lusts wills of men It being that which the Patriarchs no doubt by Gods prescription being paid in Faith both vowed and paid to God before the Law which God himself afterwards specially reserved prescribed and all his people duly rendered under the Law annexing many promised blessings to the true payment denouncing many threats curses to the sacrilegious Substraction or detaining of them that which Christ himself and his Apostles most specially pointed at commended ratified in the Gospel that which all Christian Kings States Magistrates Churches Christians under the Gospel in all Ages places have generally fixed upon approved asserted prescribed â—â—tified aâ— not only sacred and divine but as such a most â—â—â—t wâ—â—e equal excellent incomparable way of maintanance invented by the most wise God which cannot be matched much lâ—sse amended exceeded by all the policy wit oâ— wisedom of men being a most certain standing unvaâ—iâ—ble convenient Allowance in all Ages places seasons alterations how ever things rise or fall continuing unalterable like the weekly Sabbath as to the porportion or quâ—â—apaâ—â— in all vicissitudes of warre peace plenty scarcity famine and causing all Ministers to sympathize fare share alike with their people everie where be the times and seasons good or bad wet or dry plentifull or barren and giving them a competent share in all their Temporal Blessings without such toyl or labour as might interrupt them in their Ministry Studyes and furnishing them with a tenth part of every tythable Thing their respective Parishes yield for the food cloathing support of themselves Families Cattel or vendibles of somekind or other sufficient to buy what else they want This way of Maintenance therefore so sacred divine antient moral universal convenient equal unalterable and so long continuance in Gods Church in all Revolutions may not must not cannot be either totally abrogated substracted detained diminished nor changed into any other new fangled pretended more equal just certain convenient lesse troublesome Stipendiary Salary by any pragmatical Jesuitical Anabaptistical Atheistical Politicians Statists Powers or Legislators whatsoever without the highest Antichristian Pride Presumption Insolency and Exaltation of themselves above and against God himself whose special sacred Institution portion rent inheritance right and due they are particularly both by name and kind reserved prescribed by appropriated devoted to himself by his own command which all Emperors Kings Princes Potentates Powers Generals Armies Nations in the world have no Power or Jurisdiction to repeal disobey change alter no more than Tenants their Landlords antient Quitrents Services Tenures or Subjects Servants their Kings or Masters Laws Orders Mandates yea no more than they can change Gods weekly Sabbath into another different proportion of time or any other sacred Institution into a new superstitious humane Invention as learned Keâ—kerman in his System Polit. l. 1. c. 21. Polanus in Ezech 48. v. 14. Dr. Carlton and Dr. Scalter in their Treatises of Tithes assert and prove at large This divine Right of Tithes even under the Gospel which I have pleaded for hath been constantly asserted in all Ages since the Apostles times till now by Fathers Councils the Laws Edicts of Christian Emperors Kings Parliaments Canonists Casuists Schoolmen Historians Lawyers Popish Protestant Divines of all sorts and Nations Dr. Richard Tillesly in his Animadversions upon Mr. Seldens History of Tithes printed London 1619. p. 3 to 30 hath colected a Catalogue of no lesse than 72. such Authorities in a Chronological method before the year of our Lord 1215. as have asserted their Ius Divinum in all Ages before that whereof Irenaeus flourishing in the year of Christ 180. is the first and the Constitutions of Fredericus the second the last where those who please may peruse them Mr. Seldens laborious History of Tithes and Review especially ch 5. 6 7 8 9. supplies us with many more Authorities of this kind in succeeding times especially with our own Domestique Laws and Councils to whom I refer the impartial Reader and to Dr. Tillesly Dr. Sclater Mr. Mountague Mr. Nettles and Sir James Semple their Animadversions on and Answers to his History If any desire further satisfaction in this point let them peruse Andr. Hispanus De Decimis Tractatus Petrus Rebuffus and Tyndarus De Decimis printed Colo. 1590 Gaspar Boetius De Deciman Tutori Hispanico JURE praestanda Grav 1565. Ignatius Laserte Molina De Decimis Venditionis Permutationis Ioan. Giffordus Moderata Dissertatio de Ratione alendi Ministros Evangelicos Hanov. 1619. Gulielmus Redoanus De Rebus Ecclesiae non aliendis Ven. 1589. De Spoliis Ecclesiae Romae 1585. Alexander Stiaticus Repet in Extrav Ambitiosae De Rebus Ecclesiae non aliendis Alph. Villagus De Rebus Ecclesiae non ritè alienatis recupeâ—andis Bon. 1606. a Treatise of hard digestion in these sacrilegious times Sir Henry Spelman De non temerandis Ecclesiis Dr. John Prideaux Orat. 5. De Decimis Dr. Edward Reynolds Explanation on Psal 110. v. 4. Gul. Zepperus Legum Mosaicarum Explanatio l. 4. c. 40. And learned Hugo Grotius who thus concludes in his Book De jure Belli Pacis l. 1. c. 1. â—ect 17. p. 9. deservedly magnisied by all Scholars Lawyers Politicians Souldiers and therefore I close with it to stop all their mouths at once I exvetus de Sabbato altera De Decimis monstrant Christianos obligari nec minus Septima temporis parte ad cultum divinum Nec minus fructuum Decima in alimentum eorum qui in sacris Rebus occupantur auâ— similâ—s pios usus seponant Resolving the tenth part of mens increase at least and no smaller proportion to be as justly morally perpetually due to God and his Ministers under the Gospel from all Christians as the weekly Sabbath and seventh part of their time and no
lesse is due still by them to God and his publike worship Thus much for the divine Right of our Ministers to their Tithes omitted in the former part but here supplyed for the Readers fuller satisfaction in these Sacrilegious times which so violently and impiously decry it without Scripture Reason Antiquity Authority out of malice and design The succeeding Chapters more concern their Legal Rational Right and Equity depending on their Divine CHAPT III. HAving dispatched the two principal Propositions of greatest concernment wherein I have been larger than I at first intended to satisfie all mens Consciences and stop the mouths of all Gain-sayers I now proceed to the third Proposition That if Tithes and other maintenance by Glebes Oblations Pensions formerly setled on our Ministers be either wilfully withheld or substracted from them by the people in part or in whole the Civil Magistrates may and ought by coercive Laws Penalties to inforce the payment of them in due form and time both by the Law of God and Rules of Iustice without any Injury or Oppression to the people This Proposition necessarily follows from the former two for if there be a just competent comfortable Maintenance due to all lawfull painfull Preachers and Ministers of the Gospel even by divine Right institution expresse Precepts both of the Gospel and Law of God and that as a just Debt hire wages salary right not as a mere voluntary Gift Alms Benevolence and the setled maintenance of our Ministers by Tithes Glebes Oblations Pensions and other Duties be such as I have already demonstrated then the Civil Magistrates may and ought by coercive Laws and Penalties to enforce the payment of them in due form and time as our very Officers by such means enforce their Souldiers Parents their Children and Servants Schoolmasters their Scholars yea our Troopers their very Horses held in with Bits and Bridles when unruly and quickned with Spurs when lazy and Shepheards their very Sheep with their Dogs and hooks when there is cause to do their duties and reform their Errors without the least guilt or colour of Injury or Oppression to the wilfull obstinate or negligent detainers of them and that by the self-same Laws rules of Justice Reason Conscience as all Tith-Opponents yet grant they may enforce obstinate or negligent Tenants Creditors Masters Publick or private Accomptants Trespassers Disseisors and the like to pay their just Rents and Services to their Landlords their due Debts to their Creditors their contracted wages to their hired Labourers or menial Servants their audited Arrears to the publick Treasury or others to whom they are indebted upon Account their ascertained dammages to such as they have injured and to restore the Goods or Lands unjustly taken or detained to those they have plundered or disseâ—sed of them yea as justly as they may by any coercive Laws and means enforce and constrain any obstinate Persoâ—â— oâ— Merchants to pay all Tenths Fifteens Subsidies Aydâ— Cuâ—toms Tonnage Poundage for defence of the Realâ—â—y and or sea when publickly and legally granted in and by a full free and lawfull Parliament duly summoned and elected by the people according to the manifold Laws and Statutes enacted for that purpose the want of which indubital Ingredients only how fatal they have been to Parliaments in former Ages to make them and all their Acts Iudgements Orders Ordinances mere Nullities and what a prejudice they have been to the People and Republick too those who please may read at leasure in the Statutes of 39 H. 6. c. 1. Rot. parl n. 3. 17. c. 7. And the Act for repealing the Parliament of 21 R. 2. in the Parliament oâ— 1 H. 4. c. 3. The reason of which Repeal is thus recorded by Mr. Oliver Saint Iohn in his Declaration in Parliament against the Shipmony Iudges Anno 1640. printed by the Commons command p. 33. That Parliament of 21 R. â— of Revocation was held by force as is declared in the Parliament Roll of 1 H. 4. n. 21 22. That it was held Viris armatis et Sagitariis immensis The Knights of Parliaments were not elected by the Commons Prout mos â—xegit Sed per Regiam voluntatem And so the Lords Rex omnes Dominos Sibi adhaerentes summonare fecit Whereupon Nu. 48. These judgements of Revocation and that of the whole Parliaments proceedings too are declared to be Erronea Iniqua et omni juri et rationi repugnaâ—tia Erroneous wicked and contrary to all Right and Reason So Mr Saint John Numb 37. This was one grand Article of Impeachment of King Richard the 2 â— for which he was then deposed from his Government by a forced Resignation Heu licet quod eo Statuto Consuetudine Regni sui in Convocatione â—ujuâ—libeâ— Parliamenti sui populus suus in singulis Comitatilus Regni DEBEAâ— ESSE Lâ—BER ad eligend depuâ—aâ—d Milites pro hujusmodi Comitatibus ad interesseâ—d Parliamento ad exponend eorum gravaminâ— ad prosequend pro remediis superinde prâ—uâ— eis videbaâ—ur expeâ—ire Tamen praefaâ—us Rex ut in Parliamentis suis ut liberius consequi valeat suae temerariae voluntatis effectare dirâ—xit mandata sua frequentius Viceâ—omiâ—ibas suis ut certas Personas per ipsum Regem nominatas ut Milites Comitatus venire faciat ad Parliamenta sua Quos quidem Milites eidem Regi faventes indulgere poterat prout frequenter fecit quandoque per minas varias et terrores quandoque per munera ad consentiend illis quae Regno praejudicialia fuerant et Populo quamplumum onerosa et specialiter ad concedendum eidem Regi Subsidium ad certos Annos suum Populum nimium opprimendo Which I leave to John Canne to English for those who understand not Latin or our Laws and would strip our learned Ministers of their Tithes and setled maintenance by colour of an extraordinary call as he terms it to such an extraordinary Sacrilegious work as this Quest But what ground is there in Scripture may some demand for compelling People to pay their Tithes and other Duties to their Ministers Answ I answer 1. We have the President Law and Commandement of Godly Hezekiah recorded in the 2 â—hron 31. 4 5 6 7 8. with the good effect it wrought already recited 2ly The Examples of zealous Nehemiah and the Religious Nobles and People under him who entred into a solemn Covenant curse oath and made Ordinances to charge themselves yearly with the third part of a Shekle for the service of the House of God and that they would bring in all their First-fruits and Offerings and the Tithes of their ground unto the Levites that the same Levites might have their Tithes in all the Cities of their Tillage Neh. 9. 38 c. 10. 1. throughout specially v. 29 32 37 38 39. ch 12. 44 45. which when afterwards neglected by the people Nehemiah contended with the Rulers for their negligence in not enforcing the people to pay them whereupon this
ye not what is right in paying your just Dues and Debts to all you owe them without sute or coercion as the next words literally import When thou goest with thine adversary to the Magistrate as thou art in the way give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him lest he bale thee to the judge and the Iudge deliver thee to the Officer and the Officer cast thee into prison Verily I say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing or very last mite Here is a Gospel resolution of our Saviour in two Evangelists ratified with a verily I say unto thee That all those who will not pay their Ministers Tithes and Dues as well as other mens Debts may be lawfully brought and haled perforce before the Magistrate and by the Magistrate and Judge condemned in double Dammages â—ast into Prison and not suffered to come out thence till he have paid the utmost farthing not only of his detained Tithes and Dues but of his fine forfeiture and costs of sute prescribed by our Laws And let all our Swordmen and other oppugners of our coercive Laws against detainers of Ministers Tithes and Dues give our Saviour himself the Title of a Tyrant and Oppressor a Lyar if they dare and that such proceedings are not sufferable under the Gospel 4ly There is nothing so free and voluntary in the world that I know as Almes and Charity to poor distressed Saints and Christians Yet the Gospel accompts this a due Debt and all able to give them Debtors Rom. 15 27. And if any refuse to render them out of their Hard-heartedness and want of Charity the Christian Magistrates under the Gospel may not only rate and assesse them according to their Estates towards the Poors relief as they do in all Christian Republicks and Realms but by Distresses sale of Goods and other coercive wayes compel them to render them and that both by the Common law of England and the Statutes of 22 H. 8. c. 12. 27 H. 8. c. 25. 1 Edw. 6. c. 3. 5 E. 6 c 2. 7 E. 6. c. 11. 1 Phil. Mar. c. 6. 5 Eliz. c. 3. 14 Eliz. c. 3. 18 Eliz c. 3. 22 Eliz. c. 11. 23 Eliz. c. 3. 3 1 Eliz. c. 10. 35 Eliz. c. 7. 43 Eliz. c. 2. as Dalton and other Justices of Peace Tit. Poor Maimed Souldiers Therefore admit Tithes mere Alms as some would have them yet when and where detained they may be as justly levyed and recovered by coercive Laws and Statutes as Alms to the Poor and those who condemn coercive Laws for Tithes as unbeseeming the Gospel must Tax and Repeal all Laws for the Poor and for Maimed Souldiers too as such which I presume they will not do 5ly I suppose neither Canne himself who receives pay as a Chaplain to the Army out of publick Contributions from the people not from voluntary contributions of the Souldiers and all other Officers and Swordmen oppugning the coercive Maintenance of our Ministers by Tithes or otherwise will maintain even unto death that the People even against their wills and Consciences too may be enforced to pay Monthly Taxes and Excises amounting to twenty times more each year than all the Ministers Tithes in England by coercive Orders and Ordinances though not made in a full free or old English Parliament nor warranted by so many indisputable Acts of Parliament as Ministers Tithes and Dues and levyed by Imprisonments Distresses Forfeitures armed violence and free quartering of Souldiers on the people though adjudged High Treason in Straffords Case in full Parliament for which he lost his Head our Ministers therefore being real Spiritual Souldiers of Jesus Christ even by the Gospels Resolution and not to go a warfare at any time on their own free cost but upon the Peoples pay wages as due to them as any Souldiers which I have formerly proved they must by the self same reason acknowledge the levying enforcing of the payment of their less Burdensom and more legal necessarie Tithes for the defence and preservation of the very Gospel Religion Gods Glory and Mans Salvation once a year by penalties forfeitures imprisonments or distresses when obstinately detained or else disclaim their own coercive Contribution first to maintain unchristian bloodie wars between Christians of the same Religion in firm unity and amity with us which are not so necessarie or commendable amongst Christians who should live peaceably with all men not make a last Trade of war Love as Brethren Lay down their Lives one for another Yea love and pray for their Enemies not murder or destroy them and beat all their Swords into Plowshares and their spears into Pruning Hooks not lifting up Sword Nation against Nation as now they do to the peril of the Gospel reproach and slaunder and learn war no more as is the Spiritual warfare of our Ministers against the World Flesh Sin Devil and all Errors Blasphemies Corruptions for the eternal Salvation not Destruction of mens Souls and Bodies too 6ly We find it long since prophecied in the Old Testament in relation to the calling to the Gentiles by and under the Gospel Isay 49. 23. That the KINGS of the Gentiles should become Nursing-Fathers and their Queens Nursing-Mothers to the Church Isay 60. 9 10. Surely the Isles shall wait for me and the Ships of Tarshish first to bring my Sons from far their Silver and their Gold with them And the Sons of Strangers shall build up the walls and their Kings shall minister unto thee Psal 72. 10 11. The Kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring Presents the Kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer Gifts yea all Kings shall down before him and then all Nations shall serve him Thus seconded in the New Testament Rev 21. 24. where it is prophecied of the Heavenly Jerusalem the Church of Christ the Kings of the Earth do bring their Glory unto it Which Prophecies concerning Kings and likewise Kings of Isles in particular and no other sorts of Governors which is observable have been most eminently verified of the Kings and Queens of this Isle and Realm of Britain beyond all the Kings Queens Regions Isles and Kingdoms in the world besides to the eternal Honour of that late rejected abjured form of Kingly Government derived from Gods own form of Kingly Government over the whole world and of Christs Royal Government over his Church both Militant and Triumphant and of this our Isle where God blessed our Church and Kingdom 1. with three such worthy Heathen Kings in Succession Arviragus Marius and Coylus who though they embraced not the Christian Faith here preached soon after our Saviours Ascension by James the Son of Zeâ—edee Simon Zelotes Peter Paul Aristobulus and Philips twelve Disciples wherof Joseph of Aramathaea who honourably interred our Saviour was chief yet they courteously entertained them permitted them freely to preach the Gospel to their people gave
for the most part allowed and defalked in the Purchase Rent or Fine which if Tithe-free would have been and when made Tithe-free will be raised to the full value of the Tithes even one years purchase more in ten sales and 28. Rent more in every pound each year upon Leaseâ— as all understanding men knowing what belongs to Purchases Sales of Lands or Leases must acknowledge And that Farmer Purchaser or Improver of Lands who deems not his faithfull Ministers Prayers Preaching Pains and Gods blessing on his Seed Crop Estate Soul Family promised and entayled to the true payment of Tithes and are only procured by his Ministers prayers without which his seed crop and all his estate would be blasted with a Curse amount not to a tenth part of what he now enjoys by Gods promise and blessing by paying Tithes and his Ministers prayers deserves not the name of a rational man much lesse of a Christian and can expect nothing but Gods curse upon all he sowes plants enjoyes instead of a blessed Crop or Harvest All which considered I appeal to any Christian or rational mans Conscience whether Tithes be any such heavy oppressing intollerable discouraging Yoak Bondage Burden Oppression as some now declaim them which Gods chiefest Saints before the Law voluntarily rendred without murmuring and chearfully vowed paid unto God without a Law and his antient people rendred without murmuring though double to our Tithes now by an express Law during all the Levitical Priesthood and all our own Ancestors as well Protestants as Papists have for so many hundred of years chearfully rendred without dispute and all now living came charged with into the world and were thus allowed the value of them in their Purchases Fines and Leases And whether all Tithe-payers have not far more cause to Petition against all Old and New Rent-Services Rent Charges Annuities Quit-Rents Statutes Debts wherewith they were charged by their Ancestors Grants or Contracts and of all the antient Customs for Merchandize for defence of the Seas of Realm as intollerable oppressing Burdens Yoaks Grievances as the Levellers and Anabaptists in some lâ—â—e printed papers stile all Customs Tonnage Poundage Impositions whatsoever as well as Tithes our Excises or monthly Taxes of new illegal formation as well as Imposition than thus to murmur complain Petition against their predial Tithes our Ministers chiefest Livelihood except in Cities which have no Tillage Woods or Meadows And so much briefly for proof That Tithes are no real Grievance Burden Oppression to Gods people especially since orignally granted and commanded by God himself whose Commandements are not grievous 1 John 5. 3. and whos 's heaviest Yoak is easie and Burden light Matth. 11. 30. And those New-Saints who shall think otherwise of this Divine Commandement Yoak and Burden of Tithes under the Gospel give the Gospel it self and Christ the lye herein For the 2d Branch That the abolishing of Tithes will be no real Ease Gain or Advantage to Farmors Lessees and the poorer sort of People lyable to pay Tithes other poor being not concerned in the Controversy whose poverty it self ex-exempts them from this surmised Grievance but a Gain and Benefit only to rich Landlords and Landed-men is apparent by the premises For no sooner shall Tithes be abrogated but every Landlord will raise the full annual value of them in his annual Rents or Fines and exact more for them from his poor Tenants Farmers Lessees than they might have compounded for with their Ministers and where then is their expected Gain or Ease wherewith they are deluded by Impostors As for the rich Landlords they complain not of Tithes as a Burden and need no exemption from them and as all predial Tithes now really issue out of their Inheritances charged with them in perpetuity who therefore abate allow the full value of them to their Farmers and Tenants in their Fees and Rents by way of Defalcation they being in truth the greatest and most considerable Tithe-payers not the poor Farmers or under Tenants So their Inheritances only will be much improved augmented by Tithes abolishing at least one part in ten whiles the poor Ministers and Families shall be starved and the Tenants then more racked by the Landlords than by the Ministers now And this is the Godly goodly Ease this Saint-like Project will effect if put into execution by which none will be real Gainers in their Temporal Estate but those who have Inheritances and all losers in their Spiritual Estate by the losse or great discouragements of their Ministers Hebr. 13. 17. This will appear by the practice of some greedy Land-lords of old thus recited condemned in this Decree of the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the 3 d Anno 1215. In aliquibus Regionibus c. I will English it that our Country Farmers may the better understand it In some Countries there are a stupid or mungrel sort of people who living according to their Custom although they have the name of Christians I doubt Canne will say they were Anabaptists and his godly Predecessors some Lords of Farms or Lands let them out to these men to manure ut Decimis defraudentes Ecclesias majores inde redditus assequantur That by defrauding the Church of Tithes they may gain the greater Rents from their Tenants equivalent no doubt to their Tithes where then is the tenants gain by any hoped exemptions from Tithes Being willing therefore to provide remedy for these prejudices for the Indemnity of Churches we ordain that the Landlords themselves shall commit their Farms to be leased to and tilled by such Persons and in such sort That without contradiction they may pay Tithes to Churches with Integrity or their intire Tithes without any Deduction and if there shall be need let them be thereto compelled by Ecclesiastical censure for these Tithes are necessarily to be paid which are due by Divine law or approved by the Custom of the place though not within the Letter of the Divine law is the Councils meaning not any Modus decimandi of ought within Gods law against which no Custom can or must prescribe Let all Country-men learn from hence what they will get by abolishing Tithes if voted quite down Nay let them consider well whether the real designs now on foot prosecuted by some Army Officers and Souldiers be not to vote down Tithes just as they did the Crown lands formerly reputed sacred and incapable of any sale because the common standing Inheritance of the whole Realm to defray all ordinary publick expences in times of peace and war to ease them of all Subsidies and Taxes whatsoever except one in three or four years upon extraordinary occasions granted in full Parliament for their safety even to vote them only from the Ministers and get them into their own hands to help pay themselves and the Army under pretext to ease the People in their Taxes and yet continue their Taxes still upon them in the same extream or
speech In the time of Moses Law Aaron the great Bishop and High Priest had written in a Tablet before his Breast Doctrin and Truth not only Learning but also Truth whereby was meant that neither ought to be without the other For as Learning is dangerous and hurtfull in some cases without Religion So is Religion unable to defend it self to convince the Gain-sayers without Learning For this cause the Heathen when they erected Temples in honour of their Gods they did also build Libraries that is places to keep Books that by such means their Priests might grow in Knowledge and be better able to perswade others to their Religion Strabo of the Sinprincians that they built a Temple in honour of Homer and joyned thereto a Library Augustus the Emperor built a Temple and also a Library in the honour of Apollo Trajanus in like manner built a Library and called it Vlpia after his own name At Rome in the Capitol where all the Gods had a Solemn place for to be worshipped in there was also placed a Library Athens was a famous Universitie and had many Colleges and Schools of Learning Academia Stoa Lycaeum Canopus Prytanneum Tempe Cynosura in which places were divers Sects of Philosophers Such were in Persia the Wisemen whom they called Magi in Babylon the Chaldees in India Brachmanes in Aethiopia Gymnosophistae in France and England Druides and others in other Countries In all times the Kings and Princes which did set forth Religion were also Builders of Schools and Colleges and Advancers of Learning The people of Israel were never in better state as P. Phagius a learned man noteth out of their Story than when they had in every Town and Village Bathe chenesioth and Bathe medraschoth that is Synogogues wherein they assembled together and places to preach in The same Phagius relateth of Hierusalem that there were in it more than four hundred common Schools and Synagogues wherein the Law of God was taught The Patriarch Jacob was called A Minister of the House of Learning because he applyed himself to the knowledge of the Law of God and to Godliness The Prophets of God had their Schools to breed up under them such as might after their death draw the people from Idolatry and resist the false Prophets They which were so taught by them were called the Sons of the Prophets Samuel taught in such sort at Rama Elias and Elizeus the Prophets taught the Law of God besides Jericho St. John the Evangelist taught at Ephesus and Eusebius reporteth out of Philo that St. Mark had at Alexandria sundry Scholars which gave themselves to reading and reasoning and expounding of the Scriptures Others did the like at Antioch and at other places Out of such Schools it pleased God to take many excellent men and place them in his Church as Origen Tertullian Cyprian Lactantius Arnobius Basilius Nazianzenus Chrysostomus Hieronimus Ambrosius Augustinus c. who were brought up in all kind of Learning and became shining Stars and brought Lights in the House of God notable Defenders of Religion Over-throwers of Idols and Confounders of Hereticks Christian Princes herein have witnessed their Zeal in setting forth the Glory of God After Charles the Great had made his notable Conquests let our Conquerors remember it he erected five famous Universities one at Paris another at Tolouse another at Papia another at Padua and another at Prague to which our King Alfred founder of out famous Universitie of Oxford with the founders of all the Colleges therein and of the Universities of Cambridge Dublin and those in Scotland to omit those Universities in Germany Spain Portugall Poland Denmarke Sweden Hungary and other Parts of Italy and France mentioned by Heylen and others might be added Suidas reporteth of Leo the Emperour That when Leâ— on a time commanded Eulogius a Philosopher should have his Princely reward a Noble man of the Court sayd as some do now of our Universities and Colleges Lands and Revenues that that money would be better imployed for the maintenance of Souldiers Nay saith he and so all wise men now I would rather it might be brought to pass in my time that the wages which are now bestowed upon Souldiers might be given to maintain Philosophers Alexander Severus so highly esteemed that notable famous Lawyer Vlpian that when certain of his Soldiers â—an feircely upon Vlpian to slay him the Emperor stept forth and set himself between the body of Vlpian and the fury of his Souldiers and covered him with his own Robes that the Souldiers might know how carefull he was for the good estate of Vlpian Let our Souldiers who hate and study to suppress Philosophers Scholars Lawyers consider these two last Stories And also for the contrary such as have practised cruelty upon learned men and have hated knowledge were worthily discommended in the Stories of all ages He instanceth in the wicked Apostates Julian and Licinius forecited examples The like is reported of Caligula Caracalla and Domitianus that either they utterly hated all manner of Learning or had some special malice against the writings of some one notable man and therefore sought to destroy them Such was the policy of Satan so thought he to get the upper hand and to restore again his wicked Iericho And were these the Practices of Heathen Princes only may not we remember the like attempts wrought in our dayes who will call â—o mind the time that is not far past shall find that this ignorant Iericho had many friends and hath it not now as many and the same who by all means drew men from knowledge they gave Liberty rather to do any thing than to seek understanding and yet suffered rather the use and reading of fabulous and unclean writers than of the Holy Scripture and Books which carried fruitfull instruction Good Letters to increase knowledge are not to be neglected Such as presume of Gods Spirit over-boldly that without endeavour to use the wholsome means which God hath left unto his Church they shall and doe by special inspiration understand his will do tempt God He adds much more In brief learning knowledge in Arts Tongues Histories of all sorts and in the Laws Governments of former ages are so absolutely necessary for the right understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures and good Government of all Common-wealths and Kingdoms that without them there neither will nor can be any true Religion sound Knowledge of God his word or works nor orderly Government Humanity Civility Navigation or Commerce almost in the world and men deprived of it will be little different from Beasts as appears by the brutish Sottishnesse Barbarousnesse Savagenesse ignorance of the illiterate Indians in America and of some other African and Northern Nations voyd both of Religion Government and Humanity it self because destitute of Learning as Purchas his Pilgrimage Mr. Hackluits voyages Peter Martyrs Indian History Mercator and others record Hereupon our antient Ancestors were so carefull of
those who sate there before you and why not as well on Faux and the Gunpowder Traytors as those since there seems another Powder-plot in the Vault to blow them up intended by Canne and his Confederates if they fail in accomplishing this their desired work whom the Lord hath lade aside as despised broken Idols and Vessels wherein his Soul had no pleasure And why As they knew not their Generation-work which he excites them to neither were faithfull to the interest of Jesus Christ God is no respecter of Persons as men sow so they shall reap Ex ungue Leonem ex cauda Draconem You may see by these passages and his whole Pamphlet pursuing them what these malicious inhuman barbarous irreligious hypocritical Anabaptists aym at in their present violent prosecutions against Tithes even utterly to starve famish subvert extirpate our Ministers Ministry Church Worship Government and make our Land a mere Spoyl Desolation as their Predecessors did Munster and some parts of Germany whiles in their power But let Canne and his Anabaptistical Confederates remember what tragical ends their New King John with all his Princes Grandees Officers Prophets Followers came to in conclusion in Germany And what fatal ruine befell Jack Cade Iack Straw Wat Tyler Sharp and other levelling Companions who had the self-same Designs against our English Laws Lawyers Clergy Tithes Glebes as He and they have now animated thereto by the new-dipped Iesuites and other Romish Emissaries lately crept into their Anabaptistcal Fraternity to further this their Infernal Gunpowder-plot against our Church Religion Ministers Magistrates Government Laws and let them thereupon repent of desist from abominate this their Diabolical wicked Design lest they incur the self same punishments in conclusion by stirring up God and all the whole Nation against them as most accursed Rebels Traytors Instruments of Satan yea that very Antichrist and Whore of Rome they pretend they are blindly acting against whose designs in truth they are but accomplishing in the highest degree I must here observe and desire all others to take notice of three things First that in Cannes Voyce and in all other late Pamphlets Petitions of the Anabaptists wherein they seem to vent their most passionate zeal against Antichrist Babylon the Whore of Babylon their chief Instruments and Supporters I cannot find so much as one Clause or Syllable against Iesuites Popish Priests Papists Romish Emissaries or exciting the execution of any Laws or Statutes formerly made against them but the whole stream bent of them all is only against the Godly Ministers Ministry worship of the Church of England the Presbyterian Government and our present Church-worship the only Babylon Whore Antichrist they intend and fight against not the Pope and Church of Rome 2ly That they are so far from pleading against the Pope Popish Priests Iesuites and urging the execution of the good Oaths Laws made by late and former Protestant Parliaments gainst them and their Treasonable practices that they have frequently written petitioned for their Repeal Abolition as bloody Tyrannical Laws unlawfull Oaths and procured their Repeal or Suspension at least in their favour from some late and present Powers 3ly That when some consciencious pious Stationers late in their Beacons fired discovered to those then in Power The many sorts multitudes of Jesuites Popish Books printed in England within 3. years last past in defence of the Pope and Church of Rome all Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and reviling our Church Religion as Heretical desiring them to take it into their timely considerations to suppress this growing Mischief Design to corrupt the People and reduce them back to Popery ere they were aware Kiffin with other Anabaptists in the Army headed by Colonel Pride taking an Alarum thereat subscribed and printed a Book intituled The Beacons quenched penned they know best by whom not the Subscribers of it not yet inspired with the gift of all the Tongues therein contained pleading for a free Tolleration of such Popish Books printing dispersing amongst us of publick Disputes by those of that Religion traducing accusing the Presbyterians throughout that Pamphlet and those honest zealous Stationers in particular of no lâ—sse than a New Gunpowder-plot Mine Train then ready to be sprung to blow up those Colonel Pride and his Confederates first made and then stiled The Parliament of the Common-wealth of England and the Army too only for discovering thesâ— Popish Books and Trains to blow up our Religion Which Scandal as the Stationers then fully cleared by their satisfactory Reply to that impertinent Pamphlet so the Subscribers of it their Fellow-Souldiers of the Army better versed by far in Mines and Fireworks to blow up Parliaments and nearer related to old Guy Faux a Low-Country Souldier by reason of their Military profession than these Stationers and Presbyterians they thus falsly slandered have since cleared before all the World to be a malicious Calumny of which themselves only are guilty and given just cause of Jealousie Fear to all Presbyterians old Protestants and Pâ—ritans to apprehend that they now really joyn their Forces and Heads together with those thus pleaded for to ruine our Church Religion Ministry under the Notion and Project of suppressing Tithes and of all future compulsory Maintenance for the Ministers of England whom they intend to starve and famish such is their Charity if they can but vote Tithes down before they provide any other Maintenance which Vote once passed the next will be to vote them both out of their Rectories Glebes Churches Ministry too as Cannes Voice and the Kentish Petition against Tithes root and branch sufficiently discover to all who are not wilfully blind enough to make all men now to look about them That the Dominican Franciscan and other Popish Fryerâ— were the first Broachers of this Opinion That Lâ—ymen were not bound to pay Tithes to their Ministers by any Divine law or right on purpose to draw the Tithes of Ministers and Curates to themselves and exempt whatever Lands or Things were given to them from payment of Tithes I have elsewhere evidenced out of Mr. Selden and others whereupon Johannes Sarisburiensis Bishop of Chartres thus censured them Miror ut fidelium pace loquar quodnam sit ut Decimas jura aliena usurpare non erubesâ—unt Inquient fortè Religiosi sumus Planè Decimas solvere Religionis pars est Adding that their Exemptions from payment of Tithes did derogare constitutioni Divinae derogate from Divine institution And Petrus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bath in his 82. Epistle inveighs very much against the privileges of the Cistercian Monks exemption from payment of Tithes as injuriosa immunitas contra Dei justiciam seeing Justiciae Divinae manifestè resistit qui Ministris Ecclesiae nititur jus Decimationis auferre Which these Friers not only persisted in by substracting their own Tithes from the Ministers by colour of these Exemptions but likewise the Tithes of their other Parishioners especially such who contemning
and other like to work our ruine have a hand in this Design to deprive our Ministers of their Tithes and Rectories to work their ruine is most apparent First by their former procedings even against their own Secular Priests in England where they seeking to work their utter ruine subversion supplantation to intâ—ude themselves into their imployments by their Machiavel Atheal plots about the year 1600 to 1605 did first by their scandalous Books Libels Slanders against there Priests bring their Persons and Priesthood into scorn and contempt amongst the generality of the English Papists preferring every Lay Brother of their Society before them executing their Priestly Function without a lawfull Call or Ordination and then endeavoured to substract all Maintenance and Contributions from them threatning to make them leap at a Crust and to pine and starve them debarring interrupting all their Maintenance from English Recusants in such sort that many of them pined away through grief of Mind want of Food and were so near perishing that they were necessitated to petition Queen Elizabeth and her Council for some Allowance in their prisons to keep them from starving Yea they and their Jesuited Followers and Proselites derided their Seminarie Priests and Ghostly Fathers in this manner Ah hah hah A Seminary and old Queen Mâ—â—y Priest a Secular c. You shall see them all leap at a Crustere it be long c. And having got Iudas his Office to carry the Mony bagg into their own and Substitutes hands they disposed of the Wealth and Charitie of Catholicks consisting of many thousand pounds where how and to whom they pleased for their own enriching and advancement which made the Secular Priests write that England was become wild Priesthood and Sacraments had in contempt Religion made but a matter of Atheal policy and Priests through the Jesuites Falsehood Calumniations and untrue Suggestions to the Superiours and all Estates brought into such high contempt that their verie Ghostly Children whom they had begotten had forsasaken houted shunned despised them as if they were none other but their Stepfathers and shewed their Charity so coldly to them as many of them were in extream want and few or none of them scarce able to live as we may read in Watsons Quodlibets against Parsons and his Fellow Jesuites p. 16 17 18 20 21 31 37 38 42 43 45 50 51 52 62 63 70 71 80 81 92 93. and elsewhere throughout that Book in Joan. Bogermanus Catechesâ—s Jesuit l. 3. c. 28. Thuanus Hist l. 126 Mercurius Jesuiticus Tom. 1. p. 287. William Clark his Reply to Father Parsons Libel printed 1603. fol. 17 to 32 which being the very condition and complaint of our Godly Protestant Ministers in most places throughout the Nation at this day is no doubt a storm of these Jesuites raysing a very Plot and Design of their hatching â—omenting to ruine our Ministers and their Ministry now as they would have done their own Secular Priests then in England to advance their own power profit 2ly It is evident by Rob. Parsons and other Jesuites old Project for Reformation of England when they should get power in it To take away all Lands Manors Benefices and setled Maintenance of the Church from the English Clergy and Universities and make all Ministers and Scholars mere Pensioners and Stipendiaries at their pleasure set up itinerary Preachers fixed to no particular Church like our wandring Quakers Anabaptists Sectaries of late instead of Parochial Pastors of which more anon 3ly Alfonsus de Vargas Toleâ—anus in his Relatio ad Reges Principes Christianos De Stratagematis Politicis Societatis Jesu ad Monarchiam Orbis terrarum sibi conficiendam printed 1641. cap. 40 to 51. proves at large out of the Jesuites own printed Defence and other Writings That these new Doctors of no Conscience no Faith no honesty or shame have perswaded the Emperour and other Kings against their Oaths Trusts Duties Charters the Law of Nations and all Divine and Human Laws that it was lawfull for them upon a pretext of Necessity for the ease of the people and Maintenance of their Wars Souldiers to alienate the Lands Revenues Maintenance of Abbies Religious men and of the Church upon Souldiers for the defence of their Bodies and of the Church that so themselves might gain a share of them for the advantage of their own Societies contrary to the wills intentions of the first Donors and Founders Whereupon he thus justly jeers them cap. 46. p. 222. That the institution of the Jesuites Society peculiarly tends to this that their Colleges should beinstituted and Society maintained out of the ruines of the Church and rapines of other mens Goods à quibus Societatis Institutor et Conditor Ignatius cum etiamnum ad legionem bellator esseâ— minime alienus fuisse nec a solita Militum rapacitate quicquam demutasse sine ulla ejus contumelia creditur eâ—si autem Militiam mutavit ac simul cum Sociorum ne dicam furum manipulo Christo Imperatori Sacramentum dixit non propterea rapinam omnem ejerare necesse habuit c. he remaining a PLUNDERER still after he became a SAINT Seeing the Propheâ— Isay seemeth thus to prophecy both of his Rapine and Wound in his halting Legg cap. 33. Tunc dividentur Spolia multarum praedarum Claudi diripient rapinam Therefore no wonder this Spirit of Rapine continues in his Disciples who doubtlesse have infused the self-same Spirit of Rapine into our Anabaptists and Souldiers into whose Societies they have secretly insinuated themselves somenting and intending to lengthen out our wars so long of purpose to make a prey of our remaining Church-Revenues Rectories Tithes and College lands too at last as they have done of other Church-Revenues already dissipated out of a pretext of Necessity as is most transparant to all Intelligent peoples eyes thereby to destroy our Religion by devouring our Ministers Churches Patrimonies the probable if not inevitable consequence of this Jesuitical project if effected as is most apparent by this notable passage of Roderyck Mors formerly a Grey Fryer in his Complaint and Supplication to the Parliament of England about 37 H. 8. after the Dissolution of Monasteries pertinent to my purpose and as worthy consideration now as then Ye that be Lords and Burgesses of the Parliament House writes he I require of you in the name of my poor Brethren that are Englishmen and Members of Christs Body that ye consider well as ye will answer before the face of Almighty God in the day of judgement this abuse and see it amended When Antichrist of Rome durst openly without any visor walk up and down thorowout England he had so great favour there and his Children had such crafty wits for the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light they had not only almost gotten all the best Lands of England into their hands but also most part of the best Benefices both of Parsonages and Vicarages
them 3. That if our besotted Nation shall be so stupid as to admit or permit any company of persons whatsoever a sufficient Legal Power or Jurisdiction without any pretended Crime Attainder Legal Conviction or Trial by their Peers at their meer wills and arbitrary discretions to deprive all our godly Ministers throughout the Nation of their Rectories Tithes and antient Dues though ratified by the Law yea Gospel of God himself by an uninterrupted Title Prescription in their Predecessors from the very first planting of the Gospel in our Nation and more hundreds of years than the antientest Families in the Nation have enjoyed their Inheritances by more Charters of our Kings more particular Lawes Statutes of our successive Parliaments in all ages than all the Nobility Gentry Corporations Commons of the Realm are able to produce for the Rights Titles Defence of their particular Lands and Inheritances against the Rapines Intrusions Claims Seisures Confiscations Sales Alienations of any either claiming or usurping such a Power or Jurisdiction by the Sword or otherwise They will thereby both admit them and invest them in as sufficient a Legal Power and Jurisdiction without the least pretended Crime Attainder Legal Conviction or Trial by their Peers at their meer arbitrary wills and Discretions to deprive strip all the Nobility Gentry Corporations Commons of the Realm of all their Mannors Lands Inheritances Estates Chattels Privileges Franchises whatsoever being not so well fenced by the Laws of God and Men against their Rapines and Depredations as Tithes are and those who will make no conscience upon any grounds or pretences to invade the one will make no Scruple to act the other as the Histories of Jack Cade and his Complices Practices Designs at home and the Anabaptists abroad will sufficiently attest Yea it will be but just with God to engage such Arbitrary Powers to act the later to the ruine of them and their families if they shall either assist permit encourage them by their silence or cowardice to perpetrate the other to the disinheriting of the Church the ruine of their faithfull Ministers themselves and that very Religion which they pretend to profess and practice 4. That as Tithes are the fittest Maintenance for Ministers of all others as invented appointed by the very Wisdom of God himself and the best the wisest of his Saints in all ages holding the self-same proportion in relation to the Ministers and Parishioners in times of Plenty and Dearth good years or bad fair harvests or foul rising or the falling of the prices of Corn Lands and other Commodities affecting them both alike with the mercy and bounty of God in times of Plenty and the Judgments of God in times of Scarcity or unseasonable weather more easily parted with by the Country-man in kind by several small parcels as they grow due than in ready money in one or two intire sums which they are most loth to render and part from of any thing as that they most affect yea farr lesse troublesom to more convenient for our Ministers Persons families and necessary Cattel than bare stipends which must enforce them to run to Markets to buy all their Corn and other provisions both for their Houshold Horses Cattel at the dearest rates So if this Maintenance by Tithes be once abolished either before any other competent Maintenance setled in its steed lesse grievous and inconvenient than Tithes which all wise men in the world will never be able to invent much lesse to establish as things now are setled or Ministers left wholy to an arbitrary unconstrained Benevolence without any limited Proportion or means to recover it if detained as some now petition This expected proposed unconstrained Maintenance would in verity and reality signify just Nothing and be no Maintenance at all in the Petitioners own sence and intention as appears by John Cannes forecited passages and the very words of their Petitions since they refuse to pay them their very Tithes yet due by Law and never freely contributed one penny to them for their Ministry which they revile disclaim as Antichristian Wherefore if any New-fangled Politicians resolve to settle such a new Maintenance only insteed of the old for the peoples pretended Ease let them first establish settle an arbitrary Excise Custome uncoercive voluntary Impost and monthly Contribution as this on the people for Maintenance of the Army and Navy not so simply necessary as the Ministry for our real welfare without any compulsory means to recover it if not freely rendred till the next harvest come and see what a competent Maintenance that will be for the Souldiers and Seamen and provide that all Tenants for the year ensuing shall render only what Rents they please to the State their Landlords Lessees who shall have no power to distrain sue or enter upon any of them in case they deny to pay their Rents and â—rie what a certain Annual Revenue this whimsy will produce to the States and Land-Lords purses Or else give over this Jesuitical Anabaptistical devised new Maintenance for our Ministers as a Stratagem only to starve their bodies and their Peoples souls without any more Debates concerning Tithes to gratify such malicious Projectors and offend all Godly people through the Nation who deem this old way of Maintenance of Gods own Prescription farr better lesse inconvenient in all respects than this arbitrary or any other new-fangled way of these or other mens invention 5ly That although God by his divine Providence is able to support the faithfull Ministers of the Gospel though totally stripped naked of all their Glebes Tithes antient Maintenance through the unrighteousnesse or malice of ungodly men as he did the Apostles and his Ministers in all ages in times of Persecution yet let all such who have or shall have a hand in such a Sacrilegious design consider 1. That they shall be as bitter Enemies to and Persecutors of the Ministers of Christ amongst us in and by this very Project as Julian the Apostate Christian was to Gods faithfull Ministers in the primitive Times when he took away their Preferments Glebes and Church Revenues as the High Commissioners and Prelates were of late to all those godly Puritan Ministers whom they deprived of their Benefices for Non-conformity to their Ceremonies and no real Crime deâ—erving such an inhuman Censure depriving them of their Livelyhoods 2ly That they shall hereby draw a great Scandal upon our very Religion it self Church Nation render them odious Sacrilegious to all foreign Churches Nations gratify rejoyce the hearts of the Pope Jesuites Papists and other professed Enemies of our Religion accomplish their Designs against our Church and Ministers exceedingly sad the hearts and grieve the righteous souls of all Gods faithfull Saints amongst us of all Protestant Churches in Foreign parts and draw this just Censure on themselves 2 Pet. 2. 14 15. An heart they have exercised with covetous practices cursed Children which have forsaken the right way and are
â— c. 1â— â—ect 5 6 7. â—â— Annotata a Capgrave in Prologo ad vitas Sanctorum Spelmanni Concil in Epist Dâ—d p. â—33 a Antiqu. Eccles Brit. in the life of Câ—aâ—mer Fox Speed Hall Grimston in â— 8. Statut. Rastal Manas seâ—as Rome b Mr. Cambdens Britania Spelman and others a Pilgrimage 〈…〉 133. b Fox Acts Monuments and others in his Life and the Statutes in his Reign c 2 E. 6. c. 13. d Speed How Baker Cambden in her life and the printed Statutes in her reign Antiqu. Eccles Brit. in the life of Mathew Parker Godwins Catalogue of Bishops in her time a Ezech. 22 30. b M. Seldens History of Tithes ch 8. a Hist Anglia Tiguâ—â— 158â— p. 52 53 246 247 c. b See â—ir Edward Cooks Preface to his 2. Instit on Magna Charta c See Matth. 〈◊〉 Hist Angl. p 421 505 506 621 624. 838 839. The Statutes at large An. 25 â— 1. after Confirmatio Chaâ—â—â—um N. B. a Epist 82. â—â— Bochellus Decret Eccles Gal. p. 966. Bibl. Patrum Tom. 12. pars 2. p. 7 667 67. a Cooks a Report The Bishop of Winchesters case b Fredericus Lindebrogus Codex Legum Antiqu p. 703. a Rerum Vngaricatum Scriptores Bonfinius Nicholas Isthuansis in vita sancti Stephani Sancti Stephani Regis Decretum secundum c. 52. Status Regni Hungariae p. 19â— â— Cor. 6. 8. a â—ee page 56 58 59 65 68 75 79 83 84 85 89 90 241 243 268 297 298 584. b Ioan. Leo. Geographical Description of Africa l. 3. c Pilgrimage l. 6. c. 10. p. 614. d Microcosm p. 710. 711. 712. a Ps 105. 14 15. a As appears by their late Petitions and Iohn Cannes Voyce a Exact Collection p. 59. c. â— I say 29. 16. a Matth. 22. 23 24. Luke 11. 42. c. 18. 12. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Seldens Review p. 453. c Eccles Hist l. 4. c. 26. l. 6. c. 41 42. l. 7. c. 12. Fox Acts and Monuments vol. 1. a Apologet. c. 39. b Ambrose Office l. 1. c. 41. Fox Acts and Monuments vol. 1. p. 92 9â— c Pr. Stepâ— Hym. 2. a Operum p. 278. b Matth. 24. 12. Object 2. Answ a See my Legal Vindication against illegal Taxes and Humble Remonstrance against Ship-mony Object 3. Answ a Hierom. super Ezech. l. 14. ad cap. 44. Josephus Antiqu Jud. l. 4. c. 8. Chrysostom Hom. 4. in Ephes Serm. 103. Sir James Semple Sacriledge Sacredly handled Joseph Scaliger Diatâ— de Decimis Mr. Seldens History of Tithes and Review c. 2. Purchas Pilgrimage l. 2. c. 7. Richard Mountague Diatribae on Mr. Seldens History of Tithes c. a. Dr. Tillesley and Mr. Nettles Ibidem Dr. Sclaters Ministers portion p. 17. a P. 299 304 306 312 314 315 316 317 331 333 336 337 341 345 346 371. and elsewhere Dr. Tillesley his Animadversions on Mr. Selden c. 11 12 13. Littleton chap. 6. Frankalmoign and Cooks Institutes thereon Petrus Damianus l. 2. Epist 14. Vt copiosiora in pauperes alimenta perâ—iciant dantur in Monasteriis Eremitis DECIMAE Quorumcumque proventuum c. a See Mr. Seldens History of Tithes c. 7. sect 4. p. 165 166 c b Innocent 3. Epist Decret l. 1. p. 203. l. 2. p. 410. Extrav Tit. De Decimis c. 3. Ex multis a Ad Extr. Ti de Parach c. ult Mr. Seldens History of Tithes p. 166 168. b Doctrinal Fidei Tom. 1. l. 2. Artic. 3. c. 64 65. a Epist 240. Object 4. b 7 E. 3. f. 5. 44 E. 3. f. 5. 10 H. 7. f. 18. 7. 6 Dyer 84. 8. Cook 2 Report f. 44. b. c Voyce p. 13. d Surius Concil Tom. 3. p. 751. a See Rastals Abridgement Title Tithes and the Ordinances for Tithes Lindwood provinc Constit l. 3. Tit. De Decimis Mr. Seldens History of Tithes ch 8. b See Mr. Seldens History of Tithes p. 320 322 338 346 350. c Hoveden Annal. pars posterior p. 828. Lindwood Provinc Constit l. 3. Tit. De Decimis d 1 Thess 4. 11. a Hist Angl. p. 4. b History of Tithes ch 7. p. 147 148. a Hist l. 16 17. Dr. Usher Annales Eccles Veteris Testam p. 516 525. b Voyce from the Temple Epist Ded. p. 23. If they were razed to the Ground IT WOVLD DO WELL. c Psal 137. 7 8. a As is evident by comparing it with I say 56. 6 7 8. c. 61. 1 to 11. c. 66. 18 to 24. Jer. 33. 15 to the end Proposition 4. a The Kentish Petition against Tithes John Canne Voyce from the Temple and others b Mal. 3. 8 9. a Matthew Westm â—lorentius Wigorniensis An. 983. Sec my Humble Remonstrance against ship-money p. 19 20 21. b Spelman Concil 610. a Cooks ad Report The Bishop of winchesters case Summa Angelica Tit. Decima a For which there is suffient Allowance given in case of mere Heath and Baren grounds by the Stat. or 2 E. 6. c. 13. b See Augustine Serm. 219. Mal. 3. 8 9 10 11. a Cottoni â—osthuma p. 174 179. The Acts of Resumption 6 H. 3. 5 9. 10 E. 2. 1. 2 R 2. 6. 6 H. 4 1. 2 H. 5. 28 29. 33 H. 6. 2. 1 H. 7 4 â— 12 â— 4. a Britan. p. 161 162. Purchas Pilgrimage p. 133. a 1 Tim. 3. 2. b Sermo 219. Tom. 10. c Causa 16. qu. 7. d Decret Eccles Gall. l. 6. Tâ—â— 3. c. 19. â—â—â— a Suidas in Leone b A thing formerly proposed by them in their Agreement of the People presented to the Commons House Jan. 20. â— 649. p. 24. a Deut. 12. 17 18. Neh. 13. 12 19. 2 Chro. 31. 5 6 7 8 9. Purchase Pilgrimage l. 2. c. 7. p. 130 1â—1 a This Objection I finde recited in the Council of Lingon Anno 1404. there Answered Bochellus Decret Eccles Gall. p. 968. Object a See the Levelers New Printed paper intituled Englands Fundamentall Laws and Liberties claimed c. and many Petitions of late b See all Acts for Tonnage Poundage and Impositions Mr. Hackwels argument against Impositions Cooks 2. Instit p. 58 59 to 64. b Mal. 3. 9 10 11 12. See Augustine Sermo 219. a Gul. Malmesbuâ—iensis De Gestis Regum Angl. l. 1. c. 4. â—uocus Chron. in Carolo Simplici Cent. Magd. 8. c. 7. 9. Dr. Til lesly in his Animad versions on Mr. seldens History of Tithes p. 64 to 69. b Tom. 3. p. 648. c Review p. 466. a Extravag De Decimis c. 10. Joannes Sarisbur De Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. Mr. Seldens History of Tithes c. 6. p. 120 121. b Cannes 2d voyce from the Temple p. 24 c. c 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. d Rev. 1. 5. a Gal. 6. 16. 1 Cor. 15. 1 2 3. b Gen. 14. 20. Hebr. 7. 2 4 c. c 1 Chron. 26. 26 27 28. a Herodotus l. 5. c. 25. Valerius Maximus l. 5. c. 3. Diodorus An. 4. Olymp. 98. Dr. Vsher Annales