would have a liberty to begger them who will not humour them in their fond and false opinions and licentious practises but oppose them as of conscience they are bound to doe neither you nor all your party can prove them either Iewish or Popish as they are allowed and received for the maintenance of the Ministers of England And because you are so confident in your opinion against Tithes and shew your self to have a good opinion of Mr Nye whom with Mr Goodwin c you cite for a worthy saying touching the golden Ball of Government I refer you for satisfaction to him who will tell you as he hath done divers others in my hearing that Ministers of the Gospel may hold and receive Tithes for their maintenance by a right and title which is neither Jewish nor Popish but truly Christian and there is nothing Iewish or Popish in Tithes but the assignation of the decimae decimarum from the d Leviticall Priests to the high Priest from the high Priest to the e Pope and from the Pope to the King when first Pope Urbane gave them to Richard the second to aid him against Charles the French King and others that upheld Clement the seventh against him as f Polydore Virgil relateth And King Henry the eighth taking from the Pope the title of head of the Church to himself by g Act of Parliament took from him the tenths and other profits annexed to that title which were setled upon the Crown by h Statute in the 26th year of Henry the 8. so that the Iewish high Priesthood being expired the papall Lordship abolished the Tithes paid under those titles may be called Iewish and Popish but not that which is assigned for the maintenance of Ministers because they are yet to doe service to their Master and so to receive the maintenance of his allowance for his work which fellow-servants cannot take upon them to take away without presumption their door-neighbour will not allow them a power to appoint the wages of their servants much lesse may they usurp upon the right of God and his Ministers to alienate tithes from the support of his service and worship for that is rather Popish as hath before been observed Which being true and clear as touching the pedegree of such Tithes from the high Priesthood of Aaron to the Independent Prelacy of the Pope and from him to the King as by claim from the title Head of the Church translated from the Miter to the Crown it will not I conceive be thought congruous to the Christian Reformation the thorow Reformation professed by our worthy and religious Rulers that such Monuments of Superstition or Popery should be removed which were unprofitable and that onely retained as a silver shrine to Diana which brings gain to the King or State and puts the charge upon the Ministers of the Gospel who thereby I may say it confidently for some whom I know are brought to this perplexed Dilemma either to pay them with reluctancy as no lesse contrary to their consciences then to their commodities or to deny or withhold them with suspition or imputation of avarice or disobedience to lawfull Authority But the Parliament liketh not that Tithes should be proposed or pressed as many Divines doe both in Pulpit and from the Presse as of divine right which because they think to be wrong they will rather reject them then ratifie them under a title of so high a strain 1. Not onely Divines but divers i others who are men of very eminent note hold Tithes to be due by divine right and some of them have undertaken to prove them so and to answer all objections against them which how far they have performed is left to the judgement of indifferent Readers 2. It is more like that as both religion and reason will dictate unto them they will be the more wary how they take them away lest if that tenure should prove true they should be found guilty of the sin of sacriledge that they should abolish them and that they will seriously search and enquire into the ground of that title and while they are in doubt that they will resolve of the safest course which is not to repeal them for as we must forbear to feed of meats of which another saith that they are sacrificed to idols 2 Cor. 10. 28. for his sake that saith it though but a private Christian so if Divines say and bring Scripture and reason for it that Tithes are dedicated to God or by him assumed first to himself and then assigned or set over by him to his servants for his work in waiting on his worship which must be maintained to the worlds end it will be rather a reason for them to support the tenure of Tithes by their Parliamentary power then any way to prompt or dispose them to desert it or to alienate their right from Ecclesiasticall uses The fear of sacriledge hath been of such force with some heathen Moralists as Plutarch observeth in his Morals that if they pulled down a house contiguous to a temple they would leave some of that part standing which was next unto it lest they should with it take away any part of the Temple it selfe Wherein if they shewed any spice of superstition it will be more capable of pardon or lesse liable to punishment at the hand of God then we may expect if we proceed hastily to lay violent hands upon any thing peculiarly entituled to his honour who is the authour and giver of all things to all men 2. If the plea of a divine right for Tithes supposing it setteth them up too high should incline to irritation in some to make opposition against them why should not the contrary tenet which peremptorily taketh them down too low calling them Jewish Antichristian and Popish and that undeniably as hath been said but never can be proved move others the rather to retaine them and confirm them chiefly the Parliament whose authority is most engaged for their justification and especially since the servants of God have had possession of them by so many laws and so long a prescription for according to the maxime of the law the possessors title is the best untill he bee fairly gvicted out of it 3. If the Parliament doe not in their approbation of Tithes come up to the tenure of divine right they may yet be willing enough to establish them upon other grounds and leave Divines to the liberty of their judgment consciences to plead for them according to the principles of their own profession as in their Ordinances made for setting up of the Presbyterial Government though yet they be not satisfied of the claim of divine right for it they were pleased to authorize it by their Ordinance and to require Divines to prepare the people for the reception thereof by preaching of it and for it so as both to clear it and assure it so farre as they could by the
violence such as the great and pernicious impostor of the world prompted them unto though they vented their diabolicall illusions under the Title of Divine Revelations as the Prince of darknesse made them believe when he put on his holy-day habit the appearance of an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11. 14. 6. That the payment of Tithes where there are the fruits of the earth and increase of cattell out of which they may be raised is the most equitable way and meanes of maintaining the Minister since such a gaine is not onely harmelesse and without sinne for the manner of acquisition which we cannot say of pensions and exhibitions made up out of trade or traffique but such as may be most permanent and constant since whether the Tithe be lesse or more it is still proportionable to the other nine parts and if the yeares be plentifull there is the more provision for house-keeping if scarce that part though lesse is the more in price and worth either for use in kind or for exchange for other commodities Whereas a rate in money which is competent in some places and at some times is incompetent in others such is the change both of monies and necessaries bought with money For money the time was when an ounce of silver now at 5. s. was valued but at 20. d. So in the Act of Parliament in the third of Edward the first Cokes Instit. part 2. p. 410. when 20 markes a year was enough honourably to maintaine a Student at the Innes of Court Fortescue is his Commentary on the Lawes of England c. 49. p. 114. And this was held so great a charge as was to be borne onely by the sonnes of Noblemen and therefore they onely saith the same Author studyed the Lawes in those Innes Ibid. And of old the Revenues fit for a Knight was rated to 20. l. a yeare of a Baron to 400 markes a year and of an Earle 400. l. a year Cokes Instit. l. 2. c. 3. Sect. 95. fol. 69. and Lindwood in his provinciall Constitutions notes upon the rate of a Vicarage for such by the fraud and rapine of the superior Popish Cleargy a were many times deprived of Tithes and put to pensions that it was to be 5 marks in England but in some parts of Wales they were content with lesse afterwards their meanes was augmented to 8 markes a year but some would not be contented with lesse then 10 marks a year and indeed saith the Glosse 5 markes was too little for Hospitality and other expences implying that 10 markes was sufficient for all occasions 2 As for money so for commodities to be bought with it the prices have been very various In the b Statute entituled Assisa panis cervisiae made Anno 51 H. 3. and Anno Dom. 1266. the dearest rate for a quarter of wheate which in the middle of the Kingdome is a measure containing eight times four peckes I render it by that proportion because it is more genearally knowne was 12. s. the cheapest 1. s. so that betwixt these two extreames the ordinary rate might be about 6. s. the quarter And for other provisions the rate set upon them in a dearth in the Reigne of Edward the second was this for an oxe fatted with grasse fifteene shillings for one fatted with corn twenty shillings the best cow twelve shillings a fat hogge of two yeanes old three shillings a fat sheep shorne fourteen pence with the fleece twenty pence a fat goose two pence halfepenny a fat capon two pence halfepenny a fat henne a peny four pigeons a peny so that whosoever sold above should forfeit their ware to the King Dan. Hist. l. 2. p. 209. And I well remember that not very many yeares agoe there was a controversie brought before the commissioners of charitable uses in Cheshire wherein was discovered the cheapnesse of things in former times the case was thus There was a legacy of twenty markes given to the parish of Wood-church in that County to buy oxen to till the ground of poore men with which small summe at the time of the donation about sevenscore yeares before were bought no fewer then twenty yoke of oxen which because the poore people were not able so to keep that they might be strong to labour it was thought fit to sell them and to buy in their stead as many milch kine as the mony would reach unto which were to be hired at a low rate to such as were not able to buy such cattell for themselves But it is yet a cheaper price we read of in Edward the first his dayes when by Stat. Westm. an oxe was to be sold but at 5. s. so in the 13th yeare of Edward the 1. cited in Cokes Instit. part 2. p. 410. How rates are raised in the present age whether by scarcity of things or by the increase of people or multiplication of coyne or all is not unknowne to any and too much experimentally by many whose portion is too penurious for their necessary expences Nor is this great difference of rates either for money or for goods brought to passe on the sodaine but raised by degrees so that if the rule of tithing should be laid down the Ministers wages must be changed as Jacobs was in Labans service many times over which would be an intricate trouble to proportion according to severall variations of persons and places to which inconvenience the maintenance by Tithes is not obnoxious nor to any other which may be compared with such as will hardly be separated if at all from the alienation of Tithes That if any innovation be made in this matter and the people be displeased with it as they will quickly be displeased with any thing which puts them to cost they will take the more boldnesse to contemne it because it is new and for that it neither hath nor is like to have such a ratification of authority either divine or humane by constitution or prescription as tithing hath had no though it should be supposed to last to the end of the world For Tithes were paid 1933 yeares almost 2000 yeares before Christ Salian Annal. Tom 1. p. 251. nu 41. since Christ excepting some times of persecution for the most part of sixteene hundred fourty sixe yeares and we cannot hope the remaining age of the world will hold out halfe so long To these I could adde divers other considerations of importance which cannot be hid from the prudence of such a multitude of sage Counsellors as that most Honourable Senate the Parliament consisteth of which maketh me confident that before they give assent to any such petitions as are put up against Tithes they will be pleased to heare what the Assemblie of Divines can say in answer to such objections as are framed against them upon pretence either of Scripture or religious reason Animadversions upon the Petition of the Committee of Kent AGainst this that which moved you to thinke the Parliament would take
away Tithes was that you have read in one of the newes bookes that the Knights and Gentlemen of Kent presented a petition to the Honourable House of Commons against the payment of Tithes unto Ministers and that they received thanks from the Speaker in the name of the House for that service and that it is held fit to be a leading case for all other Counties of the Kingdome You must beware how you believe the newes bookes for they are many times ignorantly and inconsiderately erroneous or fallaciously false out of an ill affection to some and apparent partiality to others For the Petition it selfe 1. It commeth not as from the Knights and Gentlemen of that County in common who I am credibly informed are not very well pleased with it but from the Committee of Kent who if they be like the Committees in many places are not all of them men of sound and orthodox Judgement neither for matter of Tithes nor for divers other Tenets of Religion 2. Howsoever they professe a good meaning to establish a sufficient maintenance for godly and well deserving Ministers a very good meaning to extend it so farre as to succor their widowes and fatherlesse children as we see by the 8th proposition of their new project It will be a probleme which the present age perhaps will not be able to resolve who the Trusties in after times will accept for such Ministers although they may have cause to suspect that some part of Kent for the present is not so reformed as it should be Anabaptists and other sectaries having misled many into adverse principles not onely to Tithes but to other matters of moment concerning mans duty both of the first and second Table 3. For their exceptions against the received maintenance by Tithes they say first in generall That they bewayle the sad condition of the Country in respect of the uncertaine floting and miserable condition of the Ministry occasioned by the very nature manner and adjuncts of the way of Tithes which the experience of thus many ages doth plainly evince to be miserably attended with these ensuing mischiefes To which I answer That the miserable and floting condition of the Ministry proceeds not from the nature manner or adjuncts of their subsistence by way of Tithes nor doth the experience of thus many ages that is of the precedent ages hitherto evince so much for God who is omniscient and therefore cannot but foresee all subsequent inconveniences for many hundred yeares to come established that meanes to be a standing and settled maintenance for his service and the misery of the Ministry proceeds not from the nature or manner of Tithes which to affirme may seem to coast too neere their conceipt who imagine God to be the author of sinne but from the ill consciences of men who make no scruple to rob God of his right Malach. 3. for Tithes are his portion Levit. 27. 30. and Ministers may suffer very much in the present age because there be many Anabaptisticall sectaries from which Kent is not more free but as some say more infected then some other Counties who take up importunate clamours against Tithes as Antichristian and Jewish and there will be the more by the countenance they may have from such a petition and such petitioners because divers of them are of good reputation not onely for wealth but for their wisedome and learning well affected to Religion and the Parliament and I beleeve it the rather because some godly ministers have expressed their approbation both of it them though therein I conceive they shewed more of the simplicity of the dove then of the wisedome of the serpent for albeit their meaning might be so to gather the Tithes and to put them into such hands as might be rather for the Ministers ease then for their losse no man can prophesie that so good a spirit will descend upon their successors nor how crosse they may prove to such a Christian Intention 2. For the particular exceptions they say first That for the nature of this subsistence it is a very mystery and secret not easily without much art and industry attained unto namely for the Minister to know his dues demandable or the parishioners their dues payable whence ariseth that multitude of scandalous and vexatious suites and brables betwixt Ministers and people which doth fill all the Courts at Westminster and other the Justice-sittings in the Country likewise with causes in this kinde In this charge there be two particulars contained first of the difficulty of knowing the right of Tithes secondly of the vexatious suites raised betwixt pastors and people upon that ground For the first It is a very strange mystery that after so many hundred yeares of Tithing it should not yet be knowne what it is but I doubt not but in this case the right is better knowne unto Ministers that should receive Tithes then acknowledged by the people that ought to pay them And how can they set up their new designe upon the old foundation of Tithing as they project it if it cannot be knowne what is the Ministers demandable due what the peoples payable duty that modell is more like to be a mystery which they propound since it was never heard of in this Kingdome untill they had devised it and as like it is to prove a misery to Ministers if their portion should come into no better hands then most of theirs who have petitioned against Tithes since this Session of the Parliament And secondly for the multitude of scandalous and vexatious suites they make no more against the Right of Tithes then against borrowing and lending buying and selling letting of leases setling inheritances Joyntures c. upon which titles are set the greatest number of suites and for suites for Tithes if the law allow them a right it alloweth them a remedy to recover that right and for the suites that were occasioned thereby they are neither so many as is here presented nor so scandalous for the Ministers part for they may be imputed to the old avarice of worldly minded men who being of a contrary mind to the Apostle thinke it an hard bargaine to exchange their carnall for the Ministers spirituall things but principally to the new principles and practises of such unreasonable reformers as imagine they are never farre enough removed from one extreame untill they arrive at the other accounting all superstitious in point of Tithing that are not sacrilegious 2. For the manner of it respecting either the collecting or payment of Tithes it is a mutuall scourge in the hand of Ministers and people each to other if either or both as too often it happens prove covetous or crosse If it be a mutuall scourge it would well become the wisedome of these Committee-men to enquire where the right is and who doth the wrong and to project a way how the wrong-doer may be made to doe right and to give due satisfaction to such as
the State Is there not more care had and more strict triall taken of Ministers sincerity and integrity then of secular officers surely we are bound in charity to expect a more reformed Ministery then we have had who will rather say unto a Simoniacall patron as Peter to Simon Magus Thy monie perish with thee Acts 8. 20. then be Levies to such a Simeon in making a base and corrupt contract for a benefice And for that you say that such practises are not to be prevented or removed otherwise then by plucking up the very roote which naturally brancheth it selfe out into these foresaid mischiefes so obstructive and destructive to all religion Whether you meane Tithes to be this roote or the disproportion of Benefices or the right of patronage and protection I cannot tell but sure I am that the Apostle cals covetousnesse the root of all evill and so the root of that evill which sometimes passeth betwixt a Patron and his Chaplaine and may as frequently and with as much injury be sound betwixt some Committee-men and Trustees and the Ministers of their choice as any other But as I am confident that there will be an amendment on the Ministers part by the regular way of the Parliaments reformation according to the directions of ordination of Ministers already printed accordingly practised so will it bee not onely possible but easie for the State to finde out a fit means to prevent prevarication on the part of the Patron but if Tithes be removed from their ancient foundation and left loose to the disposall of Trustees or Committee-men they will be a more ready prey for the covetous into whose hands they may come and from whose hands perhaps they cannot without great difficulty be redeemed Lastly in the close of this Petition the Petitioners shew great care that the Ministers may be freed from the incumbrance of Tithes to serve the Lord without distraction and to give themselves to the Word of God and Prayer and to be onely employed to make ready a people prepared for the Lord And so they may do if they be maintained by Tithes for that means of maintenance gives a man occasion of more and better acquaintance with the particular disposition of his people and it is his part to be diligent to know the state of his flock Prov. 27. 23. And for that trouble which may be thought inconsistent with the Calling of a Minister if his means be sufficient he may have a servant to take it from him and ease him of it I know a Minister whose Benefice was a Vicarage and his Parish so large that it was 11 miles in length and of a proportionable breadth yet did it not put him to the expence of one day in a year to compound for or gather in his dispersed portion Now for the successe and acceptance of the Petition in the Honourable House of Commons to which it was presented if such an innovation had been granted for that County it had been fitter to have been made a Sibboleth for that cauthe or angle of the Kingdome for so the word Kent signifieth as their custome of * Gavelkind then to be made a president or pattern of conformity to other parts of the Kingdome as the News-Book of the same week prescribed that to his Reader But the answer of the worthy Senate was such as may further confirm us in our confidence that they will still continue to be gracious Patrons of the maintenance of Ministers and that they will be more ready to ratifie precedent Statutes and their own Ordinance made in that behalf then to dissettle their tenure which is founded upon them and to make Ministers arbitrary Pensioners to such as may be so far swayed by misprision of judgement or personall dis-affection as to deal most penuriously with those who being truly valued without erroneous mistaking or injurious misliking may both by the eminence of their parts and their faithfulnesse in their places deserve the most ample and most honourable Revenue I will give you their answer in their own words which are most authentick they are these M. Speaker by order of the House of Commons did give the Petitioners the Committee of Kent thanks for their former services and took notice of their good affections to the Publique and did acquaint them That the great businesses of the Kingdome are now instant and pressing upon them and that they will take the Petition into consideration in due time and that in the mean time they take care that Tithes may be paid according to Law But there are some in the Parliament that hold the maintenance of Ministers by Tithes to be Jewish and Popish and therefore they will give countenance to Petitions that are put up against them and doe what they can under such titles to render them offensive to such as are truly religious especially to those who have most power to abolish them 1. It may be there are some such and if there be some such among so many it is neither to be thought strange nor true for such a number of them as may be able to carry the cause against the continuance of Tithes 2. For the tearm Jewish it is mis-applyed against Tithes as it was by the Prelates of late is by the Anabaptists at the present against the Sabbath nor are they more Popish then Jewish For the Papists though their people pay them and their Priests receive them yet they for the most part holding thē to depend meerly upon Ecclesiastical constitution made no scruple of changing them into secular titles or uses as in Impropriations in the hands of Lay-men and many other distributions made out of them severall ways without any respect to the service of the Sanctuary Nor is there any thing in the payment and receiving of Tithes under the state of the Gospel which may probably be suspected to have any savour of Judaisme or Popery save onely the payment of Tenths by the Ministers to the King as hath been lately well observed by Mr L. in his second Book against Mr S. I will set down his words and seriously commend them to the consideration of our religious Reformers they are these in answer to Mr S. his Question Qu. What a are the maintenance of Ministers by Tithes Jewish and Popish undenyably Ans. How Jewish and Popish undeniably As undeniably as the Sabbath was Jewish when the Prelates so called it or the article of the Trinity Popish as b Valentinus Gentilis took it when he disliked the doctrine of the Reformed Churches in that point because they agreed with the Papists therein You are grossely mistaken Sir in the tenure of Tithes for though there be a clamour taken up against them by such as make no scruple either of slander or of sacriledge and some would change the Ministers portion which is their masters wages for his own work and reduce them to voluntary pensions of the people because they