we are despised even to this present hour we are hungry and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place we are reviled persecuted defamed we are as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things unto this day If all Ministers in times of peace and settlement must be like the Apostles in not receiving Tithes then they must be like them too even in setled Christian Kingdoms States Churches in all these their particular sufferings and have no certain dwelling place c. And if so Let Canne and his new Ministers of the Gospel as they stile themselves begin the president of whom our Ministers may now say as Paul did of the Corinthians in the precedent verse of this chapter v. 8. Now ye are full now ye are rich ye have reigned as Kings without us when as most of them were very poor and far enough from reigning as Kings or so much as Petty Constables before these unhappy Wars and in dayes of former persecution when Canne himself durst not shew his face in England for fear of a Bishops power or High commission Pursuivant nor durst reproach our Orthodox protestant pious Ministers and Parliaments as Antichristian Popish and compare their Laws for Ministers Tithes with the very Idolatrous Statutes of Omri and Ahab as he doth now p. 3. for which he might have taken a turn at Tyburn in steed of walking freely in Westminster Hall without being questioned for this his impudent high Slanders both of our Laws and Parliaments as well as Ministry 6. If the Ministers of the Gospel be bound to imitate the Apostles in all things then they must not have Gold nor Silver nor Brasse in their purses neither Scrip nor two Coats nor yet Shoes nor so much as two Staves but Sandals only on their feet Mat. 10.9 10. Mark 6.8 9. as the Capuchin-Fryars Mendicants hence conclude this being a positive Precept the objected examples of the Apostles c. only a President And if so not only all our Ministers but Canne and all his Administrators must turn Fryars Mendicants too in good earnest who ground their Vow of Voluntary poverty on this Text and the objected Presidents of Christ and his Apostles and so become no Ministers of Christ but Antichrist and as truly Antichristian as these Fryars are the Heads Ringleaders of our last sect of Quakers 7. If our Ministers must all now be like those of the Primitive times whiles under persecuting Heathen Emperours Kings Magistrates then all Saints and Christians too in our daies times must imitate and be like the Saints Christians in those dayes They must sell all their old and new purchased Lands Houses Lordships Palaces lay all the mony down at the Ministers feet and have all things in common like the real Saints and Christians in the Apostles times Acts 4.34 to the end and instead of Lording feasting it in their new acquired Royal Episcopal Palaces and Mannor Houses they must wander about in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins in Dâ—sarts Mountains Dens and Caves of the earth being dâ—stitute and afflicted like the Saints of old yea and like them they must be tortured tormented not accepting deliverance have trials of cruel mockings scourgings bonds and imprisonments be stoned sawn asunder slain with the Sword instead of slaying plundering imprisoning and sawing others asunder with the Sword Heb. 11.35 to 39. And when our Army-Saints Officers Souldiers Anabaptists Quakers with other Tithe-Oppugners who presse this Objection against Ministers Tithes shall lay down all their Arms Commands Power Lands and sell all they have to become like to all these Primitive Saints and Martyrs of Christ in their sufferings in times of Persecution I doubt not but our Ministers will joyfully part both with their Glebes Rectories Tithes and setled Maintenance to sympathize with them in their Persecutions Sufferings But till such hard times of Persecutions come and they begin to follow this President of the self-denying Primitive Saints I hope they will not make all our Ministers present Martyrs in their Tithes and setled Maintenance nor enjoyn them alone but not themselves to follow the Primitive Ministers of the Gospel in those times of persecution and prove greater persecutors to them in these pretended times of Christian Liberty Law Justice than the late Oppressing Prelates and High Commissioners who suffered many of them though Non-Conformists to enjoy their Tithes Glebes Offrings and not eject disinherit them and their Successors for ever of their antient Glebes Tithes and other setled Maintenance without any Legal Trial by their Peers or Conviction of any Treasonable crimes against our known Laws for which they deserve to forfeit them and all under the false petence that Tithes are Jewish and Antichristian under the Gospel Which I hope I have sufficiently refuted being established on them by Christian Kings States Parliaments immediately after the Primitive persecutions generally throughout Christendome as the fittest Maintenance of all other and particularly in our Realm when as the abolishing of them will be really such in the Judgement of all Godly Protestants Patrons of Religion both at home and throughout the World FINIS 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 pötius augemus Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Per Prophetam praecepit Dominus Decimas inferri in horreum suum vos ab ejus horreo jubetis auferri c. Quid interest Equos rapiatis an Decimas Nisi quia Decima res spiritualis est ideo enormius SACRILEGIVM in Decimis
in his new Voice from the ALEHOUSE RATHER than the TEMPLE which certainly is as Jewish and Antichristian as he would have Tithes to be with sundry late Petitions Proceedings proclaim to all the World and strip them naked of all other coercive maintenance for the future to starve them and their families bodies and the peoples souls that so a new generation of ambulatory Fryers Mendicants and Itinerary Predicants fixed to no certain Parish or Parishes selected out of those swarms of Jesuits Seminary Priests and Popish Fryers now in England under the disguises of Anabaptists Gifted Brethren Dippers Seekers Quakers New-lights Mechanicks of all Trades Gentlemen Troopers and Souldiers too Ignatius Loyola their Father and founder of their Order being a SOULDIER by his profession as diverse of his Disciples are now amongst us as many wise men believe and some on their own knowledge averre may succeed them in their Ministry to subvert our Church Religion and reduce us back to Rome The Pope now living within these few years affirmed to some English Gentlemen of quality in Rome who out of curiosity only went to see him being Protestants that he hoped before he died though he were aged to see England perfectly reduced to her former obedience to the See of Rome having sent many Jesuits Priests Fryers from all parts into England and particularly into THE ARMY as Ramsy the late detected Jesuit at New-Castle under the vizor of a converted Anabaptized Jew confessed in his printed Examination there lately taken and sent up with him to Whitehall Against whom John Canne might have done well to have pressed those to whom he dedicated his Voice from the Temple to execute the Statute of 27 Eliz. c. 2. particularly made against them as most dangerous insufferable Traytors purposely sent over TO WORKE THE RUINE DESOLATION and DESTRUCTION OF THE WHOLE REALM as well as of our Church and Religion as that Statute resolves and not to have most ignorantly and maliciously wrested it contrary both to the very letter and intention against our godly Protestant Ministers only their greatest opposites eye-sores to strip them of their Benefices Livelihood and lives together the whole scope of his Lamentable Voice without so much as uttering one word against these wilde boars and beasts of Rome with whom he and his Companions the Anabaptists are apparent Confederates both in their principles and practices against our Ministers Maintenance Tithes Callings Laws and setled Government to their eternal Infamy The sad consideration whereof hath engaged me though no Impropriator whose cause I plead not nor other Tithe-receiver but a consciencious Tithe-payer as my Ancestors were before me without any retaining fee or other Solicitation to appear publickly in the defence of this common cause of God and all his faithfull Ministers Tithes and antient setled Maintenance being through his mercy and their Prayers enlarged from my long close remote Imprisonments as I did occasionally in private whiles a close Prisoner in Pendennis Castle in Cornwall in December and January last against some Officers and Souldiers there who publickly subscribed in the Castle by sound of Drum three several mornings and promoted in the Country a Petition for abolishing all Tithes though our Ministers own by all Divine and Humane Lawes Rights which neither our Souldiers nor any mortals now living gave to them nor have any pretence of Law Power or Authority from God or our Nation to take from them and all other compulsory Maintenance in lieu of them for Ministers sent to them and to other Garisons as they then informed me by the General Councell of Officers of the Army from St. James both for their own subscriptions though few or none of them or other subscribers of such Petitions Tithe-payers and such hands of Countrymen as they could procure Upon which occasion I had some brief discourses with some of them concerning the lawfulness and antiquity of Tithes First paid by Souldiers out of the very spoyls of Battel taken in the very first War we read of to the very first Priest of God we find recorded in the Scripture and therefore admired that our Army-Officers Souldiers in this age should so far degenerate as to be the very ring-leaders and chief oppugners of them drawing up some brief Notes of this subject out of Scripture to help passe the time in defence of Tithes relating more particularly to Souldiers to silence satisfie reclaim them from this Sacrilegious design which having since enlarged with Arguments and Answers to their chief Objections drawn from their own Military professions for the better satisfaction conviction of all Sword men and others I hope neither Officers nor Souldiers nor any others truly fearing God if they consider Levit. 19.17 Mat. 18.15 16 17. Prov. 19.25 10.17 12.1 13.18 15.10 31 32. 17.10 25.12 Psal 141.5 1 Sam. 25.32 33. 1 Tim. 5.20 Luke 3.14 will or can be justly offended with me no more for writing truth than speaking it to their faces as I did upon all occasions whiles among them not to defame but to inform and reform them for their own and the publick good in what I conceive not warrantable by but repugnant to Gods word and their duties as Souldiers as Christians and to those known fundamental Laws Liberties of the Nation they were purposely raised commissioned waged engaged by Protestations Covenants and their own voluntary printed Declarations inviolably to protect but not subvert and that they will not repute it a capital crime in me not to prove a flatterer dissembler or not to act or write wittingly against my Science and Conscience when our Ministers Maintenance Calling Religion Gods glory Laws Liberties all we have or hope for are in danger of such a sad sodain destructive Convulsion concussion if not Subversion as I long since by Authority of Parliament discovered in Romes Master-piece and since that in My Speech in Parliament and Memento well worth perusal now when so many known Jesuits under a new Provincial which Hugh Peters himself reported as I have been credibly informed are now even in London it self acting as busily and sitting there in Council as duely as when the reclaimed Author of that discovery purposely sent from Rome for the purposes therein discovered was resident amongst them O that these professed Enemies of our Church Religion Nation and those Janizaries of Rome may not sow their Tares of error and seeds of ruine and desolation amongst us whiles almost our whole Nation for ought I can discern if not those who call themselves Watch-men are in a dead sleep or Lethargy and heaving at our most faithfull Ministers Maintenance and Callings too in stead of enquiring after discovering these Arch-traytots and executing the good Laws against and administring those necessary Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Abjuration unto them to prevent those treasonable practices destructive designes miseries and that ruine to our Protestant Religion Kings Government Governors Laws Parliaments Church and Common-wealth which the
That he was worthy for whom he should do this And why so For he loveth our Nation and hath built us a Synagogue Whereupon Jesus went with them and healed his servant marvelling at the Centurions words and turning about and saying unto the people that followed him I have not found so great Faith no not in Israel This great Centurion and Commander was no Jew but a Gentile one who but newly heard of Christs name and same yet he had so much Piety and Bounty as out of his very Spoyls and Gains of Warre for we read of no other Lands or Gains he had to build a Synagogue for Gods worship which the Elders of the Jews and Christ too approved as a worthy act and a sufficient inducement for our Saviour to go with him and cure his servant O that all our Centurions who have Souldiers under them and exceed or equal him in command would imitate and equal this Gospel Centurion in his pious munificence in building in stead of contriving how to deface Temples Churches Synagogues to abolish Tithes ingrosse Church Lands and Livings into their own hands then should they receive as large Encomiums of the reality and transcendency of their Faith Piety Charity from men as he did from our Saviour and the Elders of the Jews for building this new Synagogue I shall only adde for our Souldiers Officers better Information that from this example of Abraham approved in the new Testament both Divines Councils Canonists and Casuists have unanimously resolved That Souldiers ought to pay personal Tithes to Ministers out of their very Militia pay and spoyls of Warr. This was St. Augustines Doctrine DE MILITIA de negotio de artificio redde Decimas recited practised and long prescribed here in England in the excerptions of Egbert Archbishop of Yorke about the year of our Lord 750. repeated confirmed by Gratian in his Decrees Causa 16. qu. 1. f. 381 382 By all the Canonists Glossers on his Text by Angelus de Clavasio in his Summa Angelica Tit. Decima by Hostiensis Summa Rosella and other Summists Casuists in their Titles of Tithes and ratifyed by the Synod of Lingon An. 1404. apud Bochellum Decret Ecclesiae Gallicanae lib. 6. Tit. 8. c. 31. p. 967. This many excellent Christian Commanders Officers Souldiers have in several ages performed as Histories record I shall for brevity instance but in one domestick example and that a memorable one King William the first whom we usually style the Conqueror though he never claimed the Crown by Conquest but only by the last Will Testament and Donation of King Edward the Confessor in his life-time with the assent of his Nobles who was educated with preserved by him during his exile and seclusion from the Crown by the Danish usurpers and as COUSIN and HEIR to Edward the Confessor as he stiled himself in the very Title of his Laws He having vanquished and slain the perjured Vsurper Harold who set the Crown upon his own head and made himself King without any Title or due Election against his solemn Oath to Duke William made to him in Normandy which he pretended to be forced in thankfulnesse to God for this his victory whereby he gained possession of the Crown out of the Spoyls and Gains of his Warr erected a Magnificent Church and Abbey to the glory of God and St. Martin which he called de Bello or Battel Abbey in that very place where Harold was slain and this battel fought which likewise he endowed with large possessions Tithes and most ample Privileges by his Charter and therein offered up to God HIS SWORD and the royal robe which he ware the day of his Coronation there reserved as a Monument as well of his Piety as Victory After which this pretended Conqueror in the fourth year of his reign by the Counsel of his Barons through all the Counties of England caused 12. men of the most Noble wise and skilfullest in the Law to be summoned out of every shire that he might learn their Laws and Customs from them and gave them this Oath That proceeding in a right path without declining to the right hand or the left to the best of their power they should make known to him the Customs and Sanctions of their Lawes pretermitting nothing adding nothing and altering nothing in them by prevarication which they accordingly performing and King William intending to alter the Law only in one particular according to the Lawes of Norway from whence he and his Normans descended all the Barons and Grand English Enquest who presented him their Laws on Oath being much grieved at it unanimously besought him that he would permit them to enjoy their proper Laws and antient Customs under which their Fathers lived and themselves had been born and educated because they deemed it very hard for them to receive unknown Lawes and to judge of those things they knew not importunately beseeching him for the soul of K. Edward WHO HAD GRANTED TO HIM THE CROWN and KINGDOM AFTER HIS DEATH and whose Lawes they were that hee would not compell them to persevere under the Lawes of any Foreiners but their own Country Laws alone Wherefore the King taking advice consented to the request of his Barons confirming all their Lawes and Customs in Parliament without any alteration or diminution as they presented them Whereof this is the very first Law concerning the preservation of the Churches rights and Scholars from rapine Every Clergy-man and likewise all Scholars and all their Goods and Possessions wheresoever they are shall enjoy the Peace of God and of holy Church free from all forfeiture and seisure and if any shall lay hands on that which Mother Church shall require LET HIM RESTORE THAT WHICH HEE SHALL TAKE AWAY and likewise one hundred shillings in the name of a forfeiture if it be from an Abbey or Church of Religion and twenty shillings if it be from a Mother Parish Church and ten shillings if it be from a Chapel After which follow 6. other Lawes concerning the Churches peace and privileges and then these two Laws concerning TITHES Of the TITHES of the Church Of all Corn the tenth Sheaf is given to God and therefore to be paid If any shall have a herd of Mares let him pay the tenth colt he who shall have only one or two let him pay a penny for every colt Likewise he who shall have many Kine let him pay the tenth calf he who shall have but one or two let him pay a penny for every calf and he who shall make cheese let him give the tenth to God and if he shall make none the milk every tenth day Likewise the tenth Lamb the tenth Fleece the tenth Butter the tenth Pig Of BEES and all lesser TITHES In like manner also of Bees the tenth of the profit and also of Wood of Meadows Waters and Mills and Ponds and Fishings and Copses and Orchards and Gardens and Negotiations wherein Souldiery
there is occasion there being far more Equity and Gospel-justice for it than that our Ministers out of their small scarce competent and many very incompetent livings should pay the first-fruits and first years profits of their livings to the King or State as formerly they did unto the Pope through Papal Vsurpation onely by the Statutes of 26 H. 8. c. 3.27 H. 8. c. 8.1 1 Eliz. c. 4. and almost or above the tenth of all their livings to the Souldiers amounting to treble their Tenths to the King or Pope without any Grant at all by them or their Proxies in the usual legal just Parliamental way against all their Rights Privileges and our Laws The Jewish Priests and Levites under the Law being never burthened with such first-fruits or taxes by their Soveraigns and exempted from them even by a heathen Conqueror Ezra 7.24 Which those who now endeavour to deprive them of their Tithes Glebes and yet exact both first-fruits Tenths and Contributions from them may do well to consider Having thus related at large what a liberal various full and competent maintenance God setled on his Priests and Levites under the law by Glebes Tithes Oblations Sacrifices Poll-money first-fruits besides the Tenth and Tribute out of the very spoyls of war formerly insisted on I shall now apply it home to the Ministers of and Christians under the Gospel in these short Aphorisms 1. Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel inwardly qualified with sufficient Gifts Graces and lawfully called ordained are Gods and Christs own institution and Ministers as well as Priests and Levites under the Law Mat. 10.5 6 7. ch 28.19 20. Luke 10.1 2 c. ch 24.47 49 53. Mark 6.7 8 c. ch 16.15 20. Acts 11.2 3 4 c. ch 14.23 ch 19.1 6 7. ch 26.17 18 28. Rom. 12.6 7 8. 1 Cor. 12.4 8 9 28 29 30. ch 14.29 30 31 32 40. Ephes 4.8 to 17. Col. 4.17 1 Tim. 3.1 2. ch 4.14 15 16. ch 5.21 22. Tit. 1.5 6 7. Heb. 13.17 Jam. 5.14 15. 1 Thes 5.13 1 Cor. 4.1 2 Cor. 3.6 ch 11.23 2. That their Ministry and Calling is far more Honorable Glorious necessary beneficial to mens souls than that of the Priests and Levites under the Law 2 Cor. 3.6 to 12. Heb. 7.1 to 14. 3. That it is far more painfull laborious than the Ministery of the Priests and Levites under the Law Acts 8.4 2 Cor. 11.23 to 30. 1 Tim. 4.13 14 15. 2 Tim. 4.1 1 Thes 5.2 2 Pet. 1.12 Rom. 15.19 20. ch 12.7 8. 4. That therefore there is as just as competent as full as honorable and setled a maintenance and as much honour reverence obedience love as great recompence due unto them for their very work and calling sake from all Christians under the Gospel as there was from Gods people to the Priests and Levites under the Law as I have already proved in the first Proposition and that by divine institution 1 Cor. 9.13 14. 1 Tim. 5.17 18 21. From whence Hemingius with most Orthodox Protestant Divines I have seen besides as well as Papists and Jesuites concludes thus Admoniantur igitur Pii quod Iure Divino Ecclesiae Ministris debeant Stipendia That all the godly are to be admonished that by Divine Right they owe wages to the Ministers of the Gospel And if so then 5. It follows inevitably that there being no other setled way of maintenance particularly prescribed for them in or by the Gospel and convenient Houses Glebes for them their families and necessary Cattel with Tithes of the increase of the fruits of the earth and Cattel of all sorts being as necessary as requisite for the habitation food clothing support of them their families Ministry and supply of all their necessaries with as little charge trouble diversion from their studies functions as may be as for the Priests and Levites under the Law that Godly Christians Kings States Parliaments cannot pitch upon any equaller fitter juster better wiser rationaller convenienter diviner way of maintenance for them than that of necessary Houses Rectories Glebes in every Parish and Tithes and Oblations of all things needfull for food raiment hospitality it being the constant standing setled maintenance which the most wise just and holy God himself invented prescribed for his own Priests and Levites maintenance amongst his own people when setled by him in the land of Promise and that which all setled Christian Empires Kingdoms States Churches generally through the Christian world have in all ages pitched upon as most agreeable to Gods will and word under the Gospel which no ways repeals nor contradicts his own former prescriptions of this kinde in the old Testament 6. That the Glebes Tithes of the Priests and Levites under the Law were reserved by God himself the Supreme Land-lord of all Kingdoms Countries Nations Churches People in the world and the special God Lord King Father Saviour Preserver of his own people as a Sacred Holy Tribute Rent Portion and Homage due unto Himself from poor Creatures Servants Vassals who are no true Proprietors but only Stewards and Tenants at will of all the lands goods earthly blessings and possâ—ssions they enjoy The earth being the Lords and the fulnesse thereof and the Corn Wine Cattel fruits and earthly creatures we possess not really ours but Gods own 1 Chr 29.11 to 17. Psal 24.1 Psal 97.5 Psal 50.9 10 11 12. Ezech 16.18 19 20. Hos 2.8 9. Dan. 4.32 35. Mat 6.10 11. The use and possession of which tribute He allotted to the Priests and Levites under the Law for their maintenance salary and reward of their labour in his service for the advancement of his worship glory honour and his peoples spiritual good reserving the inheritance and right thereof alwayes to himself as the premises sufficiently evidence Now God himself to whom alone Tithes and Glebes were originally impropriated not to the Levitical Priesthood being unchangeable without any variableness or shadow of turning Jam 1.17 Psal 102.26 27. Mal 3.6 and Jesus Christ to whom Tithes were first paid by Abraham in the person of Melchisedeck having an unchangeable Priest-hood and being a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck the same yesterday and to day and for ever Heb 7.8 16 11 24. c. 13.8 And all Christians whatsoever under the Gospel being as much his absolute Creatures Vassals Servants Stewards and Tenants at will as the Israelites under the Law and all their Lands Goods Earthly blessings Corn Wine Cattel wealth imployments his in right and not their own as well as theirs too why they should not all render to him the self-same sacred Tribute holy Portion Rent Homage of Glebes and Tithes of all they have as well as they though the Levitical Priesthood be abolished they being so specially reserved and consecrated to himâ—elf for the support maintenance reward encouragement of his faithfull Ministers under the Gospel imployed in his Service for his honour glory and their everlasting salvation
under the Law Rom. 12.1 4. We have Priests likewise to offer up these spiritual Sacrifices 1 Pet. 2.9 Rev. 1.6 chap. 5.10 chap. 20.6 And these are three 1. Every sanctified Christian who must offer up the Sacrifices of Prayer Praise alms and his own body to God in his private Closet and Family 2. The Ministers of the Gospel who must continually offer up these Sacrifices in the peoples behalf in publick here on earth in the Temple for which we are to render them not only Tithes and Glebes but a Free-will-offering of bounty and charity besides a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God Phil. 4.16.3 Christ Jesus himself our Altar and High Priest too now sitting in heaven Heb. 13.15 cap. 2.17 c. 4.14 15. c. 5.10 c. 6.20 c. 7.17 20 21 22 27 28. c. 8.1 c. 10.21 And if Christians have thus even under the Gospel a Temple an Altar spiritual Sacrifices Priests to officiate in at them and offer up these Sacrifices to God in publike as well as the Jews Why the Priests who minister about holy things in this Evangelical Temple wait continually at this spiritual Altar offer these spiritual sacrifices publikely unto God thereon administer the Sacraments blesse the people and preach the Gospel likewise to them as the Jewish Priests and Levites did teach instruct and bless the people in the Law and kill the Passeover 2 Chron. 27.7 8 9. c. 30.15 16 17. cap. 35.2 3. cap. 15.3 Ezra 7.25 Neh. 8.5 to 12. Numb 6.23 24 25. should not receive both Glebes Tithes and voluntary Oblations from the people as well as the Priests and Levites did under the Law by vertue of the self-same Levitical law of God by which they claimed them they being both the Priests of the self-same God and both executing the self-same Priestly office in a different manner and that by the Apostles own Argument intention and positive resolution in this Gospel text let Canne and all other oppugners of their Tithes resolve me and others from as clear Gospel texts as these I have here alleged and others formerly insisted on in the first Proposition or else yeeld their cause for ever lost I shall cloze up all with two other Gospel texts most urged and abused by those now in power in their own cases who most of all forgot transgressed oppugned them heretofore in other mens The first is 1 Pet. 2.13 14. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours c. The Second Rom. 13.1 2. Let every soul be subject unto the Higher powers for there is no Power but of God The powers that are are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation That these two Scriptures extend only to lawful hereditary or elective Kings Governours Higher powers and that in their lawfull commands alone not to Usurpers Tyrants Invaders of the peoples Rights Laws Liberties Properties Lives who may and ought to be resisted as well as any other Theeves Robbers Invaders Murtherers whatsoever I have largely proved in My Second Part of my Soveraign Power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Authorized by the Commons House of Parliament p. 102 to 131. to which I shall referr the Reader for satisfaction not being the point in issue to which alone I shall apply them In the former Text last insisted on we had an Ordinance of God himself for the Maintenance and Tithes of the Preachers of the Gospel here we have two Gospel commandements to submit to every Ordinance of our lawfull Governours and Higher Powers agreeable to Gods Ordinances or not repugnant to them for the Lords sake not to resist them for though the Ordinances themselves be made but by men and in that sence stiled every ordinance of man yet the Powers that make them are ordained of God therefore those who resist them in their humane ordinances though but in humane things do therein resist the very Ordinance of God especially in things divine commanded by and approved in Gods own sacred Word Now the Maintenance of Gods Ministers by Tithes is an expresse Ordinance of God himself both before and during the law and under the Gospel too prescribed warranted by all the forecited Texts And there are infinite Laws Statutes Decrees Canons Ordinances of just and lawfull Christian Emperours Kings Governours Parliaments States Councils Synods and all higher Powers as well Civil as Ecclesiastical in all Christian Kingdoms States Churches especially in our own for the establishment and due payment of them to the Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel Therefore they are duely constantly chearfully to be paid unto them by all Christians and Professors of the very Gospel and cannot may not be oppugned detained substracted resisted by John Canne or any of his Confederates nor abrogated by any pretending to Power Ordained by God without resisting the Ordinance of God himself yea fighting against him as these Texts and Acts 5.39 resolve For which they shall receive to themselves damnation though they dream as many now do they should merit heaven and salvation too by substracting subverting both Tithes and Ministers even by open armed violence if they cannot accomplish it by Jesuitical Policy and pious frauds And thus much for the confirmation of the Second Proposition by Scripture Texts and Presidents For humane Authorities that Tithes are lawfull and due to Ministers by a Divine Right even under the Gospel I could cite very many were I near my Library and Books as heretofore but being far distant from them I shall trouble you onely with a Catalogue of such as I have by me or remember Fathers of this Judgment and opinion you may peruse Origen Homil. in Numeros c. 18. St. Ambrose in Sermone Quadragesimae cited by Gratian Causa 16. qu. 7. St. Hierome on Mal. 3. and St. Augustine De Tempore Serm. 219. De Reddendis Decimis Tom. 9. both cited by Gratian Causa 16. qu. 1. For Councils you may peruse Concilium Rothomagense Magotiense in Gratian Causa 16. qu. 7. Concilium Matisconense 2. Anno 588. Concilium apud Solemanum Anno 1266. Synodus Rothingue Anno 1581. Concilium Trecense Anno 1427. which resolves Decimae fuerunt à DEO primitus Institutae Praecipiuntur solvi tam de veteri quam de Novo Testamento Synodus Lingonensis Anno 1404. Synodus Turonensis Anno 1588. Concilium Tridentinum Tholosanum Anno 1591. which decree That the payment of Tithes Divino jure cautum est sacrisque utriusque Testamenti libris confirmatum All these Collected together by Bochellus Decreto Ecclesiae Galicanae l. 6. Tit. 8. De Decimis Concilium Tridentinum sessio 25. c. 12. The Council of Orenth An. 1549. with many more recorded in Binius Surius Crab Caranza Merlin Syrmond and other Collectors of the Decrees of Councils resolve Tithes to be due to the Ministers of the Gospel
policy wit or wisedom of men being a most certain standing unvariable convenient Allowance in all Ages places seasons alterations how ever things rise or fall continuing unalterable like the weâ—kly Sabbath as to the porportion or quota pars 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 some kind 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 Keckerman 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 suceeding 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 recuperandis 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 magnified by all Scholars Lawyers Politicians Souldiers and therefore I close with it to stop all their mouths at once Lex vetus de Sabbato altera De Decimis monstrant Christianos obligari nec minus Septima temporis parte ad culium divinum Nec minus fructuum Decima in alimentum eorum qui in sacris Rebus occupantur aut similes 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
all Jesuites and Seminary Priests as Traytors restored the exiled Ministers of the Gospel suffering for Religion rewarding them with the richest 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 Gifts 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 Chronicon Johannis Brompton Mr. Lambards Archaion 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 Offa An. 787. of famous King Alfred Anno 887. of King Alfred and Gutburn the Dane cap. 9. De Decimis Deo Debitis about the year 890. of King Edward the elder and Guthurn Anno 905. or 906. as some Cap. 6. in some c. 9. DE DECIMIS ET CENSU ECCLESIAE 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 Northumberland made a little after that time Lex 51. of King Aethelred 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 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 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 Promovers 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 wind the Religious 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 Cattel or any thing whatsoever although they are or shall be leased or farmed notwithstanding any Title of Prescription or Right acquired or
perswade all turbulent greedy sacrilegious spirits to follow Dr. Gamaliels advice which many of them have much pressed for a publick Toleration of all Religions though now they would extirpate all Ministers and their Tithes root and branch recorded Acts 5.48 49. Refrain from these Men and their Tithes too and let them alone for if they and their tithes be oâ— God as I have proved them ye cannot overthrow them lest haply ye be found to be fighters against God 5ly Let every of the chiefest now in Power remember those many reiterated solemn Declarations Protestations Votes and Ordinances they have formerly made for the due payment and preservation of our Ministers Tithes and Augmentation of their incompetent Livings out of the Bishops and Delinquents Impropriations and Deans and Chapters Lands for the most part other waies disposed notwithstanding And what an high violation of publick Faith Trust Promises Solemn Engagements and an eternal Infamy and Dishonour it will procure to their Persons Memories in after Annals and Posterities if all these should now conclude in a general armed Depredation Abolition Dissolution or Substraction of all their old Rectories Glebes Tithes Dues instead of new settled Augmentations out of other dissipated Church Revenues formerly Voted for them 6ly Let all Changers and Innovators of our Fundamental Lawes and Ministers Maintenance consider what prohibitions Comminations and Judgements God hath proclaimed against and inflicted upon such innovators and changers in his Word Eccles 10.5 6 7 8 9. There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun As an error which proceedeth from the Ruler folly is set in great Dignity and the Rich in low Place I have seen Servants upon Horses and Princes walking as Servants on the earth but mark the issue He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it and who so breaketh an bedge a Serpent shall bite him who so removeth stâ—nes shall be hurt thereby and he that cleaveth Wood shall be endangered thereby The meaning of which Parabolical expressions is thus more clearly explained Prov. 24.21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with those who are given to change for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both That is of the Changers their Adherents joyning with them by the revenging Justice both of God and the King My deceased Brother Burtons Sermons on this Text Nov. 5. 1636. are worth all our Innovators reading For which Sermone he and I joyntly suffered in the Star-chamber through our Innovating all-ruling Prelates malice for discovering oppugning those several Changes and Innovations they had made in the Ceremonies Doctrine of our Church and High-Commission arbitrary proceedings contrary to our Laws Little did those Prelates think in that time of their domineering Power and Greatnesse that these changes of theirs and unrighteous censures upon us for discovering and opposing them would have so soon proved the very causes of their unexpected sudden calamity and ruine according to this Text and censured Sermons and of their High-Commission and Starchamber Court too wherein they prosecuted us yet they really found they did so What proved the calamity and ruine of Strafford Canterbury and the old Council Table but their unrighteous exorbitant Innovations and New Projects against our Laws and old forms of Parliamentary Proceedings What brought sudden unexpected calamity and ruine on the late King and Parliament too even by those who were raised commissioned engaged by Oaths Protestations and Solemn Covenants to defend and preserve them but Gods Justice for some exorbitant Changes and Fundamental violent illegal Innovations whereof both were guilty especially in the Militia whereof the Houses endeavouring totally to divest the King without admitting him any share therein which bred the first fresh quarrel between them as their only security and the Kings too And now God hath made that very Militia the ruine of them both and to assume both the Regal and Parliamental Military and Civil Supreme Authority and Government of the Nation and united Kingdoms too wholly to themselves and to dash in pieces that new minted Mock Parliament Power and Government themselves at first created for those many notorious injurious Changes Oppressions Innovations of all sorts whereof they were deeply guilty And what other fatal Changes God may yet suddenly effect to the Calamity and Ruine of those who have been chief Instruments in all these Changes if they ring THE CHANGES still till they have turned all things upside down as the Potter doth his clay and our very Ministers setled maintenance with all Fundamental laws for the establishment of their and all others just Rights and Liberties I leave to their own saddest Meditations these Gospel Texts of Rom. 2.1 2 3. and c. 12.20 21. which I hope neither will nor can offend any Professors of the Gospel Therefore thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things But we know that the judgement of God is according to truth against them who commit such things And thinkest thou this O man that judgest them who do such things and doest the same that thou shalt escape the Iudgement of God Be not High-minded but fear For if God spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee being a Wilde Olive Tree And when they have meditated on these Texts I shall further importune all such of them who like the little Horn in Daniel 7.24 25 26. that should be divers from the FIRST and subdue THREE KINGS and being elevated with that successe should speak great words against the most High and wear out his Saints and think to change Times and Laws advisedly to consider what there next follows That though the Laws and Times should be given into his hand yet it will be untill a time and times and the dividing of times And the Judgement shall sit and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end And then our Ministers need not fear their Ministry Tithes Glebes nor the People their Iust Rights and Liberties which otherwise are like to be lost subverted destroyed in the long bloody costly Contests and Wars for their Defence and Preservation Now lest any should pretend matter of Conscience or Reason against the Christian Magistrates enforcing of Tithes true payment by coercive Means and Laws in these Tith-detaining sacrilegious times or for the speedy Repeal of all our fore-specified Laws and Ordinances yet in force to compel all Detainers of them to pay them duly under the several penalties therin prescribed I shall endeavour to give a full satisfactory Answer to all Arguments and Cavils of moment usually made against them which are reducible to these four Heads Object First That there is no expresse Precept in the Gospel nor any such penal Laws enforcing the payment of Tithes to be found in the Primitive and
the Souldiers possessing them should be all restored and so they were accordingly and those Harpyes robbed of their Sacrilegious prey Let the late Purchasers of such Tithes and Lands remember it and think of a possible if not probable Act of Resumption in case they make no voluntary restitution 4ly Let them consider the large Revenues the Popish Clergy at this day enjoy in France amounting to above 12. Millions of Annual Rents at a moderate value besides mony and oblations as Bodine Thuanus Hist l. 28. Ioannes de Laety Descriptio Galliae c. 17 18. record To which I might adde the extraordinary great Revenues of the Popish Clergy in Spain recorded by Lucius Marineus Siculus Ioannes de Laet in his Hispaniae Descriptis cap. 20. Jo. Boterus in his Hist Universalis and of the Popish Clergy in the Kingdom of Naples in Italy registred by Thomas Segethus De Principibus Italiae p. 121. Which they still enjoy notwithstanding their manifold Wars without sale or Diminution for their Soldiers pay And will it not be an intollerable Impiety Sacrilege dishonor for Protestant Souldiers and our new Republick not to allow our Ministers so much as their inconsiderable remaining Rectories Glebes Tithes to support our Religion and instruct and save the Peoples Souls 5ly The reason rendred by Martel and others That the Officers and Souldiers deserve the Lands and Tithes of the Church and Ministers because they fight for the defence of the Church is very strange and just the self-seeking Plea and Practice of sundry of our Officers and Souldiers at this day scarce to be parallel'd in any Age 1. They were raised for the Defence and Preservation of the late Kings Person Posterity and just Rights of his Crown Ergo in discharge of this Trust they have most justly sentenced beheaded the King outed dis-inherited his Posterity and seized upon all the Crown-Lands and Revenues in his three Kingdoms for their own use pay support reward and inheritance 2ly They were raised and fought for the preservatirn and defence of the Kingdom Parliament and Members Privileges and Laws and Liberties of England Therefore they have justly by armed violence invaded subverted them all disposed of all the Common wealth and Revenue of the Nation to themselves and their Instruments to support themselves and their usurped Arbitrary Power and Government over us and may null and pull down not only our Old but their own New-created Parliaments and State-Councils as they stile them and change both Government Governors at their pleasure 3ly They fought for the particular Defence Peace Safety of every mans Person and Estate in our three Kingdoms Therefore they may seize upon and dispose of all their Persons Lands Estates at their pleasures and impose what Taxes Excises Imposts they list and exercise a legislative absolute Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power over them without a lawfull Parliament to eat them quite out of all Lastly They fought for our Church Ministers Religion Ergo they may subvert them all and seise upon all Church-Lands Revenues Rectories Glebes Tithes yea Churches and Church-yards too for to reward support and pay the Army and possess themselves of what ever our Ancestors setled on the Church and Ministers to instruct and save the Peoples Souls as a just Salary for killing their Christian Brethrens Bodies and destroying the peoples Souls and Bodies too Certainly the worst Enemies they fought against would not could not have done worse than this nor yet so bad This certainly is a Devastation Destruction not a Defence or Preservation of what they were raysed and payed to protect an Invasion and Depredation not a Patronage and Protection a Remedy more destructive than the worst Disease War Enemy who could but have stript us of no more had they conquered us than these our new armed Defenders of the Faith Church King Parliament Laws and Liberties have done or intend to do as many fear It was John Baptists Evangelical Precept to all Souldiers whatsoever Do violence to none in Person Lands or Estate much lesse to Ministers privileged by the Law of War from Violence and to be content with their Wages without seising sequestring invading the Lands Estates Glebes Tithes Persons of Ministers King and Members or any others they fought for who never raised nor waged Souldiers to deprive them of their Patrimonies Estates Callings Rights Laws Liberties Privileges of Parliament Government Governours but only to secure them in the full possession of them all This new Martial law and practice then is both irrational and unevangelical fitter for professed Theeves Turks and Pyrates than Christian Souldiers and far different from the foresaid Christian Souldiers practice in former Ages who as they would by no means be engaged by their Pagan Emperors or Generals commands to fight against any of their Christian Brethren choosing rather to obey God their Supream Emperour than Men So the famous Thebean Legion of Christian Souldiers and their Officers under Julian the Apostate when he commanded them to bring forth their Arms against the Christians returned him this most Heroick Answer worthy to be written in Golden Letters briefly fully and elegantly expressing the Duty of every true Christian Souldier in all Ages and Cases Offerimus nostras in quemlibet hostem manus quas sanguine innocentium cruentare nefas ducimus Dexterae ipsae pugnare adversus Impios Inimicos sciunt laniare pios et Cives nesciunt Meminerimus nos and O that our Army-Officers and Souldiers would remember it likewise Pro Civibus potius quam adversus Cives arma sumpsisse Pugnabimus semper pro Iustitia pro pietate pro innocentium salute not for Kings Bishops Deans Chapters Ministers Lands Revenues Tithes Estates the things now fought for Haec fuerunt hactenus pretia periculorum Pugnavimus pro fide quam quo pacto conservemus tibi Imperatori Si hanc Deo nostro non exhibemus O that this Resolution were now engraven in every Army-Officers and Souldiers heart our Ministers then needed not to fear the losse of their Tithes Rectories Churches nor our Universities Colleges Corporations or any other the disinheris on of their Lands Laws Liberties Powers by Military Rapines violences and usurpations 6ly The Exemptions of the Hospitalers and Templers Lands from paying of Tithes was a meer Papal Innovation and Devise which Canne who pleads so much against Tithes upon this mistake that they are Popish and all his Confederates should be ashamed to own and imitate The Israelites Gods own people during their possession of Canaan had many forein and Civil wars in most of their Judges Kings and High Priests successive Reigns and Roman Governours over them yet we never read that any of their Generals Officers or Souldiers fighting for their Churches Priests and Religions Defence against forein or Domestique idolatrous Enemies pretended the least Exemption of their Lands or Estates from paying all their antient forementioned accustomed Tithes to the Levites Priests and Poor
that we should no waies be able to resist their progress till they were re-estated in their former Supremacy and Prevalency amongst us And then rhose very Romish Factors who are now so violent against Tithes and Rectories of purpose to starve our Ministers out of them and their Ministry for the present will not only forthwith resume as they did in Queen Maries daies their pristine abolished Pontifical Power and set up their Ecclesiastical Consistories High Commissions and bloudy Inquisitions amongst us higher than ever they were in former ages to the utter extirpation of our Protestant Ministers and Professors too but likewise presently resume into their hands all those Rectories Tithes and antient Dues whereof they now endeavour to deprive our Ministers with all our late Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Chapters Cathedrals Lands and Revenues as Sacrilegiously alienated from the Church against the Lawes both of God and Man as well as against their Popish Canons by those who had no right to dispose of them if they proceed to resume all Abby Lands too in Protestant hands at least And then all late or antient Purchasers of such Lands now confederating with them out of Covetousness Ambition Rapine or other respects will repent too late of their inconsiderable unrighteous unchristian complyance with them against our Ministers Glebes and Tithes and have as ill a Bargain in conclusion as divers old Projectors had in the purchase of our Crown Revenues when resumed or setled in the Crown again by many special Acts of Resumption for the publick weal and ease of the people in their Taxes as being the constant standing Revenue of the whole Kingdom to defray its ordinary publick Expences which none can or ought to Alien or purchase from the Republick to enrich themselves by the publick Losse Wherefore I shall now refer it to their saddest thoughts to consider whether it will not be far safer for all such Army-Officers and others who have purchased Church Lands to joyn together with all such zealous Protestants who desire the continuance of our Ministers antient Tithes and Maintenance more aimed at than Impropriators Tithes against these Jesuites and Romish Emissaries now oppugning them and to use their utmost endeavours to detect apprehend prosecute execute all our former good Laws against them to prevent their mischievous present and future Designs against our Ministry Church Religion Nation than ignorantly or wittingly to confederate with and assist them to accomplish their present Sacrilegious Projects to ruine us and themselves with their Posterities in conclusion and thereby incur the self-same Crime Charge of High Treason which themselves and the whole Parliament of England so lately prosecuted against Canterbury in the 7 8 9 11 12 13 14. Articles of his original Charge for which he lost his head on Tower Hill To draw to a cloze of this Proposition I shall desire all truly fearing God throughout the Nation and Army too sadly to consider these particulars 1. That those who are the chiefest Sticklers against Tithes and our Ministers setled coercive Maintenance especially Jesuites and Anabaptists are the greatest professed open Adversaries to our Ministery Church Religion of all others desiring nothing but their utter ruine as their late printed Pamphlets and Petitions manifest Therefore to gratify them in their Designs herein is to ruine all at once for whose defence we have spent so much Christian Bloud Treasure pains of late years against the Common Enemy and Jesuited Popish Party 2. That many of those who in their printed Papers have decryed our Ministers Tithes and coercive Maintenance as inconsistent with the Peoples Liberties and a great Bondage to them have as earnestly declaimed against all Inclosures Coppy hold Tenures Land-Lords old Rents Services antient Customes Imposts which being not so antient nor ratified by so many Statutes Charters Muniments of all sorts as Tithes are will not be able to stand before their Opposition and Arguments against them if our Tithes and Ministers Glebes should once fall before 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
and thereby proclaim themselves the Greatest Hypocrites under heaven and therein as treacherous to their own Native Country and those who trusted them as the Mamalukes of Egypt the Pretorian Soldiers of Rome were to their Lords and Masters of Old which I hope they will disclaim 3ly It is a resolved case by the Law of Nature Nations and War it self as Grotius proves at large De Jure Belli l. 3. c. 6. sect 8 9 10 c. That things gained by Conquest in a War ought to redound not to the Officers Souldiers Generals who manage the War but to the Kingdom Nation whose servants they are and both Commission and pay them their wages as the Servants Apprentices gains redound to their Masters Coffers not to them Qui sentit Onus sentire debet Commodum being both a Principle in the Law of Nature Reason and in our Common Law too Hence all the Roman Generals and Military Officers brought all the Silver Gold Treasures Spoyls of War into the publique Treasury putting none of it into their private purses and all the Lands Countries they gat by Conquest were the Republiques only which bore the charges of the War not the victorious Conquering Generals or Souldiers Therefore the Officers and Army being Commissioned raised only for and constantly paied by the Parliament people for the ends aforesaid never warring on their own free cost what ever Treasures Lands Powers Spoyls they have gained by their victories Conquests are of Right the Parliaments Nations Peoples only not their own Therefore the Parliament Nation people cannot must not be over-awed used reputed by them as their meer Conquered Vassals but as their Soveraign Lords and true Proprietors of all the Territories Lands Treasures Powers they have gained by their Conquests 4ly That Conquest is no just or Lawful Title was long since resolved by the greatest Conqueror ever England yet bred even our famous British Conquering King Arthur in the greatest Parliamentary Councel ever yet held within this Isle whereat were present no lesse then 12. Kings besides King Arthur and an innumerable company of Princes Dukes Nobles Prelates of the British and most other Neighbor Nations as Geoffry Monmouth Hist. Regum Brit. l. 9. c. 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 20. records All these when Lucius Procurator of the Roman Republique came to demand that antient Tribute reserved by Julius Caesar from this Isle of Britain when first Conquered by him then in arrear and threatned to levy is by force of Arms if denied Meeting together in a great Councel or Parliament specially assembled for that end resolved That the said Rent pretended to be due to the Romans from the Britons because Caesar by reason of the Britons divisions being invited hither with his forces enforced them their Countrie being then shaken with domestique troubles to submit themselves to him by force and violence could not in Justice be demanded of them because this Tribute being gained in this manner was unjustly received Nihil enim quod vi violentia acquiritur Iuste ab ullo possidetur qui violentiam intulit For nothing which is gained by force and violence is justly possessed by any who hath offered and done the violence Irrationabilem igitur causam praetendit qua nos Jure sibi Tributarios esse arbitratur Therefore he pretends an Irrational cause whereby he supposeth we are of Right Tributaries unto him And because he presumes to exact from us id quod injustum est that which is unjust by the like reason let us demand a Tribute of Rome from him and he who shall prove the stronger let him carry away what he desires to have For if because Julius Caesar and other Roman Kings heretofore Conquered Britain he determines Tribute is now due unto him for this cause I now also think that Rome ought to render Tribute unto me because my Ancestors heretofore got it by Conquest Whereupon they all resolved to assist King Arthur with their Armes against this unrighteous Tribute and Title to it by Conquest and professed they would spend their lives in the quarrel Ipsa enim mors dulcis erit dum enim in vindicando Patres nostros in tuendo libertatem nostrant in exaltando 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 3 d Henry the 4 th Edward the 4 th and Henry the 7 th 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 Coronae 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
wise vigilant Protestant Parliaments of 13 Eliz. c. 1. 23 Eliz. c. 1. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 35 Eliz. c. 2. 1 Jac. c. 4. 3 Jac. 1 2 4 5. 7 Jac. c. 6. with some hundreds of printed Declarations Ordinances Remonstrances of the Lords and Commons the last Parliament and the good new Laws Oaths they provided against those Romish Vipers quite buried in Oblivion have published to allarm all drowsie stupid careless people all lovers of God their Religion or Country against them even at this very season when they and their confederates are wittingly or ignorantly over-turning over-turning over-turning whatever is not yet totally subverted among us and carrying on these their designs to their full accomplishment If these my impotent undertakings with a sincere affection only to Gods glory the real weal safety preservation of our Religion Ministry Laws Native Country and all Protestant Churches now indangered by their mutual discords wars and Jesuitical Emissaries to soment their intestine differences may so far open the eyes of all Degrees in our Nation really fearing God as to know in this their day the things which belong unto their peace and settlement and move them efectually to pursue them before they be hid from their eyes I have all the reward I do expect and shall blesse God for the good successe If any shall be offended with me or it and requite me only with envy hatred persecution new Oppressions Bonds close Imprisonments for well-doing and endeavouring any more publick good for our tottering Church Religion Country I shall commit my cause to God which judgeth righteously who hath so often brought forth my righteousness as the Light and my judgement as the Noon day to the shame and confusion of my causelesse enemies and shall carry this comfortable cordial within my brest to any Prison Pillory Gibbet Grave that the malice or power of poor vapouring Mortals who know not how soon their violent dealing may come down upon their own pates as well as on my other potent adversaries shall be able to hurry me to and ascend triumphantly with it even to heaven it self that I have discharged that duty which God Conscience Providence the publick danger of our Ministry Religion Nation and my sacred Oaths Protestation Covenant have engaged me unto And if I perish for it I perish and in perishing shall by Gods assistance depart with this Swan like Saint-like Song of that eminent Prisoner of Jesus Christ who was in Prisons more frequent in Perils Afflictions Persecutions often as I have been for the faithfull discharging of my duty I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousnesse which God the righteous judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also which suffer for his truth and love his appearing which is the unshaken constant faith hope expectation of thine our Churches Religions Ministers Countries unmercenary faithfull Friend and Servant Swainswick 2 Sep. 1653. William Prynne A GOSPEL PLEA FOR THE Lawfullness and Continuance of the Antient setled Maintenance and Tithes of the Ministers of the GOSPEL THE antient necessary competent maintenance of our Ministers of the Gospel setled on them by the Pietie Bountie of our religious Christian Kings and Ancestors almost from the very first preaching and embracing of the Gospel in this Iland constantly enjoyed ever since without any publick opposition being in these times of a long-expected glorious reformation and real propagation of the Gospel more audaciously oppugned more impiously decried declaimed petitioned publickly against and more sacrilegiously invaded detained substracted than in the very worst profanest of former ages and that not only by professed enemies of the Ministers and Ministery of the Gospel but by such who pretend themselves their friends and the most precious Saints who not yet satisfied with the late spoils sales of all our Archbishops Bishops Cathedrals Deanes Chapters Lands and Revenues the fattest morsels of the English Clergie tending rather to support their Lordly Power Pride Pomp Luxurie than their true Gospel Ministry ingrossed into Sword-mens and Lay-mens hands doe now industriously yea violently endeavour speedily to deprive all our painfull godly preaching Ministers of all their remaining inconsiderable scarce competent Maintenance by Tithes Glebes Oblations and other duties formerly setled on them by long prescription by sundry successive Laws Canons and Acts of Parliaments as well as late Ordinances with sufficient warrant even from Gods Word Gospel and to leave them no other subsistence encouragement reward for all their labours in Gods harvest but the meer arbitrarie uncoercive Benevolence of the people who being generally profane covetous vicious Sectarian if not open enemies to all godly Ministers will not voluntarily contribute one farthing towards them desiring rather their room ruine than their companie or subsistence and what they shall otherwise earn by their own labour industrie in some other callings It is high time for all sincere Patrons Friends of the Ministers and Ministry of the Gospel now dangerously assaulted publickly to appear in their behalf and openly to vindicate secure as well the Divine as Civil right of their yet remaining ancient necessarie established maintenance against the clamorous cavils petitions and false absurd Allegations of Sacrilegious Covetous Impious Violent Vnreasonable Brutish men to convince them of their errour and impietie herein or else to shame silence them for the future and preserve our present Ministers Ministry and by consequence our very Religion it self now more endangered than in any age since its first establishment from impendent ruine For which end having not long since had some private discourses with Souldiers concerning the lawfullness of our Ministers Tithes and setled maintenance during my late strict causeless restraints under their armed Guards and perusing some short Prison notes notions upon that occasion of that subject lying by me I thought fit to enlarge and reduce them to these ensuing Propositions wherein the whole controversie now publickly agitated touching our Ministers Tithes and Livelihood is comprised to make them publick for the common good and satisfaction of those who shall peruse them especially Sword-men whom I finde most violent against Tithes and Ministers forced maintenance trusting more as I apprehend to the length of their swords than strength of their Arguments against them which how weak they are let all rational perusers hereof resolve The Propositions I shall here through Gods assistance make good from the very Law Word and Gospel of God with all possible brevitie I trust beyond all contradiction are these 1. That there is a just competent and comfortable Maintenance due to all lawfull painfull Preachers and Ministers of the Gospell from the people even by Divine right institution and express Texts Precepts of the Gospel 2. That the maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospell and of Places Houses for Gods publick worship by Tithes Glebes Oblations
Reverence Obedience Love Maintenance all here prescribed to be rendred in this Text to whom they are due Therefore a liberal honourable comfortable Maintenance and reward is both in justice and conscience DUE as well to the Ministers of the Gospel as to the Magistrates and higher Powers yea as duly truly justly to be rendred unto not owed denied detained from the Ministers as to Kings Parliaments or any other civil Rulers even by this Evangelical precept from which there is no evasion and that for conscience sake as well as for fear of wrath and punishment vers 5. So as none can plead pretend the least colour of conscience for detaining or not rendring their Tithes and Duties to our Ministers of the Gospell without giving the Holy Ghost himself and this Gospel Text the Lie and incurring Ananias and Saphiraes sin Act. 5.3 4 7 8 9 10. for which they may justly expect and receive their fatal exemplary punishment VII The Apostle further clears this truth not only by way of Precept but Reason and Demonstration Rom. 15.26 27. It hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor Saints which are at Jerusalem Ministers and Apostles as well as other Saints that were poor It hath pleased them verily and their Debtors they are For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their Spiritual things their duty is also to Minister unto them in Carnal things I confesse the Text is not meant properly of Apostles and Ministers of the Gospell but of poor believing Saints that were Jewes but the reason argument here urged extendeth much more to Apostles and Ministers of the Gospell than to poor believing Saints and thus I argue from it If the Christian believing Gentiles in Macedonia and Achaia were strongly obliged not only in charity but of debt duty as the Apostle here argues resolves to make a certain contribution for the poor Saints of God at Jerusalem who were Jews and to minister to them in their carnal things when they were in want upon this account that God had made them partakers of their Spiritual things by the Apostles and other Ministers sent or repairing to them from Jerusalem then much more are they and all other converted Gentiles then and now strongly obliged not only in charity but of just debt and duty to make a certain contribution maintenance for and liberally to minister in their carnal things unto those faithfull Ministers of the Gospell who actually preach the Gospell to them and of whose spiritual things paines they are made partakers But the antecedent and supposition is an unquestionable Gospell truth by the Apostles resolution in this alleged Text and is may be further ratifyed by Act. 11.29 30. Act. 4.32 33 34 35 36. Act. 5.1 2 3. 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. 2 Cor. 8.1 to 16. and ch 9.1 to 15. Gal. 2.10 Ephes 4.28 1 Joh. 3.17 Mat. 5.42 Deut. 15.7 to 12. Therefore the consequent must be granted being the Apostles expresse argument in the very case of Ministers maintenance from the people 1 Cor. 9.11 If we have sown unto you spiritual things is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things Now in this reasoning of the Apostle and Gods Spirit in by him there is a double emphatical enforcement to prove Ministers maintenance both a just debt and duty which the people are bound to render to them not as free givers but as debtors 1. By the grounds of Commutative Justice They are or at leastwise may be if they will themselves the case only of obstinate Separatists partakers of the Ministers spiritual things and pains therefore ought in justice duty to pay and render them some proportionable recompence for what they receive from them even as all other Merchants Tradesmen who barter or sell one commodity for another or for ready money use to doe 2. From the nature value of the things they receive from Ministers and of those things they render back to them by way of exchange which will hold no ballance nor equal value with what they first receive For the things the people enjoy by Ministers are spiritual which concern their souls spirits everlasting salvation eternal happiness and are the most excellent precious things of all other farr excelling Gold Silver Tithes and all earthly Treasures Ephes 3.8 18 19. 2 Pet. 1.4 2 Cor. 3.8 9 10. ch 4.7 Phil. 3.8 Rom. 2.18 Psal 19.10 119.72 127. Prov. 8.18 19. But the things and recompence they return to Ministers for them are only their carnal things for the necessary support of their bodies and families which are no way comparable in value worth benefit use to what they receive from them as the last recited Texts and others resolve The people therefore receiving from their Ministers quid pro quo and things of infinite more value benefit than what they render to them the carnal things they receive for their spiritual though in a liberal proportion must needs be a most just debt and duty not meer arbitrary almes or charity and can neither in justice nor conscience be detained from them they being such infinite gainers by the bargain VIII This Proposition is yet further professedly argued debated at full by the Apostle and Spirit of God against all sorts of callings and professions of men that now oppose it with the greatest evidence of reason justice equitie that may be backed with Divine Authoritie as if he had purposely foreseen the violent impious headie opposition now made against Ministers Tithes and maintenance in these daies by souldiers rusticks tradesmen and penned this Scripture purposely to refute them 1 Cor. 9.4 to 16. Have we not power to eat and to drink c. Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof Or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the milk of the flock Say I these things as a man or saith not the Law the same also For it is written in the Law of Moses Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Oxe that treadeth out the corn Doth God take care for Oxen Or saith he it altogether for our sakes For our sakes no doubt this is written that he that ploweth should plow in hope and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope If we have sowen unto you spiritual things is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things If others be partakers of this power over you are not we rather Nevertheless we have not used this power but suffer all things lâ—st we should hinder the Gospel of Christ. Doe ye not know that they which minister about holy things live or feed of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar are partakers with the Altar Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel But I have used none of these things neither have I written these things
with his hands as Paul did to support himself and preach gratis wherefore he tells him 2 Tim. 2.4 That no man that warreth a spiritual warfare as he and other Ministers do intangleth himself with the affaires of this life that he may please or serve him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier A direct inhibition to Ministers to follow Pauls Precedent who cannot serve and please God in their Ministry if they labour day and night in Mechanick trades for their living And upon this ground which is very observable the very Apostles themselves Act. 6.3 4 5 6. Calling the multitude to them said it is not reason pray marke it that we should leave the Word of God and serve Tables much lesse work day and night at a Mechanick Trade wherefore brethren looke ye out seven men of honest report full of the holy Ghost wisdom whom ye may appoint over this businesse but we will give our selves continually to Prayer and to the Ministry of the word And the saying pleased the whole multitude From which Texts it is clear 1. That the Apostles themselves resolve that they could not exercise the very antient office of a Deacon in serving Tables attending on Widowes and other poor aged impotent Saints without neglecting or giving over preaching of the Word much lesse then can Ministers labour day and night with their hands at some Trade or other to maintain themselves and their Families without neglecting and desisting from the Ministry 2. That Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel ought to give themselves wholly and continually to prayer preaching meditation reading and other Ministerial duties and therefore must not undertake or intermeddle with secular Imployments and Callings 3. That the Apostles themselves have punctually resolved and that all the primitive Christians unanimously assented to it that it is not reason that they should leave preaching the word of God so much as to wait upon Widdowes and poor people at their tables whereupon they elected seven Deacons to discharge that office Therefore it is far lesse reason and they are most wicked and unreasonable men without faith or charity from which the Apostle prayes God deliver him and all his Ministers 2 Thess 3.2 who now urge it to enforce all our Ministers to neglect forsake their Ministry Preaching Studies now to follow handicraft Trades to get their livelihood that so they might preach freely to the people without any recompence or reward at all 2. All godly Ministers people in all ages and the very Objectors themselves of late years have extremely condemned censured our Bishops and Prelatical Clergy together with Popes Popish Prelates and Clergy men for intermedling with and executing civil Offices Imployments and worldly affairs which necessitated them to neglect the preaching of the Gospel and their Ministerial duties whereupon not only many antient and late Councils Synods but Acts of Parliament have specially prohibited them to be Privy Counsellers of State Judges Justices of the Peace Lord Chancellors Treasurers Keepers of the Privy Seal Stewards of Courts Commissioners and our very last Parliament by several late Acts disabled all Bishops from sitting as Peers in Parliament and them with all other Clergy men to execute any temporal Offices or Commissions as incompatible with their spiritual Function and an impediment to their Ministry according to the old proverbial verse Pluribus intentus minor est ad singula sensus Which I have proved at large by testimonies in all ages in my Breviate of the Prelates intolerable Vsurpation printed Anno. 1637. My Vnbishoping of Timothy and Titus and Antipathy of the English Prelacy to Monarchy and Vnity Anno 1641. Therefore to force our Ministers to become Mechanicks and give themselves wholly to worldly callings imployments incompatible with their professions must needs be an irrational unchristian Project unworthy the profession or professors of the Gospel not justifiable from Pauls example in them that would enforce it 3. If this Precedent of Paul be a sufficient argument to prove that our Ministers ought to work for their living and to preach the Gospel freely without any reward or coercive Maintenance I shall then by the self-same reason prove that all Officers and Souldiers of the Army who make this Objection and all our publick civil Officers approving it ought likewise to fight and discharge their Offices without pay or salary and to work with their own hands to get their livings without oppressing the people with any Contributions of Excises to maintain them 1. Because Ministers and they are both of one profession in several senses to wit Souldiers 2 Tim. 2.3 4. as I have formerly proved Therefore to fare both a like in respect of pay or hire 2. Because God records in Scripture Ezech. 29.18 That Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon even by Gods appointment caused his Army to serve a great service against Tyrus every head was made bald and every shoulder was â—eeled Yet had he no wages nor his Army for Tyrus for the sâ—rvice that he served against it If Nebuchadnezzer and his Army served God freely against Tyre without wages many years Should not our present Army and Officers much more serve God and their Country freely without wages True it is God gave them after their service fully ended not any Taxes or Contributions from their own Country-men or Nation but the Land and spoyle of Egypt for their wages because they wrought for him verses 19 20. And if our Officers and Souldiers will have such wages it must only be the Lands and spoyles of forein Aegyptian enemies not our Churches or Crown-Lands or Revenues formerly easing the peoples Taxes and defraying all Garrisons and ordinary publick expences which they now claim and enjoy for Arrears of pay 3. Nehemiah both a godly Souldier General and Governour of his people records this for his own honour and others imitation Neh. 5.14 15 16 17 18 19. Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their Governour in the Land of Judah from the 20. even to the 32. year of Artaxerxes the King Even twelve years I and my Brethren have not eaten the bread of the Governor But the former Governours that had been before me were Chargeable and had taken of them Bread and Wine besides forty Shekels of Silver yea even their Servants bare rule over the people but so did not I marke the reason because of the fear of God Yea also I continued in the work of this wall neither bought we any Land as many Officers and Souldiers do now and all my servants were gathered thither unto the work Moreover there were at my Table an 150 of the Jewes and Rulers besides those that came unto us from among the heathen that were about us Now that which was prepared for me daily was an Oxe and six choyce sheep also Fowles were prepared for me and once in ten daies store of all sorts of Wine yea for all this required not I the breed that is the allowance
salary revenue of the Governor observe the ground because the Bondage was Heavy on this people and hath it not been for 17. years space or more and still is as Heavy or Heavier upon us Think upon me my God for good according to all I have done for this people Here was a worthy Governour General Magistrate Souldier really fearing God and tendering the ease liberty welfare of the people in good earnest who with all his Officers and Souldiers for 12. years space together though he and they laboured constantly in building the wall of Jerusalem and he was at so great expence each day for his own Table as Governour yet took no Free-quarter Bread Wine Money Wages or Salary from the people as other Governours Officers before them had done and that because of the fear of God because the bondage was great upon the people expecting only a reward from God I may safer argue from this Scripture Precedent Ergo all our Governours Generals Officers Souldiers fearing God during all our 17 years Wars and as long as they and our bondage shall yet continue are bound to serve their Countrey freely without taking Free-quarter Corn Wine Money wages contributions or Excises from the people and ought not to purchase any Lands and by consequence are thereupon obliged in conscience to make restitution of all the Free-quarter Pay Lands Woods Rents Rewards and publick Revenues they have received for their pay arrears or rewards of service expecting their reward only from God hereafter Than they can from Pauls example conclude that Ministers ought to preach the Gospel freely without wages And so much the rather because Sir William Lewes Mr. Denzill Holles and Col. Walter Long 3. of the XI Members falsly impeached by the Officers and Army An 1647. for engrossing much of the publike Treasure and giving no accompt of what they had received were so generous and truly Noble as in their accompts long before passed and allowed by the Commons house to demand no pay at all the first as Governour of Portsmouth the other as Collonels in the Army under the Earl of Essex Mr. Holles refusing to accept of the thousands voted him out of the Kings revenue for recompence of his former wrongfull imprisonment by the King for his Countries good service in Parliament Whose Precedents their accusers at least are as far bound to imitate in this kind as our Ministers are St. Pauls Upon which considerations I now refer the verity solidity of this argument from Pauls example to the judgements consciences of all Officers Souldiers and others formerly triumphing in it who upon second thoughts must needs disclaime their own Pay and Salaries for the future or else renounce this grand objection as ridiculous and irrational The third Objection is from the 3 Epistle of John vers 5 6 7. Where John writes to Gaius Beloved thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost both to the Brethren and to strangers which have born witnesse of thy Charity or Liberalitie before the Church whom if thou bring on forward on their journey thou shalt do well because that for his name sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles Whence some may inferr though I hear not this Text urged by any That Ministers ought now to preach the Gospel freely to the people and to take nothing of them because John mentions some such that in his time preached to the Gentiles taking nothing of them To which I Answer 1. That this Text questionless was meant of Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles and his companions Timothy and Titus who took nothing of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 12.14 15 16 17 18. seeing Gaius was not only St. Pauls companion sometimes being converted baptized by him Act. 19.29 20.4 1 Cor. 1.14 but expresly stiled by him Rom. 16.23 Gaius mine Host and of all the Churches living then at Corinth where Paul preached freely to whose Precedent I have given a full satisfactory answer already 2. It is evident that this Gaius for some time at least lodged Paul and other Brethren being not only faithfull but charitable and liberal towards them though the other Corinthians were not so 3. St. John addes vers 8. We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth wherein he concludes it to be a dutie incumbent upon all Christians to receive encourage accompany be charitable and liberal to the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel thereby to be fellow-helpers to the truth which otherwise they shall much hinder So as this Scripture fully warrants my Proposition not oppugnes it The fourth Objection is the opinion of our famous English Apostle John Wickliff who held Tithes and Ministers maintenance to be meer alms whose opinion is largely defended by eminent John Hus in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Edit 1640. vol. 1. fol. 602 to 605. Therefore not due to Ministers but detainable or payable only at the meer wills of the people as meer alms to beggars are which are arbitrary Whereto I Answer 1. That Tithes and Ministers maintenance are not pure alms nor so styled by Wickliff Hus Augustine or Chrysostom whom Hus citeth as if Ministers had no right unto them for their pains as a just debt hire wages or as if men might detain them at their pleasure since we are expresly not only exhorted but commanded both in the Law and Gospel to give alms to those that want them and that as Debters to them so far as our Abilities and their Necessities require Rom. 12.10 13 20. 15.27 1 Cor. 16.1 2. 2 Cor. 8. 9. throughout Heb. 13.16 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. Ephes 4.28 Luke 18.22 23. 19.8 Gal. 2.10 compared with Deut. 15.4 to 12. Exod. 23.11 Levit. 19. Deut. 24.19 Prov. 19.19 22.9 28.27 31.20 Eccles 11.1 Dan. 4.27 Yea the Lawes and Statutes of our Land expresly enforce and compell men to contribute to the Poor as they shall be â—ssâ—ssed as well as to pay Tithes or Taxes as you may read in Rastals Abridgement and Daltons Justice of Peace Title Poor But they are styled by them Pure Alms in three other respects 1. Because they were originally given by people to the Ministers that were needie out of charitie and compassion for Gods sakeâ— as well as for their work sake 2. Because Ministers after their own wants supplied did use to distribute part of them to the poor and needy as alms and are obliged still to do it as Abbots Bishops and others did to whom lands were given in pure and perpetual Frank-almoign 3. Because they are pure alms in respect of God as all other goods of fortune are which we both begg and receive from God And in this respect they write every man as well Kings and Emperours as Ministers Priests people are beggars of God 2. As they stiled Tithes Alms in these respects so they likewise granted Alms to poor people and Tithes to be a Debt for
are Gods and wilt thou not render to the Creator of all things that which is his own The Lord God doth not want he requires not a reward but honour he exacts not any thing of thine which thou shouldest reserve fund He vouchsafes to demand only the First-fruits and Tithe of things which are his and doest thou O covetous wretch deny him What wouldest thou doe if reserving the Nine parts to himself he had left only the Tenth to thee This he hath already done when as thy harvest for want of rain mildew and thy vintage through hayl or frost is diminished into a Ninth part O covetous Varlet how dost thou reckon The Nine parts are withdrawn from thee because thou wouldest not give the Tenth It is most apparent that thou hast not given them but yet God hath exacted them For this is the most just custom of the Lord that if thou wilt not give the Tenth to him he will recall the Nine and leave only a Tenth part to thee What if God should say unto thee Man is mine whom I have made the earth is mine which thou tillest the seeds are mine which thou sowest the cattel are mine which thou weariest the showrs and the rain and the gales of wind are mine the heat of the Sun is also mine And seeing all the Elements by which the seed fruits do live and grow are mine and thou only lendest thy hand thou deservest only a Tenth But because Almighty God feeds deals most liberally with us he hath given a most ample gift and reward to him that laboureth challenging the Tenth only to himself and pardoning all the rest to us And wilt thou then ungratefully and perfideously deprive him of it when the year is ended and the crop reaped If any shall presume to doe so let them read what followes in that Sermon and then sleep quietly if they can 9. That all Christians under the Gospel are bound in Justice Equity Conâ—cience to give their hired Servants and Labourers their due and deserved Wages and not to detain it from them even under the Gospel and that by vertue of Gods command recorded in the Levitical and Judicial Law Levit 19.13 Deut. 14.14 15. approved in the Gospel Col. 4.1 and to allow their Beasts Oxen that plow and tread out their Corn Straw and Provender without muzling up their mouthes by vertue of a like precept recorded Deut 25.4 twice repeated and urged by the Apostle in the New Testament to prove the lawfullnesse of Ministers maintenance under the Gospel 1 Cor 9.8 9 10. 1 Tim 5.18 and that without the least suspition of Judaism or Antichristianism Therefore they may and are also bound in Justice Equity Conscience not only to settle Glebes upon but likewise to pay Tithes to the Ministers of the Gospel as a due Wages Hire Reward for their Labour in the Ministry as well as the Jews did to their Priests and Leviteâ— without the least tincture of Judaism or Antichristianism since Christ himself in the Gospel expresly resolvs Mat. 10.10 Luke 10.7 and 1 Tim. 5.18 That Ministers being Labourers are worthy of their Mâ—at Hire and a competent Maintenance suitable to their pains and function as well as any other hired Servants or Labourers in the fields or as our labouring Oxen or Horses are of Straw and Provender 10. We read it recorded 1 Sam. 8.11 15 17. That this would be the manner of the King that should reign over the Jâ—ws that amongst other things He will take the Tenth of your Seed and of your Vineyards and the Tenth of your Sheep and give them to his Officers and Servants In imitation whereof the Kings of England in antient Parliaments and of late times have usually demanded and received by Grant in Parliament a Dâ—cime or Tenth of the Goods and Estates of their Subjects for their Supplies and likewise a Tenth of their Merchandise exported and imported for Tonnage and Poundage as our Parliament Records Histories and Rastal in his Abridgement of Statutes Tithes Taxes and Tenths attest If then our lawfull Kings Princes and Governours under the Gospel may justly demand and receive by Grant in Parliament the Tenth of all our Goods Corn Wooll Sheep Estates Merchandise for their necessary supplies and the defence of the Kingdom and some who are no Kings and have engaged against Kingship as Tyrannical do the like without a Parliament taking beyond the presidents of the worst of all our Kings not only a Tenth of all our Estates but a double or treble Tenth of all mens yearly Revenues Estates of Ministers Tithes besides for the Maintenance of themselves and the Army without the guilt of Iudaism Antichristian Tyranny Oppression or Superstition Why our faithfull Ministers may not likewise demand receive enjoy their Glebes and Tithes not only granted but confirmed to them by our Ancestors in successive Parliaments from the first planting of the Gospel in this Nation till the Reformation by all our Protestant Parliaments since the Reformation and by sundry Ordinances in the very last Parliament to which some now in highest Power gave their cordial Votes for the Preaching propagating of the Gospel and saving of mens Souls without the like Brand of Judaism and Anti-christianism let John Canne resolve me when he can who most falsly scandalously unchristianly brands both the last and all Protestant Parliaments confirming Tithes for Popish Idolatrous Parliaments acting against the Lord Jesus and our Ministry for an Antichristian Ministry Who certainly was in his Cannes or Cups when he writ and published such palpable scandalous untruths to the dishonour of our Church Parliaments Nation Religion But such Cretians are alwayes Lyars Evil Beasts Slow Bellies wherefore they need a sharp rebuke that they may be sound in the saith Tit 1.12 13. He might have done better to excite those to whom he dedicates his Pamphlet against those Popish Priest Monks Friars Jesuits sent from the Pope and Rome into England of late to root out our Ministry and their Maintenance as most opposite to Antichristianism his Papal Soveraignty and Errors under the Notion of Anabaptists dipped Jews Gifted Brethren New Lights Seekers But against these he hath not one word and why so Because the Dominican and Franciscan Freers as Mr. Selden relates in his History of Tithes were the first who made it a gainfull doctrine to teach Laymen that they were not bound to pay their Tithes to their Ministers as to whom by any Law of God that portion belonged teaching them to be due only as Alms or as what ex debito charitatis not ex debito justitiae was to be dispensed By this doctrine The Mendicams especially often got them to themselves like the old Eustathians as Alms to be arbitrarily disposed of to such as took any spiritual Labour as also made their own detaining of them in lands out of which they were parochially due to séem lesse wrongfull They possessing the people with an opinion to gain them
purposely sent from Rome and the greatest sticklers against our Ministers Tithes and Calling must presently depart and none of them return into the Kingdom as many have lately done or else be executed for Traytors But why so what is their crime work imployment here and by what marks or fruits shall we know discover both them and their confederates Let the words of the Statute compared with all our late troubles changes resolve the ignorant and incredulous that there are many such amongst us and of Iohn Cannes fraternity Whereas divers persons called or professed JESUITES these Canne wittingly conceals though the first in the Bead-roll and therfore is a Felon by the law Seminary Priests and other Priests which have been and from time to time are made in parts beyond the Sea by or according to the Order and Rites of the Church of ROME and when Canne can prove that all or any of our Ministers were thus made as he hath confidently averred in print to those he calls the Higher Powers and Supream Authority of the Nation Let them be hanged for Traitors and Antichristian Ministers in good earnest else let him be hanged in their stead for this his impudent slander of them all as well Independents as Presbyterians Have of late years come and been sent into this Realm of England and were any of our Ministers such and not rather Canne himself coming hither from Amsterdam for the purposes following and other the Queens Dominions OF PURPOSE AS IT HATH APPEARED as well by some of their own examinations now out of date as by divers other Manifest means and proofs more visible of late years than ever not only to withdraw her Highness subjects from their due obedience to her Majesty but also to stir up and move Sedition Râ—bellion and open Hostility within the same her Highness Realms and Dominions to the great endangering of the safety of her most Royal Person and to the utter ruine desolation and overthrow of the whole Realm now effected as a Realm if the same be not the sooner and now pray God it be not over-late by some good means foreseen and prevented For reformation whereof be it ordained c. That All Priests and Jesuits Canne cannot spy such good friends within the Act but deletes them out of it Seminary Priests and other Priests whatsoever made and ordained out of the Realm of England c. shall depart the Realm under the penalties therein mentioned Had Canne pressed this Statute to those he dedicates his Pamphlet for the speedy execution of it against those many Jesuits and Seminary Priests now in England for their traiterous Practices and Designes therein mentioned of late and now driven on and almost compleated by them it had been a commendable zeal but not to write one word or syllable against these Romish Vermine Arch-Engineers and Janizaries of the Romish See now swarming among us to ruine our Protestant Kings Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Church Ministers Ministry Religion and foreign Protestant Kingdoms States Churches now engaged by them in bloody Warres both by Land and Sea and to omit the very name of the Jesuits the first Popish Agents mentioned and chiefly intended in this Act and presse it only against our Ministers Calling Ministry Tithes Maintenance of purpose to ruine them and theirs and by consequence our Church and Religion the Designe and scope of his whole Pamphlet is such a malicious unchristian Antichristian Practice as proclaimes him to all the world either a new converted Jesuit or Romish Factor under the Garb of an old Anabaptist or an over-grown cankered Anabaptist void of Piety Honesty inspired by the very Father of Lyes For not one of our English Ministers I know or hear of except two or three Jesuits and Popish Priests crept into livings in Staffordshire and elsewhere very lately I know not by whose favour or negligence was ever ordained by any such Jurisdiction or authority as is here mentioned which all our Ministers and their Ordainers too whether Prelates or Presbyters particularly and publickly abjured both at the time of their respective Ordinations and admissions to their Benefices and likewise when they took any Degree of learning in our Vniversities by the two known famous Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance purposly made and ratified by sundry zealous Protestant Parliaments against the usurped Papal Jurisdiction and authority of the See of Rome and the Popes Jesuits Papists practices to blow up destroy our Protestant Kings Parliaments Laws Liberties Religion and subvert our Kingly Government whole State and Commonwealth and for the better discovering of them yet lately suspended abrogated as dangerous unlawful Oathes by some of Cannes good friends who would be reputed Zealots against the Popes Iurisdiction and his Creatures too Now how those Ministers of our Church who thus abjure the Iurisdiction of Rome at the time of their very Ordination and their Ordainers too before them and since have done the like in their Solemn League and Covenant can without the highest slander be said to derive their Ministry from it and that by Canne and his Iesuitical Anabaptistical Fraternity who never took one of these Oathes or the Covenant and revile repeal them as unlawful out of love to the Popes Jurisdiction Jesuits Priests their Jesuitical Treasonable Conspiracies Treasons Practices or for want of zeal against them Let the world and this slanderers own Conscience if he have any left now determine Besides who knows not but this Ignoramus that the Rites and Ceremonies of Ordination in the Church of Rome recorded at large in Ceremoniale Pontificiale Pontificum Romanorum and the ends of Ordination likewise viz. to say Masse create their Creator offer up Christ in Sacrifice at the altar to his Father Invocate Saints adore Images yield Canonical obedience to the Pope and his Supremacy c. are far different from the form and ends of our Ministers Ordination in the Church of England prescribed by the Parl. of 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 1. ratified by the Statutes of 1 Eliz. c. 1 2. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 8 Eliz. c. 1. and 39 Eliz. c. 8. made only by Protestant Parliaments which as they particularly condemn renounce the Popes Power and Jurisdiction so they declare and resolve our Ministers Ordination to be lawfull and them in very deed to be Ministers and rightly made ordained and consecrated according to Gods word without any derivative power or Ordination from the Church of Rome Therefore for this New old pander for the Whore of Rome to averre they receive their Ministry and ordination thence is a Notorious Ly. Yea but saith he Francis Mason of Consecration and Mr. Yates in his Modell of Divinity prove and confesse That the Ministry of the Church of England established by the Law of the Land is derived from the Pope and Rome True but in what sense onely by way of Succession as his own Ministry and Faith if he hath any were derived from John of Leyden
or just as our Bibles Religion Baptism Churches were derived thence and all now living with Canne himself derived from Popish Ancestors many even from Popes Popish Priests Prelates Friars by natural generation as their surnames discover God used the Popes of Rome and their Instruments to convert the Britains and Saxons from their Paganism to the Christian not Papal or Roman Faith which through Gods mercy hath continued amongst us ever since yet mixed of later times with manifold Popish Errors and Superstitions These Errors Superstitions our godly Martyrs and by them our Kings and Parliaments discovering did thereupon by special Acts of Parliament abolish as derived from the Church of Rome together with the Popes usurped power and Gain which they served only to support retaining only the Scriptures Sacraments Soul-saving Doctrines thence derived by succession onely but authoritatively originally from God and Christ himself with such Godly Orthodox Bishops and Ministers who though first ordained in the Church of England when Popish did yet renounce all her Popish Errors Corruptions with the Popes Supremacy and all Popish additional Rites to the form of their Ordination and Baptism which made neither of them void in Substance no more than their annexing of the Apocrypha to the Canonical Scriptures made them uncanonical These afterwards ordained other Bishops Ministers without any Popish Rites in such manner as the Gospel prescribes which Mr. Mason Mr. Yates and others prove against the Papists to be a lawful Ordination though not made by the Popes Authority nor according to former Popish Ceremonies In this Sense onely they write the bare Succession not the Office and Calling of our Ministers as this woodden Canne mistakes was derived from the Church of Rome but their Ministry it self from Christs own Institution And if this makes them Popish and Antichristian then all our Protestant Kings Parliaments Magistrates Judges Officers of all sorts must be Popish too if not Paganish because their Predecessors were such and all Officers Souldiers of the Army and Anabaptistical Saints too who have purchased any Lands Rents Revenues of Abbies Priories Archbishops Bishops Deans Chapters Archdeacons must likewise be both Antichristian and Popish because their Predecessors who first enjoyed and from whom they do derive them were such at least in their and Cannes repute I hope therefore they will all now renounce these their Purchases to avoid the Guilt and high scandal of Popery and Antichristianism or disclaim this Second Loud-lying Voice against our Ministers and their Ministry as a Voice only from a prophane empty Canne not from a Sacred Temple or Gods holy Spirit But to return from this necessary digression touching the Lawfulness of our Ministers Calling unto their Tithes We have secondly in this Text 1 Cor. 9.13 14. a Gospel Ordinance for their very Tithes confirmed by the old Levitical Law and grounded on its Equity But how doth this appear By these emphatical words Even so hath the Lord Ordained in the Preterperfect Tense That they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel But where hath the Lord ordained this The Apostle thrice resolves expresly that he hath done it in the Levitical Law v. 9. For it is written in the Laws of Moses Deut. 25.4 Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Ox that treadeth out the Corn doth God take care for Oxen Or saith he it altogether for our sakes For our sakes no doubt this is written that he that ploweth should plow in hope and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope Which he again recites 1 Tim. 5.18 If this Precept concerning the meat and maintenance of Oxen only in the Letter though part of the Levitical Law was doubtless written for and really intended of the Ministers of the Gospels food and maintenance and in full force under the Gospel as the Apostle clearly resolves then a fortiori the Precepts of the Law concerning the food and livelihood of Gods Priests and Levites under the Law by Glebes and Tithes not purely Ceremonial as I have already proved must doubtlesse be intended of them and be in full force likewise in their natural equitable Sence and Proportion in relation to their Livelihood for preaching of the Gospel there being a greater Analogy Proportion between them and Preachers of the Gospel than betwixt them and Oxen. To put it out of doubt he subjoyns Do not ye know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they which wait at the Altar are partakers with the Altar To wit by Gods expresse Ordinance in the Levitical Law which ye know and therefore I need not particularly cite the words as I did the other of not muzzling the Ox c. which were more obscure and needed my former Paraphrase on them but thus mind you of them in the general And then he inferrs and subjoyns Even so hath the Lord ordained to wit by the very natural moral Equity of the Lawes Ordinances he made for the Priests and Levites Maintenance by Tithes Glebes and Free-will-offerings for officiating in the Temple and at the Altar under the Law that the Preachers of the Gospel who now succeed and supply their places though in different services in the Churches of Christ under the Gospel should live of the Gospel even so fully comfortably and in such sort as they did under the Law Or at least by this Gospel text superadded to them by Gods Spirit To make this out more fully and clear it from the censure of Judaism take notice of these four particulars 1. That in the Holy Ghosts Gospel phrase and language there is a Temple among and for Christians under the Gospel as well as among and for the Jews under the Law else Cannes Voice from the Temple if there be no such place must be thus amended in his next Edition A Voice from the Canne or Alehouse and that this Temple is nothing else but the Church and Saints of Christ 2 Cor. 6.16 1 Cor. 3.16 17. chap. 6.19 Ephes 2.21 2 Thess 2.4 Rev. 3 12. chap. 7.15 chap. 11.1 2 19. chap. 14 15. chap. 15.5 6 8. chap. 16.1 17. compared together 2. That Christians under the Gospel have likewise an Altar as well as the Jews though different from theirs Heb. 13.14 We have an Altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the Tabernacle oft mentioned Rev. 6.9 chap. 8.3 5. chap. 9.13 ch 14.18 yea coupled with the Temple Rev. 11.1 Rise measure the Temple of God and the Altar 3. We have Sacrifices to be offered in this Temple on the Altar as well as the Jews in theirs 1. The Sacrifice of Prayer Rev. 8.3 4 5. 2. The Sacrifice of Praise Heb. 13.15 3. The Sacrifice of Charity alms and good works Heb. 13.16 4. Our own bodies which we must present as a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God by serving him according to his word as rational men not beasts that were both slain and sacrificed
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 Religious 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 condescended to as well your dreadfull Majesty as your Liegeâ— 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 annul 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 to the Lessors and Farmers of Tithes to the incumbents and people and that the moving of such Novelties might occasion great Troubles and Commotions within the Realm And will not then the abolishing of all Tithes in every Parish to the prejudice of the Patrons Ministers yea and people too as I shall prove anon the scandal of most godly men undoing of thousands of families and confounding all Parishes and order in them now much more do it in these dangerous generally discontented times instead of setling Unity Amity Peace and propagating the Gospel as some pretend Let those whom it most concerns consider it at their leisure lest they repent too late The next printed Statute for the payment of Tithes is 27 H. 8. c. 20. which in the preface gives this true Character of and fixeth this brand of infamy upon Tithe-detainers Forasmuch as many evil disposed Persons such are they justly branded for by this Act of Parliament have attempted to withhold their Tenths as well predial as personal and have also contemned and disobeyed the Decrees of Ecclesiastical Courts of this Realm c. Therefore it enacts the Civil Magistrate and Justices shall imprison such till they pay their Tithes After which followes a special Statute for payment of Tithes in London 27 H. 8. c. 21. confirmed enlarged by a Statute and Decree too 37 H. 8 c. 7. thus prefaced as if purposely penned for these times Whereas divers and many persons inhabiting in sundry Counties and Places of this Realm and other the Kings Dominions not regarding their duties to Almighty God or to the King our Soveraign Lord but in some years past more contemptuously and commonly Presuming to infringe the good and wholsome Lawes of this Realm and Gracious Commandments of our said Soveraign Lord than in times past have been seen or known have not letted to substract and with-draw the lawfull and accustomed Tithes of Corn Hay Pasturage and other sort of Tithes and Oblations commonly due c. After which it provides a remedy by coercive means against the detainers refusers of Ministers Tithes The last and fullest Statute for payment of Tithes of all sorts and
setting out Predial Tithes truly justly and without fraud or guile as hath of right been yielded and paid made not by Papists but our most religious first Protestant Parliament and King upon the beginning of Reformation and when Popery was ejected is 2 E. 6. c. 13. intituled AN ACT FOR THE TRUE PAYMENT OF TITHES under pain of forfeiting the treble value c. recoverable by an ACTION OF DEBT c. at the Common law What judgements have been given upon these Statutes in our Kings Courts from time to time you may read in Brook Fitzherbert and the Year-books in Ashes Tables Title DISMES and in Sir Edward Cooks 2 Institutes p. 639 to 662. To these I might subjoyn the late Ordinances of the last Parliament of 17 Caroli concerning Tithes and Augmentations of Ministers Livings like to end not only in the Diminution but total Annihilation and Substraction both of their Augmentations antient Glebes Tithes Dues The Constitutions of our Clergy in their Convocations under our Kings recorded in Lindwood John de Aton Willielmus de Burgo and others prescribing the due payment of Tithes under pain of Excommunication and other Ecclesiastical censures as likewise the Resolution of our Judges concerning the Right of Tithes and that no Lay-man by our Laws can prescribe to be exempted from payment of Tithes or lay any original claim unto them with the Laws of forein Kingdoms as well Civil as Ecclesiastical for the due payment of Tithes whereof you may find store in Fredericus Lindebrogus Codex Legum Antiquarum p. 674 675 703 c. Capitularia Caroli Magni Ludovici in Brochellus Decret Ecclesiae Gallicanae l. 6. tit 8. De Decimis in Binius Surius and others in their Collections of Councils But for brevity sake I shall cite only the Constitution of the Emperour Frederick for the payment of Tithes in the Kingdom of Sicilia which is short and very pertinent Constitutionum Sicularum l. 1. tit 7. Lex 1. which runs thus Quantò caeteris terrae Principibus munifica dextra Salvatoris in Temporalibus Nos praefecit tantò saltem Iuris naturalis instinctu ad antedicta strictius obligamur cum etiam veritate dicente cui amplius creditur amplius exigatur Quod in nostrae mentis intrinseca meditatione solicita revolventes illud etiam attendentes ☞ Quod divino Decimarum quarum Debitum ex utriusque Testamenti Tabulis confirmatur Let all Tith-Oppugners observe it tanti in Ecclesia Dei petidatior redditur quaniò Decimalis obligatio de bonis hominum A DAMNO REPUTATUR Officialibus nostris universis singulis praesentis Legis auctoritate Mandamus ut DECIMAS INTEGRAS prout Regis Gulielmi tempore praedecessoris nostri vel ab Antecessoribus Officialibus Bavilis exolutae fuerint locorum Praelatis exolvere absque omni difficultate procurent Nos enim qui favente Domino inter homines sumus in praeminenti culmine constituti quantum sine injuria Regalium possumus tollerare ECCLESIARUM JURA praesertim earum quae in Regno consistum Quas sub Protectione nostra accepimus et habemus in nullo diminuere volumus sed augere Subjectis etiam nostris indicimus ut Decimas quas de bladis et donis suis Antecessores eorum praedicti Regis Gulielmi tempore praestituerunt venerabilibus locis Quibus Decimae istae debentur cum integritate persolvant To which I shall only adde That Stephen King of Hungaria under whom that Kingdom was first totally converted to the Christian Faith as he built and endowed many magnificent Churches for Gods worship at his own cost so he enacted this good Law for the payment of Tithes That he who refused to pay his Tithes should forfeit the 9. parts to the Minister and he who should steal the Tithes should be reputed a Thief Si cui Deus Decem dederit in Anno DECIMAM DEO DET Et si quis Decimam suam abscondit NOVEM SOLVAT Et si quis DECIMATIONEM Episcopo separatam furatus fuerit DIJUDICETUR UT FUR ac hujusmodi compositio tota pertineat ad Episcopum And. c. 1. De Statu Ecclesiastico veneratione Domus Dei He enacted this good Law against the Invasion and Alienation of the Churches possessions about the year of Christ 1000. Quisquis fastu superbiae elatus Domum Dei ducit contemptibilem possessiones Deo consecratas atque ad honorem Dei sub Regia immunitatis defensione constitutas inhoneste tractarit vel infringere praesumpserit Quast invasor et violator Domus Dei excommunicetur Decet enim ut indignationem ipsius Dom. Regis sentiat cujus benevolentiae contemptor constitutionis praevaricator existit Nihilominus tamen Rex suae concessionis immunitatem ab hominibus ditioni suae subjectis illaesam conservari praecipiat assensum vero non praebeat improvide affirmantibus non â—ebere esse res Dominicas id est Domino Dominantium traditas Itaque sub defensione Regis sit et sicuti suae propriae haereditati magisque advertat Quia quaniò 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 praestantiora 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 scandiliâ—atâ—te erue eum projice abs 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 detainerâ— 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
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 whose 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 3d 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 case 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 an higher proportion as heretofore though they take their Tithes to boot without easing them one farthing in their Contributions as in case of the Kings Princes Bishops Deans and Chaptets lands Surely these Officers and Souldiers who pretend so much liberty and ease to the people in words and still so oppress them in deeds as not to ease them one penny in their former unsupportable Taxes Excises which their Ancestors never knew nor paid under which they have for some years groaned though all Ireland be now reduced England in peace within it self and Scotland under Contribution and take upon them to impose such illegal Taxes now without any Parliament by their own Super-Regal Authority transcending all Presidents of our Kings and their Councils out of Parliament can never be presumed to tender their Ease and Gain so much as to permit them or their Land-lords to put up into their own private Purses so great and constant an Annual Revenue as their Tithes amount to unto which they have neither legal Right nor Title but will appropriate it to themselves as they have done Church-Land and Crown-Land too for their future pay or past Aâ—rears and some of them have confessed so much And which then think you will prove the better Tithe Lords Ministers or Souldiers For the third Branch That the abolishing of Tithes will be a loss and detriment to all others excepting Land-Lords and Landed men I shall thus demonstrate 1. It will be so to all our Ministers and their families Tithes being their principal livelihood 2ly To all such Colleges Hospitals Corporations Schools all or part of whose Revenues depend on appropriated Tithes and Rectories and to all their Farmers and Families 3ly To all impropriators and their Lessees which are very many there being by Mr. Cambdens and others Computation 9284. Parishes in England whereof 3845. of the best value for the most part are impropriated or appropriated And the abrogation of Tithes without giving competent recompence to all Impropriators as well body Politicks as natural and their Lessees which how it can be done now Bishops Deans and Chapters Lands devoted and voted once for their satisfaction are sold to pay the Souldiers I cannot yet discern will ruine many Colleges Hospitals Schools with other Corporations and thousands of families depending on them 4ly All Tenants and Farmers will be losers by it in their estates as well as souls For then the Land-lords will raise the full improved value of their abolished
to secure the Country either from an invading or pillaging Enemy by Sea or Land as I have made many Garrison-Souldiers acknowledge by unanswerable Demonstrations disband their long-continued Army and Forces kept up on the people 's drained Purses to their undoing for what ends the very blindest men now see put the peoples necessary defence when there is occasion into their own hands and elected Militia and abolish all these heavy incessant Monthly Contributions Taxes Excises so long continued on them to maintain the Army and inrich the Officers being the Peoples sorest Grievance not Ministers Tithes which few count a Burden and then upon mere Mistakes which late created Monsters unknown to our Fore-Fathers who knew none but Tenths Fifteenths and Subsidies duly granted one or two in several years will in short time eat out not only our Ministers and Peoples Tithes but the remaining Nine parts too and leave them most miserable Beggers in conclusion without any Food or Provision for their Souls or Bodies and no other Magistracy Ministry Government Laws Liberties Privileges but what the Army-Officers and Souldiers their late pretended humble Servants but now their Supream Lords and Masters shall out of their mere Grace and Favour allow them as their conquered Vassals as many of them are not ashamed even publickly in my hearing as well as others for to stile our own enslaved Nation as well as Scots and Irish And then they shall all lament their folly when too late in concurring with these Swordmen to abolish their Ministers Tithes in the old Poets Elegie in a like ease as ours Impius haec tam culta novalia Miles habebit Barbarus has Segetes En quò discordia Cives Perdurit miseros En queis consevimus Agros Suidas records of Leo the Emperour that when on a time he commanded Eulogius a learned Philosopher should have a Liberal Princely Reward bestowed on him A great Officer and Courtier standing by said That mony would be better bestowed for the maintenance of Souldiers To which the Emperor replyed Nay I would rather it might be brought to pass in my time That the Riches now bestowed upon Souldiers might be given to maintain Philosophers And I suppose all rational wise men now will be of the same mind concerning Ministers and rather they should enjoy their Tithes and Glebes than Souldiers and Buff-Preachers All which out of true Affection to our Ministry and my Native Country without any private design to scandalize the Souldiers I submit to all prudent mens consideration who by this will be able to judge of the truth of this Proposition without further proof In the Officers printed Proposals August 13. 1652. to those they then stiled the Supream Power of the Nation I found the first of all to be The abolishing of all Tithes as an unequal troublesom and contentious way of Maintenance respect being had therein to others Rights but not to the Ministers who have the only true proper legal Right unto them and this to propagate the preaching of the Gospel I profess when I read it in the Diurnal I told some Souldiers who brought it me to read in Pendennys 1. I could not possibly conceive that the putting down of Ministers Tithes should be a means to propagate the preaching of the Gospel but rather to suppress it the very Scripture resolving the contrary Neh. 13.10 11 12. and 2 Chron. 31.3 c. and the Heathen Poet concluding Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Praemia si tollas 2ly That I wondred men professing Conscience Justice and Religion should have more regard to Impropriators and others Rights to Tithes who had no original right at all unto them but only by Popes Bulls and Dispensations and did no service for them without any special regard to Ministers Rights who had only a due and true Divine and human Right to them and received them as due wages for their Ministry I doubted the only cause was because they or some of their Friends were owners of Lessees of some Impropriations which they were loath to part with for the Peoples ease or give in to the Church without a considerable Recompence 3ly That the suggestion of the unequal troublesom and contentious way of Tithes was a very strange and daring Objection against the very wisedom and Justice of God who instituted and prescribed them to his own chosen people against the wisdom justice prudence of our own and all other Christian Kings States Parliaments Churches that have at first pitched upon and so long continued established by successive Laws and Edicts this way of Maintenance as most equal rich and poor paying a Tenth alike according to the greatness or smallness of their Estates and the poor Farmer and Tenant paying them out of his Landlords Estate as allowed in his Rent or Fine not out of his own private purse alone being more equal than any Taxes or Excises for the Armies pay As least troublesom to the Ministers at least who were only at the cost and trouble to carry in their Tithes at Harvest when cut and severed from the Crop to their hands to prevent the trouble of plowing sowing weeding mowing reaping gathering which might divert them from their Studies and Ministry And as little troublesom or not over-troublesom at least it is to the Husbandman who sows cuts and makes it up together with his own and then only severs it out and is not now bound to carry it into his Ministers Barn much less to thresh cleanse and sever his Corn Wine or Oyl and other Tithes and carry it to Hierusalem◠and the Treasuries of the Priests and Levites at his own cost as the Israelites were obliged by God to do which these Officers had they lived amongst them and payed a second Tenth as well as a first and first-fruits besides would have petitioned God himself to abolish as a troublesome way of Maintenance which they could not brook though the godly Israelites and Jews repined not against it but chearfully brought up their Tithes to the Priests Treasuries as they were enjoyned And as no waies contentious or litigious in it self were people as just and conscionable to pay their Tithes there being many Parishes in England and that wherein I live one wherein I never heard of any sute or quarrel betwixt the Ministers and Parishioners for Tithes there being farre more sutes and contentions for just Rents Annuities and Debts throughout the Nation than for Tithes at least ten for one in proportion before these late contentious Lawless times when many unconscionable unrighteous Wretches pretending Religion to cover their fraud covetousness and oppression will pretend Conscience for not paying their very Rents and Debts as well as Tithes And such who have so little grace or fear of God as to contend with their Ministers for their just Tithes will be altogether Litigious towards them for any other Annuity or setled way of Maintenance that can be devised in lieu of Tithes seeing nothing
will content such perverse and contentious Wretches but a Liberty to pay their Ministers only what they please and that in conclusion shall be just nothing as their subsequent Petitions and present Practices now manifest to God Angels and men And I doubt the Change of this antient known long approved certain Maintenance by Tithes to any other certain or uncertain way will create more sutes and troubles among people than ever our Tithes did since their first institution This was my subitan opinion of their Proposition when I first read it and shall serve for a publick answer to it now if any insist upon it to prove Tithes inconvenient and burdensom to the People and therefore sit to be totally abolished The main Objection I ever yet read or heard against Tithes is this That Tithes are a great discouragement and hindrance to Husbandmens industry and improvements since Ministers must have not only the Tenths of their Lands as they found them but likewise of their Crop Labour Industry and Improvements which is now writes Canne and others more largely one of the sorest Burthens and greatest Oppressions and Tyranny that lies upon them and discourages many from improving the Lands to the publick prejudice I answer 1. That this Objection no waies concerns Soldiers Weavers Tailors Tradesmen Townsmen and other Mechanicks who are the most and greatest Sticklers and Petitioners against Tithes but only Husbandmen and Countrey Gentlemen and Farmers living upon Tillage very few of which not one of a thousand ever yet petitioned against Tithes as such a grievous Oppression at leastwise as a Farmer for the burdensomness of Tithes but only as an Anabaptist or other Sectary out of hatred and opposition to our Ministers Callings or Persons And till the Generality or Major part of the Gentry Yeomanry and Country Farmers in each County Petition and declare against their Predial Tithes as such an intollerable Grievance no Officers Soldiers Citizens Anabaptistical Mechanicks and busie-bodies in other mens Callings and Grievances which concern them not are no waies to be heard countenanced or credited in this particular by any Powers whatsoever in point of Justice or Prudence 2ly The payment of Tithes never yet discouraged any Person either in the Land of Canaan England or other Countreys at least not any considerable number of men or any that had either true Wisdome grace honesty or love to God and the Ministrey from any sort of Tillage or improvement whatsoever out of which Tithes are paid the gain by the good husbandry and improvement being abundantly recompenced in the nine Parts over and above the Tithes And therefore till the Objectors can make good their allegation by presidents of considerable number of wise godly men and others discouraged from Tillage and Improvements meerly by the payment of Predial Tithes out of them in all former ages or of late years to the real prejudice of the Publick which they can never do this grand Objection against Tithes must be decried both as Fabulous and Ridiculous yea as Scandalous The late Petition of the Cornish Gentlemen Farmers and Yeomen where such improvements are most made to their great Charge for the continuance of Tithes being a sufficient Evidence to prove it such 3ly It is observable that the Petitioners against Tithes upon this ground are as eager Writers and Petitioners against all antient Customs Tonnage Poundage and usual moderate Impositions upon Merchandize imported or exported for the necessary defence of the Sea and Trading amounting to as much upon every pound of Merchandize as Tithes do upon Husbandmens Tillage and Improvements the charges of the Fraight Transportation and Customs in forein parts considered and to far more and that as a very great discouragement to Merchandize and Trading Which as all wise men know to be a mere fabulous untruth contrary to the experience of all States Kingdoms Republicks in the World and of Holland it self subsisting by Merchandize where they pay as high Customs or higher than our antient Legal Merchants Duties to the State amount to which never made any Merchants to give over trading So if when and where rightly imposed managed they are the greatest encouragements of Trade and Merchandize by Guarding the Seas and securing Traders against Enemies and Pirates the only encouragement to Merchant-Adventurers who must and will all give over trading when they cannot safely put to Sea without apparent losse of all they trade for by Enemies or Pirates And therefore this clamourous Objection against Tithes should have no more weight with Wisemen to suppress them than their idle clamour against all old Legal Customs Rates and Duties for the necessary defence of the Sea and Trade to abrogate them altogether to the ruine both of our Traffique Navy and Merchants too that pay them 4ly This Objection is directly made against the providence wisdom and policy of God himself who prescribed Tithes amongst his own people out of all their Tillage and Improvements and knew it would be no impediment to them his Blessing promised to their payment of Tithes being a greater improvement to them in their Crops than all their extraordinary cost and pains amounted to Wherefore it can be no impediment or discouragement to any real Saints good Husbandry or Improvement now who deserves to reap no benefit by his Labour or Improvements if God himself shall have no share or portion out of them for the maintenance of his publick worship and Ministers 5ly If there were any truth or strength in this Objection yet it extends not unto all tithes but only to such as are paid out of extraordinary chargeable Improvements as to make mere barren Heath Ling and Sands out of which no former profits naturally grew manurable for Corn or Pasture Tillage and Meadows Woods out of which most predial Tithes arise So there is a sufficient remedy against this pretended Mischief already provided in the best and strictest Statute made by the best of our Protestant Kings for the true payment of Tithes at the beginning our Reformation when Popery was banished in the Parliament of 2 E. 6. c. 13. which provides That all such barren Heath or waste Grounds which before that time have lyen barren and paid no Tithes by reason of the said barronness and now be or hereafter shall be improved or converted into arable Ground or Meadow shall from henceforth after the term and end of seven years next after such Improvement fully ended and determined pay Tithe of the Corn and Hay growing on the same and be discharged in the interim as the words import and our Judges have expounded it All which considered this Objection must be henceforth exploded and LEVELLED to the ground Now because I find a clear Design and Endeavour in sundry Anabaptists Officers Souldiers if they cannot prevail to put down Tithes upon other pretexts yet to rob the Ministers of them at present if not in perpetuity upon this pretence to sequester and convert
nor any Christian Souldiers else but the Popish Templers and Hospitalers for the Lands conferred on their Orders not for their private Inhabitances And if Souldiers be obliged to pay Tithes of all their Spoyls and Gains of war as I have abundantly proved much more then of their real and personal Estates as well as any others not in armes especially where they are well paid and war not on their own expences but other mens purses Amongst the Jewes we never read of any Taxes Tributes or Contributions imposed on the Cities Houses Lands or Tithes of the People and Levites for the maintenance of wars or pay of Souldiers from which even Artaxerxes a heathen Conqueror exempted them by an express Decree Ezra 7.24 Yet they received Tithes of all their Kings Generals Captains Souldiers as well as Peoples Lands and increase both in times of war and peace But our Army-Officers and Souldiers now receive above the Tithes of all our Ministers Tithes Glebes in Monthly Taxes and Contributions by arbitrary illegal Impositions without their or Consents in Parliament contrary to their antient Privileges all former Presidents and our Laws Therefore there is all Equity and Justice they should receive the Tenths both of their Lands Goods and Gains of war too and that no Officers or Souldiers should be exempted from Tithes as the Templers and Hospitalers were who had no other Pay or Salaries but their Lands and received no constant Contributions from the Clergy Xenophon that famous learned Greek Heathen Commander having made the most Noble retreat we ever read of in Story out of the upper part of Asia with ten thousand men through mountains frost and snow in memorie of his thankfullness to the Gods for this safe return separated the Tenth of all the Spoyls that his Army had gained in the wars and by general consent commited them to the Captains to be dedicated to Apollo and Diana That for Apollo was layd up at Delphos in the Athenean Treasury but with that other Tenth Dianas share Xenophon himself purchased a Peece of Land and built thereon a Temple and an Altar to Diana and appointed the Tenth of the yearly increase forever unto it This Pagan Commander and his Captains and Souldiers were so far from exempting their Lands from Tithes to their Idol Deities that they Tithed the very Spoyls of their wars to them and built and endowed a Temple to Diana with Lands and Tithes out of their own Lands and Estates for ever Which shall for ever silence and shame those Christian Army-Officers Souldiers Templers and Hospitalers who would exempt not only their Spoyls but their Lands and Estates from all Tithes to God and his Ministers because they are Souldiers and pretend to fight for their Defence 7ly This Reason that they should enjoy not only their own but our Ministers Tithes because they are an Army of Preachers and Priests and more Officers Souldiers in the present Army Preachers or Speakers as they phrase them than ever in any Army in the world before hath frequently minded me of that saying of Pope Gregory the first which famous Bishop Jewel much insisted on concerning Antichrist The King of Pride Antichrist is at hand and which is an horrible Thing to be spoken Sacerdotum est praeparatus Exercitus an Army of Priests is prepared to gard and usher him in Certainly I never heard nor read of such an Army of Priests as our Army now is before wherein there are not only some hundreds of disguised Popish Antichristian Priests and Jesuites as most wisemen conceive under the disguise of Souldiers preaching venting many notorious Errors Blasphemies and Antichristian Tenents to infect the Army and Nation too but many preaching Colonels Captains Officers Souldiers of all sorts not a preaching General as some say too And among others one of these Army-Preachers not long since published a Book with this Title Antichrist with us by John Spittle-house a member of the Army printed at London 1648. which intimated to me at first sight that Antichrist was in the Army and truly if they proceed as Canne would have them to usurp our Ministers Office Rectories Glebes Tithes Churches to themselves and Suppresse our Ministers Churches Parishes as Antichristian I shall then justly suspect and others will confidently conclude they are the very Army of Priests prophecied of by Pope Gregory who shall forcibly usher and bring in Antichrist the King of Pride who exalteth himself above all that is called God or Worshipped that is above Kings Lords Parliaments and all Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers whatsoever as Expositors resolve into our Church and re-establish him in his Throne 8ly I never read in the Old Testament or New that Christ Authorized Commissioned or sent out any Captains or Souldiers to preach the Gospel or made choyce of such to be his Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel Surely had this been a part of their duty as Christian Officers and Souldiers John Baptist Christs forerunner would have instructed those Souldiers who came purposely to and demanded of him what shall we do in another manner than he did and said unto them Go and preach the Gospel and instruct the ignorant Souldiers and people publickly where ever you quarter in the first place and then Do violence to no man and accuse no man falsly and be content with your wages The only precepts he gave them Which our Army-Officers and Souldiers since they turned Preachers have much forgotten and neglected I read of 2. devout Centurions in the New Testament eminent for their faith piety Charity and of one devout Souldier yet neither of them a publick Preacher The first of these Colonels or Centurions built a Synagogue for the Jews and others to meet and preach in who were Priests and Ministers but I read not he ever preached in it publickly himself The latter Centurion is thus characterized Acts 10.1 2. That he was a devout man and one that feared God with all his House which gave much Alms to the people and prayed to God continually but doubtlesse he never preached for then it would have been there recorded that he preached continually as well as prayed Yea he was so far from this that when the Angel of God came to him in a vision he sayd Thy Prâ—yers and thine Alms not thy preaching therefore he preached not at all or if he did God accepted it not but disliked it as against his word and will are come into remembrance before God And now send men to Joppa and call for Simon Peter he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do Whereupon he presently sent two of his Servants and a devout Souldier continually waiting on him but not on preaching for the Apostle Peter to preach to him his Friends and Family who repairing to him Cornelius goeth forth to meet him falls down at his feet worshippeth him talks with him brings him into his House where many were come together relates his vision
Canne and unknown to me or others unless it be the flat atheistical denyal of God of Christ and all his Offices of the Holy Ghost Scriptures Sacraments all publick Ordinances in the Church of all Kings Princes Parliaments lawfull Magistrates Laws Oaths Vows Covenants Protestations Engagements by many of them in their words writings and most of them in their works with their Jesuitical positions plots practices recited in the fifth Chapter And if these be not true infernal Darknesse and clear inglorious Discoveries of Antichrist and his Kingdom in the highest Degree that ever yet appeared amongst the people of this Common-wealth let the fifth Chapter with the positions and practices themselves compared with the Old and New Testament determine 12ly The decrying of our Vniversities Colleges Schools of human Learning Innes of Court and some mens endeavouring to seise upon their Lands and Revenues for the Armies use is no doubt a Jesuitical Papal plot to extinguish the light of our Knowledge both Divine and humane by puting out the Eyes of our Nation that so Jesuitical Popish darkness might over-spread our Church and State and so the blind leading the blind in both they must fall into the Pit of Destruction in a moment It is storied of Julian that blasphemous Apostate and professed Enemie of Christ and Christian Religion That he suppressed all the Schools of Christians prohibiting by general Laws and Decrees that any should profess practice or study any Arts or Sciences in any Schools that so they might become and remain Ideots without learning and so be insufficient and unable to preach the Christian Faith oppose or refute any Pagan or other Errors Blasphemies against the true God and his worship devising by all means possible whereof this was one of the Principal TO MAKE WAR AGAINST JESUS CHRIST and extirpate Christianity without shedding any Christian blood finding by experience that the Christian Faith and Christians were greatly increased by the torments and blood of the Martyrs So that bloody Apostate from and Persecutor of the Christian Faith Lucius the Emperour as he ruined the Churches Temples he commanded to be built for Christ cast out of his House Service and all Offices and place of Command whatsoever he that was a Christian commanded all those Christians to be slain who would not adore his Idols prohibited all Assemblies of Christians either for worship or consultation so he was such an Enemy to Learning that he named the same as some do now A Poyson and common Pestilence and the Overthrow of Common-wealths and especially the knowledge of the Laws And thought no vice worse became a Prince than Learning because he himself was unlearned and thereupon prohibited Schools and Meetings for Instruction Whereas on the contrary Constantine the Great and all other Godly prudent Christian Emperors Kings and Princes founded Schools of Learning and Universities in all places encouraged and advanced learned men of all Arts and Professions especially Divines Lawyers and Philosophers well knowing that Learning was the principle means to promote Religion and the glory honour wealth and greatness of any Nation more necessary than any Arms or Souldiers and the chief means to preserve them from Idolatry Superstition Confusion ruine We may therfore clearly discern whence the present Outcries against our Vniversities Inns of Court Schools of Learning and all human learning proceed even from desperate Apostates from true Religion and Gods Church and those who would erect a New Babel of Confusion amongst us in Church State and thereby build up the demolished walls of the Romish Jericho within all our Dominions For proof whereof I shall transcribe this notable passage of our famous learned Bishop Jewel in his Sermon on Joshua 6. in his works in Folio p. 167 168. which is very pithy learned and satisfactory omitting all others Now to stay the restoring of Jericho many good waies may be devised The 1. maintenance of Schools and Learning That Learning and Knowledge is able to hinder the Building of Jericho is so plain that it needeth no 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