violently take any thing from Churches he should lose his head And Alaricus the Gothish King though an Arrian when he took Rome by force of Armes and his Souldiers had taken the Sacred Vessels out of St. Peters Church there and brought them to him commanded them to carry them back again to the Church with their own hands which took them thence ut cupiditas quae depraedationis ambitu admiserat scelus devotione largissima deleret excessum as Cassiodor relates l. 12. Epist 20. Among the Friseans Laws made by their wisemen Tit. 12. De Honore Templorum this is one He who shall break a Church and take away the holy things thence let him be carried to the Sea and in the Sand which the Tide is wont to cover let his eares be slit and he be gelt and then let him be sacrisiced to the Gods whose Temples hâ— hath violated The Neopolitan Laws l. 1. Tit. 5. enact That whosoever shall violently break open a Church and take away any Gifts or consecrated Vessels thence shall be punished as a Capital Offâ—nder and lose his life Charles the Great and Lewes the Godly enacted That if any person violently took from any Church Priest or Minister any thing belonging to them and were convicted thereof or confessed the same he should have sentence of death given against him as guilty of Sacrilege and that it should be not only lawfull but commendable to prosecute and avenge this Sacrilege and Injury done to the Church Priests and Ministers as a publique Crime deserving punishment and that if any did Sacrilegiously invade or molest the Possessions and Lands of the Church he should be perpetually banished for it Capit. Caroli Ludovici l. 6. Tit. 113 125. And Tit. 305. they thus determine All things that are offered to the Lord are without all doubt consecrated to the Lord and not only the Sacrifices which by the Priests are consecrated upon the Altar to the Lord are called the Oblations of the faithfull but what things soever are offred to him by the faithfull whether in Sacrifices or in Fields Vineyards Woods Medowes Waters Water-streams Artifices Books Utenâ—ils Stones Buildings Vestments Wools Garments Cattel Parchments Moveables and Immoveables or whatsoever which of these things are made to the praise of God or the Supplement of the holy Church of God and his Priests and which may give ornament unto them whether they be freely offered by any one to the Lord and his Church are undoubtedly consecrated to the Lord and belong to the Priests Right And because we truly acknowledge the Lord and his Church to be one person what ever things are the Churches are Christs and whatsoever is offered to the Church either in the aforesaid things or in any other Kinds oâ— by promises or pledges or writings or in corporal things are offered unto Christ and what things by any devise are alienated or taken from his Church either by alienating or by wasting or invading or by diminishing or by rapine are taken from Christ And if it be Robbery to take any thing from a friend it is Sacrilege to take away alienate substract or waste any thing especially from Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords For all Robbers of the Church are most apparently Sacrilegious persons and no Sacrilegious person unlesse by pure approved and publique Repentance and by satisfaction to the Church and by imposition of the Bishops hands and reconciliation according to the Canonical Sanctions shall Inherit the Kingdom of God and shall not only be secluded the Kingdom of God but likewise be shut out of the limits of the Church especially of the Church he hath ruined and shall be excommunicated thence until the foresaid Satisfaction given And the perpetrators of such wickednesses ought to have no Communion at all either with the living oâ— dead till after such Satisfaction given Because who ever violently takes away his Neighbours money commits Iniquity but Sacrilegious persons are not only Thèeâ—es but likewise Wolves and Man-stayers and Murderers of the poor and accursed damned persons before God and his Saints And if so as these two pious Emperors by their Lawes with many Protestant Writers as well as Papists resolve and all Sacrilegious Persons taking any Vessel or Vâ—ensil out of a Church though of small value by our own Lawes too as well as theirs be Sacrilegious Persons worthy to suffer pains of death as Felons those who shall openly Sacrilegiously Rob or attempt to Rob and spoyl all the Godly painfull Ministers of our Nation of all their Tithes Rectories Glebes Churches and Church-yards too at once are doubtlesse Sacrilegious Persons in the highest degree deserving to suffer a temporal infamous death and execution better than any High-way Theeves or Robbers at Tiburn or to be eternally banished the Nation excommunicated all Christian Society and had in perpetual execration for this Sacrilegious Rapine both by God himself and all good men unlesse they repent and make full publique Restitution Satisfaction for this their detestable Sacrilege Lastly If any Officers or Souldiers pretend we are now a Conquered Nation that Conquest makes all sacred things prophane and common to the Conquerors and that Churches may be justly spoyled of their Materials Vessels Glebes Tithes in such a case for the pay and benefit of the Conquering Souldiers as some affirm Therefore they may now justly deprive our Ministers of their Tithes Glebes Rectories Churches Church-yards to pay maintain themselves and the Conquering Army yea alter change our Laws at present as they now attempt and divers of them openly professe they intend to doe I Answer 1. That the Lords and Commons the very last Parliament when they first raised the Army in their Petition to the late King sent to his Excellency the Earl of Essex to the Army and by him presented to his Majestie Sept. 24. 1642. or soon after used this expression That the prevailing Popish party with his Majestie who by many wicked Plots and Conspiracies have attempted the Alteration of the true Religion and the antient Government of the Kingdom the introducing of Popish Idolatry and Superstition into the Church and tyranny and confusion into the State and by corrupting his Councels abusing his Power and sudden and untimely dissolving of former Parliaments had often hindered the Reformation and Prevention of those Mischiefs And in prosecution of those wicked Designs had as the most Mischievous and Bloudy Designe of all drawn his Majestie to make War against his Parliament and good Subjects of this Kingdom and to lead in person an Army against them as if he intended by Conquest mark the word to establish an absolute and unlimited power over them And in their Remonstrance Nov. 2. 1642. in Reply to his Majesties Answer to their Remonstrance of May 26. 1642. they charge this as the last Doctrin and Position of the Contrivers of his Majesties Answer That the Representative body of
word and kept thy Covenant They shall or let them teach Jacob thy Judgements and Israel thy Law They shall put Incense before thee and whole burnt Sacrifice upon thine Altar Blesse O Lord his Substance and accept the Work of his â—ands Smite through the Loyns of them that rise up against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again Which I shall recommend to John Canne for his next Text when he preacheth before his Fraternity of Anabaptistical Tithe-Oppugners and Church-Robbers to all injurious Substracters of their Ministers Tithes and professed Enemies to their Calling And so much for the third Proposition CHAP. IV. I Now march to the 4th Proposition That our Ministers Tithes are really no Burthen Grievance or Oppression to the People but a just antient charge debt annuity or duty as well as their Landlords rents or Merchants poundage That the abolishing of them will be no real Ease Gain or advantage to Farmers Lessees and the poorer sort of People as is falsely pretended but only to rich Landlords and Landed-men and a loss and detriment to all others There have been divers clamorous Petitions of late against Tithes subscribed by many poor People Labourers Servants Apprentises who never were capable in their Estates to pay any not by the Nobility Gentry and Freeholders of the Nation or the generality of those whose Estates are most charged with them who repute them no Burden nor Grievance and desire their continuance as if they were the very Bonds of Wickednesse the heavy Burdens and Yoak which God himself by an extraordinary Call hath called forth some in present Power speedily to loose undo and break Isay 58. 6 7. to which they allude and much insist on when as it is most clear That this perverted Text was never once intended of Tithes which God himself imposed on his people as a just reserved Rent and Tribute due unto himself and his Ministers and adjudgeth it plain b ROBBING OF GOD to substract much more then to abolish and those who press the abolishing of Tithes from this Text may with much more colour urge it against all Landlords Rents Annuities Tonnage Poundage the antient Customs of Wool Woolfels Leather Tinne Lead which they and their Ancestors by their Tenures and our known Laws have paid time out of mind and presse those in power to expunge these Texts out of the very Gospel as Apochryphal and burdensom Mat. 22. â—1 Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods a clear Gospel-Text for the payment of Tithes which are Gods own Tribute and Portion Levit. 27. 30 32. Mal. 3. 8 9 and Rom. 13. 7 Render therefore to all their Dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom c. against both which they directly Petition as the premises demonstrate This calumny and wresting of Scripture being removed I shall thus make good the first Branch of the Proposition I have already manifested by undeniable Antiquities Laws Records That Tithes were freely given to and setled on our Church and Ministers by our pious Kings Munificence Charters Laws with the general applause and consent of all the Nobility and People upon the very first setlement of Religion in this Island many hundred years before we read of any publick Taxes for Defence of the Realm or maintenance of the Warres by Land or Sea the first whereof was Dane-gelt first imposed by common consent of the Lords in Parliament An. 983. or before the antientest yet continued Custâ—me on Wool Woolfels and Skins exported first granted by Parliament in 3 E. 1. Anno Dom. 1276. at least 500. years after the first extant grant Law and setlement of Tithes in perpetuity as a Divine Duty Rent and Service for the necessary maintenance of Gods Ministers and publick Worship This most antient annual Rent Charge or Tribute unto God hath inviolably continued in all publick Changes and Revolutions of Church and State Briâ—ons Saxons Danes Normans English Papists Protestants Conquerors Invadors Right Heirs and Lawfull Purchasers Intruders Disseisers Lessâ—es of all sorts whether Publick Persons or Private maintaining consirming rendring their Tithes successively as a Divine and Sacred Quit-Rent due to God wherewith they came charged into the world till they departed out of it laying down this for a Principle of Divinity Law Equity That God alone bath given to every Man the Lands and all he holds and possesseth whereby he gains his food and living and therefore out of the Land and Trade whereby every one gets necessary supply for his body he ought to contribute a Tenth and Tribute towards the Service of God and Salvation of his Soul much better than his Body as Augustine in his 229. Sermon Tom. 10. and the Antient Saxon Canons of an uncertain time and Author resolve There was no Purchaser Heir Inheritor Farmer Tenant or Lessee of Lands in our whole Nation that paid Tithes out of it since Tithes first setled in this Kingdome but he inherited purchased took and held his Lands charged with Tithes Whence our Law-books resolve That no Lay-man can by the very Common Law of England allege any Custome or Prescription for not paying Tithes but only a Modus Decimandi in recompence of his Tithes which he may in some cases plead because grounded on some antient Contract and a valuable consideration in Lieu of Tithes Moreover as all Men took their Purchases Farmes Leases or Inheritances by Descent thus charged so this charge was universally known to all Purchasers Lesees and the full annual value of the Predial Tithes they pay out of their Lands or Leases abated them in their Purchases Rents Fines by the Venders and Lessers of purpose to defray the publick necessary annual Charge which if the Lands had been Tithe-Free had been proportionably raised to the common value of the Tithes in the Purchase Moneys Fines or Rents and will be so by every Seller of Lands and Land-lord when ever Tithes be suppressed This being a clear undeniable Truth which every rational man must subscribe to it is certain no person this day living complaining or not complaining against Tithes can in Verity Equity Justice Reason repute or call them either an unjust or oppressing Yoak Bond Burden as many Ignoramusses do without sense or reason nor any burden or charge at all to him since he had or rather hath the full annual value of them allowed him in his Purchase Fine or Rent by him that sold or leased his Lands unto him And although it be true that in such Tithes as the Earth doth not naturally produce without labour as it doth Grasse Wood Fruits viz. Corn Hops Saffron Woad and the like the Minister enjoyes the Tenth of the Husbandmans increase seed labour and costs in tillage and improvement the great Objection against Tithes as an Heavy Burthen and Oppression yet all this pretended great cost and charge except only in Cases of Improvements was altogether or
endowed by themselves or else went as Pilgrims to Rome then reputed famous for Her Piety Besides multitudes of the Royal Progeny who followed their examples both in their Piety Charity and Bounty to the Church And amongst others of our antient Kings King Eâ—helwolfe gave not only the Tenth out of all his goods and Chattels but likewise of all the Lands and Houses of his whole Realm to the Church His Sonne incomparable King Alfred founder or at least Restorer and Enlarger of our famous Vniversity of Oxford though he was for the most part taken up with Warres and Military affairs by reason of the Danes invasions fighting no lesse than 52. set battels with them for the most part with glorious success yet out of an Ardent zeal to God in emulation of Zacheus he gave no lesse than half of his annual Rents and spoils of war besides in pious uses to wit for relieving the poor both at home and abroad for maintaining rewarding Scholars Ministers building schools of Learning maintaining professors of divers Arts and Sciences in them especially in Oxford and devoted no lesse than the third part of his time to wit eight hours every natural day to his sacred studies and devotions Besides the time he spent in his Military imployments Civil Government and enacting Laws of most excellent use by advise of the wisest men which have continued ever since So as Asser Menevensis in Egercituesse in his life Spelman and others give this Brief Character and Encomium of his Excellencies O Stuporem omnium aetatum Aluredum cujus dum Religionem intuemur nunquam exiisse videatur Monasterio Dum Bella Militiam nullibi versatus fuisse unquam nisi in Castris dum Scripta ejus Lucubrationes vitam transâ—isse in Academia dum Regni Populique sui administrationem nihilo unquam studuisse nisi in Foro Senatu Justitiae promovendae Legibusque bonis Sanciendis Of which good Laws of his extracted out of the Old and New Testament for most part this for the due payment of Tithes and Oblations to Ministers was one cap. 38. DECIMAS Primigenia adulta tua DEO DATO O that all those Militarie victorious Commanders who boast of like victories as he obtained would imitate him in these his Vertues Bounty Liberalitic both to our Universities Scholars Ministers and promulging Edicts for the due payment of their detained Tithes and Dues and then they should be Chronicled for SAINTS INDEED as well as the forenamed Kings of which there was not one in three in former Ages as Sir Henry Spelman observes WHO DID NOT ADORN AUGMENT ENRICH THE CHURCH IN SOME THINGS even during their very wars instead of making a mere prey and spoyl of her as some late SAINTS have done to maintain the warres and enrich themselves In which Sacrilegious Rapines if any shall persevere to the utter ruine of the remaining Glebes Tithes Maintenance of all our Ministers and Churches too the prime Honour of our Nation ECCLESIA Faemina Lana as some have designed and would engage them to do to render our Religion Nation and those who shall give their Votes thereto for ever execrable Let them take heed that instead of inducing the Ministers and godly people really fearing God throughout our three Nations to forget Monarchy and be in love with their New Military Government they do not necessitate them and most others too thereby by comparing their Irreligious Church Robberies and Sacrilegious Rapines against the very Laws even of War and Conquest it self in an Enemies Country and detestable to very Heathens as Grotius proves at large to love and honour Kings and Monarchs more than ever as the only Nursing-Fathers to Gods Ministers Church People under the Gospel and to esteem others not comming in by the Door into the Sheepâ—â—ld but climbing up by Storm some other way to be but Theeves and Robbers who come not but to Steal Kill and to Destroy whatever the Bounty Piety and Mâ—nisicence of these and other our Kings have built and setled on the Clergy for Gods Honour and maintenance of his worship and thereby engage them so to act speak and peremptorily resolve as all the Israelites and Godly Levites Priests People twice did in a like case 2 Chron. 11 13 14 15 16 17. 1 Sam. â— 3 5 19 20. If any here object these Kings and Queens were more Popish Superstitious than really Religious Admit they were â—n some things as too much doting upon Monkery not Monarchy or worldly wealth or Power which some condemn in others when most guilty of and applauding it in themselves yet their very Bounty and profuse munificent Building Monasteries and Nunneries whereof King Edgar alone built no less than 47. endowed them with large Revenues and intended to make them up 50. had he lived besides what they bestowed in building adorning endowing maintaining all Cathedral and Parish Churches and Chapels for the support and honour of their superstitious Religion should eternally shame all those pretended Saints who will be at no cost at all to maintain and propagate what they now call the True Religion and the faithfull Ministers of the Gospel but instead thereof will by mere Force and Rapine against all Rules of Law Justice Piety Equity and war it self plunder if they can the remaining Materials and Fabricks of our Churches which those Kings or their Successors and other antient Benefactors built for Gods Honour and the small surviving Lands Rectories Glebes Tithes Pensions Dues which our Ministers yet enjoy by their sole Bounty Piety Gift Laws without any real charge injurie oppression or obligation to any Mortals now surviving them But to take off the stain of Popery wholly from our Kings which was no disparagement to their commendable Charity and Bounty Consider in the sixth place that God hath honoured us with the first Christian King in the Universe Henry the 8th who durst not only question but by Publick Laws and Statutes abolish and renounce the Popish usurped Antichristian Power and with it all Popish Shavelings Abbots Priors Monks Nunnes and many Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and restored the People to the use of the Holy Scriptures in their own Native Language Whose example encouraged other Kings Princes Churches to do the like Who though he seised upon Abby Lands as given to mere Superstitious Persons Orders Vses repugnant to Gods word and the Popes mere Creatures and Supporters yet he continued the Lands Glebes Tithes and Maintenance of the Bishops and other Ministers and augmented iâ— and our Vniversities Revenues also out of the Abbies Spoyles which yet could not exempt him from the publick censure of some Protestants for selling or rteaining most of their Lands and Impropriations for his own use which say they he should have rather converted to other lawfull sacred uses according to the will of the first Donors And Mr. Purchas writes That the Monks unrighteous coveting and the Popes appropriating
of the Tithes of some Thousands of our best Benefices unto Abbies and Monasteries and robbing the Ministers of them to whom only they were given by God himself and the first Donors for their Maintenance to the great prejudice both of the Ministers and People was one principal cause that by a Divine Judgement and Providence beyond all mens expectation the Pope and they were both suppressed together on a suddain even by him who not long before had justified his usurped Supremacy against Luther and for which he had received this ominous Title from the Pope DEFENDER OF THE FAITH God grant our New Defenders of the Faith do not as ill â—â— quite those Persons Powers who first commissioned them with their Arms to defend our Faith Church Religion against Iesuites Papists and their Confederates in the Field as King Henry did the Pope after this new Moâ—â—o 7ly That ouâ— God blessed honoured us with the first incomparable Protestant King in the world no Papist but a REAL SAINT beyond any of his years in this or former Ages even young KING EDWARD THE SIXT the first King I read of who by publick Laws and Statutes suppressed banished all Popish Pictures Ceremonies Superstitious Monuments Practices Abuses throughout his Dominions and established the true worship Service Sacraments Ministers and Ministry and Gospel of Christ throughout his Dominions for which all Ages shall call him blessed no waies embesselling or diminishing the Churches Glebes Tithes or Revenues and enacting a New excellent Law for Tithes recovery when detained But God taking him suddenly from hence to a better Kingdom and his Successor Queen Mary defacing deforming his blessed Reformation and restoring both the Pope and Popery again almost to its former height except in point of Monkery which the defacing of the Monasteries prevented 8ly God then blessed our Church and Kingdom with an unparallel'd Protestant Princesse Queen Elizabeth a Nursing Mother to the Church who demolished the whole Body of Popery with the Popes revived usurpations again by publick Acts established the reformed Religion again in greater beauty and purity than at first banishing all Jesuites and Seminary Priests as Traytors restored the exiled Ministers of the Gospel suffering for Religion rewarding them with the rechest Bishopricks and Church-Preferments and planting a faithfull painfull preaching Ministry by degrees in most dark corners of her Dominions endowed them with a setled competent maintenance which our subsequent Protestant Kings continued to them and their Successors without diminution All which considered we of this Isle may with much thankfulnesse to God and honour to our Princes without flattery averr before all the world That the forecited Prophecies of Kings being Nursing Fathers and Queens Nursing-Mothers to the Church and specially Kings and Queens of this Isle have been more really accomplished in the Kings and Queens of this our Island than in the Kings and Queens of any other Isle Kingdom or Nation whatsoever throughout the world and God grant that those who shall succeed them in any other New modelled-form of Government may not prove such Step-Fathers and Step-Mothers to our Churches and Ministers as to demolish the one and strip the other quite naked of all that former Livelihood and remaining small Revenues which they yet enjoy by our Princes Grants Gists Charters Laws and Favours only and thereby give all Godly Ministers and people too in our Nation just cause to cry out with wringed hands weeping eyes and bleeding hearts in the Prophets words Hosea 10. 3 4. For now they shall say We have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do to us or amongst us They have spoken words Swearing falsely in making a Covenant Thus Iudgement springeth up as Hemlock one of the deadliest Poysons to destroy men in the fields Or else to speak in Solomons language to the same effect Prov. 28. 2. For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof as our Land had never so many Transgressions and Princes too as now But by a Man of Vnderstanding and Knowledge and where is such a one to be found to stand up in a Gap the state thereof shall be prolonged Now the Lord raise up such a Man or Men lest God say to our Nation and all Grandees in Power as he did once to the prophane wicked Prince of Israel whose day was come Ezech. 21. 25 26 27. Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same Exalt him that is Low and abase him that is High I will overturn overturn overturn Church State Laws and it shall be no more untill he come whose Right it is and I will give it him To prevent these treble fatal over-turnings with the wiping and turning of our Jerusalem UPSIDE DOWN like a Dish a certain Fore-runner of a Churches Nations ruine 2 Kings 21. 13. Psal 146. 9. I shall now in the last place present the whole Nation with a brief Catalogue of those manifold Laws Statutes which our Kings have successively made in their Great Councils and Parliaments almost from the very first establishment of Religion in our Island for the due payment of Ministers Tithes by coercive Means Forfeitures Penalties in case of willfull detaining or neglect in paying all or any part of them at the times appointed which those who please may peruse in Câ—ronicon Johannis Brompton Mr. Lambards Archaiâ—n Sir Henry Spelmans Councils Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments John Bridges his Defence of the Government of the Church of England Book 16. p. 1350. Our Statutes at large and Mr. Rastals Abridgement of Statutes Title Tithes which Laws being well known to most learned men are therefore needlesse fully to transcribe The first of them is the forecited Law Decree of the Council of Calcuth under King Oswald and Oâ—â—a An. 787. of famous King Alfred Anno 787. of King Alfred and Gutburn the Dane cap. 9. De Decimis Deo Debiâ—u about the year 890. of King Edward the elder and Gutburn Anno 905. or 906. as some Cap. 6. in some c. 9. DE DECIMIS ET CENSU ECCLISLE RETENTIS of King Aethelstan made in the famous Council of Gratelean An 928. cap. 1. DE DECIMIS REDDENDIS tam ex Animalibus quam de fructibus terrae which this King himself duly paid and then enjoyned all his great Officers and People duly to render of King Edmond An. 944. c. 2. concluding Qui non solverit ANATHEMA ESTO Of famous King Edgar Anno 967. c. 3. DE DECIMIS Canon 54. of the Kings and Presbyters of Northumberlana made a little after that time Lex 51. of King Aetâ—elred An. 1012. c. 1 4. of King Knute the Dane An. 1032. c. 8. but 15. in some Copies De Decimis reddendis c. 11 17. and a Statute law against obstinate Detainers of Tithes there stiled JURA ET DEBITIONES DIVINAE of King Edward the Confessor about the year 1060. confirmed verbatim by William the
Conquerour in the fourth year of his Reign c. 8 9. forecited To which may be added the Great Charters of King Henry the first and King John recorded in Matthew Paris ratified by King Henry the 3d. in his Magna Charta c. 11. made in the 9th year of his Reign confirmed by above 37 Acts of Parliament since in many successive Parliaments That the Church of England shall be free now in greater Bondage than ever and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable never so much violated diminished as now notwithstanding all Oaths Laws Covenants Declarations Protestations lately and all antient Solemn Curses and Excommunications annually made against the Infringers thereof 13 E. 1. 17 E. 3. 14. 2 H. 4. c. 4. Enacting the Cistertian Monks to pay Tithes to Ministers and Evangelists notwithstanding any Buls of Exemption from the Pope which the King and Parliament declared to be void and that the Promâ—vers or Executors of any such Buls shall be attainted in a Praemunire It appears by the Parliament Roll of 2 H. 4. nu 40. This Act was made upon the Petition of all the Commons which because not extant in print pertinent to the present business of Tithes and unknown to most I shall here transcribe at large May it please our most gracious Lord the King to consider That whereas time out of mind the Religions men of the Order of the Cistercians of your Realm of England have paid all manner of Tithes of their lands tenements possessions let to farm or manured and occupied by other persons besides themselves and of manner of things tithable being and growing upon the same lands tenements and possessions in the same manner as your other Lieges of the said Realm Yet so it is that of late the said Religious have purchased a Bull from our Holy Father the Pope by the which our said Holy Father hath granted to the said Religious That they shall pay no Tithes of their Lands Tenements Possessions Woods Eattel or any thing whatsoever although they are or shall be leased or farmed notwithstanding any Title of Prescription or Right acquired or which hereafter may be had or acquired to the contrary The which Pursute and Grant is apparently against the Laws and Customs of your Realm by reason that divers Compositions real and Indentures are made between many of the said Religioius and others your Lieges of the prise of such Tithes and also by reason that in divers Parishes the Tithes demanded by the said Religious by colour of the said Bull exceed the fourth part of the value of the Benefices within whose limits and bounds they are and so if the said Bull should be executed much more the late Petions against all Tithes and coercive Maintenance for Ministers câ—ndescended to as well your dreadfull Majesty â—s your Lieges Patrons of the said Benefices shall receive great losses in their Advowsons of the said Benefices and the Conusance which in this behalf appertains and in all times hath belonged to your Regality shall be discussed in Court Christian against the said Laws and Customes besides pray mark the prevailing reason the Troubles and Commotions which may arise among your people by the motion and execution of such Novelties within your Realm That hereupon by assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament you would be pleased to ordain that if the said religious or any other put or shall put the said Bull in execution shall be put out of your Protection by due Process made in this behalf and their goods forfeited to You lost and that as a work of Charity Which Petition being read and considered was answered in the words following It is accorded by the King and Lords in Parliament That the Order of the Cistertians shall be in the state they were before the time of the Bull purchased comprised in this Petition and that as well those of the said Order as all others Religious and Secular of what estate or condition soever they be who shall put the said Bull in execution or shall hereafter take advantage in any manner of any such Bulls already purchased or to be purchased shall have Process made against them and either of them by sommoning them within a moneth by a Writ of Premunire Facias And if they make default or shall be attainted that they shall be put out of the Kings Protection and incur the peines and forfeitures comprised in the Statute of Provisors made in the 13. year of King Richard And moreover for to eschue many probable mischiefs likely to arise in time to come that our said Lord the King shall send to our Holy Father the Pope for to repeal and annal the said Bulls purchased and to abstain to make any such Grant hereafter To which Answer the Commons well agreed and that it should be made into a Statute From which memorable Record I shall desire Iohn Canne and all his ignorant deluded Disciples who cry out against Tithes and the payment of them as Popish to observe 1. That all the Commons of England in this Parliament even in times of Popery together with the King and Lords resolve the quite contrary That the exemption of any order of men from payment of their due and accustomed Tithes is Popish and that the Pope was the first and only man who presumed by his Bulls to exempt men from payment of due and accustomed Tithes to their Ministers 2ly That Popish Friers of the Cistercian Order not Godly Saints abhorring Monkerie and Poperie were the first men who sued for procured and executed such Exemptions from the Pope and that merely out of Covetousness against the express word and Law of God as our John Salisbury de Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. and our Arch-deacon of Bathe Petrus Blesensis observe who tax them for it And therefore the petitioning writing endeavouring to procure a like exemption from the payment of antient and accustomed Tithes to our Ministers must be Popish and Monkish likewise infused into our New lighted Saints by some Popish Monks and Jesuits disguised under the notion of New-lights Seekers Anabaptists c. 3ly That they declare this Bull though granted by their Holy-Father the Pope whose Authority and esteem was then very great to be against the Laws and Customs of the Realm and thereupon repeal null it for the present and provide against the grant of any such Bulls for Non-payment of Tithes for the future and make the Procurers and Executioners of them subject to a Praemunire Such a transcendent Crime and Grievance did they then adjudge it to seek or procure the least exemption from payment of Tithes from any earthly Powers yea from their very Holy Father the Pope himself then in his highest Power 4ly That they resolve the exemption from Tithes though amounting but to a fourth part in every Parish would prove a great prejudice to the King and all other Patrons in their Advowsons
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 sull 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 Justitia 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 disinherisâ—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 noâ— 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 â—ntient 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 for ever 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 â—ands 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
the Apostle interprets it Hebr. 7. 2. being by Interpretation KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESSE and after that also King of SALEM which is KING OF PEACE which Souldiers who make a gainfull Trade of War and Rapine delight not in 10ly I do affirm and will abide by it that since the time some disguised Popish Priests Jesuits Sectaries Hereticks Anabaptists and other Seducers rather than the Lord drew ouâ— the heart of some Souldiers and other Mechanicks in truth or disguise publickly to preach the People of this Common-wealth have had more abominable false damnable atheistical Antichristian Heresies Errors Blasphemies New Opinions and old exploded Heterodox Heresies and Tenents of all sorts whatsoever against the very Essence Nature Attributes of God himself the three sacred Persons in the Trinity the Old and New Testament Law Gospel all the fundamental Articles of Faith and Salvation the Sacraments Ministers Ordinances of God and practical publick private Duties of Piety and Christianity under the Names and specious Titles of New Lights and glorious Discoveries of Christs Kingdom broached by Souldiers and Lay-Preachers than in all the times since the Gospel was first preached in this Island and more than ever any one Age Church Nation or all our Ministers put together since the Creation till now were guilty of and these publickly averred both in Presse and Pulpit and the Authors of them exempted from any corporal or pecuniary punishments by the Civil Magistrates by the avowed printed Positions and Proposals of the General Council of Army-Officers and Souldiers in sundry Papers For full and infallible proof whereof I shall remit the Reader to Mr. Edwards Gangrenaes the Catalogues of the Heresies Blasphemies Errors collected by the London and Devonshire Ministers the Stationers Beaconfired and New Law p. 78 97. Which stiles Heaven Hell the resurrection of the Flesh a Dream of our Preachers The History of the Scripture an Idol c. And all this by the malice of Satan the underhand practices of Jesuites and our Popish Adversaries to defame ruine our Church Ministers Religion seduce thee to Popery Atheism and reduce us back to the Antichristian Tyranny of the Sea of Rome as I have largely manifested in the fifth Chapter Whereas Canne cannot charge our Parochial Ministers and Presbyterians with any such Blasphemies Heresies Errors as those he pleads for are guilty of in the highest degree nor with those Jesuitical treacherous perfidious sacrilegious unclean beastly ranting unrighteous prophane atheistical Innovations Practices Rapines Usurpations as they have plunged themselves into over head and ears without any Conscience or dread of God or Man 11ly What that more true Light and glorious Discoveries of Christ and his Kingdom made known to the people of this Common-wealth within these 10 or 12. years by the publick preaching of some Souldiers and Laymen exceeding all the Nations Ministers ever made known unto them before are is concealed by 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 Augustinus c. who were brought up in all kind of Learning and became shining Stars and brought Lights in the House of God notable Defenders of Religion Over-throwers of Idols and Confounders of Hereticks Christian Princes herein have witnessed their Zeal in setting forth the Glory of God After Charles the Great had made his notable Conquests let our Conquerors remember it he erected five famous Universities one at Paris another at Tolouse another at Papia another at Padua and another at Prague to which our King Alfred founder of out famous Universitie of Oxford with the founders of all the Colleges therein and of the Universities of Cambridge Dublin and those in Scotland to omit those Universities in Germany Spain Portugall Poland Denmarke Sweden Hungary and other Parts of Italy and France mentioned by Heylen and others might be added Suidas reporteth of Leo the Emperour That when Leâ— on a time commanded Eulogius a Philosopher should have his Princely reward a Noble man of the Court sayd as some do now of our Universities and Colleges Lands and Revenues that that money would be better imployed for the maintenance of Souldiers Nay saith he and so all wise men now I would rather it might be brought to pass in my time that the wages which are now bestowed upon Souldiers might be given to maintain Philosophers Alexander Severus so highly esteemed that notable famous Lawyer Vlpian that when certain of his Soldiers â—an feircely upon Vlpian to slay him the Emperor stept forth and set himself between the body of Vlpian and the fury of his Souldiers and covered him with his own Robes that the Souldiers might know how carefull he was for the good estate of Vlpian Let our Souldiers who hate and study to suppress Philosophers Scholars Lawyers consider these two last Stories And also for the contrary such as have practised cruelty upon learned men and have hated knowledge were worthily discommended in the Stories of all ages He instanceth in the wicked Apostates Julian and Licinius forecited examples The like is reported of Caligula Caracalla and Domitianus that either they utterly hated all manner of Learning or had some special malice against the writings of some one notable man and therefore sought to destroy them Such was the policy of Satan so thought he to get the upper hand and to restore again his wicked Iericho And were these the Practices of Heathen Princes only may not we remember the like attempts wrought in our dayes who will call â—o mind the time that is not far past shall find that this ignorant Iericho had many friends and hath it not now as many and the same who by all means drew men from knowledge they gave Liberty rather to do any thing than to seek understanding and yet suffered rather the use and reading of fabulous and unclean writers than of the Holy Scripture and Books which carried fruitfull instruction Good Letters to increase knowledge are not to be neglected Such as presume of Gods Spirit over-boldly that without endeavour to use the wholsome means which God hath left unto his Church they shall and doe by special inspiration understand his will do tempt God He adds much more In brief learning knowledge in Arts Tongues Histories of all sorts and in the Laws Governments of former ages are so absolutely necessary for the right understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures and good Government of all Common-wealths and Kingdoms that without them there neither will nor can be any true Religion sound Knowledge of God his word or works nor orderly Government Humanity Civility Navigation or Commerce almost in the world and men deprived of it will be little different from Beasts as appears by the brutish Sottishnesse Barbarousnesse Savagenesse ignorance of the illiterate Indians in America and of some other African and Northern Nations voyd both of Religion Government and Humanity it self because destitute of Learning as Purchas his Pilgrimage Mr. Hackluits voyages Peter Martyrs Indian History Mercator and others record Hereupon our antient Ancestors were so carefull of
Learning Religion Ministers Scholars Lands Estates Tithes that they placed them in the very front of all those antient Laws Liberties Customs which they claimed enjoyed and presented to William the pretended Conqueror upon Oath in the 4th Year of his Reign who ratified them in Parliament without the least Alteration or Diminution to his eternal Honour and the great contentment of the whole Nation whose affections else he would have lost to the endangering of his new acquired Royalty as I have proved in the 2d Chapter Which our New pretended Conquerors may do well to consider And so I proceed to my concluding Assertion CHAP. V. I Am now arived at the fifth and last Proposition That the present opposition and endeavoured abolition of Tithes and all other coercive maintenance for Ministers proceed not from any real grounds of Piety or Conscience or any considerable real Inconveniences or Mischiefs arising from them but merely from base covetous carnal Hearts want of Christian Love and Charity to and professed enmity and batred against the Ministers and Ministry of the Gospel and from a Jesuitical and Anabaptistical design to subvert and ruine our Ministers Church and Religion the probable if not necessary consequence of this infernal Project if it should take effect Which would prove the eternal Shame Infamy and Ruine of our Nation not its Glory and Benefit The first part of the Proposition is sufficiently manifested by the premises wherein I have answered all Objections from pretended Grounds of Piety Conscience and surmised Inconveniences or Mischiefs made against Tithes discovering them to be mere Impostures and false Surmises and the principal Objections against them are that they are Jewish Popish And Iohn Canne in his Second Voyce from the Alehouse for surely it came from thence not from the Temple to shew his skill in Divinity most impudently asserts That payment of Tithes is a Sin two waies against the second Commandement 1. In it self as being Iewish and Superstitious giving honour to the wayes and devises of Antichrist This way of Maintenance by Tithes being a Popish Custom imposed by the Popes Authority c. 2ly As paid to an unlawfull and Antichristian Ministry c. Surely a Lyer ought to have a good Memory He confesseth p. 15. That Tithes were paid by Abraham vowed by Iacob and prescribed by God himself in the Ceremonial law Therefore neither Jewish nor Popish nor Superstitions nor a Sin against the 2d Commandement else Abraham in paying Iacob in vowing God in prescribing the Israelites in paying them should transgresse this Commandement and commit a Sin against it I would demand of this Canne how he can reconcile these his palpable Lyes and Contradictions unbecomming him who professeth himself a true Minister of the Gospel 1. How Tithes can be merely Jewish since paid by Gods direction and approbation by Abraham the Father of the Faithfull and that to Christ himself in the shape of Melchisedeâ— and prescribed by Gods own special Precept 2ly How any thing commanded by God even when the 2d Commandement was given recorded in the same Canonical Books of Scripture with it practised by Gods special command by all his true Saints under the Law and generally in all Christian Churches under the Gospel as I have proved can possibly be a Sin against the 2d Commandement in it self and whether it be not direct Blasphemy in him thus confidently to aver it in making Gods very Commandements to fight one against another and to command one thing as a Duty in some Texts and condemn it as a Sin and damnable Superstition in another 3ly How Tithes if truly and orignally Iewish can yet be truly and originally Antichristian Popish and the Popes device many thousand years after Tithes first Institution and customary payment Till he can satisfactorily reconcile these apparent contradictory Assertions or publickly recant them if he cannot all the world must accompt him for an Antichristian Minister and Lying Impostor his Voyce the Voyce of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth both God and Men Psal 44. 16. and confess there is no ground at all in Piety or Conscience against Tithes or their payment but grounds both of Piety and Conscience for them as I have proved especially for our Godly Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel for whom I only plead whose Calling being of unquestionable Divine Institution notwithstanding all Cannes Alehouse Arguments against them not worth a Canne and to continue in the world to the very end thereof and the consummation of all things by Christs own resolution Matth. 28. 20 Ephes 4. 10 11 12 13. they may and ought by Divine and Human Laws to enjoy their Glebes and Tithes so long continued maugre all the malice power of their violent Oppugners and will do so when they and their Posterities shall not have so much as a Name or Being upon Earth or in Heaven unless they repent notwithstanding they were justly taken from Popish Fryers Abbots Priors Lordly Prelates of mere popish Antichristian Institution not Divine when their very Orders were suppressed as mere Vsurpers Encroachers of the Ministers Rights Rewards alone for their pains in preaching exercising their Ministerial Function in their respective Parishes not in Abbies Cathedrals no Parish Churches for the people to resort unto to which by the Popes Bulls they were unjustly appropriated heretofore To clear this Proposition more fully in all its branches I have observed that there are five sorts of persons of late very busie active both against our Ministers tiths and callings too The first are Souldiers The 2d Anabaptists Dippers Quakers with other late blasphemous Sectaries and Hereticks The 3d. prophane covetous Earth worms and Atheistical Wretches who say in their Hearts and sometimes boldly profess not only by their Lives but with their Tongues in this lawless Age There is no GOD. The 4th prophane ignorant cheating Prognosticators and Astronomers The 5th Jesuitos popish Priests and Romish Emissaries sent from all pâ—rts to ruine our Ministers and Religion For the first they are either Officers and Common Souldiers and those either such who have gained or purchased Lands since the Wars lyable to Tithes for such who have no Lands at all and so not of present Ability Capacity to pay Tithes Those who have any purchased Lands lyable to Tithes are now so fierce against them for ought I câ—n discern not out of any grounds of piety or Conscience but either out of an unworthy covetous degenerous fordid disposition to ease themselves and their Heirs from this just antient Debt yea a charge of Tithes upon their New cheap Purchases and gain them as an Over-plus into their Bargains to improve their Purchases to an higher value the case of such of them who approve of our Ministers our publick Ordinances and are no Speakers Anabaptists Sectaries Or else a like avaritious Disposition mixed with and heightned by a professed Enmity Malignity against the very Persons Calling of our Ministers whom they usually revile
those who sate there before you and why not as well on Faux and the Gunpowder Traytors as those since there seems another Powder-plot in the Vault to blow them up intended by Canne and his Confederates if they fail in accomplishing this their desired work whom the Lord hath lade aside as despised broken Idols and Vessels wherein his Soul had no pleasure And why As they knew not their Generation-work which he excites them to neither were faithfull to the interest of Jesus Christ God is no respecter of Persons as men sow so they shall reap Ex ungue Leonem ex cauda Draconem You may see by these passages and his whole Pamphlet pursuing them what these malicious inhuman barbarous irreligious hypocritical Anabaptists aym at in their present violent prosecutions against Tithes even utterly to starve famish subvert extirpate our Ministers Ministry Church Worship Government and make our Land a mere Spoyl Desolation as their Predecessors did Munster and some parts of Germany whiles in their power But let Canne and his Anabaptistical Confederates remember what tragical ends their New King John with all his Princes Grandees Officers Prophets Followers came to in conclusion in Germany And what fatal ruine befell Jack Cade Iack Straw Wat Tyler Sharp and other levelling Companions who had the self-same Designs against our English Laws Lawyers Clergy Tithes Glebes as He and they have now animated thereto by the new-dipped Iesuites and other Romish Emissaries lately crept into their Anabaptistcal Fraternity to further this their Infernal Gunpowder-plot against our Church Religion Ministers Magistrates Government Laws and let them thereupon repent of desist from abominate this their Diabolical wicked Design lest they incur the self same punishments in conclusion by stirring up God and all the whole Nation against them as most accursed Rebels Traytors Instruments of Satan yea that very Antichrist and Whore of Rome they pretend they are blindly acting against whose designs in truth they are but accomplishing in the highest degree I must here observe and desire all others to take notice of three things First that in Cannes Voyce and in all other late Pamphlets Petitions of the Anabaptists wherein they seem to vent their most passionate zeal against Antichrist Babylon the Whore of Babylon their chief Instruments and Supporters I cannot find so much as one Clause or Syllable against Iesuites Popish Priests Papists Romish Emissaries or exciting the execution of any Laws or Statutes formerly made against them but the whole stream bent of them all is only against the Godly Ministers Ministry worship of the Church of England the Presbyterian Government and our present Church-worship the only Babylon Whore Antichrist they intend and fight against not the Pope and Church of Rome 2ly That they are so far from pleading against the Pope Popish Priests Iesuites and urging the execution of the good Oaths Laws made by late and former Protestant Parliaments gainst them and their Treasonable practices that they have frequently written petitioned for their Repeal Abolition as bloody Tyrannical Laws unlawfull Oaths and procured their Repeal or Suspension at least in their favour from some late and present Powers 3ly That when some consciencious pious Stationers late in their Beacons fired discovered to those then in Power The many sorts multitudes of Jesuites Popish Books printed in England within 3. years last past in defence of the Pope and Church of Rome all Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and reviling our Church Religion as Heretical desiring them to take it into their timely considerations to suppress this growing Mischief Design to corrupt the People and reduce them back to Popery ere they were aware Kiffin with other Anabaptists in the Army headed by Colonel Pride taking an Alarum thereat subscribed and printed a Book intituled The Beacons quenched penned they know best by whom not the Subscribers of it not yet inspired with the gift of all the Tongues therein contained pleading for a free Tolleration of such Popish Books printing dispersing amongst us of publick Disputes by those of that Religion traducing accusing the Presbyterians throughout that Pamphlet and those honest zealous Stationers in particular of no lâ—sse than a New Gunpowder-plot Mine Train then ready to be sprung to blow up those Colonel Pride and his Confederates first made and then stiled The Parliament of the Common-wealth of England and the Army too only for discovering thesâ— Popish Books and Trains to blow up our Religion Which Scandal as the Stationers then fully cleared by their satisfactory Reply to that impertinent Pamphlet so the Subscribers of it their Fellow-Souldiers of the Army better versed by far in Mines and Fireworks to blow up Parliaments and nearer related to old Guy Faux a Low-Country Souldier by reason of their Military profession than these Stationers and Presbyterians they thus falsly slandered have since cleared before all the World to be a malicious Calumny of which themselves only are guilty and given just cause of Jealousie Fear to all Presbyterians old Protestants and Pâ—ritans to apprehend that they now really joyn their Forces and Heads together with those thus pleaded for to ruine our Church Religion Ministry under the Notion and Project of suppressing Tithes and of all future compulsory Maintenance for the Ministers of England whom they intend to starve and famish such is their Charity if they can but vote Tithes down before they provide any other Maintenance which Vote once passed the next will be to vote them both out of their Rectories Glebes Churches Ministry too as Cannes Voice and the Kentish Petition against Tithes root and branch sufficiently discover to all who are not wilfully blind enough to make all men now to look about them That the Dominican Franciscan and other Popish Fryerâ— were the first Broachers of this Opinion That Lâ—ymen were not bound to pay Tithes to their Ministers by any Divine law or right on purpose to draw the Tithes of Ministers and Curates to themselves and exempt whatever Lands or Things were given to them from payment of Tithes I have elsewhere evidenced out of Mr. Selden and others whereupon Johannes Sarisburiensis Bishop of Chartres thus censured them Miror ut fidelium pace loquar quodnam sit ut Decimas jura aliena usurpare non erubesâ—unt Inquient fortè Religiosi sumus Planè Decimas solvere Religionis pars est Adding that their Exemptions from payment of Tithes did derogare constitutioni Divinae derogate from Divine institution And Petrus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bath in his 82. Epistle inveighs very much against the privileges of the Cistercian Monks exemption from payment of Tithes as injuriosa immunitas contra Dei justiciam seeing Justiciae Divinae manifestè resistit qui Ministris Ecclesiae nititur jus Decimationis auferre Which these Friers not only persisted in by substracting their own Tithes from the Ministers by colour of these Exemptions but likewise the Tithes of their other Parishioners especially such who contemning
and other like to work our ruine have a hand in this Design to deprive our Ministers of their Tithes and Rectories to work their ruine is most apparent First by their former procedings even against their own Secular Priests in England where they seeking to work their utter ruine subversion supplantation to intâ—ude themselves into their imployments by their Machiavel Atheal plots about the year 1600 to 1605 did first by their scandalous Books Libels Slanders against there Priests bring their Persons and Priesthood into scorn and contempt amongst the generality of the English Papists preferring every Lay Brother of their Society before them executing their Priestly Function without a lawfull Call or Ordination and then endeavoured to substract all Maintenance and Contributions from them threatning to make them leap at a Crust and to pine and starve them debarring interrupting all their Maintenance from English Recusants in such sort that many of them pined away through grief of Mind want of Food and were so near perishing that they were necessitated to petition Queen Elizabeth and her Council for some Allowance in their prisons to keep them from starving Yea they and their Jesuited Followers and Proselites derided their Seminarie Priests and Ghostly Fathers in this manner Ah hah hah A Seminary and old Queen Mâ—â—y Priest a Secular c. You shall see them all leap at a Crustere it be long c. And having got Iudas his Office to carry the Mony bagg into their own and Substitutes hands they disposed of the Wealth and Charitie of Catholicks consisting of many thousand pounds where how and to whom they pleased for their own enriching and advancement which made the Secular Priests write that England was become wild Priesthood and Sacraments had in contempt Religion made but a matter of Atheal policy and Priests through the Jesuites Falsehood Calumniations and untrue Suggestions to the Superiours and all Estates brought into such high contempt that their verie Ghostly Children whom they had begotten had forsasaken houted shunned despised them as if they were none other but their Stepfathers and shewed their Charity so coldly to them as many of them were in extream want and few or none of them scarce able to live as we may read in Watsons Quodlibets against Parsons and his Fellow Jesuites p. 16 17 18 20 21 31 37 38 42 43 45 50 51 52 62 63 70 71 80 81 92 93. and elsewhere throughout that Book in Joan. Bogermanus Catechesâ—s Jesuit l. 3. c. 28. Thuanus Hist l. 126 Mercurius Jesuiticus Tom. 1. p. 287. William Clark his Reply to Father Parsons Libel printed 1603. fol. 17 to 32 which being the very condition and complaint of our Godly Protestant Ministers in most places throughout the Nation at this day is no doubt a storm of these Jesuites raysing a very Plot and Design of their hatching â—omenting to ruine our Ministers and their Ministry now as they would have done their own Secular Priests then in England to advance their own power profit 2ly It is evident by Rob. Parsons and other Jesuites old Project for Reformation of England when they should get power in it To take away all Lands Manors Benefices and setled Maintenance of the Church from the English Clergy and Universities and make all Ministers and Scholars mere Pensioners and Stipendiaries at their pleasure set up itinerary Preachers fixed to no particular Church like our wandring Quakers Anabaptists Sectaries of late instead of Parochial Pastors of which more anon 3ly Alfonsus de Vargas Toleâ—anus in his Relatio ad Reges Principes Christianos De Stratagematis Politicis Societatis Jesu ad Monarchiam Orbis terrarum sibi conficiendam printed 1641. cap. 40 to 51. proves at large out of the Jesuites own printed Defence and other Writings That these new Doctors of no Conscience no Faith no honesty or shame have perswaded the Emperour and other Kings against their Oaths Trusts Duties Charters the Law of Nations and all Divine and Human Laws that it was lawfull for them upon a pretext of Necessity for the ease of the people and Maintenance of their Wars Souldiers to alienate the Lands Revenues Maintenance of Abbies Religious men and of the Church upon Souldiers for the defence of their Bodies and of the Church that so themselves might gain a share of them for the advantage of their own Societies contrary to the wills intentions of the first Donors and Founders Whereupon he thus justly jeers them cap. 46. p. 222. That the institution of the Jesuites Society peculiarly tends to this that their Colleges should beinstituted and Society maintained out of the ruines of the Church and rapines of other mens Goods à quibus Societatis Institutor et Conditor Ignatius cum etiamnum ad legionem bellator esseâ— minime alienus fuisse nec a solita Militum rapacitate quicquam demutasse sine ulla ejus contumelia creditur eâ—si autem Militiam mutavit ac simul cum Sociorum ne dicam furum manipulo Christo Imperatori Sacramentum dixit non propterea rapinam omnem ejerare necesse habuit c. he remaining a PLUNDERER still after he became a SAINT Seeing the Propheâ— Isay seemeth thus to prophecy both of his Rapine and Wound in his halting Legg cap. 33. Tunc dividentur Spolia multarum praedarum Claudi diripient rapinam Therefore no wonder this Spirit of Rapine continues in his Disciples who doubtlesse have infused the self-same Spirit of Rapine into our Anabaptists and Souldiers into whose Societies they have secretly insinuated themselves somenting and intending to lengthen out our wars so long of purpose to make a prey of our remaining Church-Revenues Rectories Tithes and College lands too at last as they have done of other Church-Revenues already dissipated out of a pretext of Necessity as is most transparant to all Intelligent peoples eyes thereby to destroy our Religion by devouring our Ministers Churches Patrimonies the probable if not inevitable consequence of this Jesuitical project if effected as is most apparent by this notable passage of Roderyck Mors formerly a Grey Fryer in his Complaint and Supplication to the Parliament of England about 37 H. 8. after the Dissolution of Monasteries pertinent to my purpose and as worthy consideration now as then Ye that be Lords and Burgesses of the Parliament House writes he I require of you in the name of my poor Brethren that are Englishmen and Members of Christs Body that ye consider well as ye will answer before the face of Almighty God in the day of judgement this abuse and see it amended When Antichrist of Rome durst openly without any visor walk up and down thorowout England he had so great favour there and his Children had such crafty wits for the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light they had not only almost gotten all the best Lands of England into their hands but also most part of the best Benefices both of Parsonages and Vicarages
divided by upholding the weakest party that the other might not make it self too powerfull Reducing the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland to be divided by one of these two means or both either by nominating new Kings or by reducting them to a Common-wealth Yet with this Caution that when they are reduced to a Common-wealth So to order it that it may not be intirely one but divided For Republiques ever enemies to Poteut Neighbours and Iealous of their Liberties ought to be Suspected by the State of France How punctually this advice hath been pursued by the French as well as Parsons and Campanellaes Plots of like nature by the Spaniards those who please to peruse the Lord George Digbies Cabinet Letters printed in the Collection of all the Publique Orders Ordinances and Declaration of Parliament in folio by the Commons Order 1646. p. 849 858 862 863 866 867. and my Speech in Parliament p. 118. 106 to 114. may read at leisure and every mans observing experience can sufficiently attest The Lord now at last give us hearts to be deeply sensible of it and grace zeal courage to make timely use of it for the Preservation of our Kingdoms Nations Churches Ministers Religion from impendent ruine Having given the world this brief Accompt of the principal Promoters Prosecutors of the present Grand Plot against our Ministers their Tithes and Rectories I cannot upon serious consideration of it but foresee and divine that if all or any of these Projectors through Gods heavy Judgment on us for our sins and detestable violations of all Oaths Vows Covenants Trusts Protestations Promises Declarations Divine and Human Laws should by power fraud policy or armed force so far prevail with our present Legifers or Swaying Grandees as totally to take away and abolish the Rectories Tithes and present setled Maintenance of our Ministry for the Souldiers pay or other ends or else secretly to bring them all into a Common Treasury and reduce all our Ministers to set arbitrary Stipends out of them to dispossess them of the future actual possession of them and make them wholy dependent on the arbitrary discretions of new intruding Land-Lords into their Churches Patrimonies Freeholds from whom they never received them at first as it would inevitably produce a world of mischiefs and Inconveniences both to all Patrons and Parishioners throughout the Nation without the least Ease or Benefit to the People so it would certainly either totally ruine our Ministers making them all poor Fryers Mendicants neglecting their Callings Studies to get their living by begging from door to door and as Peter Martyr observes to be ventris potius quam Ecclesiae Ministros ostiatim validè Mendicare non Mendicantes sed Manducantes appellari and thereby subvert our Church and Religion with them in very few years space open such a wide door for the Pope and whole body of Popery to flow in upon us again with an impetuous irresistable Deluge 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 us 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 coâ—rcive 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
the whole Kingdom is a Faction of Malignant Schismatical and ambitious persons whose designes is and alwaies hath béen to alter the whole frame of Government both of Church and State and to subject both King and People to their own lawlesse arbitrary Power and Government and that they design the ruine of his Majesties Person and of Monarchy it self and consequently that they are Traytors and all the Kingdom with them for their Act is the Act of the whole Kingdom And whether their Punishment and Ruine may not also involve the whole Kingdom in conclusion and reduce it into the condition of a Conquered Nation mark the words no man can tell hut experience sheweth us as now it doth in good earnest more than ever that Successe often carries men not only beyond their Profession but also many times beyond their first Intentions For an Army Officers then professing themselves true born English men eminent Godly Saints preservers of our Nations Liberties against Regal Tyranny and Enchroachments originally raysed Commissioned by both Houses to protect our Lawes Liberties Religion Church Government Parliament Nation from an intended Conquest by the late Kings Army to establish an absolute unlimited power over us and from being reduced into the condition of a Conquered Nation after the total routing of the Kings Army Power now at last to plead to averr we are now a conquered Nation in respect of themselves and thereupon to endeavour to establish an absolute unlimited power over us by altering the whole frame of Government both in Church and State changing the body of our Lawes yea antient constitution of our Parliaments abolishing our very Ministers Rectories Tithes Dues or diverting them to pay maintain themselves yea now to act over the very self-same things which both Houses then charged upon the late beheaded King and his Malignant Popish Councel thereby verifying these his Predictions of their forementioned designs in every Punctilio then utterly disclaimed by both Houses as the Highest Scandal to them and their sincere loyal Intentions and making him a truer Prophet than their new Merlin Lilly will not be only most scandalous dishonourable to them but monstrous treacherous perfidious if insisted on or persisted in both in the Judgement of God Angels Men and their own Consciences too Wherefore I presume on second thoughts they will disclaim this Plea both in words and Actions 2ly They were all raysed waged Commissioned by the late Parliament and well-affected People not to sight against conquer or subdue themselves but to preserve them their Lawes Liberties Privileges Estates our Churches and Religion against the Common Enemies and Invaders of them Therefore they cannot stile themselves Conquerors of those Persons things they never fought against but only for unlesse they will now declare their secret intentions were ever crosse and contradictory to their open Commissions Vowes Covenants Protestations Words and printed Declarations to God and those that raised waged them for their safety and defence alone 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 Cosfers 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 vâ—olence is justly possessed by any who hath offered and done the violence Irrationabilem igitur causam praetendiâ— 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 vindiâ—â—ndo Patres nostros in tuendo libertatem nostram in exâ—lâ—ando Regem nostrum perpessi fuerimus Wherefore Conquest now can certainly be no Just no Lawfull Plea Title for any of our Officers or Souldiers which this Greatest Conqueror and this Great Councel so long since damned as unjust and Irrational To which I shall annex the Resolution of our Noble King Henry the 2d and of all the Bishops Abbots Peers Earls Barons of England assembled in a Parliamentary General Councel of the Realm at Westminster An. 1126 to determine a Controversie between Alfonso King of Castile and Sancho King of Navarre concerning divers Castles and Territories in Spain won by War and Conquest by Sancho King of Navarre from Alfonso whiles he was a Pupil and Orphan which they both submitted to their final determination who having heard both parties unanimously resolved that these Castles and Lands should be restored to Alfonso by King Sancho with all their bounds and appurtenances quia per Bellum violenter injuste abstulisset because he had violently and unjustly taken them away by War which resolution was confirmed under the Kings Great Seal and sent unto these Kings Therefore Conquest alone can be no just no legal Saintlike Right Title to any Lands Possessions Powers violently unjustly gotten claimed by Wars by our Swordmen now after these two antient famous Parliamentary Resolutions in point even between foreign Conquering Princes much lesse then between those Native Englishmen who raised waged our Army and Officers to defend not conquer them in a meer intestine civil War 5ly William Duke of Normandy Edward the 3d Henry the 4th Edward the 4th and Henry the 7th though they all came to the Crown by the Sword and Conquest of their Competitors yet they never claimed the Crown nor Kingdom by Conquest but Title only nor esteemed the English Irish or Welch a conquered Nation nor altered our antient Government Laws Liberties Parliaments or Ministers Tithes and Maintenance but confirmed them as all our Histories manifest in their Lives and Statutes made by them in the beginning of their respective reigns attest I have formerly proved in the case of William commonly stiled the Conqueror who ratified all our Liberties Laws Customs Franchises presented to him upon Oath without the least alteration diminution or prevarication to the peoples Great content Yea King Henry the 4th as Placita Corone rot Parl. 1 H 4. n. 17. record did in the first Parliament held by him after his Conquest of Richard the 2d make this memorable Declaration to his people entred in that Roll. That he claimed the Realm and Crown of England with all their Members and Appurtenances as right heir thereto by Bloud by Descent and by the right God had given him through the ayd of his Parents and Friends for to recover the said Realm which Realm was upon the point to be undone for want of Government and abrogating of the Laws and Customs of the Realm And that it was not his will that any should think that he would by way of Conquest disinherit any one of his Heritage Franchise or other Right which he ought to have nor to out or deprive any man of that he had or should have by the good Laws or Customes of the Realm all which he confirmed by a special Act before 1 H. 4. c. 1. but only those who were against his good purpose and the common profit of the Realm and were guilty of all the evil come upon the Realm and were adjudged guilty thereof in that Parliament as Sir William Le Scroop Sir Henry Green and Sir John Bassy whose Lands only he would have by Conquest as forfeited by their Treasons Whereupon the Commons thanked the King and praysed God that he had sent them such a King and Governour Upon all which Considerations and the Resolution of learned Grotius with others quoted by him That by the very Laws of War even those who are conquered by foreign Enemies ought to enjoy by permission of the Conquerors their own Laws Liberties Magistrates Religion and a share in their Government much more in such a Civil War as ours where the Souldiers Generals can pretend no Conquest over those who raised waged them for their just defence against Conquest and Invasion of their Laws Liberties Government Magistrates Rights Privileges I hope those vaporing Officers Souldiers who have formerly cried up pleaded practised this pretended Title of Conquest amongst us and used many of their former Masters Raisers and the whole Nation more like to conquered enslaved People than their fellow Christian Brethren and Freeborn Englishmen who have paid them so well for all those Services they imployed them in will henceforth totally renounce this their false usurped Injurious Plea Title and no more persist under pretext thereof to deprive our Ministers Church Peers Parliaments Nation of their very Native Freedomes Liberties Franchises Rights Laws Government Lands Possessions which they were purposely commissioned waged and by all Sacred all Civil Obligations Trusts Oaths Vowes Protestations perpetually engaged to defend against the least violation or Innovation without their free and full consents in a due and lawfull Parliament freely elected by them not forcibly obtruded on them without their choise or privity Yea I trust they will be so just so righteous towards me so great a Sufferer by under them only for discharging my Conscience and bounden duty towards my God our Church and Native Country of England as no waies to be angry with me or Injurious towards me for this my New Gospel Plea interwoven with a Legal and Rational for the Lawfulness and Continuance of the antient setled Maintenance and Tithes of the Ministers of the Gospel and the good old Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Nation which their present busie Endeavours to abolish alter subvert beyond yea against their Trusts Commissions Callings have necessitated me now to publish to the world to preserve our Church State Ministry from new Combustions and Impendent ruine but rather sound a Retreat from these their Heady Proceedings which I fear the Jesuites with their Confederates the Anabaptists have engaged them so deeply in to work as well their own as the publick speedy ruine both of our Church Religion State Ministry Nation and excite them to use the self-same deportment words to me who have no private design nor interest of my own or other mens in this my voluntary undertaking but only the publique Safety and Weal as enraged David did once to Abigail when she diverted him from his rash bloody resolution to destroy Nabal and his family for a Churlish Answer returned to him for his Kindness 1 Sam. 25. 32 33. Now blessed be the Lord God of Israel which sent thee this day to meet me and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou which
hast kept me this day from coming to shed bloud and to avenge my self with my own hand But if they shall by Gods permission cast me again bound hand and foot into another fiery Fornace for this my faithfull Service or not falling down and worshipping that Golden or rather Wooden Image which they have or would now set up I doubt not but that Gracious God who hath so miraculously preserved me in delivered me out of so many fiery Trials and Fornaces heretofore will do the like again hereafter and that in such a visible eminent manner as shall enforce them at last to use those words unto me as Nebuchadnezzar did unto Shadrac Meshac and Abednego after their miraculous preservation in the midst of the fiery Fornace into which the most valiant men of his Army cast them bound by his unrighteous Command to their own immediat destruction by the flame without the least hurt to them Dan. 3. 28. Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said Blessed be the God of Shadrac Meshac and Abednego who hath sent his Angel and delivered his Servants that trusted in him and have changed the Kings word and have yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God or Idol except their own God This being an undoubted Truth which I have ever hitherto found experimentally true from and in my former causelesse Oppressors whose Erronious Practices vices I have reproved recorded by God himself and the wisest of all Mortals Prov. 28. 23. He that rebuketh a man for his faults plainly shall afterwards find more favour than he that flattereth him in them with the Tongue And that saying of the truth it self in such cases of difficulty and concernment to the reprover will ever prove an experimental verity wherewith I shall conclude my Plea which I desire may be deeply engraven in the Hearts Spirits of all timorous base unworthy Christians who dare neither speak nor write their Consciences nor Discharge their Duties in these times of danger and will wrong both their Consciences Country Posterity yea shame their God Nation Religion to save their Estates Lives as they fondly conceit when they will lose all with their souls to boot by their base carnal fears Math. 16. 24 25 26. Luke 17. 33. If any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Crosse and follow me For whosoever will Save or shall seek to Save his life so Luke records it shall Lose it and his Tithes Lands Liberties with it and whosoever will Lose his Lise for my sake shall find it For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole World and Lose his own Soul Or what shall a man give in exchange for his Soul I shall cloze up all with this notable Passage of our own learned Writer John Sarisbury against such Religious Hypocritical Cistersian Monks who in his age sought exemption from payment of Tithes and seised upon the Ministers Dues about the year 1170. Joannis Sarisburiensis De Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. De Hypocritis qui ambitioâ—is labem falsae Religionis imagine nituntur occultare Hi sunt qui potestatibus persuadentes ut propter vitia personarum jure suo priventur Ecclefiae Decimationes et Primitias Ecclestis subtrahunt et Ecclesias ipsas accipiunt de manu Laicorum Episcopis inconsultis Hi sunt qui praedia avita subtrahentes indigenis vicos pagos redigunt in solitudinem in suos usus vicina quaeque convertunt Ecclesias diruunt ut in usus revocant seculares Quae Domus Orationis fuerat aut efficitur stabulum pecoris aut opilionis aut Ianificli Officina Et ut se possunt plenius exhibere charitatis implere manus ne decimas dent Apostolico privilegio muniuntur Miror tamen ut Fidelium pace Ioquar quidnam sit quod Decimas et Iura aliena usurpare non erubescunt Inquient fortè Religiosi sumus Planè Decimas solvere Religionis pars est Et eas a Deo populus duntaxat religionis solvere exigitur Hi adeo religiosi sunt quod in Decimis dandis derogare possunt constitutioni Divinae in eo licenter minus grati sunt gratiae Dei quo eam amplioribus beneficiis experiuntur FINIS A POSTSCRIPT IT is storied of Canutus the 4 th the 77 King of Denmark an eminent professor of Piety and Religion and great lover of Justice that perceiving his Subjects to stick at many things pertaining to Christian Religion and not to conform to other Christians throughout the world in Laws and Ceremonies specially in the due payment of Tithes to their Ministers he urged them out of religious Piety ut ritu aliarum Nationum Christianam Religionem prositentium Decimas Sacerdotibus suis soluerent that after the custome of other Nations professing Christian Religion they would pay Tithes to their Priests remitting to them a great fine imposed on them for their Rebellion and contempt in refusing to accompany him in an Expedition against the English to induce them thereunto But they being perswaded the contrary by his Brother Olaf thereupon rose up in Rebellion against him specially the Northern Jutes frequently perfidious whom he could never induce to pay Tithes and pursuing him to Othense cruelly murdered this their just and pious King in the Church of St. Alban Anno 1088. whom Olaf succeeding God presently sent such a great scarcity of Corn and provision in Denmark for 7. years space together the intemperatenesse of the air blasting all their Corn that many families not only of the poorer but richer and nobler sort died of famine the people fighting with one another even for grasse to eat At last the famin invading King Olaf his Court he prayed to God that if he had conceived any anger against his Subjects for not paying Tithes and murdering their King he would satisfie his wrath upon him not them and the same night Esurientem parricidii pâ—nitentem animam efflavit he died of hunger repenting of his paricide O that all English Tithe-Oppugners and Regicides would seriously meditate on this memorable president of Divine Justice upon such Delinquents and be brought to timely repentance thereby to prevent the like National and Personal Judgements upon our Nation themselves and their posterities ERRATA COurteous Reader correct these mistakes and omissions of the Presse occasioned by the Authors absence in the Country Page 2. l. 34. if r. of p. 8. l. 24. r Wagria p. 14. l. 20. r. inservierat pietati l. 26. r. Wilfrid p. 21. l. 39. these those p. 25. l. 11. Decima l. 15. 17. aliendis alienandis p. 27. l. 27. r. 17 E. 4. c. 7. l. 37. Parliament l. 38. sommoneri p. 28. l. 6. Heu licet quod eo r. Quod licet de l. 13. dele ut l. 16. indulgere r. inducere l. 19. quamplurimum p. 29. l. 19. superlors p. 30. l. 3. Lord God p. 34. l. 4. form r. former l. 6. last r.