Joannis Sarisburiensis De Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. De Hypocritis qui ambitionis labem falsae Religionis imagine nituntur occultare Hi sunt qui potestatibus persuadentes ut propter vitia personarum jure suo priventur Ecclefiae Decimationes et Primitias Ecclessis 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 loquar 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 vandis derogare possunt constitutioni Divinae in eo licenter minus grati sunt gratiae Dei quo eam amplioribus beneficiis éxperiuntur FINIS A POSTSCRIPT IT is storied of Canutus the 4th 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 at ritu aliarum Nationum Christianam Religionem profitentium 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 paenitentem 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. superiors p. 30. l. 3. Lord God p. 34. l. 4. form r. former l. 6. last r. lasting l. 11 12. r. peril reproach and slander of the Gospel l. 18. to r. of l. 27. bow down p. 35. l. 25. who builded l. 28. Paris r. Parker p. 39. l. 2. in Egercituisse r. his Chaplain p. 44. l. 34.11 r. 1. p. 46. l. 13. they shall p. 50. l. 6. Balivis l. 14 bonis l. 15. praestiterunt p. 51. l. 9. dele Siquis igitur insanus importunitate p. 63. l. 38. dele li p. 66. l. 11. more r. none l. 36. or r. of p. 71. l. 3. for r. from p. 74. l. 4. jure r. pure p. 75. l. 2. Partimacensis Portiniacensis Abbatem Nautire r. Majoris l. 6. Clamianensis Cluniacensis p. 76. l. 11. 6.8 l. 18. Elegant supremam r. Eligant sepulturam l. 32. Iliburg Friburg p. 77. l. 8. Praemonstratensian l. 17. abuse l. 31. Deformations Reservations l. 38. at least p. 78. l. 15. Replain r. Mepham l. 37. grand p. 80. l. 14. Oxenetius Opmerus p. 84. l. 23. r. charge of the cure p. 85. l. 15. in sales l. 23 only r. chiefly p. 87. l. 4. fees r. fines l. 9. r. their families p. 97. l. 17. of r. or p. 98. l. 27. as litigious p. 101. l. 20. our r. of p. 104. l. 8. or unto recorded both l. 25. spoyls r. soyl p. 105. l. 10. requiring r. inquiring l. 33. spoyls r. soyl p. 107. l. 21. fere modum r. propemodum p. 110. l. 27. pugnavimus p. 111. l. 16. inhabitances r. inheritances l. 23. people r. priests l. 31. dele or p. 112. l. 39. if not p. 113. l. 2. within us p. 115. l. 39. dele of p. 117. l. 5. thee r. men p. 118. l. 21 Lucius Licinius p. 120. l. 35. brought r. bright p. 125. l. 27. for or p. 133. l. 20. which with p. 136. l. 13. Syms Syrus p. 150. l. 3. proceed not p. 156. l. 28. Nicetas l. 29. Beyerlink In the margin p. 6. over against good space l. 32. read At least 14. years as is evident by Gen. 15.1 c. 16.3.16 c. 17.24 25. p. 41. l. 8 9. Monasteries p. 47. l. 7. r. 757. p. 102. l. 5. Ivonis p. 110 l. 11. Saxonicorum p. 118. l. 22 23. Ruffinus p. 155. l. 15. am um An Admonition to all Protestants Ministers Lawyers and others of whatever Quality within our three Nations BE pleased to take notice that as the new dissolved Anti-Parliamentary Juncto at the beginning of their last Session and a little before their sodain dissolution did by their Conscientious Speaker give the hearty thanks of the House and mock Parliament to the Petitions of sundrie Anabaptists and other Sectaries headed by Jesuites and Popish Franciscan Freers for their good Affections when they petitioned against Tithes So the General Council of Officers of the Army usurping to themselves the Soveraign Legislative Power and Authority of the Great Geâ—eral Council and Parliament of England to evidence to the world by whose Counsels they are steered whose designs they prosecute and that they deserve
and all other Professions are included and all things which the Lord shall give the Tenth part is to be tendred to him who giveth the Nine parts together with the Tenth And he who shall detain it shall be compelled to render it by the Iustice of the Bishop and of the King if néed be For these things St. Augustine hath preached and taught and these things are granted by the Kings and Barons and People But afterward let our Tith-oppugners and detainers mark who is their original Tutor By the instinct of the Devil many have detained Tithes and rich negligent Priests do not care to prosecute them because they had sufficient necessaries for their life for in many places now there are three or four Churches where at that time was only one and so they began to be diminished This is that William the Conquerour whom our Officers Souldiers with the Levellers and Anabaptists most virulently reproach and rail against in their Discourses and silly ignorant scurrilous Pamphlets for an Invader Vsurper ROBBER TYRANT and subverter of our native Lawes and Liberties c. when as he claimed the Crown onely by Gist and Title confirmed all our antient Lawes Liberties Civil and Ecclesiastical without any alteration or diminution put never a Noble man but one or other person to death who rebelled or took up Armes against him all his reign but such who were actually slain in Battel was the gallantest Souldier and best Justiciary of any in his age as some Historians then living attest and not only much devoted to Religion daily frequenting the Church both morning and evening but likewise very industrious and bountiful to promote it honouring and richly endowing the Clergy that lived according to their rule and profession but being very rough and hard-hearted to the licentious and scandalous degrading his own Vnkle Malgerius Archbishop of Rhoan and many English Bishops for their dissolute lives founding no lesse then three Churches and Abbies of chief note whereof that of Battel was one endowing them with large Possâ—ssions and Privileges according to the piety of those times out of his Conquests and confirming all the Clergies Tithes Rights Privileges by the recited Lawes If those Officers Souldiers who now pretend themselves Conquerors and us a Conquered or rather cousened Nation will really imitate his Justice Piety Bounty in these recited particulars no man will thenceforth bestow on them such reproachfull termes of Invaders Vsurpers Robbers Tyrants Subverters of our Lawes Liberties c. as they do usually on this first Norman King but repute them real Saints Patrons of Religion Ministers and the Church yea Sons of faithfull Abraham who gave the tenth of the spoyls of war to God whose example with all the rest here recited in justice conscience rather oblige them to imitate his and their footsteps as the premises evidence than to spoyl our Ministers Churches of their Tithes and Materials And so much in Answer of the first Evasion respecting our Army-Officers and Souldiers only The second Evasion of Abrahams Precedent is made by Country Farmers Tradesmen and their Advocates who allege That Abraham gave the tenth only of his spoyls gained in War to Mâ—lchisedec but not of his Corn Wine Cattel and other Goods therefore this example bindes only Souldiers to pay personal but not them or any others to pay any such predial mixt or personal Tithes as now they do by coercive Lawes and Ordinances against Law and Gospel as they pretend To which I answer 1. That the expresse words of Moses Gen. 14.20 are And he gave him Tithes OF ALL. Which being universal not confined by him to the spoyls taken in war must be taken and intended in the largest sense that is of all his Substance or Encrease as well as of the spoyls then won as the Syriack and Arabick translations Solomon Jarchi and others interpret it 2. The Apostle reciting the History Heb. 7.2 useth the self-same general expression To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part OF ALL without restraining it to the Spoyls of War which must be intended in the best and liberalest sense for Tithes of all his Substance and gain being mentioned both to expresse his Piety and Bounty True it is the Apostle in the 4. verse useth this expression Vnto whom the Patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoyls which some oppugners of Tithes would have to be the Interpretation of the two former universal phrases Tithes of all But the Spoyls being not Abrahams all nor in truth any part thereof he refusing so much as to take a thred or shoe-latchet thereof to his own use Gen. 14.23 24. and the word all being not so much as once used in the latter clause which recites he gave the tenth of the not all the Spoyls and the two first general expressions necessarily including in them the tenth of the spoyls I conceive the latter expression is rather a particular specification of one memorable thing he paid Tithes of in a new case not formerly happening even of the Spoyls taken in this first Battel he ever waged or any other that we read of included in the general rather than a full comprehensive exposition of all that is or was intended by the Tenth or Tithes of all in the two precedent Texts 3. It is most probable that Abraham paid Tithes of all his own substance to Melchisedec as well as of the spoyls there being the self-same if not a stronger ground for him to pay Tithes of all his other goods encrease as of these casual spoyls out of which no constant maintenance could be raised for any Pastor or Minister as there might be out of the Tithes of his Cattel and Substance encreasing every year Now Tithes being intended for the Priests and Ministers constant maintenance by God and Man and this Precedent of Abraham recorded for that end we cannot without an absurdity restrain his paying Tithes of all only to the spoyls then and then only unexpectedly gained from the enemy by Abraham and restored by him to the right owners the tenths of them only excepted but of the Tithes of all his Substance principally whence a constant livelihood for the Priest could only arise and of the spoyls of Warr only by reason of his occasional meeting of Abraham then returning from the Warrs and blessing him at that time 4. This president of his was in all probability the ground of Gods appointing Tithes by a special Law for all the Priests and Levites MAINTENANCE amongst the Israelites Abrahams Posterity and the Apostle intimates as much Heb. 7.4 5 6 7 8 c. that they receive Tithes of their Brethren in the same manner by the Law as Melchisedec did of their Father Abraham Now they received Tithes of Corn Wine Oyl Cattel all sorts of herbs and fruits for their standing maintenance and Inheritance too Num. 18.20 to the end Levit 27.30 31 32 33 34. Deut. 14.22 28. Therefore it is most probable if
thereof authorized by the late Parliament infallibly evidence If so John Canne with his perfidious Oath-Vow-Covenant-breaking Tithe-abjuring disciples must renounce that true and only God they say they worship in greatest truth and sincerity as a Jewish unchristian antichristian God likewise I speak it with reverence and horrour too for their fuller conviction because he alwayes hath been now is and will be a most true faithfull Oath-observing Covenant-keeping Vow-performing God who reputes his Oathes Vows Covenants Immutable things and will never violate falsifie forget or neglect them in the least degree though made to sinfull treacherous and perfidious men Psal 89.3 4 28 to 38. Psal 120.4 Neh. 1.5 cap. 9.32 Psal 111.5 9. Isa 54.10 cap. 55.3 Jer. 33.20 21. Luke 1.72 73. and 2 Chron. 21.6 7. a memorable Text 2 Cor. 1.18 whom all those who own or challenge him to be their God are peremptorily obliged to imitate herein else they shall never enter into his holy hill or dwell with him in his Tabernacle Ps 15.1 2 14. Psal 24.3 4. Rom. 1.31 32. 1 Tim. 1.10 Rev. 22.15 and that in this very case of Tithes If not then why should not Tithes Glebes Oblations which our ancestors and wee have vowed and devoted to God continue and still be paid under the Gospel without superstition sin antichristianism or Judaism as well as other Vows Oaths and the religious observation of them Upon these Considerations all or most Christian Kingdoms States Churches upon the very fiâ—st preaching and embracing of the Gospel amongst them not only edified Churches Chapels for Gods worship and publike Assemblies but likewise endowed the Ministers thereof with convenient Glebes Tithes Oblations as Eâ—sebius Socrates Scholasticus Theodoret Nicephorus Calistus the Câ—ntury Writers Baronius Spondanus with other Ecclesiastical Historians and Hospinian De Origine Templorum prove at large for forein Parts and our own antientest Annalists with Antiqu. Ecclesiae Britanicae Sir Henry Spelman Conciliorum Angl. Tom. 1. and learned Dr. Vsher in his Britanicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates manifest for our own Nations and Realms Now because John Canne out of his learned ignorance hath newly published in his Second Voice from the Temple or Ale-house rather for which Cannes are more proper That Pope Gregory the tenth was the first that ordained Tithes to be paid to Priests in the year 1214. and that the Customs for paying Tithes at this day were setled upon the Kingdom by the Popes Legates in Provincial and Synodal Constitutions about the time of Henry the third and Henry the fifth Vouching Thorp and Ridley the Civilian to prove it I shall give you a brief touch concerning the Original of Churches Glebes Tithes in this our Iland About the year of our Lord 48. as our Historians record Joseph of Arimathea who interred our Saviour with XI more Disciples were sent into Britain to preach the Gospel by Philip the Apostle in the raign of Arviragus who arriving here were courteously entertained by this Pagan King and preached the Gospel to him and his people he perceiving the purity of their Doctrine and the holinâ—ssâ— of their Conversation gave them twelve Hides of land in the Isle of Avalon since called Glastenbury for to build a Church and to support them till this day called and known by the name of the twelve Hides of Glastenbury where they built the first Church erected for Gods worship in this Islâ— made of Wattle and Reed and there continued together preaching the Gospel living upon this their Glebe now of great value which was afterwards confirmed to them and the Ministers of the Gospel theâ—e succeeding them both by King Marius and Coilus next successors to Arviragus whom they instructed in the Christian Religion to which they wâ—re well affâ—cted albeit neither of them nor Arviragus himself proceeded so far as to be baptized for fear of displeasing their Pagan subjects though Harding in his Chronicle chapter 48. against the stream of our other Historians writes that King Arviragus himself was Baptized by Joseph of Arimathea After this Lucius King of Britain being converted to the Christian faith and Baptized with his Subjects and many other petty British Kings by his Example about the year of our Lord 176. by Faganus and Damianus sent to him at his earnest request by Elutherius then Bishop of Rome long before Pope or Popery were there erected or known in the world he upon the reception of the faith built and endowed Churches throughout his Dominions with Glebes and Tithes to support the Ministry whence our antient Poets thus write of him Lucius in Christum credit Christoque dicatas Ecclesias dotat distinctas ordinat Vrbes Many of our antient Historians adde that in his time there were 28 Flamins and 3 Arch-Flamins in Britain endowed with great Revenues for the service of their Idol gods to whom they had erected so many fair Temples and that Lucius after his conversion Turned these into 28 Bishopricks and three Arch-Bishopricks and purging these polluted Temples from their Idols and heathenish pollâ—tions dedicated them to the service of the true God which Sir Henry Spelman Bp. Vsher Godwin and the most judicious of our later Antiquaries justly reject as fabulous After Lucius Churches were here and in other places endowed with Glebes and Bishops with rich Lordly possessions by Constantine the great And about the year of Christ 312. the Christians being here and elswhere restored to peace and freed from persecution by Constantine began to build and repair those Churches which Dioclesian and other persecutors had rased to the ground and to endow them with maintenance for the Ministry In succeeding times the English Saxons who at their first arival being bloudy Pagans cruelly wasted the British Churches and butchered their Ministers Scholars Saints being converted to the Christian Faith by Augustine sent hither for that purpose by Pope Gregory the first who disclaimed that Papal Supremacy his Successors since challenged Aethelbert King of Kent and his Saxons being baptised by Augustine about the year of Christ 603. thereupon they began to repair the old ruinated Churches and to build new throughout his Dominions this King turning his Royal Palace at Canterbury into the Church of Christ and that City the seat of his Kingdom into a Bishops See and bestowing them on Augustine who converted him and his subjects to Christianity whom he made Archbishop of Canterbury and endowed wiih large Possessions Not long after divers other Saxon Kings and their subjects being converted and baptized built and endowed sundry other Churches both with Glebes and Possessions of good value and likewise with Tithes And in Anno 854. Aethelwolf King of the West-Saxons considering the perillous times then fallen upon him and his Realm by reason of the burnings of the Wars the Plunders of the Goods the devastations of the Territories of his Kingdom by the most cruel depredations of barbarous Enemies and Pagan Nations and the manifold Tribulations afflicting
purposely sent from Rome and the greatest sticklers against our Ministers Tithes and Calling must presently depart and none of them return into the Kingdom as many have lately done or else be executed for Traytors But why so what is their crime work imployment here and by what marks or fruits shall we know discover both them and their confederates Let the words of the Statute compared with all our late troubles changes resolve the ignorant and incredulous that there are many such amongst us and of Iohn Cannes fraternity Whereas divers persons called or professed JESUITES these Canne wittingly conceals though the first in the Bead-roll and therfore is a Felon by the law Seminary Priests and other Priests which have been and from time to time are made in parts beyond the Sea by or according to the Order and Rites of the Church of ROME and when Canne can prove that all or any of our Ministers were thus made as he hath confidently averred in print to those he calls the Higher Powers and Supream Authority of the Nation Let them be hanged for Traitors and Antichristian Ministers in good earnest else let him be hanged in their stead for this his impudent slander of them all as well Independents as Presbyterians Have of late years come and been sent into this Realm of England and were any of our Ministers such and not rather Canne himself coming hither from Amsterdam for the purposes following and other the Queens Dominions OF PURPOSE AS IT HATH APPEARED as well by some of their own examinations now out of date as by divers other Manifest means and proofs more visible of late years than ever not only to withdraw her Highness subjects from their due obedience to her Majesty but also to stir up and move Sedition Râ—bellion and open Hostility within the same her Highness Realms and Dominions to the great endangering of the safety of her most Royal Person and to the utter ruine desolation and overthrow of the whole Realm now effected as a Realm if the same be not the sooner and now pray God it be not over-late by some good means foreseen and prevented For reformation whereof be it ordained c. That All Priests and Jesuits Canne cannot spy such good friends within the Act but deletes them out of it Seminary Priests and other Priests whatsoever made and ordained out of the Realm of England c. shall depart the Realm under the penalties therein mentioned Had Canne pressed this Statute to those he dedicates his Pamphlet for the speedy execution of it against those many Jesuits and Seminary Priests now in England for their traiterous Practices and Designes therein mentioned of late and now driven on and almost compleated by them it had been a commendable zeal but not to write one word or syllable against these Romish Vermine Arch-Engineers and Janizaries of the Romish See now swarming among us to ruine our Protestant Kings Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Church Ministers Ministry Religion and foreign Protestant Kingdoms States Churches now engaged by them in bloody Warres both by Land and Sea and to omit the very name of the Jesuits the first Popish Agents mentioned and chiefly intended in this Act and presse it only against our Ministers Calling Ministry Tithes Maintenance of purpose to ruine them and theirs and by consequence our Church and Religion the Designe and scope of his whole Pamphlet is such a malicious unchristian Antichristian Practice as proclaimes him to all the world either a new converted Jesuit or Romish Factor under the Garb of an old Anabaptist or an over-grown cankered Anabaptist void of Piety Honesty inspired by the very Father of Lyes For not one of our English Ministers I know or hear of except two or three Jesuits and Popish Priests crept into livings in Staffordshire and elsewhere very lately I know not by whose favour or negligence was ever ordained by any such Jurisdiction or authority as is here mentioned which all our Ministers and their Ordainers too whether Prelates or Presbyters particularly and publickly abjured both at the time of their respective Ordinations and admissions to their Benefices and likewise when they took any Degree of learning in our Vniversities by the two known famous Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance purposly made and ratified by sundry zealous Protestant Parliaments against the usurped Papal Jurisdiction and authority of the See of Rome and the Popes Jesuits Papists practices to blow up destroy our Protestant Kings Parliaments Laws Liberties Religion and subvert our Kingly Government whole State and Commonwealth and for the better discovering of them yet lately suspended abrogated as dangerous unlawful Oathes by some of Cannes good friends who would be reputed Zealots against the Popes Iurisdiction and his Creatures too Now how those Ministers of our Church who thus abjure the Iurisdiction of Rome at the time of their very Ordination and their Ordainers too before them and since have done the like in their Solemn League and Covenant can without the highest slander be said to derive their Ministry from it and that by Canne and his Iesuitical Anabaptistical Fraternity who never took one of these Oathes or the Covenant and revile repeal them as unlawful out of love to the Popes Jurisdiction Jesuits Priests their Jesuitical Treasonable Conspiracies Treasons Practices or for want of zeal against them Let the world and this slanderers own Conscience if he have any left now determine Besides who knows not but this Ignoramus that the Rites and Ceremonies of Ordination in the Church of Rome recorded at large in Ceremoniale Pontificiale Pontificum Romanorum and the ends of Ordination likewise viz. to say Masse create their Creator offer up Christ in Sacrifice at the altar to his Father Invocate Saints adore Images yield Canonical obedience to the Pope and his Supremacy c. are far different from the form and ends of our Ministers Ordination in the Church of England prescribed by the Parl. of 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 1. ratified by the Statutes of 1 Eliz. c. 1 2. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 8 Eliz. c. 1. and 39 Eliz. c. 8. made only by Protestant Parliaments which as they particularly condemn renounce the Popes Power and Jurisdiction so they declare and resolve our Ministers Ordination to be lawfull and them in very deed to be Ministers and rightly made ordained and consecrated according to Gods word without any derivative power or Ordination from the Church of Rome Therefore for this New old pander for the Whore of Rome to averre they receive their Ministry and ordination thence is a Notorious Ly. Yea but saith he Francis Mason of Consecration and Mr. Yates in his Modell of Divinity prove and confesse That the Ministry of the Church of England established by the Law of the Land is derived from the Pope and Rome True but in what sense onely by way of Succession as his own Ministry and Faith if he hath any were derived from John of Leyden
all Jesuites and Seminary Priests as Traytors restored the exiled Ministers of the Gospel suffering for Religion rewarding them with the richest Bishopricks and Church-Preferments and planting a faithfull painfull preaching Ministry by degrees in most dark corners of her Dominions endowed them with a setled competent maintenance which our subsequent Protestant Kings continued to them and their Successors without diminution All which considered we of this Isle may with much thankfulnesse to God and honour to our Princes without flattery averr before all the world That the forecited Prophecies of Kings being Nursing-Fathers and Queens Nursing-Mothers to the Church and specially Kings and Queens of this Isle have been more really accomplished in the Kings and Queens of this our Island than in the Kings and Queens of any other Isle Kingdom or Nation whatsoever throughout the world and God grant that those who shall succeed them in any other New-modelled-form of Government may not prove such Step-Fathers and Step-Mothers to our Churches and Ministers as to demolish the one and strip the other quite naked of all that former Livelihood and remaining small Revenues which they yet enjoy by our Princes Grants Gifts Charters Laws and Favours only and thereby give all Godly Ministers and people too in our Nation just cause to cry out with wringed hands weeping eyes and bleeding hearts in the Prophets words Hosea 10.3 4. For now they shall say We have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do to us or amongst us They have spoken words Swearing falsely in making a Covenant Thus Iudgement springeth up as Hemlock one of the deadliest Poysons to destroy men in the fields Or else to speak in Solomons language to the same effect Prov. 28.2 For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof as our Land had never so many Transgressions and Princes too as now But by a Man of Vnderstanding and Knowledge and where is such a one to be found to stand up in a Gap the state thereof shall be prolonged Now the Lord raise up such a Man or Men lest God say to our Nation and all Grandees in Power as he did once to the prophane wicked Prince of Israel whose day was come Ezech. 21.25 26 27. Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same Exalt him that is Low and abase him that is High I will overturn overturn overturn Church State Laws and it shall be no more untill he come whose Right it is and I will give it him To prevent these treble fatal over-turnings with the wiping and turning of our Jerusalem UPSIDE DOWN like a Dish a certain Fore-runner of a Churches Nations ruine 2 Kings 21.13 Psal 146.9 I shall now in the last place present the whole Nation with a brief Catalogue of those manifold Laws Statutes which our Kings have successively made in their Great Councils and Parliaments almost from the very first establishment of Religion in our Island for the due payment of Ministers Tithes by coercive Means Forfeitures Penalties in case of willfull detaining or neglect in paying all or any part of them at the times appointed which those who please may peruse in Chronicon Johannis Brompton Mr. Lambards Archaion Sir Henry Spelmans Councils Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments John Bridges his Defence of the Government of the Church of England Book 16. p. 1350. Our Statutes at large and Mr. Rastals Abridgement of Statutes Title Tithes which Laws being well known to most learned men are therefore needlesse fully to transcribe The first of them is the forecited Law Decree of the Council of Calcuth under King Oswald and Offa An. 787. of famous King Alfred Anno 887. of King Alfred and Gutburn the Dane cap. 9. De Decimis Deo Debitis about the year 890. of King Edward the elder and Guthurn Anno 905. or 906. as some Cap. 6. in some c. 9. DE DECIMIS ET CENSU ECCLESIAE RETENTIS of King Aethelstan made in the famous Council of Gratelean An. 928. cap. 1. DE DECIMIS REDDENDIS tam ex Animalibus quam de fructibus terrae which this King himself duly paid and then enjoyned all his great Officers and People duly to render of King Edmond An. 944. c. 2. concluding Qui non solverit ANATHEMA ESTO Of famous King Edgar Anno 967. c. 3. DE DECIMIS Canon 54. of the Kings and Presbyters of Northumberland made a little after that time Lex 51. of King Aethelred An. 1012. c. 1 4. of King Knute the Dane An. 1032. c. 8. but 15. in some Copies De Decimis reddendis c. 11 17. and a Statute law against obstinate Detainers of Tithes there stiled JURA ET DEBITIONES DIVINAE of King Edward the Confessor about the year 1060 confirmed verbatim by William the Conquerour in the fourth year of his Reign c. 8 9. forecited To which may be added the Great Charters of King Henry the first and King John recorded in Matthew Paris ratified by King Henry the 3d. in his Magna Charta c. 11. made in the 9th year of his Reign confirmed by above 37 Acts of Parliament since in many successive Parliaments That the Church of England shall be free now in greater Bondage than ever and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable never so much violated diminished as now notwithstanding all Laws Covenants Declarations Protestations lately and all antient Solemn Curses and Excommunications annually made against the Infringers thereof 13 E. 1. 17 E. 3. 14. 2 H. 4. c. 4. Enacting the Cistertian Monks to pay Tithes to Ministers and Evangelists notwithstanding any Buls of Exemption from the Pope which the King and Parliament declared to be void and that the Promovers or Executors of any such Buls shall be attainted in a Praemunire It appears by the Parliament Roll of 2 H. 4. nu 40. This Act was made upon the Petition of all the Commons which because not extant in print pertinent to the present business of Tithes and unknown to most I shall here transcribe at large May it please our most gracious Lord the King to consider That whereas time out of wind the Religious men of the Order of the Cistercians of your Realm of England have paid all manner of Tithes of their lands tenements possessions let to farm or manured and occupied by other persons besides themselves and of manner of things tithable being and growing upon the same lands tenements and possessions in the same manner as your other Lieges of the said Realm Yet so it is that of late the said Religious have purchased a Bull from our Holy Father the Pope by the which our said Holy Father hath granted to the said Religious That they shall pay no Tithes of their Lands Tenements Possessions Woods Cattel or any thing whatsoever although they are or shall be leased or farmed notwithstanding any Title of Prescription or Right acquired or
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 Custome 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 Britons Saxons Danes Normans English Papists Protestants Conquerors Invadors Right Heirs and Lawfull Purchasers Intruders Disseisers Lessees of all sorts whether Publick Persons or Private maintaining confirming 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 hath 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 for the most part allowed and defalked in the Purchase Rent or Fine which if Tithe-free would have been and when made Tithe-free will be raised to the full value of the Tithes even one years purchase more in ten sales and 28. Rent more in every pound each year upon Leaser as all understanding men knowing what belongs to Purchases Sales of Lands or Leases must acknowledge And that Farmer Purchaser or Improver of Lands who deems not his faithfull Ministers Prayers Preaching Pains and Gods blessing on his Seed Crop Estate Soul Family promised and entayled to the true payment of Tithes and are only procured by his Ministers prayers without which his seed crop and all his estate would be blasted with a Curse amount not to a tenth part of what he now enjoys by Gods promise and blessing by paying Tithes and his Ministers prayers deserves not the name of a rational man much lesse of a Christian and can expect nothing but Gods curse upon all he sowes plants enjoyes instead of a blessed Crop or Harvest All which considered I appeal to any Christian or rational mans Conscience whether Tithes be any such heavy oppressing intollerable discouraging Yoak Bondage Burden Oppression as some now declaim them which Gods chiefest Saints before the Law voluntarily rendred without murmuring and chearfully vowed paid unto God without a Law and his antient people rendred without murmuring though double to our Tithes now by an express Law during all the Levitical Priesthood and all our own Ancestors as well Protestants as Papists have for so many hundred of years chearfully rendred without dispute and all now living came charged with into the world and were thus allowed the value of them in their Purchases Fines and Leases And whether all Tithe payers have not far more cause to Petition against all Old and New Rent-Services Rent Charges Annuities Quit-Rents Statutes Debts wherewith they were charged by their Ancestors Grants or Contracts and of all the antient Customs for Merchandize for defence of the Seas or Realm as intollerable oppressing Burdens Yoaks Grievances as the Levellers and Anabaptists in some late printed papers stile all Customs Tonnage Poundage Impositions whatsoever as well as Tithes our Excises or monthly Taxes of new illegal formation as well as Imposition than thus to murmur complain Petition against their predial Tithes our Ministers chiefest Livelihood except in Cities which have no Tillage Woods or Meadows And so much brieflly for
grounds policies hypocritically gilded over with the paint of Conscience Reformation Religion Propagation of the Gospel c. which makes the Design more detestable both to God and all good men The second sort of Tithe-Oppugners are professed Anabaptists Dippers Seekers Quakers and other blasphemous Sectaries and Heretiques lately sprung up amongst us many of which have crept into the Army for their greater security and the better accomplishment of their dangerous destructive Designs against our established Government Magistrates Laws but especially against our Religion Church Ministers Ministry their Tithes and Glebes Scarce one of a thousand of these poor Sneaks were of ability to pay any Tithes of late and those of this prevailing Faction who have crept into Sequestrations Offices Imployments of late and thereby gained any Estates for the most part have enriched themselves by sequestred Tithes Glebes Bishops Deans Chapters Lands and Revenues which these hungry Harpyes have most greedily preyed upon not out of any real grounds of Piety or Conscience as they pretend which I could yet seldom or never find in any of them but out of an unsatiable greedy HOLY HUNGER OR THIRST in the Poets sence after Gold Gain Spoyl the Revenues of our Church and an implacable bitter Enmity against our Ministers Persons Callings whether Presbyterians the chief Butt against whom their Malice is bent or Independents of a more moderate strain whose Ministry is the main Fort they level all their present power against to raze it even to the very Foundation now prosecuting the total abolition not only of their present Tithes Glebes but of all other future coercive maintenance in lieu of them only to subvert their Ministry and quite starve if they cannot violently storm them out of it This is most perspicuous not only by their manifold former libellous Pamphlets against our Ministers Calling and the late Ordinances for Tithes which I have elsewhere collected refuted but by their fresh Petitions both against their Tithes and Ministry too as Antichristian Jewish Popish c. especially by John Canne the old Amsterdam Anabaptists Second Voyce from the Temple or Synagogue of Satan rather newly dedicated to those he stiles The Supream Authority of the Nation wherein he exhorts and stimulates them by all the Art Rhetorick Motives false Arguments he can muster up to do execution and take vengeance upon Babylon to wit the National Ministry Church-worship Government of England as he explains it p. 2. till it be wholy desolate not a Stone left upon a Stone till it be thrown down To take a most effectual and certain course to starve and famish these Antichristian Idols by taking away the Food and Maintenance whereby hitherto as at this present they are nourished fed and left alive and more particularly their Tithes To repeal all Laws and Statutes formerly made whereby the Whore hath lived deliciously and proudly and keeps on to this Day her Whorish attire To make the Whore desolate and naked by making no Act or Law to stand in force which doth yield any relief to her To set themselves in array against her by the Armies power no doubt which he alludes to bend their Bow fan and empty her To set upon this work speedily in good earnest as it seems they do whiles it is to day And why so Because the Lord himself hath by a Call more than ordinarie called them to this more than ordinary Imployment if he could have proved it by Scripture or Law it had been more worth than all his Pamphlet put this fair or rather foul opportunity into their hands hath commanded his sanctified ones and called his Mighty ones the Army-Officers to fulfill his pleasure upon this great Whore the Church and Ministry of England and SION is in travel and ready to bring forth this Monster of Desolation and Confusion which if they neglect or delay then mark how he briefly menaces them with the Fates of their late Predecessors I would think you should never be sitting in that House but be thinking still on those who sate there before you and why not as well on Faux and the Gunpowder Traytoâ—s 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
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 wiâ—l 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 found 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 Life 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.
or strip them both of their Callings and Benefices when and for what they please or only upon the peoples voluntary contributions will certainly be a men-pleasing time-serving flattering unsincere and word-corrupting Ministry studying more to please favour those by and from whom they have their Livelihood than to please God and fitting their preaching praying Doctrines opinions to their opinions tempers factions parties designe holding alwayes with the prevailing strongest party or those by whom they subsist and wresting the Scriptures to support their very errors vices sins power yea most unrighteous treacherous perfidious oppressing practices and bloudy usurpations not daring to displease them as Ecclesiastical Histories record and our own experience can sufficiently testifie in these late whirling times and changes as well as in King Edward the 6. Queen Maries and Queen Elizabeths reigns when our Religion suffered so many publick alterations and most Ministers Scholars and our whole Universities then changed their Opinions Professions and Religion with the times Hence the Scripture records this as one of Jeroboams policies to keep the People and Kingdome from returning to the right heir 1 Kings 12.28 29 31 c. ch 13.33 34. That he made Priests of the lowest or poorest of the people who were not of the Sonnes of Levi and placed them in Bethel who being poor mean and depending on him for their Salaries readily sacrificed to his golden Calves offered upon the Altar which he had made in Bethel and observed his new prescribed Feasts which the Priests and Levites that were in all Israel having Lands Suburbs and a setled maintenance refused to do Whereupon Jeroboam and his Sonnes cast them out from executing the Priests office unto the Lord and substituted these base stipendiary Idol-Priests for the Calves 2 Chron. 11.13 14 15. Which became sinne unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth God deliver us of this Nation from the like Atheistical Jeroboam-like policy and practice now which will certainly prove the ruin of them and their house who shall put it in execution if not of our Religion and Nation as it did of Jeroboam his house and the whole Kingdom of Israel XII All Christians are commanded Gal. 6.10 As they have opportunity to do good to all men by relieving their wants especially to the houshold of faith Therefore they are in an especial manner bound to do good to their Ministers who instruct them in maintaining and communicating to them in all good things as he resolves v 6. The rather because we have this Precept thus seconded Heb 13.16 But to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifice God is well pleased coupled with this injunction Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account That they may do it with Joy and not with Grief for that is unprofitable for you Wherein these 3 Conclusions are positively asserted 1. That Christians must not only obey their Ministers but likewise do good and communicate to them in all good things they want 2. That this is so farr from being unlawfull that it is a sacrifice well pleasing unto God 3. That Ministers deserve not only obedience but mainnance from the people 1. Because they have the rule over them 2. Because they watch for their souls 3. Because they must give an account to God for them 4. Because it will be a great encouragement to them to discharge their dutie with joy not with grief 5. Because the not doing it will both grieve the Ministers and be unprofitable to the people in regard of their souls and spiritual estate and also cause God to curse and blast them in their temporal estates Mal 3.8 9 10 11 12. where as the doing thereof will be advantagious to them in both-Powerfull reasons motives to convince all of the justice of our Ministers maintenance and to induce them chearfully to render it unto them though it were not due by humane Laws as we know it is XIII The very Gospel enjoyns all Christians Rom. 12.20 21. To distribute to the necessitie of the Saints and to be hospitable not only to those we know but even to strangers Heb 13.2 And if our enemie hunger it commands us to feed him if he thirst to give him drink and Not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good seconded with Mat 5.44 45 46 47 48. Luke 6.32 to 37. Prov. 25.22 whence thus I argue If Christians must distribute to the necessities of and be hospitable to Saints and others who are meer strangers to them yea give meat drink to their very enemies and overcome their evil with goodness Then it necessarily followes they must much more distribute to the necessities of be hospitable liberal give meat drink maintenance to their own faithfull preaching Ministers and recompence their good with good again else they shall be worse than Publicans and sinners who doe good to those that do good to and for them Mat. 5.46 47. XIV This is evident by the practice of the primitive Saints and Christians recorded in the Gospel for our imitation who though they paid all civil Tributes Customs Duties to the civil Magistrates and likewise Tithes and other duties to the Jewish or Pagan Priests under whom they lived yet they likewise freely and liberally ministred contributed of their substance and temporal estates towards the maintenance of Christ and his Apostles and the Ministers of the Gospel Hence we read Luke 8.2 3. That Mary Magdalen Joanna the wife of Cuza Herods Steward Susanna and MAN others of our Saviours auditors ministred to him of their substance put it seems into a common purse for the maintenance of Christ and his Apostles which Judas kept who provided bread meat and other necessaries out of it as is evident by John 4.8 31. 12.5 6. 13.29 6.5 7. compared together After our Saviours resurrection when the multitude of believers at Jerusalem were much increased it is expresly recorded Acts 4.32 to the end 5.1 to 10. That they were all of one heart and of one soul and oh that we were so again neither said any of them that ought that he possessed was his own but they had all things common neither was there any amongst them whether Apostle Minister or Believer that lacked For as many as were possessors of Lands or Houses Sold them not purchased them much less Glebes Tithes or Church-lands as many do now who say they imitate the primitive Christians and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet and distribution was made unto every Man therefore to every Apostle and Minister of the Gospel as well as others accordding as they had need Amongst others Joses a Levite of Cyprus having Land sold it and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles feet
beneficial to others than that of Souldiers and Commanders for they are the very Embassadors of God himself and Jesus Christ the King and Lord of glory the King of Kings and Lord of Lords the Prince of the Kings of the earth and only Potentate to whom all other Powers and knees must bow beseeching men in Christs stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5 20. The Ministers servants messengers of Jesus Christ workers together with him Stewards of the mysteries of God and the glory of Christ 1 Cor 4.1 2. 2 Cor 6.1 8.23 2 Tim 2.24 imployed to preach to sinfull men the unsearchable riches of Christ to turn them from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God Eph 3.8 Acts 26.18 to rescue their souls from the slavery and power of sin Satan hell death everlasting damnation and make them the sons of God heirs and coheirs with Christ of everlasting glory and felicity in Gods heavenly Kingdom through the power of Gods Grace and Spirit working in with by and through their Ministry on their hearts Now the calling of a Souldier though it be honourable and in some cases lawfull and necessary if rightly managed yet it is for the most part sinfull hurtfull pernicious dangerous unbeseeming the Gospel in respect of the cause managing abuses thereof it being accompanied with murther violence rapine treachery perjury sacrilege cruelty inhumanity profaneness blasphemy contempt of God of all sacred civil Laws and Ordinances ambition treason and the worst of sins tending usually like an overflowing Deluge to the subversion desolation ruine of whole Families Cities Countries Kingdoms Churches yea Mankinde it self Religion Lawes Liberties Properties turning whole famous Cities into ashes and Kingdoms into Golgothaes Acheldamaes fields of bloud and dead mens sculs yea very wildernesses as the Scripture Histories and experience manifest Hence God styles great Warriers and Armies The rod of his anger the Battel-Axe with which he breaketh in pieces the Nations destroyeth Kingdoms and treadeth them down like the mire in the streets and then at last destroyes them in his wrath when they have executed his judgements for their rapines violence and bloudy cruelty Isa 10.5 c. Jer. 50.1 to 48. c. 51.20 c. They being really carried on from one war to another out of vainglory ambition covetousness a mad humour of false greatness nullus supra caeteros eminendi modus in sua fata pariter ac publica to their own and the publick ruine yet still under a pretext of publick good and safety as Seneca excellently writes in his 94 Epistle a piece worth the reading of Alexander the great Caesar Pompey Marius qui cum omnia concuterent concutiebantur cum multis fuerunt Authores mali pestiferam illam vim qua plerosque nocuerunt ipsi quoque sentiunt Indeed the Profession of a Souldier even in the best of men and warres is so full of danger pollution that it leaves some scarrs of sin and tincture of pollution on them however they demean themselves Whence we read that though David were a man after Gods own heart and fought the battels of the Lord against his professed enemies by his special command with constant success yet God would by no means permit him to build an house and Temple to him for this very reason Because he had been a man of Warr and made great Battels and shed much Blood upon the Earth in his sight And the 12000. Israelites who by Gods special command went up to war against the Midianites and slew them returning with victory and great spoils without the loss of one man though treble their number when as they came back from the war were all of them whosoever had killed any person or touched any slain enjoyned by God and Moses to remain without the Camp seven dayes and to purifie themselves on the third and seventh day as unclean and polluted persons Numb 31.1 17 19 20. and all the Officers and Captains of hundreds and thousands in the host brought an oblation what every man had gotten of Jewels of Gold Chaines Bracelets Rings Ear-rings and Tablets to make an Oblation for their souls before the Lord v. 48 49 50. Such a stain and guilt was there adhering to their War-like calling in this best of Warrs against Gods professed idolatrous enemies And may not all Officers Souldiers whatsoever then justly fear finde a deeper guilt of sin and stain of blood than was in David or those Officers and Souldiers adhering to their persons profession in our unnatural uncivil Wars even with and against their very Christian nearest dearest Kings Brethren Friends Kindred Neighbours of the self-same reformed Protestant Religion and thereupon make the like or a far richer oblation than they did out of their spoils and gains by Warr as an attonement for their Souls in stead of provoking God and encreasing their guilt by seeking to spoil his faithfull Ministers of their long enjoyed maintenance In all these 6. particulars wherein the calling of Ministers excells in merit that of common Souldiers Captains and Officers of War both in respect of time studie costs labour diligence parts danger honour excellencie use profit and necessitie to which I might add that the Ministers frequent tears prayers in times of War and Judgements are far more prevalent beneficial victorious than the Souldiers Arms besides their constant use and benefit in daies of peace when Souldiers are needless useless I referr it to the unprejudiced judgements consciences of all rational Christian men and Souldiers themselves whether our faithfull preaching Ministers be not worthie of as large as liberal as constant setled honourable coercive a maintenance from the people as any Souldiers Officers Captains Collonels Majors or Major Generals whatsoever if not a better larger salarie and reward than they enjoy for the premised reasons when as yet some ordinarie Soldiers Troopers receive as much or more pay by the year as many of our godly Ministers and every Ancient Serjeant Lieutenant as much as the most and best beneficed Ministers and most Captains Collonels Majors five or six times more than our ablest best deserving Ministers and some general Army-Officers have received gained more monie lands wealth in few moneths or years space at least than hundreds of our most meritorious Ministers put together can gain in all their lives by their Ministry How then can they tax them as covetous oppressive yea as caterpillars of the people by their Tithes and Duties for receiving only 30 40 50 80 100 200 or 300 l. a year and very few of them more or so much from the people by an antient right paid once a year when as they receive ten times more from the impoverished people and at least the tenth part or more of all our poor Ministers livings by monthly enforced contributions and yet will neither give them the Tenthes of their pay and spoyles of Warr as Abraham and others did Gen 14.10
registred in 1 Chron. 29.13 14. 2. We have Joab Davids Captain General the Captains over Thousands and Hundreds and the Captains of the Army dedicating out of the spoyls won in Battels to the service of the House of the Lord and that in a liberal proportion even five thousand Talents of gold and ten thousand drams and of silver ten thousand Talents and of brasse 18000 Talents and one hundred thousand Talents of Iron besides precious stones all which they offered willingly with a perfect heart unto the Lord rejoycing with great joy they had done it 1 Chron. 29.6 7 8 9. When our Generals Officers Collonels Captains and Souldiers of the Army shall imitate King David and his Generals Colonels Captains Officers Souldiers in such a liberal contribution of the Jewels Gold Silver Brasse Iron and Spoyls they have won in Battels at home and from other Nations to repair or build houses for Gods publick worship and maintain the Ministers of the Gospel in stead of seeking to demolish and spoyl those stately Edifices which our pious Ancestors have erected for that purpose and breaking down the Carved work thereof with axes and hammers of which David much complaineth Psal 74.3 4 5 6 7 8 9. and in lieu of endevouring to devest our Ministers of their remaining Lands Tithes Glebes not yet devoured all the World will proclaim them Men after Gods own heart and Men of God in truth like David and give over censuring them for Sacrilegious Harpyes as yet more like to Zeba and Zalmunna who said Let us take to our selves the Houses of God in possession as David himself objects against them Psal 83.11 12. than to David or his Officers Captains Souldiers 3. Here is Samuel the seer doing the like out of his spoyls won in Battel A precedent for all those Souldiers who will be Seers Speakers and New-lights to imitate 4. If these good mens examples be neglected yet let the Precedents of bad men annexed to them shame and excite others to this duty Here is Saul the son of Kish much talked of and reviled now by many for a Tyrant the very first King given to Gods people in anger and taken from them in wrath as these object from Hos 13.11 which I conceive rather to be meant of Jeroboam the Idolatrous usurper who made Israel to sin as judicious Interpreters prove by the 2 Chron. 13.20 compared with 2 Kings 17.10 to 24. and the context likewise which makes mention of the Israelites Idolatry in kissing the Calves erected by Jeroboam and speaks only of the Kingdom of Israel as divided from that of Juhah after Sauls Davids and Solomons death yet he as bad as they make him together with Abner his chief Captain none of the best of men as 1 Sam. 3.7 8. discovers had so much Piety Zeal Religion in them as likewise to dedicate part of their richest spoyls of Warr to the maintenance of Gods house and worship And will it not be a great dishonour to those Generals Officers Colonels Captains who now pretend themselves the holiest justest zealousest Saints not to be as bountifull towards the maintenance of Gods house and worship out of their spoyls as Saul or Abner whom they brand for Tyrants and ungodly wicked men If these Precedents be ineffectual to work upon any Covetous or Sacrilegious Sword-men let them reflect upon others who were Idolaters how near they came in their way to imitate Abraham David and these forecited Warriers When Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon had taken Jerusalem ransacked and burnt the glorious Temple there towards which David and his Captains contributed so largely out of their spoyls he had so much Piety and natural Religion in him as to dedicate all the Vessels of Silver and Gold which he took out of the house of God to the honour and service of his Idol-gods and put them in the Temple at Babylon in the House of his GODS not converting them to his private or publick Treasury 2 Chron. 36.7 18. 2 King 24.13 Ezra 1.7 Which Vessels afterwards being brought forth thence and profanely caroused in by Belshazzar and his Princes at his great feast wherein he praysed the gods of Gold and Silver of Brasse of Iron of Wood and of Stone you may read what fatal judgement presently befell him to the losse of his life and Kingdome Dan. 5. These Vessels though a just and lawfull spoyl won by wars Cyrus King of Persia brought forth out of the house of his Gods where Nebuchadnezzar had put them by the hand of Mithredah his Treasurer and numbred them unto Sheshbazzar the Prince of Judah when he proclaimed liberty and gave order to the Israelites to rebuild the house of the Lord God of Israel in Jerusalem and this is the number of them thirty Chargers of Gold a thousand Chargers of Silver nine and twenty Knives thirty Basons of Gold Silver Basons of a second sort four hundred and ten and other Vessels a thousand all the Vessels of Gold and Silver were five thousand and four hundred all these did Sheshbazzar bring with him from Babylon to Jerusalem for the use and service of God in the Temple there all these did Cyrus a Heathen King freely and chearfully restore dedicate to God and his Temple by a Decree Ezra 1.4 to the end O when will our Army-Saints part with so many Gold and Silver Vessels to Gods house out of their spoyls and plunders This Decree was afterwards confirmed by King Darius and Artaxerxes his successors Ezra 1.4 ch 7.15 16 17. 8.24 to 31. these Kings with their Princes and chief Officers also freely offered dedicated Silver and Gold besides these Vessels amounting to a great value towards the re-edifying of the Temple and maintenance of the worship Priests of God therein Moreover King Artaxerxes made this Decree concerning these Vessels The Vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem and whatsoever more shall be needfull for the house of thy God bestow it out of the Kings Treasure-house Adding this further Decree To all the Treasurers beyond the river Whatsoever Ezra the Priest shall require of you let it be done speedily unto an hundred Talents of Silver and to an hundred measures of Wheat and to an hundred bathes of Wine and to an hundred bathes of Oyl Salt without prescribing measure Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven for why should there be wrath against the Realme of the King and his Sons Also we certifie you that touching any of the Priests and Levites Singers Porters Nethinims or Ministers of this house of God it shall not be lawfull to impose Toll Tribute or custom upon them and whosoever will not do the Law of God and the Law of the King let judgement be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto death or unto banishment or to confiscation of
we are despised even to this present hour we are hungry and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place we are reviled persecuted defamed we are as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things unto this day If all Ministers in times of peace and settlement must be like the Apostles in not receiving Tithes then they must be like them too even in setled Christian Kingdoms States Churches in all these their particular sufferings and have no certain dwelling place c. And if so Let Canne and his new Ministers of the Gospel as they stile themselves begin the president of whom our Ministers may now say as Paul did of the Corinthians in the precedent verse of this chapter v. 8. Now ye are full now ye are rich ye have reigned as Kings without us when as most of them were very poor and far enough from reigning as Kings or so much as Petty Constables before these unhappy Wars and in dayes of former persecution when Canne himself durst not shew his face in England for fear of a Bishops power or High commission Pursuivant nor durst reproach our Orthodox protestant pious Ministers and Parliaments as Antichristian Popish and compare their Laws for Ministers Tithes with the very Idolatrous Statutes of Omri and Ahab as he doth now p. 3. for which he might have taken a turn at Tyburn in steed of walking freely in Westminster Hall without being questioned for this his impudent high Slanders both of our Laws and Parliaments as well as Ministry 6. If the Ministers of the Gospel be bound to imitate the Apostles in all things then they must not have Gold nor Silver nor Brasse in their purses neither Scrip nor two Coats nor yet Shoes nor so much as two Staves but Sandals only on their feet Mat. 10.9 10. Mark 6.8 9. as the Capuchin-Fryars Mendicants hence conclude this being a positive Precept the objected examples of the Apostles c. only a President And if so not only all our Ministers but Canne and all his Administrators must turn Fryars Mendicants too in good earnest who ground their Vow of Voluntary poverty on this Text and the objected Presidents of Christ and his Apostles and so become no Ministers of Christ but Antichrist and as truly Antichristian as these Fryars are the Heads Ringleaders of our last sect of Quakers 7. If our Ministers must all now be like those of the Primitive times whiles under persecuting Heathen Emperours Kings Magistrates then all Saints and Christians too in our daies times must imitate and be like the Saints Christians in those dayes They must sell all their old and new purchased Lands Houses Lordships Palaces lay all the mony down at the Ministers feet and have all things in common like the real Saints and Christians in the Apostles times Acts 4.34 to the end and instead of Lording feasting it in their new acquired Royal Episcopal Palaces and Mannor Houses they must wander about in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins in Dâ—sarts Mountains Dens and Caves of the earth being dâ—stitute and afflicted like the Saints of old yea and like them they must be tortured tormented not accepting deliverance have trials of cruel mockings scourgings bonds and imprisonments be stoned sawn asunder slain with the Sword instead of slaying plundering imprisoning and sawing others asunder with the Sword Heb. 11.35 to 39. And when our Army-Saints Officers Souldiers Anabaptists Quakers with other Tithe-Oppugners who presse this Objection against Ministers Tithes shall lay down all their Arms Commands Power Lands and sell all they have to become like to all these Primitive Saints and Martyrs of Christ in their sufferings in times of Persecution I doubt not but our Ministers will joyfully part both with their Glebes Rectories Tithes and setled Maintenance to sympathize with them in their Persecutions Sufferings But till such hard times of Persecutions come and they begin to follow this President of the self-denying Primitive Saints I hope they will not make all our Ministers present Martyrs in their Tithes and setled Maintenance nor enjoyn them alone but not themselves to follow the Primitive Ministers of the Gospel in those times of persecution and prove greater persecutors to them in these pretended times of Christian Liberty Law Justice than the late Oppressing Prelates and High Commissioners who suffered many of them though Non-Conformists to enjoy their Tithes Glebes Offrings and not eject disinherit them and their Successors for ever of their antient Glebes Tithes and other setled Maintenance without any Legal Trial by their Peers or Conviction of any Treasonable crimes against our known Laws for which they deserve to forfeit them and all under the false petence that Tithes are Jewish and Antichristian under the Gospel Which I hope I have sufficiently refuted being established on them by Christian Kings States Parliaments immediately after the Primitive persecutions generally throughout Christendome as the fittest Maintenance of all other and particularly in our Realm when as the abolishing of them will be really such in the Judgement of all Godly Protestants Patrons of Religion both at home and throughout the World FINIS ERRATA PAge 68. l. 11. r. luent p. 141. l. 31. Solemanum r. Salmurum Rothingue r. Rothomag p. 142. l. 20. Trovomala The REMAINDER or SECOND PART of A GOSPEL PLEA Interwoven with a RATIONAL and LEGAL FOR THE LAWFULNESS CONTINUANCE Of the Antient Setled MAINTENANCE and TITHES Of the Ministers of the Gospel WHEREIN The DIVINE RIGHT OF OUR MINISTERS TITHES is further asserted The Magistrates Inforcement of the DUE PAYMENT OF THEM BY COERCIVE PENAL LAWS when substracted or detained vindicated That they are no REAL BURDEN or GRIEVANCE to the People the abolishing them no Ease Benefit to Farmers Tenants or Poor-People but a Prejudice rather and a gain to None but Rich Land-Lords cleared That the present Opposition against them proceeds not from any true Grounds of Conscience or Real Inconveniences in Tithes themselves but only from base Covetousness carnal Policy want of Christian Love Charity to and professed Enmity against the Ministers of the Gospel Yea from a JESUITICAL and ANABAPTISTICAL DESIGN to subvert ruine our Church Ministry Religion and bring a Perpetual Infamie on our Nation and the Reformed Religion here professed By William Prynne of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns Inne 1 Cor. 9 14. Even so hath THE LORD ORDAINED that those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae Domos tunc Fundos venundabant thesauros sibi in Coelo reponentes at nunc de Patrimonio nec Decimas damus cum Vendere jubeat Dominus Emimus pötius augemus Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Per Prophetam praecepit Dominus Decimas inferri in horreum suum vos ab ejus horreo jubetis auferri c. Quid interest Equos rapiatis an Decimas Nisi quia Decima res spiritualis est ideo enormius SACRILEGIVM in Decimis
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 Liberalitie 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 Sheep-fold 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 Munificence 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. 8.3 5 19 20. If any here object these Kings and Queens were more Popish Superstitious than really Religious Admit they were in 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 8 th 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 it 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 requite 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 Motto 7ly That our 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 Ageâ— 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
the Souldiers possessing them should be all restored and so they were accordingly and those Harpyes robbed of their Sacrilegious prey Let the late Purchasers of such Tithes and Lands remember it and think of a possible if not probable Act of Resumption in case they make no voluntary restitution 4ly Let them consider the large Revenues the Popish Clergy at this day enjoy in France amounting to above 12. Millions of Annual Rents at a moderate value besides mony and oblations as Bodine Thuanus Hist l. 28. Ioannes de Laety Descriptio Galliae c. 17 18. record To which I might adde the extraordinary great Revenues of the Popish Clergy in Spain recorded by Lucius Marineus Siculus Ioannes de Laet in his Hispaniae Descriptis cap. 20. Jo. Boterus in his Hist Universalis and of the Popish Clergy in the Kingdom of Naples in Italy registred by Thomas Segethus De Principibus Italiae p. 121. Which they still enjoy notwithstanding their manifold Wars without sale or Diminution for their Soldiers pay And will it not be an intollerable Impiety Sacrilege dishonor for Protestant Souldiers and our new Republick not to allow our Ministers so much as their inconsiderable remaining Rectories Glebes Tithes to support our Religion and instruct and save the Peoples Souls 5ly The reason rendred by Martel and others That the Officers and Souldiers deserve the Lands and Tithes of the Church and Ministers because they fight for the defence of the Church is very strange and just the self-seeking Plea and Practice of sundry of our Officers and Souldiers at this day scarce to be parallel'd in any Age 1. They were raised for the Defence and Preservation of the late Kings Person Posterity and just Rights of his Crown Ergo in discharge of this Trust they have most justly sentenced beheaded the King outed dis-inherited his Posterity and seized upon all the Crown-Lands and Revenues in his three Kingdoms for their own use pay support reward and inheritance 2ly They were raised and fought for the preservatirn and defence of the Kingdom Parliament and Members Privileges and Laws and Liberties of England Therefore they have justly by armed violence invaded subverted them all disposed of all the Common wealth and Revenue of the Nation to themselves and their Instruments to support themselves and their usurped Arbitrary Power and Government over us and may null and pull down not only our Old but their own New-created Parliaments and State-Councils as they stile them and change both Government Governors at their pleasure 3ly They fought for the particular Defence Peace Safety of every mans Person and Estate in our three Kingdoms Therefore they may seize upon and dispose of all their Persons Lands Estates at their pleasures and impose what Taxes Excises Imposts they list and exercise a legislative absolute Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power over them without a lawfull Parliament to eat them quite out of all Lastly They fought for our Church Ministers Religion Ergo they may subvert them all and seise upon all Church-Lands Revenues Rectories Glebes Tithes yea Churches and Church-yards too for to reward support and pay the Army and possess themselves of what ever our Ancestors setled on the Church and Ministers to instruct and save the Peoples Souls as a just Salary for killing their Christian Brethrens Bodies and destroying the peoples Souls and Bodies too Certainly the worst Enemies they fought against would not could not have done worse than this nor yet so bad This certainly is a Devastation Destruction not a Defence or Preservation of what they were raysed and payed to protect an Invasion and Depredation not a Patronage and Protection a Remedy more destructive than the worst Disease War Enemy who could but have stript us of no more had they conquered us than these our new armed Defenders of the Faith Church King Parliament Laws and Liberties have done or intend to do as many fear It was John Baptists Evangelical Precept to all Souldiers whatsoever Do violence to none in Person Lands or Estate much lesse to Ministers privileged by the Law of War from Violence and to be content with their Wages without seising sequestring invading the Lands Estates Glebes Tithes Persons of Ministers King and Members or any others they fought for who never raised nor waged Souldiers to deprive them of their Patrimonies Estates Callings Rights Laws Liberties Privileges of Parliament Government Governours but only to secure them in the full possession of them all This new Martial law and practice then is both irrational and unevangelical fitter for professed Theeves Turks and Pyrates than Christian Souldiers and far different from the foresaid Christian Souldiers practice in former Ages who as they would by no means be engaged by their Pagan Emperors or Generals commands to fight against any of their Christian Brethren choosing rather to obey God their Supream Emperour than Men So the famous Thebean Legion of Christian Souldiers and their Officers under Julian the Apostate when he commanded them to bring forth their Arms against the Christians returned him this most Heroick Answer worthy to be written in Golden Letters briefly fully and elegantly expressing the Duty of every true Christian Souldier in all Ages and Cases Offerimus nostras in quemlibet hostem manus quas sanguine innocentium cruentare nefas ducimus Dexterae ipsae pugnare adversus Impios Inimicos sciunt laniare pios et Cives nesciunt Meminerimus nos and O that our Army-Officers and Souldiers would remember it likewise Pro Civibus potius quam adversus Cives arma sumpsisse Pugnabimus semper pro Iustitia pro pietate pro innocentium salute not for Kings Bishops Deans Chapters Ministers Lands Revenues Tithes Estates the things now fought for Haec fuerunt hactenus pretia periculorum Pugnavimus pro fide quam quo pacto conservemus tibi Imperatori Si hanc Deo nostro non exhibemus O that this Resolution were now engraven in every Army-Officers and Souldiers heart our Ministers then needed not to fear the losse of their Tithes Rectories Churches nor our Universities Colleges Corporations or any other the disinheris on of their Lands Laws Liberties Powers by Military Rapines violences and usurpations 6ly The Exemptions of the Hospitalers and Templers Lands from paying of Tithes was a meer Papal Innovation and Devise which Canne who pleads so much against Tithes upon this mistake that they are Popish and all his Confederates should be ashamed to own and imitate The Israelites Gods own people during their possession of Canaan had many forein and Civil wars in most of their Judges Kings and High Priests successive Reigns and Roman Governours over them yet we never read that any of their Generals Officers or Souldiers fighting for their Churches Priests and Religions Defence against forein or Domestique idolatrous Enemies pretended the least Exemption of their Lands or Estates from paying all their antient forementioned accustomed Tithes to the Levites Priests and Poor
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