know all things and therefore may err in some but still we must remember that it is the Cause not the Punishment which makes the Martyr Few are perswaded that either the Conclave which canonized Garnet had power to make him a Saint or that your Neoteric Saints have authority or warrant from God to unsaint the Evangelists Apostles and Disciples of Christ by the holy Ghost and Church ever since their times owned for Saints Rom. 1.7 Rom. 16.15 1 Cor. 1.2 2 Cor. 1.1 Eph. 1.1 c. and so by calling we fear least their next attempt should be to devest St. Mathew St. John St. Thomas c. and to send them out among the vulgar by the names of Mat Jac and Tom But now justifie your assertion and shew us any one Martyr of Christ who ever was of your opinion in denying the payment Tythes and suffering death for the same Next you demand Page 16. Whether any person have a true and legal property in the tenth part of another mans encrease Concerning such legality by the Laws of man I conceive you make no question concerning divine Law if your quaere be that upon the matter is to doubt whether God hath property in mans encreases or hath power and right to assign the same to whom he will For the first part of such a question I take it to be indisputable with all those who take Gods Word to be their rule and guide he saying expresly all the Tythes of the Land whether of the seed of the Land or the fruit of the Tree is the Lords it is holy unto the Lord so of the Tythe of the Herd or of the Flock the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord Levit. 27.30 32. And concerning these he saith Ye have robbed me though the Jewes said as many amongst us now think it is no robbing of God to take away M l 3. or detain Tythes from his Ministers Wherein have we robbed thee God saith Ye have robbed me in Tythes and Offerings and therefore were they cursed even the whole Nation As for the second part of the doubt all know that the right and absolute Proprietor who holds not of any other but is the Lord Paramount hath right and free power to assign his propriety to any other or others Now God doth as expresly say Numb 18.24 c. The Tythes I have given to the Levites to inherit Of which he yet reserved to himself the Heave-offering as it were a Quit-rent for their acknowledgment of his Soveraign right over all Now from his grant we claim a moral and so an unalterable right due to those whom he appointeth to serve about holy things and not solely from the Laws of good Princes and States though as your self presently confess in the same Paragraph Tythes are to be paid because commanded by the State and that Law and equity obliges the payment That which you after say That the person that claims them may have no particular interest is contradictory to the forecited Scriptures and your own Concessions as also by that which immediatly you grant it appeareth false where you say if a true legal Property be in another person to the tenth part of my encrease I ought in conscience to yeeld and set it forth because it is not mine To which we say First What can be a true or legal Property if that be not such which God himself gives makes the conveiance and in his holy Word testifieth that he hath given and setled as Inheritance and for such service on those whom he hath appointed to minister about holy things Next we say that you can have no right in Tythes that they should become yours either by purchase for who hath right to sell Gods part and that invito Domino Nor by descent or prescription The first you say claims these to be due jure divino and produce the Law of Moses for it c. What other mens opinions are or have been cannot make our right and claim by Gods divine donation by the moral Law void and therefore we trouble not our selves about them I have you say again diligently for two years and more Page 17. laboured to enform my self c. Here you bring an argument from the time you have spent in studying this point and implied unerring faculty of apprehension For if this were not no time can profit to good information Concerning the validity of this reason I leave to others to judge who better know your abilities of Art and Nature than I yet do but now give me leave to ask what Authors studied you Very likely some who were in the same error with you others who could have informed you better you condemn unknown and because your aim is to uphold a party for the carrying on a secret design you did not receive the love of the truth and therefore cannot want strong delusions and so may you still be of their form who are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledg of the truth if you study to deceive your self and others which if it be not so I am confident that you may find enough in the writings of sound and Orthodox Divines to undeceive you if at least you will not shut your eyes if the vail be laid over your eyes none but God can make you see whom we pray in his good time to remove it You speak again of changing the Law by Christ c. Concerning the change of the Ceremonial Law you have been answered that change is granted you without advantage to you or apparent damage to us See what hath been said to your 14 pag. Further we say that Christ changed not the moral Law in any one jot or title thereof as to the morality of it Matth. 5. he protested against it who is the faithful and true witness So that the precepts thereof having no repeal appearing in all Gods Word binde for ever unto the worlds end Shew us if you can where the Law-giver ever repealed the Law for tything Bring us any one Text of holy Scripture either expresly declaring it or by necessary consequence concluding it Which seeing you cannot do abuse not the Scripture making it to speak what you please to hold up your party In a right use of Scriptures we must carry sense from them not bring it to them Your pretending to an absolute change of the Law causeth your ignorant and credulous Readers presently to think they are discharged from all duty to Moral precepts not considering that it must continually binde all men and that the Ceremonial and Judicial Law were positive for a time and appertaining to Israel onely 12ae q. 122. 1. 2m as determinationes moralium which being changed the Moral Law still continues A discharge of obedience hereto granted what an Harvest would the Devil reap from these pernicious Tares which you scatter in the Lords field and what unspeakable confusion would follow what out of
Parliaments been made Parish Churches subject to the Bishops and their Diocesses Pag. 11. The people you say then generally being Papists did yield their obedience Yet that God had ever some good corne among those tares I conceive you have so much faith to believe if you believe that he had in all ages a Catholick Church though possibly you have not so much Charity as to confess that he had such excellent Saints then as are among you now in this last and worst of ages You say What before was owned for a gift was now claimed as a debt Shew if you are a true man who ever owned it as a gift or free benevolence of men except those who knew not or would not acknowledge the divine institution of Tythes we own them as Gods gift and therefore as mans due to be paid unto us God made us not your almes-men but in things spiritual our peoples rulers Heb. 13.7 17. watchmen and guides set over them in the Lord. 1 Thes 5.12 And so not to live of your benevolence but duty as spiritual Parents and shew if you can why that duty should be less determinate and certain then it was under the law to Priests and Levites that he ever reserved out of the rest which he gave to Israel to himself and to his service never leaving it arbitrary to mans will or wisdom to appoint no not to Moses himself And how prove you that he leaves us to your will and charity now All acknowledg a Law for paying Tythes to those who serve about holy things shew us in any one Text of the Old or New Testament where that law is repealed or the whole of Ministers maintenance left to the peoples pleasure Seeing you say themselves in a snare To you it seems that the ordinance of God is a snare this discovereth your dangerous condi ion and is an impious expression Again you say The Pope hath been imperious or in a great heigth of pride What is that to us If so it was his sin for which he is responsible to God who can make wicked men instrumental to some eminent good as in the example of Judas as to the passion of Christ for our Redemption and Salvation appeareth to whom we may add the rest who did therein that which the hand and Councel of God determined before to be done And who can deny but that he might also work good by the Popes commanding Tythes to be paid for the support of the preaching of the Gospel to the then living elect the powerfull instrument of Salvation however it proved a savour of death to many possibly of those that preached it but obeyed it not Next you trouble your readers about Canon-laws and Parochial payment of Tythes setled What suppose you that no good could be professed done or setled in that time wherein error and wickedness had miserably overspread a Church I suppose you will not on second thoughts conclude so when you mind not the propagation of the Gospel in Israel when the Jews Princes Priests and people generally persecuted the faith of Christ Next you talk of the poor Pag. 11. For whose sakes you say Tythes were chiefly given If you mean that these specified Parliaments did settle Tythes chiefly for the relief of the poor you do but trifle knowing that Tythes were anciently appointed for several uses 1. Ornament of Churches 2. For the poor 3. For love Feasts 4. For Ministers maintenance What ever Parliaments enacted must be judged by Gods laws human law is to our duty à mensura mensuraâ—â— Ã lege divina â—ae q. 19. whose end is the utility of men therefore to that supream power and justice must we look and in that rest So that this your argument is childish and impertinent except you could shew that we take human Laws and Statutes of Parliaments to be the ground of our right to Tythes we say after that ancient Councel of Matiscon forecited God hath appointed them for our inheritance or hereditary portion You say moreover He that did not pay no great punishment could they inflict on him but excommunication You mean I suppose that men could not you cannot be ignorant of the power of God to punish the Sacrilegious who hath denounced the curse on them Mal. 3. but was excommunication no great punishment 1. Cor. 5. in the Apostles sence delivering to Satan Possibly you account this punishment the less because herein the sacrilegious were but delivered to their own Master As for the exemptions you mention we dislike them as well as you as little to your purpose is that which you say in your following censure of Popish imitation of Jews l. 1. c. 7. c. 8. c. ib. c. 4. c. which as to those rites which your Durand citeth in his Rationale we utterly dislike But you say Henry 8. being a Papist c. One thing is remarkable you use to call all Popery which suits not with your fancy If Henry 8. did any thing according to Gods Will and Word that is no more Popish than that was Devillish which the Devil said Mar. 5.7 Henry 8. was a Papist and he made a Law that every man should set out his Tythes What is the conclusion yon drive to ergo paying of those duties is Popish Poor Sophistry You are not ignorant that this were a Sophism Non causae pro causâ His being a Papist was not the cause of his making that law for Tythes but as your self confess because he believed that Tythes were due to God and his holy Church In that you call that the Popes doctrine which by your own party is confessed to be grounded on the Law of God you commend the Popes Doctrine though with an intent to calumniate ours And you say First of our Parliament laws for Tythes Pag. 12. and that upon which the rest are grounded Here is another notorious untruth Was our Henry 8. before Athelston who reigned in this land about the year of our Lord 924 Would you have your readers believe that Henry 8. made a Law about 600 years before he was born and crowned King Was he King of this land before Edgar living about the year 959 or before Canutus who reigned here about An. 1016 or William the Conquerer Henry 1 Henry 2. Henry 3. Hist of Tythes c. 8. by William Selden cited as Law-makers for the payment of Tythes to the Ministers One thing out of the learned S. H. Spelman I desire the Reader to consider King Henry 3. Large work of Tythes saith he In the 9th year of his reign by that sacred Charter made in the name of himself and his heires for ever granted all this anew unto God We have granted saith he unto God and by this our present Charter have confirmed for us and for our heirs for evermore that the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her holy rites inviolable Magna c. 1.
genuinum dentem laesus infigere But I say onely consider with whom the Apostle araigneth revilers 1 Cor. 6.10 and what is the root of railing Perverse disputings of men of corrupt mindes and destitute of the truth and mark well if in that glass you do not discern your own countenance That you wish for Old Priests and old Ecclesiastical Courts that is Popish I easily believe that herein you do not dissemble But if there be any such abuses as you pretend what is that to the cause of tything doth an abuse by man in your logick conclude a just cause to take away the holy use of that which hath been abused if that were so how little good would be left us of all the Creatures of God and what cruelty is it Pag. 26. think you severely and according to Law to punish obstinate offenders who can but will not let go that which they have robbed just owners of Next you stomack it that some say Minsters have as good right to the tenth part as the owner hath to the other nine which is most true Consider for the better understanding hereof 1. The common or civil right of men which the Laws of Nations give and confirm to every possessor bonae fidei by purchase discent c. this right to the creatures a Turk or Pagan may have in that determinate portion which he possesseth 2. The divine right which man had in his Creation but lost in his fall and utterly forfeited in the first Adams attaindor this was restored again to believers in the second Adam Christ of which he saith 1 Cor. 3.22 23. All are yours and ye are Christs This belongs only to the Elect. In both these kinds we are to observe 1. a Right common to any so all or any may have a civil right to any kind of Creature 2. A Right peculiar to some as being separated from the common Condition by some special Act of Gods Providence of which sort are Tythes given by him to those who serve about holy things in his publick Worship which being laid down it may appear that Ministers of the Gospel have as good right to the Tenth or Tythe as the owner hath to the other nine parts if at least you will grant that God giveth as good right by his divine donation as any sale or assignment of man can make But you say Yet am I not bound to pay them c. True if neither Laws of God Pag. 26. Mark 5.3 nor man can bind you but that like the Masterless Gadaren possessed of the Devil you break Chains and Fetters and no man can bind you but if divine or humane Law can hold you are bound to pay and that by such a Bond as no Laws Decrees Statutes or Dispensations of Man can discharge you from but to speak to them whose Consciences tell them that the Law of God is and ought to be their rule How posterity stands bound in publick Grants Donations Vows or Covenants consider in the example of Israel and the Gibeonites before mentioned how in private legacies and bequeathments the Apostle will inform you Gal. 3.15 Though it be but a mans Testament yet if it be confirmed no man disanulleth it That is no man ought to make it void by any violation thereof but this belongeth to another question our claim being grounded not on the assignment or grant of man but on the revealed Will of God who commanded To give Tythes of all the encrease of their Land c. Numb 18.21 26 30. And to make their Teachers partakers of all their good things Gal. 6.6 Doth this bind men think you to pay the setled maintenance of Ministers Tythes Predial Personal and Mixt Or are you resolved to suspend your obedience to God herein until you be delivered into the everholding Chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment Be well advised in time for there will be no change in eternity And doth your next Supposition conclude it arbitrary 2 Thes 3. to work or live inordinately Or were there not the like propositions between Tythes and yearly values of the Lands on which they grew under the Law to any that can be pretended to What sober man amongst you ever grumbled at the nimietie of wealth Who quarrelleth at the largeness of a Lords Estate who is a Peer of the Land or a Gentlemans or Yeomans as too much for him and his Family except some lawless impious Leveller Though perhaps one of these Estates be fourty times more than the Ministers incom and possibly the Laicks revenue is spent in Luxury Debauchery or Idleness at least while the poor Minister is envied and grudged his portion of Gods blessing the Earths encrease which he gives you with him that I may not say for him the Minister I say spending many carefull hours Night and Day for your Souls Edification Comfort and Salvation Sudat alget like Jacob over Labans Flock at Padan-Aram in the day consumed with drought and by the frost in the night and his sleep departeth from his eyes Gen. 31.40 You say A tenth part of the encrease is generally more worth than the Land on which it grows What have you dwelt at Gerar where Isaac reaped an hundred-fold in a Year Or is it because you have little skill in the Georgicks I am confident that this one untruth would yield you a Million by the year if you could make it true but were it as you say did ever much encrease of fruits make an exception in Gods grant of them as that the Tythes should be holy to him and his service and paid to the Priests of the Sanctuary or Ministers of the Gospel provided that they did not exceed such or such a value Methinks in reason the more bountifully God giveth encrease of the Earth the more willing men should be to render him that part thereof which he hath reserved as it were a Lords-rent unto himself and his own service and here excuse me that I tell you your objections seem not much unlike the declamation of some ill-contrived Orator so undistinctly hudled out that neither doth the Speaker well consider nor the hearer easily understand what he saith more then that quod vult valdè vult Your following Cavils and Cases Pasturing and Stocking Land Mal. 1.14 may shew that you have craft enough to beguile the Minister of due maintenance but cursed be the deceiver and it were but lost labour to teach others this skill seeing that too many without your Magistery have enough of the knave already Pag. 28. Next you talk Of new payment of Tythes c. To which we answer That payment of Tythes is evidently as old as Abraham and for ought you know as Adam To the rest of your Objections present we say Abusus non tollit usum that which hath been abused by some may yet be returned to the true service of God again So the censers of the rebellious Israelites made covers
a motion till then we require your patience if we hold fast Gods Ordinance and the Ministers just maintenance Further you say Halt no longer between two c. Aeschylus Jasonem ebrium n scena quâdam induxi◠quo vitio laboraba◠ipse poeta tragicus comentitus Heroas Athenae l. 10. c. 7. We must tell you Sir here you entitle us to your own faults as that drunken Poet Aeschylus did the noble hero Jason and other Grecians to his own vices 't is you who halt between Papist and a Schismatical pretender to Reformation So Ahab would have put the crime of troubling Israel on the Prophet of the Lord as for us God knows that our souls desire is to cleave stedfastly unto him and his sacred Ordinances and we have not yet temporized as too many have done God preserving us in our suffering of hard things Is this halting with Sir Gregory Nonsense Next you talk of A more Gospel-like way of maintenance c. To which 't is easily answered that not only you but no Creature Men or Angels of Heaven can prescribe a more Gospel-like way than that which God hath appointed and Christ approved The light which you talk of we own not for such who have a more sure word of Prophesie unto which as unto light that shineth in a dark place we attend until the day dawn As for those ignes fatui of Mens inventions we neither value them nor find any cause to follow them Next you speak of a way to establish the Nation upon a sure foundation of true freedom as to the conscience We say 1. Use not your Liberty for a cloke of malitiousness 2. Beware that you be not of their number of whom the Apostle speaks 1 Pet. 2.16 2 Pet. 2.18.19 who when they speak great swelling words of vanity while they promise them liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption 3. If you dissemble not but bear good will to your Countries freedom and good conscience we cannot but pitty the seeming disproportion between your zeal and knowledg as we would pitty to see mettle in a blind jade Jer. 15.19 As for giving content to separate Congragations our rule is the same which God of old gave the Prophet Let them return unto thee but return not thou unto them And as for satisfying such as are self-excommunicate and divided from the womb of the Church we pitty them but must leave them to Gods tribunal for our selves we have learned of the Apostle Gal. 1.10 If I yet please men I should not be the servant of Christ That on which you spend your Rhetorick about contention for Tythes as if that were a sufficient cause why they should be taken away is very childish Tell me have there not been and still are many bloody contentions about the preaching of the Gospel of Christ What would it be a sure foundation of true freedom as to the conscience to obey the command of those Rulers Elders and Scribes Annas Caiphas c. Not to speak at all Act. 4.18 nor teach in the name of Jesus Is it your best prescript for the cure of the head-ache to cut off the head medice cura teipsum But seriously your argument is a fallacia accidentis a wholsom way were for the people duly to pay and set out their Tythes according to Laws divine and humane I conceive that no man would be so ill-advised as to sue for his right if he might have it without trouble and charge of Law That you say Paying unreasonable c. You speak like your self But doth paying Tythes hinder Tillage and the staff of bread as you pretend Here is again another fallacia accidentis if that be true which you say or a fallacia non causae pro causa if false It is not paying of Tythes which is the obstruction to plenty but mens unbelief God himself saying Prove me now if I will not pour you out a blessing c. Mal. 3.10 Of what kind Of the encreases of the Earth And what is the condition to which that promise relateth Is it not paying Tythes and leaving their Sacriledg Let no man say you henceforth think it strange c. We shall not think it strange that some men refuse to pay Tythes while there is a Devil to tempt them to Sacriledg nor wonder that some will pay Tythes because we have a good God who though he justly permit many to strong delusions that they may perish yet will he preserve his elect and encline their hearts to obey his Laws and Ordinances that it may be well with them and theirs HAving thus answered these cavils I propose the ensuing conclusions to the good readers consideration 1. All are bound to do the most high Lord God homage and service of whom it is written Him only shalt thou serve Mat. 4. This is a rule so evidently just that the very heathens in their twelve Tables of their Law acknowledged it on this ground Az or l. 6. c. 63. Cic. de leg l. 2. 12ae q. 44. 6. Lex natura is non potest deleri quoad prima principia that God is the Lord and disposer of all things For as Schoolmen say the Law of Nature cannot be extinguished as to its first Principles Now there is no Nation of the World so immane and barbarous but that it believes there is a God who created and still governeth this Universe So that the brutish Poticius for his ignorance of God was esteemed a kind of Paradox in Nature a Prodigy and Monster of Man-kind Cic. Plaut God's Word teacheth us that he must be worshiped but as his self commandeth in it which is his revealed will as 't is written Mic. 6.8 He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee 2. We must be faithfull and true to him whom we adore as our God the searcher of hearts not encroaching upon any part of that which the holy Word declareth as a reserved right to belong unto the Lord our God 3. What ever carnal reason or wisdom of the flesh pretend or suggest to the contrary we must duly and willingly render and pay unto him all his Rights and Duties belonging unto him as a supream Lord of all As it is written Give unto God the things that are Gods Mat 12.21 1 Chro. 29 14. Psal 115.16 which when we have truly done we must acknowledg with David Of thy own hand have we given thee all is thine The earth hath he given unto the children of men only reserving to himself as it were a smal Lords-rent as an acknowledgment of his Soverain Dominion 4. The things which God hath reserved as a Tribute or Rent to himself are 1. Either of the time measured unto man for this present life out of which he hath reserved a Seventh part or a Sabbath and holy rest that we may be enabled to subsist and serve him without which