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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61092	The larger treatise concerning tithes long since written and promised by Sir Hen. Spelman, Knight ; together with some other tracts of the same authour and a fragment of Sir Francis Bigot, Knight, all touching the same subject ; whereto is annexed an answer to a question ... concerning the settlement or abolition of tithes by the Parliament ... ; wherein also are comprised some animadversions upon a late little pamphlet called The countries plea against tithes ... ; published by Jer. Stephens, B.D. according to the appointment and trust of the author.; Tithes too hot to be touched	Spelman, Henry, Sir, 1564?-1641.; Stephens, Jeremiah, 1591-1665.; Bigod, Francis, Sir, 1508-1537.	1647 (1647)	Wing S4928; Wing S4917_PARTIAL; ESTC R21992	176,285	297

distribution of the revenues for Ministers regard must be had to the desert of the person his family and charge if so certainly there is a great disproportion in deserts and for charge it is considerable not onely for the greatnesse of a Ministers family but for the dearnesse of his education some have spent many yeares and a large patrimony in the University to make them fit for the Ministery and should not they be supplied with a more liberall allowance caeteris paribus then those who have been at little expence both of time estate to be duely qualified for such a calling If the proportion of parts and paines of charge both Academicall and Oeconomicall be duely weighed there will be many more livings found too little then too great for a Ministers maintenance especially if you will allow him a Library such as a learned Knight thought necessary for a Minister of 600. l. value But if the proportion be unreasonable must Tithes be supplanted and their ancient Tenure abolished for such a disproportion must the foundation be digged up because the building is too high may not a tree whose branches are too luxuriant be lopped and left entire in the bodie and roote when a mans beard is too long will you cut off his chinne that out of doubt were an unreasonable reformation 4. From this unreasonable proportion you say arise these unseparable evils 1 That most unworthy persons who by favour or friendship or any sinister wayes can get into the greatest livings being once invested with a legall right of freehold for their lives securely fleece the flocke and feed themselves without feare or care more then to keep themselves without the compasse of a sequestration whilst others both painfull and conscionable both serve starve This is not as you call it an unseparable evill from the proportion you speake of for there be some men who have had and at this present have great livings not by any sinister wayes but by such favour and friendship as is ingenuous and just and who keep as great a distance from desert of sequestration as any Committee man doth within the County wherein they live And if they carry themselves so as to be without feare and care and without the compasse of a sequestration in these inquisitive and accusative times they are more to be countenanced and encouraged then many of those who are professed adversaries to them But the matter it seemes that troubles you is that they are invested with a legall right of free hold for their lives and if they have such a right and walke so warily as to keep out of the reach of a just sequestration why should they not enjoy it would you have all to be betrusted to the discretion and conscience of your arbitrary Committees Truely Gentelemen we are afraid to trust you so farre as to give up such a certaine title as formerly and anciently established upon the Incumbent by the fundamentall Lawes of the Land as the right of any person to his Temporall estate and to stand to your arbitrary dispensations for our livelihood lest Laban-like you should change our wages ten times and if your petition should take place it might prove of very ill consequence in another generation were you never so well minded and it may be sooner in the next succession for if the Trustees should be either proud or covetous or prophane or licentious hereticall or schismaticall the best Mininisters might happily be the worst dealt withall and the right of receiving Tithes taken out of their hands might put them into the passive condition of silly and impotent wards under subtill and domineering Tutors or Guardians in name such but indeed nothing lesse then assertors and defenders of their rights as Tutors and Guardians ought to be And that our feare and jealousie is not without cause in respect of Trustees and Committee-men nor so much of you in particular of some of whom we have heard and beleeve much good as of such as may have as great authority without so good an intention we shall give you our ground out of the observation and complaint of witnesses above exception viz. the well affected freemen and covenant-engaged Citizens of the City of London in their humble representation to the right Honourable the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled in these words And here we may not omit to hint unto your Honours the exorbitant practises of many Committees and Committee-men who have such an influence by meanes of their authority upon the people they being at their wills and in their power to doe them a displeasure that they dare not doe otherwise then obey their unlawfull commands without the inevitable hazard of their peace and safety through which meanes tyranny is exercised by one fellow-subject upon another and justice and equity cannot enter The cryes of all sorts of people through the land are growne so loud against the people of this vocation and profession by reason of those grievous oppressions that are continually acted by them that in tendernesse of affection toward our brethren not being ignorant or insensible of our owne sufferings in this kind and the great dishonour accrewing to the Parliament thereby that we cannot but be earnest suitors to your mercy and justice that such may be dissolved 2. For obtainment of these livings we see such sordid compliances with such persons as have the fattest benefices as they count and call them in their dispose such artifices in contriving making and colouring over Simoniacall and sinfull bargaines compacts and matches such chopping of Churches and restlesse change of places till they get into the easiest and warmest and other such like practises not to be named nor yet to be prevented or removed otherwise then by flucking up the very roote which naturally brancheth out it selfe into these foresaid mischiefes so obstructive and destructive to all reformation Here is a great deale of aggravating rhetoricke against the greatnesse of Church-livings But why should all this evill be imagined rather of Ministers fat benefices as you say they are called then of great and gainfull offices in the State Is there not more care had and more strict triall taken of Ministers sincerity and integrity then of secular officers surely we are bound in charity to expect a more reformed Ministery then we have had who will rather say unto a Simoniacall patron as Peter to Simon Magus Thy monie perish with thee Acts 8. 20. then be Levies to such a Simeon in making a base and corrupt contract for a benefice And for that you say that such practises are not to be prevented or removed otherwise then by plucking up the very roote which naturally brancheth it selfe out into these foresaid mischiefes so obstructive and destructive to all religion Whether you meane Tithes to be this roote or the disproportion of Benefices or the right of patronage and protection I cannot tell but sure I am that the Apostle

mightily encreased in Davids time as that there were 38. thousand Levites besides the Priests 1 Chron. 23. 3. Magnus sanè numerus pro isto populo ut facilè intelligas multos ornatui magis serviisse quàm necessitati as Grotius there saith Therefore God employed them for many uses more then to attend at the Temple some were designed for other employments in the Common-wealth and they applied other studies as being the chief men for nobility and dignity and also for learning and knowledge in that Common-wealth Cum pingue haberent otium non tantum omnia legis sed medicinae aliarumque artium diligentes ediscebant ut Aegyptii s●●erdotes ideoque primis seculis ex illis ut eruditioribus Senatus 70. virûm legi maxime solebat Grotius in Deut. 17. There was no other Academy or School then in the whole world but at the Temple among them where the knowledge of Gods law or learning in any kinde could bee gained The administration of law and justice throughout the kingdome depended on them principally for God made his covenant with Levi of life and peace The law of truth was in his mouth The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth Mal. 2. 5 6 7. and so Ezek. 44. 23. They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and prophane and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean and in controversie they shall stand in judgment they shal judg according to my judgements and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies they being the principall Judges and Lawyers in that Common-wealth of Gods own constitution And whereas it is now granted on all hands than there was 3. Courts of Justice in that kingdome 1. the great Councel of 70. Elders 2. the Court of Judgement consisting of 23. 3. the Court of three or some few more the Priests and Levites were principall men both Judges and Officers in all Courts Scophtim Schoterim as 1 Chron. 23. 4. both to give sentence and judgement and also to execute the same so the Divines doe affirm also in their late Annotations upon 1 Chron. 26. 29 30. and 2 Chron. 19. 8. 11. They did study the Judiciall and Politique laws and had power to see the law of God and injunctions of the King to be observed and to order divine and humane affairs And they held also other honourable offices for we read that Zechariah a Levite was a wise Counsellor And Benaiah a Priest son of Jehoiada was one of Davids twelve Captains being the third Captain of the Host for the third month and in his course consisting of 2400. was his son Amizabad Benaiah was also one of Davids principal Worthies having the name among the three Mighties He was also Captain of the guard to David and after the death of Joab hee was made Lord Generall of the Host by King Solomon in Joabs room 1 Kings 2. 35. And because some have doubted whether they were imployed in the administration of justice it is more clearly of late evinced then formerly hath been for besides Sigonius Bertram Casaubon Moulin and divers others the learned Hugo Grotius in his Annotations upon Matthew cap. 5. 21. hath very accurately proved it out of the Text Josephus Philo and other monuments of the Jews whose testimonies at large I cannot now recite that there was no distinction nor division of the Courts of Justice the one Ecclesiasticall the other Civill but the Courts were united and the Priests and Levites the principall Judges and officers in every Court to whom the people were to be obedient upon pain of death Deut. 17. 12. they being appointed to hear every cause between bloud and bloud between plea and plea and between stroke and stroke being matters of controversie within thy gates and as our Lawyers call them Pleas of the Crown and Common pleas or whatsoever else did arise among them The Provinciall Levites were especially appointed to the Courts of Justice and also the Templar Levites when they had performed their courses and went home to their own houses being but one week in half a year were at very good leisure to assist the people in every Tribe where their Cities were allotted to them in governing ruling and directing in all matters pertaining to God and the King 1 Chron. 26. 30. 32. for which purpose God did scatter them in every Tribe and turned the curse of Jacob into a singular blessing to be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel appointing 1700. to be on the west-side Jordan and 2700. on the East-side The ancient frame of our Common-wealth for 500. years before the Conquest was thus disposed and governed as this learned Authour sheweth fully in his Glossary and Councels and happy had it been if things had so continued still but now the law being otherwise setled and the Courts divided it is not safe or easie to make alteration Comes praesidebat foro Comitatus non solus sed adjunctus Episcopo hic ut jus divinum ille ut humanum diceret alterque alteri auxilio esset consilio praesertim Episcopus Comiti nam in hunc illi animadvertere saepe licuit errantem cohibere idem igitur utrique territorium jurisdictionis terminus Glossar Spelman The Bishop and Earl of the County were joynt Magistrates in every Shire and did assist each other in all causes and Courts and so Mr Selden in his History cap. 14. § 1. By this means there was great union and harmony between all Judges and Officers whereas there is now great contention for jurisdiction and intolerable clashing in all Courts by injunctions prohibitions consultations and crosse orders to the great vexation of the clients and subjects The division of Courts seems to have proceeded first from Pope Nicholas 1. as is mentioned in Gratian Can. cum ad verum 96. dist about 200. years before the Conquest which was imitated here by William the Conquerour whose statute is recited and illustrated by Spelman in his Glossary and Councels and lately also published by Lord Cook lib. 4. Institutes cap. 52. But the further proof hereof will require more then this place or occasion will bear onely thus much was necessary to be mentioned and asserted in regard of explication and reference to many passages in this book and also other parts of his works which perhaps are not obvious or well observed by every common Reader Vide Glossar Domini Spelman in diatribis de Comite de Gemottis de Hundredo c. Concilia passim CAP. VIII The great account made of Priests in the old Law and before PRiesthood is of 3. sorts 1. That before the Law 2. That of the Law 3. This of the Gospel The first belonged to the Gentiles the second to them of the Circumcision the third to us under grace The third came in lieu of the second and the second rise out

of the book I could never yet finde thoughe it be mentioned by severall Authors Bale Hollinshead and lately by Sir Richard Baker in his history It seemes to have bin written after the Kings breach with the Pope his marriage with Anne Bolen and the birth of Queen Elizabeth as I conjecture by circumstances His purpose was chiefly bent against the Monasteries who had unjustly gotten so many Parsonages into their possessions It is much desired that if any man have the rest of the book that he would please to communicate the copy that hereafter as occasion serves it may be published compleatly together with some other things of this argument that the learned Knight hath committed to my charge but by reason of the present troubles I cannot now attend to prepare them for the Presse As for Sir Francis Bigott himselfe he was found afterwards active in the troubles of Yorkshire that happened in 28. H. 8. and being apprehended among others was put to death 29. H. 8. as our common Chronicles doe report Baleus saith of him Franciscus Bigott ex Eboracensi patria auratus eques homo natalium splendore nobilis ac doctus evangelicae veritatis amator Scripsit contra clerum De Impropriaribus lib. 1. Quosdam item latinos libros anglicanos reddidit inter seditiosos tandem anno Domini 1537 invito tamen eo repertus eadem cum illis indigna morte periit To the right Reverend Fathers and Brethren the Bishops and Ministers of Scotland I Have caused this little Treatise right reverend and beloved in the Lord Jesus to be printed againe in North-Britaine for many causes first because I was informed that there came forth but a few copies at the first printing thereof in South-Britaine Againe I hope this doing will incite that worthy Knight the Authour thereof quicklier to send out the greater worke which he promiseth of that same argument but principally to incite you whom these matters most nearely doe concerne to look into them more advisedly then as yet ye have done it was a private occasion as that worshipfull Gentleman sheweth that led him to this writing You have a publique whereof it is pitty you are so little moved who seeth not the state of the Church of Scotland as concerning the patrimony to go daily from worse to worse Sacrilege and Simony have so prevailed that it beginneth to be doubted of many whether there be any such sinnes forbidden by God and condemned in his Word Neither can you deny the cause of this evill for the most part to have flowed from your selves your selling and making away of the Church rights without any conscience the buying and bartering of benifices with your shamelesse and slavish courting of corrupt patrones hath made the world thinke that things Ecclesiasticall are of the nature of Temporall things which may be done away at your pleasures and where at the first it was meere worldlinesse that led men on those courses now a great many to outface conscience and delude all reproofes they stand not to defend that Lands Tithes yea whatsoever belonged to the Church in former ages may lawfully be alienated by you and possessed by seculars which opinion must either be taken out of the mindes of men or need you not looke to have these wicked facts in this kinde unreformed to this end should all Ecclesiasticall men labour to informe themselves as well by the Word as by the writings of Ancients and Constitutions of Councels touching the right and lawfulnesse of ecclesiasticall things that when they are perswaded themselves of the truth they may the more effectualy teach others There is no impiety against which it is more requisite you set your selves in this time for besides the abounding of this sinne and the judgement of God upon the land for the same who doth not foresee in the continuance of this course the assured ruine and decay of true Religion Of all persecutions intended against the Church the Julian was ever held to be the most dangerous for occidere presbyteros is nothing so hurtfull as occidere presbyterium When men are taken away there is yet hope that others will be raised up in their places but if the meanes of maintenance be taken away there followeth the decay of the profession it selfe Men doe not apply themselves commonly to Callings for which no rewards are appointed and say that some have done it in our dayes some out of zeale and some out of heat of contention yet in after-times it is not like to continue so neither let any man tell me that a Minister should have other ends proposed to him then worldly maintenance I know that to be truth yet as our Lord in the Gospel hoc etiam oportet facere Et illud non omittere Speaking of payment of tithes to the Pharisees It behoveth them saith he to be paid if not it is not to be expected that men will follow the Calling To rest upon the benevolence of the people as it is a beggarly thing and not belonging to the dignity of the Ministery so the first maintainers of that conceit have found the charity of this kinde so cold that they will not any more stand by their good-wills to this allowance Therefore it lieth upon you to foresee the estate of your Church and either in this point of maintenance to provide that it may be competent and assured else looke not for any thing but ignorance and basenesse and all manner of mischiefes which flow from these to invade the whole Kingdome How a competency may be provided except by restoring the Church to her rights I doe not see and what this right is if I should stand to define and justifie it here I should exceed the bounds of an Epistle Many of this time have cleared the point sufficiently And if any scruple be remaining the worthy Authour I hope will remove it in the greater worke we expect whose judgement and dexterity in handling the argument may be perceived by this his little pinnace It should shame us of our calling to come behinde men of his place either in knowledge or zeale His example who is nothing obliged to labour in these points as you are shall doe much I trust with you for the time to come Should any look carefuller to the Vineyard then the keepers or should any out-goe the servants of the house in diligence Repent therefore and amend your owne negligence in this behalfe and call upon others for amendment whilest you have time Thinke it not a light sin to spoile Gods inheritance and if we look for heaven let us be faithfull to our Lord here on earth I beseech God to give us all wisdome and keep us in minde of that strict account that we must one day give for all our doings and chiefly these which concerne the Church which is his body Amen I thought good not to omit this Epistle to the Clergy of Scotland prefixed before this edition at Edenborough

discontenting his Clergy the halfe arch of his Kingdome even then hee forbare not to contest with them upon points of jurisdiction confining theirs unto matters of faith and extending his own to the uttermost limits of the outward government of the Church But because his hand and his seal doe more authentically enforce credit then the report of Authours and Historians see what he assumeth in his Charter of foundation of the Monastery Sancti Martini de bello commonly called Battail Abbey for that he built it as Romulus did the Capitol in the place where he overcame his enemies In this Charter he granteth that That Church shall be free from all servitude and from all things whatsoever mans invention can imagine and commandeth therefore that it be free from all government of Bishops neither shall the Bishop of Chichester though it be in his Diocesse make any Ordinations there nor grieve it any thing nor execute any kind of government or authority there but that it be as free saith he from all his exactions as my own Dominicall or Demesne Chappell The Abbot shall not be compelled to goe to the Synod nor forbidden to promote his Monks to holy Orders where him self listeth nor he or his Monks to require what Bishop they will to consecrate Altars c. And this also by my Regall authority I ordain that the Abbot shall be Lord and Judge of all things in his own Church and within one league round about it c. see the Charter at large Here it appeareth that this victorious King Will. 1. took himself to have Pallium Ecclesiasticae jurisdictionis the fulnesse of Ecclesiasticall power and as the supream Magistrate thereof not only abridgeth and revoketh the jurisdiction of other Bishops within this place as of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester but disposeth the same according to his owne pleasure namely to the Abbey of Battail with so great enlargement of priviledge and authority as no Bishop of the Kingdome hath the like Free from all servitude and from all things whatsoever mans invention can imagine are exquisite words of priviledge and how far they might stretch at those times when the profession of our Laws was not a science into Regall or Canonicall jurisdiction I cannot judge but I know by Staffords case 1 H. 7. f. 18. they will now bee restrained with many exceptions So likewise that the Abbot shall not be compelled to come at Synods or to take Ordinations for his Monks or Consecration of Altars c. from the Bishop of his Diocesse are directly against the Decrees of the Church Canons Synods and generall Councels As also it is that hee should be Judge of things in his own Church and the circuit assigned which though here it bee but a league I see not but he might as well have made it ten if it had pleased him and by consequence a County or Province And lest the King should seem to have done this by some indulgence from the Pope or connivency of his own Clergy he saith expresly that he doth it by his Regall authority and that not closely or under-hand but Episcoporum Baronum meorum attestatione And to declare how far the Clergy of that time was from repining or impugning this his jurisdiction the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Chichester Winton and Worcester are witnesses to the Charter and denounce a curse against the breakers thereof One other thing also is worthy of note that the Kings Demean Chappell seemeth by this not to be within the jurisdiction and Diocesse of any Bishop but exempt and as a Regall peculiar reserved onely to the visitation and immediate government of the King or such as it pleaseth him to substitute for the Archbishop of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction there by his own confession ut pat Hoveden l. 4. 7. pa. 547. William Rufus in like manner told Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury that no Archbishop or Bishop of his Kingdome should be subject to the Court of Rome or to the Pope Quòd nullus Archiepiscopus vel Episcopus regni sui saith Mat. Paris curiae Romanae vt Papae subesset And because Anselm asked leave of him to fetch his pall from Pope Vrbane at Rome hanob rem saith Mat. Paris à rege majestatis reus postulatur he is called in question of High Treason an● Gundulphus Bishop of Rochester and very many other Bishops approved the accusation In vita Will. 2. p. 17 18. Malmsbery reporteth that his offence was for appealing to the Pope in matters between the King and him but he agreeth that all he had was confiscate and himself banished by consent of the Bishops and he addeth further that being after recalled into the Kings favour upon a new difference between the King and him he appealed the second time to Pope Vrbane and without the Kings licence would go thither for which cause his whole Bishopricke and goods were reseised into the Kings hands and he exiled And though the Pope threatned to excommunicate the King if he restored him not and the Councell then holden at Rome stormed much at the matter yet Anselm continued in that plight during the lives both of the King and the Pope Malmsb. de gest Pontif. li. 1. pa. 221 c. FINIS An answer to a question of a Gentleman of quality proposed to and made by a Reverend and learned Divine living in London concerning the settlement or abolition of Tithes by the Parliament which caused him to doubt how to dispose of his Sonne whom he had designed for the Ministrey wherein also are comprised some Animadversions upon a late little pamphlet called The Countryes plea against Tithes discovering the ignorant mistakings of the Authors of it touching the maintenance of the Ministery Sir THough it were high presumption for a private man as I am to presage what so wise a Senate as the Parliament will doe for the future either in point of Tithes or any other affaire of so publike concernment yet I hope I may without reaching above my line take upon me to tell you that the ground of your doubt touching their alienation of Tithes from the Ministery which I shall bring in its proper place is but such as will serve rather to beare up a transient suspicion or surmise of such a matter then a settled assurance that it either is so already or that hereafter it will be so For the first That it is not so I am sure because 1. They have passed an Ordinance for the Ministers recovery of Tithes and other Ministeriall dues from such as doe detaine them November 8. 1644. which is still in force through the influence of their power and favour 2. They have made competent additions to very many livings out of impropriated Tithes in the hands of Delinquents and this they have done with so much cheerefulnesse and beneficence on the Ministers behalfe by the Committee for plundred Ministers that many have cause to blesse

God for them as their great Patrons and benefactors for that manner of maintenance wherein they have done beyond and above any Parliament that were before them and they continue and persist in the making of such augmentations as occasion is offered to this very day 3. They have given the repulse to divers petitions against Tithes which by the instinct and instigation of men of unsound principles and unquiet spirits have been put up unto them For the second that they will not take them away in time to come I have these grounds if not of infallible certainty yet of very great probability Though they have resolved upon the sale of Bishops lands and revenues in their Ordinance of November 16. 1646. for that purpose they have made an especiall exception with respect to the maiutenance of Ministers in these words Except parsonages appropriate tithes tithes appropriate oblations obventions portions of tithes parsonages vicarages Churches Chappels advowsons donatives nomination rights of patronage and presentation In excepting the right of patronage they meane neither to leave it to the power of the people to choose what Minister they please and the practice of the Honourable Committee for plundred Ministers sheweth the same for they appoint and place Ministers very often without the petitions of the people and sometimes against them as their wisedome seeth cause and if it were not so many would choose such as deserved to be put out againe Nor to put the Ministers upon the voluntary pensions or contributions of the people for their subsistence but assigne them under such a title what belongeth unto them by the Laws of the Land viz. Tithes obventions c. which intimates their mind not onely for the present but for the future Their wisedome well knoweth that the Revenue of Tithes as it is most ancient for the originall of it and most generall in practice both for times and places so it hath the best warrant from the word of God not onely in the old Testament which none can deny but in the new which though it be denyed by some is averred by others as D. Carleton M. Roberts D. Sclater M. Bagshaw in their treatises of Tithes and yet unrefuted by any and from the Laws of many Christian States especially from the Statutes of our Kingdome whereof abundant evidence is given in the booke of the learned Antiquary Sr Henry Spelman 3. That notwithstanding all the authority that may be pleaded for them the people are backward enough to pay to their Ministers a competent maintenance and if Tithes should be put down by the Parliament it would be very much adoe to bring them up any other way to any reasonable proportion of allowance for their support and so in most places the Ministery would be reduced to extreame poverty and that poverty would produce contempt of their calling and that contempt atheisme 4. That it is evident that such as make the loudest noyse against the tenure of Tithes are as opposite to the office and calling of Ministers as to their maintenance and intend by their left-handed Logicke because as the saying is the Benefit or Benefice is allotted to the office to make way for the taking away of the Ministery by the taking away of Tithes and not to wait the leisure of consequentiall operation according to the craft of Julian who robbed the Church of meanes expecting the want of wages would in time bring after it a want of workmen but presently to beare down both as Relatives mutually inferre one another as well by a negative as a positive inference and so as the Parliament having put down the office of the Prelacy now makes sale of their lands they if they could prevaile for the discarding of Tithes would by the same argument clamour and slander presently and importunately presse for deposition of the Ministery And we see how they take upon them with equall confidence and diligence not onely to write but publikely to dispute against them both 5. That if rights so firmely set upon so many solid foundations should be supplanted it would much weaken the tenure or title that any man hath to his lands or goods and would be a ready plea for rash innovators and the rather because of the manner of the Anabaptists proceedings who began their claime of Christian liberty with a relaxation of Tithes and went on to take off the Interdict or restraint in hunting fishing and fowling wherein they would allow neither Nobility nor Gentry any more priviledge then the meanest peasant And as their principles were loose so were their practices licentious for they held a community of goods and equality of estates whereupon the Common people gave over their worke and whatsoever they wanted they tooke from the rich even against their good wills So that it was a breach of their Christian liberty belike to have a lock or a bolt on a doore to keep a peculiar possession of any thing from them And the liberty was more and more amplified according to the fancies of their dreaming doctors for their dreames were the oracles of their common people and every day they set forth their liberty in a new edition corrupted and augmented till all the partition walls of propriety were broken down and so not content to have other mens goods at their disposall and to be quit from payment of rents and debts having made a monopoly of Saintship to themselves they excommunicated all who were not of their faction both out of sacred society of the Church and out of common communion in the world as wicked and profane and unworthy not onely of livelyhood but of life also and usurped a power to depose Prince and other Civill Magistrates as they pretended they had commission to kill them and to constitute new ones in their stead as they should thinke fit Such seditious and sanguinary Doctors as Luther called them did Satan stirre up under the pretext of Euangelicall liberty a liberty which in them admitted of no bounds being like the c. oath without bankes or bottome of no rule or order being carried on with a wild and giddy violence such as the great and pernicious impostor of the world prompted them unto though they vented their diabolicall illusions under the Title of Divine Revelations as the Prince of darknesse made them believe when he put on his holy-day habit the appearance of an Angel of light 2 Cor. 11. 14. 6. That the payment of Tithes where there are the fruits of the earth and increase of cattell out of which they may be raised is the most equitable way and meanes of maintaining the Minister since such a gaine is not onely harmelesse and without sinne for the manner of acquisition which we cannot say of pensions and exhibitions made up out of trade or traffique but such as may be most permanent and constant since whether the Tithe be lesse or more it is still proportionable to the other