suffer under an undeserved scourge and I hope when our reformation is grown up to such a competent degree of strength and stature as that it may quit the service of Country Committees there will be no more cause of such a complaint then for many hundred yeares heretofore there hath been 3. For its adjuncts that is of the maintenance by Tithes the mischiefes of them will appeare innumerable if the pregnancy of onely one be but considered namely in the unreasonable proportion of livings or values of Churches to which they are belonging whence ariso these inseparable evils By what new-found Logick will you frame such an Induction as from one particular to inferre innumerable mischiefes particularly from the disproportion of livings You seeme to thinke otherwise where you say in your 8th proposition that in the 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 sleece 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 freehold 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 plucking 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
have received by this said benefit in our deliverance which act is of it selfe so highly to the great peace unyte and welth of this most noble Empyre of England that if there were non other cause but that only we were bound to and with all our diligence and industry to study labour and devise how this benefit exceeding all other might world without end be extolled praised and made immortall and to receyte how much the furtherance of gods glory is by the same act set forth and advanced my learning ne yet wytte will not serve me Yet I dare boldly afferme pondering and considering depely the effect and circumstance of this matter This act is no lesse worthe then well worthy to be set in the booke of Kings of the old testament as a thing sounding to gods honour as much as any other history therein conteyned but what should I attempt or goe about to expresse the condigne and everlasting praises and thankes which your majesty hath deserved of all your hole Cominalt for the benefites before named unlesse I would take in hand like an evill workeman which by reason of his unperfectnes in his science should utterly staine and deface the thing he would most earnestly and diligently shew and set forthe I will therefore most excellent Emperor of this realme set all this aside and shew to your grace the cause of my enterprise for so much as I perceave that all your gracious proceedings are onely driven and conveyed to the most highe just and sincere honour of Almighty God the publique welth and unity of all Christendome most especially of this your most noble Realme of England it hath animated and incouraged me according to the small talent of learning that the Lord hath lent to me to put your grace in remembrance of the intollerable pestilence of Impropriations of benefices to religious persons as they will be called some to men and some to women which in mine opinion is a thing plainly repugnant to the most holy and blessed decrees and ordinances of Almighty God and highly to the extolling supporting and maintenance of the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome as your Majesty shall perceave in reading of this little treatise which your grace not being offended I shall ever God willing be able justly to defend and also stop the mouthes of them that shall say and abide by the contrary and that not with mine owne words but with authorities of holy Scripture And further I doe most humbly upon both my knees beseech your Imperiall Majesty that unto such time as this my little book be cleerly confuted by like holy Scripture and authorities as I have approved the same that it may safely goe abroad under protection of your gracious and redoubted name And for the prosperous preservation of your most royall estate of your most noble and vertuous Queene of your deere daughter Lady Princesse daughter and heire to you both according to my most bound duty I shall daily pray my life enduring Sir Francis Bigott Knight of Yorkshire wrote this Treatise whereof this Preface I received from Sir Henry Spelman but the rest 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 invite 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
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 maintenance 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 a 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 b 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 c community of goods and equality of estates d 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 a 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 b 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