their spirituall vocation for I see that the Apostles themselves were therein subject to the Heathen Princes and gave commandement to all Christians in generall that they likewise should doe the same and thereupon S. Austin saith that in those things that concern this life wee must be subject to them that govern humane things But my meaning is that a temporall Prince cannot properly dispose the matters of the Church if he have not Ecclesiasticall function and ability as well as Temporall for I doubt not but that the government of the Church and of the Common-wealth are not only distinct members in this his Majesties kingdome but distinct bodies also under their peculiar heads united in the person of his Majesty yet without confusion of their faculties or without being subject the one to the other For the King as meerly a temporall Magistrate commandeth nothing in Ecclesiasticall causes neither as the supream Officer of the Church doth he interpose in the temporall government but like the common arch arising from both these pillars he protecteth and combineth them in perpetuall stability governing that of the Church by his Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction and that of the Common-wealth by his temporall For this cause as Moses was counted in sacerdotibus Psal. 99. 6. though he were the temporall Governour of the people of Israel so the Laws of the Land have of old armed the King persona mixta medium or rather commune quiddam inter laicos sacerdotes and have thereupon justly assigned to him a politique body composed as well of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction as temporall like to that of David Jehosaphat Hezekias and other Kings of Juda who not onely in respect of their Crown led the Armies of the people against their enemies but as anointed with the holy oyle ordered and disposed the very function of the Levites of the Priests and of the Temple as you may read in their severall lives in the books of the Kings and Chronicles But the Kings of England have proceeded yet further in the gradations of Ecclesiasticall profession as thinking it with David more honourable to be a door-keeper in the House of God then to dwell in the tents of the ungodly that is to execute the meanest office in the service of God then those of greatest renowne among the Heathen and Infidels Therefore they have by ancient custome even before the Conquest amongst other the solemnities of their Coronation not only been girt with the regall sword of Justice by the Lay Peers of the Land as the embleme of their temporall authority but anointed also by the Bishops with the oyle of Priesthood as a mark unto us of their Ecclesiasticall profession and jurisdiction And as they have habenam regni put upon them to expresse the one so also have they stolam sacerdotii commonly called vestem dalmaticam as a Leviticall Ephod to expresse the other The reasons of which if we shall seek from the ancient Institutions of the Church it is apparent by the Epistle of Gregory the great unto Aregius Bishop of France that this vestis dalmatica was of that reverence amongst the Clergy of that time that the principall Church-men no not the Bishops themselves might wear it without licence of the Pope And when this Aregius a Bishop of France requested that he and his Archdeacon might use it Gregory took a long advisement upon the matter as a thing of weight and novelty before he granted it unto them But 22. years before the time of Edward the Confessor unto whom those hallowed vestures happily did belong with which his Majesty was at this day consecrated these dalmaticae otherwise called albae stolae were by the Councell Salegunstadiens cap. 2. made common to all Deacons and permitted to them to be worn in great solemnities which the Kings of England also ever since Edward the Confessors time if not before have always been attired with in their Coronations And touching their unction the very books of the Law doe testifie to be done to the end to make them capable of spirituall jurisdiction for it is there said that Reges sacro oleo uncti sunt spiritualis jurisdictionis capaces the Kings being anointed with the holy oyle are now made capable of spirituall jurisdiction This ceremony of unction was not common to all Christian Kings for they being about Hen. 2. time 24. in number onely four of them besides the Emperor were thus anointed namely the Kings of England France Jerusalem and Sicil. The first English King as far as I can find that received this priviledge was Elfred or Alured the glorious son of noble and devout Ethelwolphus King of West-Saxony who about the year of our Lord 860. being sent to Rome was there by Leo 4. anointed and crowned King in the life of his father and happily was the first King of this Land that ever wore a Crown whatsoever our Chroniclers report for of the 24. Kings I speak of it is affirmed in ancient books that only four of them were in those days crowned But after this anointing Alured as if the Spirit of God had therewith come upon him as it did upon David being anointed by Samuel grew so potent and illustrious in all kindes of vertues as well divine as morall that in many ages the world afforded him no equall zealous towards God and his Church devout in prayer profuse in alms always in honourable action prudent in government victorious in wars glorious in peace affecting justice above all things and with a strong hand reducing his barbarous subjects to obedience of Law and to love equity the first learned King of our Saxon Nation the first that planted literature amongst them for himself doth testifie in his Preface to Gregories Pastorall that there were very few on the South-side Humber but he knew not one on the South-side of the Thames that when he began to reign understood the Latine Service or could make an Epistle out of Latine into English c. He fetched learned men from beyond the Seas and compelled the Nobles of his Land to set their sons to school and to apply themselves to learn the Laws and Customes of their Country admitting none to places of Justice without some learning nor sparing any that abused their places for unto such himself looked diligently He divided the Kingdome into Shires Hundreds Wapentakes and them again into Tithings and free Bourghs compelling every person in his Kingdome to be so setled in some of those free Bourghs that if he any way trespassed his fellows of that free Bourgh answered for him The memory of this admirable Prince carrieth me from my purpose but to return to it his successors have ever since been consecrated and thereby made capable of spirituall jurisdiction and have accordingly used the same in all ages and thought by the Pope to be so enabled unto it that Nicholas 2. doubted not to commit the government of all the Churches of England unto
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
a year So that the Appropriation of a Parsonage was no more at the first but a grant made by the Pope c. to an Abbot Prior Prebend or some other spirituall person being a Body politique and successive that he and his successors might for ever be Parsons of that Church that is that as one of them died his successors might enter into the Rectory and take the fruits and profits thereof without further trouble of admission institution or induction which upon the matter was no more but to doe that briefly at one cut that otherwise might and would in length of time be done at severall times as to admit institute and induct the whole succession of a religious body politique at once whereas otherwise every successour must have had a particular institution and induction and therefore every such successour during his time was as perfect an Incumbent as if he had been particularly instituted and inducted but when the succession failed then it was again presentative as upon the death of an ordinary Incumbent and by extinction of the House dissolution cession or surrender of the House and Order the appropriation is determined and they are now again presentative for the appropriation is but as a stop in a run which being taken away the former right renueth What alteration then did the Statute make of them did it make them lay or temporall Livings no the words of the Statute are That the King shall have them in as large and ample manner as the Governors of those houses had them c. So that though the Statute changed the owner of the thing yet it changed not the nature of the thing The Monasticall persons had them before as spirituall Livings and now the King must have them in as large manner but still as spirituall Livings and with much more reason might the King so have them then any other temporall men for as the Kingdome and Priesthood were united in the person of our Saviour Christ so the person of a King is not excluded from the function of a Priest though as Christ being a Priest medled not with the kingdome so they as Kings medle not with the Priesthood Yet by the Laws of the Land the King is composed as well of a spirituall body politique as of a temporall and by this his spirituall body he is said to be supream Ordinary that is chief Bishop over all the Bishops in England and in that his Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall authority doth many things which otherwise in his temporall he could not doe and therefore the Statute of 25 H. 8. cap. doth agnise the words authoritate nostra regia Suprema Ecclesiastica qua fungimur which the King useth in divers Charters touching spirituall causes doe testifie that he taketh upon him the execution thereof and therefore in this respect he may much better hold them then his lay subjects Neither is this authority of the King founded upon the Statute of H. 8. or any other puisne institution but deduced anciently from the very Saxon Kings as appeareth by many of their Laws and Charters wherein as supream Ordinary they dispose of the rights and jurisdiction of the Church delivering unto religious persons greater or lesser portion thereof according to their own pleasure and abridging and exempting other from the authority of the Bishops and Archbishops or any other Ecclesiasticall Prelate And in this respect it seemeth that the Chappell of the Kings house was in ancient time under no other Ordinary then the King himself for William the Conquerour granting all exemption to Battail Abbey granteth that it shall be as free from the command of any Bishops as his own Chappell Dominica Capella which as it thereby seemeth was under no other Bishop then the King himself But the Bishops agreed to the granting away of these Church Livings It is true that the Law accounteth the judgement of the major part to be the judgement of all but the Bishops cannot be said to have agreed unto it as being willing with it but as concluded by legall necessity and inference For though all the Bishops said nay yet the Lay Barons by reason of their number exceeding the Bishops were not able to hinder it and no man doubteth that in publique suffrages very many times major pars vincit meliorem therefore I neither accuse nor condemn the reverend Bishops herein for their voices though they had given them every one against the Bill were not able to hinder it Neither doe I think but that they being men of another profession unexercised in the elenchs of the Law were overtaken in the frame of words and thereby passed that away in a cloud which if they had perceived could never have been won from them with iron hooks But in this matter there being a question of Religion Whether Tithes be due jure divino or whether they could be separated from the Church it was not properly a question decidable by the Parliament being composed wholly of Lay persons except some twenty Bishops but the question should first have been moved amongst the Bishops by themselves and the Clergy in the Convocation house and then being there agreed of according to the Word of God brought into the Parliament For as the Temporall Lords exclude the Bishops when it commeth to the decision of a matter of bloud life and member so by the like reason the Bishops ought to exclude the Temporall Lords when it commeth to the decision of a question in Theology for God hath committed the Tabernacle to Levi as well as the kingdome to Juda and though Juda have power over Levi as touching the outward government even of the Temple it self yet Juda medled not with the Oracle the holy Ministery but received the will of God from the mouth of the Priest Therefore when Valentinian the Emperour required Ambrose to come and dispute a point of Arianisme at his Court he besought the Emperour that he might doe it in the Consistory amongst the Bishops and that the Emperour would bee pleased not to be present among them lest his presence should captivate their judgements or intangle their liberty That after the Appropriation the Parsonage still continueth spirituall It appeareth by that which is afore shewed and the circumstances thereof that the Appropriating of a Parsonage or the endowing of a Vicarage out of it doe not cut the Parsonage from the Church or make it temporall but leaveth it still spirituall as well in the eye of the Common Law as of the Canon Law for if it became temporall by the Appropriation then were it within the Statute of Mortmain and forfaited by that very Act. But it is agreed by the 21 Ed. 3. f. 5. and in Plowd Com. fo 499. that it is not Mortmain and therefore doth continue spirituall for which cause also the Ordinary and Ecclesiasticall Officers must have still the same authority over such appropriate Churches as they had before those Churches
being now dead in whose behalf I must avow that the originall is plainly ad nos and not ad vos which lest it should seem either mistaken or questionable King Edgar himself doth manifestly clear it both by deeds and words for of his own authority he removed generally the Clerks of that time that were not professed out of the Monasteries and placed in their rooms Monks and regular persons as appeareth by his owne words in his Charter of Malmesbury Malmsb pag. 58. l 17. And also in the foundation Book of the Abbey of Winchester written all in golden letters wherein likewise he prescribeth the rules for the government of the religious persons there and saith that himself will look to â—â—e Monks and that his wife Aelfthryth shall look to tâ—e Nuns And lest it should seem that he had done this rather out of the will of a Prince then by just authority Hoveden and Historia Jornalensis doe testifie that he did it by the advice and means of Ethelwould Bishop of Winton and Oswald Bishop of Worcester So that the very Clergy of that time agnised executed and affirmed his jurisdiction herein which I will close up with a materiall sentence out of his Charter in Glastenberry extant in Malmsbury de gest Reg. li. 2. pag. 57. where the words be these Concessit etiam scil Edgarus ut sicut ipse in propria ita totius insulae causas in omnibus tam Ecclesiasticis quà m secularibus negotiis absque ulla ullius contradictione Abbas Conventus corrigeret that is King Edgar granted that the Abbot Covent of Glastenberry should correct or amend all causes as well Ecclesiasticall as secular within the whole Isle of Glastenberry as himself did within his own Isle namely of England So that the King here denounceth that himself hath the correction or ordering of all Ecclesiasticall causes within this his Isle And in further declaration thereof doth by that his Charter by and by after prohibit all Bishops from medling within the Isle of Glastenberry and lest he should seem to doe a new thing he closeth it up with this apology That his predecessors Cemwines Ines Ethelardus Cuthredus Elfredus Edwardus Ethelstanus Edmundus had all of them done the like and he might have added out of Bede l. 2. c. 7. that Cenwalch King of West-Saxon of his own authority divided the Sea of Agilbert his Bishop being a French man and of another language which he understood not and gave one part thereof unto Winus a man of his own Nation which though he were afterwards compelled by necessity and discontent of Agilbert to reunite yet his successor Inas divided them again and then they so continued Hen. Huntington l. 4. pa. 33. l. 49. It is true that ad majorem cautelam King Edgar required John 12. to confirme these priviledges lest any as he saith should in future time either take them away or throw out the Monks but himself had first done it of himself and the vigor that the Pope added to it was rather a fortifying of it with a curse against robbers and spoilers then an enlargement of the validity thereof as quicking thereby a livelesse body For so likewise may the Popes own authority be disputable insomuch as he also required the generall Synod then holden at Rome Anno 965. as Malmsbur saith to confirm it But the fashion of those times was that secular Princes sought sometimes to have their temporall Laws confirmed by the Pope with a curse against the breakers thereof as did Howell Dhae for those his Laws of Wales and in like manner was it usuall for Councels and Synods to seek the confirmation of their Canons from temporall Princes as did that of Orleans before spoken of from Clodoveus and the Councell of Toledo from Euricus who made a speciall Law for establishing it as you may see in the Laws of the Wisegothes l. 12. tit 1. ca. 3. ut sic gladius gladium adjuvaret It may be objected that Edgar being the great King of this whole Isle for he styled himself totius Albionis basileus might usurp upon the Church and doe these things rather in the will of a Prince then by just authority It is manifest partly by that which I said before but plentifully by his Charters that the Clergy of that time were so far from denying or repining at this his jurisdiction that they affirmed and subscribed unto it as appeareth in his Charters And how large soever his Dominion was his humility was as great for though in matters of government he carried himself as the head Officer of the Church yet in matters of faith he was so obedient that to expiate his incontinency with a Nun he threw himself at the feet of Dunstan his Bishop submitted himself to seven years penance and presumed not to be consecrated till the 14. year of his reign But these things were no novelties either in the person of Edgar or in the Princes of those ages for the minor Kings themselves within the orbs of their own Dominion used the like jurisdiction as you may perceive by those cited by Edgar in the Charter of Glastenberry and by many other in particular Charters of their own Yea the Kings of Mercia that were but vassals and underlings to the Kings of West-Saxony within the limits of their little Kingdome used the same plenitude of authority as appeareth by the Charter of Kenulphus who lived about the year 850. made to the Abbot of Abingdon wherein he saith Sit autem prae-dict ' rus liberum ab omni regali obstaculo Episcopali jure in sempiternum aevum ut habitantes ejus nullius regis aut ministrorum suorum Episcopive aut suorum officialium jugo deprimantur sed in omnibus rerum eventibus as defensionibus causarum Abbatis Abbindenensis Monasterii de caetero subjiciantur Term. Trinitat 1 H. 7. f. 18. b. And it is there said by the Judges fol. seq b. that many Abbeys in England had larger words then these in the Kings Charter as Omnimoda justitia quicquid regales potestates conferri possunt To leave the Saxon Kings and to come to the Normans that we may see by what channell this fluent of authority hath been deduced to his Majesty Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury in the Conquerours time would have given the Abbotship of S. Augustines but the new King saith the book i. William the Conquerour did deny it saying that he would conferre all Pastorall Staves in his Realm and would not conferre that power to any whatsoever Govern you saith he that which appertaineth to faith and Christianity among the Monks but for their outward service you shall let me alone with that You see here that the King doth not in covert manner or by little and little creep into Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction but with an absolute resolution whilest he yet stood as it were but upon the threshold of his Kingdome and might justly fear some notable transmutation in
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
Committees in many places are not all of them men of sound and orthodox Judgement neither for matter of Tithes nor for divers other Tenets of Religion 2. Howsoever they professe a good meaning to establish a sufficient maintenance for godly and well deserving Ministers a very good meaning to extend it so farre as to succor their widowes and fatherlesse children as we see by the 8th proposition of their new project It will be a probleme which the present age perhaps will not be able to resolve who the Trusties in after times will accept for such Ministers although they may have cause to suspect that some part of Kent for the present is not so reformed as it should be Anabaptists and other sectaries having misled many into adverse principles not onely to Tithes but to other matters of moment concerning mans duty both of the first and second Table 3. For their exceptions against the received maintenance by Tithes they say first in generall That they bewayle the sad condition of the Country in respect of the uncertaine floting and miserable condition of the Ministry occasioned by the very nature manner and adjuncts of the way of Tithes which the experience of thus many ages doth plainly evince to be miserably attended with these ensuing mischiefes To which I answer That the miserable and floting condition of the Ministry proceeds not from the nature manner or adjuncts of their subsistence by way of Tithes nor doth the experience of thus many ages that is of the precedent ages hitherto evince so much for God who is omniscient and therefore cannot but foresee all subsequent inconveniences for many hundred yeares to come established that meanes to be a standing and settled maintenance for his service and the misery of the Ministry proceeds not from the nature or manner of Tithes which to affirme may seem to coast too neere their conceipt who imagine God to be the author of sinne but from the ill consciences of men who make no scruple to rob God of his right Malach. 3. for Tithes are his portion Levit. 27. 30. and Ministers may suffer very much in the present age because there be many Anabaptisticall sectaries from which Kent is not more free but as some say more infected then some other Counties who take up importunate clamours against Tithes as Antichristian and Jewish and there will be the more by the countenance they may have from such a petition and such petitioners because divers of them are of good reputation not onely for wealth but for their wisedome and learning well affected to Religion and the Parliament and I beleeve it the rather because some godly ministers have expressed their approbation both of it them though therein I conceive they shewed more of the simplicity of the dove then of the wisedome of the serpent for albeit their meaning might be so to gather the Tithes and to put them into such hands as might be rather for the Ministers ease then for their losse no man can prophesie that so good a spirit will descend upon their successors nor how crosse they may prove to such a Christian Intention 2. For the particular exceptions they say first That for the nature of this subsistence it is a very mystery and secret not easily without much art and industry attained unto namely for the Minister to know his dues demandable or the parishioners their dues payable whence ariseth that multitude of scandalous and vexatious suites and brables betwixt Ministers and people which doth fill all the Courts at Westminster and other the Justice-sittings in the Country likewise with causes in this kinde In this charge there be two particulars contained first of the difficulty of knowing the right of Tithes secondly of the vexatious suites raised betwixt pastors and people upon that ground For the first It is a very strange mystery that after so many hundred yeares of Tithing it should not yet be knowne what it is but I doubt not but in this case the right is better knowne unto Ministers that should receive Tithes then acknowledged by the people that ought to pay them And how can they set up their new designe upon the old foundation of Tithing as they project it if it cannot be knowne what is the Ministers demandable due what the peoples payable duty that modell is more like to be a mystery which they propound since it was never heard of in this Kingdome untill they had devised it and as like it is to prove a misery to Ministers if their portion should come into no better hands then most of theirs who have petitioned against Tithes since this Session of the Parliament And secondly for the multitude of scandalous and vexatious suites they make no more against the Right of Tithes then against borrowing and lending buying and selling letting of leases setling inheritances Joyntures c. upon which titles are set the greatest number of suites and for suites for Tithes if the law allow them a right it alloweth them a remedy to recover that right and for the suites that were occasioned thereby they are neither so many as is here presented nor so scandalous for the Ministers part for they may be imputed to the old avarice of worldly minded men who being of a contrary mind to the Apostle thinke it an hard bargaine to exchange their carnall for the Ministers spirituall things but principally to the new principles and practises of such unreasonable reformers as imagine they are never sarre enough removed from one extreame untill they arrive at the other accounting all superstitious in point of Tithing that are not sacrilegious 2. For the manner of it respecting either the collecting or payment of Tithes it is a mutuall scourge in the hand of Ministers and people each to other if either or both as too often it happens prove covetous or crosse If it be a mutuall scourge it would well become the wisedome of these Committee-men to enquire where the right is and who doth the wrong and to project a way how the wrong-doer may be made to doe right and to give due satisfaction to such as 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 arise 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
cals covetousnesse the root of all evill and so the root of that evill which sometimes passeth betwixt a Patron and his Chaplaine and may as frequently and with as much injury be found betwixt some Committee-men and Trustees and the Ministers of their choice as any other But as I am confident that there will be an amendment on the Ministers part by the regular way of the Parliaments reformation according to the directions of ordination of Ministers already printed accordingly practised so will it bee not onely possible but easie for the State to finde out a fit means to prevent prevarication on the part of the Patron but if Tithes be removed from their ancient foundation and lest loose to the disposall of Trustees or Committee-men they will be a more ready prey for the covetous into whose hands they may come and from whose hands perhaps they cannot without great difficulty be redeemed Lastly in the close of this Petition the Petitioners shew great care that the Ministers may be freed from the incumbrance of Tithes to serve the Lord without distraction and to give themselves to the Word of God and Prayer and to be onely employed to make ready a people prepared for the Lord And so they may do if they be maintained by Tithes for that means of maintenance gives a man occasion of more and better acquaintance with the particular disposition of his people and it is his part to be diligent to know the state of his flock Prov. 27. 23. And for that trouble which may be thought inconsistent with the Calling of a Minister if his means be sufficient he may have a servant to take it from him and ease him of it I know a Minister whose Benefice was a Vicarage and his Parish so large that it was 11 miles in length and of a proportionable breadth yet did it not put him to the expence of one day in a year to compound for or gather in his dispersed portion Now for the successe and acceptance of the Petition in the Honourable House of Commons to which it was presented if such an innovation had been granted for that County it had been fitter to have been made a Sibboleth for that cauthe or angle of the Kingdome for so the word Kent signifieth as their custome of Gavelkind then to be made a president or pattern of conformity to other parts of the Kingdome as the News-Book of the same week prescribed that to his Reader But the answer of the worthy Senate was such as may further confirm us in our confidence that they will still continue to be gracious Patrons of the maintenance of Ministers and that they will be more ready to ratifie precedent Statutes and their own Ordinance made in that behalf then to dissettle their tenure which is founded upon them and to make Ministers arbitrary Pensioners to such as may be so far swayed by misprision of judgement or personall dis-affection as to deal most penuriously with those who being truly valued without erroneous mistaking or injurious misliking may both by the eminence of their parts and their faithfulnesse in their places deserve the most ample and most honourable Revenue I will give you their answer in their own words which are most authentick they are these M. Speaker by order of the House of Commons did give the Petitioners the Committee of Kent thanks for their former services and took notice of their good affections to the Publique and did acquaint them That the great businesses of the Kingdome are now instant and pressing upon them and that they will take the Petition into consideration in due time and that in the mean time they take care that Tithes may be paid according to Law But there are some in the Parliament that hold the maintenance of Ministers by Tithes to be Jewish and Popish and therefore they will give countenance to Petitions that are put up against them and doe what they can under such titles to render them offensive to such as are truly religious especially to those who have most power to abolish them 1. It may be there are some such and if there be some such among so many it is neither to be thought strange nor true for such a number of them as may be able to carry the cause against the continuance of Tithes 2. For the tearm Jewish it is mis-applyed against Tithes as it was by the Prelates of late is by the Anabaptists at the present against the Sabbath nor are they more Popish then Jewish For the Papists though their people pay them and their Priests receive them yet they for the most part holding theÌ„ to depend meerly upon Ecclesiastical constitution made no scruple of changing them into secular titles or uses as in Impropriations in the hands of Lay-men and many other distributions made out of them severall ways without any respect to the service of the Sanctuary Nor is there any thing in the payment and receiving of Tithes under the state of the Gospel which may prebably be suspected to have any savour of Judaisme or Popery save onely the payment of Tenths by the Ministers to the King as hath been lately well observed by Mr L. in his second Book against Mr S. I will set down his words and seriously commend them to the consideration of our religious Reformers they are these in answer to Mr S. his Question Qu. What are the maintenance of Ministers by Tithes Jewish and Popish undenyably Ans. How Jewish and Popish undeniably As undeniably as the Sabbath was Jewish when the Prelates so called it or the article of the Trinity Popish as Valentinus Gentilis took it when he disliked the doctrine of the Reformed Churches in that point because they agreed with the Papists therein You are grossely mistaken Sir in the tenure of Tithes for though there be a clamour taken up against them by such as make no scruple either of slander or of sacriledge and some would change the Ministers portion which is their masters wages for his own work and reduce them to voluntary pensions of the people because they would have a liberty to begger them wâ—â— will not humour them in their fond and false opinions and licentious practises but oppose them as of conscience they are bound to doe neither you nor all your party can prove them either Iewish or Popish as they are allowed and received for the maintenance of the Ministers of England And because you are so confident in your opinion against Tithes and shew your self to have a good opinion of Mr Nye whom with Mr Goodwin you cite for a worthy saying touching the golden Ball of Government I refer you for satisfaction to him who will tell you as he hath done divers others in my hearing that Ministers of the Gospel may hold and receive Tithes for their maintenance by a right and title which is neither Jewish nor Popish but truly Christian and there is nothing