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church_n	bishop_n	rome_n	western_a	2,687	5	10.7771	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B05097	Hierosulias mastix, or A scourge of sacriledge: in answer to a pamphleter calling himself Anthony Pearson, concerning The great case of tythes. Wherein many gross fallacies and untruths of the pamphleter are discovered and convinced. / By Joh. Reading, once a student in Magdalen Hall in Oxford.	Reading, John, 1588-1667.	1661 (1661)	Wing R447A; ESTC R182394	73,792	98

Again in the writing of the history of the Creation Moses mentioneth not the Creation of Angels What will you say that Angels were not created because in Moses writings we read not of their Creation Nay but Moses saith Gen. 2.1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them You may say and that truly in that general word all are comprehended the particulars though not nominalitèr and expresly named for indeed omne or totum est extra quod nihil est and why I demand where the Apostle saith Gal. 6.6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things that is in all his goods for he would not teach any to offer è rapina holocaustum to rob others to pay his teacher and why may not the Apostles all comprehend the unspecified particulars Tythes and Offerings as well as Moses all comprehendeth unspecified Angels By this it appears how feeble your main argument is to prove no use or practise of payment of Tythes because we read them not commanded or paid in express words in the New Testament and seldome in ancient councels of the first age of the Church yet ye will not deny Tythes expresly specified and paid Heb. 7. Abraham paid Tythes or gave a tenth of all to Melchisedech pag. 5. Of Ambrose you say But his authority he produceth wholly from Moses writings And would you desire better authority then Moses writings which Christ the Lord of the Prophets citeth See whither blind zeal precipitates men But you say They imposed their own opinion with so heavy Penalties How were they their own opinions if from the Law given to the Israelites they take as you confess their whole Doctrine 2 Pet. 1.19 St. Peter would teach you better That no prophesie of the Scripture is of any private interpretation But h ly men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And what say these men of God as to this matter more or less then God spake by the Prophets Moses and Malachi Ye are cursed with a Curse Deut. 33.11 Mal. 3. ye have robbed me in Tythes and Offerings pag. 6. You say Tythes Easter Pentecost Now for another sigary Our question is concerning Tythes What are Easter and Pentecost to that Will he not bring the Poles Artick and an-Arcick together if he please But you say It was not a general received Doctrine that Tythes ought to be paid Nor as it seems by you is it now it sufficeth us that the devouter sort as your self confess gave Tenths or greater parts of their annual encrease And who knowes not that the better part of the people is very seldome the greater You say Fathers Popes Bishops Praesto pretty Legerdemain you shuffle in Popes hoping as it seems in that company to render Fathers and Bishops odious to the vulgar but if we consider the original of that name Papa was once a name of honour and reverence importing only Patrem Patriae a father of the Country and so was it long used in the better part as Cypriano Papae Cyprian l 2. ep 7. 16. l. 3. ep 11 12. so ad Cornelium Papam This use of that name continued until after the time of Gregory the last of the good Roman Bishops and the first of the bad When Boniface 3. obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the Church of Rome should be called Caput omnium Ecclesiarum which his predecessor Gregory gave for the mark of Antichrist or his fore-runner then was his Seat quickly exalted to Supremacie not only above all Bishops of the Western Churches but also to a claim of Superiority over Kings Princes and People hence the name Papa Pope began to fall into an odium with all those who received not the marke of the beast Rev. 13. But if Popes did in any thing declare or determine Truth and Equity would you eo nomine reject it Remember that the Pharisees Scribes sitting in Moses Chair though bitter enemies to the Person and Doctrine of Christ were to be heard Yea If the devil confess Christ to be the Son of the most high would you reject it as devilish Nay but consider that though the Devil spake it it is the truth of God which when Satan uttereth he speaks not his own God hath so over-ruled some wicked men as to make them instrumental to that eminent good which he who can do nothing but good fore-ordained to do by them See it in the example of Judas the high Priests Herod and Pontius Pilat Act. 4.27 28. You say None of the first 8 general Councils of the Church did so much as mention the name of Tythes While none contradicted there was no cause why they should speak of them yet were the issue and determination of your controversie put upon antiquity we could say enough thereof We can prove that Tythes are more ancient then the law of Moses who shews that Abraham paid them and you cannot shew them taken away by any law of God why general Councels did not make Canons for them Agobardus cited by Mr. S●lden some give this reason Nulla enim compulit necessitas fervente ubique religiosa devotione c. indeed the actual payment of Tythes was not exacted in the infancy of the Church of Christ but respited until the greater interests of Faith and Obedience to the Gospel were setled in a Church constituted yet Paul sheweth that there was much due unto him in respect of his Ministry 1 Cor. 9. but concluded that he had not used that liberty but as the time and present condition of the Gospel required suffered all things that he might not hinder the propagation thereof and that he might stop the mouths of backbiters Add hereto that there appeared more probability that men of the world and Pagans would more readily entertain the truth which cost them nothing and when the Ministers could not be suspected to preach for gain honor or any selfishness but only for their auditors Salvation That which you say That Tythes were never so much as named in the first 8 general Councels makes nothing against their right yet you may know that though we avow not the Canons attributed to the Apostles to be indeed the children of those fathers yet that the first of them are very ancient and neer the Apostles times it may appear in that Dionysius exiguus who lived within 400 years of the Apostles translated them out of the Greek and received long before in the Eastern Church Sr. Henry Spelmans large work of Tythes c. 20. of which City you may see Plin. lib. 3. c. 1. Stra. lib. 3. c. Bin. To. 4. See thereof the fifth Canon likewise the Council Agrippinense is cited Anno 356. Decreeing that Tythes should be called Dei census Gods rent The Concilium Hispalense or Spalense as Garsias citeth it held about the time of Gregory 1. about the year 603. in a

And that this Charter might be immortal and like the sanctified things of the Temple forever inviolable It was not only fortified by the Kings Seal the sacred anchor of the Kingdome but by his solemn Oath and the Oath of his Son and the Nobility of the Kingdom yea the whole Kingdom yielded themselves to stand accursed if they should at any time after impeach this grant and therefore in the 25 Edward 1. a special Statute was made for confirmation of this Charter wherein among other things it is ordained that the Bishops shall excommunicate the breakers thereof and the very form of the sentence is there prescribed according to which upon the 13 Mai. An. 1304. Edward 1. Boniface the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and five other Bishops solemnly denounced this curse in Westminster-Hall the King himself with a great part of the Nobility being present First against all them that should willingly and malitiously deprive or spoile Churches of their rites Secondly Against those that by any art or device infringed the liberties of the Church or Kingdom granted by magna Charta Thirdly Against those that should make new Statutes against the Articles of these Charters c. And now consider you that have English hearts to love and pity your Country what these Pamphleters aim at who lay stumbling blocks before the people that they may bring the curse upon this Nation which must inevitably come upon it if sacrilegious hands be permitted to take away the Churches rites for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Mal. 3. If Tythes had no other ground but only the laws of Princes and that they were not before the enacting of those laws and solemn dedications due yet consider 1. What came to Ananias and Saphira Act. 5.4 c. the Apostle told him that whilst the land remained in his hands it appertained unto him as a true proprietor and when is was sold and in money that was also his own it was then arbitrary and he might have otherwise disposed of it but when he had given it to the advancement and service of the Gospel he made it sacred and all due to God and his assignes and therefore keeping back any part thereof he lyed to God and if it were sacriledg to take away any part of that which had been dedicated to holy uses by a mans own donation and dedication of the whole What is it to rob and take away from the Church that which God his self hath dedicated and consecrated to the same suppose in money glebe or other land given toward the maintenance of Gods worship or Tythes on which came also a second bond by the Vow Oath and free-will offering of the whole body of a republick in the representative thereof consisting of King Nobles Clergy and Commons lawfully assembled in Parliament But some say though our former Kings and Parliaments were bound by their vow and dedication of Tythes or Lands given to the Church or Churches because they lifted up their hands to God to give the same what is that to us very much for lawfull vows of fathers descend and are obligatory to their Children and posterity and so in the blessing to the performers as we may see in the example of the Rechaebites Jer. 35.18 19. and in the curse to the violaters of the same therefore because Joshua and the Princes of Israel though deceived by the Gibeonites a people among the rest of the Canaanites devoted by Gods own commandment to destruction had lifted up their hands to God to spare them alive they were bound by their Oath so to do and so were their Children to succeeding Generations So that when Saul after many Generations out of a perverse zeal slew them 2 Sam. 21 1 2. God punished that fact even in Davids reign Three years year after year there came a famine upon Israel until it was revenged on the family of Saul Many instances of Gods justice in this kind neer us of eminent great and honorable families utterly ruined the main cause to men appearing being sacriledg impropriating Tythes and laying into their own hands those destructive morsels of gl●be and other lands formerly dedicated with a solemn curse in the Acts of Mortmain might hereto be added even from Henry 8. who before his giving away Tythes and things consecrated to Gods worship unto impropriators hands prosperous in an hopefull issue yet as to posterity that doom was determined which was pronounced by the Prophet Jeremiah on Coniah Write this man Childless Jer 22.30 The curse so many years before solemnly and publickly imprecated came upon divers of our principal Nobility and other illustrious Families and still doth whose names I spare only I hint this that all whom it concerns may be warned to disgorge those sacred morsels which they yet hold lest they prove destructive to them and theirs and that the Reader may at once perceive of what validity all the rest of the like arguments are wherewith this Pamphleter and his associates endeavour to puzzle the minds of illiterate readers and that all may consider what severe whips God yet holdeth over those who hunger for sacred morsels You know the embleme the Eagle snatching up a piece of flesh from the Alter to carry up to her nest of young ones with it carried a coal of fire cleaving to the flesh which consumed the nest and destroyed the whole air But you say Some of our famous Reformers pag. 14. did in their days bear their Testimony against Tythes c. I answer first I conceive that you call them famous reformers ironically and by way of irrision Next I say whatever they or the Bohemians by you cited speak against Tythes is of no more value then mans testimony against Gods Ordinance Lastly that one Bernard saw not all it is no wonder the most learned know but in part now that the sun from the rising appears not in his full light at once none can rationally wonder and why should we that the reformation was not perfected all at once You say In your following heads of recapitulation He will find the knowledg of those things which be needfull Yes no doubt to confirm him in your errour but there can be no necessity of sinning Tythes you say were paid to the Levites that did the common services of the Tabernacle c. how the payment of Tythes to Ministers succeeds the payment of Tythes to the Levites you say we had need to consider We consider the Apostles rule 1 Cor. 9.13 14. which is They which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temp●● and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Secondly we consider that Melchisedech received Tythes in the figure of Christ the King of Righteousness and Peace and that Tythes are due to Christ and his assignes the Ministers of the Gospel not