out of the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the People of the Jews the Jesuits and Popish Priests who marched freely abroad not only preaching but printing and dispersing no lesse then 19. grosse Popish Books in defence of their Religion and condemning ours for Heresie whiles I their chief oppugner was shut up so close in three remote Castles that I could neither write against nor discover their Plots to undermine our Church State Religion nor yet send Letters to my Imprisoners to demand my liberty unless I would first give Copies of them to my Gardians and then trust them to send them when and by whom they pleased nor have admission to thy publick Ordinances for above two years space In thankfull Commemoration of which my late and great deliverance from this Aegyptian Bondage I do here presume in all humility to prostrate at thy feet and Dedâ—cate to thee the Great GAOLE-DELIVERING PRISONER-LOOSING GOD who saiest to the Prisoners GOE FORTH and to them that are in darknesse SHEVV YOUR SELVES this mean and unworthy Gospel Plea for the lawfulnesse and continuance of the Antient setled Maintenance and Tithes of thy Ministers of the Gospel reserved to and by thy self AS THY DEVOTED PORTION DEBT DUE whereof many now by FRAUD and VIOLENCE endeavour Sacrilegiously TO ROB BOTH THEE and THEM as the first fruits of my enlargement a Second EBENEZER Hitherto hath the Lord HELPED ME and a lasting Monument to Posterity of my gratitude and thankfulness to thee my God for my late restitution to so much Liberty and Freedom as to be able thus once more publickly to plead thine own and thy Ministers cause against Jesuits Anabaptists Quakers and all other open Oppugners Subverters of our Church State and secret Underminers of the true Preachers and Preaching of the Gospel who now like Gebal Ammon Amalek Edom Ismael Moab the Hagarens Philistines Inhabitants of Tyre and armed Assur of old have consulted together with one consent and are confederate against thee and have said Come and let us cut them off from being a Nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance Beseeching thy Majesty most graciously to accept it most powerfully to protect and so effectually to blesse prosper it and thy servant against all these combined Confederates that they may be no way able to resist thy Truth Wisdom Spirit appearing pleading in it by it but either like convicted Seducers or Seduced persons fall down flat on their faces before it worship thee and report that God is in it and in thy servant of a truth Or in case of wilfull malicious obstinacy against thee and thy faithfull Ministers Houses of publick worship Truth and Gospel Do unto them as unto the Midianites as to Sisera and to Jabin at the brook of Kison which perished at Endor and became as dung for the earth Make their Nobles like Oreb and Zeeb yea make all their Princes as Zebah and as Salmunna who said as these do now LET US TAKE TO OUR SELVES THE HOUSES OF GOD IN POSSESSION O my God make them as a wheel as the stubble before the wind As the fire burneth the wood and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire so persecute them with thy tempest and make them afraid of thy storm fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name O Lord let them be confounded and troubled for ever yea let them be put to shame and perish That men these men may know that thou whose name alone is JEHOVAH art the most high over all the earth So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever we will shew forth thy Praise to all generations And thy servant Davids resolution Whiles I live will I praise the Lord I will sing praises unto my God WHILE I HAVE ANY BEING shall through thy Grace be both the Resolution and Practice of Swainswick 1 Sep. 1653. Thy unworthy unprofitable Redeemed Preserved and frequently enlarged Servant and Vassal William Prynne To the unprejudiced Christian Reader KInd Reader the 80. Psal in my weak judgement is both a lively Character of the deplorable condition of Gods Church of late years and likewise a most excellent Morning and Evening Prayer for it in publick or private The Psalmist thus complains That God by the OPPRESSING SWORD of combined enemies as Psa 83. imports had broken down his Churches hedges so that all they that passed by the way did pluck her the Boar out of the forrest did waste it and the wild beasts OF THE FIELD devour it The antient hedges of the Church here planted and spread in our Nation to wit Gods divine protection and Law the Patronage Rights Franchises Privileges Immunities granted confirmed to our Churches by the manifold great Charters Lawes Statutes of such bountifull devout Kings and Queens as God himself predicted should be NURSING FATHERS and NURSING MOTHERS UNTO HIS CHURCH under the Gospel and bring their Glory and Honour to it and Kings of Iles amongst others having been of late years very much broken down and almost levelled to the dust by arbitrarie Committees Sequestrations and the oppressing all-devouring Sword of War which God hath kept so long unsheathed without returning into the Scabberd these many years for the just punishment of our manifold sins and enormities all they that go by the way or in by-wayes taking advantage thereof have so plucked and the wilde-boares out of the wood and wilde-men and wilde-beasts of the field have so wasted devoured the best and richest part of our Churches Patrimony originally designed by the Parliament by a special Bill tendered to the late King at Oxford April 1643. when Arch-bishops Bishops Deans and Chapters were first voted down and extirpated as none of our Heavenly fathers plants or planting for the encrease of the Crown-Revenues to ease the people in their future Taxes and the Augmentation of our Ministers Maintenance and incompetent livings that there is little or none of it now remaining undevoured by them for either of these two publick ends And many new highway men wilde-boares and Beasts as well as old encouraged by former rich Church-plunders in stead of imitating faithfull Abraham whose heirs and children they professe themselves who gave THE TENTH OF ALL HIS SPOYLS OF WARRE to Melchisedec Priest of the most high God a type of our Saviour Christ if not Christ himself as some probably assert they most eagerly and violently attempt to spoyl plunder all the Evangelical Priests and Ministers of God throughout the Nation at one blow without any lawfull Tryal by their Peers due processe of Law or Legal conviction of any Capital crimes which cannot forfeit their Churches inheritance which is not so vested in them as either to forfeit or alien by the Law of God or the Realm of all their inconsiderable remaining Tithes Glebes and setled antient Maintenance and of their very Ministry too as JEWISH and ANTICHRISTIAN as John Canne the old Anabaptist
sacrilegiously attempt to rob God himself and plunder his faithfull Ministers of this their ancient just hereditary sacred setled Maintenance to which our Ministers have a far ancienter better Right Title by all Laws of God and Man than they have to their new acquired Purchases and Powers established setled on them by particular Donors and Benefactors out of their own private Inheritances and Estates not the Republicks which neither the Patrons themselves nor any others nor yet the Ministers themselves can alienate from the Church as their own consciences judgements must acknowledge unlesse strangely cauterized Let them and Canne answer to that Soveraign Judge of all the Earth who will probably judge them here and shall certainly judge them eternally hereafter for all such detestable Robberies and violent Rapines if wilfully perpetrated and persevered in without repentance after timely admonition who can quickly strip both them and theirs naked of all their temporal Powers Honours Possessions Enjoyments as he did Jeroboam and his Sonnes for their turning the Priests and Levites out of their Possessions and King Ahab with his Family for seising upon Naboths Vineyard in a violent and unrighteous manner though coloured over to delude the people with an hypocritical Fast and feigned legal proceedings 1 Kings 21. We read it recorded of our Saviour Luke 12.13 14. that when one of the company said unto him Master speak to my brother that he divide the Inheritance with me He returned him this answer Man who made me a Iudge or Divider over you Let every person now sollicited by croaking Anabaptists Jesuits Quakers Souldiers or others not only to judge and divide but utterly to abolish and take away our Ministers necessary Maintenance not unnecessary Abbots or Prelates Lordly superfluities long since dissipated by Glebes and Tithes return them the self-same answer lest Christ himself at the last day condemn them for over-bold intruders into such a Supream Jurisdiction over his and his Ministers Rights and Callings too as neither God nor Man ever yet conferred on them God himself prohibiting the sale alienation substraction of his Priests and Levites necessary Glebes Tithes and by consequence of our Ministers as I have formerly observed and further informing all his that it is a snare to a man to devour holy things and after Vows to make enquiry Prov. 20.25 But of this second Argument enough the Negative part whereof I shall prove more fully hereafter by way of answer to an Objection 13. I shall make good the Proposition by arguments drawn from the New Testament it self which no wayes contradicts but confirms the lawfullness of Tithes This I have already proved from Heb. 7.1 to 12. to which I shall refer the Reader and proceed to other Texts I shall begin with Mat. 23.23 24. Luke 11.42 Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye pay Tithes of Mint and Annise and Cummin and all manner of Herbs and have omitted the weightier things of the Law Judgement Mercy and Faith and the love of God These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone Ye blind Guides which strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel In which words our Saviour himself though he denounceth a Woe against the Hypocritical Pharisees in beeing just and carefull in paying Tithes even of Herbs and Seeds of all sorts of meanest value and yet in the mean time neglecting works of Righteousness in matters of greater worth of Charity towards man and of Faith and Love toward God himself straining at a Gnat and swallowing a Camel yet he positively resolves that they ought not to omit the due and conscientious payment even of these lesser Tithes of smallest value much lesse then of their Corn Wine Oyl Flocks Herds which were of greater worth And if the Scribes and Pharisees were no Saints but Hypocrites for omitting these weightier duties though they paid these smallest Tithes what are these Anabaptistical and other Sectarian Scribes and Pharisees who not only against all Rules of Justice and Charity towards men but of Faith and Love to God which they even renounce rob God and his Ministers not onely of all their own Tithes small as well as great but of those Tithes which others would willingly pay them and endevour totally to deprive them of those small Rectories Glebes they yet enjoy and of their Ministry too and when they have stript them stark naked of all they have would eat their very flesh and burn them with fire Certainly such are worser and greater Hypocrites than the Scribes and Pharises pretending Conscience it self for their most unconscionable dealing in this kinde Such mens throats are so wide that they can swallow not only Camels but whole Rectories Churches Steeples with their Lead Timber Bells Stone to say no more for a Breakfast all Tithes in two or three Parishes and throughout the Land for a Dinner and the publick Lands Revenues of the Crown which should defray all ordinary publick charges for the peoples ease for a Supper that they may be Supreme and every one of them like our Saviour Christ himself both a Priest Prophet and a King executing a Plurality of these three and other Offices and their Callings too all at once to enrich themselves faster than all other men This Text was much insisted on by John Hus to prove Tithes under the Gospel to be pure Alms coupling it with the former verse Luke 11.41 But rather give Alms of such things as you have and behold all things are clean unto you But certainly the Text it self proves that this referrs only to the washing mentioned in the precedent verses not to this subsequent clause concerning their payment of Tithes never stiled Almes in any Text and recorded by Matthew as a distinct Woe and Sentence of it self without any mention of Almes in the Antecedent or Subsequent verses and John Hus himself together with Augustine Chrysostom Hierom and Aquinas there cited by him from hence conclude That Tithes are lawfull under the Gospel as well as alms forsomuch as the Gift thereof unto the Priest did not cease in the time of Christ and Saint Augustine in his 219 Sermon of Paying Tithes presseth the payment of them under the Gospel as a Duty by many enforcing arguments before any Popes Decretals for payment of them or that we now call Popery was known in the world Saint Ambrose before him doing the like In Sermâ—ne Quadragesimae cited by Gratian Causa 16. qu. 7. and St. Cyprian before them both Which had John Canne either known or considered he would not with so much mistaken Ignorance and Impudence have damned Tithes as POPISH c. And the pleading for them as a pleading for Babylon and for BAAL in his New Second Voice from the Temple of Babylon or Baal which he pleaseth not of Old or New Jerusalem The next Gospel Text I shall cite is that of Gal. 6.6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate to him that
all humane Laws and Penalties so long as they wear their swords by their sides for defrauding our Ministers of their lawfull Tithes and Dues let them then chew the cudd upon this Evangelical Precept backed with the strongest coercive power both in Heaven and Earth 1 Thes 4.6 Let no man go beyond or defraud his brother much less then his Minister in any thing therefore not in Tithes due by Divine and humane Right mark the reason Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such things as we have forewarned and testified And what vengeance God will take of such who defraud their Brethen and Ministers of their debts and necessitate them to sue them at the Law to recover their Rights he resolves in the 1 Cor. 6 7 to 11. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because you go to Law to wit before Heathen Judges or without just cause one with another the greatest if not only fault being in the Defrauder and Detainer why do ye not rather take wrong why do ye not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded Nay why do you wrong and defraud and that your Brethren and which is more rob your Ministers yea but what harm or punishment will follow on it Mark it O all ye Saint-seeming Hypocrites who are guilty of it Know ye not That the unrighteous who thus wrong and defraud their Brethren and Ministers which is worse shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither Theeves nor covetous and such are all those who rob and defraud their Ministers of their Tithes and Duties shall not inherit the Kingdom of God no more than Fornicators Idolaters c. with whom they are here coupled Let all those then who are guilty of this damning sin which disinherits them of Gods Kingdom now seriously repent and reform it with all such who have abetted or confederated with them herein that so I may adde with the Apostle in the next words And such were some nay all of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God And now to cloze up this Chapter I shall desire all Anti-Tithers who have already in their heady Resolutions resolved to abolish not only all our Ministers Tithes and antient Dues established by the Lord himself in the Old and New Testament with all the forecited Laws Statutes Ordinances for the true and due payment of them but all other coercive maintenance for their future subsistence if not their very Rectories Glebes and Fabricks of our Churches devoted for a prey by divers sadly and seriously to consider these ensuing particulars 1. That herein they shall shew themselves not only worse by thousands of Degrees than our forementioned Kings and Queens who built and endowed our Churches with Glebes Tithes and a liberal Maintenance and worse than the most of all their Ancestors Protestants or Papists who have hitherto continued confirmed established them by successive Laws but even worse than the worst of Turks and Infidels who alwaies heretofore and at this very day have and do allow their Mahometan and Pagan Idolatrous Priests in all places a liberal competent setled Salarie and erect magnificent Temples to Mahomet and their Idols exceeding most of our fairest Christian Churches both for beauty and number as you may read at large in Pulchas Pilgrimage Alexander ab Alexandro Hospinian De Origine Templorum and others And to give you one instance for all There are no lesse than 700 Moschees or Saracinical Temples in Fesse a Mahometan City in Barbary the chief whereof is Carven being a full mile and an half in compasse It hath 31 Gates great and high the Roof is 150 yards long and 80 broad the Steeple very high the Ornaments rich and stately Round about it are divers Porches containing 40 yards in length and 30. in breadth About the Walls are Pulpits of divers sorts wherein the Masters and Priests of their Law read to the People such things as they think pertain to their Salvation The Revenue of this Temple alone Anno 1526. was no lesse than 200. Duckets a day of old rents The chief Church in Morocco is bigger though not altogether so fair as that of Fesse and hath a Tower so high that the Hills of Azâ—fi being 120. miles distance may be seen from thence as Leo Purchas and Heylin write These Temples and others are adorned with marble Pillars and curious Mosaicks carved works of all sorts Their Priests and Readers of the Law have a liberal Stipend with Books and lands likewise allowed them and are had in very high estimation and Reverence both with their Kings Magistrates People the Califfs there receiving likewise the tenth Measure of Corn yearly from the People Besides which Tenths they have many Colleges and Schools of Learning very Majestically built and richly endowed Those therefore who pretend themselves Saints of the highest New-form and yet would deface the beautifull Churches our pious Ancestors erected for Gods worship strip our Ministers naked of all Glebes Tithes setled Maintenance so as they shall not be able to live comfortably and provide for their Families have in truth denyed the Faith and are worse than these Turks and Infidels 1 Tim. 5.8 2ly That hereby they shall make both our Religion and Nation to stink in the Nostrils of all forein Protestant Churches Papists Turks Infidels who by the very light of Nature have condemned Sacrilege and Church Robbers Acts 19.37 Give extraordinary advantage to Jesuites Papists and other Atheistical Seducers to reduce the People either to Popery or mere Atheism Give all the Enemies of God and our Religion occasion both to rejoyce and blaspheme and extraordinarily scandalize and grieve the hearts of all true Godly Ministers and Protestants really affected to our Religion throughout our three Nations 3ly That they will herein exceed all our late suppressed Prelates and their High Commission Courts in Tyranny Cruelty Injustice by undoing all or most of our Godly Ministers and their Families at one fatal blow instead of relieving them in their present Necessities under which many of them sadly groan by depriving them of their Livelihood without any legal Conviction of the least crime but only that they are Ministers of the Gospel and receive Tithes and thereby draw upon their Heads not only the cryes and clamours of these oppressed ones here with all the formentioned Curses and judgements denounced against Tith-Detainers but also that sad irrevocable sentence of Condemnation before Christs Tribunal at the last day Matth. 25.41 Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels for I was hungry and ye gave me no Meat I was thirsty and ye gave me no Drink I was not a Stranger but your Minister and ye took me not in but cast me and mine out of those Rectories and Benefices your Ancestors gave and setled on me
naked and ye cloathed me not nay stripped me naked of all my cloathing and Livelihood and would neither relieve nor maintain me your selves nor permit others to do it in an antient legal way And then what can you answer or to whom can you resort for protection from this inevitable just Charge and Doom of Damnation for all eternity 4ly Consider seriously the exemplarie punishment executed upon Ananias and Saphyra Acts 5.1 c. with that fearfull judgement of retaliation denounced against all plundering Enemies of the Church of Christ Isay 33.1 Wo unto thee that spoylest and thou wast not spoyled and dealest treacherously and they dealt not treacherously with thee when thou ceasest to spoyl thou shalt be spoyled and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously they shall deal treacherously with thee Seconded by Obadiah 15. As thou hast done it shall be done unto thee thy reward shall return upon thine own head And if any fondly conceit as many do that the Swords and Power of an Army shall bear them out against the Lord of Hosts himself let them consider that of Psal 33.16 There is no King saved by the multitude of an Host themselves have seen it by late experience neither is any mighty man delivered by great strength Jeroboam the Idolatrous Usurper had an Army of no lesse than eight hundred thousand chosen men to make good his usurped Title against Abijah Davids right Heir yet when he had cast out the Priests of the Lord from their Suburbs and Possessions and made him Priests for his Calves of the lowest of the people he was vanquished by a far smaller Army and no lesse than five hundred thousand of his forces slain in one dayes battel and the Lord soon after smote him that be dyed 2 Chron. 13 Oreb Zeba and Salmunna the Princes and Generals of the Midianites when they entred into the Land of Israel to destroy it had an Army like unto Grashoppers for multitude and they and their Camels were without number Judges 6.5 6. Yet when they said Let us take to our selves the Houses of God in possession they were totally routed by Gideon and his 300. men having only Trumpets and Lamps and perished at Endor and became as dung for the earth Judg. 7. 8. Psal 83.9 10 11 12. Senacherib invaded Judah with a victorious and numerous Army above treble the Number to any Army in our daies Yet when he trusted to the strength of his Army and bid defiance to the God of Heaven as those do now who oppugn and spoil his Ministers of their inheritance God sent his avenging Angell which cut off all the mighty men of valour and the Leaders and the Captains and one hundred fourscore and five thousand of his souldiers in one night and when they arose early in the morning behold they were all dead corps so he returned with shame of face into his own land and when he was come into the house of his God his own Sonnes that came out of his own bowels slew him there with the sword 2 Kings 19.35 36 37. 2 Chron. 32.21 The two proud surly Captains with the fifty armed troopers at their heels who came in a violent manner but to fetch down Elijah the man of God from an hill to King Ahaziah were destroyed with fire from Heaven and the third Captain only saved who fell on his knees before him and besought him for his own and his fifties lives and used him like a man of God without any rudeness or plunder 2 Kings 1.9 10 c. To lesson all souldiers and Captains now to reverence Gods Ministers and do his Prophets no harm in their Persons Callings or Estates Else he who rebuked Kings and miraculously slew those Captains and their Troopers for their sakes will avenge their quarel now as well as in former ages And if former victories and successes have and do puff them so far up with pride or security as to think they may now reduce our Ministers like Conquered vassals to such poverty as to enforce and make them eat the very crumbs under their Tables insteed of feeding at their own let them remember that one memorable President wherewith I have quelled many usurping souldiers of the greatest Conqueror and Abuser of Kings I ever yet read off in the world and Gods retaliation upon him for his Tyranny and inhumanity after the Conquest of no less then 70. Kings and who now living hath conquered the tenth part of that number thus recorded to all Posterity Judg. 1.5 6 7. And Iudah fought against Adonibezeck in Bezeck and they slew the Canaanites and Perazites And Adonibezeck fled and they pursued after him and caught him and cut off his Thumbs and great Toes And Adonibezeck said threescore and ten Kings having their thumbs and great toes cut off have gathered their meat under my Table As I have done so God hath requited me and they brought him to Ierusalem and there he died It is very dangerous for any Conquerers to make ill Presidents of Tyranny or Rapine because they have power in their hands to do it Mark what a Wo and judgement God denounceth against such Mich. 2.1 2 3 4 Wo to them that devise iniquity upon their beds when the morning is come they practise it Because it is in the power of their hand And they covet fields and they take them by violence and houses and take them away So they oppress a man and his house even a man and his heritage Nay Ministers now and their Heritage as well as other mens But mark what follows immediately Therefore thus saith the Lord Behold against this family do I devise an evil from whence they shall not remove their necks neither shall they be hauty for this time is evil In that day shall one take up a Parable against you and lament with a dolefull lamentation and say we be utterly spoiled He hath changed the portion of my people as some now would change our Ministers How hath he removed it from me turning away Lord It is most perilous for any by meer Arbitrary Votes will and violence to seiz on change divide any other mens lands houses inheritances especially Gods Ministers it will prove as bad as a cup of poison to them they shall vomit them up again with a vengeance And though their excellency mount up to the Heavens and their Head unto the Clouds yet their triumphing shall be but short and their joy but for a moment They shall perish for ever as their own dung They which have seen them shall say Where are they They shall fly away as a dream and shall not be found The eyes which saw them shall see them no more neither thall their place any more behold them mark the reason because they have oppressed and violently taken away an House which they builded not Job 20.4 to 20. How much more the Houses Glebes Tithes of God and his Ministers Let this sad consideration then