all Jesuites and Seminary Priests as Traytors restored the exiled Ministers of the Gospel suffering for Religion rewarding them with the richest Bishopricks and Church-Preferments and planting a faithfull painfull preaching Ministry by degrees in most dark corners of her Dominions endowed them with a setled competent maintenance which our subsequent Protestant Kings continued to them and their Successors without diminution All which considered we of this Isle may with much thankfulnesse to God and honour to our Princes without flattery averr before all the world That the forecited Prophecies of Kings being Nursing-Fathers and Queens Nursing-Mothers to the Church and specially Kings and Queens of this Isle have been more really accomplished in the Kings and Queens of this our Island than in the Kings and Queens of any other Isle Kingdom or Nation whatsoever throughout the world and God grant that those who shall succeed them in any other New-modelled-form of Government may not prove such Step-Fathers and Step-Mothers to our Churches and Ministers as to demolish the one and strip the other quite naked of all that former Livelihood and remaining small Revenues which they yet enjoy by our Princes Grants Gifts Charters Laws and Favours only and thereby give all Godly Ministers and people too in our Nation just cause to cry out with wringed hands weeping eyes and bleeding hearts in the Prophets words Hosea 10.3 4. For now they shall say We have no King because we feared not the Lord What then should a King do to us or amongst us They have spoken words Swearing falsely in making a Covenant Thus Iudgement springeth up as Hemlock one of the deadliest Poysons to destroy men in the fields Or else to speak in Solomons language to the same effect Prov. 28.2 For the transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof as our Land had never so many Transgressions and Princes too as now But by a Man of Vnderstanding and Knowledge and where is such a one to be found to stand up in a Gap the state thereof shall be prolonged Now the Lord raise up such a Man or Men lest God say to our Nation and all Grandees in Power as he did once to the prophane wicked Prince of Israel whose day was come Ezech. 21.25 26 27. Remove the Diadem and take off the Crown this shall not be the same Exalt him that is Low and abase him that is High I will overturn overturn overturn Church State Laws and it shall be no more untill he come whose Right it is and I will give it him To prevent these treble fatal over-turnings with the wiping and turning of our Jerusalem UPSIDE DOWN like a Dish a certain Fore-runner of a Churches Nations ruine 2 Kings 21.13 Psal 146.9 I shall now in the last place present the whole Nation with a brief Catalogue of those manifold Laws Statutes which our Kings have successively made in their Great Councils and Parliaments almost from the very first establishment of Religion in our Island for the due payment of Ministers Tithes by coercive Means Forfeitures Penalties in case of willfull detaining or neglect in paying all or any part of them at the times appointed which those who please may peruse in Chronicon Johannis Brompton Mr. Lambards Archaion Sir Henry Spelmans Councils Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments John Bridges his Defence of the Government of the Church of England Book 16. p. 1350. Our Statutes at large and Mr. Rastals Abridgement of Statutes Title Tithes which Laws being well known to most learned men are therefore needlesse fully to transcribe The first of them is the forecited Law Decree of the Council of Calcuth under King Oswald and Offa An. 787. of famous King Alfred Anno 887. of King Alfred and Gutburn the Dane cap. 9. De Decimis Deo Debitis about the year 890. of King Edward the elder and Guthurn Anno 905. or 906. as some Cap. 6. in some c. 9. DE DECIMIS ET CENSU ECCLESIAE RETENTIS of King Aethelstan made in the famous Council of Gratelean An. 928. cap. 1. DE DECIMIS REDDENDIS tam ex Animalibus quam de fructibus terrae which this King himself duly paid and then enjoyned all his great Officers and People duly to render of King Edmond An. 944. c. 2. concluding Qui non solverit ANATHEMA ESTO Of famous King Edgar Anno 967. c. 3. DE DECIMIS Canon 54. of the Kings and Presbyters of Northumberland made a little after that time Lex 51. of King Aethelred An. 1012. c. 1 4. of King Knute the Dane An. 1032. c. 8. but 15. in some Copies De Decimis reddendis c. 11 17. and a Statute law against obstinate Detainers of Tithes there stiled JURA ET DEBITIONES DIVINAE of King Edward the Confessor about the year 1060 confirmed verbatim by William the Conquerour in the fourth year of his Reign c. 8 9. forecited To which may be added the Great Charters of King Henry the first and King John recorded in Matthew Paris ratified by King Henry the 3d. in his Magna Charta c. 11. made in the 9th year of his Reign confirmed by above 37 Acts of Parliament since in many successive Parliaments That the Church of England shall be free now in greater Bondage than ever and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable never so much violated diminished as now notwithstanding all Laws Covenants Declarations Protestations lately and all antient Solemn Curses and Excommunications annually made against the Infringers thereof 13 E. 1. 17 E. 3. 14. 2 H. 4. c. 4. Enacting the Cistertian Monks to pay Tithes to Ministers and Evangelists notwithstanding any Buls of Exemption from the Pope which the King and Parliament declared to be void and that the Promovers or Executors of any such Buls shall be attainted in a Praemunire It appears by the Parliament Roll of 2 H. 4. nu 40. This Act was made upon the Petition of all the Commons which because not extant in print pertinent to the present business of Tithes and unknown to most I shall here transcribe at large May it please our most gracious Lord the King to consider That whereas time out of wind the Religious men of the Order of the Cistercians of your Realm of England have paid all manner of Tithes of their lands tenements possessions let to farm or manured and occupied by other persons besides themselves and of manner of things tithable being and growing upon the same lands tenements and possessions in the same manner as your other Lieges of the said Realm Yet so it is that of late the said Religious have purchased a Bull from our Holy Father the Pope by the which our said Holy Father hath granted to the said Religious That they shall pay no Tithes of their Lands Tenements Possessions Woods Cattel or any thing whatsoever although they are or shall be leased or farmed notwithstanding any Title of Prescription or Right acquired or
That he was worthy for whom he should do this And why so For he loveth our Nation and hath built us a Synagogue Whereupon Jesus went with them and healed his servant marvelling at the Centurions words and turning about and saying unto the people that followed him I have not found so great Faith no not in Israel This great Centurion and Commander was no Jew but a Gentile one who but newly heard of Christs name and same yet he had so much Piety and Bounty as out of his very Spoyls and Gains of Warre for we read of no other Lands or Gains he had to build a Synagogue for Gods worship which the Elders of the Jews and Christ too approved as a worthy act and a sufficient inducement for our Saviour to go with him and cure his servant O that all our Centurions who have Souldiers under them and exceed or equal him in command would imitate and equal this Gospel Centurion in his pious munificence in building in stead of contriving how to deface Temples Churches Synagogues to abolish Tithes ingrosse Church Lands and Livings into their own hands then should they receive as large Encomiums of the reality and transcendency of their Faith Piety Charity from men as he did from our Saviour and the Elders of the Jews for building this new Synagogue I shall only adde for our Souldiers Officers better Information that from this example of Abraham approved in the new Testament both Divines Councils Canonists and Casuists have unanimously resolved That Souldiers ought to pay personal Tithes to Ministers out of their very Militia pay and spoyls of Warr. This was St. Augustines Doctrine DE MILITIA de negotio de artificio redde Decimas recited practised and long prescribed here in England in the excerptions of Egbert Archbishop of Yorke about the year of our Lord 750. repeated confirmed by Gratian in his Decrees Causa 16. qu. 1. f. 381 382 By all the Canonists Glossers on his Text by Angelus de Clavasio in his Summa Angelica Tit. Decima by Hostiensis Summa Rosella and other Summists Casuists in their Titles of Tithes and ratifyed by the Synod of Lingon An. 1404. apud Bochellum Decret Ecclesiae Gallicanae lib. 6. Tit. 8. c. 31. p. 967. This many excellent Christian Commanders Officers Souldiers have in several ages performed as Histories record I shall for brevity instance but in one domestick example and that a memorable one King William the first whom we usually style the Conqueror though he never claimed the Crown by Conquest but only by the last Will Testament and Donation of King Edward the Confessor in his life-time with the assent of his Nobles who was educated with preserved by him during his exile and seclusion from the Crown by the Danish usurpers and as COUSIN and HEIR to Edward the Confessor as he stiled himself in the very Title of his Laws He having vanquished and slain the perjured Vsurper Harold who set the Crown upon his own head and made himself King without any Title or due Election against his solemn Oath to Duke William made to him in Normandy which he pretended to be forced in thankfulnesse to God for this his victory whereby he gained possession of the Crown out of the Spoyls and Gains of his Warr erected a Magnificent Church and Abbey to the glory of God and St. Martin which he called de Bello or Battel Abbey in that very place where Harold was slain and this battel fought which likewise he endowed with large possessions Tithes and most ample Privileges by his Charter and therein offered up to God HIS SWORD and the royal robe which he ware the day of his Coronation there reserved as a Monument as well of his Piety as Victory After which this pretended Conqueror in the fourth year of his reign by the Counsel of his Barons through all the Counties of England caused 12. men of the most Noble wise and skilfullest in the Law to be summoned out of every shire that he might learn their Laws and Customs from them and gave them this Oath That proceeding in a right path without declining to the right hand or the left to the best of their power they should make known to him the Customs and Sanctions of their Lawes pretermitting nothing adding nothing and altering nothing in them by prevarication which they accordingly performing and King William intending to alter the Law only in one particular according to the Lawes of Norway from whence he and his Normans descended all the Barons and Grand English Enquest who presented him their Laws on Oath being much grieved at it unanimously besought him that he would permit them to enjoy their proper Laws and antient Customs under which their Fathers lived and themselves had been born and educated because they deemed it very hard for them to receive unknown Lawes and to judge of those things they knew not importunately beseeching him for the soul of K. Edward WHO HAD GRANTED TO HIM THE CROWN and KINGDOM AFTER HIS DEATH and whose Lawes they were that hee would not compell them to persevere under the Lawes of any Foreiners but their own Country Laws alone Wherefore the King taking advice consented to the request of his Barons confirming all their Lawes and Customs in Parliament without any alteration or diminution as they presented them Whereof this is the very first Law concerning the preservation of the Churches rights and Scholars from rapine Every Clergy-man and likewise all Scholars and all their Goods and Possessions wheresoever they are shall enjoy the Peace of God and of holy Church free from all forfeiture and seisure and if any shall lay hands on that which Mother Church shall require LET HIM RESTORE THAT WHICH HEE SHALL TAKE AWAY and likewise one hundred shillings in the name of a forfeiture if it be from an Abbey or Church of Religion and twenty shillings if it be from a Mother Parish Church and ten shillings if it be from a Chapel After which follow 6. other Lawes concerning the Churches peace and privileges and then these two Laws concerning TITHES Of the TITHES of the Church Of all Corn the tenth Sheaf is given to God and therefore to be paid If any shall have a herd of Mares let him pay the tenth colt he who shall have only one or two let him pay a penny for every colt Likewise he who shall have many Kine let him pay the tenth calf he who shall have but one or two let him pay a penny for every calf and he who shall make cheese let him give the tenth to God and if he shall make none the milk every tenth day Likewise the tenth Lamb the tenth Fleece the tenth Butter the tenth Pig Of BEES and all lesser TITHES In like manner also of Bees the tenth of the profit and also of Wood of Meadows Waters and Mills and Ponds and Fishings and Copses and Orchards and Gardens and Negotiations wherein Souldiery
purposely sent from Rome and the greatest sticklers against our Ministers Tithes and Calling must presently depart and none of them return into the Kingdom as many have lately done or else be executed for Traytors But why so what is their crime work imployment here and by what marks or fruits shall we know discover both them and their confederates Let the words of the Statute compared with all our late troubles changes resolve the ignorant and incredulous that there are many such amongst us and of Iohn Cannes fraternity Whereas divers persons called or professed JESUITES these Canne wittingly conceals though the first in the Bead-roll and therfore is a Felon by the law Seminary Priests and other Priests which have been and from time to time are made in parts beyond the Sea by or according to the Order and Rites of the Church of ROME and when Canne can prove that all or any of our Ministers were thus made as he hath confidently averred in print to those he calls the Higher Powers and Supream Authority of the Nation Let them be hanged for Traitors and Antichristian Ministers in good earnest else let him be hanged in their stead for this his impudent slander of them all as well Independents as Presbyterians Have of late years come and been sent into this Realm of England and were any of our Ministers such and not rather Canne himself coming hither from Amsterdam for the purposes following and other the Queens Dominions OF PURPOSE AS IT HATH APPEARED as well by some of their own examinations now out of date as by divers other Manifest means and proofs more visible of late years than ever not only to withdraw her Highness subjects from their due obedience to her Majesty but also to stir up and move Sedition Râ—bellion and open Hostility within the same her Highness Realms and Dominions to the great endangering of the safety of her most Royal Person and to the utter ruine desolation and overthrow of the whole Realm now effected as a Realm if the same be not the sooner and now pray God it be not over-late by some good means foreseen and prevented For reformation whereof be it ordained c. That All Priests and Jesuits Canne cannot spy such good friends within the Act but deletes them out of it Seminary Priests and other Priests whatsoever made and ordained out of the Realm of England c. shall depart the Realm under the penalties therein mentioned Had Canne pressed this Statute to those he dedicates his Pamphlet for the speedy execution of it against those many Jesuits and Seminary Priests now in England for their traiterous Practices and Designes therein mentioned of late and now driven on and almost compleated by them it had been a commendable zeal but not to write one word or syllable against these Romish Vermine Arch-Engineers and Janizaries of the Romish See now swarming among us to ruine our Protestant Kings Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Church Ministers Ministry Religion and foreign Protestant Kingdoms States Churches now engaged by them in bloody Warres both by Land and Sea and to omit the very name of the Jesuits the first Popish Agents mentioned and chiefly intended in this Act and presse it only against our Ministers Calling Ministry Tithes Maintenance of purpose to ruine them and theirs and by consequence our Church and Religion the Designe and scope of his whole Pamphlet is such a malicious unchristian Antichristian Practice as proclaimes him to all the world either a new converted Jesuit or Romish Factor under the Garb of an old Anabaptist or an over-grown cankered Anabaptist void of Piety Honesty inspired by the very Father of Lyes For not one of our English Ministers I know or hear of except two or three Jesuits and Popish Priests crept into livings in Staffordshire and elsewhere very lately I know not by whose favour or negligence was ever ordained by any such Jurisdiction or authority as is here mentioned which all our Ministers and their Ordainers too whether Prelates or Presbyters particularly and publickly abjured both at the time of their respective Ordinations and admissions to their Benefices and likewise when they took any Degree of learning in our Vniversities by the two known famous Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance purposly made and ratified by sundry zealous Protestant Parliaments against the usurped Papal Jurisdiction and authority of the See of Rome and the Popes Jesuits Papists practices to blow up destroy our Protestant Kings Parliaments Laws Liberties Religion and subvert our Kingly Government whole State and Commonwealth and for the better discovering of them yet lately suspended abrogated as dangerous unlawful Oathes by some of Cannes good friends who would be reputed Zealots against the Popes Iurisdiction and his Creatures too Now how those Ministers of our Church who thus abjure the Iurisdiction of Rome at the time of their very Ordination and their Ordainers too before them and since have done the like in their Solemn League and Covenant can without the highest slander be said to derive their Ministry from it and that by Canne and his Iesuitical Anabaptistical Fraternity who never took one of these Oathes or the Covenant and revile repeal them as unlawful out of love to the Popes Jurisdiction Jesuits Priests their Jesuitical Treasonable Conspiracies Treasons Practices or for want of zeal against them Let the world and this slanderers own Conscience if he have any left now determine Besides who knows not but this Ignoramus that the Rites and Ceremonies of Ordination in the Church of Rome recorded at large in Ceremoniale Pontificiale Pontificum Romanorum and the ends of Ordination likewise viz. to say Masse create their Creator offer up Christ in Sacrifice at the altar to his Father Invocate Saints adore Images yield Canonical obedience to the Pope and his Supremacy c. are far different from the form and ends of our Ministers Ordination in the Church of England prescribed by the Parl. of 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 1. ratified by the Statutes of 1 Eliz. c. 1 2. 5 Eliz. c. 1. 8 Eliz. c. 1. and 39 Eliz. c. 8. made only by Protestant Parliaments which as they particularly condemn renounce the Popes Power and Jurisdiction so they declare and resolve our Ministers Ordination to be lawfull and them in very deed to be Ministers and rightly made ordained and consecrated according to Gods word without any derivative power or Ordination from the Church of Rome Therefore for this New old pander for the Whore of Rome to averre they receive their Ministry and ordination thence is a Notorious Ly. Yea but saith he Francis Mason of Consecration and Mr. Yates in his Modell of Divinity prove and confesse That the Ministry of the Church of England established by the Law of the Land is derived from the Pope and Rome True but in what sense onely by way of Succession as his own Ministry and Faith if he hath any were derived from John of Leyden
peradventure they held the payment of Tithes to Ministers in kind a Divine Moral Duty and in some places and at some times when and where they could did voluntarily pay Tithes as a Duty for their Maintenance without any coercive Laws or Canons upon the bare demand or exhortation of their Ministers by vertue of Gods own Divine Laws as is undeniable by Irenaeus l. 4. c. 34. who records That the Christians in his time being but 180. years after Christ did not give lesse to their Ministers than the Jews did to their Priests by the Law of Moses who received the consecrated TITHES of their people but more Designing omnia quae sunt ipsorum all they had to the Lords use Hilariter ac liberaliter ea quae non sunt minera Giving chearfully and freely those things which were not lesse than Tithes as having greater hope than they And further confirmed by Origen Homil. 11 in Numeros Saint Cyprian lib. 1. Epist 9. De unitate Ecclesiae the words of Saint Augustine Hom. 48. Majores nostri ideo copiis abundabant quia Deo Decimas dabant And the second Council of Mascin An. 586. Can. 5. Leges Divinae Consulentes Sacerdotibus ac Ministris Ecclesiarum pro Haereditaria portione omni populo praeceperunt Decimas fructuum suorum locis sacris praestare ut nullo labore impediti per res illegitimas possint vacare Ministeriis Quas leges Christianorum Congeries legis temporibus custodivit iutemerata Which prove a long continued Custom and Practice of paying Tithes to Ministers as a Divine Right and Duty used amongst Christians long before St. Augustins dayes and this antient Councel And no sooner were the times of Persecution past but the Divine Right of Tithes was asserted pressed and the due payment of them inculcated by St. Hilary Nazianzen Ambrose Hierom Chrysostom Augustine Eusebius Cassian Cyril of Jerusalem Isiodore Pelusiota and Caesarius Arelatensis all flourishing within 500. years after Christ as Dr. Tillesly proves at large And the people during that space paying their Tithes freely without any compulsion in all places there needed neither Laws nor Canons to enforce their payment whence Agobardus writes thus about the year of our Lord 820. when Laws and Canons began to be made for their payment of the precedent times Nulla compulit necessitas fervente ubique religiosa devotione amore illustrandi Ecclesiae ultro aestuante That there was no need of Canons or Laws to compel the payment of Tithes whiles fervent religious Devotion and love of illustrating Churches every where abounded But in succeeding degenerating times when according to Christs prediction the love and zeal of many Christians to God Religion and Ministers began to grow lukewarm and colder than before so as they began to detain their Tithes and Ministers dues then presently Christian Kings and Bishops in Ecclesiastical and Temporal Synods and Councils began generally in all places to make Laws and Canons for the due payment of them declaring in them only the Divine Right Laws and Precepts of God to the People both in the Old and New Testament as a sufficient obligation seconded by their bare Canons and Edicts without any coercion or penalty to oblige them to their due payment The first unquestionable Canon for the payment of Tithes I find extant is that of the second Council of Mascin forecited An. 586. cap. 5. The first Law extant made by any General Council or Parliament for the payment of Tithes is that of the Council of Calcuth in England under Offa and Alfred An. 786 declaring their Divine Right and enjoyning their payment without any Penalty After which Charles the Emperour about the year of our Lord 813. by Canons made in sundry Councils and in his Capitulars or Laws enjoyned the payment of Tithes under pain of being enforced to render them by distresse upon complaint and some small penalties Since which time many Laws and Canons were made in our own and forein Realms till our present times for the due payment of Tithes under sundry penalties which because collected by Sir Henry Spelman in his Councils Mr. Selden in his History of Tithes Bochellus Decret Eccles Gal. l. 6. Tit. 8. De Decimis Fridericus Lindebrogus Codex Legum Antiquarum Surius Binius Crab Lindwood in their Collections of Councils and sundry others I have therefore only given the Reader a brief Catalogue of the principal Civil laws both at home and abroad for the due payment of them reciting more at large but what others for the most part have omitted and are not vulgarly known giving only brief hints upon some of the rest in my third Chapter Whither I refer the Reader for further satisfaction in this Objection and shall conclude of penal Laws as Seneca doth of Fates Fata volentes ducunt Nolentes trahunt those who will not willingly pay their Tiths must and ought to be compelled thereunto by penal Statutes The second Objection is That the payment of Tithes is against many mens Judgements and Consciences Therefore it is both Vnchristian Tyrannical and Vnjust to enforce them thereunto I answer 1. That the payment of Tithes being not only warranted but commanded in and by the Old and New Testament and the constant practice of Christians in all Ages Churches there neither is nor can be the least pretence of Conscience for the non-payment of them Therefore this pretext of Conscience is in truth nought else but most desperate Vnconscionableness Malice Obstinacy Peevishness Covetousness Impiety or secret Atheism worthy to be reformed by the severest Laws and penalties 2ly All that Conscience can pretend against their payment as Tithes is only this Anabaptistical Devise and loud Lye of Canne and others That the payment of a precise Tenth part of mens increase to their Ministers is Jewish or Antichristian and so unlawfull both which I have unanswerably refelled Therefore this can be no ground or Conscience for any to detain them But if any scrupulous Consciences be not satisfied in this point let them either pay their Ministers the Moitie or 9. parts or the 5 6 7 8 or 9. part of their annual encrease neither of which is Jewish or Antichristian or else let them sell all their old or new purchased Lands Houses Possessions Goods they have and bestow them on the Ministers and Poor as the forecited Primitive Christians did whom they pretend to imitate and then they may satisfie both their Consciences and Ministers too without the least difference coercion sute or penalty of our Laws 3ly Many of these very Objectors pretending Conscience as Souldiers or Sequestrators have made no Conscience to enforce thousands of Parishioners of late years throughout the Nation to pay their Ministers Tithes to themselves for pretended Arrears or sequestred Goods and exacted Monthly contributions out of Ministers Tithes to pay the Army without any scruple of Conscience levying them by distress and armed violence when detained If then they can enforce others thus
the use of the Poor Pilgrims Strangers Widows and Orphans in general at their discretion or particularly of such and such Parishes and they supposing the Monks to be most charitable to distribute them to the Poor most of which Grants or all were made by the consents of the Bishops of the Diocess and confirmed by them and many of them with the Assents of the Patrons and Encumbents of the Churches And sometimes whole Churches with their Tithes were thus granted and impropriated to Monasteries and Monks In jure perpetual Frankalmoigne to the starving of the peoples Souls to pray for their Patrons when deceased and seed the Bodies of the Poor without their Souls whence all or most of our Appropriations and Impropriations really sprang to the great prejudice of Ministers maintenance and Parishioners Souls Upon this ground many Monks and Mendicant Fryers who were no part of the ordained Ministry just like our vagrant Anabaptistical and unordained Sectarian Predicants now to rob the Ministers and most Priests of all their Tithes engross them into their own hands and disposal to enrich themselves and their Monasteries everie where cryed up tithes to be Pure Almes which everie man might bestow where he pleased and that themselves having renounced the world and vowed Povertie were fitter to receive and dispence them than the Secular Parish-Priests and made this Doctrine a very gainfull Trade whereby they got most of the best Benefices of England and a great part of the Tithes into their own Possession to the great prejudice of the Church And not content herewith the Premonstratenses and other Orders procured a Bull from Pope Innocent the 3 d. about the year 1210. to exempt all their Lands which themselves manured and all their Meadows Woods Fish-ponds from paying any Tithes at all to Parish-Priests or others That they might bestow them in Alms or on the poor of their Monasteries as they had requested them from the Pope as the words of the Bull attest After which they invented other Bulls condemned in our Parliament by a special Act to exempt their Tenants likewise from paying Tithes under the same pretext And this is the true ground and original of that Monkish opinion That Tithes were pure Alms and that men might give them to whom they pleased Which grant of tithes to Monasteries Monks and exemptions of their Lands from paying them upon pretext of giving them in Alms to the great prejudice of the Ministers perdenda Basilica sine plebibus Plebes sine Sacerdotibus Sacerdotes sine reverentia sine Christo denique Christiani Bernard Epist 240. was severely censured and sharply declaimed against by St. Bernard and Hugo Partimacensis Epist ad Abbatum Conventum Nantire Monasterii after Ivo his Epistles p. 245. a most excellent Epistle against this practice The Council of Vienna An. 1340. Joannis Sarisburiencis De Nugis Curialium l. 7. c. 21. Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Petrus Clamianensis Epist l. 1. Epist 33. And the Monkish Assertors of this Doctrine that Tithes were pure Alms and disposable to whom the people would were by Pope Innocent the 4 th stiled and censured in these terms Isti Novi Magistrique dicent praedicant contra Novum et Vetus Testamentum yea Richard Archbishop of Armaugh complained much against these greedy unconscionable Monks in his Defensorium Curatorum for possessing the people with this opinion That the command of Tithes was not moral but only ceremonial and not to be performed by constraint of Consciences to the Ministers and Curates and that what Lands or Goods soever were given by any of the four orders of Mendicants ought to be exempted from paying Tithes to Ministers in point of Conscience which he refutes from these Monks John Wickliff Walter Brute and William Thorp living in that blind Age took up their opinion That Tithes were pure Alms and that the people might give them to whom they please if they were Godly Preachers and their Parish Priest lazy proud and wicked which opinion of Wickliff was refuted by Thomas Waldensis as erronious and condemned in the Council of Constance This I have the longer insisted on to shew how Canne and the rest of our Anabaptistical Tithe-Oppugners revive only these old greedy Monks Friers Tenents and practices for their own private ends and lucre to wrest our Ministers Tithes from them into their own hands or disposing and exempt their own Lands and Estates from paying Tithes that so we may have Churches without people People without Ministers Ministers without due reverence and finally Christians without Christ as Bernard writes they then had by this Monkish Sacrilegious Doctrine and practice The fourth Objection much insisted on as I hear against our coercive Laws and Ordinances for Ministers Tithes is this common Mistake That the payment of Tithes to Ministers as a Parochial Right and Due was first setled by the Popish Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the 3 d. An. 1215. before which every man might freely give his Tithes to what Persons or Churches he pleased Therefore it is most unjust unreasonable to deprive men of this liberty and enforce them to pay Tithes to their Ministers now by â—uch Laws and Ordinances I answer That this is a most gross Mistake of some ignorant Lawyers and John Canne For in the Canons of this Council there is not one syllable tending to this purpose as I noted above 20 years since out of Binius and Surius in the Margin of Sir Edward Cooks 2. Reports fol. 446. where it is asserted which error he expresly retracts in his 2d Institutes on Magna Charta f. 641. The words of the Council Can. 56. Plerique scut excipimus Regulares Clerici Seculares interdum dum Domos locant vel Feuda concedum in Prejudicium Parochialium Ecclesiarum pactum adjiciunt ut Conductores Feudatorii Decimas eis solvant apud eosdem elegant Supremam Cum autem id ex avaritie radice procedat pactum hujusmodi penitus reprobamus Statuentes ut quicquid fuerit ratione hujusmodi pacti praeceptum Ecclesiae Parochiali reddatur By which Constitution it is apparent First that Parish Priests and Churches had a just Parochial Right to the Parishioners Tithes within their Precincts before this Council else they would not have awarded restitution to them of the Tithes received and that they had so ordered and decreed it by sundry Councils and Civil laws some hundreds of years before is apparant by the 2. Council of Cavailon under Charles the Great An. 813. Can. 19. Synodus Ticimensis under Lewis the 2d An. 855. The Council of Mentz under the Emperour Arnulph An. 894. Can. 3. The Council of Fliburg An. 895. Can. 14. The Decree of Pope Leo the 4th attributed to Gelasius by some about the year 850. The Council of Wormes and Mentz about that time or before cited by Gratian Caus 16. qu. 1. The Council of Claremont under Pope Vrban An. 1095. these
abroad and at home in England The Ecclesiastical Laws of King Edgar An. 967. c. 1 2. The Council of Eauham under King Edgar An. 1010. and his Laws near that time c. 14. and the Council of London under Archbishop Hubert An. 1200. 15 years before this of Lateran All which enjoyn the people to pay their Tithes to their own Mother-Churches where they heard divine Service and received the Sacraments and not to other Churches or Chapels at their pleasures unless by consent of the Mother-Churches Hence Petrus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bath about the year 1170. 45. years before the Council of Lateran in his 62. Epistle writes thus to the Praemonstraticatian Monks who procured an Exemption from paying Tithes out of their Lands That their Lands were obnoxious to Tithes before they became theirs and were paid hitherto not with respect of Persons sed ratione Territorii but by reason of the Territory and Parish Precincts And Pope Innocent the 3d. his Decree dated from Lateran An. 1200. mistaken for the Council of Lateran cited in Cooks 2 Instit p. 641. was but in confirmation of these precedent Authorities 2ly The abuses complained against and reformed by this Council was not the lay Parishioners giving away of their Tithes from their own Ministers and Parish-Churches at their pleasures not a word of this but a New minted practice of most covetous Monks Religious Houses and some secular Clerks to rob the Parish-Churches and Ministers of all the Tithes of the lands held of them by compelling their Tenants and Lessees by special covenants in their Leases and Bonds to pay their Tithes arising out of their Lands only to themselves and their Monasteries not to their Parish Churches as formerly which the Pope and this great General Council resolve to proceed merely from the root of Covetousness let Canne and his Comrades observe it who pretend Conscience to be the ground whereupon they condemn reform this practice null the Covenants Bonds Deformations and decreed Restitution of all profits by these Frauds to the Parish-Churches And was not this a just righteous and conscionable Decree rather than an Antichristian and Papal as Canne Magisterially censures it 3ly Admit the Parochial Right of Tithes first setled in and by this Council which is false yet being a right established at 438. years since confirmed by constant use Custom Practice ever since allowed by the Common law of England ratified by the Great Charter of England ch 1. with sundry other Sâ—atutes Acts of Parliament Canons of our Councils and Convocations and approved by all our Parliaments ever since as most just expedient necessary Yea setled on our Parish Churches by original Grants of our Ancestors for them their Heirs and Assigns for ever with general warranties against all men with special Execrations and Anathemaes denounced against all such who should detain or substract them from God and the Church to whom they consecrated them for ever and that as sacred Tribute reserved commanded by God himself in the Old and New Testament as a badge of his Vniversal Dominion over them and their Possessions held of him as Supream Landlord as the Council of London under Archbishop Hubert in the 2d year of King John with another Council under Archbishop Replain 3 E. 3. The Council under Archbishop Stratford with others resolve There neither is nor can be the least pretext of Iustice Reason Prudence Law or Conscience for any Grandets in present Power by force or fraud to Null Repeal Alter this Antient Right and unquestionable Title of our Ministers to them now and set every man loose to pay no Tithes at all or to dispose of them how and to whom they will at their pleasure to destroy our Churches Ministers Parishes and breed nothing but Quarrels and Confusions in every place and Parish at this present when all had now need to study to be quiet and to do their own Business and not to disturb all our Ministers and others Rights without any lawfull call from God or the Nation Which unparalleld incroachment on our Ministers and Parish-Churches Rights if once admitted countenanced all the people in the Nation by better right and reason may pull down all the Fences and Inclosures of Fields Forests or Commons made since this Council deny substract all Customs Impositions Duties Rents Payments publick or private imposed on or reserved from them since that time by publick Laws or special Contracts and pay all their Rents Customs and Tenure-Services to whom and when they please which our Grandy late Army-Purchasors of Kings Queens Princes Bishops Deans and Chapters Lands with other Opposers of Tithes may do well to consider for their own Advantage and Security their Titles to them being very puny crazy disputable in comparison of our Ministers to their Tithes Now whereas Thomas Walsingham Randal Higden a Monk of Chester in his Polichronicon and Henry Abbot of Leycester write that the general Council of Lyons in France under Pope Gregory the tenth An. 1274. Decreed what others ignorantly attribute to the Council of Lateran aforesaid An 1215. Vt nulli homini deinceps liceat decimas suas ad libitum ut antea liceat assignare sed matrici ecclesiae omnes decimas persolverent Which seems to imply that before this Council every man might give his Tithes from the Mother Church to whom he pleased notwithstanding the Council of Lateran and Innocents Decrees I answer 1. That there was no such Canon made in this Council as these ignorant Monks mistake which is undeniable by the Acts and Canons of this Council printed at large in Binius Surius and other Collectors of Councils but only one Canon against Clergy-mens alienation of the Revenues of the Church and another against the Vsurpation of the Churches Revenues by Patrons in time of their vacancy which have no affinity with that they mention which if true then that which Canne and others object that the Council of Lateran made this Inhibition and took away this Liberty of disposing Tithes at pleasure from the Parishioners is false as I have proved it Secondly That from this mistake of these Monks it was as Mr. Selden probably conjectures that William Thorp ignorantly affirmed that one Pope Gregory the tenth first ordained new Tithes first to be given to Priests now in the new Law John Canne to manifest his great Ignorance both in History and Chronologie in his Second Voice from the Temple p. 13 14. Writes thus Before the Council of Lateran which was under Innocent the third any man might have paid his Tithes to any Ecclesiastical person he pleased but by that Council it was decreed That Tithes should be paid to the Parochial Priest which I have proved a grosse Forgerie and then he addes William Thorp saith That Pope Gregory the tenth was the first that ordained Tithes to be paid to Priests in the year 1211. Fox p. 494. Wherein 1. He mis-recites Thorps words who speaks not of Tithes in
Parliamentsâ—gainst â—gainst them and their Treasonable practices that they have frequently written petitioned for their Repeal Abolition as bloody Tyrannical Laws unlawfull Oaths and procured their Repeal or Suspension at least in their favour from some late and present Powers 3ly That when some consciencious pious Stationers late in their Beacons fired discovered to those then in Power The many sorts multitudes of Jesuites Popish Books printed in England within 3. years last past in defence of the Pope and Church of Rome all Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and reviling our Church Religion as Heretical desiring them to take it into their timely considerations to suppress this growing Mischief Design to corrupt the People and reduce them back to Popery ere they were aware Kiffin with other Anabaptists in the Army headed by Colonel Pride taking an Alarum thereat subscribed and printed a Book intituled The Beacons quenched penned they know best by whom not the Subscribers of it not yet inspired with the gift of all the Tongues therein contained pleading for a free Tolleration of such Popish Books printing dispersing amongst us of publick Disputes by those of that Religion traducing accusing the Presbyterians throughout that Pamphlet and those honest zealous Stationers in particular of no lesse than a New Gunpowder-plot Mine Train then ready to be sprung to blow up those Colonel Pride and his Confederates first made and then stiled The Parliament of the Common-wealth of England and the Army too only for discovering thesâ— Popish Books and Trains to blow up our Religion Which Scandal as the Stationers then fully cleared by their satisfactory Reply to that impertinent Pamphlet so the Subscribers of it their Fellow-Souldiers of the Army better versed by far in Mines and Fireworks to blow up Parliaments and nearer related to old Guy Faux a Low-Country Souldier by reason of their Military profession than these Stationers and Presbyterians they thus falsly slandered have since cleared before all the World to be a malicious Calumny of which themselves only are guilty and given just cause of Jealousie Fear to all Presbyterians old Protestants and Pâ—ritans to apprehend that they now really joyn their Forces and Heads together with those thus pleaded for to ruine our Church Religion Ministry under the Notion and Project of suppressing Tithes and of all future compulsory Maintenance for the Ministers of England whom they intend to starve and famish such is their Charity if they can but vote Tithes down before they provide any other Maintenance which Vote once passed the next will be to vote them both out of their Rectories Glebes Churches Ministry too as Cannes Voice and the Kentish Petition against Tithes root and branch sufficiently discover to all who are not wilfully blind enough to make all men now to look about them That the Dominican Franciscan and other Popish Fryers were the first Broachers of this Opinion That Laymen were not bound to pay Tithes to their Ministers by any Divine law or right on purpose to draw the Tithes of Ministers and Curates to themselves and exempt whatever Lands or Things were given to them from payment of Tithes I have elsewhere evidenced out of Mr. Selden and others wheâ—eupon Johannes Sarisburiensis Bishop of Chartres thus censured them Miror ut fidelium pace loquar quodnam sit ut Decimas jura aliena usurpare non erubescunt Inquient sortè Religiosi sumus Planè Decimas solvere Religionis pars est Adding that their Exemptions from payment of Tithes did derogare constitutioni Divinae derogate from Divine institution And Petrus Blesensis Archdeacon of Bath in his 82. Epistle inveighs very much against the privileges of the Cistercian Monks exemption from payment of Tithes as injuriosa immunitas contra Dei justiciam seeing Justiciae Divinae manifestè resistit qui Ministris Ecclesiae nititur jus Decimationis auserre Which these Friers not only persisted in by substracting their own Tithes from the Ministers by colour of these Exemptions but likewise the Tithes of their other Parishioners especially such who contemning and deserting their own Parish Priests and Churches resorted to these Friers Chapels and acknowledged them for their Ghostly Fathers and Confessors This is most evident by the Petition of the Parish Priests and Rectors of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops in a Synode about the year of our Lord 1240. against the Dominicans and Franciscans who much impaired their profit wherein they complained That their Parishioners who at leastwise on Lords daies and Festivals are bound to frequent their Parish Churches and to receive Sacraments and Sacramentals in the same and devoutly to hear Divine Service as also to offer at Solemn Masses due and accustomed Oblations did repair to the places and Houses of these Friers and scorn and forsake their Parish Churches and so confer the due Rights of the Church wherewith the Churches were antiently endowed upon the Friers Also they who confess themselves to these Friers who before were accustomed annually by the Canon-law to pay Tithes of their Tradings to their Parish Churches from the time since they submitted themselves to the Confessions of these Friers modo debito ac consueto negociationes suas decimare non curant Neglect to pay Tithes of their Tradings after the due and accustomed manner And is not this the very present Grievance Complaint of most London and other Ministers throughout England that since these disguised Romish Friers Jesuits swarming in all places under the Masks and Titles of Anabaptists Quakers and other Sects have in imitation of these their Predecessors in their Writings Preachments and Conventicles declaimed against our Ministers Tithes as not due unto them by any Divine Right to rob our Ministers of and draw the value of them to themselves and since their Parishioners who are bound to resort to their Parish Churches on Lords daies and Feastivals to hear Divine Service Sermons and receive the Sacraments in a devout manner have resorted to the Conventicles and Meetings of these Friers and Jesuites and submitted themselves to these new Ghostly Fathers and Confessors they have quite contemned deserted their own Parish Churches neglected refused to pay any personal or predial Tithes or Oblations to their Ministers after the due and formerly accustomed manner and bestowed the due Rights and ancient endowments of their parish Churches in value or substance at least though not in kind upon these Friers and Romish Locâ—sts whose very Doctrin Practice in this particular of our Ministers Tithes and Oblations and their substraction of them yea in most other Tenents now broached by them for New light are the very same in all particulars which these Friers in former ages both at home and abroad as I have evidenced in my Quakers unmasked my New Discovery of Romish Emissaries and our London Lancashire Newcastle and other Ministers have plentifully demonstrated in sundry publications with Mr. Edwards in his Gangraenaes We may then most clearly
Monarchia Hispaniae wherein as he shews the King of Spain the readiest means to make himself Monarch of the whole world and particularly of England Scotland Ireland Holland by dividing them one from and against another by unnatural intestine Wars turning our Monarchy into a Common-wealth dividing our three Kingdoms one from and against another by making them Republicks or elective Kingdoms breaking our naval Forces by the Dutch Fleet and other Nothern Nations fomenting perpetual Divisions and Schisms amongst us thereby to destroy our civil Government Forces and become a prey to the Spaniards at last so he prescribes this as the readiest way to undermine our Protestant Religion and draw men from the Study Love Practice thereof to promote the Art Study of Astrology and Telesian Arts amongst us to erect Schools of Astrology and Mathematicks and encourage the Students of it with rewards Which I wish all Lovers of our Religion vigilant Statesmen and Lilly with other Astrologasters the chief Promoters of this Design to take special notice of and thereupon to abandon suppress this impious atheal sottish cheating Art grounded upon no Rules of Reason Philosophy Divinity Experience but mere imaginary Whimsies Figments Chymeraes Signes Houses in the Air of Lunatick cheats and Impostors as all rational judicious Scholars who peruse their Scheams Astrological Conjectures Judgements Predictions Treatises must acknowledge and I by Gods assistance may hereafter demonstrate to the world if there be occasion being not so pertinent to my present Theam The fifth and last Squadron of professed Enemies against our Ministers Tithes Glebes and setled Maintenance are Jesuites and Jesuited Papists and that not out of any Malignity against Tithes themselves which they all hold to be of Divine Right and Institution according to the definition of their idolized Council of Trent Sess 25. De Reformatione c. 12. which thus determines against their present practice and design Non sunt ferendi qui variis artibus Decimas Ecclesiis obvenientes substrahere moliuntur aut qui aliis solvendis temerè occupant in rem suam vertunt Cum Decimarum solutio debila sit Deo Et qui eas dare noluerit aut dantes impediunt res alienas invadunt Praecepit ergo Sancta Synodus omnibus cujuscunque gradus aut conditionis sint ad quas Decimarum solutio spectat ut eas ad quas de Iure tenentur in posterum Cathedrali aut quibuscunque aliis Ecclesiis vel Personis quibus legitimè debentur integrè persolvant Qui vero eas aut substrahunt aut impediunt excommunicentur Nec ab hoc crimine nisi plena restitutione secuta absolvantur But merely out of malice and design against our Ministers and their Ministry of purpose to starve and ruine them thereby to set up Popery and intrude themselves into their Rectories yea into our Bishopricks and Deaneries too and then they will not only cry up Tithes again with the due payment of them to themselves from the People according to the utmost rigour of this Trent-Canon and other Laws for their due payment by Divine and Human Right but likewise resume all Bishops Deans Chapters Lands if not Abby Lands too into their hands as sacrilegiously alienated from the Church without lawfull power and Right as Robert Parsons the Jesuites Memorial for Reformation written at Sevil in Spain Anno 1596. William Watson in his Quodlibets p. 93 94 144. with the Statute of 1 Mariae Parl. 2. c. 1. for reviving the Bishoprick of Durham restoring all Ecclesiastical and Temporal Jurisdictions Lands Hereditaments whatsoever thereunto heretofore belonging though dissolved setled in the Crown and Town of Newcastle by the Statutes of 7 E. 6. c. 10. and another Act not printed will inform the world and Alfonsus de Vargas de Stratag Jesuitarum p. 203. Now that the Jesuites many hundreds of which Society now lurk every where amongst us under the Disguise of Anabaptists Souldiers Tradesmen Seekers Dippers converted Iews Physicians Gentlemen Travellers Merchants and other like to work our ruine have a hand in this Design to deprive our Ministers of their Tithes and Rectories to work their ruine is most apparent First by their former procedings even against their own Secular Priests in England where they seeking to work their utter ruine subversion supplantation to intrude themselves into their imployments by their Machiavel Atheal plots about the year 1600 to 1605 did first by their scandalous Books Libels Slanders against theâ—e Priests bring their Persons and Priesthood into scorn and contempt amongst the generality of the English Papists preferring every Lay Brother of their Society before them executing their Priestly Function without a lawfull Call or Ordination and then endeavoured to substract all Maintenance and Contributions from them threatning to make them leap at a Crust and to pine and starve them debarring interrupting all their Maintenance from English Recusants in such sort that many of them pined away through grief of Mind want of Food and were so near perishing that they were necessitated to petition Queen Elizabeth and her Council for some Allowance in their prisons to keep them from starving Yea they and their Jesuited Followers and Proselites derided their Seminarie Priests and Ghostly Fathers in this manner Ah hah hah A Seminary and old Queen Mary Priest a Secular c. You shall see them all leap at a Crust ere it be long c. And having got Iudas his Office to carry the Mony bagg into their own and Substitutes hands they disposed of the Wealth and Charitie of Catholicks consisting of many thousand pounds where how and to whom they pleased for their own enriching and advancement which made the Secular Priests write that England was become wild Priesthood and Sacraments had in contempt Religion made but a matter of Atheal policy and Priests through the Jesuites Falsehood Calumniations and untrue Suggestions to the Superiours and all Estates brought into such high contempt that their verie Ghostly Children whom they had begotten had forsasaken houted shunned despised them as if they were none other but their Stepfathers and shewed their Charity so coldly to them as many of them were in extream want and few or none of them scarce able to live as we may read in Watsons Quodlibets against Parsons and his Fellow Jesuites p. 16 17 18 20 21 31 37 38 42 43 45 50 51 52 62 63 70 71 80 81 92 93. and elsewhere throughout that Book in Joan. Bogermanus Catechesis Jesuit l. 3. c. 28. Thuanus Hist l. 126 Mercurius Jesuiticus Tom. 1. p. 287. William Clark his Reply to Father Parsons Libel printed 1603. fol. 17 to 32 which being the very condition and complaint of our Godly Protestant Ministers in most places throughout the Nation at this day is no doubt a storm of these Jesuites raysing a very Plot and Design of their hatching fomenting to ruine our Ministers and their Ministry now as they would have done their own Secular Priests