Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
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A48311
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General reasons, grounded on piety, charity, justice and equitie, against the defaulcation of a fift part of the ministers maintenance who beareth the whole burthen of the ministerial function to any parish or people whereto are added particular reasons upon the like grounds against the payment of a fifth part to Dr. E.H. out of the rectory of Br. in Berks. : together with an answer to a letter of the said Dr. E.H. occasioned by the late insurrection at Salisbury / written by John Ley ...
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Ley, John, 1583-1662.
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1655
(1655)
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Wing L1880; ESTC R22019
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30,927
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47
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before the Committee at R. Now since he is known to be so good an Husband as not onely to know his own Estate but how to manage it to his best advantage and to speak as much for his own Interest and to pursue it as eagerly as any man can do that makes not mammon his God none that knows him will ever believe he would have said so much to the prejudice of his own profit if it had not been true and such a truth as he was familiarly acquainted withall and whereof he might be convinced if he should say the contrary 2. From Others I was ready at R. upon the 19th of October 1652. the day agreed upon by the Committee our Judges and the Doctor himself and me the parties for the hearing of our differences to produce my Witnesses for proof that in Wiltshire he had Lands let for the yearly value of about 80 l and Woods upon them worth many hundreds But he knows who would not suffer them to give in their Evidence upon this pretence That the Ordinance allots the fifth part without any exception of other means or maintenance more or lesse though he were so assuredly informed That he could not but believe it that the Committee for Plundered Ministers at Westminster did by their ordinary practice clear the meaning of the Ordinance to be for the allowance of a fifth part onely where other means of necessary Subsistance was wanting and that upon good reason for if a man may have a good Estate of his own and neverthelesse without any pains may have a fifth part of his portion who bears the whole burden of Ministeriall duties in the Church of Hous-keeping and of Hospitality at home and of all Taxes and Impositions for the Publique the condition of many both pains means and charge considered will be better by putting out then theirs who are put in to possesse their places which surely cannot be according to the minde of the Parliament Besides for the Doctors wife and children she being an inheretrix of a fair Estate when her father dieth who is a weak man and well stricken in years if he be yet alive there is no fear of their want though they have neither Right nor part in the Rectory of Br. 2. For the other Reasons That if he had no means of his own he should be no sharer with him in wages who doth all the work when he doth none of it for which it is due Besides the Arguments against the fifth part in general already produced it may reasonably be pleaded in barre to his claim of the fifth part by particular application unto him That 1. If he be not invincibly wilfull against the Government which gives him Protection he may no doubt have employment for his good parts and a competent Salary for the good service he may do in the use and exercise of them 2. If he will not be taken off nor abate any whit of his rigid misconceits and disaffection to the present Government and to their publick proceedings nor forbear to do them as much disservice as he can and dare upon all occasions in private and publique they may think it a matter rather of favour then of rigour if he want to send him for supply to the known Laws of the Land so much cried up by him and his party and they will send his wife and children to the able Gentleman her Father 〈◊〉 their Grandfather for in such a case it is thus ordered by Law The Father and Grand-father Mother and Grandmother being of sufficient ability shall relieve them in such manner as the Justices of Peace in that County where such sufficient Persons dwell at their quarter Session shall assesse Dolt Justice of Peace printed for the Society of Stationers an 1619. p 84 85. But he and his if they were in want being such as they are with such an one as his Father in Law is would finde mercy ready enough to receive them without any order of Justice of procure their entertainment SECT II. Reasons why I should not pay a fifth Part to the Doctor NOw as by what hath been said it appeareth in respect of him That it is not reasonable he should require a fifth Part of the Parish of B. So I shall now give Reasons in respect of my self which may conclude it as unreasonable that I should pay it 1. Though I acknowledge with all thankfulnesse the Parliaments benevolous intentions towards me in designing me to officiate in such places as promised me a very comfortable reward for the work of my Ministry yet such hath been my mishap through others Malignity that I have been a loser by them and so little a gainer or saver by the exercise of my calling for the best part of fourty years together that upon a just occasion though but an unjust surmize of my thriving by adherency to the Parliament I made bold to tell some of the most eminent Commonwealths-men of this Nation That if they would make mine estate as good in Lands as it was before I went to the Vniversity or in money and goods as good as before I had an Ecclesiastical benefit I would serve the Church and State with my best abilities according to my Conscience for nothing as long as I lived Or if they would but put me into as good a condition as I was possessed of before I was driven to flie from all I had because my Judgement and Conscience engaged me to be of the Parliament Party I would give up all I had of their gift without any desire of further Benefit from them Which being true I cannot but so farre confide in their wisdome and goodnesse as to believe they would not have taken a fifth Part from me to gratifie such a Doctor that so little needed it 2. I may be the more confident herein because where I was last disposed of and where for my Settlement there passed an Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament though it wanted a formality of accomplishment by the great Division betwixt the Parliament City and Army which then happened I was so great a sufferer in all kindes by those who hated the Right and Reformation of the Parliament and me for their sakes that if my Cause had been seasonably throughly and truly represented unto them I doubt not but they would rather have awarded me reparations for wrongs and damages sustained then mulct me by diminution of my wages for the work which lieth wholly on me and nothing at all upon the Doctor to perform 3. As it was my losing lot to part with the last Parsonage I had too soon for it was a little before the harvest was ready for the Reaper and so to be m At Astb where upon the death of Dr. Dod the Sequestred Rector by pretence of a Writ De vi laica amovendâ I was violently and illegally put out of possession by the under-Sheriffe but upon complaint to the Committee for Plundered
whether sincerely or deceitfully they cannot tell we had not been placed in such as are better SECT VII The sixth Reason taken from the ill Use our Adversaries make of the Allowance of the fifth Part. 6. THe allotting of the fifth part of Ecclesiastical profits as aforesaid hardens many both against the Parliament and against those whom they send to succeed the sequestred Ministers for they take this fift part as a rent whereby their right of re-entry is reserved to them and so they and their complices have made account hitherto that their Successours tenure holding what they have as yet they have done not for their own but anothers life a turn of providence which they hope for and will help forward all they can will return them into their former estate and so after a Parenthesis of Sequestration is past the whole sentence of restitution and repossession will settle them where they were in a right of perpetuity and this believing the lying reports and predictions of their News-makers their false prophets as Ahab did his they expect will speedily be brought to pass SECT VIII The seventh Reason taken from the Oppression of the Labouring Ministers by paiment of a fifth Tart with Objections against them and Answers for them 7. BEcause by the taking away of the fifth part from them they are in effect put every fifth year to serve the Cure without any wages and if the fourth years fruitfulness were but doubled as by the blessing of God every sixth year was trebled to the Jews Levit. 25.21 when the seventh was to rest and so to bring forth none encrease or that they might out of all the former years not by scandalous nigardice but by ingenuous Providence lay up a portion which might make a competent supply for that annual diminution they might be very well content with the one or with patience and silence endure the other But as the case is with them by paiment of publick impositions rated by those who to spare themselves and sometimes to spight us aggravate our charge without either Mercy or Justice by the tax of this g I call it an Egyptian Tribute in regard of the proportion the fifth part which was paid to Pharaoh by his people Gen. 41.34 though otherwise contrary to that which many of us have cause to complain of for the Egyptian fifth part was laid up as provision for prevention of famine to those that paid it our paiment of a fifth part is our present oppression without the expectation of any good for hereafter Egyptian Tribute by the open and wilfull defraudings of some of them as if it were rather their right then any wrong to us to rob us of the tenth by many accidental expences which come upon divers of us after the proportion of the common report of the value of our livings exceedingly one rated sometimes of purpose to advance the fifth part to the greater advantage of those that require it wherein they expect no less liberality from us then when all came in without such paiments and went out at the market upon farre more profitable prizes then now they do receipts and disbursments rightly reckoned together the allowance will be little for the subsistence of the Ministers in service and their Families nothing at all to be saved to pay debts contracted partly by precedent plunderings partly by the charge of enforced removals from place to place which draw in damage at both ends a termino a quo ad quem from the place whence they come and whither they go nor to raise any reasonable portions for their children nor to make any competent provision for their wives in case of widowhood when they survive them For mine own part and I doubt not but there are others of my Brethren of my minde though the R. of Br. if duly payed and not unduly charged would be as Beneficial as I would desire yet as it is to me with all the defalcations and burdens incident unto it if my conscience could be discharged from obligation to the Pastorall Charge of it and would allow me to reap where I sowe not I should be contented to give it up and to be confined to a fifth part only especially if I had D. H. his either present means or future hopes Obj. If any object That the Ordinance of Parliament alloweth a fifth part of the Sequestred Benefice to the outed Ministers and if we like not to take upon us the Incumbency upon these tearms we may give up the work and wages both or rather at the first we should have refused to undertake the one and to take the other Answ I answer First That the Ordinance for ejecting of scandalous Ministers would not have passed in the House of Peers without the allowance of a fift part to their wives and children and therefore there was at the first a kinde of necessity to allot them such a portion though otherwise many godly and worthy Members of the House of Commons were against it as before hath been observed Secondly Though some Countrey Committee men have against all equity and ingenuity urged the letter of the Ordinance as if like the Rule of Ignatius Loiola h Ad literam ad literam fine glossa sine glossa Reg. Societ Jesu To the Letter to the Letter without a Glosse without a Glosse it were punctually to be observed in all cases without Exception or Limitation The Committee for Plundred Ministers at Westminster have by their usuall practice expounded it otherwise allowing sometimes no fifth part at all and that they might very justly do in divers cases As 1. Where the Benefice will not bear it and leave a competent Subsistence for the Incumbent 2. Where the outed Minister hath means of Subsistence of his own or by his wife 3. Where the Father or Grandfather is rich enough to maintain the wife and children in which case the i For this see Mich. Doltons Justice of Peace p. 84. fine and p. 85. princip printed for the Company of Stationers au 1619. Law the charge upon them 4. Where the Party put out continueth scandalous and disaffected to the Government and contumaciously opposeth the Reformation either of Church or State For it seems just and reasonable that he should thereby forfeit the fifth parts as well as the four parts before for his former miscarriage And for such as were scandalous the * See the quotation of Mr. Prinne at the beginning of the first Section late King though tender to his party required none allowance and sometimes they allowed lesse then a fifth part as if the Delinquent had any means at all that was to be reckoned to make up a fifth part as if the fifth part were 40 l and he had 20 l of his own he was to receive but another 20 l of the Incumbent Minister Thirdly The Ministers acceptance of a Pastoral Charge with the burden of priment of a fifth part should be