The like did Ananias with Saphira his wife but because they brought a certain part thereof and laid it at the Apostles feet and kept back part of the price of the Land which is less than to keep back Tithes when due by sundrie Lawes and Ordinances and thereby lyed not unto Men only but to God they both fell down dead sodainly at the Apostles feet in a miraculous manner and were carried forth and buried And great fear came upon all the Church and as many as heard thereof We finde in 2 Cor. 11.7 8 9. That though Paul preached the Gospel at Corinth freely yet he took wages of other Churches at the same time to do them service And when he was present with them and wanted that which was wanting unto him the Brethren that came from Macedonia supplied that in all things he might keep himself from being burdensome to the Corinthians for reasons expressed by him In which respect of not ministring to him of their substance he writes they were inferiour to other Churches 2 Cor. 12 13. How bountifull the Church and Saints of Philippi were to Paul not only whiles present with them and preaching among them but also absent from them preaching the Gospell in other places and how pleasing this their liberalitie was to God he thus records Phil 4.10 to 21. But I rejoyced in the Lord greatly that at last your care of me is revived wherein ye were also Carefull but ye lacked opportunity Not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever estate I am therewith to be content c. Notwithstanding ye have well done that ye did communicate with my affliction Now ye Philippians know also that in the beginning of the Gospel when I departed from Macedonia no Churches communicated with me as concerning Giving and Receiving but ye only For even in Thessalonica Ye sent once and again to my necessity Not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound to your accompt But I have received all and abound and am full having received of Epaphroditus the things sent from you an odour of a sweet smell a Sacrifice Acceptable well-pleasing to God But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever Amen And in 2. Tim. 1.16 17 18. He makes this memorable Testimony of and prayer for Onesiphorus The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain But when he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently and found me The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day And in how many things he Ministred unto me at Ephesus thou knowest very well From all which precedents coupled together these conclusions naturally and necessarily arise 1. That it is not only the practice but duty of the Saints and Christians under the Gospel chearfully and liberally to contribute to the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel and that not only whiles they are actually preaching and resident amongst them but whiles absent preaching the Gospel in other places or suffering for the Gospel in bonds and prisons if their necessities so require 2. That they ought not only barely to supply their necessities when they are in want but in such a plentiful manner that they may truly say We abound and are full blesse God for rejoyce in their peoples liberality and pray to God for a blessing upon them and theirs with greater chearfulness and zeal 3. That in cases of necessity when the wants of the Apostles Ministers and Saints of God require it Christians are not only bound to pay them the Tithes of their Lands and other setled Dues but even to sell their very Lands Houses Estates themselves and lay them down at the Apostles and Ministers feet for their common supply as the primitive Christians did they being not real proprietors but meer Stewards of their worldly estates which as they all proceed from Gods hand gift blessing so they are still Gods own not mans and therefore in such cases to be chearfully expended for the maintenance and supply of the necessities of his Ministers servants worship 1 Chron. 29.11 12 14 15 16 17. 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. 4. That the maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospel is not meer pure Almes as some have held but wages which though Paul for some special reasons received not from the Corinthians yet he did from other Churches under the name of wages 5. That niggardlinesse and not contributing towards the maintenance of painful Ministers is a shame infamy dishonour to a Church and people making them inferiour to all other Churches 6. That peoples liberal bountifull contributing to the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel is a great joy comfort encouragement to them yea a means to enlarge their hearts in prayers to God for spiritual and temporal blessings on them and their housholds 7. That bountifull and chearfull contributions to the Apostles and Ministers of Christ is not only a well doing or good work but an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing unto God though it stinks in the nostrils of many covetous earth-wormes sectaries and pretended godly Saints now adaies 8. That Liberality to the Ministers of the Gospel and paying them their just deserved Tithes Dues is so farr from impoverishing and hurting mens estates that it redounds to their spiritual and temporal accompt too causeth God to supply all their wants and to blesse both them and their families with spiritual temporal eternal mercies and rewards as the several forecited Scriptures with Prov. 3.9 10. Mal. 1.10 11. Mat. 10.41 42. Mar. 9.41 2 Cor. 9.6 to 13. 2 Kings 4.8 to 38. 1 Kings 17.10 to 24. most abundantly prove 9. That the willful detaining withdrawing of any thing solemnly devoted to the necessary maintenance of the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel brings exemplary curses judgements on those who are guilty thereof as the examples of Ananias and Saphira testifie compared with Mal. 3.8 9 11. Hag. 1.9 10 11 2.16 17 18 19. further illustrating it which all sacrilegious invaders plunderers detainers oppugners of our Ministers ancient established Maintenance Tithes Dues may do well now seriously to ruminate upon and then reform their practice or else renounce their pretended Christianity and Saintship so much swarving from the recited precedents of the first and purest Christians XV. This is further proved by Mat. 7.12 Luke 6.31 All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets yea and the Gospel too thus twice enjoyning it from Christs own mouth Whence thus I argue All Estates Callings Professions of men whatsoever whether Kings Princes Rulers Judges Magistrates of all sorts Lawyers Physicians Chirurgeons Merchants Artificers Traders Husbandmen Labourers of all kinds Sea-men
to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods a clear Gospel-Text for the payment of Tithes which are Gods own Tribute and Portion Levit. 27.30 32. Mal. 3.8 9. and Rom. 13.7 Render therefore to all their Dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom c. against both which they directly Petition as the premises demonstrate This calumny and wresting of Scripture being removed I shall thus make good the first Branch of the Proposition I have already manifested by undeniable Antiquities Laws Records That Tithes were freely given to and setled on our Church and Ministers by our pious Kings Munificence Charters Laws with the general applause and consent of all the Nobility and People upon the very first setlement of Religion in this Island many hundred years before we read of any publick Taxes for Defence of the Realm or maintenance of the Warres by Land or Sea the first whereof was Dane-gelt first imposed by common consent of the Lords in Parliament An. 983. or before the antientest yet continued Custome on Wool Woolfels and Skins exported first granted by Parliament in 3 E. 1. Anno Dom. 1276. at least 500. years after the first extant grant Law and setlement of Tithes in perpetuity as a Divine Duty Rent and Service for the necessary maintenance of Gods Ministers and publick Worship This most antient annual Rent Charge or Tribute unto God hath inviolably continued in all publick Changes and Revolutions of Church and State Britons Saxons Danes Normans English Papists Protestants Conquerors Invadors Right Heirs and Lawfull Purchasers Intruders Disseisers Lessees of all sorts whether Publick Persons or Private maintaining confirming rendring their Tithes successively as a Divine and Sacred Quit-Rent due to God wherewith they came charged into the world till they departed out of it laying down this for a Principle of Divinity Law Equity That God alone hath given to every Man the Lands and all he holds and possesseth whereby he gains his food and living and therefore out of the Land and Trade whereby every one gets necessary supply for his body he ought to contribute a Tenth and Tribute towards the Service of God and Salvation of his Soul much better than his Body as Augustine in his 229. Sermon Tom. 10. and the Antient Saxon Canons of an uncertain time and Author resolve There was no Purchaser Heir Inheritor Farmer Tenant or Lessee of Lands in our whole Nation that paid Tithes out of it since Tithes first setled in this Kingdome but he inherited purchased took and held his Lands charged with Tithes Whence our Law-books resolve That no Lay-man can by the very Common Law of England allege any Custome or Prescription for not paying Tithes but only a Modus Decimandi in recompence of his Tithes which he may in some cases plead because grounded on some antient Contract and a valuable consideration in Lieu of Tithes Moreover as all Men took their Purchases Farmes Leases or Inheritances by Descent thus charged so this charge was universally known to all Purchasers Lesees and the full annual value of the Predial Tithes they pay out of their Lands or Leases abated them in their Purchases Rents Fines by the Venders and Lessers of purpose to defray the publick necessary annual Charge which if the Lands had been Tithe-Free had been proportionably raised to the common value of the Tithes in the Purchase-Moneys Fines or Rents and will be so by every Seller of Lands and Land-lord when ever Tithes be suppressed This being a clear undeniable Truth which every rational man must subscribe to it is certain no person this day living complaining or not complaining against Tithes can in Verity Equity Justice Reason repute or call them either an unjust or oppressing Yoak Bond Burden as many Ignoramusses do without sense or reason nor any burden or charge at all to him since he had or rather hath the full annual value of them allowed him in his Purchase Fine or Rent by him that sold or leased his Lands unto him And although it be true that in such Tithes as the Earth doth not naturally produce without labour as it doth Grasse Wood Fruits viz. Corn Hops Saffron Woad and the like the Minister enjoyes the Tenth of the Husbandmans increase seed labour and costs in tillage and improvement the great Objection against Tithes as an Heavy Burthen and Oppression yet all this pretended great cost and charge except only in Cases of Improvements was altogether or for the most part allowed and defalked in the Purchase Rent or Fine which if Tithe-free would have been and when made Tithe-free will be raised to the full value of the Tithes even one years purchase more in ten sales and 28. Rent more in every pound each year upon Leaser as all understanding men knowing what belongs to Purchases Sales of Lands or Leases must acknowledge And that Farmer Purchaser or Improver of Lands who deems not his faithfull Ministers Prayers Preaching Pains and Gods blessing on his Seed Crop Estate Soul Family promised and entayled to the true payment of Tithes and are only procured by his Ministers prayers without which his seed crop and all his estate would be blasted with a Curse amount not to a tenth part of what he now enjoys by Gods promise and blessing by paying Tithes and his Ministers prayers deserves not the name of a rational man much lesse of a Christian and can expect nothing but Gods curse upon all he sowes plants enjoyes instead of a blessed Crop or Harvest All which considered I appeal to any Christian or rational mans Conscience whether Tithes be any such heavy oppressing intollerable discouraging Yoak Bondage Burden Oppression as some now declaim them which Gods chiefest Saints before the Law voluntarily rendred without murmuring and chearfully vowed paid unto God without a Law and his antient people rendred without murmuring though double to our Tithes now by an express Law during all the Levitical Priesthood and all our own Ancestors as well Protestants as Papists have for so many hundred of years chearfully rendred without dispute and all now living came charged with into the world and were thus allowed the value of them in their Purchases Fines and Leases And whether all Tithe payers have not far more cause to Petition against all Old and New Rent-Services Rent Charges Annuities Quit-Rents Statutes Debts wherewith they were charged by their Ancestors Grants or Contracts and of all the antient Customs for Merchandize for defence of the Seas or Realm as intollerable oppressing Burdens Yoaks Grievances as the Levellers and Anabaptists in some late printed papers stile all Customs Tonnage Poundage Impositions whatsoever as well as Tithes our Excises or monthly Taxes of new illegal formation as well as Imposition than thus to murmur complain Petition against their predial Tithes our Ministers chiefest Livelihood except in Cities which have no Tillage Woods or Meadows And so much brieflly for
salary revenue of the Governor observe the ground because the Bondage was Heavy on this people and hath it not been for 17. years space or more and still is as Heavy or Heavier upon us Think upon me my God for good according to all I have done for this people Here was a worthy Governour General Magistrate Souldier really fearing God and tendering the ease liberty welfare of the people in good earnest who with all his Officers and Souldiers for 12. years space together though he and they laboured constantly in building the wall of Jerusalem and he was at so great expence each day for his own Table as Governour yet took no Free-quarter Bread Wine Money Wages or Salary from the people as other Governours Officers before them had done and that because of the fear of God because the bondage was great upon the people expecting only a reward from God I may safer argue from this Scripture Precedent Ergo all our Governours Generals Officers Souldiers fearing God during all our 17 years Wars and as long as they and our bondage shall yet continue are bound to serve their Countrey freely without taking Free-quarter Corn Wine Money wages contributions or Excises from the people and ought not to purchase any Lands and by consequence are thereupon obliged in conscience to make restitution of all the Free-quarter Pay Lands Woods Rents Rewards and publick Revenues they have received for their pay arrears or rewards of service expecting their reward only from God hereafter Than they can from Pauls example conclude that Ministers ought to preach the Gospel freely without wages And so much the rather because Sir William Lewes Mr. Denzill Holles and Col. Walter Long 3. of the XI Members falsly impeached by the Officers and Army An 1647. for engrossing much of the publike Treasure and giving no accompt of what they had received were so generous and truly Noble as in their accompts long before passed and allowed by the Commons house to demand no pay at all the first as Governour of Portsmouth the other as Collonels in the Army under the Earl of Essex Mr. Holles refusing to accept of the thousands voted him out of the Kings revenue for recompence of his former wrongfull imprisonment by the King for his Countries good service in Parliament Whose Precedents their accusers at least are as far bound to imitate in this kind as our Ministers are St. Pauls Upon which considerations I now refer the verity solidity of this argument from Pauls example to the judgements consciences of all Officers Souldiers and others formerly triumphing in it who upon second thoughts must needs disclaime their own Pay and Salaries for the future or else renounce this grand objection as ridiculous and irrational The third Objection is from the 3 Epistle of John vers 5 6 7. Where John writes to Gaius Beloved thou dost faithfully whatsoever thou dost both to the Brethren and to strangers which have born witnesse of thy Charity or Liberalitie before the Church whom if thou bring on forward on their journey thou shalt do well because that for his name sake they went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles Whence some may inferr though I hear not this Text urged by any That Ministers ought now to preach the Gospel freely to the people and to take nothing of them because John mentions some such that in his time preached to the Gentiles taking nothing of them To which I Answer 1. That this Text questionless was meant of Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles and his companions Timothy and Titus who took nothing of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 12.14 15 16 17 18. seeing Gaius was not only St. Pauls companion sometimes being converted baptized by him Act. 19.29 20.4 1 Cor. 1.14 but expresly stiled by him Rom. 16.23 Gaius mine Host and of all the Churches living then at Corinth where Paul preached freely to whose Precedent I have given a full satisfactory answer already 2. It is evident that this Gaius for some time at least lodged Paul and other Brethren being not only faithfull but charitable and liberal towards them though the other Corinthians were not so 3. St. John addes vers 8. We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth wherein he concludes it to be a dutie incumbent upon all Christians to receive encourage accompany be charitable and liberal to the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel thereby to be fellow-helpers to the truth which otherwise they shall much hinder So as this Scripture fully warrants my Proposition not oppugnes it The fourth Objection is the opinion of our famous English Apostle John Wickliff who held Tithes and Ministers maintenance to be meer alms whose opinion is largely defended by eminent John Hus in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Edit 1640. vol. 1. fol. 602 to 605. Therefore not due to Ministers but detainable or payable only at the meer wills of the people as meer alms to beggars are which are arbitrary Whereto I Answer 1. That Tithes and Ministers maintenance are not pure alms nor so styled by Wickliff Hus Augustine or Chrysostom whom Hus citeth as if Ministers had no right unto them for their pains as a just debt hire wages or as if men might detain them at their pleasure since we are expresly not only exhorted but commanded both in the Law and Gospel to give alms to those that want them and that as Debters to them so far as our Abilities and their Necessities require Rom. 12.10 13 20. 15.27 1 Cor. 16.1 2. 2 Cor. 8. 9. throughout Heb. 13.16 1 Tim. 6.17 18 19. Ephes 4.28 Luke 18.22 23. 19.8 Gal. 2.10 compared with Deut. 15.4 to 12. Exod. 23.11 Levit. 19. Deut. 24.19 Prov. 19.19 22.9 28.27 31.20 Eccles 11.1 Dan. 4.27 Yea the Lawes and Statutes of our Land expresly enforce and compell men to contribute to the Poor as they shall be â—ssâ—ssed as well as to pay Tithes or Taxes as you may read in Rastals Abridgement and Daltons Justice of Peace Title Poor But they are styled by them Pure Alms in three other respects 1. Because they were originally given by people to the Ministers that were needie out of charitie and compassion for Gods sakeâ— as well as for their work sake 2. Because Ministers after their own wants supplied did use to distribute part of them to the poor and needy as alms and are obliged still to do it as Abbots Bishops and others did to whom lands were given in pure and perpetual Frank-almoign 3. Because they are pure alms in respect of God as all other goods of fortune are which we both begg and receive from God And in this respect they write every man as well Kings and Emperours as Ministers Priests people are beggars of God 2. As they stiled Tithes Alms in these respects so they likewise granted Alms to poor people and Tithes to be a Debt for
goods or to imprisonment Ezra 7.11 to 27. The Decree of Cyrus and Darius concerning the building of the Temple and restitution of these Vessels is very remarkable and thus recorded Ezra 6.3 to 13. Let the house be builded the place where they offered Sacrifices and let the foundation thereof be strongly laid the height thereof threescore Cubits and the breadth thereof threescore Cubits with three rows of great stones and a row of new Tamber and let the expences be given out of the Kings house And also let the Golden and Silver Vessels of the house of God which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the Temple which is at Jerusalem and brought unto Babylon he restored and brought again into the Temple which is at Jerusalem every one to his place and place them in the house of God Now therefore Tatnai governour beyond the river Shetharboznai and your companions the Apharsachites which are beyond the river be ye far from thence Let the work of the house of God alone let the Governours and the Elders of the Jewes build the house of God in his place Moreover I make a Decree what ye shall do to the Elders of these Jewes for the building of this house of God that of the Kings goods even of the tribute beyond the river forthwith expences be given unto these men that they be not hindred And that which they shall have need of both young Bullocks and Rams and Lambs for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven Wheat Salt Wine Oyl according to the appointment of the Priests which are at Jerusalem let it be given from day to day without fail that they may offer Sacrifices of sweet savour unto the God of heaven and pray for the life of the King and his Sons Also I have made a Decree that whosoever shall alter this word let timber be pulled down from his house and being set up let him be hanged thereon and let his house be made a dunghill for this And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all Kings and people that shall put to their Hand to alter and destroy the house of God which is at Jerusalem I Darius have made a Decree let it be done with speed If these three Heathen Kings and Conquerors were so zealous to restore all the Vessels of Gold and Silver taken by their predecessors in their wars amounting to so great a number value to the House of God at Jerusalem to contribute so liberally towards the re-edifying of it out of their own Tributes Treasures Revenues won by War and Conquest to allow them Bullocks Rams Lambs Wheat Wine Oyl Salt and all other necessaries for daily Sacrifices to furnish the Priests and Levites with all Necessaries yea particularly to exempt them and all the Officers of the Temple from paying any Toll Tribute Tax or Custom which it was not lawfull for any Officer to lay upon them under the severest penalties and to enact such severe Lawes to passe such bitter imprecations against all such as should oppose or hinder the work or seek to destroy or deface the Temple of God Oh how should this inflame all our Generals Officers Souldiers who professe themselves the choysest Christians and eminentest Saints to imitate and equal them in all these particulars now Elsehow will they shame confound and rise up in judgement at last against all such of them and all other Plunderers who in stead of restoring all the Gold Silver Vessels Lead Iron Timber Stones they have taken from the Temples of God of repairing those Churches they have demolished defaced of providing necessaries for Gods worship and exempting his Ministers from Toll Tribute Taxes Custom endevour to make a prey and spoyl of all our Churches Chapels Church-Vessels Ornaments Glebes yet remaining and oppresse our Ministers with endlesse Taxes Tributes imposed on them without their consents against all former Lawes and Precedents to their utter ruine and in stead of paying them the tenths of their own Lands and spoyls of War endevour to spoyl them of those Tithes which all others owe or pay them Of whom Hemingius thus complains in his Commentary on Gal. 6.6 p. 375. Quid dicemus de illis qui Ministros Evangelii necessario victu spoliant Quid de illis qui Immoderatis Eractionibus tantum non eos interficiunt ut multi honesti mariti cum si is uxoribus et liberis cogantur quodammodo mendicare Horam sane factum nihil differre arbitror a Sacrilegio Latrocinio cujus poenas olim cluent Architecti et fabri hujus mali To these Scripture Precedents of Heathen Warriers I might adde the practice of many Idolatrous Pagan Nations as the Romans Graecians Crotonians Phocians Athenians Carthaginians who by the very Law dictate of Nature and example of Abraham gave the tenth of their warlike spoils to their Idol-Gods and Priests which because Mr. Selden recites at large in his History of Tithes ch 1.3 Review c. 1. 3. Alexander ab Alexandro Gen Dierum l. 3. c. 22. where all may peruse them I shall only give you the summ of them in learned Grotius his words in his Book De jure Belli Pacis l. 3. c. 4. sect 1. p. 454. By this Law of Nature Abraham out of the spoyls which he had taken from the five Kings gave a Tenth to God as the Divine Author to the Hebrews c. 7.4 explains the History extant in Gen. 14. By which custom the Grecians also with the Carthaginians and Romans Diis suis Decimam de Praeda sacraverunt consecrated a Tenth of the prey or spoyl to their Gods as to Apollo Hercules Iove And should not Christian Generals Officers Captains Souldiers then much more doe it now to God and his Ministers from this Precedent of Father Abraham instead of robbing them of their Tithes If any should object that these were old Testament and Heathen Practices Let them remember that Abrahams is more particularly related and frequently mentioned in the new Testament than old the old relating in general that he gave Tithes of all which relates to all his substance as well as spoyls and the new Testament applying this general to the TENTH OF THE SPOYLS Heb. 7.4 as Mr. Selden Grotius and others observe But to hedge up this starting-hole so as none may creep out of it we have one memorable Precedent in the new Testament coming very near to this of Abraham Luke 7.2 to 11. Where we read of a certain Centurion or Collonel a man of no small authority who had Souldiers under him and said unto one Goe and he goeth and to another Come and he cometh and to his servant Do this and he doth it This Centurions servant who was dear unto him being sick and ready to die when he heard of the fame of Jesus he sent unto him the Elders of the Jews beseeching him that he would come and heal his Servant and when they came to Jesus they besought him instantly saying
Levitical Priests themselves especially after their abolition as he was a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck to whom Abraham himself and the Levites then in his loins paid Tithes of all Heb. 7.1 to 15. of which at large before Therefore he had a just Right to receive Tithes from them both before the institution and after the abolition of the Levitical Priesthood which he might have lawfully claimed exercised and his Apostles likewise in his Right though they did it not We read that Christ had a just Right Title by Inheritance and lineal descent from his Father King David to the Temporal Crown and Kingdome of Judah being therefore said by the Wise men Mat. 2.2 to be born King of the Iews an unanswerable Argument for the lawfullnesse Excellency of Hereditary Titles to Crowns and Kingdomes before that of Election only wherewith I frequently silenced vapouring Souldiers against Hereditary Kingship being the very Title of Christ himself both to his Spiritual and Temporal Kingdome and that which God instituted amongst his Church people as the best surest of all other taken up by most Heathen Nations Now though Christ neither claimed nor exercised this his Temporal Right but avoided it when the people would have made him King by force John 6.15 who yet after cryed him up for the King of Israel John 12.13 15. which even Pilate himself acknowledged when he said unto the Jews Behold your King demanded of them Shall I crucifie your King and wrote fixed this Title on his Crosse Iesus of Nazareth King of the Iews John 19.14 15 19. will or can John Canne or any other of his antimonarchical confederates hence justly infer that it was unlawfull for Christ himself Right Heir by Descent to his Hereditary Temporal Kingdome kept and thrust out thereof by usurping Herod who murthered all the infants in Bethlehem and the Coasts thereof that were two years old and under and would have murthered our Saviour himself to secure his own usurped Power Mat. 2.13 16. such is the bloody cruelty Jealousie of Usurpers to have claimed or exercised this his just Hereditary Right to the Crown or unlawfull for the people to have thrust out this bloody Intruder Herod by force from his usurped Authority and made Christ King as they intended or because Christ did then voluntarily forbear relinquish his Temporal Right to Herod will it thence necessarily follow that it is therefore unlawfull for any other Hereditary Christian King or Right Heir to a Crown kept from or thrust out of his Throne Kingdome by armed violence against the generality of his peoples desires by any aspiring usurping Herod to lay claim to his Crown Kingdome or for the faithfull natural born Subjects according to their duty Oathes Allegiance to endeavour by all lawfull means and open force to expell dethrone such Herods and Crown set up their lawfull Soveraign on the Throne of the Kingdome Doubtlesse they cannot be so absurdly stupid to affirm it seeing Jehoiadah the high Priest the Captains of Hundreds Levites Souldiers and people too thrust out and slew with the sword Athaliah the bloody Usurper of the Kingdome and Throne of Judah in the second year of her Usurpation crowned Joash the Kings Son King as the Lord had said of the Sons of David and set him upon the Throne of the Kingdome whereupon all the people of the Land rejoyced and the City was quiet as is recorded at large to their eternal Honour by God himself and for others imitation in the like case 2 Chron. 23. and 2 Kings 11. The rather because all other men by our Laws may justly lay claim to and repossesse themselves of such Lands Houses Goods as others forcibly detain or take from them against all Law Right notwithstanding Christs Non-claim to his Rightful Crown Therefore by the self-same Reason our Ministers of the Gospel now may lawfully challenge and take Tithes from the people though Christ and his Apostles did it not albeit they had a just Right and Title to them which they might have exercised had they pleased without Sin or Judaism as our Ministers do now as Paul resolves in 1 Cor. 9.4 5 6 15 18. To clear which Right from Judaism and all other cavils beyond all contradiction I shall cite only two Prophecies relating joyntly to Christs Kingdom and Ministers under the Gospel The first is Jer. 33.15 to the end In those dayes and at that time will I cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up unto David and he shall execute Righteousnesse and Judgement in the Land In those days shall Judah be saved and Jerusalem shall dwell safely and this is the name wherewith he shall be called The Lord our Righteousness For thus saith the Lord David shall never want a man to sit upon the Throne of the house of Israel Neither shall the Priests the Levites want a man before me to offer Burnt-Offerings and to kindle Meat-Offerings and to do Sacrifices continually Thus saith the Lord if you can break my Covenant of the day and my Covenant of the night so that there should not be day and night in their season then may also my Covenant be broken with David my Servant that he should not have a Son to reign upon his Throne therefore our Covenants Oaths to our Kings their Heirs and Successors should be as stable as inviolable and strictly observed as Gods to David and his Posterity Ps 89.3 4 34. Ps 132.11 12. Hebr. 6.17 18. Ps 15.4 Eccles 8.2 Gal. 3.15 17. and with the Levites the Priests my Ministers As the host of heaven cannot be numbred neither the sand of the Sea measured so will I multiply the seed of David my Servant and the Levites that minister unto me c. The second is Isa 66.18 to 20. I will gather all nations and tongues and they shall come and see my Glory and I will set a Sign among them and I will send those that escape of them unto the Nations and to Tarshish c. and to the Isles afar off whereof England is chief and principally intended And they shall bring all your Brethren for an Offering unto the Lord out of all Nations upon Horses and in Chariots and in Litters and upon Mules and upon swift Beasts to my holy Mountain in Jerusalem saith the Lord as the Children of Israel bring an Offering in a clean Vessel unto the House of the Lord And I will also take of them for Priests and for Levits saith the Lord From which Texts I shall observe 1. That as Christs Title to his everlasting Spiritual Kingdom under the Gospel over all the converted Gentiles as well as Jews is expresly set forth to be neither elective nor by conquest but by DESCENT HEIRSHIP and lineal succession after the flesh from King David Whence he is stiled Heir of all things Heb. 1.12 And the Lord shall give unto him THE THRONE OF HIS FATHER DAVID and HE shall reign over the House of
Tith-Oppugners of our Age who would be reputed the most precious Christians though their Actions prove them worse than Infidels The first is that of the old Pagan Romans who esteemed all their Corn and Wine sent them annually by the bounty of God so sacred that by a constant custome and law used amongst them they might not lawfully eat drink sell meddle with or dispose of any part thereof after their harvest and vintage till they had first sacrificed and tythed the first fruits and tenths thereof to their Gods who as they supposed gave them the whole crop such was their Piety and Gratitude The second is that of the antient Heathen Arabians who by the Law and Custome of their Country were bound to carry all their Frankincense the chief commodity of their Country every year to Sabota the chief City of Arabia Felix and there to offer the Tenth thereof to their God SABIS which his Priests received Neither might they make sale of any part thereof till the Owner there paid the Tenthes by Measure not by weight These very Pagans holding all to be Gods the supream Land-lord who gave it them till by paying him the Tenth for a quotient they redeemed the rest for their own common use The third is that of the Pelasgi in Vmbria who being oppressed with a great dearth and scarcity of all things conceived it proceeded Gods Whereupon they vowed the Tithe of all their increase to Iupiter Apollo and the Cabiri After which Vow they receiving a plentifull crop of all things paid the tenth of all their increase to their Idol-Gods And being admonished by Apolloes Oracle that their Vow was not performed till they had sacrificed the Tenth of their Children as well as of all their other increase they thereupon sacrificed the Tenth of them to the Idols likewise Such conscience made they of all their Vows and Tithes The fourth is that of the Carthaginians thus recorded by Diodorus Siculus a Pagan Historian very remarkable The Carthaginians being descended from Tyrus were accustomed in former times to send unto Tyrus the Tenth of all their Revenues increase any ways renuing issuing or growing for Hercules the Idol-God there worshipped But in processe of time becomming very wealthy and having exceeding great incomes they sent very seldome their Tithe unto Tyrus and that but small and refuse in neglect and dis-regard of the Deity Hereupon many disasters in war crosses in Affairs of State with great losses and streights befell them especially by Agathocles the Sicilian Upon which comming home to themselves and repenting of their irreligion they betook themselves to all manner of Supplication and Devotion conceiving these losses and disasters were sent unto them of God And for so much as they supposed Hercules especially to be angry with them who was chiefly worshipped at Tyrus from whence they were originally extracted they sent exceeding great gifts and rich presents thither to him and all the Gods that were worshipped at Tyrus and brought unto them the tenth of all their increase as formerly they accustomed The fifth is that of Demosthenes that eminent Pagan Greek Orator who is very bitter against Androsion and Timocrates for bearing with some sacrilegious Desrauders of the Gods in their Dues and much more for defrauding of themselves and sacrilegiously robbing Minerva of her Tenths and the other Gods of their Fifteenths And he specially observes let our Souldiers remember it That those who purloyned and robbed the Gods of their Tenths and chiefest of their spoyles of War came to nought being destroyed by themselves at last and undone The sixth is that of Xenophon that Noble Heathen Philosopher and General and his Soldiers thus recorded at large to Posterity by his own pen worthy our observation Xenophon after his memorable retreat with ten thousand men out of upper Asia where they had gained great spoyles from the Enemy arriving safely at Cerasunt mustred 8600 men the rest being lost partly by the incursions of the enemies partly by the snows and partly by sickness here they divided the mony they had gained from the enemies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Atque etiam Decumam quam Apolloni Ephesiae Dianae exemerant ita Duces distribuunt ut quilibet ipsorum bisce diis aliquam partem ejus adservaret One part of this Tenth separated to these two Deities was delivered to Neon That part which Xenophon collected for Apollo he laid up as consecrated in the Treasury of the Athenians at Delphos But that which was dedicated to Diana he left with Megabyzus the Churchwarden of Diana upon this condition being about to fight with Agesilaus at Coronea That if he escaped safe out of the Battel he should restore the sacred mony to him but if he received any disaster therein that then Megabyzus himself should dedicate it to Diana confecto donario quod Deae gratissimuÌ„fore arbitraretur Afterwards Xenophon being in exile at Scilunte built for Olympia Megab comming thither to behold Olympia restor'd the mony to Xenophon who receiving it bought therewith a field having woods Mountains in it stored with trees swine goats sheep wildbeasts and Horses for the Goddess in that place which was shewed unto him by the Oracle of Apollo he likewise built a Temple an Altar out of that sacred money Ac post id temporis semper consecratis fructuum agri decumis Sacrum Deae faciebat And after that time he sacrificed to the Goddess for ever consecrating the Tenths of the field to her service Near the Temple there was a garden set with all sorts of Fruit-trees good to eat Before the Temple were pillars erected with this Inscription on them Fundus Dianae Sacer. Hoc qui possâ—ssor fruitur quotannis Consecrato Decumam de reliquo Fanum sartum tectum conservato Si quis non fecerit Dèa vindex esto In which memorable Historie we have six things considerable 1. Tithes of spoyls consecrated by the Heathen Graecian Generals Captains and Souldiers to Apollo and Diana as Agis after the end of the wars between the Elei and the Lacedemonians going to Delphos offered a TENTH of the spoils to Apollo And Agesilaus took the fruits of his Enemies fields ut intra biennium Decumam Delphico Deo consecraret C. Talentis ampliorem as the same Xenophon records 2ly Lands purchased with the spoils and appropriated consecrated for ever to the worship and service of Diana 3ly A Temple and Altar built with part of the spoils for her worship and honour 4ly Tithes annually consecrated and to be paid for ever to this Temple by Xenophon and the possessors of these lands out of the profits venison and game thereof for the maintenance of her worship and Feastivals as the former words and this passage farther evidenceth Earum feriarum municipes finitimi tam viri quà m faeminae participes erant sumministrat eis Dea qui agitant convivia farinas cum panibus vino pecunia
purest times for 500. years after Christ Therefore they are unlawfull oppressive un-evangelical tyrannical antichristian as Canne terms them in his thundering empty voyce Answ To this I answer first That there is no expresse Precept or President in the New Testament for any strange High Courts of Justice Martial or other Courts of that Nature for any Articles of War or penal Laws to put Souldiers or any others to death or inflict punishments for any New High-Treasons or Offences whatsoever No Precept nor President that John Canne a late Excise-man as divers report can produce for the imposing or levying of any Excise Impositions Taxes Customes Crown-Rents Tonnage Poundage Contributions by any Distresses Forfeitures Imprisonments sale of Goods billetting of Souldiers on the People and armed violence now used by Souldiers Excisemen Collectors and other Publicans sitting at the Receipt of Custom whereof I hear Iohn Canne is one perhaps to Excise the Alehouses and Cannes there used for names-sake all puny to and less warrantable by Gods Law and Gospel than our Ministers Tithes The Objectors therefore must find express Gospel-Texts for all and every of these publick Duties and the present wayes of levying and enforcing them or else disclaim them or their Objection against Tithes 2ly I have produced expresse Gospel-Texts warranting in the general coercive Laws Sutes Actions to recover Ministers Tithes as well as any other just legal publick or private Dues Debts Rents Lands Possessions whatsoever Therefore the Objectors must either disclaim their Objection or renounce all penal Laws Sutes and coercive Means whatsoever to levy or recover any other civil Rights Debts or Duties whatsoever and introduce a lawless Anarchy and Confusion amongst us for every one to cheat defraud rob oppresse disseise spoyl defame wound murder one another without any penalty or redresse except only by Club-law instead of a peaceable just and righteous Government 3ly The reason why there were no coercive Laws for the payment of Tithes or Ministers dues in the Primitive Church for above 500 years was this because Christians then were so zealous ready forwards to render them with an overplus and to sell their very Houses Lands Possessions Estates and lay them down at the Apostles and Ministers feet to maintain them and relieve their poor Christian Brethren witness Acts 2.44 45. c 4.34 35 37. c. 5.1 2. 2 Cor. 11.9 Phil. 4.15 16 17 18. Rom. 15.26 and that memorable place 2 Cor. 8.1 to 5. where Paul records of the first Churches and Converts in Macedonia how that in a great Tryal of Affliction in times of heavy persecution their deep Poverty abounded to the riches of their Liberality for to their power I bear them record yea and beyond their power they were willing of themselves praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the Gift and take upon us the Fellowship of the Ministring to the Saints c. The New Testament records the exceeding readiness of the Pharisees to pay Tithes of all they did possesse and of the smallest Seeds and Garden-Herbs of all kinds to their Priests or Levites which Christ himself approved commended with a these things ought ye not to have left undone And Philo a learned Jew who lived under Claudius in the Apostles daies records as an Eye-witness on his own knowledge That the Jews were so forward in paying their First-fruits and other Dues to their Priests That they prevented the Officers demanding them paid them before they were due by Law as if they had rather received a benefit than rendered any both Sexes of their own readiness bringing them in with such courtesie and thanksgiving as is beyond all expression they are his very words And were they then lesse forwards think you to render due Maintenance if not Tithes and First-fruits to the Apostles when they turned Christians Surely no for the forecited Texts in the Acts declare they were far more bountifull than before both to the Apostles and poor Saints selling all they had to support them The like zeal even in the heat of persecution under bloody Pagan Persecutors continued in all the Primitive Christians next after the Apostles who though persecuted driven into Corners imprisoned banished and spoyled of their Goods Lands by plundering Officers Sequestrators Souldiers as Eusebius and others record yet every one of them out of his deep Poverty contributed every Month or when he would or could some small stipend for the maintenance of the Ministers and Poor when they had no Lands to pay Tithes out of of his own accord without any coercion witnesse Tertullian who flourished but 200. years after Christ Modicum unusquisque stipem Menstrua die vel cum velit et si modo volit si modo possit apponit nam nemo compellitur there was no need when they were so free of their own accord sed sponte consert Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt And though their Monthly stipends in regard of their great Poverty were thus termed small comparatively to what they were before the Persecution yet indeed they were very large considered in themselves as by the same Authors following words in this Apology c. 42. appears Plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatim quam vestra Religio templatim they bestowing more in a Liberal free way of Christian Charity in every Village towards their Ministers and Poor than the wealthy Pagan Romans did in their Temples and Sacrifices for the Maintenance of their Paganism In the 9th general Persecution of the Christians about 273 years after Christ or before The Governour of Rome told Saint Lawrence the Martyr Arch-Deacon to Pope Xistus the 2d and Treasurer of the Christians Oblations for the Ministers Maintenance and Poors relief that the common Report then was bow the Christians did frequently sell their Lands and disinherit their Children like those in the Acts to enrich the Ministers and relieve the Poor bringing thousands of Sestertii at a time to St. Lawrence out of the sale of their Lands so as their Treasury was so great that he thought to seise on it for a prey Which their bountiful Liberality Prudentius thus poetically expresseth Offerre fundis venditis Sistertiorum Millia Addicta Avorum praedia Faedis sub auctionibus Successor exhaeres gemit Sanctis egens Parentibus Et summa pietasli creditur Nudare dulces heros What need then any Law to compel the Christians to pay Tithes or Ministers dues when in the heat of Persecution they were so bountifull to them and the Poor as thus voluntarily to contribute their whole Estates for their support Whose President if the Cavillers against our present penal Laws Ordinances for Tithes would imitate no Minister nor other voluntary Tith-payers would oppose their repeal And though in these Primitive times of Persecution the Christians being spoyled of their Lands and Possessions could not pay Tithes in kind in most places but were necessitated to such voluntary Contributions as these yet without all
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
proof That Tithes are no real Grievance Burden Oppression to Gods people especially since orignally granted and commanded by God himself whose Commandements are not grievous 1 John 5.3 and whose heaviest Yoak is easie and Burden light Matth. 11.30 And those New-Saints who shall think otherwise of this Divine Commandement Yoak and Burden of Tithes under the Gospel give the Gospel it self and Christ the lye herein For the 2d Branch That the abolishing of Tithes will be no real Ease Gain or Advantage to Farmors Lessees and the poorer sort of People lyable to pay Tithes other poor being not concerned in the Controversy whose poverty it self ex-exempts them from this surmised Grievance but a Gain and Benefit only to rich Landlords and Landed-men is apparent by the premises For no sooner shall Tithes be abrogated but every Landlord will raise the full annual value of them in his annual Rents or Fines and exact more for them from his poor Tenants Farmers Lessees than they might have compounded for with their Ministers and where then is their expected Gain or Ease wherewith they are deluded by Impostors As for the rich Landlords they complain not of Tithes as a Burden and need no exemption from them and as all predial Tithes now really issue out of their Inheritances charged with them in perpetuity who therefore abate allow the full value of them to their Farmers and Tenants in their Fees and Rents by way of Defalcation they being in truth the greatest and most considerable Tithe-payers not the poor Farmers or under Tenants So their Inheritances only will be much improved augmented by Tithes abolishing at least one part in ten whiles the poor Ministers and Families shall be starved and the Tenants then more racked by the Landlords than by the Ministers now And this is the Godly goodly Ease this Saint-like Project will effect if put into execution by which none will be real Gainers in their Temporal Estate but those who have Inheritances and all losers in their Spiritual Estate by the losse or great discouragements of their Ministers Hebr. 13.17 This will appear by the practice of some greedy Land-lords of old thus recited condemned in this Decree of the Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent the 3d Anno 1215. In aliquibus Regionibus c. I will English it that our Country Farmers may the better understand it In some Countries there are a stupid or mungrel sort of people who living according to their Custom although they have the name of Christians I doubt Canne will say they were Anabaptists and his godly Predecessors some Lords of Farms or Lands let them out to these men to manure ut Decimis defraudentes Ecclesias majores inde redditus assequantur That by defrauding the Church of Tithes they may gain the greater Rents from their Tenants equivalent no doubt to their Tithes where then is the tenants gain by any hoped exemptions from Tithes Being willing therefore to provide remedy for these prejudices for the Indemnity of Churches we ordain that the Landlords themselves shall commit their Farms to be leased to and tilled by such Persons and in such sort That without contradiction they may pay Tithes to Churches with Integrity or their intire Tithes without any Deduction and if there shall be need let them be thereto compelled by Ecclesiastical censure for these Tithes are necessarily to be paid which are due by Divine law or approved by the Custom of the place though not within the Letter of the Divine law is the Councils meaning not any Modus decimandi of ought within Gods law against which no Custom can or must prescribe Let all Country-men learn from hence what they will get by abolishing Tithes if voted quite down Nay let them consider well whether the real designs now on foot prosecuted by some Army Officers and Souldiers be not to vote down Tithes just as they did the Crown lands formerly reputed sacred and incapable of any sale because the common standing Inheritance of the whole Realm to defray all ordinary publick expences in times of peace and war to case them of all Subsidies and Taxes whatsoever except one in three or four years upon extraordinary occasions granted in full Parliament for their safety even to vote them only from the Ministers and get them into their own hands to help pay themselves and the Army under pretext to ease the People in their Taxes and yet continue their Taxes still upon them in the same extream or an higher proportion as heretofore though they take their Tithes to boot without easing them one farthing in their Contributions as in case of the Kings Princes Bishops Deans and Chaptets lands Surely these Officers and Souldiers who pretend so much liberty and ease to the people in words and still so oppress them in deeds as not to ease them one penny in their former unsupportable Taxes Excises which their Ancestors never knew nor paid under which they have for some years groaned though all Ireland be now reduced England in peace within it self and Scotland under Contribution and take upon them to impose such illegal Taxes now without any Parliament by their own Super-Regal Authority transcending all Presidents of our Kings and their Councils out of Parliament can never be presumed to tender their Ease and Gain so much as to permit them or their Land-lords to put up into their own private Purses so great and constant an Annual Revenue as their Tithes amount to unto which they have neither legal Right nor Title but will appropriate it to themselves as they have done Church-Land and crown-Crown-Land too for their future pay or past Aâ—rears and some of them have confessed so much And which then think you will prove the better Tithe Lords Ministers or Souldiers For the third Branch That the abolishing of Tithes will be a loss and detriment to all others excepting Land-Lords and Landed men I shall thus demonstrate 1. It will be so to all our Ministers and their families Tithes being their principal livelihood 2ly To all such Colleges Hospitals Corporations Schools all or part of whose Revenues depend on appropriated Tithes and Rectories and to all their Farmers and Families 3ly To all impropriators and their Lessees which are very many there being by Mr. Cambdens and others Computation 9284. Parishes in England whereof 3845. of the best value for the most part are impropriated or appropriated And the abrogation of Tithes without giving competent recompence to all Impropriators as well body Politicks as natural and their Lessees which how it can be done now Bishops Deans and Chapters Lands devoted and voted once for their satisfaction are sold to pay the Souldiers I cannot yet discern will ruine many Colleges Hospitals Schools with other Corporations and thousands of families depending on them 4ly All Tenants and Farmers will be losers by it in their estates as well as souls For then the Land-lords will raise the full improved value of their abolished
Tithes in their Fines and Rents and if they have a godly able Minister to instruct them for their Salvation and spiritual Weal they must hire and pay him out of their own private purses only while their Land-lords or others purse up their Tithes whereon now their Ministers live without further charge unto them and which is more chargable they must pay their Ministers share of Taxes and other publick Payments to boot out of their own purses and estates which now are defrayed wholly by Ministers themselves And so instead of hoped Ease by Abolishing Tithes they shall but draw a causless perpetual Charge on themselves and their Posterities as our New Projectors have done by the sale of all the Crown Lands and Revenues to themselves and their Friends and Souldiers at easie rates to enrich themselves which should have defrayed all publick Ordinary Charges as they ever have done which now must be raised out of the peoples private purses only whiles these New Statesmen and Souldiers purse up and enjoy the publick Revenues which should defray them and Tax the impoverished Nation at what extraordinary uncessant Rates they please and then dispose of them at their pleasures when levyed to themselves and their Creatures the only way to make our Taxes both Easeless and Endless to the peoples utter ruin and their own extraordinary enriching by their spoils 5ly The poor people in every Parish will lose the charitable relief they receive from their Ministers who in many places were and still are a grest relief to the poor and impotent by their liberal Charity and Hospitality now much decayed by heavy and endless Taxes and unconscionable Substractions of their Tithes by Sectaries Souldiers and lawless Covetous Earth-wormes 6ly I must truly inform and tell all such Farmers Tenants and other deluded Countreymen who think to gain much ease and profit by the abolishing of Tithes for the future they shall soon repent of and be doubly burthened hereafter to the uttermost improved value of them in the augmentation of their Taxes to the Souldiers who will be harder new Iron Land-lords Tithe-lords to them than their Ministers now are This was St. Augustines observation long ago recorded by Gratian Bochellus with many others and made good by many practical Experiments in former and latter ages His words are these Our Ancestors did therefore abound with plenty of all things Because they gave Tithes to God and rendred Tribute to Caesar Modo autem quia decesserit Devotio Dei accessit Indictio Fisci Nolumus partire cum Deo Decimas modo tollitur totum Hoc tollit fiscus quod non accepit Christus That is But now because our devotion to God in paying Tithes is departed the Sequestration of the Exchequer is come both on Tithes and Lands We would not pay our Tithes unto God now the whole is taken away in Taxes and Sequestrations The Exchequer sweeps away that which Christ doth not receive And how many have found this true in our dayes by Sequestrators and Swordmen who have sequestrâ—d all the Profits of their Lands as well as their Tithes and the Ministers Tithes and Glebes to boot He addes This is a most just Custome that if thou wilt not give God his Tenth thou shalt be reduced to a Tenth of thy Estate Et dabis impio militi quod non vis dare Deo et sacerdoti and thou shalt be forced to give that to a wicked Souldier which thou wilt not give to God and thy Pious Minister This the whole Synod of Lingon in France Anno 1404. declared for and observed as a truth in those daies And Angelus de Clavasio in his Summa Angelica Tit. Decima sect 20. in his time Petrus Blesensis Arch-Deacon of Bath who flourished about the year of our Lord 1160. writes thus to the Cistertian Monks who had then procured from the Pope a Bull of Exemption from paying Tithes out of the Lands and Possessions of their Order Epist 82. ad Cistercienses You know that Covetousness is the root of all Evil yet it is said and we relate it with tears that this Mother of Transgression this Mistris of Ambition this Captain or Ringleader of Iniquity this Wagoner of Mischief this Cutthroat of Vertues this Original of Sedition this Sink of Scandals hath dared to break in even to your Congregation the Votes and Tongues of all men would be loosened into the commendation of your Sanctity if you did not forcibly snatch away that which is anothers If you did not take away Tithes from Clergy-men This is a Convectio or Rapine little enough but that which doth not a little dishonest your life By the Testimony of the Scriptures they are the Tributes of needy Souls And what is this injurious Immunity that you should be exempted from the payment of Tithes to which the Lands were subject before they were yours and which are hitherto rendered to Churches not out of respect of Persons but by consent of the Territory mark now the just punishment upon them for this their Covetousness and exemption from Tithe-paying Milites Galliarum sibi jus Decimarum usurpant c. The Souldiers of France usurp to themselves the Right of Tithes and have no regard of your Privileges Eas a vobis potenter extorquent They extort them from you by the Power of the Sword Adversus eos debetis insurgere non adversus Clericos aut Ecclesiasticos Clericos You ought to rise up against them but not against Clergy-men Or the Churches of Clergy-men Laurentius Bochellus recites inserts it into his Decret Eccles Gall. l 6. Tit. 8. c. 19. p. 966. printed An. 1609. From which Authorities I must tel all Country Farmers and others now busling to exempt themselves by the power of the Souldiers from paying their antient due setled Tithes to their Ministers that they shall at last but only change the hand and be enforced to pay Tithes with a Witness to the Souldiers even by obtaining their desires Whiles I was a late close Prisoner in Pendennys Castle in Cornwall under Souldiers I never yet knew why I heard some Officers there who had purchased crown-Crown-lands in Cornwall not for Mony but Arrears of pay amongst other their New Projects oft times peremptorily saying We will have all Tithes put down Whereupon I told them they should have done well to have added Saint James his advise to their peremptory words and wills which he much censures by saying as they ought to do If the Lord will we will do this or that James 4.13 14 15 16. Which I thought they durst or could not subjoyn to their former words because it was both against the will and command of God that Ministers Tithes should be put down especially by Souldiers who received far above the tenth part of them in Monthly Taxes for their pay and from whose practice of receiving constant pay for their Military service the Apostle proves the lawfulness of Ministers Tithes and Salaries under the
will content such perverse and contentious Wretches but a Liberty to pay their Ministers only what they please and that in conclusion shall be just nothing as their subsequent Petitions and present Practices now manifest to God Angels and men And I doubt the Change of this antient known long approved certain Maintenance by Tithes to any other certain or uncertain way will create more sutes and troubles among people than ever our Tithes did since their first institution This was my subitan opinion of their Proposition when I first read it and shall serve for a publick answer to it now if any insist upon it to prove Tithes inconvenient and burdensom to the People and therefore sit to be totally abolished The main Objection I ever yet read or heard against Tithes is this That Tithes are a great discouragement and hindrance to Husbandmens industry and improvements since Ministers must have not only the Tenths of their Lands as they found them but likewise of their Crop Labour Industry and Improvements which is now writes Canne and others more largely one of the sorest Burthens and greatest Oppressions and Tyranny that lies upon them and discourages many from improving the Lands to the publick prejudice I answer 1. That this Objection no waies concerns Soldiers Weavers Tailors Tradesmen Townsmen and other Mechanicks who are the most and greatest Sticklers and Petitioners against Tithes but only Husbandmen and Countrey Gentlemen and Farmers living upon Tillage very few of which not one of a thousand ever yet petitioned against Tithes as such a grievous Oppression at leastwise as a Farmer for the burdensomness of Tithes but only as an Anabaptist or other Sectary out of hatred and opposition to our Ministers Callings or Persons And till the Generality or Major part of the Gentry Yeomanry and Country Farmers in each County Petition and declare against their Predial Tithes as such an intollerable Grievance no Officers Soldiers Citizens Anabaptistical Mechanicks and busie-bodies in other mens Callings and Grievances which concern them not are no waies to be heard countenanced or credited in this particular by any Powers whatsoever in point of Justice or Prudence 2ly The payment of Tithes never yet discouraged any Person either in the Land of Canaan England or other Countreys at least not any considerable number of men or any that had either true Wisdome grace honesty or love to God and the Ministrey from any sort of Tillage or improvement whatsoever out of which Tithes are paid the gain by the good husbandry and improvement being abundantly recompenced in the nine Parts over and above the Tithes And therefore till the Objectors can make good their allegation by presidents of considerable number of wise godly men and others discouraged from Tillage and Improvements meerly by the payment of Predial Tithes out of them in all former ages or of late years to the real prejudice of the Publick which they can never do this grand Objection against Tithes must be decried both as Fabulous and Ridiculous yea as Scandalous The late Petition of the Cornish Gentlemen Farmers and Yeomen where such improvements are most made to their great Charge for the continuance of Tithes being a sufficient Evidence to prove it such 3ly It is observable that the Petitioners against Tithes upon this ground are as eager Writers and Petitioners against all antient Customs Tonnage Poundage and usual moderate Impositions upon Merchandize imported or exported for the necessary defence of the Sea and Trading amounting to as much upon every pound of Merchandize as Tithes do upon Husbandmens Tillage and Improvements the charges of the Fraight Transportation and Customs in forein parts considered and to far more and that as a very great discouragement to Merchandize and Trading Which as all wise men know to be a mere fabulous untruth contrary to the experience of all States Kingdoms Republicks in the World and of Holland it self subsisting by Merchandize where they pay as high Customs or higher than our antient Legal Merchants Duties to the State amount to which never made any Merchants to give over trading So if when and where rightly imposed managed they are the greatest encouragements of Trade and Merchandize by Guarding the Seas and securing Traders against Enemies and Pirates the only encouragement to Merchant-Adventurers who must and will all give over trading when they cannot safely put to Sea without apparent losse of all they trade for by Enemies or Pirates And therefore this clamourous Objection against Tithes should have no more weight with Wisemen to suppress them than their idle clamour against all old Legal Customs Rates and Duties for the necessary defence of the Sea and Trade to abrogate them altogether to the ruine both of our Traffique Navy and Merchants too that pay them 4ly This Objection is directly made against the providence wisdom and policy of God himself who prescribed Tithes amongst his own people out of all their Tillage and Improvements and knew it would be no impediment to them his Blessing promised to their payment of Tithes being a greater improvement to them in their Crops than all their extraordinary cost and pains amounted to Wherefore it can be no impediment or discouragement to any real Saints good Husbandry or Improvement now who deserves to reap no benefit by his Labour or Improvements if God himself shall have no share or portion out of them for the maintenance of his publick worship and Ministers 5ly If there were any truth or strength in this Objection yet it extends not unto all tithes but only to such as are paid out of extraordinary chargeable Improvements as to make mere barren Heath Ling and Sands out of which no former profits naturally grew manurable for Corn or Pasture Tillage and Meadows Woods out of which most predial Tithes arise So there is a sufficient remedy against this pretended Mischief already provided in the best and strictest Statute made by the best of our Protestant Kings for the true payment of Tithes at the beginning our Reformation when Popery was banished in the Parliament of 2 E. 6. c. 13. which provides That all such barren Heath or waste Grounds which before that time have lyen barren and paid no Tithes by reason of the said barronness and now be or hereafter shall be improved or converted into arable Ground or Meadow shall from henceforth after the term and end of seven years next after such Improvement fully ended and determined pay Tithe of the Corn and Hay growing on the same and be discharged in the interim as the words import and our Judges have expounded it All which considered this Objection must be henceforth exploded and LEVELLED to the ground Now because I find a clear Design and Endeavour in sundry Anabaptists Officers Souldiers if they cannot prevail to put down Tithes upon other pretexts yet to rob the Ministers of them at present if not in perpetuity upon this pretence to sequester and convert
them to the use of the Army for the pretended ease of the people in their future taxes I shal for the cloze of this Proposition and prevention of this detestable impious Sacrilegious plot against our Ministers and Religion too propound and answer all such specious Arguments Pretences as may be produced by them to delude the people veil over the execrable Impiety and take off the odium of this prodigious Villany First they may and will suggest that they have some ancient punctual Presidents to warrant countenance justifie this their Project As namely the practical example of Charles Martel King of France who about the year of our Lord 730. as the Marginal Authors report having perpetual wars and seldom or never peace in his Kingdom Ideo res Ecclesiarum suis Militibus in stipendium contulit maxima ex parte did thereupon bestow the Lands Revenues Rents and Tithes too as the Act of Restitution with others prove of Parish-Churches Monasteries Bishops Deans and Chapters upon his Souldiers for their Pay and Arrears for the greatest part And surely upon a very Godly and just reason as John Canne and some Army-Officers will swear thus expressed in his Decree recorded in Goldastus and Mr. Selden ut subveniatur necessitatibus Publicis et Salariis Militum pro Dei Ecclesiae bono statu Reipublicae uniuscujusque propria pace pugnantium That he might relieve the Publick Necessities and pay and reward the Souldiers fighting for the Church of God and the good of the State of the Common-wealth and the proper peace of every one as our Officers and Souldiers now say they do And is it not then most just they should have all the Lands Glebes and Tithes of the Church King Common-wealth and of every particular Person too who have fought all this while for them and their defence To this they may chance to adde the President of the Templers and Hospitalers who being no part of the Clergy but Religious Souldiers imployed only to fight in the defence of the Church were by special Bulls and Grants of several Popes exempted from paying any Tithes at all to any Ministers out of the Lands belonging to their several Orders Because they fought for the Church against her Enemies as Turks Saracens and other Infidels Therefore there is great reason equity all our Officers and Souldiers who have lately fought or are now or hereafter fighting for the Church against her Enemies and Malignants should be totally and finally discharged from paying any Tithes at all out of their Old or New Purchased Lands Leases Cattel Estates Spoyls Pay or other increase Besides most of our Army-Officers and very many of the Souldiers are extraordinarily gifted inspired from Heaven and constant Speakers or Preachers transcending all Black-coated Ministers yea the undoubted new Ministers and Priests of Jesus Christ as many deem them So as they may be truly stiled a chosen Generation a Royâ—â— Priesthood yea Army of Priests being made Kings and Priests by Christ himself to God the Father as John Canne hath published in his Voyce p. 24 27 28 29. Therefore they may not only enter into our Ministers Churches Pulpits and dispossess them of them as he there asserts and presseth them to put in execution but be capable in right equity justice to receive all their Tithes to their own use Nay one step more John Canne in his Voyce p. 27. thus peremptorily concludes I will affirm and abide by it since it hath pleased the Lord to draw out the hearts of some Souldiers and others who were never brought up at Universities to learning publickly to preach which is not above 10 or 12. years the People of this Common-wealth have had more true Light and glorious Discoveries of Christ and his Kingdom than all the Nations Ministers ever before made known to them since first they took their calling from the Sea of Rome till this Day On the contrary the greatest Heresies and Blasphemies which have been in the world have been broached by Ministers and Scholars whereas Lay-men at the same time have been sound in the Faith and zealously earnest against such abominable Doctrines Therefore there is just ground that both our Vniversities and all Colleges for Advancement of Learning should be suppressed as the very poyson bane subversion of Religion Church and Common-wealths as some Souldiers and the Anabaptists generally deem them and their Lands as well as Bishops Deans Chapters and Ministers Glebes and Tithes sold or conferred on the Officers and Souldiers of the Army for their better encouragement reward and supportation to propagate defend Religion and the Common wealth A design now eagerly prosecuted by some To which let them receive this Answer before hand since I intend not any future Treatise of this nature 1. That I never read of any pious Generals Armies Officers or Souldiers in Scripture the rule of Faith and Manners that spoyled the Church or Ministers of their Lands and Tithes to maintain their wars or enrich reward themselves but we find it expresly recorded of Abraham the Father of all the Faithfull that he paid Tithes even of the Spoyls of the first Wars to the first Pâ—â—â—st we find in Scripture unto Christ himself both in the Old and New Testament for other Christian Souldiers imitation The like we read of David and all his Officers Captains of the Army with sundry others fore-cited whose Presidents are more obliging and commendable than Charles Martels 2ly That it was the Custom use and pious practice of many Pagan Warlike Nations as the Romans Graecians Carthaginians Tyrians Saxons to do the like who consecrated the Tenths of all their Spoyls to their Idol-Gods and Priests as we may read at large in Mr. Seldens History of Tithes and Review c. 3. and in Mr. Richard Mountague his Diatribe thereon ch 3. Therefore they are worse than Pagans who neglect not only to pay their Ministers the Tenth of their Spoyls but will even spoyl them of their Glebes and Tithes besides 3ly It is very observable and let our Souldiers and Officers consider it in good earnest That God himself specially consecrated and devoted the future Spoyls a Sacrifice for and to himself and all the Spoyls City of Jericho the very first City taken by the Israelites in the Land of Canaan as a sacred First-fruits and kind of Tenth for the use of his Sanctuary and Priests in these memorable words Josh 6.17 18 19. And the City shall be devoted even it and all that is therein except Rahab and her Family and House Lord Whereupon when the City was taken they burnt it and all that was in it as a Sacrifice to the Lord But the Silver and Gold and the Vessels of Brass and of Iron they put into the Treasury of the House of the Lord v. 24. But Acban a covetous plundring Souldier seeing among the rich Spoyls of the City a goodly Babylonish Garment and two hundred Shekels of
the Souldiers possessing them should be all restored and so they were accordingly and those Harpyes robbed of their Sacrilegious prey Let the late Purchasers of such Tithes and Lands remember it and think of a possible if not probable Act of Resumption in case they make no voluntary restitution 4ly Let them consider the large Revenues the Popish Clergy at this day enjoy in France amounting to above 12. Millions of Annual Rents at a moderate value besides mony and oblations as Bodine Thuanus Hist l. 28. Ioannes de Laety Descriptio Galliae c. 17 18. record To which I might adde the extraordinary great Revenues of the Popish Clergy in Spain recorded by Lucius Marineus Siculus Ioannes de Laet in his Hispaniae Descriptis cap. 20. Jo. Boterus in his Hist Universalis and of the Popish Clergy in the Kingdom of Naples in Italy registred by Thomas Segethus De Principibus Italiae p. 121. Which they still enjoy notwithstanding their manifold Wars without sale or Diminution for their Soldiers pay And will it not be an intollerable Impiety Sacrilege dishonor for Protestant Souldiers and our new Republick not to allow our Ministers so much as their inconsiderable remaining Rectories Glebes Tithes to support our Religion and instruct and save the Peoples Souls 5ly The reason rendred by Martel and others That the Officers and Souldiers deserve the Lands and Tithes of the Church and Ministers because they fight for the defence of the Church is very strange and just the self-seeking Plea and Practice of sundry of our Officers and Souldiers at this day scarce to be parallel'd in any Age 1. They were raised for the Defence and Preservation of the late Kings Person Posterity and just Rights of his Crown Ergo in discharge of this Trust they have most justly sentenced beheaded the King outed dis-inherited his Posterity and seized upon all the Crown-Lands and Revenues in his three Kingdoms for their own use pay support reward and inheritance 2ly They were raised and fought for the preservatirn and defence of the Kingdom Parliament and Members Privileges and Laws and Liberties of England Therefore they have justly by armed violence invaded subverted them all disposed of all the Common wealth and Revenue of the Nation to themselves and their Instruments to support themselves and their usurped Arbitrary Power and Government over us and may null and pull down not only our Old but their own New-created Parliaments and State-Councils as they stile them and change both Government Governors at their pleasure 3ly They fought for the particular Defence Peace Safety of every mans Person and Estate in our three Kingdoms Therefore they may seize upon and dispose of all their Persons Lands Estates at their pleasures and impose what Taxes Excises Imposts they list and exercise a legislative absolute Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power over them without a lawfull Parliament to eat them quite out of all Lastly They fought for our Church Ministers Religion Ergo they may subvert them all and seise upon all church-Church-Lands Revenues Rectories Glebes Tithes yea Churches and Church-yards too for to reward support and pay the Army and possess themselves of what ever our Ancestors setled on the Church and Ministers to instruct and save the Peoples Souls as a just Salary for killing their Christian Brethrens Bodies and destroying the peoples Souls and Bodies too Certainly the worst Enemies they fought against would not could not have done worse than this nor yet so bad This certainly is a Devastation Destruction not a Defence or Preservation of what they were raysed and payed to protect an Invasion and Depredation not a Patronage and Protection a Remedy more destructive than the worst Disease War Enemy who could but have stript us of no more had they conquered us than these our new armed Defenders of the Faith Church King Parliament Laws and Liberties have done or intend to do as many fear It was John Baptists Evangelical Precept to all Souldiers whatsoever Do violence to none in Person Lands or Estate much lesse to Ministers privileged by the Law of War from Violence and to be content with their Wages without seising sequestring invading the Lands Estates Glebes Tithes Persons of Ministers King and Members or any others they fought for who never raised nor waged Souldiers to deprive them of their Patrimonies Estates Callings Rights Laws Liberties Privileges of Parliament Government Governours but only to secure them in the full possession of them all This new Martial law and practice then is both irrational and unevangelical fitter for professed Theeves Turks and Pyrates than Christian Souldiers and far different from the foresaid Christian Souldiers practice in former Ages who as they would by no means be engaged by their Pagan Emperors or Generals commands to fight against any of their Christian Brethren choosing rather to obey God their Supream Emperour than Men So the famous Thebean Legion of Christian Souldiers and their Officers under Julian the Apostate when he commanded them to bring forth their Arms against the Christians returned him this most Heroick Answer worthy to be written in Golden Letters briefly fully and elegantly expressing the Duty of every true Christian Souldier in all Ages and Cases Offerimus nostras in quemlibet hostem manus quas sanguine innocentium cruentare nefas ducimus Dexterae ipsae pugnare adversus Impios Inimicos sciunt laniare pios et Cives nesciunt Meminerimus nos and O that our Army-Officers and Souldiers would remember it likewise Pro Civibus potius quam adversus Cives arma sumpsisse Pugnabimus semper pro Iustitia pro pietate pro innocentium salute not for Kings Bishops Deans Chapters Ministers Lands Revenues Tithes Estates the things now fought for Haec fuerunt hactenus pretia periculorum Pugnavimus pro fide quam quo pacto conservemus tibi Imperatori Si hanc Deo nostro non exhibemus O that this Resolution were now engraven in every Army-Officers and Souldiers heart our Ministers then needed not to fear the losse of their Tithes Rectories Churches nor our Universities Colleges Corporations or any other the disinheris on of their Lands Laws Liberties Powers by Military Rapines violences and usurpations 6ly The Exemptions of the Hospitalers and Templers Lands from paying of Tithes was a meer Papal Innovation and Devise which Canne who pleads so much against Tithes upon this mistake that they are Popish and all his Confederates should be ashamed to own and imitate The Israelites Gods own people during their possession of Canaan had many forein and Civil wars in most of their Judges Kings and High Priests successive Reigns and Roman Governours over them yet we never read that any of their Generals Officers or Souldiers fighting for their Churches Priests and Religions Defence against forein or Domestique idolatrous Enemies pretended the least Exemption of their Lands or Estates from paying all their antient forementioned accustomed Tithes to the Levites Priests and Poor
nor any Christian Souldiers else but the Popish Templers and Hospitalers for the Lands conferred on their Orders not for their private Inhabitances And if Souldiers be obliged to pay Tithes of all their Spoyls and Gains of war as I have abundantly proved much more then of their real and personal Estates as well as any others not in armes especially where they are well paid and war not on their own expences but other mens purses Amongst the Jewes we never read of any Taxes Tributes or Contributions imposed on the Cities Houses Lands or Tithes of the People and Levites for the maintenance of wars or pay of Souldiers from which even Artaxerxes a heathen Conqueror exempted them by an express Decree Ezra 7.24 Yet they received Tithes of all their Kings Generals Captains Souldiers as well as Peoples Lands and increase both in times of war and peace But our Army-Officers and Souldiers now receive above the Tithes of all our Ministers Tithes Glebes in Monthly Taxes and Contributions by arbitrary illegal Impositions without their or Consents in Parliament contrary to their antient Privileges all former Presidents and our Laws Therefore there is all Equity and Justice they should receive the Tenths both of their Lands Goods and Gains of war too and that no Officers or Souldiers should be exempted from Tithes as the Templers and Hospitalers were who had no other Pay or Salaries but their Lands and received no constant Contributions from the Clergy Xenophon that famous learned Greek Heathen Commander having made the most Noble retreat we ever read of in Story out of the upper part of Asia with ten thousand men through mountains frost and snow in memorie of his thankfullness to the Gods for this safe return separated the Tenth of all the Spoyls that his Army had gained in the wars and by general consent commited them to the Captains to be dedicated to Apollo and Diana That for Apollo was layd up at Delphos in the Athenean Treasury but with that other Tenth Dianas share Xenophon himself purchased a Peece of Land and built thereon a Temple and an Altar to Diana and appointed the Tenth of the yearly increase forever unto it This Pagan Commander and his Captains and Souldiers were so far from exempting their Lands from Tithes to their Idol Deities that they Tithed the very Spoyls of their wars to them and built and endowed a Temple to Diana with Lands and Tithes out of their own Lands and Estates for ever Which shall for ever silence and shame those Christian Army-Officers Souldiers Templers and Hospitalers who would exempt not only their Spoyls but their Lands and Estates from all Tithes to God and his Ministers because they are Souldiers and pretend to fight for their Defence 7ly This Reason that they should enjoy not only their own but our Ministers Tithes because they are an Army of Preachers and Priests and more Officers Souldiers in the present Army Preachers or Speakers as they phrase them than ever in any Army in the world before hath frequently minded me of that saying of Pope Gregory the first which famous Bishop Jewel much insisted on concerning Antichrist The King of Pride Antichrist is at hand and which is an horrible Thing to be spoken Sacerdotum est praeparatus Exercitus an Army of Priests is prepared to gard and usher him in Certainly I never heard nor read of such an Army of Priests as our Army now is before wherein there are not only some hundreds of disguised Popish Antichristian Priests and Jesuites as most wisemen conceive under the disguise of Souldiers preaching venting many notorious Errors Blasphemies and Antichristian Tenents to infect the Army and Nation too but many preaching Colonels Captains Officers Souldiers of all sorts not a preaching General as some say too And among others one of these Army-Preachers not long since published a Book with this Title Antichrist with us by John Spittle-house a member of the Army printed at London 1648. which intimated to me at first sight that Antichrist was in the Army and truly if they proceed as Canne would have them to usurp our Ministers Office Rectories Glebes Tithes Churches to themselves and Suppresse our Ministers Churches Parishes as Antichristian I shall then justly suspect and others will confidently conclude they are the very Army of Priests prophecied of by Pope Gregory who shall forcibly usher and bring in Antichrist the King of Pride who exalteth himself above all that is called God or Worshipped that is above Kings Lords Parliaments and all Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers whatsoever as Expositors resolve into our Church and re-establish him in his Throne 8ly I never read in the Old Testament or New that Christ Authorized Commissioned or sent out any Captains or Souldiers to preach the Gospel or made choyce of such to be his Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel Surely had this been a part of their duty as Christian Officers and Souldiers John Baptist Christs forerunner would have instructed those Souldiers who came purposely to and demanded of him what shall we do in another manner than he did and said unto them Go and preach the Gospel and instruct the ignorant Souldiers and people publickly where ever you quarter in the first place and then Do violence to no man and accuse no man falsly and be content with your wages The only precepts he gave them Which our Army-Officers and Souldiers since they turned Preachers have much forgotten and neglected I read of 2. devout Centurions in the New Testament eminent for their faith piety Charity and of one devout Souldier yet neither of them a publick Preacher The first of these Colonels or Centurions built a Synagogue for the Jews and others to meet and preach in who were Priests and Ministers but I read not he ever preached in it publickly himself The latter Centurion is thus characterized Acts 10.1 2. That he was a devout man and one that feared God with all his House which gave much Alms to the people and prayed to God continually but doubtlesse he never preached for then it would have been there recorded that he preached continually as well as prayed Yea he was so far from this that when the Angel of God came to him in a vision he sayd Thy Prâ—yers and thine Alms not thy preaching therefore he preached not at all or if he did God accepted it not but disliked it as against his word and will are come into remembrance before God And now send men to Joppa and call for Simon Peter he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do Whereupon he presently sent two of his Servants and a devout Souldier continually waiting on him but not on preaching for the Apostle Peter to preach to him his Friends and Family who repairing to him Cornelius goeth forth to meet him falls down at his feet worshippeth him talks with him brings him into his House where many were come together relates his vision
to Christ himself in the shape of Melchisedec and prescribed by Gods own special Precept 2ly How any thing commanded by God even when the 2d Commandement was given recorded in the same Canonical Books of Scripture with it practised by Gods special command by all his true Saints under the Law and generally in all Christian Churches under the Gospel as I have proved can possibly be a Sin against the 2 d. Commandement in it self and whether it be not direct Blasphemy in him thus confidently to aver it in making Gods very Commandements to fight one against another and to command one thing as a Duty in some Texts and condemn it as a Sin and damnable Superstition in another 3ly How Tithes if truly and orignally Iewish can yet be truly and originally Antichristian Popish and the Popes device many thousand years after Tithes first Institution and customary payment Till he can satisfactorily reconcile these apparent contradictory Assertions or publickly recant them if he cannot all the world must accompt him for an Antichristian Minister and Lying Impostor his Voyce the Voyce of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth both God and Men Psal 44.16 and confess there is no ground at all in Piety or Conscience against Tithes or their payment but grounds both of Piety and Conscience for them as I have proved especially for our Godly Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel for whom I only plead whose Calling being of unquestionable Divine Institution notwithstanding all Cannes Alehouse Arguments against them not worth a Canne and to continue in the world to the very end thereof and the consummation of all things by Christs own resolution Matth. 28.20 Ephes 4.10 11 12 13. they may and ought by Divine and Human Laws to enjoy their Glebes and Tithes so long continued maugre all the malice power of their violent Oppugners and will do so when they and their Posterities shall not have so much as a Name or Being upon Earth or in Heaven unless they repent notwithstanding they were justly taken from Popish Fryers Abbots Priors Lordly Prelates of mere popish Antichristian Institution not Divine when their very Orders were suppressed as mere Vsurpers Encroachers of the Ministers Rights Rewards alone for their pains in preaching exercising their Ministerial Function in their respective Parishes not in Abbies Cathedrals no Parish-Churches for the people to resort unto to which by the Popes Bulls they were unjustly appropriated heretofore To clear this Proposition more fully in all its branches I have observed that there are five sorts of persons of late very busie active both against our Ministers tiths and callings too The first are Souldiers The 2d Anabaptists Dippers Quakers with other late blasphemous Sectaries and Hereticks The 3d. prophane covetous Earthworms and Atheistical Wretches who say in their Hearts and sometimes boldly profess not only by their Lives but with their Tongues in this lawless Age There is no GOD. The 4th prophane ignorant cheating Prognosticators and Astronomers The 5th Jesuites popish Priests and Romish Emissaries sent from all parts to ruine our Ministers and Religion For the first they are either Officers and Common Souldiers and those either such who have gained or purchased Lands since the Wars lyable to Tithes for such who have no Lands at all and so not of present Ability Capacity to pay Tithes Those who have any purchased Lands lyable to Tithes are now so fierce against them for ought I can discern not out of any grounds of piety or Conscience but either out of an unworthy covetous degenerous sordid disposition to ease themselves and their Heirs from this just antient Debt yea a charge of Tithes upon their New cheap Purchases and gain them as an Over-plus into their Bargains to improve their Purchases to an higher value the case of such of them who approve of our Ministers our publick Ordinances and are no Speakers Anabaptists Sectaries Or else a like avaritious Disposition mixed with and heightned by a professed Enmity Malignity against the very Persons Calling of our Ministers whom they usually revile by the names of Baals Priests Black Coats Antichristian Locusts rotten corrupt Clergy-men Seditious Factious Varlets and all other rayling Epithites which Lilly in his late Almanacks and Scurrilous Pamphlets hath furnished them with which they much magnifie This is the Case of such Sword men who are above or against all Ordinances Duties publick or private or Antiscripturists Antitrinitarians Anabaptists Seekers Quakers Asserters of the Souls mortality as rising from and dying with the body of all their ordinary unordained Speakers Preachers infected with any other erronious heretical or blasphemous opinions of all disguised Jesuites Priests Papists under the Profession and Name of Souldiers Those who have no Lands liable to Tithes petition and speak against them either meerly to please their Superior Landed-Officers for fear of being cashiered by them or because they are infected with Anabaptism Jesuitism Errors Blasphemy Schism Arianism Atheism contempt of all publique Ordinances Duties and a bitter Emnity against our Ministers Persons Callings or Intruders into their Office as well as into most other Professions without any Lawfull call These in my Observation and I appeal to every of their own Consciences in the presence of the Searcher of all hearts for the truth of it are the only true Grounds Motives of any Officers or Souldiers present stickling opposition against Tithes and Ministers arising from within them as they are private persons And these unchristian Grounds seconded with the open or under-hand sollicitations of their Anabaptistical Heretical Schismatical Jesuitical Astromatical Friends and acquaintance out of the Army backed with a most impious wretched Sacrilegious Policy to please the simple oppressed deluded Country people in discharging them at present from the payment of Tithes to their Ministers that so they may augment their Taxes to the full value of their abolished Tithes to support themselves and the Army the longer in a body to uphold their Supream enchroached Powers preserve encrease their New Purchases Estates depending wholly upon the New Law and Title of the longest Sword are in my apprehension the only true causes why the General Council of Officers of the Army with the Souldiers under them by their directions as a New created All-swaying Military Corporation have so oft appeared publickly against our Ministers Tithes to abolish them and their Ministry by necessary consequence with them which all other Opponents being inconsiderable were never able to effect but by their armed power These are all the real principles of Piety Conscience if they deserve the Title I could ever yet find amongst them engaging the Army-Officers and Souldiers against Tithes which how inconsistent they are with the real profession or grounds of Christianity Piety Conscience Justice Saintship let their own Consciences and the world resolve and what Censures Execrations Judgements they may in Justice expect from God for such a Sacrilegious Rapine as they intend upon these carnal impious atheistical
Profession prohibiting Christians to buy read keep or credit such Books in which many unprofitable Superstitious false yea impious and sacrilegious things are contained which Books ought to be suppressed damned and utterly abolished yea burnt like those Acts 19.19 as the Council of Burdeaux An 1582. and Johan Charberius de Gersonio in his Trilogio Astrologiae Theologizaiae proves at large And those who will compare Culpeppers Lillies wild monstrous false Predictions concerning the several States Kingdoms mentioned in their Almanacks Prognostications for this present year and the great Plagues Mortality which should be both the last and this Summer in London though never freer from Pestilence than at these seasons with their and others usual false Predictions every Month concerning the Weather their manifold Contradictions both to themselves and one another will easily discern them to be meer Lyars Impostors and their Art a Cheat. Now let them all tell me at their leisure by what warrant from Scripture Philosophy reason art sense the Constellations of the Heavens or Ecclipses of the Sun Moon these 2 last years only should certainly predict portend excite Souldiers Sectaries or Country people by any Divine ordination or real influence on their dis-affected Spirits to pull down the Ministers of the Gospel their Tithes being both of Divine institution and establishment to continue to the Worlds end When no other Constellations Ecclipses of like nature in any former Ages of the World since the Creation portended or effected the like Or how the Stars in Heaven should thus professedly fight against and pull down those Stars the Ministers of the Churches which Christ himself holds in his right hand out of which none can pull them and their Tithes too being antient perpetual appurtenant to Christs own eternal Priesthood Heb. 7.1 to 15 More particularly I shall desire this scurrilous Impostor Lilly to inform me How it comes to passe That the Celestial Stars Planets and Good Angels which he oft couples together in his Merlius who in the year 1647. as he prints in his Ephemeris for it by their good influence stirred up by Gods providence the Parliament to take care that preaching Ministers should be placed in every County of this Kingdom and a sufficient stipend allowed where formerly none was For which We writes he including himself in the Number must ever acknowledge our Thankfulness And that the Figures he erects on the X. of March 1647. Astrologically predicting the State of our English Affairs and Clergy should by the Rules of Astrologie and his own Iudgement thereon then printed Venus being then found in the ninth House import That many of the Clergy should trot and trudge or change their habitation out of one County into another nay shall willingly travel long Journies By which I conceive writes he is meant That our present Parliament shall this year place worthy men into warm Benefices and distribute the deserving Clergy-men of England into several quarters of this Kingdom as in their wisedoms they think convenient Blessed be God for his Creatures the Stars promise they may travel safe without prejudice or at least they indicate so much c. And shall obtain profit and good by their oft changings and remove of Habitations And the Godly Ministers so dispersed into several Counties shall prevail with the People to amend their Lives and live more soberly religiously c. As also that most of those itinerant Preachers or Divines shall leave behind them lesser Livings and go to enjoy better To which he addes by way of Jeer this passage against Mr. Geree for writing against Astrology Now for that ASTROLOGO-MASTIX is a Master of Arts and capable of Preferment I humbly implore he may be made Priest of Teuksbury from which place per varios casus he once in haste trotted c. That but 3 years after this the Heavenly Stars Planets Angels in the year 1650. as his Ephemeris then prognosticates very frequently should threaten ill and unwilling payment of Tithes in many Counties to the Clergy much heart-burning of the People towards them That after a small season or a very few years no Tithes shall be paid them For a plain people will arise gifted by God with such spiritual Knowledge as the generality of the People will decline their Sophistical School Doctrines and wholly adhere unto those who preach God only and Jesus Christ his Son And that they should be so implacable as to continue these and worse threatnings against all Presbyterian Ministers Presbytery Rectories TITHES and the whole English Clergy ever since this year so far as to portend or ascertain not only their general Opposition by Swordmen the generality of the Nation and their Governours and people but sodain downfall and extirpation Of which all his Merlins and Prognostications surfet Tantaene Animis Caelestibus Irae Doubtlesse the heavenly Stars Planets and good Angels are not so contradictory to themselves or maliciously irreconcileably Malignant against our Ministers Persons Callings Tithes Presbytery as this Arch-Cheat would make poor Simpletons believe But it is only the Language and Malignity of his own malicious heart tongue Pen against them because Enemies to his absurd Diabolical lying cheating Artlesse Art of Astrology witnesse his own words I hate Presbytery and hatred and affection as himself writes cause often Errours and Mistakes in their Art and Predictions Art thou a Presbyterian Thou art an enemy to Astrology and weariest thy auditory with invectives against me I desire thee to conform lest a worse thing happen to thee than Deans and Chapters Lands For if thou labourest to root up or pull down this Fabrick which God hath erected then I say in a small season or very few years no Tithes will be paid thee c. with many such like Passages since wherein he reviles vilifies Mr. Calvin Perkins Geree Case Calamy Farmer Gataker Owen with sundry other Divines by name and all of them in general only because they have preached or writ against the vanity falsity of his cheating Astrology by which he gets his living as much as he reviles jeers his Companion Wharton Naworth Nawâ—rth for contradicting him in his own Science whom yet elsewhere himself and Culpepper too extraordinarily applaud for his exact transcendent knowledge in Astrology though all 3. of them diametrically contradict each other in their Predictions from the Stars or different factions rather This malice of theirs against our Ministers and their Tithes wherein they have proved lying Diviners hitherto and will do so to the Worlds end if we credit Matth. 28.20 Ephes 4.11 12 13 no doubt is elevated augmented by Jesuites and Popish Spanish Agents the chief Promoters of this Study of Astrology amongst us and very intimate with these Lunatique Star gazing Incendiaries and Time-servers it being the expresse advise and project of Thomas Campanella a great Astrologer and Jesuited Italian Fryer much magnified by Lilly in some of his Merlins in his Treatise De
or strip them both of their Callings and Benefices when and for what they please or only upon the peoples voluntary contributions will certainly be a men-pleasing time-serving flattering unsincere and word-corrupting Ministry studying more to please favour those by and from whom they have their Livelihood than to please God and fitting their preaching praying Doctrines opinions to their opinions tempers factions parties designe holding alwayes with the prevailing strongest party or those by whom they subsist and wresting the Scriptures to support their very errors vices sins power yea most unrighteous treacherous perfidious oppressing practices and bloudy usurpations not daring to displease them as Ecclesiastical Histories record and our own experience can sufficiently testifie in these late whirling times and changes as well as in King Edward the 6. Queen Maries and Queen Elizabeths reigns when our Religion suffered so many publick alterations and most Ministers Scholars and our whole Universities then changed their Opinions Professions and Religion with the times Hence the Scripture records this as one of Jeroboams policies to keep the People and Kingdome from returning to the right heir 1 Kings 12.28 29 31 c. ch 13.33 34. That he made Priests of the lowest or poorest of the people who were not of the Sonnes of Levi and placed them in Bethel who being poor mean and depending on him for their Salaries readily sacrificed to his golden Calves offered upon the Altar which he had made in Bethel and observed his new prescribed Feasts which the Priests and Levites that were in all Israel having Lands Suburbs and a setled maintenance refused to do Whereupon Jeroboam and his Sonnes cast them out from executing the Priests office unto the Lord and substituted these base stipendiary Idol-Priests for the Calves 2 Chron. 11.13 14 15. Which became sinne unto the house of Jeroboam even to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth God deliver us of this Nation from the like Atheistical Jeroboam-like policy and practice now which will certainly prove the ruin of them and their house who shall put it in execution if not of our Religion and Nation as it did of Jeroboam his house and the whole Kingdom of Israel XII All Christians are commanded Gal. 6.10 As they have opportunity to do good to all men by relieving their wants especially to the houshold of faith Therefore they are in an especial manner bound to do good to their Ministers who instruct them in maintaining and communicating to them in all good things as he resolves v 6. The rather because we have this Precept thus seconded Heb 13.16 But to do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifice God is well pleased coupled with this injunction Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account That they may do it with Joy and not with Grief for that is unprofitable for you Wherein these 3 Conclusions are positively asserted 1. That Christians must not only obey their Ministers but likewise do good and communicate to them in all good things they want 2. That this is so farr from being unlawfull that it is a sacrifice well pleasing unto God 3. That Ministers deserve not only obedience but mainnance from the people 1. Because they have the rule over them 2. Because they watch for their souls 3. Because they must give an account to God for them 4. Because it will be a great encouragement to them to discharge their dutie with joy not with grief 5. Because the not doing it will both grieve the Ministers and be unprofitable to the people in regard of their souls and spiritual estate and also cause God to curse and blast them in their temporal estates Mal 3.8 9 10 11 12. where as the doing thereof will be advantagious to them in both-Powerfull reasons motives to convince all of the justice of our Ministers maintenance and to induce them chearfully to render it unto them though it were not due by humane Laws as we know it is XIII The very Gospel enjoyns all Christians Rom. 12.20 21. To distribute to the necessitie of the Saints and to be hospitable not only to those we know but even to strangers Heb 13.2 And if our enemie hunger it commands us to feed him if he thirst to give him drink and Not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good seconded with Mat 5.44 45 46 47 48. Luke 6.32 to 37. Prov. 25.22 whence thus I argue If Christians must distribute to the necessities of and be hospitable to Saints and others who are meer strangers to them yea give meat drink to their very enemies and overcome their evil with goodness Then it necessarily followes they must much more distribute to the necessities of be hospitable liberal give meat drink maintenance to their own faithfull preaching Ministers and recompence their good with good again else they shall be worse than Publicans and sinners who doe good to those that do good to and for them Mat. 5.46 47. XIV This is evident by the practice of the primitive Saints and Christians recorded in the Gospel for our imitation who though they paid all civil Tributes Customs Duties to the civil Magistrates and likewise Tithes and other duties to the Jewish or Pagan Priests under whom they lived yet they likewise freely and liberally ministred contributed of their substance and temporal estates towards the maintenance of Christ and his Apostles and the Ministers of the Gospel Hence we read Luke 8.2 3. That Mary Magdalen Joanna the wife of Cuza Herods Steward Susanna and MAN others of our Saviours auditors ministred to him of their substance put it seems into a common purse for the maintenance of Christ and his Apostles which Judas kept who provided bread meat and other necessaries out of it as is evident by John 4.8 31. 12.5 6. 13.29 6.5 7. compared together After our Saviours resurrection when the multitude of believers at Jerusalem were much increased it is expresly recorded Acts 4.32 to the end 5.1 to 10. That they were all of one heart and of one soul and oh that we were so again neither said any of them that ought that he possessed was his own but they had all things common neither was there any amongst them whether Apostle Minister or Believer that lacked For as many as were possessors of Lands or Houses Sold them not purchased them much less Glebes Tithes or Church-lands as many do now who say they imitate the primitive Christians and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the Apostles feet and distribution was made unto every Man therefore to every Apostle and Minister of the Gospel as well as others accordding as they had need Amongst others Joses a Levite of Cyprus having Land sold it and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles feet
beneficial to others than that of Souldiers and Commanders for they are the very Embassadors of God himself and Jesus Christ the King and Lord of glory the King of Kings and Lord of Lords the Prince of the Kings of the earth and only Potentate to whom all other Powers and knees must bow beseeching men in Christs stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5 20. The Ministers servants messengers of Jesus Christ workers together with him Stewards of the mysteries of God and the glory of Christ 1 Cor 4.1 2. 2 Cor 6.1 8.23 2 Tim 2.24 imployed to preach to sinfull men the unsearchable riches of Christ to turn them from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God Eph 3.8 Acts 26.18 to rescue their souls from the slavery and power of sin Satan hell death everlasting damnation and make them the sons of God heirs and coheirs with Christ of everlasting glory and felicity in Gods heavenly Kingdom through the power of Gods Grace and Spirit working in with by and through their Ministry on their hearts Now the calling of a Souldier though it be honourable and in some cases lawfull and necessary if rightly managed yet it is for the most part sinfull hurtfull pernicious dangerous unbeseeming the Gospel in respect of the cause managing abuses thereof it being accompanied with murther violence rapine treachery perjury sacrilege cruelty inhumanity profaneness blasphemy contempt of God of all sacred civil Laws and Ordinances ambition treason and the worst of sins tending usually like an overflowing Deluge to the subversion desolation ruine of whole Families Cities Countries Kingdoms Churches yea Mankinde it self Religion Lawes Liberties Properties turning whole famous Cities into ashes and Kingdoms into Golgothaes Acheldamaes fields of bloud and dead mens sculs yea very wildernesses as the Scripture Histories and experience manifest Hence God styles great Warriers and Armies The rod of his anger the Battel-Axe with which he breaketh in pieces the Nations destroyeth Kingdoms and treadeth them down like the mire in the streets and then at last destroyes them in his wrath when they have executed his judgements for their rapines violence and bloudy cruelty Isa 10.5 c. Jer. 50.1 to 48. c. 51.20 c. They being really carried on from one war to another out of vainglory ambition covetousness a mad humour of false greatness nullus supra caeteros eminendi modus in sua fata pariter ac publica to their own and the publick ruine yet still under a pretext of publick good and safety as Seneca excellently writes in his 94 Epistle a piece worth the reading of Alexander the great Caesar Pompey Marius qui cum omnia concuterent concutiebantur cum multis fuerunt Authores mali pestiferam illam vim qua plerosque nocuerunt ipsi quoque sentiunt Indeed the Profession of a Souldier even in the best of men and warres is so full of danger pollution that it leaves some scarrs of sin and tincture of pollution on them however they demean themselves Whence we read that though David were a man after Gods own heart and fought the battels of the Lord against his professed enemies by his special command with constant success yet God would by no means permit him to build an house and Temple to him for this very reason Because he had been a man of Warr and made great Battels and shed much Blood upon the Earth in his sight And the 12000. Israelites who by Gods special command went up to war against the Midianites and slew them returning with victory and great spoils without the loss of one man though treble their number when as they came back from the war were all of them whosoever had killed any person or touched any slain enjoyned by God and Moses to remain without the Camp seven dayes and to purifie themselves on the third and seventh day as unclean and polluted persons Numb 31.1 17 19 20. and all the Officers and Captains of hundreds and thousands in the host brought an oblation what every man had gotten of Jewels of Gold Chaines Bracelets Rings Ear-rings and Tablets to make an Oblation for their souls before the Lord v. 48 49 50. Such a stain and guilt was there adhering to their War-like calling in this best of Warrs against Gods professed idolatrous enemies And may not all Officers Souldiers whatsoever then justly fear finde a deeper guilt of sin and stain of blood than was in David or those Officers and Souldiers adhering to their persons profession in our unnatural uncivil Wars even with and against their very Christian nearest dearest Kings Brethren Friends Kindred Neighbours of the self-same reformed Protestant Religion and thereupon make the like or a far richer oblation than they did out of their spoils and gains by Warr as an attonement for their Souls in stead of provoking God and encreasing their guilt by seeking to spoil his faithfull Ministers of their long enjoyed maintenance In all these 6. particulars wherein the calling of Ministers excells in merit that of common Souldiers Captains and Officers of War both in respect of time studie costs labour diligence parts danger honour excellencie use profit and necessitie to which I might add that the Ministers frequent tears prayers in times of War and Judgements are far more prevalent beneficial victorious than the Souldiers Arms besides their constant use and benefit in daies of peace when Souldiers are needless useless I referr it to the unprejudiced judgements consciences of all rational Christian men and Souldiers themselves whether our faithfull preaching Ministers be not worthie of as large as liberal as constant setled honourable coercive a maintenance from the people as any Souldiers Officers Captains Collonels Majors or Major Generals whatsoever if not a better larger salarie and reward than they enjoy for the premised reasons when as yet some ordinarie Soldiers Troopers receive as much or more pay by the year as many of our godly Ministers and every Ancient Serjeant Lieutenant as much as the most and best beneficed Ministers and most Captains Collonels Majors five or six times more than our ablest best deserving Ministers and some general Army-Officers have received gained more monie lands wealth in few moneths or years space at least than hundreds of our most meritorious Ministers put together can gain in all their lives by their Ministry How then can they tax them as covetous oppressive yea as caterpillars of the people by their Tithes and Duties for receiving only 30 40 50 80 100 200 or 300 l. a year and very few of them more or so much from the people by an antient right paid once a year when as they receive ten times more from the impoverished people and at least the tenth part or more of all our poor Ministers livings by monthly enforced contributions and yet will neither give them the Tenthes of their pay and spoyles of Warr as Abraham and others did Gen 14.10
registred in 1 Chron. 29.13 14. 2. We have Joab Davids Captain General the Captains over Thousands and Hundreds and the Captains of the Army dedicating out of the spoyls won in Battels to the service of the House of the Lord and that in a liberal proportion even five thousand Talents of gold and ten thousand drams and of silver ten thousand Talents and of brasse 18000 Talents and one hundred thousand Talents of Iron besides precious stones all which they offered willingly with a perfect heart unto the Lord rejoycing with great joy they had done it 1 Chron. 29.6 7 8 9. When our Generals Officers Collonels Captains and Souldiers of the Army shall imitate King David and his Generals Colonels Captains Officers Souldiers in such a liberal contribution of the Jewels Gold Silver Brasse Iron and Spoyls they have won in Battels at home and from other Nations to repair or build houses for Gods publick worship and maintain the Ministers of the Gospel in stead of seeking to demolish and spoyl those stately Edifices which our pious Ancestors have erected for that purpose and breaking down the Carved work thereof with axes and hammers of which David much complaineth Psal 74.3 4 5 6 7 8 9. and in lieu of endevouring to devest our Ministers of their remaining Lands Tithes Glebes not yet devoured all the World will proclaim them Men after Gods own heart and Men of God in truth like David and give over censuring them for Sacrilegious Harpyes as yet more like to Zeba and Zalmunna who said Let us take to our selves the Houses of God in possession as David himself objects against them Psal 83.11 12. than to David or his Officers Captains Souldiers 3. Here is Samuel the seer doing the like out of his spoyls won in Battel A precedent for all those Souldiers who will be Seers Speakers and New-lights to imitate 4. If these good mens examples be neglected yet let the Precedents of bad men annexed to them shame and excite others to this duty Here is Saul the son of Kish much talked of and reviled now by many for a Tyrant the very first King given to Gods people in anger and taken from them in wrath as these object from Hos 13.11 which I conceive rather to be meant of Jeroboam the Idolatrous usurper who made Israel to sin as judicious Interpreters prove by the 2 Chron. 13.20 compared with 2 Kings 17.10 to 24. and the context likewise which makes mention of the Israelites Idolatry in kissing the Calves erected by Jeroboam and speaks only of the Kingdom of Israel as divided from that of Juhah after Sauls Davids and Solomons death yet he as bad as they make him together with Abner his chief Captain none of the best of men as 1 Sam. 3.7 8. discovers had so much Piety Zeal Religion in them as likewise to dedicate part of their richest spoyls of Warr to the maintenance of Gods house and worship And will it not be a great dishonour to those Generals Officers Colonels Captains who now pretend themselves the holiest justest zealousest Saints not to be as bountifull towards the maintenance of Gods house and worship out of their spoyls as Saul or Abner whom they brand for Tyrants and ungodly wicked men If these Precedents be ineffectual to work upon any Covetous or Sacrilegious Sword-men let them reflect upon others who were Idolaters how near they came in their way to imitate Abraham David and these forecited Warriers When Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon had taken Jerusalem ransacked and burnt the glorious Temple there towards which David and his Captains contributed so largely out of their spoyls he had so much Piety and natural Religion in him as to dedicate all the Vessels of Silver and Gold which he took out of the house of God to the honour and service of his Idol-gods and put them in the Temple at Babylon in the House of his GODS not converting them to his private or publick Treasury 2 Chron. 36.7 18. 2 King 24.13 Ezra 1.7 Which Vessels afterwards being brought forth thence and profanely caroused in by Belshazzar and his Princes at his great feast wherein he praysed the gods of Gold and Silver of Brasse of Iron of Wood and of Stone you may read what fatal judgement presently befell him to the losse of his life and Kingdome Dan. 5. These Vessels though a just and lawfull spoyl won by wars Cyrus King of Persia brought forth out of the house of his Gods where Nebuchadnezzar had put them by the hand of Mithredah his Treasurer and numbred them unto Sheshbazzar the Prince of Judah when he proclaimed liberty and gave order to the Israelites to rebuild the house of the Lord God of Israel in Jerusalem and this is the number of them thirty Chargers of Gold a thousand Chargers of Silver nine and twenty Knives thirty Basons of Gold Silver Basons of a second sort four hundred and ten and other Vessels a thousand all the Vessels of Gold and Silver were five thousand and four hundred all these did Sheshbazzar bring with him from Babylon to Jerusalem for the use and service of God in the Temple there all these did Cyrus a Heathen King freely and chearfully restore dedicate to God and his Temple by a Decree Ezra 1.4 to the end O when will our Army-Saints part with so many Gold and Silver Vessels to Gods house out of their spoyls and plunders This Decree was afterwards confirmed by King Darius and Artaxerxes his successors Ezra 1.4 ch 7.15 16 17. 8.24 to 31. these Kings with their Princes and chief Officers also freely offered dedicated Silver and Gold besides these Vessels amounting to a great value towards the re-edifying of the Temple and maintenance of the worship Priests of God therein Moreover King Artaxerxes made this Decree concerning these Vessels The Vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem and whatsoever more shall be needfull for the house of thy God bestow it out of the Kings Treasure-house Adding this further Decree To all the Treasurers beyond the river Whatsoever Ezra the Priest shall require of you let it be done speedily unto an hundred Talents of Silver and to an hundred measures of Wheat and to an hundred bathes of Wine and to an hundred bathes of Oyl Salt without prescribing measure Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven for why should there be wrath against the Realme of the King and his Sons Also we certifie you that touching any of the Priests and Levites Singers Porters Nethinims or Ministers of this house of God it shall not be lawfull to impose Toll Tribute or custom upon them and whosoever will not do the Law of God and the Law of the King let judgement be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto death or unto banishment or to confiscation of
Arguments drawn from Melchisedec not pertinent to our present businesse after which he largely argues the change and abolition of the Levitical Law and Priesthood by Christ a theam of a different nature from the former to which the objected words refer therefore the total and final abolishing of all Tithes to which these words have no relation can never be inforced from them being ratifyed by the former clause as appurtenances to Christs everlasting Priesthood as well as to Melchisedecs Therefore as due to his Ministers under the Gospel as to any Priests and Levites under the Law which were likewise Types of Christ the true high Priest expiring at and by his death 3. The Priests and Levites under the Law had Cities Glebes Houses setled on them for their habitation families Cattel as well as Tithes by the Ceremonial Law for their better maintenance accommodation and that in a large proportion Lev. 25.32 33 34. Num. 35.1 to 12. Josh 21.1 to 43. 1 Chr. 6.54 to the end ch 9.10 to 35. 2 Chr. 11.13 14. Ezra 2.70 Neh. 11.26 ch 13.10 Ezec. 45.1 to 6. ch 4.8 9 to 15. If then this Text proves the Total Abolition of all our Ministers Tithes root and branch as Jewish and Antichristian as some impudent Scriblers and Petitioners against them now affirm It likewise proves the abolition of all their Rectories Glebes Houses likewise as well as of their Tithes as Jewish and Antichristian And so Ministers of the Gospel now shall neither have Tithes nor Glebes to support and feed them their families and Cattel nor yet so much as an House wherein to lodge and put their heads and be inforced to complain as our Saviour once did of his forlorn condition Mat. 8.20 and Luke 9.58 the Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have Nests but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head A condition to which some Jesuitical Anabaptistical Athiestical uncharitable beasts of Prey worse than any Foxes or Harpies would now gladly reduce all our faithful Ministers and their Families whiles some of them Lord it and lodge themselves in our Kings Princes Bishops Deans and Chapters new acquired royal Palaces and not content therewith would spoyl all our Ministers of their more contemptible Glebes Rectories Tithes to enrich themselves and their Posterities and make our Ministers like our Saviour in his voluntary Poverty both Houseless and Harborless They may with as much Justice like the hard-hearted bloudy Jews Souldiers even crucifie them on crosses between such thieves as themselves to make them like our Saviour even in his voluntary sufferings as part their Glebes Lands Rectories Tithes among them and cast Lots upon their vestures even before their death when as the Souldiers who crucified our Saviour did not part his raiment amongst them nor cast Lots on his vesture till after his crucifixion by them there being as much Authority Conscience Law Justice Reason for the one as other seeing none by any Laws can lose or forfeit their Lands Livelihood but such who first forfeit their Lives to publick Justice 4. The Israelites were enjoyned by the Levitical Law Deut. 12.17 18 19. ch 14.26 27 28 29. to harbour entertain the Priests and Levites within their gates and not to forsake them so long as they should live upon the earth but freely to permit and invite them to come eat drink feast rejoyce and be satisfied with them and their Families before the Lord as well as to pay them Tithes But this Law as they argue is now abolished by Christ with the Priesthood Therefore when our Ministers are stript of all their Tithes Glebes Rectories Houses maintenance by our new Reformadoes it must be Jewish and Antichristian for them or any others so much as to lodge entertain or give them any thing to eat or drink within their gates or so much as to admit invite them to a Feast or meal within their Houses and then they with all theirs and other poor widows and orphans must all presently starve perish by John Cannes and these uncharitable mens new Gospel Light and Charity because Hospitality and Alms to such are Levitical and Jewish abolished with the Levitical Law and Priesthood which abrogated all Charity and Humanity out of the world as well as out of these Tithe-Oppugners hearts if this their Objection be Orthodox Gospel truth 5. Meer Freewill Offerings and voluntary unconstrained Contributions were prescribed by the Levitical and Judicial law both for and towards the maintenance of Gods Priests and worship for the building and repairing of the Tabernacle and of the Temple afterwards towards which the godly Kings Princes Generals Captains Officers Souldiers and all the pious people of God contributed most joyfully liberally and in such abundance upon all occasions that they gave far more than was sufficient and thereupon were prohibited by special Proclamation to give or bring any more as in the case of Materials of all sorts for the building and furniture of the Tabernacle of the congregation and of the Temple towards which many Heathen Kings and their Officers contributed freely and the very captive Jews Exod. 35.20 to 30. chap. 36.2 to 9. Levit. 22.18 21 23. chap. 23.38 Num. 15.3 chap. 29.39 chap. 31.48 to the end 1 Chron. 26.26 27 28. chap. 22.1 to 17. chap. 29.1 to 17. 2 Chron. 24.4 to 15. chap. 27.3 chap. 29.3 to 20.31 chap. 34.8 to 15. Ezra 1. throughout chap. 3.5 chap. 7.16 chap. 8.28 29. Therefore Ministers under the Gospel must not be maintained nor Churches Houses for publick Assemblies built or repaired by Free-will offerings and voluntary contributions being Levitical Jewish and so abandoned and if not by Tithes nor forced Rates as they allege then the Ministers must utterly starve and all our Churches fall to sudden ruine as many now do And is this Gospel Saintship and Christianity 6. The Priests and Levites by the Levitical Law were prescribed what wives they should marry and what not Levit. 21.7 to the 14. will it therefore follow as the Papist Votaries conclude Therefore Ministers of the Gospel must not marry and must all now be divorced from their wives as well as from their Tithes and Benefices because the Levitical law is abolished and Priests wives Jewish as well as their Tithes Our beastly Ranters then may seize upon Ministers wives as well as the brutish Anabaptists Quakers Swordmen on their Tithes and Glebes 7. The seventh day Sabbath it self though prescribed by a Moral law was in some sense ceremonial and enjoyned by Ceremonial laws too therefore as most affirm abrogated by Christs death as Jewish as to the precise seventh day from the Creation and the Jewish rigidities Sacrifices on it will it therefore follow that it is Jewish and unlawfull for Christians under the Gospel to observe the Lords day every week and render unto God the same weekly proportion of time for publike worship as the Jews did or to keep any publike Fasts
or Feasts to God at all as the Jews by the Levitical law were bound to doe If so then farewell all Lords-dayes Fasts Feasts publike Assemblies for Gods worship all Ministers Churches and God himself together with them as well as Tithes let Gain Money be the only Deities henceforth adored among us as the Motto stamped upon our new State-coyn God with us and most mens practices sadly proclaim to Gods dishonour and Religions intolerable defamation These Answers I presume will for ever satisfie or silence these Objectors with John Canne their new Champion who may now discern their grosse mistake and learn this for a general certain truth That whatever is not in its own nature and Original meerly Jewish and ceremonial but hath a kind of natural justice equity conveniency morality or necessity in it and had a divine original institution before the ceremonial Law given or the Levitical Priesthood instituted That thing though afterwards given limited prescribed to the Levitical Priests or Israelites by a general or special Levitical Law abrogated by Christ doth neither cease its being nor become unlawfull in its primitive or proper use unto Christian Ministers or Believers under the Gospel by the abolishing of the Levitical Law and Priesthood but may and must necessarily be continued practised perpetuated among them without the least sin scandal or Judaism according to its own primitive institution or natural necessary divine moral or civil use else Bread meat drink wives clothes religious Sabbaths Fasts Feasts Edifices and Assemblies for Gods publick worship Houses for Hospitality Charity to Ministers to poor distressed Saints People yea reading prayer preaching of the word of God Magistracy and Government it self should be utterly unlawfull unto Christian Ministers and People as well as Tithes because given prescribed to be used by the Levitical Priests and Jews by the Levitical Law Therefore seeing meat drink food raiment Lands Houses and a competent proportion of all worldly necessaries are as simply needfull for the preservation subsistence of the Ministers of the Gospel and their Families now under the Gospel as for the Priests Levites before and under the Law or all other sorts of men in the world who cannot live without them And seeing Tithes Lands Houses both before and under the Law were originally given to and setled by God and Men upon Priests and Levites first and Ministers since not as meer Types Shadows Ceremonies but as a just fitting convenient recompence of their Labour necessary maintenance Livelihood habitation residence for them and their Families to provide them meat drink Books clothes and other necessaries to live by Why our Ministers under the Gospel should not still enjoy them in this kind and Nature without the least shadow of Judaism as well as Melchisedec before the Law or the Jewish Priests and Levites under it or their Predecessors before them even from the first settlement of the Gospel amongst us or as well as any other Men or the Objectors do enjoy their Lands Goods Houses and the other nine parts of their Tithes encrease for their Livelihood and subsistence as well as the Jews without any sin or Judaism transcends my capacity to apprehend and the ability of all armed or unarmed Enemies of Tithes or Glebes to demonstrate from Scripture Law Reason or the objected abused Text over-long insisted on to clear it from all ignorant or wilfull wrestings And so much for the payment of Tithes by Abraham and vowing them by Jacob before the Law to justifie the lawfulnesse and continuance of them under the Gospel against all cavilling Exceptions Secondly I shall make good the Proposition from the Maintenance of the Priests and Levites by Glebes Tithes and Oblations under the Law urged as the strongest if not only Reason against them and thus form my Argument That which God himself who is infinitely and only wife just holy did by his special Laws Edicts institute prescribe as the most expedient equal fit just rational convenient maintenance of all other for his own Priests and Levites to receive and take from his own People when once setled in the promised Land for the execution of their function must questionlesse be not only a lawfull but the most expedient equal fit just rational convenient maintenance of all other for his Ministers of the Gospel to receive and take from all believing Christians in any setled Christian Kingdome State Church under the Gospel especially if he hath neither positively prohibited this kind and way of maintenance nor specially prescribed any other way or kind of setled maintenance for them in and by the Gospel But God himself who is infinitely and only wise just holy did by his special Laws Edicts institute prescribe Houses Lands Glebes Tâ—thes and Oblations as the most expedient equal fitting just rational convenient maintenance of all other for his own Priests and Levites to receive and take from his own people when once setled in the promised Land for the execution of their Functions and hath neither positively prohibited this kind or way of maintenance nor specially prescribed any other way or kind of setled maintenance for them in and by the Gospel Ergo It must questionlesse be not only a lawfull but the most expedient equal fit just rational convenient maintenance of all other for his Ministers of the Gospel from all believing Christians in any setled Kingdome State Church under the Gospel The Major I suppose no rational Christian can or will deny except he thinks himself as King Alphonso the proud Atheistical self-conceited Astronomer did more wise just holy than God himself and abler to carve out a more expedient equal just fitting rational convenient maintenance for Gods Priests Levites Ministers than God himself hath done and dare bid defiance to this Gospel precept Eph. 5.1 Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children The Minor I shall thus confirm in order 1. That God did by special Laws Edicts institute and prescribe Cities Suburbs Lands Houses Glebes for the Priests and Levites habitation and the better maintenance of them and their Cattel and that in a liberal proportion is apparent by Num. 35. from v. 1 to 12. where we find recorded That the Lord spake unto Moses in the plain of Moab by Jordan near Jericho saying command the Children of Israel that they give unto the Levites of the Inheritances of their possession Cities to Dwell in and ye shall give also unto the Levites Suburbs for their Cities round about them And the Cities they shall have to Dwell in and the suburbs of them shall be for their Cattel and for their Goods and for all their Beasts And the suburbs of the Cities which ye shall give unto the Levites shall reach from the wall of the City and outward a thousand Cubits round about And ye shall measure from without the City on the East side two thousand Cubits and on the South side two thousand Cubits and on the West side two thousand Cubits
and on the North side two thousand Cubits and the City shall be in the midst this shall be to them the suburbs of the Cities And among the Cities which ye shall give unto the Levites there shall be six Cities for refuge which ye shall appoint for the Manslayer that he may fly thither and to them ye shall adde forty and two Cities So all the Cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty and eight Cities them shall ye give with their Suburbs And the Cities which ye shall give shall be of the possâ—ssion of the Children of Israel from them that have many ye shall give many and from them that have few ye shall give few Everyone shall give of his Cities according to his inheritance which he inheriteth This positive just command of God was given before the Israelites entrance into and conquest of the land of Canaan And this further positive law then likewise made against the sale and alienation of these Glebes and Possessions Levit. 25.32 33 34. Notwithstanding the Cities of the Levites and the Houses of the Cities of their possession may the Levites redeem at any time which others could not doe v. 30 31. And if a man purchase of the Levites then the House that was sold and the City of his possession shall go out in the year of Jubile for the houses of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel but the field of the Suburbs of their City may not be sold for it is their perpetual Possession After this when the land of Canaan was fully conquered by the Israelites and divided amongst the Tribes by bounds and limits we read Josh 21.1 to 43. Then came near the heads of the Fathers of the Levites unto Eleazer the Priest and unto Joshua the son of Nun and unto the heads of the tribes of the Children of Israel and they spake unto them at Shilo in the land of Canaan saying The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses in the text forecited To give us Cities to dwell in with the Suburbs thereof for our cattel And the children of Israel gave unto the Levites at the commandment of the Lord mark it all enemies of our Ministers Rectories Lands Glebes Maintenance these Cities and their Suburbs Then follow the Names and Places of the Cities allotted to the Levites proportionably out of every tribe and how they were divided by lot amongst them which you may read in the text it self over large to transcribe After which ensues this cloze of the story v. 8.41 42. And the children of Israel gave by lot unto the Levites these Cities and their Suburbs as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses all the Cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were forty and eight Cities with their Suburbs These Cities were every one with their Suburbs round about them Thus were all the Cities In 1 Chron 6 We have a recital of the Sons and Families of Levi and the Office of the Priests and Levites with the names of all the Cities and Suburbs alloted to them out of every Tribe agreeing with this of Joshua where those who please may read them at their leisure These fourty eight Cities and their Suburbs as some conceive amounted to the tenth or at least twelfth Part of the Cities and Land of Canaan the Priests and Levites according to their number enjoying in proportion as large a share of the promised Land as any of the other Tribes for their Habitation and Glebes besides their Tithes first-Fruits Offerings and other Dues All which as Dr. George Downham and Mr. Samuel Purchas observe amounted to a far greater proportion for the maintenance of that small Tribe than all the Bishopricks Deaneries Benefices Cathedral and College lands Revenues Glebes Tithes and whatsoever Ecclesiastical Profits endowments of the Clergy and Scholars in our whole Kingdom and Nation After this when the Temple of Jerusalem was built where the Priests and Levites were to wait in their several Courses successively by Davids appointment 1 Chron. chap. 23 to chap. 27. 2 Chron. 8.14 15. chap. 23.8 and ch 13 10 11. ch 29.4 chap. 31.2 chap. 35. 2. Levit. 1.5 8 9. they had Houses Chambers lodgings provided for them at Jerusalem near the Temple where some of them constantly dwelt and attended and likewise for the Tithes first-fruits and oblations brought thither to them 1 Chron. 9.10 to 35. chap. 23.28 chap. 28.11 12 13. 2 Chron. 2 to 13. Ezra 8.29 Neh. 10.37 38 39. chap. 12.44 45 47. chap. 13.4 to 15. Ezech 40.4 to 45. chap. 42.1 to 19. chap. 44.19 chap. 46.19 These Cities Suburbs Habitations Chambers the Priests and Levits constantly enjoyed without interruption til the revolt of the ten tribes from Rehoboam when Jeroboam the usurper erected two Golden Calves in Dan and Bethel to keep the people from going up to Jerusalem to worship God there out of carnal fear and suspition saying in his heart Now shall the Kingdom return to the house of David if the people go up to Jerusalem to do Sacrifice in the House of the Lord there then shall the heart of this people turn back again to their Lord even unto Rehoboam King of Judah and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam King of Iudah 1 Kings 12.26 to 33. and then we read 2 Chron. 11.13 14 15 16. The Priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to Rehoboam out of all their Coasts For the Levites left their Suburbs and their Possessions and came to Judah and Jerusalem for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them out from executing the Priests Office unto the Lord and he ordained him Priests for the High Places of the lowest of the People and for the Devils and the Calves which he had made which King Abijah warring with him after his Fathers death when he claimed the right of his usurped Crown thus objected against him and the revolted Tribes 2 Chr 13.4 to 14. Hear me thou Jeroboam and all Israel Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the Kingdom over Israel to David for ever even to him and to his Sons by a Covenant of Salt Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat the servant of Solomon the Son of David is risen up and hath rebelled against his Lord. And there are gathered unto him vain men the children of Belial and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the Son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young and tender-hearted and could not withstand him And now ye think to withstand the Kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David and ye be a great multitude and there be with you Golden Calves which Jeroboam made you for Gods Have ye not cast out the Priests of the Lord the sons of Aaron and the Levites and have made you Priests after the manner of the Nations of other lands so that whosoever cometh to Consecrate himself with
the Lord. From all these Scriptures here recited at large for the Readers fuller satisfaction conviction and ease in turning to them these conclusions undeniably arise 1. That the Priests and Levits had by Gods special command precept oft repeated both Cities Houses Suburbs Lands Glebes designed to setled on them by their brethren out of all the other tribes of Israel for their habitation and the keeping feeding of their Cattel Goods Beasts and that in a very large and bountifull proportion And likewise necessary convenient houses chambers lodgings neer the Temple when first built and when re-edified afterwards which refutes the common errour of those ignorant Simpletons and illiterate New-lights who from Numb 18.20 Deut. 10.9 chap. 18.1 2. The Priests the Levites and all the tribe of Levi shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire and his inheritance Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren the Lord is their inheritance as he hath said unto them Conclude That the Priests and Levites amongst the Israelites had no Cities houses lands suburbs or possessions of their own belonging to their Office and were expresly forbidden by God to receive or enjoy any among their brethren And hence inferr That Ministers of the Gospel ought not to enjoy any Rectories Houses Lands or Glebes Whereas all the forecited Scriptures directly record the contrary and the meaning of these seeming repugnant texts is only this That they should have no inheritance amongst their Brethren in such sort and manner as they had set out altogether in one parcel by Joshua and the rest who divided the land amongst the tribes by lot which would have hindred them from their duties but only a subsequent assignment of certain Cities houses and suburbs seattered and divided one from another in and out of every tribes inheritance that so they might perform their offices with more ease and be alwayes ready at hand in every tribe to teach and instruct the people upon all occasions 2. That the inheritance of the Cities houses and suburbs which they enjoyed were not reputed their own proper inheritance though they enjoyed the possession and profits thereof but Gods inheritance as a thing devoted and dedicated unto God himself and therefore stiled by Ezekiel an Oblation unto God and an holy portion as Histories Divines Common Civil and Canon Lawyers stile all our Rectories Church-lands and Glebes with the Charters that first setled them being given and consecrated Deo et Ecclesiae an oblation unto God and the Church 3. That these endowments and Glebes of theirs were called reputed Gods own Portion and Inheritance 1. Because given by his special command and appointment by all the tribes 2. Because originally consecrated devoted to God and to his Priests and Ministers onely in Gods right for his sake 3. Because given to promote Gods worship service glory and for an habitation support to Gods own Priests and Levites imployed wholly in his immediate service 4. That they were expresly prohibited to be sold exchanged or alienated by the Priests Levites or any others because they were reserved by and given unto God himself as an holy Portion and Oblation and to the Priests and Levites for a perpetual possâ—ssion in regard of the perception of the profits the inheritance of them residing only in God himself Therfore not possible to be justly and lawfully sold exchanged or alienated by the Priests Levites or any other mortal Powers whatsoever who could claim no power right property or disposing interest in or over them against Gods own Soveraign and sacred title 5. That these Cities Suburbs Glebes were ratably set out in and by every tribe in an equal proportion according to the multitude or paucity of their Cities as a Tenth of their Cities and lands to which their 48 Cities and Suburbs amounted as some probably conceive And yet besides these 48 Cities there were Houses and Schools of Prophets and Prophets children in nature of our Universities in Bethel and in Jericho 2 Kings 2.3 4 5 7 to 24. chap. 6.1 2 3 4. which were none of these 48 Cities 6. That none of the Kings and Princes of Judah though many of them were Idolatrous wicked and put to great extremities to raise monies to pay their Armies and Tributes to forein Invaders and Conquerors did yet ever attempt to sell or alienate the Cities Suburbs or revenues of the Priests and Levites to maintain their warrs or pay publike Debts or tributes though King Asa Jehoash Hezekiah by way of loan made bold with the Silver and Gold in the treasure of the Lords house in cases of publike extremity which might be and was afterwards re-paid 1 Kings 15.18 cap. 18.15 2 Chron. 16.2 Yea the Scripture expresly records that in the great famine in Aegypt when all others sold their lands to buy bread to King Pharaoh only the Lands of the Priests bought he not For the Priests had a Portion assigned them of Pharaoh and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them wherefore they sold not their Lands Gen. 47.20 to 27. 7. That the Idolatrous usurper Jeroboam out of a carnal fear and policy to keep the people from returning to their rightfull Soveraign and establish the crown on himself and his Posterity was the first man we read of and his Idolatrous sons and successors after him who cast out Gods Priests and Levites out of their offices and then out of their Cities Suburbs and Possessions which he enforced them to desert though we read not that they sold them to maintain their Warrs or pay Soldiers arrears who thereupon repaired to Jerusalem to Rehoboam the right heir and after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to enjoy Gods Ordinances strengthned Rehoboam and his kingdom against this persecuting usurper 2 Chron. 11.13 to 18. 8. That this his casting out of the Priests and Levites from their Offices and Pâ—ssâ—ssions making Priests of the lowest of the People and suffering every one that would to consecrate himself a Priest without a lawfull call is objected against Jeroboam by Abijah as a very high crime and provocation against God and the maintaining encouraging of Gods lawfull Priests and Levites in their Offices and setled possessions alleged by him as a certain argument of Gods presence with him and so with any other King and people and of victory successe in conclusion against sacrilegious Usurpers 9. That when Gods lawfull Priests and Levites are deprived of their Glebes and Possessions we must presently expect a base contemptible time-serving Idolatrous ignorant Priestood Jeroboams Golden Calves with their new Feasts and Sacrifices and a universal inundation of Idolatry wickedness prophanness to ensue with all the forementioned calamities which befell Ieroboams Army adherents subjects Person Family Kingdom which the Lord now set home on all our hearts that we may
never be guilty of such a sacrilegious ruinating God-provoking Realm-destroying Church-subverting practice in the least degree as some would now perswade us to in stripping our Ministers of all their Glebes Rectories Tithes and setled maintenance at one blow which even Pharaoh himself and godly Joseph refused to do towards the very Idolatrous Priests of Aegypt allowing them an extraordinary daily portion to preserve their lands from sale in time of famine Gen. 47.22 26. whereto they have as lawfull as just as Divine a right as these Priests and Levites had to their Cities Suburbs Houses and Possessions as I shall prove anon 2. That God only wise did by special Laws and Edicts institute and prescribe Tithes as the most expedient equitable fitting just rational convenient Maintenance and Reward of all other for his own Priests and Levites is undeniably proved by Levit 27.30 31 32. Deut 12.17 18 19 31. ch 14.22 to the end ch 26.7 12 13 14 15. Num 18.21 to 32. Neh 10.37 38 39. ch 12.44 ch 13.5 11 12 13 14 Prov 3.9 2 Chron 31.3 to 15. Mal 3.8 9 10. Luke 18.12 Heb 7.5 8 9. which Texts all may read at leisure and are needlesse to transcribe at large this truth being confessed by all Opposites to Tithes who hence condemn them as Iewish and Ceremonial Rites now abolished That which I shall observe from them is briefly this 1. That the payment of Tithes to the Priests and Levites was positively prescribed by Gods special Precepts and Commands frequently recited inculcated 2. That Gods own People were specially commanded by him to pay Tithes of the seed and increase of all their Land of all Corn Wine Oyl Fruits yea of Garden-Herbs Seeds Matth. 23.3 Luke 11.42 and likewise of the increase of all their Cattel Herds Flocks 3. That God gave these Tithes and all the tenth in Israel to the Priests and Levites for an Inheritance as a due Reward for their Service which they serve even the Service of the Tabernacle of the Congregation which all Israelites else were prohibited to come into or do Service in Lest they bear their Sin and dye And this was to be a Statute for ever throughout their Generations Nam 18.21 22 23 26 31. Heb. 7.5 4. That All the Tithes of the Land Seed Fruit Herbs Flocks and of whatsoever Annually increased or passed under the Rod are expressely said to be the Lords to be holy unto the Lord consecrated unto the Lord and an Heave-offering unto the Lord which he gave unto the Priests and Levites for an inheritance Levit. 27.28 29 30 31 32 33. Num. 18.24 2 Chron. 31.6 5. That God enjoyned all the Israelites Truly to tithe all the Tithes of their Increase and not to eat or embesle detain or exchange any of it especially for the worse Deut. 14.21 ch 12.17 Levit. 27.33 Mal. 3.8 And if any man would redeem his Tithes he was to give the full price and adde a fifth part over to it Levit. 27.31 6. That all these Tithes were to be brought by the people to the places and Treasuries appointed for them the Corn ready threshed winnowed and the Wine Oyl Fruits in Vessels at the peoples own costs without any trouble to the Priests or Levites and if the place whither they were to be brought was too far off then that they called the second Tithe ought to be turned into money by the Owner and the money paid to the Priests and Levites in lieu thereof Deut. 12.17 18 19. ch 14.22 to 28. ch 26.12 13 14. 2 Chron. 31.6 12 13 14. Neh. 10.38 39. ch 12.44 ch 13.5 to 12. Amos 4.4 Mal. 3.10 7. That the detaining of these Tithes from the Priests and Levites was a great sin and Sacrilegious robbing of God himself accompanied with his Curse and punished with scarcity barrenness devouring locusts blasting of the fruits of the earth c. Mal. 3.8 9 10. a place worthy the saddest consideration of all Tithe-Oppugners and Substracters Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me But ye say Wherein have we robbed thee In Tithes and Offerings Here is the Sacrilegious Sin pray mark the just deserved punishment Ye are cursed with a Curse For ye have robbed me even this whole Nation what this Curse was follows THE DEVOURER that is devouring Creatures as Locusts Caterpillars Palmer-worms Canker-worms and the like did destroy the fruits of their Ground their Vines did cast their Fruit before their Times in the Field And God blasted and destroyed all their Corn and fruits with blasting and Mildew and Hail Amos 4.9 Joel 1.4 yea They sowed much and brought in little they did eat but had not enough they did drink but yet were not satisfied with drink they did cloth themselves but there was no warmth and he that earneth wages earneth it to put it into a bag with holes They looked for much and lo it came to little and when they brought it home God did blow upon it yea the heaven over them was stayed from Dew and the earth was stayed from her fruits and God called for a drought upon the Land and upon the Mountains and upon the Corn and upon the new Wine and upon the Oyl and upon that the ground brought forth and upon Men and Cattel and upon all the labour of their hands when one came to an heap of 20. measures there were but ten when one came to the Presse-fat for to draw out fifty Vessels there were but twenty and the Wine and the figs and Pomegranate tree and the Olive tree did not bring forth Hag. 1.6 9 to 11. ch 2.16 17 19. O that all hard-hearted covetous hypocritical atheistical detainers of and Declaimers against Tithes and Ministers Just setled Maintenance would lay these Judgements and curses of God close unto their hearts that so they might therby be reclaimed from their robbery and Sacrilege against God and prevent divert these Judgements Curses from themselves and our whole Nation which they have cause to fear and will doubtlesse feell them to their smart and losse if they rob God and our Ministers of their Tithes and maintenance in such sort as many now strenuously endeavour 8. That God himself annexed many gracious Promises of giving abundance of all earthly and spiritual blessings to the chearfull conscientious due payment of Tithes to his Priests and Levites for their Maintenance which I shall recite to excite men chearfully to this practice now Deut. 14.22 23 28 29. Thou shalt Truly Tithe all the increase of thy seed corn wine oyl herds flocks that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God alwayes And that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thy Hand which thou doest Deut. 26.12 13 14 15. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the Tithes of thine increase the third year which is the year of Tithing and hast given it unto the Levite c. Then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God I have
brought away the Hallowed things out of mine House and also have given them unto the Levite c. According to all thy Commandements which thou hast commanded me I have not transgressed thy Commandements neither have I forgotten them I have not eaten thereof in my mourning neither have I taken away ought thereof for my Vnclean Vse nor given ought thereof for the dead but I have hearkened to the Voice of the Lord my God And have done according to all that thou hast commmanded me Look down from thy Holy Habitation from Heaven And bless thy people Israel and the Land which thou hast given us a Land that floweth with milk and honey Such a conscientious true payment of Tithes as this according to all Gods Commandements without the least Substraction or embezlement emboldens enables every particular man to make such a Prayer to God as this not only for himself but for the whole Land brings a blessing upon himself and all the Realm yea makes it a Land flowing with milk and honey and abundance of all rich blessings Besides we read in 2 Chr. 31.1 to 15. That when godly King Hezekiah had destroyed Idolatry and appointed the Courses of the Priests and Levites after their Courses every man according to his service he brought â—urings and Peace-offerings to minister and to give thanks and to praise in all the Gates of the Tents of the Lord He appointed also the Kings portion of his Substance for the burnt-offerings for the morning and evening for the Sabbaths the new Moons and set Feasts moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem To give the Portion of the Priests and the Levites that they might be encouraged in the Law of the Lord. And as soon as the Commandement came abroad the children of Israel brought in abundance the first Fruits of Corn Wine Oyl and Honey and of all the encrease of the field and the Tithes of all things brought they in abundance And concerning the children of Israel and Judah that dwelt in the Cities of Judah They also brought in the Tithes of Oxen and Sheep and the Tithe of holy things which were dedicated unto the Lord their God and laid them by heaps In the third moneth they began to lay the foundation of the heaps and finished them in the seventh moneth and when Hezekiah and the Princes came and saw the heaps they blessed the Lord and his People Israel Then Hezekiah questioned with the Priests and Levites concerning the heaps And Azariah the chief Priest of the House of Zadok answered him and said Since the People began to bring the Offerings into the house of the Lord We have had enough to eat and have left Plenty But did the people grow poor thereby no but much richer than before for the Lord hath blessed his people and that which is left is this great store Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare Chambers or store-houses in the house of the Lord and they prepared them and brought in the Offerings and the Tithes and the dedicate things faithfully over which Cononiah the Levite was Ruler How different was this practice of all the people and godly Saints in those daies in a chearfull bringing in their Tithes and Oblations to the Priests and Levites in abundance for their encouragement which caused King Hezekiah his Princes the Priests Levites and God himself to bless them from the sacrilegious practice of Tith-detaining Hypocritical Saints Anabaptists Quakers Sectaries and Christians in our daies who shall never receive such a blessing as this from God or good men but their curses If these Texts and Presidents will not move such hard-hearted men let them consider both this â—â—â—cept and promise of God Prov. 3.9 10. Honour the Lord with thy Substance and with the first fruits of thine encrease So shall thy Barns be filled with Plenty and thy Press shall burst out with new Wine And Mal 3.7 10 11 12. Return unto me and I will return unto you saith the Lord of hosts but ye said Wherein shall we return Bring ye all the Tithes into the Store-house that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of Hosts If I will not open you the windows of heaven and powr you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground neither shall your Vine cast her fruit before her time in the field saith the Lord of Hosts And all nations shall call you blessed for ye shall be a delight some land saith the Lord of Hosts What Christians heart though never so covetous and worldly should not these sacred promises of God the last of them recorded in the last of all the Books and Prophets in the Old Testament they being not meerly Levitical and Judaical but of eternal verity use and evangelical too excite and engage most cheerfully to pay and bring in all their Tithes and Dues to Gods Ministers now as well as to the Priests and Levites heretofore Christ himself having made like parallel promises of blessings and rewards for relieving and maintaining his Ministers in the Gospel Mat. 10.40 41 42. Mark 9.41 Phil. 4.18 19 9. That the due payment of Tithes to Gods Priests and Levites was a great encouragement to them in the law of the Lord and in the diligent execution of their duties 2 Chron. 31.3 4 5 10. And on the contrary The with-holding of them from them a great discouragement necessitating them to desert their duties and functions witnesse that memorable Text Neh. 13.10 11 12. And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them mark the consequence For the Levites and the Singers that did the work were fled every one to his field Then contended I with the Rulers and said Why is the house of God forsaken and I gathered them together and set them in their place Then brought all Judah the Tithes of the Corn and the new Wine and the Oyl unto their treasuries And I made treasurers over the treasuries Shelemiah the Priest and Zadock the Scribe and of the Levites Pedajah c. for they were counted faithfull and their office was to distribute unto their Brethren Which reason still continuing under the Gospel in relation to the Ministers and Preachers thereof Heb 13.16 17. Phil. 4.10 to 21. is a strong argument to engage all true Christians desiring the propagation of the Gospel and a painfull able Ministry duly to pay their tithes and portions to them 10. That it was the bounden duty care of Religious Kings and Governours amongst Gods own people when the people were backwards to pay and bring their Tithes and duties to the Priests and Levites to command and enforce them to do it by special Covenants and Oaths sealed subscribed by the Princes and people Neh. 9.38 cap. 10.1 to the end and likewise by positive Ordinances
there is occasion there being far more Equity and Gospel-justice for it than that our Ministers out of their small scarce competent and many very incompetent livings should pay the first-fruits and first years profits of their livings to the King or State as formerly they did unto the Pope through Papal Vsurpation onely by the Statutes of 26 H. 8. c. 3.27 H. 8. c. 8.1 1 Eliz. c. 4. and almost or above the tenth of all their livings to the Souldiers amounting to treble their Tenths to the King or Pope without any Grant at all by them or their Proxies in the usual legal just Parliamental way against all their Rights Privileges and our Laws The Jewish Priests and Levites under the Law being never burthened with such first-fruits or taxes by their Soveraigns and exempted from them even by a heathen Conqueror Ezra 7.24 Which those who now endeavour to deprive them of their Tithes Glebes and yet exact both first-fruits Tenths and Contributions from them may do well to consider Having thus related at large what a liberal various full and competent maintenance God setled on his Priests and Levites under the law by Glebes Tithes Oblations Sacrifices Poll-money first-fruits besides the Tenth and Tribute out of the very spoyls of war formerly insisted on I shall now apply it home to the Ministers of and Christians under the Gospel in these short Aphorisms 1. Ministers and Preachers of the Gospel inwardly qualified with sufficient Gifts Graces and lawfully called ordained are Gods and Christs own institution and Ministers as well as Priests and Levites under the Law Mat. 10.5 6 7. ch 28.19 20. Luke 10.1 2 c. ch 24.47 49 53. Mark 6.7 8 c. ch 16.15 20. Acts 11.2 3 4 c. ch 14.23 ch 19.1 6 7. ch 26.17 18 28. Rom. 12.6 7 8. 1 Cor. 12.4 8 9 28 29 30. ch 14.29 30 31 32 40. Ephes 4.8 to 17. Col. 4.17 1 Tim. 3.1 2. ch 4.14 15 16. ch 5.21 22. Tit. 1.5 6 7. Heb. 13.17 Jam. 5.14 15. 1 Thes 5.13 1 Cor. 4.1 2 Cor. 3.6 ch 11.23 2. That their Ministry and Calling is far more Honorable Glorious necessary beneficial to mens souls than that of the Priests and Levites under the Law 2 Cor. 3.6 to 12. Heb. 7.1 to 14. 3. That it is far more painfull laborious than the Ministery of the Priests and Levites under the Law Acts 8.4 2 Cor. 11.23 to 30. 1 Tim. 4.13 14 15. 2 Tim. 4.1 1 Thes 5.2 2 Pet. 1.12 Rom. 15.19 20. ch 12.7 8. 4. That therefore there is as just as competent as full as honorable and setled a maintenance and as much honour reverence obedience love as great recompence due unto them for their very work and calling sake from all Christians under the Gospel as there was from Gods people to the Priests and Levites under the Law as I have already proved in the first Proposition and that by divine institution 1 Cor. 9.13 14. 1 Tim. 5.17 18 21. From whence Hemingius with most Orthodox Protestant Divines I have seen besides as well as Papists and Jesuites concludes thus Admoniantur igitur Pii quod Iure Divino Ecclesiae Ministris debeant Stipendia That all the godly are to be admonished that by Divine Right they owe wages to the Ministers of the Gospel And if so then 5. It follows inevitably that there being no other setled way of maintenance particularly prescribed for them in or by the Gospel and convenient Houses Glebes for them their families and necessary Cattel with Tithes of the increase of the fruits of the earth and Cattel of all sorts being as necessary as requisite for the habitation food clothing support of them their families Ministry and supply of all their necessaries with as little charge trouble diversion from their studies functions as may be as for the Priests and Levites under the Law that Godly Christians Kings States Parliaments cannot pitch upon any equaller fitter juster better wiser rationaller convenienter diviner way of maintenance for them than that of necessary Houses Rectories Glebes in every Parish and Tithes and Oblations of all things needfull for food raiment hospitality it being the constant standing setled maintenance which the most wise just and holy God himself invented prescribed for his own Priests and Levites maintenance amongst his own people when setled by him in the land of Promise and that which all setled Christian Empires Kingdoms States Churches generally through the Christian world have in all ages pitched upon as most agreeable to Gods will and word under the Gospel which no ways repeals nor contradicts his own former prescriptions of this kinde in the old Testament 6. That the Glebes Tithes of the Priests and Levites under the Law were reserved by God himself the Supreme Land-lord of all Kingdoms Countries Nations Churches People in the world and the special God Lord King Father Saviour Preserver of his own people as a Sacred Holy Tribute Rent Portion and Homage due unto Himself from poor Creatures Servants Vassals who are no true Proprietors but only Stewards and Tenants at will of all the lands goods earthly blessings and possâ—ssions they enjoy The earth being the Lords and the fulnesse thereof and the Corn Wine Cattel fruits and earthly creatures we possess not really ours but Gods own 1 Chr 29.11 to 17. Psal 24.1 Psal 97.5 Psal 50.9 10 11 12. Ezech 16.18 19 20. Hos 2.8 9. Dan. 4.32 35. Mat 6.10 11. The use and possession of which tribute He allotted to the Priests and Levites under the Law for their maintenance salary and reward of their labour in his service for the advancement of his worship glory honour and his peoples spiritual good reserving the inheritance and right thereof alwayes to himself as the premises sufficiently evidence Now God himself to whom alone Tithes and Glebes were originally impropriated not to the Levitical Priesthood being unchangeable without any variableness or shadow of turning Jam 1.17 Psal 102.26 27. Mal 3.6 and Jesus Christ to whom Tithes were first paid by Abraham in the person of Melchisedeck having an unchangeable Priest-hood and being a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedeck the same yesterday and to day and for ever Heb 7.8 16 11 24. c. 13.8 And all Christians whatsoever under the Gospel being as much his absolute Creatures Vassals Servants Stewards and Tenants at will as the Israelites under the Law and all their Lands Goods Earthly blessings Corn Wine Cattel wealth imployments his in right and not their own as well as theirs too why they should not all render to him the self-same sacred Tribute holy Portion Rent Homage of Glebes and Tithes of all they have as well as they though the Levitical Priesthood be abolished they being so specially reserved and consecrated to himâ—elf for the support maintenance reward encouragement of his faithfull Ministers under the Gospel imployed in his Service for his honour glory and their everlasting salvation
Let John Canne and all presumptuous peremptory Tith-oppugners answer me yea this their Soveraign Land-lord and Creator if they can who will one day call them to a stâ—ict accompt for detaining this due Rent Tribute Homage from him and may justly dispossesse and strip them naked of all they have for this their ingrate contemptuous carriage towards him as he hath done many of late by fearful fires blasts droughts and other judgments as well as heretofore Mal. 3.8 9 11. 7. That as the Gospel it self succeeded the Levitical law Baptism and the Lords Supper Circumcision and the Passeover So the Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel succeed the Priests and Levites under the Law in their Ministerial function in the Church of Christ by Gods appointment their Ministry and Office being both the same in substance even to worship praise serve honour God according to his revealed word will and instruct exhort direct guide his people in the way of salvation and bring them to eternal glory though differing in some circumstances of lesser moment abolished by Christs death It is therefore most reasonable just equitable convenient they shall receive enjoy the like setled maintenance by Glebes Tithes Oblations as their predecessors did God having prescribed none other kinde of reward or subsistence for them in the Gospel that any can shew me It is usual in all Kingdoms States Nations where there are any publick setled offices and Officers for any persons who succeed others in those Offices to enjoy the self-same Salaries Houses Lands Fees Revenues as their predecessors lawfully received unlesse there be some special Laws to alter their Stipends This we see verified in all Civil Military and Ecclesiastical Officers yea in the times of greatest publick changes revolutions that ever befell the Nation those whom most yet call Judges Sheriffs Majors Generals Colonels Captains Governors of Forts Registers c. though their Commissions be altered in some things and themselves in more do yet receive the self-same Salaries pays Fees maintenance annexed to their Offices as their lawfull Predecessors did yea to come closer home All our Protestant Ministers since the reformation of Religion have generally enjoyed the Glebes and Tithes as the Parishioners enjoy frequent the Churches possesse the Houses Inheritances which their Popish predecessors did before them though the one of them just like the Levitical abolished Priests made it their chiefest businesse and part of their calling to say Masse and offer an unbloody Sacrifice as they falsly termed it on their Altars both for the quick and dead and the other who succeed them make it their principal work to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacrament according to Christs institution Since then the Ministers of the Gospel succeed the Levitical as well as the popish Priests as the Gospel doth the Law and the Christian Sacraments the Jewish and we with all converted Gentiles engraffed into Jesus Christ and the Church of God succeed the Jews who were broken off from their own Olive Tree that we might be ingraffed in their places who now partake of the root and fatnesse of their Olive Tree as the Apostle resolves Rom. 11.16 to 25. Why the Ministers of the Gospel should not likewise succeed the Levitical Priests as well as the popish in the enjoyment of their setled Maintenance by Glebes Tithes being not meerly ceremonial as I have proved nor yet so papal as Bishops Deans and Churches Lands in which our Anabaptists Army-Officers and Tithe-oppugners will yet succeed them without any scruple and all believing Gentiles who succeed the believing Israelites in Gods Church succeed them likewise in the due and just maintenance of their Ministers by Tithes and Glebes reserved to and prescribed by that true holy just and righteous God who is not only the God of the Jews but of the Gentiles also Rom. 3.19 Let any rational Christian now resolve his own Conscience and mine from grounds of Scripture Reason or Equity if he can God having given us a Land flowing with milk and honey as fit as able to render Glebes and Tithes of all things in kinde to his Ministers as he did unto the Jews It is a received maxim in our Law Quod venit in loco alterius est de natura Prioris If this be Gospel as it hath been ever held both Law and reason under the Gospel I need adde no more to this Aphorism to prove the lawfullnesse and equity of our Ministers Glebes and Tithes and their continuance as well for the future as heretofore by a divine Right 8. That all Christian Churches and pious Christians generally throughout the world from the Apostles dayes till now have unanimously resolved both in point of Piety Justice Conscience and right Reason that they are bound to consecrate and Render unto God the self-same weekly portion of time for his publick worship as the Israelites and Jews under the Law were obliged to do to wit one day in seven though they differ in the circumstance only of the day they observing the seventh day from the Creation every week in memory of the Creation and Gods rest thereon for their Sabbath prescribed by special Laws and we the first day of every week in memorial of our Saviours Resurection thereon by the General Moral Equity of these Laws warranted by Apostolical practice only without any special Gospel-precept Let then the whole Army of Tithe-Oppugners render me one dram of Reason or shadow of answer if they Canne why all Christian Realms Churches Nations in the world may not should not by the self-same rule of Piety Justice Equity proportion continue and render the like proportion of Glebes Tithes to God and his Ministers under the Gospel as the Jews did to him his Priests and Levites under the Law as well as they render to him the self-same Proportion of time for his Weekly publick Service and why payment of Tithes Oblations under the Gospel to God who gives us both them and the residue of our Estates and encrease out of his own meer free grace for the maintenance of the Ministers of the Gospel and support of his publick Worship on the Lords Day should be more Judaical Vnchristian Antichristian Superstitious as Canne and others stile it than the dedicating appropriating of the Lords Day to Gods publick Worship and Honour who hath given and allowed us the other six for our imployments when as he might have justly reserved the nine parts of our Lands and goods to himself had he pleased instead onely of the Tenth as well as the six daies in lieu of the seventh wherewith he is content which Divines usually urge to induce men to the more chearfull Sanctification of the Lords Day and some Scriblers against Tithes as well as others St. Augustin in his 229. Sermon de Tempors thus enforceth this very argument and let Canne and all his confederates reply to it if they can Hear O indevout mortality know that all things thou possessest receivest
from the Secular Priests to themselves That the Command of Tithes was not Moral but Ceremonial and not to be performed by constraint of Conscience to the Minister and that out of whatsoever Lands at least was given to any of the four Orders of Fréers Mendicants as now to Anabaptists and Quakers their disciples no Tithe was in conscience to be deduced for the Minister as he proves out of the Council of Vienna held An. 1340. Pope Innocent the 4th and Richard Archbishop of Armagh in Defens Curatorum Alex. l. 4. Consil 60. and William Râ—ssel a Franciscan Freer his Doctrine condemned in the Convocation of the Clergie Anno 5 H. 6. as Haeretical and publikely recanted by him at Pauls Cross as such That Tithes especially personal fall not under divine precept at least that they should be paid to the Parochial Curate as a due unto him of right unlesse there were a Custom to the contrary but that every one might lawfully give them to pious uses at their pleasure Whereupon these Nâ—w Masters and Preaching Freers preaching and teaching thus against the Old and Nâ—w Testament were enjoyned by several Councils and Synods in their Sermons to exhort inform and instruct the people without any fraud to pay their Tithes faithfully to their Ministers as DVE by the Lawes of God and the Church under pain of being deprived of the power of absolving the people from their sins Therefore John Cannes with his confederate Anabaptists and Quakers new Doctrines Invectives Petitions against our Ministers Tithes derived from these old and new Franciscan Mendicant Freers now swarming amongst them is far more truly really Antichristian than our Ministers and their Tithes of which more in its due place 11. That God in the Levitical and Judicial Law prescribed Laws for Warr and Souldiers in the Wars Deut. 20. throughout and amongst others v. 2 3 4. It shall be when ye come nigh unto the Battel that the Priest shall approach and speak unto the people and shall say unto them for their encouragement Hear O Israel you approach this day unto battel against your enemies let not your hearts faint fear not and do not tremble neither be ye terrified because of them for the Lord your God is he that goeth with you against your Enemies to save you After which v. 8. c. The Officers are commanded to make Proclamation that every man who was fearfull and faint-hearted should go and return to his house lest they should discourage their brethren that they should proclaim Peace to every City they came nigh before they besieged or stormed it and if they won it by force the Souldiers should take the spoil thereof unto themselves and eat the spoil of their enemies which the Lord their God had given them And by another Levitical Law the Priests were thus enjoyned by God to pray for and bless his people Num 6.23 24. c. On this wise ye shall blesse the children of Israel saying to them the Lord bless thee and keep thee the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee the Lord lift up his Countenance upon thee and give thee Peace and they shall put my name upon the Children of Israel and I will bless them If then it be neither Jewish nor Antichristian nor superstitious nor unlawfull for Ministers of the Gospel to encourage Christian Souldiers going to battel in the self same manner and form or to bless them and the people in these very Levitical words as Iohn Canne and all Anabaptistical Independent Chaplains of the Army and Mr. Peters especially will grant who have frequently used the self same or like encouragements and exhortations to the Army receiving good constant pay for their pains And if it be neither Jewish nor Antichristian nor unchristian for our Saintlike Officers and Soldiers under the Gospel to make like Proclamation to cowardly persons or to proclaim peace to Cities and garisons ere they besiege or storm them and if obstinat and won by force to take the Spoil and Plunder of such Cities Enemies to themselves and eat therof which I am certain all our Officers Soldiers and their Anabaptistical Tithe-oppugning Chaplains will grant and subscribe to though thus prescribed by the Levitical law abolished as they say by Jesus Christ Then questionless our Ministers of the Gospel may still receive and enjoy their Glebes Tithes Oblations by like reason without the least guilt or reproach of Judaism or Antichristianism though prescribed to the Levitical Priests and Levites by the Levitical law else John Canne and others of his fraternity professing themselves the only Ministers of the Gospel and rejecting all others as Antichristian must give over their Chaplains places in the Army Navy Garrisons and no more encourage nor accompany any Soldiers in the wars or bless the people as aforesaid because it was a part of the Levitical Priests Office who were also to blow the Trumpets in the wars Num. 6.1 to 10. Josh 6.4 c. prescribed by an abolished Levitical law 12. That all Israelites Jews both Priests and people were by the Levitical law frequently commanded inviolably to perform keep pay execute the solemn Oaths Vows Covenants they made to God or men and no wayes to infringe them or prevaricate in them Levit. 19.12 Num. 21.2 3. cap. 30.2 to 16. Deut. 12.11 cap. 23.21 22 23. Josh 2.11 12 13. cap. 6.22 to 26. cap. 9.15 to the end And among other things we finde their Tithes vowed to God by Jacob Gen. 28.20 21 22. coupled with their Vows as things devoted by them to God by Vow as well as reserved by Law Deut. 12.11 Yea all the Jews were obliged by a Solemn Covenant to bring pay their first fruits and Tithes to God his Priests and Lâ—vites Nen. 10.31 to 39. Will or dare John Canne then or any other Tithe-leniers averr that it is both Jâ—wish Antichristian unlawfull for Ministers and Christians under the Gospel inâ—iolably to observe and perform all those just lawfull Oathes Vows Covenants they have solemnly made to God and men with hands listed up to heaven as some of their persidious horrid violations of them without blush or check of late seems to proclaim before God and all the world and to pay those Tithes Dues to our Ministers which our Ancestors and we by Solemn Vows and Covenants too have dedicated unto God and his Ministers and never intended by our Covenant to abolish or diminish in the least degree as Canne perjuriously and absurdly asserts but to establish and perpetuate as the late Ordinances for Tithes and Aâ—gmentations made by the very Prescribers and Subscribers of the late Solemn League and Covenant which it seems John Canne never took though he presseth it on others as his words Many have sworn who I hope will now observe it import both at the time and since the making taking of the Solemn League and Covenant with the Assemblies Exhortation for the better taking
teacheth him in all good things To which I shall subjoyn 1 Cor. 9.11 If we have sowed unto you spiritual things is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things Rom. 15.25 And their Debtors they are for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things All these three Gospel Texts resolve That Ministers of the Gospel have a just due and right to a competent comfortable share in all the goods things Temporal blessings and necessaries for the support of this life which the people instructed by them and receiving spiritual things from them enjoy And that the people are bound both by expresse precepts in the Gospel and by the rules of common moral equity and justice chearfully to communicate and minister such a fitting share of all their good things and temporal blessings as a debt and due unto them for their ministring to them in spiritual things which I fully proved in the first Proposition and Impudency it self cannot deny The sole question then is what this share or portion ought to be and who shall determine it in point of difference I confesse the Apostle doth not decide either of these in terminis these Texts being general all in the plural number All good things your carnal things comprising all such things out of which Tithes predial mixt or personal as Canonists and Lawyers distinguish them are or may be paid Wherefore every faithfull Christian every spiritual son of God and of faithfull Abraham whose footsteps presidents they are to follow in all doubtful cases admit this one to satisfie his conscience and judgement in this case must and will resort to the presidents of the Eminentest Saints in former ages and Gods own prescripts in other expresse Texts Where finding the very Father of the faithfull Abraham himself giving his Grandson Jacob vowing and God himself specially reserving prescribing the payment of a Tenth of all good things from and by his own people for the maintenance of his Priests and Levites under the Law which they cheerfully rendred until and in Christs own time that the very Pharisees and Scribes though Hypocrites were so just as to pay Tithes of all that Christ resolved they ought to do it and not leave it undone and that none before the Apostles dayes ever gave lesse than a Tenth part as the premises largely evidence he must and will necessarily conclude from all these sacred Directories precepts presidents that the ordinary constant standing portion and proportion of all his goods and carnal things here prescribed and intended by Gods Spirit is the tenth part and in extraordinary cases more when Gods glory the Ministers necessities the Defence or Propagation of the Gospel require it And when he shall further read in the Gospel it self that speech of Zacheus the converted Publican Luke 19.8 Behold Lord the Half of my Goods I give to the poor And how the first converted Christians and Jews in the Apostles dayes sold their Lands Houses and brought and laid the money at the Apostles feet Acts 4.5 His conscience which must not guide the Word and Spirit of God as most mens consciences do now but the Word and Spirit it and him too will and must from thence conclude that he must not give his faithful Minister lesse than a Tenth part of all and in cases of extraordinary necessity share even half his goods yea the price of all his Lands and Houses between the Ministers and poor Saints of God specially in times of persecution when as he ought to hide and feed them too as godly Obadiah did an hundred of the Lords Prophets in the dayes of Jezebel at his own charge with the hazard of hiâ— Office and Life 1 Kings 18.4.13 If any mans conscience in a setled Christian Realm State be so obstinate or froward as not to submit to the lowest proportion of a Tenth which all ages and most or all setled Christian Realms have unanimously agreed upon and confirmed by publike Edicts as well Civil as Ecclesiastical whereof there are neer thousands in print the Christian Kings and Magistrates are to determine all controversies of this nature and state the just proportion of this Debt and Duty between the Minister and people where it is not publikely decided and may justly enforce the due payment of it when and where it is determined by positive publick Laws as a just Debt as they do in all other civil Debts Duties Accompts in controversie before them as I shall prove in due place even by these very Texts though John Canne denies it in his VOX praeterea NIHIL p. 14. To these I shall subjoyn that noted Text in the 1 Cor. 9.13 14. which John Canne cites by piece-meal as the Devil did Scripture leaving out the principal branch Mat. 4.6 Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they that wait at the altar are partakers with the altar Even so hath the Lord ordained this Canne omits that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel I have urged this Text before for proof of the first I shall here apply it only to the second Propositions confirmation as to Tithes 1. Then we have here A Divine Gospel Ordinance made by the Lord of Hosts himself not repealable by any Army or Powers on Earth as well as Parliamentary Ordinances for the Maintenance of the Preachers of the Gospel and let Canne the poorest Preacher of the Gospel I ever yet knew in England except one of his fraternity who heard him once preach an Assize and Fast Sermon too at Chard deny our Ministers to be able Preachers of the Gospel at the peril of his Soul though he denies them to be lawful Ministers of Christ and censures them as Antichristian and Popish But why so Because forsooth they had their Ordination from Rome and by consequence are TRAYTORS and FELONS too by the Statute of 27 Eliz. c. 2. for which they might be legally executed for Treason and Felony if the State were not pleased to interpret the Statute contrary as he conceives to the Letter and form of it the words whereof he both curtals and misrecites just as he did this Text p. 5. To doe him and his best friends a kindness vindicate the lawfulness of our Ministers calling against this ordinary slander and convince him of his grosse mistake I shall truly recite the Statute Thus intituled JESUITES and PRIESTS in England shall depart and NONE SHALL COME INTO THIS REALM If so then many Dippers Speakers Administrators Members in Anabaptistical Congregations many New-lights and Gifted-brethren in separate Congregations many Shakers Quakers Ranters Broachers of new Notions Errours Blasphemies throughout the Realm many new Politicians Levellers Agitators Soldiers in the Army if not some Officers all the late converted pretended Jews dipped in Anabaptistical Congregations discovered and known to be disguised Iesuites
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
Jacob for ever c. Luke 1.32 33. Ezech 27.22 24. Jer 23.4 5. c. 33.14 15 16. even as all the regenerated Sons of God are by their Right of Son-ship and new-birth in like sort intituled to the Kingdom of heaven whence they are stiled HEIRS and INHERITORS OF THE KINGDOM Jam 2.5 Gal 3.27 Rom 8.17 Titus 3.17 Heb 1.14 chap 6.17 1 Pet 3.7 Mat 25.34 and this Kingdom THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS Col 1.12 Ephes 1.11 14 18. 1 Pet 1.4 Acts 20.32 an unanswerable argument that Heirship and Birthright is the Best Surest Justest Honorablest Lawfullest Title of all other to Crowns Kingdoms and Possessions on earth being the very Title of Christ himself to his everlasting Kingship Kingdom and of the Saints in and by Christ to the Kingdom of heaven it self and Crown of Glory so the Seat Throne of this his Kingdom is said to be in Zion and Jerusalem most emphatically expressed Isa 24.23 The Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem before his Ancients gloriously A type of the Church of God under the Gospel first planted in Jerusalem and propagated from thence throughout the world according to the Prophecies Isa 2.3 Micah 4.2 Whence the Church under the Gospel is called the New Jerusalem c. Rev. 3.12 chap. 21.2 10. Gal 4.26 Heb 12.22 2. That the Ministers of and under the Gospel are expresly stiled in these Prophecies Priests and Levites several times 3. That their Office under the Gospel in a mystical sense is to offer Burnt-offerings to bake or kindle Meat-Offerings to do Sacrifices continually and to Minister unto God 4. That these Priests and Levites should be taken out of the converted Gentiles and Isles afar off whereof our Isle was chief 5. That these Priests and Levites should never fail cease nor want a man under the Gospel and that God would multiply them as the Host of Heaven as well as the Seed of David 6. That they should convert and bring their brethren for an offering out of all Nations and the Isles afar off to Gods Mountain and House in Jerusalem as the children of Israel used to bring their offerings thither Since therefore the Ministers of the Gospel in these prophecies are thus expresly stiled Priests and Levites and are to offer Burnt-Offerings Meat-Offerings Sacrifices and Oblations to God in his Mountain and House at Jerusalem c. under David their King in an Evangelical sence without any Judaism or denying of Christs coming in the flesh they may undoubtedly in the self-same sence and Right receive all Glebes Tithes Oblations and other dues from Christians and converted Jews under the Gospel which the Priests and Levites did at Jerusalem under King David and his Successors seeing they succeed them in their Office in an Evangelical sence according to these prophecies which as strongly confirm the Maintenance of their Priestly Function and their Tithes as their Evangelical Priesthood 7. Although Christ his Apostles and the Ministers of the Gospel in the Primitive times whiles the Church was in the Wilderness under grievous bloudy Antichristian Kings Magistrates Persecutors by reason of the present persecution neither did nor could receive Tithes and Glebes for their Maintenances from the persecuted Christians and therefore were necessitated to live by private Contribution and extraordinary wages in that case of extremity yet it no way follows that therefore all Ministers of the Gospel afterwards shall and must do so in setled Kingdoms States Nations converted to the faith where Kings Magistrates People do all generally embrace professe the Gospel where Churches are established and Ministers Glebes Tithes are or may be confirmed by setled Laws which I shall irrefragably prove by these instances 1 The Priests and Levites under the Law had no Glebes nor Tithes at all whiles the Israelites wandred 40 years together in the wildernesse though they had then a Law and right to receive them Will the Objectors thence inferre Therefore they ought to have no Tithes nor Glebes when the Israelites were possessors of and setled in the land of Canaan in peace when they enjoyed both without dispute 2. The Priests and Levites had no Tithes nor Glebes in the Realm of Israel under the Vsurper Jeroboam and his Idolatrous successors who deprived them of their possessions Cities Suburbs Tithes and Priests Office too 2 Chron. 11.13 14. c. 13.9 Therefore the Priests and Levites in the Kingdom of Iudah might not lawfully claim nor enjoy any Glebes or Tithes nor Ministers under the Gospel nor yet those in Israel under David and Solomon who were no Persecutors but Patrons of them 3. When both these Kingdoms with their Priests and Levites were carried away captives into Assyria and Babylon the Priests and Levites during the 70 years capivity enjoyed neither Glebes nor Tithes Will it thence follow Therefore they might lawfully enjoy neither after their restitution to their Country and execution of their Priestly Function and the re-edifying of the Temple as we read they did Neh 10.38 c. 12.44 c. 13.1 to 13. Whence the people were charged with robbing of God when they neglected to pay Tithes and Oblations to them Mal. 3.7 8 9 10. 4. Christ himself so soon as born was forced to fly out of his Country into Aegypt by bloudy Herod and to remain there till after his death Mat 2.13 14 15. After which he complained That Foxes had holes and Birds of the ayr nests yet he had not where to lay his head Mat 8.20 Luke 9.58 And at last he was apprehended mocked reviled crowned with thorns crucified by the malicious Iews and SOLDIERS who parted his Garments among them and cast Lots upon his Vesture The Evangelists closing up the Tragedy of his Passion with this perpetual brand upon the Domineering cruel soldiers These things therefore the Soldiers did Iohn 19.24 For which and for reporting a Lye to smother the truth of Christs Resurrection the High Priest Gave large money to the Soldiers Matt. 28.12 15. Will Canne therefore hence conclude Therefore our Soldiers now must force our Ministers to fly into Aegypt till Herods death leave them neither Rectory Personage house nor Vicarige nor yet so much as a Bed Bolster Tithe-Hay or Straw whereon to lay their heads then nail them to the Crosse peirce their sides with their spears-points revile deride them and at last part not only all their Glebes Tithes Goods but their very Garments and Gowns between them to make them like our Saviour Surely if they must and shall do so let them beware of another perpetual memento like the former These things therefore the Souldiers did So the Souldiers took the money and did as they were taught by Canne and Popish Priests and Jesuites 5. The Apostles who succeeded our Saviour in those dayes of persecution were thus handled by Pauls own relation 1 Cor. 4.9 c. We are made a spectacle unto the world unto Angles and to men we are fools for Christs sake we are weak
we are despised even to this present hour we are hungry and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place we are reviled persecuted defamed we are as the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things unto this day If all Ministers in times of peace and settlement must be like the Apostles in not receiving Tithes then they must be like them too even in setled Christian Kingdoms States Churches in all these their particular sufferings and have no certain dwelling place c. And if so Let Canne and his new Ministers of the Gospel as they stile themselves begin the president of whom our Ministers may now say as Paul did of the Corinthians in the precedent verse of this chapter v. 8. Now ye are full now ye are rich ye have reigned as Kings without us when as most of them were very poor and far enough from reigning as Kings or so much as Petty Constables before these unhappy Wars and in dayes of former persecution when Canne himself durst not shew his face in England for fear of a Bishops power or High commission Pursuivant nor durst reproach our Orthodox protestant pious Ministers and Parliaments as Antichristian Popish and compare their Laws for Ministers Tithes with the very Idolatrous Statutes of Omri and Ahab as he doth now p. 3. for which he might have taken a turn at Tyburn in steed of walking freely in Westminster Hall without being questioned for this his impudent high Slanders both of our Laws and Parliaments as well as Ministry 6. If the Ministers of the Gospel be bound to imitate the Apostles in all things then they must not have Gold nor Silver nor Brasse in their purses neither Scrip nor two Coats nor yet Shoes nor so much as two Staves but Sandals only on their feet Mat. 10.9 10. Mark 6.8 9. as the Capuchin-Fryars Mendicants hence conclude this being a positive Precept the objected examples of the Apostles c. only a President And if so not only all our Ministers but Canne and all his Administrators must turn Fryars Mendicants too in good earnest who ground their Vow of Voluntary poverty on this Text and the objected Presidents of Christ and his Apostles and so become no Ministers of Christ but Antichrist and as truly Antichristian as these Fryars are the Heads Ringleaders of our last sect of Quakers 7. If our Ministers must all now be like those of the Primitive times whiles under persecuting Heathen Emperours Kings Magistrates then all Saints and Christians too in our daies times must imitate and be like the Saints Christians in those dayes They must sell all their old and new purchased Lands Houses Lordships Palaces lay all the mony down at the Ministers feet and have all things in common like the real Saints and Christians in the Apostles times Acts 4.34 to the end and instead of Lording feasting it in their new acquired Royal Episcopal Palaces and Mannor Houses they must wander about in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins in Dâ—sarts Mountains Dens and Caves of the earth being dâ—stitute and afflicted like the Saints of old yea and like them they must be tortured tormented not accepting deliverance have trials of cruel mockings scourgings bonds and imprisonments be stoned sawn asunder slain with the Sword instead of slaying plundering imprisoning and sawing others asunder with the Sword Heb. 11.35 to 39. And when our Army-Saints Officers Souldiers Anabaptists Quakers with other Tithe-Oppugners who presse this Objection against Ministers Tithes shall lay down all their Arms Commands Power Lands and sell all they have to become like to all these Primitive Saints and Martyrs of Christ in their sufferings in times of Persecution I doubt not but our Ministers will joyfully part both with their Glebes Rectories Tithes and setled Maintenance to sympathize with them in their Persecutions Sufferings But till such hard times of Persecutions come and they begin to follow this President of the self-denying Primitive Saints I hope they will not make all our Ministers present Martyrs in their Tithes and setled Maintenance nor enjoyn them alone but not themselves to follow the Primitive Ministers of the Gospel in those times of persecution and prove greater persecutors to them in these pretended times of Christian Liberty Law Justice than the late Oppressing Prelates and High Commissioners who suffered many of them though Non-Conformists to enjoy their Tithes Glebes Offrings and not eject disinherit them and their Successors for ever of their antient Glebes Tithes and other setled Maintenance without any Legal Trial by their Peers or Conviction of any Treasonable crimes against our known Laws for which they deserve to forfeit them and all under the false petence that Tithes are Jewish and Antichristian under the Gospel Which I hope I have sufficiently refuted being established on them by Christian Kings States Parliaments immediately after the Primitive persecutions generally throughout Christendome as the fittest Maintenance of all other and particularly in our Realm when as the abolishing of them will be really such in the Judgement of all Godly Protestants Patrons of Religion both at home and throughout the World FINIS ERRATA PAge 68. l. 11. r. luent p. 141. l. 31. Solemanum r. Salmurum Rothingue r. Rothomag p. 142. l. 20. Trovomala The REMAINDER or SECOND PART of A GOSPEL PLEA Interwoven with a RATIONAL and LEGAL FOR THE LAWFULNESS CONTINUANCE Of the Antient Setled MAINTENANCE and TITHES Of the Ministers of the Gospel WHEREIN The DIVINE RIGHT OF OUR MINISTERS TITHES is further asserted The Magistrates Inforcement of the DUE PAYMENT OF THEM BY COERCIVE PENAL LAWS when substracted or detained vindicated That they are no REAL BURDEN or GRIEVANCE to the People the abolishing them no Ease Benefit to Farmers Tenants or Poor-People but a Prejudice rather and a gain to None but Rich Land-Lords cleared That the present Opposition against them proceeds not from any true Grounds of Conscience or Real Inconveniences in Tithes themselves but only from base Covetousness carnal Policy want of Christian Love Charity to and professed Enmity against the Ministers of the Gospel Yea from a JESUITICAL and ANABAPTISTICAL DESIGN to subvert ruine our Church Ministry Religion and bring a Perpetual Infamie on our Nation and the Reformed Religion here professed By William Prynne of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns Inne 1 Cor. 9 14. Even so hath THE LORD ORDAINED that those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Cyprian de unitate Ecclesiae Domos tunc Fundos venundabant thesauros sibi in Coelo reponentes at nunc de Patrimonio nec Decimas damus cum Vendere jubeat Dominus Emimus pötius augemus Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Per Prophetam praecepit Dominus Decimas inferri in horreum suum vos ab ejus horreo jubetis auferri c. Quid interest Equos rapiatis an Decimas Nisi quia Decima res spiritualis est ideo enormius SACRILEGIVM in Decimis
bellariis 5ly Repairs of this Temple from time to time out of the residue of the profits of these Lands 6ly An imprecation of divine revenge upon the Neglecters or refusers of the due payment of these annual Tithes to Diana and of the residue of the profits towards the reparation of her Temple The seventh is the memorable domestick President of Cedwalla one of our West-Saxon Kings who though a Pagan and great Plunderer even before he became a Christian or was baptised was so pious that he gave the Tenth of all his Spoyles of War and Plunders unto God about the year of our Lord 686. Which William of Malmesbury thus records Arduum memoratu est quantum etiam ante Baptismum inserviret ut omnes manubias quas jure praedatorio in usus suos transcripserat Deo decimaret In quo etsi approbamus affectum in paying Tithes improbamus exemplum in regard of his plundering Yea our venerable Beda records that such was his transcendent liberality and bounty to Gods Church and Ministers that after his Conquest of the Isle of Weight he gave to Walfred and his Clerks for the Lords use the fourth part of the Island to wit 300 Plowlands of 1200. and the fourth part of the Spoyl thereof in performance of his Vow made before his regeneration in Christ that if he conquered the Isle Quartam ejus partem fimul et praedae Deo daret Let Iohn Canne with all the several irreligious Sects and Sacrilegious Regiments of our present Tith-Oppugners Detainers Substracters seriously consider these Pagan Presidents to inform their Judgments reform their practices lest they rise up in judgement against them here to their temporal and hereafter to their eternal condemnation And if after due meditation on them their Consciences shall not secretly check censure condemn them for substracting their Tithes from God himself and his faithfull Ministers as well as some of these Pagans Consciences did them for detaining their Tithes from their Idol-Gods and Priests against the Law of Natures dictate engraven in their hearts but still pretend Conscience against the due payment of them and that out of their Gains or Spoyles of War as well as their other increase they have just cause to fear and others to suspect that their Consciences are most desperately cauterized and the Law of Nature more dangerously obliterated out of their hearts than out of these Idolatrous Pagans 5ly Agobardus who flourished Anno 830. lib. de Dispensatione c. Rei Ecclesiasticae contra Sacrilegos p. 266. Hugo de Sancto victore Erud Theol. de Sacramentis l. 1. parte 12. c. 4. lib. 2. part 9. c. 10. part 10. c. 5. and Annot. Eluc in Genes c. 4. Petrus Commestor Hist Scholast in Genes c. 26 Petrus Blesensis Epist 82. Gerold Bishop of Oldenburge in his Epistle to the Inhabitants of Wagria Helmoldus Hist Solavorum p. 92. positively affirm and since them Sir James Semple in his Sacriledge sacredly handled Stephen Nettles in his Answer to the Jewish part of Mr. Selden and Mr. Richard Mountague in his Diatribae p. 211. to 250. largely argue and assert That from the beginning of Mankind Tithes were instituted and appoin to be paid by God who instructed Adam himself and he his two Sons Kain and Abel and they their Posterity to pay Tithes and First-fruits to God of all their Increase That the First-fruits Abel offered unto God were no other but his Tithes or the Tenth of his Flocks increase That the sin of Cain causing God to reject his Offering was this That he offered to God the worst and lesse than the Tenth of the Fruits of the Ground giving him not the full proportion of the TENTH and best of his Increase as Abel did which they ground on Gen. 4.7 thus translated by the Septuagint whom Philo the Jew and the Greek Fathers generally follow If thou offer Rightly and DIVIDE NOT UPRIGHTLY in giving me my TENTH thou hast sinned hold thy peace and on Hebr. 11.4 by Faith Abel offered unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Vulgar Latin renders Plurimam Hostiam other Translators Vberius Sacrificium and the English A better or more excellent Sacrifice and that for quantity as well as quality than Kain This I thought fit to mention as a probable conjecture not an infallible verity To back this opinion Robert Grosted our learned Bishop of Lincoln in his Book De Cessatione Legalium written about the year 1240. p. 95 96. determines Lex naturalis exigit ut Benefactori de Bonis quae gratis dederit gratis rependatur honor veneratio unde Decimarum oblatio de Lege est naturali quia de bonis acceptis cum debeatur lege naturali repensio honoris minus quà m pars minima id est Decima quia ultra Denarium numerus non est rependi non potest Master Mountague in his Diatribae Chapter 3. page 245 246 247 c. Doctor Sclater Dr. Tillesty and others observe That God only wise being a God of Order not of Confusion doing all things in order number and due proportion hath amongst all other Numbers specially fixed upon a TENTH And thereupon the Antients heretofore both Natural Legal Pagan and Christian led by a natural and divine instinct thereunto have ever principally insisted on a TENTH in all their divine sacred Rites Mysteries Dues reserved by or rendered of them to their Gods and in all their publick civil Taxes Tributes Customes Duties imposed by or paid to their Emperors Kings Princes and Supreme Magistrates Hence God saith expresly All Tithes are the Lords Levit. 27.30 c. And how his Not by Couâ—tesie or Tolleration not by Purchase or Stipulation not by Compensation or Annexation not by Benevolence or mens free Donation but by original Right of Creation in producing every thing in its kind and of absolute Soveraign Dominion expressed in the word LORDS as a universal Rent service or acknowledgement reserved by God himself the Supreme Land-lord of all the Earth from Adam and all his Posterity to the end of the world when he gave them the Earth to inhabit and manure as mere Tenants at will under him He that is I AM himself Qui cepit nunquam desinet numquam bâ—ing vitae essentiae interminabilis tota simul perfecta possessio in aeterno suo consummato EVER POSSESSED TITHES as well as the seventh day which he saith is HIS SABBATH SINCE THEY HAD BEING which are indeed his ab aeterno suo inchoato In this Tithes were Gods not only at the time when he first challenged them by an expresse written Law and Reservation Levit. 27.30 31 32 c. but long before even when Abraham paid them and before that ever since the time of the Creation that God made any thing tithable to increase out of the earth for the use of man The time never was that Tithes were not Gods nor shall ever be that they shall cease to be his
DECIMAS Primigenia adulta tua DEO DATO O that all those Militarie victorious Commanders who boast of like victories as he obtained would imitate him in these his Vertues Bounty Liberalitie both to our Universities Scholars Ministers and promulging Edicts for the due payment of their detained Tithes and Dues and then they should be Chronicled for SAINTS INDEED as well as the forenamed Kings of which there was not one in three in former Ages as Sir Henry Spelman observes WHO DID NOT ADORN AUGMENT ENRICH THE CHURCH IN SOME THINGS even during their very wars instead of making a mere prey and spoyl of her as some late SAINTS have done to maintain the warres and enrich themselves In which Sacrilegious Rapines if any shall persevere to the utter ruine of the remaining Glebes Tithes Maintenance of all our Ministers and Churches too the prime Honour of our Nation ECCLESIA Faemina Lana as some have designed and would engage them to do to render our Religion Nation and those who shall give their Votes thereto for ever execrable Let them take heed that instead of inducing the Ministers and godly people really fearing God throughout our three Nations to forget Monarchy and be in love with their New Military Government they do not necessitate them and most others too thereby by comparing their Irreligious Church-Robberies and Sacrilegious Rapines against the very Laws even of War and Conquest it self in an Enemies Country and detestable to very Heathens as Grotius proves at large to love and honour Kings and Monarchs more than ever as the only Nursing-Fathers to Gods Ministers Church People under the Gospel and to esteem others not comming in by the Door into the Sheep-fold but climbing up by Storm some other way to be but Theeves and Robbers who come not but to Steal Kill and to Destroy whatever the Bounty Piety and Munificence of these and other our Kings have built and setled on the Clergy for Gods Honour and maintenance of his worship and thereby engage them so to act speak and peremptorily resolve as all the Israelites and Godly Levites Priests People twice did in a like case 2 Chron. 11.13 14 15 16 17. 1 Sam. 8.3 5 19 20. If any here object these Kings and Queens were more Popish Superstitious than really Religious Admit they were in some things as too much doting upon Monkery not Monarchy or worldly wealth or Power which some condemn in others when most guilty of and applauding it in themselves yet their very Bounty and profuse munificent Building Monasteries and Nunneries whereof King Edgar alone built no less than 47. endowed them with large Revenues and intended to make them up 50. had he lived besides what they bestowed in building adorning endowing maintaining all Cathedral and Parish Churches and Chapels for the support and honour of their superstitious Religion should eternally shame all those pretended Saints who will be at no cost at all to maintain and propagate what they now call the True Religion and the faithfull Ministers of the Gospel but instead thereof will by mere Force and Rapine against all Rules of Law Justice Piety Equity and war it self plunder if they can the remaining Materials and Fabricks of our Churches which those Kings or their Successors and other antient Benefactors built for Gods Honour and the small surviving Lands Rectories Glebes Tithes Pensions Dues which our Ministers yet enjoy by their sole Bounty Piety Gift Laws without any real charge injurie oppression or obligation to any Mortals now surviving them But to take off the stain of Popery wholly from our Kings which was no disparagement to their commendable Charity and Bounty Consider in the sixth place that God hath honoured us with the first Christian King in the Universe Henry the 8 th who durst not only question but by Publick Laws and Statutes abolish and renounce the Popish usurped Antichristian Power and with it all Popish Shavelings Abbots Priors Monks Nunnes and many Popish Doctrines Ceremonies and restored the People to the use of the Holy Scriptures in their own Native Language Whose example encouraged other Kings Princes Churches to do the like Who though he seised upon Abby Lands as given to mere Superstitious Persons Orders Vses repugnant to Gods word and the Popes mere Creatures and Supporters yet he continued the Lands Glebes Tithes and Maintenance of the Bishops and other Ministers and augmented it and our Vniversities Revenues also out of the Abbies Spoyles which yet could not exempt him from the publick censure of some Protestants for selling or rteaining most of their Lands and Impropriations for his own use which say they he should have rather converted to other lawfull sacred uses according to the will of the first Donors And Mr. Purchas writes That the Monks unrighteous coveting and the Popes appropriating of the Tithes of some Thousands of our best Benefices unto Abbies and Monasteries and robbing the Ministers of them to whom only they were given by God himself and the first Donors for their Maintenance to the great prejudice both of the Ministers and People was one principal cause that by a Divine Judgement and Providence beyond all mens expectation the Pope and they were both suppressed together on a suddain even by him who not long before had justified his usurped Supremacy against Luther and for which he had received this ominous Title from the Pope DEFENDER OF THE FAITH God grant our New Defenders of the Faith do not as ill requite those Persons Powers who first commissioned them with their Arms to defend our Faith Church Religion against Iesuites Papists and their Confederates in the Field as King Henry did the Pope after this new Motto 7ly That our God blessed honoured us with the first incomparable Protestant King in the world no Papist but a REAL SAINT beyond any of his years in this or former Ageâ— even young KING EDWARD THE SIXT the first King I read of who by publick Laws and Statutes suppressed banished all Popish Pictures Ceremonies Superstitious Monuments Practices Abuses throughout his Dominions and established the true worship Service Sacraments Ministers and Ministry and Gospel of Christ throughout his Dominions for which all Ages shall call him blessed no waies embesselling or diminishing the Churches Glebes Tithes or Revenues and enacting a New excellent Law for Tithes recovery when detained But God taking him suddenly from hence to a better Kingdom and his Successor Queen Mary defacing deforming his blessed Reformation and restoring both the Pope and Popery again almost to its former height except in point of Monkery which the defacing of the Monasteries prevented 8ly God then blessed our Church and Kingdom with an unparallel'd Protestant Princesse Queen Elizabeth a Nursing Mother to the Church who demolished the whole Body of Popery with the Popes revived usurpations again by publick Acts established the reformed Religion again in greater beauty and purity than at first banishing
to pay Tithes to themselves and those to whom they were never due by any known Law of God or Man With what Conscience can they detain them from our Ministers to whom they are due by all divine and human laws or condemn the enforced payment of them from themselves who have so violently extorted them from others 4ly If any Ministers or others plead the payment of our late heavy monthly Taxes Excises Impositions Ship-mony far exceeding the old to be against their Conscience as being imposed by no lawfull Parliamental Authority repugnant to all our Laws Statutes Liberties Privileges Protestations Covenants Records Votes of Parliament imployed to shed Seas of innocent precious Christian blood to maintain unchristian bloody wars against our late Protestant Brethren in Covenant and Amity they know not upon what lawfull Quarrel to support an arbitrary Army Government Power to domineer over them to subvert our old Fundamental laws Parliaments Governours Liberties Peace Elections Trials the Great Charters of England foment Heresies Sects Schisms and carry on the Plots of the Pope Jesuites Spaniard French to ruine our Realms Church Religion and pay many disguised Jesuites and Popish Priests secretly lurking in all places under the Mask of listed Souldiers as most wise men conceive to perpetuate our warrs destroy our Ministers and Nation by endless wars and Taxes All these with other such weighty grounds of Conscience Law Prudence which some have insisted on and pleaded can no waies exempt them from violent Distresses Quarterings Penalties Forfeitures Levies by armed Souldiers who regard these Pleas of Conscience no more than Common High-way-men who take mens Purses by force and deem all publick Enemies who dare plead Law or Conscience in this case though the Plea be true and undeniable even in their own Judgements and Consciences as some of them will acknowledge to those they thus oppress Why then should they or any others esteem this mere pretence of Conscience only against Penal Laws for Tithes enforced in a lesse rigorous manner which they may with as much reason and Justice allege against the payment of their just Debts Land Lords Rents and all other dues from them to God or Men The 3d. Objection is That Tithes are pure Alms Therefore not to be enforced by any Law For which the Opinions of John Wickliff Husse Thorp are produced by the Anabaptists and Erasmus urged by some but without sufficient ground I have answered this Objection elsewhere and shall here only declare whence I conceive this Error that Tithes are mere Alms originally proceeded to rectifie mistakes of the meaning of some antient Authors and clear two Texts of Scripture which some Scholars and ignorant People misapprehend First I conceive this Error sprang originally from the misunderstanding of that Text of Deutr. 14.28 29. At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the Tith of thine encrease THE SAME YEAR and shalt lay it up within thy Gates And the Levite because he hath no place no Inheritance with thee and the Stranger and the Fatherlesse and the Widow which are within thy Gates shall come and shall eat thereof and be satisfied That the Lord may bless thee in all the work of thine hands which thou doest compared with Deutr. 26.12 13 14. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the Tithes of thine Encrease the third year which is the year of Tithing and hast given unto the Levite the Stranger the Fatherless and Widow that they may eat within thy Gates and be filled Then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God I have brought away the hallowed Thing out of mine House and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the Stranger to the Fatherless and to the Widow according to all thy Commandements which thou hast commanded me I have not transgressed thy Commandements neither have I forgotten them I have not eaten thereof in my mourning neither have I taken away ought thereof for any uncleaness nor given ought thereof for the Dead but have hearkned unto the voyce of the Lord my God and done according all thou hast commanded me To which that of Amos may be referred From which Texts some have conceived That the Israelites paid Tithes only every third year 2ly That they paid them then not to the Levites only but to the Stranger Fatherless Widows and Poor amongst them who had a right and share in them as well as the Levites 3ly That these Texts use the phrase not of paying Tithes as a Debt or Duty but of GIVING them as an Alms and seeing they are given thus to the Stranger Fatherless Widow as Alms therefore to the Levites likewise here coupled with them This doubtless was the true ground that Tithes were reputed mere Alms by some and not a Divine Right peculiar to Ministers To disperse these Mists of Error First take notice That neither these nor any other Texts in Scripture stile Tithes Almes much lesse pure Almes which men may give or retain at their pleasures 2ly That they expressely resolve the contrarie that they are no Alms at all in the objected sense but a most certain positive commanded Debt and Dutie no waies arbitrarie in the least degree For 1. By express positive Laws and Commandments of God oft repeated all the particulars of this Dutie are defined 1. The Quota pars or quantitie All the Tithe of thine Encrease the same year 2ly The time of it every third year which is the year of Tithing at the end of three years 3ly The place of Stowage Thou shalt lay it up within thy gates 4ly The persons who must receive it The Levite Stranger Fatherless Widow 5ly The place of their receiving it Within thy gates 6ly The manner of receiing it They shall come and eat thereof and be filled Secondly which is most considerable the Owners and Tithe-payers had no disposing power over it for their own uses upon any occasion or necessitie For 1. They must bring all of it out of their Houses as an hallowed thing 2ly They must make a solemn Protestation before the Lord that they had given it all to the Levite Stranger Fatherless Widow and that not of their own free voluntarie bountie but as a bounden debt and dutie according to all Gods Commandments which he had commanded them 2ly That they had neither wilfully transgressed nor negligentlie forgotten his Commandments herein 3. That they had neither eaten thereof in their mourning in times of want and distress neither had they taken away ought thereof for any unclean use c. but have hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God and done according to all that he commanded them The reason of which Protestation was because God committed the custodie and dispencing of these three years Tithes to the Owners themselves who might be apt to purloin and pervert part of them to their own private uses I appeal now to all mens consciences whether these very Texts do not unanswerably prove
Tithes to be no Alms or arbitrary Benevolence at all but a most precise positive certain Debt and Duty most punctually limitted in each particular and whether that we now usually call Alms to the Poor be not a Debt and Duty as Rom. 15.27 with other Texts resolve it not a meer Freewill Gift which we may neglect or dispence with as we please Having cleared the Text as to Alms I shall next vindicate them from the other mistakes concerning the time of Tithing and Persons receiving Tithes For which end we must know that the Jews had four sorts of Tithes as the Scriptures and Marglnal Authors prove besides their First fruits amounting to any proportion from the 40th to the 60th part amongst the Pharisees who exceeded others in bounty 1. Such Tithes as every of the Laity in every Tribe of Israel who had any comings in or increase at all paid unto the Levites out of their Annual increase that was eatable or usefull for them as a sacred inheritance possession and reward for their service at the Tabernacle being the full Tenth part of their increase after the first fruits deducted which Tithes they received in kinde at their respective Cities and places of abode and if any Tithe-payer would redeem or compound for them he was to adde a fifth part more than they were valued at because the Levites should not be cheated by any undervalues and those who redeemed them did it only for their own advantage for the most part not the Levites and then they should pay for it These are the Tithes prescribed Levit. 27.30 31 32 33. Numb 18.20 to 32. Which the Levites and their Households were to eat in every place where they resided as their peculiar Portion and Inheritance Wherein the Stranger Fatherless and Widow had no share neither were they brought up to Jerusalem nor put into any common Treasurie and paid constantly every year And these are the Tithes which our Ministers now challenge and receive by a Divine Right as their standing inheritance and the Churches Patrimonie and the Tithes intended Heb. 7.2 5 8 9. 2ly Such Tithes as the Levites paid to all the Priests as most affirm Or to the High Priest only as Lyra Tostatus and some other Popish Authors assert to justifie the Popes Right to Tenths which he challengeth and receiveth for the rest of the Popish Clergie in all places for their better maintenance and support besides their First-fruits fees of Sacrifices Oblations and other Duties being the full tenth part of the Tithes they receive from the people due to the whole body of the Tribe of Levi Numb 18.20 to 31. 3ly A second Tenth which the Lay Israelites were obliged by God to pay every year out of their nine parts remaining after separation of the first Tenth here mentioned and this was likewise of all their annual increase of Corn Wine Oil Cattel Sheep Honey and things eatable This Tithe was by Gods special appointment to be carried up to the place which God should chuse and to Jerusalem in kinde by the places that were near and the full value thereof in money by places more remote Which Tithes and money were designed for the maintenance of their publick solemn standing Feasts every year wherein the Owners Priests Levites and all the people feasted together before the Lord. The residue was laid up in Storehouses Treasuries and Chambers together with the First-fruits and Offerings for the maintenance of the Priests and Levites dwelling in Jerusalem having no abiding elsewhere in the Countrey and for those who came up thither in their Courses and served in and about the Temple of which some selected Priests and Levites who were faithfull had the Oversight and Distribution not any Lay Treasurers Officers or Sequestrators who would be singering all our Ministers Tithes now and reduce them to a publick Treasurie to fill their private purses with them These are the Tithes commanded specified and principally intended Deut. 12.6 7 8 11 12 17 18 19. c. 14.22 to 28. 2 Chron. 31.6 to 16. Neh. 10.37 38 39. c. 12.44 c. 13.9 to 14. Mal. 3.10 Which Tithes were abolished with the Jewish Feasts and Temple Yet the shadow and footsteps of them continued many years after in the primitive Christians Love-Feasts as Mr. Mountague proves at large 4ly The fourth sort of Tithes which the lay Israelites paid was that for the Levite Stranger Fatherless and Widow payable only every third year out of all that years increase after the separation of the forementioned Tithes for the Levites Priests and Annual feasts which the Owners kept in their own barns and were to be eaten by the Levite Stranger Fatherless and Widow within their gates and houses Deut. 14.28 29. c. 26.11 to 17. Now in allusion to the last kinde of Tithes St. Ambrose Sermone in die Ascentionis St. Jerome in Mal. 3. St. Augustine Sermo 219. De Tempore ad Fratres in Eremo Serm. 64. Caesarius Arelatensis De Eleemosyna Hom. 2. Eutropius in the Life of St. Steven c. 17 18. The Exhortation written about An. 700. Beda Eccles Hist l. 4. c. 10. Agilardus Contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de Grandine c. p. 155. Ivo Carnotensis Epist 102. The Synod of York under Hubert An. 1194. and some others press the payment of Tithes to Ministers and giving Alms or some part of their goods to the poor jointly together and some few of them stile Tithes Tributa refectorium Animarum The Tribute not Alms of the poor souls and tell us of Tithes which God himself hath commanded to be given to the poor But this they intend not of the first sort of Tithes due to the Ministers of God but of a Tenth of their remaining Annual increase after the Ministers Tithes first paid as most of them expresly declare viz. Hierom. on Mal. Saltem Judaeorum imitemur exordia ut pauperibus partem demus ex toto Sacerdotibus Levitis Honorem debitum et decimas referamus De sua particula not the Ministers Pauperibus ministrare And the English Synod of Calchuth An. 786. with Capitularia Caroli Magni l. 6. c. 29. most distinctly Decimas ex omnibus fructibus pecoribus terrae annis singulis ad Ecclesias reddant Et De novem partibus que remanserint eleemosynas facient So as there is nothing in Scripture or Antiquity rightly understood to prove Tithes to be pure Alms as some have erroniously fancied The second ground of this Opinion that Tithes were Free and pure Alms was the frequent Grants Donations and Consecrations of Tithes and Portions of Tithes by several Lords of Mannors and Lands by special Charters yet extant recited in Mr. Seldens History of Tithes between the year of our Lord 1060. and 1250. in the darkest times of Popish Superstition to Abbies Monks Friers Nunnes and Religious Houses in eleemosynam pauperum in liberam puram et perpetuam eleemosynam to be distributed by these Monks or their Almoners to
Gospel 1 Cor. 9.7 After which discoursing merrily with them I told them I conceived the true reason why they and other Officers formerly for Tithes and Ministers were now so eager against both was because most of them had lately purchased so much Crown Bishops Deans and Chapters Lands charged with Tithes that now out of mere covetousness they would pull down Tithes to hook them into their own Purses from the Ministers and though they were never purchased by them in their particulars to improve their over cheap Purchases to the highest Advantage and because others should not blame them for it they turned Preachers themselves that they might claim some seeming Right to their own and others Tithes and save the charges of a Minister At which they gave a silent blushing Smile without a Reply Not long after about the beginning of January last there came a Petition ready drawn to the Castle from the General Council of the Army-Officers sitting at St. James's as the Souldiers themselves informed me directed to those who then were stiled The Parliament of the Common-wealth of England and Supream Authority of the Nation though those who sent it knew the contrary the Supream Power lay in others hands The effect of which Petition was For the total Abolition of Tithes of all sorts as a Jewish and Antichristian Bondage and Burden on the Estates and Consciences of the Godly and that for the future they and the People might not be insnared or oppressed with Tithes or any forced Maintenance to the Ministers or any thing like it in the stead thereof This Petition all the Officers and Souldiers in the Garrison by beat of Drum upon the change of the Gards were summoned three several Mornings just before my Chamber window to subscribe together with a Printed Letter sent from the said Council of Officers to all the Garrisons and Souldiers in England Scotland and Ireland concerning the heads of their Intentions and Designs then on foot and since executed desiring their opinions of and concurrence with them therein by their Subscriptions This Letter with the Petition against Tithes were both read together to the Souldiers three several mornings who at the close every morning gave two or three great shouts and afterwards subscribed both the Letter and Petition One Ensign and two common Souldiers who had formerly read the Worcester Petition for Tithes which this was to countermine though they readily subscribed the Letter yet refused to sign the Petition because they thought it very unreasonable to take away Ministers Tithes altogether and provide no other maintenance in lieu of them for which they were threatned to be turned out of the Garrison and cashiered ere long as I was informed by other Souldiers all the rest subscribed it and divers of them against their Consciences as they confessed to me because they durst not displease their Officers nor those who sent it to them Some Officers and Souldiers of the Castle who were most against all publick Ordinances and Ministers never resorting even to their own meetings and unordained speaking Chaplains in the Castle were sent and imployed into the Country to get Country-mens Subscriptions to the Petition against Tithes in the name of the Well-affected Godly people in the County of Cornwall as if it proceeded from the Country-men not the Officers and Souldiers In which service these active stirring Spirits were very industrious in all parts to procure hands to this Petition seducing divers to subscribe it by misinforming them That it was only against Impropriators Tithes which some honest Religious Gentlemen substantial Freeholders and Grand Jury-men of the Country being informed of drew up a Petition in the name of the Gentry Freeholders and others of the County for the continuance of Tithes and Ministers setled Maintenance subscribed with many hands and presented by the grand Jury men to the Justices at their General Quarter Sessions to send up to those then in power as the desire of the Gentlemen Freeholders and the Generality of the County which Petition as I have been informed was presented accordingly by one of the Justices by Order from the Bench though one of his Companions when it was delivered by the Grand Jury to him to present to the Bench had the impudence to tear the Petition in pieces in open Court before he acquainted his Associates with it for which he received a publick check After the Souldiers Subscription of the foresaid Petition against Tithes in the Castle the like whereunto as some Souldiers acquainted me was sent to most other Garrisons and Counties to subscribe by which we see whence such and other Petitions originally spring I demanding the reason of two or three Souldiers who were ingenuous why they were so eager against Ministers Tithes since they were Spiritual Souldiers as well as they and themselves received above the Tithes of their Tithes in Taxes for their pay Who returned me this blunt clamorous Answer That they conceived the true reason of it was that their Officers intended to have the Tithes themselves or at least the full value of them IN TAXES for their pay that so the people much impoverished and complaining of their heavy Taxes might be able to hold out the longer to pay them being seemingly eased by the Souldiers in their Tithes though they took them all out again in their increased Monthly Contributions and that this was the private talk and opinion they had of this Petition amongst themselves but they must not speak of it in publick to any I am not apt to be suspicious of any mens Actions or Designs unlesse I see some probable grounds of Inducement but if this be one principal Design of the Officers and Souldiers present stickling against Ministers Tithes to get them into their own hands in kind as they have done much of the Bishops Deans Chapters and crown-Crown-lands the rest in monies in their Sales for their Arrears pay or at least to fetch them out of the Peoples Purses in doubled or augmented Taxes equivalent to their Tithes in value or exceeding them as the premises perswade me to incline to the Ease and Gain either promised to or expected by the People upon the abolishing of Tithes wil prove but a mere Delusion and Cheat at last and instead of easing them will only double treble and augment their heavy intollerable Taxes now imposed and disposed too by the Souldiers themselves alone beyond all Presidents of former Ages or Kings of the worst edition and continue them the longer on their broken Estates and drained Purses Which will be but a most just deserved Divine punishment on them for detaining their Ministers Tithes as the forecited Authors resolve Whereas if these Saint-seeming Officers and Souldiers so much pretending the peoples ease and weal would cast off the veil of Dissimulatiâ—n and really ease the people in good earnest out of Conscience and Justice they should do it as I told them by disbanding all unnecessary Garrisons mere useless Toyes
Silver and a wedge of Gold coveted took and hid them in the midst of his Tent which so much kindled the Anger of God against the Children of Israel for this his Trespass in these devoted things That they were presently smitten before their Enemies of Ai and fled before them Whereupon Joshua their General and chief Governour humbling himself before God and requiring the cause of this ill success God returned him this Answer Israel hath sinned and they also have transgressed my Covenant which I commanded them for they have taken of the devoted thing and have also stollen and dissembled also and they have also put it among their own stuff Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their Enemies but turned their backs before Enemies Because they were accursed neither will I go with you any more O Israel thou canst not stand before thine Enemies untill thou hast taken away the accursed devoted thing from among you Whereupon this Sacrilegious Robbery of Achan being discovered by Lot and his own Confession and hid stoln Plunder devoted to God taken forth of his Tent and powred out before the Lord in the presence of Joshua and all the Children of Israel Joshua passed this Judgement against him for his Sacrilege Why hast thou troubled Israel the Lord shall trouble thee this day and all Israel stoned him with Stones and they burned them with fire as a devoted Sacrifice to God after they had stoned him with stones And they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day So the Lord turned from the fiercenesse of his Anger Wherefore the place is called the Valley of Achor that is Trouble to this day And when Hiel many hundred years after in Idolatrous Ahabs daies would needs seize upon the devoted Spoyl of Jericho and build it again for his own habitation he laid the Foundation thereof in his first-born Abiram and set up the Gates thereof in his youngest Son Segub that is God destroyed and cut off all his Posterity before the Gates were set up and the Building finished according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua the Son of Nun as we read at large Josh 7. throughout 1 Kings 16.34 and Josh 6.16 I read of Ataxerxes that in imitation of Cambyses before him he caused some Judges betraying their Trusts like Tresylian of old and too many of late to be excoriated alive and their Skins to be hanged up round about the Tribunals that the other Judges sitting upon them might have an example hanging before their eyes what punishment the pravity of Iudges did demerit I desire all Souldiers Officers and Sacrilegious Anabaptists would hang up these Skins and Examples of Achan and Hiel before their eyes recorded in sacred Writ and then make this use and application to themselves of them If Achan for stealing away only a Babylonish Garment and a few Shekles of Silver and Gold of the very Spoyls of Iericho devoted to the service or Treasury of the House of the Lord brought so much wrath misery upon the whole Nation and Camps of Israel and such a fatal death and exemplary punishment upon himself and Hiel only for building upon the ruines of the Soyl of this devoted City drew down sudden Death and Destruction upon all his Sons and Posterity O what strange exemplary wrath vengeance and judgements shall we then draw upon the whole Nation Army our Souls Bodies and Posterities to their utter extirpation if instead of rendring unto God and his Ministers the Tenth of our warlike Spoyls belonging of right unto them we shall sacrilegiously rob them not only of these Tenthes and all other issuing out of our Lands and Estates but even of all their other Glebes Rectories Tithes Revenues demolish the very Churches Houses dedicated to Gods worship or turn them into Houses for us and our Posterities to inhabit and obstinately yea atheistically refuse to take warning by their and other sacrilegious Persons tragical examples 4ly Let those who will imitate Charles Martels President remember 1. his punishment Historians record That for this his Sacrilege he was smitten with a long and terrible Convulsion of all his Members whereof he died in great anguish that Eucherius Bishop of Orleans in a Vision SAW HIM DAMNED FOR IT and that upon search made in his Tomb by an Angels Admonition it was also confirmed for truth no relique of his Corps being found therein but only a dreadfull Serpent Apud Frances Carolus Martellus insignis vir fortitudinis exactis vitae sue diebus in Ecclesia beati Dionysii legitur esse Sepultus sed quia Patrimonia cum Decimis omnium fere Ecclesiarum Galliae pro stipendio commilitonum suorum mutilaverat miserabiliter à malignis Spiritibus de Sepulchro corporaliter avulsus usque in hodiernum diem nusquam comparuit as Matthew Westminster stories of him 2ly The censure passed against him for this Sacrilegious Robbery by the Marginal Authors and others especially by Agobardus Bishop of Lions An. 828. in his Book De Dispensatione Rei Ecclesiasticae contra Sacrilegos worthy the reading who thus complains p. 269. Nunc non solum possessiones Ecclesiasticae sed ipsae etiam Ecclesiae cum possessionibus venundantur c. Which he condemns as detestable Sacrilege execrable to God and men By Petrus Damianus Anno 1060. l. 1. Epist 11. where he gives this censure of his practice and others Inter omnia vero hic mala Illud excedit et Diabolicam fere modum videtur aequare nequittam Quia pradiis in Militem profligatis c. Moreover among all wicked Acts this exceedeth and seems almost to equal the very wickednesse of the Devil That all the Farms and Possessions of the Church being prodigally spent upon Souldiers insuper etiam et Decimae plebes adduntur in Beneficium Secularibus Moreover Tithes and people are likewise added and conferred on these Secular men for a reward which in his lib. 4. Epist 12. lib. 5. Epist 9. he stiles a great Sin Sacrilege and Prophanation of holy things concluding What is it to turn Tithes to the use of Souldiers and Secular men nisi mortiferum iis virus quo pereant exhibere but to give them deadly Poyson whereby they may perith Petrus Blesensis Arch-deacon of Bath Epist 82. Joannis de Belith De Divinorum Officiorum Explicatione c. 5. write much to the same effect making it a greater Robbery and Sacrilege to take away Ministers Tithes though it be by the Popes own Bulls than violently to take away and plunder Mens Horses as they are riding or carting in the High way and convert them to their proper use as Souldiers use to do 3ly Let them remember That Charles Martels immediate Successors so much detested both his practice and Sacrilege that by publick Edicts they decreed in these terms That the Tithes and Ecclesiastical Lands and Goods seised upon by prophane Persons so they stiled
to Peter mentioning again his Prayers and Alms but not his preaching concluding thus Now therefore are we all here present before God TO HEAR not preach all things that are COMMANDED THEE of God Whereas some Centurions Colonels Captains and Souldiers of this Age if Peter himself should come to their Assemblies or Quarters would be readier to teach and preach to him than to hear him and apter to be his Teachers than Auditors as these only were After which Peter preached to him and his company I find another sort of Captains and Souldiers in the New Testament Who went out and apprehended our Saviour Jesus Christ mocked him derided crowned his Head with Thorns stripped him of his Rayment put him on a purple Robe bowed their Knees before him in scorn saying Hayl King of the Iews blind folded and then strook him with their hands and bade him prophecy who smote him guarded him to his Tryal carried and nayled him to his Crosse crucified him between two Theeves pierced his side with a Spear gave him Gall and Vinegar to drink parted his Garments amongst them cast lots upon his Vesture and would have broke his Legs but that he was dead After which they watched and guarded his Sepulchre took large Mony of the Priests to smother the truth of Christs Resurrection by reporting a Lye that his Disciples came and stole him away whiles they were asleep who TOOK the mony and did as they were taught and are branded for ever with this Epiphomena These things therefore the Souldiers did After which some of this rank of Officers and Souldiers by Herods command killed James the Brother of John with the Sword apprehended imprisoned chained and most strictly garded the Apostle Peter in order to put him to death the next day but that the Angel of God miraculously delivered him Others of them apprehended bound and would have scourged Paul garded and carried him from prison to prison and when he was sent Prisoner to Rome when the ship was wracked and their lives saved only for Pauls sake they gave the Centurion counsel to kill Paul and all the other Prisoners lest they should escape from them by that wrack These Souldiers no doubt were truly Antichristian and if the Tree may be judged and known by its Fruits and Souldiers by their Actions and Intentions I doubt there are far more of this later sort than of the first in this Age and if John Cannes Voyce from the Temple be imbraced for Gospel in every point by the whole Army no doubt they will then be all of this later rank not the Ministers and Soldiers of Jesus Christ but of Antichrist alone and the Crucifiers of Christ again in his faithfull Ministers and Members which I desire them all sadly to consider 9ly Admit them to be made Kings and Priests to God the Father by Christ in a spiritual sence as all the Elect Saints of God are will it thereupon follow that they may all lawfully preach in publick administer Sacraments and exercise the proper Function of Priests and Ministers If so then by the self-same reason they may all lawfully exercise the office and power of Kings as well as of Priests as some of them do in the highest degree beyond all Presidents of any our Kings before them and so under pretext of suppressing our Monarchy and one sole King as dangerous and pernicious we shall have now no less than an whole Army of Kings to rule and reign over us and to engross not only all the old Kings Lands and Revenues but the greatest part of the Peoples far surmounting of a Million or two each year in Contributions and Excise to support their new Royal State and Dignity as well as an Army of Priests who have and would swallow up our whole Churches Revenues Glebes Tithes Patrimony and our Ministry too for to support their new Evangelical Priesthood that so they may resemble both Christ and Melchisedec in their Kingly and Priestly Offices united in one Person though not in the Title of their Kingdom as the Apostle interprets it Hebr. 7.2 being by Interpretation KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESSE and after that also King of SALEM which is KING OF PEACE which Souldiers who make a gainfull Trade of War and Rapine delight not in 10ly I do affirm and will abide by it that since the time some disguised Popish Priests Jesuits Sectaries Hereticks Anabaptists and other Seducers rather than the Lord drew out the heart of some Souldiers and other Mechanicks in truth or disguise publickly to preach the People of this Common-wealth have had more abominable false damnable atheistical Antichristian Heresies Errors Blasphemies New Opinions and old exploded Heterodox Heresies and Tenents of all sorts whatsoever against the very Essence Nature Attributes of God himself the three sacred Persons in the Trinity the Old and New Testament Law Gospel all the fundamental Articles of Faith and Salvation the Sacraments Ministers Ordinances of God and practical publick private Duties of Piety and Christianity under the Names and specious Titles of New Lights and glorious Discoveries of Christs Kingdom broached by Souldiers and Lay-Preachers than in all the times since the Gospel was first preached in this Island and more than ever any one Age Church Nation or all our Ministers put together since the Creation till now were guilty of and these publickly averred both in Presse and Pulpit and the Authors of them exempted from any corporal or pecuniary punishments by the Civil Magistrates by the avowed printed Positions and Proposals of the General Council of Army-Officers and Souldiers in sundry Papers For full and infallible proof whereof I shall remit the Reader to Mr. Edwards Gangrenaes the Catalogues of the Heresies Blasphemies Errors collected by the London and Devonshire Ministers the Stationers Beacon fired and New Law p. 78 97. Which stiles Heaven Hell the resurrection of the Flesh a Dream of our Preachers The History of the Scripture an Idol c. And all this by the malice of Satan the underhand practices of Jesuites and our Popish Adversaries to defame ruine our Church Ministers Religion seduce thee to Popery Atheism and reduce us back to the Antichristian Tyranny of the Sea of Rome as I have largely manifested in the fifth Chapter Whereas Canne cannot charge our Parochial Ministers and Presbyterians with any such Blasphemies Heresies Errors as those he pleads for are guilty of in the highest degree nor with those Jesuitical treacherous perfidious sacrilegious unclean beastly ranting unrighteous prophane atheistical Innovations Practices Rapines Usurpations as they have plunged themselves into over head and ears without any Conscience or dread of God or Man 11ly What that more true Light and glorious Discoveries of Christ and his Kingdom made known to the people of this Common-wealth within these 10 or 12. years by the publick preaching of some Souldiers and Laymen exceeding all the Nations Ministers ever made known unto them before are is concealed by
Augustinus c. who were brought up in all kind of Learning and became shining Stars and brought Lights in the House of God notable Defenders of Religion Over-throwers of Idols and Confounders of Hereticks Christian Princes herein have witnessed their Zeal in setting forth the Glory of God After Charles the Great had made his notable Conquests let our Conquerors remember it he erected five famous Universities one at Paris another at Tolouse another at Papia another at Padua and another at Prague to which our King Alfred founder of out famous Universitie of Oxford with the founders of all the Colleges therein and of the Universities of Cambridge Dublin and those in Scotland to omit those Universities in Germany Spain Portugall Poland Denmarke Sweden Hungary and other Parts of Italy and France mentioned by Heylen and others might be added Suidas reporteth of Leo the Emperour That when Leo on a time commanded Eulogius a Philosopher should have his Princely reward a Noble man of the Court sayd as some do now of our Universities and Colleges Lands and Revenues that that money would be better imployed for the maintenance of Souldiers Nay saith he and so all wise men now I would rather it might be brought to pass in my time that the wages which are now bestowed upon Souldiers might be given to maintain Philosophers Alexander Severus so highly esteemed that notable famous Lawyer Vlpian that when certain of his Soldiers ran feircely upon Vlpian to slay him the Emperor stept forth and set himself between the body of Vlpian and the fury of his Souldiers and covered him with his own Robes that the Souldiers might know how carefull he was for the good estate of Vlpian Let our Souldiers who hate and study to suppress Philosophers Scholars Lawyers consider these two last Stories And also for the contrary such as have practised cruelty upon learned men and have hated knowledge were worthily discommended in the Stories of all ages He instanceth in the wicked Apostates Julian and Licinius forecited examples The like is reported of Caligula Caracalla and Domitianus that either they utterly hated all manner of Learning or had some special malice against the writings of some one notable man and therefore sought to destroy them Such was the policy of Satan so thought he to get the upper hand and to restore again his wicked Jericho And were these the Practices of Heathen Princes only may not we remember the like attempts wrought in our dayes who will call to mind the time that is not far past shall find that this ignorant Iericho had many friends and hath it not now as many and the same who by all means drew men from knowledge they gave Liberty rather to do any thing than to seek understanding and yet suffered rather the use and reading of fabulous and unclean writers than of the Holy Scripture and Books which carried fruitfull instruction Good Letters to increase knowledge are not to be neglected Such as presume of Gods Spirit over-boldly that without endeavour to use the wholsome means which God hath left unto his Church they shall and doe by special inspiration understand his will do tempt God He adds much more In brief learning knowledge in Arts Tongues Histories of all sorts and in the Laws Governments of former ages are so absolutely necessary for the right understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures and good Government of all Common-wealths and Kingdoms that without them there neither will nor can be any true Religion sound Knowledge of God his word or works nor orderly Government Humanity Civility Navigation or Commerce almost in the world and men deprived of it will be little different from Beasts as appears by the brutish Sottishnesse Barbarousnesse Savagenesse ignorance of the illiterate Indians in America and of some other African and Northern Nations voyd both of Religion Government and Humanity it self because destitute of Learning as Purchas his Pilgrimage Mr. Hackluits voyages Peter Martyrs Indian History Mercator and others record Hereupon our antient Ancestors were so carefull of Learning Religion Ministers Scholars Lands Estates Tithes that they placed them in the very front of all those antient Laws Liberties Customs which they claimed enjoyed and presented to William the pretended Conqueror upon Oath in the 4 th Year of his Reign who ratified them in Parliament without the least Alteration or Diminution to his eternal Honour and the great contentment of the whole Nation whose affections else he would have lost to the endangering of his new acquired Royalty as I have proved in the 2 d. Chapter Which our New pretended Conquerors may do well to consider And so I proceed to my concluding Assertion CHAP. V. I Am now arived at the fifth and last Proposition That the present opposition and endeavoured abolition of Tithes and all other coercive maintenance for Ministers proceed not from any real grounds of Piety or Conscience or any considerable real Inconveniences or Mischiefs arising from them but merely from base covetous carnal Hearts want of Christian Love and Charity to and professed enmity and hatred against the Ministers and Ministry of the Gospel and from a Jesuitical and Anabaptistical design to subvert and ruine our Ministers Church and Religion the probable if not necessary consequence of this infernal Project if it should take effect Which would prove the eternal Shame Infamy and Ruine of our Nation not its Glory and Benefit The first part of the Proposition is sufficiently manifested by the premises wherein I have answered all Objections from pretended Grounds of Piety Conscience and surmised Inconveniences or Mischiefs made against Tithes discovering them to be mere Impostures and false Surmises and the principal Objections against them are that they are Jewish Popish And Iohn Canne in his Second Voyce from the Alehouse for surely it came from thence not from the Temple to shew his skill in Divinity most impudently asserts That payment of Tithes is a Sin two waies against the second Commandement 1. In it self as being Iewish and Superstitious giving honour to the wayes and devises of Antichrist This way of Maintenance by Tithes being a Popish Custom imposed by the Popes Authority c. 2ly As paid to an unlawfull and Antichristian Ministry c. Surely a Lyer ought to have a good Memory He confesseth p. 15. That Tithes were paid by Abraham vowed by Iacob and prescribed by God himself in the Ceremonial law Therefore neither Jewish nor Popish nor Superstitions nor a Sin against the 2d Commandement else Abraham in paying Iacob in vowing God in prescribing the Israelites in paying them should transgresse this Commandement and commit a Sin against it I would demand of this Canne how he can reconcile these his palpable Lyes and Contradictions unbecomming him who professeth himself a true Minister of the Gospel 1. How Tithes can be merely Jewish since paid by Gods direction and approbation by Abraham the Father of the Faithfull and that
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
that we should no waies be able to resist their progress till they were re-estated in their former Supremacy and Prevalency amongst us And then rhose very Romish Factors who are now so violent against Tithes and Rectories of purpose to starve our Ministers out of them and their Ministry for the present will not only forthwith resume as they did in Queen Maries daies their pristine abolished Pontifical Power and set up their Ecclesiastical Consistories High Commissions and bloudy Inquisitions amongst us higher than ever they were in former ages to the utter extirpation of our Protestant Ministers and Professors too but likewise presently resume into their hands all those Rectories Tithes and antient Dues whereof they now endeavour to deprive our Ministers with all our late Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Chapters Cathedrals Lands and Revenues as Sacrilegiously alienated from the Church against the Lawes both of God and Man as well as against their Popish Canons by those who had no right to dispose of them if they proceed to resume all Abby Lands too in Protestant hands at least And then all late or antient Purchasers of such Lands now confederating with them out of Covetousness Ambition Rapine or other respects will repent too late of their inconsiderable unrighteous unchristian complyance with them against our Ministers Glebes and Tithes and have as ill a Bargain in conclusion as divers old Projectors had in the purchase of our Crown Revenues when resumed or setled in the Crown again by many special Acts of Resumption for the publick weal and ease of the people in their Taxes as being the constant standing Revenue of the whole Kingdom to defray its ordinary publick Expences which none can or ought to Alien or purchase from the Republick to enrich themselves by the publick Losse Wherefore I shall now refer it to their saddest thoughts to consider whether it will not be far safer for all such Army-Officers and others who have purchased Church Lands to joyn together with all such zealous Protestants who desire the continuance of our Ministers antient Tithes and Maintenance more aimed at than Impropriators Tithes against these Jesuites and Romish Emissaries now oppugning them and to use their utmost endeavours to detect apprehend prosecute execute all our former good Laws against them to prevent their mischievous present and future Designs against our Ministry Church Religion Nation than ignorantly or wittingly to confederate with and assist them to accomplish their present Sacrilegious Projects to ruine us and themselves with their Posterities in conclusion and thereby incur the self-same Crime Charge of High Treason which themselves and the whole Parliament of England so lately prosecuted against Canterbury in the 7 8 9 11 12 13 14. Articles of his original Charge for which he lost his head on Tower Hill To draw to a cloze of this Proposition I shall desire all truly fearing God throughout the Nation and Army too sadly to consider these particulars 1. That those who are the chiefest Sticklers against Tithes and our Ministers setled coercive Maintenance especially Jesuites and Anabaptists are the greatest professed open Adversaries to our Ministery Church Religion of all others desiring nothing but their utter ruine as their late printed Pamphlets and Petitions manifest Therefore to gratify them in their Designs herein is to ruine all at once for whose defence we have spent so much Christian Bloud Treasure pains of late years against the Common Enemy and Jesuited Popish Party 2. That many of those who in their printed Papers have decryed our Ministers Tithes and coercive Maintenance as inconsistent with the Peoples Liberties and a great Bondage to them have as earnestly declaimed against all Inclosures Coppy hold Tenures Land-Lords old Rents Services antient Customes Imposts which being not so antient nor ratified by so many Statutes Charters Muniments of all sorts as Tithes are will not be able to stand before their Opposition and Arguments against them if our Tithes and Ministers Glebes should once fall before them 3. That if our besotted Nation shall be so stupid as to admit or permit any company of persons whatsoever a sufficient Legal Power or Jurisdiction without any pretended Crime Attainder Legal Conviction or Trial by their Peers at their meer wills and arbitrary discretions to deprive all our godly Ministers throughout the Nation of their Rectories Tithes and antient Dues though ratified by the Law yea Gospel of God himself by an uninterrupted Title Prescription in their Predecessors from the very first planting of the Gospel in our Nation and more hundreds of years than the antientest Families in the Nation have enjoyed their Inheritances by more Charters of our Kings more particular Lawes Statutes of our successive Parliaments in all ages than all the Nobility Gentry Corporations Commons of the Realm are able to produce for the Rights Titles Defence of their particular Lands and Inheritances against the Rapines Intrusions Claims Seisures Confiscations Sales Alienations of any either claiming or usurping such a Power or Jurisdiction by the Sword or otherwise They will thereby both admit them and invest them in as sufficient a Legal Power and Jurisdiction without the least pretended Crime Attainder Legal Conviction or Trial by their Peers at their meer arbitrary wills and Discretions to deprive strip all the Nobility Gentry Corporations Commons of the Realm of all their Mannors Lands Inheritances Estates Chattels Privileges Franchises whatsoever being not so well fenced by the Laws of God and Men against their Rapines and Depredations as Tithes are and those who will make no conscience upon any grounds or pretences to invade the one will make no Scruple to act the other as the Histories of Jack Cade and his Complices Practices Designs at home and the Anabaptists abroad will sufficiently attest Yea it will be but just with God to engage such Arbitrary Powers to act the later to the ruine of them and their families if they shall either assist permit encourage them by their silence or cowardice to perpetrate the other to the disinheriting of the Church the ruine of their faithfull Ministers themselves and that very Religion which they pretend to profess and practice 4. That as Tithes are the fittest Maintenance for Ministers of all others as invented appointed by the very Wisdom of God himself and the best the wisest of his Saints in all ages holding the self-same proportion in relation to the Ministers and Parishioners in times of Plenty and Dearth good years or bad fair harvests or foul rising or the falling of the prices of Corn Lands and other Commodities affecting them both alike with the mercy and bounty of God in times of Plenty and the Judgments of God in times of Scarcity or unseasonable weather more easily parted with by the Country-man in kind by several small parcels as they grow due than in ready money in one or two intire sums which they are most loth to render and part from of any thing as
are Gods and wilt thou not render to the Creator of all things that which is his own The Lord God doth not want he requires not a reward but honour he exacts not any thing of thine which thou shouldest reserve fund He vouchsafes to demand only the First-fruits and Tithe of things which are his and doest thou O covetous wretch deny him What wouldest thou doe if reserving the Nine parts to himself he had left only the Tenth to thee This he hath already done when as thy harvest for want of rain mildew and thy vintage through hayl or frost is diminished into a Ninth part O covetous Varlet how dost thou reckon The Nine parts are withdrawn from thee because thou wouldest not give the Tenth It is most apparent that thou hast not given them but yet God hath exacted them For this is the most just custom of the Lord that if thou wilt not give the Tenth to him he will recall the Nine and leave only a Tenth part to thee What if God should say unto thee Man is mine whom I have made the earth is mine which thou tillest the seeds are mine which thou sowest the cattel are mine which thou weariest the showrs and the rain and the gales of wind are mine the heat of the Sun is also mine And seeing all the Elements by which the seed fruits do live and grow are mine and thou only lendest thy hand thou deservest only a Tenth But because Almighty God feeds deals most liberally with us he hath given a most ample gift and reward to him that laboureth challenging the Tenth only to himself and pardoning all the rest to us And wilt thou then ungratefully and perfideously deprive him of it when the year is ended and the crop reaped If any shall presume to doe so let them read what followes in that Sermon and then sleep quietly if they can 9. That all Christians under the Gospel are bound in Justice Equity Conâ—cience to give their hired Servants and Labourers their due and deserved Wages and not to detain it from them even under the Gospel and that by vertue of Gods command recorded in the Levitical and Judicial Law Levit 19.13 Deut. 14.14 15. approved in the Gospel Col. 4.1 and to allow their Beasts Oxen that plow and tread out their Corn Straw and Provender without muzling up their mouthes by vertue of a like precept recorded Deut 25.4 twice repeated and urged by the Apostle in the New Testament to prove the lawfullnesse of Ministers maintenance under the Gospel 1 Cor 9.8 9 10. 1 Tim 5.18 and that without the least suspition of Judaism or Antichristianism Therefore they may and are also bound in Justice Equity Conscience not only to settle Glebes upon but likewise to pay Tithes to the Ministers of the Gospel as a due Wages Hire Reward for their Labour in the Ministry as well as the Jews did to their Priests and Leviteâ— without the least tincture of Judaism or Antichristianism since Christ himself in the Gospel expresly resolvs Mat. 10.10 Luke 10.7 and 1 Tim. 5.18 That Ministers being Labourers are worthy of their Mâ—at Hire and a competent Maintenance suitable to their pains and function as well as any other hired Servants or Labourers in the fields or as our labouring Oxen or Horses are of Straw and Provender 10. We read it recorded 1 Sam. 8.11 15 17. That this would be the manner of the King that should reign over the Jâ—ws that amongst other things He will take the Tenth of your Seed and of your Vineyards and the Tenth of your Sheep and give them to his Officers and Servants In imitation whereof the Kings of England in antient Parliaments and of late times have usually demanded and received by Grant in Parliament a Dâ—cime or Tenth of the Goods and Estates of their Subjects for their Supplies and likewise a Tenth of their Merchandise exported and imported for Tonnage and Poundage as our Parliament Records Histories and Rastal in his Abridgement of Statutes Tithes Taxes and Tenths attest If then our lawfull Kings Princes and Governours under the Gospel may justly demand and receive by Grant in Parliament the Tenth of all our Goods Corn Wooll Sheep Estates Merchandise for their necessary supplies and the defence of the Kingdom and some who are no Kings and have engaged against Kingship as Tyrannical do the like without a Parliament taking beyond the presidents of the worst of all our Kings not only a Tenth of all our Estates but a double or treble Tenth of all mens yearly Revenues Estates of Ministers Tithes besides for the Maintenance of themselves and the Army without the guilt of Iudaism Antichristian Tyranny Oppression or Superstition Why our faithfull Ministers may not likewise demand receive enjoy their Glebes and Tithes not only granted but confirmed to them by our Ancestors in successive Parliaments from the first planting of the Gospel in this Nation till the Reformation by all our Protestant Parliaments since the Reformation and by sundry Ordinances in the very last Parliament to which some now in highest Power gave their cordial Votes for the Preaching propagating of the Gospel and saving of mens Souls without the like Brand of Judaism and Anti-christianism let John Canne resolve me when he can who most falsly scandalously unchristianly brands both the last and all Protestant Parliaments confirming Tithes for Popish Idolatrous Parliaments acting against the Lord Jesus and our Ministry for an Antichristian Ministry Who certainly was in his Cannes or Cups when he writ and published such palpable scandalous untruths to the dishonour of our Church Parliaments Nation Religion But such Cretians are alwayes Lyars Evil Beasts Slow Bellies wherefore they need a sharp rebuke that they may be sound in the saith Tit 1.12 13. He might have done better to excite those to whom he dedicates his Pamphlet against those Popish Priest Monks Friars Jesuits sent from the Pope and Rome into England of late to root out our Ministry and their Maintenance as most opposite to Antichristianism his Papal Soveraignty and Errors under the Notion of Anabaptists dipped Jews Gifted Brethren New Lights Seekers But against these he hath not one word and why so Because the Dominican and Franciscan Freers as Mr. Selden relates in his History of Tithes were the first who made it a gainfull doctrine to teach Laymen that they were not bound to pay their Tithes to their Ministers as to whom by any Law of God that portion belonged teaching them to be due only as Alms or as what ex debito charitatis not ex debito justitiae was to be dispensed By this doctrine The Mendicams especially often got them to themselves like the old Eustathians as Alms to be arbitrarily disposed of to such as took any spiritual Labour as also made their own detaining of them in lands out of which they were parochially due to séem lesse wrongfull They possessing the people with an opinion to gain them