draw them on to such Donations Yea sozealously bent were the Prelates of those times to augment the Churches Patrimony that by a Provincial Constitution made by Richard Withershead alias Wctherhead Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Hen. 3. it was forbidden to all Physicians to administer any Physick to any Patient be his extremity and danger never so great under pain of suspension ab ingressu Ecclesae till the Patient were shrived by a Priest The pretence was to visit and physick his Soul first But the meaning was to get a collop out of his Estate to some Church Chappel or Monastery to increase their own Revenues Upon which the Priest absolved him but not before And this was that which occasioned the multiplying of Chaunteries Obiits c. and afterwards the abrogating of them in the reign of Edw. 6. to whom they were given by Parliament I. Edw. 6. 14. Nor were the Kings and Parliaments especially after King John so hood-winkt or cowed as not to see and take notice of and provide against those excessive gifts of Lands to the Church that is to the Clergy whereby they greatly robbed the Commonwealth and ruined many particular families Therefore the same Henry the third when he first granted the Great Charter and therein confirmed the Right and Liberties which doth not necessarily if at all import Lands of holy Church as that Idolized Crew was then termed did in the same Charter enact That it should not be lawful from thenceforth to any to give his Lands to any Religious house and to take the same again to hold of the same house Nor shall it be lawful to any house of Religion to take the Lands of any and to Lease the same to him of whom he received it And that if any from thenceforth gave his Lands to any religious houses and thereupon be convict the gift shall be utterly void and the land accrew to the Lord of the fee. Here then was a Law against voluntary gifts of Lands and a liberty granted to others to recover them back notwithstanding their pretended giving them unto God whereby it appears that some sorts of giving and accepting and receiving Lands for the Church is not a duty but a fault which deserves punishment not a reward Next after Hen. 3. succeeded his son Edw. I. who in the 25th of his reign confirmed the Great Charter and in it the clause or Chapter last mentioned But before he did that even in the seventh of his reign he made a strict Law against Mortmain by advice of the Prelates as well as others to make all gifts and purchases of Lands without special License from the King to be null and void and the Lands to be forfeited to the chief Lord if he took the advantage within one year and an half or else to the King in case the chief Lord neglected the time therein appointed and limitted It is true that Edward 3. a popular Prince at the importunity of the Clergy of whom he was necessitated to make much use in his wars did somewhat mitigate the rigour of former Statutes of Mortmain who in case of breach thereof enacted that instead of forfeitures parties offending should onely pay a Fine Howbeit in 15 Rich. 2. that Statute De Religiosis 7. Edw. I. was not onely revived and set on foot again but made to extend to all Lands privately given for Church-yards or Glebes of Vicars c. or to Guilds Fraternities and Corporations without special License from the King And that if any before this last Statute had bought procured or received such Lands without License they should either procure his License or sell those Lands away for other uses by the next Michaelmas following else the Lands to be forfeited and seisure to be made of them as in the aforesaid Statute of 7. Edw. I. de Religiosis was provided This indeed was the main quarrel which Thomas A undel then Archbishop of Canterbury had against that King for which he conspired with Henry of Bullingbrook afterwards Henry 4. to depose and ruine him By all which it is manifest that neither Kings nor Parliament no not Bishops themselves in Parliament ever took all Lands given to Churches upon mens private devotions and liberality to be sacred or holy to the Lord and thereby to become his propriety or so much as lawful for the Church to hold them without special License from the King and other chief Lord or Lords of the see Yea these Acts of Parliament declare plainly that such voluntary giving of Lands was in it self against Law For there being required a special License for legitimating thereof it is manifest that the thing could not be done without dispensing with the Laws made against it The unlawfulness whereof is declared to be that the King and Kingdom was thereby defrauded of such taxes and payments when the Lands once were in Mortmain or a dead hand to wit the Church as formerly had been raised out of them for defence of the Realm and the chief Lords of the Fee were deprived of their chiefRents Services Reliefs Fines of Alienation Eschetes c. which being an apparent wrong to all occasioned the making of those Laws against that lawless Liberty And yet our Advocates for Church-Lands will needs contend that every thing voluntarily given to Holy Church be it for what use it will Superstitious or not must needs by that very Donation instantly become so sacred that it may by no means be alienated and that God accepts it for his own although given contrary to the Laws of those men to whose Ordinances even to every one of them not contrary to Gods we are commanded to submit for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him c. Thus we see what in truth the Title of the Lands of Bishops and other Cathedral men in England was whence derived upon what grounds and in what manner procued and enjoyed which sufficiently argues them even in construction of Scripture as well as of humane Laws to be far from being sacred or Holy to the Lord so as upon any account whatsoever to intitle him unto them CHAP. III. It is neither Sacrilege nor other sin to aliene or purchase such Lands to any common use especially since the Statutes of 17. Car. I. cap. II. and cap. 28. THis is evident from the premises and is here added by way of Antithesis to obviate those Two confident Assertions of the Letter Answerer before mentioned viz. That to invade those things given to the Church be they moveable or immoveable is expresly the sin of Sacrilege And That this sin is not onely against Gods positive Law but plainly against his Moral Law To charge a man with Sacrilege is the highest accusation for the greatest crime next to the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost for it is ranged with Idolatry it self Rom. 2.22 yea
the cutting off a Dogs neck or the blessing of an Idol When it can be proved that God accepted of such Oblations in the time of the Law then also it may be granted that he will accept such mongrel Dedications in the days of the Gospel 5. Things dedicated unto God without his Order and Direction is a laying as de and a rejecting of the Commandment of God and a making the word of God of none effect It is the Pharisees Corban which they for filthy lucres sake taught Children to plead against their Parents contrary to the fifth Commandment when required to relieve them in age and necessity If a father in time of need demanded this or that thing of his son the son was taught to answer onely this It is Corban a gift which I have devoted to God therefore you must excuse me I cannot let you have it Vows Must be paid and things once dedicated must not be recalled nor the thing vowed aliened This by the Pharisees Doctrine was a gift irrevocable and so sacred unto God that if the Childe should perhaps be willing to pleasure his Parents with some part of it they would not give way It is holy to God it must not be profaned by applying it to common uses so that they would suffer him no more to do ought for his Father or Mother Did Christ allow this for a Dedication that might not be recalled and that what was so given might not be any more imployed to private uses without Sacrilege Nay he abhorred it as a sacrilegious abuse of Scripture and those Hypocrites also who taught such Doctrines Such are all Dedications proceeding from mens own fancies and ends without a rule from God and therefore gifts so given not onely may but ought to be aliened to other uses that God may no longer be abused and provoked by them 6. It is a mistake and error to think and say those Lands now purchased by private men are perverted from publick use For they were sold for the publick use of the Commonwealth Now if by the Canon-Law it be allowed that the goods and possessions of the Church may be alienated to redeem Captives as the Pope himself hath confessed much more then may such Lands be sold for the service of the State and Church in a time of such expence and danger Who ever taxed Hezekiah of Sacrilege when he gave the King of Assyria that came up against the fenced Cities of Judah and took them all the silver that was found in the House of the Lord and cut off the gold from the doors of the Temple and from the pillars and gave it to the King of Assyria that he might depart from Judah 2 Kings 18. 15 16 The Parliament then being so much necessitated chiefly for satisfying the vast charge of the Scottish Army and that by occasion of the Owners of those Lands had a Royal and Pious Patern and Warrant for so doing Nor is it a perverting of those Lands by Purchasers to imploy them after paying for them upon such an occasion to their own use no more than it was for the Tenants of Bishops Deans and Chapters c. when they had with their money bought those Lands for lives or years yea in Fee-simple For the granting and imploying them for years or lives and that upon no such necessity as the Parliament sold makes no real difference as to private use between that and the sale of them for ever in a case of such importa it necessity For if it be no sin in a Bishop or Dean and Chapter to sell a Mannour yea an Impropriation for three lives or for 21 years heretofore for 100. 200. years yea for ever and to put the whole Fine into their own private purses not out of necessity but for gain and to enrich themselves to the prejudice and impoverishing of their Successours who must get some other maintenance that is some Benefices with Cure on which they never reside but at their Cathedrals and starve the Souls of those people in the mean time with 10 l. Curats or else they could not bear up the pomp and port of Cathedral-men And if it were lawful for their Tenants upon such terms to hold those Mannours and Impropriations for so long time to their own private use then surely it cannot be unlawful in it self for the Parliament who never put the money into their own purses to sell those Lands nor for purchasers to buy and enjoy them for ever having paid accordingly for them 7. The same things now pronounced Sacrilege in modern Purchasers have been often done many years past and still are done every day by the greatest Censurers of the present alienation of those Lands For to say nothing of the Appropriations and Impropriations made by Popes to Templars Monasteries and other nick-named Religious Houses nor of those huge alienations made in Henry the eighth's time Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth and not none in King James his days Even they who now cry loudest against buying of Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands because in their opinions once given to God and make it high Sacrilege in all that now do it can yet be well enough content to hold things of the same kinde in respect of Dedication heretofore aliened from the Church They can well digest abby-Abby-Lands Canonical Houses yea which is worst impropriated Tithes themselves first made by that Arch-Sacrilegist the Pope in favour not onely of Covents and Societies but of his own particular single favorites and Minions who neither would nor could do any service to their Souls who paid them and after their dissolution devolved to private hands and common uses as Cathedral Lands now do Here to omit how much of the Revenues of the Crown it self consisteth in Church Lands and Rents how many Noble-men and Gentle-men are there in England as well as in forain Nations who now cry out of the supposed Sacrilege of others do yet possess many Lordships Mannours and Royalties even of Bishops themselves alienated since Henry the eighth began to destroy Monasteries Are there not many of those Lands aliened by secret not to say Symoniacal compact and bargain between Petitioners for Bishopricks and their friends at Court to procure such a Bishoprick for them If any doubt hereof it is his ignorance If he desire proof let him but inquire into the mutilation of that one Bishoprick of Bath and Wells and he shall find that since the thirtieth of Henry the eighth the Mannors of Wookey Black ford Compton-Dando Congersbury Yaton Cbew Wike Puckle-Church Wester-Leigh Hampton Claverton Cranmore Ever-cretch Kingsbury Chard Wellington Lidford Compton Parva and Chedder to omit many Appropriations Hundreds Burroughs Farmes c. have been all alienated from that Church and are to this day held by Lay-men to their own private uses without scruple or blame before ever the late Parliament seised the rest Yea this is not the first time that the Bishops
But so long as we have not falsified the matter which you dare not to justifie but acknowledge not to be proper and which we affirm to be absurd and false we leave it to all to judge whether that be a godly and wholsome Doctrine necessary for these times And if it be not then whether there be not a a necessity of Reforming that 35th Article as to that point of the Homilies 7. As touching the Regal Supremacy we own and will assert it as far as you do or dare Onely we had reason to take notice of the improper Expression in the 37 Article that the Queens Majesty hath the Supreme Power For if the Declaration fathered on the late King and prefixed to the Articles had so much power with his Printer that he durst not to alter the word Queen into King even in the year 1642. and those Articles must be read verbatim without alteration or explanation then we say again there is a necessity of reforming that Article in the expression of it and not to talk at randome what was indeed the meaning unless we may have leave when we read it Regia Declaratione non obstante to declare the sense which the Declaration alloweth us not to do 8. As concerning the Law-part though you strain hard yet I hold it not worth one line of Reply till you have answered the four Queries propounded in pag. 61. 62. of our Book Not that I would wave ought which deserveth Answer but to spare labour where it would be in the judgement of wise men ridiculous to bestow it This is spoken in love to the truth and to yourself also by Your Servant and Brother if you please C. BURGES FINIS * Zeph. 2.6 k L. un c. de Crim. Sacril l. 6 de Appel C Thendos l Rom. 13. I. m Decreti pars 2. caus 12 q. 2. c. 3. Nidli liceat ignorare n Mart. ab Aspilq Dr. Navarr to I. Tract de Reddit Eccles pag. 264. monit 18. o 2 2 q. 99. p Part. 2. q. 168. q Lib. 5. c. de Crim. Sacril l. 1. de Offic. r Archipresb C. Ignor. Sacerd verb. Sacril s To 6. Cea tiloq Sect. 30. t Moral 1. 9. c. 29. u Ubi supra mcm. 1. w Par 2. q. 168. m. 1. x 2. 2 q. 99 in Axiom y Ar. 1. Ibid. z Ibid. 2. m. * Ibid. co p. a l. 6. l. 9. F ad L. Jul. pecul b Origin seu Etym. l. 10. c 18. c in 9. Eolog Virg. d Ibid. q. 99. m. 2. e H. S. Thesaur f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 g Lib. Disserent lit s. h Alex. Hal. Aquin aliique i Pro. 20. 25 k Mr. Will. Walker sermon against Sacrilege l ubi supra m Pro. 3. 9. n Mat. 15 9 o Mic. 6. 7. p Isa. 1. 11 12. Slat Ministers Portion pag 15. q in Pro. 20. 25. r ubi supra So Lyra in Josh 7. s Josh 7. t Vers. 21. u in Lev. 27. w Luk. 21. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 x Deut. 7. 2. cap. 20. 17. y Josh. 6. 17 18. compared with 1 Sam. 15 3 z Josh. 6. 19 a Ethic. chri l. 2. c. 15. Sacrilege describ'd b Mal. 3. 8. d 1 Cor. 9. 9 e 1 Sam. 15. 9. f Vers. 3. 1 Corollary g Pag. 25. h 2 Pet. 3. 16. * See Hierome on the place i Luke 10.16 k Luke 22. 35. l Mat. 10. 9 10. m Luke 10.7 n 2 Thes. 3. 10. o Gal. 6. 6. y Prov. 12.10 q Act. 5. 4. r Act. 2.47 5. 11. 8 1 c. s Act. 4.35 t Luk. 3.11 u Luk. 12.33 Pag. 29. * Act. 25. 8. w 1 Chron. 28. 3. x Vers. 6. 2. Corollary y Josh. 7. 11 z Deut. 7. 5 6. a Deut. 27. 15. b Deut. 12 30. c Exo. 32. 1. d Vers. 5. e Exod. 32. 28. f Vers. 35. 3. Corollary g Num 33. 52. h 2 King 18 4. i 1 King 15. 14. k 1 King 22. 43. l 2 King 14. 4. m Psal. 31. 6. * Politic. 12. c. 17 18. o Ans. to a Letter to Dr. Turner pag. 25. g Num. 18 20. h Vers. 23. i Vers 24. k Ans. to a Letter to Dr. Turner pag. 29. l Lev. 27. m Num. 1 49. 50 l Num. 3. 17. m Num. 9. n Deut. 33 10. o Neh. 10. 38. p Num. 35 4. q Josh. 15. 13. r Josh. 21. 10 11. s Josh. 14. 13 14. t Josh. 21. 12. u Epist. ad Dordan w Num. 35 4. * Num. 3. 39. x Vers. 4. y Vers. 3. z In Num. 35. q. 2. a Levit. 25. 34. b Jam 4. 6. * Church-Lands not to be sold pag. 31. * See the Apology for Purchases c. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c In Levit. 27. q. 67. * Spalat de Rep. Eccles 1. 9. c. 7 n. 36. d In Levit. 27. q. 36. e Levit. 27. 28. f Ezek 45. and c. 48. See Jun. in Ezek. 40 g Heb. 12. 22. g Heb. 12. 22. h Church-Lands not to be sold pag. 1 2. i Tithes examined Cap. 2. k 1 Cor. 10. 20. l Luk. 2. 4. m Mat. 8. 20. n Joh. 12. 6. o Luk. 8. 3. p Joh. 4. 8. q Joh 13. 29. r Mat. 14. 17. Mar. 6. 38. Luk. 9. 13. Joh. 6. 9. s Mat. 10. 9 10. t Act. 2. 47. u Act. 3. 6. w 1 Cor. 4. 12. x Act. 20. 34. y 1 Cor. 9. 4 5 c. z 1 Thes. 2. 9. a 2 Cor. 11. S. b Luk. 22. 35. c Mat. 10. 10 d Luk. 10. 8 e Mic. 3. 11 f Church-Lands c. pa. 4. g Mat. 20. 15. Pag. 5. Pag. 18 35 alibi * Pag. 71 h Platina in Urban I. i Ibid. * Sr. Hen. Sp Int p. 6. k Euseb. l 10. c. 5. l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 S. R. I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n Church Lands 〈◊〉 pag. 〈◊〉 o Fox Act 〈◊〉 part fol. 〈◊〉 Edit 1610. p Cent. 2. cap. 2. q Flor. Histor ad ann 186. c. r 2 Pet. 2.1 3. s Amos 8. 6. t Rev. 18. 13. u Psal. 10.4 w Decrct par 2. Caus. 12. 4 3. c Pontisices x Job 2. 4. y Psal. 49.8 z Act. 3.12 a Godwin of Bishops pag 357. b Monastic Anglican d Ad Ann. 280. e Historiar li. 4. f Annal. par 1. g Li. c 18 h Hist. 1.5 Magna Charta i Nomenclat l. G. k De Hist. Latin 1.2 cap. 21. l In Ecclesiast Ordin acr Corrept * Lindw 1.5 tit de poenit remiss cap. cum anima * See Cook Instit. 2. C. I. m Cap. 36. * Because Lands so held were freed from all Tithes Taxes and Eschetes Therefore many did so convey Lands to couzen the King and other chief Lords n I Pet. 2.13 14. o Pag 25. his 3. and 4. Propositions p church-church-Lands not to be sold pag 14 15. q Plato de Legib. dial 9. r Leg. 12. Tabul s Plutarch in Arist. t Deut. 19. 16 co w Act. 4.36 37. * In loc a In Lev. 27.4 36. b Com. Geog. 1.14 c In Act. 4. d In Vit. Barnab e 2 King 18.15 16. f 1 Sam. 21 6. g Decret 2. Caus. 12. q. 2. c. 52 sine except h Tom. 1. Com. in Cap. non lic a. 12 q. 〈…〉 7. 8. i 15. Ric. 2. 6..5 k 25. Ed. 3. Stat. dc Provis 17. car 1. cap. 28. m Answ. to Dr. Carriers Letter p. 248. See Doctor Hackwel's Answ to Carrier cap. 2. pag. 249 250 c. * Mark this well Object n May 11. 1641. * Hist of the Church Cent 17. Lib. 11. P. 179. * Minut. Foelix o An. 1625. * Or rather to christ her Lord and thereby to her object Answ. p Numb 4. 12. q Lev. 10.1 r 1 Kin. 7. 50. * Hicron in Ezek. 3. vulg Glosse aliique s Ezek. S. 1 1. t Interlin Gloss. x Exod. 25. 40. y 1 King 8. 3 4. z Vers. 6 7 8. a 1 King 7. 48 c. b De Re rustic lib. 2. c Lib. 3. in Prooem Object 1. Answ. Anno 1635. w Church-Lands not to be sold pag. 32. x 1 Tim 5. 17 18. y De nices reform Eccl. z Pag. 16. e 1 Tim. 32 passin f 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. g Philem. 9 h 1 Cor. 9. 16. i 2 Cor. 11 28. k Mat. 13. 52. * Matth. Paris ad Ann. 1353. Dr. Heylin Animadv on Hist. of Church pag. 70. l seld Tit. Hon. part 2. c. 5. m Deut. 27. 17. o 1 King 1. 10 and 12. p 2 King 2. 23. q Psa. 109. r Act. 8. 20. s Nch. 6.2 t Isa. 34.5 u Pro. 26.27 w Mar. 10.25 x Psa. 109.28 y 1 Sam. 17.43 z Rom. 3.17 a Gen. 27.29 b 2 Pet. 2.14 c 2 Sam. 16.13 d 1 King 〈◊〉 .44 Object 3. Answ. e Numb 16.7 f Sam. 7. 3. g Exod. 23. 3. h Isay 5.20 i Isay 1.8 k Jer. 5.26 l Deut. 23.17 m Mar. 7.8 n Vers 9. o Vers. 13. p Vers 11. q Vers. 128 t 2d Command u Rom. 2.1
of God as the worshipping of Idols themselves Yea God doth so abominate such things that he forbad his people so much as to enquire after the Gods of the Nations how those Nations worshipped their Gods Now then Sacrilege being committed in retaining what is accursed as well as in perverting what is by God accepted and sanctified for his worship and service it can be no less than Sacrilege to introduce or continue any thing in his service which himself hath not appointed and therefore forbidden They therefore that are for adoration of the Host or of material Altars for Christians bowing towards the East for the use of Copes brought in by Antichrist into the Church or of any other Popish or superstitious Rites and Ceremonies in the service of God never appointed by Christ or his Apostles and therefore accursed as Will-worship being a Prophanation of the Divine Majesty may do well to consider and lay it to heart whether they lie not under the guilt of that great sin and whether God hath not justly yet mercifully punished them with casting them out of their places and dispossessing them of their Church-Revenues for using yea preaching up the lawfulness of those accursed Trinkets and persecuting all such as bore testimony against them If any shall plead that what God hath accursed belongs to formal Idols and Idolatry and reacheth not to any thing brought in as relating to the true God 't is a meer evasion and delusion For the Golden Calf made by Aaron to go before the Israelites was not intended either by them or him to be an Idol or false god such as the Nations worshipped but onely to be a visible representation of Jehovah to go before them in stead of Moses whom they now apprehended through his long absence in the Mount to have forsaken them For even the Feast which they hereupon held is called a Feast unto Jehovah in their purpose and intention and though they called the Calf Elohim Gods as the true God is often stiled yet not with intent to multiply Gods or to deviate from the true if they might be permitted to give the sense of their own action which God would not suffer therefore Nehemiah expressing their meaning renders the same speech of theirs in the singular number This is thy God that brought thee out of Egypt c. Neh. 9. 18. Yet even this in Gods account was a worshipping of a molten Image and the changing their glory into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass for which the Lord would have destroyed them utterly bad not Moses stood in the gap And yet for the same offence Moses himself gave order for the killing of about 3000 men in one day and the Lord otherwise plagued the people that remained because THEY had made the Calf which Aaron made It is then no good Plea to excuse from Sacrilege that what is done is intended to the true God and not to Heathen Idols For when men make an Idol of God it cannot but be an high provocation of the Divine Majesty and a contempt of his Law To such therefore who so do may that of Paul whether spoken by him to Jews or Gentiles be most aptly applyed Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou Sacrilege It is not thy protestations against Idolatry or Popery that will excuse thee so long as thou borrowest from either what God hath forbidden because he hath not prescribed in his worship If Moses must see that he make every thing according to the pattern shewed him in the Mount who art thou that shalt presume to follow the pattern of thine own brain or the traditions of men 3. Coroll Those Magistrates who are not as careful to destroy accursed things that is all humane inventions in the worship of God do thereby suffer God to be profaned and so are as guilty of Sacrilege as those that aliene or give way to the aliening of what is truely the Lords It is recorded to the honour of the Religious Kings of Judah that they destroyed all such things as in their days provoked the Lord. For so had the Lord commanded to all Israel when they should enter Canaan not onely to drive out the Natives for their Idolatry but to destroy all their Pictures and all their molten Images and quite pluck down all their high places Hence it is that Hezekiah removed the high places and brake the images and cut down the groves and brake in pieces also the brazen Serpent it self that Moses had made when he found that the Children of Israel did burn incense unto it He not onely destroyed the inventions of men in reference to Idols but even the institution of God himself when abused by men to the dishonour of God And how zealous Josiab was also in prosecuting the same work may be seen at large in 2 King 23. from the fourth verse to the 21. On the contrary it is noted as a great blot even to those Kings who had done much for God that the high places were not removed this is laid to the charge of Asa Jehishaphat and Amaziah Which is worth their notice who laboured so much to hold up the late King against the aliening of church-Church-Lands but never endeavoured to divert him from but rather infused into him strong conceits of the great usefulness and holiness of many humane Inventions and Superstitions in the Worship of God and to put him above all that had gone before him since Queen Mary upon the compelling of all others to practise the same as if it had been a great duty in him whereas David a man after Gods own heart hated all those that held of superstitious vanties and after died in peace But these making Formalities and Superstitious Ceremonies taken from Popery the All of their Devotions and taking their Lesson out of Adam de Contzen the Jesuite for retroducing the very body of Popery notwithstanding the Laws against it ruined themselves and the King CHAP. II. The Lands of Bishops and other Cathedral men as such were never owned or accepted as holy to the Lord nor were either his or theirs by Divine Right THe chief and indeed onely Argument by which many endeavour to prove it to be Sacrilege to sell or purchase Cathedral Lands is this that those Lands were given voluntarily by men unto God and the Church and are accepted and owned by him as holy to the Lord therefore they commit Sacrilege who sell or buy them for private uses as being against not onely Gods positive but Moral Law If this be not onely denied to be true but proved out of the holy Scripture to be false the whole Controversie will soon be at an end In order whereunto take notice that there is not onely no command but no direction or allowance in the Scriptures of the Old or New Testament for the endowing the Church with such lands but rather enough against it therefore
it is no Sacrilege to sell or buy them To make this out take notice of these Propositions 1. Under the Law in the Old Testament God was so far from commanding owning or accepting of lands to be given to the Priests or Levites especially to Aaron the chief Priest excepting a definite number of Cities for the habitations of the Levites that were to be spread over the whole Land of Canaan and the parts without Jordan and a set quantity of Pasture for their Cattle that he absolutely forbad them to have any inheritance among their brethren And this was to be a Statute for ever throughout their generations The reason was given before unto Aaron in behalf of himself and the rest of the Levites to whom God thus I am thy part and thine inheritance among the Children of Israel That is his portion in Tythes and Offerings due from Israel unto God should be theirs For of those to wit Tythes he there expresly speaketh and upon that ground denieth them a portion in Lands I have given them namely Tythes to the Levites to inherit therefore I have said unto them Among the Children of Israel they shall have no inheritance Should not he then blush who so confidently affirmeth that to say God in the New Testament accepteth of money and not of lands is so contrary to all reason c. so contrary to what God himself has expressed in the Old Testament and no where recalled in the New that he that can quiet his conscience with such conceits as these may be doubts not attain to the discovery of some Quirks which in his conceit may palliate either murders or adulteries For admit God should in the Old Testament accept of some Lands upon such and such Terms as in Leviticus or elsewhere yet then God expresly giveth all Rules about the nature of the Land and of the redeeming or not redeeming it to be consecrated to him will this prove his acceptance of Lands in the New Testament of any kind quantity or quality by any man given upon any other account whatsoever until a Cathedral man shall say Hold your hands Levi was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel therefore as considerable a part as any other Nevertheless God was so careful to prevent their claim to Lands among their brethren by Divine Lot that when the rest of Israel were numbred in order to their several Lots in Land God expresly forbad Moses to number the Tribe of Levi or to take the sum of them and commanded him to appoint them over the Tabernacle of Testimony c. Whereby is more then implyed that the Office of Priesthood especially of the High-Priests who were always in person to attend the Tabernacle was then a bar to their inheriting of lands proportionable to their Brethren The inferiour Priests and Levites from thirty to the fiftieth year of their age were in their courses according to their three great families of Gershom Kohath and Merari put upon the most toylsome work in and about the Tabernacle of the Congregation But being numerous in all 8580. they did not could not all attend the Altar at once but onely in their turns Therefore were they to be dispersed all Israel over to instruct the people in the law of God save onely when their several and respective courses came about to serve at the Tabernacle Which being so there was a necessity of preparing habitations for them in all the Tribes and some ground for their Cattle which they were to use as well for travelling thence to the Tabernacle when their turns came as for their own Domestick Occasions Upon this ground God had Moses to command the Children of Israel to give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession Cities to dwell in and suburbs for the Cities round about for their Cattle Goods and Beasts Numb 35. 1 2 3. But of these none were appointed to the High Priest who was always resident about the Tabernacle His house no doubt was also allotted to him His portion and the portions of such as served at the Altar in person consisted in Offerings and in the second Tythes that is in the Tenth of the Tythes gathered by all the Levites which Tenths they were to pay to Aaron and the rest that Waited at the Altar before they might share the rest among themselves or partake of it in common It is true that the Levites had forty eight Cities in all set out unto them and some Lands but God first gave the Word for the giving of them and also limited both the number of Cities among which were six Cities of Refuge and the quantity of the ground that the Israelites should give unto them The several names of the Cities and how and where situated are set down in the 21th of Joshua Their Suburbs were also bounded by a set number of Cubits Nor might the Israelites give nor the Levites accept one Cubit more Nor were they lords or sole proprietors or inhabitants of those Cities Others dwelt therein and shared also in the residue of the Lands adjacent as well as they onely care was to be taken that in every of those Cities so many Levites as were assigned to each City should be well accommodated and the remainder should still continue to the former Owners Hence Lyra on those words Cities to dwell in Non dicit ad dominandum vel ad redditus inde accipiendum quiasic erant ipsius Regis vel aliorum Dominorum urbes in quibus habitabant Levitae He saith not Cities for them to lord over or to receive the whole profits of them for so they were either the Kings or Cities of other lords in which the Levites dwelt That this was so is manifest by the City of Hebron or Kiriah-Arba the City of Arba Father of Anak and a Great man that first founded it That Citie being given to the Kohathites who were Levites and had the first Lot was yet the City of Caleb to whom Joshua had before given it for an inheritance Therefore after mention of disposing Hebron to the Kohathites by the free Lot of the Israelites it is said But the fields of the City and the Villages thereof gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession Out of which fields it is clear by the next verse that the Suburbs were excepted for these were given to the sons of Aaron the Priest Here by the way a few words to him whether he were a Bishop or not that hath taken much pains to demonstrate that Church-lands are not to be sold. 1. He is much mistaken in the greatness of those Cities and Suburbs so also are others building upon St. Hierome's report who say That those forty eight Cities had Suburbs of so large circuit that they exceeded the portion of any other Tribe in Israel Which cannot be For the circuit of the Suburbs given to the Levites were
But 1000 Cubits to be measured from the wall of each City outward round about which cannot contain 8000 Acres English measure in the whole were each City two miles in compass which is not probable And in every of those Cities there must be placed neer 200 Levites and their families so as the Land could not extend to four Acres apiece to each Levite For of such as were fit for service there were as was noted before 8580. All the Males were 22000 besides women and servants Now divide 8580 into 48 parts according to the number of the Cities and you will find almost 200 Levites that were in their turns for actual service in each City And these served for all the other Cities and Countries throughout Israel As for that conceit of some Rabbins upon the 35th of Numb and fifth verse where 2000 Cubits are allowed for Suburbs to each City that the first 1000 were onely for walks and recreations and another 1000 Cubits for Fruit Vines Corn c. this is a meer dream and contrary to Scripture For 1. the Suburbs given to the Levites are plainly declared to be but 1000 Cubits and that not for walks and recreation but for their Cattle their goods and beasts 2. the other thousand Cubits vers 5. which were added are said to be Suburbs of the City but not of the Levites This thousand Cubits were for the Owners and other Inhabitants of those Cities beside the Levites as appears by what hath been before alleged in the case of Caleb Josh. 21. 12. the Levites then had their Suburbs next to the Walls and the Owners of the Cities had theirs without the Levites and so theirs must be of far greater Longitude and Latitude than the Lands of the Levites For as in all Cities there is a Tract of ground measured from the Walls which belongs to each City as Suburbs so here 2000 Cubits in the whole of which 1000 was for the Levites 2. What and how large soever the Lands of those Levites were yet had they none but only Pastures for feeding of their Cattle as Abulensis upon good grounds affirmeth They did neither sow nor reap but yet had store of Cattle brought in by the rest of the Tribes unto them as being the Lords And this is clear from the Text for the Lands assigned them were for their Cattle and for their goods and for all their beasts Therefore they had only pasturage And this could not extend to such a proportion as should exceed the Lands of the least of the other Tribes 3. There is a great mistake in the Computation of the Land of Canaan given unto Israel and by Lot cast out for the several Tribes It is said by the Author of Church-lands not to be sold that the whole land was hardly 160 miles in length from Dan to Beersheba and but 46 miles in breadth from Joppa to Bethlehem as if this were the whole length and breadth of Canaan given of God to Israel and by them enjoyed And for proof hereof Saint Hierome who lived long there is produced as a witness But is not longitude usually reckoned from East to West and breadth from North to South Now Beersheba is almost South from Dan and Dan almost North from Beersheba on which account there is hardly 160 miles between them But what is this to the whole longitude of Canaan divided among the Tribes from East to West according to the latest Maps and particularly that appointed by Authority to be prefixed to the last Translation of the holy Bible Anno 1611 It is hardly a fourth part of the true Longitude And as for the space between Joppa and Bethlehem where St. Hierome dwelt which is said to be 46 miles it is not the one half of the breadth of the whole Land from South to North nor is it said by Hierome that it is the breadth of the whole but of the space between Joppa and Bethlehem the place of his habitation which was almost in the middle And here take notice that Hierome in that Epistle endeavours to prove that much of the Land of Canaan promised to Abrahams posterity is to be understood in an allegorical sense as if God did not verifie all that he promised to them in the Letter which under favour of so great a Clerk is a mistake For can we think God would be worse than his word in kind Read the several distributions by Lot to the Tribes in the book of Joshua and elsewhere and then it will clearly appear that St. Hierome in this was out But whatever the length and breadth of that Land was this is clear that the Levites enjoyed not one foot more than God had appointed the Israelites to set out by Lot unto them Therefore the Lands sold by Christians Act. 4. or by that Hypocrite Ananias Act. 5. can be no warrant for Christians to set out what Lands they please or any Lands at all upon this setting out of Suburbical Lands for the Levites until they can shew the like warrant from God under the New Testament both for kinde and dimensions for the Lands given to Cathedrals Now then if Bishops take upon them as of late they did to be above Presbyters or Ministers of particular Congregations as Aaron was above the ordinary Priests and Levites it is as clear as Analogy can make it that there is no colour for nor shew of warrant out of the Old Testament to enable Bishops to hold whatever Lands the blind Devotions or Commutations of Penances of the people conferred on them but rather that there was an express Law against it It is true that after the Temple was built there was no doubt conveniency of habitation and perhaps some Lands for the beasts and Cattle of the High-Priest in or about Hierusalem as there perhaps was while the Ark remained in the Tabernacle And if Bishops answerable thereunto had made it out that they were as Aaron above the rest of their brethren in the Ministry there had been some reason for the allowance of some Lands to them if they labour in the Word and Doctrine while they continue Howheit although Bishops could not by Scripture make out their Title to the Lands they held those 48 Cities alotted to the Levites with the Suburbs pertaining to them which lands were not to be alienated while the Levitical Priesthood was in force may by Analogy be a good Argument for the setling of Glebe-lands upon faithful and painful Ministers of each particular or Parochial Congregation for their habitation and necessary provision of Cattle for their use and for the acknowledging of them as sacred or holy to the Lord. Because himself commanded the like for the Priests of the Law who had then sundry other obventions and incomes which Ministers now cannot enjoy Nor can it be thought that God is more wanting to the Ministers of Christ when more grace is given to those to whom they preach than he
to be such a consecration as it should be in no wise lawful to recal redeem or imploy them to any secular use again Yet this is the main thing for which this Scripture is so much urged 2. Although that Text implies some voluntary Dedications of some Lands to the Lord for the benefit of his Priests that did him and the people real and constant service either at the Altar or in teaching the Law yet this is no Warrant for the Donation or continuation of Lands to idle c. Lords over the people of God and such as can never make it out that ever they were truly called of God to those pretended Offices and Dignities for which they claim such large Revenues 3. Albeit some fields might sometimes be given to the Lord and his Priests enjoy the benefit of them yet He appointed upon what terms they should be given and continued but no such matter for Lands given to Cathedrals They being many of them given to the dishonour of God and Christ as afterwards shall appear which God hath no where given order for their converting to a better use nor given any rules about them Nor were those Lands consecrated to the Lord under the Law the hundreth part of what Cathedralifts have by wiles not voluntary Donations heaped up to consume upon their lusts Which boundless grasping of Lands by Bishops Monks Deans and Chapters c. laying not only field to field but Mannour to Mannour to the impoverishing of particular families and the Commonwealth too upon the account of the Church and Gods acceptance thereof as sacred hath ever been so far from being accounted lawful that even an Archbishop himself having deserted the Romish Church hath proclaimed it Sacrilegium rapinam injustissimam direct Sacrilege and most wicked robbery This saith he is not to enable men to labour in the Gospel but to supply them with fewel for Riot and Excess and to pervert what was given for the benefit of the Church and for necessary provisions to the shame scandal and ruine of the Church it is not to take off but to multiply impediments of saving souls 4. Those consecrations of Lands were to be no longer in the Priesthood than their Priesthood continued Afterwards it was lawful for any to buy them as well as any other Lands Therefore if that instance be of force to prove the lawfulness of giving such Lands it must be of like weight to prove the lawfulness of aliening those Lands when the authority and jurisdiction and by consequence the Offices of all Cathedral men are wholly determined and taken away by Act of Parliament 5. Albeit those Priests might have such Lands given them yet Tastatus largely and strongly makes it out that it was not lawful for the Priests to keep them in their possession but must sell them at every Jubilee even after they were devoted to the Lord by leaving them to the Lord till the Jubilee For first he urgeth that place in Numb 18. forbidding them Lands among their brethren 2. He saith they were confined to those Cities and Suburbs which by Gods Order were set out for them by the other Tribes Numb 35. so that it was unlawful for them to have either Lands or Houses in any other places or place whatsoever 3. He urgeth the great inconvenience of keeping any such Lands in their own possession because it would much distract and hinder them in the execution of their Offices Therefore if even such Lands did fall to them they were not to keep them but presently to value them and if he that sanctified them would not redeem them they must sell them to some others And even when at the year of Jubilee the Lands came to be theirs they must instantly sell them and put them into money and so from Jubilee to Jubilee Now what is this to the holding of Cathedral Lands wherein they who plead for them use all arguments and means first to get then to keep them for ever whereas on the contrary God allowed not his Priests to use Arts to get them much less to keep them but to use all means to get them off again until they who consecrated them had neglected the redeeming of them and none else would buy them and so they came devoted not by their first consecration but by neglect of the people who first gave them unto God nor will those sharp Masters take notice of the difference between sanctifying that is vowing or giving of Lands unto God and the devoting of them which last makes them most holy to the Lord uncapable of redeeming or of being sold yet not in the nature of the thing but as having slipt the time limited by God for redeeming or selling of them If any think as one doth that the setting out of the holy portion of Land about the Sanctuary shewed to Ezekiel in a Vision as a Prophesie of the spiritual state of the Churches of Christ under the Gospel is both a Warrant and Command to set out Lands for Cathedralists to be holy to the Lord for ever under the New Testament this can be no other but a manifest perverting of the sense and mind of God throughout that Vision For although it be on all hands agreed that from the 40th Chapter of Ezekiel to the end of that book the main scope is to decipher and describe the flourishing estate of the Church under the Gospel yet it was never affirmed by any Author that the Temple there intended and Gods command for setting out so many 1000 reeds of Land for the Temple and the Priests are to be understood positively and properly according to the Grammatical Construction of the Words as if God meant to erect another new material Temple at Hierusalem or in Judea and to revive and establish the same Levitical Offerings and Sacrifices formerly offered by Aaron and his sons to be again offered by Zadok and others of Aarons Order But that all is spoken in a figure and to be understood of the spiritual endowments of the Church better than with all the Lands in the World Howbeit this is set forth under Legal expressions and by way of allusion to the material Temple of Solomon as being the most lively and most taking instance or resemblance that was then known or could be found in the whole World to illustrate and set forth to life the far more glorious estate and spiritual privileges and provisions of the Evangelical Church the New Hierusalem which should so far exceed in glory that in Judea as the Heavenly Hierusalem doth the earthly and as the spiritual Temples of the living God do exceed that of Solomon Wherefore to draw an Argument thence for the consecrating of Lands in a proper sense for the maintenance and state of Bishops and other Cathedral-men is not only to proclaim the weakness of him that doth it but to publish to the world that there is no firme ground in Scripture as
indeed there is not to found any Title of such Lands upon But one hath found out a gallant passage of Moses to prove that very Heathens by light of natural reason found and held it requisite that their Priests should have a setled maintenance in Lands The place is in Gen. 47. 22. where it is said that when Joseph in the extremity of the seven years famine bought all the Lands of the people of Egypt for bread to keep them alive Onely the Land of the Priests bought he not which shews they had Lands and that oseph would not meddle with the buying of them But why what because they were hallowed or consecrated to the Egyptian Gods and therefore Holy No such matter but because Pharaoh provided a portion of meat for them and they did eat the portion which Pharaoh gave them Wherefore they sold not their Lands Indeed Nature may teach that God is to be worshipped that he is to have Priests for his worship and that they are to be maintained but out of Lands where did Nature ever teach that If the Heathens that were most civilized made any standing provisions for their Priests it was in Tithes and Offerings This the Reverend Dr. Carlton hath industriously noted out of Plutarch Herodotus Macrobius Diodorous Siculus Xenophon and others But for making such provisions of Lands none of those Authors are alleged And whereas the Apostle saith that the things which the Gentiles sacrificed they sacrifice unto Devils it ill becomes a Bishop to urge that Act of the Kings of Egypt in setting out Lands for such Priests as done by the light of nature which was done out of ignorance and corruption of nature as a warrant for Christians to give Lands to Cathedrals 2. Come we from the Law to the Gospel from the Old Testament to the New Neither here can we finde one silhable that countenanceth much less requireth the endowment of Cathedrals with Lands as holy to the Lord. It is true that the Learned Knight Sir Henry Spelman in his Treatise de non temer andis Ecclesiis hath Learnedly proved it to be Sacrilege to rob Churches of the maintenance by Divine right due unto them but that is not spoken of Lands given by men but of Tithes setled by God as the standing maintenance of Ministers of the Gospel as is obvious to every eye that carefully heedeth the body of that Book There are indeed some wyre-drawn Arguments produced by a great D. in his Answer to the Letter to Dr. Turner to make out Gods acceptance of and propriety in such lands But these have been examined before and therefore shall be here passed over In the New Testament there is recorded 1. Matter of fact 2. Matter of Ordinance for the providing of maintenance for Ministers so soon as that Ordinance could be put in execution 1. The matter of fact will appear by what Christ himself and afterwards his Apostles had for their maintenance in those times As for Christ himself although he were of the bloud Royal of the lineage of David both by his mothers side and his supposed fathers side too he prosesseth that very foxes and birds of the air were better provided for then himself for the one had holes theother nests but he had not so much as whereon to lay his head neither room nor pillow It is true there was a common purse or bag with which Judas was trusted and thereupon tempted to become a thief And it is manifest that out of that Cash contributed by well-disposed Converts both he and his Disciples furnished themselves with necessary food and gave to the poor besides But as for any House or Land for a standing or setled maintenance or abode it is clear he had none although Heir of all things Nor was that provision which he had any dainty or costly fare but only some loaves of bread and a few fishes not above five barley loaves and two stshes at a time which a boy might carry for Christ and his twelve Apostles And whatever Judas did in purloyning for himself the rest of the Apostles were content to observe their Masters Injunctions not onely when he first sent them out at what time he charged them to provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their purses nor scrip for their journey neither two coats c. but even long after when he had left the earth and ascended heaven and the multitude of believers dayly encreased Even then Peter professed to the lame man that lay at the Gate of the Temple and asked an Alms of him Silver and Gold have I none Yea a good while after that blessed Paul laboured working with his own hands as a Tent-maker and that night and day not for recreation or out of covetousness but to minister to the necessities not onely of himself but of those that were with him not as having no right to maintenance but that he might not be chargeable unto such as being yet unconverted or not fully satisfied touching this matter might take offence at his requiring of present maintenance Therefore sometimes he would take maintenance of one Church convinced of their duty in administring to him to supply his wants while he preached to another more disaffected unsatisfied covetous or quarrelsome Thus he preached the Gospel of God freely to the rich voluptuous and quarrelling Corimbians robbing other Churches by taking wages of them to do service to the Corinthians Where by the way take notice that he that taketh wages where he doth not or hath not done service is a Church-robber It is true if he work faithfully elsewhere and no maintenance is there without scandal to be had and another place where he hath industriously laboured is willing to afford contribution upon that account it is not such a robbery as is sin in him but rather in them who put him upon it as Quakers and others would now do the Ministers of the Gospel for they refusing to maintain him do what in them lies to put him upon robbing others Let no man hence conclude I. That Christ meant to starve his Apostles when he sent them out to preach or took not sufficient care for their provision For by their Ministry He so wrought upon those to whom he preached if sons of peace that his Apostles wanted nothing and that upon this account That the labourer is worthy of his meat saith Matthew of his hire saith Luke This is then allowed to those who are commissionated by Christ to preach the Gospel but not to usurpers and false Prophets that run before they be sent supposing gain to be godliness Unto such Priests that so teach for hire and to such Prophets as so divine for money a wo is due which will be accomplished on them Nor Secondly That it is hereby intended that it is unlawful now for Ministers of the Gospel to have more or better
allowance than Christ or his Apostles were pleased to take when they were first to plant the Gospel until men were better instructed and satisfied touching the Ministers dues but that God hath provided better for them which they might lawfully receive and enjoy when once his people are throughly convinced of their duty All that is inferred hence is but this that it cannot be thought that either Christ or his Apostles ever thought of allowing or owning the Lands given to Cathedral Bishops Deans and Chapters c. when neither he nor his Apostles ever accepted of Houses or Lands for themselves and when the enjoyned and the other observed the injuction that neither Silver nor Gold should be provided for supplying their wants beforehand in those times of the first plantation of the Gospel wherein it nearly concerned those that were imployed in the planting of it rather to suffer want of things necessary than to give offence in the unseasonable demanding of supply 2. As to the matter of Ordinance and Institution for the maintenance of labouring not loytering Gospel-Ministers it is not necessary here to say much I have in the second Edition of this Treatise made it out that Tythes are the most proper and setled maintenance set out by Christ himself for all his Ministers although for brevity it be here omitted Onely take notice that seeing Christ hath been pleased to own this rational proposition that the labourer is worthy of his meat or hire Surely he intended such hire as might be suitable to the state and condition of the Church in the several ages and vicissitudes thereof wherein his labourers took pains in his Church With this nevertheless that whatever the maintenance should be it must not be urged from his assertion that Bishops and Cathedral men should have Lands till they can shew better Title to such Lands than either the Priests and Levites had over and above their definite Cities and Suburbs to keep Lands in their possession for ever or than any rule or hint in the New Testament will undoubtedly warrant them to do Not that it is unlawful for Ministers of the Gospel to possess Lands falling to them by inheritance or purchased with their money for such Lands they hold not as Ministers in right of the Church but as Civil Proprietors of an estate of which it is without question lawful for them to dispose as they please But that which is here spoken is in reference to the particular Texts produced to prove that the New Testament affordeth Commands for giving Lands to Cathedrals which to aliene is Sacrilege But if none of all this satisfie to warrant Cathedralists to hold Lands and to prove Gods Charter for it yet it is hoped that of our most blessed Saviour will do it fully where he saith Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own where the Interrogation hath the force of an undoubted Affirmation as if he had said Questionless it is Ergo he hopes Lands may be given to the Church No doubt they may as the forty eight Cities and Suburbs were to the Priests and Levites But not by force of that Text now produced For that is not spoken of mens giving unto God but of Gods free gifts unto men Besides it is to labourers not loyterers in his Vineyard not to such labourers as would work where when and how they list but as the Lord or his Steward should direct and command not for beating their fellow-servants but for giving them their meat in due season Briefly you may observe in all the places quoted by the Advocates for Cathedral Lands that nothing is precisely and positively vouched which in terms or equivalency imports the giving to God and his accepting of Lands for Cathedrals but long fetcht and hard strained Interrogations or inferences rather forced upon the Text then naturally flowing from it which in the issue comes to no more but a bare begging of the question and of an admitting what they say upon such begging discourses to be an unquestionable truth But especially great use is made by the same Champion for Cathedral Lands that he doubts not and if he doubt not who dares to do other but that this which he undertook to prove viz. that lands may be given to the Church is the opinion of the Assembly of Divines lately sitting at Westminster and of all learned Orthodox Divines in Christendom Confidently spoken but not for want of ignorance of what he so speaketh Touching his so often vouching the Assembly of Divines whom he afterwards unchristianly revileth know all men by these presents that either he knoweth not what he saith or wilfully imposeth upon them what they never held out It is very true that some Members of that Assembly joyning with some others did compile some Annotations upon the Bible which many take to be the work of the Assembly But take this for an undoubted truth those Annotations were never made by the Assembly nor by any Order from it nor after they were made ever had the Approhation of the Assembly or were so much as offered to the Assembly at all for that purpose or any other Therefore whatever is alleaged by that Author of Church-lands not to be sold he must go look somewhere else for the Compilers of those Notes and forbear to charge them upon the Assembly which never took the least notice of them And when he hath found the right Authors he may if he please send to them to own what he alleageth out of them and thank them whom he scorneth for helping him to Arguments which as he thinks make against themselves Touching all the learned Orthodox Divines in Christendom which he laies claim unto to be of his side it moveth not beyond a vapouring flourish till he produce them And were they all of his opinion yet what is that to what he undertook to prove out of Scripture Indeed he makes use of some bits snatcht out of Calvin Beza Deodat and sundry others whose words he either wresteth or alleageth to no purpose But let him make what advantage he can of them yet they are but men subject to the same infirmities with others of which an appeal may safely be made to his own Conscience Therefore however they may be made use of in some cases especially against themselves and their own party as by that Author they are yet it cannot be thought needful or equal to answer to every passage alleaged out of them unless it be quoted to stop their mouths who seem to allow them dominion over their faith This is spoken not to wave any thing materially alleaged out of them but that there is nothing produced that comes up to the proof of that for which that Author undertook to alleage them and so no Answer can be given to them Here might we stay if men would be perswaded to rest in the Scriptures But because much is produced out of Antiquity for the proof
there but even that Bishop or Pope Silvester himself and his Associates in the Ministry when Conftantine first came to Rome and took on him the Empire not knowing his temper were so much afraid of him that they for safety of their lives hid themselves in the Hill Soracte afterwards upon that occasion called Monte di Sylvestro about twenty miles from Rome until they were better satisfied touching Constantines affection to the Christian Religion if that Donation of Constantine be worthy of any credit But to leave what was done at Rome and in other Countries it behoves us to enquire how things of this nature were carried in England And as to this it is pleaded that Lucius King in same part of Britain being converted to the knowledge and faith of Christ about the year 176. which is a mistake rooted out the Idol-Priests and taking away their Possessions and Territories he gave them to the Churches of the believing Christians which be endowed with addition of more lands and larger Revenues For this two learned Authors Antiq. Brit. and Armican perhaps he meant Armacanus that is Matthew Parker after Archbishop of Cant. and Dr. Usher Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland are alleaged But he that voucheth them was so wise as not to reser his Readers to the particular places in those Authors wherein they may finde what he alleageth out of them So that this without offence to his Lordship might be passed over without answer Nevertheless that it may not be thought unanswerable he may be pleased to know that however Antiquit. Britan. be a very good book not now to be had because out of print yet what is quoted out of him is not clearly if at all to be found in our ancient Authors It is indeed acknowledged that Eleutherius then Bishop of Rome at the request of Lucius sent him two godly Ministers Faganus and Damianus as some call them who converted the Britains to the faith although Lucius himself was before a Christian as appears by his Letter to Eleutherius Then were the Idol-Temples and all other Monuments of Gentilism destroyed and the people brought to serve one God who before served many There were then in Britan 28 Head-Priests called Flanines and three Arch-Priests over them called Arch-Flamines Instead of the former they made 28 Bishops and in room of the other three they made three Archhishops who had their seats in London York and Glamorgan But not one word of endowing them or their Churches with the Lands of the Flamines or Arch-Flamines either in Baronius himself our own Bede or any other Classical Author yet occurring Wherefore until he that tells this Story of setling those Lands on the Church shall make it more punctually let it not be offensive to pass over that Tale with the words of the Magdiburgenses Celebratur autem imprimis Propagatio in Britania sub Eleutberio facta de qua tamen plerague tam dub è obscurè recitantur ut propemodum tota haec historia de fide sua laboret The Propagation of the Christian Religion in Britain under Eleutberius is much applauded and cried up Concerning which notwithstanding things are for the most part so doubt doubtfully and obscurely related that almost the whole History thereof labours under much uncertainty of the truth of it And albeit it be said that Britain continued in the faith above 200 years after Lucius even until the Saxons then Heathens and Infidels came in and by their power destroyed the Christian Religion until Augustine the Monk converted sundry of the Kings of the then Heptarchy and reduced their people to the Faith again yet in all that time no mention is made in any History of credit of lands given to and setled upon Bishops and Cathedral men in this Nation I consess Matthew of Westminster tells us That Lucius conferred upon and by Charters confirmed to Churches and Ecclesiastical men sundry Possessions and Territeries and granted such Priviledges to Churches and Church-yards that whoever having offendect and fled to them was to freed from punishment But what Churches Clergy-men and Territories they were is not set down and it is strange that a Monk should know more of Lucius his endowment than Bede or others that had written of Lucius long before I therefore think this to be one of those corruptions of which he that printed his Flores Anno 1570. gives warning in his Preface and touching him and Matthew Paris too he there passeth this censure Barbaros esse satcor nec renuo si dicas varie corruptos They are barbarous in language I confess saith he nor will I oppose if you say They are variously corrupted in matter And give what credit you will to that Story yet 't is plain the counsel came from Rome for the doing of it Lucius did as the Romish Instructors taught The Original then and by consequent the Title of the Lands of Bishops and therest of the Cathedral men in England cannot of certainty derive higher then the abused Magnificence of Princes and other great men nuzled in Ignorance and Superstition both before and since the Conquest in the heighth of Popery whereby Monasteries first and afterwards Cathedrals have been endowed with large Portions of Lands and other Revenues under the specious but cheating pretence of giving them to God and Holy Church even to the impoverishing not onely of particular Families but of the Kingdome Nor were they given indeed to maintain a preaching-Ministry for which all Church-maintenance was at first appointed by God even when the daily Sacrifices were on foot to instruct the people in the true knowledge of Christ and his Gospel and to quicken them to the power of godliness for these most of those men who held those Lands ever persecuted but for superstitious ends and uses and imployed for the most part to maintain the Luxury Pomp State and other Excesses and Lusts of Abby-Lubbers and other Cathedral Drones and Belly-gods to the great dishonour of God and scandal of the Gospel And it is to be observed that if any credit be given to Histories the greatest and richest endowments of Cathedrals and Monasteries with Lands in this Nation were made when Satans Throne was most exalted and his Kingdom in greatest peace even in times of thickest Popish darkness when even Kings themselves and their Nobles scarce knew one letter in a Book nor the rest understood any thing of Christ or Religion otherwise than so many Parrets no nor of the very Municipai Laws of the Nation further than what the Prelatical Clergy whose interest it was to keep all in grossest ignorance though fit for their own gain and advantage to communicate The Clergy being sole Masters of the times and holding all the chief Offices and Places of Power and Judicature in the State as well as in the Church did what they list both with King and People And with their familiar spirit of Excommunication the great Mormo and Scare-crow of
in the judgement of some quoted by this Answerers Second and Repetitioner it is a worse sin a sin that is not onely a breach of the Positive written Law but against the Law of nature also The very Heathens have made it death and such a death as is due to a Parricide or murderer of his father This goes very high indeed The evidence to prove it had need therefore to be very clear full impregnable and manifest by express Scripture not by strained consequences drawn thence by wit or by the authority or suffrage of men as thinking to make good by number of voyces what cannot be made out by strength of Scripture This were no better then the banishing of Aristides from Athens by the Law of Ostracismon as being very likely to be guilty of Tyranny which in stead of proving they made good by the Votes of 6000 Citizens Now it will concern these Accusers to make out their charge upon pain of incurring the same punishment which is due to a Sacrilegist If any man unjustly accuse another the Lord once made a Law touching False witness bearing against ones neighbour which was this The judges were to make diligent inquisition and if the witness were a false witness and bad testified falsly against his brother then should they do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother no eye might pity him but life should go for life eye for eye tooth for tooth band for band foot for foot It is well for these bold Censurers that this Judicial obtains not in England Yet let them know that the Equity of it is perpetual and the Justice of God will without repentance finde them out To prove this to be expresly Sacrilege one of them tells you a fair tale out of the Schools and Casuists Aquinas c. which is all the Argument he brings unless the Etymology of the word and Nebucbadnezzar's abusing the holy Vessels and the burning of the Temple but out of an express text of Scripture declaring and dooming the Buyers of Cathedral Lands expresly to be Sacrilege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem not one syllable And can there be such a sin unless he produce some Scripture that forbids and condemns it Is notthis to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Accuser of the Brothren Nor are proofs of the other as to this point any better but Quotations of such Scriptures of which none do mention lands but he seeks by Circumlocutions Interrogations confident Assertions to fasten such a sense upon them sometime contrary to always incongruous and aliene from the genuine sense of them As by occasion hath been in great partalready demonstrated and further may be in this or the next Chapter In his other Proposition he affirms that this aliening of such lands is against the Positive and Moral Law of God because all Nations even Pagans hold Sacrilege for a sin and for his better grace he voucheth but cites not the place whereby it might be examined Lactantius to prove that in all Religions God ever avenged this sin But doth he tell us out of Lactantius or Scripture that selling or buying Cathedral Lands is that sin Yes he voucheth Mal. 3. 8. Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me But wherein Here he is silent for it makes not for his purpose but rather against him What was it indeed God himself tells them not in Lands but in Tythes and Offerings And this is granted him And what gets he by it but the countenance of some Scripture-words against the sense But that notwithstanding all objected or alleaged to sell or buy such Lands because once voluntarily dedicated to God is no Sacrilege appears thus First by that very Scripture Levit. 27. alleaged to the contrary if rightly understood For if it were lawful to make a singular vow of a person a beast an bouse or some part of the field of his possessions and after such sanctifying of it to the Lord to redeem or buy it back again for common uses then the bare Dedication giving or consecrating of a thing unto God doth not eo ipso make the redeeming selling or buying thereof for any use to be Sacrilege unless where God himself hath expresly forbidden such redemption sale or purchase But in divers cases and particularly in the cases of Houses and Lands God allowed a redemption and sale so as the buying of them back for private uses after the sanctifying of them to the Lord were done within the time allotted by God for the doing of it as hath been before more largely opened Therefore to sell or buy Cathedral Lands is no Sacrilege nor any way sinful in the case before propounded because once dedicated to God It is true that where God hath laid an express prohibition against redeeming or buying it is Sacrilege to redeem or buy As for example Ifa man voluntarily offer a beast which God hath allowed for Sacrifice he may not redeem buy or exchange it no not for a better vers 10. no more may he redeem or buy nor so much as sanctifie the firstlings of beasts whether ox or sheep because that is so the Lords that a man cannot make of that a free-will offering vers 26. but if it be any other beast he may redeem it and employ it to what use he pleaseth vers 11 12 13. and vers 27. So in sanctifying an bouse to be holy to the Lord it might be redeemed for private use without sin yea with Gods allowance vers 14 15. And the like allowance was given for redeeming of fields and lands so sanctified also vers 16 17 18 19. therefore no sin or Sacrilege to buy it for common use onely in two cases it was not lawful 1. If he redeemed it not before the Jubilee as was before noted 2. If he had sold it unto another man vers 20. If either of these were the case then it was holy to the Lord as a field DEVOTED that is with Anathema or a Curse denounced by God This God after repeateth with some enlargements vers 28. to let us see that nothing devoted under his curse might be bought or sold. Howbeit all things confecrated are not so devoted Nothing could be devoted but in the cases above mentioned and this was done by God himself not by the men that gave it For the fields were not to be given with an Anathema denounced by the Donors But this was added by God long after the Lands were out of their possession and not redeemed And had the Donors first given it with a curse they had made themselves for ever uncapable of redeeming it before the Jubilee which God himself not onely allowed but in a manner required them to do that so there might not be an utter alienation of it from the Tribe and Family to which it belonged by Divine lo against which God made a Law Num. 36.7 If it be now objected But Church-Lands were given with a curse
of those Revenues Which I here mention not as placing confidence in the Popes opinions but as retorting upon the late Writers against Sacrilege the opinion of them who were the first Founders of the Doctrines delivered by these whereby they may yet further see on what sandy foundations their Discourses of Sacrilege are built The Judgement of Julius 3. sent in Writing to Queen Mary in the year 1554. ANNO DOMINI 1554. Quod omnes qui justo titulo juxt a Leges hujus Regni pro tempore existentes habent aliquas possessiones terras sive tenementa Monasteriorum Priortuum Episcopatuum Collegiorum Cantariarum Obituum c. sive eadem pecumis suis perquisiverunt sive per Donationem vel per mutationem sive alio modo legitimo quocunque in sua possessione hujusmodi remanere possint valeant easdem suas possessiones ratas confirmatas sibi habere ex confirmatione dispensatione sedis Apostolicae Causae Rationes quare hujusmodi dispensationes cum honore conscientia recte concedi possint 1. Status Coronae hujus Regni benè sustineri non potest ut cum honore regat gubernet si hujusmodi possessiones ab illa separentur quod hodie maxima pars possessionum Coronae sit ex hujusmodi terris possessionibus 2. Complurimi homines pecuniis suis acquisiverunt ingentes hujusmodi terrarum portiones a Serenissimis Regibus Henrico VIII Edwardo VI. qui per suas Literas Patentes easdem Terras warrantizarunt quibus terris possessionibus si possessores bujusmodi nunc privarentur Rexteneretur rependere pecunias omnes in hac parte expositas quae in tantarum summarum vim molem sese extenderent ut à Coronâ difficillimè restitai possent 3. Magnates Nobiles hujus Regni quorum plerique vendiderunt alienaverunt antiquas suas haereditarias possessiones ut has novas obtinerent in suo statu vivere non possunt si hujusmodi possessiones abillis auferantur 4. Acquisitores vel possessores hujusmodi terrarum possessionum propterea quod easdem habuerunt ex justo titulo juxta ordinem Regum hujus Regni habebant etiamnum habent bonam fidem in illis obtinendis 5. Possessio hujusmodi terrarum adeo est communis cuique statui ordini hominum Civitatibusque Collegiis Incorporationibus ut si ab illis tollantur auferantur subitam quandam metamorphosin singulorum statuum magnam Ordinis confusionem in universo regno hinc inde sequi necesse sit 6. Cum bona possessiones Ecclesiae ex authoritare Canonum pro redemptione Captivorum alienari possint Idque per illam Ecclesiam solam ad quam illae possessiones pertinebant aequum est dispensari pro continuatione possessionis jam acquisitae propter tantum bonum publicae concordiae unitatis Ecclesiae ac preservatione istius status tam in corpore quam in anima In English thus That all such as by just Title according to the Laws or Statutes of this Realm for the time being have any posseisions Lands or Tenements lately belonging to Monasteries Priories Bishopricks Colleges Chantries Obits c. whether they have purchased them for their money or are come to possess them by gift grant exchange or by any other legal means whatsoever may retain and keep the same in their possessions and have the same ratified and established unto them by the confirmation and dispensation of the Sea Apostolick Causes and Reasons why such Dispensations may be justly granted with honour and conscience 1. The State of the Crown of this Kingdom cannot well be sustained to govern and rule with honour if such possessions be taken from it for at this day the greatest part of the possessions of the Crown consisteth of such Lands and possessions 2. Very many men have with their monies bought and purchased great portions of those Lands from the most excellent Kings Henry the VIII and Edward the VI. who by their Letters Patents have warranted the same of which Lands and possessions if the Owners should now be dispossessed the King should be bound to repay unto them all their money which would arise to such an huge Mass that it would be a very hard matter for the Crown to restore it 3. The Nobles and Gentry of this Realm most of whom have sold and alienated their antient inheritances to buy these new cannot live according to their degrees if these possessions should be taken from them 4. The purchasers or Owners of such Lands and possessions inasmuch as they came to them by just Title according to the Ordinance of the Kings of this Kingdom have held and do still hold a good and justifiable course in obtaining of them 5. The enjoying of such Lands and possessions is so common unto every state and condition of men Cities Colleges and Incorporations that if the same be taken from them there will necessarily follow thereupon throughout the Kingdom a sudden change and confusion of all Orders and Degrees 6. Seeing the goods and possessions of the Church even by the authority of the Canon Laws may be aliened for the redemption of Captives and that the same may be done by that Church onely to whom such possessions do belong It is fit and reasonable that such dispensations should be granted for continuing of possession already gotten for so great a good of publick concord and unity of the Church and preservation of this State as well in body as in soul. Lo here a Pope more concerned in such alienations from the Church by others than our sowre Masters is so far from making the selling or purchasing of such Lands to be Sacrilege that he gives many weighty reasons against the restoring of them and for warranting the holding of them As for his addition that men should take his confirmation and dispensation for it less than which a Pope could not propose we leave to them that hold that needful But it is considently affirmed that Dr. Burges before he was engaged in buying Bishops Lands openly acknowledged at the Bar of the House of Commons in Parliament in his Answer to Dr. Hackets Speech then and there in the Names of all Deans and Chapters made for preventing the alienation of Cathedral Lands That to take away those from the Church is Sacrilege or words to that effect concluding with the utter unlawfulness to convert such endowments to any private persons profit So indeed the novel flashy Church-Historian upon hear-say onely hath reported him of whom Dr. Heylin in his Animadvers on that Hist. p. 225. thus If it once be made a fame it shall pass for a truth and as a truth find place with our Authors History though the greatest falshood Tam facilis in mendaciis fides ut quicquid fama liceat fingere illi esset libenter audire But this is an unjust Aspersion Indeed Dr. Burges did declare a
his Nephew or Bastard to be a Prebend of Lincoln as the Pope had commanded finding him unfit to preach but tells the Pope to his head Post peccatum Luciferi c. there is not cannot be a sin so repugnant to the Doctrine of the Apostles and holy Scriptures nor to Christ himself more hateful and abominable than to set over his flock ignorant or idol Shepherds to kill and destroy the Souls of Christs sheep by defrauding them of the Pastoral Office and Ministry And as our late Bishops grew not onely negligent in the proper and chief work of the Ministry I mean Preacbing here and there one or two black Swans excepted so did they as much overlash and become eccentrick in the other extreme by being too far engaged in Civils And if at any time they were excluded the Parliament or not honoured in it to their mindes both Parliament and King and all should hear of it on both ears For so had their Predecessors done before One of their zealous sticklers remembers them out of Mr. Selden that at a Parliament at Northhampton under Hen. 2. the Bishops thus challenged their Peerage of the Lords temporal Non sedemus hic Episcopi sed Barones Nos Barones Vos Barones Pares hic fumus We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons We are Barons and You are Barons here we are Peers or equal with you And so saith the same Author did John Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury as he remembreth having fallen into the displeasure of King Edward 3. and being denied entrance into the House of Peers made his protest that he was Primus Par regni the first or chief Peer of the Realm and therefore not to be excluded c. But if for this high perking their Lordships together with all jurisdiction be as it is legally taken from them and they refuse or neglect the chiefpart of their Office namely Preaching they may thank themselves if the double Honour of maintenance be withdrawn also 2. It is objected further That admitting they were justly ejected yet so many direful curses have been denounced against all such as should aliene sell purchase or imploy those Lands to other uses that it may justly make any man afraid to meddle with them To this a short answer may sussice Where God bids curse as in Deut. 27. there is cause to fear cursing But here it will be replied Grant this and I warrant you we shall reach you Doth not one of those curses run thus Cursed be he that removeth his Neighbours Land-mark and all the people shall say Amen Here God and man joyn together in cursing him that shall remove but a Land-mark how heavy then will the curse be upon him that removeth or taketh away the Land it self To this it is answered that the Lord speaks of Land set out by himself by Divine Lot and so he never set out any to the Levites themselves as he did to the other Tribes much less to Bishops whom he never so endowed of which so much hath been said before as no more shall be added here To return therefore If an Elijah an Elisha a David a Peter acted by Gods Spirit shall denounce a curse yea if a Darius an Heathen shall curse all Kings people that destroy Gods own Temple at Hierusalem while God was pleased to place his Name there wo to such as fall under it All that were so cursed became accordingly the people of Gods curse because such curses shall surely take effect God himself owns them and will accomplish them But as the bird by wandring and the swallow by flying escape the Nets and Snares set by the Fowler to take them so the causeless curse shall not come That Providence that preserveth the Sparrow from falling to the ground till God will have it fall let the Fowler do what he can doth likewise so over-rule a causeless curse that it shall never reach him against whom it is denounced Yea God blesseth the more where wicked men belch out most curses Let them then be afraid of such curses who finde a warrant from God for such cursing The curses that these men seek to fright us withal are like that of Goliah who cursed David by his Gods yet was slain by David notwithstanding his cursing A cursed people is ever a cursing generation and a cursing generation is ever an accursed people or children of the curse Who set them on work or gave them warrant to curse Even he who set on Sbimei to curse David not God as David feared but the Devil by his Imp Ahitophel as David afterwards plainly discovered that 109th Psalm being chiefly bent against Ahitophel of whose cursing we never read but that by the mouth of Shimei when David was in greatest distress and Ahitophel his chief Counsellour joyned to Absalom now Davids enemy David nevertheless fared not the worse for their cursing because his Prayer to God was Let them curse but bless thou and in the issue the Lord requited good for that cursing For however in Davids time Shimei felt not the curse yet it came home to him with a witness under Solomon And as for Ahitophel as he loved cursing so it came unto him As he cloathed himself with cursing like as with a Garment which covereth him so it came into his bowels like water and like oyl into his bones c. witness his hanging of himself almost immediately after And verily those busie Cursers among the Prelacy have drawn the effect of their cursing upon themselves and their successors even upon the Bishops and the rest of the Cathedral Prelacy many hundred years after those first Anathemists mouths were so full of cursing and bitterness Let therefore such as now again please themselves in frighting others with those curses beware they meet not with some further share thereof themselves and that the tail of that storm light not upon their heads who now so groundlesly apply them to their Brethren it being no other so used but an Engine of Antichrist forged in Hell But the most generally taking Objection is this Be it that Bishops be justly cashiered their-lands forfeited and justly taken from them by the Parliament yet generally all sound Divines hold that those lands although at first superfluously or superstitiously given being once given and dedicated to God may not be aliened sold or diverted to any secular or private use but continued for the maintenance of the true worship of God and for their better encouragement who are employed in the Ministry or for some other publick use This Objection taking with many of note and eminency in the Church is thought to be unanswerable yet is it capable of a satisfactory answer to prudent and impartial men For 1. This opinion is not founded on any Scripture but upon that commonly received Maxime transferr'd from hand to hand without due examination which