ought not a man to chuse rather to suffer in his goods then in his person and expose them to buy his own peace as a man delivers his purse to a thief upon the way to save his life an honourable similitude your friends are wont to use to set forth the authority of those good Lawes under whose protection next to Gods you live Why neighbour upon this ground you have acted hitherto in paying and preaching as I am informed for the payment of them and is it not strange you should run over this foundation of your former practice not so much as speaking one word of it My neighbour stay a while and bethink your selfe what hath carried you off from your former peaceable principle resolution and practice Have you considered the Apostles rule That nothing be done through strife and vain-glory Let me put some thoughts into your mind It is not to be imagined that Jeroboam and his Successors were so unpolitick as to take away the Levites Tythes Priests he must have and they must have a maintenance why not that which was Gods own They paid the third yeers Tithe Act. 4.5 why not this too and which the people had been long accustomed to pay He had no reason unnecessarily to make provoking changes in matters of Religion and there is no mention of his or their doing any such thing Doubtless this bait to tempt the Lords Priests to stay and countenance the Schism and Idolatry would never be neglected Now did any Prophet forbid this payment or any of the Lords people scruple it In the Family of David instance in the long Apostacy under Manasses and Amon what wicked Kings and Priests were then yet none of Gods people were restrained from paying their Tythes In Christs time when the High-Priesthood was and for a long time had been bought and sold he that would give most undermining his fellow many of them heretical Sadduces besides yet is any relaxation of this duty even then nay are they not bound to it by Christs own bonds these ought ye Mat. 23.23 In the Apostles times not one word to forbid any the payment of Tythes to the Christ-forsaking and Christ-forsaken blaspheming persecuting Jewish Priests and Levites Tythes were paid under Heathens to the Priests of Idol-Temples by the then Lawes no one Apostle Father Martyr ever contradicting and yet they were zealous against complyance with Idols too He that shall but read Tertull. de Idololat will find strictness enough if not too much that way if Demetrius stood up so fiercely for his craft not directly opposed by the Apostles would not the idol-Idol-Priests have stood up much more for their Tythes if the Apostle had raised questions about this thing among them Acts 19.17 1 Pet. 2.13 Nay Peters very ordinance will exact obedience active to all lawful commands passive to all unlawful ones and this among the rest when the World was turned Arrian Athanasius Basil c. never taught that Tythes were unlawful to be paid unto Teachers of Arrianism and at this day it is the constant resolution of all Protestant Divines to the quieting of scrupulous consciences that have asked advice from them often and often Rivets dissert in Gen. 14. That those Princes Lawes which command Tythes to be paid to Popish Massing Priests are to be submitted to by those of the Reformed Religion that live within the Dominions of such Princes The like is the resolution of all Popish Divines concerning their Catholicks that live under the Dominion of Protestant Princes as appeares by their general uncontradicted practice But we must be used so as no Ministers of holy things were ever used how bad soever who enjoyed the countenance of publick Authority nay not so well as a thief that takes a purse I put this case Tythes are no private mans propriety I speak of those paid to Ministers let the user of land divide his own from what is not his own and carry in what is his leaving what is not his upon the ground and then permit him that can bear it out in the Court of men whether he have a just right or no whether those Lawes are righteous or no to enter upon the land and carry it away I ask now what Law of God this Farmer sins against and whether he doe not his most apparent duty if the Takers title be not good the Leaver hath none at all and cannot remedy the badness of the Takers title he is not made a Judge to punish an Idolatrous Priest much lesse is he to mulct the Priest and take the fine to himself Pray think of this question you have overlooked you make too much haste Have you stood thus long upon this ground and doe you now relinquish it without being beaten off with the assault of so much as one slight Argument 2. Neither doe I finde any thing concerning the unlawfulness of a Tenth P. 21. supposing it freely paid and without compulsion I meet indeed with Christs nailing ceremonies to his Crosse and Tythe reckoned among the rest but you seem not to mean that Tythes are a ceremony as Tythes but as a forced maintenance Frequently you tell us of Tythe chang'd into a free gift a tenth into any proportion determined by the mind of the giver In one place indeed we have the proportion chang'd P. 15. but then it is from Levis to Melchisedechs and Jacobs from a tenth commanded to a tenth freely given and vowed at least if theirs be the example surely the tenth is not alone excluded But my good friend why this confusion you found the questions distinguished to your hands if Tythes be Ceremonies as Tythes P. 18. tell us plainly if as stinted summes and this is that which is abolished as sure as Christ is come in the flesh tell us so plainly too that we may deal with you upon certainties I see the main weight of your Book is against a maintenance stinted by the Magistrates Authority and I took notice of it among the Brownists at the Conference at Hedcorne and this is not done without great and deep advice They knew that to satisfie some mens clamours and other mens scruples consultations had been enter'd upon to alter the present way into some other supposed more commodious and free from contradictions If therefore they would fasten any thing to the Ministers disadvantage they must let goe the debate of Tythes as such and take better hold the Magistrate hath no power to injoyn any proportion at all that will doe it this Principle fits their turn it strikes home Agreeable to this was the killing Argument in the Remonstrance or Petition drawn up by them and intended to be presented either to the Protector or Parliament had they sped in their choice If they build again what they have destroyed they shall be found transgressors They had been and were a destroying our Ministry as Popish and Antichristian alas that we should be such eye-sores to them
plain Scripture answer to such questions as these that does not speak meer dreams of a man half asleep and half awake will exceed my understanding and I dare say my Neighbours either though with him this is the Ceremony the Law not the tenth It remains then a moral Law it must be by force of which this payment was made to Melchizedek yet not so moral as that a tenth rather then a ninth or eleventh should be sufficiently gathered from principles of nature left to it self numerical reasons are pretty things for a solitary phancy to delight it self with but the fineness of these inventions will never engage conscience to practise especially when the purses of men are concerned yet this I will say for them they are as good as those that are brought for the seventh of our time in both which the assigning what proportion of our time and goods would please God the reason of man being utterly defective and needing help from a new Superior discovery God hath helped us in both by a positive Law guiding the blindness of reason where it did not see its way in matter of time indeed most expressely not so in matter of goods yet sufficiently enough as hath been proved against the Defendors of the free will-offering and is supposed by those we contend with now yet if the tenth goods be in this respect disadvantaged above the seventh time in that it hath not so expresse a positive institution it hath the disadvantage abundantly made up in that there is much seemingly against the morality of the Sabbath in the New Testament whereas there is nothing against the morality of a tenth with any colour of sound reason produced or to be produced as I doubt not but when I come to those times with Gods help I shall be able to demonstrate But no such positive Law to be found in the New Testament Dissert in Gen. 24.20 nay most excellent Rivet neither is there any such to be found there for the seventh of time it is enough that we find both in the Old Testament and that by Law never yet repealed and so great a Divine should not say that the Gospel hath antiquated all the Old Testament constitutions at one blow and left them alone which are reestablished by a New Testament confirmation no sound proof or such a saying and Christs own most serious protestation is against it yet whether such a positive may not be concluded from the New Testament also Math. 5.17 c. shall be inquired into anon so I dismisse for the present Melchizedeks tithing The second time we meet with Tithes is in the Vow of Jacob and this also is made a free will-offering by you my Neighbour whom I now return to again but without all show of reason there being no appearance of any thing arbitrary in this thing the Vow being aswell of having the Lord for his God as of giving the tenth Gen. 28.21 22. and Jacob being trained up in the steps of his Father and Grand-fathers piety had learnt without doubt that proportion to be acceptable to God it is not to be thought Jacobs tithing was more free then Abrahams for why should the Grand-child be lesse under a Law then the Grand-father was Nay it your reasoning be good though it had been free to Abraham it must be a Law to Jacob P. 2. P. 4. unless Jacobs due be supposed to bind his posterity for so many Generations yea to this day if Christ had not changed it whereas Abrahams payment binds not so much as his Grand-child Jacobs Vow was altogether asmuch personal as Abrahams Fact Then if the Law stand good in Jacobs time the question next will be what Law it was of which there being nothing determined about the persons that received them nor about the uses they were put to in this or in any other Scripture I only conclude thus much that there is no evidence of any thing ceremonial and temporary in this Example of his but that in the same channel in which we found Tithes running at first they run still any thing from this instance before us to be drawn notwithstanding Go on now to Moses time where the statute Law is acknowledged and from whence the greatest conjectures against the morality of Tithes are drawn yet should we grant them as much as from their respect to the Levitical Priesthood may be concluded an intervenient transient ceremonial use yet this would no way overthrow their first right originally and for what yet appeares to the contrary perpetually due to God and by him conferred upon another Priesthood Tithes have not their original from the Levitical Priesthood for they ran a long course before neither have they their expiration with the Levitical Priesthood for they have run a longer course since while they and the Levitical Priesthood were in society a respect they had to that Priesthood but now the same they are as they were before without any respect to Levi and his sacrifices at all This would make short work of the cause would not be disproved but either by showing them not to have had any other Fountain but the Leviticall Priesthood which is manifestly false and disproved allready they had a course long before even by Law or that Jordan like they are swallowed up in the dead Sea of the Levitical Priesthood and ought not at least to have appeared above ground ever after which answer hath in part been overthrown already when it was shown that Tithes are not essentially and in themselves ceremonial and shall be more fully examined here after when it shall be made appear that the Gospel hath made no alteration in this matter nor changed the Law But that I may not be said to pass sleightingly over that where the main stresse of the adverse cause is supposed to be I shall view more exactly the passages which are found in the Mosaical Law about this matter Those Laws of paying Tithes were either such as bound the people Num. 18.18 or such as bound the Levites Those that did bind the Levites were to be paid from them to the High Priest These we inquire not after now we find them not before and we find them not since till the Pope had a mind to play the High Priest and our Princes since to receive the money but we acknowledge no such Officer since Christs Reformation therefore no such Tith due to any The Laws of Tithes from the people were of three sorts One to Sacrifices and Feasts which was Ceremonial Another to the Poor Stranger and Levite which was Judicial A third to the Levites which we suppose was Moral Num. 18.21 Deut. 14.23 Num. 18.31 The tithing for Sacrifices and the tithing for the Levites were two distinct tithings One was for Levis maintenance the other for the Lords Feasts to be eaten by him that paid it One was to be paid to the Levite where he dwelt there paid sure where
no time to be found wherein Tithes began to be Gods but the beginning of the world 3. Judicials properly so taken concerned the Jews only but Tithes not so it is not to be imagined that Abraham only paid Tithes to Melchisedeck he was a Priest to many besides Abraham and from them was this due asmuch as from him There is but one Politick reason as I know of given why the Law for Tithes should be Judicial and first given by the old Scholemen t is this that by this means a proportion might be found out for Levi who else had no inheritance among his Brethren no great wonder this from the Schole-men but that Rivet should tell us among other reasons this is the forementioned una praecipua is to be wondred at one and the Chief and another reason named and this not named once nay the quite contrary expressed It was not because they had no inheritance Num. 18.21 therefore they should have Tithes Num. 18.21 but because they had Tithes therefore they should have no inheritance I would gladly know what politick reason would advise the Levites maintenance rather thus then by giving them a distinct share answerable to their numbers among their Brethren And if a maintenance this way were a matter of policie why such a maintenance as gave a tenth proportion to them who were just the 41. Reynolds on Psa 110. p. 477. part as some compute scarce the 60 as Bellarmine no consideration had of the charges and labour of them that occupied the land Rather one would think upon that politick ground which respects the equal provision of the Tribes Tithes ought to have been wholly laid aside they having 48 Cities with their Suburbs about a mile about some of which were Royal Cities which was a proportion far exceeding any of the other Tribes considering the smalnesse of their numbers So far is this reason from being praecipua the chief that it is not so much as una no reason at all neither can it be We are now arrived at Gospel-times hitherto Tiths are come along with us without any stop or contradiction It is now to be enquired what becomes of them whether they waxe old now and are ready to vanish or abide in full force and vertue I shall lay down what I conceive to be the resolution of the Gospel in the matter of Ministers maintenance in these following Conclusions P. 16. 1. That Gospel-Ministers have a maintenance that is due to them of Right and not of Alms. This will passe now Nemine contradicente I am sure not my neighbour who acknowledges a portion though he stick at the proportion Capel charges other Anabaptists with this vile saying but my Neighbour shall stand acquitted of it for me P. 4. Nay he tells us That it is to be feared 1 Cor. 9.14 Gal. 6.6 1 Tim. 5.8 1 Cor. 9.7 that that faith will not avail to salvation in Christ which doth not availe to the maintenance of his Ministers I feare so to if the disobeying Christs ordinance and the Apostles precepts if highest ingratitude to them that shew us the highest mercy if defrauding the labourer of his hire the hire not of his work but of his paines and the souldier of his pay the planter of his fruit and the shepherd of his milk Neh. 13.10 if robbing God of his tribute due to him out of the good things he hath given us on all hands something reserved though we differ about the how and the how much if the ruining of our own and many soules besides while the services of God are either wholly neglected or contemptibly administred for want of food in the Lords house But if this and much more be enough to ground such a fear I think justly and this the more because it is a duty without controversie no sober man debates it no errour can excuse the omission of it a duty easily known we reach it not by a long chain of curious consequences which may tire a man of an ordinary understanding before he can come at his duty to discern it 't is as plain as the souldiers pay the husband mans bread the shepherds fleece the labourers hire The neglect of it therefore no ignorance can excuse as well as no errour it must lie wholly upon the will its profaneness or covetousness or both Yet if any meerly out of a carelesse inadvertency of their duty have fallen into this â—in I hope upon this joynt admonition they will be awakened to reform it and will know from hencforth that God hath his rent due to him as well as the Landlord and that the Ministers right is as much a debt as any mans So may they expect God should look down with a blessing on their habitations as they bring out thence that which is holy Deu. 26.13 15. as something there is of that nature confessed on all hands Further as Alms was not the appointed maintenance for Gospel-Ministers de jure so neither was it the maintenance of the Apostolick Churches de facto they did not plead the Jus and use a meer benevolence Even Carleton here is our and his Instances are mistaken for they concern not contributions to the Ministry Rom. 15.26 27. Acts 24.16 but to the poor Saints at Jerusalem and if of them his reason be admitted good that they of Macedonia and Achaia and Rome were not bound in any other duty then meer charity to maintain those at Jerusalem it should be not Rome as it is falsely printed yet I hope he will not say so of the Minister Rom. 15.27 and even of the poor Saints at Jerusalem the Apostle seems to mention another debt besides that of charity I alwayes took the debtors there to be not the receivers as he but the payers for all it pleased them and do so still neither can it be otherwise the Gentile partaking of the Jewes spiritual things ought to minister to them the Jewes in their carnal things To me it seemes a contradiction to affirm a thing due in justice yet paid of Alms and the foundation Carleton lays will not carry home the conclusion for no man was compelled to give any thing but every man gave as he was moved all this is not sufficient to make an Almes Suppose a Magistracy so corrupt that an honest man may not by suit recover upon a bond lawfully due yet the Creditor faithfully paying in this bond upon the force of a good conscience may not be rightly said to give an Almes But if any will call this so he may call the other so too Yet I should call both debts of justice 2. Gal. 6.6 That this due maintenance ought to arise out of all the goods of them that are taught none excepted so neither the Tenants crop priviledged by sinful customes or unpriviledged nor the Tradesmans gain nor the Landlords rent the tenth increase being none of his goods therefore though something be given
those two examples were given 12. When I asked you whether you did demand it by the Law of God you answered no. I did not say so only I waved that question as being unwilling to trouble him with it 13. He addes immediately as from me you were no Jew nor Levite c. This was not in answer to the question about the Law of God in general as he relates it falsely but in answer to the question of the Law of God as it made Tithes due to the Levitical Priesthood as such for I was no Jew Aug. 25. 1656. c. This he wrote out of the Narrative of the Conference word for word from whence he might have related the rest with faithfulness for it was before him 14. When I asked you Do you require it by the gift of Indulgent Princes you say no. The quite contrary is most true I alwayes pleaded it to him by the gift of Indulgent Princes and people and never used to him any Argument but that and my similitude to make things plain to him was this A Testatour dies and leaves me a Legacy his Executor refusing to pay is constrained to it by order of Law the Law here does not ground the Title but the Testators will P. 13. it only confirmes the will and affords a remedy to the injured person This he knows and hath confessed was my Language to him see what he Prints 15. Yet to deceive the simple you plead both I challenge him to name the person to whom I have said otherwise in this or in any other point then I have said to him and then it will appear whether this be a slander or no. 16. Your Predecessor takes 20. l. per an of you to let you have the living and cometh once or twice a year for his money and Preacheth a Sermon to colour it over Untrue and incredible both through the grace of God I am what I am I hope they that know me do not believe that I need lay our money to purchase a living I was sought to from London at that very time from a people there after a free and full Election as I have to show under their hands this in the midst of my relations and acquaintance and was it likely I should wound my Conscience so deep without cause that I might place my self in the dirt far from my Friends among a company of meer strangers or if I were so vain as well as wicked could not this money matter be carried closely as such manner of purchases are want to be were we all so many of us such sots as to proclaim our wickedness in the face of the Sun No no there was no such matter if ever I saw Gods hand in any particular providence all my life it was in his over-ruling hand disposing me for Staplehurst and bringing me to it it was Gods work I am most undoubtedly assured of it and not the Devils had I not seen it most apparently I had never staid here what was done between me and my Predecessor was done before many witnesses it was but this Two Ministers consenting to Preach to the same people by consent likewise share the proportion both of time and maintenance which each should have that there might be no difference about these things afterwards a thing not only lawful to be done but in a manner necessary on my part with all sincerity undertaken and performed God is witness as for my truely honoured Predecessor his integrity needs not my defence he is able to do it himself in a season and manner convenient if need be 17. More might be said from experience in this Parish but I spare a most merciful Reviler we are guilty in things it seems not to be named such is the modesty and tender-heartedness of the man For my part where I walk out of the way of my duty I desire not to be spared let him or any man reprove me in a way of Gospel Charity he that spares my sins does not spare me is cruel to me I desire for ever so to think But if the concealed matters be of the same nature as this which is expressed and one would think impudent lies should not be uttered and things true hid oh that he would at last learn to spare his own soul use no more false and uncharitable reproaches and repent of these even the Saints God is a consuming fire 18. They presently prepare war Mic. 3.5 P. 19. there is no presently in the Text either in word or sence but it s put in that I after above three years patience may be the more deeply wounded by a false accusation how often have I been thanked by this man and commended for my long forbearance 19. Like the Priests Boyes 1 Sam. 2.15 16 17. had my Neighbour pleased I might have had that name of scorn put upon me without changing the translation he uses into a worse from a visitation Sermon the Levites that Ministred unto the Priests in holy things did begin their service from 30. years age Num. 4.3 I have attained through Gods patience some years above that and yet can well enough bear that Title without any injurious reflexions upon the infirmities of old age Alas how childish are such Contests as these in Print and how unbeseeming the honour of Religion 20. P. 7. I adde one more drawn from the very cause all these are personal a thing more then once we are told of and it tends to weaken the force of our civil constitutions in the behalf of Tithes That those Princes Laws that first established Tithes in England did also establish the Catholick Faith of the Church of Rome and all Traitors that denied it whether this be a truth or no Though with an impudence to amazement he bring it in with Be it known to you I am sure he knows it not to be a truth for being desired where thee Laws might be found now he tells me of Henry the eighth no great Establisher of Tithes I think to be sure not the first by and by he tells me of Magna Charta wherein Tithes are not at all mentioned but included in general among the rights of the Church And whether ever there were any Law that makes it treason not to be of the Religion of Rome let the skilful in the Law judge heresy likely More of this nature hereafter but treason not likely These uncharitable Censures and plain Falsehoods I have privately demanded satisfaction for and offer'd a fair debate of them before indifferent men matters of Fact coming most of them within the compass of an ocular demonstration may admit of a speedy decision if men will but see what is before their eyes and this I did that I might prevent this ungrateful narrative had it been accepted and now I am still ready by the same means to make good the narrative I have given to prevent unnecessary replyes to this part of the
and that the Law for Tithing ran universally of the whole Land before they had inherited it not this part shall pay another not all was to be subdued and all was to pay Now put those two Lawes together Thou shalt utterly destroy them and thou shalt duly Tithe all thy increase and then see whether this conclusion follow not That the Tythe of the whole Land was due to God by Gods own Law the commandement supposing none should live there but Brethren Jewes or Proselytes it is therefore of their Brethren Heb. 7.5 For the execution of this Law there is no reason to expect that neither is this demanded of me Neither one Law nor the other was kept and the Jewes were not alwayes in a condition to keep their own from the hands of strangers Yet it may be considerd whether the Judges when strong would serve the Common-wealth of them and not the Tabernacle and that King Solomon should make a levie of their persons for the service of the Temple and not of their goods There was doubtless as full a right for this as that But will you indeed submit upon this Discovery Admit it done would you not say Though they were then bound they and the Jewes too yet now we are freed from that yoke of bondage you would never doe as you have said your whole Book drives at something else Again let me admit that not proved which you call for what conclusion will you draw hence to help your Cause it must be no more then this Let a professed Pagan come and dwell at Staplehurst who is and alwayes was an Infidel I may not demand Tithes of that man Is this it you call for so eagerly as if the deciding of the whole controversie were turn'd here and promise so peremptorily that this done you would submit Fie for shame of such heedless extravagant speeches plainly the clearing of that question neither helps nor hinders yet if it will do you any good I think you have something towards it however There is another question which is more slighty touched by the former the suing and imprisoning them that refuse to pay I will not say you anywhere petemptorily deny it to be lawful in any case to use the Magistrates sword for the recovery of our own from them that unjustly detain it from us and by no other means will be brought to doe their duty though they be able which is my very case with you Yet you have some suspicious words that way as when you call my using the Authority of Magistrates a Force P. 20. P. 7. and that word is suing for Tithes peaceable sounds that way too much Yet I rather think though you call me to minde this before you write them and expresse your mind after them as if you hap throughly considered the businesse and at last resolv'd I think not that you did not indeed minde what you wrote your selfe I am forced to conclude upon one and I had rather conclude against your wisedome then against your honestie I hope you are not guilty of so wicked a doctrine Unpeaceable to use the Magistrates help when there is no remedy P. 16. If this be your minde indeed tell me you that so bravely conclude it This is the period of all the Gospel must be free and kept free from mans power for this is the ordinance of God Just so a Paul or an Angel were the thing spoken of necessity to salvation when this is not so much as true It seems then in matters of the Gospel Magistrates I suppose they are the men you mean though Ministers also are men and I hope have some power in the Gospel may not meddle by your leave If then they may not meddle in money-matters to deâ—ermine of them but he that uses them is an unpeaceable man pray then what are they for If you say this is no just debt or that though Magistrates may determine of other money-matters but not of this they are the things mainly in question and come now distinctly to be condesired There is a three-fold plea for the Right of Tythes That of Law Divine Humane Free-gift I alwayes contented my self with the third though protesting alwayes that I denied not the two former which peaceable way seeing you interpret as my giving of them up and bend the chief of your strength against those weapons were never brought out against you I am forced to follow you in defence of those reasons you choose to deal with wherein I hope to make that appear to you which I then told you That I was able to say more to both those grounds of Right then you knew how to answer And first I shall let you see with what Scripture-evidence the divine Right of Tithes may be defended In which I shall first lay down what tends to assert this Right and then answer what you or others bring so far as I know to the negative I shall not fetch the Rise of Tythes from Cains bad Divident let the Scholar debate that with learned Mountague if he please I write not to the Learned whom I am not fit to teach nor against the Learned whom I am not fit to grapple with We will take it where we finde it without turning over any Translation but our own That is Gen. 14.20 And he Abraham Heb. 7.2 gave him Tythes of all We must here proceed distinctly and step by step P. 2. And the first enquiry is Whether this were a free-will offering in Abraham or an act of obedience to Gods Statute-law a freeewill offering P. 15. Neighbour you think it and upon this pin the main body of your frame hangs the change pretended being from Aarons proportion to Melchizedechs Now you know from a tenth to a tenth is no change in the maintenance and if Melchizedechs were due by a Statute-law as well as Levis I hope we are agreed and your Book is answered Le ts see now what you bring to prove this grand fundamental affirmation what is it nothing 't is strange but most true verily nothing unlesse you intend the word gave in the Scripture recited for a proof though I cannot think you so very ignorant of Scripture-language it is a word that indifferently signifies either a free-gift or a pâ—yment had you consulted with me before you printed as you might easily have done Lev. 7.36 Deut. 26.13 we dwell but two fields asunder I should have advised you to strengthen this main foundation-pillar of your discourse a little better But see now whether we can say any thing for the Law that hath more conviction then your just nothing or as good as nothing for the free-will offering First I shall begin with the History as it is laid down in Gen. Can any reasonable man think that Abraham a man so wholely moved by the direction of God as appeares in the story of his life should now on the sudden determine in so singularly rare a passage
too as to that or any other Religious use not appointed by Christ himself It were a strange thing to see fleshly sacrifices offered up religiously men to put the world off with they doe it to other uses and ends then for which it was done in the Law it remaines onely that yielding the consequent of the supposition we demand a proof of the so But here we press them too far it may be and it is possible must serve our turnes And this is all we can have from those that plead onely against the Divine Right and from them that plead against the lawfulness of Tithes too Strange A Law of Gods is produced between us confessed only the perpetuity of that Law is denied yet no evidence at all given to prove the temporary nature of it He that sayes a known Law of Gods was in the nature of it temporary had need not onely affirm it possible but prove it certain I take it to be evident they have nothing to say here because where they have been often called upon to speak and ought by such deep bonds of necessitie yet they say nothing I adde concerning those learned men that deny no more then the Divine Right That if this payment to Melchisedech may be truly and properly a branch of the Ceremonial Law it may be an unlawful payment also and if it be certain it was so it is certainly unlawful also Another man may see the congruity of this answer to their own stating of the question but truly I cannot So then we proclame a Law found out they deny it not we proclame again we finde nothing in the Law why it should not be perpetual they say not they doe onely it is possible that they may we proclame again Attempt it shew it but they are silent Ye we will not leave them we will try what we can say to the Negative ex abundanti that payment of Tithes to Melchisedech was not by the force of a Law ceremonial First Melchisedech was a Priest of another Order and not a Ceremonial Priest else he should not be higher then Levi nor for ever nor should our Lord have been called a Priest after this Ordâ—â— rather then after the Order of Aaron And the service for which Melchisedech received Tithes was not any work of Sacrifice but for his work of Benediction as it is manifest in the Text and acknowledged by the famous Capel Gen. 14.19 20. in Thesibus Salmur though I know not what to make of his Parenthesis following quanquam nec ratio ista excludenda It is an high presumption to say positively that Melchisedech offer'd any Sacrifice at all when Scripture sayes nothing of it To be sure as he is brought in and so he is a type of Christ and so he took Tithes he offered none The Papists will never finde out a Sacrifice in the Bread and Wine as busily as they hunt for it a resemblance to our Eucharist the Fathers indeed have found out but not a Sacrifice And in this place we know Scripture silence is argumentative Melchisedech being a Type not as he did or was at other times but as he is storied to have been and to have done then and to this his Tithing doth belong and to nothing else Adde that we finde nothing Ceremonial in Melchisedechs Priesthood to be verified a mystery by some other thing in Christ not in his name King of righteousnesse King of peace not in his Genealogie without Father and without Mother not in the end mentioned of his life and office not in the work of his Priestly office all these were verified in Christ in the Letter and 't is wonderful that Tithing alone should be verified in Christ by a mystery which mysterie I think is not yet expounded by any that we may know what it is much less proved and made good If any shall say that the ceremonialness of Tithes as paid to Melchisedech consists not in their respective consideration as paid to such a Priesthood but in the absolute proper nature oâ— them This at the first sight is utterly improbable that a Priesthood not Ceremonial should be maintained by a maintenance essentially and in it selfe ceremonial But let that pass if a Ceremony be defined A carnal Rite in Religion appointed by God to shadow out Christ or some spiritual grace in Christ till it expire with the death of Christ I think it will pose the wit of man to shew Tithes such a ceremony for either this ceremony must be found out in the Tenth or in the Law determining any set proportion whatsoever If men say the Tenth as Tenth is that which is essentially ceremonial it should be shewn by what Scripture it is appointed by God so to be that the meer Tenth abstracted from either Priesthood should be in it self designed to a ceremonial use 2. What ceremonial use it could have being common to Levi with Melchisedech to whom it could not have that use and whatever is Essentially Ceremonial hath alwayes a Ceremonial use 3. How a Tenth could be more carnal then a 9th or a 11th Hebr. 7.8 4. What there is in Christ which this Ceremony signifies 5. What burdensomnesse there is in a tenth to Christians more then in a ninth or even then a twentieth except that it is the bigger summe 6. What other determinate proportion is shut up in its room as it fared with other Ceremonies Say we then the tenth as a maintenance by Law determined is the Ceremony Then I ask 1. What one tittle in Scripture to prove this 2. How should this be more a ceremony then other stints by name of time for worship 3. What answers this supposed Ceremony not a free-will offering taken to come in the room of a stinted summe for that 's not the body which answeres this shadow Spiritual sacrifices come in the room of fleshly ones but they are not the body of them no more can it be here some other body must be found out for them and what is that 4. Why a Law for maintenance should not be Ceremonious but a Law for this or that should Gal 6.6 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Cor. 16.2 Luc. 12.33 5. Why Paul may determine it to something out of all mens goods that are taught in the word without a Ceremony but may not limit the how much under danger of a Ceremony 6. Why the double honour designed should not be a Ceremony but the expresse determination of the how much should 7. What Ceremony there is in the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what ever he hath thriv him and whether that were not a determinate Law why sell that you have A determinate command be not equally a Ceremony as what we speak of Why more Ceremonious to say give a ninth with eleventh c. then sell all and as it seems give all for they might aswel keep it in land as put it out to use or trade with it He that can give a
eaten I had almost said that all the Antiquaries in the world should never perswade me to so unreasonable a thing that from all parts of the inheritance of Gods people on this side and on that side Jordan the Husbandman must carry his tith in kind unto Jerusalem and that then I know not who should carry it back again to the Levites respective habitations the Levites Cities were in all likelyhood the Store-houses for the Fields near them the other was to be carried to Jerusalem One was to be eaten in any place the other in the place which the Lord shall chuse Deut 14.6 Lev. 27.31 32. Deut. 14.24 One might not be redeemed not the Tithe of the Hay Corne. c. but by adding a fift part not of the heard at all but the tith for the Feast might so these two were plainly two distinct tithings and both paid by the people every year The third years tithing was distinct from them both not all one with the tithing for the Feasts for must the Feasts be neglected then and the Law broken every third year Deut. 16.16 17. 14.28 29.16.12 is nor the third years tith to be laid up within thy Gates and eaten within thy Gates whereas the tithes for Feasts were to be carried to Jerusalem and eaten at Jerusalem and why should the third year be called the year of tithing if no more were done that year then at other times plainly they are two distinct Laws and must have a distinct obedience The Tithes for Feasts were Ceremonial and were never before nor ever after only from the equity upon which they were grounded will one Argument among others be brought for our offerings towards the furnishing of the Lords Table though a far lesse proportion will serve for that use so on all hands no ground of this Tithes continuance The third years tithing was Judicial a Statute for the Poor and so continues in its equitable foundation that a due provision be made by Law for the Poor whom we have alwayes with us There remains now only that to the Levites to be inquired after what appearance there is in the Laws about it for us to conclude either for or against the perpetual right of them the Scripture that contains those Laws if I have not been strangly overseen in my Search are three and no more Lev. 27.30 31 32 33. Num. 18.21 24 31. and Deut. 18.1 Not many leaves these among the Levitical Satutes though if many leaves had been found of them in Moses Law they would not therefore have been presently Ceremonial unlesse it were proved they were there as branches of the Ceremonial Law and then one leaf yea one Verse would serve the same Now in none of these Scriptures do we find the Original Law but only resolutions about the disposal of them supposed due to God by a former right and therefore the cessation of these Laws and how removed out of the way will only after this disposal of them but never overthrow Gods right in them which they do not constitute but suppose That in Lev. 27.30 tells us it is the Lords it is holy to the Lord therefore not to be alienated Verse 31 32 33. God challengeth his right to them already in being and the Statute forbids encroachment upon that right and this is I think the first time these Tithes are mentioned in Moses Law and here we are referred to an higher claim in which if nothing Ceremonial have appeared then what ever becomes of these Scriptures Tithes must stand still their foundation root being not plucked up though these after-authorities should lose their binding force What the other two Scriptures determine is not material to this inquiry because though they should speak never so peremptorily in commanding them yet they can be only confirmations establishing what is on foot already and so must follow the Original one for a thing can be Originally commanded but once we have found them before in the Law of Moses and there also in the current not in the well-head of them for that we must seek higher then Moses if we would find it out and I am perswaded no man can fixe his foot with any certainty of resolution sooner then the beginning of the world And yet neither in them have we any Law commanding them from the people but that supposed and upon that the people offering them to the Lord of debt now at this time it is on all hands resolved on Num. 18.21 29. not of free gift And God assigning them to Levi for his service in the Tabernacle as for Deut. 18.1 it is a short summe of Num. 18. The Priests to eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire as in the beginning of Num. 18. it is at large declared all the Tribe of Levi shall eat the Lords inheritance as is declared at large Num. 18.21 There are two rights found in these Laws one from the people to God and that right is supposed the other from God to the Levites and that right is stated Num. 18.21 and de novo expressed here be it then that Levis service of the Tabernacle for which this assignement was made is ceased and so the assignement with it which is the later right yet we want still the evidence of Gods giving up his right from the people surely it should be shown not only where they cease to be Levis but where they cease to be Gods they come to Levi at the second hand and Gods right is a distinct right from Levis was before Levi's and it would be inquired into how it comes not to be Gods since let the Detainers of Tithes show where God hath released them of this tribute Neitheir let the excellent Capell object here that we owe our selves and all we have to God and Christ quanti quanti jumus for as this is most true now and we desire to acknowledg it most equal that we make our all his who hath made his all ours so it was ever more most true and yet God reserved unto himself a special right to Tithes Mal. 1.10 as sufficient to testifie our homage and support his Worship who would have none shut the doors of his house for nought nor kindle a fire on his Altar for nought there being enough left besides for the subsistence of them that used the Land under God and were to live upon it so it was then needful and it appearâ—s that so it was done so it is needful still upon the very same grounds and notwithstanding what this reason produceth to the contrary so it is still Besides should not the most learned man remember that the reason alledged is as strong in the point of time as it is in the point of goods Neither let others object this special right to be from the Jews onely as who held their Land of God by a peculiar gift and because of the wonderful Fruitfulness of the Land I cannot see any
truth in the assertion for can any man imagine that Abraham alone paid Tithes to Melchizedeck and the same Law that is to the Jew is to the Proselyte and the reason is equal to all that will have God for their God that they should testifie their homage to him and maintain his Worship aswel as the Jews And for the reasons of the assertion they seem of no weight The first in that all Nations hold their Lands of God as well as the Jews though not led to them by such mighty signs 2. And Abraham paid his Tithes out of the spoiles of war if the word be duely rendred 3. Had not then a foot of promised land which he could call his own when he paid his Tithe 4. Jacobs vow was out of all that God should give him 5. All that is said for the right of personal Tithes overthrows this pleading 6. This reason is nowhere assigned by God for the payment of Tithes by the Jews 7. Others are 8. If this were assigned yet others are the principal and of a perpetual and universal obligation so this is gratis dictum And the second reason hath as little weight as the first for admit it all it will only prove an Obligation to a lesser proportion as lands are lesse in Fruitfulness and what Scripture encouragement can any have to give lesse then a tenth If New Testament Examples oblige us to any thing it is sure to much more then a tenth as I shall show anon what there was therefore of special Fruitfulness in that land above others had a charge of people answering it yea exceeding it so there was as little to spare for the Levite as out of other lands where the increase might be lesse and the people fewer indeed considering how few the Levites were and what Provision was made for them in the eight and forty Cities with their Suburbs and the many wayes that land was otherwise charged by God of which there is some taste given above reason would advise let the Levite be contented with his setled Patrimony wherein he sareth much better then any of his Brethren and let him relinquish Tithes altogether but so it seemed not good in the eye of God but rather that whoever served him in peculiar services should have peculiar encouragements beyond their Brethren that his house may not lye wast nor the Levites cry what a weariness is it But why in such a Fruitful land as through Gods blessing ours is should the Fruitfulness of Canaan be given as a reason why a tenth should not be paid among us as it was among them God cease our murmurings for the great plenty now for diverse years afforded us and make us never grudge God his portion which we never gave him else we may quickly hear of a Fruitful land turn'd into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein Ps 107.34 I never heard of any yet undone by paying of Tithes very Heathens have thought otherwise as well as Jews I have heard of Families thought to be undone by alienating from God to themselves and from Sacred uses to common So then Gods they were and are from the people be the Levites claim under God never so Ceremonial if he never gave them up then are they his still Move we now a step further and see into this very assignement of Gods to Levi we shall find a respect it beares to certain uses and to certain persons Num. 18.21 or the respect it hath to uses what saith the deed for their service which they serve so in general then it follows even the service of the tabernacle of the Congregation that bring what for the present they attended upon including in it al their temple services much diverse from those under the Tabernacle â—herein they served God 1 Chro. 25. and 26.26 30 33. some in the Temple in several offices others waited on the service of the Lord in the Provinces in all the business of the Lord and in every matter pertaining to God And no sober man I hope will say Tithes respected one part of their service and that the meanest Deut. 33.10 11. and not all and every part if any should Moses himself will rectifie him who makes Levis teaching judgements and Gods Law the prime consideration for which he prayes the Lord to blesse his substance before he mentiâ—ns the incense and the whole burnt-offering And what were those judgements only how to behave themselves in the Ceremonies of Gods worship so one and he a Friend oâ— Tithes too but most unadvisedly there was not so great need to set Lâ—vites in the Provinces for that and the poor people needed teaching in something else which being more excellent and difficult would rather deserve honourable wages then all that they performed besides 2 Chro. 17.8 9. and if God did nâ—t suffer any to kindle a fire on his Altar for naught much lesse was he â—ikely to 〈◊〉 the Levites to take pains for naught in endeavouring by the Doctrines of Faith repentance and a new lâ—â—e or obedience to save the souls or people The conclusion of this matter is that all the work of the Levites not being Ceremonial the choâ—sest and â—hat which diserves greatest wages being for the substance of it moral and perpetual Faith in the Messias and obedience to Gods everlasting Laws and there being no other reward for this service but this common one of Tithes and God nor likely to set them about a work and give them no present visible wages which in no other service he ever did and it being no sufficient answer to say that by other means for other servicer they were provided already therefore no need of a new assignement for this moral service for so they would have been in their eight and forty Cities with their Suburbs though they had no Tithes at all It followes that the use of Tithes in this assignement respected not only a service of a temporary Ceremonial but of a moral perpetual nature and though the temporary use is now done with yet the Law will still abide in its principal perpetual uses though the accessory be vanished especially when the pains which is taken away by the ceasing of one is aboundantly added to the Ministes of Gods holy things in the other And if any say that because there was some respect to a Ceremonial service though that not the only nor the principal that therefore it is fit they should be nailed to Christs Crosse together with other Ceremonies I would advise him to consider what one duty that is most moral in his own account did not share in and sympathize with the peculiar dispensation of those times instance in prayer a moral duty if any yet turning the body and lifting up the hand towards the holy land towards Jerusalem Dan. 6.10 1 Kin. 8.29 30 33 35 38 48. Ps 5.7 towards the house that is called by Gods name and towards the holy
Temple these and other things even in prayer were Ceremonial instance in what you will some thing will appear to have been appendant to it though the body of the duty be not so we must therefore forbear nailing Tithes to the Crosse of Christ among other Ceremonies upon this account till we can tell how to rescue all other duties from following them the same way No that whose use is meerly or at least principally to shadow let that cease as having its consummation at the Crosse of Christ but let not that be dealt so with which hath another perpetual use for its principal design and which alone is sufficient to support its standing because of some Ceremonialness annexed suiteable to the nature of those things for then we deface all So then the right of God in Tithes remains yet firm and the assignement of them for such uses remains good as to the principal uses and the ceasing of the rest overthrowes not the very assignement much lesse the Original Law by which they are due to God Yet again consider we the assignement Num. 18.21 P. 10. Eph. 5.3 4. in respect of the persons to whom it was made I have given the Children of Levi. To omit the merry jesting Triumphs we meet with here only sayiâ—g thus much in a serious cause against many that hold the same foundation with us jesting and that with bitterness is not convenient and does ill become Saints yet thus much may with reason be affirmed That Tithes were not assigned to Levi as Levi but as set apart for the service of the Lord let him be removed and others set apart the very reason which gave them him qua set apart will give them that too this service is altered a service remains this service is altered in its inferiour duties in its superiour and most noble duties t is still the same repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ diversely indeed Preached as the diversity of times was but the substance of the duty one and the assignement in reference to their service was with such additions and alterations as it should please God from time to time to make as he did both in what they were to teach first Moses afterwards the Prophets added first Tabernacle service afterwards Temple service a great alteration the maintenance in all changes abiding the same The line of the Priesthood we find altered but how by losing the reward of their Ministerial service in case of receiving him whom they hitherto had Preached and being sent forth by him to teach others to receive him also we want a proof of this the change was not in losing any thing they formerly enjoyed but by taking in others of other Tribes and Nations Is 66.21 as it was Prophesied and the time of fulfilling Types and removing partition Walls being now come required so others are joyned with them to share in the same service for substance by the same authority why then they should not share in the same reward removing what is to be removed and letling the rest stand I ask a reason Let me put a case suppose God had abrogated sacrifice and communicated the Priesthood to chosen persons out of every Tribe not taking all of Levi nor confining it to Levi both these before the coming of Christ in the Flesh which he might have done the Doctrine of Faith in the Messias to come still remaining had made no change of the maintenance but left it standing still would any man say that the still standing maintenance must not be the portion of the now present Priests especially if no new provisions were made for them No reasonable man I think would say so that which might have been done then is done now and therefore plain it is that so far as the assignement goes we are not excluded from the benefit of it upon the reasons forementioned with Master Seldens good leave and whoever will pluck Tithes out of our hands must plead an alteration in the Gospel supposed to be made in this matter and must not rest in any thing barely producible out of this assignement to Levi. What is added about Tithes in the Old Testament is little helpful to the cause of them that plead against Tithes being the confirmation of them by the voice of God and the Edicts of Kings and Governours of which we shall speak in the second plea we may then draw all that hath been said into these summary conclusions 1. That when Tithes were first due to God is nowhere to be found we suppose it was Gods reserved Rent from the beginning 2. That Melchizedeck had a just right in Tithes from God and not from the free gift of man 3. That this right was neither by Law Ceremonial nor Judicial but moral and perpetual 4. That Gods right in Tithes began not with the Levitical Priesthood they had only from him the assignement of the use of them 5. That the expiration of this assignement to the Levitical Priest hood will neither abrogate Gods right if he have taken them from Levi he hath not therefore given them away from himself 〈◊〉 revoke the grant to Melchizedeck and his Priesthood 6. That Gospel Ministers may claim Tithes from this assignement to Levi at least in the equitable construction of it as appointed to serve God in his house though not as Levis race nor for Ceremonial services from all that are or ought to be taught by and would be accounted the Israel of God any thing to be found in this assignemet to the contrary notwithstanding I shall but step aside to consider in brief that question whether Tithes were not commanded under Moses by a Law Judicial and then I shall follow our Adversaries in this cause to their pretences for a change in New Testament times Our engagement with them that plead the Judicial Law is not so necessary seeing to bring in a Judicial Law again is not to deny Christ come in Flesh all that would have the Judicial Law rule all upon this supposition would yeeld us a Divine right in them and none but upon the Foundation of equity upon which Judicials are built would grant us rather more then lesse Yet let it not be injurious to the many great names of them at home and abroad who are of this persuasion if I propound my doubts though not very necessary to the cause in hand They seem to me not to have been due under Moses by a Judicial Law for these reasons 1. They could not be Judicial as paid by the people to God Mal. 2.8.9 whence it is called a robbing of God to detain them nor yet as they were given by God to Levi. Judicials order things from man to man not from man to God nor from God to man 2. Judicials began with Moses politie such as were meerly so at least with Abrahams Family becoming a people for Political Laws suppose a body Politick to be Governed by them but
could be changed but that as sure as Christ is come in the Flesh so I hear men speak most confident then when they can prove least For so saith the word Verse 12. Nay do not so impudently belye Scripture the word saith not so and that it meanes so you do not prove 2. Come we now to the next Scripture 1 Cor. 9.14 What have we there a likeness of maintenance one would think at the first sight but heed it well and we shall find the quite contrary well look upon it through the Glass of your exposition here we find the things of the Temple and Altar expounded by Tithes the living of the Gospel by Freely you have received freely give and the even so expounded by not so it was then under the Temple I am sure by a Law now without one then something it was and that something a determinate something now nothing such was the freely as it hath been proved or something indeterminate Matth. 10.8 what men please which is een as good as nothing But not to pursue these wild conceits for what glory is it to name them is to confute them this I should resolve concerning this Scripture as impartionally as I am able that whereas there were two sorts of Provisions under the Law for the Ministers of Gods holy things one out of doubt Ceremonial as the Priests share in the Sacrifices of the Altar the other question'd whether it be ceremonial or no the Levites Tithes Paul by the even so constitutes a like to the former as oblations at the Lords table not the very same not because the even so of it self wil not require it but because the nature of the things spoken of will not bear it but for the other provision doubted of whether ceremonial or no before we know how to interpret the even so we must resolve that doubt if it appear ceremonial as the rest then the eveÌ„ so is to be interpreted by a like provision if there appear nothing ceremonial in it then the even so is to be interpreted by the very same there being no reason here that the words should be straitned at all so on both sides this Scripture will be yeelded upon a supposition suppose we it proved by them that Tithes are a proper part of the Ceremonial Law I shall yeild this Scripture and Heb. 7.12 to them and the whole cause on the other side let them suppose Tithes never to have been a part of that Law and this duely proved by us which I have endeavoured to do they will have little cause to stand with us about this Scripture or indeed about the whole cause 3. Christ and the Apostles now here have commanded tithes to be given Answ We are now inquiring after the change of the old command and the now new command will not conclude that but upon a very wicked principle Matth. 5.17 that whatever Old Testament Law is not particularly commanded in the New Testament is void and of no force a general confirmation we have and all Gods Laws stand till himself repeal them but of the New Testament command about Tithes more anon 4. Neither Christ nor his Apostles ever took Tithes yea they used another way themselves Impossible this to be proved yea as certain as Christians at first paid more then a tenth which is most certain so certain is it that they paid a tenth and what becomes of this reason already but allow it its truth it pretends to what 's the conclusion thence Christ demanded not a tenth therefore he renounced it the Apostles made not use of their right therefore they had none inconsequent who sees not it is so yet to leave no appearance of shelter to them from this their last refuge see we all distinctly 2 Cor. 8.9 Luc. 8.3 1. Chrâ—st took no Tithes be it so he came to be poor therefore to be Ministred unto he had a right to the Kingdom as the Son of David yet he took it not to Tithes also as a Priest yet in his own person he took them not humiliation was his present business 2. But in his Ministers he then took them the Levitical Priesthood standing till the Crucifixion of Christ so what was paid to Levi the Figure was paid to Christ as it is truely said What was given to Melchizedech the figure was given to Christ P. 2. The Apostles Example is considerable either in Christs time or after it In Christs time be it that they took no Tithes they were stated by Gods own assignement to another Priesthood yet in being 2. The State of Christ was such as to be poor in his followers aswel as in his own person 3. If Christ took them not how could they have them Act. 10.38 Matth. 11.5 4. The State of Christ and of his Apostles was a State of Peregrination ever in motion he went about doing good and that was not a State of gathering and laying up of Tithes in kind 5. The poor were mostly wrought upon by the Preaching of the Gospel who many of them had no Tithes to pay the rest that had none to spare having paid one Tenth already Luc. 10.1 19. 6. There was no need Ministers being then few twelve standing ones and seventy temporary ones as appeares by their commission and their giving up their account upon returning for them there was enough Ministred and an overplus for the Poor besides what help Christ brought in at several times by miracles Jo. 13.29 Luc. 19.13 33. and who will say Tithes not paid and more in the valew that heares what the Apostles did what Zachaeus did what Christ commanded the young man others all this enough to give a reason why Tithes in kind were not taken by the Apostles in Christs time without any purpose of repealing them See then what further may be said of the Apostles practice after Christs time and that first among the Jews be it that then they took no Tithes The Levitical Priesthood then received them who as they remained still by sufferance to an honourable burial so they took Tithes by the same sufferance Act. 21.20 2. It would have been exceeding scandalous to beleeving Jews who were all Zealous of the Law to have the Ministery of it removed out of the way and Tithes taken from them 3. The Apostle themselves kept the Law so making use of the Ministery of it must pay their Tithes to that Ministry if they had any Act. 2.44 4. They were then so poor that they wâ—â—e constrained to sell all and lay the price at the Apostles feet for the Saints present supply and more then once needed they large contributions from the Gentile Churches As for the Gentiles themselves they had other burdens Heathen Idol Priests at least in many places took away their tenth and though we find not their whole Estates separated for the service of the Gospel as for a time it was among the Jews Jam. 2.5 7.
2 Cor. 8.3 yet it is beyond doubt they paid a tenth and more the number of Believers being for the greatest part of the poorer sort and they often sending relief to the Saints at Jerusalem and doing it to their power and beyond their power if this was not done in kind neither is it so with us in many places only with this difference then they paid much more in money then if they had paid the tenth in kind now they pay much lesse yet what is this to the change of the way there is a special reason for it they were then in a moving condition through manifold persecutions and though the Apostles in planting of Churches and ordaining of elders in every City did endeavour to bring them to a seâ—ed fixed State yet the rage of the Dragon gave them little rest first by the angry Jewish little Dog then by the fierce Heathen Mastife worrying them out of their goods and lives too Cruel edicts doing them much mischief and the Licentious Plundering Souldiers much more In such extremities there was no time of orderly Gathering and laying up Tithes in kind what they had was for the service of the Church no man looked for more then from hand to mouth all preparing for present Martyrdom yet even then as there was any breathing some instances are of payments in kind even of Tithes though I suppose not in the bulke but by Peice-meales as the necessity of those times required nothing then is to be drawn from these instances to prove Gods relinquishing his right to Tithes they paying more then a Tenth in valew other reasons being abundantly given why they did not pay a tenth in kind What the great Lud. Capel addes out of Matth. 23.23 from Christs opposing Tithing Mint and Anise and Cummine to the weightier matters of the Law which would not be if the Law were Moral is of small moment the opposition being not between the weightier matters and Tithe simply would the Learned Man say that to pay Tithes simply under the Law was not a weighty thing but between the weightier things and Tithes of mint c. so on the other side Christs ought here is insufficiently alledged for the morality of them because at this time all three Laws were standing so this Scripture may be let alone on both sides Adde we now for a close for all that Tithes are Christs Portion given P. 2. Hebr. 7.8 saith my Neighbour but I say paid by Abraham to Melchizedech and in him to Christ Levi a Tith-taker that dies Christ a Tith-taker that lives and so is Eternally due as long as such things are to be paid on Earth if Christ be not a perpetual taker of Tithes the Opposition is of no advantage on Christs side but Levi had it for he was a Tith-taker many ages of Generations together how then shall Christ take this due being now in Heaven but by those that are in his stead on Earth 2 Cor. 5.20 so he ever received Tithes even when he was in Earth and much more so now he is in Heaven This and 1 Cor. 9.14 upon the supposition that Tithes are no part of the Ceremonial Law have we as positive evidence that the particular determination of a tenth is still in force besides all that hath been said to answer the pretences for a repeal And what 's the issue of all are Tithes still of Divine right and to be resolved so by the force of these reasons I humbly submit them and my self to the censure of them that are able to Judg and will do it as becomes Christians without bitterness disdain As for you my good Friend truely loved Neighbour however I am dealt with by you I only say thus much do not scorn the question of the Divine right till you have distinctly and plainly answered what is here pleaded for it I shall readily and thankfully receive any light may be given me by them that can see further then my self even by you or any communicated by word or writing but meer words and confident assertions will not do it much lesse bitterness and wrath and clamours and evil speaking I may without arrogance affirm that nothing but plain Scripture demonstration must carry it against the reasons given and such I hope I shall freely acquiesce in there will be no need of reviling terms as long as I am ready to lay down my errour and my Tithes with it assoon as it is proved to be a Levitical Ceremony and so a sin to take it and not only nakedly affirmed one clear Scripture ground will go further with me then a thousand empty affirmations waspes without stings make an angry noise to fright Children but they hurt them not The Ministers second Plea for his Portion The Magistrates Power and Duty in making Laws for the Church I Am now to begin a new Webbe but that which I hope we shall see come about sooner the power and duty of Magistrates to see Gods Laws for the maintenance of his Ministers put in execution A question wherein Magistrates have many Adversaries but it is a great cause of grief to see some Magistrates their own Adversaries The grand Adversary here is the Papist whose usual reproach it is that our belief followes the State and that our Religion is Parliamentary but we can bear with such reproaches it is more comfortable to see a Papist raile against the truth then trample over it but that within those walls there should be found so many that think Religion an unfit thing to determine of is a thing greatly to be lamented May Papists for ever fear the name of a Parliament under what cunning disguise soever they dresse themselves and may Parliaments never turn their feares into despisings by making themselves Vile in their eyes what are Magistrates lesse under Christ in the New Testament then they were in the Old Does not reason tell us that the scope of Politick Societies is not meerly to live but to live well and is there any living well without the Soul be provided for Hath God declared and done so much against the Idolatry of the people of Israel and do we not yet think that the care of Gods Worship is of main concernment to the temporal welfare of a people Do such Magistrates think themselves keepers of swine whose care is only that they have Meat and Drink that they gore not one another and be not a prey to them that invade them Have not we Souls to provide a well-being for as well as bodies What a torture and plague would it be for a man of a Spirit Zealous for Christ to be a Magistrate if he must have great power put into his hands enabling him to do much and yet withal his hands bound that he shall do nothing I had rather be a Door-keeper in the House of God in the meanest Office wherein as such I may Act for Christ then in the highest Office of State
no Martyrs Look your Book and see but all within the communion of Rome were so What Record have you for this who sayes so besides your self none doubtless but they who are wont to ask us where our Church was before Luther Our common answer to that Popish taunt is point-blank contradictory to this Assertion of yours it was where it is now for all was not Popish then Anatomy of the Masse not in their form of worship for did you never hear of the famous Peter Moulins Confutation of Popery out of their own Mass-book much less were all Papists in that communion Is it not known that Luther rising up to preach against the Pope did it plaudente orbe universo the whole world applauding him Did not the Christian world groan under the burden of Popish tyranny and cry out for a free General Council or any effectual meanes of Reformation do not al our Writers against Rome prove by sensible demonstrations that Poperie that now is was but a Faction in the Church bringing in their innovations now one then another till they were advanced into that body they are now in by the Council of Trent yea it was possible that errours creeping in by degrees and not imposed upon any of necessitie should at once carry away all like a floud before them no man opening his mouth nor so much as believing to the contrary where was the voice of the true Shepherd then could Arminianism rush in so upon us in the Bishops times or can it now as it is brought in again at the back door by Sectaries yea do not all know what moderation there was in many of the Trent-Fathers and how many of them were sent away in disgrace all overborn by the violence of the Romish partie If al was Popish what need the Pope fear so much a General Council as he did what need that packing shuffling as was in Trent why so many Italian Bishops many of them titular ones thrust in so much exceeding those from other Nations that they might over-ballance all good motions by their numbers what need things be so strangely carried there that their own friends cried shame of it and the French Nation for a long time rejected it as an unlawful Council and yet this a Conventicle pack'd for the nonce to carry on the Popish cause otherwise great fear lest their cake should have proved dough too Nay when many I know not but all of our Divines doubt not but God hath his company in the midst of Poperie at this day now that so considerable Bodies of Nations are departed from them and they as evil men seducers are wont to do wax worse and worse and they think Rev. 18.4 leads them plainly to be of that minde yet this man makes no bones of concluding concerning the former much better times of Romish communion that all was Popish then Not likely such considerable bodies should have fallen off from them at the time of Reformation and no doubt of them that shook their heads at the Romish abominations yet durst not depart from that Communion Erasmus was not the man only neither I have found perverse men ready to say any thing rather then let go an errour they have once espoused Let it not be so with you Neighbour I am assured you wrote this inconsiderately rashly and headily as you have many things in this Book besides It is certainly untrue and most dishonourable to our common Faith no Papist but will be glad of such a concession and no Protestant I think knowing or ignorant ever yielded it but you Let it go for shame and let no more such frantick Assertions fall from you That the Acts and Monuments fetch all their ground for Tithes out of the Mosaical Law does not appear to me I finde little disputed for tithes and two Martyrs Walt. Brate in Rich. 2. time and William Thorp in Henry 4. time disputing against it the former against the necessitie of them the later against the lawfulness in both little is said in their behalf only one word from the Arch-Bishop to Thorp is of any weight Thou wouldst hereby make the Old Law more free and perfect then the New Law and this is a New-Testament Argument I finde also King Ethelstanes gift there Recorded and for it alledged Jacobs vow a place in Matth. and a sentence much used by the Fathers If thou withhold from God the tenth he will withhold from thee the other nine or to that purpose But the Mosaical Law I finde not urged by any much less that only Other things are said that not at all yet I may be deceived something may escape my hastie search you may perhaps finde that ground elsewhere yet that ground is not all if anywhere at all herein your relation must be blamed So when it is said a King at his death-bed gave to the Priests that then were I cannot certainly say no yet I doubt this is not so they were wont to give to God and the Church and that it was out of a Popish perswasion that they were due by the Law of God I want your proof for the fact you did ill you set it not down For the Charter of England it onely confirms the Rights and Liberties that were then known and had of which Tithes at that time were an undoubted part but expresses not them nor any ground of them much less was the Mosaical Law the ground and all the ground What meant you to affirm an untruth where it is so easie to find you out The Tithing-table of England is a Book I never saw and you have not seen this seven years that in it the Mosaical Law should be the only ground is incredible and if it should prove true either you have a very good memorie or write at random true or false at a venture But be this so they pleaded the Mosaical and that onely yet all the Mosaical Law is not Ceremonial Tithes may be morally due out of the Mosaical Law and if so for what you have demonstrated to the contrary this may have pleaded right But that we have done with suppose the ground of the Plea whatever it was to be naught yet it follows not that the obeyers of that Councel acted upon those grounds I have not found any certain evidence of such a thing and the Lawes about Woodland c. the prevailing customes in so many places about the manner of Tithing cutting the Minister short of a precise Tenth are evidences that the Divine Right of Tithes was not so much regarded by the Donors and Confirmers of them Yet again admit Priests so pleaded for them and people so gave them will the Donation therefore fall to the ground frame it then into a general rule All those deeds of gift which are granted upon a mistaken perswasion are ipso facto void and of no force Do you not see this a manifest untruth power to give and power to receive will
both fetch the Character of the man who hath no fear of God before his eyes in a great part from the viciousnesse of the tongue the Spear broke Christs side Ps 64.20 Eph. 4.30 31 Jude 9.13 15. but reproach broke his heart among the grieving sins to the holy Spirit of God we find bitternesse and evil speaking railing accusations are uncomely for Angels fit onely for raging waves of the Sea that foame out their own shame to whom is reserved the blacknesse of darknesse for ever Remember Neighbour that a day of Execution of Judgement is a coming for God to convince men of hard Speeches as of hard deeds who will not be convinced of them sooner but of you my Neighbour I shall yet hope better things and shall be glad to see them by the humble acknowledgement of the many such your Book is filled with As for mocking in matters that concern Salvation and between persons whose age and quality of life should make more serious in common things for you and I to get up into the seat of the Scorners I cannot think of it without terrour how lamentable it is Oh do not so any more remember Christ weeping and sobbing over Jerusalem almost every word he spake Luc. 19.41 c. Jude 18.19 do not in all things fulfil the Prophesy Oh that it were fulfilled upon you in nothing Do you remember what sin cost Christ for the Elect and what sin must cost the Reprobates in Hell and can you make a mocke of sin any sin Plead not Eliah's Example to Baals Priests we are not the men neither have you the Spirit you will not I hope do that which followes in the History The Lord soften my hard heart more and more give me Jeremies Fountain of waters that I may weepe day and night for my own for yours and for other mens sins This sure is the true Ministers temper With a mocking Spirit we shall Preach proudly but with a weeping Spirit we shall Preach compassionately and you may judge which is like to be the more successeful Act. 20.31 Paul that laboured so abundantly and whose Labours were crowned so plentifully was one that ceased not to warn every one night and day with teares Rom. 14.15 It was thought by the Apostle a piercing word now walkest thou not charitably more almost could not have been spoken to the shame of a Christian let us mend the Characters of charity and write them out in the hearts 1 Cor. 13. Phil. 3.16 and if our debates be not then ended they will be bounded wherein our attainements are one let us walk by the same Rule mind the same things and this will be a meanes by Prayer and the conscientious Study of Scripture with humble conferences 15. according to Scripture to have God reveal to us wherein we agree not Alienation of affections makes controversies endlesse more then the Intricacy of them where judgment Rents a little Christs seamelesse Coat Passion and self Interest pursue the breach and tear it from top to bottom yea most common it is that what Passion begins reason must defend and make good let us therefore walk together so far as we may till we must needs part then with Friendly seriousnesse debate the rest and let a Scripture Spirit sway in our resolutions not the Spirit of man which is proud and willful and then I am perswaded our much desired Peace may return to us To this aime I direct these Papers of mine humbly beseeching God the Giver of that Wisdom which is pure and Peaceable to prosper them to accomplish what they are directed to to instruct the ignorant convince the gainesayers comfirm the sound-minded to mollify sharp and eager Adversaries nor exasperate them and then it will not grieve me nor offend others that so unworthy a name as mine is hath been in Print FINIS READER There should have been inserted p. 26. lin 25. these few things following which though they were omitted in that place by the Printers overfight I desire thou wouldest take notice of them here they are as followeth THis gives a fair reason against the morality of a tenth of the tenth if it was paid to the High Priest for himself alone the other Priests shared with the Levite in the rest but in case the tenth of tenth was paid to the High Priest for himself his fellow Priests so make them sharers with him not with the Levites as is thought by some out of Neh. 10.38 Then somewhat more is to be said why the tenth of tenth belongs not to our present inquiry as being confessedly Ceremonial whereas the Levites tenth was not The reasons of this I humbly conceive are from the great difference in the Officers under the Law from the Officers under the Gospel in point of 1. Number Then the Priests the Sons of Aaron were a small part of their Brethren the children of Levi and therefore were well provided for by a tenth out of the tenth Whereas it is otherwise under the Gospel comparing Bishops and Deacons together they began with twelve on one side though we exclude the seventy and seven on the other side and in all ages so it continued Deacons fewer then the Ministers of the Word and Sacraments a tenth therefore of a tenth cannot be observed now 2. Service The difference between the Priests service and the Levites being wholely Ceremonial consequently the difference of maintenance which in part was grounded on a different service the Priests not being a tenth part of the Levites though they had a tenth part of their provision must be Ceremonial too if the Priest prayed for and blessed the people so did the Levite Neh. 9.4 5. 2 Chr. 20.19 If the Priest taught the people out of the Law so did the Levite 2 Chro. 17.8 9. If the Priest executed Judgement in matters of the Lord so did the Levite 2 Chro. 19.8 11. Take away Sacrifices and what was annexed to them and their service are altogether the same but so it is not between Bishop and Deacon under the Gospel said in to God the summe is the Command of a tenth from the people might be moral Survey of discip pt 2. p. 31. yet the distribution of it between Priests and Levites in part civil referring to their different numbers in part Ceremonial referring to their different services so the Reverend Master Tho. Hookers conclusion upon the supposed morality of a tenth will not follow Ergo the Ministers must have the tenth of a Tenth This foundation removed out of the way the enforcement of this reason added by that excellent holy man falls to the ground with it It is this then Ministers must receive from them happily who were never taught by them as the Levites who taught in the particular Synagogues paid to the Priest and to the Levites too who administred in Jerusalem this is supposed contrary to Gal. 6.6 but indeed is not for cases may be where in they
Moses and Aaron OR THE MINISTERS RIGHT AND THE MAGISTRATES DUTY Vindicated from the Exceptions made against both by Richard Kingsnoth in a late Book of his Entitled The true Tything of the Gospel-Ministers By DANIEL POINTEL a servant of Jesus Christ and Rector of the Church of Christ at STAPLEHURST Prov. 18.17 He that is first in his own cause seemeth just but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacriledge Psal 77.20 Thou leddest thy People like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron LONDON Printed by T. C. for Samuel Gellibrand at the Golden Ball in Pauls Church-yard 1657. An Apologetick INTRODUCTION to my dear Brethren the Church and People of STAPLEHURST I Have found this cause between me and my neighbour among the saddest things that have befallen me since God brought me to this place And of many things deeply afflicting this is not the least that I am forced to a publick vindication for a publick offence and therein know not how to clear my self without shaming an aged disciple who is both the wrong-doer and the false accuser It is not much agreeable to my spirit to print upon any thing especially in this youth of mine but to print upon this Subject hath been much more against my spirit then most things else not but that the matters are weighty and greatly useful to the Churches welfare and the debates of this present time so it will be a word spoken in season But many others are concerned in it and who am I that I should stand up as a Champion for the two great Pillars of the Land Magistracy and Ministry in a time of shaking through so many fierce contradictions against them both 2. Besides this Cause is fully pleaded already by sundry learned judicious pens never yet answered nor ever likely to be answered whereas as to the matter of Tythes though many indeed appear against the divine right especially of our beyond-sea Divines both Popish and Reformed yet few or none of any judgment appear against the lawfulness of them 3. Because all undertakings of this nature are likely to meet with misconstructions enough from those men that know not how not to look asquint upon any thing we either say or do That charity that thinketh no evil how is it fled from the earth it will be thought by many a sufficient answer to all that is brought on the Ministers behalf to cry out covetousness and to all on the Magistrates to cry out persecution 4. But then when an unwelcome cause must be managed after an unwelcome manner the cause not to be handled in Thesi but in Hypothesi and that drawing in many personal things and mixing affections with judgements so that we have now to answer not Errour onely but anger peevishness self-will self-interests and as flowing from them calumnies false accusings unfaithful dealings c. Upon these thoughts I have been tossed up and down in my minde sometimes for replying sometimes against it till very necessity hath compelled me At the first reading of this Book I thought I might safely let it alone and that it needed no answer but when I understood how it was cryed up by that party and how prized by himself and that this perswasion was entered into others not Anabaptists that some things in it were not to be answered and seeing how unlikely it was that any Books new or old would ever be looked after by them to remove this prejudice unlesse some one were brought to their hands from a person known to them and fitted to this Book and Cause in which many things of fact are mixed with the matter of right which no mans Book could answer but mine and which I have understood have and do lie in the way of some though I hope not of many who have had a greater account of my Ministry till this unhappy debate sprang up These things have resolve'd my former doubtfulnesse and produced this Treatise here presented unto you Dr. Tillesly's whole Book against Selden is of this purposely It hath added to my encouragement in this work to see not much time needed in this question to turn over the writings of Ancients they to whom I write valuing them not and that work being done to our hands already by many for their sakes who do value them and our Learned Adversaries of the Divine Right of Tythes acknowledging what is pleaded upon that account not onely out of the monuments of Heathens they are said to have done it astutiâ Diaboli more probable I think what we finde in the famous Law of Edward the Confessor That the withholding of Tythes was Instinctu Diaboli then that the meer paying of Tythes was Some also enquire why the 7th of time among the Heathens should not be as much astutiâ Diaboli Rivet in Gen. 19. as the tenth of goods As for Fathers they are after a cleanly ingenuous manner put with patres excusari possunt c. So then Heathens Fathers are confessedly ours Clem. Alex. Stro. 5. p. 600. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Similia 6 to Strom. 685. we must try out the rest by Scripture only for they that will not be pressed by us with the authority of Fathers will not I hope presse us with the Authority of later Popish Monks the Pontificial Schoolmen who are all in this cause and good reason why against us Had my neighbour spared injurious speeches and not filled his Book with so many unkind calumniations but kept himself close to the question of right I should never have found fault with his omitting the narrative of matters of fact But seeing he hath sprinkled his Book all over with so much of that unsavoury salt I am forced to let you understand thus much that covetousness is a sinne that hath deep roots and is not plucked up many times when we think it is and when it is stubbed up in the main root it will yet leave many small fibra's behind which will often be a springing above ground and require a constant hand watchfully and industriously imployed in plucking them up and it would be more worth my neighbors time now in his old age among other things to enquire curiously into his own heart about this sin rather then spend his approaches to the grave in peevish quarrellings with and revilings of his neighbour who would fain have liv'd at peace with him Did I take any joy in recriminations it were no hard matter to evidence sore suspicions of covetousness in him even in the matter in debate between us I offer to take half the worth of what was in my account due to me for peace sake he offered about half of that which I would have taken and no man but will say he might with as good conscience have offer'd enough as any thing a greater proportion then a tenth freely given would have prevented this suspicion whereas a much less offer'd and onely
to break off the agreement upon the account of the sum to be paid does not I promised upon his intreaty to forbear him if he came in any reasonable time to pay me and I kept my word above three years together He promised to compound with me by the pound rent consenting to my termes offered and broke his promise adding contempt to boot by laying me down twenty shillings for three yeares who had laid me down fourty shillings for one year as he said because he had promised me I dealt with him fairly and openly he dealt deceitfully with me for after he had chosen to compound with me by the yearly rent liking that better as he said then to compound by the Acre for then he might use his Land as he pleased he offer'd to bring me his Lease that I might see what rent he paid whereas it is known there are some pounds reserved of his Rent which are not specified in his Lease I am perswaded this was never done by his Landlord my truly honored friend to abuse the Minister The goods controverted I am ready to make good my claim to by that which determines all mens claims among men to things of this nature the just and righteous Laws of the Land he avoids that tryal even with contempt and rebellion after contempt to the lawful commands of the Supream Magistrate as not having any title at all to them that is pleadable in any Court of England and if the Law of God makes them his I desire to see that Law such an evidence I hope will satisfie Magistrates and me too If he detain them by mans Law let him plead it if by Gods Law let him shew it if by neither P. .9 it plainly appeares he hath no right at all and I should pray him to detain them no longer it is sin I never doubted the lawfulness of receiving Tythes he never denied the payment of them or a composition for them to buy his peace till he had to do with me whence I suppose he alwayes held it lawful so to do neither hath he given us one reason in his Book why his mind is chang'd Add that he saves his goods by a deed of gift to his Sons and ventures his person though a person of that moment to soules as an Elder preaching freely to a Congregation baptized many years What truth there is in this pretence let his own heart judge what honesty there is to convey a mans estate to defraud creditors let others judge but what piety it is for an Elder of a Church the freedome of whose person is of that precious value in the exercise of his Ministry to secure his goods in a contest and venture his person when the debate was about the goods not about the person let the members of his own Congregation judge These are sore suspicions in him of the sin I am so often charged with even in this very business yet I dare not with all this evidence name him so I know these dealings may be referred to other causes of which some are not so bad as coveteousness and some are worse I only should advise him to consider his wayes Neither dare I wholely excuse my self from this sin though I could say much to clear my self in the day of man and I know this mans accusations are without proof I hope grace enabling me to approve my heart to God a greater witness then man I say no more then this he is aged and I though but in the thirty fourth year of my life am weak as being lately pulled back by a powerful hand of God from the very Brink of an Hectick Feaver and still in a constant inclination thither again we had need not accuse one another rashly Rev. 12.10 there is one will shortly accuse us both more vehemently then we can one another and it will be our best wisdom to prepare both of us with all seriousness how to answer his accusations P. 21. But how could this word drop from my neighbours pen that Englands Priests never yet learnt in every condition to be content what not so much as one excepted and never I could tell you neighbour of one the least of ten thousand that professeth in the sight of God that the greatest discontent he doth and hath for a long time gone under is his own and yours and other mens sins and yet not of so vast an estate as may be an eye-sore to stir up the plague of envy in any man P. 18. Oh Neighbour in the fear of God consider what Spirit it is puts you upon judging the hearts of so many alive and dead known and unknown to you many of them such as have been the glory of the Churches of Christ all the world over I say not the Lord rebuke you but I say the Lord give you repentance and make you know that a friendly admonition about the breach of Gods Law is no threatning you neither before in the eighth nor now in the ninth Commandement Let profane wicked ones who will not get out of the danger of the Laws penalty say they are threatned when they are told of a Law of God the Law is not against them that are lead by the Spirit Gal. 5.23 direct them it does but you are an old Disciple other apprehensions become you and a more willing conformity to the mind and will of God I used no sharp words then neither do I now do not put forth your hand to take and keep your Neighbours goods against the lawful owners mind it is against the eighth Commandement do not bear false witness against the hearts of so many multitudes of whom the world was not is not worthy it is against the ninth Commandement God is the Judge he will require it think of it I intreat you as a Father That expression of my resolution to recover my right from him if he and I lived together as he proposes it does savour at least of unadvised passion if not of revenge but he professeth he did not publish it with that intent and I accept of his profession though his repeating it often and especially his leaving out my own explication of my self that it was a resolution grounded upon conscience of my duty that I ought not to lose the Title to so considerable a part of the publick revenew given for the good of souls of which I have only the benefit during my present service in the place which in another place himself sets down leave but small ground of credit to this profession of his Had he now set both together P. 6. I am most resolved to endeavour the recovery of my right if you and I live together and added what followes I say I am most resolved I shall sin if I do not c. it would have took out all suspicion of revengefulness out of the Readers mind concerning me I being necessitated to write so openly he mis-interpreting
my former soft and tender dealing with him to be only a train to draw him into danger and that there was a Snake under the leaf of my former smoother expressions the reasons of my chusing that form of expression was because his age and my weakness made it appear very likely that one of us might be taken out of this life before this debate should be ended considering his obstinacy and my duty Which if it fall out either way the question of right would be taken up by others and the question of the present profit now due would fall to the ground in case he died if the pretended deed of gift be true at least I then thought so and in case of my decease before him I was resolved to leave it free to those I should leave behind me to do as God should direct them and this now I am fallen upon that unpleasing task is one instance of unfaithfulness that his book is guilty of he should not by setting down doubtful words without my explication have rendred me obnoxious to the censure of revengeful from those that do not know me Though he professing to me it was done without any malicious intent upon that account I contradict not but suppose it so as he professes 2. But then when he tells the world in his Preface he hath adventured to answer all my arguments that to his remembrance I ever brought for Tithes will need another confession from him when he never had any from me purposely insisted on but that of lawful Donation yea I professedly waved all other pleas to him it being with me a general rule in this quarrelling age that if I can perswade men to practise their duty upon principles which no man contradicts I will never trouble them with those principles that are and no one thing of all he pretends to reply to for the right of Tithes as mine was mine indeed except that of Donation Here also I find him as becomes a Christian Offender acknowledging his wrong-doing that he answeres other mens reasonings besides mine and that he ought to have to the world as much I add And to have faithfully distinguished mine from other mens 3. In the same Preface he tells us his is but a mite in regard of what others have done in this thing as if the right of Tithes were such a forlorn cause as had none to plead it and multitudes had wrote largely against it who when I question'd with him about it could name but one besides Brownists and Quakers who rage more then they dispute P. 3. 4. I never explained the Law said to be changed Heb. 7.12 by the portion of Tithes the Law or portion of Tithes nay I professed the contrary and it was the only answer which upon conference I gave him when he used that Scripture 5. I never said it was but the Priesthood nothing but the Priesthood is changed the Text tells us that besides and with the Priesthood there is a Law changed in my account the Law of Ceremonial Worship not Tithes The National Teacher said none of those things 6. If the proportion be changed be it so words I never spake nor never shall admit for a change is the substitution of one thing for another removed if then the proportion of Tenth be changed another is set up a ninth eleventh c. which none affirmes P. 4. 7. If Ministers have nothing but what their Flock in their Parish will freely give them they may starve and for this he comes upon me with P. 12. Sir you have said enough and afterwards calls this a strang Carnal reasoning But these words I never said neither can he ever make them good Oh Sir you have said too much false slanderous speeches of your Brother are more strang and Carnal then this reasoning is though I had used it P. 5 6. 8. Is 49 23. brought as alledged by me and a kind of an answer framed to it which Scripture I used not to him whereas 2 Chr. 31.4 5. Neh. 13.9 which I indeed used have no answer at all given them 9. I wonder not you laboured so much the choice of such Parliament Men as have Personages of their own as they call it that helping themselves they might help you P. 8. untrue every word I never laboured much in that business I never heard any commend any Gentleman to the acceptance of the Countrey upon that account I have inquired among my Brethren and none of us knows one Gentleman that hath any Impropriations I have heard of some great Impropriatours cried up on the other side I do freely profess that had I known of such a thing of any of them I should have known great worth in him to ballance that evil or else I should never have given my voice for him I call it an evil and a great one most needful to be reformed King James calls the Act by which they were taken away a Vile Act and yet neither he not his Son take any effectual care to remedy that Vile Act. I hope after all our needless quarrels some at last will find out the way of setting about that most necessary work the buying in of Impropriations 10. Though I said some did affirm c. I never said so P. 9. I have since seen this seemingly said by reverend Authors of a late very useful treatise but it is an oversight to be winked at that Explication of Hebr. 7.12 which makes nothing changed but the Priesthood can never come into the mind of a man in his wits 11. Did you not undertake to prove the affirmative that Ministers maintenance ought to be under the Gospel after the same manner as under the Law from 1 Cor. 9.14 No I did not I have more then once given it him under my hand that I did not wherefore then brought you the examples of Hezekiah Nehemiah not only my Papers once and again but his own reasonings shew him why he had affirmed it must be under the Gospel as it was under the Law 1 Cor. 9.14 but under the Law it was free Abrahams payment to Melchizedec was free Jacobs vow was free c. so it ought to be under the Gospel to which plea of his I denied not his reasoning out of 1 Cor. 9.14 but let him carry it there only denying it to be free under the Law telling him it was unlikely Abraham and Jacob should hit upon that proportion without some signification of Gods pleasure about it for after-times the Law of God and man both are manifest and by the way if Abrahams and Jacobs fact were free yet the Apostle in that place manifestly referring us in the similitude to the times after Moses yea after the building of the Temple when there were certain Laws both of God and man for the payment of Tithes my Neighbours reasoning he used did most certainly cut the throat of his own cause and for the Laws of man
for rescuing our people not only from Popery but even from Hell and they would not build us up by paying any thing to our reliefe I was promised the sight of this Declaration when this was told me by an Agent in it but upon second thoughts it was denied No sess them tax them exact first fruits and tenths from them in utmost rigour eat them up consume them beggar them make them weary of their work by defrauding them of that bread which should feed their families and defray their extraordinary charges But what think you will become of this publick maintenance who shall have it the State or the Landlord or the Tenant I have been answered to this question with they care not what they did with it so we have none of it well and what when all 's done why there is hope that some will joyn with Spill-hils Congregation others with this party others with another every one will pull away something when we are once removed out of the way Think of this ye Rulers and let this Pamphlet and others of the like stamp teach you what services you must doe for these men before you can please them 'T is not Tithes they stick at if that would have serv'd their turn I had been free from molestation this day There is no man payes me the tenth of his increase and much short of that would have contented me from this man This you must doe you must make Lawes against us but none for us that 's the so much pressed example of the Primitive Magistrates you must be Heathens both wayes or they are not contented you must take that from us yea from God Concessimus Deo which you never gave us and of which you are but Feoffees in trust for Gods ends and the soules of men who would not have one of your children left by you Orphans to be serv'd so and when you have taken this away you must give us nothing by way of recompence not so much as stick up a feather for the goose as the proverb is Strip us stark naked and turn us out of all that you may be the abhorring of God and good men for so doing and then these giddy Masters will be pleased with you you may guess how long till they shall think fit to levell other mens proprietie as well as ours and pull down Magistracy after Magistrates have to please them pulled down their own greatest supporting Pillar the Ministry As for me though I fear not so great a perfidiousnesse from our present Rulers yet who knows what devilish Tyrants God may raise up in his wrat Then I doubt not but the Lord will stand by me and streng me and that he will beat down great mountains before me I shall see Errour Divsion and sin fall down before Truth Unity and Holinesse Me thinks I see them tumbling down in Staplehurst already and in this confidence if the Lord hath use of my Vast Estate for his service and the good of soules I hope he will give me grace to lay it down at his feet who gave it all to me what ever it is And I know multitudes of my brethren will subscribe this resolution with me even all that are faithful This one thing I adde that the Apostle never took this carnal way to overthrow either Pagan 2 Cor. 10.4 or Jewish blaspheming Priests by storming at their maintenance and I am assured it will never thrive with them that doe towards us who are neither Jewish nor Pagan I hope not in their account neither Those questions which are to the purpose that have something said to them are some of them lightly passed over yet what is said to them I shall not neglect to answer 1. Concernes requiring maintenance from one that is not of our Parish-Congregation but is separated from it and doth not at all partake of our Ministry It seems Sirs a toleration of you in your sinful separation will not serve your turn without special immunities above other men Let men but take up a dissenting opinion and proclame it to the credit of their singularity telling the world they can hold no union with the contrary-minded and presently all their Land must be Tithe-free Would it not be a desirable thing for Landlords Rents and all other debts to be paid thus Oh how sweet would it be to drink away a Sabbath in a chimney-corner then P. 3. 2 Cor. 8.13 14. But to the Reasons 1 Cor. 9.7 The Planter must drink of his own Vineyard and the Feeder eat of his own Flock Answ Not to trouble you with that brotherly assistance that Churches owe to one another in case of need but this I say that this debt of maintenance takes not its ground from mens actual subjection to the word but from their duty so to doe And the duty once stated not attending on the word is one sin and not maintaiinng the Dispensers of the Word is another sin Never did God provide that men should spare their purses by being prodigal of their soules 2. Suppose your Separation just then indeed there will be no command of God to maintain that Ministry you are duely separated from out of your own goods yet there will lie a command of Gods to make another Separation a Separation of that which is not your own from that which is and to carry no more into your barn then your own goods P. 20. and leave the rest behind you This I hope will satisfie you as to your first Reason To the Second Where it is demanded that I prove a command or one tittle of a command to any Gentile to pay Tithes to such as were not related to them in covenant Answ No need of any such command to be produced A baptized Christian under the Gospel and an uncircumcised Gentile under the Law hold no proportion to them first you then yours is a good order But for you you have been related to the body of this people at least in an implicite covenant when you joyned with others in calling that faithful holy humble Minister of Christ Mr. Bigge to Staplehurst and subscribing toward his maintenance which among other papers I have had the perusal of I have seen and how you walked with this people in way of seeking and enjoying God in publick and in private your self and others can well remember Separation imports a former union you cannot therefore be in the same case as the Philistins and Canaanites c. who would dwell among the people 2. Yet because you promise fair that upon the discovery of such a command you will submit I shall offer you something towards the proof of it I hope you take the whole Land to be a type both that which was subdued and that which was unsubdued and that Tythes were a ceremonial tribute from a ceremonial land would you not reason your self thus You know that no league was to be made with the inhabitants of the Land
his own and not leave behind him those that shall be burdensome to the Church when he is gone So much as will answer all this are Gods bounds not the mind and heart of the gâ—ver Let us now see exactly and curiously all that is said for this monstrous licentious Doctrine I finde some things taken to this purpose out of the Old and some things out of the New Testament Out of the Old Testament we have P. 17 18. Exo. 35.5 21 22 29. 1 Chr. 29.5 1. Examples The people offering willingly for the Tabernacle and for the Temple Answ True we finde free-will offerings here and many times elsewhere even in Sacrifices themselves and we find stinted contributions also under the Old Testament as well must of necessity one juâ—le out the other in the New Testament which stood so friendly together in the Old Or if they cannot agree now one must give ground Let Gods command maintain the field and mans Free-will go off it is but good manners so to do A voluntary act may expire without much ado but a command of Gods not so easily especially when the free-will offerings mentioned were single extraordinary acts once done and no more whereas the Law was for a perpetual standing duty and if a pattern be to be drawn for Ministers maintenance under the Gospel from what was done under the Law it should rather be a standing provision imitating a standing provision rather then what was special and extraordinary Ministers maintenance rather imitating Ministers maintenance then something else Moses preparing for the Tabernacle or David for the Temple I will tell you my Friend what conclusion I should draw from these instances That there is nothing in a free will-offering more Evangelical then in a Stint that having been of use in the Tabernacle in the Temple in Sacrifices too then which nothing more Ceremonial And I will tell you what manner of proof would have been to your purpose could you have made it good that a free will-offering was never used in the Old Testament and a Stint alwayes whereas a free will-offering was alwayes used in the New Testament and a Stint never but if we find both under both administrations it seems the wayes are in themselves indifferent to either 2. 1 Chro. 28.9 Your second Old Testament proof is from Davids Command to Solomon to serve the Lord with a willing mind And the third is like to this Ps 110.3 a Prophesy that Christs people should be a willing people in the day of his power a weighty proof no lesse then six times repeated what 's the conclusion thence it must be this that God hath left his Ministers maintenance undetermined to the free will of them that are taught if any way of concluding this out of these Scriptures it must be thus If God hath left the greater to the free will of men much more the lesse if no Law determining us in serving the Lord nor in submitting to the Rule of Christ then not in maintaining the Ministers we admit the consequence for should men be more under engagements to us then they are to God But we abhorre the Antecedent what God not determine us by his Command in the matter of his own service and of subjection to his Son but leave us in such high things to our own minds and hearts Many Sons of Belial would fain have it so and those men that cast off Scripture guidance and count nothing sin but what they think so have found out a way to perswade themselves it is so But for you Neighbour I do not think you to be so wicked 't is an Hackney reason this in every ignorant mans mouth and you took it up in the High-way without examining it The willingness in these Scriptures hath an opposition to constraint not to a Command Alas that you should not see this Come I know you will rectifie this mistake you will not dispute down all Gods and Christs Laws under pretence of disputing down Tithes I know you will not try now whether any better successe may be hoped for out of New Testament Arguments they are 1. That Command of Christ Math. 10.8 which we are thrice told of Answ I. This Commission of Christ to the Apostles was not intended in all things to be a standing Law to the Church the charge Verse 9.10 was extraordinary the extent of their bounds to which they were confined was a straitned Compass Verse 5.9 and their Commission temporary it being to be with him and that he might send them forth to Preach occasionally in all likelyhood Marc. 3.14 and where himself did intend to come others will tell you this and it will be hard to prove that this freely Verse 8. is not of the same nature as the without Shoes Verse 10. 11. But I give you this answer that the Apostles were to heal the Sick c. freely and that freely was by neither demanding any thing for their Cures wrought nor yet taking any thing had but thus much been permitted them the Apostles might have grown exceeding rich and the miracles would have lost their end becoming a meer trade to get money by t is dayly seen that multitudes of ordinary Physitians grow very rich by taking only without ever demanding any thing of a Patient who often refuse and never ask the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports it and so they had received Christ in the Communicating this power to them neither asked nor took you would not have this a rule for Teaching too if you would Christs own express words at the close of Verse 10. contradict you I hope now you will let this Scripture go the freely is another thing then what you took it to be and does concern another matter 2. The rest of instances to establish your free will offering are from the History of the Acts and the Epistles P. 3. Act. 24.17 2 Cor. 8.1 They were willing to Contribute to Paul say you nay do not thus deceive men that are willing to trust you upon your word the gift was to the Saints and Paul was but a Messenger among others to convey it to them Verse 4. of this speaks also Prov. 11.25 and which Scripture another mentions though you do not Rom. 15.27 it was to the poor Saints at Jerusalem this it seems a debt too and it is well it pleased them to do their duty to all which I say only thus much that Ministers are not the peoples Almes-men and that there is a wide difference between the poor of Churches and the Rulers of Churches That matters of charity should be determined by the discreet tender-heartedness of the giver may be allowed but that matters of strict Justice should be so left at liberty will by no means be hence concluded and though the learned Capel fetch the Ministers maintenance out of these Contributions to the Poor this will hardly be made good by a clear Scripture proof in the
Judas saying thus much I will have as if we may not be Masters of our own courtesies and define how much lesse then a due we will take without being worse then Judas the Priests Boy and the taking by force when a peaceable appeale to them who by God and man are appointed to end strife is only used Judas furnishing his table with what they freely gave not what will you give me should he so for what for selling of Christ all these are Ravings which become not a sober Christian Pen so men write when anger makes them weigh nothing but how they may bite deepest and most vex an Adversary But I am not angry at the indignity of your comparison much lesse shall I requite you railing with railing I tell you truely how I am affected with it I grieve at your sin and pity your inconsiderateness so I end your first reason only requesting you to remember that a Stinted maintenance is acknowledged by you to have been Gods own maintenance and you should take heed how you say that is a snare to coveteousness Second Reason P. 23. Because compulsion should not be an obstruction or hinderance to the Gentiles embracing the Gospel The Gentiles why not the Jews too put them both in the reason is the same but it touches not the cause The question is about a summe Stinted as you terme it not about the Ministers exacting the said summe and compelling the unwilling to pay men must first understand what the unsearchable Riches of Christ are before they be perswaded to part with their riches for Christ by any law general or particular of God or of man this is well expressed by you that Ministers must forbear their own power and lose their own right and all to make the people in love with the ways of Christ and this in challenging free contribution yea and any other maintenance 't is all one a commanded Stint unseasonably required would hinder the Gospel no more then a commanded free Contribution unseasonably required under penalty of damnation Put me in the Apostles case and if I then obey not the Apostles Example let me lye under reproof it were strange this to hear of Master Edgot and Master Preachers to the newly converted Indians that they converted maintenance from those they Preach to what is done for the support of such Ministers must come from other Churches and I hope does to them should I professedly forbear you in order to the making you in love with the wayes of Christ you are turned aside from would not you scorn the motion I did it to you for above three years and to many others to this day yet I see not that you are the nearer to repentance for it Third Reason Because that should be a badge by which Christ will have his Church known even their willingness this with all its proofs is answered already the willingness of Christs Subjects consists not in having no Command but in a free ready obedience to the Command for the other to call that the badge of Christs Subjects is no reason is the very question between us P. 24. Fourth Reason Because it should be a band of love still between Ministers and people it will be hard to prove that a maintenance determined breaks love no though by the Laws of man but of that hereafter and as hard to prove that the maintenance undetermined would remedy all by no means for will not the charging them with their duty in general that the Minister have a portion under the penalty of damnation telling them else they have not that Faith that works by love and that their Faith will not availe to Salvation and this continually urged upâ—n them till they repent anger them that love their money too well aswel as if we Preached yea sued for any maintenance determinately Let this present maintenance be taken away and people left to maintain their Ministers by free Contribution out of the nine parts remaining this being diverted to other publick uses then suppose me but in a low degree covetous and what will they do what contentious questions about what Ministers may live upon what apparrel he his Wife and Children must wear what services his Children must be put to to ease the Church what Servants he must keep in his Family what Diet at his Table what he may lay out upon Books what Portion he may give with a Child what to the Poor A hundred such contentious questions which when they shall come to be scanned by the Church will make as much work for strife as the heart of the Devil can wish For when the matter is brought before the Church what must they do why they are according to God to determine it and according to rule so the reverend and holy Hooker this is not according to the mind and heart of the Giver Survey St. 3. P. 31. no though Church Contribution be a free will-offering in regard it should willingly and with a ready heart be tendred unto God yet neither in the Old Testament P. 37. nor under the New the thing it self nor yet the measure of it was left to a mans own dispose or liberty then according to the heart of God it must be determined and not according to the heart of man but what is that proportion that is according to God and according to the Rule if a tenth the cause is ended if any other we would gladly see it if none how is this like to be determin'd according to God and according to the Rule general bounds are hardly hit at when it comes to particulars in defining either to the Minister his double honour or to the Brother his ability and this will be much more difficult when we consider what the end of this Church proceeding must be to the peremptory Refuser excommunication for refusing this particular proportion defined by the Church but now here defined by God It is safely therefore advised to prevent such a Scandal that it may not come by each mans knowing his proportion what he should do before he do it and it is as safely practised in most of the Churches Boston excepted that when these proportions will not be taken notice of that the Town determines the matter by destraining not the Church by excommunicating and well that too only it would more cut off all contradicting strife to bottome the destraint upon a determination of Gods not of mans it would doubtless if it were so determined in all 〈◊〉 the lesse is left to mens private determinations the more are al doors to strife stop'd all men know their own and all are contented or must be whether they will or no. And indeed that we may close this third Proposition by confronting reason with reason even for a special particular determination and not onely a general one opposite to the mind and heart of the giver It seemes hard to be believed that ever God should now at last
thousands of such empty Kickshawes though perhaps ready to perish for want One suit of apparel made for one of our gaudy gallants might clothe many a Ministers family a twelvemoneth and one of their riotous feasts might feed such a family another twelvemoneth Yea when the portion of many wealthy Citizens children shall be enough to provide honestly for twenty Ministers children yet this man will grudge to give twenty shillings beyond the custome to supply his Ministers present need Alas he hath children of his own to provide for Are these men Christians are they not men that take earth for heaven Wretched world Such a grudging at the Tenth when the first Christians thought not all too much to be laid at the Apostles feet The Lord soften hard hearts it is not my own case I am sensible of I am better provided for then hundreds of Ministers that deserve far better then I neither do I accuse my people I scarce know that Faithful Minister whose people are for the generality more loving to him then mine are to me most of them some few only excepted and I despair not but that love and patience will melt them too deal with me aswel as I desire for I can say it truely through Gods grace I seek not theirs but them 't is the great cryes and pressing of Ministers and people to procure Augmentions hath wrested this from me I am sure that could never be if some did their duty beyond their power or but any thing near to their power And let it not be offensive to any if I said thus much on the other side that those Ministers who have considerable Estates of their own and are not satisfied with this and what their places afford them but by importuning for Augmentations divert that out of their Brethrens Bellies which is intended to supply those that want are likely to account sadly one day for what they gain so uncharitably to leave their Children Rich Did Rich Ministers forbear this pressing in a time of straites indeed not of purses so much as of hearts and Rich people provide honourably for their Ministers above that small pittance which devouring Impropriations in many places leave Ministers to we should then have the crowding lesse at the doors of Commissioners for Augmentations and Counsels of uniting Parishes laid aside rather too great populous Parishes divided or assistance set up in them that especially in great Congregations we may once be restored to the primitive Order of having more Teaching elders then one in a place Do we our duty in this thing and see how long God will suffer us to want men but Pardon begged for this digression I return 6. It is most probable that the proportion answering those general ends defined in the 3. conclusion is ordinarily a tenth and therefore that ordinarily a tenth is commanded still he hath commanded the general Rule he hath given the particular president both these acknowledged and who will not say should we adde no more seeing Gods measure certainly obtains the general end and it being uncertain whether mans will or no that it is fit Gods Example should guide us only the case wherein a larger Provision is visibly necessary excepted A very large step towards our conclusion even from those premises which no man can or does contradict but I stay not here Adde that God hath now here given up his auncient right in the tenth nor exchanged them for any other proportion determined or undetermined determined none asserts and undetermined none can iustify though they do assert it it is in it self unreasonable to say God hath let go the certain and taken up the uncertain you shall give me what you please but so far as pretence are made to set up the free will-offering the third conclusion undertook them so far as pretences are made for the charge of a tenth into any thing else it is this conclusions talke to answer them And here we are brav'd with an high challenge Who dare affirme that the Law of Tithe is not chang'd P. 5. Hebr. 7.12 Well if it be that Scripture which supports this wonderful confidence that challenges thus the whole world we shall follow you from the 5. P. where you but proclame your challenge to the 14. 15. where you endeavour to make it good There I find you buckle to it with all your might and to stirre up our dull sluggish incapacity we are thrice called upon heed it well mind it well observe it well in obedience to direction we are very attentive what shall we hear now I. It is the scope of the Spirit to prove that as certain as Christ is come in the Flesh so certain is he a Priest an High Priest and so certain he changed the Priesthood true all this the change of the Priesthood and Law ceremonial is the Spirits scope we heed it wel II. He bindeth it up with an also we see the word also a Law is changed aswel as the Priesthood and because the Priesthood therefore the Law but that this or a part of this was Tithes though you stoutly tell us so we cannot see neither in words nor sense no though we look over these again and mind it a thousand times over III. But another lift at it and another Heed it well he doth not say if it be but it is changed just so you are in the very right and the change of the Priesthood proves the change of the Law very true you have told us once already and the Apostle told us so before you in expresse words but Tithes we see not O Neighbour you that with this Scripture have so confidently challenged the whole world know very well that I requested you to prove to me that the Law which is said to be changed was the Law of Tithes why have you not done it is the whole body of the ceremonial Law so great a part of Levi's service nothing was it Tithes the Jews and Judas king Gentiles were so Zealous to maintain find we not many other things and find 〈◊〉 that can any man think the Apostle employed in writing against â—ithâ—s all the Epistle over the change of this Law whatever it is is that great designe and yet so strangely to shoot besides the Mark as but this one Verse should be found in all his Epistle to discover such a meaning and in this no word of Tithes neither spoken nor meant yea so immediately after those Verses from which some so strongly they think unaswerably prove the Law of Tithes not changed A man would look for pâ—â—â—h demonstrations against so many prejudices that Tithes are an essential proper Branch of the Law of ceremonies and have made this good by forcible Arguments that could not with a good conscience be gainesaid But behold after so many solemne callings upon to mind it well here 's nothing but the Law is changed therefore the Law of Tithes as if there were no other Law
useful for the Publick even as the day laborers this will be enough to ground a provision for a just subsistence for one as well as for the other if our way of life be such as may be allowed they must see that we may live and not perish in iâ— A very Heathen tolerating the Christian Religion within his Dominions may and ought to tell Christians If you will be of this Religion and have Ministers wholly attending on this very thing to me they are so many droâ—es bring nothing to the hive yet seeing â—o you they are necessary you shall maintain them to you they are Ministers to me they are subjects if you will use them you shall keep them they shall live among you This would be reasonable language honourable and of right to be expected from a very Turk But we have no Histories of any such thing done by Magistrats in the New Testament for the Religion of Christ Admit this yet our cause stands more firmly upon the forementioned pillars of right then it could upon any examples of fact we have the best plea. The Magistrates neglect here was their sin and prayed against by the Church Yet that nothing may be wanting which might be desired in this cause we have Magistrates favourers of the Gospel and the Apostles using them and submitting to them though not Supream ones indeed yet subordinate ones and the consequence from these to them is good à majore if the Rulers of the Synagogues were such God never appointed any such Officer to minister in holy things neither ever did they and scourging the punishment they used is no Church-punishment Luke 4.16 17. Acts 13.15 18.8 Now Christ submits to this power never gainsaying them but when they executed their Office amisse The like we finde the Apostles to have done after him and we may well think that Crispus and other chief Rulers converted to the Faith had no lesse authority in their respective Synagogues then they had before it being no more then what the Kings of Judah had anciently practised and now could not so fully and with that authoritie be practised in Judaea the government now being in the hands of Heathens And in the several Plantations of Jewes it could not possibly be otherwise the power of Kings thus parcell'd and weakened as it wont to be in the declinings of every Government Such there must be if any thing done in these matters at all others playing the careless Gallios and resolving not to be Judges in any such matters And all this may be well allowed without clashing of their Authority of whose warfare the weapons are spiritual We acknowledge more in the Kings of Judah then ever can be proved to have been in the Rulers of the Synagogues and yet no diminution to those powers which Christ hath immediately stated upon the Ministers of his holy things Adde now for a close of all Rev. 17.12 16. that the Magistrates are they that shall haâ—e the whore and make her desolate and naked and this not only as a bloody Whore but as a Whore a Spiritual Fornicator from God every one of them jointly in a most just engagement against her and severally in their respective dominions and he that hath power to punish hath power to protect he who is to pull down Antichrist is to set up Christ if for Christs sake he meanes to pull him down Now why should this Whore say to Kings what have you to do with my Idols Your Commission is but in civil things hardly in them neither a reference to Spirituals may hook them in too leave me to the Lords time t is no wonder she knows they are the persons appointed by God to make her desolate and naked and to eat her flesh and burn her with fire could she perswade them to let her alone with her Adulteries she were safe then But for those who would be thought the onely through enemies of the Whore in the world all having some confederacy with her more or lesse but they who hate her and petition for things purposely as they say that the Whores Flesh may be eaten and she burnt with Fire these men if they mean as they speak deserve to be wondred at indeed O ye Rulers pull down Tithes that Antichristian yoke and impose nothing upon mens consciences in the room of them let every one Worship God in his own way that so you may eat the Whores Flesh and burn her with Fire let her alone that you may destroy her touch her not that you may make her naked the most effectual means to ruine Antichrist this they plot against us with all their wit and malice continually and put their plots in execution unweariedly sparing neither cost nor industry and we are perswaded the best course against them is to let them alone and take their course tamely to give up our throats to be cut by them and this not only a duty from us but the most effectual means to ruine them I shall not wish these mens Daughters may play the Harlots that they may learn by an home experience whether let them alone be the only effectual means to reclame them But such reasonings we must expect from men when they are appointed to destruction Quos Deus vult perdere dementat prius Now my good Friend and Neighbour what is it you have to lay in the Ballance against these many so strongly concluding reasons one would expect nothing lesse then down right New Testament Laws against us who shall read your peremptory conclusion This is the period of all P. 16. the Gospel must be free and kept free from mans power for this is an Ordinance of God An Angel of God let down from Heaven charging mankind to fear God and believe in Christ could speak no otherwise yea and we are threatned too who every one the Protector P. 7. if he find not out the old Romish Laws that have commanded Tithes his sin will find him out who else the whole Nation and Nations It is no wonder that Gods Judgements do impend Nations whose Princes and Teachers hinder this odour the free will-offering Marvailous confidence especially if we adde the magnificent conclusion More of this strain P. 12. as if it were an old Oracle out of Christs own mouth he that hath ears to hear let him hear A man would think nothing lesse then the Denyal of Christ came in the Flesh even the expresse Denyal were threatned thus in these dreadful words but 't is no more then this That Princes may make no Laws to command the people to give the Spiritual Labourer his wages they must do it of their own accord or the Labourer must have nothing and be contented too for they owe him no more then what they please to give him if this be all we are pretty well pacified no great cause for such an out-cry yet if the evidence produced of Gods mind in this thing be
of others that our trust in Christ for our necessary preservation must be in the use of honest means that we may not tempt God if God set Meat before us we must not say when we need it We will not eat it for we will trust God Indeed to leave the Lawful means of our preservation and fly to unlawful means that we may secure our welfare is indeed not to trust God we look for a proof that it is thus in our present case but we find it not here Go on then Would you have Governours to do that which God never commanded them nor us to do P. 4. What the Vs hath to do in this matter where the question is about civil Laws I could not readily find out I will suppose the best sense of it I can imagine your meaning may be thus much Would you have our Governours impose that which God never commanded them to impose nor us to pay Then this begges the question on both sides of Gods command to us to pay we have spoken in the first Sect of Gods command to the Magistrate to see those Laws of his obeyed in this present Ministers maintenance is holy P. 4 6. and Magistrates have power only in civil things Suppose Ministers maintenance determined particularly by God then it is holy as appointed by God and as appointed to God both yet even then would Magistrates have a power though not to make any original Laws to make them de novo due which is done to their hands by the Law of God yet to see Gods Law executed and obeyed and to redresse the neglect of it why not this aswell now as under the Law What reason drawn precisely from the Holiness of the maintenance to the contrary Again suppose Ministers maintenance not determined particularly but only in general then holy it is as generally determined and as separated to God and his service not to be alienated without Gods consent but the particular determination whether by private devotion or by publick Sanction is not holy as such only as it is the execution of a Law in general about maintenance and as it now respects an holy use both which were not in it before the consecration else that would not be arbitrary this then is civil and therefore by force of this Argument belongs to the Magistrate Is 5.4 it not being holy till after the consecration as in the case of Ananias and Saphiras sacrilege it is plain And I would know what reason there is from this Argument against a Magistrates determination which may not be applied to a private Christians aswell the handes of a Christian Magistrate may be as fit to make a civil thing holy as of an Heathen Magistrate yea as of a private Christian for what does Magistracy â—ake men profane who were not so before Show me a reason of this difference why a private Christian by his own Voluntary determination may make a civil thing holy when a Christian Magistrate may not and rest within the bounds of this Argument if you can If then the proportion determinate be not appointed by God then before and in its determination it is civil after its determination alone it becomes holy till then by your own reasoning 't is fit for any hand publick aswel as private to meddle with But what if the principle on which this unconcluding reason is built be unsound also I shall now try the strength of what you bring for the proposition That the Magistrates power is only in civil things therefore it was but in civil things therefore Notes an Argument let 's see now what it is P. 4. Because when Peter and Paul gave this command there was not one Christian King upon Earth they knew not Christ therefore what that the commanded obedience is only in civil things why civil and holy are termes contradistinct not civil and Christian It is knowable without Gospel light that there is a God that this God is to be Worshipped that some persons are to be employed in his Worship as Ministers of his holy things that to these an honourable maintenance is due from those for whose sakes they Minister Heathen Magistrates might be bound to take care of these things though Christ had never been Preached to them and these things are holy too so your conclusion will never be drawn from your premises were they never so faultlesse unlesse you will say that the Magistrate hath nothing to do to see that the name of God himself be not openly and professedly blasphemed if you think so speak out But consider your therefore once again if it be well inferred from the premises it must be thus what the Mgistrates in Peter and Pauls time did not meddle with they have no power to meddle with now but they did not meddle in matters of Christian Religion to establish any Laws for it and its Ministers therefore c. A rare Argument for Papists and Sectaries to glory in let them add too carelesse Gallios Speech 18.15 who professed he would be a Judge of no such matters yea and if they please the riot suffered by him before the very judgement seat Acts 18.15 most worthy Examples for believing Magistrates to take pattern by But meddle they did not belike out of tendernesse of conscience Nero good man was afraid to invade the Churches privileges or to touch Christs Royalty to prepare for his Ministers what an over-sight was this before Gallio and Nero reformed the world in it what meant David to make such provision for the Temple when Pharaoh meddled with no such things when Israel was in Aegypt Davids inspirations about these things were Prophetical but his Sanctions about them were regal nay and Nehemiah too stroke upon the same Rock of errour as all the good kings of Judah had done before him notwithstanding Pharaohs Example for he also ventured to make Laws about the Worship of God when Nebuchadnezzer had done no such thing when the people were in Babylon Much in the same manner was Constantine guilty who durst make Laws for the Church of Christ whâ—ch none of his predecessours ever did Despise the laudable Examples of Pharaoh Nebuchadnezzer Nero an high insolence I assure you pitty we make not Neros commissions exemplary as well as his omissions and so engage Magistrates to persecute Ministers as well as not provide for them Oh how many are the things those men never meddled with not only towards Christ but also towards God and their own subjects which it was their duty to have meddled with It should be such things belonged not their Office therefore they did well in not meddling with them whereas you conclude strangely they meddled not with it therefore it belonged not to their Office We reverence the Examples of holy men of God approved in Scripture but the Examples of Heathen not appoved yea condemned in Scripture as I have already proved abundantly such Examples we desire may not be
given what would you have more the Donation does not confound it self neither does your confused writing nothing to the purpose confound it But we claime it as a free Gift True you told us so P. 10. P. 12. but were sensible it seems of your wild running away from it in that and the next Page so now you will return to it no not now neither 't is a Bears ear he dares nor touch it then I have no right to it Luc. 12.42 Hebr. 13.17 24. 1 Cor. 16.16 1 Tim. 4.11 but as a Rector be it so as a Rector I clame it what is this Doctrine new to you Ministers are Servants 2 Cor. 4.5 but for Jesus sake and they are Rulers too their Rule is Ministerial they have an high merciful end for which they serve and they Rule by directing and commanding to that way which leads by Gods appointment to this end Then I dare trust an old the elder the better Title Popes Donation Popes man their own who were ownes of the Land is it not so in your Plea as your self relate it but three Lines before Then Christs Ordination why we speak now of Free-gift is not that Christs Ordination Now being put from your Divine Plea not by your reasons I assure you but be it so we now speak of Donation I pray tell me what proportion it is but the Free-gift of the Giver you have told the world twice 't is that very thing we speak of did you ever find it a tenth by Christs appointment why You have told men but just now we are put off from our Divine Plea this is to stand and crow over us a while after you have beaten us from that ground with come hither again if you dare you see I have ventured however but pursue your Victory you see we have taken field again upon another ground that of Free-gift I pray be not offended I pray take it in good part now speak to the business honestly and fairly and I will not be offended but this is tiresome though not the first time you have exercised my patience if not by the Law of God again that will you never have done conquerings Nor by the Gift of indulgent Princes we proclame it by the Gift of indulgent Princes and people and your self have told the world as much for us twice already what is it you now answer to but this but by some old Popish Statute I tell you we have done with Statutes now Popish or not Popish t is Free-gift we speak of After Austins coming into England tenths were not required but Free-gift was the only maintenance man t is that you are now pressed with Free-gift and that of Tenths we prove it from about those very times Watch men blind and in those dayes could but read a Homily in those dayes Austins did they read in the Book of Homilies then and what if they did then or since what 's this to Donation Yet now must they rather turn back again as it were into Egypt for onyons and garlick then to feed upon Manna the Lords Free-gift Why 't is that very Manna we plead for the Free-gift you speak of Therefore thus to your Paper For shame you should not have mentioned such a word who have not printed it when you pretend to answer it you might have put it easily into the empty page But what to my Paper It was Christs Prerogative to provide for his house he hath so done and changed his Ministers wages into a Free-gift and not Tithe into a free-gift of Tithe let it passe so now Twice you have told men so that thus we plead and do not you yet know it your self Yet you have not done your wandrings next come exceptions against Lawes Civil for the recovering of Tithes be it a carnal reasoning to say if a Minister may not sue he may starve What 's this to Free-gift A Free-gift may be sued for as in the case of Legacies P. 13. Is it not strange all things considered well you are a very considerate man but what is so strange that ever National Teachers should desert the Church of Rome and yet love the Diana of Tithes so much You that have considered all things tell us but one reason why this should seem strange But 't is a Free-gift we love 't is that we now stand upon your Diana if that word please you so well Rome would not trust Princes with such a thing and truly it seemeth to me that this is that the National Teachers mainely want to be not only Bishops but Lord Bishops No no oh dispute not against that that cause will not now trouble you you have another before you he changed it into a Free-gift the very thing we speak of He left it not to the pleasure of Magistrates then his faithful Ministers should hardly get a Livelyhood yes by Free-will Offerings as well the Magistrate neglecting his duty as if we suppose him to have none at all But we trouble not Magistrates now 't is the Free-gift we speak of Then the lying story a most impudent slander comes in of me and my Predecessor of which before Nothing at all to the Donation for four pages after an Answer to this Plea was undertaken Reader I relate not all this for the considerableness of what is said by him or reply'd by me nor yet to make my self and my Reader sport to refresh us in a debate of seriousness there needs no fool in the play here But this I relate it for that my Neighbour may see how little he hath said to the business against the only foundation I gave him for my Right in Tithes and that the world may see that notwithstanding any strength in his Reasons against my plea we needed not have troubled our selves to print nor others in reading what we have printed But you have done your wandrings and now you come the third time to the business You have played off and on long enough you will fasten now What say you now you have spent four pages in roming about and now you come to it You cut us off at the end of the four with six lines and then easily conclude I hope you will now desist Why the strength of your whole Book should have been bent upon this to overthrow this Donation You know it was my only Plea to you and you confess as much this you could not yield to would venture any thing rather then pay upon this ground And are six lines enough for that which hath so great a stroke in the whole Cause Were I as censoriously addicted as your self I should from these things infer that Faction and Emulation that you may seem stout as well as others hath carried you on in this Cause against your Conscience But I doe not so judge you the Lord help you to judge your self and to be contented to shame your self for your many miscarriages in this matter by an humble
reforming restoring Repentance not only of your Brothers goods but your Brethrens good names more precious to us then our goods For my part I had rather impute this to the craziness of your head then to the malice of your heart But these six lines are full of weight however and strike the matter dead at a stroke See what they are fraught with P. 8. I know no such thing and therein you goe beyond my memory and understanding and I now must take your word for it Your Landlord will expect you should take his word for his Title to the rest and I may as well expect you should take my word for my Title to the Tenth Tenants are not wont to enquire into Titles if no stop according to Law they pay their rent where it is pretended to be due Yet I shall not engage you to take my word you had time enough given you to search into the truth of my Plea What if it be beyond your memory that makes the Title the better in all Law and Reason if possession be held by vertue of that gift all along and why cannot you understand this Is it so hard in other cases as to the poor to Hospitals to Colleges to Schools Can you understand how gifts should be perpetually bequeathed to these and is the like to Ministers only not to be understood Can you understand how a man may by Will passe over his Estate to his children and their posterity for ever and is it not as easie to be understood how he may give gifts to other persons out of those Lands either for a time or for ever what thing more ordinary How hard is man to understand what he would not should be true But you know no such thing Before you withheld your payment you ought to have known the contrary It seems for what you know you have wronged me and as it is certainly none of your so it it may possibly be mine by as good a Right as ever man enjoyed a Legacie for ought you know P. 10. This may be then and if it be you must resign your self hath said it Now what have you done to quiet Conscience in not resigning have you consulted with those Records which might give light about such ancient things Have you enquir'd of one able Lawyer to know the truth of this pretended Right Shew me one among so many friends and adversaries that will give it under his hand that the pretended Donation of Tithes in England is a meer forgery a Constantine's Donation Oh Neighbour surely conscience hath been much asleep if you can withhold a payment due upon the supposition of such a gift by your own confession without so much as once examining whether there were such a gift or no. Is it possible that a tender conscience should not tremble to keep goods in his hands which for ought he knowes belong to another man is or may be sure they belong not to him and that with so much eagerness of contention I hope you are not altogether without such motions of fear I would not have you past feeling But it concerns me to prove such a gift who claim by it By no meanes no owner of Land who hath enjoyed possession by descent for many generations would think it equal to be forced to shew how they came first into the Family No Purchaser of Lands troubles himself with such a question above 60. years uninterrupted possession is enough How many are able to shew how their Estates come to them from 450. History of Tithes c. 10. P. 235. years Even Mr. Selden whose grant is counted most sparing yields us so much for Parochial Tithes and for Tithes paid at large much sooner And must Ministers be put to that which no man else is are we persons uncapable of common Justice the benefit of that which a Turk having possessions here might enjoy are we wilde beasts that may be destroyed any how per fas nefas Surely others will count it enough to justifie a Title long enjoyed against any thing may be alledged by any man to the contrary yea and others will provide they bring their plea within the memory of man otherwise they expect it should not be admitted at all no man being supposed to be so long negligent in his own matters if he be currit lex contra negligentem and there must be an end of strife But so shall not I deal with you do you shew how a Right to the goods questioned hath descended to you by any Lawful meant from any person whosoever the owner of Spillshill farme either within or without the memory of man and if I do not prove mine a better Title I will give over my right Suppose a Landlord altogether unacquainted with the Lawes of the Land cannot at all prove his Title to his goods or land he holds must he therefore forfeit them to him that uses the land who hath no title at all to them Examining old deeds of gift belongs to another profession not to yours and mine How many deeds of gift were never enter'd upon Record how many Records are worn away by the injury of time or consumed by several casualties May we not verily believe that to be true which is verily affirmed by all knowing men friends and enemies and that in a matter of fact without further enquiry I know no man that ever denied that such Donations have been no not those those that prefessedly write against them Me thinks in a business that belongs to another calling it might be a fair Argument to suppose such a thing done when we see things that are not likely to have come to pass otherwise Imagine the thing to be done now if one or two might be gull'd or forced might al men be cheated out of so considerable a part of their estates let it go they know not how or if this generation could be so stupid would the next be in so deep a sleep too so universal a violence upon that which our Forefathers were as tender of as we their estates pass away in silence ages after ages no man among the many thousand covetous persons haters of God his Word and the Ministry of it to this day not opening his mouth to the contrary especially when we finde such tugging about the manner of enjoying these deeds of gift as about wood-land new-broke ground c. They that had courage enough to question the manner would they not much more have questioned the thing if any just cause had been found Lesse matters then this would satisfie me that the thing was done by consent as their own act and deed I know not what will you Yet I shall try a little further Donations are either publick or private we have both if both will serve Of the former you may peruse a Book entitled The Civil Right of Tithes by C.E. sent down to me by the name of Elderfield among which the very first
and most ancient hits our present Case A deed of gift related in that famous Law of Edward the Confessor about Tithing made long before under the first Saxon Christian King Ethelbert Concessa sunt a rege Civill Right P. 62. About the year 600. Baronibus populo they are granted by King Barons and people this you see not by tyrant Kings that thought every foot of land their own but very orderly King his Barons theirs and peoples theirs and this in Kent too and that I hope includes Spillhills Farm What need we now look for private Donations since made they were indeed more truly restitutions of what was sacrilegiously withheld through the calamity of those hard times under the Danish and Norman Invasions The long uncertain fluctuating of Tithes till they setled in a fixed Parochial Right demonstrates the first payments as to any Laws of men were arbitrary a thing can truly be given but once We have the Record for above 1000 years confirmed since restored pleaded used had recovered since to this very day will not this alone constitute a Right Yet Selden in his History of Tithes and â—illesly in his Animadversions upon the History in both C. 8. deinceps give a reasonable number of such instances for private Donations out of several Records and the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had many such transcribed for him out of the Records of the Tower of London as you may see in the Diary of his life set out by Mr Prynne From whence and other places of Record more may be fetched though with some trouble I suppose and charge to him that shall be so scrupulously inquisitive into that which no man almost doubts of but my Neighbour But admit these many arbitrary private Consecrations or restitutither of what was long before consecrated yet Staplehurst and Spillshill Farm will not be included in them as if men were not priviledged here to bestow their own goods if yet they were their own by free consent as well as others were by troops in other places Did others freely elsewhere and were men here forced done it was possession hath been delivered up to the Rectors of Staplehurst by them enjoyed many generations none contradicting who will say though all Records should have perished or nothing ever Recorded at all but that the Consecration here was of the same nature as all elsewhere were free and voluntary yea so far were men from being forced to doe it that they were forced to get leave to do it and to sue that their said free donations might be secured by regal confirmation such need was there thought to be that bounds should be set to mens superaboundant bounty in those times Be not contentious Neighbour pray be not let this satisfie you that such a thing was done it remains now to examine how well it was done This more modest adversaries in this Cause are contented with and why not well done No man can lawfully give away the labours of another that is yet unborn as if it were lawful for men by Will to make slaves of their posterity for ever Pray look back to p. 2. Abraham gave it and Jacob vowed it the free vow of the Parent did binde the children Yet children are not mentioned in either Abrahams gift or Jacobs vow 〈…〉 with us have expressed their will to stand for ever many of them with solemn imprecations against them that should ever alienate what they have so consecrated yet neither of them were owners of much Land all their life-time were not owners of a foot of Land at the time of those Dedications yet they might binde their children to pay Tithe out of what they never gave them As for our Fathers if they binde their children to pay Tithe out of the Land they give them they make their children slaves I suppose without labour no Tithe-corn was true then as well as now I would you would see how your pleading against our Donation confounds it self Well this was a slip in your memory that I say not in your conscience to write any thing as it fits your present turn which will you now part with that Observation or this Argument The Observation is one of the main Sinews in your Book P. 14. Abraham and Jacob gave and vowed it freely then God commanded it justly and gave it to Levi graciously The Free gift going before made the reason of the equity of the command following after which would have no force but upon this supposal that their posteritie was bound by the Free-gift of their Ancestors What you will do here I know not I should advise you to let go rather this Argument for all your confident conclusion upon it I hope you will now desist For pray tell me in seriousness should your Land-lord by a deed of gift pass over to you your heirs all his right and title to Spillshill and the Land about it free from all incumbrances even this of Tithes to the Minister only charging it with a rent-charge of Tithe to the poor of Staplehurst for ever would you cry out upon your Landlord as one that meant to make a slave of you you would think there was you know how much given you by the year for ever and a good penyworth to him that uses it paying him well for his stock and labour upon it besides If the Rent-charge you are bound to should be a 9 or 8. you would count so much less given you as the Rent-charge is increased if he should set the Rent-charge higher then the land is worth so much as when it is paid there will not remain enough to pay the user for his paines then I suppose you would intreat your Landlord to keep his gifts to himself and be contented to be his Tenant still This would not be to make you a slave for here would be no violence if you did not like his gift you might let it alone you know how to apply I hope you will desist your using this Argument any more And here 's all I finde against our Donation where it is purposely spoken to But I shall â—â—ean up out of the whole Book what is to be found to invalidate our plea. The next Exception is against the badness of the principles upon which it is supposed to have been done they indeed amiss iâ— will weaken the acceptance of such things with God but not a good title among men But see what is said P. 6. Acts and Monuments Charter of England Tithing Table of England P. 10. They fetch all their ground for it out of the Mosaical Law of God And again A King on his death-bed did give the tenth of all his Land to the Priests that then were but it was out of a Popish perswasion that they were due by the Law of God and all was Popish then If this be not true surely you have overlashed too much Examine we now the particulars Were all Popish then what
that are not taught are bound to contribute to a Teacher as well as they that are Master Hooker might have observed one case at home in the Preachers to the convert Indians we are all both Englands New and Old their Debtours of an honorable maintenance though they never Teach us They that do common service for all as the Priests at Jerusalem did for the Levites as well as for the rest of the Jews deserve a common provision from all But however to put all out of doubt as there is no such distribution of Offices for the people as a part of the peoples service to be performed by some Officers where the people live and a part by other Officers elsewhere so there is not that distribution of payments but he that is taught communicates to him that Teaches and ordinarily to none else none else being constantly attending to serve him else where Tenth of tenths therefore on all hands are laid aside That I may at once reply to what is offerd by that most reverend man of God against the morality of a tenth this first Plea indeed the opposes Pt. 2. p. 37. Pt. 4. p. 16.42 but the second he is a fast Friend to take a brief answer to his first reason also as what is above is to his second it runs thus this the Gospel way is raised out of all good things the person that is taught hath but those Tithes in the old Testament were out of the seed of the Land fruit of the Trees or of the herd of the Flock Lev. 27.30 31 32. Deut. 14.22 23. the place in Deut. speakes of Tithes for Feasts and Sacrifices but let that passe to the Argument this may be considered of that setting that question aside whether personal Tithes were not due under the Law as well as predial Doctor Burges hath offerd something for it and neither of these Scriptures say any thing against it Gen. 28.22 14.15 Hebr. 7.4 This I say which is clear that Jacobs vow was of all and Abrahams payment was of all and of spoiles personal Tithes by name if the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be duely rendred under the Law Tithes are a right currant the measure of them is not therefore to be taken thence but from the evidences that are before if Moses Law do not mention personal Tithes 't is enough if they do not renounce them their duenesse otherwise is stated already if Abraham and Jacob did what they did by Law of which hereafter Here then is a wonderful agreement between Law and Gospel of all sayes Abraham and Jacob in all good things sayes Paul This with all tender respect to the never dying memory of that blessed man concerning what in this debate his reasons seem to be defective in ERRATA P. 2. lin 24. for also inquired read also will inquire in Marg. 19. r. 14. l. 26. put with r. put off with p. 3. l. 3. offer r. offered p. 8. l. 3. yet see what he prints p. 10. l. 10. shame r. slaunder p. 13. in m. Act. 4.5 r. Am. 4.4 5. Act. 19. r. Act. 29. p. 15. l. 37. streng r. strengthen p. 17. l. antepenult by r. then p. 18. Law Divine Humane Free-gift r. Law Divine Humane Free-gift p. 20. in m. Gen. 32. r. 33. p. 21. l. 12. dele 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 23. l. 4. to be verified a mystery r. to be verified in a mystery l. 31. shut r. set p. 24. l. 16. with r. tenth p. 26. in m. Num. 18. 18. r. 28. Deut. 14.23 26. p. 27. in m. 16. 12. r. 26. 12. 30. how r. now p. 30. l. 12. bring r. being p. 31. li. 27. things read times p. 34. l. 5. I think justly r. I fear so too p. 35. in m. Act. 14.16 r. 17. p. 38. in m. Priest Catech. r. practic Catech. l. 4. a Brasse Farthing r. a broken Brasse Farthing p. 41. in m. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2 Laws r. Law p. 42. l. 32. if r. is p. 46. l. 18. converted r. requited p. 48. l. 31. there r. these p. 49. l. 19. by r. abide p. 51. l. 34. watches r. coaches p. 54. l. 3. charge r. change p. 55. l. ult now r. no. p. 56. in m. Luc. 10.1 10. r. 17. p. 60. l. 5. a fine for his Sons r. the Priests a fine for Tithing r. threatning p. 62. l. 27. this r. thy p. 64. l 26. Is 49.13 r. 23. p. 65. l. 12. but r. you l. 35. after rules adde best p. 66. l. 16. against r. of in m. Mark r. Matth p. 67. in m. Matth. 27. r. 26. p. 69. l. 12. after prayed against by the Church 1 Tim. 2.2 adde this that we find we find also an appeale to them in a case purely of Religion Act. 25.18.19 and this supposes a power in these cases yea Paul himself protests it v. 10. when I ought l. 34. of r. with p. 70. l. 1. why should this Whore say r. why this Whore should say l. penult came r. come p. 75. l. 5. a fine for thus r. this p. 77. l. 18. they their r. he his p. 78. l. 35. mended r. minded p. 84. l. 10. dele therefore p. 85. l. 35. after letting adde out p. 86. l. 27. it r. in l. 30. after was adde not p. 94. l. 15. it was possible re was it possible p. 97. l. 37. this re they p. 100. l. 14. scandals r. sandals l. 38. after sign of adde it p. 101. in m. Ps 60.20 r. 69. 20. p. 102. lin 1. after men adde as well lin 26. mend the re mind his ibid in the hearts read in our hearts