Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	estate_n	heir_n	remainder_n	4,980	5	11.0190	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34082	The right of tythes asserted & proved, from divine institution, primitive practice, voluntary donations, and positive laws with a just vindication of that sacred maintenance from the cavils of Thomas Elwood, in his pretended answer to the friendly conference.	Comber, Thomas, 1645-1699.	1677 (1677)	Wing C5488; ESTC R39378	85,062	252

Statute of 32 H. 8. there is mention made of an Estate of Inheritance or Freehold in Tythes And in the Countess of Oxford's Case 5 Jacob. a Writ of Dower was brought of Predial Tythes Cook 2 part in Priddle and Nappers Case (e) See Hughs's Abridgment tit Dismes §. 1. num 9. But Tenure in Dower is one kind of Free-hold as was shewed before It appears therefore that Tythes may be sued for at Law in the same manner as other Free-holds may and therefore our Laws do esteem them no other than a Freehold And it is a miserable shift of the baffled Quaker to pretend they are onely a Free-hold to the Laity and not to the Clergie since it is evident that when some of the Tythes were alienated those very Laws which made the Alienation did not give the Laity any other Estate in Tythes than such as the Clergie had before and such as the rest of the Clergie had then to the Tythes remaining in Ecclesiastical hands And though the Clergie have a better Right to Tythes in foro Coeli yet in foro Soli they have not a less Right to them than the Laity now have by the Laws of this Land Nor hath a Lay-man who is an Impropriator any more better or other ways to recover his Tythes than the Clergie have So that either the Quaker must grant the Law makes them both Freeholds or neither of them since the same Laws and Method of Prosecution are concerned in the Security of both these sorts of Free-holds We may see therefore what rare Effects Ignorance and Confidence can produce since they can inspire a raw Quaker to give his Opinion contrary to the most famous Oracles of the Law and to fancy he can confute the whole Bench of Judges by his empty Falacies I will onely tell this puisne Man of Law That if he can prove Tythes to be no Free-hold he will discharge thereby the Clergie from divers Publick Burdens which they lie under as other Free-holders do from which they have far more reason to be exempted than the Quakers have from paying Tythes yet they quietly submit to the payment of these Impositions for their Free-hold in Tythes neither do they call these Customs by the odious Names of Oppression and foul Abuses by which it may be seen whether are the patienter Men of the two the Priests or the Quakers and which are the better Subjects and juster Persons those who submit to the Laws and Customs of their Country and give unto all their Dues or those who revile the Laws and detain Mens Rights from them But Ne sutor ultra crepidam I must not imitate T. E's Extravagances while I do reprove them nor dare I say any thing in the Profession of other Men but with all due submission to such as are better learned in our Laws than I can pretend to be to whom I shall freely confess my Errors if I have said any thing on this Subject that they shall not approve for Law and Reason § 35. The Quaker p. 334. thinks to overthrow these Laws and Statutes by repeating his old baffled Falshoods viz. That they were grounded on this false Supposition That Tythes were due to God and Holy Church But we have proved this was a true Supposition and maintained by the Primitive Orthodox Fathers so that nothing is more false than his saying again here This was a Doctrine purely Popish and hatch'd at Rome And since these Statutes were grounded on a Primitive and a Protestant Doctrine the Statutes are therefore good Again He saith pag. 335. A Man cannot claim that by a Temporal Law as a Temporal Right which that Law commands to be paid as a Divine Right Whereas all the World knows two Titles to the same thing being subordinate to one another do strengthen each other As a Father having a Maintenance reserved out of the Profits of his Sons Estate mentioned in those Deeds which settle the said Estate on the Son though he had a Right to be maintained by his Son Jure Divino may claim a Maintenance by vertue of these Deeds Jure Humano and the second Title strengthens but doth not destroy the first He goes on to ask pag. 336. Whether the Property be vested in the Person of the Priest or the Office I reply An Office is capable of being vested in a Property and the present Person who sustains that Office hath this Property vested in him during his Life with Remainder to his Successors for ever As the Elwoods Family may be endowed with an Estate in Tail the Property of which belongs to that Family and is specially vested in the present Heir but whether in the Man or the Elwood is hard to tell Again He makes himself sure of that which none but a wild Quaker could ever so much as once suppose viz. To be sure saith he the Office of Priesthood was Popish and the Office it self being now laid aside the Property vested in it must be gone along with it He must be under some degree of Frensie who can persuade himself that there are no Priests now or that the Reformation laid the Office aside That had been a Reformation as wild as a Quaker could project Doth he think that any body will grant these doting Falshoods No Protestants that ever I knew held the Office of Priesthood to be Popish And truly T. E. thy Suppositions will not be granted by any but those who are as sensless as thy self § 36. I should tire the Reader if I followed him in the examining all his Mistakes but one piece of his Skill in Law must not be omitted p. 337. That whereas the Law hath ordered the Husbandman to set out his own Tythes before the Priest take them This shews saith T. E. That the Priests Title to Tythes lies in the Gift of the Owner And yet he confesses That the Law enjoyns him to set it out under a Penalty which Penalty he incurs if he do not so set it out It is an odd kind of Property which we have to a thing that we may not keep in our possession and a strange Gift which we must give whether we will or no and be punished if we do not give it T. E. might as well have argued The Husbandman had a Property in his Tythe-Hay and Corn because he must mowe and reap it whenas all these Moweing Making Reaping Binding c. are onely designed by the Law to ease the Ministers of Secular trouble that they may have their Tythes made ready to their Hands and so have more leisure to attend Sacred things But we will give him a parallel Case There are many Free-Rents and Customary Payments which the Person charged with them must bring to such a House in such a Town at such a Day and then and there disseise himself of the said Money by a Tender thereof to the Lord or his Assigns which Lord need never demand this Money and yet may take the Forfeiture if

God intended them And since the first Donors did not settle them on the Popish Clergy and the present Laws have given them to the Protestant Clergy I know not what Title the Popish Priests can justly have to them And now one would think T. E. were some great Enemy to the Popish Priests and one that was concerned for the Protestant Religion but he and his Quakers are renounced by all sound Protestants and are the very Darlings of the great Agents for Rome Their Doctrine of Perfection despising the Letter of Scripture pleading for Ignorance relying on the Merit of following the Light within them c. are Popery in disguise they learn their Lesson from the Papists and are doing their work for them while they dig up the very Foundations of the Protestant Religion and set Protestants one against another since this is the way to give Rome an easie Victory So that though T. E. use the Name of Popish Priests to gull the People yet he is one of their Journey-men and with his Party are the most desperate Foes of the Protestant Interest next to their Popish Masters who set them on And truly he deserves a Fee from the Popish Priests for pleading so earnestly that the Tythes are due to them but since like the rest of his Arguings it proceeds upon a mistake it will do us no harm Proceed we therefore to his Charge against us § 33. However he will by no means allow the Protestant Clergie have any Right to them since pag. 329. The Clergie now do nothing for the People nor indeed have nothing to do which can deserve such compensation The Quaker-Speakers have nothing to do indeed for their People because they are all taught of God immediately but our People profess they need outward and mediate teaching so that we have enough to do and certainly we do as much for the People as ever was done by any Clergie in the World We pray for them preach to them administer the Sacraments duely among them we Marry and Bury we visit the Sick relieve the Poor comfort the Sad reprove Sinners confute Hereticks and shew the folly of Elwoods c. We do all that the Laws of God of the Church or of the Land require of us and as Foreign Protestants have said are generally as laborious a Clergie as ever was in any Age since the Settlement of Christianity being always ready to perform any Divine Office which our People need or require And if a Quaker say All this is nothing at all or worth nothing to him I reply That the Jewel was worth a great deal in it self which yet Aesop's Cock counted worth nothing and preferred a Barley-corn before it And Divine Administrations are not less worth in themselves because such Cocks prefer a Tythe-sheaf before them all § 34. To revile those things which are established by Law is to reproch the Law it self and accuse as well the Makers as the Executors of that Law wherefore T. E. in calling Tythes a great Oppression and a foul Abuse pag. 331. insinuates to his seditious Followers That our Laws are Oppression and our Law-makers Oppressors and Abusers of the People And to make it still more evident that he is one of those Hereticks which S. Peter and S. Jude prophesie of he that is not afraid to despise Dominions and speak evil of Dignities in the very next words shews he speaks evil of the things he understands not 2 Pet. ii 10 12. Jude ver 8. 10. For being ignorant under what Notion our Laws do establish Tythes he asks ibid. What Laws are they that have made Tythes a Free-hold Methinks if he doth not know the sense of our Laws and Lawyers in this Point he is scarce fit to dipute this matter but the Lawyers must consider he is an Inspirado and knows all things by immediate Teaching and therefore thinks his Revelations will enable him to expound the Laws of Man as well as the Laws of God so that he is a Councellor as well as a Divine Yet alas this unlucky way of Teaching cannot secure him from gross mistakes for pag. 333. he saith The Statute of 27 Hen. 8. is the first Parliament-Law for Payment of Tythes whereas the very first Law in the Statute-Book is a Grant for the Churches enjoying her Rights inviolable which Law was repeated and confirmed in very many Parliaments after as the Statute-Book declareth Again He saith That Law of 27 Hen. 8. was made by a Popish King and Parliament whenas that very Statute declares the King Supreme Head of the Church of England as T. E. may see if he read it over And how they can be Papists that have renounced the Popes Authority I cannot well understand Again pag. 333 334. he mistakes a Statute made in 32 H. 8. cap. 7. for a Statute made in 37 H. 8. and after a while he brings in Protestant King Edward VI. for a Popish Confirmer of Tythes But still he knows not that our Laws do make Tythes a Free-hold Wherefore I shall first tell him what a Free-hold is in the sense of our Law and then I shall examine whether Tythes be not such an Estate A Free-hold according to the Definition of our famous and ancient Lawyer Britton is a Possession of the Soil or Services issuing out of the Soil which a Free-man holdeth in Fee to him and his Heirs or at least for term of his Life (c) Brit. c. 33. Cowel's Interpr verb. Free-hold Exposition of Law-Terms saith the same Now Tythes are a Possession of a Service issuing out of the Soil which a Free man holdeth for term of his life Ergo Tythes are a Free-hold Again Another later Author saith Frank-tenement or Free-hold is an Estate that a Man hath in Lands or Tenements or other Profits to be taken in Fee-simple Tayl for Term of his own Life or for Term of anothers Life in Dower or by the Courtesie of England and under that there is no Free-hold for he that hath an Estate for Years or holdeth at will hath no Free-hold of those Estates (d) Sheph. Grand Abridgm tit Frank ten §. 1. Now Tythes are an Estate that a Man hath in certain Profits issuing out of the Land to to be taken for term of his own life and are not an Estate holden for years nor at will Ergo They are a Free-hold Besides I shall prove § 40. That they are an Ecclesiastical Inheritance collateral to the Estate of the Land out of which they come See also Shepheard's Abridgment tit Tythes pag. 99. 100. Now an Inheritance is generally taken for a Free-hold And that the Practice of our Laws do manifest the same thing may be seen in that famous Case in Dyer fol. 83. n. 77. of 7 Edw. 6. where upon the Statute of 32 H. 8. c. 7. an Assise was brought De libero tenemento de quadam portione deeimarum of a Free-hold for a certain portion of Tythes And in the very