concurrence with Dr. Hacket in admitting the alienation of any thing settled by Divine Right upon the Church to be Sacrilege but nothing else It was far from him to grant that all which Cathedral men enjoyed was theirs by Divine Right or to admit that it was Sacrilege to aliene any other thing that was theirs not by Divine Right He intended no more in that Answer than what he had long before published in a Preface to a little Tract of Personal Tithes where he thus expresseth himself To that Tenet viz. that Tithes are due jure divino I subscribe affirmatively ex animo But with Cautions 1. Tithes I say not ought else are due by Divine Right to Ministers of the Gospel 2. I never was nor I think ever shall be of that opinion that all Tithes within such or such a Circuit of ground now by positive Law made but one Parish are absolutely and without all exception due by Divine Right to the person of one single Incumbent there but to the Church in whose Name he receiveth them Had he granted more he had deviated from the truth And could it be proved by an hundred witnesses that he fully concurred with Dr. Hacket in this point and that sundry who then heard him so understood him yet this cannot make Sacrilege to be in the true nature of it of larger extent then it is indeed and therefore if he did so speak he must and doth renounce it as an errour But is it not said Numb 16. after Korah and his associates were so dreadfully destroyed for making using Censers to burn incense withall that God commanded Moses to speak to Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest that he take up the Censers out of the burning and scatter thou the fire yonder for they are hallowed The Censers of these sinners against their own souls let them make them broad plates for a covering of the Altar for they offered them before the Lord therefore they are hallowed vers 37 38. Out of which text many things may be observed viz. First that men may offer some things before the Lord and to him which he hath not commanded Secondly that such things so offered are hallowed how wicked soever they be that offer them Thirdly that upon such offering and hallowing of them they may not be imployed to any use but what is holy and sacred Fourthly that therefore to imploy them otherwise is Sacrilege This carries in it a shew at least of greater weight than all that is urged by most of those that would make Sacrilege as wide as the Canonists and School-men do But it is yet capable of an Answer sufficient to satisfie impartial men For 1. What here is first observed from that text is denyed because the text holds out no such thing For albeit Korah and his company sinned greatly in taking on them to oppose Moses and Aaron yet their Offering of Incense at that time was not without some command for Moses thus spake unto them before they attempted any such matter This do take you Censers Korah and all his company and put fire therein and put incense in them before the Lord to morrow vers 6 7. And as if this were not enough he doubleth the same injunction vers 16 17. whereupon it is said vers 18. And they took every man his Censer and put fire in them and laid incense thereon and stood in the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation with Moses and Aaron This Moses enjoyned not as approving what they were to do but as bringing them to the tryal whether they had not sinned very hainously against God in charging Moses and Aaron with taking too much upon them upon pretence that all the congregation were every one of them holy that is as fit as Aaron to do that service which he did before the Lord. They therefore were to offer incense Aaron also should offer too and then the Lord by the issue would shew who were his and who was holy and would cause him whom be chose to come neer to him as approving of him and his service and rejecting and punishing the rest who were but usurpers Therefore there was a command for that act at that time for that end Again these Censers were not of Korah's own making or dedicating but belonged to the Tabernacle For it cannot be imagined they could be made in such a sudden and in such a seditious hurry for they were to use them the very next day after the command given which was not to make but to take every man his Censer There were many Censers belonging to the Altar The sons of Aaron Nadab and Abibu took either of them his Censer when they offered strange fire Soloman when he built the Temple and made many Vessels and Instruments amoug them he made Censers of pure gold which before were of brass how many is not certain but in probability for every Priest one This may appear by the abuse of 70 of them at once by the antients of Israel which were all Priests and by Jaazaniab the chief Priest who is supposed to be the Ring-leader of the rest Therefore every Priest had his Censer to offer in when his turn came about So that these Censers were not Vessels offered to the Lord by Korah and the rest of those Conspirators as a free-will Offering without a command but made and hallowed by Moses for the use of the Altar according to the patern shewed to him in the Mount Therefore that Collection that men may offer and God accept some things not commanded hath no sooting here 2. The next inference from the same text that such things so offered are hallowed how wicked soever the Offerers be will also now fall to the ground For if those Censers were of Gods own appointment then it follows not that they were hallowed upon the account of a free-Offering without a command Those Censers were hallowed before that time wherein they thus mutined so the text vers 38. They offered them before the Lord therefore they are hallowed All the Priests offered incense in their turns which they could not do without their Censers Here then is no argument to make good the second Observation or Collection from the text in hand That which misled that great Tostaius herein was the Addition of the vulgar Latine Translation at the end of vers 37. where it is said the Censers were hallowed in mortibus peccatorum in the death of those sinners which Addition is a gross corruption of the Text. 3. As to the third viz. that which is once offered and thereby hallowed may not be imployed to common but onely to holy uses will be more proper for the next Chapter therefore it shall be but briefly touched here We must distinguish both of things offered and of their hallowing thereupon 1. Some things are offered voluntarily some by command some are offered to be made use of in
was of old to the Levites And as God then forbad the sale of those Lands while that Priesthood lasted so it will accordingly follow that Parochial Glebes are not to be sold from the Church so long as they be imployed for maintenance of such Ministers as truely and faithfully preach Christ to the people of those places where such Lands are given For the very Churches to which they are annexed were built by men of Quality and Piety for the good of the Souls of the living And those Glebes were bestowed for the encouragement of such godly Pastors as there officiated and ministred the bread of life to the people so far as the Founders of those Churches Donations and Endowments were able to judge and to endow the Churches which they built If since Sacrilege hath been committed by aliening or applying some of those Glebes to private uses the Popes were first in this sin and led the way For they first appropriated 3845 of the fattest and largest Benefices in England either to their Italian Harpies or other their Creatures of whom nothing could be sure but that they would feed themselves and starve the peoples Souls Afterwards they gave them to those Augaean stables of Templars and Monks in the heighth of Popery who never took care of the Churches of Christ but to pamper their own bellies like Epicures and to maintain the pomp and state of Atheists under the name and habit of the Church And since the times that Bishops Deans and Chapters c. were possessed of such Appropriations they grew worse than their predecessours in Leasing out some for many scores of years and passing away other for ever And whereas those that first enjoyed them were to make competent allowance to the Minister that officiated so do not these but rather starve him They then of all others have least cause or colour to blame the late Parliament for aliening or selling of those Glebes to supply the necessities of the State occasioned by themselves which Glebes it were to be wished might be redeemed again and restored for the maintenance of such able and faithful Mainisters in those places as look more at the Work than the Wages which is now if God give a blessing in a good way to be done But that which is most insisted upon and which bears most shew of voluntary donations of Lands to the Priests in the Old Testament which may be called sacred or holy to the Lord and may not be afterwards aliened or redeemed is that in Levit. 27. 10. If a man shall sanctifie unto the Lord a part of a field c. which sanctifying was say some a voluntary act not commanded yet allowed and accepted of God else he would never have put the case so often nor have given so many directions in it as there he doth Therefore they conclude voluntary offerings or gifts of Lands to the Church without command or warrant from God makes them to be sacred and holy to the Lord and gives him a propriety in them not to be revoked or aliened To understand this aright take notice that divers distinctions are made in that Chapter all which must be heeded 1. The Lord distinguisheth of fields said to be consecrated to him For the fields are either fields of a mans possession vers 16. that is his inheritance which he may retain for ever or fields which he hath bought which are not of his Hereditary possession vers 22. The first he might sanctifie of by vow give unto God yet so that he had his liberty to redeem it according to the value not of the Land it self but of the seed and profits adding a fifth part to it which done he might as safely take it back and use it as if he had never consecrated it But. if he did not before the year of Jubilee redeem it but let it go out in the Jubilee that is let it lie unredeemed till that year came about he might neither then nor at all redeem it that field was to be holy to the Lord as a field devoted the possession that is the inheritance thereof should be the Priests vers 21. so was it also in case it could be proved that he that had sanctified it to the Lord instead of redeeming would underhand sell it to another man that sale was void and at the next Jubilee the inheritance thereof was vested in the Priests vers 20 21. 2. The Lord distinguisheth between redeeming and buying or selling Redeeming is the act of him that vowed the field of his own possession buying is the purchasing of the field of another for years not for ever because all Lands bought were to return to the first Owner at the Jubilee vers 23 24. so also is the selling of Lands which could not be for longer time than the next Jubilee Now if the Owner who vowed a field would not redeem it any other might buy it of the Priests and they not only might but ought to sell it to him saith Abulensis for so many years as lasted to the Jubilee but no longer After such a man had bought it he might sanctifie it to the Lord for so much time as he had in it but the Inheritance was to be in the Priest So if he had bought a field not before consecrated or vowed to God he might sanctifie that till the next Jubilee after which it was to revert to the first Owner that sold it vers 22 23 24. 3. The Lord distinguisheth between a thing sanctified and a thing devoted The sactifying of it is the first vowing or giving it to God notwithstanding which Act he might lawfully redeem and enjoy it as fully to his own use as ever he did before the sanctifying of it provided he do it in time that is before the next Jubilee The devoting of it to the Lord is a constant setling of it upon God for the Priests without power of revocation or redemption after once the first Jubilee is over if before it were not redeemed upon pain of Gods Curse so vers 21. The field to wit which is sanctified and not redeemed before the Jubilee when it goeth out in the jubilee shall be holy unto the Lord as a field DEVOTED the possession thereof shall be the Priests as before was alleaged in reference to the first distinction Thus also vers 28. No devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord c. shall be sold or redeemed every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. To the same effect Tostatus To apply this to the matter in hand First it is clear that no Land sanctified to the Lord whether it were Land of Inheritance or bought for a time did settle such a propriety in God that it was not lawful to redeem it for ever or to buy it for a time and convert it to any private use before the next Jubilee therefore this is of it self no argument to prove the giving Lands to Cathedrals
not do without force Nor need this seem strange Doctrine if we consider either first the Canon-Law whence the whole troop of Declaimers against such Sacrilege fetch their Arguments or secondly the practise of Bishops c. in this Kingdome or thirdly the Judgement of the Pope himself declared to Queen Mary touching those Lands which had been aliened from the Church by her Father and Brother 1. The Canon-law hath sundry strict restraints upon Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Persons not to give exchange or sell and aliene the revenues of the Church Yet withal in one of the strictest of those Canons beginning thus Sine exceptione it is allowed to be done by a Bishop if for the profit of the Church and with advice and consent of his whole Clergy without which they make such giving exchanging or selling to be Sacrilege Hence many not taking notice of the Exceptions run away with the former part as if it were Sacrilege simply and absolutely though for the profit of the Church and with consent as that famous Martin de Aspilcueta Dr. of Navarre sheweth Therefore he distinguisheth of Ecclesiastical Goods of which some are more solemnly consecrated with a special Benediction and serve immediately for Divine Worship These cannot be profaned that is converted to common use no not by the Pope himself while they continue in the form in and use for which they were consecrated Other goods are consecrated by a sole Donation and disposal of them for the sustentation and maintaining either of men or things imployed in and about Divine Worship without such a solemn Benediction These last may be alienated even by inferiour Prelates as saith he not onely moveables but immoveables dayly are so often as upon just cause and with due solemnity venduntur laicis vel aliàs commutantur cum eis they be sold to or exchanged with Laymen referring to the Canon last mentioned But whitherto tends this To shew that in the judgement even of those from whom our sharpest Censurers draw most of their water to drive their Mill all alienation of Church-lands is not Sacrilege upon this simple account that they are voluntarily consecrated and given by men as holy to God or Christ for if any thing may in the judgement of the parties interessed in the profit be gained by it it is no Sacrilege nor Sin but lawful and dayly practised by the greatest sticklers against what they please to call Sacrilege Yea hence may be inferred further that whether the alienation be advantageous or not to the Church it is no Sacrilege for if such dedication and consecration or hallowing of a thing afterwards stollen purloyned or aliened makes such stealth sale or purchase to be Sacrilege as all seem to confess then the profit by and consent to such a sale cannot extenuate or take off the sinfulness of it Therefore however the alienating thereof to disadvantage and without consent be an injury if not done by lawful authority yet it can be no Sacrilege unless men wilifreely acknowledge that they do indeed judge such sales by their own damage not by the Dedications of the Lands unto God 2. If it be considered what the Bishops have counselled and joyned in with the King Lords and Commons in Parliament it will appear that the aliening of such Lands is in their judgements no Sacrilege Witness 1. the Acts of Parliament formerly mentioned made and enacted with consent of the Lords Spiritual as they were called In one of which before cited they make all Lands given to the Church without Licence to be forfeited and to be seized by the chief Lord or the King unless they procure a License or sell away those Lands within a short time therein prefixed limited which could not be if it were Sacrilege after they be dedicated and hallowed to sell or aliene them This shews plainly that it was not lawful to receive or enjoy such lands without licence but lawful enough to sell them if any such they had therefore no sin but a lawful Act to buy purchase them for common uses although in their language given to God by men and so no Sacrilege And 2. in 1.2 Phil. Mariae The Bishops themselves then in Parliament yea as well as the rest of the Lords and Commons prayed all the Clergy then in Convocation Confirmation of all sales and alienations of Church-lands as well of Bishopricks as of Monasteries c. before that time made as appears by that very Act of Confirmation it self cap. 8. To which may be added that Bishops Lands especially were as before is shewed declared in open Parliament the Bishops being present to be given to maintain their State and Magnificence as Lords with special reference to State-employments For thus saith the Statute was this Church founded in the State of Prelacy for that the Kings were wont to have the greatest part of their Counsel for the safeguard of the Realm when they had need of the said Prelates and Clerks so advanced All which Civil Employment in State-affairs for which they were advanced so high is wholly taken off by special Act of Parliament with the Royal Assent Yea their very Functions and Offices as to all Jurisdiction are by the same King and Parliament pluckt up the roots 17. Car. I. cap. II. Their Lands then must needs Eschete and revert to the Commonwealth the proper Heirs of the first Founders and Donors being dead many ages agone and their memory perished from off the earth and therefore now as lawfully sold as heretofore in the case of Mortmain Lands not by licence received might be seised and alienated by the chief Lord of the Fee or by the King and converted to what uses they pleased Of which before 3. If we look into the judgement and resolution of the Pope himself in this case we shall find that he durst not to damn those of the Laity of the last age as guilty of Sacrilege that were possessed of Church-lands after the dissolutions made by Hen. 8. and his Son Edward the sixth For Queen Mary one of the Popes great Zealots after she was possessed of the English Crown desired the resolution of the Pope whether she were not bound in Conscience to do her utmost that those Revenues might be restored to the Church To this the Pope returned an answer in writing 2º Mariae the Original whereof saith Dr. Hackwel was among other remarkable remembrances of that time preserved in the Office of the Kings Papers to let her know that there was no cause for restoring those Lands to the Church again and giveth sundry reasons of that his resolution which will ask some time to transcribe Howbeit because this is not vulgarly known yet of use I shall as Dr. Haclwel hath led the way set down the Popes own words first in Latine and afterwards in English that it may appear that there is not in the judgment of the Pope himself any Sacrilege in the alienation
to be such a consecration as it should be in no wise lawful to recal redeem or imploy them to any secular use again Yet this is the main thing for which this Scripture is so much urged 2. Although that Text implies some voluntary Dedications of some Lands to the Lord for the benefit of his Priests that did him and the people real and constant service either at the Altar or in teaching the Law yet this is no Warrant for the Donation or continuation of Lands to idle c. Lords over the people of God and such as can never make it out that ever they were truly called of God to those pretended Offices and Dignities for which they claim such large Revenues 3. Albeit some fields might sometimes be given to the Lord and his Priests enjoy the benefit of them yet He appointed upon what terms they should be given and continued but no such matter for Lands given to Cathedrals They being many of them given to the dishonour of God and Christ as afterwards shall appear which God hath no where given order for their converting to a better use nor given any rules about them Nor were those Lands consecrated to the Lord under the Law the hundreth part of what Cathedralifts have by wiles not voluntary Donations heaped up to consume upon their lusts Which boundless grasping of Lands by Bishops Monks Deans and Chapters c. laying not only field to field but Mannour to Mannour to the impoverishing of particular families and the Commonwealth too upon the account of the Church and Gods acceptance thereof as sacred hath ever been so far from being accounted lawful that even an Archbishop himself having deserted the Romish Church hath proclaimed it Sacrilegium rapinam injustissimam direct Sacrilege and most wicked robbery This saith he is not to enable men to labour in the Gospel but to supply them with fewel for Riot and Excess and to pervert what was given for the benefit of the Church and for necessary provisions to the shame scandal and ruine of the Church it is not to take off but to multiply impediments of saving souls 4. Those consecrations of Lands were to be no longer in the Priesthood than their Priesthood continued Afterwards it was lawful for any to buy them as well as any other Lands Therefore if that instance be of force to prove the lawfulness of giving such Lands it must be of like weight to prove the lawfulness of aliening those Lands when the authority and jurisdiction and by consequence the Offices of all Cathedral men are wholly determined and taken away by Act of Parliament 5. Albeit those Priests might have such Lands given them yet Tastatus largely and strongly makes it out that it was not lawful for the Priests to keep them in their possession but must sell them at every Jubilee even after they were devoted to the Lord by leaving them to the Lord till the Jubilee For first he urgeth that place in Numb 18. forbidding them Lands among their brethren 2. He saith they were confined to those Cities and Suburbs which by Gods Order were set out for them by the other Tribes Numb 35. so that it was unlawful for them to have either Lands or Houses in any other places or place whatsoever 3. He urgeth the great inconvenience of keeping any such Lands in their own possession because it would much distract and hinder them in the execution of their Offices Therefore if even such Lands did fall to them they were not to keep them but presently to value them and if he that sanctified them would not redeem them they must sell them to some others And even when at the year of Jubilee the Lands came to be theirs they must instantly sell them and put them into money and so from Jubilee to Jubilee Now what is this to the holding of Cathedral Lands wherein they who plead for them use all arguments and means first to get then to keep them for ever whereas on the contrary God allowed not his Priests to use Arts to get them much less to keep them but to use all means to get them off again until they who consecrated them had neglected the redeeming of them and none else would buy them and so they came devoted not by their first consecration but by neglect of the people who first gave them unto God nor will those sharp Masters take notice of the difference between sanctifying that is vowing or giving of Lands unto God and the devoting of them which last makes them most holy to the Lord uncapable of redeeming or of being sold yet not in the nature of the thing but as having slipt the time limited by God for redeeming or selling of them If any think as one doth that the setting out of the holy portion of Land about the Sanctuary shewed to Ezekiel in a Vision as a Prophesie of the spiritual state of the Churches of Christ under the Gospel is both a Warrant and Command to set out Lands for Cathedralists to be holy to the Lord for ever under the New Testament this can be no other but a manifest perverting of the sense and mind of God throughout that Vision For although it be on all hands agreed that from the 40th Chapter of Ezekiel to the end of that book the main scope is to decipher and describe the flourishing estate of the Church under the Gospel yet it was never affirmed by any Author that the Temple there intended and Gods command for setting out so many 1000 reeds of Land for the Temple and the Priests are to be understood positively and properly according to the Grammatical Construction of the Words as if God meant to erect another new material Temple at Hierusalem or in Judea and to revive and establish the same Levitical Offerings and Sacrifices formerly offered by Aaron and his sons to be again offered by Zadok and others of Aarons Order But that all is spoken in a figure and to be understood of the spiritual endowments of the Church better than with all the Lands in the World Howbeit this is set forth under Legal expressions and by way of allusion to the material Temple of Solomon as being the most lively and most taking instance or resemblance that was then known or could be found in the whole World to illustrate and set forth to life the far more glorious estate and spiritual privileges and provisions of the Evangelical Church the New Hierusalem which should so far exceed in glory that in Judea as the Heavenly Hierusalem doth the earthly and as the spiritual Temples of the living God do exceed that of Solomon Wherefore to draw an Argument thence for the consecrating of Lands in a proper sense for the maintenance and state of Bishops and other Cathedral-men is not only to proclaim the weakness of him that doth it but to publish to the world that there is no firme ground in Scripture as
draw them on to such Donations Yea sozealously bent were the Prelates of those times to augment the Churches Patrimony that by a Provincial Constitution made by Richard Withershead alias Wctherhead Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Hen. 3. it was forbidden to all Physicians to administer any Physick to any Patient be his extremity and danger never so great under pain of suspension ab ingressu Ecclesae till the Patient were shrived by a Priest The pretence was to visit and physick his Soul first But the meaning was to get a collop out of his Estate to some Church Chappel or Monastery to increase their own Revenues Upon which the Priest absolved him but not before And this was that which occasioned the multiplying of Chaunteries Obiits c. and afterwards the abrogating of them in the reign of Edw. 6. to whom they were given by Parliament I. Edw. 6. 14. Nor were the Kings and Parliaments especially after King John so hood-winkt or cowed as not to see and take notice of and provide against those excessive gifts of Lands to the Church that is to the Clergy whereby they greatly robbed the Commonwealth and ruined many particular families Therefore the same Henry the third when he first granted the Great Charter and therein confirmed the Right and Liberties which doth not necessarily if at all import Lands of holy Church as that Idolized Crew was then termed did in the same Charter enact That it should not be lawful from thenceforth to any to give his Lands to any Religious house and to take the same again to hold of the same house Nor shall it be lawful to any house of Religion to take the Lands of any and to Lease the same to him of whom he received it And that if any from thenceforth gave his Lands to any religious houses and thereupon be convict the gift shall be utterly void and the land accrew to the Lord of the fee. Here then was a Law against voluntary gifts of Lands and a liberty granted to others to recover them back notwithstanding their pretended giving them unto God whereby it appears that some sorts of giving and accepting and receiving Lands for the Church is not a duty but a fault which deserves punishment not a reward Next after Hen. 3. succeeded his son Edw. I. who in the 25th of his reign confirmed the Great Charter and in it the clause or Chapter last mentioned But before he did that even in the seventh of his reign he made a strict Law against Mortmain by advice of the Prelates as well as others to make all gifts and purchases of Lands without special License from the King to be null and void and the Lands to be forfeited to the chief Lord if he took the advantage within one year and an half or else to the King in case the chief Lord neglected the time therein appointed and limitted It is true that Edward 3. a popular Prince at the importunity of the Clergy of whom he was necessitated to make much use in his wars did somewhat mitigate the rigour of former Statutes of Mortmain who in case of breach thereof enacted that instead of forfeitures parties offending should onely pay a Fine Howbeit in 15 Rich. 2. that Statute De Religiosis 7. Edw. I. was not onely revived and set on foot again but made to extend to all Lands privately given for Church-yards or Glebes of Vicars c. or to Guilds Fraternities and Corporations without special License from the King And that if any before this last Statute had bought procured or received such Lands without License they should either procure his License or sell those Lands away for other uses by the next Michaelmas following else the Lands to be forfeited and seisure to be made of them as in the aforesaid Statute of 7. Edw. I. de Religiosis was provided This indeed was the main quarrel which Thomas A undel then Archbishop of Canterbury had against that King for which he conspired with Henry of Bullingbrook afterwards Henry 4. to depose and ruine him By all which it is manifest that neither Kings nor Parliament no not Bishops themselves in Parliament ever took all Lands given to Churches upon mens private devotions and liberality to be sacred or holy to the Lord and thereby to become his propriety or so much as lawful for the Church to hold them without special License from the King and other chief Lord or Lords of the see Yea these Acts of Parliament declare plainly that such voluntary giving of Lands was in it self against Law For there being required a special License for legitimating thereof it is manifest that the thing could not be done without dispensing with the Laws made against it The unlawfulness whereof is declared to be that the King and Kingdom was thereby defrauded of such taxes and payments when the Lands once were in Mortmain or a dead hand to wit the Church as formerly had been raised out of them for defence of the Realm and the chief Lords of the Fee were deprived of their chiefRents Services Reliefs Fines of Alienation Eschetes c. which being an apparent wrong to all occasioned the making of those Laws against that lawless Liberty And yet our Advocates for Church-Lands will needs contend that every thing voluntarily given to Holy Church be it for what use it will Superstitious or not must needs by that very Donation instantly become so sacred that it may by no means be alienated and that God accepts it for his own although given contrary to the Laws of those men to whose Ordinances even to every one of them not contrary to Gods we are commanded to submit for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him c. Thus we see what in truth the Title of the Lands of Bishops and other Cathedral men in England was whence derived upon what grounds and in what manner procued and enjoyed which sufficiently argues them even in construction of Scripture as well as of humane Laws to be far from being sacred or Holy to the Lord so as upon any account whatsoever to intitle him unto them CHAP. III. It is neither Sacrilege nor other sin to aliene or purchase such Lands to any common use especially since the Statutes of 17. Car. I. cap. II. and cap. 28. THis is evident from the premises and is here added by way of Antithesis to obviate those Two confident Assertions of the Letter Answerer before mentioned viz. That to invade those things given to the Church be they moveable or immoveable is expresly the sin of Sacrilege And That this sin is not onely against Gods positive Law but plainly against his Moral Law To charge a man with Sacrilege is the highest accusation for the greatest crime next to the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost for it is ranged with Idolatry it self Rom. 2.22 yea
in the judgement of some quoted by this Answerers Second and Repetitioner it is a worse sin a sin that is not onely a breach of the Positive written Law but against the Law of nature also The very Heathens have made it death and such a death as is due to a Parricide or murderer of his father This goes very high indeed The evidence to prove it had need therefore to be very clear full impregnable and manifest by express Scripture not by strained consequences drawn thence by wit or by the authority or suffrage of men as thinking to make good by number of voyces what cannot be made out by strength of Scripture This were no better then the banishing of Aristides from Athens by the Law of Ostracismon as being very likely to be guilty of Tyranny which in stead of proving they made good by the Votes of 6000 Citizens Now it will concern these Accusers to make out their charge upon pain of incurring the same punishment which is due to a Sacrilegist If any man unjustly accuse another the Lord once made a Law touching False witness bearing against ones neighbour which was this The judges were to make diligent inquisition and if the witness were a false witness and bad testified falsly against his brother then should they do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother no eye might pity him but life should go for life eye for eye tooth for tooth band for band foot for foot It is well for these bold Censurers that this Judicial obtains not in England Yet let them know that the Equity of it is perpetual and the Justice of God will without repentance finde them out To prove this to be expresly Sacrilege one of them tells you a fair tale out of the Schools and Casuists Aquinas c. which is all the Argument he brings unless the Etymology of the word and Nebucbadnezzar's abusing the holy Vessels and the burning of the Temple but out of an express text of Scripture declaring and dooming the Buyers of Cathedral Lands expresly to be Sacrilege 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem not one syllable And can there be such a sin unless he produce some Scripture that forbids and condemns it Is notthis to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Accuser of the Brothren Nor are proofs of the other as to this point any better but Quotations of such Scriptures of which none do mention lands but he seeks by Circumlocutions Interrogations confident Assertions to fasten such a sense upon them sometime contrary to always incongruous and aliene from the genuine sense of them As by occasion hath been in great partalready demonstrated and further may be in this or the next Chapter In his other Proposition he affirms that this aliening of such lands is against the Positive and Moral Law of God because all Nations even Pagans hold Sacrilege for a sin and for his better grace he voucheth but cites not the place whereby it might be examined Lactantius to prove that in all Religions God ever avenged this sin But doth he tell us out of Lactantius or Scripture that selling or buying Cathedral Lands is that sin Yes he voucheth Mal. 3. 8. Will a man rob God yet ye have robbed me But wherein Here he is silent for it makes not for his purpose but rather against him What was it indeed God himself tells them not in Lands but in Tythes and Offerings And this is granted him And what gets he by it but the countenance of some Scripture-words against the sense But that notwithstanding all objected or alleaged to sell or buy such Lands because once voluntarily dedicated to God is no Sacrilege appears thus First by that very Scripture Levit. 27. alleaged to the contrary if rightly understood For if it were lawful to make a singular vow of a person a beast an bouse or some part of the field of his possessions and after such sanctifying of it to the Lord to redeem or buy it back again for common uses then the bare Dedication giving or consecrating of a thing unto God doth not eo ipso make the redeeming selling or buying thereof for any use to be Sacrilege unless where God himself hath expresly forbidden such redemption sale or purchase But in divers cases and particularly in the cases of Houses and Lands God allowed a redemption and sale so as the buying of them back for private uses after the sanctifying of them to the Lord were done within the time allotted by God for the doing of it as hath been before more largely opened Therefore to sell or buy Cathedral Lands is no Sacrilege nor any way sinful in the case before propounded because once dedicated to God It is true that where God hath laid an express prohibition against redeeming or buying it is Sacrilege to redeem or buy As for example Ifa man voluntarily offer a beast which God hath allowed for Sacrifice he may not redeem buy or exchange it no not for a better vers 10. no more may he redeem or buy nor so much as sanctifie the firstlings of beasts whether ox or sheep because that is so the Lords that a man cannot make of that a free-will offering vers 26. but if it be any other beast he may redeem it and employ it to what use he pleaseth vers 11 12 13. and vers 27. So in sanctifying an bouse to be holy to the Lord it might be redeemed for private use without sin yea with Gods allowance vers 14 15. And the like allowance was given for redeeming of fields and lands so sanctified also vers 16 17 18 19. therefore no sin or Sacrilege to buy it for common use onely in two cases it was not lawful 1. If he redeemed it not before the Jubilee as was before noted 2. If he had sold it unto another man vers 20. If either of these were the case then it was holy to the Lord as a field DEVOTED that is with Anathema or a Curse denounced by God This God after repeateth with some enlargements vers 28. to let us see that nothing devoted under his curse might be bought or sold. Howbeit all things confecrated are not so devoted Nothing could be devoted but in the cases above mentioned and this was done by God himself not by the men that gave it For the fields were not to be given with an Anathema denounced by the Donors But this was added by God long after the Lands were out of their possession and not redeemed And had the Donors first given it with a curse they had made themselves for ever uncapable of redeeming it before the Jubilee which God himself not onely allowed but in a manner required them to do that so there might not be an utter alienation of it from the Tribe and Family to which it belonged by Divine lo against which God made a Law Num. 36.7 If it be now objected But Church-Lands were given with a curse
his Nephew or Bastard to be a Prebend of Lincoln as the Pope had commanded finding him unfit to preach but tells the Pope to his head Post peccatum Luciferi c. there is not cannot be a sin so repugnant to the Doctrine of the Apostles and holy Scriptures nor to Christ himself more hateful and abominable than to set over his flock ignorant or idol Shepherds to kill and destroy the Souls of Christs sheep by defrauding them of the Pastoral Office and Ministry And as our late Bishops grew not onely negligent in the proper and chief work of the Ministry I mean Preacbing here and there one or two black Swans excepted so did they as much overlash and become eccentrick in the other extreme by being too far engaged in Civils And if at any time they were excluded the Parliament or not honoured in it to their mindes both Parliament and King and all should hear of it on both ears For so had their Predecessors done before One of their zealous sticklers remembers them out of Mr. Selden that at a Parliament at Northhampton under Hen. 2. the Bishops thus challenged their Peerage of the Lords temporal Non sedemus hic Episcopi sed Barones Nos Barones Vos Barones Pares hic fumus We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons We are Barons and You are Barons here we are Peers or equal with you And so saith the same Author did John Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury as he remembreth having fallen into the displeasure of King Edward 3. and being denied entrance into the House of Peers made his protest that he was Primus Par regni the first or chief Peer of the Realm and therefore not to be excluded c. But if for this high perking their Lordships together with all jurisdiction be as it is legally taken from them and they refuse or neglect the chiefpart of their Office namely Preaching they may thank themselves if the double Honour of maintenance be withdrawn also 2. It is objected further That admitting they were justly ejected yet so many direful curses have been denounced against all such as should aliene sell purchase or imploy those Lands to other uses that it may justly make any man afraid to meddle with them To this a short answer may sussice Where God bids curse as in Deut. 27. there is cause to fear cursing But here it will be replied Grant this and I warrant you we shall reach you Doth not one of those curses run thus Cursed be he that removeth his Neighbours Land-mark and all the people shall say Amen Here God and man joyn together in cursing him that shall remove but a Land-mark how heavy then will the curse be upon him that removeth or taketh away the Land it self To this it is answered that the Lord speaks of Land set out by himself by Divine Lot and so he never set out any to the Levites themselves as he did to the other Tribes much less to Bishops whom he never so endowed of which so much hath been said before as no more shall be added here To return therefore If an Elijah an Elisha a David a Peter acted by Gods Spirit shall denounce a curse yea if a Darius an Heathen shall curse all Kings people that destroy Gods own Temple at Hierusalem while God was pleased to place his Name there wo to such as fall under it All that were so cursed became accordingly the people of Gods curse because such curses shall surely take effect God himself owns them and will accomplish them But as the bird by wandring and the swallow by flying escape the Nets and Snares set by the Fowler to take them so the causeless curse shall not come That Providence that preserveth the Sparrow from falling to the ground till God will have it fall let the Fowler do what he can doth likewise so over-rule a causeless curse that it shall never reach him against whom it is denounced Yea God blesseth the more where wicked men belch out most curses Let them then be afraid of such curses who finde a warrant from God for such cursing The curses that these men seek to fright us withal are like that of Goliah who cursed David by his Gods yet was slain by David notwithstanding his cursing A cursed people is ever a cursing generation and a cursing generation is ever an accursed people or children of the curse Who set them on work or gave them warrant to curse Even he who set on Sbimei to curse David not God as David feared but the Devil by his Imp Ahitophel as David afterwards plainly discovered that 109th Psalm being chiefly bent against Ahitophel of whose cursing we never read but that by the mouth of Shimei when David was in greatest distress and Ahitophel his chief Counsellour joyned to Absalom now Davids enemy David nevertheless fared not the worse for their cursing because his Prayer to God was Let them curse but bless thou and in the issue the Lord requited good for that cursing For however in Davids time Shimei felt not the curse yet it came home to him with a witness under Solomon And as for Ahitophel as he loved cursing so it came unto him As he cloathed himself with cursing like as with a Garment which covereth him so it came into his bowels like water and like oyl into his bones c. witness his hanging of himself almost immediately after And verily those busie Cursers among the Prelacy have drawn the effect of their cursing upon themselves and their successors even upon the Bishops and the rest of the Cathedral Prelacy many hundred years after those first Anathemists mouths were so full of cursing and bitterness Let therefore such as now again please themselves in frighting others with those curses beware they meet not with some further share thereof themselves and that the tail of that storm light not upon their heads who now so groundlesly apply them to their Brethren it being no other so used but an Engine of Antichrist forged in Hell But the most generally taking Objection is this Be it that Bishops be justly cashiered their-lands forfeited and justly taken from them by the Parliament yet generally all sound Divines hold that those lands although at first superfluously or superstitiously given being once given and dedicated to God may not be aliened sold or diverted to any secular or private use but continued for the maintenance of the true worship of God and for their better encouragement who are employed in the Ministry or for some other publick use This Objection taking with many of note and eminency in the Church is thought to be unanswerable yet is it capable of a satisfactory answer to prudent and impartial men For 1. This opinion is not founded on any Scripture but upon that commonly received Maxime transferr'd from hand to hand without due examination which