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
of God as the worshipping of Idols themselves Yea God doth so abominate such things that he forbad his people so much as to enquire after the Gods of the Nations how those Nations worshipped their Gods Now then Sacrilege being committed in retaining what is accursed as well as in perverting what is by God accepted and sanctified for his worship and service it can be no less than Sacrilege to introduce or continue any thing in his service which himself hath not appointed and therefore forbidden They therefore that are for adoration of the Host or of material Altars for Christians bowing towards the East for the use of Copes brought in by Antichrist into the Church or of any other Popish or superstitious Rites and Ceremonies in the service of God never appointed by Christ or his Apostles and therefore accursed as Will-worship being a Prophanation of the Divine Majesty may do well to consider and lay it to heart whether they lie not under the guilt of that great sin and whether God hath not justly yet mercifully punished them with casting them out of their places and dispossessing them of their Church-Revenues for using yea preaching up the lawfulness of those accursed Trinkets and persecuting all such as bore testimony against them If any shall plead that what God hath accursed belongs to formal Idols and Idolatry and reacheth not to any thing brought in as relating to the true God 't is a meer evasion and delusion For the Golden Calf made by Aaron to go before the Israelites was not intended either by them or him to be an Idol or false god such as the Nations worshipped but onely to be a visible representation of Jehovah to go before them in stead of Moses whom they now apprehended through his long absence in the Mount to have forsaken them For even the Feast which they hereupon held is called a Feast unto Jehovah in their purpose and intention and though they called the Calf Elohim Gods as the true God is often stiled yet not with intent to multiply Gods or to deviate from the true if they might be permitted to give the sense of their own action which God would not suffer therefore Nehemiah expressing their meaning renders the same speech of theirs in the singular number This is thy God that brought thee out of Egypt c. Neh. 9. 18. Yet even this in Gods account was a worshipping of a molten Image and the changing their glory into the similitude of an Ox that eateth grass for which the Lord would have destroyed them utterly bad not Moses stood in the gap And yet for the same offence Moses himself gave order for the killing of about 3000 men in one day and the Lord otherwise plagued the people that remained because THEY had made the Calf which Aaron made It is then no good Plea to excuse from Sacrilege that what is done is intended to the true God and not to Heathen Idols For when men make an Idol of God it cannot but be an high provocation of the Divine Majesty and a contempt of his Law To such therefore who so do may that of Paul whether spoken by him to Jews or Gentiles be most aptly applyed Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou Sacrilege It is not thy protestations against Idolatry or Popery that will excuse thee so long as thou borrowest from either what God hath forbidden because he hath not prescribed in his worship If Moses must see that he make every thing according to the pattern shewed him in the Mount who art thou that shalt presume to follow the pattern of thine own brain or the traditions of men 3. Coroll Those Magistrates who are not as careful to destroy accursed things that is all humane inventions in the worship of God do thereby suffer God to be profaned and so are as guilty of Sacrilege as those that aliene or give way to the aliening of what is truely the Lords It is recorded to the honour of the Religious Kings of Judah that they destroyed all such things as in their days provoked the Lord. For so had the Lord commanded to all Israel when they should enter Canaan not onely to drive out the Natives for their Idolatry but to destroy all their Pictures and all their molten Images and quite pluck down all their high places Hence it is that Hezekiah removed the high places and brake the images and cut down the groves and brake in pieces also the brazen Serpent it self that Moses had made when he found that the Children of Israel did burn incense unto it He not onely destroyed the inventions of men in reference to Idols but even the institution of God himself when abused by men to the dishonour of God And how zealous Josiab was also in prosecuting the same work may be seen at large in 2 King 23. from the fourth verse to the 21. On the contrary it is noted as a great blot even to those Kings who had done much for God that the high places were not removed this is laid to the charge of Asa Jehishaphat and Amaziah Which is worth their notice who laboured so much to hold up the late King against the aliening of Church-Lands but never endeavoured to divert him from but rather infused into him strong conceits of the great usefulness and holiness of many humane Inventions and Superstitions in the Worship of God and to put him above all that had gone before him since Queen Mary upon the compelling of all others to practise the same as if it had been a great duty in him whereas David a man after Gods own heart hated all those that held of superstitious vanties and after died in peace But these making Formalities and Superstitious Ceremonies taken from Popery the All of their Devotions and taking their Lesson out of Adam de Contzen the Jesuite for retroducing the very body of Popery notwithstanding the Laws against it ruined themselves and the King CHAP. II. The Lands of Bishops and other Cathedral men as such were never owned or accepted as holy to the Lord nor were either his or theirs by Divine Right THe chief and indeed onely Argument by which many endeavour to prove it to be Sacrilege to sell or purchase Cathedral Lands is this that those Lands were given voluntarily by men unto God and the Church and are accepted and owned by him as holy to the Lord therefore they commit Sacrilege who sell or buy them for private uses as being against not onely Gods positive but Moral Law If this be not onely denied to be true but proved out of the holy Scripture to be false the whole Controversie will soon be at an end In order whereunto take notice that there is not onely no command but no direction or allowance in the Scriptures of the Old or New Testament for the endowing the Church with such lands but rather enough against it therefore
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
therefore if now they refuse to preach Was not King James his authority abused to tolerate sports upon the Lords Day to which purpose a Book was compiled by a Bishop now nameless because dead to justifie that Profanation and all Ministers commanded to publish it to make them thereby to eat their own Preaching And did not the succeeding Bishops in King Charles I. his reign move and procure the reviving of that Book causing it by his Authority to be reprinted with a stricter command for the publishing of it Yea some of them would needs have those sports acted in their own sight and rewarded the grace-less Actors Afterwards strict enquiries were made in their Visitations whether every Minister had read and published it to their Congregations in their several Churches as was then enjoyned and such as had not done it were either punished or severely threatned with Suspension Some of them also can tell by whose means preaching was prohibited in the afternoons of the Lords Days and the Minister in room thereof was to ask the Children a few Questions if he would in the common Catechism but if he expounded them this was interpreted to be preaching and an affront to Authority Why but because such Expositions held the people too long from their sports Not content with this it was the great industry and contrivance of some of them yet alive to put down all Lectures on week-days also For effecting whereof an Order was procured from his late Majesty that whosoever would preach a Lecture on the week-day he must first read the Book of Common-Prayer in his Surplice and Hood of his Degree although he then preached not in his own Church but elsewhere casually at the request of a friend and not none have been brought into the High Commission-court and there canonically admonished for refusing so to do Moreover how were conformable Ministers how able pious and peaceable soever scorned and jeered as Praters not Preachers for their often preaching Was it not piacular for any Animalculum praedicabile or Preaching Cox-comb as Dr. L. stiled Bishop Usher himself for his frequent preaching that is for any saithful Minister to preach twice a day which by another Bishop was in scgff therefore likened to Virgils Cow that bis venit ad mulctram came twice a day to the Pail And as for the Bishops own preaching especially at last after Archbishop Land designed to re-gain all those places and offices of Trust Power Judicature in the Commonwealth which the Popish Bishops in former ages held it became an unpardonable offence to mind them publickly at least of their duty in preaching which many of them had laid aside as too mean for their greatness or at least as a thing unnecessary and inconsistent with their more weighty Affairs as they pleased to call those avocations For this Dr. Burges preaching a Sermon in Latine to the London-Ministers in Alphage Church neer Sion College by appointment of the Governours thereof was brought into the High Commission-court and threatned with both Deprivation and Degradation beside fine and imprisonment The main quarrel was his over-pressing as it was then interpreted of all to diligence in preaching And among other Arguments his urging what had been antiently required even of Bishops themselves For after minding them of the Third part of the H mily against the peril of ldolatry wherein it is said of the Primitive Bishops That they were preaching Bishops more often seen in Pulpits than in Princes Palaces more often occupied in his Legacy who said Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel than in the Ambassages of Princes herecited an old Canon of the sixth general Council in Trulle with Zonaras his Note upon it which Canon enjoyned Bishops to preach often at least every Lords Day or to be Canononically admonished whereupon if they reformed not it was further ordained that they should be excommunicated or deposed Hereupon Articles were exhibited against him chiefly for that he seemed to tax and accuse divers Prelates and Reverend Bishops of this Kingdom for neglecting to preach often and for alleging to that purpose that the autient bishops were frequent and diligent Preachers quoting an old Canon that every Bishop should preach every Sunday and if negligent herein he should be admonished upon which if he reformed not he was to be excommunicated or deposed without considering their many and weighty Affairs Whether he were not a Bishop yet living that in scorn calleth Christs Ordinance of Preaching that most adored piece of Gods service which he intimate thereby to be idolized by all that press use or frequent it himself can best tell But be he who he will God will one day make him know what now he pretends to be ignorant of That preaching is the chief work of a Bishop and that this is the chiefreason why he is to receive Double honour Yea his own great witness Calvin in the same Book quoted by that Concic-Mastix will tell him thus much Nemo ex Christi praescripto Episcopi aut Pastoris nomen vendicare sibi potest qui gregem suum non pascat verbo Domini No man by the prescript of Christ can challenge to himself the name of a Bishop or Pastor who feedeth not his flock with the Word of the Lord. What need many words was Timothy a Bishop had not he charge to govern Yet Paul conjureth this Bishop to preach I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom Preach the word be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exho t with all long suffering and Doctrine But perhaps Timothy was a young man and so might better do it ours are old and so unable to persorm it why then not discharged as well as the Levites at fifty years of age Answ. St. Paul was an old man too even Paul the aged yet saith he of himself A necessity is laid upon me yea wo is unto me if I preach not the Gospel even when he had the care of more Churches upon him as an Apostle than all our Bishops set together And as for the Levites their service required more bodily strength in killing and laying upon the Altar and there burning so many fat bullocks every day beside other duties of bearing the Ark c. none of which is laid upon our Bishops who if they have been good Stewards are well stored with an old stock and can bring forth out of their Trcasury things both new and old as becomes wise Scribes instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven with much more ease gravity authority than when younger men Therefore the case of the Levites and theirs is not alike That good old Robert Grosthead sometimes Bishop of Lincoln in the days of Henry 3. was far from such opinion when in a Letter to Pope Innocent 4. he not only refused to admit
it is no Sacrilege to sell or buy them To make this out take notice of these Propositions 1. Under the Law in the Old Testament God was so far from commanding owning or accepting of lands to be given to the Priests or Levites especially to Aaron the chief Priest excepting a definite number of Cities for the habitations of the Levites that were to be spread over the whole Land of Canaan and the parts without Jordan and a set quantity of Pasture for their Cattle that he absolutely forbad them to have any inheritance among their brethren And this was to be a Statute for ever throughout their generations The reason was given before unto Aaron in behalf of himself and the rest of the Levites to whom God thus I am thy part and thine inheritance among the Children of Israel That is his portion in Tythes and Offerings due from Israel unto God should be theirs For of those to wit Tythes he there expresly speaketh and upon that ground denieth them a portion in Lands I have given them namely Tythes to the Levites to inherit therefore I have said unto them Among the Children of Israel they shall have no inheritance Should not he then blush who so confidently affirmeth that to say God in the New Testament accepteth of money and not of lands is so contrary to all reason c. so contrary to what God himself has expressed in the Old Testament and no where recalled in the New that he that can quiet his conscience with such conceits as these may be doubts not attain to the discovery of some Quirks which in his conceit may palliate either murders or adulteries For admit God should in the Old Testament accept of some Lands upon such and such Terms as in Leviticus or elsewhere yet then God expresly giveth all Rules about the nature of the Land and of the redeeming or not redeeming it to be consecrated to him will this prove his acceptance of Lands in the New Testament of any kind quantity or quality by any man given upon any other account whatsoever until a Cathedral man shall say Hold your hands Levi was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel therefore as considerable a part as any other Nevertheless God was so careful to prevent their claim to Lands among their brethren by Divine Lot that when the rest of Israel were numbred in order to their several Lots in Land God expresly forbad Moses to number the Tribe of Levi or to take the sum of them and commanded him to appoint them over the Tabernacle of Testimony c. Whereby is more then implyed that the Office of Priesthood especially of the High-Priests who were always in person to attend the Tabernacle was then a bar to their inheriting of lands proportionable to their Brethren The inferiour Priests and Levites from thirty to the fiftieth year of their age were in their courses according to their three great families of Gershom Kohath and Merari put upon the most toylsome work in and about the Tabernacle of the Congregation But being numerous in all 8580. they did not could not all attend the Altar at once but onely in their turns Therefore were they to be dispersed all Israel over to instruct the people in the law of God save onely when their several and respective courses came about to serve at the Tabernacle Which being so there was a necessity of preparing habitations for them in all the Tribes and some ground for their Cattle which they were to use as well for travelling thence to the Tabernacle when their turns came as for their own Domestick Occasions Upon this ground God had Moses to command the Children of Israel to give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession Cities to dwell in and suburbs for the Cities round about for their Cattle Goods and Beasts Numb 35. 1 2 3. But of these none were appointed to the High Priest who was always resident about the Tabernacle His house no doubt was also allotted to him His portion and the portions of such as served at the Altar in person consisted in Offerings and in the second Tythes that is in the Tenth of the Tythes gathered by all the Levites which Tenths they were to pay to Aaron and the rest that Waited at the Altar before they might share the rest among themselves or partake of it in common It is true that the Levites had forty eight Cities in all set out unto them and some Lands but God first gave the Word for the giving of them and also limited both the number of Cities among which were six Cities of Refuge and the quantity of the ground that the Israelites should give unto them The several names of the Cities and how and where situated are set down in the 21th of Joshua Their Suburbs were also bounded by a set number of Cubits Nor might the Israelites give nor the Levites accept one Cubit more Nor were they lords or sole proprietors or inhabitants of those Cities Others dwelt therein and shared also in the residue of the Lands adjacent as well as they onely care was to be taken that in every of those Cities so many Levites as were assigned to each City should be well accommodated and the remainder should still continue to the former Owners Hence Lyra on those words Cities to dwell in Non dicit ad dominandum vel ad redditus inde accipiendum quiasic erant ipsius Regis vel aliorum Dominorum urbes in quibus habitabant Levitae He saith not Cities for them to lord over or to receive the whole profits of them for so they were either the Kings or Cities of other lords in which the Levites dwelt That this was so is manifest by the City of Hebron or Kiriah-Arba the City of Arba Father of Anak and a Great man that first founded it That Citie being given to the Kohathites who were Levites and had the first Lot was yet the City of Caleb to whom Joshua had before given it for an inheritance Therefore after mention of disposing Hebron to the Kohathites by the free Lot of the Israelites it is said But the fields of the City and the Villages thereof gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession Out of which fields it is clear by the next verse that the Suburbs were excepted for these were given to the sons of Aaron the Priest Here by the way a few words to him whether he were a Bishop or not that hath taken much pains to demonstrate that Church-lands are not to be sold. 1. He is much mistaken in the greatness of those Cities and Suburbs so also are others building upon St. Hierome's report who say That those forty eight Cities had Suburbs of so large circuit that they exceeded the portion of any other Tribe in Israel Which cannot be For the circuit of the Suburbs given to the Levites were
the very worship of God at the Altar as the tongs the snuffers censers c. others were to be imployed in more remote service as the hangings for the Court of the Tabernacle c. the Curtains of Goats hair for the Tent over the Tabernacle c. The offerings of the first sort are so hallowed that they must not be profaned by sale or purchase to a common use but those of the later may when there is an end of their use We see this in not only the bangings of the Court and the Curtains but in all the holy vessels together with the Tabernacle it self For so soon as Solomon had finished the Temple at Hierusalem the Priests took up the Ark and brought it up out of the City of David and with it the Tabernacle of the Congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the Tabernacle even those did the Priests and the Levites bring up But when the Priests brought in the Ark of the Covenant unto his place into the Oracle of the house to the most holy place even under the wings of the Cherubims within the Temple neither the Tabernacle nor vessels nor ought else was brought into the Temple save onely the staves of the Ark which staves they drew out so as the ends of them might be seen within the Holy place but not without it The Tabernacle and most of the things belonging to it were now of no longer use no more were the old vessels for Solomon had made all new Now let some of our severe Censurers inquire and tell us what uses the Tabernacle the Curtains the Vessels were put unto for to the use of the Temple they were no longer imployed and then we shall be able to say more to the fourth deduction viz. 4. That to imploy to common uses things once offered and hallowed is Sacrilege This inference is no way deduceable from Num. 16. for that there the Text speaks of hallowed things which were of use to cover the Altar from the rain and storms while that Altar was used and of such things as originally were of Gods own appointment and his own goods the Censers abused by Korah To have diverted these to other uses before the building of the Temple had been Sacrilege But after the Temple was built the Ark put into his place in the Temple the Tabernacle old Altar and vessels were of no longer use nor longer imployed in the worship of God let them that can prove the laying them aside and imploying them to other uses to be Sacrilege in Solomon And could this be demonstrated yet were it nothing to prove the alienating of Cathedral Lands to be Sacrilege they being not as those last spoken of appointed and commanded of God nor ever so hallowed but the offerings and gifts of men without warrant from God or acceptance with him If Antagonists allege Luther Calvin Knox Sir Edward Coke c. to prove that such Church-Lands cannot be aliened from the Church without Sacrilege this will be no concluding argument unless they prove it by Scripture which they have not done They being but men we may not swear in verba Magistri Truth is the friend we must own before yea against all other They that urge these worthy Authors against us can and do despise and scorn them in other things they alleage them to serve their own turns not to honour the Authors nor will be concluded by what those men say against them But it is happened to some of our rash Censurers as once to those Oxen of whom Columella noteth that feeding upon some rank grounds they ran mad with the fatness of their Pasture This might suffice were it not ever too true of too many Non persuadebis etiam si persuaseris Thou shalt never bring me over to thine opinion although by reason thou sufficiently convince me Therefore some Answers must now be given to such plausible Objections as seem to carry any strength or colour of reason in them against the former Positions and not before obviated or prevented CHAP. IV. Answers to such Objections and Arguments as are brought to prove the Sale of Cathedral Lands to be Sacrilege not before answered ANd here exspect not Answers to any bare Magistral Assertions of men of highest rank and esteem whether Fathers School-men or Protestant Divines of greatest note in the Church be the allegations out of them never so many plausible or peremptory unless they bring Scripture or sound Arguments thence to back and confirm them Nor shall it move if others please to decry this Treatise with and by the multitude and noise of great Names that have declared to the contrary or to censure it as they please upon such a weak foundation Let every such Opponent take that to themselves which sometimes Austin wrote to those that read his Books de Trinitate Noli meas literas ex tua opinione vel contentione sed ex Divina Lectione vel in concussa ratione corrigere 1. It is objected That Bishops were Ministers too and preached as well as others and were moreover of great use for the good Government of the Church and support of the truth which since their Ejections hath extreamly suffered Therefore as Ministers at least they and their means should be continued Answ. Admitting but not granting all this to betrue yet what they really did as Ministers they might have done still It was their usurped Dignity not their Evangalical Ministry that is taken from them Now their Lands were given and fixed as is before shewed to their elated Episcopacy as Barons and Peers in Parliament not to their Ministry to their state of Prelacy not to their Presbytery as themselves diftinguish this from the other If any of them had as very few of them had a minde to preach the Gospel as that learned Archbishop Usher did so long as he was able and was therefore encouraged while he lived and honoured being dead they had their liberty so to do notwithstanding the abolishing of their Episcopal Authority Perhaps they cannot stoop so low as to ascend a Pulpit as ordinary Parsons or Vicars let this lie upon their own account and not be charged on the State Others as good have done otherwise Miles Coverdale made Bishop of Exeter by Edw. 6. and after condemned to the fire saith Isaacson from which he was saved by mediation of the King of Denmark yet banished in Queen Maries time after his return in Queen Elizabeths reign was content to accept of the Parsonage of St. Magnus London not clearly worth 100 l. per annum when it was at the best and to spend the rest of his days in preaching there But too many of our late Bishops were so far from preaching while their authority lasted that they did their utmost not onely to decry Preaching but to advance Profanation of the Lords Day which they should have spent in Preaching and other Divine Offices of the Day No wonder
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
the cutting off a Dogs neck or the blessing of an Idol When it can be proved that God accepted of such Oblations in the time of the Law then also it may be granted that he will accept such mongrel Dedications in the days of the Gospel 5. Things dedicated unto God without his Order and Direction is a laying as de and a rejecting of the Commandment of God and a making the word of God of none effect It is the Pharisees Corban which they for filthy lucres sake taught Children to plead against their Parents contrary to the fifth Commandment when required to relieve them in age and necessity If a father in time of need demanded this or that thing of his son the son was taught to answer onely this It is Corban a gift which I have devoted to God therefore you must excuse me I cannot let you have it Vows Must be paid and things once dedicated must not be recalled nor the thing vowed aliened This by the Pharisees Doctrine was a gift irrevocable and so sacred unto God that if the Childe should perhaps be willing to pleasure his Parents with some part of it they would not give way It is holy to God it must not be profaned by applying it to common uses so that they would suffer him no more to do ought for his Father or Mother Did Christ allow this for a Dedication that might not be recalled and that what was so given might not be any more imployed to private uses without Sacrilege Nay he abhorred it as a sacrilegious abuse of Scripture and those Hypocrites also who taught such Doctrines Such are all Dedications proceeding from mens own fancies and ends without a rule from God and therefore gifts so given not onely may but ought to be aliened to other uses that God may no longer be abused and provoked by them 6. It is a mistake and error to think and say those Lands now purchased by private men are perverted from publick use For they were sold for the publick use of the Commonwealth Now if by the Canon-Law it be allowed that the goods and possessions of the Church may be alienated to redeem Captives as the Pope himself hath confessed much more then may such Lands be sold for the service of the State and Church in a time of such expence and danger Who ever taxed Hezekiah of Sacrilege when he gave the King of Assyria that came up against the fenced Cities of Judah and took them all the silver that was found in the House of the Lord and cut off the gold from the doors of the Temple and from the pillars and gave it to the King of Assyria that he might depart from Judah 2 Kings 18. 15 16 The Parliament then being so much necessitated chiefly for satisfying the vast charge of the Scottish Army and that by occasion of the Owners of those Lands had a Royal and Pious Patern and Warrant for so doing Nor is it a perverting of those Lands by Purchasers to imploy them after paying for them upon such an occasion to their own use no more than it was for the Tenants of Bishops Deans and Chapters c. when they had with their money bought those Lands for lives or years yea in Fee-simple For the granting and imploying them for years or lives and that upon no such necessity as the Parliament sold makes no real difference as to private use between that and the sale of them for ever in a case of such importa it necessity For if it be no sin in a Bishop or Dean and Chapter to sell a Mannour yea an Impropriation for three lives or for 21 years heretofore for 100. 200. years yea for ever and to put the whole Fine into their own private purses not out of necessity but for gain and to enrich themselves to the prejudice and impoverishing of their Successours who must get some other maintenance that is some Benefices with Cure on which they never reside but at their Cathedrals and starve the Souls of those people in the mean time with 10 l. Curats or else they could not bear up the pomp and port of Cathedral-men And if it were lawful for their Tenants upon such terms to hold those Mannours and Impropriations for so long time to their own private use then surely it cannot be unlawful in it self for the Parliament who never put the money into their own purses to sell those Lands nor for purchasers to buy and enjoy them for ever having paid accordingly for them 7. The same things now pronounced Sacrilege in modern Purchasers have been often done many years past and still are done every day by the greatest Censurers of the present alienation of those Lands For to say nothing of the Appropriations and Impropriations made by Popes to Templars Monasteries and other nick-named Religious Houses nor of those huge alienations made in Henry the eighth's time Edward the sixth Queen Elizabeth and not none in King James his days Even they who now cry loudest against buying of Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands because in their opinions once given to God and make it high Sacrilege in all that now do it can yet be well enough content to hold things of the same kinde in respect of Dedication heretofore aliened from the Church They can well digest Abby-Lands Canonical Houses yea which is worst impropriated Tithes themselves first made by that Arch-Sacrilegist the Pope in favour not onely of Covents and Societies but of his own particular single favorites and Minions who neither would nor could do any service to their Souls who paid them and after their dissolution devolved to private hands and common uses as Cathedral Lands now do Here to omit how much of the Revenues of the Crown it self consisteth in Church Lands and Rents how many Noble-men and Gentle-men are there in England as well as in forain Nations who now cry out of the supposed Sacrilege of others do yet possess many Lordships Mannours and Royalties even of Bishops themselves alienated since Henry the eighth began to destroy Monasteries Are there not many of those Lands aliened by secret not to say Symoniacal compact and bargain between Petitioners for Bishopricks and their friends at Court to procure such a Bishoprick for them If any doubt hereof it is his ignorance If he desire proof let him but inquire into the mutilation of that one Bishoprick of Bath and Wells and he shall find that since the thirtieth of Henry the eighth the Mannors of Wookey Black ford Compton-Dando Congersbury Yaton Cbew Wike Puckle-Church Wester-Leigh Hampton Claverton Cranmore Ever-cretch Kingsbury Chard Wellington Lidford Compton Parva and Chedder to omit many Appropriations Hundreds Burroughs Farmes c. have been all alienated from that Church and are to this day held by Lay-men to their own private uses without scruple or blame before ever the late Parliament seised the rest Yea this is not the first time that the Bishops