by diminishing or by rapine are taken from Christ And if it be Robbery to take any thing from a friend it is Sacrilege to take away alienate substract or waste any thing especially from Christ who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords For all Robbers of the Church are most apparently Sacrilegious persons and no Sacrilegious person unlesse by pure approved and publique Repentance and by satisfaction to the Church and by imposition of the Bishops hands and reconciliation according to the Canonical Sanctions shall Inherit the Kingdom of God and shall not only be secluded the Kingdom of God but likewise be shut out of the limits of the Church especially of the Church he hath ruined and shall be excommunicated thence until the foresaid Satisfaction given And the perpetrators of such wickednesses ought to have no Communion at all either with the living or dead till after such Satisfaction given Because who ever violently takes away his Neighbours money commits Iniquity but Sacrilegious persons are not only Théeves but likewise Wolves and Man-slayers and Murderers of the poor and accursed damned persons before God and his Saints And if so as these two pious Emperors by their Lawes with many Protestant Writers as well as Papists resolve and all Sacrilegious Persons taking any Vessel or Vtensil out of a Church though of small value by our own Lawes too as well as theirs be Sacrilegious Persons worthy to suffer pains of death as Felons those who shall openly Sacrilegiously Rob or attempt to Rob and spoyl all the Godly painfull Ministers of our Nation of all their Tithes Rectories Glebes Churches and Church-yards too at once are doubtlesse Sacrilegious Persons in the highest degree deserving to suffer a temporal infamous death and execution better than any High-way Theeves or Robbers at Tiburn or to be eternally banished the Nation excommunicated all Christian Society and had in perpetual execration for this Sacrilegious Rapine both by God himself and all good men unlesse they repent and make full publique Restitution Satisfaction for this their detestable Sacrilege Lastly If any Officers or Souldiers pretend we are now a Conquered Nation that Conquest makes all sacred things prophane and common to the Conquerors and that Churches may be justly spoyled of their Materials Vessels Glebes Tithes in such a case for the pay and benefit of the Conquering Souldiers as some affirm Therefore they may now justly deprive our Ministers of their Tithes Glebes Rectories Churches Church-yards to pay maintain themselves and the Conquering Army yea alter change our Laws at present as they now attempt and divers of them openly professe they intend to doe I Answer 1. That the Lords and Commons the very last Parliament when they first raised the Army in their Petition to the late King sent to his Excellency the Earl of Essex to the Army and by him presented to his Majestie Sept. 24. 1642. or soon after used this expression That the prevailing Popish party with his Majestie who by many wicked Plots and Conspiracies have attempted the Alteration of the true Religion and the antient Government of the Kingdom the introducing of Popish Idolatry and Superstition into the Church and tyranny and confusion into the State and by corrupting his Councels abusing his Power and sudden and untimely dissolving of former Parliaments had often hindered the Reformation and Prevention of those Mischiefs And in prosecution of those wicked Designs had as the most Mischievous and Bloudy Designe of all drawn his Majestie to make War against his Parliament and good Subjects of this Kingdom and to lead in person an Army against them as if he intended by Conquest mark the word to establish an absolute and unlimited power over them And in their Remonstrance Nov. 2. 1642. in Reply to his Majesties Answer to their Remonstrance of May 26. 1642. they charge this as the last Doctrin and Position of the Contrivers of his Majesties Answer That the Representative body of the whole Kingdom is a Faction of Malignant Schismatical and ambitious persons whose designes is and alwaies hath béen to alter the whole frame of Government both of Church and State and to subject both King and People to their own lawlesse arbitrary Power and Government and that they design the ruine of his Majesties Person and of Monarchy it self and consequently that they are Traytors and all the Kingdom with them for their Act is the Act of the whole Kingdom And whether their Punishment and Ruine may not also involve the whole Kingdom in conclusion ☜ and reduce it into the condition of a Conquered Nation mark the words no man can tell but experience sheweth us as now it doth in good earnest more than ever that Successe often carries men not only beyond their Profession but also many times beyond their first Intentions For an Army Officers then professing themselves true born English men eminent Godly Saints preservers of our Nations Liberties against Regal Tyranny and Enchroachments originally raysed Commissioned by both Houses to protect our Lawes Liberties Religion Church Government Parliament Nation from an intended Conquest by the late Kings Army to establish an absolute unlimited power over us and from being reduced into the condition of a Conquered Nation after the total routing of the Kings Army Power now at last to plead to averr we are now a conquered Nation in respect of themselves and thereupon to endeavour to establish an absolute unlimited power over us by altering the whole frame of Government both in Church and State changing the body of our Lawes yea antient constitution of our Parliaments abolishing our very Ministers Rectories Tithes Dues or diverting them to pay maintain themselves yea now to act over the very self-same things which both Houses then charged upon the late beheaded King and his Malignant Popish Councel thereby verifying these his Predictions of their forementioned designs in every Punctilio then utterly disclaimed by both Houses as the Highest Scandal to them and their sincere loyal Intentions and making him a truer Prophet than their new Merlin Lilly will not be only most scandalous dishonourable to them but monstrous treacherous perfidious if insisted on or persisted in both in the Judgement of God Angels Men and their own Consciences too Wherefore I presume on second thoughts they will disclaim this Plea both in words and Actions 2ly They were all raysed waged Commissioned by the late Parliament and well-affected People not to fight against conquer or subdue themselves but to preserve them their Lawes Liberties Privileges Estates our Churches and Religion against the Common Enemies and Invaders of them Therefore they cannot stile themselves Conquerors of thoâ—e Persons things they never fought against but only for unlesse they will now declare their secret intentions were ever crosse and contradictory to their open Commissions Vowes Covenants Protestations Words and printed Declarations to God and those that raised waged them for their safety and defence alone
perswade all turbulent greedy sacrilegious spirits to follow Dr. Gamaliels advice which many of them have much pressed for a publick Toleration of all Religions though now they would extirpate all Ministers and their Tithes root and branch recorded Acts 5.48 49. Refrain from these Men and their Tithes too and let them alone for if they and their tithes be oâ— God as I have proved them ye cannot overthrow them lest haply ye be found to be fighters against God 5ly Let every of the chiefest now in Power remember those many reiterated solemn Declarations Protestations Votes and Ordinances they have formerly made for the due payment and preservation of our Ministers Tithes and Augmentation of their incompetent Livings out of the Bishops and Delinquents Impropriations and Deans and Chapters Lands for the most part other waies disposed notwithstanding And what an high violation of publick Faith Trust Promises Solemn Engagements and an eternal Infamy and Dishonour it will procure to their Persons Memories in after Annals and Posterities if all these should now conclude in a general armed Depredation Abolition Dissolution or Substraction of all their old Rectories Glebes Tithes Dues instead of new settled Augmentations out of other dissipated Church Revenues formerly Voted for them 6ly Let all Changers and Innovators of our Fundamental Lawes and Ministers Maintenance consider what prohibitions Comminations and Judgements God hath proclaimed against and inflicted upon such innovators and changers in his Word Eccles 10.5 6 7 8 9. There is an evil which I have seen under the Sun As an error which proceedeth from the Ruler folly is set in great Dignity and the Rich in low Place I have seen Servants upon Horses and Princes walking as Servants on the earth but mark the issue He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it and who so breaketh an bedge a Serpent shall bite him who so removeth stâ—nes shall be hurt thereby and he that cleaveth Wood shall be endangered thereby The meaning of which Parabolical expressions is thus more clearly explained Prov. 24.21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with those who are given to change for their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both That is of the Changers their Adherents joyning with them by the revenging Justice both of God and the King My deceased Brother Burtons Sermons on this Text Nov. 5. 1636. are worth all our Innovators reading For which Sermone he and I joyntly suffered in the Star-chamber through our Innovating all-ruling Prelates malice for discovering oppugning those several Changes and Innovations they had made in the Ceremonies Doctrine of our Church and High-Commission arbitrary proceedings contrary to our Laws Little did those Prelates think in that time of their domineering Power and Greatnesse that these changes of theirs and unrighteous censures upon us for discovering and opposing them would have so soon proved the very causes of their unexpected sudden calamity and ruine according to this Text and censured Sermons and of their High-Commission and Starchamber Court too wherein they prosecuted us yet they really found they did so What proved the calamity and ruine of Strafford Canterbury and the old Council Table but their unrighteous exorbitant Innovations and New Projects against our Laws and old forms of Parliamentary Proceedings What brought sudden unexpected calamity and ruine on the late King and Parliament too even by those who were raised commissioned engaged by Oaths Protestations and Solemn Covenants to defend and preserve them but Gods Justice for some exorbitant Changes and Fundamental violent illegal Innovations whereof both were guilty especially in the Militia whereof the Houses endeavouring totally to divest the King without admitting him any share therein which bred the first fresh quarrel between them as their only security and the Kings too And now God hath made that very Militia the ruine of them both and to assume both the Regal and Parliamental Military and Civil Supreme Authority and Government of the Nation and united Kingdoms too wholly to themselves and to dash in pieces that new minted Mock Parliament Power and Government themselves at first created for those many notorious injurious Changes Oppressions Innovations of all sorts whereof they were deeply guilty And what other fatal Changes God may yet suddenly effect to the Calamity and Ruine of those who have been chief Instruments in all these Changes if they ring THE CHANGES still till they have turned all things upside down as the Potter doth his clay and our very Ministers setled maintenance with all Fundamental laws for the establishment of their and all others just Rights and Liberties I leave to their own saddest Meditations these Gospel Texts of Rom. 2.1 2 3. and c. 12.20 21. which I hope neither will nor can offend any Professors of the Gospel Therefore thou art inexcusable O man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things But we know that the judgement of God is according to truth against them who commit such things And thinkest thou this O man that judgest them who do such things and doest the same that thou shalt escape the Iudgement of God Be not High-minded but fear For if God spared not the Natural Branches take heed lest he also spare not thee being a Wilde Olive Tree And when they have meditated on these Texts I shall further importune all such of them who like the little Horn in Daniel 7.24 25 26. that should be divers from the FIRST and subdue THREE KINGS and being elevated with that successe should speak great words against the most High and wear out his Saints and think to change Times and Laws advisedly to consider what there next follows That though the Laws and Times should be given into his hand yet it will be untill a time and times and the dividing of times And the Judgement shall sit and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end And then our Ministers need not fear their Ministry Tithes Glebes nor the People their Iust Rights and Liberties which otherwise are like to be lost subverted destroyed in the long bloody costly Contests and Wars for their Defence and Preservation Now lest any should pretend matter of Conscience or Reason against the Christian Magistrates enforcing of Tithes true payment by coercive Means and Laws in these Tith-detaining sacrilegious times or for the speedy Repeal of all our fore-specified Laws and Ordinances yet in force to compel all Detainers of them to pay them duly under the several penalties therin prescribed I shall endeavour to give a full satisfactory Answer to all Arguments and Cavils of moment usually made against them which are reducible to these four Heads Object First That there is no expresse Precept in the Gospel nor any such penal Laws enforcing the payment of Tithes to be found in the Primitive and
to Peter mentioning again his Prayers and Alms but not his preaching concluding thus Now therefore are we all here present before God TO HEAR not preach all things that are COMMANDED THEE of God Whereas some Centurions Colonels Captains and Souldiers of this Age if Peter himself should come to their Assemblies or Quarters would be readier to teach and preach to him than to hear him and apter to be his Teachers than Auditors as these only were After which Peter preached to him and his company I find another sort of Captains and Souldiers in the New Testament Who went out and apprehended our Saviour Jesus Christ mocked him derided crowned his Head with Thorns stripped him of his Rayment put him on a purple Robe bowed their Knees before him in scorn saying Hayl King of the Iews blind folded and then strook him with their hands and bade him prophecy who smote him guarded him to his Tryal carried and nayled him to his Crosse crucified him between two Theeves pierced his side with a Spear gave him Gall and Vinegar to drink parted his Garments amongst them cast lots upon his Vesture and would have broke his Legs but that he was dead After which they watched and guarded his Sepulchre took large Mony of the Priests to smother the truth of Christs Resurrection by reporting a Lye that his Disciples came and stole him away whiles they were asleep who TOOK the mony and did as they were taught and are branded for ever with this Epiphomena These things therefore the Souldiers did After which some of this rank of Officers and Souldiers by Herods command killed James the Brother of John with the Sword apprehended imprisoned chained and most strictly garded the Apostle Peter in order to put him to death the next day but that the Angel of God miraculously delivered him Others of them apprehended bound and would have scourged Paul garded and carried him from prison to prison and when he was sent Prisoner to Rome when the ship was wracked and their lives saved only for Pauls sake they gave the Centurion counsel to kill Paul and all the other Prisoners lest they should escape from them by that wrack These Souldiers no doubt were truly Antichristian and if the Tree may be judged and known by its Fruits and Souldiers by their Actions and Intentions I doubt there are far more of this later sort than of the first in this Age and if John Cannes Voyce from the Temple be imbraced for Gospel in every point by the whole Army no doubt they will then be all of this later rank not the Ministers and Soldiers of Jesus Christ but of Antichrist alone and the Crucifiers of Christ again in his faithfull Ministers and Members which I desire them all sadly to consider 9ly Admit them to be made Kings and Priests to God the Father by Christ in a spiritual sence as all the Elect Saints of God are will it thereupon follow that they may all lawfully preach in publick administer Sacraments and exercise the proper Function of Priests and Ministers If so then by the self-same reason they may all lawfully exercise the office and power of Kings as well as of Priests as some of them do in the highest degree beyond all Presidents of any our Kings before them and so under pretext of suppressing our Monarchy and one sole King as dangerous and pernicious we shall have now no less than an whole Army of Kings to rule and reign over us and to engross not only all the old Kings Lands and Revenues but the greatest part of the Peoples far surmounting of a Million or two each year in Contributions and Excise to support their new Royal State and Dignity as well as an Army of Priests who have and would swallow up our whole Churches Revenues Glebes Tithes Patrimony and our Ministry too for to support their new Evangelical Priesthood that so they may resemble both Christ and Melchisedec in their Kingly and Priestly Offices united in one Person though not in the Title of their Kingdom as the Apostle interprets it Hebr. 7.2 being by Interpretation KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESSE and after that also King of SALEM which is KING OF PEACE which Souldiers who make a gainfull Trade of War and Rapine delight not in 10ly I do affirm and will abide by it that since the time some disguised Popish Priests Jesuits Sectaries Hereticks Anabaptists and other Seducers rather than the Lord drew out the heart of some Souldiers and other Mechanicks in truth or disguise publickly to preach the People of this Common-wealth have had more abominable false damnable atheistical Antichristian Heresies Errors Blasphemies New Opinions and old exploded Heterodox Heresies and Tenents of all sorts whatsoever against the very Essence Nature Attributes of God himself the three sacred Persons in the Trinity the Old and New Testament Law Gospel all the fundamental Articles of Faith and Salvation the Sacraments Ministers Ordinances of God and practical publick private Duties of Piety and Christianity under the Names and specious Titles of New Lights and glorious Discoveries of Christs Kingdom broached by Souldiers and Lay-Preachers than in all the times since the Gospel was first preached in this Island and more than ever any one Age Church Nation or all our Ministers put together since the Creation till now were guilty of and these publickly averred both in Presse and Pulpit and the Authors of them exempted from any corporal or pecuniary punishments by the Civil Magistrates by the avowed printed Positions and Proposals of the General Council of Army-Officers and Souldiers in sundry Papers For full and infallible proof whereof I shall remit the Reader to Mr. Edwards Gangrenaes the Catalogues of the Heresies Blasphemies Errors collected by the London and Devonshire Ministers the Stationers Beacon fired and New Law p. 78 97. Which stiles Heaven Hell the resurrection of the Flesh a Dream of our Preachers The History of the Scripture an Idol c. And all this by the malice of Satan the underhand practices of Jesuites and our Popish Adversaries to defame ruine our Church Ministers Religion seduce thee to Popery Atheism and reduce us back to the Antichristian Tyranny of the Sea of Rome as I have largely manifested in the fifth Chapter Whereas Canne cannot charge our Parochial Ministers and Presbyterians with any such Blasphemies Heresies Errors as those he pleads for are guilty of in the highest degree nor with those Jesuitical treacherous perfidious sacrilegious unclean beastly ranting unrighteous prophane atheistical Innovations Practices Rapines Usurpations as they have plunged themselves into over head and ears without any Conscience or dread of God or Man 11ly What that more true Light and glorious Discoveries of Christ and his Kingdom made known to the people of this Common-wealth within these 10 or 12. years by the publick preaching of some Souldiers and Laymen exceeding all the Nations Ministers ever made known unto them before are is concealed by
A GOSPEL PLEA Interwoven with a RATIONAL and LEGAL FOR THE LAWFULNESS CONTINUANCE Of the Antient Setled MAINTENANCE and TENTHS Of the Ministers of the Gospel IN TWO PARTS PROVING That there is a Just Competent Comfortable Maintenance due to all Lawfull painfull Preachers Ministers of the Gospel by Divine Right Institution express Texts Precepts of the Gospel That Glebes Tithes are such a Maintenance due to Ministers by Divine Right Law Gospel That if substracted or detained they may lawfully be inforced by Coercive Laws and Penalties That Tithes are no real Burden nor grievance to the people The abolishing them no ease or benefit to Farmers Husbandmen or poor people but a Prejudice and Loss That the present opposition against Tithes proceeds not from any real grounds of Conscience but base Covetousnesse Carnal policy hatred to and a Jesuitical Anabaptistical design to subvert ruine our Ministers Church Religion With a Satisfactory Answer to all Cavils and Material Objections to the contrary By WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick Esquire a Bencher of Lincolns Inne Mal. 3.8 9. Will a man rob God Yet ye have robbed me But ye say Wherein have we robbed thee In Tithes and Offerings Ye are cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me even this whole Nation Mat. 22.21 Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are his AUG serm 219. Si tu illam Decimam non dederis dabis impio Militi quod non vis dare Deo Sacerdoti Hoc tollit Fiscus quod non accepit Christus London Printed by T. Childe and L. Parry for Edward Thomas and are to be sold at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1660. To my most High Mighty Great Dreadfull Omnipotent Omnipresent Omniscient Righteous True Faithfull All-gracious All-sufficient Everliving Everlasting Immutable Covenant-keeping LORD GOD the God of my Life Health Strength Mercy Preservation Consolation Supportation Salvation Deliverance Praise O God THE SAVIOUR of Israel of England too antiently stiled Regnum Dei Gods Kingdom Thou art God alone and there is none else Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee In thee alone I live move and have my being Thou art the strength of my heart and my portion for ever My whole Spirit Soul Body Parts Endowments Natural Spiritual are only of thee through thee O sanctifie them wholly for and only to thee to whom alone I desire intirely and eternally to devote them as due to none but thee and that by right of Creation Redemption Resignation Preservation and that extraordinary Tribute of gratitude I stand most deeply engaged to render to thy most gracious Majesty for those many and manifold WONDERS of Preservation Supportation Concomitation Protection Consolation Absolution Vindication and Restauration thou hast of thy free Grace most miraculously extended to me the mâ—anest and unworthyest of all thy servants in under from all my former and late injurious illegal Sufferings Oppressions Imprisonments inhumane close Restraints Exiles in TEN SEVERAL PRISONS CASTLES some of them at remotest distance from all Acquaintance Kindred Friends and thy publick Ordinances under some Rude Barbarous armed Gardians and Men of blood of purpose to destroy me where thou wast present with me as with Daniel in the Lyons den Paul in the Lyons mouth the three Children in the midst of the fiery Furnace Jonah in the Whales belly to secure comfort and supply me for about ELEVEN YEARS SPACE through the malice and cruelty of mercilesse men Yet blessed be thy holy name for no other cause or crime thy poor servants conscience is guilty of his last close Imprisonments in three several Castles being without the least Examination Hearing Accusation Charge of any particular offence against him or yet declared to him but only for his sincere cordial desire to discharge his bounden duty to glorifie thee in his generation by apposing the dangerous wrath-provoking Errors and corruptions of the age in which he liveth by contending earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints according to thy Commands and for the setled fundamental Laws Liberties Rights Government of his distracted Native Countrie against all secret Underminers open Oppugners or Subverters of them to the uttermost of his Ability By a consciencious inviolable observation of all those solemn sacred Oaths Protestations Covenants and Obligations prescribed by those lawfull higher Powers thou commandedst him to submit to under pain of DAMNATION wherewith he hath frequently bound his soul not so much to men as to thee who art a most Faithfull Promise-Oath-Covenant-keeping God especially of those Oathes and Covenants wherewith thou vouchsafest to oblige thy self even to meer dust and ashes both IMMUTABLE and INVIOLABLE never violating nor repenting of them in the least degree and obliging men both by thine own example and Precepts to do the like in all their publick or private Oathes Vowes Covenants to thee or men under pain of temporal wrath here and eternal exclusion from thy holy Hill And for not daring to confederate or comply against his Oathes Covenants manifold publick Engagements Conscience Judgement and thy sacred Inhibitions WITH THOSE WHO ARE GIVEN TO CHANGE many of whose Calamities and Ruines are sodainly risen and fallen upon them by thy Divine justice even from those they least suspected and most relyed on for Protection for the manifold changes they presumed to make against their Oaths Vows Trusts Protestations Covenants and unrighteous oppressing of their dearest Christian Friends Brethren and thy suffering Servant among others Now all Glory Honour Power Salvation and Praise be for ever rendred by me and all thy glorious Saints and Angles in heaven and earth because true and righteous are thy Judgements and because the deliverance of me thy oppressed Servant without any wound to his Conscience dishonour to thy name or scandal to thy People is exceeding Gracious and Glorious Now know I again and again that the Lord loveth his anointed that he hath heard him and others praying for him from his holy Heaven WITH THE SAVING STRENGTH OF HIS RIGHT HAND Some of his self-exalting Oppressors trusted in Chariots and some in Horses but he remembred the Lord his God they are brought down and fallen but he is risen and stands upright Who therefore ever will rejoyce greatly in THY SALVATION and in the Name of his God will set up his Banners For thou hast broken the gates of Brasse and cut the bars of Iron in sunder Thou hast sent thy holy Angel and knocked off the Chains from my long-fettered hands and made the long-barred Iron Castle Gates wherein I was close shut up to open of their own accord without any enforced long-expected Petition from me Thou hast rescued me from more then 4. Quaternions of Souldiers who most strictly garded me day and night as they did thy imprisoned Apostle Peter and more narrowly than any formerly under the Prelates greatest Tyranny and delivered him
among the Thessalonians labouring night and day because he would not be chargeable to any of them when he preached unto them the Gospel of God 1 Thess 2.8 9. 2 Thess 3.8 From whence they conclude that all other Ministers ought to preach the Gospel freely and to labour with their hands day and night in some other calling to supply their necessities and maintain themselves and families that they may not be chargeable to the people To which grand argument requiring the fullest reply I answer that this general inference from Pauls particular practice in these two Churches is very lame and unsound For 1. Paul expresly resolves that all Apostles and Ministers of the Gospel have a just right power to receive a competent maintenance as wages from the people and most strongly proves it to be an ordinance of Christ himself in some of the objected Texts as I have at large demonstrated 2. He likewise declares with a salvo jure as Lawyers speak that himself had such a just right power to receive wages and maintenance from the very Corinthians and Thessalonians themselves as well as others though he made no use of his power witness 1 Cor. 9.4 11 12. where thus he expostulates Have we not power to eat and to drink and to reap your carnal things for sowing unto you spiritual things If others be partakers of this power over you Are not we rather Nevertheless we have not used this power And 2 Thess 3.8 9. Neither did we eat any mens bread for nought but wrought with labour and travel night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you Not because we have not Power but to make our selves an example for you to follow us c. We have much talk and crying up of late Have we not Power Power and present Power in most Grandees mouthes and publick Papers especially Souldiers who carrie it by their sides instead of our old Language Have we not Law Liberty Right Fréedom the things they say they fought for on the peoples behalf who pay them which words things the greater cry of Have we not Power c. hath made us not to have and quite swallowed up amongst us I wish all such Officers Souldiers Grandees who press these Texts against Ministers Tithes and most use these words Have we not Power if derived from God or the Apostle who thrice mentions it in these Texts would only use and speak them in the Apostles sense language in not assuming usurping but utterly disclaiming the real practice and abuses of their power in his self-denying words worthie to be written in Capitals that all persons of or in Power may now read and practise it Nevertheless we have not used this power but wrought with labour and travel Night and Day that we might not be chargeable to any of you to make our selves an ensample for you Ministers to follow us Then we should be no longer over-charged with endless Taxes Excises c. by for or from any who have power nor grieved with any fresh changes of Laws Civil or church-Church-Government or Ministers setled maintenance but be a Free State and Nation indeed as some have long promised to make us but still the quite contrarie way in direct opposition to the Apostles Nevertheless we have used and will still use this armed Army tyrannical arbitrary power that we might be chargeable yea very chargeable to every of you Therefore no wonder our Ministers in their objected sense do the like by their example in exacting their Tithes Dues which they may justly do till they disclame the use of their Iron Power in imposing levying New Taxes Excises on Ministers as well as people in strange untrodden waies to pay their own and Souldiers salaries to support their self-created lawless Power in the highest strain of Exercisse which they condemn in Ministers in a far more inferiour degree who questionless may as lawfully make use of it as Paul himself might have justly done as he resolves though he suspended its actual exercise for a time 3. Paul records 4. special reasons why he made no use of this his Evangelical power amongst the Corinthians but laboured with his hands 1. That he might not hinder the Gospel of Christ among the Corinthians 1 Cor. 9.12 they being then most of them Pagans the rest but newly converted to the Gospel by his preaching and all of them very worldly covetous as he insinuates 2 Cor. 4.12 13 14. ch 7.30 31 32 c. 11.7 8 9. 2 Cor. 12.10 to 21. 2. That he might not seem to abuse his power in the Gospel in the opinion of these covetous worldlings 1 Cor. 9.18 3. That he might adde to his glory in undergoing necessities for Christ wherein he gloried and adde to his future reward 1 Cor. 9.15 to 27. 2 Cor. 12.10 to 13. 4. And principally To cut off occasion of slander and reproach from some false Apostles and deceitfull workers and Ministers of Satan transforming themselves into Angels of Light who sought occasion to slander him accounting his preaching very contemptible and him to be none of Christs but a very reprobate 2 Cor. 10.7 10 12. c. 13.6 7. as some now esteem our Ministers seeking a proof of Christ speaking in him c. 13.3 as they doe now in our Ministers glorying as some of the same Tribe do now that they preached the Gospel freely and wrought with their own hands whereupon he addeth that wherein they gloried they might be found even as he 2 Cor. 11.12 13 14. Which false Apostles and dissembling Hypocrites for all their braggs did yet enslave take of them fleece and abuse them more than any faithfull Ministers and yet they patiently endured it as he there affirms and insinuates v. 20. For ye suffer if a man bring you into Bondage if a man devour you if a man take of you if a man exalt himself if a Man smite you on the Face taxing their wisdom and pusillanimitie for this their Asinine sottish stupiditie when as neither Paul himself nor Titus nor any other of those Ministers he sent unto them did either burden or catch them with guile or make a gain of them as these false Apostles domineering Hypocrites and Ministers of Satan did 2 Cor. 12.16 17 18. These were the reasons expressed by him why he took no wages of the Corinthians and supported himself with his own labour But this is not our Ministers case after our so long enjoyment of the Gospel and their enjoying of a setled maintenance by Tithes and Glebes above 800 years space so long since setled on them by our devout Saxon Kings and continued ever since When our Ministers have the self-same reasons as Paul had amongst the Corinthians to move them to pursue his objected practice I doubt not but they will chearfully imitate it for the advancement of the Gospel and winning souls to Christ 4ly The reason why Paul exercised not this power among the Thessalonians labouring amongst them
to pay Tithes to themselves and those to whom they were never due by any known Law of God or Man With what Conscience can they detain them from our Ministers to whom they are due by all divine and human laws or condemn the enforced payment of them from themselves who have so violently extorted them from others 4ly If any Ministers or others plead the payment of our late heavy monthly Taxes Excises Impositions Ship-mony far exceeding the old to be against their Conscience as being imposed by no lawfull Parliamental Authority repugnant to all our Laws Statutes Liberties Privileges Protestations Covenants Records Votes of Parliament imployed to shed Seas of innocent precious Christian blood to maintain unchristian bloody wars against our late Protestant Brethren in Covenant and Amity they know not upon what lawfull Quarrel to support an arbitrary Army Government Power to domineer over them to subvert our old Fundamental laws Parliaments Governours Liberties Peace Elections Trials the Great Charters of England foment Heresies Sects Schisms and carry on the Plots of the Pope Jesuites Spaniard French to ruine our Realms Church Religion and pay many disguised Jesuites and Popish Priests secretly lurking in all places under the Mask of listed Souldiers as most wise men conceive to perpetuate our warrs destroy our Ministers and Nation by endless wars and Taxes All these with other such weighty grounds of Conscience Law Prudence which some have insisted on and pleaded can no waies exempt them from violent Distresses Quarterings Penalties Forfeitures Levies by armed Souldiers who regard these Pleas of Conscience no more than Common High-way-men who take mens Purses by force and deem all publick Enemies who dare plead Law or Conscience in this case though the Plea be true and undeniable even in their own Judgements and Consciences as some of them will acknowledge to those they thus oppress Why then should they or any others esteem this mere pretence of Conscience only against Penal Laws for Tithes enforced in a lesse rigorous manner which they may with as much reason and Justice allege against the payment of their just Debts Land Lords Rents and all other dues from them to God or Men The 3d. Objection is That Tithes are pure Alms Therefore not to be enforced by any Law For which the Opinions of John Wickliff Husse Thorp are produced by the Anabaptists and Erasmus urged by some but without sufficient ground I have answered this Objection elsewhere and shall here only declare whence I conceive this Error that Tithes are mere Alms originally proceeded to rectifie mistakes of the meaning of some antient Authors and clear two Texts of Scripture which some Scholars and ignorant People misapprehend First I conceive this Error sprang originally from the misunderstanding of that Text of Deutr. 14.28 29. At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the Tith of thine encrease THE SAME YEAR and shalt lay it up within thy Gates And the Levite because he hath no place no Inheritance with thee and the Stranger and the Fatherlesse and the Widow which are within thy Gates shall come and shall eat thereof and be satisfied That the Lord may bless thee in all the work of thine hands which thou doest compared with Deutr. 26.12 13 14. When thou hast made an end of tithing all the Tithes of thine Encrease the third year which is the year of Tithing and hast given unto the Levite the Stranger the Fatherless and Widow that they may eat within thy Gates and be filled Then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God I have brought away the hallowed Thing out of mine House and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the Stranger to the Fatherless and to the Widow according to all thy Commandements which thou hast commanded me I have not transgressed thy Commandements neither have I forgotten them I have not eaten thereof in my mourning neither have I taken away ought thereof for any uncleaness nor given ought thereof for the Dead but have hearkned unto the voyce of the Lord my God and done according all thou hast commanded me To which that of Amos may be referred From which Texts some have conceived That the Israelites paid Tithes only every third year 2ly That they paid them then not to the Levites only but to the Stranger Fatherless Widows and Poor amongst them who had a right and share in them as well as the Levites 3ly That these Texts use the phrase not of paying Tithes as a Debt or Duty but of GIVING them as an Alms and seeing they are given thus to the Stranger Fatherless Widow as Alms therefore to the Levites likewise here coupled with them This doubtless was the true ground that Tithes were reputed mere Alms by some and not a Divine Right peculiar to Ministers To disperse these Mists of Error First take notice That neither these nor any other Texts in Scripture stile Tithes Almes much lesse pure Almes which men may give or retain at their pleasures 2ly That they expressely resolve the contrarie that they are no Alms at all in the objected sense but a most certain positive commanded Debt and Dutie no waies arbitrarie in the least degree For 1. By express positive Laws and Commandments of God oft repeated all the particulars of this Dutie are defined 1. The Quota pars or quantitie All the Tithe of thine Encrease the same year 2ly The time of it every third year which is the year of Tithing at the end of three years 3ly The place of Stowage Thou shalt lay it up within thy gates 4ly The persons who must receive it The Levite Stranger Fatherless Widow 5ly The place of their receiving it Within thy gates 6ly The manner of receiing it They shall come and eat thereof and be filled Secondly which is most considerable the Owners and Tithe-payers had no disposing power over it for their own uses upon any occasion or necessitie For 1. They must bring all of it out of their Houses as an hallowed thing 2ly They must make a solemn Protestation before the Lord that they had given it all to the Levite Stranger Fatherless Widow and that not of their own free voluntarie bountie but as a bounden debt and dutie according to all Gods Commandments which he had commanded them 2ly That they had neither wilfully transgressed nor negligentlie forgotten his Commandments herein 3. That they had neither eaten thereof in their mourning in times of want and distress neither had they taken away ought thereof for any unclean use c. but have hearkened to the voice of the Lord their God and done according to all that he commanded them The reason of which Protestation was because God committed the custodie and dispencing of these three years Tithes to the Owners themselves who might be apt to purloin and pervert part of them to their own private uses I appeal now to all mens consciences whether these very Texts do not unanswerably prove
grounds policies hypocritically gilded over with the paint of Conscience Reformation Religion Propagation of the Gospel c. which makes the Design more detestable both to God and all good men The second sort of Tithe-Oppugners are professed Anabaptists Dippers Seekers Quakers and other blasphemous Sectaries and Heretiques lately sprung up amongst us many of which have crept into the Army for their greater security and the better accomplishment of their dangerous destructive Designs against our established Government Magistrates Laws but especially against our Religion Church Ministers Ministry their Tithes and Glebes Scarce one of a thousand of these poor Sneaks were of ability to pay any Tithes of late and those of this prevailing Faction who have crept into Sequestrations Offices Imployments of late and thereby gained any Estates for the most part have enriched themselves by sequestred Tithes Glebes Bishops Deans Chapters Lands and Revenues which these hungry Harpyes have most greedily preyed upon not out of any real grounds of Piety or Conscience as they pretend which I could yet seldom or never find in any of them but out of an unsatiable greedy HOLY HUNGER OR THIRST in the Poets sence after Gold Gain Spoyl the Revenues of our Church and an implacable bitter Enmity against our Ministers Persons Callings whether Presbyterians the chief Butt against whom their Malice is bent or Independents of a more moderate strain whose Ministry is the main Fort they level all their present power against to raze it even to the very Foundation now prosecuting the total abolition not only of their present Tithes Glebes but of all other future coercive maintenance in lieu of them only to subvert their Ministry and quite starve if they cannot violently storm them out of it This is most perspicuous not only by their manifold former libellous Pamphlets against our Ministers Calling and the late Ordinances for Tithes which I have elsewhere collected refuted but by their fresh Petitions both against their Tithes and Ministry too as Antichristian Jewish Popish c. especially by John Canne the old Amsterdam Anabaptists Second Voyce from the Temple or Synagogue of Satan rather newly dedicated to those he stiles The Supream Authority of the Nation wherein he exhorts and stimulates them by all the Art Rhetorick Motives false Arguments he can muster up to do execution and take vengeance upon Babylon to wit the National Ministry Church-worship Government of England as he explains it p. 2. till it be wholy desolate not a Stone left upon a Stone till it be thrown down To take a most effectual and certain course to starve and famish these Antichristian Idols by taking away the Food and Maintenance whereby hitherto as at this present they are nourished fed and left alive and more particularly their Tithes To repeal all Laws and Statutes formerly made whereby the Whore hath lived deliciously and proudly and keeps on to this Day her Whorish attire To make the Whore desolate and naked by making no Act or Law to stand in force which doth yield any relief to her To set themselves in array against her by the Armies power no doubt which he alludes to bend their Bow fan and empty her To set upon this work speedily in good earnest as it seems they do whiles it is to day And why so Because the Lord himself hath by a Call more than ordinarie called them to this more than ordinary Imployment if he could have proved it by Scripture or Law it had been more worth than all his Pamphlet put this fair or rather foul opportunity into their hands hath commanded his sanctified ones and called his Mighty ones the Army-Officers to fulfill his pleasure upon this great Whore the Church and Ministry of England and SION is in travel and ready to bring forth this Monster of Desolation and Confusion which if they neglect or delay then mark how he briefly menaces them with the Fates of their late Predecessors I would think you should never be sitting in that House but be thinking still on those who sate there before you and why not as well on Faux and the Gunpowder Traytoâ—s as those since there seems another Powder-plot in the Vault to blow them up intended by Canne and his Confederates if they fail in accomplishing this their desired work whom the Lord hath lade aside as despised broken Idols and Vessels wherein his Soul had no pleasure And why As they knew not their Generation-work which he excites them to neither were faithfull to the interest of Jesus Christ God is no respecter of Persons as men sow so they shall reap Ex ungue Leonem ex cauda Draconem You may see by these passages and his whole Pamphlet pursuing them what these malicious inhuman barbarous irreligious hypocritical Anabaptists aym at in their present violent prosecutions against Tithes even utterly to starve famish subvert extirpate our Ministers Ministry Church Worship Government and make our Land a mere Spoyl Desolation as their Predecessors did Munster and some parts of Germany whiles in their power But let Canne and his Anabaptistical Confederates remember what tragical ends their New King John with all his Princes Grandees Officers Prophets Followers came to in conclusion in Germany And what fatal ruine befell Jack Cade Iack Straw Wat Tyler Sharp and other levelling Companions who had the self-same Designs against our English Laws Lawyers Clergy Tithes Glebes as He and they have now animated thereto by the new-dipped Iesuites and other Romish Emissaries lately crept into their Anabaptistcal Fraternity to further this their Infernal Gunpowder-plot against our Church Religion Ministers Magistrates Government Laws and let them thereupon repent of desist from abominate this their Diabolical wicked Design lest they incur the self same punishments in conclusion by stirring up God and all the whole Nation against them as most accursed Rebels Traytors Instruments of Satan yea that very Antichrist and Whore of Rome they pretend they are blindly acting against whose designs in truth they are but accomplishing in the highest degree I must here observe and desire all others to take notice of three things First that in Cannes Voyce and in all other late Pamphlets Petitions of the Anabaptists wherein they seem to vent their most passionate zeal against Antichrist Babylon the Whore of Babylon their chief Instruments and Supporters I cannot find so much as one Clause or Syllable against Iesuites Popish Priests Papists Romish Emissaries or exciting the execution of any Laws or Statutes formerly made against them but the whole stream bent of them all is only against the Godly Ministers Ministry worship of the Church of England the Presbyterian Government and our present Church-worship the only Babylon Whore Antichrist they intend and fight against not the Pope and Church of Rome 2ly That they are so far from pleading against the Pope Popish Priests Iesuites and urging the execution of the good Oaths Laws made by late and former