Of tithes; wherein is shewn what liberty of conscience is allowed by the Quakers.
There is no point wherein the Quakers are more positive and fierce than in opposition to tithes; because, if they were once taken away, the clergy (as they suppose) would sink of course, being deprived of their subsistence; and so the total ruin of the church would follow, which has been, is, and always must be, the design and chief endeavour of every true Quaker, as of him who has inspired them.
And this Robert Barclay does not conceal: 1That antichristian, apostatized generation, says he, the national ministry, have received a deadly blow by our witness against their forced maintenance and tithes So that their kingdom, in the hearts of thousands, begins to totter, and shall assuredly fall to the ground.
But what if the light within some Quakers should allow them to pay tithes, and think that they ought in conscience to do it, as being legally established? &c.
Would the Quaker rulers allow them liberty of conscience, and give them leave to follow their light within?
No, no that is but scaffolding to pull down our church and build their own; and they will not have their cannon turned against themselves.
For when 2Thomas Crisp and other Quakers thought themselves obliged to pay their tithes, and did so accordingly, they were proceeded against as rebels, (under no less a denomination,) and that not only as against men, but against God himself: for their writings are not to be looked on as the edicts of men; but, as G. Fox proclaims, (in his Answer to the Westmoreland Petition, p. 30,) if ever you own the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, you will own our writings, which are given forth by the same Spirit and power.
And in another place: 3You might as well condemn the scriptures to the fire as our queries. Our giving forth papers and printed books, it is from the immediate eternal Spirit of God. You are answered from the mouth of the Lord, &c.
And, from the same mouth of the Lord, Thomas Ellwood denounces, that 4they who pay tithes -- thereby deny Christ to be come in the flesh, which is a mark of antichrist.
And G. Fox, in his decretal epistle, bearing date the 3rd month, 1677, commands severely5, that the friends' testimony against tithes be kept up with vigour. He says, that for any to cry against the priests in words, and yet to give them means, and put into their mouths, is a contradiction. And therefore take heed, says he, for if the Lord God do bless you with outward creatures, and you, do bestow them upon Baal's priests, the Lord may justly require the outward things from you again So all the preachers for tithes and money, and the takers and payers of tithe, must be testified against in the Lord's power and Spirit and therefore, in the power of the Lord, maintain the war against the beasts— that is, as well payers as receivers of tithes; and that is the whole kingdom, king and parliament, who made laws for the payment of tithes, and all who dare obey those laws are the beast, antichrist, and have denied Christ's coming in the flesh, (as T. Ellwood,) and therefore (G. Fox concludes his epistle above said) keep your authority and dominion; that is, over the beast and these antichrists. This was wrote 1677, and printed 1694, whereby we may understand what church they mean to which tithes are paid, and against which they have proclaimed War.
But there is a most clever and ingenious excuse made for this, in a paper dated at London the 4th of the 4th month, 1695, and signed, on behalf of the friends and yearly meeting, by John Vaugh tom, Samuel Watson, John Field, Thomas Lower, and William Bingley; printed and sold by T. Sowle, near the Quaker meeting-house in Grace church-street. It is entitled, An Answer to Francis Bugg's presumptuous Impeachment, &c.
There they would persuade us, that all they have said against the payment of tithes was only meant by them against payment of them to the popish clergy; but by no means against the right of the church of England to their tithes, as settled upon them by the civil government. No! they are not such bad subjects as to oppose any thing of the laws of the land! We are not convinced, say they, p.2, that it can be against the fundamental laws of the land, either to deny tithes [what? when the law enjoins them] now in this gospel-day, or to deem them antichristian, as they were imposed by popes and popish laws, which are not the fun damental laws of this realm. Are not acts of par liament, though made in popish times? And there are acts of parliament since the reformation for tithes: so that this is a mere sham. But they go on; and our testimony herein does rather affect a popish clergy than a protestant civil government. And, p. 3, they tell, that what they are quarrelled with for, was their testimonies against the cor ruption of priests, and popish imposition, and op pression of tithes; and, p. 5, for deeming the imposition of tithes by the pope and popish laws to be antichristian.
But hark ye, gentlemen, (if ye be not offended with that title,) there were no tithes paid to any popish priests in England ever since Quakerism appeared amongst us; and if you meant all you said only against them, your preaching was altogether vain.
But Barclay (as before quoted) names the national ministry, who had received a deadly blow by your witness against their forced maintenance of tithes, whose kingdom, he says, was tottering, and should assuredly (if he was a true prophet) fall to the ground. Slay Baal, cries G. Fox, Balaam must be slain, all the hirelings must be turned out of the kingdom6.
These are the Baal's priests whom this Fox com mands you not to feed; the beasts, the antichrists, over whom you are to keep your authority and dominion.
If it be not so, why then do you not now pay your tithes to the ministers of the church of England? Why do you boast of your sufferings and imprisonments for not paying your tithes to them, as being a sort of martyrdom for the truth?
Why do you persecute and disown those of your own communion who pay their tithes not to popish priests, but to those of the church of England?
Why are you so zealous herein as not to leave it to their own conviction, or light within, whether they will pay their tithes to the priests of the church of England, or not?
Why will you not allow them what you yourselves so much plead for, liberty of conscience, in this case?
No, this is a material cause, this is the surest method to destroy the church of England, and you have gone a great way in it already.
For if they are deprived, first, of the tithes of all the Quakers, (who are not fewer, by the lowest computation, than one hundred thousand here in England,) and then of all those who to avoid payment of their tithes will pretend to be persuaded by them herein; if the tithes of all such were subtracted, there would not be sufficient left to keep half the clergy in England from starving.
And it is the desire and design of the Quakers to starve them, as is plainly confessed and threatened, or prophesied of, in Richard Hubberthorn's works, reprinted since 1660, in his Answer to John Stellum, p. 130.
When the law of the land, says he, ceaseth to maintain them, (the priests as he calls them,) which will come sooner that they expect, then may they beg their bread, or perish for want.
And this the Quakers hope to effect by their testimony against tithes, and threaten or prophesy, that it will come sooner than we expect, either to have the laws for tithes altered or overthrown: if the government will not alter them, they will over throw them, by declaring them antichristian, and so abrogated of course.
And it is to be observed, that there is no principle of the Quaker religion wherein they are so zealous as in this: they did not think it sufficient to preach and print against tithes, but they went about and got subscriptions of many thousands of the Quakers throughout all England against tithes, and sent them up to the parliament in an humble threatening manner: and, as if this had not been sufficient, the women must be assembled in the several counties, and they too must sign the like subscriptions, and send them likewise to the parliament; and then they printed them, to let the nation know their force. I have now before me the printed testimony and subscriptions (with all their names at length) of above seven thousand of these Quaker women against tithes sent to the parliament (as they called it) the 20th day of the 5th month, 1659. They resolved to batter them down; and all who thus subscribed were in their fashion canonized by them; for they are thus styled in the said printed account, the handmaids and daughters of the Lord. But these seven thousand (who had not bowed to the Baal of tithes) would not have you think that their number was so small; for they subscribe, not only for themselves, but (as it is there printed) in the names of many more of the said handmaids and daughters of the Lord, who witness against tithes, &c. And G. Fox, in his Letters of License (before inserted, p. 107.) for these subscriptions, complains that all the good women had not signed.
I have not yet seen the subscriptions of the men; but we may compute by this of the women what vast numbers the men subscribers must have been. And we may reasonably suppose their arguments to have been much the same with these of the women, being likely drawn by the men, at least with their concurrence: and the women do positively declare for annulling the laws for tithes, if the parliament would not alter the laws. The commands of men, say they, p. 3, must be annulled that takes tithes, and not to be obeyed by them that live in the covenant of God. And they tell, p. 4, that they bear their testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ (in opposition to tithes) against the commands of men, set up in opposition to him since the days of the apostles, &c. which to you, say they, is the word of the Lord God. And, p. 21, The shout of a king is amongst us, the Lord God omnipotent 66 therefore we with our names and hands bear our testimony against tithes, the giver of them, the setter of them up, and the taker of them. P. 40. This priesthood which takes tithes now, (this was not the popish priesthood,) we in the power of the Lord God deny them. P.63. We declare with our hands, and with our lives and estates, against the ministry that takes tithes, and the set ters of them—and the law that upholds them. P. 71. Are not all these set up by the dragon's power, and held up by the dragon's power, the devourer, the destroyer? Is not this the power of the Devil? These are their words, and they need no comment. They were and are plainly for de stroying the law, if the law will not comply with them. But then, as now, they were for flattering the powers in being: they soothe that rebel parlia ment, p. 54; Some of our friends, say they, who have been for the parliament ever since the begin ning of the late wars, have suffered more by these plundering priests than by the plundering cava liers, and you have saddened the hearts of them that are your friends by setting up tithes, &c. And, p. 62, the well-wishers of the choicest of the nation are towards you.
I could enlarge upon this head out of the Quaker writings.
But what authorities I have already produced are abundantly sufficient to shew their deep design against the church, and the means by which they have agreed to destroy her; this especially of keep ing up (to use their own phrase) their testimony against tithes.
Therefore this handle must by no means be let go: insomuch that though their pretence to the suffi ciency and infallibility of the light within was the original, and is the fundamental principle of all the whole Quaker doctrine; yet if any plead it in this case they shall be run down as hypocrites and re bels against God, and to have fallen from the true light within, and to be guided by a false light which comes from Satan, to be very antichrists, and to have denied Christ's coming in the flesh, &c. as I have above shewn from Tho. Ellwood's Antidote against the Infection of William Rogers, &c. Now I must tell the reader that this William Rogers is a Quaker, but of the more moderate sort: and he wrote a book, called, The Christian Quaker, printed 1680; where, part 2, chap. 8, touching tithes, he disputes expressly against tithes, and against the lawfulness of suing for them, or compelling any to pay them: only, p. 43, he allows those to pay them who are free so to do; and that only as a voluntary contribution to those who teach them, but not as any thing of a divine right. And, p. 44, he again limits this to those only who own such ministers as true ministers of Christ, and go to hear them; and upon that account bestow a fifth, tenth, or what they please upon them. So that here by he cuts off all dissenters to the church of England from paying tithes to the clergy of the church of England.
Secondly, He bars the clergy from suing, or using any compulsory means to recover their tithes, even from those of their own communion: but he makes tithes merely eleemosynary, and the clergy to have no better title to them than a beggar has to our alms.
Yet all this was not sufficient for the Quakers. But Tho. Ellwood falls upon him like a Turk, for granting so much as to make tithes lawful upon any account or consideration whatsoever, and writes against this book of William Rogers, the above quoted, An Antidote against the Infection of William Rogers's Christian Quaker: where, p. 78, he denounces (as above) against those who pay tithes, even according to William Rogers's aforesaid limit ations, that they who pay tithes thereby deny Christ to be come in the flesh, which is a mark of antichrist.
And in Westmoreland there were forty-four articles exhibited against John Story and John Wilkinson (two Quakers) by sundry of their chief preachers and rulers. One of which articles was, That he (John Story) said he knew a man that was an honest man, that could have given up his body to be burnt for the truth, who said he never saw evil in paying of tithes, and that he could pay them, and would pay them. Another article was, That John Story said he believed every man had not a testimony from God laid upon them to bear against tithes; but them which had, he would have them be faithful. And these two, John Story and John Wilkinson, were proceeded against by a general meeting of the Quakers in London, who the 12th day of the 4th month, 1677, gave judgment against them, and those that joined with them, in a formal instrument, subscribed by sixty-six of them.
But this was soon rebuffeted back again upon them by the Quakers in the west of England, who adhered to Story and Wilkinson, in as solemn and judicial condemnation of them and their sentence; and this was subscribed by sixty-seven of the other party, and styled, A Testimony against the Sixty six Judges called Quakers, &c. and printed under that title, together with the paper of the said judges, and all their names subscribed.
It is astonishing to see them play their infallibilities against one another! for each of these par ties pretend to the immediate Spirit of God; and in the name of God pronounce the other to be led by a false, ravening spirit. Our souls, say the de fendants, do in the highest degree abominate it, and do surge against it, p. 15; that is, the authority which the plaintiffs assumed over conscience in judging of others, and not leaving them to their primitive liberty of following their own light within. On the other hand, the London Quakers, who as sumed a superiority over the country Quakers, con demned that spirit which possessed them as a wrong, murmuring, and dividing spirit, p. 5. And our day, say they, hath lamentably shewn us the effects of that spirit, that under a pretence of cry ing down impositions, and pleading for liberty, and doing nothing but what it is free to, endea voureth to lay waste the blessed unity of the bre thren with a loose and unsubjected conversa tion, which would bring confusion to the church and is a plain independency from the prac tice of the church of Christ throughout the world, p. 6.
It is comical (but provoking) to see these men so gravely vouch the practice of the church throughout the world, who own no church in the world but themselves: and for them now to speak against the pretence of liberty in others, as a breach of their unity, when they themselves set up the very same pretence to break the unity of that church whereof they once were members. But it is come justly home to them, (I wish they may reflect upon it.) that they who set up the pretence of a light within, to undermine the authority of our church, are now obliged to condemn that same pretence among them selves, in order to keep up their own authority and government.
This shews them, as in a glass, the utter inconsistency of that principle (to use their own word) of an unsubjected light within to all rule, order, or good government, whether in church or state; for it makes every man absolute and supreme, that is, unsubjected: any lesser light within had not made them unsubjected to the church. And this unsubjected light within they now declare to be in consistent even with their church. Thus have they justly reaped what they had wickedly sown; and in the same net which they hid privily is their own foot taken.
Mr. Penn, in his preface to Fox's Journal, p. 27, has done the most that wit can do to rid them out of this dilemma, and reconcile the two extremes of outward government in the church, and an unsubjected light within particular persons. He says, that the Quakers' known principle is for an universal liberty of conscience. On the other hand, says he, they equally dislike an independency in society, an unaccountableness in practice and conversation to the terms of their own communion, and to those that are the members of it. Very well. But what if some of these members should make terms of communion that others would not submit to? as John Story, John Wilkinson, and sixty seven on their side of the west country Quakers refused to submit to those terms of communion which were imposed upon them by sixty-six of the Quakers at London assembled, of whom William Penn was one, and his name is among the subscribers of the judgment above told against Story, Wilkinson, &c. who would not allow these sixty-six judges, as they called them, the very name of Quakers, because of their taking upon them thus to judge others; for, as abovesaid, the sixty-seven western Quakers' condemnation of the presumption of the sixty-six is entitled, A Testimony against the Sixty-six Judges called Quakers. They would allow them no more than to be called so, but not to be reckoned as true Quakers, who fell so far from the first Quaker independent spirit, as to take upon them to prescribe to their brethren.
George Fox set up a new economy and jurisdic tion of the women's meetings, which was styled, the great and good ordinance of Jesus Christ: that is, as being commanded by G. Fox, who had the same spirit; and John Story, Wilkinson, &c. were cursed and excommunicated for refusing to submit to this ordinance, and articled against for so much as allowing liberty of conscience to any Quaker to pay tithes, as told above. Now it lies upon Mr. Penn to explain how an universal liberty of conscience was allowed to these men: was that universal which was so limited 2 And what is an universal liberty but independency and unaccount ableness in practice and conversation? For if my liberty be dependent upon another, if I am account able to another, then my liberty is not universal. Mr. Penn will tell us how the one, that is, universal liberty of conscience, can be the known principle of the Quakers; and how then they equally dislike the other, that is, an independency and unaccount ableness; which are both but two words for the same thing.
He will tell us how an universal liberty of conscience can consist with such a restriction of conscience, as to give it no liberty at all in the most minute, innocent, and indifferent actions, such as taking off my hat, not opening my shop when others have theirs shut, and the like; for which things liberty of conscience is a loose plea, and in no sort to be allowed, according to Mr. Penn, which I have shewn from his own words, p. 48, 49. And though such a nonconformist among the Quakers for such small or indifferent things were never so good a liver, yet that should rather be made his condemnation, if not thoroughly a conformist to every the least not only law or order, but custom or fashion, among the Quakers. See before, p. 49. Here Mr. Penn is not only a church, but a steeple-man for conformity! yet allows an universal liberty of conscience, which, he says, is the known principle of Quakers. He will please, in his next, to explain and reconcile these things; but their practice is the best comment of their doctrine: and this we have seen in the case of Story, Wilkinson, &c. in that of Harp-lane and Turner's-hall, whom the Quakers of Gracechurch street have excommunicated, not for any difference in doctrine, as they do profess, but merely for non conformity to their discipline.
George Keith did publicly reprehend many gross errors (as he was verily persuaded in his conscience) of his brethren the Quakers; for which he was pro secuted in Pennsylvan ia, 1692, and required by the yearly meeting in London, 1694, to clear all the Quakers from the imputation s which he had cast upon them; for not doing of which he was excommunicated by the next yearly meeting, 1695, (as in his accounts of it above mentioned,) though he de clared that he could not in conscience do it; for that he knew not all the Quakers, and so could not clear them all universally: may further, that he knew se veral of the chief of them there present, who were guilty of those gross errors against which he had preached, and which he there offered to prove before the yearly meeting, and desired a fair hearing; and therefore that he could not in conscience clear their whole profession from these errors: yet for not do ing of it, and without any hearing allowed him, as to his charge against these men, he was, ipso facto, by that same yearly meeting, excommunicated, and utterly disowned by them. Now I would ask Mr. Penn, (because he was one of his judges,) whether G. Keith had, by this proceeding, an universal liberty of conscience allowed to him, or not? If not, (as it is impossible to say he had,) then let the Quaker pretence to liberty of conscience stand upon the common level with all others; that is, it is made a great cry of by those who are under the pressure of the government, but allowed universally by no church in the world when they have the power. Thus the Presbyterians, who cried out for liberty of conscience in England, and complained of fines or imprisonments here, when they got into New England hanged up the poor Quakers who dissented from them there: and the Quakers, when they had tasted a little of the sweet of government in Pennsylvania, prosecuted G. Keith and other dissenters there, and took up the old pretence, that it was not for his doctrine, but as it was a disturbance to the government. No church, not that of Rome, pretends to any power further than to excommunicate; and the Quakers pretend to the same, and exercise it; and all who can get the assistance of the civil government do take it; and all corporal punishments are only from the civil government, even in the popish countries: and the same distinction serves at Rome, and in Pennsylvania; for Samuel Jennings, esq. justice of peace, gave out his warrants against George Keith and his accomplices, as subverters of the government: but plain Samuel Jennings, the botcher, butcher, and preacher, pretends to no superiority over G. Keith, his fellow minister in the church; or that their church (qua tenus church) pretends to any outward coercion, or corporal punishments.
So that they have said nothing new upon this head; only Mr. Penn's expression is remarkable, (ibid. p. 26,) where he speaks against a coercive power to whip people into the temple, which he calls persecution. He would seem by this to lead us to the precedent of our Saviour's scourging the buyers and sellers out of the temple: and is it greater persecution to whip people into the temple, than to whip them out of the temple?
But I would desire Mr. Penn and the other Quakers to reflect, that the greatest zeal which Christ ever shewed was to preserve the honour and reverence due to outward institutions of religion, even to the material temple of stones and lime, through which he would not suffer so much as any vessel to be carried, (Mark xi. 16;) and his disciples applied to this that of Psalm lxix. 9, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, (John ii 17.) And if he thus reproved the Jews' profanation of their outward temple, though they pretended, and in many things did express great veneration towards it; how would he have scourged those who durst despise and contemn it at the vile Quaker rate, and ridicule it by the name of a steeple-house, as Fox through all his Journal? And some, yet more profanely, have called the church a bawdy-house, a whore-house, &c. which I have from those that have heard them: and they value themselves, as spiritual and enlightened, from this contempt of God's house, and of all outward things dedicated to his service, upon pretence (forsooth') of reducing all to the inward; as if they were more spiritual than Christ, or wiser than he, to think that outward institutions were not necessary to guard, to preserve, and to improve the inward and spiritual part of religion; to think that there is no sacrilege, no robbing of God in this gospel-day, though we seize upon his tithe and tribute due to him, as if we depended less upon him, or owed him less acknowledgment than formerly, and that we had now the privilege to appear empty before the Lord, and to sacrifice to him only out of that which cost us no thing, neither the sweat of our brows, nor hardly the expense of a thought; a few undigested extempore prayers, the calves of our lips; but to bar his title to any part of our estate, so much as to the lame or blind of our flock, or to a penny of our money, as a due or just debt to him: but if we give a bit or a scrap to the Levite, or to the poor, that it should be accepted as a free-will offering, wherein we must be our own carvers, but have nothing imposed upon us, no, not so much as a tenth part, though we acknowledge that to have been God's tribute, universally paid to him both before the law and under the law, and we can produce no discharge from it under the gospel. But we suppose ourselves free, and have cast away his cords from us; and having allegorized away the letter of the scripture in other matters, it would be a shame to leave literal tithe to be paid. The Quakers will thank him for his love, but desire to be excused as to money matters; they know God has no need of money, therefore they will use it for him, and pay him in spiritual coin.
But though they dare thus mock God to his face, yet they are afraid of the face of man; though they make no scruple of withholding God's tithe, and pretend conscience for it, yet they would smooth it to the government, as being against their laws, and make jesuitical subterfuges to avoid their displeasure; as in this Quaker answer to Bugg, which I have spoke of before, and will prosecute a little further, to detect their deceit and hypocrisy.
As it was said of Hannibal, that he never fought without an ambush, so the Quakers never write without a reserve, a double meaning, to secure their retreat when pinched from another quarter, as is most apparent in this their apology against Francis Bugg's impeachment, as to the matter of tithes. I will conceal none of their strength: I see the starting-hole that they have left, (as in all their writ ings,) whereby to escape from what I have before quoted, viz. that their testimony against tithes does rather affect a popish clergy, than a protest ant civil government. The charm lies in the word rather; and if they are pressed hereafter with this testimony of theirs, as favouring of tithes; No, they will say, we did not by that at all allow of tithes, but only, by way of comparison, we would arather grant it to a protestant civil government, than to a popish clergy; not that we think it law ful to pay them to either. And this is their true and genuine meaning by this testimony, which I will shew yet more fully from the proofs they bring for it. They bring precedents, as vouchers for them, out of Fox's Book of Martyrs, of some who refused tithes to the then popish clergy, and thence would insinuate as if their case was the same. Therefore they grievously accuse Francis Bugg, in that he most shamefully quarrels with the Quakers, p. 3, for renewing and asserting his (Wickliff's) and other famous protestants' and martyrs' testimonies against the corruption of priests, and popish im position and oppression of tithes. And they in stance another, one William Thorp, in the reign of Henry IV.
But, to secure their double meaning, the arguments which they quote of these men are not against paying of tithes to the then priests, because they were popish, but as making tithes not proper under the gospel, which reaches to all priests, whe ther popish or others. But will the Quakers be tied to the opinion of these men in other things? No, surely; they will not so much as pretend to that. Why then should they think to tie us to their opinion as to tithes?
They lay particular stress upon the ample testimony (as they call it) given by William Thorp, as to their present purpose; and they set it down at large: it militates against tithes being paid at all under the new law, that is, to any sort of priests. And how does this serve to the present purpose of these Quakers, who would put upon us that they are only against tithes being paid to popish priests? for otherwise they do in no sort clear themselves from Francis Bugg's impeachment, which is, their opposing the laws of the land, and preaching them down as antichristian, and not to be obeyed.
But as to Thorp's argument, wherein they so much glory, it shews what a doughty clerk he was. Our priests, says he, came not of the lineage of Levi, but of the lineage of Judah, to which Judah no tithes were promised to be given. Thus he, as these Quakers have quoted him. But now who told Thorp, or the Quakers, that our priests came of the lineage of Judah? Are they Jews? What fulsome stuff is this ' But our Saviour was of Judah. What then he was not a priest after the order of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood, Heb. vii. 14; but he was a priest after the order of Melchisedec, Heb. v. 6; and tithes were paid to Melchisedec long before Levi, who paid tithes to Melchisedec, being yet in the loins of his father Abraham, Heb. vii. 10.
Now the evangelical priesthood is after the order of Melchisedec, and therefore they claim tithes as being due to that order of priesthood; so that all their arguments as to the law and Levitical priest hood being superseded, operate nothing againstpriests of a superior and more excellent priesthood.
And there being as ancient mention of tithes as there is of priesthood in the world, I have no man ner of doubt but they are as ancient as priesthood itself, that is, as Adam; from whom descended the knowledge of tithes, as of sacrifices and priesthood, which are all relatives, the one being the maintenance, the other the office of the priesthood; and therefore the one must be as ancient as the other; and they were all alike received by the heathen world by an immemorial tradition from the begin ning, without knowing of their beginning, as they knew not their own origination, nor of the world, of marriage, and other positive institutions, which by an universal tradition had been conveyed down to them.
God reserved the tenth part of our substance, as the seventh of our time, to be paid as a tribute and acknowledgment to him from whom we receive all; and therefore the payment of tithes is a part of God's worship; the priests being made the receivers (because we cannot pay them to God immediately) is but a secondary consideration: they were part of the offerings to God under the Law, Numb. xviii. 24; they are called his inheritance, Deut. xviii. 1, not as then instituted, but then given to the Levites. Nor is Melchisedec's tithing of Abraham mentioned as the beginning or first rise of tithes; but it is told only occasionally, and as a thing well known and received, even in those early ages.
And being part of the worship of God, holy unto the Lord, Lev. xxvii. 32, 33, they were not alien able, or to be changed with any thing else: the priests could no more excuse men from the pay ment of their tithes, (for they were paid to God,) than they could commute any of the other offerings or sacrifices upon the pretence that they were given to the priests for their maintenance. No man says that the people did offer sacrifices to the priests, though the priests did live of their sacrifices; nei ther are tithes offered to the priests, but to God, though they are paid to the priests, and received by the priests from the hands of the people, as other offerings to the Lord were.
Therefore the subtraction of the tithes, as of other offerings, is called a robbing, not of the priests, but of God, Mal. iii. 8. It is invading what God has reserved peculiar to himself, that we may not touch it. Of all the other trees of the garden we may freely eat: and this is the same sacrilege as to taste of the forbidden fruit. That was the first sin; it was sacrilege: and I am not afraid to say, that all are guilty of it who have seized upon the tithes of God, and pay them not to his priests; and that this sin will not be forgiven without a severe repent ance and restitution.
How far extreme ignorance, occasioned by the torrent of the times, will excuse, I will not now dispute; but I am sure wilful or affected ignorance, occasioned by negligence or covetousness, will not.
And let this be added to all that I have said, that several kings of England, who had then the sole right and property in all the lands of England, have anew dedicated, by particular vows, as Jacob, (Gen. xxviii.22,) all the whole tithes of the lands of. England to God, and signed charters and grants of the same, and tendered them upon their knees at the altar of God, in presence, and with the appro bation of the lords and estates of the land, with heavy curses and imprecations upon themselves, or any of their successors, who should recall the same, or encroach, in any part, upon the said tithe of God, and upon all who should receive such grants from them, or assist them in such sacrilege: and the same has been confirmed by several acts of parliament.
Now if a man cannot violate his own vow, how can he annul that of another? especially where his vow was only for the payment of what God had before reserved to himself.
But I will not launch out here upon this subject, only tell these Quakers, that it was the friars and schoolmen who first set up the notion of tithes being eleemosynary against their own canonists, on purpose to leave the people at liberty to bestow their tithes upon the regulars, and to maintain the sacrilegious impropriations which the pope had made of the tithes of the secular clergy to endow their monasteries; which Henry VIII, instead of restoring, did yet more sacrilegiously impropriate to the laity.
And here let the Quakers take a view of the original of their arguments against tithes; they have only licked up the spittle of the most corrupt part of the church of Rome, and gone into the scandal of our reformation, which is most justifiable in our doctrine and worship; but the high places were not taken away: our Jehu reformer destroyed indeed Baal out of the land, (2 Kings x. 28, 29,) but he departed not from the sin of the golden calves. O thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacri lege? Rom. ii. 22.
But our Quakers exceed all corruption even in this; they not only refuse to pay their tithes to God, but they are tempted by the seducer to rail against them as utterly unlawful and antichristian; and, to add even to this, they would now hypocriti cally excuse themselves at the hands of the government, and dare not bear their testimony openly and aboveboard.
They simper with half a mouth, and say, they mean it not against a protestant civil government; when, no longer since than in their yearly epistle for the year 1693, directed from the yearly meeting at London to the monthly and quarterly meetings in England, Wales, and elsewhere, it is positively enjoined, that none should pay tithes, but refuse the payment thereof as an antichristian yoke of bondage.
And in a book delivered by them to the house of commons, 1694, entitled, The Counterfeit Convert, &c. which was wrote by G. Whitehead, and wherein they pretend to vindicate themselves from calumnies cast upon them, and to set forth their true doctrine, which they will stand by, and own as such before the parliament: there, p. 73, they openly declare, that their testimony against tithes was not a law of their making, but of Christ's. This is high indeed! for then it must supersede all our laws, and render them antichristian; this is a full confession of Fran cis Bugg's impeachment: but I meddle not now with that, only as to the conscience of the thing. Where do they find any law of Christ against tithes? No, they are not able to produce one word, or any thing like it; but, on the contrary, there are plain intimations in the gospel of their continuance, par ticularly 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14.
But we need no new command for them in the gospel: if they are not forbidden and abrogated by Christ, they are still of force; they are no part of the typical or ceremonial law; and nothing else of the law was abrogated by Christ: they were before the law, and the reason of them is eternal; that is, honouring the Lord with our substance, (Prov. iii. 9,) as with our time; and that proportion of either which he at first reserved to himself must so remain.
But there is another jesuitical excuse in p. 2. of these Quakers' Answer to Bugg, viz. That these their orders are not constitutions or canons, but epistles, wherein several matters of Christian ad vice are recommended, and not imposed. This would seem as if these Quakers were left to their liberty whether they would pay tithes or not; but the contrary is made fully appear in the instances of Crisp, Story, Rogers, &c. as before.
And as to the style of their orders being called epistles; I suppose they have heard of the pope's Decretal Epistles: and he commands most absolutely, when he writes himself servant of the servants of God. Soft words, and hard meaning. That severe and terrible excommunication against John Story, &c. above told, was by way of epistle, which is taken notice of in the above quoted replication, in the very title of it, viz. A Testimony against the Sixty-six Judges called Quakers, who writ an Epistle (as they call it) against John Story, John Wilkinson, and those joined with them, &c. I have shewn before, that not only their writings, when they are called epistles, but all, even the very queries of theirs, are to be esteemed equal to the scriptures; so that (as they say) you might as well condemn the scrip tures to the fire as their queries: that their writ ings are not to be looked upon as the edicts of men, but of God himself, &c.
But when they are pinched, then they are only recommendations and advices—but such as must be obeyed, under the pain of being rebels to God, and disowned by them; which to much the greatest number of them, considering their dependence upon one another in trade, is their utter undoing.
Now such advices look very like commands: and this last excuse of the Quakers is no better than the former.
But in all this Answer to Bugg, they have quite forgot the most material objection against them, which is some quotations of theirs as to tithes, which are cited by Bugg, particularly that men tioned p. 3. of Edw. Burroughs, in page 780 of his works: Tithes, says he, as received and paid in these days—are of antichrist. This totally overthrows the Quakers' excuse in their Answer to Bugg, viz. that they only spoke against tithes being paid to popish priests, and by popish laws: for here Edw. Burroughs condemns those tithes as antichris tian which are received and paid in these days, which are to protestant priests, and by protestant laws. And to this the Quakers' Answer has not returned one word, or taken the least notice of it; no, nor to that other quotation out of the Ancient Testimony, &c. p. 2. So it is no new thing that the people of the Lord called Quakers have suffered so deeply for, but the ancient testimony to the coming, death, and resurrection of Christ, which they that plead for tithes in this gospel-day do in effect deny, &c.
Nor to that quoted out of Thomas Ellwood's An tidote, &c. which I have mentioned before; but Bugg here more at large. Thus, p. 78, of the An tidote; Truth allows no payment of tithes at allunder the new covenant, but condemns it—They who pay tithes do therein uphold a legal ceremony abrogated by Christ; and thereby deny Christ to be come in the flesh, which is a mark of anti christ, &c. under the new covenant, but condemns it—They who pay tithes do therein uphold a legal ceremony abrogated by Christ; and thereby deny Christ to be come in the flesh, which is a mark of antichrist, &c.
To the argument, it is answered before, that tithes are no legal ceremony, nor any ceremony at all: they are a just tribute and acknowledgment to God out of that increase with which he has blessed our la bours. This is far above a ceremony, which in its own nature is a thing indifferent, neither good nor bad; which the duty of honouring the Lord with our substance is not, but a necessary and even a natural duty. And as to the particular quantum of a tenth part of our substance, that was determined long before the law, and was the universally received notion of the world in all ages, and therefore of divine institution; and so, far from a legal ceremony.
And as they were no ceremony, so neither were they any type of Christ, and to cease at his coming, like sacrifices, whose first institution was to prefigure the death of Christ, and the shedding of his blood. And therefore Christ is called by the name of his types, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, I Cor. v. 7. He is called our passover and sacrifice, but he is never called our tithe; for that has no relation to any typical representation of Christ; they pre figure not his passion or death; they are totally of another nature, a tribute due from us to our Creator and Preserver, and therefore never to cease: they are never fulfilled but in being duly paid. Sacrifices, and all other types of Christ, are fulfilled: for he only is now our sacrifice, but he is not our tithe. The nonsense of such a pretence appears from the very proposing of it.
But, in the next place, as tithes are no legal cere mony nor type, so neither are they abrogated by Christ, as T. Ellwood affirms, but cannot prove. We desire any one text to shew it. He quotes 1 John iv. 3, which has no more relation to it than Neh. x. to the 28th verse; and is a plain demonstra tion that they have no such proof, else they would have brought it.
And it is as plain, that they have no answer to give to those quotations which Francis Bugg pro duces out of their books, otherwise it is impossible but they must have said something to them, they being so exceedingly scandalous and provoking to our government both in church and state; as their making our magistrates to be Pharaohs, Nebuchad nezzars, &c. and the clergy very conjurors, thieves, antichrists, witches, devils, Baal's priests, hell-hounds, &c. and crying woe and misery to the upholders (whether kings or parliaments) of that treacherous crew and deceitful generation. But William Penn, continues Bugg, in his Im peachment, p. 1, in his late book, styled, The Guide Mistaken, &c. printed 1668, p. 18, goes a little further, viz. Whilst the idle gormandizing priests of England run away with above 150, 000l. a year, under pretence of God's ministers And that no sort of people have been so universally through ages the very bane of soul and body of the universe as that abominable tribe, for whom the theatre of God's most dreadful vengeance is reserved to act their eternal tragedy upon, &c.
This was for the church of England. And as for the dissenters, (for he deals his blows round,) he says, in his Quakerism a new Nickname, &c. p. 165, that they are an ill-bred, pedantic crew, the bane of religion and pest of the world, the old incen diaries to mischief, and the best to be spared of mankind, against whom the boiling vengeance of an irritated God is ready to be poured out. And in his Serious Apology, p. 156, answering the objec tion of the Quakers' blaspheming the ministry, he says, that if the Quakers' expressions had been ten thousand times more significant, earnest, and sharp against that cursed bitter stock of hirelings, they had been but enough; and I would then say not enough, but that the reverence I bear to the Holy Spirit would oblige me to acquiesce in what ever he should utter through any prophet or ser vant of the Lord. By these he means the Quaker prophets, who pronounced these curses against the clergy. But he goes on. And we have nothing for them (the clergy) but woes and plagues, who have made drunk the nations, and laid them to sleep on downy beds of soft sin-pleasing principles, whilst they have cut their purses, and picked their pockets; Tophets prepared for them to act their eternal tragedy upon, whose scenes will be, renew ed, direful, anguishing woes of an eternal irrecon cilable justice.
What flaming ovens are the hearts of these men! belching forth nothing but hell and damnation!
Bugg tells us in the same place how industriously these books are spread among the Quakers, insomuch that a poor widow Quaker to whom he administered, whose substance did not amount to ten pounds, yet she was so well stored with these Quaker printed books and pamphlets, that she had more than two hundred of them; enough, says he, to infect a nation, their chief tendency being against magistracy and ministry, and all instituted religion.
And to all this heavy impeachment there is not one word of answer in that which is called, The Quakers' Answer to Bugg.
Nihil dicit is confessing of judgment; and by this we must believe all these impeachments of Bugg's to be true, and that there is nothing to be said in defence of them; but that the Quakers own them still, and are just such men as he has represented them.
But to conclude: if they thought that they could prove tithes to be abrogated by Christ, their being against the law of the land ought to be no objec tion; but their poor trimming and seeking excuses shews, either that they dare not stand to the truth, or that they think not their own pretences to be truth, though they would pass them as such upon others.
If they could prove tithes to be abrogated by Christ, then indeed Bugg's impeachment would appear to be malicious, only to stir up persecution against the truth of Christ, because it was not owned by the law of the land. But if it cannot be made appear that tithes are contrary to the law of Christ, then they are justly impeachable who shall oppose the laws of the land in that particular. And this shews how dangerous a thing it is to admit enthusiasm in any government, when their imagina tions and crotchets shall be thought equal to the scripture, and to have force to dissolve the laws of the land. It is no objection against Quakerism, that it has not been voted in St. Stephen's chapel, (as bad things have,) and I should like it not the better, but the worse, if it were made the parliamentary religion of the nation, which it may come to in its turn.
All persecution for the faith is suffering in opposition to laws; and the Psalmist tells of those who establish wickedness by a law; therefore this was the easiest objection in the world to get over.
But now for the Quakers (to curry a little favour) to sham and trim, as in this their Answer to Bugg, and that in a matter of conscience, gives us an idea of these men far short of infallibility, even as the poorest time-servers, and, in their unmannerly way, of flatterers and sycophants.
And I have shewn that they were always so; courting all the prosperous rebellions from 1650 to I660.
And that their enthusiastical madness, and high blasphemous pretences, even to the spirit of prophecy, does still continue among them, I come next to shew.
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