A Censure of Simony, Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
Wherein other shifts and euasions are met withall.
BVt what is become of my Simonist? I thought I had catched him fast euen now with my Sillogisme. But Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nod…? How shall I hold this shifting Proteus? with what Cords or Wyths shall I bind this Sampson-like Simon? Emit, non Emit: beneficium, non Beneficium: curam, non Curam. But at the last, hee must confesse (and therein hee mockes not) that hee hath certaine Lock…, whereon neuer … Razor; that is, certaine Flockes or …leeces neuer yet polled from the Church, or not touched (at least in his owne sleepie sense and apprehension) with the Razor of Conuiction vnderunder the name of Simony. The temporall benefit indeed hee hath bought, to wit, the Glebe, the Tythe, and the like: proue this to bee Simony, & then I shall be as other men. And in this his conceit, hee is as strong as Sampson: yea, so confident, that hee dare say, that Tythes are meere Temporalls, Lay Fees. But as Sampson, after his lockes were shauen, neuer thought that his strength was gone, till by wofull proofe he found it: So our Simon here, thinkes all is well with him, so long as he strongly imagineth that his Tythes are but Temporalls; and so long, no Simonist, not as other men.
But now Sampson, the Philistins bee vponupon thee; yea, stronger then the Philistins, A Troope of Truths doth beset thee. What? Tythes temporall? In what Grammer hauehave you learned to ioyne this Substantiue and Adiectiue together? I am sure not in Gods Booke? There is no such incongruitie, no Solecisme, no false construction there. There he deserues the Feruia, the Rod, a vae, that incongruously calls sower, Sweet: and Sweet, Sower; Good, Euill: and Euill, Good: And shall hee escape, that calls Sacred, Secular? Tythes, Temporalls? Or he, who saith, GiueGive vntounto Caesar the things that are Gods? Let mee but a little shake Aarons Rod, and Christs many-corded Whip, at our indisciplined Simon, to make him at least attentiue to what the Scripture saith. Tythes, I am sure, were once Sacred; and what God hath once Sacred, call not thou Common. But when Sacred? When? Why not, when Adam was first Created? When hee was endued with the ten Moralls of the Law? And is it not more then probable, that among the ten, the Lord allotted a Tythe, for the maintenance of his seruice: Seeing among the ten hee appointed a time for his seruice, euen the Sabbath Day, the Sanctification whereof, Tythes were properly to attend vponupon? Tythes then, no doubt, were sacred from the beginning of Adams creation. For else, when did Abraham learne to pay tythe of All to Melchisedech, the Priest of the most high God? Or what moued Iacob to vow the paying of Tythes? Was it onelyonly from the Example of his grandfather? Or were his Tythes onelyonly voluntary and arbitrary, till by vow made necessary? Why not then his other seruice, which he then vowed, which he was bound to performe, though hee had not vowed it at all? His vow was but a stronger Bond to hold and helpe him, to the better performance of that dutie, which notwithstanding was due without a vow. As our solemne vow in Baptisme is but a stronger Bond to tye vsus to that obedience to God, which wee ought most carefully to performe, no lesse, then if wee had not vowed at all.
But if as yet you deny Tythes to bee Consecrate and Sacred, by diuine instinct or institution, as wanting expresse precept: yet at least you your selfe cannot but confesse they began then to be sacred, when God said (Leuit. 27.30.) All the Tythe of the Land, both of the Seed of the ground, and the fruit of the Trees, is the Lords; it is holy to the Lord. Yea, so holy, so sacred, that (as in the next Verse) If any man shall redeeme any of his Tythe, he shall adde the fifth part thereto. And eueryevery Tythe of Bullocke, and of Sheep, and of all that goeth vnderunder the Rod, The tenth shall be holy vntounto the Lord, v. 32. Yea, so holy, as v. 33. He shall not looke if it be good or bad, neither shall he change it, else if he change it, both it, and that it was changed with all, shall be holy, and it shall not be redeemed. Loe then, how sacred Tythes bee ratified by a double Tense, They are holy, and, They shall bee holy to the Lord: As Iacob confirmed his sonnes blessing, I hauehave blessed him, and hee shall bee blessed. And where it is said, That the Tenth Is holy to the Lord, *D. Carleton Bishop of Chichester.a Learned and Reuerend Prelate of our Church in his Booke of Tythes, hath out of the Present Tense, drawne this obseruation, That the Tenth began not now to bee sacred, or consecrated, but onelyonly to bee appropriathe for the time to the Leuites, concluding the Ordinance to be morally perpetuall from the Creation.