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thirds of the Lands of England, having within • that Time by Purchase or Exchange paffed into the Hands of new Owners, (as may poffibly be the cafe of all our Lands before this Tax can be released) therefore the Land-Owner, who bought his Land fubject to the ufual Land-Tax, fhall in Equity and Confcience be for ever liable to pay two, three, or four Shillings in the Pound, by • reason of his having bought the Land cheaper.

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And the Country-Parfon fhall afk him thofe • fubtle Questions, Is he a Land-Owner? Let him be afked upon his Confcience, whether he paid any Confideration to the Vender of the Land beyond the ufual Price, and upon Suppofition that no Land-Tax would be due from his Land. Is he a Farmer? • Let him be afked upon his Confcience, whether he pays more Rent than used to be given for the Farm, • and in Confideration of his paying no Land-Tax. If •be cannot fay, that he either bought or hired the Land-Tax (and he can Jay neither) what Title hath be to it? and therefore there must be another Owner who bath a juft Title to it.

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From Rules of Property and Rights of Eftate, fuch as this Country-Parfon would eftablifh, it muft follow, that no Ufurpation on the Lands of a Kingdom could ever be refumed confiftently • with Confcience; that the Foundations of Ecclé fiafticks in the Church of Rome itself ought not to be taken away, because the Priests have the legal Eftate vefted in them; that the Impofitions • of arbitrary Power become Matter of Right in • Perfons who can work the ancient Land Owners · out of their Inheritances; and that if SHIP• MONEY had been exacted for a Length of Time, ⚫ till the Value of all our Lands had funk under the Exactions, New Purchafers would have had no Right to have been eafed of the Burden, be£ caufe

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⚫ caufe they would have bought the Land charged with it, and cheaper by reafon of it.

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In fhort, fuch Confequences are unavoidable ⚫ from this Part of the Country-Parfon's Plea, that • were he to fhew himself in his proper Figure, fpeaking in this Manner against the Right of the People of England to enjoy their own Lands, an Impeaching Parliament might probably charge • him as an Enemy to Property; a Betrayer of the • Rights and Liberties of the People; advancing falfe Doctrines of dangerous Confequence to the Conftitution of the Kingdom, and which tend to fubvert the Proteftant Religion, to obftruct all Reformation in the Chriftian Church, to revive Popery and • Popish Foundations, and to Jubject the Commons of this Realm to the Yoke of enormous Ecclefiaftical • Power.

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Leaving him to the Discipline of fuch National Juftice whenever it fhall find him—I totally deny him, or any Perfon living, to poffefs any • Eftate in the Land, by reafon of its having been lower'd in Value, through an unjuft Impofition; • I conceive his Claim of Tithe to have no other Foundation in Law or Confcience than Peter• Pence had before it was abolish'd by Act of Parliament; I conceive them both to have been Ufurpations of the fame Nature, which grew and obtain'd in the Times of Darknefs and Devotion ⚫ through the Craft of a mercenary Clergy, and the Superftition of a blind deluded Laity: I likewife, apprehend, that as the Wisdom of Parliament utterly abolish'd the one, because it impoverished the Kingdom, fo the Reprefentatives of the Peo⚫ple have not only a Right, but are bound in Duty to moderate the other, whenever it fhall be exorbitant in its Amount, or oppreffive in its Exactions. But,

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• Because

Because the Eftate of the Clergy in Tithe, is • fo much infifted on as their Right in Confcience, it may be fit to enquire on what Confideration they had their original Grants. The Confirmation of King STEPHEN is an Evidence of this Kind, the • Preamble to which is as follows, viz.

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• BECAUSE through the Providence of divine Mercy we know it to be fo ordered, and by the • Churches publishing it far and near, every Body bath beard, that by the Distribution of Alms, Perfons may be abfolved from the Bonds of Sin, and acquire the Rewards of Heavenly Joys; I STEPHEN, by the Grace of God, King of England, being willing to have a Part with them, who by an happy Kind of Trading, exchange Heavenly Things for Earthly; and mitten with the Love of God, and for the Salvation of my own Soul, and the Souls of my • Father and Mother, and all my Forefathers and Ancestors (confirm Tithes and other Donations to the Church).

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After fuch a Specimen as this, I cannot have the leaft Doubt, that Fftates given under fuch Confiderations, are of ALL OTHERS, the most C proper for the Difpofition of Parliament.'

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Towards the Conclufion of the Differtation, the Author replies to what his Antagonist had urged against with-holding Tithes, from two Statutes of Hen. 8. wherein they who do fo are stiled Evildifpofed Perfons. Not regarding their Duties to God and the King; acting of an ungodly perverfe Will and Mind, &c.

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If it be urged as the Senfe of thofe Times concerning Non-payment of Tithe, will the Parfon allow me to cite other Statutes made about the fame Time, as the Senfe of the Law-makers upon • other Ecclefiaftical Pretenfions.

. I fear,

I fear, the Sense of Parliament hath very little • Weight with the Clergy, when it is not on the Side of their Ambition; and therefore I may not perhaps hold it conclufive, when, influenced by their ungodly Management, it lets them loose to defame and damn their Enemies, as Enemies to • God and the King.

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The Statute of the firft Year of Edward 6. • cap. 2. declares, That Elections of Archbishops and Bishops, by Deans and Chapters, are as well to the long Delay, as to the great Cofts and Charges of Such Perfons whom the King gives any Archbishoprick or Bishoprick unto, and that the faid Elections ⚫ be in very deed no Elections, but only by a Writ of • Conge D'elire, have Colours, Shadows, or Pre• tences of Elections, ferving nevertheless to no, Purpofe, and feeming alfo derogatory to the King's • Prerogative Royal.

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This Act of Parliament, though not held at present to be in force, doth certainly fhew the Senfe of our Ancestors on the Subject of electing • Bishops.

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• Will the Clergy allow us to fpeak of their pre⚫tended Elections of Bishops in the Terms of this Act of Parliament? No-it is against divine Right. If then they will not allow the Inftitution of Bishops to be tied down to the Preface of a Law • made in Edward the Sixth's Time, will they tie every Man down in the Equity of Tithes to the Preface of a Law made in Henry the Eighth's <Time?

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I truft in the Right of an English Subject, that we shall not be reftrained from a larger Confidera⚫tion of fo important an Affair, and that neither our Duty to God or the King fhall be queftioned for no better Reafon than our Difference of Senti⚫ments in the Affair of Tithes.

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• I reverence.

I reverence an Act of Parliament as much as any Man living. It is the Act of that Power ⚫ which we are all bound to truft and obey. But I am not fo far concluded by an Act of Parliament, that I ought either to believe implicitly whatever it declares, or not to follicit the Repeal ⚫ of what it may enact. And I cannot but obferve, 1. That when Henry the Eighth unravelling his • own Reformation, went retrograde into the worst • Measures of Popery, he paft the Act of the fix • Articles in his 31ft Year, wherein he established • Auricular Confeffion and Tranfubftantiation. And,

2. That in his next Year he past the Act for the Payment of Tithes, wherein is the famous Ex• preffion of Perfons not regarding their Duties to • God and the King.

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• If therefore Tithes, Tranfubftantiation, and Au• ricular Confeffion, are of the fame Growth and Family, we fhall find that the fame Reasoning • from Acts of Parliament, which makes the Pay• ment of Tithes a Duty to God and the King, by the Statute of 32 Hen. 8. would as forcibly prove Tranfubftantiation and Auricular Confeffion to be • Articles of Faith fit for a Chriftian to believe in, • because they are so declared by the Staute of 31 Hen. 8. which impofed thofe (g) fix bloody Articles, famous in the Story of thofe Times. And, · To

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"(g) ft. If any fhould deny the real Prefence of the "Body of Chrift in the Sacrament, he fhould he burned.

"2d. If any deny the Sacrament to be fufficient under "One Species; 3d, Or hold it lawful for Priefis to be "Married; 4th, Or that Chaftity_vowed was not to be

kept; 5th, Or that Private Maffes ought not to be cele. "brated; 6th, Or that Auricular Confesfion was not expe"dient, they fhould be hanged.

"This Law, fays the Hiftorian, was the Deftruction of "Multitudes.

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