A caution against sacriledge: or Sundry queries concerning tithes. Wherein is held forth the propriety, and title that ministers have to them, the mischiefs which would ensue if tithes were brought into a common treasury, and ministers reduced to stipends. The danger of gratifying the petitioners against tithes, and all imposed maintenance. And something of the spirit and end of their actings. Collected, and composed by the one that hath no propriety in tithes, and humbly tendred to this present Parliament.

Certain Queries concerning bringing Tithes into a Common Treasury, and reducing Ministers to stipends.

1. IF Tithes should be brought into a common Treasury, and Ministers paid out thence, whether would our Countrey-men that say Tithes are such an intole∣rable burden, be any whit eased? Yea would they not be more burdened by how much their Tything would be looked more narrowly into?

2. Would not the trouble of Ministers be far greater, being enforced to send, or go from Market to Market for every bushel of Corn or Mault, &c. that he spends in his house?

3. If a dearth come, would it not tend to the ruine of many Ministers Families, who will be for ced to spend more in a quarter then they receive for their half years allowance?

4. If things should rise in the price the next hundred of years as they have done the last, how shall Ministers be then able to live upon these stipends?

5. How many Officers must there be imployed in every County to bring the Tithes into a common Treasury, all which, either in whole or in part, must be maintained out of them? And how will this curtail the Ministers share?

6. What attendance must Ministers give quarterly, or each half year, upon the Trustees, or Treasurers in every County, till they have list or leisure to pay them? What trouble, journeys and expences will this put them to? How will they be en∣forced to bribe, and pay for expedition, or to be fobbe•• off with base and clipt mo∣ney? or be forced to take wares for their money, if the Treasurers be Tradesmen; as many have been served of late in the case of Augmentations?

7. Will not Ministers hereby be cast upon ten••ations, to speak only pleasing things (like Trencher-Chaplains) lest their stipends should be taken from them?

8. Can it be expected that Ministers can or will be so liberall to the poor, and gi∣ven to hospitality, when they buy all with the peny, as when they have it in Tithes?

9. Will not such as bear the bag, and upon whom the Ministers must depend for their subsistance, Lord it over them with pride and contempt enough? as bad, or worse then the Bishops and their Chancellors did?

10. Though such as are of the best repute in each County, should be chosen out to be the Treasurers, yet do we not see by daily experience, how men are mistaken in judging of the honesty of others? And how many men fall from their former principles of honesty? and that if neither of these should be so, yet how apt standing waters are to putrifie.

11. If contentious suits have been between Ministers and People about Tithes, hath it not for the most part arisen from the peoples covetousness, pretending cu∣stoms, prescriptions, or compositions, to defraud the Ministers of their due?

12. Were not Patrons at the first made choice of, to defend the Ministers right against the fraud and injustice of the people? And may not the wisdome of the Par∣liament finde out the same, or some such like course, whereby the Minister shall neither be engaged in contentions with his people, nor troubled with avocations from his study thereby?

13. May there not arise as many or more quarrels, in case Tithes be brought into a common Treasury, whilest some pretend conscience, and so will pay none at all; others think themselves over-rated; others think that the Tradesman, who gets more by his Shop than they do by the Plough, should bear an equal share in this common burden? And who then shall take course to enforce such to pay? If the Treasurers in the Country, surely they will prove but cold Solicitors in anothers cause. But suppose they do stir, they must spend out of the common stock; and such suits being like to be many, especially in such times as these, how will the Mini∣sters stipends be curtailed thereby? Besides, may it not be supposed, that they which spend of other mens purses, are like to cut large thougs out of others hides?

14. If the Countryman shall pay a rate in money for his Tithes, will it not come far more hardly from him? even like drops of bloud, money being usally very short with them. And will he not think it far easier to part with a cock of Hay, or a sheaf of Corn, or such a small thing, than to part with so much money as his whole Tithes may come to, once or oftner in the year? And how little will he think him∣self eased hereby?

15. If Tithes be brought into a common Treasury, when a Living is worth two, three, or perhaps four hundred pounds by the year, a great part of it will be dispo∣sed to other places, and will it not certainly be a great grief to the people, that their Tithes shall go to they know not whom? certainly to such as neither feed their souls with the bread of life, nor their bodies with the staff of bread? And will not their poor want that relief, and themselves that entertainment, which they used to have at their Ministers house, to the aggravation of their discontent?