HAving for severall yeares, and especially since the time of your interruption been exercised under many and great op­pressions, because for conscience sake vve cannot pay tithes; Some of us suffe­ring in the body, by moneths, and yeares Imprison­ments, and some till death: others in our estates by char­geable suites, fynes, judgments and unreasonable di­stresses, to the ruine of families, and been made the subjects of allmost all manner of cruelty and injustice; we have stood single and in the integrity of our hearts been preserved from worldly compliance; waiting for the good day; that the Lord would remove the hand of the oppressour.

And now finding freedome in the Lord, we come before you, whom God hath brought together again, and put the power into your hands, who formerly and of late have declared, to ease the heavy burthen, to re­move the yoke of injustice, and to set the oppressed free, and as members of the Nation to make our clayme to that just right which belonges to us as men and Christians, who for the most part have been In­struments vvith others for the purchase of our Libertys; that we may noe longer be made a prey by wicked men, and unjust Lawes, as we have been.

It cannot be forgotten what great thinges the Lord of late hath done in this Nation, how he hath set up and thrown down, shaken and overturned, and done won­derfull thinges, to the astonishment of our selves and all people round about us; and how the Lord in the midst of all our war and confusions still caused a light to shine, which guided in a hidden path, and led to that which was not in the mind to forethink, nor in the heart to intend, and carryed far beyond that which was seen; yea, every year outwent other, and as great thinges vvere done, still greater were expected, and the hearts of the upright were filled with joy, and a righteous King­dom was looked for to be neer.

But on a suddain, when God gave outward rest from war and trouble, (which were true sigures of another work which was to come after, and to be passed tho­rough before the Kingdom) how soon did a wrong Principle arise and step into the throne, usurping that dominion which the Lord was about to take to himself, which clouded the Nation with darknesse, and drew a vayle over the minds of most; And only to a remnant [Page 5]did the Lord shew his Salvation, whom he obscured under sorrow and suffering, which now unto you are made manifest.

In this day of backsliding from God, how have men turned aside, changed their minds, and even denyed their own professed principles; and how are all men now wandring in the dark, and groping at Noon-day; Some crying out to the Magistrate, suppresse Errors, heresies, blasphemies; Others crying, take care of the Ministry, and keep up tithes, for if tithes be taken away, the Ministry will fall; And how is the Magistrate himself pleading for both, and saying that tithes are due by law, and belonges to him, and he may dispose of them as he please, by which meanes the poor are op­pressed who are labouring in the ground and tilling the earth for bread, the staffe and stay of the Nation; A carnall worldly Ministry is thereby maintained, and the consciences of many thousands of good people op­pressed.

Alas, alas, Is this our rest and the end of our work, and is this the Reformation that must be the price of so much blood? To set the Magistrate in Christs throne to try and judge who are fit to be his Ministers, and to send out and restraine whom he thinks fit, and to force a maintenance for them, even from those that for conscience sake cannot hear them, nor own them; But for Christs sake to whom the Kingdome belongs, are made to testify against both Magistrate and Minister as intruders into Christs place; Is this the liberty and the favour that tender consciences must expect, who are separated from the prophane societies of the world, both to maintaine their own Ministers, [Page 6]and to be forced to maintaine others for the World, such as they know Christ never sent? Or is this kind­ness to the World, who might be supplyed by the Churches of Christ, with such as would freely preach the Gospel without money or price.

And for your tithes, do we not know, that in the dark night of Apostacy they came in since the dayes of the Apostles, and were set up by the Pope, and first-fruits and tenths in imitation of the Jewish mainte­nance, and were they not upheld by popish lawes, and ordered in the Ecclesiasticall Courts? and did ever any Magistrate in this Nation meddle or had any thing to doe about tithes till the Abbyes were dissolved, that he sould them to lay persons (so called) who could not recover them by ecclesiasticall law; And does not the first statute law that ever was made for them in H. 8. tyme, say they were due to God and holy Church? and doe not your own lawes appoint them to be tryed in the ecclesiasticall Courts? And because the Pope impos'd so heavy a burthen, which your temporall lawes made in the darknesse of former ages, does con­tinue; Is it therefore just that they be perpetuated, and made an everlasting bondage? How soon might this Nation be established in peace by leaving every one free to have and hear and maintain their own Ministers; which is a just freedome belonging to all, and we de­sire not it should be limited to any; and herein we doe to every man as we would be done unto, knowing that every one must give an accompt of himself unto God; And the Magistrate, (though now he be setting up Mi­nisters and forcing maintenance) will in that day find, that he hath cumbered himself with that which the [Page 7]Lord never required from him, and will be rebuked for his zeale without knowledge by Christ Jesus, to whom all power in heaven and earth is given, who needs not the Magistrates helpe to provide him Mini­sters or Maintenance.

We therefore in the feeling and sence of the weight of this burthen upon the Nation, and of the depth and strength of deceipt that lyes therein: In humility as Christians, and in faithfullnesse, as becomes those that wish well to you, and the great people under your care; doe exhort, that you would in wisdome, and in the fear of God, with all convenient speed declare a just free­dome in thinges pertaining unto God to all the people of this Common-wealth, that tithes, forced maintenan­ces and all other burthens on the conscience may be removed, and Christs Kingdom delivered up to him­self; And that you will govern the outward man with that law which is just and perfect according to the law of God, & that in every mans conscience, and then your rule will be established in righteousnesse; But if you meddle as you did of old with that which concernes the conscience, or as those did more lately, vvhom God hath removed; be assured a controversy will the Lord have with you, for he will overturn, till Christ Jesus be ex­alted over the conscience as King and Lord; And as we have stood single unto God in a day of hard tryall; and borne the heat and the stormes and the tempests; We are willing, yet more to endure, and not only with joy to suffer our goods to be spoyled, and our bodyes to be imprisoned, but also our lives to lay down, if the Lord shall require it, till our testimony be finished against all these abhominations, and for the Lord, and [Page 8]for Christ Jesus whom we witnesse to be come in the flesh, and in the spirit, who is to continue for ever the unchangeable Preisthood, made and upheld, not by the power of an outward law or carnal Commandement, but by the power of an endlesse life; and a law that can­not be altered; He it is that hath changed the first Preisthood, and the law also by which it was made, and disanulled the Commandement that gave tithes, and so hath taken away the first, that he might establish the se­cond, (to wit) that which is in the spirit, which is the gift of God, vvhich is free vvithout money or price: And vve having received this Ministry, and being made partakers of his gift vvhich is free, as vve have freely received, freely vve declare, as the Ministers of Christ ever did, vvithout being burthensome to any; And vvoe unto them that make the gospell chargeable, it being the free gospell of peace, unto all Nations, not of discord and strife, as the Ministry of the vvorld, their gospell and maintenance is, as vvitnesse all the Courts of this Nation.

As you do herein, so will you be established.