The word Tythes being the same with Tenths, signife of it self no more then the proportion of the Excisium, or part retrenched, as if Customs upon imported and exported Commodities should be called by the name of Twentieths, as it is sometimes called Tunnage and Poundage; wherefore it remains to say, that Tythes in this place, do together with the said proportion, consignifie the use of it, viz. the maintenance of the Clergy, as also the matter or substance out of which this Maintenance is cut, viz. the immediate fruit of the Land and Waters, or the proceed of mens Labour, Art and Stock laid out upon them. It signifies also the manner of paying it, viz. in specie, and not (but upon special and voluntary causes) in money.
2. We said the matter of Tythes, was the immediate Fruits of the Earth, viz. of Grain as soon as 'tis ready to be removed from the ground that bare it; and not of Bread which is Corn thresht, winnowed, ground, tempered with liquor and baked.
3. 'Tis also the second choice out of the young of muliparous Cattle taken in specie, so soon as the said Younglings can subsist without their Dams, or else a Composition in Money for the Uniparons.
4. 'Tis Wool, so soon as it is shorn; 'tis Fowl and Fish, where Fowling and Fishing is rather a Trade then a meer Recreation, & sic de caeteris.
5. Moreover, in great Cities, Tythes are a kinde of composition in Money for the labour and profit of the Artisans who work upon the materials which have paid Tythes before.
6. Tythes therefore encrease within any Territory, as the labour of the Countrey increases; and labour doth or ought to increase as the people do; now within four hundred years the people of England are about quadrupled, as doubling every two hundred years, and the proportion of the Rent of all the Lands in England is about the fourth part of the Expence of the people in it, so as the other three parts is labour and stock.
7. Wherefore the Tythes now should be twelve times as good as they were four hundred years ago; which the rates of Benefices in the Kings books do pretty well shew, by comparing of times; something of this should be abated because the proportion between the proceed of Lands and Labour do vary as the hands of Labourers vary: Wherefore we shall rather say, that the Tythes are but six times as good now as four hundred years ago, that is, that the Tythes now would pay six times as many Labourers, or feed six times as many mountes, as the Tythes four hundred years ago would have done.
8. Now if there were not onely as many Parishes then as now, more Priests in every Parish, and also more Religious Men who were also Priests, and the Religion of those times being more operose, and fuller of work then now, by reason of Confessions, Holydayes, Offices, etc. more in those dayes then now, (the great work n these dayes being a compendious teaching above a thousand at once without much particular Confession and Catechising, or trouble about the Dead; it seems clear, tha the Clergy now if far richer then heretofore; and that to be a Clergy-man then was a kinde of a Mortification, whereas now (praised be God) 'tis matter of splendour and magnificence; unless any will say, that there were golden Priests when the Chalices were wood, and but wooden Priests when the Chalices were gold; or that Religion best flourisheth when the Priests are most mortified, as was before said of the Law, which best flourisheth when Lawyers have least to do.
