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Updated: June 25, 2025
If this be not allowed, I do not see how we can elicit fire and fagot from this adventure; for I think there is no inseparable connexion between tythes and persecution but in the ideas of a Quaker. And so much for King Melchisedec.
I'll warrant, for once, you sha'n't grumble that we do not pay you your tythes! My grandfather, hearing this address, seeing the covered cage, and remarking the malicious grins of the Squire and his whole posse, knew not what to think, and began to suspect there was mischief in the wind 'By the waunds! mister tythe taker, continued the Squire, 'but you shall ha' your own!
Anecdotes of a school-fellow, and his sister: Grammatical and musical studies: Causes of discontent between the Squire and the rector: Tythes and law produce quarrels: The tragi-comic tale of the rats Six weeks had elapsed before my wounds, bruises, and black marks, had totally disappeared; and the scar above my eye still retained a red appearance.
This is the life of modern clergymen; and they might do very well, and get on very smoothly, in this way, if they did not screw up their tythes too high, and get drunk too often, so as to cause a serious complaint to be made to the bishop by some of the parishioners; which you may rest assured they never will do by you, let your conduct be ever so immoral or ever so irreligious, provided that you let the farmers have their tythes at an easy rate.
VII. Do Friends bear a faithful and Christian testimony against receiving and paying tythes, priests demands, and those called church-rates? VIII. Are Friends faithful in our testimony against bearing arms, and being in any manner concerned in the militia, in privateers, letters of marque, or armed vessels, or dealing in prize-goods?
Nor should we wonder at this pressure, when we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people were ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their taxes, and the inequality of their distribution; the oppressions of the tythes, the failles, the corvees, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers; the shackles on commerce by monopolies; on industry by guilds and corporations; on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech; on the freedom of the press by the censure; and of the person by lettres de cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities of the rack; the venality of Judges, and their partialities to the rich; the monopoly of military honors by the noblesse; the enormous expenses of the Queen, the Princes, and the Court; the prodigalities of pensions; and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy.
This Melchisedech was king and priest of Jerusalem and all the country, and blessed Abram. And there Abram gave to him the tythes of all he had. And the king of Sodom would that Abram should have had such prey as he took, but he would not have as much as the latchet of a shoe, and thus gat Abram much love of all the people.
As for the entrance upon his premises, though it might be pleaded it was for a lawful purpose, namely, that of paying tythes, yet, as rats were ferae naturae, and therefore things not tythable, it was very plain that this was a case of trespass ab initio, and his action would lie for a trespass vi et armis.
In the parish however the fortune of the day might be said to wear a very different face, for there was not a farmer who did not triumph at the tythe in kind, which had been paid to the rector; and it became a general threat to sweep the parish of moles, weazles, stoats, polecats and vermin of every species, and tenant the rectory with them, if any thing more was heard on the subject of tythes.
And when he was advised by a friend to be more frugal, because he might have children, his answer was, "He would not see the danger of want so far off: but being the Scripture does so commend Charity, as to tell us that Charity is the top of Christian virtues, the covering of sins, the fulfilling of the Law, the Life of Faith; and that Charity hath a promise of the blessings of this life, and of a reward in that life which is to come: being these, and more excellent things are in Scripture spoken of thee, O Charity! and that, being all my tythes and Church-dues are a deodate from thee, O my God! make me, O my God! so far to trust thy promise, as to return them back to thee; and by thy grace I will do so, in distributing them to any of thy poor members that are in distress, or do but bear the image of Jesus my Master."
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