t I should trace this subject farther, or that I
should make distinctions relative to tithes, whether they may be
rectorial, or vicarial, or whether they may belong to lay persons, I
have already developed enough of their history for my purpose. I shall
therefore hasten to state those other reasons, which the Quakers have to
give, why they cannot pay other ministers of the Gospel for their
spiritual labours, or rather, why they cannot consent to the payment of
tithes, as the particular species of payment demanded by the church.

SECT. III

_The other reasons then, as deducible from the history of tithes, are
the following--First, that they are not in equity dues of the
church--Secondly, that the payment of them being compulsory, it would,
if acceded to, be an acknowledgment that the civil magistrate has a
right to use force in matters of religion--And thirdly, that being
claimed upon an act which holds them forth as of divine right, any
payment of them would be an acknowledgment of the Jewish religion, and
that Christ had not yet actually come._

The other reasons then, which the Quakers have to give for refusing to
support other ministers of the Gospel, may be now deduced from the
nature of tithes, as explained in the former section.

The early Quakers rejected the payment of tithes for three reasons;
and, first, because they were demanded of them as dues of the church.

Against this doctrine, they set their faces as a religious body. They
contended that, if they were due at all, they were due to the poor, from
whom they had been forcibly taken, and to whom in equity they still
belonged; that no prince could alter the nature of right and wrong that
tithes were not justly due to the church, because Offa wished them to be
so, to expiate his own crimes; or because Ethelwolf wished them to be
so, from a superstitious notion, that he might thus prevent the
incursions of the Danes; or because Stephen wished them to be so, as his
own grant expresses, on the principle, that "the bonds of sin might be
dissolved, and that he might have a part with those, who by a happy kind
of commerce exchanged heavenly things for earthly;" or because the popes
of Rome wished them to be so, from whose jurisdiction all the subjects
of England were discharged by law.

They resisted the payment of them, because, secondly, tithes had become
of a compulsory nature, or because they were compelled to pay them.

They contended on this head,