2. To make an impropriation, there was to be the consent of the incumbent, the patron, and the king; and then 'twas confirmed by the pope: without all this the pope could make no impropriation.

3. Or what if the pope gave the tithes to any man, must they therefore be taken away? If the pope gives me a jewel, will you therefore take it from me?

4. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedec; what then? 'Twas very well done of him: it does not follow therefore 10 that I must pay tithes, no more than I am bound to imitate other action of Abraham's.

ΙΟ

any

5. 'Tis ridiculous to say, the tithes are God's part, and

all subject to any tythes payable to the Church. For their infeodations. . are to this day remaining, and are conveyed and descend as other lay inheritances. Those infeodations of tythes are there very frequent, and in very many parishes the tythes are taken only by laymen.' iii. 1169.

...

'J'oseray encor mettre entre les privileges, mais non Ecclesiastiques, le droict de tenir dixmes en fief par gens pur laics. Ce qu'on ne peut nier avoir prins son origine d'une licence et abuz commencé soubs Charles Martel, Maire du Palais, et continué principalement soubs les Rois de sa race.' Pithou, printed in Libertez de l'Eglise Gallicane, vol. i. p. 19.

1. 2. then 'twas confirmed by the pope] The consent of the provincial primate was anciently needed for the alienation of Church property. See 'Placuit etiam ut rem ecclesiae nemo vendat, Quod si aliqua necessitas cogit, hanc insinuendam esse primati provinciae ipsius, ut cum statuto numero episcoporum, utrum faciendum sit arbitretur.' Canon of the 5th Council of Carthage, quoted by Bingham, Christian Antiquities, Bk. V. ch. vi. sec. 7.

In pre-Reformation days, when the Pope had an admitted primacy in the Western Church, this right of final judgment naturally devolved on him. That he could not move in the matter by his own mere will was effectually settled in this country by the Statutes of Provisors. 1. 12. 'Tis ridiculous to say, &c.] Selden's view is not that of the sacerdotal champions of the Romish or of the English Church. See e. g. Decrees of Pope Boniface I, sec. 3: 'Nulli liceat ignorare quod omne quod domino consecratur ... ad jus pertinet sacerdotum.' Labbé, Conciliorum Collectio, vol. iv. p. 397; and Laud's argument to prove that the payment of tithes to the ministers under the Gospel is due jure divino. Laud, Works, vi. 159.

therefore the clergy must have them: why, so they are if the layman has them. 'Tis as if one of my Lady Kent's maids should be sweeping this room, and another of them should come and take away the broom, and tell for a reason, why she should part with it; 'Tis my lady's broom: as if it were not my lady's broom, which of them soever had it.

6. They consulted in Oxford where they might find the best arguments for their tithes, setting aside the jus divinum; they were advised to my History of Tithes, a book so much cried down by them formerly (in which, I dare boldly say,

1. 9. they were advised to my History of Tithes] by Gerard Langbaine, Provost of Queen's, who wrote the letter to which Selden here refers:

'HOND. SIR,

'Upon occasion of the businesse of Tythes now under consideration, some whom it more nearly concerns, have been pleased to enquire of me what might be said as to the civil right of them; to whom I was not able to give any better direction than by sending them to yowr History. Happily it may seem strange to them; yet I am not out of hopes but that work (like Pelias hasta) which was lookt upon as a piece that struck deepest against the divine, will afford the strongest arguments for the civil right: and if that be made the issue, I do not despair of the cause....

Queen's Coll., Oxon.,

22 Aug. 1653.'

GER. LANGBAINE.

Leland's Collectanea, Hearne, vol. v. p. 291 (ed. 1770).

Selden's

1. 9. a book so much cried down by them formerly] History of Tythes was published in 1617, and roused the anger of the whole clerical party, mainly by its treatment of the tithe as a matter of variable civil right, and not as due to the clergy jure divino. So strong was the feeling against Selden that he found it necessary, in order to escape being called before the Court of High Commission -if indeed he did escape, which Dr. Tillesley denies-to express in writing his sense of the error which he had committed in publishing his History, and his grief that he had thereby incurred the King's displeasure and that of the bishops and lay officials to whom his 'retractation' was addressed. The History was vehemently attacked in print by champions of the jure divino right, a right which Selden, had ignored but had not denied, his end and purpose being 'to leave that question of divine right to divines, to whom it properly pertains.'

ΤΟ

there are more arguments for them than are extant together anywhere): upon this, one writ me word, that my history of tithes was now become like Pelias hasta1, to wound and to heal. I told him in my answer, I thought I could fit him with a better instance. 'Twas possible it might undergo

1 Pelias hasta] Peleus's hasta, MSS.

These numerous attacks Selden was for the time forced to suffer in silence, for King James had told him that he would put him in prison if he or any of his friends made any answer to them. But as he insists, when he was at length able to reply to Dr. Tillesley's 'Animadversions,' he had been careful in making his submission to retract nothing. 'I was and am,' he says, 'sorry that I published it, and that I so gave occasion to others to abuse my history, by their false application of some arguments.' A full account of the whole matter will be found in Works, vol. i. Vita Authoris, p. v-viii. See also vol. iii. pp. 1370, 1394 and 1452 ff.

1. 3. like Pelias hasta]

'Vulnus in Herculeo quae quondam fecerat hoste,

Vulneris auxilium Pelias hasta tulit.'

Ovid, Remedium Amoris, 47.

1. 4. I could fit him with a better instance] See 'Ante annos scilicet ccclx, aut circiter . prorsus damnati sunt ejusdem libri illi (sc. Aristotelis physices et metaphysices libri) ut Christianismo nimis dissoni; quod a Rogero Bachone Franciscano, qui paulo post id tempus floruit philosophus et mathematicus summus, didici.... Theologi, inquit, Parisiis, et episcopus, et omnes sapientes jam ab annis circiter quadraginta damnaverunt et excommunicaverunt libros naturales et metaphysicae Aristotelis, qui nunc ab omnibus recipiuntur. Et alibi idem-Scimus enim quod temporibus nostris Parisiis diu fuit contradictum philosophiae naturali et metaphysicae Aristotelis per Avicennam et Averroym expositis, et ob densam ignorantiam fuere libri eorum excommunicati, et utentes eis, per tempora satis longa.' De Jure Naturali et Gentium, lib. i. cap. 2; Works, i. pp. 98 and 947. The former of these passages occurs in Roger Bacon's Opus Tertium, p. 28 (Brewer's ed. 1859), the latter in the Opus Majus, cap. 9, p. 14. The Opus Tertium was written in 1267, as Bacon expressly states (p. 278). The sentence of excommunication, therefore, must have been about 1227, and could not have been pronounced by 'Stephen, Bishop of Paris,' who did not become bishop until 1268, i. e. a year after the Opus Tertium was written, and some forty years after the sentence. See Ecclesia Parisiensis, in Sainte Marthe's Gallia Christiana, vol. vii. p. 108.

Bishop Stephen's name must have been introduced through some

the same fate that Aristotle, Avicen, and Averroes did in France, some five hundred years ago, which was excommunicated by Stephen, bishop of Paris, (by that very name, excommunicated,) because that kind of learning puzzled and troubled1 their divinity: but finding themselves at a loss, some forty years after (which is much about the time since I writ my history), they were called in again, and so have continued ever since.

CXXXVI.

TRADE.

I. THERE is no prince in Christendom but is directly a tradesman, though in another way than an ordinary tradesman. For the purpose, I have a man; I bid him lay out twenty shillings in such a commodity; but I tell

1 Troubled, H. 2] trouble, H.

confusion on the part of Selden's reporter, Milward. The controversy in which Stephen figures had to do with the nature and origin of the higher form of intelligence, Aristotle's vous TоINTIKós, Roger Bacon's intellectus agens. The authority of Aristotle and of his Arabian commentators, Avicenna, Averroes, and others, had been used, not unfairly, to support the theory that this intelligence was no constituent part of each human mind, but that it was of a divine nature, infused into the mind, and the same in all minds, being a pre-existent entity distinct from the human faculties properly so called, and quickening them to the discovery of truth. This, which had long been the accepted view, began to be called in question in the thirteenth century, and was publicly condemned at Paris by Bishop Stephen in 1270. The objections made to it, and the terms of compromise by which the dispute was finally adjusted, are very fully set down in Selden's De Jure Naturali et Gentium, lib. i. cap. 9 (Works, i. 154157).

It is clear, from Langbaine's letter, that the discourse reported in the text must have been towards the close of 1653 or in 1654, the year of Selden's death.

10

him for every shilling he lays out I will have a penny: I trade as well as he. This every prince does in his customs. 2. That which a man is bred up in, he thinks no cheating; as your tradesman thinks not so of his profession, but calls it a mystery. Whereas if you would teach a mercer some other way to make his silks heavy than what he has been used to, he would peradventure think that to be cheating.

3. Every tradesman professes to cheat me, that asks for 10 his commodity twice as much as 'tis worth.

CXXXVII.

TRADITION.

SAY what you will against tradition, we know the signification of words by nothing but tradition. You will say the Scripture was written by the Holy Spirit, but do you understand that language 'twas writ in? No. Then for example, take these words, In principio erat verbum. How do you know those words signify, In the beginning was the word, but by tradition, because somebody has told you so?

20

CXXXVIII.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

I. THE fathers using to speak rhetorically, brought up transubstantiation: as if because 'tis commonly said, amicus est alter idem, one should go about to prove that a man and his friend are all one. That opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic.

2. There is no greater argument (though not used) against transubstantiation, than the Apostles, at their first council,