THE COPY OF A PAPER Presented to the PARLIAMENT: And read the 27 th'. of the fourth Month, 1659.  
Subscribed by more than fifteen thousand hands.  
THUS DIRECTED: To the Parliament of ENGLAND, from many thousand of the free born people of this Commonwealth.  
LONDON, Printed by A. W. for Giles Calvert at the Black-spread-Eagle at the West end of Paul's, 1659.   

To the Parliament of England, from many thousands of the free people of this Commonwealth.  
HAving for several years, and especially since the time of your interruption been exercised under many and great oppressions, because for conscience sake we cannot pay tithes; Some of us suffering in the body, by months, and year's Imprisonments, and some till death: others in our estates by chargeable suits, fynes, judgements and unreasonable distresses, to the ruin of families, and been made the subjects of almost 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 oppressor.  
And now finding freedom 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 burden, to remove the yoke of injustice, and to set the oppressed free, and as members of the Nation to make our claim to that just right which belongs to us as men and Christians, who for the most part have been Instruments with others for the purchase of our Liberties; that we may no longer be made a prey by wicked men, and unjust Laws, as we have been.  
It cannot be forgotten what great things the Lord of late hath done in this Nation, how he hath set up and thrown down, shaken and overturned, and done wonderful things, to the astonishment of ourselves 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 intent, and carried far beyond that which was seen; yea, every year outwent other, and as great things were done, still greater were expected, and the hearts of the upright were filled with joy, and a righteous Kingdom was looked for to be near.  
But on a sudden, 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 darkness, and drew a veil over the minds of most; And only to a remnant did the Lord show 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 denied their own professed principles; and how are all men now wand'ring in the dark, and groping at Noonday; Some crying out to the Magistrate, suppress 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 belongs to him, and he may dispose of them as he please, by which means the poor are oppressed who are labouring in the ground and tilling the earth for bread, the staff and stay of the Nation; A carnal 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 Christ's throne to try and judge who are fit to be his Ministers, and to send out and restrain 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 Christ's sake to whom the Kingdom belongs, are made to testify against both Magistrate and Minister as intruders into Christ's place; Is this the liberty and the favour that tender consciences must expect, who are separated from the profane societies of the world, both to maintain their own Ministers, and to be forced to maintain others for the World, such as they know Christ never sent? Or is this kindness to the World, who might be supplied 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 Apostasy they came in since the days 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 laws, and ordered in the Ecclesiastical Courts? and did ever any Magistrate in this Nation meddle or had any thing to do about tithes till the Abbeys were dissolved, that he sold them to lay persons (so called) who could not recover them by ecclesiastical law; And does not the first statute law that ever was made for them in H. 8. time, say they were due to God and holy Church? and do not your own laws appoint them to be tried in the ecclesiastical Courts? And because the Pope imposed so heavy a burden, which your temporal laws made in the darkness 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 freedom belonging to all, and we desire not it should be limited to any; and herein we do to every man as we would be done unto, knowing that every one must give an account 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 Lord never required from him, and will be rebuked for his zeal without knowledge by Christ Jesus, to whom all power in heaven and earth is given, who needs not the Magistrates help to provide him Ministers or Maintenance.  
We therefore in the feeling and sense of the weight of this burden upon the Nation, and of the depth and strength of deceit that lies therein: In humility as Christians, and in faithfulness, as becomes those that wish well to you, and the great people under your care; do exhort, that you would in wisdom, and in the fear of God, with all convenient speed declare a just freedom in things pertaining unto God to all the people of this Commonwealth, that tithes, forced maintenances and all other burdens on the conscience may be removed, and Christ's 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 man's conscience, and then your rule will be established in righteousness; But if you meddle as you did of old with that which concerns the conscience, or as those did more lately, whom 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 trial; and borne the heat and the storms and the tempests; We are willing, yet more to endure, and not only with joy to suffer our goods to be spoilt, and our bodies to be imprisoned, but also our lives to lay down, if the Lord shall require it, till our testimony be finished against all these abominations, and for the Lord, and for Christ Jesus whom we witness 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 Commandment, but by the power of an endless 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 disannulled the Commandment 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, which is free without money or price: And we having received this Ministry, and being made partakers of his gift which is free, as we have freely received, freely we declare, as the Ministers of Christ ever did, without being burdensome to any; And woe unto them that make the gospel chargeable, it being the free gospel of peace, unto all Nations, not of discord and strife, as the Ministry of the world, their gospel and maintenance is, as witness all the Courts of this Nation.  
As you do herein, so will you be established.  
FINIS.