Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/116

 Meanwhile the ecclesiastical controversy in the Assembly had found men to translate it into language understood by the people. “Sir Simon Synod,” “Sir John Presbyter,” the “Ordinance for Tithes”—all came in for a hard hammering in a series of tracts by “Reverend Young Sir Martin Marpriest son to old Martin the Metropolitan.” One of them was printed “by Martin Claw-Clergie, Printer to the Reverend Assembly of Divines, and are to be sould at his Shop in Toleration Street, at the Signe of the Subjects Liberty, Right opposite to Persecuting Court.” Another tract of the series threatened the perquisites of the clergy. Why should the clergy, one-thousandth of the population of the kingdom, claim one-tenth of the kingdom’s produce for their support? The Levite, it was true, had received the tenth by authority of the Old Testament, but the Levite had been bound to share it with the poor. If Paul had worked with his hands to sustain himself, why should not Presbyterian ministers do the like? A third tract was a vigorous popularization of the attack on the proposed powers of the Presbyterian hierarchy. Was it to be set free to persecute the men who had served the Parliament so faithfully?