"Our third request concerneth the poor, who be of three sorts; the poor labourers of the ground; the poor desolate beggars, orphans, widows, and strangers; and the poor ministers of the holy Evangel of Christ Jesus, who are all so cruelly treated by this last pretended order taken for sustentation of ministers, that their latter misery far surmounteth the former. For now the poor labourers of the ground are so oppressed by the cruelty of those that pay their Third, that they for the most part advance upon the poor, whatsoever they pay to the Queen, or to any other. As for the very indigent and poor, to whom God commands a sustentation to be provided from the teinds, they are so despised that it is a wonder that the sun giveth light and heat to the earth, where God's name is so frequently called upon, and no mercy, according to His commandment, is shown to His creatures. And also for the ministers, their livings are so appointed that the most part shall live but a beggar's life. And all cometh of impiety, that the idle bellies of Christ's enemies must be fed with their former delicacies. "We dare not conceal from your Grace and Honours the burden of our conscience, which is this, that neither by the law of God, nor by any just law of man, is anything due to them who now most cruelly do exact of the poor and rich the Two-part of their benefices, as they call it. "Therefore we most humbly require that some other order may be taken with them, and that they be not set up again to empire above the people of God, or above any subject within this realm. For we fear that such usurpation to their former estate shall be in the end neither pleasing to themselves, nor profitable to them that would place them in that tyranny. If any think that a competent living should be assigned to them, we repugn not, provided that the labourers of the ground be not oppressed, the poor be not utterly neglected, the ministers of the Word be not so sharply treated as they now are, and, finally, that those idle bellies, who by law can crave nothing, shall confess that they receive their sustentation, not as a matter of debt, but as of benevolence. Our humble request is, therefore, that some speedy order may be taken that the poor labourers may find some relief, and that in every parish some portion of the teinds may be assigned to the sustentation of the poor within the same; and likewise that some public relief may be provided for the poor within burghs; that collectors may be appointed to gather, and that sharp account may be taken, as well of their receipts as of their disbursements. The farther consideration to be had towards our ministers, we in some part remit to your wisdoms, and to their particular complaints. "Our fourth petition is for the manses, yards, and glebes, justly appertaining to the ministers, without which it is impossible for them quietly to serve their charges; and therefore we desire order to be taken therein without delay.