And where the Lord hath fo ordained, we may find eafily in more than one evangelift: Luke x. 7, 8. In the fame houfe remain, eating and drinking fuch things as they give: For the labourer is worthy of his hire, &c. And into whatfoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat fuch things as are fet before you. To which ordinance of Chrift it may feem likelieft, that the apostle refers us both here, and 1 Tim. v. 18. where he cites this as the faying of our Saviour, That the labourer is worthy of his hire: And both by this place of Luke, and that of Matth. x. 9, 10, 11. it evidently appears, that our Saviour ordained no certain maintenance for his apoftles or minifters publicly or privately in houfe or city received, but that, whatever it were, which might fuffice to live on: And this not commanded or proportioned by Abram or by Mofes, whom he might eafily have here cited, as his manner was, but declared only by a rule of common equity, which proportions the hire as well to the ability of him who gives, as to the labour of him who receives, and recommends him only as worthy, not invefts him with a legal right. And mark whereon he grounds this his ordinance ; not on a perpetual right of tithes from Melchifedec, as hirelings pretend, which he never claimed either for himfelf, or for his minifters, but on the plain and common equity of rewarding the labourer; worthy fometimes of fingle, fometimes of double honour, not proportionable by tithes. And the apostle, in this forecited chapter to the Corinthians, ver. 11. affirms it to be no great recompenfe, if carnal things be reaped for fpiritual fown; but to mention tithes, neglects here the fittest occafion that could be offered him, and leaves the reft free and undetermined. Certainly if Chrift or his apoftles had approved of tithes, they would have either by writing or tradition recommended them to the church: And that foon would have appeared in the practice of thofe primitive and the next ages. But for the first three hundred years and more, in all the ecclefiaftical flory, I find no fuch doctrine or ex ample: ample: Though error by that time had brought back again priefts, altars, and eblations; and in many other points of religion had miferably judaized the church. So that the defenders of tithes, after a long pomp and tedious preparation out of Heathen authors, telling us that tithes were paid to Hercules and Apollo, which perhaps was imitated from the Jews, and as it were befpeaking our expectation, that they will abound much more with authorities out of Chriftian ftory, have nothing of general approbation to begin with from the first three or four ages, but that which abundantly ferves to the confutation of their tithes; while they confefs that churchmen in thofe ages lived merely upon freewillofferings. Neither can they fay, That tithes were not then paid for want of a civil magiftrate to ordain them, for Chriftians had then alfo lands, and might give out of them what they pleased; and yet of tithes then given we find no mention. And the firft Chriftian emperors, who did all things as bishops advised them, fupplied what was wanting to the clergy, not out of tithes, which were never motioned, but out of their own imperial revenues; as is manifeft in Eufebius, Theodorit, and Sozomen, from Conftantine to Arcadius. Hence thofe ancienteft reformed churches of the Waldenfes, if they rather continued not pure fince the apoftles, denied that tithes were to be given, or that they were ever given in the primitive church; as appears by an ancient tractate inferted in the Bohemian hiftory. Thus far hath the church been always, whether in her prime, or in her ancienteft reformation, from the approv ing of tithes Nor without reafon; for they might easily perceive that tithes were fitted to the Jews only, a national church of many incomplete fynagogues, uniting the accomplishment of divine worship in one temple; and the Levites there had their tithes paid where they did their bodily work; to which a particular tribe was fet apart by divine appointment, not by the people's election: But the Chriftian church is univerfal; not tied to nation, diocefs, or parish, but confifting of many par ticular ticular churches complete in themfelves; gathered, not by compulfion or the accident of dwelling nigh together, but by free confent, chufing both their particular church and their church-officers; whereas if tithes be fet up, all these Christian privileges will be difturbed and foon loft, and with them Chriftian liberty. The firft authority which our adverfaries bring, after thofe fabulous apoftolic canons, which they dare not infift upon, is a provincial council held at Cullen, where they voted tithes to be God's rent, in the year 356: at the fame time perhaps when the three kings reigned there, and of like authority. For to what purpose do they bring thefe trivial teftimonies, by which they might as well prove altars, candles at noon, and the greateft part of thofe fuperftitions, fetched from Paganifm or Jewifm, which the Papift, inveigled by this fond argument of antiquity,, retains to this day? To what purpose thofe decrees of I know not what bishops, to a parliament and people who have thrown out both bishops and altars, and promifed all reformation by the word of God? And that altars brought tithes hither, as one corruption begot another, is evident by one of thofe queftions which the monk Auftin propounded to the pope, Concerning those things, which by offerings of the faithful came to the altar; as Beda writes, lib. i. cap. xxvii. If then by thefe teftimonies we must have tithes continued, we muft again have altars. Of fathers, by cuftom fo called, they quote Ambrofe, Auguftin, and fome other ceremonial doctors of the fame leaven: Whofe affertion without pertinent fcripture, no reformed church can admit; and what they vouch, is founded on the law of Mofes, with which, every where pitifully mistaken, they again incorporate the gospel; as did the rest also of those titular fathers, perhaps an age or two before them, by many rites and ceremonies, both Jewish and Heathenifh introduced; whereby thinking to gain all, they loft all: And instead of winning Jews and Pagans to be Chriftians, by too much condefcending they turned Chriftians into Jews and Pagans. To heap fuch unconvincing citations as these thefe.in religion, whereof the fcripture only is our rule, argues not much learning nor judgment; but the loft labour of much unprofitable reading. And yet a late hot querift for tithes, whom ye may know by his wits lying ever befide him in the margin, to be ever befide his wits in the text, a fierce reformer once, now rankled with a contrary heat, would fend us back, very reformedly indeed, to learn reformation from Tyndarus and Rebuffus, two canonical promoters. They produce next the ancient conftitutions of this land, Saxon laws, edicts of kings, and their councils, from Athelftan, in the year 928, that tithes by ftatute were paid: And might produce from Ina, above two hundred years before, that Romefcot, or Peter's-penny, was by as good ftatute law paid to the pope, from 725, and almoft as long continued. And who knows not that this law of tithes was enacted by thofe kings and barons upon the opinion they had of their divine right, as the very words import of Edward the Confeffor, in the close of that law: For fo bleffed Auflin preached and taught; meaning the monk, who firft brought the Romish religion into England from Gregory the Pope. And by the way I add, that by thefe laws, imitating the law of Mofes, the third part of tithes only was the priests due; the other two were appointed, for the poor, and to adorn or repair churches; as the canons of Ecbert and Elfric wit nefs: Concil. Brit. If then thefe laws were founded upon the opinion of divine authority, and that authority be found miftaken and erroneous, as hath been fully manifefted, it follows, that these laws fall of themselves with their falfe foundation. But with what face or confcience can they allege Mofes, or thefe laws for tithes, as they now enjoy or exact them; whereof Mofes ordains the owner, as we heard before, the ftranger, the fatherlefs, and the widow, partakers with the Levite; and thefe fathers which they cite, and these, though Romifh rather than English laws, allotted both to priest and bifhop the third part only. But these our Proteftant, thefe our new-reformed English Prefbyterian divines, against their own cited authors, authors, and to the fhame of their pretended reformation, would engross to themselves all tithes by ftatute; and fupported more by their wilful obftinacy and defire of filthy lucre than by these both infufficient and impertinent authorities, would perfuade a Chriftian magiftracy and parliament, whom we truft God hath reftored for a happier reformation, to impofe upon us a Judaical ceremonial law, and yet from that law to be more irregular and unwarrantable, more complying with a covetous clergy, than any of those Popish kings and parliaments alleged. Another fhift they have to plead, that tithes may be moral as well as the Sabbath, a tenth of fruits as well as a feventh of days. I anfwer, That the prelates who urge this argument, have leaft reafon to use it; denying morality in the Sabbath, and therein better agreeing with reformed churches abroad than the reft of our divines. As therefore the seventh day is not moral, but a convenient recourfe of worship in fit feason, whether feventh or other number, fo neither is the tenth of our goods, but only a convenient fubfiftence morally due to minifters. The laft and loweft fort of their arguments, that men purchased not their tithe with their land, and fuch-like petty-foggery, I omit; as refuted fufficiently by others I omit also their violent and irreligious exactions, related no lefs credibly: Their feizing of pots and pans from the poor, who have as good right to tithes as they; from fome, the very beds; their fuing and imprisoning, worfe than when the canon law was in force; worse than when those wicked fons of Eli were priefts, whofe manner was thus to feize their pretended prieftly due by force, 1 Sam. ii. 12. &c. Whereby men abhorred the offering of the Lord; and it may be feared that many will as much abhor the gofpel, if fuch violence as this be fuffered in her minifters, and in that which they also pretend to be the offering of the Lord. For thofe fons of Belial, within fome limits, made feizure of what they knew was their own by an undoubted law; but thefe, from whom there is no fanctuary, feize out of men's grounds, out of men's houses, their other |