and superior to any other kind of property. The high priest will not take a parliamentary title; that is, in other words, he thinks they have a divine right to tithe.

Whence? None from the Jews; the priesthood of the Jews had not the tenth; the Levites had the tenth, because they had no other inheritance; but Aaron and his sons had but the tenth of that tenth; that is, the priesthood of the Jews had but the hundredth part, the rest was for other uses; for the rest of the Levites, and for the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the temple. But supposing the Jewish priesthood had the tenth, which they certainly had not; the Christian priesthood does not claim under them. Christ was not a Levite, nor of the tribe of Levi, nor of the Jewish priesthood, but came to protest against that priesthood, their worship, their ordinances, their passover, and their circumcision. Will a Christian priesthood say it was meet to put down the Jewish, but meet likewise to seize on the spoil; as if their riches were of divine right, though their religion was not; as if Christian disinterestedness might take the land, and the tithe given in lieu of land, and possessed of both, and divested of the charity, exclaim against the avarice of the Jews?

The Apostles had no tithe, they did not demand it; they and he whose mission they preached, protested against the principle on which tithe is founded. "Carry neither scrip, nor purse, "nor shoes; into whatever house ye go say, peace.' Here is concord and contempt of riches, not tithe. "Take no thought "what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor for your bodies "what ye shall put on;" so said Christ to his Apostles. Does this look like a right in his priesthood to a tenth of the goods of the community?

"Beware of covetousness....seek not what ye shall eat, but "seek the kingdom of God."

"Give alms....provide yourselves with bags that wax not old, 66 a treasure in Heaven which faileth not." This does not look like a right in the Christian priesthood to the tenth of the goods of the community exempted from the poor's dividend.

“Distribute unto the poor, and seek treasure in Heaven." "Take care that your hearts be not charged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life."

One should not think that our Saviour was laying the foundation of tithe, but cutting up the roots of the claim, and prophetically admonishing some of the modern priesthood. If these precepts are of divine right, tithes cannot be so; the precept which orders a contempt of riches, the claim which demands a tenth of the fruits of the earth for the ministers of the gospel,

The peasantry in apostolic times had been the object of charity, not of exaction. Those to whose cabin the tithe-farmer has gone for tithe of turf, and to whose garden he has gone for the tithe potatoes, the Apostles would have visited likewise; but they would have visited with contribution, not for exaction: the poor had shared with the Apostles, though they contribute to the churchman.

The gospel is not an argument for, but against the right divine of tithe; so are the first fathers of the church.

It is the boast of Tertullian, "Nemo compellitur sed sponte "confert hæc quasi deposita sunt pietatis."

"With us men are not under the necessity of redeeming "their religion, what we have is not raised by compulsion, each "contributes what he pleases; modicam unusquisque stipendium "vel cum velit, et si modo velit, et si modo posset; what we re"ceive we bestow on the poor, the old, the orphan, and the "infirm."

Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, tells you, the expences of the church are frugal and sparing, but her charity great; he calls the clergy his fratres spartulantes; a fraternity living by

contribution.

Forsake, says Origen, the priests of Pharaoh, who have earthly possessions, and come to us who have none: we must not consume what belongs to the poor; we must be content with simple fare, and poor apparel.

Chrysostome, in the close of the fourth century, declares, that there was no practice of tithes in the former ages; and Erasmus says, that the attempt to demand them was no better than tyranny.

But there is an authority still higher than the opinions of the fathers; there is the authority of a council; the council of Antioch, in the fourth century, which declares, that bishops may distribute the goods of the church, but must take no part to themselves, nor to the priests that lived with them, unless necessity required them justly; " have food and raiment, be "therewith content."

This was the state of the church in its purity; in the fifth century decimation began, and Christianity declined; then indeed the right of tithe was advanced, and advanced into a style that damned it. The preachers who advanced the doctrine placed all Christian virtue in the payment of tithe. They said that the Christian religion, as we say the Protestant religion, depended on it. They said, that those who paid not their tithes, would be found guilty before God; and if they did not give the tenth, that God would reduce the country to a tenth. Blasphemous preachers....gross ignorance of the nature of things.... impudent familiarity with the ways of God....audacious, assum

ed knowledge of his judgments, and a false denunciation of his vengeance. And yet even these rapacious, blasphemous men did not acknowledge to demand tithe for themselves, but the poor....alms! the debt of charity....the poor's patrimony. "We "do not limit you to a precise sum; but you will not give less "than the Jews"....decima sunt tributa egentium animarum redde tributa pauperibus. Augustine goes on and tells you, that as many poor as die in your neighbourhood for want, you not paying tithe, of so many murders will you be found guilty, at the tribunal of God....tantorum homicidiorum reus ante tribunal eterni judicis apparebit. Let us, says St. Jerome, at least follow the example of the Jews, and part of the whole give to the priest and the poor. To these authorities we are to add, the decree of two councils....the provincial council of Mascon, in the close of the sixth century, and the decree of the council of Nantz, in the close of the ninth. The first orders that tithes may be brought in by the people, that the priest may expend them for the use of the poor, and the redemption of captives. The latter decrees, that the clergy are to use the tithes, not as a property, but a trust....non quasi suis sed commendatis.

It was not the table of the priest, nor his domestics, nor his apparel, nor his influence, nor his ambition; but a Christian equipage of tender virtues....the widow, the orphan, and the poor; they did not demand the tithe as a corporation of proprietors, like an East India Company, or a South Sea Company, with great rights of property annexed, distinct from the community, and from religion; but as trustees, humble trustees to God, and the poor, pointed out they presumed by excess of holiness and contempt of riches. Nor did they resort to decimation, even under these plausible pretensions, until forced by depredation committed by themselves on one another. The goods of the church of whatever kind, were at first in common, distributed to the support of the church, and the provision of the poor; but at length the more powerful part, those who attended the courts of princes; they who intermeddled in state affairs, the busy high priest, and the servile, seditious, clerical politician; and particularly the abbots who had engaged in war, and had that pretence for extortion, usurped the fund, left the business of prayer to the inferior clergy, and the inferior clergy to tithe and the people.

Thus the claim of tithe originated in real extortion, and was propagated by affected charity; at first, for the poor and the church, afterwards subject to the fourfold division, the bishop, the fabric, the minister, and the poor; this in Europe.

In England tithe is not founded on divine right, but was said to be introduced by murder. A King of Mercia in the seventh century assassinates another Prince in a most barbarous man

ner, and grants, with what power I know not, the tenth of his subjects' goods, for absolution; but in England, as elsewhere, the fourfold division took place; so says Blackstone.

Nay the preamble of the grant of Stephen recognizes tithe to be alms.

Since it is divulged far and near by the church, that souls may receive absolution by the grant of alms, " I, Stephen, to "save my own soul, that of my father's, and that of my mother's, "and my relations."

Then he goes on and grants or confirms tithes and other things.

Nay, there are two acts of parliament express, one the 13th, Richard II. providing that for the appropriation of benefices, there shall be provision made for the vicar and the poor.*

The cause of this act of parliament were benefices given to persons who did not, or could not preach, lay persons, sometimes nuns, (as we give them to non-residents) to the neglect of the poor's portion.

These principles were departed from, and the trust most undoubtedly buried in oblivion; but let me add, the Christian religion was forgotten likewise.

Hence the reformation bringing back christianity to its old purity; and hence a superior and milder order of priests, who purged the spiritual and some of the temporal abominations, but did not entirely relinquish the claim to the tithe; though I must own great numbers have too much purity to insist on it; a claim which I have shewn to have been in its creation an encroachment on the laity, and in its application an encroachment on the poor. No divine right, no, nor natural right: the law of nature and the law of God are the same; the law of nature doth not give property, but the law of nature abhors that disproportion of property which is to be found in the claim of 900 or 1000 men to the 10th of the goods of 3,000,000; a claim in the 3000th part of the community to the 10th of its property; surfeit on the part of the few; famine on the part of the many; a distribution of the fruits of the earth; impossible, beastly, shocking in itself, and when accompanied with a claim to extravagant moderation and purity, ridiculous and disgusting; a claim against the proportions of Nature and the precepts of the gospel.

*Because divers damages and hindrances have oftentimes happened by the appropriation of benefices in some places; it is agreed, that in every licence it shall be expressly comprised, that the diocesan of the place shall ordain, according to the value of such churches, a convenient sum of money shall be paid and distributed yearly out of the fruits and profits of some churches to the poor parishioners of some churches in aid of their sustenance for ever; likewise that the vicar be well and sufficiently endowed. Statute Henry IV. confirms this act.

I know there are acts of parliament on this subject. The act of Henry VIII. which requires the setting out of the tithe; an act of collection, not creation; an act which had the lay impropriator in view, and which seems to take for granted a claim of superstition founded on the pretence of charity. I know there are many subsequent acts (which are called tithe bills) intended to assist the collection of customary, not full tithe, and in that confidence granted by parliament. I am not now enquiring whether the claim to the full tithe is legal, but whether the application of that tithe for the sole purpose of supporting the priest is an usurpation. And, I have shewn you that tithe was a charity, subject to the support of the poor in the first place, and the priest in the last. I have shewn you that tithe does not stand on the delicate ground of private property. I have shewn you, that it was a trust converted into a property, by abuse; which abuse the legislature may control, without sacrilege or robbery. If a right to the full tenth is yet insisted on, give them the full tenth, on the principles on which alone they at first ventured to demand it, subject to a poor rate; let the trust be executed; let widows and orphans share it; let the house of industry and the various hospitals and infirmaries share it; let the house of God (now a hovel repaired at the expence of parliament, though, by the cannon law, it should be repaired by the priesthood), share it; let the poorer order of peasantry share it. If the clergy will insist on taking the full tithes of his potatoes, if they take the staff out of his hands, they must carry the peasant on their shoulders. Thus, the clergy insisting on the summum jus, and the laity on the summa justitia, the former would not be richer by the change. I should on such a change, condole with the church, and congratulate the poor; and I should applaud the discretion, as well as the moderation, of those excellent pastors, who did not rake up from the ashes of superstition, this claim to the tenth, but were satisfied with competence and character, and brotherly love, and a right to live by their ministry, a right set forth in the gospel, and which nature had set forth, even though the gospel had been silent.

"Impracticable,....impracticable,....impracticable," a zealous divine will say, any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of parliament; above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900 clergymen who despise riches! were it to raise a new tax for their provision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how various the means! but, when the proposal is to diminish a tax already established, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a measure so contrary to our practices both in church and state.