Cæsar's, and unto God those things that are God's: yielding our bodies to Cæsar; reserving our souls for God: tendering to just laws, our active obedience; to unjust, passive. But, in the mean time, far be it from us to draw this knot of our obligation harder and closer, than authority itself intends it. Whatever popes may do for their Decrees, certainly good princes never meant to lay such weight upon all their laws, as to make every breach of them, even in relation to the authority given them by God, to be sinful. Their laws are commonly shut up, with a sanction of the penalty imposed upon the violation. There is an obedientia bursalis; as, I remember, Gerson calls it: "an obedience," if not of the person, yet "of the purse;" which princes are content to take up withal. We have a world of sins, God knows, upon us, in our hourly transgressions of the royal laws of our Maker: but, woe were us, if we should have so many sins more, as we break statutes. In penal laws, where scandal or contempt find no place, human authority is wont to rest satisfied with the mulct paid, when the duty is not performed. Not that we may wilfully incur the breach of a good law, because our hands are upon our purse-strings, ready to stake the forfeiture. This were utterly to frustrate the end of good laws; which do therefore impose a mulct, that they may not be broken and were highly injurious to sovereign authority; as if it sought for our money, not our obedience; and cared more for gain, than good order; than which there cannot be a more base imputation cast upon government. As, then, we are wont to say, in relation of our actions to the laws of God; that some things are forbidden because they are sinful, and some things are sinful because they are forbidden so it holds also in the laws of men; some things are forbidden because they are justly offensive, and some other things are only therefore offensive because they are forbidden: in the former of these, we must yield our careful obedience, out of respect even to the duty itself; in the latter, out of respect to the will of the lawgiver; yet so, as that if our own important occasions shall enforce us to transgress a penal law without any affront of authority or scandal to others, our submission to the penalty frees us from a sinful disobedience. CASE VII. Whether tithes be a lawful maintenance for Ministers, under the Gospel; and whether men be bound to pay them accordingly? As the question of "mine" and "thine" hath ever embroiled the world; so this particular concerning tithes hath raised no little dust in the Church of God: while some plead them in the precise, quotâ parte, due and necessary to be paid, both by the Law of God, and nature itself; others decry them as a Judaical Law; partly ceremonial, partly judicial; and, therefore, either now unlawful, or at least neither obligatory nor convenient. What is fit to be determined in a business so over agitated, I shall shut up in these ten propositions. 1. The maintenance of the Legal ministry allowed and appointed by God, was exceeding large and liberal. Besides all the tithes of corn, wine, oil, herbs, herds, flocks, they had forty-eight cities set forth for them; with the fields round about them, to the extent of two thousand cubits every way. They had the first-fruits of wine, oil, wool, &c. in a large proportion he was held to be a man of an evil eye, that gave less that the sixtieth part. They had the firstborn of cattle, sheep, beeves, goats; and the price of the rest, upon redemption: even the first born of men must ransom themselves, at five shekels a man. They had the oblations and vows of things dedicated to God. They had the ample loaves, or cakes" rather, of shew-bread, and no small share in meat-offerings, sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, heave-offerings, shake-offerings of sacrifices eucharistical, they had the breast and shoulder; of other, the shoulder and the two cheeks: yea, the very burnt-offerings afforded them a hide. Besides all these, all the males were to appear before the Lord, thrice a year: none were exempted, as their Doctors tell us, but servants, deaf, dumb, idiots, blind, lame, defiled, uncircumcised, old, sick, tender and weak, not able to travel; and no one of these, which came up, might appear empty-handed. What do I offer to particularize? There were no less than twenty-four gifts allotted to the priests, expressly in the Law: the severals whereof whoso desires to see, may find in the learned and profitable Annotations of Mr. Ainsworth, out of Maimonides". 2. We can have no reason to imagine, that the same God, m Ten hand-breadths long, five broad, seven fingers high. who was so bountiful in his provisions for the Legal ministry, should bear less respect to the Evangelical; which is far more worthy and excellent, than the other. Justly, therefore, doth St. Paul argue, from the maintenance of the one, a meet proportion for the fit sustentation of the other; 1 Cor. ix. 13. 3. It is not fit for God's ministers to be too intent on matter of profit their main care must be the spiritual proficiency of the souls of their people: the secular thoughts of outward provisions must come in only on the by. But, howsoever they may not be entangled in worldly affairs, yet they ought in duty to cast so much eye upon these earthly things, as may free them from neglect. It is to Timothy that St. Paul writes, that If any man provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel; 1 Tim. v. 8. 4. Under the Law, the tenth part was precisely allotted, by the Owner of All Things, for the maintenance of the sacred tribe: and, if the Wise and Holy God had not found that a meet proportion for those that served at his altar, he had either pitched upon some other or left it arbitrary. Yea, even before the Law, Abraham, and in his loins Levi himself, paid tithes to Melchisedec, the priest of the Most High God; Gen. xiv. 20. Heb. vii. 4. And, whether it were by his example or by some natural instinct, we find the very heathen nations, after some great victory atchieved, were wont to devote still the tithe of their spoils to their Deities: so Camillus, when he had after a long siege taken the rich city Vejos, (a place of such importance, that, upon the taking of it, he wished some great cross might befal Rome, for the tempering of so high a felicity) he presently offereth the tithe to his Gods: yea, it was their custom who were most devout, to consecrate the tithe of all their increase to those Gods they were most addicted unto; insomuch as the Romans noted it in their Lucullus, that he therefore grew up to so vast an estate, because he still devoted the tithe of his fruits to Hercules: and Pliny tells us, that, when they gathered their frankincense, none of it might be uttered till the priest had the tithe of it set forth for him. 5. There can be no good reason given, why we may not observe the very same rate of proportion, in laying out the maintenance of the ministry under the Gospel: and, if these rules and examples be not binding, since religion consisteth not now in numbers at all; yet there is no cause why Christian kingdoms or commonwealths may not settle their choice upon the same number and quantity, with both Jews and Gentiles. 6. The national laws of this kingdom have set out the same • "Oppa deý čekárny, &c. Clem. Al. Strom. 1. P Plin. 1. xii. Bongus de num. Myster. num. 10. proportion of tenths, for this purpose: if, therefore, there were no other obligation from the Law of God or of the Church, nor any precedents from the practice of the rest of the world; yet, in obedience to our municipal laws, we are bound to lay forth the tenth part of our increase, to the maintenance of God's service; and that tenth is as truly due to the minister, as the nine parts to the owner. 7. Since the tenth part is, in the intention of the law both civil and ecclesiastical, dedicated to the service of God; and, in the mere intuition thereof, is allotted to God's ministers; there can be no reason, why it can be claimed or warrantably received by lay persons, for their proper use and behoof: so as this practice of impropriation, which was first set on foot by unjust and sacrilegious Bulls from Rome, is justly offensive both to God and good men; as mis-deriving the well-meant devotions of charitable and pious souls into a wrong channel. Nothing is more plain, than that tithes were given to the Church; and, in it, to God: how, therefore, that, which is bequeathed to God, may be alienated to secular hands, let the possessors look. 8. Let men be tied to make good the Apostle's charge, since the Legal rate displeases; and it shall well satisfy those, that wait upon God's services under the Gospel. The charge of the Apostle of the Gentiles, is, Let him, that is taught in the word, communicate to him, that teacheth, in all good things; Gal. vi. 6: whereto he adds, Be not deceived, God is not mocked; v. 7. The charge is serious and binding: and the required communication is universal; and that with a grave item of God's strict observation of performance. We may not think to put it off with Ambrose's mis-pointed reading, of referring the all good things to the teaching; a conceit, sensibly weak and misconstructive: nothing is more evident, than that it hath relation to the communicating; wherein, for ought I see, God intends a larger bounty to the Evangelical ministry than to the Legal: where all is to be communicated, what is excepted? All: not exclusive of the owner; but imparted by the owner. Let this be really done, there will be no reason to stand upon the tenths. 9. But, that this may be accordingly done, there is no law, that requires a mere arbitrariness in the communicators. The duty of the teacher is punctually set down; and so well known, that the meanest of the people can check him with his neglect: and why should we think the reciprocal duty of the hearer fit to be left loose and voluntary? yet such an apprehension hath taken up the hearts of too many Christians, as if the contributions to their ministers were a matter of mere alms; which as they need not to give, so they are apt, upon easy displeasures, to upbraid. But these men must be put in mind of the just word of our Saviour, The labourer is worthy of his wages. The ministry signifies a service; a public service at God's altar whereto the wages is no less due, than the meat is to the mouth of him that pays for it. No man may more freely speak of tithes than myself, who receive none, nor ever shall do. Know, then, ye proud ignorants, that call your ministers your alms-men, and yourselves their benefactors, that the same right you have to the whole, they have to a part: God, and the same laws that have feoffed you in your estates, have allotted them their due shares in them: which, without wrong, ye cannot detract. It is not your charity, but your justice, which they press for their own. Neither think to check them, with the scornful title of your servants: servants they are, indeed, to God's Church; not to you: and, if they do stoop to particular services for the good of your souls, this is no more disparagement to them, than it is to the blessed angels of God, to be ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them, who shall be heirs of salvation; Heb. i. 14. Shortly, it is the Apostle's charge, ratified in heaven, that they, which labour in the word and doctrine, should be remunerated with double honour: that is, not formal, of words and compliments; but real, of maintenance: which he lays weight upon his Timothy to enjoin; 1 Tim. v. 17. 10. And surely, how necessary it is that we should be at some certainty in this case, and not left to the mere arbitrary will of the givers, it too well appears in common experience: which tells us how ordinary it is, where ministers depend upon voluntary benevolences, if they do but upon some just reproof gall the conscience of a guilty hearer, or preach some truth which disrelishes the palate of a prepossessed auditor, how he straight flies out; and not only withholds his own pay, but also withdraws the contributions of others: so as the freetongued teacher must either live by air, or be forced to change his pasture. It were easy to instance, but charity bids me forbear. Hereupon it is, that these sportulary preachers are fain to sooth up their many masters; and are so gagged with the fear of a starving displeasure, that they dare not be free in the reprehension of the daring sins of their uncertain benefactors; as being charmed to speak either placentia, or nothing. And if there were no such danger in a faithful and just freedom, yet how easy is it to apprehend, that if, even when the laws enforce men to pay their dues to their ministers, they yet continue so backward in their discharge of them; how much less hope can there be, that, being left to their free choice, they would prove either liberal or just in their voluntary contributions? Howsoever, therefore, in that innocent infancy of the Church, wherein zealous Christians, out of a liberal ingenuity were |