vices suas mandaverat the Right was not in Men but in God and therefore cannot be taken away without his consent Let me parallel this with the like Tell me what 's the reason that after the Knot of Matrimony is duely ty'd by consent of their Parents and Friends ratify'd by the Minister what 's the reason I say that afterwards the consent of both the Parties Calvin in Act. 5.4 of all their Friends seconded by the Minister himself is not able to unty the fame Knot Your Answer will be Because Marriage is not of the Nature of a Civil Contract where God himself hath an hand Therefore whom God hath joined let no Man seperate without God's consent Neither be Church-Endowments Civil where God is a Party Therefore that which God hath receiv'd let no Man take away without his consent Thirdly If this will not serve their turns after the Vows Men will enquire yet farther Whether God did ever receive them or no For the Silver-shrines of Diana were never given because never accepted by God 'T is true But extend not this limitation too far for that is dangerous First then let us not sit Judges upon the Consciences of our Fore-fathers 't is a Snare after their Vows to enquire Secondly Admit their purposes were stain'd with imperfection shall that make their Deed void God forbid What Act of Man is without imperfection That devout Zeal of Jehu was accepted notwithstanding his Golden-Calves in Bethel Look to the other parallel How many Exceptions might be taken unto Marriages in these Days If we should enquire after the Intents and sinister Affections of the Parties Marry'd with other by-respects which make them not so acceptable unto God as otherwise without doubt they would be Yet doth the Bond stand firm before God and Man For there 's more Vertue in the good of an Act to confirm than imperfection can dissolve Else Jacob had miss'd of his Blessing Gen. 27. Thirdly If this will not do Men will enquire yet farther after the Vows If God will not in some Cases give his consent to part with his Right No doubt He that is so ready to convert his own Portion to benefit the Church in saving Souls will be as willing for our good to forego as he ever was to receive But these Cases be rare wherein 't is not dark what God doth warrant As in that other parallel of Matrimony there 's a Case wherein God granteth a dismission Mat. 19.9 So there 's a necessity wherein David may eat of the Shew-bread which otherwise is not lawful but for the Priests Mat. 12.4 But to make God speak where He 's silent and to extort his consent where He 's most unwilling This is a Snare Fourthly If every way our Consciences be insnar'd the next Inquiry must be How we shall be deliver'd Admit we have robb'd or beguil'd the Church 't is past we are sorry for it Will not God of his mercy break the Snare that our Souls may escape in the Day of the Lord No doubt He that was ready to break the Snare of Death will be ready to break this Snare also But upon what Condition The Prophet Ezekel makes a direct Answer in the 33 Chapter of his Prophecy and 15th Verse If he return from his sin and do that which is right to wit If he restore the pledge and give again that which he hath robbed and commit no iniquity he shall surely live and not die If he restore But may not these Ifs be dispens'd withall No surely That of St. Augustine is firmly grounded upon the Book of God Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum For as in Moses's Law Numb 4.7 they were bound to restore the damage with the Principal besides the Ram for the Atonement which was the shadow so in the truth of the Gospel besides the Atonement made by Christ upon the Cross Restitution must be made by us Christ has satisfied the Justice of God for us which was not in our power to do but we must satisfie the Church and our own Consciences besides the Atonement We will amend and be sorry for that which is past Will not that satisfie True But can we amend so long as we abide in the Sin As the taking of it from the Church doth begin so the keeping of it doth continue the Fault So long as the Spoil is in thine House the Sin remaineth when the Act is past Isaiah 3.14 And where the Sin remaineth there 's no amendment For the Act we are sorry Be not deceived God is not mocked Thou can'st not be sorry for taking of that which thou keepest voluntarily Epist 54. ad macedoniam Sine restitutione paenitentia nonagitur sed fingitur saith St. Augustine Without Restitution no Repentance Without Repentance no Salvation Unless we cast that down at the Apostles Feet which was got by Sacriledge we are further from Repentance than Judas who notwithstanding pass'd out of this Life in a double Snare of Soul and Body Unjust dealing is dangerous against whomsoever But beware of Sacriledge 'T is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.31 Thy Money may perish with thee but to save thy self together with thy Money 't is impossible A Rich Man cannot pass the Needle 's Eye without a strain nor a Sacrilegious Person without detriment 'T is Snare every way to devour that which is Sanctified and after the Vows to enquire how to take that from God which is once given 'T is a Snare to enquire over-strictly after the Vows what God did take and what was given to Superstitious use 'T is a Snare to enquire colours and probabilities for God's consent where He 's most silent 'T is a Snare after the Sin to enquire how by some slight Repentance we might have our Souls and our Money too 'T is strange to see what a world of Enquiries the Subtilty of the Serpent hath suggested to entangle poor Souls We make Queries and put Cases and beat our Brains and all to insnare a troubled Conscience against the Day of the Lord. I assure you that I have Treated of a Doctrine in this Sermon which is neither New nor to my knowledge Controversal I have purposely contain'd my self within the compass of common and receiv'd Grounds laying them open according to my poor Skill Wherefore in the Name of God and his Church let me commend unto you the Exhortatiom of God himself Malcha the 3d. Chapter and 10th Verse Bring ye all the Tithes into the Store-house that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of Hosts if I will not open you the windows of Heaven and pour you out a Blessing without measure Bring all the Tithes that were a bootless Exhortation Bring some reasonable protion and it shall be easier for you in the Day of Judgment And seeing God would have us to prove him let us try him whether he will be
Truth Prayer testifieth that we acknowledge his Goodness to be the only Fountain of all Blessings Preaching bringeth Knowledge without which Devotion is Blind Prayer exerciseth Devotion without which Knowledge is Lame and Unprofitable The own soweth the Seed the other fetcheth a shower of Graces from Heaven to make it grow By Preaching God doth serve us with that Heavenly Manna the Food of our Souls by Prayer we do serve God which is the End of all our Preaching Be it far from us then to make a Divorce between these two which can so well agree Secondly That these Sacred means might take effect in working Holiness in the Church of God he hath Sanctify'd and set apart in the second Rank Time Place and Person for the Ministry of the Word Prayer and Sacraments For Time he hath selected the Lord's Day for Place the Temple for Persons the Clergy 1. The Lord's Day Sanctify'd or set apart from common use to God's Service is then devour'd when it is Prophan'd by weekly Business or lewd Sports The Ends why the Lord's Day was Ordain'd are these 1. For the Exercise of all Duties of Piety in Publick especially 2. For the Practice of all Duties of Charity and Piety 3. To remember the great Works of God especially of the Creation and Redemption of the World And if in every Week or Month or Year we should set some time apart to Commemorate God's Mercy in all his other Acts of Gracious Providence belonging to our Preservation it would be no Superstition but an Act of Piety in any single Christian or if Authority should think good in any Publick Society of them So likewise the Birth Passion Ascension of Christ the Descent of the Spirit the Birth or Martyrdom of the Apostles and Saints of Scripture and any remarkable temporal Deliverance or by proportion also any matter of Humiliation any Sin or Judgment on a Kingdom will by the example of God himself both in this Fourth Commandment and in other Feasts and Fasts of the Church prescribed by him be resolv'd to be fit Seasons and Opportunities to Consecrate some considerable part of our time to God 2. The Holiness of the Place is devoured when the Temple of God is made an Exchange John 2.16 I mean not only the Temple at Hierusalem but every place Consecrated to God's Worship is Holy and therefore saith the Apostle not to be Prophan'd by common Employments 1 Cor. 11.22 Have ye not houses to eat and drink in or despise ye the Church of God 3. Sanctify'd Persons set apart for the Ministry of the Gospel are devour'd a thousand ways yea rather than fail we our selves will devour our selves That unhappy Faction amongst us about Mint and Annice had brought such a Snare upon this Church as if God's especial Providence had not preserved us the Papist on the one side and the prophane Atheist on the other had devour'd both sides with open Mouth Verily 't is a Snare to devour any thing that is Sanctified But yet I am not come to the chief part of my Text. As the Sacred Ordinance of God the Word and Sacraments cannot be Ministred without convenient Time Place and Person set apart for that purpose So neither can Place nor Person be fit for that Ministry without convenient Maintenance Wherefore God of his Goodness out of those Temporal Blessings in abundance bestowed upon the Sons of Men hath resum'd a Portion for this purpose Which Portion is said in my Text to be Sanctified because 't is set apart from common use to the Maintenance of God's Service For 't is laid down for a Principle in Levit. 27.28 Every thing separate from common use is holy to the Lord So that where the Scripture speaketh of this Portion there to be separate and to be Holy be Synonima diverse Terms expressing one and the self-same thing These ly open to be devour'd by Covetous and Needy Persons these be alluring Baits to entice a Man to devour them but Solomon giveth us a Caveat that under this Bait there lieth an Hook to ensnare the Conscience of the Devourer so as he may swallow the Bait and wound himself Win the World and lose his Soul Be it far from me to ensnare the Judgment of the Weak or any ways to darken the Truth by Ceremonial or Levitical Shadows I know where I speak in the Presence of God and of those who are able to discern and judge what I say Give me leave to enlighten my self in the unfolding of this Text so far only as the Moral Law of God which is perpetual and the Evidence of his Gospel do second the same That Precept of Wisdom to her Son in this Book Chap. 3. ver 9. Honour God with thy substance albeit she had written it in the Hearts of Men by Nature Yet she had need to renew it since many endeavour to blot it out For 't is a conceit commonly conceiv'd that for those Temporal Blessings we possess if we use them soberly without excess justly without oppression of others and charitably with some portion relieve the Poor we are thereby discharged as if no part thereof was due to God or did any wise appertain to the first Table The Nicodemites were content to become Christians thus far that they would give their Hearts unto Christ so they might dispose of their Bodies as occasion serv'd These go a degree farther They will Worship God in Soul and Body both That of the abundance of the heart the Mouth may speak the Knee bow the Hands and Eyes be lifted up But for Honouring God in their Riches they think 't is more than needs They will offer to God the Oblations of their Hearts and Calves of their Lips too but not of their Stalls We will go with the Wise Men saith St. Bernard to seek Christ from the East yea we will fall down and worship him but we be grown too wise to open our Treasuries that is the renting of our Hearts we cannot endure to be ty'd unto it If St. Paul therefore will make Agrippa a Christian he must except these Bands too But God will not release us For as God is the owner and giver of all Sacrum vectigal Calvin in Heb. 1.4 so he will be acknowledged by a Sacred Rent to be Lord of all He gave Blessing to Abraham Abraham repay'd part in acknowledgment of that gift Gen. 14.20 The Land of Canaan was given unto his Posterity but that Sacred Tribute was reserv'd as Holy to the Lord. For want of the payment whereof God doth often distrain and re-enter upon his own restraining the influence of the Heaven and the sap of the Earth as Mal. 3.10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith saith the Lord of hosts if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing c. Therefore the Windows of Heaven were shut before because this Duty
as good as his Word Prove him if he will not open the windows of Heaven and pour us out a Blessing without measure Prove him if he will not prosper the Nine Parts Ten times more than before Prove him if He will not send a Learn'd and Pious Ministry into this Land such as shall be able to stand in the Gap against an Adversary when Learned Pious and Othordox Divines shall receive Encouragement from the Altar Prove him if we be honouring him in Soul and Body and Goods He will not honour us with a Flourishing Gospel to feed our Souls with Health and Peace To preserve our Bodies with Health and Prosperity to our Lives end so far as shall advantage our Souls and Bodies to Eternal Life Which God grant unto us for his Son's sake Jesus Christ the Righteous to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost Three Persons and one Eternal Everliving and only wise God be Glory Praise and Power and Thanksgiving now and for ever Amen POSTSCRIPT from that Excellent Book called The Snake in the Grass OUR Priests says Thorpe the Quaker came not of the Lineage of Levi but of the Lineage of Judah to which Judah no Tithes were promis'd to be given Thus Thorpe as the Quakers have Quoted him But now who told Thorpe or the Quakers that our Priests came of the Lineage of Judah Are they Jews What fulsome stuff is this But our Saviour was of Judah What then He was not a Priest after the Order of Judah of which Tribe Moses spake nothing concerning Priesthood Heb 7.14 But He was a Priest after the Order of Melchisedec Heb. 5.6 And Tithes were paid to Melchisedec long before Levi who paid Tithes to Melchisedec being yet in the Loins of his Father Abraham Heb. 7.10 Now the Evangelical Priesthood is after the Order of Melchisedec And therefore they claim Tithes as being due to that Order of Priesthood So that all their Arguments as to the Law and Levitical Priesthood being superseded operate nothing against Priests of a Superior and more excellent Priesthood And there being as Ancient mention of Tithes as there is of Priesthood in the World I have no manner of doubt but they are as Ancient as Presthood it self that is as Adam From whom descended the Knowledge of Tithes as of Sacrifices and of Priesthood which are all the Relatives the one being the Maintenance the other the Office of the Priesthood and therefore the one must be as ancient as the other And they were all alike receiv'd by the Heathen World by an immemorial Tradition from the Beginning without knowing of their beginning as they knew not their own Origination nor of the World of Marriage and other positive Institutions which by an Universal Tradition had been convey'd down to them God reserved the Tenth part of our Substance as the Seventh of our Time to be paid as a Tribute and acknowledgement to him from whom we receive all And therefore the Payment of Tithes is a part of God's Worship The Priests being made the Receivers because we cannot pay them to God immediately is but a secondary Consideration They were part of the Offerings to God under the Law Numbers 18.24 They are called his Inheritance Deut. 18.1 not as then Instituted but then given to the Levites Nor is Melchisedec's Tithing of Abraham mention'd as the beginning or first rise of Tithes but 't is told occasionally and as a thing well known and receiv'd even in those early Days And being part of the Worship of God Holy unto the Lord Levit. 27.32 33. they were not Alienable or to be chang'd with any thing else The Priests could no more excuse Men from the Payment of their Tithes for they were paid to God than they could commute any of the other Offerings or Sacrifices upon the pretence that they were given to the Priests for their maintenance No Man says That the People did offer Sacrifices to the Priest tho' the Priests did live of their Sacrifices neither are Tithes offer'd to Priests but to God tho' they are paid to the Priests and receiv'd by the Priests from the Hands of the People as other Offerings to the Lord were Therefore the Substraction of the Tithes as of other Offerings is call'd a Robbing not of the Priests but of God Mal. 3.8 'T is invading what God hath reserv'd peculiar to himself that we may not touch it of all the other Trees of the Garden we may freely Eat And this is the same Sacriledge as to tast of the forbidden Fruit. That was the first Sin It was Sacriledge And I am not afraid to say that all are guilty of it who have seiz'd upon the Tithes of God and pay them not to his Priests And that this Sin will not be forgiven without a severe Repentance and Restitution How far extream Ignorance occasion'd by the Torrent of the Times will Excuse I will not now dispute But I 'me sure wilful affected Ignorance occasion'd by Negligence or Covetousness will not And let this be added to all that I have said That several Kings of England who had then the sole Right and Property in all the Lands of England have anew Dedicated by particular Vows as Jacob Gen. 28.22 all the whole Tithes of all the Lands of England to God and Sign'd Charters and Grants of the same and rendred them upon their Knees at the Altar of God in presence and with the approbation of the Lords and Estates of the Land with heavy Curses and Imprecations upon themselves or any of their Successours who should Recal the same or Incroach in any part upon the said Tithes of God and upon all who should receive such Grants from them or assit them in such Sacriledge And the same has been Confirm'd by several Acts of Parliament Now if a Man cannot violate his own Vow how can he annul that of another Especially where his Vow was only for the Payment of what God had before Reserv'd to himself I will not launch out any farther upon this Subject only tell the Quakers That it was the Fryers and School-men who first set up the Notion of Tithes being Elemosynary against their own Canonists only on purpose to leave the People at Liberty to bestow their Tithes upon the Regulars and to maintain the Sacrilegious Impropriations which the Pope had made of the Tithes of the secular Clergy to endow their Monasteries Which King Henry the 8th instead of Restoring did yet the more Sacrilegiously Impropriate to the Laity FINIS