weakness and insufficiency, as may as may make us earnest for the supplies of divine grace; such a sorrow for our sins, and such a readiness to forgive others, as may prevail upon God, for the sake of Christ's sufferings, to forgive us: to recollect those many blessings which we have received, that we may show forth his praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to his service.

II. Secondly, the Almighty is also to be honoured in his ministers, by that love which is due unto them as the stewards of the mysteries of God, and those that watch over our souls. Therefore we ought to show our love to such as administer to us in holy things, in being ready to assist them in all difficulties, and in vindicating their reputation from those aspersions, which bad men are apt to load them with: in covering their real infirmities, and interpreting all their actions in the best sense; never picking out the faults of a few and making them a reproach to the whole sacred order. And as ministers are in a peculiar manner servants of God, to whose bounty we owe all that we enjoy; therefore we should dedicate a part of what we receive to his immediate service, as an acknowledgement of his sovereignty and dominion over all. And what makes this duty further reasonable is, that, in order to be instruments in God's hand in procuring our eternal welfare, they renounce all ordinary means of advancing their fortunes; they surrender up their pretensions to worldly interests; and therefore it is highly fit that their laborious and difficult employment, purely for God's glory and our salvation, should receive from us the encouragement of a comfortable and honorable subsistence, upon this and the like considerations: that parents may be encouraged to devote their children of good parts to the service of the altar; for it is not probable they will sacrifice an expensive education to an employment that is attended with small advantages. And if some persons have zeal enough to engage in the ministry without a respect to the reward of it; yet common prudence ought to put us upon such methods as are most likely to excite men of the best parts and ability to undertake the sacred function; that the best cause may have the best management, and the purest religion the

ablest defenders. It is also necessary that their maintenance should bear some proportion to the dignity of their character, and should raise them above the contempt of those who are apt to be influenced by outward appearances; for, though wisdom is better than strength, nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. And further, that by this means they may be better enabled not only to provide for their families, which is a duty incumbent upon them as well as the rest of mankind, but to be examples to their flock in charity and in doing good, as well as in all other parts of their office and duty.

The wisdom of our christian forefathers thought these considerations of such force, that the government has appointed for the maintenance of our ministers the house and glebe*, and the oblations which were the voluntary offerings of the faithful, very considerable in the primitive times; so that the necessities of the church were liberally supplied from the great bounty of the people: and when, upon the spreading of christianity, a more fixed and settled maintenance was required, yet somewhat of the ancient custom was retained in voluntary oblations, beside tithes, which are the main lawful support of the parish minister. The reason of their payment is founded on the law of God,

* These were the original endowments of a church, without which it cannot be supplied, and without which it could not be consecrated; and upon which was founded the original right of a patronage. For it appears from lord Coke, that the first kings of the realm had all the lands of England in demesne, and les grand manours and les royalties they reserved to themselves; and with the remnant they enfeoffed the barons of the realm for the defence thereof, with such jurisdictions as the court baron now hath; and about this time it was, when all the lands of England were the kings demesne, that Ethelwulf, who died in the year 857, conferred the tithes of all the kingdom upon the church by his royal charter; which is extant in abbot Ingulf, and in Matthew of Westminster.

+ We do not read of tithes paid the apostles, because the zeal of christians in their time was so great, that as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and laid the price of them at the apostles' feet; and the devotion of the following ages, even to the latter end of the fourth century, was so remarkable for the liberality of their offerings and oblations, that their bounty to the evangelical priesthood exceeded what the tenth would have been, if they had paid it; so that there was no reason to demand tithes, when men gave a greater proportion of what they possessed; though, even during those ages, there want not testimonies from the fathers of those times, that tithes were due under the gospel as well as before, and under the law: and that they were paid is plain from the apostolical canons, which provide for the disposal of them.

and their settlement among us has been by the ancient and undoubted laws of this nation*. Therefore such as by tricks or shifts keep back or refuse to pay tithes in whole or in part, or by any other means defraud the clergy of their maintenance, are guilty of that grievous sin of sacrilege, by taking what is set apart for the clergy's subsistence, to employ it in other uses, or to their own particular profit; which is robbing of God, as the prophet informs us: Will a man rob God? yet ye have robbed me; but ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings, saith the Lord. So that here we are told by God himself, that the withholding of tithes is a robbing of him: and what is gotten by such a robbery the prophet declares in the next verse, Ye are cursed with a curse; because of such sacred things God is the true and proper owner. And accordingly we read in scripture of severe punishments inflicted on those that were guilty of this sin of sacrilege†.

III. A third thing whereby we are to show our honour to God is to keep holy the sabbath day, and all other times set apart for his service: for, as God expects a part of our goods for the maintenance of the settled ministry in his church, so he requires us to honour and express our reverence toward him, by dedicating a particular part of our time to his immediate service. Remember, says he, that thou keep holy the sabbath day. So,

We have shown upon good authority in the preceding note, that tithes were granted by the bounty and munificence of the first monarchs of this realm to the clergy, out of all the lands in the kingdom, and the perpetual payment thereof laid as a rent-charge for the church on the same, before any part thereof was demised to others: so here let it be also observed, that if perhaps some of the great men of the realm had then estates in absolute property, as it is certain there were very few, if any, that had, they charged the same with tithes by their own consent, before they did transmit them to the hands of the gentry, or any who now claim from them. So that the land being thus charged with the payment of tithes, came with this clog unto the lords and great men of the realm, and hath been so transmitted and passed over from one hand to another until they came into the possession of the present owners, who must have paid more for the purchase of them, and required larger rents from their tenants if they had not been thus charged. And whatever right they may have to the other nine parts, either of fee simple, lease, or copy, they have certainly none at all in the tithe or tenth, which is no more theirs, than the other nine parts are the clergy's. + For further satisfaction, see the duty of the people to their ministers, Sunday viii. Sect. iv.

The ends for which the sabbath was originally instituted, and for which the command was from time to time renewed, were principally as follows. That men might continually commemorate the works of creation: which original reason of the institution of the sabbath is of eternal and unchangeable consideration. Another reason of this commandment is, that the poor labourer and the servant, and even the cattle may have a time of rest: this reason likewise, as well as that of commemorating the creation, is of a moral and perpetual nature. And a third reason, which was added upon occasion of renewing this institution to the Jews, was that they might commemorate their deliverance out of the land of Egypt, which to that people was as it were a new creation. And because it was a manifest contempt of this great deliverance, and a presumptuously wilful despising of a plain command of God, the man in the wilderness, who did but gather sticks upon the sabbath day, was by God's especial direction commanded to be put to death and as the moral part of the commandment concerning the sabbath is of perpetual obligation; so the ritual or instituted part, which had relation to the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt, is abolished by the gospel. But then, instead of the Jewish sabbath, there succeeded, by the appointment and practice of the apostles, the commemoration of our Lord's resurrection: which coming to pass upon the first day of the week, the christian Lord's day was accordingly from that time kept on the first day of the week which we call Sunday. Therefore one day in seven must be yielded unto the Lord, and set apart for the exercise of religious duties, both in public and private. For

We must not only rest from the works of our calling, but our time must be employed in all such religious exercises as tend to the glory of God and the salvation of our own souls. We must regularly frequent the worship of God, in the public assemblies, from which nothing but sickness or absolute necessity should detain us: and there we are not to talk or gaze about us, but to join in the prayers of the church, hear his most holy word, receive the blessed

See the worship of God in his house, page 45.

sacrament, when administered, and contributed to the relief of the poor, if there be any collection for their support ; that we may thereby openly profess ourselves christians, which is one great end of public assemblies in the service of God. We ought in private to enlarge our ordinary devotions, and to make the subject of them chiefly to consist in thanksgivings for the works of creation and redemption, recollecting all those mercies we have received from the bounty of Heaven through the course of our lives: to improve our knowledge by reading and meditating upon divine subjects; to instruct our children and families; to visit the sick and the poor, comforting them by some seasonable assistance; and if we converse with our friends and neighbours, to season our discourse with prudent and profitable hints for the advancement of piety; and to take care that no sourness or moroseness mingle with our serious frame of mind. In a word, it is to be spent in works of necessity, and in works of charity; and in whatever tends without superstition and without affectation, to the real honour of God, and to the true interest and promotion of religion and virtue in the world. The extremes to be avoided are; on the one hand, that habit of spending great part of the Lord's day in gaming, and in other loose and debauched practices, which has to numberless persons been the corruption of their principles, and the entire ruin of their morals; on the other hand, an affected judaical or pharisaical preciseness, which usually proceeds from hypocrisy, or from a want of understanding rightly the true nature of religion. And

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Hence we may collect the great advantages of a religious observance of the Lord's day it keeps up the solemn and public worship of God; which might be neglected, if left to depend upon the will of man: it preserves the knowledge and visible profession of the christian religion in the world; when notwithstanding the great differences there are among christians in other matters, they yet all agree in observing this day, in memory of our Saviour's resurrection: and it is highly useful to instruct the ignorant by preaching and catechising, and to put those in