vention of parliament;-what more extraordinary transaction than the attainment of Magna Charta. It was not attained in parliament, but by the Barons in the field. Great measures, such as the meeting of the English at Runnymead, the meeting of the Irish at Dungannon, are original transactions, not following from precedent, but containing in themselves both principle and precedent. The revolution had no precedent-the Christian religion had no precedent-the Apostles had no precedent.

ON THE CLAIM OF THE CLERGY TO TITHES.

TITHES are made more respectable than, 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 diviner right to title.

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 whatsoever 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

but seek the kingdom of God."

shall eat,

"Give alms-provide yourselves with bags that wax not old, 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 tithefarmer 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 rightdivine 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 pictatis.”

"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 receive, 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 sportulantes-a fraternity living by contribution.

"Forsake," says Origen," the priests of Pharaoh, who have earthly possessions, and come to us who have nonewe 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 an 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 stile 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, assumed 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 for 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"-decimæ 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, aud 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 de

erees, 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, bumble 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 depredations 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 name 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!