"Thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil," &c. Nay, though he could not bring his tithe in kind, by reason of his distant dwelling from the tabernacle or temple, but was thereby forced to turn it into money, he was to bestow that money on whatsoever pleased him, oxen, sheep, wine, or strong drink; and to eat and drink thereof there before the Lord, both he and his household, ver. 24, 25, 26. As for the tithes of every third year, they were not given only to the Levite, but to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, ver. 28, 29, and chap. xxvi. 12, 13. So that ours, if they will have tithes, must admit of these sharers with them. Nay, these tithes were not paid in at all to the Levite, but the Levite himself was to come with those his fellow-guests, and eat his share of them only at his house who provided them; and this not in regard of his ministerial office, but because he had no part nor inheritance in the land. Lastly, the priests and Levites, a tribe, were of a far different constitution from this of our ministers under the gospel : in them were orders and degrees both by family, dignity, and office, mainly distinguished; the high-priest, his brethren and his sons, to whom the Levites themselves paid tithes, and of the best, were eminently superior, Numb. xviii. 28, 29. No protestant, I suppose, will liken one of our ministers to a high-priest, but rather to a common Levite. Unless then, to keep their tithes, they mean to bring back again bishops, archbishops, and the whole gang of prelaty, to whom will they themselves pay tithes, as by that law it was a sin to them if they did not? ver. 42. Certainly this must needs put them to a deep demur, while the desire of holding fast their tithes without sin may tempt them to bring back again bishops, as the likeness of that hierarchy that should receive tithes from them; and the desire to pay none may advise them to keep out of the church all orders above them. But if we have to do at present, as I suppose we have, with true reformed protestants, not with papists or prelates, it will not be denied that in the gospel there be but two ministerial degrees, presbyters and deacons; which if they contend to have any succession, reference, or conformity with those two degrees under the law, priests and Levites, it must needs be such whereby our presbyters or ministers may be answerable to priests, and our dea

cons to Levites; by which rule of proportion it will follow that we must pay our tithes to the deacons only, and they only to the ministers. But if it be truer yet, that the priesthood of Aaron typified a better reality, 1 Pet. ii. 5, signifying the Christian true and "holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice;" it follows hence, that we are now justly exempt from paying tithes to any who claim from Aaron, since that priesthood is in us now real, which in him was but a shadow. Seeing then by all this which has been shown, that the law of tithes is partly ceremonial, as the work was for which they were given, partly judicial, not of common, but of particular right to the tribe of Levi, nor to them alone, but to the owner also and his household, at the time of their offering, and every three years to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, their appointed sharers, and that they were a tribe of priests and deacons impropely compared to the constitution of our ministry; and the tithes given by that people to those deacons only; it follows that our ministers at this day, being neither priests nor Levites, nor fitly answering to either of them, can have no just title or pretence to tithes, by any consequence drawn from the law of Moses. But they think they have yet a better plea in the example of Melchisedec, who took tithes of Abraham ere the law was given; whence they would infer tithes to be of moral right. But they ought to know, or to remember, that not examples, but express commands, oblige our obedience to God or man: next, that whatsoever was done in religion before the law written, is not presently to be counted moral, whenas so many things were then done both ceremonial and judaically judicial, that we need not doubt to conclude all times before Christ more or less under the ceremonial law. To what end served else those altars and sacrifices, that distinction of clean and unclean entering into the ark, circumcision, and the raising up of seed to the elder brother? Gen. xxxviii. 8. If these things be not moral, though before the law, how are tithes, though in the example of Abraham and Melchisedec? But this instance is so far from being the just ground of a law, that after all circumstances duly weighed both from Gen. xiv. and Heb. vii., it will not be allowed them so much as an example. Melchisedec, besides his priestly benediction, brought with him bread and wine sufficient to refresh Abraham and his whole army; incited to

do so, first, by the secret providence of God, intending him for a type of Christ and his priesthood; next, by his due thankfulness and honour to Abraham, who had freed his borders of Salem from a potent enemy: Abraham on the other side honours him with the tenth of all, that is to say, (for he took not sure his whole estate with him to that war,) of the spoils, Heb. vii. 4. Incited he also by the same secret providence, to signify as grandfather of Levi, that the Levitical priesthood was excelled by the priesthood of Christ.For the giving of a tenth declared, it seems, in those countries and times, him the greater who received it. That which next incited him was partly his gratitude to requite the present, partly his reverence to the person and this benediction: to his person, as a king and priest, greater therefore than Abraham, who was a priest also, but not a king. And who unhired will be so hardy as to say, that Abraham at any other time ever paid him tithes, either before or after; or had then, but for this accidental meeting and obligement; or that else Melchisedec had demanded or exacted them, or took them otherwise than as the voluntary gift of Abraham? But our ministers, though neither priests nor kings more than any other Christian, greater in their own esteem than Abraham and all his seed, for the verbal labour of a seventh day's preachment, not bringing, like Melchisedec, bread or wine at their own cost, would not take only at the willing hand of liberality or gratitude, but require and exact as due, the tenth, not of spoils, but of our whole estates and labours; nor once, but yearly. We then it seems, by the example of Abraham, must pay tithes to these Melchisedecs: but what if the person of Abraham can neither no way represent us, or will oblige the ministers to pay tithes no less than other men? Abraham had not only a priest in his loins, but was himself a priest, and gave tithes to Melchisedec either as grandfather of Levi, or as father of the faithful. If as grandfather (though he understood it not) of Levi, he obliged not us, but Levi only, the inferior priest, by that homage (as the apostle to the Hebrews clearly enough explains) to acknowledge the greater. And they who by Melchisedec claim from Abraham as Levi's grandfather, have none to seek their tithes of but the Levites, where they can find them. If Abraham, as father of the faithful, paid tithes to Melchisedec, then cer

tainly the ministers also, if they be of that number, paid in him equally with the rest. Which may induce us to believe, that as both Abraham and Melchiseder, so tithes also in that action typical and ceremonial, signified nothing else but that subjection which all the faithful, both ministers and people, owe to Christ, our high-priest and king.

In any literal sense, from this example, they never will be able to extort that the people in those days paid tithes to priests, but this only, that one priest once in his life, of spoils only, and in requital partly of a liberal present, partly of a benediction, gave voluntary tithes, not to a greater priest than himself, as far as Abraham could then understand, but rather to a priest and king joined in one person. They will reply, perhaps, that if one priest paid tithes to another, it must needs be understood that the people did no less to the priest. But I shall easily remove that necessity, by remembering them that in those days was no priest, but the father, or the first-born of each family; and by consequence no people to pay him tithes, but his own children and servants, who had not werewithal to pay him, but of his own. Yet grant that the people then paid tithes, there will not yet be the like reason to enjoin us; they being then under ceremonies, a mere laity, we now under Christ, a royal priesthood, 1 Pet. ii. 9, as we are coheirs, kings and priests with him, a priest for ever after the order, or manner, of Melchisedec. As therefore Abraham paid tithes to Melchisedec because Levi was in him, so we out to pay none because the true Melchisedec is in us, and we in him, who can pay to none greater, and hath freed us, by our union with himself, from all compulsive tributes and taxes in his church. Neither doth the collateral place, Heb. vii., make other use of this story than to prove Christ, personated by Melchisedec, a greater priest than Aaron: ver. 4, "Now consider how great this man was," &c.; and proves not in the least manner that tithes be of any right to ministers, but the contrary: first, the Levites had " a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law," that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham, ver. 5. The commandment then was, it seems, to take the tithes of the Jews only, and according to the law. That law changing of necessity with the priesthood, no other sort.

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of ministers, as they must needs be another sort under another priesthood, can receive that tribute of tithes which fell with that law, unless renewed by another express command, and according to another law no such law is extant. Next, Melchisedec not as a minister, but as Christ himself in person, blessed Abraham, who " had the promises," ver. 6, and in him blessed all, both ministers and people, both of the law and gospel that blessing declared him greater and better than whom he blessed, ver. 7, receiving tithes from them all, not as a maintenance, which Melchisedec needed not, but as a sign of homage and subjection to their king and priest; whereas ministers bear not the person of Christ in his priesthood or kingship, bless not as he blesses, are not by their blessing greater than Abraham, and all the faithful with themselves included in him; cannot both give and take tithes in Abraham, cannot claim to themselves that sign of our allegiance due only to our eternal King and Priest; cannot therefore derive tithes from Melchisedec. Lastly, the eighth verse hath thus; "Here men that die receive tithes there he received them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth." Which words intimate, that as he offered himself once for us, so he received once of us in Abraham, and in that place the typical acknowledgment of our redemption: which had it been a perpetual annuity to Christ, by him claimed as his due, Levi must have paid it yearly as well as then, ver. 9; and our ministers ought still, to some Melchisedec or other, as well now as they did in Abraham. that Christ never claimed any such tenth as his annual due, much less resigned it to the ministers, his so officious receivers, without express commission or assignment, will be yet clearer as we proceed. Thus much may at length assure us, that this example of Abraham and Melchisedec, though I see of late they build most upon it, can so little be the ground of any law to us, that it will not so much avail them as to the authority of an example. Of like impertinence is that example of Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 22, who of his free choice, not enjoined by any law, vowed the tenth of all that God should give him; which for anght appears to the contrary, he vowed as a thing no less indifferent before his vow, than the foregoing part thereof: that the stone, which he had set there for a pillar, should be God's house. And to

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