Heaven and earth reconciled A sermon preached at Saint Pauls church in Bedford, October.…Heauen and earth reconcil'd A sermon preached at Saint Paules church in Bedford, October.…

3. Impoverish not: I do not say, make us rich by your own poverty, as your progenitors did by our predecessors; but at least give us our own: The old Pharisee was an honest man in this, for he thought it a true position, Decima ut dives fias, Tithe,¹ and be rich: but we think, tithe, and be poor: To communicate with our Teacher in all our goods, is not Scripture, though Paul himself speak it: a competency will serve: they are wiser then God: their competencies have brought us to impotencies: a Stool, a Cruse, and a Candlestick, and a small Room, are superabundance for a Priest: we need not with that order of the Popish Priests, pull on our selves a voluntary beggary, for Gentlemen (we thank them for it) have enforced us to it on necessity. I will not dispute, whether Tithes be due to us (jure divino) by the law of God; or whether the with-holders come within the compass of that Curse; Ye are cursed with a curse, because ye have spoiled me in Tithes and Offerings;² Since the Law present allows no power to sue such, on an action of detinue: to omit, that Melchizedek had Tithes, and that of Abraham, & even by the law of Nature, besides the Levitical of the Jews, which they say is abrogated, that would say no less of the moral law of God, for an advantage: Yet Paul•. [Greek or Hebrew] in all his goods, must needs evince, that the Minister must have some share in his peoples substance: if any,³ why not that portion, which in all ages and Churches ⟨image 23⟩hath been given them? If they be consecrated to Jesus Christ, (I say not, by blinded superstition, but) by true and warrantable devotion, before the Pope ever put out his apparent horns, who dares rob our Saviour of them, that never passed fine of his royal prerogative, to any purchaser? If they were his, whose are they? let them prove, he hath assigned them to Gentlemen, and I will clear them from that menace of Solomon;⁴ It is a destruction to devour holy things, &c. Ministers were once held Angels; now, unless they do bring Angels in their purses, Ibis Homer foras, for all their music, they are shut out of doors: They say, the Italian Ducades make their Priests Duces, Princes, Captains, brave fellows. The Spanish Pistolets make their Priests terrors to be feared, the word signifying Tormentigenus, a kind of torment: witness the Inquisition.