any pretence to virtue, that they could not fix a brand of more infamy upon the most exorbitant person in the practice of all vice, than to call him a sacrilegious person, should be now held of so little moment amongst Christians; and that when all things dedicated and separated for holy uses have been always accounted and reputed so sacred by men of all religions, or pretenders to religion, that where any violation hath been offered to the temples of any gods, when a country hath been pronounced to be destroyed with fire and sword, and all cruelty practised by order against all ages and sexes, the general of those armies has, by his sacrilege, lost the reward of his other conquests, and been punished with infamy and dishonour by those who have enjoyed the benefit of his victory, though they served not those Gods, or accounted them such whom he had spoiled: as we find frequent examples in the Roman story; who, besides that justice upon those accidents, celebrated some devotions to absolve their state from the guilt, and ordered reparation and restitution to be made to those deities which had been robbed and prophaned; yet after sixteen hundred years study and profession of Christianity, those horrible crimes should pass by us, and we pass through them, not only without the least compunction of conscience, but without the least blush or apprehension of a fault. "Will a man rob God?" says the prophet

Malachi, ch. iii, 8, none will be so impudently wicked to say he will; "yet ye have robbed me : but ye say, wherein have we robbed thee?" "in tithes and offerings," says the same spirit. Pretend what you will to reverence, and fear of God, if you take away what is consecrated, what is dedicated to him, you do no better than rob God himself; and rob him with all those circumstances which most offend and grieve him. Tremellius renders it spoliatis me, but the vulgar hath it con figitis me, which is worse: spoiling a man, supposes some great act of violence in the circumstance, but a man that is spoiled may be yet left at liberty to shift for himself, and may find relief again by others; but configitis me, you have not been content to rob and to spoil me, but you have nailed me, you have bound me fast, that I cannot stir to keep myself, nor to go to others to help me. He that commits sacrilege, hath done the best he can to bind God so fast, to put him in that condition, that nobody should serve him; and therefore amongst the Jews, he that was guilty of it was thought to offend God primario, and to sin against the first table; whereas, as other thefts or robberies were but offences against the second table, they spoiled not God himself: and we cannot think reasonably that this was a sin only under the law, and is none under the gospel. If there had been no

such thing in nature, St Paul sure would never have reproached the Romans with their hypocrisy, in pretending to abhor idolatry, and yet committing sacrilege. And that argumentation by interrogating is very observable, as if idolatry and sacrilege were one and the same sin; "Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" Non multum distat, says the learned Grotius, falsos deos colere, et verum spoliare; there is very little difference between adoring false gods, and robbing the true God. And that the robbing and defrauding the church is this very sacrilege condemned, appears evidently by that saying of the town-clerk in the Acts, "Ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, or blasphemers of your goddess," Acts xix, 37. Where the same word is used in the original (igorúλs) which St Paul uses to the Romans, which is no where applied to any other robbers throughout the scripture. If it were possible that men who have no piety should have any justice, even that alone, without the other, would give a rule in this point: with what justice can that, which the goodness and bounty of our ancestors have directed to our use, be taken away, and applied to another, nay, to

such a one as we are morally sure is a use the founders or donors would never have given the same? I doubt not, but there may be a supposition of such uses as may not be agreeable to the policy and peace of the state, but then the act itself is void, and no such grant can be made; or, if the policy of succeeding times find that use (being a civil use) inconvenient to the present temper, and so abrogate it, it will be still as if there were no donation, and the thing given must revert to his use, whose it would naturally have been if there had been none such. Neither can laws in those cases alter the matter of right and justice; it may render me more potent to do hurt and injury, by making that damage and injury unpenal to me; it cannot make the thing I do just, or lessen my guilt before God; I speak of things evil in them selves, as all things are which God himself hath expressly inhibited to be done; and therefore, if there were an act of parliament, which authorized the stronger to rob or kill the weaker, I do not think any man will say, that is less murder or theft before God, than if there were no such act; and, I confess, I cannot apprehend how spoiling or defrauding the church can be less sacrilege, by what authority soever men are qualified to commit it.

But if we examine this a little farther, we shall find, that though no man (as I said before) deni

ed sacrilege to be a sin, yet very many deny that to be sacrilege which hath been commonly accounted sacrilege: they do not, or seem not to believe, that it is the same sin in the gospel that it was in the law; at least, that things do not become dedicated in the same manner to God under the gospel, as they did under the law; because, as to a gift there is always to be a receiver as well as a giver, so there is not evidence under the gospel, that God doth accept and receive what is given, as there was under the law, and therefore that it cannot be sacrilege: they are contented that it shall be sacrilege as it is ecclesiastical robbery; and that as it is felony to steal a pot out of a common house, so it shall be sacrilege to steal the chalice out of the church, and are willing that they shall be equally punished for it; but they are not all satisfied to allow that distinction, or that there any difference of places now: and they are in truth the more ingenuous of the two, and they will best define the committing of sacrilege, who do reject all difference and distinction of persons and places; and so neither leave God himself a capacity of being robbed, nor suffer those who claim under him, by serving at his altar, or his church, to have a propriety in any thing, of which they may not be deprived for the conveniency of a great man, or of the state in which they live. But these men

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