and they had extraordinary endowments given to them for that end. Their pretended successors are a race of very ordinary men, possessed of no extraordinary abilities, are sent by no divine authority, but take up preaching as a respectable professional vocation, to obtain a livelihood.

Minellius and Gronovius have written notes upon Virgil and Livy ; but are they, for that reason, successors to Virgil and Livy? And are the stupid commentators successors to the great Roman orator because they have slept over his works, and darkened them with illustrations ? Is every one who sails to America for gain, a successor to Columbus, who discovered and pointed out the way to the new world? What must the Jews have thought of a set of hair-brained Israelites, who would have demanded of them vast respect and revenues for succeeding Moses in redeeming them from captivity to Pharaoh, and for leading them, every day of their lives, out of the land of Egypt, eighteen hundred years after they had left it? could any number of Jews succeed Nehemiah in bringing back the captive tribes from Persia and Babylon? Can any one succeed the Duke of Marlborough in fighting the battle of Hochsted, and in relieving the German empire? I presume that every foot soldier is not a successor to Alexander the Great; nor every serjeant of the guards descended in a military line from Julius Cæsar. Even

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admitting that a succession had once existed, it could undeniably be proved that it has been frequently-I may almost say, constantly-interrupted and broken, under all those particulars which they judge necessary to its continuance.

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CHAP. X.

THE HISTORY OF TITHES.

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TITHES, from the Saxon word Teodo, which signifies the tenth part of a thing, have been defined to be the tenth part of the yearly increase, arising and renewing from the profits of land, or from the stock or personal industry of the inhabitants. But let it be remembered, that though the term tithe, or tenth, has more or less impressed every man, from long habit and custom, with that part part of perty which has been assigned to the maintenance of the priesthood, yet it literally means nothing more than the tenth of any thing; and throughout the Greek and Roman writers, is usually applied to the spoils of war, which were occasionally and voluntarily given away in token of gratitude for success. The most ancient work in which we find the word first used, is the Old Testament, and in the sense here given; from which circumstance it is possible the appropriation of tithes more particularly originated among the various nations of the earth.

Abraham, in his return from redeeming his nephew Lot, with his substance and all the substance of Sodom and Gomorrah, was blessed by Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the most High God, and gave him tithe of all. What that all was, is not agreed upon among the learned. Flavius Josephus, a Jew, and others, suppose it to have been the tithe of what was obtained by the war; i. e. of all that Abraham brought back.

The next mention of tithes is in Jacob's vow: "This stone," saith he, " which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that thou shalt give me, I will tithe and give the tenth to thee." Josephus informs us, that twenty years afterwards Jacob performed his vow; but into whose hands he gave his tithes is not known, Isaac, his father, being chief priest at the time. Many of the learned have thought, that both Abraham and Jacob were priests when they paid their tithes.

We have no express mention again of tithes in the sacred writings till the time of Moses. The yearly increase of the Jews were either fruits of the ground, or cattle. In the law of fruits of the ground, the first of the most forward were offered to the priest, in ears of wheat and barley, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, and dates; of these seven, the owner paid in what quantities he thought proper. The next was the therumah, or heave offering, or first-fruits of corn, wine, oil, fleece, and other similar things; but it was not

determined by Moses of what quantity this heaveoffering should be. The Jews anciently assessed it at the fiftieth part; but he who paid a sixtieth part was discharged. Many of the strictly devotional Jews offered a fortieth.

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The sixtieth part was not under the quantity of the therumah appointed in Ezekiel, where the words are, "This is the therumah that ye shall offer the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of wheat; and ye shall give the sixth part of an ephah of an homer of barley." It is the same as if he had said, ye shall offer a therumah of the sixtieth part of every homer. An ephah being the same measure with a bath, i. e. near our common bushel, was the tenth part of an homer; therefore, the sixth part of an ephah was the sixtieth of an homer. After the therumahs offered to the priests, every kind being given in season, out of the rest were taken the tithes, which are best divided into the first and second tithe.

The first tithe was paid out of the remainder, to the Levites at Jerusalem. By the name of tithe it is every where styled; and out of this tenth received by the Levites, they paid another tenth to the priests, as a heave offering out of their tenth ; which they also called the tithe of the tithe. The priests received no tithes of the husbandman; but the Levites, who paid their tenths to the priests, did. The Levites could not spend any part of the tenth, until the priests' tenth was paid; afterwards it