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 themselves, 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) denied 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 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 is 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 re

ject 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 may remember, that they give no better, or indeed other reasons for this their bold assertion, than their progenitors the heathens did, when they were possessed with their spirit, to contradict a definition of sacrilege, current in all times, as agreeable to the law of nature: "Quisquis id quod Deorum est sustulit et consumpsit, atque in usum suum vertit, sacrilegus est:" they thought they refelled this proposition very substantially, when they denied this to be sacrilege, because of the universal power and dominion the gods had over all things and places, "Quia quicquid sublatum est ex eo loco, qui Deorum erat, in eum transfertur locum qui Deorum est." Nor need there be another answer given to them than the philosopher, who I doubt was a better divine than many of their teachers, then gave, "Omnia quidem Deorum esse, sed non omnia Diis dicata;" and he convinced them by an argument very like their own, that all the world was the

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temple of the immortal gods, ("Solum quidem amplitudine illorum ac magnificentiâ dignum;) et tamen a sacris profana decerni, et non omnia licere in angulo, cui nomen fani impositus est, quæ sub cœlo et conspectu siderum licent;" many things may be done in other places which are neither fit or lawful to be done in churches, or places dedicated to God's service. The most sacrilegious person cannot do any injury to God, "Quem extra ictum sua divinitas posuit, sed tamen puniIf this were tur quia tanquam Deo fecit."

not known to be Seneca's, it might be well owned by those casuists who are to dispute with these men; who yet, it may be, will rather choose to be converted by the philosopher, as it is the dictate of natural reason, without the authority of the church. And it can never be enough lamented, that after places have been set aside in all nations, from the time of which we have any records, and assigned for the peculiar service and worship of that divinity that was there acknowledged; and after so much pious care for the building of churches to that end, from the time that Christianity hath had any authority in the world; that the Christian clergy owned and acknowledged under that appellation, and who, according to the judg ment of a learned man, I think, as any age

hath brought (Mr. Mede) can derive their descent from the apostles themselves; that is, from those for whom their Lord and Master prayed unto his Father, (John xvii. 17.) "Sanctify them (Father) unto or for thy truth: thy word is truth;" that is, saith he, separate them unto the ministry of thy truth: I say, it is matter of great lamentation, that these places and these persons should now be esteemed so common, and of so little regard, and to be looked upon as the only places and persons to which an injury cannot be done, or to whom an affront or indignity cannot be committed. And it is a very weighty observation by the said Mr. Mede (who never received tithes or offerings, and was too little known in the church whilst he lived,) that they are in a great error, who rank sacrilege as a sin against the eighth commandment; for though he that commits sacrilege, indirectly and by consequence robs men too, namely, those who should live upon God's provision, yet, as sacrilege, it is a sin of the first table, and not of the second, a breach of the loyalty we immediately owe to God, and not of the duty we owe to our neighbour; and then he cites the texts mentioned before in Malachi, "Will a man rob God," &c. And truly, methinks, there is too much said in the New Testament against