p. 3. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 2. M.
West. p. 7, 8.]
The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in
the acquisition of power and grandeur; and, inculcating the most absurd
and most interested doctrines, though they sometimes met, from the
contrary interests of the laity, with an opposition which it required
time and address to overcome, they found no obstacle in their reason or
understanding. Not content with the donations of land made them by the
Saxon princes and nobles, and with temporary oblations from the devotion
of the people, they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue, which they
claimed as belonging to them by a sacred and indefeasible title. However
little versed in the Scriptures, they had been able to discover that,
under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of land was conferred
on the priesthood; and, forgetting what they themselves taught, that the
moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted
that this donation conveyed a perpetual property, inherent by divine
right in those who officiated at the altar. During some centuries, the
whole scope of sermons and homilies was directed to this purpose; and
one would have imagined, from the general tenor of these discourses,
that all the practical parts of Christianity were comprised in the exact
and faithful payment of tithes to the clergy.
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