LXXIX. We might somewhat marvel what the Apostle St. Paul should mean to say that “covetousness is idolatry1,” if the daily practice of men did not shew that whereas nature requireth God to be honoured with wealth, we honour for the most part wealth as God. Fain we would teach ourselves to believe that for worldly goods it sufficeth frugally and honestly to use them to our own benefit, without detriment and hurt of others; or if we go a degree farther, and perhaps convert some small contemptible portion thereof to charitable uses, the whole duty which we owe unto God herein is fully satisfied. But forasmuch as we cannot rightly honour God unless both our souls and bodies be sometime employed merely in his service; again sith we know that religion requireth at our hands the taking away of so great a part of the time of our lives quite and clean from our own business and the bestowing of the same in his, suppose we that nothing of our wealth and substance is immediately due to God, but all our own to bestow and spend as ourselves think meet? Are not our riches as well his as the days of our life are his? Wherefore unless with part we acknowledge his supreme dominion by whose benevolence we have the whole, how give we honour to whom honour belongeth, or how hath God the things that are God’s? I would know what nation in the world did ever honour God and not think it a point of their duty to do him honour with their very goods. So that this we may boldly set down as a principle clear in nature, an axiom which ought not to be called in question, a truth manifest and infallible, that men are eternally bound to honour God with their substance in token of thankful acknowledgment that all they have is from him. To honour him with our worldly goods, not only by spending them in lawful manner, and by using them without offence, but also by alienating from ourselves some reasonable part or portion thereof and by offering up the same to him as a sign that we gladly confess his sole and sovereign dominion over all, is a duty which all men are bound unto and a part of that very worship of God which as the law of God and nature itself requireth, so we are the rather to think all men no less strictly bound thereunto than to any other natural duty, inasmuch as the hearts of men do so cleave to these earthly things, so much admire them for the sway they have in the world, impute them so generally either to nature or to chance and fortune, so little think upon the grace and providence from which they come, that unless by a kind of continual tribute we did acknowledge God’s dominion, it may be doubted that in short time men would learn to forget whose tenants they are, and imagine that the world is their own absolute free and independent inheritance.
Now concerning the kind or quality of gifts which God receiveth in that sort, we are to consider them partly as first they proceed from us, and partly as afterwards they are to serve for divine uses. In that they are testimonies of our affection towards God, there is no doubt but such they should be as beseemeth most his glory to whom we offer them. In this respect the fatness of Abel’s sacrifice2 is commended, the flower of all men’s increase assigned to God by Salomon3, the gifts and donations of the people rejected as oft as their cold affection to God-ward made their presents to be little worth. Somewhat the heathens saw touching that which was herein fit, and therefore they unto their gods did not think they might consecrate any thing which was4 impure or unsound, or already given, or else not truly their own to give.
Again in regard of use, forasmuch as we know that God hath himself no need of worldly commodities, but taketh them because it is our good to be so exercised, and with no other intent accepteth them but to have them used for the endless continuance of religion, there is no place left of doubt or controversy but that we in the choice of our gifts are to level at the same mark, and to frame ourselves to his known intents and purposes. Whether we give unto God therefore that which himself by commandment requireth; or that which the public consent of the Church thinketh good to allot; or that which every man’s private devotion doth best like, inasmuch as the gift which we offer proceedeth not only as a testimony of our affection towards God, but also as a mean to uphold religion, the exercise whereof cannot stand without the help of temporal commodities; if all men be taught of nature to wish and as much as in them lieth to procure the perpetuity of good things, if for that very cause we honour and admire their wisdom who having been founders of commonweals could devise how to make the benefit they left behind them durable, if especially in this respect we prefer Lycurgus before Solon and the Spartan before the Athenian polity, it must needs follow that as we do unto God very acceptable service in honouring him with our substance, so our service that way is then most acceptable when it tendeth to perpetuity.