In the 17th Injunction, quoted above, there are references to Scripture in support of tithes. The two main positions taken up by Selden in his history of tithes are (1) that the tithes of the Christian Church are not the continuation of the tithes of the Levitical law as put forth by the Church in support of payment, and (2) that tithes had a legal as opposed to a Divine origin in the Christian Church. These two positions are impregnable, and can never be overthrown. The Levitical tithes were given to the Levites, “for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.”[78] But charity was at the very root of all primitive references to the payment of tithes in the Christian Church. Some writers assent to Selden’s second position as stated above, but will not admit that they were given for different purposes to those given to the Levites, and yet they were. In this respect they indicate inconsistency. They would be consistent if they should assert, which they do not, that the English parsons receive their tithes by _Divine right, and in continuation of the Levitical law_; then all the tithes would go to the parson as they went to the Levites. But the history of the origin of tithes in the Christian Church is quite opposed to all this. Those who uphold the Divine right consider the tithes as private professional incomes, and not as trust funds to be used for the benefit of the people. Most of the sermons preached in the eighth century placed the summit of Christian perfection in the payment of tithes. The people in England reluctantly submitted to a general permanent tribute in the shape of tithes. The obligation of paying tithes was originally confined to predial or the fruits of the earth. But about A.D. 1200 the obligation was extended to every species of profit, and to the wages of every kind of labour. I have already stated the passage from the Old Testament on which the Christian clergy base their claim to personal tithes. OFFA’S SUPPOSED LAW OF TITHES IN A.D. 794. Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, published a work on Tithes in 1709, 2nd ed. 1736. The title is, “The Original and Right of Tithes for the maintenance of the ministry in a Christian Church.” His main object was to prove the Divine in opposition to the legal right of tithes. He quotes questionable authorities in support of his views.