Sermons on Deuteronomy (continued)
28. At the three years end you shall gather together all the tithes of thin increase of that year, and lay it up within your gates.
29. And then the Levite which has no part nor inheritance with you, and likewise the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow which are within your gates, shall come and eat, and be refreshed, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands which you do.
Forasmuch as Moses, in speaking heretofore of first fruits and offerings, and freewill oblations: had commanded that they should be offered in Jerusalem, or else in the place which God was then to choose: now he adds, that if a man dwelt too far from that place, he might make money of the things that were to be given for an offering to God, and after the sale thereof, buy the like things again, which should be wholly dedicated to God whatsoever they were. Now I have told you already, how it was not for naught that God would have one certain place, wherein to offer solemn sacrifices to him and to worship him: for it served to maintain the unity of faith. Insomuch that it every tribe, or at leastwise every city had had an Altar by themselves; it had been enough to have made havoc of all, and men could not have continued in concord and brotherly love. Therefore it behooved the Temple to be a meeting place for Gods people, to the intent they should altogether acknowledge themselves to be but one body, and understand that they were bound all to one rule, which is the law, and all of them obey the same, without any diversity of opinions, or strange manner of dealings, or ceremonies among them.
And in the same respect also were they commanded to offer in the