[90] Knox's opinion was asked upon the point in or before 1556, and he answered ('Works,' iv. 127), 'Touching Tithes, by the law of God they appertain to no priest, for now we have no levitical priesthood; but by law, positive gift, custom, they appertain to princes, and by their commandment to "men of kirk," as they would be termed. In their first donation respect was had to another end, as their own law doth witness, than now is observed. For first, respect was had that such as were accounted distributors of those things that were given to churchmen, should have their reasonable sustentation of the same, making just account of the rest, how it was to be bestowed upon the poor, the stranger, the widow, the fatherless, for whose relief all such rents and duties were chiefly appointed to the church. Secondly, that provision should be made for the ministers of the church, &c.'
[91] 'Works,' ii. 340.
[92] Thomassin, a very great authority, devotes no fewer than eight chapters of his third folio De Beneficiis to proving from Councils and the Fathers that 'Res Ecclesiae, res et patrimonia sunt pauperum. Earum beneficiarii non domini sunt sed dispensatores.' After voluminous evidence from all the centuries, he holds it superfluously plain that all beneficed men are 'mere dispensers and administrators, not proprietors nor even possessors, of what is truly the patrimony of the poor,' and what is held as trustee for the indigent by Christ Himself; so much so, that when this property of the poor is diverted to support a bishop or other dignitary, he is not entitled to enjoy his house, table, or garments, unless these have a certain suggestion and savour of destitution—necesse est paupertatis odore aliquo perfundi. Thomassin, of course, holds that the Church has a divine right to tithes; but it is a divine right to administer, not to enjoy, them. Knox and the Reformers denied the divine right even to administer: they urged that the State should make the Kirk its administrators.
[93] For them too, and even for the strong and sturdy and the Jolly Beggars among them, he had a certain fellow-feeling; as is witnessed by the zest with which he records their 'Warning' (p. [82]). The one point, indeed, at which Knox and Burns come together is 'A man's a man for a' that!'
[94] 'Works,' ii. 183 to 260.
[95] I am indebted for this view to Dr. A.F. Mitchell, Emeritus Professor of Church History in St Andrews, to whom all are indebted who are interested in the historical learning of either the Reformation or the Covenant.
[96] The 'end' to which or for which all the Church patrimony is here said to be given, does not seem to be merely the 'charge of the poor'; though Protestants as well as Catholics often urge that as fundamentally true. It seems to be rather the whole group of good objects which are gathered together. The Latin and German originals must be consulted.
[97] Stair's 'Institutions,' ii. 3, 36. Erskine's 'Institutes,' ii. 10, 19.
[98] 1587, c. 29.
[99] 'Works,' ii. 538.