Considerations TOUCHING The likeliest means to remove HIRELINGS out of the church Wherein is also discourc'd Of Tithes Church-fees Church-revenues And whether any maintenance of ministers can be settl'd by law The author J. M. LONDON Printed by T. N. for L. Chapman at the Crown in Popes-head Alley 1659. TO THE PARLAMENT OF THE commonwealth OF ENGLAND with the dominions therof OWing to your protection supream Senat this libertie of writing which I have us'd these 18 years on all occasions to assert the just rights and freedoms both of church and state and so far approv'd as to have bin trusted with the representment and defence of your actions to all Christendom against an adversarie of no mean repute to whom should I address what I still publish on the same argument but to you whose magnanimous councels first opend and unbound the age from a double bondage under prelatical and regal tyrannie above our own hopes heartning us to look up at last like men and Christians from the slavish dejection wherin from father to son we were bred up and taught and thereby deserving of these nations if they be not barbarously ingrateful to be acknowledgd next under God the authors and best patrons of religious and civil libertie that ever these Ilands brought forth The care and tuition of whose peace and safety after a short but scandalous night of interruption is now again by a new dawning of Gods miraculous providence among us revolvd upon your shoulders And to whom more appertain these considerations which I propound then to your selves and the debate before you though I trust of no difficultie yet at present of great expectation not whether ye will gratifie were it no more then so but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to religion and to this your returne or whether ye will satisfie which you never can the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable hirelings whose disaffection ye well know both to your selves and your resolutions That I though among many others in this common concernment interpose to your deliberations what my thoughts also are your own judgment and the success therof hath given me the confidence which requests but this that if I have prosperously God so favoring me defended the publick cause of this commonwealth to foreiners ye would not think the reason and abilitie wheron ye trusted once and repent not your whole reputation to the world either grown less by more maturitie and longer studie or less available in English then in another tongue but that if it suffic'd som years past to convince and satisfie the uningag'd of other nations in the justice of your doings though then held paradoxal it may as well suffice now against weaker opposition in matters except here in England with a spiritualtie of men devoted to thir temporal gain of no controversie els among Protestants Neither do I doubt seeing daily the acceptance which they finde who in thir petitions venture to bring advice also and new modells of a commonwealth but that you will interpret it much more the dutie of a Christian to offer what his conscience perswades him may be of moment to the freedom and better constituting of the church since it is a deed of highest charitie to help undeceive the people and a work worthiest your autoritie in all things els authors assertors and now recoverers of our libertie to deliver us the only people of all Protestants left still undeliverd from the oppressions of a Simonious decimating clergie who shame not against the judgment and practice of all other churches reformd to maintain though very weakly thir Popish and oft refuted positions not in a point of conscience wherin they might be blameles but in a point of covetousnes and unjust claim to other mens goods a conuention foul and odious in any man but most of all in ministers of the gospel in whom contention though for thir own right scarce is allowable Till which greevances be remov'd and religion set free from the monopolie of hirelings I dare affirme that no modell whatsoever of a common-wealth will prove succesful or undisturbd and so perswaded implore divine assistance on your pious councels and proceedings to unanimitie in this and all other truth John Milton CONSIDERATIONS touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church THe former treatise which leads in this begann with two things ever found working much mischief to the church of God and the advancement of truth force on the one side restraining and hire on the other side corrupting the teachers therof The latter of these is by much the more dangerous for under force though no thank to the forcers true religion oft-times best thrives and flourishes but the corruption of teachers most commonly the effect of hire is the very bane of truth in them who are so corrupted Of force not to be us'd in matters of religion I have already spoken and so stated matters of conscience and religion in faith and divine worship and so severd them from blasphemie and heresie the one being such properly as is despiteful the other such as stands not to the rule of Scripture and so both of them not matters of religion but rather against it that to them who will yet usâ— force this only choise can bâ— left whether they will force them to beleeve to whom it is not given from above being not forc'd thereto by any principle of the gospel which is now the only dispensation of God to all men or whether being Protestants they will punish in those things wherin the Protestant religion denies them to be judges either in themselves infallible or to the consciences of other men or whether lastly they think fit to punish error supposing they can be infallible that it is so being not wilful but conscientious and according to the best light of him who errs grounded on scripture which kinde of error all men religious or but only reasonable have thought worthier of pardon and the growth therof to be prevented by spiritual means and church-discipline not by civil laws and outward force since it is God only who gives as well to beleeve aright as to beleeve at all and by those means which he ordaind sufficiently in his church to the full execution of his divine purpose in the gospel It remanes now to speak of hire the other evil so mischeevous in religion wherof I promisd then to speak further when I should finde God disposing me and opportunity inviting Opportunity I finde now inviting and apprehend therin the concurrence of God disposing since the maintenance of church-ministers a thing not properly belonging to the magistrate and yet with such importunity call'd for and expected from him is at present under publick debate Wherin least any thing may happen to be determind and establishd prejudicial to the right and freedom of church or advantageous to such as may be found hirelings therin it will be
Christians had then also lands and might give out of them what they pleasd and yet of tithes then given we finde no mention And the first Christian emperors who did all things as bishops advis'd them suppli'd what was wanting to the clergy not out of tithes which were never motiond but out of thir own imperial revenues as is manifest in Eusebius Theodorit and Sozomen from Constantine to Arcadius Hence those ancientest reformed churches of the Waldenses if they rather continu'd not pure since the apostles deni'd that tithes were to be given or that they were ever given in the primitive church as appeers by an ancient tractate inserted in the Bohemian historie Thus far hath the church bin alwaies whether in her prime or in her ancientest reformation from the approving of tithes nor without reason for they might easily perceive that tithes were fitted to the Jewes only a national church of many incomplete synagogues uniting the accomplishment of divine worship in one temple and the Levites there had thir tithes paid where they did thir bodilie work to which a particular tribe was set apart by divine appointment not by the peoples election but the Christian church is universal not ti'd to nation dioces or parish but consisting of many particular churches complete in themselves gatherd not by compulsion or the accident of dwelling nigh together but by free consent chusing both thir particular church and thir church-officers Wheras if tithes be set up all these Christian privileges will be disturbd and soone lost and with them Christian libertie The first autoritie which our adversaries bring after those fabulous apostolic canons which they dare not insist upon is a provincial councel held at Cullen where they voted tithes to be Gods rent in the year three hundred fifty six at the same time perhaps when the three kings reignd there and of like autoritie For to what purpose do they bring these trivial testimonies by which they might as well prove altars candles at noone and the greatest part of those superstitions fetchd from Paganism or Jewism which the Papist inveigl'd by this fond argument of antiquitie retains to this day to what purpose those decrees of I know not what bishops to a Parlament and people who have thrown out both bishops and altars and promisd all reformation by the word of God And that altars brought tithes hither as one corruption begott another is evident by one of those questions which the monk Austin propounded to the Pope Concerning those things which by offerings of the faithful came to the altar as Beda writes l. 1. c. 27. If then by these testimonies we must have tithes continu'd we must again have altars Of fathers by custom so calld they quote Ambrose Augustin and som other ceremonial doctors of the same leaven whose assertion without pertinent scripture no reformed church can admitt and what they vouch is founded on the law of Moses with which every where pitifully mistaken they again incorporate the gospel as did the rest also of those titular fathers perhaps an age or two before them by many rights and ceremonies both Jewish and Heathenish introduc'd whereby thinking to gain all they lost all and instead of winning Jewes and Pagans to be Christians by too much condescending they turnd Christians into Jewes and Pagans To heap such unconvincing citations as these in religion wherof the scripture only is our rule argues not much learning nor judgment but the lost labor of much unprofitable reading And yet a late hot Quaerist for tithes whom ye may know by his wits lying ever beside him in the margent to be ever beside his wits in the text a fierce reformer once now ranckl'd with a contrary heat would send us back very reformedly indeed to learn reformation from Tyndarus and Rebuffus two canonical Promooters They produce next the ancient constitutions of this land Saxon laws edicts of kings and thir counsels from Athelstan in the year nine hundred twenty eight that tithes by statute were paid and might produce from Ina above two hundred years before that Romescot or Peters penny was by as good statute law paid to the Pope from seven hundred twenty five and almost as long continu'd And who knows not that this law of tithes was enacted by those kings and barons upon the opinion they had of thir divine right as the very words import of Edward the Confessor in the close of that law For so blessed Austin preachd and taught meaning the monk who first brought the Romish religion into England from Gregory the Pope And by the way I add that by these laws imitating the law of Moses the third part 〈◊〉 tithes only was the priests due the other two were appointed for the poor and to adorne or repare churches as the canons of Ecbert and Elfric witnes Concil. Brit. If then these laws were founded upon the opinion of divine autoritie and that autoritie be found mistaken and erroneous as hath bin fully manifested it follows that these laws fall of themselves with thir fals foundation But with what face or conscience can they alleage Moses or these laws for tithes as they now enjoy or exact them wherof Moses ordains the owner as we heard before the stranger the fatherles and the widdow partakers with the Levite and these fathers which they cite and these though Romish rather then English laws allotted both to priest and bishop the third part only But these our Protestant these our new reformed English presbyterian divines against thir own cited authors and to the shame of thir pretended reformation would engross to themselves all tithes by statute and supported more by thir wilful obstinacie and desire of filthie lucre then by these both insufficient and impertinent autorities would perswade a Christian magistracie and parlament whom we trust God hath restor'd for a happier reformation to impose upon us a Judaical ceremonial law and yet from that law to be more irregular and unwarrantable more complying with a covetous clergie then any of those Popish kings and parlaments alleagd Another shift they have to plead that tithes may be moral as well as the sabbath a tenth of fruits as well as a seaventh of dayes I answer that the prelats who urge this argument have least reason to use it denying morality in the sabbath and therin better agreeing with reformed churches abroad then the rest of our divines As therefor the seaventh day is not moral but a convenient recourse of worship in fit season whether seaventh or other number so neither is the tenth of our goods but only a convenient subsistence morally due to ministers The last and lowest sort of thir arguments that men purchas'd not thir tithe with thir land and such like pettifoggerie I omitt as refuted sufficiently by others I omitt also thir violent and irreligious exactions related no less credibly thir seising of pots and pans from the poor who have as good right to tithes as they from som the very
or if this comparison be too low like those woemen 1 Tim. 3. 7. ever learning and never attaining yet not so much through thir own fault as through the unskilful and immethodical teaching of thir pastor teaching here and there at random out of this or that text as his ease or fansie and oft-times as his stealth guides him Seeing then that Christian religion may be so easily attaind and by meanest capacities it cannot be much difficult to finde waies both how the poore yea all men may be soone taught what is to be known of Christianitie and they who teach them recompenc'd First if ministers of thir own accord who pretend that they are calld and sent to preach the gospel those especially who have no particular flock would imitate our Saviour and his disciples who went preaching through the villages not only through the cities Matth. 9. 35 Mark 6. 6 Luke 13. 22 Acts 8. 25. and there preachd to the poore as well as to the rich looking for no recompence but in heaven John 4. 35 36. Looke on the fields for they are white alreadie to harvest and he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal This was their wages But they will soone reply we our selves have not wherewithall who shall bear the charges of our journey To whom it may as soone be answerd that in likelihood they are not poorer then they who did thus and if they have not the same faith which those disciples had to trust in God and the promise of Christ for thir maintenâ—nce as they did and yet intrude into the ministerie without any livelihood of thir own they cast themselves into a miserable hazzard or temptation and oft-times into a more miserable necessitie either to starve or to please thir paymasters rather them God and give men just cause to suspect that they came neither calld nor sent from above to preach the word but from below by the instinct of thir own hunger to feed upon the church Yet grant it needful to allow them both the charges of thir jornâ—y and the hire of thir labor it will belong next to the charitie of richer congregations where most commonly they abound with teachers to send som of thir number to the villages round as the apostles from Jerusalem sent Peter and John to the citie and villages of Samaria Acts 8. 14 25 or as the church at Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch chap. 11. 22 and other churches joining sent Luke to travail with Paul 2 Cor. 8. 19 though whether they had thir charges born by the church or no it be not recorded If it be objected that this itinerarie preaching will not serve to plant the gospel in those places unless they who are sent abide there som competent time I answer that if they stay there a year or two which was the longest time usually staid by the apostles in one place it may suffice to teach them who will attend and learn all the points of religion necessary to salvation then sorting them into several congregations of a moderat number out of the ablest and zealousest among them to create elders who exercising and requiring from themselves what they have learnd for no learning is retaind without constant exercise and methodical repetition may teach and govern the rest and so exhorted to continue faithful and stedfast they may securely be committed to the providence of God and the guidance of his holy spirit till God may offer som opportunitie to visit them again and to confirme them which when they have don they have don as much as the apostles were wont to do in propâ—gating the gospel Acts 14. 23. And when they had ordaind them elders in every church and had praied with fasting they commended them to the Lord on whom they beleevd And in the same chapter Vers. 21 22 When they had preachd the gospel to that citie and had taught many they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch confirming the soules of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith And Chap. 15. 36. Let us go again and visit our brethren And Vers. 41. He went thorow Syria and Cilicia confirming the churches To these I might add other helps which we enjoy now to make more easie the attainment of Christian religion by the meanest the entire scripture translated into English with plenty of notes and som where or other I trust may be found som wholsom bodie of divinitie as they call it without schoole terms and metaphysical notions which have obscur'd rather then explan'd our religion and made it seem difficult without cause Thus taught once for all and thus now and then visited and confirmd in the most destitute and poorest places of the land under the government of thir own elders performing all ministerial offices among them they may be trusted to meet and edifie one another whether in church or chappel or to save them the trudging of many miles thether neerer home though in a house or barn For notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of som devoted still ignorantly to temples we may be well assur'd that he who disdaind not to be laid in a manger disdains not to be preachd in a barn and that by such meetings as these being indeed most apostolical and primitive they will in a short time advance more in Christian knowledge and reformation of life then by the many years preaching of such an incumbent I may say such an incubus oft times as will be meanly hir'd to abide long in those places They have this left perhaps to object further that to send thus and to maintaine though but for a year or two ministers and teachers in several places would prove chargeable to the churches though in towns and cities round about To whom again I answer that it was not thought so by them who first thus propagated the gospel though but few in number to us and much less able to sustain the expence Yet this expence would be much less then to hire incumbents or rather incumbrances for life-time and a great means which is the subject of this discourse to diminish hirelings But be the expence less or more if it be found burdensom to the churches they have in this land an easie remedie in thir recourse to the civil magistrate who hath in his hands the disposal of no small revenues left perhaps anciently to superstitious but meant undoubtedly to good and best uses and therefor once made publick appliable by the present magistrate to such uses as the church or solid reason from whomsoever shall convince him to think best And those uses may be no doubt much rather then as glebes and augmentations are now bestowd to grant such requests as these of the churches or to erect in greater number all over the land schooles and competent libraries to those schooles where languages and arts may be taught free together without the needles unprofitable and inconvenient removing to another place
now most seasonable and in these matters wherin every Christian hath his free suffrage no way misbecoming Christian meeknes to offer freely without disparagement to the wisest such advice as God shall incline him and inable him to propound Since heretofore in commonwealths of most fame for government civil laws were not establishd till they had been first for certain dayes publishd to the view of all men that who so pleasd might speak freely his opinion therof and give in his exceptions ere the law could pass to a full establishment And where ought this equity to have more place then in the libertie which is unseparable from Christian religion This I am not ignorant will be a work unpleasing to some but what truth is not hateful to some or other as this in likelihood will be to none but hirelings And if there be among them who hold it thir duty to speak impartial truth as the work of thir ministry though not performd without monie let them not envie others who think the same no less their duty by the general office of Christianity to speak truth as in all reason may be thought more impartially and unsuspectedly without monie Hire of itself is neither a thing unlawful nor a word of any evil note signifying no more then a due recompence or reward as when our Saviour saith the laborer is worthy of his hire That which makes it so dangerous in the church and properly makes the hireling a word always of evil signification is either the excess thereof or the undue manner of giving and taking it What harme the excess therof brought to the church perhaps was not found by experience till the days of Constantine who out of his zeal thinking he could be never too liberally a nursing father of the church might be not unfitly said to have either overlaid it or choakd it in the nursing Which was foretold as is recorded in ecclesiastical traditions by a voice heard from heaven on the very day that those great donations and church-revenues were given crying aloud This day is poison pourd into the church Which the event soon after verifi'd as appeers by another no less ancient observation That religion brought forth wealth and the daughter devourd the mother But long ere wealth came into the church so soone as any gain appeerd in religion hirelings were apparent drawn in long before by the very sent thereof Judas therefor the first hireling for want of present hire answerable to his coveting from the small number or the meanness of such as then were the religious sold the religion it self with the founder therof his master Simon Magus the next in hope only that preaching and the gifts of the holy ghost would prove gainful offerd before-hand a sum of monie to obtain them Not long after as the apostle foretold hirelings like wolves came in by herds Acts 20. 29. For I know this that after my departing shall greevous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock Tit. 1. 11. Teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucres sake 2 Pet. 2. 3. And through covetousnes shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you Yet they taught not fals doctrin only but seeming piety 1 Tim. 6. 5. supposing that gain is Godlines Neither came they in of themselves only but invited oft-times by a corrupt audience 2 Tim. 4. 3. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrin but after thir own lusts they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they on the other side as fast heaping to themselves disciples Acts 20. 30 doubtles had as itching palmes 2 Pet. 2. 15. Following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor who lovd the wages of unrighteousnes Jude 11. They ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward Thus we see that not only the excess of hire in wealthiest times but also the undue and vitious taking or giving it though but small or mean as in the primitive times gave to hirelings occasion though not intended yet sufficient to creep at first into the church Which argues also the difficulty or rather the impossibility to remove them quite unless every minister were as St. Paul contented to teach gratis but few such are to be found As therefor we cannot justly take away all hire in the church because we cannot otherwise quite remove all hirelings so are we not for the impossibility of removing them all to use therefor no endevor that fewest may come in but rather in regard the evil do what we can will alwayes be incumbent and unavoidable to use our utmost diligence how it may be least dangerous Which will be likeliest effected if we consider first what recompence God hath ordaind should be given to ministers of the church for that a recompence ought to be given them and may by them justly be received our Saviour himself from the very light of reason and of equity hath declar'd Luke 10. 7. The laborer is worthy of his hire next by whom and lastly in what manner What recompence ought be given to church-ministers God hath answerably ordaind according to that difference which he hath manifestly put between those his two great dispensations the law and the gospel Under the law he gave them tithes under the gospel having left all things in his church to charity and Christian freedom he hath given them only what is justly given them That as well under the gospel as under the law say our English divines and they only of all Protestants is tithes and they say true if any man be so minded to give them of his own the tenth or twentith out that the law therefor of tithes is in force under the gospel all other Protestant divines though equally concernd yet constantly deny For although hire to the laborer be of moral and perpetual right yet that special kinde of hire the tenth can be of no right or necessity but to that special labor for which God ordaind it That special labor was the Levitical and ceremonial service of the tabernacle Numb. 18. 21 31. which is now abolishd the right therefor of that special hire must needs be withall abolishd as being also ceremonial That tithes were ceremonial is plane not being given to the Levites till they had bin first offerd a heave-offering to the Lord Vers. 24 28. He then who by that law brings tithes into the gospel of necessity brings in withall a sacrifice and an altar without which tithes by that law were unsanctifi'd and polluted Vers. 32. and therefor never thought on in the first Christian times till ceremonies altars and oblations by an ancienter corruption were brought back long before And yet the Jewes ever since thir temple was destroid though they have Rabbies and teachers of thir law yet pay no tithes as having no Levites to whom no temple where to pay them no altar wheron to hallow them which argues that the Jewes themselves never thought tithes
So all the land would be soone better civiliz'd and they who are taught freely at the publick cost might have thir education given them on this condition that therewith content they should not gadd for preferment out of thir own countrey but continue there thankful for what they receivd freely bestowing it as freely on thir countrey without soaring above the meannes wherin they were born But how they shall live when they are thus bred and dismissd will be still the sluggish objection To which is answerd that those publick foundations may be so instituted as the youth therin may be at once brought up to a competence of learning and to an honest trade and the hours of teaching so orderd as thir studie may be no hindrance to thir labor or other calling This was the breeding of S. Paul though born of no mean parents a free citizen of the Roman empire so little did his trade debase him that it rather enabld him to use that magnanimitie of preaching the gospel through Asia and Europe at his own charges thus those preachers among the poor Waldenses the ancient stock of our reformation without these helps which I speak of bred up themselves in trades and especially in physic and surgery as well as in the studie of scripture which is the only true theologie that they might be no burden to the church and by the example of Christ might cure both soul and bodie through industry joining that to their ministerie which he joind to his by gift of the spirit Thus relates Peter Gilles in his historie of the Waldenses in Piemont But our ministers think scorn to use a trade and count it the reproach of this age that tradesmen preach the gospel It were to be wishd they were all tradesmen they would not then so many of them for want of another trade make a trade of thir preaching and yet they clamor that tradesmen preach and yet they preach while they themselves are the worst tradesmen of all As for church-endowments and possessions I meet with none considerable before Constantine but the houses and gardens where they met and thir places of burial and I perswade me that from them the ancient Waldenses whom deservedly I cite so often held that to endow churches is an evil thing and that the church then fell off and turnd whore sitting on that beast in the Revelation when under Pope Sylvester she receivd those temporal donations So the forecited tractate of thir doctrin testifies This also thir own traditions of that heavenly voice witnesd and som of the ancient fathers then living foresaw and deplor'd And indeed how could these endowments thrive better with the church being unjustly taken by those emperors without suffrage of the people out of the tributes and publick lands of each citie whereby the people became liable to be oppressd with other taxes Being therefor given for the most part by kings and other publick persons and so likeliest out of the publick and if without the peoples consent unjustly however to publick ends of much concernment to the good or evil of a common-wealth and in that regard made publick though given by privat persons or which is worse given as the clergie then perswaded men for thir soul's health a pious gift but as the truth was oft times a bribe to God or to Christ for absolution as they were then taught from murders adulteries and other hainous crimes what shall be found heretofore given by kings or princes out of the publick may justly by the magistrate be recalld and reappropriated to the civil revenue what by privat or publick persons out of thir own the price of blood or lust or to som such purgatorious and superstitious uses not only may but ought to be taken off from Christ as a foul dishonor laid upon him or not impiously given nor in particular to any one but in general to the churches good may be converted to that use which shall be judgd tending more directly to that general end Thus did the princes and cities of Germany in the first reformation and defended thir so doing by many reasons which are set down at large in Sleidan l. 6 an. 1526 and l. 11 an. 1537 and l. 13 an. 1540. But that the magistrate either out of that church revenue which remanes yet in his hand or establishing any other maintenance instead of tithe should take into his own power the stipendiarie maintenance of church-ministers or compell it by law can stand neither with the peoples right nor with Christian liberty but would suspend the church wholly upon the state and turn her ministers into statepensioners And for the magistrate in person of a nursing father to make the church his meer ward as alwaies in minoritie the church to whom he ought as a magistrate Esa. 49. 23 To bow down with his face toward the earth and lick up the dust of her feet her to subject to his political drifts or conceivd opinions by mastring her revenue and so by his examinant committies to circumscribe her free election of ministers is neither just nor pious no honor don to to the church but a plane dishonor and upon her whose only head is in heaven yea upon him who is her only head sets another in effect and which is most monstrous a human on a heavenly a carnal on a spiritual a political head on an ecclesiastical bodie which at length by such heterogeneal such incestuous conjunction transformes her oft-times into a beast of many heads and many horns For if the chuâ—ch be of all societies the holiest on earth and so to be reverenc'd by the magistrate not to trust her with her own belief and integritie and therefor not with the keeping at least with the disposing of what revenue shall be found justly and lawfully her own is to count the church not a holy congregation but a pack of giddy or dishonest persons to be rul'd by civil power in sacred affairs But to proceed further in the truth yet more freely seeing the Christian church is not national but consisting of many particular congregations subject to many changes as well through civil accidents as through schism and various opinions not to be decided by any outward judge being matters of conscience whereby these pretended church-revenues as they have bin ever so are like to continue endles matter of dissention both between the church and magistrate and the churches among themselves there will be found no better remedie to these evils otherwise incurable then by the incorruptest councel of those Waldenses our first reformers to remove them as a pest an apple of discord in the church for what els can be the effect of riches and the snare of monie in religion and to convert them to those more profitable uses above expressd or other such as shall be judgd most necessarie considering that the church of Christ was founded in poverty rather then in revenues stood purest and prosperd best
universitie but com seriously to studie is no more then may be well defraid and reimbours'd by one years revenue of an ord'nary good benifice If they had then means of breeding from thir parents 't is likely they have more now and if they have it needs must be mechanique and uningenuous in them to bring a bill of charges for the learning of those liberal arts and sciences which they have learnd if they have indeed learnd them as they seldom have to thir own benefit and accomplishment But they will say we had betaken us to som other trade or profession had we not expected to finde a better livelihood by the ministerie This is that which I lookd for to discover them openly neither true lovers of learning and so very seldom guilty of it nor true ministers of the gospel So long agoe out of date is that old true saying 1 Tim. 31. if a man desire a bishoprick he desires a good work for now commonly he who desires to be a minister looks not at the work but at the wages and by that lure or loubel may be toald from parish to parish all the town over But what can be planer Simonie then thus to be at charges beforehand to no other end then to make thir ministry doubly or trebly beneficial to whom it might be said as justly as to that Simon thy monie perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchas'd with monie thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter Next it is a fond error though too much beleevd among us to think that the universitie makes a minister of the gospel what it may conduce to other arts and sciences I dispute not now but that which makes fit a minister the scripture can best informe us to be only from above whence also we are bid to seek them Matth. 9. 38. Pray ye therefor to the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest Acts 20. 28. The flock over which the holy ghost hath made you over-seers Rom. 10. 15. How shall they preach unless they be sent by whom sent by the universitie or the magistrate or thir belly no surely but sent from God only and that God who is not thir belly And whether he be sent from God or from Simon Magus the inward sense of his calling and spiritual abilitie will sufficiently tell him and that strong obligation felt within him which was felt by the apostle will often express from him the same words 1 Cor. 9. 16. Necessity is laid upon me yea woe is me if I preach not the gospel Not a beggarly necessity and the woe feard otherwise of perpetual want but such a necessitie as made him willing to preach the gospel gratis and to embrace povertie rather then as a woe to fear it 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set som in the church first apostles c. Eph. 4. 11 c. He gave som apostles c. For the perfeting of the saints for the work of the ministerie for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unitie of the faith Whereby we may know that as he made them at the first so he makes them still and to the worlds end 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath also made us fit or able ministers of the new testament 1 Tim. 4. 14. The gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophesie and the laying on of the hands of the presbyterie These are all the means which we read of requir'd in scripture to the making of a minister All this is granted you will say but yet that it is also requisite he should be traind in other learning which can be no where better had then at universities I answer that what learning either human or divine can be necessary to a minister may as easily and less chargeably be had in any private house How deficient els and to how little purpose are all those piles of sermons notes and comments on all parts of the bible bodies and marrows of divinitie besides all other sciences in our English tongue many of the same books which in Latine they read at the universitie And the small necessitie of going thether to learn divinitie I prove first from the most part of themselves who seldom continue there till they have well got through Logic thir first rudiments though to say truth Logic also may much better be wanting in disputes of divinitie then in the suttle debates of lawyers and statesmen who yet seldom or never deal with syllogisms And those theological disputations there held by Professors and graduates are such as tend least of all to the edification or capacitie of the people but rather perplex and leaven pure doctrin with scholastical trash then enable any minister to the better preaching of the gospel Whence we may also compute since they com to recknings the charges of his needful library which though som shame not to value at 600 l may be competently furnishd for 60 l. If any man for his own curiositie or delight be in books further expensive that is not to be recknd as necessarie to his ministerial either breeding or function But Papists and other adversaries cannot be confuted without fathers and councels immense volumes and of vast charges I will shew them therefor a shorter and a better way of confutation Tit. 1. 9. Holding fast the faithful word as he hath bin taught that he may be able by sound doctrin both to exhort and to convince gain-sayers who are confuted as soon as heard bringing that which is either not in scripture or against it To persue them further through the obscure and intangld wood of antiquitie fathers and councels fighting one against another is needles endles not requisite in a minister and refus'd by the first reformers of our religion And yet we may be confident if these things be thought needful let the state but erect in publick good store of libraries and there will not want men in the church who of thir own inclinations will become able in this kinde against Papist or any other adversarie I have thus at large examind the usual pretences of hirelings colourd over most commonly with the cause of learning and universities as if with divines learning stood and fell wherin for the most part thir pittance is so small and to speak freely it were much better there were not one divine in the universitie no schoole-divinitie known the idle sophistrie of monks the canker of religion and that they who intended to be ministers were traind up in the church only by the scripture and in the original languages therof at schoole without fetching the compas of other arts and sciences more then what they can well learn at secondary leasure and at home Neither speak I this in contempt of learning or the ministry but hating the common cheats of both hating that they who have preachd out bishops prelats and canonists
should in what serves thir own ends retain thir fals opinions thir Pharisaical leaven thir avarice and closely thir ambition thir pluralities thir nonresidences thir odious fees and use thir legal and Popish arguments for tithes that Independents should take that name as they may justly from the true freedom of Christian doctrin and church-discipline subject to no superior judge but God only and seek to be Dependents on the magistrate for thir maintenance which two things independence and state-hire in religion can never consist long or certainly together For magistrates at one time or other not like these at present our patrons of Christian libertie will pay none but such whom by thir committies of examination they find conformable to their interest and opinions and hirelings will soone frame themselves to that interest and those opinions which they see best pleasing to thir pay-masters and to seem right themselves will force others as to the truth But most of all they are to be revil'd and sham'd who cry out with the distinct voice of notorious hirelings that if ye settle not our maintenance by law farwell the gospel then which nothing can be utterd more fals more ignominious and I may say more blasphemous against our Saviour who hath promisd without this condition both his holy spirit and his own presence with his church to the worlds end nothing more fals unless with thir own mouths they condemne themselves for the unworthiest and most mercenary of all other ministers by the experience of 300. years after Christ and the churches at this day in France Austria Polonia and other places witnessing the contrary under an advers magistrate not a favorable nothing more ignominious levelling or rather undervaluing Christ beneath Mahomet For if it must be thus how can any Christian object it to a Turk that his religion stands by force only and not justly fear from him this reply yours both by force and monie in the judgment of your own preachers This is that which makes atheists in the land whom they so much complain of not the want of maintenance or preachers as they alleage but the many hirelings and cheaters that have the gospel in thir hands hands that still crave and are never satisfi'd Likely ministers indeed to proclaim the faith or to exhort our trust in God when they themselves will not trust him to provide for them in the message wheron they say he sent them but threaten for want of temporal means to desert it calling that want of means which is nothing els but the want of thir own faith and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetous incredulitie Doubtles if God only be he who gives ministers to his church till the worlds end and through the whole gospel never sent us for ministers to the schooles of Philosophie but rather bids us beware of such vain deceit Col. 2. 8. which the primitive church after two or three ages not remembring brought herself quickly to confusion if all the faithful be now a holy and a royal priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 5. 9 not excluded from the dispensation of things holiest after free election of the church and imposition of hands there will not want ministers elected out of all sorts and orders of men for the Gospel makes no difference from the magistrate himself to the meanest artificer if God evidently favor him with spiritual gifts as he can easily and oft hath don while those batchelor divines and doctors of the tippet have bin passd by Heretofore in the fiâ—st evangelic times and it were happy for Christendom if it were so again ministers of the gospel were by nothing els distinguishd from other Christians but by thir spiritual knowledge and sanctitie of life for which the church elected them to be her teachers and overseers though not thereby to separate them from whatever calling she then found them following besides as the example of S. Paul declares and the first times of Christianitie When once they affected to be calld a clergie and became as it were a peculiar tribe of levites a partie a distinct order in the commonwealth bred up for divines in babling schooles and fed at the publick cost good for nothing els but what was good for nothing they soone grew idle that idlenes with fulnes of bread begat pride and perpetual contention with thir feeders the despis'd laitie through all ages ever since to the perverting of religion and the disturbance of all Christendom And we may confidently conclude it never will be otherwise while they are thus upheld undepending on the church on which alone they anciently depended and are by the magistrate publickly maintaind a numerous faction of indigent persons crept for the most part out of extream want and bad nurture claiming by divine right and freehold the tenth of our estates to monopolize the ministry as their peculiar which is free and open to all able Christians elected by any church Under this pretence exempt from all other imployment and inriching themselves on the publick they last of all prove common incendiaries and exalt thir horns against the magistrate himself that maintains them as the priest of Rome did soone after against his benefactor the emperor and the presbyters of late in Scotland Of which hireling crew together with all the mischiefs dissentions troubles warrs meerly of their kindling Christendom might soone rid herself and be happie if Christians would but know thir own dignitie thir libertie thir adoption and let it not be wonderd if I say thir spiritual priesthood whereby they have all equally access to any ministerial function whenever calld by thir own abilities and the church though they never came neer commencement or universitie But while Protestants to avoid the due labor of understanding thir own religion are content to lodge it in the breast or rather in the books of a clergie man and to take it thence by scraps and mammocks as he dispences it in his sundays dole they will be alwaies learning and never knowing alwaies infants alwaies either his vassals as lay-papists are to their priests or at odds with him as reformed principles give them som light to be not wholly conformable whence infinit disturbances in the state as they do must needs follow Thus much I had to say and I suppose what may be anough to them who are not avariciously bent otherwise touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church then which nothing can more conduce to truth to peace and all happines both in church and state If I be not heard nor beleevd the event will bear me witnes to have spoken truth and I in the mean while have borne my witnes not out of season to the church and to my countrey The end