Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A50954
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A supplement to Dr. Du Moulin, treating of the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the Church of England With a brief vindication of Mr. Rich. Baxter. By J.M.
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing M2180; ESTC R215557
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32,178
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27
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Law of Tithes was enacted by those Kings and Barons upon the Opinion they had of their Divine Right as the very words import of Edward the Confessor in the close of that Law for so Blessed Austin preached 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 Laws of Moses the third part of Tithes only was the Priests due the other two were appointed for the Poor and to adorn or repair Churches as the Canons of Echbert and Elphric witness Concil Brit. If then these Laws were founded upon the Opinion of Divine Autority and that Autority be found mistaken and erroneous as hach been fully manifested it follows that these Laws fall of themselves with their False Foundation But with what face or conscience can they alledge Moses or these Laws for Tithes as they now enjoy whereof Moses ordains the Owner as we heard before the Stranger the Fatherless and the Widow partakers with with the Levite and these Fathers which they cite and these though Romish rather than English Laws allotted both to Priest and Bishop the third part only But these our Protestant these our new reformed English Presbyterian Divines against their own cited Authors and to the shame of their pretended Reformation would engross to themselves all Tithes by Statute and supported more by their wilful obstinacy and desire of filthy Lucre than by these both insufficient and impertinent Autorities would perswade a Christian Magistracy and Parliament whom we trust God hath restored 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 Clergy than any of those Popish Kings and Parliaments alledged 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 days I answer that the Prelates who urge this Argument have least reason to use it denying morality in the Sabbath and therein better agreeing with reformed Churches abroad than the rest of our Divines As therefore 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 subsistance morally due to Ministers The last and lowest sort of their Arguments that men purchas'd not their Tithe with their Land and such like Pertiforggery I omit as refuted suffoiently by others I omit also their violent and irreligious exactions related no less credibly their seising of Pots and Pans from the Poor who have as good Right to Tithes as they fromsome the very Beds their sueing and imprisoning worse than when the Canon Law was in force worse than when those Sons of Eli were Priests whose manner was thus to seise their pretended Priestly due by force 1 Sam. 2. 12 c. Whereby men abhorred the offering of the Lord and it may be feared that many will as much abhor the Gospel if such violence as this be suffered in her Ministers and in that which they also pretend to be the offering of the Lord. For those sons of Belial within some limits made seisure of what they knew was their own by an undoubted Law but these from whom there is no Sanctuary seise out of mens grounds out of mens houses their other goods of double sometimes of treble value for that which did not Covetousness and Rapine blind them they know to be not their own by the Gospel which they preach Of some more tolerable than these thus severely God hath spoken Isa 46. 10. c. They are greedy Dogs they all look to their own way every one for his gain from his quarter With what anger then will he judge them who stand not looking but under colour of a Divine Right fetch by force that which is not their own taking his name not in vain but in violence Nor content as Gehazi was to make a cunning but a constrained advantage of what their Master bids them give freely How can they but return smitten worse than that sharking Minister vvitha Spiritual Leprosie And yet they cry out Sacriledge that men vvill not be gull'd and hassl'd the Tenth of their Estates by giving credit to frivolous pretences of Divine Right Where did God ever clearly declare to all Nations or in all Lands and none but Fools part with their Estates without elearest of evidence on bare supposals and presumptions of them who are the gainers thereby that he required the tenth due to him or his son perpetually and in all places Where did he demand it that we might certainly know as in all claims of temporal right what is just and reasonable or if demanded where did he design it or by what evident conveyance to Ministersâ— Unless they can demonstrate this by more than conjectures their Title can be no better to Tithes than the Titles of Gohazi was to those things which by abusing his Masters name he rooked from Neemen Much less where did he command that Tithes should be fetcht by forâ—e where left not under the Gospel whatever his right was to the Free-will offerings of men Which is the greater Sacriledge to belie Divine Autoritie to make the name of Christ accessary to violence and robbing him of the very Honour which he aimed at in bestowing freely the Gospel to commit Simonie and Rapine both Secular and Ecclesiastical or on the other side not to give the tenth of civil right and propriety to the tricks and impostures of Clergy-men contriv'd with all the art and argument that their bellies can invent or suggest yet so ridiculous and presuming on the Peoples dulness or superstition as to think they prove the divine right of their maintainance by Abram paying Tithes to Melchisedec when as Melchisedec in that passage rather gave maintenance to Abram in whom all both Priests and Ministers as well as Lay-men paid Tithes not received them And because I affirm both beginning this first part of my Discourse that God hath given to Ministers of the Gospel that maintenance only which is justly given them let us see a little what hath been thought of that other maintenance besides Tithes which of all Protestants our English Divines either only or most apparently both require and take Those are Fees for Christnings Marriages and Burials whiâ—h though who so will may give freely yet being not of right but of free gift if they be exacted or established they become unjust to them who are otherwise maintained and of such evil note that even the Council of Trent l. 2. p. 240. makes them lyable to the Laws against Simonie who take or demand fees for the administring of any Sacrament Che la sinodo volendo levare oli abusi vntrodotti c. And in the next Page with like seâ—erity condemns the giving or taking for a Benefice and the celebrating
the People but rather leaven pure Doctrine with Scholastical Trash than enable a Minister to the Preaching of the Gospel Whence we may also compute since they come to recknings the charges of his needful Library which though some shame not to value at 600â— may be competently furnished for 60. If any man for his own curiosity or delight be in Books further expensive that is not to be reckon'd as necessary 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 therefore a shorter and a better way of confutation Tit. 1. 9. Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound Doctrine 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 pursue them further through the obscure and intangled Word of Antiquity Fathers and Councels fighting one against another is needless endless not requisite in a Minister and refus'd by the first Reformers of our Religion And yet we may be confident if these things are thought needful let the State but erect in publick good Store of Libraries and there will not want Men in the Church who of their own inclinations will become able in this kind against Papist or any other Adversarie I have thus at large examined the usual pretences of Hirelings coloured over most commonly with the cause of Learning and Universities as if with Divines Learning stood and fell wherein for the most part their pittance is so small and to speak freely it were much better there were not one Divine in the Universitie no School-Divinitie known the Idle Sophastry of Monks the Canker of Religion and that they who intended to be Ministers were trained up in the Church only by the Scripture and in the Original Languages thereof at School without fetching the compass of other Arts and Sciences more than 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 preached out Bishops Prelates and Canonists should in what serves their own ends retain their false Opinions their Pharasaical Leaven their Avarice and closely their Ambition their Pluralities their Nonresidences their odious Fees and use their Legal and Popish Arguments for Tithes that Independents should take that Name as they may justly from the true Freedom of Christian Doctrine and Church Discipline subject to no Superior Judge but God only and seek to be Dependents on the Magistrate for their 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 Liberty will pay none but such whom by their Committees of Examination they find conformable to their Interest and Opinions and Hirelings will soon frame themselves to that Interest and those Opinions which they see best pleasing to their 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 a distinct voice of Notorious Hirelings that if ye settle not our maintenance by Law farewell the Gospel then which nothing can be uttered more false more ignominious and I may say more blasphemous against our Saviour who hath promised without this condition both his holy Spirit and his own presence with his Church to the worlds end nothing more false unless with their own mouths they condemn 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 adverse Magistrate not a favourable nothing more ignominious levelling or rather undervaluing Christ beneath Mahomet For if it 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 mony in the judgment of your own Preachers This is that which make Atheists sin 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 their hands hands that still crave and are never satisfied 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 whereon they say he sent them but threaâ—en for want of temporal means to desert it calling that want of means which is nothing else but the want of their own faith and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetuous incredulity Doubtless 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 Schools of Philosophy but rather bids us beware of such vain deceit Col. 2. 8. which the Primitive Church after two or three Ages not remembring brought her self quickly to confusion if all the Faithful be now 4 Holy and 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 favour him with Spiritual Gifts as he can easily and oft hath done while those Batchelor Divines and Doctors of the Tippet have been pass'd by Heretofore in the first Evangelick times it were happy for Christendom if it were so again Ministers of the Gospel were by nothing else distinguished fâ—om other Christians but by their Knowledge and Sanctitie of Life for which the Church elected them to be her Teachers and Overseers though not thereby to seperate them from what ever calling she then found them following besides as the example of St. Paul declares and the first time of Christianity When once they affected to be called a Clergy and became as it were a peculiar Tribe of Levites a Party a dictinct order in the Common-wealth bred up for Divines in babling Schools and fed at the publick cost good for nothing else but what was good for nothing they soon grew idle that Idleness with fulness of Bread begat pride and perpetual contention with their Feeders the despis'd Laitie through all Ages ever since to the perverting of Religion and the disturbance of all Christendom And we may considently conclude it never will be otherwise while they are thus upheld undepending on the Church on which alone they anciently depended and are by they Magistrate publickly maintain'd a numerous Faction of indigent Persons crept for the most part out of extream want and bad nature 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 enriching themselves from the publick they last of all prove common Incendiaries and exalt their horns against the Magistrate himself that maintains them as the Priest or Rome did soon after against his Benefactor the Emperor and the late Presbyters in Scotland Of which Hireling Crew together with all the Mischiefs Dissentions Troubles Wars meerly of their kindling Christendom might soon rid her self and be happy if Christians would but know their own Dignitie their Libertie their Adoption and let it not be wondred if I say their Spiritual Priesthood whereby they have all equally access to any Ministerial Function whenever call'd by their own abilities and the Church though they never came near Commencement or Universitie But while Protestants to avoid the due Labour of undertaking their own Religion are oâ—tent to lodge it in the Breast or rather in the Books of a Clergy-man and to take it thence by Scraps and Mammocks as he dispences it in his Sundays â—dole they will be always learning and never knowing always Infants always either his Vassals as Lay-Papists are to their Priests or at odds with him Reformed Principles give them some light to be not wholly conformable whence infinite disturbances in the State as they do must needs follow Thus much I had to say and I suppose what may be enough to them who are not avaâ—â—ciously beâ—t otherwise touching the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church than which nothing can more conduce to truth to peace and all happiness both in Church and State If I be not heard nor believed the event will bear me witness to have spoken truth and I in the mean while have born my witness not out of season to the Church and to my Country FINIS