The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings Out of the Church

CONSIDERATIONS touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church.

T He 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 thereof. The latter of these is by much the more dangerous: (for under force, though no thank to the forcers, true religion ofttimes 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 used 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 blasphemy and heresy, 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 us • force, this only choice can b • left, whether they will force them to believe, to whom it is not given from above, being not forced 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 wherein 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 willful, but conscientious, and, according to the best light of him who errs, grounded on scripture: which kind of error all men religious, or but only reasonable, have thought worthier of pardon; and the growth thereof 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 believe aright, as to believe at all; and by those means which he ordained 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: whereof I promisd then to speak further, when I should find God disposing me, and opportunity inviting. Opportunity I find now inviting; and apprehend therein the concurrence of God disposing; since the maintenance of church-ministers, a thing not properly belonging to the magistrate, and yet with such importunity called for, and expected from him, is at present under public debate. Wherein least anything may happen to be determind and establishd prejudicial to the right and freedom of church, or advantageous to such as may be found hirelings therein, it will be now most seasonable, and in these matters wherein every Christian hath his free suffrage, no way misbecoming Christian meekness to offer freely, without disparagement to the wisest, such advice as God shall incline him and enable him to propound. Since heretofore in commonwealths of most fame for government, civil laws were not establishd till they had been first for certain days publishd to the view of all men, that who so pleasd might speak freely his opinion thereof, 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 liberty which is inseparable 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 envy 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 recompense or reward; as when our Savior 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 harm the excess thereof 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 appears 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 soon 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 itself with the founder thereof, his master. Simon Magus the next, in hope only that preaching and the gifts of the holy ghost would prove gainful, offered beforehand 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 grievous 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 covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. Yet they taught not falls doctrine only, but seeming piety: 1 Tim. 6. 5. supposing that gain is Godlines. Neither came they in of themselves only, but invited ofttimes by a corrupt audience: 2 Tim. 4. 3. For the time will come, when they will not endure sound doctrine, 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, doubtless had as itching palms. 2 Pet. 2. 15. Following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who lovd the wages of unrighteousness. 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 vicious 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 endeavor that fewest may come in: but rather, in regard the evil, do what we can, will always 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 recompense God hath ordained should be given to ministers of the church; (for that a recompense ought to be given them, and may by them justly be received, our Savior himself from the very light of reason and of equity hath declared: Luke 10. 7. The laborer is worthy of his hire ) next by whom; and lastly, in what manner.

What recompense ought be given to church-ministers, God hath answerably ordained 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 twentieth: 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 kind of hire, the tenth, can be of no right or necessity, but to that special labor for which God ordained 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 withal abolishd, as being also ceremonial. That tithes were ceremonial, is plane; not being given to the Levites till they had been first offered a heave-offering to the Lord, Vers. 24, 28. He then who by that law brings tithes into the gospel, of necessity brings in withal 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 Jews 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 whereon to hallow them; which argues that the Jews themselves never thought tithes moral, but ceremonial only. That Christians therefor should take them up, when Jews have laid them down, must needs be very absurd and preposterous. Next, it is as clear in the same chapter, that the priests and Levites had not tithes for their labor only in the tabernacle, but in regard they were to have no other part nor inheritance in the land, Vers. 20, 24. and by that means for a tenth lost a twelfth. But our levites undergoing no such law of deprivement, can have no right to any such compensation: nay, if by this law they will have tithes, can have no inheritance of land, but forfeit what they have. Besides this, tithes were of two sorts, those of every year, and those of every third year: of the former, everyone that brought his tithes, was to eat his share. Deut. 14. 23. Thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, &c. Nay, though he could not bring his tithe in kind, by reason of his distant dwelling from the tabernacle or temple, but was thereby forced to turn it into monie, he was to bestow that monie on whatsoever pleasd him; oxen, sheep, wine, or strong drink; and to eat and drink thereof there before the Lord both he and his household, Ver. 24, 25, 26. As for the tithes of every third year, they were not given only to the Levite, but to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, Vers. 28, 29. & Chap. 26. 12, 13. So that ours, if they will have tithes, must admit of these sharers with them. Nay, these tithes were not paid in at all to the Levite, but the Levite himself was to come with those his fellow guests and eat his share of them only at his house who provided them; and this not in regard of his ministerial office, but because he had no part nor inheritance in the land. Lastly, the priests and Levites, a tribe, were of a far different constitution from this of our ministers under the gospel: in them were orders and degrees both by family, dignity and office, mainly distinguishd; the high priest, his brethren and his sons, to whom the Levites themselves paid tithes, and of the best, were eminently superior, Num. 18. 28, 29. No Protestant, I suppose, will liken one of our ministers to a high priest, but rather to a common Levite. Unless then, to keep their tithes, they mean to bring back again bishops, archbishops and the whole gang of prelatry, to whom will they themselves pay tithes, as by that law it was a sin to them, if they did not, v. 32. Certainly this must needs put them to a deep demur, while the desire of holding fast thir tithes without sin, may tempt them to bring back again bishops as the likeness of that hierarchy that should receive tithes from them, and the desire to pay none, may advise them to keep out of the church all orders above them. But if we have to do at present, as I suppose we have, with true reformed Protestants, not with Papists or prelates, it will not be denied that in the gospel there be but two ministerial degrees, presbyters and deacons: which if they contend to have any succession, reference or conformity with those two degrees under the law, priests & Levites, it must needs be such whereby our presbyters or ministers may be answerable to priests, and our deacons to Levites: by which rule of proportion it will follow, that we must pay our tithes to the deacons only, and they only to the ministers. But if it be truer yet that the priesthood of Aaron typifi'd a better reality, 1 Pet. 2. 5. signifying the Christian true and holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice; it follows hence, that we are now justly exempt from paying tithes, to any who claim from Aaron, since that priesthood is in us now real, which in him was but a shadow. Seeing then by all this which hath been shewn that the law of tithes is partly ceremonial, as the work was for which they were given, partly judicial, not of common, but of particular right to the tribe of Levi, nor to them alone, but to the owner also and his household, at the time of thir offering, and every three year to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, thir appointed sharers, and that they were a tribe of priests and deacons improperly compared to the constitution of our ministry, and the tithes given by that people to those deacons only, it follows that our ministers at this day, being neither priests nor Levites, nor fitly answering to either of them, can have no just title or pretence to tithes, by any consequence drawn from the law of Moses. But they think they have yet a better plea in the example of Melchizedek, who took tithes of Abram ere the law was given: whence they would infer tithes to be of moral right. But they ought to know, or to remember, that not examples, but express commands oblige our obedience to God or man: next, that whatsoever was don in religion before the law written, is not presently to be counted moral, when as so many things were then don both ceremonial and Judaically judicial, that we need not doubt to conclude all times before Christ, more or less under the ceremonial law. To what end servd else those altars and sacrifices, that distinction of clean and unclean entering into the ark, circumcision and the raising up of seed to the elder brother, Gen. 38. 8? If these things be not moral, though before the law, how are tithes, though in the example of Abram and Melchizedek? But this instance is so far from being the just ground of a law, that after all circumstances duly waighd both from Gen. 14. and Heb. 7, it will not be allowd them so much as an example. Melchizedek, besides his priestly benediction, brought with him bread and wine sufficient to refresh Abram and his whole army; incited to do so, first, by the secret providence of God, intending him for a type of Christ and his priesthood; next by his due thankfulness and honor to Abram, who had freed his borders of Salem from a potent enemy: Abram on the other side honors him with the tenth of all, that is to say, (for he took not sure his whole estate with him to that war) of the spoils, Heb. 7. 4. Incited he also by the same secret providence, to signify as grandfather of Levi, that the Levitical priesthood was excelld by the priesthood of Christ. For the giving of a tenth declared it seems in those countries and times, him the greater who received it. That which next incited him, was partly his gratitude to requite the present, partly his reverence to the person and his benediction: to his person, as a king and priest; greater therefor then Abram; who was a priest also, but not a king. And who unhir'd will be so hardy as to say, that Abram at any other time ever paid him tithes, either before or after; or had then, but for this accidental meeting and obligement; or that else Melchizedek had demanded or exacted them, or took them otherwise, then as the voluntary gift of Abram? But our ministers, though neither priests nor kings more then any other Christian, greater in thir own esteem then Abraham and all his seed, for the verbal labor of a seventh days preachment, not bringing, like Melchizedek, bread or wine at thir own cost, would not take only at the willing hand of liberality or gratitude, but require and exact as due the tenth, not of spoils, but of our whole estates and labors; nor once, but yearly. We then it seems by the example of Abram must pay tithes to these melchisedecs: but what if the person of Abram can either no way represent us, or will oblige the ministers to pay tithes no less then other men? Abram had not only a priest in his loins, but was himself a priest; and gave tithes to Melchizedek either as grandfather of Levi, or as father of the faithful. If as grandfather (though he understood it not) of Levi, he obliged not us but Levi only, the inferior priest, by that homage (as the apostle to the Hebrews clearly enough explanes) to acknowledge the greater. And they who by Melchizedek claim from Abram as Levi 's grandfather, have none to seek thir tithes of but the Levites, where they can find them. If Abram as father of the faithful paid tithes to Melchizedek, then certainly the ministers also, if they be of that number, paid in him equally with the rest. Which may induce us to believe, that as both Abram and Melchizedek, so tithes also in that action typical and ceremonial, signifi'd nothing else but that subjection, which all the faithful, both ministers and people owe to Christ, our high priest and king. In any literal sense from this example they never will be able to extort that the people in those days paid tithes to priests; but this only, that one priest once in his life, of spoils only, and in requital partly of a liberal present, partly of a benediction, gave voluntary tithes, not to a greater priest then himself as far as Abram could then understand, but rather to a priest and king joind in one person. They will reply, perhaps, that if one priest paid tithes to another, it must needs be understood that the people did no less to the priest. But I shall easily remove that necessity by remembering them that in those days was no priest, but the father, or the first born of each family; and by consequence no people to pay him tithes, but his own children and servants, who had not wherewithal to pay him, but of his own. Yet grant that the people then paid tithes, there will not yet be the like reason to enjoin us: they being then under ceremonies, a mere laity, we now under Christ▪ a royal priesthood, 1 Pet. 2. 9, as we are coheirs, kings and priests with him, a priest forever after the order or manner of Melchizedek. As therefor Abram paid tithes to Melchizedek because Levi was in him, so we ought to pay none because the true Melchizedek is in us, and we in him who can pay to none greater, and hath freed us by our union with himself, from all compulsive tributes and taxes in his church. Neither doth the collateral place, Heb. 7, make other use of this story, then to prove Christ, personated by Melchizedek, a greater priest then Aaron: Vers. 4. Now consider how great this man was, &c. and prov • not in the least manner that tithes be of any right to ministers, but the contrary: first the Levites had a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is of thir brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham, Vers. 5. The commandment then was, it seems, to take tithes of the Jews only, and according to the law. That law changing of necessity with the priesthood, no other sort of ministers, as they must needs be another sort, under another priesthood, can receive that tribute of tithes which fell with that law, unless renu'd by another express command and according to another law: no such law is extant. Next, Melchizedek not as a minister, but as Christ himself in person blessd Abraham, who had the promises, Vers. 6; and in him blessd all both ministers and people, both of the law and gospel: that blessing declared him greater and better then whom he blessd, Vers. 7; receiving tithes from them all not as a maintenance, which Melchizedek needed not, but as a sign of homage and subjection to thir king and priest: whereas ministers bear not the person of Christ in his priesthood or kingship, bless not as he blesses, are not by their blessing greater then Abraham, and all the faithful with themselves included in him, cannot both give and take tithes in Abram, cannot claim to themselves that sign of our allegiance due only to our eternal king and priest, cannot therefor derive tithes from Melchizedek. Lastly, the eighth verse hath thus: Here men that die receive tithes: There he received them, of whom it is witnesd that he liveth. Which words intimate that as he offered himself once for us, so he received once of us in Abraham, and in that place the typical acknowledgment of our redemption: which had it been a perpetual annuity to Christ, by him claimd as his due, Levi must have paid it yearly, as well as then, Vers. 9. and our ministers ought still to some Melchizedek or other, as well now as they did in Abraham. But that Christ never claimd any such tenth as his annual due, much less resigned it to the ministers, his so officious receivers without express commission or assignment, will be yet clearer as we proceed. Thus much may at length assure us, that this example of Abram & Melchizedek, though I see of late they build most upon it, can so little be the ground of any law to us, that it will not so much avail them as to the authority of an example. Of like impertinence is that example of Jacob, Gen. 28. 22, who of his free choice, not enjoind by any law, vowd the tenth of all that God should give him: which, for aught appears to the contrary, he vowd as a thing no less indifferent before his vow, then the foregoing part thereof; That the stone which he had set there for a pillar, should be God's house. And to whom vowd he this tenth, but to God; not to any priest; for we read of none to him greater then himself? and to God, no doubt, but he paid what he vowd; both in the building of that Bethel with other altars else where, and the expense of his continual sacrifices, which none but he had right to offer. However therefor he paid his tenth, it could in no likelihood, unless by such an occasion as befell his grandfather, be to any priest. But, say they, All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's, holy unto the Lord, Levite. 27. 30. And this before it was given to the Levites; therefor since they ceasd. No question; For the whole earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, Psal. 24. 1; and the light of nature shows us no less: but that the tenth is his more then the rest, how know I, but as he so declares it? He declares it so here of the land of Canaan only, as by all circumstance appears; and passes by deed of gift this tenth to the Levite; yet so as offered to him first a heaveoffring, and consecrated on his altar, Numb. 18. all which I had as little known, but by that evidence. The Levites are ceasd, the gift returns to the giver. How then can we know that he hath given it to any other, or how can these men presume to take it unofferd first to God, unconsecrated, without another clear and express donation, whereof they show no evidence or writing? Besides, he hath now alienated that holy land: who can warrantably affirm, that he hath since hallowd the tenth of this land; which none but God hath power to do or can warrant? Thir last prooff they cite out of the gospel, which makes as little for them; Matth. 23. 23; where our Savior denouncing woe to the Scribes and Pharisees, who paid tithe so exactly, and omitted weightier matters, tells them, that these they ought to have don, that is, to have paid tithes. For our Savior spake then to those who observd the law of Moses, which was yet not fully abrogated, till the destruction of the temple. And by the way here we may observe out of thir own prooff, that the Scribes and Pharisees, though then chief teachers of the people, such at least as were not Levites, did not take tithes, but paid them: So much less covetous were the Scribes and Pharisees in those worst times then ours at this day. This is so apparent to the reformed divines of other countries, that when any one of ours hath attempted in Latin to maintain this argument of tithes, though a man would think they might suffer him without opposition in a point equally tending to the advantage of all ministers, yet they forbear not to oppose him, as in a doctrine not fit to pass unoppos'd under the gospel. Which shows the modesty, the contentedness of those foreign pastors with the maintenance given them, thir sincerity also in the truth, though less gainful, and the avarice of ours: who through the love of their old Papistical tithes, consider not the weak arguments, or rather conjectures and surmises which they bring to defend them. On the other side, although it be sufficient to have proved in general the abolishing of tithes, as part of the Judaical or ceremonial law, which is abolishd all, as well that before as that after Moses, yet I shall further prove them abrogated by an express ordinance of the gospel, founded not on any type, or that municipal law of Moses, but on moral, and general equity, given us instead: 1 Cor. 9. 13, 14. Know ye not, that they who minister about holy things, live of the things of the temple; and they which wait at the altar, are partake • s with the altar? so also the Lord hath ordained, that they who preach the gospel, should live of the gospel. He saith not, Should live on things which were of the temple or of the altar, of which were tithes, for that had given them a clear title: but abrogating that former law of Moses, which determind what and how much, by a later ordinance of Christ, which leaves the what and how much indefinite and free, so it be sufficient to live on, he saith, The Lord hath so ordained, that they who preach the gospel, should live of the gospel; which hath neither temple, altar nor sacrifice: Heb. 7. 13. For he of whom these things are spoken, pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar: his ministers therefor cannot thence have tithes. And where the Lord hath so ordained, we may find easily in more then one evangelist: Luke 10. 7, 8. In the same house remane, eating and drinking such things as they give: For the laborer is worthy of his hire, &c. And into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. To which ordinance of Christ it may seem likeliest, that the apostle refers us both here and 1 Tim. 5. 18, where he cites this as the saying of our Savior, That the laborer is worthy of his hire: and both by this place of Luke, and that of Matth. 10. 9, 10, 11, it evidently appears that our Savior ordained no certain maintenance for his apostles or ministers publicly or privately in house or city received, but that, what ever it were, which might suffice to live on: and this not commanded or proportiond by Abram or by Moses, whom he might easily have here cited, as his manner was, but declared only by a rule of common equity which proportions the hire as well to the ability of him who gives as to the labor of him who receives, and recommends him only as worthy, not invests him with a legal right. And mark whereon he grounds this his ordinance; not on a perpetual right of tithes from Melchizedek, as hirelings pretend, which he never claimd either for himself, or for his ministers, but on the plane and common equity of rewarding the laborer; worthy sometimes of single, sometimes of double honor, not proportionable by tithes. And the apostle in this forecited chapter to the Corinthians, Vers. 11, affirms it to be no great recompense, if carnal things be reapd for spiritual sown; but to mention tithes, neglects here the fittest occasion that could be offered him, and leaves the rest free and undetermind. Certainly if Christ or his apostles had approved of tithes, they would have either by writing or tradition recommended them to the church: and that soon would have appeerd in the practice of those primitive and the next ages. But for the first three hundred years and more, in all the ecclesiastical story, I find no such doctrine or example: though error by that time had brought back again priests, altars and oblations; and in many other points of religion had miserably Judaiz'd the church. So that the defenders of tithes, after a long pomp and tedious preparation out of Heathen authors, telling us that tithes were paid to Hercules and Apollo, which perhaps was imitated from the Jews, and as it were bespeaking our expectation, that they will abound much more with authorities out of Christian story, have nothing of general approbation to beginn with from the first three or four ages, but that which abundantly serves to the confutation of thir tithes; while they confess that churchmen in those ages livd merely upon freewill offerings. Neither can they say, that tithes were not then paid for want of a civil magistrate to ordain them, for Christians had then also lands, and might give out of them what they pleasd; and yet of tithes then given we find no mention. And the first Christian emperors, who did all things as bishops advised 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 continued not pure since the apostles, denied that tithes were to be given, or that they were ever given in the primitive church; as appears by an ancient tractate inserted in the Bohemian history. Thus far hath the church been always, 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 Jews 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 bodily work; to which a particular tribe was set apart by divine appointment, not by the people's election: but the Christian church is universal; not ti'd to nation, diocese 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 choosing both thir particular church and thir church-officers. Whereas if tithes be set up, all these Christian privileges will be disturbd and soon lost, and with them Christian liberty. The first authority which our adversaries bring, after those fabulous apostolic canons, which they dare not insist upon, is a provincial council held at Cullen, where they voted tithes to be God's rent, in the year three hundred fifty six; at the same time perhaps when the three kings reignd there, and of like authority. For to what purpose do they bring these trivial testimonies, by which they might as well prove altars, candles at noon, and the greatest part of those superstitions, fetchd from Paganism or Jewism, which the Papist, inveigl'd by this fond argument of antiquity, retains to this day? to what purpose those decrees of I know not what bishops, to a Parliament 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 continued, we must again have altars. Of fathers, by custom so called, they quote Ambrose, Augustine, and some other ceremonial doctors of the same leaven: whose assertion without pertinent scripture, no reformed church can admit; and what they vouch, is founded on the law of Moses, with which, everywhere 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 introduced; whereby thinking to gain all, they lost all: and instead of winning Jews and Pagans to be▪ Christians▪ by too much condescending they turned Christians into Jews and Pagans. To heap such unconvincing▪ citations as these in religion, whereof 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 continued. 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 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 law of Moses, the third part 〈◊〉 tithes only was the priests due; the other two were appointed for the poor, and to adorn or repare churches; as the canons of Ecbert and Elfric witness: Council. Brit. If then these laws were founded upon the opinion of divine authority, and that authority be found mistaken and erroneous, as hath been fully manifested, it follows, that these laws fall of themselves with thir falls foundation. But with what face or conscience can they allege Moses, or these laws for tithes, as they now enjoy or exact them; whereof Moses ordains the owner, as we heard before, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow 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 willful obstinacy and desire of filthy lucre then by these both insufficient and impertinent authorities, would persuade 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, 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 seventh 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 then the rest of our divines. As therefor the seventh day is not moral, but a convenient recourse of worship in fit season, whether seventh 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 purchased not thir tithe with thir land and such like pettifoggerie, I omit; as refuted sufficiently by others: I omit 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 some, the very beds; thir sueing and imprisoning; worse then when the canon law was in force; worse then when those wicked sons of Eli were priests, whose manner was thus to seise thir pretended priestly due by force, 1 Sam. 2. 12, &c. Whereby men abhorrd 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 thir own by an undoubted law; but these, from whom there is no sanctuary, seise out of men's grounds, out of men's houses thir other goods of double, sometimes of treble value, for that, which did not covetousness and rapine blind them, they know to be not thir own by the gospel which they preach. Of some more tolerable then these, thus severely God hath spoken: Esa. 46. 10, &c. They are greedy dogs; they all look to thir own way, everyone for his gain, from his quarter. With what anger then will he judge them who stand not looking, but under color of a divine right, fetch by force that which is not thir own, taking his name not in vain, but in violence? Nor content as Gehazi was to make a cunning, but a constraind advantage of what thir master bids them give freely, how can they but return smitten, worse then that sharking minister, with a spiritual leprosy? And yet they cry out sacrilege, that men will not be gulld and baffl'd the tenth of thir 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 thir estates, without clearest evidence, on bare supposals and presumptions of them who are the gainers thereby) that he required the tenth as 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 is just and reasonable? or if demanded, where did he assign it, or by what evident conveyance to ministers? unless they can demonstrate this by more then conjectures, thir title can be no better to tithes then the title of Gehazi was to those things which by abusing his masters name he rookd from Naaman. Much less where did he command that tithes should be fetchd by force, where left not under the gospel whatever his right was, to the freewilloffrings of men? Which is the greater sacrilege, to bely divine authority, to make the name of Christ accessory to violence, and, robbing him of the very honor which he aimd at in bestowing freely the gospel, to commit Simony and rapin, both secular and ecclesiastical, or on the other fide, not to give up the tenth of civil right and propriety to the tricks and impostures of clergy men, contrived with all the art and argument that thir bellies can invent or suggest; yet so ridiculous and presuming on the people's dullness or superstition, as to think they prove the divine right of thir maintenance by Abram paying tithes to Melchizedek, when as Milchisedec 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 affirmd above, 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: which, though whoso will may give freely, yet being not of right, but of free gift, if they be exacted or establishd, they become unjust to them who are otherwise maintaind; and of such evil note, that even the council of Trent, l. 2. p. 240, makes them liable to the laws against Simony, who take or demand fees for the administering of any sacrament: Che la sinodo volendo levare gli abusi introdotti, &c. And in the next page, with like severity condemns the giving or taking for a benefice, and the celebrating of marriages, christnings, and burials, for fees exacted or demanded: nor counts it less Simony to sell the ground or place of burial. And in a state assembly at Orleans, 1561, it was decreed, Che non si potesse essi ger cosa alcuna, &c, p. 429. That nothing should be exacted for the administering of sacraments, burials, or any other spiritual funstion. Thus much that council, of all others the most Popish, and this assembly of Papists, though, by thir own principles, in bondage to the clergy, were induced, either by thir own reason and shame, or by the light of reformation then shining in upon them, or rather by the known canons of many councils and synods long before, to condemn of Simony spiritual fees demanded. For if the minister be maintaind for his whole ministry, why should he be twice paid for any part thereof? why should he, like a servant, seek veils over and above his wages? As for christnings, either they themselves call men to baptism, or men of themselves come: if ministers invite, how ill had it becomd John the Baptist to demand fees for his baptising, or Christ for his christnings? Far less becomes it these now, with a greediness lower then that of tradesmen calling passengers to thir shop, and yet paid beforehand, to ask again, for doing that which those thir founders did freely. If men of themselves come to be baptized, they are either brought by such as already pay the minister, or come to be one of his disciples and maintainers: of whom to ask a fee as it were for entrance, is a piece of paltry craft or caution, befitting none but beggarly artists. Burials and marriages are so little to be any part of thir gain, that they who consider well, may find them to be no part of thir function. At burials thir attendance they allege on the corps; all the guests do as much unhir'd: But thir prayers at the grave; superstitiously required: yet if required, thir last performance to the deceasd of thir own flock. But the funeral sermon: at thir choice: or if not, an occasion offered them to preach out of season, which is one part of thir office. But something must be spoken in praise: if due, thir duty; if undue, thir corruption: a peculiar Simony of our divines in England only. But the ground is broken, and especially thir unrighteous possession, the chancel. To sell that will not only raise up in judgment the Council of Trent against them, but will lose them the best champion of tithes, thir zealous antiquary, Sir Hen: Spelman; who in a book written to that purpose, by many cited canons, and some even of times corruptest in the church, proves that fees exacted or demanded for sacraments, marriages, burials, and especially for interring, are wicked, accursed, Simoniacal and abominable. Yet thus is the church, for all this noise of reformation, left still unreformd, by the censure of thir own synods, thir own favorers, a den of thieves and robbers. As for marriages that ministers should meddle with them, as not sanctified or legitimat without their celebration, I find no ground in scripture either of precept or example. Likeliest it is (which our Selden hath well observd, l. 2. c. 28, ux. Eb. ) that in imitation of heathen priests who were wont at nuptials to use many rites and ceremonies, and especially, judging it would be profitable, and the increase of thir authority, not to be spectators only in business of such concernment to the life of man, they infinuated that marriage was not holy without their benediction, and for the better color, made it a sacrament; being of itself a civil ordinance, a household contract, a thing indifferent and free to the whole race of mankind, not as religious, but as men: best, indeed, undertaken to religious ends, and, as the apostle saith, 1 Cor. 7, in the Lord. Yet not therefor invalid or unholy without a minister and his pretended necessary hallowing, more then any other act, enterprise or contract of civil life, which ought all to be don also in the Lord and to his glory. All which, no less then marriage, were by the cunning of priests heretofore, as material to thir profit, transacted at the altar. Our divines deny it to be a sacrament; yet retaind the celebration, till prudently a late parliament recoverd the civil liberty of marriage from thir encroachment; and transferrd the ratifying and registering thereof from the canonical shop to the proper cognizance of civil magistrates Seeing then, that God hath given to ministers under the gospel, that only which is justly given them, that is to say, a due and moderate livelihood, the hire of thir labor, and that the heave-offering of tithes is abolishd with the altar, yea though not abolishd, yet lawles, as they enjoy them, thir Melchisedecian right also trivial and groundless, and both tithes and fees, if exacted or establishd, unjust and scandalous, we may hope, with them removed, to remove hirelings in some good measure, whom these tempting baits, by law especially to be recoverd, allure into the church.

The next thing to be considerd in the maintenance of ministers, is by whom it should be given. Wherein though the light of reason might sufficiently inform us, it will be best to consult the scripture: Gal. 6. 6. let him that is taught in the word, communicate, to him that teacheth, in all good things: that is to say, in all manner of gratitude, to his ability. 1 Cor. 9. 11. if we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we reap your carnal things? to whom therefor hath not been sown, from him wherefor should be reapd? 1 Tim. 5. 17. let the elders that rule well, be counted worthy of double honor; especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. By these places we see, that recompense was given either by everyone in particular who had been instructed, or by them all in common, brought into the church-treasury, and distributed to the ministers according to thir several labors: and that was judgd either by some extraordinary person, as Timothy, who by the apostle was then left evangelist at Ephesus, 2 Tim. 4. 5, or by some to whom the church deputed that care. This is so agreeable to reason and so clear, that any one may perceive what iniquity and violence hath prevailed since in the church, whereby it hath been so orderd, that they also shall be compelld to recompense the parochial minister, who neither chose him for thir teacher, nor have received instruction from him, as being either insufficient, or not resident, or inferior to whom they follow; wherein to bar them thir choice, is to violate Christian liberty. Our lawbooks testify, that before the council of Lateran, in the year 1179, and the fifth of our Henry 2, or rather before a decretal epistle of Pope Innocent the third, about 1200, and the first of king John, any man might have given his tithes to what spiritual person he would: and, as the L. Coke notes on that place, instit. part 2, that this decretal bound not the subjects of this realm; but, as it seemed just and reasonable. The Pope took his reason rightly from the above cited place, 1 Cor. 9. 11: but falsely supposed everyone to be instructed by his parishpriest. Whether this were then first so decreed or rather long before, as may seem by the laws of Edgar and Canute, that tithes were to be paid, not to whom he would that paid them, but to the cathedral church or the parishpriest, it imports not; since the reason which they themselves bring, built on falls supposition, becomes alike infirm and absurd, that he should reap from me, who sows not to me; be the cause either his defect, or my free choice. But here it will be readily objected, What if they who are to be instructed be not able to maintain a minister, as in many villages? I answer, that the scripture shows in many places what ought to be don herein. First I offer it to the reason of any man, whether he think the knowledge of Christian religion harder then any other art or science to attain. I suppose he will grant that it is far easier; both of itself, and in regard of God's assisting spirit, not particularly promisd us to the attainment of any other knowledge, but of this only: since it was preached as well to the shepherds of Bethlehem by angels, as to the eastern Wisemen by that starr: and our Savior declares himself anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, Luke 4. 18. then surely to thir capacity. They who after him first taught it, were otherwise unlearned men: they who before Hus and Luther first reformd it, were for the meanenes of thir condition called, the poor men of Lions: and in Flanders at this day, les gueus, which is to say, beggars. Therefor are the scriptures translated into every vulgar tongue, as being held in main matters of belief and salvation, plane and easy to the poorest: and such no less then thir teachers have the spirit to guide them in all truth, Jo • . 14. 26, & 16. 13. Hence we may conclude, if men be not all thir life time under a teacher to learn Logic, natural Philosophy, Ethics or Mathematics, which are more difficult, that certainly it is not necessary to the attainment of Christian knowledge that men should sit all thir life long at the feet of a pulpited divine; while he, a lollard indeed over his elbow-cushion, in almost the seventh part of 40. or 50. years teaches them scarce half the principles of religion; and his sheep ofttimes sit the while to as little purpose of benifiting as the sheep in thir pues at Smithfield; and for the most part by some Simony or other, bought and sold like them: or, if this comparison be too low, like those women, 1 Tim. 3. 7. ever learning and never attaining; yet not so much through thir own fault, as through the unskillful and immethodical teaching of thir pastor, teaching here and there at random out of this or that text as his ease or fancy, and ofttimes as his stealth guides him. Seeing then that Christian religion may be so easily attained, and by meanest capacities, it cannot be much difficult to find ways, both how the poor, yea all men may be soon taught what is to be known of Christianity, and they who teach them, recompenc'd. First, if ministers of thir own accord, who pretend that they are called and sent to preach the gospel, those especially who have no particular flock, would imitate our Savior 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 preached to the poor as well as to the rich, looking for no recompense but in heaven: John 4. 35, 36. Look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest: and he that reapeth, receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. This was their wages. But they will soon reply, we ourselves have not wherewithal; who shall bear the charges of our journey? To whom it may as soon be answered, 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 mainten • nce as they did, and yet intrude into the ministry without any livelihood of thir own, they cast themselves into a miserable hazard or temptation, and ofttimes into a more miserable necessity, either to starve, or to please thir paymasters rather them God: and give men just cause to suspect, that they came neither called 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 jorn • y and the hire of thir labor, it will belong next to the charity of richer congregations, where most commonly they abound with teachers, to send some of thir number to the villages round, as the apostles from Jerusalem sent Peter and John to the city 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 some 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 moderate number, out of the ablest and zealousest among them to create elders, who, exercising and requiring from themselves what they have learned (for no learning is retaind without constant exercise and methodical repetition) may teach and govern the rest: and so exhorted to continue faithful and steadfast, they may securely be committed to the providence of God and the guidance of his holy spirit, till God may offer some opportunity to visit them again and to confirm them: which when they have don, they have don as much as the apostles were wont to do in prop • gating the gospel, Acts 14. 23. And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they beleevd. And in the same chapter, Vers. 21, 22, When they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls 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 thorough Syria and Silicia, confirming the churches. To these I might add other helps, which we enjoy now, to make more easy the attainment of Christian religion by the meanest: the entire scripture translated into English with plenty of notes; and some where or other, I trust, may be found some wholesome body of divinity, as they call it, without school terms and metaphysical notions, which have obscured 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 edify one another whether in church or chapel, or, to save them the trudging of many miles thither, nearer home, though in a house or barn. For notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of some devoted still ignorantly to temples, we may be well assured that he who disdaind not to be laid in a manger, disdains not to be preached 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 maintain, 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 expense. Yet this expense 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 expense less or more, if it be found burdensome to the churches, they have in this land an easy remedy 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 public, 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 schools and competent libraries to those schools, where languages and arts may be taught free together, without the needles, unprofitable and inconvenient removing to another place. So all the land would be soon better civiliz'd, and they who are taught freely at the public cost, might have thir education given them on this condition, that therewith content, they should not gadd for preferment out of thir own country, but continue there thankful for what they received freely, bestowing it as freely on thir country, without soaring above the meannes wherein they were born. But how they shall live when they are thus bred and dismissd, will be still the sluggish objection. To which is answered, that those public foundations may be so instituted, as the youth therein 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 study 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 magnanimity 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 study of scripture (which is the only true theology) that they might be no burden to the church; and by the example of Christ, might cure both soul and body; through industry joining that to their ministry, which he joind to his by gift of the spirit. Thus relates Peter Gilles in his history 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 persuade 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 turned whore sitting on that beast in the Revelation, when under Pope Sylvester she received those temporal donations. So the forecited tractate of thir doctrine testifies. This also thir own traditions of that heavenly voice witnesd, and some 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 public lands of each city, whereby the people became liable to be oppressd with other taxes. Being therefor given for the most part by kings and other public persons, and so likeliest out of the public, and if without the people's consent, unjustly, however to public ends of much concernment to the good or evil of a commonwealth, and in that regard made public though given by private persons, or which is worse, given, as the clergy then persuaded 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 heinous crimes, what shall be found heretofore given by kings or princes out of the public, may justly by the magistrate be recalld and reappropriated to the civil revenue: what by private or public persons out of thir own, the price of blood or lust, or to some 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 compel it by law, can stand neither with the people's 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 mere ward, as always in minority, 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 body; which at length by such heterogeneal, such incestuous conjunction, transforms her ofttimes into a beast of many heads and many horns. For if the chu • 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 integrity, 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 ruled 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 churchrevenues, as they have been ever, so are like to continue endless matter of dissention both between the church and magistrate, and the churches among themselves, there will be found no better remedy to these evils, otherwise incurable, then by the incorruptest council of those Waldenses, our first reformers, to remove them as a pest, an apple of discord in the church, (for what else can be the effect of riches and the snare of monie in religion ▪) and to convert them to those more profitable uses above expressed or other such as shall be judgd most necessary; considering that the church of Christ was founded in poverty rather then in revenues, stood purest and prosperd best without them, received them unlawfully from them who both erroneously and unjustly, sometimes impiously, gave them, and so justly was ensnar'd and corrupted by them. And least it be thought that these revenues withdrawn and better imploid, the magistrate ought instead to settle by statute some maintenance of ministers, let this be considerd first, that it concerns every man's conscience to what religion he contributes; and that the civil magistrate is entrusted with civil rights only, not with conscience, which can have no deputy or representer of itself, but one of the same mind: next, that what each man gives to the minister, he gives either as to God, or as to his teacher; if as to God, no civil power can justly consecrate to religious uses any part either of civil revenue, which is the people's, and must save them from other taxes, or of any man's propriety, but God by special command, as he did by Moses, or the owner himself by voluntary intention and the persuasion of his giving it to God; forced consecrations out of another man's estate are no better then forced vows; hateful to God, who loves a cheerful giver; but much more hateful, wrung out of men's purses to maintain a disapprov'd ministry against thir conscience; however, unholy, infamous and dishonorable to his ministers and the free-gospel, maintaind in such unworthy manner as by violence and extortion: If he give it as to his teacher, what justice or equity compels him to pay for learning that religion which leaves freely to his choice whether he will learn it or no, whether of this teacher or another, and especially to pay for what he never learned, or approves not; whereby, besides the wound of his conscience, he becomes the less able to recompense his true teacher? Thus far hath been inquired by whom church-ministers ought to be maintaind; and hath been proved most natural, most equal and agreeable with scripture, to be by them who receive thir teaching; and by whom, if they be unable. Which ways well observd, can discourage none but hirelings, and will much lessen thir number in the church.

It remanes lastly to consider in what manner God hath ordained that recompense be given to ministers of the gospel: and by all scripture it will appear that he hath given it them not by civil law and freehold, as they claim, but by the benevolence and free gratitude of such as receive them: Luke 10. 7, 8. Eating and drinking such things as they give you. If they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. Matth. 10. 7, 8. As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of God is at hand, &c. Freely ye have received, freely give. If God have ordained ministers to preach freely, whether they receive recompense or not, then certainly he hath forbid both them to compel it, and others to compel it for them. But freely given, he accounts it as given to himself: Phillip. 4. 16, 17, 18. Ye sent once and again to my necessity. Not because I desire a gift; but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. Having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. Which cannot be from force or unwillingness. The same is said of alms, Heb. 13. 16. To do good and to communicate, forgett not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleasd. Whence the primitive church thought it no shame to receive all thir maintenance as the alms of thir auditors. Which they who defend tithes, as if it made for thir cause, when as it utterly confutes them, omit not to set down at large; proving to our hands out of Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and others, that the clergy livd at first upon the mere benevolence of thir hearers: who gave what they gave, not to the clergy, but to the church; out of which the clergy had thir portions given them in baskets; and were thence called sportularii, basket-clerks: that thir portion was a very mean allowance, only for a bare livelihood; according to those precepts of our Savior, Matth. 10. 7, &c the rest was distributed to the poor. They cite also out of Prosper, the disciple of St. Austin, that such of the clergy as had means of thir own, might not without sin partake of church-maintenance; not receiving thereby food which they abound with, but feeding on the sins of other men: that the holy ghost saith of such clergy men, they eat the sins of my people: and that a council at Antioch, in the year 340, suffered not either priest or bishop to live on church-maintenance without necessity. Thus far tithers themselves have contributed to thir own confutation, by confessing that the church livd primitively on alms. And I add, that about the year 359, Constantius the emperor having summond a general council of bishops to Ariminum in Italy, and provided for thir subsistence there, the British and French bishops judging it not decent to live on the public, chose rather to be at thir own charges. Three only out of Britain constraind through want, yet refusing offered assistance from the rest, accepted the emperor's provision; judging it more convenient to subsist by public then by private sustenance. Whence we may conclude, that bishops then in this Island had thir livelihood only from benevolence: in w ^ch regard this relater Sulpitius Severus, a good author of the same time, highly praises them. And the Waldenses, our fi • st reformers, both from the scripture and these primitive examples, maintaind those among them who bore the office of ministers, by alms only. Take thir very words from the history written of them in French, Part. 3. l. 2. c. 2. La nourriture & ce de quoy nous sommes couverts &c. Our food & clothing is sufficiently administerd & given to us by way of gratuity and alms, by the good people whom we teach. If then by alms and benevolence, not by legal force, not by tenure of freehold or copyhold: for alms, though just, cannot be compelld; and benevolence forced, is malevolence rather, violent and inconsistent with the gospel; and declares him no true minister thereof, but a rapacious hireling rather, who by force receiving it, eats the bread of violence and exaction, no holy or just livelihood, no not civilly counted honest; much less beseeming such a spiritual ministry. But, say they, our maintenance is our due, tithes the right of Christ, inseparable from the priest, nowhere repeald; if then, not otherwise to be had, by law to be recoverd: for though Paul were pleasd to forgo his due, and not to use his power, 1 Cor. 9. 12, yet he had a power, v. 4, and bound not others. I answer first, because I see them still so loath to unlearn thir decimal arithmetic, and still grasp thir tithes as inseparable from a priest, that ministers of the gospel are not priests; and therefor separated from tithes by thir own exclusion; being neither called priests in the new testament, nor of any order known in scripture: not of Melchizedek, proper to Christ only; not of Aaron, as they themselves will confess; and the third priesthood, only remaining, is common to all the faithful. But they are ministers of our high priest. True; but not of his priesthood, as the Levites were to Aaron: for he performs that whole office himself incommunicably. Yet tithes remane, say they, still unreleasd, the due of Christ; and to whom payable, but to his ministers? I say again, that no man can so understand them, unless Christ in some place or other so claim them. That example of Abram argues nothing but his voluntary act; honor once only don, but on what consideration, whether to a priest or to a king, whether due the honor, arbitrary that kind of honor or not, will after all contending be left still in mere conjecture: which must not be permitted in the claim of such a needy and suttle spiritual corporation pretending by divine right to the tenth of all other men's estates; nor can it be allowd by wise men or the verdit of common law. And the tenth part, though once declared holy, is declared now to be no holier then the other nine, by that command to Peter Act. 10. 15. 28: whereby all distinction of holy and unholy is removed from all things. Tithes therefor though claimd, and holy under the law, yet are now releasd and quitted both by that command to Peter, and by this to all ministers, abovecited Luke 10; eating and drinking such things as they give you: made holy now by thir free gift only. And therefor S. Paul, 1 Cor. 9. 4, asserts his power, indeed; but of what? not of tithes, but, to eat and drink such things as are given in reference to this command: which he calls not holy things or things of the gospel, as if the gospel had any consecrated things in answer to things of the temple, v. 13, but he calls them your carnal things, v. 11. without changing thir property. And what power had he? not the power of force but of conscience only, whereby he might lawfully and without scruple live on the gospel; receiving what was given him, as the recompense of his labor. For if Christ the master hath professed his kingdom to be not of this world, it suits not with that profession either in him or his ministers to claim temporal right from spiritual respects. He who resus'd to be the divider of an inheritance between two brethren, cannot approve his ministers by pretended right from him to be dividers of tenths and freeholds out of other men's possessions, making thereby the gospel but a cloak of carnal interest, and, to the contradiction of thir master, turning his heavenly kingdom into a kingdom of this world, a kingdom of force and rapin. To whom it will be one day thunderd more terribly then to Gehazi, for thus dishonoring a far greater master and his gospel, is this a time to receive monie and to receive garments and olive-yards and vinyards and sheep and oxen? The leprosy of Naaman linkd with that apostolic curse of perishing imprecated on Simon Magus, may be feared will cleave to such and to thir seed forever. So that when all is don, and belly hath used in vain all her cunning shifts, I doubt not but all true ministers, considering the demonstration of what hath been here proved, will be wise, and think it much more tolerable to hear, that no maintenance of ministers, whether tithes or any other, can be settl'd by statute; but must be given by them who receive instruction; and freely given, as God hath ordained. And indeed what can be a more honorable maintenance to them, then such whether alms or willing oblations as these, which being accounted both alike as given to God, the only acceptable sacrifices now remaining, must needs represent him who receives them much in the care of God and nearly related to him, when not by worldly force and constraint, but with religious awe and reverence, what is given to God, is given to him, and what to him, accounted as given to God. This would be well enough, say they; but how many will so give? I answer, as many, doubtless, as shall be well taught; as many as God shall so move. Why are ye so distrustful both of your own doctrine and of God's promises, fulfilld in the experience of those disciples first sent: Luke 22. 35. When I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, lackd ye anything? And they said, Nothing. How then came ours, or who sent them thus destitute, thus poor and empty both of purse and faith? Who style themselves ambassadors of Jesus Christ, and seem to be his tithegatherers, though an office of thir own setting up to his dishonor, his ex • cters, his publicans rather, not trusting that he will maintain them in thir embassy, unless they bind him to his promise by a statute law that we shall maintain them. Lay down for shame that magnific title, while ye seek maintenance from the people: it is not the manner of ambassadors to ask maintenance of them to whom they are sent. But he who is Lord of all things, hath so ordained: trust him then; he doubtless will command the people to make good his promises of maintenance more honorably unaskd, unrak'd for. This they know, this they preach, yet believe not: but think it as impossible without a statute law to live of the gospel, as if by those words they were bid go eat thir bibles, as Ezekiel and John did thir books; and such doctrines as these are as bitter to thir bellies: but will serve so much the better to discover hirelings, who can have nothing, though but in appearance, just and solid to answer for themselves against what hath been here spoken, unless perhaps this one remaning pretence, which we shall quickly see to be either falls or uningenuous. They pretend that thir education either at school or universitie hath been very chargeable; and therefor ought to be repar'd in future by a plentiful maintenance: whenas it is well known that the better half of them, and oft times poor and pitiful boys of no merit or promising hopes that might entitle them to the public provision but thir poverty and the unjust favor of friends, have had the most of thir breeding both at school and universitie by schollarships▪ exhibitions and fellowships at the public cost; which might engage them the rather to give freely, as they have freely received. Or if they have missd of these helps at the latter place, they have after two or three years left the cours of thir studies there, if they ever well began them, and undertaken, though furnishd with little else but ignorance, boldness and ambition, if with no worse vices, a chaplainship in some gentlemans house, to the frequent imbasing of his sons with illiterate and narrow principles. Or if they have livd there upon thir own, who knows not that seven years charge of living there, to them who fly not from the government of thir parents to the license of a universitie, but come seriously to study, 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, 'tis 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 learned (if they have indeed learned them, as they seldom have) to thir own benefit and accomplishment. But they will say, we had betaken us to some other trade or profession, had we not expected to find a better livelihood by the ministry. 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 ago out of date is that old true saying, 1 Tim. 31. if a man desire a bishopric, 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 Simony, 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 purchased 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 inform 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 ability 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 feared otherwise of perpetual want, but such a necessity as made him willing to preach the gospel gratis, and to embrace poverty rather then as a woe to fear it. 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set some in the church, first apostles, &c. Eph. 4. 11, &c. He gave some apostles, &c. For the perfeting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity 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 prophesy and the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. These are all the means which we read of required 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 nowhere 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 else and to how little purpose are all those piles of sermons, notes, and comments on all parts of the bible, bodies and marrows of divinity, besides all other sciences, in our English tongue; many of the same books which in Latin they. read at the universitie? And the small necessity of going thither to learn divinity, 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 divinity, 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 capacity of the people, but rather perplex and leaven pure doctrine with scholastical trash then enable any minister to the better 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 600 l, may be competently furnishd for 60 l. If any man for his own curiosity or delight be in books further expensive, that is not to be recknd as necessary to his ministerial either breeding or function. But Papists and other adversaries cannot be confuted without fathers and councils, immense volumes and of vast charges. I will show them therefor 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 persue them further through the obscure and intangld wood of antiquity, fathers and councils fighting one against another, is needles, endless, not requisite in a minister, and refused 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 public good store of libraries, and there will not want men in the church, who of thir own inclinations will become able in this kind against Papist or any other adversary. 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; wherein 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 school-divinity known, the idle sophistry 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 thereof at school; without fetching the compass of other arts and sciences, more then what they can well learn at secondary leisure 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 thir own ends, retain thir falls 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 doctrine 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 liberty, will pay none but such whom by thir committies 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 thir paymasters; and to seem right themselves, will force others as to the truth. But most of all they are to be reviled and shamed, who cry out with the distinct voice of notorious hirelings, that if ye settle not our maintenance by law, farewell the gospel: then which nothing can be utterd more falls, more ignominious, and, I may say, more blasphemous against our Savior; who hath promisd, without this condition, both his holy spirit and his own presence with his church to the worlds end: nothing more falls (unless with thir 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 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 allege, but the many hirelings and cheaters that have the gospel in thir 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 threaten for want of temporal means to desert it; calling that want of means, which is nothing else but the want of thir own faith; and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetous 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 remembering, 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 been passed by▪ Heretofore in the fi • st evangelic times (and it were happy for Christendom if it were so again) ministers of the gospel were by nothing else distinguishd from▪ other Christians but by thir spiritual knowledge and sanctity 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 Christianity. When once they affected to be called a clergy, and became as it were a peculiar tribe of levites, a party, a distinct order in the commonwealth, bred up for divines in babbling schools and fed at the public cost, good for nothing else but what was good for nothing, they soon grew idle: that idleness with fullness of bread begat pride and perpetual contention with thir feeders the despised laity, 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 publicly maintaind a numerous faction of indigent persons, crept for the most part out of extreme 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 employment, and enriching themselves on the public, they last of all prove common incendiaries, and exalt thir horns against the magistrate himself that maintains them, as the priest of Rome did soon after against his benefactor the emperor, and the presbyters of late in Scotland. Of which hireling crew together with all the mischiefs, dissensions, troubles, wars merely of their kindling, Christendom might soon rid herself and be happy, if Christians would but know thir own dignity, thir liberty, 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 called by thir own abilities and the church, though they never came near 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 clergy man, and to take it thence by scraps and mammocks as he dispences it in his sundays 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, as 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 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 happiness both in church and state. If I be not heard nor beleevd, the event will bear me witness to have spoken truth: and I in the mean while have borne my witness not out of season to the church and to my country.