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A50954 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. Milton, John, 1608-1674. 1680 (1680) Wing M2180; ESTC R215557 32,178 27

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it seem'd just and reasonable The Pope took his reason rightly from the above cited place 1 Cor. 9. 11. But falsly suppos'd every one to be instructed by his Parish-Priest Whether this were then first so decreed or rather long before as may seem by the Laws of Edgar and Canute that Tithes where to be paid not to whom he would that paid them but to the Cathedral Church or the Parish Priest It imports not since the reason which they themselves bring built on a false Supposition becomes infirm and absurd that he should reap from me who sows not to me be the cause either his defect or my free choise 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 Scriptures shew in many places what ought to be done herein First I offer it to the Reason of any Man whether he think the Knowledg of Christian Religion harder than any other Art or Science to attain I suppose he will grant that it is far easier both of it self and in regard of Gods assisting Spirit not particularly promis'd us to the attainment of any other Knowledg but of this only since it was preached as well to the Shepherds of Bethleem by Angels as to the Eastern Wife Men by that Star and our Saviour declares himself anointed to preach the Gospel to the Poor Luke 4. 18. then surely to their capacitie They who after him first taught it were otherwise unlearned Men. They who before Hus and Luther first reformed it were for the meaness of their condition called the poor men of Lions and in Flanders at this day les gueus which is to say Beggars Therefore are the Scriptures translated into every vulgar Tongue as being held in main matters of Belief and Salvation plain and easie to the poorest and such no less than their Teachers have the Spirit to guide them in all Truth Ioh. 14. 26. and 16. 13. Hence we may conclude if Men be not all their 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 Knowledg that Men should sit all their Life long at the feet of a Pulpited Divine while he a Lollard indeed over his Elbow-Cushion in almost the seaventh part of 40. or 50. years teaches them scarce half the Principles of Religion and his Sheep oft-times sit the while to as little purpose of Benefitting as the Sheep in their Pues at Smithfield and for the most part by some Simonie or other bought a●d sold like them or if this comparison be too low like these women 1 Tim. 3. 7 ever learning and never attaining yet not so much through their won fault as through the unskilful and immethodical Teaching of their Pastor teaching here and there at random out of this or that Text as his ease or fansie and oft-times as his stealth guides him Seeing that Christian Religion may be so easily attain'd and by meanest capacitles it cannot be much difficult to find waies 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 their own accord who pretend that they are call'd and sent to preach the Gospel those especially who have no particular flock would imitate our Saviour and his Disciples who went preaching through the Villages not only through the Cities Mat. 9. 35. Mark 6. 6. Luke ●3 22. Acts 8. 25. and there preached to the Poor as well as to the Rich looking for no recompence but in Heaven Iohn 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 our selves have net wherewithall who shall bear the charges of our journey To whom it may as soon be answered that in likelihood they are not poorer than 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 their maintenance as they did and yet intrude into the Ministery without any livelihood of their own they cast themselves into a miserable hazard or temptation and oft-times into a miserable necessity either to starve or please their Master rather than God and give men just cause to suspect that they came neither call'd nor sent from above to preach the word but from below by the instinct of their own hunger to feed upon the Church Yet grant it needful to allow them both the charges of their journey and the hires of their labour it belong next unto the charity of richer Congregations where most commonly they abound with Teachers to s●nd some of their number to the Villages round as the Apostle from Ierusalem sent Peter and Iohn to the City and Villages of Samaria Acts. 8. 14 25. or as the Church at Ierusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch chap. 11. 22. and other Churches jonyning sent Luke to travel with Paul ● Cor. 8. 19. though whether they had their charges born by the Church or no it be not recorded If it be objected that this Itinerary Preaching will not serve to plant the Gospel in those places unless they who are sent abide there ●●me 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 〈◊〉 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 stedfast they may securely be committed to the providence of God and the guidance of his Holy Spirit till God may offer some opportunity to them again and to confirm them which when they have done they have done as much as the Apostles were wont to do in propogating the Gospel Acts 14 v. 3. And when they had ordained them Elders in every Church and praied with fasting they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed And in the same chapter ver 21. 22. When they had preached the Gospel to that City and had taught many they returned again to Lystra and to I●onium 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 ver 41. He went through Syria and Cilicia confirming the Churches To these I might add other helps which we enjoy now to make more easie the attainment of Christian Religion by the meanest the Entire
Scripture translated into English with plenty of Notes and some where or other I trust may be found some wholsome Body of Divinity as they call it without School-Terms and Metaphysical Notions which have obscur'd rather than explain'd our Religion and made it seem difficult without cause Thus taught once for all and thus now and then visited and confirmed in the most destitute and poorest places of the Land under the Government of their own Elders performing all Ministerial offices among them they may be trusted to meet and edifie one nother whether in Church or Chappel or to save them the trudging of many Miles thither nearer home though in a Houseor Ba●r For notwithstanding the gaudy superstition of some devoted still ignorantly to Temple we may be well assur'd that he who disdain'd not to be laid in a Ma●ger 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 than by the many years preaching of such an Incumbent I may say such an Incubus oft-times as will be meanly hired 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 expence Yet this expence would be much less then to hire Incumbents or rather Incumbrances for a Life-time and a great means which is the Subject of this Discourse to diminish Hirelings But be the expence less or more if it be found burdensome to the Churches they have in this Land an easie remedie in their 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 therefore once made publick appliable by the present Magistrate to such uses as the Church or solid Reason from whomsoever shall convince him to think best And those uses may be no doubt much rather than as Glebes and Augmentations are now bestowed 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 needless unprofitable and inconvenient removing to another place So all the Land would soon be better civili'zd and they who are taught freely at the publick cost might have their education given them on this condition that therewith content they should not gad for Preferment out of their own Country but continue there thankful for what they have received freely bestowing it as freely on their Country without soaring above the meanness wherein they were born But how they shall live when they are thus bred and dismis'd will be still the sluggish objection To which is answered that those Publick Foundations may be so instituted as therein may be at once brought up to a competence of Learning and to an honest Trade and the Hours of Teaching so ordered as their Studie may be no hindrance to their Labour or other Calling this was the Breeding of St. Paul though born of no mean Parents a Free Citizen of the Roman Empire so little did his Trade debase him that it rather enabled him to use that Magnanimitie of preaching the Gospel through Asia and Europe at his own charges Thus those Preachers among the Poor WALDENSES the Ancient Stock of our Reformation without these helps which I speak of bred up themselves in Trades and especially in Physick 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 Bodie through Industry joining that to their Ministry which he joyned to his by Gift of the Spirit Thus relates Peter Giles in his History of the WALDENSES in Piedmont But our Ministers think scorn to use a Trade and count it the Reproach of this Age that Trades-men preach the Gospel It were to be wished they were all Trades-men they could not then so many of them for want of another Trade make a Trade of their Preaching and yet they clamor that Trades-men Preach and yet they Preach while they themselves are the worst Trades-men of all As for Church-Endowments and Possessions I meet with none considerable before Constantine but the Houses and Gardens where they met and their places of Burial and I perswade me that from them the Ancient WALDENSES whom deservedly I cite so often held that to endow Churches is an evil thing and that the Church then fell off and turned Whore sitting on that Beast in the Revelation when under Pope Sylvester she received those Temporal Donations So the forecited Tractate of their Doctrine testifies This also their own Traditions of that Heavenly Voice witnes'd 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 Publick Lands of each City whereby the People became liable to be oppressed with other Taxes Being therefore given for the most part by Kings and other publick Persons and so likeliest out of the Publick and if without the Peoples consent unjustly however to publick ends of much concernment to the good or evil of a Commonwealth and in that regard made publick though given by private Persons or which is worse given as the Clergy then perswaded Men for their Soul's health a pious Gift but as the truth was oft-times a Bribe to God or Christ for Absolution as they were then taught from Murders Adulteries and other hainous Crimes what shall be found heretofore given by Kings or Princes out of the publick may justly by the Magistrate be recall'd and reappropriated to the Civil Revenue what by private or publick Persons out of their own the Price for Blood or Lust or to such Purgatorious and Superstitious Uses not only may but ought to be taken off from Christ as a foul dishonour 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 judged tending more to that end Thus did the Princes and Cities of Germany in the first Reformation and defended their 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 remains yet in his hand or establishing any other Maintenance instead of