impossibility to remove them quite unless every Minister were as St. Paul contented to teach gratis but few such are to be found As therefore 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 therefore no endeavour that few 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 left dangerous Which will be likeliest effected if we consider first what recompence God hath ordained should be given to Ministers of the Church for that a recompence ought to be given them and may by them justly be received our Saviour himself from the very light of reason and of equity hath declar'd Luke 10. 7. The Labourer is worthy of his Hire next by whom and lastly in what manner What recompence ought to 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 tenth or twentieth but that the Law therefore of Tithes is in force under the Gospel all other Protestant Divines though equally concerned yet constantly deny For though Hire to the Labourer 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 Labour for which God ordained it That special Labour was the Levitical and Ceremonial Service of the Tabernacle Numb 18. 21. 31. wich is now abolished the right therefore of that special Hire must needs be withall abolished as being also ceremonial is plain not being given to the Levites till they had bin first offered a Heave-offering to the Lord ver 24. 28. He then who by that Law brings Tithes into the Gospel of necessity brings in withall a Sacrifice and an Altar without which Tithes by that Law were unsanctifi'd and polluted ver 32. and therefore never thought on in the first Christain times till Ceremonies Altars and Oblations by an ancienter corruption were brought back long before And yet the Iews ever since their Tample was destroyed though they have Rabbies and Teachers of their 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 Iews themselves never thought Tithes moral but ceremonial only That Christians therefore should take them up when Iews 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 their Tithes for their Labour only in the Tabernacle but in regard they were to have no other part nor inheritance in the Land ver 20 24. and by that means for a tenth lost a twelfth But our Levites undergoing no such Law of Deprievement 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 Beside this Tithes were of two sorts those of every year and those of every third year of the former every one 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 Oyl 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 forc'd to turn it into mony he was to bestow that mony on whatsoever pleased him Oxen Sheep Wine or strong Drink and to eat and drink thereof there before the Lord both he and his Houshould ver 24 25 26. As for the Tithes of every third year they were not only given to the Levite but to the Stranger the Fatherless and the Widow ver 28. 29. and 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 different constitution from this of our Ministers under the Gospel In them were Orders and Degrees both by Family Dignity and Office mainly distinguished 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 sin to them if they did not ver 32 Certainly this must needs put them to a deep demurre while the desire of holding fast their 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 Minesterial Degrees Presbyters and Deacons which if they contend to have any Succession Reference or Conformity with those two Degrees under the Law Priests and Levites it must needs be such whereby our Ministers may be answerable to Priests and our Deacons to Levites by which Ruâ—e of Proportion it will follow that we must pay our Tithes to the Deacons only and they only to their Ministers But if it 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 follow hence that we are now justly exempt from paying Tithes to any who claim from Aaron since that Preisthood is in us now Real which in him was but a shadow Seeing thâ—â— by all this which hath been shewn that the Law of Tithes is partly Ceremonial as the work was for the which they were given partly judicial not of common but of particular right to the Tribe of Levi
Labourer is worthy of his Hire c. And into what City soever 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 Saviour That the Labourer is worthy of his Hire and both by this place of Luke and that of Mar. 10. 9 10 11. it evidently appears that our Saviour ordained no certain maintainance for his Apostles or Ministers publickly or privately in house or City received but that what ever it were which might suffice to live on and this not commanded or proportioned 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 abilitie of him who gives as to the labour of him who receives and recommends him only as worthy not invests him with a Legal right And mark whereon he grounds this ordinance not on a perpetual right of Tithes from Melchisedec as Hirelings pretend which he never claimed either for himself or for his Ministers but one the plain and common equity of rewarding the Labourer worthy sometimes of single sometimes of double honour not proportionable by Tithes And the Apostle in this forecited chapter to the Corinthians ver 11 affirms it to be no great recompence if carnal things be reaped for spiritual sown but to mention Tithes neglects here the fittest occasion that could be offered him and leaves the rest free and undermined 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 appeared in practise 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 Altar 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 Iews and as it were be speaking our expectation that they will bound much more with autorities out of Christian Story â— have nothing of general approbation to begin with from the first three or four Ages but that which abundantly serves to the confutation of their Tithes while they confess that Church-men in those Ages lived meerly upon Free-will Offerings Neither can they say that Tithes were not then paid for want of Civil Magistrates to ordainthem for Christians had then also Lands and might give out of them what they pleas'd and yet of Tithes then given we find no mention And the first Christian Emperours who did all things as Bishops advis'd them suppli'd what was wanting to the Clergy not out of Tithes which were never motioned but out of their own Imperial Revenues as is manifest in Eusebius Theodoret and Sozomen from Constantine to Arcadius Hence those ancientest reformed Churches of the WALDENSES if they rather continued not pure since the Apostle deni'd that Tithes were to be given or that they were even 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 fited to the Iews only a National Church of many incomplete Synagogues uniting the accomplishment of Divine Worship in one Temple and the Levites there had their Tithes paid-where they did their Bodily work to which a particular Tribe was set apart by divine appointment not by the Peoples Election but the Christian Church is universal not ti'd to Nation Diocess or Parish but consisting of many particular Churches compleat in themselves gathered not by compulsion or the accident of dwelling nigh together but by free consent choosing both their particular Church and their Church-Officers Whereas if Tithes be set up all these Christian Priviledges will be disturbed and soon lost and with them Christian Liberty The first Autority which our Adversaries bring after those Fabulous Apostolio Canons which they dare not insist upon is a Provincial Councel held aâ— Cuâ—â—en where they voted Tithes to be Gods Râ—â—t in the year three hundred and fifty six at the same time perhaps when the three Kings reigned there and of like autority 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 fetched from Paganism or Iudâ—ism which the Papists inveigled by this fond Argument of Antiquity retain 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 promised all Reformation by the word of God And that Altars brought Tithes hither as one corruption begot another is evident by one of those Questions which the Monk Aâ—â—tin propounded to the Pope concerning those things which by Offerings of the Faithful came to the Altars as Beda writes l. â—â— 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 Augustin 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 every where pitifully mistaken they again incorporate the Gospel as did the rest also of those Titular Fathers perhaps an Age or two before them by many Rights and Ceremonies both Jewish and Heathenish introduâ—â—d whereby thinking to gain all they lost all and instead of winning Jews and Pagans to be Christians by too much condescending they turend 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 labour of much unprofitable reading and yet a late â—ot Querist for Tithes whom he may know by his wits lying ever beside him in the Margent to be ever besides 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 Promoters They produce next the ancient stitutions of this Land Saxon Laws Edicts of Kings and their Councels from Athelstan in the year nine hundred twenty eight that Tithes by tâ—te were paid and might produce from Ina above two hundred years before that Romescot or Peters-penny was by as good Statute Law paid to the Pope from seven hundred twenty five and almost as long continu'd And who knows not that this
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 their own confutation by confessing that the Church lived primitively on Alms. And I add that about the year 359 Constantius the Emperor having summoned a general Council of Bishops to Ariminum in Italy and provided for their subsistence there the British and French Bishops judging it not decent to live on the publick chose rather to be at their own charges Three only out of Britain constrained through want yet refusing offered assistance from the rest accepted the Emperors provision judging it more convenient to subsist by publick than by private sustenance Whence we may conclude that Bishops then in this Island had their Livelihood only from Benevolence in which regard this Relater Sulpitius Severus a good Author of the same time highly praises them And the WALDENSES our first Reformers both from the Scripture and these Primitive Examples maintain'd those among them who bore the Office of Ministers by Alms only Take their very words from the History written of them in French Part. 3. l. 2. c. 2. La nourriture ce de quoy nous sommes converts c. Our Food and Cloathing is sufficiently administred and given to us by way of Gratitude and Alms by the good People whom we teach If then by Alms and Benevolence not by Legal Force not by Tenure of Free-hold or Copy-hold for Alms though just cannot be compell'd and Benevolence forc'd 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 unseparable from the Priest no where repeal'd if then not otherwise to be had by Law to be recovered for though Paul were pleased to foregoe 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 their decimal Arithmetick and still grasp their Tithes as inseparable from a Priest that Ministers of the Gospel are not Priests and therefore separated from Tithes by their own exclusion being neither called Priests in the new Testament nor of any Order known in Scripture not of Melchisedec 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 remain say they still unreleased 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 Honour once only done 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 meer Conjecture which must not be permitted in the claim of such a needy and subtle spiritual corporation pretending by Divine Right to the Tenth of all other mens Estates nor can it be allowed by wise men or the Verdit of Common Law And the Tenth part though once declared holy is declar'd now to be no holier than 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 therefore though claimed and holy under the Law yet are now released and quitted both by that Command to Peter and by this to all Ministers abovecited Luke 10 eating and drinking 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 their 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 recompence 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 refused 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 mens possessions making thereby the Gospel but a Cloak of carnal interest and to the contradiction of their Master turning his heavenly Kingdom into a Kingdom of this world a Kingdom of force and rapin To whom it will be one day thundered more terribly than to Gehazi for thus dishonouring a far greater Master and his Gospel is this a time to receive money and to receive Garments and Olive-yards and Vineyards and Sheep and Oxen The leprosie of Naaman linked with that Apostolick Curse of perishing imprecated on Simon Magus may be feared will cleave to such and to their seed for ever So that when all is done 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 setled 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 honourable maintenance to them than 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 relating 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 distrastful both of your own Doctrine and of Gods Promises fulfilled in the experience of those Disciples first sent Luke 22. 35. When I sent you without Purse and Scrip and Shoes Lacked ye any thing and they said nothing How then came ours or who sent them thus destitute thus poor and empty both of Purse and Faith Who stile themselves Embassadors of Jesus Christ and seem to be his Tithe-gatherers though an Office of
the People but rather leaven pure Doctrine with Scholastical Trash than enable a Minister to the Preaching of the Gospel Whence we may also compute since they come to recknings the charges of his needful Library which though some shame not to value at 600â— may be competently furnished for 60. If any man for his own curiosity or delight be in Books further expensive that is not to be reckon'd as necessary to his Ministerial either Breeding or Function But Papists and other Adversaries cannot be confuted without Fathers and Councels immense Volumes and of vast charges I will shew them therefore a shorter and a better way of confutation Tit. 1. 9. Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and to convince Gain-sayers who are confuted as soon as heard bringing that which is either not in Scripture or against it To pursue them further through the obscure and intangled Word of Antiquity Fathers and Councels fighting one against another is needless endless not requisite in a Minister and refus'd by the first Reformers of our Religion And yet we may be confident if these things are thought needful let the State but erect in publick good Store of Libraries and there will not want Men in the Church who of their own inclinations will become able in this kind against Papist or any other Adversarie I have thus at large examined the usual pretences of Hirelings coloured over most commonly with the cause of Learning and Universities as if with Divines Learning stood and fell wherein for the most part their pittance is so small and to speak freely it were much better there were not one Divine in the Universitie no School-Divinitie known the Idle Sophastry of Monks the Canker of Religion and that they who intended to be Ministers were trained up in the Church only by the Scripture and in the Original Languages thereof at School without fetching the compass of other Arts and Sciences more than what they can well learn at Secondary Leasure and at home Neither speak I this in contempt of Learning or the Ministry but hating the common cheats of both hating that they who have preached out Bishops Prelates and Canonists should in what serves their own ends retain their false Opinions their Pharasaical Leaven their Avarice and closely their Ambition their Pluralities their Nonresidences their odious Fees and use their Legal and Popish Arguments for Tithes that Independents should take that Name as they may justly from the true Freedom of Christian Doctrine and Church Discipline subject to no Superior Judge but God only and seek to be Dependents on the Magistrate for their maintenance which two things Independence and State-Hire in Religion can never consist long or certainly together For Magistrates at one time or other not like these at present our Patrons of Christian Liberty will pay none but such whom by their Committees of Examination they find conformable to their Interest and Opinions and Hirelings will soon frame themselves to that Interest and those Opinions which they see best pleasing to their Pay-masters and to seem right themselves will force others as to the truth But most of all they are to be revil'd and sham'd who cry out with a distinct voice of Notorious Hirelings that if ye settle not our maintenance by Law farewell the Gospel then which nothing can be uttered more false more ignominious and I may say more blasphemous against our Saviour who hath promised without this condition both his holy Spirit and his own presence with his Church to the worlds end nothing more false unless with their own mouths they condemn themselves for the unworthiest and most mercenary of all other Ministers by the experience of 300 years after Christ and the Churches at this day in France Austria Polonia and other places witnessing the contrary under an adverse Magistrate not a favourable nothing more ignominious levelling or rather undervaluing Christ beneath Mahomet For if it be thus how can any Christian object it to a Turk that his Religion stands by force only and not justly fear from him this reply yours both by force and mony in the judgment of your own Preachers This is that which make Atheists sin in the Land whom they so much complain of not the want of maintenance or Preachers as they alleage but the many Hirelings and Cheaters that have the Gospel in their hands hands that still crave and are never satisfied Likely Ministers indeed to proclaim the Faith or to exhort our trust in God when they themselves will not trust him to provide for them in the message whereon they say he sent them but threaâ—en for want of temporal means to desert it calling that want of means which is nothing else but the want of their own faith and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetuous incredulity Doubtless if God only be he who gives Ministers to his Church till the worlds end and through the whole Gospel never sent us for Ministers to the Schools of Philosophy but rather bids us beware of such vain deceit Col. 2. 8. which the Primitive Church after two or three Ages not remembring brought her self quickly to confusion if all the Faithful be now 4 Holy and Royal Priesthood 1 Pet. 2. 5 9. not excluded from the Dispensation of things Holiest after free Election of the Church and imposition of hands there will not want Ministers elected out of all sorts and orders of men for the Gospel makes no difference from the Magistrate himself to the meanest Artificer if God evidently favour him with Spiritual Gifts as he can easily and oft hath done while those Batchelor Divines and Doctors of the Tippet have been pass'd by Heretofore in the first Evangelick times it were happy for Christendom if it were so again Ministers of the Gospel were by nothing else distinguished fâ—om other Christians but by their Knowledge and Sanctitie of Life for which the Church elected them to be her Teachers and Overseers though not thereby to seperate them from what ever calling she then found them following besides as the example of St. Paul declares and the first time of Christianity When once they affected to be called a Clergy and became as it were a peculiar Tribe of Levites a Party a dictinct order in the Common-wealth bred up for Divines in babling Schools and fed at the publick cost good for nothing else but what was good for nothing they soon grew idle that Idleness with fulness of Bread begat pride and perpetual contention with their Feeders the despis'd Laitie through all Ages ever since to the perverting of Religion and the disturbance of all Christendom And we may considently conclude it never will be otherwise while they are thus upheld undepending on the Church on which alone they anciently depended and are by they Magistrate publickly maintain'd a numerous Faction of indigent Persons crept for the most part out of extream want and bad nature claiming by divine Right and Freehold the tenth of our Estates to monopolize the Ministry as their peculiar which is free and open to all able Christians elected by any Church Under this pretence exempt from all other imployment and enriching themselves from the publick they last of all prove common Incendiaries and exalt their horns against the Magistrate himself that maintains them as the Priest or Rome did soon after against his Benefactor the Emperor and the late Presbyters in Scotland Of which Hireling Crew together with all the Mischiefs Dissentions Troubles Wars meerly of their kindling Christendom might soon rid her self and be happy if Christians would but know their own Dignitie their Libertie their Adoption and let it not be wondred if I say their Spiritual Priesthood whereby they have all equally access to any Ministerial Function whenever call'd by their own abilities and the Church though they never came near Commencement or Universitie But while Protestants to avoid the due Labour of undertaking their own Religion are oâ—tent to lodge it in the Breast or rather in the Books of a Clergy-man and to take it thence by Scraps and Mammocks as he dispences it in his Sundays â—dole they will be always learning and never knowing always Infants always either his Vassals as Lay-Papists are to their Priests or at odds with him Reformed Principles give them some light to be not wholly conformable whence infinite disturbances in the State as they do must needs follow Thus much I had to say and I suppose what may be enough to them who are not avaâ—â—ciously beâ—t otherwise touching the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church than which nothing can more conduce to truth to peace and all happiness both in Church and State If I be not heard nor believed the event will bear me witness to have spoken truth and I in the mean while have born my witness not out of season to the Church and to my Country FINIS