Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	age_n	church_n	tradition_n	3,033	5	9.4226	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50892	Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church wherein is also discourc'd of tithes, church-fees, church-revenues, and whether any maintenance of ministers can be settl'd by law / the author J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1659 (1659)	Wing M2101; ESTC R12931	33,775	176

the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree is the Lords holy unto the Lord Levit. 27. 30. And this before it was given to the Levites therefor since they ceasd No question For the whole earth is the Lords and the fulnes therof Psal. 24. 1 and the light of nature shews 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 appeers and passes by deed of gift this tenth to the Levite yet so as offerd 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 an other cleer and express donation wherof they shew no evidence or writing Besides he hath now alienated that holy land who can warrantably affirme 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 Saviour denouncing woe to the Scribes and Pharises who paid tithe so exactly and omitted waightier matters tels them that these they ought to have don that is to have paid tithes For our Saviour 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 Pharises 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 Pharises in those worst times then ours at this day This is so apparent to the reformed divines of other countreys that when any one of ours hath attempted in Latine 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 doctrin not fit to pass unoppos'd under the gospel Which shews the modestie the contentednes of those forein pastors with the maintenance given them thir sinceritie 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 prov'd 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 equitie 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 ordaind 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 cleer 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 indefinit and free so it be sufficient to live on he saith The Lord hath so ordaind 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 ordaind we may finde 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 citie 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 referrs us both here and 1 Tim. 5. 18 where he cites this as the saying of our Saviour 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 appeers that our Saviour ordaind no certain maintenance for his apostles or ministers publickly or privatly in house or citie receivd 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 declar'd only by a rule of common equitie which proportions the hire as well to the abilitie 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 wheron he grounds this his ordinance not on a perpetual right of tithes from Melchisedec as hirelings pretend which he never claimd either for himself or for his ministers but on the plane and common equitie of rewarding the laborer worthy somtimes of single somtimes 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 recompence if carnal things be reapd for spiritual sown but to mention tithes neglects here the fittest occasion that could be offerd him and leaves the rest free and undetermind Certainly if Christ or his apostles had approv'd of tithes they would have either by writing or tradition recommended them to the church and that soone would have appeerd in the practise of those primitive and the next ages But for the first three hundred years and more in all the ecclesiastical storie I finde no such doctrin 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 Jewes and as it were bespeaking our expectation that they will abound much more with autorities out of Christian storie 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 meerly upon freewill offerings Neither can they say that tithes were not then paid for want of a civil magistrate to ordain them for

So all the land would be soone better civiliz'd and they who are taught freely at the publick cost might have thir education given them on this condition that therewith content they should not gadd for preferment out of thir own countrey but continue there thankful for what they receivd freely bestowing it as freely on thir countrey without soaring above the meannes wherin they were born But how they shall live when they are thus bred and dismissd will be still the sluggish objection To which is answerd that those publick foundations may be so instituted as the youth therin may be at once brought up to a competence of learning and to an honest trade and the hours of teaching so orderd as thir studie may be no hindrance to thir labor or other calling This was the breeding of S. Paul though born of no mean parents a free citizen of the Roman empire so little did his trade debase him that it rather enabld him to use that magnanimitie of preaching the gospel through Asia and Europe at his own charges thus those preachers among the poor Waldenses the ancient stock of our reformation without these helps which I speak of bred up themselves in trades and especially in physic and surgery as well as in the studie of scripture which is the only true theologie that they might be no burden to the church and by the example of Christ might cure both soul and bodie through industry joining that to their ministerie which he joind to his by gift of the spirit Thus relates Peter Gilles in his historie of the Waldenses in Piemont But our ministers think scorn to use a trade and count it the reproach of this age that tradesmen preach the gospel It were to be wishd they were all tradesmen they would not then so many of them for want of another trade make a trade of thir preaching and yet they clamor that tradesmen preach and yet they preach while they themselves are the worst tradesmen of all As for church-endowments and possessions I meet with none considerable before Constantine but the houses and gardens where they met and thir places of burial and I perswade me that from them the ancient Waldenses whom deservedly I cite so often held that to endow churches is an evil thing and that the church then fell off and turnd whore sitting on that beast in the Revelation when under Pope Sylvester she receivd those temporal donations So the forecited tractate of thir doctrin testifies This also thir own traditions of that heavenly voice witnesd and som of the ancient fathers then living foresaw and deplor'd And indeed how could these endowments thrive better with the church being unjustly taken by those emperors without suffrage of the people out of the tributes and publick lands of each citie whereby the people became liable to be oppressd with other taxes Being therefor given for the most part by kings and other publick persons and so likeliest out of the publick and if without the peoples consent unjustly however to publick ends of much concernment to the good or evil of a common-wealth and in that regard made publick though given by privat persons or which is worse given as the clergie then perswaded men for thir soul's health a pious gift but as the truth was oft times a bribe to God or to Christ for absolution as they were then taught from murders adulteries and other hainous crimes what shall be found heretofore given by kings or princes out of the publick may justly by the magistrate be recalld and reappropriated to the civil revenue what by privat or publick persons out of thir own the price of blood or lust or to som such purgatorious and superstitious uses not only may but ought to be taken off from Christ as a foul dishonor laid upon him or not impiously given nor in particular to any one but in general to the churches good may be converted to that use which shall be judgd tending more directly to that general end Thus did the princes and cities of Germany in the first reformation and defended thir so doing by many reasons which are set down at large in Sleidan l. 6 an. 1526 and l. 11 an. 1537 and l. 13 an. 1540. But that the magistrate either out of that church revenue which remanes yet in his hand or establishing any other maintenance instead of tithe should take into his own power the stipendiarie maintenance of church-ministers or compell it by law can stand neither with the peoples right nor with Christian liberty but would suspend the church wholly upon the state and turn her ministers into statepensioners And for the magistrate in person of a nursing father to make the church his meer ward as alwaies in minoritie the church to whom he ought as a magistrate Esa. 49. 23 To bow down with his face toward the earth and lick up the dust of her feet her to subject to his political drifts or conceivd opinions by mastring her revenue and so by his examinant committies to circumscribe her free election of ministers is neither just nor pious no honor don to to the church but a plane dishonor and upon her whose only head is in heaven yea upon him who is her only head sets another in effect and which is most monstrous a human on a heavenly a carnal on a spiritual a political head on an ecclesiastical bodie which at length by such heterogeneal such incestuous conjunction transformes her oft-times into a beast of many heads and many horns For if the 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 integritie and therefor not with the keeping at least with the disposing of what revenue shall be found justly and lawfully her own is to count the church not a holy congregation but a pack of giddy or dishonest persons to be rul'd by civil power in sacred affairs But to proceed further in the truth yet more freely seeing the Christian church is not national but consisting of many particular congregations subject to many changes as well through civil accidents as through schism and various opinions not to be decided by any outward judge being matters of conscience whereby these pretended church-revenues as they have bin ever so are like to continue endles matter of dissention both between the church and magistrate and the churches among themselves there will be found no better remedie to these evils otherwise incurable then by the incorruptest councel of those Waldenses our first reformers to remove them as a pest an apple of discord in the church for what els can be the effect of riches and the snare of monie in religion and to convert them to those more profitable uses above expressd or other such as shall be judgd most necessarie considering that the church of Christ was founded in poverty rather then in revenues stood purest and prosperd best