Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A50954
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A supplement to Dr. Du Moulin, treating of the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the Church of England With a brief vindication of Mr. Rich. Baxter. By J.M.
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing M2180; ESTC R215557
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32,178
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27
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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
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 Baâ—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 Maâ—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