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A23660 The danger of enthusiasm discovered in an epistle to the Quakers : in which 'tis endeavoured, to convince them of being guilty of changing God's method of bringing men to salvation / by one who is no more an enemy to their opinions, than their opinions are enemies to them themselves. Allen, William, d. 1686. 1674 (1674) Wing A1058; ESTC R13150 64,102 137

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Notion concerning your Way then thus represented is this or to this effect That God Christ the holy Spirit do by immediate Illumination of your minds and without external teaching by the Scriptures or by men shew you or reveal to you what you ought to believe and do and by their immediate motion or operation draw or perswade you to believe and practise accordingly Which Illumination or Operation you call The Light within or the Holy Anointing which teacheth all things This I take to be your sence when you say you own Scripture but not as your Teacher and that such have no need of the Scripture to teach them and that all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher And again that God's pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things and that the only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing That the Scriptures are so far from being the Rule of Faith and Practice as that the Light within is both your Warrant and Rule That the Spirit of Truth alone leads into all Truth And that the infallible Spirit of Christ gives Infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things This then is your Method and Way Now I will shew you what is God's Method and Way which is quite different from yours The Gospel plainly declares That there shall be a Resurrection of all men after Death and a State of everlasting weal or wo in another world and that as many as believe Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world and repent them of the evil they have done and sincerely obey his Laws shall by his Death which he suffered for sin receive Remission of sin and Eternal Life but that those that do not shall be punished with everlasting Destruction This Gospel this Doctrine being not knowable by men by any Natural Light in them without Divine Revelation from God Jesus Christ who came from the Bosom of the Father he revealed it himself to his Apostles and others by his Doctrine and after his Ascension into Heaven he by sending them the Holy Spirit immediately inspired them with a clear knowledge and understanding of it and so by the gift of speaking divers Languages accompanied with boldness and utterance enabled them to reveal and publish it to the world and to procure Credit to it by many Signs and Wonders which were done by them And ever since that God's way and method of bringing men to Salvation that live where the Gospel comes hath been by making known this Gospel to them by word or writing and so by the mighty Motives contained in it such as the Manifestation of God's Love in the Gift of Christ the Hopes of Eternal Life and the Fears of Eternal Death in concurrence with the Operation of his Grace and good Spirit together with the rational Evidence of the Truth of it to perswade men to believe and embrace it and to live according to it So that according to this Representation compared with that made of your Way God's Way and Method and yours greatly differ Yoū holding that the Holy Spirit directs and perswades men what to believe and do by his own immediate working without outward teaching whereas as we say he doth it by outward teaching It is God Christ the Holy Spirit that works the saving change in men but he doth it still by the Word of the Gospel as communicated to mens minds by the Scriptures or by mens teaching the same Doctrine which is contained in the Scriptures and it is this Doctrine that is the Rule of Faith and Practice And this I doubt not to make very plain to you in opposition to your way if you will not shut your eyes And this I shall endeavour gradually step by step in certain Propositions § 3. First In the Apostles days in which there was the greatest effusion of the Holy Spirit on them and other Christians that ever hath been yet even then God's way of bringing men to believe the Gospel and to live according to it was by publishing it to men by men either by Word or Writing and evidencing it to be from God The Apostles indeed had the Gospel from Christ himself immediately as he himself had it from the Father who gave him Commandment what he should say and what he should speak It at the first began to be spoken by the Lord himself and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him as 't is said Heb. 2. 4. But after Christ's Ascension others at the first received the Knowledge and Faith of the Gospel by the Ministry of the Apostles who were his Ambassadors to the world by them he made known his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth When our Saviour prayed for all other good Christians that should be in the World besides his Apostles he describes them thus viz. Such as should believe through their Word John 17. 20. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their Word And it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1. 21. And so Faith cometh by Hearing saith he Rom. 10. 17. By hearing of what and of whom Why by hearing the Gospel preached by such whom God sent to preach it of which mention is made in the precedent Verses The Doctrine which the Apostles preached which is the Gospel is said to be the Power of God to Salvation Rom. 1. 16. And the Reason is given in ver 17 18. Because thereby the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith That is God's method of justifying men upon condition of their believing and obeying of it and because thereby the eternal Wrath of God from Heaven is revealed against all Ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men This Revelation being from God and the things the Motives revealed being powerful Arguments to prevail with men to receive and obey the Gospel upon their doing of which they shall be saved thence it is that 't is called The Power of God to Salvation not excluding the concurrent Operation of God's Spirit upon the heart by it This being so your Leaders manifest a strange degree of Vnlearnedness in the things of the Gospel when they deny saving Grace to be wrought by the outward Administration of the Word or Teaching by man as they do when they attribute it to God alone as his immediate Work and all because the Scripture attributes it to God to Christ to the Holy Spirit Whereas nothing is more common than to attribute the same Effect sometimes to one Cause sometimes to another when there is the Concurrence and Co-operation of several Causes to the producing of the same Effect as there usually is in God's working savingly upon men As men are said in Scripture to be born of God to be born of the Spirit so
they are said to be born of the Immortal Seed of the Word 1 Pet. 1. 23. Because that is God's Instrument Of his own Will begat he us by the Word of Truth Jam. 1. 18. And the Gospel is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Sword of the Spirit as it is called because it is the great Instrument or Means by which the Spirit doth its Work upon men Indeed the Work of Grace in men is most properly attributed to God to Christ though other Causes concur to the producing of that Effect because he is the principal Cause of it and all other but subordinate and yet the Effect is sometimes attributed to subordinate and second Causes also though less properly Thus Christ the principal Cause of it is said to be The Light of the World the Light of men because he by his Gospel as the Author of it discovers and reveals to them a future everlasting Happiness attainable in another World and the way to it and yet the Gospel it self yea the Apostles and Pastors and Christian Professors are also said to be the Light of the world as subordinate Causes under Christ of the Illumination of men in the knowledge hereof Mat. 5. 14. 2 Cor. 4. 4. Phil. 2. 15 16. All which had you well considered you would never have opposed mens being enlightened and taught by Christ as ye do to their being taught by the Scriptures or by men and all because forsooth the Illumination of men is attributed to Christ This very thing here suggested to you would in great part reduce you and set you to rights if you could be but willing to receive and own that for truth which cannot without great absurdity and contradiction to the Scriptures be denied But for want of distinguishing between things and things which in some respect seem to be the same but in other respects greatly differ you run your selves into Error and great Absurdities I will upon this occasion instance in another thing not much unlike to that but now mentioned wherein you greatly mistake for want of distinguishing and that is touching the Presence of Christ in men For because the Scriptures speak of Christ's being in men and because Christ is God and God euery where present and so in all men from these thus jumbled together you infer that therefore Christ is in all men and that being so you farther infer that all men are taught by him himself immediately without external Teaching In doing of which you confound things together which are distinct to the darkning of them in your understandings and the misguiding you in Judgment You do not distinguish as you ought to do between the Essential Presence of Christ as God and his Virtual Presence as Mediator God-man For although Christ as God is present to every man in the exercise of common Providence in the world My Father worketh hitherto and I work saith he John 5. 17. yet in respect of his Virtual Presence as Mediator as when he rules and operates in mens hearts by his Authority and by the Evangelical Law in this sence which yet is doubtless the sence in which Christ is said in Scripture to be in men and to dwell in them I say in this sence he is not in all men For men are said to be without Christ until they are converted to Christianity Eph. 2. 12. And it is by Faith which only some and not all men have that Christ dwells in any mans heart Eph. 3. 17. It is by that Faith that his Authority in his Doctrine and Law is owned and where that 's sincerely owned there Christ is said to dwell Not that Christ as Mediator God-man dwells personally in men for in that sence and respect he dwells in Heaven and is at the right hand of the Majesty on high And therefore as Teacher of his Church he doth not teach men now immediately in person but by his Gospel which he sends to them by which he enlightens them in the way of Salvation Ye do therefore err not knowing or understanding the Scriptures while you attribute those effects to the Essential Presence and immediate operation of Christ in men which are wrought by him indeed but it is by the Instrumentality and Agency of second Causes the Gospel and the Ministration thereof by men I wish that by these Instances you could be made sensible of your great weakness in despising Distinctions as if they were but effects of Carnal Reason and Fleshly Wisdom for sith Words that are the same in sound are often used to signifie things of a different Nature and words different in sound to signifie things of the same Nature instances of which the Scripture abounds with they must of necessity be perpetually liable to Error and gross Mistakes that throw away distinctions as useless which is your own case in many other things besides these now instanced in Since then it was God's Method in the Apostles dayes to bring men to salvation by believing and obeying the Doctrine preached by them as I have shewed It is marvellous that any that pretend to know any thing in Christianity should deny this Doctrine to be the Rule of Faith and Christian Practice whenas that 's the very end and Reason of the promulgation of it to direct men what to believe and do that they might be saved and to excite them to believe and do accordingly When St. Paul saith Whereto we have attained let us walk by the same Rule doth he not by Rule mean the Apostles Doctrine whenas in the next words he proposeth himself that lived according to what he taught as an example for them to follow Phil. 3. 16 17. It was the great commendation of the primitive Christians that they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine Acts 2. 42. And St John said Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God And to transgress sure is to swerve from the Rule 2 John 9. This Doctrine of Christ is called the Gospel of the Kingdom Mat. 4. 23. and 9. 35. and 24. 14. For it is that Rule by which Christ our King doth rule and govern his Subjects both in Heart and Life as the Laws of the Land are the Rule according to which Earthly Kings do govern theirs The Sum and Substance of the Doctrine which the Apostles preached one as well as another and in one place as well as another is called The Form of Sound Words 2 Tim. 1 13. The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ Heb. 6. And this Form of Doctrine was delivered to the Christians to rule and govern themselves by Rom. 6. 17. But now have obeyed from the heart that Form of Doctrine which was delivered to you And it was so much a Rule to them that they were commanded to mark and avoid such as caused Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had learned Rom. 16. 17. And forbid to receive into their Houses such as brought not this
I fear had a bad influence upon and produced ill effects in some others as well as your selves who perhaps have not been yet carried so far out of the way by it as you have been Whereas those things that are absolutely necessary for men of all capacities to know believe and do in order to their Salvation are delivered in the Gospel with great plainness and easiness to be understood even of those of meanest capacities that have but a mind to understand them and will attend to them and consider them Who is so weak as not to understand it when it is declared to him that there was such a one as Jesus Christ and that he was declared to be one come from God and his Doctrine touching his being the Son of God and concerning all other things to be true by the wonderfulness of his Birth of a Virgin and the many and mighty miracles which he wrought and which were wrought by others in his Name and by his Resurrection from the dead Who is so weak as not to understand when it is declared to him upon good grounds that this Jesus was put to death not for his own but for our Sins and that he rose again from the dead the third day Who is so weak as not to understand when he hears it declared in the Gospel that forgiveness of Sins a glorious Resurrection and eternal Happiness in another World are promised to those that believe in him as such and that believe his Doctrine and sincerely obey it touching the necessity of Repentance consisting in amendment of Life proceeding from sorrow for Sin and in a sincere observing all his Precepts These are things that may be understood by every body that hears and considers them And yet these are the things revealed by the Gospel as necessary to be believed and done in order to salvation The reason why so many of those that hear the Gospel do not believe and obey it to the saving of their Souls is not because they cannot understand it but because they are not willing to obey it and so not willing to believe it or to consider it that they might believe it but chuse rather to please themselves in their evil ways for the present and so run the hazard for the future of the Gospels being true or not true or else flatter themselves with hopes that they do repent and obey the Gospel under vain and delusive notions of the nature of saving Repentance and Obedience And it is not congruous to the goodness of God's nature to think that when he hath been pleased out of his great compassion to lost men to make a New Covenant of Salvation upon terms suitable to that love and goodness of his to think I say that he should lay the stress of their Salvation upon terms not easie to be understood by all one as well as another that are concerned therein And therefore the greatest reason I conceive why some things in the Gospel are stiled a Mistery is because they were so till they were plainly revealed by Christ a great part of the things therein contained being such as no man by the highest improvement of reason could discover or apprehend till God in a supernatural way was pleased to reveal them Such was God's sending his Son to assume our Nature and to die for our Sins and the granting Remission of Sins and eternal Life for his sake to those that believe and obey the Gospel But when they are once revealed and by revelation made plain and easie to be understood by men of all capacities they are sure then no longer Mysteries to them unless they remain so through their own wilful neglect to understand them Agreeable to this is that of St. Paul Col. 1. 26. Speaking of the Gospel even saith he the Mystery which hath been hid from Ages and from Generations but now is made manifest to his Saints Eph. 1. 9. Having made known to us the Mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself So the calling of the Gentiles is called a Mystery not because it was hard to be understood when the thing was revealed by Christ's Commission to preach the Gospel to them and by preaching the Gospel had given them the Holy Spirit as he had to the believing Jews at the first but because this calling of them was little known or understood in the World till then God saith St. Paul by revelation made known to me the Mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the Sons of men as it is now revealed unto his Holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit that the Gentiles should be fellow-Heirs and of the same Body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel Eph. 3. 2 6. And so again Ver. 9. and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the Mystery which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God So that as the Gospel is called a Mystery as containing things in it which had been altogether a Mystery till they were revealed so it is called a Revelation of the Mystery by reason of its discovering that which was a Secret before Rom. 16. 25 26. The preaching of Jesus Christ according to the Revelation of the Mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith In all this I do not deny but that there are in the Gospel things very Mysterious and hard to be conceived as touching the manner of their existence as the Union of Christs two Natures and the Doctrine of the Trinity of Persons and Unity of Essence and some other things But it is not hard to understand that those things really are when God hath revealed and declared that they are though it is very hard or rather beyond our apprehension to know how and after what manner they are and to know and believe more than he hath plainly revealed is not doubtless necessary to mens Salvation and therefore men should be cautious of laying too great a stress upon their different apprehensions about them If you shall say if Evangelical Truths be made so perceptible by the plainness and fulness of the Revelation of them how comes it to pass then that there is such difference in mens opinions and so many controversies about them as there is I answer if the differences and controversies be about those things that are necessary to Salvation I have told you the reason already it is because men will not be satisfied nor acquiesce in that plainness in which such things are delivered in the Scriptures but still fancy there is some farther Mystery in them than indeed there is And when men take that liberty and think they do excellent well in it then one fancies he sees this hidden Mystery couched under truths plainly
of Evidence is not the less but rather much more rewardable than is obedience to it upon greater evidence John 20. 29. Jesus saith unto him Thomas because thou hast seen thou hast believed blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed It is not to be imagined but that the Apostles and Evangelists have expressed the Christian Doctrine and the Reasons why it should be believed in as plain terms when they wrote it as when they preached it They could hardly speak those great Doctrines touching the Essentials of Christianity plainer than they are communicated to us by their Writings yet how plain soever they spake them the very same things prejudice worldly interest and the love of T●ust which now detain men from obeying their Doctrine as communicated and transmitted down to us by their Writings did in like manner keep back Multitudes from yielding Obedience to their Doctrine then when they themselves preach'd it to them and wrought many Miracles to convince them that it was from God And as men then that had no mind to obey the Doctrine which Christ and the Apostles preach'd raised Cavils and pickt Quarrels against it Why do you not understand my speech even because ye cannot hear my Word said our Saviour to such John 8. 43. Even so at this day those Atheistical and loose men that have no mind to conform their Hearts and Lives to the holy Doctrine of Christ in the Scriptures raise Cavils and pick Quarrels against the Scriptures which are a standing Reproof to their bad Tempers and evil Lives which because they are so they seek by all means to invalidate them that they might the more securely and without disturbance from them hold on their ungodly course secretly or openly How far any that have led you the way may be concerned in such a thing as this I shall not say but sure I am it concerns both you and them to think on 't and so much the rather because 't is seldom if ever seen among other men but that those that are cold in their affection to the Scriptures are as cold to the power of Godliness or rather zealously hot against it And indeed I must needs say you bewray your cold affection to and your little and slight esteem of the holy Scriptures while you think you have ground pleasedly to call them the Dead Letter from that Saying of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 3. 6. Who hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit And to call those that preach from the Scriptures Ministers of the Letter Whereas that Expression is so far from serving your purpose herein as that if you understood it which alas you do not you would find it to cast a Glory and Honour upon the Scriptures of the New Testament and no disparagement at all upon those of the old upon any account of the matters therein contained as being written For the Doctrine of the Old Testament it self is not called the Letter because it is in Writing nor that of the New the Spirit because not in Writing but because the Subject-Matter of which the Mosaical Covenant did much consist and many of the things therein contained were but figurative and outward Representations of those excellent Spiritual things which in the Gospel are plainly and nakedly expressed without any such Vail or Cover For so the Apostle in the process of this his Discourse doth more plainly express it ver 12 13 14. We use great plainness of Speech and not as Moses which put a Vail over his Face so that the Children of Israel could not look or see to the end of that which is abolished Which Vail is done away in Christ that is in the Doctrine of Christ in the New Testament in which Doctrine Divine and Spiritual Truth is stripp'd out of its Cloathing and Covering and represented as it is in its own nature and not in dark figures And that this and not the Writing or not Writing is meant by Letter and Spirit will farther appear by comparing other Texts of Scripture with this Rom. 2. 29. Circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit and not in the Letter By Letter here is plainly meant Circumcision in the Flesh and by Spirit that which was couched under it or signified by it and that is the Circumcision of the Heart which in the New Testament is called Mortification or Purifying of the Heart or crucifying Affections and Lusts So again Rom. 7. 6. But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in Newness of Spirit and not in the Oldness of the Letter That is according to those plain Precepts of the Gospel which answer the Spirit and Scope of the Law and not in the outward Ceremony which were but figurative of them as in offering our Bodies a living Sacrifice instead of slain Beasts in cleansing our selves from the filthiness of the flesh instead of Legal Purifications by washing the Body in putting off the Body of the Sins of the Flesh and all evil Concupiscence and not in cutting off the Foreskin of the Flesh And those Ministers that preach this and other like Spiritual Doctriue out of or according to the Scriptures of the New Testament and not the Ceremonies of Moses they are Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit Which had you understood you would never have poured your spiteful contempt on them as you have by calling them Letter-Preachers I shall conclude what I have said in this Proposition to shew that the same regard is due to the Doctrine of the Apostles when written as now it is as when it was preached by them by remembring you of this one great Truth That every man shall be tried and judged at the last day by that Law he hath been under The Gentiles that are or have been without a written Law shall be judged without any such Law and the Jews which were under a written Law they shall be judged by it Rom. 2. 12. Even so those that are under the Gospel written will be judged by that as those that were under the immediate preaching of it by Christ and his Apostles before it was written will be judged by that He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him the Word that I have spoken the same shall judge him at the last day saith our Saviour John 12. 48. And if that be the Rule by which those shall be judged that have his Word made known to them be it by one means or by another then it greatly concerns all such to make ●hat Word of his the Rule of their Life and Practice as ever they hope to come off well upon their Trial at last whatever you talk of it s not being a Rule as it is a written Word And therefore beware lest then that come upon you and be said of you which is
Word taught and the Scriptures opened This appears all along the Acts of the Apostles In Chap. 2. when Peter had said ver 36. Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ and had further said unto them ver 38. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins then it s said ver 41. then they that gladly received his Word were baptized And Chap. 8. 12. But when they believed Philip Preaching the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ they were baptized And Chap. 11 13 14. Send men to Joppa and call for Simon whose sirname is Peter who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved Again Chap. 16. 31 3● 34. They said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house And they spake unto him the Word of the Lord and to all that were in his house and he rejoyced believing in God with all his House And Chap. 17. 2 3 4. And Paul as his manner was went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ And some of them believed ver 11 12. They received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so therefore many believed Again Chap. 18. 8. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized ver 28. and he mightily convinced the Jews and that publickly shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ And Chap. 26. 17 18. To whom now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light Also Chap. 28. 23 24. To whom he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God perswading them concerning Jesus both out of the Law of Moses and out of the Prophets from morning till evening and some believed the things which were spoken By all these instances you see or may see in what way and by what means God brought men to know Christ and to believe in him in the Apostles days under the highest Dispensation of Gospel-light as ever shined upon the World The Apostles Commission was to go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them Mat. 28. They in pursuance of this first taught the People to know and believe that Jesus was the Christ and that remission of sins was granted in his Name to such as believed repented and were baptized and then they afterwards instructed them in the particular duties of Holy living Nothing can be plainer than that this was the way and method which God pitcht upon and used in the Apostles days to bring men to the knowledge and belief of what was necessary to their Salvation And how you will satisfie the World or your selves either that God a few years ago not heard of till then hath altered his method and that now he reveals these things to men without any such teaching by the Scriptures and Ministry of men as in those times he constantly used to do I know not nor as I believe you neither But I pray you give an honest account to such as are unsatisfied for what reason it is that you are so zealous against teaching by men when you have but such thin pretences to support your selves in so doing Suppose your error were the truth and that God did by a light created in every man sufficiently teach them what they ought to believe and do pray you what hurt would accrue to men by having the same things imparted to them by men from without which they know and believe already by a light within When St. Peter had occasion to write to those that were already enlightened within though not in your pretended way he said unto them I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things though ye know them and be established in the present truth 2 Pet. 1 12. And St. John in his 1. Epist 2. 21. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth And do not you your selves grant that the Light within you witnesseth to that which is in the Scriptures and that the Scriptures are as a Coppie of it Why then are you so angry with them that teach the people from the Scriptures those truths which you say the light within you witnesseth to I would ye did not give too much occasion hereby to suspect your integrity when you make such sad out-cryes against the publick Ministry one as well as another without distinction as you are wont to do when-as you cannot but know if you know at all what they preach that they teach the same Doctrine in the main to the people which the Apostles taught and which is declared in the Scriptures and so the same which you say the Light within you witnesseth to And also that they teach the Peopel that it is not the hearing of this Doctrine preached to them no nor yet the knowledge of it neither will avail them to their Salvation without receiving it into their hearts or without such a belief of it as issues it self in a frame of Spirit and tenour of Life and conversation as is suitable to it And if you know not this and yet speak evil of them for their preaching as surmising worse you then make your selves of the number of those ill men which Peter and Jude describe who spake evil of the things they know not 2. Pet. 2. 12. Jude 10. Besides you apparently discover a very ill mind while you seek to make them odious to the people by that which doth not at all make them so save only in the opinion of those whose minds are corrupted with prejudice against all teachers of Holy things as such or with Covetousness or Interest of a party and that is their taking mony of the people wherewith to support themselves and Families in serving them in the dear concernments of their souls And therefore you stile them hirelings such as preach for hire and make a trade of it and so make merchandize of mens souls Not considering that in doing thus you reproach the wisdome of our Lord who hath ordained that those that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel 1. Cor. 9. 14. and hath said in reference hereto that the Labourer is worthy of his hire Luke 10. 7. and that such as labour in the Word and Doctrine are worthy of double honour 1. Tim. 5. 17. that those that are taught in the Word should communicate to him that teacheth in all good things Gal. 6. 6. And St. Paul