Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
rest_n	church_n	day_n	sabbath_n	3,395	5	9.4853	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

Christians had then also lands and might give out of them what they pleasd and yet of tithes then given we finde no mention And the first Christian emperors who did all things as bishops advis'd them suppli'd what was wanting to the clergy not out of tithes which were never motiond but out of thir own imperial revenues as is manifest in Eusebius Theodorit and Sozomen from Constantine to Arcadius Hence those ancientest reformed churches of the Waldenses if they rather continu'd not pure since the apostles deni'd that tithes were to be given or that they were ever given in the primitive church as appeers by an ancient tractate inserted in the Bohemian historie Thus far hath the church bin alwaies 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 fitted to the Jewes only a national church of many incomplete synagogues uniting the accomplishment of divine worship in one temple and the Levites there had thir tithes paid where they did thir bodilie 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 dioces or parish but consisting of many particular churches complete in themselves gatherd not by compulsion or the accident of dwelling nigh together but by free consent chusing both thir particular church and thir church-officers Wheras if tithes be set up all these Christian privileges will be disturbd and soone lost and with them Christian libertie The first autoritie which our adversaries bring after those fabulous apostolic canons which they dare not insist upon is a provincial councel held at Cullen where they voted tithes to be Gods rent in the year three hundred fifty six at the same time perhaps when the three kings reignd there and of like autoritie For to what purpose do they bring these trivial testimonies by which they might as well prove altars candles at noone and the greatest part of those superstitions fetchd from Paganism or Jewism which the Papist inveigl'd by this fond argument of antiquitie retains to this day to what purpose those decrees of I know not what bishops to a Parlament and people who have thrown out both bishops and altars and promisd all reformation by the word of God And that altars brought tithes hither as one corruption begott another is evident by one of those questions which the monk Austin propounded to the Pope Concerning those things which by offerings of the faithful came to the altar as Beda writes l. 1. c. 27. If then by these testimonies we must have tithes continu'd we must again have altars Of fathers by custom so calld they quote Ambrose Augustin and som other ceremonial doctors of the same leaven whose assertion without pertinent scripture no reformed church can admitt 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 introduc'd whereby thinking to gain all they lost all and instead of winning Jewes and Pagans to be Christians by too much condescending they turnd Christians into Jewes and Pagans To heap such unconvincing citations as these in religion wherof the scripture only is our rule argues not much learning nor judgment but the lost labor of much unprofitable reading And yet a late hot Quaerist for tithes whom ye may know by his wits lying ever beside him in the margent to be ever beside 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 Promooters They produce next the ancient constitutions of this land Saxon laws edicts of kings and thir counsels from Athelstan in the year nine hundred twenty eight that tithes by statute 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 law of tithes was enacted by those kings and barons upon the opinion they had of thir divine right as the very words import of Edward the Confessor in the close of that law For so blessed Austin preachd and taught meaning the monk who first brought the Romish religion into England from Gregory the Pope And by the way I add that by these laws imitating the law of Moses the third part 〈◊〉 tithes only was the priests due the other two were appointed for the poor and to adorne or repare churches as the canons of Ecbert and Elfric witnes Concil. Brit. If then these laws were founded upon the opinion of divine autoritie and that autoritie be found mistaken and erroneous as hath bin fully manifested it follows that these laws fall of themselves with thir fals foundation But with what face or conscience can they alleage Moses or these laws for tithes as they now enjoy or exact them wherof Moses ordains the owner as we heard before the stranger the fatherles and the widdow partakers with the Levite and these fathers which they cite and these though Romish rather then English laws allotted both to priest and bishop the third part only But these our Protestant these our new reformed English presbyterian divines against thir own cited authors and to the shame of thir pretended reformation would engross to themselves all tithes by statute and supported more by thir wilful obstinacie and desire of filthie lucre then by these both insufficient and impertinent autorities would perswade a Christian magistracie and parlament whom we trust God hath restor'd for a happier reformation to impose upon us a Judaical ceremonial law and yet from that law to be more irregular and unwarrantable more complying with a covetous clergie then any of those Popish kings and parlaments alleagd Another shift they have to plead that tithes may be moral as well as the sabbath a tenth of fruits as well as a seaventh of dayes I answer that the prelats who urge this argument have least reason to use it denying morality in the sabbath and therin better agreeing with reformed churches abroad then the rest of our divines As therefor the seaventh day is not moral but a convenient recourse of worship in fit season whether seaventh or other number so neither is the tenth of our goods but only a convenient subsistence morally due to ministers The last and lowest sort of thir arguments that men purchas'd not thir tithe with thir land and such like pettifoggerie I omitt as refuted sufficiently by others I omitt also thir violent and irreligious exactions related no less credibly thir seising of pots and pans from the poor who have as good right to tithes as they from som the very

without them receivd them unlawfully from them who both erroneously and unjustly somtimes impiously gave them and so justly was ensnar'd and corrupted by them And least it be thought that these revenues withdrawne and better imploid the magistrate ought in stead to settle by statute som maintenance of ministers let this be considerd first that it concerns every mans conscience to what religion he contributes and that the civil magistrate is intrusted with civil rights only not with conscience which can have no deputy or representer of it self but one of the same minde next that what each man gives to the minister he gives either as to God or as to his teacher if as to God no civil power can justly consecrate to religious uses any part either of civil revenue which is the peoples and must save them from other taxes or of any mans proprietie but God by special command as he did by Moses or the owner himself by voluntarie intention and the perswasion of his giving it to God forc'd consecrations out of another mans estate are no better then forc'd vowes hateful to God who loves a chearful giver but much more hateful wrung out of mens purses to maintaine a disapprov'd ministerie against thir conscience however unholy infamous and dishonorable to his ministers and the free-gospel maintaind in such unworthy manner as by violence and extortion If he give it as to his teacher what justice or equitie compells him to pay for learning that religion which leaves freely to his choise whether he will learn it or no whether of this teacher or another and especially to pay for what he never learnd or approves not whereby besides the wound of his conscience he becoms the less able to recompence his true teacher Thus far hath bin enquir'd by whom church-ministers ought to be maintaind and hath bin prov'd most natural most equal and agreeable with scripture to be by them who receive thir teaching and by whom if they be unable Which waies well observd can discourage none but hirelings and will much lessen thir number in the church It remanes lastly to consider in what manner God hath ordaind that recompence be given to ministers of the gospel and by all scripture it will appeer that he hath given it them not by civil law and freehold as they claim but by the benevolence and free gratitude of such as receive them Luke 10. 7 8. Eating and drinking such things as they give you If they receive you eate such things as are set before you Matth. 10. 7 8. As ye go preach saying The kingdome of God is at hand c. Freely ye have receivd freely give If God have ordaind ministers to preach freely whether they receive recompence or not then certainly he hath forbidd both them to compell it and others to compell it for them But freely given he accounts it as given to himself Phillip 4. 16 17 18. Ye sent once and again to my necessitie Not because I desire a gift but I desire fruit that may abound to your account Having receivd of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you an odour of sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God Which cannot be from force or unwillingnes The same is said of almes Heb. 13. 16. To do good and to communicate forgett not for with such sacrifices God is well pleasd Whence the primitive church thought it no shame to receive all thir maintenance as the almes of thir auditors Which they who defend tithes as if it made for thir cause when as it utterly confutes them omitt not to set down at large proving to our hands out of Origen Tertullian Cyprian and others that the clergie livd at first upon the meer benevolence of thir hearers who gave what they gave not to the clergie but to the church out of which the clergie had thir portions given them in baskets and were thence calld sportularii basket-clerks that thir portion was a very mean allowance only for a bare livelihood according to those precepts of our Saviour Matth. 10. 7 the rest was distributed to the poore They cite also out of Prosper the disciple of St. Austin that such of the clergie as had means of thir own might not without sin partake of church-maintenance not receiving thereby food which they abound with but feeding on the sins of other men that the holy ghost saith of such clergie men they eat the sins of my people and that a councel at Antioch in the year 340 sufferd not either priest or bishop to live on church-maintenance without necessitie Thus far tithers themselves have contributed to thir own confutation by confessing that the church livd primitively on almes And I add that about the year 359 Constantius the emperor having summond a general councel of bishops to Ariminum in Italie and provided for thir subsistence there the British and French bishops judging it not decent to live on the publick chose rather to be at thir own charges Three only out of Britain constraind through want yet refusing offerd assistance from the rest accepted the emperor's provision judging it more convenient to subsist by publick then by privat sustenance Whence we may conclude that bishops then in this Iland had thir livelihood only from benevolence in wch regard this relater Sulpitius Severus a good author of the same time highly praises them And the Waldenses our fi●st reformers both from the scripture and these primitive examples maintaind those among them who bore the office of ministers by almes only Take thir very words from the historie written of them in French Part. 3. l. 2. c. 2. La nourriture ce de quoy nous sommes couverts c. Our food cloathing is sufficiently administerd given to us by way of gratuitie and almes by the good people whom we teach If then by almes and benevolence not by legal force not by tenure of freehold or copyhold for almes though just cannot be compelld and benevolence forc'd is malevolence rather violent and inconsistent with the gospel and declares him no true minister therof 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 repeald if then not otherwise to be had by law to be recoverd for though Paul were pleasd to forgoe 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 thir decimal arithmetic and still grasp thir tithes as inseparable from a priest that ministers of the gospel are not priests and therefor separated from tithes by thir own exclusion being neither calld priests in the new testament nor of any order known in scripture not of