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. LONDON Printed by T. N. for L. Chapman at the Crown in Popes-head Alley 1659. TO THE PARLAMENT OF THE commonwealth OF ENGLAND with the dominions therof OWing to your protection supream Senat this libertie of writing which I have us'd these 18 years on all occasions to assert the just rights and freedoms both of church and state and so far approv'd as to have bin trusted with the representment and defence of your actions to all Christendom against an adversarie of no mean repute to whom should I address what I still publish on the same argument but to you whose magnanimous councels first opend and unbound the age from a double bondage under prelatical and regal tyrannie above our own hopes heartning us to look up at last like men and Christians from the slavish dejection wherin from father to son we were bred up and taught and thereby deserving of these nations if they be not barbarously ingrateful to be acknowledgd next under God the authors and best patrons of religious and civil libertie that ever these Ilands brought forth The care and tuition of whose peace and safety after a short but scandalous night of interruption is now again by a new dawning of Gods miraculous providence among us revolvd upon your shoulders And to whom more appertain these considerations which I propound then to your selves and the debate before you though I trust of no difficultie yet at present of great expectation not whether ye will gratifie were it no more then so but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to religion and to this your returne or whether ye will satisfie which you never can the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable hirelings whose disaffection ye well know both to your selves and your resolutions That I though among many others in this common concernment interpose to your deliberations what my thoughts also are your own judgment and the success therof hath given me the confidence which requests but this that if I have prosperously God so favoring me defended the publick cause of this commonwealth to foreiners ye would not think the reason and abilitie wheron ye trusted once and repent not your whole reputation to the world either grown less by more maturitie and longer studie or less available in English then in another tongue but that if it suffic'd som years past to convince and satisfie the uningag'd of other nations in the justice of your doings though then held paradoxal it may as well suffice now against weaker opposition in matters except here in England with a spiritualtie of men devoted to thir temporal gain of no controversie els among Protestants Neither do I doubt seeing daily the acceptance which they finde who in thir petitions venture to bring advice also and new modells of a commonwealth but that you will interpret it much more the dutie of a Christian to offer what his conscience perswades him may be of moment to the freedom and better constituting of the church since it is a deed of highest charitie to help undeceive the people and a work worthiest your autoritie in all things els authors assertors and now recoverers of our libertie to deliver us the only people of all Protestants left still undeliverd from the oppressions of a Simonious decimating clergie who shame not against the judgment and practice of all other churches reformd to maintain though very weakly thir Popish and oft refuted positions not in a point of conscience wherin they might be blameles but in a point of covetousnes and unjust claim to other mens goods a conuention foul and odious in any man but most of all in ministers of the gospel in whom contention though for thir own right scarce is allowable Till which greevances be remov'd and religion set free from the monopolie of hirelings I dare affirme that no modell whatsoever of a common-wealth will prove succesful or undisturbd and so perswaded implore divine assistance on your pious councels and proceedings to unanimitie in this and all other truth John Milton CONSIDERATIONS touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church THe former treatise which leads in this begann with two things ever found working much mischief to the church of God and the advancement of truth force on the one side restraining and hire on the other side corrupting the teachers therof The latter of these is by much the more dangerous for under force though no thank to the forcers true religion oft-times best thrives and flourishes but the corruption of teachers most commonly the effect of hire is the very bane of truth in them who are so corrupted Of force not to be us'd in matters of religion I have already spoken and so stated matters of conscience and religion in faith and divine worship and so severd them from blasphemie and heresie the one being such properly as is despiteful the other such as stands not to the rule of Scripture and so both of them not matters of religion but rather against it that to them who will yet usâ— force this only choise can bâ— left whether they will force them to beleeve to whom it is not given from above being not forc'd thereto by any principle of the gospel which is now the only dispensation of God to all men or whether being Protestants they will punish in those things wherin the Protestant religion denies them to be judges either in themselves infallible or to the consciences of other men or whether lastly they think fit to punish error supposing they can be infallible that it is so being not wilful but conscientious and according to the best light of him who errs grounded on scripture which kinde of error all men religious or but only reasonable have thought worthier of pardon and the growth therof to be prevented by spiritual means and church-discipline not by civil laws and outward force since it is God only who gives as well to beleeve aright as to beleeve at all and by those means which he ordaind sufficiently in his church to the full execution of his divine purpose in the gospel It remanes now to speak of hire the other evil so mischeevous in religion wherof I promisd then to speak further when I should finde God disposing me and opportunity inviting Opportunity I finde now inviting and apprehend therin the concurrence of God disposing since the maintenance of church-ministers a thing not properly belonging to the magistrate and yet with such importunity call'd for and expected from him is at present under publick debate Wherin least any thing may happen to be determind and establishd prejudicial to the right and freedom of church or advantageous to such as may be found hirelings therin it will be
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 chuâ—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
should in what serves thir own ends retain thir fals opinions thir Pharisaical leaven thir avarice and closely thir ambition thir pluralities thir nonresidences thir odious fees and use thir legal and Popish arguments for tithes that Independents should take that name as they may justly from the true freedom of Christian doctrin and church-discipline subject to no superior judge but God only and seek to be Dependents on the magistrate for thir 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 libertie will pay none but such whom by thir committies of examination they find conformable to their interest and opinions and hirelings will soone frame themselves to that interest and those opinions which they see best pleasing to thir 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 the distinct voice of notorious hirelings that if ye settle not our maintenance by law farwell the gospel then which nothing can be utterd more fals more ignominious and I may say more blasphemous against our Saviour who hath promisd without this condition both his holy spirit and his own presence with his church to the worlds end nothing more fals unless with thir own mouths they condemne 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 advers magistrate not a favorable nothing more ignominious levelling or rather undervaluing Christ beneath Mahomet For if it must 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 monie in the judgment of your own preachers This is that which makes atheists 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 thir hands hands that still crave and are never satisfi'd 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 wheron they say he sent them but threaten for want of temporal means to desert it calling that want of means which is nothing els but the want of thir own faith and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetous incredulitie Doubtles 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 schooles of Philosophie but rather bids us beware of such vain deceit Col. 2. 8. which the primitive church after two or three ages not remembring brought herself quickly to confusion if all the faithful be now a holy and a 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 favor him with spiritual gifts as he can easily and oft hath don while those batchelor divines and doctors of the tippet have bin passd by Heretofore in the fiâ—st evangelic times and it were happy for Christendom if it were so again ministers of the gospel were by nothing els distinguishd from other Christians but by thir spiritual knowledge and sanctitie of life for which the church elected them to be her teachers and overseers though not thereby to separate them from whatever calling she then found them following besides as the example of S. Paul declares and the first times of Christianitie When once they affected to be calld a clergie and became as it were a peculiar tribe of levites a partie a distinct order in the commonwealth bred up for divines in babling schooles and fed at the publick cost good for nothing els but what was good for nothing they soone grew idle that idlenes with fulnes of bread begat pride and perpetual contention with thir feeders the despis'd laitie through all ages ever since to the perverting of religion and the disturbance of all Christendom And we may confidently conclude it never will be otherwise while they are thus upheld undepending on the church on which alone they anciently depended and are by the magistrate publickly maintaind a numerous faction of indigent persons crept for the most part out of extream want and bad nurture 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 inriching themselves on the publick they last of all prove common incendiaries and exalt thir horns against the magistrate himself that maintains them as the priest of Rome did soone after against his benefactor the emperor and the presbyters of late in Scotland Of which hireling crew together with all the mischiefs dissentions troubles warrs meerly of their kindling Christendom might soone rid herself and be happie if Christians would but know thir own dignitie thir libertie thir adoption and let it not be wonderd if I say thir spiritual priesthood whereby they have all equally access to any ministerial function whenever calld by thir own abilities and the church though they never came neer commencement or universitie But while Protestants to avoid the due labor of understanding thir own religion are content to lodge it in the breast or rather in the books of a clergie man and to take it thence by scraps and mammocks as he dispences it in his sundays dole they will be alwaies learning and never knowing alwaies infants alwaies either his vassals as lay-papists are to their priests or at odds with him as reformed principles give them som light to be not wholly conformable whence infinit disturbances in the state as they do must needs follow Thus much I had to say and I suppose what may be anough to them who are not avariciously bent otherwise touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church then which nothing can more conduce to truth to peace and all happines both in church and state If I be not heard nor beleevd the event will bear me witnes to have spoken truth and I in the mean while have borne my witnes not out of season to the church and to my countrey The end