Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	john_n	speak_v	spirit_n	4,082	5	5.6200	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85845	The case of ministers maintenance by tithes, (as in England,) plainly discussed in conscience and prudence. Humbly propounded to the consideration of those gentlemen of the committee, who are in consultation about it. / By John Gauden, D.D.	Gauden, John, 1605-1662.	1653 (1653)	Wing G344; Thomason E220_1; ESTC R3663	45,053	49

but onely regards what in prudence is by some men pretended for the better ordering and disposing of them 1. It is hard to meet with every thing objected as inconvenient in the way of Ministers maintenance by Tithes in England which are propounded according to the various opinions men have of themselves heightned by their passions and interests 2. Some complain of those Inconveniences which themselves make and the scandals which they lay in Ministers way by their injurious cavillings either deteining or denying what is many wayes their due Others cry out of those burthens and oppressions which themselves least feel and most impose on poor Ministers Every one imagineth as Empyricks do that a great amendment will follow if his advise bee followed Not remembring that remedyes partially and imprudently applyed prove worse then the disease 3. Many ears are open to hear the complaints made against Ministers and their maintenance few are willing to hear Ministers complaints against those that injure and oppress them In the first secret hope of saving or gaining opens mens ears in the second fear of cost and charges shuts them yea and it is oft a fourth damage to a Minister to seek to right himself by the Statute of treble damages 4. Not that in these things which are in the lower sphear of Prudence I presume to prejudg interpose or oppose your Counsels Gentlemen I know it is above my place and proportion No one man may put his private thoughts into the balance against many who advise or act as in a publick Sphear I only present to you both sides of those Vulgar fancies and specious proposals that you may see how counterfeit they are though they be so currant and highly cried up by those who take it ill if all mens sheaves do not bow down to theirs whose fundamentall error usually is to consider no mans thoughts but their own and not those very much to think those wayes most prudent which are most popular and most politick which are most profitable 1. First then I may assert with truth and justice against those that are given to change the whole form way of Ministers maintenance in England That to make alterations without just and valuable compensations so to shuffle and confound the change as thereby to make a prey and secular advantages by Ministers loss or lessening in their maintenance is but an unhandsome sharking upon the Church of Christ for it is not only the Minister and his family that are thereby damnified but the poor also and the whole Parish or Congregation Certainly all sacrilegious frauds and fetches with Ananias Act. 5.4 are but mockings of God lyings against the holy Ghost sordid cheatings of a mans own conscience for a little filthy Lucre A very mean and poor spirited project which will be pernicious to many worthy Ministers And is indeed every way unworthy and far below the wisdome munificence honor and piety of this Nation which hath been of old the liberal donor and faithful conservator of Gods and his Ministers portion for many hundred years By which Patrimony of Religion people had the spiritual as Ministers the temporal benefits 2. To alter Ministers maintenance although upon just and equivalent compensations yea and really to more conveniency for Ministers and people yet to do this without a fair hearing of all sides without and against the consent of those many learned and worthy men who are invested in the present right possession and use who are most neerly concerned in the business This I say will seem hard measure and is not like to give so general satisfaction men are prone to suspect and think themselves injured though you do them good if against their wills Supposing none can bee more faithful to their interests then themselves or such men at least to whose wisdome they dare commit the arbitration of their affairs 3. The grand project of men Super-politick and overwise is this Nothing will bee more prudent in order to publick Peace than to bring all Tithes and Church Revenues into a civil tenure To take the profits into a common purse or exchecquer from hence to dispense them in such convenient portions as shall be thought fit which Plot pretends at once to case Ministers of the truth to gather in or compound for their Tithes and will avoid all jangling suits and differences usually attending 1. This is indeed a very plausible pretension which some men so please themselves with that probably they have already layd out what place they shall get in this new Office But to look deeper into it I confess it is a project of very great Worldly policy but how Pious or Prudent it is we shall see It is indeed a very probable if not a necessary way to make Ministers eyes tongus hearts and hands dependent upon and servient to the will of any men that at any time obtain power and dominion It will be a means to make alwayes a necessitous ministry whose words will bee sure to bee smooth supple and conform to any thing that at any time power will command or bounty reward Mens greatest temptations lying in their stomacks are extreamely sharpned by fear of want and feeling any necessities What will not Jezebels proph●ts say or do that are daily fed at her Table By this means they that rule at any time will bee sure to have both swords Temporal and Spiritual at their command a double Souldery or Militia Secular and Ecclesiastical which last shall every week in every Parish one day at least be upon their guard and defence moving all men and persw●ding them to be obedient both for fear and for conscience This is the Wordly policy of this project 2. But then in the eye of true wisdome this way appeares fully to such as fear God and chuse rather to imitate his wise and holy example who would not have his Ministers of the old and no more of the new Testament to depend upon mens good will and pleasure for their wages and reward no nor to receive as Philo Iudaeus observs oblations and dues from the peoples hands who were to bring them into the house of God or the place he should chuse and leave them there lest the Priests as Gods more immediate servants should fall under the shameful and dishonourable burthens of flattery and servility but live as Gods free men who were to speak his word in his name whether men smiled or frowned whether they did hear or forbear Better a Minister of Christ feed as Micaiah on the bread and water of affliction or as the three Children on pulse or as Iohn Baptist on Locusts than they should betray by secular and sordid dependencies the honour of God the majesty of his truth the salvation of mens souls by selling either the truth or truth speaking with all ingenuous boldness and comely freedome for a morsell of bread or any greater gifts which blind the eyes of the wise and vassalate the of spirits the

beyond his desire and it was also formidable in the dreadfull sentence hee thundred against the sacrilegious parsimony lying and distrust of Ananias and Saphira Tithes need not to be urged or exacted then when Christians are forward beyond what they were able and in the midst of poverty abounded to a liberality But alas wee are now sunk to the dregs of time raked up and buried in the very ashes or embers of devotion All is become worse and more perilous by how much it drawes more of the later dayes when the charity of men shall grow cold iniquity abound when men shall be lovers of themselves of the World and Mammon more then of God Generally seeking their own profits and preferments and not the things of Jesus Christ and his Church when miserable forms of penurious Piety and sacrilegious sanctity shall eat out and deny the power of Godliness when men shall chuse to serve God in away that costs them nothing turning Godliness into gain when the Ministers of the Gospel the more learned holy able and faithfull they are are forced to hide their faces and are covered with that confusion both from poverty and reproach which some men delight to cast upon them The more beautiful their wings and feet are which shine with the beams of the Sun of righteousness his truth and his spirit the more they are forced to lie among the pots to bee levelled to and buried among the meanest of the people Having enough to do to preserve now their own eies from being pulled out by those unreasonable men ingrateful Ravens who neither regard the Mother which bare them nor the Father which begat them So that different minds and manners of Christians may will require different ways and setling of maintenance for Ministers The more covetous ingrate and inconstant people are the more needful it is and more required by God that competent and constant provision should in conscience be urged and in prudence established for his Ministers of the Gospel It was pious in primitive times for Christians to pay no Tithes when they failed not to give much more It is impious now not to pay Tithes when these are all that is settled or may be expected for maintenance and hardly this obtained restore pristine Liberality and Ministers shall gain by taking no Tithes 6. We find in all ages of the Church either in the intervals or cessations of persecution when peace prosperity and plenty had somewhat slackned as the Sun doth shining upon fire the warmth of piety that the devoutest Christians in all places not onely gave free-will offerings and oblations but even the Tenth or Tithes of their profits and and increase both personall and prediall out of which the Bishops and Presbyters the poor and other pious uses were maintained And this out of not onely custome and bounty but of conscience thankfulnesse and duty O●ig Hom. in Num. 11. Cypt. ep 66. J●ron in M●l 3. Aug. ser de Temp. as coming up to that proportion which they saw God of old required and to which in the New-Testament he referred them As Origen St. Cyprian St. Jeronimus Austin and others of the Ancients testifie Which Catholick conscienicous customes among Christians of paying Tithes to the Ministers of Christ came afterward to be setled by particular gifts or donations And at length in the abating of Christians fervour and bounty Tithes were established by Edicts Imperial Canons of Councels Ecclesiastical also by particular National Laws or Statutes in every country which included the donation consent and frewil of all Estates and degrees severally and jointly who were as Proprieters of Lands and Estates related to and included in any Christian Polity or community 7. To answer then that Question what Positive Right as from God or man have Ministers in England to their Tithes Answ There clearly appears without any violence to Scripture or reason a fivefold right which ministers of the Gospel in England justly plead to their maintenance by Tithes as here setled in England 1. That right of Natural Equity and grateful retribution which every man 's own conscience dictates which God who hath implanted it in them requires of them and which the Apostle by many instances in Souldiers Shepherds and husbandmen presses 1 Cor. 9.7 arising from the merit of Ministers labours in the Church of which God is the justest valuer by which they deserve to live of the Gospel so as becomes the Gospel i. e. the God and Saviour there set forth And so as must be answerable to what their Studies Pains and Places do require The Labourer hath Gods right to his wages which ought to be not what a Nabal will give but what his time care and pains in justice deserve The light of Nature taught all men to value the service of their Priests at an high and honorable rate None ever grew so mean and niggardly as some that pretend to be reformers but cannot tel where to six till al is wasted and deformed 2. Ministers of the Gospel have a Scriptural Right drawn from the will of God expresly ordaining as I have shewed a livelyhood in general and a power of partaking of other mens temporal good things And although the Lord in the Gospel hath not by renewed precept so expresly confined it to this particular proportion of Tenths by ●●●mes and in terms yet he hath expresly commended to Christians imitation the equity of the old Law referred them to the exemplary benignity of Gods love bounty and care toward his Ministers at the Altar to whom he assigned his own portion the Tenth binding Christians inclusively and relatively in Conscience yea leaving them without excuse in like cases if they do not estimate Ministers labours as highly or provide for them Even so as he hath ordained equivalent parallel or proportionate both in competency and constancy § For this is clear that the Lord hath given to Beleevers evident Rules of religious gratitude and Examples of holy retributions not according to mans good pleasure but Gods not as a benevolence of good will but as a retribution of righteousness and duty which are set forth 1. In the piety and devotion of the Patriarchs of old who no doubt had this measure of a Tenth to be offered to God from that traditional Theology which their Forefathers taught them by words and works as a beam of Gods wisdome who indulging to sinful man nine parts when indeed he had forfeited all reserved to his particular honour and service a tenth 2. We see the Lord challengeth this Tenth among the Jews as his own not only by right of creation and donation for so all is his but also by a peculiar and religious claim that man might testifie by paying a Tenth to the Lord that he owns and adores him as the giver of all and that by this Tenth portion men might have the benefit as God the honour of religious publike service 3. This portion or peculiar reserve of