fear from him this reply, yours both by force and money, in the judgment of your own preachers? This is that which makes atheifts in the land, whom they fo much complain of: not the want of maintenance, or preachers, as they allege, but the many hirelings and cheaters that have the gospel in their hands; hands that still crave, and are never fatisfied. Likely minifters indeed, to. proclaim the faith, or to exhort our trust in God, when they themfelves will not truft him to provide for them in the meffage whereon, they fay, he fent them; but threaten, for want of temporal means, to defert it; calling that want of means, which is nothing elfe but the want of their own faith; and would force us to pay the hire of building our faith to their covetous incredulity. Doubtless, if God only be he who gives minifters to his church till the world's end; and through the whole gospel never fent us for minifters to the fchools of philofophy, but rather bids us beware of such "vain deceit," Col. ii, 8, (which the primitive church, after two or three ages not remembering, brought herfelf quickly to confufion) if all the faithful be now a holy and a royal priefthood," 1 Pet. ii, 5, 9, not excluded from the difpenfation of things holieft, after free election of the church, and impofition of hands, there will not want minifters elected out of all forts and orders of men, for the gofpe! makes no difference from the magiftrate himself to the meaneft artificer, if God evidently favour him with spiritual gifts, as he can easily, and oft hath done, while thofe bachelor divines and doctors of the tippet have been paffed by. Heretofore in the firft evangelic times, (and it were happy for Christendom if it were fo again) minifters of the gofpel were by nothing elfe diftinguifhed from other chriftians, but by their fpiritual knowledge and fanctity of life, for which the church elected them to be her teachers and overfeers, though not thereby to feparate them from whatever calling the then found them following besides; as the example of St. Paul declares, and the firft times of christianity. When once they affected to be called a clergy, and became, as it were, a peculiar tribe of Levites, a party, a diftinct order in the commonwealth, 66 bred bred up for divines in babbling fchools, and fed at the public coft, good for nothing elte but what was good for nothing, they foon grew idle: that idleness, with fulness of bread, begat pride and perpetual contention with their feeders the defpifed laity, through all ages ever fince; to the perverting of religion, and the diftur bance of all Chriftendoin. And we may confidently conclude, it never will be otherwife while they are thus upheld undepending on the church, on which alone they anciently depended, and are by the magiftrate publicly maintained a numerous faction of indigent perfons, crept for the moft part out of extreme want and bad nurture, claiming by divine right and freehold the tenth of our eftates, to monopolize the miniftry as their peculiar, which is free and open to all able chriftians, elected by any church. Under this pretence exempt from all other employment, and enriching themfelves on the public, they laft of all prove common incendiaries, and exalt their horns against the magiftrate himself that maintains them, as the priest of Rome did foon after against his benefactor the emperor, and the prefbyters of late in Scotland. Of which hireling crew, together with all the mifchiefs, diffenfions, troubles, wars merely of their kindling, Chriftendom might foon rid herself and be happy, if chriftians would but know their own dignity, their liberty, their adoption, and let it not be wondered if I fay, their fpiritual priefthood, whereby they have all equally access to any minifterial function, whenever called by their own abilities, and the church, though they never came near commencement or univerfity. But while proteftants, to avoid the due labour of underftanding their own religion, are content to lodge it in the breaft, or rather in the books of a clergyman, and to take it thence by fcraps and mammocks, as he difpenfes it in his Sunday's dole; they will be always learning and never knowing; always infants; always either his vaffals, as lay papifts are to their priefts; or at odds with him, as reformed principles give them fome light to be not wholly conformable; whence infinite difturbances in the state, as they do, muft needs follow. Thus much I had to say; and, I fuppofe, what may be enough to them who CC 4 who are not avariciously bent otherwife, touching the likelieft means to remove hirelings out of the church; than which nothing can more conduce to truth, to peace and all happinefs both in church and state. If I be not heard nor believed, the event will bear me witness to have spoken truth; and I, in the mean while, have borne my witnefs, not out of feafon, to the church and to my country. A LETTER TO A FRIEND, CONCERNING The RUPTURES of the COMMONWEALTH, SIR, UPO Publifhed from the Manufcript. PON the fad and ferious difcourfe which we fell into laft night, concerning thefe dangerous ruptures of the Commonwealth, fcarce yet in her infancy, which cannot be without fome inward flaw in her bowels; I began to confider more intenfely thereon than hitherto I have been wont, refigning myself to the wifdom and care of those who had the government; and not finding that either God, or the public required more of me, than my prayers for thein that govern. And fince you have not only stirred up my thoughts, by acquainting me with the state of affairs, more inwardly than I knew before; but also have defired me to fet down my opinion thereof, trufting to your ingenuity, I fhall give you freely my apprehenfion, both of our prefent evils, and what expedients, if God in mercy regard us, may remove them. I will begin with telling you how I was overjoyed, when I heard that the army, under the working of God's holy fpirit, as I thought, and still hope well, had been fo far wrought to chriftian humility, and felf-denial, as to confefs in public their backfliding from the good old cause, and to how the fruits of their repentance, in the righteousness of their reftoring the old famous parlia ment, which they had without juft authority diffolved: I call it the famous parliament, though not the harmlefs, fince none well-affected, but will confefs, they have deferved much more of thefe nations, than they have undeferved. And I perfuade me, that God was pleased with their reftitution, figning it, as he did, with fuch a that fignal victory, when fo great a part of the nation were defperately conspired to call back again their Ægyptian bondage. So much the more it now amazes me, that they, whofe lips were yet fcarce clofed from giving thanks for that great deliverance, fhould be now relapfing, and fo foon again backfliding into the fame fault, which they ́confeffed to lately, and to folemnly' to God and the world, and more lately punished in thofe Chefhire rebels ; they fhould. now diffolve that parliament, which they themfelves re-eftablifhed, and acknowledged for their fupreme power in their other day's humble reprefentation : and all this, for no apparent caufe of public concernment to the church or commonwealth, but only for dif commiffioning nine great officers in the army; which had not been done, as is reported, but upon notice of their intentions against the parliament. I prefume not to give my cenfure on this action, not knowing, as yet I do not, the bottom of it. I fpeak only what it appears to us without doors, till better caufe be declared, and I am fure to all other nations moft illegal and fcandalous, I fear me barbarous, or rather fearce to be exampled among any barbarians, that a paid army fhould, for no other caufe, thus fubdue the fupreme power that fet them up. This, I fay, other nations will judge to the fad difhonour of that army, lately fo renowned for the civileft and beft ordered in the world, and by us here at home, for the most confcientious. Certainly, if the great officers and foldiers of the Holland, French, or Venetian forces, fhould thus fit in council, and write from garrifon to garrifon against their fuperiours, they might as eafily reduce the king of France, or duke of Venice, and put the United Provinces in like diforder and confufion. Why do they not, being moft of them held ignorant of true religion? because the light of nature, the laws of human fociety, the reverence of their magiftrates, covenants, engagements, loyalty, allegiance, keeps them in How grievous will it then be? how infamous to the true religion which we profefs? how difhonourable to the name of God, that his fear and the power of his knowledge in an army profeffing to be his, fhould not work that obedience, that fidelity to their fupreme ma giftrates, awe. |