and count it the reproach of this age, that tradesmen preach the gospel. It were to be wished they were all tradesmen ; they would not then so many of them, for want of another trade, make a trade of their preaching: and yet they clamour 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 their places of burial; and I persuade 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 turned whore, sitting on that beast in the Revelation, when under pope Sylvester she received those temporal donations." So the fore-cited tractate of their doctrine testifies. This also their own traditions of that heavenly voice witnessed, and some of the ancient fathers then living foresaw and deplored. 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 public lands of each city, whereby the people became liable to be oppressed with other taxes. Being therefore given for the most part by kings and other public persons, and so likeliest out of the public, and if without the people's consent, unjustly, however to public ends of much concernment, to the good or evil of a commonwealth, and in that regard made public though given by private persons, or, which is worse, given, as the clergy then persuaded men, for their souls' health, a pious gift; but as the truth was, ofttimes a bribe to God or to Christ for absolution, as they were then taught, from murders, adulteries, and other heinous crimes; what shall be found heretofore given by kings or princes out of the public, may justly by the magistrate be recalled and reappropriated to the civil revenue: what by private or public persons out of their own, the price of blood or lust, or to some such purgatorious and superstitious uses, not only may, but ought to be taken off from Christ, as a foul dishonour laid upon him, or not impiously given, nor in particular to any one, but in general to the church's good, may be converted to that use, which shall be judged tending more directly to that general end. Thus did the princes and cities of Germany in the first reformation; and defended their so doing by many

reasons, which are set down at large in Sleidan, lib. vi. anno 1526, and lib. xi. anno 1537, and lib. xiii. anno 1540. But that the magistrate either out of that church revenue which remains yet in his hand, or establishing any other maintenance instead of tithe, should take into his own power the stipendiary maintenance of church-ministers, or compel it by law, can stand neither with the people's right, nor with Christian liberty, but would suspend the church wholly upon the state, and turn her ministers into state pensioners. And for the magistrate in person of a nursing father to make the church his mere ward, as always in minority, the church to whom he ought as a magistrate, Isa. xlix. 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 conceived opinions, by mastering her revenue; and so by his examinant committees to circumscribe her free election of ministers, is neither just nor pious; no honour done to the church, but a plain dishonour and upon her whose only head is in heaven, yea, upon him, who is 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 body; which at length, by such heterogeneal, such incestuous conjunction, transforms her ofttimes into a beast of many heads and many horns. For if the church be of all societies the holiest on earth, and so to be reverenced by the magistrate; not to trust her with her own belief and integrity, and therefore not with the keeping, at least with the disposing, of what revenue should 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 ruled 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 been ever, so are like to continue endless matter of dissension both between the church and magistrate, and the churches among themselves, there will be found no better remedy to these evils, otherwise incurable, than by the incorruptest council of those Waldenses, or first reformers, to remove them as a pest, an apple of dis

cord in the church, (for what else can be the effect of riches, and the snare of money in religion?) and to convert them to those more profitable uses above expressed, or other such as shall be judged most necessary; considering that the church of Christ was founded in poverty rather than in revenues, stood purest and prospered best without them, received them unlawfully from them who both erroneously and unjustly, sometimes impiously, gave them, and so justly was ensnared and corrupted by them. And lest it be thought that, these revenues withdrawn and better employed, the magistrate ought instead to settle by statute some maintenance of ministers, let this be considered first, that it concerns every man's conscience to what religion he contributes; and that the civil magistrate is entrusted with civil rights only, not with conscience, which can have no deputy or representer of itself, but one of the same mind: 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 people's, and must save them from other taxes, or of any man's propriety, but God by special command, as he did by Moses, or the owner himself by voluntary intention and the persuasion of his giving it to God. Forced consecrations out of another man's estate are no better than forced vows, hateful to God," who loves a cheerful giver;" but much more hateful, wrung out of men's purses to maintain a disapproved ministry against their conscience; however unholy, infamous, and dishonourable to his ministers and the free gospel, maintained in such unworthy manner as by violence and extortion. If he give it as to his teacher, what justice or equity compels him to pay for learning that religion which leaves freely to his choice whether he will learn it or no, whether of this teacher or another, and especially to pay for what he never learned, or approves not; whereby, besides the wound of his conscience, he becomes the less able to recompense his true teacher? Thus far hath been inquired by whom church-ministers ought to be maintained, and hath been proved most natural, most equal and agreeable with scripture, to be by them who receive their teaching; and by whom, if they be unable. Which ways well observed can discourage none but hirelings, and will much lessen their number in the church.

It remains lastly to consider, in what manner God hath ordained that recompense be given to ministers of the gospel; and by all scripture it will appear, 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 x. 7,8," Eating and drinking such things as they gave you. If they receive you, eat such things as are set before you." Matt. x. 7, 8, "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of God is at hand, &c. Freely ye have received, freely give." If God have ordained ministers to preach freely, whether they receive recompense or not, then certainly he hath forbid both them to compel it, and others to compel it for them. But freely given, he accounts it as given to himself: Phil. iv. 16, 17, 18, "Ye sent once and again to my necessity: not because I desire a gift; but I desire fruit, that may abound to your account. Having received 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 unwillingness. The same is said of alms: Heb. xiii. 16, "To do good and to communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifice God is well pleased." Whence the primitive church thought it no shame to receive all their maintenance as the alms of their auditors. Which they who defend tithes, as if it made for their cause, whenas it utterly confutes them, omit not to set down at large; proving to our hands out of Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and others, that the clergy lived at first upon the mere benevolence of their hearers; who gave what they gave, not to the clergy, but to the church; out of which the clergy had their portions given them in baskets, and were thence called sportularii, basket-clerks that their portion was a very mean allowance, only for a bare livelihood; according to those precepts of our Saviour, Matt. x. 7, &c., the rest was distributed to the poor. They cite also out of Prosper, the disciple of St. Austin, that such of the clergy as had means of their 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 clergymen, they eat the sins of my people; and that a council at Antioch, in the year 340, suffered not either priest or bishop to live on church maintenance without necessity. Thus far tithers themselves have contributed to

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their own confutation, by confessing that the church lived primitively on alms. And I add, that about the year 359, Constantius the emperor having summoned a general council of bishops to Ariminium in Italy, and provided for their subsistence there, the British and French bishops judging it not decent to live on the public, chose rather to be at their own charges. Three only out of Britain, constrained through want, yet refusing offered assistance from the rest, accepted the emperor's provision; judging it more convenient to subsist by public than by private sustenance. Whence we may conclude, that bishops then in this island had their livelihood only from benevolence; in which regard this relater, Sulpitius Severus, a good author of the same time, highly praises them. And the Waldenses, our first reformers, both from the scripture and these primitive examples, maintained those among them who bore the office of ministers by alms only. Take their very words from the history written of them in French, part iii. lib. ii. chap. 2: "La nourriture et ce de quoy nous sommes couverts, &c. Our food and clothing is sufficiently administered and given to us by way of gratuity and alms, by the good people whom we teach." If then by alms and benevolence, not by legal force, not by tenure of freehold or copyhold: for alms, though just, cannot be compelled: and benevolence forced is malevolence rather, violent and inconsistent with the gospel; and declares him no true minister thereof, 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 repealed; if then, not otherwise to be had, by law to be recovered: for though Paul were pleased to forego his due, and not to use his power, 1 Cor. ix. 12, yet he had a power, ver. 4, and bound not others. I answer first, because I see them still so loath to unlearn their decimal arithmetic, and still grasp their tithes as inseparable from a priest, that ministers of the gospel are not priests; and therefore separated from tithes by their exclusion, being neither called priests in the New Testament, nor of any order known in scripture: not of Melchisedec, proper to Christ only; not of Aaron, as they them