CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE LIKELIEST MEANS TO RE- MOVE HIRELINGS OUT OF THE CHURCH. Wherein is also discoursed of Tithes, Church Fees, and Church Re- THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE; restored to the good of both Sexes, from the Bondage of Canon Law, and other Mistakes, to the true Meaning of Scripture in the Law and Gospel compared. Wherein also are set down the bad Consequences of abolishing, or condemning as Sin, that which the Law of God allows, and Christ abolished not. Now the second time revised and much 42 169 THE JUDGMENT OF MARTIN BUCER, CONCERNING DIVORCE: written to Edward the Sixth, in his Second Book of the Kingdom of Christ: and now Englished. Wherein a late Book, restoring "the Doctrine and Discipline of Di- vorce," is here confirmed and justified by the Authority of Martin Bucer. To the Parliament of England TETRACHORDON: Expositions upon the Four chief Places in Scripture which treat of Marriage, or Nullities in Marri- age. Wherein "the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," as was lately published, is confirmed by Explanation of Scrip- ture; by Testimony of ancient Fathers; of Civil Laws in the Primitive Church; of famousest Reformed Divines; and lastly, by an intended Act of the Parliament and Church of England in the last Year of Edward the Sixth . 315 COLASTERION : a Reply to a Nameless Answer against "the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." Wherein the trivial Author of that Answer is discovered, the Licenser con- ferred with, and the Opinion which they traduce defended. 434 A DECLARATION; or, Letters-Patents, for the Election of this present King of Poland, John the Third, elected on the 22nd of May last past, A.D. 1674. Containing the Reasons of this Election, the great Virtues and Merits of the said Serene Elect, his eminent Services in War, especially in his last great Victory against the Turks and Tartars, 479 . 487 TOUCHING THE LIKELIEST MEANS TO REMOVE HIRELINGS OUT OF THE CHURCH. WHEREIN IS ALSO DISCOURSED OF TITHES, CHURCH FEES, AND CHURCH-REVENUES ; AND WHETHER ANY MAINTENANCE OF MINISTERS CAN BE SETTLED BY LAW. [FIRST PUBLISHED 1659.] EDITOR'S FRELIMINARY REMARKS. FEW readers would perhaps expect the rare display of learning and logic which they will find in this treatise. Literature in Milton's days differed Authors would very much in character from the literature of our own. then seem to have thought it necessary to glance at least over all knowledge, and to be deeply versed in the particular subject of which they undertook to write; and the taste of the period often forced them upon investigations which we now look upon as peculiarly arid and unprofitable. However, that which relates to the wealth of the church and the payment of the clergy has still an interest for us all; for which reason it may be expected that this able and eloquent work will command some attention from our contemporaries. Fra Paolo Sarpi, in his "Trattato dille materie Beneficiarie," had gone over a part, at least, of the same ground, and put forward views a little less unpopular in Italy. Milton cared as little as the Venetian monk how his notions might be received by the public, provided they exercised the proper degree of influence over those who, as lawgivers, had to determine upon the matter under consideration. Selden had long before given great offence to the clergy, by his "History of Tithes;" so that Milton, whose views were still more extreme, could expect nothing but the roughest treatment; and he may be said to have met with it ever since: for his prose works are only now, after the lapse of two centuries, beginning to shake off the load of obloquy under which they have been undeservedly buried. That they will even yet have full justice done them, the taste of the present age forbids me to hope, though we are happily delivered from many of those prejudices, which, in the long interval between him and us, have contributed to keep them in obscurity. Dr. Symmons, with great candour and liberality, observes, "To the politician who contemplates in this country the advantages of a church establishment, and sees its union with the most perfect toleration; or to the philosopher who discovers in the weakness of human nature the necessity of present motives to awaken exertion and to stimulate attention; the plan recommended by our author would appear to be visionary or pernicious; and we should not hesitate to condemn it, if its practicability and its inoffensive consequence were not incontrovertibly established by the testimony of America. From Hudson's Bay, with the small interruption of Canada, to the Mississippi, this immense continent beholds the religion of Jesus, unconnected with the patronage of government, subsisting in independcnt, yet friendly communities, breathing that universal charity which constitutes its vital spirit, and offering, with its distinct yet blending tones, one grand combination of harmony to the ear of its Heavenly Father." VOL. III. B TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, WITH THE DOMINIONS THEREOF. OWING to your protection, supreme senate! this liberty of writing, which I have used these eighteen years on all occasions to assert the just rights and freedoms both of church and state, and so far approved, as to have been trusted with the representment and defence of your actions to all Christendom against an adversary of no mean repute; to whom should I address what I still publish on the same argument, but to you, whose magnanimous councils first opened and unbound the age from a double bondage under prelatical and regal tyranny; above our own hopes heartening us to look up at last, like men and Christians, from the slavish dejection, wherein from father to son we were bred up and taught; and thereby deserving of these nations, if they be not barbarously ingrateful, to be acknowledged, next under God; the authors and best patrons of religious and civil liberty, that ever these islands 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 God's miraculous providence among us, revolved upon your shoulders. And to whom more appertain these considerations, which I propound, than to yourselves, and the debate before you, though I trust of no difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to religion and to this your return, or whether ye will satisfy, which you never can, the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable hirelings, whose disaffection ye well know both to yourselves 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 thereof hath given me the confidence: which requests but this, that if I have prosperously, God so favouring me, defended the public cause of this commonwealth to foreigners, ye would not think the reason and ability, whereon ye trusted once (and repent not) your whole reputation to the world, either grown less by more maturity and longer study, or less available in English than in another tongue. but that if it sufficed some years past to convince |