to gather churches, that God’s people in this country may be called,
converted from anti-christian idols, to the true worship of God in the
true church estate and ordinances, will it not follow that in all other
countries of the world God’s elect must or may be so converted from their
several respective false worships and idolatries, and brought into the
true Christian church estate without such a ministry sent unto them? Or
are there two ways appointed by the Lord Jesus, one for this country,
and another for the rest of the world? Or lastly, if two or three more,
without a ministry, shall arise up, become a church, make ministers,
&c., I ask, whether those two or three, or more, must not be accounted
immediately and extraordinarily stirred up by God? and whether this be
that supreme power of Christ Jesus, which they speak of, sending forth
two or three private persons to make a church and ministers, without a
true ministry of Christ Jesus first sent unto themselves? Is this that
commission, which all ministers pretend unto, Matt. xxviii. 19, &c.
first, in the hands of two or three private persons becoming a church,
without a mediate call from which church, say they, there can be no true
ministry, and yet also confess that Christ sendeth forth to preach by
his supreme power, and the magistrate by his power subordinate to gather
churches?
CHAP. CIV.
_Peace._ You have taken great pains to show the irreconcilableness of
those their two assertions, viz., First, there is now no ministry, as
they say, but what is mediate from the church; and yet, secondly, Christ
Jesus sends preachers forth by his supreme power to gather the church. I
now wait to hear, how, as they say, “the magistrate may send forth by his
power subordinate to gather churches, enforcing the people to hear,” &c.
[Sidenote: The civil magistrate not betrusted with gathering of churches.]
_Truth._ If there be a ministry sent forth by Christ’s supreme power, and
a ministry sent forth by the magistrate’s subordinate power, to gather
churches—I ask, what is the difference between these two? Is there any
gathering of churches but by that commission, Matt. xxviii. Teach and
baptize? And is the civil magistrate entrusted with a power from Christ,
as his deputy, to give this commission, and so to send out ministers to
preach and baptize?
[Sidenote: If the magistrate, then much more the people of the world,
from whom the magistrates receive their power.]
As there is nothing in the Testament of Christ concerning such a
delegation or assignment of such power of Christ to the civil magistrate:
so I also ask, since in every free state civil magistrates have no power
but what the peoples of those states, lands, and countries betrust them
with, whether or no, by this means, it must not follow, that Christ
Jesus hath left with the peoples and nations of the world his spiritual
kingly power to grant commissions, and send out ministers to themselves,
to preach, convert, and baptize themselves? How inevitably this follows
upon their conclusion of power in magistrates to send, &c., and what
unchristian and unreasonable consequences must flow from hence, let all
consider in the fear of God.
[Sidenote: Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii.) a figure of Christ Jesus in his
church, not of the civil magistrate in the state.]
Jehoshaphat’s sending forth the Levites to teach in Judah, &c., as they
allege it not, so elsewhere it shall more fully appear to be a type
and figure of Christ Jesus, the only king of his church, providing for
the feeding of his church and people by his true Christian priests and
Levites, viz., the ministry which in the gospel he hath appointed.
CHAP. CV.
_Peace._ We have examined the ministry, be pleased, dear Truth, to speak
to the second branch of this head: viz., the maintenance of it. They
affirm that the magistrate may force out the minister’s maintenance from
all that are taught by them, and that after the pattern of Israel; and
the argument from 1 Cor. ix., Gal. vi. 6.
_Truth._ This theme, viz., concerning the maintenance of the priests and
ministers of worship, is indeed the apple of the eye, the Diana of the
[Ephesians,[214]] &c.; yet all that love Christ Jesus in sincerity, and
souls in and from him, will readily profess to abhor filthy lucre, Tit.
i. 7, and the wages of Balaam, both more common and frequent than easily
is discernible.
[Sidenote: Gal. vi. 6, concerning the maintenance of the ministry,
examined.]
To that scripture, Gal. vi. 6, _Let him that is taught in the word make
him that teacheth partaker of all his goods_: I answer, that teaching was
of persons converted, believers entered into the school and family of
Christ, the church; which church being rightly gathered, is also rightly
invested with the power of the Lord Jesus, to force every soul therein by
spiritual weapons and penalties to do its duty.
But this forcing of the magistrate is intended and practised to all sorts
of persons, without as well as within the church, unconverted, natural
and dead in sin, as well as those that live and, feeding, enjoy the
benefits of spiritual food.
[Sidenote: Christ Jesus never appointed a maintenance of ministers from
the unconverted, and unbelieving.]
Now for those sorts of persons to whom Christ Jesus sends his word out of
church estate, Jews or Gentiles, according to the parable of Matt. xiii.
highway hearers, stony ground, and thorny ground hearers, we never find
tittle of any maintenance to be expected, least of all to be forced and
exacted, from them. By civil power they cannot be forced, for it is no
civil payment or business, no matter of Cæsar, but concerning God: nor by
spiritual power, which hath nothing to do with those which are without, 1
Cor. v.
It is reasonable to expect and demand of such as live within the state a
civil maintenance of their civil officers, and to force it where it is
denied. It is reasonable for a schoolmaster to demand his recompence for
his labour in his school; but it is not reasonable to expect or force
it from strangers, enemies, rebels to that city, from such as come not
within, or else would not be received into the school. What is the church
of Christ Jesus, but the city, the school, and family of Christ? the
officers of this city, school, family, may reasonably expect maintenance
from such they minister unto, but not from strangers, enemies, &c.
[Sidenote: They that compel men to hear, compel men also to pay for their
hearing and conversion.]
_Peace._ It is most true that sin goes in a link; for that tenent, that
all the men of the world may be compelled to hear Christ preached, and
enjoy the labours of the teacher as well as the church itself, forceth on
another also as evil, viz., that they should also be compelled to pay, as
being most equal and reasonable to pay for their conversion.
[Sidenote: Luke xiv. _Compel them_, examined.]
_Truth._ Some use to urge that text of Luke xiv. 23, _Compel them to
come in_. Compel them to mass, say the papists; compel them to church
and common prayer, say the protestants; compel them to the meeting, say
the New English.[215] In all these compulsions they disagree amongst
themselves; but in this, viz., Compel them to pay, in this they all agree.
[Sidenote: Two sorts of compulsion.]
There is a double violence, which both error and falsehood use to the
souls of men.
[Sidenote: Moral and civil compulsion.]
First, moral and persuasive; such was the persuasion first used to Joseph
by his mistress: such was the persuasions of Tamar from Ammon; such was
the compelling of the young man by the harlot, Prov. vii., she caught
him by her much fair speech and kisses. And thus is the whole world
compelled to the worship of the golden image, Dan. iii.
The second compulsion is civil; such as Joseph’s mistress began
to practise upon Joseph, to attain her whorish desires: such as
Ammon practised on Tamar, to satisfy his brutish lust; and such was
Nebuchadnezzar’s second compulsion, his fiery furnace, Dan. iii.; and
mystical Nebuchadnezzar’s killing all that receive not his mark, Rev.
xiii.
[Sidenote: The ministers of Christ Jesus compel with no other sword than
that of Christ’s mouth, the sword of the Spirit with two edges.]
The first sort of these violences, to wit, by powerful argument and
persuasion, the ministers of the gospel also use. Hence all those
powerful persuasions of wisdom’s maidens, Prov. ix. Hence, saith Paul,
_knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men_, 2 Cor. v.; and pull
some out of the fire, saith Jude; such must that compulsion be, Luke xiv.
23, viz., the powerful persuasions of the word, being that two-edged
sword coming out of the mouth of Christ Jesus in his true ministers, sent
forth to invite poor sinners to partake of the feast of the Lamb of God.
The civil ministers of the commonweal cannot be sent upon this business
with their civil weapons and compulsions, but the spiritual minister of
the gospel, with his spiritual sword of Christ’s mouth, a sword with two
edges.
[Sidenote: The maintenance of the ministry spiritual.]
But more particularly, the contributions of Christ’s kingdom are all holy
and spiritual, though consisting of material earthly substance, (as is
water in baptism, bread and wine in the supper,) and joined with prayer
and the Lord’s supper, Acts ii. 42.
Hence as prayer is called God’s sacrifice, so are the contributions and
mutual supplies of the saints, sacrifices, Phil. iv. [18.]
[Sidenote: Natural men can neither truly worship nor maintain it.]
Hence, also, as it is impossible for natural men to be capable of
God’s worship, and to feed, be nourished, and edified by any spiritual
ordinance, no more than a dead child can suck the breast, or a dead
man feast; so also is it as impossible for a dead man, yet lodged in
the grave of nature, to contribute spiritually, I mean according to
scripture’s rule, as for a dead man to pay a reckoning.
I question not but natural men may for the outward act preach, pray,
contribute, &c.; but neither are they worshippers suitable to him who is
a Spirit, John iv. 24; nor can they, least of all, be forced to worship,
or the maintenance of it, without a guilt of their hypocrisy.
_Peace._ They will say, what is to be done for their souls?
_Truth._ The apostles, whom we profess to imitate, preached the word
of the Lord to unbelievers without mingling in worship with them, and
such preachers and preaching such as pretend to be the true ministry of
Christ ought to be and practise: not forcing them all their days to come
to church and pay their duties, either so confessing that this is their
religion unto which they are forced; or else that, as before, they are
forced to be of no religion all their days.
[Sidenote: Rebels not subdued by compliance, but resistance.]
The way to subdue rebels is not by correspondence and communion with
them, by forcing them to keep the city watches, and pay assessments, &c.,
which all may be practised, upon compulsion, treacherously; the first
work with such is powerfully to subdue their judgments and wills, to lay
down their weapons, and yield willing subjection, then come they orderly
into the city, and so to city privileges.
CHAP. CVI.
_Peace._ Please you now, dear Truth, to discuss the scriptures from the
Old Testament, Neh. xiii., and 2 Chron. xxxi.
[Sidenote: The national church of the Jews might well be forced to a
settled maintenance of their priests, but not so the Christian church.]
_Truth._ God gave unto that national church of the Jews that excellent
land of Canaan, and therein houses furnished, orchards, gardens,
vineyards, olive-yards, fields, wells, &c.; they might well, in this
settled abundance, and the promised continuation and increase of it,
afford a large temporal supply to their priests and Levites, even to the
tenth of all they did possess.
God’s people are now, in the gospel, brought into a spiritual land
of Canaan, flowing with spiritual milk and honey, and they abound
with spiritual and heavenly comforts, though in a poor and persecuted
condition; therefore an enforced settled maintenance is not suitable to
the gospel, as it was to the ministry of priests and Levites in the law.
Secondly, in the change of the church estate, there was also a change of
the priesthood and of the law, Heb. vii. [12.] Nor did the Lord Jesus
appoint that in his church, and for the maintenance of his ministry,
the civil sword of the magistrate; but that the spiritual sword of the
ministry should alone compel.
[Sidenote: The civil sword of the national church of the Jews, could not
type out a civil but a spiritual sword of the Christian church.]
3. Therefore the compulsion used under Hezekiah and Nehemiah, was by the
civil and corporal sword, a type (in that typical state) not of another
material and corporal, but of a heavenly and spiritual, even the sword of
the Spirit, with which Christ fighteth, Rev. ii. [12.] which is exceeding
sharp, entering in between the soul and spirit, Heb. iv. [12.] and
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ Jesus.
He that submits not at the shaking of this sword, is cut off by it; and
he that despiseth this sword, all the power in the world cannot make him
a true worshipper, or by his purse a maintainer of God’s worship.
[Sidenote: No man should be bound to worship, nor maintain a worship,
against his own consent.]
Lastly, if any man professing to be a minister of Christ Jesus, shall
bring men before the magistrate, as the practice hath been, both in Old
and New England,[216] for not paying him his wages or his due: I ask, if
the voluntary consent of the party hath not obliged him, how can either
the officers of the parish, church, or of the civil state, compel this
or that man to pay so much, more or less, to maintain such a worship
or ministry? I ask further, if the determining what is each man’s due
to pay, why may they not determine the tenth and more, as some desired
(others opposing) in New England, and force men not only to maintenance,
but to a Jewish maintenance?
_Peace._ Yea; but, say they, is not the labourer worthy of his hire?
[Sidenote: Christ’s labourers worthy of their hire, but from them that
hire them.]
_Truth._ Yes, from them that hire him, from the church, to whom he
laboureth or ministereth, not from the civil state: no more than the
minister of the civil state is worthy of his hire from the church, but
from the civil state: in which I grant the persons in the church ought to
be assistant in their civil respects.
_Peace._ What maintenance, say they, shall the ministry of the gospel
have?
[Sidenote: What maintenance Christ hath appointed his ministers in the
gospel.]
_Truth._ We find two ways of maintenance for the ministry of the gospel
proposed for our direction in the New Testament.
First, the free and willing contribution of the saints, according to 1
Cor. xvi., Luke viii. 3, &c., upon which both the Lord Jesus, and his
ministers lived.
Secondly, the diligent work and labour of their own hands, as Paul tells
the Thessalonians, and that in two cases:
1. Either in the inabilities and necessities of the church.
2. Or for the greater advantage of Christ’s truth. As when Paul saw it
would more advantage the name of Christ, he denies himself, and falls to
work amongst the Corinthians and Thessalonians.
Let none call these cases extraordinary: for if persecution be the
portion of Christ’s sheep, and the business or work of Christ must be
dearer to us than our right eye or lives, such as will follow Paul, and
follow the Lord Jesus, must not think much at, but rejoice in, poverties,
necessities, hunger, cold, nakedness, &c. The stewards of Christ Jesus
must be like their Lord, and abhor to steal as the evil steward,
pretending that he shamed to beg, but peremptorily dig he could not.
CHAP. CVII.
_Peace._ One and the last branch, dear Truth, remains concerning schools.
“The churches,” say they, “much depend upon the schools, and the schools
upon the magistrates.”
[Sidenote: Universities of Europe a cause of universal sins and plagues;
yet schools honourable for tongues and arts.]
_Truth._ I honour schools for tongues and arts; but the institution of
Europe’s universities, devoting persons (as is said) for scholars in a
monastical way, forbidding marriage, and labour too, I hold as far from
the mind of Jesus Christ as it is from propagating his name and worship.
We count the universities the fountains, the seminaries, or seed-plots of
all piety; but have not those fountains ever sent what streams the times
have liked? and ever changed their taste and colour to the prince’s eye
and palate?
For any depending of the church of Christ upon such schools, I find not a
tittle in the Testament of Christ Jesus.
[Sidenote: Christ’s church his school, and all believers scholars.]
I find the church of Christ frequently compared to a school. All
believers are his disciples or scholars, yea, women also, Acts ix. 36,
_There was a certain disciple_, or scholar, _called Dorcas_.
Have not the universities sacrilegiously stolen this blessed name of
Christ’s scholars from his people? Is not the very scripture language
itself become absurd, to wit, to call God’s people, especially women, as
Dorcas, scholars?
_Peace._ Some will object, how shall the scriptures be brought to light
from out of popish darkness, except these schools of prophets convey them
to us?
_Truth._ I know no schools of prophets in the New Testament, but the
particular congregation of Christ Jesus, 1 Cor. xiv. And I question
whether any thing but sin stopped and dried up the current of the Spirit
in those rare gifts of tongues to God’s sons and daughters, serving so
admirably both for the understanding of the original scriptures, and also
for the propagating of the name of Christ.
[Sidenote: Who knows but God may again pour forth the gifts of tongues?]
Who knows but that it may please the Lord again to clothe his people with
a spirit of zeal and courage for the name of Christ; yea, and pour forth
those fiery streams again of tongues and prophecy in the restoration of
Zion?
[Sidenote: Tongues attainable out of Oxford or Cambridge.]
If it be not his holy pleasure so to do, but that his people with daily
study and labour must dig to come at the original fountains, God’s people
have many ways, besides the university, lazy and monkish, to attain to an
excellent measure of the knowledge of those tongues.
[Sidenote: Mr. Ainsworth.]
That most despised while living, and now much honoured Mr.
Ainsworth,[217] had scarce his peer amongst a thousand academians for the
scripture originals, and yet he scarce set foot within a college-walls.
CHAP. CVIII.
_Peace._ I shall now present you with their tenth head, viz., concerning
the magistrates’ power in matters of doctrine.
“That which is unjustly ascribed to the pope, is as unjustly ascribed to
the magistrates, viz., to have power of making new articles of faith,
or rules of life, or of pressing upon the churches to give such public
honour to the apocrypha writings, or homilies of men, as to read them to
the people in the room of the oracles of God.”
_Truth._ This position, simply considered, I acknowledge a most holy
truth of God, both against the pope, and the civil magistrates’
challenge, both pretending to be the vicars of Christ Jesus upon the
earth. Yet two things here I shall propose to consideration:—
[Sidenote: King Henry the Eighth set down in the pope’s chair in England.]
First, since the parliament of England thrust the pope out of his chair
in England, and set down King Henry the Eighth and his successors in
the pope’s room, establishing them supreme governors of the church of
England: since such an absolute government is given by all men to them to
be guardians of the first table and worship of God, to set up the true
worship, to suppress all false, and that by the power of the sword; and
therefore consequently they must judge and determine what the true is,
and what the false:—
[Sidenote: If the magistrate must punish in spiritual cases, he must of
necessity be judge in spiritual causes also.]
And since the magistrate is bound, by these authors’ principles, to see
the church, the church officers, and members do their duty, he must
therefore judge what is the church’s duty, and when she performs or not
performs it, or when she exceeds; so likewise when the ministers perform
their duty, or when they exceed it:—
And if the magistrate must judge, then certainly by his own eye, and not
by the eyes of others, though assembled in a national or general council:—
Then also, upon his judgment must the people rest, as upon the mind and
judgment of Christ, or else it must be confessed that he hath no such
power left him by Christ to compel the souls of men in matters of God’s
worship.
[Sidenote: Apocrypha, Common-prayer, and homilies, precious to our
forefathers.]
Secondly, concerning the apocrypha writings and homilies to be urged by
the magistrate to be read unto the people as the oracles of God: I ask,
if the homilies of England contain not in them much precious and heavenly
matter? Secondly, if they were not penned, at least many of them, by
excellent men for learning, holiness, and witness of Christ’s truth
incomparable? Thirdly, were they not authorized by that most rare and
pious prince, Edward VI., then head of the church of England?[218] With
what great solemnity and rejoicing were they received of thousands!
Yet now, behold their children after them sharply censure them for
apocrypha writings, and homilies thrust into the room of the word of
God, and so falling into the consideration of a false and counterfeit
scripture.
[Sidenote: A case.]
I demand of these worthy men, whether a servant of God might then
lawfully have refused to read or hear such a false scripture?
Secondly, if so, whether King Edward might have lawfully compelled such
a man to yield and submit, or else have persecuted him; yea, according
to the authors’ principles, whether he ought to have spared him; because
after the admonitions of such pious and learned men, this man shall now
prove a heretic, and as an obstinate person sinning against the light of
his own conscience?
In this case what shall the consciences of the subject do, awed by the
dread of the Most High? What shall the magistrate do, zealous for his
glorious reformation, being constantly persuaded by his clergy of his
lieutenantship received from Christ?
[Sidenote: Reformations are fallible. Bloody conclusions.]
Again, what privilege have those worthy servants of God, either in
Old or New England, to be exempted from the mistakes into which those
glorious worthies in King Edward’s time did fall? and if so, what bloody
conclusions are presented to the world, persuading men to pluck up by
the roots from the land of the living, all such as seem in their eyes
heretical or obstinate!
CHAP. CIX.
_Peace._ Dear Truth, what dark and dismal bloody paths do we walk in? How
is thy name and mine in all ages cried up, yet as an English flag in a
Spanish bottom, not in truth, but dangerous treachery and abuse both of
truth and peace!
[Sidenote: Eleventh head.]
We are now come to the eleventh head, which concerns the magistrates’
power in worship?
“First, they have power,” say they, “to reform things in the worship of
God in a church corrupted, and to establish the pure worship of God,
defending the same by the power of the sword against all those who shall
attempt to corrupt it.
“For first, the reigning of idolatry and corruption in religion is
imputed to the want of a king, Judges xvii. 5, 6.
“Secondly, remissness in reforming religion is a fault imputed to them
who suffered the high places in Israel, and in Gallio who cared not for
such things, Acts xviii. 17.