• of the fame Books which in Latin they read at the University? And the fmall Neceffity of going thither to learn Divinity, I prove, first from the most Part of themfelves, who feldom con⚫tinue there till they have got through Logick, their firft Rudiments; tho' to fay Truth, Logick alfo may much better be wanting in Difputes of Divinity, than in the fubtle Debates of Lawyers and Statesmen, who yet seldom or never • deal with Syllogifms.

"

AND thofe Theological Difputations there held by Profeffors and Graduates, are fuch as • tend least of all to the Edification, or Capacity of the People, but rather perplex, and leaven pure Doctrine with Scholaftical Trash, than enable any Minister to the better Preaching of the Gofpel. Whence we may alfo compute, fince they come to Reckonings, the Charges of • his needful Library; which, tho' some shame ⚫ not to value at 600 l. may be competently fur• nifhed for 60 l. If any Man, for his own Curiofity or Delight, be in Books farther expensive, that is not to be reckon'd as neceffary to his • Ministerial, either Breeding or Function.

BUT Papifts and other Adverfaries, cannot be • confuted without Fathers and Councils, immense • Volumes, and of vaft Charges. I will fhew • them therefore a fhorter and a better Way of • Confutation. Tit. i. 9. Holding faft the faithful • Word, as he hath been taught, that he may be able by found Doctrine, both to exhort and convince Gainfayers: Who are confuted as foon as heard, bringing that which is either not in Scripture, or against it. To purfue them farther, through the obfcure and intangled Wood of Antiquity, • Fathers and Councils, fighting one against another, is needlefs, endless, not requifite in a Mi• nifter

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nifter, and refused by the first Reformers of our Religion.

NEITHER fpeak I this in Contempt of Learning, or the Miniftry, but hating the common Cheats of both; hating that they who have preached out Bifhops, Prelates and Canonifts, fhould, in what ferves their own Ends, retain their falfe Opinions, their Pharifaical Leaven, their Avarice, and clofely their Ambition, their Pluralities, their Non-refidences, their odious Fees, and use their Legal and Popish Arguments for Tithes; that Independents fhould ⚫ take that Name, as they may justly, from the true Freedom of Chriftian Doctrine and Church Difcipline, fubject to no fuperior Judge, but • God only, and feek to be Dependents on the Magiftrate for their Maintenance. Which two Things, Independency and State-Hire in Religion, can never confift long or certainly together. For Magiftrates at one Time or other, not like these at prefent* our Patrons of Chri‹ stian Liberty, will pay none but fuch whom, by • their Committees of Examination, they find • conformable to their Interefts and Opinions ; and Hirelings will foon frame themselves to that Intereft, and those Opinions, which they see best pleafing to their Pay-Masters; and to feem right • themselves, will force others as to the Truth.

<

BUT most of all, they are to be revil'd and fham'd, who cry out with the diftinct Voice of Notorious Hirelings, That if ye fettle not our Maintenance by Law, farewel the Gofpel; than which nothing can be utter'd more falfe, more ignominious, and, I may fay, more blafphemous, against our Saviour; who hath promised, without

The Parliament of the English Common-Wealth in 1659, to whom Milton was Secretary for Foreign Affairs.

• without this Condition, both his holy Spirit, and • his own Prefence with the Church to the World's End. Nothing more falfe (unless with their own Mouths they condemn themselves for the Unworthiest and most mercenary of all other Minifters) by the Experience of Three Hundred Years after Chrift, and the Churches at this Day in France, Auftria, Polonia, and other Places, witneffing the contrary, under an • adverse Magiftrate, not a favourable: Nothing more ignominious, levelling, or rather undervaluing, CHRIST beneath Mahomet.

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FOR, if it must be thus, how can any Chri• ftian object it to a Turk, That his Religion ftands by Force only; and not justly fear from him this Reply, Yours both by Force and Money in the Fudgment of your own Teachers. This is that which makes Atheists in the Land, whom they • so much complain of: Not the Want of Maintenance, or Preachers, as they alledge, but the many Hirelings and Cheaters that have the Gofpel in their Hands: Hands that ftill crave and ⚫ are never satisfied. Likely Minifters indeed, to proclaim the Faith, or to exhort our Trust in God, when they themselves will not trust Him to provide for them, in the Meffage whereon, they say, he sent them, but threaten for Want of Temporal Means to defert it; calling that • Want of Means, which is nothing else 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 Gofpel, never fent us for • Minifters to the Schools of Philofophy, but rather bids us Beware of fuch vain Deceit, Col. ii.8: I ⚫ (which

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(which the Primitive Church, after two or three Ages, not remembring,brought her felf quickly toConfufion.) If all the Faithful be now An Holy and a Royal Priesthood, 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 Sorts and Orders of Men, for the Gofpel makes no Difference from the Magiftrate himself, to the meanest Artificer, if • God evidently favour him with Spiritual Gifts, as he can eafily, and oft has done, while thofe • Batchelor Divines, and Doctors of the Tippet, • have been paffed by.

HERETOFORE, in the first Evangelical Times (and it were happy for Christendom if it were so again) Minifters of the Gospel were by nothing elfe distinguished from other Chriftians, but by their Spiritual Knowledge, and Sanctity of Life, for which the Church elected them to be her • Teachers and Overseers, tho' not thereby to feparate them from whatever Calling fhe then found them following befides, as the Example of St. Paul declares, and the first Times of Christianity.

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WHEN Once they affected to be called a Clergy, and became as it were a peculiar Tribe of Le• vites, a Party, a distinct Order in the Common• Wealth, bred up for Divines in Babling-Schools, • and fed at the Publick Coft, good for nothing • else 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 Disturbance of all Christendom.

AND

AND we may confidently conclude, it never I will be otherwife, while they are thus upheld undepending on the Church, on which alone they anciently depended; and are by the Magiftrate publickly maintain'd, a numerous Fac tion of indigent Perfons, crept for the most 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.

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UNDER this Pretence, exempt from all other Employment, and enriching themselves on the Publick, they laft of all prove common Incendaries, and exalt their Horns against the Magiftrate himself that maintains them, as the • Prieft 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 Mischiefs, Diffentions, Troubles, Wars meerly of their kindling, Christendom might foon rid her felf and be happy, if Chriftians ⚫ would but know their own Dignity, their Liberty, their Adoption, and let it not be wonder'd, if I fay their Spiritual Priesthood, whereby they have all equally Accefs to any Minifterial FunЄtion, whenever called by their own Abilities and the Church, tho' they never came near • Commencement or Univerfity.

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BUT while Proteftants, to avoid the due La'bour of Understanding their Religion, are content to lodge it in the Breaft, or rather in the Books of a Clergy-man, and to take it thence by Scraps 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-Priefts are to I 2 • their