none but Hirelings. And if there be among them who hold it their duty to speak impartial truth, as the work of their ministry, though not performed without money; let them not envy others who think the same no less their duty by the general office of Christianity, to speak truth as in all reason may be thought more impartially and consuspectingly without money.

"It remains 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 give you. If they receive you, eat such things as are set before you. (Matthew x. 7, 8.) 'As ye go preach, saying, The Kingdom of God is at hand,' &c. Freely ye have received, freely give.' If God hath ordained ministers to preach freely, whether they receive recompense or no, then certainly he hath forbid both them to compel it, and others to compel it for them.

6

Speaking of the parish ministers, he says: "They pretend that their education, either at school or the university, has been very chargeable, and therefore ought to be repaid after by a fruitful maintainance, whereas it is well known that the better half of them (and ofttimes poor

and pitiful boys, of no merit or promising hopes that might entitle them to the public provision, but their poverty and the unjust favour of friends,) have had the most of their breeding, both of school and university, by scholarships, exhibitions, and fellowships, at the public cost, which might engage them the rather to give freely as they freely received. Or if they have mist of these helps at the latter place, their studies there, (if they ever well began them,) and undertaken, though furnished with little else but ignorance, boldness, and ambition, if with no worse vices, a chaplainship in some gentleman's house, to the frequent imbasing of his sons with illiterate and narrow principles. Or if they have lived there upon their own, who knows not that seven years' charge of living there, to them who fly not from the government of their parents to the license of the university, but come seriously to study, is no more than may be well defrayed and reimburst by one year's revenue of an ordinary good benefice. If they had then means of breeding from their parents, 'tis likely they have more now; and if they have, it must be mechanic and disingenuous in them to bring a Bill of Charges for the learning of those liberal arts and sciences which they have learnt, (if they indeed learnt them, as they seldom have,) to their own benefit and accomplishment. So long ago out of date

is that old true saying-If any man desire the office of a bishoprick, he desireth a good work; for now commonly he that desires to be a minister, looks not at the work, but at the wages, and by that lure of Loubel, may be tolled from parish to parish all the town over.

"I have thus at large examined the usual pretences of hirelings, covered over most commonly with the cause of learning, and the universities; as if with such divines learning stood and fell, wherein, for the most part, their pittance is so small; and, to speak freely, it were much better there were not one divine in the university, nor no school divinity known, the idle sophistry of monks, the canker of religion and that they who intended to be ministers, were trained up in the church only by the scriptures, and in the original languages thereof, at school, without fetching the compass of other arts and sciences more than they can well learn a secondary leisure and at home. Neither speak I this in contempt of learning, or the ministry, but hating the common cheats of both; hating that they who have preached out bishops, prelates, and canonists, should, in what seems their own ends, retain their false opinions, their pharasaical living, their avarice, and closely their ambition, their pluralities, their non-residences, their odious fees, and use their legal and popish arguments for tithes :

that Independents should take that name, and seek to be dependents on the magistrate for their maintenance; which two things, Independence and State-hire in religion, can never consist long or certainly together. For magistrates at one time or other, not like those at present, our patrons of Christian liberty, will pay none but such whom, by their committees of examination, they find conformable to their interest and opinions and hirelings will soon frame themselves to that interest, and those opinions which they see best pleasing to their paymasters and to seem right themselves will force others as to the truth. But most of all they are to be reviled and shamed, who cry out with the distinct voice of notorious hirelings, that if you settle not our maintenance by laws, farewell the gospel; than which nothing can be uttered more false, more ignominious, and, I may say, more blasphemous against our Saviour, who hath promised without this condition, both his Holy Spirit and his own presence with his church to the world's end."

He thus concludes: "Of which hireling crew, together with all the mischiefs, dissensions, troubles, wars, merely of their own kindling, Christendom might soon rid herself, and be happy, if Christians would but know their own dignity, their liberty, their adoption, and let it not be wondered, if I say, their spiritual priesthood,

whereby they have all equally access to any ministerial functions whenever called by their own abilities and the church, though they never came near commencements or university. But while protestants, to avoid the due labours of understanding their own religion, are content to lodge it in their books, or in the breast of a clergyman, and to take it thence by scraps and mammocks as he dispenses it in his Sunday Dole; they will be always learning and never knowing; always infants; always either his vassals as lay papists are to their priests; or at odds with him, as reformed principles give them some light to be not wholly conformable; whence infinite disturbances in the state, as they do, must needs follow. Thus much I had to say; and I suppose what may be enough to them who are not avariciously bent otherwise, touching the likeliest means to remove hirelings out of the church; than which nothing can more conduce to truth, to peace, and all happiness, 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 witness, not out of season to the church and my country."

The death of the mighty Oliver Cromwell, on September 3rd, 1658, prevented the accomplishment of this and other noble plans for the benefit of the nation. Sad confusions followed, but MIL