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.
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.
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 inhis 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.
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.
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.
Two sorts of compulsion.
There is a double violence, which both error and falsehood use to the souls of men.
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 thewhole 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.
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.
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.]
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 deadchild 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.
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.