Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...

CHAP. XXVII.

TRuly they had need make much of good consciences, for little comfort else is left to most of them, as to any ci∣vil splendour, competency, or certainty in this world. Look but to the point of estate, and that moderate sub∣sistence which all ingenuous & industrious men may just∣ly expect and aim at for themselves and their relations, in the way of honest labour; no mens salary, subsistence, or maintenance is generally so dubious and uncertain, so arbitrary and hazardous, so bur∣dened and exhausted, so thin driven, and, as it were, wire-drawn, both by their own necessities and other mens injurious sharkings: insomuch that many Ministers very well-deserving, are reduced not onely to tenuities, but to difficulties, necessities, extremities; they are forced to live by faith: and some of them have (as I have heard) even died with famine; others had so perished, if charity had not in∣terposed, wanting those necessary supports which their aged and lan∣guishing condition did require. The truth is, not one of ten (I might say of an hundred) of any sort of common people make it a matter of conscience to pay them their dues, if they can hold their livings; few do pay them without delayings, defalkings and defraudings: many

people make it a great point of conscience, to pay them nothing, ei∣ther by the Laws of Justice or Gratitude. Ministers must in most places onely learn how to want; for in few they shall ever learn how to abound. Many of them have been a long time quite turned out of Gods Husbandry, from their Livings and Labours: many, such as have leave to labour, have (most-what) their labour for their paines; forced to study how to live, when they should live to study: such as should dispense the bread of eternall life, and consecrate the Sacra∣mentall bread, which is the Communion of Christs blessed Body to his Body the Church, these are solicitous for that perishing bread, which is the staffe of this momentary life. Many Angels of Christs Church, and Stewards of his houshold, are exposed, many wayes, and many times, to sordid necessities, and scurrilous indignities. The chief Pastors and ablest Shepherds are very much levelled to the mea∣nest of the flock, while yet the weakest and most scabbed sheep affect to be shepherds: the very abjects of the people, every where, dare, if they list, contemne their Ministers to their faces; they make no scruple, yea they take pleasure to be petulant, peevish, refractory, and insolent, even in publique. The ayme of many is, to have such Prea∣chers, as shall be, not Fathers, Rulers, and Heads in the Church, but either as sequacious and flexible tayles, following the frowns and flatteries of the people, on whose good will they must depend, if they will eate; or as firebrands of unquenchable factions, engaging the populacy to infinite parties and sects, under the notion of new Mi∣nisters and new Religion.

These, these are the treatments, these the methods used by some, to bury not the dead carkases of Ministers in the graves of common people, (which fact is branded in King Jehoiakim, as a token of great irreligion to God, and irreverence to the Prophet Uriah;) but they seek to cast them yet alive into a most plebeian state, the graves of ignominie, poverty, contempt, and shame: yea many hope at length to make the Reformed Clergie or Ministery of England, as odious as those Heathen Priests became, when (as the Church-Historians tell us) their Temples were rifled▪ when their despicable Deities, their defor∣med Idols and worm-eaten gods were discovered. Nor is this deplo∣rable estate befaln those incruders onely, who from the basest of the people have of late consecrated themselves to serve those calves that list to set them up, or follow them; but many great Prophets, like Je∣remy, stick to this day in the mire and dirt of those dungeons into which they are cast: others are become miserable, as Eli's posteri∣ty, crouching for a morsell of bread, even to their enemies, I mean those factious and sacrilegious spirits, who would be glad to see the most learned Ministers in England advanced to no higher preferment than Musculus was in Germany, who though an excellent Preacher and Writer, yet was forced for his livelyhood sometime to help a Wea∣ver at his Loome, otherwhile to work as a Scavenger in purging the Towne-ditch.

N••r is this a Parable of Misery, or an artificiall and Theatrick Tra∣gedie

made by me: No; I solemnly protest to you (my honoured Countrymen) the World affords not greater, more numerous, or more calamitous objects of Christian pity and humane charity, than are many Ministers at present in England, if you consider their calling, their abilities, their education, and their sad condition. Many of them are already implunged into the horrible pit of darknesse; others are upon the very brink and precipice of extreme poverty, meannesse and contempt, through the trialls or displeasures of God, executed by the restlesse malice and immoderate revenge of some men, against this Church, its Ministry, and the Reformed Religion; whose spite and passion have much over-born (of late years, as by a new, unwonted and ponderous bias) the ancient noble genius and ge∣nerous piety of this Nation; which was by no people under Heaven heretofore exceeded in its honourable munificence, yea magnificence, toward their God and Saviour, toward learned and religious men, especially those who had the honour to be their Teachers, Governours and Guides to heaven. No men had more priviledges and immunities; no men had more tranquillity and leisure to be good; none had more means and encouragements to be good, and to doe good, to live ho∣lily, hospitably, honourably; no men had abilities, opportunities, and hearts to doe more works of piety and charity both to rich and poor, great and small, both transient and permanent, occasionall and mo∣numentall, than the Clergie of England: Witnesse the severall goodly Foundations, and liberall Endowments, which the Ecclesia∣sticks of England have either themselves erected, or perswaded o∣thers to Found and Endow, to Gods glory, to the good of Man∣kind, and the honour of the Nation.

But now (alas!) as the Estates of most Ministers are so small, that they hardly reach to their own necessities; so their influence up∣on other mens estates and minds is almost as little. They are despised by many, valued by few, scarce loved by any, and honoured almost by none: they are all reduced to such a timorous, sneaking, servile, arbitrary, dependant, and plebeian proportion. Nothing grand, con∣spicuous, magnificent, honourable or venerable, is upon any of them, especially as to vulgar eyes and censure: who are never too liberall of their courtesie, civility, and respect to Ministers; much lesse when they find them at a low ebbe, as to the esteem of their betters, the rich, the noble, and the mighty. For with common people, Learning, Wisdome, and all intellectuall excellencies, generally signifie little or nothing, if they see nothing of power, authority, plenty, splen∣dour, or eminency in men, by which they either hope to be bene∣fited, or feare to be punished. Certainly that part of the Clergie of England were extreme out, as to all Politicks, who fancied that common people, yea, or the better sort of mankind, were so good-na∣tur'd, as to value them most for Ministers, when they enjoyed least as men. Angelick vertues doe not weigh so much in the worlds ba∣lance, as houses, lands, revenues, preferments, and honours doe. A golden calfe easily tempts people to worship it, while desolate and

wooden vertues are despised: yea they much mistook the interest of Christian and Reformed Religion, as well as of the Ministery in England, who thought it would turne to any account of honour and advancement of Reformation, to serve the Clergie as Hanun did Da∣vids servants, not onely stripping them of their upper garments, and those comely ornaments which became Gods Ambassadours, but cut∣ting off their nether garments and necessary coats, to such a curtail'd proportion, as renders them both ashamed of themselves and ridiculous to others.

The reall impoverishings, sufferings and abasings of many Ministers, have been very great, in all bitter extremities; nor are the fears, ter∣rors or dejections of those, few or small, who have scaped best, who are still permitted, either by their gentler neighbours, or the lesse severe Lay-Bishops of later inspection, to earn their bread with the sweat of their brows. For even of these Ministers, many of them dare scarce demand their wages, when they have dearly deserved it; nor can they tell how with safety and peace to get it, when they have hardly earned it: so terrified and over-awed, so threatned and repro∣ched are they, some by peevish parishioners, others by separating straglers, and a third sort (which is a very Epidemicall mischief) by sharking and shuffling, dilatory and grumbling pay-masters; who think they deal very bountifully with their Ministers, if they pay them at the years end, with some difficulty, and many importunities (which looks very like pure begging) after the rate of two shillings in the pound for their Tythes, when they are bonâ fide worth foure, five, or six shillings. Few, yea very few, as I said, make it any point of Con∣science in Law, Religion, or Gratitude, to doe justice to their Ministers, so as their rights are assigned them by Mans laws. Few scruple to rob, deny, shark, detain, and immodestly to delay the pay∣ment of their dues, even according to their own agreements. If the poore Minister complains, though never so softly and whisperingly, if Necessities so pinch him, that he must either cry aloud, or starve with his wife and children, if he have so much spirit and courage, as he dares roundly to demand, or to urge the Law in his behalf; pre∣sently he is scared with the menaces of some proling Sequestrator, or some surly Aproniere, who being the fag-end or dregs of a Countrey-Committee, and sowred either with Anabaptisticall leven, or other factious principles, thinks he does God good service to threaten, to terrifie, to torment, to rout, to undoe such a quarrelsome Minister, who dares thus far to own himself, his calling, his condition, and his rights by Law; especially if the Minister be known to be of the Epi∣scopall judgment, a lover and honourer of the Church of England, and have a Living worth the losing. O what arts and policy, what wind∣ings and shifts, what complyings and cringings must this poore per∣plexed Minister use, to fence himself against the crafty agitations of his spitefull neighbours, and those pragmatick pieces, who in eve∣ry corner doe hover over the heads of Ministers, as Kites doe over Pigeons! How many times have Ministers been affronted publiquely,

even in their Churches, amidst Divine Offices; and had been much more, even to the outraging of their persons, if either the piety or the policy of those in power had not intervened, and in time repres∣sed this intolerable insolency, which was never heard of, never indul∣ged, never connived at in any Nation under heaven, that owned any publique veneration, service, or Religion to their God? If some stop and restraint had not for shame been given to these profane enormi∣ties, certainly by this time no true or worthy Minister should have opened his mouth in publique, but he should have been smitten on the mouth (as Ananias commanded them to use St. Paul) by some of those rude and facinorous Assassinates, whose design is to silence and extirpate all the Reformed, Orthodox, and orderly Clergie of England; not onely Bishops, as the Apostolick roots, but even all so∣ber Presbyters, as the branches of Ecclesiastick ordination.

For besides the private scorns and contests, no lesse than publique affronts, which Ministers have personally sustained, their enemies have proceeded many times to give even publick alarms to all the tribe & function, by rude Pamphlets, bitter libellings, and insolent Petitions, im∣portuning an utter extirpation of the Calling, Ordination, and Successi∣on, (such as Haman designed against the whole Nation of the Jews) together with a total alienation or confiscation of all the setled main∣tenance of Ministers by Glebes and Tithes. At which morsel some mens mouths have a long time extremely watered; with which pro∣digy of sacriledge they have been big a long time: nor do they yet think they are quite miscarried, or that this godly & gainful project is wholly abortive; although they have not yet been able to get a pub∣lick law or Parlamentary sanction to be their Midwife; nor I hope ever shall be able so far to blind and abuse the whole Nation, no less than abase the Ministry of the Gospel.

But the frequent tamperings and essays which some men still make in these kinds, (for what dare not the meanest wretches meditate and adventure against the best, yea all the sober Ministers of En∣gland?) these (as the clouds did Deucalion after the Flood) do still so terrifie the minds of the better sort of Ministers (till they shall see a clearer rain-bow of assurance appearing in the English firmament, for their favour and security, than yet hath been seen) that they have continual damps on all their spirits, great and daily checks in their studies, industry and ingenuity. Few of them can be so good husbands in these times, as to lay up any thing out of their livings for poste∣rity: nor dare they be so provident, as to lay out any thing upon the glebes or houses of their livings, either for their after-benefit, or present conveniency, because they know not (besides the hazards of mortality) what a day or a night may bring forth; uncertain how soon they may be undermined, and together with their miserable families turned out of that house and home, which heretofore was counted their free-hold by law, till by law they had forfeited them. Many Ministers have been suddenly conformed to our Saviours con∣dition, who had not of his own where to lay his head: which was not

his necessity or impotency, but his gracious choice, by being poor to enrich us; but poor Ministers are not armed (as Christ was) with miracu∣lous supplies when they please, nor may they now expect to be cour∣ted with such devout donaries and charitable oblations, as in primitive times were remarkable for their munificence, amplitude and splen∣dour; of which the Acts of the Apostles, the after-Church-histories, and Ammianus Marcellinus in the fourth Century give us accounts. Alas, this age is an iron age; and mens estates are not generally more impaired than their hands are withered, and their hearts petrified: these are hardned in many, the others are exhausted in most. Mens minds are every where indifferent towards their Ministers; in many places they are divided from them, and their spirits exaspe∣rated against them. No wonder then if charity be grown cold, if po∣pular stipends and arbitrary alms (like morning dews) be soon dryed up. The Devil is so crafty, that he knows, if once he can take away that ancient, legal and Evangelical maintenance of Ministers by Tithes, he shall soon by starving take that royal Citadell and Sanctuary of Gods Church, that ancient Fort of Christian Religion, the Ministry it self: which above all things in the world he aims to slight, under∣mine, and utterly demolish; and hopes to do it by the help of such crafty and cruell engineers, who have, as Satans mouls and pioneers, done all they could in these times to undermine and batter down that firm pillar and support of Religion, a legal and certain main∣tenance by Glebes and Tithes, which are yet left to carry on any Church-work and Ministry, with any comfort or cheerfulness.

Notes

• The great di∣minutions of all sorts of Mi∣nisters in Engl. as to all civil respects.
• Phil. 4 12.
• Jer. 26.23.
• Socrat. Hist. Eccl. l. 1. c. 14.
• 1 King. ••3 33.
• Jer. 38 6.
• 1 Sam. 2.36.
• Melchior A∣d••m. in vita M••sculi.
• 2 Sam. 10.4.
• Acts 23▪ 2
• Esth. 3.