And forasmuch as we acknowledge the worldly government to be set up by God, we have always paid all public demands for upholding the same; as town rates, county-rates and all other demands, excepting such as are for the upholding hireling ministers and false teachers which God has called us to testify against. Now when the worldly rulers take upon themselves to make laws relating to God’s worship, and thereby force men’s consciences, and so turn their sword against God’s children, they then act beyond their commission and out of their jurisdiction; and are so far from being God’s ministers that they are fighters against God and his church; and God is so far from making them a terror to his church that he gives his church and people faith and boldness to withstand them to their faces....
... Here I think he (Backus) does the government no honor by informing the world that they have made laws to debar such as differ from them in matters of religion the liberty of the king’s highway to pass to their own meetings, since our lord the king hath granted equal liberty of conscience to all dissenters to hold their meetings and serve God according to their consciences.
FROM ANSWER TO A PAMPHLET BY
COTTON MATHER.
By John Rogers, 2d.
... A travelling ministry are sent from town to town and from city to city, and from country to country, and over sea, so that they are not only taken from their own employment, but are also sent upon charges; their state and condition is like a man that is prest a soldier and sent away from his own living on charges and therefore maintained at the king’s charge. And hath not this man power to forbear work? though he tarry some days at a place, must he therefore maintain himself by his own labor? is not this the very state of a travelling ministry of the gospel?...
... I have thus proved by Scripture that a traveling ministry of the Gospel hath power to forbear work. And secondly that the churches ought to relieve them: And thirdly have shewed their differing state from settled elders.
... In the second place, I shall now prove by Scripture that settled elders are commanded to work with their hands and thereby to support the weak; by being givers rather than receivers.—We find that the apostle sends for the elders of the church.—He saith to them, I have coveted no man’s silver or gold, or apparel; ye yourselves know that these hands of mine have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me; I have showed you all things, how that so laboring, ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive....
... And 3rdly Whereas Christ, upon sending them forth to preach the gospel, forbids them making any provision for their journey, requiring them to expect their meat and reward from his hands....
... From hence we may see by Scripture that Christ’s ministers, whom he calls and sends to preach the Gospel, are so well provided for by Him that they have no need to be hired by the children of the world; for in so doing they would reproach their Lord and Master and shew themselves not only faithless, but wickedly covetous, in practising contrary to this doctrine of Christ, and to come under the condemnation of this great sin so much condemned in Scripture, “The priests whereof teach for hire, and the prophets whereof divine for money, yet they will lean upon the Lord, and say, is not the Lord among us; none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountains of the house as the high places of the forest ... yea they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough, they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter.”... Christ calls them hirelings and ravening wolves.
And though the nameless authors of the said Pamphlet are pleased to call such (as join with Christ and his shepherds, to testify against these hirelings) by the name of wolves, yet these hirelings, or at least their shearers, the collectors, have always taken them for sheep, especially about shearing time.... Now we that join with Christ and the true shepherds to testify against these hirelings, we come under the blessing of Christ ... Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you; yea this must we suffer all the time that these hireling prophets are under this curse of Christ. Wo unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.