An apology for the nonconformists ministry containing I. the reasons of their preaching, II.…

16. And as for maintenance, we expect not any; unless any Minister be so poor, as for food and raiment, and the necessities of life, to live upon the alms of others, (which is the case of very many.) In which case we hold it our duty not at all to be chargeable to censorious murmuring dissenters, but only to the willing; and that if God shall humble us to the begging of our bread, we should not be so proud as to disdain it, or to murmur at his Providence, nor yet so selfish as to forsake and change our calling, because we have no better maintenance. But rather be thankful that we are kept from the temptations of grandeur and fullness, by which we see so many ruined, and so great a part of the Clergy ⟨p. 17⟩throughout the Christian world to be blinded and drowned in those ways of idleness, sensuality, cruelty and contention, which prove the division, the defilement and the dishonour of the Church. For as we believe a life to come, and that the preferring of the pleasures of this world before it, is the thing that keepeth men from Heaven, and is the common cause of mens damnation; so we believe that no condition doth so much tempt men into this damning love of the world, as that wherein the world is made most pleasing and most lovely to them. And he that aboundeth in it with wealth and honour is liker of the two to overlove it, than he that meeteth with labour, poverty and reproach. Yet will we not as begging Friars, renounce Propriety, nor cast away any talent which our Master giveth us to improve; nor yet be so impudent as to be unnecessarily burdensome, or lose our liberty by making our selves beholding and dependent; but we take it to be our part to labour faithfully in our work, and leave it to God what provisions he will allow us. And those of us that want not, but have to spare, to contribute to the relief of them that want. And we may be the more patient while we remember in how much purity the Primitive Churches were kept in their poverty and low estate; as also the Churches of the poor Waldenses, and those in Piedmont to this day; and the [Hodie venenum, &c.] the corruptions, divisions and calamities that have followed the worldly exaltation of the Clergy both in East and West. Therefore we humbly submit to his gracious Providence, that thus saveth us from the love of the world, so inconsistent with the love of God, 1 Joh. 2. 15

16. And as for maintenance, we expect not any; unless any Minister be so poor, as for food and raiment, and the necessities of life, to live upon the alms of others, (which is the case of very many.) In which case we hold it our duty not at all to be chargeable to censorious murmuring dissenters, but only to the willing; and that if God shall humble us to the begging of our bread, we should not be so proud as to disdain it, or to murmur at his Providence, nor yet so selfish as to forsake and change our calling, because we have no better maintenance. But rather be thankful that we are kept from the temptations of grandure and fulness, by which we see so many ruined, and so great a part of the Clergy