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    scripture ami Ae government established i « all places by the apottles ; which at first was universally the same in all churches etud congregations ; not differing or distinguished by the diversity of countries , ^ territory or civil bounds . That church , that from

    the name of a distioacl place ,, takes authority to set up a distinct faith or government , i « a schism and faction , nut a church . It were an injury to condemn the papist

    of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his catholic Romish religion , if we , for the pleasure of a king and his politic considerations , shall adhere to a catholic English *

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    No . IX . The Clergy . Heretofore iu the first evangelic times , ( &ad it were happy for Christendom if it were sa again , )

    laifiisters of the gospel were by nothing else distinguished from other Christians , but by their spiritual knowledge and sanctity of life for which the church elected them to

    be her teachers and overseers , though not thereby to separate them from whatever calling she then found them following befrtdee , as the example of St . Paul declares * and the first times of

    Christianity . When once they affected to be called a clergy and became , as it were * a peculiar tribe of Levites , a party > a distinct order in the commonwealth , bred

    up for divines in babling schools , and fed at the public cost , good for nothing else but what was good for nothing , they soon grew idle : that idleness with fulness of bread , begat pride and perpetual contention with their feeders * the

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    despised laity , through all ages ever since , to the perverting of religion and the disturbance of all Christendom . And we may coa * fidently conclude , h never will to otherwise , while they tire thus lap *

    held undepending oo the church , on which atone they atKiently depended , and are by the magistrate publicly maintained a numefotw faction of indigent persons , crept for the most part out of extreme

    want and bad nurture , ctauning by divine right and freehold , tfe « tenth of our estates , to monopolise the ministry as their peculiar which is free and open to all atola Christians , elected by any churek *

    Under this pretence , exempt from all other employ meat * » nd en * riching themselves on the public , they last of all prove common incendiaries , and exalt their horns against the magistrate him *

    self that maintains them , as the Priest of Rome did soon alter , against his benefactor , the emperor , and the Presbyters of late ift Scot * land , of which hireling crew ,

    together with all the mischiefs , dissensions , troubles , wars merely of their kindling , Christendom migbt soon rid herself and be happy , if Christians would but know vheir

    own dignity , their liberty , their adoption-, and let it not be wondered if I say , their spiritual prirathood , whereby they b $ . ve all eqnalm ly access to stay mu \ isteriat ftW 4 $ »

    tion , whenever called by Vbeir qw » i abilities and th $ church , though they never came near commencement or University * But while Protestants , to avoid the due

    larbouv of understanding their awii religio . 0 , are conteiH to lodge it in the breast , or rather in Ufc © books of a clergyro * a , mnd to take it thence by scrap * and m * mm&ek *»

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    5 & John Milton .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1813, page 30, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2424/page/30/