Church. Which argues also the difficulty, or rather
the impossibility, to remove them quite, unless every minister
were, as St. Paul, contented to teach _gratis:_ but few such
are to be found. As therefore we cannot justly take away all Hire
in the Church, because we cannot otherwise quite remove Hirelings,
so are we not, for the impossibility of removing them all, to use
therefore no endeavour that fewest may come in, but rather, in
regard the evil, do what we can, will always be incumbent and
unavoidable, to use our utmost diligence how it may be least
dangerous. Which will be likeliest effected if we consider,--first
what recompense God hath ordained should be given to ministers of
the Church (for that a recompense ought to be given them, and may
by them justly be received, our Saviour himself, from the very
light of reason and of equity, hath declared, Luke X. 7, '_The
labourer is worthy of his hire'_); _next,_ by whom; and,
_lastly,_ in what manner."

In this passage and in other passages throughout the Treatise it is
clear that Milton's ideal was a Church in which no minister should
take pay at all for his preaching or ministry, whether pay from the
state or from his hearers, but every minister should, as St. Paul
did, preach, absolutely and systematically _gratis_, deriving
his livelihood and his leisure to preach from his private resources,
or, if he had none such, then from the practice of some calling or
handicraft apart from his preaching. Deep down in Milton's mind,
notwithstanding his professed deference to Christ's words, "_The
labourer is worthy of his hire,_" we can see this conviction that
it would be better for the world if religious doctrine, or in fact
doctrine of any kind, were never bought or sold, but all spiritual
teachers were to abhor the very touch of money for their lessons,
being either gentlemen of independent means who could propagate the
truth splendidly from high motives, or else tent-makers, carpenters,
and bricklayers, passionate with the possession of some truth to
propagate. This, however, having been acknowledged to be perhaps an
impossibility on any great scale, he goes on to inquire, as proposed,
what the legitimate and divinely-appointed hire of Gospel-ministers
is, from whom it may come, and in what manner. The general result is
as follows:--I. The Tithes of the old Jewish dispensation are utterly
abolished under the Gospel. Nearly half the treatis