PAGE.
[SYLLABUS OF THE WORK[1]
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT[3]
ADDRESS TO EVERY COURTEOUS READER[7]
SCRIPTURES AND REASONS AGAINST PERSECUTION[10]
MR. JOHN COTTON’S ANSWER TO THE AFORESAID ARGUMENTS[19]]
A REPLY TO THE AFORESAID ANSWER OF MR. COTTON.
Truth and Peace, their rare and seldom meeting[31]
Two great complaints of Peace[33]
Persecutors seldom plead Christ but Moses for their author[34]
Strife, Christian and unchristian [34]
A threefold doleful cry[35]
The wonderful providence of God in the writing of the arguments against persecution[36]
A definition of persecution discussed[37]
Conscience will not be restrained from its own worship, nor constrained to another[38]
A chaste soul in God’s worship compared to a chaste wife[38]
God’s people have erred from the very fundamentals of visible worship[39]
Four sorts of spiritual foundations in the New Testament[39]
The six fundamentals of the Christian religion[40]
The coming out of Babel not local, but mystical[40]
The great ignorance of God’s people concerning the nature of a true church[41]
Common prayer written against by the New English ministers[43]
God’s people have worshipped God with false worships[43]
God is pleased sometimes to convey good unto his people beyond a promise[44]
A notable speech of King James to a great nonconformist turned persecutor[45]
Civil peace discussed[45]
The difference between spiritual and civil state[46]
Six cases wherein God’s people have been usually accounted arrogant, and peace breakers, but most unjustly[48]
The true causes of breach and disturbance of civil peace[52]
A preposterous way of suppressing errors[53]
Persecutors must needs oppress both erroneous and true consciences[53]
All persecutors of Christ profess not to persecute him[55]
What is meant by the heretic, Tit. iii.[58]
The word heretic generally mistaken[59]
Corporal killing in the law, typing out spiritual killing in the gospel[62]
The carriage of a soul sensible of mercy, towards others in their blindness, &c.[64]
The difference between the church and the world, wherein it is, in all places[65]
The church and civil state confusedly made all one[66]
The most peaceable accused for peace breaking[67]
A large examination of what is meant by the tares, and letting of them alone[68]
Satan’s subtlety about the opening of scripture[69]
Two sorts of hypocrites[74]
The Lord Jesus the great teacher by parables, and the only expounder of them[75]
Preaching for conversion is properly out of the church[76]
The tares proved properly to signify anti-christians[77]
God’s kingdom on earth the visible church[78]
The difference between the wheat and the tares, as also between these tares and all others[78]
A civil magistracy from the beginning of the world[79]
The tares are to be tolerated the longest of all sinners[81]
The danger of infection by permitting of the tares, assoiled[82]
The civil magistrate not so particularly spoken to in the New Testament as fathers, masters, &c., and why?[85]
A twofold state of Christianity: persecuted under the Roman emperors, and apostated under the Roman popes[85]
Three particulars contained in that prohibition of Christ Jesus concerning the tares, Let them alone, Matt. xiii.[86]
Accompanying with idolaters, 1 Cor. v. discussed[88]
Civil magistrates never invested by Christ Jesus with the power and title of defenders of the faith[92]
God’s people [Israel] ever earnest with God for an arm of flesh[93]
The dreadful punishment of the blind Pharisees in four respects[94]
The point of seducing, infecting, or soul-killing, examined[96]
Strange confusions in punishments[100]
The blood of souls, Acts xx., lies upon such as profess the ministry: the blood of bodies only upon the state[100]
Usurpers and true heirs of Christ Jesus[101]
The civil magistrate bound to preserve the bodies of their subjects, and not to destroy them for conscience’ sake[103]
The fire from heaven, Rev. xiii. 13, 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26, examined[104]
The original of the Christian name, Acts xi.[105]
A civil sword in religion makes a nation of hypocrites, Isa. x.[107]
A difference of the true and false Christ and Christians[109]
The nature of the worship of unbelieving and natural persons[109]
Antoninus Pius’s famous act concerning religion[110]
Isa. ii. 4, Mic. iv. 3, concerning Christ’s visible kingdom, discussed[110]
Acts xx. 29, the suppressing of spiritual wolves, discussed[112]
It is in vain to decline the name of the head of the church, and yet to practise the headship[114]
Titus i. 9, 10, discussed[115]
Unmerciful and bloody doctrine[116]
The spiritual weapons, 2 Cor. x. 4, discussed[117]
Civil weapons most improper in spiritual causes[118]
The spiritual artillery, Eph. vi., applied[119]
Rom. xiii., concerning civil rulers’ power in spiritual causes, largely examined[121]
Paul’s appeal to Cæsar, examined[128]
And cleared by five arguments[128]
Four sorts of swords[131]
What is to be understood by evil, Rom. xiii. 4[133]
Though evil be always evil, yet the permission of it may sometimes be good[136]
Two sorts of commands, both from Moses and Christ[138]
The permission of divorce in Israel, Matt. xix. 17, 18[138]
Usury in the civil state lawfully permitted[139]
Seducing teachers, either pagans, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-christian, may yet be obedient subjects to the civil laws[141]
Scandalous livers against the civil state[142]
Toleration of Jezebel and Balaam, Rev. ii. 14, 20, examined[143]
The Christian world hath swallowed up Christianity[145]
Christ Jesus the deepest politician that ever was, yet commands he a toleration of anti-christians[149]
The princes of the world seldom take part with Christ Jesus[150]
Buchanan’s item to King James[151]
King James’s sayings against persecution[151]
King Stephen’s, of Poland, sayings against persecution[152]
Forcing of conscience a soul-rape[152]
Persecution for conscience hath been the lancet which hath let blood the nations. All spiritual whores are bloody[152]
Polygamy, or the many wives of the fathers[153]
David advancing of God’s worship against order[153]
Constantine and the good emperors, confessed to have done more hurt to the name and crown of Christ, than the bloody Neros did[154]
The language of persecutors[156]
Christ’s lilies may flourish in the church, notwithstanding the weeds in the world permitted[156]
Queen Elizabeth and King James, their persecuting for cause of religion examined[157]
Queen Elizabeth confessed by Mr. Cotton to have almost fired the world in civil combustions[158]
The wars between the papists and the protestants[159]
The wars and success of the Waldensians against three popes[159]
God’s people victorious overcomers, and with what weapons[160]
The Christian church doth not persecute, but is persecuted[160]
The nature of excommunication[161]
The opinion of ancient writers examined concerning the doctrine of persecution[163]
Constraint upon conscience in Old and New England[164]
The Indians of New England permitted in their worshipping of devils[165]
In two cases a false religion will not hurt[167]
The absolute sufficiency of the sword of the Spirit[168]
A national church not instituted by Christ[169]
Man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience[169]
Hearing of the word in a church estate a part of God’s worship[173]
Papists’ plea for toleration of conscience[173]
Protestant partiality in the cause of persecution[174]
Pills to purge out the bitter humour of persecution[175]
Superstition and persecution have had many votes and suffrages from God’s own people[176]
Soul-killing discussed[176]
Phineas’s act discussed[179]
Elijah’s slaughters examined[180]
Dangerous consequences flowing from the civil magistrate’s power in spiritual cases[183]
The world turned upside down[184]
The wonderful answer of the ministers of New England to the ministers of Old[184]
Lamentable differences even amongst them that fear God[185]
The doctrine of persecution ever drives the most godly out of the world[186]
A MODEL OF CHURCH AND CIVIL POWER, composed by Mr. Cotton and the ministers of New England, and sent to Salem, (as a further confirmation of the bloody doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience) examined and answered[189]
Christ’s power in the church confest to be above all magistrates in spiritual things[190]
Isa. xlix. 23, lamentably wrested[190]
The civil commonweal, and the spiritual commonweal, the church, not inconsistent, though independent the one on the other[192]
Christ’s ordinances put upon a whole city or nation may civilize them, and moralize, but not christianize, before repentance first wrought[193]
Mr. Cotton and the New English minister’s confession, that the magistrate hath neither civil nor spiritual power in soul matters[194]
The magistrates and the church, (by Mr. Cotton’s grounds) in one and the same cause, made the judges on the bench, and delinquents at the bar[196]
A demonstrative illustration, that the magistrate cannot have power over the church in spiritual or church causes[197]
The true way of the God of peace, in differences between the church and the magistrate[198]
The terms godliness and honesty explained, 1 Tim. ii. 1, and honesty proved not to signify in that place the righteousness of the second table[201]
The forcing of men to God’s worship, the greatest breach of civil peace[203]
The Roman Cæsars of Christ’s time described[204]
It pleased not the Lord Jesus, in the institution of the Christian church, to appoint and raise up any civil government to take care of his worship[205]
The true custodes utriusque tabulæ, and keepers of the ordinances and worship of Jesus Christ[206]
The kings of Egypt, Moab, Philistia, Assyria, Nineveh, were not charged with the worship of God, as the kings of Judah were[207]
Masters of families not charged under the gospel to force all the consciences of their families to worship[207]
God’s people have then shined brightest in godliness, when they have enjoyed least quietness[210]
Few magistrates, few men, spiritually good; yet divers sorts of commendable goodness beside spiritual[211]
Civil power originally and fundamentally in the people Mr. Cotton and the New English give the power of Christ into the hands of the commonweal[214]
Laws concerning religion, of two sorts[217]
The very Indians abhor to disturb any conscience at worship[217]
Canons and constitutions pretended civil, but indeed ecclesiastical[217]
A threefold guilt lying upon civil powers, commanding the subject’s soul in worship[222]
Persons may with less sin be forced to marry whom they cannot love, than to worship where they cannot believe[223]
As the cause, so the weapons of the beast and the lamb are infinitely different[226]
Artaxerxes his decree examined[227]
The sum of the examples of the gentile king’s decrees concerning God’s worship in scripture[230]
The doctrine of putting to death blasphemers of Christ, cuts off the hopes of the Jews partaking in his blood[232]
The direful effects of fighting for conscience[233]
Error is confident as well as truth[234]
Spiritual prisons[236]
Some consciences not so easily healed and cured as men imagine[237]
Persecutors dispute with heretics, as a tyrannical cat with the poor mouse: and with a true witness, as a roaring lion with an innocent lamb in his paw[239]
Persecutors endure not the name of persecutors[239]
Psalm ci., concerning cutting off the wicked, examined[241]
No difference of lands and countries, since Christ Jesus his coming[242]
The New English separate in America, but not in Europe[244]
Christ Jesus forbidding his followers to permit leaven in the church, doth not forbid to permit leaven in the world[246]
The wall (Cant. viii. 9.) discussed[246]
Every religion commands its professors to hear only its own priests or ministers[248]
Jonah his preaching to the Ninevites discussed[248]
Hearing of the word discussed[248]
Eglon his rising up to Ehud’s message, discussed[248]
A twofold ministry of Christ: first, apostolical, properly converting. Secondly, feeding or pastoral[249]
The New English forcing people to church, and yet not to religion (as they say), forcing them to be of no religion all their days[249]
The civil state can no more lawfully compel the consciences of men to church to hear the word, than to receive the sacraments[250]
No precedent in the word, of any people converting and baptizing themselves[253]
True conversion to visible Christianity is not only from sins against the second table, but from false worships also[254]
The commission, Matt. xxviii., discussed[254]
The civil magistrate not betrusted with that commission[255]
Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xvii., a figure of Christ Jesus in his church, not of the civil magistrate in the state[256]
The maintenance of the ministry, Gal. vi. 6, examined[257]
Christ Jesus never appointed a maintenance of the ministry from impenitent and unbelieving[257]
They that compel men to hear, compel them also to pay for their hearing and conversion[258]
Luke xiv., Compel them to come in, examined[258]
Natural men can neither truly worship, nor maintain it[259]
The national church of the Jews might well be forced to a settled maintenance: but not so the Christian church[261]
The maintenance which Christ hath appointed his ministry in the church[262]
The universities of Europe causes of universal sins and plagues: yet schools are honourable for tongues and arts[263]
The true church is Christ’s school, and believers his scholars[264]
Mr. Ainsworth excellent in the tongues, yet no university man[265]
King Henry the Eighth set down in the pope’s chair in England[266]
Apocrypha, homilies, and common prayer, precious to our forefathers[266]
Reformation proved fallible[267]
The precedent of the kings of Israel and Judah largely examined[271]
The Persian kings’ example make strongly against the doctrine of persecution[272]
1. The difference of the land of Canaan from all lands and countries in seven [eight] particulars[273]
2. The difference of the people of Israel from all other peoples, in seven particulars[278]
Wonderful turnings of religion in England in twelve years revolution[280]
The pope not unlike to recover his monarchy over Europe before his downfall[280]
Israel, God’s only church, might well renew that national covenant and ceremonial worship, which other nations cannot do[283]
The difference of the kings and governors of Israel from all kings and governors of the world, in four particulars[284]
Five demonstrative arguments proving the unsoundness of the maxim, viz., the church and commonweal are like Hippocrates’ twins[286]
A sacrilegious prostitution of the name Christian[290]
David immediately inspired by God in his ordering of church affairs[291]
Solomon’s deposing Abiathar, 1 Kings ii. 26, 27, discussed[292]
The liberties of Christ’s churches in the choice of her officers[293]
A civil influence dangerous to the saints’ liberties[293]
Jehoshaphat’s fast examined[294]
God will not wrong Cæsar, and Cæsar should not wrong God[294]
The famous acts of Josiah examined[295]
Magistracy in general from God, the particular forms from the people[295]
Israel confirmed in a national covenant by revelations, signs, and miracles; but not so any other land[295]
Kings and nations often plant and often pluck up religions[296]
A national church ever subject to turn and return[297]
A woman, Papissa, or head of the church[297]
The papists nearer to the truth, concerning the governor of the church, than most protestants[297]
The kingly power of the Lord Jesus troubles all the kings and rulers of the world[298]
A twofold exaltation of Christ[298]
A monarchical and ministerial power of Christ[300]
Three great competitors for the ministerial power of Christ[300]
The pope pretendeth to the ministerial power of Christ, yet upon the point challengeth the monarchical also[300]
Three great factions in England, striving for the arm of flesh[300]
The churches of the separation ought in humanity and subjects’ liberty not to be oppressed, but at least permitted[302]
Seven reasons proving that the kings of Israel and Judah can have no other but a spiritual antitype[303]
Christianity adds not to the nature of a civil commonweal; nor doth want of Christianity diminish it[304]
Most strange, yet most true consequences from the civil magistrates being the antitype of the kings of Israel and Judah[305]
If no religion but what the commonweal approve, then no Christ, no God, but at the pleasure of the world[305]
The true antitype of the kings of Israel and Judah[306]
4. The difference of Israel’s statutes and laws from all others in three particulars[306]
5. The difference of Israel’s punishments and rewards from all others[308]
Temporal prosperity most proper to the national state of the Jew[308]
The excommunication in Israel[308]
The corporal stoning in the law, typed out spiritual stoning in the gospel[308]
The wars of Israel typical and unparalleled, but by the spiritual wars of spiritual Israel[309]
The famous typical captivity of the Jews[311]
Their wonderful victories[311]
The mystical army of white troopers[312]
Whether the civil state of Israel was precedential[313]
Great unfaithfulness in magistrates [ministers] to cast the burden of judging and establishing Christianity upon the commonweal[314]
Thousands of lawful civil magistrates, who never hear of Jesus Christ[315]
Nero and the persecuting emperors not so injurious to Christianity as Constantine and others, who assumed a power in spiritual things [316]
They who force the conscience of others, cry out of persecution when their own are forced[316]
Constantine and others wanted not so much affection, as information of judgment[317]
Civil authority giving and lending their horns to bishops, dangerous to Christ’s truth[317]
The spiritual power of Christ Jesus compared in scripture to the incomparable horn of the rhinoceros[318]
The nursing fathers and mothers, Isa. xlix.[319]
The civil magistrate owes three things to the true church of Christ[319]
The civil magistrate owes two things to false worshippers[320]
The rise of high commissions[321]
Pious magistrates’ and ministers’ consciences are persuaded for that, which other as pious magistrates’ and ministers’ consciences condemn[321]
An apt similitude discussed concerning the civil magistrate[322]
A grievous charge against the Christian church and the king of it[330]
A strange law in New England formerly against excommunicate persons[331]
A dangerous doctrine against all civil magistrates[331]
Original sin charged to hurt the civil state[331]
They who give the magistrate more than his due, are apt to disrobe him of what is his[332]
A strange double picture[336]
The great privileges of the true church of Christ[336]
Two similitudes illustrating the true power of the magistrate[337]
A marvellous challenge of more power under the Christian, than under the heathen magistrate[339]
Civil magistrates, derivatives from the fountains or bodies of people[341]
A believing magistrate no more a magistrate than an unbelieving[341]
The excellency of Christianity in all callings[341]
The magistrate like a pilot in the ship of the commonweal[342]
The terms heathen and Christian magistrates[343]
The unjust and partial liberty to some consciences, and bondage unto all others[344]
The commission, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, not proper to pastors and teachers, least of all to the civil magistrate[345]
Unto whom now belongs the care of all the churches, &c.[345]
Acts xv. commonly misapplied[346]
The promise of Christ’s presence, Matt. xviii., distinct from that Matt. xxviii.[347]
Church administrations firstly charged upon the ministers thereof[349]
Queen Elizabeth’s bishops truer to their principles than many of a better spirit and profession[350]
Mr. Barrowe’s profession concerning Queen Elizabeth[350]
The inventions of men swerving from the true essentials of civil and spiritual commonweals[353]
A great question, viz., whether only church members, that is, godly persons, in a particular church estate, be only eligible into the magistracy[353]
The world being divided in thirty parts, twenty-five never heard of Christ[354]
Lawful civil states where churches of Christ are not[355]
Few Christians wise and noble, and qualified for affairs of state[355]
The Ninevites’ fast examined[357]
Luke xxii. 36 discussed[359]
Rev. xvii. 16 discussed[361]
Conclusion[363]
[MR. COTTON’S LETTER EXAMINED AND ANSWERED.
To the Impartial Reader[367]
If Jesus Christ bring more light he must be persecuted[371]
Public sins, the cause of public calamities, must be discovered[372]
Grounds of Mr. Williams’s banishment[375]
Persecutors do no good to men’s souls[377]
Mr. Cotton’s proof from Prov. xi. 26 discussed[379]
Spiritual offences only liable to spiritual censure[382]
Mr. Cotton ignorant of the cause of Williams’s sufferings[383]
Civil peace and magistracy blessed ordinances of God[384]
The mercies of a civil state distinct from those of a spiritual state[385]
Affliction for Christ sweet[390]
The state of godly persons in gross sins[393]
God’s mystical Israel must come forth of Babel before they build the temple[395]
New England refuses church fellowship with godly ministers of Old England[398]
Christ considered personally and in his people[398]
Mr. Cotton confessing the true and false constitution of the church[401]
Difference between God’s institutions to the Jews and anti-christian institutions[403]
Coming forth of Babel not local[406]
The polygamy of the fathers[410]
Every true church separate from idols[411]
The substance of true repentance in all God’s children[412]
The first Christians the best pattern for Christians now[413]
Mr. Cotton against a national church, and yet holds fellowship with it[415]
The Jewish national church not to be separated from[417]
Mr. Cotton extenuates national churches[420]
Mr. Cotton guilty of cruelty in persecuting, yet cries out against due severity in the church[423]
God’s controversy for persecution[424]
The puritans and separatists compared[424]
Mr. Ainsworth’s poverty[426]
Four sorts of backsliders from separation[428]
Mr. Canne’s Answer to Mr. Robinson’s Liberty of Hearing[429]
Preachers and pastors far different[430]
The fellowship of the word taught in a church estate[432]
False callings or commissions for the ministry[433]
The Nonconformists’ grounds enforce separation[436]
Mr. Cotton’s practice of separation in New England[436]
Persecution is unjust oppression wheresoever[438]]

THE
BLOVDY TENENT
of Persecution, for cause of
Conscience, discussed, in

A Conference betweene
TRVTH and PEACE.

Who,
In all tender Affection, present to the High
Court of Parliament, (as the result of
their Discourse) these, (amongst other
Passages) of highest consideration.

London

Printed in the Year 1644.

First. That the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of protestants and papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace.

Secondly. Pregnant scriptures and arguments are throughout the work proposed against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience.