Spiritual prisons.
We find a spiritual prison, indeed, a prison for spirits, 1 Pet. iii. 19, the spirits formerly rebellious against Christ Jesus, speaking by Noah unto them, now kept in safe ward against the judgment of the great day.
In excommunication, a soul obstinate in sin is delivered to Satan his jailor, and he keeps him in safe ward, until it pleaseth God to release him.
There is a prison for the devil himself a thousand years, Rev. xx. [2, 3.] And a lake of eternal fire and brimstone, into which the beast and false prophet, and all not written in the Lamb’s book, and the devil that deceived them, shall eternally be there secured and tormented.
Christ Jesus appointed no material prisons for blasphemers of him, &c.
But neither amongst these, nor in any other passage of the New Testament, do we find a prison appointed by Christ Jesus for the heretic, blasphemer, idolater, &c. being not otherwise guilty against the civil state.
The bishops’ prisons.
It is true, anti-christ, by the help of civil powers, hath his prisons to keep Christ Jesus and his members fast: such prisons may well be called the bishops’ prisons, the pope’s, the devil’s prisons. These inquisition-houses have ever been more terrible than the magistrate’s.
At first, persecuting bishops borrowed prisons of the civil magistrate, as now their successors do still in the world; but afterward they wrung the keys out of the magistrates’ hands, and hung them at their own girdles, and would have prisons of their own: as doubtless will that generation still do, if God prevent them not.