[101] [“Though I say, that it is not lawful to persecute any, though erring in fundamental and weighty points, till after once or twice admonition, I do not therefore say, that after once or twice admonition, then such consciences may be persecuted. But that if such a man, after such admonition, shall still persist in the error of his way, and be therefore punished, he is not persecuted for cause of conscience, but for sinning against his conscience.... It was no part of my words or meaning, to say, that every heretic, though erring in some fundamental and weighty points, and for the same excommunicated, shall forthwith be punished by the civil magistrate; unless it do afterwards appear that he break forth further, either into blasphemy, or idolatry, or seducement of others to his heretical pernicious ways.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 27.]
[102] [“In alleging that place, I intended no other persecution, but the church’s against such an heretic by excommunication.... Verily excommunication is a persecution, and a lawful persecution, if the cause be just offence; as the angel of the Lord is said to persecute the wicked, Psal. xxxv. 6.... Sure it is the Lord Jesus accounteth it a persecution to his disciples, to be delivered up into the synagogues, and to be cast forth out of the synagogues, Luke xxi. 12, with John xvi. 2.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 32.]
[103] [“And for the civil state, we know no ground they have to persecute Jews, or Turks, or other pagans, for cause of religion, though they all err in fundamentals. No, nor would I exempt anti-christians neither from toleration, notwithstanding their fundamental errors, unless after conviction they still continue to seduce simple souls into their damnable and pernicious heresies: as into the worship of false gods, into confidence of their own merits for justification, into seditious conspiracies against the lives and states of such princes as will not submit their consciences to the bishop of Rome.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 33.]
[104] [“This is too vast an hyperbole: as if murderers, seditious persons, rebels, traitors, were none of them such as did break the city’s or kingdom’s peace at all; but they only who are too sharp against corruptions in religion.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 36.]
[105] [“What hurt do they get by being caught? Hypocrites, and corrupt doctrines and practices, if they be found like unto good Christians, or sound truths, what hurt do they catch when I say such are to be tolerated to the end of the world? But—I acknowledge—that by tares are meant such kind of evil persons as are like unto the good.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 37.]
[106] [“If the Discusser had cast his eye a little lower, he might have found that Christ interpreteth the tares not only to be persons, but things, πάντα τὰ σκάνδαλα, all things that offend, as well as those that do iniquity. But I shall not stick upon that at all. Let the tares be persons, whether hypocrites, like unto true Christians, or holders forth of scandalous and corrupt doctrines and practices like unto sound.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 38.]
[107] Hence were the witnesses of Christ, Wickliff and others, in Henry the Fourth’s reign, called Lollards, as some say, from Lolia, weeds known well enough, hence taken for sign of barrenness: Infelix lolium et steriles dominantur avenæ. Others conceive they were so called from one Lollard, &c.; but all papists accounted them as tares because of their profession.
[108] [“It is not true that ζιζάνια signifieth all those weeds that grow up with the corn. For they be a special weed, growing up chiefly amongst the wheat, more like to barley.... Neither is it true, that tares are commonly and generally known as soon as they appear.... Yea, the servants of the husbandman did not discern the tares from the wheat, till the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit. It is like enough, they did not suspect them at all by reason of the great likeness that was between them whilst they were both in the blade.” Cotton’s Reply, p. 40.]
[109] [“1. It is true, Christ expoundeth the field to be the world; but he meant not the wide world, but, by an usual trope, the church scattered throughout the world.... 2. If the field should be the world, and the tares anti-christians and false Christians: it is true, Satan sowed them in God’s field, but he sowed them in the church.... 3. It is not the will of Christ, that anti-christ and anti-christians, and anti-christianity, should be tolerated in the world, until the end of the world. For God will put it into the hearts of faithful princes, in fulness of time, to hate the whore, to leave her desolate and naked, &c. Rev. xvii. 16, 17.” Cotton’s Reply, pp. 41, 42.]
[110] [“It is no impeachment to the wisdom of Christ to call his elect churches and saints throughout the world, by the name of the world.... It is no more an improper speech, to call the church the world, than to speak of Christ as dying for the world, when he died for his church.” Ib. p. 43.]